the ova basically covered the first three volumes of the manga, so i already knew the story, but it's interesting seeing the small differences between the manga and the ova. i actually think the ova did a slightly better job of establishing that kase-san & yamada-chan were having trouble communicating during the lead up to their graduation? and i don't really remember anything about kase-san's senpai from the track team coming up in the ova, though idk if that's because it's clearly in there as a hook for the next manga volume, or if it was also there in the ova and i just don't remember it? but i just remember the conflict in this third act being way more focused on how the two of them need to be better about communicating their needs to each other. but that's also probably because this was where the ova was concluding its story, whereas the manga is gonna keep going. it'll be interesting to see how i feel about future volumes now that we've caught up to the point where i already know the broad strokes of the story!

volume 2 sees our girls navigate some relationship-threatening misunderstandings and start learning how to communicate together in a way that's both believable and really narratively satisfying.

i've seen the ova so i already knew that i loved these characters and the overall trajectory of their story, but i'm glad i'm getting to see it in its original medium! and i can already see that it's going to be even more enjoyable when each step on their journey has more time to breathe. (the ova is still exceptional, btw, but i'm greedy and am never going to say no to MORE yuri.)

wellp, now i'm caught up on this, so they better hurry up and get a new volume out soon!

i think the two immediately preceding volumes were a bit better, but this was still a solid entry as always. this series really doesn't miss.

this volume was also great! kanna & saikawa's relationship is really growing deeper and less one-sided, which is very lovely to see, but she also got a lot of lovely times with her found family! i can always trust this series to put a smile on my face with its wholesome fluffiness.

this might be my favorite volume of kanna's daily life so far. like half of the stories in this were absolute bangers, and as usual there wasn't really a single miss. but legitimately like half of the stories in this one could have been my favorite story in another volume.

minami-kun continues to prove he's made of pure weapons-grade boyfriend material, and the rest of kuroe's friends desperately want her back in spite of knowing she's a kaiju. (or, in a couple cases, they consider her being a kaiju a perk. which, fair.)

kinara & drago's story is sweet and heartbreaking by turns. despite being a bit uncomfy about the background aura of racism from the kaiju movie tropes their story is pulling on, as they get more shaded in as actual characters i do find myself wondering if my initial reaction may have been unduly harsh.

I FLEW THROUGH ALL 14 VOLUMES IN A MATTER OF WEEKS AND THAT'S WHERE I'M STUCK WAITING FOR MORE THAN SIX MONTHS???? ARE YOU KIDDING ME??????

hey about that ending, super quick question: WHAT THE HECK????????????????????

i was v curious why my partner got this for me, since porn really isn't generally a thing i'm super interested in (i mean this in a very neutral/nonjudgmental way, it just doesn't tend to spark joy for me), but then all the girls started bullying the protagonist and making him do all their chores and i was like "oh, yeah, okay." like, being forced to do domestic labor for a group of girls that could snap me in half sounds great, actually, i'll take 2.

sadly all the sex in this is painfully vanilla. even the character who briefly cosplays as a dominatrix turns out to literally be a submissive. but i enjoyed it anyway, even though i'm squarely not in the target audience for this.

this one took quite a bit longer than the others to finish because i started actively working on updating my librarything catalog for the first time since 2022 (whoops!). i'm really glad sayaka got her happy ending, and it feels very earned. also i understand why my wife enjoys hitoma iruma's writing now, and i might have to check out some of his other work.

main story was fine, backup story was objectively also just fine but i'm actually incapable of being objective about damian so i'm just so damn happy to get a new damian appearance that isn't a glorified cameo.

warning y'all in advance: i am going to be as smug as damian if my little anger gremlin ends up saving everyone in this crossover.

i'm sorry for being boring or whatever but i like the part of the planet of the apes where it's, y'know, a planet... of the apes. this series seems to like the part where a bunch of humans argue & shoot each other about apes and there are sometimes apes in the general vicinity but they're not really doing much.

hey i heard marvel is doing a planet of the apes comic, that's so cool! anyone know when it starts?

sorry for being salty, just, NOTHING happened in this issue. also there weren't any freaking ape characters. just a lot of humans talking about apes. yawn.

i wish the characters looked a lot more like their film counterparts considering this is explicitly meant to evoke nostalgia for tmp, and unlike a lot of other recent star trek comics the dialogue (especially kirk's) oftentimes super does not sound like how the characters usually talk.

i've been wanting to read some zatanna stuff, and she's such a great fit for this event, so it's no surprise this one was pretty great! and this is by far the most badass that all the nightmare monsters have looked in any of the stories from this event i've read so far.

