(Not so) Shameful Confessions - Nerds/Geeks/Dorks - SHARE YOUR PASSIONS

[Magnus Aurelius]

Hello. I am a nerd. I have a stupid obsession with Warhammer 40k lately and a desire to share. Unfortunately for me, I have very limited opportunities to share my nerdy passions.

I also love to hear about other people's weird passion/obsessions. Be it some obscure book series, or something a bit more mainstream. I want to hear you ramble about whatever it is that's lodged in your brain and has no way out. I would LOVE to know about that something that you've been wanting to share or talk about. This thread, I'd like to devote to the notion of sharing those niche, or even not-so-niche ideas, fandoms, and whatnot that people have been reading up on constantly, playing or whatever else. GEEK OUT TO ME AND YOUR FELLOWS! NERDGASM TO YOUR HEART'S CONTENT! DORK! Just... Just dork. But yeah!

Tell me about what you've been shamefully obsessed with lately!

 

[Baka]

Definitely a thread that I can get behind, since while I have friends with similar interests I usually leave the gushing about specific series for myself unless asked more etc, and could definitely use an outlet to voice and gush about my current obsessions, even if people might not be interested in what I have to write (contemplated on doing mini-reviews on my Journal at one point, but have yet to done any)

My recent obsession has been:

Tokyo Babylon and X/1999​

I have been on a huge CLAMP-animanga spree lately, and to prepare myself for the Magnum Opus-duo of theirs called Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles and xxxHolic I have gone through their catalogue, and finally made my way to what has beenacclaimed to be their darkest work, as well as one of the best, if not the best they have ever done.

Tokyo Babylon​

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Tokyo Babylon as a manga was only seven volumes long, but man did I fell in love with those seven volumes. As the rumors said the series is extremely dark, sort-of episodic tale about a powerful heir of an old Onmyoji-clan Subaru Sumeragi, their twin-sister Hokuto Sumeragi and a mysterious vet Seishirou Sakurazuka who's true nature is revealed at the end of the series, and how they solve a spirit-related issues around the Tokyo.

Pretty standard anime-shenanigans, but what makes this stand out among the crowd how it is not afraid to critique social and other issues that 90's Japan and many other countries are going through even to this date. Some stories have a nice and more positive outlook, others not so much, and this series does not shy away from really hard subjects such as how a victim of an sexual assault is being viewed through a judgemental lenses or the ridiculous rise of the living-costs after the Economy bubble exploded driving people to not only kill themselves, but their families also, while also making a point that even dying is way too expensive in general in Japan.. These subjects are always intertwined with a current otherworldly issue, and despite my rambling probably giving a picture that these subjects are handled in a pretty wishy-washy way the fact that the creators actually delve on these quite a bit, and clearly critisize the landscape at the time is what really elevated this manga for me.

The overarching story linking this to the X/1999 is also great, and the twist at the end makes you absolutely hate and despise one of the key-characters in the series (Would also go as far and say that the betrayal is as good and heart-rending as Griffiths betrayal in Berserk was (Berserk spoilers)), and makes a great conflict to see a resolution in the sequel. Topped off with a great main-trio, lovely 90's shoujo-art and distinct CLAMP-style and I got myself one of the biggest positive surprises in manga immediately at the start of 2025.

There also exist two episode OVA, which features a completely new stories with some influences and themes taken from the manga... And it was a disappointment. It was basically just a crime-drama with Tokyo Babylon cast helping police in the field, which they never did in the original manga (at least directly). It also takes all the hard-hitting critiques off and all the conflicts basically boil-down to "Greedy big corporations bad" and "Murder not ok". Only thing that they kept in place somewhat was romantic tension between Subaru and Seishirou intact, but yeah the gay storyline that was pretty clear in the manga was still kept pretty minimal. It is animated well and has a nice soundtrack at least.

X/1999​

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Now I'm making my way through X/1999, and since I am only at the beginning (6/18.5 volumes through) I can't say much other than I really like it. It takes time to build the story and set everything in place clearly, since even in volume 6 there was characters introduced and some exposition done, but I really like where the story is going, and man I never would've guessed that people who made such a heartwarming comfy series like Cardcaptor Sakura and Kobato could draw such a gory scenes. It still has that magical feeling that most CLAMP-work has, mainly through the amazing and dreamlike-art, but man the comfy dreams that they usually paint have turned into a scenes from a nightmare in this one... Quite fitting for a manga about the end of the world.

