Cafe Manga

If you’re new to this podcast and publication, welcome! When I reviews I post a written version that is the same (more or less) as the first half of the episode. The second half of the episode is a more detailed discussion of the story in question. If you haven’t seen the anime or read the manga/light novel, feel free to stop the episode when I do the countdown warning in the audio version.

This was not a title I thought existed. At all. I can’t even really remember how I discovered this title now. I only remember watching this on Crunchyroll before the pandemic. I found it really fascinating and kind of entertaining. But rather than just talk vaguely about it, let me just get to the review.

The Basics

Thermae Romae is a manga series published by Enterbrain in Japan. It was originally released as 6 volumes. In the United States, it’s been licensed by Yen Press and was released in 3 extra large volumes.

The series was adapted as an anime twice. The first one was in 2012 and is available on Crunchyroll. The more recent version was released in 2022 on Netflix. There were also two live action movies produced in Japan as well.

In February 2024, manga-ka Mari Yamazaki started releasing the sequel to Thermae Romae on the Shonen Jump+ app. I suspect it’s not yet available in English yet. However if anyone in the audience happens to be on the English version of the app, please reach out and let me know!

The Premise

During the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, Lucius Modestus is a frustrated thermae architect. What’s a thermae? It’s basically a bathhouse. In particular it’s a Roman bathhouse that will include many different rooms and bathing tubs, etc. During a visit to a bathhouse he somehow gets teleported to modern day Japan. His short visits to Japan reinvigorates him and gives him inspiration for his work. He eventually goes back to Rome and implements the lessons learned. Every episode of the show and chapters of the manga introduce new problems he solves with his trips to Japan.

General Thoughts

This is actually a really good series! It’s a fun time travel story where an ancient Roman accidentally travels centuries into the future. He winds up subtly changing things in the past. It’s also really fascinating learning a bit more about Ancient Rome. I was familiar with the importance of bathing in Roman culture. It’s pretty interesting to see what they did and didn’t have. You’d certainly enjoy it if you also have an interest in Ancient Rome.

I do have to warn people who are pretty sensitive about this, but unsurprisingly Lucius does express opinions that could be considered racist by our standards. Though this does change in later parts of the stories once he develops more of an understanding and respect for Asian people.

To be fair, it would make more sense because there’s no evidence that Romans ever encountered East Asian or Southeast Asian people. Most Roman citizens living in Italy would have seen Africans and people from the Middle East due to the trade within the empire. But I don’t recall the Romans ever actually seeing East Asian people. They might have some vague awareness via Middle Eastern traders of other lands further east of them.

I’m rather curious what happens in the sequel series as the manga offered a pretty solid ending to the story. Also it’s clear there won’t be a sequel to the anime because the final episode ends somewhat differently from the manga.

Would you be interested in reading this series? Leave a comment below. Feel free to share this with others! Also feel free to mention what stories you’ve been watching or reading! If I’m not already checking them out, they’ll go on my personal list!

Just as a note to anyone who is new to this podcast and publication. The following written review is a spoiler-free one that is the same as the first half of the episode. If you continue listening to the episode, I’ll continue with a short discussion that involves more details about what happened in the anime/manga/light novel, etc. If you want to avoid listening to spoilers, there will be a countdown warning before it starts.

Well I had previously done a review about Restaurant to Another World. Imagine my surprise when I discovered there was another series similar yet different from it. So here I am talking about Isekai Izakaya Nobu!

The Basics

This was a light novel series written on Shosetsuka ni Naro (like most light novels are). Unfortunately this series hasn’t been licensed in English or else I’d have read it by now. There is an on-going manga series with 18 volumes published thus far in Japan. Ten volumes have been translated and released by Udon Entertainment under the name “Otherworldly Izakaya Nobu.”

There was an anime series produced with 24 episodes. Naturally you can watch the series on Crunchyroll. Interestingly enough, there is also a live action series in Japan. You can watch the first two seasons on Viki in North America. A third season was also filmed and I hope that Viki will show it soon too.

Now some of you might be wondering, what is an izakaya? If you aren’t familiar, an izakaya is simply put a bar. However it’s not really like a sports bar or Cheers that Americans like me would be more familiar with. Izakayas have more commonality with taverns or tapas bars in Spain. You do get alcoholic drinks at an izakaya, but most commonly you also order food that pairs well with those drinks.

