Folks, it’s the Sickos. We’re here, in text form.
First of all, thanks to everyone who tuned into our first ever stream a while back. It was fun even though we had no clue what we were doing and the framerate became extremely bad. I don’t know why that happened. Oh well.
If we can figure out how to fix those issues and learn how to actually stream correctly we may do it again. It was pretty fun! If we do stream again, rest assured we will tell you all about it here and elsewhere.
In other news, our secret project is still undergoing post-production—turns out when you undertake a stupidly ambitious project, it takes a lot of time to actually make it. Let it be known that we have sampled some of the results of this lengthy post-production process and holy shit, oh fuck, oh my god it’s so fucking funny you guys.
We also have started a second secret project that is much less ambitious and much more stupid. This project was intended to allow us to kick back and relax after the previous secret project. This sounds like I’m gonna pull a switcheroo and explain how actually it’s a lot of work. No—it’s so easy (thank god). I’m just laughing at how it is almost certainly going to be ready for public release before Secret Project Number 1.
Anyway, onward to da newsletter!
Sickos Pickos
TOM’S PICKO: Summer Time Rendering
During today’s excellent episode with guesto Casey Toney, we briefly discussed a manga titled “Summer Time Rendering” or “Summertime Render” or some variation depending on what translation you’re looking at.
This manga treats the potential reader with utter contempt. The title “Summer Time Rendering” is absolute nonsense that means nothing. No one on earth could possibly be enticed to investigate something so named. It is a string of totally unrelated words whose juxtaposition actually subtracts meaning from them, such that the series could just as soon be called “NULL NULL LOREM IPSUM.” Midway through the story there are some very limp plot justifications for the title, but it’s as if Star Wars was titled “Green Man Piggyback.” Like yeah, Luke carries Yoda on his back at one point, but come on.
The most common thumbnail image you see with Summer Time Rendering is the following:
This image kicks ass because it tells you nothing other than:
It’s summertime (already knew that)
There are at least two people in it
It’s on an island
The tone of this image is so understated and serene that you would be forgiven for thinking, as I did, that this was some kinda wistful slice of life story about small town Japanese life and the unique challenges of living in these tight knit but isolated communities.
The reason I am so focused on the Big Dud Energy of both the series’ title and cover image is that they are for sure keeping people away from this wonderful series. Folks, I tore through the entire run in under a week and was utterly transfixed the whole time. I couldn’t put it down. When I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about when I could start reading it again. When I got near the climax I stayed up late so I could shotgun the final 40 chapters in one go. I want to make it clear: Summer Time Rendering whips ass.
The following isn’t a spoiler since it happens right away in the first chapter: our main boy, Shinpei, is coming home from Tokyo to his small-island-town hometown after his best friend Ushio died suddenly in a swimming accident. He goes around and sees all his old friends and neighbors and has a solemn and sad time at Ushio’s funeral. He hears someone mention the “shadow sickness,” an old local legend about doppelgangers who try to replace you. Shinpei and his buddy decide to go ask the local priest about it. On the way there they get shot in the fucking head and you see it. It’s on screen.
Then Shinpei loops back in time and the day starts again. He soon learns the shadows are real, and three days after the start of the loop, they will kill everyone on the island. Shinpei is the only one who can stop them and every time he dies, he starts over a little later in the loop, meaning he’s got a finite number of tries.
That’s right folks, this is a supernatural time-bending action/suspense monster mystery thriller! It is insane that literally zero promotional materials even hint at this! It’s not like a switcheroo gotcha reveal, it’s CHAPTER ONE!
STR is a rare example of a story template that makes me hoot to see because they are so often not pulled off correctly. Namely: set up an extremely intricate series of rules for the supernatural element. Explore literally every creative edge case that could conceivably be possible while still following these established rules. Meanwhile, actually tell an interesting story with characters I care about. STR does all three!
