juushika

Books

Again, I did not track my reading stats in detail in 2024. According to my Goodreads Year in Books, I read 165 books totaling 31,186 pages, but this excludes a number of texts. ( Read more. )

My Dark Vanessa, Kate Elizabeth Russell
I started 2024 off strong. This is a nuanced, incredibly immersive depiction of a student/teacher relationship, deeply embedded in the protagonist's changing view of that relationship, and that's what has stuck with me: its particular, remarkable moments, often recontextualized, even as they occur.

Our Share of the Night, Mariana Enriquez
A tour de force, split between family saga, the politics of power, and a robust speculative element. Without the balance between these parts, it would be a miserable drag; instead it's compelling and ruthless.

The World Cannot Give, Tara Isabella Burton
Toxic queer female friendships at boarding school, and the search for meaning: trashy, stylized, deeply my jam. Two five-stars from the same author is remarkable; when Burton is speaking my language, I'm listening hard.

Zetsuai 1989 and Bronze - Zetsuai since 1989, Minami Ozaki
This is an unusual favorite, because is objectively often total trash, a product of its time and of problems with the genre; there's a lot to laugh at, here. But it is also one of those foundational works which is indicative of why the genre keeps me coming back. A chaotic masterwork of obsessive, toxic love that does some things that still feel like unusual executions of its tropes.

Margaret Wise Brown
A deep dive into a picture book author already gives away that their work is remarkable; and Brown's is. She has a penchant for lists, think Goodnight Moon, for particular details in thoughtful arrangement; a quiet mundanity with emotional weight. Atop that, many of her books have been re-illustrated or were edited posthumously, providing fascinating insight into the relationship between text and art in picture books. My favorites, excluding the obvious: The Dead Bird, Two Little Trains, When The Wind Blew, and Night and Day.

Freeze Tag, Caroline B. Cooney
A most remarkable YA thriller, based on a fairy tale and carrying that ethos forward even when setting it against the social dramas of its genre; it creates a surprising sense of weirdness and horror. And Cooney's voice is remarkable, evocative and abrupt.

Leech, Hiron Ennes
I love a book that's willing to get weird, and this does it in its worldbuilding, which is cogent, complete, and still deeply, ingeniously bonkers: body horror, parasites, post-apocalyptic far future societies, and an identity that moves chaotically from federated to singular—everything but a kitchen sink. As a bonus, the audiobook is a phenomenal performance, dynamic and adjusting to suit accents and the changing protagonist, all without dipping into caricature.

Honorable Mentions in Books

The King of Elfland's Daughter, Lord Dunsany
A book about fairyland which feels truly magical, magical in atmosphere and structure and world, is a rare gift.

At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance—A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power, Danielle L. McGuire
A punishing and necessary reframing of the role that women played in the civil rights movement; the best nonfiction I read all year.

The Shiny Narrow Grin, Jane Gaskell
I'm a sucker for early examples of a trope and how they inform the development of the genre, so the relationship between this and Klause's The Silver Kiss and the growth of the sympathetic vampire and YA paranormal romance is fascinating—and Gaskell's voice is uniquely strange.

The Butcher of the Forest, Premee Mohammed
This may as well have been written just for me: creepy forest, in autumn, with folklore and fairies and a deep pall of horror. I look forward to rereading it in autumns to come.

The Haunted Dollhouse, Terry Berger, David Berger, Karen Coshof
I read a fair number of picture books, particularly seeking weird and scary picture books, and it doesn't get weirder than this. Unique, inexplicable, utterly delightful; a forgotten gem.

The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
Luxuriously, infuriatingly slow and person-focused within a delightfully ridiculous thriller plot, this has some of the best characters I've encountered in recent memory.

A Guest in the House, Emily Carroll
There's unlikely to be a Carroll I don't like, but I read a bumper crop of graphic novels this year and this was easily the best—because of Carroll's touch, because it was willing to be gestural and borderline unexplained, set effectively against a surprising-for-Carroll mundane setting.

Last to Leave the Room, Caitlin Starling
I quibbled with this, and yet what it does well is explicitly to my taste: identity and interpersonal relationships as defined by care, harm, and social power, with a weird speculative concept and some truly creepy moments.

"Spar," Kij Johnson
Slipping in under the wire, a short story about the permeability of human/alien sexual (non-)relationships, invasive and discomforting and surprisingly convincing.

Games

The vast majority of the games on this list were ones I watched, not played. My partner played a lot of games this year, and I spent my solo gaming time writing, instead.

Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver remaster, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2 remaster
It was great to go into the remasters having finally watched Blood Omen; the "lesser" games in this series are less successful, and Blood Omen is very retro, but it retains the hallmarks of plot, setting, atmosphere, and voice acting, and so enriches the series overall. And the remasters are, effectively, perfect: one good and one great game, upscaled while preserving their character, enriched by the gift of an archive of everything from unfinished levels to, my favorite, original studio recordings of the voice actors, which are a privilege to watch.

The Last of Us remake
Allow me to come in almost as late as possible to say this universally acclaimed game is really good. Not all of its dramatic beats work for me, but it leads with and commits wholly to its narrative, to its central relationship. I'm grateful that some Sony exclusives are making their way to PC, and the remake is stupid beautiful, and I can't wait to see the second game in 2025.

