A very good month for comics, a very bad month for books.
Plaque Color Guide:
Blue - Special to me. Not necessarily better than the others, but it stood out
Green - I really liked it. Even if I had some problems with it, they weren't bad enough to ruin my enjoyment.
Yellow - I generally liked it but something really bothered me.
Orange - I didn't like it but I can see how other people might.
Red - This disappointed me or pissed me off or just sucked ass
(my spoiler-free thoughts on all of these below the cut)
"Goodbye, Eri" by Tatsuki Fujimoto [Comic - Manga]
(translation from Japanese by Amanda Haley)
Starting off the year extremely strong with a very short but powerful one-shot manga.
"Goodbye Eri" is the story of a boy who makes a very bad movie out of recordings of his dying mother. The ridicule he gets over it drives him to suicide, but before he can go through with it he meets a mysterious girl who encourages forces him to try again. This manga is a very poignant meditation on loss, anticipatory grief, and the way we choose to remember those who have passed, told through a surreal blend of film/memory and reality. It's absolutely fantastic, I highly recommend it.
"Strange Houses" by Uketsu [Book - Fiction]
(translation from Japanese by Jim Rion)
And from that banger we go straight to an absolute disappointment.
"Strange Houses" is a short mystery novel about uncovering the secrets behind a house with a very odd floor plan of a house. The little page-long prologue hooked me, the way the picture of the floor plan genuinely looked normal at first glance but just got weirder and weirder the more you looked at it sent chills down my spine. Then in the first chapter the "detective" characters propose an extremely far-fetched theory about why the house was built like that, so I thought surely the rest of the book will be about disproving the theory and figuring out what actually happened. But what do you know, they are pretty much entirely right from the beginning and the rest of the book is just a very boring, very poorly-written "thriller". I believe the goal of a mystery story is to make you at least feel like you could theoretically solve the case (if not actually solve it) which this book failed at spectacularly.
Also, and this is just a me thing, I've really gotten really into alive/supernatural buildings lately (thank you Control!), so I was hoping that would be what this book was about. Don't make my mistake, there is nothing fantastical in this book except that one guy's deductive ability.
"Strange Pictures" by Uketsu [Book - Fiction]
(translation from Japanese by Jim Rion)
Why I read this book after hating the last one, I really couldn't tell you.
"Strange Pictures" is yet another short mystery novel in the vein of "Strange Houses", but this time the mystery is in weird drawings from a blog instead of floor plans. Besides the writing (or translation) flowing just marginally better, this has all the same issues as that book, with the added downside of the drawings not being nearly as interesting as the floor plans were. I won't be picking up another book by this author.
"A Study in Scarlet" by Arthur Conan Doyle [Book - Fiction]
(narration by Greg Wagland on YouTube)
After reading and loving "Moriarty the Patriot", I thought I ought to check out the Real Deal. I knew nothing about Sherlock Holmes before besides what I'd picked up through cultural osmosis, so this was an exciting experience.
"A Study in Scarlet" tells the story of how Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson met and how they solved their first case together. My first impression was: wait, Sherlock is actually nice??? Don't get me wrong, he's still a jerk some of the time but I didn't expect him to be so polite in general, especially towards Watson. And I didn't expect Watson to be more of a jerk than him! Next, I confirmed one of the things I had heard before, which was that the mysteries are very well constructed. Although Sherlock is clearly a genius, the deductions he makes are entirely logical with the information he has, so when he explains how he got to a conclusion, it makes complete sense (you can imagine how refreshing this was to see after reading "Strange Houses" and "Strange Pictures"). But otherwise, I didn't really care for the story. It was very slow and a large chunk of it was wasted on the backstory of why the murder happened, which could've easily been summarized and not lost anything. Also, lots of period-typical bigotry, but what do you expect. I don't regret reading it, but I didn't particularly enjoy it.
(Kill Six Billion Demons #1) "Kill Six Billion Demons" by Tom Parkinson-Morgan [Comic - Web]
(read here)
If you're even a little bit interested in "Kill Six Billion Demons", stop reading this post and go read the comic now. It's completely free and linked just above. This discussion won't have any actual spoilers, as per usual, but I think this is best experienced completely blind. So just go read it. It's fantastic.
Anyway…
In the broadest terms possible, "Kill Six Billion Demons" is an isekai story about a sorority girl, Allison, who's thrust into a strange dark fantasy world with the goal of killing the seven evil kings that are terrorizing it and rescuing her boyfriend who was kidnapped by them. However, the true genius of this comic lies in its many, many details.
First, let's briefly give some well deserved praise to the art. The level of detail is truly insane, the colors are wonderfully vibrant, and the way the characters are drawn conveys so much personality. I can't get over how Allison is drawn to feel so squishy in comparison to the strange creatures that surround her. I feel like the art of the humans was a little wonky in the first chapter, but it hit its stride soon after.
Next, the worldbuilding, which is undoubtedly the most special part of this comic. The realm Allison is transported to is Throne, what was once heaven now corrupted under the rule of humans and infested with demons. This world is very dark and cruel, ruled though violence and slavery, but it also has this interesting sense of whimsy (Allison has to eat a little devil to understand the language by it whispering to her, the bus is just a giant creature…) that really makes a fantasy story for me. There are many of lore dumps in this book, but they don't feel daunting to read because the information is fascinating and presented in a very cool way. The pages describing the birth and death of gods, the formation of the multiverse, the invasion of humanity, are absolutely stunning, and that's just scratching the surface. Underneath a lot of the comic pages on the website, there are excerpts from in-universe writing—religious texts, songs, folk stories—that give a lot of depth to the world. All this can be overwhelming though, so I recommend just reading a chapter or book of the comic first and then going back to look at the supplemental materials. But please do read them, they add so much life to this fantasy universe. I was particularly impressed by the author's ability to capture the style of real life religious texts in his fictional religious texts. The world is also made to feel more expansive by the inclusion of a lot of one-off characters that imply deep and complex stories that are just not relevant to Allison's journey.
And finally, the plot and characters. The reason Allison is transported to Throne is because a mysterious figure puts a key that can unlock doors to universes in her head. This is a very powerful object coveted by everybody, so Allison travels with the angel White Chain to meet the devil Cio to ask for help in figuring out why this was given to her and what they can do about it. This first book is focused on introducing Allison (and therefore us readers) to Throne and the multiverse, and Allison is (understandably) very overwhelmed by her entire perception of the universe being shattered. I liked Allison, but I think I'll be more interested in her once she gets over the shock (she starts to at the end of this book, so I'm excited for the next one). On the other hand, I already love White Chain and Cio, with Cio having the potential to become my favorite character. Much to my surprise, this comic turned out to be about women's empowerment and fighting misogyny. As I mentioned in the worldbuilding paragraph, the world is very dark, and it features a lot of sexual slavery and violence against women. I sense that the journey of our heroines will lead them to raining down righteous violence upon the scum that inflict these horrors and I for one can't wait. That being said, for all the darkness of the setting, the tone of the story is pretty light the majority of the time, and it's occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. It doesn't make light of the horrifying stuff though, I think that's important to point out. The comedy comes from the interactions between the characters and the strange and whimsical elements of the world.
Initially, I had this sitting at 4-4.5 stars but as time passed, I just could not stop thinking about it. I read it multiple times and even started taking extensive notes to be prepared for the future books. For the intensity with which this story wormed itself into my brain, I had to bump it up to 5 stars and the "special" tier.
(Kill Six Billion Demons #2) "Wielder of Names" by Tom Parkinson-Morgan [Comic - Web]
(read here)
For a brief moment after reading (and rereading) the first book, I thought I should maybe read just one of these per month. That was a very very brief moment.
First off, the art in this book is even better than in the last book and there are some fun things done with the comic format. An edgy character's dialogue is written in scratchy lettering, a devil steps from one panel into the next, Allison peeks through a bubble to look at the panel below. I haven't read that many comics so these might be common tropes in the medium, but it still brought me great joy whenever I saw them. Worldbuilding-wise, this book dives a little deeper into the lore of the angels and the devils. But with the most daunting part of the worldbuilding (the setup of the universe) behind us, we now have the space to focus more on the plot and characters, much to my absolute delight.
This book covers Allison's journey to face the first of the seven evil kings she must defeat. While she has gotten over the shock of the new revelations about the universe, she still hasn't accepted her role as heroine, so we follow a frustrated Allison that's trying to escape fate. I won't talk much about what she goes through because spoilers, but I loved everything that happened and I loved her as a character from beginning to end. I think every king is going to lead her to a revelation that'll help her grow in some way and I can't wait to see what becomes of her. While I adore Allison, this book cemented Cio as my favorite character. I mean, she writes fanfiction (and yuri at that!) and finds Allison hot!!! (Please don't let this be just a one-off joke and let her be actually sapphic. And while we're at it, make Allison sapphic too, although I don't really ship them together.) We also get a little glimpse into her past and I'm very interested to learn her full story (and for her to kick the ass of anyone who's fucked with her). I do wish she was in this book more though. White Chain is the secondary protagonist of the book and she's dealing with her angel brethren who aren't happy that she's helping Allison. They're also not happy that she identifies as a woman, since angels are, allegedly, an all-male species (they say 'beyond gender' but they only use he/him and refer to each other as 'brother' so that's not really true is it?). I did not expect a transfem main character in this comic but I'm so so glad there is one. The narrative of women's empowerment that the story is going for wouldn't have been complete without acknowledging trans women.
