2/26/23-3/4/23

 JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Battle Tendency

I still continued on with his show despite everything. I’m done, I think. Once again, I remember liking the manga well enough, but the anime just doesn’t hit for whatever reason. Oh well, time to bail.

AI: The Somnium Files – nirvanA Initiative

I’ve been a fan of Kotaro Uchikoshi since the first Zero Escape game, and I found the previous game in this series to be quite good, if somewhat lacking in weird pseudoscientific stuff.

If you’ve played the previous Somnium Files game, you’ll already be familiar with the gameplay here: investigate a crime scenes until you have to dive into someone’s psyche, all of it broken up by a decent visual novel. Mechanically speaking there’s not too much that’s different that I noticed. Wandering around a somnium is still pretty fun, and this time around it felt like the environmental puzzles were a little more straightforward than they were in the previous game. You might have to do a few things to get to an alternate endpoint in a somnium in the previous game, but in this one, there’s a big binary decision that divides the timeline. It’s not the worst thing, but it is a little disappointing that it isn’t as involved as it could’ve been.

There are some fun additions to game, in particular the “wink psync” and “virtual investigations,” but they’re pretty contextual, so it’s hard to appreciate it as entirely “new.” Something I did appreciate was being able to hold down the right trigger to skip through any of the low points of the games. This is especially appreciated as I’ve taken to abusing a similar feature built into a PSP emulator when streaming Phantasy Star Portable on twitch (find it yourself if you’re so interested).

Look, maybe it’s just because I have a cold black heart and have come to the point in my life where I’m somewhat comfortable with saying that I hate fun, but I could do without 100% of the musical numbers. In the previous game it made a bit more sense, as one of the main characters was an internet idol and the big happy ending seemed to justify it, but here it feels excessive. I appreciate the fact they translated all the songs into English, but I am not sure it really has any impact on the story, beyond any thematically appropriate lyrics.

Honestly, by the end the one thing I was skipping more than anything else were the quicktime event action sequences. There weren’t a ton in the previous game, but this game is rotten with them. I never looked forward to these moments, and by the end of the game, I was skipping through almost the entirety of the climax. Just give me a fucking cutscene, I beg you.

That being said, these things are never enough to ruin my time with the game, I still mainlined it in about a day or two. The story is engaging and there’s a whole lot more on the line than there was in the previous game. It’s also nice to have to new protagonists to play through. Sure, anyone who played the last game has some knowledge of who Mizuki and Aiba are from the previous game, but Ryuki and Tama are interesting new characters with Ryuki in particular introducing some genuinely creepy moments in the game. There’s also a nice little twist in the middle of the game that reframes things in a way that is both way too cheap, and honestly pretty clever. You might be able to figure it out before it happens, but I doubt it. Also, this game has a great secret ending (these type of games usually do), that I was really blown away by.

High marks on this one. I'm looking forward to seeing what the next game brings, even if it's not another Somnium Files game.

Last Look by Charles Burns

Any man who is trying to be Tintin can’t be trusted. I’ve always said that.

Last Look initially presents itself as a the story of a Tintin-looking motherfucker with a head injury named Johnny who wakes up in a strange world filled with strange people and creatures, trying to survive in this strange new world and finding himself drawn to The Hive in the center of the city that houses a human-looking woman who has been selected for breeding that Johnny has fallen in love with at first sight. But actually, this is the dream/delusion of Doug, who is drawn in the more traditional Charles Burns style and living in his parents basement, recovering from a serious head injury, and abusing painkillers after an incident that involves his girlfriend that has made Doug retreat from the world as a whole. Early on, he even experiences what amounts to a nervous breakdown when someone rings the doorbell. As the story unfolds we learn more about Doug’s relationship, how he got to the point he did, and finally, the one big mistake that he made (in a series of mistakes). This is of course, in between more visits to the strange world that Johnny inhabits, often paralleling Doug’s story.

One of the things I appreciate about Charles Burns is, as with Black Hole, he succeeds in making characters feel like real people. Doug is absolutely pathetic, but I could never find myself hating him throughout the story. I understood who Doug was and while I didn’t always agree with his actions, I empathized with them in a way I might not have expected. Yes, he was a pretentious performance artist and it’s almost definitely for clout, but you can feel some genuine feeling behind it despite all that. Similarly, Sara, the former object of his affection shows many faces, being a person who is, more than anything else, complicated. A lesser cartoonist would’ve just showed her to be a crazy bitch that’s manipulating Doug for her own means, but it never comes off that way. She has real reasons to be love Doug and even more to be disappointed by him, and she’s not wrong for any one of those. Even Johnny, who’s main emotion is “confused bewilderment,” has a bit more going on under the surface.

At points, it feels like you could tell the story without Ol’ Johnny Tintin, but it wouldn’t work nearly as well. Johnny is Doug’s creation and Doug literally wearing Johhny’s face while doing his performance art poetry. Johnny is the distillation of how Doug sees himself. Johnny wanders around the world in a confused daze, seemingly never really knowing what to do or where to go, and the same can be said of Doug. He sees his salvation in a woman he falls in love with at first sight, but often finds his adventures cut off by the harsh realities of the world, especially in regards to the relationship to Doug’s father. However, even Doug knows Johnny can’t get away clean, sharing the same guilt that he does. Johnny isn’t afforded the same closure that Doug receives, but Burns makes it clear that closure isn’t the same as absolution.

I highly recommend this. It contains Charles Burns’s usually gorgeous artwork, now in full color, along with some nice ligne-claire meets Naked Lunch visual detours.

 

Salt & Copper by Aphty Khéa

Rampokan by Raja Kirk

This was weird and kind of funky, but I really liked it.

The Disorder of Appearances by Ginerva Nervi

Instrumental Relics by Clams Casino

Something about this felt off in a way I can’t really put a pin in.

Winter Flower Reimagined by Clams Casino and Jazztronik

Boring!

Little Floating Oracles by ATŌMI

Rimorso by Mai Mai Mai

Trilogie de la Morte by liane Radigue

I appreciate the experimental work on display here, but it is far too long and boring to recommend.

Yurican Soul by Monki

Spazio Segreto by Factory Sequences

Simpansi (Factory Sequences Noir Remix) by Factory Sequences

Fantasound by Ichisan

Pretty good!

Jiraya by SHEE

Pretty great. Of course, when you name something after one of the most iconic gay manga artists of all time (I assume that was the thinking behind this), you can’t not make something great, right?

Love and Dancing by Horse Meat Disco

Pretty good. You wouldn’t expect British people to be capable of having souls, and yet, here we are. Actually sounds a lot like a disco album.

Where’s the Party At? by Dance System

Last Chance to Dance by Ekkah

Like Water by DJ BORING

Liked this a lot.

Alientronic by Ellen Allien

Wonderful techno.

I Have a Question by Various Artists

One World One Future by Armando

Equation by Palms Trax

Havel by FJAAK