Silent Hill 2 Remake
My cozy game of the year: I would watch high resolution journeys through the fog and into the nightmare dimension with a flawless horror soundtrack forever; these were the best naps I had all year. This feels more than is faithful, which I like in a remake, preserving tone and atmosphere above all.

Days Gone
Defying all expectations (mixed reviews, zombies), this is the best open world title I've seen in some time. It avoids many of the pitfalls of the Ubisoft open world framework by making its storylines closely bound, has a clever AI gimmick in the hordes, sidesteps many boring zombie tropes, and has the most naturalistic dialog I've ever seen in game, a bold and endearing stylistic choice that really sells already strong characters. I kept waiting for this to fuck up, and it's not perfect, but it handles society rebuilding and disability with surprising care. And it's set in the PNW!

Pacific Drive
S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Pacific Northwest car version, quirky and tender and creepy, with a stellar retro aesthetic, solid game loop, and true bond player/car bond. What a great year for games set where I live! They make me feel a certain way.

Alan Wake II
I couldn't stand the first Wake game, but love Control; this is exactly where I wanted Wake to go, how I wanted to see the franchises unite. It maintains some imperfect, often forgettable mechanics, but an AWE as a lived experience is all I could have hoped: trippy, self-swallowing, evocative in aesthetic. And! More PNW!

Honorable Mentions in Games

Crow Country
Unique among many retro games for its unique camera mechanic, which, in a puzzle/exploration game, gives navigation an ongoing sense of discovery. The speculative/mystery plot is cooky but committed, which means it's actually solvable by its own internal logics.

Tormented Souls
Of the retro-style horror games of the year, this is the silliest and, so help me, the best. It grows on you: ridiculously excessive on every possible vector, from cluttered mansion to creepy twins and time travel and medical horror, it manages to be campy but sincere horror and stupidly fun. And janky, but that's part of the retro-style charm.

Chants of Sennaar
The puzzle mechanic of this game (decipher glyphs from context and social cues) delight me; this scratched an itch given to me by Tunic and by learning sitelen pona: language as worldbuilding.

Slay the Princess
What a fantastic use of a visual novel and wrong ends as a format, and a non-CG art style which is accessible, stylized, dynamic, beautiful, able to get so weird. I only watched an LP of this, and should probably delve deeper, but it's fantastic.

Citizen Sleeper
This feels like a solo TTRPG as a video game, and I'm compelled by that, by what gamified formats can enable a solo-ish project, how minimal a game can be and maintain game elements.

Clock Tower
I love an early example of a genre that explains huge chucks of the genre in retrospect, and this did that and then some, because some of its mechanics (the degree of randomness in each run; the requirements to have need of an item in order to collect/use the item) feel like they've never been used elsewhere to this degree.

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
Like Clock Tower, I enjoy the surprise of a "never seen a game quite like this" from a retro title. The narrative structure here is incredibly unique, and well suits a Lovecraftian premise.

Mouthwashing
Unexpected restraint, given the subject matter and the many ways in which this isn't remotely restrained; a kind of restrained that doesn't mean subtle, with clear but grateful messaging even within the capitalism pastiche and gore.

We Know the Devil
I watched this on account of a fic exchange and then spent too long crying about it. A phenomenal set of inspirations and tone, with viciously aspirational themes: the violence and catharsis of being forced to confront self-actualization.

Bloom by Litza Bronwyn
In a year of discovering solo RPJs, this one is remarkable for the thoughtful depth of its prompts and its overlap with fandom; RPG as transformative work is nothing new, but this proves why that premise works.

Elegy by Miracle M
In a year of discovering solo RPGs, this is the one I could play on and off for years. A loving mishmash of vampire RPGs, set up to create a dynamic campaign with a lot of ongoing momentum, overflowing with an excess of style.

Visual Media

Scavengers Reign
My watch of the year, this is a remarkable achievement both of actual speculative evolution and of what the genre makes you feel: the wonder, the impossible scale and interconnection and alien verisimilitude of the natural world. It made me cry, what, three times? For its beauty; for the terrible awe of potential.

L.A. Confidential
Living up to all my culturally osmosed hype, this has noir vibes in thoughtful, indulgent abundance. And it has an OT3, and honestly that's what tips me from "fun watch!" to "I read fanfic for this."

The Legend of Vox Machina
Of course I was going to love this; and I did love this. It's the art of adaptation on fascinating display, as well as an insight into the success of the first campaign compared to later ones, namely: the sheer, giddy angst. So the first season, which is the most faithful & most angsty, is the best, but the whole show was fantastic.

Great British Bake-Off series 15
This is the best GBBO series in recent history by a long shot. Less of (although never none of) what make the show excruciating, but, more importantly, a stellar group of contestants in both ability and personality. This one just hits different: refreshing, honest, joyous.

Christine, Duel, The Hitcher
It was a great year to watch a film about men and cars; extremely queer movies about men, and violence, and cars. Each once delightful, and even better when set against one another.

