Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku by Fujita | Blabber

Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku by Fujita
2 volumes (so far, in English)
Manga – Romance/Slice of Life
Read July 3 & July 8, 2018
Spoiler-free blabber for volumes 1 and 2

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It’s been a long time since I found myself so taken by a manga series.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been reading some good ones lately (see Demon Diary, my most recent blabber) but this one really has stolen my heart. This series follows two working adults, mid-twenties, who are huge nerds and because they would better understand each other’s nerdiness than someone who isn’t one, they decide to date each other. That’s it. That’s the whole premise. And holy cow did I unexpectedly love this.

The characters in this, to me, are very relatable. The four shown on the two covers here are the main characters and they way they interact reminds me a lot of my friend group. There’s the manga nerd, the video game nerd, the cosplayer, the closet nerd – seeing them all portrayed in a positive way was nice to see and watching them interact with each other while just… being themselves.. was adorably wonderful.

I think what I love about this series the most is the simplicity of it. Normally I’d be railing it for not having a huge plot, but it kinda works in this case. It’s just four people interacting on a daily basis, trying to navigate the minefield of the early stages of a relationship, as this series has the relationship I mentioned get established fairly quickly and then follows the progression of it. There’s no drama at the beginning, there’s no love triangle, there aren’t any super dramatic teenage misinterpretations. It’s just simple and refreshing.

Though, not to say that this series doesn’t deal with actual relationship issues – while one of the couples is new and exploring the first steps, the other has been together for years and years, so we get to read their interactions as well. It’s a nice balance, going from a couple who are still a bit uncertain with each other to one who is very comfortable and content. It’s a good dynamic and I enjoyed it.

AND HOLY COW, EVERYONE COMMUNICATES LIKE NORMAL ADULTS. There’s no ‘wait I can explain’ or dramatic running away upon seeing someone in a questionable yet explainable situation, none of that. Honestly there was an opportunity for that, and when I ran into it, I bit my lip, hoping hoping that the trope wouldn’t pop up. And what do you know, it didn’t. The characters remained calm and talked to each other. I was over the moon, it was so wonderful.

And finally, the comedy in this series is just fantastic. It’s slid in there subtly and tends to be of a nerdy nature. I was laughing so hard while reading this book. The situations the characters found themselves in sometimes were funny, sure, but the characters themselves were funny as well. They were constantly joking around with each other. Most of the jokes I was able to pick up on, but the few that I didn’t get due to cultural difference the author would put little footnotes at the bottom of the page with a mini explanation so I didn’t feel left out or like something got passed me – it was nice. Otherwise, I particularly appreciated the sense of humor of Narumi, the pink haired woman on the cover. She was just so amusing and I loved reading from her perspective.

I honestly don’t have much negative to say about this book. The only thing I can think of is that I wish the new relationship would progress a bit faster than it has. I need more material to ship with man, GIMME. I hope that the English release of volume 3 (coming out in October) will fulfill my wishes. I HOPE.

Overall, as you’ve probably realized at this point, love this series. Both volumes out so far are winners and I’m excitedly awaiting the next one.

Rating: 5/5 stars each

Demon Diary by Lee Chi-Hyong and Kara | Series blabber

Demon Diary by Lee Chi-Hyong and Kara
Manhwa – Fantasy
Seven volumes
Read June 18 – 21, 2018
Spoiler-free blabber

This is the fluffiest thing I’ve ever read about demons.

And it was rather enjoyable. The series begins when the main character Raenef, pictured to the left here, is put into the position of Demon Lord after the previous one dies. From the sound of the premise, this sounds like a good opener for a coming of age, serious, character-driven story.

Well… not really. I mean it is, but it’s not really serious, and the character development gives way a bit for a wave of comedy instead. Raenef is a young kid – fifteen or so – when given this title. And by no means was he prepared for it. He’s still childish, light-hearted, and all around goofy. So the plot basically revolves around Raenef being himself during his training and his advisor, Eclipse, growing ever more exasperated trying to get him in line.

It’s adorable and endearing and I love the bond of friendship that grows between the two. I like seeing male friendships that are healthy and dynamic and don’t revolve around constantly jabbing each other or shared interest in a woman or… anything like that. I just like seeing two men get along on principle and not be afraid to actually show that they like each other.

The cast of characters that are slowly introduced are rather amusing as well – some align more with Eclipse’s seriousness and others are very much like Raenef, which is why they seem to gravitate towards him. They’re funny and cute, and they improve the flesh of the story in a good way.

