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What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga)
What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.
If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!
Currently watching Intrigue in the Bakumatsu. There exists a certain, extremely specific type of person who's super into both Japanese history and historical fantasy, for whom Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto is The Show. I'm not that person, but I like it good enough. 7/10 so far, though I'm only 15 episodes in and liking it more the further I watch. I had trouble getting into it at the start, but at this point I'm forcing myself to stop watching and go to bed every night. I highly recommend it if you like historical fantasy where a lot of characters have their own Wikipedia pages.
KonoSuba Season 3.
KonoSuba has a great name, translated as God's Blessing on This Wonderful World! and written この素晴らしい世界に祝福を or Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! but they just peel the first two syllables off of Subarashii to get このすば or "KonoSuba" and they prepend this neologism to the front of the title like a typical arXiv paper.
It's another issekai, the angle here is that it's comedic in the tradition of Gin Tama or The Simpsons. Many people could find a lot to be offended about in this show because it centers around crass and crude humor but some people were offended by Saturday Night Live back in the day.
The character Megumin from KonoSuba is one of the top anime characters of the 2010s, she is an edgelord wizard of the Crimson Demon clan who devotes her entire life to the practice of explosion magic which she can cast just once a day and which so depletes her energy she has to be dragged away from the scene. Darkness is a warrior who can'hit anything but seems to take great pleasure in taking pain. Aqua is a stupid alcoholic goddess who reminds me of Homer Simpson whose only saving grace is being an undead magnet and casting a mean turn undead spell. Kazuma, the protagonist, to his credit, is always respectful of Megumin because she's a minor.
I thought Season 1 was a hoot but that the recurring gags were getting cringey in Season 2. They made a spinoff series about Megumin which has less off color humor than the main series because Megumin is a minor but it's less funny overall. If you're going to watch it you're going to watch it anyway because you moe for Megumin but I did find myself liking Megumin a bit less at times because of her being cruel to YunYun.
Season 3 just started last month so I binge watched the beginning and would say: it's still funny but less cringe and so far has had 3 good episodes and 1 of filler. I like it's formula of humor based around very single-minded characters who are a blast to watch interact even if they don't always like each other very much.