The Mad Redwood

You’re probably detecting some aggression through the title. Well, you’d be right to, so well done. I’ve written about Shōgun before, mostly praising it for its good writing and enjoying the character Usami Fuji. However, Shōgun continues to write characters well, in that the writers tried to create a character that I really could not muster any enthusiasm for, and they did that really well too. I really had no time for this man whatsoever. Not that they were writing this character for me.

A while ago I wrote about management sims. They’re video games that are designed with one goal in mind: to have the player continually manage things, be they space colonies or theme parks or whole civilisations, while striving to make the process as efficient or grand as possible. These games basically end when you’ve completed what you set out to do. Once you’ve successfully enabled life on Mars, what other worlds are there to conquer?

First post of 2025, then. I finally got to writing a post that was seasonal and timely around Christmas, and you can see it here. So what now? A lot of good movies came out last year, some of which I’d definitely like to cover at some point. In a return-to-form, though, here’s an anime from 2018.

The holiday season has led me to reflect on tradition, or rather, the seemingly random deployment of tradition despite, perhaps, the getting-tired of said tradition. One might conclude that one isn’t tired of said tradition after all, since it continues to be perpetuated. Needless to say, that led me to think about zombies.

Hot Frosty is a 2024 Netflix Christmas movie starring Lacey Chabert and Dustin Milligan, where Milligan plays a sexy snowman come to life. We’re going to park that insane premise for now. Note that I haven’t called it a romcom like Wikipedia has, or labelled it with any other genre title, because I don’t know what to call it really, and that’s what this post is about. On the bright side, though, I’m finally on time with a topical, seasonally-appropriate piece of media! Hooray!

Well, I like the Dead or Alive series of fighting games. I don’t know if it’s my favourite — Mortal Kombat or Injustice might take that spot in my mind palace — but Dead or Alive is up there. My first exposure to the series was in a YouTube video about it; it was about how the first game in the series was made. Lo and behold, the next time I was at the local game store, I found DoA2 for the PS2 right there, ripe for the picking. And I found it pretty fun.

I was on a long plane flight once, not long after Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes was released in theatres. As such, it was on the plane-TV thing, and so I thought what better time than now, while I needed to waste a few hours, to watch the whole rebooted Planet of the Apes trilogy, from Rise to Dawn to War. And in the end I found it all weirdly compelling, and apparently I was engrossed enough that the guy next to me, who didn’t even speak much English, started watching Rise too, on his own TV thing. I hope he didn’t find it too unsettling because we happened to be flying into San Francisco, which also happens to be where the apes go rogue in the film. In my defence, I didn’t know that when I put it on. Anyway.

It’s not news that Pokémon is weirdly dark. Odd Pokédex entries involving kidnappings and children’s souls aside, the very concept of getting slave animals to fight each other is troubling, especially when the Mystery Dungeon games have shown us that they’re sentient enough to form societies and engage in commerce. I bet Kecleon doesn’t appreciate having to abandon their thriving store in order to be forced into combat. And not only that, various criminal organisations are always out to steal the slave animals as well, and that’s another layer of mess — not to mention the apparent Pokémon war that happened at some point.

I’m a bit late to the Shōgun train. This isn’t a new thing; I’m late to media trains all the time because I’m the type to wait till a series finishes, and then watch it at my leisure (or more realistically, watch it when I can actually find the time, and then I can binge if I like). But now that I’ve gotten on the train, I am firmly staying on it to wave katanas around and/or sit around in fabulous regal robes. The show is really strong in so many areas that I’m dying to tackle at some point — where to begin? Probably the premise is a good place to start.

Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower is a DLC boss in Bloodborne, a FromSoftware game. That studio’s name means something in the gaming world, namely “tightly-designed action games that are cruel but fair, with insanely obscure lore.” That’s the gist of FromSoftware’s reputation. Opinions may vary, but these games are hard. People take great pride in completing them, and to complete them, you have to beat loads of bosses.

There’s always been big debates among fans of whatever story whenever the source material is adapted into other media. Usually when I hear about it, it’s a movie adaptation of a book, or an anime adaptation of a manga. Almost always, the consensus is that the source material is better for one reason or another. I’ve personally not always found that to be the case, though.

I was very late to the The Last of Us party, mainly because I didn’t have a PS4 till around when the PS5 was about to come out. I also only got the game because it was on sale, and COVID lockdowns were a harsh time until I really tried to be more productive. But I ended up enjoying it a lot, and a lot of that was because of Ellie.