Tag Archives: new york international children’s film festival

Humble Adventure: Nahuel and the Magic Book

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This film is from the 2021 virtual New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Nahuel and the Magic Book is a 2020 Chilean-Brazilian co-produced animated film whose down-to-Earth yet wondrous approach to fantasy I really enjoyed. In certain ways, it reminds me of The Lord of the Rings, despite the markedly different setting of a more contemporary real-world setting. 

Nahuel is a young boy afraid of the sea, which causes problems for his fisherman father. Worried that he’ll never be of help to his dad and will always be seen as a screw-up, he desperately wants to overcome his phobia. When he discovers the Levisterio, a magic book said to be the most powerful of all, he steals it in order to use the bravery spell contained within. However, bringing the book out into the open makes it a prime target for an evil sorcerer who has been seeking the tome for a long time.

Likening anything to The Lord of the Rings might seem trite and a little meaningless, but the reason I make the comparison is because of the humble qualities of each story’s protagonist. Frodo is characterized as being no one special, especially not compared to the figures who accompany him on his quest, but it’s that lack of remarkableness that makes him suitable to deliver the One Ring to Mount Doom. Similarly, Nahuel’s ambitions are anything but grand—overcome a fear of the sea and help his father—but that’s also what makes him the right bearer of the Levisterio. Where others would abuse its near-limitless powers, his desires are from a simpler and kinder place. Anybody can imagine themselves as Nahuel, and his story and characterization are no lesser for it. 

I don’t know much about South American folklore and religion other than that magic and witchcraft are such a part of the region that they’re even incorporated into the way Christianity is practiced. From that perspective, the way the magical and fantastical are portrayed in Nahuel and the Magic Book feels very natural and almost effortless—which is usually a sign that a great deal of effort was involved. There is a sense that magic is indeed far removed from Nahuel’s normal life, but is also just there and ever-present if only one looks. 

Although I’m not a kid, I feel that Nahuel and the Magic Book has real potential to resonate with young viewers. That worry of being a disappointment to one’s parents is also a powerful and relatable fear for children as well as adults, and the world it portrays is one where love shines through even when things get dark and scary.

Trials of Identity: Calamity

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This film was part of the 2021 virtual New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Calamity is a 2020 French-Danish animated film that tells the fictionalized childhood story of the real Martha Jane Cannary, showing how she took her first steps toward becoming the renowned Calamity Jane. Having been a fan of director Rémi Chayé’s previous film, Long Way North, I had fairly high expectations that Calamity easily surpasses.

Martha Jane Cannary is traveling with her family as part of a wagon train to Oregon, where they hope to find land and a better life. While not much is expected of her because of her gender, Martha Jane believes she’s capable of doing more. When her father is severely hurt trying to rope a runaway horse, Martha Jane takes it upon herself to learn the skills necessary to keep their wagon going, but her fellow travelers (including her own dad and sisters) don’t take so kindly to her trying to behave like a man. 

I only know the barest details about Calamity Jane (and mostly from a 1990s cartoon), but I know she has a place in the United States’ cultural legacy as a feminist icon: someone who could keep up with the boys and who is as much a legend of the wild west as Billy the Kid or Buffalo Bill. Within the context of the film itself, although I can’t relate to her specific circumstances, Martha Jane’s struggle with the expectations foisted upon her by a society with very rigid gender roles, really hit me deep inside. Martha Jane lives in a world that tries to box her into a certain way of being, a world that would rather keep her tied down even if letting her free would be beneficial. When others see Martha Jane wearing pants, they are shocked and outraged. This might seem like a relic of the past, but that view persisted deep into the 20th century—a reminder that the fight for equality is ongoing. 

The film is visually rich and stunning, giving a sense of the outdoors that is beautiful yet expresses the terror that an unknown trailer to an unseen land can bring about. Everything animates naturally yet not confined by excessive realism, with particularly impressive detail given to the high-paced movement of horses and the mischief of Martha Jane alike. I’m especially fond of Martha Jane’s thick and powerful eyebrows, as they alone seem to stand in defiance of what everyone else tells her is “proper,” and the rest of her character proceeds beautifully from that rebelliousness. 

