I wish I had Adventure Time as a kid. I wish I could be twisted and disturbed by its kid-friendly, horrific imagery and subversive life lessons. When Adventure Time’s at its best, it’s David Lynch and H.P. Lovecraft by way of Max Fleischer, and that angle is personified in my favorite character from the series:
The Earl of Lemongrab
So there’s this new board and card game series I’m really digging called Tempest. The overarching story takes place in the titular city– a Venice-like city going through a Renaissance and dealing with shifting political and economic attitudes– and each game comes at this situation from a different angle.
Three of the games are relatively big and complex– real “gamer” games. They deal with courtly intrigue, merchants competing with one another, and conspiracies working to take control of a city in political chaos. We’re not gonna talk about those games in this post. The game we’re talking about is the smallest and simplest of the bunch, and it deals with wooing the city’s Princess by trying to get your letter of love into her hands.
I’m not gonna blame anyone who doesn’t care much for this game’s theme. It’s about tentacle monsters and the naughty stuff they do. If that makes you say “Yeah, no, and fuck you for trying,” that’s cool.
If the whole tentacle thing doesn’t really bother you, or if you don’t mind being bothered, let’s talk about this thing.
Yeah man, I kinda like Tamako Market. Kinda. Sorta. I’m bothered by the coldly calculated moeness of it all. This shit’s Illuminati-level in its intricacy. Clandestine meetings were held to determine every arm movement, footstep, and facial tic of these girls. It’s frightening in its detail– as if these guys know every button to push in a certain crowd and revel in their puppet mastery.
Despite that, yeah, I kinda like this show.
Good things aren’t supposed to happen to horrible, despicable people like me, right? Then why is it that someone went and licensed my all-time favorite, never-gonna-get-a-proper-US-release anime TV series? I’m not supposed to be rewarded like this. My worldview can’t handle such a shocking development.