October 2023 Media Round-up
Nov. 4th, 2023 04:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhysianaIn addition to catching a crud from my niece that necessitated lying around for a week watching things that didn't require too much brain, this month also featured all my library holds coming in at the same time, so the round-up list will be an interesting reflection of those two events, I'm sure.
Books
-Ninefox Gambit, Yoon Ha Lee - I started this a couple months ago but wasn't in possession of the right kind of attention for so much throw you in the deep end worldbuilding at the time. This time around, I found it extremely absorbing, so once again, waiting for the right time for the right book is the correct decision. (The worldbuilding mechanics remind me so much of Spouse trying to explain various miniature wargames and their lore to me, which I definitely enjoy much more in the abstract than in any kind of actual practice. Of course, any time I would read bits of this book out loud to him, he'd ask questions about how the various factions interact with one another, trying to piece together the rules, and I had to tell him I didn't know because the narrator didn't consider that information relevant yet.)
-A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel, KJ Charles - Second in Charles' "love in a time of economic inequality on the moors" books! Slightly less piratical this time, because it's set over a decade later than the first book, starring one of the characters who was still a child in the first book, but still dealing with the lost gold referenced in the first book, so probably not actually readable as a standalone. Excellent characters, as always, and some messy family dynamics that finally get dealt with in a satisfying way.
-Dome 6, Gail Carriger - The last in the "k-pop but with aliens IN SPACE!" series, with some interesting revelations about the aliens who run the entire godsong industry and what the ultimate purpose of the art form is.
-The Name Drop, Susan Lee - A cute and ridiculous romcom that would absolutely make a great k-drama, in which two young people show up for their internships at the same Korean company's NYC office, only to find their assignments reversed because they have the same Korean name on all the files. (The real lesson here: always show up early if you want the better assignment.) The guy is the son of the CEO, doing his internship at the NYC office instead in Seoul so he can be "anonymous"; the girl is the daughter of a middle manager trying to make connections for better scholarship application letters. All the class divide k-drama tropes show up, with a dramatic confrontation when the CEO discovers their switch and a quite nice epilogue glimpse of their future.
-Killers of a Certain Age, Deanna Raybourn - What if RED had been about a group of lady assassins? Absolutely as fun as it sounds!
-To Shape a Dragon's Breath, Moniquill Blackgoose - Really excellent alt-historical fantasy ft. a North America where the original colonists were Nordic, the Native Americans maintained a stronger presence in their homelands, and dragons exist. The protagonist, a young woman of the native people of an island off the coast of Massachusetts, finds herself chosen by a newly hatched wild dragon and must attend the official school for dragon handling on the mainland. There's a lot of racism exhibited toward her and the one other Native attendee of the school, but she remains staunchly undiminished by it. (Also, she's unashamedly bi and has both a female and male love interest. She has yet to bring them both around to the idea she has two hands, but I have hopes for future books.)
-Paradise Kiss (manga), Ai Yazawa - There was a conversation in one of my Discord servers about this manga featuring a romance plot where the couple's eventual breakup was presented as good and healthy for both of them. By the author of Nana, which I watched the movie adaptation of a while ago and enjoyed, and featuring so much fashion.
-Love is Probably Around the Corner (manga), Tatsuya Kiuchi - (actually read in Sept) A friend was in the mood to read things about burned out characters being cared for and helped back to a place where life seemed worth living again, and shared links. This one was about a burned out manga artist and his old high school friend who has become a successful novelist (and is now a divorced single dad.) Single dad is both stunned and super relieved when manga artist starts helping get the kids ready in the mornings; manga artist is surprised to find his ability to create coming back to him as he starts taking an interest in the world again. So good.
-The Cat Proposed (manga), Dentou Hayane - (actually read in Sept) The second recommendation from above friend, this time featuring a burned out office worker who attends a traditional storytelling performance on a whim and accidentally sees through the storyteller's disguise to his real bakeneko appearance due to the power of exhaustion. The bakeneko says they must get married so he won't be in trouble for knowing about the supernatural world, and things develop from there. Loved the bakeneko's backstory and all the interactions of the supernatural and mundane worlds existing side by side.
-Red, White & Royal Blue, Casey McQuiston - Yes, finally. I agree the book is better than the movie, just because it has room to be more complex, but Zahra's lines in the movie were truly top-notch.
