Deadman Wonderland and Absurdity -- A Manga Retrospective (SPOILERS!)

 

Framed for the brutal murder of his classmates, fourteen-year-old Ganta Igarashi is sentenced to death, and locked away in the notorious, privately-owned prison Deadman Wonderland to live out that sentence -- a hellish, warped theme park where inmates must compete in gladiator battles or die agonizing deaths for public entertainment...

Not to mention that some inmates -- "Deadmen," as it's put -- somehow have the power to control their blood... 

Initially, I didn't intend to write about this series. I started re-reading it this month, because when I originally read it, it was over the course of two years as I waited for a volume to come out every other month. I also didn't revisit the earlier volumes as I continued, and as always, my memory of the early story got fuzzy by the time I'd completed my collection.

I went at it in one go this time, and it was a really fun experience to get to see the story again with a new lens, both of maturity and, well, getting to consume it all back-to-back, which I'd argue is how stories should be read. 

But I wasn't taking notes until the last volume... so I guess I'll have to wing it. 

As noted above, the premise of the series is honestly quite absurd. Essentially, Deadman Wonderland is a privately owned prison that sprung up in Japan after the story's scenario of "The Great Tokyo Earthquake," which sunk nearly half of the nation's metropolitan Kanto region. It's presented as a tourist attraction; where death row inmates are forced to compete in tournaments and games that frequently claim their lives.

The protagonist, Ganta, discovers that he has a power called "Branch of Sin," in which if he's injured and starts to bleed, he can manipulate his blood as a weapon. Some Deadmen (as Branch of Sin users are called) can manipulate their blood like whips, or like scythe blades, but Ganta shoots it like a projectile, leading to anemia -- which inhibits his performance in "Carnival Corpse," a televised 1 v 1 between Deadmen in G ward, the maximum security branch of DW where the Deadmen are held. 

This little post isn't about summarizing the events of the series, though... I want to more so talk about some of the story's elements, themes, motifs and ideas.

It's clear that a theme in the story is captivity. The Deadmen are given stage names, all of which are the names of birds; the demented Minatsuki Takami is "Hummingbird," the mysterious, Branch of Sin copying Toto Sakigami that haunts the underbelly of the prison is "Mockingbird," (who would have thought?), and the badass ex-cop Senji Kiyomasa is "Crow." 

Ganta Igarashi himself is known as "Woodpecker," which is in direct reference to a lullaby sung by his mother. It's a song his albino, childhood friend Shiro, knows quite well;

One mischievous little woodpecker
Another day, pecking your holes
Ruining the woods, tree wrecker
The angry old forest god turned your poor beak into a poison knife
Poor little woodpecker
Your nesting holes are all tainted, your food with toxins rife
Touch your friends, and they all will die falling at your feet
Oh, sad little woodpecker
Poisonous tears, shining brightly, as they stream down your cheeks

The lullaby, initially, seems to be all about Ganta; the attitude people have toward him as the supposed man who massacred his middle school class (yikes!) is that of hatred and disgust, and as he's Woodpecker, the lyrics another day, pecking your holes, ruining the woods, tree wrecker and touch your friends, and they all will die falling at your feet are not exactly veiled allusions to this attitude people project onto him. 

But in time, we see that the song has a second meaning -- Shiro, the girl he was reunited with in DW, is actually the second subject of the song. She's not given a bird moniker, mainly because she's not presented as a Deadman at first -- but by volume two, the audience would already know that she's The Wretched Egg, or as Ganta would say, "The Red Man," who is the person who killed Ganta's classmates in the first place. Early in the series, it looks like she has multiple personality disorder, and thus compartmentalizes her Wretched Egg persona when exposed to "The Mother Goose System's" constant echoing of the woodpecker lullaby. 

We see several themes tying in together and playing off each other when this is revealed. (I'll circle back to the bird names, I promise.) First of all, Deadman Wonderland makes full use of its medium as a manga (or comic, in a broad sense) to showcase very graphic, ridiculous action violence. People are dismembered and decapitated. Stabbed, shot, exploded, tortured -- forced to undergo unnecessary surgery, crucified, burned alive -- one character even shoves their hand up into the neck of a severed head, forces their fingers through the upper jaw, and uses the head as a sock puppet. Deadman Wonderland certainly isn't the most violent of manga, but it's still very vivid. And it's completely absurd. 

