Wrapping It Up

I read select sections of Greg Proops's "Smartest Book in the World." My initial reaction was similar to Princess Carolyn's after she read Bojack's: It's gibberish. Otherwise, I would describe it as "Greg really, really likes baseball." There are a couple of quotes I took from his ramblings, as Greg does have a way with words. My favorite is: "No book ever asks for the rent or threatens you with a knife. No book ever borrows money or agrees to help you move and then is too hungover to show up." I don't believe any of his stand-up bits are included in this, though I was only really looking for "America is England's fault;" in the beginning of his chapter on Women (yes, he capitalizes it), however, he does mention that "history is a series of lies written by icky white guys who beat their maids," so that's close enough to "It sounds better than the truth...so we'll all pretend it really happened. There were no women or minorities, just a bunch of white guys wearing wigs." He also includes some poetry that he introduces sort of like my English teacher did in my junior year of high school. This includes "The Raven," which was left out of the Edgar Allan Poe collected works book I have (though that might've only been short stories). Thanks, Greg!

My family knows I'm a weeb, so they got me some odd-flavored Kit Kats from Japan. The strawberry and green tea ones I already knew would be good, as well as strawberry cheesecake. However, there was also apple, azuki bean, and purple potato. The apple ones tasted like candy apples, so they were fine. The azuki bean ones are bitter, so part of me wonders why they're used in pastries and such. The purple potato ones didn't really taste like anything, though they're supposed to taste like sweet potato. I might've been burnt out by that point when I was sampling them. They also got me pumpkin spice flavored ones, and those were just as strong if not stronger than the pumpkin spice M&Ms. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied.

I really liked "The Plan to Eradicate Christmas." My favorite part was when Vegeta monologued about trying to shoot down Santa every year (before Christmas was replaced by Frieza Day) but ended up hitting his brother's pod by mistake. "They never found the body." "I have an uncle?" "You HAD an uncle." Later on, Santa tells him he did manage to hit him one year and is understandably nettled (Vegeta is thrilled). It's sad that the abridged series is ending after the Cell saga (as Toriyama originally intended) because of demands on their time and the toxic fan base demanding they work on nothing but DBZA. I suppose if there are scenes they really want to do from the Buu saga, like their short Super videos, they might do those.

There are a couple of projects I would like to do next year, including the one I've been working on for KH3 (assuming it releases before the holiday season and I can get the relevant screen shots I've been looking/waiting for). Right now I'm preparing to do an audio swap video; characters voiced by the same person will trade lines. I'm also trying to decide whether or not to make my next holiday video a sequel to the last one with other Christopher Lee carols (played straight this time, though).

Welcome to the Jungle

I saw the Hey Arnold! Jungle Movie, and it wasn't as great as I thought it would be, probably because people kept saying how good it was and over-hyped it. I don't think that it's bad or a misrepresentation of the show. The only real complaint I have is that sometimes the kids seemed out-of-character or confined to a box (yep, that's what this character is known for, don't need to do anything else with them). Olga got it the worst, as I don't remember her being boy-crazy and immature; she didn't even need to be there. I didn't get why the parents each had a skunk stripe in their hair (they wouldn't be that old and other people's parents look fine), and it seemed unbelievable that they would calmly say "Hey Arnold" (title drop) upon waking up and seeing their son for the first time in ten years. But then they become clingy in the epilogue, following him to school and asking what time school gets out because they're so eager to be with him; he even has to set boundaries with them. The movie does a fake-out like the entire thing was a dream, which was kind of annoying. As far as long-awaited sequel movies go, it's definitely the best one, even though that's not saying much (looking at you, Dark Side of Dimensions). It's most likely better than the first Hey Arnold! movie, even though both of them get crazy in the third act and have dumb, uncomfortable moments. For the most part, it was done well, and I can appreciate that. As for the new Jumanji movie, I haven't seen it and probably will not see it, but I hear it's also really good so I'll just take people's word for it. It's really a remake and not a sequel since it's a video game and not a board game, and they all get sucked into it instead of just one person. That would be like if Cuphead was actually a portal to Hell.

Yandere Simulator would make a great anime, but it couldn't be called that as a TV show since "simulator" is a word to describe the game. Love Sick would be an appropriate name for its non-game counterpart if it were to have one (but I still prefer the original for the game as well as its lighter tone). The Dev recently added the student council to the build, and I like the idea of bringing the Yakuza into it, too. I liked both versions of the Kokona situation, even though neither will appear in the finished game as she's not a real rival. I liked the non-violent approach (which is less out-of-character when you consider the animation on YouTube where Info-chan is the one instigating violence), but I also liked the scene where Ayano puts Kokona in the position to kill Musume.

Passion Projects

Emerald (along with Mercury) appeared in episode seven of volume five, doing what she does best - styling on the Shady Man. Jerk had it coming (though Yang probably did it better). I get the feeling the only two people who are important in that camp (Raven and Vernal) are also the only ones who can fight worth a damn. Or maybe they'll escape using Raven's semblance and end up with Qrow and the others. Going after Maidens is what Cinder's team does best anyway. Qrow thwarted their earliest attempt on Amber's life and could do so again with Vernal, especially with the others with him this time. He went out looking for Huntsmen and came back with Yang and Weiss.

The Power Rangers Ninja Steel Christmas episode was kind of funny but not as good as I thought it would be. It got more annoying as it went on. It was a neat idea, but it had some holes in it, as time-travel episodes often do. Cleocatra was written well and made me laugh a couple times, but when the Rangers were fighting her at the end, the writing made it sound like they had something against cats.

I get that the Teen Titans Go! 200th episode special is a vanity project, but the only good part was the beginning. The voice actors scene was the best (and I'm glad it was all of them and not just Scott). Like the Night Begins to Shine 4-parter, the celebrities called security on them. Part of me wishes Terra could've been part of it so we could've had Ashley there too. I liked seeing her in the Signal Boost video she was in on Geek and Sundry ("Pay me what I'm worth!").

I found out there was a series of six-minute Abbott and Costello cartoons by Hanna Barbera. Bud voiced himself, but Lou was voiced by someone else. Lou was probably dead by then, and Bud sounded old and sad. I only saw two of them, but I wasn't impressed or amused.

With all of these sexual allegations bringing people down and the public at large being shamed or feeling ashamed for ever liking them in the first place, I'm reminded of the "never meet your heroes" episode of Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! Chiro was ripping down all his posters of the hero team he looked up to, and Gibson reminded them that it wasn't them but what they stood for that made him want to become a hero. I think that principle still stands. You can support and enjoy projects these people made because you can separate their bad deeds from the art.

I recently learned that Daniel Radcliffe was often drunk during the filming of Half-blood Prince. That explains the Felix Felicis scene - he wasn't acting! Also, FNAF 6 came out. WTF?

Thankful

Correction: Cinder is in the RWBY volume 5 opening. I just didn't think I saw her because she is on the same side of the screen and has the same color scheme as Raven. Tyrian doesn't appear in it and hasn't appeared yet, but he's supposed to be getting a new tail. As of this writing, Nick Landis (Lanipator) has appeared about three times, and this latest appearance as a barkeep was glorious, as he uses his well-known Piccolo voice. He'd previously voiced an angry businessman at Weiss's dad's party and the assassin sent to kill Blake's dad's messenger. This is especially impressive since Chris Sabat voices Dr. Watts, and I couldn't tell which one of the two actors it was at first.

Telltale Guardians of the Galaxy finished strong. The last two installments were better than the rest of the series. I especially like Drax's characterization, even though this character model doesn't look much like Dave Batista. Since I don't read the comics, I don't know how he's supposed to feel about Mantis. In the promos for the second movie, he seemed not to like her, but that might not be accurate. In Telltale, he notices that everyone's arguing is physically hurting her so yells at them to stop until he passes out. I also liked thepart where he says "I am the leader? Then I order all of you to kneel before me!" after they praise him for not being materialistic as opposed to Peter, their actual leader. The fourth episode was all Drax, and that probably would've made it the best one if the finale wasn't so good. I like this version of Mantis, at least. I like she can do with her powers in this and how she feels about using them. Her character model is cuter than her movie counterpart too, in my opinion. As for Minecraft Story Mode, Ivor's a ninja now. Great. Another episode of Batman came out also, so that's a lot in a short period of time. I can't really say anything about it without spoiling it, though. Maybe next time.

Teen Titans Go did another Thanksgiving episode, and it was not as good as the other one (which I don't remember being all that good either, but it had Trigon as an earlier episode had promised). Some parts made me smile, but overall it was kind of a train wreck. Why why why why why would they do such an episode with these characters?!

5 Times the Power Rangers were Dicks

As much as some of us hate to admit, our heroes aren't always the good guys we hold them up to be. Sometimes they slip up - badly. A few examples stand out in my mind, either as habitual behavior or isolated incidents. These do not include spells or substances that affected their behavior. Whether or not they learned a lesson from it as part of a character arc or plot point, here are the things that didn't sit right with me even after they were resolved.

1. Mighty Morphin: Either at the time or viewed with Nostalgia Goggles, Bulk and Skull were fan favorite characters. As such, some would say the Ranger Team didn't give them the respect they deserved. I disagree, as they were introduced as bullies and didn't really improve until later on when they became the genuine comedy relief and heroes in their own right. However, there may have been some moments in MMPR where the Rangers said or did some things that were unfair to them. An example that features prominently in my mind is when they're on the Island of Illusion and Kimberly's hallucination has to do with Bulk and Skull (still bullies at this point) being good guys. Mind you, everyone is supposed to be seeing something they're afraid of to make them doubt themselves. I blame the writers just as much as Kimberly on this one, as it makes no goddamn sense.

2. Mystic Force: In that same vein, there was that time the Mystic Force team had to leave work to take care of a problem, and the only other employee left was Leelee, who used to be their enemy. Their boss isn't in on the whole Ranger business, so he chews them out upon their return (part of the reason for hiring Leelee was their repeated absence). On the one hand, they had to go regardless, and they weren't exactly happy that Leelee was working with them as they weren't sure if they could trust her or not. On the other hand, poor Leelee. They warm up to her after they see her genuine hard work.

3. Jungle Fury: Leaving your former enemy to run the business while you're out is one thing, but what about your friend? The Jungle Fury team left Fran in charge of the pizzeria while they were out fighting evil, and she wasn't pleased with them taking advantage of her like that time and again. Even when they were there, without RJ to lead them, they would argue and push their work onto her. She's happy to help, but there's only so much one person can do to run a pizza shop on her own, especially during a rush...which makes me wonder what RJ did before the team showed up. This is before Fran found out about the Ranger thing, though. She got a raise out of it, at least.