-Kono Oto Tomare! (manga), Amyuu - (ongoing, caught up to current) Yes, I did read over 130 chapters in a week. I'm fine. Everything is fine. I have simply adopted all of the members of this high school koto club now. I can't believe I'm now caught up and it's right in the middle of nationals! I have to wait for monthly installments now! The agony! (There is also an anime, and at least the first episode seems very faithful to the manga.)
-I Hear the Sunspot (manga), Yuki Fumino - A different friend mentioned this one, so I had to check it out while recovering from the lack of more Kono Oto. Basic premise: Two college guys meet when the one who is hard of hearing advertises for a note-taker for class. Deals a lot, especially in the sequels, with d/Deaf culture and disability issues in Japan, similar to Silent. I did laugh at the author's note where she admitted she hadn't realized until several chapters in that the magazine this was being serialized in was BL-focused, because she was just generally unaware of the entire BL genre, much to her editor's surprise. It worked out, but does explain why it comes off as so slow-burn, which doesn't really get any complaints from me. The pacing of their relationship through the sequels is probably not as linear as some readers would prefer, but I still enjoyed it.
-Once a Rogue, Allie Therin - Second in the Magic in Manhattan spin-off series focusing on Lord Fine and Sebastian. This one seemed a bit slower to me than the others and I found myself a little annoyed by them always arriving slightly behind the others for the first half of the plot, but once things finally started moving, it was another enjoyable installment in the series. (And of course both Lord Fine and Sebastian have many personal issues they needed all that time to work through anyway, so nothing was wasted.)
-Luke and Billy Finally Get a Clue, Cat Sebastian - As soon as I read the description and saw it was about baseball players in the '50s in the mountains of NC, I snapped this up, and I don't regret it. There is very little actual baseball, as the story takes place in the off season so the characters can conveniently get stuck at the one guy's mother's house in the mountains during a storm, so don't let an unfamiliarity with/disinterest in the sport put you off. A very nice novella I started in the late evening and made irresponsible sleep decisions in order to finish all in one sitting.
TV/Movies
-My Happy Marriage (anime, Japanese, Netflix) - I confess I mostly ended up watching this because I kept seeing intriguing gifs from the live-action movie that is annoyingly hard to access from the US, but I enjoyed the anime version and I've now seen reviews of the movie saying it had to cut out too much anyway. Basic premise: an arranged marriage between magic-wielding families in a vaguely 1920s-ish Japan. The main character has a very Cinderella background, relegated to family servant after her father gets remarried and it's determined she doesn't have any magic. She finds herself promised off to a man from a very strong battle magic family notorious for driving off his previous prospective fiancees. Plot ensues, secrets come to light, an eventual happy ending arrives after several unexpected twists and turns.
-A Girl and Three Sweethearts (Japanese, Viki) - An aspiring pastry chef loses her job at a bakery that decides to turn its attention exclusively to bread and ends up taking a job at the restaurant run by her old high school crush. Since it's located outside of Tokyo, she agrees to move there for the summer to see if it will be workable in the long run, and finds herself living in the same house with her old crush and his two younger brothers. The middle brother, her same age and the actual chef at their family's restaurant, immediately hates her because he thinks she's just there chasing romance with the oldest brother, but they eventually come to a grudging respect for each other's professional abilities. The plot eventually requires her to choose between the older brother, Nicest Man on Earth, and the middle brother, Genius Tsundere Chef. (Youngest brother is just there to be a carefree flirt and general cheerleader.) Amusingly, the actress is now married to the actor who played the brother she did NOT choose in the show. This got a little soap-operatic for my taste, but the quirky restaurant and house were such a good setting I didn't want to stop, and it's not like j-dramas are actually long.
-Ballerina (movie, Korean, Netflix) - This had an intriguing enough "girl gets revenge for her friend ft. good fight choreography" preview that Spouse was willing to watch as well. It ended up having a rather darker vibe than that, more art-y and less action-y, and I spent most of the time being distracted by the fact the last thing I saw the villain in had him as the very light comic relief best friend of the lead (Love to Hate You).
