#because they say they beat the secret aliens due to their lack of imagination and lmao

[akkivee]

so i was watching rhyme anima as some background noise the other night and those last two episodes where ichijiku suggests they use the true hypnosis mic to brainwash the main cast so they can use them in their overarching plot to subjugate the nation and the boys mostly get out of their troubles by coming together to combine their bonds to take out the enemy—

honestly felt a little bit like what hypmic was going for before had the series not blown up in stardom lol

[fly-pow-bye]

DuckTales 2017 - “Quack Pack!”

Story by: Francisco Angones, Madison Bateman, Colleen Evanson, Christian Magalhaes, Bob Snow

Written by: Bob Snow

Storyboard by: Vince Aparo, Kristen Gish

Directed by: Tanner Johnson

TGIHD. Thank God It’s Hump Day.

Our episode begins with Huey preparing his Uncle Donald for his big family photo opportunity, an opportunity he never seems to have due to various mishaps. He hired a professional photographer, and even had him practice his million dollar smile. Huey says that nothing is going to stop this day from being ruined, and then Dewey, the one-liner-spewing stand-out sibling, shows up. We know he's the stand-out because the laugh track cheers as soon as he comes in. Yes, a laugh track, just like this series always had.

Some other characters show up, mostly to reintroduce them to the audience. We have Louie, the schemer who is currently trying make his mother jump off the roof and get people to pay to see it. Said mother is Della, a former moon-dweller who is perfectly fine with because she used to be on the moon, and will seemingly bring that up with almost every line of dialogue she has. Finally, we have Scrooge, the relatively down-to-Earth, no pun intended, person who knows this is ridiculous, though he does ponder if he can make a lot of money from that dangerous stunt before saying "no".

Instead, they have to get the study ready for the photo, something Scrooge promised he would have done already. Though he tells Donald that he would never break a family promise, the sweat he's wiping off his brow is telling a different story. He, Della, and Louie slowly back away into the office, and nobody is the wiser. Oh Scrooge, I’m sure he has some money related reason for it.

As they back away into the office, we get two more stand-out characters: Mrs. Beakley, who constantly has to deny being a spy despite coming in through one of those wires on the roof, and Webby, who introduces her grandmother as a professional spy. She's the quirky one!

At this point, Huey starts to think that something is very off with everything around him, and asks his Uncle Donald if he feels the same way. Donald turns to Huey, and responds in the familiar way we all know and love.

Donald: (clears throat) Well, everything seems perfectly normal to me!

Ah, Donald, with his distinctive voice by Don Cheadle; perfectly normal, and yet suave enough to make the laugh track cheer. See, everything is normal, from the way Donald Duck talks, to the laugh track laughing at even Dewey's cheesy one-liners, to the 90's TGIF sitcom-like establishing shot this scene started with. Nothing wrong at all...except for everything.

Yeah, if this is the first episode of DuckTales 2017 somebody watched, they're going to be very lost. I mean, people are saying this is an adventure show where they go all around the world, using their wits to fight criminals, monsters, and aliens, but this is a sitcom with a laugh track! There are some ways people could figure it out already, namely that cartoons would never use laugh tracks unironically, but it's good that this originally aired right after a normal episode.

After a really short version of the usual theme song that consists solely of "DuckTales, woo-oo" and a commercial break, we get the theme song showing off the cast of characters. This includes Launchpad McQuack, who even has his own rock band, the Crash Happies. In we end, we get our title screen: Quack Pack. Yes, this is what the show's called now, taking the name from the infamous DuckTales spinoff where they decided to age up Huey Dewey and Louie to teenagers.

Outside of the title and a very similar pose for the title shot, it doesn't take anything from that show, just the 90's sitcoms it was trying to ape. Huey, Dewey, and Louie are still kids, and the plot for this episode is kind of pedestrian compared to the teenaged siblings turning into superheroes and battling a planet-sized Uncle D who just wants them to clean their rooms while his rage makes him destroy the galaxy. Even the theme song is just instrumental soft rock. It is possible they felt lines like "I feel like quacking, so I think I will, I'm gonna quack quack quack until I get my fill" are too cheesy even for a parody.

As our episode truly begins, we meet another soon-to-be-beloved character, and one that isn't one of the familiar ones: Knox Quackington, that photographer Huey hired. He's an artiste, as described by Huey and himself, and he has the accent for the kind of stereotype that term was made for. Unfortunately for him, he describes himself as someone who uncovers the world's secrets, and Webby knows that could only mean he's a spy. That quirky character ends up taking him to a dark room, where she beats him up. Oh, Webby!

While this is happening, Scrooge decides to try to ready up that study.

Unfortunately, the study is in even worse shape than he imagined. Scrooge didn't want to pay for actual repairmen to fix his problems, and the problems just got worse and worse. I'm sure there's a metaphor in there somewhere. Louie responds that Scrooge's lack of responsibility legally makes him liable for his own lack of responsibility. He didn't really change much at all for this sitcom plot, huh.

Huey and Donald show up to see Scrooge's study in ruins, and Donald explains why he can't just go to a different room: this is the only room where the buttons glint in the way he wanted! Louie says, with sarcasm, that the button glint issue is so much more of an unsolvable problem than a broken room, and everyone just makes an "oh, Louie" pose as they pause for the laugh track. Huey is a bit more optimistic, as he happens to have a Junior Woodchuck Guidebook...

...a Guidebook that is completely blank. Donald speaking like a regular duck and the blank book makes him notice that the mysterious laughter that happens constantly doesn't seem to be coming from anyone in the room, and realizes something is very, very wrong. He runs out of the room as everyone else makes an "oh, Huey" pose as they pause for the laugh track.

This episode definitely gets the sitcom parody down to a T. They even have transitions where they're just dancing or flicking hearts from their smartphones. It reminds me of That 70's Show, and I don't watch enough sitcoms to know if there's an earlier example than that.

Distracting us from Huey slowly figuring out what's going on is Dewey doing what he does best: giving himself and Donald mohawks. Oh, that rascal, that's going to be a real problem for the photo op. Huey shows up only to see that they paused in place, because it's time for a commercial break. Of course, Huey is the only one aware enough to realize everything is getting darker. Plot important forth-wall jokes is this episodes forte.

After all the real commercials, because it would have been a missed opportunity if they didn't do a real commercial break there, we get a commercial for the fictional Pep, featuring a guy who's clearly played by the same actor as the photographer. If Disney XD didn't require "now back to the show" bumpers, this would have caught people a little off-guard. This ad specifically features him opening up a can of pep, causing a tidal wave of Pep. This actually becomes important later, though I won't go into detail.

We then cut to the channel ID, which is exactly like the old and current Disney Channel channel IDs. The big difference is instead to drawing Mickey ears, Dewey, the lovable breakout character everyone loves, is drawing a lamp. It's the kind of lamp that would hold some sort of djinn, and not the djinn that looks for found lamps, either! Also, it's the Baba network...hey, just like that Baba guy the show is now credited to! Hmm...

Huey, of course, managed to notice all of this, and he runs back to the study after Donald tries to convince him to get some rest. Meanwhile, Mr. Quackington is all tied up by Webby, thinking he is some sort of suspicious special agent, and has Launchpad keep an eye on him. This leads to Launchpad and his band thinking he's a different kind of agent. Those are all about as far as they get with those plots, to be honest; it mostly focuses on Huey's plight and a plot with a certain other character that will appear in a few more paragraphs from now.