The Premise

Izakaya Nobu was experiencing a business slump in Kyoto. That is until one day the front door to the izakaya connected them to the city of Aitheria. Pretty soon the izakaya started seeing a variety of guests all fascinated by the mysterious, yet tasty food and drink. From city guards to noble lords, everyone who steps through the front door is welcome to take a seat by the counter, sample appetizers and order a meal that satisfies their taste buds. Who will come through the door next? Watch and read to find out!

General Thoughts

Over all I enjoyed this series! Just as I liked Restaurant to Another World, I really enjoyed this series as well. There is also some wonderful world building happening. The only real difference is that with Nekoya, only a limited number of people can access it on a specific day. Nobu, on the other hand, is always linked with Aitheria and all of the customers are people from that other world. This also means potential problems in Aitheria can really affect Nobu’s staff.

I’m hoping that the ebook version of the entire manga series will be available soon. I’ve been able to read the first seven volumes. It’s a shame the anime wasn’t continued, but I suppose it makes sense given how it’s an on-going series. However the live action series does continue past where the anime ended. Viki is a pretty good streaming service for all sorts of East Asian and Southeast Asian tv shows.

If you enjoyed this episode, leave a comment and share with other anime/manga/light novel fans! Your support and sharing my content with others is duly appreciated!

I initially missed watching this series until a reactor on YouTube started talking about this one. After researching this series, I soon realized it was a Korean webtoon/manhwa. So here are my thoughts about it.

The Basics

This was originally a Korean web novel published on KakaoPage in South Korea. Later the webtoon was also released in KakaoPage. The English translation of the webtoon is available on Tappytoon and Lezhin. Lezhin is actually how I read this particular series. This series was literally the reason why I even knew Lezhin existed and started reading other comics on there. If you didn’t already read my reviews of both of those app, you can read them here:

A 12-episode anime series was released earlier this year and is available on Crunchyroll. There have been no announcements about whether or not they’re going to do a season 2.

The premise

This is a unique premise in that it is an isekai and time travel story. It is an isekai because the title character was originally a spoiled, hated villainess who is executed on the authority of her husband, Emperor Linden.

She gets reborn in South Korea (webtoon/light novel) and Japan (anime). In her new life, she’s born an orphan who has to work hard and becomes a world class surgeon. On her way to a consultation, the plane she’s on has a crash and she dies from her injuries.

She then wakes up and realizes she’s Elise again, but she’s a few years younger than when she was executed. This is her second chance at life! She also retains her medical knowledge from the other world along with her knowledge of future events in her life as Elise.

What will she do with this knowledge? Can she avert tragedy and save herself from a burning at the stake? You have to watch and read to find out!

General Thoughts

I have to confess there are things I liked and didn’t like about this series. I felt like there were some inconsistencies in how Elise’s world functioned. It feels like it’s a parallel world version of the Victorian era, yet there’s other aspects of the world that feel anachronistic for a version of that time period.

Also the development of her relationships with some characters feel too easy. She had a conflict with a character in the past and their conflict seemed to have been resolved too easily. I felt like some of that development wasn’t really done as well. Unfortunately I can’t get access to the novel, so I can’t be sure if this is an issue with the source material or it’s a adaptation issue.

Ultimately what kept me going with the series was I really like the relationship between Elise and Linden. Aside from her relationship with her family, that’s the other relationship I think that was pretty well done. Linden does have a healthy skepticism of Elise because of her past behavior. The way their relationship develops seems more plausible because we have dozens of chapters in the webtoon to make it happen.

Despite it’s flaws it would be good if they continued the anime with a season 2 because there’s some natural plot threads left dangling in the anime. And that’s because those threads are resolved later in the series. Overall, it’s really up to you whether you think it’s worth checking out. If you have Crunchyroll it doesn’t hurt watching the anime first. If you are actually intrigued, then search out the webtoon to read the rest. Especially in case it doesn’t continue with season 2.

Have you seen the anime? Have you read the webtoon or the light novel? If not would you? Leave a comment below!

