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alias_sqbr) wrote2022-01-22 09:05 pm
alias_sqbr) wrote2022-01-22 09:05 pm
Entry tags:
Reviews January 2022
Games:
Lost in Secular Love
One Shot
Manga:
Love Me For Who I Am
Live Action Movie:
Jungle Cruise
Animated TV:
Arcane
Games:
Lost in Secular Love (Windows only): A very enjoyable Chinese m/f dating sim from the makers of "My Vow To My Liege", about being a poor noblewoman who pretends to be devoutly religious to get an arranged marriage with a rich not!Buddhist monk to save her impoverished family. There are three love interests:
1) the Perfect Not!Buddhist fiance, at first MC feels defensively guilty about her pretence but then he shows himself to be a mean dom and she is confusedly into it. This was not entirely my thing but was certainly an experience, with Sexy Priest tropes that are probably hotter if you grew up Buddhist. At one point she worries there's going to be consent issues but it ends up fine.
2) Fiance's pure-hearted younger brother who was raised to be Above Worldy Desires. This was DELIGHTFUL, full of angsty repressed pining with a solid foundation of very cute friendship.
3) MC's grumpy childhood friend who happened to become a monk, he is pissy about the gold-digging and also aware she's engaged to his kinda-boss so there's a lot of complicated tsundere pining. This was pretty cute!
There's more other female characters than you might expect given the premise. In every route MC is encouraged to seek her own happiness instead of just caring about her family, and be honest instead of saying what people want to hear. There was some interesting philosophising about balancing worldly needs like money and love with 'enlightened' detachment, but mostly it's just slice of life romance without much plot. The sex scenes were all a little no-no-yes dubcon but in a way I could roll with, she's overall very happy and into everything. I did one bad end and found it a bit meh so didn't do the others. EDIT: Also, yes, you can choose whether the monks are bald, and I chose to give them hair, because I am shallow >.>
One Shot (Windows only): A great little 2D exploration/puzzle game where you play yourself, on your computer, helping a little catboy who has found himself in a fantasy world in need of a Saviour. It's a sweet and enjoyably meta story, every now and then you have to do things like find files in your computer to get extra info for puzzles etc. I wasn't entirely happy with the ending until I realised there is a second, secret ending which plays with the meta aspect even more. The writing can be a little thin and the worldbuilding doesn't bear thinking about very hard, but I was still charmed and had fun. My main issue was that I kept getting lost and forgetting what I was doing, but I think that's a me thing, it's not actually a very difficult game, and there's no timing or coordination required. So I just used a walkthrough a lot.
Manga:
Love Me For Who I Am (Volume 1): Fluffy story about a cis guy who invites his sad, lonely transfeminine non-binary schoolmate to work at his family's maid cafe where all the waitstaff are amab people in maid outfits. Combines "cute girls doing cute things", "het romance where a guy helps a Sad Beautiful Girl", "feminine amab people are hot", and earnest explorations of the complex lines between trans woman, transfeminine non-binary, and cis man who likes dresses (in a Japanese context, which works a little differently to here). It was basically fine and sweet but, idk, the earnest parts actually made me feel more uncomfortable with the fetishy bits than I am with manga which is pure fanservice. Or something. I know an amab transfeminine non binary person who loves it, so, YMMV.
Live Action Movie:
Jungle Cruise: A blander Pirates of the Carribean set in the Amazon. Mostly enjoyable enough, and does have an Actual Gay Character whose treatment was fine, but papers over the racism of the premise in a lazy tokenistic way: the protagonist is a Spunky White Woman Scientist who wants toexploit discover a Secret Magic Plant belonging to a Remote Amazon Tribe, and in the end she gets accolades and Saves The World and the tribe gets...a hat. Makes a vague gesture towards critiquing aggressively racist attitudes towards indigenous people, but has ZERO interest in subverting the idea that the best any indigenous person can hope for is to die helping a nice white person.
Animated TV:
Arcane: Ridiculously beautiful animated steampunk tv show, about an ensemble of characters in a city on the verge of war between the haves and have-nots. Wallows in tropey fight scenes/imagery/emotional moments. Overall enjoyable, with lots of badass and/or morally ambiguous female characters (some middle aged!) with engagingly messy relationships, including a quasi-canon f/f ship. But Quite Ableist (physical deformity is associated with moral decline, mental illness makes you violent, etc), iffy treatment of race, and generally not worth thinking about too hard. Made by the video game company Riot, who are notably sexist and abusive for a video game company, the terrible people don't seem to have been directly involved in making Arcane but are making a profit from it.