While the social critique, at least for now is pretty much out of the picture the larger than life story they carefully craft definitely makes up for it, and the cast so far has been really interesting and fun to follow.

I also watched a movie adaptation of the manga by Madhouse... And while it features some of the most beautifully animated scenes in 90's anime movies and gets the basic gist of the story it just is only worth a watch if you want to see some solid animation. The story is changed, there were only six volumes of manga released when the movie was made so A LOT of stuff had to be written to make this a somewhat coherent movie, and like the source material it takes a lot of time to set the stage while changing it, but it just does not work with movie. After the exposition is done there's not even a half of the runtime left, so they have to speedrun everything and then give it an original ending.

I will watch the TV anime after reading manga. Hoping it's a more solid adaptation in terms of story.

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Now that that's out of my system time to go continue reading X/1999!

 

[Magnus Aurelius]

Not gunna lie, the 80's/90's were the renaissance on Anime. Nothing since has really come close to just how beautiful of an artform it possible could be. Maybe Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, but that's a bit of an outlier. I remember reading xxxHolic and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles a BILLION YEARS AGO when it was still being released and couldn't help but think that it was really dope that there were a bunch of different stories running parallel in different genres and 'dimensions' simultaneously. Almost like a precursor to the connected universes that DC and Marvel either have, or are trying to establish these days.

Haven't really seen anything about x/1999, and the darker stuff like that hasn't really been my taste, but not gunna lie it does sound interesting. I used to live in Japan (for a year) and while it's really nice place to live, there's definitely a dark side. I do remember around winter over there, the number of times that trains would be delayed due to 'Human Intervention'. Take a quick guess as to what THAT might mean. And I remember watching a whole thing about the Japanese Economic Miracle post WW2, and how the bubble burst in the late 80's/early 90's. Yeah, I can totally see a lot of those themes being BIG issues at the time.

 

[Baka]

Despite really loving the 80´s, 90´s and 00´s anime to bits there's a lot of great stuff even to this date. However most of those series don't seem to get a lot of mainstream attention (Some exceptions of course exist like Frieren, Dungeon Meshi and Kusuriya no Hitorigoto) despite the fact that being into anime and manga seems to be more popular now than ever. Will say that there seemed to be a lot more variation in terms of stories and themes at the time (insert some funny joke about isekai shows with long and weird titles here... Though in 00's the harem ecchi-stuff was pretty much like the isekai is nowadays lol).

The reason why I am reading through the previous CLAMP work is the fact that most of those dimensions in Tsubasa and xxxHolic are based off of some of their works. If I remember correctly at least one of the arcs in the series is based in the universe of X/1999, so covering my bases so that I can get the maximum enjoyment out of both of them (though the fact I can see more Sakura and Syaoran pretty much guarantees that already)

If dark themes is not usually your thing then I do say that it is a bit of a gamble to pick this one up. Some stories did make me feel genuinely bad, but that's also a testament to how well the themes were handled and how grounded the stories were despite the supernatural flare to it all. X so far has not been as dark as Tokyo Babylon... But it also got put on indefinite hiatus thanks to some really messed-up events reflecting the real life a bit too well at the time and causing a stir in Japan (with the addition of the magazine it was published quitting), and even after 20+ years it is still three or so volumes short of being finished, so it might go as dark, or even darker than the prequel.

 

[Magnus Aurelius]

I'm an odd duck in that even if something isn't exactly what I generally enjoy, I'll occasionally find an exception to the rule. I mean, I used to read stuff like Berserk. Still sad about Miura and that he didn't get to see it through to the end. I might give it a go, seeing as most manga that I read currently go months without updates.

I won't lie though, for a while (and to a degree still) I was a big fan of all the isekai stuff. The who haremy, OP MC shenanigans as they all have. Lately I've been enjoying the ones that involve more 'world building' than anything else. There was one where the Demon King (tig biddy Demon Lady) was in love with the Hero and the entire anime was literally about agriculture and improving the lives of medieval people, breaking down the barriers between Humans and Demons, religion and superstition. Dope anime that I can't remember the name of. Also, SERIOUSLY LOVE Saga of Tanya the Evil. I think I watch that yearly while I sadly wait for season 2. Also, Neon Genesis Evangelion (the original run) was the first anime I ever watched so... yeah, I've got some taste for weird/dark/bleak animes. Just gotta hit me and hook me right I think.