I’m still bang in the middle of reading the first few volumes of various manga series. Other than that, it’s a few non-fiction books. Still not really in the mood for novels though, but I do want to finish a few in the remaining months of 2021…well, we’ll see.

Tokyo Ghoul vol. 1-5
Another one of those manga series I never really cared about. But a few weeks ago I felt for some reason like I wanted to check it out after all. And what should I say, it’s really good, actually. I’m not even too much into gory stuff anymore (or I never really was into it, even though I really enjoyed stuff like Elfen Lied back in the day), but Tokyo Ghoul is strangely compelling. And if I had any doubts left, then vol.5 was definitely enough to convince me. The scenes were Nishiki was fighting to protect his human girlfriend were positively haunting. I sort of liked Nishiki before, but that volume made him my possible favourite character from the series. Though I have to say that everyone is pretty interesting so far! Well, I’m really looking forward to the next volumes, and I will have to buy them soon-ish even though my manga backlog is already enormous, haha.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba vol. 1-2
I admit it, I hated this series quite a bit because the hype around it was just so damn annoying. I just really wanted to dislike it because of that. But now? I just thought I should give it a second chance, mainly because I really like some of the character designs (Muzan’s design for example, or some of the character who apparently appear later in the story…and I just really love Nezuko’s cuteness, haha). And while reading the first two volumes I was actually pleasantly surprised. I expected the story to be pretty serious and all that, but it’s really funny on many occasions! Some of the character’s faces are just priceless :D Sadly the German volumes are quite expensive due to the bigger format. So I can’t really catch up on the series right now, but I will definitely do so in the future.

Wise Man’s Grandchild vol. 1-2
Don’t even ask me why, but I really loved the anime adaption. And so I was pretty happy when I heard that the manga had been licensed by a german publisher. I wasn’t sure about how much I would like it, but…I love it a lot already. So far it’s not that different from the anime, but I just enjoy the story and characters and so everything’s a lot of fun. And strangely enough, I don’t even have a problem with the ridiculously overpowered main character. But he’s just so likable? I usually hate those kind of Gary Stu MCs, but he’s just alright and I totally get why the other characters want to be his friends :D

Spiel nicht mit meinem Herz
Generic boys love stuff, I guess. But I really enjoyed it! It was really funny and though the story confused me at times it was an entertaining read. Also, I like the drawing style and the way the mangaka depicted the sexy stuff. So yeah, I will get more of her one-shots! Already bought a few, actually. XD

Manga Love Story vol. 5
Can’t say too much about this. I need to finally get on with this series, because the first 30 volumes are re-reads anyway, But it’s strangely entertaining to read all about sex and love, even though I’m not too much into the real thing, lol.

Re:Life vol.1
Well, the premise is interesting, but…this manga just hits too close to home for my tastes. I mean, I’m even more useless than the MC (in my eyes he was just unlucky anyway, but that’s just how the japanese society is when it comes to people ’slacking off’…) and I definitely don’t want to live again through my high school years. Also, that thing about Hishino having trouble to find friends because she is too passive? That’s just exactly me. And I don’t want to be reminded of my loser-ness by a manga, so…I don’t know if I want to read on. Maybe. Or maybe not.

Kakegurui vol. 3-4
Still a somewhat awesome manga. I absolutely love Mary and I also came to like Midari a lot. I’m not always into the crazy ones, but she is exactly my kind of crazy person. XD

Moriarty the Patriot vol. 10
This manga just never fails to impress. Just when I thought that I didn’t really like Whiteley as a character, then THAT happens and I’m totally on board with the story again. Although I didn’t really like Whiteley’s reaction when he found his dead brother. Like the whole thing about ‚my life has no meaning anymore, I did all of this just for you‘. This only proves that Whiteley wasn’t that great after all, I think? Because he mostly cared about his brother’s wellbeing in the end the other poor and disadvantages people of Britain seemed just like an afterthought to him. I get that he was angry and heartbroken at that moment, but…yeah. It was absolutely great to see what the Moriartys made of the mess though. Oh, and the end of the volume was just priceless. Holmes at the Diogenes Club and especially that scene with Mrs. Hudson absolutely killed me. XD

D.Gray-man vol. 7-12
Reading this manga is such a ride, because the drawing style changes A LOT over the course of the series. It already looks way different than in the first volume, and when I looked into one of the later volumes I almost didn’t recognise some of the characters! It is a good read though, and by now I actually did remember some of the story details. It’s still pretty confusing at times, but I can live with that because I enjoy lots of things about the manga. Maybe I’ll finally manage to catch up to the latest volume in August. We’ll see.

Das Heureka-Prinzip (Chad Orzel)
Original title: Eureka – Discovering your inner scientist. First off, I did like the basic idea of this book. Some certain basic scientific methods really can easily be used for everyday things and this knowledge could actually change the way a layman is thinking about science in general. However, having said that…this book still rather served to discourage me from getting into science. How so? Well, the author used really lengthy examples from various fields of science to prove his assertions. And maybe this is just me being really stupid as usual, but…most of those examples were either really boring (like the one about sports statistics…I mean, I’m a huge nerd, but all that detailed stuff about various US sports? Hmm…) or just way too complicated for the unsuspecting reader. I just have zero ideas about quantum physics, and judging by the explanations in this book some prior knowledge would have been needed. But wasn’t this book about showing how everyone could make some use of scientific techniques?Well, but that actually disproved the entire point. At least in my eyes. So, while there were some interesting parts, reading this wasn’t really worth it in the end. And I still slogged through almost the entire thing. Sigh.

Bernie Sanders: Unsere Revolution
Reading through the first few chapters I really regretted getting the German edition, because the translation (or rather the use of some words) felt so weird to me? It got better in the later chapters though. Regarding the contents, it was pretty interesting and shocking to hear about some things happening in the U.S. and I can’t help but agree with most of the points Bernie Sanders is making. Global politics really does need major change, but I actually wonder if we’ll ever see that change. I’m glad some people still wholeheartedly believe in and fight for it!

A Short History of Brexit
A really interesting read, even though it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. I wanted to know more about the political reasons for Brexit, but this book touches this issue only briefly. However, there were lots of interesting facts about the origins of the EU and its relationship to the UK. Knowing about their shared history does help a bit to get certain details of the negotiations and why both the British and the Europeans were really adamant about some things. Sometimes it was a bit much though, so I probably won’t remember all the facts, but…that’s not the book’s fault. So…still a really good book on the subject.

Mock the Week: Brand spanking new scenes we’d like to see
Well, it’s MtW. I love the show and so the book was also pretty funny to me. Mainly because I couldn’t help thinking about how some of the panelists would have delivered the jokes in it. And I even recognised some jokes! Anyway, I don’t think the books are must-haves, but I can’t say I regret getting most of them for really cheap.

Sherlock Holmes: Die rote Lola
More penny dreadful Holmes, so to speak. The atmosphere in these is just lovely, the cases…not so much. Sometimes the stories are just needlessy convoluted and don’t really make sense in the end. Well, but the books are great bedtime reading, so it’s not all bad!

Die zehn Kinder, die Frau Ming nie hatte
Bought this just on a whim, but it was actually really great! I enjoyed the story and I like the message the author was trying to convey. Well, if I got the message right, that is. ^^ (I’d say it was that what counts is what you feel in your heart, and not what everyone else thinks to be real.) Anyway, it was a really compelling read, maybe I should even look into the authors other books.