#10 most anticipated anime of 2023

[kingofooo]

standee design by writer/storyboard artist Hanna K. Nyström

design cleanup by color supervisor Carolyn Ramirez

ADVENTURE TIME at SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON 2023!

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WARNER BROS. TELEVISION SCREENINGS

WEDNESDAY, JULY 19th at 6:00pm – 9:30pm

Ballroom 20

Comic-Con and Warner Bros. Television proudly continue our annual Preview Night tradition featuring the world premiere of the highly anticipated series Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake, alongside all-new episodes of Riverdale and Teen Titans Go!, and screenings of Mrs. Davis and Superpowered: The DC Story.

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MAX ORIGINAL ANIMATION

THURSDAY, JULY 20th at 11:00am – 12:30pm

Ballroom 20

Max Original Animation celebrates new and returning animated series' including an expansion in the Adventure Time universe, Adventure Time: Fionna & Cake; a new animated series, Young Love, based on the characters from Matthew A. Cherry and Sony Pictures Animation’s Oscar-winning animated short, Hair Love; and a preview of the upcoming fourth season for the fan-favorite Harley Quinn. The panel will feature exclusive sneak peeks, surprise panelists, and more. Moderated by Damian Holbrook (TV Guide magazine).

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SUPERSONIC: The 15th Annual Behind-The-Music Panel

THURSDAY, JULY 20th at 10:00am – 11:00am

Room 25ABC

Get a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into creating the scores and sounds to some of today's most popular TV series and films. Panelists include Phil McGowan (score mixer, Star Trek: Picard), Amanda Jones (composer, American Horror Stories, ADVENTURE TIME: FIONNA & CAKE), Chris Bacon (composer, Wednesday), Sherri Chung (composer, Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai), Kurt Farquhar (composer, The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder), and Michael Yezerski (composer, Cabinet of Curiosities).

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[gizkasparadise]

2023 wrapped: cdrama edition!

taking a page from @dangermousie and doing an overview of all the cdramas i watched this year (i'll do one for kdramas later)! listed in order of least favorite to most favorite. favorite =/= objectively best/most well-made. just the ones i had the most fun watching.

15 have a crush on you. oh dear lord. this drama should be a case study for what happens when a bad drama has charismatic actors and they keep you trapped hostage. i watched this whole damn thing hating every minute of it on behalf of the poor female lead who definitely deserved better. the ending? absolutely batshit, and not in a fun way. one of the weirdest, worst endings ive seen since with you

14 back from the brink. too kitschy for me, i didn't last long on this one (i think 2 eps lol).

13 gone with the rain. i wanted to like this one because i love sean sun and troll general is exactly what i want out of life. but i didn't like the weird daydream asides, constant animal noise sound effects, and i found everyone kind of off-putting in a non-watchable way, so i peaced out really quick--ep 4ish

12 here we meet again. i love janice wu. i continue to try out her dramas hoping for something to grab me again. this one was pretty boring/too focused on the work element and not the rest of it.

11 exclusive fairytale. i have a secret weakness for youth-to-working-life dramas, so tried this one out. flat, not a lot of chemistry, and very color-by-numbers. the show was clearly made to vehicle jun, and that's okay, but not my thing

10 the starry love. i wanted to like this one because the side characters were fun and i loved the male lead/prince of heaven and all his awkward "please leave by 9" energy. but it bored me overall and unlike most folks i had no interest in the demon secondary ship. i dropped around ep 10

9 my journey to you. it kills me to rank this one so low because it was my most anticipated cdrama this year, but i just couldn't get into it. the pacing was too slow for me, and i couldn't stand how everyone talked to each other (long. pauses. and then. staring. and then. whispers. always the. whispers). i dropped this around midway

8 the love you give me. the chemistry between the leads was cute and it was a decent modern romance. started losing me around the midpoint when the paternity reveal hit and the ML got way into boundary crossing because of it

7 circle of love. objectively not a good drama. in fact, a toxic and batshit drama that has probably made me a worse person for watching it. but gd did my messy ass enjoy the trainwreck.

6 road home. you really got to be in the mood for this one, but it's a nice, understated and slow melo romance. but def not a bingeable show since it takes its time with everything

5 wonderland of love. another drama that i dont think is objectively great, but two competent schemers/martial artists trying to one-up each other is like ship catnip for me and this was a show that lived or died by its ship. surprisingly tame for the screenwriter, and had a happy ending! popcorn watch.

4 till the end of the moon. me and this drama were in a bad romance, which i suppose is thematically appropriate. i hated parts of it, i was super invested in others. the post-dream human arc was giving wuthering heights tragic obsession incredibleness. even with its flaws, i think most of cdramaland is in agreement that lyx/tantai jin stole the ML competition this year. great gowns, beautiful gowns

3 story of kunning palace. i adored the characters in this drama! even when the plot was losing my interest, everyone was cast so well and had so much charisma that i stayed pretty hooked from ep 10ish on. absolutely loved the mean high school theatre director wreck that was xie wei, as well as the other (imo) true love interest of the show, princess leyang. the desperate speech about being like iron is gonna live rent-free in my head

& then 1&2 are way ahead of the others for me this year/a very close race between them!

2 a journey to love. i love this drama so much!!! i have not skipped or speed watched a single scene which for me is a huge feat! great character work across the board -- even the side characters have a lot of nuance and interesting dynamics between them. beautiful fight scenes. great ost. one of the best, most balanced main couples ive seen in a show. it's gonna break my heart in a few eps when it ends, but i'll be happy about it

1 lost you forever (s1). this drama came out of NOWHERE and the vicegrip it had on me while it was airing!!! my favorite FL this year (although a journey to love's ruyi is a close second), and just a ton of fun while also being quietly devastating in parts. i loved how lived in and tired the FL felt, enjoyed the various flavors of mess from her love interests, and enjoyed how extra it could go while still giving us really grounded and complicated characters. this drama gets extra points for converting me on several actors i did not think that highly of before the show.

overall, despite how many i dropped (lol writing it out made me realize i dropped so, so many), cdramas delivered for me this year! my top two are on my short list for favorite dramas, period. everyone go watch a journey to love and lost you forever if you havent yet!!!

AWARDS

Favorite ship: definitely goes to ruyi and yuanzhou from a journey to love. it's just nice to see a couple that mutually supports each other's murders

Favorite FL: xiaoyao from lost you forever with ruyi from journey to love as a very close runner-up. i am here for this year's theme of competent, jaded ladies trying to reclaim their lives

Favorite ML: objectively, tantai jin from till the end of the moon should win this, but story of kunning palace's xie wei was just so entertainingly grumpy, petty, and unhinged which is a winning combo for me.

Favorite 2FL: princess yang ying from a journey to love. she's doing amazing and im proud of her!!

Favorite 2ML: technically third male lead, but xiang liu from lost you forever was my favorite to watch and had the best tuxedo mask exits

Best Cast: a journey to love, i literally adore all of them, even the ones i hate

Best Blood Cough: tantai jin, you beautiful bastard who needs a bib

[artfightdramaconfessions]

I just went through and watches the old theme reveal animations for fun, so here's my useless little opinions on all of them, lol.

2018 - 5/10 Starts out with a long black screen for some reason. I wouldn't really call this an animation. It's just a slideshow of some art. Cute to see where things kind of began with these.

2019 - 10/10 The best quality as far as animation & art go. Very nice little intro screen with a wonderful transition to the animation. The correlation to the theme was a little more subtle than the ones going forward, but I kind of like that.

2020 - 6/10 This one has an odd paper-cutout style that I don't really enjoy looking at. It feels very rushed, especially compared to 2019. The backgrounds also have a clear drop in quality. Similar loose theming to 2019.

2021 - 3/10 This one throbs. I don't like that it throbs. Weird harsh lighting. Very heavy theming. Backgrounds have a further drop in quality.

2022 - 5/10 THIS ONE THROBS TOO but the animation quality is back up a bit. Still some weird lighting and minimal attention to detail with backgrounds, and the whole thing is only like 38 seconds worth of animation.

2023 - 7/10 IT'S STILL THROBBING!! Animation quality is fine. Theming is heavier than it has ever been. There are only about 30 seconds of animation this time.

This year, I anticipate 20-25 seconds of the most throbbing animation possible. Godspeed, Axel.

.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Noah Berlatsky at Public Notice:

Donald Trump has repeatedly promised that if he returns to the White House, he will deport every undocumented person in the US. Most experts say that would be 11 million people, but Trump has insisted that the number is closed to 18 million or even 30 million. Trump’s provided few details about how he would go about accomplishing such a massive forced relocation program, though he’s suggested he would deputize local police, call in the National Guard, and perhaps use the military. He’s also said, with some relish, that “getting them out will be a bloody story.” This past weekend, Trump turned his violent and dehumanizing rhetoric up to 11, proclaiming during an event in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, that migrants “will walk into your kitchen, they’ll cut your throat.”

