it pretty ruthlessly cuts a lot of side content making for a much more focused experience (though at the cost of a lot of characterization). it maintains some of the fundamental problems of the plot but at least I didn't hate my time with it.

on the other hand I found the futari no hakuoro anime surprisingly enjoyable, given how much I disliked the game. here I think the editing works;

itsuwari no kamen is, as I believe most people have said before, bad. and indeed it is worse than the game. but here is where I think that this is just a matter of degrees; most of what is bad in the anime was already bad in the game

I think they do good job of showing enough to be intriguing and unsettling while basically explaining nothing
the latest one in particular was pretty creepy

is not just in manga, but about manga: a manga where the author disappeared mysteriously, one where there is a hidden message, and now the latest one one that curses you

I actually liked the book! lol
The Ishinaga Kikue book, on the other hand...

this one is more of a slow burning romance with someone who is learning to be human
anyway it's very cute, recommended

and it also knows how to pull at your heart strings
THAT BEING SAID, the story itself is not actually that similar
if saikano is centered on the horrors of war with the romantic relationship being a given (as much as I remember in any case, it's been a long while since I read it),

then read up to the latest chapter of Kimi ga Shinu made Koi wo Shitai
I had read the comment that it was a yuri saikano and yeah, the premise is more than similar
I guess it does solves some of the problems of the setting of saikano though it keeps other ones

also finished Shimeji Simulation
again I had read a bit some time back but coming to it again I liked it a lot more
more than shoujo shuumatsu ryokou even
and again the last tome is a thing of beauty
with some themes reminiscent of subahibi, I guess everything comes back to it

but the anime was fine enough, and after giving the manga a new try I actually liked it a lot
much more than I remember liking the anime even
the last tome was beautifully poignant
to the point that I find it a tragedy that the anime does not cover it

and if you actually read Connect the dots, I don't think the anime adds much to it? if anything connect the dots adds to the anime

but even compared to them it's pretty grim as a war story, and to the protagonists basically everything boils down to "going to another world sucks ass"
I liked it a fair bit, BUT, the ending is indeed extremely nazo

oh i see, sorry for the repeated posts then

I'm trying to make a reply but the blog seems to keep eating my text
in any case, a couple of blogs I like are
acoup.blog about history in popular culture (and history in general)
zompist.wordpress.com has some fiction and non-fiction reviews

but a couple are for original characters that end up connected to the plots of the novels (these are the best ones)
I like how well each of the titular youkai serve as a motif for its story

they do have the writing and characterization but the mysteries are pretty simple and there's close to no folklore
most of the stories give a more detailed background for a key character for one of the novels,