My Year With Media 2022 Part 1: Noteworthy Experiences

Hey everyone. 2022 was a really big year for me in terms of media. While I'd previously left myself to keep anime as my lone hyper-obsession, with the occasional video game on the side, I've been wanting to motivate myself to branching out into more kinds of art in hopes of building up my literacy of the media canon and appreciating things I'd have otherwise avoided. And this year was finally the year I did just that, immersing myself both into animation from countries other than Japan, live-action films from all over the world, and various other media to boot. I have had a really phenomenal time in this adventure, and as such, 2022 marks a turning point in my relationship to media. I found myself engaging with more art than I ever have before, and I really want to highlight all of the most interesting and enjoyable experiences I've had with my now-expanded hobby this year. I will also be doing favorites lists both for 2022 anime and for all media I saw this year, but I'm taking this part 1 to highlight some of the works that would have been left out. 

I experienced a lot of media this year, and while not every work of art is landing among my favorites list, many works that I experienced this year were extremely memorable for reasons beyond just their quality (or lack thereof). Consider this part 1 a miscellaneous section of sorts. This list will be dedicated to the most interesting and/or memorable experiences I had with media this year; a place to talk about things that wouldn't be included on my yearly favorites list but are nonetheless worth mentioning for a variety of reasons. Entries on this list will include works I personally found to be particularly strange, bizarre, impactful, or noteworthy, as well as important or classic works of their respective mediums that I got around to for the first time and feel the need to highlight. I will explain what I find interesting about them, and also likely give reasoning as to why it didn't land among my favorites of the year. Since this list isn't really related to my opinion on their quality, the order that I list these works in is just going to be the order in which I completed them. While these may not be my favorite works that I saw, they are such interesting experiences that I can't help but recommend them to anyone who might be interested. So from modern Hollywood classics to artistic video game masterpieces to fascinating schlock to educational tools, these are the works of media that I found to be the most interesting this year. 

Arrival

On the very first day of the year, I checked out Denis Villeneuve's modern sci-fi classic; an epic high-concept story about a women's meeting with aliens who land on earth and her crew's attempts to understand their language and facilitate communication. I'm a total sucker for this kind of high concept science fiction, anything regarding aliens and linguistics is right up my ally and Arrival mostly delivered on this concept. The first half of the film was engrossing, directed in such a mysterious and haunting manner while backed by strong dialogue. The alien species was bizarre and genuinely alien, and the film does a fantastic job of explaining the nuances of language and the ways each team works to foster communication without becoming to jargon heavy or distracting from the drama. Amy Adams' excellent performance in the lead role also elevated the drama in a powerful way.

Unfortunately, I found the film's second half to be a bit disappointing, as it switched direction away from the aspects I found most interesting about it and into a more traditional character driven thriller, but without strong enough character writing to really make it land. For me, the film starts to fall apart a bit with how disconnected its first and second halves felt. It attempts to tie what is presented early on with a final message at the end, but I found the connection it invites to be tenuous at best, leaving the ending unsatisfying to me in combination with the lack of interesting characters beyond the protagonist. Still, the film is a truly fascinating piece of sci-fi, and its presentation of the ways we might perceive time absolutely screwed with me for a good portion of the first quarter of the year. Although I don't find this movie to be completely narratively satisfying, I do find it be to very intriguing and evocative in its concepts, a mark of great sci-fi. As such, I can totally understand why this film was such a big hit, especially in light of its many major strengths in acting and directing. Unfortunately, this film wasn't able to resonate with me quite that strongly, but it has definitely stuck with me nonetheless and was a powerful way to start the year.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Franchise

