Chapel Orahamm's Blog, page 31

Anime Cinema Friday: Moriarty the Patriot

This. It’s beautiful.

The premise of it. The execution. The art team and the music director. The pacing. It does it all well. I would not call it revolutionary art in the way I would refer to say Violet Evergarden, but this reaches into all of those dark and psych-horror vibes that I love to revel in.

Hence, the pacing is ever so slightly slow to some viewers and may not fit many individuals’ tastes, as a disclaimer. There is blood, gore, violence, murder, and other dark topics considered.

The concept of presenting Professor Moriarty’s side of the story does not feel like it should be a novel concept. I have not gone out of my way prior to seeing this anime in finding other tales of Moriarty’s side though. I will admit that.

In a way, it is a telling similar in nature to Robin Hood. A person of charismatic persuasion capable of providing methods by which to upheave society. A great equalizer so to speak. To the nobles, Robin Hood was an outlaw, a boogey man, someone terrifying. To the common people, Robin Hood was a savior.

In that same vain, Sherlock Holmes is a savior to Scotland Yard and quite often rich clientel, though he was known to meddle with poverty crimes, while Moriarty was the villain to the nobility and a savior to the common people explicitly. Yet, both Sherlock and Moriarty flitted within the social circles of both noble and common, taking advantage of what suited them in the moment, while the common people did not have that advantage. Is it wrong to cast a hero in this instance then from the stock of people who have the ability to control the country so easily? Is it admitting that it would take someone from the high class to bring the high class to heel? Is it a dismissal?

Moriarty, in this instance, in the anime, is shown at the beginning of the story to have mysteriously appeared at an orphanage school while still a child. This creates the sense in the viewer that he does in fact come from the common class and there by fully represents the common class. While this is set up to show Moriarty’s common background, for most viewers and readers who are familiarity with Sherlock’s background, Sherlock does come from a well rounded noble-family background and is considered a black sheep within the family for his peculiarities and obsessions. Someone shunned.

Moriarty’s peculiarities and obsessions, however, benefit the common people. The difference between a hobbiest and a professional perhaps? One can afford to meddle, the other makes their lively hood dependent upon it. Both a hobbiest and a professional can have the same level of skills and be sought after by society, and yet there is a difference of place, in a sense. Maybe this is part of the dig into Sherlock being an assistant to the police while Moriarty is a professor.

Often, when we discuss MCs or Main Characters, they are cast as the hero of a story. Frequently, Sherlock is cast as the monotone or compassionless-and-yet-entirely-forgivable-for-his-useful-hyperfixation hero when it comes to this particular story line. A person has been murdered, or an object stolen, and he goes about finding out who did it by subtle, small clues that evade the average reader and watcher.

Here though, the MC is Moriarty, who is predominantly a villain in all the stories. Within this context, he could potentially be referred to as an anti-hero. Maybe in the same way as Deadpool is an anti-hero. When justice fails the system. When the law fails the system. When the system has been corrupted beyond a reasonable repairable means. Moriarty steps in.

In watching the transgressions across the screen, it is interesting how you wish to detach yourself from viewing and try to see the actions of the various characters as evil, because of the precedence that Sherlock is supposed to be a ‘good guy’ and in general, murder is bad. Yet, the stories elicit sympathy, empathy for the poor class’s strife and the small stories that amount to a larger view on the hierarchical structure of Industrial Revolution period Britain as a whole. A cataloguing of sins.

This is one of those twists. Something I cover in Subject15 and Subgalaxia, where the philosophy of justice and the execution of a moral justice comes into play. At what point are the actions of the victims ‘wrong’? This one takes it to the extreme, often ending with one noble or another being murdered in various untraceable ways at the hands of their victims. This provides that bit of ego stroke to both the sympathetic character and the viewer. The ability to go “this feels like proper justice.” Even, when in reality, for many stable people, we can hide behind our basic understandings of the law and how it is meant to be applied and our morals in regards to what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’. Murder, thievery, hostility, these are all wrong. The ever loved phrase “two wrongs do not make a right”.

I have to wonder, through this presentation, if the show is not so much saying “two wrongs do not make a right” but instead is say “two wrongs may make the situation equal”. At what point is equal right and equal wrong? At what point is equity, not equality, a variance of an “-ism light” rather than a true benefit to all parties? As I said. The Great Equalizier. Seeking out the balancing of the scales. If Lady Justice is meant to be blind, why does a person’s class, race, sexuality, traditions, religion, allow a tipping of the balance? Why do some rise and some fall? Why do those who rise, often times profit from the backs of those who fall. Why do some who rise escape impunity, why the balance tips so heavily in favor of casting those who fall as worse for already being so low?

