Sunday, April 3, 2016

Weekly Round-UP: March 28th - April 2nd and the backlog burner

So, technically only two reviews this week and a repost of an older OASG review (Chronos Haze), why so? Well, this is the second time I've tried to review the comic Wayward and while I have notes prepared I just couldn't, I disliked that much about the story and thought saying "I don't want to say this is everything wrong with American comics set in Japan but it certainly gave me flashbacks to terrible comics I read in the mid-2000s that weren't manga but had manga influences and were the only things my library had" was a bit much. I dislike writing reviews that are pure negative "I see no redeeming qualities" and the only thing I didn't actively dislike about the book was the coloring style (not even the art but the coloring!) and even that I had creative disagreements with in a low-key way. So that review didn't happen, consider that my non-recommendation!

On a more positive (?) note, I struggled with figuring out if I want to recommend Erased to any kind of audience and also struggled with an author's unsettling trend in Walk on Earth a Stranger. Also forgot to note in that review that no, I'm not entirely sure what that title is a reference to since it's a bit overdramatic to describe the lead character's situation. Oh and my update schedule on OASG has gotten a little wonky lately (it's my fault) but I did post my thoughts on the second and final volume of Crown of Thorns which I suppose makes it my most positive post of the week, hah!


Now that we have a brief moment in-between seasons (honestly what I miss the most from having memberships to all of the streaming websites was that I managed to have a full week-week and a half with no new shows, with only partial access it’s not as neat), let’s talk backlog. Since boy-howdy do I have a lot on mine. The winter season was more full than I expected and gdi spring looks like it’s bursting, even if I’m not over the moon yet for any of the shows.



We’ve got a couple of titles I dabbled in for my shojo panel, like 12 Kingdoms and the sports anime titles Princess 9 and Kaleido Star (neither of which are “true” shojo but close enough). Since I don’t have any sports shows this season this should be an excellent chance to finish P9 at least but I’m not so sure about KS, it is 50 episodes after all (likewise, 12K is also super long but not 12,000 episodes thankfully).

And if you look at the rest of my list it’s a real mash-up of things (and paired down, there are number of titles where I've seen a few episodes over the years and decided to just shuffle them to the "to-watch" list). Of note, I tried four episodes of the first Idolm@ster anime, mentioned to a friend (who likes idol anime and, more importantly, knows what I like in them) that there was surprisingly little dancing in it and she said that I might like the Cinderella Girls version more. AssClass is one of many shows where I’m debating catching up so I can finish the sequel on time, although in this case I binged and caught up with the manga right before it’s ending so I’m feeling less of that urge here (review soonish!). And DokiDoki Precure might still be on that list but, if I ever return to a series that has a reincarnation plot that’s too complicated even for my tastes, it’ll be to practice watching without subs (honestly, even years out of practice I can still follow quite a few scenes without them in Go Princess Precure).

Honestly my biggest goal is to finish GoPri Precure so I can start Witchy Precure, finish P9  and KS if possible in case my shojo panel is selected at Otakon, but after that I just kind of want to get through my youtube to watch list (at a staggering 150 videos it's way longer than I want). And catch up on some American live action tv and movies, it’s not that I’m being burned out but rather that I’m behind on everything and having such large lists of things to watch staring me in the face makes me rather unhappy. Plus, with so many spring shows I might only have time for shorts and youtube videos anyway, I don’t think I’ve ever been less excited about a jam-packed season before but I'll be talking more about that in a couple of weeks!