HELL yeah for Cardcaptor. And I've been curious about The Orville, so maybe I'll check it out!

Reading

I finished volume 1 of Handa-kun. Kinda meh tbh. The anime was decent but I guess (1) the jokes work better in animation; (2) the jokes often don't land as well the second time; and (3) I'm just not the same person I was when I watched the anime.

The other comic books on my shelf haven't really been enticing me at the moment, and so I've sort of turned to my e-reader instead. More specifically, I've started reading a manga called Sweat and Soap. I felt sort of embarrassed/awkward about trying S&S at first, because based on the description alone it Really Sounds Like A Fetish Thing, but I was reassured by the fact that it's actually a pretty long and well-rated manga that even got a live action TV adaptation. I mean, it does have plenty of stuff that will make you blush, but on the whole it is a genuinely pretty solid office romance story with themes like communication and shame and all that.

In terms of non-comic books, I also finished The Catcher in the Rye and I must say it is a very good novel, I highly recommend it.

After finishing TCITR I tried getting back into Crime & Punishment but the fourth chapter has not a single paragraph break (and also contains a surprise N word!) so I'm not really feeling it right now. Nor am I really feeling Ulysses or Sub la Meznokta Suno, or rather I haven't really dug into them yet. I just got a nonfiction book about the Norwegian labor movement of the 20th century as a gift today in anticipation of Labor Day, so that'll be interesting to check out.

With me mum

We're continuing Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated, Kodocha and Sailor Moon R, although Moon has largely been displaced by Kodocha. We really love Kodocha.

No progress on Serial Experiments Lain in the past month, but now that we've finished Steins;Gate (OVAs and the second season notwithstanding) we might start coming back to Lain.

We finished the third and final season of Furuhata Ninzaburo, but this doesn't mean we're out of Furuhata content as there's still a number of specials and TV movies for us to go through.

We're nearly done with the first season of Ojamajo Doremi. Top tier magical girls!

We started watching Mono recently, and it seems like it's gonna be a very special show. Same mangaka as Yuru Camp and similar vibes to that manga, except it's about photography and filmmaking instead of camping.

I showed my mom two episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), namely episodes 6 and 7, the latter being the episode with {The Thing, IYKYK|"Edward… friend…?"}. She responded very well to it. I think she'd sort of assumed that FMA was Just Another Shonen, and was pleasantly surprised that the show actually has Themes and Good Worldbuilding and Intrigue instead of just being a bunch of pew pew dudes brawling or whatever. So she wants to watch FMA with me some time, but who knows when that will materialize.

Obama's Elf

I have at last finished Tokyo Mew Mew, and I must say…… Not the best magical girl show I ever watched? Obviously it was good enough for me to finish — I wouldn't be watching it if I didn't enjoy it — but out of all the magical girl shows I've liked enough to finish, TMM probably ranks dead last. Frankly, animated TMM fanfiction by preteens goes harder than TMM itself, which makes me curious about how the 2020s reboot, Tokyo Mew Mew New, compares to the 2000s anime. But it'll be a while until I'll feel like checking that out, I think.

I've also seen a bit more of Maison Ikkoku, but I've really been prioritizing TEPPEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Laughing 'til You Cry lately, which is an anime about all-girl manzai trios competing to see who are the best comedians. But a bit like how Joshiraku isn't Really about rakugo, Teppen is less about manzai so much as it's just an excuse to put a bunch of kyawaii schoolgirls with eccentric personalities in the same building and see what happens. Fans of Osaka-ben will be delighted by this one.

No progress on Avatar: The Last Airbender in the past month.

Others' Blorps

Garg/Grebgreb finished showing the first season of Magic Knight Rayearth and moved onto the second season, with a brief intermission to show Blue Submarine No. 6. I didn't get super much out of Blue Sub because I missed a lot of it to deal with my dog, and I was sort of distracted in general, but if nothing else I can say it has a nice ED. Rayearth is something I continue to have mixed feelings about: I found myself genuinely enjoying it by the end of the first season, but I sort of lost that energy with the start of the second season. But we'll see if I'll get it back!

