There's not a lot of anime/manga that I've seen that I would call my "favorite", mostly because I just don't watch anime as much as I used to when I was younger. As of right now, some of my favorites include Dorohedoro, Mob Psycho, Keep Your Hands off Eizouken, and Dungeon Meshi, but one stands out in a way thaty I can't get enough of: Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, or Yokohama Shopping Log!
It's much more slower placed compared to my previous favorites. It's quiet, contemplative, and there's not some big indtimidating villain or obstacle to overcome, either. It's about a robot running a cafe near the coast as the world comes to a gentle end - It's a collection of moments from her + the townspeople's everyday lives. Some of the most exciting moments that I remember form the manga were Alpha (the main protagonist + the robot I mentioned earlier) getting a camera and going on a scooter ride around the area to find things to take photos of, another robot names Kokone learning more about the Alpha Unit's origins and listening to a record from when they were being made, and a girl living in town talking with a traveller who has a flying fish with him, to find that the flying fish has a baby that she could train and take care of!
I love all the small, contemplative moments this manga has, from Alpha making herself a cup of coffee to enjoy on her own, to sitting under a plastic roof as it rains. And because the series is a bit older, it's already finished by the time I've started reading it. And damn, there's a lot to read!! I don't know the exact number of chapters off the top of my head (Wikipedia can fill me in there I'm sure), but I just finished chapter 100 tonight and I know I've still got much more to see. And that doesn't feel intimidating like it does for a lot of other poular manga right now! It's no One Piece or Chainsaw Man by any stretch of the imagination, haha.
Compared to another favorite of mine, Dorohedoro, Yokohama's so insanely different! ':D Doro's got gore, and horror, and action and mystery, but if there's one thing that connects them that I can think of, it's smaller moments surrounding food. Kaiman and Nikaido take a break while travelling to find someone who could return his face to normal, and Nikaido heads out to pick up some food for dinner (and runs into trouble, gets threatened, and drop kicks a guy so hard his head splits open and sprays everywhere, but that's besides the point..). There's a flashback comic where Kaiman and Nikaido cook some gyoza together too that I really like. Obviously Dungeon Meshi shares the food, worldbuilding, and quiet moments with these guys, too
Come to think of it, at least part of the reason I've been gunning for a camera for the last few years could be because of this manga too, as silly as it sounds ':D Picking up this magical little device and looking around seeing what you want to capture in time sounds exhilirating! But maybe I would overthink it and not take any photos at all.. But then at least I would enjoy the scenery too! Sorry, I guess I've got cameras on the brain lately
Ummm what else... I recently applied to my firest ever zine! I'm a little nervous, but I'm excited to be doing something like this for the first time. Comunity-led zines are always a lot of fun, and they bring people with shared interests together in the process ^^ I'll be hearing back about whether I got in next week, so you might just hear about it here >:9
(Also, one last note here before I sign off, I'm thinking about putting some photos in my furture posts! It's not too hard, and as long as I have the photos uploaded on here, it shouldn't be a problem having them show up. If I have to worry about anything, it would probably be resizing and formatting them correctly in the little window Zonelets has..hmm..That's a problem for future me