You've Got to be Kidding Me

At first I wasn't worried when I heard that Dunkin Donuts was scaling back their menu since I don't get anything fancy, but I was wrong. I'm not sure if it was left up to individual owners, but the one closest to my apartment only has a choice of plain or everything bagels (as far as bagels go), and one of them just ran out. Granted, this is a 24-hour location and they're always running out of things anyway, but there's barely anything there anymore. I'll have to check other locations along my route, but I'm surprised they went that far. They didn't have white hot chocolate either (and neither did the store), so I ordered some from Amazon. I'll have to see what kind of donuts they have after the Valentine's ones run out. They gave me the wrong ones and weren't very nice to me the last couple times I was there. I should be used to disappointment by now.

I'm adding a third video to my audio swap project, which is going to be a lightning round of other people's characters. Instead of exploring characters' interactions and voices, it's just going to be one-off memorable lines from one character put into another character's mouth (sometimes two, and sometimes more than one trade). I started Miles' video and am putting some final revisions into Michael's, so that should be up before the end of the month. RWBY Chibi already beat me to Jaune singing the Camp Camp theme, though.

Meilin appeared in the Clear Card Arc anime via video chat. It'll be a little weird not hearing Nicole Oliver voice her. If I remember correctly, Rika could play the piano, but that role has been assigned to Syaoran. At least she got to say something over the phone that one time. The most recent episode referenced Dragon Ball  during Kero's Corner, as he mentioned he knew a monkey boy who stole a peach, and Spinel asked if he knew Goku.

That Explains It

Now the RWBY volume 5 opening sequence makes sense - Emerald made a hallucination of Salem. She was there after all. She took Cinder's death pretty hard. I wonder what she's going to be like next volume, or what she and Mercury are going to do. I don't feel bad for Lionheart at all because he was the worst. The stinger reminds me of the end credits of Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep when a feather falls near Zack and then he's gone. Has Raven gone to try to patch things up with Tai? She's kind of the worst but she didn't have to be. Will there be new characters introduced into RWBY Chibi season 3? Oscar? Raven? Salem and/or her inner circle? Ilia? Blake's parents? Depends on which voice actors they can get, I guess. They probably haven't been able to get Kathleen, hence Glynda's absence.

I'm currently working on two video projects. They have the same basic premise, but I decided not to combine them into one video. One involves characters voiced by Michael Jones, and the second involves characters voiced by Miles Luna. I'm really into making the Michael video right now, so it's going to be a little longer than expected anyway. The same thing will probably happen once I get into the one for Miles. I have no set date for finishing or posting them yet, but Michael's is almost done.

The dub for Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card Arc is already out, so that's nuts. I guess it's going to be like Tales of Zestiria the X that way. It sounds weird with different voice actors, even with Monica and Jason reprising the roles from their Tsubasa days. If they were to go back and redub everything like they did with Sailor Moon I guess I wouldn't mind, just to have some consistency. Now that I think about it, was Rika/Rita's only character trait that she had a crush on the teacher? Is that why she isn't in this anymore?

It's probably too late for me to get into Steven Universe, but recently I've been watching fan videos about it and took a personality quiz on Buzzfeed (I got Opal).

Old and New

The only reason I would like Hazel less (besides him being scary, but then so was Blake's dad) is that he's asking Ozpin how many more children need to die while he's fighting the group. I did miss him making the connection to the train station the first time around, but that's not what I'd wanted to happen since Oscar only says "Why does he hate us?" meaning him and Ozpin. What I'd wanted was a "You?" YOU!" moment. Instead it was "OZPIN!" "Oh no." I don't know why Weiss hooked and dragged Hazel back into the building after Nora went to the trouble of putting him through a wall in the first place. Him getting knocked through the wall and surprising Adam was similar to Oscar knocking Lionheart into him earlier. I especially liked how Hazel told Adam that he could go fuck himself in a turn of cruel irony. If Cinder is really dead, did Raven get the Fall Maiden powers as well? Having two Maiden powers is what Cinder wanted, but I don't know if it's what Raven wanted. A part of me wonders if Vernal could have been the Spring Maiden but Raven had trained her to keep her in her mind even if she's being killed so that she'd get the powers. Emerald's not going to be happy when she finds out. She's either going to stop functioning or power up for revenge.

I've been trying to decide which characters I like in the new Critical Role campaign. I liked Percy and Pike the most last time, so I thought I'd like Mollymauk and Yasha. However, I'm only neutral on them so far, especially since Ashley will be gone most of the time for work anyway. Frankly, I'm amazed she showed up to start this at all. I like Caleb so far, so maybe Liam will be my new favorite.

I like how the Clear Card Arc anime mentions the anime-only characters (Wei and Meilin) in passing instead of trying to incorporate them into the ongoing narrative.

Teen Titans Go to the Movies sounds like what they just did with the 200th episode but on a much larger, much longer scale.

Wham!

Nice going, Nora and Ren. Hazel said he didn't want to fight you, and you fought him anyway instead of helping your other teammates. Hazel's face when he said no one was getting in or out did not look like the face of a man who was happy about that. He doesn't like what Adam is doing and is completely indifferent to the fight unfolding before him. Hopefully Blake and Sun show up soon. Maybe Weiss won't be dead. Spoilers: she's not because Jaune turned out to be the white mage - and no one fucks with the white mage. It also turned out that Vernal was a decoy and Raven has the Spring Maiden powers. Vernal is still super dead, though. And Hazel is still my favorite. Still no recognition between him and Oscar; Hazel just wants Ozpin to die "over and over again." Then Ruby regained consciousness and gave Nora and Ren orders to do what they should've done from the beginning of the fight (help Weiss/Jaune/Qrow).

I finished reading the rest of "Smartest Book," including the ending. Greg does realize that the book is baseball-heavy and apologizes for it, saying there would be less baseball next time around (if he decides to write another book). He also does include the phrase "it sounds better than the truth" when referring to how icky white guys control history again. Speaking of books, the 358/2 Days light novel will release in June, which is a step in the right direction. We're getting that much closer to the Birth By Sleep omnibus, and I can't wait. If I like it, which I probably will based on what I've already read, I might pick up the KH2 ones afterward. I could pick them up now, but my interest in them is predicated on how the prequel is handled. I have plenty to read right now anyway; I also just read Coraline for the first time. It's not the movie, but that's also a good thing; I really liked it.

I watched the first episode of the Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Arc. It picks up where the second season left off in place of the second movie. It feels the same, like it could've come out as a natural third season of the original series instead of all these years later.

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?