#best jrpg 2021

[ponett]

Bobby's 2023 Media Wrap-Up

So! Like I said before, this past year I kept a running list of everything I watched, every game I finished, every new album I listened to, etc., and wrote one-paragraph blurbs with my thoughts on every single one. Please enjoy this journey through everything I liked, or didn't like, in 2023, with my favorites of the year listed at the bottom.

(Yes! This is long!!)

Some notes:

I mainly only included things I finished. Exceptions are marked with an asterisk.

I included some YouTube stuff as "TV shows" - mostly particularly long, high effort video essays and documentaries.

I was a bit less adventurous than I'd like to have been this year. Part of this was just that I felt like I was constantly playing catch-up with Big Releases I felt obligated to check out, and part of this was just executive dysfunction from burnout. Wait until you see how long it took me to beat Mario Wonder lmao

Yes, I need to read more books. I don't read a lot of books these days. I need to get back to Discworld.

COLOR KEY

Video Games • TV / Web Video  •  Movies  •  Comics  •  Music

January

1/15: Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (MSQ) - Very slow at times, the Primal shit is generally extremely lame to me outside of the boss fights themselves, but god if the quality of life improvements over WoW, the JRPG energy, and the fact that it Actually Has A Story carry it pretty hard.

1/18: Sonic the Hedgehog: Scrapnik Island miniseries - One of the most creative and compelling uses of the Sonic IP… ever? Fantastic little self-contained arc about the struggles of Eggman’s abandoned creations that gracefully weaves between heartfelt optimism and moody horror with some of the best art ever seen in a Sonic comic.

1/18: Mega Man X4 - Glad I finally actually beat this after never even beating any of the Mavericks as a kid! I can see why it’s a lot of peoples’ favorites. The gameplay has very little of that X series bloat and is just fun, especially after getting X’s armor upgrades. (But the story really is a long series of missed opportunities.)

February

2/2: Donks - Felix Colgrave continues to be an exceptional artist. The sound design on this is fantastic and really sells this short as something unique. Had to go back and watch his older stuff again after this.

2/4: Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward (3.0 - 3.3 MSQ) - I get it now. I get why people say this is just a proper mainline Final Fantasy game built into the framework of an MMO. That shit ruled. Not even walking back the drama in Ul’Dah from the end of ARR can sour me on it because the main storyline was so strong.

2/8: Disneyland's Forgotten Sci-Fi Rock Band - Live From the Space Stage - A nice and honest tribute to a group of artists who could have easily been forgotten. In hindsight this feels like a precursor to Kevin’s Disney Channel jingle video, a tribute to the unsung artists pouring their hearts into “lesser” art for a megacorporation, art that was designed to be transient but sticks with people nonetheless.

2/9: Metroid Prime Remastered* - Not gonna finish because I just played through the Wii version in 2021, but still. Very, very pretty remaster.

2/16: Theatrhythm Final Bar Line - It’s more Theatrhythm. What more could I want

2/17: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean (anime) - Probably the best part of the anime so far (assuming they continue on to SBR). A near perfect mix of the more structured plot of part 5 with the goofiness of parts 3 and 4 that crescendos into a fantastic, bombastic, emotional, bittersweet ending. The use of footage from the original opening and the new ending set to Roundabout in the finale were perfect, and made me intensely nostalgic for the early days of my JoJo fandom between seasons 1 and 2 of the anime.

2/22: Aggretsuko Season 5 - I don’t really know what to make of this one. Once you get past the agonizing initial arc all about Haida where Retsuko has to be his overbearing mommy GF who flips out and starts spying on him when she’s left on read and chides him when he misbehaves, it feels like an improvement over the previous seasons. But I don’t know how much of that is due to the extremely low bar set by season 4. And then the ending is extremely rushed and anticlimactic. They got legally married and the only acknowledgement was a shot of them signing the paperwork in a montage partway through the final episode?????????

2/24: Double Fine PsychOdyssey - God, what a journey the making of this game was. I already loved 2 Player’s past efforts at documenting Double Fine’s process, but this takes it to a whole new level. This feels culturally significant. The depth and honesty with which they depict not just the nitty gritty of making a game, but also the inherent struggles of working on a collaborative creative work for years at a time, is astounding. Not to mention that they were there to capture the shift from office life to remote work as COVID hit. So much of this would have been nightmarishly stressful to watch if I didn’t already know how successful the game was, but that’s just because they really didn’t sugarcoat it. And yet even after all that, it leaves me feeling optimistic about video games as an art form in a way that the constant headlines about cynical live service games don’t. There are still people out there pouring their hearts into making real art, and this is their story. Everyone who plays video games should watch this.

2/25: Cracker Island (Gorillaz) - New Gorillaz albums feel like less of an event these days, but after Humanz it feels like they’re just more chill with the project and their ambitions with it. Every couple years we get some more laid back jams from Damon along with some fun new collabs. Hard to complain. Favorite track: New Gold

2/25: Pool Kids (Pool Kids) - I discovered this band because Derek knows them and was excited when they got a song added to Fortnite through the Bandcamp collab. Always down to find more cool indie rock bands I can vibe with. The mix of dreamy vocals and energetic riffs on some of the tracks here almost fill the Crying-shaped hole in my heart. Almost… Favorite track: Conscious Uncoupling

2/25: Insane in the Rain (insaneintherainmusic) - I thought it was really funny timing when Carlos announced that his first original project would be a jazz fusion album inspired by acts like T-Square and Casiopea right as I was getting into those two specific bands. The final product does not disappoint. Favorite track: Insane in the Rain

2/26: Get Up Sequences Part Two (The Go! Team) - I’ve never been one to believe that a band’s sound has to remain exactly the same forever, but it really does hit you hard that the first two tracks here sound like classic The Go! Team. Their more recent cleaner sound is still here too, though, for a nice mix of old and new. Favorite track: Divebomb

2/28: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (Season 1) - Oh my god. Oh my god. I got distracted around the time I was finishing SLARPG, but finally catching up now, wow. My assumption that the seemingly lighter tone of the series compared to the prologue was there to lull us into a false sense of security before twisting the knife when war finally breaks out was spot on. This is peak Gundam.

March

3/4: Pizza Tower - One of the best platformers I’ve played in a long time. It transcends its blatant Wario Land inspirations with the sheer speed at which Peppino can move and the way things like the level design, his wall running, and even the hidden ability to do a second lap around the level reward getting into a flow state where you’re just constantly moving. This is the type of game that wants to turn you into a speedrunner. My only real complaint is a few iffy enemy designs that I wish would get patched.

3/6: Bloons TD 6 * - I bought this before bed one night on a nostalgic whim and then the next morning woke up and saw the Steam receipt email on my phone in one of the most “what did I do last night” moments of my life. I like when the monkeys pop the balloons.

3/7: The Book of Boba Fett - I put off finishing this show for a very long time but finally caved upon the release of The Mandalorian season 3. This show spends four episodes failing to make me give a shit about Boba Fett trying to be “the daimyo” and drive the drug trade off of Tatooine, then just gives up and becomes season 2.5 of Mando, which in turn feels like it undercuts the main series. It fails as both its own story and as a spinoff. I know that finishing this after Andor did it no favors, but WHOOF.

3/12: Obi-Wan Kenobi - Some interesting ideas in the first half hinting at a more introspective show, but it’s mostly swept aside in the back half so it can become a generic Star Wars adventure remixing things from A New Hope and Rebels (and apparently Jedi: Fallen Order). Action scenes have zero stakes because you know nothing can happen to any of the returning characters and none of the new ones are particularly interesting. Why there’s a second climax hinging on a Luke Skywalker death fakeout eludes me. Obi-Wan throwing the rocks at Vader is one of the funniest things in Star Wars history. But it was still better than Book of Boba Fett, I guess.

3/19: The King of Braves GaoGaiGar - Wow, cool robot indeed… GaoGaiGar isn’t going to blow anyone away with its writing, but sometimes you just need a really fun monster of the week mecha show with great action and lovably goofy characters. This is a show where like 20% of every episode consists of recycled transformation, combination, and signature attack sequences and I ate it up every time because they look fucking cool as hell. I don’t care. I’d watch Final Fusion another 49 times.

3/21: The Last of Us (HBO) * - Watched the first two episodes out of curiosity, but I’m not sure if I’ll continue because I don’t give a shit about The Last of Us. It’s definitely a well done adaptation, though, even if I know it’s inevitably going to devolve into miserable torture porn with questionable politics if they adapt Part II faithfully. The ending of episode 2 also lines up perfectly with where I stopped in the game in 2013 lmao

3/27: The Future is a Dead Mall - Decentraland and the Metaverse (Folding Ideas) - Another banger from Dan Olson. This time the premise inherently gives him more time to just show off a bunch of stupid ugly bullshit made by crypto guys, which is fun. My main complaint was that I wished he would’ve brought up Second Life more as a point of comparison (a thing I basically always want out of discussion of “the metaverse”), but he at least did touch on it in the last section.

3/31: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog - I can’t believe after years of begging for the supporting cast to get more and better material in a Sonic game I got my wish in the form of a freeware murder mystery VN released for April Fools. This kicked ass.

April

4/7: Berserk - Completed Miura’s run and caught up on the chapters that have been released posthumously. It’s hard to say anything that hasn’t been said about Berserk, universally agreed upon as one of the greats of manga and fantasy fiction as a whole. What begins in its first few volumes as a nihilistic and edgy action comic built to facilitate as much sex and gore as possible quickly evolves into something deeply human and vulnerable and beautiful, both figuratively and in terms of its lavish art. The world sucks and is immeasurably cruel, and you will see that cruelty illustrated in graphic, sickening detail repeatedly throughout the series. (Perhaps a little too often throughout the Golden Age, where it feels like Miura never misses an opportunity to threaten Casca with sexual assault mid-battle.) But the point isn’t to wallow in that misery. It’s the story of a victim of horrific abuse learning to slowly open up to others, having those people he cares about torn away from him in the worst night of his life, hardening himself into a cold killing machine, and then slowly learning to open back up again, even if it means leaving himself vulnerable to more hurt. Anyone who says that the series peaked with the eclipse and went downhill in the “Guts’ JRPG Party” era is missing the point. Guts needed to find new people in his life to care about, to begin to find happiness again. Because no matter what unspeakable things Guts has gone through, it’s still possible for him to heal and to be loved. It takes time, but eventually you stop and realize that life has moved on.

4/8: Dedede’s Drum Dash Deluxe - Skipped it upon release because I didn’t particularly care for the minigame in Triple Deluxe, and I didn’t miss much. It’s fine as a little distraction, but not as a standalone rhythm game with only seven songs. If you don’t bother with the hard modes or chase after high scores this game is 15 minutes long. Oh how I yearn for Kirby to get the Theatrhythm treatment.

4/10: The King of Braves: GaoGaiGar FINAL - Eh… It was okay. Lots of cool robot fights, but said fights are stitched together with a mediocre plot that tries too hard to be more “mature” than its unabashedly schlocky kids’ show predecessor. Not crazy about the ending, either, which tries to be a bittersweet farewell closing off the series once and for all while also teasing that maybe there’ll be ANOTHER sequel after the OVA series they literally called “FINAL.” Ah well.

4/11: The Owl House - Sad to see this one go, but it’s hard to imagine them doing a better finale than this, even if they had gotten the six seasons they deserved. I’m not as obsessed with The Owl House as I probably would’ve been had it come out when I was, like, 20, but it’s a really fantastic show for all the reasons people always say. Great characters, great world, great story. I love that this starry-eyed fantasy story about a teenager finding love and a place where she belongs is also set on the rotting corpse of a titan with Hieronymous Bosch-inspired scenery and freaky monsters everywhere. What a great mix. If anything, I just wish I would’ve watched the first season as it aired so I could’ve had more time with it.

4/29: Mega Man Battle Network 3: Blue Version - FINALLY beat this via the new collection, 20 years after playing it as my first Mega Man game. (Technically my first was White, not Blue, but whatever.) There are more annoyances than I remember - lots of really really bad forced backtracking sections where you have to revisit every previous part of the internet, low chip drop rates, some really aggravating bosses like BubbleMan and KingMan, etc. But it’s still a great time overall. It’s Battle Network. In the back half the story gets surprisingly emotional, too. I was always under the assumption that the Hub stuff never came back up much in the story after 1, so I was pleasantly surprised with how relevant it was to the emotional arc of 3.

4/30: Mega Man Battle Network 4: Red Sun * - Yeah I’m not playing through the whole thing lmao. I just wanted to play the first couple hours for nostalgia’s sake, and as a baseline for how much better the rest are. Even before getting deep in the game and having to deal with all the shit gated between doing two new game+ playthroughs, it’s immediately obvious how much of a downgrade this one is. Tons of glaring errors and typos all over the script, blander music, a way more boring aesthetic for the internet, and a premise that mostly just recycles the tournament idea from 3.

May

5/14: The Venture Bros. - Glad I finally sat down and watched all of this with Anthony after having seen one (1) episode as a teenager and a bunch of random clips in the years since. Great show. Some jokes in the early seasons haven’t aged gracefully, but what the show grows into over time... man. Hank and Dean go from being the butt of the joke to being characters you actually sympathize with - while still also being funny little goofballs. And the journey Henchman 21 goes on throughout the show. Man. Amazing that a comedy like this could run for 20 years and maintain its level of quality. Can’t wait for the movie.

5/18: Future Me Hates Me (The Beths) - Okay yeah I’m now just discovering bands through Fortnite lmao. I can’t complain really, they pick some really great indie artists for the in-game radio stations. Anyway: It’s very easy to win me over with a combination of energetic power pop, catchy guitar riffs, and earnest lyrics like this. One of those albums where three or four tracks in I know I have to buy it. Favorite track: Not Running

5/18: Jump Rope Gazers (The Beths) - Ditto. Favorite track: Dying to Believe

5/18: Expert In A Dying Field (The Beths) - Another good album. (I’m listening to these in release order.) I’ve been a bit slower to warm up to this one, initially thinking it was a little too mellow overall, but it might be my favorite after a few listens. Some real high highs. Interestingly, the lead singer’s New Zealand accent is also coming out more in her singing? Favorite track: Your Side (or maybe Head in the Clouds)

5/19: The Super Mario Bros. Movie - As a Mario fan, I think I enjoyed it? As a movie, less so? It was decent, in spite of feeling like they came up with a list of fun action setpieces first and then wrote the absolute bare minimum possible for the story scenes tying it all together. Full thoughts here. (This is the first movie I’ve seen this year, huh? I really don’t watch a lot of movies.)