“These people are animals,” Trump said, vowing that "I will liberate Wisconsin from this mass migrant invasion of murderers, rapists, hoodlums, drug dealers, thugs, and vicious gang members. We're going to liberate our country." This Trumpian dystopia bears no resemblance to reality. Trump went as far as to claim that “hundreds of little cities and little towns" in the Midwest are being "occupied" by migrants with "MK-47s." As untethered from reality as he is, Trump is deadly serious about attempting deportation on an unprecedented scale. Even making an attempt to round up that many people would lead to horrific suffering and the weaponizing of state terror against immigrants, Latinos, Black people, and Trump’s partisan enemies. In short, Trump is calling for a massive military operation that seems designed to lead to economic misery, concentration camps, and mass death.

Mass deportation would be massively expensive

Experts are skeptical that Trump could enact his terrifying deportation agenda in part because to do so would require vast amounts of money. The funds would have to come from Congress, and even far right legislators are likely to balk at the cost. In 2023, ICE deported 142,580 people with a budget of $420 million. Trump wants to deport at minimum 10 million individuals; proportionally, that would cost about $30 billion.

There would be huge additional costs as well. ICE currently spends some $2.4 billion a year on 41,500 detainee beds. Trump is calling for more than 10 times as much deportation; the cost for warehousing immigrants could also be tens of billions of dollars. Even that’s only scratching the surface of the cost. Immigrants contribute to the economy by paying taxes, performing needed jobs, and providing income for households that include US citizens. Undocumented people paid $96.7 billion in taxes in 2022; that’s all money that would be lost if Trump got his wish. In addition, the Center for Migration studies estimates that if a third of US citizen children of undocumented immigrants remain in the US after their parents are deported, the state would end up spending $118 billion to care for them. GDP could contract 1.4 percent in the first year. Losses could total $4.7 trillion over a decade.

As the Washington Monthly argues, deporting 11 million immigrants would cause a national labor contraction and recession; there could be 968,000 job losses for American citizens. National wage and salary income could fall by $317.2 billion. Total deportation costs could be $265 billion. In short, it’s impossible to fully anticipate or predict the cost of such a huge, wasteful, ill-considered program. But Trump’s deportation nightmare is likely to make the country poorer by trillions of dollars. Recession, contraction, and economic misery will afflict the US for years, and possibly decades.

Mass deportation will lead to mass human rights abuses

Analysts have struggled to quantify and describe the human rights implications of Trump’s deportation strategy. A militarized force going door to door throughout the country with sweeping powers to arrest anyone they deem suspicious is obviously going to lead to monstrous abuses.

Trump has also said that he would be open to creating mass concentration camps at the border to warehouse undocumented people. He’s claimed these camps would be temporary since he plans to deport people quickly — but it’s easy to imagine hundreds of thousands of people housed in “temporary” facilities without adequate food or water, subject to rampant disease and violence from guards. There are at least some historical blueprints that can give us a sense of how dangerous and vicious a mass deportation program could be. Trump has repeatedly touted the Eisenhower-era Operation Wetback, named for a racist slur, as an inspiration for his policy. The operation was conducted by a task force of around 800 agents, who set up roadblocks and raided homes and workplaces in 1954 and 1955. Eisenhower’s deportation program ejected between 300,000 and 1.3 million people in 1954-1955. The Mexican government helped, in hopes that returned migrants would help with the country’s labor shortage.

Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan to deport all undocumented immigrants is a catastrophic disaster for our economy and for civil liberties.

[ecargmura]

Ron Kamonohashi's Forbidden Deductions Episode 14 Review - House Of M's Challenge

In those days, people will seek death but will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee away. - Revelations 9:6

Ron Kamonohashi’s Forbidden Deductions/Deranged Detective is back! This is my most anticipated show for this season, so I’m super stoked my Kamondays are back! It’s crazy how the first season aired in Fall 2023 and now it’s Fall 2024—an exact year! This episode basically starts where the finale of season 1 left off. I highly suggest you watch the first season to know what the heck is going on because there are no recaps of Season 1. It just drops you onto a new case straight away.

The new case is basically a challenge from the House of M, a notorious crime family and the ones responsible for getting Ron suspended from Blue Academy and getting his detective license. Did I also mention that they’re his distant estranged relatives? Go watch Season 1 if you want to know what the heck is going on. They’re also the ones who carved the scar on his neck. Now, they’re on the move, challenging Ron’s sleuthing skills as Winter Moriarty kills people under his and Toto’s noses.

While Ron’s quirky antics and Toto’s outbursts to them are still present, they’re not presented much as the tone of the episode is a lot more serious than before. Ron still breaks into the crime scene pretending to advertise his sweets delivery business that probably does exist. This case is a lot more serious this time around as Winter is actively killing and targeting three people involved in a cryptocurrency case. They’re the main culprit and I do wonder how Ron and Toto will corner them. By the way, Winter’s gender is ambiguous, so I’ll refer to them using NB pronouns so it’ll be easier on my part.

This is a case where we, the viewers, know who the culprit already is, but the question is how Ron and Toto are going to track them down.  I think the cases have become a lot more creative in the sense that Winter’s clues for Ron are very clever. They used a symbol that looked like a zero but it’s a bird’s eye view of the Shibuya Scramble intersection and what the neck said, another murder happened at 10:00 am. This gives Ron and Toto a sense of urgency. Another murder will happen at 11:00 am in a place where a triangle is and if they don’t hurry and find Winter, it’ll be his loss. I sort of find the time limit challenge interesting as this is the first in the story. I do wonder what will happen if Ron wins, will Winter die? What will happen if Ron loses? It’s a high stakes battle.

I feel like the animation did improve compared to the first season. While the quality still looks the same as it did in the previous season, I do feel like the movement feels more fluid. I guess it’s because this case is a lot more action-packed? 

The voice acting for all the characters is still great. However, I want to give a shout out to Yumiri Hanamori as her voice for Winter gradually improved. Back in Episode 9 when Winter first debuted, Hanamori gave Winter a rather unfitting high-pitched voice, but now, it seems that she lowered her pitch for them and they sound more gender ambiguous now. I like it!

The opening is pretty catchy and it’s a lot different than the first season’s opening. I do wonder if the studio will take time to change some details for the opening like how they did for Season 1. If they don’t, I’m alright with it. The ending is nice. The song soothes the intense feeling of the episode, so it’s totally a respite of sorts.

Oh, about the quote at the very top, Revelations 9:6 has been mentioned often in this episode. The quote is written like this in the copy of the Bible that I own. It’s interesting how Akira Amano uses a bible verse as some sort of clue. It sort of makes sense given that the Moriarity family are British and the common religions practiced there is Christianity. I can’t believe I had to open the Bible to get a quote from an anime that revolves around killing. Crazy world we live in.

I honestly can’t wait to see what Season 2 has to offer in terms of cases and how they’ll be solved. I know that Ron and Toto will win this, but how? I can’t wait to find out! If you’re going to watch this show or if you have already watched it, what are your thoughts?

Oh yeah, just because it’s the more commonly used title now, I’ll be titling this season as Ron Kamonohashi’s Forbidden Deductions starting Episode 14!

[vanilla-blessing]

qb's top 5 anime of 2023

This list is coming out in July 2024 because I needed to finish mygo first and also I needed several more months to write it that's my excuse

#1 Uma Musume: Pretty Derby - ROAD TO THE TOP

In order to explain why I put a gacha mobile game anime adaptation in the #1 rank I need to explain why Uma Musume Pretty Derby had a bad start. There was a flash of wild inspiration in the core concept, that this is a place where real world racehorses are, instead of awkward animals, awkward two-legged girls who do a victory song and dance when they win, and it accommodates this absurd gimmick in every part of their setting with humorously large phones and earmuffs and carrot burgers, but it lacked the confidence that this premise was funny enough on its face and frequently dumped dramatically less good comedy on top of a basic sports anime formula. There was a spark of something fun there, but it was ultimately covered up by too many bits that were tedious and unremarkable, and the anime didn't stand out from other sports anime in execution. Thankfully, Uma Musume Season 2 got a strong upgrade in animation and began to prioritize the simple but effective drama of competitive running, building a more coherent narrative around the real-life events that happened to these horses. Most importantly, it took itself more seriously (which is much funnier) and steadily accumulated memorable moments and running bits, then paid off everything in the bombastic final episodes that sprinted to the top of my 2021 anime list.

Uma Musume: Road To The Top further refines the formula of Uma Musume Season 2 into four lighting-quick special episodes with no wasted time and even more commitment to the bit that anime girls yelling their heads off while running is simultaneously thrilling and really, really funny. Road To The Top is pure gas the whole time, entirely composed of over-the-top highlights, and utterly confident that it can go as hard as possible on tragic drama and ferocious action, buoyed by the fact that all of this is inherently hilarious no matter what they do.

The 2024 horse movie Uma Musume: Pretty Derby - BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA seems to have inherited this momentum and accelerated to ludicrous speeds, so it's my most anticipated anime and I need it as soon as possible. There's something to the fictionalized drama Uma Musume as a franchise has built on obsessively accurate results of horse races that is compelling in its authenticity, enabling Studio KAI to capture the feeling of the messy but true stories that get passed down naturally and retold among fans of any sport, but starring anime horse girls with profoundly stupid names. This is the highest compliment I can give in the sports genre.

