Cafe Manga Liz

Similar to the previous episode, this does have some spoilers to Season 3 of Dr. Stone. So I don’t have too much to write here. Thanks for listening and see you in the next episode where I finish the Dr. Stone series.







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Considering this is a discussion of characters and some aspects of what happened in Season 2 of the anime series, I can’t really write too much this time around due to spoilers for anyone who hasn’t already watched the anime or read the manga.
So to close this written portion, I’ll leave a few helpful links!
Once again if you want to watch the anime, you can watch it on Crunchyroll: https://www.crunchyroll.com/series/GYEXQKJG6/dr-stone
If you want to read the manga, the relevant volumes of the manga in Season 2 and the Ryusui movie are volumes 7-11.
https://www.viz.com/read/manga/dr-stone-volume-7/product/6024
https://www.viz.com/read/manga/dr-stone-volume-8/product/6095
https://www.viz.com/read/manga/dr-stone-volume-9/product/6141
https://www.viz.com/read/manga/dr-stone-volume-10/product/6197
https://www.viz.com/read/manga/dr-stone-volume-11/product/6263
Leave a comment what you thought of Season 2. Also what did you think of the Ryusui movie?


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cafemanga.substack.com

This time the written portion of this podcast/newsletter will be a little different from the first three episodes. This time around I’m doing both a review and a commentary discussion about Season 1 of this series.
As you can imagine the commentary portion of the episode will be very spoiler heavy. So if you haven’t watched the anime or read the manga, you will want to stop playing the episode at the 12:37 mark.
The next three episodes will be a continuation of the Dr. Stone series as I cover seasons 2-3 and even discuss the rest of the manga that will be adapted in Season 4. If you don’t want to be spoiled of the other seasons, then I guess I’ll see you guys in episode 8! People who don’t want to be spoiled of Season 4, will want to skip episode 7. With that said, I’ll just write down my general review of the Dr. Stone series over all.
Dr. Stone 101
Dr. Stone is originally a manga series that was published on Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump from March 2017 to March 2022. It was later released as 26 tankoban (collected volumes), which have been translated into English and is completely available for purchase in the English Language market. It is also available as an anime series on Crunchyroll. The season 3 finale was released on December 21, 2023. The anime will be concluded with season 4.
The story is a sci-fi series with a post-apocalyptic setting. The story starts in 2019 when a mysterious green light causes all the humans on Earth to be petrified. It takes 3,700 years for the main protagonist Senku Ishigami to be freed from stone. He uses his extensive scientific knowledge to try to revive humanity.
Overall I’d highly recommend anyone who enjoys these type of stories to check this out! Check out the episode until the 12:37 mark for the full review.


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Hi, everyone. Welcome back to Cafe Manga. Today's topic, Anime in 2023. It will be a brief review and commentary of shows that I watched in 2023 that I personally enjoyed.
Now, just to qualify this, I will be specifically talking about shows that not only did I watch in 2023, obviously, but they are specifically shows that originally got aired in 2023. As an example of this, I actually started watching That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime in 2023, but all the episodes that I was watching originally aired before 2023. So I'm not going to be heavily discussing that particular anime in this episode.
Campfire Cooking In Another World With My Absurd Skill
So the first show I'm going to talk about is actually a Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill. That show was actually something I was heavily anticipating for 2023 precisely because I actually read the light novels. It was originally a light novel and it later became a manga series. And then now it's an anime series.
So for anyone who's not familiar with the premise of the show, so it is an example of an isekai, which for those of you who don't know what the term isekai means, it basically means other world, as in the main character of the story travels from say this world to another world through different means.
Funny enough, I actually did an episode of my old podcast, Three Fates Decide, specifically explaining what the heck an isekai is. So if you're interested, I will put a link in the episode description for this episode.
But anyway, so in Campfire Cooking, the main character is this 20-something year old guy from Japan, of course. Who accidentally gets summoned through one of those magic hero summoning rituals that inevitably happens in these types of stories. And he gets summoned into this other world along with three high school students.
Now as it turns out, the three high school kids, they are the actual heroes. They all have like these magical abilities, magical affinities to fight monsters and demons.
This guy, though, he actually doesn't end up receiving any special abilities that would define him as a hero. He actually obtains an absurd skill, like the title says. And in particular, the absurd skill in question is he has a skill called online grocery. And if you couldn't guess what this power is, it basically means he has the ability to do online shopping in another world, which is very bizarre, hence absurd skill.
And the series basically follows his wacky adventures with this strange ability as he tries to survive in this alternate world he is basically trapped in at this point. He can't go back to Japan so he just has to live a new life in this world and very quickly he gets himself into all sorts of crazy situations and it's a comedy.
It's a really entertaining comedy and I highly recommend it. It's really funny, really hilarious. There's two minor quibbles I have with it, even though I do enjoy it. Number one, if you read the light novel series, there are certain story beats that kind of repeat themselves a little bit, which I will admit can make it a little hard to read at times from that perspective.
So if you are thinking that you're going into this checking out like a super action adventure fantasy story, then that is not what this is. So you're going to want to save yourself the trouble and not check this out. But if you want comedy, some fantasy, and some slice of life happenings, then this is definitely the title for you.
The other thing that is slightly negative is the fact that he uses a lot of times food in anime is amazingly drawn, delicious looking, very tempting. So just save yourself the trouble and have some snacks on hand, okay?
The Apothecary Diaries
Another series I also enjoyed was

