Reading Report: 31 March 2024

機動戦艦ナデシコ

A bit of a long one this week, mostly because I finished part one of 二十四歳職業OL、転生先でキシリアやってます and did some variety reading. I also finished off 勇気爆発バーンブレイバーン and started watching 聖戦士ダンバイン so I had a few things to talk about. Spoilers for 新機動戦記ガンダムW (Gundam Wing), 聖戦士ダンバイン (Aura Battler Dunbine), 二十四歳職業OL、転生先でキシリアやってます, and 血の轍 (Blood on the Tracks).

新機動戦記ガンダムW

I've been enjoying this show. There are definitely echoes of previous shows, but it's mixed in an enjoyable soup of themes and events. ゼクス is almost 1:1 a シャア clone, but I like that he's driven so strongly by honour. His fight and later rematch with ヒイロ were both fun, and in particular the lead up to the rematch was pretty engaging even though it was just ノイン bringing ヒイロ and トロワ to Antarctica. Speaking of ノイン, she's just great. I love watching her loyalty to ゼクス and resistance towards レディ・アン. Also she's cute.
I liked this exchange:

ドクターＪ「コロニーの平和のためにじゃよ」
リリーナ　「そんな、人を殺すことが平和につながるはずはありません」
ドクターＪ「つながるんじゃよ。戦争は人によって起こる、人によって終わらせられる」

聖戦士ダンバイン

Started watching this as background while doing other tasks but I ended up liking it quite a bit so... background watching just doesn't work for me. I don't know the historic facts but I've heard this is one of the first isekai anime (1983). Basically about a Japanese biker called ショウ who gets magicked into another world called バイストン・ウェル. When referring to Earth and his quest to get home everyone says 地上.
It's a very western-fantasy-inspired show. Lots of unicorns, castles, fairies, and villages. The titular ダンバイン is an "Aura Machine", a type of insectoid robot that people pilot using "aura power". Incidentally ショウ still has his motorbike and calls it ガソリン powered.. kind of gave me Evil Dead 2 vibes, though his Earth tech doesn't seem to be very impressive apart from the bike, and also the people here have guns and giant robots so.

勇気爆発バーンブレイバーン

I finally caught up to and finished this. Including episode 9, the final third of this show was quite good. I don't want to spoil any events but I loved seeing Lulu's backstory, the vibes of episode 11 were kind of immaculate up to the end, and episode 12 escalated everything in a way that was satisfying.

二十四歳職業OL転生先で、キシリアやってます　上

Finally got to the end of this book, and was thoroughly unimpressed to the end. Since this is just part one I will withhold full judgement of the story, but I basically felt like this half of the story was kind of pointless. キシリア really doesn't have a personality or story. She's kind of just a conduit for a hypothetical reader to "correct" the timeline, which is a fine goal to have but it doesn't feel like a real or interesting person attempting to achieve it. The story also ends with the mysterious isekai halo informing her that, rather than letting her live out the entirety of キシリア's fated life, it will be transporting her 10 years into the future so she can experience just the events of the One Year War. Okay fair enough the book wants to zoom right to the fun stuff for part two except the halo also informs her that her body will still be that of a 13-year-old キシリア. There's basically no reason for that except "cute girl being bossy" is a genre in LNs and it's preferable to a story where キシリア is aged appropriately. Well anyway, onto part two.

二十四歳職業OL転生先で、キシリアやってます　下

So just as explained by the halo, キシリア wakes up 10 years later. She is on the moon city グラナダ and apparently in the last 10 years her body reverted to its fashionista personality with no interest in warfare. Because of that many of the things キシリア set up were not well maintained... really makes you wonder if events would have needed less fixing if the halo didn't transport her into the future..? Praying for character development in this one.

機動戦士ガンダムウェアヴォルフ

Part two of this finally came out. I thought it would be part two of two, but there was a cliffhanger !!
I don't know why but the names of characters in this story are impossible for me to remember. At least it doesn't cause issues during reading. They solved the main 密室 and I felt it was a satisfying explanation. I like the relationship between the two main characters, and with how the volume ended I'm curious to see how it will develop further.

血の轍

Like all others from this series, this manga volume zoomed by so quickly it's hard to count it as reading. However I'm glad I finally read this and finished the story. Overall I enjoyed 血の轍 quite a lot. The blending of surreal mindscapes to help visualise 静一's mental state, particularly how he sees his mother, right to the end was really well done. Cried.