4. Mystic Force (again): The Mystic Force Rangers find themselves in hot water when they have to face the Tribunal of Magic. Basically, if the teens hadn't been a bunch of lazy sh*t-heads, Imperious wouldn't have gotten his Dark Wish. They have to prove themselves worthy in order for the Tribunal to reverse the Wish, and it wasn't easy. Usually a storyline will be written around one team member slacking off and dealing with the consequences, but the entire team f*cked up and we got a three-parter out of it.

5. Super Samurai: Negligence is one thing, but actively shunning and bad-mouthing someone is worse. Jayden leaves so his sister can lead the team as she was always intended to. He didn't need to leave, and his departure causes the rest of the team to revolt. They do not accept Lauren as their leader or a member of the team after this. Lauren didn't do anything to deserve this, as Linkara pointed out in his review of Samurai. They got Jayden back and reinstated him as leader. At least when Alex tried to take over again in Time Force, he was unlikeable by that point.

Let's Talk about Emerald Sustrai

The villains of RWBY are quite the cast of characters. My favorite out of Salem's henchmen is Hazel because he helped Oscar get a ticket and didn't want Sienna Khan to be killed. However, someone seems to be missing from the overall line-up as of late - Emerald. In season 4, Mercury and Emerald were still at Cinder's side but realized they were nothing compared to the rest of Salem's henchmen, to say nothing of Neo being missing/presumed dead and Torchwick having been devoured by a Grimm in season 3. During season 4, Cinder couldn't talk and would whisper to Emerald in order for her to communicate; in season 5, Cinder seems to have gotten a little better and no longer needs her to do so. We still see Yang fighting with Mercury in the season 5 OP, but Emerald is nowhere to be seen. Assuming this means anything and Yang will get a rematch with Mercury, what happened to Emerald? We saw her smiling when she tricked Pyrrha into killing Penny, but during the fall of Beacon, she had a "What have I done?" moment as the Grimm overran the academy and surrounding area. No longer needed and wanting nothing to do with the Grimm, she might just leave the group and go off on her own. Mercury is at least on board with everything and is able to fight even though he's less important than the likes of Tyrian and others. Cinder isn't in the OP, but we've seen her, so maybe we just haven't seen Emerald yet. If she stays, what would they use her for, if anything? The last thing we've seen her do with her semblance is help Cinder train to get revenge on Ruby. Fighting and stealing seem to be lower on the group's list of priorities at this time.
We've seen that Salem is helping Cinder recover and become stronger, and we've recently heard her give orders to have Tyrian's tail replaced. If nothing else, she takes care of her followers. In a sense, they're no use to her crippled, but she seems to at least have an investment in Cinder, who has acquired the powers of the Fall Maiden. Is Cinder going to absorb the Spring Maiden's powers as the OP suggests (it's Vernal, in case that wasn't obvious)? If in fact she can only harness the power of one Maiden, would Emerald be the next choice? Some people are suggesting that Neo, who has been rumored to return, will be the Spring Maiden. Will the fate of the Spring Maiden be the crux of season 5 as the Fall Maiden was in season 3? Will future seasons deal with the Winter and Summer Maidens? I doubt that Team RWBY will face off against Salem at the end of this season like the end of the OP, but I believe they will be reunited as the fate of Haven hangs in the balance.

Sauce and Satisfaction

I must admit that I did go to a McDonald's on Szechuan Sauce Day to see if I could get one, and of course I couldn't. I didn't mind except for the fact that one sauce packet is the perfect sample size for people who may not end up liking it. Anyone can go to the store and get a bottle of szechuan sauce, but Rick specified McDonald's, so that's how this shit got started. However, I heard that combining barbecue sauce and sweet and sour sauce produces a close facsimile, so I decided to try that. McDonald's has the best sweet and sour sauce anyway, so I got that with my six-piece nuggets. I saved the extra one (they give you two if you don't specify a number - they do have those kiosks where you can place your specific order yourself now) and dumped it into a bowl. I added barbecue sauce and some teriyaki marinade (I cooked teriyaki beef at home once - delicious) and stirred it together. The results were pretty good, though I have nothing to compare it to. Szechuan sauce is supposed to be spicy, and I don't handle spice all that well, but this had a slow burn to it (I assume - it could've been the seasoning on the popcorn chicken I heated up in the oven). 

I finished reading the Tal'Dorei Campaign Guide, and it did not disappoint. I look forward to future campaign books about the other continents, which were summarized in a section called "Beyond Tal'Dorei." While he said we can run campaigns taking place in any point of the history covered in the show, the book is written to take place after the fall of the Chroma Conclave and before the rise of Vecna (though the coming of the Whispered One is hinted at). Each area has quests, either low-level ones Vox Machina has probably done or future ones they never got around to; these hint at menacing things that were going on while our heroes were busy elsewhere or may have happened had they decided to venture beyond the end of the main campaign. There were a lot of weird grammar mistakes, the kind made by a tired student switching between phrasings and forgetting to entirely delete the first one, or typing a word twice without realizing, or accidentally using an incorrect but similar term. Such things I'm familiar with, but since it's Matt and it took so long between pre-order and arrival, I'm not going to let it bother me that much (but it does bother me because I do it too). If you're looking for a Vox Machina timeline or character guide, then I'm afraid this isn't it. Looking forward to the comics anthology next year and Xanathar's Guide to Everything at the end of next month. Is the fan art book just fan art or is there supposed to be something else to it?

I'm enjoying the Duck Tales reboot, but I don't exactly like how dumb they've made Launchpad. He's Patrick Star levels of stupid in this one (though I will admit he is a man-child - bring on DW!).

Really??

I got the Tal'Dorei Campaign Guide finally, and I will have more to say on that once I have actually read it (my man called first dibs on it). It's sad that the campaign has come to an end after the five years they've been playing it, but the next campaign will take place after a timeskip. My only regret is that in a previous episode when Garmelie was choking Vax to death (since Vax couldn't die until they defeated Vecna), Liam and Matt didn't do a scene where Vax returned to the Raven Queen before she sent him back to the group in which she comments on how he ended up there. "Really?"

Nomura's claiming that Lauriam doesn't become Marluxia, that he's his own person. Sure, dude, that's why you gave him the same hair and face, name anagram, and personality. Blaine is also now "Brain," which is even dumber and has prompted people to refer to the duo as Pinky and the Brain. People were saying he looks like Zexion but obviously isn't him, but may be related to him (we don't know who Ienzo's dead parents are), and that if Lauriam isn't Marluxia he may be related to the person who does become him. Keep in mind that Marluxia was originally supposed to be female and the name was supposed to anagram to something like Lumaria. Since he trolled us with introducing Strelitzia as the fifth union leader and killing her off (What about that, Nomura? Did Lauriam do that no matter who you say he is or isn't?), so how much of this is trolling and how much is backpedaling to keep the fandom guessing? I'm not amused. He also says the Union Cross storyline wouldn't be resolved in KHIII, which means it'll be completed in Union Cross or another spinoff or heaven forbid KHIV. He'd better make good on his promise to get into the backstories of all the Organization members, or was that a lie too? That's really all I care about at this point - closure. No more convoluted complications. Another bit of news was revealing Sora's height and birthday. The main problem I have with giving the main character the original release date as their birthday by default is that it's not fair to the rest of the characters and is somewhat unoriginal.

Photobucket really doesn't want me to share what I store to my bucket. I had a hard time copying the links for the pics that I just made about Lauriam and Tempest. (Lol, Lauriam just auto-corrected to Laur-I-Am)

http://s62.photobucket.com/user/ShadowGalactica/media/Pinky_zpsqtkn6uyv.png.html
http://s62.photobucket.com/user/ShadowGalactica/media/seriously_zpsxhr2jaxt.png.html

Friendship is What?

The MLP comic about Pinkie forcing Dash to eat her pies came out a week and a half before the actual episode. I'd say thanks for the spoilers, but it was my decision to read it and not wait. Not that I had to wait very long since the rest of the season was leaked online and it airs tomorrow. It still wasn't very good since it was basically the same thing with a slight variation. The last three episodes were much better, thankfully. I liked them so much more than the movie, and I assume the finale of Legends of Magic later this month will reflect that episode too (especially since Uncommon Bond featured Sunburst taking up a whole train car with his stuff like the previous comic). The movie was not for me. I liked some elements of it but thought it was weaker than the actual series (could've used some John Delancey).

I don't remember Rose Wilson (a.k.a. Ravager) being in the 2003 Teen Titans cartoon (her brother made a cameo in season 5). Maybe if we had gotten a season 6 she would've appeared then. I refuse to believe that it got canceled because too many girls were watching it. That's really dumb. Power Rangers is still ongoing and plenty of girls watch that (I assume; I'm no longer part of that age demographic). It may be male-dominated, but there are female characters to look up to and relate to. As for TTG, the second iteration of TV Knight also included Joker and Penguin, who in the TellTale series are Bruce's "friends" John and Oswald. They also make fun of Two-Face (Bruce's other friend Harvey). It's just annoying that they all make stupid noises instead of talking. The first and last skits were the best, and the rest weren't great. They didn't need two musical segments. And then there was the two-part America's Got Talent parody with the Justice League as judges. It was a mixed bag - what was good was good (Cyborg, Raven, and Starfire) and what was terrible was terrible (Beast Boy and Robin).

The Halloween episode of Power Rangers Ninja Steel was not a clip show but a rematch show. The Rangers were tricked into playing a board game that was a combination of Jumanji and Goosebumps: Terror in the Graveyard. I have that game, and I still remember the commercial for it - "Roll the dice, run for your life."

Additions and Subtractions

Forgot to mention that Haru's grandpa was able to materialize himself in the real world - even though his real body died and everything. So he's probably not going to last long. Maybe he was responsible for bringing back Yuujin after all. Not enough time passed for Haru to go to college and learn how to do it. And somehow Eri's idol group remained intact even though L-corp dissolved with Leviathan's demise. She didn't have to quit or anything.

I remembered which cartoon had done a 'knocking out teeth for the Tooth Fairy" storyline - it was the original Powerpuff Girls, and I'm fairly certain it was Buttercup who was doing it. It was still a dumb thing to do, but it was handled better in that episode than in Teen Titans Go. Looking back at previous posts, I realize I said I'd thought that "The Night Begins to Shine" was written for the show. My assumption was that if they couldn't afford the birthday song, how could they afford anyone else's music? The four-part follow-up to that episode proved me wrong, and they even got more artists on top of that. They must have made a shit-ton of money in merchandising between then and now. That doesn't give them the right to hog the timeslots, though. Damn you, executive meddling! I've also noticed a lot of typographical errors going back and looking at these things. The program I use doesn't have spell-check, and I'm usually very tired when I'm writing these, but I do apologize nonetheless.