Huey's plight is about why he's in this strange realm where people are constantly laughing at him. He then sees tiny versions of Randy and Johnny from the Ottoman Empire. No, I'm not going to do the joke this time. That's in the past, much like 3 tiered rating systems. Huey figures out that is is an ad, and the dominoes just drop from there as he realizes the guidebook he was holding was a prop, the room doesn't actually have any pipes, and one of the doors just leads to a brick wall.

Nobody is convinced, and they're just thinking he's going coo-coo. However, he does have a fool-proof plan: point to the fourth wall, which they only now notice is missing.

They see some lights and some strange creatures that look sort of like those hairless apes Ludwig Von Drake was warning us about, but that can't be it! This is definite proof, and they all take it. Glad they won't take the entire episode to realize this.

Meanwhile, Donald shaves off the mohawk, only for him to have a bald spot. What's only slightly better is that Webby, who wants a meat tenderizer for some "cute girl stuff", still doesn't want to tell Donald where the photographer went. What else could go wrong?, says Donald, clearly signalling for something to go wrong. Though, if anything, something is going to go very right for us, because what would a sitcom be without a guest star?

Appearing for the first time in DuckTales is Goofy. This is heavily based on the Goofy from Goof Troop and A Goofy Movie, even wearing the same outfit and making the same pose he does in the former's intro a few seconds later. Donald doesn't seem to think too highly of him, though, and the way he "borrows" some ketchup by squirting it into what I hope is his pocket is not helping matters. Nonetheless, his appearance is just like one would imagine an appearance of Goofy would be like in DuckTales.

He does fit into the photography plot pretty well, as his job in this appearance is a photographer, but I'm more willing to focus on how Goofy is also someone who notices a change in Donald. Maybe it might be something else, but I'd like to think that Goofy is more familiar with Donald's usual voice. As in, he's a real person and not just a construct of whatever this is. There's hints of this throughout the episode, and we did get to see Roxanne and Powerline before, so it's not that much of a stretch.

It doesn't take long for the A plot of Huey dealing with this strange realm he's in and the B plot of the kidnapped photographer to crash into each other. I mean that literally, too, as Team Believes They're In A TV Show collides with Team Gotta Impress The Agent as the floor of the study collapses right into the room the photographer was kept in.

Slowly but surely, Huey convinces the rest of the people that something is wrong by simply saying that they should be going on an adventure. This is supposed to be an adventure series with an adventurer, and the biggest adventurer of them all, Scrooge McDuck, realizes it, too. However, he has no idea what would happen to get them into this realm.

Dewey: If only I could remember... (scratches his chin)

Everyone notices the world around them swirl around, and they panic until it stops. Huey tells them that this is a flashback, and they could use this power to try to figure out how they got into this mess in the first place.

At this point, Donald is the only one that thinks trying to get out of this world is just a waste of time, even stating that they should get back to the plot, er, photo. Yes, in that way. At this point, it was pretty obvious who is the culprit, but this scene in particular reveals a different co-culprit.

Finally, we get to see what was really happening: during an adventure to find the lost lamp of Collie Baba, they were stuck in a trap involving a ton of scorpions. Donald, in the barely comprehensible voice we all know and remember, decides to wish to himself that he would have normal family problems.

Donald's actions in this episode do make sense. Even though one of the main reasons why Donald Duck gave up on adventuring has been resolved, one cannot help that Donald just wants to be with his family, doing family things, and not getting into adventures that may risk his and his nephew's lives. I'd imagine being kidnapped by Moonlanders would do that to a guy.

After they get out of the flashback, they notice that the photographer is slowly trying to leave the room, and everyone knows at this point that this guy is not who he says he is. I mean, we got to see him quite clearly in that flashback.

The photographer is revealed to be Gene the Genie. We managed to get two rebooted characters out of Treasure of the Lost Lamp, and somehow they're completely separate from each other. He's here to make his master's wishes come true, and that master happens to be Donald. Donald still has two more wishes, and he could use his second to undo the first. One problem: he loves it here.

We also learn the reason why this show is dated: he hasn't been out of the lamp since 1990. This is another nod to Treasure of the Lost Lamp, as that was its release year. Goof Troop was a few years after that year, but I'll let that pass. What I might not let pass is the sheer amount of internet references, something that wasn't too widespread in 1990. Huey sure wouldn't have his emoji hat, also. Maybe their modern technology combined with Gene's sitcom world, but I felt that was a little missed opportunity to see some time-related shock.

Anachronisms aside, I have to mention this particular scene when the siblings ask how long they're going to stay in this realm if Donald decides against ever letting them out.

Gene: Probably at least three seasons, plus spinoffs. And I assume they'll reboot the show eventually!

It's pretty obvious why that line stood out. He really must be stuck in the past; most reboots are softer and rounder nowadays. I'd say more, but I'm trying not to fill that "YOU-KNOW-WHAT potshot" jar.

They want to go home, forget the three seasons, the spinoffs, and the dark and gritty reboots. Not speaking of softer in any sense of the word, that line does not go too well for those fourth wall dwellers...

...and we get our answer to how the ducks would react to hairless apes in the same universe as they are. Granted, when they're all grinning these horrifying open mouthed grins, it would make even people in this universe shudder. I know I am!

We get this big scene where they beat up the humans while they wait for Donald to come to his senses and wish them out of here. I'm not going to describe this scene in detail because there's just so much here. The mentioning of different episodes, the realm trying to fix itself, and a big rotation scene, pictured, that was put to good use in the trailers.

Another line in particular that stood out for me: Louie says that the episode where his pet snake gets loose isn't a well written plot. Gene tells him everyone's a critic. I can't help but feel that one.

I will mention that we do get to see Goofy have a parent-to-uncle talk with Donald, and, yes, this leads to even more for the Goof Troop/A Goofy Movie fans. This is a very pivotal moment in the plot, and it's all because of the guest star. Honestly, even if they're trying to get out of the sitcom, that is a very sitcom thing to do!

It shouldn't be much of a spoiler to reveal that they do manage to get out of the sitcom universe. We got a F.O.W.L. plotline to get to. How exactly do they do it? Does Donald get his two other wishes? Go watch the episode and find out for yourself, but I'll say that it is satisfying.

How does it stack up?

This is a very interesting and very funny episode. Purists may be a little upset by this episode focusing more on mimicking the 90's than take any inspiration from the comics, but this is a good tribute to the era. It all hold up together, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Fantastic episode, 5 Scrooges.

Next, we finally get to that F.O.W.L. plot, not so oddly enough!

