halfcactus

journal photos: food, jitd vocabulary

The vocab notes have been paying off as I go further in the show. \o/ But I've been too busy just trying to catch up with the episodes to keep at it. ^^;

Media

啞舍 Ya She: Modern-day supernatural donghua about an antique shop owner and a doctor whose fate is tied with his. Not really a fan of the way women were written here—to its credit there were a lot of female characters, but they lacked agency and I was especially annoyed with the subplot with the doctor's patient. Cases were pretty hit-or-miss; my favorite was the Tong Puppet episode. Overall, this was better as a buddy watch than a solo watch, especially with daisydiversions "translating" the dog over voice call. :P

Cheese in the Trap: Modern-day college enemies-to-lovers manhwa where the ML has done a host of truly unforgivable things to the FL, due to a lack of empathy, lack of interest in considering the ripple effects of his machinations, and his own disdain for the FL. He kind of spends the present timeline trying to make up for it, knowing he can't, and fearing he'd lose the FL now that she's entered his orbit and become his world. That the romance is on the unhealthy side makes it more interesting, as does its depiction of socio-economic differences (ML VS everyone else). But the personal conflicts are dragged out—this comic has a brand of wish fulfillment that has all the college drama hashed out over a series of public classroom showdowns and having the crowd pick a "side". IDK why these college students are so invested in each other's lives, to the point of getting involved in the drama?

The best parts were the family storyline—the FL struggles with the pressure of being the eldest daughter; when she changes and asserts her feelings, her family changes with her. I loved watching Inho being folded into that bubble. And I really liked that one of the story arcs was about a gay couple going through the roughest patch of their relationship because of financial stress.

xxxHolic movie:: Wrote about it here.

Fanworks roundup

Fanvid: "Wonderland" (xxxHolic | gen)

Fanvid: "Untouchable Face" (Justice in the Dark | Luo Weizhao x Pei Su)

Fanvid: "the unblooming flowers, the unreturning you" (Justice in the Dark | gen - character study about Pei Su and his grief for his mother)

Fanvid: "The Brightest Star in the Night Sky" (Hikaru no Go/Qihun | gen - everyone x Go)

Comics/Manga

青春18x2：重返最初的悸動
Hello, I'm a Witch and My Crush Wants Me to Make a Love Potion! (+ LNs)
I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss
Matcha Made in Heaven (DNF)
Namidaame to Serenade (ongoing)
Snow White with the Red Hair (DNF)
Wake Up, Sleeping Beauty

TV

Arcane S2
萌妻食神 Cinderella Chef donghua (DNF)
7th Time Loop anime (+ LNs)

-

CURRENT/RECENTS:

Link Click cdrama
( Spoilers and complaints for episodes 1-12 )


Changes of Heart (Honnou Switch) by Kujira
A sweet and fluffy childhood-friends-to-lovers slice-of-life manga with adult characters: When the FL, fresh off a painful breakup, complains about the lack of sex in her relationships, the ML suggests that she sleep with him, and she drunkenly acquiesces. Worried about ruining their friendship, she begs the ML to pretend it never happened the following day, but he asks her out on a proper date instead.

( Read more... )

WEBTOONS/MANGA:
Wrote about I'll Be Matriarch in This Life + See You in My 19th Life + A Sign of Affection here.

DNF A Sign of Affection because I 1) found out it was still ongoing, 2) lost my urge to bingeread shoujo/otome comics.

MOVIES:
Wrote about 我的少女時代 Our Times (2015) here, and 海角七號 Cape No. 7 (2008) + How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (2024) here.