My next stop was to the bizarre anime classic Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Although this series is a beloved classic in Japan, it's gotten much less attention over here in the west. But it's a real shame, not because it's particularly good, but because it is one of the most fascinating and strange pieces of media I've ever seen. The backstory of this franchise is a trip in its own right, as it's essentially a spin-off of a pornographic visual novel that focuses on the plot-irrelevant little sister character and her random newfound magical girl transformation abilities, but which has so drastically overtaken its parent series in popularity that the game it's a spin-off of as been relinquished to complete obscurity. But even more interesting than the history of the series is the series itself, which is so many things at once that I don't even know how to explain it. For one, it's a traditional magical girl show, with its initial episodes acting like a bad Cardcaptor Sakura ripoff. But it quickly becomes brutally dark once it introduces its second main character in Fate, whom we get to watch get whipped to near death by her mother, among other things. The first season also has some pretty crazy visuals courtesy of director Akiyuki Shinbou, who brings the flare we'd come to know at studio Shaft to this project as well, and it would end up being a huge influence on Shinbou's later Madoka Magica. On top of both cutesy magical girl shenanigans and bizarrely dark melodrama, the series is also a bonkers action show full of nonsensical powers, and its abundance of loli fanservice on top of all of this made it perfectly hit a fetish strike zone in a market that was once sorely lacking in otaku oriented magical girl anime for teens and adults. That's not even mentioning the totally random introduction of the interdimensional space police and all the strongly implied gay romance, strange elements that almost feel randomly introduced initially but end up being totally indispensable by the end.

After the first season, the series really expands into something wild, evolving a completely epic and utterly nonsensical, generation spanning sci-fi narrative full of strange worlds and technology. It's maybe the only magical girl series I've ever heard of where we actually get to watch the two main characters not only grow up into adults who raise the next generation of magical girls, but also function as a legit lesbian couple who raise a child together. This series does everything: action, sci-fi, romance, drama, comedy, fanservice, fantasy, thriller, it's range is crazy. You may think that combining this many elements at once would make it a total clusterfuck, and you'd be completely correct. If you attempt to think about this series larger world for even a second, your brain will explode. And its characters are a mixed bag, and its individual stories are messy and frustrating, often undercutting their own drama for the sake of convenience. I generally enjoyed A's in spite of its issues and I had a fun time with the more focused action story of Detonation, but every other main line entry is frustrating in the worst way. But in spite of these frustrating elements, Nanoha manages to tell its ridiculous stories with so much charm and earnest heart that I could not help coming to kind of love it by the end. Although I rarely found myself attached to its characters in the moment, spending so many episodes with them and seeing their heartfelt stories and earnest drama made it so that I couldn't help but find myself attached to them by the end. Nanoha can be an unlikable character but by god, by the 10th time I watched her befriend someone with her giant near-death laser beam attack while screaming "Starlight Breaker" even I couldn't help but be on board with the hype. Maybe I fell victim to her friendship laser from outside the screen. And the series genuinely good elements are legitimately affecting. Fate is a genuinely great character, who's arc is immensely satisfying and heartwarming and who balances out her co-protagonist beautifully. The aforementioned story of them raising a child together is the best thing about the show by far and almost justifies the experience for me solely on its own merits and for its own ridiculous existence.

And said child's own spin-off series ended up being my favorite part of the franchise, as I found them to be totally charming and more down-to-earth outings with a much more focused plot and more coherent writing, while still having the more ridiculous elements of other entries through its brutal sports narrative (yeah, it does sports on top of all those other things too). Although I suspect that most hardcore Nanoha fans will crucify me for that take, but I can't help it, the Vivid series was when I was fully on board with the madness and Vivio was always the best part of the series even before I saw her spin-off. The world may be incoherent, but it somehow feels alive and full of bizarre details, almost like the world makes perfect sense in writer Masaki Tsuzuki's head but he just wasn't able to convey it properly. The Nanoha franchise is pure madness, it's incoherent and absurd and... also completely heartfelt and made with infectious passion. There isn't an ounce of cynicism in this series creation, which is insane for a giant multi-media franchise. My experience going through this franchise was a wild rush of emotions, and although it's frustrating and nonsensical more often than not, I can't help but be glad that I got to experience it. If we ever get more Nanoha in the future, I'll definitely be there to see what kind of trip it takes me on next. 