← Challenge of the Senior Junior Woodchucks! 🦆 Double-O-Duck in You Only Crash Twice! →

[freebooter4ever]

my dad group texted my brother and i, highly unusual, and i think jordan was weirded out too cause his response was equally short and confused. on the list of things my little brother and i have never discussed, our dad’s relative interest or lack there of in our lives is pretty high. dad’s been messaging me since october, asking about stuff like where my next living plans are (which he has never done since i first moved out age eighteen), and i’ve only been vaguely responding to the point blank questions cause its just. so. weird. i think my grandpa’s death has shaken dad’s worldview a bit more than he’s been letting on.

he alienated my brother and i pretty much immediately after his secretive marriage to the bottle blonde rich bitch when i was 22. he kicked my brother out as soon as jordan turned 18, and when i discovered this by coming home one summer and seeing jordan wasnt in the house, i got so fucking mad that it was the first time i ever had a full out screaming match at my dad. and apparently this display of anger was when rich bitch decided she didn’t like me (probably valid, but also ironic because pretty much from birth it was known in my entire extended family that dad and i were almost identical personality wise, and both of us have tempers where we will not get mad at anything but frustration will build up and up until on the rare blue moon it boils over, and oh boy. watch out. those moments were the only times i was ever scared of my dad as a kid and i think it only happened twice in my entire life)(if she thinks im crazy when im angry, she should see my dad)

but i was crazy mad because while i was lucky enough to be put in therapy due to attempting to starve myself into non existence at age 13 (many many sessions of ‘family’ therapy with me in the center of a long couch silently trying to pretend i was invisible and my mom two feet away at one end and dad on the opposite end of the couch, and my mom doing all the talking, ranting and raving about how im starving myself to punish her. and then the therapist kicking both my parents out and trying to convince me to say a few words, and her finally getting me to realize that how my mom treated me was not normal and not something i needed to put up with if it made me sad and scared, and then the therapist realizing that i was still too sad and scared to confront it, and her and i coming up with a compromise where we would tell my mom that i was just ‘really attached’ to dad’s house and it wasnt that i was terrified of living with my mom or liked my dad better, it was that i just really liked living in one place instead of out of a suitcase and moving every week), and so had both the therapist and my dad supporting me when at fourteen i finally said enough was enough and demanded that my dad get full custody so i didnt have to spend every other week with my abusive mother anymore - while i got out of that situation, my brother didnt. i tried, he knew that it was my decision to live full time with dad and i made it clear he could do the same, but just as it was a given that i was identical to dad’s personality, my brother was identical to mom’s so i think he was more attached to her than i was. either way, he always refused and insisted on continuing to live between both of them. after i hit driving age, my dad transferred responsibility to me for shuttling my brother to and from my dad’s house to my mom’s apartment. dad’d lock himself in his room, or go to the gym, and i’d turn on an endless rotation of star wars movies for jordan and i to watch before i had to take him to his next week’s place (phantom menace was our favorite cause darth maul was just cool ok, dont judge).

anyway, the last day i ever stayed at my moms house, my brother was there. and i must have been twenty or twenty one because he would have only been around seventeen. but even at seventeen he was well over six foot five cause he got all the height in the family which was totally not fair but thats besides the point. so while i was there my mom flew into one of her alcohol induced rages, and took it all out on my brother. i had intellectually figured that all the anger my mom used to take out on me had then transferred to my brother once i stopped living there every other week, but up until that point i hadn’t actually seen it. she started shoving him, and punching him, and not enough so it would hurt much, because as i said he was well over six feet and she was barely five six, so he could pretty well block any thing she dished out. but he was cornered, and he looked scared. and i was hiding useless on the stairwell, crying, and begging mom to stop. and it only stopped cause jordan managed to slip out the front door and once he escaped mom went back into the kitchen, still yelling and angry. and i took the chance to grab my school bag and leave in solidarity. and my brother and i stood there awkwardly on the porch, me still crying, and him smoking and trying to look cool and not like he just got chased out of the apartment by a woman half his size. and i promised him we wouldnt go back until she calmed down, and that she was being unreasonable and he didnt deserve any of it, and id figure out somewhere to go. and we started walking down the sidewalk, but not together because we were never that close. he wandered off somewhere to smoke. and that’s as far as i remember.

this day came up in conversation with my grandma in the months after grandpa’s death, during one of our many three am can’t sleep conversations in grandma’s kitchen (grandma would wake up, i’d hear her get out of bed and wake up too. she’d make herself tea and eat some graham crackers and we’d sit together at the table feeling the third empty chair like an ache). grandma brought it up, because apparently, even though i cant remember this at all, i had my no/kia brick phone in my school bag (a minor miracle because i hated carrying around cell phones for the longest time), and i actually called grandma. and grandpa and her came to pick me up, and they found me sitting on a wall a block away from my mom’s apartment, and then we drove around till we found jordan, and then we all went back to my grandparent’s house. after bringing this up, grandma then, completely unprompted, told me something that child me thought about regularly - she said that even though her mom died when she was 8, leaving her to help raise her two younger siblings, grandma thought in some ways it was easier than what my brother and i went through with the divorce and my mom leaving. i used to regularly - not wish my mom dead, exactly - but wish i could pretend she was dead, rather than her just not being there anymore. especially since, when i was suddenly thrown into being her sole emotional and physical punching bag now that dad wasn’t filling the role anymore, a lot of the times being around her post divorce was not a good thing. (I cut off all contact with my mom finally at age 25 and haven’t looked back)

so yeah, i was fucking pissed that i had worked so hard to try to mitigate the damage i caused by leaving jordan alone with my mom for pretty much the entirety of my high school years...only to have my dad kick him out barely a few years after i left for college and thus putting my brother at my mom’s mercy. ostensibly my dad kicked my brother out because of his drug addictions, but my brother was the most mild mannered addict i’ve ever known. the worst thing he ever did was steal a couple hundred dollars from me, but he never got violent, he never got angry. other people got angry at him. my aunt once tried to fight him in a hospital elevator because he sold my cousin heroin or meth or some shit and my cousin ended up impaling a knife in his chest in front of my grandma, which is a whole nother story. but jordan was only nineteen when that happened. my cousin? thirty six. and a long time violent and angry drug addict with a record (he threw a book at his professor’s head and got kicked out of grad school while on cocaine once, which is how he ended up back in washington state and needing a new drug dealer - hence my brother suddenly getting involved) (same cousin later flew into a drug fueled rage in his forties and almost beat his girlfriend to death) (my brother was long since clean by then and had nothing to do with our cousin getting drugs at that point)

all this to say my dad’s rich bitch new wife didn’t think a drug addict and mentally ill artist fit into her picture perfect family, so dad started making it clear we were not welcome at family functions unless we complied with very strict rules. ironically, jordan was let back into the fold first partially because i can hold a grudge for a very long time and i was very very terrified of my mom and dad was the sane stable one and i had trusted him to take care of everything even without me there and dad had failed pretty spectacularly at that. im still bitter at my dad for his secret marriage and subsequent moving into her million dollar mansion and throwing my brother out. but also partially because jordan started following all of dad’s rules, got himself cleaned up (he moved in with his girlfriend, and i think being out of mom’s house had a lot to do with getting over his addictions), started studying computer science, found a really good software engineering job, suddenly dad approved of him. i also partially antagonized rich bitch wife by doing silly things like wearing black leather pants and the most provocative clothes i owned whenever i went over to their house. rich bitch was a very simple narrow minded person with a lot of prejudices. i imagine i was not seen as a good influence on her two younger daughters. and eventually they stopped seeing me altogether. even when i was living in washington for all of 2017 - the only time i ever saw dad was when he’d come visit my grandparents alone. the day before i took grandma on the train to move to ohio, we were supposed to all have dinner together at our family’s favorite place to eat out - crossroads mall - and the rich bitch refused to show up. that’s how petty she is. she also is so dumb she’s under the delusion that kids get into drugs if they don’t have dogs (????) so that’s why she forced my dad to get a dog for her spoiled brat youngest when the girl went into high school. my dad dislikes animals, so i will say one of the highlights of this marriage is seeing my dad become a dog person. the rich bitch and her daughters mostly ignore the dog, but my dad is so attached to max that he even lets the little puppy sit in his lap while driving. anyway, anyone who thinks dogs are the sole answer to preventing drug addictions can go to hell.

yeah, blah blah blah, to sum up its WEIRD for my dad to suddenly be texting my brother and i unprompted, and asking me about my life and my plans. i dont really know how to deal. i miss him. he was always the closest person in my life to the point where even when i moved away for college, i still assumed after i graduated i’d just move back in with dad so it was only four years being gone, cause why would i ever want to live anywhere else?. i kept thinking if i could hit some level of success that he would approve of, that maybe eventually i could become somebody his rich bitch wife would associate with. but that never happened, obviously. 

