#and i never really looked into skylanders; it doesn't really interest me

[synthaphone]

Ok I’ll bring it up, I’m actually surprised you’re not a Spyro fan. I feel like the Neopets/Spyro Venn Diagram has a pretty wide intersection, though looking at some other Neopets-centric blogs I’m not so sure anymore! That might’ve just been a me thing lol.

LOL ACTUALLY! my cousin had a Playstation and Spyro the Dragon and i LOVED going to her house to play Spyro as a kindergartner (i was bad at it and just ran around the peacekeepers hubworld burning sheep). I think Spyro was at least partially responsible for getting me obsessed with dragons as a kid too.

I beat the first game on an emulator back in... 2018? 2019? (with the use of savestates) and then got the reignited trilogy + got to varying degrees of completion on all of those before getting frustrated and giving up (final boss for the first game, random other areas of the 2nd and 3rd game).

i really love the unique designs they gave to all of the elder dragons in the Spyro 1 remaster- easily my favorite part of that game. oh and i like the original soundtrack; its got a great sound to it. and i used to have fun looking at the concept sketches for Spyro too because that artist has a neat scribbly style

[snappydragonsclaw]

one night, tessa,snap shot, and the minis sat at the dining table. snap shot was in his werewolf form, but like food fight learned to control it. they were waiting for food fight to return, then came a small mossy figure coming about. it was food fight in his werewolf form. he had a box of pizza in his mossy paws. but something was different about food fight. he had a hearty smile tugged at his mouth. "Phew! man, this box is hot!" Food fight spoke in a cheery tone when he put the pizza onto the table after Tessa opened the door. "How's Scott's first transformation?" "The usual. he doesn't want to be bothered, so I would just slide the plate under the door, " Tessa responded. food fight slid the plate with a slice of lengthy cheesy meat lovers pizza under the door and walked to the table. Spry was playfully chatting with Gill Runt,trigger snappy seemed to be messing with pet vac much to his annoyance, drobit waited patiently, and hijinks glared off into the distance. "So, where's spyro and the others?" Food fight asked. "they are on guard duty. they said that chop chop was spotted nearby mate." Snap shot answered. meanwhile, above in the skies, Sonic boom soars around."Oh, where are those children!?" she asked herself. she then sees a tree house lit up below her and flies down and sees them eating pizza.she was about to walk in when she heard food fight's voice. without a second thought, she broke in and gained looks she did. everyone stopped talking and looked at her startled. "What are you doing?" Tessa asked, confused."The minis ran off and didn't tell me." Sonic boom explains. Spry sheepishly chuckles, sinking into the chair. Sonic boom lands her eyes on him. "Anyways...what's the deal with the two werewolves?"That's food fight and snap shot. " Tessa says. "Oh...that's interesting....food fight is that moss or fur?" Sonic boom asked sheepishly,"Moss. it looks like fur, but it's not."Food fight said bluntly. food fight was unsure rather to trust the griffin. those he once called family are now trying to kill him. meanwhile, in the forest. "spyro, are you sure you have chop chop's scent? we been out here for hours now." cynder asked. her voice tinged with boredom. "My nostrils don't lie cynder... they never do, just like my memory. chop chop is in these woods."And what will we do if we catch him?" cynder asks with a hint of sass. "Have a talk and hope he changes his mind." spyro responds. gill grunt looks at trigger happy and shakes his head and cynder's nostrils flare as she sighs deeply. "spyro. chop chop is very hard headed it don't think a talk will sort this out." cynder comments. " we're skylanders cynder. I'm sure he'll listen." spyro responds. "spyro, he didn't listen the first time. listen, not everyone will do what you would have done in this situation. " cynder explains. "Yeah, spyro. some people are not talkers, and you can't talk them out of doing what they are going to do. chop chop is not someone who really thinks about others. he's a fighter, not a lover." Gill grunt adds. "Yeah! yeah! chop chop, not nice! hahaha!" Trigger happy comments. " I know but maybe he will change? right? hopefully." spyro shrugs. "we can dream but let's be realistic. chop chop is chop chop. he never changes for anyone or anything." cynder responds. to be continued

[muthaz-rapapa]

Hirogaru Sky Impressions (3/5)

Alright~

So we're more than halfway there. Excited for leaks season yet?

