The Best Stuff from Not-2022

I am once again going to be a time cop and remind everyone that 'best of 2022' lists made while 2022 has yet to be fully experienced are invalid and possibly illegal. You will get my list tomorrow; for today, these are the best things I came across this year that weren't themselves published in 2022.

(You may be asking: 'you horrible bimbo, what if you ~come across~ something even better between now and New Years?' I simply will not. I will shut off my brain and consume only trash unless a sequel to Bloodborne is released in the next few hours.)

The best book I happened to read this year: The Terrorists by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (1975)

Over the past few years I read through the entire Martin Beck series. You should too; The Terrorists is an excellent thriller in its own right, but what makes it truly great is its place as the final episode in a much longer story, during which the characters (and, perhaps, the authors as well) find themselves increasingly disillusioned with the notion of police as anything but the violent arm of capital. The Terrorists may feel a bit heavy-handed in 2022, but it is not a polemic: its focus is on the individual characters, and how they navigate the social and political changes of the late 20th century.

Last year: Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor (2017)

Runners-up

Kindred by Octavia Butler (1979) – I'm picky about time travel stories, likely due to the trauma of six years in metaphysics-heavy philosophy departments. It's fortunate for me, then, that on top of being a remarkable work on the crushing history of slavery, Kindred is also one of the few stories I know of that takes the mechanics of time travel seriously without getting bogged down in the details. I realize I have my priorities all wrong. I'm working on it.

Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn (2016) – I'm lazy so I'll just refer back to what I wrote about this book last month.

Best show/series I happened to watch this year: Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011)

There are many works that have taken mainstream shoujo tropes and torn them apart in order to analyze what they say about us, both good and ill; Madoka is perhaps the best of them. Which means that yes, I'm saying that Madoka is better than Utena. It may not be an entirely fair comparison, since Utena is 15 years older and shows its age: the show spends a great deal of time addressing sexist tropes that are not nearly as pervasive as they were then. In a sense, Utena was so successful as to make itself irrelevant. But be that as it may, I'll argue that Madoka is still, beat for beat, a more powerful series, packing more brilliance into its 12 episodes than Utena did in 39. It's simply one of the (if not the) best anime of the 21st century; and together with the essential Rebellion feature film sequel (see below), it's one of the best (and gayest) stories in recent memory.

Last year: Forbrydelsen (2007–2012)

Runners-up

• Paranoia Agent (2004) – It's incredible that Satoshi Kon's only anime series (and one that by his own admission began as an attempt to cobble together ideas that couldn't fit into his three previous feature films) is one of his strongest works. It's not merely an examination of how consensus reality is constructed in a society, but how that society affects what we want to see, and what we want to escape from.

• Nichijou: My Ordinary Life (2011) – Nichijou is, quite simply, the funniest show ever made.

The best film I happened to see this year: Persona (1966)

Where do you even start with one of the films of all time? There's so much going on in Persona that it seems impossible to analyze it in its entirely. To quote my favorite sentence from Wikipedia, we've got 'issues related to filmmaking, vampirism, homosexuality, motherhood, abortion, and other subjects.' And other subjects. So while nothing I say now will have much depth to it, I'm certainly going to be watching it again, and again.

Last year: Parasite (2019)

Runners-up

• Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: Rebellion (2013) – Fellas is it gay to rewrite the fabric of reality so you can finally go on a date with your girlfriend?

• Perfect Blue (1997) – In Which I Learn That Darren Aronofsky is a Hack.

• The Lighthouse (2019) – Homoeroticism? In my retelling of Greek myth? It's more likely than you think. And your goddamn farts.

The best game I happened to play this year: Bloodborne (2015)

I'm not sure what's left to say that I haven't said already about this game. It changed my brain chemistry. It made my tits bigger. It got me fully Soulspilled and ruined me for every other Souls game at the same time. It also ruined me for marriage. Remind me to finish my BL4 run next year.

Last year: Detention (2017)

Runners-up

• NaissanceE (2014) – Is this one of the best games ever, or one of the most annoying first-person platformers to exist? Why Not Both.

The best album I happened to hear this year: IBM 1401, A User's Manual by Jóhann Jóhannsson (2006)

I've owned (and failed to fully appreciate) Fordlandia for years now, but it wasn't until I watched Sicario and learned that Jóhannsson scored it that I went back and gave it a proper listen (and then left it on repeat for weeks). And it wasn't until this year that I branched out further into Jóhannsson's body of work. Of what I found, 1401 moved me the most. (Unsurprisingly; a hauntingly beautiful series of pieces inspired by an old mainframe is basically designed to appeal to a degenerate computer toucher like me, after all.)

Last year: Rossz Csillag Alatt Született by Venetian Snares (2005)

Special award for the horniest song I happened to hear this year: 'Raingurl' by Yaeji

sheesh