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Hi everyone, welcome back to Cafe Manga.
If you're listening to this episode, then that means that you weren't put off from listening with my previous episode. So before I get started, I just want to mention one thing that I forgot to include in the previous episode. I forgot to discuss the release schedule for episodes of this show.
Now, since this podcast is actually related to a Substack newsletter that I currently run, I actually don't have a set schedule of when I will be releasing episodes of this podcast. Now, usually podcasts will tell you, oh, this podcast releases every Wednesday at such and such time.
But due to my own busy schedule, and also due to the fact that, again, this podcast is an audio component of a Substack newsletter that I'm running, I don't have a set schedule for when these episodes are going to come out.
So if that is an issue for you, then I completely understand if you are not going to continue listening to the show. But if it doesn't bother you that much, then great. I hope you will check out my future episodes.
Today we’re talking about…
So in this episode, I'm going to briefly talk about a few titles that I am actually pretty excited to watch this year. One show that I'm actually currently watching because as I record this, literally episode two just came out this weekend.
Seventh Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married To Her Worst Enemy
It's called Seventh Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married To Her Worst Enemy. This was originally a light novel published on the pretty well-known Japanese website Shōsetsuka ni Narō and there has been so far six published volumes of the light novel. There is also a manga adaptation and of course there is an anime series based on it.
The basic premise of the story is that the main character is a young woman named Rishe who is born the daughter of a duke. She was originally engaged to be married to the crown prince of her country, but due to circumstances, the prince cancels their engagement and she suffers huge public humiliation.
And you would think that she should be completely upset. But actually, she has this, I really don't care, I am out of here kind of attitude. And the reason why she has this attitude is because this is her seventh time experiencing this exact situation. And that's because she's apparently stuck in a time loop, not all that different from Groundhog Day.
But at any rate, so she's currently in her seventh time living this life. And you get brief glimpses of what she did in the previous six go-arounds. And because she's reliving her life, and she's also remembering her previous go-arounds. She's actually accumulated a lot of knowledge and a lot of skills that hopefully is going to help her with her seventh go around. And she's very determined to not die again.
And the thing is that what keeps happening is that she experiences the public humiliation where the crown prince basically dumps her. And about five years after her engagement ends, she dies and her life gets started all over again. And for her seventh go around, she is determined to not die five years in the future. So she's hoping that all these skills and knowledge she's accumulated so far is going to help her.
But the interesting thing is that for her seventh go around, because she makes one slight change from what she did the last six times she's done this, she creates a really interesting new future for herself. And the thing is that in her previous six go rounds, the reason why she dies is that in some way directly or indirectly, she dies because of a war that happens in the future. And the war is started by a prince who later becomes the emperor of his kingdom, Prince Arnold Hein.
And th

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Welcome everyone to the very first episode of Cafe Manga. My name is Liz and as you would imagine in a first episode, this is where I basically explain to you what the show is about, who the heck I am, and a very brief history of how this podcast even got started.
What is this show about?
If you couldn't guess from the name of the show and even the show description information, this is a podcast where I talk about all things related to anime, manga, and light novels. Very straightforward.
Who am I?
As to who I am, my name is Liz and I am a longtime fan of all three of those things. I'm a more recent fan of light novels, since I've only been aware of them since about 2019. But once I got into them, I became completely obsessed. I fell down the rabbit hole and at least half of the books I read now are light novels, along with regular standard novels.
How did this podcast get started?
Now, as to how this podcast got started, well, it is a bit of a long story, but I will give you the short version of the story. So actually, before this podcast, I was actually previously a co-host on another podcast that I had done with two other women who I originally met on, believe it or not, Tumblr. But that's a long story, which I'm not going to get into here.
But at any rate, most episodes I would record with my two co-hosts. But every once in a while, due to various circumstances, we sometimes couldn't all get together. There would even be instances where even two of us couldn't get together. So we started introducing the occasional solo episode where just one of us would record an episode to our listeners. And when it was my turn, to do solo episodes. Some of those solo episodes were actually related to either anime, manga, or light novels. And in one instance, it was a sort of all the above.
Interestingly enough, on the old podcast, when we released those particular solo episodes, they weren't the most downloaded episodes on our show, but they weren't the worst. But there were a decent number of listeners who checked out those episodes.
But eventually, my previous show ended because of all three of us no longer had the time to meet up and record together. So we ended the show. And funny enough, actually, not too long before the show was ending, I had already had in my head an idea of like eventually doing a solo podcast. But of course, due to the amount of time it took to produce the other show with my two co hosts, I never really had the time to work on it. But funny enough, because that show ended now I have the time. And the crazy part is that this podcast was not actually the original idea I was going to do.
Wait what?
Actually, the original solo podcast I was going to work on, and I am still actually working on it, is for, of all things, the Game of Thrones universe. As I said, I am actually working on that and I'm aiming to have the first episodes come out in the beginning of April with the intention that the first season of that podcast will be released before season two of House of the Dragon comes out. But in the event it doesn't, I'm hoping that at least a majority of those episodes are released.
But anyway. The point is, though, why I bring this up is that with my big plans of doing that show, in no way, shape, or form did I ever expect that I would think of doing a second podcast along with that, because why the heck would I do that?
It's a lot of work. And yet, here we are.
And the reason why it happened was because of, strangely enough, Medium.com.
Medium? What?
I had been a member of medium.com, which for those of you listening who don't know what that is, it's basically a website where you can read articles about a whole variety of different topics. And for the longest time, I was just