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Finished 天帝妖狐! I

I tried again to clear with Xiao first half and Mizuki second half, but I still can’t do a continuous run.

This team clears first and second chamber, but I obviously can’t do third chamber with that:

Xiao

Faruzan

Fischl

Xianyun

And this team clears second and third chamber, but I’m too slow on the first chamber… (was missing 30 secs, it seems impossible…):

Xiao

Fischl

Lauma

Xianyun

Maybe I’ll give it another try later…

I gave The East Palace a try, and it’s exactly as I feared: not for me at all. It’s full of kdrama tropes, male and female leads are your typical roles in kdramas, I wanted to watch the series for the demon slayer topic, but the first episode felt like watching a Joseon romance drama.
I think the drama is great, the plot looks great, the demons and folklore were all interesting, everything is polished, but it’s really a kdrama with everything I can’t stand about them, starting with the two main protagonists, their attitude, personality and dynamic are heavily codified. Most of the first episode was scenes with those two, and I just can’t sit through this kind of scenes, I was bored to death and wanted to stop mid-way.
Anyway, great drama as I far as I could tell after one episode, but clearly not for me.

I really loved Hope, I think it must be my favourite film of the year so far!
First of all, the setting was breathtaking, all the scenes that take place in Hopo village were fascinating, like the place in itself was a really good setting, but I really liked how we first see the results of the monster’s arrival in the village without seeing the actual creature for a very long time. I found this so great, the film does not reveal what villagers are fighting against until very late, but once it does, it just never stops, it’s relentlessly chasing our protagonist. I liked how we suddenly go from a rather calm brutality, where we only see buildings in ruins and bodies all over the place, to the chaos and violence of fired bullets and car chases.
The parts that take place in the forest were maybe less impactful than the village ones, but I still loved them very much, especially that memorable horse scene that’s used as one of the film posters.
Characters were also very good, especially Beomseok who is far from being a hero, but never questions the necessity of defending the village.
There were some humorous moments that I found quite funny, but they did not disrupt the tension of the film.
Overall, I really loved that this film does not follow any fixed script dictated by a genre. I could never say what would happen next. I think that it’s quite rare to watch a film that belongs to a genre and is very entertaining but where you feel like anything could happen, and you have no idea where the director is going to take you.
The only thing that I haven’t loved as much are the two human-like creatures, and their discussions that didn’t seem any different from a discussion humans would have. It does feel like the film wants to be the beginning of something bigger and more about them will be revealed in future movies.

I started the short story 天帝妖狐, and it’s really good, I’m amazed that this should be one of Otsuichi’s first writings!

I finished the story! I absolutely loved the end, where we can talk to all the Fontaine cast!
Otherwise, even though I loved all the Fontinalia Festival parts, I was not a big fan of the Sandrone parts. I especially didn’t like the Sandrone x Columbina cutscene, I found it quite cringe.
And overall, I don’t like how the Sanbina ship is now represented in game. I really loved their interactions at the beginning, I loved how Columbina would keep on teasing Sandrone even though she looks so cold, annoyed and irritated by it. And subtlety hinting that Sandrone secretly cared for Columbina was fine too. That’s the most interesting part, when characters hardly reveal their true feelings, that makes them mysterious and we want to know more about them. Now I find that Sandrone has lost a lot of her aura and uniqueness.

I more or less finished the management game! I still have a couple of things I haven’t done, but I secured all the primogems, so I don’t know if I’ll try to really 100% complete it. If it was the only content remaining for the patch, I probably would, but I still have the whole WQ and Moon exploration to do, so I’ll probably stop there.

Charlotte’s skin is adorable and I really loved the game and the interactions that were in it (especially Sandrone playing the piano!). I’m still really not a big fan of underwater exploration and combat, though with all the upgrades, it was a much better experience. I would have much preferred if the “exploration” part of the game had been real combat instead.

It was very long too, I can imagine that players who keep the event/mini games for the last minute will struggle to complete it in time…

I finished the fourth chapter. Yeah, I’m not sure I’m loving this novel all that much after all. The stories are fine and it read easily, but characters are mostly either good or bad, and we don’t really get to know them anyway, so I don’t really feel invested in the case.

Maybe I should go back to the Readmoo challenge now… I only read 5 books, and my goal was 10…
I already read all the books of middle length, so I only have the short and long novels left. I want to read all the long novels anyway (so even if I don’t read them for the challenge this year, they’ll stay on my reading list).

I’m tempted to choose 千禧黑夜 by 冒業, I never read this author, but I saw that they participated in several magazine and anthologies, both in Taiwan and HK and won the MWT Award.

At the same time, I’m also tempted to read 月色真美 by 牧羊少年T because I really loved the book I just finished by this author.

I probably won’t decide today, I want to focus on my current Korean novel and maybe read the second story in 天帝妖狐

수막현상: Aquaplaning
Happens when a car rides over water (not because it’s slippery, but because water between the wheels and the road lead to a loss of traction).

I’m on a streak of incredibly good reading experiences… Looking at my reading history, the last books I read have all been books I enjoyed reading very much, with a lot of titles I absolutely loved. Some recent ones that stand up as my favourite ones:

消失的你

Siu Sat Dik Nei

変な地図

へんなちず

警察執勤中：正義的代價

jǐng chá zhí qín zhōng： zhèng yì de dài jià

失われた貌

うしなわれたかお

죽은 집에 관한 기록

Jugeun jibe gwanhan girok

ZOO1

ZOO1

ZOO2

ZOO2

And if we count the two ZOO volume as one books, that makes: 3 books from Japan, 1 book from South Korea, 1 book from Hong Kong and 1 book from Taiwan.

消失的你 was a really surprising novel, it’s a mystery novel, a psychological thriller and a love story mixed together. In many mystery novels, the question is often “who is the murderer”, but here there were a lot of questions coming one after the other, and as we get to know the narrator better, I became obsessed with finding out the truth.
There’s tension all along, and the novel really makes you care for the characters.
The only thing that I maybe didn’t like all that much is the Koo family background, I found it felt a bit too extraordinary.
Overall, an excellent novel to me, I’m glad I decided to read the winners of the Soji Shimada Mystery Award!

Ended up spending the whole holiday reading this. Loved it very much, I’m glad it won the prize, otherwise I might never have found it.

Every time I read 湊佳苗 in a Chinese text, I’m always like “who is this?”, but then there’s always 告白 following, and I remember it’s Kanae Minato (湊かなえ).

I finished chapter 4. It’s crazy how this book manages to be different things at the same time while staying so coherent.