The English study chapter (and part of a dance chapter later) was fairly entertaining as, just like Humbert Humbert in Lolita, 君子 takes every opportunity to comment on how uncultured other people are, how bad they are at English, and even goes as far as to talk even more about how ナオミ feels just like a compromise for him.

When describing one of ナオミ's superficial interests, 君子 mentions that she refuses to ride in train carriages below second class. I feel like train carriage classes are sort of a thing of the past, so it was a cute cultural thing to note.

エンジェルビーツ
I watched this series and (part of) シャーロット at my partner's request and honestly didn't know what to expect. It turns out this is basically a comedy series with a strategic beating of pathos thrown in to catch the viewer off guard.

The story is basically about a new "student", 音無, who wakes up at a school for dead people and finds himself quickly fighting against "angels" on the side of the living humans. Because death is meaningless in this world, violence is used frequently for comedy at a scale I'd never really seen before. 音無 dies again within the first episode (and wakes up shortly afterwards), and other characters' lives are thrown at problems like Lemmings. Thankfully the story finds interesting workarounds for a world without death, and the stakes for the main cast are raised towards the end.

While 音無's story was quite compelling, especially after finding out his backstory through some hypnosis-induced memory stimulation, I was moved by the other characters' backstories and resolutions more strongly. There was a love story element that built up over the second half of the series and, while I found it fairly moving, 立華 (the love interest) is written to be intentionally fairly emotionless and even after the emotional turn I didn't really connect with her.

カードキャプターさくら
Just a little bit of this this week. The first episode gave a little more backstory to Sakura's relationship with her mother. The second was a nice little vignette about a child who wants to respect their father's painting, leading to a mini-museum heist. The next two episodes introduced and elaborated on a new Cardcaptor character - a tsundere Chinese boy. ダンダダン

The resolution to the Nessie mini arc. Watching this episode I mostly couldn't help but notice that every character involved ends up on the hero side as the story progresses.

MONSTER
I have about 15 manga volumes to read before meeting my goal for the year, and I decided to read this series as a way to enjoy this story for the first time and to complete the goal with a single series. A highly skilled surgeon, テンマ, regrets his hospital's focus on "priority" patients at the expense of common folks. At a critical moment he goes against his boss's orders and saves the life of a young boy. This turns out to be the worst decision of all time.

Apart from some complicated medical terminology, the inclusion of some overly long German words, the story is mostly pretty straight forward and engaging. I love テンマ as a character and find his pure devotion to saving lives enjoyable to watch.

シャーロット
The second of two anime I watched to enjoy with my partner. I had heard that this was also a spiritual successor to エンジェルビーツ, but I was surprised how different the details have been so far. There is still a call to action for a male protagonist which quickly brings him into a rag-tag group of teenage found friends, however this series is set in the (sort of) real world with the twist being the existence of X-men-type super-powered teenagers. Like its predecessor, this series is mostly comedic with a light mix of emotional moments which I'm sure will ramp up.

It doesn't take long for the affected character to overcome the grief caused by her misfortune, and she re-enters the fray by the end of the following episode. A fast turnaround, but the curtains were closing just as fast so, why not? Her final monologue is fairly powerful, but I think the story was missing some more conflict here, and instead it more or less ends there.

The resolution of the story also came fairly suddenly in the second-to-last episode, giving the final episode space to act as a farewell to the characters なのは was able to meet. I really liked the symbolic trading of ribbons between なのは and フェイト.

サーシャちゃんとクラスメイトオタクくん
The themes and content didn't deviate far from the first volume. サーシャ and 藤原 continue their playful demi-romance.

A mini-arc I enjoyed this volume involved 藤原 finishing the draft of his first eromanga—a story about a submissive girl and a dominant boy. サーシャ reads it enthusiastically, but she's disappointed by the final product, saying that it lacks an honest expression of 藤原's tastes. After some conversation 藤原 decides to flip the roles, reworking the story to focus on a submissive male character. This story is revisited later in the volume. サーシャ rereads 藤原's new draft, loves it, and they celebrate his win. It was a nice exploration of the role of honesty and introspection in the creative process.

This volume also includes a little Russian-language lesson. サーシャ explains how middle names are passed down by fathers to their children, with a little twist. Male children take the father's given name and append -(o)vich, and female children append -(o)vna.

The volume sort of touches on サーシャ's backstory. Her mother and father have separated and she lives alone with her mother who spends a lot of the time out of the house. Her father still lives in Russia and has started a new family.

Unfortunately I won't be reading any more volumes until at least February 2025 because I don't have access to my physical book collection. Ah well.

カードキャプターさくら
I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked the five episodes I watched of this. The animation was absolutely gorgeous, さくら and her daily life are rendered with so much care and attention. I loved how tender and warm the world felt. I had heard vaguely of (though it wasn't the impetus of my interest in the series) a romantic tension between さくら and her older brother's classmate, 雪兎. Being so early in the series, it's hard for me to judge the situation, but so far it seems like little more than one-sided infatuation from さくら. I suppose it remains to be seen how 雪兎 returns the affection as it goes on.

I am a bit worried the series won't have legs for 70+ episodes simply due to the formulaic structure of episodes. Each episode so far hasn't deviated much from: 1) Introducing some daily life vignette, 2) introducing a Clow Card covertly disrupting things, and 3) さくら and friends figure out how to capture it. It's an oversimplification, maybe, but the show is definitely very firmly in the "monster of the week" subgenre at this (admittedly early) point.

A few small visual notes: Even more than なのは, this show has some absolutely phenomenal costume designs. The "magical girl" outfits, supplied by her friend 知世, are all extremely cute, and I think it's a genius move to encourage outfit changes every episode. The daily-life outfits are also well designed. It's a very pleasant show to watch for that reason. I noticed that さくら grows magic wings on her feet just before leaping off a building in episode 1. なのは also used Hermetic wings to fly. I wonder if there's a shared inspiration.

痴人の愛
This is my next novel after finishing Lolita. After I mentioned reading Lolita, this book was recommended to me by someone saying it has similar themes. This book was written in the 1920s, so it predates Nabokov's book by about thirty years. I suppose I'm getting deep into a particular kind of storytelling at this point.

This book is about a middle-aged man who falls in love with a fifteen-year-old waitress at a cafe. 君子 is infatuated by Westernness because of Japan's honeymoon with the Western World. He perceives ナオミ, whose name and physical features resemble Western girls more than her peers, as a perfect future wife.

Like Lolita's Humbert, 君子 mostly talks about ナオミ in terms of the value he sees in her as an asset. It was interesting to read him say that, while ナオミ is not the most attractive woman he's ever seen, other qualities, such as her youth and malleability, make her the perfect girl for him. Unlike in Lolita, 君子 sort of goes through some courtship rituals in order to spend time with ナオミ. That's kind of an indictment a time and culture which would permit such a thing, really. There was a fun line where 君子 describes his perfect house, with a maid and a caged bird, and follows it by saying that he wishes ナオミ would become both.

I've also found it interesting that ナオミ likes to read. Reading is kind of an intellectual hobby (and probably signalled intellect even more in 1920s Japan) so it implies a richness to her personal life that I appreciate.

I've found it far more approachable than the Japanese translation of Lolita, and even more approachable than 太宰治, however it's still quite challenging. A lot of Japanese novels of the time deviate quite a bit from contemporary Japanese. A few common words use unconventional kanji (云う instead of 言う for example) and some uncommon words are used with a higher frequency (to be fair, this could also be attributed to a particular author's preference).

ダンダダン（漫画版）
Continuing directly from the previous volume, volume 17 is set almost exclusively within the cursed game board. 桃 and ズマ discover some new mechanics of the game, progress towards (what they imagine is) the end of the board, and get hit with a little cliff hanger. It's kind of a shame バモラ has been so snubbed in this arc, because she's #1 girl.

ダンダダン（アニメ版）
Another low-energy episode to start. A welcome change of pace from the previous episode. This one mostly focused on integrating 愛羅 into the party, developing the romantic tension between オカルン and 桃, and introducing the next major threat.

ストレッチ
This is a manga by the same author as ヴァンピアーズ. I read it on the plane to fill in some time. I honestly don't have much to say about it, except that it didn't hold my attention very well. Some of the stretching advice made me think about my own relationship to my body, flexibility, and health, though. That's something.

ルックバック
Kind of a weird one to be right at the bottom because it was definitely a highlight of the week. I've been anticipating this movie (mini movie? short film?) since it was announced because the manga version of this was actually my introduction to 藤本タツキ. This story easily remains one of my favourites of the last few years. I adore the way it uses a few simple moments to create a highly emotional beats. Definitely a must-watch film if there ever was one.

Two interesting notes on chapter 25. When Humbert talks about his dreams and waking visions of Lolita he says that her form is never stable — that she shifts between Valeria, Charlotte, and several other girls and women he's known (sexually?). The chapter then goes on to include a lengthy poem he composed directed towards Lolita. It's quite dense, and I'm certain I'd miss a lot of its nuances reading it in English as well, but I really enjoyed it. He mostly refers to Lolita as Lolita within the poem, but one time the translator uses ロリヰタ, replacing the vowel elongator with an archaic character ヰ, which sort of evokes an ancient, mythological presence and lifts her up and outside of the mortal world. There is one mention of Dolores Haze in the poem but, more interestingly to me, he also refers to Lolita Haze. That stood out to me because I'm certain it's the only time he's called her that, and it felt like the first time that he didn't properly separate out their essence in his mind.