Windy Tales

Did you know that Mamoru Oshii was part of a production team for an experimental slice of life title in the early 2000's? Windy Tales makes this list solely for being one of a kind. It's an iyashikei title with insane visuals and a story that goes to some weird places. Its visual style is easily its strongest point. Its character designs are as loose and formless as you can get while keeping them vaguely human looking, they rarely have a consistent model and they facilitate the series experimental style and evocative imagery. Like the wind, they move as freely as the world will allow them. And Shichiro Kobayashi's art direction might be some of the best ever made. Windy Tales is absolutely stunning, its city feeling lively and detailed, its characters animated with oodles of personality and movement, and its more inspired landscapes being absolutely jaw-dropping. It's got a couple of mind-blowing animation cuts too. Most impressive about the series is its presentation of wind and the whether. Since the series is about people who can control the wind, it comes up with tons of creative ways to represent the wind and how it interacts with objects. And its more general whether is perhaps even more impressive. It takes a very impressionistic style, with stunning sunrises highlighting big rectangles of light reflecting on objects, and rain looking like giant rectangles of water slamming on all it touches. The series is full of memorable and evocative moments of atmosphere solely from its unique visual presentation, and I would say that the series is probably one of my favorite looking animated TV shows ever. And its light, atmospheric stories are backed by perhaps Kenji Kawai's best soundtrack, a gorgeous and sonorous orchestral score that also feels light and flittering to capture the nature of wind.

As for the actual episodic stories, they're definitely a mixed bag, but the standouts are genuinely awe inspiring. In particular, the series 5th, 6th, 9th, and 12th episodes are perhaps among my favorite episodes of any show I saw this year. If I've interested you in this show at all, I highly recommend at least checking out those four (especially episodes 5 and 12), as every episode can be watched standalone. Unfortunately, those episodes stand out because the rest are comparatively much less impressive, with a few episodes just being weird or boring. It's for that reason that I struggle to truly love this show as a whole the way I love its audio/visual presentation so strongly. But if you've been looking for a slice of life title that will give you something you've never seen before, Windy Tales is definitely a worthwhile experience. It's messy in some places but is wholly unique and memorable, and it's a shame that such an interesting show with such powerful strengths has been relegated to obscurity. If you're a slice of life fan, don't let this strange show pass you by. 

Shadow of the Colossus

I'll have to warn that I haven't actually gotten to finish this game yet. Unfortunately, the PS3 I was playing it on broke in the middle of my playthrough, so I'm stuck about half way through the game as of the time of this writing. But even without seeing its conclusion, it's already clear to me why Shadow of the Colossus is such an enduring classic. I will never forget my first time encountering a titular colossus. Walking up to the beast, I felt totally powerless against it. It knocked me out in one hit multiple times before I could figure out how to start attacking it. But with each failure, I slowly started to make more progress, climb my way further up its frame, and eventually stand on its head and slay it. It felt like a journey complete with all sorts of emotional turmoil, and the ability I had to understand my own progress and keep iterating on my mistakes made the encounter immensely worthwhile. By the time I finally slayed it, the satisfaction was overwhelming. But I then also felt empty upon seeing the beautiful titan collapse and disintegrate, and even felt a bit guilty for killing a creature that was really just minding its own business. And the game is centered around recreating this experience as many times as it can in as many ways as possible. Fighting the titular colossi is always an exhilarating experience as well as a satisfying puzzle, and exploring the world on my way to each new beast was an exercise in meditation as I could take in the lonely and melancholy atmosphere of its barren landscapes. The reason the game didn't resonate with me more strongly was simply because this is all there is to do in it. The gameplay loop is repetitive and eventually gets a bit mind-numbing, as I find myself in a cycle of beating one beast, traveling the world, beating another, traveling the world, etc.. Although the empty world is an atmospheric treasure, once I'd experienced enough of those tonal joys I found the empty place to just be a chore to go through and with little to do, especially in light of how difficult it was to control my horse. The game started to wear out its welcome for me around the time my console broke. I actually suspect that this is by design, as the repetitive act is meant to feel worthless to the game's protagonist and we're meant to question the necessity and worth of his journey to slay the colossi. But it settled in perhaps a bit too soon for me to be truly effective, and would have made more sense closer to the final colossus. 

