#the murder mystery is great and the resolution is SUPER satisfying
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MONTHLY MEDIA: March 2023
It’s getting nicer out but I’m still spending plenty of time indoors watching and reading things, don’t you worry.
……….FILM……….
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
It’s been years since I’ve gone back to this and it really is one of the best superhero movies ever made, right? I hope the next one succeeds and it leads to more animated features. It just...you can do so much more. Sure the live-action superhero movies have a lot of animation but they’re bound by our physics and the uncanny valley and it’s just not the same.
……….TELEVISION……….
Ted Lasso (Episode 3.01 to 3.03)
Glad to be back. It’s been interesting seeing the online rise, then fall, then rise again of support for this show but honestly, who cares? Do you like watching it? Great. Do I like watching it? Absolutely. It’s a project that was planned from season 1 and it shows and I wish more media was approached in this way.
Spy x Family (Episode 1.08 to 1.25)
Okay needed to shift my expectations with this one. I really thought we’d get more of Yor and her assassin life. She’s kinda just a background character to Loid and Anya and that feels like a missed opportunity.
The Great (Episode 2.09 to 2.10)
Great cap to the season. Full arcs for characters, a satisfying resolution and yet still enough of a hook to get me excited for the third season. Just some gorgeous, funny, dramatic television. Big fan.
……….YOUTUBE……….
Why everything you buy is worse now and How America’s richest donate their money by Vox
Okay the first one really helped explain why stuff seems to be lower quality and it’s not just “better back in my day” sorta stuff. It’s just chasing that elusive profit, you know?
And seeing the stats on how the wealthy donate was eye-opening. Taxes seem good.
VIDEO (Worse Now)
VIDEO (Richest Donations)
AI and Image Generation (Everything is a Remix Part 4) by Kirby Ferguson
I’ve always appreciated the Everything is a Remix series and this only reinforces that. A measured response to AI image generation and what that means, why it’s flawed, and what happens next.
VIDEO
THE FULL PROJECT
What Does Glass Onion Have to Do with US? by Vivian Strange
Okay a lengthy one but worth it. A new perspective on Glass Onion, a refresher on why I really liked US, and a really great connection between the two. Also a really great breakdown of the murder mystery as a genre as well and why it’s having a resurgence. All around great stuff.
VIDEO
……….READING……….
Arabian Nights (Companion Library Edition)
(Page 124 of 244)
Thrifted this and for some reason never knew it was a collection of short stories? Which seems obvious now. Anyway I’m sooooo slow at really short story collections but they’ve been interesting to read. Something about the translation feels like a slog to actually read but the stories included are a lot of fun.
Wonderland Revisited and the Games Alice Played There by Keith Sheppard
(Complete)
I’m super picky when it comes to adaptations of Carroll’s works. Many take Wonderland and make it dark, twisted, and mature (meh) but I find the more interesting take is one that continues with the same momentum. This one doesn’t quite work in capturing the spirit of the original books for me but there’s a lot of really great ideas in here.
Superman for all Seasons by Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale
(Complete)
Having loved their Batman books I picked this up and, being younger and dumber, didn’t like it at the time. Where was the action? Where were the villains? I was naive. Going back to this I really appreciate the study of Superman, the narrative through the supporting cast, and the struggles that can’t be resolved through punching. Man Loeb & Sale were a team.
Fantastic Four: Full Circle by Alex Ross
(Complete)
As an one-off story, this delivers everything I’d want out of an FF adventure: group banter, weird worlds, and lots of mumbo jumbo science. Plus I mean the artwork is truly humbling. I had to read it twice and I still only 80% understand it all but that’s not a complaint. Totally worth picking up if you have even a passing interest in the Fantastic Four.
Ultimate Spider-Man Volume 5 & 6 by by Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Bagley, and more
(Complete)
Decided to pick up with my reread of the Ultimate Spider-Man series again and woof I forgot how much I didn’t like volume 5. The first half is an Ultimates story that I STILL find too wordy, and the movie tie-in of the second half never quite clicked. I dunno maybe there are too many losses and not enough wins for Parker in this one?
Volume 6, however, is great. It has one of the most frustrating deaths in the series but it really explores the aftermath and impact. And introducing Johnny Storm and using him as the reason Spider-Man gets back into the hero stuff is really great. Spider-Man doesn’t need to solve all problems with punches and this book gets that.
……….AUDIO……….
Wild Planet by The B-52s (1980)
After listening to a greatest hits album on repeat as a kid, I’m going back to the early stuff. Can’t get Private Idaho out of my head.
FREE I.H.: This Is Not the One You've Been Waiting For by Illuminati Hotties (2020)
They always pop up in lists when I search for “more stuff like Sleigh Bells” but it finally clicked for me after listening to content//bedtime. Love this album.
……….GAMING……….
Neverland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing)
Whoa okay so my weekly group just fled the land of the Fairies after some drama with the Queen of the realm (you can read about it here) and then my Mof1 game ALSO had some Fairy drama involving the Queen. Apparently she’s a dramatic lady.
And that’s it. See you in April!
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Flower of Evil - 10/10
Fucking LOVED this drama. It’d been on my To Watch list for a loooong time, but it wasn’t on Netflix until recently, so I was super excited to finally get a chance to watch. And it was AMAZING. It lived up to to the hype.
The set up of the show is that Baek Hee-song is working as a metal craftsman in Seoul and living a happy life, married to Cha Ji-won, a police detective, with their six year old daughter. But the life they’ve built begins to unravel when Ji-won’s team investigates some murders are tied to secrets and lies from Hee-song’s past. The show is part-murder mystery, part-romance and part-psychological thriller. That all sounds very vague and that was on purpose because I don’t want to spoil anyone outside the Read More cut since a lot of the fun from the show comes from watching all the secrets come to light and piecing together Hee-song’s past and discovering the truth of what happened back then.
The other great thing about this show is the talented lead actors and their chemistry. They’re also both beautiful criers. lmao. Individual tears artfully flowing down Ji-won’s lovely face is A+++ and Hee-song’s eyes filling with tears as he slowly crumples is perfection. LOVE IT FOR ME. Ok anyway, I’ll talk more spoilery about the show under the cut.
The thing that really makes this show great is the character of Baek Hee-song, who we find out is actually Do Hyun-soo - whose father was a serial killer. Hyun-soo has been a fugitive for the past 20 years, suspected of killing the village head before he fled. As the show progresses, we peel back the layers of his traumatic childhood (during which he was labeled a psychopath after his mother disappeared) and how he came to take on the identity of Baek Hee-song and how he came to meet and begin a relationship with Ji-won. Hyun-soo is such a fascinating character because so much of how he acts is informed by how he conceptualizes himself which has been impacted by what people around him have told him about himself. Sounds complicated and it is. But a great part of this drama is seeing that fall away and watching Hyun-soo discover his true self.
And of course, Ji-won is a fantastic character too. Watching her process finding out her husband has lied to her during the 15 years she’s known him, hiding the fact that she knows his secret from him, grappling with whether or not he’s a murderer, deciding how to handle all this information... it’s a lot! She loves Hyun-soo (or Hee-song, as she’s known him), but she is very evidence focused. She trusts her husband, but also searching for concrete reasons to back up that belief in him. While he believes himself to be a psychopath, Ji-won sees how capable of emotion Hyun-soo actually is and that is what finally allows him to believe that maybe he’s not the monster everyone has told him that he is. It’s a really fantastic dynamic.
A lot of K-dramas fail to stick the landing and skip over actually earning the resolutions of their stories, but Flower of Evil really put in the work to earn their ending! The final episode is really satisfying and moving and doesn’t just tie things up in a happy ending without the characters having to work for it which makes the happy ending feel realistic.
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if any of you are looking to fill the emptiness left by finishing vincenzo and you've never seen suspicious partner, go watch it
#yes i am in fact back on my bullshit shdhdjdjd#vincenzo reminded me so much of suspicious parter esp at the beginning#the murder mystery is great and the resolution is SUPER satisfying#hurt/comfort in this drama is chefs kiss just GO WATCH IT i promise you'll love it#vincenzo#suspicious partner
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I didn’t post about everything I played this year, so here’s my opinions on the stuff I played that I didn’t make a rec post for:
Raging Loop
Raging Loop is one of them twisty meta Zero Escape-y branching-path visual novels where an ensemble cast is trapped in a mysterious circumstance where people are dying gruesomely, and you have to find out what’s happening and stop it by looping a bunch.
I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it, because... it tries to have its cake and eat it too with the supernatural elements. Clearly magic is real and has important impacts on the scenario, but then other parts are trickery you’re supposed to see through, and it’s entirely uninterested in cluing you in to how that trickery was accomplished. Not exactly a fair play mystery, in that regard- you have to kind of just be along for the ride, rather than try to figure it out.
That said, it’s a good ride- pretty strong character writing, and the central conceit of the Werewolf/Mafia-style murder scenario creates really interesting drama. It’s more concerned with making itself feel clever than letting the player feel clever, but it’s still well-paced and gripping and has a pretty decent resolution.
Detective Grimoire
I recommended Tangle Tower, the sequel, pretty strongly- and this one, while obviously a little rougher around the edges with the art and mechanics (the suspicion tracker system is a total dud; I didn’t even realize it existed until I realized I was missing an achievement for using it), it’s still pretty darn good. Really fun character designs and animations, fully-voiced, and a solid whodunit backing it all. Plus- while the two are more or less self-contained, the continuity threads with Tangle Tower raised some really interesting questions.
Contradiction - the all-video murder mystery
This one was pretty fun, largely on the strength of the actors. The main mechanic of interrogating people on evidence and using their own statements against each other was some good stuff, too. Definitely had that Phoenix Wright quality to the deductions, and Jenks is a really fun character. (Had a few points where progression was just linked to standing in a certain previously-abandoned area of the map where a clue was suddenly there for no reason, there- good thing it had a hint system.)
As a mystery, it could use a little work- most of what you end up finding out is sequel bait (for a sequel that never actually came together, unfortunately), and the actual whodunit is just sort of hiding in the cracks of all that. And... cornering the culprit just sort of happens out of nowhere once you’ve got your hands on the right piece of evidence, without much fanfare. You’re following up on leads like usual, you find a little lie in someone’s testimony, and then- oh, shit, they’re just confessing everything! Unlike all the previous times you questioned them and they were super evasive like everyone else! And then the game is over.
All in all, it’s pretty meaty and entertaining and I’d recommend it, but unfortunately the creators have moved on to other things, so there’s not going to be any follow-up on the stuff it left unresolved.
Ikenfell
Ikenfell is a tightly-designed RPG about kids at a magic school, with Paper Mario-style action command mechanics and a battle system that makes a big deal out of careful positioning and movement, which was really enjoyable. The difficulty’s a little high (I recommend always always always speccing into max damage because killing things before they kill you is worth more than any amount of defense, speed doesn’t work, and healing is cheap), but I found it really satisfying.
There’s... something... off? About... I don’t know how to put it, it’s... doing that “yes, everyone is queer and mentally ill, deal with it” thing, which, sure, okay. But for a lot of them it’s such a background thing, like... half the playable cast is unambiguously nonbinary, but like... I don’t know if it’s trying to make some statement on how there are no rules to being NB and you can 100% perform a particular binary gender presentation but still count, or if they wrote the whole story and then changed the pronouns of some of the characters for Representation Points, or what. Probably the former? I dunno, it just feels weird. Maybe I’m just not woke enough to Get It.
