2021 Media Wrap-Up

Last year I kept track of all the media I finished in a year, because I love lists. This year, I did the same! The format is the same as last year, except this year I also started tracking board games that I played, starting in May. The board game list will be the odd list out because it will not be listed in alphabetical order, but instead by the amount of times I played each game. I have also started including what series a book belongs to in my book list (and will likely go back and update last year’s book list with that info as well). This year I’ll also note how many of each media type I finished this year compared to last year. I don’t think finishing more or less this year is a good or bad thing - it’s just interesting to see stats on how my media habits change from year to year!

Finally, I’ve started compiling each of the lists from every year into lists of everything I’ve finished so far, including stuff I’ve finished before I started tracking that I can remember. You can find the lists here.

And now, a few notes on how I organize the lists:

1. I’ve ordered lists alphabetically, not in order of when I finished or what I liked most.
2. For tv shows, anime, comics, and manga, I marked down what chapters, seasons, issues, etc. I finished if I didn’t finish the entire thing. Since some are ongoing or very long, I figured it’s a distinction worth making!
3. If it wasn’t the first time I’ve read, watched, or played something, I’ve noted it.
4. If I explicitly decided to not finish something, I’ve marked it down in the completed lists but with a note of when I abandoned it.
5. Just because I finished something, it doesn’t necessarily mean I recommend it!
6. After each list I’ll post a paragraph or two with some quick thoughts on my favorites of the year.

Now, list time!

Books

• A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan - #1)
• Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb - #1)
• Harrow the Ninth (The Locked Tomb - #2)
• House of Chains (Malazan Book of the Fallen - #4)
• Piranesi
• The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
• The Design of Everyday Things

This Year: 7

Last Year: 6

This year I still read more manga than books, but the few books I did get through were all pretty great! A Memory Called Empire is an incredible sci-fi book about navigating politics as an ambassador in a foreign court, highly recommend. I’ve been meaning to get around to the 2nd book - maybe this year! The Locked Tomb is also very good if you enjoy cool worldbuilding and a mix of… I don’t know how to describe it well, but prose that frequently switches between modern and more… Victorian-style language. I dunno, I really enjoyed it but it probably isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. House of Chains continues my multi-year journey through Malazan Book of the Fallen, which continues to be incredibly dense but great. The Design of Everyday Things is the only non-fiction book I read this year, as part of my work to improve some design skills. If you’re interested in a good book on solid design principles, it’s a long but informative read. And finally… I don’t really want to say anything about Piranesi or The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle because I went into both without knowing anything and loved the experience. The only thing I’ll say is that if I had to recommend only one, read Piranesi.

Movies

• Demon Slayer: Mugen Train
• Dune (2021)
• Encanto
• Inside
• It’s a Wonderful Life (rewatch)
• Knives Out (rewatch)
• Lupin III: The First
• My Hero Academia: Two Heroes
• Parasite
• Porco Rosso (rewatch)
• Princess Bride (rewatch)
• Raya and the Last Dragon
• Santa Claus is Coming to Town (rewatch)
• Seven Psychopaths
• Sorry To Bother You
• The Thing (1982)
• Willy’s Wonderland

This Year: 17 (12 new)

Last Year: 17 (16 new)

Interestingly enough, I watched the same amount of movies this year and last year, but fewer of them were new to me this year! I am choosing not to examine this for any meaning, and will be taking no questions, thank you.

If I had to pick my favorite movie I watched this year… I think I would have to choose The Thing. My friend Matt had me watch it with him on Halloween, and I have not been able to stop thinking about it since. The practical effects were incredible, and I think it was the first horror movie I have truly enjoyed.

