A lot of people I follow on Twitter are a little upset. Remember Read or Die? It was a really fun OVA series from the early 00s about a bibliophile secret agent who could manipulate paper.
It's still fondly remembered, in part due to the obvious nerd-fantasy appeal of the protagonist: she's the "cute, meek librarian" type to a tee.
So here's the Yomiko from the new ROD manga. Everybody's really pissed off about it, even though this is the only image that exists, because it's such a tremendous departure. Yomiko was one of anime's only reasonably dressed heroines, you know. I consider the new Yomiko offensive myself, but mostly because of how blatantly unoriginal this new character design is: the guy who drew Black Rock Shooter should sue!
They're trading common nerd fantasy X (the librarian, old Yomiko) for the new cutting-edge nerd fantasy straight off the Nicovideo weekly top ten. I bet the new Yomiko will be aloof, depressed and robotic. But you know, as bad as it is in cartoons, it can always get worse. As such, I decided to write a little something.
"Taro Toshokan is just an ordinary Japanese high-schooler-- until a girl falls from the Sadness Dimension into his life and changes everything!
"Are you the one who will call me into a new, ecstatic despair? Read it slowly and gently... Yomiko's heart."
This girl wants to organize Taro's shelves, literally and figuratively! But the movement of books is the least of Taro's concerns, because when a new twintailed menace appears from the Gate of Disenchantment, Taro's going to find out fast that he's got to read... or die!"
So be glad you aren't watching that anime I just made up in ten minutes. Japanese media companies, if you're paying, I'll write it.
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