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Thursday, September 12, 2024

Oshi no Ko manga read:

With the Oshi no Ko anime ending soon in a cliffhanger, I elected to read ahead and discover the rest of the story for myself.  It's a fantastic story with proper answers to all the questions the beginning of the story presented to the viewer.  The manga is almost over.  I could see it ending in a few chapters at this rate.  There were some sections in the middle that felt a little dragged out, like the manga was searching for excuses not to end, but it would always get back to work again and start the adrenaline rushing.  My initial instinct that Ruby was the best character in the story, not Aquamarine, was confirmed, but I also like Aquamarine and Ai a lot.

Oshi no Ko would definitely make my manga hall of fame, but there's no point if they announce a season 3 of the anime, which would show that the whole manga will be animated and there's no need to read.  So right now I'm in a holding pattern, waiting for the end of season 2 to see whether they'll continue the story or not.  If there's no season 3 announcement I'll go ahead and rate Oshi no Ko as a great manga.  I'd also be able to rate the manga better once I've seen the ending, upon which all stories' greatness depends.

This second season of Oshi no Ko was even better than Fairy Tail 100 Year Quest, ep for ep.  It's been absolutely fantastic, enough to carry the whole summer season on its own.  Even though the fall season is slated to be so good, I'm going to miss my weekly Oshi no Ko.  The next time I adjust my top anime rankings Oshi no Ko is going to go way up.

I also finished watching Bleach Kai for the first time.  It's great to be able to watch Bleach without filler.  Once 1,000 Year Blood War is fully out, combined with Bleach Kai, it will have earned its 5th place ranking.

All that's left to rewatch is Precure, currently ranked #4.  Precure's length is both its strength and its weakness.  Having so very many episodes of great anime makes it easy to beat out all competition, but at the same time it becomes extremely difficult to rewatch the series.  In the long run it might be better to be an anime with a reasonable length that's fun to rewatch over and over again, as compared to a series that's super long but unrewarding when you dip back into the well.  I'm a big fan of the currently airing Precure, so I can't exactly say the series should be cancelled, but I do think they'd be better off making shorter series with less repeat animation/repeat situations.  If only Precure's worth could be condensed.  The density of a story's content is probably the most important feature when it comes to rewatching.  Everything can be light and fluffy the first time because the novelty is bedazzling, but once that wears off density matters more and more.  That's why I can read '100 Waifus' happily for the 45th time, because of its unbeatable density.  There's always something monumental happening in the story, there's nary a single dull moment.  If anything feels like it would be dull, '100 Waifus' timeskips over it, to the point of timeskipping whole centuries.

I'd like to read '100 Waifus' in paperback this time, like I have the previous four times, so I'm not trying to speed-read through the story on Kindle before the paperback arrives in the mail, but nevertheless I've already reached Chapter 14.  It's remarkable how the graphic sex scene with Himeno in Chapter 13 and the completely pristine love scene with Levy in Chapter 11 are equally seductive.  A girl's heart is as lovely as her body.  I only added the Levy scene this year but it's already risen to one of my favorite moments in the entire book.

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