October 24, 2026

Saturday Night Showcase> The Apothecary Diaries

Here’s one I’ve heard about, but due to being behind Crunchyroll’s paywall I haven’t been able to watch it until recently, when they dropped the first episode to promote season three on their YouTube channel.

The Apothecary Diaries is based on a series of light novel, translating to “The Pharmacist’s Monologue” according to the fan wiki, written by Natsu Hyūga, with Touko Shino on art. The last volume came out in Japan in 2025, having been serialized online since 2021. The anime came out in 2023 after the manga adaptations came out starting in 2017.

Set in the fictional country of Li, which takes inspiration from ancient China, the story follows Maomao, a young woman growing up in the red light district of her town until she’s kidnapped to work at the Imperial Palace. I…have questions on how and why that works, but maybe that gets addressed at some point. Maomao used to work at her dad’s apothecary shop, testing various poisons and remedies on her own arm. That gives her some insight when she’s kidnapped to work at the palace laundry when two of the prince’s sons end up sick. Season three’s first episode is also up as of this writing but we’re just going to watch the first episode tonight.

The video uses YouTube’s multiple audio track, so you can listen to the original Japanese using closed caption subtitles or the English dub. At least on YouTube the captions start up automatically, but I have my audio track set to English if that’s the option. I left the captions on because I was curious about the differences between the two languages, but you choose your experience. Enjoy.

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Posted by on October 24, 2026 in Animation Spotlight, Book Spotlight, Television Spotlight and tagged , , , , .

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October 24, 2026

BW’s Saturday Article Link> C.S. Lewis Predicted His Works’ Corruption

Greta Gerwig’s take on Narnia’s prequel book, The Magician’s Nephew, has met with quite a bit of scrutiny from Narnia’s fans. From not appearing to understand Aslan’s being not just a representation of Jesus but Christ himself in a form better suited for the world of Narnia, to the tone going more into rock opera because that’s what she likes, everything we’ve been shown thus far has not sat well. While some alteration is necessary for the media change and even keeping the spirit of the original connecting with today’s audience (as opposed to the alleged “modern audience”, which seems to be based on modern stereotypes from the “important people”), has the movie gone too far?

Writing for That Park Place, author and editor Carrow Brown looks at some of C.S. Lewis’ other works as evidence of what he might think. She does acknowledge that Lewis himself isn’t here to give commentary and some things do change over time and between media, but being fair doesn’t mean she’s supporting anything Gerwig and Netflix’s marketing department have shown us thus far. She also notes that when you take on a property for adaptation you take the fanbase as well. Taking what fans enjoyed enough to make it popular out of the work and expecting them to still support it? Not a great plan.

Posted by on October 24, 2026 in Book Spotlight, Movie Spotlight, Streaming Spotlight and tagged , , , , , , , , , .

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October 23, 2026

Analyzing Stephen Wacker’s Plans For Marvel Comics

I don’t even do the bit in Jake & Leon anymore. By now we know the drill. When Joe Quesada and his marriage-hating ways left the Editor-In-Chief role, Axel Alonzo didn’t show any signs of changing the big issues. Neither did C.B. Cebulski, and if there were any other EIC’s at Marvel they weren’t very memorable if they were discussed at all. While everyone talks about the Marvel Studios ruining of the comic characters and their own Marvel Cinematic Universe, the comics are barely acknowledged due to the media pecking order and the importance of movies and streaming. Not even television anymore. Disney hasn’t put a Marvel show on ABC since Agents Of SHIELD, and I’m not even sure that’s canon anymore despite starring Agent Colson and Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury making a cameo. Disney has the two Junior shows with a third on the way and that’s it. Just movies and streaming for the MCU, and it’s a question of which is worse for the MCU story.

Meanwhile, DC Comics is kicking Marvel Comics butt, the opposite of Marvel Studios and DC Studios because at least Marvel Studios used to produce good stuff while DC’s done lousy with both Zack Snyder’s grimdark take and James Gunn’s confused and crazy ensemble of losers take. Both companies in comics should be doing better because of the movies and streaming, plus there being more people in the world, but they aren’t. Wacker is the latest sucker EIC in charge of…not so much fixing it as keeping it going so they can make the “important” media out of it.