The only thing I can complain about in this series is the ending. No spoilers, promise. But. The ending of the ‘plot’ concluded earlier than the end of the series, and the final bit was basically a plot device trope used to extend the writing a bit more. It had nothing to do with the plot, was overused, and was not done super well. Also, I feel like the story could have gone on for ten volumes more. There would have had to been a second arc in the story to do it, but it could have easily been done. The world that was built was rather big, but only a small part of it was explored, leaving much plot and character development to be desired.

But aside from the end section, which was not my favorite, the plot and characters that I did get to read in this world were pretty great. I just… wish there would have been more. The comedic aspects of the series kept me entertained and laughing, and both Raenef and Eclipse are wonderful characters to read about. If you’re looking for a short-ish manhwa series to dive into, I recommend this one.

Overall series rating: 4.25/5 stars

Individual volume ratings:
One: 4/5 | Two: 4/5 | Three: 5/5 | Four: 5/5 | Five: 4/5 | Six: 5/5 | Seven: 3/5

Livingstone by Tomohiro Maekawa | Series blabber

Livingstone by Tomohiro Maekawa
Manga, 4 volumes
Urban fantasy
Spoiler-free blabber

This series was a breath of fresh air.

I read this manga series as part of Borrowathon and MangaReadathon (which is still ongoing). My friend lent it to me, meaning there was about a 50-50 chance I’d hate it or love it. Our tastes usually really overlap or do not at all. Luckily, this one was a winner.

This series takes place in a world where at the beginning of the 20th century, a doctor conducted some unethical experiments and found that when one dies under circumstances not ordained by fate, that their body weight changes by 30g at the moment of death, the weight of a human soul stone.

The manga follows two men whose job it is to make sure these soul stones stay on their destined paths, for when the body the stone is in veers off course, it could threaten or even shatter the stone. This means the manga deals with some heavy topics at times – suicide, murder included.

So, the premise alone was really neat. It kinda sounds like reincarnation, but not really. A soul stone is born and its path will lead it through the use of many human bodies. Once its current body dies according to plan, it moves onto the next until the stone itself becomes old enough to die. Of course of if the person its in currently commits a murder or a suicide, that soul stone’s vitality goes down, and if the trauma becomes too much, then the stone is shattered, permanently thrown off its course.

The two main characters – Sakarai and Amano, go around looking for stains, places where souls have veered off course, because locations where something went wrong once will lead to more souls getting sucked in and going off course as well. When they find a soul stone that has altered its path but is still able to be saved, they either help the human its in… or if there’s no hope left for the person but there is for the soul, they kill the human and help the soul along to its next destination.

Seriously, the concept of this series is amazing, I loved it!

Both Sakari and Amano are pretty interesting characters, though I felt that Amano ended up much more fleshed out than Sakarai did. That’s really the one flaw I found with this series – aside from the two main characters, pretty much all the side characters were flat. Some more than others for sure, but none of them really did anything for me.

This series played off a few myths about souls and did so really well. Like, the idea that one suffers jetlag when flying because a plane will take your body but your soul can’t keep up, so you get tired waiting for it to return fully to you. So that’s a good thing to think about with me having two upcoming plane trips. Thanks Livingstone, I’ll be sure to ductape my soul in.

I also feel that this series handled sensitive topics well – suicide was not glorified and it was dealt with in a sympathetic manner, the idea of self-identity was discussed thoroughly – are you your body or your soul? Where do your memories lie? What makes you you?

For a four volume long series, this got quite in depth about philosophy related to the questions above. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was quick, well drawn, easy to follow and entertaining – everything you need in a manga. I definitely recommend this one if you’re looking for something new to pick up.

4/5 stars

Inuyasha: The Final Act | Anime Blabber

Today I’m doing a post of a different flavor: an anime blabber. I had stated a few months ago that I was going to start breaking out of the mold a bit concerning what I post about, and this is the first attempt at that.

Inuyasha: The Final Act

• 26 episodes
• Continuation of anime series Inuyasha (167 episodes)
• Historical/Portal Fantasy
• Rated T+
• Originally aired in 2009
• Watched April-May 2018, English dub

Spoil-free blabber
(Though spoilery if you’ve never seen the original Inuyasha)

MyAnimeList Synopsis: InuYasha: The Final Act is a continuation of the anime Inuyasha, which follows Kagome Higurashi, a fifteen-year-old girl whose normal life ends when a demon drags her into a cursed well on the grounds of her family’s Shinto shrine. Instead of hitting the bottom of the well, Kagome ends up 500 years in the past during Japan’s violent Sengoku period with the demon’s true target, a wish-granting jewel called the Shikon Jewel, reborn inside of her. After a battle with a revived demon accidentally causes the sacred jewel to shatter, Kagome enlists the help of a young hybrid dog-demon/human named Inuyasha to help her collect the shards and prevent them from falling into the wrong hands. Joining Kagome and Inuyasha on their quest are the orphan fox-demon Shippo, the intelligent monk Miroku, and the lethal demon slayer Sango. Together, they must set aside their differences and work together to find the power granting shards spread across feudal Japan and deal with the threats that arise.