Lastly, I was very happy to see this book double down on the whimsy with an entire fucking musical number. This comic really is a gift that keeps on giving.
<3 (heart) - Shows/movies that were special to me. These are not necessarily better than the others, but for some reason they stood out.
I had a blast - Shows/movies I really liked. Even if I had some problems with them, they weren't bad enough to ruin my enjoyment.
Sooo close - Shows/movies that I generally liked but some aspect of them really bothered me.
Not for me - Shows/movies that I didn't really like but I can see how other people would like them. They are just not to my taste or I'm not the target audience.
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ (table flip) - Shows/movies that disappointed me or pissed me off.
DNF - Shows/movies I didn't finish so I can't rank them.
Within the tiers, the shows/movies are vaguely sorted by how much I enjoyed them, but their placement can easily change based on my mood.
All ranking is done based on my personal enjoyment and not quality. As always, these are just my opinions.
(my spoiler-free thoughts on all of these under the cut)
<3
(heart)
"Buddy Daddies" [TV Show - Anime]
"Buddy Daddies" is about two assassins who end up taking care of a little girl after they kill her father. This show brings me an incredible amount of joy. It has all the things I love: intense action, depressed/traumatized characters, healing from familial abuse, going up against unimaginable odds to protect your loved ones, characters I can interpret as being on the aro and/or ace spectrums, platonic coparenting (much to my surprise given the premise, these bitches are not gay and I find it hard to read them as such), and plenty of comedy. It even has stuff I typically hate but I liked here, like a central child character (it helped that the story was focused on the adults and she was more a McGuffin with personality). There are obvious flaws with it (namely, the fridging of female characters), but the enjoyment I got out of it far outweighs the aspects that annoyed me.
"Akiba Maid War" [TV Show - Anime]
I talked about "Akiba Maid War" in my November wrap-up (link). This show absolutely slaps and it's criminal that it's not more popular. Its only flaw is that it's not yuri.
I had a blast
"Great Pretender" (season 1) [TV Show - Anime]
This show is about a small-time Japanese swindler who gets roped into the globe-trotting adventures of a French con artist who is trying to scam various rich bastards out of millions. Although I had some issues with it (particularly surrounding the portrayal of the Arab characters), I really liked season 1 of this anime. If you want to watch something fun and quick, I highly recommend it, at least the first arc (episodes 1-5). Same can't be said for season 2 though, which you will find in the "table flip" tier…
By the way, this anime is the reason you'll find a lot of books and shows/movies about thieves and con artists on my wrap-ups, and it was the inspiration for my own "lesbian thieves" story that I'm still rotating in my brain.
"Leverage: Redemption" (season 1) [TV Show - Live Action]
I talked about season 1 of "Leverage: Redemption" in my October wrap-up (link). "Leverage" is always a good time and I really enjoyed this reboot, especially seeing Sophie (my beloved) as the mastermind.
"Hell's Paradise" (season 1) [TV Show - Anime]
"Hell's Paradise" is the story of an unkillable assassin who gets arrested and sent to a deadly island along with a bunch of other death-row convicts and a group of executioners ordered to kill them if they step out of line. There, they must compete to find the mythological elixir of life, since the one to return with it will be rewarded with a full pardon.
I was immensely entertained by this anime. The island intrigued me from the moment it was introduced because it killing people by making them sprout flowers was just such a cool concept. And once on the island, I loved all the weird plants and creatures we got to see. As for the characters, I liked Sagiri, especially after we learned that her and Gabimaru's relationship will stay platonic (at least I hope), but for some reason I really got attached to Yuzuriha. It confuses me because I typically hate oversexualized female characters, and she is a lot, but her personality really appealed to me. Also, Yuzuriha/Sagiri… I can't believe I didn't think about that sooner. I want fics, but I'm scared of spoilers.
Just as I was writing this, I learned season 2 has started airing. I will be tuning in, mostly for Yuzuriha.
"Ocean's 8" [Movie - Live Action]
Friends Movie Night pick (my choice)! I actually haven't watched the other "Ocean's" movies, but I chose this one because I like women and I want to see them do crimes, what can I say ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Anyway, this is about a woman who after getting out of prison for thievery immediately plans an elaborate heist at the Met Gala. It was extremely entertaining, although there were some glaring logical inconsistencies that kinda took me out of it at moments (she wouldn't be able to walk out of the store with unpaid goods, there are alarms at the door!!!). Also, it was never going to happen, but the fact that Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett's characters weren't lesbians is still a travesty.
"Atlantis: The Lost Empire" [Movie - Animated]
I talked about "Atlantis: The Lost Empire" in my October wrap-up (link). This was a fun movie, no notes.
Sooo close
"To Be Hero X" (season 1) [TV Show - Donghua]
I'm not a fan of superheroes at all, but Li Haoling already got me to like a show with a concept I don't usually like once (time travel with "Link Click") so I trusted him to do it again (plus, a friend recommended me this). This show is set in a world where people gain superpowers through the public's belief in them, and it follows Lin Ling who, after witnessing star superhero Nice commit suicide, is recruited to be his replacement because he looks just like him. Superheroes are celebrities in this world, signed to talent agencies and relying on PR to maintain the public's faith in them and thus their powers. It's pretty blatant commentary on the entertainment industry and that's the part I loved about it (besides the animation and the shifting artstyles). This core is present throughout the entire show, but it ends up getting kind of lost in the sci-fi plot introduced later on, which I wasn't really into. The show also suffers from too many main characters (there are like 11); the middle of the season is just backstory galore. It would've been much more effective if Lin Ling was the only main character and we learned about the other characters' backstories as he gets to know them, revealing the dark side of the superhero industry as he loses his idealized view of it. The show got me excited again with the last couple episodes as it introduced some banger ideas that got me interested in tuning in for season 2, but that middle chunk was just extremely mid. I feel like it set the standard too high with the first couple episodes.
"Cowboy Bebop" [TV Show - Anime]
I talked about of "Cowboy Bebop" in my November wrap-up (link). This show has immaculate vibes, but it goes here because it never really got me too invested in the characters and the plot.
Not for me
"Death Parade" [TV Show - Anime]
I talked about of "Death Parade" in my November wrap-up (link). This show had a banger premise but it just kinda squandered it with the expanded lore and the not-that-compelling pairs coming to play the games. Truly a shame.
"Moriarty the Patriot" [TV Show - Anime]
I talked about of "Moriarty the Patriot" in my October wrap-up (link). I was debating a lot on where to put this because while the anime was what got me into this story, once I started reading the manga I completely lost interest in the show. So, I guess it can go here. I love the manga, but if you don't want to read it, the anime isn't a bad alternative. It's just not as good as the source material.
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
(table flip)
"Great Pretender" (season 2) [TV Show - Anime]
Season 1 leaves off with a teaser to a new character that had me going "Man, I sure hope this isn't the role this character is going to play in the story" and what do you know…
The problem with season 2 stems from the misuse of this new character that had a lot of potential, relegating her to one of the most boring roles a female character can have in a story, and the writers being to precious with their blond bastard, not allowing him to properly face the consequences of his actions. Those were the things that pissed me off the most, but the con in this season was also very weird and far-fetched and it didn't hit the same as the others.
I also need to give a BIG content warning for this season, because it involves child trafficking heavily. It was to be expected that the topic would come up considering some reveals in season 1, but I didn't think it would be like this. The tone shift from season 1 is immense, this season is DARK and not fun at all, to the point where certain episodes made me genuinely upset and I think they might have gone too far because I can't look at one character the same anymore. It is nothing like season 1 and it gave me whiplash.
I really want to write up a long post going in detail about everything I didn't like and how I would fix it, but that would require rewatching it and I don't want to do that right now. Eventually…
"Cyberpunk: Edgerunners" [TV Show - Anime]
I actually decided to pick this up just because I learned that a song by Franz Ferdinand, a band I really like, is the OP. And, well, it turned out that the OP was the only thing I liked about it.
This show is about a boy who, after losing everything in a drive-by shooting, starts getting into cybernetics and joins up with a group of "edgerunners" to become a mercenary. True to its title, this anime is very edgy, in a very juvenile way. Full of stupid dick jokes and women prancing around naked for no reason and cartoonish violence although the tone is meant to be serious, not comedic. What pissed me off the most was Lucy. She's such a nothing character, manic stoic pixie dream girl, just there to draw David into the edgerunner life then be his girlfriend and look sexy. Also, and this is an issue I have with a lot of sci-fi/cyberpunk, you cannot convince me that any hacker worth anything would even consider putting cybernetics inside their body. They should know that tech is incredibly fallible and exploitable and even now the companies that make it are malicious, to say nothing of the companies in a hyper-capitalist setting. I know, it looks cool, but it only makes these hackers look stupid.
