1. Pokemon Concierge (Animated TV Series)

A really cute short series! It's always a joy when Pokemon creates animated projects in different mediums, and this project excels thanks to its high quality animation and puppets. Also Josh Keaton, who I know most for playing Spectacular Spider-Man, has a voice role in this so thats cool.

2. Undertale - Steam Edition (Video Game) (Replay)

Undertale is still good in 2024. Shocking I know. What surprised me most during this playthrough was how many lines of dialogue I practically had memorized by heart, but not in a bad way, more in a "wow Toby Fox and his team are incredibly skilled at character writing and making simple textboxes come off as immediately iconic and memorable". A couple of characters that particularly stuck out to me this time in particular were Alphys, Flowey, and Papyrus. For Flowey in particular, I kinda almost want to attribute Kingdom Hearts to how I see his struggles with identity and compassion in a new light now. I will also add that Sans, as dominating as his fandom presence is, still did manage to stick out too mostly for the compassionate and hopeful nuances to his character that often get overlooked. So yeah. Undertale is still good. What else is new. Anyways, I think now I'm going to take Flowey's advice and go on to better things, but I'm certain I'll be revisiting Undertale again in some way shape or form someday.

3. Deltarune - Chapter 1 + 2 Demo - Steam (Replay)

Deltarune is so f*cking cool man. The gameplay takes Undertale's unique spin on turn-based combat and greatly refines it with the 3-character party and the tension point mechanics. That's also not to mention how incredible the presentation of the first chapters are with greatly realized aesthetics and Toby, quite frankly, almost one-upping his Undertale score if we're just going by all the unique new sounds he's used Chapter 1 and 2 to experiement with. Needless to say, I am very excited for what Chapter 3 and 4 will have in store and the Deltarune team deserves all the recognition they've received just from the great impressions Chapter 1 and 2 left.

4. Berserk - Anime Adaptation 1997 (Dub)

I'm having a hard time coming up with any conclusive thoughts of the 1997 Anime adaptation of Berserk's Golden Age Arc mostly because this is really my introduction to the series and the 1997 anime ends on an inconclusive note. Maybe I'll have better thoughts once I catch up on the manga. But, uh...if you happen to be using my Media Diary as a sort of reference list for what media you might want to try out, then you should know that Berserk is obviously much darker in subject matter compared to what I've talked about here so far. Just for the 1997 anime, the general trigger warnings include blood and gore, sexual assault, and some other hallmarks of the dark medieval fantasy genre. But yeah, I think I won't have much more to say on Berserk until I read more of the manga, so this page will update soon on how that ends up going.

5. Berserk - Manga (To Chapter 375)

Anyways now it's time to talk about the Berserk manga. I feel pretty safe now saying that I do really like Berserk. Guts's character arc is one of the most satisfying and well executed arcs I've ever seen in a manga series this long and the series itself is so beautifully illustrated with a very distinct cross-hatching style that perfectly suits the series both at its most harrowing and at it's most fantastical. Also uh, not enough people bring up how fun Puck is. I do think he's at his best during the Conviction Arc (as tbh i feel that Isidro's intoduction kind of intrudes on Puck's niche as comic relief), but Puck is such a fun element to this comic that I feel like it's regressive to say that Berserk doesn't have levity despite what the subject matter that narrative may be dealing with. Also the captial B Berserker armor is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. That said, I do have a few notable complaints that I'm going to talk about below.

Spoiler Warning for Berserk (Especially Post-Golden Age Content) and Content Warnings: Discussion of Rape, Sexual Assualt, Racism and Orientalism

So Berserk is very famous for it's explicit depiction of violence, nudity, and sexual themes and this in and of itself is not a problem, but what was a notable problem to me was the dichotomy of how the demons is Berserk are depicted when they terrorize men versus woman. The demons we see when they're attacking a male character are always rending flesh and generally making a giant gore fest, meanwhile, with very little exception, when ever we see a demon attacking a woman, you can be pretty certain that there's always going to be some sort of phallic appendage attached to that specific demon and that the woman being attacked will have her clothes ripped off. I know that it's maybe a "splitting hairs" type of complaint, but very rarely do we ever see these roles reversed and it does make every scene where a woman is being attacked by a demon feel way more voyueristic by default.

On the subject of misogyny and creepyness I don't think adds anything to Berserk's themes, I really don't like the "running gag" where Schierke's elf companion keeps ship teasing her with Guts. It's bad for the obvious issue of Guts being 24 and Schierke being 13 and it's especially egregious since Guts himself is a victim of childhood sexual assault. Guts is never implied to feel anything towards Schierke other than being a friend and guardian (in fact, he is completely devoted to his romantic feelings for Casca) so this whole "joke" is ultimately pointless. I will also say from what I've seen from the chapters written by the new team, this gag has seemed to be completely dropped and all i can say is. thank god.

