Notes from the Underground

            In July of 2020, Netflix released a brand new original animated series, Japan Sinks: 2020 , apparently inspired by a popular Japanese doomsday novel. The show was met with initial success, which is to be expected from a Netflix original series, so I went into watching it with high expectations. However, I found it extremely difficult to get through. The series opens strong, with a great concept, suspenseful atmosphere, and a beautiful soundtrack. As the series progressed, the dialogue seemed to become increasingly awkward. (I don’t know if the writers or the voice actors were at fault, but the quality of the character dialogue suffered.) There were also some strange narrative arcs which seemed unrelated to the story (the drug-fueled utopian commune, led by a self-proclaimed medium everyone calls “mother”, comes to mind). Overall, though the ending was satisfactory, and the soundtrack was amazing, Japan Sinks: 2020 was an underwhelming 5/10.             After being disapp

            Bored. I laid, sprawled out over my bed, just staring at the ceiling. I had spent many nights like this. I had plenty of ways to kill time, but none of them could hold my attention for more than a few minutes. I hated nights like these, it felt like I was just wasting my time. It was back when the pandemic first hit, and everything was on lockdown. Not that I ever went out anyway.             I decided to get up out of the bed and head to my computer chair. I browsed the internet, looking for something to occupy my mind. After hours of thoughtless scrolling, I ended up on an online forum about literature. After spending some time there, it got me thinking, I had not read, for my own enjoyment, in a very long time. “I used to love to read, though” I thought, as I opened Amazon books. I decided to purchase a copy of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment on a whim and eagerly awaited its arrival.             And then I didn’t read it. In fact, a full three months had p