TellTale Batman went in a direction I didn't expect, what with Bruce having to go undercover for Waller (which goes about as well as you'd expect since she's the absolute worst). The concept of being John's (Joker's) wingman is kind of fun, seeing as there's barely a relationship between them and Harley already wears the pants in it. However, you, being Bruce, have the option of flirting with her (although she comes onto you, much like Catwoman). This probably goes about as well as when Harvey thought you were getting with Selina whether you actually did or not. John's jealousy is funny for the time being, but if you go for it instead of helping him, it could get ugly real quick. If you chose to head off Bane instead of Harley, you may also have to help John get her out of jail next time. Social Link Go!?

Beat Down

Smokey the Bear effectively trounced McGruff the Crime Dog in the most recent Death Battle. Funnily enough, they had some very meaningful voice actors portraying them. In essence, Vegeta/Piccolo beat the crap out of Mr. Satan. Not the ones from Team Four Star, either - the official voices from Funimation. I thought it would be a more even fight as these often are, but it was pretty one-sided, as Smokey is a monster who can grow huge, and the only weapons McGruff has are vehicles, which proved to be useless.

Matt Mercer's book is slated to come out October 17, although my pre-order still says that no date is available and they'll email me when there is. Same thing with Xanathar's Guide to Everything - it comes out November 21, but the pre-order doesn't give a delivery date. The FNAF guide had a delivery date, so maybe it's just a D&D thing? Speaking of Matt, he voices Hit in DragonBall Super.

I felt cheated by Part 5 of Digimon Tri. We were spoiled with something bad happening to Tai and then to Kari, and the appearance of Gatomon's corrupted Mega, but that all happened at the end and will be dealt with in Part 6. As was pointed out to me by one of my friends, the poster of Part 6 includes Wizardmon's hat. He's a ghost in the human world, so he can't come back, but maybe Gatomon remembers him after all? Or this is a bullshit fan fic and nothing has to make sense because fuck you. We're also treated to a scene of Himekawa in the Dark Ocean firing a gun at some Digimon (probably the same ones who came after Kari in season 2). Also, evil Gennai hangs upside down like Myotismon. Coincidence? Maybe. As for Appmon, Offmon doesn't like what's happening and wants them to save Yuujin. At first it doesn't look like they'll be able to do that since Leviathan downloads itself into his body, but the ending shows he was able to come back after all, even though he chose to terminate himself in the deep web to defeat Leviathan. It also took me this long to realize that the pouches that Rei drinks that say "Choo Choo" on them is a Legend of Zelda reference (chuchu jelly).

Character Fulfillment

A Health of Information was a better episode than its comic counterpart. The episode was probably meant to air first, but the comic came out before it, leading to some confusion (at least on my part - I didn't know who Cattail was, and the comic acted like he was an already established character). In the comic, Twilight wanted to find a plant that could have ground-breaking medical and magical properties, and she was so focused on getting it that she stupidly and unnecessarily risked her life to get it. The comic is heavy-handed with its message, as she continues to beat herself up over it longer than she reasonably should. In the episode, Fluttershy unnecessarily (but understandably) risked her health to find a cure for Zecora since she felt bad about putting her in the situation that got her sick in the first place (she basically got Vileplume'd). At first I thought Twilight was out of character, seeing as how she's gone without sleep to find information before, but maybe she was speaking from experience when she was telling Fluttershy to take care of herself, since it led to Flutters being in a three-day coma (This Escalated Quickly). Fluttershy did interrupt her baking competition with Spike, and the expression on her face when she saw how sick Zecora was was similar to the Mentally Advanced version of her thinking, "Well, shit."  

I've been reading over some essays on Homestuck Classpects and how they relate to each other. I realized that when some of the kids prototyped themselves, they ended up with versions of themselves they didn't like - their Shadow selves, their Personas. Arquiussprite (Dirk's auto-responder fused with an Equius sprite) is Dirk's Shadow; at least the responder is, and the addition of the horse-loving macho man Equius only added to Dirk's ordeal. Jasprosesprite (Rose's sprite fused with her cat Jaspers) is Rose's Shadow; like Dirk, the addition of Jaspers only adds another layer for Rose to deal with. Davepetasprite (Dave's sprite fused with Nepeta's sprite) is Dave's Shadow; he has to deal with another version of himself being tempered by Nepeta, who merged with him to steal his heart (not unlike Persona 5). Jadesprite (dead Dream Jade) is Jade's Shadow, whom she hates for being selfish because she's still sad and scared from being killed. Nannasprite is Jane's other self quite literally, as John's Nanna is her in another reality. She looks to her for the guidance she never got from the likes of Gamzee. Brain Ghost Dirk is Jake's Persona, Jake having summoned him into being during a time of crisis. John and Roxy don't have them because they don't have other selves in the form of prototyped sprites, either by their own doing or someone else's. Given that Homestuck wasn't written with Persona in mind, it's not surprising that the similarities end there. There are also the magnificent Homestuck Tarot cards. Again, these only feature the Beta kids and Beta trolls along with NPCs and villains from their sessions. John's major arcana is The Hanged Man, Rose is featured as The High Priestess, and Dave is The Fool. Jade only appears by herself in the minor arcana, but given that she is a Space player, she could reasonably be The World. If I had to guess what the others could be, I'd say Jake is The Hermit, Jane is The Wheel of Fortune, Roxy is Temperance, and Dirk is The Lovers. I am, of course, probably wrong. For instance, Dirk could be The Chariot and Jake could be The Magician, but the first two made more sense to me.

Normura has reportedly said that he plans to tie up the storylines centered around the old Organization XIII members. If true, this is great news.

Chemical X

With the second of four Kingdom Hearts II light novels dropping in December and Kingdom Hearts III coming out sometime next year, the Birth By Sleep light novels are probably still a long way off. HMK brings up a good point that maybe the thirteen seekers of darkness don't actually have Vanitas yet and needed Sora for that (either to give in to darkness or to wake up Ventus). If true, maybe we'll get to see character development with Vanitas like there supposedly is in the light novels. I'm looking for anything meaningful I can get at this point. I will even look at the KHII novels if I have to (after I get my hands on Birth By Sleep, that is).

The new Powerpuff Girl (who is only in that TV special so far) is voiced by the same person as Marcelline from Adventure Time. She was created before the three girls when the Professor spilled Chemical W (and repeated the same mistake with 22 other lettered chemicals before X). She ran away after she couldn't control her emotions and her powers destroyed the house. HIM gets close to her in the form of a tiny elephant companion and tries to use her to take over the world. The Professor doesn't help, as he is afraid of the harm and destruction Bliss causes, making the situation worse. Gee, I wonder who that sounds like?! (it's Raven) The new Powerpuff Girls series likes to act like it's better than Teen Titans Go! (just look at their crossover and the Lego episode), but it's really not that good either. Speaking of Lego, I've seen a little of the gameplay now, and I'm not a fan of some of the dialogue.

The little girl version of Princess Bubblegum reminded me of Madeline or one of her friends.

I went to the Big Y near my apartment, and they had some pumpkin spice M&Ms on clearance, so I got those. My fiance won't stop eating them. They are certainly spicier than the pumpkin spice snaps, which still just taste like gingerbread cookies.

Unjust Treatment

Raven's portrayal in the Injustice series is a disservice to her character as a whole, no matter what continuity you follow. No version of her would ever be a willing servant of her father, but that's what this storyline wanted to do with her. Her emotions go haywire after Beast Boy gets killed, but no one is there for her. Trigon is, though, just like in Teen Titans Go! where he keeps inserting himself into her life to get her to do his bidding. It works this time, and she becomes the monster everyone saw her as. I follow the early 2000s cartoon, in which she ends her season 4 story arc by making a memorable speech to Trigon about how he was never a father to her and that her friends raised her before sealing him away forever. Then there's the Lego Teen Titans Go! (yes, they actually made that). While I haven't watched any gameplay yet, the nine-minute short they put out was also wrong on this account. Spoilers: Raven cheats to win at the Lego build competition, stating that her dad taught her to win at all cost. That was a slap in the face, but what did you expect from TTG? At least it confirmed my headcanon that Raven is a fan of Tim Burton (though Beetlejuice is part of the Lego universe and Nightmare Before Christmas is part of the Disney universe).

Someday I'm going to draw fan art of Even and Ienzo modeled after Rick and Morty. "Run, Ienzo!" "Aw geez, Even!"

I was putting off getting the pumpkin spice M&Ms, but we sold out at work. They probably weren't any better than the candy corn ones, which just tasted like slightly sweeter white chocolate. 

Being told you will never be hired but still encouraged to volunteer is like being friendzoned hard.

Would it be insensitive to compare hurricane categories to Gabriel Iglesias' five (now six) levels of fatness? Hurricane Fluffy!

Bittersweet?

While The Freddy Files didn't reveal or confirm anything, it was still a very nice compendium of what we know and what we think we know. My only complaints are a couple of minor errors and small screen caps. The artwork for each section was great, and each section included the blueprints for the layout of all the games, including the paths of the animatronics. FNAF World was not included, so the information therein concerning Baby was nowhere to be found. There's also a section at the end that talks about the novels (which I don't care about). Understandably, Cawthon doesn't spoil the contents of the books so you can buy them and read them yourself (which I won't). However, he does tell you how to play the games, so this is effectively a cheat sheet. If you want a definitive guide but don't want to search for multiple theory videos and let's plays, this is the best resource to have at your fingertips (unless you're into FNAF World, then you're out of luck).

Forgot to mention that in episode 30, after Buu says "Buu no like cat" when referring to Beerus, he could have added "Buu dog person." It would be true.

While I don't miss blonde Trevor, I will miss thinking of him as TreCo Malfoy.

ShopRite got Oreo O's (so much for Wal-Mart being the only one), so I bought two boxes. It tastes as good as I remember it, although people who didn't like it before think it's even better. I also bought the apple pie Oreos and pumpkin pie snaps. I'm so ready for fall.

Shocking Revelations

So I was half-right. Levi is actually Brody's brother, and the person they thought was Aiden was a robot double. Why do villains make robot copies of people? Speaking of which, Yuujin is an android upgraded to keep age with Haru in order to get close to him because of his grandpa. Whether or not he has a genuine or split personality is not yet known, nor is what Offmon thinks of all this. Next time, it's Yuujin's turn to dress like a douchebag like Unryuuji before him.