But that exact idea -- the absurdity of the prison's mechanics as a tourist trap, the meaninglessness in all this gratuitous violence -- is actually a fleshed out theme in the narrative.

Absurdity is one step from meaninglessness. When we reach the final volume, as Ganta and Shiro are fighting, we see the hopeless mundanity in both of their lives; the difference, is that Ganta took pleasure in the average-ness of his life, and therefore found a reason to live. As Shiro was nothing but a prisoner, she could not. So she found a different purpose;

Shiro reveals her reason to live was to die by Ganta's hand -- Ganta was originally going to be a guinea pig in inhumane, cruel human experimentation, but his mother couldn't go through with it and adopted Shiro for that purpose instead. But Shiro was also a close friend to Ganta when they were tiny children, both living on the Tokyo Medical Center campus (where scientists and doctors would take her away for their tests daily).

Out of a mix of hatred, jealousy, and even love-starved longing, Shiro returned to Ganta in their teen years and kicked off the story in the first place. 

This raises a question -- what is it someone chooses to live for? 

Idaki Hitara, one of the Deadmen, is teaching a class at the end of the story. In his lecture, he expounds upon the idea of absurdism, and applies a meaning to life in pushing past that absurdity -- "To stare irrationality in the face and resist." 

Shiro only wanted to be happy. But she didn't believe she'd ever obtain it. She was a bird in a cage; a woodpecker, pecking her holes into trees, incapable of leaving the prison born from her actions (as the Great Tokyo Earthquake happened because she was told using her powers -- powers she gained by countless experiments -- would kill her. So she tried to commit suicide by using everything she had, and sunk a fifth of Japan in the process). 

In the face of this meaninglessness, she found a new reason to live. And by the end of the story, it has changed once more. She might have hated Ganta for forgetting her, but she loves him too.

The concept of captivity and birds is not an uncommon theme in literature. Birds often symbolize freedom, simply because they can fly. Man has always looked up at the sky and yearned for the wings of a bird, and trapping that bird in a cage takes the creature's one ubiquitous trait and locks it away. Playing with the idea of absurdity --> meaninglessness/captivity --> forging a meaning to live/breaking out of that captivity, Deadman Wonderland has satisfying thematic catharsis. 

I wouldn't go so far to say Deadman Wonderland is brilliant, though. It has a solid story with a great utilization of its traits and limitations as a manga, lovely art, and likable characters. But I wouldn't say it's got exceptional dialogue, groundbreaking ideas, or noteworthy conflict. There's also a lot of unconvincing plot developments, but the simple fact that they border on absurd (like the original warden Tamaki somehow convincing the public that live slaughter was special effects, or the fact that a place like Deadman Wonderland was even constructed in the first place) is honestly excusable when understood that they play into the story's theme of absurdity anyway. 

(It's also just good practice just to suspend your disbelief anyway when reading something like an action comic).

So that's not to say it's not worth reading. I certainly don't regret purchasing or re-reading this manga, and if you like the idea of meaning deliberately applied to meaningless violence (which might be a somewhat groundbreaking idea, if I think on it now), then I do suggest it. Ganta and Shiro aren't original characters, but they're enjoyable characters, which is all that matters. Not to mention how gorgeous English releases are!

If only English manga had dust jackets...

---

WOW! This was a lot of fun to write. I haven't written something like this in a long time, and I expected to roll this out in January, but I couldn't wait. I'm very proud of it, and I hope it was an enjoyable read. 

I can't wait to write about other titles like Fullmetal Alchemist and Attack on Titan. If Berserk and Hunter x Hunter ever end in my lifetime (lmao), you can bet I'd be writing about them too.

 

Have a good New Year! 

--

The Great Manga Retrospective is Coming (And Other WRITING ANOUNCEMENTS)

 

Howdy! 

As we know, this year is wrapping up. 

Thank god. 

I'm not expecting next year to be any better, but that's neither here nor there -- instead, the topic of this post pertains to my typical Yearly Media essays. Yes, there will be one for the media I consumed in 2020, but instead of splitting it into three parts, I'm gonna write one big-long thing about all of it, mostly covering the best and worst. I'll even talk about some of the stuff I read as research for my next manuscript! 

