The titular character of "Magu-chan: God of Destruction"--a blob-shaped small one-eye creature--has disguised himself atop a kagami mochi dessert display for New Year's Day in Japan.

On today’s stream: How would a Spy x Family film work? Plus, a New Year’s Day reaction to Chapter 27 of Magu-chan: God of Destruction!

And read along as well: an initial script for today’s stream is below.

This stream is also available as a podcast at Substack.

Description

On today’s stream: How would a Spy x Family film work? Plus, a New Year’s Day reaction to Chapter 27 of Magu-chan: God of Destruction!

Read “Magu-chan: God of Destruction” Chapter 27: https://www.viz.com/shonenjump/magu-chan-god-of-destruction-chapter-27/chapter/21842

Read “Blue Lock”: https://kodansha.us/series/blue-lock/

Watch “Blue Lock” (#JustAMeeting): https://www.crunchyroll.com/series/G4PH0WEKE/bluelock

A transcript and links to content discussed are available at http://www.dereksmcgrath.wordpress.com.

Support this livestream at http://ko-fi.com/dereksmcgrath (and get access to my Discord, too!)

Listen to this livestream as a podcast at https://dereksmcgrath.substack.com/p/sunday-morning-manga-for-jan-1-2023?sd=pf

Promotions:

Watch the Soul Eater Christmas short from Irregulars Productions: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbepqcHtthJnp2uTriH8wIw

Commission GoldenSunDeer for artwork: https://twitter.com/GoldenSunDeer

Commission Ichi Rose: twitter.com/Ichi_Rose_ twitch.tv/eve_chi_

Support Jeff Harris: http://paypal.me/nemalki https://bio.link/nemalki https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/2XVBY1VHOBSKA

Professional Left Podcast: https://professionalleft.blogspot.com/

Black Comics Chat: https://www.twitch.tv/blackcomicschat

Check out “Sudden Death, Sudden Life”: https://www.patreon.com/painapplestudio

Irregulars Productions “Soul Eater” content: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbepqcHtthJnp2uTriH8wIw

Continue donations to the University of California Academic Workers Strike Support and Hardship Fund: https://givebutter.com/uc-uaw

Donate to Democrats running for office: https://secure.actblue.com/

Donate to https://abortionfunds.org

Donate to the Southern Poverty Law Center: https://www.splcenter.org/support-us

Join more ethical social media platforms

Music:

“Los Angeles” by Muzaproduction: https://pixabay.com/music/motown-old-school-rnb-los-angeles-20922/

“Sunshine” by lemonmusicstudio: https://pixabay.com/users/lemonmusicstudio-14942887 https://open.spotify.com/artist/4XWZhZ32YrVV5lvpF7cr1E?si=tnbSklR7SJyPNKiHP4MbHA

Intro

Let’s get started. Today is January 1, 2023. This is Sunday Morning Manga. I am Derek S. McGrath, my pronouns are he/him/his. I livestream here every Sunday, 11 AM Eastern on Twitch and YouTube. A video recording is available at youtube.com/dereksmcgrath and an audio podcast version at dereksmcgrath.substack.com. You can read my writing on Tumblr, Medium, WordPress, and Substack, @dereksmcgrath. And you can email me at derek.s.mcgrath@gmail.com.

If you like what you’re hearing, please consider a monetary contribution. Putting together this stream takes a bit of work, and your tips help pay down costs for setup and subscriptions. You can tip me at ko-fi.com/dereksmcgrath. Thank you for your consideration.

The views and opinions expressed on this livestream are those of the speaker–me–and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent or any other person mentioned.

Today’s Reaction: Magu-chan Chapter 27

As with every Sunday, there is a reaction to a recent manga chapter…although this time, referring to something from at least a year ago is hardly that “recent,” but it is topical for the new year. This time we’re looking at the New Year’s Day chapter, Chapter 27, of Magu-chan: God of Destruction!

The series is written and illustrated by Kei Kamiki, with English translation by Christine Dashiell and lettering by Erika Terriquez and Annaliese “Ace” Christman. The series is available from Viz; you can read along with me at the Viz web site, viz.com/shonenjump/magu-chan-god-of-destruction-chapter-27/chapter/21842–link is on screen and in the description for the video and podcast.

Accessibility and Links (and Mask Up!)

Links to this chapter and other content from today’s stream are available on my web site, dereksmcgrath.wordpress.com. There’s also a script for today’s stream and all images for greater accessibility.