I got my copy of The Freddy Files, but still no word on the release date for Matt Mercer's book. When he originally said it would come out at the end of August, he was probably referring to GenCon and the limited about of copies that had been printed for that. The pre-orders may be fulfilled at the end of this month, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I have no interest in the art book that's coming out either. As for FNAF, I will read it when I have some more time. I assume other people have read it and analyzed it to hell by now, especially with that leaked artwork of Baby trying to rebuild herself. Too bad Sister Location 2 was cancelled. There are fake Circus Ennard trailers popping up on YouTube.

Marluxia is going to be a big part of Kingdom Hearts now. You'd think he was the favorite, but Nomura's favorite was said to be Luxord. I hope they will remember to put the other three we don't know anything about into the plot in some way. No offense to Marluxia/Lauriam, but I see him as being an indicator that maybe all of Organization XIII wasn't some fluke outside of its founding members. I'd assumed the rest were from Radiant Garden as well, but if Marluxia is connected to Ventus, who started off in Daybreak Town in Kingdom Hearts Union X, then there are other possibilities for Demyx, Luxord, and Larxene. I'm counting on Union X to fill in the gaps of character backstory before Kingdom Hearts III is released. This does not let him off the hook for killing the person who was supposed to be the fifth union leader, and it doesn't make sense why he can't use a Keyblade if everyone from Daybreak Town is a Keyblade wielder (shouldn't that blow his cover if he's not supposed to be there?). There is also some confusion as to whether or not Nobodies age. I think the official ruling was that they can't and that Xemnas is a pathological liar, but that doesn't explain the one-year time restriction between the end of Birth By Sleep to when Apprentice Xehanort took over if Lea, Isa, and Ienzo were still kids when they got their hearts removed.

DBS episode 30 was a recap episode, but it was still funny. I'd seen the sub, but it was a while ago and I didn't remember if Krillin voiced over the other people in his flashback. I definitely remember the narrator arguing with Goku and getting fed up.

Blast from the Past

Agumon vs Gatchmon lasted all of about five seconds. Agumon is a game character from Digimon Universe RPG that Haru played and is actually Haru's save data. An Appmon under Leviathan's control is forcing all game characters to look for Bootmon, but Agumon escaped and was trying to put all the characters back in their games. The kids went to the Nakano Broadstreet area from Cybersleuth, where Eri and Astra were mobbed by fans and Yuujin had to do crowd control.

I watched the new Duck Tales pilot, and I have to say I liked it. However, we are faced once again with the Goofy/Pluto controversy when the anthro sailor ducks shoo a regular seagull away from their ships. I like that our introduction to Webby was her using a rope whip to grab and tie up the boys. I remember when she apprehended the Beagle Boys with just her jump rope in a story from the old series. Another nice easter egg was the look-alike doll she used to carry around. David Tennant is great as Scrooge, so much so I almost expect Scrooge to adopt "Allons-y!" as a new catchphrase (he has enough of his own, but it wouldn't be out of place).

Disney's Villains' Revenge is a point-and-click adventure game that fans of Kingdom Hearts should look into. The premise is that Jiminy gets bored and tears out the pages of certain fairy tales that contain happy endings. The Blue Fairy tells him that the stories are real and that by tearing out the pages, the villains have won. Jiminy has to go into the journal to fix it. Then the door shows you who the heroes are - something that Terra could have benefited from in Birth By Sleep. Too bad the animation and gameplay are kind of crap. I'll just blame it all on Jiminy for being the worst. What kind of monster tears pages out of a book? I also watched a playthrough of Madeline's European Adventures. It opened with the theme song from the TV show, which I used to love. They even got Christopher Plummer to narrate again. The game wasn't bad, but I had fun snarking at it nonetheless, like how they're having a little girl do all these tasks that the adults should've already had a handle on (the first stage was reasonable, but then it turned into "Do everything, Madeline!"). Magnificent Puppet Show was less fun and more tedious, not to mention ridiculous. However, it was just marginally better than the other two I found to watch - Madeline's Thinking Games and Classroom Companion. At least  they both had musical segments from the show (I recognized two of them). Wishbone Activity Zone was kind of disappointing, as it did not contain any clips from the show, only stills and the theme music. Prop hunt had audio clips, but it wasn't any fun.

Caramel apple Poptarts are really pretty good.

All Bets Are Off

According to WatchMojo, Teen Titans Go is the worst animated super hero series. However, the episode 40%, 40%, 20% was so good that the show did a four-part sequel. It was just dumb fun, but I enjoyed it more than last year's five-parter, which was just all right. I can't believe they actually got the real musical artists to appear in it, including getting Ami and Yumi to do a cover of "The Night Begins to Shine" in Japanese. Even the additional musical guests were the real people. As part of the week-long (five-day) airing schedule, the Fourth of July episode aired first. Again, a wasted opportunity to have Mad Mod come back, but Queen Elizabeth, sure, why not. I didn't really like it.

The world of Appmon has got to be the dumbest timeline. The summer festival was said to be held to honor the souls of broken electronics and that there was a broken smartphone inside the shrine. While Shinto does deal with spirits in inanimate objects, this just makes it sound like everyone in the world worships technology. In Appmon's case, the people are too dumb to live without it and would blame each other for things that go wrong instead of a bug or themselves. However, this spirit is really an Appmon and he's pissed. Only Entermon is immune to its "useless breath." Bootmon refers to itself as Boo, which only makes me think it should have the voice of Majin Buu. Next time, an Agumon appears for some reason.

I'm going to call the TellTale Games Joker YOLO Joker. He has all this freedom and doesn't know what to do with it, so YOLO. I have no idea what kind of Harley we're going to get, but her silhouette for episode 2 doesn't look like she has pigtails. She may even be calling the shots instead of Joker, and he might be beholden to her. Between Batman and Guardians of the Galaxy, TellTale has been killing off major characters way too early. This isn't like The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones - people expect all the important characters to survive episode one. Aging up Riddler was bad enough. It is pretty interesting that a Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) was investigating Riddler since one of the actors from Criminal Minds voiced him one time.

It's Been a Little Crazy Lately

Do Us A Flavor strikes again. The choices are fried green tomatoes, crispy taco, and everything bagel with cream cheese. I tried the latter, and it was pretty good. I'm not really interested in the other two - crispy taco would probably just be coated in taco seasoning, and I'd rather just have tacos. The only complaint I have is that the poppy seeds on the everything bagel ones go everywhere.

I've received the same email twice from Photobucket (the first time it went into my spam folder and I deleted it). They said that I'm not supposed to be using it as a third-party hosting site at my current "status" (they want me to upgrade). But isn't the whole point of it supposed to be a photo hosting site? They give you the codes to link and embed and everything. It might just be a scam. I sign in and they don't say anything about it (just ads and calls to upgrade so they can make more money). I don't link or embed everything I post there; lately I've been posting to both Photobucket and Facebook. However, I'm still not going to get rid of the ones I've linked to here because I don't want dead links and I don't believe it's actually a thing.

They remembered their Appmon army in their attempts to wake up Sleepmon, but that didn't go anywhere (Rei accidentally burning eggs is what changed him back). Letting the Appli Drivers escape with Hajime might not have been a trap if they can lead him to Bootmon, an Appmon that Hajime had been forced to create and then set free so Leviathan wouldn't use it to initiate a program to turn everyone into apps. No one is more surprised than Rei that Hajime is a better programmer than him, but he's still the only one who suspects anything about Yuujin.

Here's something I've been working on for Ienzo/Raven. It started out as a quick drawing, then I adapted it into a scene with more dialogue.
    "Why does Braig keep asking me about my love life?" Ienzo grumbled, annoyed. Braig had been pestering him lately about when Raven would be coming over next.
    "The simple answer is that he likes teasing you about it," Dilan answered. "However, it could also be that he misses having your parents around."
    Ienzo looked perplexed. "What's that supposed to mean?" No one missed his parents more than he did, or so he thought.
    Dilan briefly looked around to make sure Braig wasn't eavesdropping nearby. "As far as I know, he's never been in a relationship, so he likes to live vicariously through others."
    "So did he bother them this much?"
    "No, but that goes back to the simple answer."
    "Oh." Ienzo looked discouraged.
    "I could go talk to him about it, if you'd like."
    "Please."
    Dilan found Braig, who was filling up a water gun. "What have you been up to?" Dilan asked, suspicious.
    "I just thought I'd keep the love-birds cool during their afternoon stroll," Braig replied.
    "And you wonder why he doesn't invite her over more often."
    "What?"
    "Don't you think you're being a little too obtrusive?"
    Braig glanced at his water gun but didn't see anything wrong with it. "Why? Did he say something?"
    "I told him not to be too frustrated with you, but that's not helping."

Some Interesting Developments

Toy Story was shown as a preview for Kingdom Hearts 3 - releasing in 2018! Now, they've given a year but not a month/day or even a season, so I'm willing to bet late 2018 with the possibility that it gets pushed to early 2019 if delays happen again like with 2.8. With Toy Story 4 in the works, I hope they can get Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, (John Ratzenberger goes without saying) and everyone to reprise their roles for the game. It also occurs to me that Disney owns the Muppets that they could have a Muppets world in this or a future game. Obviously, Whitmire would not be a part of it (was he really that difficult to work with?), but maybe Frank Oz (not to mention when/if they do Star Wars). Muppet Sora and friends would be hilarious (whereas Young Xehanort looks like something out of Small Soldiers in that cutscene). Remember, it's all to protect the world order. :P Since Buzz and Woody already had their data in a game, maybe they will include Jungle Book this time around too (not the live action one, though). And since the CG of the game is close to that of Pixar, the Toy Story characters look exactly how they should. If they ever end up doing anime, KH Chibi would probably be funny (but would never happen). A bunch of new KH Funko figures have been leaked, but as many as there are, there still aren't figures for all of the characters. MST3K's Tom and Crow are getting figures, too, and that's pretty cool.

Now on to Appmon. Unryuuji's backstory is that he basically invented texting, and people eventually used it for cyberbullying, but he got the blame for making the app in the first place. The people in the Appmon universe are even dumber than reality. Yuujin and Offmon were rescued offscreen, and next time they look into where Rei's brother Hajime actually is. Leviathan declares itself CEO in Unryuuji's place, and Eri decides to quit Appliyama because of it, but Rei says she can't quit without helping him. Posing as a manager doesn't go well for him, but it turns out all right in the end...assuming letting them rescue Hajime (who is now a Sleepmon - how many other kids got kidnapped if they are all Sleepmon?) wasn't a trap of some kind.