5/23: Don't Know What You're In Until You're Out (Gladie) - I feel like I don’t like Gladie as much as I should. Their style of noisy indie rock is very much in my wheelhouse, and I do enjoy listening to them, but I dunno. Maybe it’s that the particular style of vocals makes it more monotonous to me. A good album nonetheless, if not 100% my thing. Favorite track: Nothing

5/24: City Slicker (Ginger Root) - Yes I am still making my way through Bandcamp artists I heard on Fortnite don’t @ me. Any excuse to get me to listen to some cool city pop-inspired funk like this is a good excuse. Favorite track: Loretta

5/24: Rikki (Ginger Root) - Favorite track: Why Try

5/25: Spotlight People (Ginger Root) - Favorite track: The Classic

5/29: Succession - A good dramedy series that increasingly focuses more on the drama than the comedy as it progresses, but it’s hard to complain about that since the drama is so compellingly produced. I enjoyed it. That being said, I kind of rankle at the claims that it’s The Greatest TV Show Of All Time. It’s great, don’t get me wrong. Amazing performances all around. But the show LOVES to spin its wheels, to repeat itself, and to let most of its interesting dramatic developments fizzle out before anything really comes of them, almost as if the show is constantly getting bored with its own ideas. To some extent this is intentional - Logan Roy is the untouchable billionaire, his kids fail at everything (but will nonetheless remain billionaires), and in the long run none of them really give a shit about anything other than their own status. But it’s not like things tend to visibly impact anyone else, either, be they supporting characters or the world at large. Even the Big Scary Election, where the Roy siblings are directly responsible for plunging the nation into chaos, ultimately has zero impact on the finale a mere two episodes later. Certain Other Things do have an impact in the last season, though, allowing things to meaningfully change for the cast and for the show to sit with the ensuing drama, which has stopped me from souring on Succession more. There was finally a payoff for something. But it does still kind of feel like a show that goes in circles until it’s ready to call it quits, even if those circles did contain a lot of great acting and music along the way.

5/29: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts - I’d watched the first 12 episodes when they originally released, but I guess the Netflix binge release and the fact that all three “seasons” came out in one year led to me waiting until it finished… and then I just never got around to finishing it. Glad I fixed that! Really fun and stylish cartoon with an art style reminiscent of Teen Titans, a hip hop-filled soundtrack, dynamic fight scenes, and a colorful post-apocalyptic world filled with mutant (mostly anthropomorphic) animals. I’ll admit that at times I do kinda roll my eyes at Kipo’s unshakeable belief that everyone can be friends in a way that I don’t necessarily with similar shows like Steven Universe, and not every joke lands, but I dunno. It’s a kids’ show. That’s to be expected. It doesn’t detract from the overall package for me.

June

6/1: Craig of the Creek (Season 4) - It’s been years and I’m still processing the fact that kids can turn on Cartoon Network and hear Jeff Rosenstock. Anyway! Craig continues to be one of the best cartoons on TV, consistently funny and creative and way more engaging than a show about a bunch of kids LARPing in the woods has any right to be. This season turned into One Piece with the gang effectively hunting down the Poneglyphs in search of a legendary treasure. The kids think it���ll be magic. It isn't. An increasing number of cartoon logic gags aside, this show is firmly set in the real world. Does that make it any less interesting? Hell no. Season 3 turned a game of capture the flag into an all-out five episode war between the heroes and villains, filled with dramatic turnabouts and a climactic guest appearance from Del the Funky Homosapien. I’m sure however they wrap things up in the (sadly shortened) final season, it’ll be great. (Also? I would watch a whole show based on that “what if” episode that jumped forward to everyone’s 20s.)

6/6: Barry - Holy shit, what a show. I ended up binging it in less than a week in a cycle of “okay, just one more episode.” The way this show is able to swing between tones and genres while still feeling like a cohesive whole is truly masterful. It’s a layered character drama, a tragic crime thriller, a farcical comedy, an understated action series, a surrealist morality play, and a scathing satire of Hollywood, all in one. Even within the criminal underworld subplots the show ranges in tone from Breaking Bad to Paddington 2. And it works! While the show naturally gets bleaker over time as it confronts the repercussions of Barry’s murders, it never completely loses sight of its comedic roots. My favorite episode was easily season 2’s “ronny/lily,” a mostly self-contained episode that somehow manages to keep throwing the perfect curveballs to escalate its dark comedy.

6/12: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Extended Edition) - Y’all heard of this movie? Pretty good, it turns out. (I’d seen the theatrical cut before, but this was my first time watching the extended edition. I’ve also only seen parts of the other two movies, so it’s time I finally watch all the extended cuts. The Gollum game pushed me to this.)

6/13: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Extended Edition) - give it to us RAW and WRIGGLING

6/17: The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Extended Edition) - I’m not crying YOU’RE crying

6/22: Clone High (Season 2) - While the first episode being about “cancel culture” (or, more accurately, a teenager from 2003 being transported to 2023 and putting his foot in his mouth a lot) put a lot of people off, I ended up enjoying the new season of Clone High. The new clones grew on me as the season went on and their roles in the web of teen romance melodrama crystalized, and it made me laugh a lot, and Cleo/Frida is galaxy brained. Also they played one of my favorite Antarctigo Vespucci songs like a minute into the first episode. I don’t think I could really ask for much more.

6/28: The Mandalorian (Season 3) - I'd been watching this weekly but put off the last episode for no real reason. Responses to this season have been all over the place, but my blistering hot take is… it was fine. Is it as good as the first season? Probably not. But Mando no longer needs to carry the whole franchise on its shoulders and set the bar for how good the live action Disney Star Wars shows can be, because Andor exists, and it’s never gonna top Andor. The Mandalorian is free to just be a pulpy space adventure show where Giancarlo Esposito plays a scenery-chewing cartoon villain and a little puppet does wire stunts. These are things Andor cannot and should not do, but that’s Star Wars, baby. It’s delightful. I could watch Grogu get underhand tossed like a sack of flour all day.

July

7/2: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (Season 2) - LOVE WINS. (More nuanced take from way later: It definitely feels like a lot of the more messy political conflicts in this show got swept aside by the big final battle where some more easily resolved family conflicts take center stage. I’m not sure the ending is the most satisfying. But also this show only got half the episode count that damn near every other Gundam show ever made got, so that might be a factor here. Idk. Still one of my favorite Gundams.)

7/4: Final Fantasy XVI (watched Anthony play) - I had to write my longest Medium article ever about this one because I was so frustrated

7/10: Home Movies - “Things I like that I’ve never seen in full” has certainly been a recurring theme this year. Home Movies remains an all-time classic of animated comedy that went out on a high note before things got stale or the characters became parodies of themselves. While it’s mostly known for its funny improvised banter, throughout the last season you can really see the arc where Brendon no longer enjoys making movies, yet he feels obligated to keep using them to escape from the real world. In that light, the ending where the nature of their dysfunctional makeshift family is cemented, Brendon’s camera suddenly breaks, and life moves on really does feel like the perfect note to end on. Truly one of the best to ever do it.

7/15: The Legend of Zelda - Tears of the Kingdom - Wow. Just… wow. I had serious doubts about TotK in the months leading up to release due to how close Nintendo was playing their cards to their chest. I didn’t want this to be a Saints Row IV, where the game is fun enough but the recycled map makes it feel like a rehash. Instead, I found a game that made me look at BotW’s map in a whole new light, brimming with so many more things to do and people to meet. Add on a better, more versatile set of tools, more varied dungeons and bosses, and a story that I felt was told somewhat better and we’ve got a real contender for my new favorite Zelda game. It was hard to tear myself away, but as this list shows, it’s been basically the only game I’ve played since it came out.

7/16: Sonic Prime (Season 2) - I liked the parts with Shadow and Chaos Sonic, but I’ve come to the sad conclusion that most of this show is just mediocre. More thoughts here.

7/18: We ♥ Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie - “I’m a dog, but I love Katamari Damacy.” Truer words have never been spoken.

7/19: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts - Pretty good! It didn’t blow me away, but after how bad the Bay movies got I’m just thankful to have a decently cohesive Transformers movie where the human story is okay and I like the bots (although half of them needed more screen time), even if it is just another Hollywood blockbuster about two sides fighting over a macguffin that devolves into a big CGI battle against an army of nameless monsters in the third act. This is basically a mid-tier MCU movie but with Transformers, which won’t do much for most people, but again: the bar was underground.

7/22: The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart - God DAMN. A phenomenal ending for the series. While I would have loved to see a full final season to get some more one-off episodes in there, this doesn’t feel creatively compromised in any way–either due to the time constraints, or due to a desire to make it more marketable as a movie. It really does feel like they just took their outlines for the canceled final season and gently massaged them into the shape of an 84-minute movie, and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s completely on par with the previous seasons. A hilarious and fitting sendoff for one of the greats of adult animation.

7/23: Beautiful Katamari - This was one of my first Xbox 360 games, but a frustrating temperature-based level made me put it down for 16 years. “Maybe it won’t be as bad now that I’ve beaten the first two games and am better at Katamari,” I thought. Nope! Still an absolutely dogshit level. But also, turns out the whole game is only like two hours long lmao. It’s still Katamari, so it’s still fun - the final level in particular, which seamlessly takes you from ground level all the way to space, feels like a logical endpoint for the series - but beyond that it just doesn't have the same soul without Keita Takahashi's input.

August

8/4: Doom Singer (Chris Farren) - I’ve been waiting so long for Chris and Jeff to do another Antarctigo Vespucci album, but god damn. This is the best of Chris’s solo work, and a contender for his best record, period. Every track’s a banger, with more energy than some of his previous solo work but also a good deal of variety. Favorite tracks: First Place, Cosmic Leash

8/4: Transformers Earthspark (Season 1) - This show had a bit of an uneven start, unsure if it wanted to have the emotional maturity of a more serious action cartoon or a preschool cartoon where the characters have little kid mood swings and outbursts and learn basic lessons. It also felt like it was speedrunning its Wholesome Found Family Dynamic with characters who just met, which didn’t feel earned. While these problems never completely go away (see: the cheap and corny way the otherwise very dark season finale suddenly resolves), the show improves quickly, and the positives outweigh the negatives. It’s so great to have a Transformers cartoon that feels fresh, giving us a post-war setting with a bunch of new characters and new dynamics between the Cybertronians and the humans. The returning characters are also uniformly great as the old veterans overseeing the new generation. (Reformed Megatron! Danny Pudi as Bumblebee! Steve Blum returning as Starscream! Keith David as Grimlock!!!) And those super dynamic action scenes! I can nitpick, but Earthspark’s a ton of fun, and easily the best new Transformers cartoon since Prime and Animated.

8/5: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (remaster) - Everyone who told me this game was a masterpiece was right. I had played the first chapter when it dropped as the demo for the iOS version years ago, but never went further than that until now. What a game. Absolutely incredible through and through. Great story, great twists, great characters, great puzzles, great art direction. Everything comes together so perfectly to form a totally unique, unforgettable package, a top tier video game murder mystery. Everyone should play this, preferably going in as blind as possible.

8/15: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Season 16) - Wow! Recent seasons of Sunny have been kind of up and down, with some interesting experiments (Mac Finds His Pride, the Ireland arc, etc.) paired with some comedic duds. Most of this latest season is standard fare for the series with fewer big creative swings, but it’s just hit after hit in terms of comedy. Not a single dud, whether we’re seeing Mac and Dennis try to start a rental business for inflatable furniture or watching the gang meet Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, believing the entire time that the latter is Malcolm from Malcolm in the Middle. Even the attempts at topical comedy landed better. Easily the funniest season in years.

8/16: One Piece Film Gold - It’s easy to see why this one has kind of been forgotten in the wake of Stampede and Film Red, which revolve around established fan favorite characters, but this was still pretty fun. Perhaps a little too long, but it’s fun to see the Straw Hats fool around in a giant casino and do a heist. They definitely cranked the fanservice up even more than usual in this one, though, as I probably should have expected for a movie made alongside the anime’s adaptation of Dressrosa.

8/17: One Piece: Stampede - This one goes for a different kind of fanservice. While most One Piece movies are isolated from the ongoing plot and its expanded cast of characters, Stampede instead asks “What if we just put damn near every active character on the same island and had them fight?” The answer: a fun time! It would get old if all of the movies were like this, but after a bunch of movies that are just like “the Straw Hats are gonna land on another new island and fight some more weird guys” it’s fun to see characters like Law and Buggy and Smoker get in on the fun. It’s also nice to get a movie with the Wano era art style, and Usopp surprisingly gets some really good character moments in here.

8/18: One Piece Film Red - This really is the best of the One Piece movies, huh? (Baron Omatsuri is a close second.) It really feels like a change of pace after the last four with the most interesting and emotionally engaging story out of any of them. And even if the events of these movies are never canon, it still feels significant in my understanding of Shanks as a character as we move into the final phase of the manga.

8/21: Pikmin 4 - The opening hour of the game made me really question if they’d changed too much, with all the focus on your new dog unit over your Pikmin and the extremely dull, drawn out dialogue scenes with your new companions back at the base. But once I got into the swing of things I had a blast. This is probably my new favorite Pikmin game. There’s a great mix of activities here to keep things fresh. I also really ended up liking Oatchi’s role as basically your second captain who can also serve as your tank or a rideable mount. The Dandori stuff and nighttime missions in particular show off how useful Oatchi is for your multitasking without necessarily overshadowing the Pikmin.

