but it's also not something she can afford to do for free.

Not that she should do it for free, but nonetheless she should just do it, period, and worry about recouping her losses after the fact. That said, when it comes to literally saving a life, it honestly is something she could afford to do for free. Her day-to-day business involves selling potions, not healing, so it's not like she's providing all of her services for free by saving somebody in an emergency.

Speaking of free things, she got gifted an 8 room mansion for free. Depicted as a "fixer-upper", of course, that took all of 5 minutes to fix with magic.

And the whole story they presented about it being a financial reality of this world really falls flat when alchemists are established to be the elite of the elite, practically royalty in all but name. They made sure to hammer home how above everyone else she is; she's the only person in the village with an indoor bath, something which is the norm only among nobility even in the capital. She's no starving artist.

Also, I might be misremembering, but in Ep1 didn't they literally say alchemists were subsidised by the kingdom?

As we learn later, she very much needed the ingredients from the grizzlies to avoid bankruptcy herself after the treatment.

[X] Doubt

She lost at most one day's labour, plus some grass growing around her shop. She hasn't bought anything and has no debts, so the prospect of bankruptcy doesn't even make sense.

being aware of the options and making the choice first certainly beats being presented the bankrupting bill after the fact.

Well, if you set aside the fact that she never mentioned a price and then sprung that it was several years of lowly peasant adventurer income after the fact...

One should also not forget that we are not dealing with a modern society that has health insurance and easily accessible hospitals.

Indeed, we're dealing with a fantasy world where magical 16 year olds solve everything from amputated arms to giant flaming bear invasions.

So yeah, all things considered, while this did leave a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, it's far more realistic for the given setting than your usual OP healers performing miracles left and right with no cost to themselves.

Well, she is literally an OP healer who did it at no real cost to herself beyond a handful of ingredients (that she got for free!!!!), not to mention being an OP fighter who put the actual adventurers to shame.

This entire story is a masturbatory isekai self-insert fantasy in all but name. Which is fine if you just want to telling a relaxing slice-of-life story for escapism, but considerably less fine if you want to moralise at length about how actually, money is more important than lives,
and going so far as to have the characters call the adventurers awful people for daring to say she should value human life. I don't want to hear anything about realism when the entire premise of the anime is an escape from realism into the easy life of the 1%er who is better at everything than everyone.

last edited at Oct 20, 2022 1:48PM

You think you've seen it all when it comes to problematic anime, and they still find new ways to surprise you. The third episode of this season's alchemist anime was gross. They bring not!Ryza a patient with a severed arm and she really has the gall to say "I can save her life... if you're loaded". Not only that, but when they protest the vulgarity of her actions, she literally stops what she's doing and instead of treating the patient (WHO IS MISSING AN ARM) goes into a freaking lecture justifying putting a monetary value on life.

How does an author arrive at such a fundamentally vile worldview, to the point of feeling they have something insightful to contribute to society by soapboxing about it in their story? Even the US, which is notorious for pushing hundreds of thousands of citizens into medical bankruptcy every year, still provides emergency treatment no questions asked. That's the absolute minimum, the lowest of lows to be able to say you live in a society, yet here we are with an author confidently asserting that people deserve to die if they don't have money. Watching this left an absolutely sickening taste in my mouth. This is Mushoku Tensei-tier "anime was a mistake" material. Although I guess it's really "WNs were a mistake".

last edited at Oct 20, 2022 7:40AM

I have high hopes for this manga, now it seems it is just a time waster with the plot going nowhere...

It's a romance story, that delivered on the romance. What exactly were you expecting, Sora and Ayaka to save the planet from an alien invasion? In a world full of yuri manga that actually end with the relationship going nowhere, levying this criticism at this one seems downright bizarre to me.

At this point, it'll make more sense to make a sequel series for during their college life.

They probably would if they could. I'm guessing what happened is they wanted to keep going but got cancelled, so they just ended up drawing a bunch of extras in their spare time.

last edited at Oct 16, 2022 7:20AM

...a lot of really weird gender essentialism going on here.

I don't think saying "people who identify as male are more likely to objectify women" is "gender essentialism", exactly.

last edited at Oct 14, 2022 4:36AM

That panel on page 20 is pretty obviously leery, a gratuitous shot from neither woman's perspective. The rest seems fine to me.

I'd wager this is either setting up an internal dilemma for Elsa, or Hijinks™.

Hey, look, we got both of the things I predicted! It's almost like I've read a yuri manhua or two before.

