It's the end of the year. Just in case you hadn't noticed. So I figured I'd have a look back over my records and see what I'd been doing all this time, and pick out a few highlights. Obviously this is just based on thing I personally have experienced this year, and not all enteries are neccessarily new releases or anything. Just things that, for me, have stood out as being rather good.
So, without further ado, let's get on with it.
Music
This is a rather tough one for me, as music is one thing I seem to get a lot of. This is based on CD's I've bought, and doesn't include any of this new fangled downloading all the kids are talking about these days. I would also like to point out that these are not in any particular order either. It was hard enough picking just 10 (and even then I had to cheat). Actually putting them in order would probably break my mind.
One that I do seem to keep coming back to. Sexy Gothic Industrial Rock of a Japanese flavour. Great Stuff.
Finally, A full album release from this band. Great arrangements of some old songs, and great new tracks as well. Bonus points for actually being available, since a lot of their stuff has been limited edition singles up to this point.
A CD-R retrospective of this incredibly interesting industrial outfit. A fantastic diversity of content really shows off the breadthe of style they put out.
Yeah, I know it's technically 2 releases, but they are conceptually linked, so screw you. Both feature great A & B sides, and also feature a large amount of good remixes. A good remix is hard to find, so the fact that in both cases they remain interesting to hear throughout is really notable.
Happy and bouncy J-Rock, but with a suprising feeling of being a little more... grown up than their previous efforts.
A suprising fusion of industrial music and operatic vocal from Japan. Works fantastically well.
Code - Resplendant Grotesque
Rich and gothic black metal with a curious air of victorian sensibility, at least to my ear. A long awaited return by one of the few genuinely interesting bands left.
Crushing doom/noise/industrial fusion. Heavy guitars and analogue electronica collide in spectacular fashion. The Doctor Who reference doesn't hurt either.
A slightly dancefloor style mash-up of black metal and industrial styles. Despite covering U2 they produce an impressive album.
Not so much music as a bizzare audio drama stream of conciousness nightmarish soniscape. About as far from commercial as you ccan get, heavy, densely layered and oppresively atmospheric. Put in your headphones and turn it up.
Film & TV
A tricky selection to make. There is so very little released in cinemas or on TV that interests me these days. Almost everything I watch is on DVD. But I suppose you could consider this year fairly succesful since I went to the cinema 4 or 5 times. However, when you consider how many films are actually released each year, that really doesn't say much does it?
Anyway....
An awesome film, I was suprisingly enraptured. Well put together, although part of a series it holds up on it's own perfectly well. Which since the showing of part 2 seemed to get cancelled is just as well. Better wait for the boxset I suppose.
I've only watched a few new anime series this year, and this one narrowly nudges out Strike Witches purely because I can watch it without getting arrested. A hilarious parody, with some pretty good music thrown in as well. The movie version is high up my watch list.
Possibly the strongest series of nu-who since it returned, with consistantly good stories throughout. I mean, yeah, there's more than a touch of fanwank at the end, but who's counting? A solid block of entertainment all laid out on DVD for your repeated enjoyment.
Oh god it's hard to pick a single Ultraman release, considering how exponentially my collection has increased this year. But this film has to win out for it's sheer unabashed celebration of the entire franchise. Getting that many characters together in a coherent story is surely no mean feat, and this film accomplishes it brilliantly.
Reading
I do love a good book, though strangely I never seem to spend as much time actually reading them as I'd like to. But I do manage at least a bit, and it's not ALL manga.
Just mostly.
Yes, I'm a massive poser who bought the graphic novel after seeing the hype for the film. Sue me, I can't read everything when it comes out. Since this is so classic there's not really anything I need to say about it. You either already know or you SHOULD already know.
A brilliant cyberpunk/noir crime/detective/crime story with hints of a massive space opera sci-fi background. I'm just gonna call it cyberpunk though. Thouroughly grounded in it's depiction of a future where people can be saved to disk, it's an interesting piece on identity and the effects of technology, but also a gripping read with a good story and interesting characters.
A little unusual in that I had to download it and print it out, nevertheless this is a wonderful piece of writing. Evoking steampunk Lovecraftian fantasy without really being any of those thing. It's tricky to describe without giving to much away, but if you like any of those 3 genres you really ought to check it out.
I love this manga. It's like an antidote the ongoing trend of wet, mopey vampire bullshit. This book has balls. Full on, and replete with interesting ideas. Brilliant stuff.
The odd but rather enchanting story of a group of otaku and the sort of stuff they get up to. Which as I read it back is pretty shit summary of this series, but there you go. A story about otaku, written by otaku, for otaku. With all the charm,heart and humor that degree of concentrated nerdiness produces.
This is a great book, but perhaps not one that many people will get to read, which I think is a shame. 4-koma style it tells it's tale with great style and effect, and is certainly one of the more unique books I've encountered. The only thing is that there only seems to be 2 volumes of it.
Gaming
This year hasn't been the greatest for games I admit. I mean, 4th ed D&D? Seriously. Hecatomb and Dreamblade are dead, and there really hasn't been much to fill to the void. However in terms of video gaming it hasn't been all bad. I bought a wii. Not exactly hardcore some might scoff, but then I wanted some games that were just FUN to play. And it hasn't dissapointed so far. Though I've bought a few games one does stand above the rest in terms of entertainment, replayability and not having to flail around like a complete spacko....
Put simply, this game is pure entertainment to play. There is literally no time when blasting zombies is not fun. There's a wide variety of stuff to unlock, a whole bunch of guns to buy and a profanity laden "plot" riffing on the tropes of cheap grindhouse cinema. Pure joy.
