A short and quick summary plus me being obsessed with it.
The story involves Maomao an apothecary raised in the red light district, she then gets kidnapped and made to work as a maid in the imperial court. Her intelligence and talent are later recognized and she starts being asked to solve various strange things happening in that side of the castle. There are many secrets and conspiracies going around involving people or varios position and powers. This is based on historical Chinese period may I add which is very important to remember since it ask a lot of context.
Ok I know it was very superficial but I want people to give it a chance. This story is something I dint thought I’ll love so much but it truly is an amazing story. At first the anime was marketed kind of like a Shoujo? At least from the previews I saw before which couldn’t be farther from the truth. Contrary to the artstyle and colors, this is not a rose colored shoujo! This story covers real issues involving sex work, social classes, how woman are treated in history overall. Jinshi, the male lead, is someone who supports the main character well and is not there only for the tension. This is a drama mystery that can seem pretty simple at the start but it unfolds beautifully into more lore that just grabs at you and you can’t look away.
Now I may be biased because I love and consume other historical Chinese media like MXTX novels but I would say that I had absolutely no expectations for this series when I started it. In fact I only did start it because of a friend convincing me to watch it with them and I couldn’t be more glad we did. If you are someone who is into Josei or pretty realistic mysteries I think you would enjoy this story.
Delicious In Dungeon Episode 6: Court Cuisine/Boiled In Saltwater
Being a manga reader, I really don't have much to say in the world of story for Delicious In Dungeon. Conversely, I have a world of stuff to say about the adaptation end of things, but I'll keep it short.
Keita Nagahara, the storyboarder for this episode, perfectly understood the assignment. They know what Trigger does best, and they know how to make the most of the source material.
Comedy, action, excessive character animation, Nagahara's episode has it all in spades, wrapped up under very solid awareness of dimensionality and space.
Their use of foreground obstruction to force depth and awareness of space is incredible, and insanely novel. Using party members as those obstructions is impeccable, and I love how they further subvert expectations by using party members for first person perspectives as well.
It's certainly recency bias telling me that this episode is the best of the season, but at the very minimum it is 100% on par with episode 3. Makes me wonder if every episode that's a multiple of 3 will be this good.
There is also a very small instance in which they used rotoscoping, and possibly other one-off methods.
So excited to see what they'll bring for season 3!! The show has been a grounds for new and original visual creativity in anime. I know they'll give it their all for its final season!
Being valued and looked after is key in any relationship, whether it's with a partner or a friend. Hearing those words and seeing actions that back them up, it's like a cozy blanket of comfort. Yuki-chan, I'm so glad you found a good man.
I’ve been getting into anime again recently, and thought I’d share some that I like! These are in no particular order. I gave very short, simplistic descriptions of each show, but I recommend looking them up for full summaries to get a better idea of what they’re about.
1) Cells at Work! (2 seasons, 22 episodes) [Comedy]
Anthropomorphic cells living in a human’s body. Focuses on a red blood cell that frequently encounters a white blood cell during dangerous bodily infestations and illnesses.
2) Kaichou wa Maid-sama! (1 season, 26 episodes) [Comedy, Romance]
Focuses on the female school president of a previously all-male school who directs and rules over them harshly. She secretly works at a maid café, which is discovered by a popular male classmate of hers.
3) Ouran High School Host Club (1 season, 26 episodes) [Comedy, Romance]
Student Haruhi Fujioka stumbles upon a host club in the prestigious Ouran Academy. After accidentally breaking an expensive vase, she must work for the club to pay off her debt.
4) Lost Song (1 season, 12 episodes) [Music, Fantasy]
Rin is a girl from a small village who dreams of singing in the capital city. Her singing has the power to heal any wound. Rin and her brother, Al, journey to the capital when their home is attacked by soldiers hoping to capture Rin. Finis, who also has a magical voice, performs for the royal palace. She falls in love with a soldier named Henry and must hide their relationship from the prince. She and Rin have intersecting destinies and both struggle with the terrible circumstances that life throws at them.
Delinquent Tomoya meets ill Nagisa and they become friends. Along with four other girls, Tomoya decides to help Nagisa revive the school’s drama club. He finds himself helping each girl with their respective problems and learns that life may not be as dull as he once thought.
