howdy everyone, it's lego jujutsu kaisen once again. i don't really even like jujutsu kaisen that much anymore i just can't really change the link to the blog so this is what we've got. also i know i'm super late but real ones know that i've been busy.
anime of the month
this wasn't the greatest month i've ever had for anime. it took me a loooong time to finish Futari wa Precure, which i started in june, and though it was definitely good i was getting sick of it by the end. therefore, i'm not really looking forward to season two since i've heard it's just more of the same. i did watch some more OVAs that i really liked, one of which being Tanjou: Debut, which i was led to believe would be horrible for whatever reason. i was disappointed by KOWLOON GENERIC ROMANCE, pleasantly surprised by WIND BREAKER Season 2, and had a great laugh and cry at Hinamatsuri. overall, there can only be one true anime of the month, and that honor belongs to the absolutely stunning Kenpuu Denki Berserk
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this anime needs no introduction. you already know what this is and that it's universally beloved. i am delighted that this was my first experience with Berserk, as although i do plan on reading it someday, i felt truly engrossed in the beautiful and horrifying world that was presented on the screen. i rated this an 8.5/10, which is high praise from me. it perhaps just barely falls short of a 9/10 due to its reliance on still frames and ending right before shit was going to get real, but i'm very pleased with what we got. it certainly helps that the still frames looked amazing.
OLM is a studio that is pretty hit-or-miss in my book. some of their more recent works look pretty good, such as Kusuriya no Hitorigoto and Summer Time Render, and they've even had some strangely alright looking stuff that wasn't very good, like Koutetsu Tenshi Kurumi. however, they also made Dark Gathering, which i'm currently watching and is not up to par visually. Kenpuu Denki Berserk, when it does animate, does it very well, and as expected of the studio that brought you Pokémon, the backgrounds are always gorgeous. it's a fantasy world that draws you in and is nothing short of incredible. i binged nineteen episodes in one day.
to avoid simply saying "oh the characters are so good" or "oh the plot is so thrilling", etc., i want to highlight something that i found particularly interesting. i truly appreciated their dedication to depicting realistic battles using ingenious but realistic strategy. i can't think of many anime that have compelling large war scenes, except for perhaps Arslan Senki. though this is far from the only action available in Kenpuu Denki Berserk, i found it consistently enthralling and it was a high point of the experience. other than that, all i can say is that i highly recommend this anime, and i think it stands on its own very well even if it does not adapt even close to all of the manga.
manga of the month
this was not my greatest month in manga. so much so that i'm just not going to have a manga of the month. sue me.
web novel of the month
this june, a donghua by the name of Guimi Zhi Zhu (Lord of the Mysteries, or sometimes, Lord of Mysteries) began airing, and one of my dear friends said "hey lego jujutsu kaisen, you should watch this because it's like victorian and shit" or something along those lines. i preceded to begin watching something that can only be described as incredibly disorganized and disrespectful to its source material. i then preceded to begin reading the web novel it is based on (which is the first time i've read a proper novel in years) and realized that the show was worse than i thought. i'm currently at chapter 483, right after the end of volume two, but i finished volume one in july, so i'm only going to discuss that here.
rarely have i ever read or watched something with this level of granular dedication to worldbuilding. you get to experience every meal, every coin, every street, and more. there's also a very complicated power system that complements the victorian setting very well. the setting isn't literally victorian britain, but it takes heavy inspiration from that era, creating a fantasy setting that feels very real.
though it may appear on the surface to be a fairly straightforward mystery story with elements of cosmic horror, it goes much deeper through its main theme of "acting" which it explores from chapter one. while it does very simply adapt the trope of "transmigrating" (or as we more commonly hear in the world of anime, "getting isekai'd"), it makes its intention clear from the beginning that it is going to make the most of that. the crux of Lord of the Mysteries is exploring the ways in which one's true identity is obscured and the resulting consequences, which only continues to become more compelling over time.
the reason the donghua fails so hard is because it fails to grasp the detail present here. volume one is a largely self-contained story that very slowly builds up to the climax at the very end, and it is imperative when adapting it to keep the details subtle (which it doesn't) and to cherish those moments of downtime (which it also doesn't). the space between the action is what truly makes this special and allows them to set things in motion even when you, the reader, don't know it's happening yet. it's not supposed to be a "monster of the week" type deal, and the moments between the action are just as interesting as the action itself.
final thoughts
july kinda sucked. look forward to my august in review because it's currently looking like an OVA might win anime of the month if i don't watch something incredible. unless i finish Saint Seiya.
alright i'm gonna go eat some fuckin spicy chicken -lego jujutsu kaisen