8/22: Never Get Tired: The Bomb the Music Industry! Story - I literally backed this on Kickstarter eight years ago (my name is in the credits!) and then never got around to watching it for no reason. It’s on YouTube now, and Jeff’s got a new album out next week, so now feels like the perfect time to watch it. And man… what a great documentary. Obviously I’m just a fan of the band, but this also really spoke to me as an artist. Jeff wanting to stick to his principles and give out his music for free and play cheap all ages shows, his discomfort over the idea of selling merch, and the struggles that come with not playing the game like that… It's hard. They readily admit that Jeff is an idealist, that people fight him on this stuff, that he’s missed out on some big opportunities because of these stances, and that he’s had to compromise a bit on some of these things over time. But that incredible climax with their final show, including a full opening performance of the slowly building “Campaign for a Better Next Weekend” and the closing performance of “Future 86” where the whole audience is singing along as the members of the band are hugging and crying… it’s beautiful. This may have been a band where the members had to go back to their shitty day jobs after every tour because they weren’t selling out arenas, but their art meant something to people, and that makes it all worth it.

8/25: Nimona - I haven’t read the original comic (yet), so I can’t compare them too much, but it’s nonetheless pretty apparent that some things were softened and easy kids’ movie jokes were added by the studio to squeeze this graphic novel for teens into a PG animated movie. Regardless, the emotional throughline hits REALLY hard, particularly the very blatant trans allegory and the climax. (It’s no wonder Disney was afraid of this movie seeing the light of day lmao.) The animation is also very squishy and fun to watch throughout. Great movie.

8/26: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish - Spider-Verse really has done so much for animation, huh? This one was as good as everyone said. Beautiful use of stylized color and lighting throughout, and every time this movie very conspicuously shifted to different framerates for a flashy fight scene it owned. Very cute and heartwarming story, too, which thankfully gave its second act plenty of time to explore the cast and let them go on their journey, unlike a certain plumber movie that came out a few months later. Also I would let Death [redacted]

8/28: Holocure: Save the Fans! - This isn't really something I can beat, but I've been addicted to Holocure lately. I don't even watch VTubers aside from maybe seeing a funny Korone animation every now and then, this is just a really, really good freeware Vampire Survivors clone with a huge roster of varied characters to pick from.

8/31: HELLMODE (Jeff Rosenstock) - A new album from Jeff is always a major event for me. If there were any worries that he was starting to go soft at 40 (because one of the three singles off this album was a gentle acoustic piece), the frantic opening of this album put those worries to rest. The first two tracks are Jeff screaming out for help as he’s pulled in a million directions by the chaotic state of the world, a theme that becomes the thesis of the album. I’d say it lags slightly in the middle, but overall this is another extremely well-rounded record full of bangers that’s unapologetically Jeff, with possibly my favorite closing track he’s ever done. Favorite tracks: I WANNA BE WRONG, 3 SUMMERS

September

9/3: One Piece (live action, Season 1) - They did it. I can’t believe it, but they did it. While I have my nitpicks (Usopp and Sanji don’t get enough big moments to shine), this is an extremely solid and faithful adaptation of the first few arcs of One Piece with a great cast. For the most part the changes feel smart and logical, and the big emotional beats of the story are all there and executed very well. I doubted it a little in episodes 2-4, where the Orange Town and Syrup Village arcs saw some major changes to shift the action indoors, and the increased focus on the drama in favor of repeating every gag and battle from the manga 1:1 took a bit of getting used to, but by the end I was having a blast. It’s a different take on One Piece, but it still feels like One Piece. Genuinely very excited for season 2.

9/4: Pseudoregalia - A great little N64-style 3D Metroidvania focused on platforming and very satisfying movement. I always love entries in the genre that are less prescriptive in what order you have to tackle areas in, a la Symphony of the Night or Hollow Knight, and this one’s great in that regard. While there are a number of new moves to find, most of the map is open to you very early in the game, and smart use of your moveset can allow you to “sequence break” without even realizing it. (You would not believe how long I went without getting the wall run.) I do wish it had a map, but that’s already being patched in.

9/6: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk * - Not a bad game at all, but I quickly remembered how bad I am at skating games, so like… eh? Not sure I have much desire to play past chapter 2. Also the soundtrack is sadly kinda hit or miss for me outside of the obvious Naganuma tunes.

9/9: The History of the Minnesota Vikings (Dorktown) - Jon Bois never misses. Even as someone who doesn’t actively follow sports, Jon Bois is a master storyteller, using graphs and statistics and funny anecdotes to explore these deeply human stories. He can convey why people care so much about these teams, these people, and sports in general, and how our popular sports reflect on American culture. He could tell the story of just about any team or player in any sport and I just know I’ll come out the other side a misty-eyed fan. And what a fascinating cast of characters we have this time, with origin stories for everything from the Hail Mary pass to a Minnesota state supreme court judge to the Griddy. Nine hours well spent.

9/10: Timespinner - A fun and highly polished Metroidvania that maybe doesn’t quite have enough of its own identity in its quest to replicate Symphony of the Night…but also, like, this was pitched as a Symphony throwback on KickStarter in a pre-Bloodstained, pre-Hollow Knight world, so I can’t really blame ‘em! Stopping time to avoid boss attacks is fun, the pixel art is gorgeous, and I liked the dark science fantasy story about warring empires and meddling with time a lot more than I thought I would - lore journal text dumps and all.

9/14: The Decay of Sam & Cat (Quinton Reviews) - All the stuff at the end with Matt Bennett (the actor who played Robbie on Victorious and Sam & Cat) in this was really good and sweet. It’s that kind of thing that makes these videos feel like they’re still worthwhile on some level. But the padding and the things Quinton chooses to spend the colossal runtime on does drive me more and more insane with each passing Nick sitcom video. I don’t know how much longer he can keep this schtick up. I hope he’s able to move on to other things before too terribly long instead of continuing to extend this “miniseries.”

9/19: Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales - AKA Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man 1.5. It’s fun for the same reasons Peter’s first game was fun. I had a good time swinging around New York again in preparation for the sequel, and there’s a lot of cute stuff with Miles becoming Harlem’s neighborhood hero, but WOW did the Underground v. Roxxon conflict fall flat for me.

9/20: I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson - I understand so many posts now.

9/25: Spider-Man (2002) (rewatch) - It’s you who’s out, Gobby! OUT OF YOUR MIND!

9/25: Futurama (Season 8) - I was ready to be a hater, recalling the fact that Futurama has already had three “perfect endings” with the show getting a little weaker with every revival. Then I watched the first new episode on a whim and thought it wasn’t bad, so I was like, eh, sure, I’ll watch the rest. Overall Hulurama is hit or miss. There are chuckles to be had, and it sure as hell beats modern Simpsons, but almost every episode is either a belated take on an overplayed Topical Issue (the pandemic, Amazon, cancel culture, etc.) or a direct sequel to an old episode people liked. Or both! It’s also really noticeable that certain voice actors sound way older - Billy West is struggling with the Fry voice in particular, and it hurts his comedic timing. But just when all hope seemed lost after the nigh-incomprehensible toy-themed anthology episode, possibly the worst episode of the entire series… the last episode, where the Planet Express crew explores whether or not the universe could be a simulation, was really, really solid. Great note to end on to make me not regret my time with this season as a whole.

9/26: Spider-Man 2 (2004) (rewatch) - Once the GOAT, always the GOAT.

9/27: Spider-Man 3 (rewatch) - Revisiting this movie for the first time since I saw it in theaters… it’s not bad. It’s fine! It continues to have the heart and sincerity that make the first two movies work. It’s just not as concise with three villains vying for the spotlight, but I also wouldn’t cut any of them, necessarily. I guess Eddie/Venom would be the easiest, but Peter getting the black suit and giving in to his resentment feels too central to cut. (Yes, even with Emo Peter becoming a meme.)

9/28: Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake - I wasn’t really sure what to expect with this one, especially since I was never really a fan of the genderbend episodes in the original show. (At the time they mostly just felt like an excuse to crank up the teen romance stuff to 11.) But MAN. This was a fantastic coda to the original series. It made me care about Fionna and Cake and their friends as their own characters separate from their original counterparts, it gave the Simon/Betty arc a much more satisfying (if no less bittersweet) resolution than the original finale had time to do, and it even managed to be a multiverse story that didn’t make me roll my eyes in 2023. A+ all around. Makes me wanna rewatch the original show again. [spoiler: I did]

9/29: Meanwhile (aivi & surasshu) - It’s been a whole decade–they were busy with, you know, all the music in Steven Universe, among other things–but we finally have a new aivi & surasshu album! Their chiptune/piano fusion style is familiar, but they’ve definitely grown as composers in subtle ways. Favorite track: Time Travel

October

10/1: This is Financial Advice (Folding Ideas) - A lot of the nitty gritty finance law stuff turned into white noise for me, but still, great video. I had no idea that the GameStop stock craze devolved into this bizarre cult that thinks they’re going to crash the global economy and rise from the ashes as the new kings with the value of their GME stocks. Glad this video exists to try and balance out the narrative.

10/5: Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon DLC - Good ideas, absurdly frustrating and tedious execution. Full thoughts here.

10/10: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (rewatch) - I didn’t plan this, but very fitting that I would end up rewatching this on 10/10.

10/12: Half-Life Alyx but the Gnome is Self-Aware (wayneradiotv) - ha he! (Seriously though, that finale was a fucking masterpiece. The RTVS crew has an incredible knack for using the framing device of video game livestreams to blur the lines between comedy and horror, or ironic anti-humor and complete sincerity. I’ve never seen anything else like this.)

10/15: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse - Not sure how much I can say that hasn’t already been said. The most visually creative movie I’ve ever seen, grounded by some really excellent storytelling about Miles (and now Gwen) that’s probably better than his actual comics. But it also does feel like it’s about to end and then the movie just keeps going like ten times over lmao. Can’t wait to watch this a second time on a better TV.

10/20: Sonic Superstars - A mostly really solid and fun 2D Sonic game that’s unfortunately dragged down by an extremely hodgepodge soundtrack and some overly drawn out boss fights. I spent HOURS trying to beat the final boss of the bonus scenario (which is required for the true ending in this one) before giving up. Really a shame that that’s the note I’m leaving the game on, because I otherwise enjoyed it, but ah well. More thoughts here.

10/27: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 - Another good Spider-Man game from Insomniac. Liked the story more than the one in Miles Morales, but maybe not as much as the first game. Extensive thoughts here.

10/28: Venom - Was in the mood for more Venom after the game. As expected this was not a very good movie, but the dynamic between Eddie and Venom made it a fun watch. Tom Hardy is constantly about to shit his pants in this movie. It’s great.

10/28: Venom: Let There Be Carnage - I had a way better time with this one. Is this a good movie? No. But it cranks the insanity of the first movie up to 11. Goofy as fuck in an extremely watchable way.

November

11/5: Pluto - An absolutely masterful series that anyone interested in sci-fi needs to watch. The anime adaptation was great, and I immediately understand why people who’ve read the manga speak so highly of it. Really makes me want to get into Astro Boy more, and also read some of Urasawa’s other works.

11/18: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off - Wow, just wow. When news of a Scott Pilgrim anime broke I was cautiously curious to see if we’d get a more direct adaptation of the comics, and instead it veered off in the exact opposite direction in the best way possible. This is almost entirely a different story, one that’s in conversation with the previous versions (sometimes in very meta ways), and I think it’s really valuable to see O’Malley revisiting these characters with new things to say about them. The major story divergence gives us a chance to examine the characters from a new angle - particularly Ramona, who’s the real protagonist of this version, and the evil exes, who completely steal the show. This was a great reminder of why I fell in love with this series as a teenager. I now genuinely hope we get more Scott Pilgrim.

11/22: Void Rivals (Issues #1 - #6) - The first arc of the new Robert Kirkman series that kicked off Skybound’s new “Energon Universe” is now complete, and I’m left thinking Void Rivals is… okay? I thought the first issue was a decent (if not particularly original) sci-fi comic with an appealing art style, which just so happens to also briefly have a Transformer in it so there can be a Big Surprise. And the series still hasn’t quite shaken that feeling to me. It’s an okay sci-fi series that arbitrarily dedicates a couple of pages of every issue to something from Transformers, but I’m not really sure what the shared universe stuff adds to Void Rivals, or what Void Rivals adds to Transformers and GI Joe. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

11/22: Journey to EPCOT Center: A Symphonic History (Defunctland) - Yeah, gotta be honest, I only got halfway through this one. It seems like Kevin just 1) really wanted to push himself creatively and 2) make a love letter to Epcot, and while I respect that, I think it suffers as a historical documentary. It’s Fantasia but for the creation of Epcot. That might be very impressive on a technical level, but it feels more like a piece of Disney propaganda than prior Defunctland videos due to a lack of context and nuance. 

11/24: Aperture Desk Job - A short, sweet, and funny little tech demo for my new Steam Deck set in the Portal universe. More effort was definitely put into this than was strictly necessary.

11/26: ESCHATOS - I am not good at bullet hell games, but I enjoy them from time to time and I really love this one’s FM synth soundtrack, so I picked it up on a whim in the Steam sale. I only beat it on Easy, but still, I had a lot of fun with it! It’s straightforward but very flashy, with the camera dynamically zooming around from set piece to set piece at ridiculous speeds and each level segueing directly into the next. The lack of a powerup system on the main mode in favor of just needing to know when to use your different shot types makes it feel very approachable.

11/27: Lunistice - A great little 3D platformer with a good soundtrack that I had fun hunting down all the secrets in. This is an easy recommendation for fans of games like Kirby or Klonoa - whimsical games set in colorful dream worlds where the underlying story can get a bit more somber. (Although the story in this one is mostly told through mildly cryptic lore dumps, so your mileage there may vary.)

11/28: Spark the Electric Jester 2 - The leap from 2D to 3D here is impressive, but this is very clearly a rough draft for Spark 3. Very, very fun Sonic-style 3D platforming, but the combat is lacking and the storytelling is just kinda bad. More extensive thoughts on this and the above two games here.

