swigof's domain

Revolutionary Girl Utena (1997)

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 20:24:37 GMT

Madoka Magica was an experience soured on me. I expected the anime to be a beautiful journey exploring the world of magical girl while simultaneously getting a rich interpretation and subversion of the genres themes. A slam dunk to my tastes as a mature take on a typically safe genre. While certainly aesthetically subversive (and visually brilliant in its witchly moments) the content of Madoka's story was lackluster. The writing fell flat for me and it came off as shock value driven schlock where the shock value isn't all that shocking.

Many months after watching Madoka, I realized there was still a mesmerable mystic mademoisellian maiden shaped hole in my heart. I could have settled to watch a little Sailor Moon or Cardcaptor, but felt I had osmosed them too much through the greater culture. I opted to watch a few episodes of Revolutionary Girl Utena instead.

I love Utena.

It is a visual hodgepodge of very and vaguely magically girly things taken to an extreme. Rather than aesthetically borrowing into a different flavor, it just cranks the genre's existing dial past breaking the point, entering a territory of entirely warped structures. I can't remember any of the story concretely, but I can say that it didn't impede my ability to appreciate the work at all. Utena asks not of you to emotionally bind yourself to its cast, to be consumed by their angst, but rather encourages one to relish in its ravenous atmosphere and backdrops of romance.

In all its ambiguities, Utena simultaneously charges into a position of brilliant satire and genre-conforming theatrical nonsense. Within the aesthetic chaos and noise of it all, an occasional visual allegory will come forth from the meta-metaphorical soup with extraordinary clarity. Like the raving streetside lunatic who does, for once, say a string of words so lucid, so poignant, so prophetic, you have to wonder if all the other nonsense also meant something. Fitting for this metaphorical maximalism to then be accompanied by a tremendous increase of queer energy, up to sapphocalyptic levels.

Utena makes many moves in truly digesting, appreciating, and satirizing the flavors it was born from. Least of these would be the extended supercut director's edition style transformation sequences that are equal parts overly grandiose and repeatedly recycled. Most wonderful of them is how it dances around gender non-conformity and will-they-won't-they pan-non-platonic love geometry.

I originally intended to watch only a few episodes given the longer runtime and that I was mostly there for some performative genre tourism. I ended up soaking my eyeballs with the whole thing. What a phenomenal anime it is.

Gallery Update

Fri, 08 May 2026 01:35:44 GMT

Review | Frank 5 (????)

Fri, 08 May 2026 01:24:11 GMT

Every object in a thrift store tells a story. Each worn out bit of clothing. Each shelf filling tchotchke. Each liner noted novel. They all have history. It's not oft I care for the history though. Marks of time past tend to make things less valuable, poisoned by a memory that isn't ones own. After all, who's gonna buy a shirt with loose threads. I've recently found one such object that certainly changes my mind however.

On a hunt for noteworthy thingamabobs, I found a lovely fabric coated wood box. A little bigger than my palm, the fabric is red, with gold patterns of chinese coins and dragons stitched throughout. A simple fabric loop and plastic tooth holds it shut. Inside, a brass plaque with background inked black. A raised lettering of the brass reveals words written in both Chinese and English. It reads:

I HAVE CLIMBED THE GREAT WALL
This is to certify that Frank 5
did climb the Great Wall on 2006 8 1

Where the name and date are poorly etched into form entry style boxes. The back of the plaque ordained in an engraved, pure black scene of the Great Wall of China. What an absolutely transcendent object of history it is. The Great Wall, in and of itself, an extraordinary feat of human ingenuity and a still standing historical artifact. A wonder held into the annals of time not only through its remaining structure, but also in this innocuous little bit of metal on the other side of the planet from it. And then there is our main character Frank. I know nothing of Frank, but I do know that in august of 2006, he climbed the Great Wall and bought this tourist's trinket. I also know that the engraving placed on the metal gives him the suffix of 5, when that was likely meant to be an S initial. I don't truly know that for certain though. This could be Frank V, of a long lineage of family Franks.