This being said, if there were ever a Criterion Collection for video games, Shadow of the Colossus would undoubtedly be among the first games considered for it, and I'd certainly be vouching for it. Although I feel some aspects of the game are messy or dated, it feels like a game created with particular artistic intent. It's a game that fully takes advantage of the unique strengths of video games as a medium for storytelling, and crafts an intimate emotional experience for the player that is both immensely satisfying and mind-numbing in an empathetic way. It's the kind of game I always hope to see more of, and in spite of my issues with it, I consider it a triumph of what games are capable of as narrative media. I really hope I get to complete it one day, I really want to know how I'd feel upon slaying the final colossus. 

Paprika

I think Paprika is Satoshi Kon's weakest film by a wide margin, but a decent Satoshi Kon movie is another director's magnum opus. Paprika lacks the cohesive narrative vision, human character drama, and thematic complexity that drew me to Perfect Blue and Millennium Actress, but it more than makes up for that with its absolute spectacle. Like all of Kon's films, Paprika takes advantage of Kon's unique talents in blurring the lines between dreams and reality, and crafts an experience in which it's difficult to know what's real and what's not in a way that is only possible in animation. As all the happenings of the story slowly blur together, and the real world and dream world start to bleed into each other, I can only describe the experience as captivating. Incredible, stunning animation combined with Susumu Hirasawa's outstanding soundtrack made the film's final act a jaw-dropping sequence. I think the film makes an admirable attempt to explore things about technology and dreams (both literal and metaphorical), but I found it never truly delivers on this. The best aspect of the film for me came in the form of Konakawa's heartwarming character arc, the most resonant source of human drama it has to offer. Unfortunately, I really don't have much to say about this movie beyond this. It's an entertaining film full of imagery I won't soon forget, and its influence on the film industry at large and classics like Inception is deserved and not to be understated, but unlike Kon's other work it's not one of my favorite movies. It's simply a fine time at the big screen, a great thing to be for sure but I was just hoping for a bit more from a master of filmmaking. 

Yosuga no Sora: In Solitude Where We Are Least Alone

I was already inspired by this series to write this huge post, so I won't say too much more about it here. If you want more specific thoughts on how I feel about this show, I highly recommend reading that. But what can I say about a show that inspired me to write so much? Yosuga no Sora desperately wants to prove that schlock is not diametrically opposed to evocative and poignant human drama, and that soft-core porn can be both intimate and titillating given the right context. It's not incorrect in that thinking, but it does a shitty job of proving it, not only because most of its human drama is boring at best and laughable at worst, but because its most noteworthy attempts at drama are just so hilariously melodramatic and intensely problematic, while also being genuinely thought provoking, that the last thing on my mind was feeling for these characters in any meaningful way. I will quickly mention that the story's second arc, focusing on the character of Akira (the show's only well written and genuinely lovable character), was actually pretty solid and I found it genuinely affecting in spite of its messy elements. Its first and third arcs were rushed and boring, but no one cares about those arcs, we're here for the incest arc. And I mean, what is there say about an arc involving multiple rapes, is full of some of the most unhinged tropes of melodrama laughably executed with straight faced sincerity, and which ends with the main character researching the history of incest and eloping with his little sister so they can live in peace and have lots of sex? Well, apparently a lot, given what I previously wrote about it. This arc is a roller coaster, and I'm not even sure how intentional it was, that fact itself making it more of a ride. And even more amazingly, it genuinely made me think about the nature of incestuous relationships, despite how utterly unhealthy and unbalanced the relationship the show centers the question around actually is. To me, this is what's so fascinating about fetish media and why I sometimes enjoy seeking it out. They can tell insane, unhinged stories that can simultaneously be emotionally and potentially even intellectually stimulating, while also being weird, unique, and memorable, not to mention horny. And I strongly value stories that can make me feel so many things at once, even if so much of that comes from outside of the story's execution. Yosuga no Sora is not a great drama for the most part, but it does embody a lot of what I come to media for in its own strange way, or at least its final three episodes do. Despite finding a significant portion of the show to be pretty boring, I definitely won't forget about the its most memorable aspects any time soon. 

