Manga

I've mostly been reading my usual stuff so not much to say about that, but there is an exception: Shueisha launched a new site that hosts a whole bunch of their manga free-of-charge so I gave that a spin with a josei ice skating manga called THE MOMENT. Honestly after 9 chapters I couldn't really get into it so I dropped it, but the website itself is definitely worth checking out: https://mangamillion.shueisha.co.jp/en/manga-list

They have a ton of manga, some of which are translated into quite a few languages. They claim this was done 100% with professional human translators, though of course the translation quality varies wildly. I haven't come across anything too crazy, but I've heard from people reading in languages other than English that they got stiff translations and English onomatopoeia transliterated into their language's writing system rather than translated into an onomatopoeia of the correct language. This makes me wonder if it was a native English speaker translating a manga from English to Vietnamese or whatever rather than an native Vietnamese speaker translating from Japanese to Vietnamese (usually the better way to do things). Of course, there are plenty of manga in that list with good translations too. Those just get less attention.

As for what to read there, they've got most of the Weekly Shounen Jump stuff of course. The following titles also stuck out to me:

• Kaguya-sama: Love is War
• Kowloon Generic Romance
• Golden Kamuy
• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You
• Legend of the Galactic Heroes

Also lots of shoujo and josei stuff I don't know, if you're into that.

Over the decades I have read a fair bit of manga and have slotted myself into mostly post-apocalyptic stories. Coming back from a long hiatus I finished Tsugumi Project over the weekend. The art is fantastic and the story starts middling but grows stronger as we get to know the principal characters. Unfortunately, the last third has the feel of being extremely rushed and moves into tropes I was hoping to step away from with a more mature and recent post-apocalyptic tale.

Please feel free to drop stronger recommendations, I fear I've simply grown weary of the goofy antics that seem to appear in even the more "adult" focused manga.

Hey kids, wanna read some trash? I got you covered!

I recently stumbled upon a manga called TS-Reincarnated Beauty Netora Reiko Wants to Be NTR'd and it's... it's something, alright.
It's a story about a dude obsessed with NTR, to the point he actively hunts pairs to steal the girlfriend and break their partners (man, women - doesn't matter). He does it until one day he ends up slapped by truck-kun and reincarnates as a newborn girl. What's his reaction? "Oh yeah! I can finally set up a perfect NTR scenario with me as a stolen girlfriend - just as I always dreamed of!" He then works towards doing just that, starting with making friends with a boy in kindergarten and building from there. Dude is an absolute scumbag but boy does he know what he wants and works towards it.

It's an unhinged comedy series with no real nudity or eroticism so if you need some funny trash to kill some time it's not a terrible choice. Just know what you're getting into. Regardless of that, English scans use censored version of the manga for some reason (as in, with black squares over bottom half of a swim suit kind of censorship). Might be because the only other version available is the Vietnamese one but it's still a bit ridiculous considering the topic.

It's not a greatness in the making kind of thing but if you want unhinged trash, this definitely hits the mark.

Last week, I picked up After School, We Wander in Space. It's very cute, and reminds me of They are Still Being Shaken This Morning. Not sure how long I will be following this for; hopefully there would actually be progress in the main couple's relationship.

I also just discovered that 1 x 1/2: My Half of You got a remake. This is among the spiciest manga I've read; so glad to see it come back.