Rabbit Review
The year of the Rabbit’s been busy and full of difficulties to hop through. It’s nice to review the 2023 bunnies of good health & strength with that kick of luck.
Happy New Year’s Eve!
Netflix Viewership stats
Long Film & TV stats list (excel sheet): https://assets.ctfassets.net/4cd45et68cgf/1HyknFM84ISQpeua6TjM7A/97a0a393098937a8f29c9d29c48dbfa8/What_We_Watched_A_Netflix_Engagement_Report_2023Jan-Jun.xlsx
Interesting how the recent Hollywood events lead to new contracts that added data transparency leading to this useful ranking list.
Many studio works are on Disney instead of Netflix, but they seem to trickle into the Netflix catalog. A few shows on view hours over half year period.
| Title | Available Globally? | Release Date | Hours Viewed |
| The Umbrella Academy: Season 1 | Yes | 2019-02-15 | 30,600,000 |
| The Umbrella Academy: Season 2 | Yes | 2020-07-31 | 18,700,000 |
| The Umbrella Academy: Season 3 | Yes | 2022-06-22 | 24,700,000 |
| Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery | Yes | 2022-12-23 | 142,900,000 |
| The Batman (2022) | No | 1,800,000 | |
| The Green Knight | No | 800,000 | |
| The Suicide Squad | No | 4,900,000 | |
| Godzilla vs. Kong | No | 4,600,000 | |
| Spectral | Yes | 2016-12-09 | 7,300,000 |
| The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two | Yes | 2020-11-25 | 8,500,000 |
| Space Force: Season 1 | Yes | 2020-05-29 | 7,000,000 |
| Space Force: Season 2 | Yes | 2022-02-18 | 3,500,000 |
| We Can Be Heroes | Yes | 2020-12-25 | 52,800,000 |
Glass Onion & Heroes are notably strong. Films & TVs are not comparable as their run lengths vary. It’s also a good list to find something to watch, or perhaps what genres & types are popular this year that’s worth a try.
https://about.netflix.com/en/news/what-we-watched-a-netflix-engagement-report
The Boy and the Heron film
(Contains summaries & elements. Plot spoilers can be revealed by highlighting or clicking the text. Viewers who prefer blind view can skip all articles & trailers. Just head to the theatres. It’s worth watching.)
The main characters include Mahito, his dad Shoichi, Heron old man, Kiriko (adult & granny versions), Himi (young & adult) & Natsuko. There’s also Parrot General, and Granduncle wizard who built a tower around an alien meteor long ago.
There were many nostalgic callbacks to Miyazaki & Ghibli’s previous films. The adorable bubbling Warawara souls feel like Kodama in the Mononoke forest. Quirky grannies, shadowy ghosts & the dead-living realm float alongside Spirited Away. And yes both are isekais. Shoichi runs a factory producing aircraft canopies as reminder to Wind Rises. A buggy fish surfacing from Nausicaa. Scurrying through tight corridors of Arrietty. A flame character kindling from Howl’s Moving Castle.
Overall the otherworld is filled with mystery in creepy cute creature designs. The residents like pelicans & parakeets in the alien world with its own mechanics form a fascinating worldbuilding. Kiriko & Himi often guide mc on the local customs, which at times act like a game guide tersely ordering the next quests. Might be translation or va, but feels like this dialog could be more natural or less game like. It’s good the sub & dub versions are in theatres simultaneously, that might bring a different experience.
Set designer went full bore with many weird beautiful sceneries, jumping traveling frequently bit like Odyssey 2001 (there got to have a closer analogy, ok more like Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart). Osts from Joe Hisaishi sound brooding & uniquely amazing, such that the film feels like a combo of music videos, where elements don’t quite make sense yet every piece seems to be a metaphor.
Crowd animation shots were standout amazing, which rarely ever appear in other hand drawn film sequences. The pelican gate rush & mummy wrapping vs flame was nuts in the layers & complexity. CG use was sparing & integrated well with the drawn world.
The fire run in stylistic smearing through the crowd is quite an opener that gives weight to Mahito’s memory that haunts him later.
[Click to expand plot spoilers & questions.]
Considering how generic most isekai mc’s look with black short hair, it’s nice Mahito got a rare (partial) mohawk, and it gets explained early on. But many things the cast does are quirky or not clear if plot relevant. mc self harm was explained as his malice, but was the real intention to avoid school, or to gain attention from the family? When Natsuko said she hated mc in the restricted room, what was the actual intention or was it a lie? It was established as a running gag the herons often lie. We see the dad is very caring to everyone, yet has relationship with his wife’s sister. Oddly this long awaited Ghibli film might share a boat with Domestic na Kanojo or How I Met Your Mother. Mahito’s mom was assumed dead, but later hinted she can survive a fire, but in the real world we don’t see her. Which ar lies? Which are imaginary? Aging Wizard wanted mc to inherit the otherworld & build blocks to prevent its collapse. Mahito refused on grounds his own malice is unsuitable to rule that world. All while Parrot General wanted prosperity for the parrot clan, but somehow broke the blocks that define their world.
