alias_sqbr

Just started watching the anime "The 12 Kingdoms". I've been avoiding it since (a)The animation style bugs me and (b)"Schoolkid gets transported to magical fantasy land and discovers they have a Destiny" is not one of favourite genres, but eventually the weight of recommendations overwhelmed me.

And thus far (after one disc) it's pretty good!
The first episode is pretty standard "Girl has dull life, suddenly Weird Stuff happens and she and her friends find themselves in a Mysterious Place" setup, but from episode 2 it gets interesting. Rather than the world revolving around the protagonist there's obviously a lot of different complex things going on, and since locals have a superstitious dread of the Japanese people who randomly appear from time to time rather than being welcomed as The Chosen One she spends most of her time trying not to die (and so far has absolutely no idea what her Destiny is or even if she really has one) The world building is pretty good (not that I'm much judge of originality in Japanese fantasy) and the characters are interesting, though sometimes they rub me the wrong way.

The monsters all look like Digimon to me, though, it's disconcerting. (The monsters in El Hazard looked sillier, but that wasn't played as straight so it didn't bug me as much)

I also started reading the manga Kashimashi aka Girl Meets Girl. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to finish it though. The basic plot is that a boy in highschool gets "turned into a girl" through very silly alien shenanigans, and has to come to terms with that means for them and their relationships with various people (especially their two main female friends, with whom a love triangle develops). On the plus side the characters are very sweet and it's made clear that the reason the protagonist takes to being a girl so quickly is that she was never completely happy as a guy anyway, but the idea of same sex relationships/trans people etc is clearly entirely alien to everyone. Plus they're all drawn like twelve year olds, so the (relatively mild) fanservice squicks me. But the thing that's really putting me off is the fact that her father clearly suddenly finds her attractive and that this is presented as hilarious. Nnnng. Words cannot express how much that creeps me out, every time I started enjoying the story I'd get thrown out again. If I'm going to read about adorable teenagers angsting about gender changes I think I'd rather catch up with Wandering Son.

(And thus my "I didn't finish this thing someone on my flist recced me" pattern continues. I do appreciate the recommendations regardless :))