(unrelatedly: why the heck is the official art they use everywhere so... off-model? none of them look like they do in-game- they look like the creator commissioned someone to draw a group shot with one reference image each and didn’t tell them anything about the characters. how much you wanna bet they commissioned a friend and it came out wrong but they were too polite to say “sorry, no, this is wrong, can you do it over?”)
Trails of Cold Steel IV
Hoo boy. It’s... not great, and it’s not great in a pretty predictable way for an even-numbered entry in the Trails series. It happens every time- first there’s a game in a new engine with new characters and a new world to explore, and it’s really nice and does interesting things... and then it ends on a cliffhanger, and then there’s a sequel game in the same engine with the same characters and the same world, reusing as many assets as possible. Also the League Of Generically Evil Anime Supervillains is there causing trouble for reasons they refuse to explain, and the plot is a storm of magicbabble and macguffin-chasing that makes little to no sense.
Cold Steel IV is that for Cold Steel III, full stop. Welcome back to all the same places you visited last game, except this time there’s some stupid magic apocalypse happening (not that it stops you from taking the time to do random sidequests constantly, of course). The whole “oh, the evil curse mind controls people and that’s why they do stupid bullshit that’s in no one’s interest” plot point is leaned on super hard, and it’s just a big yawn the whole way through.
It’s still really fun, though, because the battle system remains really well-designed. (The same battle system that was just as fun in Cold Steel III, mind you, but it hasn’t gotten old.) And- though they’re struggling to square it with the dumb mind control apocalypse plot, the NPC dialogue continues to make the world feel believable and lived-in. They don’t slack on the parts that make Trails good- it’s just the parts that make Trails bad are making themselves more evident than ever.
did finally get to date Towa though so that’s a win
One Step From Eden
OSFE is... uh. It’s fucking hard is what it is. It’s sort of a deckbuilding roguelike, and there’s this combat that takes place on a grid, and- wait, it’s like Mega Man Battle Network, it’s exactly like Mega Man Battle Network. Man, I forgot about that, but the mechanical influence is extremely obvious. It’s MMBN meets Slay the Spire.
Except it’s super duper hard as hell, because unlike MMBN you can’t pause and swap out chips or anything- everything is just always happening so much, all at once, everywhere, and you have no recourse but to git gud and learn all the enemy patterns and the behavior of your own spells and develop the twitch reflexes necessary to not fucking die from all the shit that’s on the screen always.
(What’s the story? Uhhhh, there was some kind of magic apocalypse, and some anime girls are trying to reach a city for some reason that doesn’t really get explained ever. The game doesn’t really care to build its world at all- it’s all mechanics plus a little token character dialogue that doesn’t say much.)
The point is it’s really frickin’ hard but I am an epic pro gamer and I got ALL THE ACHIEVEMENTS, MOTHERFUCKER. If you’ve played it, I expect you to be really god damn impressed with me, okay???
A Short Hike
This one was really relaxing! It’s a platformer where you explore an Animal Crossing-y island of cartoon animal people, collecting mobility upgrades- but like, mainly it’s about straight chillin’. The flight controls are fun and there’s lots of little secrets to find and it’s just a nice time that doesn’t drag on too long. Not too much to say about this one.
Pokémon Sword
Ehhhhh.
I’m not here for the hot takes about how Dexit is good actually. Development hell happened, they had to make cuts for time, I get it. It’s disappointing and makes the game a little bit worse, but it’s not the end of the world.
Apart from that... perfectly serviceable? The Wild Area could’ve used a little more technical polish (as could most things in the game, really) but was a step in the right direction, giving the player a wider array of early-game team-building options than ever before. No HMs is good. Story and characters were kind of nothing, but that’s par for the course. “At least this time they’re not shoehorning in some kind of stupid evil-team-wants-legendary-pokemon-to-destroy-the-world apocalypse plot”, I thought to myself before they managed to shoehorn one in at the last minute with zero buildup- but, hey, beats wasting half the game on it.
It’s nothing special and it’s missing a lot of polish, but its problems are mainly due to being rushed, and presumably next gen they’ll be able to reuse a lot of the models and animations (maybe even improve the animations so they’re not so boring??? a man can dream) and make something interesting. SwSh seem like they were testing the waters for something else, and not taking too many chances in the meantime.
(yo why would you sell all these cosmetic items and then turn them all off during gym battles, though)
Hades
Hades is- oh, who am I kidding? Everyone knows Hades, it’s the game of the year, greatest thing since sliced bread, Supergiant are heroes, yada yada yada. I’ve played almost 300 hours of it and I’ve completed everything except all the Resources Director levels (currently a Sigma Wraith), it’s extremely fun and you don’t need me to tell you that.
Petal Crash
It was that thing the Paranatural creator helped on? It’s, uh. It’s a block-sliding puzzle game thing, sort of in a Puyo Puyo vein. It has fun character designs and some good dialogue, like you’d expect from Zack’s involvement, but it didn’t really leave an impression otherwise (besides how got dang infuriating some of its Turn Trial puzzles can be.) The story is... kinda heartwarming, kinda didactic, kinda childish, not especially deep or interesting. Hard for it to be, when it’s told through little bits of fluffy character dialogue that exist to set up a puzzle battle as quickly as possible. Not super recommended unless you really really like block-sliding puzzles.
Hollow Knight
Man, why’d I sleep on this for so long? It’s a metroidvania platformer with heavy Dark Souls inspiration, in terms of tone and difficulty and death mechanics and environmental storytelling. And it’s... apart from all that, just really good as a game, with tight controls and juicy movement and great animation. Progression is linked as much to mastery as it is to upgrades collected- I found myself in lategame areas facing down things that would’ve killed me ten times over at the start- not because I had the best gear, but because I’d learned the game’s language and understood how to move in ways that wouldn’t get me killed.
(Usually. Sometimes I’d walk into a room and sit on a bench and suddenly there’d be a boss fight and I’d get slaughtered. Ain’t that just the way it goes?)
Anyway, on top of all that it’s just charming as hell, with a really unique and well-realized world full of little bug people. I love how, like, your character is clearly some kind of eldritch abomination, but it’s small and cute and so everyone (besides enemies that attack you on sight because they’re possessed by some kinda evil mold) is like “awww, who’s this little guy? want some help, little guy?”
(except Zote, who is just an ass hole. i love him.)
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Anime Newbie in her Twenties Ranks her First 10 Anime
With the recommendations of my sister @ging-ler and friends, I started watching anime just over a year ago and within that time I’ve watched a total of 10 - some clocking in at almost 200 episodes and some with only 12. I told myself a while ago that once I had finished 10 anime shows I would rank them like some Anime Newbie WatchMojo list, so, here we are. Really this is just an excuse to force more of my unwarranted opinions onto unwilling followers.
I should also preface this by saying I don’t think any of the anime I watched this year was bad, and I enjoyed a lot about every show even if I ranked some low. However, the top three anime on my list are the ones I would recommend to anyone following me even if they don’t watch anime.
10. Death Note
Despite absolutely loathing the “protagonist” since episode one, I really enjoyed the first half of Death Note! The story was intriguing with all of its wild twist and turns and I found myself immediately invested in what was going to happen next. Unfortunately, after the death of who I thought was by far the best character, the show seems to go off the rails as it introduces new characters and contrived plot devices in the second half that were frankly hard for me to care about at that point. The ending was satisfying but I forced myself to sit through a lot of painful meandering to get there.
9. Cowboy Bebop
Cowboy Bebop was the first anime I watched as suggested to me by @mcsherrybr. The smooth and jazzy art, atmosphere, animation, action, and music were all a lot of fun, as were the lovable ragtag group of misfits that made up the main cast. I enjoyed myself a lot while watching this western/sci-fi melding pot of a show, and I only ranked it so low because the last few episodes were a huge disappointment to my found-family-trope-loving heart.
8. Violet Evergarden
Violet Evergarden, following the story of a child soldier learning to love, is absolutely beautiful to look at and listen to. The music in this anime is, for me, THE best music from any show on this list. This is also the only anime that made me sob several times while watching it. The collection of short episodic stories that explore the deep facets of human love and connection are incredibly resonant and will stay with me for a long time. However, the strength of the small story arcs made the rushed overarching war story and finale weaker in comparison. Similarly, the memorable characters introduced in the one-off side plots were more interesting to me than the cast of rather bland reoccurring supporting characters. While I will remember a lot of great individual moments, I can’t seem to remember a single character’s name besides Violet’s, but that might also be due to being one of the shorter entries at only 12 episodes.
7. Hunter x Hunter (2011)
Going from one of the shortest anime on this list to the longest, Hunter x Hunter was an great and engrossing story during the entirety of its 160+ episodes. It’s colorful and playful, but can also be very dark and at times even heart-wrenching. Because it contains so many distinct arcs, there is a wide variety characters and stories to get attached to, and some, like the Chimera Ant Arc, I even cried over. But this also left me with issues regarding the pacing. The show has great action and introspective moments but will often drag with long drawn-out pauses between fights to explain simple concepts (though I understand that’s a common trope in old shonen anime in general). The world-building is rich but also caught me off guard with some strange ideas, and admittedly not all of them I liked. Some eccentric characters and concepts rubbed me the wrong way and ended up hindering my enjoyment of the show. Overall though, it was a lot of fun and I left with a few more endearing favorite characters, like Leorio and Killua.
6. Erased
Also a 12 episode anime, Erased was amazingly impactful for how short it was. Even as I followed the unfolding murder mystery, I was also touched by the meaningful themes and kind-hearted characters I met along the way. The already-strong story is accentuated with great symbolism, art, and music. The only problem I had was with the mystery itself; I was able to tell who the true killer was within the first 4 episodes, which didn’t lend itself well to suspense and I spent the remaining episodes frustrated that the main characters couldn’t see some obvious clues.This is a minor problem, though, since the finale has less to do with mystery and more about the morals and resolution of themes that I felt was satisfying.
5. Demon Slayer
Demon Slayer is gorgeous. The stunning art style, fluid animation, and breath-taking music are all valid reasons to watch it, but the main character Tanjiro and his unwavering devotion to find a cure for his sister-turned-demon Nezuko are the reasons to stay. Tanjiro is unbelievably gentle as he shows even the evil demons he has to slay a hard-fought kindness, and it’s those tender moments between all of the amazing action sequences that really elevate this show for me. The issues I have lie with the rest of the cast. While I love some supporting characters, like the pig-headed Inosuke and the stoic Giyuu, others have very niche personalities that can get annoying if they’re on screen for too long, which they definitely tend to be. Still, the bond between Tanjiro and Nezuko is so strong that it gets me through even those dragging scenes.
And it’s written by a woman!
4. My Hero Academia
Hey so this might come as a shock for anyone who’s followed me for a while: My Hero Academia is not my favorite anime! I do love it a lot - it’s the only anime on this list that has inspired me to read the manga, write fic, and buy merch. There are so many lovable characters and exciting arcs in this show that there is bound to be something for everyone to enjoy, both inside and outside of canon. It’s a wonderfully paced and animated deconstruction of the superhero genre and besides its deeper themes and commentary, there’s also just a lot of endearing teenage goofin’ to be had, and the show balances the tone of these two almost-equally engaging aspects of the story fairly well.