My last complaint I want to get out there is that the depiction of Kusha, the Arab-coded faction in the world of Berserk, seems to draw heavily on tropes from Orientalism, and are fairly regularly referred to as "beasts" and overwhelmingly violent by the white, European-coded Midlanders. It's easisly one of the most uncomfortable parts of Berserk from a writing perspective as well as being very lazy and derivative from an artistic stand point.

I want to reiterate that my opinion of Berserk is mostly positive, but these three main issues I have really need to be adressed, especially since Berserk has been so influential on other fantasy works and does so many other things really well.

6. Undertale Yellow (UT Fangame - GameJolt - True Pacifist Route)

So I've been meaning to play Undertale Yellow for a while after hearing all the excitement about it's release in December and yeah, this fangame is great. The enemy fights are unique and challenging that is rewarding to old fans of Undertale who are looking for a fair challenge. But with any Undertale project, especially a fanmade one, the presentation and narrative are the real meat of the discourse, so let's get into it. While I personally only played True Pacifist, my thoughts will also take all the other major endings into account.

Undertale Yellow Spoilers

While Undertale Yellow has garnered a lot of praise from the fandom, I do still want to talk about the game's story as a free fan project that started development before Deltarune Chapter 1 was released. I think one of the main aspects of UTY's narrative that may seem underwhelming to fans of the original Undertale is how saving and resetting are not as diagetic as they are Undertale, but UTY is very smart in how it makes your save file Flowey's save file, which is in line with the timeline and how Determination worked in UT.

All in all, UTY is not as concerned with the Player vs Game dynamic and moreso with the non-meta regular narrative, which is the monsters' plights of being trapped underground and a new main story theme associated with the Yellow Soul Human from Undertale, Justice.

UTY takes place concurrently with Dr. Alphys's True Lab experiments, after Flowey was created and escaped the lab, so the general political status of the Underground is roughly the same as we see it in Undertale.

The three most central new NPCs in UTY are Martlet, a bird-brained Royal Guard, North Star, an enthusiast of human-made "Western Genre" media, and Ceroba, the widow of an engineer named Chujin and was recently forced to send their fallen down daughter, Kanako, to Alphys's lab. Over the course of the pacifist route, you help Martlet realize how her inquisitive and tolerant personality is ultimately incompatable with the endgame mentality of the Royal Guard, help North Star let go of an unhealthy false persona, and help Ceroba untangle her mistakes and show her a path forward that doesn't rely on punishing any more humans or herself. All of these characters, in my opinion, retroatively enhance Undertale's story of a war between Human and Monsters by adding more context to the attempts the Monsters made to try and free themselves and the conflicts that came from them.

I also want to give special mention to Flowey as he's really the only "Undertale" character who plays an expanded role here and it's clear that he was handled with a lot of care and clever writing on the part of the UTY team. Also his Neutral Ending exclusive fight is a spectacle all on its own and is well worth the watch.

Presentation wise, the soundtrack is great all the way through, and refreshingly, doesn't just rely on playing the hits from Undertale and has it's own leitmotif ecosystem that can stand on its own. The sprite work though I think is kind of a mixed bag personally, and my most consistent complaint is that all of the generic enemies are all "cutesy", which UT definitely had too, but I just wish there was a bit more variety throughout the entire game with some "monstery" looking enemies. It's clear that most of the truly great spritework went to the late game environments and boss fights which honestly blow most of Undertale's spritework out of the water but greatly serves UTY's story and most memorable moments.

As for some nitpicks, there are some small continuity issues I have such as the timeline feeling just a little off compared to how things progressed in Alphys's lab entries, some areas in UTY having a lot more flora then we ever see in UT (which yes is important to me for theory purposes) but these were never so bad to break my immersion and I still stand by that for a fanwork, UTY definitely adds more than detracts. I also feel that the pacing and game progression feel a bit off, namely with the Dunes section of the game being a particular section of slow plot progression (at least until encountering North Star) and during Steamworks, I noticed a difficulty spike that I suspect was due to me having subpar equipment but I couldn't do much about it since you can't exit the Steamworks once you enter it. This should go without saying, but I don't personally take any of my complaints that seriously considering this game is a free-to-download passion project.

In summary, I think Undertale Yellow is really, really good. While I don't think it reinvents Undertale's metaphorical wheel, I don't think Undertale Yellow ever needed to, and instead succeeds on telling a story that shows just how versatile Undertale's premise can be on its own without relying on maximum metanarrative chicanery. I hope that Undertale Yellow helps kickstart a new era of UT fanworks that can synthesize the strong in-universe narrative focus of UTY and the metanarrative experimentation of Deltarune.