Which leads me to my other point; next year, I will be writing several "retrospectives" about several manga and manga series (I may expand this idea to other media). In January, I'm gonna start work on my next manuscript. Given that I want the book to be the best it can be, and it will end the first half of a two-part trilogy series I'm working on, it's involved a lot of forethought and will be an extensive project. I obviously will continue to read novels and non-fiction in 2021, but at the beginning of the year I'm mostly going to be reading manga, because that stuff is much easier to digest than prose media and I'll be busy writing a very long book. 

I have a ton of first volumes, continuing series, and stand-alones I'm gonna try to get through to make posts about. I'm planning on making a post about... pretty much most of the manga I've picked up in the past few weeks, and I have a TON on the way to continue the trend. 

There will be two portions to this blog project: 

1. I'll make a post about a single volume, and go over my impressions of it. 

2. I'll write a series retrospective, that covers the entirety of the story. I have a list of manga I want to do this for, which includes but is not limited to--

- Fullmetal Alchemist, by Hiromu Arakawa

- Livingstone, by Jinsei Kataoka and Tomohiro Maekawa

- Attack on Titan, by Hajime Isayama, as it will be ending soon 

- All You Need is Kill, by Ryousuke Takeuchi, Hiroshi Sakurazaka, and artist of Death Note, Takeshi Obata.

- Parasyte, by Hitoshi Iwaaki

- I haven't yet decided, but I may also cover Deadman Wonderland, by Jinsei Kataoka and Kazuma Kondou.

Among others.

I hope this critical writing will exercise my brain juice and hold me over as I create a story of my own. I look forward to the new year!

I Fucking Hate Facebook

 

 

 

 

And you should too! 

In all the time I've spent online, the conclusion I've come to from social media is that the wide majority of people are flippantly stupid, and Facebook showcases that more than I can possibly describe. 

From my elementary school teachers being terribly uninformed, echo-chamber social commentary, complete unadulterated misinformation, even awful Minions memes, Facebook made me angry day in and day out. 

Get rid of it. 

 --

(New post about the media I consumed in 2020 coming soon!) 

An Artist Needs it All

 

Inspiration can come from anything.

One thing I learned when I started writing was that I needed things to write about. It sounds like a joke, but it's true. When you begin down the path of this spiraling circle to hell hobby, you quickly realize that you can hit corners during the process of writing where you think, "Wait... how does this actually work?" That can be about something as simple as a doorknob to as complex as the intricacies of first world politics. 

But I digress. This is probably common sense. 

Yes, you have to know about things. Research, when writing nearly anything, is very very necessary. Just recently I had to do a quick look at what math is taught in 8th grade for my current manuscript (you expect me to remember?!), and for months now I've been reading a lot of philosophy, history, and ancient myth for my next project. Research encompasses all of that. 

But research is about learning the nuances of base ideas and how to deconstruct them. Let's say you want to write a war novel. Think -- well, how did World War I start? Research it, take it apart, learn why all of its base elements came to be, and use your creative brain to piece it all back together. That enriches your writing, and lends it credibility. 

However, I don't intend to expand upon that exact idea right now, because it's but one part of a greater whole. What I'm here to talk about today is what I call, The Duty of the Artist. 

Let's say you watch a movie. That movie, in your opinion, ends up being pretty bad. 

Why? 

Well, you may think, I don't like the protagonist. 

Why? 

They did morally reprehensible things, you think. I don't think that makes for a very relatable character. 

Nice! You've discovered that you value relatable protagonists.

The Duty of the Artist, fundamentally, constantly goes back to asking "why." It's an employment of critical thinking when engaging with a creative work. There's no objective good or bad, but certain elements of something will appeal to you, and likewise, other things will not. When you ask yourself why, you can start to construct things with greater depth. 

Here's an example: 

-------

I don't like Brandon Sanderson's fantasy novels. I, however, do like Tolkien's. 

Why? 

Hmm... Sanderson's novels have long-winded explanations of their magic systems, and then expect me to remember the rules of such as I was reading. I didn't like that. 

Why? 

Well... I suppose it makes the world a bit mechanical, doesn't it? Isn't is supposed to be fantasy? 

Very good. Well, why do you like Tolkien more? 

I would say... because his magic is woven into the world naturally. There are no named spells, and we don't know how it works... it just 'is.' That appeals to me more. 

Why?

