Media consumed April 2019

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Books:

Heaven's Official Blessing by Mò Xiāng Tóngxiù: I already wrote this up at length, but: a Chinese m/m novel about a twice fallen god trying to muddle his way through godhood again, who finds himself drawn to a strangely kind demon king. Great, but very angsty in parts. Since the translation isn't finished I stopped at a happy part where I felt like things were about to get angsty again, but definitely want to read the whole thing when it's done. Ware the content notes.

Passion Favours the Bold by Theresa Romain: a m/f romance novel about a plucky young woman seeking lost gold and the older, sensible family friend who initially tries to stop her but eventually gets dragged into her shenanigans. Cheerfully anachronistic, and they were both a bit too well adjusted for my tastes, but it was fun and they had a cute dynamic.

Guardian by priest: a Chinese m/m novel about a cheerfully bisexual lovable rogue who works for a secret government department handling the supernatural. He encounters a mysterious, aloof university professor and soon realises they have more history than it seems. A lot of fun from what I've read, combining X-files-ish cases with romance and hurt/comforty character arcs. The translation isn't finished so I just stopped once I reached a "boy gets boy" point where I had a feeling "boy loses boy" was around the corner. I remember cringing at some parts, I think it's ableist in some sections?

Live Action:

Kim's Convenience: Sitcom about a Korean-American family that runs a convenience store. I watched the start of the first episode and it was funny in parts but wasn't grabbing me, and then was so staggeringly biphobic I had to stop.

Why did you come to Japan: Japanese tv show where foreigners arriving at Tokyo airport are asked why they came to Japan. Cute, but not my sort of thing.

Animation:

Batman and Harley Quinn: a fun caper where Harley team up with Batman and Nightwing to stop her pal poison ivy from destroying the world. Male gazey in parts, and with some unfortunate treatment of mental illness, but mostly fun. Enjoyably femslashy in parts.

Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Sempai: harem-y anime about a teenage boy who encounters and helps various teenage girls dealing with supernatural-y side effects of puberty. Basically good hearted under the thick layer of male gaze, with likeable characters and what seemed like a cute understated snarky romance, but it made me feel gross so I stopped.

Computer Games:

Tametsi: another "minesweeper with more information and no guessing" logic puzzle game. Fairly bare bones but enjoyable if you like this sort of thing. Doesn't punish you for mistakes, so you could guess your way through it if you wanted, but I find it more satisfying to use pure logic.

Transistor: a very cool and atmospheric noir-ish art deco science fiction fighting game which has a perfectly valid strategic combat system that for some reason made me very anxious, even though I wasn't actually super bad at it. I've been watching a Let's play and enjoying that!

Ozmafia: Dating sim about an amnesiac girl who wakes in a town run by mafia who are all book characters. Silly and inconsistent, I quite liked some of the paths I played but it also triggered me and I haven't felt motivated to finish it.

Submerged: Exploration game where a young woman explores a flooded, abandoned city for supplies to take care of her sick brother. It was interesting for a while but it's very slow and repetitive, and the premise made me a bit melancholy. The puzzle-platformer sections were very achievable even with my terrible reflexes, which was a nice change.

Mobile games:

Blue Stacks: What I am using to emulate these android games on my mac laptop. Easy to install and use, does make my computer sound a little like an airplane taking off.

Merge Dragons: A fun, pretty, addictive match-3 idle clicker with a dragon theme: you get cute little dragons to harvest flowers, then combine those flowers to unlock special items etc. Tries very hard to get you to witter away ridiculous amounts of real money, and probably very bad for anyone with a tendency towards gaming addiction. But I've been treating it as a challenge to succeed without spending a cent and been having fun. I have more trouble resisting the temptation to keep double clicking on things to speed them up, thus hurting my wrist. A great way to fill in huge amounts of time watching dragons fly around, clicking things from time to time. There's optional puzzle levels, some of which are timed, so far I've found them all achievable but sometimes did have to look up a walkthrough to get things done quickly enough.

Cat Cafe: Cute plotless game where you run a cat cafe and match cats to customers. I had fun with this for a while then got bored and stopped playing. Tries to get you to spend real money but I never felt very tempted.