Yaoi feels and setting things on fire

[alias_sqbr]

Anime:

Ore Monogatari/My Love Story: SO SWEET. I am having trouble reminding myself that it is VERY UNLIKELY to end in a canonical poly relationship between the main character, his girlfriend, and his male best friend, but by god does the show make it hard (apparently the manga is much the same). They are all so sweet and supportive and understanding! Also quite a funny show, definite rec!

Genshiken Second Season (actually season 3): Good natured comedy about a university anime/manga club full of awkward nerds. I really enjoyed it and am sad Crunchyroll only has this season, the characters are varied and I cared about all their various personal journeys. Previous years were apparently more male focussed but this year the club has a lot of BL/yaoi fans: Several cis women (one fat) and Hato, an amab person with a female persona. I initially read Hato as a trans woman and was REALLY bothered by several character's transphobic reactions, but now I read them more as genderfluid or maybe even just a very mixed up and repressed bi dude using a female persona to process his interest in m/m porn (and, ultimately, men). The transphobia is largely not condoned by the text, and the characters come to terms with Hato being Hato, but it still may be upsetting. There's a slow burn romance between Hato and one of the cis dudes which is very cute and meta, they keep comparing the romantic situations they get into to their experience of porn (m/m and m/f). Overall the show has this pretty stark disconnect between lots of over the top and sometimes skeevy sexual humour (lol girls peeking at Hato in the shower etc) and very understated and sweet portrayals of the actual relationships. Hato's relationship is on the boundary. It's left very open at the end of the anime and is still being resolved in the manga, but having a seinen manga written by a dude give an amab love interest to a previously straight major male character is still pretty cool.

Saw the first episode:

Sound Euphonium: did I mention this? Fluffy femslashy moe about a school band. Ok, apparently gets even femslashier.

Yamada-kun and the seven witches: very silly show about a teenage boy and girl who realise they can swap bodies by kissing. At the end of the first episode a male classmate discovers their secret and kisses the dude, which was an amusing twist on a fanservicey premise, but overall it was a bit too silly. Maybe when I am very bored and too sick to think deeply.

Rin-ne: Takahashi show about a teenage girl who can see ghosts teaming up with a male classmate with a side job as a shinigami/psychopomp. Ok, will probably watch more at some point.

Baby Steps: Tennis sports anime about a dude. Didn't grab me.

Books:

Fire by Kristen Cashore, as mentioned previously.

Skies of Gold by Zoe Archer: Steampunk romance between a cyborg and a disabled mixed race Indian/English woman who find themselves sharing a deserted Scottish island. I am stuck 15 chapters in, it's fine I just ran entirely out of momentum once the story reached a place of happy calm. The couple are cute enough and the disability and race stuff is handled ok it's just not massively grabbing me.

Games:

Regency Solitaire: A solitaire game built around a cheesy regency romance. Cute and fun with nice art, even if the romance plot is silly. I have replayed the games lots of times since finishing, it's a genuinely fun solitaire game with enough variation in goals/setup to keep things interesting, and you can go back and play whatever level suits your mood. The main flaws as a game are (a)Barely passing levels earns you enough money to buy pretty everything in the shop quite quickly, and then the money keeps building up with nothing to spend it on (b) It is possible to get unwinnable hands, though they happened rarely enough not to throw off my progress. From Big Fish games, who have frequent sales, and definitely worth the $5 I paid (also on Steam for less platforms).

Awakening: Moonfell Wood Second in the series, just as much pretty, cheesy, princessy point and click fun.

Little Inferno: An odd, moodily cute, darkly humourous little game about setting fire to things in your Little Inferno Entertainment Fireplace. Fun if you are the sort of person who likes setting fire to things in games and watching what happens when they burn (which I am). Incredibly easy with very little plot or detailed worldbuilding, it's more of an experience than a game. I wouldn't pay the full price of $10 but it shows up in lots of bundles and sales.

Comments

[chagrined]

hato's deal with gender is interesting and complicated. so far in the story hato hasn't directly come out and ID'd as trans, but i definitely think hato fits into a trans reading. maybe not a reading that's just like "trans woman" but falling under a transgender umbrella. are you reading the manga too? based on some further things that happen in the manga, i do think it's become more of an "identity" to hato rather than just "this thing i do" even tho hato still doesn't seem to specifically ID as trans and says "i'm a guy" and stuff like that.

also in the spinoff manga the mangaka made, where it's like AU verisons of all the genshiken characters, hato's counterpart DOES end up IDing as a trans woman and has top surgery. so that's interesting.

i def recommend sound euphonium! it gets MUCH femslashier haha. altho i think it's probably never going to become officially "canon" even tho they TTLY WENT ON A D8.

baby steps disappointed me so much. there were a lot of things i liked about it but then some things really bothered me and i just quit watching. amongst the things that annoyed me most were how we never got any focus on natchan's (i think that was her name? the main girl) matches, and ALSO, they'd always have the characters who don't understand tennis asking questions on the sidelines so the dumb coach could exposition things, which is a lazy technique i dislike but w/e, BUT THEN, in one of the matches it was NATCHAN ASKING QUESTIONS LIKE SHE DIDN'T UNDERSTAND THINGS, and i was like, wtf??? isn't she supposed to be super gr8 at tennis and trying to become a pro??? HOW WOULD SHE NOT KNOW THESE BASIC THINGS??? so, that really annoyed me, and i quit watching.

[alias_sqbr]

Ah, ok! Thanks, that's interesting. I haven't read the manga or the spinoff. And it's always chancy trying to fit anime/manga characters into these kinds of categories anyway. Also I think I was projecting my "bi person who sometimes like crossdressing" feels a little.

Wow. I was getting some "Strong Female Character whose competence exists largely to highlight how amazing the dude is when he surpasses her" vibes from Baby Steps but that's worse than I would have expected.

[bunny_m]

Shall have to add Ore Monogatari and Sound Euphonium to my list of anime to watch, as your reviews have been rather more hit than miss.

(Genshiken has been on my list for a while now anyway, so I'll just move it up some.)

[Edited to Add]: I've been watching/re-watching a bunch of anime on Netflix too. Ouran high School Host Club is still wonderful and silly and lovely.

I enjoyed Psycho-Pass, which is a good and unusual take on a very cyberpunk world. (Told from the point of view of the cops and is big on revealing how the utopia for many is very dystopic for a few. I suspect it's not your cup of tea though, being rather grim and tragic.

Note: Funimation's translations are, IMHO, adequate at best, and the timing of the subs themselves are kinda crappy. Reminds me why I much prefer fansubs, but I like to watch on Netflix to use a legal channel to encourage more anime via streaming.

Shall definitely have to have a look at the Crunchyroll catalogue now that I have a connection speed that isn't crappy.

[alias_sqbr]

Yes I think you'd like them!

Yes, I have added Ouran to my Netflix queue for when I feel like revisiting it. But the Crunchyroll anime catalogue is much larger, I hope you find stuff you like!