This week’s movie was The Tale of the Princess Kaguya. I’ve heard a lot of good things about the movie, but it’s usually mentioned as a second-round draft pick from the Studio Ghibli catalogue. It’s one that I kept telling myself to watch for a couple of years, but I found myself picking Howl’s Moving Castle or Princess Mononoke instead. The first thing that stuck out to me is the art style. It follows a watercolour style and is reminiscent of the depiction of the original material. They used soft, consistent strokes at times of calm. Then, during times of distress, the lines were harsh, rushed and jagged. There was a great attention to detail, from the babies’ pigeon-toeing when they walk to the vibrations of the Koto strings after they are played. It is evident that they put a lot of care into the details, even though the style is “simpler”.

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Last week I finished Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. It was the third installment of the Castlevania series on the Game Boy Advance, but it was widely considered the definitive game for the system (Source: Wikipedia). I decided I’d start with this one. I haven’t played a Castlevania game before, and my only other Metroidvania experience was Metroid Fusion, which I didn’t beat and will have to return to at some point.

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Drunken Master was one of Jackie Chan’s breakout roles from 1978. It is acclaimed as one of the original and best martial arts comedies created. It was directed by Yuen Woo-ping, who would eventually be the choreographer for the Matrix and Kill Bill series. Basically, I’m trying to say I had a lot of expectations going into the movie.

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A lot of my video game playing lately has been on portable consoles, mainly the 3DS, DS and Gameboy Advance SP. In playing these games, I’ve grown a greater appreciation for game cartridges. It’s beautiful when you think about it, the entire game and save in a removable and highly portable form factor. I’m also amazed by the amount of content they fit in some of these games. The tricks game developers used to show depth and detail in such “weak” systems, especially the GBA, are so cool.

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Look Back is a movie based on the one-shot by  Tatsuki Fujimoto, also the creator of Chainsaw Man. The story follows Fujino, a child who loves to draw comics for the school newspaper. She is told by everyone how talented she is and loves the attention. She is told that for the following week, another student, Kyomoto will also be drawing a strip for the newspaper, and Fujino is blown away by how great Kyomoto’s art is for someone her age. Not willing to lose to Kyomoto, Fujino decides to improve her art skills through practice, and the story develops from there.

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Philadelphia is a court drama starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington. The court case is about an illegal termination lawsuit where Tom Hank’s law firm purposely hid his brief to pretend like they could fire him for negligence when, in reality, they fired him because they found out he had AIDS. There wasn’t much actual law in the movie; there weren’t many precedents set or other cases mentioned. It was more a commentary on how people with AIDs and more generally gay people were treated and still are treated, and the relationship between Denzel and Tom.

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I like a combination of New Years Resolutions that a) remove negative habits but also b) add postive goals. One of the positive goals I want to do this year is watch more movies. I mean the movies that are the “Oh you haven’t seen that yet?” tier of movie. There’s so many movies on my list so this year I’m going to make a commitment to watch them. The list is as follows:

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About half a year ago, I saw a youtube video by Savah Davis Baker called The Internet Used to be a Place. It was a phenomenal video about how the internet was treated. Growing up I had a computer room, my dad’s office dedicated to the computer. If I wanted to access the internet we had to do it on that computer. When I was done with computer, I left the room and disconnected.

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With Gym 1 defeated I continued to explore the town. There’s a museum with a scientist that mentions something about fossil research, probably something to note for later! I travel north to find a slippery hill that a biker said I need a bike to climb! They said I can get one at the bike shop in Eterna so I guess that’s where I’m heading next. Checking the map, its north of Jubilife, so before backtracking I decide to get my Route 207 encounter and train my team to the Gym 1 level cap. I catch a Machamp which I named Mike Tyson and proceeded to bring everyone up to level 14.

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Okay! Officially starting our journey, still with no Pokeballs, we pass through Sandgem town only to find Dawn waiting for us in some tall grass to show us how to catch Pokemon. After a brief tutorial shes gives us our first 5 pokeballs. We can now get our first encounter of the run.

So going back to route 201, our first is a Bidoof! A beaver looking favourite meme of a Pokemon which I named Jeff, after another meme. Then I returned to route 202, where I caught a Krikitot as my second encounter, naming it Mozart after it’s evolution’s musical inspiration.

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