What Did I Just Watch?

The Raven vs Twilight Death Battle didn't shock me with the outcome, but it didn't really make sense to have them fight at all. I feel like, if they had to fight at all, they would end up stopping the fight and realizing it was stupid. The two of them have similar personalities and are even voiced by the same person (Tara Strong, but not in this). They'd probably just end up having a discussion over tea or something. If they were going to keep the Teen Titans Go! aspect of Raven playing with pony figurines, then she shouldn't have gotten defensive about it when she suddenly found herself in Twilight's library (although Twilight was not among her figurines). If anything, Twilight should've asked (as she would) about her having the figurines in the first place. And Raven certainly wouldn't have set the books on fire. Speaking of TTG, I was pleasantly surprised (though a little put off since it's still TTG) by Cree Summer voicing the gender-bent version of Beast Boy.

I found out there was a prologue to the Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card anime that closely followed the end of the manga and differed a lot from the final episode of season two of the original anime. I also found out there was another dub of Cardcaptor Sakura, possibly by one of the same companies that dubbed DBZ atrociously (seriously, I think the same actress might voice Chi-Chi and Meilin). It's equally bad, though the dub I grew up with wasn't exactly perfect and was far from complete.

I've been so busy lately forgot about Year of the Dog.
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Also I cobbled these together just for fun (emphasis on cobbled).
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Top 10 Random Encounters Musicals

Honorable Mention: Bendy and the Ink Musical
They worked really hard on this one due to all the stop motion. It's really impressive and pretty catchy.

10-Friday the 13th the Musical
It's short, but given the horror tropes and gameplay references, this was pretty funny. It has a great melody too.

9-Kindergarten the Musical
With all the roles played by AJ, it's hard to pick a stand-out. Nugget has the best lines, though. "Nugget says no!"/"Throw her in the Nugget Cave."

8-Finding Mr. Midnight (Fran Bow the Musical)
I like SparrowRayne's voice. I like the game's atmosphere as well.

7-Muffins the Musical (A Derpy Hooves Song)
While kind of dumb, this one's upbeat and cheery and made my day the first time I saw the video.

6-Go Go Pokemon Go!/Pokemon Go! in Real Life
Out of all the Pokemon Go! music videos I've seen, these are the best. It also serves as a wonderful culmination of all previous Pokemon musical numbers starring Peter as the trainer.

5-Phoenix Wright the Musical (supercut)
Originally a three-parter, this set of videos and later supercut video retell the Turnabout Storm storyline in a very entertaining way. I especially like Miles' line toward the end, "Answer the question or my sister will beat you." Another outstanding performance by SparrowRayne.

4-What's in Your Basement?/Up on My Housetop (Hello Neighbor the Musical)
It's too bad the final game didn't live up to the hype or these videos. First it's AJ trying to get into the neighbor's house (even dressing up like a Girl Scout to do so), then Santa. I like how the neighbor (played marvelously by Peter) tells them both off, which lines such as "I will put you in the ground" and "Kiss my rear!" respectively. A poker game with the likes of Bonnie Bunny, Strong Bad, and The Beard was a better twist than the one we got.

3-Just Monika (A Doki Doki Literature Club Song)
The newest one as of this post, but it somehow put me in a better mood that day. Just shy of the number two spot (though for a very similar reason), this takes the number three spot due to its sweetness and insanity. I like the twist at the end where Monika is wiped from existence and it becomes "Just Sayori" (as it should be).

2-Senpai Notice Me (A Yandere Simulator Song)
Monika may be a monster, but Ayano is the OG. If this game were an anime, I'd watch the hell out of it. This song, performed by SparrowRayne, illustrates the lengths to which one lovesick girl is ready to go to eliminate the competition. Info-chan and Kuu Dere as the Yandere Posse was a nice touch, also. Too bad Nate as the Senpai didn't get to sing, though he did get to speak.

1-FNAF the Musical (supercut)/Blood and Tears (Sister Location)
It really wasn't going to be anything else. The odd-numbered parts were my favorite out of the original five-part series. SparrowRayne was great as Baby, even if she hated the series and was absolutely giddy when they got to tear down the set, which was dominating their house. Mark and Nate were the unnamed guards and AJ was the hapless purple guy, which is weird now since we didn't know anything about the Aftons at the time.

Maybe someday they'll do a Life is Strange the Musical, or at least FNAF 6.

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).