I think it's kind of rude to say you're not going to bother reading what I wrote, but still argue against it...

Nothing against you not liking the show cause that's totally valid but I don't know why you expect realism given Chisato casually dodges machine gun bullets and Majima surviving an almost point blank explosion previously already. Have you seen John Wick? Pretty sure he survived some five hundred feet building fall and you don't see him dodging bullets the way Chisato does.

Repeating what I said before...

Also, despite being well-animated, the action was terribly written. The level of plot armour is just objectively bad writing, for both the protagonist and antagonists. Nameless Lyco gets hit by a car, she's a goner. Chisato gets hit by a car, not even a scratch. Majima tanks literally dozens of bullets that incapacitate anyone else after one or two shots, and is unscathed by a point-blank rocket explosion. The key to suspension of disbelief is internal consistency - it's okay to write a goofy action anime with cartoon-tier violence, but if you do, it should be consistent. As it is, the action has no weight to it and yet sometimes it ends with schoolgirls being brutally murdered and at other times it doesn't, with the only consistency to it being "named characters are invincible".

Nowhere in my post did I mention anything about "realism". The key to good writing is for the world to be faithful to its own rules. You can write a 'realistic' story about magic; you're just telling a story about a universe with different laws of physics. There's no reason a fictional universe has to have the same laws of physics as our universe. But it must follow its own laws. If it doesn't, suspension of disbelief goes out the window, and it becomes difficult for viewers to become invested in what they see happening because they can't trust what they see. This is like, good writing 101.

I have zero problems with Chisato dodging bullets or Majima being a bathuman, because those things are part of this universe's established rules: some people are born with superhuman talents, and these people are recognised as Alan Children. But nowhere does it suggest that Alan Children are also immortals (indeed, it explicitly contradicts this). Violence is routinely shown to be perfectly lethal in all normal cases; there is no reason to believe this universe's laws include increased human survivability. The only time violence is ineffective is when it's convenient for the plot.

You're expecting the show to give you something it never promised you.

I'd argue that any good fictional story has an implicit promise to be internally consistent, if it wants people to care about the events that occur. The only place I would expect otherwise is in something like a gag comedy where the plot is non-existent.

Also, I will add as an addendum that it's possible to think something is poorly written, from an objective view, and still like it. Nothing wrong with people liking LycoReco! I have plenty of guilty pleasures that I like despite knowing that they aren't well-written, and LycoReco would have probably been one of them if it were a good deal more gay. Alas, it is not for me.

last edited at Oct 6, 2022 7:02PM

I would understand calling LycoReco bait if and only if it wasn't obviously setting up a season two. Even if said season two never comes the fact that it's set up still shows that the story isn't finished.

Personally, this doesn't matter for my purposes because there is a 0% chance I'm watching a season 2.

Ending spoilers
I mean, I already went into how I disliked the whole story, but the way they set up for a continuation was especially appalling. Majima surviving a fall from, like, literally 1000 feet high is such bad writing. Give me a break! I have zero investment in the plot when it continuously does this.

I've personally never experienced feeling baited till now - but this show just about did it.

Vindication! I take solace in knowing I'm not the only one who felt that this just wasn't the same as the subtext found in series like Madoka or Machikado Mazoku. Although I am sorry that my reprieve comes at the expense of somebody else having suffered through it without finding what they were looking for.

If you're a big fan of girls with guns, you've probably heard of this one already, but I'll mention it just in case; the aptly-named Gunslinger Girl might be up your ally. There is no pretension of yuri (nor het) whatsoever, mind you, but it has a very similar concept to Lycoris Recoil of orphan girls becoming government assassins who fight terrorism. Unlike Lycoris Recoil, it's much darker in tone and takes itself seriously, but I found that it had an actually engaging plot that was capable of turning on the waterworks.

On the surface this is true, but at the same time you are putting a lot of stock into said therapy, even though we were not shown that it had any noticeable effect whatsoever. Because you are right, therapy is not a magical cure and sometimes it fails completely despite the best efforts.

Perhaps Mea may or may not be a lost cause (although she could just as well need more time), but Aise just transferred in. From context, I'm inferring this isn't a normal school transfer; the counseling room is an actual full-fledged classroom where they study together, something which isn't the norm (as far as I know). I think it's a little soon to write off therapy for Aise.

Neither is shown to open up to other people and Aise in particular would have been likely to commit suicide in the near future if not for finding support in Mea.

especially Aise who seems to have been heading straight for suicide before meeting Mea.

