Media Reviews: May 2018

[alias_sqbr]

Books:

A Taste of Honey by Rose Lerner: A sweet (sorry) regency romance between a self sacrificing, over serious baker and his assistant. It didn't leave much of a lasting impression but I gave it 5 stars so I guess I liked it!

Only a Kiss by Mary Balogh: A gentle, pleasant, slightly old fashioned feeling romance between a woman with PTSD who has turned herself to metaphorical marble and a good natured lord entirely failing to live a life of mindless hedony. The sixth in the series but I read it first because I liked the idea of the woman being the survivor, the shoutouts to previous books were obvious but not too annoying and I wasn't confused. Very straight but not sexist and has a lot of disabled characters treated well by the narrative. Sex is fade-to-black, which I found refreshing but ymmv ;)

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz: A coming of age novel about a gay latino teenager, it has a m/m romance plot but is not structured like a romance novel. I don't generally like coming of age novels but I enjoyed this a lot while reading ...right until the end, which does the sort of "useless gay has their life fixed by loving straight people" wish fulfilment I know some people enjoy but makes my skin crawl. Also it did the "grumpy poor person with screwed up family falls for sensitive rich person with perfect enlightened family" trope which I am very sick of.

Claimings, Tails, and Other Alien Artifacts by Lyn Gala: romance/erotica about a human who realises he is a Natural Sub and should just let the Natural Dom alien love interest make all the decisions. The science fiction worldbuilding was interesting and I think it would probably be enjoyable if it's your sort of thing, unfortunately it hit some bad buttons for me.

Manga:

Kiss Him Not Me! A fat yaoi fan loses weight and suddenly has a bunch of boys (and one girl) interested in her, but she finds the idea of actually dating intimidating and wishes the boys would just make out with each other. Except it finally finished, and she chose one of them (my favourite of the boys, which was the best plausible outcome) and they lived happily ever after. Has all the problems inherent in the premise and is not especially queer, but the female love interest is taken seriously and never gets a boyfriend, and it's not completely terrible about male queerness and fatness. Other than that it's a cute, funny shoujo romance that plays around a little with gender.

Sasameki Koto: a highschool yuri manga which I liked a lot to start with but it ended up making me feel too gross to continue and I don't remember why.

Anime:

Kagerui: Ridiculous femslashy/femdommy trash about a girl who joins a corrupt elite highschool whose social structure is based on high stakes gambling (the resemblance to real life gambling is minimal). She demolishes everything in her path like a force of nature by being fantastic at gambling and utterly without fear, because all she cares about is gambling for it's own sake. Theoretically has a male protagonist but he is quite happy to just be her loyal sidekick. I really enjoyed it but it is very trashy. Here's the opening to give some idea. Contains implied off screen rape.

Skilled Teaser Takagi: two tsundere middle schoolers, the girl always wins their teasing war. Got too boringly repetitive before the end of the first episode.

The remaining anime are all in the "cute girls/boys doing cute things" genre: fluff, mild fanservice, gentle humour, very light plots with an emphasis on friendship.

Laid Back Camp: A group of highschool girls get into camping in the Japanese outdoors. I'm only 4 episodes in but I've heard it stays good and am really enjoying it.

How to Keep a Mummy: A group of friends (three boys and a girl) end up taking care of cute baby mythological creatures. I really enjoyed this! It's like pokemon without the fighting.

Sanrio Boys: A group of teenage boys bond over loving Hello Kitty and other Sanrio characters. More fun than you'd expect for what is basically a half hour long commercial, but I got bored before the end of the season.

Gakuen Babysitters: two highschool boys (and two girls, sort of) babysit toddlers. This is cute and mostly fun but had the odd unpleasantly jarring moment of sexism etc. There is a running gag I can't figure out how to describe without getting into triggering territory but it was very very unfortunate.

Western TV:

Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law: An old Anime Swim cartoon about a bird suited lawyer who does cases involving various Hanna Barbara characters. The first episode had too many offensively edgy jokes and not enough of them were funny (some were, though, I can see why people liked the show)

Movies:

John Wick: a slickly made and entertainingly violent revenge movie with nothing more to it than that. Keanu Reeves is very good as the stoic woobie hitman protagonist. Female characters generally exist in order to squeal and run away, sometimes in bikinis. Probably would have enjoyed it and "Keanu" slightly more if I'd seen them in the opposite order.

Computer Games:

Yonder the Cloud Catcher Chronicles (Windows only) A fun and gentle exploration and crafting game with no combat. Doesn't have a lot to it in terms of plot or characters, but I enjoyed wandering around aimlessly picking flowers and there were just enough quests and unexplored areas to keep things varied and give me goals. Also my "female" character got to be fat with a beard :D The 3D graphics are simple but very pretty, which makes it nice to just wander around.

Slime Rancher: farm slimes and explore an alien planet! I played this in early access but decided to have another go now it's finished and it was definitely more fun, with more to do and little tweaks to make it more interesting. Also there's a casual mode now, which gets rid of the stuff that made it a little too stressful last time.

Whale's Waldo: An indie dating sim about sea creatures living in the modern world. It was inoffensive but dull and I got bored and stopped.

Comments

[tamsin]

Yonder the Cloud Catcher Chronicles sounds like it might be exactly my thing. Thanks for the review!

[alias_sqbr]

I hope you enjoy it!

Thanks for posting!

[(Anonymous)]

I might check out Laid-Back Camp and How to Keep a Mummy.

If you haven't seen the second John Wick yet, I liked the women in it better. But you might have seen it. I couldn't quite tell from your post.

If you come across a Romance that is solid wit and snark the whole way through, do let me know. I'm joomju on tumblr.