The downside, for me, is the show’s sexualization of female characters, especially the teenagers. With the likes of pervy fellow classmate Mineta, it’s a flaw that’s hard to avoid and takes up an unfortunate amount of screen time. There are in-universe characters that protest against this behavior, and the female characters are still well-written for the most part, but that doesn’t make up for the canon material including it at all. It’s not a huge part of the show but it’s present enough that it really knocks the ranking down for me.
3. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Out of my top 5, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is the only one that is complete. Because of that, I can tentatively say that so far, it is the best completed story on this list. From beginning to end, the pacing was perfect - the action never dragged, the characters were never unnecessary, and the plot twists were never unearned. I found myself more invested than I thought I would ever be for the large cast of characters, and everything, including its ending, was satisfying to watch. The animation is fluid and lent itself well to the most impactful scenes, especially involving the flame alchemist Roy Mustang. It’s also written by a woman! Really, the only nitpicks I have were with tonal problems - serious moments would sometimes be ruined by too much slapstick or visual gags.
As I mentioned before, my Top 3 are shows I would recommend to anyone who’s unfamiliar with anime simply because they’re good solid stories with almost no distracting anime tropes. This is a good place to start.
2. The Promised Neverland
The Promised Neverland is deceiving; on the surface it looks like a sweet show about a bunch of adorable kids playing together in the spacious green backyard of their quaint orphanage. Once you finish the first episode, however, you will quickly discover that there is definitely something more sinister lurking under the surface. This show is an expertly executed dark horror/thriller that always had me on the edge of my seat. The cute aesthetic never distracts from the suspense, in fact, it adds to the discomfort when the horrific visuals and expressions are contrasted against the character designs. I loved all of the characters, including the antagonist, who manages to be just as sympathetic as she is menacing. The sound design and music are also beautiful and adds so much to the rich atmosphere. I am definitely excited to see where this series will go!
1. Mob Psycho 100
ONE, the creator of Mob Psycho 100, said the single word he used for the concept for the series was “kindness”. Kindness shines through so much of this story following the life of Mob, a super-psychic kid that just wants to fit in, and I adore every second of it. While many shonen anime stories force the child protagonist to get stronger, become more powerful, and fight in battles against hostile adults, Mob Psycho 100 says “that’s stupid. Kids shouldn’t have to be traumatized by immature power-hungry adults. The only strength that anyone should pursue is strength of character, motivated by self-love and love for others.” And it says it with the most beautiful animation I have EVER seen in a show. The simplistic character designs mean the animators can have as much creative freedom as they like with expressions and movement, and they absolutely use that freedom. Humor is a large part of this mostly-comedy anime, but it makes the serious and introspective scenes so much more important when they do happen. The shifts between these two tones never feel awkward or imbalanced.
Mob Psycho 100 has inspired me to become more experimental and joy-seeking with my art, as well as just become a better person in my own life, which I can’t say for many other anime or many other pieces of media period. Even though a Season 3 hasn’t been officially announced yet, I can still safely say Mob Psycho 100 will forever hold a special place in my heart.
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Hello! I'm a (former?) star wars fan who was utterly devastated by TRoS and had to take an indefinite break from the fandom as a result. During lockdown I discovered kdramas and they're my new obsession! I saw that you recommended Coffee Prince and My Love from the Star in a post. I've already seen and loved those (and my own current favourites include Are You Human and Hwayugi) so I was wondering if you could recommend a few more? Thank you!!
Coitenly! /curly
Her Private Life- my new favourite. The curator of an art museum leads a secret double life as a hardcore kpop fangirl; both her identities get off on entirely the wrong foot with famous artist Ryan Gold who has been suffering from an art block caused by the same mysterious painting she’s determined to buy for her idol oppa. If you want a funny, fluffy, character-driven romance where you can really love the leads and will never want to strangle them: this is your show. It is the most purely enjoyable romcom drama ever imo, there’s none of the frustration over ridiculous behaviour or contrived stakes that you typically have to deal with and it has a satisfying, perfect ending. The villains all aren’t so bad after all, everyone gets an arc, the gentle little mystery has a happy resolution, and it’s just about some people facing their issues and helping each other grow. It was very healing to watch in this media climate.
The plot is nothing to write home about and includes a unneeded kdrama cliché towards the end (well-handled and not dragged out, so I forgive it), but the real ‘story’ is the character development and the plot is just a frame to hang that on. Overrall, it’s incredibly refreshing because of the high quality characters and the emotional maturity of the relationship. The leads have insane chemistry, the sexual tension is legit palpable, and the intimacy once they get together is genuinely next level; they are so natural and so endearing it feels like they’re not acting. Ryan Gold is also the best boyfriend in kdrama history and is played by the world’s most beautiful living man, Kim Jae Wook, whom you’ll recognise as our Waffle-kun Sun Ki from Coffee Prince. So it’s got that going for it as well.
Other romcoms: Sungkynkwan Scandal (historical disguise romance! girl needs to dress up as a guy to take the national exam so she can support her family, shenanigans ensue), My Princess (normal girl discovers she’s a lost princess, the guy her ascension will disinherit is in charge of grooming her for the role- it’s cute), Prime Minister & I (contract marriage), What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim (I think this show is pretty overrated but it’s definitely a fun, low-stakes romance with lots of fluff and lots of kissing and we probably all need a bit of that right now).
Change of pace:
Tell Me What You Saw- this is for my clannibals. Crime drama about a green country cop getting tied up in the apparent resurfacing of a famous serial killer who is officially supposed to be dead. She was driven to become a police officer to solve the hit-and-run death of her mother, but she hasn’t made it out of her home town. Then a body is dumped in her neighbourhood and her photographic memory of the scene draws the attention of the big city team leader. Said team leader takes her to meet the reclusive, ex-detective criminal profiler who originally worked the serial killer case.
A bond develops where she acts as his eyes and ears in the field and he trains her to observe like a detective, but our recluse is a very damaged dude and he’s not exactly being forthcoming about his real agenda.
This show has plot and logic issues, sometimes to its profound detriment, but the characters are extremely strong and everything else about it is fucking A+. Atmosphere, acting, action, pacing, intrigue, etc. are all fantastic. The ending was also unexpectedly wonderful and I was so grateful for that. Oh Hyun Jae (the profiler) is a secretive, broken, lonely, manipulative genius who is always fifteen steps ahead of everyone else and I find that very, very sexy of him. He is an anti-hero for most of the series and contrasts with our more idealistic protagonist both in that and in other more subtle ways. Their relationship is super interesting and I ship them really hard.
My Country- I’ll just tell you that the main characters are a mess and the plot leaves a lot to be desired, but watch it for Bang-won. He is a sad angry murder prince and he’s amazing. The whole show is peak eye candy throughout, every episode looks like an epic film with insane production value, so if you want quality action spectacle with a dangerous hot woobie way more interesting than the leads who seems to have wandered in from an infinitely better story to replace the ST- you’re set. Great news, he’s a real historical figure and became king, so they can’t kill him off.
#recs#kdrama#Bang-won has a completely different personality to Ben but he is in-universe similar in his Family Issues and need for validation#he's the only character in the whole stupid show who holds himself accountable and has consistent principles#so when he breaks them he knows exactly how much to hate himself#he is relentless and ruthless but very sad about the fact this makes him a huge asshole#he even achieves all his goals gains ultimate victory and then cries about it#and out-of-universe similar in that he is way waaaay too good a character for the poorly conceived and poorly executed narrative he's in#starring leads who are either boring or incoherent#but at least My Country understands that you love him and that he's played by the by far most charismatic actor in the series#they know he is going to steal every scene he is in#they know he's sexy#unlike apparently 99% of people working on sw#who do not know these same things about Ben#who continue to chastise the audience for latching on to the only character with an arc#what I'm saying is if you're one of those people who would like a way darker version of Ben: Bang-won is here for you#he is here and he is extremely hot#he does not kill his father and it honestly might have been better for everyone if he had#his dad is neck-and-neck with Odin in the Bad Royal Fathers Olympics#Bang-won also shares traits with Loki Prince Hal and Malcolm Tucker so you know he's pretty appealing to me
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Author Interview
Tagged by: @aviss (And @luthienebonyx while I was answering!)
Name: Ehh, any variation of my usernames is fine. Or you can ask after we’ve talked. It’s too distinctive to put on Tumblr
Fandoms: I’m currently active in Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries and Game of Thrones, and occasionally still check in on the Agent Carter fandom when I have time. I’ve been fandoming for 18 years though, and couldn’t list all the ones I’ve been active in. I used to think I could, and then awhile back I was suddenly hit with a reminder that I wrote fic for X and had forgotten it entirely. 😂
Where you post: AO3
Most popular oneshot: (every single one of us) still left in want of mercy for GoT. For Miss Fisher, the answer actually surprised me--by hits it is A Hundred and One, which made some sense because it was my first fic and hit during that huge rush in the wake of series 3. By kudos? It’s Reservations, a Mac POV of Phryne and Jack’s developing relationship.
Most popular multi-chapter story: in the wild blue yonder, your star is fixed (in my sky) for GoT, which is unsurprising because I only have two and that is both older and longer. A Glass Splinter for Miss Fisher, which is also unsurprising because it is oldest and longest.
Favorite story you wrote: I always say Fear Not the Bugle, because it was long and hard and deeply personal by the end, but I think that answer changes a lot based on whatever definition of favourite I’m using.
Story you were nervous to post: All of them, every time. But, honestly, today’s chapter on in the wild blue yonder was… I told people I was expecting rage quitting, and while nobody’s said so, the subscription count has gone down for the first time. There’s any number of innocuous reasons for that, and of course people can read what they want and interests change and so on, but it doesn’t feel like a coincidence that it came after this chapter either. I am, of course, overthinking the whole thing like hell because that’s how I roll. I’ll be over it tomorrow--the story went the way the story had to go.
How you choose your titles: I scream at people until something clicks? I honestly… I’m so bad at picking titles. I’ll use song lyrics or poetry or quotes--lots of room for Shakespeare and Rilke with MFMM for obvious reasons, and also Edna St Vincent Millay and Anais Nin. And D.H. Lawrence, but also fuck that guy. Or sometimes I’ll just use a random word. I like to joke that I’m going to post a Phrack story and just call it “There’s smut, we all know you’ll read this regardless of the title”, but I don’t even have that going for me in the GoT fandom. THE HARDSHIPS, Y’ALL. I’m currently obsessed with finding a reason to use The Ballroom Thieves’ Bees for a fic, somehow, but I’m not sure which bit. Or which fic. It is sure as shit not going to be an angsty, canon-compliant Jaime POV of Winterfell though, that’s for fucking sure.
Do you outline: Somewhat? Before my season 8 fixit I was mostly writing casefics for anything longer than a one-shot, and I found that I had to have a super rough outline before starting so I could make sure the places clues were dropped were well-spaced and the resolution made sense on a super basic level. But this mostly took the form of a super general paragraph per chapter, and I didn’t really know how those things would happen until I get there. For yonder I have a list of shit that’s supposed to happen, maybe, and I’m winging it without knowing what’s coming in even a vague sense more than a couple of chapters ahead. Except for the final chapter, which was one of the first things I noted, back when I was telling @heavyheadedgal I wasn’t going to WRITE a fic, it was just satisfying to think about it, and anyway even if I did it would be a oneshot.
