Yotsugi Buddy read:

The first 3/4 or so of Amarimonogatari is titled 'Yotsugi Buddy,' it's been translated in full and now read in full.  The remaining 1/4 is titled 'Yotsugi Shadow' and remains untranslated and thus unread.  I'm certainly intrigued about what Yotsugi Shadow is about, since Yotsugi Buddy left no dangling plot threads.

What's becoming a trend in Bakemonogatari, the story is a mystery, but a supernatural mystery where the normal rules of mystery solving no longer apply.  It's also full of puns and jokes, making me break out laughing over and over again.  This is also becoming quite the trend, to the point that I'm more inclined to call the series a comedy than a mystery.

The book isn't fully available yet, but at least these first 3/4 were excellent.  On par with the many previous excellent volumes, and probably above average compared to the animated portion of Monogatari.  Strangely these later volumes you can only read have all been better than the earlier ones everyone can watch.  If I had to choose what should get animated, it would be these volumes, the very ones that weren't animated.  Japan seems to, out of pure spite, make the most ridiculous decisions about what gets animated and what doesn't.

If the entire Bakemonogatari series ever does get translated, I'm going to list Nisio Isin as my favorite light novel author, but there's no proof that will actually happen.  For now he's stuck at #2.  It's important for stories to have endings.

I also finished reading Children of the Lens as I said I would.  It was good, better than the previous two volumes, but nothing matches Galactic Patrol.  In a sense the full worth of Lensmen is contained within Galactic Patrol and none of the other books were really ever necessary.  Oh well, it was better than the average book you might find lying around.

The reason for all the separate anime posts is because Blogger was making it hard to edit the large post that contained all the information together, falling too short on memory, so I had to break it down into smaller parts so the website could operate efficiently again.  It's a continuous frustration that strikes at many of my larger posts.  I took the opportunity to improve upon the posts, though, so it wasn't entirely pointless.

I think it's funny that 2022 is already slated to have 25 great anime airing, more than the previous two years, while we still don't know the full schedule of 3/4 of next year.  For all we know 2022 could host 30, 40 great series by the end, if its starting point is already 25.  I'm so excited for 2022.

Also coming soon, Trinoline Genesis, the fandisk to Trinoline, a visual novel in my hall of fame, is slated for release 1/20/22.  With Rewrite+ and Trinoline Genesis, my promise that 2022 would be the year of the visual novel is already coming true.

Today also marks the end of Shiroi Suna no Aquatope.  It didn't turn out to be as great a series as I estimated it would be, but it's still definitely a great anime.  I'm going to have to re-order my rankings once again once I see the endings to this, Selection Project and Yuuki Yuuna S3.  It's a big chore, but there's no point hosting a top anime rankings permapost unless I keep it accurate.

And last and least, the final episodes of Bleach have come out in blu-ray thanks to [Judas].  As I've said before, the later Bleach blu-ray releases don't look better than the tv version, maybe a bit worse, so it's sort of silly to be so insistent on collecting the blu-ray.  But I'm a blu-ray kind of guy, I archive things in blu-ray, so for me this is a good thing, it means my Bleach collection is complete.  That is, until the new Bleach anime begins. . .