Japanese Reading Report: 23 February 2025

How time flies. February is almost over and the year is almost 1/6th completed. I feel like I'm falling dangerously behind my (already fairly flexible) goals, but I'm hoping this is just a symptom of my full-time internship. I have only one more week of internship to go. For what it's worth I've been enjoying my internship immensely. I get to do a lot of writing, so basically it's like an extension of what I already enjoy doing for my own website.

ＢＩＬＬＹ ＢＡＴ

A few days late. I finally managed to finish this series. I was honestly blown away by the pure vibes of the ending, though I have to say it's difficult to recommend based on the ending alone.

I think this series will one day be discovered and revered as one of the most unique stories told this century. It's about faith and prophecy, time travel (but not really), accelerationism, and art's power to shape the world.

チェンソーマン

The latest volume of Chainsaw Man (though still tragically behind the chapterly releases). The first bulk of the volume was fairly low energy. The crew sought out a sushi restaurant to feed Denji, but they take a detour to fulfil Denji's other carnal desire first... the moment that happens here was something that was spoiled for me well over a year ago and I remember reading other volumes wondering when it was going to happen.
The group eventually does find a revolving sushi restaurant. Denji is given some pretty bad news, causing him to go berserk, which is exactly to the plans of those in power who are trying to manipulate Chainsaw Man's power to delete demons from reality. Another scene which was spoiled for me happened around here. It sort of came and went quickly so it wasn't as interesting as I expected it to be. I'm hoping the next volume picks things up because I'm starting to find the main plot, lacking any interesting characters outside of Asa or Denji, kind of tiring.

２ちゃんねる化する世界

A non-fiction book about the change of Japan's (and the world's) culture from message boards like 2chan, particularly because of access to anonymous posting. So far the main focus has been on how 2chan enabled Japan's "Free Tibet" movement in 2008 (on the heels of the beijing olympics) and also how much of that movement was fuelled by far-right, nationalist sentiment that found 2chan useful.

It's honestly really interesting to read about this darker side of Japanese culture. I feel like the book is not too judgemental about it, either. Pretty good so far.

銀河英雄伝説

Not too much interesting to say about this series, and I'm strongly considering dropping it. There were a few good episodes in the Galactic Empire storyline focusing on a rift which developed between Reinhard and Siegfried. Reinhard has become more powerful but also more disconnected from the needs of the common man, and an engagement he was responsible for ended in the death of a lot of innocents. Siegfried — still concerned with honour and protecting innocent lives — confronts Reinhard about his behaviour, but it doesn't really go anywhere. Later on there's an assassination attempt on Reinhard and Siegfried, still feuding but just as honour-bound, steps up to save Reinhard's life. Now Reinhard is living with guilt and doubt, which I think is a seed for potentially good stories for him now.

The series also moved into the "second part" which, so far, has mostly been establishing episodes to explain and characterise some existing less interesting characters that I suppose the anime would like us to take an interest in now.