Sometimes a film with a similarly empowering theme will mean well, but seems to get too caught up in the messaging at the expense of execution. However, Calamity avoids that pitfall in a most impressive fashion. The ups and downs experienced by Martha Jane as she tries to learn and master all the skills that aren’t “supposed” to be hers feels genuine—the right amount of grit combined with a lack of experience and a desire to achieve more. It makes her strides and her challenges all the more poignant, and by the time the film is over, the path she marked for herself feels like it can lead to greatness.

Valuable Lessons Learned: The Legend of Hei

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This is a review of a film in the 2021 New York International Children’s Film Festival. This year’s virtual festival technically ended on the 14th, but there’s still time to buy tickets or an all-access pass—a $100 pass extends the viewing time to March 21st.

I’m by no means an expert on Chinese film, animated or otherwise. However, when I’ve watched animated features from China at the 2021 New York International Children’s Film Festival, I’ve often gotten the sense that they were trying to prove something, e.g. China’s ability to do mainstream animation all self-contained within itself, and not as outsourced work from other countries. It’s a situation where that desire can end up interfering with the pacing of a film, as if creators are producing demo reels disguised as movies. 

The Legend of Hei (2019) largely does not fall into this trap. It’s a visually impressive work whose splendor in the form of large environmental backgrounds and quick-paced supernatural action ultimately does not end up sabotaging its own narrative effectiveness. 

The main character of the story is a young spirit resembling a cat named Hei (or Luo Xiaohei), who winds up away from its home and who ends up getting picked up by another spirit named Storm’s End (Fengxi), who offers Hei a new home. When a human “enforcer” of the Spirit Guild named Infinity (Wuxian) shows up, Hei ends up being taken by Infinity. Forced to travel together with his captor, Hei learns that notions of “good” and “bad” are not as simple as he assumes. For much of the film, it can be kind of hard to tell where exactly everything is going, especially because it’s easy to confuse the many similarly handsome-yet-stoic characters for one another, but it all ends in a satisfying manner.

While watching, I kept thinking, “This really has a Line/Naver Webtoon aesthetic.” It’s a somewhat broad generalization, but the flat colors and rounded designs make for a look that resembles many of the comics on the online platform. Combined with numerous brief appearances by characters who seem like they’re supposed to be recognizable to a knowledgeable audience, and I began to wonder if the film was based on some existing work. I later found out that it was originally a flash animation by Chinese creator MTJJ and, indeed, a later webtoon. The fact that The Legend of Hei has such humble origins lends credence to my feeling that this film had some real passion behind it that keeps it honest.

As mentioned, the fight choreography is downright amazing, and is one of the film’s best features. The action is never confusing or feels bogged down by too much flourish or not enough, and everyone moves with a sense of purpose. Everything flows very well, and if you’re someone who enjoys having lots of battling from beginning to end, it really doesn’t disappoint. More importantly, the fighting also doesn’t come at the expense of the narrative, with the two weaved together well.

The NYICFF’s showing of The Legend of Hei is dubbed in English, and the English names provided above are all used within the film itself, with the exception of Hei. It’s an interesting choice, to give the viewers the understanding that the characters’ names mean something, as media from China and Japan will often do the opposite for English translations—how many people know that “Naruto” means “Maelstrom”? Also worth nothing is that the English cast features many Asian voice actors, an action that flies in the face of the marginalization of Asians in Hollywood and mainstream entertainment media. As for the acting itself, it was overall decent, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that listening to the original Chinese voices would convey noticeably different impressions of the characters despite not being able to hear them until later. When I later looked up the Chinese trailer, it confirmed my suspicion. There’s something about the delivery that makes them almost feel like different people, whether it’s Hei himself sounding more Steven Universe-ish in English than kitten-like, or how the delivery among the more stoic characters seems to convey a greater emotionality in Chinese.

I also found out that there’s a Japanese dub version, and they really pulled out the big guns for that voice cast: Hanazawa Kana, Miyano Mamoru, and Sakurai Takahiro all headline the film in Japan, and I suspect it makes for another interesting and slightly different experience.

While I don’t think The Legend of Hei is the total package, the film has a lot of merits that bring it all together into a satisfying and rewarding experience. It’s the best Chinese animated film I’ve seen yet, and it comes across as a work that, rather than trying to prove the worth of Chinese animation, wants to tell a story all on its own. The Legend of Hei exudes a confidence that avoids the pitfalls of arrogance and desperation, resulting in a strong and accessible work.

