This series just does not work for me, I think. I passed it up countless times at various libraries before coming into PDFs of it through a Humble Bundle. That was also not a done deal until I read Remender’s Black Science, which I mostly appreciated and figured that maybe I should try this one, too.

It was shortly into the second volume that I ruled it out for good, so I guess this is a partial review of that, too. I get that the series is supposed to be an allegory or whatever, but the violence and grossness just does not work for me, whatever it is supposed to mean more broadly.

I still recognize the bones of why I’ve liked this show for 5+ years, but this season feels like a stretch. The Titan mission seems like the worst planned space mission of all time, Dev makes a lot of dumb decisions so that he can have a change of heart later, and many of the characters feel like dominoes to be set up in specific ways so that the writers can set off a particular chain reaction. It was fine, but not as good as past seasons.

Cette série continue à faire des bêtises que je trouve gênantes: Il n’y a que quelques personnages « importants » qui doivent vivre toutes les expériences d’un.e Français.e de cette époque, et il y a plein de choses qui se passent pour des raisons dramatiques et non logiques.

Pourtant, cette saison en particulier montre la saleté de la guerre, et je suis impressionné par combien on ose critiquer les Français.e.s même au lieu de croire que tout le monde a été des héros pendant la guerre.

See, here’s a volume that is also reallll dark but has enough anti-nihilism in it to make it shine. This is apparently the last of the volumes I own, and I don’t mind not having any more to read… this series isn’t quite as much fun the second time through.

Ice Cream Man rides a fine line between nihilism and anti-nihilism, and this volume was too far on the side of the former for me to really enjoy a reread.

Don’t remember how much I liked these stories the first time around, but the worldbuilding of Ice Cream Man is my least favorite part, and without the novelty of a first read, it was just meh.

It didn’t change my life, but this mix of genie magic, techbro survival bunker, and passion for the theater was a fun combination.

This book was exploding with creativity: I loved the idea of a two-second time machine as something that just kind of exists but hasn’t caught the public eye, to the extent that it’s forgotten about quickly in the narrative. I also appreciate any story that takes shots at tech bros, and the magic in the book was really interesting.

That said, there were seams in the book that stopped me from giving it full marks. I didn’t follow all of the plot developments (especially the end), it sometimes felt like it was trying to be too cute, and I didn’t always get what Anders was going for with the overarching themes. Still really good, though!

I picked this up on a whim while visiting a Japanese bookstore with family. I’ve long felt that of the great comics traditions, manga is one I know less well than I should. I’d heard this name enough to trust buying it without knowing much about it, and I enjoyed reading it on the plane back from Los Angeles. I’ve checked out several of the subsequent volumes from local libraries, and we’ll see how this goes!

There’s an interesting idea here, but I don’t know if it’s enough to build a short story around.

After watching several seasons of Un village français, it was inevitable that I would want to learn more about De Gaulle, someone I certainly already knew about, if not at the level I would have liked. At some point, I remembered that I had bought this biography about 15 years ago but never read it, so I pulled the forgotten ebook up on my phone and made my way through.

Caleb is my favorite in this series, and so this volume gets full marks for introducing his anti-nihilism.

The first several volumes in this series came in an Image Humble Bundle I’m trying to complete so that I justify the money I spent on it, so I guess it’s time for a reread!

While I still semi-regret starting the series on hoopla last time, I’m glad I read the first few volumes together that time, because these first few issues are not my thing. I don’t mind the bleakness of Ice Cream Man (well, most of the time), but gore and ick are NOT my thing, and they are present here. My favorite parts are yet to come, but what I like in this series (almost despite myself) is definitely here already.

This was fine? I really enjoyed the introduction and conclusion: They got at what I find interesting about appeals for anarchism. The rest of the book got at what I find tedious about (some) appeals for anarchism, though: A lot of anecdotalism, seemingly speaking to the already converted (or at least the already insider), and big claims without walking me through them. I’m glad I bought it, and I’m glad I read it, but it wasn’t as amazing as I’d hoped.

