I write and stuff

About a month ago, I got an email from my 18 year old self telling me to read Solanin, the manga by Inio Asano. It reads as follows: Dear the (hopefully) post grad Nathan, Read Solanin, the manga by Inio Asano you read on 2/20/2021, and see what you think of it. Maybe even look back on that short reflection you wrote (on blogger). I think it'll probably hit different once you start to live that post college life. Maybe you could even look back on that myanimelist account you had. link here, if that website is still around: https://myanimelist.net/profile/wolfang135 From, the currently first year at college Nathan I'm actually still logging my manga regularly on MAL, except I've changed my username from wolfang135 to raffyreviews. I remembered reading the manga back during my first (online) year of college in the COVID quarantine, but I didn't remember much about the manga besides having a distinct feeling of not getting it. But, I kept hearing good things about it onlin...

 Welcome to yet another year of my top albums of the year! Looking back, this year was a solid year for music, although I do admit I was disappointed by a couple of drops. I was also able to discover a lot of new artists this year however, and a majority of the albums on this list are from artists that I did not listen to before this year, which is always cool. Also, this list includes any longer form musical work, so it will include albums, EPs, and mixtapes. Before the list, here are some honorable mentions: Shelly 2 - Shelly The only reason why this isn't on the list is because this actually wasn't an album, it was just two songs. Fortunately, these two songs are absolute giga bangers and were two of my favorite songs released this year. Go listen now! Lotus - Little Simz / Balloonerism - Mac Miller These two albums occupy the same space in my mind. They are both albums by very acclaimed artists, that felt like they were some sort of emotional release that they felt compelle...

 Spoiler free short review: Trippy psychedelic and unfinished manga that has the semblance of a story, but seems more interested in showing you the trips and hallucinations of the main character. Also has surprisingly strong world building with the establishment of a pretty interesting dystopian sci-fi world (think Blade Runner), only filled with drug addicts. Worth a read if you want a trippy experience. Real Review: I've read a couple of Koike Keiichi's works recently. For the most part, they are these very trippy experiences that feel like nonsensical dreams without any set plot. The whole manga is supposed to feels like a psychedelic trip, and Koike Keiichi does a good job of adding to this feeling with creative paneling and some breathtaking art. There's rarely any dialogue in his works, but that plays to his strengths as the progression of each manga is led directly through the artwork and paneling. Ultra Heaven, although unfinished, may be Koike Keiichi's magnum ...

 A short story about two neighbors who form a romance together during COVID. Only one volume long, it's short, simple, and sweet. The male is awkward in a way that might be relatable to introverts, while the female lead is more extroverted and honestly pretty assertive. Very cute romance. I give a strong 8 to a light 9.

 If you read the synopsis of Break Blade, it will say that this story is about a couple of friends who all went to the the same military school. One of them is the Captain in the army of Athens, one of them is the King of Krishna, one of them is a a magicless farmer living in the countryside of Krishna, and one of them is the soon to be divorced queen of Krishna. But really, this is a mecha story is about a political conflict. There are four main countries in this continent, which are the Commonwealth of Athens, the Kingdoms of Krishna and Assam, and finally Orlando. Athens is the largest country here, and Krishna and Assam are both countries that once were part of Athens, but eventually broke off. The whole central conflict in the story starts because the King of Assam is assassinated, most likely due to influence from Athens. Due to this, a civil war soon starts in Assam, with one side being supported by Athens and the other side supported by Orlando. Athens eventually wins, but ...

 I read A Journal Of My Father recently on my plane ride to Seattle. It's really just about this guy who didnt like his father that much returning home after his funeral. The MC had a bit of a trouble childhood growing up. His father worked long hours as a barber, and then at some point his mom cheated on his father. However, the rest of the family kept that from him, so he thought that it was just his dads fault, and so he blamed his dad. When he became old enough, he moved out as soon as he could and didn't visit home much anymore. Before long, he became just like his father, working long hours while using work as an excuse to not go home. But throughout the funeral, he learns more about his fathers life and the sort of man he was. He eventually gets filled with this deep sadness and regret when he realizes he was wrong about his father and that he should've gone to visit his father more often. Reading this hit kind of of deep for me because on some level I feel similarly...

 I think I'm a sucker for these kind of slightly trashy manga stories. Oshi No Ko starts off extremely weird, with a doctor that's obssessed with an idol who dies and then is reincarnated as the idol's child, and then in comes a huge plot twist that leads to the story becoming about the mc and his twin sister trying to make it big in the entertainment industry in order to find revenge, and then eventually the story starts to go off the rails and while it is not a masterpiece, per say, I still thought that this was extremely entertaining. Sue me. I want to talk about the good first. I thought learning about how the entertainment industry works was pretty entertaining, and seeing how the author decided to concoct the plot, as well as seeing how each of the characters grew and interacted around each other was super interesting. I liked how the author would say when each arc began and ended, with the names of each arc in the chapter itself. I liked how the translators would put...

