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THE
LAMP

The Lamp is where I offer an overhead view of my months. Consider this page closer to a monthly diary than The Corner. This is where I recap more of my month than just the notable pieces.

January 2025

January 2025 has left me feeling baffled in a way that I never could have predicted. Throughout the month I managed to draw daily, start spring semester, and develop Derian’s Media Corner. All three of these activities were, and continue to be, huge time commitments, yet I was able to tank the damage while pushing forward. Not only was I able to make time for it all, but I was also able to experience some of the media on the long lists of “must watch”, “must play”, and “must read”.

January's Quick Media Wrap

  • Mouthwashing: A video game that masters character writing and psychological horror

  • Undead Unluck: The ending to a silly and inspiring series that I’ll be grieving over for weeks to come

  • Vagabond: The first set of chapters to a legendary series 

  • Beserk: The Eclipse.

  • Better Man: The best biopic since Oppenheimer and one of the best musical biopics I’ve seen

  • The Brutalist: A Brady Corbet film centered on architect László Tóth’s time in America

  • The Colors Within: Naoka Yamada’s newest movie centered around a girl who can see the colored auras of those around her

  • Companion: A film full of mechanical surprises and great technical work 

  • Sonic X Shadow Generations: A triumphant return to quality for a franchise I loved as a kid

  • Hajime No Ippo: The first season of a boxing anime that is becoming all I want to spend my time with

  • Balatro: A poker rogue lite that must be lined with every known addictive substance in the universe

  • Beat & Motion: The ending to a slice of life manga series that showed a fair bit of promise

  • Queen’s Quality: The first set of chapters to a series I sadly will not be continuing

  • Castlevania Nocturne: A solid sequel season to an underwhelming debut season

  • Sweet Poolside: A one-shot manga by Shuzo Oshimi covering themes of masculinity, femininity, and gender identity

  • Uncanny: Junji Ito’s self novel focused his life, his works, and how he goes about making the horror mangas he’s become famous for 

  • weird art, mixed media, and unrestricted access to the internet: A one and a half hour long video by a youtuber named “mara” covering the weirdest creations they love

February 2025

February 2025 ended up being a lot more intense than I thought it’d be. During this month I was plastered with work, school, an insane cold front, and illness. These factors definitely interfered with my plans on experiencing more media, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t get to check out some interesting pieces of work. However, my art output and time hanging out with friends did drop in order to make opportunities for the other happenings in my life. Hopefully next month will bring me more freedom with the spring break that I am so desperate to reach

Ferbruary's Quick Media Wrap

  • Super Mario Bros. Wonder: Another installment in the Mario franchise that is filled with whimsy and fun

  • The Road: A Graphic Novel Adaptation: A black and white comic adaption of The Road that creates a captivating atmosphere of grief

  • Blame!: The first two volumes of a highly rated science-fiction manga following the story of Killy as he searches for the net terminal gene in this post-apocalyptic world. 

  • can street art survive modern capitalism: A video essay/documentary presented by youtuber oliSUNvia focused on the history of street art while questioning its future under a society surviving through capitalism

  • Vinland Saga: Deluxe edition 5 and 6 have led me past the anime and into entirely new territory that has been just as touching

  • Ne Zha 2: The chinese animated film that has become the highest grossing animated film of all time

  • We Live in Time: John Crowley’s romantic drama starring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh

  • Gyakkyō Burai Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor: The first season of an anime revolving around Kaiji and his ability to survive through life or death gambling games

  • Bocchi the Rock! Re: 1 & 2: Two recap films covering the first season of my favorite comedy anime

  • The Monkey: An Osgood Perkins horror comedy film adapting Stephen King’s short story 

  • Invincible: Half of the third season of invincible that’s been a big step up from the second season

  • Mass of The Fermenting Dregs: The discography of a japanese band that may entire my all time favorite musical artists list

  • Sakamoto Days: A disappointing anime adaptation of one of my favorite ongoing shounen manga

  • Paddington in Peru: One of the most fun family movies I’ve seen in a long time

  • Hurry Up Tomorrow: The newest studio album by singer-songwriter The Weeknd

  • 12: The 12th installment of Westside Gunn’s most infamous series

  • The Holy Bible: Manic Street Preachers’ third studio album that I’d consider a masterclass within the punk rock genre

March 2025

March 2025 was a cool refresher after the first two somewhat chaotic months of this year. This month featured Spring Break which gave me an opportunity to relax after an intense end to February that led into early March. Of course, most of the free time that I was given was spent hanging out with friends, working with my family, and experiencing new media. I’m still struggling to make time to produce art, but I noticed that my writing and self expression has improved throughout these recent months. I’d hate to jinx myself, but I think doing these monthly reviews will keep encouraging this self improvement as the years go on.