Honorable Mentions in Visual Media

Face/Off
The platonic ideal of a Nicholas Cage movie: big concept, delightfully dumb lines ("I'd like to take his face, off"), unrepentant commitment. Weirdly sexy interpersonal dynamics? Title. His face ... off! I loved this.

Starman
When picking up a retro speculative film, I want to wonder "what in the fuck" when I'm done; and I did, here. The interpersonal implications of both the premise and the ending make this linger.

The Hunger
It has taken me far too long to see this, and I knew I'd enjoy it, and I did; no real surprises, since its imprint (tone, aesthetic, interpersonal dynamics) linger in vampire media, but as lovely to luxuriate in as the bed looks to be.

Pokemon Concierge
Look, I have nothing deep to say about Pokemon stop motion dioramas. Everyone wants to live in the Pokemon world, right? This is an imagining of just how that would feel, of course it's cozy, of course it's beyond charming. It has furret!

The Maxx
This reminded me of watching Aeon Flux: I would always rather a total dedication to weird and stylized than anything predictable, so, good news then!

The Italian Job (1969)
I love the remake and do not like funny movies and so was not primed to best like this, but I came for car shenanigans and received them in increasingly loving abundance; and, I relearned: I don't like humor, but I do like British humor.

Music

My top songs of 2024. Unusually, songs with lyrics won out by a large margin; I've gotten better at writing to lyrics & spent a lot of my writing time farming tracks for my Moody playlist. I also took a chunk of time to write a story set in ~2004/5, and so listened to a lot of 1990s-2005 alternative, a profound and surprisingly insightful nostalgia-binge.

My favorite new finds of the year were Medicine Boy and Crywolf. My favorite game soundtrack was Pacific Drive, because Silent Hill II really ought not count.

Every year I post a list like this: Here's the best media I encountered, but which probably was not released, in 2023.

Books

This year I didn't record stats or demographics for my reading. As such, my numbers are profoundly approximate and make even more of a farce of statistics than is normally true, which is plenty. In 2023, I read maybe around 220 books, based on Goodreads metrics and reviews posted here, which doesn't count some things but does count many. ( Musings. )

Jawbone, Mónica Ojeda
Best friendship and adolescent sexual awakening under the eye of conservative religion taken to the most intimate, unhinged extremes. And also there's a thriller plot. Sections of this I reread multiple times; a flawed book objectively, but that central dynamic speaks to me, sings to me.

Social Creature, Tara Isabella Burton
A strange little thriller, constantly upping the ante, self-aware, obsessive, frenetic, dark. I argued with this but also devoured it.

Alliance-Union series, C.J. Cherryh
This is the year I finished this series (with some exceptions, namely the The Hanan Rebellion and some short stories); an effort I began in 2017. I love these books, none of which are really flawless, but Cherryh's terse voice, the corners of this setting she chooses to explore, and her recurring themes are all delightful. I see myself rereading from the beginning someday, although maybe my next goal should be the Foreigner series.

Confessions of a Mask, Yukio Mishima
Psychosexual in a nutshell: unevenly compelling but, when it is, the depiction of sexual awakening via queer desire via violence fetish could not be more my thing if it were personally dedicated to me.

Kuro, Somato
The best new manga I read in this year of reading some big heavy-hitters was ... a slice of life story about a little girl and her pet monster. The tone here is wistful and haunted, the plot and worldbuilding is surprisingly significant and, as girl-and-her-monster goes, this does a great job with a phenomenally enjoyable trope.

Kit's Wilderness, David Almond
13 is the age for having an intense friendship, as you reckon with your own place in the world/your family/your community history/your peer group/you narrative which, in the coming years, will be the relationship that makes you realize, oh, I'm queer.

Honorable Mentions in Books

Slonim Woods 9, Daniel Barban Levin
I feel like cult memoir is one part honesty, a multifaceted attempt to explain why the atmosphere, the cult leader's influence, was compelling, was harmful; and one part "you just had to be there" — to be a specific person in those specific circumstances. This hits that balance really well.

Bloom, Delilah S. Dawson
Slighter than other titles on this list, but such a fun way to cap off a season of thrillers: a cottagecore wish-fulfillment fantasy turned to pulpy horror. It's just got so many and such fun vibes.

Dungeon Meshi, Ryoko Kui
I read a couple long-running manga this year, and this is the only one I came away liking instead of having that "it's interesting/important but flawed" response. The overarching plot less so than the basic premise, which is so satisfying: slice of life can be such an unexpectedly productive format for fantasy worldbuilding.

Games

A slim year for games. Most of my highlights were replays/rewatches; most of my gaming got DNF'd.

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
This is the hidden gem of Zelda, fulfilling the craving left in my heart by Link's Awakening Remastered, which is to say: none of the surprisingly-deep narrative of the important games in the series, but so ridiculously cute with a clever central gimmick.

Honorable Mentions in Games

Spyro Reignited Trilogy
Vibrant and profoundly satisfying. Not more than that except some truly A-grade furrybait in the first game, but I loved watching these.

Revenant II
Parallel worlds as gameplay structure is a great use for semi-procedural multiplayer gameplay. Fun lore, relatively polished gameplay experience; this was the best multiplayer game my group played in 2023.