I do, however, sort of outline a chapter when I get to writing it. Outline mostly means a sentence, maybe two, per scene--X happens, the purpose of which is Y, tone might be Z--and any scraps of dialogue/writing that had already come to me during previous writing.
Complete: On ao3 I have… 150 or so? I think the full count is 152 or 153, and of those one is on hiatus and has been for years, one is complete but not yet fully posted because it’s for the 2019 monthly challenge for MFMM, and one genuine WIP. I have no idea what the true total over 18 year is though, other than a LOT.
In-progress: I am actively working on in the wild blue yonder, your star is fixed (in my sky) and the The Seasons Will Change Us New series (aka Minigolf AU), and have a few things like prompts that I pick at on occasion.
Coming soon/not yet started:
I have a ton more stories in the Minigolf series--the first on the docket is a one-shot of Brienne and Jaime grabbing coffee (that’s what I’m working on), then one set over the Midwinter holiday where their skiing holiday plans are interrupted by Robert’s death. Then there is the bachelor auction fic, which is going to be great because platonic neck kisses. And a few after that.
The third fic in the series of smutty character studies, which will feature pegging and domJaime (somehow?) and I have NO FUCKING CLUE what it will actually look like but I need it and nobody else is going to write it, so...
My next “serious” longfic will probably by the Persuasion/Anne of Cleves!AU, which is the weirdest mashup description ever. But the premise could be really great--it’s a canon divergence where Brienne and Jaime meet earlier in the timeline and become friends, then are separated by Cersei’s scheming and the ire of the court, both of them in love but not realising or able to act on it at the time. Then they meet again when she is Catelyn’s sworn sword (I’m handwaving so much politics in this fic and Ned’s death is different so Sansa is marrying Joffrey and UGH I’m not looking forward to that side of things because my grasp of canon is so bad), and there is angst and pining and strained sniping. Addam gets to be Charles Musgrove. It’s only the vaguest sort of take on Persuasion, but… The Anne of Cleves side of things is--okay, I kinda want to really lean into that inspiration, but the real point of that is to tackle Brienne’s ugliness from an angle that acknowledges that it can be a “Yes and…” situation--yes, she’s not pretty, and it can also be a constructed, weaponised attack on her. For example, I’m taking that “More of a woman’s shape” thing and running with it--she’s not feminine in build, but that gets warped into “Entirely indistinguishable from a man” by people out to discredit her, and even Jaime’s memories of her have been shaped by that propaganda.
Look, we all know I’m writing Cocks and Robbers and it is entirely the fault of @aurora-australis-tumbles
Do you accept prompts: Absolutely! I can be very slow at filling them though, because I… for a long time I was really struggling with writing for a bunch of complex reasons and I’m still working my way up to being able to write a lot in a day. It’s like a muscle injury that’s slowly healing, but I’m not pushing myself, and that means that I can’t currently sit down and bang out 5 or 6 ficlets in a day like I used to.
Upcoming story you are most excited to write: Persuasion AU, I think? What I have to say about beauty is probably rather niche and not interesting to the vast majority of fans, but it’s something that I like to explore. Or the bachelor auction AU because TROPES GALORE.
Tagging @whopooh @scruggzi @aurora-australis-tumbles @renee561 and whoever else wants to do it. I am super bad at remembering who has already done these things
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Weekends are for watching truly trashy TV...
... (as opposed to irony-watching semi-trash) so this week I decided to forego my newest addiction Divya Drishti to binge the new AltBalaji show BOSS: Baap of Special Services.
[crowd yelling: “... But TT you’re always going on about not caring for KSG! You’re adamant about it and battle anon wank on the topic! How could you possibly......?????”]
Well kids, all I can say is don’t try to put me in a box. For all my highfalutin media snobbery, there’s also that side of me which has watched KRK’s Deshdrohi multiple times. (Only to discover that one of my college-mates was an extra in the songs. True story, mummy kasam.) I honest-to-god have a favt. movie featuring Sonu Nigam as an "actor". No, not the cult classic Jaani Dushman, but the equally noteworthy Love In Nepal. Which I have also seen multiple times, because the amount of cheap kicks I get from Sonu's ridiculous hamming is indescribable. Anyway, I’m trash for the professional-couple-with-opposing-personalities trope (especially in the field of law enforcement), and was majorly missing B99 (HOW LONG TILL THE NEXT SEASON GODDAMNIT?????)/Krishna Arjun (WHY WON’T YOU JUST PUT IT UP ALREADY, HOTSTAR?????????) so I decided to scratch the itch with this. (Also this blasted weather has brought an influx of mutant mosquitoes into my house, so watching this was also an attempt to keep my mind off those literal itches. I'm not an NRI anymore, but my body hasn't gotten the memo yet and continues to overreact to every bug bite.)
Plot:
It was pretty much what I expected from the trailer; a middling crime/mystery series with occasional moments of the mildest intrigue. It has a ‘case of the episode’ format, with each resolution sorta feeding into the larger mystery driving the plot. The smaller cases are completely unremarkable; always a murder (I used to think Shimla was a chill place with relatively low crime rates? Apparently not; in this show's universe the murdering is so bad, a whole special task force has to be formed - with like, national-level shooting champions and imported super-cops from other states.) The bigger mystery is the only compelling part of the show, keeping me invested to watch till the end. I wouldn't say it had a completely satisfying wrap-up (a too-tidily ghusaaya hua culprit and motive in the end; not to mention loose ends that just went nowhere. For eg. they introduce - never show - a character that the lead has been obsessing about for months now and goes to great lengths to track down, only to be casually told that he died a few months ago. And like...... nothing. We just move on, zero frustration.) but at least it brought like 2.67% complexity to the main lead beyond “Satyromanic Sherlock”.
A more appropriate name for the show would have been BOSH: Baap of Sexual Harassment, coz KSG's character spends most of his screentime leering at the nearest adult woman and propositioning her with the most unimaginatively sexist innuendo. Said woman (other than our stern female lead, of course) is so bowled over that she’s immediately willing to get it on with him on closest stable surface that can support the weight of 2 people. Each episode has on an average of 2-3 utterly tacky and tasteless sex scenes which I promptly forwarded the fuck through. Everyone knows I'm a tharki of the first order, so you can guess just how distasteful they were to get ME to do that. (Does KSG have some kinda clause in his non primetime-TV contracts that he must be given scenes to paw at a woman in the most unattractive manner?) The reaction to all this nonsense is always smirky admiration from the other men, and disgust from female lead. Except for when he puts the moves on her in later eps; then she reacts with coy exasperation. I cannot (yet somehow also can - because we truly do live in the darkest timeline) believe something like this got made and released in the #MeToo era? Forget #MeToo, the leads more than once wake up with the people in bed next to them murdered, and it has like zero legal repercussions beyond a withering glare, so THAT's the kinda universe we're operating in.
Cast:
KSG‘s made 'charming haraami with/without heart of gold’ his go-to role over the years now, so this is right in his wheelhouse. I've seen him give a waaaay more compelling performance in QH so eh... Can't say I was too impressed with him here. This was just Law Enforcement Armaan. An errant man-child doing whatever the fuck he wants and getting by in life thanks to conventional attractiveness. His facial hair situation is also very distracting; the continuity lapses rivaling Iqra Aziz's hair in SC2.
I haven't watched Sagarika Ghatge in anything other than Chak De, so I'm genuinely wondering: is she capable of anything other than ‘sullen girl who's constantly making an annoyed/perplexed face’? Her face occasionally relaxes into a wry smirk, but other than that, she could be Captain Holt's Desi Spirit Daughter. I couldn't quite tell if it's the stereotypical role of ‘female cop who has to be a strict stickler to be taken seriously in a male-dominated profession’, or if she just doesn't have the range. Maybe it's both? It’s probably both.
Gaurav Gera shows up as a sidekick to KSG - some kinda "hacker" who regularly comes to school the police's cyber-crime head - because she's a woman, how could she possibly be the authority on tech stuff? Anything that keeps him from making more of those dumb "shopkeeper" vids is a good thing in my book, I guess. Sagarika's character has two sidekicks - who contribute nothing to the investigation part, they just serve as muscle who chase the fleeing suspects and haul them into the police van. Ayaz Khan toh I suspect just took the role to get to hang out with best bro KSG in Shimla for a few days, coz his character is an undistinctive personality-less blob. The sidekick cop who's not Ayaz (aforementioned shooting champion) looked super familiar; it took me like 3 episodes to realize it's the dude who plays Komolika's deranged brother in KZK these days. The insta clips of him constantly attacking one Sharma sister or another is where I knew him from. He plays his character with some bright-eyed earnestness and is mostly tolerable, if completely forgettable.
Minor bright spot(s): Mishal Raheja as a grey character! Now there's the charming haraami I'd want to watch a whole show about! Also Daljiet Kaur in a tiny but important role; kind of a chilling AU version of Anjali from IPK, if she didn't have Arnav in her life to balance out her constantly-teteering-on-the-brink waala mental instability.
Overall Impression:
Lol, I can't recommend it or anything, but if you miss watching the OG 1990s/2000s-era episodes of CID, but with a 400% more cringeyass sexual situations straight out of soft porn, I guess you can go for it? Pretty sure it's no more a waste of time than the newest Bhai movie that's released on Prime.
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Books read in October
Twenty novels (including two audiobooks), three graphic novels, one novella and two rereads: more books than are pictured above. I can’t remember the last time I read so much in a month. Maybe when I was high school?
It was a combination of factors: Rainbow Rowell’s latest books became available at the library, I realised that Meg Cabot’s Heather Wells books are murder mysteries, and I made the very exciting discovery that I could get Ellen Emerson White’s previously-out-of-print novels as ebooks.
Favourite cover: Life Without Friends.
Reread: Bryony and Roses by T. Kingfisher, Hold Me by Courtney Milan (and then The Road Home).
Still reading: Mapping Winter by Marta Randall and When We Were Warriors by Emma Carroll.
Next up: Warrior of the Altaii by Robert Jordan.
(Longer reviews and ratings are on LibraryThing. And also Dreamwidth.)
The Princess Who Flew with Dragons by Stephanie Burgis: Princess Sofia is unimpressed when her sister’s latest plans involve sending Sofia on a diplomatic mission to Villenne. Sofia wants to stay in her room and read, not remind everyone that she struggles to be a perfect princess. But in Villenne she discovers unexpected opportunities to attend lectures and make friends. And when calamity strikes, it’s up to her to save the day. A solid adventure about friendship and what it means to be a princess, a philosopher and a person all at once. It’s the sort of book I’d like to send back in time to my twelve-year-old self.
The “Uncommon Echoes” trilogy by Sharon Shinn: Set in a world where many of the nobility have “echoes” -- identical copies who follow them, more substantial than shadows but not capable of speech or independent action. Or so people believe. Begins with Echo in Onyx.