I wish I had read this finale more slowly. I like it, but I’m not sure I follow exactly what Remender is going for at each step. This series is worth rereading in the future.

I don’t love the wild shift in premise at the end of this volume, but I do enjoy seeing Grant and Sara work through stuff in a way that feels earned, so it gets credit for that.

Same as the last volume, there are bits of this that I like (including the framing device), but the ramping up of stakes and driving forward of plot are more “meh.”

As promised, I’m starting to blur the lines between volumes—I think some of the things I’m penalizing this review for were actually in the last volume. Oops.

Anyway, I love the art and the premise of this series too much to ever rate it below a four out of five, and there are bits of this volume that I really enjoy, but I like the premise and exploration of this series more than I like its main plot arc, and its efforts to move that plot forward in this story (especially by ramping up the stakes) aren’t super interesting to me.

This series takes more turns in this volume, introducing a major villain who will continue longer than expected and further shifting the premise and main ideas of the series.

I think it works! Grant and Pia get some time to explore their identities and relationship, and playing with bonkers ideas usually works for me.

Okay, so let’s get one thing out of the way up front: After a long break from this series, I spedread the remaining five volumes in the course of a few days. My ability to distinguish the volumes is being pushed to its limits, so these reviews may not be super helpful.

I do remember liking this one, though. I’m a bit annoyed at the timeskip, but this volume signals a real shift in the series where Remender introduces some exploration of his characters alongside the bonkers sci-fi premise. That’s cool, and I appreciated getting to know Grant better here.

Reviewing reference works that I largely skimmed always feels silly, but it’s my website, and no one can stop me.

I’m not a historian, but this historical context was really useful for me for a paper I’m writing on Ellulian perspectives on “media events” in early Mormon history. I appreciated having easy access to documents related to events I was writing about, and as I eventually expand the paper, I expect that I will come back to this volume.

Grandma and Grandpa suggested we all take kiddo to go see this over the long weekend. Spouse was skeptical, but I was excited—we’d apparently had very different impressions of the trailer.

Anyway, it’s not a deep cinematic work, and you can see some of the seams (I assumed some of them were due to an overly faithful adaptation of the book, but after reading the book summary on Wikipedia, I’m less sure), but I really enjoyed it. It’s trope-y in a meta way that works, it was fun and funny, and even my skeptical spouse was won over by the joke about “eating God on Sundays,” which had her in tears.

Elle n’est pas parfaite, cette série : On nous impose de croire qu’un tout nouveau personnage est évidemment un chef naturel, et il a plusieurs éléments qui sont là pour être là, même s’ils ne sont pas fondés sur l’histoire de la série ou sur la logique en général.

Pourtant, je lui donne 5 sur 5 car j’apprécie beaucoup la série, et cette saison en particulier. En avant !

Je ne sais plus comment j’ai découvert cette série, mais je suis bien content de l’avoir regardée (merci M. Le VPN pour m’avoir aidé à convaincre Arte que j’étais en France). Si elle est minimaliste, elle est plus forte pour ça.

J’ai écrit quelque chose il y a deux ans sur comment la chanson « Coup de vieux » de Bigflo & Oli m’a beaucoup marqué, car même si je n’ai jamais eu l’expérience d’être jeune en France, je reconaissais quand-même l’expérience d’être jeune. J’ai eu une expérience semblable avec cette série. Si certains éléments m’étaient étranger (je connais pas du tout Diddl, par exemple), les souvenirs de MSN Messenger me sont fort revenus, et même sans cela, l’expérience de jeunesse a quelques éléments universels.

“Intentionally bad” is a vibe that really works for me, and this is a masterclass of that vibe. I have some complaints: Some parts are grosser than they need to be, and even though I can forgive most of that as part of the “intentionally bad schtick,” there’s a rape reference in one episode that feels unnecessary even if it’s meant to be a bad call by the characters. Despite even that, I really appreciate this show for the specific thing it’s trying to do, and it made a good break from more serious media this week.