ゲームを楽しもう!

in the time since I first saw this in the cinema over the summer last year and now I've seen this movie more than a few times. it's one that I got tickets for originally because I thought the aesthetic seemed really nice and I'd seen the box art on shelves a few times, but I just never looked too much into it, to my very pleasant surprise it ended up being great, more than great even, it ended up being a masterpiece. it's one of the best movies not just of the year but I think that I've ever seen, the style, music, characters, story, it all just hooked me in a way that very few movies ever can. it's one that stuck with me and I loved it so much that during the end credits while trying my best to stop crying I ended up buying a DVD of it on ebay without even having a second thought about it, (i did the same with kamikaze girls which I also plan to write about soon) so that's really saying something. this movie is really special.

I mean for a start it looks beautiful, the pastel- As it's come to be known- Frutiger aero cyberworld that reminds me a lot of the later Digimon cyber sleuth games. it's so beautiful, I love how creative and energetic the world is and all the cute little avatars there-in. they all represent the characters personalities in really sweet ways and a few like king kazu look *so rad*, I love the little squirrel too and the ninja bunny sensei and i think natsuki's final form also looks really cool. the action scenes in there too are some of the best in anime history. the king Kazuma fight early on and especially everything with love machine is a real spectacle and worth watching the movie for alone. it's so creative and it makes use of the setting so well. that final one with the hanafuda too was so beautiful and it had me so emotional, i was crying during it when *spoilers* the world gives her their accounts and trusts her with the future of humanity. seeing people come together like that is just the kind of hope people need i think. it made me feel that way and it still does even on rewatches. Kenji isn't the most interesting protagonist but i think the rest of the family makes up for it, though his arc is solid and i love some moments with him and the grandmother. The "are you man enough to die for her" was a killer line too. i like the bancho'y cop cousin or the cool grandmother, the gamer kid, the samurai obsessed uncle and the morally bankrupt techbro. the cast is huge and not everyone is well developed but the large cast works well for the movie. i like how the house looks in all of the family segments too, it's huge but it's so cozy and I'd love to be able to live somewhere like that.

and the story is still so relevant! OZ is actually a lot more relevant now as an idea as it's ever been with things like "all in one" apps like wechat or LINE and things like the metaverse. just instead of cool cyberspace zones with fun avatars and useful features we get companies shilling us crypto, AI and advertising with companies themselves stealing our data instead of a rogue AI. The commentary on over-reliance on tech and AI being a danger are also still very on the mark now than they ever were before. it feels like any time we have a major AWS or cloudflair outage it ends up putting the whole world out of commission. i think the core themes of family also resonate well too, seeing everyone put side their differences and try to honestly get along and work towards something better, it was really touching. it made me want to show it to my parents and spend time with them and i think any piece of art that can help bring a family together like that is really powerful. it handles that better than almost any other movie I've ever seen.

the soundtrack too is one of the best in any movie. Akihiko Matsumoto did a fantastic job. he hasn't done a ton of stuff but he's been around for sure. stuff like street fighter, resident evil outbreak and dark savior, though most of his work is with the jpop scene and with TV dramas. tracks like "virtual city oz", "wabisuke", "2056" and "king kazma" are so catchy and nice to listen to, they best capture the very clean and calming energy that oz has, it's not very techno'y but i also love "150 million miracles" which is a track that plays in there. others are less listenable like "overture for summer wars" or "the Jinnouchi family" but they fit the atmosphere so well. some are more in the middle, like "pleasure criminal". others are just good, period, like "kenji", "sakae in action", "solidarity of the Jinnouchi", "letter" , "summer wars", "happy end" and "everybody's courage". it's a really great tracklist and there's very few that i wouldn't say i could listen to on their own.