If you are new to this publication, salutations! This is the written version of the podcast episode! For anyone who is new, basically the written portion corresponds to the first half of the episode where I do a fairly spoiler-free review/overview of the title in question. If you listen to the audio, the second half of the episode (with a warning message) is the discussion of the story with some spoilers. This is the best way to accommodate both people curious about the series and fans who just are curious what I thought about this story. With all that said, please continue reading!

So this is literally the series that made me start looking into light novels. So I just had to do an episode about this particular series. Perhaps you’ll understand why and who knows? If you haven’t been reading light novels before, you’ll wind up doing so now.

The Basics

Like a large percentage of light novels that we’ve seen, this is a series originally published on Shosetsuka ni Naro. Unfortunately the last time the author updated the story on the website was in May 2021. So it’s highly unlikely this will get any more chapters. It’s possible, but not very likely. There are 6 volumes that were released. It was originally published by Shufunotomo in Japan and Seven Seas Entertainment in North America.

There are 4 volumes of the manga published by Square Enix in Japan and Yen Press in North America. You can watch 24 episodes in two seasons of the anime on Crunchyroll.

The Premise

In a unnamed district in Tokyo, there is a restaurant called The Western Restaurant Nekoya. It’s primary patrons are local office workers and tourists, so it usually opens Monday to Friday and closes on the weekends. However it secretly opens to a very different set of customers on Saturday. The front door becomes a gateway between our world with another world.

From elves to dragons to humans of various kingdoms, Nekoya’s Saturday patrons get to enjoy food that is unique from their own. Beyond serving tasty meals, this restaurant is a place where diverse people can interact with each other. What sort of impact does this humble restaurant make? You’ll have to watch and read!

General Thoughts

Like I said earlier, this is the series that made me get into light novels. I had done research into the series after I enjoyed the first season. I soon found out not only was it a light novel, the series was available in English. Very quickly I discovered other titles, which led to me creating this Substack publication and the Cafe Manga podcast.

It’s wonderful world building that is subtle and not too much info dumping in the exposition. The cast of characters are also great. Nekoya really is like Cheers, a place where everyone knows your name. Or in this case knows you enough to give you nicknames based on your regular order at the restaurant.

I think it’s a huge shame that the series has abruptly stopped getting updated on Shosetsuka ni Naro. I could see a potential for a lot of stories that could still be told. Seven Seas has put off releasing volume 6 of the light novel multiple times. Apparently it’s going to be released on October 15, but we’ll see if that’s true.

Have you watched the anime? Did you read the manga or light novel? If not would you do either? Leave a comment and let’s discuss!

The Basics

This title is originally a light novel series written on Shosetsuka ni Naro and later published by Kodansha. The manga was also published by Kodansha. Naturally the USA subsidiary of Kodansha publish the English language translations of the light novel and manga. You can watch the now complete season 1 of the series on Crunchyroll.

It’s also been announced not long after the final episode aired that not only will there be a season 2, but they’re going to air in Fall 2024. I’m genuinely surprised. I figured it would maybe be Summer or Fall 2025, but 2024? Amazing and cool. I actually have been reading the light novel series. Five volumes have been released in English. The fifth volume was only just recently released on June 25th. I haven’t read that volume yet, but will be doing that soon.

The Premise

A Japanese salaryman dies and he gets reincarnated as the young son of a baron. Young Ars Louvent is the son and heir of Lord Raven Louvent. They live in the Summerforth empire. Ars possesses a really excellent appraisal skill that no one else seems to possess. It allows him to scan people and find out if they have skills and aptitudes in certain types of categories. His long term goal is to recruit as many talented people as possible. He hopes his team of talented people will help him improve their small barony of Lamberg.

If A Song of ice and Fire and all the other isekai titles tell us anything, it’s that conflicts are bound to happen in a medieval society. And that’s exactly what happens. The Summerforth empire shows signs of cracks as the current emperor is an apathetic boy who has regents and ambitious councilors doing the actual ruling. Missian, the province Ars lives in, is on the brink of civil war. The duke of Missian is an elderly man with two sons. Traditional male-preference primogeniture says the older son is heir. However the father seems to favor the younger son as being more talented in his opinion.

Can Ars and his people survive these upcoming challenges? You’ll have to watch the anime and read either the manga or the light novel to find out!