Echo in Emerald: After a story about an ordinary woman pretending to be an echo, here is a woman pretending her echoes are ordinary people. Chessie has the ability to shift her consciousness between herself and her two echoes, enough to give the impression that they are three different people with different personalities and jobs. Usually she keeps to the lower classes, but one day she’s asked to deliver a message to a noble who is investigating a recent murder.(Another inversion, another case of themes and variations, as the first book is about trying to conceal a murder.)This builds upon the first book, deepening our understanding of the political context and of echoes. Chessie’s experience of identity is fascinating.
Echo in Amethyst: A story about echo who slowly gains sentience and independence from her original is a good idea in theory, a logical progression for this trilogy. But it turned out to be a massive misstep. The echo belongs to a woman who is abusive towards her echoes and rude towards nearly everyone else. The echo spends a long time incapable of being anything other than a passive observer of unpleasant people. I skimmed bits and seriously considered abandoning this. Not recommended -- but the first two books standalone sufficiently that you could read just those without this series feeling naggingly incomplete.
Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell, illustrated by Faith Erin Hicks: Super cute! All through high school Josiah and Deja have worked together at the pumpkin patch every September and October. Tonight is their last shift. Deja is determined that Josiah is finally going to speak to the girl he likes. Nothing goes to plan. This is a story about changes, chances and choices. It’s also a love letter to everything Josiah and Deja love about the pumpkin patch -- which includes their relationship. I really liked the characters, and the artwork does such a wonderful job of bringing them, and this place, to life.
The Spies of Shilling Lane by Jennifer Ryan (narrated by Jayne Entwistle): Unexpectedly entertaining, a cosy mystery full of excitement, danger and character growth, set against the backdrop of the London Blitz. Mrs Braithwaite, divorced and deposed from her position as head of the village Women’s Voluntary Service, tries to find her missing adult daughter. Mrs Braithwaite is a very forceful personality. I really liked that she is not only challenged to reevaluate her attitudes, she discovers that qualities like bossiness and tenacity can be great strengths. Large, loud and assertive middle-aged women are so often been relegated to irritating or comedic minor characters, rather than getting to be protagonists.
An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson: Isobel has spent years painting portraits of the fair folk. She knows to speak courteously, make bargains carefully, and avoid jeopardising her family’s safety. And then she meets the prince of the autumn court. I have mixed feelings. I really liked Isobel, with her practical streak and her passion for painting, and liked the way she describes her experiences. The people she’s closest to are quickly established as interesting, complex and individual. However, this story leans heavily into a portrayal of the fair folk which I don’t find very appealing. A matter of personal taste rather than quality.
Artistic License by Elle Pierson (aka Lucy Parker): I wasn’t sure what to expect from an early self-published novel about an art student and a security guard in New Zealand, especially as the London theatre world is a big part of why Parker’s other books appeal to me. But Queenstown is such a scenic setting and the characters immediately felt like the sort of people Parker writes about. I particularly enjoyed Sophy’s internal dialogue, and how she and Mick become very protective of each other. They’re so mutually caring! In hindsight, this book could have been stronger... but I liked the characters and their interactions. Sometimes that’s enough.
The Printed Letter Bookshop by Katherine Reay: A story about cross-age friendship and forgiveness, about three different women working together in a bookshop. Madeline, a lawyer, has inherited the bookshop from her aunt. Janet is angry and has an ex husband, adult children who rarely speak to her and old friends she wants to avoid. In the middle is Claire, aware of the shop’s precarious finances and trying to juggle work with motherhood. I’d nearly finished this when I realised it’s classified as “Christian fiction”. I really liked how it is about forgiveness and messy, complicated relationships. Not a perfect book, but it surprised me.
The “Heather Wells Mysteries” by Meg Cabot:
Size 12 Is Not Fat: I discovered that this series isn’t just chick lit, it’s murder mystery chick lit about a former pop singer now working as an assistant director for a college dorm. (Talk about misleading covers!) When a student is found dead, Heather is convinced that it wasn’t an accident but murder. At times Heather reminded me of Mia from The Princess Diaries, which I found fascinating and frustrating (some attitudes are more understandable coming from a teenager than from a woman approaching thirty). Anyway, Heather is kind and humorous, I liked the setting, and the mystery had enough twists to satisfy me.
Size 14 Is Not Fat Either: More of the same, except that this time when a student turns up dead, it’s obvious to everyone that she has been murdered. Instead of trying to convince everyone of the need for a murder investigation, Heather is trying -- unsuccessfully -- not to get involved in it. I like how supportive Heather’s friends and colleagues are. Her father has been absent (in jail), her mother and her manager ran off with Heather’s money, and her long term boyfriend was unfaithful, but she’s still got people in her life who care and who are there for her. And I did enjoy some of her song lyrics.
Size Doesn’t Matter (US title: Big Boned): I was relieved that this time round the murder victim is not another female student. Yes, murder is horrible regardless, but there can be something particularly unpleasant if a story keeps only killing young women. I definitely don’t want murder mysteries to be all grim and bleak, but I prefer it when murder mysteries aren’t this light-hearted. This isn’t a criticism, just a realisation about my personal taste. I kept reading to see some resolution in Heather’s love life. (I know, priorities). I’ve no idea the woman on the cover is wearing a wedding dress. Marketing is weird.
Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell: Simon, Baz and Penelope set off on a roadtrip across America to see Agatha, who Penelope is convinced is in trouble. Rowell is so good making me care about her characters and their relationships. I liked how this is a journey of discovery -- exploring a new country, finding out things about the world they live in and learning more about themselves. I enjoyed reading this but wasn’t so enthusiastic about the final act (it becomes a story about vampires) or the conclusion (busy setting up for a sequel, it leaves emotional arcs unresolved). Expectations and personal preferences, I guess.
Life Without Friends by Ellen Emerson White: I was so excited when I discovered that this had been released as an ebook. A decade of wanting to read something may be an unfair amount of pressure to put on any book, especially on a teen novel from 1987, but I was not disappointed. White is so good at writing smart, acerbic teenage girls dealing with trauma and intense emotions, like guilt and grief. And Beverly’s relationship with Derek is so believably awkward and tentative and hopeful -- two people with their own flaws and fears making the effort to get to know each other. It’s, like, everything I want from teen romance.
To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers: A team from the 22nd century explore four habitable worlds in orbit around a red dwarf star. It’s a fascinating glimpse into what the future might be like -- what space travel and other worlds might be like -- and a thought-provoking meditation about space, science and life. When it comes to the characters, there’s something quite elliptical about it -- which is fitting, given that Ariadne is writing this account for a specific purpose. It left me feeling unsatisfied, but I think that’s because there are particular things I’m looking for and this novella intentionally -- and effectively -- focuses on something else.
The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl by Theodora Goss (narrated by Kate Reading): The Athena Club return to London from one extraordinary adventure and are plunged into another. Their teenaged kitchen maid Alice has been kidnapped, Sherlock Holmes is missing and there is a plot afoot to impersonate the queen. This story has adventure, teamwork, mystery, unexpected twists, more cameos by characters from popular Victorian fiction, and commentary on late Victorian concerns (like empire and eugenics). My favourite part was the Athena Club's interactions when they interrupt the narrative to discuss their lives together, highlight what they think is important or argue about what Catherine included. They’re a team, a household, a family.
All Emergencies, Ring Super by Ellen Emerson White: A teenager asks Dana, a former actress working as a building superintendent, to investigate a building fire. This was curiously lacking in tension --- until things became intensely personal. By the end, I was seriously disappointed that there isn’t a whole series about Dana solving mysteries. I like that Dana investigates by doing research at the library, making use of her acting abilities and enlisting support from friends. Her friendships are one of the highlights -- smart, difficult people who are honest with each other is an interesting dynamic. And the way White writes about the aftermath of trauma is compelling and thoughtful.
The “Echo Company” series by Ellen Emerson White: I read all five books in two days. They’re fast-paced and some aren’t particularly long -- they were published by Scholastic in the early 90s -- but that is only part of why I read them so quickly. They are compelling and unexpectedly fascinating.
Welcome to Vietnam: Eighteen year old Michael Jennings is conscripted to fight in Vietnam -- and I really wanted to see him to find his feet, make friends and survive. I can relate to how much he cares about his dog, and his sense of humour makes him an entertaining character to spend time with, even though he’s been thrown into a terrible, terrifying situation. Even knowing what wars can be like, I was still surprised by conditions the soldiers faced. I was also surprised by how interesting I found it all. It left me thinking about a lot.
Hill 568: Michael has made some friends (and some enemies), he’s grown accustomed to some of the realities of life on the frontlines in Vietnam, and he takes on more responsibility. White’s characters are lively and, in spite of the situations they’re in, often humorous. That humour is a huge part of why this is an engaging story, like an antidote to the horrors of war, but it also serves to emphasise that all those horrible things are happening to a bunch of ordinary young men barely out of school. This book made me laugh, and made me worry about the characters.
‘Tis the Season: Twenty-one year old Lieutenant Rebecca Phillips is a nurse working in the ER of an evacuation hospital in Vietnam. Although already dealing with grief and difficult family relationships and a nightmarish workplace, she’s a bright, upbeat person who goes out of her way to entertain others. Self-appointed “Court Jester”. During the Christmas ceasefire she goes out on a medical helicopter -- and everything goes to hell. There are more medical details than I, a squeamish person, really prefer, but once I got to know Rebecca -- and also once her circumstances became tense and terrifying -- I was very, very invested.
Stand Down: This has some tense moments, but otherwise feels a bit lighter -- a welcome change of pace after everything the characters have been through. Michael spends a lot of time moping over correspondence (or lack thereof) from a nurse he’s met once -- but in context, that’s very understandable. He so desperately needs something positive and hopeful to focus on. I like that Michael’s and Rebecca’s initial interactions aren’t easy, because that feels realistic in the circumstances, and because it’s a positive sign that they’re able to get through awkward conversations; it sets them up to be honest with each other.
The Road Home: I stayed up stupidly late reading this, on a school night too. White is so good at writing about dealing with the aftermath of trauma, and about smart, difficult people making an effort to build relationships -- friendships as well as romances. This follows Rebecca’s final six months serving as a nurse in Vietnam, and the months afterwards. It’s about the things that get her through the war (letters, friendships, alcohol) and the difficulties of adjusting to life back home. I love how this book deals realistically but hopefully with so many things. I have a lot of feelings and favourite passages.
Applied Electromagnetism by Susannah Nix: Two colleagues who travel interstate to do a job with a deadline find themselves under extra pressure due to complications of bad weather. I liked all the references to Olivia and Adam’s nerdy interests, and I thought the discussions of Olivia’s ADHD and her experiences as a woman in STEM were interesting. Otherwise nothing jumped out at me as deserving of criticism or praise, it was all just okay. Less humorous than I expected from something book described as “romantic comedy”, but that was okay. (And maybe someone else would find it funny, humour is such a your-mileage-may-vary thing.)
The Tea Dragon Society by Katie O’Neill: I love the concept of tea dragons and a tea dragon society. And the dragons are really cute! But the way people’s expressions are drawn in this graphic novel didn’t quite appeal to me and I think that coloured how I felt about the book as a whole. And it’s not a very long story, so it doesn’t have so many opportunities to win over a reader who isn’t enamoured with the illustrations. I’m sorry, book, I’m sure there are other readers out there who will appreciate you!
