I visited a museum exhibit once featuring the Dead Sea Scrolls, mostly discovered in the 1940’s and 50’s. A good portion of the exhibit was about the recovery and early analysis on them. The pictures of all these archaeologists smoking in a laboratory while being directly over scrolls that are thousands of years old was wild to me.

Poor RX-8-kun deserved better!

Yeah, I don’t really have anything against it, it’s just not for me. I think in some alternate timeline where not every character wants to ravage this cat, I might have enjoyed the show more. I liked the supporting characters, especially Anna-chan.

That OP is so gorgeous, I just can’t get over it. I really like how they motivated her determination to be a receptionist this episode and I want to know more. The actual plot of this guy being a traitor isn’t terribly surprising or interesting, so I am glad they just disposed of him pretty quickly.

Yeah, I think the story we have seen so far in this series is really surface level. There are some hints at deeper, more interesting stuff there though. I did appreciate the reveal this episode about why she is so insistent on being a receptionist.

I think many people were able to piece it together about Mei in the final episode of last season. I expect that they are going to update the OP/ED with Mei now that she is officially a girlfriend.

Weekly ranking roundup:

1. Anime Corner - Full Results - Weekly Winner: Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun
2. Reddit Karma - Weekly Winner: Apothecary Diaries

Credit to /u/Abysswatcherbel for making the chart for reddit karma.

Just a couple weeks left until Re:Zero comes back and shakes these charts up. There doesn’t really seem to be a standout across the charts though. Some consistent performers in the to 5 would be Apothecary, Solo Leveling, and Sakamoto, but other entries are much more varied across AC and reddit.

I have been doing some catching up on backlog this week as work settled down a bit (especially with my manga reading). I managed to watch most of the shows I wanted to this past week. First off, the non-seasonal I watched:

• Squid Girl - I knocked a couple more episodes of this out. It’s been quite a while since I last read the manga, and I don’t think they are going in any particular order, so some shorts I remember reading, and others I don’t. It’s been nice in a turn your brain off kind of way.

Now, for this season’s shows:

• My Happy Marriage - This show has been pretty consistently good so far this season. A kind of crazy cliffhangar last episode, so looking forward to the next one.
• Ameku M.D. - A better episode this past week, but it was an incredibly misleading opening and episode title.
• Apothecary Diaries - It’s kind of surprising that corpses and fungus were key components to both mystery shows this week. In any case, Apothecary definitely delivered the mystery better.
• Welcome to Japan, Ms. Elf - This show doesn’t reinvent the wheel by any means, but it definitely delivers on what it promises. Surprised at how much I am enjoying this.
• Guild Receptionist - Finally some lore this past episode to explain her compulsion to be a receptionist. Interested to see if they can actually make sense of the story in this one.
• Bureaucrat to Villainess - Biggest surprise for me this season. It has exceeded my expectations so far.
• 100 Girlfriends - This series always finds some way to keep upping the insanity.
• Beheneko - I checked this show out and it is wild. I don’t think it is for me, but I simultaneously surprised at both how interesting the world and other characters are as well as how absolutely degenerate the show is. Never change Japan. If you like this show, then good for you.

So, I am a huge sucker for post-apocalypse stories, so I am already intrigued from that. Additional points that this is an anime-original. Finally, this is being made by Cygames Pictures, whose most recent original anime was Bang Brave Bravern. So, I think I am at least willing to check it out.

It feels more ecchi than the manga does too

I have only read the manga, but this can also result from the pacing. When you are reading, you can go at your own pace. When watching, you are basically forced to watch an ecchi scene as long as they linger on it. I have definitely had this experience for other series in the past.

I went through something similar late last year. Unsubbed from NYT and WaPo and did some heavy curation of communities. The day to day news is exhausting to keep up with these days and never leaves me feeling any better.

I have been using the time and energy to do more productive things. One of those has been working on a future version of awards voting. So, lots of python-flask and Javascript lately. In all this, I learned that I hate front-end UI design and css.

