Stuff 5 - It's December (and also January) and I'm Tired - Updated 01/19/2026

Noteworthy, but like not noteworthy enough for a lot of words, but still really cool I think:

The Drifting Classroom (Umezu)

You ever read a classic so baffling it boarders on captivating before wrapping back around to just kinda silly? That's Drifting Classroom. You can really see the crosssection of absurd and scary that junji ito really makes into his thing - There's seemingly no idea not worth exploring here, Umezu finds a way to make these kids scream at it.

All The Horses of Iceland

Horse Manga Fall gives way to Horse Book Winter. A beautiful fable, weaved together from fact and fiction. The particular frankness of magic and ritual - its there, ethereal, yet material - is so captivating? to me. Magic is real in this story, but it doesn't have the concrete realness of Lore or World Building. Yeah man, you wanna fix your sperm? eat a raw testicle, easy. Yeah, of course this Mongolian chief's dead wife is your ghost horse now, duh. fucking no shit, boss. Also you see a tölt gait before? thats weird. Horses are weird.

Superman The Animated Series

STAS (do people call it that) is palpably different that BTAS (this sucks actually acronyms are awful.) Superman's arrival creates the DCAU (I hate this send help,) as though the world expands to accompany his presence. The threats are bigger, and just accepted, as are the fact the heroes are simply around. Doctor Fate existed, meet Supes, and retired, all off screen. Time has Passed since Batman's adventures, which also simply existed in the world. It's a fun trick to pull that probably never was a trick - it just feels like that compared to the new world of Fandom and Lore and Shared Universes. Here in the 90s you could kinda just do that, because that's how superheroes and cartoons are.

Also I really want to shout out Shirley Walker and her team's scoring. While not quite as memorable as batman's suite of themes and motifs (I feel like I can't recognize if any villians have themes in the same way,) their work goes so far to cap off the identity of these shows - superman's heroic, sweeping, and adventures backing, or batman's more brooding, but triumphant themes.

Arknights (Hypergryph)

Welcome back, Tactical Nexus. And goodbye, once more.

Surprise GOTYs

Castlevania:Awakening in the Moonlight (Takarazuka Revue, Suzuki)

Rang in the new year right, babeeeyyyy.