2016 - Podsumowanie

Hello!
Kończy się kolejny rok i chociaż, funkcjonuję bardziej w kategoriach roku akademickiego niż kalendarzowego, to podsumowanie roczne tak dobrze się pisze.

Styczeń

Rok zaczęliśmy z "Sherlockiem i Upiorną Panną Młodą"  a nawet podwójnie, bo pojawił się także Sherlock wyszywany półkrzyżykiem. Pojawiła się recenzja książki "Kłamca. Papież sztuk". Oraz rozważania po pierwszym odcinku "Shadowhunters".

Po co wybierać jeden obrazek, skoro można pokazać wszystkie? 

Przy okazji będziecie mogli zobaczyć jak anime powoli przejmowało moje życie.

Luty

Post, z którego jestem dumna: Always  

Wszystko zaczęło się oczywiście od "Harrego Pottera" i chyba najbardziej znanego cytatu z rozmowy Dumbledor'a i Snape'a.

 "After all this time?

Alwyas"

A potem zauważyłam, że słowo always często jest prawie jak wyznanie miłości, albo je zastępuje i zaczęłam to nieco uważniej śledzić. 

Pojawiło się też kilka recenzji. "Deadpoola"  - był super, "Mozart in the Jungle" sezon pierwszy, raczej rozczarowujący, za to drugi sezon "Galavanta" to było coś.

Marzec

"Hamilton"! Notka, z której jestem bardzo dumna, zadowolona i samozachwycona. "Wesołe Kumoszki z Windsoru" pozostajemy w tematach teatralnych i powtórzę się po raz setny - jeśli jesteście w Gdańsku i akurat grają "Kumoszki" po prostu musicie na nie iść. I zdecydujcie się na miejsca stojące, nie pożałujecie. Ciekawy temat zainspirowany studiami - Czytanie na głos. I dwie recenzje, o których warto wspomnieć - "Zwierzogród" i "The Night Manager".

Kwiecień 

W styczniu pisałam po pierwszym odcinku "Shadowhunters" a w kwietniu po całym sezonie - "Shadowhunters" . W tym miesiącu okazało się także, że sekcja teledysków się rozrosła i zrobiłam małe podsumowanie - Nie tylko w kinie i teatrze X. Było też ambitnie pod względem teatralnym - "Rozmowa po "Burzy"" oraz "Królowa śniegu" . Co prawda Rok z anime będzie miał swoje podsumowanie, ale nie mogę nie wspomnieć o Szekspirze w anime. Kolejna notka z kategorii: jestem super szczęśliwa, że ją napisałam.

Maj

To był miesiąc superbohaterski - "Civil War" oraz "X-Men Apocalypse". Jednym z najczęstszych haseł po jakich ludzie trafiają na bloga jest "noga w gipsie" w różnych odmianach i okraszona różnymi innymi słowami, a popełniłam na ten temat jeden wpis - 10 spostrzeżeń osoby z nogą w gipsie. I nie mogę zapomnieć o recenzji "Dwóch panów z branży".

Czerwiec

Obejrzałam drugi sezon "Mozart in the Jungle" i podobał mi się bardziej niż pierwszy. Widziałam też 3 sezony "Peaky Blinders" prawie na raz i zakochałam się w tym serialu. Z filmów pojawiła się recenzja "Alicji po drugiej stronie lustra", a z książek "Pani Noc". Napisałam też alfabetyczne podsumowanie roku akademickiego w Gdańsku - Od A do Z życia w akademiku, na studiach i w Gdańsku.

Lipiec

Byłam w Niemczech i moje pisanie opierało się na wcześniej przygotowanych postach i ciekawych rzeczy jest nieco mniej. Wyszywanie  Jane Eyre i Pan Rochester, kilka kadrów z "Herkulesa" , oraz moje urodziny w zdjęciach - Cały dzień, co godzinę.

 

Sierpień

Trochę zdjęć z Niemiec - Wycieczka po Bad Soden oraz Ogród Koreański. Oraz jedna rzecz, której gdyby nie wyjazd, nie miałabym okazji przeczytać - Manga "Hamlet". Popełniłam też wpis o Najbardziej inspirującej osobie w internecie. Pojawia się też recenzja filmu "Mr. Holmesa". W sierpniu blog obchodził też 4 urodziny - Wyznania blogerki, albo 4 urodziny bloga.

 
Wrzesień

Jeszcze raz o Niemczech - "Frankfurt - miasto i ludzie". W moim mieście odbywał się  Festiwal Teatralny InQbator - Brak słów - InQbator 2016 . W drugiej części roku zwiększa się liczba recenzji i notek o książkach - "Kancelaria"  i "Chemia śmierci".

Październik   

Powrót do Gdańska. Nieco wcześniejszy niż było to konieczne, bo razem z Bliźniaczkami wybrałam się na "Romea i Julię".  Dość ważnym postem jest dla mnie ten o Riennaherze. Do tego jedne z Waszych ulubionych postów, czyli te dotyczące studiów - tu ZIArtu, a tu filologii polskiej. Z recenzji - pojawiła się książki Szymona Hołowni "Święci codziennego użytku".

Listopad

Prawie same recenzje, a i w ramach Roku z anime pojawiły się nieco ambitniejsze treści. Zaczynamy od "Doctora Stranga" oraz "Fantastycznych zwierząt i jak je znaleźć" poprzez kilka kadrów z "Planety skarbów" aż po "Japonki nie tyją i się nie starzeją" oraz "Harry Potter i Przeklęte Dziecko". Pytanie tylko, jakim cudem miałam na to wszystko czas?

Grudzień

Z niecierpliwością czekałam na pierwszy tydzień grudnia, aby opublikować dwie książkowo-blogowo-vlogowe notki, czyli Blogerzy książkują i Vlogerzy książkują. Nieoczekiwanie miałam też możliwość w tym miesiącu zobaczyć w Teatrze Muzycznym w Gdyni jeden z moich ulubionych musicali - Najtragiczniejszy friendzone świata - "Notre Dame de Paris". Do końca dobiega też akcja Rok z anime, a najważniejszym anime i przy okazji wpisem na blogu i na facebooku zostało: Najlepsze anime na świecie - "Yuri On Ice" . To moja ulubiona, najważniejsza notka w tym roku. Grudzień był w tym roku wyjątkowo produktywny i zapowiada to dobrze na przyszły rok.

Bardzo się cieszę, bo powoli, ale systematycznie odnotowuję na blogu polepszenie statystyk i każdy rok jest coraz lepszy. Dziękuję, że jesteście!
W sumie pojawiło się 175 wpisów, o 10 mniej niż w 2015, z czego 51 dotyczących anime. A 8 absolutnie najważniejszych dla mnie wpisów to: Always, Hamilton, Szekspir w anime, Manga Hamlet, Najbardziej inspirująca osoba w internecie (podpowiem, że to Krzysztof Gonciarz), wpis o Riennaherze i wszystkie z grudnia, które wymieniłam wyżej, ale "Yuri!! On Ice" jest na pierwszym miejscu.

