#best of the super juniors 2019 review

[hazyheel]

Best of the Super Juniors 2019 Day 4 Review

First match of the night was Ren Narita against Robbie Eagles. The two locked up and grappled for a while. Narita was super over in this building, apparently in his hometown. Eagles tried to work over the leg, to set up for his submission hold later down the line. Narita was able to hit his belly to belly suplex, but released and only got a 2. Narita locked in a cloverleaf as well, but Eagles got to the rope. Eagles was still able to pull out the win with a turbo backpack. Eagles: 4, Narita: 0

Grade: B-. Good match, pretty short. Of all times to not give Narita some more time, this was a weird day for that. The crowd loved him. Still, good stuff here, Narita can definitely hang. It feels like he will get a win this year, so that will be exciting if it happens. Eagles was an awesome heel too, stomping on signs that the hometown made of Narita.

Next up, Bandido vs. YOH. Match started out with a handshake, and then a feeling out process. Yoh was absolutely eating up the adoration of the crowd. The ladies looooooove him. At one point, Bandido hit a nice looking hurricanrana off the apron, followed by a beautiful moonsault. Bandido also had an awesome sell job, where he was coming off the ropes and ate a superkick, selling it with a perfect backflip. Yoh copied the classic Rollins superplex into falcon’s arrow for a near fall. As Bandido went for the 21 plex, Yoh countered with a dragon suplex, and then another with a bridge for the win. Yoh: 2, Bandido: 0.

Grade: B+. A weaker B+, but I really liked this match. This was a faster pace, so Bandido really got into it. The striking was really good here, and I loved their various counters to the other’s big moves. Yoh is impressing me a lot more this year than he did last year, and I look forward to his matches a lot more. He and Sho both have careers in singles competition, that is for sure. 

Then we had El Phantasmo vs. BUSHI. The match started out with both people being dicks, where Bushi offered his hand, and Phantasmo spit his own to shake it, while Bushi then held a finger gun to Phantasmo’s head. There was an interesting dynamic in this match, because both guys cheat like, all the time. So it was cool to see them using similar tactics. For example, they both choked each other with Bushi’s shirt. At one point, Phantasmo countered the MX with a stiff superkick, and he followed it up with two suicide dives and a rough looking splash. In the finish, Phantasmo push Bushi at the ref, and then punched Bushi low, and hit greetings from chasewood park for the win. Phantasmo: 4, Bushi: 0.

Grade: B. I love the cheater vs. cheater dynamic. Kevin Kelly tried to be upset about the finish, and the cheating, but Caprice Coleman was just like “eh, Bushi would’ve done the same thing. They both suck, so whatever.” That was a good point. Phantasmo is still very strong her, and while Bushi hasn’t gotten a win yet, his time is definitely coming. 

Next up was Will Ospreay vs. Rocky Romero in a battle of the CHAOS boys. Of course they started with the Chaos fist bump, which popped the crowd a bit. Rocky copied the Okada cockiness throughout the match, and they were really flying all around each other. Rocky was actually in Ospreay’s head, such as when they both did their poses and he suckered Ospreay in for a baseball slide on the outside. The two of them really nailed each other with brutal chops and such. At one point, Rocky locked in an octopus and locked the arm, so Ospreay couldn’t escape, but only a short sequence. Ospreay also had to use some of his old high flying counters to fight his way out of Rocky’s moves. At one point Throughout the match, Rocky attacked Ospreay’s arm, which permeated the rest of the match. As Ospreay went for an os cutter at one point, Rocky countered by picking the arm and locking in an armbar. The crowd was definitely behind Romero during the match, wanting the underdog to win. At one point, Rocky countered the stormbreaker with an awesome spike rana for a near fall. Ospreay was able to hit a shooting star press for a near fall, but then followed it up with a storm breaker and got the win. Ospreay: 4, Romero: 0

Grade: B+. Really good match, with awesome storytelling. Rocky is trying to go through the tournament without using his sneaky style, and while Ospreay may have the strength advantage, Rocky attempted to neutralize that with mindgames and targetting the arm. Rocky nearly won, but Ospreay still pulled it out. I really like in fighting in factions, and this match really showed why. Match of the Night.

And in the main event, DOUKI took on Ryusuke Taguchi. Douki attacked before the bell and quickly gained the advantage. He also used several young lions as weapons by bodyslamming them onto Taguchi. Even when Taguchi would get the advantage, Douki would be able to fight his way back into it quickly. At one point, Taguchi went for a hip attack on the outside, and Douki just hit him in the back with a chair. After Taguchi got control during the match, he quickly picked the ankle, and even hit a double knee gutbuster for a near fall. As Taguchi was about to win with an ankle lock, but Douki grabbed the ref and pulled him to the ground, allowing Taichi (who was on Japanese commentary) to run in and break up the hold with a Saito suplex. In the finish, Taguchi went to give Douki a running hip attack, but hit the ref. Taichi then got involved again to introduce a chair, but Taguchi got the better of it and dispatched both men. He then hit a facebuster to the chair and a bumboye for a near fall, followed by a Dodon and then an ankle lock for the win. Taichi tried to get involved, but the young lions subdued him at ringside. Taguchi: 4, Douki: 2.

Grade: B. Fun match, if a little slow. Taguchi was a great underdog, and Douki was a great villain for this. It was a vicious match from the start, and Taguchi really had to fight from behind. I thought that Taichi’s interference was well done and made sense, but I wish that he had introduced the pipe given its significance with Taguchi. A very fun match that had a feel good story.

Overall Grade: B

Pros: Bandido vs. Yoh; Phantasmo vs. Bushi; Romero vs. Ospreay; main event

Cons: Bandido lost

[kpoptrashlord-007]

2k19′s Best Albums, Pt.1

[Pt.2]

[interludepress]

Now Available From IP Audio: How to Be Remy Cameron by Julian Winters

"Winters deserves a place in the YA literary canon." — School Library Journal (starred review)

Everyone on campus knows Remy Cameron. He’s the out-and-proud, super-likable guy who friends, faculty, and fellow students alike admire for his cheerful confidence. The only person who isn’t entirely sure about Remy Cameron is Remy himself. Under pressure to write an A+ essay defining who he is and who he wants to be, Remy embarks on an emotional journey toward reconciling the outward labels people attach to him with the real Remy Cameron within.

