❚ Winter 2024
A new year with some new things to
The witch and the Beast (魔女と野獣)
"A guy tries to fight back their body disphoria by beating the shit out any magic user nearby"
The poster reminded me somewhat of Blood+, a cool looking dude with a stern look and a stylish young girl, the word beast and witch on the title hooked me enough to read the description
A world like ours but heavyly seasoned with magic items and magic users, by common sense, organizations keep balance in this world by arresting the magic users and/or isolating the troubling magic items that can fuck with the commoners, in this context a beast has been cursed to live like a hot girl, and now he swears to unalive every magical thing hoping one of them will undo the curse.
It's interesting so far, is very explicit in their violence and the pair's dynamics is not that stereotypical, the guy mocks and makes fun of the dog-like behavior of the other dudette, both of them have moments were they shine too in their powers and style, look forward to see more of it.
The show ended in a sort of cliffhanger, showing who was behind our transmasc protagonist disphoria but not real confrontation or resolution of it, definetely hints a second season, and that was it, could have been told better, I don't know what to feel it, neither bad neither good.
The Apothecary Diaries (薬屋のひとりごと)
A girl in feudal China makes everyone's life easier and harder at the same time by their unhinged curiosity and desire to poison herself
Maomao is a smart girl who enjoys the apothecary life along their dad, until she got yoinked and sold as a servant to the palace, while she hoped she could lay low and get released eventually, fate appointed her to the lady-in-waiting of one of the concubines for the emperor's palace after demonstrating their abilities and knowledge, but also becoming the poison tester person for this same concubine, which is not a issue for her either as she's a little cray-cray for tasting/learning and enjoying the harmful effects of such elements.
It's mostly a mystery show but with historical science and medicine on every turn, so far it's great but I can't look forward for the relation between maomao and the male lead within the cast, it feels generic, so far they're cooking some good political/royal drama and the build-up is making me curse at the end of every episode because I wanna know more.
Well I'll be damned, the romantic aspect became more obvious and also more obnoxious, fuck this show because I was super invested into the historical drama but I got some awkward anime romance plot with the depth of a middle school written story.