The year comes to an end, and another immediately picks up where it left things, such is the yearly cycle we have no choice but to go through every single time. And what a fucking year, 2025 may have been nice to me, but for many others it was a nightmare. And this one's already feeling extremely long, it's only January and shit's already hitting the fan, both in my country and internationally. But let's not think of that right now, this too will come to pass.

What I want to get at is that last year, even if a bit late, I started keeping track of everything I watched, played and read in the form of those media threads you see on Twitter and Bluesky, so since I'm doing it again I figured I might as well share this stuff here too, plus I can go on way more detail here than I could there. So I'm giving y'all monthly updates on my media thread, showcasing everything I've done that month. And also this way I make up for a cancelled way longer post I planned to drop last December where I'd share my entire media thread with you. You can still check it here if you're still interested though.

With that said though here's some clarification, I'll only be showcasing media that I've either finished, or caught up with in case it is something that's probably going to stay ongoing for a while. I count seasons, volumes and so on as individual pieces of media, but if I don't indicate which season or the like, just know I've gotten to either the end, or the most recent point of whatever it is I'm sharing with you.

Now that's been clarified, let's see everything I've watched ('cause I did not finish playing nor reading anything) on January 2026.

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Starter Squad

A new episode just came out around new years and I decided to fully rewatch it. Starter squad is an independent web-series parodying the original pair of pokemon games. It follows the three Kanto starters as they fuck around and find out. It starts as silly and simple little Youtube animations with a dark sense of humor that slowly develops into its own story, the quality of animation, voice acting and character models improving as the episodes go on. There’s exactly one episode left that’s probably not coming out in a bit, and for what it’s worth it’s gotten good enough to have original songs. Definitely among my faves web series around.

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A Silent Voice

Holy peak. This is genuinely one of my fave things I’ve watched, ever. This starts with a boy bullying a deaf girl, only for life to promptly humble him by hitting him with the karma of a lifetime. A silent voice is a movie I expected to like just from what I heard about it, then a friend asked to watch this over discord and long story short; holy shit. Oslo if you’re reading this you’re a stinky little scallywag and I’m suing for emotional damage. A silent voice is a movie about bullying, friendship, mental health, and above all else atonement. It made me cry and laugh to equal amounts. An ensemble piece that treats disability with respect while also telling an absolutely moving story through its two main characters, with beautiful art, animation, and soundtrack that makes everything hit all the harder. The only nitpick I have with it is this one character who got scot-free and deserved a couple of kicks in the jaw. It’s only January 3rd by the time I’m writing this and I don’t think anything I watch the rest of the year is topping this.

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Dark Matter

This is a strange movie I caught on tv on a Saturday morning after watching A silent voice. It was whatever. It wasn’t the most entertaining thing, the fucked up plot twist at the end and the “Based on a true story” of it all is the only noteworthy part of it and that’s being generous, I enjoyed the main character though. Bit bizarre little film, gave me lots of tonal whiplash, not a great movie but I didn’t hate it. I like the idea though and if properly executed this could have been pretty good, but that’s not the timeline we live in.

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Motherhood

Another movie I caught playing on TV. Motherhood is a pretty average movie, I feel pretty neutral about it. It wasn’t all that funny for a comedy but it wasn’t too annoying either. Uma Thurman carried, she was fun to watch, and I liked this one scene where she starts dancing with what I think was some random delivery guy, I can’t remember, that scene was fun tho. It felt a bit exhausting by the end, which I think is what they were going for, but I’m not sure. It was fine I guess.

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Digimon Story: Time Stranger Prelude

A short and sweet little companion piece of a short that adds a little context to the character appears in name alone in the game this short’s named after. It’s emotional and tragic but with some sweeter and more hopeful moments as it tells a story of two individuals empowering each other through a shared bond. That’s such a classic type of Digimon story to tell, I can’t help but feel endeared to it.

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Pokémon: Hisuian Snow

Have I ever told you how much I love pokemon’s smaller animated shorts and miniseries they do every once in a while? Especially when it’s an original story, sure Generations and Evolutions were great, I loved seeing so many pivotal moments of the games be brought to life with as much care as they did, but I personally prefer original stories that we haven’t already seen before. Hisuian Snow is just that, in fact I rewatched it because of the great memories I have of it. A beautifully animated and voice acted miniseries following a man named Alec through two plotlines, one about his adventures in the land of Hisui as a child, and another about his later return to Hisui as an adult. Not a moment of animation is wasted and there’s a good balance of wholesome shenanigans and genuine suspense. They use what little time they have to the fullest for a genuinely heartwarming collection of shorts you can be fully done with in under 30 mins.