From the author of the bestselling novels Running With Lions and The Summer of Everything, Julian Winters' acclaimed story about overcoming the labels that try to define our lives comes to audio.

Price: $19.99

Running Times: 9 hours, 38 minutes

ISBN: 978-1-951954-17-8

Narrated by Silas Whitaker

Cover art by C.B. Messer

Limited Time Bundle Deal:

Order the audiobook of HOW TO BE REMY CAMERON from the IP Web Store by September 30th, and get 30% off the print or ebook edition with code REMY DEAL.

Win an author-signed print edition and an Amazon Echo:

Submit proof of purchase to contact@interludepress.com by September 30th. Winner will be chosen at random on October 1st.

Available from the IP Web Store, Audible, Apple, Audiobooks.com, B&N, Google Play, Kobo, Libro.FM, Scribd, and more!

About the Author

Julian Winters is a best-selling and award-winning author of contemporary young adult fiction. His novels Running with Lions, How to Be Remy Cameron, and The Summer of Everything (Duet, 2018, 2019 and 2020 respectively), received accolades for their positive depictions of diverse, relatable characters. Running with Lions is the recipient of an IBPA Benjamin Franklin Gold Award. How to Be Remy Cameron and The Summer of Everything were named Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selections and received a numerous starred reviews. A former management trainer, Julian currently lives outside of Atlanta where he can be found reading, being a self-proclaimed comic book geek, or watching the only two sports he can follow—volleyball and soccer. His next novel is Right Where I Left You from Viking Children’s/Penguin in 2022. He was also a contributing author to Black Boy Joy (Delacorte, 2021), a NY Times #1 bestselling middle grade anthology.

About the Narrator

Silas Whitaker a lifelong fan of audiobooks and brings a passion for great storytelling to every book he reads. He specializes in contemporary fiction, sci-fi and fantasy. silaswhitaker.com Twitter: @whitaker_silas

Add How to Be Remy Cameron to your Goodreads TBR here.

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 10/1/21: VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE, THE ADDAMS FAMILY II, THE MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK, TITANE, MAYDAY, THE JESUS MUSIC

Yeah, so I haven’t had the time over the past couple weeks to write a column, and I kind of hate that fact, especially since I’m coming up on a pretty major milestone for me writing a weekly box office column and reviewing movies. In fact, that milestone comes next week! And once again, I’m struggling to get through the movies I was hoping to watch and write about this week, because I’ve been out of town and once again, very busy over the weekend. Let’s see how far I get...

Before we get to this week’s wide releases, I’m excited to say that my local arthouse movie theater, The Metrograph, is finally reopening for in-person screenings, and they’re kicking things off with a 4k restoration of Andrez Zulawski’s 1981 thriller, Possession, starring Sam Neill and Isabell Adjani, who won a Best Actress prize at Cannes for her performance in the film. I actually saw this at the Metrograph a few years back, and Metrograph Pictures, the distribution arm of the company is now distributing the 4k restoration. There’s a lot of exciting things ahead at Metrograph, including an upcoming four-film Clint Eastwood retrospective, including White Hunter, Black Heart (1990) and A Perfect World (1991) this Friday. Also, Lingua Franca director Isabel Sandoval will be showing her fantastic film from 2020 (a rare chance to see it in a theater and I’ll be there!) as well as program a number of other favorites of hers. Sunday will have screenings of Ingmar Berman’s Scenes from a Marriage (1973) in its full four plus hour glory, Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993) and John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness (1994).. In other words, the Metrograph is back!

Moving over to the weekend’s three wide releases, the first one up being Sony’s VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE (Sony Pictures) with Tom Hardy returning as Eddie Brock aka Venom, joined by Woody Harrelson as the psychotic symbiote, Carnage. Taking over the directing reins is Andy Serkis, who has only directed two other movies, Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle and Breathe, but as an actor, he’s been heavily involved with the CG VFX (and performance capture) needed to bring the characters in this Marvel anti-hero movie to life.

Venom has been one of Spider-Man’s most popular villains and sometimes allies for quite a few decades now, starting out life as a cool black costume Spider-Man found on a strange planet during the first “Secret Wars,” which turned out to be an alien symbiote that had malicious intentions. Spider-Man got the costume off of him but it then linked up with Eddie Brock, a sad-sack journalist whose emotions drove the alien symbiote to become the Venom we known and (mostly) love, thanks to one Todd McFarlane. Venom continued to play a large part in the Spider-Man books before getting his own comics, and not before a super-villain was created for him in Cletus Kasady, a vicious serial killer whose infection by the symbiote turns him into Carnage. And that’s who Harrelson is playing.

Being a sequel, we do have some basis to go on, although the original Venom movie, released in early October 2018, also arrived at a time when it was only the second time the character of Venom was brought to the big screen -- the first time being Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, in which the character was received without much love as Ryan Reynold’s Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. And yet, Venom did great, opening with $80.2 million and grossing $213 million domestically, which is more than enough to greenlight a sequel. (It made over double that amount overseas, too.) For comparison, the Wolverine prequel opened with $85 million but at the beginning of summer, so it quickly tailed away with other movies coming out after it. Venom: Let There Be Carnage has to worry about the new James Bond opening a week later, so it very likely could be a one-and-done, opening decently but quickly dropping down as other big movies are released in October (basically one a week).

I’ve already seen the movie, and by the time you read this, reviews will already be up --including my own at Below the Line. Social media reactions seem to not be so bad though, so maybe it’ll get better reviews than its predecessor, which was trashed by critics, receiving only a 30% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But if you look at the fan ratings, they’re higher with 81%, although it’s hard not to be

I’m thinking that bearing COVID in mind and the law of depreciation since the previous movie, Venom: Let There Be Carnage will probably be good for around $50 million this weekend, maybe a little more, but however it’s received, I expect it to drop significantly next week, though a total domestic gross of $135 to 140 million seems reasonable.

