Have you ever loved something, only to realize it’s a commercial flop or just obscure? What’s something that deserves more light than it got?
Goodnight Punpun
It’s a manga so if you are in the west it’s already going to be obscure. It’s also pretty messed up so it might not be for everyone, but if you are able to stomach it and read it, man is it amazing. It has very little anime bs that a lot of anime/manga suffer from; it’s not a shonen, it’s aimed at an older audience. It is very well written. The art is amazing. I could go on, but I think it’s best enjoyed blind.
It’s 13 volumes, but you can binge it in a day (not recommended). It has a lot of dialog so a lot more reading than most manga.
If you are not sure about the manga, read the first chapter. I think it sets the tone well for the rest of the series.
Like a lot of great things, I wish I could read the manga again for the first time.
Not a single piece of media, but I want to make an apologia on behalf of amateur sci fi writing. No the prose isn’t going to wow you, but I love seeing other people’s unfiltered imagination at work.
I’m very much into worldbuilding, and I’ll devour fan wikis without even consuming the source material. My knowledge of Warhammer 40K and D&D is almost exclusively from various wikis. Seeing regular people build their own little paracosms, with or without accompanying art or fiction, I find very engrossing.
As for actual media, judging by how little representation the series gets in the US, I’d say Custom Robo. I thoroughly enjoyed the single entry on GameCube that Nintendo localized here.
I read book #1 (Revelation Space) and am one chapter into #2 but the RS world building is dramatic and has stuck with me. I haven’t read Dune and can’t compare (and doubt it’s comparable), but I I’d say it’s comparable to the ~2021 movie where there’s desolate landscapes that aren’t irrelevant, technologies that are demonatrated, not explained, and converging story arcs between multiple characters and times. I find it enjoyable because for the most part, it’s grounded in known physics. Near-light speeds and no wormholes. Interstellar voyages, but they’re still so slow they rely on refrigerated sleep.
The books have reviews that get more mixed as the progress but yet, people keep reading through. I’m mentioning it because there is a wiki that seems pretty detailed, though I have done much to keep it unspoiled. There’s the original 00s trilogy plus a 2021 4th main book, a separate trilogy, a support book, and over a dozen smaller works from as far back as 1990 with half being short stories and half being novellas, where the author was finding his footing and filling arcs.
Generally, the problem readers have is that the author introduces promising story arcs and dilemma solutions, only to abandon them and never mention them again. Then the endings feel rushed and anti climactic. But I’m someone who thoroughly enjoys playing Elite Dangerous, a space sim that’s “a puddle a mile wide but an inch deep” because I simply love the immersion and use my imagination. Elite is to sound design what Reynolds is to world building.
I’ve never seen any of the Dune movies (save for a few minutes of the David Lynch movie while at a friend’s house one time) but I read the first few books back in 2015 (11 years ago 😮) I enjoyed the first book very much but got less and less interested with each subsequent book.
Language is an aspect of worldbuilding I love. Sci fi rarely dwells on the language barriers between sapient species, but for me it’s the main event.
Star Wars actually gets it right with Chewbacca. An alien is very unlikely to be able to have a vocal tract capable of approximating human speech, so the best you can hope for is a bilingual conversation where both parties speak their own languages. And of course there’s nothing that says a language has to be based on sounds. Rikchick (sp?) is a sign language that uses tentacles.
The semantic space of an alien language is likely to be very different as well. Aliens with different senses will have a different Umwelt (subjective perception of their environment), and will have different words to describe their experiences. It’s common (though recently challenged) linguistic wisdom that humans are incapable of describing odors independently of analogies with the source of those odors (earthy, floral etc), or emotional reactions to odors (stinky, fragrant), or comparisons with taste (sweet, sour). Visual sensations (colors) have words that are completely divorced from any source that exhibits those colors. Green describes an instance of subjective experience independent of any green thing, but (most) well-studied languages have no such facility for smells. There are no “odor colors”.
Now if dogs could talk, they might have such odor colors, since dogs live in a very smelly world.
I got carried away there, but I wrote it, so now you have to read it.
And read it, I did. I’ve never thought about how we can’t independently describe smells. I do feel like the descriptions based on taste would count as independent, though. It less that they’re dependent on taste and more that taste is very related to smell. There’s certainly a lack of useful smell descriptors, still.
But what do I know. There’s a class of smells that I call “round”. They’re the opposite of sharp or pungent, I suppose
Stella Glow!
I played it on the 3DS. The story is pretty good, the music is gorgeous, some of it is voice-acted, and I loved the JRPG and dating sim elements.
Apart from my spouse, I cannot find anyone else who has heard of, let alone played, the game so I can geek out with them over it. 😭
It’s not that obscure, but Perfect Blue (1997) has not left my mind since I first watched it.