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Klaus

A delightfully sweet and heartwarming movie that I can’t believe came out of my country, especially knowing our usual output.. Beautiful, heartfelt, funny, and absolutely impossible to watch without smiling. Klaus has everything, an inventive reinterpretation of a modern myth, charmingly written, a great animation, and visuals that I wouldn’t believe are 2D if I hadn’t already heard it before watching. It’s been so long since I’ve felt anything watching a Christmas movie.

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Pokemon: Rise of Darkrai

A childhood movie I chose to rewatch for the sake of nostalgia. If you’re a pokemon fan by now you know the drill; The main gang get to a place, meet some new one and done characters, and get into some shenanigans with the pokemon of the week, except it’s a movie so the pokemon of the week is a legendary and said shenanigans are actually a very serious situation that realistically could lead to someone’s death if this wasn’t pokemon. In this case it’s Alamos Town and the conflict revolves around Palkia and Dialga getting into a fight which causes spacetime to get all funky, this is blamed on Darkrai who of course will have to deal with everyone’s combined bullshit like the goth icon he is. The plot was pretty fun, and the movie doesn’t take too long to jump into it, unlike other pokemon movies which tend to have pretty slow starts.

I liked the nightmare sequences and the way they made Darkrai move, he felt like the intimidating presence he’s supposed to be. On that note, Darkrai's characterization was pretty enjoyable, and I didn’t dislike the movie original characters. The CGI looks crappy nowadays but I like what they tried to do, they used it mostly for the big ass church tho so it wasn’t that egregious of a thing. The beautiful environments inspired by the city of Barcelona in Spain, especially the non-CGI shots of the Sagrada Familia inspired church, plus it reminded me of home as I live pretty close to Barcelona myself. The animation is great as usual for pokemon movies, specially in the battle sequences (at the end of the day it's what most of us are here for). The way they used music as the thing that eventually fixes everything is pretty nice and I actually like it a bit better than the way the second movie did that same concept. And honestly I really like the more sci-fi element to this, I wish pokemon explored that genre more often.

Overall, I liked most things about this movie, but most of them were nothing that crazy, however there isn’t anything about it that I’d say is bad per se, which already makes it amongst the best pokemon movies out there. Plus, it’s got Darkrai which is one of my fave mythicals. Needless to say, I had a great time.

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Bungo Stray Dogs 2 - Walking Alone

A great little special episode. I love that it takes an already established character and gives him an entire episode just to himself, specially because that is one of my fave characters in the show. But I don’t get why this needed to be an OVA. It could have just been a regular Season 2 episode pretty easily in my opinion.

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Orenchi no Furo Jijou

A little miniseries with eps that are 3 mins long. It’s nice I guess, just some high schooler and the merman in his bathtub getting into completely straight slice-of-life shenanigans. As slice-of-life as having some random fish person (and sometimes his friends) living in your bathroom can be. There’s not a lot to it but the art is nice and the animation on opening goes really hard for no reason, it’s so dramatic when this is the chillest anime I’ve ever watched, I think it’s supposed to be a joke. Overall charming for something that you can watch in under an hour and feels more like a set of little skits than a show. Also, you get to learn some cool sea life facts, that’s neat.

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Trigun Stampede

A solitary gunman with a great distaste for violence in a world full of oppression, cruelty, and people who are way too eager to take lives. He’ll have to make hard decisions that keep the people around him alive while not resorting to violence while wrapped up in a massive man vs nature sort of conflict. The story has themes of suffering, survival, sin, the human condition. Genuinely great for a first season, the main quartet are all lovable and feel like a family, the bad guys have understandable motivations, there’s interesting world building, the plot is great, and the CG animation is not only one of the best I’ve seen but also gives this show a very special visual identity that I just love. I prefer the way this is animated over most big production animated movies, but then again I have a preference for more anime-ish aesthetics so that was a given. The only thing that is not peak about this show is the opening. I haven’t seen or read the original show or manga, I know they are pretty different but for what it’s worth this is a great show, even if some people are too blinded by nostalgia to see. Also, shout-out to Roberto, he was a great and real underappreciated character who I barely ever see addressed. I know he is a Stampede original character so not as many people are familiar, but come on, he was great. I’m gonna miss peepaw Roberto so much.