I finished Little Witch Academia, including the special (which claims to be a sequel but is really an early-on midquel). Main character Akko gets worse before she gets better (except in the special where she's at her absolute worst), but by the end she's tolerable to me. Let's talk more about that special. It combines ideas from a few different episodes, and certain characters act out-of-character or at least accentuate their worst traits - including the townspeople. The townspeople are horrible, and while Diana is acting more arrogant than she ever has, she has a point about the parade being demoralizing. Akko is the bitchiest she's ever been, telling off her two teammates and abandoning them for Amanda's team (which is worse than what she does to her mentor in the main series, as she's being rude and dismissive to two people instead of one and didn't have to be tricked into doing so). As for the finale of the series, the antagonist harnessing the rage of soccer hooligans was kind of an ingenious plan (it is England, after all). Why do the villains always want to harness the power of anger for energy? Overall I'd say it had some good ideas, and I didn't hate it enough to stop watching.

What the Hell?

Steve Whitmire was fired as Kermit for no [disclosed] reason?! Now he feels like he failed us all and Jim Henson. He didn't fail! The Elmo guy fucked up (and I am disappointed because he was also Master Splinter in the live action TMNT movies), but he didn't. While he's not Jim Henson, he is a national treasure (and the voice that people in my generation grew up with). He's been doing this since he was 19. What's he going to do now?

They brought back coffee Oreos! And it's even better because it's all the filling instead of just half, and I feel like there's more of it. It's Dunkin Donuts' doing again, but that doesn't matter. It's still delicious and specifically mocha this time. I used to eat these as an after-school snack in high school along with the mint ones. It's only here for a limited time, though.

A friend had me watch Little Witch Academia. I've gotten about halfway through it, and it's okay, but it's not as good as Soul Eater NOT! (or regular Soul Eater for that matter). I don't like the main character, or any of them really. Diana is like a palette-swapped Sunset Shimmer, and I feel like this should really be her story since she's not a bad person. whereas the main is kind of bratty and "accidently's" herself into everything. So far episodes seven and eight are my favorites, but "favorite" is too strong a term. And don't think I didn't see Rita Repulsa's headdress as one of the nine witch mantles.

I've decided on what to do for a holiday video this year, and it's turning out pretty well. I'm still sorting out what stills to use, but the musical mashup is all set. It's going to be awesome.

What Could've Been

Two things I forgot to mention about Appmon: Haru's grandpa being a Super Mario (or "Hyper Mari-" before both Haru and Astra get cut off hilariously by Grandpa and Rei respectively) and the fact that the rest of their Appmon army were forgotten in favor of the buddy system. What happened to their chips? Only the buddy chips disintegrated, but since the ultimate Appmon Digivolution thing there hasn't really been a need to use the rest of the army Appmons. The Appmon cemetary was worse than the Deep Web where all the Appmon wore cloaks. The outmodes were desperate to be relevant again, but then it reminded me of that one Perorimon who almost faded from existence. She probably would've ended up there. Then there were the ghosts of CG villains past plus that one Appmon no one knew. The one with the hat wasn't even there.

I had a dream that in a future Kingdom Hearts game you would be able to customize and name your Keyblade (after the character you were playing had an epiphany about something - it could be any one of the playable characters we've had so far). In the dream, you went to Moana's world, and there was one world that had the protagonists of FFXV. Speaking of, that game was something else. The first part of it was Sidequests: The Game while the rest of it was rushed. I would've expected Luna (who looks a lot like Namine) to have been killed off at the second-to-last Summon, not the third. The rest of the three were thrown in there haphazardly and felt less like a hero's quest and more like Plot Convenience: The Game. I can see why they want to take their time with KH3 now so it doesn't become a mess like that one. As for the 2018 calendar coming out at D23, it probably doesn't have a special meaning like a release date; it's probably just a treat for the fans. I'm surprised there weren't already KH calendars, unless there were and they weren't as special for some reason.

The last FNAF game was cancelled so Scott could have more time with his family. That's understandable, though I wonder if there was anything about it hinted at in The Freddy Files book that's coming out. Of course he will continue to write for the novel series and new mini-games (or spin-off games) for FNAF World.

I didn't like the trailer for the MLP movie. It was made for a general audience, and that's selling out. It didn't explain a damn thing. Stuff just randomly happens and yay friendship.

Cute but Baffling

The episode about Applejack's parents is a Romeo and Juliet story (though not much of a surprise after the Hatfield/McCoy episode). We still don't know how they died (unlike Romeo and Juliet), and they will probably never get into that, but the episode had some good world-building in it. I thought Mrs. Cake's name was Cupcake, but she says she used to be called Chiffon Swirl. I suppose it could be a nickname, like how AJ's dad called her mom Buttercup, but Chiffon Cake as a married name makes sense too. The recent comics have included plot points from recent episodes, like the yaks and Dash's parents. The episode about Discord's and Fluttershy's relationship felt like it could've been an issue of Friends Forever if that was still a thing. Equestria Girls Dance Magic wasn't as good, but it reminded me a little of the episode Rarity Takes Manehattan. Movie Magic was better because it was a Daring Do movie, but I'm a little disappointed that human A.K. Yearling didn't appear in it (though that would probably mean she's off being Daring Do in her real life). It was also an easy mystery to solve, much like Rarity Investigates. They also worked Power Ponies into it, with Sunset dressed as Mane-iac. Mirror Magic tied both of them together and was probably the best one because it features what we've wanted to see - Sunset going back to Equestria and meeting Starlight (and bringing her back with her). Human Starlight reminds me of the dog from Littlest Pet Shop with her purple hair and hat.

The kids from Appli Monsters don't know what a phone booth is, which is fitting of today's youth. I can't help but think of the phone booths from season 1. Speaking of Adventure, now the Buddy Appmons have amnesia like in Tri and their personalities have shifted as well (whereas most of the season 1 Digimon were acting pretty much the same). Leviathan hasn't destroyed Yuujin yet, and we haven't seen Offmon. Maybe it will be explained in the coming episodes what Yuujin actually is.

The translated light novels for KH2 are being released through the end of this year. By the time they get to the Birth By Sleep ones, KH3 will probably be out.

The Best and the Worst

So I failed to mention this before, but Yandere's phone says "Saikou" on it, which means the brand name is "Best." However, it's also pronounced like "psycho." Nice touch.

Special mention goes out to a recent episode of TTG for teasing their origin stories. Robin starts to tell his but the others stop him because it's too depressing. They tell theirs but steal other heroes' origin stories instead. It's usually funny when they troll Robin this way, but not this time. Raven didn't even pick someone from the Justice League or the DCU - she stole Spider-Man's origin. Starfire shouldn't have even tried to steal Batman's; as expected, Robin calls her on it. Starfire's story even had her wearing Adam West's costume; that was some timing. The ending was dumb, with Beast Boy stealing Hal Jordan's Green Lantern origin with the twist that he himself was a projection from John Stewart's Green Lantern ring. Then there was another recent episode, in which they play the Jinx game and say it has nothing to do with Jinx...at least until Robin loses his voice Ariel-style and they say that Jinx herself has it. While it was funny that Jinx had to remind Robin how to beat her, it wasn't funny that Robin had to use violence against his friends in order to get them to fight her. Starfire and Raven even asked her to do another girls night, which she didn't respond positively to. And then there was the most recent episode, which was about Beast Boy being dumb. *sigh* Add it to the list, especially since it touches on the usual cliche of added intelligence making a person mean. At first making fun of Robin was no big deal because, knowing these writers, he or someone else would've said it anyway. What he said to Raven was cruel (especially if he's supposed to like her), and what he said to Starfire didn't make sense because she isn't the only alien on Earth if the Justice League exists.

The dub of DB Super is pretty entertaining. Jaco and Freeza both have some funny dialog, especially in the one I just saw (episode 22). It seems as though Alexis Tipton has replaced Laura Bailey as Trunks. You can hardly tell, but I'm still a little disappointed. Also, was there an actors strike going on? That's the explanation they gave for Chloe having a different voice actress in the Life Is Strange prequel.

Five Nights at Yandere's

Scott Cawthon is coming out with a book called "The Freddy Files," detailing gameplay and lore that we know up to this point - and maybe a bit beyond. It comes out at the end of August (probably around the time Matt Mercer's Tal'Dorei book drops too), but it already has a rating of 4.7 out of 5. Published by Scholastic, its cover is reminiscent of that of Goosebumps; I love it. Hopefully it does not disappoint; I'm considering pre-ordering it as well as Matt's book. This may be a good gauge of the fan base, seeing how many people are looking forward to the movie and perhaps another game.

Another project still in the works is Yandere Simulator, which has progessed much further than the last time I had checked in on it (which was probably around the time Random Encounters did their Senpai Notice Me video). While it was obvious that the developer drew inspiration from Hitman, he made a Mission Mode where you get jobs from Info-chan to kill certain people in certain ways, just like in Hitman. He also likes Persona and recently drew a lot of inspiration from Persona 5 in regard to world-building and mechanics (and it wasn't lost on me that Shiho resembles the titular Yandere by sheer coincidence). If he continues to breathe new life into this project, more people will take notice. There are definitely still fans out there who ask him questions and send him things. I'm a fan of Kuudere myself.

Speaking of the title of this blog...maybe that could be an idea for the game, or at least a spoof video like he did with Yanderetale (an Undertale-style boss battle versus the Occult Club leader Oka). Yandere does have the option of torturing people (or at least holding them hostage) in her basement. I don't know how that would work (and he probably wouldn't do it), but it's something to think about. Although he reminds us at the end of or during several of his update videos, Yandere isn't a good person. However, the cutscene where she decides not to kill Kokona and resolves things peacefully instead (in that she asks her not to pursue Senpai and she reluctantly agrees, as Yandere has saved her family from debt) was really awesome. Pacifist run, yes.

Getting Caught Up

I'm really enjoying the fact that there are female Super Saiyans now, even if they're in Universe 6. Caulifla and Kale are definitely a dominant and a submissive pair, and that's why Kale is the female version of Broly, as MasakoX explained. Her reason isn't as stupid, though. The Buu arc Kai dub is coming along, and it seems funnier or stranger than before, especially Buu himself. At least, I don't think Krillin called Yajirobe useless in the first version. I almost expected him to follow it up with, "And I know Yamcha!" like the abridged series would. Speaking of useless, the Supreme Kai. MasakoX also mentioned how Shin (as well as Beerus) is the fucking worst at his job, and it really shows in the Buu arc. I can't believe Piccolo had to back down from their fight in the tournament. DBZ Kai is supposed to be the condensed version, but the Buu arc still seems long and pointless.

I find it weird that Appmon latched onto the idea of cyberterrorism when everything at LCorp's AI-run city went nuts. It was no different than what the monster of the day does (because that's what it was), and yet even the main characters called it cyberterrorism. It's still a publicity stunt since Leviathan is what L stands for, and LCorp's AI was credited for stopping the attack rather than the Appmon (which the protagonists never address since they let people think the problems sort themselves out). The show also shows its hand too much. The audience already knows about LCorp and its new CEO being evil, so showing "Cloud's" helmet behind Knight had no dramatic power behind it. I'd say the same was true of us knowing that Ken was the Digimon Emperor, but the difference is that we were given a reason to care about Ken (not that everyone did).