That was a bit of a tangent, back to the plot. I tend to like tragedies, but this one didn't hit for me at all. Some of it was because I didn't grow to care about any of the characters, but also you need to give me some hope that maybe it won't actually be a tragedy to get me invested. When you have a setting that's bleak and a story that's bleak throughout, at a certain point I'll just check out because there's no point in getting invested. At least I learned something about myself while watching it: I really can't handle depictions of surgery, even in animation (I knew I have a fear of surgery but I didn't know it was this bad). The body-mod installation scenes nearly made me throw up.
"Lazarus" [TV Show - Anime]
I talked about of "Lazarus" in my October wrap-up (link). This was just a snooze-fest, and not because the characters were all high on painkillers. It had potential to be interesting, but it fumbled a lot of things, worst of all its pacing.
DNF
"Trigun" [TV Show - Anime]
(DNF-ed at episode 15)
"Trigun" is a space western anime about the adventures of two insurance agents (Meryl and Millie) as they try to minimize the destruction (accidentally) caused by wanted gunman Vash the Stampede. You might say, isn't Vash the protagonist of the story? I don't care. The girlies are the only ones that matter to me. I might've liked Vash more if he wasn't a pervert. Anyway, this anime is a lot of fun, but I just kind of lost interest in it after a while and I wanted to move on to other things. I might come back to it sometime though.
"Twin Peaks" [TV Show - Live Action]
(DNF-ed at season 2 episode 10)
I've known about "Twin Peaks" through cultural osmosis for a long time and I knew that at some point I would have to watch it, so here we are. "Twin Peaks" is about a small cozy town and the murder of a young girl that slowly unveils it's darker underbelly. I have mixed feelings about this show. The unraveling of the mystery and the exploration of the themes were absolutely masterful, the absurd moments fit in perfectly (although it wasn't as absurd as people make it out to be, at least up to where I got), but it was all bogged down by so much soap opera nonsense between secondary characters that I was bored for the majority of the runtime of the episodes. I stopped where I did because the central mystery is solved at the start of season 2, so while there is more, I didn't feel the need to continue. I might come back though. I'm interested in the new season, I've heard it's much weirder and that's what I'm all about.
"Delicious in Dungeon" [TV Show - Anime]
(DNF-ed at episode 9)
I started this anime on a friend's recommendation but I quickly learned that it just isn't for me. It's about a party of adventurers that venture into a dungeon to save their teammate who got eaten by a dragon, and along the way they cook and eat various magical creatures they find. It's not a bad show by any means, but I just don't care about food or the classic D&D-style fantasy. I've been told it gets more interesting later, but I don't think there's enough here to my personal taste for me to stick it out. I love Marcille though, my girlfailure <3
"The X Files" [TV Show - Live Action]
(DNF-ed at episode 5)
After I was done with "Twin Peaks", I wanted to check out another classic weird mysterious show, albeit one with a very different tone. "The X Files" follows two FBI agents, Mulder who is a believer in the paranormal and Scully who is a skeptic, as they investigate strange happenings around the US. Episodic shows hardly ever manage to keep my attention long term, so while I thought the episodes were fun, by episode 5 I'd seen enough. Gillian Anderson was super hot in it though……
Wrapping up my reading for 2025 with a book and manga tierlist!
We have 6 tiers, from top to bottom:
- <3 (heart) - Books that were special to me. These are not necessarily better than the others, but for some reason they stood out.
- I had a blast - Books I really liked. Even if I had some problems with them, they weren't bad enough to ruin my enjoyment.
- Sooo close - Books that I generally liked but some aspect of them really bothered me.
- Not for me - Books that I didn't really like but I can see how other people would like them. They are just not to my taste or I'm not the target audience.
- (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ (table flip) - Books that disappointed me or pissed me off.
- DNF - Books I didn't finish so I can't rank.
Within the tiers, the books are vaguely sorted by how much I enjoyed them, but their placement can easily change based on my mood.
All ranking is done based on my personal enjoyment of the books and not the books' objective quality. As always, these are just my opinions.
(my spoiler-free thoughts on all of these under the cut, in short for the ones I've talked about in my monthly wrap-ups, in long for the others)
<3
(heart)
"Moriarty the Patriot" by Ryōsuke Takeuchi and Hikaru Miyoshi (up to and including volume 14/chapter 56) [Comic - Manga]
I talked about "Moriarty the Patriot" in my October wrap-up (link). In short, I really liked the characters and while I felt like some things could've been done better in the plot, ultimately I really enjoyed it. It's in the special tier because it was the first manga I actually stuck with past a couple chapters and it got me interested in reading more manga.
I had a blast
"There is No Antimemetics Division" by qntm [Book - Fiction]
This is the SCP Foundation version of the story, not the new original universe version that was published recently, and I listened to it being read on the "J&V: SCP Archives" YouTube Channel (link). I have a pretty casual interest in the SCP universe, I think the concept is fantastic and I always love seeing indie projects on the internet. I've listened to many articles on this same channel and I've liked a lot of them, but this book just absolutely floored me.
"There is No Antimemetics Division" plays with the concept of an "anti-meme". If a "meme" (in the original meaning of the word) is a self-replicating idea, an "anti-meme" is a self-deleting idea. So, how do you fight an enemy you can't form memories of? I'm not going to reveal more, just go read/listen to it, it's fantastic. Well, most of it is. It kinda lost me towards the end when the scale increased to an insane degree, but the concept of it was still too cool for me to not put this at the very top of this tier.
I might eventually check out the original universe version of the book, if only to see what (besides the SCP stuff) was changed.
"Nicked" by M. T. Anderson [Book - Fiction]
I talked about "Nicked" in my October wrap-up (link). It's such an entertaining short adventure novel that made me legitimately laugh out loud at several points. It's far from perfect writing and relationship development-wise, it might work better as a movie now that I think about it (and I would love to see an adaptation), but I had a lot of fun with it regardless.
"When the Tides Held the Moon" by Venessa Vida Kelley [Book - Fiction]
I talked about "When the Tides Held the Moon" in my October wrap-up (link). This is, without a doubt, the best written book I read all year. The romance was beautifully done (although not entirely to my personal taste) and I loved that the characters were allowed to be complex and flawed. I also learned a little bit about Puerto Rican culture from it, and about the experience of being an immigrant in the US.
I keep switching the places of this and "Nicked" because this is clearly the better book but I had more fun with the other one. So you can just think of them as both occupying the same spot in the tier.
"Legend of Exorcism" by Fei Tian Ye Xiang (volume 1) [Book - Fiction]
In 2023 and 2024, the only thing I read was danmei novels (with the exception of one baihe novel), but this year my interest in the genre kinda ran out, which I'm honestly glad for because it was about time I moved on to other things. I still read some danmei in 2025, and "Legend of Exorcism" was my favorite one.
This is a historical fantasy about a boy that's half-human half-yao (magical creatures from Chinese folklore) who is sent from the isolated mountains to the big city by his adoptive father to join the empire's department of exorcism, whose job is to hunt yao, in order to fulfill some mission. There, makes friends with his colleagues and eventually falls in love with his boss. This book was an absolute blast and insanely funny. Our main character is a little bit of a boyfailure, there's a talking fish with legs, and all other kinds of fun stuff. I would've continued the novel if I hadn't learned that the romance happens while one character is 17 and the other in his twenties (and it's very smutty), and unfortunately that's a dealbreaker for me. I mean, there were bits of that in the first volume, but I expected at least a little bit of a timeskip before they properly get together. Despite that, I still really liked this volume.
"Killers of a Certain Age" by Deanna Raybourne [Book - Fiction]
I talked about "Killers of a Certain Age" in my November wrap-up (link). This was a very fun and light read, an action movie in book form. I could've done with the main character being less painfully heterosexual and the extremely simple message being less ham-fisted, but the couple eye-rolls at some moments didn't ruin my enjoyment at all.
"The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession" by Michael Finkel [Book - Nonfiction]
I talked about "The Art Thief" in my November wrap-up (link). It was recommended to me as a beginner-friendly nonfiction book because I'd never read a biography before but I'm interested in the scams and thievery side of true crime, and I ended up liking it well enough.
"Leviathan Wakes" by James S. A. Corey [Book - Fiction]
Originally, this blog was supposed to be exclusively about sci-fi, but while planning I kinda started feeling pressured to only read sci-fi, which made what was supposed to be a hobby feel like an obligation, and I don't need another one of those. At the end, I decided to just write about everything and anything, but I still ended up reading the first book I was supposed to talk about on that sci-fi blog: "Leviathan Wakes".
Well, re-reading actually. I was a huge fan of "The Expanse" in around middle school (although I only ended up reading up to and including the fifth book before losing interest), and this one was my favorite. You could argue I shouldn't have been reading this series at that age, but I read a lot of adult sci-fi at the time and the worst that happened was that I maybe didn't get what it was trying to say. Anyway, I wanted to revisit and eventually finish the series, but I only ended up getting through this first book this year. "Leviathan Wakes" is about the inciting incident of the whole series: a civilian ship is mysteriously destroyed, plunging the Solar System into war, and it's up to the few survivors of the incident and one depressed detective to figure out who orchestrated it all.
