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starlight-time-machine · 8 months

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Week in Review

01/28/2024 – 02/03/2024

Sunday

Manga Sunday yayyyy Girl Meets Rock is getting interesting, I was totally expecting the guy from the guitar shop to walk in, but it was Rin instead. Rin herself is pretty intriguing, as it seems like she’s keeping some cards close to her chest in regards to the band…

Undead Unluck is good as usual, it’s fun to see an older and more surly Top. Another sick mom to add to the tally, though. Maybe in this loop we’ll see more details about Top and Haruka’s potential romance.

Oshi no Ko fun, the deadpan humor really got to me.

Dandadan okay, I’m a little tired of the non-stop action sequences.

Magilumiere good, obviously there’d be some drawback to Midorikawa getting the chip implanted, but I’m sure they’ll find a way to circumvent it.

One Piece good.

CIPHER ACADEMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY GODDDDDD IF THIS IS THE END I’LL BE SO SADDDDDDDD I really hope it’s not…I’m holding onto Nisioisin copium so so so hard… The chapter itself was also amazing, with a look at everyone’s true backstories, Kogoe laying out her philosophy but Iroha turning it on its head, THE HANDSHAKE SPREAD WHERE IT LOOKS LIKE IROHA HAS HIS HANDS AROUND THE WORLD, EVERYONE ELSE SHAKING HANDS BUT YOU DON’T KNOW HOW SINCERE THEY ARE, MORE YOSAIMURA/ANON, TAYUTAN… The timeskip is so scary…I can’t tell if it’s the beginning of something new and everything else has just been the prelude, or if it’s a hasty jump to land some sort of epilogue… I’ll keep holding out hope but please…

Live Roulette gave me Siegfeld Junior High’s 1st Live today, so I watched/listened to it as I read a book (more on that later). I’m impressed by how far they’ve come in such a short time, especially Mtzw, whose rendition of Rebellion here was a lot stronger than in the stage play months earlier. Hinapiyo is still the reigning vocalist, though, and I’m so glad they gave her Mimorin’s descant in Watashitachi wa Mou Butai no Ue. I wish they did the arm choreography in Onikurenai… Overall it was a fun show, they’re all so cute and energetic and I appreciate all the harmonies they’re doing.

As for the book I’m reading, it’s Ring of Fire by P. D. Baccalario. It’s the first book of a series that I really liked as a child, so I’m reading it again to see if it holds up. So far, I’ve been a little disappointed…the cutaways to the random adult characters pulling the strings and talking cryptically feel like such momentum killers, and the usual “kids exploring a city on an adventure and solving puzzles” thing isn’t really grabbing me here. I do love that one scene in the beginning, when the kids are first meeting and the lights go out…I can imagine the scene so perfectly in my mind – the silence of the snowy night, the nervous excitement of meeting new people and coming across a strange situation together…it’s all so thrilling, and it’s the one scene that stuck with me after all these years. I’ve just gotten to the part where the apartment building collapses, and it’s genuinely harrowing – I can’t believe they actually killed that guy (but I don’t like how it basically amounted to a fat joke). Finally, it feels like we have some actual stakes (halfway through the book cough). I’m also seeing the bits of Harvey/Elettra and Mistral/Sheng shipping going on, I think it’s cute and I’m curious to see how they develop. (Speaking of Sheng lmao c’mon man 好 doesn’t actually mean cool, it just means good, so it’s weird to have that be his catchphrase.)

Afterwards I finally watched Day 1 of Ijigen Fes, the IDOLM@STER x Love Live! concert, and it was okay. I’m probably biased, but literally none of the IM@S songs interested me except for Tulip, which I already knew that I liked. (Thank you for having Rikako sing Tulip…they did that for me…) The Love Live girls had a decent showing, but the highlight for me was definitely KALEIDOSCORE… Liyuu’s singing is just so amazing.

Monday

Day 2 of Ijigen Fes today, and oh my GODDDDDD SHU’S PERFORMANCE WAS SO GOOD just so much fun and energy, it was like watching Avril Lavigne for real… THE NEW VERSES FOR RYOURAN VICTORY ROAD WERE SO HYPE OH MY GOD AQOURS NO LEADER TAKAMI CHIKA!!!!!!!!!! OSHIMAI NANTE NAINAINAI!!!!!!!!!! It’s so surreal seeing the Cotton Candy Ei-Ei-Oh MV playing on the huge screen in Tokyo Dome… Also Snow Halation makes me cry literally every time I see those UO’s go up ahh

Afterwards the Live Roulette dealt me AZUNA’s unit live, and it was just okay. I’m not the biggest AZUNA fan anyway, but I do like some of their songs like Maze Town and Kakushiaji. Shizuku’s solos were both great as well, and the bit with the plushies was cute, but the most memorable thing about this concert would definitely have to be Tomoriru’s goodbye…it’s so unfortunate that things turned out the way that they did, but I’m glad she gave us some great performances as Setsuna before she graduated. But man, when they all started tearing up at the end of Tokimeki Runners… (I cried again…very emotional set of lives today.)