Another strong sequel to kick off October is the animated THE ADDAMS FAMILY II (MGM), which is following up the 2019 hit for MGM/UA Releasing with most of the voice cast returning, including Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloe Grace Moretz, and Finn Wolfhard, as well as Nick Kroll, Snoop Dogg, Martin Short, Catherine O’Hara, and Bette Midler voicing the popular characters from the New Yorker cartoons, a popular ‘60s TV series, and two Barry Sonnenfeld movies from the ‘90s.

The 2019 animated film was a pretty solid hit for the newly-launched UA Releasing, grossing $100 million domestic after a $30.3 million opening, making it one of MGM’s biggest hits since it was restructured under UA and became its own distributor again. Who knows what’s going to happen with Amazon’s plans on buying MGM and whether the latter will remain a distribution wing, but MGM still has a number of movies out this year that likely will be awards contenders. But that doesn’t mean much for The Addams Family II, which will try to get some of those people who paid to see the original movie in theaters back to see the sequel… and if they’re not going to theaters, MGM is once again offering the movie day-and-date on VOD much like they did with last year’s Bill and Ted Face the Music, which opened much earlier in the pandemic (late august, 2020), so it far fewer options to see it in theaters compared to this animated sequel.

It’s highly doubtful that The Addams Family II was going to open anywhere near to $30 million even if there wasn’t a pandemic, and it wasn’t on VOD just because MGM just doesn’t seem to be marketing the movie as well as its predecessor. You can blame COVID if you want, but it’s also the fact they’re distributing the company’s first James Bond movie in six years, No Time To Die, on their own vs. through another distributor, ala the last few Daniel Craig Bonds. But we’ll talk more about that next week, since that’s going to be an important movie to help cover MGM’s expenses for the rest of 2021. (I haven’t had a chance to see this yet, but it’s embargoed until Friday, so wouldn’t be able to get a review into the column regardless.)

We’ve seen quite a few family hits over the past few months even when the movies were already on streaming/VOD, but parents are probably being a bit more careful with kids back in school, many younger kids still not vaccinated, and the Delta variant still not quite under control. Because of those factors, I think The Addams Family II is more likely to do somewhere between $15 and 18 million its opening weekend, maybe more on the lower side.

Third up is THE MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK (New Line/WB), David Chase’s prequel to his hit HBO series, The Sopranos, which went off the air in 2004 but still finds fans on the new HBO Max streamer. Ironically, this prequel will air on the streamer at the same time as it's getting a theatrical release, which probably won't be a very tough choice for fans.

Chase has reunited with director Alan Taylor, who won a Primetime Emmy for his work on the show in 2007 before moving onto other popular shows like HBO's Game of Thrones. Taylor has had a bit of a rough career in film, though, having directed Marvel Studios’ sequel, Thor: The Dark World, a movie that wasn't received very well although there were rumors that Taylor butted heads with the producers and maybe didn't even finish the movie. He went on to direct Terminator Genesys, which honestly, I can't remember if it was the worst Terminator movie, but it was pretty bad.

What's interesting is that because this is a prequel set in the '70s and '80s, none of the actors from the show appear on it, but it does star Alessandro Nivola, a great actor in one of his meatiest roles for a studio movie. It also introduces Michael Gandolfini, son of the late James Gandolfini (who played Tony Soprano, if you didn't know), playing the teenage Tony, plus it has great roles for the likes of Jon Bernthal (as Tony's father), Vera Farmiga (playing Tony's mother), Corey Stoll (playing the younger "Junior�� Soprano), and Lesile Odom Jr, as the Sopranos key adversary, even though he ends up coming across like the good guy of the movie. It also stars Billy Magnussen, who oddly, also has a key role in next week's No Time to Die.

I'm sure there's quite a bit of interest in seeing where Tony came from and to learn more about his family, many who were dead long before the events of the HBO show, but will that be enough to get them into theaters when they already have HBO? I already reviewed the movie for Below the Line, and reviews are generally positive, which might get people more interested in this prequel.

As with most of Warner Bros’ movies this year, Many Saints will also debut on HBO Max and unlike some of the studio’s other 2021 offerings, it will actually make more sense to watch this one on the streamer since that’s how most people watched The Sopranos. That seems like a killer for Many Saints, and it’s likely to keep it opening under $10 million, where it might have done better on a different weekend (like sometime over the last two weeks).

This is what I have this weekend’s top 10 looking like:

1. Venom: Let There Be Carnage (Sony) - $50.4 million N/A

2. The Addams Family II (MGM/UA Releasing) - $16.5 million N/A

3. The Many Saints of Newark (New Line/WB) - $9 million N/A

4. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Marvel/Disney) - $7.5 million -44%

5. Dear Evan Hansen (Universal) - $4.1 million -45%

6. Free Guy (20th Century/Disney) - $3.3 million -30%

7. Jungle Cruise (Disney) - $1.1 million -35%

8. Candyman (Universal) - $1.3 million -48%

9. Cry Macho (Warner Bros.) - $1 million -52%

10. Malignant (Warner Bros.) - .7 million -53%

Opening in select cities is French filmmaker Julia (Raw) Ducournau’s TITANE (Neon), the genre thriller that won this year’s coveted Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. It stars Agathe Rouselle as a young woman who has an interesting relationship with automobiles, but she also has psychotic tendencies that leaves a trail of bodies behind her. On the run, she decides to pretend she’s the missing son of a fireman (Vincent Lindon), who has been missing for 10 years, and things just get weirder from there.

I honestly wasen’t sure what to expect from this although I do remember walking out of Ducournau’s cannibal movie, Raw, just because it was so gross, even though so many of my colleagues and friends swear by the movie, and this one, for that matter. Sure, there’s a certain “prove it” factor to me watching a movie that wins the Palme D’Or, because it’s very rare that I like the movies that do win that benchmark cinema award.

After a flashback to Agathe’s character Alexia when she was an obstinate young girl kicking the back seat of her father as he’s driving. They crash and she’s forced to get surgery that puts an odd looking piece of metal in her head. Decades later, she seems to be a pseudo-stripper at weird punk rock car show -- I guess they do those things different in France -- and hooking up with a fellow “model” afterwards. Agathe is actually a very popular model/dancer but when one fan gets too grabby, she pulls a knitting needle out of her hair and stabs it through his ear, killing him. Oh, yeah, she then has sex with a car and seemingly gets pregnant, but that only happens later. First, she goes on a bit of a killing spree and then goes on a run and decides that by strapping up her breasts and breaking her nose, she can pass off this fire captain’s son… and it works!

