June 22nd - June 28th 2026

Movies

• Nosferatu | Robert Eggers | 2024 - Pretty lame movie. Has ZERO of the rizz that Bram Stoker’s Dracula has. Not gay enough. Not woman-y enough. Nosferatu’s design is amazing though. He looks like a Bosnian Freddy Mercury with a nutty, deepy voice. Where’s the homoeroticism? Where is the sexual transgressive playing? Come on Germans, you can fuck in kink night clubs, but not make Nosferatu proper horny??

Books/Manga

• Nana Omnibus Volume 3 | Ai Yazawa - Well, this is a different kind of pain. When you fall in love with someone who doesn’t want you, there are a number of things they can do to make you feel soooooo much worse. And Nana seems to hit most of them in this novel. Being overprotective, but not wanting you. Check. Trying to sell you off to whatever person may be your next boy/girlfriend. Check. It’s this feeling that you aren’t allowed control over your life, that you are being possessed and protected, but that it’s a one-way street. She’s allowed to leave you for weeks on end, make risky decisions, and leave you behind at her convenience. Christ who are these women that hurt the managaka so?
• Nana Omnibus Volume 4 | Ai Yazawa - Shortly after finishing this volume, I described the feeling as being hog-tied and dragged along the rocky dirt by someone on horseback. It’s not the most intensive torture, but it’s persistent the whole way through. Where the end of Volume 2 and all of Volume 3 felt like the shaking, and eventual breaking, of the status quo - the set piece getting everyone in their spots - Volume 4 is just dragging your feet toward the inevitable. I hate the idea that “true colors” are only shown in times of duress. And yet, fuck Nana bro. She is such a shithead in this Volume and is so self-centered. All of her possessive and emotionally distant tendencies were kind of fun and games up until this point and now, Hachi is broken. It’s hundreds of pages watching that descent. It feels so unfortunately real in how fallible, how human each of these characters are. It’s not like watching a car crash, it’s like reliving the memories of watching a close friend go through a divorce or witnessing the grieving of a loved one passed too soon. It’s the mundane pain that sticks in your heart. These volumes stick me in such a mellow and melancholic mood, it’s wonderful. As an aside, fuck Junko and Kyosuke they are the shittiest friends. They choose Shoji, are way too hard on Nana, and lectured her when she crawled to their apartment vomiting and in tears. I fucking hate the know-it-all, “perfect” monogamous couple trope.