What draws me in most about "The Expanse" is the worldbuilding. I don't much care for worldbuilding in fantasy, I'm fine with hand-waving anything, but in sci-fi? Give me all the details, and the universe of "The Expanse" has so many interesting things to chew on. As a child it literally got me researching if the way the ships and space stations are designed is actually scientifically plausible (I couldn't tell you the answer now though, if I ever even figured it out). The evolution of language is also really interesting to me when it comes to far-future settings, and there is a cool case here with the Belter Cant. I like the way it's presented, where it's not always translated but the conversations are structured in a way that you can understand what is being said from other characters' responses.
I also really like the plot of this first book. The events are burned in my brain because I reread it so many times in the past but reading it now was still super exciting. I won't spoil anything, but the titular "leviathan" and everything that happens around it? Chef's kiss (well, most of it. Some things I felt they could've been more creative with). The characters though... They are by far the weakest point of the book. Our two protagonists are absolutely insufferable and so far up their own asses that I wanted to punt them both out an airlock whenever they would express one of their Opinions™. Especially Miller, who I unfortunately find to be a pretty interesting character, although if he was a real person it would be on sight (and not just because he's a cop). Holden is just some loser who thinks he's hot shit and much to my dismay the book itself seems to think so too. The side characters have potential. They are barely developed in this first book, but I know they do get development in future books and even get POV chapters. My favorite character is Naomi and I want better for her. At least for the men around her to stop sexualizing her!
I admit it, placing this book this high up is absolutely influenced by nostalgia, but that's not something I can separate from my experience and this is very far from an objective tierlist. And, despite my issues with the characters, I did still really enjoy the book and I'm planning on slowly making my way through the rest of the series.
Fun fact: this book is the reason my online handle is some form of "leviathan" everywhere and the name of this blog is a direct reference to the title :D
"Gideon the Ninth" by Tamsyn Muir [Book - Fiction]
I talked about "Gideon the Ninth" in my November wrap-up (link). This was probably the hardest book for me to get into that I've picked up in my life. I dropped it once, and I was dangerously close to dropping it again but I persevered because I'd heard good things about it. I'm glad I did, because there for sure were some very interesting twists and turns and I did end up enjoying it quite a bit by the end.
I still don't get the hype though. It's a solid book (if you manage to get into it) but the way people talk about it you'd think it was a never-before-seen masterpiece. Maybe I'll get it after I read the sequels? I started "Harrow the Ninth" and it was doing a lot of interesting stuff narratively, which I liked, but once again I struggled to really get into it so I ended up shelving it for the time being. I'm not going to put it in DNF because I haven't actually given up on it and officially dropped it. I'm still counting it as "In Progress", although it might take a while before I come back to it.
"Run Wild" by Wu Zhe (volume 1) [Book - Fiction]
Here we have another danmei, and it's of a genre I don't typically read. "Run Wild" is a contemporary coming-of-age romance about a boy who gets "returned" by his shitty adoptive family to his differently-shitty birth father. While he's learning to cope with the massive change, he befriends and eventually falls in love with the local "delinquent". It's a very sweet but sad story. These kids have awful excuses for parents (that I wanted to beat the shit out of) and they're just trying their best to live with it all. I picked it up despite the genre not being my thing because I needed a change of pace at the time, but predictably I got tired of it after one and a half volumes. The fact that it's 6 volumes long also contributed to me losing interest. That's way too long for a slice-of-life.
Sooo close
"Alice in Borderland" by Haro Aso [Comic - Manga]
I talked about "Alice in Borderland" in my December wrap-up (link). I was debating putting it in "I had a blast" because whenever I think of it, the first thing on my mind is how much I enjoyed the games and the worldbuilding. But then I remember just how annoyed I was by the choices made regarding pretty much all the female characters, both design and narrative-wise, and also I didn't really love Arisu as a main character, so I think "Sooo close" is exactly the tier it belongs in. I still think it was a pretty good manga though.
Not for me
"Ballad of Sword and Wine" by Tang Jiu Qing (volume 1) [Book - Fiction]
And last of this year's danmei, "Ballad of Sword and Wine". This is a very popular novel in danmei circles so I was excited to read it, if only just so I can have a take on it. It's historical fiction, about the son of a traitor who gets punished for his father's crimes and the brother of the general that had to save the country after the betrayal, who hates the first guy's guts. It's true enemies-to-lovers, none of that "one guy is slightly mean to the other" shit. These guys genuinely want each other dead at the start.
The highlight of the book for me were the political machinations. There is a lot of scheming that's extremely fun to read about, but at the same time it's pretty hard to follow unless you're really paying attention. I was taking notes, and I recommend you do the same if you're planning on reading the whole novel, because it's pretty long (8 volumes if I'm not mistaken). Unfortunately, I felt like I didn't have enough time, energy, or braincells to stick with it, so I ended up giving up a couple chapters into the second volume.
Another contributing factor to me giving up was that I didn't vibe with the romance. As I've stated before on this blog, I am extremely picky when it comes to romance, and this one didn't cut it. I'm not a fan of the couple having sex early on in a novel, I want a much longer period of tension before the tension releases (preferably at the very end). I've also heard that the novel is very sexual throughout, and that's just not my thing. Also, this is something that goes for all danmei: STOP IT WITH THE BONERS IN SERIOUS SITUATIONS. Unless the situation is supposed to be humorous, stop it! It undercuts the tension.
"The Queer Principles of Kit Webb" by Cat Sebastian [Book - Fiction]
I talked about "The Queer Principles of Kit Webb" in my November wrap-up (link). I picked this up knowing it would not be for me (picky about romance, not that into smut, likes plot, etc...), but I wanted to read something lighter. I also tricked myself into believing that the second book is sapphic, which is my own fault. Anyway, the book is okay. The biggest sticking point for me was that I didn't buy that these two were in love with each other. In lust? Sure. In love? That needed a bit more development.
"The Art of the Con: The Most Notorious Fakes, Frauds, and Forgeries in the Art World" by Anthony M. Amore [Book - Nonfiction]
I talked about "The Art of the Con" in my December wrap-up (link). I found the cases in this book interesting, but the way they were told was very convoluted and hard to follow for me. It's quite likely that I felt that way because I was in a bit of a slump and not feeling like reading, but this is a tierlist based on my personal enjoyment and I didn't enjoy this book all that much, so it's here.
"Ain't No Place for a Hero: Borderlands" by Kaitlin Tremblay [Book - Nonfiction]
I talked about "Ain't No Place for a Hero: Borderlands" in my October wrap-up (link). I've actually been looking for this book for ages, because I stumbled upon it years ago when I was deep in my Borderlands phase and I wasn't able to find it since. It ended up not really having any novel takes about the games and was mainly trying to convince the reader that games can have good stories (which I am very well aware of), so I guess the search ended up being for naught. Well, not really for naught I guess, I did find the "Pop Classics" series that this was a part of and there are books on some other pieces of media in it that I may check out in the future.
"Halo: Cryptum" by Greg Bear [Book - Fiction]
Before this blog was even going to be a general sci-fi blog, it was going to be specifically about the Halo books. Halo is a really important part of my personal lore, it's what got me into video games and sci-fi way back when I was but a wee sea serpent, so I wanted to revisit it for nostalgia's sake. That universe has a truly unnecessary amount of lore, but so many pieces of it are actually pretty cool, especially when it comes to the aliens.
"Halo: Cryptum" is the first point chronologically in the Halo timeline, set over a hundred thousand years ago, and it tells the story of the downfall of the Forerunners, an ancient alien species who used to be the most technologically advanced in the universe but somehow disappeared. I really liked the first chunk of the book, where our main Forerunner character has to interact with ancient humans to find this artifact he's looking for, but after the "artifact" is found, the book started to drag and if it wasn't for nostalgia I would've dropped it. Little me would be disappointed but this book had no chance of ranking higher up than this.
When I realized just how many Halo books there are (and after not really loving this one), I gave up on making this a Halo blog. Also, Microsoft sucks and sadly they own Halo, so I decided it would be best to not give any attention to their IP. Anyway, switch to Linux and let that company rot.
"Mujirushi: The Sign of Dreams" by Naoki Urasawa [Comic - Manga]
I talked about "Mujirushi" in my November wrap-up (link). I truly got nothing out of this manga. Maybe it was because I was looking for a story about a heist and this wasn't really about a heist at the end of the day? I don't know. It sure was something I read.
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
(table flip)
"Hammajang Luck" by Makana Yamamoto [Book - Fiction]
I talked about "Hammajang Luck" in my December wrap-up (link). It really pains me to have to put this book all the way down here because I was so excited by the premise and I was hoping it would be my favorite of the year. Unfortunately, bad writing ruins even the best premise, and the writing in this book was awful. Truly a shame.