[virmillion]

Ibytm - T minus 53 seconds

Masterpost - Previous Chapter - Next Chapter - ao3

Words: 3,665

Logan wedges his finger in the impossibly tight space between his neck and the collar of his shirt. Is it normal to be this nervous? He’s just waiting for coffee in front of a museum. It’s not like it’s a date or anything. Of course, that negates Logan’s decision to wear a nicer tie than normal. He could always claim it was laundry day, but laundry day is Sunday, so everything is clean for the upcoming week. Not that Cadmium would know that. Would he? Is he even going to show up? Just because Logan specifically requested Cadmium as his fetch kid, that doesn’t guarantee he’ll get him. Being the creator doesn’t mean pulling every string, but it’s not like it even matters, because Logan doesn’t really care if it’s Cadmium or not, no siree, pure apathy here all the way.

He loosens his collar again, then fidgets with his tie for a few minutes. Covered in a gentle plaid of purple and blue, it’s the only pop of color he allowed himself over a dark grey shirt and khakis. Will Cadmium think Logan is trying too hard to mimic his color scheme from the park? Cadmium will probably hate it, will say Logan’s just some weird guy from a museum tour, that he’s nothing more than his little eccentricities, a light piece of entertainment and nothing more, that—

“It’s not very often that I get special requests for a personal fetch quest fulfillment, you know.” Logan sees Cadmium’s shadow before gathering the courage to meet his eyes, clearing his throat and giving his collar one last tug. “Of course, I thought it couldn’t’ve possibly been you, since I know how much you love my usual drink. Here’s your fancy pants latte with all the fix-ins.” Cadmium thrusts a styrofoam tray at Logan, angling the smaller drink for easier access. His other hand remains behind his back.

“Oh! Oh, yeah, um, right, let me just finalize the—”

Cadmium waves off Logan’s attempts to pay him back for the order. “I stole both your drinks last time, call it even.” His face flushes a soft pink as he seems to realize something. “You, um—you did get the delight one for me, right? I’d hate to just assume—”

“Yeah, no, for sure, that’s all yours. If you want it, I mean.” Logan finally takes his drink in both hands, rocking back and forth on his feet and laughing uncomfortably. Cadmium echoes the sound, looking anywhere but at Logan, who takes the opportunity to admire Cadmium’s outfit. Under the green cardigan from the first time Logan saw him, Cadmium wears a pale grey T-shirt with a pastel alien across the front, paired with skinny jeans that proudly bear no holes. Possibly a first, as far as Logan’s seen. Logan opens his mouth to say something—compliment the outfit, mention the matching shirt colors, something , but Cadmium beats him to the punch.

“Oh! I, ah, I actually did bring something. For you, I mean. If that’s okay, I mean, like, I brought it because I assumed the coffees were, well, you know, so I, um, I just, yeah, you know? I mean, here you go.” Cadmium pulls his other arm out from behind his back, revealing a single red rose in front of an even redder face. “I don’t, like, know anything specific about the color meanings of flowers or whatever, but I thought maybe, I mean, if you didn’t—”

“It’s great,” Logan interrupts, gingerly accepting the flower. “It’s really, really nice.” Cadmium huffs what Logan can only hope is a sigh of relief. “Um, shall we?” Logan gestures toward the entrance doors with his coffee hand, poking out his other elbow—far enough for Cadmium to link in his own if he were comfortable with that, close enough to himself that it could be mistaken for a casually awkward pose. Hopefully.

“Well, how about that?” a familiar voice says at the entrance. Patton scratches the back of his neck with one hand, flicking his wrist to check an imaginary watch with the other. “I never expected to see the famed Virgil here on a day that doesn’t start with ‘T,’ much less with a suitor on his arm!” Cadmium yanks his hand quickly away from the crook of Logan’s elbow, his eyes brimming with panic. Logan busies himself with looking absolutely anywhere else. “So, which of you’s paying for this little date?”

Logan trips over himself to protest how it’s not a date, but once again, Cadmium beats him to the punch, all the panic gone from his face. Or maybe Logan was only imagining it to begin with. Cadmium slips his arm back into Logan’s. “My little nerd here will be paying, as I already did him the honor of getting us drinks. Logan, pay the nice man.” Too numb to do much of anything else, Logan switches his rose to his coffee hand and passes Patton the first bill he finds in his pocket—a gently crumpled twenty.

Patton trades it for a ten and waves them in, laughing to himself. “I’m surprised at you, Virgil. I would’ve thought you’d try to argue that free admission days begin with ‘T,’ and ‘today’ starts with a T, or something like that.”

“Gotta keep ’em on their toes,” Cadmium calls over his shoulder, tugging a dumbfounded Logan inside. Once they’ve burst into the cool air conditioning of the lobby, Cadmium takes a long drink from his cup and stares at Logan. “So I guess that secret’s out, huh?”

“I’ll still call you Cadmium, if you prefer.”

“Nah, nah, it’s out, it’s too late, it’s fine. You were probably gonna find out eventually, right? Plus, I mean, it’s not like you can just walk around calling me a bone-strengthener forever.”

“That’s calcium.”

“Close enough.”

“I mean, not really close at all. Cadmium is usually found in batteries, and—”

“Close enough. Gimme that rose for a sec, would you?”

Logan hands it over and patiently waits for his feet to catch up with his mind as Cadmium—well, Virgil—walks away, fiddling with the stem of the flower. “What’re you—”

“Shh, just hold on. Walk next to me and pretend I just said something really funny.”

Albeit in a confused manner, Logan complies, bumping shoulders with Virgil. “Why did you—”

“One of your coworkers over there, from that first fetch quest at your office.” Logan tracks the angle of Virgil’s jerked chin to see Roman glancing sidelong at them. “Okay, hand out.” Virgil slips the rose—now fashioned into a thorny bracelet—over Logan’s wrist, careful to keep the sleeve between the thorns and his skin. “Here, try to look lovestruck or something.”

“I don’t—”

“Come on, we can pretend we’re on a date, it’ll be fun.” Logan (surprising no one) doesn’t know what to do, so he just stares at the rose. “It’ll screw with your coworker so bad, c’mon.” Taking Logan by the rose-adorned hand, Virgil drags him out of the lobby and into the room opposite from where they first met—well, first made eye contact, anyway, but who’s keeping track? (Logan. Logan is keeping track.) It’s probably just his imagination, but Logan can almost feel Roman’s eyes burning holes into his back.

“Alright, my dude, my guy, my home slice of pineapple and cheese,” Cadmium— Virgil , Logan reminds himself, that’s going to take some getting used to —says . “Walk me through the deeper meaning of this statue here.”

Logan adjusts his glasses, then adjusts them again. It’s admittedly weirder than he expected, being on the other side of this whole tour business. “Right, yes, um, see here, how it’s got blue coloring—”

“Paint,” Virgil corrects.

“Right, so it’s got blue paint along where the front of its teeth should be, and on the CMYK spectrum, blue—”

“Cyan.”