(also, the baddie had me at "submit and kneel before your new queen." i love a dommy villain.)

kinda wish hal's story had committed to something instead of just jumping all over the place, and it was also super short thanks to the sinestro backup story that i didn't especially care about. like, i get why they would want to include him in a story that's all about fear, but i've just never found him that interesting, and this did nothing to change that.

*patiently waiting for the plot to arrive*

*or for more hot fighting, at least*

it's pretty straightforward and basic, but like... it's tmnt vs street fighter, that's basically what you want, right?

i was gonna joke about "i'll have what he's having" about chun-li strangling mikey with her legs & demanding he submit, but i gotta be honest that i've never been into chun-li like that. maybe if it was vega or someone idk lol

i gotta be honest, i don't have the most experience with starfire as a character in the comics medium. most of my experience with her comes from cartoons & dc's excellent direct-to-video animated movies. so compared to the limited exposure i've had to her in her original medium, it was refreshing to see her doing something other than will-they/won't-they romantic drama with nightwing.

i love the titans, and i love the idea of this anthology miniseries showcasing a different member in each issue. and this did exactly what that kind of series should do by making me immediately more interested in its featured character than i had been before. hopefully the rest of the series will do the same with each successive character!

what if the real nightmare was half an oedipal complex

this was fine but not one of the standouts in this event so far. i did enjoy when they were dragging nightwing into nightmare-arkham and it sounded like the other inmates were gonna heckle him about being fresh meat, but then it turned out they were genuinely happy to see him because he "killed batman." boo. the excessive bondage & pigmen guards were kinda hot tho.

i love a good anthology, and i loved 3 of the 4 stories, not a bad ratio!

not quite as good as the first issue, but still liking the overall direction, and glad there's a bat title like this going again

i liked three of the four stories well enough. still really not interested in stormwatch. i understand that it's gotten good reviews, so that's just a me thing, but i don't know or care about any of the characters and i'm kinda full up on dc characters to care about at the moment so i'm just not interested.

but yeah, still really liking this anthology series on the whole.

my comic reading has fallen off considerably recently as i've been burning the candle from both ends for far too long, but revisiting & finishing this miniseries is exactly the shot in the arm i needed to make sure i don't back burner it for nearly as long anytime soon.

"magic is shaped by intention. it doesn't want to stay static. it's natural for it to change and evolve. we want to keep everything the same. so we stagnate. we strangle our magic with fear. to embrace it as it truly is you have to look at everything you think you know about the way the world should be and imagine something new."

EXCUSE ME, this was already literally my favorite, and then it just goes and demonstrates a deeper understanding of magic than a lot of nonfiction how-to-be-a-witch type books i've read? UNFAIR.

also the lore of this world is getting so rich and so deep. even if i weren't already super attached to xanthe themself as a character, i would want more of this just for the world. PLEASE do something with this character going forward, dc, i am literally begging you.

this is pretty easily my favorite dc series that's going right now. on weeks when it comes out, i require absolutely no thought when deciding the first comic to grab & read when i get to work on tuesday morning.

OMGOSH WHYYYYYYY ARE WE ONLY GETTING 6 ISSUES OF THIS

the part where xanthe's mom tries to bind them but the spell doesn't work because she used their deadname in the spell is a staple in stories about trans & nonbinary magic users, but it was still so dang cathartic. and the horror of your family trying to trap you in a narrative that just isn't you while insisting they "love" and "want" you while refusing to accept who you actually are is... yeah. extremely relatable.

while that was the most intensely relatable part of the comic for me, it was not even close to my favorite. it wasn't even my favorite part featuring xanthe's family, because that would be the part with their little sister. but my favorite part of the comic by far was that full-page splash where xanthe is standing in front of a portal just being a huge badass.

i love this comic so much and i really hope it gets expanded or xanthe gets included in another title or idk we just in some fashion get more of them going forward.

this is such a great start i already love xanthe so much, they better expand this into an ongoing or at least give them plenty of exposure in another title or a bunch of their own miniseries.

every time dick grayson puts on that damn cowl i like it way more than i should, and given the exceptional run it led to with him as bats & damian as his robin, part of me will always wish he never took it off.

also, the narration on those last few pages of him donning the cowl gives me legit goosebumps.