The movie is super easy to find these days! the DVD is really common for older printings and i got my copy for £5. this year there was also a new reprint on DVD, blu ray and a new 4K version which seems neat. i just stuck with the DVD though, it feels right there. the movie was directed by Mamoru Hosoda. you may also know from my prior coverage of "the girl who leapt through time" which is a personal favourite movie. he also worked on "one piece: baron omatsuri and the secret island", "wolf children", "the boy and the beast", "Mirai", "belle", many "Digimon" projects and most recently the movie "scarlet" which i haven't had the chance to watch but it seems like a good time. the animation was done by the studio "madhouse" who you're also almost certainly familiar with. they worked on stuff like "Black lagoon", "trigon", "cardcaptor Sakura", "chobits", "gungrave", "paranoia agent", "monster", "nana" and "paradise kiss" just to name a few. they're pretty legendary. this is no exception and it's pretty easily one of the best movies either team has ever made. it means a lot to me and it's something i think about at least once a week these days even over a year onward. please give it a try, it's short and super accessible on the net or on physical media so you really don't have a reason not to at least give it a chance.

covering "nirvana the band the show" out of order since i actually talked about the movie a few weeks back but i really needed to talk about this. it's one of the funniest show's on TV and one of the few times in recent years I've actually managed to watch and enjoy something on TV that wasn't from Japan, Korea or China. might even be the first since Riverdale ended. the show aired over 2 seasons on VICE's old TV channel, though they've been doing this a lot longer than that with the old web episodes and the shorts they did. you've almost certainly seen the wii shop update day one, which is like the one thing most people know the duo for. it's how i found out about them and i love that short, but i think their work on TV and with the movie is somehow a lot better. seeing that VICELAND logo in the corner of the episodes i saw was actually also really nostalgic. back when i first moved in with my roomate we used to watch vice's channel a lot. we just stumbled across it one night and saw it had been airing Tokyo ghoul and every day after that it was basically a mainstay alongside NHK until we stopped watching TV altogether. i have a lot of fond memories of the network and its shows, even if the constant weirdo drug shows were a little off-putting and annoying.

each season has 8 eps and they're all standalone for the most part with the end of season 2 being the big exception to that. each is just a new plan by the band to get into the rivoli and you follow them on it when things start to go wrong. they're all consistently good too, some episodes are better than others but i can't name any i would skip on a rewatch. the duo have just such good chemistry and they pair together perfectly, they're just fun to be around which makes it an even easier watch. you very quickly start just enjoying watching them have fun and it starts to just feel like hanging out with some friends. it's some of the best I've seen the best friend dynamic done. matt is the goofier of the duo and comes up with all of the plans and jay is more of a quiet psycho that may very well kill to get a show at the Rivoli, he also does the music and he's really good at it. neither is really the straight man persay and i think that makes for an interesting dynamic.

standout episodes from season 1 for me would be "the banner" which is the first ep. i think the payoff is really funny and i think it's a perfect intro to the duo and for the series as a whole and that shock of what happens with the banner sets a really good president for the series. "the big time" got some of the biggest laughs of the season from me, it's tied with a later episode for the funniest in the season and is probably what i would consider the overall best. if i chose to show someone an episode of the show, it would be this one. the setup is amazing, the jokes all land, the fake movie is really funny and i love that they managed to get actual film directors to cameo in it unwittingly. it's close to perfect. "the boy" is an episode a lot of people don't seem to care for but i love it. the setup is so funny and the jokes are so good that i can overlook that the stuff with jay's mom just isn't that great. "the buffet" is a really sweet episode and i love the twist in it, the entire last segment is hilarious. the season finale with "the bank" is tied for the best of the season though. the john cena jokes date it in a really endearing way and i think it's one of the funniest situations they get into. the jokes are some of the best and i think it's where the dark humour the show goes for sometimes lands the best. the other eps are still good too, though. "the booking" is really funny and i think the sequence of them breaking into now magazine is one of the funniest, same for the phone theft and the payoff with the phone. "the bean" is funny and i think it picks up well near the end, but the flashbacks aren't the most compelling" and "the blindside" has some really funny scenes when they're on the way to the movies and in the theatre but i think the last action scene is a little lame and the star wars theme really overshadows the rest. the show loves making episodes into homages but usually it really enhances the episode, here it does feel like it relies too much on them to the point where it detracts from the quality.

