Reading+Listening Log 2024.11 - November
Previous: Reading+Listening(+Watching) Log 2024.10 - October
If anyone who knows some German (or the series) and still hasn't heard of the news: Kemutai Hanashi is getting a German release by Dokico localized as Jenseits der Worte (lit: Beyond Words)!
(You can order it at the publisher's webshop.)
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Reading languages: German, English, French, Japanese, not listing which was what. (There’s also been some continued music listening attempts at Chinese.)
Titles are as I’ve read them either first or most and thus remember it for that title mostly
Not going to bother putting in the original titles of translated reads unless there is something worthy of note to it
Bold titles means series completed, or it is a one shot. (Changed from previous posts having cursive.)
If it says a volume number, it may mean it has been finished or is still in progress
Some notes’ content may be subject to repetition here and there, as I also copied some older notes from casual conversations over and didn’t go through any rounds of cutting things down.
I will freely use some very lunatastic terms like cheese and fluff, you can find an explanation here: Luna-Lingo
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Hell, this is coming late, January is already over...
I didn't even actually read a lot, but still that's such a lengthy babbling that ensued regardless...
I still continued to be off from reading chapters in manga apps all over again... I blame it on the cold. Holding the phone is just not feasible with all those cold fingers.
Classified (#1) level 2 has resumed. And this surprise hit for me has quite grown on me. Hopefully I can soon ramble a bit over it. So many little things that hit a note for me.
(If you wondered why suddenly a #1, that's because there's actually more than one.)
Light Novels/Web Novels/Asian Novels:
A Certain Magical Index NT v1-2
ATLAS: Her, the Combatant, and Him, the Hero Sample
Flower and Knight Sample
Hell Mode V5p3
I Met You After the End of the World V4
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? V10, V13, V12, V14, V15
It's Tough to be a Necromancer Sample
Promised to a Dragon Sample
You Like Me, Not My Daughter?! V1-2
(classified #1 v2)
Animeta! v2
Ano Natsu ga Houwa suru. ch22.1-23.2
Battle Angel Alita Last Order v12ch116-124 Perfect Edition
Battle Angel Alita Other Stories
Butareba -The Story of a Man Turned into a Pig- (Manga) v4ch22
Das (fast) perfekte Fräulein und sein Butler v1
Domestic na Kanojo V23-27
Ghosttaker's Daydream v4
Hana to Kurage to Refrain ch2.1-2
Hosaka-san und Miyoshi-kun v1ch6
Kemutai Hanashi Doujin ch1-11-Part 56
Kemutai Hanashi ch1-7, ch32.1, v5ch30.5 omake
Kimi ni wa Todokanai ch44
Maid-san wa Taberu dake ch52-53
Moriarty the Patriot v9-19
Okazari Ouhi ni Nattanode, Kossori Hataraki ni deru koto ni Shimashita ~Usagi ga Iru no de Hitorine mo Sabishiku Arimasen!~ ch29.5-30.2
Oshi no Ko Ch148-166
Seshuusei Triangle v1-2
Shinde Miro to Iwareta no de Shinimashita. ch17.1-ch18.2
Splatoon v1-2ch7
Tempest Curse v1, v3
The Dangers in My Heart v1-2
The Frontier Lord Begins with Zero Subjects (Manga) v6ch30
The Heroic Legend of Arslan v17ch106
The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time v2ch5-9
The Saint's Magic Power is Omipotent ch41.1-2 skimming
To Every You I've Loved Before
Wenn du deine Hand ausstreckst v1
Yomei Ichinen to Senkokusareta Boku ga, Yomei Hantoshi no Kimi to Deatta Hanashi ch14.1-15.1
【創作】「おもしれー女」
Actually none this time, huh
Bold are what were more memorably stuck in my head.