Synthesising some thoughts about Chapters 23 and 25 (24 was just one of those really short stop-gap chapters, but I guess you can include it too), something that has been stewing in my mind since at least part 1, chapter 28, p. 227, the conversation with the smoking "ally" at the hotel. Humbert is aware that what he's doing is unacceptable, but that's never more evident to me than when he worries that someone else will do exactly what he does. He wants to see his behaviour as the only acceptable version — one that somehow prevents harm, or at least comes with good intentions — and he sees the exact same action by others as a threat. You could zoom out and apply this to any (monogamous) relationship dynamic, but I think it feels particularly relevant for people attracted to minors. Perhaps in the same way that virginity is so highly valued in Western culture, there's a desire for people like Humbert to be the sole partner of their victims. Another (somewhat related) thought I've had reading these chapters is that I feel like I underestimated how serious Humbert's love for Lolita is. At this point (assuming my timeline of events is correct) Lolita is rapidly aging out of her status as a nymphet, yet Humbert still pursues her. I imagine at this point he could just cut her loose from his mind and he'd be totally safe from legal trouble, but he's risking his own safety and freedom to "save" her. Perhaps it's true love…

Chapter 26 (well, the end 26,) introduces Rita, a woman who enters Humbert's life by chance amidst his journey to find Lolita. At first I thought that she was proof that Humbert could move on (and I'm sure that's somewhat intentional) but it becomes quickly apparent that he sees her as consumable as his past relationships. First he lists her positive qualities (mostly how nice she looks and how kind she is towards him), then he gives a bit of her history (thrice married), and finishes off her introduction by explaining that she's one of the stupidest women he's ever met. He says that compared to Rita, Valechka (that's right, intentionally unearthing her hate name) and Charlotte are like philosophers. Not only does that push Rita down, it also brings up additional contempt for Valeria and Charlotte. By that point I still expected Humbert to move on and start a life with Rita, but it's clear that he's still obsessed with tracking down Lolita. They may or may not have killed a man…

Eventually Humbert receives a letter from Dolores updating him on her situation (she is married and pregnant) and asking for money (between $300-$400, but anything would do,) to help her and her new husband move to Alaska for work. She signs the letter Dolly (Mrs. Richard K. Schiller)

Humbert writes a short note to Rita saying that he's leaving, sticks it to her stomach while she sleeps (she simply wouldn't notice it otherwise, you see), and then packs some things and heads out. I should mention that there has been some attention given to a gun Humbert possesses for the last 10 chapters or so. Since its revelation (around the time of Mr Trapp) it has existed as a weight in Humbert's pocket, and a reminder of the violence he's capable of. So anyway… Humbert has a gun, a plan (sort of), and a rough destination. He then uses the next chapter or so travelling across country while pinpointing where exactly Lolita settled down.

Chapter 29 is a big one. Humbert rocks up to the Schiller residence and sees Lolita for the first time in a long time. She's 17 now (Humbert's framing makes me feel like she's getting so old, but she's still a child…), her tan has faded, and she's heavily pregnant. She invites Humbert inside and offers him refreshments, and later when Richard (Dick) returns, she introduces Humbert as her father. It's interesting that Dick calls Dolores "Dolly" and that she reciprocates that title in her letter to Humbert a chapter earlier. "Lolita" is a title that Humbert assigns to her and eventually starts using openly for her, but we never see an instance of her referring to herself with that name. That instance made me feel that her relationship with Dick is at the very least more mutually desired by her, despite other hardships.

Humbert gets trapped in his own mind for a while in this chapter, wondering how many times the two of them had sex, putting Dick and Dolores down, and generally just coping through the fact that he lost. The gun weighs heavily in his pocket. Dick gives Humbert and Dolly some more time alone to talk. Dolores explains a few of the gaps in Humbert's knowledge, though I think the man who "emancipated" her is still left unnamed. Dolores smokes and Humbert notes in his mind that she holds the cigarette just like Charlotte did. Humbert hands Dolores an envelope with $4000 USD (about $45,000 USD after inflation) and asks her to simply take 25 steps out of the house into his car so they can be together again. Dolores interprets this as him paying her for a night together and Humbert insists that it's not like that. He wants her to willingly return to the road with him so they can have what they used to have. The conversation kind of dies there. Outside, about to return to his car, Humbert asks once again if she'll be his Lolita again and she simply responds that she can't. So he pulls out his gun… or he doesn't? It's complete bait for the reader? As she says さようならあ he claims that she's already dead, already living forever in his heart. He drives off as tears pour down his face and rain beats down on his (dead wife's) car.

Chapter 30. A short chapter where Humbert drives off to a small nearly town and cries over a flickering neon sign.

Humbert returns to Ramsdale. The Haze house is newly occupied by a family, and Humbert is immediately infatuated by two young girls (roughly 9 and 10 by his estimation) who he greets kindly. The girls run inside and their dad comes out angrily, shooing Humbert off. At that point, Humbert realises that he's still dressed like a total bum. His shoes are covered in dried mud, he hasn't showered, and his sweater is has bullet holes from his target practice a few days earlier. He decides it isn't worth turning on the charm and he just turns away and leaves.

Humbert hunts down Quilty, his longtime rival and the cause of his torment over the last few years. The next major part of the story involves him driving out to Quilty's estate and confronting him with gun in hand. Quilty explains that he is simply a "lover of children", and that he did nothing wrong to Dolores. They wrestle and fight and at one point Humbert pauses the fighting and hands Quilty his poetry (which Quilty comments on). A line in this poem was the last time I sobbed in the book.

生毛の生えた幼い娘
まだヒナゲシを髪に押し
まだポップコーンが大好きで
[...] 

Quilty goes on a long rant about why Humbert should spare his life. He'll provide girls, give him room and board for free, he has rare books of male genitalia! Humbert starts blasting. There's a bit of a chase, and Quilty has a few false deaths, but eventually Humbert more or less feels satisfied and he heads down stairs. On the bottom floor he meets a bunch of guests. He announces that he has just killed Quilty and one of the guests remarks that it'd happen sooner or later anyway. There are two girls sitting on a couch, both minors from Humbert's estimation, and the younger girl doesn't speak. Humbert leaves.

As he drives away, satisfied that he's done everything he can, satisfied that he's righted the wrongs of this story, police pursue him and he ends up crashing his car. He gets out and walks on the grass and lays down, listening to the singing of young girls. He writes briefly about his time in prison, how he wrote this book, and how he hopes Dolly Schiller will live a good life and raise her child with love (even if it's a boy!). He wrote not to save his neck but to save his soul.

負けヒロインが多すぎる！
It's an absolutely gorgeous anime with some interesting, somewhat complex characters, that suffered a bit by the male MC's perspective (though it also had some benefits… I have complicated thoughts about him) and the kind of boring ending. In my opinion the closing thought of episode 11 was better than 12. I really liked the bond between 温水 (the MC) and 八奈見 (the blue-haired girl), and I loved the "loan" gag that played out through the first few episodes. I also mostly liked the other girls, though I think they mostly make bad first impressions. I think my favourite parts of the show were the same-sex bonds (not necessarily friendship or relationship.. not sure what the best word here is). For example the late-night chat between 温水 and 光希 (the blonde boy that 🍋 likes) just felt like a moment you don't get much in shows like this. Boys who aren't just trying to one-up and fight over girls… damn.

ダンダダン
Look, it's peak. More than anything else this week (even Lolita, which has become my favourite Japanese novel, despite comprehension issues) this 20 minute episode was just so moving. Such a beautiful blend of writing and audiovisual storytelling. I was sobbing.

魔法少女リリカルなのは
While I enjoyed episode 1 a few weeks ago, I was a bit worried the charm was gone from episode 2 onwards. It's honestly fairly average for the first few episodes. Nanoha has to collect magic mcguffins, we find out those mcguffins create more powerful monsters if the 想い is stronger, a rival appears, and we learn that the rival, Fate, is trying to collect the magic stones for her mother. At first I thought maybe her mum was dying or dead or something, and the stones would save her or revive her but… in episode 7, the show's premise takes a hard turn into some kinda weird, kinda interesting places. It turns out Fate is the daughter of an evil villainess witch who lives in an interdimensional palace. Fate's mother abuses her and wants nothing to do with her except for how well she can perform the role as a magical girl. Shortly after we meet another mother and child pair, a spaceship captain (yes they introduce interdimensional space travel) and her son, and the son, くろの, is a magical boy (so progressive). Shortly after Nanoha gets involved in the interdimensional space stuff, she asks to speak with her own mother privately, and there's a short time skip where Nanoha's mum learns about everything and lets her daughter go enlist in the magic war. It's kind of wild… In episode 9, just one episode after joining the spaceship crew, Nanoha has already gone against the captain's orders to let Fate exhaust herself in combat with a powerful monster, and she goes down to help out. I really liked the visuals of this episode. Some great and artistic shots. At the end of the episode Fate has effectively teamed up with Nanoha and Fate's mum is very upset.

Resuming chapter 6, a chapter dedicated to explaining Humbert's perception of Gaston, a professor of Beardsley College (Beardsley surprised me. The phonetic translation, ビアズレー, made me think it was French) who plays chess with Humbert occasionally (Humbert can't stand him).

The college arc had two fun moments. In chapter 11 Mrs Pratt, the headmistress, brings up a number of concerns from various professors of the school about Dolores' progress with the school. Her academics during elementary school were also notably lacking, so I was reminded of the moment towards the end of part one where Humbert provides Lolita's vitals. According to him, she has an IQ of 121 (Ch 25, p. 192). I came up with two possibilities to explain this (both or neither could be true and, as always, the 2nd language translation + non-comprehensive reading certainly doesn't help with my interpretation or grasping of details):

• Lolita is really not all that smart (Humbert's methods to estimate her vitals were questionable at best). It's another way for Humbert to justify his behaviour. This would make her "smarter than the average girl" after all.
• This is Nabokov's commentary about some way the educational system fails precocious, curious, or "gifted" children. Much of Dolores' academic issues seem to stem from the ways it doesn't serve her needs or give her a healthy place to explore herself, free of objectification.

Anyway, chapter 11 fits into the mould of "Humbert makes a list" except that he relays a list provided by Pratt. I enjoyed it. And it kind of leads into another thing I enjoyed in the Beardsley arc…

In Chapter 14, Humbert comments negatively about how Lo looks and acts. It was the first time (or at least the first time in a while) that I felt like I could see cracks in his constructed version of her and was confronted with the fact that she is a real person. Lo runs out of the house and flees into the town in this chapter, culminating with her begging Humbert to let her leave school. After he agrees they go home and she asks him to carry her up the staircase, because she's in a "romantic mood".

The pair stop at a motel and Humbert lists things wrong with the room: Humbert can hear another guest placing his coat on a hanger in another room (thin walls), the ash tray still has ash from a previous guest (gross), there is a woman's hair on the pillow (also gross), and then… (unsure if this is negative or neutral but,) there is artwork of identical twin girls hanging above the bed. It reminded me of the duality of Dolores and Lolita. Both share a body, but different places in Humbert's mind. By total chance I went to an open gallery for a clay sculptor this week. The artist, Rowena Hannan, uses young girls as devices a lot in her artwork. Of a sculpture (you can see here) of two girls in a boat, she said it was inspired by Helen and Clytemnestra. Apparently, despite being of the same "stock", Helen and Clytemnestra are treated very differently by their society. I don't know Greek mythology, and their entries on Wikipedia indicate that they aren't identical twins (though that may differ depending on the story). Either way, it sparked a thought about the way that children (often girls) can be put into categories before they're at an age to understand what it even means.

A more clear connection to the identical twins presented itself a little while later in the book. A "detective" who looks like Mr Trapp (トラップ), one of Humbert's relatives from Europe, follows the pair in a red convertible. That this man "looks like" another man fits into the twin angle (though I didn't make this connection at the time), but later, after feeling like he had finally lost Trapp, a red convertible appears to make Humbert doubt himself. The second convertible, referred to as an identical twin, is driven by a group of young men and women. So there's a sense when the second vehicle appears that Humbert is on edge at every turn. Perhaps it represents his anxiety about being caught.

