i’m bisexual, i hate my dad, my car is dented to hell, all of my friends have ADHD, i correct people when they pronounce pho wrong, and my phone is always at 20%
(AKA: Tenmaku no Jaadugar; A Witch's Life in Mongol)
Anyone who's watching seasonal anime is talking about Jaadugar, and for good reason. When I watched Jaadugar's 2-episode premiere, I had to just sit and stare at a wall for several minutes processing it before I could do anything else. Even when I tried after that to go back to checking out more anime premieres, I kept getting distracted just thinking about Jaadugar, over and over again. It is haunting, in every sense of the word.
Set in 13th-century Persia (modern day Iran) and Mongolia during the Mongol invasion of Khwarazm, this is a story about the horrors of war and imperialism. Sitara is an enslaved girl who's spent her life studying in an effort to gain some control over her life. Just when she finds a pathway to freedom, her home is invaded by the forces of the Mongol Empire and everything she's known and loved her whole life is destroyed in a few ruthless days. But Sitara is not one to sit idly by and let everything be taken from her without consequence: she is smart, she is resourceful, she is a good actress. She vows to endear herself to the invaders, study them, and use this knowledge to exact her revenge.
Science SARU have brought this story to life with the utmost care, with a unique style, detailed art, and a resonant soundtrack. The creative team have given an interview where they go over their research on making sure they accurately and respectfully represent Muslim, Persian, and Mongolian culture, particularly the women within those cultures. It is a marvelous work of art and I can honestly see it ending up in my all-time favorites by the time summer is done. It's a must-watch.
Genre: Drama, Historical
You may like it if you enjoyed: Orb: On the Movements of the Earth, The Apothecary Diaries
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Content warnings: Slavery, war, suicide
🌊 2. Goodbye, Lara
(AKA: Sayonara Lara)
Original anime always get me excited because you never have any idea where the story will go. And no one is better at original anime than Kinema Citrus and the creative team behind Shoujo☆Kageki Revue Starlight, back to create yet another anime-original story that will undoubtedly be talked about for years.
A new spin on The Little Mermaid, still feeling fresh even after the countless times this story has been told. Lara is a mermaid princess who longs to connect to the forbidden human world above the surface, despite a prophecy that promises ruin if she falls in love with a human. This is no Disney story: Lara fails, the prince was not her true love, she turns to seafoam, and the prophecy holds true.
300 years later in modern Shiga, Lara gets a second chance, reincarnated. From another world and another time, she must navigate modern times with the help of a strange human girl offering possibly the truest connection she's ever known. But she's not the only mermaid who's returned, and there's an ominous mystery undercurrenting every episode.
While nothing is confirmed given its nature as an original anime, the yuri subtext here is strong and it's from the Revue Starlight team, so I'm pretty sure where this is headed. But even more than that, the UTTERLY GORGEOUS artistry on display here is the truly marvelous thing about this series. The art, the color design, the animation, the soundtrack, the fact that they use traditional cel animation for select scenes, the effort and creativity put in here is mindblowing.
Genre: Fairy Tale, Urban Fantasy
You may like it if you enjoyed: Cosmic Princess Kaguya!, Princess Tutu, Ponyo
Streaming: Crunchyroll
🎨 3. Draw This, Then Die!
(AKA: Kore Kaite Shine)
Most slice of life anime fails to draw me in, even the objectively good ones. Personally, it usually takes something truly special to keep me invested in a story lacking drama or stakes.
This is something truly special.
Yasumi is a pretty-obviously-neurodivergent teen in a rural coastal town who has trouble picking up on social cues. When she discovered manga as a child, it opened up her world, particularly a 1-volume canceled manga about a robot learning to socialize, which gave her the strategies needed to come out of her shell and make friends. In all her years, she held this manga preciously close to her heart. So when she hears that its author will make her first public appearance in years at a doujinshi convention, she sneaks on a ferry and heads there herself. There, she learns something life-changing: you can make your own manga. Yes, you!
This anime is a love letter to manga and to the act of creation in general. Its second episode made me literally cry. This is a must-watch for any artist, writer, or aspiring creative who wants to remind themself why they do what they do.
Genre: Slice of Life, Comedy
You may like it if you enjoyed: Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun, Look Back
Streaming: Crunchyroll
🦖 4. Kaiju Girl Caramelise
(AKA: Otome Kaijuu Caraméliser)
In my opinion, the best way to watch Kaiju Girl Caramelise is to do so knowing as little about it as possible. I showed it to a friend without even letting him know so much as the title and it was an amazing experience. If you'll take that advice, go watch it right now. If you need more convincing, read on.
