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At first, the setting is really fun, and it's super interesting seeing the ins and outs of a working bookstore, and all the quirks of the business and the customers. The exploration of different types of manga and manga-buying customers is entertaining, and the novelty of Honda's skeletal appearance adds to the humour, especially as her character is constantly flustered or shocked by something, and she has to express that with the limited emotive potential of: the skull.

As much as I did enjoy it, the manga quickly starts to feel like it doesn't have much to say. We see several versions of the foreign customer ... who act in similar ways, we revisit the "lewd" manga over and over again to talk awkwardly about how they're sexual (wow), and it all seems to fall into a boring, repetitive cycle that isn't very much fun.

By the fourth volume, it's become ridiculous. The entirety of this volume is about, I kid you not, how Honda has no material left. I'm baffled as to why they bothered to publish it.

There's also a really uncomfortable anecdote in chapter 18 where employees talk about how rare it is to see children in the shop. They talk about being excited when they see cute kids, and there are some really off-colour jokes about how they're saying this in a non-creepy way. One employee corrects herself when she refers to a little girl she saw as a "loli". It's just like... ok? Very, very odd and uncomfortable little segment.

Overall, the manga has some fun moments, but it gets a bit tiresome in some aspects (especially in relation to going on about erotic manga that the store sells), and massively overstays it's welcome.

Maybe just read the first volume.

Pluto was immediately gripping. It has fabulously written episodes (particularly the second), dense with world-building, complex characters, and a rich emotional and political landscape. Gesicht, our protagonist, is the perfect slightly odd, slightly un-reactive, stoic sexy robot man.

The rate at which the story unfolds in the first few episodes is intense and beautiful and affecting. We meet murdered, beloved, vulnerable robots. We meet constrained, broken, cruel robots. We meet child robots filled with wonder, installed with sharp senses. And we meet, repeatedly, our warped world reeling from war and coping (badly) with a widespread discomfort around the increasingly impressive and confusing technological power and social ... position of "the robot".

The show, based on a comic published in 2003, focuses on a clear allegory for the Iraq war - explicitly referencing weapons of mass destruction that never existed, but were nevertheless the justification for an invasion - and this feels juicy and emotionally grounded and interesting. We interrogate the humanity and the violence of those affected - the perps, the victims, and the humanoid weapons used to carry it all out. We watch an endless chain of violent schemes play out in a cycle of blame - by legitimate civilian victims of the war, and by thinly veiled nazis alike (we have an Adolf Hitler type character - it's pretty good stuff).

This, and the overarching question Pluto asks regarding the humanity and inner world of the robots, is very beautifully crafted and thoughtful. You feel for Gesicht and the others. But it falls down towards the end, and many of its threads unspool into a bit of a disappointment.

There seem to be a million inconsistencies when it comes to the robots. Why are some robots children, and treated as children despite being created and assembled the same as any "adult" robot? What makes a child robot a child? I don't get it. This is really only a problem when characters start saying stuff like "he doesn't deserve this, why him, he's just a kid" etc. Like, what do you mean? That's a robot. What does being a child robot mean? There is never any clarity on this, nor for many of Pluto's off contradictions concerning the inner experiences of robots. Do they feel things or only pretend to feel things? Can they lie or not? Do they remember stuff that was erased from their memory or not? It seems like the answer is, ultimately, that whatever robots conceptualise as human traits they don't have, they actually deep down just have all those traits and capabilities. They are becoming human, evolving into humanity. Now, that's fine, but like I'm constructing this idea more than the show is. idk

My biggest problem is with the show's ending. At this point, we've realised the gimmick. Another robot killed off every episode. But the whole thing, I thought, was leading up to the why of that. At the series' conclusion, we have some reveals, but it feels as if we don't have many answers. The final moral conclusion - that we're just gonna stop doing violence now and that's the solution - feels phoned in, unearned, and ultimately insulting within the context of the Iraq war allegory.