None of this bizarre franchise should work on paper, but it does anyway, its momentum keeps growing, and it shows no signs of slowing down.

#2 BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!!

BanG Dream MyGO!!!!! doesn't come up in the first page of results of any anime database when you start typing the title, it's something like the 4th or 6th entry in the BanG Dream gacha mobile game anime franchise, none of the other seasons are particularly notable aside from putting SANZIGEN on the map as one of the two rock-solid CG anime studios; the point is nobody really expected a lot from this show. MyGO!!!!! has the same core staff from the other seasons, it even shares some of the same characters as other seasons (although it's intended to be watched standalone). However, despite everything being stacked against it, MyGO!!!!! forced its way into many top 10 anime lists by word of mouth, where it was praised widely for its exceptionally powerful writing and lyrics, strikingly competent CG animation, and unique style that could only be pulled off on a TV schedule by a team that was supremely confident in their ability to execute the previous two things.

The personalities that make up the titular wildly dysfunctional band range from deeply unpleasant to generally infuriating, but MyGO!!!!! strikes a careful balance, endearing them as people without giving an inch in portraying how frankly awful they are to each other. Seeing these messy, manipulative musicians clash, break up, and unwillingly come together again over the course of the season reaches heights of drama I've rarely seen before, it's as though you're watching a house made entirely out of tires burn down.

The way the show's tangled relationships converge around the immovable object Tomori, who's inability to read a room or pick up on signals just so happens to cut through their collective drama like a hot knife through butter, is such a compelling way to utilize a character unambiguously on the spectrum that I haven't stopped thinking about it and I'll need at least a few more watches to fully appreciate. She's the X-factor that makes the entire show work and episode 3 rigidly forcing you to inhabit her first-person worldview isn't only a directing stunt uniquely suited to CG, it's a blunt declaration of the core mission of MyGO!!!!!.

Halfway through 2024, everyone's talking up different band anime about girls who are more than friends, but MyGO!!!!! will be known forever as the definitive band anime about girls who are closer to mortal enemies.

#3 Pluto

Pluto's my favorite manga and the anime took so long to come out we thought it was fake. My only major complaint is that the CG is unmistakably strange and evokes the feeling of observing an alternate history of animated special effects development that is more goofy and endearing than bad, but it's a consistent distraction from the all-timer material.

#4 Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

Totally unexpected drop on Netflix in the middle of a season, this caught me off guard and handed me a full platter of New Scott Pilgrim which I didn't know I was ravenously hungry for.

#5 Oshi no Ko

I adore the manga for Oshi no Ko, especially the more sicko it gets, but the anime is objectively better thanks to smart pacing decisions, an unreasonably powerful character designer, and better planning than most seasonal anime (everyone knew this would hit like an isekai truck so they just didn't stop after S1). S2 is airing now and it's already powerful in the ways I just said.

Heavenly Delusion and Apothecary Diaries were also pretty good. Expect my next 2024 anime list in 2028 - friend of the show qb

[gaymer-games]

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[shyguycity]

It's been a while since I made a formal game of the year list on this page; in 2020, my now wife and I decided to make an entire fanzine about my favorite games of the year, which ballooned in size and scope from there. If you're interested, you can find the link to the (free!) magazine, Critical Diversions, as well as see what else I've been up to in the gaming space, over at https://twitter.com/crit_diversions. It was written by five people, myself included, layoutted into a magazine format by me, and with some lovingly done illustrations made by my wife. We've also started a discord, games club, and podcast, all under the Critical Diversions banner, if any of that sounds appealing to you.

Since that magazine project, I haven't really had the creative energy to write a full game of the year list the way that I used to. Until now! 2023 has been the most incredible year for game releases that I've been alive to see, and there's so much to be excited for and talk about, I just couldn't resist anymore, despite the fact that we're gearing up to do a community game of the year podcast. But before we get to the top 10 list proper....

Honorable Mentions:

We Love Katamari ReRoll + Royal Reverie

The original We Love Katamari, released on the Playstation 2 in 2005, was already one of my favorite games ever made, so it's borderline unfair of Namco to release an absolutely perfect HD remaster of it in 2023. Namco must've thought so, too, because this was one of my most anticipated games of the year, and I didn't even realize it had released until I happened to see it on the eShop. To the uninitiated, Katamari games task you with rolling up real world objects with your sticky katamari ball, growing bigger and bigger as you go, all with the intent of making your katamari big enough to make stars in the sky. It's a simple yet delightful enough concept on its own to be enjoyed by anyone, but add in an unmeasurable amount of charm and one of the greatest soundtracks ever made, and it's easy to see why this goofy little series has persisted for over two decades now.

For my money, this is the best entry in the series, practically spilling over with creative and fun new ways and reasons to roll over innocent bystanders and animals with a space ball given to you by your negligent, abusive father, who is also basically god. Oh did I forget to mention that there's an actual well told narrative with a genuinely emotional-but-not-saccharine message at its core? Buy this fucking game y'all, I've already seen it for as low as 15 dollars.

Final Fantasy V Pixel Remaster

Final Fantasy as a series misses way more often than it hits, for me. Yeah I love 7, its remake, 10, and 10-2, but by and large, every other entry I've tried to spend time with has left me incredibly cold (looking at you in particular, 6). Between craving a turn-based RPG and having the flu earlier this year, I decided to take a chance on the pixel remaster version of 5, released on consoles for the first time in 2023. Imagine my surprise when it became hands down my favorite entry in the series, as well as one of my favorite RPGs I've ever played.

Not to say that what's presented here hasn't been improved upon in the past 30 years; Octopath Traveler 2, a game we'll be talking about in my actual top 10, seemed to base its entire design around "Hey remember Final Fantasy 5? Let's make a way more open and less restricted version of that". Still, though, what FF5 was doing as an early Super Famicom game is pretty impressive; boasting a fairly open-ended job and multiclass system that's absolutely begging you to make as many fun combinations as you can imagine with your party members, it's a game that's infinitely more replayable than your average Final Fantasy fare, despite its lacking (but not horrible!) story. I ran through the game with a samurai that could also shoot hoardes of squirrels and bees out of my pockets, so you know it's a great game.

Super Mario RPG

Look, you'll never convince me that Mario RPG and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door aren't both wildly inferior to the original Paper Mario on the Nintendo 64. I've held this belief (and grudge against these other Mario spinoff fandoms) for most of my life, and I will continue to do so. And I say this as someone whose first exposure to RPGs was renting the original version of this game as a seven-year-old!

"It's too simple!" I would always bleat feebly in the general direction of the nearest hardcore Geno fan whenever this game was brought up. "It's a solid blueprint for what was to come later, but largely feels like a rough draft, a 16-bit Final Fantasy with a Mario coat of paint!" And, yeah, I am right about all of those things, and I'll continue to never let any of you forget it. But in 2023, playing this remake of one of Nintendo's most annoyingly favorited fan favorites, I couldn't help but let myself get washed away in its charms. There's no build variety or real "role-playing" to speak of, you can 100% the game in like 12 hours, and you just generally never have to turn your brain on while playing the game at all. Call it softness, call it old age, call it just really being in the mood for a cute and charming little adventure, but I fell in love with this game and its world in a way I never was able to previously. Bring on that Thousand-Year Door remaster next, Nintendo; I'm in a forgiving mood.

Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania

Speaking of being in a forgiving mood, did y'all know that I thought the original 1.0 release of Dead Cells was incredibly boring? Released in 2018, this sidescrolling roguelite was getting a ton of accolades at the time that had me extremely excited. That's not to say that it was bad, of course; I could see the markings of a well made game, and obviously the game was appealing to someone out there, with all the praise it received. But after 10 hours with it I deleted it off my Switch, thinking I'd never.........return.

It only took five years and a paid Castlevania expansion to make me give this game another look, but I'm glad I did, because I would put this pretty high up there on my all-time roguelite list now. To be clear, most of my issues with this game still remain, mostly that it gets repetitive much sooner than you'd expect of a game with as much content as this does. But instead of cooling on it 10 hours in like I did back in 2018, I got over 60 hours and dozens upon dozens of runs in before calling it quits on Dead Cells this time.

And if you're a Castlevania dork, honestly, just pick this up. There's more than enough love and fanservice here to keep even the most ardent of Castlevania freaks crying bloody tears, including the ability to replace the entire soundtrack with Castlevania songs, most of them the original version but with some new compositions included. Roguelite shredding in a video game hasn't been this good since Hades.

Now...the actual list.

10. Marvel's Spider-Man 2

No one is more down on open world checklist collectathons than I am; the idea of spending over 100 hours playing a modern Assassin's Creed game honestly makes my tummy hurt. And by and large, Spider-Man 2 doesn't stray far from this design template. You run, jump, swing, and glide all over New York City, stopping burglaries and car chases on your way to the next story objective or side mission, leveling up and spending points on various skill trees to level your Spider-Men up to gain new/upgrade old abilities, rinse and repeat. Structurally, this game isn't really doing anything different from the previous two Spider-Man games from developer Insomniac, and yet this entry was an absolute joy to play to me in way those weren't.