Kuroe is a girl with a strange condition: whenever she feels emotions too strongly, parts of her body start to transform, turning monstrous and scaled. Though she's gone up until now keeping this a secret from everyone but her adoptive mother, puberty is not a good time to have such an affliction, and when the most popular boy in school starts showing a genuine interest in her as a person, her heart leaps with disastrous results: she turns into a giant, Godzilla-sized kaiju right in the middle of Tokyo.
This is a story about teens learning to see past the disparaging comments people in their lives make about bodies and learning to love themselves exactly how they are. Some characters agonize over being skinny or fat, some over sometimes turning into a skyscraper-sized monster, and the two struggles turn out more similar than one might think. But lest you think this romcom will get too serious, Kuroe has two characters vying for her affection: a boy in love with her as a human, and a girl in love with her as a kaiju. (She's my favorite.)
Genre: Romantic Comedy (M/F with a bisexual twist), Tokusatsu
You may like it if you enjoyed: Mob Psycho 100, Sanda, Ruri Dragon
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Content warnings: Body / diet talk
🪭 5. The World is Dancing
Another exceptional historical drama, set a century after Jaadugar and 2,000 miles away in Japan. While 14th-century Japan was wrought with civil war, Sarugaku troupes still traveled the country, dancing and performing theatre. Oniyasha, the son of a Sarugaku troupe leader, finds dance utterly uninspiring and can't imagine what everyone around him sees in it. That is, until he sees a sickly, dying woman performing an erratic dance alone in her house, changing his life forever as he becomes overcome with the desire to see such dancing again.
This anime showcases the childhood of Zeami Motokiyo (known as Oniyasha as a child), the man who revolutionized Noh theatre. For those unfamiliar with Japanese theatre history as I was, while researching him I've seen his accomplishments compared to what Shakespeare did for English theatre, but 200 years earlier. The anime is not afraid to tackle serious topics, and things were not pleasant around this time. But the best part by far is getting to see Cypic (known for The Summer Hikaru Died among other things) do some of their most visually stunning work yet: this is by far the best-animated thing this year, and I just watched Witch Hat Atelier. The way the dance scenes are animated and directed really puts you in Oniyasha's head and shows you wordlessly how he feels when he sees a dance that speaks to him.
As Cypic is fond of doing, there is almost definitely going to be some LGBT history in this anime as well. Zeami Motokiyo was known to have an intimate and romantic relationship with the shogun, and many of the Noh plays he would go on to write would feature male love.
Genre: Drama, Historical
You may like it if you enjoyed: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, The Elusive Samurai
Streaming: Hidive
Content warnings: Rape (offscreen), age gap relationship (12/17) in a historical context
💐 6. I Want to Love You Till Your Dying Day
(AKA: Kimishinu; Kimi ga Shinu made Koi wo Shitai)
Tragic yuri! Set in a dystopia at war, orphaned children are brought up at a school designed to hone their magic skills and train them into living weapons. After her roommate dies in battle, Sheena is tasked with befriending a new one: the secretive "legendary weapon" with more magical ability than any student the academy's seen before, who's been racking up countless kills on the battlefield since the age of 10. With her strange demeanor, mysterious past, ultra-destructive combat style, and lack of hesitance toward intimacy regardless in how much blood she might be covered in, Mimi is bound to set Sheena's life veering off-track.
Genre: Romance (Yuri), Dark Fantasy
You may like it if you enjoyed: Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Content warnings: Mild gore
🔌 7. The Ghost in the Shell
(AKA: Koukaku Kidoutai)
Ghost in the Shell has had many anime over the decades since its 1989 release (and even an infamous live-action Hollywood movie), but ALL of them have been based on the massively-popular 1995 film that was more inspired by the manga than adapting it... until now. Science SARU is somehow creating two masterworks this season, this one being the first-ever faithful adaptation of Ghost in the Shell. It's a complicated and cerebral narrative full of political commentary and brought to life with gorgeous animation and soundtrack, and it's got some crazy yuri in it to boot.
Genre: Sci-Fi, Psychological, Action
You may like it if you enjoyed: Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Akira, Id:Invaded
Streaming: Prime
🕹️ 8. Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games
(AKA: Tai-Ari deshita. Ojousama wa Kakutou Game nante Shinai)
The more lighthearted yuri of the season (I love that we have multiple yuri anime most seasons now), this one is about two Street Fighter enthusiast girls attending a prestigious school where GAMING is BANNED. In order to indulge their love of fighting games, they must keep it carefully under wraps, and what better way to do that than to let their classmates think their secretive meetups are just about lezzing out instead? A delightful twist on the "secret relationship" plot where the lesbianism is public and the real secret is that they're gamers.
