5. The Great Library

One of the book series that I’ve read, I’ve talked about this one before. This is a very solid young adult series. I still need to finish up the last book, but the series as a whole works. The basic concept is cool, when the library of Alexandria was burned, it was rebuilt and became the haven for all books. But it was taken to a logical end of protecting books so much that it started to seek to control knowledge.

It is also a nice book that has a diverse cast of characters where you don’t notice it so much. That sounds odd to say, but fairly often in stories authors will like to call out what they are doing. This is integrated into the story in a way that it all makes sense and it flows together with the narrative. And that adds a depth and richness to the story that you don’t get if the author is pointing it out or if the diverseness of the cast of characters isn’t there.

4. Strange Academy

The first of the Marvel series, and this one is an ongoing series. And I somewhat have a soft spot for it because it’s a magical school. There’s one in The Great Library series, and there’s one in the next item on my list. The idea of kids learning that they have magical abilities or how to use them just works.

And here you have a unique cast of characters from Dormammu’s son to some Asgardians and a Frost Giant, and then just normal people. Plus teachers being Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch, Baron Voodoo and more, it is goofier than some comics, but works for me. And while it’s been more short little stories, I’ve enjoyed that I don’t need to wait as long to find out what is happening.

3. Keeper of the Lost Cities

Another set in a school, and another person who didn’t know they were magical getting sent to a school. Now, they knew they weren’t normal because they were telepathic, but they didn’t know what that meant. And it’s fun because it means that there is a whole other world around/intertwined with ours where magical creatures, elves, gnomes, and more exist.

This reminds me over Harry Potter, though, I think the early book writing is better done. And I think the series, thus far, hasn’t tried to do too much. The scope feels focused and while the world is big, there are a lot of interesting storylines. It isn’t limiting itself to just one story, but a lot of them that I’m sure will eventually come together. And the characters are fun to be around.

2. House of X/Power of X

This might be the top comic for a lot of people in 2020, when it came out. I didn’t get it on Marvel Unlimited until this year, and it’s really good. This is an X-Men or X reboot. It’s now, I believe, just called X. And it’s about Charles Xavier trying to create a utopia where mutants can live and exist outside of the struggles of the world and what it has provided for them.

But of course things don’t work like he expects and there is trial and error. But it’s less of an issue between mutants, he brings all the major players in, but with people as well, with nations. It feels like a side of Xavier that we don’t really see all that often. Him throwing his weight around as a personality and as well as his powers.

1. Secret Invasion

Finally, I read through all of Secret Invasion. I’ve read through the main storyline before, but when you get into the depths of Secret Invasion, there are so many comics. Are they required reading, not really, but it fleshes out the story and world that is being created.

Secret Invasion is one of my favorite storylines with the Skrull infiltrating every part of society, and especially super heroes. And it is fascinating because you are wondering, how is a Skrull. We’re starting to see that get set-up in the MCU and possibly coming up in 2022, late 2022 is my guess, we’ll get a Secret Invasion show. Now not all Skrull are evil, and in the MCU they definitely aren’t, but the question of who is a Skrull is a great on.

So that’s what I’ve read this year. I read some Dr Strange, Fantastic Four, and other comics as well this year. I’ve started on Secret Wars, and I think it was all in 2020, but maybe early 2021 where I read the Age of Apocalypse massive X-Men storyline. And I’m going through Wheel of Time on audiobook, but I’ve done that before.

What is your favorite thing you’ve read this year?

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5. Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear

This is a slice of life, kind of, isekai anime. It’s a weird one, the basic idea is that a girl gets stuck in a video game, isekai. It’s a secret part of the game, and we have no idea what is happening with her in real life. The world is almost a new game, and she doesn’t know what she is doing. But she has a bear suit that is extremely powerful and extremely adorable. It’s kind of the opposite of fan service for the main character, though there is fan service.

This would be higher on the list, but it falls down with some of the arcs. It’s very slice of life, but there is a whole arc about getting chickens to an orphanage. It isn’t a great arc, but then where it starts out, it starts out strong. If it comes back to adventuring more, I’ll keep watching it. If it’s more chickens, probably not.

4. Edens Zero

This one does have a ton of fan service, and a bunch of reused characters. It’s from the creator of Fairy Tale, and you’d never know because some of the characters look identical and it’s completely absurd. In fact, the whole anime is completely absurd. The main character has grown up on a planet of only robots. And they need to trick him to get him to leave the planet so that he can fulfill his destiny. And there’s this great space being, and space dragons, and it’s a whole thing.

This one has a ton of fan service, so if you’re not okay with that, skip this one. I’m just meh on the fan service, but the story is stupid and fun, it doesn’t try and be serious at all. And I like that about it. There are B-Tubers, basically YouTube celebrities, and planets that have had time rolled back on them, and it’s all in the same universe as a planet where there is a robot amusement park that is defunct.