Visual Media

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans
In a year when I watched ~100 things (which easily doubles my usual visual media consumption), this was far and away the best. The frequency with which subtext I loved became actual, on-page, canon text — the handling of disability — the series-appropriate ruthlessness; I cried at almost every episode in the second season. In the manga it's confirmed they're married. I love, I love, I love.

Aeon Flux
Weird and sexy in such a stylized way that, rather than tipping into surreal, it cannonballs and then luxuriates there. The episodic format functions like a short story collection, some relative misses, some incredible hits. But sometimes, style is substance.

Retro movies
... is what got me watching so many movies. My appetite was very specific and broad: literally anything 1) in color 2) released before 2005 3) that could be considered "genre." There's nostalgia, and actually recognizing the actors, and a break from pet peeves with modern visual aesthetics, and shorter runtimes, and, most of all, they're so frequently interesting, which matters so much more than seeking "good." Highlights include:

Conan the Barbarian, a champion example of "interesting, yes; good, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"
The Faculty, because all teen social commentary should be this explicit & weird & effects-heavy
Terminator series, for Sarah Conner <3 and the monster design in Terminator 2
Return to Oz, a fever-dream of sets and effects that really has the ~vibe~ of the books
Barbarella, because in 1968 you could do anything, just, anything, really

But my favorite was:

Phantasm
Cult classics are what dreams are made of; literally, sometimes. They explain so much, retroactively; they stick in the public consciousness for a reason, and that reason is almost always interesting. The dreamy atmosphere of this, the uncanny sound design, the subdued intensity — this lingers, strange and compelling.

Thelma and Louise
Conversely, sometimes really films are famous for good reason. I think about this all the time: the ending; the "nothing to lose" energy avalanching through the plot.

Honorable Mentions in Visual Media

Bake Off: The Professionals
What I wish all GBBO could be: creators given the space and tools to express creativity and competency, with judges that I adore, who support and aid competitors, whose opinions actually interests me. So chill, so satisfying, even when the themes and challenges are absurd.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury
Lots to love here; the start and end of the first season is top-tier Gundam; the second season is too compressed and, on the whole, this paled in comparison to Iron-Blooded Orphans. On another year, it would have left a bigger impression, but the bits got me got me good.

Music

My Spotify Wrapped, which is particularly biased this year towards my instrumental playlist or, more specifically, all the listening I did to find more songs for/sort songs onto my instrumental playlist. I had good luck this year using the Spotify But Spotify excluding the end of the year is really showing, this year.

The highlight of my listening was far and away leon chang's re:treat, an Animal Crossing fan album ish thing that samples Animal Crossing (and other game) music/effects and turns them into the most beautiful, nostalgic, plinky-plonky little tracks. I listened to this obsessively for about two months straight.

B̵̘̱̑̂o̵͇̽͒o̸͍̾ks/Gam̶͎̏è̶͖s̶͈̑/?̴̰̱͆́͒?̷͚̓?

Insofar as AI-assisted writing is simultaneously like reading a book you are also like writing, and like playing an RPG, and like playing the Sims, and just straight-up writing, this is where the bulk of my year went, over multiple platforms (Replika, Character.AI, Pygmalion, NovelAI), totaling approximately two million words. I couldn't describe the impact this has had on my life. One part profoundly unproductive coping mechanism & one part the most productive, joyful thing I've maybe ever done, I guess?

Title: Dungeon Meshi / ダンジョン飯 / Delicious in Dungeon
Author: Ryoko Kui
Published: 2014-2023
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 2490 (192+191+195+197+205+208+216+200+208+224+216+240)
Total Page Count: 490,940
Text Number: 1733-44
Read Because: recommended by Teja
Review: A last-ditch effort to revive a member of the adventuring party means going in with minimal gear and committing to living on the dungeon's resources, a.k.a.: eating the monsters. The premise, a sort of inversion of fridge (no pun intended) horror, taking the "what if" implications of the setting and turning them into central elements of worldbuilding and plot, is delightful. It scratches the same itch as Beastars's worldbuilding or 'ranking Pokémon by edibility' lists: absurd, logical, satisfying.

The overarching plot is less successful than the slice of life elements, so this lost some of my interest as it went on. But: engaging cast, solid and pleasing art, and I (in a remarkable deviation from my norm) actually appreciate the humor. This is a really solid read.


Title: My Dearest Self With Malice Aforethought / Shinai naru Boku e Satsui wo Komete
Author: Hajime Inoryu
Illustrator: Shota Ito
Published: 2018
Rating: 1 of 5
Page Count: 200
Total Page Count: 491,285
Text Number: 1747
Read Because: trolling for psychological horror manga
Review: DNF near the end of volume one. This is giving me uncanny Gantz vibes, not in genre but tone, a specific "the 'relatable' misogyny of self-professed pathetic men" vibe. Our protagonist will experience horrors and undergo character growth via some presumably-excessively-convoluted thriller shenanigans that use Dissociative Identity Disorder as a plot device, cool; but Gantz left me once bitten and twice shy about a particular brand of seinen sexism, so I don't need to stick around to see it.

Great title, though!