Nie poprawiałam wyników czytania, a wręcz było źle, ale dokończyłam "Wojnę i pokój", w sumie z listy BBC trzy książki. Natomiast nieco lepiej było w "Czytam literaturę angielską" ze względu na dramaty, które czytałam na studia, ogólnie 11 tytułów.

Nad prawdziwymi planami na 2017 zacznę się zastanawiać, gdy skończę semestr, czyli w lutym. Póki co utrzymuję plan pisania wtorek, czwartek plus weekend. Ale do tematu wrócimy przy podsumowaniu Roku z anime. 

Wszystkiego Najlepszego w Nowym Roku, LOVE, M

All Romance Ebooks is shutting down

Smart Bitches Trashy Books has a good post on what's going on right now. The site gave authors, publishers, and customers mere days worth of notice that they'll be shutting down 12/31 on midnight. Even worse, authors won't be paid the full amount they're owed, and any books purchased after 12/27 are basically free money for ARe (that's got to be illegal, right?). They're outright stealing from authors, as well as from readers who pre-ordered books and don't send a refund request through before January 1st.

All Romance Ebooks is where I started buying ebooks. I really liked their "buy 10, get 1 free" deal, as well as their occasional rebate sales (you got a percentage of what you spent back in Ebook Bucks, which you could apply to future purchases). I bought a lot of books from them that I probably wouldn't have gotten otherwise - books published by Bold Strokes Books, for example, tend to be a little pricey. Same with Loose Id's books. Without ARe, I might not have discovered Jane Fletcher's largely wonderful Celaeno series, or many other favorite books.

That said, I've used the site less and less in the past few years. There seemed to be a significant drop in the frequency of their 50% rebate sales. I started buying a lot of books direct from Samhain Publishing, Carina Press, and even occasionally Bold Strokes Books. I started using Smashwords, learned about Humble Bundles and Story Bundles, and began buying ebooks from Kobo. ARe's closure shrinks the pool of places I can buy ebooks, but I've found lots of other options, so this doesn't hurt as much as it would have a few years ago. It also helps that my romance reading has gone way down - I've been more of a sci-fi/fantasy reader lately.

I have all the books I bought from ARe downloaded and backed up, although it makes me a little nervous that my backups will be it from here on out. Looking on the bright side, my reading tastes have changed a lot since I first started using ARe, and many of the books I got from them are ones that I'm no longer interested in reading. But still.

I checked my Ebook Bucks situation, and thankfully I only had a few pennies. I tended to spend my Ebook Bucks during sales, turning 50% rebate sales into 50% off sales with a little help from spreadsheets.

So, I guess that's it. ::sigh::

Currently rewatching: Big Windup!

Yuri on Ice left me with a craving for more sports anime, so I snagged a copy of the newly released (in the U.S., at least) Big Windup! 2. Since I figured it might pick up where Big Windup! left off, I've been rewatching that. I've somehow managed to get through 2/3 of it in only 24 hours, despite having also gone on a "big city" used book shopping trip.

Some things:

• I had forgotten that Tajima likes to loudly talk about his masturbation habits. The dude has no shame.
• I had also forgotten that Abe was kind of a jerk at the beginning of the series. I'm glad that Coach Momoe put a stop to his "use Mihashi like a puppet" mindset, although one thing that Yuri on Ice got me to thinking about was the healthiness of Abe and Mihashi's relationship. Is it okay that, even 17 episodes in, Mihashi is still convinced the only reason he's doing well as a pitcher is because he has Abe giving him signs? And Abe telling Mihashi not to worry, that he'd make sure never to get sick or injured so that he could catch for him the whole three years, had me fretting a little. I don't recall anything happening to Abe in Big Windup, but I wonder if Big Windup 2 will shake things up a bit and force Mihashi to have to work with another catcher, even if only for a little bit.
• Yuri on Ice is a series about men's figure skating, and it still manages to have a larger and more varied female cast than this series. So far we have the mothers, Coach Momoe, the cute team manager whose name I can never remember, and Ruri, Mihashi's cousin. The mothers are all varying degrees of excited and motherly. Ruri only just appeared on the scene. The team manager kind of depresses me - she apparently became the team manager because she used to really love softball, but the series never even shows her getting involved in the team's mental training exercises. By comparison, Mihashi's one friend, who became head of the team's cheering squad, was immediately asked to join the team's meditation practice. Then there's Coach Momoe. She seems awesome, but I have all kinds of questions about her that I doubt the series will ever answer. For example, if she's pouring all her part-time job money into the team, how does she pay her own bills? What inspired her decision to start Nishiura's baseball team? Will we ever see flashbacks to her days playing baseball? 
• I can't remember how any of the games turned out! The game with Tosei is freaking me out. Does Nishiura win? I can't remember! So much tension.
• I still love it when the catchers try to analyze their pitchers' emotional states and mentally debate how to handle them.
• I had thought that Yuri's anxiety and Viktor trying to deal with it was something new to me in anime, but actually it's here in Big Windup too. Mihashi is painfully anxious and prone to self-doubt. Unfortunately, like I noted earlier, his way of dealing with it maybe isn't healthy - Abe becomes his security blanket. Crossing my fingers that there's a sign, later in the series, that he can still function without Abe, the way Yuri showed that he could function without Viktor.

Wojny - "Łotr 1. Gwiezdne wojny - historie"

Hello!

W zeszłym roku tłumaczyłam się dlaczego serię Gwiezdnych Wojen obejrzałam dość późno. Przy okazji "Łotra 1" muszę tę kwestię wytłumaczyć jeszcze raz. Otóż bałam się GW. Słowa wojny i gwiazdy połączone w jedno wyrażenie przerażały mnie totalnie. Potem okazało się, że to opowieść o miłości nie wojnie i nie ma się czego bać. A w "Łotrze 1" dostałam dokładnie ten element GW, którego bałam się, gdy byłam młodsza. Plus tonę ciężkich uczuć i emocji na koniec. 

 Jego lubię, to najciekawsza postać w całym filmie.

Bardzo podobało mi się tłumaczenie tytułu jako "Łotr Jeden" - tak jakby ktoś zwracał się do niegrzecznej, ale uroczej (patrz: Han Solo) osoby. I być może dałam się zwieść własnej wizji tego filmu i nawet późniejsza zmiana na cyfrę mnie nie zaalarmowała, a powinna była.

