I blasted through a couple this week to try and kick my reading slump.

The Apothecary Diaries: Volume 12 was great, dealing with the fallout of the previous volume plus dragging Maomao into new situations. Mostly I appreciate that she does actually recognize what’s going on between her and Jinshi. She’s purposefully ignorant, not totally ignorant.

The Misfit of Demon King Academy: Volume 7 was by and large what I expect from the series. Goofy stuff being OP, Anos being OP, and so forth. Good fun in the same way the rest are good fun.

I’ve been a bit out of the loop on LNs for a bit, but All-Works Maid seems kind of interesting, if only because the heroine is apparently unaware that it’s an otome game. Noce change of pace from trying to manipulate every interaction because it’s a game.

To some extent this feels like episode 2; the last few episodes didn’t feel like they really moved along the main conflict with Marcus, but this one really sets up a proper encounter between Veltol (with more of his power available) and Marcus’ minion(s). There’s a point that ties back to everything else, not just a semi-SOL episode dealing with something random.

Not that I didn’t enjoy the last few episodes, but clear progress towards the main conflict is always appreciated in this medium.

I read a couple volumes of the LN and it was goofy fun. Nothing mind blowing, but a fun take on the isekai formula. It got even better once it got out of its own way and acknowledged how silly it all was, because really there’s nothing evil about this dude or his empire at all.

I can’t tell how comedic this anime is intending to be, or whether the source material is supposed to be comedic, but man I find it funny. Every time I think something serious is about to happen it’s a coin flip on whether it’s actually serious or whether it’s some goofy shit that has me rolling.

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.