And as annoyed as you are hearing it, I’m just as annoyed seeing it: we’re not out of this pandemic, people, please mask up when going out or indoors, and get vaccinated!

Emergency Funding Request

Before we jump into today’s manga reaction, I want to touch upon two things.

First, I already said it a moment ago–but if you like what you’re hearing, please consider a monetary contribution. Putting together this stream takes a bit of work, and your tips help pay down costs for setup and subscriptions. You can tip me at ko-fi.com/dereksmcgrath.

And two weeks ago, I put out an emergency funding request, asking for feedback on options for making it easier for listeners to make contributions to me, to help pay for costs related to this livestream and increased costs for me including paying for health care.

I’ll thank them again at the end of the livestream, but thanks to recent Ko-fi contributors Emily Lauer and Ellak Roach for their support–thank you, Emily and Ellak, I cannot thank you enough for your contributions!

I had asked in the previous livestream about other funding avenues–I will have an update next week about funding options. But I have added a new option to listen to this stream and support me: you can now listen to an audio podcast version of the stream at my new Substack, that’s dereksmcgrath.substack.com. Check back here next week, and I’ll have an update on other ways that you can help support this livestream; thank you for your consideration.

How Can a Spy x Family Film Work?

And onto the next topic of discussion: jeez, there was a lot of news in the past two weeks about returning anime. We got confirmations about new seasons of Blue Exorcist and Toilet-bound Hanako-kun, as well as Spy x Family.

And this is where I say something potentially inflammatory that is just empty clickbait: I’m not sure this anime is where it needs to be, and I’m not sure now coming out with a film is going to help.

And, yeah, I’m burying the lead there–in addition to a new season of Spy x Family coming, there will be a theatrical animated film as well.

And I’m a little burned out.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the manga remains really good. I’m not entirely sold on where the current manga arc is going–spoilers for that, but it is a bit more of a tense story, but it maintains the same level of comedy that is needed for Spy x Family.

Rather, my concerns are with the anime, and those concerns have persisted since I saw how the action turned out in the first few episodes. I had written a comparison of the manga panels and the anime’s action scenes months ago, and while we have to acknowledge that comics and animation are not the same medium, there is the challenge of adaptation that inevitably leads to a comparison of which version works better for a story, and how to maintain the same flow and action from static art in sequential images when adapting it to a more cinematic narrative. And at least when it came to Episode 2 way back months ago, I was not sold that the anime had that same impact to Yor’s attacks.

So, what does any of this have to do with the announcement that we’re also getting a Spy x Family film? This is baseless conjecture on my part–but I really don’t want to see the animators and studios overwhelmed, trying to handle a new anime season and a new film as well. I cannot sit through the second My Hero Academia film and the episodes coming out around that time, and not see a dip in quality in the anime that coincidentally came with a well-animated but poorly storied film. I haven’t seen in its entirety the third MHA film yet, but what I have seen has been animated sequences that were impressive but just spectacle as opposed to clear progression of action, and a story that still falls apart–and which happened to come out when the anime season had some of the worst animation I have seen in the series, and a failure to improve upon what was admittedly a poorly structured story (sorry, manga fans, but so much of the MLA arc and the following arcs were just stories built around characters making poor decisions not because that is what they would do but because the plot said so).

What would I expect from a Spy x Family film that could avoid some of these problems? The good news is that Spy x Family has defined the main trio very clearly–but at the expense of having meaningful character progression. I know that sounds verboten–this is a series where we see Anya trusting her parents more, Twilight’s stern demeanor collapsing more and more, and Yor recognizing more and more her worth away from her toxic coworkers. But there is only so much you can do with these characters in a theatrically-released film (DURING AN ONGOING PANDEMIC) that is a luxury for fans and not something they can more easily access with a free biweekly manga release or watch on streaming (#JustAMeeting). The point I’m making is, the film will benefit from having Anya, Twilight, and Yor being fully fleshed out characters whose storylines and interactions will support the emotional and comedic weight of the film–but you’re not really going to get them into a new stage in their lives in a film, not when it will be in the manga and the anime where those changes take place.

So, if you don’t progress the characters, what do you do to make this film stand out as more than a luxury and a novelty? That is where worldbuilding comes in. Tie-in films to anime tend to introduce concepts, items, power-ups, and locations that rarely factor into non-filler content in an ongoing manga or anime: it’s one-off moments. Sometimes you luck out: MHA at least gave us memorable characters like Melissa and Rody, and I-Island remains one of the more fun anime-originating locations that series added to its world. I think we would see something similar happen. It is probably going to be a long time in the manga before we see Twilight and Yor involved in international politics outside of the conflict between Ostania and Westalis–but that doesn’t mean the film can’t show Anya pulled into shenanigans during a trip abroad, or meeting a foreign exchange student from a nation further away from either Ostania or Westalis.

