#so mostly people use she/her and that's completely fine by me lol i am ambivalent

[kinnbig]

What are your pronouns?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[ais-n]

some random updates and manga commentary

I read more manga than books usually, but then don’t always say much about it because idk, usually I just have a thought or two and then move on. Sometimes I do these posts where I mention a bunch of series in one place in passing. If that sounds interesting, read on. 

But first:

I’m fucking obsessed lately with One Piece Treasure Cruise somebody stop me I have problems I already spent $10 on it help

Ok, now onto manga mentions, commentary, etc:

I bought the latest Livingstone volume (4) and was all excited to continue reading that series only to realize unexpectedly the other night that it was the end of the series. MAN. It’s been awhile since I watched Deadman Wonderland but I seem to recall feeling the same way about that as Livingstone, only maybe less dramatically so, and that’s this: the creator is the same for both series, and comes up with really interesting ideas and throws in some interesting characters. But then the story itself feels like it ends before it explores the concept as deeply as it could or should. It’s not that I recall Deadman Wonderland’s ending being terrible, and it’s not that Livingstone necessarily had a bad ending either; it’s just that I feel like it ends right as it’s developing, so some of the impact is lost on me because I feel like so much more story still should have been told.

Finally got caught up (again) on Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler and D.Gray-Man. I’m seriously getting worried about Hoshino’s health for DGM :( I’m so worried something will happen to her that is more permanent even than has happened already, and I’m also worried the series will not be able to end properly as a result. Which is really sad to me because I want Hoshino to be okay, and I want her and her readers to not have any regrets about the series itself. I wish she would get an assistant to draw for her while she dictates the story, if for no other reason than to preserve her health more, but I imagine she is hesitant to do so because she has such a beautiful art style and it has to be incredibly difficult to struggle against health issues when you know once upon a time you easily could do far more than now you struggle to achieve. It’s so sad :( I don’t want her to push her health beyond its limits. Ganbatte, Hoshino! :( As for Kuroshitsuji, I swear to god that series is simultaneously the most ridiculous and sometimes most amazing thing XD I’ve been pretty embarrassed by the whole pop star thing because idk lots of reasons, but that’s happened for me before on other arcs that have happened and it always swings its way back. Anyway regardless I love Ciel and Sebastian and everyone and YES UNDERTAKER YESSSSS. Also, it’s been cracking me up seeing how much Soma seems to be having a ball in the latest arc XD

Just realized I’m a couple chapters behind on Magi, that’s the next thing I need to catch up on. Also I need to check on Love Stage!! because it’s been months since I last looked. Yotsuba&! came out with a new chapter too! But I need to read it still. Same with a few BL manga I’m following whose names I’ve managed to briefly forget so I have to track that down to look for updates ugggh I’m real good at this lol

btw did I mention I watched the Seven Days live action movie awhile ago? Because I did. I liked it! I was worried I wouldn’t but I did. I mean, I fucking love Seven Days so that’s probably no surprise, I just rarely watch live action of manga or anime, especially BL, so that’s why I wasn’t sure how I’d feel. But oh my god they paid so much attention even to little idiosyncrasies and movements! Good job, guys, good job

I still need to read Haikyuu!!, I don’t know why I haven’t yet. It’s my goal to do so at some point, because so far I’ve only seen the anime and read the first 2 volumes, and I want to read everything and be up to date with others! 

I started Black Clover and was pretty excited about it but then it started pulling full on bullshit fanservice moves in the 3rd volume or something and it annoyed me so much I stopped reading... I should probably start up again but ugh, so sick of unnecessary fanservice 

WAIT have I read the latest Noragami?? ....Shit yes I did I FORGOT ok so that series THAT SERIES goddamnit I love that series...

Same with Natsume Yuujinchou like goddamn, just as soon as you think surely you won’t cry at some new story in it because surely you’re immune by now, the series is like “So anyway here’s this really bittersweet or heartwarming-slash-heartrending story I’ll casually throw out there and Bee-Tee-Dubs, just a reminder that as nice as Natsume is, his life will probably always be a pretty sad and precarious mess because he cares too much about both humans and Ayakashi”

which now that I’m thinking about it is a bit Allen Walker-like.... no wonder I love both Natsume and Allen; they both are stuck in between all these other things but don’t use it as an excuse to hurt or hate others; if anything, they hurt themselves while trying not to hurt others. I just really love characters and people who don’t use misfortune as an excuse for harming others

There’s probably more but I’m getting so distracted by this gif faded in the background on tumblr that I can’t focus omg wut

Oh right, I hope Gangsta comes back sometime in the future. They have some spin off out I think, right? Based on Marco Adriano, called Cursed? I’m debating if I should give it a try.... Actually I don’t remember, maybe I bought the first volume and haven’t read it yet lolz0r Anyway if anyone’s read it, is it as good as Gangsta? The thing is, I don’t really care about Marco, so that’s why I haven’t read it yet. Not that I hate him or anything but I feel pretty meh about reading something solely based on him so I’ve hesitated. I mostly like Gangsta primarily for Worick and secondarily for Nicolas, and then I liked others like Doug, and it’s not like I hate the rest of the characters but they work best for me as the background to Worick and Nicolas’ story. So idk.

