Reading Report: 02 July 2023
This week I did about an average amount of reading, plus a fair amount of listening (mostly キヨ stuff). Reading was mostly: なるたる, 一ノ瀬家の大罪, and 葬送のフリーレン. Major spoilers for なるたる.
🌏 なるたる Finished it
The last volume was a bit of a mixed one for me. I liked the build-up towards the end. Even though I didn't really pick up on the motivations of every character, I felt like I understood Shina and Kuri and Akira fairly well and they all had good moments going into the last chapter. And then the last chapter was kind of strange. Shina has made up with her mum and is living with her. We cut between future Shina and past Shina (with her mum) and as future Shina walks around we see how everything went wrong. A gunman crashes into their car and kills Shina's mum. Akira dies. The secret agent guy gets stabbed. Tsurumaru is murdered (maybe he was already dead...) Shina loses all hope with humanity.
Then we establish the story firmly in the future. Shina and Kuri are pregnant with the seeds of humanity. But Shina is kind of bummed out about humans and not really keen to start a family. Kuri reminds her of a picture she drew in Volume 1; it was a drawing of her happily surrounded by her mum and dad. Shina is given back some motivation to try out this humanity thing again... then there's another timeskip and the first two humans are born, embrace, and kiss. The end. Kinda funky but it's something. I think I like both the sad and inspirational elements but I think they don't gel as well as they could have.
✝️ 一ノ瀬家の大罪 Vol 1
One I've had on my bookshelf for a little bit. It's by タイザン５, the author of タコピーの原罪, so I figured it'd be pretty good. It's definitely aiming for a longer story and I think that's a bit of a weakness. So far the first volume hasn't done too much for me. The opening plot is pretty cute though.
Tsubasa wakes up from a coma to a big family (sister, mum, dad, grandpa, and grandma). He has amnesia and isn't even really sure who he is. On top of that all of his family also has amnesia. The first chapter is about them bonding over imagining what kind of lives they had before they get home while they imagine some fake holidays they went on.
When they get home they realise that they're all actually in really shit spots in their lives. Tsubasa's whole room is covered in 死s and it turns out he gets bullied a tonne at school. Thankfully he's able to turn it all around eventually.
I like the way the story uses the characters' amnesia as a way to basically allow them to tackle their past problems with a fresh perspective/new hope, but I dunno if I'll read more for now.
👵 葬送のフリーレン Vol 1-2
I started reading this one since I had both volumes in my bookshelf. It's pretty good. I like how the use of フリーレン's lifespan affects her perspective on things, although I'm a bit sad that time seems to have slowed down a lot since taking on two partners in crime. The writing is okay but a bit full of jargon. Not sure if I'll move onto vol 3 or not...
ドラゴンクエストXオフライン版
Also played a bit more Dragon Quest X. I did a bunch of casino grinding just to get myself into a good coin position. I've also been working on a few side quests before ending the first arc of the game. Part of me wants to rush straight to Version 2 but I also want to kind of clean out V1's content without rushing by and not smelling the flowers.
Life stuff
Still working on a bunch of little things. I have an article in the final stages that'll probably be out tomorrow if all goes well. Yes I plan to do more HTML magic with it aha... Just two more weeks of holidays. I have a wedding to attend this week so that may put a spanner in input but I suppose real life stuff is worth prioritising somewhat 🤔
Anyway yeah. Ask me questions I'm lonely