#fuzzyvase

Sources:

https:// bsky.app/ profile/hansoeii.bsky.social/post/3miveqf6pxk2e

One of my great fortunes has been that I never got into HP. I was focused on collecting manga at the time everyone was reading the books. I tried watching the first movie, and didn't enjoy it. It wasn't for me.

But sometimes I imagine that if my cousin who loves HP tries to get me to read it, or if someone tries to tell me that I'm missing out, i could just point to all the anime that tried to jump in the trend of "magic Western witch school" motif that HP started. Mashle, Little Witch Academia, Negima, etc. There's so much to watch/read that isn't HP, but is very similar to HP...but without the problematic parts of HP. Sure, some of them, like Negima, have their own problems (if you don't like "Harem anime", for example). But there are so many HP knockoffs to pick and choose from, that finding a version of "HP" that personally speaks to you, is inevitable.

A few years ago, I decided that I don't have to settle for anime series that force me to put up with anything annoying, just because the series was popular and otherwise very well produced. Fanservice, portraying bully characters as "cool", unjustifiably violent/mean tsundere---whatever my pet peeves are. I realized my personal pet peeves can be enough to drop a series, because my time for entertainment should be spent on things that actually fully entertain me and that I fully enjoy, not on things that force me to put up with aggravation. And certainly not with things that set off my problematic alarms.

So I will be watching Mashle. And not HP.

Thank you, Tokyopop manga (setting a new $10 base price and right-to-left format standard) and Bleach manga during the 2000s. Everyday, i saw those Harry Potter novels in the bookstore, and i walked right past them to the manga section.

Thank you, Warner Bros movie adaptation for not sparking endearment to me.