2025 Year in Review

2025 was such a mixed bag. It felt like the world was exploding all around me, my schooling felt the roughest it had been, and I mostly just managed to meet my goals without exceeding them. On the other hand, despite the strife, I actually did quite well at university, graduating with distinction and an award for academic excellence, I was hired into a position I really enjoy, I spent over two months in the United States (some in January and some in June-July), and I got engaged(!!!). I've never been more unsure about what the future holds, but I've also never been in a more privileged situation. I just wish I could have it all and enjoy countless hours of Japanese media every day...

Here are the raw numbers for 2025:
Manga Read: 56 Volumes - I had no goal, so it's all free immersion, baby.
Anime Watched: 176 Hours - according to anilist. I didn't track this officially anywhere
Anime "things" Completed: 30 - includes movies and is episode agnostic, so a 50-episode saga counted as 1, a six-episode series counted as 1.
Books Read: 6 - hit my goal of 6 which was a lowball, but would have liked to have done more.
Japanese Games I Beat: 4 (DNF 6-7 depending on how you count)

Third Year Grades:
Sex, Politics & Social Change in Asia: DI
Media and Communication Internship: DI
Media and Communication Internship: HD
Professional Communication Studio: HD
Art Direction: CR
Copywriting: CR
Final GPA: 3.5

Vacations:
Jan: United States
Jun-Jul: United States
Dec: Australia

Once again I'll give a little "greatest hits" overview of each month. This won't cover everything I read, so it's more of a way to highlight the things that stood out to me each month.

January

• Billy Bat
• ぼくらの
• フルメタル・パニック？ふもっふ

Let's face it, January was defined by Billy Bat. After finished MONSTER at the end of 2024, I wanted to continue with Naoki Urasawa manga, and this really didn't disappoint me. It was a surreal experience that told an epic story over thousands of years, somehow had an inter-generational theme half way through, and asks some interesting questions about fate and time travel.

I also rewatched Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu. This was an anime of my childhood, and I truly believe it's an underrated classic. One of the funniest anime I've ever seen and well worth watching.

February

• 銀河英雄伝説
• Billy Bat

February was not only short, it was also pretty light on finished content. I wrapped up Billy Bat in February and it was good (as I wrote in the January section). You should give it a try if you're curious!

I also started watching Gundam 00 and Legend of the Galactic Heroes but dropped both of them due to lack of interest.

Sometimes a month just isn't full of winners. On the other hand this was also when I was doing my internship, so my time was being occupied by other things.

March

• ２ちゃんねる化する世界
• 君に届け 第２期
• カードキャプターさくら

There wasn't really any noteworthy media in March, though I would say Card Captor Sakura was memorable for its quality and length. The book I read, ２ちゃんねる化する世界 was ultimately fairly disappointing. I remember expecting a book about the history of 2chan, but instead it was more about the general culture shift of the internet, political activism in Japan, and some ways Japan and the west have cross-pollinated their internet cultures and architecture. That may sound interesting, but it was written in a very boring way. Can't recommend it.

April

• キューティーハニー
• AX アックス
• マジンガーZ

April was sort of defined by two Gou Nagai series, Cutie Honey and Mazinger. Though I have a real soft spot for Mazinger's design and whole "deal", I actually stuck with Cutie Honey and it ended up being the classic series I stuck with to the end. I fondly think about the ending theme.

I ended up swapping from the original Mazinger to a more modern version which I did watch to the end...

May

• 真マジンガー衝撃！Ｚ編
• 母性

As alluded to, I swapped from the original Mazinger to a remake. It was okay, though I still feel like Mazinger is missing a certain something that I otherwise get out of Getter Robo or other super robot anime. Maybe it's just because he's too much like "a guy", like not enough of a heavy robot (Giant Robo does this well), not mechanical enough (Getter Robo), but also not just "a cool guy" (Evangelion). When Mazinger punches good it's pretty cool though. Also I thought the end of the final episode was pretty interesting. Sort of felt like a little End of Evangelion for children.

I also started and finished 母性. I've mentioned it before I'm sure, but 湊かなえ's 絶唱 stood as my favourite novel for a very long time, so I've often wanted to find another one of her books that could hit me as hard. Sadly this didn't really manage that. It was an interesting look at child rearing and trauma told in a somewhat interesting way, but it felt a little bit too caught up in the storytelling gimmick and I felt like very little story was actually told between the three writers within the narrative.