So the second half deals with acting great Vincent Lindon’s absolutely bonkers steroid-addicted man who seems to be sexually attracted to his own son, and most of his fellow firefighters knows that he’s gay but in the closet, but I’m honestly not sure what that matters. He’s a pretty disgusting character whose 70-year-old ass we see way too much of, and even those who might find Rouselle to be quite fetching, there’s a certain point where her nudity is not alluring but quite horrifying.

Oh, and at this time, Alexia (or Adrien, as she’s now going) has also gotten significantly pregnant, but it’s not a normal pregnancy because what should be milk from her breasts seems to some sort of motor oil. That’s because she FUCKED A CAR earlier in the movie!!! What do you expect when you fuck a car and don’t use protection, girlie? The fact Alexia/Adrien is trying to hide the fact she’s a pregnant woman from a station full of men isn’t even particularly disturbing. The part that really got me was when she broke her own nose to pass off as this guy’s son -- I actually had to look away for that part.

Listen I’m no prude, and I think I can handle most things in terms of horror and gore, but Titane just annoyed me, because it felt like Ms Ducournau was doing a lot of what we see more for shock value than to actually drive the story forward. There just doesn’t seem to be much point to any of it, and once the movie gets to the firehouse, and we see her interaction (as a young man) with her “father” and his colleagues, it just gets more grueling.

It’s as if Ducournau had watched a lot of movies by the likes of Cronenberg or David Lynch, or more likely Nicolas Refn or Lars von Trier, and thought, “I could be just as strange and horrific as those men… let’s see what people think of this.” And way too many people fell for it, including the Cannes jury. While I normally would approve of any good body horror movie, especially one with cinematography, score and musical selections as good as this one, I doubt I’d ever want to watch this movie again. And therefore, I don’t think I can recommend this movie to anyone either, at least no one I want to remain my friend.

As far as the movie’s box office, NEON is opening the movie in 562 theaters to build on buzz from various film festivals, including the New York Film Festival earlier this week. I think it should be good for half a million this weekend, although maybe it'll surprise me like NEON's release of Parasite a few years back. I just don't see this getting into the top 10 but maybe just outside it.

And then we have a few more movies that I got screeners for but just couldn’t find the time to watch, but might do so once I finish this verdammt column.

The faith-based doc THE JESUS MUSIC (Lionsgate) by the Erwin Brothers (I Can Only Imagine, I Still Believe) takes a look at the rise of Christian Contemporary Music through artists like Amy Grant and Stryper and everything in between, featuring lots of interviews of the artists’ trials and triumphs. Even though there isn’t much CCM I ever listen to, I’m still kind of curious about this one, since I generally like music docs and this is guaranteed not to be the sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll of most of them. I have no idea how wide Lionsgate intends to release this but it certainly can be fairly wide, because the Erwins have delivered at least one giant hit for Lionsgate, and I Still Believe may have been another one if not for the pandemic. It actually opened on March 13, just days before movie theaters shut down across the country, so it's little surprise it only made $7 million domestic. That said, the acts in this one have a lot of fans, and if Lionsgate does release The Jesus Music into 1,000 theaters or so (which is very doable), then I would expect it would make between $1 and 2 million, which would be enough to break into the Top 10.

I haven't seen any of the movies based on Anna Todd's YA romance novels but the third of them, AFTER WE FELL, will play in about 1,311 theaters on Thursday i.e. tonight through Fathom Events, and may or may not continue through the weekend. These movies just kind of show up, and again, having not seen any of them, I'm not sure what kind of audience they have, but this one stars Josephine Langford and Hero Fiennes, as well as Stephen Moyer, Mira Sorvino and Arielle Kebbel with Castille Landon directing.

Grace Van Patten (Under the Silver Lake) stars in Karen Cinorre’s action-fantasy film MAYDAY (Magnolia), playing Ana, a young woman who is transported to a “dreamlike and dangerous” coastline where she joins a female army in a never-ending war where women lure men to their deaths. It also stars Mia Goth, Havana Rose Liu, Soko, Théodore Pellerin and Juliette Lewis. It will be in theaters and On Demand this Friday.

The great Tim Blake Nelson stars in Potsy Ponciroli’s action-Western OLD HENRY (Shout! Studios/Hideout) about a widowed farmer and son who take in an injured man with a satchel full of cash only to have to fend off a posse who come after the man, claiming to be the law. Not sure who to trust, the farmer has to use his gun skills to defend his home and the stranger.

The romantic-comedy FALLING FOR FIGARO (IFC Films) is the new movie from Australian filmmaker Ben Lewin (The Sessions), who I’ve interviewed a few times, and he’s a really nice chap. This one stars Danielle Macdonald, Hugh Skinner, and Joanna Lumley, and it will be in theaters and On Demand this Friday. This rom-com is set in the world of opera singing competitions with Macdonald playing Millie, a brilliant young fund manager who decides to chase her dream of being an opera singer in the Scottish Highlands. She begins vocal training lessons with a former opera diva, played by Lumley, where she meets Max, a young man also training for that competition. Could love blossom? This actually sounds like my kind of movie, so I’ll definitely try to watch soon.

The second season of ���Welcome to Blumhouse” the horror movie anthology kicks off on Amazon Prime Video on Friday with the first two movies, Maritte Lee Go’s Black as Night (which I’ve seen) and Gigi Saul Guerrero’s Bingo Night (which I haven’t), and actually I’ll have an interview with Ms. Go over at Below the Line possibly later this week. The former stars Ashja Cooper as a teen girl living in Louisiana who has a bad experience with homeless vampires, along with her best friend (Fabrizio Guido).

Also, Antoine Fuqua and Jake Gyllenhaal’s remake of the Danish film THE GUILTY will begin streaming on Netflix starting Friday after premiering at TIFF a few weeks back. I never got around to reviewing it, but it’s pretty good, maybe a little better than the original movie but essentially the same. I’d definitely recommend it if you like Jake, because he’s definitely terrific in it.

Also hitting Netflix this week is Juana Macias' SOUNDS LIKE LOVE (Netflix), a Spanish language romance movie that (guess) I haven't seen!