Love Language Japanese

For some reason, I decided to scroll through Facebook one day, and an advertisement from Humble Bundle came up selling me this game. It appeared to be a game designed to motivate hardcore anime fans to learn Japanese via the promise of waifus. I figured it wouldn't be too long and I just had to know what such a game would look like in practice. The resulting game is kind of a beautiful mess. The game's narrative plays out like one of those western parodies of visual novels, except it's played with straight faced sincerity. It's plagued by strange, inhuman sounding dialogue that no one would ever say, and it presents the player little actual choice and no branching paths. In spite of this though, believe it or not, the characters are... actually pretty good? Their stories legitimately go to some interesting and unexpected places, and they get fleshed out to the point that they don't even fall neatly into the archetypes you'd expect from them. One girl has a spontaneous and addictive personality, so it partially manifests in a love of shopping and her running away from the dorm when her parents come, but it also manifests as her dealing with the potential recurrence of a smoking addiction she'd once overcome, and being the only character who is any kind of sexually forward. I definitely didn't expect that kind of detail in characterization from a game like this. Surprisingly, all three of the main female companions are given this kind of treatment, and are actually a lot more interesting, fleshed out, and likable than I had anticipated from a game like this, and I suspect the same is true of the other two options who I never really got to go after (since the game really encourages you to do one at a time and I wasn't playing through the game 5 times). By the end, it even managed to pull out a few legitimately sweet and romantic moments, and even the annoying friend character who the game's own characters hate managed to become a believable and interesting person by the end. I was impressed with what it pulled off actually, it never blew me away but my expectations were rock bottom so any kind of competency was a pleasant surprise. 

That being said, we're not playing this game for its visual novel components, those are secondary to its educational content. If you want to start learning Japanese, I doubt that this would be my first recommendation, because it's kind of a mess. It's full of technical oddities, bugs, and glitches, which can make the act of playing it a little frustrating. It's clear the game was made quickly and cheaply, even down to the company forming a contract with some other company so they can use the assets from their already made visual novel instead of making their own. The game's lessons are competent but are not structured most effectively. Some lessons are short and easy while others require a lot more memorization at once. And sometimes, it explains things through concepts you haven't even learned yet, such as it making me guess animal noises while using katakana it doesn't teach until the next page. And the "games" it chooses to reinforce your memorization feel more like speed reading games than memorization games, as the short timer really undercuts my ability to process the content. But in spite of these issues, thanks to this game I can now read hiragana and katakana, and I know some basic grammar, so I can't say it wasn't a success.

What makes the game a noteworthy piece of media to me this year though, is what happened after. I finished the game knowing way more Japanese than I ever thought I would. I could suddenly read two new writing systems, and could even understand some basic grammar, at least enough to recognize things I saw in Japanese online. I didn't want to give up all I've learned, and so I'm now making a more earnest effort to learn Japanese. I've been using Busuu and have found it incredibly addicting and motivating, and am currently past its A1 section and starting into A2. Although I'm still just a beginner, learning a new language has fundamentally changed the way I understand language as a concept, and has shifted my own knowledge of my relationship to English as my native language; it has been an enlightening and extremely rewarding experience. I have this game to thank for starting me on that journey, and that makes it a milestone among media I experienced this year. I don't know if I could confidently recommend others start the same way I did (though I certainly would if you think a kind of decent visual novel would be more motivating than an app or textbook), but I'm nonetheless a little thankful for it because it did kind of change something about my life. 

