Gosplan14_the_Third

...because while you are significantly more likely to encounter casual expressions of say sexism or sexuality / gender based discrimination, casual critique that nowadays is mostly far to the left of the average person's worldview was also significantly more common.

Simply the left leanings of intellectuals like the kind of nerds that were making anime in the 70s after spending university years in a Maoist organization (and eventually drifting back to liberalism)?

Genuine sympathy among the workers involved in making the show, such as when they obstructed the making of that right wing WW3 anime movie? (Future War Year 198X, 1982)

The kind of moralizing about the evil empire from the 50s and 60s growing unpopular (+ the Ls the west took around then) for a bit and Corn Man's "policy of peaceful coexistence" becoming mainstream even among average liberals?

Liberal nationalistic concerns that the confrontation between cold war blocs was merely something Japan was stuck in and was harmful to it? Europe had a lot of that, even in the 2000s!

Probably all four!

The source is Combattler V, Episode 2 (1976)

Pretty neat. It also moves. And there was a projection on the wall of the shopping mall it's at, featuring Char, Amuro and Lalah. A neat place to wait for a bus at.

Another month gone, another month older, another month at work.

𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚

I've been reading Great Teacher Onizuka and so far it's almost exactly 1:1 like the anime... which means, the horribly aged ableism is about to hit, beyond all the other problematic stuff. Beyond that, it remains as fun as I remember. It's neat. B+

𝐀𝐧𝐢𝐦𝐞

Gundam SEED has managed to make it across its entire 50 episode run without making me too annoyed or in amused disbelief over the nonsense happening on the screen. Really, it's... alright. I wish Kira and Lacus were less wooden characters. Athrun and Cagalli were significantly more interesting and 500x more likeable than Ange and Tusk in the trainwreck of a show named Cross Ange, who used them as a ~~self-plagiarism~~ source of inspiration B-

SEED Destiny too... has been pretty alright so far. However, I do like Shinn's character. That man has definitely every reason to be as angry as he is... but I am fairly confident the show won't do too much with that. Speaking of Cagalli, wow, that is a massive downgrade in character writing compared to S1. Supposedly, there's IRL drama that caused that! C+

CITY is Nichijou 2, not much else to say about it. It doesn't quite live up to the predecessor, and with the shorter show run it probably never will, but it is undeniably still a good show. A

Dragon Ball Z - almost done with the Freeza fight. That was... pretty long. But consistently good, even though some previously impactful stuff, like people dying, is not much of a big deal now. A

Ranma 1/2 is also consistently entertaining. Not much else to say about it at this point. A

𝐖𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐀𝐧𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

I knew Gravity Falls was always a highly regarded show... but I did not expect it to be this good. There's an iconic cast of characters, compelling storytelling... it's just very very competent at what it sets out to do. A+

𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐕𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐨 𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬

A challenging Super Robot Wars game in the year of our Lord 2025? One that has, so far, good writing? One that is available in a language I speak? Y is shockingly good. I've been on a binge this weekend. A+

Wake up, eat, commute to work, work, lunch break, work, commute home, two hours, fall asleep, repeat

Manga

Blooming Love is a pretty generic romcom. A competent one so far, but it's VERY familiar slop. B-

Anime

Gundam SEED, at around 3/4 of the show is... alright. It has not shit the bed... yet (?). Definitely not the best, but less of a trainwreck I expected. We'll see about SEED Destiny. B-

CITY. Nichijou 2 is peak. The most recent episode was mesmerizing, and like a comrade stated, it evokes the feeling of being in a social situation and being sensory overloaded quite well lol. A+

Nisemonogatari. Horrible Oreimo flashbacks. Please no. Kizumonogatari was shockingly peak before that (but I am de jure a goth and vampire slop is always fun). Apparently the infamous toothbrush scene is as horny as it gets. Will it continue being questionable? Almost certainly lol. 🥴

Dragon Ball Z. The refrigerator man is a good villain. The pace is still slowwwwww. A

Western Animation

Gravity Falls is still fun. Though I feel so far Mabel was a less obnoxiously written character in S1? Stan on the other hand, a kid friendly version of Quark from DS9. I love that old bastard.

This video focuses on conformity and racism, and yes, social conservatism, and really it's because capital's ideology is doing great these days.

