toribytez | may 2026 progress report

currently listening to: Fantomas - Suspended Animation (2005)
hello, blog! today is pride month 2026. i just got out of a dentist appointment.

gaming...
sometime around the middle of may, i tried out deathsmiles because it was on sale. as per usual for cave games, the graphics and music are superb, but i did chuckle to myself when the true final boss' theme is literally toccata and fugue. i also played the demo version of demon tides in order to celebrate the release of bubsy 4D. from what i've heard, bubsy 4D is a pretty good game, especially for being part of an often-condemned franchise.

tangents aside, throughout the end of may, i revisited a few games, such as hazelnut hex, cavern of dreams, and ufo 50.

watching...
back in the earliest days of may, i finished watching the venture bros, and it became one of my favorite shows ever! i really, really love the monarch trio (the monarch, dr. gf/mrs. the monarch, and gary/henchman #21). i also watched its epilogue movie radiant is the blood of the baboon heart, and it did a great job of resolving a lot of key plot points, except for the bizarre ending.

after that, reboot (1994) suddenly came across my mind (probably because of hexadecimal), so i binge-watched the series, while simultaneously watching metalocalypse. however, i was more invested in reboot, which hindered my metalocalypse binge. i'm still on the second season of metalocalypse. i do love reboot as well, with its computer themes; megabyte and hexadecimal are my favorite characters (esp megabyte, oh megabyte), though they have a freaky and uncomfortable sibling rivalry, esp for a kids show. there's also so much lesbian/bi ship-teasing, super based! then again, it was a canadian show from the 90s, so there's some values dissonance going on.

another movie i watched was bastard!!, a 1992 OVA with heavy metal themes, though the "theming" primarily came from some of the characters and settings referencing heavy metal bands like iron maiden. still i enjoyed it, though i'm still pissed off it didn't have a heavy metal soundtrack or had its story structured like progressive metal or a concept album.

(EDIT: forgot to write about watching the entirety of the amazing digital circus (or what i colloquially call "pomni" because it sounds funnier that way) with some discord friends in order to prep ourselves up for episode 9.)

reading...
during the last few days of may, like the very end of the month, i had the desire to read junko mizuno's pure trance. i only knew about the series of trance CDs (of the same name) beforehand, so i was kinda surprised when i found out it had a manga adaptation. another primary reason why it piqued my interest is because of mike patton's praise for the manga. i'm thinking about buying the book online after i downloaded a .cbz file version of it. gonna have to hide it from my parents tho.

in general...
not much of a common theme for may, aside from metal (as per usual).