Seredris - Daylight『纯音乐』
redrose - Isolated (feat. Ivri)
redrose - memories
redrose - Origins - 01 - Held on a Thread
redrose - serene moments
redrose - A World Gone Blue (feat. Elle)
London Grammar - Higher
London Grammar - How Does It Feel
London Grammar - Californian Soil - 08 - Call Your Friends
London Grammar - Californian Soil - 04 -Lose Your Head
Troye Sivan - TRXYE - 01 - Happy Little Pill
Zhou Shen - 若梦
Zhou Shen - 借梦（《宁安如梦》影视剧“梦”主题曲）HARDSTYLE.exe - Die For You (Cyberpunk Version)
咻咻满 - 孤勇者
YLL GRYM - Wretched City - 15 - the escape
Troye Sivan - Blue Neighbourhood - 07 - TALK ME DOWN
Troye Sivan - Something To Give Each Other - 07 - Got Me Started
SVRCINA - Lucid
YLL GRYM - Wretched City - 14 - LUST
VALORANT - Die For You ft. Grabbitz
Joywave - Life in a Bubble I Blew (bonus track)
(more or less the whole Bubble OST album by Sawano Hiroyuki)
Joywave - Traveling at the Speed of Light
Joywave, PVRIS - Coming Apart (PVRIS Remix)
London Grammar - Oh Woman Oh Man
Zhou Shen, Terry Zhong - 春雪
Joywave - Tongues (Eyedress Remix)
Joywave - Tongues
London Grammar - If You Wait - 17 - When We Were Young
Joywave - Every Window Is A Mirror
Joywave - Tongues (Giorgio Moroder Remix)
London Grammar - Dancing By Night
Joywave - Feels Like a Lie
The Stickmen Project - Alright
The Stickmen Project - Alright (Extended Mix)
Zhou Shen - MINE (Live)
Zhou Shen - 等你 (Live) 【音乐缘计划】
Zhou Shen - 只与我有关联 (Live) 【音乐缘计划第4期】
Zhou Shen - 忘了我 (Live) 【音乐缘计划第6期】
Zhou Shen - 颠倒之间 (Live) 【音乐缘计划·第2期】
LUNAX - No Heroes
ycccc - 万叹
Story of Yanxi Palace OST - 01 - 看 (電視劇《延禧攻略》主題曲)
Memphis May Fire - The Burden (Interlude)
(Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei OST by Iwasaki Taku)
Kemutai Hanashi ch1-7 (re.read), slipping through anything inbetween, ch32.1:
Ch32.1 kinda dropped like a bomb. Somehow, I didn't see it coming, but it makes a lot of sense. Made me wonder if in an AU that may have been my own reality of sorts - but I guess you'd to have someone to be as deeply attached to as Arita is to Takeda. Hayashi-sensei kept repeating in tweets that this was just half the chapter and pleaded for people to definitely read the second half or just both together in one go (it had to be divided because release requirements). And stressing that this was a story about people who are ultimately going to be ok in the end. Because Arita has Takeda after all.
It had me wonder. What about those who don't?
Is it the ultimate sort of loneliness to see how it could look like if one had this very illustrative example laid out there, but you don't have it yourself. Or is it the ultimate inspiration of what may still be possible?
I suppose time will tell which it is. I'd very much like it to be the latter.
I really also like that cover of chapter 31:
It's such a beautiful call back to the final page of v4 (ch24) in the aquarium. Which scene suddenly hit differently after I re-read the scene after somebody saying to me I appeared like a person who seems to do a lot of thinking about doing things right. Which had my gut reaction be me a heavy laughing my ass off, but when later it kinda came back for a little haunt. My own notorious sense of indecisiveness and Arita's explanation of it in v1 and for why soba in ch32, well, hitting maybe home a little bit too much. Which is funny, because the first time I read the aquarium scene, I was looking it just like Takeda: I see. But I don't really get it. This time, I noticed, if I was in Arita's shoes I may not be as anxious, but likely would say the very same thing, if for other reasons. I could never pretend it was just the two of us in the world. I could pretend to be alone in the world. But probably not just the two of us. Because the other person would still be an earthling among earthlings. If I was to care about the other person, I'd have to care about the rest of the world as well.
Which is to say, that got me thinking, Takeda's way of life really only worked, because he's alone and thus has nothing else valuable enough at stake to lose other than his own sense of integrity and wants. – Although Arita has appeared on the picture, and that notably is (as Hayashi-sensei even wrote on a post on fanbox themselves) a sense of contradiction.
(Granted, there is not too much friction, as Arita is rather supportive and in admiration of how Takeda is like and the way he is like is kinda exactly the way that's right for Arita ultimately.)
