What my summer break was like

This was the time between the end of 2nd year and the beginning of the 3rd year for college. It was a nice change of pace to everyday life. I could stay up late more and sleep more. I could take things slower than I normally do.

I have all of this time for myself and there’s actually a ton of things I could do. So, the thing I’m excited about is consuming media. Yeah, that’s right.

I don’t really like going out because I feel like it’s tiring and I don’t learn much. Plus, I just get reminded of how diabolical things are from where I’m from. All the wastes thrown around everywhere, the squatter areas, the people who are unfortunate to be in such a state, the carefree people who’re just lucky enough to be so and don’t care more than about their well-being. Maybe I dislike coffee shops too because they’re quite noisy nowadays with all the kids and even the adults who have so much to blabber about in a public area. It’s quite annoying. I suppose drinking coffee may become relaxing but never in such an environment. Never with all the people pretending to be worth more than what they truly are. Never when ultimately, it’s just to feed off their egos and not spark a new world of ambition.

I also worked on the project, the application we’re building, and I got into Rust more. I managed to design a custom file type that the application can use to save and load its own files. I also improved on developing while keeping user-experience in mind. It resonates more with me that no matter how complex and powerful a tool is, if no one can or wants to use it, then it is worthless.

I do occassionally go outside, like on a date. But other than that I’m just at home.

So, in my own space, I could focus and take my time on things. I like light novels, visual novels, manga, series, movies, and of course video games. What I found so interesting in these things is how well they’re able to give an experience that you as an audience could feel like you’re a part of: whether you’re in awe with the characters or you’re criticizing them for their actions.

Notable things I’ve experienced. Not all of these were finished or started during my summer break but they’re quite interesting to be left out of my list:

• Oyasumi Punpun (manga)
• Homunculus (manga)
• Delicious in Dungeon (manga)
• Blue Lock (manga)
• Frieren, Beyond Journey’s End (manga)
• Fool Night (manga)
• Witch on the Holy Night (visual novel)
• Raging Loop (visual novel)
• Paranormasight (visual novel)
• Jobless Reincarnation (light novel)
• Jujutsu Kaisen (anime series / manga)
• Tenet (movie)
• The Pursuit of Happyness (movie)
• Groundhog Day (movie)
• Elden Ring (video game)
• Nier Automata (video game)
• Cyberpunk 2077 (video game)
• Before Your Eyes (video game)
• What Remains of Edith Finch (video game)

There’s a lot of lessons and experiences packed into these things and I don’t even have to go out to kind of experience the same thing. I just have to pay attention, put myself in place: as an audience that may relate or criticize the characters and the circumstances.

Well, I’ll discuss some of the top ones in each kind of media.

Oyasumi Punpun (or Goodnight Punpun), is a manga that is just extremely well made. I’ve finished it even before summer break but it is just quite memorable in everything. I have always thought that animated versions of things are better because of the added animation, voice acting, and sound design. But I found myself wrong when I started reading things like this.

The art style of Oyasumi Punpun isn’t your typical anime-style. It’s quite on the realistic side of things. The protagonist, and the entirety of his blood-related family, are drawn as caricatures although within the context of the story they’re just people. But it does make it so that your perception of them is based solely of your understanding of their character, and not of their physical features that you may judge. What’s really brilliant is that the caricatures of these characters show their emotions outwardly but the people around them doesn’t necessarily pick it up. It’s like a mask peeled off revealing emotions as symbolic forms that the readers can empathize on but everyone else can’t. The most impactful feature of this manga is its development. It is shocking, dark, but there are moments of tranquil. Though I am heavily criticizing the titular character, Punpun, I found that there is value in experiencing this kind of world. I wouldn’t really spoil anything about this. It’s the journey through the story that makes it so engrossing.

Witch on the Holy Night is a visual novel that really excels on how its characters were written and how they interact. While there are fantastical elements, the characters themselves are very notable even if they had been in a world of non-fiction. Getting into the story, I was thinking of how grand things may get considering magic is involved. Is this going to be a story where: they save the world? they change the world? they do something that is forever written in human history? No. And yet it is much as impressive even if they don’t. The conflict of the story is local meaning it’s a conflict that only the main cast has to deal with and even if they lose the only loser would be these characters. Yet, every scene we have of our cast develops our understanding of how they operate as people, and how they deal with change, or loss, or difficulties which in the demonstration of the story is masterful. Even the philosophical tangents, or their banter is just so real and hilarious that it resonates with me.

Jobless Reincarnation is a light novel, that gives a complete disgrace in life a second chance. It is also one of the most controversial pieces of stories I’ve read. It is set in a medieval-magic-setting that doesn’t really hold itself back on the worldbuilding and how things work. There are a lot of uncomfortable topics and situations, life-changing events, and learning experiences that make this memorable. But more than that, every character the writer introduces always play a role in the next chapters. It is one of the story I’ve read where there’s no “NPC.” Where this seemingly archetyped character gets expanded upon more and more, and before you know it, they’re so full of depth that everything is interconnected and that whoever wrote this is a genius.

Jujutsu Kaisen, as an anime series, takes it on to another level. It is an action anime series. The writing is quite brilliant and it doesn’t take the formulaic route of always overcoming obstacles through the power of friendship. In my first viewing, I’ve focused on the fighting aspect and the animation. But on the second viewing, I could focus on more on what’s going through these characters heads. What the philosophy is, what the conflict really is. Although it appears to be a good vs. bad story, much of it is a question of ideals. If anything, the entire story’s progression was sparked because of our characters enforcing their own ideals and ambition. Every episode of the anime is like a movie. The amount of effort to execute that must’ve been insane.

Tenet is a movie that I wouldn’t explain. If you know all the movies I’ve listed there, you’d realize one aspect that they all have in common is: time loops. Yes, I like a good story involving time travel. Although, these time-travel movies may be difficult to understand at first, if you always pay attention you’d figure it out before long. What’s really good about Tenet is how simple the visual effects are, and how different time mechanics are presented. It’s really smart to do the things they have done and it’s surprising a story like this hasn’t been presented before.

I started Nier Automata and I’ve always been wondering where it will lead to. You have to play through all the endings to get the entire thing. It’s one of the more cryptic stories with some characters originally being introduced first from the other games in the Nier Series (which I have never played). It is a unique game in which you’re figuring out the story. What sets it apart the most is its presentation, and the seamless switch to these different kinds of mechanics, games, and story as you piece everything together. It is a philosophical game despite the gameplay being hack-and-slash most of the time. Don’t really want to get into the specifics.

That’s pretty much it. I’ve also started reading Berserk.

Ultimately, there’s a lot of things packed into each of these media that you can learn from and improve upon as a person. In short, I find consuming these media to be worthwhile because there’s so much to gain from them even if at times they can be daunting to absorb.