Runaways: That Was Yesterday (volume 3) by Rainbow Rowell and Kris Anka with Matthew Wilson: Follows on from Find Your Way Home and Best Friends Forever and involves the reappearance of someone from the Runaways’ past, the appearance of children of old enemies and Christmas. I read three volumes of the original Runaways comics last year -- and this volume really left me feeling like maybe I’d appreciate it more if I’d read those more recently or else if I’d read more of them. Or maybe it was just that it focused a lot on a character I don’t like as much? But, I still liked it. I definitely would like to read more.
#Herenya reviews books#Sharon Shinn#Rainbow Rowell#Ellen Emerson White#Stephanie Burgis#Margaret Rogerson#Lucy Parker#Katherine Reay#Meg Cabot#Becky Chambers#Theodora Goss#Susannah Nix#Katie O'Neill#Finally posting this
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Book Review: Death by Dumpling, Viven Chien
Title: Death by Dumpling (A Noodle Shop Mystery #1).
Author: Vivien Chien.
Goodreads page.
Summary: Welcome to the Ho-Lee Noodle House, where the Chinese food is to die for. . .
The last place Lana Lee thought she would ever end up is back at her family’s restaurant. But after a brutal break-up and a dramatic workplace walk-out, she figures that helping wait tables is her best option for putting her life back together. Even if that means having to put up with her mother, who is dead-set on finding her a husband.
Lana’s love life soon becomes yesterday’s news once the restaurant’s property manager, Mr. Feng, turns up dead—after a delivery of shrimp dumplings from Ho-Lee. But how could this have happened when everyone on staff knew about Mr. Feng’s severe, life-threatening shellfish allergy? Now, with the whole restaurant under suspicion for murder and the local media in a feeding frenzy—to say nothing of the gorgeous police detective who keeps turning up for take-out—it’s up to Lana to find out who is behind Feng’s killer order. . . before her own number is up.
First of all, I'd like to thank @anassarhenisch for helping me discover this book through her Cozy Mysteries Recs Post. I wouldn't have discovered this otherwise!
And well, this sure was fun! Usually, when I read crime or mystery books they are more “serious” (Agatha Christie, Mary Higgins Clark, etc.), but here I smiled a lot and couldn't stop reading. It was such a page-turner, perfect to rest and just enjoy without thinking too much.
The plot is not super deep, but there was enough mystery to keep me intrigued and reading. I had some surprises, which I really appreciated, and overall the crime and its resolution were satisfying enough. No complaints here.
About the characters, I think they could've been better (with more personality and everything), but in general, they were okay. I'm not crazy about any of them, partially because they didn't really have defined personalities, but I liked them. Lana is a good enough main character, and she didn't grate on my nerves, so that's enough for me. (Also, I loved Adam Trudeau, both he and his name. Top notch.)
The narrative was very fast and easy to read, something I was thankful for. It's narrated in Lana's POV in first person, and while it's not my favourite, I have to admit that this way I could see and understand Lana's actions better.
Overall, this was a fun, easy, and cozy book I really enjoyed. It's perfect to take your mind off things and just relax!
The best part: Adam Trudeau. All of him. Also, the friendship between Lana and Megan.
The worst part: ...? Maybe Lana's mother, she was quite eye-roll inducing.
I rate this book 3'5/5, great!
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Altered Carbon review: spoilers!
So, I’m a little late to the ball on this one, but I just finished the first season of Netflix’s sci-fi drama, Altered Carbon, and honestly, the show was excellent!
Altered Carbon takes places in a future time where humanity has been able to cheat death by the use of “stacks,” an implantable brain, essentially, that allows people to switch between different bodies or “sleeves” if they are sick or murdered or bored. “Real death” is still possible, in the form of being attacked in the stack (kept at the base of your neck). The show follows Takeshi Kovacs, the last of a class of super soldiers called Envoys, who 250 years ago fought a losing rebellion against the concept of using stacks, as their charismatic leader Quellcrist Falconer believed that stacks would lead to a society where the rich and powerful would utterly rule the world, no longer even limited by death. Kovacs wakes up in a new sleeve after 250 years in a stack prision (on ice) and finds that not only has the world that Quell predicted has come true, but that he’s been bought by a “Meth” - a functional immortal as their wealth have allowed them to buy endless clones and back their selves up constantly - named Laurens Bancroft to solve his own murder, which occurred with a gun that only he and his wife had access to. Kovacs takes the job, and along his quest to solve the murder, he makes reluctant friends with a motley crew of characters including: the Elliot’s, a family whose murdered daughter was mentally damaged and needs repair, a mother in prision and a commando father, Lieutenant Kristen Ortega, a hot headed detective with a strong moral code whose framed boyfriend is the sleeve that Kovacs now inhabits, and Poe, an AI hotel with intense devotion to Kovacs as he is his only customer in almost 50 years.
Based on the trippiness of that plot synopsis, Altered Carbon is a show that wants to ask a lot of philosophical questions on the nature of the soul and life itself. In my opinion it manages to ask some of these: is it right to stay alive forever? What does it do to a person? What are we, as humans at our core? But ultimately, the show focuses heavier on Kovacs personally, and the Bancroft mystery, and I think that is the wiser story choice. Kovacs is played by Joel Kinnaman in the present and Will Yun Lee plays OG Kovacs (or his first body) in the past, and both actors do a great job with him. He truly feels like the same charcter in the three actors hands he’s played in (he’s also briefly played by Bryon Mann, as the sleeve he wears when he is killed the first time), and that character is of someone who had a very hard life and became devoted to a cause and wanted to do some good, and when that was taken from him he became bitter and sarcastic, but ultimately couldn’t help being someone who cared deeply about people.
The supporting cast are also all fantastic: Martha Higareda’s Kristen Ortega is a secondary protagonist, and she’s a fantastic character. Although she’s a ‘firey latina’ she never feels like a stereotype, and her agency throughout the story isn’t ever compromised for Kovacs. Their relationship - complicated by the fact that Kovacs is in the body of her mentally imprisoned lover - goes from enemies to allies to lovers to emotionally close in a seemless transition that was lovely to watch. Chris Conner’s Poe, the AI who controls the hotel that Kovacs stays at, is a breakout character. As an enitity that isn’t human, he brings an interesting viewpoint to a lot of the moral questions the show is asking...and is also just hilarious and charming. Renee Elise Goldsberry as the deceased Quell, and the love of Kovacs life is also a standout: she’s badass, wise, and watching Kovacs devotion to her is just heart rendering (literally once!).
So, in due fashion, let’s talk pros:
- The world building is really subtle and in depth. The opening scene ends with the realization that a child murdered in a drive by has been ‘sleeved’ into the body of a middle age woman and her parents feelings of furiousity and sadness at this are dismissed by a causal “if you want better than pay for it,” which may genuinely be the most chilling thing of the series and an great set piece for this strange new world. The married couple who sleeve duel, the role of religion in this new world and the VR torture are just a few examples of how the creators really took the time to make the world feel real, and explored the unique opportunities this premise gave
- Ortega and Kovacs evolving relationship is really the backbone of the show, and it’s super rewarding to watch them go through that journey. When Ortega is injured the first time and she calls Kovacs by her boyfriends name the pain just bleeds off him, and when he rescues her the second time and she then calls him by his name the look of shock on his face is a perfect evolution for them, and so well done.
- the action scenes are amazing: Kovacs and his sister fighting when they reunite, Ortega and Rei in the naked clone fight, Kovacs escaping the VR torture room and Lizzie rescuing them are just some standouts, but they’re all excellent scenes.
- Quell being the hallucination that haunts Kovacs is fitting, and it’s an interesting dynamic to see that translates well into the flashback episode where we actually get to see them alive. Quell herself is an amazing charcter, and the revelation that she was the woman who actually created stack technology and now regrets what she done to the world was a great aspect of her charcter that really justified her steadfast beliefs.
- Poe was just the greatest, and I don’t think I’ve cried so much at the death of an AI since Bayomax (and he came back, so I’m looking st you, Netflix!!)
-Samir - Ortega’s partner, and devote Muslim - was another fantastic understated charcter. His care for Ortega was real and genuine, and when he threatens Kovacs so simply that if he doesn’t care for him he’ll kill him, I couldn’t do anything but respect him. His death in diving in front of a shot meant to kill Ortega, sacrificing himself as he was shot in the stack (real death), was heartbreaking but so fitting for his character.
- the mystery itself was very good. It was hinted well throughout the series, and even Lizzie’s part in the final answer got past me, which tv mysteries don’t usually. It was a satisfying reveal and it was very well integrated through the stories of all of the main characters.
Now, some cons:
- Dichen Lachman’s Reileen Kawahara was amazing, but she could have done with more screen time. Rei was an incredibly important character, as she was both Kovacs sister, an Envoy who had betrayed them to the government and become a monstrous ‘titan of industry’ and a Meth, as well as the one who had facilitated the whole scheme that had set off the plot. She had so much interesting story to tell: that she clearly loved her brother but that she loved him in a way that was possessive and unhealthy, not satisifed with being his first love but desiring to be rather his only, and reacting violently to both Ortega and Quell who had places in his heart. She was clearly a skilled fighter, a devious and ruthless schemer, getting leverage first on Miriam Bancroft, the using that leverage to get what she needed from Laurens, and then further using that to get her brother released.
With all that said, she doesn’t get the screetime she deserved in my opinion. As an adult, she introduced only in a hallucination in the first episode, and then she shows up in the present and saves them, and then the next episode is the flashback heavy episode where, at the end of it, Kovacs realizes she must have sold them out and effectively killed Quell. This revelation should have, in my opinion, been drawn out over at least 2 episodes: have Kovacs and his sister be very close in this new world and have him slowly and carefully notice things about her, like her world view and her work that would lead him to the betrayal revelation. I feel like that would up the emotion when it does happen, and also give Reileen’s charcter some more time to flesh out some of the interesting things the gloss over with her, like her beliefs on life and her resentment towards her brother for letting her be sold to the Yakuza. She’s a great charcter, but given her integral role in the plot, I’d loved to have more time with her before she went full villain to explore her.
- The ending. The ending seemed a little...too neat for this show. I’m all for Ortega getting her boyfriend back, so long as she’s a charcter in the second season who has to deal with the emotions of loving Riker but also Kovacs. I feel the same way about Quell being alive in a stack somewhere: it seems to me that it makes sense that Rei might have saved her out of spite, hoping one day to have torture equipment strong enough to contain her so she could punish her for “stealing” her brother, but I want that resolution to be messy. Quell very explicitly didn’t want to be saved in a backup, and I want her to be really upset if Kovacs brings her back, and ready to wreck this new society. The Elliots getting their family back was genuinely sweet, but again, it was just all so neat, and for a show that was fun because it was a little messy, it just rode that line.
- Bancroft being drugged into murdering someone. Bancroft, and his wife’s narrative function in the story were clearly to ask the audience: what do we, and life, become when death is taken out of the equation? Bancroft literally asks this of his wife at the end, and while it’s true for Miriam, who killed Lizzie in a jealous rage over her being pregnant, it’s less applicable for Bancroft. Yes, he liked to choke out and possibility “sleeve death” girls, but he always bought them new sleeves, and held himself to the line of “I will not murder.” He goes over that line only when he’s drugged with an incredibly potent aggression increaser, and I think that weakens his story point. Bancroft as a cautionary tale would have been more effective if he’d just been pissed at his son and then killed that girl in a natural violent rage, because then it would have been a true trespass of his moral code.
