August Round-Up '23

This month was rough.

If you read my previous post, you know that August had a very upsetting start for me. Long story short, one of my crowns popped out and I found out my previous dentist's work was so bad that I had to entirely remove the tooth + put in a bridge. This left me with a very nasty bill which required money I didn't have... but, through the immense kindness of my friends, that bill's miraculously almost entirely covered!! As of this writing, I'm a little less than $500 from my $5k goal; I'm grateful to everyone who's helped! Healing-wise, it's been a very slow process: I had a rough tooth removal and a bone graft, which I was totally unprepared for how long healing would take (3+ weeks in and I'm just now getting to a point where I don't constantly have pain). I have a check-in with the surgeon next week, and then the $5k goal is for the second big surgery at the end of September... I'll continue doing my best to make my goal and stay strong!
**Update 9/1:** I hit my full $5K goal!! Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who helped!!!!

And so... onward to the good things I created & experienced this month!!

Projects

Games

As I was resting from surgery, Chris spent an afternoon playing Planetarian, a visual novel featuring a robot attendant greeting a guest to her planitarium... many years after war has broken out and the Earth is in shambles. The clash of the post-apocalyptic reality and the robot's - Yumemi's - seeming obliviousness to the world's changes outside her workplace contrast in ways that kept me wondering when she would realize the gravity of the situation. Planetarian is a sweet, somber, and short experience, and one I would recommend to those who wish for a unique way of enjoying written media.

"Why don't you come to the planetarium? The beautiful twinkling of eternity that will never fade, no matter what... All the stars in the sky are waiting for you."

Recently, Chris has started getting into SHMUPs (which I adore and was very excited to see him try), and his first foray into the genre was through a friend's recommendation of ZeroRanger... ohhh my gosh this game is TOTALLY not what you'd expect!!! He only briefly streamed a couple hours of trying it, and it's extremely clever in how it keeps you hooked by giving you tastes of success and then flipping the game on its head. The limited color palette of teal-green and orange are gorgeous and make for some dazzling effects onscreen, plus the soundtrack slaps. My jaw dropped several times with what unfolds throughout the game. I want to see it to completion, and with the way they set up their continue system, it makes for a highly approachable entry into the SHMUP genre. I love it!!

Go into the experience blind. Trust me!!!

Further on the topic of Chris getting into new things: with the brand new Touhou entry he's officially a fan!! I love the idea behind this new game and how vehemently anti-AI it is. To quote ZUN: "While humans are all abuzz about Al, the beasts are the ones building a world of mental enrichment and a palpable sense of life." As always, the barrage of bullets are beautiful, and the new characters are cute and appealing. I look forward to when the English translation comes out!

After sitting on my to-play game shelf for around 10 years, I finally had the opportunity to try Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix as the result of a Twitch chat poll. I'm a huge lover of the DDR series, and this game is a playful fusion of the Mario universe's music and whimsy with the power of dance; it makes for a very fun experience!! I hope to get a DDR pad that I can hook up to my Wii someday so I can play it properly!

Relatedly in the realm of "games that get you up and moving," I tried a month-long trial of the VR game Supernatural and found it extremely fun!! I really appreciate that it not only has you moving your arms, but gets you ducking, twisting, turning, and lifting your legs to dodge or hit obstacles. It's highly engaging in ways that I enjoy, and I could see my muscles start to become pleasantly defined by the end of the trial. My only wish is that you could own the game instead of paying a monthly subscription, but alas... maybe I'll be able to afford the constant cost in the future.

Anime

I'm still watching everything I previously mentioned that's a part of this current season, so here are some stand-outs that we enjoyed while waiting on new episodes to drop:

Wishing for a show with good Summertime vibes, we gave the dub for Sk8 the Infinity a shot and utterly enjoyed it!! We had actually watched a couple of the episodes back when it first aired in Japanese, but at the time had to drop it due to life being overwhelming. I'm so glad we gave the dub a chance because it was oozing with charm and style, and I honestly thought it had more personality than the original cast. The first episode or two have rough audio since it released right as lockdowns at the beginning of the pandemic happened (you can tell that not every VA had a great mic set-up), but it got much better as it went on.

Funny enough, Black Lagoon also appeared on a "Summer-y anime" list, and since I hadn't seen it before we watched both seasons. The stories told were a bit hit and miss for me interest-wise, but the action scenes always packed a punch and many of the characters were fascinating (my favorites were Roberta the maid and Ginji the swordsman). I was surprised at how many references were made to real-life movies and literature, and appreciated the melting pot of culture that the bands of thieves and pirates made home in. Having the protagonists be very morally-gray-almost-black was amusing to see as the stories progressed, and it was refreshing to have a primarily adult cast.

Another "classic" show with a primarily adult cast, we finally finished our months-long watch of Monster. Overall it was well-written and compelling in bursts, but I felt like the story threads went a little too long and could have easily been cut down by quite a few chapters. The way the series handled morality and forgiveness was interesting to see play out since the perspective kept shifting what could be viewed as wrong or right. If you've seen (or read) this I'd like to know what you think!

Just for fun, we watched the (very short) dubbed version of the Ys anime adaptation. I got a kick out of how very 80s it was, with a super silly dub, awesome rendition of the game's soundtrack, and many screencappable faces. Chris was right when he said Adol is constantly either "baby" or "perturbed." I don't know if you'd get anything out of this if you aren't familiar with the first Ys, but I liked it.

Here's Adol looking very baby!

Assorted Media

I rediscovered Kininatteru Hito ga Otoko ja Nakatta, AKA "The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All," which is a silly-cute story about two girls who bond over a shared love of rock. The hijinks ensue as the more preppy-in-style of the two patronizes a record shop where the other works (who wears a mask + dark, punk clothing... making her unrecognizable from her glasses-touting quiet classroom persona), and forms a little crush on someone who isn't what she thinks. It's very sweet, and I look forward to keeping up with it as it continues to release.

It was nice to see the return of my favorite angel and demon pair in Good Omens Season 2, especially for the sake of Gaiman wishing to tell the story that Pratchett had wanted to continue with him, however I could definitely feel the lack of charming humor that Pratchett brought to the table with the first novel. I still enjoyed the show overall - it's always nice to get more content with characters I like - but the bittersweet ending made me sigh since it seems like we'll have to wait longer to get a true resolution to the story.

That's all for now!

Thanks to the surgery and many weeks of hard recovery, it was a little hard to enjoy as much varied media as I normally would this month. September is already shaping up to be very busy, but I hope I'll be able to make time to enjoy more stuff!! Just as before, I would love to hear about what you thought of what I said - perhaps you have a different opinion? - as well as know what you've been interested in lately. Until next time!!