Largely, I think it's the pacing of the game. And not just on a macro scale, though I do think that's improved here as well. No, for me it was most noticeable in the combat; no longer are you holding down a button to freeze time and pull up a gadget wheel and having Spider-Man select one of his little science tools to shoot out before doing a few melee attacks and web shots. Instead, all of your gadgets and super moves are activated in real time with different button combinations. It might sound breathlessly dorky, but that simple change really sold the illusion of playing a Spider-Man simulator to me, and not just a Ratchet and Clank game with a Spider-Man skin.

The story I also found to be a wholesale improvement over the last two games, albeit with the caveat that the symbiote and Venom storyline almost never come across as anything beyond tryhard 90s edgelord shit in any form of media. Truly, I think Venom is just a straight up awful character, and is even worse here than usual, and I was exceptionally tired of Peter's gruff mean guy voice by the end of his time wearing the symbiote. Miles more than made up for any issues I had with the Peter side of the story, and with the way the game's story leaves off, I hope to see that character again sooner than Spider-Man 3 in another half decade.

9. Pikmin 4

This feels like Pikmin's big breakout moment as a series. And honestly, maybe my biggest surprise of the year isn't how great this game was, but how many other people were (finally) raving about Pikmin. The fact that it's this relatively low on my own list when most people I know that played it have it near the top of theirs shocks, while also making me feel pretty damn great about Pikmin's future.

From a casual perspective it's pretty easy to see why this has been such a hit for the series. It retains all the charm and cuteness and great gameplay loop of previous games in the series, while making a ton of smart changes along the way. New to 4: a fully adjustable camera that makes you feel way more involved in the action (and see all of the impossibly cute death happening around and to you); a whole host of quality of life changes, like being able to move your spaceship around each stage at will to have a more accessible base of operations; bonafide multifloor dungeons where you're able to soak in some of the best aspects of Pikmin's gameplay without worrying about time passing; "dandori battles", both against the CPU or local rivals where you aim to manage your armies as efficiently as possible; and partner space dog Oatchi, who can help you and your little army of dudes in whatever way you see fit, from battling to carrying to scouting, thanks to an honest to god skill tree. In a Pikmin game! Who woulda thought.

Honestly though, as great as this game was, I can't help but pine for the more complex level and puzzle design of Pikmin 3, as well as the local splitscreen cooperative play of Pikmin 3 Deluxe. That second feature in particular was sorely, sorely missed in our household, as Pikmin 3 Deluxe's sublime coop is some of the most fun I've ever had playing a video game with my wife. Here's hoping the now inevitable Pikmin 5 manages to bring these missing elements home, much like my group of 100 Pikmin carrying an entire watermelon the size of a small mountain back to our spaceship for the day.

8. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

Besides just being a great year in game releases, 2023 was also the year where my expectations were subverted many times over. I'd seen plenty of overhyped indie spiritual successors to fan favorite games from the late 90s and early 2000s come and go, so my interest level for BRCF as someone that's never played a Jet Set Radio game couldn't have been much lower. But that's all on me, because if I'd known that this game and its inspirations were essentially just 3D platformers dressed up as a 2002 cyberpunk anime that'd air at 2am on Toonami, I'd have been all over it much sooner.

This game effortlessly pulls off everything I value in 3D platformers. The level designs are masterful and well thought out while still feeling organic instead of just abstract obstacle courses (the game does dabble into the latter at times, and they're some of the most standout moments as well). Being set in a city, it's naturally got a large emphasis on verticality that I think not enough games in this space bother with; I want to feel my stomach drop when I miss landing on a grind rail half a mile in the sky, even if falling from that far has no consequences beyond needing to pull off the platforming section again. And unlike the earlier Tony Hawk games, I'm free to explore each environment to my heart's content, looking for new songs to add to my playlist or spots just begging to be tagged with graffiti. Wrap all of this up in a style and soundtrack that are both just fucking cool, and what else could I really ask for? Well, besides just more of this, please.

7. Resident Evil 4

In a year full to the brim with remakes, remasters, and revisits, Resident Evil 4 is the one with the most expectations put on it, due to not only the pedigree of the original RE4 (often cited as one of the best games of all time, and surely the catalyst for the modern over the shoulder third-person shooter), but the obscenely high quality of Capcom's other recent remakes from the series; 2019's Resident Evil 2 remake, in particular, being one of the best big budget games of the last half decade, by my estimation. A lot of fans cited RE4 as both "impossible" and "pointless" to remake, though I imagine those same fans were the ones most anxiously waiting for this remake to drop with bated breath.

The end result? RE4 as a remake can't live up to the lofty expectations a lot of people probably hoped it could, not really, but I think it's also one of the most successful video game remakes I've ever had the pleasure of playing, in terms of the fun factor. The gaming landscape has changed a lot since 2005, a lot of that change because of RE4, so what do you even do to make a revisit under a modern lens worthwhile? I think Capcom didn't fully know the answer to that question, as the biggest mechanical additions to this game are the ability to parry the vast majority of attacks with your knife, and erm....craftable ammo? You'll of course find a handful of new enemies and remixed encounters, an even fewer amount of new weapons, and a couple welcome completely redone areas, like a mini open sandbox where you're free to explore the shores of a lake, and a much more clever and interesting version of the brief time spent playing as Ashley.

This might all sound like damning with faint praise, but truly, Capcom's ability to thread the needle here and deliver an honest to god, full on remake of RE4 with modern production values and budget, all without compromising the vision of the original, AND managing to make the remake tonally fit with the current vision of the extended Resident Evil universe? There's some black magic at work here, surely. Or at the very least some ancient parasite bugs at large.

6. Kirby's Return to Dreamland Deluxe

Kirby is the best Nintendo series, and this is an excellent remaster of one of the best Kirby games. What more is there to say? The only reason this isn't top three of the year material is because, well, I played it when it originally released on the Wii. But what's your excuse, coward?

I often hear the refrain of "Kirby games just aren't for me", and I used to humor that line of thinking, largely to avoid prolonged contact with dumb babies. But that dies today, and so will you if you don't stop being a dweeb. High quality sidescrolling brawlers with lite platforming elements and puzzle solving, set to some of the best music ever made for the medium, sporting an adorable aesthetic that's used as set dressing to cover up some of the best backstory and lore this side of Dark Souls? That's not for you? What is for you then, besides being a sad weirdo that still waxes nostalgic about the girl you held hands with once in middle school? Her mom dropped you two off at the theater once to see White Chicks and she never thought about you again. Grow up. Change something about your life. Kirby's got more charm and delight in whatever his puffy mass equivalent to a pinky is than Super Mario Bros. Wonder managed to wearily attempt to slump over its shoulder for an entire game. Y'all should be ashamed.

...

I dunno what this bit is anymore, so let's pivot back to normalcy. Yes, I know, I know, I'm the Kirby guy. It's my favorite gaming series, hell, maybe my favorite franchise in any medium period. But I'm also not blind to its faults and missteps, such as 2018's Star Allies. When I tell you that Return to Dreamland Deluxe, a remaster of a game I played over a decade ago, now with additional content, is one of my favorite games of 2023, I really mean it. The base game was already excellent, and the first entry of the modern era of Kirby, under the helm of Shinya Kumazaki. A new cel shading-adjacent rendering, coupled with completely new abilities Sand and Mech on top of perhaps the overall best set of copy abilities in a Kirby game, really help make the game feel fresh; Sand's combo and damage per second capability in particular is through the roof, while not feeling imbalanced.

The meat of the new content, however, is the new epilogue, in which you play as fan favorite character Magolor. Magolor plays very differently from Kirby, eschewing copy abilities and quicker movement for magic, and the game also introduces an honest to god skill tree into the series. This mini adventure culminates in not only what is probably my favorite boss fight of the year, but an in-universe lore explanation for why Magolor shows up in spinoff Kirby games adorned in green instead of blue and trading in crystal apples.

That may sound goofy and extremely in the weeds, and it is, but for a man in my mid-30s that's been beyond bored of Nintendo's refusal to do any significant kind of world building or storytelling in almost any of their mainline games, Kirby manages to continuously surprise and delight me with both its gameplay and universe in a way no other Nintendo game is even interested in trying. The Super Mario games should take heed.

5. Octopath Traveler 2

I played both demos for the original Octopath Traveler back before that game came out, and to say I didn't like it would be an understatement! The writing was at best flat, and at worst, overtly sexist (and that was just from a demo!), I found the battle system to be clunky, and the thing most people praised it for, its "HD2D" approach to graphics, I found quite ugly; it seemed to be throwing away any attempt at an actual artstyle in favor of cranking a bunch of photoshop filters up to max and letting people ooh and aah over some particle effects and oversaturated lighting. Great soundtrack, at least.