[NYICFF 2017] Driven by Dreams: Ancien and the Magic Tablet / Napping Princess

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“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

There are few quotes in science fiction more famous than Arthur C. Clarke’s above. While the idea largely has to do with how science fiction extrapolates the possibilities that can be envisioned from scientific development, Kamiyama Kenji’s new animated film, Ancien and the Magic Tablet, plays with the notion in an interesting way, using a blend of dreams and reality to fuse technology and magic together throughout its narrative.

As a warning, while I’ve done my best to avoid spoilers, the fact that this film is full of surprises only five minutes in means I can’t avoid talking about at least a few of the twists.

Ancien and the Magic Tablet begins with the story of a princess of a kingdom, Ancien, who is trapped in a cage above the royal castle. Her kingdom, known as Heartland, is ruled by her wise father, who is responsible for spreading the use of automobiles throughout their land. The reason Ancien is locked away is because she has a mysterious power to bring inanimate objects to life, including dolls and cars, an ability that would turn all of Heartland upside down.

…Except that it’s all a dream and the actual story is about a girl named Morikawa Kokone, a perpetually sleepy Japanese high schooler living in Okuyama Prefecture in the “far flung” future year of 2020—shortly before the Tokyo Olympics. Living with her widowed father, who works as a mechanic and programs self-driving car AI for the elderly residents of their town, Kokone learns that her father (or rather his computer tablet) holds valuable secrets worth a lot to some very important people. Kokone ends up on an adventure to Tokyo to get to the bottom of all this, all while she keeps having dreams about Ancien and Heartland—a world based on stories her father told her as a child—that mysteriously play out in reality as well.

One of the main thrusts of Ancien and the Magic Tablet (known in Japan as Hirune Hime: Shiranai Watashi no Monogatari, or “Napping Princess: The Story of the Unknown Me”) is a treatise on the benefits of self-driving cars. Ancien and her tablet are overt parallels to the AI technology that Kokone’s father possesses, and it’s portrayed largely in terms of its benefits. In regards to this stance, the film impresses me because it doesn’t try to remain neutral or passive in terms of the beliefs it’s trying to convey on such a controversial topic.

Given the writer and director Kamiyama’s previous works (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Eden of the East), a certain level of love and faith in technology is expected. While Ancien could do more to address the repercussions self-driving cars could have on the global economy, I don’t hold it against the movie too much because it does emphasize certain benefits that don’t come up as often. For example, it can be argued that self-driving cars aren’t only about taking away control, they can be about ensuring safety because of loss of control or disability. A more nuanced approach would’ve been interesting in its own way, but I can live without it at least for one film.

Going back to Arthur C. Clarke, the dream world of Ancien, particularly the “magic tablet’s” ability to “bring things to life,” are basically a fairy tale metaphor for real-world technology. However, because the events in Ancien’s and Kokone’s sides of the story mirror each other and even seem to influence each other, it’s an ongoing mystery as to how the two narratives are related. Is it somehow possible that Kokone is tapping into an alternate reality? The film keeps you wondering right until the very end, and the ultimate explanation for the relationship between Ancien and Kokone’s worlds is actually very satisfying and makes absolute sense.

Ancien and the Magic Tablet feels like the start of a conversation rather than a definitive conclusion. I hope we continue to see its themes in future animated films.

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[NYICFF 2017] Take a Look, It’s in a Book: Rudolf the Black Cat

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This film was shown as a part of the 2017 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Japanese animation isn’t typically associated with talking animal movies, but Rudolf the Black Cat (Rudolph to Ippaiattena in Japanese)is an unabashed entry into that genre. Still, it has much to offer viewers, with an endearing cast and lessons that viewers of all ages can take to heart.

Rudolf is a house cat who has never gone beyond his yard. But when he gets lost far from home, Rudolph has to learn what it’s like to live on the streets. Luckily, he meets the best possible mentor: a tough-as-nails tiger-striped stray who has the ability to read human language. Rudolf mishears and believes the stray’s name to be “Gottalot” (Ippaiattena), because Gottalot goes by many names.

One of the core themes of the film is a straight-up educational lesson: reading expands your world. Gottalot does his LeVar Burton in Reading Rainbow act, explaining to Rudolf about how books can help you imagine things yet unseen, and teach you about how places you’ve never even heard of. Gottalot’s efforts to help Rudolf become crucial to the climax of the film, and it’s all thanks to Learning and Study (thanks books!).