I can buy that Aise would have attempted suicide, but I doubt she would have been successful. Take it from me, committing suicide is not easy. The fact that she reflexively saved herself on the stairs even while thinking that she should die shows that deep down, she still has the will to live, something which is not conducive to committing suicide successfully.

If we think Aise is prone to suicidal ideation, that's all the more reason for her to try getting real help first before committing to absolute co-dependency with a girl who just shoved her down the stairs. I've been there, done that (sans the stair pushing), and it is not a good idea.

Never said it was a happy ending.

Okay, let me rephrase. I think this is the polar opposite of a happy ending: it's the beginning of a tragedy. A fascinating short story, but my takeaway is definitely not "they're better off together". I'm left hoping that Aise somehow gets the love and support she actually needs in the future and not the kind of 'love' of somebody who is basically fetishising her disability.

last edited at Oct 3, 2022 6:27PM

they're better off together than they were apart

I believe this isn't true because their relationship is predicated on reinforcing rather than healing their problems. I think it's basically going to nullify the therapy; therapy isn't some magic cure-all for mental health. To begin with, they'd have to want to change, to make effort towards overcoming their problems, and that's not going to be the case while their 'needs' are fulfilled in this manner. Mea especially seems like she's prone to becoming more and more yandere from getting positive reinforcement for helping.

last edited at Oct 3, 2022 5:59PM

In a way, as messed up and unhealthy as both of their perspectives are, I think they are actually better off being together than either of them would be on their own.

Nah.

They are a perfect match, Mea gets someone who genuinely needs her support and, more importantly, will always need her, fulfilling the deep-seated urge in Mea to be needed, while Aise gets someone whom she is absolutely certain wants and even enjoys taking care of her, thus relieving her of the feeling of guilt over being a possible burden on someone else.

That's all well and good, if you reduce their identity down to exactly one trait. But humans aren't just one trait. If other aspects of their personalities clash, they might break up later. Assuming that Mea doesn't outright kill her when that time comes, they'll still be in an even worse position than they are now, having fully reinforced each other's unhealthy mentality rather than addressing it.

I can't see this as a happy ending at all.

Anyway, Minami and yuzu are probably going to end up together but it’d be something (not a good something) if this goes a whole other way. We might even have to see minami accept that loving someone with everything she has means nothing in the face of unreciprocated feelings.

A manga about the childhood friend always losing, from the perspective of the childhood friend... oof. You have a cruel, sadistic mind.

Usagi Drop has entered the chat

I don't know what you're talking about, Usagi Drop only has 24 chapters.

The main things iirc:

1. The main characters routinely engaging in torture and the narrative justifying them in doing so.

2. The main villain arguing that magical girls should fight "earthly" evils too and the protagonists -- who all work for the government -- responding "Yeah but you're evil so."

1. I thought this was executed decently well. It's definitely a messy subject, but I wouldn't say the narrative justifies it. It felt pretty clear to me that there were no "good guys" in this manga, and the torture was explicitly used to highlight that these aren't the magical girls fighting for justice they aspired to be when they kids. That being said, it straddles an incredibly thin line and I could see someone's takeaway being the manga suggesting that torture is a necessary evil.

2. That... is definitely not how it went down. The main villain was arguing that their method of fighting problems -- working for the government -- wasn't good enough, and that they should conquer the world and force it into submission. That human conflict will continue as long as humans are in charge, so magical girls should rule over them to create utopia. The response to that was "okay but that's literally magical fascism"... which, pretty fair critique. I actually have a huge bundle of problems with how the antagonist was handled, but I'd say one of them is basically the opposite of however you were spoiled -- I found the villain to be cartoonishly evil, which was bizarre for a series where the protaganists were morally ambiguous.

it being a cliffhanger creates a bunch of unnessesery tension.

I can only speak for myself, but what I'm saying is this creates zero tension for me because of the tone of the manga. I can't believe for a second that this will be used seriously. Is it possible the author could throw 50 chapters of fluffy romance into the garbage? Sure, it's possible. I'll give them a little more credit than that until I see it happen, though.

All of them I can think of so far involve contemplating drugging Evie, and weighing it against not doing so. That in itself sends off red flags. There should be no dilemma, only commitment and resolution.

I mean, it's easy to say this, but I feel like most people presented with an actual factual love potion would at least think "what if...". At any rate, it's a common trope I've seen where a love potion or similar is introduced just for the character to commit to not using it after considering it.

Tho, even if so, I would still think the author did slightly cheap emotion pulling here.

