Normally I don’t tag anything for these round-ups, but let’s see how much I can inflate the views using the Showcase and this.

If it’s not specified, the time period covered in this post is from the 21st of January 2019 to the 18th of February 2019.

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Other People’s Reads

It wouldn’t be a round-up post without them. However, since I scour people’s archives on a regular basis, these may not even be from the right time period…

• First Impressions of Winter 2019 Anime by AJ (The Anointed Geek) – As I’m typing this up, there’s already more than 30 eligible submissions for the Showcase, so my compromise was putting some anime-related posts here. Now, this may be a simple first impressions post, but the fact AJ gave some of these anime a fair shake when they normally wouldn’t get much treatment at all is enough to give it some value.
• How Original Are We As Bloggers? by Ari from The Romance Corner – That disclaimer doesn’t sit up there for nothing – while I was looking at Showcase entries, I also dug into their archives if I found them interesting enough. This post is coloured by this blogger’s book blogging, but I still find it relevant enough that I think it’ll be reassuring to at least someone out there. (Also, I’ve found book bloggers tend to have really pretty themes/formatting in comparison to other types of bloggers…and I don’t really know why…)
• Manga Glimpse – The Water Dragon’s Bride by HermitOdysseus – After staring longingly at new manga releases wherever I can, I keep seeing the same few titles appealing to me. In the shoujo category, one of them is The Water Dragon’s Bride, which I think I did see in a bookstore…before it shut down due to renovations and got replaced by other manga. So long story short: I gotta keep myself salty for a day where I can read it.
• The Devil is a Part-Timer! Episode 1: A Crushing Defeat and the Betrayal of the Black Pepper Fries by Terrance Crow (Crow’s Anime World) – As you know (?), given the chance I won’t shut up about Hataraku Maou-sama!, so Crow enables me to do so with his coverage of it.
• Saiyuki: Four Guys and a Dragon-Car by Ennadune (Friend of Fiction) – As much as I fell for the atmosphere of Saiyuki with Reload Blast, I do admit the plot is repetitive…but I always like to go into the hows and not the whys. Luckily, Ennadune’s got me covered on that front.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion – Episode 6 by Bobduh (Nick Creamer) at Wrong Every Time – As you may know, I idolise the writings of Nick when it comes to The Art of Criticism and I found a particularly worthy one here. Admittedly, the guy was paid to do this post, but this is more a tier of “what to aspire towards” rather than “we’re all just amateurs eking out a presence in the internet”.
• [Feature] Fruits Basket‘s Tohru Honda and the Path to Self-Acceptance by Ariel French for Anime Feminist – On that note, I feel like Fruits Basket is suddenly a new hot topic now that the anime is going to be back in a few months. Combine that nostalgia with a reminder of the pre-anime bubble era in seeing snippets of the manga, plus its containing the message incorporated into two of my OWLS posts, and we have a winner (even though, again, it’s likely this writer was paid).
• My Hero Academia Season 2 Part 2 Spoiler-Free Review by Matt in the Hat – This post is a bit simplistic in comparison to its competition (hence why it didn’t make the cut as a Showcase piece), but it can’t be ignored that as a review it competently does its job.
• Golden Kamuy: Uniquely Larger than Life by Dewbond from Shallow Dives in Anime – Golden Kamuy got a good representation from the Crunchyroll Award nominations…but basically nowhere else. Sure, I don’t think it the best of 2018, but it’s pretty darn close does it justice…not to mention CGI bears shouldn’t be the be all and end all for a show!
• Listening to Your Own Judgement – Anime Hype by LitaKino – I know that me and hype don’t get along, so that’s why, in the midst of Mob Psycho 100 and Promised Neverland craziness, I’ll include this reminder that you shouldn’t feel obligated to watch what everyone else is watching if you have no enjoyment in it yourself.
• My Roommate is a Cat First Impressions by Janette – I’m having a bunch of fun (and getting punched in the gut with feels) when it comes to this wholesome kitty anime. That said, the post itself is no slouch, either – it’s slightly inaccurate due to developments revealed in the 5th episode, but otherwise is able to sell the show’s charm without losing a personal or casual touch.
• ReLIFE Manga – High School Revisited by foomafoo at Temporal Vortex – Ah, ReLIFE. Reading about it takes me back to when I first found it on Comico. Notably, this post is dated before the anime and so details events that happen within it, but it’s a much deeper read into the chosen work than most people tend to do on the interwebs. 
• Cops, Comedy and Crazy Drugs (Double Decker! Doug and Kirill Review) from Sam at A Nerdy Perspective – Watching the 1st extra episode reminded me exactly why I love Double Decker! as much as I do and so did this post…also, more cats.
• Book Seller Honda-san: Educational and Funny by Scott at Mechanical Anime Reviews – There are certain things you can’t discuss because they’re just so relatable, they end up making you think you divulge too much about yourself. Honda-san was one of those, due to all that volunteer and paid work I’ve done with books…and so, I get other people to discuss them for me by picking them for these round-up posts.
• Hinamatsuri is (not) what it sets out to be by blautoothdmand – This thing is basically an essay by itself, what with the idea of continuity feeding back into itself. However, what sets it apart is the fact its contention is “the new is old and the old is new, but the truth is that doesn’t matter” using the storylines of Hinamatsuri‘s Hina, Anzu and Hitomi. It’s a very hard act to follow, even including the pieces which people were paid to do, which is why I’ve put it last in this round-up.