December

12/2: Fortnite (Chapter 4) - This was my first full chapter of Fortnite, after having been roped into the game by the siren songs of Zero Build mode and Goku during Chapter 3. This means it’s harder for me to compare this chapter to previous ones, but still, Fortnite remains a genuinely very well made Battle Royale shooter that’s a blast with friends. If I have any complaint about this Chapter, it’s that they would regularly introduce zany ideas and then slowly reel them back in, whether it was the Augment system or the increasingly mundane movement items. It also felt like it was a little too easy to get the perfect loadout in every match, meaning the final showdown would almost always be against players with Slurp Juice and gold shotguns. And I missed the smaller mid-season map updates of Chapter 3. But overall I still had a really good time, and look forward to playing more for the foreseeable future.

12/4: Plagiarism and You(Tube) (HBomberguy) - This will get written off by many as “YouTuber drama,” but this really is an excellent video essay that feels like the kick in the pants that YouTube needs. If video essayists are gonna be a major source of information for so many, then they gotta have standards. I also think it does a good job of highlighting the people that have been plagiarized and trying to drive more attention their way in an attempt to right those wrongs.

12/6: Transformers (Skybound comic) - We only got the first three issues of this in 2023, but I just HAVE to say something about how incredible this series is here. Daniel Warren Johnson is knocking it out of the park. This is the new bar for Transformers. The hand-inked art is extremely dynamic and full of character, and the story is using the familiar beats of G1 Transformers but doing very new things with them. You can tell this from the very first page, but the emotional scene of Optimus accidentally crushing a deer in the forest and realizing how fragile life is on Earth sealed the deal for me. And yet in the very same comics Optimus can do suplexes and clotheslines and lord knows how many other wrestling moves on Decepticons, and it doesn’t feel like tonal whiplash? These comics just fucking rule, and anyone with even the slightest interest in Transformers should be reading them.

12/8: What We Do in the Shadows (Season 5) - [spoilers] WWDITS has very much settled into being a status quo show. Every season has its own little arc where one or two things change to keep things interesting, but then everything returns to normal by the end. Guillermo finally becoming a vampire, only to become a human again in the end, might just be the most egregious example of this yet. But also… the show’s still really funny? And I continue to be happy that Kristen Schaal has stuck around as a series regular as the Guide. So it’s hard to complain. I could see the show running out of steam over the next few seasons, but it’s still hitting for me right now.

12/12: Pony Island - Finally got around to this since the trailer for the sequel dropped. I feel like playing this years later in a post-Inscryption world where Pony Island is a known quantity kind of lessens its impact, but still, it’s a fun and funny puzzle game where you try to hack your way out of a possessed arcade machine. I’m not sure I found it particularly scary, but I’m not sure it’s supposed to be? The way the game messes with you during the Asmodeus “boss fight” was probably the highlight for me. I also like being able to say things like “The part where you have to not kill Jesus was so hard. I kept getting terrible butterfly patterns.”

12/16: Breaking Bad VR but the AI is Self-Aware (wayneradiotv) - As always, Wayne and co.’s commitment to the bit is unrivaled. This kind of got interpreted as just a way to troll HLVRAI fans, but so many moments in this genuinely made me laugh out loud.

12/18: Soul of Sovereignty Prelude - As someone who would list Cucumber Quest as a big creative influence, I was naturally very excited for this first chapter of GGDG’s new visual novel. Their mentality of both scaling things back in terms of labor while also going more shamelessly self-indulgent in terms of storytelling after burning out on making webcomics has really spoken to me, and WOW, the end result of that new process of theirs is shaping up to be something really special. The art and music are sparse but extremely evocative, giving you the rough sketch of the world and letting your mind fill in the rest. The story blends literary high fantasy vibes with the style of fantasy seen in ‘90s JRPGs (you can definitely tell this came from an idea for an RPG), but rather than constantly winking at the audience and making self-aware video game references it plays these storytelling ideas extremely sincerely, giving them real dramatic weight while still indulging in fun tropes to their fullest extent. While it’s a far cry from their most famous work with much more mature content, GGDG always excels at creating characters and worlds that immediately grab me. I can’t wait for the rest.

12/18: Barbie - I’m only… what, five months late for the whole Barbenheimer thing? Perfect timing. Anyway! On the one hand, I get the critiques saying that this movie is just a major corporation funding a self-aware feminist critique of their own product as a marketing ploy. And I kinda agree with that. And the movie is a little too long, and I don’t really know what to think of the way the Barbie/Ken conflict plays out. Anthony asked me to summarize what the story ended up being about, and I had no idea what to even say. But also… I did still like the movie? We don’t get a lot of cartoonish, absurdist, fourth wall breaking comedies like this anymore, and this is a good one of those. Also the whole cast is great, the set design is kind of stunning, and the cinematography is consistently appealing. I wouldn’t say it’s a revolutionary work of feminist filmmaking by any stretch, but it’s a good comedy movie.

12/21: Dr. Stone: New World - Man, Dr. Stone is great. I’ve said this many times, but I just love that this series uses all the trappings of shounen that would normally be used to hype up the protagonist learning a new move to instead hype up things like the protagonist building a loom or a hot air balloon. It’s shounen Bill Nye. I didn’t completely love everything about the Treasure Island arc this season, but it all built towards a really fun climax with a lot of satisfying turnabouts where the heroes use their ingenuity to just barely win.

12/23: The History of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out World Records (Summoning Salt) - Truly one of my favorite Summoning Salt videos ever, even with how repetitive Punch-Out can get to watch. It’s just so hard to beat “and that runner… was me.”

12/24: Super Mario Bros. Wonder - What more can be said that hasn’t already been said? It’s the best and most creative 2D Mario game since the ‘90s. The only real flaws are that it’s a little easy, the Search Party stages are annoying in singleplayer, and I wish that every boss prior to the final boss wasn’t just some form of Bowser Jr. fight. But those aren’t nearly enough to drag the whole experience down. It was a blast.

12/24: Do a Powerbomb! - Got this from Anthony as a birthday present. This is the previous series by the creative team currently doing the new Transformers comics I was gushing about a few entries ago. Even with the high bar set by those comics, Do a Powerbomb! exceeded my expectations. Holy shit. An absolutely entrancing fantasy wrestling miniseries full of dynamic, energetic action and tons of heart. These comics where a guy wrestles a giant talking orangutan almost made me cry. Twice. An instant favorite.

12/25: Adventure Time (rewatch) - We ended up finishing our rewatch of Adventure Time (the main series, anyway) on my 30th birthday, which feels appropriate. I already kinda knew this, but this rewatch has truly confirmed that Adventure Time is my favorite TV series of all time. The entire show is even better on a full series rewatch. In hindsight, even parts that annoyed me when they aired end up being important parts of the beautiful tapestry that is this series. The many low points of Finn’s adolescent love life are important stepping stones in his growth as a person, which leaves him in an extremely satisfying place by the end. Jake having kids didn’t get to be a huge status quo change because they grew up instantly, but then they did a bunch of fun episodes about Jake’s relationships with his adult children that deepened him as a character. And most of the big lore questions they kept teasing over the years (“Where’d the humans go?” “Who are Finn’s parents?” “When’s Finn gonna get a robot arm?” etc.) ended up getting satisfying and creative answers, because the show left itself the room to figure those things out later. This is a truly special, one-of-a-kind series, one that lasted nearly 300 episodes and yet still seems like it was over too soon. And yes, I did in fact cry during the final montage, like I knew I would. I will always cherish this show with all of my heart.

12/25: Olive the Other Reindeer (rewatch) - Haven’t seen this one since I was a kid! It was a favorite of mine back then, and while it might not be quite as funny as I remember it’s still very cute, with a 2D/3D hybrid art style that remains very unique and appealing. As an adult I can also appreciate the cast they got for this, with like half the cast of Futurama bolstered by guests like Michael Stipe from REM and The Sopranos’ Joe Pantoliano.

12/26: Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio - Anthony and I capped off our Christmas with the most jolly and festive stop motion movie of all! Jokes aside, man, what a beautiful movie. The animation is immaculate, and we really just don’t get children’s animated films like this anymore. Ones that overtly feature real world politics and religion and so many other dark themes in a way that doesn’t talk down to kids or sugarcoat things. This one hits hard. We need more movies like this.

12/31: Oppenheimer - This was an interesting one. Despite being three hours, the way that first hour jumps around in time makes it feel like Oppenheimer is constantly being propelled forward through life at a breakneck pace, swept up by the rising tide of nationalism in spite of his personal left wing politics, never really reflecting on what he’s doing until it’s too late. Then when he’s no longer useful to the empire, he’s chewed up and spat out, only to eventually be honored as a national hero as a symbolic gesture. It’s a compelling story. However, I’m a little torn on how certain aspects of history were framed. Does the abstraction of the bombings detract from the true weight of those events, in favor of sympathizing with the man who built the bomb? Or is it clever a way to show how the realities of the war were compartmentalized away by people who were complicit in its most heinous acts of violence? One minute a bunch of physicists are talking theory, thousands of miles away from the theaters of war, and the next they’ve killed 200,000 people. So which is it? Eh, probably somewhere in the middle, I guess. But I liked it overall.

12/31: Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe - I’ve been really surprised by how good this rerelease is. It kind of flew under the radar for me. I liked the original game, but at the time it also almost felt like the New Super Mario Bros. of Kirby. It was a straightforward throwback game where you went through a grass world, then a desert world, then a water world, etc., and also they added four player co-op. But returning to this one after the kinda mid Star Allies has made me appreciate just how solid RtDL is as a Kirby game. I really like the updated graphics, too - yes, even the new cel shaded outlines around the characters - even though I didn’t think it looked that great in screenshots. Also the two new copy abilities (Sand and Mecha) are fun, the minigame collection is shockingly fleshed out to the point that they could’ve sold it as a standalone eShop game, the collectible character masks are fun, and the new epilogue mode where you play as Magolor is one of the coolest bonus modes they’ve ever done. This is a top tier Kirby remake any fan of the series should check out.

Ongoing things I followed in 2023 that don't have a blurb:

Halo Infinite multiplayer

IDW Sonic the Hedgehog (main series + specials)

One Piece

Chainsaw Man

My Hero Academia (not caught up)

The JOJOlands (not caught up)

Things I started in 2023 that I still need to finish:

Freedom Planet 2

Hi-Fi Rush

Live A Live

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Picross 3D Round 2

Rhythm Heaven MegaMix

Mega Man Battle Network 5: Team ProtoMan

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Spark the Electric Jester 3

Sonic Dream Team

One Piece (Wano arc, anime)

Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 (I’ve already read the Shibuya arc already in the manga, though)

Astro Boy (2003 anime)

Futurama (original run rewatch)

One Piece (manga reread)

The Amazing Spider-Man (Lee/Ditko era)

Scott Pilgrim series (reread)

And finally... my favorites of 2023!!!

Overall favorite game: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Favorite indie game: Pseudoregalia

Games remastered in 2023 that are now among my all-time faves: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, We Love Katamari

Most pleasant surprise in gaming: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog

Favorite film: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Favorite live action show: Barry

Favorite anime: Pluto

Favorite anime written by a Canadian guy and an American guy based on the Canadian guy's old graphic novel series: Scott PIlgrim Takes Off

Favorite live action adaptation of an anime that I still can't believe they didn't fuck up: One Piece

Favorite Western cartoon: Adventure Time: Fionna & Cake

Favorite older cartoon I only got around to watching in its entirety this year: The Venture Bros.

Favorite documentary: Double Fine PsychOdyssey

Favorite semi-improvised semi-scripted absurdist comedy/horror/tragedy Twitch livestream performance art thing: Half-Life Alyx but the Gnome is Self-Aware finale (wayneradiotv)

Favorite manga: Chainsaw Man

Favorite older manga that I only read this year: Berserk

Favorite Western comic book: Daniel Warren Johnson's Transformers

Favorite album: HELLMODE (Jeff Rosenstock)

And that's a wrap!!!!! Happy new year, everyone! Here's to me maybe actually reading a goddamn book this year

[smash-64]

2024 Game of the Year Countdown #9: This Way Madness Lies Nintendo Switch, 2023

I’ve had my eye on Zeboyd Games’ latest installment for a while, and picked it up once it went on sale, as they often do. I think I got Cosmic Star Heroine for $1.50, and that ended up being in my Top 5 for 2021. The concept of mixing magical girls and Shakespeare is completely absurd, and while I can’t say it’s exactly a seamless combo, it’s definitely the funniest game that Zeboyd has put out. I wasn’t exactly rolling on the floor laughing, but my constant chuckles while on lunch at work got a steady stream of “what are you playing?” questions coming my way.

The pixel art is the best in the Zeboyd repertoire, and they definitely won’t let you forget about how pretty the magical girl transformations are, since they insult you if you try to skip them!

The transformations themselves are pretty neat for pixel art.

I enjoyed the music, although I was slightly disappointed that Hyperduck Soundworks wasn’t returning, as I think they did a phenomenal job for Cosmic Star Heroine. The battle tune is catchy and easy to listen to for long periods of time, which is great since some of the battles on the harder difficulties will drag on. Although I would say that the songs with lyrics definitely had more of a garage band sound, which may have been intentional, but was still a bit unexpected in my opinion. The menu song sounds like they tried to mix two songs together, lyrics and all. So not all are great.

In the early part of the game, I was afraid that the whole experience would be over before I knew it. HowLongToBeat said the game should take 6-8 hours, and it took me about 11. I’m not really sure what people were doing to finish in just 6 hours, and 11 felt about right, since the last two dungeons dragged a bit.

The game also offers actual Shakespeare quotes at times, but then also gives a "modern translation," which is always just jokes.

This Way Madness Lies was a good, short, classically-styled JRPG with lots of jokes and a fun battle system. Plenty of customization within each unit, and within your team makeup as a whole, gives you plenty to do and plenty to experiment with as you go through the game. I especially liked how the game often forced me to use seemingly random team combos because it let me figure out who I liked best. 