TV Shows

• Altered Carbon (season 1)
• Arcane (season 1)
• Centaurworld (season 1)
• Hawkeye (season 1)
• I Think You Should Leave (seasons 1-2)
• King of the Hill (season 1)
• Letterkenny (season 10)
• Loki (season 1)
• Lupin (part 1)
• Nathan for You (season 2-4)
• Over the Garden Wall (rewatch)
• Squid Game (season 1)
• The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (season 1)
• The Venture Brothers (seasons 1-7)
• WandaVision (season 1)

This Year: 15 (14 new)

Last Year: 13 (8 new)

I watched a lot of Marvel shows this year, which are always a fun time even if they’re not high art. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I’ve enjoyed watching King of the Hill with my roommate - I always associated it with shows like Family Guy growing up, but it’s so much sweeter (and funnier). Squid Game was an absolute ride that I thought kinda fell apart near the end but was still good regardless. And I think Arcane might be the most unexpected show I saw this year, in terms of quality. I grew up playing League of Legends (and eventually dropped it because the community is a… lot, and I wanted to play other games) and have an affection for the characters, so I figured I would enjoy the show. But I was not expecting the show to be so well animated and have an actually great story (especially for something based off of a video game). Even if you care nothing at all for League (and are comfortable watching something produced by Riot Games, which has had some internal sexism issues), I think Arcane is still something you could enjoy without knowing any League lore.

Video Games

• 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
• AER: Memories of Old
• Assemble With Care
• Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
• Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
• Dear Esther
• Death’s Gambit: Afterlife
• Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker
• Final Fantasy 14: Heavensward patches
• Final Fantasy 14: Shadowbringers
• Final Fantasy 14: Shadowbringers patches
• Final Fantasy 14: Stormblood
• Final Fantasy 14: Stormblood patches
• Genshin Impact - Chapter 1
• Genshin Impact - Chapter 2
• Genshin Impact - Prologue
• Hitman
• Hitman 2
• Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
• League of Legends: Wild Rift
• Metroid Dread
• Metroid Dread (100%)
• Metroid Fusion
• Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate
• Monster Hunter Rise
• Mushihimesama
• One Piece Pirate Warriors 3 Deluxe Edition
• Rivals of Aether
• Sayonara Wild Hearts
• Spelunky 2

This Year: 30

Last Year: 17

I finished a lot of games this year. Although, to be fair, a good chunk of these are expansions to MMO/live-service games that I count as individual games. You can probably see some trends in my games this year - I played a lot of MMO/live-service, musou, and metroidvania games. The most memorable gaming experience for me this year has been Final Fantasy 14. This is the year I finally caught up on the expansions to prep for Endwalker releasing in November, and the culmination of the story throughout Shadowbringers and Endwalker is probably my favorite RPG story I’ve ever experienced. It also helped that I convinced my brother to join me in the MMO pits, and we got to text each other excitedly about the story as we traded off being the one who was ahead of the other.

Anime

• Death Parade (season 1)
• Great Pretender (season 2)
• Haikyuu!! (season 3)
• Horimiya (season 1)
• JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable
• Log Horizon (seasons 1-3)
• My Hero Academia (season 4)
• Naruto: Shippuden (seasons 8-9) (minus filler)
• Snow White with the Red Hair (season 1)
• The Pilot’s Love Song (season 1) (rewatch)

This Year: 10 (9 new, 0 abandoned)

Last Year 15 (all new, 1 abandoned)

I continued my tradition of watching anime (mostly) every week with a couple of good friends, which is how a lot of these anime were experienced. Only a few (Horimiya, My Hero Academia, Great Pretender, and Snow White with the Red Hair) were solo watches. Honestly, I enjoyed pretty much every anime I watched this year! (Well… with maybe the exception of the last season of Log Horizon, which was fine but felt weaker than the previous two seasons.)