 This quarter may have been my most stressful in college. I had to organize SQDF, as well as deal with a lot of personal bullshit both from some friends and also the IDC. A lot of my time was spent trying to maximize my last moments of college, so I didn't actually spend that much time on "work," meaning my two jobs or my classes. A majority of my time was spent with BBA and BBA related matters, such as trying to set up the next generation of BBA, as well as just trying to get the whole SQDF thing figured out.  In my off time, I was still able to play some IM volleyball, which was in the grass because Josh Sunga hit a volleyball into a fire sprinkler which caused the gym to flood, causing it to be unusable. Thanks Josh! To be honest, I needed a break that was much longer than what spring break gave me. I didn't really even give time to myself this quarter, and an example of something that happened was that I dislocated my left pink trying to do a halo and then I didn...

 This year was such a fucking crazy year for music. Following up 2023s dissapointing run of music, 2024 really proved itself and it seemed like everyone wanted to drop this year. Crazy moments also happened like the beef between Kenrick and Drake. Even personally, I felt like I was much more connected to music this year. I finally went to live concerts for the first time (I'm not including Head in the Clouds as that was a festival), once for Anderson .Paak and once for Porter Robinson. That Porter Robinson concert especially was so amazing. I also went to a lot more dance events, and I'll never forget when the DJ played Not Like Us in the finals of the Red Bull Dance Your Style event in LA. I could've easily put down a top 15 for this year, but I've decided to still do only a top 10, and then just add in a lot of random honorable mentions. Before I start, I'm also doing to note down two albums that I greatly enjoyed that I found this year, but were released before 2...

 I've watched so many finance videos my brain is literally going to rot. Since they all say basically the same things anyways, I've decided to make an easy to follow finance tutorial here: Also, this was written in the dms between me and another friend and I'm too lazy to make it actual proper English so please ignore all the bad formatting and abbreviations. 1. get a high paying job -This is ur cash cow. most of ur money will come from here. Only super rich ppl (millionares) get good money off of their investments 2. Figure out ur living costs -figure out ur wants and needs -find ways to save money whenever u can -live beneath ur means (spend less money than what u could technically spend at ur pay grade) -avoid lifestyle creep (same thing as above, basically means to not spend more and more money as u get more money. ex: getting a raise and immediately buying a BMW) 3. cash cow pay - living costs = amount u can save. this is an important number 4. set aside an emergency f...

 So there's this girl, late 20s, who just broke up with her long term boyfriend. She borrows her neighbors restroom after getting too drunk one night. Her neighbor is this dude who works from home. His eccentric older brother sends him random shit because he is a huge impulse buyer, so his home is filled with boxes full of surprises. These two become friends and they just chill in the house having fun with whatever the older brother sends. Sometimes, the dude's best friend also shows up. He's funny. This is such a chill, relaxing manga. The chemistry between the two leads just works so well. As I grow older, I've been loving chill romance manga between mature adults, and this fits the vibe so well. It's sad that this manga is only like 36 chapters long, but I think it just further solidifies this manga as a comforting solid afternoon read. It's quirky without being too weird, and after reading this manga, I really, really want to decorate my room now. 8/10. Very...

 I almost died last last Saturday, on 9/14, on the highway when I was driving from SF to Modesto to stay over at one of my college friends place. I was driving around 80 on the left lane, with everyone including me about to fall asleep, when a deer jumps over the barrier in the the middle of the highway and runs across my car, barely missing my car by about one or two feet on the right. What a fucking stupid deer. It happened so fast it almost didn't seem real. No one else in the car saw the deer either, because they were all about to fall asleep. But I did and I saw it pretty vividly, even if it was only there for a brief moment. At that moment, I told the people in the car about what happened, and one of my friends said that we all would've for sure died. I believe him. I'm driving a Prius and although I think that was maybe a smaller sized deer, it was still about the length of my car sideways maybe. After that moment I thought about my mom and my dad and my brother and ...

 I didn't get this manga. This manga is about a high school girl who has a crush on the 45 year old manager of her family restaurant. That's all I knew about this manga coming into it, and I purposely stayed away from learning anything about the manga because I had heard a lot of good things about it and I didn't want to get spoiled. But I didn't get this manga. At first, I was just deeply uncomfortable. I didn't like the way that this girl had a crush on this middle aged man, and I didn't like the way that the man didn't just immediately rebuke all her actions. But then I kept reading, expecting it to get better somehow, and I began to think that the series was about how the author could turn this weird situation into something of a nice friendship between the two characters where they both learn the value of having someone with a vastly different life around you or something. Maybe something like Domestic Girlfriend where the story randomly pulls you in. M...

 Sometime maybe a month ago, I realized that I was at 360 manga finished on Anilist. In addition, I realized that there was just over 40 weeks left in the year. With this information in mind, I realized that I could reasonably probably read just under one series a week and I would probably be able to log 400 completed manga by the end of 2025. Since then, I've fallen a bit behind on this goal. I have since finished 10 manga, leaving me with 30 left to finish by the end of the year. However, there is only 27 weeks left now, which means I'm three manga behind on my goal. What happened? Maybe a reason is that I've been more busy. But, I think the real reason is that I just haven't been reading anything good. I'm currently "reading" three manga: Rainbow, Bartender, and Magu-chan: God of Destruction. All three of these have been dreadfully boring. And because of that, I've realized that it might be a good idea to go back and evaluate which manga I'm sti...

