july 2026 wrap up
and my next book comes out in february!
first i would like to inform you all of three things regarding my upcoming horror novella, you just have to ask me:
you can now add it on goodreads
it is available for preorder wherever books are sold
it has official jacket copy so you can learn more about it!
i’m trying to get back into the headspace of book promotion and being a little more intentional about it. head over to my instagram to see the first page of the novella!
i cannot emphasize enough how excited i am for this book to get to readers’ hands; unlike my previous works, you just have to ask me is contemporary, bite-sized, and, if i can say this myself, a page-turner you can easily get through in one sitting. i have also seen the cover and i am obsessed. hope to share it with you all soon!
and now for the media wrap-up!
anime;
agents of the four seasons
i feel like i went through a crazy spectrum of emotions watching this, and not really in a good way. i went in wanting to like it; it’s gorgeous (like, stunning character design and animation), it’s bingable, it’s got a score composed by kensuke ushio (who did the music for the reze movie!), and the lore is really cool: what if the seasons could only be brought about by human agents who function as avatars of each season? and what if there were groups intent on using these agents for their own reasons, and one of these groups kidnapped and traumatized the agent of spring?
the thing is, i don’t think i have ever in my life been queerbaited as intensely as i have watching this anime. the two female leads are clearly set up to have a moving love story, and there are several scenes where they are intimate and confess feelings of love to one another, only for both of them to be assigned male love interests. it is aggressively and absurdly heterosexual despite all evidence to the contrary. and like, whatever, fine, you don’t need to give me a beautiful queer love story, but if that’s not your intent, what’s with the queerbaiting if you’re just going to say, oh, never mind, in the very same episode?
then there’s the weird age gap relationships. i discovered halfway through that this series is written by the author of violet evergarden, and i think she just has a thing for weird age gaps, because why is one of the central relationships between a 19-year-old and a 29-year-old who knew each other when she was 9 and he was 19? like, seriously, why? it would have absolutely zero effect on the plot if sakura and itecho were closer in age, and in fact it makes no sense why the itecho is so much older than the rest of the cast. i can only assume it’s because the author purposely wanted to incorporate an age gap.
then there’s nadeshiko (side note, i love this name), who’s around six or seven, and her guardian rindo, who’s probably in his twenties. now, while there is no obvious relationship between the two of them, we have to think about framing and positioning, and, to me, at least, these two are framed in a weirdly romantic light. at first i thought i was seeing things, and then i thought about witch hat atelier, which also features a twenty-something guardian of young girls, and the vibes there are not off, but in fact are very wholesome. like why is rindo calling himself nadeshiko’s prince and kissing her hand as they’re framed in the sunset and backed with romantic music? it’s weird, bro. i truly hope i’m proved wrong about this, but even if i am, the framing is still a bizarre choice.
the demon prince of momochi house
the plot of demon prince is: a 16-year-old girl gets a shrine from her deceased parents and discovers it is inhabited by otherworldly creatures and also is a kind of spiritual gateway/barrier. she falls in love with the shrine keeper, a white-haired man with fox ears.
the plot of kamisama kiss is: a homeless 16-year-old girl is bequeathed a shrine from a stranger and discovers it is inhabited by otherworldly creatures and also is a kind of spiritual gateway/barrier. she falls in love with the shrine keeper, a white-haired man with fox ears.
so while this is clearly taking inspiration from kamisama kiss (there’s other similarities i haven’t mentioned), unfortunately, it has none of the charm of kamisama kiss. it just kind of…exists. i genuinely don’t even know if i have anything to say about this anime. it was so inoffensive and bland that i don’t have any strong feelings on it at all, and even though i watched it only a couple of weeks ago, i’m already forgetting everything that happened. also, the animation is weird — it’s too shiny, too perfect but not, edging on uncanny valley. i should have dnf’d this, but i don’t think it even inspired boredom, necessarily - i was perfectly fine watching it but also perfectly fine not. truly just a nothingburger.
puella magi madoka magica
this has been on my to-watch list since it came out in 2011; i don’t think there is an anime fan on the planet who has not at least heard of madoka magica, and how it subverts the magical girl genre, popularized by shows like sailor moon. madoka magica is unsettling and horrifying and isn’t afraid to go big or go home, particularly with its various twists and its crazy ending. heralded entirely by female characters, each one of them is unique and flawed in her own way, and i came out of this feeling much more endeared to all of them than i had expected, particularly because of their developing relationships with one another (though it’s not explicit, this is definitely yuri). i especially loved sayaka and kyoko.
i have mixed feelings about the animation. during the fight scenes against the witches, the aesthetic is colorful and over the top, almost roccoco, giving the impression of magazine cut-outs stitched together into lurid shapes and figurines. it’s completely different from the show’s usual animation outside of these scenes, but it works to well to unsettle and establish the strangeness of the main characters’ foes. i loved this. where i struggled a little was with the animation of the girls themselves; they are depicted as so childlike, so classically anime (with gigantic eyes and wide faces), that it made me wince. however, i couldn’t help thinking that surely this was a purposeful style: a lot of middle school anime characters are drawn to look like young adults, and this was one of the few shows i’ve seen where the adolescents actually look like adolescents, and it worked effectively to emphasize the wrongness of these children being made to fight monsters.
also, i must mention the music, which is orchestral and grand and so creepy and unsettling.