Przez pierwsze 40 minut filmu praktycznie nic się nie dzieje. To znaczy ja byłam przez taki czas w stanie skupić się na tyle, aby wyczekiwać zasadniczej części filmu, potem się poddałam. Opuściłam gardę i dałam się podejść, jak się później okazało, ale do tego dojdziemy. "Łotr 1" bywa nudnawy, niektóre sceny są zdecydowanie za długie. Wiem, że były przypadki drzemek na sali. Mogło to być też spowodowane tym jak ciemny jest film. Planety albo nieprzyjazne albo pada, albo jedno i drugie, a jak nie to akcja dzieje się w ciemnych pomieszczeniach. Dopiero ostatnie miejsce jest jaśniejsze, ale to wcale nie jest dobry znak. 

 Pięć bardzo ciekawych postaci, ale oprócz jednej-dwóch cech szczególnych i od razu bardzo wyróżniających nie wiemy nic. Potrzebujemy prequela do prequela (do prequela?), aby ich wykorzystać.

Początek filmu to historia rodzinna i po pierwsze, wszystkie pobudki bohaterów są mocno naciągane, a po drugie, to chyba ktoś naoglądał się "Interstellar". Ale nie potrafię się przeczepić, bo pełnego poświęcenia ojca głównej bohaterki gra Mads Mikkelsen. Natomiast sama bohaterka... W zestawieniu z Rey z "Przebudzenia mocy" wypada blado. Nawet bez porównania nie jest szczególnie ciekawa. Drugoplanowe postaci dookoła są bardziej interesujące niż ona. Nie mamy też zbyt wiele czasu, aby tak naprawdę je poznać, na szczęście są na tyle charakterystyczne już od pierwszej chwili, w której pojawiają się na ekranie, że bardzo łatwo zapałać do nich sympatią. Problemem jest jednak, to jaką niepołączoną zbieraninę oni stanowią. Uzasadnienie wszystkiego w tym filmie rebelią jako wspólnym punktem odniesienia, to trochę za mało.

Nie jestem specem od Gwiezdnych Wojen i ich świata, dlatego jeśli nawiązania były subtelne, to ich raczej nie zauważałam. Ale jedno było nie tylko niesubtelne, a wręcz nachalne, do tego biorąc pod uwagę wydarzenia jakie mają miejsce po tych słowach, to jeszcze zmieniają kompletnie sens tego cytatu. Nie można go tak bezkarnie używać. Bo następnym razem już będziemy wiedzieć, że to nie tylko uczucia są złe. Poza tym chronologicznie to nawiązanie jest bez sensu i irytujące. Ale jednocześnie stanowi jeden z dwóch żartów jakie są w filmie.

 Uważam, że Felicity Jones wygląda w tym stroju absolutnie uroczo.

Uwaga, dalej są spoilery, bo inaczej nie sposób opisać ostatniej części filmu.
Z jakiegoś powodu byłam przekonana, że ten film się dobrze skończy. Jak wspominałam wyżej, po pierwsze dałam się zwieść tłumaczeniu tytułu, po drugie nie wierzyłam, że w GW coś może się tak skończyć, po trzecie pierwsze minuty filmu mnie w tym utwierdzały. Ale podskórnie czułam,  chociaż uchroniłam się od spoilerów, że to będzie zupełnie inny film niż przypuszczam. A wiedziałam, że będzie źle, gdy robot został zniszczony. Robotom nigdy nic się przecież nie dzieje! Nawet go nie polubiłam (i chyba należę do nielicznych osób, ale jak można twierdzić, że on jest fajniejszy niż BB-8?), ale to co się z nim stało było jasnym dowodem, że jednak przeczucie było słuszne. I takim sposobem przepłakałam całą końcówkę filmu, zanosząc się szlochem, gdy kolejna postać bohatersko ginęła. Ale najbardziej pokonana zostałam sceną, gdy Leia odbiera plany. Pisałam o tym na facebooku, ale napiszę raz jeszcze: wiadomość o śmierci Carrie Fisher przeczytałam wychodząc do kina. Ostatnie sceny dotknęły mnie bardzo. (Nie wspominając o tym, że dziś (29.12) do tego dołączyła wiadomość, że nie tylko oglądanie GW będzie teraz dziwne, bo także "Deszczowa piosenka" nie będzie taka sama, po córce zmarła matka - Debbie Reynolds)

"Łotr 1" to zupełnie inny klimat niż pozostałe filmy z serii. Może nie zupełnie to wciąż GW, ale odkrywanie nie zawsze jasnych stron jasnej strony, tak samo jak odkrywanie niekoniecznie ciemnych stron ciemnej strony, jest tematem do dalszej pracy.

Trzymajcie się, M

REVIEW: He's Just Not That Into You (live action movie)

He's Just Not That Into You is a romantic comedy based on a self-help book by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo.

Review:

This movie is entirely about the character relationships, and I kind of feel like it would best be described with a diagram. Lacking that, I’ll try a list.

• Gigi: A single woman who is desperately waiting for her latest date to call her back, not because she particularly likes him, but rather because she wants to not be single.
• Alex: A bar owner who takes pity on Gigi and gives her advice that mostly boils down to “that guy isn’t interested, so stop throwing yourself at him.”
• Janine: Gigi’s coworker and friend. She’s married to Ben.
• Ben: Years ago, Janine gave him an ultimatum: either he needed to marry her or she’d leave. So he married her. He begins to falter after he meets Anna, a flirtatious singer.
• Anna: Anna’s friend Mary tells her a story about a friend of her sister’s (or something) who met a guy who fell in love with her even though he was already married. The guy left his wife and he lived happily ever after with this new woman. So Anna takes a chance and calls up Ben, even though he already told her that he’s married and doesn’t want to cheat on his wife.
• Conor: Anna’s sorta-boyfriend. “Sorta,” because he sees the two of them as a couple while she sees him as more of a platonic friend she once had sex with. Conor is the guy Gigi went on a date with and who she’d hoped would call (he never had any plans to call).
• Mary: Anna’s friend. She only ever seems to connect with guys online, and then they either refuse to actually talk to her or meet with her in person, or they turn out to be players.
• Beth: Gigi and Janine’s coworker. She’s been with her boyfriend Neil for 7 years. Although they’re living together, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Neil has no plans to ever propose, and Beth has had enough.
• Neil: Beth’s boyfriend and Ben’s friend.

Wow, this movie was unpleasant. I’m pretty sure it was a gift from my sister. A few years ago she asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and I said “movies, romantic comedies.” I’m appalled that, according to Wikipedia and IMDb, this really is supposed to be a romantic comedy. It took a lot of willpower to finish watching it, and even then I had to fast forward through a couple parts because I just couldn’t stand to watch the characters anymore.

I hated most of the cast only 15 or 20 minutes in. Although Ben acted like he wanted to stay faithful to his wife, there were signs right from the start that that wasn’t entirely true. Gigi was painfully and pathetically clingy - I couldn’t understand why Alex didn’t tell her to stop calling him. I hated Mary for encouraging Anna to hook up with a married guy, and I hated Anna for going along with the idea so easily. And if Conor was so caught up in Anna, why bother going on a date with Gigi?