-Destined with You (Korean, Netflix) - Numerous people in this show tell Rowoon's character he is too handsome, it's just too much, and they're all correct. Aside from Rowoon's inhumanly perfect face, the show is about a lawyer who has inherited a family curse (which may or may not be also manifesting as a neurological condition) and a lowly civil servant working in the parks department of city hall who is the reincarnation of the shaman who initially cursed his family. The past and present reveal all the ways they're entwined as the show goes on. There is also the very ridiculous use of a love spell. I was watching it weekly as it came out and always looked forward to it, fwiw. (Content warning for the stalking subplot.)
-My Personal Weatherman (Japanese, Viki) - Every description I saw of this show made it sound unhinged, but it was also by the same director as Old Fashion Cupcake, so I figured I'd watch. It was... certainly an experience. I really wonder if it would have been better served to move the flashbacks to how they met in college earlier, so the bizarreness of their current arrangement doesn't seem so inexplicable. Anyway. A much more uneven story adaptation than OFC was, but I did watch the whole thing, so strangely compelling in its own way. I also saw a tumblr post the other day about how the dream of finding someone who can see through all our fronts to the "real" us underneath is an extremely unrealistic dream to base a relationship on, and this show is basically the demonstration of that, because the weatherman believes the artist understands him better than anyone else because he saw through most of his social facades, which is true, but doesn't actually obviate the need to communicate, as demonstrated by their wildly different understandings of what their relationship actually was in the present.
-Doona! (Korean, Netflix) - I was watching this for Yang Sejong, but I would have anyway because I am such a sucker for famous/non-famous plots, plus the former idol angle. The ending comes off as oddly ambiguous compared to the rest of the show, but all of these shorter Netflix k-dramas filmed during COVID have the flavor of things that were meant to be a few episodes longer but they ran into filming difficulties and/or made odd editing decisions afterward. (See also: The Fabulous, Bloodhounds.) Anyway, I fell asleep thinking about it and wrote a little post-canon coda.
-Koisenu Futari (Japanese, ...the internet) - I'd been meaning to watch this one for months and finally did. A story about two explicitly aroace characters finding each other and supporting each other in making the decision to break away from societal expectations of what family and their future should look like. Very good, and the guy who had been thinking of himself as her boyfriend ended up being way less annoying than initial impressions indicated he would be.
-Bungo Stray Dogs (Japanese, Crunchyroll) - I'm actually still watching this, but I figured I should include it in the list for this month since I watched 3+ seasons in October.
Books
-Ninefox Gambit, Yoon Ha Lee - I started this a couple months ago but wasn't in possession of the right kind of attention for so much throw you in the deep end worldbuilding at the time. This time around, I found it extremely absorbing, so once again, waiting for the right time for the right book is the correct decision. (The worldbuilding mechanics remind me so much of Spouse trying to explain various miniature wargames and their lore to me, which I definitely enjoy much more in the abstract than in any kind of actual practice. Of course, any time I would read bits of this book out loud to him, he'd ask questions about how the various factions interact with one another, trying to piece together the rules, and I had to tell him I didn't know because the narrator didn't consider that information relevant yet.)
-A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel, KJ Charles - Second in Charles' "love in a time of economic inequality on the moors" books! Slightly less piratical this time, because it's set over a decade later than the first book, starring one of the characters who was still a child in the first book, but still dealing with the lost gold referenced in the first book, so probably not actually readable as a standalone. Excellent characters, as always, and some messy family dynamics that finally get dealt with in a satisfying way.
-Dome 6, Gail Carriger - The last in the "k-pop but with aliens IN SPACE!" series, with some interesting revelations about the aliens who run the entire godsong industry and what the ultimate purpose of the art form is.
-The Name Drop, Susan Lee - A cute and ridiculous romcom that would absolutely make a great k-drama, in which two young people show up for their internships at the same Korean company's NYC office, only to find their assignments reversed because they have the same Korean name on all the files. (The real lesson here: always show up early if you want the better assignment.) The guy is the son of the CEO, doing his internship at the NYC office instead in Seoul so he can be "anonymous"; the girl is the daughter of a middle manager trying to make connections for better scholarship application letters. All the class divide k-drama tropes show up, with a dramatic confrontation when the CEO discovers their switch and a quite nice epilogue glimpse of their future.
-Killers of a Certain Age, Deanna Raybourn - What if RED had been about a group of lady assassins? Absolutely as fun as it sounds!
