Let's do a manga reading log.

I want to get back into doing my weeknotes, but I don't want to cram all the manga and vns I've played over the past few months into a single week, so let's do a dedicated manga reading log! And probably one for vns later too!

Frieren

Since the two main series I was following on the Viz subscription app are now finished, I should try and catch-up with the other one I was loosely following, Frieren. And, I'm going to be honest with you, I don't think it's good. After multiple chapters in a row of characters saying there's some sort of obstacle or conflict, then having that problem be solved by simply turning to the next page and seeing they already dealt with it offscreen, I felt vaguely insulted. They're just standing there in the same generic locations and maybe talking to a generic NPC that Himmel helped some time ago.

"Oh but it's Iyashikei it's supposed to be slow and boring!"

1. I've read stuff like Girls' Last Tour and Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou and I think they're actually interesting :)
2. Frieren has abandoned "post heroic quest" premise a while ago and it's just another heroic quest again. With a focus on pointless fetch quests.

Dropped at chapter 80. I don't care if it gets better later I'm at chapter 80 not 5.

The Pension Life Vampire

Okay, Viz Manga subscription canceled. Let's try another app. This time, Manga Plus. In addition to having from, what I can tell, all the titles from the Shonen Jump app, they also have some more niche stuff which I like. So I went ahead and got the more expensive $5 subscription so I could check out the full back-catalog as well.

The Pension Life Vampire is part of this sub-genre Ive noticed of yuri slice-of-life comedies with supernatural elements such as Gabriel Dropout, Machikado Mazoku, Dragon Maid, and Catulus Syndrome. If you like stuff like that Pension Life Vampire is a cute enough short read at 24 chapters, but it's nothing special. The mermaid x old lady couple are fun at least.

Alas, no one does it like Machikado Mazoku.

My Girlfriend Gives Me Goosebumps

I honestly started reading this because I saw that stupid fucking panel on tumblr.

My verdict? Better than expected. Scratches a particular sort of yandere itch I crave. Two people with a particular set of neuroses that make them think the other is just what they were looking for; all while their friends go "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TWO DOING?". Still glad it didn't go on too long, ending at 27 chapters, I don't think the premise would've sustained itself as a long series.

Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc.

Magilumiere makes me feel blue balled, genuinely. Okay, magical girls in the modern workplace! With maybe one or two exceptions, the labor of the magical girl industry is heavily gendered with magical girls all being women, and engineers and executives all being men. With a setup like this, you could maybe...say something kinda interesting? If there were maybe at least one prominent female engineer, the lack of acknowledgment of this gender divide wouldn't feel so glaring.

And what makes me scratch my head even more is I think Magilumiere wants to say something about the politics of the real world, but rather than going for the obvious workplace misogyny angle, it instead says something about tech startups being the key to solving the climate crisis, or something?

Okay, okay, you don't give a shit about political messaging in your manga, how is it as a cute yuri adjacent series? It's okay, but nothing special. Believe it or not, the weird gender disparity also has an effect on this because when the story is focused on the programming or business side of the magical girl industry, which is pretty often, the girls disappear into the background.

I was going to end this by saying something like "all will be forgiven if President-chan just transitions into a woman for real" but the latest chapter just had to go and hit us with this.

Is nothing sacred?

Machi and Oboro

This one just kinda sucks.

Another short completed Manga Plus. Another quirky yuri adjacent comedy. The humor is weirdly mean-spirited while also not being particularly funny. Great if you want to see girls with only a vague idea of a personality insult each other and then be told their actually besties who mean the world to each other.

Just read School Zone Girls instead.

Make the Exorcist Fall in Love

A real standout! I'm surprised that both the writer and the artist are newcomers, because it's extremely solid in both aspects. Make the Exorcist Fall in Love (Ekuoto) follows an unamed priest raised by the church with the sole purpose of defeating Satan, and Imuri, a succubus sent by Satan to go undercover as a human and make the priest fall in love with her. We got epic battles with cool powers, we got fun relationship dynamics between the characters, and most importantly, we got a lot of gay shit.

The cute art style and quirky demon characters makes me make comparisons to series like Iruma-kun and Senyuu, though something like Chainsaw Man is probably more apt. "Teen with a lot of weird sexual hangups gets drafted into the demon war." Despite that, I still find myself referring to Ekuoto as "Iruma-kun if it were good".

Blue Proustian Moment

You want some fucking gentrification in your yuri? Too bad, you're getting some fucking gentrification in your yuri.

A new series with only 7 chapters out so far, but very strong start! The class differences between the girls isn't just an aesthetic character quirk, but something that actually affects their worldview and how they interact with each other. Really looking forward to seeing more!

Märchen Crown

I'm only here out of morbid curiosity. Something about Akasaka's post Kaguya/OnK career fascinates me. I have my criticisms of both Kaguya-sama and Oshi no Ko, but at the very least, they were something. Then Renai Daikou drops and it's a big load of nothing.

So Märchen Crown? Still early, but so far, more nothing imo. The first chapter spends it's 66 pages being "just the normal fairy tale romance story you already know" for the sake of setting up a "twist" in the last three pages. I don't know, I think the page count would have been better spent standing out rather obscuring the fact your dark fantasy story is actually a dark fantasy story. Twisted fairy tales and dark fantasy aren't exactly new ideas, so like, show me what makes your grimdark world different from the others!

The God of Time

Too early for me to have an actual opinion on this yet but I just wanted to say I'm scratching my head over how they accidentally killed that guy. How did the physics of this play out. How come the railing broke when time was frozen but the guy just floated there. It doesn't really matter but this is all I have to say at the moment. Thank you for your time.

Dandadan

Not caught up with this yet. I'm at like chapter 75. It's weird! It's wacky! I like that! The spirit and alien designs are great, as well as the human/spirit fusions. I do hope we can get more interactions between female characters besides just "jealous and catty" at some point though lol. Even though Ken and Jiji are also rivals in love, their relationship in genuinely sweet, but Momo and Aira so far are not passing that fucking Bechdel test.