March 1, 2023

I was making my way across the plaza when I met my friend who was in his graduation gown. I told him that I was thinking about heading to this year’s college reunion as well. We entered a small coffee shop and lined up for deserts. When we got to the front of the line, I ordered a scoop of apple ice cream. The barista just looked at me and asked, “That’s it?” I nodded, unsure if I had said something wrong.

–

We had just concluded the vote for our next anime to watch. The Medaka Box movie had won, despite us not having watched the original series yet. I was too tired to lift myself out of bed so I was mostly just listening to snippets of dialogue from the TV.

Something felt off so I finally sat up to look at the screen. Apparently this 2 hour “movie” was actually a compilation of 5 second clips. I told my friend that I had no idea what was going on and that I hadn’t objected to the election results because I thought this was supposed to be the entry point of the series.

Interspersed between the shorts were “reviews” and accolades of the movie we were already watching. There were intermissions for random superlatives of the people who were supposedly involved with the production. It was only after a critical mass of references to League of Legends that it occurred to me that this was a Riot Games project. I speculated that this was probably made to train up with new artists.