Genre: Romantic Comedy (Yuri)
You may like it if you enjoyed: Rock is a Lady's Modesty, Watanare, VTuber Legend
Streaming: Crunchyroll
🚬 9. Chainsmoker Cat
(AKA: Yani Neko)
A depressing fetish comedy (??) about a catgirl whose nicotine addiction is destroying her life. Not gonna lie, this one has a very niche audience. If you cannot handle grossout things, this isn't for you. If you're into grossout things sexually, you are the target audience! And if you're somewhere in between those endpoints, you may find yourself enjoying it due to the zany cast of characters and absolutely mind-blowing production value.
Even if it doesn't sound like your thing, make sure to check out the OP because it's the best of the season, as well as this video outlining all the references the OP used.
Genre: Dark Comedy
You may like it if you enjoyed: Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, WataMote
Streaming: Netflix, Oceanveil
Content warning: Drug use, needles, sexual content, shit & piss & vomit, implied child abuse
Okay I lied I don't have 10 new anime. Here's a bunch of other stuff to make up for it though:
Upcoming Summer Movies
🎀 The Ribbon Hero is a new film inspired by Princess Knight, a foundational shoujo manga published in the 1950s and adapted to anime in the 1960s. It inspired genre-defining works such as Revolutionary Girl Utena, Sailor Moon, and Cardcaptor Sakura. Instead of being a direct adaptation, this film will be a reimagining of it, a trend with Tezuka adaptations that's caught on in recent years. I adored 2023's Phoenix: EDEN17, a reimagining of Tezuka's Phoenix, so I'm very excited for this too, especially because the animation in the trailers looks incredible!
The Ribbon Hero releases August 8 on Netflix.
🥀 The Last Blossom (Housenka) is the first work from Baku Kinoshita since he directed Odd Taxi, my favorite anime of ALL TIME. It is said to be about a lonely, dying yakuza serving a life sentence in prison, reflecting on his life while talking to a flower. It sounds like it'll have the same sort of introspective quality that made Odd Taxi a masterpiece, and I can't wait for it to tear my heart out.
The Last Blossom has not yet been announced for an English streaming service. It releases on physical media in Japan on August 26 and Netflix Japan on August 29, both of which occasionally include English subtitles and can be accessed by VPN or other means. But even more excitingly, it's coming to U.S. & Canadian theaters for a 2-day run on August 30 & 31! If you live there, keep an eye out!
Sequels
👹 Daemons of the Shadow Realm (Yomi no Tsugai) Cour 2 is more nonstop fun from the successor to Fullmetal Alchemist! Arakawa remains the queen of shounen, this series only gets even better in its second cour. It's not too late to catch up! (Crunchyroll)
⏳️ Re:Zero Season 4 Cour 2 is coming August 12 to finish up the most harrowing arc of the series yet. Even in such a stacked Spring season, this was my AOTS, and it has strong potential to be my AOTS this Summer as well, though it certainly has some major competition. Could not be more excited for (and terrified of) what's to come in this psychological horrorfest of an isekai. (Crunchyroll)
That's all I've got! Hope you find something you enjoy!
like it just doesnt make any economic sense. replacing human labor with ai only makes sense if the output is as good or better and cheap as free. but just the fact that you have to build the massive data centers at all-- especially that gpus go bad in just a few years, but even if they didn't, the facility itself is going to be a big expense-- means it cant be cheap as free. they were banking on an uber type situation where they could crank up the prices once people switched to their business model, but the trade is literally "this will be cheaper than using human labor" so if it's not cheaper than human labor then people will just hire people again. and it's not even as good or reliable as a person. so while ai is "here to stay" in the sense that the technology exists and will find its niches, probably people are going to be sexting with them forever just maybe on local models, the current business model cannot survive and never possibly could.
it's all desperation. i do really believe ed zitron's rot economy idea, that the tech sector has been searching for a new internet or iphone or whatever that blows up and changes the world and they get to keep the profits so they'll uplift any garbage (hence nfts and the metaverse) to try and astroturf that. and relatedly, i think nvidia and the cloud compute companies and the ai companies are just passing the same dollar back and forth to create big numbers that paper over how bad the economy really is. it's all an attempt to keep the infinite growth hack going.