[flowers-of-tenebrae]

Saw a thread saying FFXV is 'objectively' the best FF game. As much as I love FFXV, I disagree. For me it's a tie between:

FFX (single player, tight linear narrative, the game that launched 1000 AUs) vs. FFXIV (mmo, 6 JRPGs in a trench coat, many highs and lows)

If I had to pick my top 5 (in order of release date):

Final Fantasy VIII (1999)

Final Fantasy X (2001)

Final Fantasy XV (2016)

Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers (2019)

Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker (2021)

Note: I'm waiting for the last part of FFVIIR to come out before judging it fully c:

[doggirldick]

hey gamers. for a lot of people, i'm the dragon quest mutual.

this november 14th, Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake releases on pc, ps5, xbox series x|s and switch.

dragon quest is considered to be the first jrpg and having defined the genre. the first one is not that great though as i'm sure you can imagine for a first game of its kind from 1986. in 1987, dragon quest ii was released and greatly improved on the first game and even later that year, the first final fantasy released, really helping to pull everything together.

then, in 1988, dragon quest iii released for the famicom and this is was a real defining moment for every jrpg since. i'm not a game historian but i understand it was largely influential to rpgs as a whole.

while most dragon quest games are unrelated to the previous games plotwise and none of the previous dq games need to be played, the first 3 are all related and involve a legendary hero known as Erdrick (Roto in japan) and are thus known as the erdrick/roto trilogy. however, for reasons i won't explain in case anyone doesn't know and doesn't want to be spoiled, dragon quest iii can be played first of this trilogy/

now, the dragon quest series has not had a great history with localisation before the publishers, enix, merged with square to form square enix as we know them today. prior to this, the dragon quest series was known as dragon warrior in the west due to unavailability of the name dragon quest in the US. these localisations also lacked the goofy charm and only one spin-off made it to europe.

the release history of this trilogy is notable, i'll provide screenshots from my spreadsheet detailing releases across 3 major regions:

now see, the snes versions were considered the best versions but as you can see, they were never localised. and even if they had been, that was during the dragon warrior era. the first time modern localisations released in the west and just any version in europe was with the versions for android and ios in 2014. most people don't wanna play a game originally designed for home consoles on their phone though. in which case they had to wait till 2019 for the switch versions (which had yet to be anounced when i played them myself).

it should be noted that, i think most western dq fans are unaware but, the 2019 switch versions are ports of the 2017 versions released simultaneously for ps4 and 3ds which are all similar to the android and ios versions. these are all... just... alright versions. very lame compared to others but okay and decent (they're at least reasonably priced for what they are).

the point is, it SUCKS that its taken so long for these iconic pieces of rpg history to get quality versions and localised with modern localised versions. dq3 hd-2d remake was even originally revealed in 2021 and we've had to wait 3 years to get an update on them.

BUT these are INSANELY GOOD versions holy FUCK i have been following this closely for a while.

if you want to play an iconic piece of rpg history, if you played dq11 as the newest and most welcoming to newcomers and wanted to play the trilogy it calls back to most (if you played to the true ending, you know), if you want to start on this series in release order... well dragon quest i & ii hd-2d remake releases next year i guess you can always come back to this, if you played some of the inferior versions and want to see this game done justice, if you just want to play a pretty game, THE TIME IS NEARLY UPON US.

let me set the scene: EHEM.

the world is threatened by the archfiend, Baramos. your father, Ortega, a revered hero, left on a quest to slay the archfiend and never returned. it's your 16th birthday. you're now old enough to pick up your father's quest. set out, explore the world, find out what happened to Ortega, and SLAY BARAMOS. そして伝説へ… (soshite densetsu e...) AND THUS INTO LEGEND...

note: dragon quest iii differs from most dragon quest games in that you make your own custom party members. previously these characters have an appearance for their current vocation and then had 2 possible looks, as with the hero, for their gender. although most dragon quest games don't feature gender options, those that do like dragon quest iii, have switched of an ungendered type A and type B in new releases (since 2021 i believe). the custom party members from dragon quest iii also have received a type C and type D for more customisation. plus there's a new vocation now! the monster wrangler was not in previous versions of dq3. see the overview trailer:

some people aren't happy with dragon quest's "censorship," ungendering the appearance options and removing the exaggerated lips from the trolls that resembled racist caricatures. this is not the first dragon quest game to receive either of these changes but every official post about this one is getting some stupid comments from these people.

[fipindustries]

None of these are exactly "recommendations," and they don't even come close to the $1k threshold for confidence, but they're interesting webfiction things that seem like they might have some appeal:

BRENNUS: superhero web serial, very obviously worm-inspired, writing style is very distinct from and somewhat worse than Wildbow's, horrible beginning and mediocre pacing throughout. Unfinished and clearly never will be finished. The first few arcs are godawful and sometimes scan as politically insensitive.

Brennus has very expansive, engaging, immersive worldbuilding, clearly thought out very far in advance. Excellent side characters; takes the Wildbow POV-interlude conceit and takes it up to 11. Extremely "visual" writing in the same vein as Wildbow; it's easy to see the action in your head. A commenter on one of the more recent chapters (dec 2021) wrote: "This is like Worm, except there it was Lovecraftian horror, wearing the skin of a superhero story, here it is high-magic fantasy." I think that's basically accurate. Overall incredibly messy and not really "recommendable" in any normal sense, but I first read it back in winter 2021 and it's stuck with me for the last few years. Much more "brainworms-inducing" than "actually good."

CYOAS: Not a work of fiction so much as a genre of short stories/single-player tabletop RPGs; grew out of 4chan, and since you like (or liked in the past) that strain of internet culture, these seem like the sort of thing you might enjoy. The best CYOAs are "Hearts Adrift" by Stellinearized and "JRPG Traitor CYOA" by JRPG. These are more like SCP articles than a Wildbow serial; fun to kill a half-hour with, either you like the style or you don't.

THE WAVES ARISEN: Rational Naruto fanfiction. Readable in an afternoon. Please put me out of my misery.

Oh man, so a thing that sucks, 4chan wikis and Naruto rationalism fanf fic, with all these resounding recommendations how can I lose!

[nitrosodiumofficialuses]

Music Games Investigation

This time, I have broader genres. Any game that uses music or sound in an interesting way, for my purposes, is a "music game".

Friday Night Funkin - This is a game I was obsessed with back in 2021. It's a prototypical falling-arrows rhythm game, with the funky counterculture aesthetic of late 2000s Newgrounds. You know, Madness Combat, Pico's School, all of that. Mechanically, it's nothing special, but a few of the tracks really stand out, and the levels have interesting gimmicks - Week 3 has a rushing train to throw you off, and Week 7 takes place in an active warzone, with soldiers running about and tanks rumbling across the screen, further blocking your arrows. The fanbase is... difficult, it seems they can't go a week without ending up with a mod cancellation or some new drama. But, mechanically, it's fine. I'm no way near as good as I used to be at it, but sometimes I still open it up and play a round or so.

Metal Hellsinger - I've only seen a little of this game, but it looks really sick. You enter Hell with a cool sword, and then you kill demons to the beat of heavy metal, starring actual metal singers. I don't know what else to say; it's pretty distilled, no real bloat or feature creep. You can do combos and executions, and the longer you kill on beat for, the more your combo meter increases. Interestingly, unlike a lot of music games, the focus isn't on going at ludicrous speeds, it's about staying on beat, so the character is actually pretty slow.

Hi-Fi Rush - I've heard of this game, but I honestly knew nothing about it until today. All I know is it's a rhythm game and possibly a JRPG, and it stars a cat, and it's all really stylised and cel-shaded. After watching a few videos, I've found it's pretty cool! It's some sort of third-person action game, where everything in the world is tied to the beat - screens flash, trees bob, and enemies move according to the music's BPM. You also have to attack, using elaborate combos and moves to the game's alt-rock soundtrack. Everything in the environment just pops with colour; it's a very bright game, taking you from lava pools to gigantic robot factories. It seems like something I'd actually enjoy, to be honest.

Also, here's a quick look at dynamic soundtracks. The first one I'll look at is the hi-tech hack n' slash Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Apart from having some of the best music in the Metal Gear series, the music is sort of dynamic. In boss fights, it loops the bridge of the song until you get to a point where you can critically wound the boss, at which point, the chorus flares up, perfectly timed with you slicing a chunk off your current cybernetic foe. Once you've cut them down to low health, the lyrics kick in. It's so amazing. Doom 2016 had a similar system, where the music would fast-forward to a high-octane segment when you got into combat, and the beat would loop until you were at a point in combat where the beat would drop. The earliest dynamic soundtrack I know of is System Shock. Different parts of the soundtrack would be louder/quieter, higher/lower pitch based on your current health, SHODAN's grip on the floor you were on, whether you were in combat, and a bunch of other features. Thing is, nobody noticed it, and so they removed it for System Shock 2.

[mariastoyanovablog]

Blog Post 5: Narrative of Final Fantasy VII Remake

Final Fantasy VII Remake is an action role-playing game released in 2020 by Square Enix for the PlayStation 4. It is the first in a planned trilogy of games remaking the PlayStation game Final Fantasy VII. In 2021 the first DLC released titled  “Intergrade”, including an overall improved performance for the PlayStation 5. 

With Final Fantasy Remake being a JRPG remaster this will, of course, have an impact on the narrative as it is a retelling of the original game, however we can still apply some of the theoretical narrative principles to the game.

Propp’s Theory

Vladimir Propp theorised that characters in the story can be placed into different categories depending on the role they play in the story. This theory was based on his studies of different fairy tales. For today's media it seems somewhat outdated, it can still be applied to current media however most media creators have tried to move away from these archetypes. Propp defined these categories as the hero, villain, princess, dispatcher, helper, donor, and false hero. There are limitations to these archetypes, as they are too generalised and lack nuances and conflict that the characters may showcase.

Applying Propp’s Theory to Final Fantasy VII Remake

Cloud

For the hero archetype he divided it into 2 subcategories, the seeker and the victim. The seeker subcategory of the hero is an active character, that sets off to usually save the world or stop the villain's evil plan. On the other hand, the victim has directly suffered at the hands of the villain. This description perfectly fits the main character, Cloud Strife. Cloud is a classic hero ready to do anything to save the world. In the story there are multiple examples where the player has to  fight Shinra soldiers or other threats to protect his friends and family. He would also protect the innocent from harm in Sector 7, a town where the player will spend a good amount of time in for the main story and side quests given to you by the locals there. Throughout his time in Sector 7 the player can see his strong, serious and independent personality, but also his kind heart and the urgent need to save them when the town gets attacked. As he is a seeker he is also the victim in the story, the villain of the game Sephiroth, actively tries to manipulate Cloud's mind by appearing to him and planting false memories to further his plan, this mental torment continues throughout the game, further fueling their conflict. Later on, I will further discuss why Sephiroth is a threat and his motives in the story. 

Aerith 

Aerith, Cloud’s friend and partner but also a very important part of the story. She best fits Propp’s archetypal character of the princess. She doesn’t necessarily have the personality of a spoiled princess or a royal background in any way, but she is a character that Cloud desperately tries to save. The princess archetype fits any character who is seen as a “damsel in distress” and requires rescuing. However, this is not something we know right away, throughout the game she plays a passive role as she adventures with Cloud. As we learn about her character we also learn her importance in the story and why she is in danger. Interestingly she is not entirely helpless, she is powerful and has magical abilities to protect herself. Like Cloud, she would also do anything to protect and defend the innocent. We could also argue that her princess archetype overlaps with the victim subcategory as Sephiroth wants to kill her and won’t stop until he gets what he wants. This definitely creates a more nuanced and dynamic character for the player to learn about. 

Sephiroth 

As mentioned earlier, Sephiroth, also known as the Silver Soldier or the One Winged Angel,  plays the role of the primary antagonist in the game and is the villain archetype in Propp's theory. He has a striking appearance, terrifying goals and a connection to the protagonist which fits the villain role perfectly. As he is a villain we could also say he is a false hero, which is another archetype in Propp's theory. Propp describes this archetype as a character who initially appears to be good but soon reveals themselves to be working against the hero or other characters. We later learn that his story begins 3 decades before the events of the game. Sephiroth’s story begins with his birth to professor Hojo and Dr.Lucireseia. Hojo mistakes an alien known as Jenova for the ancient people known as Centra who had the unique ability to talk to the planet. Hojo injected the pregnant Lucireseia with Jenova cells creating Sephiroth. With the Jenova in his system, Sephiroth has superhuman skills and was raised as a super soldier by Shinra. He quickly rose through the ranks and eventually became a legendary war hero and inspired the protagonist Cloud to become a soldier as well. 

The player, alongside Sephiroth discovers the truth about his origins - that he was created through experiments using the alien lifeform Jenova - he believes himself to be a chosen one with a right to rule over the planet. This marks a turning point for him and a complete change of character. He develops a deep hatred for humanity vowing to destroy the world and slaughter everyone in order to fulfill his desire to become a god and control the planet; this delusion is further fueled by Jenova's manipulative influence within him. Furthermore he is also seeking to harm Aerith, the princess character. As the last ancient, he believes she represents the potential to summon "Holy," the only force capable of stopping the Meteor he plans to summon to destroy the planet; by killing her, he attempts to prevent her from interfering with his plan. Eventually Sephiroth gets to her but our hero Cloud is there to save her and in turn defeats Sephiroth. 

To conclude, Propp's theory can definitely be applied to today's media, however with some limitations. This can be seen in characters who don’t exactly fit any of those archetypes, however it’s an interesting guidance used in storytelling. In Final Fantasy VII there’s plenty of characters I couldn't fit into a category because the writing and the story did not match those archetypes for them. However, I believe using this theory is a good way to approach and create a starting point from which writers can build their characters, due to the theory having elements most narratives require to drive the story.

References:

Wikipedia. (2020). Final Fantasy VII Remake. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VII_Remake.

Media Studies (2020). Vladamir Propp’s 7 Character Types and Narrative Theory. [online] Media Studies. Available at: https://media-studies.com/propp/.

[nitrosodiumepicfps]

Music Games Investigation

This time, I have broader genres. Any game that uses music or sound in an interesting way, for my purposes, is a "music game".

Friday Night Funkin - This is a game I was obsessed with back in 2021. It's a prototypical falling-arrows rhythm game, with the funky counterculture aesthetic of late 2000s Newgrounds. You know, Madness Combat, Pico's School, all of that. Mechanically, it's nothing special, but a few of the tracks really stand out, and the levels have interesting gimmicks - Week 3 has a rushing train to throw you off, and Week 7 takes place in an active warzone, with soldiers running about and tanks rumbling across the screen, further blocking your arrows. The fanbase is... difficult, it seems they can't go a week without ending up with a mod cancellation or some new drama. But, mechanically, it's fine. I'm no way near as good as I used to be at it, but sometimes I still open it up and play a round or so.