Kemutai Hanashi Doujin Prototype: So after the first half of ch32 of the published series I just up and went to seek out the doujin for its continuation. I didn't really want to read it until the series ended somewhen in the future, but then I just wanted to know how it would go one after this. Turned out the doujin doesn't actually start where the serialized version starts, but rather with the content of v3. The doujin episode that ch32 adapts from turns out to be the third last installment of the doujin chapters and the last one (Halfway House) kinda... ends almost at a perfect conclusion point and it had me kdsfjhksdjhfkdjshf, which is to say almost screaming, because I don't want the series to end yet. (The author wrote in a tweet that it wasn't gonna end anytime soon shortly afterwards of ch32.1's release and pretty much the day after I read the doujins.) Anyway, the doujin definitely looks more rough compared to the serialized version, but the backbone is already there and you can clearly see how its core has not changed whatsoever. There are even a few details you don't get in the series, despite that generally being the vastly expanded version. (Like Kanzaki having a vet license, which he mentioned in clases, which is why Takeda went to him to check for oji-san in v1.) And some others are different - Arita wasn't working in a flower shop but he worked in a bartender shop. Visually that's interesting because just look at all the covers: So many plants and flowers, to think it originally wasn't there. (This may explain why the series isn't ever really going down the flower language rabbit hole). It's definitely an interesting read to see how its evolved and also where the focale points or plot milestones are.
Seshuusei Triangle (Heriditary Triangle) v1-2: Read parts of it two years ago, even bought it and then let it stand. Something subconsciously made me avoid it. I think I know now, why. Because had I read it to the end, this would have been the third in a row after Nagiko no Hanashi and Fudanshi Kazoku to, like have three characters where two are involved romantically, but there is also something queerplatonic-ish going on with a third character whom they all honor, but who also winds up being dead by plot before it even started. While those two had my jaw drop heavily at the time (I wrote a good deal about them already before) it also felt just a little bit cursed that the third one just has to kinda wind up dead and maybe this as a third would have inspired just a little bit of a salty mood. So kind of glad I read it after Jeweler Richard and Kemutai Hanashi. Speaking of the latter, this short series is actually kind of a independant spin off to Kemutai Hanashi, as Touko is a colleague of Takeda's and shows up in v2 with a very reference heavy panel showcasing her marriage ring. I think the first time I read that chapter I was wondering if that was some implication of her being kinda not so happy in her marriage. Well, here we go with being completely off. Kemutai Hanashi also feels like a a more optimistic mirror to Heriditary Triangle. Because over there it feels incredibly melancholic, but the end result will be what they never will be having in Heriditary Triangle again. It's like generally much more light hearted and softer than the anguish that Kemutai Hanashi pictures at places but it's also as if it's like the version in which they all lost to the world. Why did Touru run away? Because he was scared. Why did the other two get stuck at where they were? Because they, too, were scared. And why? Ultimately because the preconceptions that float around, which they were soaked in, that they wouldn't be able to keep what they had as a threesome. They weren't able to properly qualify the issue before it was way too late. And without qualifying it there was no way their worries would ever have settled down. It kind of. Feels avoidable, while also in a way not. Not easily. Not in the present world at hand, where there is so little there to use for qualifying. And the only reason Kemutai Hanashi has what it has is because Takeda didn't let go and he's one who can acknowledge them to exist but be like he's going to do his own thing regardless, because he kinda just disagrees.
I wondered if, but ultimately don't really think Hayashi-sensei puts Takeda out as a sort of "solution" to the quagmire that is. But just drawing out the mere possibly and painting the frame of how to approximate an attempt at qualifying it is I think quite grand. Maybe the chance for everyone having a Takeda in their life is really low, but the chances to be able to pick up a book as a possible crutch or waysign is so much higher.
Which is to say, if you can read it, do so, it's out in English now!
Alsp this pout is an SS-rank.
Moriarty the Patriot: Up to v19 - Uh, well, proably having a years long break inbetween and then reading it a bit out of order wasn't the brightest idea, but what do we have here? A series that takes vast liberties on the original Sherlock Holmes. Makes the whole cast pretty boys. And then mixes in some James Bond lore. Literally turns Irene Adler into James Bond himself and at that point it was just kind of really hard to take the series serious whatsoever. (It felt similar to Bungo Stray Dogs if anything. Take some original characters or author names and jumble it all together into something Rule of Cool.) (Oh and John Watson turns into Doyle himself.) Which. is really too bad, because it went off a route like this:
"I want to have you around in my life"
"Me too"
"Are you done exchanging your marriage vows?"