I spent much of the movie hoping that everyone would end up single and afraid that instead everyone would be paired off with different people. Surprisingly, a few people did end up single. Just not as many as I’d have liked. I wasn’t 100% convinced that all the final pairings were a good idea. Pretty much the only couple I was completely on board with was Beth and Neil.

I don’t know that I’d call this a romantic comedy. It wasn’t particularly funny, and much of it was aggressively anti-romantic. I could see that I was supposed to be cheering for Alex and Gigi to end up together - Gigi even pointed out the similarities between the two of them and her favorite romantic movie characters - but it was like watching a trainwreck, and Alex’s change of heart felt forced. The entire situation with Anna, Ben, and Janine was just awful. And while Beth and Neil had the most solid relationship, and I appreciated that he showed up and helped out when she was going through a rough time, I didn’t really feel connected to them. This movie was stuffed too full of characters.

All in all, if I had offloaded this without ever having watched it, I wouldn’t have missed out on much. I will agree, however, with the bit at the beginning: it’s awful to tell little girls that boys who are mean to them are only being mean because they like them. Those boys are actually just jerks, full stop.

Extras:

Several deleted scenes, which I did not bother to watch.

Sympatyczne i urocze - "Doctor Who" Christmas Special 2016

Hello!

Świąteczną tradycją wrażenia na bieżąco ze specjalnego odcinka "Doctora Who" - "The Return of Doctor Mysterio".

Od poprzedniego sezonu moja relacja z Doctorem jest bardzo skomplikowana, nieszczególnie czekałam na ten odcinek, ale dziwnie bym się czuła, gdybym nie obejrzała go tuż po świętach.

Zaczynamy.

Komiks, a to ciekawe.

Doctor-nietoperz i dzieciak, co go nie chce wpuścić, bo trzeba zawołać mamę, grzeczny chłopczyk.

Mleko i ciastka, MIKOŁAJ!

Więcej komiksów! A Doctor taki błyskotliwy i taki do tyłu.

Ale ma nawet swój superbohaterski pseudonim.

Jaki milusi.

Grant to zjadł jak nic. No, wiedziałam.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Więcej dzieci w odcinku, naprawdę sympatycznie. W końcu nasz bohater jest nianią.

I superhero jednocześnie.

Robi się jeszcze ciekawiej. Jakaś większa intryga się szykuje.

Akuku!

Trochę to straszne.

BOHATER! O, tak, jest super.

Nie użyjesz tej mocy. Taaa, jasne...

Wielka moc to wielka odpowiedzialność <3

Ohhhh, to trochę wyjaśnia. Trochę dużo.

Co ciekawe, Doctor faktycznie wydaje się przejmować losami Granta.

TIGER!

Pani dziennikarka jest nawet ciekawsza niż się wydawało. A intryga straszniejsza.

Doctor jest prawie dumny z Granta. 

Śliczna scena z rozmową telefoniczną.

Co ten Doctor kombinuje. Jakoś się narracja cały czas rozjeżdża na część Doctora i Granta i są ze sobą jednak zbyt lekko połączone. Ale ogląda się tak dobrze, że prawie nie zwraca się na to uwagi.

Ale Doctor cały odcinek jakiś taki nieswój.

Tokio? To by wyjaśniało wcześniejsze sushi. I popijają herbatkę w czarkach.

Kolacja poszła w dobrą stronę... A ona nie patrzy! I za późno.

Chociaż w sumie ci kosmici jacyś mało oryginalni, było już tyle podobnych planów i w sumie podobni kosmici też już byli... Ale akcent tego odcinka położony jest zupełnie gdzie indziej, więc nawet niekoniecznie ciekawi przeciwnicy nie rażą.

Ale okazja, aby wcisnąć wszystkie możliwe przyciski na konsoli zawsze jest dobra.

Nowy Jork taki biedny, zawsze muszą go atakować, a nawet nie jest stolicą.

Urocze.... <3

Ładną mówkę miał Doctor na koniec, wzruszyłam się. On chyba też.

Zapowiedź sezonu chyba przekonała mnie do Bill, a bardziej dlatego, że widziałam Nardola, który także tam będzie więc jestem nieco spokojniejsza. A także urywki z odcinków zapowiadały całkiem ciekawe przygody.

Bardzo miło spędzona godzina, bawiłam się naprawdę dobrze oglądając odcinek świąteczny i myślę, że nawet będę do niego wracać. Warto jeszcze wspomnieć, że aktorzy Justin Chatwin (Grant, niania, superhero) i Charity Wakefield (Lucy, dziennikarka) wykonali kawał świetnej roboty.

Pozdrawiam, M

REVIEW: Kamisama Kiss: The Complete Series (anime TV series)

Kamisama Kiss is a supernatural romance series. Despite what this boxed set says, it's actually only the complete first season, not the complete series. It contains 13 episodes plus several extras.

Review:

Nanami is an ordinary 17-year-old girl whose life is turned upside down after her horrible parents abandon her and she’s kicked out of her home because of her dad’s gambling debts. While trying to figure out where to go from there, she helps out a random guy who was chased up a tree by a dog. That guy turns out to be Mikage, a land god who abandoned his shrine 20 years ago. He gifts Nanami with both the powers of a land god and his shrine. Later, Nanami also acquires his former familiar, Tomoe, sealing their new contract with a kiss.

At the beginning of the series, Nanami listens to a few prayers and engages in some of the supernatural matchmaking that is her duty as the new god of the Mikage Shrine. However, most of the series is devoted to her various encounters with other supernatural beings (several of whom are hot guys who develop an interest in her) and her growing love for Tomoe. Unfortunately for Nanami, Tomoe is dead set against romance between yokai and humans.

I reviewed the first volume of the manga way back in 2013. I wasn’t terribly impressed with it - the power imbalance in Tomoe and Nanami’s relationship bothered me. Their relationship was the result of a kiss that Nanami forced onto Tomoe, and their contract meant that he was essentially her slave. He had to do whatever she ordered him to do, whether he wanted to or not.

Those problematic elements still existed in the anime, although there were a few things that helped make them more bearable for me. First, it didn’t take long for evidence that Tomoe cared about Nanami to crop up - as early as the second episode, I think. Second, in episode 5 their contract was broken, and this time it was Tomoe who sealed it again. The contract still left him unable to disobey her, but at least it was clear that he was willingly Nanami’s familiar.

Unfortunately, this series quickly outstayed its welcome. I’ve seen it compared to Fruits Basket, and I’d have to say that they’re similar only in the most superficial sense. Fruits Basket was a delightful mix of character relationships, humor, supernatural elements, and romance. In Kamisama Kiss, the romance overshadowed everything.

