circling back around to tie off a thread and then beginning a new one

Sometime in the last few weeks I finished The Lost Village (Mayoiga), and although it was somewhat terrible, I eally enjoyed it. I am now reading an article by Vrai Kaiser that says the general consensus is that the series is terrible on purpose, and really is meant to be a comedy -- I thought Crunchyroll had just mis-categorised it, but I suppose they knew what they were doing. The thing is, while some of the middle episodes were really, really badly done in terms of CGI and being far too obvious about things which would have been more powerful if they'd been left subtle, the story thoroughly worked for me on its overt terms of being a psychological drama about people ready to do terrible things to each other rather than confront their past trauma. A poorly told story, yes, but in a way that I could appreciate because the things which make it poorly told mean that the parts I loved were just sitting there to be appreciated.

I do have a sense of humour, truly, it is just -- missing in some directions, like whichever one finds Mayoiga funny instead of an almost-good story about people who are struggling. Some of the people are ridiculous, some of the things they are struggling with seem incredibly minor, but for me that makes it more realistic, because people do struggle with things that are minor -- the stories they imprison themselves with often hinge on details which are not, objectively, that important. And that the people are ridiculous, well, I mentioned Rea(l)ove before (reminder: do not watch it, it is awful in ways that could be very upsetting) -- the real people in that show do not seem any more ridiculous than the invented people in the anime. Humans are often quite ridiculous, in my experience.

Coincidentally, it turns out that one of the scriptwriters for Mayoiga, Okada Mari, was also involved in the other series I began watching at the same time, Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day. I have not gone back to it yet, because it seems to be largely about things which will give me many feelings, but perhaps I will this Wednesday.

In the meantime, I did feel the need to have something to watch that was enjoyable but not really very good, so I am watching Absolute Duo on Hulu -- which is much more even than Mayoiga, so it has not been terrible at all yet, but it also hasn't had any moments which have really won me over. Still, it is fast moving and so far I can ignore the fanservice and I like the premise -- there are objects which allow certain people to manifest their souls as weapons, but our protagonist's manifests as a shield. No shades of Steven Universe, sadly -- I do not think they are going to do anything really interesting with the premise -- but it is enjoyable when I'm tired and want something pretty to look at.