like i actually think all of the problems with ai are problems that already existed that are just getting a huge spotlight on them because of the massive reckless expansion and apocalyptic marketing. like people are cheating on essay assignments? no shit, they used to use fiver and other cheating services. higher ups are devaluing and trying to get rid of creatives? yeah, we've been talking about how vfx artists need to unionize for over a decade, especially people working on marvel movies. people with mental health problems are turning to the internet instead of getting support or medical assistance and end up hurting themselves as a result? yup, especially when it comes to like eating disorders, there are some really awful places that will validate you into the grave. data centers use a lot of energy and water? yeah, they also did that before they were used for ai, they do that for youtube and twitch, and tech in general is a massive source of pollution. politicians arent listening to their constituents' needs and demands, instead handing money and special privileges to corporations that wont keep up their end of the bargain? yeah, i remember the public transit proposals cancelled to hand money instead to elon and his terrible tunnels. like it all already existed, they're just doing it so much so quickly that people can actually see it in front of them
I wasn’t going to derail the disability pride month post for people with peanut allergies but in relation to that topic
I have never seen another allergy that has been so viscerally hated and mocked by people working in education like nut allergies. I’ve seen fellow teachers cringe that their classroom was the “nut free” classroom that year. Support staff that are trained and willfully don’t follow cross contamination protocol in the lunchroom because it’s too “tedious” or “time-consuming”. Full preschools + childcare centers that refuse to accommodate nut allergies. Schools where the only free lunch is a PB&J. Before/after school programs and summer programs whose food curriculum has nuts and doesn’t provide an alternative activity.
Allergy discrimination is so so insidious and prevalent. It’s happening behind their back and it is everything from the exposure joke to possibly causing someone to go into anaphylaxis from willful ignorance.
Also other parents in the classroom are guilty too. The “not my child not my problem” brain rot means that those lunchboxes are like bombs for airborne exposure allergies
A 22-year-old woman said Lufthansa staffers were not sympathetic to her condition when she tried to explain her life-threatening peanut alle
I was not downplaying this. The stigma is real, and people are 100% willing to let people with allergies die.
This woman was laughed at for asking for allergy accommodations at multiple points in her trip, and was denied to the point that she was practically told she’d be refused care in the event of anaphylaxis.
I work in healthcare. I cannot get my coworkers to consistently change their gloves after handling a PBJ. They literally do not think of it, and I don’t understand why. I also don’t know how to make it stick in their brains that this is a thing they need to do.
I grew up in the early 2000s with severe allergies to not just peanuts, but ALL nuts as well as beef, pork, shelfish, seeds, kiwi, and some food dyes. The resistance that my family faced from educators in the early 2000s is frankly bananas, not to mention the shit other parents and kids got up to.
When my mom tried to enroll me in preschool, the school principal refused any basic accommodations like asking everyone to wash their hands after lunch before re-entering the classroom, not bringing straight up peanuts to snack time, etc. There was no such thing as a nut free classroom at the time. The principal told my mom and me (I was 4 at the time and definitely in the room when this happened) “if she’s so sick, she belongs in a bubble, not at school.” THE FUCKING PRINCIPAL! My mom had to threaten legal action under the ADA to get them to comply.
Look, I was on a 504 accommodation plan under the ADA for the entirety of my formative education (elementary thru high school). That’s all 12 years!!! And yet I have had teachers hand me items I’m allergic to as a “reward”. I have had other kids intentionally try to send me into anaphylaxis. One girl in 3rd grade asked me why I “wasn’t dead yet” when she had put on a lotion with almonds in it and then held my hand. I’ve had other parents write letters to the school saying what a terrible inconvenience it was to them to not be able to send their kiddo to school with PB&J, demanding I be Removed to a special education only class if my “needs” were such a “burden” to others. During elementary school “parties” held in the classroom on holidays and for student birthdays, I was always sent to sit out in the hallway or go to the library, because even though parents were only supposed to bring safe foods into the room (they had a list of all my allergies) they never once got it right. Administrators fought me tooth and nail for the right to carry my epi pen and other meds on my person at all times. Why they thought I would start dealing benadryl on the playground, I do not know. At lunch, I was always sat at a specific segregated table labeled the “Nut Free Table” alone because who the fuck is going to sit there with the literally segregated outcast? But ONCE notably I was sat on one side of a line of blue masking tape down the table top with the rest of my class on the other. One side was the NUTS side!!! As if allergens would respect that tape barrier. (Spoiler alert: they do NOT!)