This anime, like quite a lot of psych-horror, picks and pulls at those darker philosophical questions that people become uncomfortable confronting and yet so desperately desire a conversation if not a confrontation on.

This is no otome harem style or shojo anime, for the characters looking “beautiful”. This fits neatly into it’s category. It has been well addressed for the characteristics of the time period it is portraying. The loop holes have been cleanly cinched up. The pacing unfolds evenly.

Would I suggest it? If you like dark philosophy and have the stomach to handle various methods of murder, I would advise placing this one on the list.

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Mobile Game Review: Electronic Emotion

I really should stop running into genius games. They are just a recipe for disappointment at this point, but the advertisement graphics are so pretty and the reviews show that people do enjoy the story lines immensely.

I am, for lack of a better word, a cheap skate. If I can play something for free, I will play it until I can evaluate if I am willing to pay money to it or if it is going to disappoint after the first chapter.

Okay, so I’ve done a bit of their zombie game and their incubus game. Those were stylisitically okay in presentation format. I will still swear up and down that I prefer The Arcana over all of these still. This one being no acception.

This is a me issue, but I hate that I can’t choose my gender in genius games. They just all immediately assign the user as female. True, you can “name” yourself with a male/non-binary name, but pronoun usage in conversation is still she. Arcana did an awesome job switching pronoun usage if you switched your preferred pronoun in the settings. Having that as my first exposure to the otome gaming system probably was actually not advisable, because now all the rest of the dating sim games kind of are ticking me off that I don’t get that option.

Again, not necessarily the fault of the company, just a preference thing right now.

Back on top with the review for this one. Standard rules apply, recharge rates are terrible with gaining enough points to continue playing the game without forking over a ton of money for premium interactions.

Structure wise, I couldn’t get into this one though. It was more sketchy then the others. The three “love interests” are some type of an AI system, which, yeah, sure, that’s fine, could be interesting. The female MC doesn’t get the full explanation before being told by her boss that she needs to pack her bag and head to a random location late in an evening so she can start on a long haul project for work. Red flag. Red flag. Red flag. All the red flags that most women are taught to be really safety skeptical about. Anyways she does as she’s told for the sake of the storyline to end up at a house, not a research facility. She is invited in and is mobbed by a set of three men who DON’T understand boundaries. There’s a lot of grabbing. A lot of stopping her from leaving. A lot of dismissive behaviors. All of which are washed over as the story unfolds to explain that these men are more robot then real.

…I noped out of this one pretty darn hard after her second time telling them directly that she would be leaving, her getting up, and one of them grabbing her. That was just a big ball of nope for me.

Maybe there’s something in there for some readers where the idea of the “perfect” lover is wrapped into: “well, if they were a robot, I’d be able to program them to love me perfectly.” I can’t get past the blatant disregard for boundaries and consent. This is coercion by a boss who didn’t explain fully what was going on, there by breaking the trust of his employee, and putting her in a dangerous situation, at least at a mental level, all under the disguise of “love-bot”.

The other two were static in so far as – damsel in distress (aka zombies) and I accept you for who you are (aka I’ll give you my life force to keep you healthy incubus). This one…nope. Not for me.

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Lovestory Manga Wednesday: Koiiro Devil

Ehhhh. This one starts in a weird spot. Like, usually I won’t complain about opening on a lewd scene.

I am complaining now.

A. It makes the act feel trivial when it opens an entire story like this.

B. You find out a few pages later that the female MC in the scene is in flipping high school.

Again. I’ve said it before. I realize age of consent is different in Japan vs. America.

I’m grossed out though because this is pretty much reading underage mature content where I’m at. So, I bailed. Couldn’t get past the finding out her age. Big ball of nope.

Do not recommend.

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Video Game Review Tuesday: The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (Switch)

It’s cute. It’s really cute. And easily marketable for plush toys because everything is chibi rendered.

This one I watched Wren play. I got bored with it after an hour of play and turned it over to him so I could watch the story line. The reason for the boredom is just the early grinding aspect and the back and forth of opening up the map. Once Wren got into some dungeons, I could see where the puzzle aspect of the game could be intriguing to players.

When Wren got the whole map opened up, I figured the game was done, which I was a bit bitter about paying a stupid sum of money for a game that only took a few hours to work through. AND THEN the game made it so you could open up additional aspects and I had a complete moment.