In spite of its malaise, a lot of people are chasing after wealth in the grindset, or get-rich-quick schemes like crypto, "AI" hype or r/wallstreetbets like financial speculation (no cooincidence the subreddit pfp looks like the men shown in the video).

Another month, another time to be exhausted by employment.

Manga

Nothing new! Just slowly reading new chapters of Shibuya Near Family and reading Full Metal Panic! Sigma at a glacial pace.

...but

Manhwa

Villains Are Destined to Die! - finally finding a second korean comic that is not in the wretched long strip format*, and it's a really good one. The isekai is interesting, the game mechanics actually feel like they add to the story instead of being there because gamers. The writing is shockingly excellent, with the story being unpredictable so far, and there is a sense that there something below the surface. Maybe I'll be disappointed yet (probably by the lack of John Browning tbh). but this is one of the best manga (oh wait) I've read in a while.

( * - idk if all the chapters so far are available as comic pages unfortunately)

Anime

Following Gundam G-Spam being mid, I have instead jumped onto two other series: Gundam Unicorn and Gundam SEED. I don't have high expectations, and so far both are... okay.

Dragon Ball Z is getting slow. But it's consistently good so far! Maybe I'll turn sour on it in a hundred episodes. Probably not.

Monogatari, oh boy. The show's source of deserved sordid reputation does rear its ugly head sometimes. Other times, it's an entertaining Shaft show, with all that entails. Bakemonogatari was pretty good, with Hitagi Senjougahara being the standout character, but the Kizumonogatari movies were genuinely very entertaining. Probably because I'm a member of a goth-adjacent subculture and I love vampire slop lol.

Before it released, I joked about CITY: The Animation being Nichijou 2... but it is Nichijou 2. I'll miss the original's characters, but this is very promising, based on episode 1.

You're Under Arrest! continues being shockingly entertaining. The show's main strength is the Patlabor style workplace shenanigans with the ensemble cast, as well as the reoccurring characters, which the author is surprisingly good at not forgetting about. Strike Man is a hyperchad.

Also a few shows I need to watch more of to mini-review.

Western Animation & Live Action

Evil triangle guy is the only thing I knew about Gravity Falls, and I have now reached them. The show is very fun so far. Stan's Quark for zoomer children.

Andor started kinda slow, but the heist episode was fantastic, and the quality is indeed as high as people claim it has. And season 2 is better? I'm looking forward to it. Even though I'm going through it slow, since I mostly watch it when it's pretty late and I don't have the energy to stay up that much anymore.

"the Soy Right is an unbearable mix of Reddit corniness and Twitter self-satisfaction"

The confrontation between Machu and Nyaan ended up being kind of a nothinburger, and Machu easily succeeded in awakening Lalah. So what did that do? As we discovered later in the episode, something. Maybe the third impact again. We can never have enough of those, I suppose.

Enter Char.

The final confrontation with Kycilia happening on a theatre stage was a forceful, but still pretty good visual symbolism. As they have their talk, the play is crashed by the MCs of the show, who take the wheel in the usual search of Mr. Walking Plot Device, who sheepdogged them back into Lalah's presence. Kycilia gets unceremoniously dispatched as not relevant anymore to the plot, and both Chekov's guns go off, not at who'd you'd expect.

Char getting subconsciously magically dressed into his uniform by Lalah was utterly hilarious and blatantly a "hey guys its me, the guy from the merch" moment.

And while the battle outside rages on, we discover - Mr. Walking Plot Device is... from the UC, and might be, if I interpreted the scene correctly, Amuro Ray - here to destroy the G-Spam timeline.

Queue the late 80s Album Oriented Rock / Synthpop blend, it's Beyond the Time time, and time to bring back the RX-78-2 to the fight for the cool of it. Gonna buy the merch yet?

My cynical commentary aside

Any thoughts on the episode? I liked most of it, beyond the quick dressup scene I mocked and the finale. Lalah as a world ending threat (or is she? that's actually a question that remains unanswered and is interpreted differently by characters!) was probably an inevitable plot development, in a society that knows only the apocalypse and status quo (I'm talking to you liberals), and Char vs Machu vs Nyaan could have been a decent final battle for it.

However, the ending was just awful imo. If that is Amuro in the graffiti man's soul, or inside that Gundam, then any conflicts from the G-Spam universe become completely meaningless.

It all becomes background noise to Amuro vs Char, because Tomino wrote so in 1979 and 1988.