Critical Fail

Tales of Berseria is a distant prequel to Zestiria. They hijacked the anime to promote the game with a two-part prologue. Even after they resumed the story, they added Velvet Crowe to the opening. That was really annoying and didn't make me want to play the game. They could've just given it its own OVA since it didn't tie back into the series directly. I don't know how many episodes Zestiria the X has, but it probably could do without this padding. It's even being dubbed already, minus episode zero. Maybe they'll skip the interruption too (unless they just skipped zero to follow the episode numbering). Here's another joke from episode 2 (titled episode 1): "Sorey, no!" "Sorey, yes." I'm actually more upset by the fact that Matt killed off Tiberius on Critical Role. That's like dropping a cheesy gordita on the floor. That's such a waste.

Lay's Do Us A Flavor is back, and the best one according to Brad is the Greek one. I tried it, and it tastes like a Mediterranean/white pizza. None of the swaps from earlier this year happened, so that's good. Despite Southern Biscuits and Gravy winning (nice!), I haven't seen it where I work. As per usual, the only newer flavors we have are cheesy garlic bread and bacon mac and cheese. I think we even stopped carrying actual mozzarella garlic bread. We still have mozzarella garlic toast, though. We also supposedly sell Crystal Pepsi (as in, I've seen people buying it), but when it was my turn to shop, there was no evidence that they ever existed.

The cast for next season's Power Rangers has been revealed. Fucking finally, they have a Ranger with the same first name as me. I'm not even mad unless her personality sucks.

Bag of Dicks

The Telltale version of Bruce Wayne looks like Archer. "Eat a dick, Gotham!" If this were an anime, Selina's note would've had an angry cat face doodled on it. Speaking of anime, I have one Tales of Zestiria the X joke from episode 5 - "Can you hear me now? Good!" Episode 6 delineated from the plot to focus on spin-off characters from the new game that's coming out. I wasn't expecting that and I can't say I enjoyed it, especially since it wasn't a one-off thing and I have no idea how or when it'll tie back into the original story that's being interrupted. We've already made it farther than the OVA, but are we ever going to reach the end?! I'm just as pissed about Digimon Tri getting dubbed before part 3 of Fusion, which was supposed to be this year but has been put on hold. I don't like Tri, so I may not even seek it out to watch. I haven't seen Suicide Squad but I liked the animated version (Assault on Arkham) better. I did see The Killing Joke and it was a piece of shit.

Teen Titans Go! had a week-long event with five episodes revolving around the characters stuck on a deserted island by plot contrivance (much like the bottle episode where Raven could get them out but chose not to, except her and Star's powers couldn't work). Cue all the deserted island spoofs and other references. I anticipated the last part to be the "no but seriously let's get out of here" episode, but they went one step beyond with a Truman Show reference culminating in a big battle with all the villains. The new intro was pretty catchy, and I liked how they added hula skirts to the usual dancing part.

The Tome of Beasts is out for Fifth Edition. Jason, Stephen, and I play-tested some monsters, so our names are in the credits. So that's pretty cool. An equally thick set of monster tokens came with it too. The snow queen is just Elsa, which is pretty funny and pretty stupid at the same time.

Here We Go Again

Three chapters into the Cardcaptor Sakura "Clear Card" arc, and I still have no real idea what's going on. As the title suggests, the cards all became transparent, then new spirits started appearing, the key/wand changed as they do, and the Windy (I assume) became the Gale. Eriol has told Syaoran something that they're keeping from Sakura and the audience. We don't know yet who the cloaked figure is in Sakura's dream yet either (unless that's the secret they're keeping from her). Everything in the first two arcs had been a test, and as hazardous as those events could be, they were never in any real danger. What's the test this time, and who's doing it? The story picked up right where the second arc left off, but did we really need a third arc? There didn't seem to be anything else that needed to be resolved. What more does she need to do? What possible adversary could be left messing with Clow's (and by extension, Sakura's) magic?

I drew Xaldin as a centaur and Lexaeus as a minotaur after all, and I added Vexen as a tiefling - specifically, Markus Velafi from Thrilling Intent. The two look very similar. I also drew those other two things I'd mentioned, plus more Raven and Ienzo together (both drawn and written, but they don't correspond with each other). Thrilling Intent is another fun D&D series, but it's a different format than Critical Role. Markus is my favorite character, though Aesling is cool too. I didn't initially hate Gregor (I'd liked his innocent naivete and optimism), but as the series went on he just got worse (lawful good doesn't mean lawful nice, and good is dumb in his case - too dumb to realize his own misdeeds and hypocrisy). The original forty episodes are classic, and but then they go on another quest and everything escalates from there. The voice actor for Markus makes great music for it, too.

Pop-Tarts has outdone themselves on flavor insanity. Now they have soda flavors - A&W Root Beer and Orange Crush. As much as I like those sodas, I don't think I want to touch them. I learned my lesson from the watermelon ones and I'd rather not chance it, not even if it was enhanced to be root beer float instead. I did, however, try the new Vanilla Life. It's pretty good but I'd rather they bring the brown sugar one over here.