Show is still going good despite the last 10 episodes being mostly filler. I don't have anything to really complain about since as far as fillers go, the quality of HiroPre's is definitely better than those of previous seasons.

But me being me, of course there is going to be some form of criticism so let's gogogo~ and get that over with.

Again, the fillers are quite enjoyable but ever since the recovery of Captain Shalala, doesn't it feel like we've gone too long without any plot-related episodes?

Thankfully, it seems they're getting back to that with ep 31 next week. But even so, the lack of clues or hints about the Undergu Empire and the reason for its antagonism dragged the show's momentum slightly. So it felt longer to get through these 10 weeks.

"Filler doldrums" as I'd like to call it because tuning into Precure weekly became more of chore than something to look forward to.

But it wasn't that bad so let's hope the next 10 episodes will be more balanced.

Moving on.

I spoke too soon on not having to worry about the handling of Mashiro's character arc anymore. Why am I surprised, though? Whenever I let my guard down, my expectations are always betrayed. Oiy.

But honestly, they got me all hoping and excited since they actually gave her potential content to work with. Like her taking an interest in creating picture books. Or even her cooking skills or passion for makeup. Or her long distance relationship with her parents. That's quite a bunch of material to expand on for her.

Instead, she's been regulated to the passenger seat again to let Sora drive.

On one hand, I understand and can accept that Sora would receive more focus since the she is the main character of the overall story. Her coming from another world and therefore being a fish out of water bird out of Skyland when it comes to most things Earth-related...along with being someone who's never had friends before due to spending most of her time training are all prime real estate for development.

However, you can't deny that there is a blatant amount of lead favoritism.

It's not as bad as previous seasons since the writing for HiroPre is a lot better. But when the rest of the cast individually gets one episode of spotlight for every five or so the lead gets, it can be tiresome or even suffocating to sit through.

...on another note, my theory about Captain Shalala possibly being a double agent for the Undergu Empire turned out to be wrong after all. But I think having the enemy take Shalala hostage was the more suitable direction to go for breaking Sora down in order to let her renew and restrengthen her resolve as a hero. The loss of respect for your idol can be a really difficult thing to bear and that might be too harsh a topic for Precure's target audience. It achieved similar effects to the Broken Pedestal trope anyway so no complaints there.

Anyways, we may have broken the Pink trend this year but I'm not optimistic it will stay that way as long as there's always one primary lead in each group. Frankly, I think we're going straight back to special Pink treatment for another 4 years before 25th anniversary but that's a thing to worry about later.

As for Tsubasa and Ageha, I was more satisfied with their focus eps. Mostly.

Tsubasa's always teaches you something new. I really liked the one about branching out your dream, which is something we all need to hear should we ever reach our goal or get stuck on what to do next. And Ageha's most recent one with her older sisters and her parents' divorce when she was younger provided more depth into how she became the person she is today.

But I wasn't pleased when the Peach airline promotion ep that should've been about Mashiro spending time with her parents went to Tsubasa instead. I mean, Tsubasa showing off his airplane knowledge is always amazing but...ngh, they really don't care for Mashiro, do they?

Another thing. I became a little concerned about the portrayal of Ageha. She is shown to be consistently confident and composed in most things she does...but most 18-year olds aren't like that. So I worried for a bit if that might've sent an unintentional message that "you should be as competent as Ageha when you reach adult age" which is like ehhhh......not true.

Though it's only a flaw you notice if you're incredibly scrutinizing like I am. And given Ageha's personality, there's nothing wrong with presenting her as such cuz she wouldn't be Ageha without those traits. But definitely think of her more as a role model instead of one to emulate, that's all.

Right so, next week...is not the debut of Cure Majesty.

YET.

But very soon. Maybe even the week after? September titles haven't been released yet (as of checking right now) but with only...wow, 18 more episodes to go, they better make the best of it.

I don't think Ellee-chan suddenly getting older will become too much of an issue with pacing...as long as they don't put her in school if she still largely retains the mind of a toddler.

