Logbook

Gakkou No Yuurei

i started my very long chiaki j. konoka retrospective this month with Psychic Vision: Jaganrei, followed by the Earth Defense Girl Iko-Chan trilogy, the third being penned by him. the first one was really fun, but i was not a fan of the other two. it does not help that the last one was dialogue heavy and i had no subtitles… i saw two Sogo/Gakuryuu Ishii movies this month, the first being his last one, The Box Man, and the other one The Crazy Family, on a wonderful 35 mm print. the two were screened as part of the festival I worked at, which is also where i saw Bogancloch, which had a wonderful campfire scene.

i watched the Sleepaway Camp trilogy in one day which was very fun. i had already seen the first one, but the third one was such a pleasant surprise. pamela springsteen was great as angela. i did not know she was related to bruce! The Boy from Hell was another film i saw, which made me love even more the work of director Mari Asato. it reminded me of her twilight syndrome adaptation: funny, yet a little uncanny. this month, i also discovered the work of shiho kano and i hope i get to see more in november. and to finish it up, i spent the last weekend of the month in theaters; i watched Look Back, The Secret of Kells (on a print!) and Venom: The Last Dance. was a little disappointed by venom, it never really felt like a proper conclusion, but i still had fun.

Earth Defense Girl Ikko-Chan

i finished Moon Remix RPG Adventure this month and that’s pretty much it! i liked it a lot, though i must admit i find it a little frustrating that you basically have to use a guide in order to finish the game. some things you would never guess… i loved the ending credits though. again, just like gakkou no yuurei, it’s mixed media, and it reminded me of the ending credits of alien9…

Moon

i will see you next month! hopefully, i’ll have more time to work on the website this month

September

september was a packed month for me. without getting into my personal life too much, this month i lived for a week at a friend’s place while starting a full-time contract, but having to still work a shift at my usual job, meaning that for the past three weeks I’ve only had three days off. someone close to me got COVID and i thought i would catch it too, but I did not, though i got food poisoning from mushrooms a few days later. a chaotic month, where I could not always do what i wanted to do, like working on this website. october will probably be has hectic, yet i hope it will be much sweeter, with more time to breathe. what you’re about to read is what I was able to watch, to read, to play, to listen to. it might not be really interesting, but I’ll try to write a few words if there’s anything to say.

i’ll start with the easiest : reading. i barely read this month! i haven’t touched Queen of the Damned in a long time, i need to get back to it. i spend too much time doing nothing on my computer, looking at books i could read, games i could play, films i could watch, without ever doing any of that.

at my contract i assist a sixty years old british man who was a goth as a teen and he recommended to me a lot of music. must admit, i haven’t listened to a lot for now, but i did give a listen to Smell of Female by The Cramps which was fun! not a recommendation by him, but i also listened to What to Do About Them by Swirlies which made me want to explore their discography more, same goes for Fishmans, after finally listening to Long Season. a life-changing experience honestly, nothing else sounds like that. to continue on music from japan, i listened again to one of my favourite album, Aratamemashite, hajimemashite, Midori desu by Midori, and continued to explore Shinsei Kamattechan’s music with Tanoshiine, an album i liked less than Tsumanne, but more than Minna Shine. at work, i listened to willems house by thorhighheels and i think everyone should listen to it (and also watch her youtube channel). finally, i also saw Claire Rousay live, accompanied by the band Still House Plants. it was a wonderful show, and i had a very sweet conversation with my uber driver after. i hope that he will get to start playing the piano again.

because of my current job i had to watch around fifty short films and i won’t list them all, actually i won’t list any, since i don’t think they were really remarkable. the only good shorts i saw this month were I’m Starving by Yau Ching and Reading by Matheo Pino and i did not even see them for my work. I’m Starving is on youtube and is very cute and Reading is made by a very talented friend of mine and is on vimeo! i started this month with Mahal by Kamal Amrohi which was splendid. the soundtrack is wonderful and is used so well throughout the film. i need to watch more indian gothic movies! this month i also saw The Babadook by Jennifer Kent for the first time, and I saw Sherlock Jr. by Buster Keaton again at a friend’s birthday. we also watched Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes by Junta Yamaguchi but we weren’t really in the mood for it i’m afraid. it was a little too loud for us.

i ended the month with Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice and even though it was yesterday i forgot about it all already. the day before, last saturday, i did a triple feature about serial killers. the first film was AKA Serial Killer by Masao Adachi, which i liked, but i think i love the concept more than i do the actual result. when i finally get to the florilegium part of this site i’ll add some quotes about it. i continued with the very mysterious Squareworld by Kenji Onishi, a film where you don’t see much, don’t hear much, but you still can’t stop looking, always wondering what will happen. i love the lighting in this one and the minimal sound design is great. i finished with a rewatch of Sombre by Philippe Grandrieux which has one of the best opening sequence ever? i loved it as much as my first time and i need to dig more into Philippe's filmography.

Squareworld

as for games, i started Tsukihime and Moon Remix RPG Adventure this month and i love both but haven’t had the time to play them a lot. i continued Fatal Frame and finished the first night. i can’t see anything cause it’s too dark, i keep colliding with walls, yet i still love exploring the house. the games feel haunted and every time there’s a ghost i get goosebumps. it’s great. hope to play more of it in october, same for the other two games mentioned. with my busy schedule, i turned myself to shorter experiences via sheepshaver so i tried Cosmology of Kyoto for the first time and i’m looking forward to exploring it again. is there even a beginning to it? and end? i wish i could find the name of the artist cause the visuals are astonishing. less spooky, i also played AmandaStories and fell in love with Amanda’s little cat Inigo. they were short stories made with hypercard, eventually inspiring the studio behind Myst to make their first game. i will get to Myst someday... the last game i played on mac os 9 was the classic time waster Snood. i have nothing to say except that the second game has probably one of the best cover design ever created. LGR made a good video on the snood craze.
the last two games to cover were over itch.io, one of them being Anonymous Animal that i recommend to everyone, and make a game or die tryin made by the very talented abelle, that i also recommend. it’s very inspiring, it made me want to draw again and to maybe try to make a game? who knows...

AmandaStories

i will see you at the end of next month. take care