❚ Summer 2023
Summer came and went for the upper hemisphere, so I wanna talk about what I witnessed during these 3 months.
Watashi no Shiawase na Kekkon (わたしの幸せな結婚)
I heard of this novel years ago, blaming it on that I’m a fan of Ishikawa Kaito, the manga trailer featured his voice, giving life to the main male lead of the story, I considered the setting very cinderella’ish at first glance, but still interesting, read a little bit of the novel that was translated on some random page and forgot about it.
Netflix came in with an adaptation of it, re-using the same VA of the manga commercials so it was worth a watch in my eyes, at that point it wasn’t worth reading the novel or the manga as it would lead me to get any expectations AND I’M GLAD I DIDN’T DO THAT, the show was boring AS FUCK (def I’m exaggerating but I feel it wasn’t worth my time).
The story goes like this: Miyo is our main lead, beaten down by life and their neglectful family, mostly their family, Miyo’s shoulders on despite living with an abusive step-sister and step-mother who doesn’t consider her part of the family and instead treats her as another servant, a father who doesn’t care either to whatever happens to her, as long it doesn’t stain the family’s reputation. When her love interest marries her step-sister because family negotiations she’s one step away from falling into losing herself in despair, only to be topped with sudden news of her leave to another family house, to marry some other stranger.
On their new home she meets Kudou Kiyoka, their future husband, a cold acting male, who is involved in the military and it’s a supernatural user, here comes the main aspect of this show, Miyo has been ostracized and treated like less of a human because she lacks any sort of these powers, and also she’s painfully aware of this, so she’s scared for their safety as she assumes Kudou will kick her out of her new place if he finds out she’s anything but a supernatural user.
Well this plot seemed cool the first couple episodes, I was enjoying watching Kudou becoming softer and more understanding of Miyo, and Miyo finally figuring out herself and finding their self-worth, but the show hadn’t enough of seeing Miyo suffer, so their threw unnecessary hurdles to their not-quite-love-yet relationship, and that’s okay, very soap opera, anime isn’t a stranger to it, but the pace was off, the writing was average, the antagonists were very plain (you either write them cartoonishly evil and present them as truly deranged or you give an actual reason why they hate the poor protagonist that's compelling).
The supernatural aspect felt rushed and shoved into our mouth with a punch, leaving the world building like an after-thought, because damn I wanted to know a little more of who are these supernatural users, apart from being the dogs of the emperor, is society aware of them?, what's their hierarchy?, what's their influence in events of history for this world?, no time to answer these questions, we gotta shove another bland interaction within the main protagonists, there were moments where Kudou was actually empathetic of the situation and def showed he cared for Miyo, where he punished himself for not understanding what Miyo wants, but there was no breather between these emotional moments and the dramatic revelations further in the story, truly a mess, 12 eps wasn’t enough to shove all of this story, yet there was a second season announced, wouldn’t have been better to pace it better between both seasons instead?, I don’t know, it’s whatever at this point, I’m reading the manga someday so I can see what I’ve been missing.
Shiro Seijo to Kuro Bokushi (白聖女と黒牧師)
This was some story about a saint who was a loli, had some sort of crush in the father of the local church, it was some moe shit, I bothered with two or three eps and dropped quickly, not my cup of tea.
Dekiru Neko wa Kyou mo Yuuutsu (デキる猫は今日も憂鬱)
By the Handshakers’s studio, a weird show where there’s a human sized cat who became a stay at home furry husband, which knows how to cook, clean and snicker at their owner for their clumsy personality.
They could have been great if they didn’t focus on female lead, I can’t see myself rooting for their goals, rather, is infuriating to see is another generic, clumsy, workaholic female with no personality outside drinking and nagging about their non-existent life due to …being clumsy and workaholic.
I just wanted the cat having a slice of life narration, the trivialities of taking care of a home, cooking meals for their owner, doing laundry, taking out the trash, all of that with the quirks of the character being a human sized cat that thinks and takes decisions mostly as one too, that would have made it awesome.
AI no Idenshi (AIの遺電子)
Ehhh, Ghost in the Shell wannabe?, I mean, cyberpunk always touches the same things, about the humanization of machines and vice-versa of humans, a tech heavy society, isolation and connection through the unique channels offered by this futuristic setting.
A young boy suffers from an unusual illness, their mother, who is a humanoid (robots with unique personalities created by a super AI, that also governs the world), accepts a offer of a shady company in order to fund their son’s possible treatment, only to get arrested afterwards as the offer included letting the corpos copy their brain, which she agreed, and that's against the law and such. Now, that sounds kinda dumb considering the nature of humanoids (after all, they can be repaired and parts swapped, why not the brain too?), but in this world is scary to make a brain copy as it can get leaked to the net and so people can do whatever they want with it (and that actually happened as well, which is our mc's mission, to find that leaked copy that made it into someone in the world), they touched this part of the plot here and there but it felt like anything but the fundamental narrative lead. Instead, the show is a collection of short stories of individuals around the robot theme, life as a robot, humanoid or human living among the struggles of this tech heavy society, covering things like identity, love, self worth.
It was neither bad or good, there are stories which were weak and didn’t offer anything of value as a story, no food for thought I could say, and others that I considered stereotypical in this cyberpunk setting, yet, it felt somewhat with more substance, a situation that would makes sense in our future, the characters who starred these cases felt relatable like actual people (you get the idea).
Undead Girl Murder Farce (アンデッドガール・マーダーファルス)
An immortal lady gets robbed of their body by a mysterious old man with a cane, and along the only survivor servant of their house, they unite forces with a demon-human hybrid to get their flesh back.
Now, it sounded like a shounen show and I was not ready to endure another overpowered male and their odd and assertive companions, only to find myself enjoying a well thought detective mystery show???, all the cases covered and the over-arching plot felt good written, there’s no much on the character side, they’re weird but with it, kinda surprised how good they got along from so early in the show and looked like they knew each other since the beginning but other than that they’re alright, the mystery cases and their wrap ups where very enjoyable and gave enough space where one could come up with their own theories (and that’s my jam), as well as the story of who is behind the immortal's body thievery and other events that mingle with 18 and 19th century european literature.
While some parts of the over-arching plot felt rushed, the mystery oriented parts felt too long for what they should two eps at best per case, I hope for the second season to focus a little more on the main plot but overall, not a bad show for once on this season.