Manga

Another couple of older completed series that I especially enjoyed and wanted to share:

Shoujo Fujuubun (Imperfect Girl) - written by Nisio Isin (which IMO should be sufficient recommendation all by itself), ~~it's quite short at only six chapters~~ and is frankly astonishing. It's more a coming-of-age drama than anything else, but really defies description. Just read the first chapter and I can pretty much guarantee you'll be hooked.

ETA - I screwed that up entirely.

I thought six chapters seemed short, but I haven't actually read it in a couple of years, and I was going by what Mangadex has.

It's actually 27 chapters (I know - that's a pretty significant difference). Apparently Mangadex just doesn't have the rest (and the original version of this post linked to them, but obviously that was a waste of time).

But everything else I said about it still holds (I'm sure of that because I discovered my screw up when I set out to reread it).

The full run is available at least on MangaSee, under the English title, but I don't know if I can, or should even if I can, directly link it here. I still strongly recommend it.

My apologies to anyone who was misled or confused by my utter failure.

A Methed to Make the Gentle World (Yasashii Sekai no Tsukurikata) - a very well done coming-of-age romance comedy/drama with an emphasis on character development. Fairly short at 31 chapters, and with a very satisfying ending. And for what it's worth (it's not really significant but does amuse me), while most current manga sites changed the spelling and phrasing of the English title or even substituted the Japanese title (as Mangadex has done), that English title, with that exact phrasing and spelling, is actually the title it was originally published under in Japan.

I have been on vacation this past week, so my reading has been sporadic. My internet connection has been incredibly irregular and I have found it very difficult to read while on the beach. The sun is so bright that I need to wear sunglasses, but the sunglasses make it impossible to read things on my phone screen due to being polarized. My point is that it has been a mess.

In any case, there are a couple things I wanted to highlight from this past week:

• Puberty, an All Boys School!? and Nakano-kun - The final chapters were translated and released. I had a lot of fun with this incredibly silly series. It's a fairly quick read, so it isn't a big commitment to knock out.
• Houkago no Meikyuu Boukensha: Nippon to Isekai wo Ikiki Dekiru You ni Natta Boku wa Level Up ni Isoshimi Masu - Ran across this one randomly by literally tapping it accidentally in my app. The premise is basically an isekai where the human from Japan can travel back and forth as he wants. It is a slow-life style story, so don't expect drama or action. It reminds me a bit of Welcome to Japan, Elf-san!, but even lower stakes.
• The Gal Who Was Meant to Confess to Me as a Punishment Game Has Apparently Fallen in Love with Me - I caught up with this series over the past week. I can't say that I have liked the recent chapters as much as the beginning. The basic premise is that a girl is dared by her friends to ask a very non-threatening classmate out to help her get over a fear of men. This classmate happens to overhear the dare, but plays along with the whole thing. Then, the story is about the two of them actually developing feelings for each other. Their relationship progress just doesn't feel earned though. They basically go from virtual strangers to practical proposal in no time at all.
• Tensai Majo no Maryoku Kare - I think I found this series from somebody in this community (I apologize for forgetting who). However, I wanted to highlight it because I just caught up and recent chapters have been pretty fun with an actual feeling of progression. The basic premise is that there is a genius witch prodigy, but she uses up so much magic through her exploits that she loses all her MP (something that doesn't regenerate in this world). She then has to live a mundane life with a former student. That is when the real magic happens...

It would be nice if discussion threads for mangas include their English title in the post. I find it hard to read Romaji.

Anyone else stuck in a rut where none of your usual series update but you don't have the drive to start on your backlog? That was me this last week. OK, not entirely.

I did look through some of the series I wanted to read but were dropped by the scanlators for one reason or the other. The one I miss the most currently is probably Traveling Gyaru - pretty fun series about a gyaru who travels Japan on a bike, trying to make it to her friends wedding. It has comedy, interesting tips about travel and it's just a fun read in general. Only 12 out of 27 chapters are translated...

Another fun (and stupid) one was Power Antoinette - a comedy manga set during the French Revolution. The gimmick here is that Marie Antoinette (and her children) are all about bulking up so Marie manages to escape the guillotine and fights against revolutionaries instead. The biggest disappointment here is the fact the author chickened out of making her swole all the time and made it into a temporary buff instead, it's pretty decent otherwise.

Other than that, I've been filling my time with visual novels. It's kinda funny because I pretty much stopped watching anime and focused on manga because the latter can be engaged with in shorter bursts and yet, I'd rather just spend hours reading those at the moment. It's a weird time man...