A few other movies I didn’t get to this week, include:

STOP AND GO (Decal) VAL (Dread) BLUSH (UA Releasing) RUNT (1091 Pictures)

Next week, it’s not time for James Bond, it’s time for James Bond to die… no, wait… there is NO TIME TO DIE! Also, a very, very special anniversary for the Weekend Warrior….

[puroresu-musings]

NJPW POWER STRUGGLE 2019 Review (Nov 3rd, Osaka, EDION Arena)

Jushin Thunder Liger, Tiger Mask, Ryusuke Taguchi & Yuya Uemura vs. Volador Jr., Titán, TJP & Clark Conners  ***

Rocky Romero & Robbie Eagles vs. El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori  ***

SANADA, EVIL & Shingo Takagi vs. Minoru Suzuki, Zack Sabre Jr. & Lance Archer  ***1/4

Kazuchika Okada & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Kota Ibushi & Hiroshi Tanahashi  ***1/2

Tetsuya Naito vs. Taichi  ***1/2

Super Jr. Tag League 2019 Final: SHO & YOH vs. El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru  ****

NEVER Openweight Title Match: KENTA (c) vs. Tomohiro Ishii  ****1/4+

IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title Match: Will Ospreay (c) vs. BUSHI  ****1/2

IWGP Intercontinental Title Match: Jay White (c) vs. Hirooki Goto  ****

Photos.

This was a really fun show that featured nothing but good matches, and a few excellent angles. TJP pinned Uemura to win an all-action Junior opener that was fun whilst it lasted (5:43), ELP hit the CRII on Rocky Romero to end a good doubles match, and SANADA got the pin on ZSJ with a Japanese Leg Clutch to win another really good 9 minute six man. The highlight of this were Shingo’s exchanges with Suzuki, who also had a brawl in the post match. I’m very much game for that singles programme, Archer called out David Finlay for a US Title match in San Jose on November 9th, and Zack locked the referee in a kimura. Tanahashi and YOSHI-HASHI had a fantastic exchange in their tag match, which brought the maych up from what would normaly have been just a match. Tana got the pin on YH with the High Fly Flow at 10:51. Again, the post match here was most notable; Chris Jericho appeared on the big screen and challenged Tanahashi to a match on night 2 of WK14 on January 5th. Tana accepted. And Naito got win back against Taichi after losing to him in the G1. This was much better than that match, but this was very good, not great. Saying that though, it was the best match they’ve had in my opinion, as it was just a straight singles outing as opposed to the chicanery filled nonsense of their previous outings. It started fairly slow, but built into a good closing stretch. Naito finally got the win with Destino at the 12:56 mark. It was inferred that Naito is getting an IC Title match at WK14. Now, if you ask me, Naito, though still popular, has cooled off exponentially this year, and he just doesn’t feel like one of the top guys at this stage. But hey ho.

The Roppongi 3K team of SHO and YOH won the Super J Tag League, when they defeated the Suzuki-gun team of Desperado and Kanemaru in an excellent, old school tag match. This told the old Young Bucks/RPG Vice story, in which SHO was dumped on the ramp iat the very start, selling his back, and YOH had to go it alone for a while, until SHO returned with the hot tag. Despy locked him in his Numero Dos Stretch Muffler submission, which built great drama as it seemed as though SHO would have to submit, but YOH managed to break it before he could tap. SHO and Desperado had a great exchange, before the Roppongi boys hit 3K on the masked man to win the match and the tournament at 14:13. The IWGP Jr Tag Champions, Phantasmo and Ishimori, laid them out with belt shots in the post match, then took off with the trophies. KENTA and Ishii had an absolute war for the NEVER title next. This was profoundly hard-hitting stuff, with both guys killing each other with hard strikes. KENTA devastated Ishii with super hard slaps, and the Stone Pitbull kept firing back with just as hard forearms, after one of which, KENTA did a fantastic job of selling being legit KO’d, which played nicely off what happened in their match in London. This too was devoid of the shenanigans we’ve come to expect from a modern day Bullet Club KENTA match, and was just two guys swinging for the fences. After KENTA escaped a Brainbuster attempt, he rocked Ishii with a series of Busaiku Knees, then nailed two Go 2 Sleep’s to retain the title in 20 minutes of hard-hitting action. If I have one complaint, its that this maybe went a little long, and all the punishment these guys took felt like overkill at times, but that aside, this was great stuff.

And in the best match of the night, Will Ospreay succesfully defended the Jr title against BUSHI in a tremendous outing, that also ranks as probably the best singles match I’ve ever seen BUSHI in. This one had a load of shenanigans, but they were done in such a creative manner that they actually helped to enhance the match. Things got chaotic after a ref bump, BUSHI tried to blow the Dokukiri at Ospreay, but Will cut him off, then sucked the mist out of BUSHI’s mouth, and blew it in his face. He then tried an Oscutter, but BUSHI pulled Red Shoes in the way, and delivered the move to the refferee. BUSHI gets his knees up on a Shooting Star attempt, then finally mists Ospreay, and hits a Canadian Destroyer as a new ref comes in for a near fall. The masked man tries MX, but Ospreay hits a head kick in mid air for the double down. BUSHI counters Storm Breaker into the BUSHI ROLL for a believable near fall, then he hits MX for another great near fall which had the crowd going crazy. He goes for another MX but Will catches him in an Oscutter, hits Hidden Blade, the top rope Oscutter, and finally Storm Breaker to win at the 16:20 mark of an exceptional wrestling outing. Once again, the post match here was significant; Ospreay gets the mic and says that he’s beaten everyone in the Junior division, there’s no one left for him to beat, then the lights went out and a Time Bomb video played, which brought out the returning Hiromu Takahashi, who has been out with a broken neck since July of 2018. He charges down to the ring, gives the commentators stuffed cats, then takes a bump into the barricade for no reason. He eneters the ring, thanks the fans for waiting for him, and tells Ospreay that he’s ready and wants the belt. He takes a back bump and rolls into a bridge, from where he cut the rest of his promo as Ospreay holds the mic for him, and challenges Ospreay to a title match on January 4th. Ospreay accepts, then Hiromu licks the belt, hugs Ospreay, and leaves. This was tremendous.