March's Quick Media Wrap

  • Black Bag: Steven Soderbergh’s newest spy thriller centered around the need to discover who is the traitor in the nation’s intelligence agency

  • Dog Man: An animated film that has just as much charm and comedy as the Dav Pilkey’s children’s graphic novels it’s based off

  • Novocaine: An action comedy starring Jack Quaid as Nathan Caine, a man that feels no pain no matter the circumstances he ends up in

  • Mickey 17: Bong Joon Ho’s film adaption of the novel Mickey7 by Edward Ashton

  • The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie: The newest 2d animated film entry to the Looney Tunes franchise 

  • Gurren Lagann: The iconic mecha anime that never stops never stopping

  • Daredevil: Born Again: The follow up series to my favorite television show Daredevil

  • Chromokopia: The World Tour: Tyler the Creator’s current tour after his successful Chromokopia album release

  • Man Without Fear: A comic series centered around a Daredevil that has come to find himself in a situation where he is vulnerable to all his fears after years of being a hero

  • Hairpin Circus: Kiyoshi Nishimura’s 1972 film about a retired racing champion who gets involved with a racing gang to get his guilty pleasure, speed

  • How to find new music in the age of algorithms: One of the most informative YouTube videos I watched this month made by Notes From The Archives

  • The Incel to Trans Pipeline and Inside Mari: ceicocat’s YouTube magnum opus deconstructing Shuzo Oshimi’s Inside Mari and its connection to a handful of trans topics

  • Versus: Mangaka One’s newest series set in a universe where humans are the prey and their enemies are the predators

  • My Dress Up Darling: The finale to a fun romance manga about Marin, an aspiring cosplayer, and Gojo, an aspiring doll maker

  • Indika: A third person adventure-horror where you play as Indika, a nun who struggles with her identity, beliefs, and wants

  • Doki Doki Literature Club!: A visual novel video game that has become an internet cornerstone ever since it was released

  • They Left Me With The Sword: The newest album by the hip hop duo Paris Texas

  • HOT: The final ep to complete Le Sserafim’s EASY, CRAZY, HOT trilogy

April 2025

April 2025 was full of the end-of-semester chaos that it has always brought for the past couple of years. It also held my birthday officially making me 22 years old. As I get older I’ve found that I’ve come to know who I am more, and this month I found some media that really resonated with me. I’d even go as far as to say that some of the things I interacted with have shaped my understanding of the things I enjoy to ponder over.

April's Quick Media Wrap

  • Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance: One of Park Chan-wook’s revenge films that makes you struggle to figure out who the Mr. Vengeance is and if you can give him sympathy

  • OldBoy: Another Park Chan-wook revenge film centered around Dae-su Oh’s path of vengeance against the man who locked him in a hotel room for 15 years

  • Lady Vengeance: Park Chan-wook’s about Lee Geum-ja, a woman who’s been prepping to get revenge against those who wronged her as she’s been in prison for 13 years

  • Chernobyl: HBO’s historical drama depicting the tragic events that occured in Chernobyl in a fictional-nonfictional way

  • Hajime No Ippo: Episodes 29-78 were even more incredible than the initial arcs I watched in January 2025

  • The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn’t a Guy at All: Sumiko Arai’s increasingly popular black, white, and green yuri manga 

  • Mujina into the Deep: Inio Asano’s newest action series about Mujina, people who are outside of Japanese society, and the worth of freedom

  • Warfare: Ray Mendoza’s war film recreating one of the many missions he went on during hit time in Iraq

  • Lazarus: Shinichirō Watanabe’s newest anime made with assistance from John Wick’s director Chad Stahelski

  • YAIBA: Samurai Legend: Wit Studio’s newest anime adaption of Gosho Aoyama’s 1988 manga series YAIBA: Samurai Legend

  • The Last of Us: The second season of HBO’s television adaption of beloved video game series The Last of Us 

  • Sinners: Ryan Coogler’s newest original film that chews everything it attempts to bite

  • The Reflection: Hiroshi Nagahama and Stan Lee’s superpowered anime original series 

  • The Way of Kings: Parts 4 and 5 of the first book within Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archive

  • FLCL Reanimated: A huge collaboration project made by 300+ animators with the objective to reanimate episode 5 of FLCL with bonus content

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