Metal Hellsinger - I've only seen a little of this game, but it looks really sick. You enter Hell with a cool sword, and then you kill demons to the beat of heavy metal, starring actual metal singers. I don't know what else to say; it's pretty distilled, no real bloat or feature creep. You can do combos and executions, and the longer you kill on beat for, the more your combo meter increases. Interestingly, unlike a lot of music games, the focus isn't on going at ludicrous speeds, it's about staying on beat, so the character is actually pretty slow.

Hi-Fi Rush - I've heard of this game, but I honestly knew nothing about it until today. All I know is it's a rhythm game and possibly a JRPG, and it stars a cat, and it's all really stylised and cel-shaded. After watching a few videos, I've found it's pretty cool! It's some sort of third-person action game, where everything in the world is tied to the beat - screens flash, trees bob, and enemies move according to the music's BPM. You also have to attack, using elaborate combos and moves to the game's alt-rock soundtrack. Everything in the environment just pops with colour; it's a very bright game, taking you from lava pools to gigantic robot factories. It seems like something I'd actually enjoy, to be honest.

Also, here's a quick look at dynamic soundtracks. The first one I'll look at is the hi-tech hack n' slash Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Apart from having some of the best music in the Metal Gear series, the music is sort of dynamic. In boss fights, it loops the bridge of the song until you get to a point where you can critically wound the boss, at which point, the chorus flares up, perfectly timed with you slicing a chunk off your current cybernetic foe. Once you've cut them down to low health, the lyrics kick in. It's so amazing. Doom 2016 had a similar system, where the music would fast-forward to a high-octane segment when you got into combat, and the beat would loop until you were at a point in combat where the beat would drop. The earliest dynamic soundtrack I know of is System Shock. Different parts of the soundtrack would be louder/quieter, higher/lower pitch based on your current health, SHODAN's grip on the floor you were on, whether you were in combat, and a bunch of other features. Thing is, nobody noticed it, and so they removed it for System Shock 2.

[cobaltaris]

Aris 2023 Media #16: Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix (Critical)

guess it's time to try doing this on tumblr! and man what a time this was - i'll be tagging these with #Aris Media 2023 so you can easily check all my posts under this! :3 continuing from my Twitter thread that featured more short-form reviews of each: https://twitter.com/CobaltAris/status/161847855471879783 ANYWAY IT"S PEAK TIME BABY

full transparency: I used to not like this much! it's been like, almost 10 years since i played it in full, so basically infancy - between refusing to do anything besides basic combos, and my more Controversy Fueled brain, I was like, nah Kingdom Hearts 2 can't be THAT good - but sometime in 2021, I started playing through the series again to get a better taste of it than my frankly rushed and poor runs through it previously, completing each to 100%/Plat Trophy on the highest difficulty - and doing that with KH2 was so. life-changing oh my god? this combat FUCKS on Critical. I mean, it always fucks, but the tension going into every boss fight and having to learn "oh Reflect is a banger option everywhere" "Magnet is a lifesaver for crowd control" and "yes, Drive Forms CAN save your ass" changed, so much. especially learning more of the tricks from talking with friends and such, this game can make you feel on top of the world and take you down STRAIGHT to the deepest trench. you can take so little punishment but you hit back just as hard, one of the best difficulty options in any game and I think something to really give a shot if you want to know WHY fights in KH2 are so good. also even besides gameplay, KH2 is so charming? like. come on. you can't hate a game where Jack Skellington and Mulan are party members in the same group as the goofiest JRPG protag there was with Donald and Goofy. it's SO peak. every scene is such a joy to see unfold and pick apart for one reason or another (this game has so many dumb moments i quote endlessly, too many to choose just one ghfjfjfgj) plus you get really attached to the characters by the end and it has such a satisfying payoff for most of it and. uwah not to make puns but this game is charming as hell. except when you're grinding minigames n stuff for the journal that shit is DRY anyway i hope this explains why i came to really like KH2 all over again, there's so much fun to be had in it and it really reignited my want to get through this whole series again. its such a stylish, stupid series I can't get enough of sometimes :) without a doubt, an S grade game. also the soundtrack is one of the best holy shit how did i almost forget omg, 13th Struggle, The Other Promise, Waltz of the Damned, The Encounter, Sacred Moon are all in the SAME OST THATS WILD can't wait to play 358/2 Days for the first time later this year and suffer completing that its gonna be great </3

[therealretrobeard]

#persona5royal is a #jrpg on the #nintendoswitch . This is the best version of the classic #persona5 game that began life on the amazing #playstation3 games console. Obviously this is part of the beloved #persona series. This remastered version was developed by #pstudio . It was published by #atlus in Japan, #atlususa in North America, and #deepsilver in PAL territories. #sega also had worldwide involvement. This version was released worldwide in late 2021 to much acclaim. No matter what version or platform you play this on it is a great and fantastic experience! https://www.instagram.com/p/CofdA5aoyID/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[pawkypaw]

Tales of arise box art US. Ver by pawky paw

[codex-archives-exe]

Shionne Vymer Imeris Daymore: exists

Me: 😭❣️💕💞💓💗💘💖💝❤️‍❣️💕💞💓💗💘💖💝❤️‍❣️💕💞💓💗💘💖💝❤️‍❣️💕💞💓💗💘💖💝❤️‍❣️💕💞💓💗💘💖💝❤️‍❣️💕💞💓💗💘💖💝❤️‍❣️💕💞💓💗💘💖💝❤️‍❣️💕💞💓💗💘💖💝❤️‍❣️💕💞💓💗💘💖💝❤️‍❣️💕💞💓💗💘💖💝❤️‍❣️💕💞💓💗💘💖💝❤️‍❣️💕💞💓💗💘💖💝❤️‍❣️💕💞💓💗💘💖💝❤️‍❣️💕💞💓💗💘💖💝❤️‍❣️💕💞💓💗💘💖💝❤️‍

[animebw]

Short Reflection: Fall 2022 Anime

Was Fall 2022 the single most stacked season of anime ever? It’s certainly a contender, at least. Not only were there once again far too many good shows to keep up with, not only were a lot of those shows really fucking good, but there was such a wide variety that no matter your tastes- shonen, slice of life, mecha, political drama, whatever the fuck Akiba Maid War counts as- you were basically guaranteed at least one phenomenal show to stay hooked on. And if you’re someone like me who appreciates pretty much every genre as long as it’s done well? Then my god, I hope you skipped lunch, because this feast never fucking ended. I’ve already given my thoughts on Yama no Susume’s underwhelming fourth season (6.5/10), Mob Psycho 100′s safe but deeply satisfying finale (8/10), and the bonkers roller coaster of Chainsaw Man (8.5/10), and there’s still way too many anime left to talk about. So without any further ado, let’s dive right in to the disappointments, the hidden gems, and the runaway smash hits that closed out this fantastic year for anime.

My Hero Academia Season 6: Unfinished/10

There’s not much I have to say about this one yet, as I’m planning to give it a full review when it’s all over. But I at least wanted to say this: I fucking told y’all My Hero Academia was going to reclaim its crown. I told y’all this show was eventually gonna earn its place back as one of the greatest long-running shonen of all time. But nooooo, you were all busy pretending that a few lackluster fight scenes meant this show was the worst garbage ever and handing out accolades to gorgeously animated pieces of stale cardboard like Demon Slayer for plastering pretty wallpaper all over the vapid nonsense at their core. Well, how does it feel now, huh? How does it feel to remember what an actual great shonen action series looks like? This is the best that MHA has been since season 3, and while it’s gonna fall to the next cours to determine where season 6 ends up on the pantheon, it’s so fucking good to see this show operating at full capacity again.

To Your Eternity Season 2: Unfinished/10

Genuine question: what the absolute fuck happened to To Your Eternity? I still remember when that incredible first episode dropped back in 2021 and everyone was ready to crown it the new patron saint of cry-inducing philosophical fantasy. How did we get from that to this? To increasingly hacky production values that rarely rise above passable and never once manage to capture the awe and wonder this story is so clearly shooting tor? To writing so tonally inconsistent it decides to introduce a cast of wacky over-the-top camera-muggers in this serious and serene fantasy yarn? Didn’t this show used to be good? Didn’t it used to be a genuinely compelling exploration of human nature and immortality and moving on from loss? When did it fall apart so badly that it barely even resembles the show it used to be? And that’s not even getting into some of the most abysmal queerbaiting I’ve seen in a very long time. There were definitely worse anime this year, but nothing else left me feeling so utterly betrayed. I can only pray the slight upswing of quality it’s experiencing in its current arc continues, because otherwise this is going to end up the most crushing disappointment of anime in 2022.

Reincarnated as a Sword: 3/10

Let us all stop for a moment and consider the absolute state of the isekai genre. Here we have yet another story of some personality-deficient schlub transported to another world that runs on JRPG logic, where he instantly becomes the most OP person (or, well, sword) around and never has to struggle for anything. The characters and setting are all as painfully generic as every other entry in the genre. The plot wastes so much time rattling off video game stats to justify its boring OP worldbuilding that it forgets to write any sort of interesting or nuanced personalities for the people in its world. The production values are passably okay without ever showing a single shred of personality beyond the most by-the-basics staples of this watered-down Dragon Quest backwash. There is nothing worth recommending here, nothing you can get from this show that you can’t get in a million better ways elsewhere. And yet, Reincarnated as a Sword has one thing going for it: it doesn’t try and justify slavery. In fact, its real protagonist is an enslaved catgirl who breaks free from her chains and seeks to prove her worth, with the titular sword serving as her paternal guardian. And that alone puts this dull, uninspired, pointless slab of processed anime loaf above a decent chunk of its contemporaries in the isekai genre. Because that is how fucking far the bar has been lowered at this point. God help us all.

My Master Has No Tail: 4/10

The frustrating thing about My Master Has No Tail is that there’s not really anything wrong with it. It’s a cute little historical anime about a tanuki girl learning rakugo from a fox spirit in a time of huge technological upheaval for Japan, a time when all the old spirits are at risk of losing their place in the world and must find some way to adapt to the new era alongside humanity. That premise should result in something really interesting, or at least unique enough for a mellow slice-of-life hobby show with a supernatural twist. And yet despite the lack of things to complain about, I just could not get on this show’s wavelength. It just doesn’t push far enough in any direction to be memorable; the animation is competent but also as basic as it gets, the characters are inoffensive but simple, the comedy is decent but rarely rises above a chuckle. Every single aspect of this show is just a little too underwhelming to really make an impact, and with nothing but average everywhere you look, the whole thing ends up kinda boring. I do like the themes it’s playing with, how art is used as a vessel for spirits and humans to keep their connections strong in an increasingly secular, industrialized world, but it’s not enough to bring this show up anywhere above harmlessly mediocre. What a shame.

Arknights Prelude to Dawn: 4.5/10

I find myself fairly conflicted about the first season of Arknights. On the one hand, it’s a relief to get a gacha game adaptation with some actual gravitas behind it, and the story of a post-infection dystopian world struggling between compassion and justice has some genuinely complex things to say about the morality of living through hellish situations. And its cinematic production ambitions ensure it’s rarely boring to look at. On the other hand, though, I get the sense that whoever was behind the script didn’t take into account the differences between what works narratively in a video game and what works in a TV show. Divorced from their role as an audience surrogate/POV who needs to be explained everything so the player can understand how to play, the mostly silent Doctor comes off as a nothing character who could be cut from the show without changing anything. Ditto the under-explained, underutilized tactical cell phone that probably only existed in the first place to justify how the game’s combat looked and functioned, and the dialogue that’s mostly a series of plot points taking us from one Important Setpiece to the next. I want to like what Arknights is doing, but it’s not until the shockingly great final two episodes that it starts to feel like a proper show and not just a lavishly animated cutscene compilation. Hopefully the second season continues that upward trajectory, and maybe then we’ll be able to call this a truly excellent gacha anime.

Do It Yourself: 5/10

Between this show and Healer Girl from earlier this year, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I really need more than vibes to keep me interested in a show. Don’t get me wrong, vibes are good! But there’s a whole subsection of cute-girls shows that are basically nothing but vibes, and absent anything else to sink my teeth into, I find myself feeling very little connection to them. You’d think Do It Yourself might have a little more going on, what with its near-future setting, stabs at commentary on the importance of not letting automation fully run everything, and extremely gay undertones. But no, it’s mostly just cute girls doing DIY carpentry for twelve episodes. It’s a show for you to turn your brain off to and just, well, like I said, vibe to the expressive FLCL-esque art style and richly detailed guide to DIY carpentry with a bunch of intermittenly interesting characters. And while I can appreciate those vibes well enough, there’s so little intrigue to anything that I can’t really bring myself to care about it all that much. I dunno, maybe they shouldn’t have kept the one character who actually generates interesting narrative friction at arm’s length for nearly the entire show. And maybe they should’ve let Serafu and Pudding kiss. Actually, no maybes there, they definitely should’ve done that.

Play It Cool, Guys (1st Half): 5.5/10

Here’s a pleasant little surprise I don’t think anyone saw coming. Sure, this slice-of-life about a bunch of clumsy dudes navigating their own awkwardness isn’t gonna set the world on fire, but it’s become one of the more unusually absorbing short anime I’ve encountered in a while. I think what draws me to Play It Cool, Guys is that it’s just very unpretentious; it promises a chill twelve minutes every week of low-key sweet-natured comedy, and that’s exactly what you get. The punchlines aren’t amazing, but they pretty much always hit. The characters aren’t very complex or interesting, but they all carry themselves well enough that you enjoy seeing them on screen. It’s even got a certain kind of confidence to just be so low-key and not try to overextend itself with cheap gimmicks or recycled plot beats to grab your attention, because it trusts that its word and characters are charming enough to earn your investment on their own. And you know what? That confidence is not misplaced. It might not be my favorite thing in the world, but I have a sneaking suspicion it’s just going to keep growing on me as it moves into its second cours. Check back at the end of winter, and I might just end up giving it a much more enthusiastic recommendation.

