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Manga Review: DC3

 

The cover of the one-shot manga, "DC3"

    I am hoping to get in some more manga reading as of late and decided that perhaps the easiest thing to do would be to try some short manga where possible. I just finished this one-shot manga titled DC3, released in 2021 by author Kaiu Shirai and artist Posuka Demizu, both known for their work on the manga series The Promised Neverland. I have previously read a volume of The Promised Neverland manga and watched the first season of the anime and liked those parts of what I consumed. I hear that the rest of the anime isn't quite as up to snuff as that first season, but I don't actually know that from personal viewing experience. Regardless, I'd liked these creators' work well enough that giving DC3 a try seemed easy enough to do, especially with only one chapter to read.

Added Site Feature: Upcoming Conventions

     Hi, all! Got a lot of freelance work to finish right now, and then I'd like to get back to real blogging again. But for the time being, I wanted to introduce to you a new page on this site for Upcoming Conventions. I'll be relatively regularly updating in three different categories: Industry (Attending Only), Attending (Just Showing Up!), and Guest Appearances. For the time being, I have upcoming conventions listed for Industry and Attending. No current official guest appearances, which is fine, because it is rather uncommon for me to be added as a guest, though it has been known to happen from time to time. The "Guest Appearance" slot also has an E-mail address listed so that events may reach out to me to send invitations. I often don't have the power to simply make myself a guest, but if you think I would be a good fit for your local event, you're more than welcome to let organizers know you'd be interested in seeing me. Please don't flood anyone's inboxes on my behalf, though! I'm not always a good fit for every event, and that's totally normal. But I appreciate anyone who might be interested in seeing me nearby. Thank you for your kindness and support! Looking forward to seeing you around, even if it's just bumping into one another in a hallway somewhere.

VIDEO: The Entire Vic Mignogna Story - The Face of Anime's Dumbest Culture War

 

Life has been hectic as of late, and I've intended to post any new videos here to the site, specifically posted into the Videos section. This video has been up for over a week and took a dedicated seven months of work out of my life to complete. It's a deeply personal topic that I hope you will spend even a small amount of time with, despite its intimidating run time.

Perhaps the closest thing you'll ever get to a documentary on the subject of Vic Mignogna, his sexual harassment allegations, his lawsuit, and the culture war that sprung up around him. A history of a subculture within millennial-aged anime fandom. My final word on the topic. This is it.

Added Site Feature: Letterboxd Reviews

         Hi all, I wanted to go ahead and post an update regarding the development of this site as something of a one-stop place for most everything I do. If you swing by from time to time, you'll see me playing around with layouts and formats. I've added Ko-fi and Patreon links in easy-to-find places, as well as embedded my Bluesky profile right into the main body of the page.

    Additionally, a new page on the site takes you to movie reviews I'll be writing via Letterboxd. I like the idea of Letterboxd but have only just begun using it at the beginning of this year. I want to write about my thoughts on various media, but I don't always want to write entire in-depth reviews. Letterboxd feels like a place where I can let myself post a few thoughts without going too deep into contemplation or research, but I also wanted to bring it over into my own environment to that you don't have to hop around all over the internet to find what I'm doing. The Letterboxd Reviews page is my way of accomplishing that, and simply uses my Letterboxd account's RSS feed to pull reviews I'm writing and automatically plop them right onto the page, while also still linking directly back to my Letterboxd account if you really feel like interacting with me over there specifically

     I'm sure you'll be seeing a lot more updates of this variety over the course of this year as I settle in and really make this place my home. I think it's more rewarding than relying on the scattershot nature of social media. Even if it's not a bustling place around here, I do want it to be my internet home. Looking forward to continuing the process.

Happy New Year!

JYP's Formation of the Girl Group "Vcha" was Always a Problem

Girl group Vcha in a promotional photo for their single "Girls of the Year"

    I am only a casual K-pop consumer. After all, I'm nearly 39 years old, far outside the target demographic for K-pop. But I'll casually listen to a fairly broad variety of music, maybe never delving super deep into any of it. Similarly, with K-pop, I'm always a little bit on the outside of major events happening.

    Many years ago, the only way I was consuming any K-pop at all was thanks to rhythm games. Dance Dance Revolution 3rd Mix Plus was marketed directly in Korea. Dance Freaks was the Korean-marketed version of Konami's Dance Maniax series. ParaParaDancing was the Korean version of ParaParaParadise. And then eventually I would start dabbling in Korean-made rhythm games like Pump It Up, which would often feature popular K-pop tracks, eventually evolving to feature the music videos from the artists. 

Solo Trip to Japan, 2024

Welcome sign after immigration to Japan inside Haneda airport

    I just returned from a solo trip to Japan last week. It was by no means my first time. I've gone maybe five other times previously, making this my sixth trip. Originally, it was not my intention to go alone. I was looking at flights and prices to get both myself and my husband Josh to Japan together for the Tokyo Game Show. However, Josh was not so certain he could make it work together juggling getting time off work. For a little while I figured that was just the end of it and we'd save it for some other later date, but that was when Josh said to me, "You know, you always talk about how you've taken all these trips with other groups of people who've never been before which means you never get to do what you want to do. Why don't you take this trip for yourself and finally take control over your own trip and do what makes you happy?"

    And he was right. There has only been one other time I ever got to go to Japan basically alone, and that was 16 years ago when I was in school taking Japanese language classes. And does that really count as much of a trip, when there were high expectations placed on me to stay inside, be in school all day, keep to my dormitory and do nothing but study, with the dorm having a curfew and locking me out if I didn't get back home in time? I didn't exactly have time to do anything I wanted at that time, either. So, with Josh kindly having suggested that I do something for myself for once, I took the opportunity to make a few basic barebones plans for myself, and I was off.