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Only like 20 years too late for this one, but I finally got to watch this beloved animated classic. Avatar is one of those shows that's managed to stay in the public consciousness way longer than most things, and is now widely considered to be one of the greatest TV shows ever made. I have to admit that I never grew up on this one, I had no interest in fantasy/action series as a kid and I got into Nickelodeon during the iCarly era when Avatar was at the end of its run, and so I rarely caught it randomly playing. Coming at the series for the first time with this perspective, I have a lot of respect for what it does right. Avatar has really excellent worldbuilding, crafting an expansive and cohesive fantasy world full of fascinating and diverse cultures and sub-cultures. Bending is a legitimately awesome and extensive power system, and it feels meaningfully integrated into the world's technology and culture. The main characters are all super interesting, fleshed out, and lovable, the cast is deservedly iconic and all of their arcs are extremely satisfying. And the story centers around a surprisingly deep and morally complicated war, and it handles topics like cultural degradation, genocide, and tribalism with tact. It's a very effective kids show that doesn't shy away from mature topics and handles its story with the weight it deserves.

For me though, I found it to be held back by its status as a kids show, and the things that it wasn't really allowed to get away with. It rarely gets to linger on its emotional or atmospheric moments, often undercutting them with an untimely gag. It rarely even lets me sit and take in a nice moment, as if it's afraid the children watching will get bored or uncomfortable if things don't stay consistently lively; I found myself disillusioned with the way it integrates drama and humor (though it definitely got better the further it went). And although it handles some aspects very maturely, I found myself frustrated at some things that I felt would have worked better with more darkness and gravitas. I've always strongly disliked stories where characters feel like they have to abide by destiny, and the series refusal to abandon the "it has to be the Avatar who saves us" mentality when characters just walk away from other options for the sake of keeping to "destiny" was frustrating to me. Likewise, the series attitude towards violence feels misplaced to me, like it had to be sanitized due to fear of telling kids that some people probably deserve to die. But an epic classic is an epic classic, and Avatar was one I had to really think hard about if I wanted to include it on this list or on the larger favorites lists. It's a one-of-a-kind fantasy story and I'm so happy that it's been so influential. 

Super Dimension Fortress Macross + Do You Remember Love

I adore high concept sci-fi, but a problem I often have with them is that they tend to prioritize their concepts at the cost of their characters. As a result, their stories can have awesome ideas but sometimes feel hollow and unfulfilling, with characters being treated as concepts or stand-ins for symbols rather than people to invest in. What I find interesting about the original SDF Macross is that it has come up with an interesting solution to this problem, by structuring its story around high concepts relating to culture and romance, and centering its antagonists intrigues on a character driven romantic drama. Macross is half sci-fi war drama and half romantic soap opera, and it maintains a remarkable balance amongst these two sides. On the sci-fi side, like I said for Arrival, I'm a sucker for anything relating to aliens and culture. The Zentradi aliens lack of any culture beyond military culture makes for a truly interesting conflict. Seeing these ignorant beings react to and interact with our own culture was compelling, and by pointing out the ways that Earth's history mirrors their war hungry ways, it ties together the story into one about the way that war degrades culture, and how culture is also the reason to protect things and to prevent war at all. And set against this backdrop of intergalactic warfare, is a melodramatic love triangle. That love triangle definitely takes its time to get going, but once both aspects of the plot are fully established and the story starts to take itself more seriously, it picks up and never looks back, dazzling with some really interesting ideas and epic, heartfelt moments. It's full of twists and turns, it's awesome, and it doesn't forget the human drama. It's nonetheless messy, full of obvious animation meltdowns and an unsatisfying final arc that stays beyond its welcome, but it still works and was one of the more interesting sci-fi works I saw this year. Coming at this 80's classic now, it's easy to see how Macross affected the anime landscape, its influence is remarkably self-evident. And not just on anime, but on pop music as well, with Lynn Minmay's banging city pop tracks having more than withstood the test of time; easily among the best music I was introduced to this year. 