Urusei Yatsura (1st Half): 6/10

Is there still a point to Urusei Yatsura today? Yes, Rumiko Takahashi’s groundbreaking rom-com about an alien girl falling in love with a philandering douchenozzle invented the anime rom-com as we know it, not to mention possibly starting waifu culture itself with Lum. But fifty years later, with all its component parts iterated upon by basically every romance-adjacent anime that followed it, does the original property have anything left to offer on its own merits? Or is it a relic of a bygone time, no longer useful as anything but a historical artifact for tropes and archetypes that have all been used better by the works it ended up inspiring? Halfway through this modern reboot, I’m still not sure what the answer to that question is going to be. What I can say for sure is that this show makes me laugh more often than it doesn’t, and while not all of it has aged gracefully, it’s oddly refreshing to see just how much more egalitarian the anime rom-com used to be. This is no incel wank fantasy where a loser guy gets all the hot girls by doing basically nothing; this is a show where everyone’s just a little bit nuts, and you’re not so much rooting for anyone to get together as you are just enjoying the chaos that results when all these different flavors of asshole butt heads. That’s far more my speed than any of the wish fulfillment harem slop that learned all the wrong lessons from Urusei Yatsura’s success. Whether or not it’ll end up anything more than a series of mostly amusing episodic sketches remains to be seen, but for now, I’m content to just watch the madness unfold. Plus, it’s got Hiroshi Kamiya and Mamoru Miyano sniping at each other like every episode, you can’t not love that.

Pop Team Epic Season 2: 6/10

Sometimes, you just need a little chaos in your life. That sentence probably sums up the appeal of Pop Team Epic better than anything else I could ever write. Sometimes, you just want to let loose on a stream of consciousness through utterly batshit comedy skits that switch tone and animation style on a dime, packed with references to countless things you’re only vaguely aware of, never quite sure if all this insanity has any kind of point or if the pointlessness is itself the point. Pop Team Epic is just fucking weird, y’all. But it’s the kind of weird that clearly comes from a group of talented people having a blast throwing anything and everything at the wall just because they can, not caring about whether any of it sticks or not because the messy, nonsensical act of creating the damn thing in the first place is reason enough for it to exist. What other show will give you a dating sim spoof, yaoi lesbians, legitimately great mecha action, a final fantasy parody, gratuitous violence, a live action flipbook segment, and a full-on tokusatsu show starring Aoi Shota as a time-traveling sentai hero, all in the space of 12 episodes? If that kind of memetic insanity is your jam, then you need to get this show in your eyeballs yesterday. Pop Team Epic makes no goddamn sense, and god bless it for that.

Spy x Family Part 2: 7/10

Does a show need a plot? Is it enough for it to simply wander through a bunch of random side quests and coast on charm alone? That certainly seems to be what Spy x Family is banking on; after a relatively plot-solid first part where most episodes had at least a little in the way of new developments, part 2 seems content mostly to put the Forger family members in a variety of amusing scenarios and leave all the big picture stuff in the background until the final episode. And it’s a testament to just how damn charming these characters are- and how slick the production continues to be- that it mostly gets away with it. it’s fun watching Loid, Yor, and Anya bumble about as they slowly figure out what it means to live a “normal” life. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t impatient for the plot to pick back up. I dunno, after so many episodes of just faffing about, I felt myself getting kind of burnt out on the sitcom hijinks. And it doesn’t help that the biggest new character introduced is basically just a genderswapped Yuri, a.k.a. the worst character in the series. Spy x Family works best when it’s balancing its fluffy and kickass sides, and part 2 just leaned a little too far into fluff for my tastes. I still had a lot of fun, but I’m more than ready for the Ostania-Westalis conflict to be important again.

Blue Lock (1st Half): 7/10

The premise of Blue Lock is one of those immediately head-slapping moments of “Wow, why has no one tried this before?” brilliance: what if you took a shonen sports anime and made it an edgy death game? Sports anime are already full of larger-than-life personalities and conflicts, so taking that over-the-top competitive camp and applying it to a situation where the characters have to destroy each other to get ahead in a winner-takes-all battle royale is such a no-brainer, I’m shocked it’s taken this long for someone to come up with it. Sure, you don’t actually die if you lose Blue Lock, but losing the ability to play competitive soccer ever again might as well be death for a shonen sports boy, so it still counts. Point is, this premise is certifiably genius. Which makes it slightly disappointing that so far, the show isn’t taking as much advantage of it as it could. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some of the skullduggery and backstabbing you’d expect from your typical death game, but for the most part, Blue Lock just plays like a traditional soccer anime. A very good soccer anime, to be sure, but I find myself wishing it was willing to get nastier and edgier and really take advantage of its premise. Hell, it’s not even the best straightforward soccer anime this year; Ao Ashi has it beat in everything but animation. So count me a fan, but also count me hopeful that it leans more into what makes it unique going forward.

Raven of the Inner Palace: 7.5/10

In a fantasy-tinged version of Medieval China, there lives an imperial courtesan known as the Raven Consort. But unlike the other courtesans, her duties do not involve, well, nighttime visits. No, her mission is to put to rest the wandering spirits of the dead, the shades of those who died with regrets or unfinished business that still tie them to the world of the living. As long as anyone can remember, she’s lived alone, existing for nothing but her mission with no bonds to the world around her. But when a new emperor deposes the corrupt regime, he makes it his mission to set right everything his forebearers set wrong... including freeing the Raven Consort from her isolation. Thus begins one of the most absorbing anime I’ve watched all year, a story of the sins of the past as they claw at the fabric of the present, the struggle to untangle eons of societal oppression, and what it truly means to make amends for mistakes that left scars too big to ever heal. Raven of the Inner Palace is a bit of a slow burn, but when it takes off, it fucking takes off. And I know most of you barely even heard about it because it was overshadowed by all the louder, flashier shows this season, so consider this your wake-up call. Don’t sleep on this one, it’s really damn good.

Akiba Maid War: 8.5/10

Honestly, I don’t even want to say anything about this one. I just want to tell you all that you need to fucking watch Akiba Maid War and let you experience its many surprises as deliriously blind as I did. So if that alone is enough to convince you to go watch it, then stop what you’re doing and go watch it before you’re spoiled on anything. But if you need a little extra convincing, then consider the following: what if I told you that this seemingly innocuous maid cafe show is not, in fact, a quaint little otaku-centric slice of life, but a full-on pastiche of yakuza movies that takes all the genre’s bloodshed and mayhem and filters it through maid-colored glasses? A show where maids gun each other down and jockey for power and get in vicious turf battles and yet never once break maid keyfabe? Where the simple joke of “yakuza movie but they’re maids” is played so straight and pushed so far to its absolute limit that it somehow wraps back around to being both a completely ludicrous parody of itself and a completely genuine, 100% heart-on-its-sleeve love letter to both seemingly incompatible sides of its double identity? And walks that seemingly impossible tonal tightrope near flawlessly before bringing it all home in a final episode so pitch-perfect it forced me to pump my score up half a point just from how hard it stuck the goddamn landing? Are you convinced yet? Did I mention there’s a thirty-six year old murder maid who totally kicks fucking ass and doesn’t let anyone shame her for being a middle-aged woman working a cutesy job? What more do you want from me? JUST GO FUCKING WATCH THIS SHOW ALREADY I SWEAR TO GOD

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury: 8.5/10

I had no idea what to expect going into my first ever Gundam anime. Sure, I was excited to finally get a taste of what this storied franchise had to offer, and the excellent prologue and promise of an interesting female protagonist were certainly reasons to be hopeful, but as someone who’s rarely clicked with mecha as a genre, I wasn’t sure how this first foray into the definitive mecha anime would turn out. What I never expected- what I don’t think anyone could’ve expected- was that The Witch From Mercury wasn’t content to just be the first even female-led Gundam. No, this show decided to be REVOLUTIONARY GIRL UTENA. IN SPACE. WITH MECHA BATTLES. And I don’t think I need to say a goddamn thing more to convince you to watch this show. It’s goddamn Gundam Utena! It’s the queerest, most socially conscious anime of all time re-imagined with a futuristic metal exoskeleton, only with Utena’s symbolism-drenched ruminations on gender and patriarchy replaced with a no-less-compelling grounded portrayal of the evils of space capitalism and the political consequences of corrupt systems. Well, presumably; this first cours has mostly focused on the ground-level school romance antics as it builds up all that big picture stuff in the background. But I say again: GUNDAM. FUCKING. UTENA. I couldn’t have picked a better introduction to the world of Gundam if I tried. And as long as the second cours doesn’t shit the bed, this is going to go down in history as one of the greatest things to over come out of the mecha genre.

Bocchi the Rock: 9.5/10

And yet. Despite all the big shonens and bold anime originals, despite Chainsaw Man and My Hero Academia and Gundam Utena, when all was said and done, one series rose above them all. One series that looked at all those big names with a smirk and sailed past them as naturally as breathing. Ladies, gentlemen, and everyone in between, Bocchi the Rock is a goddamn motherfucking masterpiece. It takes the band-girls coming-of-age majesty, the painfully relatable social anxiety of Watamote, and the sheer animation flexing of Nichijou, and blends them all together into a gut-busting, tear-jerking, jaw-dropping tour de force that raises the bar on what slice-of-life anime is capable of just as thoroughly as K-On did thirteen years ago. Hitori Gotou is a socially paralyzed weirdo who’s never had a real friend because her anxiety’s too overwhelming to make friends, but she knows how to play some mean guitar. So when a chance encounter leads to her joining a band, she resolves to stick with it and try to finally break out of her shell, one hilarious misstep at a time. It’s a wonderful story of overcoming what holds you back and finding a community that accepts you for who you are, brought to life with some of the most astonishingly Extra(tm) animation that regularly left me choking on my own laughter. And the music uniformly kicks ass, and the incredible supporting cast provides a wide array of perspectives of introversion and extroversion, and Ryou is such an asshole and I love her, and fucking hell, I love this show! Other anime may be deeper or more complex or have more to say, but almost nothing else is so consistently charming. Every second of this show is delightful. Every moment is lovable. It’s a new gold standard for animated comedy, for cute girls, for coming-of-age, and for music anime in general. Bocchi the Rock fucking rules, and every single one of you needs to give it a watch. Something tells me this is gonna be one of those shows we’re still going to be gushing over for many, many years to come.

[zerochanges]

2021 Favorite Anime

It’s that time once again for me to list my favorite stuff from the year, and oh boy, what a year it has been. It sucked, okay, let’s just cut to the chase. The anime I watched the most this year was probably One Piece, like I discussed just the other day in my media binge reviews. If you wanna see my thoughts on some stuff that isn’t from 2021, check it out, if you don’t give a crap, and really who can blame you, just keep scrolling down. I am once again going to include sequels and long running animes in my ranking this year, and yeah, the list is just in alphabetical order so there isn’t really a number 1 to say, although if you ask me, it’s Muteking! Muteking is my favorite anime from 2021, that was the best show. Well, you can read why down below, but let’s get started. 

Banished from the Hero's Party, I Decided to Live a Quiet Life in the Countryside

You can tell this one is based off a light novel with that title, for simplicity sake let’s just call it Banished from here on out. Banished is a somewhat interesting concept, instead of being about the classic JRPG Yusha (Hero) character it instead focuses on a temporary party member. If you have played a decent amount of JRPGs I am sure you know what I am talking about, Red the main character isn’t a permanent party member, just someone that joins the group temporarily then leaves at some point. Red, being a former companion of the hero’s party, makes him worldly and interesting but he’s also down to earth and just wants to live a quiet life with his adventuring days behind him. When he meets Rit from his old adventuring days he is initially worried that his cover will be blown but she instead decides to settle down with him. What follows is pretty standard fantasy anime schlock but it’s held together really well because of the great chemistry between Red and Rit that make an adorable couple. It’s refreshing to have two adults actually openly dating with no “will they or won’t they?” antics.

Black Clover

Of all the things for 2021 to take, it had to be Clover! How cruel! I kid of course, and with the current state of anime I have no doubt it will one day return, hey even World Trigger did and I never would have believed that. For now though, Black Clover is over, and it ended pretty well for what it was. We got absolutely fantastic battles towards the end, Asta and Yami vs Dante is a true highlight of the entire series and really shows how much Asta has grown up now in the time skip and how important he has become to other people in his life. Hearing Yami finally call Asta by his name gave me goosebumps, it’s a beautiful moment. It hurts to have this one leave, it became a pinnacle of my Saturday nights on Toonami for some 4 years but Asta will return to save his friends again, I’m sure of it. 

Boruto: Naruto Next Generations

Last year Boruto began delving into manga content, both adapting story arcs from it directly and creating new content around it that further elaborated on material left vague in the manga. It was a great year for the series and it’s awesome to see that it pretty much kept that momentum for the entirety of 2021 as well, adapting almost the entire manga by this point. It was this year that finally revealed the secret behind Boruto’s curse mark and the cruel fate that awaits the youth as well as finally bringing the secondary protagonist into the series, Kawaki. Kawaki really shook up the status quo, a misunderstood youth that was being chased by a criminal organization, he had the same curse as Boruto and took crap from no one. 

Over the following story arcs we watched both Boruto and Kawaki grow a lot and share a deep brotherly bond because of the dark fate they have been given. And the battles, holy crap, the fights were incredible. The Boruto staff truly outdid themselves, animating some incredible fights that went above and beyond spectacle into almost cinematic quality fights. And it was absolutely earned, as these fights were tied together nicely with some really great story telling. Overall, I know the following year will probably be a bit slower since the anime has more or less caught up, but I don’t even care, it was one hell of a great ride these past two years, and I can’t wait to see what comes in the future. 