-To Shape a Dragon's Breath, Moniquill Blackgoose - Really excellent alt-historical fantasy ft. a North America where the original colonists were Nordic, the Native Americans maintained a stronger presence in their homelands, and dragons exist. The protagonist, a young woman of the native people of an island off the coast of Massachusetts, finds herself chosen by a newly hatched wild dragon and must attend the official school for dragon handling on the mainland. There's a lot of racism exhibited toward her and the one other Native attendee of the school, but she remains staunchly undiminished by it. (Also, she's unashamedly bi and has both a female and male love interest. She has yet to bring them both around to the idea she has two hands, but I have hopes for future books.)
-Paradise Kiss (manga), Ai Yazawa - There was a conversation in one of my Discord servers about this manga featuring a romance plot where the couple's eventual breakup was presented as good and healthy for both of them. By the author of Nana, which I watched the movie adaptation of a while ago and enjoyed, and featuring so much fashion.
-Love is Probably Around the Corner (manga), Tatsuya Kiuchi - (actually read in Sept) A friend was in the mood to read things about burned out characters being cared for and helped back to a place where life seemed worth living again, and shared links. This one was about a burned out manga artist and his old high school friend who has become a successful novelist (and is now a divorced single dad.) Single dad is both stunned and super relieved when manga artist starts helping get the kids ready in the mornings; manga artist is surprised to find his ability to create coming back to him as he starts taking an interest in the world again. So good.
-The Cat Proposed (manga), Dentou Hayane - (actually read in Sept) The second recommendation from above friend, this time featuring a burned out office worker who attends a traditional storytelling performance on a whim and accidentally sees through the storyteller's disguise to his real bakeneko appearance due to the power of exhaustion. The bakeneko says they must get married so he won't be in trouble for knowing about the supernatural world, and things develop from there. Loved the bakeneko's backstory and all the interactions of the supernatural and mundane worlds existing side by side.
-Red, White & Royal Blue, Casey McQuiston - Yes, finally. I agree the book is better than the movie, just because it has room to be more complex, but Zahra's lines in the movie were truly top-notch.
-Kono Oto Tomare! (manga), Amyuu - (ongoing, caught up to current) Yes, I did read over 130 chapters in a week. I'm fine. Everything is fine. I have simply adopted all of the members of this high school koto club now. I can't believe I'm now caught up and it's right in the middle of nationals! I have to wait for monthly installments now! The agony! (There is also an anime, and at least the first episode seems very faithful to the manga.)
-I Hear the Sunspot (manga), Yuki Fumino - A different friend mentioned this one, so I had to check it out while recovering from the lack of more Kono Oto. Basic premise: Two college guys meet when the one who is hard of hearing advertises for a note-taker for class. Deals a lot, especially in the sequels, with d/Deaf culture and disability issues in Japan, similar to Silent. I did laugh at the author's note where she admitted she hadn't realized until several chapters in that the magazine this was being serialized in was BL-focused, because she was just generally unaware of the entire BL genre, much to her editor's surprise. It worked out, but does explain why it comes off as so slow-burn, which doesn't really get any complaints from me. The pacing of their relationship through the sequels is probably not as linear as some readers would prefer, but I still enjoyed it.
-Once a Rogue, Allie Therin - Second in the Magic in Manhattan spin-off series focusing on Lord Fine and Sebastian. This one seemed a bit slower to me than the others and I found myself a little annoyed by them always arriving slightly behind the others for the first half of the plot, but once things finally started moving, it was another enjoyable installment in the series. (And of course both Lord Fine and Sebastian have many personal issues they needed all that time to work through anyway, so nothing was wasted.)
-Luke and Billy Finally Get a Clue, Cat Sebastian - As soon as I read the description and saw it was about baseball players in the '50s in the mountains of NC, I snapped this up, and I don't regret it. There is very little actual baseball, as the story takes place in the off season so the characters can conveniently get stuck at the one guy's mother's house in the mountains during a storm, so don't let an unfamiliarity with/disinterest in the sport put you off. A very nice novella I started in the late evening and made irresponsible sleep decisions in order to finish all in one sitting.