Chapter 20 was quite pleasant. Humbert describes Lolita while she's dressed to play tennis. He writes:

年齢に加わっても、杏色の手足をして、ローティーン用のテニスウェアを着た彼女は、 以前にも増してニンフェットらしくなった。

He goes on, describing her body and outfit in more detail and wishing he had filmed her to savour the moment for later. I genuinely enjoy reading chapters like this. Maybe it's just because the difficult moments are too difficult for me to enjoy, or maybe because I'm absorbed in Humbert's world, but I just like to read Humbert's passionate poetry towards Lolita. Another aspect that I related to was this wish to preserve moments. At the time of writing Lolita, technology like cameras would have been far less convenient or available, which kind shows that his desire to do so outweighed his concern about money or safety (recording pictures of your victim is certainly not rational behaviour). I'm not someone who often takes photographs but I still probably average a few pictures a week simply due to the lack of barriers — smart phones are extremely convenient. I often regret not preserving moments, but I'm also aware that the act of disconnecting myself from a moment in order to capture it inherently changes my relationship to that moment. There's not a simple way to simultaneously be "in the moment" and "frame a perfect shot".

In chapter 22, Lolita suddenly gets sick! Humbert rushes her to a hospital and is forced to spend his first night in two years without her. He spends two nights (that I could pinpoint) separated from Lolita and both times he's free to indulge in the fantasy of her without the inhibition of Dolores' presence. These moments sort of hammered home how much Humbert is in love with the idea of Lolita. He's definitely still interested in Dolores physically, and it's clear that he gets a lot of satisfaction from her presence, but beneath the anxiety of being separated from her it felt like there was some sense of relief in those nights.

Finally, at the end of the same chapter, Humbert returns to the hospital only to find that Lolita has checked out without him. A man directs a police officer towards him but, he once again seems to get out of facing any consequences. There were some details in this chapter that I look forward to clearing up in the English review.

フルーツバスケット 2nd Season
[WARNING FOR SOME SPOILERS UP TO THE END OF S2]
Oh no… just like every time, I got to the end of this season and just sort of felt very little. There were some great twists and turns I didn't expect at all, and some character moments were quite well done, but I really felt like I was going through the motions trying to finish this before Sunday. In fairness there were a few noteworthy episodes and characters to discuss.

I reassessed my feelings about 綾女 in episode 15 when he "saved" 由希 from their mother at school. I could finally see how his strong personality can be used for good and not simply as a tool for annoying others (though that was basically how it helped).

Episode 16 had a nice moment between 紅葉 and モモ, despite them not physically meeting for the episode. 透 acts as a vessel to understanding how each of them wants to connect with the other. モモ doesn't understand the tragedy of the situation and 紅葉 is unable to do anything to resolve it, so there is quite a powerful sense of yearning for familial love, a novel situation to be in.

依鈴's whole deal is… kind of fine but annoying. I really like that she struggled with abandonment and sees her own life as a resource to prevent the suffering of others, but she just feels a bit too tragic for no reason at times. I was really hoping she would actually die when pushed off the balcony, though in hindsight I can see how the story is better served by giving her and 透 some time to develop together.

One last element I did not expect, and which I'm not sure how to process yet (I'm currently just feeling like "how does this affect anything?") is (major spoilers, sort of) the revelation that 慊人 is a woman . I can see how it enables certain pairings to exist (in a kind of homophobic way) but… and maybe this is just because I'm based and open-minded but… I don't think this fact changes very much about that character at all, nor does it recontextualise anything up to this point. It's basically a lateral move that deserves heavy spoiler tags because it comes so late in the story and is unexpected.

I have a promise to watch Season 3 in the United States, so I'll be putting the series on hold for at least a few weeks. Perhaps the time will give space for this series' flame to grow hotter in the meantime.

ダンダダン
I worry that my lack of commentary about this show is taken as a lack of enthusiasm and I want to clarify that is not the case at all. Of all the anime I watched this week this was easily the most engaging, stylish, fun, and noteworthy. The only problem is that the weekly schedule gives me very little to discuss in the moment.

If you aren't watching ダンダダン you should be. I don't really watch much traditional 少年 genre media, but I believe that 龍幸伸 and 藤本タツキ (of Chainsaw Man, Look Back, and FIREPUNCH fame) are masters of the craft, weaving some of the strongest emotional writing into some absolutely gorgeous settings.

As a basic example of the strength of the writing. Even though I read the original volume in 2022, simply the preview of episode 7's material made me cry like having an old wound reopened. I hadn't thought about that particular story in two years, but its notes rested inside me waiting for this moment. I think that's pretty powerful. かくしごと

Most episodes followed the same (not bad but not amazing) formula:

• 姫 engages in some new activity, expresses a new desire, or asks for something.
• It becomes a problem for 可久士 because complying could compromise his secret.
• 可久士 teams up with his assistants to satisfy 姫's needs with some tomfoolery.
• There is a punchline where 可久士 had somehow overblown 姫's request and could have resolved the situation more easily.

The final episode breaks the mould by being entirely set in the "flash forward", a point of time where 姫 has "grown up" (she's still young, but no longer 10 years old), which featured at the end of the other episodes to contextualise the main content of the episodes as memories. In this episode we finally find out the fate of 可久士 — he was working in a warehouse after his manga career ended, but lost his memory after piles of manga fell on him. The episode had some nice emotional moments. I liked that 可久士 calls out to 姫 as a "new assistant" and asks her to check on his daughter "back home" because he's worried about her. It must be so difficult to be put in that situation by someone who doesn't know any better.

Overall I liked the show just okay. The gag format was fine but I was definitely craving the pathos of the final episode by the end. The wordplay (as mentioned last week) was definitely a strong point, and 姫 was super cute at all times. The dog was kind of annoying though (I think its voice was just too human… even if that was probably 90% of the point of its humour).

ロリータ
Chapter 29 starts as a very interesting one-man performance with a second body in the room. Just like chapter 28 it mostly plays within Humbert's head as he can't get himself to take what he has right in front of him. Lo shifts in and out of consciousness throughout the night, and I suppose that's sufficient for him to feel too uncomfortable to make a move on her. So he spends the entire night floating through the room, pacing, waiting for a divine decision to call out and give him a sign to go ahead.

Eventually Humbert falls asleep. When the sun rises he and Lo wake up. The second half of the chapter pivots into the first real sex scene of the book. It's quite long, filled with all the expected Humbert charm and trim, and more begging the reader to understand his point of view.

Chapter 30, I imagine, is the chapter "depicting" the actual sex act, but it's so dense with metaphor that I honestly didn't really get it. It's about one page long, but I'd probably have to spend a few hours deciphering all of the text. Pinned for the English re-read for sure.

Chapter 31 is yet another dedicated to justifying Humbert's actions. "The age of maturity is 12 in Cincinnati, in St Louis, in Chicago." And Dolores was born only a stone's throw away from Cincinnati…

From what I could infer they have sex around three times. When cleaners approach the room, Humbert anxiously pushes Dolores into the bathroom -- I think he's generally a bit pushier in the final moments of this act. Dolores occupies herself by reading a magazine during the hotel checkout. Her lack of communication frustrates Humbert, but he's aware of the volatility of the situation so he doesn't want to push his luck. Eventually she breaks the silence, pointing out a dead squirrel on the road. Then she tells him that she's mad at him; that she ought to call the police on him for raping her. She calls him a gross, perverse, old man. He doesn't disagree.

They eventually stop at a gas station and Dolores spends an unusually lengthy time (according to Humbert) in the bathroom. It's fairly clear (from the way she is described sitting in the hotel lobby and the car seat, and the private time in bathroom) she this is a result of her being in some kind of pain or discomfort or stimulation in her private areas from sex.
When she returns she asks for money to call the hospital so she can ask about her mother. Humbert finally relents with the truth.
Of course I'd known the truth this whole time; as a reader I almost feel like an accomplice sharing in Humbert's blame. But when he finally told Dolores the truth I felt like I was hearing it for the first time, and tears rolled down my eyes. In his narration, Humbert is able to objectify so much of the story. Last week I barely covered the horror of Charlotte's death because it just didn't feel important in Humbert's version of events (it's kind of a relief at the time). But she was Dolores' mother and a woman in her own right who was just trying to protect her daughter.

The final chapter of the act is equally devastating. First, Humbert itemises a variety of items bought (to relieve Lo's distress, no doubt) in Leppington. They stay in individual hotel rooms, but Lo comes to cry in Humbert's room before the night is out. He closes the act explaining,

おわかりのとおり、彼女にはまったく他のどこにも行く当てがなかったのである。

Part 2 started off fairly slow for me. The first chapter sort of catches the reader up on how the road trip is going, but a large portion of it was dedicated to how Humbert is upset that Lo is not really seeing his point of view. This chapter included one section that I really enjoyed, though. For about 2-3 pages, Humbert goes on a long-winded monologue to Lo about their situation. I think this was the first time he's ever really gone full rhetoric mode on her (as opposed to the reader). His arguments start off fairly familiar: "look at these photographs, see how other people have enjoyed our kind of relationship before. See how normal it is for a father and daughter to love each other like we do." That sort of thing. He then brings up the Mann Code and another case where an adult man was charged with imprisonment and slaving for what he did to his 9-year-old daughter. The purpose of this was for Humbert to then explain that Dolores is not 9, she's 12. She's not a child, she's capable and mature. The third point of rhetoric was what I could only describe as, "This is the best of a bad situation". He explains that if she were to go to the police and have him locked away he would go to prison, sure, but she would have a black mark against her reputation forever. She'd no longer be able to live a carefree life, wearing whatever she wishes, travelling across the country, interacting with whoever she wishes. She would be put in her own prison by society who would see her as a victim who can't act freely. It's unclear if any of his arguments really get through to her.

The remaining chapters I read this week (2-5 and a bit of 6) include anecdotes of various places they visit. I recall Humbert listing clouds and weather patterns at one point. Hills and farms at another point. Dolores rides horses, they play a bit of tennis, and full year passes.

Eventually Humbert decides that they need to deal with the money issue. He catalogues the cost of the trip so far, and it's clear that he doesn't have enough money for another year of travelling. Chapter 5 and 6 mostly feature an all-girl's school that Humbert is interested in. There was a fun part towards the end of chapter 5 where he describes a property he was staying in which had a perfect view of the girl's school, and how construction workers came and started building a wall blocking his view. He really is the most punished man.

At this point Humbert has also introduced his long-term plans to create generations of Lolitas. It's honestly so absurd that it's hard to take the plan seriously at all.