“Is opposite yellow, which represents the sun, and since they don’t have white or yellow on their teeth, but instead yellow’s opposite, it’s implying the absence of sun in their life, which leads to a lack of Vitamin D, the lack of which is a common catalyst for bone pain and muscle weakness. Many people break bones earlier in their life due to being more adventurous, so the artist is lamenting the loss of child-like wonder throughout adulthood by displaying the lack of it in their muse’s smile.”

Virgil rubs the flats of his knuckles along his chin, nodding slowly. “You took more leaps than I’d recommend for a first timer, but it wasn’t entirely terrible.” He angles his head across the room to where a couple of children are complaining loudly about their boredom to an unimpressed chaperone. “Let me show you how it’s done. Don’t take notes, that’s intellectual plagiarism.”

Virgil strolls to the painting just beside the one cluttered with children, folding his hands behind his back and rocking on the balls of his feet. A dumbfounded Logan follows close behind. “You know, Logan,” he says in a much louder voice than necessary, “I always knew it was the adults that were wrong.” The kids seem vaguely disinterested at best, but Virgil continues undeterred. Lots of practice, Logan supposes. “I mean, forcing them to do boring stuff like chores and homework when they have the audacity to do this kind of nonsense for fun?” The kids hardly bother to hide it as they turn to listen. However bored they might be, Virgil’s nonsense is surely more interesting than a soccer mom on her phone.

Logan loses the conversation thread almost as soon as he picks it up, but he’s pretty sure Virgil hits some objectively irrational points, including (but not limited to, because Virgil is apparently nothing if not limitless) nature, sticky glitter, scissors, trampolines, cats, a family-friendly version of a particular being in possession of three separate mammary glands from a particular sixth location with a four mile disaster zone radius, and key lime pie.

Once Virgil finally, finally, finally stops—for a breath or dramatic effect, Logan couldn’t say—he looks expectantly at the kids. Wide eyed and mouths agape, they simply stare at him, waiting for more. Virgil nudges Logan’s shoulder, gesturing vaguely at the mom that is still paying approximately zero iotas of attention. Logan, understandably bewildered and running low on improv-based creativity, crouches down to balance on the balls of his feet, levels his eyes with theirs.

“Do you know how he knows all that?” The smaller one—a girl of a slight build with braids shooting out the sides of her skull—shakes her head slowly. The boy—her brother, probably—just stares back at Logan. Logan leans in closer, willing a mischievous glint into his eyes as he lowers his voice conspiratorially. “It’s ’cause he’s from Neptune.”

The girl nudges the boy, her braids whapping against her face. “That means he’s an alien!” As his face explodes into a grin, the boy knocks his head against the woman’s leg.

“Mom, mom, that guy’s an alien! He told me so!”

“That’s very nice, Virgil. Is this your way of saying you want to see a different exhibit?” As the mom tugs the still stunned kids away, Logan straightens and glances at his companion.

“What’re the odds, huh? Heck of a coincidence.”

“No such thing as coincidences,” Virgil replies. “Just cloning experiments gone wrong.”

“That is quite possibly the most upsetting thing I’ve ever heard out of your mouth that wasn’t part of a tour.”

“How upsetting are my tours?”

“You did find a way to argue that Julius Caesar was responsible for the decrease in skittle flavored chapsticks.”

“One of my best rabbit holes, if I do say so myself.” Virgil glances back toward the lobby and shrugs off his cardigan.

“What’re you—”

“Patton and your coworker dude are both looking over here. Put this on and try to look cute.”

“Try?” Logan pretends not to feel just a little wounded by the implication that he doesn’t already look good and slips the cardigan on over his shirt. Well, he tries to—the bulky sleeves do a remarkable job of getting in the way and preventing literally any leeway past his elbows.

Virgil considers him for a moment before taking the cardigan back. “Got anything on under that shirt?”

“Yeah, an undershirt, but—”

“Sweater off. I’ll hold your bracelet. Quickly, boys, museum’s not open forever.” Logan complies, more out of fear than anything else, and wonders if anyone else has ever gone from ‘fine’ to ‘deeply uncomfortable’ in an art museum before. Mercifully, Virgil is quick as a whip in slipping the cardigan over his bare arms. Logan wonders whether it would be weird to comment on the complete lack of an outstanding smell to mark it as Virgil’s. Rather than supplement the question with evidence, he just watches as Virgil takes his discarded sweater and tugs it over his head.

“Check it out, sweater swap! Here, give me your tie, I want to play with it.” Hardly waiting for permission (which Logan would’ve given anyway), Virgil undoes the tie—a full windsor, if anyone’s curious, which Virgil isn’t and wasn’t—and fashions it into a bracelet. He holds it up to Logan’s rose bracelet and grins. “Matchy matchy?”

Logan huffs a laugh. “Matchy matchy.”

With that fascinating wardrobe change out of the way, Virgil leads Logan into the next room, asking for various opinions about various artworks as he goes. “I’m going to pretend I don’t know you stalk my tours when I tell you this, but the next room has, like, amazing lighting. There’s this pink and orange mosaic that shines on the floor where—”

True to form, Logan loses track of Virgil’s words as his attention turns to the feel of the cardigan against his skin. He only really finds his way back to the physical plane when he feels Virgil’s hand leave his arm.

“Okay,” Virgil says, “stay right there, put your hand on your hip and strike—yes! That’s it, hold it right there.” Virgil switches from framing Logan’s silhouette with his thumbs and index fingers to snapping pictures with his phone. “Look at the second to last painting on the east wall. No, the east wall—okay, that’s south, one more try—hold it! The light here is perfect , Logan, hold still! Oh, perfection.”

Logan wonders idly whether he looks as ridiculous as he feels. Probably. As he drops the pose and joins Virgil in pretending to terrorize a statue for the amusement of more children, he opens the camera on his own phone. Two can play this game, it’s just that Logan can play it better. At least, provided Virgil doesn’t know he’s playing.

At every chance he gets, Logan snaps a candid of Virgil, doing a very poor job of hiding it. Maybe Virgil’s just pretending not to notice. It doesn’t really matter, anyway, since Virgil stops basically every ten feet to demand Logan use the full potential of the environment. Where Virgil’s shots are all artsy and dramatic and well lit, Logan’s are blurry and consist largely of Virgil fidgeting with the tie wrapped around his wrist. Logan can almost see the headlines now— Bigfoot: Spotted en Route to a Job Interview at the Museum!

“Oh my goodness, you two are so cute!” a little old lady exclaims, shuffling over with a pale pink purse clutched to her chest. To Logan’s relief, she interrupts Virgil from noticing Logan taking a picture of how the filtered light washes golden dust over the sleeves of the grey sweater bunched up to his elbows. Pure luck, nothing more. “Are you on a date? Do you boys want me to take a picture for you?” Logan hides his phone as Virgil glances at him suspiciously in response to the mention of a picture being taken. Perhaps not Logan’s best move, but at least he got a good shot out of it.

“That would be wonderful, actually, thank you so much!” Virgil says, stepping beside her. “Okay, so you just press this button here, and—ope, that was a selfie, whoops! Okay, and just—yep, that’s it, and just press the white button!” The lady grins as she holds up the phone between two quivering hands, waiting for Virgil to finish fixing Logan’s sleeves. Once he’s finally content, he wraps an arm around Logan’s waist and hugs him to his side, resting his head atop Logan’s hair. They both flash bright smiles as Logan leans into the embrace, kind of surprised that he doesn’t have to fake the happy expression. The weight on his head is admittedly pretty alien, but by no means unwelcome.