3. Our Last Crusade or Rise of a New World

Our Last Crusade or Rise of a New World is not my normal type of anime. It is technically a romance anime, but it’s also kind of a political anime or Romeo and Juliet to it as well. The two main characters are on the opposite side of a war that has been going on for generations. And they are very important people to either side. And of course, they fall in love, though, they’ll never admit it.

But they keep on having the unfortunate situation where they are both at the same place at the same time. This is generally in neutral areas, but whenever there is a battle, they’ll be on opposite sides. The whole question of the show is how will these two end the war, and will they ever admit that they are in love (and both survive)?

2. Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town

And the award for longest anime name goes to… well, I’m not typing that out again. This is what it says it is, just a normal kid from a town that guards the last dungeon in this world, it’s a world not a game, decides to move to the starter town. He’s not that special in hiw town and assumes he won’t be here. But of course his power levels are off the charts compared to everyone else.

It’s a good comedy because you have a main character who is self deprecating and too oblivious to everyone around him. It has a bit of a “Is it Wrong to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon” vibe to it as well. And it works because the main character is likeable, they can solve everything, but they don’t always do it on their own.

1. Bottom Tier Character Tomozaki

Finally, my number one is an amazing anime. I watched half of this by myself, stopped, and then watched it again and watched it all with my wife. This is a sweet anime about two nerds figuring out how to navigate high school and not just be a nerd who if off to the side and how different they are about it.

Aoi takes Tomozaki under her wings. She’s popular, but she’s the #2 TakFam (think Smash Brothers) in Japan. She finds out that her nerdy classmate who no one talks to and who just hangs out by himself is the #1 player. Aoi doesn’t get how he can put so little effort into the game of life. It’s a fun gamification of high school and to see how they both teach each other.

While I’ve enjoyed the others, Bottom Tier Character Tomozaki is the one that I’d really recommend. I don’t actually have any honorable mentions. I’ve started That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime, but not far enough in to say. And that’s the same case with a few others. I have a list of ones that I want to catch up on. What anime did you watch this past year?

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Honorable Mention Board Games

There are a lot that could go on here. Downforce has been great fun as well as Night Cage, I’m not sure, but I think I played Super Fantasy Brawl for the first time this year. So that one isn’t getting added to the list. Aeon’s End Legacy which I streamed. I’m not sure which all roll an d write games, but I think Metro X, for sure Deadly Doodles, Patchwork Doodle, and maybe Super-Skill Pinball 4-Cade. Tiny Towns would be this year and has been played a number of times.

And I think that’s it, there might be more for the list as well. I have played a lot of new board games this year and I’m sure I’m missing some. Unfathomable is one I just saw on my shelf, as well as Similo or Ohanami. And I just did my Top 100, so I could just pull from that list, which you can see here.

5. A Gentle Rain

A small little solo game, this is one that I’m thinking might slowly drop on my list, which is a weird thing to say for a game that is my Top 5 for 2021. I got to game more with people this year, but not as much as I wanted. I didn’t get to cons and things like that, which gave different gaming experiences. So some small solo games got a lot of enjoyment this year.

A Gentle Rain is a very relaxing game to play. In it you are flipping out tiles trying to place them down in a way that all four sides can match. In fact, all four sides need to, to get fully surrounded – like Carcassonne. But if you get a square of four tiles, that corner you create you put in a disc matching one of the flower sides you matched.

It’s very simple, flip a tile and play it. It’s more of an activity in some ways as you are just trying to see how high a score you can get, or can you get all 8 discs out. But there is some strategy as to how you create your pond to optimize how you can finish those squares. So it’s not just luck.

4. PitchCar

This is a game that I keep adding more to. Whenever Eagle-Gryphon has some of it on sale, I buy more of it. I think I own all but one expansion which allows big PitchCar to connect to mini PitchCar, and I still want more. I wouldn’t mind another base set to just get more of some of the basic shapes.

But PitchCar is a simple racing game. You flick car discs around the board trying to be the first one to complete a circuit. The game play is simple but a lot of fun, and half the fun is building crazy tracks. I even have a loop for it that you can go around, and yes, flicking a disc around a loop is possible.

3. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

I love this vesion of Terraforming Mars. I still need to play actual Terraforming Mars, but this one works well for me. It’s still about Terraforming Mars, but it does so in a smaller package. You just keep track of resources and then playing out cards to raise the oxygen levels, flip ocean tiles and raise the temperature. So stuff you do in the bigger game.

But it does it with very slick card play and action selection. Each round everyone selects an action from five different actions. It can be building, doing research, getting resources, but it’s always done in a specific order. If I pick an action, I get to do it and you do as well, but I get a bonus. It’s a fun system that keeps everyone involved the whole time.

2. Orchard: A 9 Card Solitaire Game

Another solitaire game. I think I’m up to 110 plays of Orchard: A 9 Card Solitaire Game, just because it’s so fast to play. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t offer good decisions and isn’t fun. It’s a lot of fun and a really good puzzle as you try and beat your previous high score.

