monthly recap (april 2025)
basically i'm stuck at home working on the idolmaster zine and have zero time to do anything else. LET ME OUT OF HERE!!!
overload 2025
i had drafted some longer posts about overload and artist alley so that i wouldn't just be doing three belated monthly recaps in a row but i'm seriously cooked for time.
kaoru mori is the author of my favorite romance manga, so i drew emma fanart for her and received her autograph. i was overjoyed when she said it was beautiful!
i also drew yue fanart for yuuki kuwahara. i was excited to give it to her in person because i previously drew yue for her at AX, but i missed her autograph session due to prior obligations. oh well, the art was kinda ass anyway.
this was actually the most i've spent at an artist alley in years (around $60 NZD excluding the manga). big on small original art prints atm.
both of my fits were horace knightley themed!
art log
just stuff for the idolmaster zine. saki and shu pic was from way back in september lol. i drew haruka and uzuki on the cover (the faces were basically by izzy though). preorders will be closed by the time i get may recap up so go buy it now!
media log
- bro'town: i have a lot to say about bro'town so i'll likely do a full post on it later if i ever get the time. it's really fucking good though.
- gnosia - loop 70: it's a crazy good and addictive game, but it's at the perfect level of addictive where i get bored of it after 5 play sessions so i can limit myself unlike other games i play or manga i read. gina is so hot.
- monster: i finally read naoki urasawa's monster!!! it's fantastic as you'd expect. loved the european setting and grimmer and dieter's characters. the mystery element was interesting for the majority of the story but it kinda fell off to me
once it got to the fairy tale shit. i'm still scarred from how ass billy bat was, sorry. if i had read monster first i definitely would've enjoyed it more. i also felt like the story relied way too much on coincidences which took me out of the otherwise realistic and serious nature of the manga. - dr. stone C1-C170ish: surprisingly interesting for a shonen manga. it's riichiro inagaki after all. tsukasa is an awesome bad guy and i'm surprised he wasn't more well-liked in the popularity polls. it's interesting to have a story where the main character and the villain are both 'good people' who just have different values. senku is pretty likeable too, but apparently he's supposed to be similar to agon in personality and characteristics, when if anything he feels like he's missing the flaw that agon hasâ arrogance, the flaw that so many 'perfect' characters do have because it makes sense for them to have it. instead senku's just confident but nice and none of his personality flaws become an issue until way later in the story. sadly the other charactersâ aside from gen and ryusuiâ are all kinda boring as hell and i don't even know what i'm supposed to make of senku's and taiju's friendship when it feels like he gets replaced by chrome 10 chapters into the story. the story itself also falls off in momentum bad after they defeat tsukasa. not a fan of the treasure island development at all and while the trip to america should be good i'm just not feeling it... also boichi's artwork is so difficult to look at here man. his art isn't even bad but bro should not be making himself do regular shonen art when his skill is in realistic manly shit.
- sket dance C101-C240: i read all that but i can't remember much except that i love agata. the thing with sket dance is that it's just good but it's not something that's good enough to make a huge impact on you yeah?
- my alcoholic escape from reality, my wandering warrior eating disorder: they were both interesting, but my wandering warrior eating disorder was more memorable in that it... wasn't? it doesn't have a message beyond talking nagata kabi talking about her experiences with her ongoing eating disorders which is kinda unusual for an autobio-style manga (that isn't a slice of life-type thing). i learned a lot anyway.
- at 30, i realized i had no gender: i first came across shou arai around 2017 when i was looking for more LGBT manga. he was the only transmasculine mangaka i could find but none of his works were translated into english at the time. now that i've finally read one (or at least the chapters that sounded interesting)... can't say it was that good TBH... that being said i think it's fine for what it is. a lot of negative reviews miss that he isn't trying to make a self-discovery story. it's just slice of life autobio shit that's been framed that way because of the popularity of my lesbian experience with loneliness. the "life learnings from a 50 year old" which was the most prominent part of the original japanese cover got pushed into a tiny bubble in the english cover and thus set up english readers for poor expectationsâ so why tokyopop didn't publish any of his other autobio manga first i have no idea. the manga is not really PC to be honest but it's like interacting with horny old guys at gay bars if that makes sense. well, that's what shou arai is i guess.