November Media Favourites/Recommendations

Hey everyone!

I've been making the most of having some more time on my hands to watch/read/play things so here's what I enjoyed most in November:

Ghosts of the Tsunami

Ghosts of the Tsunami is a non-fiction book by Richard Lloyd Parry covering the 2011 tsunami in Japan, focusing in particular on an elementary school where most of the student body very tragically lost their lives and how this came to be.

I'd had this book on my to-read list for a while and picked it up just in case it would come in handy for a video I was considering making. It probably won't come up on my channel even if the video gets made (it was very tangentially related), so I'm happy to take the opportunity to recommend it here. It is a gut-wrenching book to read, but equally contains some of the most beautiful writing I've ever read, particularly on the subject of grief. It was a book I often found it hard to tear myself away from, and it manages to do real justice to the devastation it depicts without becoming soul-crushing in itself. This is one of the best books I've read in a long time and I can't recommend it enough.

Grave of the Fireflies

I obviously had it out for myself this month as I also finally sat down to watch Grave of the Fireflies, one of the dwindling number of Ghibli movies I hadn't seen yet. Both for this reason and because of its reputation for being devastating, I've held off on watching this one for a long time. I honestly don't have too much to say about it -- again, its reputation precedes it. Directed by Isao Takahata and released in 1988, it follows the lives of two Japanese children and the suffering they experience in the midst of World War II.

I don't know what I was expecting this film to be -- I'd avoided it for so long knowing I'd probably be in for an evening of crying when I did finally watch it, but that wasn't my experience. It is a deeply, deeply sad film, but in its own quiet sort of way that I'm not sure I can compare with any other I've seen. The only other work of Takahata's I've seen is Only Yesterday, and I definitely feel like I'm getting a sense of his directorial voice when I compare the two. Grave of the Fireflies isn't a film I feel can be discussed in terms of being a favourite or not, it's simply a film that deserves to be seen, both for its place in anime history and also for the actual history it depicts (it is at least loosely based on a true story). I'm glad I can finally tick this one off my list and it will definitely be staying with me.

The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures

The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures is very possibly not only my favourite media experience of the month, but also the entire year. I really didn't plan to take so long to play this (it came out in July, and I've still got the second game to get through), but it was so much fun finally getting to sit down and dedicate all my attention to it. Ace Attorney is one of my favourite series of all time and I've desperately hoped for these two games to be localised for many years -- I can't overstate how happy I was to hear they'd finally be making it to the West. For the uninitiated, Ace Attorney is a series of adventure games loosely considered by many to also constitute visual novels due to the focus on story. You play as the main character, a lawyer, and the games are split into investigation and trial sections, where the ultimate aim is to get your client a not guilty verdict. This description also does not remotely convey what is actually appealing about these games. TGAA in particular is a series of prequels (though they can ultimately be enjoyed entirely separately from the main series) set in Meiji era Japan and Victorian London, and it leverages the dual setting to interweave history, politics and social commentary throughout the game's story.

This is the ninth Ace Attorney game I've played overall, and while the original series is a little too near and dear to my heart for me to definitively say it's my favourite, it's hard not to call it the best one yet. I don't want to make any promises, but I generally hope to talk about Ace Attorney on the channel at some point and I can already see myself going into this game further there (if not necessarily as its whole own video) so I'll leave it there for now. Again, this is probably my favourite piece of media I've experienced this year, and I cannot recommend it enough. I think it especially benefits from being played following the original series primarily because you can see so many improvements on that formula here, but it can be played as a stand-alone, and I would encourage anybody who's interested in it but worried they have to wade through the original six games first not to let that stop them from jumping in here if it suits them better. There's so much I could gush about here, but suffice it to say TGAA deserves to be played.

Higurashi Gou Comic Anthology

Higurashi has a long history of anthology manga I spoke about a little in my video on the series' bonus arcs, and one of the perks of Gou/Sotsu has been not only getting more of this, but also the formation of multiple fan translation groups willing to put the work in to allow us to experience these fun extras in our own languages. The anthology manga are basically series of short stories written(?) and illustrated by various mangaka (it's not clear how much if any involvement Ryukishi has outside of the particular case of Kataribanashi, but I presume he must've had some involvement in choosing the stories/artists). The stories range completely in tone from somber, serious and reflective to pure comedy and everything in-between. You can find an English translation of this particular anthology by the group Furude Rika Bernscanstel if you Google them. The Gou comic anthology's stories are shorter than some of these other compilations' and so are fairly limited in scope, but some highlights from this volume for me were Chapter 6 (Lovesickness) and Chapter 8 (Rena's Exciting Fashion Show) (my ShiiRena crumbs <3). It's a very quick read and so definitely worth checking out!

Higurashi Meguri

Finally, while it's early days, I thought I'd slip Higurashi Meguri in here just to give some initial thoughts. As a recap, a mangaka named Tomato Akase was responsible for Gou's adaptation into manga which many fans (including myself for a time) overlooked, but which ended up diverging quite significantly from the anime and generally embellishing the story with considerable further detail. The Gou manga only wrapped when Sotsu ended and there was already hope that Akase's take on the latter would be at least somewhat more satisfying than the anime, so the excitement was immense when it was announced that there wouldn't actually be a Sotsu manga at all, but rather a brand new solution to the story in the form of a manga titled Higurashi Meguri.

It's early days; four half-chapters were released over the last eight weeks to make Chapters 1 and 2 so far, but the difference in approach to storytelling as compared to Sotsu is already of note. Two huge bonuses are greater general involvement from the club in Satoko and Rika's lives and much deeper exploration of their conflict at St. Lucia, as well as more information on how Satoko is feeling and what she's thinking at this particular point in the story. Furude Rika Bernscanstel have been translating the Meguri chapters within days of their release, so there's no excuse not to follow along with this very promising excursion that I expect many will come to see as their preferred resolution to the Gou/Sotsu storyline.

And now for some YouTube videos:

LOST Was Weird: A Show No One Wanted To Make by Billiam (I shared this one on Twitter too but LOST is one of my favourite things ever and this video not only captures a lot of why that is but is also generally one of the most entertaining YouTube videos I've ever seen)

Scooby-Doo’s VHS Movies Were Rad! & Scooby-Doo Where Are You: A Weird Classic by Billiam (After the above I've been on a Billiam binge and I loved Scooby-Doo growing up so these were great fun!)

Love Island: A Flirtation With Surveillance by Broey Deschanel (Fascinating video)

Something Windy Tales Does Well by Caribou-kun

After a City is Buried by Jacob Geller

Honey & Clover Retrospective: An Artist's Life (Video Essay) by Lee Basil (This one really, really deserves more views)

The Problems With Ace Attorney And How TGAAC Fixed All Of Them by Ratatoskr

i could write my magnum opus or i could simply go to bed by Savannah Brown

AniTube Digest 11/1 - 11/8 2021 by Shaybs (My video on Mirai is spoken about right at the end!)

And finally, one new channel discovery (dobochobo), and one old favourite (Sharmeleon). dobochobo's vlogs popped up in my recommended and I ended up binging literally all of them -- there's just something so warm about them, and they're a nice way to vicariously relive my days as an undergrad. And Sharla/Sharmeleon is a Canadian vlogger who lives in Japan who I've watched for a few years now. I always really enjoy her videos and thought I'd include her this month.

Phew! Next month's post will probably be just as stacked considering I'm whizzing through as much stuff as I can right now before general life busy-ness recommences. Speak soon!