I didn’t grow up on Link games, so apparently this is pretty normal territory for both Link games and for most dungeon games. It’s easier on the game designers and programmers to have a static map and put in unlockable elements. I felt a better about the game after that. Also, the difficulty rose with the puzzles and the baddies.

Is it Breath of the Wild? No. Not even close. Am I back to playing Stardew Valley today? Yes… Shush, I like the game and it has more to do in it. Do I wish Stardew Valley looked like Link’s Awakening for the Switch. Yes, please and thank you, where’s my copy, I will pay you, give it.

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Manga Cafe Monday: Spy x Family

This is a “do not binge” manga.

What I mean by that, is that the story is good, episodically. I loved the first five chapters immensely, but ended up rather dissatisfied by chapter thirty when the progression of the story wasn’t fast enough for my taste.

Think Mr. and Mrs. Smith with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie with a James Bond undertone set in a variation of the Eastern Block vs. Western Block cold war period. Tack in a kid and a dog, and hilariousness ensues.

The pacing on the gags and punchlines are good. I’m just not someone who can take too much of that all at once. So, maybe you’d be able to get through the thing all at once. I burned out around chapter twenty, but pushed for another ten, hoping for resolution on the primary objective.

Maybe I was irrirated that the child in it is dealing with feeling like she has these amazing abilities she really can’t utilize to the best of her ability. Nobody understands each other, which can also get under my skin after a while. I have a preference for truthful characters, even when they are evil monologers.

The art is just a little odd, not bad, just different from your standard manga studio. I think it makes it rather endearing for the subject matter. I like the clothing choices in this and the adherence to the late 50s-60s feel of the characters.

Suggest it?

Yes. I don’t think I have any qualms or qualifying cautions, unless you aren’t into blood. The woman in it is an assassin, so, she gets kind of stabby in some scenes. For the first 30 chapters I read, there isn’t anything risque or ‘mature’ in that style of mature that I talk about in my Love Story Manga Wednesday posts.

It’s a decent neutral story in my opinion. Nothing wrong with it that I could find, other than it didn’t keep my interest after a while. Hence, why I think this one is better read episodically, as it releases, rather than as one massive binge fest.

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Book Review: The Shield Road | Tomb

As a continuation from last week, let’s continue our review of The Shield Road by Dewi Hargreaves. This time, we’re looking at the second section of the book: Tomb.

This time, instead of Rensa and Theod, we turn to the traveling witch and her sought out tomb at the bottom of a lake.

This one is a flash fiction piece. Something short, enough to wet the appetite and launch you into the next story. It’s a context development situation. I want to know more of this particular story. Most of it was taken up with describing the space rather than getting to some action, and once it got to movement, we get a cliffhanger.

So, congrats. Here’s your cliffhanger. Come back next week for the next piece: The Thief.

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Anime Cinema Friday: Another

This will be my second time watching this anime. The first time was back when it was just being released. It was within that realm to me of Ghost Hound, Ghost Hunt, Erased, almost Tokyo Ghoul-esque but not quite. It fit nicely into what I considered horror anime back when I first watched it. Having put some more anime under my belt, I wanted to revisit this and see what my thoughts were on it now.

I found it over on VRV for this review.

Starting off, the graphics are cleanly rendered with minimal “stark” cgi. If Blender or one of the other 3d rendering softwares was used, it was cleanly blended into the rest of the animation. That said, it is an interesting thing to notice how much more grit in the detail is added when horror anime is introduced. Because most scenes are set in dark and shadowed atmospheres, there has to be more highlights, which ends up leading to more detail in both the character animation and the backgrounds.

Maybe that’s why it’s easier to pinpoint when you’ve stumbled into horror and grotesque anime. Gleipner also gives you this over saturated detail style. Maybe that helps contribute to a building sense of tension and unease within the story. You have to face the fact that the frame is cluttered and dense in its rendering, like how the human brain feels like it can take in too much information when in a scary situation.

Doesn’t help that jointed dolls are both beautiful and utterly creepy at the same time. There is that set up.

For a time, there was an excessive movement around the time this anime came out where “cute/shy” female characters would wear an eyepatch. Not in the pirate type of eyepatch, but a gauze medical eyepatch. It was popular within the medical-goth or pain-goth harujuku fashion. This one I never could quite understand. I understand the eyepatch usage in say Kuroshitsuji and Arifureta, but those look like standard eyepatches used by both regular optometrists and pirates. This gauze patch thing…I think it’s supposed to fit into the “creepy cute” aesthetic, but the aesthetic escapes me.

