Stolidism

A detailed depiction of a cramped Japanese city. A bell shaped creature with a long nose. A classroom. These are the first three panels you are introduced to after you open the book. You start with the most basic design. A simple bird that seems to be drawn by a 3rd grader, with an equally simple name to accompany it - Punpun. But the simplicity ends right after the first panel, as you're thrown into the eerily realistic backdrop filled with characters almost bordering on the cliffs of the uncanny valley. And before you realise it, you're engrossed in the story. Inio Asano and his team are brilliant mangakas. And here, their brilliance lies not in the main character designs, but in the extremely well thought out grading and shading choices of the backgrounds in the panels. Whether you read it in stark daylight or huddled under your sheets at night, there is something ever so slightly off-putting about the whole manga that will put your mind in a state of unease, setting the ton...

"Today is 22 September 2021" It's finally the dreaded day. Dreaded not because it is horrendous, but because it is painful, beautifully painful. It has been a wild 12 week ride. I sat waiting , every Wednesday, eagerly, for whenever the next episode would drop, usually at 12 am Japanese Standard Time. The 20 something minutes of joy I recieved was second to none. Enjoyable, funny, cute, and sometimes demurely touching in on more serious topics like drifting away from family, the resolve of a lone struggler and societal pressure, Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid S, has certainly lived up to the high standards that the previous season had set. However, this is a more personal post, not a review of the show, because I'm aware of the heavy bias I have, in favour of it. I remember watching the first episode of the original season - Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid - on a car trip I was on with my family.  It was a long, tiring 12 hour ride with five people and all the lugg...