I did continue to experience more of the franchise beyond the original TV series. The film adaptation Do You Remember Love is an ambitious and visually stunning cinematic masterwork that simplifies the story far too much to be impactful. I appreciate so much about the movie, and it's an icon of city pop's aesthetic for good reason, but its changes to the story (plus the frustrating points it keeps) and refocusing away from the most interesting sci-fi elements made it fail to land for me. From there, I watched Macross II: Lovers Again, which was just a mess all around. Horrible pacing, characters who are boring as sin, and a story with little substance, although its music was still excellent. Finally, I watched Macross Plus, possibly the most beloved entry in the franchise. Personally, although I enjoyed it quite a bit, I prefer the original TV series. The franchise seems to have shifted away from its sci-fi elements in favor of focusing on music production and romance over time, which I personally think is a shame given that its high concepts and themes of culture was what made it so interesting to me in the first place. I also have to admit that something about Shinichiro Watanabe's work has always felt very distant to me, I've never been able to strongly resonate with it for reasons I can't really put my finger on yet and Macross Plus continued the trend. Nonetheless, it's gorgeous and melancholy, and has plenty of its own interesting concepts, making it a worthy successor to the original series. Macross is an intriguing piece of sci-fi and I will definitely return to this franchise in the future. Although each entry is flawed, all of them have elements that I love, and I think that there's potential for something really special to be found here if I can find an entry that puts it all together in a way I find cohesive. 

Chainsaw Maid

So one day, I was trying to look up Chainsaw Man on a site that shall not be named, but I accidentally clicked on the entry below that one and stumbled across Chainsaw Maid. It's a 6 minute indie claymation short, and I figured that it's not super long and I might as well give it a shot while I'm on its page. I ended up getting into something pretty crazy. Chainsaw Maid is a pseudo-satire of B-horror films starring a maid who tries to survive a zombie apocalypse, and stumbles upon a chainsaw that she uses to defend herself. What makes the film work is its insane visuals, and especially its over-the-top, colorful, and hauntingly detailed claymation gore. I never even considered the possibility of stylized clay gore, but it's here and it works and it's fucking awesome. But it succeeds just as much on a more technical level, and has some surprisingly ambitious cinematography for a short of this kind, including a really neat first-person perspective shot through a hallway that really unsettled me. This one isn't for the faint of heart, but it's a 6 minute thrill ride that took me on a crazy adventure, and goes to places I never expected. If you want a mildly horrifying way to spend a few minutes, definitely check out the unique and memorable Chainsaw Maid. 

Alice

It's not often that I find things I've never seen before, but Jan Svankmajer's bizarre cult classic adaptation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is definitely one of those few experiences I'll always have in mind purely due to how specific an identity it has. At its core, it's a very straightforward and faithful adaptation of the original work. Its story progresses with this dreamlike, stream-of-consciousness transition between events, and it presents the story in this mysterious and mildly horrifying manner. In that sense, it captures the spirit of the original incredibly well. But it's also just it's own totally insane and unhinged thing. Its combination of horrifying stop-motion props and live-action interludes lends itself to the eerie, dreamlike environment, and its big set pieces are just a marvel to look at. The film's prop and set design is outstanding, and its animation is just terrifying. I'll never be able to look at socks the same way again after this film. I do find that it somewhat overstays its welcome and may have benefitted from being trimmed 20-30 minutes, as I started to feel that the visual style felt more like a gimmick by the end despite it being an integral stylistic choice. I also find it hard to describe this film's atmosphere. I'm almost tempted to call it atonal, the mood it evoked in me was something empty and like nothingness, it's a very interesting tonal space but I'm not sure it's for me. But for whatever weird nitpicks I have with this one, the fact that it is what it is makes it worth watching on its own. It's bizarre and may change the way you think about animation. Any fan of the original novel and its other adaptations owes it to themselves to check out this strange piece. My own motivation was the knowledge that this inspired my favorite anime director, Naoko Yamada, to get into animation, and I now have a wholly new appreciation for and understanding of her work thanks to this unlikely influence. I will definitely be watching more of Svankmajer's work in the future. 

