July has been a fairly productive month as far as media goes. I decided earlier in the month that I wanted to start watching all the Studio Ghibli movies in chronological order.
So this month I watched three movies, all of them Studio Ghibli movies. I started with Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and then I watched Laputa: Castle in the Sky and ended the month with Grave of the Fireflies. All of these were excellent movies in their own right. Grave of the Fireflies especially is one of the saddest movies I’ve ever watched. I will be continuing my watching of Studio Ghibli movies over the next month.
I read two books, the first was Sister Outsider which is a series of essays and speeches by the Black lesbian feminist Audre Lorde. I enjoyed the book a great deal and every bit of writing imparted some wisdom and knowledge that will enhance my understanding of the world going forward.
I also read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, one of those rare books that I finished in one sitting. Partially because it is quite short but also because it is quite good. I am still processing the themes of the book but in short I think it also imparted some wisdom that will help me down the road.
I played and finished one video game, Cloudpunk, It is an adventure game set in a gorgeously realized cyberpunk setting, a city called Nivalis. I very much enjoyed my playthrough of the game. The game leaned into cyberpunk genre tropes at certain points with its characters and themes but it was never overdone. I am very much looking forward to the developer’s next game Nivalis.
That’s all from me this month, see y’all next month!