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Spellbook Offerings

Yomu’s Konobi collab

• Ep 3: Fussing Over Details – Nitpicking Konobi is fun…but hard.
• Ep 4: Pulling No Punches with Punchlines – That one post where I “employed future Aria to do the fact-checking”.
• Ep 5: No, Subaru Does – “Criticise everything Subaru says and does” was the theme…and I rose to the challenge. How, you ask? By transcribing his every word from the episode.
• Ep 6: All the Animals…and Then Some Other Stuff – Just an excuse to squeal over how cute Mizuki’s bunnies are for one dotpoint…okay, I admit it. I was getting lazy at that point in the collab.

Other Stuff

• Rediscovering my Roots – No, this is not about my ancestry. It’s about digging into my childhood memories of Sailor Moon.
• Crunchyroll Clean Out – Using the somewhat recent (as of the post) removals of Hanasaku Iroha and Tono to Issho, I unwrap the positives and negatives of sudden “anime XYZ is leaving the vault!” announcements.
• The Light Novels are Where It’s At for No Game, No Life and Before Their Time: Ghost in the Shell SAC and King of Thorn – The Scheduler caught my ire at 10 pm one random Tuesday by putting the former post out at its idea of “9 am on a Wednesday”, so I had to put out a second. The former discusses how formatting is used in the No Game, No Life light novels to create a distinctive tone, while the latter discusses futuristic elements of the two named works (the former work’s manga and the latter work’s movie).
• Manga Plus…What? – Manga Plus is that one website Shueisha suddenly decided to launch with access to every chapter you can get on Viz, backlog titles (for up to 7 weeks) and then some random titles you’ve never heard of, because they hail from Shonen Jump+. I discuss some of the “random titles you’ve never heard of” here.
• Which Classicaloid Character Would Be Your Husbando/Waifu? – I actually did something related to love for Valentine’s Day…so enjoy the quiz.

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Coming up next…

• I kept it secret last month because I wanted to surprise everyone, but I’m hosting the Showcase. Submissions end in 10 days, so if you haven’t submitted something and you want to, check here for details. However, due to the Showcase I left my usual posts, this one included, to the last minute…which doesn’t sound like me at all… 
• It’s back to the daily grind with March, although the removal of IT in the last few months mean I have more hours to blog and watch anime…plus more hours to throw into resume-strengthening and other “adulting things”, which is what I really should be doing with that time. As of this post though, I’m more behind than usual on watching shows because I’m a few episodes short of finishing Classicaloid‘s 2nd season, plus I was dealing with phone problems and studying up on how to drive. (Please don’t go trusting me with your car yet, people…this is only the beginning for me.) 

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