My writing break has accidentally turned into an Asian mini-sabbatical. Read some Byung-Chul Han and some Yuk Hui (both Asians in European-philosopher disguise) and just watched some Miyazaki movies for the first time (Spirited Away, Princess Mononake, Howl’s moving castle). I guess I’m late to the (East) Asian century. I have a first manga lined up to read next. (Blame by Tsutomu Nihei).

Not sure quite what to make of it all. A lot of things are clearly popular mainly because millennials grew up with them, but I’m too old for. Gotta find an age-appropriate/interest-appropriate sampling strategy. I don’t think giant robot sagas and what seems like a surfeit of Bildungsroman fantasies are for me.

this anime list by a younger gen-x might be age-appropriate (filters out a lot of homogeneity). if you filter interest-appropriate on top of the Overall it's likely you'll get next to nothing (which is nice)

mangas need more aggressive filtering, like starting with some kind of award (otherwise it's niches on top of niches)

Delver at contraptions.venkateshrao.com, running summerofprotocols.com, host of /gloom ☀️

this anime list by a younger gen-x might be age-appropriate (filters out a lot of homogeneity). if you filter interest-appropriate on top of the Overall it's likely you'll get next to nothing (which is nice)

mangas need more aggressive filtering, like starting with some kind of award (otherwise it's niches on top of niches) https://www.mediafire.com/folder/79oe2z08c4we3/ANIME+RANKING https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_manga_awards