Monthly Log - November 2025

This month was a busy one with the panel and stuff, but that didn't mean I couldn't continue to read and watch things.

Watched

• Finished Miracle Girls. Miracle Girls doesn't really have that many multi-parters, but the finale being a four-parter is pretty standard for a series of this length. The Diamas royal family plot that has been set up a couple of times since the first episode is brought to conclusion. I wonder how much of it has been determined from the start when it's still handled by the first director. Considering one story arc had a guy who wants to lead espers to take over the world, the scope of the finale appear more reserved in comparison. Even if they got caught up in a monarchy's politics, the core drama is ultimately about mending a broken family relationship.
• Watched Kimipre episodes 39-41. Since this season has an idol theme, I can't help but to think about Nana's dilemma between the invitation to study piano with her mother in Paris and her Idol Precure duties in relation to the idea of "graduating from magical girl." At least in the context of Pretty Cure, typically the girls get the powers to protect the world from an extraordinary threat, and once the threat has subsided, the powers are not really needed to remain. And that's fine since that means they are free to pursue whatever aims they have in life without having to worry about people being routinely threatened by supernatural forces.
• Watched Princess-Session Orchestra episodes 28-31. After Band Snatch, Priorche takes its choice of antagonists one step further with Kazahana-senpai and her sister. The sisters complaining about the main trio not understanding their motive while refusing too elaborate the reason for their actions feels in tune with the usual Symphogear conflicts. Though, then again, the conflicts in Lyrical Nanoha series also tend to be like that.
• Rewatched the Nanoha movies. Somehow, I keep getting taken aback whenever I hear Hayate speaking in Nanoha. The Kansai-ben keeps making me think she sounds like Kero-chan lol. Anyway, I'm able to comprehend the plot of the latter two movies better than when I watched them for the first time. It's fascinating how they could make that many plot threads work in the movie format, especially with the last one.
• Started rewatching Myriad Colors Phantom World. Episode 4 still feels touching to me. Definitely one of my favorite anime episodes ever. Fujita's Mai-focused episode also has some nice touches (liking the different art style used for the martial arts movie Mai and Haruhiko watched).
• Watched The Lost Letter. I haven't read the original short story, so I don't know how the adaptation compares. Though, seeing the old Cossack's mission is to send a letter to a Tsarina, it did immediately make me curious about what era the story is supposed to take place in.

Readings

• Read Radio Delley. Didn't expect the story would involve small town kids investigating the origin of some hidden human remains they accidentally found from picking up the voices of the remains' ghost through radio. In a sense we might think of it as belonging to a tradition of kid detective fiction. Still, while the truth prevails and justice is delivered at the end, the morbid themes are still pretty surprising considering the art style of the comic.
• Reread Inari, Konkon, Koiiroha volumes 2-5. I think the changing relations between the girls (Sumizome with Sanjō, Marutamachi with Sumizome) are the highlight of these parts. Liking it that Yoshida-sensei can be quite frank about girl experiences through their dialogues here.
• Read Love Game. A short comic from JUNE, that notably has really fascinating paneling to convey the atmosphere and mood of the story.
• Reread Akatsuki no Yona volumes 3-6. With the hurdles to get each Dragon Warrior into the party (so to speak) keep increasing (the first was already waiting for a descendant of Hiryuu and readily join, the second wasn't aware of the Dragon Warrior stuff, and the third wanted to buck the role), the story arcs also got longer (the author's note indicates that Shin-A's arc ended up being longer than expected). Otherwise, I'm enjoying Yun's interactions with Yona. He's such a tsundere.

• Reread some old Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck comics. It's amusing to remember how these comics can kind of contribute to construct some shared cultural references by having stories inspired by works like, say, The Importance of Being Earnest.
• Read Aiiro Shinwa. This is the first Yamato Waki work I read that doesn't take place in pre-war historical period (actually, the setting is more or less contemporary to the time it was written). Its references to the social and cultural landscape of its time still feels rich.
• Read The Lies of Sheriff Evans volume 1. A comedy of misunderstandings needs to set up its situation well to make it convincing that the characters are perceiving each other to have the same perception of their situation despite actually having mismatching perceptions. At least I think the interactions between Evans and Phoebe already works that way.
• Read Ultrabot Go Go Go!. That feels like a lot of ideas, genre elements, and plot development put together into one story that's too short to accomodate them all neatly.
• Read Narita Minako's Natural. It's interesting to remember how cosmopolitan manga can be, as the story is about a Peruvian boy living in Japan and has friends from an international school with different nationalities, interacting with his Japanese friends from a regular school.
• Reading Jonathan Clement's Anime: A History. Quite interseting to contextualize certain things about anime history. Also addresses the challenges in examining historical sources, e.g. memories of the people involved are not always reliable or things might be selectively memorized to serve certain narratives.