In May I also completed a personal challenge. I performed a 1CC (One Credit Clear - basically beating certain games without using any "Continues") of Zero Ranger by System Erasure. It took about a month of practising. The run itself was done in a discord call with some Japanese learning friends, and it was exhilarating. I highly recommend trying to 1CC a Shmup one day.

June

• 彼氏彼女の事情
• 花の鎖
• ラーゼフォン
• 英雄伝説　空の軌跡ＦＣ

Despite not finishing a single one, June and July were probably defined most by the fact that I attempted to play the first Trails in the Sky game twice (maybe I'm crazy but even burning out on both of those I'm still sort of yearning to try again since that new remake came out...). It's a series I've heard nothing but good things about. The story was pretty fun, though I didn't really detect the level of breadth I often hear people praise it for (probably because I didn't get far enough), and I mostly dropped the games because I felt like I couldn't justify the amount of hours played compared against how much input I was getting. Yes, the towns are full of NPCs to talk to and they usually have new things to say after every story beat, but outside of towns are pretty long fields with bad enemy encounters and an overly long combat system. To be honest I probably just shot myself in the foot for playing on Hard (gravitating towards harder difficulties is just in my nature) which meant things went on even longer than they needed to. Ah well, I will learn from my mistake, maybe pick them up again this year, and play on Normal next time. Estelle is a really cute character and I would like to see her story to the end at least.

I also watched Rah-Xephon and 彼氏彼女の事情 in June. Both were quite good anime but the most noteworthy thing for me was that I absolutely adored the OST of 彼氏彼女の事情, which featured quite a few tracks from the greater Evangelion media mix, including one song that then reappeared significantly in Rah-Xephon. It was a neat rhyme between two shows I watched back to back. The human drama in both these anime hit pretty well, though I wasn't super interested in the weird ending of Rah-Xephon.

July

• 感じない男
• タコピーの原罪
• 英雄伝説　空の軌跡ＦＣ

In July I read 感じない男. I have a weird history with this book because it was one I tried to find since as far back as like 2023. I eventually caved and bought a digital version, and then I didn't read it for quite a while... when I did finally read it I found it to be just okay. I really appreciated the author's frankness about his sexuality and struggles, but I didn't really find it profound or scientific. My biggest takeaway from reading it was that we (generally as a global society) need to be more compassionate about men's sexualities. I think the demonisation of such things only puts more people in danger.

Watching the anime adaptation of タコピーの原罪 was sort of a highlight of the month, though it wasn't really an outstanding anime. It was very pretty and it had a great ED but I think it sort of surfaced a lot of problems of the original manga. It was a bit short and sort of rushed a bunch of character resolutions.

August

• この素晴らしい世界に祝福を！
• Wizardry Variants Daphne
• ランス02改 反逆の少女たち
• ISLAND

After finishing 感じない男, a book about sex addiction and the mental health issues that come with it (of which I am dubious), August may seem a bit like a joke. I don't remember if I was inspired by 感じない男, but I decided that I wanted to get over my own aversion to audiovisual erotic material. I wanted to get more into eroge. Part of that included watching some erotic anime, some included some ecchi anime like Konosuba (which is amazing by the way), but the primary media in August was probably ランス02改 反逆の少女たち (Rance 2). Rance is a legendary long-running series. Despite some early-game pains I found the experience extremely enjoyable. I basically gave up on using it for *that* after a short time, but as a game and for its story I found it very good.

I want to give a small shoutout to one of my brief fascinations in August which was... the Wizardry series. I don't remember how it begun but I ended up playing the Wizardry Variants Daphne mobile game for a few weeks. It was a fun 3D dungeon game and it had quite a bit of dialogue, but it eventually fell into a grind trap and the app had a bunch of annoying crashes that made me drop it.

September

• ISLAND
• ねずみの初恋
• ランス01 光をもとめて
• ファタモルガーナの館
• 薫る花は凛と咲く

When I think about September I basically remember myself "no-life"ing ISLAND and tearing my hair out about my final projects at university. Thankfully the former was enjoyable enough to get me through the latter. I remember thinking that ISLAND was extremely long and got a bit tedious and repetitive towards the end (this is foreshadowing!), but every time there was a significant spoiler I would think, "This makes all the previous spoilers feel like nothing." It was a very convoluted, sort of nonsense (by the end) onion but I did cry a few times so it can't be too bad. I would recommend it and I definitely recommend going in totally blind for maximum enjoyment.