I took an Honors class in college on Music History. I never really learned music solidly. I had some basic concepts down, and had been taught how to play the mandolin and taught myself how to play guitar. Actually music history though had not been covered in my education up until college. Within the history, I got a taste of theory and my professor had a fondness for film industry usage of musical theory. So, we got to learn a bit more on the dissonance and minor scale usage within horror films as a method to create psychological tension on the view.

I mention that in an effort to note the quite minor chord usage and dissonance within the scoring of Another here to start creating the unsettled tension as the story opens. You get a solid feeling of unease, that something isn’t quite right, even if the graphics haven’t clued you into this already.

Style and music addressed, what about the structure? We’re introduced to characters in an ominous tone where they aren’t acting like normal people trying to be chipper and cheerful to the main character. One more box checked for something is very wrong here.

The scriptwriter sets up an air of dread and mystery along with frustration by having the classmates of the MC evade questions. The second episode opens on yellow roses which, when pertaining to death and funerals are given by friends to the deceased as a symbol of their close ties. As I said, watch the backgrounds carefully. They will clue you in to a lot.

This particular anime gets into both the psych-horror element and the grotesque-horror element, but it doesn’t overemphasize jump scares. It will use framing methods meant to give you a sense of forced perspective, something that cannot be avoided. In that way it drives home the point.

I rather enjoyed it went I first watched it, but the second time around is going better now that I have a firmer grasp on how Japanese school systems and their particular cultural concept of ghost story style rumors works. That’s probably why I was a bit lost the last time around. I remembered it being good then, I just didn’t get all the concepts for the way the story is structured and my utter frustration at the secondary characters lack of communication.

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Mobile Game Review: Kiss of Darkness

Alright, people let’s try this again from the top.

Not sure how far I’m going to be able to get on this one, but I at least gave it a shot. After reading a few more reviews, I approached this Genius game differently than Mall of the Dead. Genius is the production company, so it’s within that same otome formula. This time we’re dealing with homicide detectives and incubi. Honestly, Kiss of Darkness, I thought this was going to be a vampire game. People tend to forget about incubus as a different life force sucker.

So, the problem I had with Mall of the Dead was gaining rubies to run the story. I couldn’t seem to get points and they wanted points for so much premium content. This time around, I tried to avoid using points on the initial prompt. It’s not only rubies you have to deal with, but also tickets. Tickets are what get you chapters, rubies get you interactions. You have to deal with a 5 hour timer on gaining points. Last time around, I never got my points distributed, so I ditched the game pretty quickly in the first chapter. Using my new method, I’ve at least made it to chapter two without spending points, but I have had to use up my tickets.

I ended up down the Harry arc somehow. Not entirely sure, but it was proving to be an okay set up. Also, he didn’t looking like a beat cop or a Harujuku goth. Okay, he did look like a host club butler, but it is what it is.

There is an interesting obsession with giving fantasy characters red, orange, and purple eyes. One of those screaming: ‘hey look I’m different and mysterious and definitely not a part of your world’ situations.

Tropes. Hello tropes. I mean, what do you expect? It’s a dating-sim/rom-sim otome game. The whole thing is going to be packed with tropes. The eating off of the willing sacrifice bit. I’m one to talk. I put that trope into The Fire in My Blood, so I can’t judge to hard. It is an interesting one that gets brought up in fantasy a lot though. One of those, as long as the other person is nice, giving up a bit of blood is no big deal. I mean, people donate to the Red Cross and stuff all the time, and we can rebuild our blood supply, so for some people that concept probably isn’t problematic.

I ran out of tickets for chapters in the second chapter sadly. There appears to be a countdown timer that goes nowhere, and I’m not dropping coin on this game. At least this one doesn’t have the weird jerky-motion zombies like the last one.

If you have money to burn through, I guess you might enjoy the game. For those of us who aren’t loaded on a trust fund, this one is another of those frustrating types of games where there isn’t enough give built in to make me want to spend money on it, if that makes sense.

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Book Review: Not Quite Out | Louise Willingham

Alright. Finally picking up this piece. Way back in 2020 Louise reached out to me to see if I would beta read this book. I was excited. This was one of the first times someone had asked me to beta read anything. And then, maybe a couple weeks before sending out the beta drafts, I received my AVM diagnosis. The one that sort of said I had a stroke and that if I didn’t have a craniotomy to fix it or go under gammaknife to burn it out of my brain, I could die from another stroke. My priorities shifted from being able to do reviews, to sort of…putting my life in order and getting operations set up and hoping I woke up alive each day. Close proximity to death can shift your capacities for certain things. I woke up from surgery, which I thought was a miracle on it’s own, but it’s taken me a good six-seven months to get to a point where I could get back into reading other people’s books that cover dark topics.