Everything Satoshi Kon made was great. I personally lost interest in anime when he died because there is literally nobody else who pushed anime in any worthwhile direction other than him, in my humble opinion. My favourite of his has to be a tie between Millennium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers. Perfect Blue was also waaaayyy ahead of its time. It’s a masterpiece.
They’re not going in the same direction, but if you want some anime of Kon’s calibre, look into the work of Urasawa. Personally, I found Monster and Pluto to both be 10/10 shows.
Honestly… valid. I love Urusawa. Monster and Pluto are both amazing shows. The only reason I even bothered with Pluto was because it was made by him.
I’ll eat my words. There’s at least one person in anime who still makes good shit and actually tries.
Better off Ted. I dont think it is underrated, but it definitely seems to be not well known and only got a couple of seasons. It’s the first time I got mad at Netflix canceling a show I loved.
I’ve never met someone IRL that has seen this show. I work in the biotech industry so I recommend it to all my coworkers.
It’s an excellent show.
But don’t be mad at Netflix. It aired on ABC, and they cancelled it (presumably because it had lower ratings than the network’s other comedies). Netflix just picked up streaming rights after the fact.
Great show, but the Veridian Dynamics commercials are my favorite part.
For me, it’s when the octochicken comes down from its web.
Dilberts Desktop Games was a cooky arrangement of several different mini games that were fun for kids whilst satirical enough for adults to enjoy.
It came out as a demo on PC Shopper, back when Adams’ politics was tame. The game absolutely bombed on reviews, but the music and the elevetor game live rent free in my head
I still have my original CD-ROM! Techno Raiders was great fun.
PK. A Bollywood movie that really resonated with me.
Pretty much everything “Weird Al” Yankovic and his band have ever done.
They’ve gained more recognition in recent years, but most people done realize that his catalogue goes back to the mid-1970s. A lot of people are sleeping on his work, even today, because he’s categorized as a “novelty artist”.
The early stuff is rough, but from the mid-1980s on up is worth a listen even if you’re not a fan.
Galavant. Two seasons on ABC in the mid 2010s.
A bawdy, over the top musical medieval themed fantasy series about a knight trying to get his wife back after she’s kidnaped and forced to marry an evil king.
Fantastic main cast and Weird Al in a recurring role as as the abott of an order of singing monks.
I don’t generally like musicals, but it’s so damned catchy and fun.
You’re gonna think I’m weird, but star vs the forces of evil. It’s a trip. It’s so creative and different. Watched it with my youngest and my grandson.
I don’t think you’re weird. At least not for that reason.
I liked how they explored the monster angle
Yeah, same! The monsters weren’t one dimensional, or typical bad guys, they had depth and character, backstories and character growth, they weren’t blunt instruments who were that typical or usual representation of being just bad. Some monsters were redeemable, some weren’t. In a magical dimension where anything can and does exist. It touches on inclusivity. I hugely enjoyed the concepts and life dilemmas they broached. And the way they gave deep concepts a light hearted view, but still explored it fully. Gave the character growth so much depth. You see so much character growth throughout the seasons. I could go on. Brilliant show, even though it is mostly kid aimed, kinda.
I am the KWING of this genre. There was a phenomenal show on PAX yes the Canadian local station called “Young Blades”. It was SO good. About the three musketeers then a girl disguises herself as a boy to join them. I wish I could find it on the internet somewhere.
A tale in the desert was kind of Minecraft before Minecraft. Such a great game.
Nexus Tk kingdom of the winds was also great until they changed the system for leveling.
Tons of books or book series like Darren Shan saga and tales of ambrose. This great series by Christopher pike about vampires
My entire life has been spent in this genre 😆
Don’t Trust The B in Apt 23
Well I don’t know if underrated is valid here, but a few movies by Anders Thomas Jensen like Adam’s Apples and Riders of Justice.
Common ground is it’s morbid humour.Triangle is an independent movie made in 2009 - so good. First found it on YouTube for free, I believe i recently saw it on peacock
akin to Momento, Triangle requires at least a couple viewings.
I enjoyed this flick. Went through a phase of movies dealing with the concept that is at the core of this one, I enjoy them.
Cloud Atlas is my usual mention.
Favourite movie and it’s usually a fairly even split between people like myself who love it and people who think it’s garbage.
Not much middle ground
Rewatched it with my wife recently
Sat on the edge of my seat as the stories came together… Wife was completely non-plussed
I went into it blind, and immediately had to go read the book.
This isn’t alone as a movie steering me towards a book. But nothing else has spurred a drop everything else response like that.
Couldn’t stop thinking about that film for weeks after watching it.
