Birthday Update and Monthly Log - April 2025

I haven't posted updates on the blog for quite a while, aside from last year's Summer Wars retrospective. As it's my birthday, I'd like to use the occasion to start writing regularly again, particularly to start on the main reason I started this blog: to write memoirs. Expect to see the first entry later this month.

For now, here are some of the stuff I watched or read in the month of April.

Watched

• Watched the first season of Full Metal Panic. I'm not familiar with what older fans think of the first season, but I think the directing can be quite interesting? Like, there were some kinds of editing that I didn't expect to see in this show. It feels quite bold. Also, it's quite nice that they have two cours to adapt three volumes of the novels and still have some space for some side stories and anime original episodes. At the very least, this arrangement does favors to the adaptation of the first volume, managing to balance the high school comedy hijinks and the action content quite well. There's also a fascinating moment at the end of the first arc after Sōsuke returned from his first confrontation with a Lambda Driver-equipped mech. There, Sōsuke expressed his shock at the Lambda Driver's capability to perform feats that appear to defy physics (Gauron's force field shenanigans even look like it could come from an Evangelion movie), but commander Kalinin's response was that giant robots should have been impossible to exist to begin with, and Sosuke didn't think they shouldn't be because such robots were already commonplace combat equipment for his generation. It's such a gripping atmosphere to make you realize that, while the feats Gauron pull off with the Lambda Driver might feel out of place in a show that seem to have 'grounded' military action, when you are reminded that the mechs commonly utilized in the show defy known physics to begin with, there is no reason what the Lambda Driver can do is off limits for the setting. My favorite episode, though, is the Narashino military festival one, as it's quite hilarious to see the JSDF do typical sports festival activities WITH GIANT ROBOTS. Can we have more giant robot kibasen, please?
• I've also been watching old shōjo manga adaptation Aishite Knight. Over the past year, I've been thinking about how a kind of a relation with a younger boy is an often-recurring motif in shōjo manga, even when not being the main focus of the story and not always have to be romantic (think of e.g., Shirayuki and Ryuu in Red-Haired Snow White, or Ran and Wataru in Red Fang). And Aishite Knight kind of have something like that driving the plot. Basically, the orphan boy Hashizō, seeing a mother figure in the nice okonomiyaki shop oneesan Yaeko aka Yakko, wants to make his older brother and Yakko a couple 'cos he feels it would be nice if all of them can be together, right? Unfortunately, his brother's bandmate has been into Yakko longer, so Hashizō's machinations causes a love triangle that eventually breaks up the band for a couple of episodes. Hashizō's a cute little devil in a way; he's in good terms with all the concerned parties, including his brother's bandmate, but he won't give up pairing Yakko with his brother, even if it hurts the bandmate. It's not like Hashizō has malicious intent towards the bandmate or something; it's just an innocent desire of a lonely child that happens to run counter with someone else's desire. Fabulous 80s shōjo stuff.
• Earlier in the month, I finished winter shows The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World and Honey Lemon Soda. Isekai Red Ranger is pretty fun. I like the prop designs, and the props designer frequently posted details about what went into the designs on Twitter as the show was airing. Cacti forest elves also kind of a unique take on elves. On the other hand, even if it's not necessarily the best shōjo manga adaptation out there, Honey Lemon Soda still have some interesting directing now and then, particularly in episode 6.