フルーツバスケット 1st Season
花島's backstory episode was very good. A great start to the week of watching the show. It really demonstrates the strong bond between the three main girls, and particularly 透's ability to accept anyone without bias or fear. The episode about 夾's true form came and went. The same final scene that I loved was present in the remake, but all of the high drama and setup just wasn't there this time. 透 is able to accept 夾 much more readily, and she does it without the support of 由希 or her girl friends.
The final episode of the season is the 藉真 x 夾 backstory episode. It's done about as well as the OG anime version. The second half of the episode introduces (or at least makes prominent) 由希 's (still unspoken) 'secret' which he seems torn about sharing with 透. It also sets up some cliffhanger moments in anticipation of…

フルーツバスケット 2nd Season
Episode 1 of the season starts with a remake of another OG episode I enjoyed -- the 皆川素子 episode. Not too much was changed, except the moment that 素子 realises she will graduate and move on from 由希 and others mostly comes from herself this time. It felt a bit less impactful to not involve her friends and the tragedy of time on all kinds of relationships. The episode also introduces two new characters, 真鍋 and 倉伎. Something about them is just up, and 真鍋 in particular rubs 由希 the wrong way. 由希 really hates having his feminine features surfaced… some deep trauma I hope we can examine later.

Summer holiday starts and a large portion of the cast spend time in a beach-side resort home. The head of the family, 慊人 finally gets fed up with 透 and decides to pay her a visit, flexing his power over the rest of the family. He threatens her and basically tells her to leave his family to their (his) devices. He also reveals that he is the kami/god from 十二支 mythology which I wasn't expecting. According to him the other members of the family draw energy/life from him, which is why they can't run away or kill him or anything. With this development in the story I can see how some people could consider the OG anime a bit of a hasty conclusion (but I still felt like it was good!).

ダンダダン
I watched another 2 episodes of this. Not too much to add, except that I had sort of forgotten the specifics of the Turbo Granny storyline and it was fun to watch 綾瀬 and オカルン execute their plan to draw her out of her territory. I'm still in awe of how good the show looks.

かくしごと
This was one that I sort of just had downloaded (crunchyroll offline mode) and available. It's about a dad who wants to keep his identity as a famous mangaka a secret from his daughter so that she won't discover that he wrote ecchi manga.
It's basically just a gag anime but the episodes have been pretty funny so far. Each episode is split into two parts.

There have been some funny gags that involve made up manga-based terminology. One was 漫豪（まんごう）, a play on 漫画 and 文豪 to describe a master of the manga arts.
Another was 漫筋（まんきん）, a play on 漫画 and 筋肉 to describe the different ways one can work out their body by reading a variety of genres of manga. It's very silly but pretty funny.

ロリータ
At the start of the week I was close to giving up on this version of Lolita. I was enjoying what I read, but I was wracked by the pain of not having total comprehension of the Japanese (ignore that I wouldn't have total comprehension of an English version either) and spent one afternoon deliberating on what to do next: keep reading or pivot to a more approachable book? I decided that I couldn't forgive myself if I gave up. I read the book in English first I'd never get to it in Japanese, but the reverse order probably won't be the case. So here's my lengthy report on the week reading Lolita.

Starting from chapter 10, Humbert Humbert comes to live with the Haze family in New England. The entire description of the home is filled with negativity and, just like earlier chapters, there is particular attention placed on hating Mrs Haze, the woman showing him hospitality.
It's strange that when I read his derogatory statements my immediate reaction isn't, "What a horrible man," it's, "Glad I'm not like them". I feel like my heart seeks his approval, and I'm simultaneously aware that no adult could meet his standards. This theme continues for just about every instance of hate that Humbert brings up (which is not uncommon at all), so just imagine my distress at those points, I suppose!

After a chapter of dejection Humbert finally sees Dolores Haze (Lolita) for the first time. He dedicates the rest of the chapter to poetically describing how perfect she is. He really does have a way with words. Even though I'm reading in Japanese I'm totally convinced that the English underneath it all is something special.

Chapter 11 introduces Humbert's diary chronicling his time spent observing and interacting with 'L' (Lolita). I passed a few iconic lines in this chapter. The first was his recognition that the content of the diary would incriminate him but,

顕微鏡で見ないとわからないようなこの筆跡を解読できるのは、愛情あふれた妻だけだろう。

The second noteworthy scene was when Humbert uses his tongue to remove a foreign object from Lolita's eyeball. While parts of the scene were fairly easy to understand, I felt that I missed the moment that the object went into Lolita's eye, so I had to re-read the page to make the two points meet.

This was the part that made me worry that reading in Japanese would rob me of essential parts of the story. In hindsight I will at least say that there have only been a handful of scenes that, like this one, gave me a sense that I was really missing something. That isn't to say I wasn't missing things at other times (for all I know my entire report could read like delusional fan fiction), but I'm at least more confident about most of my reading.

Chapter 13 is not in the diary format, but I honestly found the prose more or less the same. Humbert still describes his daily life spent with ヘイズ夫人, and Dolores. This chapter features the first scene where Humbert reaches climax while accompanied by Dolores. I enjoyed reading Humbert's messy blend of guilt and pleasure (mostly pleasure). The fact that Dolores seems unaware of it, and that he never mentions it to anyone (except us, the readers) contributes to this sense that Humbert's lives every moment of his life weighing the sins of his inner world. I wonder if he could have lived a happy life passively generating pleasure from the company of young women without taking matters into his own hands, or if this book is the fate of all people like him. He references a song where a man sings to a girl he loved, Carmen, who he shot dead just moments earlier. I'm unsure if this is a confession that he's aware of the danger he poses to Dolores or if it's just his way of being romantic. I tried looking up the song but couldn't find any version which matched the lyrics (even partially).

Chapters 14-16 were not so much a blur as a lull in the story for me. Dolores is preparing to go to Summer camp, much to Humbert's dismay. There was an interesting part where Humbert describes Lolita as a separate entity from Dolores. One day, inevitably, Dolores will grow up, but Lolita ― the nymphet Humbert obsesses over ― is a static concept that just maps perfectly onto Dolores at her current stage in life. The two month Summer camp is eating at Humbert's mind since he knows he won't see her for two of her "best" months. The end of chapter 16 had one sweet and one bitter moment.
I adored when Dolores ran out of the car right before her mum drives her away. She dashes upstairs to hug Humbert goodbye. As someone in a long-distance relationship I could relate to that "one more moment" feeling. My partner and I always try to squeeze in that final embrace right up to the moment that one of us has to board a train or aeroplane to travel thousands of miles apart.

The bitter moment, of course, is the "love letter" from C. H. After Mrs Haze and Dolores drive off, the housekeeper hands Humbert a love letter. The first part is about what you'd expect, but after a paragraph break Mrs Haze breaks the façade and writes an urgent letter encouraging Humbert to leave before she returns. The first time I read this I took it as the "revelation" that she had discovered his improprieties, but later (ch 20) Humbert references this letter again and says that at this point his feelings remained safe. I re-read the chapter after the new information and in hindsight I wonder if the reason I took it that way was because I was primed by external media discussing the "revelation" moment. Anyway, Humbert decides not to leave.

From chapters 17-20 Humbert marries Charlotte (Mrs Haze, now Mrs Humbert) and anticipates Lolita's return (she's still away!). At Hourglass Lake he fantasises about drowning Charlotte. He references the Carmen song again (this time just a mention of the gun) saying that he couldn't kill her. Considering he didn't have the same thought about Lolita I wonder if that means that his capacity to kill in this instance has some parallel to his capacity to love (or his desire to preserve).

In chapter 21 Humbert puts up a fight in order to stay in America with Lolita. He pulls the, "I'm the man of the house" card to shut out any thoughts Charlotte had of a vacation to England (to be fair I wouldn't want to go on a vacation to England either). In a scene where Charlotte is apologising for planning without him, she inquires about the locked drawer in Humbert's desk. He says he keeps the key hidden and she should mind her own business.

Chapter 22 had two very fun sections. The first was Humbert detailing his plan to use sleeping medicine to earn time with Lolita. After some experimenting he finds that nothing was strong enough to give him the security he wants, so he goes to the local doctor and begs for the best medicine available (it's for his own insomnia, I'm sure you understand…). The doctor relents and prescribes the strongest thing he can. The medicine's purple colour was highlighted, and reemerged several times as the story continued. Purple is such a vivid, uncommon colour, so it was hard to forget about it any time it came up again. While driving home, Humbert describes how beautiful the town is. It was like watching a motion picture. I could feel the warmth in the air, the bright greens and blues, and the optimism in Humbert's breath. Of course that leads right into… returning home to find Charlotte who stares at him like her soul had completely evacuated from her body.
Charlotte had found his key, opened the drawer, and read the diary. She starts by listing all of the cruel names Humbert used for her.

ヘイズの奴、でぶ、古狸、鼻持ちならないママ―――おばかさんのヘイズは、 もうあなたの言いなりなんかにはならないわよ。

Humbert tries to control the situation, explaining that the diary is just a manuscript, and that any similarities to Charlotte or Dolores are a coincidence (I don't think anyone was buying that line). He moves to the kitchen to get some alcohol, but then suddenly fate(?) swoops in and Charlotte dies. Just like the scene with the eyeball and the tongue, the space between points X and Y didn't fully connect for me. I read over it twice to see if I missed something, but still couldn't connect the moments. Maybe this time it was meant to give the sense of shock to better place the reader in Humbert's position, but I can't say for sure. Another thing to pin for a future English read.

The following two chapters feature a brief "investigation" into Charlotte's death ― she was hit by a car, and the description of her body is really gruesome ― and then Humbert insisting that he recovers Dolores from camp by himself (he wants to have full control over the message Lolita receives to play into his goals).
Humbert makes arrangements to retrieve Dolores from 'Camp Q', explaining on the phone that Charlotte is in the hospital and not to tell Lo so he can explain in person. He then spends the rest of the day in a nearby town giddily shopping for clothes he wants to dress her in. There had been a lot of questionable things in the story up to now, but when he listed her measurements and other vital information it felt like it crossed a weird line for me. I think it was because his methods for determining her vitals all relied on paying particular attention to her at times that she wouldn't have been aware of it.
He considers taking one of his "purple pills" to sleep, but also worries that if he takes one of his only 40 available it will spoil an opportunity he has with Lo. He decides to rough out the night instead.

Chapter 26 is less than a page short. Humbert is in a haze. He repeats "Lolita" for one fifth of the total chapter length and orders the printers to fill the entire page with her name, a request not fulfilled in either English nor Japanese. I can only take this as a nod to the level of control Humbert has over the story. He can twist the words of others, and he can conceal his intentions in all kinds of flowery language, but he's ultimately vulnerable to the whims of editors, printers, and Nabokov himself. He has no agency.

