Friends of the Wizards

Anime post. My first (second and third) impression on this spring anime season.

Shoushimin Series Season 2: Both the mystery and the plot deepen. Watching this one is like watching someone walking on a tightrope without a safety net, and watching Urino is like watching a car crash in slow motion. There is tension and a sense of dread, even though nothing much really happens up to episode four. This is something that season 1 lacks. Osanai is still something of a cypher, and she's shaping up to be one of the scariest female leads I've seen in anime in a while.

Edited: Finished up to episode 6. It was a car crash. That was vicious to say the least, but wow.

Zatsu Tabi - That's Journey: Quite good as a travelogue show. I'm learning quite a few things along the way. The main character, a struggling mangaka whose works have been rejected multiple times, really clicks with me. She's trying out new things as a way of rejuvenating her creativity, and what better way to go about it than visiting places you've never been to before?

Hibi wa Sugiredo Meshi Umashi: Another show about trying out new things, this time with a focus on food. Of the two "try new things" shows, I like Zatsu Tabi better so far.

Aru Majo ga Shinu Made: The setting is reminiscent of Mahotsukai no Yome's English town. Quite a chipper show considering the premise—accept death and know that the people you love live on inside you. The pacing is a bit rushed, and the emotional beat doesn't hit as well as it could have been. It has a great ending song by Kajiura Yuki and Teshima Aoi, however.

Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de: Over-the-top comedy of the late 90s to early 2000s variety. The mystery is secondary to the comedy.

Chuuzenji-sensei: Kyokou Suiri in reverse. We have mysteries with a non-supernatural origin being given a supernatural explanation for various reasons (read: Chuuzenji-sensei is a jerk).

Rock wa Lady no Tashinami deshite: Very rock. This is more than just about rich young ladies play rock music. After her mother got remarried into a rich family and being looked down upon by say family, Lilisa gives up on rock and guitar (her biological dad seems to be a rocker) in order to live up to the high society expectation for her mother's sake. She studies hard and does very well in posing herself as an elegant young lady—until she meets passionate drummer Kurogane Otoha. There is something special here.

Kowloon Generic Romance: Not much to talk about story wise since I've already read the manga. The animation team did a great job bringing Kowloon Walled City to animated life. Makes me craving for lemon chicken (it's delicious) and egg tarts. The more unsettling side of the story is made all the more unsettling now that it's animated and voiced.

Kuroshitsuji: Midori no Majo-hen: Business as usual. I really like the OP and ED, both the songs and the credit sequences. I'm hoping Hyde will self-cover the OP song someday.

Wind Breaker Season 2: Again, business as usual. Its heart is in the right place. Fight scenes are as smooth as ever.

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto Season 2: The conspiracy plot is ramping up. I must say I like this side of Kusuriya better than the slice-of-life side.

This one took me a while. It will be a long post.

If one regards fiction as a form of escapism, Wang Ya's (妄鸦) danmei novels are pretty far down the escapism spectrum. There's magical boy cross Cthulhu mytho (Daily Disposable Persona), BL romance meets Dan Brown (Do I Have Money Or Not), ancient China imperial court drama (Would You Like to Have a Drink), the apocalypse in a futuristic wasteland (Arrival), Fate grand/order-inspired fantasy (The Lord of Earth), horror survival game (Thriller Trainee), crematorium in the cultivation world (Evening Snow), how to make a horror movie (Director of a Suspense Film), etc.

Some recurring themes in Wang Ya's novels:
- Transmigration or reborn as one's younger self
- An outwardly cool and calm main character (some of them have anti-social personality; some of them are anything but cool and calm on the inside)
- Non-human love interest
- Crazy love interest (though not quite reaching true yandere territory—either that or I have a high tolerance for this kind of characters)
- Men with long hair, particularly long white hair
- Roses
- Enemies to lovers
- The importance of letting go
- The burden of being a saviour and the price one pays for being a hero
- Self-sacrifice
- Loving someone through one's actions, not words
- The importance of being earnest
- The complicated relationship between father (or father figure) and son
- Multiple planes of reality and parallel worlds
- Chuunibyou elements and anime/light novel influence (depending on the book)

Fun fact: The main characters in all of Wang Ya's danmei novels bar one share the same surname, Zong (宗), though the characters are unrelated to one another. I half-jokingly call them the Zong boys.

I'm organising the reviews in the order that I read the novels, not the order that the novels were published. This post will contain reviews for the five danmei novels that Wang Ya published between mid-2020 to 2022. I'll write about the other five novels in a separate post. If there are any spoilers, I'll stick them at the end of the review and put a spoiler note ahead of time.

( Evening Snow (晚来天欲雪): Crematorium in the cultivation world. )

( Would You Like to Have a Drink (能饮一杯无): Transmigration and political drama inspired by the Qin Dynasty. )

( Director of a Suspense Film (悬疑片导演): How to make a horror film, infinite flow style. )

( Arrival (降臨): Love thyself at the end of the world. )

( Thriller Trainee (惊悚练习生): Enemies to lovers in a horror infinite flow competition. )

Final word: Letting go is a form of love.

To be continued...