Every year by the end of the year I think of making a list of things that moved me and sometimes fail to finally put it together, but This Year Will Be Different, pals. (Plus, this beautiful website of mine needs at least one update while the year still ends in one.) So please enjoy some stuff that I liked in arts and sports this year.
Game(s) of the year
There were two long-awaited games this year that both ended up being free drops: Deltarune Ch. 2, the latest instalment in Toby Fox’s spiritual and literal successor to Undertale and the best game to BE A BIG SHOT and Get In The Car, Loser!, a road trip JRPG with a banger battle theme, “The Spirit of the Times,” that ponders the big questions, like how to respond to creeping injustice and whether or not an angel can cuss. But the game I poured the most time and emotional investment into this year was Hollow Knight: Voidheart Edition, a very pretty, very challenging but very rewarding Metroidvania that draws you deeper and deeper into its bug-filled world. I was banging my head against the wall getting the Hunter’s Mark but I DID IT, back in April.
Art piece of the year
This is a year when I really got into Kickstarting projects and the concept of keepsake games and connected-path games, led by Shing Yin Khor and Jeeyon Shim’s Field Guide to Memory. Is it a scrapbook? Is it a roleplaying game? Is it an online community? It’s kind of all three! Every day for four weeks in February, I got an emailed prompt for a diary entry in the story of my erstwhile character Angus Dates, whose cryptid-researcher mentor went missing. It’s a story you’re meant to populate with your own memories, a great reminder of our impacts on nature and the impacts of others on us.
Album/song of the year
Spotify Wrapped can’t control me. This year I dug deep on Bandcamp Friday, trying to scoop records for actual literal money that goes to artists, as well as continuting to pick up vinyl. (Like Humour by Russell Louder, a great synthpop glam-cave dream!) But there wasn’t a song that dominated my year as much as “Paradise (Stay Forever),” a part of Epoch’s soundtrack for the 2020 game Paradise Killer, which splashed city pop and vaporwave across my musical choices and also my YouTube recommendations. The song I hit play on right before taking a shot at the end of the day.
Wrestling matches of the year
Even with some promotions on intermittent schedules, there was still a lot of amazing wrestling to consider this year. Let’s bust out some of my favourites:
5. Shingo Takagi vs. Tomohiro Ishii (G1 Climax Night 1, 9/18)
It’s been an up-and-down year for New Japan. Some of it has turned me off, such as the rise of Will Ospreay in the promotion, but one thing they did right was make Shingo Takagi champion, and turn him loose for banger after banger, including a great match with Hiroshi Tanahashi in the Tokyo Dome. But this is my favourite, a blistering hoss fight with Tomohiro Ishii.
4. Utami Hayashishita vs Syuri (Stardom Tokyo Dream Cinderella, 6/12)
This was an extremely good match which featured great action throughout, a thrilling clash that somehow left the audience wanting more while giving it more at the same time. A match so good that the rest of the year revolved around it.
3. Kenny Omega vs. Bryan Danielson (AEW Dynamite Grand Slam, 9/22)
This match had it all: a complete dream-match setup, with the surreal notion of the pairing happening at all, the unique stadium atmosphere in Arthur Ashe Stadium, and a really compelling story told over 30 minutes — and all on television. The wrestling event of the year.
2. Katsuyori Shibata vs. Zack Sabre Jr. (Grappling exhibition, NJPW G1 Climax Finals, 10/21)
Shibata’s last G1 surprise was simply to announce that he was alive. But this, years after a subdural hematoma against Kazuchika Okada ended his career in 2017, and after his becoming a regular presence as LA Dojo Dad, was the return of Shibata The Wrestler, and it was so lovely, to at least once, have him back again. This, and the sequel grappling-style match planned for Wrestle Kingdom, is so welcome to me because it focuses away from the tragedy of Shibata’s best work coming in the match that almost killed him. We have new Shibata work to consider, and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with.
1. ASUKA vs. Kagetsu (Hana Kimura Memorial Show, 5/23)
The memories here were still raw a year after the death of Hana Kimura, but the way this unannounced singles match coalesced out of the main event of Hana Kimura’s memorial show, the fact of Kagetsu’s one-night-return from retirement, what Hana meant to ASUKA (as well as Kagetsu) made this match the most meaningful of the year to me. Tears.
Wrestler of the year
In a year with so many momentous comings and goings, the story of a cowboy trying to be the best man he could be was still as compelling as anything else in wrestling. Hangman Adam Page encompassed the values of sincerity, vulnerability, friendship and tenacity, in a roller-coaster story that seemed to bring him close on a few occasions until he finally won the big one at AEW Full Gear. He got back on the horse, and is my wrestler of the year.
Good show of the year
I ventured into the theatre a few times this year, catching the extremely fun, dreamily-staged musical In The Heights and the transfixing Dune, and I’ve also had some great appointment-viewing TV shows such as WandaVision or, again, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. But the best thing I feel like I’ve seen on screen so far is Only Murders In The Building, a comedy murder mystery with Selena Gomez, Steve Martin and Martin Short. Extremely funny, and it’s to true crime what wrestling is to MMA: it has all the best parts, but fewer people get hurt.
Bad show of the year
There were a lot of opportunities to gawk at glorious messes this year. Cruella offered a delightful-yet-unhinged prequel to 101 Dalmatians that nobody needed, Space Jam 2 arrived but was almost completely without any redeeming points (I just yelled I LOVE BRAAAANDS so much.) I played eighty hours of Cyberpunk 2077 even though it was so flawed it crashed in the ending credits TWICE. But the biggest, worst call, most botched show of the year was the live-action Cowboy Bebop from Netflix. There’s something in there, a funky near-future cyberpunk dystopia which is reminiscent of The Fifth Element, and it’s good to watch John Cho fight. But so many elements of the original anime’s story were misunderstood and poorly employed, with formulaic, eye-rolling changes and a groaner finale twist that seemed to set up a sequel that was cut off when the series was almost instantly cancelled.
Soccer moment of the year
There can only be one team, one match, one win here, and it’s Canada’s gold medal win in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in August. From 2012’s bronze to now, Canada’s team had established itself as an important side, but from the moment it lost to the U.S. in the semifinal in London, the path to a true victory seemed hazy. But the stories of Christine Sinclair, the team’s other veterans, past and present, and its new generation coalesced in the journey past Brazil, the U.S. and Sweden in the final.