A pretty good week for reading. I hit my 7 volumes (plus a little leftover from last saturday night that I already counted), but three of those were from today alone. I definitely don’t want to start feeling compelled to read multiple volumes per day (since I have an unfortunate tendency to push myself to the limit) but it’s nice that I can do it if I need to.

We’ll get anime out of the way first since I don’t have much to say; my sister is out of town so we didn’t have Saturday morning anime this week, and as a result I haven’t caught up with most of my seasonals yet. I did finish シャドーハウス (ep. 8-13) and am now eagerly awaiting her return so we can start season 2. I also watched 最近雇ったメイドが怪しい ep. 2 (which she isn’t interested in, and to be honest neither am I; same as last week, the pacing and delivery of the anime are just not as good as the manga and it’s more or less just something to put on while I’m washing the dishes) and はるかなレシーブ ep. 6.

Starting off with another new series, 大蛇に嫁いだ娘. As the title suggests, it’s about a girl who’s sold off to be the bride of a big snake god in the mountains of historical Japan. It’s weird to call this a romance but it kind of became one towards the end. I think I grabbed this one just based on the magazine it ran in. Kinda weird but I enjoyed it, will probably read the next one.

Next up, 鍵人・上, which is an earlier manga by 田中靖規 of サマータイムレンダ. Pretty neat post-apocalyptic setting with good characters and lots of funny moments. The main girl is a dead ringer for 澪 so that’s a plus (I wonder if he and I have the same type).

I’ve been sitting on 王様ランキング vol. 1 for a while and finally got around to it. It took me a few chapters to figure out what all the fuss was about but I ended up liking it a good deal. Will probably watch the anime rather than continuing with the manga though. I especially liked カゲ’s backstory, very poignant and effective without much dialogue at all.

I had meant to read 夏へのトンネル、さよならの出口 vol. 2 right after finishing vol. 1 a few weeks ago but I forgot, whoops. Started off kind of slow but had some nice character development with a redemption arc that ended with one of the characters turning into such a cutie (the popular kids at school don’t agree but they’re wrong). Also set up some rather concerning possibilities about the nature of the titular tunnel.

My last new series of the week was ヴィクトリアの電気棺, which is kind of a victorian take on Frankenstein I guess? Victor(ia) Frankenstein brings an executed convict back to life and gives him a second chance at life (literally) while racing other inventors for the secret to eternal life. I grabbed this one randomly a while ago because 萩原ダイスケ (the illustrator for ホリミヤ and ねねね) tweeted about it, but only got around to it just now when I noticed that vol. 3 had just come out. I enjoyed it a lot, thinking I’ll catch up pretty soon.

Next up was 最近雇ったメイドが怪しい vol. 5, which catches me up with the available volumes. The new maid had a nice little arc and then disappeared. More cute moments. As always I have no idea what to say about this series.

Last manga of the week was 怪獣8合 vol. 2. This series is still a bit rough for me because of all the military vocab, none of which ever gets any furigana (though they put it on 東京 for whatever reason). When it gets going it really goes though; the action and comedy are both so good. I really should read the rest of it; I literally have every volume just sitting around. Reading this also made me wonder if I’m missing on some references since I don’t have much 怪獣 knowledge outside of a few manga series; one of the new characters looks eerily similar to the main antagonist in 戦隊大失格 (which I just remembered I have to read the latest volume of…my poor backlog…)