Ride Your Wave
Tonight on GeekNights, we review the latest animated film from Science Saru, Masaaki Yuasa's Ride Your Wave (きみと、波にのれたら). It's exactly what it looks like, but masterfully executed and definitely worth watching. Its themes overlap heavily with Lu Over the Wall, using water as metaphor for death and/or transformation.
In the news, another water-based anime movie Children of the Sea is also in theaters, Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove It is definitely an anime, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power continues to get better and better with season four, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts is so far delightful with some Adventure Time vibes, and the secret entrance to Anime Boston is now gone.
Cleaning
Tonight on GeekNights, we consider the fascinating topic of cleaning. It is Thursday, after all. In the news, the Oscars included a pleasant surprise despite our general feelings on award shows, stay away from cruise ships, never trust a doctor who believes in homeopathy, watch The Good Place (and then read Surface Detail), vote for Elizabeth Warren in the Democratic presidential primary, and vote for literally every Democrat in every race in the general election no matter what.
You can also find us on Patreon, on Rym's Youtube Channel, on Scott's Youtube Channel, in our Forum, in our unofficial official Discord server, and several other places!
Rumble Nation
Tonight on GeekNights, we review the extremely elegant Rumble Nation (天下鳴動). It's shockingly deep for how quick it plays, with some nods to both El Grande and Settlers of Catan (but not in the ways you might imagine). In the news, Scott remembered that Camp Hyrule existed, awesome hackers are dropping extremely aggressive two-headed skeletons into Red Dead Online, and OWL's Paris Eternal will practice in New Jersey for reasons. Also, Scott has GeekBites of both Neonimo and Death Crown!
Weathering With You
Tonight on GeekNights, we review Makoto Shinkai's latest movie Weathering With You. It's beautiful, but its themes are muddled. We reviewed his The Place Promised in our Early Days back in 2005, and more recently Your Name in 2017. We can forget Children Who Chase Lost Voices, which we talked about in 2011.
In the news, Queens bus route meetings attract a particular kind of person, Ride Your Wave is in theaters one night only on February 17th, Funimation dropped a terrible porn anime for which the fandom seems to overlap entirely with the "ahego shirt" crowd, and we will be live at PAX East 2020!
Live at PAX East 2020!
We will be at PAX East 2020!
Take Your #@$ Turn!
Saturday Feb 29th
11:30am
Bumblebee Theatre
We’ve all played the "30-60 minute" board game that seems to always take exactly four hours. Your definition of "a quick game" always seems to be far from what your friends think. But it doesn’t have to be this way! Join us for a lively discussion of what factors, from game design decisions to players’ interactions, cause games to take too long. We’ll then teach you, in detail, how to take your #@$ turn!
If you saw us at PAX South, video of The 41 Tabletop Games You Must Play is on youtube, as is the completely different original 40 Tabletop Games You Must Play from PAX West!
If you are looking for slides or links from our MAGFest 2020 panels, check out the slides from "The Real Harm of Games", as well as video of the same talk (sans the doctor) from PAX East!
Take your #@*$ Turn!
PAX Unplugged 2019
We’ve all played the "30-60 minute" board game that seems to always take exactly four hours. Your definition of "a quick game" always seems to be far from what your friends think. But it doesn’t have to be this way! Join us for a lively discussion of what factors, from game design decisions to players’ interactions, cause games to take too long. We’ll then teach you, in detail, how to take your #@*$ turn!
Book Club - The Tale of Genji
What better selection for the book club than the first novel of all time? And of course, we have to read the best possible unabridged translation. No baby mode here at GeekNights
The plot revolves around Genji, who is the son of the Emperor and a low ranking concubine. Genji is removed from the line of succession, and proceeds to go on an epic journey. The journey involves tons of romance and court drama. Spicy!
Despite being older than any other novel, The Tale of Genji has a tremendous amount of relevance to the geeks of the 21st century. The influence of Japan on nerds around the world is undeniable, and a surprising amount of things we see in pop culture are present here in a book from the 11th century. I'm quite confident after reading it how we will notice how many newer stories have been making references to this tale without us realizing it.
Also, I feel the need to point out that this first novel ever written was written by a woman. For all these reasons and so many more, this is more than worthy of book club selection.