The apocalyptic danger also feels severely neutered by the overall series' aimlessness concerning how strong and powerful and advanced each robot is said to be. Like, yeah ok, we know little Atom baby is gonna come in and just hold the apocalypse down and say "nah". It doesn't have the weight a climax like this needs.

Overall, it's a really enjoyable show that has some beautiful moments and incredible characters, and even with the issues with the plot progression and series conclusion, it's a show that is much more tightly written and compelling than 99% of anime. It's grounded, hard sci-fi that trusts its audience enough to do unexpected, unexplained, and varied things. For that I have to recommend it.

Dororo is an incredible story steeped in the darkest Japanese folklore and the horrors of feudal Japan at war. I absolutely loved the way it weaves demon pacts and snarling, suffering yokai into the political and personal turmoil of the time period, giving us a mysterious and almost alien central character who has effectively been robbed of his humanity.

Hyakkimaru, our cursed boy, is faced with a journey that has him literally seeking out his own stolen humanity in the form of his lost body parts and senses, and as he does so he is faced with what acquiring these parts of himself through brutal ... violence means for his humanity in a more abstract and emotional sense. This is the central concern of the series, and it remains a compelling one throughout.

Alongside that we get a lot of great character studies, a constant stream of new and fascinating monsters and creatures, and beautiful visuals. Dororo is also very loveable, and their partnership is really nice to watch evolve as Hyakkimaru regains more of his senses. Perfect.

I enjoyed Kimetsu no Yaiba for it visual flair, effective spooks, and nicely portrayed Taisho period setting, but I feel its let down by some of its writing, and especially towards the end of the series starts to feel like it's falling far short of its potential. The characters are great (aside from Zenitsu, who I find pretty grating), and in particular I love that many of the short-lived villains we see throughout the series get effective, enticing backstories with interesting little details.

I can see why this series ended up being so popular. It looks great, it has a lot of compelling details in its ... worldbuilding and character studies, and it's adept at creating an eerie atmosphere, but it's just a shame the writing is less consistent and more disjointed for much of the series.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is A Ride™ and after finally watching it from start to finish I have very mixed feelings. On one hand it's extremely misogynistic and constantly fetishizes the bodies of its female (child) characters, and it has some deeply embarrassing and cringe moments that drag the entire thing down. On the other hand, once you get far enough into the series it rapidly becomes an intensely introspective psychological and metaphysical nightmare which has me on the edge of my seat, absolutely transfixed at the progression of the plot, the murky and compelling dives into each of our major characters, and the sheer awe ... of the way that the visuals and sound convey everything that has happened, everything that will happen, and rich, uncanny worlds and minds expanding and unfolding into themselves to impart on us a sense of real, unbelievably conveyed trauma, loss, insecurity, and identity.

My absolute favourite aspect was the scribbly storyboard-y visuals you get near the end. So tasty.

What a bizarre, unique, amazing, awful show.

This series does a lot of things really well - we get some really fun and charming characters, an adorable and ethically questionable mascot, some fun sci-fi, and a nice little dollop of spooky suspense. It's really cool to see a re-tooled Jet Jaguar as a central element, and now I feel strongly that I would protect that beautiful robot with my life. Our humans are also pretty fun, as we are blessed with a chaotic old dude who is ready to risk it all, and some computer kids who text faster than I can think. Powerful stuff.

My major criticism of the show would be ... that it focuses, in my mind, a bit too much on its tech plot. It starts to lean a little bit too hard on techno gibberish that I think would be more compelling if shrouded in a bit more mystery. The series has some nice spooky moments, so if it leaned away from the hard sci-fi and more into the eerie elements I think it would balance it out better. We also don't really get as much focus on the kaiju themselves as I'd like, which would work really nicely alongside that creepy vibe if they brought more of it in.

Overall I really enjoyed it and I thought it had some really fun, exciting, and surprising moments that made it a compelling series. And Jet Jaguar is my special little man.