Hey Blerdy Tribe, how’s your week been? We finally made it to Friday and for those of us in the States, Monday is Memorial Day, so we get a THREE DAY WEEKEND!! Since I get every other Friday off during the Summer this marks my 2nd three day weekend in as many weeks and trust I’m loving it! This week starts the beginning of me officially starting some of the new tasks that came with my recent promotion so it’s been kinda hectic for me on the work front, but my supervisors have been really good about helping me out when I get stuck with something.
Last week I finally took the plunge and officially did my first Twitch stream and let me tell y’all it was terrifying—I get super nervous talking in front of people and even with my camera off (due to technical difficulties) I did still fumble a bit every now and then. But, everyone who came through was super nice and patient with me and I cannot thank you all enough for hanging with me through my first stream! I fucked up and forgot to turn on the save stream feature on Twitch so sadly there is no VOD there, but my inner Virgo had the forethought to record the stream on my end and I did upload my copy to YouTube, so you can see it there. I’m still working on a schedule, but I might try streaming this weekend (no promises though).
So, between the hustle and bustle of the week I managed to check out some neat shows and manga and I just need to get some fangirling out!
Sailor Scouts? I rock with the Love Angels!
So during the most recent episode of the Fangirl Trash Can podcast, my fellow hosts and I were talking shop about our favorite childhood anime series and of course the conversation inevitably turned to Sailor Moon, how could it not? The series is iconic. But, while I love me some Sailor Moon, there is another magical girl series that I just don’t think enough people talk about and that’s Wedding Peach! The series came out about 3 years after Sailor Moon and I’ll be the first to admit there are a lot of similarities between the two series—junior high girls are given magical items that turn them into badass magical girls who take down supernatural threats to their town only for it to be revealed that there’s an epic supernatural conflict that threatens the fate of the entire world. But, instead of Sailor themed costumes, celestial warriors, and intergalactic foes, Wedding Peach has Angels and Demons, and everything revolves around weddings and luuuuuuuv. Maybe it was the absurdity of girls fighting in wedding dresses or maybe I just needed something simple and pure, but I love this series to bits!
Who else remembers Wedding Peach? pic.twitter.com/OrKxTUaKoF
— Naja B. Black and Nerdy 🔜 PAX East (@BlerdyOtome) May 24, 2021
Momoko has a very “Usagi-esque” vibe to her, both are kind of airheaded and there’s even a running gag of Momoko always running late to things. But, where Usagi spent a good bit of the early episodes of SM either crying or waiting for Tuxedo Mask to give her a pep talk, Momoko goes all in with her Lovely Operation Tempete! When stuff starts poppin off and devils are running around wrecking stuff, she doesn’t hesitate to throw down… in a wedding dress of all things. She’s later joined by her besties, Hinagiku and Yuri and the trio become the Love Angels, taking down Devils by night and being normal girls in love by day. The early episodes are pretty episodic, with the girls facing off against random Devils that show up to their town, but as the story progresses you learn more about the conflict between the Devils and the Angels and with it more complicated plot elements and storylines. There is of course romance and while it isn’t a “miracle romance” space opera, the relationship between Momoko and Yousuke was cute. They start off hating each other, bickering constantly much to the amusement of their friends and slowly they develop feelings for each other only for their relationship to take sharp turn midway through… and the FEELS! GAH, I just want those two to be happy so much… besides Yousuke is so much better than Yanagiba!
Wedding Peach is what happens when someone really commits to a theme—the story does get downright campy at times with the unnatural reverence everyone has for weddings—five minutes doesn’t go by without someone waxing poetic about the sanctity of marriage and I have to remind myself the girls are like 14 and a half. But somehow it all kinda works and I love it more because of all it’s imperfections. I’m currently re-watching the series (dubbed, it’s one of the few exceptions) and even all these years later I still love Wedding Peach!
