March Updates

Hi everyone!

I hope the weather's as beautiful where you are as it is in London! March was a good month, including for Umineko progress. I read episode 5, 6 and began 7 of the manga. We're in the home stretch! 7 and 8 are big undertakings but as soon as they're done, writing begins. I'm particularly excited to get to Confession of the Golden Witch for the first time ever. Nothing much more than that to say, but beginning work on the actual videos feels close enough to touch now. I'll be doing my best to make good progress in April.

Otherwise, in March I saw Metropolis for the first time at a showing at the wonderful Prince Charles Cinema with a friend. It's a 2001 Madhouse adaptation of the 1949 Osamu Tezuka manga wherein robots and humans coexist which I admittedly would probably never have seen if not for my friend inviting me, but which I really enjoyed, particularly for its themes, worldbuilding and artistic flair. It's just a solid story with solid staff behind the adaptation. I'm really enjoying catching up on my classic anime in recent years.

I went back to the Prince Charles to see Before Sunset, the second film in the Richard Linklater trilogy. I wasn't actually in love with the first film when I first watched it a few years ago but did want to see the trilogy through and actually enjoyed this entry a lot more. In the first film, Celine and Jesse meet on a train and spontaneously spend a day and night together in Vienna. In Before Sunset, they cross paths again ten years later --with the film literally being made a decade from the first. The third entry in the trilogy does the same again. I think perhaps because the characters felt a little closer to where I am in life both literally and emotionally in the second film, this helped it to click as well as recontextualise the first for me. It's even more apparent here how idealistic Jesse and Celine's first encounter is, even to their current selves -- Before Sunset is about what happens when you dare to dig past the surface of a connection and expose its less perfect, more real form. The film somehow has moments of both crushing realism and dreamy romanticism, showing life isn't just one or the other. Helps that it reminded me of Past Lives (or vice versa). Such a joy to watch this in a cinema on a sunny weekend day.

Finally, I watched Adolescence, the new Netflix crime drama everyone's talking about (at least in the UK). Adolescence is a four-part series about a teenage boy who is accused of murdering his female classmate. I'm thinking of writing something a bit longer on it so will save my thoughts but to say that they were mixed. If you do decide to watch it, be warned that it really is heavy, even if you think you're prepared.

Finally, I tend to recommend YouTube channels rather than videos as I tend to either like everything certain creators make and don't want to be sharing the same people every month, but I do need to shout out Jacob Geller's Fear of Dark video as it's probably my new favourite video essay (dethroning... another Jacob Geller video lol). Jacob is a master.

Also been really enjoying ProZD's list videos!

That's all for this month!