"The Call of Cthulhu" by H. P. Lovecraft [Book - Fiction]
After 7 years of mostly running, sometimes playing D&D 5e, I made the decision to hang up my DM hat after my current campaign finishes and pick up a new system. The one that has my attention the most is "Call of Cthulhu", so I decided to read some of the material it's inspired by.
"The Call of Cthulhu" is a short story about a man who finds an odd statue in his dead uncle's stuff and while trying to figure out what it is, stumbles upon the Great Cthulhu. I knew going in that Lovecraft was racist even for his time, but goddamn this story is racist. His work is framed as being about the fear of the unknown, but the "unknown" here is just different cultures and people of color, so I couldn't take it seriously. Also, my entire life I've heard that cosmic horror shouldn't explain too much, the creatures should be unknowable, so it shocked me that Cthulhu had an entire backstory in this. It read more like bad alien sci-fi, not a horror book. Luckily it was very short, because this was not a fun experience at all.
DNF
"Thirteen Storeys" by Jonathan Sims [Book - Fiction]
(DNF-ed at 44%)
I'm a huge fan of "The Magnus Archives" and I think Jonny Sims did a fantastic job writing that show, so I wanted to try one of his novels. This is about the strange death of a multimillionaire and the thirteen people who might have been involved in it. It's made up of thirteen stories, each recounting what happened to one of the people before they were mysteriously invited to the dinner party where the multimillionaire died. I absolutely loved the first couple stories, especially the one with the painting, but after a while I found myself losing interest, though I think that was me not the book. This is one I definitely plan on trying again eventually.
"Run Wild" by Wu Zhe (volume 2) [Book - Fiction]
(DNF-ed at 68%)
I talked about "Run Wild" in the "I had a blast" section. I actually nearly ended up pushing through and finishing this, but it was very slow going and I really wanted to move on to other things, so I ended up giving up.
"Ballad of Sword and Wine" by Tang Jiu Qing (volume 2) [Book - Fiction]
(DNF-ed at 26%)
I talked about "Ballad of Sword and Wine" in the "Not for me" section and everything I said there stands. I ended up reading only a couple chapters of this volume before giving up on the novel. A contributing factor to it was also that the book club I was reading it with fell apart, so I lost an incentive to continue.
"This is How You Lose the Time War" by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone [Book - Fiction]
(DNF-ed at 30%)
This is probably going to be my most unpopular opinion, because as far as I know, everybody loves this book. This is the story of two women on opposite sides of a war who communicate through letters as they travel through time to set events up in the favor of their respective organizations. It is widely praised for its very poetic and flowery writing, which is exactly where my problem with it was. I like a good evocative turn of phrase as much as the next guy, and the style was well suited for describing the characters' thoughts and feelings, but it got a bit much when it came to describing the events and actions, to the point where I had to reread certain sections to grasp just what was going on. I get why someone would like it, it's for poetry lovers, but I myself am the opposite of a poetry lover so I ended up just very frustrated with it. I'm not planning on trying to read it again anytime in the near future, and if I had to rank it on the tierlist, it would be the representative of the "Not for me" tier.
The yellow circles indicate that I haven't finished the game.
(spoiler-free discussion below the cut)
"Geometry Dash"
Late last month, I really needed something I could do with my brain completely off because it was preoccupied with so much other stuff that it couldn't handle anything more, not even entertainment. I was also looking for a mobile game I could play while on the tram or lying down in bed. All that led me to getting extremely hooked on "Geometry Dash" for a couple weeks.
"Geometry Dash" is a rhythm platformer where you guide a cube through a level of obstacles by jumping to the beat of the music. I haven't really played rhythm games, the only one I've touched is "Crypt of the Necrodancer", but I really like gameplay that relies on dexterity and learning patterns so I might check out more of the genre in the future. I was struggling a bit at the beginning because I would just start vibing with the music and tapping to the beat of the song, which is not what you're supposed to do, but I got used to it. I also really like games that don't have a lot of mechanics, and "Geometry Dash" practically only has one: tap screen to jump. Well, there's also apparently "hold screen to jump continuously", which I didn't realize until I watched a YouTube tutorial because I was struggling so bad with "Dry Out". I don't think I'm dumb for that one, it's not an intuitive thing to figure out and there should've been some note that you can do it in the game that's not buried in menus! Aside from that, I think each level does an excellent job introducing you to the obstacles you'll be facing throughout it at the start and the escalation of the difficulty feels very reasonable as it builds upon things that have been introduced before.
I stopped halfway through "Jumper" because I just kinda forgot about it (and I got a new phone with a case that's a bit uncomfortable to hold while playing), but I do want to play more in the future. I at least have to master those damn upside-down flying sections!!!
"Shadowrun Returns"
This actually isn't my first time playing this game. Last year, I picked up the Shadowrun trilogy because I heard they were good for newbies to turn-based combat. I was never a fan of the idea of turn-based combat but I wanted to actually try it out before solidifying my opinion. Let's just say, getting stuck on a combat in "Shadowrun: Dragonfall" where I kept having to repeat the battle over and over because of RNG just proved my prejudices correct. After ragequitting that, I played a bit of "Returns", but I abandoned it quickly. Recently, I gained the resolve to give the trilogy another shot, in order this time (and hopefully I won't get stuck and ragequit again).
The Shadowrun trilogy takes place in the alternate universe Earth of the Shadowrun TTRPG, where a portal opened in the past that let through magic and magical creatures into our world and we are now living in a futuristic cyberpunk society intertwined with magic. I have issues with both cyberpunk and classic fantasy, but somehow the blend of the two is so fun to me. In "Returns", you are a shadowrunner (mercenary) whose friend has mysteriously died and it's up to you to find his killer to get the money he's left you. The plot so far is okay, with one pretty interesting reveal. I had hopes that for once the horror of a mental institution won't be "ooo look at these scary crazy people" but the actual mistreatment of the people trapped there, and while there was some of that (and it was horrifying), they just had to go the "dangerous lunatic" route too, which sucked quite a lot. I'm also not sure about the portrayal of Native Americans. I'm not too familiar with indigenous issues, but from what I know, portraying them as uniquely mystical is not great.
I ended up playing "Street Samurai" because I wanted the most straightforward option, and after I loaded up on guns it was smooth sailing. I love that you don't need to buy bullets, you just start each encounter with full ammo (one less thing to keep in mind). For party composition, I found it crucial to have a Mage, for their attack spells that ignore armor and Haste. I haven't run into a combat yet that's been too difficult or frustrating, but I think the graveyard encounter was poorly designed. The NPCs tell you to spare one of the enemies to interrogate, which naturally led me to try to do exactly that (and I got overrun and died for the first time in the playthrough), but you're not supposed to do that. You're supposed to fight as normal and one of the enemies just happens to survive after the encounter finishes.
I stopped after the graveyard encounter, but I'm planning on eventually finishing it and the rest of the trilogy.
"The Art of the Con: The Most Notorious Fakes, Frauds, and Forgeries in the Art World" by Anthony M. Amore [Book - Nonfiction]
The end of November was extremely chaotic for me and that put me into a bit of a reading slump at the start of December. I didn't feel like continuing with "Harrow the Ninth" and nothing else I had lined up looked interesting, so I decided to pick something short from my list of nonfiction books about scams and thievery. I thought this book would be an easy read because it's 11 separate stories of art forgery, so I would be able to take breaks after each chapter. What I forgot to take into account was that those chapters could be really hard to get through.
Each chapter covered the story of one case of art fraud and it included pretty much everyone who was in any way involved in the situation. That means there were a lot of names brought up, which were pretty hard to keep track of. It didn't help that the cases more often than not weren't told in a linear chronological order of the events and there were frequent tangents to discuss things that were relevant to the story but ultimately distracting. It was very much not the kind of book I was in the headspace for reading and I even ended up skimming a little by the very end because I was not enjoying it.
Also, I found it weird how the author made a point to mention at the start that forgers are always men and women are only accomplices, when, although only one case had a woman making the fake painting itself, many cases in this very book involved women as the ones faking the provenance for the paintings and making the sales, which is the crucial point of the scam in my opinion. I just found that an odd thing to point out.
"Hammajang Luck" by Makana Yamamoto [Book - Fiction]
You can't imagine how excited I was when I first learned about this book, because the premise is very close to the initial concept for my lesbian thieves story that I've been rotating in my head these past couple months. I've long abandoned that concept at this point, but I was really looking forward to seeing what someone else does with it. Unfortunately, this book left me extremely disappointed.
This is a sci-fi story about a thief who ends up imprisoned after being betrayed by their love interest (the cover is a straight up lie, they're not exes, they were never together), who after years gets them out of prison because she needs them for one final job. The problems start from page one, where it becomes abundantly clear that this book is very poorly written. There's way too much telling and the prose reads like "I did this. I felt that. I then did that." The main character is supposed to be nearly 30 but they read so much like a teenager that I had to stop to check if the book is YA and I just missed it (no, it really is adult). The worldbuilding is extremely lacking. The story takes place on a futuristic space station but it could've just as well been set in present day for how empty the setting felt. I'm still not entirely sure how this station looks and operates, the descriptions were too focused on what people were wearing and where they were sitting instead of anything actually relevant. Hawaiian culture is featured heavily in the book and a lot of the dialogue is in Hawaiian Pidgin, which was very cool to read since it's not a culture I've seen represented in sci-fi, but it would've been nice to have a glossary in the back for the Hawaiian words so you don't have to put the book down to look them up.
