Anime ATM 101 Kimetsu no Yaiba

Confession time: I put off watching Demon Slayer until maybe three weeks ago because it's rated R on MAL and the last time I watched something rated R on MAL was ReZero and I couldn't sleep for days after. And because I love myself and didn't want to not be able to sleep again I refrained. I was pretty adamant about not watching it, but I was eventually persuaded because my housemates said they would watch it with me.

{Spoilers, but so many memes are out there you've probably seen the equivalent of the anime}

For the first couple of episodes, my housemates would say "warning" before any blood showed up. And for the first half of the season I was super disturbed. But I figured that you know I'm 20 years old now so I should be able to handle it now. I'm a strong independent woman and I can for sure watch gore and demons no big deallll. And even though I watched the entirety of this season, I can't say that I could handle anything more gore-y. Already this was kind of hard to watch at some points. *wheeze*

So, as we all probably know at this point, the concept of Demon Slayer is that there's this boy named Tanjiro who's really hardworking and wholesome. One day he goes to town to sell firewood to provide for his family and comes home to his whole family slaughtered and his sister Nezuko who "survived" but is now a demon. RIP the most cute checkered family :(

With a crazed Nezuko in tow, Tanjiro runs into Giyu who's the first demon slayer he's encountered. Because apparently in this world, demons aren't commonly encountered and most people don't even know about their existence. With Giyu trying to kill the only surviving member of Tanjiro's family, Tanjiro stands up against him to protect her and earns Giyu's respect I guess? So then off Tanjiro and Nezuko go to Urokodaki's house for Tanjiro to train to be a demon slayer. All the while Tanjiro's training for the Final Selection where he would go, as the name would suggest, to the final trial for him to become an official demon slayer to avenge his family.

The arc with Urokodaki and all of the children that he trained to go to the Final Selection that died was a really well-emotionally developed story line. It showed the anguish and difficulty people that want to become demon slayers must take and how it's not without risk. And I think that even though the demons are so ugly, they juxtapose the demon slayers so well in making their feats even more impressive. (LOL if this sounds terrible it's because I'm exhausted and my apartmentmates are playing MarioKart behind me)

One of the charms of Demon Slayer is how well-developed all of the characters are. Even though Tanjiro could come off as "holier than thou" because he's so wholesome and genuinely compassionate towards everyone around him, it wasn't ever annoying or overbearing. This is probably because the man's work ethic is actually insane. And the way that he cares for Nezuko is really amazing like he just carries her in the wooden box on his back for miles and miles even when he's injured.

Because the season is 26 episodes, I kinda feel reluctant to go through each of the arcs. But they linked nicely together with only a few filler episodes in between that felt more like a welcome reprieve for our heroes to rest up while they trained for the next battle instead of a complete waste of time. And every time they were in the middle of an arc and the episodes would end it would be almost a given that there was a cliffhanger. That's one of the reasons I was happy to binge the show because the cliffhangers weren't too bad on my part. Especially during the spider arc that went on for what seemed like forever, it was handy that all of the episodes were out by the time I started watching.

As I finish up the season, V has actually just started it (honestly one of the only times in this day and age that I'll have watched a show before him) and he says that the first two episodes outline a plot very similar to Jojo. Personally I haven't watched Jojo, but even so, this is amazing.

Especially the final fight with one of the Lower 12 when it was Tanjiro and Nezuko against Rui, visually the whole fight sequence was amazing. In general, the way that they animated the show was so engaging and beautiful, it was hard to tear your eyes away from the screen.

As all shounen hero anime go, a lot of this show was about personal growth and development to defeat the bad guy. However, it was so interesting to watch with all of the interesting and unique characters like Inosuke with his pig head and Zenitsu with his awesome lightning power but cowardly nature. And the Hashima! They're so cool! Everyone is honestly so cool in this show because of their power/specialty. So no I didn't get bored with the endless cycle of personal growth, probably because Tanjiro is so hardworking and the gore kept me on my toes.