I saw the cover come out for this and was just in love with the art style. It did take me a hot minute to realize the blond was not wearing rope binding under the sweater, but instead a pink collard shirt. My bad, but I rather liked the visual while it was stuck in my head. I’m not always a buy the book for the cover design person, but that tends to be a key factor in recent book choices. Because I have interacted with the author before, my interpretation of the color choices for the characters and the pastel coloring might have to do with the ace/bi flags and trying to represent this as a slice-of-life soft story, not something drastic in a fantasy/sci-fi element. I’ve notice this pastel coloration scheme becoming a big thing recently for melancholic slice of life. Not sure if that’s how it’s always been, but a trend that I’ve finally started looking at.

So. As a first run with only knowing the cover copy blurb. Let’s get into this thing.

Alright, first person present. I don’t run into this too often in a structured novel. It’s a common concept, well third person-present for short stories in anthologies, so that’s my first impression of, oh, cool, something different.

First chapter in and this tastes like first day of Sophomore year on college campus all over. That really awkward feeling where you’ve seen people from previous classes, people you went to high school with that you really wish you hadn’t seen again, running into a cute kid and suddenly going “nope, not admitting to that, but stick around please you’re really easy on the eyes, hey wait come back, why are you unhappy, did I do something wrong?” Seeing that in writing actually is kind of nice. A lot of the time, if I see someone upset or melancholic after having just interacted with them, I get really anxious as to if I had done something wrong or something had just happened and I should help them. Also, just crushing on people in general. Restaurants are painful when I suddenly have to talk to someone behind a counter that is within my type zone. Hello, goodbye capacity to talk. Relatable. Definitely relatable. Not sure why I feel so called out about this. Let alone running into said person who turns me mute and having to interact with them outside of “normal script” territory.

Chapter 2

Yeah, coming out can suck major. Especially when most of your prior interactions were with the opposite gender or people who pass as the opposite gender so everyone just assumes your hetero in the first freaking place! One of those moments where you can’t quite feel valid in your own skin saying your bi (or in my case pan) because you haven’t had much in the way of partners of variety that would help validate your claim of being something other than lesbian, gay, or hetero. I am pan as all get out, but I fit in what is a hetero-presumed relationship, and was in one before. I was scared for a long time coming out and saying anything about being pan, let alone trans because the few interactions I had with “same gender” was dancing at a club and internal pining major crush territory where I was terrified of saying something to the other person in case I miscalculated and they were really strait and I ruined a relationship. Again! Why do I feel really called out right now….?

Starting out the beginning with Daniel being able to ping pong between charming at his job and then fidgety, not meeting people’s eyes, closing down communication early on, and avoidance mechanisms can point to a couple reasons. Mental health of some variance and the symptoms that go with some type of abuse cycle, a drug addiction, or a personality that can’t take big crowds or unplanned interactions for more than absolutely necessary. I did retail for about six months and can tell you that I hated every minute of having that fake smile plastered on.

I float abuse cycle because I knew enough kids in my middle school and high school classes who had major avoidance flinch reactions because of atrocious home lives. I bring up possible drug addiction, which is normally caused by trying to escape the mental strain of an abuse cycle, because I was around enough kids in high school and college who were dealing with some type of an addiction to recognize that type of somber shut down evasion. The things you learn about people when you don’t judge them and let them unfold their lives to you. Certain reactions are easy to pick up on. I mean, Daniel’s reaction could also be that he murdered someone for all I know (but I’ve read the content warnings, so I’m jumping through assumptions here). Content Warnings are a thing. If certain topics are on your list of triggers, please read the warnings. If an author is putting it on their book, they aren’t doing it to make money.

Yeah. I get that concern William has. Find out one of the kids is hurting at school and try to help because you’ll hate yourself if you don’t, like you’re queasy about the idea you can’t do anything to help.

Interesting, the term for friend. I have an extremely narrow concept of how I would apply it. People who I know would show up for me if I called on the side of the road or needed something at the hospital. All else are acquaintances. And yet, there are a lot of people who call anyone who is nice to them and they’ve met friend. That actually happened a lot in school and college. I’m a freaking recluse now, so, not frequent at this point. It always felt unnatural to me, because though they said friend, which immediately meant I would show up and help and be there if they needed to talk, it was almost never a reciprocated relationship. I couldn’t even depend on any of my irl “friends” to read a book I wrote before I published, even after I published. They pretty much just said no when I asked. So, the use of friend and that need to help and be protective, I see it and am reminded of that twisting push and pull feeling of wanting a deep, meaningful relationship with people who I could depend on, but realizing that in reality, most people who use the term use it rather shallowly. As a way to say “we’ve talked before and they were civil.” Interesting.