In a recent report from AIPT, Steven Wacker gave his plans for Marvel’s source material at a Retailer Day event at New York Comic Con. I have a chance to go over it, as well as another report by Cosmic Book News from Wacker’s appearance on the Save The Chat podcast. There’s only one or two things that interest me there, so let’s start with the Comic-Con info:

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Posted by on October 23, 2026 in Comic Spotlight, Marvel Spotlight and tagged , , , .

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October 23, 2026

BW’s Daily Video> DC Comics’ New Leadership

Catch more from Comics by Perch on YouTube

 

Posted by on October 23, 2026 in Comic Spotlight, DC Spotlight and tagged , .

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October 22, 2026

Mass Effect Universe: Are We Missing Out?

And that’s just the best part of the entire fight scene.

Last time I tried to play the original Mass Effect I couldn’t figure out how to make the darn ship move, and I never had a chance to go back to it. Maybe someday we’ll learn the fate of Germain Shepard, but that’s not what we’re here for today.

With the announcement that EA was shutting down BioWare, a move critics saw coming after Dragon Age: The Veilguard and Anthem were just the biggest flops in a descending level of quality even before the cultural nonsense, it’s not surprising that people in the creative areas wanted to show off what they were forced to give up. Work on something long enough, and whatever you think of the IP you want to show off what all the time and effort went into, even if just to add it to the resume.

Yesterday was the announcement, and today was an alleged trailer leak for a fifth game in the series, after the disappointing ending of the third game for some players based on their decisions in the trilogy and the utter mess that was Mass Effect: Andromeda. Mass Effect Universe could have been a working title or a definitive title for a game that took the series away from the military to a new concept. The trailer doesn’t tell us much about the story, just the concept. That’s of course if the trailer is legit and not someone taking advantage of something they were working on and trying to pull a prank on the internet. We’ve seen plenty of those. Still, it’s worth looking into on the chance that this is a leak by a staffer upset he or she (or whatever) is about to lose their job before all their work at least tried to pay off.

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Posted by on October 22, 2026 in Video Game Spotlight and tagged , , , , .

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October 22, 2026

BW’s Daily Video> BioWare Joins The Legacy Game Company Shut Downs

NOTE: contains cursing and commentary

Catch more from HeelvsBabyface on YouTube

BioWare has been in trouble possibly since fans of the Mass Effect franchise were already disappointed with the ending of the third game, deciding some of the endings took agency out of choices made in the trilogy. Andromeda suffered from poor quality control. The number of good games started collapsing from there, especially after the sociopolitical stuff got involved and the good creators were let go for fresh blood, rather than let the seniors train the youngers and let them go make other games or be there when the old creators retired or went elsewhere. I’m all for new ideas, but let’s not forget who made the old ones work enough that you have a place to try new ideas.

Posted by on October 22, 2026 in Video Game Spotlight and tagged , , , , , .

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October 21, 2026

Did We Need A Star Wars/Marvel Crossover?

How do you make a bad idea worse? Add Kevin Smith, apparently.

This is the guy who added rape to Black Cat, gave us Masters Of The Universe: Revelations, is obsessed with his take on Batman, and seems to be locked into his particular brand of humor. I was never really a fan of his, but he was mostly harmless until recently, Black Cat aside. Putting someone who admits to not liking He-Man on a He-Man series was Mattel’s fault.

I’m not even sure whey they felt we needed a crossover between the Marvel superheroes and the Star Wars galaxy, but it doesn’t have to be a rulebreaker. While it sounds like something out of Super-Team Family, Star TREK crossed over with X-Men, and so has Doctor Who. Then above preview came up for Star Wars/Marvel: Hope Assembles from the X-Twitter feed of Discussing Film and…nobody’s complaining about David Marquez’s art. It’s quite good. It’s a preview so there’s a lot we don’t know about the story. The dialog, however…

Oh, we’re in for a bad time.

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Posted by on October 21, 2026 in Marvel Spotlight, Movie Spotlight and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , .

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