June Stuff

June was a blur, I haven't really been checking shit out. That makes it easier to tackle and finaly pop one of these suckers out tho. Unmarked Spoilers becuase I simply cannot be fucked to rot13 right now.

Blade (1998)

Is Blade cool in the same way Shadow the Hedgehog is cool? Is Blade (1998) cool in the same way The Matrix (1999) is coo- Wait I'm sorry, does the first Blade film predate the first Matrix? This kind of like black leather late 90s attitude is honestly a mystery to me. I'm more familiar with the tail end of it, or I guess like the filtering down of adults who thought it was cool making stuff for kids (Shadow, dozens of parodies in cartoons.) Seeing it for what feels like the first time is kind of like comfortingly familiar. I've been here, Deja vu.

It's all great fun, though. It kinda drags when its not a blood rave or a underground vampire bunker or underground vampire bunker with blood. I don't really think I'll watch ano- I'm sorry is Blade II directed by Gillermo del Toro?

Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction

I carried this one with me for a long time. I carried Solanin, too. I still do I think. I often dwell on it, sitting with the fact that I was younger than, as old as, now older than, Meiko and Taneda, always uncertain, always caught out by life.

(Mm, that feels way too navel gazey, too damn lofty for "just being alive, y'know" but I think thats kind of Inio Asano as far as I've read.)

Anyway, finishing it was weird. I liked to say I couldn't bring myself to finish it becuase of the times, the covids, how hard it hits, the fact that it never stops feeling realler despite having started so long ago (2017.) Deadass? I think I just wasn't that excited for the direction it was taking when I fell off. And coming back to it, yeah, didn't really dig that stuff, or its final swing at it. When its just about Kadode and Ontan and Makoto and Futaba and so many others just getting by, it still works and still hits. I think I just get kind of lost in the time travel/ alternate universe stuff - makes me feel like I'm leaving them behind, even if its how they get a happy ending.

It feels a little limp, a bit slippery. I can't really get a hold of enough of it to feel a way about it other than "eh." It's slipped through my hands while I was holding it - there's still stuff thats stuck, and that's what I'll keep with me. Those tiny, insignificant days of "just being alive y'know" always find a way to catch.

Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX

I liked it?

Rail Tie Machine I saw on the way to get a haircut

So on the way to the little shopping mall next the the bigass walmart theres a one lane bridge, down xxxxxxxxxx dr. There's a few of these around here, and most of them you can stare down the barrel, and see cars that are coming through, so you know to wait or gun it. This one is like, on the hump of a curve, the like, crest of a sideways U. And there's juuust enough foliage so that waiting on other cars is a game of checking the bridge and peaking through the tree line like a nosy neighbor. It's really annoying, and lightly stressful.

Anyway, further down the path there's a train track without any crossing gates, just like a yeild sign and a prayer. And on it, just plugging along was some kind of big 'ol machine doing something with the rail ties. It was sick. It's not quite whats feature in this video, there was a crew outside it helping the process along, so maybe it was jsut the marking process or something. It was really striking though, s/o big industrial shit.

Okay, fine, Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX

There's like 3 distinct shows in these 12 episodes, and for my money 2 of them rip shit. There's a really cool world - the Clan Battles and the struggle of the refugees and outsiders in a Zabi-controlled Zeon, all of the fun swings of an AU that looked like it was playing with all the right toys. At its best it can feel a little like a tomino show, lots of reading between the lines and things happening off screen. Incredible designs (did not think I'd be down for the emaciated gundam but here I am) and some extremely best-in-class cg fights?

Then there's the 3rd show, the show that really wants to talk about Gundam. the show that wants to reaaaalllyy take the metaphors and themes and make them as litteral as possible in the show. A show with a, no joke, cartoonish giant specter of The God Damn Gundam as the final boss. Its silly, but also just really flat. Gundam has talked about Gundam better. Turn A, X, even 00 all hit these notes better.

And its that 3rd show that it swings into in its final, what the show most wants to talk about and end on. It's a show of crumbs, these great fucking morsels of ideas and the the good gay shit, and suddenly you get this bowl full of mid. And you're like "I mean, I guess? Are you sure I can't get more fucked Kycillia age-gap yuri? Can you ask the chef? I'll settle for a little more Char and Hot!Chalia Bull, thanks." It sucked the air out of the room a bit, meals over ealier than I thought.

to a T

He really did make a normal one, tbh. It's still deeply intereasted in fun and joy for the sake of it, but I think having an little openworld town to explore, and siloing things into little minigame game shops and perfectly bite sized episodes grounds it to like modern video game verbs. Not to say that Katamari isn't also deeply video gamey, but like... the shape of it funneled me through quickly, and there wasn't much to keep me playing - both in playing the game, and that simply joyous play for the sake of it. It comes and goes, and doesn't overstay, but i think I wanted a bit more.

I am curious how much to a T is like, a Shenmue or a My Summer Vacation. The slower slice of life sort of adventure.

Hey, is Shenmue a Cozy game? (Greatest Thread in the History of Forums, Locked by a Moderator After 12,239 Pages of Heated Debate)