GAMES:
Finished Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective and enjoyed it!!! Even though I ended up still having questions about the plot, the twists in the last act really stuck the landing and got me in the feelings. I also really liked the way it shows how animals, humans, and ghosts have very different perspectives on life, deaths, and attachments... And the overall design and experience were pretty great, even though I was too dumb and impatient for this game. XD

CREATIVE WORK:

Subbed: 舍不得星星 You Are My Lover Friend trailer 1

So Close gifs: Shu Qi gifset / Karen Mok/Zhao Wei gifset

Mid-Autumn Dice Game rules (graphic/diagram): personal work, technically a repost from 2021, but I wanted to archive it

Sep 19 & 20 ~travel vlog~

Also made the graphics for NiF Exchange 2024 (technically just recycled last year's PSD to get it done fast)

Currently

PLAYING:
Fallen London, a free text-based + browser-based RPG... Idk how long I'll stick with it but I really like the mobile version! So far it's curbed my wild urges to keep starting new books/comics/games, which is good, because between the endless compulsions to start new books/comics and the frustration of never finishing anything, I was about to go crazy. And it's much healthier than gacha. Even though I almost left our laundry to get rained on because I'd just gotten a (rare!!!) temporary Danger buff lol. My character is named Santan, after a tropical flower.

WATCHING:
舍不得星星 You Are My Lover Friend, starring Wang Yuwen, Zhang Xincheng, and Guo Yunqi.

Would not recommend this to friends, but it's serviceable and relaxing as a background watch. While Wang Yuwen and Zhang Xincheng have very nice, warm "childhood friends" chemistry (likely due to them being IRL childhood friends with moms who are spreading leaks of their kissing scenes behind their backs), the characters are, though competent, kinda bland...

Enjoying the OP enough that I've never skipped it, though. :') And the show does manage well with its quieter moments of sweetness so I'm hoping it catches it rhythm sooner or later.

READING:
( Well I guess I should make a list lol )

Anyway Shortbox Comics is going live super soon and I'm trying to commit to only getting works by Filipino authors considering *gestures at reading list*. Not to mention I have yet to finish going through last year's Shortbox haul. XD

A Quiet Place: Day One (2024)
I felt quite bamboozled by this because I was expecting this to be about Day One, but they mostly skipped day one by knocking out the main character and having all the important parts be revealed offscreen... I never found out how they discovered that the aliens were reacting to sound and that they are averse to water (in this movie, not averse enough). I suppose it makes sense in the constraints of the characters' PoV, but I still feel cheated. >:(

I've only seen the first Quiet Place movie and in comparison, Day One is much weaker in most aspects. It seemed like any semblance of logic had been cast aside, and the tension eventually flagged for me. But it also felt a lot more human, with a far more interesting character and emotional arc, though I have mixed feelings about the (expected) ending. Lupita Nyong'o's eyes and overall acting really carried the film—I wish I had a higher stress threshold to appreciate it more. And there's a cat!

Note: I dragged my parents to watch this with me because we all needed a break from routine and it seemed HoH-friendly, and it mostly was, since they didn't really care about the character stuff and backstories…



The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House (2023)
Two childhood friends leave Aomori Prefecture to pursue the dream of being geiko in Kyoto. Sumire proves to be a natural, smoothly rising to her debut, while Kiyo, having neither the head nor heart for it, fails out of training. But as it turns out, the maiko house needs a person to take over the cooking! And to stay with Sumire, Kiyo does. In true protagonist fashion, she has both the ability and the determination to evoke home in the food she cooks.

At some point Momoko, the proud and peerless geiko who's weirdly obsessed with zombies, adopts both Sumire and Kiyo as rivals.

Overall, a short, sweet watch with a cute and compelling central relationship and interesting developments (Momoko, mostly). It's focused on the movements inside the maiko house, untouched by real-life problems of invasive tourists and financial sustainability. The parts with Sumire's dad were dragging and underripe, though.

Just One Cookbook has a recipe compilation of all the food featured on the show, organized by episode.



To the Wonder (2024)
A dramatized adaptation of Li Juan's essays about Altay.

Li Wenxiu (Zhou 依ran), a young Han woman, works in a hotel in Ürümqi in the hopes of saving enough money to move to Beijing and become a writer, but it doesn't work out. She's clumsy and distracted, faint-hearted and naive—sneaking off to attend a lecture, bullied by co-workers for being a country bumpkin and high school drop-out with lofty ambitions, and fleeced out of her severance pay. Out of options, she decides to move back in with her mom (played by Ma Yili) who runs a small shop in Altay, located in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture.

