Jjajan-ssi Misstada (YouTube)
Oh Minji: YouTuber Jjajan-ssi is a woman who can become anything. One day, she is a “top 0.01% genius woman” hailing taxis on the streets of Japan. Next, she is a girl in her 20s just hanging out at home, playing a cake-throwing game while listening to a medley from the Toonieverse. She becomes a “top 0.001% ultra-beauty,” putting on new glasses and heading out to snap selfies with both her iPhone 6 and a pink toy phone called Lala Phone. Then she is a “typical Korean otaku girl in her 20s,” lounging in her favorite clothes, slurping cup noodles, and flipping through comics at home. In a “Vlog of a Small-Town Loner,” she says: “The princesses must have noticed by now, right? My tastes are changing. Honestly, I don’t really know myself either. I change my mind so often that I can’t really stick with anything. I’m just trying everything. So don’t be shocked if I change suddenly, okay? ♡” Jjajan-ssi shifts constantly, and gradually. Sometimes, she becomes the person she wants to be. Other times, she becomes herself.
“You always tell me I should be happy all the time, but as you can see, I am obviously a happy person! So you guys be happy too, okay?” She says this near the end of a video called “Why This Otaku Girl in Glasses Never Leaves Her Room,” surrounded by the things she loves, as she chats about what she adores most. Just like she says, the Jjajan-ssi channel lives in the space between a happy Jjajan-ssi and the ladies who wish her happiness. The viewers send her good energy, and she gives it right back by being part of their happiness. She unboxes anime figures of her favorite characters, eats her favorite shaved ice desserts, and goes on trips to her favorite places. Even when she gets into a fight with a friend on one of those trips, they make up and hug within thirty minutes. She buys pretty things she loves and shows them off with excitement. The entire channel is filled with stories of going to places she loves, doing what she loves, eating what she loves, and sharing it with people she loves. Naturally, ladies gather there. As one subscriber put it: “Watching her always be so kind and gentle with herself made me feel like maybe I could do that too. Cheering for Jjajan-ssi made me realize I was cheering for myself too.” That’s what this channel is for: to root for her happiness, and through her, to root for their own.
I’m Still Here
Bae Dongmi (“CINE21” reporter): Brazil endured a military dictatorship for twenty-one years, from 1964 to 1985. Former congressman Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello) fled into exile when the military seized power, only to return to Brazil later. In 1971, he was taken away by the army and never came back. His wife, Eunice Paiva (Fernanda Torres), raised their five children alone while fighting the state to confirm what had happened to her husband. After twenty-five years of relentless struggle, she finally obtained a death certificate. This is not a story invented for cinema. It is what truly happened to one family. Even the characters’ names in the film are the names of real people, because the film is based on a book written by Marcelo, the Paiva family’s youngest son.
The Brazilian film I’m Still Here won the Best Screenplay Award at the Venice International Film Festival last year. This year, it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature and the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama. The film recreates state violence during the 1970s dictatorship through the prism of one family. At that time, Rio de Janeiro was a city where anyone could freely plunge into the sea. Yet, it was also a place where the military, under the guise of hunting terrorists, stopped citizens and demanded their identification. Against this backdrop, Rubens was seized and disappeared. Over the more than two decades of dictatorship, 191 people were killed and 243 went missing.
A typical film might have chosen to recreate the tragic events that befell this family, dwelling on Rubens and the ordeals he endured. I’m Still Here chooses instead to turn toward the family left behind, especially Eunice. It shows how she consoled five children, how she managed daily life when she could not even withdraw savings without her husband’s signature, and how every sudden noise-the rush of a car on the street, the thrum of a helicopter overhead, startled her into fear. No one escapes the current of history, yet in moments when lovers, family, and friends lean on each other and soothe one another’s hearts, the crushing weight of the world lifts for a moment. Faithful to this truth, I’m Still Here often lingers on the family’s tender, ordinary moments. The youngest son, Marcelo (Guilherme Silveira), pleaded to take in a stray puppy he found on the beach. The father, Rubens, is burying his youngest daughter Fábio’s (Cora Mora) baby tooth with care in the sand. Eunice wraps her eldest daughter, Veroca (Valentina Herszage), in a deep embrace as she passes on the coat she wore in her youth. Even when they say “Smile,” when they pose for a family portrait without Rubens, it is meant for the press. The Paiva family was close before Rubens disappeared, and they remained bound together afterward. By the end of the film, it feels as if you have known this family for years.
“Grace” (YonYon)
Hwang Sun-up (Music Critic): In the music scenes of Korea and Japan, I have noticed more cases where the established idea of national borders seems to lose its hold. It is no longer just a matter of taste and trend being shared in real time across social media, or artists collaborating more often. The change has taken on a deeper character: musicians themselves have begun to pursue a borderless identity. One clear example is Chanmina’s Naked, an album that gathered singles she had released in both countries and presented them together as a simultaneous strike. Works like this cannot be pinned down to a single nationality musically, linguistically, or even nationally. Their very ambiguity seems to accelerate in a global market that is slowly but steadily fusing into one. And now another work deserves to be added to that list: the first full-length album by YonYon, a singer-songwriter and DJ based primarily in Japan.
The networks she has built with diligence are fully reflected in the detailed credits. Moonlight Cruising (feat. KIRINJI) achieves an urbane danceable quality through a dream-like pairing with Kirinji and Slom. U and Life is Beautiful reveal two sides of YonYon’s artistic identity, with Japanese hip-hop heavyweight Chaki Zulu shaping the beat on one track and the melody on the other. Dreamin’ carries the voices of Taku from M-Flo and the Korean singer SUMIN, and the chemistry is so natural that it feels like a unit that has always existed. From this angle alone, the album is worth recommending, because it allows listeners to enjoy a lavish collaboration that represents an unusual level of collaboration across the two scenes. Yet there is more. Supported by the staff she gathered on her own, YonYon does not build walls. She expresses love and gratitude freely in both languages. In doing so, she offers the music scene a new blueprint. This is why the album deserves another recommendation: it embodies trust in the universality of music itself, not just in the choice of words. Step by step, she has held onto that belief, and the result, Grace, proves that her path has been meaningful. Some may think it goes too far, but I feel it once again with absolute clarity: all music, in the end, is simply music.