Chapter 27 spans the entire duration from picking Lo up from 'Camp Q' until she finally falls asleep in the hotel on their first night together. Honestly it just was nice to see Dolores again. I'm sure it's intentional in Nabokov's writing (and for Humbert's goals of inoculating the reader), but she always feels like a breath of fresh air, and it's a pleasure to read Humbert's beautiful descriptions of her.
Humbert and Lolita drive off together. Lolita is a bit distant towards Humbert, and when he asks why she says it's because she doesn't think he loves her. She clarifies that it's because he didn't kiss her. That flips a switch in Humbert. He hastily parks the car and does exactly that. You can really feel the desperation in his narration. Despite the fact that it jeopardises his long-term goals with Lolita, he just can't help himself. Their session is interrupted by a police officer who asks them a question about another vehicle, and Lolita later tells Humbert that his kissing was bad.

Driving through a storm, Humbert drives by a motel but strongly opposes the thought of stopping there for the night. There was a long translator's note about Nabokov's history travelling through America with his wife and how that informed Humbert's apprehension about motels (it sort of boils down to the walls being thin). Eventually they arrive at a hotel and, after some pleading, Humbert secures a room with a twin bed for them. Lolita says she can't sleep in the same bed as him because Charlotte will divorce him, but Humbert insists that she obey him (playing the "I'm your dad now card") for the duration of the trip to save money (not the real reason but it did make me curious about the state of Humbert's funds).
At dinner downstairs Humbert pulls out his pill bottle, which he describes as,

＜パパのパープル・ピル＞

Lolita notices the pills and asks about them. He lies, saying they're vitamins, and asks if she wants one. She says yes. They go back up to the hotel room and Lolita, in a drug-addled torpor, mumbles that if she were to teach Humbert how to kiss properly he'd have to promise not to tell her off. He continuously insists that she goes to sleep until she eventually passes out. And then… he leaves the room, locks the door, and takes a walk downstairs.

Chapter 28 is another "Humbert wants you to know that he's not like those guys" chapter. He spends the entire time in a mania explaining that while he could take advantage of Lo in her current state, he is choosing not to. He mentions Annabel again, only to contrast Lolita against her. Annabel died pure, I suppose, but Lolita is "already impure". He goes over the historical precedent for his desires (he loves to cite ancient and foreign societies where relations between adults and children are normalised) and talks about how his soul is split in two (angle and devil).
He wanders around a common area of the hotel, noting a small group of girls around Lo's age, and then walks into another room to get fresh air. A strange man strikes up a conversation with him. The man asks where he "found" Lo. Humbert simply responds with "What?", but the man continues to ask questions that imply that he knows Humbert's game, and that he's of the same flock. Humbert keeps his mask on the entire time, insisting that Lo is his daughter until eventually leaving. This encounter just exacerbates his mania and he staggers away, heading back up to the hotel room, opting to take the stairs rather than chance proximity with the group of girls from earlier. The chapter ends as he enters the hotel room.

フルーツバスケット 1st Season
I didn't have much to say about this series because the content was almost identical to the original anime. I was even starting to feel like I was going to burn out before I got to anything new. Thankfully episodes 16 and 17 both featured new content that I enjoyed. It was backstory for うおちゃん explaining how she looked up to 透's mother but was dejected by how softer she was than the image うおちゃん had built up of her. After getting to know the family she realises that part of what frustrated her was that her life at home was dysfunctional and 透 and 今日子's was so compassionate. She uses their home as a second place to live for a while.
One night she is getting picked on by a large group of other delinquent girls when 今日子 shows up and saves her, cementing her as "still a bad ass" in addition to being a loving mum. うおちゃん finally sees that one doesn't have to exclude the other.

This week included the remake versions of the 杞紗 and 燈路 episodes. Both were as good, if not better, than their OG counterparts. I really like those characters, and I liked how 由希 was able to connect to 杞紗's struggle in particular.
Another episode I was anticipating was the one featuring 花島. Folks, I couldn't be more disappointed. The camcorder motif was totally lost. The 3DCG first-person house exploration was totally gone. I was totally unimpressed. The end of the episode still had the emotional payoff I expected, and I still enjoyed feeling the friendship between 透 and 花島, but it was a disappointing to have this iconic episode delivered so flatly.

I didn't make it to the end of the series this week, so I'll hold off on final thoughts for now, but I have to say my biggest fear came true with the 花島 episode. The 2001 version may have some non-canon events, some odd casting choices, and a little bit of jank here and there, but right from episode 1 it was clear that the director was interested in exploring the form of anime in a unique way. The 2019 anime (so far) is more finely tuned but also more generic. I'm still enjoying it, but I'm not feeling blown away by novel storytelling techniques or anything.

少年のアビス
I've been following this series since 2022. My experience with this series has been a bit hit or miss over that time, but this is the last volume, so it was good to finally get closure if nothing else. I've actually read all of the major works by this manga's author (峰浪りょう). My general opinion of her work is that she writes very strong character stories, but has trouble ending things.

The final volume manages to just close out the key points of the story without feeling overly hasty, but a few events felt too coincidental and the payoff at the end didn't really do it for me. Ironically around volume 8 or 9 there was some mid-story closure that I still feel was better handled than the subsequent 10 volumes.

In the volume's favour, I enjoyed the final flashback contextualising a relationship between some key characters, and I liked that a decent amount of closure was given to the most important characters in the story.

Just like last week my main observation is just how well the premise plays with the tropes of romance games. After the third route (which I had partially completed last week) the story moved onto the last main route, 枡田美零. Her route had a few wrinkles since it's revealed that she was involved in the creation of the game and had intended to be the protagonist herself. She frequently referenced romance games (with the serial numbers filed off) and used meta gaming lingo. But what I actually found fun about her story was the juxtaposition of her desire to "punish" 鈴瀬 and the way that all those attempted punishments backfire. It sort of had a とらドラ！ feeling. The end of this route also made me feel like a good romance game story doesn't need the music or visual accompaniments — so basically romance books also have the capacity to light a fire in my heart.

After completing that route the only path left is the true ending with 佐倉. She is the true love interest in the real world but in the game she is set to be 鈴瀬's sister — another trope of many romance stories in Japanese media. When this route really gets started, the story is quick to explain how their relationship can make sense (another trope), and then the story progresses to the end. I won't spoil the very ending but it was fairly satisfying for me.

I'm really glad I read this book. For one thing, it was just a pleasant story that expanded my awareness of Japanese romance game themes and conventions. Secondarily it reassured me that あなた was not a quick read only because of its length. "Maybe my reading speed is actually improving." I thought to myself, unaware of what lay ahead…

ロリータ
When I told other Japanese learners that I wanted to read Lolita they insisted that I read it in English. It was written in English and it's my first language, after all. But I've read enough English books, and I read English every day for other reasons. I also figured this would be an interesting view at how such an influential book was translated into other languages. I read 60-odd pages of this book since Tuesday. That should be an okay pace, however I really want to finish this book before I fly to the United States next month. In order to finish this book I have to read about 16-17 pages per day, and this book is dense… The grammar is complicated, the vocabulary is exotic, every page so far has been corner-to-corner full of text with very few line or paragraph breaks or breathing room, and there are over 50 pages of translator's notes to explain hundreds of literary, historical, geographic, mythologic, poetic, and whatever-else-pleases-you-ic references that Nabokov put into this epic. I'm reading a 文庫本 and the total length for the story (before translator notes begin) is just over 550 pages. I normally like 文庫本 for their light weight and ease to handle, but this book strains my hands to hold at night.

And I haven't even gotten to the content yet!

Between every barrier mentioned above there has been a lot to enjoy. I love Humbert Humbert's voice. I find his rationalisations very amusing to read, but I also feel a lot of empathy for him at times. His childhood romance with Annabel Leigh was told really beautifully, and every moment after that chapter has been tinged with the sense that he is completely cursed by his refusal to move past her. The parts where Humbert is in France were fairly amusing. His wife, Valeria, was kind of nothing, but the fight and breakup towards the end of the France chapter was really fun to read. There's very little dialogue, so there's a sense that everything is filtered through Humbert's point of view. This was made even more obvious by the way he swapped from writing ヴァレリア to ヴァレチカ. It was both a way to belittle the man Valeria had started seeing and to belittle Valeria herself for being with such a man (and for "betraying" Humbert, of course).

I've also been thinking about Humbert's invention(?) of the term nymphet regularly used in the book. In his introduction to the term he insists that while the term applies to girls between a certain age range (9-14 if I recall correctly), not every girl fits his rigorous criteria for the category. The first place my mind went when reading this section was vigilante anti-heroes — characters like Rorschach from Watchmen. Knowing that a strange man is running around the streets at night killing people is a terrifying thought, but when he explains that he only kills "bad people" (the definition of which he made up for himself) there is a sense of relief. You could easily broaden that concern to less controversial superhero characters without oversight. Of course Humbert is not identifying a group that anyone would agree "deserves it", but by surgically separating his targets from the general population I think he creates a sense that any "average person" has nothing to be concerned about.

I'm sure that nothing I'm saying is groundbreaking, and I'm not writing to perform a deep examination about rhetoric and misdirection, but it is something that immediately comes to mind reading exactly what's on the pages.

フルーツバスケット
After a discussion with my sister about my romance media arc, I decided that this would be my next anime.

From cultural osmosis I've always viewed this as the Evangelion of romance anime. Everyone in the 2000s was talking about Fruits Basket, and I didn't really see what the big deal was. Boys who transform into animals when they touch girls? What can you really do with that? Well I ended up liking this series a lot. Despite the early-ish warning that this version of the anime contains non-canon content and an alternate ending, I decided it was better to push to the end anyway. Every time I watched an episode that I loved I had a new thing to rant about. "Fruits Basket is about X!". It's about found family, it's about being a 腐女子, it's about the unique friendships girls have, it's about not squandering your time by fighting everyone, it's about loving people even knowing that you can't have a conventional relationship. It's just a really good show.

Notable episodes:

• 18: The 由希 Fanclub spends time with 透's friend 咲 and we learn more about how 咲 views 透, 由希, and their developing relationship and how she fits into it.
• 22: Another 由希 Fanclub episode, this time focusing on 素子 the club captain. It was nice to see an episode with so much focus on an extremely minor character (it's the breaking bad fly episode of 2001). The moment one of her team members reminds her that she'll be graduating in a few months and you see her heart break was just
• 25-26: It was just a good ending. Some parts came out of nowhere but I felt like they did a good job of testing 透's resolve. Up to that point she basically weathered every surprise that came her way, and it was great to see something really challenge her.

ときめきメモリアル
With a tiny bit of flexibility in the middle of the week I decided to play this for just a little while. In the end I played until the end of the first year in the game (though I can't say how close that is to credits).

