An interesting discussion at the end of the year is always “What was your favourite….?”. It can be exciting to see what people say their favourite, game, film or song from the year was. And that’s what I’ll be doing here.
(This is all my opinion.)
As always, the only rule is that I must have seen it for the first time this year. It could have come out in 1998 but as long as I saw it for the first time this year, it counts.
So, let’s just jump right into it.
Favourite Song:
There was a lot of good music that I discovered this year. Boys will be Bugs by Cavetown, Streets of London by Ralph McTell. Nonfiction by Liella. Dragon Raiders by CYaRon! Monster Girls by R3BIRTH. Don’t Shut Me Down by ABBA.
But even with all the good music, it wasn’t a hard choice.
My song for the year is without a doubt Hyacinth (ヒヤシンス) by 22/7. My history with 22/7 is strange. I’ve spoken about my thoughts on the subpar anime, and personally, I think a lot of their songs are between ‘meh’ and ‘average’. But then Hyacinth came out.
For some reason, 22/7 do this weird Sprechgesang (Spoken Singing or Sung Speech) in a lot of their songs. I’m not too keen on it, mainly because it feels so out of place and shoved in just because it can be. It serves no purpose.
But Hyacinth is a song filled with it. Literally covered throughout.
And what did I think?
This song is unbelievably good.
It’s insane how good it is.
I’d describe Hyacinth as being the perfect end credits song, which is a compliment. To give it that title means it stands beside Memories by Maki Otsuki, and Bokutachi wa Hitotsu no Hikari by μ’s (The final song from Love Live! The School Idol Movie).
Imagine, if you will.
You are watching a slice-of-life romance film that puts the main character through a depressing hell. There are many twists and turns and you start to think that maybe it won’t be a happy ending after all. You worry the main character won’t end with happiness, but then, he does. By the time the film is over, the main character has his happy ending, you have your happy ending. You feel immense satisfaction as you shared tears and laughter with the main character. And then, Hyacinth plays. The perfect song to end it.
It’s like it speaks: “it’s over, we can finally rest.”
The perfect song.
Of course, I don’t speak Japanese and have no clue what the lyrics are about. But music transcends language, and those are the feelings I get from this song.
22/7 seem to be having problems. A lot of members are leaving and it feels like the people behind the scenes aren’t sure how to stand out in such a competitive industry. (Personally, I think they aren’t using the characters enough, people are always talking about the characters in Love Live alongside the Seiyuu). But even with all the issues, and if 22/7 do split, I’ll never forget Hyacinth. (They also have more good songs than just Hyacinth, it’s just Hyacinth is incredible.). Plus I disagree with how one of the members leaving was handled. To cut a long story short, this member wanted to leave due to anxiety reasons, and because of this didn’t show up to rehearsals and even ignored phone calls. Whilst what she did was obviously wrong, to call her out for it and publicly reveal the reason felt more as if it was an attempt at humiliation than anything. I’m pretty sure 22/7 knows that it’s in trouble. The higher-ups know Sally is their most valuable member and without her 22/7 will lose a large overseas fanbase.
Anyway, moving on!
Favourite Film:
This was difficult because there were so few films that I saw. I probably could write the new Spider-Man film, but that’s not out yet, so I’m not allowing it. But the film I’ll say is a Marvel film.
Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings. I’ve already spoken about it in a review on my blog that you can find here. So I won’t go into it anymore. But, if I was to cheat, I’d say my favourite film this year would be Pirates of the Caribbean as I always watch them all at least once a year.
Favourite Game:
Two games are fighting out for this number one position. The first one is Hollow Knight (Which I played over on my Twitch and uploaded to YouTube) and the other is The Binding of Isaac: Repentance. Now whilst Repentance is a DLC, it deserves this fight because it’s that good. I used to be addicted to The Binding of Isaac but stopped for ages. It was Repentance that got me back into it again, and I haven’t been able to stop playing since. As for Hollow Knight. The game is a blast. It’s insanely fun and creative. It has an amazing soundtrack that easily is my soundtrack of the year. It’s a game I can easily remember so much of because of how unique it was. The environments, music. and characters stick out in my mind several months after finishing it. It’s a game I recommend to anyone.
And that’s why it deserves my Game of the Year.
But since Repentance is DLC, I’ll be giving that my DLC of the year award.
Favourite Anime:
There wasn’t a lot of stand-out anime this year. My anime experience was a bit slow. There wasn’t much that I watched due to lack of time. Some honourable mentions are:
Dragon Maid S.
Demon Slayer Movie.
Slime Diaries.
That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 2.
Love Live SuperStars.
But that’s about it. Not much else stood out to me.
Until this month when Jojo’s Bizarre adventures Part 6: Stone Ocean launched.
Now, I’ve read the manga, so I knew what to expect. I knew what was going to happen and all that, but even then, something about it captured me. I binged watched it as quickly as I could. I know it gets a lot of hate because its story is the most bizarre one yet. But I greatly enjoyed the manga and also enjoyed the anime far more than I thought.
Favourite Manga:
As always, I read a lot of Manga. So here are some honourable mentions this year. (not all of these have finished publication.)
Tokyo Revengers. Dandadan, and Blue Box.
But for me, it would be Haikyuu!!
I finally got around to reading it and it only took me 12 days. That may be long for some, but for me that’s short. It was as good as people say it was. ALTHOUGH, and this is a BIG ALTHOUGH. I dislike the ending. It would have been a 10 had it not ended the way it did. I won’t spoil it but let’s just say I didn’t like everything after a certain major point. I’m sure some of you know what I’m talking about.
Favourite TV Show:
I didn’t watch a lot of TV. There was the usual, TaskMaster Season and Brooklyn Nine-Nine final season but that’s mainly it. But if we include Netflix originals. Then I think I speak for a lot of people when I say Squid Game. I don’t need to explain this one. I think most people who have seen it know why.
Favourite blog post:
I have a few favourite posts on this blog. I enjoy the discussion about anxiety and mental health. But my personal favourites might be ‘The Screaming Political Void’ or ‘Unknown Effect’
Favourite book:
I don’t read books. Who do you take me for? But what I do read are my own books. So for this final category. I’d like to rate the books I’ve written this year.
This list is in order from my favourite to my least favourite.
Alterum 1
Oscar Pat 4
One’s Confined Life
Oscar Pat 3
Years of Hesitancy
Alterum 2
Oscar Pat 2
This Meddling World (Rewrite)
The Hunting Trio
An Aspect of Hope
The above list doesn’t mean they are bad. The only one I would call ‘below average’ is An Aspect of Hope. We just have to rank things to progress. If you want to judge for yourself if my list was right or wrong, then you can check out the novels page on this blog for more information.
Alright!
I think that’s all!
Thanks for reading!
2021 has been a good year for a lot of things. And 2022 should be just as good if not better. I’ll talk more about my predictions for 2022 in the next post, so be sure to follow for that.
Let me know your favourite game, film, tv show or whatever in the comments. Or if I missed any category be sure to ask.
As always my links are down below, and once again, thank you for reading.
My links: https://linktr.ee/FabledByte
My Books: https://linktr.ee/owenpichelskibooks
Arbitrary Echo: https://linktr.ee/ArbitraryEcho
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