This is actually interesting. (That likely makes another entry to the Queerplatonic Vibes list.) I mean what do we have here: Enjoys day to day bantering and bickering and trying to outdo each other in brains. Is ready to kill has actually killed for the other. Is ready to die for the other. Actually briefly even literally died before getting some reanimation by a new character neither could have expected to exist. Decided to sit time out and to refrain from interaction with most of anyone of importance in his life that he actually survived, which basically means, had no second qualms about laying down his life as it was before and start a new one. There is a sort of care and not being able to leave each other alone that clearly has zero zilch and nothing to do with anything romantic or sexual. Yet they probably have a spot in each other's life that nobody else can replace. (You'd first think it may be because of their brains and observational skills making them the only peas in the same pond, but IQ wise it actually showcases some others on par with them, like Sherlocks brother even beats Sherlock himself in deductional skill at times and in terms of being eccentric oddities there's plenty characters more out there than them.) And while it's definitely helping their chemistry of getting along, Sherlock's retrospective on how they first met and that it wasn't just about seeing through it on an observational and deductive brainy matter, but also taking the correct emotional interpretation was just had him stumped and sink deep, because it felt validating to his deliberate life choices was a quite nice touch.
And the above scene was also pretty funny, because "I want to have you around in my life" is just a really nice phrasing (that occurred to myself occasionally, too) and that it just gets this ironic twist with those marriage vows is just funny at this point. (Especially with how it's clear its a sort of ironic blurt out by Billy who gets the idea between those two.) I mean most of the time just felt like Fujoshi fooder that totally knows what sort of fodder it is trying to be. (Just look at the bridge scene. It seems downright primed for it). But at this point it just overtly contradicts any of it.
But overall, I don't think I like the first half all that much. It's still been rather eh with how James Bond showed up, no matter how clever you make that word play on that name. Irene/Bond herself/himself got almost a whole value to make a point that gender expectations are dumb because here's one who can both both perfectly, but it kinda all mostly drowned in showing offs of the pretty boy face and moves. (Though in that new arc her switches between female and male presenting at will looks much more natural boastfully playful just doing whatever she feels like doing.) To me all that Rule of Cool quite distracts from something that could really have some more spotlight. Probably I think the two MCs just didn't have enough actual natural interaction between them for such a build up of such a strong emotional entanglement before it suddenly escalated. A lot of its fleshing out it also happened in a retrospective.
But I'm not going to say nay to it being there now.
So, why does it have to be stuck in hiatus land when it finally got a few interesting somethings to offer?
Oshi no Ko - finished: Uh. That.... was something. Although my first thought was "Oh. So that Anime ending was actually a literal spoiler?" I think my major qualms boil down to the last 1.5 chapters. That Aqua's whole reasoning for his last actions seems wacky at best, is something I could even buy. His whole being was driven by revenge, as Goro even says to him in his dream, it was a refuge and sactuary. And all of that has concluded, what's left is somebody who is very lost. (Very very lost.) And then clinging on the next dubious idea that gives a way out sounds even plausibe to me as a shortcircuted runaway action. To have him declare that as his "mission", even sounds like a fantatical last staw and even that it suddenly showed up almost out of nowhere would have just fit in. Because really, it is all a dumb idea. His father is an adult, he had just stabbed himself. Could just well have been he'd survive on his own, after killing Aqua (which he was even doing until the weird black ghost pulled him to the debts.) Cunny that Aqua is, he could have had lots of other avenues using his brains or inherited skills at human manipulation. He'd have loads of ways and there is no way he'd not notice, but would he want to see them? On that angle, just a bit too bad, that the father never got a chance to do more taunting. Even his demonizing fell short, maybe it otherwise could have stirred some even bigger legit fear in Aqua that this is just not something he wants, but they have undeniable diffrences. Or just generally adress his trauma and mental issues more. The series was plenty able to showcase this with Akane about the inclination of the first bad way out. It did fall a bit short here in terms of poignancy.
Also really too bad Akane failed at her attempt to try foil his dumb ideas. I agree with her, her best shot was actually to mobilize Arima and Arima's firstmost flaw was that she had no clue about it all. She was way to "protected" from the main plot and maybe that's what Aqua just wanted her to be? His innocent protected idol of sort. Ultimately that means she wasn't able to make much of a diffrence and overall Akane was way more able to give him some measure of comfort in the end, even if she wasn't able to illuminate his world properly. (Something Arima even picked up and just had to get the most wrong idea about it as possible. But the scene at the sea under the moon is quite pretty regardless.) Actually what Akane and Aqua had at the end is a really nice fort of dynamic I would have liked to see more of.
