January Updates

Hi everyone!

Happy February! January felt very long and cold this year and I was definitely ready to see the back of it. It was a good month though, I found out my contract at my current job is being extended for another year, had a few interviews (before I got the news, though I’m still looking around for other interesting stuff), did some fun stuff and realised I love dumplings way too late.

In terms of video stuff, I finished re-reading Umineko!!!!! The day is finally here. It’s now just a case of making my way through some other bits before I actually begin writing the first video. I’m almost done with bonus stories (see below) and will then move onto the manga (picking up from Episode 3, I’ve already read 1 and 2). I’m especially excited for Confession of the Golden Witch now I’ve finished my re-read, which I’ve also never read! But I’ll be waiting until I get to it.

When it comes to other media, I started the year off binging Squid Game 2. I was looking forward to it and did enjoy it but feel like the writing of the first series was better (and already not perfect). It felt like there was a lot of convenient writing and that the characters were generally written to be less intelligent to allow for the story to play out. And while I think there were some great performances, the female characters feel quite consistently one-note in a very dull and sexist way and this really contrasts with the roles the male characters get to play. It was hard for there to be the same sense of suspense with this series also focusing on the games and this took weight from any twists (and some were literally rehashed). I could probably go on and be even more negative but in spite of all this, I did thoroughly enjoy my time with Squid Game 2 as a solid piece of entertainment, even if I had to somewhat switch my brain off. I think the series is a victim of its own success and any genuine resonance the first series achieved was kind of undercut by the chasing in on this (the gameshow???), but I understand that, ironically, the creator needs money. It’s a weird one. I’m still looking forward to finishing the series off later in the year. One positive is that it’s always great to see more people opening up to watching series in other languages.

Next, I listened to the short podcast We Were Three, continuing my Serial Productions binge. This was one of the better non-Serial offerings, and simply tells the story of a woman whose brother and father both lost their lives to the Covid epidemic. The series explores conspiracy theory, but moreso family, grief and trauma in a really elegant and impactful way that I expect most people would enjoy regardless of whether it sounds like your sort of thing.

I then listened to The Coldest Case in Laramie, a longer Serial Productions series about, well, a cold case originating in Laramie, Wyoming – specifically, the murder of a young woman in 1985. I found this one a little underwhelming if I’m honest, and I’ve seen a lot better from the “true crime” genre (if also a lot worse). The conclusions it draws about mishandled police investigations, memory and assumption don’t bring anything particularly novel or interesting to the discussion and I feel like the series struggled to find and make its point, though I was engaged by it.

I finally finished everything Serial Productions has released to date (lots of time at the gym this month lol) with The Kids of Rutherford County, a short-ish series about children in Tennessee being wrongly arrested for being involved or in the vicinity of a typical schoolground fight. You get the impression that this is the legal battle the series is going to follow, but it immediately pulls out to cover how widespread this practice is in the county, where thousands of children (some as young as 7) were being arrested and held in a correctional facility and suffering inhumane conditions if not torture for extended periods, as well as the lawyers trying to do something about it. The series doesn’t overstay its welcome, and it feels like it ends quite appropriately without any sweeping, triumphant conclusion (though there is a triumph), because the issue is, needless to stay, much bigger than Rutherford county, and far from resolved when the story ends. This was quite unique and refreshing – the decision not to go with the kind of contrived happy ending non-fiction media sometimes awkwardly forces despite the fact that life doesn’t always work like this. I wouldn’t necessarily actively recommend it, but it’s a decent listen.

Lastly, I finally read Umineko Tsubasa and Hane! It feels insane that I’d never actually done this before now (besides dipping in where relevant to Higurashi videos). I have to say that I’d perhaps thought or hoped that there was a greater ratio of serious stories to silly ones, probably because it was the serious ones I’d always looked at in the past. These were great, and I think also highlighted how effective Ryukishi can be at delivering a message even in sometimes quite extreme shortform. My favourites were probably Memoirs of the Lambdadelta and The Witches’ Tanabata Isn’t Sweet. Otherwise the silly stories were mostly fun but nothing mind-blowing, though I appreciate that we don’t get a ton of this in the main story so it’s nice to have. I’m now onto the bonus content from Saku, so more on that nexgt month.

I've also found a few good channels this month:

• kotono grace makes beautiful little vlogs and other similar videos about her life in Japan which I can't recommend enough

• gnosis makes videos primarily about JRPGs

• wisp talks about genre in K-pop

• dobochobo is a channel I've watched forever, but I've particularly enjoyed her recent, very calming vlogs

Overall a good start to the year!

Looking forward to bringing more updates soon :)