Tonda Gossa, folks.

How was your September? I am now another year older this month and my body is certainly feeling the years now. But thanks to the celebration I've gotten to eat a nice bit of sweets despite avoiding sugar for the most part these days.

Curious thoughts...

As I was on a walk the other day, I passed by the canopy of a gas station and saw water dripping from one of the corners. By canopy, I mean those large freestanding platforms built on stilts that stand over top of the gas pumps outside- presumably to protect from weather. As a person who likes to think about things like "where does this come from and what is causing it?" I stopped to crane my head up and investigate as best as I could. Gas station canopies are quite tall as most people know (maybe 15ft up?) so the roof was far away, but I spotted a strange small green thing where the water was coming from- a color I was not expecting to see anywhere near this old grey steel ceiling. I stared at the green thing for a bit to try and focus my eyes better because it was in shadow up there in the corner, wondering at first if it was some sort of jerryrigged object installed to drain water from on top of the canopy. After a few seconds of staring I could tell that it wasn't manmade due to the organic shape, and I realized that it was a small stalactite formed from water draining from a small crack in the canopy, which over time had formed a small structure like tiny inverted pine trees but made from lush green moss forming rounded finger-like cone shapes. I've never seen that visual before, so it was noteworthy to me.

What media I been watching lately?

Junk World, the sequel to Junk Head released this month and it was awesome. I was already a big fan of Junk Head, but Junk World took everything about the first film and turned it up to 11. What a huge labor of love. It still had the incredible world and environments, the cool robotics and technology, and it even upped the comedy from the first one as well! Infact there were a couple really immature toilet-humor style jokes in this that caught me by surprise so badly that all I could do was laugh at the absurdity of it all. This one has a lot more dialogue and storytelling than the first, and tells its story in a pretty unconventional way that I will not spoil! This one was also way gorier than the first, with some amazing action scenes and battles! There is a faction introduced in this movie that is a freaky cannibal cult and every one of them is hilarious. There's also a beautiful making-of thing after the credits that made me realize just how much work and effort went into every single scene and environment, and you could tell that everyone who worked on it was having a really fun time together! It definitely will not be everybody's cup of tea, especially due to some of the crude humor and gore, but I thought it was incredible, it was exactly perfect for me. The post-credits stinger really made me happy too! Definitely worth a watch if you were a fan of the first film!

Ghost in the Shell 2026 wrapped up this month and I couldn't be happier with it. They stuck the landing PERFECTLY. Finally the first adaptation of the manga that actually did everything right! The final episode was breathtaking, and the music was appropriately beautiful to match. This adaptation wont be for most people, but for fans of the original manga, its PERFECT! I saw they left little hints that imply they might adapt Man-Machine Interface next, which will be exciting to see! (Will people be shocked to see Motoko is not the protagonist of every series? lol)

Overall, this adaptation was incredible, looked gorgeous, had all the humor and wittiness and philosophy from the manga intact. a 10/10

I rewatched the incredible Darkstalkers ova with some friends for my birthday, and it's still as amazing as I remember. The animation and artwork is superb, every frame a painting, as the saying goes. Every single fight scene is so beautifully animated, and they include so many actual moves from the games animated exactly the same as the game moves. You can tell the team that made this loved to play the series! The music is PERFECT, too. There are these dirty-sounding saxophone tracks that play during many of the fight scenes that really fit the vibe of Darkstalkers and give the feeling that its all these evil creatures slashing eachother apart with their otherworldly powers. The character selection is limited, but they made a great honest effort to include everyone they could without making the story seem too bloated. This means many of the characters from the game series do not make an appearance aside from a montage at the start of each episode and stills in the end credits animation. The characters who do not appear in the plot are Rikuo/Aulbath, Victor, Anakaris, Sasquatch, and others, but I suspect this ova was made around the time of the 2nd game in the series, since Pyron is the main villain. This means BB hood/Bulletta, Q.Bee, Jedah, and Lilith probably werent introduced yet. The characters that do get to participate in the plot do a great job and get good screentime to fight and talk and move the plot forward at least, and it makes sense why they would focus on the ones they do. (I mean, what would Rikuo or Sasquatch or Anakaris even care about the state of the planet, you know? They wouldn't have any motivations.) They do get some characters inserted to have fights that are just for the sake of exciting fights and to show how the Darkstalkers are wreaking havoc on the human world. So characters like Zabel/Lod Raptor, Talbain/Gallon, and Bishamon get to appear briefly and have cool fight scenes that aren't plot-important, but its so sick to see so I'm glad they were included.

The main focus is actually Donovan and Anita, which I appreciate. This is absolutely the most focus Anita has ever gotten, considering shes not even a playable character in the game and is more of a plot mcguffin sidekick to Donovan. They do a great job of her characterization here and shes very tragic actually. Donovan as well is very nicely characterized. They focus a lot on the fact that he is a Dhampir, and his struggles with hating the Darkstalker half of himself against his human half. Im also extremely pleased that Huitzil/Phobos gets to have such a huge plot relevance as hes one of the main antagonist forces, appearing in one of his alt color palettes as a huge army of them, so we get to see his massive bizarre abstract moveset, and I love it so much! He was one of my mains back when I played. It's so funny that Dimitri has an important role in this too, as always he really thinks hes the main character even though hes an uninteresting loser of a character. He does have some sick fight scenes in this though. Overall it's still got to be my ultimate favorite fighting game adaptation ever. Everyone looks perfect, has their movesets, talks and acts like they should, and the plot basically follows DS2 with Pyron's invasion being the main focus at the end.