I cannot overpraise how well the rules of the world are set up and played with. We learn the mechanics of both the time-loop ability and the nature of the Shadows (the antagonistic species of killer monsters infiltrating the island) at the same time our boy Shinpei does. Every time some new insane shit happens, both he and the reader need to stop and think about what that means and what it allows our heroes to accomplish (or how the Shadows will use it to fuck them). And god is it satisfying to see the characters just run down the list and check off every single fun way to do wild shit with this supernatural toybox. Shinpei is in many ways a standard “smart guy” manga protagonist, but he earns it by actually experimenting and thinking up novel ways to manipulate the rules of the world. So many series with powers/magic don’t explore their full utility and leave you wondering “well why didn’t they just do [x]?” In STR they do [x].
It also does some big brain sicko moves, and just puts the good part in the show. My favorite example involves how it deals with the problem of character development in time-loop stories. Usually you just can’t have any for most of the cast. Only the protagonist can grow as a character since everyone else resets to default when the loop resets. At first it seems like this is how STR will do it, and we see Shinpei struggle with how to re-convince people about what’s happening, what he knows, why they should trust him, etc, and it’s compelling and fun, but also makes you dread how he’s going to have to repeat this process with increasing complexity every loop. Then some plot contrivance happens where he is basically able to upload The Plot So Far into his homies’ heads as soon as he meets them again. So smart! It lets the characters grow along with him and get involved in the anti-Shadow action in a significant way, while also not minimizing Shinpei’s centrality in the plot overall.
It’s not perfect—the final stretch adds a lot of goofy new rules in too short a stretch—but overall the series pulls it off, earning its wonderful ending over 139 agonizingly suspenseful chapters. I couldn’t get enough and highly recommend it. Apparently it’s getting an anime adaptation, which could either be extremely great or get 12 episodes that only adapt the very beginning and never get a season 2. Oh well.
I will say though, if there’s one thing about STR I truly hate, it’s the old nemesis of all non-pervert manga enjoyers: The Catgirl on the Ice. I regret to inform you that all but one of STR’s female main characters are shown totally nude for no reason at least once. It’s infuriatingly gratuitous. You could literally draw clothes over them in all the nudity panels and nothing would change! Even paper-thin plot justifications like “they went to the hot springs” would be less insulting. There is one scene where Character A wants to talk with Character B, so she goes into the room Character B is in, they calmly greet each other, have a solemn conversation, reach a mature understanding, and then Character A leaves. You would think this scene would offer no chances for nudity. Well folks, the room Character B is in is the damn bathroom where she is fully nude and showering. Pure trash. Get rid of it. At least the gratuitousness means the story proper doesn’t get poisoned by this perv shit but it’s still extremely gross and something to be wary of. If you don’t think you can mentally edit it out, maybe give STR a pass, as good as it is.
Overall though, I can’t thank Casey enough for getting me to look into Summer Time Rendering. I can safely say that without his recommendation I would never have given it even a glance. Hopefully some of you give it a try too.
JOE’S PICKO: Having Two Guns
When I was a kid, I remember using GameShark to give me all the guns in Goldeneye. This was a stupid amount of guns. If you swapped through your inventory fast enough, the dual wielding got fucked up and you could make Bond have four arms and two laser watches.
I now have the mental clarity afforded to me by my Sicko Mindset. I was dumb for thinking this was fun because the correct number of guns you should be able to hold in a game is, and has always been, two (2).
A few months ago, I was really enjoying Gunfire Reborn (roguelike with Borderlands-esque FPS combat but no fucking jokes) and guess what: that shit only lets you hold two guns. Anything more is clunky and annoying. Enter the Gungeon is fun but even with gun wheel slowdown during combat, it feels awkward and ruins the flow. Using number keys to switch quickly is fine until you are juggling 4+ options. If I am using WASD to maneuver around a bullet hell I’m going to die if my life depends on pressing 5 with perfect timing and accuracy.
With two guns, you have two beautiful options:
1. keep shooting the gun you're holding
2. switch to the other gun and shoot
Skul: The Hero Slayer takes this 2 gun formula and does something really smart: it turns the guns into skulls. And when you switch skulls you turn into a different skeleton. And every skull has a special attack that is activated upon switching.