Comics/Manga

• Avatar: The Last Airbender - Imbalance
• Avatar: The Last Airbender - North and South
• Avatar: The Last Airbender - Smoke and Shadow
• Berserk (chap A-B)
• Bloodborne (vol 1-4)
• Blue Box (chap 1-33)
• Blue Flag (chap 27-53) (finished)
• Chainsaw Man (chap 56-97) (finished?)
• Cross Manage (chap 1) (abandoned)
• DC3
• DIE (vol 3)
• Death Note: Special One-Shot
• Delicious in Dungeon (vol 1-9)
• Dr Stone (chap 1-45)
• Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Sanji (chap 1-4)
• Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End (vol 1)
• i tell c (chap 1-7) (abandoned)
• Jujutsu Kaisen (chap 1-168)
• Lone Wolf and Cub (chap 1-2)
• Look Back
• Moriarty the Patriot (chap 1-15)
• My Hero Academia (chap 296-337)
• My Hero Academia Special Spin-Off: Endeavor’s Mission
• My Hero Academia: Vigilantes (chap 93-116)
• Once & Future (vol 1-3)
• One Piece (chap 1000-1035)
• One Piece: Naoshi Komi Covers Vivi’s Adventure
• Sakamoto Days (chap 1-51)
• Spy x Family (chap 1-57)
• The Elusive Samurai (chap 1-7) (abandoned)
• White Sand (vol 3)
• Witch Hat Atelier (vol 7-8)
• Witch Watch (chap 1-42)
• World Trigger (chap 1-217)
• Yu-Gi-Oh (chap 1-59) (finished)
• Yu-Gi-Oh: Duelist (chap 1-74)

This Year: 34 (3 abandoned, 2 finished)

Last Year: 16 (0 abandoned)

Read a lot of manga this year. Looot of manga. I don’t feel like writing out my thoughts on all of them, so I will just say that a couple of the standouts this year were Sakamoto Days and Spy x Family. Both are comedy-action manga that balance very well-drawn action scenes with a lot of heart. I love both of them, and I’m very excited for the Spy x Family anime that was announced recently.

Board Games

Total Plays: 189

Friends Played With: 31

Unique Games: 31

Unique Locations: 10

New Games Played: 23

Estimated Time Played: 127 hours

Days Played On: 80

Note: Friends Played With includes myself in each of them :P

As noted in the introduction, I started tracking my board games played back in May. I have not included how many times I won (even though I do have those stats as well), because I don’t think that’s really important - the fun bit is the different amount of games I got to play with friends!

The standout game for me this year is Flesh and Blood, the trading card game I got into this year. I dabbled in Magic the Gathering back in high school (I loved annoying friends at lunch with my discard deck), but was never amazing, and never had the money to make any decent decks. My coworker Cameron introduced me to Flesh and Blood over lunch one day and I loved the base mechanics of the game, so I decided to take the plunge now that I have some disposable income. Many games later (and many cards later), I am very much enjoying the experience of being into a TCG. Spoiler seasons for new sets are a lot of fun, and starting to get involved in a growing card game’s local scene is really cool! Sadly I did not to get involved in the local scene as much as I would have liked (thanks COVID), but I got to play a lot of games over webcam with folks around the world, which was cool in its own way. I’m very much hoping I get to go to some more local events this year.

I played a lot of other games this year, too many to cover, so I’ll just note a few other standouts. Aeon’s End (not represented as much on this list as it should be, since I played a lot of it in the first half of the year before I started tracking) is probably one of my favorite board games at this point. It’s a great co-op deckbuilding game where you all play as mages attempting to take down giant monsters. Very excited for the 2nd legacy expansion to arrive in the mail sometime in the next few months! Dune is probably tied with Aeon’s End for my current favorite video game. I’ve only played it… 3 or 4 times, I think? But every single one of those games has been memorable. What a game! I still cannot wait for when I get to play my first 6 player game (the most I’ve been able to organize so far is a 5 person game). And finally, the most recent game that I’ve been playing a lot of is The Search for Planet X after my roommate picked it up for me for Christmas. A competitive logic puzzle is a game that you wouldn’t expect to be as compelling as it is, but it’s such a fun challenge to try to race your friends to a solution while trying to pick up clues from what they’ve been researching. And the use of an app to make sure that the puzzle is new every time is extremely clever.

With that, there’s my lists of completed media in 2021! I’m pretty pleased with myself for sticking with these lists for another year. It’s a lot of fun for me, and it’s cool to look back at the end of the year and have a reminder of media I liked (or didn’t like). I will probably continue doing these for the foreseeable future!

Also, thank you very much for reading! If you would like to discuss any of the media I finished this year with me, feel free to shoot me a message on Twitter, I’d love to chat!