Through her eyes we meet a family at the cusp of change: the patriarch Sulitan (Alimujiang) who is uneasy because the old ways are no longer being upheld, the widowed Tokan (Alima) who wishes to remarry and take her kids with her, the ML Batay (Yu Shi), a talented horse trainer unwilling to stay in Sulitan's ranch, and the injured horse Snowshoe.

( Read more... )

All in all, the show was better than my cynicism of relaxing countryside dramas feared! The romantic shots of lush fields were balanced by coming-of-age elements and a sense of them being lived in. It helped a lot to watch this as a group too, to share in the trauma and betrayal. 😂 It was weakest to me when it peeled away from the realism and leaned into the realm of fictionalization--it's still a lot more restrained than I expected, but I felt that we could have tied things up a bit more neatly—with concluding excerpts of the author's writing, maybe? A little bit of something, anyway. I think I just didn't vibe with the final scene haha. And I think even though I got "closure" about Tokan, I wish the FL was impacted by a relationship within community other than the one with Batay.

But it did an otherwise good job in showing us around and taking us back full circle into the point-of-view of an outsider looking in. And it was so nice to see skin looking like skin! The novelty of seeing people's faces having texture in a 2024 cdrama. XD Also! So! Many! Fluffy! Sheep! And little baby sheep! Plus it was only 8 eps.

CW:

major spoilers

animal death (a horse is brutally killed)

リンダ リンダ リンダ | Linda Linda Linda (2005)
Recced by Daisy; 2000s slice-of-life movie about the memories you make in your last year of high school and the supportive communities that come forward to help you attain them.

Plot: An all-girl band is set to perform at the last day of their school's cultural festival but lose two of their members due to internal strife and extenuating circumstances. Keyboardist Kei defiantly steps up to fill the guitarist role, and the vacant vocalist spot goes to the unsuspecting Korean exchange student Son (played by a very young and baby Bae Doona). As they face and overcome rehearsal troubles and encounters at the... boiler room, the girls become more comfortable and confident with each other.

Overall, a nice and mostly plot-less summery watch where any romantic interludes are just opportunities for the girls to make more memories and get closer. The strongest emotional relationship outside of the central characters is between Kei and ex-bandmate/frenemy Rin which fulfills a lot of my rival/girlfriend needs.

PS. The confession scene was very cute and funny.


春光乍洩 | Happy Together (1997)
A messy, co-dependent and destructive couple is stranded in Argentina. Rather than facing their loneliness, they cling to the last breaths of a passionate relationship that is past its expiration date.

The themes definitely hit their marks, and it was poignant to see how fragments of tenderness survive the turbulence of such a violent and ill-fitting love. It was easy to see why this is such a seminal work in LGBT cinema. They screened this in our local theaters, which was really nice!


Anatomie d'une chute | Anatomy of a Fall (2023)
romantic_drift recommended this as an "interesting" film and it is... exactly that. Interesting, well performed and well directed (and used sound to great and somewhat humorous effect), but not really something I'd categorize as good. I didn't realize that the French legal system was such a free-for-all and thoroughly enjoyed watching the court scenes! The film itself could have been tighter.

CW (might contain spoilers):

Domestic violence, dog harm (the dog ends up okay!!! But I still think this scene was unnecessarily dragged out, and not even necessary in the first place), bad and unmediated conversations about mental illness

Dune (2021) + Dune 2 (2024)
To be honest I wasn't very enthused about watching an epic-length movie where one of the central plot points is the colonization of a planet and its inhabitants, even if it's meant to be a subversion of the White Savior trope... so the first movie wasn't for me, and the second one took a while for me to warm up to. But my parents enjoyed them a lot, enough to catch the second movie at the theater, and we really, really liked that a significant amount of the movie had subtitled dialogue since my dad is HOH.

It was my first blockbuster in a while and as far as blockbusters go this has been better than some of the recent ones I've seen, maybe because the source material is substantial enough and the adaptation has a clear vision. I didn't really care for any of the characters, though.