You hear about Videogames?

I finally played through Radical Dreamers, and I thought it was fantastic! I will always be open about my love of Chrono Trigger and my hatred for Chrono Cross, but I loved this experience at least. It was such a pleasant compact little story that you can finish in 3-4 hours if you're using saves wisely, and the mood and setting were incredible. The graphics and characters were really great too! The limited prerendered 3d that you would see alongside digitized traditional artworks were such a very unique experience that I don't think I've gotten anywhere else. Mitsuda's music was awesome as always, especially that wild primal final boss theme! There were many points in the story where characters said some deeply profound things about life and the mind, and I just have to praise the english fantranslators who worked on it, they did a great job. I liked how much of a classic fantasy story this was, with very traditional creatures and concepts and setting. The Mirror of Whispers was a really interesting character to me especially, and I liked the way it was handled, and its introduction with the visual really gave me a moment of fear! The main antagonist Lynx was built up for the whole game with how ruthless and awful he is, and it did not disappoint. His entrance and confrontation at the end was harrowing, and the music and visuals were really awesome and helped drive home how powerful and brutal he is. He looks quite spooky as well, what a creepy face.

 The way battles are performed is interesting. I cant say I've personally played a text adventure that had battles like this, but I know many old text RPGs played this way. Apparently there's an invisible system of stats and affection points with your allies and health points, but you're never allowed to see any of this or check your status or inventory, so you will have to do a lot of memorization or keeping track of things with notes irl. You kind of get an idea of how dead you are after each battle by how the characters speak to eachother, and how much your character talks about how much his wounds are hurting. You play as a character named Serge, and you can only directly control him and his choices. His allies Kid and Magil/Gil(? I've seen two different names depending on translation for some reason) will act on their own and do what they want and fight however they want. Battles are strange because since this is all text-based, you basically have to learn how to fight each differently creature in the specific choices that will get you hurt the least and make Kid appreciate you more. Also in battles if you wait a second when it gives you a prompt to make a choice, you'll miss your turn and get hurt. The enemies are varied and the text descriptions of the battles are quite good! Some of them are even a little wacky or funny such as when you're fighting a skeleton and it lobs its head at you to latch onto your hood and start biting at you, while your mage ally tries to explode it. Despite the very limited visuals each battle is accompanied by an illustration of what ever creature you're fighting, and some of them even have some limited animation!

 Apparently there are many endings and I've only gotten the initial one. I want to experience everything this short game has to offer, so I'll look into what to do to get the others. I can't say this game is recommend for everybody, since it's quite literally a text adventure, but I had a blast with it thanks to the graphics and music really doing a great job of carrying the mood throughout. I also can't recommend this game to everybody due to some of the content which hasn't aged too well regarding Kid, but if you can look past that, its a really interesting and memorable game.

Well. The OOT remake was finally shown off, and I don't like it as I already knew I wouldn't. Its another unnecessary remake for the pile of remakes upon remakes nothing new under the sun blah blah blah. I'm too tired of all this. I'm glad my arthritis only manifested a few years ago because I think I've already played all the intensive videogames in my life that I'll enjoy. I'm not missing out on anything good by not being able to properly play AAA games anymore because almost none of whats being made today appeals to me, and is focused on entirely different artistic values than mine. Just like the starfox remake before it, oot remake looks disgustingly overdesigned and maximalist. The hope that just layering more and more and more details onto something will make it more appealing. It's bizarre, remakes CAN be done well in my opinion, because the FF7 remakes have looked gorgeous and have something to say while celebrating the originals and yet not compromising on the original artistry. And this is from a person who didn't even love the original FF7 like most people did (FF6 being my favorite.)

Anyway this remake was never intended for someone like me, it's made for modern players with modern sensibilities to experience the game, and if they enjoy it then more power to them.

New Kirby game announced as well, but I already lost interest seeing it's open-world. I have my holdups about the directing of the modern post-sakurai Kirby games anyway, so even though I'm generally a Kirby fan I'm not interested in this. (Also I recently learned that people somehow thought that trailer was related to Smash Bros...? What...?)

As for Youtube content:

"Pretty Please I Don't Want to be a Magical Girl" had its first episode finally completed and posted to the creator's youtube channel. I've liked this show ever since I saw the animatics of the first two episodes (and its really cool that the creator seems to be a Punch Punch Forever fan, seeing as there's a reference in ep 2!) The character designs are so lovely and really well made! I love the main character's star-shaped hairstyle especially. and the characters' color schemes are really nice next to eachother! The humor is well done and gave me a few chuckles throughout. And while I'm maybe not the target demographic, I'm still definitely going to enjoy the show for the characters and aesthetic. Plus it's got an interesting premise where a magical girl is absolutely refusing the call to adventure and it's sort of a reversal of the genre I suppose? I look forward to further episodes.

Is that music I hear?

honestly I've been listening to PSY・S pretty nonstop all this month as always, especially the song "Friends or Lovers"

Hand Pain Update:

So far this month my hand pain has been manageable for the most part. could it be due to the weather finally cooling down? Who knows... Im still in pain every single day, but I'm able to push through most days thankfully.

Well... in closing

That's all I can think to talk about from this month. If you'd like to help support me and help me pay medical bills and buy groceries, please head over to my Patreon and donate there and see plenty of neat exclusive art and music, or if you know anyone who can help by donating to it, please link it to them. But if you don't or cant, then I understand.

Thanks for reading!