Homeless Tohru Honda moves in with members of the mysterious Soma family. When she accidentally learns of the family’s curse of them turning into animals when embraced by a member of the opposite sex, she resolves to help them figure out how to lift the curse.
Offered a home by a man being attacked by a dog, Nanami is surprised to find a seemingly abandoned shrine. When she tried to leave, she is confronted by the spirits of the shrine. Tomoe, the fox spirit, leaves angrily when he realizes it is not the land god, Mikage, who has entered their home and that he instead sent a human girl as replacement. Refusing to remain homeless, Nanami decided to serve the shrine and ends up forming a sealed contract with Tomoe when she kisses him.
Tsukimi is an introvert with a love for jellyfish living with other socially isolated women in Tokyo. One day, she meets someone beautiful who looks like a princess and helps her save a jellyfish from a local pet store. The beautiful princess is revealed to actually be a crossdressing man named Kuranosuke. Despite their aversion to men and socializing in general, Kuranosuke resolves to help the women become more confident in themselves.
Follows three sets of meisters and their weapons as they fight demons and witches to obtain the status of Death Scythes. They attend a school founded by Lord Death and learn the best ways to recognize and defeat these evil entities.
10) Yuri on Ice (1 season, 12 episodes) [Sports, Romance]
Figure skater Yuri meets champion skater Victor, who claims he is going to be Yuri’s new mentor. Yuri accepts and goes on a difficult journey of training in the world of competitive ice skating.
Michiru, after becoming a newly formed beastman, travels to Anima City, a safe haven for people like her. After witnessing an explosion during a celebration, she is confronted by detective Shirou Ogami. They team up to pursue the criminals involved with the explosion and discover why Michiru has suddenly started to turn into a Tanuki after being human all her life.
12) Japan Sinks: 2020 (1 season, 10 episodes) [Drama, Sci-fi]
Ayumu and family’s life is turned upside down when an earthquake strikes and obliterates Japan’s structural integrity. The Mutou family must find a way to survive and get out of the country before the entirety of Japan sinks into the ocean.
Gentle yet fierce-looking Ryuji forms an unlikely friendship with sharp-tongued and violent Taiga. They try to help one another confess to their crushes while growing closer along the way.
Izumi confronts the loan sharks who are after money from her father’s run-down theater. She plans to bring the theater back into the spotlight and pay of the debt with the help from an all-male acting troupe.
Chiyo has a crush on her schoolmate, Nozaki, and confesses to him, but he mistakes her as a fan of his manga and gives her an autograph. Saying she wants to be with him, Nozaki invites her to help him with his drawings. Chiyo hopes that by helping Nozaki, he will eventually take notice of her romantic feelings for him.
16) Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku (1 season, 11 episodes) [Romance, Comedy]
Narumi and Hirotaka knew each other when they were younger and end up working in the same office. They decide to start dating, but find that their respective interests make it difficult to create romantic situations.
Amidst working for a ghostwriting agency, past soldier Violet Evergarden learns to reconnect with her feelings while trying to understand the final words her commander left her with.
19) Given (1 season, 11 episodes, 1 film) [Drama, Romance]
Prepared to give up music for good, Ritsuka changes his mind after meeting Mafuyu. He gives Mafuyu guitar lessons in the hopes of making the other boy the lead singer for his band.
20) Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai (1 season, 13 episodes, 1 film) [Drama, Romance, Supernatural]
Sakuta suffers from puberty-syndrome and sees a bunny girl that is invisible to others. When he meets the girl in real life, he realizes she’s going through her own problems and becomes attached to the bunny girl.
anime / manga / animanga fans who have not yet seen or read World Trigger. WATCH IT. READ IT. IT IS GOOD AND FUN.
Some highlights:
THE KIDS MAY BE SOLDIERS BUT THEY ARE SAFE. How??? You might ask. Go on and watch it to find out ;)
Wholesome x shonen x found family
MC is not overpowered and have humble beginnings, knows that, and finds a way to work with what he has.
NO BULLIES. The kids/agents here are nice & give constructive criticism rather than be rude to our not-so-physically-powerful MC.
As a seiyuu fan, the abundance of characters = more seiyuu appearances! Guess-the-seiyuu is fun to play!