I couldn't tell you what drove me to check out the demo for 2, but I did, and instantly, something clicked for me that didn't in my limited experience with the original. Full disclosure, I haven't finished this game yet, and in fact I don't think I'm even halfway through. And that's a shame, because I think it could honestly rise even higher up this list, based on what I've already played. The battle system is fast and snappy, as long as I'm paying close enough attention to all the information on screen, like enemies weaknesses and my current BP situation. The overworld feels far more inspired by popup books than I remember 1's world feeling like, while still retaining the gorgeous battle sprites that the original excelled in. The soundtrack is an all-timer, to put it lightly. Even the writing for the characters, while still nowhere approaching the rest of the game's strong points, feels less like it works exclusively in lazy caricatures and broad stereotypes. Yeah there's a merchant character named Partitio from an old west-styled silver mining town, and yes I was just as worried about that fact as you probably are reading that sentence. And yet, Partitio has honestly become one of my favorite characters of the year, his desire to use his mercantile skills to ease the burdens of the working class only being outshone by the electric guitars and saxophone in his theme song.

What truly impresses with Octopath Traveler 2, though, is its sheer openness. The world is, while not quite your oyster right from the start, pretty dang free form for the most part, allowing you to go recruit your party members and explore towns and monster-filled wildlands in whatever order you see fit. This extends to the job system, which affords you the most freedom to truly make whatever kind of team you see fit I've ever seen in a game of this kind. I'm currently multiclassing my cleric, Temenos, into a scholar, and I've rarely felt cooler/dorkier at the same time, wielding nearly every magic type offered in the game at once with one world-weary church inquisitor. Just typing up this entry has got me itching to get back to the game, hoping to discover even more jobs to multiclass the rest of my crew into.

Take it from me, someone who as little as a few years ago felt pretty much over turn based RPGs, especially those coming out of Square-Enix: this game is very worth your time, regardless of your feelings towards the series, or even genre as a whole.

4. 30XX

In a year chockful of exceedingly excellent roguelites (Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania, Risk of Rain Returns, Cobalt Core, Vampire Survivors, just to name a few), 30XX stands tall above the rest for me, not just in terms of quality, but also in its ability to completely take over my gaming time for a couple months. This has all the trappings you expect from a game with the structure of a roguelite; permadeath resulting in having to start your entire run over, unlockable items and stat upgrades purchasable with currency carried over from the run you just died in, powerups that you collect during a run to give yourself a fighting chance (and which force you to make on-the-fly decision making about how best to synergize your build), and a white knuckle intensity that makes the runs when you really start to shred feel all the more rewarding, albeit no less anixety inducing.

What ends up separating 30XX from any other game in this admittedly crowded space is that it's essentially a roguelite take on Mega Man X4, the beloved Playstation 1 entry in an even more beloved series. X4 was the first game that really fleshed out lightsaber wielding cool guy Zero as a fully playable character, for the first time letting you play through the entire game as both him and series protagonist X. 30XX makes no bones about its inspiration; Nina, the blue one, is the X equivalent, meaning you'll be primarily shooting enemies with your arm cannon, while Ace, the red one, slices and dices with an energy sword, just like Zero. Likewise, the (absolutely gorgeous) spritework and extremely catchy soundtrack are doing their best to evoke the oft overlooked aesthetic and sounds of 2-D games from the Playstation 1. Rounding out the package are full-featured coop, both local and online, community made levels, daily and weekly seeded runs with leaderboards, and the promise of even more updates, including new characters(!!).

Even Mega Man series staples you might not expect to show up in a roguelite take on the formula end up being major focuses of the game, like gaining new abilities from defeating bosses. The game even takes that mechanic a step further, letting you mix and match two abilities to form completely new ones, like combining your black hole and homing lightning abilities to create a barrage of homing lightning strikes emanating from a swirling void. Or, in true roguelite fashion, you can even forego an ability from a boss altogether, if a different reward suits you. And that's just if you're playing as Nina! Ace gets an entirely different set of abilities and mechanics, all built around melee capabilities and close quarters combat.

If any of this sounds appealing to you, you're probably now asking yourself "why have I never heard of this game?" And I truly can't answer that, as this feels like it should already be a revered indie darling on the level of Shovel Knight or Super Meat Boy. If you're a Mega Man fan, please do yourself a favor and check this out. There's even a separate mode that minimizes the roguelite elements, including a removal of permadeath, if that suits you! This is a better Mega Man X revival than you'll likely ever see out of Capcom, if a day even ever comes for that at all. It also happens to be better than just about any official Mega Man game Capcom has ever put out, as well.

3. Sephonie

My personal gaming identity feels inexorably linked to Analgesic Productions, the two person development team that's putting out the best indie games most people have never even heard of. The only thread on Resetera I've ever made was solely for the purpose of evangelizing Anodyne 2: Return to Dust, a game that resonated so hard with me the effects are still reverberating outwards, as my habit of recommending that game anywhere I go has helped me forge genuine friendships (and probably gotten me on to a few government watch lists). Even the Ocean was the third game my friends and I covered in our games club, and was by far and away the best talk I've ever had about video games, sparking a creative spirit in me for months afterward. Marina Kittaka and Melos han-tani make some real affecting fucking games, is what I'm saying, and the idea of trying to sum up what makes Sephonie so special (and maybe even my favorite of their impressive work) is a bit daunting.

At its most base level, Sephonie is a 3-D platformer not dissimilar from the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series, or even the above Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, albeit without any wheels; instead of tilting the analog stick to move at whatever angle you want, you hold a button to run forward, the stick's sole purpose being to make adjustments to direction. Your mobility on its own isn't very versatile, and getting around requires careful and clever use of the environment to do wall runs and jumps, grabbing giant dandelions to float, landing on mushrooms to bounce, etc.

Even for a self-proclaimed platformer guru (maybe even especially for one!), the movement feels unwieldy or even downright intimidating at first. But in Analgesic we trust, and by the end of my initial 8 hour or so playthrough of the game, I felt like a parkour god, able to pull off complex maneuvers that I would have never been able to dream of in the opening sections of the game. Coming to grips with the controls and eventually mastering them was one of the biggest joys I experienced in video games this year; don't go into this expecting s Super Mario Odyssey-level of 1:1 control that lets you immediately start flowing through the environment like a hot knife through butter, because that's decidedly not the point here. Despite what the past few console generations have taught us, we don't need standardized controls across every game, as all that would serve to do here is sand down the distinct personality and learning opportunities presented in Sephonie.

Rounding out the gameplay are linking puzzles. The three playable characters are researchers who have come to the remote island of Sephonie to study its unique animal and plant life. Linking with each new lifeform you discover presents you with tile-based block puzzles, which end up being a nice change of pace from the platforming. As a testament to just how much love and care was put into Sephonie, the vast majority of these linking puzzles each have unique mechanics, be it teleporting tiles, tiles that are blocked and need busted open by matching blocks on adjacent tiles, tiles that multiply your point total, creatures that travel the puzzle and alter when and where you're even able to place your tiles, etc. With some tweaks, the link puzzles could be a whole game unto itself, and it's really impressive!

That's all well and good, but the main reasons I come to Analgesic games are the unbelievably good writing and even unbelievably-er soundtracks, and both are where Sephonie truly shines for me. Unfortunately, to talk too much about the story here would be bordering on a cardinal sin, and you're better off listening to some of the music on your own. Why not try the entire playlist here?

The previously mentioned Anodyne 2 opens by telling you it's a game about life. That's a bit of an understatement for me with Analgesic's games in general, but Sephonie might be the best example of "a game about life" that I can think of. As someone that grew up in a midwestern town full of basically nothing but nothingness and corn, the Bloomington, Illinois section of the game is without a doubt the most beautiful segment of any game I've ever played, and the main thing I keep coming back to with this game even six months later. I've never been so simultaneously full of nostalgia, regret, disdain, self-loathing, and fond memories as I was while platforming around an abstract dreamscape version of a midwestern town right off the highway. And I don't think I've ever related to a character in any fictional work as much as I did when Amy was talking about feeling lucky she was born in a small town, because it made learning how to drive much less intimidating.

If there's one game on this list I would beg someone to give a shot, it would be Sephonie. Hell, if there was one game I could force anyone to play, Sephonie might be taking that spot as well. As a thorough contemplation of what it means to be alive, and what connecting with one another can truly mean and feel like, there's no better work of art out there today, and certainly not one anywhere near as fun, either.

2. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

What can I say about TotK that hasn't already been expressed in a million think pieces, essays, and podcasts across the entire internet by now? As a direct followup to 2017's stellar Breath of the Wild, I had concerns going in - would the magic still be there? Is exploring the same incarnation of Hyrule going to be fun when I know all of the broad strokes already? Are the bosses not going to suck this time? The answer to all of these is a resounding "absolutely", but there's so much more on offer here.