Mostly, Altered Carbon is a show with a distinctive aesthetic and a great mystery, complimented by charcters that are interesting and well acted. If you’ve got any passing interesting in sci-fi, then certainly give it a watch!
#altered carbon#kristen ortega#joel kinnaman#martha higareda#laurens bancroft#miriam bancroft#takeshi kovacs#reileen kawahara#quellcrist falconer#renee elise goldsberry#netflix#chris conner#poe#cyberpunk#dichen lachman#spoilers
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Sunday reading recap (18-Jun-2017)
Moonbreaker (Secret Histories #11, Simon R. Green) - so I’m really glad I ended up reading #10 & #11 back-to-back because #10 ended on a cliffhanger, with Eddie still dying AND trapped in another dimension. This saw the resolution of that whole arc, and the set up the final book, where the Droods go to war with the Nightside. The author basically wrapped the Nightside books several years ago, but we knew John Taylor was still kicking around. I really like that he’s going to cross over both universes so solidly, not just brief mentions & cameo appearances, and end things so decisively for both.
Knit Quick (Portland Heat #4.1, Annabeth Albert) - a short story glimpse at the post-HEA for the MCs from Knit Tight. Like all this series, it’s soft & sweet & sexy & satisfying.
Homecoming (Out of Uniform #1.5, Annabeth Albert) - cute little short about Zack & Pike’s first reunion after deployment after getting together in the first book. Very tiny bit of angst, just sweetness & romance.
On Point (Out of Uniform #3, Annabeth Albert) - c’mon, it’s SEALs doing a friends-to-lovers, what’s not to love
Feral Dust Bunnies (Offbeat Crimes #4, Angel Martinez) - I love this series so hard. This one features an adorable kitten named Audacity, who witnessed a terrible (and of course weird) crime. I love that we found out more about the cop team of Wolf (who used to be a wolf and then suddenly was a 10-yr-old boy) and Krisk (a lizard man, who I still want to know more about!)
Open Road (Garret Groves) - short, May/December; it’s never, never too late to make a change to make yourself happy
Heart Unseen (Andrew Grey) - good story, always here for diverse MCs
A Cock In The Window (A Kit Stone Mystery, Sue Brown) - [tw: discussion/recollection of child rape] NGL I absolutely read this because the title & cover made me laugh out loud but this was not really a lighthearted book. I was also on board because I like the author; she generally turns out an entertaining story with not too much angst. It does start out that way - the meet cute is because an ex gay porn star recognized a likeness of his own cock in the shop window and then it was sorta love at first sight. And then the murders began. I wasn’t really surprised by the grim darkness of the motive for the murders, because I have been well trained after decades of British cozy mysteries to know that there is always a super-seamy dark underbelly to all small villages. And in the end the decades-long pedophile ‘club’ that pretty much all the older men in town belonged to was exposed to the light. But the epilogue really ruined the whole thing because the MC just went back to being friends with all these older townspeople who knew about the child rapists but had kept quiet and surrendered the town’s kids to it for the sake of the town’s reputation? LIKE WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK? I mean, I can sorta see continuing to live in a town where everyone is pissed that you exposed the town’s sins to the world as a fuck you, but I cannot with this child rape apologist forgiveness. And I was really pissed because otherwise it was a decently good read (if obviously a bit dark) but it was kinda ruined in about 10 final lines of text.
Draakenwood (Whyborne & Griffin #9, Jordan L Hawk) - after the rage induced by the ending of the previous book, I wanted something I knew I was going to love love love. Plus, the author is hosting a live chat about the book today & I wanted to participate in that. And it delivered everything I wanted! Questionable alliances! An army of librarians armed with dictionaries! Channeling the power of a semi-sentient vortex of magical energy! Whyborne was so brave, he used the telephone TWICE!!!!! And shit’s getting really real in anticipation of the showdown with the eldritch horrors from the Outside. A+++ excellent addition to a great series.
Fav book this week: Draakenwood obviously, because you know, favorite series, favorite author. But honorable mention goes to Feral Dust Bunnies too.
#andrew grey#angel martinez#annabeth albert#draakenwood#jordan l hawk#offbeat crimes series#out of uniform series#portland heat series#secret histories#simon r green#sue brown#sunday reading recap#the nightside#whyborne & griffin#bookgeekgrrl's reading habits
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My Week in Manga: April 10-April 16, 2017
My News and Reviews
Last week at Experiments in Manga was relatively quiet, but I did post the Bookshelf Overload for March. As mentioned in that post (and I think sometime prior to that as well), I’m currently in the process of changing jobs, so I’ve been a bit preoccupied to say the least. (If you follow me on Twitter, this largely explains my sporadic appearances there.) This week is my last week in my current position, so I’m understandably pretty busy with meetings and tying up loose ends and such. I still plan on finishing up and posting my review of the first volume of Nagabe’s The Girl from the Other Side sometime this week, but it will probably be towards the end.
Over the last week, Seven sees announced a couple more new licenses: Yoshikazu Takeuchi’s Perfect Blue novels (which were the basis for Satoshi Kon’s anime film of the same name) as well as Jin and Sayuki’s manga series Nirvana. Yen Press also had a slew of announcements: Natsume Ono’s ACCA 13 (probably the one I’m most excited about), Kudan Naduka and Nakoto Sanada’s Angel of Slaughter, Matoba’s As Miss Beelzebub Likes, Rihito Takarai’s Graineliers, Afro’s Laid-Back Camp?, Mufirushi Shimazaki’s The Monster Tamer Girls, Koromo’s A Polar Bear in Love, Matcha Hazuki’s One Week Friends, Fuse’s Regarding Reincarnating as Slime light novel (Kodansha Comics has licensed the manga), both the light novel and manga of Carlo Zen’s The Saga of Evil Tanya, Okina Baba’s light novel So I’m a Spider, So What?, Keiichi Shigusawa and Tadadi Tamori’s Sword Art Online: Alternative Gun Gale Online, Abec’s Sword Art Online Artworks artbook, Reki Kawahara and Shii Kiya’s Sword Art Online: Calibur, Mai Tanaka’s Terrified Teacher at Ghoul School, Kakashi Oniyazu’s Though You May Burn to Ash, and Ryousuke Asakura’s Val X Love.
As for crowdfunding efforts, Digital Manga will be launching its most recent Juné Kickstarter sometime later today in an effort to publish print editions of some of Psyche Delico’s manga which were previously only released digitally. (This is in addition to recently announced print licenses of Psyche Delico’s Even a Dog Won’t Eat It and Choco Strawberry Vanilla.) Another Kickstarter project to keep an eye on is Retrofit Comic’s Spring 2017 collection which includes Yuichi Yokoyama’s Iceland. (In general Retrofit Comics releases some great books, but this will be the publisher’s first manga to be translated.) Finally, the wonderful people behind Queer Japan are currently raising funds for the film’s post-production as well as some of the non-profit organizations featured in the documentary.
Quick Takes
Dawn of the Arcana, Volumes 7-13 by Rei Toma. I enjoyed the first part of Dawn of the Arcana a great deal and so was looking forward to reading the rest of the series. As the manga progresses it becomes less reliant on the standard fantasy tropes that form its base, although it never escapes them entirely. However, even considering this, Dawn of the Arcana is still a satisfying and enjoyable series. The story’s most dramatic plot twist I guessed at long before it was actually revealed, but there were still developments and directions that the story took that managed to surprise me. At times it felt like Dawn of the Arcana was only scratching the surface, as if the manga was only providing a summary version of a much more complicated narrative. The characters and story have depth to them, but not everything is thoroughly and completely explored, much of the more nuanced interpretations being left to the readers to form. I really liked Dawn of the Arcana. It can be heartbreaking–the characters’ struggling with circumstances that have no easy resolutions–but also thrilling as they find ways to take control of their own fates.
Murciélago, Volume 1 by Yoshimurakana. I was forewarned about the violence, gore, and otherwise explicit nature of Murciélago, so I was well aware of what I was getting myself into by picking up the manga. Murciélago is ridiculous, absurd, extreme, over-the-top, and a great deal of fun if someone doesn’t have a problem with the series’ aforementioned blood and brutality. Interestingly, the risqué lesbian sex scenes which both open and close the first volume, while being deliberately lewd, scandalous, and outrageous are also entirely consensual and in a way are bizarrely one of the more wholesome aspects of the manga. The lead of Murciélago is Kuroko Koumori, a dangerous, murderous, and lecherous woman who has been sentenced to death for her crimes. Kuroko is a monster and is portrayed as such. (She’s an awful person, but I really like her as a character.) The only reason that she’s still alive is that the police have indefinitely postponed her execution in order to take advantage of her impressive skills as an assassin. So, yeah, Murciélago definitely isn’t a series for everyone, but I certainly plan on reading more of it.
Triton of the Sea, Omnibus 2 (equivalent to Volumes 3-4) by Osamu Tezuka. It has been a very long time since I read the first half of Triton of the Sea. So long ago in fact that I had forgot that I hadn’t actually finished the series yet. Fortunately, the manga was pretty easy to pick up again. I seem to like Triton of the Sea best when the story centers its focus on family. In the first omnibus, it was Triton’s relationships with his human family that really captured my attention and in the second it was his experiences as a new father that most delighted me. (It probably didn’t hurt that the baby merfolk were super cute.) Triton of the Sea is also a story of revenge. Triton is determined destroy the Poseidon clan for the sake of his people who have been nearly driven to extinction, his desire for retribution blinding him from seeing other courses of action that might allow the two clans to establish a lasting peace. This of course only serves to continue the cycle of violence that puts him and his loved ones in danger. Triton of the Sea isn’t Tezuka’s strongest or most notable work, but I did appreciate the themes that Tezuka was exploring with the series.
Wandering Island, Volume 1 by Kenji Tsuruta. The premise of Wandering Island is fairly simple: Mikura Amelia is a pilot for an air delivery service based in the Izu Islands that she and her grandfather established together. When he unexpectedly passes away, she understandably takes it pretty hard. While in mourning she discovers package among her grandfather’s belongings with an address on it that shouldn’t exist, leading Mikura to become obsessed with a search for a mysterious, disappearing island. Although there are some wonderful scenes of Mikura in flight, there’s not really much action in Wandering Island. Instead, the manga is rather leisurely paced with a contemplative and melancholic feel to it. Wandering Island is also beautifully illustrated, Tsuruta’s artwork being one of the series’ highlights. I love how Tsuruta is able to capture a sense of place and the people who live there. I’m not sure when or if the second volume of Wandering Island will be published in English (the Japanese edition itself isn’t even scheduled to be released until next month), but I would definitely like to see it translated.
Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure: A Tale That Begins with Fukushima by Hideo Furukawa. Fukushima has been on my mind lately which reminded me of the fact that I had yet to read Furukawa’s Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure, one of the first major literary responses to the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disasters associated with March 11, 2011. The work is rather curious, but it’s also worthwhile and powerful. In part it’s a sequel of sorts to Furukawa’s novel Seikazoku (The Holy Family), which hasn’t actually been released in English. However, familiarity with that earlier work isn’t at all necessary. Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure also delves into the history of Fukushima as a whole, both before and after 2011. But perhaps most importantly, it’s an incredibly personal memoir. Though he was away at the time, Furukawa was originally from Fukushima. Soon after the disasters struck, he traveled back to the area in order to witness the aftermath of the events himself. A fair amount of the volume is devoted to Furukawa’s profound experiences while on that trip, combining fiction, history, and biography in a compelling way.
