What Comes Next

The season 8 season finale of MLP was a little different than I thought it would be. Instead of Cozy working with the chancellor, she was working with Tirek. She trapped the mane 6 and Spike in Tartarus with him. However, just like in Over a Barrel, Pinkie annoys Tirek into submission. Twilight pretty much says, "We're not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with us!" The teaser had contained a clip of the student five saying that Sandbar had betrayed them, which would've fit in What Lies Beneath, but it was clear in the episode that he hadn't done any such thing. However, this is the first appearance of the CMC since Cozy got them in trouble, so I'm disappointed that they were underutilized and locked in a closet by Cozy. I thought Cozy might have also poisoned Starlight with mustard and tried to poison the mane 6 with cupcakes, but that wasn't the case. In the end, Cozy was locked up in Tartarus with Tirek. Celestia didn't even have the guts to send a child to Hell herself and had Luna do it. At least she didn't get banished to Equestria Girls. Sunset would've had a thing or two to say about that. After this two-parter, I'm ready for the final season next year.

Emerald did feature prominently in the RWBY volume 6 trailer, as Salem tells her that she is basically Cinder's replacement and that she should know her place. I feel so bad for her, especially when Tyrian gets in her face. We didn't even get to see his new tail (assuming he has it by now). Not sure where Mercury, Hazel, and the rest are. Since Team JNR and Oscar aren't in the clip where Ruby says "Don't let anyone else die," I'm hoping she's still referring to the people who have already died. It's another fight on a train. Hopefully this one won't have bombs on it. There also seems to be a new character silhouetted on the poster who can fly and people are bowing down to him/her. Going off flight, maybe a Peter Pan archetype? Do they have one of those already?

Maple Cheerios is the new Honey Nut Cheerios. I say that because Honey Nut tastes like regular Cheerios (bland) to me while Maple has just enough flavor to make it past that. I still think it could use brown sugar or something to really stand out. Pumpkin Spice is still up there too. Maybe they should make one called Coffee-Os. I already did it by pouring iced coffee into a bowl of plain Cheerios, but it's not quite the same thing. I poured maple syrup into milk before, but that didn't do anything other than sweeten it; the Maple Cheerios has an undeniable flavor to it.

Don't Trip at the Finish Line

After some light retooling, I could technically post my original Kingdom Hearts 3 video before it actually comes out, plus my Raven/Ienzo video. I will make another video after the game's release which will have a different tone (fingers crossed that no one dies though). I'm super happy that the Birth By Sleep light novel is coming out around my birthday (assuming it doesn't get delayed like the last one). It might not live up to the expectations I have for it, but it's something. I'm sure there will be more for us to learn from Kingdom Hearts 3, but I will at least find out from it why I should care about Vanitas. While Kingdom Hearts 3 can't possibly cover everything, I'll bet he gets his due there too if the novels are supposed to be canon and just contain extra material. It seems like everyone might get the attention they deserve in this huge game, and I'm looking forward to it.

The Persona 5 anime only made it to 26 episodes and as far as Akechi shooting the protagonist. The rest of it will be presented in a special rather than order more episodes. It doesn't have an air date yet. It's not that unusual, but the extra material in Persona 4 Golden was the bad ending (not the one from Persona 4 the animation where it goes through the other bad ends first, the one where Yu sides with Adachi). We still have two dungeons with some major plot points to cover. They could probably have made a second season out of it if they wanted to take their time (not that there weren't filler episodes already, because there were); Tales of Zestiria did (it wasn't good, but it still got two seasons).

I watched the Crossover Nexus special, and I wasn't impressed. Impressed with the number of easter eggs and references, yes, but they seemed pretty much hollow. It was only eleven minutes and seemed too quick with not a lot of time to properly build to anything other than brief flashes of characters we know. Maybe I'm just being cynical, but it just didn't seem as meaningful to me as it did to everyone else. Garnet was easily the best part. Teen Titans Go! Raven was all right, but I'm not sure if the reference to original Teen Titans at the end was supposed to be "Oops, I'm not THAT Raven" or "Pssht, that show was a mistake." Given Teen Titans Go!'s affinity for tearing its older audience a new one over their criticisms, it came across as more of a "fuck you" to me than was probably intended. At least the new PPG didn't feature. The other two episodes of TTG that aired were all right but not great. I can see why they called the block "Raven Domination."