gaignun | Reading

Successful day in the city. Saw a movie [Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle], bought a new phone grip, and picked up the next volumes of both the manga series I'm reading, which is the third volumes of both Kaiju no 8 and Colette Decides to Die.

I may have thoughts about Kimetsu no Yaiba at a later date because... I watched the entire series in a week, which is unhinged behaviour! Infinity Castle has all the same strengths and most of the weaknesses of the rest of the series though, so...

kalloway

Kissdum R Engage Planet - I almost feel like reading about the production of this series is as interesting as the series, also wtf this actual show. Kissdum is a 2007 Satelight anime with mecha designs by Shoji Kawamori, also it is not actually a mecha anime and I don't know what it is. It might've, at one point, been a mecha anime but it's basically the poster child for Troubled Production. Anyway, I actually want to watch this again someday.

Dive!! - this is not actually a Free! rip-off, I swear. But it's mostly-naked anime boys diving so it's... a lot of what you'd expect. This has pretty terrible reviews and I actually ended up really liking it.

VC Andrews Four-Film Collection - a Lifetime collection of Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, and Seeds of Yesterday. Are these faithful to the source material? Yes and no. Flowers was okay, but Petals is impossible to squeeze into a made-for-tv movie and they cut a lot. Honestly, Petals is a really dense book, and I never much liked Thorns... It's probably been three decades since I've read the lot of them and don't actually remember much of Seeds but it seemed okay. The actors are all pretty good.

WKRP in Cincinnati: In Concert - I had a post-it with a note on it from my father to watch this episode, and it's probably been in my planner for a year or more. This is the episode about The Who concert disaster, in Cincinnati, and it's a difficult watch. My father had a ticket to see The Who four days later and still talks about how difficult and polite and strange that concert was.

Gundam Build Divers - I'm not sure how this ended up in the basket to watch, but it did, and the beginning is still a lot of fun and the second half is still an absolutely hot mess and there's a middle in there with some interesting gunpla at least?

kalloway

A strange week...

September was a decidedly expensive month, so October's personal theme involves being a bit frugal if possible. Nothing is wrong! It was a just a collision of larger bills + events.

This last week was busy: house-sat, had some grout come loose in my shower and had to acquire grout supplies and learn all about grout, got the windows washed (and finally got the screens back in), took the big comforter to the laundromat and washed it...

ficortreat is live, as is

octobercest, though the latter hasn't had any activity yet. I suppose I'll advertise both in the days to come.

Finished up the... 1/72(?) Mailes Kenbu, who was a decent-enough build. I might still get the Ghost from that line.

Working on MG Astray Blue Frame D, and when I get annoyed with her, I'll get back to Zwei? No polls for awhile; I really want to enjoy the feeling of grabbing whatever looks interesting and building it. (Next MG-or-1/100 will be a Wing kit though.) I have another kit on the way as audition for Revenant's backpack since I'm not entirely sold on my current choice. Eventually I'll have to decide on colors. IIRC Reverent was mostly white and Revenant decidedly is not.

thawrecka

The seasons of both The Summer Hikaru Died and Kaiju no 8 both ended on the weekend, and while the former was more satisfying than the latter, I had a pretty good time with both.

The cliffhanger Kaiju no 8 ended on feels less satisfying than last season's - feel less like an actual cliffhanger and more like just stopping the story in the middle of a fight - but I'm looking forward to season 3 if/when that arrives. The beginning of the season had a bit of a lull with the bunch of new characters I had yet to care about, but ever since Kafka fighting Isao it's been great, building and building emotionally. I wouldn't say I'm in the fandom, which seems to be composed mostly of teenagers super hot for Hoshino and his bowl cut writing copious amounts of readerfic, but I am writing fic of one kind and considering fic of another, and contemplating buying merch when I get to Tokyo.

The Summer Hikaru Died's season ender had a great emotional moment, and I'm excited that it's been renewed for another season (whenever that will arrive! I'm willing to wait). A lot of people who've read the manga seem to like the anime adaptation more, so I'm not sure whether to read the manga or just wait for the next season... The theme song is also stuck in my head, so there's that.