TPTB have also confirmed that the Fremen fighting style is based on Balintawak Eskrima, a type of Filipino martial arts from the Visayas region, so that was pretty cool to watch too.


Rewind (2023)
"Second chance" movie in which a selfish husband gets the chance to relive the day his wife dies in a car collision and change her fate. This was, from what I recall, the most marketable entry in last year's Metro Manila Film Festival, and... I can see why. It's calculated to be family-friendly, from the casting of a real-life celebrity power couple, down to the very explicitly Catholic messaging and aspirations of greener career and educational grass. It's also unfortunately everything I'm allergic to, including a precocious and personality-less child character who functions as the voice of the narrative (no offense to the child actor, it's not his fault the script is like this).

From a Catholic framework, having an insufferable husband/character is acceptable because no soul is beyond redemption; and then you can fulfill the fantasy of having such a person undergo an epiphany and repent from his selfish and egotistical ways... I personally find this trope kind of toxic, on top of its (still very Catholic) stance about death being part of a higher plan, and I'm even saltier that the cause of the initial death is irresponsible driving!!! The ML's license isn't even revoked !!! Also did not appreciate the madonna-whore dichotomy... like they almost had a very cool side character and then they decided to sabotage her for the sake of the ML...

It does wrap up in an emotional way that is easy to get swept up in but ultimately it goes against each and every one of my sensibilities. ^^;


Superhero Movie (2008)
I have nothing to say about this except that it's definitely a movie from its time—the era of broad comedy and irreverent parodies, shortly before the advent of the Avengers franchise—and it's really not my thing, though there were some good jokes.

(My superhero parody of choice from this era is Kick-Ass.)


달콤한 인생 A Bittersweet Life (2005)
Slick and stylish award-winning noir action film that I mostly watched by... looking away from the screen. XD It's a well-paced and well-structured gangster thriller where a disgraced hitman takes you from the surface to the belly of the beast. The visuals are pretty interesting, and there’s ample breathing room from the tension and violence, and a satisfying ending. Definitely not my thing since I'm extremely squeamish about violence, BUT the part where Sunwoo goes after the boys in the flashy car and introduces them to the full FAFO experience was pretty cathartic...


Polite Society (2023)
Took me a while to warm up to this one because high-energy coming-of-age and social/cultural satire are not for my low-energy heart... but once it got going, it really got going and I happily ate up the most ridiculous and unsubtle plot developments.

2023 had some well-anticipated big and visually arresting movies with feminist slants that I did not quite vibe with, and this is the one that finally landed for me. This is my Barbie!!! My Bottoms!!! It had cool fight scenes AND a dance number that had all the energy of a fight scene but also fit spectacularly well in the context of its themes. And sisterly love and sisterly joy. ♥

Overall: very fun, satisfying, and comforting movie about sisters and friendship (the setup takes a while though)

I've been pretty busy and I have extreme cmedia fatigue, particularly for dramas, recent Mainland Chinese blockbusters, and anything that involves fannish energy. AND my wireless earphones are dead, which means I don't get to watch / listen to variety shows while working anymore. ;___;

Tbh I think I generally am just not in the frame of mind to read/watch anything (apart from my monthly Witch Hat Atelier fix), but I've been avoiding c-ent in particular lol.

So!!! This month was just me unofficially having my own Asian film festival, where all the films were satisfyingly of different genres and vibes. Of the six, I'd recommend Bad Genius and Going by the Book anytime anywhere, and The Boy and the Heron if watching in the theater.

Bad Genius (2017): Thai school heist thriller + social commentary

The Boy and the Heron (2023): Japanese coming-of-age + fantasy animation

長安三萬里 Chang'An (2023): Chinese historical animation

Firefly (2023): Filipino road trip + fantasy

GomBurZa (2023): Filipino historical + social commentary

Going by the Book (2007): Korean comedy/reverse heist thriller, adapted from a Japanese movie from the 90s

Have also been playing Fire Emblem: Three Houses. I'm happy to report that, after first 15 or so hours of play, my life is no longer derailed. I think it helps that the game structure kind of... slows you down, by which I mean that the Explore / life sim bits make me put the game down in rage. XD (I also get motion sickness when I run around the monastery. I hate that it's necessary, it defeats the purpose of fast travel.)