Everything in this game makes BotW feel like a rough draft, a sentence I never in a million years thought I'd be typing prior to getting my hands on the game. Any mechanic you can think of that you loved in the prior Zelda entry is either improved upon here or excised for something infinitely more interesting. The Sheikah slate abilities from BotW feel not only basic, but downright boring compared to the powers on offer in this sequel. Who cares about being able to spawn bombs at will when I can fuse batwings to arrows to make them fly further? Or just swim through through the damn ceiling!? To say nothing of the fact that you can build basically anything your imagination can spring into existence, from cars to rocket ships to pilotable mechs to lawn mowers. And it all....just....works, somehow, not only tonally with the game's world, but also from a game perspective. The game even lets you have five CPU controlled companion characters out at the same time, every one acting independently to take down enemies near you! It feels like your Switch is going to collapse under the weight of this game's ambition at any moment, and yet I put over 300 hours into the game with not a single crash in sight.

If there's one thing I can complain about, it's that the story feels like an actual afterthought, to the degree that it actually bummed me out, even as someone with rock bottom expectations when it comes to story in a Zelda game. The marketing REALLY hyped up the return of longtime series antagonist Ganondorf, and he just....kind of has no motivation for anything he's doing here. I'm not asking for much, and there are genuinely great character moments lightly sprinkled throughout the game's runtime, mostly with princess Zelda herself. But I couldn't help but imagine how much harder some story beats could have hit if Nintendo, again, actually even attempted to give people the tiniest but of anything to chew on when it comes to the stories they're telling.

But whatever, I've got a catapult to build to launch me and a korok buddy up a damn mountain.

Baldur's Gate 3

Like most people who cut their gaming teeth on more straightforward action fare on consoles, the term "CRPG" (computer RPG) seemed beyond out of reach for me. Dice rolls? Skill checks? Playing as a charisma based character to persuade bosses to kill themselves instead of having to fight them? READING!? Uh, I'm an American, thank you very much; I like my video games game-y and my gravy portion extra, ma'am, and I don't have the patience to think about probability and stats.

So imagine my surprise when, after my wife started playing the game on her own, I found myself itching to get into the character creator myself. Not the moment to moment gameplay, mind you, but the character creator, a step I'm notorious for getting through as fast as possible so I can start "actually playing", even if I'm stuck with a boring default character named Goober. Something about watching my wife agonize over which horn style and subrace to go with on her tiefling bard, which hairstyle and color looked cutest and would match her vision of how she was going to roleplay in the world, stirred something in me I didn't know existed. While she was perusing all the customization options, I spied the class "monk" and a race called "dragonborn", some anthropomorphic dragon people with a lot of pretty color options for their scales that also affect your elemental resistances. "Yes," I thought to myself. "I'd like to make a humanoid lizard dude that punches shit to death. I'd like that very much". And before my wife was barely out of the tutorial section on her first character, we were already backing out to make a second save file where we would play the entire thing cooperatively, fretting over the decisions and romance options each step of the way together. I got to make my silverscale (that means he's got ice powers, baby) dragonborn monk, Shikai, and the following 300+ hours (and counting!) with Baldur's Gate 3 have been the most fun I've ever had playing a video game.

Would I be as gobsmacked with the game if I was intimately familiar with the genre? Maybe not, but I guess that's my point. Living with my wife and playing games together has completely changed how I engage with a lot of them; Animal Crossing was basically a cute chores and debt repayment simulator with a dash of fishing on the side until watching my wife play the game for thousands of hours taught me the joy of decorating.

Elden Ring was her first foray into the Souls-like genre; she had a similar reaction watching me play the opening hour of Elden Ring as I had watching her in the BG3 character creator, growing increasingly frustrated as she watched me putz around making a boring dexterity based samurai character when what she wanted to see was some faith-based holy magic in action. Despite my love of Souls-likes, I had always just made standard melee based characters in them, usually katana wielding doofuses; I'm an American, I don't know a lick about incantations, I HATE thinking, and please keep your Wes Anderson movies to yourself, ma'am.

But as I saw how much fun my wife was having shooting fireballs and throwing lightning bolts at enemies, I eventually started speccing my dexterity character into intelligence as well, making a samurai sorcerer, undeniably the only thing cooler than a normal samurai. That's not to say that playing Elden Ring with a melee exclusive character is wrong, but just that with a touch of curiosity and willingness to take the tiniest step outside of my comfort zone, a comfort zone I didn't even realize was as tiny as it was, I opened up a whole new way of enjoying a game I already loved playing. Learning to enjoy Baldur's Gate 3 feels like I've opened the door to an entire new avenue in my mind, waiting for me to fill it with opinions about games I've been avoiding my whole life. I'm gonna actually make a concerted effort to finally play stuff like Mass Effect and Disco Elysium sometime soon, two games I had preemptively decided years ago were just "not for me", and I'm genuinely excited about it.

This entry is so long already, and I didn't even mention anything about how the game actually plays (it's the best turn-based battle system I've ever experienced, to say nothing of the freedom you're afforded to solve every single scenario presented to you in the game.

Or anything about the characters (this is the best cast of characters I've seen in any medium, and they feel like genuine friends of mine in a way that no other game has ever come close to feeling).

Hell, to save time and my poor fingers: Baldur's Gate 3 is without a doubt the best video game I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing. And as little as a few months ago, my only thought towards it was "that game probably isn't for me".

Don't make my all too human mistake; check out shit that looks interesting, take the chance to expand your mind and your taste. They're not all gonna be Baldur's Gate 3-level bangers (what is though, really), but you truly never know what you're going to discover. And you might even find yourself open to a whole new avenue of life to enjoy that you had previously assumed was just for mega dorks.

[dandelion-network]

Mid-Year Book Freakout 2023

so i was tagged by @violaeade (my main was tagged but its book-related so its going here)

1. Best book you’ve read so far this year

The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On by Franny Choi: My favorite book and poetry collection of the year by far. I was barely 1/4 in it when I could tell it was going to be my favorite book. It's a collection about environmental racism, climate change, xenophobia, police brutality, girl it had everything. I decided to read it because an article recommended it for people who enjoyed the science fiction novel How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu and I agree; if you liked that book, you'd enjoy this poetry collection.

2. Best sequel you’ve read so far this year

Mysteries of Thorn Manor by Margaret Rogerson: A novella that sorta kinda operates as a long epilogue for the previous Sorcery of Thorns book. I enjoyed that first book - and I love that we got a tall girl, love that for us. It was a fun time for those of us who enjoy fantasy romances (or romance fantasies??).

3. New release you haven’t read yet

Maroons by adrienne maree brown No One Will Come Back For Us by Premee Mohamed A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing from Soil to Stars edited by Erin Sharkey

4. Most anticipated release for the second half of the year

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

5. Biggest disappointment

Entranced by the Basilisks by Lillian Lark: I didn't find the throuple compelling at all. Jasper felt like someone in his early 20s even though he's the director of the library. Ari and Emilia connection was based on...her being turned into a monster and him seeming inherently alluring I guess? I will say this book taught me that I don't like reptile monster sex. The hidden penis situation does nothing for me.

6. Biggest surprise

Release by Suzanne Clay: I was surprised to find that I enjoyed an age gap, employee + boss romance. It helped that the female lead is 32 years old and the man's like 55. I think the author did everything in their power to make sure male lead was super aware of the power dynamic and gave the female lead space and security in her job (because this is a complete fantasy). And they're bi4bi so that was the icing on the cake.

7. Favorite new author (debut or new to you)

Kimberly Lemming: She's a new romance author to me. I found all her stories to be fun and erotic in the best way. A true monsterfucker who understands there's not enough monster romances that involve women of color.

8. Newest fictional crush/newest favorite character

Unfortunately, I haven't obtained any fictional crushes or favorites.

9. Book that made you cry

Short Film Starring My Beloved's Red Bronco: Poems by K. Iver: Okay I'll be honest, it didn't make me cry. But out of everything I've read so far this year, it made me the most emotional. It's a collection of poems where many of them are addressed to or at least speaking to the author's dead friend who committed suicide.

10. Book that made you happy

Animal Castle Vol. 1 by Xavier Dorison, Félix Delep: a graphic novel that is in a similar vein to Animal Farm but the animals aren't becoming human, it's more of a story that is so blatant in its metaphor of how exploitative capitalism is. It's some good communist propaganda and I can't wait to read the next volume.