Overall, I think this was the most hyped anime of the season and it was well-deserved. It also has this season's best girl, cutie Nezuko who really stole the show. But just the way that they would animate the characters with vacant eyes were super cute as well hehe. And Kanao!! Such a cutie!! It was a good balance of cool powers and fight sequences, scary gore scenes, and engaging characters.

It was refreshing to watch. It's been a long time since I thoroughly enjoyed a show and couldn't put it down this way. It reminded me once again of why I fell in love with and started watching copious amounts of anime in the first place.

Honestly I'm kind of disappointed in how unable I've become in conveying how amazing this show was and I should've allowed myself more time to just soak in how impactful the show was, but alas I just jumped in headfirst. So, just know that even if my review is quite brief and all over the place, I genuinely enjoyed watching Demon Slayer. It was especially cute to watch it together with my housemates hehe.

Manga Match 93 Cardcaptor Sakura

This is a real childhood nostalgia moment for me. When I was in elementary school, before I knew anything about the world of anime and manga, I went to the bookstore with my grandparents and encountered Cardcaptor Sakura in the form of this tome of comics that you read from right to left. I didn't know what manga was and I didn't really know what I was getting into, but I really liked that book. I liked it so much that I tried to find more online and I found these random, really poor quality rips of the anime on Youtube or something and watched those. But then someone took them down I think so that was the short life of my independently discovered love of this manga. 

Fast forward like 10 years and I finally finished the manga. To be honest, I think I had the second or third volume of the manga all along, because only halfway through did things start to look familiar and it made sense why I was always so confused over what was happening. 

{Spoilers, but it's pretty cutesy so not a whole lot of plot twist}

As we all know, Cardcaptor Sakura is a magical girl manga created by the iconic CLAMP. It centers around this elementary school girl Sakura and her quest commissioned by Kero-chan (aka Kerberos) to capture all the unruly Clow Cards wreaking havoc on her city. Clow Cards are kind of like spirits trapped inside each of the cards with a different power such as illusion or fire and were all created by this famous powerful magician named Clow Reed. Sakura goes around with her friend Tomoyo and later on Shaoran to capture the cards. This is the basic summary of the first arc anyway. In the second arc, Clow Reed's presence is mysteriously felt after the Clow Cards have been captured and mischief is afoot once again in the city. To deal with this new obstacle, Sakura changes the Clow Cards into Sakura Cards and becomes more powerful along the way. At the pinnacle of this second arc, Clow reveals himself to be reincarnated as Eriol, a transfer student in Sakura's class. He needed Sakura to gain magical strength in order to split his magic into two so that he was no longer the most powerful magician and could live a normal life. 

While the plot may seem a little bit childish and like every hero story, I think there's a bit of charm to be found in the whimsy of childhood found in this manga. Because it centers around elementary school children there's lots of wonder and innocence to be found. And there's quite a bit of diversity in terms of Yukito and Touya being a canon ship as well as Tomoyo's unrequited love for Sakura. 

Maybe I'm just partial due to the childhood nostalgia factor, but this was such a fun read. It really brought me back to my little magical girl stint and made me really appreciate the genre once again. I think it's obvious that I'd say you should read the manga. It's full of a little girl with a can-do and hopeful spirit saving the world and all of her friends supporting her along the way. It's wholesome and whimsical and delightful beyond words and I think if you like my recommendations, you'll find this one to your liking as well!

Manga Match 92 Heavy Object + Itsuka no Haru

I don't want to spend too much time talking about Heavy Object. It was slightly perverse with a really rushed plot that randomly took place in Alaska with a few heroic individuals and was altogether just ok. I think V thought it was worth a go since my unexpected genre that I enjoy is mecha. But...these mechs weren't super cool. It was just ok. 

Would I recommend this? I'd say that maybe because of how short it was, 5 chapters, maybe it's worth a quick read? But honestly they reach a little too far for my liking for the jokes and it was pretty rushed. So otherwise, I think you can find some anime at least that are a lot better (haven't really gotten into mecha manga much yet so I can't vouch for that medium but I'd assume as well that the longer series are probably more worth it in terms of return on investment).