The cast is quite diverse, with a lot of them being Hawaiian and queer/trans, but it's hard to appreciate the much needed representation when the characters themselves are paper-thin. The MC, Edie, is inconsistent in their wants and it doesn't feel like an internal struggle between desires but like the author changing their mind about the character. The love interest was the most interesting, but I think they played it too safe with her, she should've been colder and more willing to risk everything for the job. The rest of the heist crew got at most one personality trait each: the fighter was a himbo, the computer geek loved tech, the young upstart was cocky, the newbie was inexperienced, the grifters were lesbians. Since they were barely characters, the "found family" they "developed" was extremely hollow. Nothing convinced me these people had any feelings of lasting friendship among themselves. The evil CEO they're robbing is a cartoon villain, but I can excuse that since this is supposed to be a wish-fulfillment revenge fantasy. Edie's family is also a large part of the story but to be honest I couldn't care less about them. Sibling relationships are just not my thing and it takes something special for me to be interested in child characters, which this book doesn't have.
The plot was way too dragged out. More than half the book is spent on recruiting the crew and hanging out with the Edie's family, which might have been interesting if the characters were in any way compelling. The heist itself is fine, but it was shoved into the very end and had an obnoxious moment of someone jeopardizing the job to "stick it to the man" that really took me out of it (you'll stick it to him enough by taking all his money!!!). The romance was so forced, they had no chemistry and the betrayal was smoothed over with a very cowardly reveal. And the use of "folds" for "pussy" during the sex scene was egregious. I know there is no good way to refer to genitals in smut, but "folds"? Really?!
I think with some editing, aging the characters down and removing the explicit sexual content, this could make a passable YA novel. It could also make a fun movie, if the pacing is punched up a bit. But in the state it's in, yeah no, this isn't it.
"Alice in Borderland" by Haro Aso [Comic - Manga]
For someone that loves the concept of a death game, I haven't really consumed a lot of media that features one. "The Hunger Games" and… That's about it actually. Recently, I heard about the TV adaptation of this manga, but I wasn't feeling like watching anything so I decided to go straight to the source material.
This is about a high schooler (Arisu) who, after witnessing a strange fireworks display, gets transported to a desolate version of Tokyo where he has to play extremely violent games to survive. The appeal of a death game for me is watching the characters squirm under impossibly high stakes, and this manga delivered. It managed to convince me that truly anyone could die (except Arisu of course), and that deserves praise because it's very easy for stakes to be undercut by the author being overly precious with their characters. The games themselves were fantastic, very fun to read, and I never really felt like the way characters survived was bogus. I really liked that we didn't stick with Arisu the whole time, there were side stories from other characters' perspectives that showed games he didn't participate in, but I wish they weren't put in the middle of main story arcs. I guess that was the publication order, but they could've been reordered for the omnibuses (and if they really were published in the middle of the main story arcs, I feel bad for the readers that followed it as it was releasing, especially for that one arc that had multiple side stories in the middle of it).
The main thing that kept me invested though was the underlying mystery of what Borderland is, but near the end I found myself feeling like no matter what the answer turns out to be, I won't be satisfied with it. Much to my surprise, that was intended by the manga! It's discussed in-universe that the answer to this biggest mystery is practically irrelevant, which fits in well with the thematic idea of looking for meaning in a fundamentally meaningless existence that the story is playing with. Towards the end, there are some theories thrown around of what Borderland could be and I would've been really pissed if any of them turned out to be true because they were absolute bullshit. But ultimately, I ended up being okay with how everything actually concluded. There is an answer but it's not 100% definitive and there is still some weirdness and mystery to it. I could envision a better ending, but it was fine, I'm not mad about it.
What I am mad about though, are the female characters, which is my biggest issue with this manga. First off, how they were drawn. Pretty much all of them had the same body shape with impossibly perky boobs. Particularly egregious to me was one panel that was supposed to be emotional but I couldn't take it seriously because the girl's tits were all glossed up and smack in the center of the page. Like, what the hell are we doing? Many were drawn in skirts and revealing tops, although it was established that there are stores around that you can just take clothes from, so even if those are the clothes you came in with, it doesn't make sense to stay in them once you learn about the games. Narratively, I think all of them could've been much better. Usagi had potential, but she ended up existing just to prop up Arisu. I hoped at the end she would be the one to outsmart the final game, but I didn't want it to happen by her making herself a damsel in distress for Arisu to save! Kuina was badass but I wish we got to see more of her. She's a trans woman and I'm so glad she was treated just like all the other women (there's one scene of some unnamed characters being weird about her, but I didn't feel like the narrative itself was transphobic towards her). Ann should've straight up had Chishiya role and character (Chishiya would've been far more interesting if he was a woman). Heiya and Shibuki were just weirdly horny. Shibuki's horniness especially felt like teen boy wish-fulfillment. Lastly, when are we going to stop using women being sexually assaulted for shock value?! It added literally nothing to the story, nobody really addressed it after it happened, and at the end there was even a line like "Let's hurry so [rapist] doesn't die." Why would you care if he dies or not, let him rot?! Most of the things I mentioned just made me roll my eyes but this one genuinely pissed me off.
I watched this anime for the first time years ago and I really liked it, but for a reason that I don't remember, I never watched the last two episodes. Last month I promised to finally finish it, so here we are. Actually, I ended up watching the whole thing, because I had forgotten pretty much all of it.
"Cowboy Bebop" is an episodic anime about a group of bounty hunters traveling around space hunting bounties to put food on the table. Like all episodic anime, the plots are hit or miss, but this time I found more misses than hits. Yeah, I'm sad to report that I enjoyed it far less than I did the first time around. I think the biggest problem was that I didn't really grow to care about any of the characters, and I found myself annoyed at how a lot of the women were written and/or spoken about. I remember that I used to like Faye, but now I was just annoyed at how often the camera was pointed down her cleavage. As for the ending, I needed a bit more closure for everyone besides Spike. I kept waiting for one more scene at the end of the last episode, but it never came, and I feel like I was left hanging.
That being said, this show is an absolute masterclass in crafting atmosphere. I adore how it uses sound, from ambient noise to background music to absolute silence. I know nothing about cinematography, but some of those shots left me speechless. The animation is so stylish, especially during the fight scenes. This show was a joy to look at and listen to, even if I didn't particularly connect with its story.
"Akiba Maid War" [TV Show - Anime]
One thing you should know about me is that I love a dark comedy, specifically the type that treats death and extreme violence with humor and irreverence. I also love women, especially when they do unspeakable acts of violence. So when I heard about this show back when it was still airing, I just had to jump on it, but I never ended up watching the last two episodes (what's with me and last two episodes???) After completing one anime I had left unfinished for ages, I felt inspired to come back to this one too. I started it from the beginning and…
I loved it! This show is so fun, if you're willing to go along with the absolutely bonkers premise. It's about a girl that gets a job at a maid cafe, without knowing that all the cafes in Akihabara are actually part of maid-themed mafia groups. I particularly enjoyed how a lot of common mafia tropes were given a "moe" coat of paint, to comedic effect. For example, in the first episode one of the maids is forced to cut off her pigtail like one would be forced to cut off a finger, and the show acts like it's the same level of severity. And let's not forget the killing spree backed by an idol song… I was nervous about the ending because I saw some mixed opinions, but I ended up really liking it. To avoid spoiling anything, I'm just going to say that it would've been easy for the show to go the more stereotypical "anime" route, but I'm glad it stayed true to its premise. The only thing I didn't like was the sudden het romance towards the end. There should've been lesbians instead. There was so much potential.
"Death Parade" [TV Show - Anime]
This anime is about the judgement of human souls after death, specifically by pitting two people who died at the same time against each other in some game, to bring out their "true selves". With that kind of premise, I was primed to love this show, but it just left me feeling like a lot of its most interesting ideas went unexplored. The concept of the people dying at the same time didn't really have any meaning and past a certain point it even seemed to be abandoned. There also could've been much more interesting pairs, like mother-daughter or bitter exes that still care about each other. Something with juicier interpersonal dynamics. I think the crux of why I didn't connect as much with the show was that I truly didn't care about anything happening outside the Quindecim. Cut out the other Arbiters and afterlife shit and leave just our two protagonists going through the judgement of different pairs of people as Decim learns that people are more than what he believed them to be, and my enjoyment of the show would increase several-fold. And I'm saying this as someone who usually loves expansive lore and plots and isn't too interested in episodic shows!
I did like how the show looked through. It's from 2015 but the 3D still looked great! I would guess that's because it was just used for the environment and not the characters. I did not, however, like how pervy the show was, and for absolutely no reason. That episode with the fangirl with all the panty shots could've been skipped and absolutely nothing would've been lost.