Both The Final Act and the original Inuyasha series are based on the manga of the same name. The original series, which spans 167 episodes, ends prematurely, not finishing out the plot of the manga. The Final Act picks up where the original left off and continues the manga plot until the end.

Inuyasha was one of my gateway animes, so it will always hold a special place in my heart. I first started watching it when I was 15 years old, back when it was first debuting on Adult Swim back in 2005. It had begun airing originally in 2002 in the US and finished in 2006, so I caught on a bit late but was able to see the finale as it was released. As stated above, it followed a fifteen year old girl and as I was fifteen at the time, I totally loved it.

After the series finished up and I realized it wasn’t going to actually finish out the plot, I hunted down the manga and read the ending of it that way. After that, I never actually went back to watch The Final Act when it aired. So when I watched it now at 27, obviously I needed to buzz through the original seven seasons and four movies of Inuyasha first in preparation. It was totally worth it. It slowed down my reading of books, but it was time very well spent in my opinion.

The Final Act in my opinion had a different feel to it than the original series did. It wasn’t a huge difference, but it was there. It didn’t feel as involved, if that makes sense, but very rushed instead. I know that the manga that it was covering per episode was a lot more than the original series had done, so it definitely skimmed over or skipped things in the name of plot progression. Personally, I think it could have done with another large series to finished out the manga – there was enough plot left for sure to do it.

It did cover all the major bases though from what I remember, so overall it was rather enjoyable. Watching it was being a teenager again, minus the whole one episode per week at midnight on Saturdays, thing. I was able to watch it at my own pace whenever convenient, which was nice. The discs themselves (I bought the DVD set) were pretty good quality and had nice art on the front of each. Every time I switched to the next disc though I got a bit sadder, since I knew the end of the series was coming closer.

One of the major things I noticed watching this time around was my opinion of the characters – I was definitely a Kagome fan when I first watched it but this time around, not so much. I didn’t dislike her by any means but a lot of the drama she had to endure was kind of her own doing. She had the romantic rival Kikyo (who I disliked originally but seriously liked this time around) and the whole time I’m shaking my head like ‘why are you doing this to yourself. You can totally just walk away’. So I was a lot less sympathetic towards her romantic endeavors and hang ups. Inuyasha as well irritated me, but at the same time, I could better understand his emotional ties to Kikyo and his difficulty in severing them.

But I have to say… watching this as an adult and having been through a series of relationships, seeing all the romantic relationship dynamics in this show just screamed unhealthy to me. There was obvious border-line cheating via flirtation (which is or isn’t, depending on a couples’ boundaries but obviously half the party involved wasn’t a huge fan in the show), there was a lot of yelling and name calling, and the ‘sit’ commands that Kagome gives Inuyasha, while funny to me as a teen I couldn’t help but see as abusive now, especially when Kagome would give a command out of anger. Occasionally she’d do it to pull Inuyasha out of the way of getting injured… but most of the time she was just pissed at him. Wasn’t a great message and I couldn’t really ignore how uncomfortable it made me. Sooo… can’t say I was really a fan of aaaany of the relationships in the series. I feel like all four of the characters involved in their respective situations needed to do a lot of maturing… except maybe Sango. She seemed pretty good most of the time.

And Sesshomaru was still…. Sesshomaru, haha. Though he was a lot more talkative in this series than he was in the last. It almost felt out of character for him, honestly. But it made a lot of the fanfiction I read as a teen more believable, I suppose. He was in the series a lot more, too – I think he was in 22 or 23 of the 26 total episodes. And as he was and still is my favorite character, I wasn’t complaining. He and Rin being he and Rin was adorable and I lived for any scenes with the two of them together. I feel like those two are one of my favorite non-romantic dynamics I’ve come across. They’re always so cute. Jaken too I took a shine to – though I noticed that literally nobody is nice to him except Rin, which is kinda sad. No wonder the poor little thing is irritable a lot of the time. I feel like Jaken and I could be bros.

The plot in this, while rushed, as pretty good. I feel like Naraku just needed a hug though, honestly. I feel like sooo much could have been avoided if someone had just been like ‘no it’s okay gimme hug come here’. Naraku is probably one of my favorite characters too, but he was almost comically villainous at times, it was amusing. And seeing the plot finalize in the anime like it did in the manga was just so satisfying to see after being a fan of the show for over a decade. I feel like I got closure.

So overall, I enjoyed watching this series, and the time I spent rewatching the original to watch this one too was quite enjoyable.

4/5 stars