With regard to Bleach I finished the old anime series, sped my way through the anime movies, and have now got on to the Thousand Year Blood War anime. So I can slow down now, LOL. I actually think the Fullbring arc might be better in the anime. The animation towards the end of the old anime is kind of stiff (a lot of nothing moving but people's hair), but the pacing of the emotional backstory for the Fullbringers spread through the arc is better, and I like how it captures that slow quiet heavyness of Ichigo without his powers, that feeling like he's underwater and just pretending everything's fine. I also like how small and petty everyone in X-Cution ends up feeling; that honestly makes me have more sympathy for the characters than less. It's an arc that's really grown on me! I'm still disappointed it didn't make more use of Chad, but it's a great arc if you're emotionally invested in Ichigo & Ishida's friendship, as I am.

I do feel a little disappointed the old anime didn't have more Hueco Mundo filler, though. I think that would have been a great way to get deeper into the arrancar leftover after Aizen, who are relevant in the last arc after all...

My verdict on the movies: Eh, they're okay. They're basically filler arcs but shorter. I think the first two are the best, and the last one is the messiest with the highest highs and lowest lows. The third film feels like an interesting idea rendered in the least interesting way possible (I also feel like it's catering to the Ichigo/Rukia shippers, whereas the fourth has fanservice for Ichigo/Orihime shippers instead). The idea that without memories of Rukia Renji would forget he has bankai is interesting! So is the idea that Byakuya would believe Ichigo about a Rukia he doesn't remember because Ichigo mentions Hisana! But the execution is, eh, whatever.

Anyway, I'm not far into the TYBW anime yet but it's so much prettier than the old anime and I'm really vibing it. The last arc of Bleach is all over the place but there are parts I really enjoy that I'm excited to get to. It does still have some of that hair blowing in the wind so you won't realise it's otherwise a still image stuff 🤣 and way more of the hollows politely waiting to fight while someone monologues than I'd like, but still! I'm not far in but I'm excited and having fun! I can't wait to see Ishida suffer 🩵🩵🩵

kalloway

I started, as far as print matter goes, working my way across a shelf with some random floppies. I thought they were Robotech, possibly L*, but I wasn't entirely correct.

Macross II (1-6) - probably of about 10, but I actually have the collected volume so... no need to keep these. This was actually pretty good. (Also Macross and Robotech take up overlapping brainspace for obvious reasons so half right here?)

SpellBound Art Preview (Tomoko Taniguchi) - possibly one issue of this NA-original ever came out. This is a preview that's mostly art. I should really try to get that rogue issue at some point.

Princess Prince (Tomoko Taniguchi) - I don't have a full set of Princess Prince floppies and I have no idea why or how they got on this shelf. Anyway, another where I dug out the collected volume and read that instead. Princess Prince is some of my first manga and first shoujo so it's all staying put. I either never noticed or memory-holed that the last of the floppies mentions an all-new NA-original three-part story but I don't have nay of it and don't know if it ever actually came out. Hmm... Something for the research hole in the future.

Protoculture Addicts # 15 (Nov-Dec 1991) - a lot of Gundam in this issue, F91 & 0083, and long before standardized spellings so it's pretty interesting. There's an interview with Frederik L. Schodt that's hopefully been posted elsewhere at some point.

kalloway

This is the roundup where I get to firmly say things aren't working and didn't work and that's okay! When I first set this up at the beginning of the year, I certainly wasn't expecting to bellyflop back into Gundam and Gunpla and not really be doing any writing or for the great work reorganization to still be in-progress nearly a year later. ^^;;

Like, nothing is bad but it's certainly unexpected!

( September Plans! )

So, October-

~~Run around screaming.~~

Clean and declutter as needed. I'm currently patching a damaged bit of grout in my shower and I can see that I need to spend some time scrubbing everything up and fixing any other patches that look questionable. There are some older patches that are far from professional so at least I'm not intimidated with a need to make it look perfect. ^^;; Living room still needs the most work clutter-wise and I need to get everything dug out and sorted for November's comic-con.

Write & Archive as inspired. Continue the accidental advent. Work on zines as inspired. Play games. Chill. There will always be more to do and that's okay.

FRANS

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Media Roundup, Accidental Advent Small Screen Edition

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