If I should use a word for April 2025, it would be “wasted.” Both in the usual sense of “I let it go to waste,” and in the Grand Theft Auto sense of “I drove it at 200 km/h on a wall and launched me 100 meters into the air and down a bridge.”

And I take full responsibility for this. It was a nice spring month, full of events, sunny days and pleasant occasions. But I spent it mostly in my head, unable to control a wave of anxiety and catastrophic thoughts (the last time it happened was early 2022, look at me!).

I am not here to complain or dig into it. I just wanted to explain why this issue is a bit late and lighter than usual.

Housekeeping

Nothing to say here. As I said, 80% of my effort went into stopping me from spiraling out of control.

Reading

Another underwhelming month. Only one book (even if it was a big one). But, honestly, I am quite happy I read at all.

Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari follows the tracks of Sapiens and Homus Deus by trying to extrapolate way more coherence than we can expect from the chaos of human existence. However, this time, he limits the scope to a more narrow topic and, I think, the result is a stronger thesis.

I’ll do you a disservice if I summarize almost 500 pages of dense information into a paragraph, but I can give you the main gist: more information, more available information, will not automatically lead to the truth. One example is the invention of the printing press. We automatically assume that the proliferation of books kicked off by the invention of “industrial” printing was the primary cause of the scientific revolution of early XVII century. But we also forgot that it also started books of conspiracies, “fake news,” and all sorts of disinformation that caused massive witchhunts. Literally.

That’s why social media, with their promise of “connecting people” and “sharing information” did more harm than good. At least for now.

Watchlist

Oni: Thunder God’s Tale (2022)

Sometime, the Netflix catalogue contains some incredible gems that, for some reason, are unknown to the wider public. I had to find this one from a “10 best obscure anime on Netflix” list like a savage.

Oni: Thunder God’s Tale is a mini-series of 4 episodes ideated by Daisuke Tsutsumi well worth of everybody’s time. It is realized in a hybrid CGI/stop-motion that may feel weird at times, but it ended up grow on me. It is sweet, funny, overtly cute, and delighting until the very end.

Sure, I saw the ending arrive from a mile away, but it removed nothing from the experience. And it won my “April 2025’s top recommendation” spot.

Conclave (2024)

Coincidence happens. We watched it on April 8th, and it turned out to be quite “useful” (given the fact that we now have an actual conclave going on). Well, it wasn’t a coincidence so impressive given that the Pope was quite sick for a while…

Anyway, I am digressing.

I really appreciated this movie for its cinematography, the camera shots, all the allegorical takes, and the candid portrayal of the power intrigues within the conclave. I don’t think the plot was extraordinary or mind-blowing but, in its entirety, works very well.

All the rest

• The Electric State (2025). Based on the Swedish comic of the same name, it is not worth all the money they put into it, and for the most part is forgettable. But it was not horrible, as many of you are screaming about. I don’t regret the time I spent on it.
• Aquaman (2018). How it is possible, for a movie with so many “under water” scenes, to have under water scenes that look so bad and cheap?
• Late Night with the Devil (2023). A delightful low-budget horror movie. Brilliant concept, great execution, and great build up. Recommended.
• The Beekeeper (2024). Jason Statham’s Jon Wick — but with bees (and that’s a plus) and much worse choreography. However, I have to be honest: I had fun.
• Redline (2009). An anime about sci-fi grotesque space races on outer planets. It is definitely something.
• Legally Blonde (2001). Better late than never, I suppose.
• Venom: The Last Dance (2024). Honestly… I didn’t get. What the hell was that? It felt like a movie without a direction with things happening randomly for no reason.

Music

I didn’t listen to a lot of music this month. This is the main telltale sign that something is wrong at my emotional level. They say that music is for the good days and the bad days. It doesn’t work like this for me: I need to have some kind “emotional structure” to accommodate the sad music. This unentangleable amorphous mess doesn’t allow any of that.

So, even if there was a lot of new music released this month, I mostly ignored it all. I listened to 200 tracks (down from my usual 1200), and mostly background stuff. Not enough to give any meaningful recommendation or trend or data.

Gaming

I had no intention of getting any game this month. But then I saw Blue Prince mentioned once. Then twice. Then another couple of times. Then it was played by my favorite Sudoku YouTube channel. So I got curious and read the description: “a roguelike-puzzle-game.” It had my interest.

Blue Prince is exactly what you expect: unexpected. The goal is to reach the Room 46, but every day the mansion resets, the rooms change place, the inventory gets wiped out. What it remains? Your knowledge. After each run, you collect more and more hints that you can use to solve the various puzzles, and the game gets much bigger than the lovely “draft game” of navigating a procedural home.

I really recommend this game, but with a caveat. This game gave me a wonderful sense of discovery and excitement, but also some of the most frustrating hours in videogames. For instance, nothing is more irritating than having all the pieces of a puzzle but drafting the wrong rooms and ending blocked in a dead end, or not having the key to open that door you really need to open right now.

You have been warned. Personally, I reached room 46 quite early, thanks to an incredible sequence of lucky events. But reaching room 46 is just the beginning of the story…

PS: I just realized that Blue Prince may be a pun on “blueprint.” 🤯 Wow.

Other Interesting Things

• 📝 Middle-Aged Man Trading Cards Go Viral in Rural Japan Town - At this point this is old news, as I saw it went already viral. But if you saw nothing about a Trading Card Game about old people in a Japanese town… read this. It is a heartwarming story at the intersection between pop culture, gaming, society and nerdiness.

Conclusions

I am writing this very late so I have to cut it short if I want to actually publish this on May 1st. At the time of writing, I do not know how May will be (usually; it sucks). That’s the thing with plateaus: they can be a turning point to get back up, or a momentary pause before going down. Or they may just be, well, plateaus.

I can only promise I’ll try my best.

See you in June. ❤️