General Thoughts

Over all, I like this series. I’ve read and watched my share of isekai stories. This is a series that has a lot of potential and really does appeal to me. The biggest thing I liked about this series is that it addresses some of the more serious aspects of feudal society without being too grim. I think it does a decent balance where they acknowledge the bad stuff, but they don’t always depict it “on screen.”

Just as not everyone can tolerate watching Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon, not everyone will want to watch super gritty anime or read dark stories. This series does have light moments so it’s not gloomy or too heavy.

Ars does have to navigate politics to some degree since he’s supposed to be a baron after his father. He has to play the balancing game between that various factions who have their own goals. Not necessarily to his own benefit should he ally himself with them.

I personally look forward to see how things progress for Ars in the future. I hope that the light novel will continue and doesn’t abruptly stop. I looked at the Shosetsuka ni Naro entry for the light novel. The author has updated the story in June, so they are still writing. It does look like they’re not writing as frequently this year as they did in 2023, which is probably why Volume 5 was released in Japan in July 2023 and volume 6 only came out this past April.

What do you think of this series? Would you check it out if you haven’t already? Leave a comment below and share with other fans!

As this is a podcast episode that will contain spoilers, the written content I’m doing here will just cover basic info about the podcast episode along with some important announcements. This is available for those of you who either aren’t able to listen or would rather read the info. A transcript of the episode is also available on platforms that permit them.

Long time no speak!

I have to acknowledge what was meant to be a sporadic posting schedule turned into a 4 month hiatus. The short answer is that basically my other podcast took over my time. If you didn’t already know, I’m also the host of a podcast about A Song of Ice and Fire saga by George R.R. Martin. If you’re actually interested in listening (or you know someone else who might!), you can listen to the show on https://www.thewesterosiprimer.com. I’ve created an Instagram and Twitter accounts for the show. There is also a newsletter. I started it on Substack! You can find it here.

My workflow has eased up slightly so now I’m producing content for this show again. Things will be in starts and stops, but at this time I do intend to continue Cafe Manga podcast. I can’t guarantee that I’ll consistently release episodes every week. I will be producing episodes in batches so you’ll at least get a few episodes for a few weeks before a hiatus happens again.

Of course people listening to this show on podcast platforms should try subscribing to my publication because they’re going to get content from me every week even if it’s not audio. And as I’ve said in previous episodes, there’s written content that isn’t going to be on the podcast. Like the recent series of posts I just finished about the different webcomic apps I use.

Future content on the podcast

Despite the fact that the name of the podcast is Cafe Manga, I’ve decided to include manhwa into the mix. There’s been an increase of anime in recent years that is based on Korean stories. One big example is Solo Leveling, which is a story I’ll be featuring in an episode VERY soon.

On top of that I personally have a growing interest in Korean content. I have been watching K-dramas and Korean variety shows pretty consistently since around 2012. So I feel like it only makes sense to have both Japanese and Korean stories be included on the podcast. I’m already doing this on the newsletter. With that said, let’s get into Dr. Stone!

Spoiler free thoughts about the final arc

Overall I was pretty satisfied with the ending of the series as I read the manga. I felt that they did a pretty good job giving us some exciting adventures in the world tour. I also thought it was an interesting reveal of the Why-Man and what Why-Man’s goal was.

If I were to criticize anything, I’d probably criticize the ending. It was a bit unexpected though in context it made some sense. I was still left with a couple questions, but of course I won’t get answers to them. The pace in places felt sped up compared to the earlier arcs. I guess if the story delved more into development, it would drag the story into even more volumes of the manga or a season 5.

It was only while I was reading the manga that I realized that Riichiro Inagaki and Boichi had actually been invited to New York Comic Con (NYCC) back in 2019. Unfortunately I hadn’t paid attention or was aware of Dr. Stone that year otherwise. I would have gone to that panel. To be fair I was more fixated on Tom Hiddleston and Paul Rudd attending. (Yes I took pictures with both of them.)

If you readers are interested in more details about the final arc, please listen to the episode (or read the transcript!) to get the spoiler content!

What did you think of the episode? What do you think of the upcoming season 4 of Dr. Stone? Anything you’re excited or intrigued about? Leave a comment. Let’s talk!

