hey i lost my job this month, which sucked, so i've sought comfort in some old and new favs.
Manga
- Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games by Eri Ejima
- okay real cute motherfuckers. i sat down to read this thinking there'd be NO young ladies playing fighting games... but guess what happens not even one volume in!!! for real though this is cute and fun, i'm sure if i were more of a fighting games player i'd get even more out of it, but the main girls are cute and i like how toxic they are.
Anime
- Jellyfish Can't Swim In The Night
- neat girls band stuff so far, real strong animation and sense of character. these girls are all like, career burnouts at age 14 or whatever, which is wild, but it's interesting.
- Tonari no Youkai-san
- extremely cute and largely feelgood story about people and yokai living side by side, going about their daily lives. i've heard and can definitely tell that the anime extremely cuts out a lot of the quieter moments and conversations in favor of moving the plot along, which is a shame, but it's still just such a joy to watch. big recommend.
Books
- The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
- damn, this book blew me away. a sort of Star Trek-y episodic adventure through space, with a big focus on finding family. it's very cute and cool and gay.
- A Closed And Common Orbit by Becky Chambers
- the sequel to Long Way, this one is way less about space adventures and way more about two people and their journeys towards 'selfhood'. a lot of very literalized "figuring out how to be a person" stuff that resonated hard with me. i cried hard, Sidra's my blorbo.
- Spear by Nicola Griffith
- very cool, queer Arthurian story about a girl that wants to become a knight. she kicks tremendous ass and fucks hard. extremely good, a short read, very beautiful prose.
- Exordia by Seth Dickinson
- buckwild alien invasion/first contact story with a lot of focus on ethics and morality. aliens are real, souls exist, heaven and hell are real places and you can fuck around with them through science. it's neat. but man.... listen i love everything about Anna and Ssrin and their whole deal, it's incredibly good and hot and wonderful. but the book focuses a huge amount of its time on other stuff that is just.... not nearly as good.
Live Action
- Game Changer
- I've been watching this, this is just a check-in to say, the show is still wonderful, the best improv/game show since Whose Line. A game show where the core premise and mechanics are different every single episode. Very funny, often surreal.
- Smartypants
- Dropout's new show, there's only one ep so far but it was extremely good. people give short powerpoints on literally anything. good stuff.
Games
- Nioh 2
- I've started this game up a dozen times and still not actually finished it. it's still very fun though, and I have a good time trying out different builds. the loot system is obnoxious as hell though.
- Mega Man Legends
- revisited my childhood favorite game to sooth my layoff depression, and guess what: it's still the best game i've ever played, no notes, A++, 10/10.
- Mega Man Legends 2
- the sequel, on the other hand..... i think there's a lot of good parts here, but the format it puts them in, and where it chooses to spend its time, make it a way less appealing overall package than the first game. i think i came away liking this less than i did when i initially played it as a kid.
- Rockman Dash 2 Episode 1
- newly translated! a demo of sorts to MML2 that had previously never been available in English. it's short, and some of it is literally just tutorial, but what's there is good, and weirdly seems to show a better game than MML2 actually became. there are areas in this that feel more realized and alive than the sort of sterile hallways they'd become in MML2 proper..... weird experience, but i'm glad to have played it.
- The Misadventures of Tron Bonne
- this is a game i never fully played through until now - first because i could never find a copy, then because it didn't emulate well. i'm so glad i got around to it though, this rules. Tron Bonne as a character permanently rewired my brain when i first played Legends, and she gets to shine here so hard. i do think some of the mission types are a little less interesting, and i do wish there was more story content with like Denise, but overall the game is just such a damn charming time.
- Mark of the Ninja
- this was also a replay, i last played this like 10 years ago. a really good, tight stealth action game. i think there's some overall questionable stuff in terms of cultural appropriation given the nature of the game and its development, but otherwise a pretty good time.