7. Kaguya-Sama: Love is War - The First Kiss That Never Ends (Anime - Sub)

The full Kaguya-Sama: Love is War anime is a guilty pleasure of mine.

8. Dragon Ball Super Hero (Anime Movie - Dub)

When news broke the legendary Akira Toriyama had passed away, I knew that I immediately wanted to go back and watch the most recent Dragon Ball movie, as I remember hearing a lot of excitement about it when it released a few years ago but I haven't gotten around to seeing it until now. The movie simultaneously works as a great celebration of Dragon Ball's history and a revitalization of the series by bringing characters like Gohan and Piccolo back to center stage and renewing my interest in the series. Also I like when big beams do big blasts. Lots of fun.

9. The Great Ace Attorney Adventures - Visual Novel Video Game - Nintendo Switch (part of the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles collection)

So fun fact: I love Ace Attorney but I have not played the Great Ace Attorney subseries yet despite how well loved they are by fans, so I'm starting to fix that! And yeah, it loves up to the hype. A great set of cases that really liven up the preestablished formula of the series. The 3rd case in this game is easily going down as one of my all-time favorites. Ryunosuke, Susato, Iris, and Sholmes are a great set of protagonists and the mystery of prosecutor Von Zieks and other lingering threads make me very excited for Great Ace Attorney 2, but it is also why I'm not going into a deeper analysis yet as it's very clear this game was made with it's sequel in mind. But yeah, this is a really great Ace Attorney game.

10. Dragon Ball Super - Broly (Anime Movie - Sub)

More Dragon Ball movie catch up. I love big blasts.

11. Pokemon X (Video Game - 3rd Playthrough / pre-Pokemon Legends Z-A Refresh)

Oh boy. There have been so many retrospectives and thinks pieces on Pokemon X and Y over the years I'm not sure I have much to add. The game still feels like the bgeinning on the "Modern Era" for Pokemon. I don't feel like lingering on a full dissection of all the reasons why this game feels like it's missing something compared to most of its DS predecessors so I'll focus on the positives. The game's overworld artstyle is very pretty and charming and the trainer customization is still just as fun as it was in 2013. Of course, what I'm way more interested in is what Pokemon Legends Z-A does with this foundation and see if it lives up to the absolute treat that Pokemon Legends Arceus was for me, or was that really just my Sinnoh bias talking the whole time? By the way, I am working on adding a "Hall of Fame" page to the site showing my storyline team for this playthrough soon, So keep an eye out for that.

12. The Prince of Egypt (Dreamworks Studio Animated Movie)

13. Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (Season 1, Anime, Dub)

This is a really promising anime, almost to the point where I feel sad that it had to come out so soon before Dungeon Meshi's anime adaptation. The art style is really crisp and Frieren's and Fern's journeys are treated with a degree of maturity and introspection that is so rare to find in fantasy anime which reinforces just how refreshing this show is to watch. That said, it does have it's flaws that at least in the scope of the first season, are holding it back from being truly brilliant. So far, the Demon plotline is very derivative and is sorely missing the nuance that the story has shown its capable of in other areas. I also felt a bit mixed about the Mage Exam arc, mostly because I don't really like these types of "Hunger Games" and "Battle Royale" competitions in anime, but after the first exam, the arc definitely gets a lot more interesting and I really like the exams' conclusion. So yeah, great show. I'm really interested to see if Season 2 can fix some of its weaker elements and where it goes with its strengths.

14. Star Wars: Tales of the Empire (Animation Anthology)

Ah, Modern Star Wars. The Greatest Mixed Bag of media in the world. As a Clone Wars kid, I was ecstatic for the return of Bariss Offee and while this new content is still better then none, I'm not entirely sure I like the note her plotline ends on (which i suspect is set up for the Ahsoka show's second season or Filoni's dreaded "Star Wars Avengers" styled movie which is in the works) especially with how great her storyline was going up to the last episode. The inconclusivity is especially frustrating because the previous canon Anthology Series, Tales of the Jedi, did not have this issue at all and ended on a great note. Also, making me invested in Morgan Elsbeth is an uphill battle but for what it's worth, I found the imperial machinations and action parts of her plotline more entertaining then I did in Ahsoka Season 1 so props I guess on that one.

15. Star Wars: Rouge One (Movie, Rewatch)

An underappreciated gem of the modern Star Wars era. Lots of strong direction and cinematography here that really makes it stand out among other modern block busters. I didn't really appreciate it at the time back in 2016, but I do really love just how dire the stakes and conflict are here. Where most of Star Wars plays in the mytho-poetic spaces, this movie, especially in its final act, feels like a war movie which transistions nicely into the story Andor has told so far. This movie definitely has it's flaws, but it's still a great change of pace and definitely helps whet my appetite for Andor Season 2.