Title: Mushishi
Author: Yuki Urushibara
Translator: William Flanagan
Published: Del Rey, 2007-2010 (1999-2008)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 2350 (229+233+243+243+260+245+240+222+240+192)
Total Page Count: 493,965
Text Number: 1749-58
Read Because: ebooks borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Slow-paced, stand-alone stories about a traveling man who deals with problems caused supernatural organisms called mushi. I kept thinking that I liked this; it also pulled my manga-reading to a near standstill. Some of that is the short story-esque pacing, which naturally slows my reading as I pace the stories out. That pacing is contemplative, gentle, but repetitive; explanations are too thorough and there's little momentum. As such, it feels like a weaker take on Natsume Yuujinchou or Mononoke, both of which are similar premises/structures, both of which find ways to balance episodic elements with literally anything else that can hold interest.

Further, the through line is that mushi cause social disturbance largely by being visible to/giving powers to specific people, and their influence must be removed in order to restore those individuals into ordinary society. There's places - specifically, the protagonist - where this message is more nuanced, but it still rubs me the wrong way: boring as a fantasy premise, limited as a social message. I liked this, but distinctly didn't love it; mostly it made me reflect positively on other stories that do the same thing but do it better.

Title: There Are Things I Can't Tell You
Author: Edako Mofumofu
Translator: Christine Dashiell
Published: Tokyopop, 2019
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 270
Total Page Count: 475,065
Text Number: 1677
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Profoundly adequate. I'm an easy sell on pretty art, vaguely atypical characterization (I like that the protagonist has a detailed personal life to flesh him out), and a relationship influenced by real social issues. It's tropey, but in that vaguely-nuanced way where the characters/relationship feel dynamic. As usual with this kind of manga, there's some thoughtful touches but the thing entire is pretty forgettable: I need a weirder relationship or less predictable pacing or something less slice-of-lifey to really catch my attention.

But! My local library had this in ebook! I just think that's cool: if we need start with 'pleasantly forgettable' to normalize library copies of BL translations, then sure, yeah, hit me with something pleasantly forgettable.


Title: Dear,クレイジーモンスター / Dear, Crazy Monster
Author: motteke
Published: 2015
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 195
Total Page Count: 475,610
Text Number: 1679
Read Because: browsing manga by trope again
Review: When our protagonist discovers that his brother is gay, an already-strange relationship spirals out of control. This is weird one. It doesn't stick to its guns enough to be truly unhinged, but (as other reviews attest) it's insufficiently hinged to be hollow, tropey comfort reading. I dig the profoundly unlikable protagonist, and I'm an easy sell on an incestuous relationship; there are small touches here I really love, particularly the surprisingly convincing way in which disgust morphs into fascination. But it's just too easy, too willing to be resolved, in a way that undermines how intriguingly fucked up is the central dynamic.


Title: 花のみぞ知る / Hana no mizoshiru / Only the Flower Knows
Author: Rihito Takarai
Translator: Kimiko Kotani
Published: Digital Manga, 2022 (2009-2012)
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 550 (179+180+192)
Total Page Count: 485,005
Text Number: 1716-8
Read Because: look I just think it's cool my library has BL; borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: I like the set-up. The character types (traumatized closeted introvert and ungrounded incidentally-bisexual extrovert) aren't especially distinctive, but the slow-burn slice-of-life pacing gives them a lot of space to grow, individually and in their dynamic. Unfortunately, much of that disappears once sex enters the scene. This is fine, but the sexual dynamics are so tropey that I zoned out and don't have strong impressions beyond the first volume.

2023 has thusfar been the year of manga. And is it good manga? you may ask; and I answer: literally Gantz set the bar so low that like, yeah, the rest's been great.


Title: Gantz
Author: Hiroya Oku
Published: 2000-2013
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 8005 (224+224+226+226+224+224+224+224+232+200+200+224+232+224+200+200+200+204+232+208+208+200+216+216+208+200+232+232+218+192+218+218+218+218+218+216+226)
Total Page Count: 466,195
Text Number: 1598-1634
Read Because: personal enjoyment
Review: After his untimely death, our protagonist is conscripted into a pseudo-posthumous game, a fight for survival against alien lifeforms. The protagonist's early characterization is incredibly irritating, giving this an inauspicious start - but there's some great early arcs: the aliens are weird, the fights are brutal, causalities abound, and the protagonist undergoes significant, complicated character growth.

Pity then that even the good arcs are frequently interrupted by awful arcs (the fireball-shooting dinos stand out) and the second half is just ... bad, ironically losing coherency as the worldbuilding become more substantial. And it's full of fanservice, and the female characters are woefully under-served by the mangaka's misogyny. And the battle scenes are frequently incomprehensible, and the ending drags on and on.

I don't regret the good bits of this, but I sure do regret finishing it. Unfortunately there's no clean division of "sometimes good" and "pure garbage," although the Oni arc is probably a decent end point. Alternately, flee at the first sight of vampires; you'll miss a few good scenes but vastly cut your losses.