Literally from preschool to my senior year of high school, I was “the peanut kid”. Other parents gave my mom books about how to “cure your child’s food allergies from HOME” by micro dosing with things they are allergic to (please never ever ever even attempt anything like a food challenge with a known allergen outside of the care and supervision of a medical professional, holy shit that’s so dangerous). My mom joined the PTA in my last year of high school so that I could maybe participate in all the senior-focused events like pool parties and breakfast at school on the first Friday of the month. The number of times another parent either (a) decided it wasn’t worth it to care or (b) intentionally brought peanut products to an event to spite either me or my mom??? I literally could not count. It happened constantly.
College was better, but I still occasionally had people BALK when I asked them to please not eat a Nature Valley bar with whole nuts in it right the fuck next to me in lecture, thanks. Work parties and catered lunches were always impossible. A few conferences I went to as an undergrad were SUPPOSED to be nut-free, but always fucked up the catering. At one, they set up snack tables by every exit of the conference auditorium so that when people left after the talk, they all congregated around the exits and opened macadamia nut cookies and granola bars. When I had subsequently had a massive allergic reaction and needed help getting home (I’d walked) after taking like 200mg of benadryl, the staff offered me a stack of napkins and a lukewarm apology.
Food allergy is a disability which touches literally every aspect of a person’s life. Everytime I share with someone new about what it was like growing up with my allergies, they have never heard anything like it in their lives. They’re always like “holy shit, seriously??? People did that??? Kids tried to kill you??? Parents wanted you kicked out of the classroom????” Yeah, man. Yeah. My own brother (who doesn’t have any allergies at all) doesn’t understand why I don’t “eat more adventurously” and why I won’t travel internationally. So, saying it REALLY LOUDLY for people in the back:
FOOD ALLERGY IS A DISABILITY FOR WHICH EVERYONE SHOULD BE ABLE TO ACCESS ACCOMMODATIONS AND HAVE THEM TAKEN SERIOUSLY.
So this story is less about me and more about an acquaintance of mine. About a year ago some classmates and I were privileged enough to go visit Germany for 3 weeks as a school trip. My acquaintance, who for the sake of her privacy we will call Amy, had a deadly allergy to sunflower seeds and certain other grains. I do not know for certain if the flight attendants were made aware of this fact.
When on the flight Amy was fed bread that contained multiple things she was allergic to. The packaging was completely unlabled and she was never offered an allergy warning before or during the 13 hour flight. She had an allergic reaction and had a very hard time breathing and had to take the ONE epipen she had access to for this whole trip that day. She would not be able to get a new one. The flight attendants did not give a singular fuck about what happened to her and the position she was put in because of their carelessness.
Fast forward to the end of the trip. Luckily Amy had no further incidents during the trip. We get on the plane for the flight home and Amy asks about the food for the flight and if she can have the ingredients list. She also makes it clear to the flight attendants that this is really important because she has already had an incident and no longer has her epipen.
Do you want to know what the flight attendants did?
They kicked her off the plane. They kicked a seventeen year old off a plane and left her behind in an unfamiliar city because they would rather not deal with her disability. She delayed the flight for several minutes begging and crying for them to not leave her there. She told them she had no way of accessing a new epipen here, but they said she couldn’t fly without it. Me and my friend who were sitting next to her held her and argued with the flight attendant to keep her on the plane. She sobbed as she said she could just not eat anything, or that she could eat what she brought aboard. They still kicked her off. Bless the chaperone that chose to stay behind with her so she wouldn’t be alone.
You want to know the most fucked up part after that? The flight attendant who kicked her off was amused about the whole thing like it was some funny joke. Another one complained that “In all his years of working this job he had never been so disrespected.”
Amy and the chaperone ended up sleeping at that airport over night before they could get on another flight. I don’t remember if she was able to get another epipen for the flight home but I think she was.
Case in point, allergies are a serious disability that NEED to be treated with more respect and severity. Regardless of what they are. Someone’s life could be at stake. When someone has a disability they need to be accommodated. Don’t give them a hard time or make jokes at their expense. So what if you have to give up a thing or two to make sure they don’t die. You’ll survive not eating that specific thing for a bit. And as someone who grew up with someone with a serious allergy, I promise you it is not that hard to give something up for the safety of others.
I did my PhD in a fish lab, and one time I was emailing a fish company, and the guy emailed me back with the signature “Best fishes,” followed by these guys
baratheonpilled
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discoholicmusic
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