I finished reading Ring of Fire while watching the concert, and there’s no way on god’s green earth Mr. Baccalario seriously expects me to believe there are PALANQUINS in fucking SHANGHAI in 2006??????? Or rather, I can’t believe that he believed that while writing this book LMAO for how globe-trotting and international this series sets out to be, it falls a little short with non-Western cultures. Now that I’ve finished it, there’s this feeling of…lingering disappointment. I love kids going on adventures, and I love the setting and the feeling of fate converging on these four kids, but the adventure itself was so lackluster… Most of it is just poking around Rome until they happen upon something that leads them to the next step, and by the end they’ve got a “mystical all-knowing” Romani woman straight up telling them what to do… I know the author is trying to do a “it’s all fate leading the way” thing but it just comes off as unsatisfying and being cryptic for cryptic’s sake. And for that matter, the book tries hard to give each kid their screentime, but it’s a little silly when Elettra gets all the action while Mistral’s kidnapped and subsequently rescued because the female villain “went soft” and Harvey and Sheng go into a house, get scared, leave, and contribute nothing else to the climax. The ending even points out how so many things have been left unanswered (as if it’s not confident in its own plotting), and I don’t know if they’ll be answered in the later books, but it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Like is anyone ever gonna explain the in-universe reason why the professor guy had a trunk full of teeth with letters carved onto them? Because it’s so blatantly just “cool Italian history trivia” + “oh right we need a puzzle for them to solve” shenanigans with no logical throughline. Also the villains were cheesy as all hell, oooo it’s the DEVIL and his number is SIX SIX SIX WOAHHH I know it’s a kid’s book, but come on…

Tuesday

Not gonna lie, the news that Cipher Academy is ending sent me into such a depression spiral that I just laid in bed all day playing Animal Crossing and moping and cursing Shounen Jump as a whole. I’ve never held the magazine in very high regard, as I feel like most of its big “hits” are just boring derivative battle manga (and I feel that especially with some of the newer series they’re heavily promoting…), so Cipher Academy caught me by surprise with its amazing character designs and writing and heartfelt emotion… I’ll talk more about it later in a different post, but Cipher Academy is genuinely the best manga I read in 2023 and now one of my favourite manga of all time, and I really wish it could’ve lived longer (and that I could collect it physically in English…). Excluding One Piece and Undead Unluck, I hope all of Jump’s series [COMPLIANCE VIOLATION]

Wednesday

Chainsaw Man good. Nayuta’s really in it now.

I’m continuing my anime concert and book reading duets today with AZALEA’s 1st Live and The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey. It felt a little weird to be watching the big Love Lives out of order when I’m literally three years behind so I chose Azalea’s live, and I was itching for a good “four kids go on an adventure” after being disappointed with Ring of Fire so I picked Perilous Journey back up. The live is fine so far – AZALEA isn’t one of my favourite subunits, but the new songs from their full album were such bangers that I had to check this live out. The light choreography in SKY JOURNEY was actually kind of amazing, I wish Love Live did more stuff like that.

Perilous Journey is fun so far, just some good ol’ adventuring with a dash of mortal peril.

Thursday

The new Dungeon Meshi was really fun. I’m trying to keep up a tradition of making/eating good food to go with the episode (so far it’s been fenzhenrou, meatballs, and soup), so today was homemade hash browns…not necessarily the healthiest thing, but I had to make something in a jiffy and it was either that or not eat anything so I think Senshi would let me slide. Lots of great comedy moments, but also I love how the ghost chapter really has a whole self-contained thematic arc that’s even topped off with a sitcom-esque punchline at the end. I love Laios being a weird guy and having fun with his sword parasite buddy.

I read a big chunk of Perilous Journey today, and what a perilous journey indeed. But it’s so satisfying to see the kids use their wits and abilities to solve each clue and thwart their pursuers, as well as eerie to see the “ghost” of Mr. Benedict and Number Two along the way. What I’m noticing is how much care Trenton Lee Stewart gives to each of the kids’ emotional states – in contrast to Ring of Fire where each kid basically had one defining personality trait to set them apart and nothing else, Reynie, Kate, Sticky, and Constance all feel really fleshed out and real, each with their own worries and perspectives and ways of thinking. (Sorry to compare you, Baccalario, but I can’t deny that it was on my mind since I read this right after Ring of Fire.) I especially love Reynie as a protagonist and a leader for the other kids, his keen emotional intelligence and observation skills means that he’s usually careful about what he says and is constantly keeping an eye out for the others’ wellbeing. There’s a lot of subtle character writing going on here, and each pair within the quartet have a distinct and believable dynamic. Story-wise, I think I prefer the set-up of the first book a little more – at least when they were in that institute, they had some room to breathe and regroup and feel safe in each other’s presence. Here it’s just non-stop action and pursuit, which has me anxious the whole time.

Friday

Drag Race time: I really don’t care for Plane Jane and all the drama she’s causing, it’s just annoying at this point. I hope they don’t try to solve a redemption arc down our throats but it’s looking likely. The girl groups were fun, I hate to say it but I actually do like the style that recent RuPaul songs are going for. I’m just glad that Nymphia is holding her own through all these different types of challenges. Runway-wise, I really liked Q’s look as it all looked well put together and considered, BUT OH MY GODDDDD NYMPHIA JUST STEALS THE SHOW EVERY TIMEEEEEE. I’m sad to see Amanda go…

I don’t usually talk about music on here (because cataloguing every new song I listen to would be insane, even for me), but Louie Zong released a new album called RAT TAXI and I think I’m going to induct it into the STM Awards…which I think is a first for Week in Review? I just love the beats and the instruments he used on this one, and there’s not a single song I don’t like, which is my only criteria for albums to make it in. So yayyyy

Saturday

Touched grass today and went home and immediately fell asleep

#week in review #2024

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