A bunch of standouts this week, plus managed to stay on top of both my anime and manga goal despite having a bunch of translation to catch up on as well.

First up, I bought and read サマータイムレンダ2026 未然事故物件 immediately after midnight JST and read the whole thing immediately. I honestly didn’t know anything about it before I read it aside from the fact that it was new サマータイムレンダ content and of course that was enough. Really enjoyed it, would like to see some more oneshots like this.

僕のヒーローアカデミア vol. 35 came out and it was very hype. I also picked up Fate/type Redline vol. 1 on a whim (I’ve been following the author for a while after his work on a 鬼滅の刃 oneshot) and liked it quite a lot. The basic premise is that the main character accidentally summons a character from a 中二病 historical fiction novel instead of someone from history and it takes itself just seriously enough while still being kind of fun. There aren’t too many volumes out so I’ll probably read more.

Yet another surprise hit this week was 税金で買った本, which is about a cast of colorful characters who work at a library. Each story was really funny but would take a sudden turn into kind of a sweet payoff towards the end. Already bought volume 2, definitely continuing this soon.

This week’s only real disappointment was 変女 vol. 1. Just a lot of weird pervy humor and not very funny at that — barely managed to be worth a 2/5. Glad I got it for free; won’t be reading the rest of what I have.

I started reading 夏へのトンネル、さよならの出口 群青 (a manga adaptation of the novel). Finished vol. 1, will be reading vol. 2 next week (and maybe even finishing the series). Cool mystery premise, nice art, some good funny moments and characterizations.

Finally (for manga), finishing off as I fall asleep tonight: 最近雇ったメイドが怪しい vol. 2. So far nothing really to say about this one that I didn’t say last week.

The new season of anime has started and my current shows are 組長娘と世話係, よふかしのうた, and それでも歩は寄せてくる (with some others that haven’t started yet). Watched the first episode of each of these. I wasn’t super sold on the manga for よふかしのうた but the anime production is hot; really nice music and visual design. Knew pretty much nothing about それでも歩は寄せてくる but it’s really cute so far. 組長娘と世話係 is adorable; the main guy and girl have a dynamic that reminds me of Loid and Anya. We were looking forward to this one just because of the magazine it runs in and it seems to be a winner so far.

I also watched and subtitled ep. 11, 12, and 13 of サマータイムレンダ. Had a kind of interesting realization that I’m suddenly able to identify when someone is speaking 和歌山弁 just by their intonation, even if they don’t use any words or inflections that would otherwise give it away. Kind of neat.

I also watched ep. 1-5 of はるかなレシーブ. Weirdly enough I feel like I’ve learned more about volleyball from this show than I did watching ハイキュー, but maybe that’s just because my attention is fixated on the screen at all times. Hard to say.

I finished スーパーカブ vol. 2 and started 化物語 上, (both audiobooks). It’s been ages since I saw any of the monogatari anime and most of the monster gimmicks have faded from my memory at this point. I was worried about not being able to understand well enough to follow but it’s going pretty well (though definitely not as well as some other books I’ve read/listened to). Something I definitely don’t remember from the anime, and was pleased to have been able to pick up while listening to the audiobook, was the wordplay around 戦場ヶ原’s weightlessness ailment. The dialogue and narration has nice rhythm and I’m enjoying myself. Had planned to be finished with it today but I decided to spare myself a long drive this weekend so I’ll be taking a little longer with it.