Unfortunately Akane's agency in the end was zilch. Arima's was zilch. And Tsukuyomi calls it a sort of preordinated fate. Which would still be fine. (Some things can't be changed about something else no matter how much you try.) And Tsukuyomi trying to give him at least a little bit of salvation in that dream has a nice bittersweet touch. But then it comes back to actually have to show Aqua drown in agony. Which would maybe still be fine if it was there to not surgarcoat how painful such an exit is. But with that double page panel of him smiling and seemingly finding peace and happiness in the end, it just seems wrong. Just really really very wrong. What comes after also sets some notes that kinda feel off especially after it already showed how it can manage to deal with the subject in Akane's arc. So he kills himself and then everyone's heartbroken, but ultimately they stand up and go about they life anyway and Akane muses, but surely that's something he already knew. I mean, that's probably not wrong, but considering that last chapter has zero cynism about it, but is instead filled with an optimistic looking into the future mood about it, it seems just very off as a message it unwittingly (or intentionally?) gives of. Even if Aqua knew that, that doesn't make it any less irresponsible to just go off with that assumption and leave scars behind. Especially if he already knew what his death as Goro has done to Ruby as Sarina before. And the ending really feels just, oh sure, it's sad, but in the long run, it doesn't really matter, because everyone's not just got their life on track again, but are going out of it even stronger. Which definitely is what the montage about every character looks like. Maybe I'd like the ending more, if that last chapter was more either cynic or more stylized as a sort of really unrealiable narrator. Because if you actually thought about it, there is no way Ruby was not scarred for life (even more than before anyway) and then running head first forward into a life full of lies like Ai did with the first lie being one big ass huge lie towards herself and that itself being a sort of warning prompt like, look, this is what all these things can turn people into. (A bunch if pretty broken characters.) But nothing about her at the end has that same balanced "the still water is deeper than it looks" vibes that Ai has about her all the time. And every single other character just goes about their life brightly anyway. And something about this mood just feels very. Wrong.
Does it sour me on the series? Defintely a bit.
But it also gave the world a SSS-rank pout and an SSS-rank glare.
You like me, not my Daughter?! v1-2 - Ok, this really, really, turned into something with surprisingly introspective and mature conversations. At the same time the illustrations just make it a tremendously terrible idea to read it on, say, a commute to work. (This series totally has no need for all the graphically taunting ecchi!!) This is very much a far cry from the author's other series Older Girlfriend, which I had not expected. Anyway, I do like the whole discussion about what getting older and an adult means and does to you about getting scared about losing things, about winding up to just get settled down into something standard, when, even as she thought about it, he actually is quite her type and everything and there not being any proper reason speaking against it except the empty buts. That it even comes and serves up a basically gender nonconforming character was also something entirely unexpected and it does go about it fairly practical. Like how the character himself makes it a point to only dress male in university, because he otherwise may get into trouble about exam fraud, or the male MC always winding up talking about how he's cross dressing, but also mentioning that that's not the way to call it, but also keeps mentioning it, because really it's the easiest tangible way to describe it to somebody who has no idea. Yet the tale also doesn't reduce it to it and makes a point of it's just. A thing the guy does because he likes it and because he can make it look good on him and he also simply just does it within the circumstances that be and the male MC doesn't mind it either. It kinda has zero relevance to the main plot, but is still just organically there in the background without doing any drama or friction about it. Which is kinda nice.
Following is Take 2 on notes for this series, which I wrote later, because I thought I lost the above paragraph andn jsut noticed I didn't ...
I was suprised after the end of v1 just how really short it is. (Some 36k words apparantely.) Other than that I was even more pleasantly surprised at how mature it is. You even get a gender nonconforming side character there and the Taku's whole excuse over how calling it crossdressing is not something the person in question like to call it, but he also doesn't know what else to call it, so people understand it. There is a whole discussion about the inhibitions Ayako has over the age gap and how the goes back to reflect over age and aging in general, about those she reproached in her heart when she was younger, but now came to have an understanding of their likely perspective. All pretty mature and then it serves up this whole Magical Girl Otaku obession of hers, which makes for a suprisingly well working contrast, considering she knows her age, she knows what society would think of it, but still wants to indulge in it.
It's all surprisingly down to earth.
Those. Illustrations.... Of all the things, why do they have to be these picks?!?!