Rudolf the Black Cat isn’t just focused on being didactic, however. While the film carries very clear moral and life lessons about loyalty and learning, it mostly does so through the friendship that forms between Rudolf and Gottalot. As a veteran of the streets, Gottalot is savvy, but he sees a bit of himself in Rudolf. This bond forms the foundation of the movie, and it’s enjoyable from beginning to end.

It’s also worth mentioning that this film, while mainly for kids, isn’t afraid to make them cry. There are numerous sad and difficult moments throughout Rudolf the Black Cat, and although it isn’t exactly a Grave of the Fireflies, there were definitely more than a few sniffles among the young audience. For kids unused to typical Japanese-style endings (which tend to come with just a spoonful of tragedy), it might pose some difficulty.

Rudolf the Black Cat is overall a decent film that is easily accessible to any audience. While it pitches underhanded at its target audience of young children, it also tosses plenty of few curve balls that result in an enjoyable film even under adult scrutiny.

 

[NYICFF 2017] I Didn’t Even Know It: Window Horses

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This film was shown as a part of the 2017 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Poetry has never really been in my wheelhouse. As a kid, I enjoyed reading Poe, and I even tried my hand at poetry myself, but my enjoyment of and experience has been limited. Against the odds of my own ignorance/inability to understand things like “iambic pentameter,” the animated film Window Horses created and directed by Ann Marie Fleming has helped increase my appreciation of poetry, a feat I thought impossible.

Window Horses follows Rosie Ming, an aspiring Canadian poet who holds a deep fondness for France despite never visiting it. When she receives an invitation to a poetry festival in Iran, it gives her an opportunity to learn about a new culture, gain a new perspective on what it means to write poetry, and even learns some important details about her own life.

I can relate to Rosie Ming’s initial naivete on various levels. I lived in Europe for a number of years, and while it wasn’t my first time being out of the United States, interacting with people from all over the world made me realize just how “American” my way of thinking is. I’m also Asian like Rosie, and am woefully under-educated when it comes to my own ethnic history. At one point, Rosie is talking to an exiled Chinese poet named Di Di, without being aware of the significance of1989 in Chinese History—the year of Tiananmen Square. I was continuously invested in seeing Rosie’s horizons expand as she learns about the political power of poetry, about why Iran is considered a land of poetry, and the ability for poetry to convey thoughts and feelings both large and small.

The film goes to great lengths to animate the poetry recitals themselves, with the style and imagery different according to the contents of each poem. Along with the impressive readings from the voice actors themselves, I felt myself being moved by the poems in Window Horses in ways I would have never expected given my own general lack of interest in poetry. One line that stood out to me in the film was the idea that poetry needn’t be and shouldn’t be enjoyable only by the educated and intelligent. The ability to feel the power of a poem is perhaps even more important, and I definitely felt their impact while watching Windows Horses, albeit with assistance from the film’s visuals.

Given the content, I was genuinely surprised to find out that Window Horses wasn’t an autobiographical film along the vein of Persepolis. In a Q&A after the film, Fleming mentioned her own multicultural background (half-Chinese, born in Japan, moved to Canada) as the inspiration for Rosie Ming, and that her experiences with people from all around the world provided the basis for many of the film’s characters. The result is a film with a great deal of universality, and one I’d encourage anyone to watch.

As for me, I might actually dare myself to actually start writing poetry. Perhaps I should spare everyone my inevitably amateurish scrawls, but then I think about Rosie’s own willingness to just go out there and put her heart on the line. It’s inspirational.

[NYICFF] Share, Care, Dare: My Life as a Zucchini

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This film was screened as part of the 2017 New York International Children’s Film Festival

Children’s fiction is built on the stories of orphans, carrying inherent challenges that are easy to understand no matter one’s background or upbringing. The question that faces any narrative concerning orphans is how to portray both the hopes and sorrows of such an experience. The French/Swiss animated film My Life as a Zucchini, directed by Claude Barras, portrays and balances the lives and trials of orphan life brilliantly.