Cardfight!! Vanguard overDress 

Last year the third series of Vanguard finished after a nearly two year long run and 2021 has seen the start of Overdress, the new fourth series that celebrates the ten year anniversary of the franchise. OD is both something new and a return to form, and it was kind of an odd start to me; much of the first season simply did not click for me like I hoped it would. And that is one of the big differences OD has over past entries as the series has shifted to a much older demographic and airs late at night and in single cours. Gone are seasons that last 50-65 episodes and instead in their place are beautifully animated 12 episode seasons. The series having such a smaller episode count however didn’t vibe well with the same old kind of slow pace storytelling Season 1 presented and often had to sacrifice the titular card fights of the series in order to tell plot. I’m watching a card battle anime because I want card battles, that shouldn’t be too complicated to understand, right? 

Season 2 thankfully delivers in many ways and made me realize that a lot of the former season was all done for set up and finally getting this pay off felt great. Card fights become much more regular and said fights in general become really enjoyable with great strategy and wonderful animation. The story really picks up in this season and the cast finally feels like it all has fallen into place. Overdress was a rocky transition but I think Bushiroad has managed to bring a really great and well crafted card battle series to an older demographic. I’m looking forward to future seasons of the series now.

Dr. Stone: Stone Wars

Season 2 of Dr. Stone picks up right as the war between the two different factions of the stone world, Senku’s Kingdom of Science and Tsukasa’s Empire begin their war and it wastes no time in getting to the good stuff. Old characters return, Senku unleashes some great science on us, and most importantly the chemistry of the entire cast is top notch, even for the villain side. Every character is really well realized and written. It says a lot when the end of the season makes you empathize with the villain just as much as you did with the main characters. It’s sadly hard to talk a lot about Stone Wars since it is just one story arc of the series, going into details is pretty much just spoiling the story arc, but it’s a great continuation of a really fun and different Jump manga.

Dragon Quest: Dai no Daibouken (2020)

Toei’s modern adaptation of Dai no Daibouken is a dream come true, and one I never thought I could get. It brings back the same feelings I had when Madhouse began a new Hunter x Hunter adaptation in 2011, and I simply love that so many beloved 90’s Jump series are finally getting their due. This year the anime finally surpassed where the original 1991 anime left off, and seeing these story arcs get animated is incredible. And the animation is top notch! The staff working on the series really bring a lot of talent and creativity that brings the fights from the series into new light. Most importantly, I’m just having so much fun watching this series every weekend like I’m a kid again. Dai no Daibouken at one time in my life I considered my favorite manga, and to this day it really holds up so strongly. The anime finally entering into the second half of the manga has been one of the most exciting things for me this year!

Full Dive: This Ultimate Next-Gen Full Dive RPG Is Even Shittier than Real Life!

For me it’s kind of hard to do a comedy isekai (another world) series nowadays. It’s probably just because of how dry the isekai well is in general but there’s also just some really great competition, like Konosuba kind of already did everything and did it so well it’s hard to find any more humor from this. But then Full Dive came along and oh boy, I usually don’t find mean spirited comedy that funny but this is gold. The series really takes the piss out of so many power fantasy series, making a VR fantasy world that is too realistic, meaning that if you are weak IRL you are weak in the game, and it’s such a one trick pony but it works just so incredibly well. Watching the main character constantly fall over and over again because doing even the simplest of things in a JRPG is herculean for real life people. Hell, I think one of the funniest jokes is that he doesn’t even leave the starter town until the very end of the season! The thing that usually happens in a couple of minutes in an actual JRPG. 

Girlfriend, Girlfriend

Speaking of great comedies this year, Girlfriend, Girlfriend is another one. Instead of the usual “will they or won’t they” love triangle, the series protagonist Naoya is way too pure and doesn’t want to cheat on anyone so he somehow ends up in an utterly bizarre three way poly relationship with two other girls that is way too hard to explain to normal people and often leads to fairly funny outcomes. It’s just your regular high school romance between one dude and his two girlfriends. The humor is often really absurd, and the characters are sometimes too stupid to even function. The whole thing is held together by just how pure and sincere Naoya is in being the perfect two-timing boyfriend.

Life Lessons with Uramichi Oniisan

“Hey, that’s me!” is pretty much how I describe Uramichi-oniisan. Do you hate your job? Is life in your thirties depressing? Is your body starting to age and fall apart? Have you given up on ever achieving personal happiness? Are you going to be single forever? If you answered yes to all these questions then this is you too! We are all Uramichi-oniisan! The fact that this show aired on mondays too was way too perfect, I think it had to be intentional; vegging out to work time blues and your depressing 30s on the harshest day of the week really helped to get me through.

Muteking the Dancing Hero!

In what is probably the most creative and ingenious reimaging of a classic property I have ever seen, Muteking the Dancing Hero, takes an old cheesy early-80s Tatsunoko superhero show and transforms it into a modern spectacle that still pays homage to the era of origin. It’s such a clever idea that I can’t get over–poaching one of their many, many, dime-a-dozen Gatchaman clones and transforming it into … well pretty much an old school goofy rhythm game. Anyone familiar with the classics like Gitaroo Man, Rhythm Heaven, PaRappa, and the like, will know what I am talking about: Muteking the Dancing Hero is pretty much just one of those games if they were an anime. Gone are the mechs and the toyriffic gadgets, and in their place are epic dance battles against kaiju that seek to destroy the city. 

The music is phenomenal in the series, naturally, the dance battle portion of every episode is just so much fun, and way too enjoyable, but the soundtrack brings a lot of weight to it outside of just those tracks and there are even some old school classics from the era of the original Muteking; I nearly lost my mind when the show played the legendary (or maybe infamous now) Plastic Love, and somehow made it work for one of the saddest scenes in the series. Then there is also Aurora the most popular celebrity in the city and a dark idol that Muteking just can’t seem to beat for most of the series. Their dance clashes bring some of the best music in the series.

Besides the great idea to take a cheesy old property and reinvent it, and besides the great music that came with this new dance battle aspect of the series, besides all that, my favorite thing about Muteking the Dancing Hero is just that it’s loads of fun. The series is one of those rare shows that every episode feels insanely fun, the characters have fantastic chemistry with each other and no matter how small a role everyone gets something to do, the world is so well defined and cartoonish enough to seem magical, and 25 minutes just go away in a blink of an eye. This was the most fun I had watching anime all year, and easily my favorite show of the year, I will forever go up to bat for this weird, creative series. Two best buddies really can save the universe with the power of dance!

Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation

I originally watched this show because a lot of people were dunking on it for being super pervy and dumb, and hey, oh shit, a stupid perverted dumb isekai series, sign me up, bro. This wasn’t what I was led to believe, as it slowly became a really well written and heart wrenching series, I guess the twitter mobs never know what they are talking about, oh well, at least I watched a great show for once. Mushoku Tensei is a really interesting beast though and I can see why people might be grossed out at the start, it feels like the author probably played a lot of eroge back in the day before writing this series, and hey, me too, so it didn’t ruin the experience for me personally. Eroge, or erotic game in laymen, is probably the best comparison I can think of for Mushoku Tensei, as just like many famous eroge (think Yu-No or Fate/) the horny content is there but an incredibly deep and well articulated plot is just under the surface (and the boobs) too.

Remake Our Life!

This show I really felt on a lot of levels, being a burned out 30-something with a dead end job. There are a lot of fantasy titles in Japan now that seem to focus on escaping to another world or redoing a pivotal part of your life and it makes me imagine there’s a good chunk of the population there just as burned out as me. Remake really did a great job at not only making me extremely jealous of protagonist Kyouya for getting such a great opportunity to follow his creative dreams again in his youth, but also made me feel insanely inspired again every episode. Anybody struggling to become an artist in their adult life can relate to this series, and it really shows how the best of intentions sometimes can lead to the worst results. Nobody ever said second chances are perfect but I can’t help but to think how great it would have been to chase more of my dreams in my college years.

Tokyo Revengers

Tokyo Revengers feels like it might be the last big title from Crunchyroll and that made it extra special to me. We had this big 2-cour long mega popular show with a fantastic Crunchy commissioned dub in the vein of their other prior major gems like Jujutsu Kaisen before it. Now that they are owned by Funimation I had no clue going forward what will happen so this may really be the last of its kind. I can say though, it was a damn fun series to end on. 

Just like Remake Our Life! Tokyo Revengers features the protagonist time traveling back into his middle school self, on a mission to save his childhood sweetheart from a cruel fate in the present. The time travel aspect originally threw me off a bit, as it is kind of poorly written but after a while I came to actually really appreciate it for what it is. This is not a hard sci-fi fantasy series, at its core this is a fun yankii battle manga: the time travel aspect is just a narrative device that helps set stakes and creatively gives you exposition. We know why Takemichi has to succeed so badly because we get glimpses into what will happen if he doesn’t.

TSUKIMICHI -Moonlit Fantasy-

This is a guilty pleasure of mine. Tsukimichi does nothing extraordinary nor is it really that well made but there is just something there that I can’t quite put my finger on that makes me enjoy it a lot. Perhaps it’s that the series has a somewhat older feel to it, the original novels it is based on do date back to about 2012. For whatever reason this show makes me nostalgic and I really don’t have any prior experience with it. Feels like something I would have watched in high school. If you told me it was from 2006 I would believe you, as it firmly feels like Zero no Tsukaima to me. Anyways, guilty pleasure, but I would be remiss not to mention it since I spammed my friends with screenshots from this one quite a bit over this year.

World Trigger (Season 2 and Season 3)

Seeing World Trigger return like it has is honestly something that still surprises me. I was there, eight years ago, I watched since episode 1 aired back in 2014, and never could I have imagined that we would get past that cliff hanger the original first season ended on way-back-when in 2016. Seeing the anime finally finish the story arc it left on is really satisfying in a lot of ways but seeing how much care and effort was put in these new seasons is even more satisfying. It’s no secret the original first season had a rocky start and was right at the peak of Toei being kind of a disaster so seeing them have such an amazing output recently is a true underdog story, Dai no Daibouken and World Trigger are some of the best animated series around right now. Beyond the stellar animation (seriously this is the best I’ve seen in so long) World Trigger always holds a special place in my heart as the best Jump series from the 2010s. To me World Trigger is just where it is at for that decade, and this isn’t some diss on the many other great Jump titles of that era, I just think this is my favorite one; it has the sharpest writing, uses real world combat tactics, a huge roster of amazing characters, and is just a fun sci-fi series all together. 

The Vampire Dies in No Time

The Vampire Dies in No Time is a really great “buddy cop” kind of comedy, where world class Vampire Hunter Ronaldo somehow ends up partnering with the most fearsome and powerful vampire of them all, Draluc–except all that is total bull. Draluc’s legend is greatly exaggerated and despite his best efforts to be the stereotypical Dracula kind of vampire, he’s completely harmless, if anything he only hurts himself not humans. Pretty much even the smallest flick of your finger is enough to kill Draluc, who thankfully can revive endlessly but that’s about all he’s good for. Ronaldo and Draluc bicker constantly, are a terrible vampire hunter team, and each try to betray the other at every chance they can get–but somehow they are stuck together. It’s never a dull moment with these two idiots.

Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun (Season 2)

Iruma-kun is back and this newest season covers some of my favorite content in the series like the Evil Iruma story arc and the Walter Park arc. It’s nice to be able to settle down more into this series and see it continue, and knowing there is a season 3 in the upcoming future makes me hopeful we might get the entire series animated one day. Iruma-kun really fills in that void that Katekyo Hitman Reborn! Left in my heart after its ending. It’s funny, has some great small character moments, and can also handle battle manga material very competently. Watching young Iruma and his friends of demon misfits grow to rise above their misfit labels and become the most respected class of the titular Demon School is just too much fun. 

[gisbrecht]

REVIEW: Facets by Far Away Times (2018)

Facets is a short RPG Maker game with a lot of heart. Far Away Times has packed an emotional punch in the span of two hours that other JRPG may take twenty or more to achieve the same. I did cry, truly. https://farawaytimes.itch.io/facets

Oh, before the actual meat of the review I'd like to thank John for releasing an update in 2021 with maps, boss guides, and an "easier mode" option that gives you healing items at the start! I was a bit stuck in one maze so that really helped out. More independent games should do this.

Because of marginalization, queer folk may align themselves with the villains (who themselves are occasionally queer coded or rarely queer). Unfortunately, this is not the case in Facets by John Thyer, in which the villains are a trio representing institutionalized violence. They are a part of the so called "Guardianship". You play as this trio who seeks to "cure" the hero. The protagonist is one rebel named Alyssa who is explicitly in a lesbian relationship with a woman called Lacy. This hero is clearly painted as the queer other when the head antagonist, Ellis, says she is "Degenerate". Such a word was used by the Nazis in calling modern art "Entartete Kunst": it is to say that anything deviating from the norm is worthless and corrupting. Alyssa is to be forcibly reprogrammed. It's a cliche trope but it creates a narrative means to explore her inner motivations, and history by way of "dream diving". To show the suffering she has gone through, to sympathize with her.

Guardianship implies a sort of control over children, and this governmental body's title seems to reflect its behavior. It is a controlling body that seeks to regulate the lives of the people within its borders. Even if it means slaughtering dissidents and reprogramming rebels into model citizens. And it's no stretch to say it is of a patriarchal nature. This is presumably best represented by the scene in which Alyssa's reprogrammed father kills his wife and persuades his daughter to come with him. Thankfully she responds with a refusal and a quick thinking act of violence.

In the act of wiping her rebellious spirit, the divers do come in contact with traumatic elements of Alyssa's life. I am not well equipped to comment on this element. You should just be aware that is an important element of the story.

We could choose not to finish a game like Facets. in fact we, Don't need to finish media. But if we did not finish facets we not be fully aware of the trauma of Alyssa. Is that okay? Perhaps not? But there is a cultural expectation…a drive to finish things. The knight Vilhelm of Dark Souls III describes it as such:

"I've seen your kind, time and time again. Every fleeing man must be caught. Every secret must be unearthed. Such is the conceit of the self-proclaimed seeker of truth." We want to know Alyssa's secrets, because of the desire the know the complete picture. For this she unfortunately must "die". I'm not putting the onus on Thyer— plenty of good characters have been killed. This author even cared so much about the characters that he wrote a prequel novel! I've yet to read it.

There is no catharsis at the end, only the sliver of hope that one day the order which killed Tracy and Alyssa is turned to rubble, as evidenced by Rory's vague misgivings in the end.