But then that poses its own problems. Spy x Family has taken so much inspiration from Cold War stories, where the cultural influences are not just coming from Japanese culture but also German culture. What happens if the film tries to tackle nations from other continents? How do you include characters from analogues of other continents without reducing them to stereotypes? It’s one thing to, rightly, mock United States show-boating and war lust, but how do you incorporate characters from analogues of other Asian countries and other European countries, or from African countries or from American countries, without turning this into something that is visually offensive, that reduces bodies, attire, and customs to jokes? I’m not saying this to suggest that Spy x Family has engaged in such offensive tactics when representing a vaguely German setting–but I also have seen enough mistakes from other political satires, from Japan, the United States, and elsewhere, that decide that being offensive is preferable to being accurate in its satire.

Maybe I’m wrong on this point: after all, Spy x Family is not quite a historical drama around Cold War Germany, so much as it is taking the most broad strokes from that conflict in an attempt to overly generalize such conflicts as applicable to time periods far removed from the 1950s to the 1980s, and far removed geographically from just Germany. It is a series that is more about family and the ethics of war and espionage than it is necessarily speaking to that historical moment.

And I could be wrong–the film may indeed just be a romp through Ostania or Westalis without touching on other parts of this planet.

But I do think the film, to justify its existence (aside from existing to make money and pleasing fans) would have to offer something that the comics and the anime do not already offer, and that would be a new location. I just hope, if that is what Spy x Family does, that the journey to some fictionalized land is not to reduce parts of our real-world politics into window dressing for visual pleasure, something that ignores what this real-life location can say about how we look at intelligence gathering and warfare and speak out against what is wrong with spying on people and what is wrong about war.

Or, maybe the film will just be Anya lost in a peanut factory and Yor punches out a Willy Wonka expy. That wouldn’t be very engaging as a plot, but it’d sure be a cinematic spectacle.

Today’s Reaction: A Magu-chan New Year

But enough nitpicking content that demonstrates far more talent than I’m showing–let’s move on to today’s manga reaction! This time we’re looking at Chapter 27 of Magu-chan: God of Destruction!

The last time I did a livestream reaction to Magu-chan, it was about Chapter 18 on October 9, 2022.

For those who have never read the series, a synopsis:

Middle school student Ruru lives in a seaside Japanese town. One day, while combing the beach, she comes upon a tiny creature. This is the Lovecraftian god of chaos Mag Menuek, now reduced from his previous towering size to just this tiny adorable vaguely octopus-shaped creature. Thinking the chaos god, whom she now calls “Magu-chan,” is cute, she adopts him like her pet, and Magu misunderstands this to think she is a new disciple in her cult of chaos. Can this super-friendly middle schooler and undersized eldritch creature see eye to eye on the differences between mortals and gods? Wacky comedic hijinks ensue as well as devastating emotional blows in this compelling, gone-way-too-soon-before-its-time manga series.

Running from June 2020 to February 2022, Magu-chan: God of Destruction was written and illustrated by Kei Kamiki. The series was licensed by Viz, with English translation by Christine Dashiell and lettering by Erika Terriquez and Annaliese “Ace” Christman.

I don’t know how many instances I have to do something before it becomes a theme, but this is the second time I have talked about Magu-chan during a holiday to, first, give myself a break from responding to new manga chapters, and second, to talk about a manga that unfortunately has no new chapters but could have lasted longer.

The previous holiday when I discussed Magu-chan was during October, where we saw the characters realize how little they know about Halloween and slowly learn–and mis-learn–how the holiday is celebrated in Japan.

This time, we’re looking at another cultural difference across the United States and Japan, although this time it’s me feeling like the titular character Magu trying to learn how the New Year is celebrated in Japan–as we will see today in Chapter 27 of Magu-chan: God of Destruction! You can read along at viz.com/shonenjump/magu-chan-god-of-destruction-chapter-27/chapter/21842–link is on screen and in the description for the video and podcast.

This chapter is titled “A Destructive First Shrine Visit of the Year.” (I know that sounds ominous, but this is a story about tiny chaos gods–this is a “bark is worse than its bite” situation.”)

This chapter was written and illustrated by Kei Kamiki, with English translation by Christine Dashiell and lettering by Erika Terriquez. Magu-chan is distributed by Viz.