Now the problem is I can't go back: when I change guns in Gunfire Reborn, does a skeletal wizard perform a nova attack each time? No. It's boring as shit. No matter what game I'm playing, I should do free AoE dmg whenever I switch weapons. The correct number of weapons is 2.
Here’s the other thing about Skul: the bones are their money.
There’s some really good video game text in this game. Textboxes say shit like “This Skull always has the skill, Hook Throw. Defeated enemies have a chance of dropping Meat Chunks” or “pressing Up A will perform a switcheroo.”
Before Skul left early access on 12/21, there was a werewolf skull that was really disappointing. I had to break the news to Guesto and werewolf scientist Angela Quinton (@aquinton) about the betrayal of making a playable werewolf suck shit. Well good news on that front: the werewolf doesn’t suck anymore and you can spend bone fragments (again: the bones are their money) to upgrade into an Elder Werewolf that honestly does the same shit but with better numbies.
Skul is available on Steam and coming out on Switch, PS4, and Xbone in “early 2021.”
Anime Fashion Corner
It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, but lately I’ve been reading Jojolion, the eighth part of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, and I’m inspired. Before we get to the fashion, I just gotta say that everyone who spoke so highly of this part is completely correct. We talked on the show about how JJBA’s plots are barely there and are just flimsy excuses to have a new, weird guy show up. Well turns out in parts 7 and 8, where he’s allowed to have a month between chapters, the stories actually are really good? And important? And structured like a story? It’s wild shit.
Part 8 used to not sound appealing because it didn’t have a snappy hook like the other JJBA parts where you can sum up the plot in a sentence. Turns out I’m a dumbass and having the entire plot revolve around slowly unraveling a weird supernatural conspiracy bit by bit is great. But that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about Damo Tamaki.
Tamaki is a prime example of “Araki thought of a guy.” Well, not even “thought of,” since he is just Christian Bale’s character from American Hustle.
Obviously Araki saw the movie and was blown away by this look. The glasses...da stache...the combover...how could he resist after having his world rocked by the cinema classic American Hustle, a movie I remember literally nothing about except that Amy Adams never wore a bra in it.
Tamaki’s look simply owns. He enters the scene when the oldest daughter of the main family of supporting characters announces she’s bringing a boyfriend home for the first time. The daughter, Hato, exclusively wears a big onesie, and everyone is excited to meet her BF and hopes he’s handsome. Then this mf shows up and I hoot.
He frequently has his combover, in which his hair looks like nothing so much as big noodles, just flop over and Hato has to put it back into place. The entire hair/glasses/mustache situation is incredible. Tamaki wears an extremely good maroon jacket with an enormous plaid 70s collar. Down the sleeves are white stripes studded with a vertical row of weird nubbins. Overall the look is astounding.
Where this goes from an interesting and unique design to Sicko Genius Mode is that Damo Tamaki is not only a villain, but possibly the scariest Jojo’s villain who isn’t also The Big Bad. Most of the mid-story stand users seem strong at first but turns out they’re goofballs, and you never get a sense of suffocating dread or overwhelming domination from their powers. Tamaki’s stand absolutely demolishes all opposition before the heroes even realize what’s going on, allowing him to torture them calmly and viciously without resistance for chapters at a time. His whole run had me shaking, it was so tense and legitimately terrifying.
Now you may be wondering why in this fashion corner I have only used images of Damo Tamaki from the neck up. If I’m supposed to be critiquing his fashion shouldn’t I show a full body shot? Well folks I’m what you call a “master storyteller” and I needed you to fully understand this character and the dark, threatening presence he casts over the story. The way he breaks the Jojo villain mold and becomes more than just “the next fight,” but a nightmarish body-horror tormentor who could easily kill half the main cast. Because once you understand that, you can appreciate this:
Folks, Tamaki has a fucking gigantic green saxophone pin on his chest the entire time