At this point, you may discover that you value escapism more than realism.* You can now factor this idea into your own work by writing a story that presents more escapist ideas rather than systems of logic that would keep it grounded.

-------

Just a quick disclaimer: This is not my opinion, as I love both Sanderson and Tolkien's work -- but it is a clear employment of "The Duty of the Artist" -- someone is taking a critical look at what they've consumed, why it does or doesn't appeal to them, and what that means for creating their own media.

It's my personal belief that no one has the right to tell you not to enjoy a piece of media, and you don't have to explain what it is about it that appeals to you. Secondly, if you are in it just to be entertained, then you have every right to skip things you dislike and only go for what you think is worth your time. However, if you create (or intend to create) art and other media yourself, the things you enjoy (and don't enjoy) will have an affect on what you make whether you like it or not. 

Which leads me to my main point: Consume other kinds of art! 

If you're a painter, don't just look at paintings. If you're a writer, don't just read books. If you're a musician, don't just listen to music. Do it all. It's your duty, as an artist, to make the best work you can make. Staying boxed up in one medium will only do you a disservice, because ideas are stitched into the very fabric of our reality -- and that means they're hiding everywhere. 

The bank across the street has columns of a certain shape. Why? Egyptian Revivalism. Maybe the idea of an architect taking inspiration from the buildings of a civilization thousands of years before they were even born can set the groundwork for your next book? Maybe the way Hirohiko Araki draws his characters in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure inspires the look of your next painting, or even the sound of your next song. Maybe you like the punk-rock droll of Curt Kobain's voice, the hilarious hi-jinks of Fred and George Weasley, and the strange surrealism of the 1931 painting, The Persistence of Memory. From those things, you put together Kurby and Toby, a pair of jokester brothers that distort time itself with their garage-rocker music. How would you have had that idea without listening to Nirvana, reading Harry Potter, or admiring the works of Salvador Dali? 

But more so than it's your duty as an artist to make the best work you can make, it's the Duty of the Artist to entertain yourself. Life isn't all hard work. Sometimes you find that one piece of art that really speaks to you. I'm a writer of novels and prose fiction, but my favorite work of art is a Japanese manga. You may love books, but the piece of art that really speaks to you could be a piece of classical music. You may love video games, but the piece of art that really speaks to you could be a stage performance.

And if you hadn't given it a shot, you'd have never known you'd like it. 

 

--

Thanks for reading!!!

Where Have I Been?

Hey Blog! Long time no post. 

You can probably guess why. 

In mid March, when the precautions for the pandemic took full effect in my country (The USA of course), I lost my day job, and went on unemployment. Currently I'm working my summer job under a lot of heavy guidelines, which is hell a conversation for another day. 

But why haven't I posted? Surely I have time, right? 

I do. But, I've been spending it on writing -- and reading. However, I plan to come back, and write a bit more before the summer fully ends. Partly because I can't neglect this, partly because this country is collapsing and I need something to do. 

So, let's answer a few questions.

Q1. Have I gotten published yet?

A: No. Next question.

---

Q2. Will the Dungeons and Dragons blog ever get an update???

A: I hope so. I have most of our adventures written down, but the game petered out because it moved to an online environment -- prematurely, I might add, at my own fault -- which is extremely unfun and stressful for me. Yes, the DM has to have fun too. I'm sorry I couldn't give a proper conclusion to the story, or even finish most of the site -- but sometimes life doesn't work out perfectly. However, I definitely plan on adding new things to the D&D blog in the future. 

---

Q3. So you started a LEGO Instagram?

A: Yes! I'm using it to show off my hobby, sure, but it's damn good at gaining me a following too; 

Here it is if you want to check it out; 

And here's some pictures: 

That's Guts, Casca, and Griffith from the manga (and anime) Berserk --

Kaz Brekker in minifig form for his Six of Crows glowup --

And LEGO Sansa Stark in a diorama of her building Winterfell out of snow.

---

Q4. Will you ever do another Media Update? 

A: Yes! I will write one up this December, or January of 2021. I chose not to do it in thirds this year because it felt like I was reading in a deadline, and my book stack is gnarly so I wanted to subconsciously read feeling like I had 12 months instead of 4. Here's a look at the stack (not up to date). 

(I'm already two books into the Hungry Cities series!)

And that's all I have left to catch you guys up on!

Here's me and a lil puppy:

Just Some Life Pics

This is a personal blog, right?

