Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“When we were growing up, our parents wouldn’t buy us things, so we worked hard and now we can: buy all volumes of manga, buy toys in bulk, buy DVD box sets”

Insufficient Direction by Moyoco Anno

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Insufficient Direction is a humorous autobiographical manga by Moyoco Anno, the wife of Hideaki Anno, who direction Neon Genesis Evangelion. Moyoco is a manga artist and this book chronicles their life together. The main theme is that Hideaki is a huge otaku and Moyoco is trying to remain normal but keeps getting sucked deeper and deeper into an otaku lifestyle. It’s interesting reading this from the 2024 viewpoint of the nerds having taken over the earth and casting my mind back to when being a nerd […]

The Game Might Be Changing but not the Characters

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! v.9 by Satoru Yamaguchi, Nami Hidaka

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I have been a little desperate for the cozy; not only is the world (you know, gestures at the state of things), but there’s been some other unfortunately timed drama beyond my control in my life as well. Cozy mindless manga to the rescue! My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! Is definitely cozy. The friendship angle always wins, and nothing bad lasts for more than a few pages. In volume 9 of the manga, Katarina is happily awaiting the end […]

The Color Black and Erased Memory

The Ancient Magus Bride Wizard's Blue vol. 8 by Makoto Sanda, Isuo Tsukumo, Kore Yamazaki

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Is it weird that it’s sometimes uncomfortable reading in front of someone? As in, it almost feels like an invasion of privacy. Long story short, I’m hosting a family member temporarily out of their home for major water damage repair, and it’s been kind of hard to do extended reading time; that and it’s been crazy-time at work but that part’s better now. Anyways, both of those are why I’ve been going back to graphic novels and manga a bit more than usual lately (still […]

The end of an era but not really

My Hero Academia Vigilantes, vols. 14-15 by Hideyuki Furuhashi, Betten Court

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My Hero Academia Vigilantes is a side series, and it’s just wrapped up.  The main series is apparently in the process of winding up its final story but who knows how long that takes. The final two volumes of vigilantes show  the conclusion of the final epic battle and hints at the not too distant futures for those who survive (mostly). Koichi aka Crawler, the seemingly lucky idiot who wants to be a hero but not an official one, has been facing off against the […]

Body Shifting, Acceptance, and Change to Save a Friend

The Ancient Magus' Bride vol. 17 by Kore Yamazaki

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Bingo 7: Bodies, Bodies In The Ancient Magus’ Bride (volume 17), there are quite a few bodies, many of them unusual, unique, and/or not original for their inhabitants. Given that many of the bodies belong to teenagers (roughly high school age), it’s sort of fitting there’s going to be a lot of change and confusion. First, Chise (MC’s) classmates: Philomela has been infected by a nasty powerful ancient magic book and transformed into some kind of briar demon thing, but Chise still sees her classmate […]

Slime-y Politics

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime vol 21 (manga) by Fuse, Taiki Kawakami

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Bingo 6: Politics In the world today, I don’t want to have to deal with real-life politics, so I won’t. I’m going to have a look at a manga volume that emphasizes the treachery of fantasy politics. The general premise of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime was initially an almost middle age ordinary guy being reincarnated in a fantasy world as the titular slime (weakest of beings). It quickly transitions to the slime (who takes the name Rimuru) becoming a leader of […]



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