Similar to the previous episode, this does have some spoilers to Season 3 of Dr. Stone. So I don’t have too much to write here. Thanks for listening and see you in the next episode where I finish the Dr. Stone series.

Considering this is a discussion of characters and some aspects of what happened in Season 2 of the anime series, I can’t really write too much this time around due to spoilers for anyone who hasn’t already watched the anime or read the manga.

So to close this written portion, I’ll leave a few helpful links!

Once again if you want to watch the anime, you can watch it on Crunchyroll: https://www.crunchyroll.com/series/GYEXQKJG6/dr-stone

If you want to read the manga, the relevant volumes of the manga in Season 2 and the Ryusui movie are volumes 7-11.

https://www.viz.com/read/manga/dr-stone-volume-7/product/6024

https://www.viz.com/read/manga/dr-stone-volume-8/product/6095

https://www.viz.com/read/manga/dr-stone-volume-9/product/6141

https://www.viz.com/read/manga/dr-stone-volume-10/product/6197

https://www.viz.com/read/manga/dr-stone-volume-11/product/6263

Leave a comment what you thought of Season 2. Also what did you think of the Ryusui movie?

This time the written portion of this podcast/newsletter will be a little different from the first three episodes. This time around I’m doing both a review and a commentary discussion about Season 1 of this series.

As you can imagine the commentary portion of the episode will be very spoiler heavy. So if you haven’t watched the anime or read the manga, you will want to stop playing the episode at the 12:37 mark.

The next three episodes will be a continuation of the Dr. Stone series as I cover seasons 2-3 and even discuss the rest of the manga that will be adapted in Season 4. If you don’t want to be spoiled of the other seasons, then I guess I’ll see you guys in episode 8! People who don’t want to be spoiled of Season 4, will want to skip episode 7. With that said, I’ll just write down my general review of the Dr. Stone series over all.

Dr. Stone 101

Dr. Stone is originally a manga series that was published on Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump from March 2017 to March 2022. It was later released as 26 tankoban (collected volumes), which have been translated into English and is completely available for purchase in the English Language market. It is also available as an anime series on Crunchyroll. The season 3 finale was released on December 21, 2023. The anime will be concluded with season 4.

The story is a sci-fi series with a post-apocalyptic setting. The story starts in 2019 when a mysterious green light causes all the humans on Earth to be petrified. It takes 3,700 years for the main protagonist Senku Ishigami to be freed from stone. He uses his extensive scientific knowledge to try to revive humanity.

Overall I’d highly recommend anyone who enjoys these type of stories to check this out! Check out the episode until the 12:37 mark for the full review.

Thank you for checking out this episode of Cafe Manga. If you enjoy the show, please sign up to the newsletter for more content not included in the show. You can sign up at cafemanga.substack.com or see the link in the episode description.

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to Cafe Manga. Today's topic, Anime in 2023. It will be a brief review and commentary of shows that I watched in 2023 that I personally enjoyed.

Now, just to qualify this, I will be specifically talking about shows that not only did I watch in 2023, obviously, but they are specifically shows that originally got aired in 2023. As an example of this, I actually started watching That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime in 2023, but all the episodes that I was watching originally aired before 2023. So I'm not going to be heavily discussing that particular anime in this episode.

Campfire Cooking In Another World With My Absurd Skill

So the first show I'm going to talk about is actually a Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill. That show was actually something I was heavily anticipating for 2023 precisely because I actually read the light novels. It was originally a light novel and it later became a manga series. And then now it's an anime series.

So for anyone who's not familiar with the premise of the show, so it is an example of an isekai, which for those of you who don't know what the term isekai means, it basically means other world, as in the main character of the story travels from say this world to another world through different means.

Funny enough, I actually did an episode of my old podcast, Three Fates Decide, specifically explaining what the heck an isekai is. So if you're interested, I will put a link in the episode description for this episode.

But anyway, so in Campfire Cooking, the main character is this 20-something year old guy from Japan, of course. Who accidentally gets summoned through one of those magic hero summoning rituals that inevitably happens in these types of stories. And he gets summoned into this other world along with three high school students.

Now as it turns out, the three high school kids, they are the actual heroes. They all have like these magical abilities, magical affinities to fight monsters and demons.