At some point, Frank himself, or someone in control of his possessions, decided to hand off this box to the kind people at Renaissance so that they may find some renewed value in it. That places Frank to have likely lived in Montreal, at least at some point. Maybe Frank lived just across the street from me and I never knew. I could only imagine that this box having been disposed of means that he is no longer with us, but perhaps this thing simply holds a sour story for him and so he sought to rid himself of it.

Not knowing Frank's story, I can't say that I hope he is well, in heaven or earth. Frank could have been the type to beat down on the homeless. Alternatively, he may have been one to provide them food and shelter. He may have been a loving father, or one that fled from his children. A Schrödinger's caitiff; a wavering saint. The truth being that people don't tend to be so polarizing. I hope nothing for Frank except for him to have gotten exactly what he deserved. Thanks for the memory.

Review | Old School RuneScape (2013)

Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

My neighbor did not show me this one when I was in fifth grade, or rather, the original game back in the 2000s. I had friends who played it back then, but it never picked up for me; I was a MapleStory kid. Rather, my infatuation with the ancient medieval clicker game started in my post secondary days. The pull was quite simple for me then, and it's what kept me around for a decade: a game I can play without playing.

RuneScape in all its iterations has a reasonable variety of activities to perform across its many skills. You can train combats killing bosses, light logs on fire in a big line, fish (video game fishing!!!), lumberjack, or even give yourself arthritis cleaning inventories of herbs. Being honest, there's a few too many ways this game promotes joint pain for my taste. Beside those less appealing means of progressing though, there's many things to do which require very little attention. You could play by almost exclusively interacting with the game on intervals between 30 seconds and 10 minutes. It brings me to tears just thinking of the majesty of clicking on the mighty gemstone crab and walking off to make food, knowing I'd still be spanking that bad boy upon return. The balance between activities of this class and more interesting active gameplay is unmatched by anything. Make casual progress during off hours or when wanting to unwind, then ramp up the engagement doing raids with the homies. Beautiful gameplay. Gameplay which has done irreparable damage to my psyche.

There's nothing in my life that has made me feel I have ADHD more than this game, to the point where I think it may have even cursed me with the condition by some twisted magic. I say that somewhat jokingly but only because pursuing a proper diagnosis seems a rather tumultuous effort. My ability to focus has been eroded to RuneScapey intervals of time. If a task requires more than 5 minutes of mental fortitude and focus, I will end up spinning around it like professional racoon haired zoomer, halting any trains of thought with a swing back to some light distraction. Nowadays I'll just pop open a social media site, even if for just a second, like I'm looking for solutions in an empty fridge. Sisyphus would not be any happier with a smartphone.

So the game is in the past for me now. I could never recommend it to anyone. In the best case, it's an inoffensive time waster MMO like the rest of 'em. In the worse case, it'll consume every waking moment of your mind. I look forward to a future of occasionally hosting LANs to raid with friends and making progress on an actual ADHD diagnosis. Also, slayer sucks.

Site | Added new sections

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 21:11:37 GMT

The site now features a gallery for DSi photography and a gamedev resources list featuring a bunch of assets and tools I use for my own projects. More photos to come! (hopefully)

Review | Magic: The Gathering (1993)

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A horrific amalgam walks the streets of the financial district. The writhing mass of past and present features beloveds for everyone and anyone. As the busybodies walk by, they make sure to grab something as to not feel left out. Some settle for the first thing in reach protruding from the creature, pecking away at its surface. Others of more precise taste strafe around, hunting for just the right matter of expression. The dedicated will eye out pieces of interest to yoink in the plenty for a little while but many are done getting anywhere near the offensive thing after a fleeting moment. On a rare occasion however, there are those who stop and stare longly with rose eyes. You'd think they were waiting for the thing to recognize them. If it ever did possess the power of vision, its buried face has lost all sight long ago. Suddenly, they reach into the monstrosity and dig. They dig, and dig, and dig, and dig. They pull away at the grime and waste with a clear want in their soul. They may spend hours in that feverish haze, even days. Passersby unphased, continuying their nabbing ways. Eventually, those impassioned ones always realize that whatever it is they are looking for isn't there. Their own failures are not anything of my concern though. I just tried my luck and pulled a full barrel of crude out. It will fetch a fine price on the secondary market.