Based on a book by the same name, My Life as a Zucchini centers around a young boy named Icare, who is given the nickname Zucchini (Courgette in the original French). One day, after an accident occurs while Zucchini is playing with his mom’s empty beer cans, he ends up having to live at an orphanage. Faced with a new environment, Zucchini learns about the lives of his fellow orphans and all of their unique circumstances.

My Life as a Zucchini is animated in stop-motion, and the models used carry an eerie charm to them somewhat reminiscent of the characters in Edward Scissorhands. They can be called cute, but due to the characters’ appearances, particularly their eyes, there is a constant mix of pain and joy present in their expressions. This aesthetic matches well with the narrative content of the film, which pulls its punches only slightly in depicting the characters’ struggles. This is certainly not a film that patronizes its young target audience.

The element of the film that struck me hardest was the different varieties of sadness that existed in the children at the orphanage. Zucchini carries around a beer can; the only memento he has of his mother. One boy, Simon, is a bully of sorts, but it’s clear that he uses this bravado to mask the pain of not having his parents. One of the girls is implied to have been abused by her father, which has left her with some expressions of trauma, though it should be mentioned that the other children are shown to play with her and treat her like one of their own. Somehow, however, it is one of the cutest and seemingly innocuous moments that claws at my heart. Another girl’s mother was deported, and whenever she hears a car pull up to the orphanage she runs out and yells, “MOMMY?!” only to be disappointed over and over.

I want to emphasize that this is not a film about showing the crushing horrors of reality, and that the kids’ lives at the orphanage are portrayed with a great sense that life can get better, and that in many ways it’s not so bad for them now. After all, many are there to escape from worse circumstances, and there’s an unspoken bond of trust and understanding between Zucchini and the rest.

One surprising element of the film is that it actually talks about sex pretty candidly, especially for a kids’ movie. It takes the form of kids trying to figure out what happens when a man and a woman get together, but the statement “his willy explodes” should say it all. I have to wonder if it caught any of the parents off guard.

My Life as a Zucchini is a powerful work that resonates emotionally on many subtle levels. It’s definitely worth watching no matter your age. I see it as a way to open up to the conversation on a number of difficult topics with your loved ones, whether they’re your children, your parents, your relatives, or your friends.

 

Learning About Death I Guess? Beyond Beyond Review

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beyondbeyond

This film is part of the 2016 New York International Children’s Film Festival

Death can be a difficult concept for children to grasp. Somewhere after the idea of object permanence is learned, the next step is realizing that people can actually cease to exist. The 2014 Danish film Beyond Beyond, directed by Esben Toft Jacobson, acts as an extended metaphor for a small boy learning about and coming to accept the death of his mother. Following a young rabbit as he tries to rescue his mother from the Kingdom of the “Feather King,” the odd thing about this film is that, the more one remembers that the movie is a death metaphor, the stranger it becomes.

Thematically, Beyond Beyond succeeds in making a kids’ movie tackle a fairly mature and important subject, but there are also a number of elements that often appear out of place or maybe even unnecessary. I understand this film is aimed at a rather young audience, and that one should not demand the height of cinematic sophistication from it, but there were just times when entire scenes didn’t seem to contribute much.

I felt that Beyond Beyond‘s message gets muddled in its presentation. I just pictured a small child going, “What does Bill (a character in the film with a lackadaisical attitude whose actions are of great significance to the story) have to do with mom dying?” I also suspected, but could never quite tell, if there was any sort of religious underpinning to its image of death and the beyond. The film is not tightly structured in any way, but I also think it’s possible to look past that and see the desire to help kids through its ideas.

My favorite part of Beyond Beyond had to be the Feather King. His initial appearance only in the shadows renders him an ominous grim reaper, but he turns out to be much more interesting, especially in the way he breathes life into his children/minions.  The Feather King is voiced in the English dub by Patrick Warburton (Brock Sampson from Venture Bros.), which arguably is not the best casting possible, but I was amused by his performance nevertheless.

As an adult, it’s very likely that I just wasn’t going to connect to Beyond Beyond properly. That being said, as the credits rolled I overheard a couple of girls, who couldn’t be older than 9, discussing the film. One of them said to the other, “You have to remember, this is a film for children.”