This guy, though, he actually doesn't end up receiving any special abilities that would define him as a hero. He actually obtains an absurd skill, like the title says. And in particular, the absurd skill in question is he has a skill called online grocery. And if you couldn't guess what this power is, it basically means he has the ability to do online shopping in another world, which is very bizarre, hence absurd skill.

And the series basically follows his wacky adventures with this strange ability as he tries to survive in this alternate world he is basically trapped in at this point. He can't go back to Japan so he just has to live a new life in this world and very quickly he gets himself into all sorts of crazy situations and it's a comedy.

It's a really entertaining comedy and I highly recommend it. It's really funny, really hilarious. There's two minor quibbles I have with it, even though I do enjoy it. Number one, if you read the light novel series, there are certain story beats that kind of repeat themselves a little bit, which I will admit can make it a little hard to read at times from that perspective.

So if you are thinking that you're going into this checking out like a super action adventure fantasy story, then that is not what this is. So you're going to want to save yourself the trouble and not check this out. But if you want comedy, some fantasy, and some slice of life happenings, then this is definitely the title for you.

The other thing that is slightly negative is the fact that he uses a lot of times food in anime is amazingly drawn, delicious looking, very tempting. So just save yourself the trouble and have some snacks on hand, okay?

The Apothecary Diaries

Another series I also enjoyed was The Apothecary Diaries. And technically it's still airing now as I record this. I believe it's going to be 24 episodes and again it's based off of a light novel series which I also happen to be reading as well. In fact I kind of want to reread the first couple of volumes of the series because that's in essence what the 24 episodes are roughly going to cover. Possibly the third book as well but I don't know.

The premise of this story is you have your main character Mao Mao. Her adopted father is a doctor. She has been educated in a lot of things about medicine and health and some knowledge of science as well. She enjoys creating medicines as her father's assistant, hence the title Apothecary Diaries.

So she goes off on her errands. She goes out to pick some more herbs, you know, fresh ingredients to add to the inventory for their medicine making business. She ends up kidnapped and she gets sold to the palace and she gets hired as a common servant girl doing chores and errands around the palace.

And she's thinking to herself, okay, my contract is for only two years. And after two years, they will let me go if I just keep my head down and just do whatever I get ordered to do.

But of course, because she does have this medical background, she gets pulled into a situation happening amongst the Emperor's concubines where people are not doing well health wise and she can't help herself. She has to try to do something to help them. And because she does that, she gets their attention and things get more complicated from there.

It is a really good show. It is also a very good light novel series. I highly recommend it. I would describe it as part medical mystery type of story, a bit like House, if you would like a comparison. And also you get some political maneuverings happening because a good chunk of the story takes place in the royal palace, where you're dealing with people from upper ranks in society. And as I record this episode, episode 14 was recently released so yeah if you are interested in checking out the show you can find it on Crunchyroll.

Tearmoon Empire

Another series that I checked out in 2023 that I actually thought was really entertaining and again it was originally a light novel and again I am currently reading this light novel it's called Tearmoon Empire. And Tearmoon Empire is also pretty freaking hilarious. Really funny. Definite recommend.

Basically, the story goes like this. You have a princess of the Tearmoon Empire. Her name is Princess Mia. And she is the victim of a huge revolution in the empire, a la French Revolution.

And because it's a bit similar to the French Revolution she meets her fate at the guillotine and just when you think it's over she wakes up and she realizes that oh my god I went back in time eight years ago to when I'm a 12 year old girl and this is my chance. This is my second chance to change the course of my future. This is my chance to prevent my fate of meeting the guillotine.

And the rest of the series is her making all these small changes that create butterflies that completely changes things. You may be thinking, okay, well, why is this a comedy?

Well, it's a comedy because this girl does all these things for pretty selfish reasons. She's really focused on not getting her head chopped off, but because she's doing all these things, ironically, she's not just saving her life. She's also actually improving things, changing things for the better for a lot of people. And obviously she's using her knowledge of what is going to happen within the next eight years to prevent all these things from happening.

And subsequently she gets a reputation of being the saint of the Tearmoon Empire and it's just hilarious because people are thinking she's doing all these amazing things she must be wise beyond her years and no but no she's just doing it because she doesn't want to get her head chopped off.