“Alrighty, I think I got it! I might’ve taken too many, though,” the impromptu paparazzi says.

“Nonsense, I’m sure they’re perfect.” Virgil flutters his hands as if to shoo away the preposterous notion, chattering politely as they look through the pictures. Logan busies himself with staring at a painting to keep anyone from noticing how beet red his face is.

“How long have you two been together? It looked like you were still getting to know each other, what with all your picture taking!”

“Ha, yeah, we just met pretty recently, actually! I do tours here sometimes, mostly at a cheaper rate for high schoolers on field trips.”

The lady places a dainty hand over her lips, her eyebrows shooting up. “My word , are you the famous Ya Boi Virgil? My grandson raves about you, he swears you’re the only thing that kept him from failing his art history final!”

Virgil ducks his head, catching Logan’s eye and grinning. “Oh, please, he had it in him the whole time, I’m sure.”

The lady pats his elbow affectionately and sets her sights on Logan. “You better hold onto this boy tight, before someone else snatches him up, y’hear?”

Logan is taken aback, to say the least. “I, uh, yeah. Yes. Um, ma’am. Yes, ma’am.” Nodding like she’s satisfied that Logan can hold onto Virgil long enough to last, she gives both boys a little wave and disappears in the direction of the lobby. Logan sidles up to his companion. “Ya Boy Virgil?”

“Boi, with an I,” Virgil corrects. “‘Mister’ is too official for someone of my caliber, so I modified it to suit my standards. My job here is unofficial, so my title might as well be the same, right?”

“Yeah, speaking of which, what is your job? I mean, do you just talk at teenagers for a living, or what?”

“I don’t know, it just kinda happened out of nowhere, y’know?” Virgil moves on to the next room, still scrolling through the pictures. “I’ve been coming here ever since I was little, and I was basically a talking fixture that would history rant at anyone who would listen. The mid-higher ups just kind of unofficially brought me on board and started advertising my tours to schools, since I was already an unpaid tour guide, so I might as well have been bringing in revenue, y’know? I just do Tuesdays and Thursdays because I don’t love charging kids, but sometimes they’ll give me tips, so I get more than just fun out of it.”

Logan nods, trying to reconcile this information with how he’d been raised—attend college, get a job in a competitive field, rise through the ranks, reach the top, then quit and take half the company with you to start your own business. The real company you’d take along was literally the friends you made along the way. “Does that really net you enough to live off of?”

Virgil seems to stiffen at that, and Logan immediately wishes he were off being the only population on Neptune right now. “The fetch quests help, but I do well enough. Thanks for the assumption that I can’t keep my own life in order, though, I really love being looked at as a child. Because of course anyone without a steady nine to five job must be missing some crucial key necessary for surviving adulthood.”

“I—I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“M-mm,” Virgil interrupts, shaking his head. The seconds of silence stretch on, but Logan doesn’t dare speak again. Finally Virgil continues, “It’s fine. I’ve just had a lot of people get on my case about this stuff, and I didn’t really consider it to be first date discussion territory.” Logan nods, an almost imperceptible dip of his chin as he waits for the tension in the air to suffocate him. At Virgil’s continued silence, it becomes increasingly clear that he won’t be speaking first. Logan exhales.

“I really am sorry.”

Virgil stops walking.

“I promise you, it’s fine,” he says, turning to face Logan. “Not even a thing, as long as you don’t bring it up again. I am perfectly alright, see?” He peels his lips back from his teeth in what might be callously called a smile to prove his point.

“Okay, well, um, I’ve got a topic change for you. We’re at the end of the museum.” Logan gestures to the lobby, where Roman is still loitering. Weird. “I, uh, am I going to see you again? Er, can I?”

Virgil hesitates, then holds out his hand. Logan stares at it. “Phone?”

“Oh. Oh!” Logan unlocks his phone and hands it over, watching Virgil add himself to the contacts list—‘Cadmium,’ followed by a battery emoji.

“And to answer your question, yes, we have to see each other again.” Virgil holds up the tie looped around his wrist. “You’ve still got my headphones and that cardigan, so I’m holding your tie hostage until both items are back in my possession.” With that, Virgil spins on his heel and walks out the front door, waving to Patton as he goes. Patton barely acknowledges it, too absorbed in conversation with Roman, who’s pretending not to stare at Logan. Logan doesn’t notice, his eyes focused on how Virgil’s silhouette is imprinted in the ghost of the sunspots in his eyes.

[translationandbetrayals]

Saitama's Power Level in One Punch Man

Saitama is the answer that author One gives to the hypothetical question that probably no other shounen creator had risked answering before, and that is what if the protagonist was invincible? This poses obvious problems for the genre, since one if its main tenets is the progression and growth, not only of its story, but also its main characters. We see this exemplified in Dragon Ball, Naruto, One Piece, Hunter x Hunter, all shows that have progressively higher stakes, danger, and power levels. The reason for this is that adversity is engaging, we as the audience are capable of relating to hardship (and the overcoming of it). Conflict is considered an essential part of good storytelling, and in shounen it is usually resolved through physical violence.  One Punch Man throws this out the window by introducing Saitama, a hero so powerful that he can beat absolutely everyone in just one punch. It sounds like a counter intuitive premise, and I was initially unsure about how the author would manage to keep it engaging for the audience. In my mind, an invincible protagonist risked getting very boring in the long run, since there would be no real sense of progression and growth or even danger ever present in the story. Any conflict is potentially undermined by the fact that the outcome has already been predetermined.  There are many reasons as to why this doesn’t happen to the show, and one of them is that author One doesn’t just content himself with showing us the fights (which is some of the best animation I have ever seen), he also explores how Saitama’s existence affects the world he inhabits and how other characters react to him. Most interestingly though, he explores how being invincible affects Saitama himself, as this same lack of conflict that would make the show boring for the audience is reflected in his situation. He is going through an existential crisis due to his inability to feel any kind of thrill, since his power level is so far above everyone else’s. 

Usually, shounen mangas establish clear rules that govern their worlds and let the audience know how to gauge power levels, and where the protagonist stands relative to other characters. They are always a combination of physical strength, mental prowess and an imagined ability system that is unique to each universe. For example, Naruto has Chakra, Hunter x Hunter has Nen, Dragon Ball has Ki. As mentioned before, these are used as a way of allowing character as well as story growth, as the powers are blended into the story itself. The master of this is probably One Piece’s Eiichiro Oda, who has consistently and believably progressed Luffy and crew alongside the story, while at the same introducing new characters with proportional power. These power ups are, most of the time, the result of actual physical training done by the characters, but more importantly, they are combined with new and creative ways of expanding upon their unique abilities. In the case of One Piece, these abilities come from so called Devil Fruits. These strange looking fruits imbue those who eat them with special powers, and in the case of Luffy, who eats the Gomu Gomu fruit, it makes him a rubber man.

One Punch Man is noticeably different though. There is no apparent unique power system that exists exclusively within Saitama’s world. Sure, there are some characters with telepathic abilities and some assisted by technology (like his Cyborg sidekick Genos), but that is as far as author One takes it when it comes to the strength of his human characters. 