Lost in Secular Love
One Shot
Manga:
Love Me For Who I Am
Live Action Movie:
Jungle Cruise
Animated TV:
Arcane
Games:
Lost in Secular Love (Windows only): A very enjoyable Chinese m/f dating sim from the makers of "My Vow To My Liege", about being a poor noblewoman who pretends to be devoutly religious to get an arranged marriage with a rich not!Buddhist monk to save her impoverished family. There are three love interests:
1) the Perfect Not!Buddhist fiance, at first MC feels defensively guilty about her pretence but then he shows himself to be a mean dom and she is confusedly into it. This was not entirely my thing but was certainly an experience, with Sexy Priest tropes that are probably hotter if you grew up Buddhist. At one point she worries there's going to be consent issues but it ends up fine.
2) Fiance's pure-hearted younger brother who was raised to be Above Worldy Desires. This was DELIGHTFUL, full of angsty repressed pining with a solid foundation of very cute friendship.
3) MC's grumpy childhood friend who happened to become a monk, he is pissy about the gold-digging and also aware she's engaged to his kinda-boss so there's a lot of complicated tsundere pining. This was pretty cute!
There's more other female characters than you might expect given the premise. In every route MC is encouraged to seek her own happiness instead of just caring about her family, and be honest instead of saying what people want to hear. There was some interesting philosophising about balancing worldly needs like money and love with 'enlightened' detachment, but mostly it's just slice of life romance without much plot. The sex scenes were all a little no-no-yes dubcon but in a way I could roll with, she's overall very happy and into everything. I did one bad end and found it a bit meh so didn't do the others. EDIT: Also, yes, you can choose whether the monks are bald, and I chose to give them hair, because I am shallow >.>
One Shot (Windows only): A great little 2D exploration/puzzle game where you play yourself, on your computer, helping a little catboy who has found himself in a fantasy world in need of a Saviour. It's a sweet and enjoyably meta story, every now and then you have to do things like find files in your computer to get extra info for puzzles etc. I wasn't entirely happy with the ending until I realised there is a second, secret ending which plays with the meta aspect even more. The writing can be a little thin and the worldbuilding doesn't bear thinking about very hard, but I was still charmed and had fun. My main issue was that I kept getting lost and forgetting what I was doing, but I think that's a me thing, it's not actually a very difficult game, and there's no timing or coordination required. So I just used a walkthrough a lot.
Manga:
Love Me For Who I Am (Volume 1): Fluffy story about a cis guy who invites his sad, lonely transfeminine non-binary schoolmate to work at his family's maid cafe where all the waitstaff are amab people in maid outfits. Combines "cute girls doing cute things", "het romance where a guy helps a Sad Beautiful Girl", "feminine amab people are hot", and earnest explorations of the complex lines between trans woman, transfeminine non-binary, and cis man who likes dresses (in a Japanese context, which works a little differently to here). It was basically fine and sweet but, idk, the earnest parts actually made me feel more uncomfortable with the fetishy bits than I am with manga which is pure fanservice. Or something. I know an amab transfeminine non binary person who loves it, so, YMMV.
Live Action Movie:
Jungle Cruise: A blander Pirates of the Carribean set in the Amazon. Mostly enjoyable enough, and does have an Actual Gay Character whose treatment was fine, but papers over the racism of the premise in a lazy tokenistic way: the protagonist is a Spunky White Woman Scientist who wants to
Animated TV:
Arcane: Ridiculously beautiful animated steampunk tv show, about an ensemble of characters in a city on the verge of war between the haves and have-nots. Wallows in tropey fight scenes/imagery/emotional moments. Overall enjoyable, with lots of badass and/or morally ambiguous female characters (some middle aged!) with engagingly messy relationships, including a quasi-canon f/f ship. But Quite Ableist (physical deformity is associated with moral decline, mental illness makes you violent, etc), iffy treatment of race, and generally not worth thinking about too hard. Made by the video game company Riot, who are notably sexist and abusive for a video game company, the terrible people don't seem to have been directly involved in making Arcane but are making a profit from it.
no subject
no subject
Haha yeah. I had to stop myself adding a bunch of allcaps and exclamation marks, because everything it does, good or bad, is A Lot. Also saying "But also VICTOORRR" would not mean a lot to anyone who hasn't seen the show. But I was thinking it!
no subject
Wow, this is a trope I never expected, but I am so much more interested now. :D Grumpy childhood friend and angsty repressed pining! Those actually sound like My Vow to My Liege tropes, too; do they have a house style?
(Also, did you give the LIs hair? :P This is still the only thing I know about the game, the hair option.)
no subject
I definitely noticed some repeated tropes!
I did add the hair, yes >.> My excuse is that those kind of spherical anime style bald heads look really weird to me.