Or maybe she'll only grow older when transforming into Precure and return to being a baby during off-hours? That'd be interesting...it wouldn't be as fun as seeing her more grown up, yea, but it'd be unexpected, at least.

Whatever. Just give me more lore and I'll be good.

Finally (haha), let's talk about the future of Precure for a bit.

This season is obviously not going to be the last of 'em. If it was, they wouldn't try to scare you with it in an All Stars movie preview of all things. They'd likely do it the boring way by just announcing it in the news. :P

Anyways, we can definitely expect the franchise to continue for another 5 years. 25th anniversary is something Toei absolutely has to aim for because it will be a double milestone.

Quarter of a century run for the Precure franchise.

And (if my projected calculations are correct), if we keep to teams of 4-5 every year up until till 2028, we will hit over 100 Precure total.

Pretty exciting, yes?

With mixed-gender teams no longer being just a dream (look, Cure Wing even made the news! WAAAAHHH!!! xD) and upcoming projects like the Otona Precure series and the all-male Precure stage play in the works, it's definitely a confirmation that this franchise has no intention of ending any time soon.

If you want more consumers of your product, you need to accommodate for a variety of people and all sorts of new and different ideas, aspects and tastes.

Formula they probably won't budge on too much (not for the main tv series anyway) but there always will be other rooms to explore, y'know?

Ok~ So Precure won't be ending but summer is~

Hope everyone enjoyed it in spite of the heat and best of luck in school or whatever your future endeavors are!

See you in another 10 eps! (^ _ ^)/"

[warrior-of-the-sands]

So I guess you could say that I am More Than Meets the Eye because while this blog is pretty much exclusively dedicated to Skylanders, I actually have been a huge Transformers fan all along! Don't worry, im not gonna pivot the subject of this blog to TFs now, but the Transformers One Trailer came out today, and I felt like giving my 2 cents about it. Overall, I think the trailer looks ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffun! (Spoilers for the trailer below)

The big thing to remember with this, above all else is that: this is a kids movie. This is not gonna be some grand, sci-fi epic that FINALLY proves to the normies that Transformers was always good! it's gonna be a decent quality film to get the younglings interested in the series and get them to buy toys, which is really Transformers back to square one. I've heard a lot of people complaining based on the trailer at how bad the humour is and yeah, it's not that special, it definetively carries a bit of that "Uhmm, that just happened" energy But. Have you never watched a trailer for a kids movie? It's almost always a bunch of obnoxious gags taped together, while an actual synopsis of the plot is squeezed somewhere in there. And that's the kind of thing that gets kids into seats at the theater. I would know! I was a kid who was duped into watching tons of terrible movies based on these type of trailers! Not saying it's a good thing, just. It's clear that for some people, this is the first time they watched a kids movie trailer in a long while. So, moving on to the animated part of this animated movie: I think it looks quite impressive! Overall, aesthetically I really vibe with how they made this robot planet look! Maybe not so much the actual robots. The overly smooth faces and basic proportions aren't exactly how I like my Transformers to look, but I don't think they bad either. I can live with it. The thing I am REALLY excited for are the QUINTESSONS. I am so happy to see them back! I always thought that they were such a good part of the TF lore (And the superior origin story) and it's such a relief to see them used here as the main antagonistic threat! I know that at their core, they're just generic bad guys, but, in a franchise that had it's main villain be a righteous revolutionary who OOOPS! Becomes the most evil tyrant in the galaxy, I think some generic, uncomplicated baddies are welcome. And yeah, this movie still sorta does the Megatron, revolutionary backstory and im just so tired of it. It's just white noise, it's just his default backstory at this point. It's almost never expanded upon because it's just alredy there, whenever anyone decides to write their version of Megatron with their own ideas. I guess in this version everyone in the main gang is a slave worker but it doesn't really change anything. This could be a bit of a comeback for Transformers that I think Hasbro has been trying to achieve. I know we said the same thing with ROTB, but when it came to the trailers and marketing of ROTB, it was quite a mess. We didn't really know what movie we where getting up until it's release. This meanwhile is incredibly clear about what it is, and that makes me more confident in actually excited about. Also remember that Paramount is funding IDF and to pirate this movie when it comes out.