• You and Idol Pretty Cure (Kimipre) has been through with its first quarter this month. Since the past two series have made some breaks from the franchise's standard conventions (e.g. having a blue lead instead of pink, having a male Cure, having an animal as lead heroine, downplaying violent combat), Kimipre feels more like a standard series in comparison, and perhaps if you had been expecting something more unconventional (as I had), it might take you aback. But it's still a solid series overall so far. The character relationships, interactions, and everyday life dramas hold up to the standards you'd expect from a Pretty Cure series.
• I wrote a first impression for Once Upon a Witch's Death at The Indonesian Anime Times, which have some observations that perhaps have only limited relevance beyond episode 1 (oops 🙈). Still, I like Meg's character. She's naturally kind but also have self-centered tendencies. She's energetic but also have self-doubts. And these traits are written in a way that makes her a believably well-rounded character. And the anime accentuates her personality with plenty of silly expressions too. A very entertaining character.
• I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level returns for a second season and even more characters are added into its vivacious cast. It's still a comfy watch to spend the weekend after doing some hard work.
• With Symphogear creators behind it, there have been expectations that Princess-Session Orchestra would be some kind of Symphogear 2.0, and indeed, the battles feature the heroines singing while fighting like in Symphogear. But more than that, I feel the silly dialogues in the show are also in tune with the kind of dialogues you might find in Symphogear. Series writer Aisora Manta (of Nyarko-san fame) apparently did have some experience with Symphogear, though, contributing with the script for the Zesshoushinai bonus content of Symphogear GX's 4th BD volume. Those elements have made it pretty entertaining so far.
• The Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX TV series have finally started. I thought for the TV series, the One Year War backstory will just be used as a short prologue just as it was originally planned, but it's still used as a full second episode, cut out scenes notwithstanding? Now that it comes to this, the theatrical cut, Beginning, is really essentially an advanced screening of the first three episodes. As I have commented in my review, Beginning feels like watching two different things in one package. Now it feels like the show becomes a different show for one episode. Understandably, there are people who feel a disjoint. Also, when I wrote my review for Beginning, I had some worry that I may have just talked about stuff that ought to be obvious already. But seeing some responses to the start of the TV series, maybe writing about them is justified?
• Watched the anime of Tezuka's Prime Rose. My impression of it is that it seems to make use of certain tropes of SF/fantasy bishōjo OVAs of the time, while having Tezuka's anti-war message. I've read that Tezuka was a competitive person who likes to try his hands at what's trending at the time. Was it the case too for Prime Rose?
• Watched an old film titled Lili and I can't help but to think that the crippled war veteran puppeteer is such a tsundere.

Readings

• Read Tanemura Arina's psychic manga I.O.N. The boy that the heroine likes is a nerd for a TV superhero character, it's kinda funny and cute.

• Read Nami no Shijima no Horizont volume 3 and it's getting very intense. There's a heavy football content in this volume as Riku gets his friends to take on a transfer student in a match. But then the following arc is such a roller coaster of emotions, putting a cliffhanger as Riku and Iori's conversation seems to get him to about to impulsively confess to Iori, then he tried to get around the issue by saying who he has feelings for a secret, but the response just gets both into more complicated situation. Writing character interaction as good as this is makes for the best oneshota content.
• Reread Ninja Hattori volume 13. This volume has stories of two Hattori × Perman crossover films and still has space for three other regular short chapters, which may seem odd considering Doraemon films have book-length comics. But the Hattori films are actually pretty short, less than an hour long, and are usually screened as double features with Doraemon films of the time. So, it kind of makes sense that way.
• Read Hitoribocchi no Chikyuu Shinryaku volume 3. Aside from another major character gets introduced at the start, I like the fight at the climax. They're like, fighting an alien war in front of an audience of normal people in a school festival without that audience realizing what it really is since they think it's just part of a stage show. The development of the bond between Kōichi and Ōtori-senpai also takes a cool, passionate step
• Reread the first volume of Yondome wa Iya na Shizokusei Majutsushi manga. It's one of the quite interesting isekai I've read. It's one of the type where the protagonist is motivated by revenge. He's promised he would finally have a good life in the fourth life after his second got mistakably botched at the start. But he's grown attached to his third life and when misfortune befalls him in this life, he's determined to avenge those who caused it and to restore what he has had in this life rather than moving on to the next. It's a pretty intriguing dark fantasy in that sense. Also, the protagonist in his third life is an elf dhampir with death magic.
• Read the first volume of the manga based on the Crest of the Stars space opera novels. Plenty of worldbuilding material about the Abh's political structure and techno-culture throughout. Yonemura's ship design seems quite different from what the anime has.
• Read the final volume of Look Forward for the Next Death Game!. A new character gets introduced, but the main pair's relationship is also quite swiftly wrapped up. It's quite a curious series overall, being kind of an oneshota romcom presented through parodies of death game stories.
• Reread a Nikolai Gogol short stories collection that I last read five years ago. The Nose is still hilarious, particularly the narration at the end.
• Read Casey Brienza-edited Global Manga. There are quite some interesting stuff from what artists beyond Japan are making to be taken into account in the discourse of what is 'manga'.
• Read this video essay on Overlord fight structure coincidentally just as sakuga Twitter was having a debate over the merits of an animated fight in a certain series. It's not that the video essay is about fight scene 'sakuga' per se but comparing what the video essay analyzes with what elements from a fight scene the Twitter debates talk about made me reminisce again on what I myself value from fight scenes.