season 2 i think has both higher highs and lower lows. episodes like "the burger" are some of the best in the whole show. the parody is hilarious, the kissing stuff is really fun and it's where i think the acting and joke delivery is the strongest with all the whalburgers parody scenes, which are probably the best the parody stuff gets. "the boost" got the biggest laughs from me with jay being drugged with speed at a goldeneye tournament, it's probably my favourite episode of the season. "the banned" is probably my overall favourite episode. the hackers stuff is so funny and i think the outfit choices are hilarious. i think it also has the funniest in person stunt with them trying to break into the computer at the rivoli and all of the skating stuff. "the buddy" is also really funny, if mainly for the character matt plays in it. i like his performance a lot and i think it's funny that some people seemed to believe he was genuine. there's also a non-canon Halloween episode in "the book" which just lets them have fun with some character moments, the body switch scenes and the wolf stuff at the end were really fun. the more character focused episodes this season, as well as its attempt at serialization, don't work as well though. "the birthday" just fell a little flat for me, i enjoyed it mostly overall but it was the only episode i was ever bored during. the same could be said for "the banned list" which just feels very constrained by the character writing and the rooftop stuff, though i thought the instances of public interaction saved it. same for "the band list" which has some of those issues, but the stuff with the train station and the museum saved it, i did think it was very strong.

the show was based on an older web show that you can watch online for free via fan sites and later they also did the movie that i mentioned and covered last week. i recommend both, though the web series isn't quite as good as their newer stuff outside of some of those individual skits being really good. there hasn't been any physical releases yet for the show, but reportedly one is coming. i believe it since neon did just put out the movie on blu ray, which i went ahead and preordered. it is streaming now though, after a prolonged period of having next to no real legal way to watch it so that is an option but i would say just wait for the physical or find other methods if you can since i do worry the streaming versions could end up censored. it's not very long and you could easily watch both seasons in a long weekend since it's only 16 half an hour episodes and a movie if you stick to the newer stuff. with all that in mind i really recommend you give it a try, it's seriously funny and it's been my obsession for weeks now.

i also watched a Korean horror movie called "wishing stairs", it's actually part of a series of movies but i didn't actually know this going in and i ended up watching it first even though it's the last one in the series. i do own the others though and at the time of writing this i even watched one of them! but i never realized it since they're not labeled like it. they're just called "momento mori" and "whispering corridors". i liked this one though and thankfully it was mostly very unrelated to the rest since it's more of an anthology series than anything else. this one is a very slow burn horror set at a ballet school. there's wishes that go wrong, hauntings and really bitter unrequited romances and it's a really fun time. it's got a really good atmosphere and the school is really creepy. the wishing stairs the movie is based around are really cool looking and the movie does a really good job with how it shoots it, the whole movie has a really good atmosphere and the school has a real sense of place to it. it reminded me a lot of some shoujo horror stories I've read and if you like that kind of thing then there's a lot to like here, there's some good props and effects too like a really interesting kill involving clay statues. the cast all do a really solid job, Hye-ju especially is just hamming it up and stealing every scene she's in, and there's some really good costuming too. this kind of early 2K's supernatural horror does a lot for me and while it's not one of my favourites, i think it's worth a watch. i like its commentary on stuff like the beauty standards for women at the time and its characters have a little more depth than you'd find in a lot of similar movies. probably a good call to watch the other two first though if you can.