My biggest observation was just how different the game is to アマガミ (discussed in previous reading reports). The scale of time in アマガミ is measured in quarters of a day. You have four actions available most days, and the game spans 42 days total. In this game the scale is in weeks. So in a way each month in ときめきメモリアル is equal to one day in アマガミ. Another thing I've noticed was just how the girls in ときめきメモリアル exist separately from the player character. Even more than アマガミ, there is a sense that your existence means less than nothing for the happiness or fulfilment in each girls' life. In fact I haven't even met more than three girls (one of which I still haven't properly been introduced to since she keeps bumping into me and running off). It really contributes to the real sense that you're a normal kid in highschool. I mean half the kids in my highschool could hardly stand to talk to members of the opposite gender, let alone ask them out and date them. It's an awkward time of life and it makes sense for these characters to mostly focus on their own things. With that said I have started to spend time with a bookish girl called 如月. Unlike アマガミ, many events feel repeated and because there's a stat-raising and mini-game component to the game, there have been moments that 如月 hasn't felt very distinguished from other characters I've met. Even so, there have been some cute moments. Spending time with her at the library is always fun, and one time I even went on a double date (of sorts) where my friend 早乙女 and childhood friend 詩織 were there. I had the option to spend that time with 詩織 but chose to focus on 如月 instead.

I'm currently mid-cutscene spending 初詣 with 如月 so perhaps I'll report on that in a followup.

The story starts by establishing the first tragedy — 小栗貞子 attempts to flee her small town with the town's money and her lover, a man named  増田, but is abandoned by him when he snatches the money and rides off. The meat of the book then follows that man (going under the pseudonym 町田) returning to his home town as a business tycoon. He has spent the last 40 years building industry throughout Japan (presumably off the wealth he stole from the town) and has now decided to build a luxury hotel in order to "help" the town see more tourism money. A not-insignificant amount of dialogue in the book takes the form of townspeople being fairly sceptical about the value that 増田 is actually providing them.

「それがいやなの。この町に媚びてるわ。それでいて、稼ぎは全部東京へ吸い上げられて、町には何も残らない。町の人たちは、ボーイかウエイトレスか、窓拭きがせいぜい。それを、町長さんなんか『町の救い主』なんて感激して。何も分ってない」

The story goes into some unexpected territory but, mostly due to its length, there was a feeling that everything was left undercooked.

Mostly I just enjoyed having a break from non-fiction. Reading this in less than a week without having to look up dozens of proper nouns simply felt like a hot shower after a month trekking through mud.

君に届け
So I finished the first season. Overall I found this show quite enjoyable. 爽子 continues to be a delightful character, and her relationship with 風早 is as charming as it was last week.

With that said, I think the most interesting arc this season was the ちづる and 龍 relationship. I think ちづる is just a very relatable character. She's a bit tomboyish and her outgoing personality masks a tenderness that made my heart ache every time it was exposed. When her childhood crush comes to visit and she finds out that he has married, her idealistic, carefree spirit was really tested. It ultimately created a situation where she ruined the perfect moment she had built up in her head about giving 龍 his birthday gift. His relaxed and stoic temperament sort of lead to further misunderstandings, but also meant the situation didn't blow up much beyond that. He continues to be the best boy.

My favourite episode in the season was episode 22, クリスマス. In this episode 爽子 wants to spend Christmas with her friends (and 風早 especially), but she keeps having misunderstandings with her father about her Christmas plans. The episode is resolved when her father gifts her first mobile phone (a symbol showing the trust he has in her to be independent) and 風早 gifts here a 4-leafed clover charm that she quickly attaches to it.

こえでおしごと！
This two episode anime adapts a manga of the same name. I found it surprisingly engaging and thought provoking. The show wastes no time getting to the point -- the protagonist, 青柳柑奈, agrees to work as a voice actress for her sister's erotic game company. As a young girl there is some discomfort with addressing the sexual subject matter leading to a few gags and some drama for 柑奈. Visual storytelling like 柑奈's body/soul transferring into the characters she voices, バツ icons covering erotic words, and censoring phallic objects by making them magical, transparent, rainbow rods, were all fresh forms of expression and had a fresh, playful aesthetic. The art was also just stellar and made me want to seek out more works by the studio. 柑奈 gets into the role and begins to "get used to" the job is also interesting because I think it has potential to explore the ways work can change and desensitise us against taboos. She learns that she is able to perform better by entering a "trance" state. This wasn't unlike Evangelion's 碇シンジ, who also performs best by casting his inhibitions aside, synchronising with Eva Unit 01, and leveraging his connection to others.

One of the reasons I was interested in trying this anime was because of my personal history with erotic media. I've always been quite uncomfortable about the erotic vocalisations made in eroge, anime, and basically anything else. Just like 柑奈 for much of my life I've been unable to face a part of culture that made me mildly uncomfortable. And, also like her, I was able to find that "trance" state while watching the show. So basically I think it's a feminist masterpiece.

Unfortunately the show's only two episodes don't explore much beyond 柑奈's entry to the industry and an implied budding romance. A full anime exploring the ins and outs of an eroge development company sounds like the most interesting thing in the world to me right now. Perhaps I'll read the manga or play the VN at some point.

ダンダダン
Not too much to say here. This has been a pleasure to watch. I knew from the teaser trailer that this anime would be a worthy adaptation for the manga and it has exceeded my expectations. The manga was already gorgeous — it implied movement, scale, weight, and energy effortlessly. The anime adds the time and colour to all of those elements and floods your senses. This is the kind of adaptation that feels like a 100% natural move from one medium to another. Very cool.

Just like the チェンソーマン adaptation, I think the biggest problem is my own expectations. Only 12 episodes in total means we probably won't get to the parts of the manga that truly blew me away when I read it. I'm still confident it will be enjoyable, but there is an awkwardness to knowing ahead of time that an anticipated anime will stop short of the parts where the anime "gets good".

魔法少女リリカルなのは
A property that was put on my radar by エロゲー文化研究概論 as, according to the book, this magical girl anime was originally a spin-off story of an erotic game called とらいあんぐるハート！. I saw a post on social media celebrating the series' 20th anniversary including a promotion to air the first season for free on YouTube, so I thought this was the perfect time to give it a try. This is also one of my first anime in the magical girl genre, so that may impact my impression of it.

The anime stars the titular なのは, a fairly regular school girl with a few close friends and a good relationship with her family. After saving a ferret in a local park she is wrapped up in the conflict of another reality filled with magic and monsters.

The animation is quite good, and the fashion stood out as highly detailed for some reason. In particular there were a few scenes in the family home where every character just looked well dressed, and the way the fabric of their clothes moved felt very high quality. I know it's a weird thing to latch onto but that's just what I noticed.

ドリームハンター麗夢
This series sort of fell into my lap after discussing media that transitioned from erotic to all-ages media forms during their development, putting it into a similar box as 魔法少女リリカルなのは. Apparently the first OVA release was R18, but all subsequent OVAs were made more in an M15 style (there is some spin-off content that still appears to be R18 on the official website).

Each episode is about 50 minutes long. The structure is episodic, each involving the titular 麗夢 solving some kind of supernatural mystery by entering dreams and expelling or purifying some evil spirit. The series is part magical girl and part crime thriller (though the mysteries are fairly straight forward). Episode 2 was probably my favourite. In this episode, 麗夢 infiltrates an all-girl's school and solves a haunting causing girls to go missing.

I think the strength of the series is how it uses dreamscapes as an excuse to create out-of-this-world settings while also allowing the action to return to contemporary (for the time) Japan. Dreams are also used to explore the emotions and memories of characters. It's a nice way to add a visual element to something that would otherwise just be discussed verbally or expressed via flashbacks.

絶対にラブコメしてはいけない学園生活２４時
Yet another property that was mentioned in エロゲー文化研究概論 since the character artist is 同級生's 竹井正樹. This book is 261 pages according to Bookmeter, but I'm reading it on my e-reader (a Kobo H2O Libre) so the page count is a bit unreliable.

I would compare my experience with this book to my experience with 『機動戦士ガンダム 異世界宇宙世紀 二十四歳職業OL、転生先でキシリアやってます』 (yes it's a mouthful). Both books are somewhat self aware of their genres and both cater to a readership that is also aware, but I think this book does a better job than the Gundam book (which sadly sits at the bottom of my all-time book rankings for books read to date). I think partially it has to do with the setting. While the Gundam book was literally set during key points in the Gundam UC timeline, this book is just a parody of any and all romance games which gives it a lot of flexibility with the form. While the main character of the Gundam book was rigidly insistent for the story to "follow canon", the motivations of the character in this book is purely internally motivated: survive and stay pure for the girl he likes back in the real world.

I should actually explain what the book is about. So the story follows 鈴瀬ユート, an average boy in highschool with a crush on 佐倉凛音. His crush asks him to help identify a mysterious disk that she was given while she also laments the mysterious absences of various students for the last week. As it turns out the disk contains software for a high tech VR game that traps ユート until he is able to complete the game - a romance-comedy adventure game. In order to escape he has to achieve the true ending on every girl in the game. By doing so he also frees the girls and allows them to return to the real world. Even though it doesn't make much sense to him right now, 佐倉 is also in the game as a helpful 妹 type character who manages his Save and Load data.

Chapters are separated by which route ユート is currently on. I've read through the entirety of 葉山撫子 and 水城先生's stories. The former tells a fairly pure-love story with a little bit of teasing. 葉山 is a year older and that plays into the story mildly. She also considers them 幼馴染 despite the fact that their only shared memory was him praising one of her drawings once when they were very young. The second story showed me that this wasn't just going to be a basic romcom parody. This story has a bunch of highly erotic choices that mostly lead to bad ends, but ユート actively starts choosing all the options (saving beforehand of course) just to see what will happen. In the end the best ending comes out of showing a pure admiration for his teacher, though it's still played very erotically. Ultimately it was just a fun parody of the format that doesn't get too bogged down in details.

I'm currently reading through the 桐野来花 route which has shown off the flexibility of the story even more. 桐野 showed up in all of the previous stories but was continuously forgotten in favour of other routes, but ユート finally decides to pursue her this time. As it turns out, they are also 幼馴染 (though this time it's a bit more legitimate), and, she is extremely yandere. Thankfully ユート has learned how to use his Save data at this point, so he's able to avoid the worst of it, but he came within inches of having his life end during this route so far. I can't wait to see what happens next.

Reading Report: 29 September 2024

This week was fairly standard considering my other commitments. I am getting close to the end of エロゲー文化研究概論ぶんかけんきゅうがいろん , finished ホワイトアルバム 1 (seasons 1 and 2), and started ホワイトアルバム 2. I also managed to find some free time and completed one full game of アマガミ. More below.