16. X-Men '97 (Animated TV Show)

In an era of cash-grabby reboots, X-Men '97 surprisingly stands up with projects like Scott Pilgrim Takes Off and Ducktales (2017) as a project that meaningfully adds to the original and elevates it to modern standards of story-telling. The art style and presentation of this show is truly the greatest surprise to me as this is honestly one of my favorite animated interpretations of the stock comic book style ever while I found all the other animated X-Men adaptations from the past to be lacking in that department. Like all adaptations, especially of a franchise as large as the X-Men, there are some pacing issues and missed opportunities, but all-in-all, as a fan of animated adaptations of comics, this was a very welcome surprise.

17. My Adventures With Superman (Season 1)

18. Dungeon Meshi (Season 1 - Anime Adaptation - English Dub)

Feels hard to add much to the ongoing conversation to Dungeon Meshi at the moment. Love its world building and characters. (..Yeah I know, just like everyone else)

19. Octopath Traveler (All Main Character Stories - Switch)

Finally finished all the main story paths after having this game. Glad to finally have this game in a place I'm satisfied with before playing its sequel which people think is even better.

20. One Piece - East Blue Saga (Manga Volumes 1 - 12)

Surprise! Turns out 2024 is also the year where I start reading One Piece! Probably going to stick doing it several saga chunks at a time though so I don't try to binge the whole thing.

21. Inside Out 2 (Animated Movie - Pixar)

A subversive take on the Mech genre where the conflict is centered around the crew piloting the giant robot instead of fighting other giant robots, as the main antagonist is actually just a well meaning pilot who takes over the command of the robot but is unprepared for the responsibility while the rest of the crew have to take the control back.

22. Pacific Rim (Movie - 2013 - Guillermo Del Toro)

23. Deadpool and Wolverine

24. Scavenger's Reign (Animated TV Show - Netflix)

A remarkably mature and introspective show full of imaginative design that inspires both wonder and fear. There are lots of moments of body horror and gore that got me squemish but it was never enough to turn me away from the great storytelling at work here.

25. Heavensward (Final Fantasy XIV Expansion)

It took like 10 months but I finally finished the Main Story of the Award-Winning Heavensward expansion of FFXIV. If you look at my Twitter Thread documenting my playthrough, I did have some story complaints but overall I loved it. I can't imagine how refreshing Heavensward must have been at the time of its release for all the great character moments and story twists it did provide; just off the top of my head, Estinien is a great example of this as it's easy to initially write him off as a one-track minded dragon killer but its justifies his main character flaw in the narrative by making his dedication to saving Ishgard clear and the likelihood of making peace with Nidhogg's Hoard increasingly more unlikely. The patches after 3.0 also have a lot of great payoffs like the introduction of the Warriors of Darkness being used as a dark reflection of your own player character which would risk ringing hollow if it weren't for the fact that Heavensward put your silent protagonist through notable losses that parallel the situation the Warriors of Darkness are put in. It's fairly safe to say that at this point, I'm in it for the long haul. Hopefully, I won't take 10 months to get through Stormblood though.

26. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic IDW Comics

Felt nostalgic for MLP:FiM so I decided to finally get around to reading the main comic series. Lots of fun arcs and character spotlight issues.

27. The Boy and the Heron (Studio Ghibli 2D Animated Film)

Part of my ongoing project to get caught on this studio's works. Gorgeously animated, deeply imaginative and refreshingly retrospective like most of the studio's other best films that I need to watch.

28. The Wild Robot (Dreamworks Studion 3D Animated Film)

A very gorgeous and mature film about Nature VS Nurture. A great testmanent to Dreamworks' range as a studio and why they're the best at composing montages and flying sequences. I can see myself getting very attached to this movie after a few rewatches to digest all the details this movie packs into its character driven story. I got jumpscared by hearing Skips from Regular Show's voice and then both me and my dad pointed at the screen during the credits when Mark Hamill's name showed up. Good times.

29. Kiki's Delivery Service (Studio Ghibli 2D Animated Film)

Another Ghibli movie from my watch list. Pretty much just as charming and inspiring as its reputation says. I love how this movie portrays burnout. Having a painter character be the one to help Kiki realize the importance taking time away from work does a great job at grounding this whimsical story to a struggle I deeply relate to. So yeah, it was just really nice and relaxing watch. I love how Ghibli movies pace themselves to give audiences time to breathe and come up with their own conclusions about what the movie is trying to say.