On Page 1, we see three of our main tiny god characters. Magu-chan is puffed out atop a kagami mochi dessert display (Magu is shaped like the mochi rice cakes, with an orange atop his head, all sated atop a sanpo stand–huh, so that’s where Joel and the bots could’ve found a sampo). And the starfish-shaped Naputaaku is seated atop a kadomatsu (a bamboo decoration).

(And I’m not about to pretend I knew these items at first glance. I know them from playing so much Animal Crossing.)

And the sea angel-shaped Uneras is holding…a hexagonal walkie talkie? I apologize–I am not recognizing this object. What is that? Please share in the comments section.

We get to the first page of the story. Ruru’s mother has finally come home from her business abroad. Meanwhile, Ruru is bowing to Magu–as a friend, giving him a happy new year gift of an orange and a ribbon. She thinks the new look is cute while Magu is just happy to have his religious disciple showing her devotion to him.

Ruru’s mother tells them to get a move on to get to the shrine to greet the new year–which gets Magu’s attention, because he is displeased: why, when we have seen in previous chapters, that he has shown his incredible powers, is no one worshiping him and instead crowding this shrine with wishes and food? Magu intends to show these humans once and for all that he is a god worth worshiping.

(Big Noragami energy there, Magu…)

We saw Magu release this power before, where he divides his body up into mini-me’s, through a technique called Morphalaxis, as he runs through the shrine.

I want to pause and appreciate how much info we have gotten in just five pages of this story–where one page is the cover image and another is just a title page. We remember Ruru’s mom is still in town, we get brief panels with flashbacks to Magu previously blowing up like a firework at the summer festival here at the shrine, and we have Magu upset that he is still not worshiped after that firework display and bringing back an earlier superpower, Morphalaxis. This is the Magu-chan series on its 27th chapter, and the “good” about that is that the manga now feels comfortable enough rushing through the main plot points without delaying too much on exposition or flashbacks.

And the paneling, while nothing amazing, serves the plot, setting, and characters: a good establishing shot of the shrine, Ruru’s bowing to Magu taking up the entire panel, good close ups on Magu when he’s scheming and fuming. Keep my paneling remarks in mind, given how this chapter will change into an activity book-esque design moving forward.

Moving back to the action, we have the tiny Magu’s bouncing through the shrine–and no one noticing. That is a bit of a miss for this chapter, as a lot of the bystanders in Ruru’s tiny town are rather chill with the entire “tiny eldritch gods pop up here” conceit. Granted, this is largely a comedic series–but it is bothersome that, when you’re trying to establish a baseline for “normal” in this series, to have almost no one shocked by what they witness, it kind of undermines the joke, except insofar as it is usually Ruru and Ren (more on him in a moment) having to play the straight man to Magu’s wacky antics. I shouldn’t be so put off by this violation of normalcy, though–there was a chapter where our resident Final Fantasy-esque character Izuna is arrested by police for waving a sword in public, and the police are nonchalant about the whole thing, as if this is just any other day.

What helps that sense of comedy out of people being rather chill about these bizarre events is the response by Ruru’s own mother: she sees this happen and says Magu separating is like the seven Dragon Balls–only that’s not her exact line, it’s instead, “He split into seven and flew away. I bet once gathered together again, he’ll grant us a wish.” Big round of applause to translator Christine Dashiell here: I don’t know how much of this is Kei Kamiki’s original dialogue retained in translation, but I just appreciate a gag that requires thinking and isn’t just having the dialogue literally say, “Like Dragon Ball!” Thank you for not condescending to the audience.

Ruru searches for Magu and comes across a familiar food stand: it’s run by the brother and sister Ren and Rin. And that means Ren’s own god of chaos buddy Naputaaku can’t be far away–maybe he could draw out his rival Magu! But Ren points to Naputaaku–who is already drunk on amazake (rice alcohol). Then Naputaaku tries to get Ruru to drink–and, yeah, Ruru, I know how that peer pressure feels. Still creepy seeing an adult figure trying to get a kid drunk.

Rin interrupts to point out that Magu already hid himself amongst the candy apples, disguising himself as one of them. Magu explains that he has hidden himself as various objects that humans celebrate on New Year’s Day, and he intends to get their well wishes.

Ruru name drops Where’s Waldo to clarify the activity book conceit of this chapter–so, yeah, making that detail obvious, but I appreciate a change of pace to the manga’s structure, giving us a more entertaining search-and-find story.