Because I’m silly and overly optimistic, I initially thought that this series would feature Nanami trying her best to fulfill her duties as a god while her relationship with Tomoe steadily deepened. Instead, Nanami was barely shown doing her duties as a god - the shrine might as well have been a regular Japanese-style house. She spent most of her time at school and dealt with the new supernatural aspects of her life only because they were impossible to ignore. Her renewed interest in the shrine, right at the end of the series, seemed to come out of nowhere.

My impression of the romance between Nanami and Tomoe steadily went downhill. It was frustrating, because I spotted several moments when things could have been turned around and improved.

When Nanami realized that she was in love with Tomoe, her new friends at school encouraged her to go on an official date with him and capture his attention by being as cute as possible (another difference between this series and Fruits Basket: Tohru’s friends were far more than just cheerleaders for her potential romance). Nanami went way overboard, to the point that Tomoe felt he had to put a stop to things. Nanami was so heartbroken at his rejection of her that she very nearly ordered him to let her fall to her death. I wanted to shake her, but I was hopeful when she had an epiphany later on in the series. Would she realize that, whatever her feelings happened to be, she wasn’t entitled to Tomoe’s love? Would she start to come to terms with the idea that she had maybe mistaken a familiar’s devotion to his god for romantic love? It could have been really interesting, seeing Tomoe come to the realization that he loved Nanami after Nanami had already adjusted to him being nothing more to her than a loyal and devoted servant. I think I’d have liked to see him try to convince her that he loved her in a romantic sense.

Unfortunately, Nanami’s epiphany was that she needed to more actively pursue her love for Tomoe. Instead of crying over his rejection, she should work harder to convince him to love her, even after he’d repeatedly told her that he wasn’t interested in her that way and that he believed romance between humans and youkai was doomed to fail. Nanami’s renewed determination was more horrifying than endearing, especially considering that Tomoe was magically bound to her and literally could not get away from her. (No, I don’t think he’d have wanted to - from the audience’s perspective, Tomoe pretty clearly liked her. But if that hadn’t been the case, Nanami could easily have made life hell for him.)

Although the final episode ended with Tomoe asking Nanami if he could kiss her, leaving the romance in a relatively satisfying place for viewers who weren’t, like me, already turned off by it, lots of other things were left unresolved. For example, Tomoe still didn’t remember his past romance with Yukiji, there were various other huge gaps in Tomoe's past, and the series never explored the fairly strong possibility that Nanami was the reincarnation of Yukiji. Also, Mikage’s reason for abandoning his shrine was never given.

While doing a little googling after finishing this series, I discovered that it was not, in fact, the “complete series” (although it might have been when these discs were first released). A second season has since been released. That season might flesh out some of the things that this one left unresolved, but I don’t know that I care enough about the characters and story to want to shell out the cash necessary to get it. Still, the completist in me is annoyed.

Extras:

• Episode 1 commentary with Jerry Jewell (ADR Director) and Tia Ballard (English dub voice actor for Nanami). I hate to say this, but listening to this commentary was a waste of time. I did appreciate that Ballard also noticed that Nanami rarely performed any of her new duties as a god. The best quote, said by Jerry Jewell: "Why would you want to help people when you can find a boyfriend?"
• Episode 6 commentary with Jerry Jewell (ADR Director), J. Michael Tatum (English dub voice actor for Tomoe), Tia Ballard (English dub voice actor for Nanami), and Sean O'Connor (English dub voice actor for Kurama). Unlike most commentaries, this one was primarily footage of everyone in the booth, with the episode playing in the bottom right corner of the screen. I prefer normal commentaries, but this one actually worked out fairly well, mostly because no one let the conversation die out for too long. It didn't touch too much on behind-the-scenes info about voice acting for the series, but it was still more interesting than the first commentary.
• Episode 12 commentary with Jerry Jewell (ADR Director) and J. Michael Tatum (English dub voice actor for Tomoe). Again, not too much behind-the-scenes info, but still not to bad. I'd say it was the second-best commentary in the set. This one went back to the ordinary commentary format of just an audio track playing over the episode, and they did a great job of remembering to talk.
• Textless opening, and all 13 textless closings. I disliked the opening and closing songs enough to skip them almost every time, so I didn't bother watching these.
• U.S. trailer for Kamisama Kiss.
• Trailers for several other series.

REVIEW: Aron's Absurd Armada (manhwa, vol. 2) by MiSun Kim, translated by Jackie Oh

Aron's Absurd Armada is a humorous Korean manhwa.

Review:

In some ways, this was better than the first volume. MiSun Kim cut way back on the gay and transgender jokes and instead focused on things like Aron’s stupidity, Ronnie’s love for good-looking men (not just Robin this time around), Vincent’s terrible cooking skills, and Robin’s love of money. Luther Nelson was still deeply and incestuously in love with his niece, Dorothy Nelson, but readers who skipped the first volume or read it a while back could easily forget about the incestuous aspect since there were no reminders of it in the text.

In a not-terribly-successful effort to keep the jokes from becoming too stale, Kim introduced a couple new characters: the Phantom Thief, a master thief who joined the crew in order to escape being forced to steal from the rich and give to the poor, and Wendy the Witch, a sickly woman who created medicines that were simultaneously poisons and antidotes that were also poisons.

Once again, I’d have to say that the best thing about this series is the artwork. Like the first volume, the second one featured full-color artwork and appealing character designs. I never had any trouble telling characters apart or remembering who anyone was.

My favorite moment in the volume was probably when the King found some abandoned puppies. His reaction when he learned what the Admiral planned to do with them was perfect. Although the humor never completely let up, the story turned surprisingly sweet, with Duke Cornwall offering to take the puppies because the King (for some reason) could not.

That said, this volume was excruciatingly boring, and the “plot,” such as it was, was so difficult to follow that even the characters couldn’t remember why they were doing the things they were doing. I completely lost track of what was going on during the stuff with the Sea King, which unfortunately took up half the volume.

I have no intention of reading more of this series. Two volumes were more than enough.

REVIEW: Arisa (manga, vol. 1) by Natsumi Ando, translated by Andria Cheng

Arisa is a mystery series licensed by Kodansha Comics.

This review technically includes spoilers, since the class's secret isn't revealed until the second half of the volume.

Review:

Tsubasa and her twin sister Arisa have been separated for three years, ever since their parents got divorced. They’ve managed to keep in touch via letters, but Tsubasa is still understandably excited about getting to secretly visit her sister soon. Tsubasa, whose habit of getting into fights has earned her the nickname “the Demon Princess of Higashi Junior High,” absolutely idolizes her seemingly perfect and popular sister.

During the visit, Arisa convinces Tsubasa to pretend be her for a day. The experience is just as wonderful as Tsubasa expected it to be, so it’s a complete shock when Arisa tries to kill herself. Her tipping point appears to have been a note she was given by someone at school: “Arisa Sonoda is a traitor.” What does it mean, and what secrets have Arisa and her classmates been hiding? Tsubasa decides to continue pretending to be Arisa while Arisa is in a coma, in order to solve the mystery and protect her sister.