Alright. Is it a me thing, the culture I’m in thing, or an American thing? I don’t think I’ve seen too many guys who will hold another guy’s hand in comfort around me unless their mom dies, and even then, it’s not a holding thing, but more a place hands between each other as they pull in for a hug so there is some maintained difference. Do British guys not do that? Is phsycial contact between men over there a lot closer than over here or am I just super touch averse and don’t notice it here? I swear, we talk the same language, but there are certain stretches of cultural difference that I find fascinating. Actually a song comes to mind “Is he gay or European” so maybe it is just an American culture thing. Again, observations.

Jeez, I remember joining up with the LGBT group on campus, tried to anyways. When they asked what I was and if I was seeing anyone, first of all – panic, a small ball of panic, thanks. What color does panic come in? Green. Mostly. No, really, I told them, when I’d gotten brave enough to open my mouth, that I liked everyone, or more to the fact that I was indifferent to a person’s biological structure but that I did have a boyfriend at that point. If they fit my type, I liked them. I was sort of hoping they would go “oh, you’re bi, congrats, here’s your little ribbon you can pin on when we’re doing club functions, we need help putting out chairs for the next film viewing, can you be here Wednesday at 6?” Uh. No. That’s not what went down. The LGBT group president told me to STFU and get out for being a greedy straight bitch playing with people’s actual feelings and not to come back because I didn’t understand what the community was about and was clearly not an ally if I was saying stuff like that. This was several years before finding out the word was pansexual. So, I just buried my feels into a deep dark hole for a good five years and whacked them with the end of a shovel every time they tried to pop up like zombie hands from a grave. Should I have said ally just to save my feelings? Maybe? But that felt like lying, and I didn’t want to lie when the group promoted themselves as “all inclusive, because you finally were able to give up lying to yourself.” What a bunch of effing BS.

Dude, broken ribs = no fun. Remember a kid getting a set done in during a football game and ended up learning a weirdly defined set of parameters for how that pain works. I’m curious and he actually talked to me because it was an oddly neutral topic. Painkillers aren’t even going to be half your worry. He was out for a good couple weeks before coming back, and he had someone help him carry stuff for a few weeks after because he was put on lift restriction and he grimaced for a few weeks after that about bring his hand up to his face, stretching, anything. He complained more about having to sit for so long because it compressed everything and made him more sore for it. Grant it, I don’t know what level of exaggeration he went through, and how much it really hurt, but learning it’s a good six weeks to knit and another two to stop hurting…just ick. And dude, I’ve done gallbladder surgery and pulled muscles in my ribs – like I went in and they did the whole number of scans on me and gave me morphine level pulled muscles (which I get hiccups on morphine and OMG you see stars with that kind of pain, bloody hate opiate derived substances) puking on pain hurts like hell, I’m not even going to imagine puking on broken ribs. Hello, no, just let me lie on cold tiles for the next couple hours, thanks.

Asking about painkillers. Oh, right, we just call it Advil over here or Tylenol. Extremely common for pretty much everyone to have the off brands in their cabinets and if someone looks remotely ouch, it’s like a southern hospitality thing in the same vein as offering someone food to break open the medicine cabinet and go “here, so you aren’t miserable.” If you go to someone’s house and they either don’t offer you food/something to drink and tell you to invite yourself to the kitchen, you probably aren’t really invited to stick around more than the front porch step for five minutes.

Now, a med student asking a guy who just got broken ribs if he needs ibuprofen should revisit nsad pain relievers class. Stuff’s a blood thinner. Tylenol was pretty much the only thing I was allowed to have after practically every surgery I’ve been through because hospitals can’t have patients on blood thinners and ending up leaking out all over the place and having major problems. Then again, maybe a difference in healthcare standards?

But yeah, if I saw people after any of those surgeries, it was pretty common for people who saw me to just go “need advil, need tylenol, need an ice pack, need to go lay down, need to go home?” And it’s just like “no, please shut up and let me distract myself by what is going on because I’m going to be miserable here or there and pain meds do jack.” I will say, AVM out, pain relievers actual work rather than just take the slight edge off. Hurray for living in constant pain all your life because a garbled set of arteries in your brain is resting between your visual processing center and your pain/motor control interpretation and processing center. Don’t mind me.

Moving on.