I saw a bit more of Tatsuki Fujimoto 17-26 but didn't really care for most of it. I only really joined for the gender swap episode.

I stayed up very late for the Soviet short film "Film Film Film", which was nice to rewatch. Angel's Egg was also good eats.

Clara/Carcharodonna has been showing Daria and 31 Minutos, but I've sort of lost interest in them, or rather I didn't really care for Daria to begin with, which is a shame when it is such a classic of old Seppolandic adult animation. Clara has also been showing Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, which I'm much fonder of: she recently finished showing season 1, as well as the OVA and some BTS for the English dub, and has now moved on to season 2. She accidentally showed the first episode of season 2 in Japanese, and IMO that was a double-edged sword: English dubs are easier to follow when you also have to pay attention to the chat, but P&S S2 has a completely different English voice cast compared to season 1, and I'm expecting to find that incredibly jarring. Switching from dub to sub is far less jarring IMO.

Clara also recently showed the pilot for Hazbin Hotel, and I'm not sure what to think of it. I was surprised by the style since I've only seen still images and promotional art, and the writing was a mixed bag… But it is a pilot, so it's gonna have some jank, right? So we'll see where it goes from here.

Own Blorps

With @AernaLingus@hexbear.net I've been watching The Idolmaster and it's been a much bigger hit than Watamote. We were also both pleasantly surprised to find out that The Idolmaster is the source of the music for the "De-De-Death Dekomori Desu" MAD/meme.

On Saturdays I've finished showing Turnabout Storm — very solid Phoenix Wright x MLP:FiM fan miniseries. I also finished showing the first season of The Owl House and have moved on to season 2. This coming Saturday I'll be showing the first three episodes of Star vs. the Forces of Evil and the first two episodes of Uma Musume: Pretty Derby, and I'm excited for both, but especially SVTFOE, which I was a big fan of as a teenager.

On Wednesdays I've been showing Squirrel & Hedgehog, a furry military drama from the DPRK. I also recently showed some fanime, including Terrance Terribly Troubled, PRISM, Magikí Akarí, Crystal Hearts: The Movie, and we're also continuing Magic Heart and the Magical Warriors. Terrance and Magikí are the best of these fanime: the former was rated as the best fanime of 2026 thus far by Cuban and Doggo, and the second best by myself (after Panties Warfront), and Magikí was rated as the third best by myself and Cuban. Magic Heart is something I can really only recommend as an oddity or curiosity rather than as something strictly Good.

As for my own fanime, Blazoner Narazen, I've finished prescoring ~70% of episode 1 (~8.3 minutes out of 12 minutes total), or ~60% if we don't count the intro, outro, and eyecatch (~5.4 minutes out of 9 minutes total). The deadline is July 15, i.e. 76 days from now, and the days seem to slip by quicker than I expect. Yet I remain confident that I can get episode 1 to a presentable state by the deadline, i.e. prescoring and storyboarding if nothing else.

I've finished showing all of classic Fireman Sam and so I recently showed the first episode of the 2005 version, i.e. when Sam was modernized but still stop motion. Cuban called it "Fireman Sam: Shippuden". I didn't really care for it tbh. Classic '80s/'90s Sam has this really nice slice-of-life atmosphere and timeless all-ages appeal that I think was lost in the 2005 reboot, and certainly the 2008-to-present reboot.

And so I've now started showing Joshua Jones instead of Sam. I describe Josh as having a relationship to Sam comparable to the relationship between Tamako Market and K-ON! — i.e. same studio, same style, similar vibes, but still their own things. Joshua Jones is notable for having a Romani protagonist. Once I finish showing Josh I guess I'll stick with Bumper Films and move on to Star Hill Ponies.