Similarly, I gave up on Dogs! Bullets & Carnage around volume 9 mostly because I love one character (Badou all the way, motherfuckers!) and am mostly ambivalent or not in love with the rest. Badou totally carried the series for me in the beginning, when he and Heine had all those great interactions, but now Naoto’s more prominent with Heine and I’m like bleggggh not a fan of Naoto almost at all, and Heine’s okay but I feel like he’s kind of a non-character so he doesn’t really work as the primary MC for me. The pacing of the story is not the best so it makes it harder for me to care about what’s going on. Basically I just want the series to follow Badou around and tell me occasionally about the crazy shit the others are getting up to. Give me a spin off on Badou and I’ll buy that any day! Come on! Anyway so if anyone is still reading that, I’m just curious if I should keep going... I’m a little curious about what the hell is even going on with the plot and background and etc but mostly I just want more Badou :( ...wait a second, I just saw there’s a prequel called just Dogs, that may be more along the lines of the story I want to read. I want just Dogs, man! Did I read it already years ago? Fuck if I can remember...

I also gave up on Tokyo Ghoul:re after it was so incredibly different from Tokyo Ghoul and the pacing and just everything kind of fucked around with what I was hoping to read as a continuation of that series, and in particular with me wanting to see more of Kaneki. I’m months behind at this point and idk man. I will probably read further at some point because I do think it’s an interesting world and I liked a number of characters in Tokyo Ghoul quite a lot, especially Kaneki. But :re has just been... I’m trying not to say mean things lol it’s just that I guess the pacing and style and story and character designs and just everything is basically like a whole different series. Which would be fine, if that was what I wanted. But what I wanted was more Tokyo Ghoul, so I’m disappointed so far. idk. I don’t think I’ve given up completely on it. I just think I have to wait until I’m in the right mood...

That just randomly reminded me I never finished Claymore. That was another series that started out interesting but then idk. The pacing or story or what just dragged a lot after a while, or made it difficult to follow. I should finish it sometime I guess. I think I probably only have a few dozen chapters to read to end it. 

I did the same thing with Shingeki no Kyoujin/Attack on Titan... I was pretty obsessed with it when I first started reading it, then the story/style started wavering around the same time I got caught up with Japan and had to wait for new chapters, I read as chapters released for a few months, and then idk. At one point I just got too annoyed/frustrated with the series and stopped reading. I guess that’s another series where maybe I should wait until it’s ended and then read it all at once. I’m curious about some of the plot lines but I really only liked one or two characters pretty well and the rest I was ambivalent about or my feelings on them varied too much, and since I’m so character-driven as a reader/viewer I just can’t stick with series that don’t have strong and consistent plots while also having strong and consistent characters and character development. At least not week by week or month by month, one chapter at a time. It doesn’t seem to work for my attention span.

In anime news, I wish we’d get some sequels of some series like re:Zero or K Project or my god wouldn’t No. 6 be nice?? But these are all light novel based so my hopes are probably for naught. Actually, I take that back. K wasn’t based on LN, it just has novels in addition to the anime. But now I’m realizing, maybe I missed some things. That series is kind of weird with stuff all over the place and individualized outside of the anime itself so I probably missed things. Unsurprisingly, I’m sure, Shiro is my favorite, Kuro secondarily. But I primarily watched for Shiro lolz

Wow ok I just managed to use up all my time on StayFocusd rambling on all this shit so there you go, there’s a bunch of random thoughts about a bunch of random series, and I didn’t even cover everything but I had to stop somewhere I guess.

Probably no one even read this far but that’s fine; sometimes I write this even just to remember later my thoughts on some things. Like I said earlier in the year, I wanted to do Voice as my word for 2017, which means not silencing myself on stuff unnecessarily, so for things like this where I want to write a post talking about a bunch of different stuff just touching on them it’s silly to not do it if it’s something I want to do. If that makes sense.

Anyway if you are reading this, I hope you have a lovely day/night/whatever it is for you! And hey, let me know if you have thoughts on any of the series I mentioned or I guess if you want me to go more in depth on something if it was of interest to you. idk, just whatever.

Hmm maybe I’ll make a tag for these kind of posts so I can find them later... I think I’ll do “ais manga ramblings” hmmmm