I know the story isn’t really that interesting, and the anime adaptation isn’t that brilliant, but I’m still excited. Solo Leveling is good at hyping me up and the hype only goes up from here.

Love this light novel. Far too relatable.

Idk if it’s just the angles but the art looks a little off. Hopefully works out well when it airs, just gives me weird vibes.

I know AI translation is improving in many cases, but this feels like it’s going to go badly.

A lot of people will barely put up with MTL on free sites, and there are more than enough properly translated works out there as alternatives that there isn’t a reason to put up with bad translation. I can see the service bombing pretty badly. But if it doesn’t bomb we then see a justification for flooding the market with lower quality works.

I don’t think AI translation is at a point where this doesn’t look like a lose-lose situation. It’s just testing to see whether the market can be enshittified in a profitable way.

I had to double take that scene. I was like cool, head flies off, hope he’s dead, chainsaw devil’s here… wait a minute…

There actually is a Rick and Morty short in this style and with this director from a few years back.

It’s not exactly peak Rick and Morty or anything, but it’s so surreal and weird that it’s kind of enthralling: https://youtu.be/-kdltv_CSHE

Oh hell yeah. The web novel is fantastic, the manwha is a great adaptation, and if they provide this a bit of care it should be a great show.

That said, it takes a while to really get going. The physical manwha started coming out and the entire first two volumes are by and large just okay. Depending on the pacing of the first season it might not blow up the way it could or should simply because it won’t be very good yet.

If they put the effort in this could be a really good show. The LN has a lot of rough edges, but on the whole it’s a great concept that goes in interesting directions. But the art does a surprising amount of heavy lifting; the depicted horror of the characters to those unfamiliar with them creates this interesting dichotomy with how a lot of the day-to-day interactions proceed, and it would be really easy to just gloss over that and make a fairly generic isekai.

Babel does sound neat, I’ll probably check it out.

I’ve had D-Genesis on my to-read list for ages and can no longer remember why, but I guess a new volume release is a good reminder to get on that sometime.

Code: White was so much fun in theaters. It kind of runs into similar problems to a lot of other anime movies, with the non-canon status-quo excuse for a big fight, but Spy X Family naturally handles that better than many series and it turned out to be a ton of fun.

!The fact that the fate of the world rests on Anya not taking a dump is just peak comedy, I don’t care what anyone says.!<

The Konosuba LN is really funny, great read.

The Konosuba anime is peak comedy, the crazy VAs and goofy-ass animation bring so much to it and it hardly loses a thing in the process.

I was conveniently hoping to catch up on some non-LN reading, and it’s nice of the release schedule to make that easy on me.

As promised, Apothecary Diaries, vol 11: This was a wild volume. Lots of politics, lots of tension, and the climax hit out of nowhere in a way I found surprisingly satisfying. Finally finding out more about Gyouko-ou, the Yi clan, and Rikuson was great, although some of it felt like back-filling information that could have been presented in a more cohesive way over time.

Still, super good volume with a lot of interesting developments. Honestly it speaks to the strength of the cast that Maomao took the backstage for most of this volume and it’s still fantastic.

People can be a bit mixed on Gardens of the Moon because it’s dense and confusing, but generally once you wrap your head around it it’s very good. I appreciated it a lot more after a reread.

Deadhouse Gates is fantastic, although I find the start pretty slow. From Memories of Ice onwards every book is just great from start to finish.

We really got the whole spectrum of Darkness being best girl this episode. This season has truly been blessed.

It can be rough to get into (Erikson was very much sorting out his writing style for the first couple of books and it just dumps you right into a complex intercontinental conflict with no context) but it’s widely recommended as one of the best epic fantasy series for good reason. If you put in the effort it pays off beautifully.

I have a few I like to talk about with these sorts of questions.

• Macbeth: I’ve read this a fair number of times and every time I’m enthralled, I get chills, I want to cheer as Macduff walks in holding Macbeth’s head at the end. It’s chock full of everything English class tells people to look for in literature, except it’s a thrilling read to boot. I want to see it performed so badly. It’s probably the best thing I’ve ever read and the only downside is that it’s actually a play.
• 2666 by Roberto Bolano: This is one of those books where there are so many layers to peel back that, as I read it, I spent a lot of time thinking deeply about what Bolano was trying to communicate and how the disparate storylines connected and what that all meant to me. It’s such a sprawling narrative that it’s hard to even describe what it is, except that it’s vaguely about a reclusive author and a series of murders in a Mexican city. It hits on so many things that it’s hard to even know what to say about it other than it’s incredible.
• And as a maybe more normal recommendation for this community: The Malazan Book of the Fallen is far and away my favourite fantasy series. Incredible worldbuilding, so many fun and interesting characters, plots that coalesce into absolutely wild climaxes, and underlying themes that provide a bit of hope even in the face of a grim world and plot. Absolutely fantastic series.

Misfit of Demon King Academy vol 6: If this volume is an indication of where the series is going then I’m 100% on board. Much more mystery, much more abstract problems, much more ideological conflict. Anos struggles (for some definition of the word) with the strength of his opponent’s conviction as much as their combat strength, and as things go on he’s never entirely sure whether he has the right information on anything. Really good volume.

Brunhild the Dragonslayer: This was such a good revenge story. The author’s note really hits the nail on the head: they try to aim towards a happy ending, the plot tries to move that way whenever it can, but would it really be that convenient? I think this is more like a series of related one shots than a traditional LN series, but I’m really excited for the next one anyways.

This week: Apothecary Diaries vol 11, which I had apparently entirely missed the release of. Oops.

I’m racing to get ahead of the anime on Misfit of Demon King Academy. And by racing I mean reading slowly.

Misfit of Demon King Academy vol 4 act 2: This volume is really where this series shows that the LN works better because what was a confusing clusterfuck in the anime is an interesting climax to the whole Avos Dilhevia arc. Obviously not an actual problem for Anos to overcome, but there’s so much of the world and characters tied into the result that it becomes really good.

Misfit of Demon King Academy vol 5: I mean, Anoshu going to school is a stupid concept but pretty funny. I appreciate the redemption of Emilia and the hero academy students, and people being confused about Anos trivially killing gods will never not be fun for me. Kind of a scattered, weird volume, but I enjoyed it on the whole.

I think volume 1 doesn’t get the tone right so it’s a pretty rough read. It’s hard to tell how serious the author is about the story. When I read volume 2 it was more obviously comedic. There isn’t an amazing redemption or anything, but it became readable as a turn-off-your-brain dumb isekai.

My physical copy of Apothecary Diaries showed up last week, was pretty stoked. There aren’t a ton of LNs I care to have physical copies for, but this is one I’ve been hoping would get physically licensed for ages.