(Use this as a volume slider)

I've gotten quite a few new friend requests recently, and so I thought I'd make a blog post detailing some things I'm interested in/have found interesting, even if they may not be to taste. It honestly ranges from stuff as simple as liking anime/manga to media that engages with violent and sometimes cruel themes. 

The point is kinda that your expectations will betray you, but also to recommend/review/document things that have made a lasting impact on me, and my thoughts on them. Not every entry is going to be like 120 days of sodom, not everything in the list is going to match in seriousness, just things that the average person may look down upon.

So here's a vague disorganised non-exhaustive list of the most memorable works that I have experienced, and why they're personally meaningful despite possibly not being your cup of tea. Hopefully you can get a kick out of what magnetises to my brain, find something new for you to take apart yourself, or maybe even kick me off that pedestal you were hoping to put me on.

A lot of these will be more about my personal experiences with them, everything that I have loved or has changed me has done so violently and grotesquely, some of these things might fall under the "problematic" label. Engage in higher order thinking and understand that there are nuanced ways to think and feel about things.

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1. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure - What does the strongest look like? I hope they look kind

Top anything that I've ever watched, read, or otherwise metabolised. I know this series back to front, and it's the first series I remember consciously choosing to watch. I'll keep this one brief because I have far too much to say on the series.

I think the system of stands/hamon/spin and how Araki came up with each of them is incredibly interesting, and have made for the coolest fights/problem-solving encounters I've seen in the genre it's a part of. Stands especially I'm a sucker for, as they're the physical manifestation of psychic powers that are emblematic of the soul of the stand user they're attached to. You'll see a lot more of jungian themes of shadow/persona in works that I deeply get a kick out of.

I feel like a core theme of JoJos is what it means to be strong, and each part is Araki trying to explore different answers. Naturally a lot of that comes from it being a battle shonen, and needing to one up itself, but from the very beginning it has tried to answer "What does the toughest, strongest, baddest guy look like?". Araki's answer is "I hope he looks kind".

Story wise, the series traces the Joestar bloodline and their destiny tangled fates, with each generation being split into different "Parts" which serve as markers for view point changes. Part 1 follows the youth of the young and noble Jonathon Joestar, while Part 2 follows his good for nothing little shit grandson Joseph, and so on. 

The series started publication in weekly shonen jump since the 1st of January 1987, and has endured over 9 parts and is still publishing to this day. One Piece probably needs no introduction as a ridiculously long series, it's essentially what it is known for. it has roughly ~23k pages over the 113 volumes released, JoJo's however, has roughly 28k pages over the 138 volumes released.

In my opinion, unlike One Piece, hardly a SINGLE page is ever wasted. I can acknowledge the series is not perfect, but overall, I see it as a firm 9/10 (the fact I was born with the Joestar family birthmark has no bearing on this fact.) This series has the most over the top, goofy but smart fun, this ain't your grandma's normal adventure !!

2. Akumetsu - Why don't we just kill these fuckers?

This is a question, albeit with greater subtly and spoken more politely, is what I hear people asking in politics all the time nowadays, specifically in regards to people we don't agree (especially relevant nowadays, *gulp*). I found and read this lovely little series in April early this year, and it kind of personally maybe a little dissuaded me from becoming a domestic terrorist with my chemistry degree WHOSAIDTHAT.

(I'm not an expert on Japan's politics, or the economy, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.)

This series opens with this; it was written around the turn of the millennium, right around when Japan's economy was recovering from a major collapse of a real estate/housing bubble in 1990. Japan was failing to keep up in economic growth with the rest of the world, and for a long time its people were suffering for it. Some would say Japan is still yet to recover from these lost decades. This was a time when everyday people were constantly and consistently being screwed by corrupt politicians, who say would "there is no problem, and if there is a problem, it wasn't there fault, and if it was there fault, it really isn't that bad and the reason you're having a hard is maybe because YOU aren't working hard enough."

There's a palpable anger and governmental distrust/conspiracy that can be felt in a lot of late 90s to early 2000s manga that focus on combating injustices, and this reflects the anger that was felt by the youth (e.g. Death Note, Code Geass, 20th Century Boys, Pluto, Billy Bat). They had a pile of shit in the form of debt and stagnant economy dropped on top of them, and they were told "Sorry, I'm resigning, it's your problem now!". The fingerprints of this rage is scorched into every single panel of Akumetsu.

That's a lot of pre-text, so now let's get into what makes Akumetsu fun. The plot follows a young genius but low profile high schooler with a promising future ahead of him (Hazama Shou), who suddenly begins to grow aloof and distant from his classmates. Why? it's because he has a plan to use his exceptional talents, a plan to kill every single last corrupt politician to wipe the slate clean, and then off himself to atone, all in just one month.

The first chapter details Shou's first assassination, which has him incidentally rescuing his long time friend and secret admirer who had gotten caught up in family debt and blackmailing, and was forced into a precarious position. He strolls in, blows the head off the target, only to then walk outside and get gunned down be the police? His highschool sweetheart sees this, mourns him, grieves for him, only to see him at school the next day unharmed?!