I got some time off work, so I was able to finish both Yu-Gi-Oh! D&D videos. Part 2 is up, and part 3 is scheduled to go up at the end of the month. I'm still deciding what to do for a holiday video.

Another Month from Hell

I'm working on two new videos that are a continuation of the Yu-Gi-Oh! D&D video I out together years ago when I had even less of an idea of what I was doing. I'm not sure when they'll be done. It's been a busy month, and it's going to be a busy summer. This past week has been full of car trouble and other calamities, and there needs to be a lot of rescheduling. Hopefully by September things will have gotten better and fallen into place.

More Oreo flavors came out - or you could just order them online like Brad does since stores are unreliable (unless you're like Brad and always end up tempting fate). The waffles and syrup would be good, but I don't think I should order them online because they'd probably just be crumbs and broken pieces by the time they get to me. Although, it would be nice since we didn't get coconut in our area, and my fiance would like that. What we got, at a Walgreen's no less, is a couple of exclusive Pringles flavors. No, not hot dog this time. Jamaican Jerk and Cheddar BBQ. Needless to say, the latter was the best for eating wholesale. However, I liked the jerk chicken and jerk tofu at the college I went to, and while these chips are spicy and prevent me from eating too many at a time, the flavor is excellent. If I knew how to cook tofu, I'd make that to go with it (except tofu - or at least tofu products - is expensive).

Satellamon's arc didn't last long, and now there's a human antagonist. There are more humans involved at L-Corp who take orders from the rogue AI Leviathan. And I still don't know what Yuujin's deal is.

It's Been A Long Month

Finally done with Persona 5 and can focus on other things. I still like 4 better, though. 5 was kind of predictable and included elements I didn't like, such as the overuse of flashbacks for much of the game (for starters). I know it's the theme of this one, but too many people want to sue for various things. And they say America is bad with that. Although it wasn't for very long, I couldn't get used to Lavenza. Caroline and Justine had more personality (although Justine is more like Lavenza). Caroline kicking you through the door to the Velvet Room is never not funny.

I like this season of MLP so far. The episode where Twilight has to watch Flurry felt like an episode of Fairly OddParents where Timmy would have to watch Poof, especially since Tara Strong voices both of them and the babies. Shining Armor and Cadance are like Cosmo and Wanda too. The comics, however, left much to be desired. The Celestia/Luna comic that was delayed a month was not worth the wait for me. It was lacking in cohesion and logic. What could've been a simple tale about them entering the Sisterhoof Social became a botched mess, though I'm probably the only one that thinks so. The end of Tales of Zestiria the X was also delayed a month. Was it worth the wait? Well, that depends on if you liked the new direction it was going in. I really can't recognize it anymore, so I couldn't really appreciate what they were doing with it. And it's still going to be continued.

There were two new Lay's flavors lately, but I passed them both up. I've just been so busy with the move and all that I've been spending money on more important things. They were beers and brats, and southwest sauce. Neither one really appealed to me, but I could've bitten the bullet if I wanted to. Mountain Dew also combined Code Red, White Out, and Voltage into a purple drink. I don't think I want to try that either, though I might give in at some point.

Excited!?

Kanji x Naoto video is up. Realized I forgot that the video category defaults to the last one you did, so I had to switch the Kort video and December video to entertainment instead of people and blogs (which is what all the Organization XIII zodiac ones were under since it's just me talking). Kort's got 30+ views now. Nice. 4/13 has come and gone, and part one of Let's Read Homestuck: Openbound has been posted by Voxus. Can't wait for the rest!

Appmon did a recap episode, which had a new intro and outro featuring Yuujin with an Appmon too (which is the basis of the next episode). There was a segment where they counted (not in real time, thank God) the number of times Eri and Astra said their catchphrases. It was 44 to 62, but that just makes Eri the better character in my opinion (in that she is slightly less annoying). In the next episode, Eri is forced to use Twitter, and it immediately gets taken over by the L-virus. We are also introduced to Satellamon, who replaced Mienumon as the CG monster. Yuujin and Offmon as a pair just seem...off. No explanation given yet, just "hey we're here to save you do it!"

While looking up the voice actors in Persona 5, I discovered quite a treat. Sam Riegel's younger sister Eden voices the character who is the Star arcana. Sam took over voicing Teddie in Persona 4 Golden (also the Star arcana). Matt Mercer is there too as the Emperor arcana (previously taking over as Kanji in spin-off games and latter half of the P4 anime, also the Emperor). The voice actresses for Yukari and Yukiko reappear as well as new characters. The voice actress who plays Lailah in Tales of Zestiria voices the Velvet Twins Caroline and Justine. Barbara Goodson (Rita Repulsa herself) voices an elementary school boy (Tower arcana).

This Needs to be Fact-Checked

Dezel died armatized with Rose, putting all of his energy into clearing away the dragons and becoming the wind. Symonne is probably gone - purified but probably dead. Alicia's friends found the hellion's body and buried it. Sorey had a dream about Velvet Crowe, and he comes to the realization that Artorius might have been the bad guy. As it applies to Dezel, Rose says that they shouldn't feel guilt over having to make sacrifices because that's what started all this in the first place. Sure the point is to honor Dezel's dying wish and not let his sacrifice be in vain, but at least he CHOSE to sacrifice himself as opposed to Artorius the child murderer. I'm getting the feeling this is how the game would've been if Berseria had come out first. I haven't looked up much about it, so I don't know if the Shepherd Michael was around for that game or if he'd ever met Velvet or Edna's brother. They touched on the fact that an infant died in a fire set by Heldalf and that Michael used that child's corpse to curse Heldalf for what he'd done. No mention of it being Mikleo though or that infant Sorey was also there. Muse was Mikleo's mother, right? And Muse is Michael's younger sister, apparently. I don't remember all the important details from the game anyway.

There have been mixed reviews for both the Power Rangers movie and the live action Beauty and the Beast movie. I didn't watch any of the Beauty and the Beast reviews because I went to see it on my birthday last weekend. I liked it fine, but it had some problems. Pretty much everyone was great in their roles. It was never going to be as good as the original, so my expectations weren't set that high. As for Power Rangers, I watched Angry Joe, Doug, and Lewis/Brad's reviews. Joe admitted it wasn't as bad as he thought it'd be and gave it a 4 out of 10. Doug said it was fine for a general audience but pointed out the bad writing. Lewis and Brad just flat-out enjoyed it. The worst part was the overbearing Krispy Kreme product placement; it was less a Power Rangers movie than it was a Krispy Kreme commercial (it was also mostly teen angst, but Doug said that's at least delivering on the promise of teenagers with attitude). Rita even ate the donuts at one point, which is something I would expect from Divatox, not her. Having that instead of Ernie's juice bar was just wrong - even Megaforce got that right. And there's a sequel beg with Tommy being introduced at the end. May he join the ranks of the characters found in the sequel begs of Last Airbender and Jem. It's done well enough that it probably will get a sequel, though. Ugh. Good for those actors, I guess.

I've wanted to do a review comparing the first two Cheetah Girls movies, but I don't think I have much to say about either of them at this point, and I have no intention of watching either of them again. I liked the second one better; the first one was like Josie and the Pussycats but worse. Both the original and the sequel have the part where they almost break up and sing a song about it, so it's not like either of them is brilliant cinema. I just think the second one had better songs and a slightly better plot. Wait, was there a third one minus Raven, or am I just thinking of their music videos?

Still getting adjusted to the new place. I finished the Kanji x Naoto video before the move, so that'll be posted when Persona 5 comes out.

Kinda Weird

In Zestiria, the hellion from the beginning and Symonne have been acting weird. The hellion decided he wanted to help for no reason and died doing it. Symonne hung out with Dezel for a while then decided to become a dragon when her master finally answered her call.

I've been watching the dubs of DBZ Final Chapters (aka the Buu saga) and Super. Vegeta is the best. He makes the best faces and it's great that he's proud of Trunks. Kid Trunks is pretty cool too since he makes the same deadpan expressions as his dad (and I enjoy Laura's boy voice). It's just too bad that the movie arcs are so padded out. I haven't been watching the subs, but I am appalled at Goku.

I'm getting ready to move soon, so that's my excuse for not having many projects in the works. I do want to do a Kanji x Naoto video at some point, and I'm still going to wait until KH3 comes out so I have more new material for that video, which will give it more meaning. I also wrote this little story about Ienzo and Raven, even though it's kind of implausible and just a bit stupid. I don't have a title for it.

Ienzo took Raven out to get sea salt ice cream. Along their walk, they passed several people who regarded Ienzo coldly, some moving farther away from them. Raven gave him a worried look. "What's going on?"
Ienzo sighed. "This always happens when we leave the castle now. People don't trust us anymore, not even me. I guess I can't really blame them."
"That's understandable, if not a bit harsh," Raven said pityingly.
"We've been working in conjunction with the Restoration Committee that was formed before we were able to come back, but it's not enough coming from us since we caused the problem to begin with. It's not just about the world being tainted with darkness and people losing their hearts. These people lost ten or more years of their lives because of what we did."
"At least you have the option of a second chance."
"Raven..." Ienzo felt a little bad for complaining since Raven had told him that she was responsible for the total annihilation of her homeworld when she was a child, all because she wanted to know who her father was. She was the only one who survived.
Ienzo paid for the two ice creams, but the woman at the stand barely said a word to him. They sat down on a nearby bench to eat them. "Wow, that's really salty," Raven commented. "But the sweet aftertaste is worth it."
Ienzo nodded, still pondering. "I remember the first time I had one of these. Everyone was much happier then, especially the master. I don't think we can ever go back to the way things were. If we could get along with everyone again, that would be great, but it's just not going to happen. I'm not going to run away, though. This is still my home, and I'm going to live in it."
"Spoken like a true prince."
Ienzo blushed. "I'm not...I mean, Ansem's considered a philosopher-king, but I've never considered myself to be...I am adopted, after all. Wait, are you saying you want to be my princess or are you just teasing me?"
Raven laughed. "Why can't it be both?"
They finished their ice cream and decided to go back to the castle. Almost immediately, they were confronted by a group of boys about the same age as Sora. One of them threw a rock at Ienzo, which grazed his cheek. Raven put up a shield in front of him with her magic as two more of them threw rocks. "Hey! Knock it off!" she yelled.
"A witch!" one of them exclaimed. They picked up the rocks that had bounced off Raven's shield and threw them at her. Raven made the shield bigger to cover both of them. Realizing she could do this indefinitely, the gang retreated.
Raven lowered her defenses. "Are you okay?" she asked Ienzo.
"It's just a scratch," Ienzo said. "That's the first time they've done that."
"They probably don't feel as threatened by you since you're closer to them in age," Raven reasoned.
"They called you a witch."
"Yeah, I'm used to it."
"That doesn't make it right."
"They can't understand, and what they do understand makes them angry. Sort of like with you. You have to forgive yourself even if they won't."
While the two of them were talking, the gang came back with larger, sharper rocks and threw them at them. Ienzo reacted first, jumping in front of Raven to act as her shield. Her shriek of terror alerted nearby adults, and the gang scattered. Raven used her magic to heal Ienzo right away, but even then she was worried. "Why did you do that? What were you thinking?" she exclaimed.
"You make everything better, Raven," Ienzo replied. "I didn't want them to hurt you."
"I'm fine. You, however, are going to be sore in the morning." She grabbed him by the hand and continued to walk toward the castle.
It's been a long time since someone held my hand, too, Ienzo thought, smiling.
The next time they went to get ice cream, the woman didn't glare at him. "On the house," she said, handing him the ice cream.
Ienzo was bewildered. "But I didn't hand in any WINNER sticks."
"I saw what happened the other day. Most of us folks think that you people in the castle don't care about anyone but yourselves. That doesn't excuse those boys' behavior, of course. But you protected your lady friend at the cost of your own safety. It's not everyday you see something like that. I think that's worth a couple of ice creams, don't you?"
Ienzo thanked her and returned to Raven's side.

