Natterings From Nepantla

Keeping Portland at the forefront of weird

2026-04-25T14:46:02Z

Tired: Drag queen story hour.
Wired: Drag queen nature hikes.

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Forgot one

2026-04-25T14:37:46Z

One other show I'm watching this anime season: Nippon Sangoku: The Three Nations of the Crimson Sun. It's set in a future Japan which, for various reasons that should not be thought too hard about, has regressed to a feudal-ish society but with early 20th century technology. The first episode leaned hard into feudal-level corruption and cruelty, so despite the excellent production values I did not plan to watch any more of it, but another viewer at my favorite anime Discord server assured me that episode 2 was a lot less like that.

There are probably a lot of references to Japanese history and/or The Romance of the Three Kingdoms that are going over my head, but that's okay for now.

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SMOF News, volume 5, issue 35

2026-04-23T01:58:22Z

Problems with Filk Hall of Fame nominations. But also, a chance to point out an award with an interesting voting structure.

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Spring anime premieres

2026-04-16T20:25:40Z

I want to get back into posting about the anime I'm watching, especially since I wanted to check out a bunch of things this season.

Snowball Earth looks likely to become the show I keep desperately recommending to my fellow Worldcon members until Hugo nominations close next spring. Episode 1 speedruns an entire mecha show about a teenager with a special gift and his special robot fighting off an alien invasion, until things go disastrously wrong and the protagonist finds himself back on Earth after a very sudden climate change. Worse, he was planning to make up for his social isolation and awkwardness by making a bunch of friends after the final battle, and the population of Earth seems to have dropped precipitously.

It's about 75% comedy, 20% earnest mecha action, 5% horror, and all good so far. It's also like someone saw Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet and set out to prove that the premise had a much better show hiding in it.

Rooster Fighter has a pretty thin premise (tough-guy fighter except he's an actual chicken) and yet it's so well executed that I keep deciding to watch one more episode. At some point I think I'll hit a wall and suddenly not care anymore, but today is not that day.

Daemons of the Shadow Realm has managed to conceal a very important piece of its information about its setting from its trailers, which makes for a pretty big shock in the first episode. Congrats to the marketing department, except had I known that piece of information from the beginning, I would have been more interested. Anyway, the last Arakawa Hiromu adaptation I saw felt meh (Arslan) but this is going very well so far.

Mao is the other big adaptation of a manga by a famous long-running author, and um... if you like Takahashi Rumiko's work, this is definitely another Takahashi Rumiko work. I was not gripped.

Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun! season 4 inspired me to finally finish season 3, where I'd gotten bogged down in the Harvest Festival arc. Hoping the Music Festival goes better. So far, so good.

Kujima: Why Sing When You Can Warble? is about a boy who meets a migratory anthropomorphic bird-thing and invites it home to live with him. Mildly heartwarming things ensue. This was billed as a "horror comedy", and I feel like the premiere could have used more of both. OTOH, there is some delightfully demented voice acting. I'm going to give this one one more episode.

Killed Again, Mr. Detective? had an interesting-sounding premise, but it's very, very much a light novel adaptation full of light novel tropes that I'm sick of.

Witch Hat Atelier had an excellent first episode featuring the rare anime fantasy world where it all fits together, unlike the usual visual mishmash. Then episode 2 introduced a few characters I feel like I've seen in a million other school and school-like shows, and I was a lot less excited. I'll see how the rest of the season goes.

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SMOF News, volume 5, issue 34

2026-04-16T02:40:48Z

Notes on a theme about admission level naming in this week's inbox.

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SMOF News, volume 5, issue 33

2026-04-09T14:31:36Z

Perhaps things have been going wrong at Mischief Management for some time.

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SMOF News, volume 5, issue 32

2026-04-02T02:01:19Z

Experienced media conrunners demonstrate that they can do a disastercon too.

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SMOF news, volume 5, issue 31

2026-03-26T03:34:21Z

How's our old friend SARS-CoV-2 doing?

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SMOF News, volume 5, issue 30

2026-03-19T03:12:24Z

CBC provides some notes on the disabled fan experience. I don't recall anyone ever mentioning the carpet thing before.

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SMOF News, volume 5, issue 29

2026-03-12T01:56:02Z

The Gen Con heist case is officially over! I can stop having to check on it!

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SMOF News, volume 5, issue 28

2026-03-05T02:53:44Z

More Ohayocon/Sekai Guild wrangling.

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SMOF News, volume 5, issue 27

2026-02-26T03:56:34Z

The media con model is properly mainstream at this point. Also the end of the Gen Con heist saga has been postponed AGAIN aaaaaaaaargh.

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SMOF News, volume 5, issue 26

2026-02-19T03:30:19Z

Seattle's convention center not doing so well financially. Seattle in 2035, anyone?

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SMOF News, volume 5, issue 25

2026-02-12T03:51:56Z

One African Worldcon initiative ends, another begins...

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SMOF News, volume 5, issue 24

2026-02-05T03:25:49Z

What you get with con newsletters. Yay for not having any crime news to report this week.

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SMOF News, volume 5, issue 23

2026-01-29T04:25:02Z

AI art not welcome at more and more cons.

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SMOF News, volume 5, issue 22

2026-01-22T03:23:02Z

More news about ongoing scams hitting the convention world along with everyone else. Which somehow led to me having to come up with a quick description of ICE for international readers.

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SMOF News, volume 5, issue 21

2026-01-15T03:08:33Z

Second plea deal coming for the Gen Con heist. The longest-running story I have followed for this newsletter is nearly over! Well, except the 2023 Hugo saga is probably going to beat it for longevity later this year.

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SMOF News, volume 5, issue 20

2026-01-08T03:02:12Z

I guess any scam that runs for long enough will eventually intersect with fandom.

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SMOF News, volume 5, issue 19

2026-01-01T02:23:18Z

The traditional end-of-year acknowledgements.

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Book recommendations needed

2025-12-26T20:48:30Z

It's gift card season and there are a couple sorts of books I would like to get with mine, but I don't even know what sorts of terms to start searching on.

1) Something about different legal systems and the philosophies that go with them. How they shape how people think about what the law is even for, and so forth. Would prefer to focus on modern systems, but historical examples are fine if they help illuminate the present. (E.g. I have come across mentions a few times that things work in such and such a way in France or its former colonies because they were shaped by the Napoleonic code.)

2) How the governments of really huge cities/metropoles work.

Blogs or newsletters are okay too. But no podcasts or YouTube series unless they're scripted, please.

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SMOF News, volume 5, issue 17

2025-12-25T02:47:58Z

National politics force some vendors to be banned from a convention. Not in the US, though I'm sure our turn is coming.

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SMOF News, volume 5, issue 16

2025-12-18T02:31:36Z

Arisia is taking that hiatus, but it's going to be a busy one.

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SMOF News, volume 5, issue 15

2025-12-11T03:06:29Z

Another long-running con is hitting the breaking point. There's a boom in Worldcon bids, though.

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SMOF News, volume 5, issue 14

2025-12-04T03:20:15Z

Getting that list of pet peeves written up.

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