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Bunraku

I love the way this movie presents its visuals, they clearly had fun making this, and the many set pieces made of origami helps set it apart visually from most things to come out of Hollywood. There is this jingle at the start that plays when the bad guy faction shows up for the first time, it got me a little giggle. The plot is nothing crazy, it’s serviceable but it’s not good enough for the sad moments to hit. It’s got great action though and some really fun choreographies like this one fight scene that I assume is inspired by beat-em–up videogames and another one that happens on top of a trampoline. I can’t stress enough how creative and fun of a movie this is. It is definitely flawed but I’d be lying if I said this isn’t a great time, I loved this thing.

 

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Burnout

A sweet little animation you can watch right now on youtube. It’s about the dangers of pushing yourself too hard and getting burned out, in a cartoonish way though. The sleepless nights part of it was pretty relatable to me, my sleep schedule is not great.

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Dinotopia

I was just entertained enough to not go to a different channel. The world building was fun and I'll enjoy anything that has a dinosaur in it. The CGI was weird because it looked fake as hell but this one dinosaur guy was so well animated he felt like more of a character than the human actors. There was no plot I think, I can't figure one out at least, just a lot of scenes stitched together. I liked it, and I think the ideas here had a lot of promise, but I wouldn't watch it again. Apparently this is the first part of a miniseries but they only played this one when I saw it on TV, go figure.

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Snow Bear

An incredibly sweet short you can watch right now about a lonely polar bear getting up to shenanigans. This short eleven minute animation is an absolute delight; wholesome and amusing arctic hijinks coupled with beautiful backgrounds, a very important message about climate change that doesn’t feel forced, and gorgeous music and hand-drawn animation from a duo of former Disney employees.

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Sunny Side

Absolutely adorable little animation you cannot watch without smiling. The artstyle is like a mix between Omori and Bee and Puppycat. Can’t tell you the plot without spoiling everything.

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Tears of the Mountain

A beautifully drawn and animated short about seeing yourself in your enemy and the exploitation of nature for monetary gain. Voice acting isn’t perfect and the character arc comes a bit out of nowhere but the artstyle, the music, and the goddamn Carnotaurus make up for it.

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Five Nights At Freddy’s 2

Kinda eh, there were some neat interesting ideas like making the Puppet possess people and inverting the roles of some game characters but there wasn’t much to talk about I’d. Those scenes where the puppet does its thing were really cool and creepy, as they should. And just like the last time JIm Henson’s Creature Shop did an insane job with the animatronics, they look exactly like in the game. There were a lot of references to the games, including some deep cuts I did not expect, those caught me with my guard down I was pointing at the screen like in that one meme, I mean Kellen Goff and Matpat are in this movie for crying out loud! Bbut man does not live on references alone. That’s the extent of the praise I’m giving this thing. It genuinely bothers me that people act like “It’s made with the fans in mind” automatically makes this good, it doesn’t. In fact, at times it felt like the director didn’t even watch the first movie. Was this a good movie? It ended on a cliffhanger, you tell me. Was this a good Fnaf Movie? Also no. Did I enjoy it? A reasonable amount.

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Bungo Stray Dogs: Dead Apple

Even as a BSD fan that was aggressively whatever. I felt nothing. I don't even dislike it, just genuinely very forgettable. I enjoyed it because it had characters whose shenanigans I already vibe with, but other than that this was a pretty big waste of my time. I guess at least it wasn’t boring.

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Death of a Unicorn

Trigger Warning: Some scenes do include gore.

The protagonist and her dad run over a baby unicorn on their way to spend some days with his millionaires boss’ family at a weekend retreat, only for shit to hit the fan once the billionaires decide to exploit the unicorn’s healing properties for profit. A pretty fun movie, even if it’s nothing all that outstanding. Not too funny, not too scary, but still a lot of campy fun. I really enjoyed the satire part of it all, I mean, one character literally snorts a line of crushed unicorn horn, that was kinda funny. As a mythology nerd I really enjoyed the folklore accurate unicorn designs, tuft tails, cloven hooves, beards, you don’t see that often. The story was predictable, but it’s whatever, I don’t think anyone came expecting peak storytelling from the evil unicorn movie. Bonus points because I saw billionaires die, which is something I think anyone would love seeing. Also, the wordplay in the title? Death of a unicorn, as in the literal baby unicorn that dies, and also unicorn as in “a company that starts small then grows into a corporate giant”, because of the billionaires that die. That was a nice detail. If I had to compare it to something it’d be a more humor oriented Jurassic Park.