They just make this an absolutely terribly pick to read in the train!!! I do not recommend doing do that. There were a few instances where I got the goosebumps despite scrolling down really really fast to get the picture out of the screen. They feel kinda just like the title - needlessly clickbaity. And truly needlessly, because the series is actually good.
Das (fast) perfekte Fräulein und sein Butler (a.ka. Rich Girl Caretaker: I'm Secretly the Caregiver of the Most Popular Girl in This Rich Kid School.) v1: That was somewhat of a surprise. As in, its premise is a bit dumb and nothing new really and also, it just stays kinda this dumb, but it's also strangely comfy. I guess it helps that the MC girl isn't just a complete dofus - she is just incredibly lazy (possibly because of overtaxation). She can do better, she just has to be... kinda forced to it. This reminds me a bit of of Mia from Tearmoon Empire and maybe that's why I kinda liked it more than expected?
Domestic na Kanojo v23-27: Some impressions from right after reading them: (none for v23 and v27 I had made apparantely and now I can't remember what it was about...)
V24: Natsuo should just pour a cold bucket of water over Hina everytime she sleeps like that. Or properly talk to her to maybe just move out again. That Yakuza arc was kinda over really fast. then back to Miss Actress………… and it's still not over in this volume? Other than that, now it includes stuff like racial prejudice and discrimination, huh. It surprisingly does hold a some fairly serious themes inside this trashy burning cheese dumpster.
V25: Beginning: Oh Hina, you really are so absurdly horny… End: …. riiight, they are sisters, super horny the both of them.
In the middle: yet another poor soul made for cheese distraction and getting his preordinated rejection arc.
V26 Beginning: Oh no, not another creep arc again…
Wenn du deine Hand ausstreckst v1: The cover art has a pretty striking use of blue, which picked my eye. Unfortunately the cover looks several maginitudes better than what the inside winds up being in both art and plot. Which wasn’t exactly terrible, but nothing noteworthy comes to my mind.
The Dangers in My Heart v1-2: I was really not very interested, but then somehow the alternative cover of v3 caught my eye. And then I read it. Now the German release's books are really high quality and everything, but the only thing that kept repeating in my head was how it was so, so wasted on these volumes. Frankly v1 is absolutely atrocious if not completely garbage except for the paper handkerchiefs at the end of the volume. I was prepared on the thing about him wanting to kill her, but that actually turned out to be really short, instead there’s them being quite some sexist jerks going on. Like. Blergh.
V2 has a few more slightly better moments but is overall still pretty just making my cheek twitch in bad cheese. And I am completely and not okay with them eating SWEETS in a LIBRARY. And she gets sticky fingers from those snacks! And they know they are being bad at doing so and doing it anyway. Have some more respect for those books will you!!
Anyway, all that being said. V1 was a 4/10 and v2 a 5/10. The big question I have been wondering on is will it just increase by one score per volume or not?
(Frankly I am amazed how the editor/publisher thought this was a good idea looking at the beginning. This looks almost like prophethic level ability to me considering just how well received the series has gone later on from hearsay.)
Kimi ni wa Todokanai ch44: Oh. Uh. Yeah, this series is getting more and more cheese to be sure. I miss they earlier days of v1-4 somehow.
A Certain Magical Index NT v1-2: Ok, so Touma is back and he's not particularly interesting to read about, in fact even Index thinking over Touma is more interesting than following the boy himself. The cohort he brought with him als also just a bit annoying, too. But anyway, looks like he also brings a grander plot with him, and the other two MCs are still being there. (And that itty bitty Index is kinda not doing much is ... kinda helpful.)
ATLAS: Her, the Combatant, and Him, the Hero Sample: Ok, this was interesting and the characters already seem approachable and likable, I'd like to read the rest. Luckily it's also the winner of the JNC LN Contest so will probably be able to somewhen. Speaking of the contest winners - I found it interesting that among the jury comments the one this one felt the most down to earth, while the others felt more like trying to firely pitch them up. I suppose maybe because this one is just really good and didn't need the additional pitch up?
I Met You After the End of the World v4: I took that one pretty soon after v3, given that one's ending....... but turned out this was a prequel that just continued right where v2 left off and is filling in just a little gap to the time skip. So I guess a while until finding out about how it'll go on.
