Reading Report: 15 February 2026

無限のリヴァイアス

有害図書の本

Finally started this book proper. So far the book has mostly described the history of the various regulations that have lead to books, movies, toys, and other "entertainment" to be separated into "non-dangerous" and "dangerous" categories. In Japan it all sort of begun in the early 1950s during a post-war economy where youth crime was at an all-time high. Lawmakers felt that items with bad moral content were corrupting the youth, so they wanted to clear "unhealthy" items away from the average Japanese childhood. What these unhealthy items are depends on prefecture, and they didn't all follow suit immediately (it seems like it was sort of a 20-year roll-out). It's honestly a fairly dry book but I'm learning a bit.

無限のリヴァイアス

I still feel a bit weird thinking about this series. On one hand it's technically and aesthetically (especially musically) very competent. As the series went on I eventually familiarised myself with the key characters and was able to follow the main drama pretty well. But, it has a really slow middle chapter which didn't really pull me in. It wasn't until the final arc (basically after Ikumi breaks) that I felt like anything interesting was happening. Despite that, I think it might have all been worth it for just how good Ikumi, Kouji, Aoi, Faina, and Yuki are as a dramatic core cast (plus Kozue though some might describe her more as a conduit for Ikumi).

Listing those characters feels like a flood of names, but they represent only a fraction of the total cast of the show. I think ultimately that's the problem. 26 episodes and way too many characters to think about. Not even Bokurano had this issue. And despite that, I still felt like Kouji earned his final confrontation with Ikumi.

スーパーロボット大戦ＥＸ

Were you expecting SRW Y? I'm sorry, I'm committed to beating this game before I return to Y.

Story progress this week basically amounted to: The crew, having defeated カークス, discover an enemy force entering a former orichalcum mine. When they follow the enemy force, they discover that ルオゾール (someone Masaki recognised, though I don't) is heading deeper into the mine where an ancient temple to a god of destruction, サーヴァ＝ヴォルクルス, was worshipped. Naturally the bad guys reincarnate the evil god (or at least a fragment of its power) and man... fighting those units is incredibly tedious. They all have 30,000+ HP and absorb beam weapons, which would be fine if it was just one or two, but there are four in the first mission and six or so in the next.

Anyway we do beat up ヴォルクルス and the story continues. The kindly prince フェイル has been brainwashed and now we have to push through our own side's units to knock some sense back into him.

I finally had another choice in the game. During my approach I had the option to either send a recon group to scout ahead or not. I chose to do some recon which put Masaki, Shou (Dunbine), Judeau (ZZ Gundam), and Gato (Gundam Stardust Memory) all alone against a fleet of enemy ships (mostly from the Dunbine universe).

天元突破グレンラガン episode 7

天元突破グレンラガン

I've started to rewatch this because I feel like it's simply too important to the greater Robot Anime canon to give up on it entirely. I'm basically up to the exact same point I was the last time I dropped it, and I sort of feel guilty for not "Seeing the vision" last time. Yeah it has a handful of pretty bad episodes in the early parts, but I think I really underrated how much depth is contained within Simon, Yoko, and Kamina. I think Nia is sort of a nothing character (so far), but similarly to Kozue in Ryvius, I can see her potential as a tool to jump-start Simon's powers.

アルマちゃんは家族になりたい

I finished this series in one big push while I was working from home one day. Because of that, it was sort of a semi-focus watch (gotta make sure work comes first, of course). There was definitely some funny storytelling, but I don't have much to talk about.

キミと越えて恋になる

Watched during the same semi-focus period as Alma-chan, so it almost felt as unimpactful. I will say, there was a nice arc where Hidaka (The beast boy) shows some kindness towards a girl he's partnered with for an athletic competition. I like seeing romantic main characters interact with non-romantic partners to demonstrate that they're more than just a "hot guy/girl".

グリッドマンユニバース

After my rewatch of SSSS Gridman I was going to rewatch Dynazenon and finish it off with this movie, but my fiance and I decided we would watch this movie this weekend and I didn't have time to rewatch Dynazenon... oops. Also I technically watched this on the day I'm writing my report, so sorry for that.

It was kind of cute and I liked seeing the mixed cast interact, though it also sort of felt sort of like.. excess story. Like yeah both series hint at the shared universe stuff, but I didn't feel like this story meaningfully "completed" any dramatic arcs. Plus the big bad might as well have not existed (his anilist page literally just says "gender: male" like he has no personality). It was the kind of movie that's fun to watch because all your favourite guys show up, but probably would have been better with a tighter cast, a more developed villain, and maybe as an episodic story to give the drama some time to breath.