By: Ash Brown
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just watched the pilot episode of Columbo, because I heard that show holds up. it most certainly does, and in a funny retrospective kinda way, it was enjoyable by contrast to my favorite crime mystery show, NBC’s Hannibal.
The one thing that Hannibal doesn’t have much of, is down-to-earth characters. It’s basically just Jack and Bella, and honestly at times their scenes are kind of jarring from being surrounded by so much screentime spent on twisted geniuses playing mindgames with each other through super impractical art murder.
so i’m actually captivated by the stories of a detective who, rather than having a borderline preternatural investigative ability, just happens to be great at deductive reasoning and trolling the hell out of his suspects. comparatively, it’s unspectacular, and it’s been noted that Columbo was the first (or one of the first) show where the entire crime is laid out for the viewer in the beginning, and it’s all about Columbo putting the pieces together.
and that’s really a welcome change of pace in our post-Lost landscape, where hurling moist clumps of enigma at the audience with no real end goal in mind but still constantly promising satisfying resolutions started to become the norm.
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Sonic Review of 2017 (so far):
I listen to a lot of stuff. I devour audio content. Be it new music, podcasts, radio, bird song. Quality is the only prerequisite. I have been meaning to start commenting on what I listen to and so David requesting that I submit something in print has been the stimulus to sit down and collate. The idea for future weeks is to present audio highlights on a week-to-week basis, but this submission is a summation of the best bits of sound so far this year. I’ll be covering the podcasts and radio programmes, the albums and individual tracks, and the live shows that I have made an impression on me so far this year.
So here goes. The descriptions will be fairly brief this time around, as I’m going to cover six whole months, but here’s what I have enjoyed sonically so far in 2017, starting with my favourite albums so far this year:
There are 11 here; these are albums that have made an impression on me and that I have continued to listen to. I’ll say a few words about what to expect from each them, as well as a little bit about why I have chosen them:
San Fermin; Belong
My favourite. From soup to nuts, a consistently wondrous collection of tunes that hop from genre to genre effortlessly. Beautifully arranged and performed.
Highlight: the emotional-charged title track, Belong.
Fleet Foxes; Crack Up
New music from Fleet Foxes that’s not a minute too soon. Essentially, it is more of the same acoustic sound and the divine close harmonies we have come to expect from the Seattleites. There is definitely more chances taken in the way the album is produced, so there is enough to distinguish this album from their others. Gorgeous.
Highlight: Third Of May/Odaigahara
Cigarettes After Sex; Cigarettes After Sex
This album travels at it’s own glacial pace. Majestic, with definite nods to New Order.
Highlight: Apocalypse. No K. No Apocalypse. No K.
Roger Waters; Is This The Life We Want
Not being the most ardent fan of Pink Floyd, I hadn’t been in too much of a hurry to listen to this album. But I am so glad to have got round to it. Roge ain’t happy with how things are just now, and he’s going to tell you about it. I was just as riled by the end. It’s also an old-fashioned album in the sense that this tells a story with each tune morphing into the next.
Highlight: Picture That
Kendrick Lamar; DAMN.
Goodness. Where do you start? After I had seen Old Country For Old Men, my immediate impression was that I knew it was brilliant, but I wasn’t sure how I’ll be able to prepare myself to see it again. I had exactly that same thought after listening to this utterly overwhelming piece of documentary. Mesmerising.
Highlight: DUCKWORTH.
Public Service Broadcasting; Every Valley
Continuing with their M.O. of sampling old public information announcements; this time focusing on the fate of the Welsh Coal mining industry. This may not sound too exciting or indeed, to some, even interesting, but somehow, again they are able to tug at the heart strings with tape recordings, empty spaces and fine musicianship.
Highlight: Progress
Father John Misty; Pure Comedy
Lyrics so dry, I was on a drip by the end.
Highlight: Total Entertainment Forever
Com Truise; Iteration
The slightly 80s-tinged instrumental EDM is making a bit of a comeback following the Stranger Things soundtrack. this is some of the best electronica so far this year.
Highlight: Memory
London Grammar; Truth Is A Beautiful Thing
The vocals are the main event here, ably supported by the stark production surrounding them.
Highlight: Routing For You
Run The Jewels; Run The Jewels 3
Certainly gets the heart pumping. Lyrically charged ebullience.
Highlight: Legend Has It
The xx; I See You
Somewhere between the minimalist production of The xx’s previous releases and the more poppy output of Jamie xx, this album offers very judiciously-deployed samples of Hall & Oates and stonking vocal performances.
Highlight: On Hold
-o-
One of my favourite things to do is to collate new tracks that I hear from my various sources into quarterly playlists on Spotify. I am phutch1977 on Spotify so feel free to follow. Below is a link to what individual tracks I have enjoyed between January 1 and June 30 this year. I’m going to pick out a couple of my favourites:
https://open.spotify.com/user/phutch1977/playlist/4HDLGq11dknFaTLwBIJQ2v
UNKLE (feat. Mark Lanegan and ESKA); Looking For The Rain
Thumping beats with swooping orchestrations and one of my favourite baritones. Ticks a great many boxes for me does that.
Young Fathers; Only God Knows
Off the new T2: Trainspotting soundtrack, which incidentally is a thoroughly captivating watch, it highlights the changing of the guard of what is current within the British music scene. See also, Slow Slippy, Underworld’s remix of their classic, Born Slippy, that became so synonymous with the first movie.
The War On Drugs; Holding On
An exciting amuse-bouche for what is to come from their new album released later this year. Sounds like more of the same, which gets two thumbs up from this reviewer.
-o-
These are the podcast that I have gone back to consistently and those that I look forward have a new episode showing up each week:
Revisionist History; http://revisionisthistory.com/
This is the second series of Malcolm Gladwell’s attempt to revisit and/or reinterpret an event, a person or an idea from the past that he feels has been overlooked or misunderstood. At time of writing, there are 4 episodes of the new series available, but so far he has covered topics as diverse as terrorism, civil rights and rich folks addiction to golf. I like how he picks out something relatable to the present day. The first series is also worth digging out.
S-Town; https://stownpodcast.org/
This is produced by the same team that created the Serial podcast. I didn’t actually fully embrace Serial, however this series did I great job of hooking me in. The focus of S-Town shifts continuously throughout the series, and just when you think it has run out of puff, there is a new revelation that makes you do whatever the equivalent of page-turning is with a podcast. All of the episodes were released at the same time, so you could genuinely binge-listen to this story. Brilliantly put together and extremely poignant right now, S-Town is fantastic.
30 for 30 Podcasts; https://30for30podcasts.com/
Short and sweet. If you’ve seen the supreme sports documentaries on ESPN, well now there are some for your ears.
The Political Party with Matt Forde; https://soundcloud.com/thepoliticalparty
I have a bit of a crush on Matt Forde. In this podcast, he does a few minutes of super-topical (and super-funny, which doesn’t always happen concurrently) stand-up and then interviews a prominent political figure from either side of the aisle. Matt Forde, a stand-up by trade, is able to really humanise his guests with his very disarming style and focus on a side of their personality that doesn’t usually shine through in more formal interviews. He even managed to show that even William Hague is a right craic. Really good fun.
Special mentions:
The Adam Buxton Podcast; https://soundcloud.com/adam-buxton (especially The Steve Coogan episode)
Song Exploder; http://songexploder.net/ (especially the Fleet Foxes episode)
This next section are still podcasts but are based on actual live radio shows:
James O’Brien’s Mystery Hour; http://lbc.audioagain.com/presenters/6-james-obrien/368-the-mystery-hour-free
This is the pure sharing of knowledge. It’s the audio equivalent of when you used to have to write into a newspaper, before Google, if you had a question you wanted the answer to, and wait two weeks for it to be answered. This show rewards and celebrates acquired knowledge. The minutiae of life attempted to be explained.
Russell Brand on Radio X Podcast; http://www.radiox.co.uk/radio/podcasts/download-the-russell-brand-on-radio-x-podcast/
Russell Brand reminds me so much of Peter Cook. Previous forays into cinema might show that it may not his medium, but radio may very well be. He is just allowed to explode for a couple of hours on a Sunday, riffing on everything and nothing. Sublime stuff.
Johnny Vaughn on Radio X Podcast; http://www.radiox.co.uk/radio/johnny-vaughan/highlights/download-johnny-vaughan-on-radio-x-podcast/
Again, Johnny Vaughn is just so good on the wireless. Lightning quick. And there is a more sport-focussed show at the weekends called The Kickabout which is also hilarious.
Loose Ends; http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qjym/episodes/downloads
So happy that the BBC made the decision to start podcasting this live show with its wide ranging guests from film, stage, literature, comedy and all parts in between with excellent musical guests who perform live in the studio. Everyone is encouraged to contribute and interject throughout the show, even if the focus isn’t particularly on them at that time. Clive Anderson is the perfect host for this kind of format.
Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 Podcast; http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02pc9pj/episodes/downloads (especially the Dead Ringers episodes; not so much The Now Show)
A lot of the time, the comedy writing doesn’t match the performances when it comes to impressionist shows. For Dead Ringers, they are definitely on a par with each other. Highlights are Jeremy Vine and Andrew Neill’s exasperated utterances of “Diane Abbott..?!?!”
All Songs Considered Podcast; http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510019/all-songs-considered
Bob Boilen has my job. That is all. Great new music in a handy hour-long package.
-o-
And finally… I have been lucky enough to get to see a good number of live shows so far this year. Here are a few of my highlights:
Kate Tempest @ The Casbah
She performed her second album, Let Them Eat Chaos, in its entirety, from track #1 to track #last. Performed from the heart, you could hear a PBR tallboy drop such was the respect for performance. Amazing. Amazing.
San Fermin @ The Casbah
The sound created by this very talented bunch will live long in the memory. They simply crushed it. And there is a horn section. Even the sax solo was well done. Highly recommended.
Timber Timbre @ Soda Bar
Obviously there to push their new album, Sincerely Future Pollution, but I would have liked for them to have played more off their eponymous first album. Lively, intimate show.
Blossoms @ The Casbah
Stockport’s own. I felt very old watching these fresh-faced whippersnappers. Great set and went down a storm.
I’m excited that I have more shows lined up for the rest of the year. Public Service Broadcasting play the Soda Bar. I’ve managed to secure a ticket to see Fleet Foxes at The Observatory in September, as well as an outdoor show with Future Islands & Explosions In The Sky on the same bill. And the great Elbow are in SoCal in November, so I’m going to see them in Santa Ana. All very thrilling.
-o-
Hope you find something interesting out of all this. Going forward, this will be hopefully a little more concise, listing a few highlights of what I’ve enjoyed listening to week by week. I’d also be very interested in your own suggestions, be that podcasts, radio shows, albums, tracks or live performances.
open.spotify.com/user/phutch1977/
twitter.com/IntoABrownStudy
tumblr.com/IntoABrownStudy
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