• エロゲー文化研究概論（２６３－３１０ページ）
• ホワイトアルバム（第１１－２６話）
• ホワイトアルバム２（第１－６話）
• アマガミ（クリア）
• 輪舞曲Duo -夜明けのフォルテシモ- ぷにゅぷりff 体験版 （４０分ぐらい）

エロゲー文化研究概論

This week I finished the section between 2010 and 2014. The first notable chapter was when エロゲー文化研究概論 referenced its own release. The version I'm reading is actually the 増補ぞうほ改訂版かいていばん (revised edition) which contains an additional section for developments in the industry between 2014 and 2016. Even then, the book begins to feel outdated to me. How would 宮本直毅みやもとなおき (the author) feel about the advent of generative AI, the attack of adult media in convenience stores in the lead up to the Tokyo Olympics, or the crackdown by payment processors on adult media affecting digital storefronts? I can't help but think now, more than ever, we need people to speak openly about healthy relationships with adult media.

The return of ごほうび系 (ごほうび here refers to games where nudity or partial nudity is treated as a reward for certain kinds of play) games came up with 艦かんこれ as an example. 艦これ was one of the first successful Gacha games. The goal is to collect girls who represent military sea vessels (battleships, cruisers, etc.), engage in some simple gameplay, and advance to different events. The ごほうび part comes from the fact that the "shipgirls" can shed their clothing and other parts by taking damage. It's another example of the flexibility of the 遊び＋エロ format where a working gameplay loop forms a foundation, and eroticism is added to spice things up.

There were two related chapters about developments in 2D games. First was the technology called "E-Mote", a tool that allowed still 2D images to be animated with keyframes and layer manipulation. A modern counterpart is Live2D which is the go-to software used by vtubers and other virtual performers.
The second was a developer called TinkleBell who became known for their extremely well animated games using a "2.5D" engine. Their latest game (at time of publication) was 輪舞曲りんぶきょく Duo -夜明よあけのフォルテシモ- ぷにゅぷりff (2014). A curse causes students of an all-girl's school to become フタナリ (basically AFAB but with penises). I haven't seen that term come up much in the last few years so there was a kind of nostalgia reading about it (I suppose the game is 10 years old at this point). I decided to try the demo for the game. More on that below.

ホワイトアルバム

Overall I was fairly satisfied by this story. Some of the stylistic choices I mentioned last week became more muddy towards the end. Season 2 almost completely dropped the strategic use of watercolour, but it was still an enjoyable experience. The "next episode" preview sections after the credits in season 2 were particularly vibrant. A calendar or something containing the artwork in those sections would be very nice to own. Aha, anyway...
I think the biggest weakness is that the 浮気うわき (cheating) aspect of the story is not really given the gravity it deserves. 冬弥とうや's affair with 弥生やよい is treated particularly casually. It's kind of cartoonish in a way. There was a point late in season 2 where 冬弥 has a moment with each of the girl's he has fooled around with and there is a kind of "goodbye all of Evangelion" (from rebuild movie 3.0+1.0 [spoilers for all of Evangelion]) feeling to those conversations.

Ultimately I'm glad that 由綺ゆき was not totally destroyed by 冬弥's lack of commitment. There was a sense of maturity in each of the characters at the end. The duet Powder Snow between 由綺 and 理奈りな was very nice and felt like a good capstone for the sisterhood between those two characters.

ホワイトアルバム２

I had high hopes for this series. People had told me not to even bother with WA1 and to skip right to WA2 since they are too loosely connected to matter. I decided to ignore that advice because I was more interested in the creative journey than the narrative journey. I think WA1 might be better.

WA2 is set about 20 years after WA1. Where WA1 is a period drama set about 20 years prior to the development of the original story, WA2 is a contemporary anime set only six years prior to the anime's release (and only three prior to the visual novel's setting, assuming both are set in 2007). WA1 features a mostly adult cast which is a somewhat uncommon setting for anime. WA2 is set in a highschool. All of the interesting audio and visual decisions made in WA1 have been scrapped. WA2 is very standard.
The main theme of both stories is 浮気. But WA1 had established the MC as already in an alienated relationship with an idol. On the other hand WA2 starts the story as a plain romance where the MC is torn between two available girls.

As for the actual story and setting. Basically the plot is that three teenagers are inspired by the White Album (yes the very one produced in WA1) and want to perform for the music club at the end of year festival. There is a love triangle between the three main characters.

So I'm a little bit concerned that the story won't get to where it needs by the end of 13 episodes. The level of drama is still quite low at six episodes. Despite my misgivings I am still swayed by the high praise of the visual novel. I may play it when I have some free time (it's quite long, apparently).

アマガミ

I finally finished an ending of アマガミ. The ending was quite satisfying, but first I'd like to touch on the main disappointment of the game. The ソエン stories (briefly mentioned last week) turned out to be fairly uneventful. I am curious if part of the reason was that I had secured my Christmas Eve plans so my character had somewhere to be. Perhaps in a total failure run those stories would have a final moment to experience that would wrap them up. Ah well...

So 梨穂子りほこ and I spent the last days of December together, capped off with a nice Christmas Eve in the city. It was a bit of a surprise that the relationship was tender and uncertain right to the end. The confessions of love were very heartfelt but there was a sense that these two characters didn't really know each other that well (which is particularly odd since 梨穂子 is the childhood friend character - someone with a lot of history with the MC).

I have one last grievance about the conversation system. If the list of "good" topics has been exhausted in a conversation, it will automatically count as "good" and move to the next turn. This is normally pretty useful, but I had exhausted all of the first three high tension turns for 梨穂子. Every time we spoke she would move directly to turn 4. But failure during turn 4 always moved her into mid tension, making the アタック option inaccessible. After half a dozen conversations I had tried and failed every conversation topic except for エッチ, which I avoided because it ends conversations at high tension if it succeeds...
I ended up in a situation where it would have been advantageous to not fill out one of the earlier turns, moved into turn 4 at mid tension, and then advanced up to turn 5 with high tension.
Was that design intentional? It didn't feel very pleasant to miss several ごほうび scenes, but I was strongly opposed to saving for better outcomes so perhaps I'll experience those scenes in another loop.

輪舞曲Duo -夜明けのフォルテシモ- ぷにゅぷりff 体験版

As mentioned in the section on エロゲー文化研究概論, the unique aspects of this game's visuals intrigued me enough to pick up the demo (体験版たいけんばん). I spent around 40 minutes playing before reaching the end. The animation style really is quite interesting, however the animations get a bit exhausting. Character idle animations are exaggerated to an absurd degree. I think the animation would work better for me if the idle loop was a bit more relaxed. The actual visual style and snappiness during dialogue was pretty cool.

The prologue was fairly interesting. The main character was raised as a boy by her father because he blamed her mother's "femininity" for her death. Unfortunately the story then immediately time skips to the main character attending the all-girl's school with no indication that her upbringing was particularly meaningful. Other than being kind of gloomy and possessing a succubus familiar / companion, she didn't really do anything interesting. Considering she's the MC it's curious that the demo's only sex scene was between two unrelated characters. The drama for that scene was kind of interesting at least. The 受け (bottom) character in the scene agrees to have sex with the other girl because she wants to protect a friend of hers, but there is also the implication that she's also acting selfishly. As I understand it, if you have sex with a フタナリ the curse is spread to you, so it's likely that the girl here was looking for a way to express her own love for the friend she vows to "protect".
I think there is a bit to explore with regards to gender and sexuality in erotic games, but I don't have much to say on it now.

There was a fun musical theme to the game. I don't really know music so it was just an aesthetic for me, but it added to the overall vibe of the game. I probably won't play the full game but I appreciated the opportunity to try out something new.

Reading Report: 22 September 2024

This week I've been... SICK. As such I've had a little more time to engage with Japanese than normal. I also started a bit of a social media purge, which also improved my daily averages.

One of my strategies -- which seems so obvious, so don't hold it against me -- was just to not have a YouTube tab open all day. If I wanted to watch something on YouTube I had to either know what it was and plan ahead or do something I considered more valuable instead. In this case it meant I was regularly watching more than my daily quota of anime ( 60 minutes) and even fit in some gaming that I otherwise wouldn't have done.

Describing it now, I feel like a supervisor might say, "You spent more time with this stuff!?" But I think we can all agree that 20 minutes spent with produced art with a purpose is more worthwhile than 20 minutes I'd otherwise spend with social media alternatives.

Without further ado, this is what I did this week:

• エロゲー文化研究概論 （ページ２１４－２６３）
• とらドラ！（第８－２５話＋OVA）
• ホワイトアルバム（第１－１０話）
• アマガミ（３４日目まで）

エロゲー文化研究概論

This week covered the end of the 2000s and start of the 2010s.
The first notable section was the chapter on みさくら語. This is a topic that I've read about in a number of other books (エロマンガ・スタディーズ by 永山薫ながやまかおる and エロマンガ表現史 by 稀見理都きみりと both come to mind). The author had two insights that I connected with. The first was that みさくら語 could be seen as a「口に出す心の声」(p219) [the voice of one's heart expressed through words] - A kind of confession of love made at the peak of lust. Many of the expressions used make no sense to say realistically, but as an expression of a character's honest voice it serves an expressive purpose. The second purpose identified was to provide「心置きなくヌける」[being able to pleasure oneself without guilt, more or less] which follows from the first point because, if the speaker's inner-voice expresses a type of enthusiasm it permits some of the more taboo acts in eroge.
A example of the reverse (confession before lust, arguably the more socially acceptable order of events if not for the genre) was also raised. In Wind: A Breath of Heart (2002) 鳴風みなも expresses her deep love for the player for over ten minutes of in-game dialogue, erasing all doubt about her enthusiasm for the rest of the game.

Another notable chapter was the book's four-page article about Katawa Shoujo. After 30+ years of Japanese erotic games it's surprising that this was the first notable western production mentioned in this book since a brief mention of a 3D title in the early 90s. The book recognises western erotic game industry development parallel to the Japanese industry, but until Katawa Shoujo very few games were remarkable enough for this level of coverage. The history of Katawa Shoujo was interesting to me. The original writer, artist, and coder were an American, Australian, and German respectively, and the game's concept was derived from the end notes of a Japanese manga artist. Because of that there is a sense that this wasn't just the first western game of its kind, it's the first transnational collaboration of its kind.
Unfortunately a big caveat to celebrating the game is its title. As the author is quick to mention, "Katawa" is an extremely sensitive word in Japanese and that fact strongly soured the experience of the game when it finally arrived on Japanese shores. While it's an interesting project (and one I'd love to experience at some point) there is a sense that the game's concept was not fully developed and did not consider its the global context, especially the Japanese context, since the game draws so much inspiration from the development of Japanese culture until that point. Ultimately the author seems to see merit in the game and had a lot to say about how well developed the characters were. He sees the work as respectful to the subject matter, despite any communication failures.