Ruru finds the next tiny Magu trying to fight the lion dancer–at which point Ruru’s mother gives her ten points like this is a game–which, yeah, that’s cute, it’s nice to see that Ruru’s mom is so relaxed about all this weirdness. I know I said that having everyone in town be unreactive to this weirdness undermined the comedy–but having Ruru’s mom be her own brand of weirdness helps clarify this setting: it’s not that no one is surprised how weird Magu is, it’s that everyone else has their own quirks as well.

Ruru and her mother are at the altar anyway and suspend the search for a moment to drop their coins and make a wish–until the sound effects on the bell’s rope makes an odd “moosh” noise, which can only mean that Magu has disguised himself as the bell here! As much as I wish more of this chapter was more like a literal Where’s Waldo puzzle, I do appreciate how the gags are building on top of each other, requiring the audience to anticipate where next Magu may be hiding.

We rush through a bit as Ruru’s mom keeps giving points for Ruru’s discoveries–or is it for Magu’s attempts at hiding?–and then we rush to see Magu hidden among the fortune slips, among the Daruma dolls, among Among Us–before we see he has hidden himself as Uneras and Izuma’s shuttlecock, and it seems like this was more Izuma the knight just wanting to bash the wicked god around to capture him than it was Magu trying to hide himself for the people’s worship.

Izuma continues his assault on Magu, asking why he won’t fight back. Now, you may think that, given how Magu has separated himself, and how small he is, he is in no shape to fight back. Ah, but remember, he has a Napoleonic complex–and thinks he is still too powerful for Izuma to defeat. This pisses Izuma off.

But our attention moves onto Ruru’s mom acting like a mom to Uneras who acts like Izuma’s mom, and the two bond over their wacky kids.

Ruru tries to find the last Magu, when Uneras suggests luring him out, as she points to the mochi pounding activity. Ruru calls out to the last piece of Magu, promising him tasty mochi if he shows himself. Too bad the other pieces of Magu hear that–and decide to jump into the mochi vat and eat up. As usual, Magu’s review of the meal is more about its texture and nutritional value than its taste–in other words, he’s that one Weyoun that befriends Odo over a slice of pizza in DS9.

Furious that Magu would eat mochi he didn’t pay for, Izuma takes the hammer and smashes the Magu-mochi mix, reforming those Magu pieces into one whole again. That just leaves the seventh piece of Magu–which Ruru’s mom sees is a kite flown over the festival. And this Magu is pissed that his other parts had mochi without him, so he stretches down and sucks up all of himself and the mochi…but then he gets too full of mochi, and, as happened at the summer festival that we saw in the flashback, he explodes into fireworks again–or, rather, into the first sunrise of the new year.

This conclusion is pretty good. We get a decent call back to Magu exploding again from overeating. We have Ruru again going blank-eyes in horror at how bad this turned out. And we continue the running gag of Magu being tied up with an apology note around him, like those Internet memes of putting a sign on your pet when they screw up. Ruru tells Magu this is punishment–but when he realizes, tied up and hanging like this, he looks like the bell that worshipers ring for their new year’s wishes, he too can swing back and forth like a bell and get the mortals’ devotion, which defeats the purpose of Ruru’s punishing him.

We wrap up this chapter on a sad note: Ruru’s mom has to get back to work and leaves to go abroad again. She thanks Magu for taking care of her daughter–but Ruru is still upset at him for exploding at the festival. But Ruru’s mom says that he is kind and good with a friendly eyeball, so he means well. We end with Ruru reminding her mom that this is her home, too, and she will take care of it until she returns.

And with that, we wrap up this chapter.

At the time I first read this, I didn’t appreciate enough about this ending, a reminder that Ruru is having to raise herself when her mom isn’t here. We don’t get enough of Ruru’s mom for my taste, but that is the problem of a series that ended too soon. I’m not entirely sold where the story goes in later chapters, with Ruru’s mom insisting that Magu is a father figure to Ruru–which I never quite got, seeing as so much of the story is Magu depending on Ruru as well to survive when he is so tiny. Maybe I’m not seeing it, and I will another time.

After all, seeing a parent saying goodbye to their child hits differently now than before: I first read this before my father passed away, I read this now again after he has passed away, and a child asking their parent to come back to their home soon, with an image of the family photo album showing baby Ruru, her mom, and her deceased father, is telegraphing to us that Ruru knows what loss is, that she doesn’t want to lose more time with her mom–and hints to how this series will wrap up in a bittersweet way for a mortal like Ruru and a seemingly immortal being like Magu.

