February 23rd - March 1st 2026

TV

• Bloom Into You | Season 1 - This manga is considered part of the yuri canon, so it’s not a surprise that the anime adaptation is good too. I will say what a lot of adaptations miss is how a medium (writing, drawing, animating) all express emotion differently, and therefore the big moments need to be different to elicit a similar feeling. Having said that, they absolutely nail it in this anime! The train scene lives in my head rent free and I’ve never been happier to subsidize rent.

Music

• Kill You Off | Julia Wolf - Pure sickness. I wish I inspired such motivated death wishes.
• Passion | PinkPantheress - Top-tier vibes.
• MOMENNOHANKACHIIFU | Ai Hashimoto - This whole album if soooooo random and worth the whole listen through. This song is just striking me in this moment.
• Ka Uluwehi O Ke Kai | HAPA - Classic.

News/Essays

• We Should Use Social Media The Same Way Manga Authors Write About Their Week | AfterMath - I didn’t realize Viz posts little dumps of these as a blog! Check them out, they’re hilarious and real and perfect.

Books/Manga

• Victorian Psycho | Virginia Feito | 2025 - This book starts off STRONG. A lovely mix of good ol’ gothic horror and then the purest author voice for one sentence, and back again. To me, this is the power of this novel is the discipline of the author in three different vibes. First, is the standard “this is a gothic horror novel.” Second, is the snarky, subversive character voice. Last is the ominous, no explanation voice. They all play really well with each other. The baseline writing gives good exposition and immersion into the time period, the snark voice subverts expectations, and the ominous voice provides intrigue and lets the reader fill in the blanks for the some of the darker themes. About 60% through the book something happens which changes the household dynamic and I that’s when the balance of the three voices lost me. It wasn’t bad, but I thought there was too much stark which didn’t let me linger in the setting and unknowing. Overall a quick and good read.
• Princess Jellyfish | Omnibus Volume 3 | Higashimura Akiko - Finished the volume! Very cute. Similar thoughts as last week. There is a lot of loose ends to tie up and pay-off for a lot of setup in the next volume, so it has to be a banger. A general worry I have at this stage of the story is that the Amamizukan girls are being made useful, even if it’s for a good cause. Kuranosuke, to me, is taking away their power and making them palatable to broader society. Tsukimi is a designer, Mayaya is a model, Chieko is a seamstress. The magic of these girls - that they are trying to save - is going to be lost in the process of saving the house.

YouTube

• The TRUE Rules of the Yu-Gi-Oh Duelist Kingdom Tournament | Team APS - A really cool video where the actual rules of Duelist Kingdom were released! They walk through the events of the Duelist Kingdom arc through the lens of these rules and it really shocked me! I couldn’t actually believe it was possible to rule-explain-away all the BS there haha. Perfect show and season, and this was a good companion piece.

Games

• DEMO: THREE VERSES³ | sphere, desktop_trash, kernelfusion - This game uses the exact same movement system as Underkeep - WASD-EQ for directions and turning. The music is EXCELLENT. The aesthetic is fucking wild. It’s 3D pixelated and every shade of creepy brown as you traverse a hotel and the streets to deliver verses to these creepy mannequin things. Sooooo sick. Oh noooo! This game is funny too>?? It’s weird you get reset to the beginning of the level when you defeat an enemy. Combat is soooo silly! I love it. Best representation of a girl’s bathroom and this fucking alien ass Japanese salaryman creature has me cackling. I adore this game’s aesthetic, vibe, subversion, and Christian under/overtones. Well worth the play and I will be fascinated to see what a full game of this looks like.
• DEMO: Underkeep | Rake in Grass - I FUCKING LOVE THIS AESTHETIC. Ooooh movement is very MUD-y, cute. I really love the manual controls to walk around. Pixel art is brilliant and WOW the painterly style on the encounters is EXCELLENT. I love the way the items spew out of chests and everything menu-wise is pretty intuitive. WHOA YOU CAN USE YOUR KEYS INSTEAD OF MANUALLY CLICKING GOAT’D. A really excellent modern interpretation of old text-based and early graphical dungeon crawlers. I love the art, aesthetic, UI, controls and combat. A really excellent and polished game!
• DEMO: 07GORILLAS | Highway404 - This is my favorite Vampire Survivors-like by a mile. The music is 10/10, the aesthetic and art is excellent and distinct, and the gameplay is unique (you can add characters to your party and they follow you around in a train of max 7). The only issue I had is that at a certain point you are mashing reload on the upgrade list, which makes it pretty boring toward the end. Otherwise, this was super fun and novel. The music, man! Highly recommend.
• DEMO: CICADAMATA | ✿ flowergarden - Fuck this is a cool game. It’s a schmoovement game, you gotta go fast. This one has a lower barrier to entry to just get going. If you like Neon White and the aesthetics of Marathon, then this is the love child you’ve been looking for.
• DEMO: Misty Land | Branches Games - Whoa UI is beautiful and then you go into Settings lmao. Tower defense meets Vampire Survivors. Cool concept and art style. The character damage is too slow and low early on. I also had a hard time figuring out how to increase building capacity. There is a lot of shit going on in this game, which probably makes it really fun and deep systemically, but more difficult to get into. Overall fun, but not enough.
• DEMO: Project: AFTERSHOCK | Tune Dundar - A 90’s terminal puzzle(?) game. Kind of lame tbh. Interesting attempt at an aesthetic, but the games are too simple and repetitive to really feel like “hacking.” Soundtrack is pretty good. First time I have gotten achievements from a demo tho.
• DEMO: P.R.D.A. | 糟糕的树懒 - Aesthetic is sick! I love the harsh black and white vibe. Movement is finicky and why is there a star of David? Jesus there is a long unskippable tutorial. Christ, don’t we all know how to play a rogue-like by now? Haven’t we all seen the Slay the Spire progression screen? The progression and animations are pretty slick. Movement isn’t great given the side-scroller in 3D space. Music is a bit muted, but fits the setting and it pretty cool. Okay, it’s Slay the Spire with a different aesthetic. I got locked with 0 resource and it killed my run, so I gave up.
• DEMO: Hovercrafts X Nihilism | soomr - Cool aesthetic and soundtrack but the controls were so awful I gave up.
• DEMO: Cybro | Sunwake Games - 2D Platformer. Sick soundtrack. Do not like the voice acting. Pixel art is okay. To me it’s not stylish enough to be low-detail. I love the text box design. I dashed at a wall, clipped through and died lmao. Slowest ladder climbing of my life. I give up. Controls are loose and level design is not for me. Tbf I don’t like 2D platformers unless it’s like Super Meat Boy. The controls are frustrating.
• DEMO: Esoteric Ebb | Christoffer Bodegård - A silly DnD-like where the combat is lovingly stlyized conversation. Can your competing competencies and flaws succeed the myriad dice rolls? Probably not. A very fun cleric simulator.