If you find the general idea of the premise interesting, I would recommend just watching "The Good Place" instead.
"Mujirushi: The Sign of Dreams" by Naoki Urasawa [Comic - Manga]
Funnily enough, I had already decided to read this manga before the Louvre was actually robbed.
This is the story of a father who is sent along with his young daughter to do a heist in the Louvre in order to clear his mountain of tax evasion debt. I was excited to read this because I had heard that the mangaka had stuck close to the real layout of the Louvre, even being specially shown some areas that are not open to the public by the staff. Unfortunately, I ended up truly getting nothing out of it. I liked the little girl, she wasn't taking anyone's bullshit and I admire her for that. The backgrounds were stunning, so rich and detailed that many panels looked like paintings. Most of the character art was also pretty good, especially the expressions, except the Director guy, he just looked like a caricature of a Chinese person. But the plot was just kind of there, and I felt like the political commentary was really out of place.
I don't know, by the end I was just left with a feeling of "eh, I guess that was something I read". It wasn't bad, I just truly didn't care for it.
"The Queer Principles of Kit Webb" by Cat Sebastian [Book - Fiction]
This is not typically the kind of book I go for, but I picked it up on a whim and I found it decently entertaining. It's the love story of the son of a duke and a retired highwayman he hires to rob his father, set in 1700s London. It is very plot-light, but I found what plot was there fun, although it was wrapped up very quickly and conveniently, which I don't knock against it because this is a romance novel after all. I did have trouble getting into it, which was primarily because I found Percy's fashion extremely repulsive. Thank god he dresses normally for most of the rest of the book.
I actually enjoyed the characters separately more than together, which doesn't bode well when we're talking about a romance novel. The book failed to convince me that the two developed feelings for each other past sexual attraction. I'm completely fine with that being the initial draw, but if you want me to believe that they are willing to put themselves in danger for the other and want to be together forever, I needed a moment of emotional connection and some reason why they feel that way (especially from Kit towards Percy), which I didn't get. Also, Kit has some pretty major dealbreakers for the relationship that are brought up very late in the book and resolved way too easily. I think that should've been a bigger challenge to overcome. As for the smut, I surprisingly didn't mind it, but I do question the timing of some of the scenes, especially the first one. Just saying, I feel like there were some more pressing concerns at that moment than boning.
I'm going to be completely honest, the main reason I picked this book up was that I managed to convince myself the second book is sapphic (the first book has a man's name in the title and is gay, so if the second one has a woman's name in the title it has to be lesbian, right? Look, it made sense in my head!). That is NOT the case, and since I'm not interested in straight romance, I won't be continuing with the series.
Also, I'm still laughing that this book has a robber named Rob in it.
"Killers of a Certain Age" by Deanna Raybourne [Book - Fiction]
Assassin women get pulled out of retirement because they are being hunted down by their ex-employers. With that premise, how could I not pick up this book. I love it when women kick ass and take names with no remorse!
Although there was loads of violence and the main characters experienced a lot of misogyny, this was a very light and fun read that I had an absolute blast with. But, there were some things that annoyed me. The main character was painfully heterosexual, I rolled my eyes so hard every time she would simp for a mediocre man. Thank god one of the other core characters was a lesbian (and a fujo lesbian at that, representation I didn't know I needed!), so I could take some solace in her. When the MC potentially having a love interest came up, I seriously got scared that he would save the day at the end (or help MC save the day through the power of love or some shit) and therefore undermine the book's whole message about women being just as capable as men. That, thankfully, wasn't the case, but then this love interest turned out completely pointless in the narrative so I think he could've just been left out.
The thing that annoyed me the most, though, was how the book relayed its feminist message. While it did a pretty good job showing the message through the events that were happening, for some reason it felt the need to tell as well. Books overexplaining themselves is a pet peeve of mine, it feels like the author doesn't trust the reader to get what they're trying to say, and in this case it particularly stuck out to me because what the author was trying to say was very basic feminism that doesn't really need to be explained. It didn't ruin my enjoyment of the rest of the book, but I did grumble whenever it came up.
At first I didn't plan on reading the sequel, but then I read the premise and it sounded interesting so I might give it a shot eventually.
"The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession" by Michael Finkel [Book - Nonfiction]
After consuming a lot of stories about fictional thieves and making a plan to write my own (which will probably never see the light of day, like all my other writing projects), I thought it might be high time to read a bit of non-fiction about real thieves. I found a list of books and this one came recommended as a good starting point for people that don't typically read non-fiction, which is me. It's about Stéphane Breitwieser, an art thief that stole a ton of pieces from museums all across Western Europe in the 90s, and kept the art for himself ostensibly because he just loved it that much.
I don't really know what to comment on when it comes to real-life stories, I don't want to run the risk of treating any real people like fictional characters, so I will just say that this guy sucks and I was rooting for his girlfriend to leave him the entire time. I also got to play my favorite game when it comes to true crime stories, and it's called "How incompetent and/or malicious was law enforcement this time?" Since they didn't let anyone get murdered or anything in this case it wasn't that bad, but this guy was straight up walking out of museums with statues under his jacket and even with eyewitnesses it took years and several of his own fuckups for them to catch him? Come on. And what happened to the art left me stunned.
I will definitely be reading more books from my list, so look forward to that in the future.
"Gideon the Ninth" by Tamsyn Muir [Book - Fiction]
People have been recommending me this book for ages and I did try to read it once, but I tapped out after three chapters because I found it so damn boring. This time, I went in resolved to finish it no matter what and I still nearly gave up at the beginning, but I'm glad I persevered because later on it absolutely slapped.
So, what is this book about? Let me explain the best I can as succinctly as I can, because there is a lot of worldbuilding and "lesbian necromancers in space" says nothing. The heirs to the royal houses of the eight planets humanity inhabits get invited by their God-Emperor to uncover the secrets of an ancient house which will teach them how they can ascend to become his saints. The heirs are necromancers and they have companion fighters called cavaliers that they take along on this expedition. Our main girl Gideon lives on the most decrepit planet and she is forced to become the cavalier to their house's necromancer because she is literally the only viable candidate. The setting is science fantasy, spaceships and advanced tech paired with magic, but I felt the fantasy side was much stronger, at least in this book.
I'm not going to sugarcoat it: the first about 35% were an absolute slog and it was a test of my willpower not to give up on the book again. It only properly caught my interest when our main character started actually participating in the exploration of the house, mainly because the setting reminded me slightly of the Oldest House in "Control" and I absolutely adore that building. I liked following the characters around as they solved the mysteries, but I think I might have enjoyed it even more if it was a game and I could poke around the house and figure out what's going on myself. The characters were fine, but I can't say I felt particularly attached to any of them. I had a hunch who the "bad guy" was from very early on, but of course I didn't guess the full breadth of the plot twist (I don't think guessing it is even possible). The ending was amazing, specifically because of the payoff to the house's secrets. That was absolute genius and I can't wait to see how it develops in the rest of the series.
This is a very dense book. While I don't love the writing style, it's a bit much, I like that it doesn't hold your hand when it comes to the worldbuilding; you have to pay attention and piece the information together yourself. I also absolutely love how women are written. They are allowed to be messy and dirty and sweaty and bloody (everything and everybody is constantly grimy, I was screaming at them to take a shower) and they are still presented as sexy (Gideon, my girl, you're so valid). I'm done with sanitized female characters, this was such a breath of fresh air. I will say though, one of my writing pet peeves is used quite a lot: not addressing a character by their name or pronouns but by some attribute or relation (e.g. "the other girl", "her necromancer", etc…). It didn't really ruin my reading experience, but once I noticed it, I couldn't stop noticing it.
But by far the biggest problem I had with this book was that I went in with completely wrong expectations. I had heard that the book is funny, so in my head "funny" + "necromancy" = "dark comedy", which would be right up my alley. However, this book is NOT a comedy. Are there funny moments? Sure. Some even made me chuckle out loud, although most of the jokes were pretty lame. But the story in general is dead serious (pun intended), so I feel like the creators I saw who led with the fact that the book is funny were engaging is false advertising. I also heard that the book is weird, and I felt lied to when I didn't find anything weird in the first book, but then I started the second book and… Now I see where that sentiment is coming from. But we'll talk about that when I finish it.
"Childhood Homes (and Why We Hate Them)" by qrowscant
I replayed this stunning piece of horror recently and I'm still absolutely in awe at how well it crafts its atmosphere and tells its story. The less I say the better, go play it, it will take you like 15 minutes. Heed the content warnings though.
"The Writer Will Do Something" by Tom Bissell and Matthew S. Burns
I played this (and the next game) for my game design class, and I thought it was alright. It's a very short experience showing the chaos of a team meeting in a game company as their game is flopping, and I think it captured the vibe of an antagonistic tech meeting perfectly. It was all just text, no visuals at all and barely any audio, which actually added to the atmosphere in a way.