The Ring (2002)

The Ring is one of those classic films that I don't have much to add to the conversation of. It's a tense and entertaining time at the big screen, and an effective piece of horror that utilizes its central gimmick perfectly. Its characters are a little bland, but they are what they need to be for the story to ultimately work. It's not one of my favorite horror films, but it more than did the job of satisfying my craving for Halloween scares. And honestly, that's all I could ask of it. I've got this movie here mostly because it's just too important of a classic to not highlight that I've seen, but it gives me remarkably little to mention. I will definitely be checking out the original Japanese horror classic soon as well, I can't wait to compare them.  

The Iron Giant

Next, I checked out a beloved animated classic in The Iron Giant. I never actually watched this film as a kid, while it feels like everyone around me has a ton of nostalgia for it, so like with Avatar it's interesting to come at this from my current perspective as my introduction. The Iron Giant is an endearing film that comes blaring at us without a lick of subtlety. It's a heartwarming story about a boy's relationship with his giant robot companion, and a relevant piece about our tendency to suspect "the other" and unnecessarily start conflict. The film smartly sets itself during the Cold War to drive this point home, war is often a biproduct of paranoid aggression, but if you don't point your gun then the other side probably wants to get along too. Its villains are scary for how familiar they are, and the tense build-up to the film's final act ended up being the highlight for me thanks to how they are implemented. It's a snappily paced film with an incredibly satisfying and emotional conclusion, and I can totally understand what makes it such an important classic. Brad Bird does a great job directing it and the story is easy to love and has a ton of intrigue. My only major disconnect with it was my inability to particularly like the main character Hogarth, who I thought was a little on the bland side. Major though that may be, I'll be thinking about its heart wrenching conclusion for a while longer. 

Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio

It's always so exciting when a major voice in the film industry advocates so strongly for animation, so I knew I had to support GDT's fascinating project the moment it was announced. This reimagining of the classic novel plays around with the themes of the original in a really clever and interesting way. A mostly faithful adaptation but set against the backdrop of Benito Mussolini's Italian dictatorship, it questions the original story's message about children blindly obeying authority by positing that this kind of obedience actually leads to fascism. As such, although the original series (and even the Disney adaptation to some extent) is surprisingly dark, this adaptation ups the more unsavory content in its depiction of war and child soldiers, while contrasting it with the kind of upbeat musical numbers that the story has largely been known for in pop culture. It's an ambitious take on the tale, and it's definitely the kind of film that could have the potential to reshape some ignorant older folks' understanding of animation as a medium. Del Toro has always advocated that animation is not a genre or a type of work aimed at children, but is instead a storytelling tool that is integral to cinema and which can and does tell any kind of story, and this film's detailed stop-motion work certainly convinces me of Del Toro's dedication and love of the craft. With a voice like his leading this project, I'm really rooting for it's success. Although I'll admit that it's not my favorite animated film of the year, and I found it a little rushed and occasionally found its script to not contrast the fairy tale and dark fascism aspects perfectly, it's definitely the project I'm most rooting for at awards this year, because I think it has the potential to move the needle of the public's perception of animation, if even a little bit, in the right direction. Thankfully, it's a solid enough film to be rooting for anyway. 

Closing Thoughts

For a selection of media that isn't among my very favorites of the year, I think that this is a list full of genuinely fascinating and worthwhile experiences. Even compared to some of the works I scored higher, I find myself thinking of some of these just as often, if not more so. I think it speaks to the depth, variety, and unique qualities of what I chose to experience this year. Works like the ones above make me so excited to continue digging into media, and that these aren't even my favorites only amplifies that feeling. With that in mind, there's plenty more to come in highlighting all of the media I found worth mentioning this past year. For part 2 of this 2022 media retrospective, I'm going to be ranking every single 2022 anime that I completed. A big ordeal to be sure considering just how much anime I try out, but I'm so excited to be able to talk about this fascinating year for my biggest hobby, so please look forward to that.