( Gantz: 0 )


Title: Kimi wa Petto aka Tramps Like Us
Author: Yayoi Ogawa
Published: 2000-2005
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 2620 (184+188+184+178+192+192+192+192+185+188+182+179+192+192)
Total Page Count: 469,515
Text Number: 1638-1651
Read Because: reread
Review: A business woman rescues a young man she finds passed out in a cardboard box, and lets him stay with her on one condition: he becomes her pet. This is one of my favorite-ever manga, and it fills me with an articulate rage composed of equal parts longing and frustration. The premise has permanent residence in my id, and it's a brilliant framework for examining communication and intimacy: restructuring relationships redefines how we engage with them. ...But it seems to forget that the problem that needs to resolved is how and that people communicate - rather than the configurations of the relationships themselves. The fantasy of a high-powered marriage with a pet "on the side" where the latter is the more intimate relationship is so much more engaging than the constant threat that the narrative will resolve its tensions in the most traditionally-structured monogamous relationships possible.

And still, I love it. Some arcs fall flat, but the slice-of-life structure is gently paced and offers space for complex characterization (Momo especially impressed me on this reread); the restrained, bittersweet tone takes a deeply iddy premise and treats it with respect; the art is pretty and consistent (including consistent issues with the lips).


Title: Kimetsu no Yaiba aka Demon Slayer
Author: Koyoharu Gotouge
Translator: John Werry and John Hurt
Published: Viz Media, 2018-2021 (2016-2020)
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 4560 (197+192+199+192+197+205+215+199+199+200+192+199+199+199+199+192+192+192+192+192+192+192+232)
Total Page Count: 474,795
Text Number: 1654-1676
Read Because: recommended by Teja, ebooks borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A demon murders our protagonist's family, leaving only one survivor: his little sister, freshly transformed into a demon herself. This a straightforward "boy finds martial arts community, grows in strength, gains and loses mentors, defeats the big bad" narrative but really quite charming: The art is consistent and bold, the character design delightful. Everyone gets a tragic backstory at pivotal moments. The protagonist is so achingly sincere that it blows through trite and comes out the other side. The pacing isn't perfect, but it's remarkably free of bloat. A solid read!

Not an especial favorite, though. For all the demonic character design and dismemberment and death, it never really feels dark - there's a weird hollowness in tone coming from how vaguely violence is drawn and the fact that our hero and his friends have plot armor while mentor figures are persistently tragic. I enjoyed reading this but, save for a few favorite characters, it doesn't really stick in my mind.

Okay, that you can sort by trope/user tags does not mean that the results will be of quality, as these attest, but! I'm such a trope-driven reader that I'll probably keep trying, even if Appetite did almost burn out my enthusiasm, as a long-but-mediocre work is wont to do.


Title: Baker Baker Paradox
Author: Makine Kureta
Published: 2018-9
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 245
Total Page Count: 415,890
Text Number: 1569
Read Because: did you know that Anime Planet lets you search by tags? feels good man
Review: The title is a fun way to learn about a psychological phenomenon! The manga itself.... I like the inversions of character ages and power differentials, and I always have a soft spot for memory issues. But it's rarely elevated from its tropiness, so the few unsettling scenes are drowned out by I've-already-forgotten-what-happened-in-this.


Title: Happy End
Author: sukekoro
Published: 2012
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 200
Total Page Count: 416,505
Text Number: 1572
Read Because: more sorting manga by tag
Review: DNF on account of an incomplete translation. I'm curious what I would have made of the apparently-controversial downer ending, because I like the mundane, compromise-laden elements of this; they're compelling and nuanced, and well-complemented by the round, unpretty art. But the tropey elements are even more unwelcome for the comparison, especially the pseudo-love-interest/agitator, who is not the least necessary. So maybe the ending is also bad, and certainly I'm not broken-hearted that I won't find out.


Title: Appetite
Author: Lero
Published: 2015-17
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: (I did just the roughest approximation but let's call this...) 4000
Total Page Count: 450,825
Text Number: 1574
Read Because: more sorting manga etc by tag
Review: A bullied teen finds protection from a strange classmate, on one condition: in two years, she'll eat him. It's a great setup and there are scenes that lead hard into the "no one can kill you except me" and "sacrificing myself for/to my beloved is the ideal outlet for my suicidality." But the worldbuilding and action both escalate rapidly, and I just don't care about them or the extended cast. Like most manga-esque works, this would be so much better if it were more restrained. Is it still worth reading for the central dynamic? ehhh, not really; but if someone wanted to bind the best bits into a chapbook, I would be here for it.

Look, this one GoodReads list has done right by me.

Title: Cut
Author: Touko Kawai
Published: Digital Manga Publishing, 2003
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 200
Total Page Count: 378,195
Text Number: 1405
Read Because: from this list of dark BL
Review: Two teenage boys catch each other behaving badly, pulling them into one another's self-sabotage. The art is nothing special; the drama of the traumatic backstories and the timing of the climax & resolution are all standard for the BL genre, and as a result tend towards silly and predictable. But the experience itself, of living with trauma and self-loathing, of building relationships despite/within that, is more organic and satisfying. This is nothing amazing, but as dark-BL-lite it's totally adequate.