I'm doing the Golden Deer route, at romantic_drift's passionate recommendation--I'm not sure this should be the route to start with because I feel so boxed out of the plot and the Drama^TM, but we'll see! I do really enjoy that Claude is an archer/leader type (which I'm biased towards even though I never use it well...), Raphael and Hilda are super sweet. I generally suck at this type of game, but it seems like you can coast on it even when you ignore most of the mechanics, so that's nice! I've recruited all of the girls, but I don't know what to do with them now hahahaha. (Mostly working on Hilda, Leonie, and Lysithea from my own House, and still trying to figure out my supporting lineup.)


MISC. NOTES:

Bilibili Manhua International is going down at the end of February :(

CNN Philippines also shut down, and all of its content, including its Twitter, went poof.

Lulu felice x NANA wedding dresses !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lulu felice x NANA official illustration

I thiiiink I spent more time subbing things + editing videos than watching things this month, and then got burned out of wanting to do/watch anything... I was probably also frustrated with my media rotation haha.

Finished

Keigo Higashino, "Salvation of a Saint" (English translation by Alexander O. Smith)
A really good murder mystery with satisfying answers, no notes.

Lost in the Stars (movie)
Dreamwidth entry.

DNF

I Am Nobody (cdrama)
Cdrama adaptation of a donghua? manhua? novel? starring Echizen from the Tenipuri cdrama, young Shen Siyi from Dear Missy, and uh... a couple of pretty boys. Directed by the director of Crossfire too. It's basically either a long martial arts movie or a shounen anime in live action form. If you like that kind of thing, this is very good at that! However, the main character is insufferable and the live action format magnifies everything I hate about anime and webnovels aimed at boys. Even when it "subverts" expectations, the humor is still really annoying, and has that harem anime/novel vibe? Also the scene where they give Baobao a makeover was too much of character disservice and skeeviness for me in spite of its fight scene payoffs. (I might come back for Baobao's fight scenes haha)

Horimiya (anime)
A very wholesome friends-to-lovers high school anime about a popular girl who's secretly a homebody, and a quiet and unpopular boy who secretly rocks piercings and tattoos + their friends. Somehow this was too wholesome and vanilla for even me...? In any case, I got bored and wasn't into the romance or the ~domesticity~. XD I do like how the FL is the popular and confident character for a change.

Parallel World (cdrama)
Adventure-romance with Bai Yu and Ni Ni. I might still continue this because I enjoyed Ni Ni's character + performance, and I heard that there might be more ensemble/group dynamics and a chicken later on... But my track record for finishing shows is... abysmal.

I Ship My Rival X Me manhua vol8
Vol8 ended last week, and I think vol9 is the last one! The recent chapters haven't been very interesting, but I'm going to miss my boys and Yanyan's colorful reactions.

Misc

I JUST found out that Yoruneko anime is now accessible outside of Japan, AND has English subs!!! It's a very cute and funny slice-of-life anime about living with a cat. :') Eps are just a minute each, perfect for when your soul needs a little bit of healing.

Here's a compilation of eps 1-40 (no English subs):



And their episode playlist with English subs (though not all eps are accessible):

Playlist link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL21PGVTtHmxgpTZwSrn-1QMUcbaJdnxZM

Twitter finds

MorgansGoodTime: "Oh to be a rat enjoying some soft rain" (a very lovely and soothing 20-second animation)

caldatelier: Fingerseek pages (like crossword puzzles, but with fingerspellings)

caldatelier: A comic about Filipino Sign Language and regional/personal variations (Comic is in English. A short and interesting read with useful visuals!)

cioccolato_kun: What if there's a shounen anime for Laundry Washing?

Cat Cafe: c/o superborb; mostly including so I remember what it's called haha. I'm not a boardgame person and I don't really understand what anything is for and likely never will, but it's very chill and cute. I like that boardgamearena automatically tells me my options and allows me to easily scan the other players' boards, but in retrospect, I think it would be pretty cute to draw(??) your own cats for the pen-and-paper version. (The toys might not be as fun to draw.)

