Things I have flopped in front of recently

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Books:

In for a Penny by Rose Lerner: "What a nice regency romance this is," I thought, "Though the downside of the characters being so nice is that there's a lack of internal conflict, so she adds contrived external ones. At least there's no ridiculous misunderstandings." And then there was and it was so irritating I stopped reading and haven't gone back.

Non-anime TV/movies:

Band Baaja Baaraat: a cute Bollywood romance about two 20 somethings who start a wedding planning company vowing not to fall in love (and then do, of course)

Zoolander: I'd never gotten around to watching this before. It was ok for what it is eg a 2001 Ben Stiller comedy about the modelling industry. I was amused by the unexpected m/m/m/m/m/m/m/f.

Daredevil: I keep getting 5 minutes further in then being put off by the grimdarkness. I've heard it gets better and am sure I'll get to at least the end of the pilot eventually.

Steven Universe: Scifi/fantasy kids show with lots of complex kickass female characters. I can see why people like it but after 3 episodes I was not grabbed. I may pick it up again if I find an easier way to watch it (it's the only thing in this section not on Netflix)

Anime:

Yurikuma Arashi: So in the end it made for a pretty satisfying f/f romance. Not sure the bizarre metaphorical stuff actually made much sense in the end but the character arcs mostly did. Note that there's a lot of gratuitous fanservice and offscreen violent death.

Is the Order a Rabbit?: pure moe fluff about waitress schoolgirls which I enjoy for some reason. Has queerbaity femslash subtext and gratuitous bath scenes which should bug me but doesn't. THEY'RE JUST ALL SO ADORABLE.

My Love Story: sweet shoujo romance/comedy about a sweet but hulking guy who assumes the girl he likes must be interested in his attractive best friend so tries to set them up. The three episodes that are out make for a cute self contained story which was a nice surprise but makes me wonder where the show is going next. The same director as Chihayafuru and it shows.

World's Best First Love: An editor gets a job at a shojo manga company and realises his new boss is is his highschool ex boyfriend. This was the first shonen ai I've ever watched and it was EVERYTHING I WAS TOLD YAOI WOULD BE (minus the sex). It's almost like a/b/o: human beings are all women (who are no nonsense and likeable but minor to the plot), uke men (who look like flatchested women and blush and cry a lot), and seme men (who are large and pointy with massive hands and a poor grasp of consent) There seemed to be an editorial mandate to have a non consensual kiss every episode no matter how the plot had to twist to get it. And all the doomed branches of love triangles seemed to be seme/seme or uke/uke. It's really several intertwined m/m romances in one and you can mostly watch the episodes about the ones you like and ignore the others. The only one I really enjoyed was a 30 year old uke editor and the 21 year old seme store clerk he had a crush on, since it subverted some of the power dynamics, so once they got together I stopped watching.

Genshiken Second Season: actually season 3, apparently, but Crunchyroll doesn't have the others. About a bunch of nerds at a university anime club. Started out mostly endearing with a range of female characters but everyone was a bit too realistically transphobic towards the transvestite man/trans woman (it's not clear which she is yet). Also there's lots of callbacks to previous seasons I'm not getting.

Shirobako: about a woman working at an anime company. Not bad but didn't quite grab me. Bizarrely gender dimorphic character designs.


Games:

Cadenza: Music Betrayal and Death: Found by poking through Big Fish's highest rated hidden object games, and I did overall quite enjoy it. An African American woman goes back home to New Orleans in the 40s only to find herself caught up in a supernaturalish murder mystery. Silly/melodramatic and rough round the edges in parts but had a mostly decent heart. TERRIBLE treatment of mental illness though.

The Last Cinderella: The next Dark Parables puzzle game, another enjoyable fairtytale themed fantasy story with lots of hidden object puzzles.