First bullet point because after watching a ton of shonen with kids in the frontlines, it is refreshing and so so nice to see a story where they can fight AND BE SAFE during battle.
Hiroko Utsumi is no stranger to distilling homoeroticism into their works, but Bucchigiri!? is able to take it a step further as it intertwines with the hypermasculine idea of fighting and gangs. Because of that, Bucchigiri!? poses two questions to the definition of love and how people experience it.
"What is love versus lust?"
Truthfully, it's a rather simple question to answer (at least to someone outside of high school). The point being the depth of feeling. Lust is strong but shallow, while love moves much deeper.
And the second episode in particular expresses this very strongly through the two gang leaders, Marito and Ken.
They don't feel any way in particular about Arajin until they feel their punch. After that, like Marito says, they just can't forget about it. That's all they know about this kid, "his" punch. And that's all they want from him as well.
The point is to express superficial lust towards Arajin because of something they only experience one single time. They believe that they want the strength behind the person no matter what because of a single moment.
And it's a great comparison to make against Matakara's feelings for Arajin.
Matakara doesn't need to feel "Arajin's" strength to know how he feels about him. On the contrary, he only ever needed to fight (really train) beside him to come to understand that emotion. Even more than that is Matakara's understanding of Arajin outside of fights, and he focuses in specifically on Arajin's passivity and carefulness.
Because of that, you can begin to draw the conclusion that "Lust" is represented by actions involving violence and action, while "Love" stems more from passivity and aversion in this context. Which I think is really really great. It's sort a sort of symbolic explanation of the whole point of violence being boorish and shallow while other communication is deeper and more valuable.
"How much is love worth if they don't love you for who you are?"
Super easy example here with this one. Just look at the Love Forever stone Arajin gives Mahoro vs the friendship one that he gave Matakara.
The whole point is that Arajin's love in the hands of someone who doesn't love him isn't valuable at all, nor is it valuable in the hands of someone that doesn't love him for who he is.
Marito and Ken can only feel something for Arajin because of the strength channeled through him by Senya. It's something entirely foreign to Arajin as a person, and represents both how shallow the gang leaders are, but also how shallow Arajin is.
Loving yourself is something that's tricky to do, and obviously especially so for high school kids. I think it's well understood at this point that Arajin struggles to love himself in a meaningful way, and that's expressed by his willingness to take on Senya.
Case and point being that he intentionally used Senya's strength to try and make himself look good in front of Mahoro, and in the same way used it against Ken to the same effect.
He's afraid of being and accepting himself, so he's allowed something else to speak for him. And while that catches the eye of many, including Matakara, Arajin himself already knows that it's nothing more than a farce to save face.
It's just... really great work in terms of narrative as it bundles so many different aspects of love together to create this complicated web that all stems from Arajin's inability to love himself. Matakara loves the current Arajin, but that Arajin is unable to face himself so he runs from the reflection that Matakara offers and buries himself in lust and unrequited romance.
And that all just comes from high school kids duking it out for fun alongside mystical fighting people that can merge with humans.
It's definitely a step up the symbolic ladder in comparison to Sk8 The Infinity, but I think it's allowed Utsumi to express much more in terms of romance through implicit narratives.
These first two episodes have been incredible, and I'm loving every moment and want to share every bit, but the overall production effort Mappa's been putting in leaves me in an awkward spot for sharing stuff like this.
I really love to, and I want to celebrate the efforts of the staff behind the series, but Mappa rains on that parade with its terrible scheduling and work ethic. The credits are a veritable mess that make episodes like this an incredible feat. And I'll celebrate that and share what I want to, but I do also want to call out Mappa for their terrible work as a studio.
🫵 IF YOU'RE READING THIS, YOU SHOULD WATCH SHERLOCK HOUND FOR *FREE* ON YOUTUBE!
A colorful and fun adaptation of Sherlock Holmes stories and has Hayao Miyazaki involvement, beautiful animation and backgrounds, fun and strong characters including one of my favorite girlbosses in fiction! and interesting story beats!
Please give it a shot it's such a charming show that's fun but also has depth! Also the vehicles and backgrounds are so pretty in this show I'm not kidding!
Here's the playlist
Here's the watch order so you don't get terribly confused (there is a 1st and 2nd episode after that it doesn't matter as much)