In the past, when I knew I wasn’t going to be able to post it myself (like being on vacation or a flight), I have scheduled posts with a self-hosted version of LemmySchedule. However, this time, I thought I was going to be able to post it myself like I usually do, but then an issue came up late that took me away from my computer. I have thought about fully automating the process similar to what they do for !lightnovels@ani.social, but I actually kind of enjoy making the posts myself when I can. If this happens regularly, I will probably automate things.

My irl workload continued to be crazy this week. So, that is a contributing factor to the late posting of this thread. Through it all though, I have managed to so far keep up with the seasonal shows I wanted to watch, and I even managed to watch a couple from seasons gone by:

• Spice and Wolf (2024) - I had left this with just a couple unwatched episodes for long enough and finished it up this past week. I liked the arc that it ended on probably the most of any in the show’s run. So, a good end, but some middle portions of the season were slow for me.
• Squid Girl - I found some time to fire this up this past week as I was looking for something a bit mindless, and it delivered. I had tried watching this before and found it a bit too mindless (preferring the manga), but after a week of grueling days at work, it fit the bill perfectly.

Now, for this season’s shows:

• My Happy Marriage - I hate that they are trying to make me sympathetic to Kiyoka’s mom. Just make her evil and let me hate her, it’s so much more fun. In any case, good episode this past week.
• Apothecary Diaries - The mystery kicked off this past week as we got a new character, Maomao.
• Welcome to Japan, Ms. Elf - Such a nice, comfy show. Really enjoying this one so far.
• Guild Receptionist - The voice acting in this show is carrying it for me. Rie Takahashi has been fantastic.
• Bureaucrat to Villainess - Another really fun episode. I think this one has surprised me the most with how much I am enjoying it.
• 100 Girlfriends - The insanity continues…and I am here for it.

1. Anime Corner - Full Results - Weekly Winner: Sakamoto Days
2. Reddit Karma - Weekly Winner: Solo Leveling

Credit to /u/Abysswatcherbel for making the chart for reddit karma.

The big hitters of the season have premiered now and took over the top portion of both charts. One thing to note is that the phased release schedule might be hurting Sakamoto Days, especially in the reddit chart, because it has two episodes listed there, but only a fraction of people were able to watch both of them.

I love how this show continues to be meta as hell. Directly mentioning how character designs have changed from the manga, calling out cut content, and criticizing itself for showing pointless fan service while a long explanation is happening. @rikka@ani.social

Talking about Korea specifically, the hip-hop scene has been growing in popularity for a while now. I first became aware of Korean hip-hop in the late 2000’s with Epik High. In modern Kpop, one or more members specializing in rap is pretty standard with many songs featuring a rap segment.

I assume you are talking about Tower of God, a series that is adapting a Korean manhwa. Fittingly, several of the OPs and EDs are performed by a Kpop group called Stray Kids. The group has 3 rap-focused members that even perform as a trio under the name 3RACHA.

Basically, whenever you see a column of four panels like this, just read it top to bottom, right to left. This is a standard form within manga called a 4-koma. There are whole series written exclusively in this style though they tend not to be as popular outside Japan. One of the more recently popular is Tomo-chan Is a Girl!

My goodness, if anything happens to Xiaolan in this show, I am going to throw hands. She was really cute being Maomao’s little sister this episode. @rikka@ani.social

I had kind of forgotten about Suisei’s fake death and escape from last season, so I appreciate that they reminded me this episode. Also, it seems somebody is feeding these caravan merchants information about potential pregnancies in the rear palace. Also also, we got our first death by poison of the season. So, looking forward to more mystery solving with Maomao. I am curious if Lakan might pop in as well from time to time to provide some smarts.

This series is such a good mix of comfy slice of life, food/cooking, and fantasy. The dynamic between the two leads is great too. I knew what to expect based on reading the manga, but the execution so far has been good. The focus on katsudon this episode is well timed as that is what I am making for dinners this weekend and now I am looking forward to it even more. This will be me by the time Sunday evening rolls around. @rikka@ani.social