Anime Review: I'm in Love with the Villainess

I'm in Love with the Villainess is an anime based on a light novel series about an office worker woman who gets isekai'd to her favorite otome game where she can finally, at long last, romance her favorite character, the villainess.

Not gonna lie, at first, I had my doubts about this one.  The protagonist, Rae, does experience some homophobia by side characters, and it doesn't seem like Miss Claire is into her until the end, so I thought it would be an unrequited love, and that kinda sucks, but in the end, they get together and seem pretty happy so yay!  Apparently, in the light novels, they have children together and save the kingdom.  Awesome!

Anime Review: Given

Given is a BL drama anime based on the manga of the same name, with a matching live action too.  The manga ran for 9 years, and the anime came out in 2019.  Normally, I don't like drama, but this one isn't superficial, stupid drama, it's coping with neurospicyness, loss, and grief.  The manga has 3 arcs, and the anime features the first arc.

Ritsuka is a grumpy guitarist who starts out pretty uninspired, since he's good at guitar and doesn't feel much need to work at it anymore.  Then he meets Mafuyu, a shy boy with a ton of angst and a singing voice Ritsuka really likes.  Also, the bassist and the drummer have feelings that they need to work out.

I don't wanna spoil it, but OMG, it's a good watch, and I'm trying to read the manga too.

Palia Check-in

It's been a hot minute since I talked about Palia.  Back in May, after 2 waves of layoffs, the future looked uncertain for the cozy MMO.  Fortunately, good things have happened to the game in the meantime.  For starters, they were acquired by Daybreak, a company that seems to specialize in keeping smaller community MMOs afloat, such as Lord of the Rings Online, and Everquest.  This has brought a lot of stability and confidence to Palia.  It's not all going to disappear as I'd feared.  They're even hiring again!  I hope they reached out to the people they let go first and foremost, but I don't have that kind of information.