This left the main event with a lot to follow. Typical to form with these guys, they had a great, hard-hitting match, but it couldn’t really follow the stuff that preceeded it. The match went 27:40, which was much too long, especially as no one believed Goto winning this, despite scoring some great near falls. He hit the reverse GTR, then a Shouten Kai for a tremendous near fall (it works every time, even though he hasn’t won a match with it in three years), which lead into the token White counter exchange, which is always incredible, culminating in him hitting Aramusha with the Sleeper Suplex. Goto however, pops up and hits the GTW (the Ushigoroshi into a Final Cut), then follows with GTR, but Gedo pulls the ref out. This causes Katsuyori Shibata, who was providing commentary at ringside, to jump in and lay Gedo out with kicks, and locking in a sleeper. This brought out KENTA, who kicked Shibata off the apron, hit the Go 2 Sleep on Goto, then tossed Shibata into the barricade and nailed a few chest kicks. This allowed White to recover and hit Blade Runner to successfully defend his title. White cut a promo in the post match, caling out Okada and Ibushi, saying he’ll face the winner on January 5th, but instead out came Naito. White says he’s isn’t defending against Naito, and out comes Ibushi. All three vow to be the first double champion. They call out Okada, who eventually shows up, and asks them what the hell they’re all talking about. He has the most prestigeous belt in the company, why would he want the secondary title? He proposes there be a fan vote (a hark back to the controversial issue with the WK8 main event) to solve this issue, then White tells them all to “fuck off” as this is his moment, and he celebrates his win. All in all, this was a great show that more than over-delivered on its potential. Every match was at least good, at least four where excellent, and the angles were very memorable indeed, so its a thumbs up from me.

NDT

[shrimpkardashian]

I have a list of ~900 albums from 2019 that I still want to eventually listen to / review [IMPOSSIBLE PROJECT ALERT]

For this project (already 125+ releases deep), which is just impossibly daunting and makes me head hurt. IDK how to streamline this process or is any “critic” out there really listening to “all” the good music? It’s impossible I guess... BUT needless to say, these have made this list from an even larger pool of music that I either listened to briefly and immediately dismissed or (gasp!) never even came across my radar (radar = many many music blogs I follow via RSS). 

Anyway, because I’ll most likely never get to this (whatever this is, an Xgau parody or something)... Here is the list (please ignore some of my notations/typos):