The next manga I want to talk about it Itsuka no Haru. I know how in After the Rain I kind of bashed the age gap. I think it's just because they're in such different places in their lives that it just seemed a little bit of a stretch. But in this one, I guess the age gap is a little less so it's kind of ok? Maybe I'm just trying to justify myself here. Anyways, this is a short little story of Yui and how she helps her classmate that's actually 10 years older than anyone in her class experience his youth. It's a bit touching when they explain that Itsuka had to drop out of high school in order to take over his family's soy sauce company after his parents pass in order to carry on the tradition and provide for his family. I think I just have a soft spot for these kinds of touching backstories that just add to a character's dimension though. In general, the story is kind of basic, but it's just really cute to see this guy that was robbed of his high school life get to go back and reclaim his youth in a way. And the romance is just an added bonus hehe. I know, I'm just shoujo trash, whatever!

And would I recommend this? Yeah I think that it's pretty cute and a short read for some quick doki-dokis. Hmmm...comparing the two manga of similar length with different content...I wonder if I'm biased hehe whatever.

Anime ATM 100 Koi wa Ameagari no You ni

I do realize that there are many many many great anime out there that I have yet to experience. And I also acknowledge that if I don't really like an anime I can just drop it. I further acknowledge that my taste has become trash because I just watch whatever gets put in front of me. Now that we've addressed all of my various shortcomings in the world of anime, shall we discuss Koi wa Ameagari no You ni otherwise known as After the Rain?

{Spoilers}

In terms of atmosphere and setting the mood, the show is very successful. It's got this rainy day aesthetic where it's always almost about to rain, in the midst of raining, or just after the rain...as the title of the show would suggest. As a self-proclaimed pluviophile, I thoroughly enjoyed this aspect of the show!

Alright, to start my short synopsis of the show, it would be something along the lines of: there's this girl named Tachibana that's a junior in high school who used to be on the track and field team until she experienced a horrible injury to her Achilles tendon. In despair over her injury, she finds refuge on a rainy day in a cafe/family diner where she encounters its middle aged manager that cheers her up with some cheap magic trick. From then on, she falls in love with the cafe's manager Kondou and works part time there in lieu of after school track activities. The story mainly follows these two and Tachibana's honestly taboo love for the manager who's deep in the middle ages of his life at 45. However, I think it went in a different direction than I was expecting. I was expecting the manager to be kind of reckless and accept Tachibana's love as some sort of honor like "oh I've still got it and I can date a high school girl even though this is blatant pedophilia." However, the show takes a twist on this expectation of mine and instead replaces it with this clumsy love that I can almost support. Tachibana herself is a little socially awkward, not being of many words but having a truly kind heart. The manager is kind of the same, a very sweet and soft-spoken guy that according to Nishida, another waitress at the diner, kind of stinks lol. He kind of gives off the vibes of a pushover that just lets everyone walk all over him. For the first part of the show, he stays as this confusing object of Tachibana's love, but even his backstory is explored. In the past he was a college student with big dreams of being a novelist, but life got in the way and he ended up divorced and the manager of a diner, too scared to write anymore and disappoint his younger self. When he encounters his old college friend Kujou who acts as a foil for his character, being almost everything that Kondou isn't.

By the end of it, I think the relationship between the two of them as well as everyone surrounding them pushed them to revitalize their dreams and chase after them. We left off at a bit of an ambiguous ending in terms of if Kondou and Tachibana ever get together, but it was a bittersweet kind of ending that I really didn't mind.

Overall, I would say it was visually very beautiful. It's the kind of anime that I see a lot of those people who make AMVs and compilation videos pulling from. In terms of actual content though, it was pretty slow and soft-spoken, if you could use human attributes to describe anime and not be weird lol. I'd say there's definitely a market for this kind of thing, especially if you're looking for some kind of age gap anime or some pseudo-romance type of thing. However, I wasn't absolutely blown away.