The main source of power is raw physical strength, and it’s by pure training that they can be progressed. The antagonists range from mad scientists, to mole people (seriously) to basically any monster one can imagine, but their goals are always meant to be achieved through physical superiority. In this world, the heroes association exists to deal with any and all threats to mankind, and its members consist of various heroes from differing backgrounds and ranking, ranging from the lowest D class heroes to the highest S class hero celebrities. It’s these varied monsters that eventually become the focus of the story, when their increased rates of appearance and power put the association under pressure from public opinion and the monsters themselves. This is where Saitamas power level is absurdly but unquestioningly established, as his participation in the association eventually leads him to fight monsters that are rivaled only by the dozen or so S class heroes that exist in the world. At one point, Saitama fights an alien so powerful that he claims to have already destroyed an entire galaxy, thus prompting our characters first “serious punch” (that is the actual name of the attack). It is safe to say, Saitama is the strongest being in existence.

Serious Punch

There are many aspects worth digging into here, but the one I am focusing on is how Saitama becomes the strongest being, and more importantly, how such power can be explained within the Universe of One Punch Man. The first of these questions is not only answered in the show, it is also made a recurring plot point which drives his relationship with his disciple, Genos. This power obsessed Cyborg becomes Saitama’s apprentice after being rescued by his fortunate intervention in a monster attack, and his goal becomes learning the secret to his strength. The source of it is eventually revealed to be both extremely impressive yet paradoxically underwhelming. He did 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats and ran 10km every single day for 3 years, which caused all of this hair to fall out. The reason for Saitama’s strength is apparently nothing more than extreme physical training, which somehow allowed him to unlock unmatched power.

 Embarrasing Genos

Now, at first glance this appears to be understandably impossible, since physical training can only make a normal person so powerful. There are natural limits to our improvements, and there are diminishing returns the more we exercise. One could imitate Saitamas exercise and never come even close to the strength he has in the show, so what is going on? How can Saitama have become so powerful? There are a couple of clues given to us in the show, and I believe we can use those to glimpse at the “rules” of this Universe that One simply never explicitly revealed. In the first episode of the show, Saitama encounters a “Crab Man”, someone that has been literally transformed into a crab due to eating too many of them. Later on in the show, a similar thing happens with “Lizard Man”, who turned after becoming obsessed with them. In Saitamas very encounter with the crab man, he explains that his goal, since he was a child, was to become a hero that could defeat any foe in just a single punch. 

Crab Man and Lizard Man

I believe there is a pattern here. Within the world of One Punch Man, obsession and willpower have different consequences than we would expect, and that is reflected in the words of Dr. Genus, a scientist that analyzed Saitamas body and said the following: “No matter how much effort they put into it, every living being has a certain individual limitation to their growth. A living being has a set growth limit, grow too strong and the burden on the wielder could make them lose control, like a monster that has lost their mind. That is why God has made each and every living being so that it cannot grow further than a certain degree, for their own survival and sanity. This growth restriction is known as a limiter. However, he had pushed himself to surpass his limitations and succeeded in removing his limiter”. This leads me to believe that within the world of One Punch Man, people are capable of physically changing their own bodies and capabilities through sheer training and willpower, mutating into crabs or lizards or basically God, depending on how central those things become to each person’s life.  The source of Saitamas power is his desire to be able to defeat his enemies in one punch, combined with his backbreaking routine to actually become stronger. Not only this, but Saitama has very clear and unwavering principles when it comes to being a hero. He calls it just a hobbie, but he defeats monsters out of the desire to protect the people that are most affected by them. The main point is that in the world of One Punch Man, there is in fact a unique power system, it’s just subtler than in other shounens. A person’s passion can grant them power way beyond what is normal for a human being, while their obsession can even mutate their bodies.  Now, we know Saitama is invincible because every fight he is in ends in one punch, but as stronger enemies start to appear, one can’t but imagined what would happen if someone on Saitama’s level were to appear. Since he earned his power, does that mean there are others that could earn it too?

Anyway, this I think adds a layer of complexity to the show that I welcome, since it suggests the author is willing to push his show into more interesting aspects of its themes. One Punch Man is not just about watching monsters blow up in 1 hit (although it does look beautiful). It’s about exploring how an existence such as Saitama would affect the world and those who witness it, which is I like the most about it. I’d recommend watching the anime and transitioning to the manga, since the quality is amazing in both. 

- Maximilian Erasmy

-Well, what can I say?  I’m just happy that people are actually using this space to write about what they like and give more than the minimal things we ask. The same with the Shizuka Joestar post. Thanks.

Just that, the post is great, the images are great and overall I have nothing to say except you forgot to sign the post and great job.

[himitsusentaiblog]

Since 40 seasons have passed and opinions have changed in recent years; I was wondering, what are your top 10 Sentai?

That’s a good question.  For me, this is an ever changing list with a few significant titles lingering at the top. I’ve seen so much more in recent years than I ever thought I would thanks to a general ease of availability and the generous work of fansubbers to whom I owe an eternal debt of thanks!

There are also a few here that are on the list entirely because of nostalgia goggles I can’t seem to remove no matter how hard I try. I just love these shows because they were among my first and the ones I judge all others against.

So, with those caveats aside, let’s get started with the list!

10. Himitsu Sentai Goranger

The very first series had to have a place on this list.  It should come as no surprise that it is here considering its also the inspiration for the name of this blog. If it hadn’t been for this creation of manga master Shotaro Ishinomori, we wouldn’t have any of the later series.  It’s also a lot of fun on its own despite the shaky effects and very episodic nature of the stories.  The characters are fun and the villains sometimes hilarious in their designs.  It’s a classic for a reason.

9. Choushinsei Flashman

I love the premise of this series: five children abducted by aliens are rescued by other aliens and raised on different planets.  They return to Earth years later to protect it from an alien Empire and to discover their own origins.  Unfortunately, due to being raised from infancy on other worlds, they cannot survive on Earth for more than a year, giving them a time limit.  This is probably the most sci-fi of any of the space and alien heavy 1980s Sentai shows. The visual effects can be really weird as they were experimenting with video effects instead of on camera practical work but it is still a very solid show.

8. Taiyo Sentai Sun Vulcan

The only three man team on this list, Sun Vulcan also lacked a female member of the team.  That’s really sad because otherwise, this would be the absolute best of the early 1980s Super Sentai.  The characters are all fun, the villains memorable (especially Machiko Soga in her second turn as Queen Hedrian returning from 1980′s Denji Sentai Denziman) and the overall story quite engaging. It’s also historically significant because it’s the first and only series to change its Red hero mid-show.

7. Kagaku Sentai Dynaman

This is one of the shows I have started watching the most recently and one of the most fun I have seen in a while.  In fact, the word fun pretty much defines this series.  It’s ridiculous in the best way with villains and plots that are beyond silly without going too far.  It has some great heroes and one of my favorite actresses in Super Sentai, Sayoko Hagiwara as well as one of my favorite villainesses, Princess Chimera. 

6. Jyuken Sentai Gekiranger

If I was judging this series solely on its heroes, this wouldn’t even be in the top ten.  Sure, they’re fun and engaging but nothing all that special.  What elevates this show are its villains.  Rio and Mele are two of the best written antagonists in the entire history of Super Sentai.  I can’t even begin to explain why without getting into serious spoiler territory but I can say that every moment spent with them onscreen is magic.

5. Gosei Sentai Dairanger

I’ve raved about this one before but it bears repeating.  For sheer story cohesion, great plotting and wonderful character arcs, it’s hard to beat Dairanger. This show has amazing fight choreography with each hero having a different style of martial arts, the villains are creepy, the mecha are interesting and it’s just a shining example of how good Sentai can be written.  That’s why these five stars shining in the Heavens get the #5 spot on this list.