Some of the conversation line is more author driven then character driven, which, as long as you get a jist for where the interaction is going, does lead to jumping predictive paragraphs or gleaning. Just speech cadence is a bit off. Not overly noticeable, but it’s there, like the interaction was overthought, framed until it came out in a very exacting way. Maybe not for a shock factor, that’s not how this story works, but more like there wasn’t good timing set up for certain things to come out and what does is oddly phrased. That’s the feeling of it. Well that’s the feeling of college age life honest enough “not good timing”. I’m thinking it may be a difference in terminology and phrasing though between Britishisms and Americanisms.

Reference back to Dan’s addiction issues, it seems really staunch, or wrote. A slang term might have fit better, on this side of the pond. Again, I find the differences interesting. I got into a discussion just the other day on what a hob was because I had not seen it in text before. Apparently it’s the burner on a stove, which is apparently known as a cooker. I digress.

I can understand the recoil feel about the cigarettes and the addiction issue. One of those realizing someone has dependency issues, which normally stems from some mental health coping issues that have not been addressed through a useful means like self reflection and therapy. It’s watching someone burn themselves down. And you can’t quite tell how deeply you want to get involved between possibly getting pulled into the misery, trying to be helpful, but ultimately trying to keep yourself safe while hoping you’re providing an encouraging example of getting out and getting help rather than masking stress through the chemical fix.

It is quite honestly a slow slice of life. The type where you meander through emotions, self doubt, wanting to be a people pleaser, hoping against hope that someone else gets the idea of who you are, but you still have validity questions. Do you qualify? Can you qualify? Who can accept you for being you and who will burn that bridge? The characters are anxious and nervous and young and haven’t really experienced what the world is outside of the little bit of growing they’ve done. College age is hard. Really every age is hard. You’re left looking around the room going “where’s an adult, more of an adult than me?” You try your best to take responsibility, but you don’t quite have enough under your belt to be sagely confident and okay with letting the chips fall the way they do and accepting it. Some of that takes time. Some of that takes experience. Some of that takes someone showing you how to reach that place.

The book is thoughtfully constructed. The pacing fits for a slice-of-life theme. Some of the circumstances feel a bit contrived, but it’s not like I haven’t written in contrived scenes for my own personal needs and reasons. The tension and the set up work well for the content and context.

Personally, slice of life can drive me up the wall, especially slow burn, but that’s this story. It’s constructed to feel like that relatable awkward tension, knowing your self-doubt and internalized questioning monologue isn’t just a you thing, but that other people, other authors experience that same thing. There is most assuredly an audience for this work. I’m not one, but I can pass by an auditorium and appreciate a lecture when the prof is engaging, even if the topic doesn’t interesting me. Maybe I’m weird like that. Easily marketable to people who like pastel works and might want to do a bit of crying. I would qaulify the manga Say I Love you I did a review on a couple weeks ago as the same type of pastel slice of life, this one just gets into a couple nitty gritty categories it didn’t.

I tend to have to augment large amounts of emotions with something like vampires or dragons and action just so I can take five minutes from being in somebody else’s brain while they slowly try to deconstruct everything they do and analyse, if their choice was the right one. I go through reflecting back on conversations from middle school and still get embarrassed. Maybe that’s the thing with slice of life. It’s relatable, and some people find relatable comforting, and some feel called out and exposed for eliciting that emotion. They aren’t quite ready for that experience and don’t appreciate being in a position where they are facing it.

I’m trying to think of a good reflectionary example of what this is in terms of shows and movies I’ve watched. Really, it comes off Hallmark. At least in the contemporary literature sort of stylization and plot elements. The regular goings on of a series of people interacting with each other. Everyone being individual to themselves. William is a fleshed out ball of nerves and panic and just wanting to figure out who he is to himself, to people, and to the world. Dan fits into the scope of concern that can make a nervous ball of panic want to please them. The friends are trying to help as they can.

It’s very far from my normal reads and outside of my genre scope. The tone of A Silent Voice or maybe Your Lie in April comes to mind in a way. I’m not sure I can qualify why those ones outside of my low exposure rate.

Give it a test drive if you’re looking for that feel. Maybe you can give me a few ideas for other anime slice of life that would correlate well to this, seeing as I seem to be lacking in good genre rep for the topic. I really should broaden my entertainment materials.

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Lovestory Manga Wednesday: Katekyo

We begin this manga with a student who has a bit of a crush on his tutor. Sometimes the translation of sensei can be used for both teacher and tutor and the translation I’m reading has him listed as tutor, though I have seen it switch to teacher a couple times. Yay power dynamics. Sumizume-san (LI) is a tutor and a college student, while Rintarou-san (MC) is a high school student studying for entrance exams.