dnfs;
to the abandoned sacred beasts: i probably should have quit this by like the third episode, but i have a lot of faith in MAPPA, the studio that produced this, so i slogged through until episode 8 (out of 12). turns out that faith was misplaced. i wasn’t overly sold on the concept of this to begin with but i was intrigued by the villain and the promise of a main female character. unfortunately this was episodic and repetitive. there were some interesting themes here potentially about war’s effects on veterans, but none of it was really explored properly. then there was the secondary female character and her massive, gravity-defying boobs, which i could have ignored if they weren’t made the butt of a joke more than once (once is enough). like, if i wanted to see a male character bury his face in a woman’s giant boobs i’d go watch a harem anime, but i very much do not want to do that. it was especially jarring because nothing about this show is comedic, so i do not understand why they felt the need to include multiple boob jokes.
monster: feeling very conflicted about this. funny story, i actually read quite a bit of the manga back in college and dfn’d because i wasn’t emotionally engaged, and the same thing has happened again. this is such a lauded series that i’m tempted to force myself to keep going, even if it means watching a couple of episodes only a week, buuuut i might just watch a compilation or something to get the gist of what happens. this is just too slow-paced for me, i’m afraid, and i could handle that if there was something else for me to latch onto, like beautiful animation (the animation here is not to my taste at all) or characters i’m emotionally attached to, but as there is neither, i found myself disengaging completely.
currently watching first impressions;
black torch: this is the standard shonen of the season and it’s almost funny the extent to which i can see how much this has been influenced by predecessors. the opening scene is reminiscent of bleach, specifically ichigo fighting the teenage thugs attacking a ghost and the talking black cat. the concept of a great power/demon living inside a boy and coming out at random intervals is very much influenced by yuji and sukuna and naruto and kurama. the teacher figure is giving kakashi. some of the uniforms made me think of chainsaw man. i don’t dislike any of this; in fact i love seeing the legacy of popular shows being explored in different ways. i don’t need much from a shonen - give me good animation, somewhat interesting characters, and some cool fights, and i’m probably going to have a decently good time with it.
however, black torch is very much testing my limits with its fanservice. i’m hoping that this is something they’re going to decrease as time goes on, because while it was egregious in episodes 1-3, episode 4 had none of it. basically, the main female character, ichika, is bizarrely scantily clad, always wearing booty shorts and in a fighting uniform that squeezes her boobs out for no reason at all. this wouldn’t have bugged me so much if the camera didn’t insist on lingering on her boobs and ass multiple times. it’s especially annoying because ichika is framed as a ~#feminist~ who wants to push back against her male dominated profession but is likely going to be saved by the main guy again and again and again. do better, please, for the love of god, it’s 2026. at least give us classy fanservice if you must have fanservice.
mao: created by the author of inuyasha and very reminiscent of that work, but definitely feels more modern. just as charming and engaging as inuyasha and i trust rumiko takahashi to give us solid female characters. will say more on this once i’m through the episodes (of which i believe there will be 26).
sparks of tomorrow: very interesting animation here and an odd concept. very heavy on certain anime tropes (a particular kind of humor, the intensity of some characters for no reason at all i.e. lots of shouting, BL-adjacent, etc) but i’m enjoying this a lot. only three episodes in so far.
television;
the crow girl (s1+s2)
it has been a long time since i have watched my beloved british crime dramas, and the one i chose to rekindle this habit was pretty great. helmed by eve myles (of torchwood fame), i genuinely think the first season is close to being a perfect television (in the crime thriller realm, at least), with an end of season twist that legitimately made my jaw drop. it has been a while since a twist has genuinely surprised me.
the second season, well, dragged and was nowhere near as tightly plotted, imo. i still enjoyed it a lot, but it’s way weaker in quality than season one. i will say: if you’re a fan of killing eve, check this out.
the vampire lestat (s3)
i’ve already written a whole post about my feelings on this season, and i am conflicted to say the least. with more distance i am less irritated by the season, but no less disappointed in the lost potential. still, this is a show i love regardless of its flaws, and i am certainly in it for the long haul.
books;
the vampire lestat by anne rice
superfan by jenny tinghui zhang
the irresistible urge to fall for your enemy by brigitte knightley
films;
twinless: really clever and original way to meditate on loneliness, very melancholic, dylan o’brien you have always been a star
forbidden fruits: i think this was trying to critique toxic girlhood but it landed very flat for me, and worst of all, was incredibly boring
the invite: hilarious and charming
cape fear: crazy b-movie thriller, watched this for the new apple tv show but that was so bad i dnf’d it
primal fear: ed norton is amazing in this and it’s a solid courtroom thriller
leviticus: okay so while i enjoyed this i think that there is a world in which it is even better and more emotionally affecting, i just think that there were so many weird writing decisions that undercut the movie’s own themes
avatar aang the last airbender: everyone was so hot but at the cost of a soulless movie that recycled plot beats and themes, this really as an insult to all atla fans out there
confession: someone on letterboxd called this “twist the movie” and i agree, this was very soapy and a little goofy but held together nicely by yunjin kim’s stellar performance
dog day afternoon: liked this more than i thought i would, saw it to compare with the play and it’s quite different!
other bits & bobs;
the goon squad: here i was a sweet summer child thinking that gooning was just a chronically online euphemism but apparently it’s a Whole Thing
a cycle, not a phase: love between magical girls amidst the trauma of puella magi madoka magica: i have not read this fully yet, only skimmed, but i’m really interested in the premise and i love the writing style
i wrote a post about research for writers
just discovered faouzia and am obsessed with her songs unethical and desert rose
cheers,
hadeer