I'm also trying to reread and then continue Dungeon Meshi because I forgot where I left off years ago (not very far) and it's still as fun as the first time. I love how the licensed English translation has translation notes at the end. And,,, I love,,, Marcille,,,,


( +2 more images )

Nimona (2023)
Streaming on: Netflix

This adaptation changed a lot of things in the graphic novel, so it feels fresh, and somewhat more simplistic, but no less personal and meaningful. I enjoyed the medieval fantasy setting and the music!

The movie definitely benefited from having its plot be more streamlined and straightforward. The adult characters had their moral complexities sanded down and felt like completely different characters, but I didn't mind as much since it gave Nimona and the LGBT messaging more room to reach out to the audience. The flashback of Nimona's backstory in the second half was absolutely beautiful and touching and truly pulled the whole movie together.

I found some of the social commentary dialogue somewhat formulaic and heavyhanded, but it said what it wanted to say and I think it's the kind of children's movie I'd have loved to grow up with!

(And on a more superficial note: I felt so seen by the music in this movie, which reminds me of 2010s Tumblr/8tracks fandom + workout mixes. I actually stopped the movie halfway to listen to the full Gold Guns Girls 5 times in a row, as God intended.)


Barbie (2023)
This was a fun blockbuster but mostly this movie made me sorely feel how much I wasn't the target audience for this. ^^; I don't necessarily mean this as a bad thing, because it was designed to reach out to as many people as possible for good reasons. But the more that jokes and references felt like they were calibrated for maximum relatability, the less I could connect--so this movie didn't mean much to me emotionally. But I still loved both Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling's performance in this, and all the song/dance numbers, and the set + costume design, and the way people felt so intimately connected to the Barbie lore. It was definitely a movie worth watching in the theater, especially with the energy of an audience who dressed up for it.


Oh No! Here Comes Trouble (2023)
Streaming on: iQiyi

Taiwanese supernatural drama about a young man from a family of calligraphers who learns to use his family's craft as well as his own heart to give peace to the living, the dead, and himself.

This is one of the better dramas I've seen in a while, with a male protagonist I actually love! The main character is Pu Yiyong, nineteen years old and going through a journey of grief, and characterized through his relationships and interactions. The case-writing and procedural aspects are quite weak, but the supernatural mysteries and elements and the overarching emotional arc are so, so, so well done. As the show goes on, you see more of Pu Yiyong's personality and a brand of kindness that is so specific to him and his emotional space.

This is also one of my favorite portrayals of a mother-son relationship and the empty spaces in their lives in which the mother herself was a deviant in her prime. She pulls their family together with good humored affection.

---

Recently:

Subbed (because I was unusually productive):

Young Blood 2 "Return with Ignited Dreams" special: a collaboration with for_zhouyutong; this video involves the cast talking about their characters. Hosted on Dailymotion because MGTV Youtube cruelly blocked all! our! hard! work! orz

Zhang Xincheng: "Guess what Young Blood 2 scene I drew"

Zhang Xincheng + "Flower" by Jisoo (livestream clip) (I, for one, am proud of him for even just knowing who sang it lol)

Zhang Xincheng: Taking an MBTI test as Yuan Zhongxin (Young Blood 2): interesting commentary at the end about Yuan Zhongxin being an extroverted introvert

A little preoccupied recently because dramateaque was pretty interested in all the MBTI talk, including the one in a recent livestream. I'm so glad I've accepted my slowness and stopped trying to keep with everything, but at the same time my output rate has become kind of... unhinged again. (I normally average very short 1 video a week, which is also unhinged but in a more normal way lol.)

Mostly movies.

Books

Carla Kelly, "With This Ring"

TV

No Doubt in Us S1 (2021)

Signal (2016)

Movies

這麼多年 | All These Years (2023)

Ang Pagbalik ng Kwago | Leonor Will Never Die (2022)

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)

Pinocchio (2022)

回廊亭 | Revival (2023)

流浪地球 | The Wandering Earth (2019)