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Romantic Rocket Punches: Satellite Girl and Milk Cow

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This film was part of the 2015 New York International Children’s Film Festival

Years ago for a final project in college, I created a comic about a girl who delivers piles of garbage around the world. The concept was intentionally strange, as my goal in creating it was to make the comic feel just earnest enough that readers would question just how serious I was. Upon seeing the Korean animated film Satellite Girl and Milk Cow at the New York International Children’s Film Festival, I found myself having the same experience I intended for my audience, and perhaps because of this I feel a bit of a connection to this film.

Satellite Girl and Milk Cow follows a dormant Korean satellite Il-ho who comes back to life after hearing the singing of a mediocre musician named Gyeong-cheon. Mysteriously transforming into a human-looking girl in order to find him, it turns out Kyung-chun has had his own change as well: due to heartbreak, he’s become a cow. As the two of them learn about each other, they have to deal with a magician that steals animal livers using a plunger and a a robot demon that devours people who have become animals, all while being helped by a sentient and magic roll of toilet paper named Merlin. How did any of this happen? Was it magic? Technology? The film certainly doesn’t bother to explain much, but that’s also its charm. The story unfolds at a rapid pace filled with both absurd and deadpan humor while always treating its characters’ feelings as just genuine enough that it really leaves an impression. It’s nonsense most of the time, but who said nonsense couldn’t be the source of a whole range of thoughts and feelings?

Visually, the film is very basic yet serviceable, though on more than one occasion it becomes very clear where shortcuts were used in animation. I don’t mean to say that it’s wrong to “cheat” on animation, as on some level it’s so much work to animate something that I expect it to happen, but at times an overuse of motion tweening (when things slide along a little too smoothly) and some awkward stills and camera zooms really stick out in Satellite Girl and Milk Cow. Even so, I find that these small issues don’t really detract from the main bizarre thrust of the film, and the numerous sight gags worked just fine. Not to give away too much, but my favorite gags involve Il-ho’s ability to launch rocket punches, and the considerations she makes in terms of rocket punch storage.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Satellite Girl and Milk Cow outside of the film itself is the fact that it was the poster movie for the 2015 New York International Children’s Film Festival. Knowing absolutely nothing about the film prior to seeing it other than the promotional poster, I think it lives up to its role as the face of the festival for this year. The kids in the audience seemed to love it (or at least were caught up enough in the oddities of the film to have it keep their attention), and while of the films I saw I liked When Marnie Was There best, Satellite Girl & Milk Cow to me feels like a film that has wide appeal across age groups as long as you’re someone who can get into its unusual groove. It’s the kind of film that’s really difficult to riff on, because every time you think you’re saying something clever, Satellite Girl and Milk Cow will seemingly wink back at you with one eye, while starring at you with utter conviction using the other.

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Out of the Shadows: Ogiue Maniax Status Update for April 2015

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A few months ago in the February status update, I mentioned that I tend to keep a few posts in reserve and then never get around to posting them for one reason or another. Recently though, I’ve had a lot of crazy things happening in my life all at once (mostly good things, I assure you). It’s made me a bit short on time, and because of that, I’ve had to pull some of those pieces out of the old filing cabinet (I have never actually used one of those), such as Internet Culture, Fandom, and the Tendency to Offend.  I think a part of me always felt unsure about it, but it’s turned out to be quite a popular post, so maybe I should’ve sent it out into the wild sooner. I sometimes strike when the iron is lukewarm, as might be the case with my post on the new female otaku-oriented manga magazine, Comic it, which touts itself as not being so obsessed with romance.

I also had the opportunity to attend the New York International Children’s Film Festival for the first time in years, and it felt good to write reviews of both When Marnie Was There and Mune. I actually have one more film left to review, but due to the above circumstances I haven’t been able to get around to it. Look forward to it in April.

This month’s special Patreon sponsors are:

Ko Ransom

Alex

Johnny Trovato

Though they aren’t listed, I’m quite happy to say that I’ve received a few new sponsors this past month. These recent patrons have declined to be included on the official list of patrons above (even if they’ve contribute enough to qualify), but their support is very much appreciated.

In relation to what I’ve talked about above, I have to ask what my readers think about the times where I post on a subject well after it’s been in the spotlight. I guess this sort of relates to the previous month’ s topic of mid-season vs. end-of-season reviews, but when it comes to very current events, I think I might as well let a Shellder clamp on and force me to evolve. At the same time, I think there’s a certain value to being able to take my time with a subject. I might be falling into that Patreon trap of wanting to write what people want now, but we’ll see how it goes.