October 2013 Media Thread

ArisKatsaris

This is the monthly thread for posting media of various types that you've found that you enjoy. Post what you're reading, listening to, watching, and your opinion of it. Post recommendations to blogs. Post whatever media you feel like discussing! To see previous recommendations, check out the older threads.

Rules:

Please avoid downvoting recommendations just because you don't personally like the recommended material; remember that liking is a two-place word. If you can point out a specific flaw in a person's recommendation, consider posting a comment to that effect.
If you want to post something that (you know) has been recommended before, but have another recommendation to add, please link to the original, so that the reader has both recommendations.
Please use the comment trees for genres. There is a meta thread for comments about future threads.
If you think there should be a thread for a particular genre of media, please post it to the Other Media thread for now, and add a poll to the Meta thread asking if it should be a thread every month.

Rules:

Please avoid downvoting recommendations just because you don't personally like the recommended material; remember that liking is a two-place word. If you can point out a specific flaw in a person's recommendation, consider posting a comment to that effect.
If you want to post something that (you know) has been recommended before, but have another recommendation to add, please link to the original, so that the reader has both recommendations.
Please use the comment trees for genres. There is a meta thread for comments about future threads.
If you think there should be a thread for a particular genre of media, please post it to the Other Media thread for now, and add a poll to the Meta thread asking if it should be a thread every month.

A few threads ago I posted some mini-reviews of some in-progress anime series I was watching: http://lesswrong.com/lw/hlm/june_2013_media_thread/9350 For the sake of completeness here's my ratings of those series now that they've all finished:

Flowers of Evil: 9.0 (was my most anticipated show of the season by the end)

Attack on Titan: 8.5 (slow in the middle, but good at the beginning and end)

Valverave the Liberator: 8.0 (still amusing nonsense, weak ending)

Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet: 7.0 (went off the rails in 3 different directions)

Note that this is on something of a "school grade" scale (ie 7.0 is more "acceptable" than "good"). Also I seem to be pretty generous overall.

During this time I also watched A Certain Scientific Railgun and sequel A Certain Scientific Railgun S (basically Buffy meets X-Men meets cute Japanese high school girls), giving 9.0 and 8.5 respectively. (The latter would have been an 8 but the last episode was amazing).