I don't think there's any emotion pulling at all here. There's no way you can look at this page and take it seriously, right? It would defeat literally the entire point of the story if after 50 chapters the conclusion to their romance arc was "Elsa drugs Evie". I'd wager this is either setting up an internal dilemma for Elsa, or Hijinks™.

since I thought it was pretty obvious from nearly the start.

how

Which one? Like, the very end? That was a bit of a cop-out, but didn't really change my thoughts on the series

Spec-Ops Asuka omega giga spoilers below, careful if you haven't read it
The resurrection power as a whole, including both Francine and the ending. I don't understand what making Francine the Big Bad was supposed to add to the story. And it just opened up 500 plot holes, in my view. How does Asuka's power trigger at random without her even knowing something happened? Why does it only happen when it's convenient for the plot? Why did Francine not let anyone know she's back from the dead before going off the deep end? How does she even get back home anonymously, from the other side of the world? How does Francine get new magic cube powers that the others don't recognise? How does one rogue magical girl form a terrorist band capable of routinely attacking all of the nation's strongest militaries head-on at their most fortified points and winning, overcoming five other first generation girls of equal strength in the process?

If the author put any thought into these questions, I can't tell. The twist seems completely incompatible with the story that was told up to this point and it's just like... why? What was even the point of bringing her back from the dead for this? I felt like the story was coherent up until this point but it completely lost me when this happened.

Would be curious to hear your thoughts on Spec-Ops Asuka after reading the manga. I kind of got turned off after reading some spoilers but maybe it executes its concepts well.

I finished reading it. What was it that turned you off? I can try to elaborate on what I thought about anything specific, but it would probably take ten paragraphs full of spoilers to put my thoughts on the manga as a whole into writing.

I will say, nothing ruins a story like a bad plot twist. I binged it all as quickly as my free time would allow, and I was super engaged for most of it, but... sigh. It's okay not to have a plot twist. I feel like authors live for that "gotcha" moment and it's usually more detrimental to their work than beneficial. It's like in a single moment they dump ten volumes' worth of their own story in the garbage bin just so they can say "bet you didn't expect that, I'm such a clever writer". No, I didn't expect it, because it makes no sense!! You had a good thing going, you didn't need to get tricksy with it. Not sure if anyone else has read it all but I'd be interested to hear what other people thought of The Big Twist.

I'm honestly surprised to see so many people side with Adachi having a full blown meltdown over Shimamura hanging out with an other friend. Honestly through the entire story, Adachi possesiveness and the entire one sidedness of their relationship creep me out.

I don't think people are "siding" with her, exactly. At least, my problem with this scene is that I think Shimamura is acting out-of-character. It's some good hurting otherwise.

But also, it hardly needs to be said that Adachi's wrong; Adachi herself knows she's in the wrong and says as much. And while they're both in the wrong, there's a pretty severe disparity in how their actions affect the other. Adachi is merely annoying Shimamura with her breakdown, while Shimamura's ice cold response is destroying Adachi emotionally. I think it's natural people will have more sympathy for Adachi here.

last edited at Oct 2, 2022 3:31AM

can't vouch for their quality, but this is true for [...] Magical Girls Spec-Ops Asuka

I remember dropping this while it was airing. Trying to watch it again now, and maybe it's shallow of me, but it really strikes me how much budget matters for an action anime. Something with this concept has no right being this boring. The voice acting is completely flat, the OST appears to have only one song (although it is good), and the fight scenes are completely lacking in both direction and raw animation quality. The sound effects are particularly egregious, with gunfights feeling as though they're playing airsoft.

All of that being said, I have relatively little to criticise about the writing so far*. It's interesting, in that it's basically the inverse of LycoReco. LycoReco had incredibly high production value, even if there was no substance backing the style. I suppose watching them almost side by side it's easy to see why anything animated by A-1 is immensely popular regardless of the quality of the story. I think I'll have to continue Asuka from the manga, because the anime isn't doing it for me.

*Mostly, it's written by a man and you can tell. The aggressive fanservice is incredibly grating and there's a god damn goblin r*** scene. But story-wise, it's fine. The gratuitous violence is not my cup of tea but I can accept it in a story that tries to depict what would happen when mahou shoujos meet the reality of our shitty planet. The fact that one of the central aspects of the plot is Asuka coping with her PTSD lends credence to the violence that makes it more meaningful than merely edgy. Although it is definitely also edgy.

last edited at Sep 30, 2022 10:09AM

okay but who cares whether it's an objectively good idea in the real world, i just wanna see my baby gays get married