I'm tagging: @readingrobin, @somewherereadingg, @bibliophilecats, @logarithmicpanda, @bookish-brews, @amongtomesandtales, @the-knights-who-say-book, @thebookbud, @foxingfae, @bookphile, @jorammiireads and @crookedreads

if you've done this before or don't want to do it, feel free to ignore the tag. if you want to do this but i didn't tag it, do it anyways and tag me so i can see your answers

[raisinqhells]

DEAD SERIOUS  BY R.A.D.   /    RELEASED FEBRUARY 2023.

originally  released  in  the  summer  of  last  year,    dead  serious    is  a  musical  middle  finger  to  the  united  states  government,  capitalism  and  international  corporations  in  the  wake  of  the  ongoing  worldwide  climate  crisis.  the  inspiration  behind  and  increasing  popularity  of  the  tune  can  be  painted  against  the  background  of  the  destructive  wildfire  season  in  california  and  ensuing  climate  change  protests,  causing  the  song  to  go  viral  on  social  media  applications  as  many  used  soundbites  of  the  song  in  their  tiktok  videos,  or  posted  pictures  of  song  lyrics  as  slogans  on  their  protest  signs.  not  surprising  considering  its  snappy  lyrics,  with  the  unfiltered    instead  of  meat,  let's  eat  the  rich    as  one  of  many  examples. with  song  lyrics  drawing  a  direct  contrast  between  the  (in)action  of  both  national  and  international  bodies  of  government  and  the  californian  wildfires,  the  extinction  of  more  and  more  species  of  animals  and  continued  global  deforestation,  it  is  vividly  clear  to  listeners  what  the  band  means  by  their  hook    i'm  just  curious,  aren't  you  furious?  this  is  dead  serious.    band  members  erika,  dawn  and  addie  have  publicly  spoken  about  the  song  being  not  a  request,  but  a  demand  for  change    —    of  no  longer  tiptoeing  around  themes  of    “  climate  destruction  at  the  hands  of  a  bunch  of  greedy  capitalists  who  only  think  of  the  short  terms  gains  of  stuffing  their own  pockets,  rather  than  the  long  term  survival  of  planet  earth.  ” following  the  band's  contract  with  revolution  records,  the  single  has  gone  through  a  re-release    —    the  earlier  self  produced  version  with  its  faint  mistakes  and  questionably  mixed  audio  now  exchanged  for  professional  production  with  clean  vocals  and  instruments,  but  never  losing  its  authenticity  and  rawness.  the  band  even  especially  included  an  easter  egg  to  their  earlier  version  of  the  song,  leaving  in  the  original  outro  after  the  song  has  finished,  which  has  an  unknown  voice  asking    eat  the  rich?  you're  joking  right,  isn't  that  a  little  much?    to  which  drummer  dawn  responds  with  a  scornful    no,  we're  dead  serious.    it    is    believed    the    re-release    of    their    single    is    the    precursor    for    the    band's    widely    anticipated    debut    album    with    the    label,    and    if    this    single    is    anything    to    go    by,    it    will    be    equally    cynical,    real    and    most    of    all    painfully    honest.  until  then,  the  newly  released  version  of    dead  serious    is  now  available  on  all  streaming  platforms,  as  well  as  in  cd  and  lp  format    —    and  know  buying  the  single doesn't  only  support  the  band,  but  also  the  environment  as  10%  of  each  sale  is  being  donated  to  wwf  to  help  aid  nature  conservation.

TRACKLIST / 2 TRACKS, 7 MINUTES.

1 — dead serious (3:24) 2 — dead serious, instrumental (3:24)

TAGGED / @sacrilegiious, @2grunge.

[maxiebaxie]

"Dead or Lie" by Maon Kurosaki

5/03/2023

Day I added song: 08/29/2019

Song Rating: 4/10. Just not my vibe anymore-- I went through a big j-pop phase that I'm out of now. Also, the song is just way too long and doesn't vary enough instrumentally. Definitely doesn't help that as an English speaker, there's no easy way to sing along or attach any personal meaning to the lyrics. Not bad by any means and the dramatic tone is perfect but I can never last through the entire song nowadays.

Nostalgia Rating: 6/10. A very clear memory comes to mind.

Luckily, there are only two songs in my "Liked Songs" playlist that are the remnants of my unfortunate Danganronpa phase. I went through a very intense and short-lived obsession in the 6 weeks prior to moving to another place for high school. Although I'm not proud of it, I won't even lie... I probably watched 30 hours of playthrough of all three mainline games in a span of two weeks. Was it an inspiring, character-building moment? No. But did I get some cool Perler beads models that I now use as bookmarks out of it? Absolutely. And "Dead or Lie" is the opening for the spinoff anime, in case you were wondering.

On a slightly more serious note, this is the song I associate the most with the week prior to moving across the country to start my freshman year. Before moving, we stayed at a friend's house, and so listening to this song reminds me of sitting on her couch, watching Danganronpa playthroughs, and thoroughly wasting the precious time I had left in my hometown. Had I really anticipated what moving away would mean, I definitely would've tried to do more things in those last few days, but I guess there's no point regretting it now. If I ever want to visit, it's only a plane trip and a few hundred dollars away!

P.S.

Danganronpa 2 is clearly the best game overall, but Kokichi Ouma is the best character in the whole series. Go on, try to convince me otherwise.

[360mic-blog]

Top 10 Most Anticipated Animated Movies Of 2023 | New Upcoming ANIMATION...

[ciyapaofficial]

Top 10 Bollywood Actresses In India Who Hit The List In 2022-2023

Bollywood has always been a source of entertainment and inspiration for millions in India and worldwide. With each passing year, the Indian film industry introduces new talent and showcases the talent of existing actors. In 2023, many Bollywood actresses have proven their mettle till now and won the hearts of audiences with their performances. 

In this blog, we will look at the Bollywood top 10 actresses in India who have hit the list in 2023. From seasoned veterans to emerging stars, these actresses have captivated audiences with their acting skills, charisma, and beauty, and continue to make a mark in the Indian film industry. Let's check out!!

Most Popular Bollywood Actresses In 2022-23

1. Deepika Padukone

Following her debut in Om Shanti Om alongside Bollywood's king, Shahrukh Khan, this actress rose to fame. She has three Filmfare Awards to her name. She is on the list of one of Bollywood's highest-paid actress figures in the nation and was included in Time magazine's 2018 list of the 100 influential people in the world. 

She is the offspring of renowned badminton player Prakash Padukone from India. When younger, Deepika also desired to play badminton for her country, but she gave up that dream in favour of a modelling career. Padukone made her Hollywood debut in the action film XXX: Return of Xander Cage (2017), co-starring with Vin Diesel.

2. Katrina Kaif

She is a stunning actress who gained notoriety for her powerful performance in the movie Boom. Her career has gone through several ups and downs since then. She performed admirably in several mainstream and vintage movies, winning her admirers' respect. She is a renowned Bollywood actress for her stunning physique, sensual appearance, and skin tone.

She has become one of the most beautiful Bollywood divas because of her amazing achievement in less than five years. She has been nominated for four Filmfare Awards. She started as a child model and has since made a name for herself in the industry. Kaif had a successful modelling & acting career in India.

3. Alia Bhatt

Alia Bhatt is one of the most sought-after actresses in Bollywood. She debuted in 2012 with the film "Student of the Year'' and has since delivered numerous hit films. In 2023, Alia continued to dominate the industry with her powerful performances and impressive box office records. She has been listed among Forbes India's Celebrity 100 since 2014. 

And in 2017 she was listed among Forbes Asia 30 Under 30. Her portrayal of Sita in the film "RRR'' was highly anticipated and received critical acclaim. She also starred in the film "Gangubai Kathiyawadi," where she played the lead role and received the title for the "Best Actress In Leading Role" in Dada Saheb Phalke Award Ceremony for her performance. 

Alia is known for her versatility and has proven her mettle in both commercial and critically acclaimed films, making her one of the most talented Bollywood actresses. 

4. Anushka Sharma

Anushka Sharma, is a former runway model, now an actor and producer. This Bollywood top actress made her acting debut in the 2008 movies "Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi'' and "Band Baaja Baaraat," for which she was nominated for a Filmfare Award for Best Actress in Both pictures. In a short period, Anushka Sharma rose to fame as an artist. She is a Filmfare Award winner.

NH10, Pari: Not a Fairy Tale and Phillauri are just a few of the productions that Sharma has worked on with Clean Slate Films, a company co-founded by her. She runs her women's clothing company, Nush, and supports several causes and organisations, such as animal rights and gender equality. 

The talented Indian cricketer Virat Kohli is Sharma's husband. She has received the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals "Person of the Year'' award (PETA).

5. Shraddha Kapoor

She is from a Bollywood-connected family with a long history. Her first movie was Teen Patti, in which she acted alongside Amitabh Bachchan. Yet after "Aashiqui 2," which was adored by viewers, she had success in her life. This highest-paid Bollywood actress received a Filmfare Award nomination for Best Actress for Aashiqui 2. 

She is a well-known brand ambassador for numerous companies and goods. In addition to launching her apparel line in 2015, she also became associated with the effervescent beverage Shunya in 2021. Lakmé, Veet, Lipton, and Marico's Hair & Care, among other brands, are represented by this Bollywood top actress.

6. Kriti Sanon

Kriti Sanon is one of the hot Indian actresses in Bollywood. She won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut for the action-comedy she starred in as her first Bollywood film, Heropanti. 

Sanon has since starred in several financially successful films, Bareilly Ki Barfi, Luka Chuppi, Mimi, and Hum Do Hamare Do. Her highest-grossing films were the comedy-action romance Dilwale (2015) and, consequently, the comedy movie Housefull (2019).

7. Sara Ali Khan

Sara Ali Khan Pataudi is yet another highest-paid Bollywood actress. She was born on August 12, 1995. She was reared in the Pataudi dynasty and is the daughter of the actors' Amrita Singh and Saif Ali Khan. 