New and Improved?

Thrilling Intent changed the lyrics to their theme song and added more characters to the opening animation. The Harpy's Nest arc didn't last as long as I thought it was going to, but that may be in perspective since Big War was so long. Dungeon Truck is just the team of Gregor, Ashe, Markus, and Inien being thrust into a dungeon because Thog needs to prove they're the best. They're like a bunch of big kids playing in a ball pit - overleveled and having the time of their lives.

In Zestiria the X, Lailah produces a second Celestial Record containing the story of Berseria, which Sorey reads without cutting to an episode starring the Berseria cast. Next episode they will continue to move north to confront the Lord of Calamity. They tried having the two squires armatize, but it didn't work (not even with Dezel having used Rose as a vessel). Only a few episodes left. How far will they get?

Applimonsters is getting good. I liked the episodes where the four Appli Drivers got their partners to ultimate through fusion with other super Appmon. Hackmon is the name of a Digimon connected to the Royal Knights and appears in both Cyber Sleuth and Tri, but this show's Hackmon (the hacking application Appmon, partnered with Rei) is much cuter. He becomes Raidramon, which again, is also the name of a Digimon we already know. You'd think there'd be better oversight on that. 

I know it's well past Valentine's Day, but I've been trying to work on a fan fic about Kanji and Naoto. I can't rely on the usual cliches since that's not how either of them act, but I have a couple good ideas. I think it would be funny if Kanji's mom knew the whole time that Naoto was a girl and didn't say anything.

It's weird how both Doug and Lindsay both released a video about the decline of Disney villains on the same day that were almost the same length.

Off-Script

We finally get the connection between Berseria (Bersaria? whatever) and Zestiria in the anime. To stop the Malevolence, everyone's emotions were taken away, but Velvet Crowe's hatred for Artorius remained, and that's why everything's still fucked. That seems wrong. I've seen the Fairly Oddparents episode where Timmy gets rid of his emotions. You shouldn't do it, no matter how painful or inconvenient it is to have them. But no time to dwell on that or the dead dragon spewing Malevolence in the church because it's back to Ladylake! Maltran is being held in the stocks in the town square (the subtitles said crucified, but...), but not even that can make her turn against Alisha, so it's probably never going to happen in the anime. In episode five of the dub, it sounded like they replaced Sorey's voice actor or said actor caught a cold or something. He sounded completely off, and still does when speaking low and deadly serious. That's when he sounds the most off.

St. Patrick's Day is coming up, and I remembered Gabriel Iglesias' story about the racist gift basket. So I've started compiling a list of what would go into a racist gift basket for St. Patrick's Day: green or clover-themed apparel, Irish cream coffee, Guinness, a box of Lucky Charms, daffodils (or maybe that's just me), mint chocolate (Shamrock Shakes come in chocolate now too), a corned beef sandwich, lots of potato chips, and a cabbage. And it's okay for me to say it because I'm part Irish.

I saw the next part of Digimon Tri. What the hell did Yggdrasil do to Gennai and Himekawa? At least with the reboot they said Digimon who died in the human world can be reborn, not that Gatomon and Wizardmon would remember each other. I still think this is fan fic-y bullshit, though. The poster for the next batch features Kari and Mei, and Ophanimon instead of Magnadramon.

Top 10 Best and Worst Teen Titans Go! Episodes

These lists demonstrate both my tolerance of and my annoyance with spoof/spin-off series Teen Titans Go! Spoiler warning: Many of the entries on the "best" list will be Raven-centric episodes. This should come as no surprise since my favorite episodes of Teen Titans are mostly Raven episodes as well. As for worst, there may be some worse ones, but these are the ones I chose at a glance by visceral reaction.

Best:
Honorable Mention: Colors of Raven - I liked the callback to the original episode plus the addition of the purple-cloaked Raven as her libido.

10. Driver's Ed - Because they make fun of Robin for crashing the Batmobile. This episode did the most to remind me of those Teen Titans short cartoons that ran a few years ago.

9. Campfire Stories - The best parts were the bear showing up to maul Robin and Raven's story with her turning into the monster at the end. The monster is her and it's adorable, even if she has to kill everyone for annoying her (in the story; in reality she scares everyone back into the Tower because she kept complaining that she wanted to go home).

8. Dog Hand - The first appearance of Trigon. For such a terrifying villain, you'd think this would belittle the very real struggle they had against him, but I find it hilarious because Kevin Michael Richardson plays that role so well either as a serious threat or an out-of-touch dad. It's written well for the most part.

7. The True Meaning of Christmas - The Titans go to the North Pole to try to get off the Naughty list. Hijinks ensue. This is probably one of the better holiday episodes before their feud with Santa got even worse.

6. Legendary Sandwich - The first episode had me convinced that this show wasn't going to be all bad, despite later episodes. I liked the nod to My Little Pony since Tara strong voices Twilight in that. This episode also establishes the trend of Raven getting annoyed with the rest of the Titans and that she alone is the voice of reason on a normal day.

5. Friendship - Control Freak puts the Titans in an episode of Pretty Pretty Pegasus, of which both he and Raven are fans. At one point the two of them try to one-up each other with their knowledge of the show (Raven wins, obviously). I like how it delves deeper into being a My Little Pony parody other than in name only.

4. Nean - This is the other Trigon episode that was done really well. He's always trying to push her over the edge to be evil, but this time he takes the opposite approach and forces her to be genuinely nice rather than mean for the good of everyone else (who in this show are usually being idiots). He immediately regrets this decision and gets his just desserts.

3. Operation Dude Rescue - I love it when Ashley Johnson has to be evil, especially since this time they're modeling Terra's behavior after her comic counterpart (who was always evil) rather than the one this show is based off of. The boys don't appreciate or even acknowledge the rescue, so the girls just leave them for dead.

2. 40%, 40%, 20% - This episode has the best 80s nostalgic feel. "The Night Begins to Shine" was likely made up for the show, but it sounds like it came straight out of the 80s. And it gives Cyborg power! The 80s music video visuals made it even better. It's cool that they made Cyborg an 80s/early 90s fan.

1. Sidekick - Robin is put in charge of the Batcave while Batman is out, and the rest of the Titans tag along. This is just as good as the Teen Titans episode where Robin is out and the rest of them dress up in his spare costumes. I especially like Raven befriending the bats and Starfire dressed as Batgirl. Also the revelation that makes Robin no longer afraid of Batman.

Worst:
Honorable Mention: Dreams - It just seemed like a pointless episode, and I don't know how to feel about Robin's dream consisting solely of scenes from the original cartoon dubbed over.

10. Finally a Lesson - I found this one to be criminally boring, and that's coming from an adult. The Aesop episodes were good because they were hilariously subversive, but the housing market and how to adult aren't topics that I tune in for.

9. Pyramid Scheme - This was dumb, as the characters tried to eat money. The "ancient Egypt is the source of all evil" part I can accept, but that was the only interesting part.

8. Two Bumble Bees and a Wasp - When I saw the title, I got excited because I thought the characte Bumble Bee would be in it, but I was wrong (and Wasp is Marvel, right?). I don't like bees and I wouldn't want them as currency.

7. Dignity of Teeth - This was a really gross one. First of all it's stupid to pull out all your teeth to get money from the tooth fairy (though I could've sworn another cartoon did this before as well). The fact that the tooth fairy eats the teeth (and the disgusting sound effect it makes) really put me off this one.

6. Head Fruit - Previous entries on this list had Beast Boy doing stupid things, but the crux of this episode is that Beast Boy is stupid and needs to use his head. Nothing gets accomplished, nothing is learned.

5. Let's Get Serious! - The Titans try to be like Young Justice, which is a show that fans like better and want to get another season of (rather than this garbage). The Titans try to go back to their roots and have complex emotions and backstories, but instead it feels like they're almost mocking their source material.

4. The Fourth Wall - The first of several episodes where the show throws a hissy fit about fans complaining about its quality. Control Freak tells them to fix these problems or he'll be forced to reboot them. They try to address the complaints, but their efforts fail as they just keep missing the point. Even they had to admit the old show was better, though. Beast Boy trying to charge through the fourth wall and failing was a little funny, but it was too little, too late at this point.

3. TTG v PPG - This episode had to be a slap in the face to Tara Strong, but at least as Raven she got to say she didn't care about it. While the new Powerpuff Girls show is probably better by comparison, it's also not better than the original show, something both groups have in common.

2. The Cape - They made an abridged episode using footage from the first episode of the original cartoon. It's as bad as you'd think one would be, except the well-known abridged shows on YouTube are actually good. Teen Titans Go! is already a parody of the original; it didn't need to do this. No production company should (unless it's a recap and not completely re-scripted to be funny).

1. Gorilla - This is the episode that made me want to stop watching. I've only continued because I've convinced myself that it would never be this bad again. Everyone is acting completely stupid and out-of-character. There's no excuse for it like there would be in a theme episode. It's just Beast Boy being a jackass and the girls practically going feral for him. It's bad enough that Robin isn't respected as a leader in the other episodes either, but Beast Boy taking over as an alpha male gorilla was too stupid.

