Amazon’s recommendation page is suggesting 40 different Kindle books to me. The first 20 are mostly-sequential volumes of the Komi Can’t Communicate manga.

(most of the allegedly-all-ages-safe fan-art of Komi is… not so safe, sigh)

Tan Teen Oni Waifu, episode 3

This week, Our Retired Hero gains a dozen little old ladies and a pair of adopted daughters. Next week, an encounter with a harem lord. Or is he?

Verdict: Our Sweet Teen Waifu’s spidey-sense really undercuts a lot of possible sources of tension in the story, making it difficult for this to step outside the cozy realm of the slow-life genre. For now, though, they’re making the characters interesting enough for that to work.

(still no fan-art worth mentioning)

Magilumiere 2, episode 3

Four magical girls locked in a room, and we spend half the episode on a flashback. The other half is spent getting ready for next week’s fight.

Verdict: pacing just doesn’t seem to be a thing for shows this season.

Isekai Ass-Guardian, episode 3

Okay, this show is in desperate need of a fight choreographer. Because there’s going to be a lot of fighting, and this week’s exposition-heavy battle had them mostly standing around like a turn-based RPG. Also, could they have at least been walking around looking for the missing girl while they talked about working together to rescue her before it was too late? The formal introductions and handshakes kinda undercut any sense of urgency. On the bright side, all the gals clean up nicely at dinner.

Verdict: the feel so far is “speedrun”. They’ve got Guild Gal and Former Boss Babe acting like romantic rivals while Gambler Girl plays middle-school matchmaker, and it all comes out of nowhere, including Our Rear-Protecting Hero announcing his long-term goal to restore Our Best Lizard Gal to full humanity. All of this happens in the source material, but it involves a lot more character interaction and his extensive inner dialogue.

(not a lizard girl, but she’ll do)

Unsuspension of Disbelief

How to knock me out of your story: have a millenia-old immortal casually use the exact same words to express her political opinions that a drenched-in-Marxism college freshman would. I’m looking at you, Elliot Kay.

And no, you don’t get a pass by setting the story in Seattle.

(picture is unrelated, but has been gathering dust for too long)

Comments via Isso

Markdown formatting and simple HTML accepted.

Sometimes you have to double-click to enter text in the form (interaction between Isso and Bootstrap?). Tab is more reliable.