I don’t think I’ve ever read any of Ando’s other works, but I’m pretty sure her Kitchen Princess series is cutesy romance. In general, her artistic style screams “generically cute." I have no idea how she ended up doing a series like Arisa, a mystery with a distinctly dark and disturbing edge. I was reminded a bit of Higurashi: When They Cry, except that Ando’s artwork didn't push the creepy moments far enough - it was just too cutesy, on the whole, for the subject matter.

Then there was the premise itself, which required a lot of suspension of disbelief. What kind of parents would completely separate their twin children for three whole years? And then their mother was conveniently unreachable when Arisa tried to kill herself and ended up in a coma, while their dad seemed perfectly fine with Tsubasa essentially no longer going to school and instead pretending to be Arisa. And everyone instantly accepted Tsubasa’s weak explanation for why she no longer remembered the class’s creepy “King time.”

Complaints aside, this was a surprisingly gripping first volume. Tsubasa expected to learn that her sister had been bullied and instead discovered that the entire class was taking part in something called “King time.” Every week at the same time, everyone in the class enters their wishes into a website. One person’s wish is chosen and granted by the “King,” whose identity no one knows. The King doesn’t seem to care if anyone gets hurt, and anyone who speaks out against them (the gender of the King is also unknown) risks being ostracized. Ostracized students receive a note: “[Student’s name] is a traitor.”

By the end of this volume, Tsubasa has identified one particular student as potentially being the King, having some connection to the King, or knowing who the King is. While I’m kind of annoyed at her decision to meet with him in private even though he’s already demonstrated that he can’t be trusted, I’m intrigued enough to want to read more.

If I had more shelf space, I’d probably order a couple more volumes right now - the story is interesting enough to make up for the improbable situation and incongruous artwork.

Extras:

• A 6-page comic designed to show off a few of Ando's early character design sketches for Arisa.
• A 4-page comic in which Ando talks about getting a dog. It's adorable.
• Two pages of translation notes.
• A preview of Arisa volume 2.

Zima

Hello!

Mam nadzieję, że spędzacie miłe, ciepłe, rodzinne święta z dala od smartfonów (stwierdzenie o odkładaniu telefonu i spędzaniu czasu z rodziną w rzeczywistości było najczęściej powtarzanymi życzeniami, jakie widziałam w internecie w tym roku, każdy to powtarzał; znak czasów) i cieszycie  się niepowtarzalną atmosferą tego Święta. Zostajemy wśród choinek, a także w oczekiwaniu na śnieg, z kilkoma zimowymi zdjęciami.

Wszystkie zdjęcia pochodzą z mojej ulubionej strony od zdjęć, czyli Libreshot.

LOVE, M

REVIEW: The Earth Kingdom Chronicles #2: The Tale of Azula (book) by Michael Teitelbaum, based on original screenplays written for Avatar: The Last Airbender, illustrated by Patrick Spaziante

The Tale of Azula is a children's novelization of the second season of Avatar: The Last Airbender, from Azula's perspective.

Review:

It’s been about 5 years since I last saw Season 2 of Avatar: The Last Airbender, so I had to check Wikipedia for reminders and, holy crap, this 89-page book covers the entire season. It’s ridiculous.

The way events were crammed in, it felt 1) like barely any time had passed, even though it was obvious that couldn’t be the case, and 2) like Azula had the attention span of a goldfish. At the start of the book, she was after Zuko and Iroh. Then she spotted Aang and decided it’d be great if she could catch him and Zuko and Iroh. Her father would be so proud, and he’d totally make her his heir! By page 70, she decided that it’d be even better if she acquired the whole Earth Kingdom.

The time I spent reading this probably would have been better spent rewatching some of the show. This added absolutely nothing. I picked it up (steeply discounted, thank goodness) thinking that it would feature a whole new story starring Azula. I didn’t expect too much, just something that, in the original series, would have qualified as filler, but I didn’t even get that. Instead it was a tedious, boring, and at times confusing rehash of events straight out of the series. Even the change in POV added nothing new. Azula was depicted as a one-note character with zero depth. It was extremely disappointing.

Literally everything about this was terrible. The book used an Avatar: The Last Airbender font throughout, which made for difficult/annoying reading. Also, the author could not keep his tenses straight. Often the tense would change from one paragraph to the next, present to past and then back to present, for no reason that I could see. Here are a couple examples of it happening in the same paragraph, or even same sentence:

“Ahhh! A wall of rock rose up through the track, blocking my pinwheel blast. In a matter of seconds I’ll crash right into the rock! I jumped out of the mail cart, which smashed into bits against the rock wall.” (34)

“It was a little infuriating that Kyoshi warriors would garner such a welcome, but I will not complain just yet.” (67)

I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone, and I’m really glad I didn’t get any of the other books in this series.

Favorites of 2016

Ed Ruscha at the de Young, Seonna Hong at Hashimoto Contemporary,
Yuri on Ice, All My Puny Sorrows, The Makropulos Case 

It's no secret that 2016 wasn't great. But here are the pieces of art and entertainment, from an ice skating anime to paintings in Milan, that I loved in this crazy year. 

Books

All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews: One of my favorite books and one of my favorite movies this year are about suicide, but both in an oddly hopeful way. In All My Puny Sorrows, two middle-aged Mennonite sisters - struggling writer Yolandi and renowned pianist Elfreida - grapple with Elfreida's suicidal ideation and their family's long history of mental illness. This sounds like a dreary premise, but Toews's novel is full of warmth, humor, and fierce love. In a highlight, Yolandi furiously gives her sister the kind of defense most depressed people long for, but never get.

Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood: As a The Tempest superfan, I was excited for Margaret Atwood's novel take on the Shakespeare play. The resulting work, Hag-Seed, is inventive and entertaining (if not terribly deep). When a smarmy board member removes egotistical but dedicated Felix from his role as artistic director of a theatre festival, Felix goes into hiding. But when he finds a job teaching Shakespeare to inmates at a local prison, he realizes how he could have his revenge.

Bloodline by Claudia Gray: Set seven-ish years before Star Wars: The Force Awakens, this eerily topical Star Wars novel captures, from Senator Leia Organa's point of view, the political tensions and escalating disasters that make way for the rise of the First Order.

Imperial Radch Trilogy by Ann Leckie: A spaceship trapped in a human body teams up with a drug-addicted former colleague in a quest for revenge: this is the story Ann Leckie tells in three beautiful page-turners. The trilogy is a masterclass in world-building; a breath-taking tour of imaginary planets, space stations, and cultures. Characters like measured, compassionate, quietly determined Breq; the sometimes heroic, sometimes a hot mess Seivarden; and zany, endlessly curious Translator Zeiat become quick favorites.