Refresh

I didn't get much out of watching the Kingdom Hearts 2.8 cutscenes, but I'm glad I saw them. The Master of Masters is not at all what I thought he'd be like. He's insane and quite possibly the big bad of the entire series if fan theories are to be believed. He doesn't sound that old, either - he's voiced by the same guy as Noctis (which would explain people's confusion of seeing his name in the credits, not for FFXV but Back Cover). Just as Hayden Pannittiere  covered as Xion before, Alyson Stoner covers as Kairi this time around (which is weird/cool if you think about Xion reacting to Axel having a Keyblade). I was the most surprised to hear Lara Jill Miller as Chirithy - she said yes to this but no to Tri?! Travis and Matt were serviceable as always, even if their characters here were one-note and/or bland. Luxu was pretty cool, though (that's pronounced Loo-shoo). Richard Epcar was back as Terra-Xehanort, so I liked that too. I'm a little disappointed that Skuld didn't show up and Ephemer(a) only had the one scene. Also, while 0.2 connects to KH1, it didn't do much to satisfy my curiosity about what happened during that span of time. The people who would know (Terra and Mickey) didn't say anything about Xehanort's or Ansem's activities.

Dark Side of Dimensions was worse than I thought, even with the knowledge of what was coming hanging over my head the whole time. That part was terrible, especially since I don't think Ryou's dad was a douchebag antique dealer either. Ted Lewis didn't voice young Ryou or Yami Bakura, which was disappointing. Hearing Dan Green say "Serah" was okay, and the bowling scene was cool. It was written well, and I liked the snarky lines thrown in (such as twice mentioning Ryou's accent when his fan girls were following him around and Joey's "Meant to do it!" when he jumped off the bridge and stumbled when he landed). I liked learning more about Tristan, and it was too bad Duke didn't get more screen time or fan girls of his own. Had the movie been all about the duels, that'd be fine; that's what people pay to see. However, I really do believe Kaiba has better things to do than dwell on this. Unfortunately, the world-ending shenanigans behind the scenes make my heart heavy and take what little joy I could gain from it in the first place. The Prana utopia crap was heavy-handed, as was Shadi's role as a savior (not that he isn't a good guy, but it's more difficult to believe after some of the crap he pulled, especially in the manga). And of course the fact that the Millennium Items were made by the unwilling sacrifice of 99 lives (with one surviving) was never brought up (I'm not even sure anyone else even knew, and they didn't even use Zorc's name). When and if LittleKuriboh abridges this, Diva might as well be calling everyone infidels since he keeps saying "your kind" when referring to the main characters.

Promise of the Rose (or rather the Sailor Moon R movie since they don't call it that anymore) was redubbed and released in theaters for a limited time. I only know this because Calluna did a vlog on it. Viz is moving in on total domination of the series, which is both good and not so good at the same time. She explains it better than I could.

Scanlan's departure from Vox Machina was very depressing, but it was Sam's call, just as it was Taliesin's call to continue as Percy or roll a new character. Both Percy and Scanlan have died twice, resurrected once quickly and once slowly. Percy recently said that since being brought back, he feels his life belongs to everyone else, that his life is not his own. I've almost died in real life, but that's not the reason I believe that my life isn't my own; it is, however, the reason that I know I'm living on borrowed time. Maybe that's what Scanlan felt, other than his anger that was both understandable and false. Sam's still playing, but as a new character designed to piss everyone off. If this persists, they may have to shoot a new opening.

Digimon Applimonsters came out with an episode that acknowledged the Pokemon Go! trend, only with treasure instead of monsters. The villains were using this to herd people onto trains and ferry them to their deaths, but Musimon was able to stop the train in time. In the process, they let the virus-spewing Appmon get away. Yuuji was just a normal character; we get his backstory with him meeting Haru, and there was nothing ominous like before when shots focused on him mysteriously. All he knows is that Haru hangs out with Ai at her family's bookstore and is friends with celebrities Eri and Astra.

Top 10 Codename: Kids Next Door Episodes

This almost became a Top 20 Countdown, but I narrowed it down to 10 plus 4 honorable mentions. For this list, the plot had to be particularly epic or memorable, or there had to be some funny dialogue that I remember to this day.

Honorable Mentions [that made the cut and were vying for the number ten spot]:
C.R.I.M.E. (Crayon Renderings Implicate Mostly Everyone) Season 6 episode 8A
Minority Report parody. Richard Steven Horvitz voices a kid who wants the cafeteria's pizza bagels all to himself, so he frames everyone for crimes they didn't commit to eliminate the competition.
L.I.C.E. (Lice Interrupt Cheese Eating) Season 1 episode 7A
Numbuh 3 doesn't want replacement toys - she wants revenge! Numbuh 5 pulls off some sweet Indiana Jones moves too.
I-S.C.R.E.A.M. (Important - Steal Creamy Refrigerated Edibles Avoid Meltdown) Season 1 episode 2A
Shenanigans involving driving an ice cream truck culminating in being washed away in a flood of melted ice cream. "Party! Ice cream party!"
S.U.P.P.O.R.T. (Special Underwire Protection Proportedly Outfits Rotten Teenagers) Season 2 episode 3A
The first appearance of Numbuh 5's older sister Cree, voiced by the actress of the same name.

10. S.P.R.O.U.T. (Sickening Produce Removal Operation Ultra Tricky) Season 3 episode 13A
One of those fantastic voyage parodies. Numbuh 5 probably has the best line, "Eenie, meenie, miney, I ain't going!" when someone has to get out of the pod while still inside Numbuh 4. In the beginning it's a brussels sprout he absent-mindedly eats, and at the end it's liver. I'd like to think they have to do the whole thing over again offscreen.

9. O.F.F.I.C.E. (On Fourteenth Floor Is Corporate Evil) Season 1 episode 6A
Numbuh 4's dad takes him to work with him since it's Take Your Daughter to Work Day and he doesn't have a daughter. There he meets his dad's coworkers' Rainbow Monkey-obessed daughters, including Numbuh 3. "They're freaks!" Numbuh 4 is bored until he has to save Numbuh 3 and the rest of the corporate daughters from being sent to Pluto by their parents' boss, Mr. Boss. That doesn't mean he likes them, though (except Numbuh 3, obviously). She's so happy to see him at the end. "Numbuh 4! I thought you were flying to Pluto!"

8. P.I.A.N.O. (Pesky Instruments Advances New Operative) Season 1 episode 11A
"What have we learned today?" The rest of the team's responses to Numbuh 1's question were hilarious and fitting from their delivery and character viewpoint. 2: *ashamed* "Do not deviate from plan." 5: *bored* "Teamwork is essential." 3: *neutral* "Operational procedures are important." 4: *injured* "Pianos...are heavy." 1: *exasperated* "Whatever." First appearance of the hamster operatives, who are sent to destroy violins at the end before the credits roll.

7. N.A.U.G.H.T.Y. (Ninnies Almost Undo Greatest Holiday This Year) Season 5 episode 5
The Delightful Children seek control over the Naughty and Nice lists, but Numbuh 3 proves that anyone can become corrupted by the power. The Christmas-themed super heroes were a nice touch. Another episode that features the relationship between Numbuhs 3 and 4, as Numbuh 3 is only brought back to normal by Numbuh 4 offering to share his fries with her (which he had earlier refused to do).

6. M.A.U.R.I.C.E. (Mature Agent Undergoes Reprogramming Into Childhood's Enemy) Season 4 episode 11
In this episode we learn that not everyone gets decommissioned for real. Maurice (voiced by Khary Payton) tries to keep this a secret, but Numbuh 5 won't leave him alone. Cree gets in the way as usual, but this time it didn't end all according to her plan. I do find it a little creepy that Cree and Abby both like the same guy again (the other time being in season 2 when Numbuh 2 got turned into a teenager), but it's fun hearing Cree Summer argue with herself every time they go at it.

5. P.I.N.K.E.Y.E. (Private Investigator's New Kase Extra Yucky Epidemic) Season 3 episode 7A
Probably one of the best Numbuh 2 episodes. Numbuh 86 is also a highlight, as she only goes into his "office" to get paper towels for the girls bathroom. As the title suggests, it's pretty gross, but it's still funny. I especially like the joke at the end where Numbuh 3 asks what other ingredients were used, and Numbuh 86 sneezes.

4. Q.U.I.E.T. (Quiet Unlikely In Entire Treehouse) Season 1 episode 12A
Literally everything goes wrong when they try to get workaholic Numbuh 1 to get some sleep before a big awards ceremony. Nothing that happened actually woke him up until Numbuh 5 declared that the last thing that happened came too close to doing so. Numbuh 1 woke up and shouted at her, but then during his speech mentions that he works so hard so his team can sleep at night. I'm with Numbuh 5 at the end of it. "Ah, shut up!"

3. S.L.U.M.B.E.R. (Stupid Little Undercover Mission Becomes Exciting Romp) Season 3 episode 6B
Numbuh 4 dresses in drag and sneaks into an all-girls mission with Numbuh 86, only to find out it's a sleepover (that Numbuh 5 was too cool for/she doesn't like Numbuh 86). Teen and preteen spies turn it into an actual mission. Only Numbuh 3 will be friends with Numbuh 86 for real (they can bond over Rainbow Monkeys). Numbuh 86 threatens disguised Numbuh 4 with death if he tells anyone else she likes Rainbow Monkeys; she probably would've killed him if she knew it was him. That costume shouldn't have fooled anyone, so that's another reason not to have Numbuh 5 there.

2. E.N.D. (Everyone Nearly Decommissioned) Season 2 episode 13
It was hard choosing between this and Operation Z.E.R.O., but that was a movie so I shouldn't count it. This is one of many episodes in which the villain's plan is to have the team ejected from the organization and have their memories wiped (by aging them up, hacking their files, turning them into animals, etc.). I like that even without their memories, the rest of the team still trusts Numbuh 1 and agree to work with him. Numbuh 5 keeps calling him crazy but just goes with it. "Whatever you say, crazy!"/"You're crazy, this whole plan is crazy, but what the heck?"

1. P.O.O.L. (Prevent Opposite Operative's Larceny) Season 4 episode 4
This is the mirror world/universe episode, which provides character insights and development. Numbuh 4 gets over his fear of water and learns to swim to save everyone from his evil doppelganger. He says this means Negative Numbuh 4 is a coward, making everyone else in the DNK turn against him. I especially like the part where Eizzil is still waiting back in the real world when Negative Numbuh 4 shows up and kicks him back through the portal. Also the part where Negative Numbuh 86 wants to pretend to be a pretty princess instead of what they were doing under Negative Numbuh 4's rule.