After graduating from Columbia University, Khan debuted in the 2018 movies Kedarnath and Simmba. This Bollywood actress won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut for the first of her critically and financially successful movies.

8. Kiara Advani

Any list of the most alluring Bollywood actresses does include Kiara Advani. She made her Bollywood debut in the 2014 movie Fugly. The Bollywood film M. S. Dhoni: The Untold Story helped her gain a following among fans. 

Among her best are the Bollywood movies Kabir Singh, Good Newz, Laxmii, and Shershaah. She ranked among top 10 most attractive Bollywood actresses in 2023 because of how talented and fashionable this hot Indian actress is.

9. Ananya Pandey

With roles in the comedy movies "Pati Patni Aur Woh" and the adolescent drama "Student of the Year 2", this Bollywood actress launched her acting career in 2019. These performances helped her win the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut. She has since appeared in the romantic comedy Gehraiyaan (2022). 

10. Disha Patani

This Bollywood actress made her acting debut in Varun Tej's Loafer (2015), a Telugu movie, and gained notoriety for her performance in the sports biopic M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story (2016). Following that, she appeared in the commercially successful Hindi flicks Baaghi 2 (2018) and Bharat and the Chinese action comedy Kung Fu Yoga (2017). (2019). 

Patani completed filming for her roles in Karan Johar's Yodha opposite Sidharth Malhotra and Mohit Suri's Ek Villain Returns alongside Tara Sutaria, Arjun Kapoor, and John Abraham. 

Conclusion

The world of Bollywood is home to some of the most talented and beautiful actresses in the industry. With each passing year, we witness new faces and fresh talent who capture the audience's hearts with their exceptional acting skills and stunning looks. 

The Bollywood top 10 actresses who hit the list in 2022 are blessed with beauty and immense talent that has won them millions of fans worldwide. With their hard work and dedication, these hot Indian actresses have managed to carve a niche for themselves in the competitive world of Bollywood, inspiring countless young women to pursue their dreams and make it big in the industry.

[kanzgamesandtrailers]

Hogwarts Legacy – Official Reveal Trailer | February 10, 2023 on PS5, PC...

Hogwarts Legacy: Hogwarts Legacy is a role-playing video game (RPG) developed by Avalanche Software and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment in collaboration with Portkey Games. The game will be released in February 2023 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and PC (Windows, via Epic Games Store and Steam); in April 2023 on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and in July 2023 on Nintendo Switch.

This game takes place in the world of wizards created by J. K. Rowling, without her being involved in the development and the scenario of the game.

In 2022, Hogwarts Legacy is considered by some journalists to be the most anticipated video game of the year.

Initially scheduled for 2021, the game's release was later announced for Christmas 2022. In August 2022, Avalanche Software announced the postponement of the game for the beginning of the following year, with a specific first release date.

History:

The plot takes place in the extended fantasy universe imagined by J. K. Rowling for the Harry Potter novels and the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them films. It follows the development of a wizard or witch, i.e. the person who plays the game, within Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the late 1800s, before the events of Rowling's two series.

The first phase of the game is a phase of integration and discovery of Hogwarts, its magic classes and the surroundings of the domain. The embodied character, endowed with an ancient and singular magic, is integrated directly into the fifth year of studies, and learns to develop his magical abilities by casting various spells, preparing potions and taming fantastic animals.

As he progresses through the game, the character comes to understand that the particular magic he holds is coveted by goblins and dark mages to destroy the wizarding world.

The stories adapt to the course chosen by the person who plays and it is possible to select his companions to evolve in the game.

Characters:

The main character can be male or female, and fully customizable. During the adventure, he is guided by several protagonists, such as the enigmatic professor Eleazar Fig, who informs him of a potential rebellion by a group of goblins led by a certain Rannrok, and the threat that weighs on Hogwarts.

The character meets several other notable students who come to help her in her quests and entrust their story to her, such as Natsai Onai, a courageous Gryffindor student driven by her thirst for justice; Poppy Sweeting, from Hufflepuff, an altruistic student fascinated by magical creatures, or even Sebastian Pallow (Sallow in English), a charismatic Slytherin student, hiding a dark family secret, Grignet (Deek), a house elf, helps the person who plays to organize the room on demand according to his needs and to discover its particular functionalities.

Game system:

Hogwarts Legacy is an action-adventure role-playing game (RPG) in an open world, It is played in single player mode and in objective vision.

In the character creation menu at the start of the game, the person can choose their appearance (face shape, eyes, skin color, hair, accessories), voice tone, first and last name, Hogwarts house as well as than his dormitory (girls or boys).

The avatar progresses in the game by being equipped with a magic wand, A system of morality is also present: the missions and scenarios are not the same according to the choices of the person and the values that he decides to defend during adventure

Hogwarts Legacy: Hogwarts Legacy, available Friday February 10, 2023 on PS5, PC and XBoxSeries.

*- What GPU does Hogwarts Legacy use? 

                     Recommended/High Specs 

RAM                                 16 GB 

GPU                                 NVIDIA GeForce 1080 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT or INTEL Arc A770 

DX VERSION                         DX 12 

STORAGE                        85 GB SSD

[whatsonmedia]

The 7 best new and returning TV Shows in 2023

We already have a list of 7 new and returning TV shows that should be put right on your must-watch list, so we can assure you that 2023 will be a fantastic year for TV shows. With new programs like the BBC's touching drama Best Interests and HBO's epic and horrifying The Last of Us in January, there is something for everyone. Along with returning favorites like You and Sex Education from Netflix, Clarkson's Farm is back on Prime Video. 1. Sex Education season 4 For more crazy antics and coming-of-age drama in 2023, Asa Butterfield, Gillian Anderson, Ncuti Gatwa, Aimee-Lou Wood, Emma Mackey, Connor Swindells, Kedar Williams-Stirling, and Mimi Keene will all be back. The critically acclaimed teen drama's final season is anticipated (*sobs*), but it will also feature Schitt's Creek actor Dan Levy as Maeve's new Ivy League tutor Thomas Molloy. https://youtu.be/goke5cXZ3Ro 2. You season 4 As Joe, played by Penn Badgley, reluctantly turns into a detective in London after learning that he might not be the only murderer in town, he is accompanied by Ed Speelers (Downton Abbey), Charlotte Ritchie (Fresh Meat, Feel Good), Adam James (Vigil), and Charlotte Scott (Fresh Meat, Feel Good). Netflix will start streaming You season 4 part 1 on February 10. https://youtu.be/Xp30pyRW23U 3. Velma Release on January 12, HBO US broadcaster Max; UK broadcaster TBD Featuring: Constance Wu, Sam Richardson, and Mindy Kaling The most intelligent member of Scooby-team, Doo's Velma Dinkley (Mindy Kaling), has her origin tale in this animated series for adults. There is no news yet on whether Velma, a longtime LGBTQ+ icon and recently confirmed queer character, will be portrayed as such in Kaling's project, despite the fact that we know the show will contain a "love triangle". So let's hope. https://youtu.be/lHdtsWn7sgE 4. Daisy Jones & The Six Release: March 3, 2023, Prime Video Riley Keough, Sam Claflin, and Suki Waterhouse appear in the series. This miniseries, which was produced in the form of a mock-doc episode of MTV's Behind The Music, follows a fake rock band as they erupt and ultimately implode in 1970s Los Angeles. Expect plenty of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll since it is based on Taylor Jenkins Reid's best-selling book, which was partially inspired by the real-life highs and lows of Fleetwood Mac. https://youtu.be/s9kwIlRJNy0 5. Secret Invasion Availability: early in 2023, Disney+ Ben Mendelsohn, Kingsley, and Samuel L. Jackson are the stars. Ben-Adir Do you recall Captain Marvel's shape-shifting aliens, the Skrulls? They will be the main subject of this new superhero program, which will depict a more nuanced and subdued side of Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury. As a "crossover event series," there is a good chance that other beloved Marvel characters will make a surprise appearance. https://youtu.be/qZVTkn2NjS0 6. Masters of the Air Release: Apple TV+ in 2023 Featuring: Barry Keogh, Callum Turner, and Austin Butler This miniseries about World War II has a solid resume. Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg serve as executive producers, and Cary Fukunaga of No Time to Die The director Joji Fukunaga is one of them. A talented ensemble of up-and-coming performers, led by Elvis actor Austin Butler, portrays the valiant "bomber boys" who fought the war in the air. https://youtu.be/aDyDg04x1W0 7. Poker Face Starring: Natasha Lyonne, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Adrien Brody; release date: January 26, Peacock (US); broadcaster in the UK TBC This detective drama was conceptualized by Glass Onion director Rian Johnson and offers a fascinating idea. The lead role of Charlie Cale, a sleuth with an uncanny ability to detect deception, belongs to Natasha Lyonne (Russian Doll). The 10-episode season has a "case-of-the-week" structure, making it a potential Murder, She Wrote replacement for the streaming era. https://youtu.be/UH5uGZ9SW7A Read the full article