4. Samurai Sentai Shinkenger

This is the best series of the first decade of the 21st century. I will accept no arguments on this.  The characters are great, especially Ryuunosuke, and the plot intriguing and well written with some genuine plot twists I never saw coming. The action scenes are really well done and the only complaint I can have about this series is the mecha, they are ridiculous and just keep getting more and more so as the show goes on to the point where it becomes hilarious just how much of a mess they are.

3. Ressha Sentai ToQger

This is the most recent series on this list and it really does deserve its place. This show is the definition of fun with lovable heroes, a great premise and an ending that actually left me needing a box of tissues to dry my eyes. I love this show filled with child-like optimism, hilarious episodes and genuine heart as well as an overabundance of imagination.

2. Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger

This series ALMOST made it to the number 1 spot. I go back and forth about this and the series I rank top but man, it’s a close one.  I unabashedly love this show.  It had the perfect cast, a great setup and an aesthetic I could not get enough of.  Nothing about this show made me angry.  Even the overused standard plot tropes like stolen brides, body swaps and quick costume changes feel more like loving homages than lazy rehashes. This is one of the series I can go back and watch again and again and not get tired of.

1. Ninja Sentai Kakuranger

This should surprise absolutely no one who follows me.  I make no secret of my love for this show.  It was the very first Super Sentai series I ever got to watch and for that, I cannot divorce it from my early perceptions of the franchise.  It helps that this series is also pretty good and has my favorite female hero of all time, Tsuruhime. It’s also funny as all get out with some of the wackiest episodes in Sentai history.  

So, there’s my list as it stands today.  I feel bad about leaving out some other great series like Choujuu Sentai Liveman and Choujin Sentai Jetman but as much as I love those, they just don’t quite make the list.

[pagedesignhub-blog]

This week's highs and lows in Laptop gaming

New Post has been published on https://pagedesignhub.com/this-weeks-highs-and-lows-in-laptop-gaming/

This week's highs and lows in Laptop gaming

Prey runs lots better on Pc than Dishonored 2 did—hurrah! I predicted as lots after Arkane’s ultimate release have become such big information, and for the reason, that Prey is built on an exclusive engine. That problem is out of the manner, now. I cannot wait to peer what Phil thinks of the game. Some of the opportunities it affords to you as a player sound certainly thrilling.

We have to have a complete evaluate on the website online from early next week. In the period in-between, I’m going to spend the weekend exploring Talos I myself, to see if I will flip myself into a chair after exterminating an alien threat.

Tom Senior: Antique worlds and new

Sometimes, In the rush of news and new releases, it is able to be easy to miss games that retain to quietly entertain lots, even thousands and thousands of players. Minecraft is one such game, so this week Samuel stated his adventures in the game’s ambitious endgame updates. It seems like they’re perfectly tailor-made to casual co-op sessions, which has Minecraft has continually been suitable at. We’re going to be revisiting this joyful, non-threatening global of blocks greater often.

On a slightly related word, I’m excited for the hazard to play some co-op in Worlds Adrift. It’s presently in closed beta, but additionally promises inter-island drama, flying ships and plenty of a laugh building. One to watch, I think.

I love weird insects in video games. Positive, it could be irritating when insects mess up a gaming session, however, whilst a trojan horse is abnormal sufficient It is nearly worth the headache. This week GTA Online had a weird one when all of the sport’s save clerks went lacking, as though it become a unique rapture simplest centered at convenience stores. It’s a form of had to imagine why a worm would most effective make those particular NPCs vanish and no one else. Disturbing, for the ones trying to finish the academic, however sort of oddly interesting as nicely. The clerks have on account that lower back, although anywhere they went, and why, they haven’t informed us, even when we caught a gun of their face.

Jarred Walton: Being Computer

Various prophecies about the loss of life of Pcs and Pc gaming have been bandied approximately via naysayers for many years. Obviously, there are years wherein Computer income are higher, and user requirements have shifted through the years as well. but through all the communicate, the Computer continues to be right here and nevertheless doing well. In fact, massive Computer producers like Dell anticipate looking extended increase in Pc sales over the subsequent five years. And a driving pressure for that will be Computer gaming hardware, in which most of the best technological upgrades have originated. It’s an exceptional time to be a Computer gamer.

Incredible Mario Bros game For The Traditional NES You’ll think speedy and circulate even faster to complete this Classic quest! The Mushroom Princess is being held captive by the evil Koopa tribe of turtles. It’s up to you to rescue her from the clutches of the Koopa King before time runs out. however, it might not be clean. To get to the princess, You will have to climb mountains, move seas, keep away from bottomless pits, fight off turtle squaddies and a bunch of nasty traps that simplest a Koopa King can devise. It’s far every other journey from the Tremendous MARIO BROS.!

Super Mario Bros become the first recreation ever to be launched for the NES in 1985. It becomes the first recreation to supply effective clean scrolling levels with a well made map. Remarkable Mario Brothers is presently the nice promoting online game of all time. You may play it on the NES, Famicom, SNES, GBA, and these days the Wii. Accept as true with me everyone, this recreation is a true blast from the beyond and nevertheless entertains nowadays. Mario became the first authentic video gaming individual and he will arise and fireball away any others that try and take his area. he will usually be huge Inside the online game enterprise because of this video games massive impact.

The game’s Story:

Many say the Story of this sport is horrible and It is a huge downfall of the game. I mean It is just like every different sport in which a princess receives captured and also you want to shop her. The real fundamental plot of the sport is that Bowser has unleashed a wicked spell over the Mushroom Kingdom. The simplest ones who can save the Princess and destroy this evil spell are Mario and Luigi.

well, this game became quite a lot the first sport to start those generic plots. but virtually, what is there no longer to love about the Conventional Mario saving Princess Peach from Bowser Story? Nothing, it is straightforward and a compelling Tale. I am Certain the Story does no longer deserve a high rank due to the fact at the time whilst the sport got here out the Story changed into very strange and probable sounded a bit corny. but nowadays, we all understand of our pleasant plumber hero, MARIO.

Gameplay:

This recreation is unbelievably fun to play. The objective of the game is whole each degree by way of walking to the stop of the extent and leaping has high as viable closer to the flag. You may stumble upon many well-known enemies such as Goombas, Koopas, Piranha Vegetation and much greater. There is cash unfold for the duration of the game in random areas and hidden in blocks that you need to bust. When you get one hundred cash you get an additional existence.

You get a rating for what number of enemies you kill, how many coins you grasp, and for different Various motives. every level is unique and has exclusive limitations in each and is a blast to play. There are 8 worlds with generally four tiers in every world. the game is extremely good as it has a couple of hidden secrets and techniques throughout the game that continues the a laugh coming. There are even mystery minus worlds and deform pipes that give the sport a brilliant twist.

the sport additionally mixes in a few mazes to offer it a touch undertaking. You may additionally play 2 players where You may play as Mario and Luigi and defeat the evil Koopa King. The few downfalls are that the sport isn’t always very long, display scrolling, and it receives frustrating. In case you play it quick enough you can beat each level in around half-hour.

You cannot back off Once you flow ahead in a stage. the game is irritating because you cannot even store and there aren’t any maintains (You could use a code to start from the sector you misplaced on). the game display screen simplest scrolls In the right route. I would without problems supply the gameplay of Great Mario Bros a ten/10 if there were as a minimum more ranges per global.