Genocyber and Takopi's Original Sin

Animes with unstable females.

Genocyber (1994)

In a future where scientists weaponize unstable little girls, they are hilariously surprised when the psybernetic (that's not a typo) weapon goes on a rampage and over the course of a handful of episodes quickly obliterates most of the planet. The old style anime art is well done and the stories are interesting enough but it would have been great if they gelled together a bit better instead of seemingly having time skip cold opens a few times. 

Takopi's Original Sin

A goofy alien that looks like a happy squid lands on Earth with the mission to make people happy and pairs up with an abused and suicidal teen. The animation of this one is really smooth with a violently depressing story (though I found some dark parts quite funny). I have a feeling that because the beatings depicted are more grounded to reality it actually hurts more than say the flurry of blows in Dragonball Z. Very different from my normal viewing, and very dark.  

Made in Abyss (Seasons 1-2 + Deep Soul)

Beautiful and messed up at the same time.

On a distant island is a giant cursed pit known as the Abyss, so deep that no one knows how far it actually goes. Riko, the protagonist, is inspired to find out. This anime has some really beautiful scenery, excellent music, decent animation and crazy ideas. With colors usually on the brighter side of the palette and a very "kids theme" art style and the majority of the heroes being kids themselves, you would be forgiven if you thought this was a kids show. It is not.

Let's jump down this giant hole!

Adult themes are dealt with constantly along with violence and other pretty horrible stuff that litters the excellent narrative. Expect to be hit in the feels a lot as death and fates worse than death abound. I'm greatly looking forward to season 3!

Apparently you can either watch season 1 (which I did) OR the first two movies which cover the same content (can't comment I haven't seen those), followed by movie 3: Dawn of the Deep Soul before moving onto season 2. They're all of excellent viewing. Highly recommended!

Free Shorts (short games that is)

Time for another batch of freebies on Steam, and these all fall squarely into the "short story" category without being visual novels. Ugh, there are so many of those on steam! While these are certainly more "gamey" than those they still are narrative focused and they can all be finished in under an hour.

Starting with the silly ones: Gravity Bone is a first person game with light platforming where you are a private contractor who does odd jobs. If jumping is too much for you then Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald - a Whirlwind Heist might be the humorous experience for you. In a surprise addition, Square Enix has a free game in this category - The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit, where you play as a very imaginative little boy who loves talking to himself (so that might be a turn off, good thing the voice acting is ok).

Captain Spirit has decent graphics.

Onto an excellent example of telling a short story is the gun slinging western Dead Horizon, and if you want to go into the "wordless feels" territory I can highly recommend When the Past was Around - Prologue, a short puzzler with awesome art and music, as well as A Raven Monologue, a one to two minute experience by the same group that I think purely exists to rip your soul from your body. Those last three are some of my favorites now. Hope you give them a try, and more importantly I hope you enjoy them!

SOMA

Questions what is means to be you.

A simple procedure leads Simon into a horrific facility filled with alien constructs and you must help him with his two goals: to find out what is going on and to get the hell out of there! This game does horror right. Not so many jump scares but the oppressive story and environment will have you crouch walking quite a lot! :P

The enemies too are nicely varied from area to area though some are real pains in the ass to get past. Also, the protagonist is a bit of a douche (required for story tension I guess), but the most annoying bit for me was the looking for stuff. Sometimes, something as simple as a button. Other times, like at the start, some medicine.

Will you be my friend?

I really wish there were better hints or indications of where to look for those, but to be fair some of the items are where you think they'd be. A battery will be in the power room for example. Right next to that weeping enemy. Great. LOL. Anyway, I found it to be really cool and definitely recommend it if you are into this horror genre. Just be advised it can be a little depressing (and very depressing if you don't play the after credits section). I give SOMA 4 omnitools out of 5.

Insight: The monsters have different "weaknesses". Near the start there are those that don't like being looked at, near the end there's a bastard who stops moving if you keep your eyes on him.

Birdman

After hearing all the awards this has been nominated for I decided to go see it the other day without any real expectation of what was in store for me. Yes, it's not really a superhero movie, it's about an actor who happens to be famous for a previous movie role (the titular "Birdman") trying to make a successful stage play. That in itself sounds incredibly dull, however the method that it is delivered is pretty cool, having just one long camera shot (via movie magic) almost the entire span of the movie. I dread to think how much rehearsal time and takes it took for everyone to get each sequence correct.

As you would expect, the acting is superb. Not just from lead Michael Keaton, but from all the others too - again probably perfected through the fires of stress and repetition due to how the movie is shot. Despite having many funny moments the story is a pretty depressing one but that didn't really bother me so much. What did bother me was the choice of music, or lack of it - in favor for many percussion solos (which are cleverly injected in some shots, complete with drummer and everything). Sure there are some parts with a solo cello playing some dark tunes but usually it's the drum guy you hear even in the opening and ending credits. If the point of that was to make me uncomfortable, it worked.

Do I make you uncomfortable?

From a technical view point, this film is great. Did I like it? That is a different question. Let's just say, I give it three out of five soliloquies. Despite that I can't really recommend it unless you like that technical aspect in film or just are a fan of Mr. Keaton.