I sort of dabbled in a few miscellaneous anime and manga, though nothing really stole my attention. I also played the remake of the first Rance game, ランス01 光をもとめて, though I eventually dropped it for the same reason as Trails in the Sky — just too much gameplay and too little dialogue.

October

• ファタモルガーナの館
• 宇宙の戦士
• 俺物語！！
• Pale Fire
• To Kill a Mockingbird

After ISLAND I wanted to keep the visual novel train going, so I finally played Fata Morgana. According to some databases Fata Morgana is roughly the same length as ISLAND, so I expected it to be another month-long grind and then done... ... ...how naive of me. I think a few factors extended the reading period for this game: 1) The game is just harder than ISLAND. It has a lot of rarer words and has quite a few characters who speak in interesting ways. 2) There's no voice acting at all. In ISLAND even if I didn't know the reading of something, I could easily just listen for a word's reading and look it up. That meant I was looking up more things but voice acting also gave ISLAND a lot of momentum, encouraging me to keep progressing. I'll definitely be favouring voice acting in VNs knowing this now. 3) External factors, like getting a job, meant I just couldn't "no-life" and fit 3 hours of gaming into my days regularly. On commutes I was also forced to choose either short sessions of Fata Morgana or reading.
Basically, I probably could have finished it in a month if not for time issues.

In October I also read Pale Fire, my third Nabokov book. It was quite good, though it has the privilege of being only my second-favourite Nabokov novel (Lolita still clears, sorry). I also read To Kill a Mockingbird, which was a $1 find at a second-hand book store. Readers stay winning.

November

• ファタモルガーナの館
• 少女革命ウテナ
• 「選択肢」の選択史
• Veil
• Une Femme

I won't belabour the Fata Morgana point again, but I remember really feeling like I was in the weeds with it at this stage. Just like ISLAND, the story "goes places" and sort of makes early spoilers feel like content that might as well have been included in the game manual. I was really enjoying the story around the 5th door, believing that the game would end soon. I think it ended up going on twice that length...

In November I also watched 少女革命ウテナ which is an anime that always comes up in conversations. After I finished it I sort of thought to myself, "Do Utena fans actually watch the show?" Don't get me wrong, I liked it a lot, but I felt like the yuri elements were probably the smallest slice of the pie chart of Great Utena Themes.

I read Veil sort of as a filler to give me something to read "screenless" before bed, and it was mostly fine. I feel like it's not a very noteworthy series apart from its handwritten font. I also decided, for some ungodly reason, now would be a fun time to learn French and I started reading a book in French, Une Femme. To be honest I basically stalled out at the end of the month so I feel bad claiming that I'm still learning the language, though I would still like to eventually.

December

• ファタモルガーナの館
• Veil
• ８月３１日のロングサマー
• ワンピース

In December my boyfriend came to Australia and then proposed to me, so then my fiance and I enjoyed a brief holiday together. Immersion was sort of lacking for the month, though I had a handful of Fata Morgana binges. My fiance and I watched quite a lot of One Piece, and then we sort of pivoted to manga after travelling to see my family.

The biggest manga binge was easily ８月３１日のロングサマー. It was a series that probably never would have been on my radar, but my fiance started reading it one week and he found it so funny that I decided I had to get in on the fun. After reading the three free volumes we got the other seven volumes and read almost all of it in just a few days. It was a great experience. I love when my passion for a media is so hot that I'm just starting the next volume as soon as I finished the first. It was a great way to end the year.

2026

So what's next?

Unlike last report, I wanted to get this one out in a more timely fashion. I've formulated my goals for 2026 already and I'm trying to be ambitious again this year.

Manga is once again being given the flexibility treatment. I set a goal of 20 volumes just for fun, but I expect to clear it without too much trouble. I've returned to tracking anime and am giving myself a hard "60 minutes a day or bust" goal. The only exceptions will be weekends or other special occassions where my work has me in odd situations (though even then I'll be trying my best to fit it in).
Maybe I'm crazy, but I can't forgive myself the 6 book volumes in 2025, so this year I have a goal of 12 books. Lastly, I am trying to more formally incorporate Japanese games into immersion, so I have a 365 hours goal for that (one hour per day), but I plan to let that goal be a bit flexible if I need to move hours around.

Other goals this year: save some money, visit Japan again (it will have been 3 years since I was last there!), figure out what my future is going to look like, but also not spend too much time staring at the distant horizon.

Thanks again for a wonderful year. Let's fighting 2026.