Denshattack! Possibly the most batshit over-the-top video game ever made. You're a train, doing Tony Hawk stunts, tearing across Japan, to a star-studded soundtrack. The first boss in the game is a gyaru piloting a magical girl train mecha. It only gets crazier from there. ABSOLUTE. MUST. PLAY.

Voyager Season 1! Honestly, coming off the high that was DS9, a Season 1 of Berman-era Trek was gonna disappoint. Still, probably mostly uphill from here. Faces and Jetrel were probably the best non-Janeway episodes, but even Jetrel kinda feels like a less compelling version of Duet.

She banding on my wagon until I chuck?? [EXTREMELY LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER]

Reaper Man! Death lost his job and a shopping mall ensues. Big contrast in pacing here - Death's side of the book is positively meditative, I almost wonder if the batshit insanity happening in Ankh-Morpork and the University actually has more page-time. Great stuff! Pterry continues winning.

Thermae Romae Novae! Roman dude isekais back and forth between modern (& Edo once) Japan and his home, and weebs out over Japanese bathing culture. It's fun and well-researched! At least in the JP dub, Lucius even speaks Latin when language barriers crop up.

DS9 Season Seven! The end of a brilliant series. Pretty happy with how it wrapped things up, but the Bashir-Ezri romance felt rushed (though, most of the canon pairings lacked chemistry tbh). I'm probably going to pick up the spin-off books so I can get more of these characters I've grown to love.

The Odyssey! I was expecting to like this more than the Iliad, but it didn't shape that way. I was led to believe the wacky adventures would be the meat of the poem, but probably two-thirds of it are "These suitors are bitch-ass motherfuckers and deserve to die".

Taisho Otome Fairy Tale! A cute anime about the healing power of boundless kindness, even in the darkest times. Yuzuki is just so sweet, and you can see how she lifted up those around her. Good. Maybe not perfect, but good.

The Other Wind! At last, the end of the Earthsea novels. I always felt the afterlife shown in The Farthest Shore was rather depressing; it felt *wrong*. This book finally explains the deal about it, and ties it with the revelations in Tehanu. A satisfying conclusion, if somewhat bittersweet.

DS9 Season Six! Crazy good from start to finish. I swear, the average episode of this season would be one of the high points in any other. I argue that even the Ferengi Forcefem Episode is kinda fun, even if it doesn't hold a candle to Iggy Pop Vorta.

Desert Rose: Snow Apocalypse! I watched this for Irene. There was disappointingly little Irene. Those bastards lied to me. Jessica's also cool tho Maybe I woulda liked it more if I read the manga, but without having read it, my verdict is a resounding "It's okay."

The Iliad! It's a poem about war and grief, and how the fickleness of gods and men bring so much undue suffering. There is a deep humanity here, and an empathy for Greek and Trojan alike; it does not flinch from brutal violence and its consequences, yet, the poem seems to say "it is what it is."

IT'S OVER, CINGUL DINGUL I HAVE CONQUERED

Sailor Moon Season One! The Senshi are charming, but the short episodes, MotW format and canned animations leave quite a bit to be desired. Villains are hit or miss. I don't hate it, but if the later seasons have the same thing going on, I dunno if I wanna do another 154 episodes + a few movies.

XF Extreme Formula! The story mode got released in full a few days ago. The writing's winning no awards. Beat-em-up sections are competent. But the racing is so fucking addicting, you can go game-breakingly fast. This one utterly sank its teeth into me and didn't let go until I was done. Must-play.

i want to protect that smile

Moving Pictures! Not the Rush album. Wouldn't it be fucked up if there were movies? The Discworld seems to think so. And this is the day I finally learned that the reason Oscars pose like that is because they're supposed to be holding a sword. I am sure that many references have gone over my head.

DS9 Season Five! While lacking the pure emotional grip that some of season 4's best had, it also doesn't sink to the same lows as the worst. It's also got the Tribble episode and the one where Odo gets to be a dad. Also, holy shit, that season finale was insane.

Skull-Face Bookseller Honda-san! A charming slice-of-life comedy about a Japanese bookstore. Some neat tidbits about the industry. Dunno what else to say about it, it's pretty short and sweet.

.hack//MUTATION! Part 2 of the IMOQ saga. Feels like this is where the games start to expect you to really start using tactics in combat. Aside from taking out another couple Phases, I don't feel like much has been answered, but I can feel the pieces getting set up for a hell of an avalanche.

Eugene Onegin! Figured I'd earn having a character named after Pushkin. A fun enough read casually, but for more serious analysis I'm kinda stumped about how to consider the digressions as part of the whole. The language is very playful. Five consecutive stanzas about how much Pushkin loves feet.

A Better Tomorrow! Trying to find a good version, with Cantonese audio and quality English subs, has been a white whale for me. But my effort was rewarded! A man trying to redeem himself, fighting against society's attempts to push him back down and the underworld's claws trying to drag him back.

hsien-ko darkstalkers got me like

The Girl who Became a Fish! Nekosuke's artwork complements this story really well this time, capturing the melancholy feelings and matching the scenes pretty well. Feels like a bleak version of a mythological story. Like No Longer Human, the central character struggles to feel understood...

The Moon Over the Mountain! A tragic tale about how art eats the artist, as well as the destructive qualities of egotism, both to the self and otherwise. I felt Nekosuke's illustrations were kinda distracting here, felt like they didn't really line up with the actions in the story itself.

Tales from Earthsea! The book, not the movie, of course. Le Guin's prose is so good I honestly get so absorbed in the sound of it that I have to reread many lines just for them to sink in. This book builds a thematic bridge between the first trilogy and Tehanu. Just one more book to this series!

.hack//INFECTION! Fulfilling a bit of childhood backlog with this one. I loved the vibes as a kid but never really figured out how anything worked until now. Still fuck with the vibes, and the story now that I know what to do. But the gameplay is Urgh. Granted, RPG gameplay is a hard sell for me.

DS9 Season 4! Ignoring The Muse, this series was full of banger episodes. Bar Association is popular for good reason, the finale has an intriguing twist, but The Visitor is going to be a longtime favorite for being the first time a TV show has brought me to tears in a very, very long time.