Perhaps rewatching can resolve the above threads, but many elements here are quite open to interpretation. It indeed presents an epic adventure where a teenager faces family issues, grapples with loss, lies & acceptance of reality, and wonders how the otherworld changes him.
Godzilla Minus One film
(Contains summaries & some details. Plot specific spoilers can be revealed by highlighting the invisible white text. Viewers who prefer blind view might want to skip all articles & trailers. Just head to the theatres. It’s worth watching.)
Usual monster films are all spectacle, big fights & vfx explosions, where the human characters tend to be forgettable and drag down a movie with paper thin plot. This version however focuses more on character struggles, while Godzilla remains central to both plot & the people.
It’s more a historical drama post WW2 from 1945 onward. The early Showa era sets & furnishing, evolving from rubble, makeshift sheds, worn wooden shacks, to rebuilt homes & concrete buildings, are quite an uplifting scenery shift. And somewhat echoes the characters gaining traction.
Osts were usual, but the timing arrangement is real smooth, and adds to hyping up Godzilla & battles without relying on explosions too much.
I thought 15 million budget means sparing to show a few key destruction vfx shots. Instead they went ham on virtual Tokyo & the shoreline. Buildings & houses get partial & full destruction, balanced with explosions, wind blasts, & panicking crowds. There’s a certain choreography to avoid complete chaos, and thereby keep the viewer’s attention constantly attached yet moving. Likely from ukiyo-e or manga influence, there are occasional key wide shots to pause the action but present gorgeous wallpapers. Even some smoke plumes have an artistic finesse surrounding Godzilla. The Noriko train shots were also quite dynamic with decent realism.
Shikishima is the pilot mc who stumbled into a found family with Noriko & Akiko. mc became a postwar minesweeper on a tattered wooden boat that pays well. Noriko later works at Ginza to become independent. Aunt Sumiko was an angry neighbor who mellowed out after babysitting the infant Akiko more.
Doctor, Kid, & Commander serve the main minesweeper crew with mc, both serving as family support & kaiju teammates. The group’s quips & complaints feel more fun, as they’re not always unified. Their resistance gradually grows to include many ex military groups. Navy General though had short screen time, made a great performance.
Instead of finding one hero or scifi weapon, they face Godzilla with science & military strategy. Doctor’s plans are strategically complex, involving freon gas, coordinated ships, geographical depth advantage, mc bait using the prototype Shinden fighter, hydrostatic pressure change both down & up, and mc’s finisher. Kid later made a surprise rally of a fisherman crowd to help the main battleships to fish Godzilla up. Main battleships involved were Takao, Yukikaze & Hibiki. (Takao deserved better… )
Shikishima fights two wars in a way, as a flawed hero. He’s established as a coward who repeatedly escapes, leaving regrets behind. Guilt PTSD haunts him, dragging him away from the present & his family. The WW2 war never ended for him, instead it continued as the Godzilla war. Every plot point is a struggle, nothing goes smoothly as planned, and it feels every step is hard earned. We see his character develop, not to a reckless fighter that was originally his kamikaze pilot role, but as a fighter who does the job without war consuming his whole life. The hero also spread slanderous blame on mechanic Tachibana over the Oda Island event, baiting him here to fix the Shinden plane. Certainly not a dignified hero’s journey but when desperate he goes far.
Noriko starts as a thief hiding from pursuers, to a caring mother, then to a hero saving Shikishima. Both Aunt & Tachibana started spiteful of mc for his faults, but gradually improved their relations. It’s somehow refreshing to see a main cast be full of flaws & more human without annoyance.
There feels a big acting style difference between blockbuster/marvel shows and here. This film might be a mix of theatre training & realism/method acting. Even from the military background cast, you can feel their intensity jumping off the screen. The ones with most standout performances are Shikishima, General & Akiko. For a child actor, Akiko had scenes keeping the family together, dialog with the right mood & even crying. That’s some amazing skill & potential. Shikishima conveys a lot with the eyes, posture, detailed gestures & twitching through his ptsd struggle. It seems he can descend into madness without feeling theatrical & melodramatic, or build the right emotions for relations & plot to progress naturally. The grandeur of Godzilla & the naval fleet are impressive, but in a way Shikishima carries the show.
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Financial Proverbs
Many sites & news articles are filled with old proverbs & quotes.