After dutifully carrying out a devastating order she wishes she hadn't and then losing her omniscience in a betrayal, former spaceship artificial intelligence system Breq tirelessly plots a course that will take her to the evil leader of the empire she once served. Along the way she gains companions and rights various social justice wrongs. The vision Leckie presents of a compassionate, justice-focused way of governing is enticing and needed, but her didactic impulse can get distracting as the trilogy continues (even on the climactic brink of a potentially existence-ending war, a lot of time and energy is devoted to browbeating an emotionally unstable character over a microaggression, for example).

Older Books I Read or Re-Read

Grace Marks (L), the subject of Atwood's novel

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood: One of Atwood's finest, Alias Grace is based on real murders that happened near Toronto in 1843. Told by various narrators, newspaper clippings, and even some poetry, Atwood imagines the build-up to the crimes; the lengthy aftermath; and most importantly, the precarious and complicated lives of female servants.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: I revisited this classic on a whim, and got a little obsessed. (Bonus: on Halloween, I scored a reduced price ticket to San Francisco Ballet's forthcoming production of a ballet based on the novel!)

The Debacle (Le Debacle) by Emile Zola: Something I'm writing has required me to do a lot of research on the Franco-Prussian War, which lead to Zola's The Debacle. Because of this research I already knew the novel's ending, but I got so invested in the characters involved that I hoped I had misread it. I hadn't. :( The translation I read, by Leonard Tancock, was distracting (he makes the French peasants talk like English cockneys for some reason, like with them saying "tuppence" and everything), but the story of two Frances represented by two men who form an unlikely friendship on the battlefield is still powerful.

Zofloya by Charlotte Dacre and The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole: I read Zofloya for the Venetian setting when gearing up for a trip to Venice, and had no idea going in just how bonkers the 1806 Gothic novel would be. It is very bonkers, with murders, affairs, magic, kidnappings, and lovers clasping each other on top of a mountain while lightning flashes around them. But then I went back to what is considered the first Gothic novel, the 1764 The Castle of Otranto, which starts with a teenager getting killed on his wedding day by a giant flying helmet. That definitely takes the bonkers gold. Reading these made me better understand Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, her 1817 novel in which a teenage heroine who devours these types of books sees Gothic drama in everything around her.

Movies

Arrival

Swiss Army Man: This bizarre, gross-out indie about a depressed man and a corpse is also deeply affecting.

Moonlight: "That shit was perfect," announced a man behind me when the end credits started to roll. It's hard to argue with that assessment of Barry Jenkins's reflective portrait in three acts of a gay boy growing to manhood in Miami's mix of drugs, danger, and beauty.

Arrival: I was a bigger mess during this movie than in 50/50, The Fault in Our Stars, or Liz in September, and cancer wasn't even mentioned. I cried at the beginning of the movie. I cried in the middle of the movie. I cried at the end of the movie. This film about a linguist hired to communicate with recently landed, cephalopod-like aliens is based on the Ted Chiang short story, "The Story of Your Life," and I'd suggest avoiding spoilers.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople: New Zealand director Taika Waititi, unlike many people, presumably had a good 2016. Not only was he filming Thor: Ragnarok, a hopefully lighter addition to the increasingly bogged-down MCU, but his adventure-comedy Hunt for the Wilderpeople was released. When it looks like Ricky - a city-raised foster kid who has finally found home at a rural farm - will be returned to the system, he and his cantankerous foster parent go on the run in the New Zealand bush.

Midnight Special: I am going to be totally honest and admit that I 100% saw this because Adam Driver is in it. He plays an awkward, studious government agent who is tracking down a boy, Alton, rumored to have strange powers. Also looking for the boy are representatives from the cult in which Alton was raised. Michael Shannon and Kirsten Dunst are Alton's parents, and chameleonic Joel Edgerton is a friend helping them flee. Like other artsy sci-fi films Arrival and Under the Skin, Midnight Special spends long moments lingering on its Earthen landscapes, in this case the American South at night. The shots of headlight-filled highways and glowing gas stations reminded me a lot of the Ed Ruscha show held at the de Young this year (below).

TV

Yuri on Ice: I'm not a big TV watcher, but I watched my usual stuff this year: South Park, Gotham, Drunk History, hours of HGTV in the background, etc. But what completely captured my heart (and judging my twitter feed, the hearts of girls from Japan to Mexico)? Ice skating anime Yuri on Ice.

Theater

Morfydd Clark and Janet McTeer in Les Liaisons Dangereuses

Les Liaisons Dangereuses - Donmar Warehouse: Josie Rourke and the Donmar Warehouse are British national treasures we're sometimes allowed access to via National Theatre Live. I loved Rourke's take on Coriolanus a few years back, and her production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos's 1782 novel, was another stunner. (The show eventually made it to Broadway, but I saw it via telecast at the Lark Theater in Larkspur.) My favorite aspect of this production was how Rourke made use of what we know but the characters and Laclos did not: that in just a few years, the upper class's lives of luxurious boredom and bored excess would be upended by the French Revolution. As the play progresses, the sumptuous set is stripped bare, mirroring the protagonists' pretense and foretelling the storm to come. 

Much Ado About Nothing - Cal Shakes: This gender-bending, cater-waiter take on one of my favorite Shakespeare plays worked marvelously. 

King Lear - PacRep: I had no idea what to expect when my family decided to see some local theater while on a trip to Monterey, and was blown away by the caliber of acting and set design in this King Lear. 

The Makropulos Case - San Francisco Opera: The image of Nadja Michael in a Pierrot costume was enough to get me through the door for this 1926 Czech opera about a 300-year-old superstar looking to further extend her life. Michael's charisma makes the piece work, but I also truly touched by the story of the jaded diva and the everyday people who have been embroiled in a generations-long legal conflict partly of her making. 

Art

Detail from Seonna Hong's "Brotherhood of Men"

Musee Massena - Charlotte Salomon: Vie? Ou theatre?: The Musee Massena in Nice, France, celebrated the work of a young artist who once sought refuge nearby from Nazism.

Palazzo Reale - Simbolismo: When my sister and I stopped in Milan for the night on our way from Nice to Venice, we didn't do much research beforehand and didn't know what to expect. Along with the Duomo and finding the perfect duck umbrella, this exhibition of the beauty, weirdness, and sometimes gaudiness of the Symbolism movement was a highlight.

Fine Arts Museums San Francisco - Ed Ruscha and the Great American West & Wild West: Plains to the Pacific: The de Young's Ruscha show focused on the artist's work capturing both the sprawl and emptiness of the American Southwest. Its sister exhibition at the Legion of Honor was a clear-eyed survey of the West through many artists.

Hashimoto Contemporary - Seonna Hong, In Our Nature: I was immediately taken by Hong's intriguing images of youths exploring minimalist landscapes in pinks, greens, and grays. I even ended up buying a 2.5 x 2.5" painting - an addition to my tiny collection of tiny original art.