Title: Sakura-Gari
Author: Yuu Watase
Published: 2007-2010
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 715 (235+232+246)
Total Page Count: 378,940
Text Number: 1407
Read Because: from this list of dark BL
Review: Review of the series entire. I read a fair bit of Watase's shojo work as a teen and liked it fine, but don't remember much now & have no strong inclination to go back. I had no idea she's written dark BL with a historical setting: In 1920 Japan, a poor student studying for university takes on work at the home of a scandalous mixed-race aristocrat who blackmails him into a relationship. As per my usual grumpy old age of manga reading, I wish the dramatic reveals were toned down by like 10%. But I'm surprised how well this works. Its deeply rooted in its setting and feels fully lived, despite the contrivances of the drama: ambiguous, messy, cruel, but honest—the characters are informed by their histories and altered by their relationship and I buy the ending, which may be the truest sign of success in a narrative of this heightened tenor. A swift and compelling read.


Title: Color Recipe
Author: Harada
Published: Kadokawa Shoten, 2016 (Vol 1), Shinshokan, 2018 (Vol 2)
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 430 (182+250)
Total Page Count: 381,755+260
Text Number: 1436-7
Read Because: reading the author, who I assume I originally found through this list of dark BL
Review: Harada's oneshots are some of the best I've ever read, dense and intense and fully utilizing their length. So a longer work feels unfairly attenuated and unfocused, despite that two volumes is still pretty short. But this remains deep within Harada's wheelhouse of psychological dark BL, and I appreciate that a longer work allows for a) a slower reveal of the coercion and manipulation occurring in the relationship and b) more room for the victim to evolve, which becomes an exploration of how and why people remain in abusive relationships. Unfortunately, longform also makes for c) more substantial depictions of problematic tropes like the depraved homosexual; it feels more tropey, more exaggerated, more like the rest of the genre. This isn't as breathtaking as drowning in those phenomenal oneshots, but it's a treat to linger longer in Harada's mind.

Title: Domu
Author: Katsuhiro Otomo
Translator: Dana Lewis, Toren Smith
Published: Dark Horse, 2001 (1982)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 240
Total Page Count: 377,125
Text Number: 1397
Read Because: reread, from my personal library
Review: In a giant apartment complex, the immemorable masses are caught in a battle between two psychics. The architecture is fantastic, and the contrast between that structured repetition and the improbable chaos of destruction is undeniably successful; the sheer scale of the climax and the small echoes of it in the resolution give this a successful structure. But it's not especially memorable—particularly the cast. Akira is better because it's an epic with more room for development, sure, but also because Otomo's style—his themes but also his art, especially his faces—are greatly enlivened by the addition of something sexy like, for example, body horror, motorcycles, or homoerotic subtext.


Title: Ghost Hunt vol 1-3
Author: Shiho Inada (based on the light novel series by Fuyumi Ono)
Published: Del Rey, 1998-1999 (2005-2006)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 450 (224+208+20 of 195)
Total Page Count: 377,995
Text Number: 1402-4
Read Because: found on multiple horror manga lists, paperbacks borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Review of the series "entire"; DNF during volume 3 of 12. Ghost Hunt's premise could describe any number of serial paranormal mysteries: a motley group investigates hauntings which aren't quite what they seem but nonetheless have a genuine paranormal element; the protagonist is an outsider, but her key role in solving cases indicates she may have latent paranormal abilities; oh, and she's in a developing relationship with the complicated team lead. So whether it's good comes down to: 1) What's the serial paranormal mystery element like? This one is cozy, not too scary, with a standard structure but an interesting Japanese framework. The overarching plot seems thin or absent. 2) How are the interpersonal elements? I enjoy the unlikely bedfellows vibe, lesser cousin of the found family; but the supporting characters are over the top and the central relationship fails to grab me. So this isn't for me, but I get how it could work—maybe a good bet for a cozy & comfortingly predictable paranormal mystery.

Title: Vassalord
Author: Nanae Chrono
Published: Tokyopop, 2008-2010 (2006-2013)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 1310 (192+192+192+176+174+180+204)
Total Page Count: 360,475
Text Number: 1304-1310
Read Because: reading more trashy BL/BL-adjacent manga, paperbacks borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: It feels insincere to pick up a series about a cyborg-vampire and his troubled relationship with his "master," maker, and only food source and then turn around and call it very anime, but—this is! The style is excessive, the action is uninteresting and sometimes illegible, the humor doesn't always land, the intimacy fake-outs are tropey, and there's a lot of intentional doubling which is nonetheless ridiculous—the mess of Rayflo/Rayfell/Chris called Charley called Cherry/Cheryl/Berry is fun to say but points to flaws in the art, namely that the mangaka struggles with female bodies and Rayflo & Rayfell are weaker for it.

But it grew on me, in part because that excess is the point of a vampire manga, but also because there's surprising consistency in the central relationship—a consistency done disservice by the fake-outs and maybe even by the series's place as "mainstream"/nonexplicit/not BL. The feedings and sexual fake-outs as are framed as subtext, substitutions, or even baiting for a "real" relationship, but then the plot plays it all straight within the relationship's development: this is the intimacy that exists in this point in an evolving and complicated romantic relationship. It's fascinating in retrospect and makes for fun feeding scenes which go hog-wild with the sexual subtext but also feel like a convincing nonhuman intimacy. Come for the OTT gay vampire shenanigans; breeze through a plot that does interesting things with character backstories but uninteresting things with the central action; stay because the interpersonal mess of gay vampire shenanigans is pretty good actually, within the bounds of trashy manga.



