Coming this Friday: English subtitles for legendary documentary filmmaker Sumiko Haneda's gorgeous short, The Cabbage Butterfly! It's stunning work, a masterpiece of form that unlocks quietly profound meditations on our world through the scientific process Get excited!

Thylacine

Hello. For my newsletter, I wrote an essay about the compilation that got me into Japanese new wave. Tokyo Mobile Music is an imperfect package with a spotty history surrounding it, so I went ahead and filled in the gaps and wrote some liner notes for you myself. www.shy.center/p/tokyo-mobi...

Paranormasight canonically the first thing I wrote about on Tsundoku Diving btw, the coolest game around, extremely baxtercore by one of gaming's secret best writers, am I BEYOND excited for 2 holyyyyyy

🆕 Weary Bones #swordscomic

RIP to absolute legend and king Kazuhiko Hasegawa The Man Who Stole the Sun is one of the most alive movies there will ever be, his soul will keep going forever I'm pretty sure

Happy to report that they're still dumb as bricks #idiotsupremacy #precureisback

New post! This week I’m digging into the hit 2024 horror novel Shinen no Telepath! Of course, because it’s me that means there’s also plenty of talk about creepypasta, modern Japanese horror, and truth in fiction. What can I say? I’m nothing if not predictable. Check it out!!

got to review Code Vein 2 for PC Gamer! a game I basically like despite how much it babe ruth points to the stands only to swing a strike lol

soon™

（あぎとの新作映画、じわじわ気になる…💫）

First new work since suffering the hellish misogyny of being targeted by tabloids and the death of her "innocent" typecast and its an adaptation of a newwave feminist novel lmfao. I'm thinking absolutely beast mode. In the house we stand and salute for Nagano Mei.

good LORD Mumei no Jinsei THE most electric movie of 2025, the anime flick of the year people should've been freaking out about. been a minute since I've seen a new director swing the bat as hard as Ryuya Suzuki does here

Yugo Sakamato writing episode endings like "the fellas finally eat some cabbage rolls" and I stand up out my chair cheering and crying.

魚喃キリコを追悼し、初期代表作「blue」のショートムービーを公開（動画あり） https://natalie.mu/comic/news/657420?utm_source=bluesky&utm_medium=social #魚喃キリコ

Seeing Silent Hill fans talk about Silent Hill is so miserable that I was briefly returned to thinking the series was still dead and forgetting that Silent Hill F only came out last year and was the best game of that year.

digital world

Nothing worse than finding an audiobook narrator you dislike, the universe will always ensure that person ends up having read the next 5 books you were interested in listening to.

It is my very real pleasure to introduce you all to Hajimete no Yuri Studies, A Queer and Feminist Perspective (じめての百合スタディーズ　クィア／フェミニストの視点から) from Ohta Books. I am honored to have an essay in this volume! Cover art is by Morishima Akiko-sensei. www.ohtabooks.com/publish/2026...

i'm always saying this (spec is good)

William of Newbury "This deserves a place on every fantasy reader’s shelf."- @publisherswkly from @DarkHorseComics- based on the true writings of an #medieval monk come for the spooky fun #horror #comics #comicbooks #anthro ordering links in bio

i don't want an AI to write a grocery list for me. i want to form a soul-bond with the ghost of my dead twin brother who lives in my smartphone

Erika Toda vehicle WITH Sairi Ito second billing, gang could it get better than this

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY LOVELY BOY NAMEGON FROM HIT TV SHOW ULTRA Q

Clapping and cheering just now as he showed up as the detective in Bilocation.

I really enjoyed this recent deep dive interview into MTMTE, my formative comic book reading experiences, Lost Light lore, and mapping real world politics onto stories about giant robots open.spotify.com/episode/0tSL...

In my first newsletter update of 2026, I review my top 10 comics of 2025! @livingtheline.bsky.social @breakdownpress.bsky.social @topshelfcomix.bsky.social samsstudios.substack.com/p/week-of-15...

Nancy By Ernie Bushmiller January 13,1962

in the least surprising twist of the century, the first ep of new Yugo Sakamoto show, We Are Bad Barbers, owns bones my main takeaway tho is I've never been more in support of anything than Kohaku Shida slowly becoming a Sakamoto regular, may she keep popping up in stuff forever 🙏

（かいきだいさくせん…牧さんを、宜しくお願い致します…✨🙇‍♂️✨）

The way Ultraman directors now use drone filming to emulate scale and perspective on their miniatures is so goddamn cool.

Today on Okazu - Galette No. 36 (ガレットNo.36) Galette is about to step into a 10th year, with the end of one of it’s longest-running series. This creator-owned, crowd-funded quarterly Yuri manga magazine continues to do what it wants to do the way that it wants! okazu.yuricon.com/2026/01/12/g...

Famicom Detective Club: The Gyatt Who Stands Behind

here's me posing next to my words

New post! I bullied 12 dear friends into taking over my site to share their favorite new to them Japanese media of 2025 and got 12 thoughtful, funny, beautiful essays covering a huge variety of art. Get cozy, because this is a big one!

yuffie & cait sith when it says “kids eat free”

According to all known laws of game dev, there is no way Final Fantasy XI should be able to succeed. Its gameplay is too slow and clunky to make its obtuse and archaic systems profitable. FFXI, of course, succeeds anyway because FFXI does not care what the game industry thinks is impossible.

met the coolest dude of all time today (pictured)

Nancy By Ernie Bushmiller January 04,1955

It's finally happened! I've moved out of my small hometown and am in The Big City. Look forward to a year of much more consistent releases as things finally become Normal for me. This month we'll start rolling out the Oops All Movies minisodes and by next month The Special itself should be out.

as I move increasingly quickly towards open heart surgery this year, consider.... if you like the stuff I'm doing on Tsundoku Diving and elsewhere (and you have some spare change) consider throwing a dollar or two my way! normally it'd go towards site maintenance, but you know, circumstances

A little new year's gift for you: I made a primer on shibuya-kei. 35 albums and a short essay with some context on the signature sound of Japan's trendiest district. Tried to recommend a good mix of classics and personal favorites. theshfl.com/collection/S...

诅咒如雏鸟般归来 #silenthillf #silenthill #shf

Worldwide orders accepted later this month. I’ll post something here, promise

Uh oh, I'm in love (Tokyo Salad Bowl)

just a good Shinji Nagashima strip from an issue of Garo

Tsundoku Diving year end post coming next week!!! (everyone knows the first week of a year doesn't count anyway) It's gonna be my fav thing I've ever put up on that dumb site, easy :) happy new years LOSERS

Hey girls. It's my birthday, it's new year's eve, but most importantly: it's buddy list day. For the fourth time, here's my annual tradition where I invite my friends to take up some space on my newsletter and talk about how they spent their year. Thanks for reading. 💜 www.shy.center/p/buddy-list...

Describing my ideal relationship.