I dunno, but here we go.

Other than a bunch of geography that can be seen literally anywhere else along the west coast, the Sundial Bridge at Turtle Bay Park is one of the only things my home town has to offer for recreational activities. Well, that, and running from fires. Even in this photo we can see the smoke of one (though this one is a controlled burn).

Despite my cynicism, I still like riding my bike. Exercise is good for the body and the mind, and the Sacramento River has plenty of trails for someone to explore. 

Turtle Bay's namesake, (a little pond along the bike trail) graced my eyes today with the beauty of a bunch of freshwater turtles sitting on a log. They're just chillin' out. I wish I had gotten a clearer picture, but the distance from trail to water is actually quite far.

Just posted this for fun. More of my typical "essay-like" entries are soon to come.

Tri - Yearly Media Update #3 September - December

And here it is! The last one, coming to you straight from (almost) the middle of February of the next year!

I want to take this moment to apologize for that. Stuff likes to get away from me. 

So, without further ado, let's jump right in. 

-- 

Last blog I mentioned that the rate at which I consume media rapidly declines over the course of the year. This has proven true multiple times, as at the time of writing this, I've been ripping through media like there's no tomorrow, but I know come the last third of the year, I won't be consuming so much. I think it's because fall/winter are my writing months, and I get projects done during that time, which leaves me less time for reading and such. We'll see if I can do anything to stabilize that this year.

Novels - 4

Non-Fiction - 1

Magazines - 1 

Poetry -1

Graphic Novels -17

Movies -16

Albums -6

Anime -1

Television - 0


WOW! That is astounding. The numbers there are honestly sad. I'm a little disappointed in myself, but I did write the majority of and finish a manuscript in this time, so I can't say I'm too upset. Consuming art is the first step to making your own, but I can say with confidence that I think I consumed quite a lot of better media than last time.

Novels

Let's start with the not so good;

Cujo has to be my least favorite King book so far. In short terms, it has decent themes and a really good ending; but is bogged down by so much useless filler that it was nigh unbearable. I imagine it's very difficult to stretch out its premise, and part of that seems to say that the premise isn't something that can be stretched so thin. The necessary setup to get two characters trapped in a car with a rabid dog outside is not the 300 pages of boring interpersonal drama that we got. Admittedly, King did write this whole book on cocaine (and claims to not remember even writing it) and I can't say I'm surprised. The pacing is very weird, for one, and there's one or two plot threads that got completely forgotten along the way.

But for all its shortcomings, I do want to stress how well-portrayed the ending is. It's not a book for people who want to see the good in the world; it's a depressing, anxious, unhappy look at the things that unfold when people are unfulfilled and bad things happen alongside that. "We should value what we have more -- before we lose it," is what the novel seems to say. To that, I applaud. I just wish it was more concise.

But I'm happy to say that the other books I read this trimester were amazing!

The Rise of Kyoshi, by F. C. Yee, is a semi-prequel novel to Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender. This novel follows the Avatar two generations before Aang -- an earthbender named Kyoshi (of course). We've seen a little bit of her in the original series, with the the Kyoshi Island warriors that wear her garb, and her role in the history of the village in the episode Avatar Day. I've not read the Avatar comics, but I know she's mentioned there too. She's a fan-favorite with an iconic design, and I have to say, I wasn't let down by the beginning of her story.

It's a fun adventure with darker elements than the original series. There are some interesting narrative choices in the latter half of the book that both open good avenues of storytelling, but also make it seem a little rushed to get to a certain place. That being said, it still captures the world of Avatar and begins a compelling story of a character we know to be stern and confident in her prime, but unsure and just now coming to terms with her power when she learned of her duty. I wholly recommend it to fans of Avatar.

Then we have Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology, which is a novelistic retelling of his favorite Norse myths. I can't vouch for how closely it adheres to the actual tales, but regardless it was an engaging read all the way through. It made something that could be told in textbook-terms something very immersive, and to that I also recommend.

Lastly, that leaves us King's newest book, The Institute.

This book is much different from King's other works. It tells the story of children with psychic abilities, taken by a secret organization and used for... well, you'll have to find out, because this book is bonkers.