See, Shou has gained the power to Not Die When He Has Been Killed and Appear at Multiple Places at Once!!! Young Hazama Shou is effectively immortal, and he plans to commit murder-suicide with every last one of his fated victims, but still... as he continues to pile up the bodies of government fatcats, he begins to question if what he is doing is really going to change the world permanently for the better. 

Should a bullet have more voting power than a ballot?! Is terror the only motivator left to save us from ourselves !!? If you alone have the power to change the world, should you !?!

Find out in the over-the-top, super flashy, super gorey Akumetsu!!!

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3. Silent Hill 3 - 3 for 3 😝

I had difficulty deciding whether I should the entire Silent Hill franchise here, or just my favourite entry, but then I realised this is a "get to know my annoying side" blog post, and long time Steadman Slick fans are sick and tired of hearing about Heather. It's one of my favourite games, and I'll never get over all the shit it got cause you play as a girl instead of boy (LIVE OUTSIDE YOUR MYOPIC WORLD VIEW FOR ONCE, HOW BOUT THAT!!!), so I'll never stop pushing the Heather agenda.

I played the Silent Hill 3 when I was far too young, on my dad's modded ps2. I think out of all the stuff I saw when I was a kid, even including unrestricted internet access and growing up in middle east country with insane wealth disparity, nothing imprinted on my brain in a more horrific fashion than this game. Hey give me a break, kids don't really understand grand existential horrors at the age this game calcified my pineal gland, so it was more viscerally uncomfortable. You don't get to choose what plays putty with your higher thinking stem cells.

The rattle of swaying and swinging chains, the meshing synthetic and organic groaning of distant sirens, rot and rust suffused into the core of the world, and an ever-present obfuscating confounding fog. If I'm left in a sensory deprivation tank, with nothing but my soul to confront myself with, I feel that's what shape the world would take. I felt profoundly seen (though I didn't quite understand it at first) when playing SH3, and seeing that this is the reflected mirror world that Heather was cast into, it made me realise "Other people can think this way too?".

I guess that's the core of why I resonate with the series as a whole, it has a bunch of characters that I see parts of myself in, Heather and James especially. Silent Hill highlights the awful mishapen way people are built, and how ill adapted we are for the psychological horrors of being alive, and being barely evolutionarily distinct from animals while still being acutely aware of how we hurt others and ourselves in our wild thrashing. The human race is uniquely ill-equipped with the mental defenses to comprehend morality, and we will spend our entire life fighting the fact we were not built to be innately "capable", but must achieve it.

Naturally, one of the reasons I love Silent Hill 3 is Heather, she's awkward, clumsy and very much still growing into herself. She embodies growing pains and transferring from kid to adult and becoming mature, along with all the baggage that gets shoved on top of you as a result. I also grew up very fast, both mentally and physically, and moved around a lot like her, so I find her awkward kind of dorky demeanor endearing. It's like watching a clumsy deer trip over its own legs and skate around on the ice, still not accustomed to the dimensions of their body. I have been that deer so many times.

Plus there is also the great evils that we face when we were very young and our mysterious pasts, but that's a story for another time... I'll tell you when you're older...

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4. Disco Elysium - I don't want to be this kind of animal anymore!/The furies are at home in the mirror.

Continuing the theme of "The enemy is yourself", is Disco Elysium, which I played during a very messy period in my life, post an ex-something, where I needed to get my shit together.

The thing I adore most about this game is that it assumes a lot of your choices you make are disingenuous and aren't representative of how you really think, and are instead regurgitating lazy heuristics that have gotten you by so far. You play as a washed up 40 something detective who has been drinking and drugging himself blind, in an attempt to obliterate all memories of yesterday. You've actually managed it, and fried your brain so deeply, you can't remember who you are, where you are, and why you're naked.

You go through the experience of being an adult sized baby relearning how to be human and genuine, and realise the damage of all the shit you caused by being wrapped up in your own grief and cinematic self destruction. You cannot refuse that you are human.

The game covers some really dark themes without flinching, but I think that's why its so effective. It's looking in the mirror and seeing how far you've let yourself go, it's "get your shit together" the game. Realise that you've killed the ideal of who you wanted to be, sob over their corpse as ugly as you need to, wake up from the dull dream you've sedated yourself with, and do what you can to make things better.

Though if you do decide to get this game, I would just want to mention that any money you spend to get it does not go to the game's original authors or developers, as the project has been stolen from under them. So if you know how, go about getting the game through other means.

Also also, I'm very excited, because I've been following the paths of the authors after they were forced out from the company, and there is a very promising project coming out next year. I was a good little capatalist, and ordered myself the pre-release book bundle that is meant to ship synchronously across the globe some time next year, and I await it with thrumming heart and bated breath.

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MORE TO BE ADDED!!!

Some planned additions:

- Ichi the Killer

- Select items from Will Wood's discography

- Flowers for algernon

- Trigun

- Fear and Hunger

- Twin Peaks

- Song of Saya 

- 120 days of sodom

-Jujutsu Kaisen

- Centuria

-Ants From Up There

- Persona 4

- Saiki K

- so much more...