1 matana roberts, coin coin chapter four 2 jeffrey lewis 3 negativland 4 camedor 5 the darkness 6 jai paul [leak] 7 shikoswe 8 anatolian weapons 9 cakedog, doggystyle 10 carly rae jepsen (LP, plus single w Gryffin) 11 parsnip 12 the comet is coming 13 girl in red 14 ezra furman 15 the kvb 16 freddie gibbs & madlib 17 say sue me (single) 18 denzel curry 19 fatamorgana 20 vivian girls 21 wobbly, monitress 22 helado negro 23 anamanaguchi 24 paul demarinis 25 comet gain 26 personal best 27 king princess, LP? big little lies single 28 marble arch 29 mini dresses 30 matt christensen 31 jade bird 32 black mountain 33 body meat 34 pat, Love Will Find A Way Home 35 acid arab 36 the 83rd 37 common holly 38 wicca phase 39 mark ronson 40 spirit in the room, single 41 rebe, “pienso en ti a todas horas” [just a single?] 42 a giant dog, neon bible cover LP 43 hey collosus 44 moon king (meh/ or *) 45 vanity productions 46 velvet negroni 47 g perico 48 budokan boys 49 skryptor 50 oscar scheller 51 the muffs 52 larry gus 53 these new puritans *** 54 angel olsen 55 bleu nuit 56 meatraffle 57 josephine wiggs 58 jennifer vanilla 59 big|brave 60 rico nasty 61 friendship, dreamin' 62 mike, tears of joy 63 bellrope 64 gbv 65 machìna, archipelago 66 toy, songs of consumption 67 ayankoko 68 the intelligence 69 drahla 70 corridor, junior 71 urochromes 72 david hasselhoff 73 aMAZONDOTCOM 74 kehlani 75 ne-hi EP (final) 76 avey tare 77 bonnie "prince" billy 78 battles 79 snapped ankles 80 mannequin pussy 81 toro y moi, soul trash 82 twen 83 self discovery for social survival comp 84 bad heaven ltd 85 eric frye 86 the mattson 2 87 duncan park 88 pure bathing culture 89 arthur russell, iowa dream 90 wild pink 91 flaming lips 92 pan amsterdam 93 flaural 94 knife wife 95 hannah peel & will burns 96 klein 97 meat puppets 98 tnght 99 james ferraro 100 royal trux / ariel pink 101 new rain duets 102 black marble 103 sui zhen 104 liam the younger 105 the mountain goats, welcome to passaic 106 frank hurricane and hurricanes of love 107 sebadoh 108 xylouris white 109 lindstrøm 110 franck vigroux 111 joyero 112 dorian electra  113 ride 114 crumb, jinx 115 nonconnah 116 cup, spinning creature 117 brutus 118 bjarki 119 khotin 120 alexander tucker 121 gunna 122 operator music band 123 tony molina 124 nanami ozone 125 sad planets 126 bemydelay 127 laurie anderson et al, songs from the bardo 128 teebs 129 deerhunter, timebends 130 tr/st (2 LPs) 131 dolores catherino 132 liturgy 133 floating points 134 sasami, LP + xmas EP 135 trikorder23 136 moor mother 137 have a nice life 138 la dispute 139 lingua ignota 140 lina tullgren 141 earl sweatshirt 142 entrail 143 alexander noice 144 shock narcotic 145 rakta 146 munya 147 el drugstore 148 buck gooter 149 caribou, single - more? 150 rosenau & sanborn 151 kevin abstract 152 pile 153 e for echo 154 animal collective, new psycho actives vol. 2 + live album 155 harlem 156 sudan archives 157 lil peep, posthumous ep 158 young guv, i and ii 159 orville peck 160 75 dollar bill 161 institute 162 tove lo 163 the chocolate watchband 164 foie gras, holy hell 165 french vanilla 166 chuck cleaver 167 kollaps 168 spirits having fun 169 game 170 badgirl$ 171 medhane 172 alberich 173 show me the body 174 the night watch, an embarrassment of riches 175 inus, western spaghettification 176 pregoblin, singles? 177 ra ra riot 178 de lorians 179 kool keith 180 kaspia & stride 181 glen hansard 182 dpeee 183 berlin taxi 184 foghorn 185 ionnalee 186 american sharks 187 sitcom, dust single 188 pip blom 189 j balvin & bady 190 fenella 191 tanya tagaq 192 sean o'hagan 193 j robbins 194 peter ivers (comp) 195 neon indian, not sure if single is part of larger proj? 196 triad god 197 yeule 198 roland tings 199 schoolboy q 200 ava luna EP 201 fried eggs 202 drugdealer 203 half japanese 204 todd anderson-kunert 205 emily reo 206 christelle bofale 207 brion starr 208 jan jelinek (reissue) 209 peaer 210 devin townsend 211 vik 212 young m.a 213 default genders 214 night lovell 215 rocketship 216 kim gordon 217 ellen arkbro 218 george clanton and nick hexum [single?] 219 the minus 5 220 penguin cage 221 felicia atkinson 222 take offense 223 moon duo 224 chemical brothers 225 nef the pharaoh 226 daniel norgren 227 unkle 228 pup (?) 229 baroness 230 velvet bethany 231 resavoir 232 gruff rhys 233 lana del ray 234 empath 235 burial and the bug, flame 2 236 russian baths 237 quelle chris 238 corpse flower 239 roy montgomery [reissue] 240 clinic 241 a.g. cook, [single] 242 why? 243 beck 244 francis lung 245 thom yorke 246 warmduscher 247 uv-tv 248 aa bondy 249 max richter, ad astra ost 250 younghusband 251 stereo total 252 julie's haircut 253 aa matheson 254 eartheater 255 kelly moran 256 mana (seven steps behind) 257 c.h.e.w. 258 sarah mary chadwick 259 midsommar ost 260 beabadoobee 261 life, a picture of good health 262 dumb, club nites 263 dame dolla 264 endless boogie 265 burna boy 266 lungbutter 267 wand 268 future punx 269 yves jarvis 270 kim petras [LP, halloween EP] 271 bts world 272 pikelet 273 panda bear, single 274 samiyam 275 red river dialect 276 ryan pollie 277 ryuichi sakamot (reissue) 278 jackie mendoza 279 dark blue 280 jay som 281 stephen mallinder 282 neutrals, kebab disco 283 foodman 284 capitol, dream noise 285 new pornographers 286 mark korven, the lighthouse ost 287 gauche 288 the japanese house 289 cave (re-issue) 290 ybn cordae 291 the vacant lots 292 arwen 293 rhucle 294 lil b, @ least 2 releases? 295 tea service 296 chai 297 black pumas 298 program, show me 299 marika hackman 300 sonny and the sunsets 301 lillie mae 302 mean jeans 303 the stroppies 304 poppies 305 twin shadow 306 vanishing twin *** 307 portrayal of guilt [EP + split single] 308 lucki [2 lps] 309 absolutely free 310 girl band 311 black midi 312 torche 313 perfume (best of) 314 white denim 315 clipping 316 the hu 317 big business 318 metro crowd 319 ex-vöid, 7" 320 broken social scene 321 lil pump 322 uranium club 323 doon kanda 324 hesitation wounds 325 sorry girls 326 bibio 327 red mass 328 the shins, single 329 lil keed 330 yeasayer 331 bts / blackpink KPOP 332 galen tipton, fake meat 333 the world, reddish 334 lanark artefax, ep 335 ladytron 336 g.s., schray 337 just mustard [single, more?] 338 mdou moctar 339 rangers, spirited discussion 340 tyson meade 341 dj nate 342 kelly lee owens 343 bambara 344 kilo kish 345 lusine 346 ralph heidel / homo ludens 347 psychic graveyard 348 homeshake 349 wives, so removed 350 proto idiot 351 let’s eat grandma, ost ep 352 foals 353 caroline shaw & attacca quartet 354 juan waters 355 mount eerie with julie doiron 356 mestozi 357 patio 358 oh baby, the art of sleeping alone 359 earth 360 haybaby 361 anna meredith 362 the caretaker (6) 