Title: Loveless (1-13)
Author: Yun Kouga
Translator: Ray Yoshimoto
Published: TokyoPop 2006-2018 (2002-2018)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 2440 (200+200+200+190+192+200+200+194+176+176+176+176+160)
Total Page Count: 366,925
Text Number: 1329-1341
Read Because: recommended by Rosamund, paperbacks borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Review of volumes 1-13. I toss around the descriptor "id fic" a lot because it's a style I seek out, but almost nothing is as id as this: after his brother's mysterious violent death, a 12 year old boy with cat ears that denote his virginity-aka-youth inherits a college student who professes who love and serve him in magical battles where words become spells and injury is signified by BDSM gear. It's profoundly "problematic," in ways which aren't meant to be examined but function instead as romantic fantasy, and in (often overlapping) ways which confront subjects like child abuse, age and power differentials, virginity and intimacy, and consent. The art is a flowing shojo style, the covers are fluffy pastel dreams, and everyone and thing is—rather, appears to be—beautiful.

It's far from flawless. The episodic structure grows repetitive and introduces a mixed bag of supporting characters; I love most of them, they enrich the worldbuilding, but it makes for a cluttered cast. I'd prefer a tighter focus ... and a plot which were actually finished by now, because I doubt this ever will be. But it works on premise alone, which is to say that it's about what it means to be (or not be) a bonded fighting pair, exchanging power, ability, and consent; plot developments make for a much richer and more complex examination, but it doesn't require resolution to be satisfying. I came to this experience expecting something tropey, fanbaity, even cringy; it is! but it does good by those elements, fully indulging them but then rendering them well-characterized, provoking, and nuanced.


Title: Endless World
Author: Dokuro Jaryuu
Published: Marble Comics, 2008
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 205
Total Page Count: 372,175
Text Number: 1368
Read Because: on this list of dark-themed BL
Review: I love how a posthumous narrative—two people connecting in the shadow of someone they knew and loved—allows for the depiction of complex, contradictory, deeply fucked up relationships and behavior without a narrative structure than condones it; it engages and progresses its genre conventions. I wouldn't call it subtle: it's intense and dark and dirty, a stylized and heightened experience; but nuanced, too, and packing a lot into a one-shot.

Title: A Deadly Education
Author: Naomi Novik
Published: Del Rey, 2020
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 335
Total Page Count: 353,530
Text Number: 1277
Read Because: fan of the author/reviewed by Rosamund, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A wizard with an unwanted aptitude for destructive magic in her second year at a deadly magical school finds things ever more complicated by the hero who keeps saving her—and everyone else. All these elements are strong: the proto-antagonist PoV is edgy without being tiresome, funny but balanced by realistic character flaws; the "hero as a supporting character, and also he's dumb" trope is great fun in the context of magical schools and the looming shadow of Harry Potter, and reminds me of Brennan's In Other Lands; the school is surprisingly fascinating—dangerous but often in realistically tedious ways, with a unique magic system, and delivered through a whole host of infodumping which is somehow satisfying rather than immersion-breaking, a trick Novik also pulls off in the Temeraire books and which I adore. The actual action of the plot is less interesting than immersion in the world, and the attempt to build character development and a satisfying ending in a book about how the world has innate problems that society makes worse can't but feel a little too easy, a little hollow. But these are nitpicks; I enjoyed the hell out of this & look forward to more.


Title: Girls' Last Tour
Author: Tsukumizu
Published: Yen Press, 2017-2019 (2014-2018)
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 960 (160+160+160+160+160+160)
Total Page Count: 354,860
Text Number: 1279-1284
Read Because: mentioned in comparison to the manga Blame!, paperbacks borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Review of the series entire. Two girls traverse the empty, decaying superstructure that was once home to humanity. I wanted to like this, and the post-apocalyptic take on the iyashikei genre has the right elements: lonely, intimate, soft, sparse; a comforting and gentle sadness. But I never grew to like Yuuri, which is a pretty substantial hang-up in a cast of two, and the pacing of the chapters—consider a philosophical issue, encounter a thematically-relevant landmark, obtain an limited and bittersweet understanding the issue, repeat—doesn't allow for organic depth. The later, longer arcs are more successful, but I never found myself invested in the world or lost in the atmosphere.


Title: The Black God's Drums
Author: P. Djèlí Clark
Published: Tor, 2018
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 110
Total Page Count: 354,970
Text Number: 1285
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: I'm glad I read this is audio, because it's all about lively voice and a living, vibrant setting—alt-history/steampunk/magical New Orleans reminiscent of the best intentions of Shawl's Everfair. (That said, the first person narration makes for particularly obvious infodumps.) But what plot slips in through the worldbuilding is slim. The protagonist's ride-along god got me to pick this up, and it gets a lot of page time, but it lacks those elements (tension, pseudo-internal conflict, an intimate relationship with inconceivable power, resulting character/relationship arcs) which draw me to the concept; as promising as it is, it just ends up feeling like a superpower. All the complexity is in the world; the rest is more action than depth.