とらドラ！

This series turned out to be a lot deeper than I first imagined, but... it kind of flubbed the ending. I knew from the beginning that 竜児りゅうじ and 大河たいが would get together. There was no surprise there, but the development of their relationship comes very naturally and the wrinkles throughout the story kept me engaged. Part of the show's initial premise is that 竜児 wants to enter a relationship with 実乃梨みのり. 実乃梨 is established as a hard-to-pin-down, quirky girl at the beginning, but she ends up being extremely nuanced -- her quirky behaviour is mostly just a wall she puts up to shield her from vulnerability.

The final set of episodes were good and I liked the awkwardness of 竜児 and 大河's elopement, but I felt like the matter was mostly settled after their mock wedding. The next night when 大河 disappeared it felt really unearned, and the final scene also felt a bit pointless.
I really liked the way 泰子やすこ (竜児's mum) was framed throughout the series. While it's not 100% clear what her life was like before the story begins it's clear that she works hard to support 竜児. The late-season drama of 竜児 not wanting to go to University so that he can return the favour was very relatable and tragic to me.

I don't know why I always feel like there isn't much to say about the show I watch for the week, but it is what it is. I really enjoyed it but the ending was enough for me I guess.

ホワイトアルバム

The first thing I want to say is that I adore the aesthetic of this series. The direction places me directly into 藤井冬弥ふじいとうや's view of the world. First and most notably is his relationship to his girlfriend, 由綺ゆき. Since she's an idol and spends all of her time training, performing, and showing up to live and variety events, 冬弥 mostly experiences her life through TV and magazine clippings. The first episode also makes the disconnect particularly clear when he receives a phone call from 由綺 while watching her on TV. Her appearance was just a recording, after all.
The second choice is the use of watercolour. Women in 冬弥's life are often painted in watercolour whenever we see them from his point of view. The world in White Album is fairly drab, but whenever we see women from his perspective they're filled with life and movement.
The third choice is that 冬弥's internal monologue is entirely delivered through text. I don't have any wise observation about this except that White Album was originally an eroge and it's very common (as mentioned last week) for MCs to be voiceless, allowing players to enter the body of the protagonist more smoothly.
The story is set in 1986. Phones play a major role in the story (phones seem to be the pilotable mech of romance stories). Payphones and home phones are key points of interest and unanswered phone calls regularly express missed connections.
There is a dream-like feeling to the show that I think about when I'm not watching it.

With that all being said, the actual plot has left me wanting a little bit. Like many adaptations of romance games (that I've seen so far) the protagonist has his pick of many girls. Unlike many romance games, however, the protagonist is already in a committed relationship with someone. That makes for a unique story to start with, but episodes have consistently left me feeling like the other girls just don't have a chance. To be honest I also feel like 冬弥's relationship with 由綺 is doomed to fail and he should just focus on himself for a year. There are three more episodes in this season and then a second season. Hopefully it's noteworthy enough to comment deeply on next week.
I'll also be watching White Album 2 which I've heard is quite good.

アマガミ

Well, I finally confessed my love to 梨穂子りほこ. It probably goes without saying but the feeling was mutual, and while our status is still sort of weird (young love, am I right?) it has been nice to spend time with her more meaningful ways. When I wrote the draft for this report I said "I love that she sings without a care in the world."
As someone who also sings to herself and the people she loves, I really connect to this part of her. There is a shamelessness and comfort in her life that makes me feel seen and validated.
I can't help but compare my experience with this game with my experience with the next-closest game I've played with social events like this -- namely the Persona (3-5) series. Those games are enjoyable, but having only 10 levels for each Social Link characters feels somewhat underdeveloped. I feel like I know more about 梨穂子 than I ever got to know about 真まこと or 杏あん in Persona 5. Of course Persona games have plenty of other merits and I don't mean to compare the two games directly, but I wonder if Persona would be stronger if it cut the cast in half and really dove into your relationships with each person.

Another element of the game I've been enjoying is the post-ソエン stories for each character. ソエン (疎遠そえん), or "estrangement", being the point in a relationship with a girl where she is no longer interested in the MC. The first character who entered this state was 森島もりしま -- my first love! Her ソエン route starts with the MC listening in on a confession she receives by a shy younger boy, ロミオ. After the confession goes better than expected, the MC notes that 森島 was receptive to ロミオ's bravery, handing his love letter to her directly. The MC's reflection felt like a tip for future runs, and that pattern felt more accurate as I experienced more ソエン storylines. 七咲ななさき's, for example, taught me that she is very athletic, looks up to 塚原つかはら, and takes swimming seriously.
The second thing I noticed about ソエン storylines is so far (only 2-3 events into the ones I've pursued) is that the I genuinely feel like I'm interrupting the lives of these people now. 森島 simply does not care about me in the way she used to, 絢辻あやつじ has no time for me, and 七咲 sees me as a creep and a pest. While it's kind of hurtful, and it makes me feel like I'm wasting my time, I kind of like that there is a story for each person where they appear to be happy and thriving without my involvement. The thought that they are just waiting for my character to talk to them to progress in their lives couldn't be more dreadful.
Perhaps the weirdest thing is that I now feel bad for 梨穂子. There's a part of me looking forward to ignoring her in a future clear just so that I can experience what kind of life she gets to live without me.

Oh, and I'm still really bad at the conversation system for some reason. There is one section for 梨穂子 on Stage 3 where I think I've made every wrong conversation choice which has meant missing 2-3 optional story moments with her (it hurts, but I'm committed to not reverting the save no matter what happens).

Worldbuilding

hipshot

This is a bit of an experimental post. I've always wanted to do random posts that are a bit like a mix between a twitter and some other social media. At the end of the day why not just use my website for some jokes from time to time. The (tentative) name that came to mind for a post like this is hipshot. Because it's an imprecise, off-the-cuff format without any regard for whether it hits or not. This pre-amble is now longer than the actual content.

I recently saw a meme that referenced the difference between Western and "Eastern" worldbuilding philosophies. The meme basically implied that there is a culture of going into meticulous detail about a world to make it "realistic" to a fault. On the other hand, Chinese fantasy novels will use otherworldly claims about their fantasy universes without a care for realism.

Completely unrelated I recently became enamoured in the world of Japanese erotic games and couldn't help but admire the world map from Rance Quest. I particularly like that JAPAN (notably not 日本) is just floating to the right of this landmass carried on two titans.

...and then, as if by fate, I saw this YouTube video show up in my recommendations. I guess it's true.

Reading Report: 15 September 2024

This week I returned to university, however I still found the time to fit in input here and there. I read and watched:

• エロゲー文化研究概論（１６２－２０８ページ）
• 四月は君の嘘（第５－２２話、完了）
• とらドラ！（第１－７話）
• アマガミ（１７日目まで）

エロゲー文化研究概論

In the early 2000s several erotic game makers were working out of the same office. The author of the book compared this to the トキワ荘 (a place I visited last November!). This week mostly covered the mid and late 2000s and included mention of series such as Fate, Clannad, SCHOOL DAYS, as well the popularisation of trends such as crossdressing and doting older characters. An interesting note was that a 2005 恋愛アドベンチャーゲーム called 処女おとめはお姉さまボクに恋してる, which features a crossdressing protagonist, gave a voice to the main character - a rarity within the genre. The main character is also a source of titillation rather than a clear player avatar as is the case in many other games which may explain this exception. A game called はぴねす！ hailed the start of the 男の娘 subgenre. The author mentions that material surrounding the game at the time referred to the relevant character as オカマちゃん, but the pieces were all there. はなマルッ！ was also mentioned. It features a character who is effectively transgender. The term is not used in the book (and probably not in the game) but they are described by the author as:

「身体は男性・心は女性」（pp.２０９－２１０）

四月は君の嘘

This series turned out to be just about what I expected, which wasn't a bad thing. I don't really connect to music-related media, and early on I was definitely feeling the disconnect. The early competitions were mostly solos and I found it difficult to connect the music being played to the themes being described in the story. Even between performers I couldn't personally recognise any significant difference in ability. However, two duets in the series were noticeably more impactful. The story started hitting best around the time 公生 started tutoring 凪. There were certainly earlier story beats which I found moving or noteworthy, but 凪's part of the story helped me connect to the musical motif really strongly.

I'd like to briefly touch on the romance aspect since that's a large part of the reason I'm watching anime in this genre at the moment.
Ultimately I really enjoyed the love triangle between 公正, かをり, and 椿つばき. I felt that the plot telegraphed its trajectory fairly early (at least as early as episodes 4-5) so there wasn't much in the way of surprises, but it was still a very strong execution. Regarding the final episode: finding out that かをり was one of the children impacted by 公正's performance years earlier came as a welcome surprise and recontextualised かをり's actions in a way that really satisfied me. Less impressive was the revelation about かをり's "lie", but compared to the rest of the scene I consider it a relatively minor issue. I also liked that the ending wasn't the end of the story. It's not clear what path each character will go on from here, and I think if everyone had figured everything out it I wouldn't find it quite as believable.

とらドラ！

It still feels like early days with this series (I know every week I say this about the series I start). Initial thoughts: 逢坂大河 (Tiger) is very cute. She reminds me of 阿波連れいな from 阿波連さんははかれない but a lot less soft on the outside. The male lead, 高須竜児, also reminds me a bit of 阿波連さん's male lead, with the main difference at the moment being that 阿波連さん leans much harder into the gag aspects and larger-than-life moments, while とらドラ！ focuses a lot more on the developing relationship and complicated highschool drama. There is a sort of misshapen love pentagram going on, and I think it provides the story with a strong foundation for drama. The fifth character, 川嶋亜美, is a real "wrench in the works" personality, but I think she'll ultimately do more to help 大河 and 竜児 discover their true feelings. The pool episode was pretty funny.

アマガミ

I only had one proper session with the game this week, but I was able to spend quite a bit of time with 梨穂子 and learn a bit more about the game's systems. I finally decided to read the manual (go figure that'd be useful) which explained that I wasn't missing anything with the 部活-type icons on the game map. It also explained some of the dialogue minigame, including a few things that I'd already messed up in the past (discussing エッチ topics while the characters are at high energy for example). I spent two after school sessions with 梨穂子 and had some cute scenes at parks. I think my main "task" (trying not to gamify the language of love too much aha...) at the moment is to navigate towards a ☆-mark on the map to progress 梨穂子 up into the next tier of our relationship.
I still feel like the game is quite straight forward. I haven't been subjected to any shocking revelations, twists, or turns so far. I don't know what to expect, but I can confidently say that my guard is fully down if the game ever does decide to get creative.