You are layering cards, matching the different fruit tree symbols of apples, pears, and plums. The higher you stack and overlap the more you get. So, for example, if I get a pear on a pear, that gives me one fruit, or one point. Another layer, I’m up to three fruit. And you can go as high as ten. But getting the cards, with nine cards, to overlap that much is hard. It’s a great little puzzle of a game.

1. Railroad Ink Challenge

Finally, I put down Railroad Ink Challenge. I really like this game, because it’s fun in person and great on the app.This is one where the app gives such a fast experience it’s almost as good as playing in person. I already liked Railroad Ink a lot. It’s a good roll and write game about connecting routes along the edge of the board. You get points for filling middle spots and lose points for having roads or train tracks not connect.

But Railroad Ink Challenge takes it up a notch. It adds in, well, challenges. These are basically things like, on turn three have a complete row or column filled in. On turn five have five spots in the middle filled in. I like that better than the base game as it gives something more to focus on. When a route doesn’t easily connect to an exit, now you know what to do with it.

It’s a great roll and write and really high quality. I own a ton of tiny little expansions that I really need to play with. Even the base game without mixing in any expansion is a ton of fun, though. Highly recommend this game and the app. It’s a roll and write that I think is accessible, but also very thinky, a really good combination.

Final Thoughts on 2021 Board Games

It was so nice to play a lot of board games again this year. For my birthday I did a full day of board gaming. That is probably what I missed most in 2020, sitting around a game table and playing with friends. And I didn’t even start doing much in person gaming until almost half way through 2021.

If you’re reading this, you are probably a board gamer. But maybe you are here to see what new games might work well as a gift for a board gamer in your life. I really recommend all of them, though if they don’t play solo, I wouldn’t recommend Orchard or A Gentle Rain. But for a lot of us board gamers in the past two years, what we want is more time to play board games. And more time to play with people, so that’s a great gift to give.

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5. Fate: The Winx Saga

This is an odd one for the list. I almost put Lucifer on the list again because the last season is very good. But I wanted to write about a new show. And it came down to this and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Fate: The Winx Saga beat it out.

Fate: The Winx Saga is just that type of over the top mystery and fantasy that I like for some reason. It has some likeable characters and the premise is fun. Why is this girl from the regular world coming to the Winx school? It’s actually going to be a premise of a book I’ll be talking about as well. It’s most definitely overly teen dramatic, but it works for great entertainment. I’d probably not have it on the list, but anime is it’s own category.

4. What If?

Now, of course there is going to be some Marvel on the list, even if The Falcon and the Winter Soldier didn’t make it. What If? is just a fun show. It does ask the questions What If something small had changed and what that would mean for the Marvel Universe.

And each of the episodes is cannon. It is it’s own portion of the Multiverse where something like T’Challa becoming Star-Lord happens instead of Peter Quill, and you get a funny episode. But what if there was a zombie virus? Or what if when Fury was trying to recruit the Avengers they were all killed? Or what If Christine Palmer had died in the accident that led Doctor Strange to magic?

3. Loki

Another Marvel show, Loki was just so much fun. My one knock on the show is that they took the “evil” Loki from after Avengers and quickly got him back to where he was at the end of Ragnarok. It’s a minor quibble with the show though. Loki is a fun romp through time with a great reveal at the end.

And Owen Wilson, I didn’t know I wanted him in the MCU. But I am really glad that he is here. The show shows off the humor that Marvel can do, while creating a look and feel that is just different than any other show. For some people it seemed pointless, but I disagree, I think it set up a whole lot for upcoming Marvel shows and movies.

2. Shadow and Bone

A non-Marvel show, had to be one. But this is a really close #2 behind my #1. Shadow and Bone is a wonderful fantasy series with some really good characters. While Winx was a bit more of a popcorn sort of show, Shadow and Bone crafts a great world and a great story. It makes me want to read the books, but I’m waiting for more of the show.

The characters are really interesting, and the magic in the world is very cool. Just the whole premise seems different than what you see in a lot of fantasy series. But it’s a show that the characters really drive. And an amazing aesthetic to go with everything doesn’t help, but I want to know what happens to the characters next.

1. WandaVision

Final one on my list shouldn’t be a surprise to podcast listeners because I had it as my #4 MCU property overall. I love WandaVision. The story is compelling, and while there were a thousand theories that were spawned and then proven wrong by the show, I really like what the show did. It told a story of Wanda and her grief from everything she’d been through.

And that story was told with some really interesting characters. Beyond that, it was told in a fascinating fashion as Wanda controlled everything as if it were a sitcom, or did she? And we got to see everything travel through decades and different styles. There is something so wonderful about the familiar story that is being told, but in the weird way it is told.

What were your favorite shows of the year? I have a lot I need to catch up on, even just on Netflix. I’m watching through Locke & Key season 2. I have Arcane I want to see and other shows like Sweet Tooth that came earlier in the year that I want to watch and never got to. It is really a situation where there are so many good shows. And like I said, Hawkeye would be on this list were it done and same, most likely, with Wheel of Time that I’ve been really enjoying.

What are your favorite new or new to you shows of 2021?

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