FYI, Japan has a few age laws for consent, so this entire interaction in the books actually meets legal age limits for there, even if it seems pretty dodgy by Western standards, so there’s your heads up if you are suspicious of this set up. Thankfully both the MC and LI look like their age appropriate for said interactions, unlike some manga I’ve seen where “oh, they’re 104, so it’s okay” when they don’t look or act 104 but more like they’re 8. Allow me to facepalm and wish the publishing industry some discretion in what they allow to be printable material.

The first chapter takes it to the next level rather quickly and bluntly, which isn’t quite what the MC is after. There’s a difference between developed feelings and release. Sadly, the love interest doesn’t quite catch the hint at the beginning. It’s just a quick tease with no…no…nothing though, OMG that’s freaking frustrating…both for the MC and the reader. Thanks author. Thanks a lot. Dang it. Now, do I read the story line or just flip through the book ’til I find the good stuff?

(P.S., this is a story where the storyline can be tossed and you can just catch the couple pages of good stuff without missing a single thing. So. Either the story is irrelevant, or the trysts are irrelevant. We’re going with the story is irrelevant.)

Deep breath. Let it out.

Okay, back to the story line. *Quietly shakes fist at the sky and calls out the author for being a cruel tease*.

Oh. Well. Thank you dear author for fixing that frustration in the second chapter, even if it did start out cringy. I despise jealous characters that get all grabby over what the Love Interest has. One of those “are people really that freaking shallow?” And then I have to remind myself there are those kinds of people out there.

This is not a slow burn romance. It gets to the point at least on one spectrum of romance. The story line does develop the characters through a lot of heavy handed tropes outside of gratuitous trysts. I’m sort of here for the trysts and most people reading this are too, so *shrug*.

This is where a difference in cultural norms pops up though as the chapters progress. More and more America and Europe are turning towards actually listening to the expression “No means No.” It’s still not quite there in Japan as of 2021.

There are subtleties and nuances that can wear on a Western reader who has internalized the #metoo movement and they can find the actions of the characters rather off putting. I’m not excusing the actions in the comic, but I’ve found in…well, honestly quite a lot of BL, GL, and het-rom that the main character will go for “wait, stop, no” and the love interest will continue on as they please and the MC falls more in love with them for it. So, if you aren’t aware of the socio-cultural dialogues of acceptable tact and speech patterns for manga, these types of stories may be quite triggering for you.

Context people. Context helps.

To say it: I’d like for these types of manga to move into the #metoo era where when one character says no, wait, stop, etc. that the other character actually listens and stops. That would be a nice change of pace. One where they don’t turn all mopey-manipulative or cold-shoulder manipulative. Where there’s actual communication between the participants. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

When I’m writing my books, I do try my best to give the reader a bit of that heat of a surprise kiss or things of that nature, but I also build in the concept of if a character says any of the stop words or is giving physical feedback that they aren’t comfortable with a situation, that the instigating character actually listens.

Back on task with this review.

Didn’t get very far. I skidded to another hault in the “things one should not do to a partner”. The LI erasing contacts out of the MC’s phone and “won’t allow this.” Jealous, possessive, mopey, manipulative. All red flags for a relationship.

Again. Are we here for the relationship advice or for the bits between the sheets. Sigh. This one, it can scratch some itches, but once it leaves those little two page spreads, the rest of the romance set up is all kinds of power dynamic problematic.

Is it worth reading?

Eh? Maybe? If you’re specifically in it for the content and not the context, sure, if you catch my drift. If you’re looking for something soft with sage advice like, Say I Love You, you’re gonna miss the bullseye every time with this one. It provides the gratuity. It’s not that it’s dark, it just hasn’t aged well with the currently evolving standards in healthy relationships.

The depth for the rest of the character development is trope railroaded. The standard checkboxes apply situation you can get from any BL manga. The MC tends to be the “sub” – which, it’s like, not every relationship has a “who’s top, who’s bottom” when it comes to m/m, f/f, m/f, or non-binary/xyz relationships. The fact that characters pretty much never switch and the MC tends to be the submissive one where interactions happen to them…could we have a script flip, please?

Well, this whole review has been a complete tangent on relationship structures. I’m looking forward to finding romance stories that really break the mold. This doesn’t do it. It’s a bit of gratuity that solves a minor itch, otherwise, it isn’t profound.

Suggest it? Meh. That’s up to you and what you’re needing in the moment. I think I’d skip reading it a second time.

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