Ancillary Mercy, Swiss Army Man, Bloodline,
Moonlight, Les Liaisons Dangereuses

Previous Favorites:
Favorites of 2015
Favorites of 2014


Images:
Header and footer collages made in LiveCollage
Grace Marks: Murderpedia 
Les Liaisons Dangereuses: photo by Johann Persson
Seonna Hong: my photo of Hong's painting "Brotherhood of Men"

REVIEW: Yuri!!! on Ice, Season 1 (anime TV series)

Yuri!!! on Ice is a sports anime focused on men's figure skating. At the moment, it's one season (12 episodes) long, although I've heard that there may be a second season.

This review contains spoilers. I tried not to talk too much about how the skating worked out, but there were things I wanted to say about the character relationships that meant I had to go into spoiler territory. Reminder: I've begun posting my TV series and movie reviews on LibraryThing, where I'm able to use spoiler tags.

Review:

I know I said I was probably going to wait a while before writing my review for this series, give myself more time to process, etc. But I think I’m just going to get it out there. I may write another one after it comes out on DVD.

Yuri on Ice is a sports anime starring Katsuki Yuri, a Japanese figure skater who is trying to recover after completely flubbing the Grand Prix Final. In order to get his love of figure skating back, he imitates the latest performance of Victor Nikiforov (spelled “Victor” in Crunchyroll and “Viktor” by a lot of fans). A recording of his performance is uploaded to the internet, sparking a lot of talk in the skating world, and Victor himself inexplicably arrives and announces he’s taking a break from skating in order to be Yuri’s coach. It’s like a dream come true for Yuri.

The bulk of the series is devoted to the newest Grand Prix Final, but throughout it all are the threads of the characters’ various relationships, including the possibility of romance between Yuri and Victor.

I wouldn’t have thought that a series in which viewers have to watch the same performances multiple times could be so exciting and engrossing, but it was. Even if I had seen a particular performance several times before in previous episodes, it never felt stale - it always said something new about the characters and their relationships.

My favorite characters were probably Yuri and Victor (of course), Russian Yuri (from here on out called by his nickname, Yurio), and Phichit, although there were several other characters I found myself rooting for at one time or another. I really felt for Yuri’s struggle to get a gold medal in what he thought would probably be his last Grand Prix Final, and his struggle with anxiety was gut-wrenching. Victor was a mystery for much of the series, but a fun one. He completely won me over during episode 10, when the motive for many of his actions was revealed. I only have a few complaints about this series, and one of them is that I could have used at least one more episode from Victor’s POV. I’d have liked to see more of Victor as he was before he decided to drop everything and rush to Yuri’s side.

Yurio was one of those characters who grew on me as the series progressed. I loved watching him become a stronger skater, gradually open up, and actually come to like Yuri (and Otabek!). I wanted Yuri to win, of course, but by the end of the series I also wanted to see Yurio soar. The way the final episodes handled his performances, and tied his final one into Yuri’s, was just wonderful.

And Phichit! His performances were fun, but I mostly loved him because he was so friendly and supportive of Yuri. And the Yuri and Victor pairing. Phichit was basically an audience stand-in at times.

The show was focused on male figure skaters, but happily it opted not to ignore women. Usually I’d expect to see one, maybe two women in a series like this. There’d be someone’s stereotypically motherly mother, and maybe one super-cute girl who was destined to be a prominent character’s girlfriend. Yuri on Ice looked, at first, like that's what it would be limited to: Yuri’s mother and Yuko, Yuri’s childhood friend. Except Yuko got married and had three kids while Yuri was away. While I would have liked to see even more female characters (I’m greedy like that), I loved the variety in the ones that were there. Probably my favorite of the bunch was Sala (Sara?), an Italian figure skater who put her foot down and forced her twin brother to get past his unhealthy dependence on her. I also liked Anya. Although she didn’t have much of a speaking role, her reaction to Georgi’s creepy final performance was perfect.

I loved this show. Episode 10 made my heart feel like it was going to burst. Episode 11 made me cry for a character I hadn’t previously liked much. And episode 12 just made me cry, period. That said, while this series was close to being my idea of perfect, it did fall short in several ways. I’ve already mentioned that I wished there had been another episode from Victor’s POV. I also occasionally had some issues with the artwork. Then there was Chris, who was kind of icky, what with his habit of literally climaxing on the ice. I have no idea why so many characters thought he was sexy.

My biggest problem with this series, however, was the ambiguity in Victor and Yuri’s relationship, which continued until the very end. The more I think about that, the more it disappoints and bothers me. Victor spent many of the early episodes blatantly flirting with Yuri, while Yuri blushed and backed away. I had heard that one of the episodes halfway through the series would have an onscreen kiss, but I have to say, other people’s definition of “onscreen” is significantly different from mine. The way that moment was staged left it unclear whether they’d actually kissed or whether they’d just hugged and their lips had only been highlighted for greater viewer squeeing.

Episode 10 looked like a turning point, explicit recognition that the series would have a central gay romance that would end happily. I expected something clear and unambiguous: maybe marriage (I was less convinced of this than other viewers), maybe a true on-screen kiss, or maybe just dialogue spelling out that, yes, the two characters are in a romantic relationship. And none of that happened. I’ve seen people say that fans who wanted unambiguous recognition of Yuri and Victor’s relationship really only wanted fanservice, and to those people I say “nope.” Like I said, I would have been fine with just unambiguous dialogue. There are so very many anime series that tease viewers with potential gay relationships and never go beyond that. Yuri on Ice looked like it took itself more seriously than that, and I was so disappointed that it never took those last few steps.

J.J. got to unambiguously propose to his unambiguous girlfriend. With Yuri and Victor, viewers got Victor repeatedly doing things and making comments that indicated he was attracted to Yuri, and indications that Yuri was probably attracted to Victor, but also repeated denials from Yuri (“he’s just my coach, this is just me thanking him!”), a light and possibly jokey tone from Victor, indications that Yuri saw their flirtations at the Grand Prix Final as just another part of his performance, and a final scene that, while lovely, was yet another ambiguous skating performance. The series came so close to officially recognizing them as a romantic couple. I don’t think an unambiguous final episode was too much to ask.

Wow, this review is long. Anyway, that’s it. I’m a little worried that my issues with the way Victor and Yuri’s relationship worked out have tainted the series for me, but I think I'm just a little sore right now and will get past it. I’d still recommend watching this. I’d just caution potential viewers not to expect too much from a romance standpoint. It’s weird - Yuri on Ice is somehow simultaneously the best show I’ve seen in months, and also possibly my biggest disappointment of the year. This show was so good! But, as lovely as all the skating and hints of romance were, explicit representation matters, and in that respect the series was a failure.

I've heard that there's going to be a second season. If that's the case, I hope that the issues I've mentioned in this review get dealt with. Unfortunately, I don't really have much trust in that at the moment. I'm sure I'll watch that season, but I'll also scale back my expectations.