That is a rough spot to end an otherwise comedic chapter. It’s not too much of a mood whiplash to ruin the chapter, but it does add some contrast to what we just saw, what we’re seeing now, and what we will see in later chapters. In that way, this is a chapter that encapsulates so much of what a new year brings: hopes, maybe some fun, but unfortunately potentially a lot of anxiety as well about what sadness and mourning awaits.

Sorry to be a downer towards the end there–but we’ll wrap up the chapter reaction at that point.

Contact Info and Credits

I’ll wrap up there. Thanks for listening to this week’s stream of Sunday Morning Manga! What did you think of this New Year’s Day chapter of Magu-chan? Please share your remarks in the comments section or send me an email: derek.s.mcgrath@gmail.com.

Music today included the tracks titled “Los Angeles” by Muzaproduction and “Sunshine” by lemonmusicstudio. These songs are royalty free and available at Pixabay–links are in the video description.

And if you did like what you heard, let me know! Contributions at ko-fi.com/dereksmcgrath are appreciated: please include a note to let me know what you liked in the livestream and what you would like to hear more of.

And if you thought anything in today’s livestream would suit your web site needs–such as news, commentary, or analysis of comics, anime, or larger pop culture, please reach out to me via email, derek.s.mcgrath@gmail.com, and I can adapt remarks from today’s livestream into an article for your site! Additional job leads in writing, commentary, and online broadcasting are welcome: please email them to derek.s.mcgrath@gmail.com.

If you have a request of something for me to talk about in the Sunday livestream, drop me a contribution in the Ko-fi tip jar–$1 minimum–and if it’s something I’m comfortable covering here and is pretty much the same kind of content warnings as anything else I cover here, I’ll consider it or talk with you until we find something I’m up for talking about.

Other People’s Awesome Stuff

And if you like what you heard–or didn’t like what you heard–check out other people’s awesome stuff! There’s the Pro Left Podcast, Black Comics Chat on Twitch, there is the writing of Jeff Harris at post.news/nemalki (and please support his work in media criticism on Paypal and his Amazon wishlist).

Commission Artists

And there are illustrations by the talented GoldenSunDeer (please commission them: their rates are listed on their social media). And appropriate for the winter season, they just did the artwork for a new Soul Eater fan video by Irregulars Productions! Please check that video out at the Irregulars Productions YouTube account and GoldenSunDeer’s commission rates at https://twitter.com/GoldenSunDeer.

And may I share one more artist for you to check out? Ichi Rose is an illustrator and video game Twitch streamer–you can commission their artwork at twitter.com/Ichi_Rose_ and watch them on Twitch at twitch.tv/eve_chi_.

Sudden Death, Sudden Life

Speaking of Twitch streamers: voice actors, directors, and illustrators Micah Solusod and Ayu host Friday livestream videos of their illustration work, and they have a Patreon for their DND-style isekai audio drama, Sudden Death, Sudden Life, which is available for $5 patrons at https://www.patreon.com/painapplestudio.

And One More Thing

But before we wrap up today, there is so much I didn’t get to cover that deserves mention: updates on unions, public libraries being privatized or defunded, the inhumane treatment of immigrants, demonizing gay, trans, and queer people to run them back into the closet, and how Buffalo–where I used to work–has failed to prepare for that snowstorm and to manage the after-effects, especially how that failure reflects the same racism inherent to its infrastructure, something that was obvious during the BLM protests that had an elderly man pushed back by cops and up to the Top’s grocery shooting.

All of this is not good.

But I fail to see the easiest solutions that we can accomplish in a small amount of time–only daily work to minimize such harm and I hope to eliminate these problems.

How hard is it to support your union? Or fund a library and not more criminalization and needless policing? Or let people be who they are, their sexuality included, rather than making up lies acting like they are harming your children? Or making sure New York has infrastructure to respond to natural disasters and the ongoing climate threats?

If I can offer only partial solutions: please donate to Democrats running for local and federal office at Act Blue, donate to the National Network of Abortion Funds, donate to the University of California Academic Workers Strike Support and Hardship Fund, and donate to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Next Time

Next Sunday, I’m not quite clear what new manga chapters will be out, due to this holiday season–so, the live reactions will take one more week off, but the livestream will still go on, as we look instead at a recent anime and its manga that was just on sale at Humble Bundle. Next time, I talk about all available episodes of the new anime series Blue Lock! It’s Danganronpa meets Inazuma 11…and I like one of those.

Until next Sunday, I’ve been Derek S. McGrath. You have a good afternoon. Bye.