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? V10, V13, V12, V14: This one had me cahooting. v10 is terribly terribly boring. I considered even dropping it, given I kinda accidentially skipped it and read v11 already and it didn't even feel like I missed much. V12-13 were immediately and considerably more interesting especially back to back and then there was v14 and that's when the series finally caught on with me to me actually liking it. Took just 9 and a half years. Almost ten years!!! This is just quintessentially typical lunatastic I can only sigh. That being said. Lyu is just badass and if there is a ship I am rooting for in this harem it's probably for her and Bell. But yeah, she got cheese stricken real bad at the end... Kinda scared about if she now goes cheese dumb.
Zhou Shen - 若梦 and 借梦 Zhou Shen keeps sticking around on my playlists. And the men's sheer amout of output is also rather astonishing. (It's like a handful of songs per month?) Those two songs in particular had up around for a while, but never stuck to memory, but this time, they played and the mood just fit. Especially 若梦 has a few lyric pieces that just now kinda have an association hardwiring to ch32.1 of Kemutai Hanashi. Some lyric pieces just fit rather nicely. "Life is a like a fleeting dream? How much joy can it hold?" (Like how Arita's just kinda really anxious that it will all just vanish.) "Between heaven and earth/in this cast world all the loneliness", "Even wordly might (lit. iron horses and golden spears) can undo the flame in my heart", "Recollections of the past and its dreams wittle away, as time passes by, "THE PAST FLOWS THOUGH YOUR EYES" (the rainscene from the page above will just float up), "Trying to forget while it rewinds", "Clasp my hands together like a devout prayer" "May you find salvation".
借梦 is less so much about the lyrics, but the melody is also somewhat ephemeral and fleeting-dream-ish, so there is that. It kind fits that mood of Arita's between ~v4 up to that first half of ch32, because after that that suspected fleeting dream ceases to be one and becomes instead anchored reality. (To the characters anyway.)
YLL GRYM - LUST I had been listeing to that one a lot in November/December 2023 and it kind has this same mood of wanting to grasp something dreamy, so came back to it. It also has a pretty nice AMV.
Joywave - Life in a Bubble I Blew ... That's just another one of those I listen to the beat and melody and then it's a sort of cheese song. Darn the usual curse. I mostly really only paid attention to the "That's all I want" part, which uh, I guess kinda made me think oh that ch32.1
But anyhow for all the Bubble in the title it also made me put in the Bubble OST by Sawano Hiroyuki (still haven't watched the movie) and it's a nice background music album.
Joywave - Tongues (Eyedress Remix) has a melody that makes me thing of Mawaru Penguindrum's soundscape. A sort of whistful things are nice and comfy, but they aren't gonna last mood. And the lyrics struck this moon resident somewhat, too: "Sometimes I feel like they don't understand me / I hear their mouths making foreign sounds / Sometimes I think they're all just speakin' tongues / Sometimes you'd think they spoke another language".
The normal version of the gong however has zero of that wistful mood. Instead it's just... peculiar? Which is mostly because of the MV, which is decidedly memorable with it's plotline about clothing being used as weaponry to subdue something like "wild babarians" (though the lyrics and video themes don't seem to exctly line up), and it's also pretty creative, but also. It's uh. What it is. I guess I already got very much brainwashed by the forced clothings rule.
The Stickmen Project - Alright Is like a theme song to what the doujin version of the second half of ch32 is going to be about and what the author had to say about all of them going to be fine. Takeda didn't exactly sing for Arita, but somehow the effects of his speech has a similar feel uplisting feeld good mood to it like this song. (Of course looking up the lyrics it's more likely a cheese song than not...)
Memphis May Fire - The Burden (Interlude) I didn't like any of the other songs of this album, I haven't even lsitened to them beyond some zipping through. But this little instrumental interlide piece struck a chord. Dunno what exactly makes it so, but the sound color just also seems to feature anguish, melancholy, brooding too much, the smokey noise of sorts, it cooking up and starting to escalate and by the end there is an uplisting progression of sorts. (Have a guess why this sone just lined itself up right in there.)
咻咻满 - 孤勇者 (Lonely Warrior) is a cover version the Eason Chan song that's apapranely used for the Arcane series. (Haven't watched it.) I somehow so far like better than the original. For a change, for all the scraming out of 爱你 in the lyrics it's not about cheese at all, but a sort of anthem to celebrate, uhm probably something like the bravery to stik to being yourself. Which is like being a lonely warrior. And also, because somehow everything music that was memorable this month had something to do with Kemutai Hanashi this month, this one also almost sounds like a theme song for anyone on the "mad on behalf of Takeda"-camp.