"The Temple of No" by Dominik Johann and William Pugh
Another game for my game design class, and this one was just grating. It tries too hard to be irreverent and funny that it just got on my nerves. I liked the use of sound effects though, and the art was cute I guess.
Solitaire (Klondike)
Yes, the card game. I had to analyze it for my game design class, so I downloaded an app on my phone to play it and I haven't been able to stop since. Send help.
The anime adaptation of the "Moriarty the Patriot" manga, which I talked about here. It adapts the story up to and including volume 14/chapter 56.
I actually started watching the anime first and only jumped into the manga a couple episodes into season 2, because I heard that the anime skips a bunch of arcs and I wanted to get a fuller picture of the story. It's true, the anime skips pretty much all the arcs that focus on side characters, making them appear much more one-note than they are in the source material. Also, when elements of those arcs do appear in the anime, it's kind of jarring. For example, a certain character is introduced early in season 2 that completely blindsided me because I didn't expect that kind of crossover, while in the manga the seeds are laid from early on and you're ready for it by the time he appears. Once I'd read the manga, I didn't feel any need to continue with the anime, but I did make myself finish it for completion's sake.
I don't think this story gains too much from being animated, so I would recommend just reading the manga. I will say though, the music in the anime is pretty good.
"Leverage: Redemption" (season 1) [TV Show - Live Action]
"Leverage" is a mostly episodic show about a crew of ex-criminals who are now using their skills to get justice for people who have been wronged by the rich and powerful. It's very much a feelgood power fantasy that's especially comforting in this political climate. The reboot series "Redemption" continues in the same vein, with a new mastermind (Sophie Deveroux my most beloved) and a couple new crew members. I actually never finished the original "Leverage" run, I only watched 3 seasons, but I found that "Redemption" was perfectly watchable even without knowing what happens in those last two seasons, although I'm sure I missed some things.
This show is an absolute delight and I didn't expect anything less of "Leverage". They have changed with the times, of course, but the heart of the show is still the same as the original. It's funny at times, serious at others, but always sincere. The characters are amazing, both old and new, and they have a well-developed found family dynamic. Also, there are lesbians! I was happy enough with the lesbians that appeared for one episode, but there is a sapphic on the main crew as well! Truly a gift that keeps on giving.
"Lazarus" [TV Show - Anime]
This show caught my attention because the premise sounded cool and it's directed by Shinichirō Watanabe of "Cowboy Bebop" fame, and I love "Cowboy Bebop" (Ignore the fact that I've been putting off watching the last 2 episodes for literal years. Next month, I promise). But I was surprised to see not all that many people talking about it, which is odd when such a famous director is attached to it. Then I watched it, and I figured out why…
It sucks. The first couple episodes are fine but then it devolves into a whole load of nothing. The premise of the show is that this group is looking for a doctor who infected the majority of the population of the world with a drug that will kill them by the end of the month. With that, you'd think there would be a sense of urgency for the characters, right? Well, wrong. I would've straight up forgotten there's time limit if it wasn't mentioned at the end of every episode. The characters are cardboard, the political commentary ham-fisted, the plot meandering, and the dialogue… I watched the dub and the voice performances sucked, so I thought maybe the script had suffered too but when I checked the sub there weren't all that many differences, so yeah, the dialogue wasn't great to say the least. One small thing I did like was the way the backstory of one of the antagonists was presented. I love an artstyle change, and this one was very effective. Some of the fight and parkour scenes were pretty well animated too, I guess.
I wish I didn't waste my time with this and just watched "Cowboy Bebop"...
"Atlantis: The Lost Empire" [Movie - Animated]
Friends Movie Night pick! An animation cult classic about an expedition to find Atlantis. I'd never watched this movie before, I'd only seen the sexy GIFs of Helga, and I ended up thinking it was pretty good. What left the biggest impression on me was the animation. The characters are constantly moving around in a way that I don't think we see all that often nowadays.
"Moriarty the Patriot" by Ryōsuke Takeuchi and Hikaru Miyoshi (up to and including volume 14/chapter 56) [Comic - Manga]
This manga is a loose adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, in which we follow William Moriarty and his crew as they try to dismantle the class system in the British Empire. Don't go in expecting Moriarty to be preaching communism, but it's certainly an interesting take on the concept. It's also not just a Sherlock Holmes adaptation. It surprisingly adapts another piece of popular British media (that I won't spoil), which felt out of place at first but ended up fitting in pretty well.
The highlight of this manga for me are definitely the characters. They are all an absolute blast, but I love William and Sherlock the most, both individually and together. Whether you interpret whatever they have going on as platonic or romantic, their relationship is so interesting to watch, and their interactions are everything to me. I'd also heard before that this manga had a trans character, so I was a bit worried about how he would be handled, but it turned out okay. I loved the instant acceptance from (most) of his compatriots, and luckily the last one came around quickly.
I do have some gripes though. Although, as I said, I love the relationship between William and Sherlock, and volume 14 was just spectacular, I wish there was a bit more development, a couple more scenes between the two of them. Similarly with the schemes of the Moriarty crew: it's implied that there were more cases where they took down nobles, which I would've liked to see (but I guess there's the spin-off manga). I didn't love the introduction of a villain, I would've preferred to focus in on the conflict between Sherlock and Moriarty's crew, and I don't think I entirely got William's plan by the end, but maybe I just missed something and I need to reread.
Overall, I really liked this manga. There's more of it, but I think I'm going to leave it here for the time being, because it feels like a pretty good ending point.
"When the Tides Held the Moon" by Venessa Vida Kelley [Book - Fiction]
This is the story of a Puerto Rican immigrant in 1910s New York who unwittingly helps capture a merman for an amusement park sideshow, and the romance that blooms between them. It's a sweet story about self-acceptance and finding belonging, not only in the romance but in the found family of the sideshow performers, who are all shown as real people with depth beyond what the public gawks at them for. While I wouldn't call it cozy, because the characters are constantly under pressure and the book tackles a lot of serious topics, primarily racism and homophobia, it's very uplifting and affirming, which gives it a cozy vibe. And the writing is just beautiful.
However, I wasn't all that into the romance. I enjoyed myself in the first half but I kinda lost interest after they confessed and started getting all mushy-gushy with each other. Let me establish this early on in this blog: I'm EXTREMELY picky when it comes to romance, so saying a romance didn't appeal to me doesn't necessarily imply much about the quality of the writing. This one was pretty well written and wonderfully woven in with the themes of the book. It just wasn't for me.
I have one tiny gripe and one note. Gripe: I felt like the introduction of a time limit to the merman's escape was very sudden and it should've been trickled in a bit slower. Note: I don't know if it was meant to be obvious, but a reveal that happens regarding the protagonist was very obvious from very early on. And something personal, while I was happy that the book wasn't explicit (I more often than not don't enjoy reading sex scenes), I would've liked a more detailed explanation of the merman's… anatomy. Look, I'm just curious!
"Nicked" by M. T. Anderson [Book - Fiction]
The moment I heard that there is a book about a Catholic monk and a thief going to steal the bones of St. Nicholas that's funny, gay, and based on a real historical account (fictionalized, of course), I knew I had to read it. And I'm glad I did because I had more fun with it than I've had with a novel in a while. The plot had my attention from page 1 and the sense of humor, seamlessly woven through the narration, dialogue, and the events themselves, was just perfect for me. While a lot of period-typical issues were brought up, I was glad that overcoming homophobia wasn't a plot point, especially after reading one historical novel that did tackle that topic.
I was immensely entertained by this book, but I did have some issues with it. While there are many truly breathtaking passages, the writing gets choppy at times and I found certain parts hard to parse. The romance is kind of underdeveloped, and in this case I don't think it's just my pickiness talking. None of this really took away from the enjoyment I got reading it, I went it just looking for a fun adventure and it absolutely delivered, but your mileage may vary.
"Ain't No Place for a Hero: Borderlands" by Kaitlin Tremblay [Book - Nonfiction]
"Ain't No Place for a Hero" is part of Simon & Schuster's "Pop Classics" series, a very cool collection of essays by various authors on the pieces of media they are fans of. This book is about the "Borderlands" series of games, which I have a very complicated relationship with. I absolutely love everything pre-"Borderlands 3", those games were foundational to me when I was a baby gamer and are still among my favorites (of course I have problems with them, but we're not talking about the games themselves today). However, "Borderlands 3" pissed me off so bad that even hearing about the series now leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Luckily, this book was released before "Borderlands 3", so I don't have to think about that right now.
I picked this up hoping to get a new take on the games out of it, either from a storytelling or game design perspective, but I had already heard or thought of everything the author wrote about (which just tells me I've spent too much time with these games). This book is geared towards non-gamers and the essays seem like they are written to persuade people who don't believe in games as a storytelling medium, so I was definitely not the target audience. I'm happy to see someone taking Borderlands' story seriously, there's quite a bit there behind the violence and bad jokes, but I felt that the author gave it a bit too much credit. I'm glad she did criticize the failures of representation and the straight up offensive stuff though, but I wish she talked about the treatment of Roland's character more.
