January Updates

Hi everyone!

How was your start to the year? January felt very long to me. Work was expectedly difficult but there were also some unanticipated professional and personal hurdles. It was a very up and down month but there were lots of nice, calm moments too.

I didn't make as much progress as I'd've liked on the Japan video for the above reasons but it's coming along nonetheless. I finished the script -- both the first draft and all the editing, so that's all done -- and I've been doing some miscellaneous bits and pieces to prepare for production. I'd like to get the voiceover all done next week though I think it'll take a few sessions to record it all. It's always hard to tell but the script is eighteen pages so I think the video will be pushing an hour -- something nice and substantial for the wait. Here's a small preview of the script:

Otherwise, I'm going to go back to including media recaps in these posts on a monthly basis, so here's what else I've been enjoying:

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

A short novel set in 1980s rural Ireland around Christmas. A regular family man who makes his living delivering coal becomes suspicious about the happenings at the convent that overlooks the village.

Quite shamefully as my family are Irish, I hadn't heard of Magdalen Laundries until I read this book so it was an important education for me. It's always a pleasure to read books like this for the same reason and Keegan's prose is charming while also being appropriately stark and direct. Overall, though, the book didn't leave a huge impression. I then moved on to...

Antarctica by Claire Keegan

Keegan's debut collection of short stories. I've been more into short stories in recent years but I unfortunately didn't enjoy most of these. The collection is pervaded by this slightly unsettling tone. The stories follow fairly ordinary (if often somewhat unknowable and distant) characters and scenarios. Some of the stories are dark, others not, but none of them are particularly fun to read. The book mostly left me feeling kind of odd. Keegan's writing has received high praise that I unfortunately can't say I fully understand, but it was interesting to read these back-to-back.

The Forward Book of Poetry 2023

I've been getting more and more into reading and writing poetry again and finally finished this collection from last year - a summary of the Forward Poetry Prize, one of the UK's most known. It was a bit hit-or-miss for me but I did find a few poets I really liked and have picked up other books from. And finally...

Higurashi Meguri

Yeah, I finally caught up with and finished Meguri. I feel like the Gou/Sotsu video closed a few doors for me -- there are other bits and pieces of Higurashi analysis I had wanted to do (mainly just a Rena analysis), but I'm not sure I ever will now. It wasn't intended as such at the time, but it became a bit of a bookend to my Higurashi analysis era. I poured everything into it and I feel very out of practice now that so much time has passed since. All of this to say I have very little to say about Meguri. I don't think it's all on me, though -- for the record, I was really unhappy with Wataakashi Meguri ver. and stopped reading the manga after that, so my expectations were very low, but I found Tatariakashi, Nekoakashi and Akarigurashi wholly underwhelming. I have a lot of the same criticisms as I did for the anime -- it felt like things were resolved very quickly for all the build-up, Satoko becomes a one-dimensional caricature etc. It ultimately felt like a very similar ending but without any of what made Gou and Sotsu entertaining and ambitious, if nothing else. I'm extremely confused by how everything Satokowashi built up was reduced to this, and really struggle to see the point of it all. I'd need to go back and read it all again to develop some more coherent thoughts but have no desire to do so. It's an unfortunate (kind of) end to undoubtedly the strangest chapter in Higurashi's history. I'm similarly waiting for Reiwa and Oni to finish before catching up with them.

Otherwise, some YouTube channels I've been enjoying are Cel-Shaded Music Theory (amazing breakdowns of anime scores amongst other things) and tapiocapress (a vlogger in China portraying life post-exiting the rat race).

That's all for now. Speak soon!