I've been doing a terrible job at checking in over here ahhhh!! Oops. Well, I've never promised you all consistency. Here's what I've been watching lately:
Set It Off (1996): I saw this gifset of queen latifah and was like hmmm this seems like a movie worth looking into. The plot sounded up my alley so I added it to the backlog and streamed it with a couple of friends. It was soooo awesome. Four longterm friends living in the LA projects get struck by multiple back-to-back tragedies and decide to start robbing banks
I'm big into heists and whatnot so I probably could have been easily pleased with just having a fun time, but I found this movie super enjoyable on a character level too. They take the necessary time to make you buy into these women's friendships with each other. I've added this one to the reclist
And then, for seasonal anime:
Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia: You may have noticed me hyping this one up on main. I'm willing to call this one a must watch even just after the first few episodes. This is an adaptation of the Witch's Life in Mongol manga, which follows the life of Sitara, a muslim slave girl educated in a scholar family's household, after her life is uprooted by the mongol empire. She's based on a real historical figure.
I've read the first 19 chapters of the manga, which is is I believe all that is currently available in english, with the next translated volume coming later this year. It's interesting stuff. The primary throughline of this work is about leveraging knowledge to navigate a world whose status quo is dramatically changing... most of what we see is Sitara (going by her mistress's name, Fatima) becoming a confidant to some of the various wives of the deceased Gengis Khan's sons. I'm always a sucker for a narrative about women having to collude with each other and use subterfuge to get ahead. The rich and vivid historical setting makes it all the better.
Anyway the anime adaptation is fantastic. It's gorgeous. There's so much care put into this. Watch it.
Goodbye Lara: A little mermaid retelling from Kinema Citrus. I have been operating under the assumption that this is yuri based on the promo images and the second episode certainly supports that vibe but i just realized today that i don't know this for sure. So no promises there. Mermaid princess in search of true love to restore the light to her family's kingdom has a meet cute with a teen girl from modern day shiba.
This one is beautifully too. Fantastic color design. I enjoy the character art style, it reminds me a bit of contemporary pokemon in some ways. Vibrant, graphic, cartoony, great stuff. The animation itself is great, there's such nice attention to little motions. Good directing good sound design, it's all working.
Can't speak of the quality to the writing yet because it's all been setup so far but I'm definitely sticking with this one for the time being!
I Want To Love You Till Your Dying Day: Explicitly a full on capital Y yuri show. Teen girls at a magic school where orphans are raised to become living weapons. After her previous roommate dies in battle, Sheena, a girl with little magical acumen of her own, ends up rooming with Mimi, the school's special weapon.
This one didn't really do much for me so far but I'm willing to give it some time to actually see and make an informed decision. I might read ahead in the manga instead because it's faster just to vibe check if I like the setting and the direction the narrative is going. It's very homosexual though. They have a 'we have to kiss each other for Restoration Magic but this just also happens to work better if youre close to each other' thing going on which like ill eat that up of course im not above that. I just also need good character writing alongside it too.
Can't say I either do or don't recommend this one at this time but I will keep you all posted as things #develop. Watch this space.
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