also played was ghostbusters: spirits unleashed with my roommate when it was leaving PS plus. it's a pretty okayish DBD clone that i would sadly struggle to recommend to people. it's whole thing is that one side plays as a ghost that has to scare people away and another team are the busters who have to catch it. I've never seen the movie this is based on and i almost 100% never will so weather this is a good adaptation i can't tell you. what i can tell you is that as a game it's just fine, but an fine you can have some real fun with. the ghost is the more fun path, you can fly around the map, possess stuff, summon minions and attack people. your goal is to clear out people by making the place seem haunted and it is a lot of fun to do that. it helps that you have a good variety of ghosts to use and they all have unique abilities too. it's not the most balanced though, it can feel like the ghost can steamroll fast and the humans can feel super underpowered. the humans have their guns which can tether around the ghosts and drag them to a little trap on the ground and they have a variety of gadgets to help them find the ghosts too, but i just never found them as fun to play since you never felt all that powerful or able to do much and the hunting just wasn't the most engaging. it was a lot of chip damage for many of the fights. the maps did have good variety though so even playing as a human it could be nice to explore them, i liked the arcade and the hotel and the train station the most. of note though is the fact a few of these do seem to maybe use generative AI assets, while i can't confirm them they do look very suspicious so i would be weary about playing this yourself. if you do decide to there's a fairly active online scene when i played this, though the game does have bots and a short campaign if you don't want to deal with other players. the campaign gives you some short scenes in-between matches that I'm guessing have movie characters explain a story to you. I've never seen it so none of it really meant anything to me and i never found myself invested, but that's entirely a me problem. if you like this series then this'll probably be great for you. same goes for the game in general, if you like the movies or these weirdo asymmetrical multiplayer games then you'll likely have a great time, but anyone else i would find difficult to recommend it.

next was monopoly plus, a cool take on monopoly by Ubisoft, a little like some of their other board game adaptations like battlefield or uno, though sadly this one doesn't have playlink support like those, instead having its own proprietary app which is really lame. i actually downloaded and played it entirely because i had assumed it had playlink but there's nothing there. what it does have though, is a cool 3D map full of fun details and a lot of movement to it. each area feels super distinct with different kinds of visual upgrades depending on things like houses added or what licenced DLC you have installed (like a cool MLP map!). it looks great and even the OST is a little catchy, though the narrator is a little annoying and talks far too much. there isn't much to say beyond that though, it's monopoly with a cool map and online multiplayer, if it had playlink support i might have more to say, but as is i just don't, it's monopoly.

sayonara wild hearts is a rhythm game for theatre kids. For certain kinds of people this line will either sell you on it in an instant or scare you away and that's probably the best indicator on weather or not you'll like this game. it's the peak of Lana del ray gaming, a real steven universe fan kind of game, the most western of western magical girl things for better and for worse. i am into none of these things though so sadly this game just didn't really resonate with me as much as i hoped it would going in. The game does have its upsides though, while all the music didn't click with me there are some killer songs here! the titular "sayonara wild hearts", "begin again", "dead of night", "mine" and "wild hearts never die", the vocal tracks mainly are all seriously good. the non vocal ones can be more hit and miss, though i do like he games rendition of "clair de lune". for gameplay it's basically an auto-scroller in 3D with you dodging attacks and obstacles and collecting stuff on the track while music plays. it's almost like a racing game mixed with a rhythm game and i did like this aspect a lot. there's even some other styles of levels in there like some boss fights and a level that's 2D and top down. it's a fairly punishing game though, it's not difficult since you get checkpoints and unlimited tries but basically everything can oneshot you which can really throw off your rhythm which really hurt my enjoyment of it. beyond the few levels i could one-shot i always found it hard to get into rhythm since one mistake always set me back so much. a health bar would have really done wonders here.

but the energy the game had just didn't really resonate with me. none of it felt earnest at all, it feels very insincere. it is trying to come across as a super emotional and personal journey but none of it feels real, it feels like it set out to be that kind of game rather than just naturally being that kind of game and it all feels a little pandering in a way that i just don't really like. it feels fake, almost. between the neon aesthetics, the character designs, the story about love with a lesbian character (which while I'm not queer and can't comment on this, i had a lesbian friend play through this at the same time and she told me it felt pandering and very inauthentic), the entire video game chapter and the indie pop OST. it all feels a little cynically made, that it's a game made to fit into the ideal of a hit indie game rather than something just made with passion and love. despite all this I'm sure it will reach and connect with some people regardless. i really hope it does because there is good here and i love people finding good in things i can't, but i just couldn't love it myself. if it looks good to you i do think it's worth at least giving a try to, it's only 2 or so hours long and it can be found for next to nothing on the physical market so you don't really have anything to lose.