Psycho666Soldier

Chainsaw Man is also on the docket. It is one of the ones I was pretty far behind on, but not quite as bad as some. I'm working on Show-ha Shoten first and then Chainsaw Man will probably follow

Just watched the first two episodes of Elusive Samurai last night, and they really popped off with the animation, huh?

Bummer that they were spoiled for you. I hate when that happens, especially the biggest stories of the show. It's a shame about the Gauntlet because it was so hype up until that point. I'm not even mad about Christian getting a title shot, but the ending just felt completely flat in comparison to everything that happened before it. The Casino Gauntlet match format is an absolute hit, though.

I know the couple wrestling people other than MT don't really post here anymore, and I think for the most part had moved on from AEW, but did anyone catch All In? Thought it was overall an awesome show, and Swerve/Bryan and Storm/Mariah were worth it alone.

I think the true strength of Sakamoto Days' action is the over-the-top aspects that they try to somehow ground with whatever logic, because nonsensical or not, it almost always pays off satisfyingly for the action. I feel the same way with the sand-blasting. Great round of chapters this week. Very excited to see what comes next for everything.

Caught up on Beat & Motion

Just finished chapter 218 of Undead Unluck. She said the thing!!!

Akane-banashi 122 Spy x Family 103 Gonna read all of this week's chapters of the series I've been caught up on, catch up on Beat & Motion and Show-ha Shote , and then I think I'm gonna finally tackle catching up with Shoji Null and Wild Strawberry. There's also a lot of other new series from the last couple months I want to give a shot. Did Jiangshi X end up getting cut? It didn't grab me too much so I dropped it early.

And now I'm all caught up

----------- I've got up through Ch. 163 with Elusive Samurai. This war with Moronao has been great. Loved how it started with pure chaos with both sides countering rapid advantages.

I think it's still arguable that the initial DB run before it introduced the Z era is better than Z. I'd say it's all consistently amazing up through the Cell Saga, but there's a certain depth to the combat and conflicts that isn't always there with Z fights. I actually have never read the manga other than select random chapters that I bought individual comics of or I read at a friend's house as a kid, so I've been wanting to actually start from the beginning now that Toriyama passed. I wanna go back and enjoy HIS full artistic vision. Plus I know he's legendary for his action page layouts.

Been listening to heavy music all day today, so I took a detour to catch up on Kaiju No. 8. Man, this series still has some of the best action art and monster/character design of anything going right now. They also do a good job of making the back and forth twists and turns feel epic and well-timed: Just kind of reading back on some of the posts I ignored for potential spoilers, and it's interesting to see my gut feel on the anime for Kaiju No. 8 resonates. I haven't watched it yet, but the previews just made it feel somewhat less engaging than the way it's presented in the manga. Would you say it's still worth giving a shot, or have you been convinced of just following the manga rather than the anime?

Been trying to plow through Elusive Samurai, but I was more behind than I thought. I was back in chapters released in March I just finished 156 and have about 11-12 more chapters to go

Somehow I left off on the chapter of Akane-banashi where Maikeru got the votes for promotion and I forgot to comment on it. But his performance was awesome, and I absolutely loved Master Zensho unable to deny he deserves the promotion despite the seething hate he has for him. I'm caught up now and I'm already gearing to get a little choked up at Shiguma's reaction to Akane's performance. But I'm particularly excited that we may finally get to see Shiguma perform

I'm kind of expecting Sakamoto will try and Uzuki will either end up sort of killing himself or the redemption will come from a sacrifice. Would be very interesting if he ended up having to actually finish the job for the first time since the start of the manga, but I don't think the character is meant to take that direction.

Caught up on Sakamoto Days again. Sad to see how Uzuki and Rion were setup. Even more crazy to see Kindaka wake back up, though! Seemed like someone who would more or less be dead for the rest of the series, but he definitely makes a good master for Sakamoto. Have to imagine this training arc(however long it'll be) will be the last stop before the final showdown. Unless the series intends to continues with a new overarching story after this, but that's probably not the case. It's been one of the best series in the last couple years, so I'm excited to see how it all shakes out.

I still have to read the last 20-30 chapters because it's clear Horikoshi wanted to end it but they made him drag it out and it was getting painful to read every week. 3/4's of the way in, it's one of the best modern battle shonen and plays on a lot of tropes in cool ways. It also has some of the best art in the game today. The last quarter or so of the manga is a mess for a multitude of reasons on the plot front. One of the biggest being a not so graceful redemption for a character who doesn't really deserve redemption. I think it's worth it for the journey moreso than the destination, as it has one of the most interesting exploration of villains I've ever read and like I said, the art is incredible. I mean, when you think about it, I feel you can say that about a lot of manga/anime where it's pretty great up until the ending lol

By the way, not sure if you knew @dr. b but they officially announced a Sakamoto Days anime!

Caught up on Undead Unluck. I still get all emotional around Fuuko and Tatiana's relationship. It's one of those things where normally when things are going too well, it's boring, but for all these characters that have suffered loop after loop, it's still so satisfying and heartwarming to see Fuuko and crew prevent everyone's tragedies. Remember coming soon!

Shit, I didn't even know they started an anime yet! I'm gonna get on that.

God I gotta do so much catching up. I've been deep in the wrestling train for a month or so and then I was on a backup phone for like 3 weeks that I didn't have the SJ app on, but I got my new phone now, so no excuses. Just wanted say I'm alive lol I actually was caught up with Sakamoto, Undead Unlucky, and Spy x Family for a while but I'm not sure how far behind I am. I'm glad you've been enjoying Undead Unluck, though! I really enjoy the emotional content of everything after the loop starts over and we see Fuuko fully grow into herself and fight to give everyone a tragedy-less life. Also awesome to see you get into Kaiju No. 8. It's been a bit of a sleeper hit for me and has been a blast to read. I have yet to start the anime because the animation seemed a bit iffy in comparison to the manga, but I'll have to start that soon.

All the praise for the art on Akane-banashi goes double for Sakamoto Days. Holy shit, those chapters went hard. All the Takamura panels were wild.

I'm sure this isn't the first time I've said this and it probably won't be the last, but Akane-banashi has such a way with art. Just read Chapter 107 and 108, and the way they know to control the flow of the more detailed, gorgeous art with the sillier, simple art. The composition for some of the pages were amazing, and they still have such a way with facial expressions. The moments where Akane is truly happy, she absolutely glows in such an entrancing way. I just love looking at some of these pages, especially during the deeper, touching moments. Also, the end of 108 has me hyped.

A little behind on stuff(typical), but I really enjoyed the recent Spy x Family chapter. Getting some backstory on Henderson and Martha, and it was pretty heartbreaking.

Yeah, I don't need every chapter to be advancing a plot, but before it just felt like it had a lot of heart and super hilarious moments in the every day stuff. I think part of it is there have been a lot of shorter chapters in the last couple months so there's been less time to have the more meaningful slice of life chapters where it feels like there's both character development alongside the gags? I think that might be it. Until these last two main chapters(not counting the extra short side ones), it feels like there hasn't been that character development side as much? Or maybe it's also just because there have been so many break weeks that the flow makes every chapter hit weaker. I have faith it'll find something to dig into eventually, but we'll see