  Around two years ago, I wrote a list of manga that I was super hyped to read about. In order, they are listed below: Kingdom, Berserk, Grand Blue, Jujutsu Kaisen, Kaguya Sama, Vinland Saga, Made in Abyss, One Piece, To You, the Immortal, Blood On the Tracks, Land of the Lustrous, Golden Kamuy, Oyasumi Pun Pun, Maison Ikkoku, Nana, Rainbow, and Yokohama Shipping Log. Suprisingly enough, in the past few years, I have actually read or caught up to some of these manga. I'll talk about them below, and then after that I'll list out some new manga that I'm super excited to read about in the future. Jujutsu Kaisen: One day, I couldn't take the peer pressure anymore and I just caught up to Jujutsu Kaisen, all in one day (it was mostly because I didn't want to get the Sukuna and Gojo fight spoiled for me). It was very, very fun and I'm very, very glad I avoided basically all information about JJK beforehand. I'm currently reading JJK weekly, even keeping up with lea...

 I don't read ongoing manga. I've had several good series sort of ruined for me because I just can't keep up with them weekly or monthly or whatever. I always have to binge things, or at least mostly binge everything, so I can still have an idea of what the story of each manga contains. But, because of this, I miss out on a lot of hyped manga that are super good, but still ongoing. In this post, I wanted to list some of the manga that I'm most hyped to read. As a side note, I'm adding a separate category for completed manga that I have yet to read. I'm including them because usually I'm saving them for when I'm in the right mood. Kingdom This just looks like my idea manga. Politics? War? Intrigue? Yes fucking please. It's also long, and even though its long apparently it starts off super fast, meaning that it's good from the very beginning. Berserk Berserk is constantly touted as the greatest manga of all time. Even though the mangaka (RIP Kento ...

  I love breakup albums. Perhaps it has to do with breakups having a large large effect on my life, or perhaps I just relate extremely with the emotions that come with a breakup, or perhaps I just sadistically enjoy reliving those emotions, but for some reason breakup albums always end up being a type of music that enjoy. Some albums I might even think are just ok until I find out that they are actually breakup albums, and then they get elevated to a whole new level. For example, one of my favorite albums ever, Currents by Tame Impala, was elevated to one of my favorite albums after I really started listening to the lyrics and understanding that it is, fundamentally, a break up album. The character of the album goes through so many emotions and each part of the album is just written so well that it thematically makes sense. Another album that I want to highlight is the recent NxWorries release, Why Lawd? NxWorries is a duo group consisting of Anderson .Paak and producter Knxwledge,...

 Shimeji Simulation is a weird little manga. I mean, you can sort of understand what you are getting yourself into just from the very beginning. A girl who was a shut in for middle school decides to go to high school, and she also grows mushrooms on her head and she also becomes best friends with a girl who has a fried egg on her head. Does any of this make sense? Not really. And honestly, many of the things in this manga are purposely meant to make no sense. Here come the spoilers now, although it's already in the title: these characters (probably) live in a simulation. But that doesn't matter. What matters, ultimately, are the vibes of the manga. The story is there, sort of, if you search for it, but similar to a manga like Blame!, a lot of what I think this manga wants to be is just to be weird, nonsensical, and also have cutely drawn girls wander around this weird mess of a world. Perhaps there is a lot that the author wanted to say with this manga. I personally am too lazy...

 I really put off writing this until way later, so some of these thoughts may not be 100% indicative of how I was feeling during this quarter lol. This quarter wasn't neccesarily my most busy quarter, but I for sure took a lot of mental damage this quarter. It was quite eventful, and after this quarter I'm starting to have very mixed thoughts on the Irvine Dance Community, but also just college in general. On paper, this quarter had potential to be one of the best quarters of college, and some of the best months of my life in general. I hosted Claim to Fame which was a success, and I was even able to go to the East Coast to the NCBA finals jam as the west coast representatives. I was also able to go to UCSC for one of their jams with BBA. That trip was super fun, although I didn't make it out of prelims at the jam so I had to deal with some personal demons during that jam specifically. I also started working for Axiom Materials this quarter, which meant that I had a car fin...

 2023 was a super weak year for music. I honestly didn't have any albums that I just completely loved, unlike basically every other year since I really started listening to albums and keeping up with new music. The best albums this year may be only like top 5 in any other year, and at the time of writing (late March 2023) there have already been around four albums released that I would put in the same tier or higher as all these albums on the list.  I don't even think enough albums this year deserved a top ten finish, so I narrowed it down to like seven entries, plus one honorable mention. I also combined EPs with LPs this year in order to make the list longer. Funnily enough, if you were to combined the lengths of the two EPs on this list, it still would barely be long enough to be considered an album. Honorable Mention: Let's Start Here. by Lil Yachty When this album was released, I was so excited for 2023. It was released early on into 2023, and it was honestly a very so...