Home is where the hottie is…
I used to be all over shoujo manga…from sugary sweet high school romances to cheesy rom-coms, I used to eat them up. And then I discovered otome games and that was all she wrote. But, recently I’ve been easing back into reading more shoujo manga and during one of my Rightstuf Anime hauls, I picked up Living-Room Matsunaga-San by Keiko Iwashita. It’s an age-gap, cohabitation romance series that Kodansha claims is perfect for fans of Shortcake Cake and Terrace House, neither of which I’ve read. But I have read, Mochiru Hoshisato’s seinen manga, Living Game (which I HIGHLY RECOMMEND) and Meca Tanaka’s Faster than a Kiss and both series seemed to have a similar premise to Matsunaga-san—a teen girl starts living in an apartment with an older man and love blossoms. I know most folks aren’t sold on age-gap romances and I get it they can be a bit cringe-y, but when done right they can be just as heartwarming and fun as any other romance story. And Matsunaga-san definitely hits that nice sweet spot.
Of course it has all the usual clichés and trope—Meeko gets flustered if Matsunaga so much as LOOKS in her direction and Matsunaga agonizes over the moral dilemma of a grown ass man flirting with a 16 year old, but, Matsunaga is fricken hot and sometimes I just want to check out and read something lighthearted and cute. Also, Matsunaga is my absolute ideal; dark hair, undercut, glasses, early thirties… he may be a little old for Meeko, but he is just right for me! Throw in the fact that he comes off as rude and grumpy at first, only for him to turn around and be secretly sweet and I AM SOLD!
30 years of virginity can make you a wizard?!
So, this isn’t the first time I’ve talked about Cherry Magic! 30 Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?! , I wrote a review of the first volume of the manga series around the time the drama was announced. But, in the event that you missed that one, it’s pretty much all in the title with this one—Adachi manages to stay a virgin for 30 years and develops the ability to hear people’s thoughts when he touches them. He later discovers that his super hot and popular coworker, Kurosawa has a raging crush on him, hilarious hijinks ensue and Adachi starts catching feelings for Kurosawa too! So, I’ve only read the manga up to volume 2, I’m waiting on Rightstuf to send my copy of volume 3, but I found the series short, but cute. The premise is cute and I’m not gonna like the slow burn romance between Adachi and Kurosawa is refreshing in a boys love series. The only downside is that each volume is like half the size of a normal tankōbon—Yuu Toyota originally published the series on her Twitter and Pixiv accounts, so I get it.
But, I’m not the most patient one for waiting, so this week I broke down and watched the live action drama adaptation and y’all this was the best decision I’ve made all week. I blazed through all 12 episodes of this series in a day (documenting my journey through my Insta stories). Sure the series takes some liberties with the story, most of which are for the better; like in the drama, Adachi gets his powers in episode one and has to figure out the logistics of his mind reading abilities, while in volume one of the manga, Adachi has had his powers for some time and he’s pretty much got a handle on them (even if they make him miserable). And the drama it’s implied that if Adachi gets laid his powers will go away, something that hasn’t been addressed in the manga just yet. Then there are other things that lend themselves so much better to the drama format; like, sometimes if a person’s thoughts are especially intense rather than just hearing them Adachi will see like a short visual of their thoughts. Kurosawa in particular, tends to have pretty graphic fantasies involving Adachi. In the drama these are depicted as hyper glamorized fantasy scenes with classical music playing in the background and let me tell you it makes them 10x more hilarious!
Honestly, the whole thing is hilarious and over-the-top, Eiji Akaso who plays Adachi really ramps up the adorkableness with his performance, but it’s got nothing Kodai Asaka who plays Adachi’s bestie Tsuge—that man really hams it up, shouting and throwing himself on the floor in a way that is reminiscent of Lauren Lopez’s Draco Malfoy in A Very Potter Musical. At first I wasn’t really feeling Keita Machida as Kurosawa, but then he smiled… and Y’ALL THE WAY HIS WHOLE FACE LIGHTS UP WHEN HE SMILES HAD ME SWOONING!
On the topic of BL drama, I recently saw a Thai one that absolutely blew me away in terms of quality storytelling. You know how you said in your post about LGBTQIA+ visual novels that you picked ones focusing less on sexual orientation or gender identity and more on telling meaningful stories that focus on the human experience? Well, that’s basically this drama: a great story about being human that’s also BL!
It’s 1000 Stars / A Tale of 1000 Stars! Please check it out! It’s definitely very different from Cherry Magic (which I also enjoyed by the way!) but in a good way! 🙂