TV/Movies
-My Happy Marriage (anime, Japanese, Netflix) - I confess I mostly ended up watching this because I kept seeing intriguing gifs from the live-action movie that is annoyingly hard to access from the US, but I enjoyed the anime version and I've now seen reviews of the movie saying it had to cut out too much anyway. Basic premise: an arranged marriage between magic-wielding families in a vaguely 1920s-ish Japan. The main character has a very Cinderella background, relegated to family servant after her father gets remarried and it's determined she doesn't have any magic. She finds herself promised off to a man from a very strong battle magic family notorious for driving off his previous prospective fiancees. Plot ensues, secrets come to light, an eventual happy ending arrives after several unexpected twists and turns.
-A Girl and Three Sweethearts (Japanese, Viki) - An aspiring pastry chef loses her job at a bakery that decides to turn its attention exclusively to bread and ends up taking a job at the restaurant run by her old high school crush. Since it's located outside of Tokyo, she agrees to move there for the summer to see if it will be workable in the long run, and finds herself living in the same house with her old crush and his two younger brothers. The middle brother, her same age and the actual chef at their family's restaurant, immediately hates her because he thinks she's just there chasing romance with the oldest brother, but they eventually come to a grudging respect for each other's professional abilities. The plot eventually requires her to choose between the older brother, Nicest Man on Earth, and the middle brother, Genius Tsundere Chef. (Youngest brother is just there to be a carefree flirt and general cheerleader.) Amusingly, the actress is now married to the actor who played the brother she did NOT choose in the show. This got a little soap-operatic for my taste, but the quirky restaurant and house were such a good setting I didn't want to stop, and it's not like j-dramas are actually long.
-Ballerina (movie, Korean, Netflix) - This had an intriguing enough "girl gets revenge for her friend ft. good fight choreography" preview that Spouse was willing to watch as well. It ended up having a rather darker vibe than that, more art-y and less action-y, and I spent most of the time being distracted by the fact the last thing I saw the villain in had him as the very light comic relief best friend of the lead (Love to Hate You).
-Destined with You (Korean, Netflix) - Numerous people in this show tell Rowoon's character he is too handsome, it's just too much, and they're all correct. Aside from Rowoon's inhumanly perfect face, the show is about a lawyer who has inherited a family curse (which may or may not be also manifesting as a neurological condition) and a lowly civil servant working in the parks department of city hall who is the reincarnation of the shaman who initially cursed his family. The past and present reveal all the ways they're entwined as the show goes on. There is also the very ridiculous use of a love spell. I was watching it weekly as it came out and always looked forward to it, fwiw. (Content warning for the stalking subplot.)
-My Personal Weatherman (Japanese, Viki) - Every description I saw of this show made it sound unhinged, but it was also by the same director as Old Fashion Cupcake, so I figured I'd watch. It was... certainly an experience. I really wonder if it would have been better served to move the flashbacks to how they met in college earlier, so the bizarreness of their current arrangement doesn't seem so inexplicable. Anyway. A much more uneven story adaptation than OFC was, but I did watch the whole thing, so strangely compelling in its own way. I also saw a tumblr post the other day about how the dream of finding someone who can see through all our fronts to the "real" us underneath is an extremely unrealistic dream to base a relationship on, and this show is basically the demonstration of that, because the weatherman believes the artist understands him better than anyone else because he saw through most of his social facades, which is true, but doesn't actually obviate the need to communicate, as demonstrated by their wildly different understandings of what their relationship actually was in the present.
-Doona! (Korean, Netflix) - I was watching this for Yang Sejong, but I would have anyway because I am such a sucker for famous/non-famous plots, plus the former idol angle. The ending comes off as oddly ambiguous compared to the rest of the show, but all of these shorter Netflix k-dramas filmed during COVID have the flavor of things that were meant to be a few episodes longer but they ran into filming difficulties and/or made odd editing decisions afterward. (See also: The Fabulous, Bloodhounds.) Anyway, I fell asleep thinking about it and wrote a little post-canon coda.
-Koisenu Futari (Japanese, ...the internet) - I'd been meaning to watch this one for months and finally did. A story about two explicitly aroace characters finding each other and supporting each other in making the decision to break away from societal expectations of what family and their future should look like. Very good, and the guy who had been thinking of himself as her boyfriend ended up being way less annoying than initial impressions indicated he would be.
-Bungo Stray Dogs (Japanese, Crunchyroll) - I'm actually still watching this, but I figured I should include it in the list for this month since I watched 3+ seasons in October.
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