Some are easy to take for granted, or at face value. Some perhaps are well intentioned scams that don’t work irl, or do not have statistical backing. Some are proven safe but doesn’t match one’s specific goals, context & investing timeframe.
“Buy and hold” “HODL”
It’s on every site, every video & courses all about financial planning. I’ve done the research, read news, checked valuations, performance metrics, and chose companies accordingly. Then keep for years or forever, not look at it or check it’s value. The recommendation is by not checking, you avoid the possible mistake of exiting at a huge loss, or miss years of gains. Long term investing, very Warren Buffett styled. But the fact is most hedge funds, large investors & Berkshire buy & sell many stocks each quarter. It’s the same as HODLing.
I accepted this as truth from popular consensus, until it wrecked my account. From the valuations at the time of entry, many companies had great numbers for their respective industries. Amazon AMZN, Canopy CGC, AT&T T, Paypal PYPL etc.
It wasn’t caused by any one unlucky buy timing, as I did the DCA thing the gurus all recommend spread over some time. To be fair I didn’t try the regular buy $x per week/month, since not everyone has funds just trickling down.
Take AMZN, suppose all the DCA gave you breakeven roughly at the red level on this chart below. The fundamentals was and still makes up a great revenue generating company. But it sure is frustrating always holding a loss. And if one checked would find only 3 days in nearly 2 years to exit at near breakeven. This locks up dead capital waiting for the next peak, just to fall back into a losing multi valley pattern and lower base. There’s 0 dividend, just an assumption that it should rise in time. Company changes, or market forces will all challenge this assumption. They say timing the market is a lost cause, but it’ll likely have helped better entry & exit for a volatile chart as this.
CGC was one of the best grassy stocks. But it didn’t matter. Most of these stocks are -99% down. It’s certainly a popular HODL stock.
AT&T in hindsight, was an obvious value trap. At least this gives dividends upward of 7% yield now.
PYPL the valuations, cashflow, customer count are all better vs before. But its valuations don’t matter. Interest rates & market forces decide fintech are unwanted so it’s -80% from peak.
“Fundamental analysis is better than technical analysis” “technical analysis is like astrology”
Deep value investing vs trendline entry which is the bigger scam? A company can have great undervalued numbers. But an important truth is the market can dislike certain sectors/companies longer than one’s lifetime. “Eventually price will normalize to its valuations”, “Eventually traders will notice the company,” these are hopes of a market efficiency that might not exist.
If you think combining fundamentals & technicals will save an investment/trade, it’s not that simple. Companies with nice uptrends and good fundamentals can instantly tank 26.5% in one earnings day, like Fortinet FTNT and many retailers like Dollar General DG or Wayfair W.
Some technical analysis are just arbitrary lines & shapes, while some have statistical basis. Markets aren’t all random. The most obvious trends & structures exist because institutions, hedgefunds & retailers all learned these, and are aware of how to trade a head & shoulders, a wedge pattern etc. These big “believers” will trade accordingly, and that capital will move the price accordingly, strengthening & reinforcing the belief of each pattern.
“DCA is the way”
Besides the AMZN case, DCA is a decent strategy in general, but blind DCA is not. Later found some youtubers suggest more nuanced strategies. Research fundamentals to choose good companies. Research technicals to find a good entry point. Continue checking both fundamentals & technicals in case anything changes. Only then DCA add in when all metrics look good. Basic DCA is buy like $10 each time, of however many fractional shares. Some suggest growing the buy the deeper it falls, maybe start $10, after a 5 point fall buy $20, another 5 point fall buy $40. Some suggest never DCA down, only DCA upward. This sounds good, as the idea is “don’t pile onto losers”, and you only add to uptrending winners. But that likely ends up buying at all time highs, so I’m not sure of that strategy yet.
“Price action is better than any indicators which are all lagging”
The info from candlesticks and curves/indicators is a snapshot record of the same timeline. They are just transformed, simplified & presented in different manners.
I’ve tried some price action candlestick strategies and they mostly fail. Trying to strictly identify some insidebar engulfing red/green patterns, an exact NR7, or Hikkake, by the time one checks all bars match the move is already gone, and bars are too noisy & stock specific. An article backtested a certain candle pattern only works on 15 & 30 minute timeframes, and not others, which unfortunately can’t work for many traders/investors.
SMAs may look laggy, but it’s averaging the same data, and presenting a simplified average view vs candles. A candle simplifies all the sub data in a timeframe into 4 values. Some prefer line chart which simplifies the 4 values into 1 point of the line.
Haven’t figured out a proper strategy, but it seems a combo of fundamentals, technicals & nuanced DCA might be a good start. The rest is simply to try.
gophercg.log 