Parts of the ending maybe could have been handled better... but it is a meaningful, thrilling story regardless. Despite it's length (maybe that could have been trimmed a little too), it is genuinely compelling and able to garner empathy with a brutal, fictionalized account of some of the things happening in the world today. He made me care about characters as if I knew them, which is what all stories should hope to achieve. I may have railed some of his older books, but I have to say here and now that others of his (It, Misery, On Writing, 11/22/63) I really love. I'm happy to put this one among them.

BEST: The Institute by Stephen King 
WORST: Cujo by Stephen King


Can't always knock it out of the park, but when you do it goes flying.

--

Poetry/Graphic Novels/Magazines/Non-Fiction

The only poetry I read this year was the English poem Beowulf, which tells the tale of a Scandinavian hero of the same name that defeats the monster Grendel, Grendel's mother, and later a dragon. It's a classic tale of heroism that ends in the hero's demise, but has had an affect on literature afterward that can't be ignored.

However, I found the actual story to be rather boring. It's a trope codifier that I appreciate in a sense, but find too dull to get much out of myself. I'm sorry to say that at this point, I don't remember much but the broad details. I wish I had read Tolkien's translation, but unfortunately I did not know about it until it was too late. I suppose I still could seek it out, but I don't know if I'd want to read it again.

For graphic novels, I read up to volume 9 of Demon Slayer, which has gotten a bit better from where it was initially, but still holds out on having the hallmarks of what makes a series truly great. Blue Exorcist dove into the backstory of the protagonist's mother and continues to get better with each volume, I started reading My Hero Academia (and find it just alright, as of volume 10) and once again, Tokyo Ghoul: Re astounds me with its mediocrity.

The only magazine I managed in this time was a National Geographic entry titled Under Jerusalem, the titular article being about how controversial archeological digs are in the region. I found it incredibly interesting -- I hadn't previously thought that uncovering history was a bad thing, but many factors due to the Geo-political climate make it a really touchy issue, so much so that sometimes new digs can spark riots. I'm definitely not covering the issue in whole here, and I recommend doing the reading for yourself. The issue also had an article about disposable plastics, and once again I'm astounded to see the sheer rate at which we're damaging our planet. When it's out of sight, it is truly out of mind...

The one bit of non-fiction I read was James D'Amato's The Ultimate RPG Gameplay Guide, which was actually engaging because of how it engages with the idea of what makes art "art." Art is wholly subjective and made of many parts; cultural, material, emotional, visual, etc. That extends to games as well. Anybody who says video games aren't art *COUGH* has absolutely no idea what they're talking about, and that goes double for table-top roleplaying games like Pathfinder, Warhammer, and Dungeons and Dragons. The passion and skill that goes into running a game like that is the same love that is poured into paintings, writing, and music. It was refreshing to see another person's tips on how to build a world and handle mechanics within the bounds of the game.

--

Albums

Unlike all the other entries, I'll post my list of albums this time.

• Thriller (Michael Jackson)
• Stranger Things Season 1 Full Original Soundtrack (Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein) 
• Bad (Michael Jackson) 
• Ta-Dah (Scissor Sisters) 
• Lungs (Florence and the Machine) 
• Urban Country (Extreme Music) 
• Midcity (Clipping) 
• Civilization I (Kero Kero Bonito) 
• Sound & Fury (Sturgill Simpson) 
• Polar (Rake) 
• Fantasma (Cornelius) 

Not a large selection of music, and it had its ups and downs -- but one of its ups was an independant album by the name of Polar, by a new artist who goes by name Rake.

He's a talented electronic artist and Polar is his debut album. I find his content very special and implore you check it out here at his official website ---> Rake Music

Overall: 

I didn't watch hardly any anime, television, or movies -- and thus have nothing to say about them this time. That being said, I read a better selection of books than last time, and I recommend the best of what I've consumed to anyone who wants to try them.

Let's take the year's numbers, now...

Novels: 25 

Non-Fiction: 9 

Magazines: 5 

Poetry: 3 

Graphic Novels: 153 

Movies: 50 

Albums: 50 

Anime: 41 

Television: 1 


That comes out to...

A whopping 337 pieces of media in 2019! (Also counting December 2018). Graphic Novels are the clear winner, with an astounding 153 entries -- whereas television is but a lowly 1, and I'm not unhappy about that because I don't like TV at all (typically).

Thanks for staying with me this full 12 months! Sorry I took so long to post!

Keep reading!