I will say the writing for this is very clever. Because you have to be a really good writer to create situations where the scenario actually works on both sides. And by that, I mean, it's pretty obvious that Mia is motivated by very self-interested motivations. And yet her actions are such that it's very easy for someone who doesn't know anything about her selfish nature to think that she is super benevolent and super altruistic.

It's just absolutely funny. It's really hilarious, very clever writing. And I don't know, unfortunately, whether or not there's going to be a second season. I really hope there will be, but unfortunately I don't actually know that for sure. But there are definitely multiple volumes of the light novels so even if they don't continue with the anime there's plenty of material for you to read if you would rather check it out that way.

The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent

So the final show I'm going to talk about in this episode is The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent. Now, what got aired this past year in 2023 was actually the second season, and it's also the final season of the series.

Some people felt that the second season was a bit slow compared to the first season, but to be fair, it matched up with what happened in the light novel series, which I'm sure some of you guys are sensing the theme here. But okay, so the Saint's magic power is omnipotent.

Similar to the first show that I mentioned in this episode, Campfire Cooking, in this show you have another story where you have this person who gets summoned from Japan and ends up in another world. Except in this case, it's number one, a young woman in her twenties versus a man. And number two, she is actually intended to be the heroine, the saint, hence the summoning and hence the title.

So basically the world she ends up in every so often, there are monsters that start showing up and attacking different parts of this kingdom. There's supposed to be a saint, usually a woman, who was born with really strong holy magic affinity, whose job is to use her holy magic to cleanse the land and get rid of these monsters.

Unfortunately, there hasn't been a saint born in this world yet, which leads to the conclusion that they're going to have to use a summoning ritual to summon a person from another world to become the saint.

So in this case, you actually have two people that got summoned. You have the 20 something year old office worker whose name is Sei Takanashi and a high school girl named Aira Misono who gets summoned. And at first there was some confusion because you have two people that got summoned instead of just the one person. So there was actually some debate as to who between the two, who is the actual saint.

But of course, it's pretty clear that the one who is actually the saint is Sei. So you kind of follow her adventures of how she survives in this new world and how she learns to develop these magical powers that she's been given due to the fact that she was summoned here.

And I enjoyed the first season. I've been reading the light novels and I did enjoy the second season. I thought they did a pretty good job adapting light novels. I mean obviously due to pacing reasons they cut out some things, they skipped out on certain events, they cut out some details, but overall I thought it was actually pretty good.

And it made a lot of sense to me that they ended the show with season 2 because, slight spoiler, the final episode of season 2 corresponds to the very end of volume 8 of the light novel. And unfortunately there has only been nine published volumes of the light novel series and when I looked up the story on Shosetsuka Ni Naro which for those of you who don't know what that is.

Shosetsuka Ni Naro is a Japanese website where you can upload fiction that you've wrote. I guess the best comparison would be it's similar to Archive of Our Own, except the difference is that Shosetsuka Ni Naro is intended to be a site for original fiction versus archive of our own, which is mostly fan fiction with some original fiction uploaded on there, but it's primarily a fan fiction site. Shosetsuka Ni Naro is meant to be original fiction that users can self-publish themselves on the website. And incidentally, a large majority of light novels were originally stories posted on Shosetsuka Ni Naro.

So when I went to Shosetsuka Ni Naro, I saw that unfortunately, the most recent chapter that got posted would technically be part of a volume 10 but it doesn't look like it's been updated in a few months so there's no certainty as to whether or not we are going to get a volume 10 anytime soon. So I think it actually makes a ton of sense at the end of the show with volume 8.

Conclusion

So those are some of the shows that I watched in 2023 that I would recommend to any of you listeners if you haven't already watched them for yourselves.

And if you think that there are shows you would recommend me to watch, then feel free to send those recommendations my way via my Substack account.

So before I end this episode, I decided that I'm going to make a little announcement about the upcoming episodes. So the next few episodes, I'm going to consider them a mini series of a sort where I'm going to do a review slash commentary on a particular title. And the next few episodes are going to be one particular title that is very popular and incidentally was a show that I binged watched heavily in 2023.

And in case you are wondering, I will offer you one hint and it is this: I hope you'll get excited about the next few episodes.