363 rich brian 364 sunn o))), [two LPs] 365 alessandro cortini 366 ty segall 367 injury reserve 368 elucid 369 budos band 370 tim hecker 371 waqwaq kingdom 372 william doyle *** 373 innercity ensemble 374 filthy friends 375 prurient 376 shlohmo 377 bon iver 378 sean henry 379 yeesh 380 faye webster 381 megan thee stallion 382 squid, town centre 383 simulation (hausau mountain) 384 flying lotus 385 horse jumper of love 386 rap, export 387 lansky jones 388 the gonks 389 cate lebon 390 rome fortune 391 chain cult 392 empty set 393 big thief (2 lp's) 394 laura cannell [and polly wright album ?] or is there just a laura c album too ? }} 395 froth 396 thugwidow 397 organ tapes 398 the new pornographers 399 zonal 400 bbg baby joe 401 whitney 402 guards 403 anemone 404 sheer mag 405 nots 406 fujiya & miyag 407 kool aid, family portrait ep 408 frankie cosmos 409 kaputt 410 quelle chris 411 operators 412 marco benevento 413 elvis depressedly 414 school of language, 45 415 rob burger 416 pozi 417 redd kross 418 randy randall 419 yatta 420 hide, hell is here 421 bobby krlic, midsommar ost 422 planet england 423 kev brown 424 robedoor 425 tropical fuck storm 426 haram, 9/11 ep 427 candy, super-stare single 428 sly and the family drone 429 kevin morby 430 porches, rangerover [single] 431 odae 432 pottery 433 saint pepsi 434 slowthai 435 iggy pop 436 swans 437 iLOVEMAKONNEN 438 mukqs 439 feels 440 luke temple 441 oli xl 442 orphan swords 443 post pink 444 deli girls 445 nilüfer yanya 446 idk, is he real? 447 interpol 448 priests 449 galcher lustwerk 450 smokepurpp, various? 451 kindness 452 ex hex 453 sampa the great 454 methyl ethel 455 ellis, the fuzz ep 456 jeanines s/t 457 water from your eyes 458 twin peaks 459 sam cohen 460 fontaines dc 461 spiral stairs 462 the hecks 463 nicola ratti 464 four tet, various (inc. "wingdings" alter ego side proj) 465 holy ghost 466 half stack 467 cherubs 468 juana molina, forfun EP 469 jpegmafia 470 bedouine 471 fury 472 melvins/flipper 473 the curls 474 izambard 475 heart eyes 476 drinking boys and girls choir 477 big search 478 glenn branca 479 rose elinor dougall 480 bat for lashes 481 young knives, [single, more? 482 hot chip 483 alex lahey 484 hemlock ernst & kenny segal 485 dj seinfeld 486 joni void 487 rema rema 488 spencer tweedy 489 trash kit 490 dry cleaning [2 ep's] 491 mega bog *** 492 saudade 493 monster rally 494 wilco 495 chromatics, LP + EP 496 slayyyter 497 maral 498 blarf 499 pernice brothers 500 la neve 501 marie davidson 502 tredici bacci 503 deathprod 504 lowly 505 russian circles 506 angel witch 507 fires were shot 508 amy o 509 q da fool 510 clams casino 511 automelodi 512 paradox 513 dababy (2) 514 david kilgour 515 missy elliot 516 baby smoove 517 boris 518 thanks for coming 519 yves tumor [single w/] 520 ΜΜΜΔ 521 falcon/falkland 522 noel wells 523 ecstatic vision 524 amyl & the sniffers 525 barrie 526 bianca scout 527 katie dey 528 prince rama 529 control top 530 duster, comp + new LP 531 foxes in fiction 532 slowthai x denzel curry [single] 533 the murlocs 534 plaid 535 ela orleans 536 gobby 537 cfm 538 carla del forna 539 pale spring 540 pixx 541 širom 542 lightning bolt 543 cate lebon & deerhunter 544 channel tres 545 sigrid 546 help, s/t 547 shellac, live 548 crack cloud, pain olympics (ongoing) / s/t (2018) 549 notes underground 550 fat white family *** 551 gloop 552 equiknoxx 553 nakhane 554 czarface meets ghostface 555 the rubinoos 556 shannon lay 557 tim heidecker 558 droneflower 559 john vanderslice 560 your old droog 561 bats, alter nature 562 zvi 563 justus proffit 564 lower dens 565 anna of the north 566 yg 567 holly herndon 568 good fuck 569 clark, single 570 charli xcx 571 the nativist 572 low life 573 jonsi & alex somers 574 kazu 575 günter schickert 576 odonis odonis 577 kelsey lu (+ remix EP) 578 young thug 579 thaiboy digital 580 hatchie 581 hiro kone 582 cocorosie 583 sabiwa 584 oh sees 585 rex orange county 586 311 587 erland cooper 588 jtamul 589 the brilliant tabernacle 590 free love, extreme dance anthems 591 jeff lynne's elo 592 dutch courage 593 booji boys 594 giggs 595 ceschi 596 inter arma 597 psychic sounds ensemble 598 eli kezsler EP 599 thelma 600 haiku salut 601 julia jacklin 602 otoboke beaver 603 colin self 604 mark mulcahy 605 rosalia, single "a pale" more? 606 chris lott 607 royal trux 608 weyes blood 609 mikal cronin 610 hissing tiles 611 grace ives 612 vic bang 613 nick cave 614 sugar world [single] 615 herzog 616 offset 617 mike adams at his honest weight 618 real life buildings 619 aldous harding 620 pye corner audio 621 doja cat 622 bleached 623 book of shame 624 kate davis 625 i was a king 626 pendant, through a coil 627 joseph arthur 628 great grandpa, four of arrows 629 modern nature 630 stef chura 631 spaza, s/t great 632 the alchemist 633 pond 634 aiden baker, etc 635 kirin j. Callinan 636 possible humans 637 greys 638 kizuna ai 639 little simz 640 big bend 641 membranes, what nature gives… 642 young nudy 643 car seat headrest (live) 644 seahawks 645 dumbhop's party 646 julien chang 647 pacific yew 648 pharmakon 649 lomelda 650 versing 651 olden yolk 652 mekons 653 the dream syndicate 654 the gotobeds 655 amy klein 656 bABii 657 bill callahan 658 grlwood 659 van dale 660 ziúr 661 delicate steve 662 debby friday 663 dehd 664 south city hardware 665 kesha 666 (sandy) alex g 667 computer slime 668 fka twigs 669 rob halford, celestial 670 dean hurley 671 school of language 672 nicolas godin 673 blue hawaii 674 leggy 675 ceremony 676 his name is alive 677 third eye blind 678 sadgirl 679 ariana grande 680 skepta 681 dylan moon 682 jay mitta 683 the drums 684 kero kero bonito, ep 685 charly bliss 686 lee renaldo etc 687 rina mushonga 688 ulla straus 689 cherushii & maria minerva 690 slaughter beach, dog 691 maps 692 dj shadow 693 tool LOL 694 diiv 695 pixies 696 cuco 697 black peaches 698 subhumans 699 gurr 700 cashmere cat 701 brockhampton 702 fire-toolz 703 lambchop, LP + EP 704 messthetics 705 neuland 706 westkust 707 haelos 708 sturgill simpson 709 maria usbeck 710 king gizzard (2) 711 earthgang 712 paranoid london 713 fet.nat 714 bethlehem steel 715 neil young with crazy horse 716 tengger 717 guerilla toss 718 spelling 719 lizzo 720 wiki 721 dr00p, mkULTRAHD 722 ghost orchard 723 jane weaver 724 usa/mexico 725 carl stone 726 richard dawson *** 727 rafael toral 728 test dept 729 sacred paws 730 big krit 731 mallrat 732 jenn champion 733 moE/Mette Rasmussen, tolerancia picante 734 facs 735 yung lean, single (blue cup) and ep, more? 736 pissgrave 737 moodyman 738 sing sinck, sing 739 tyler the creator 740 sleater-kinney 741 dean blunt, zushi 742 cursive 743 barker, utlity 744 gemma 745 octavian 746 pronoun 747 girl ray 748 julia shapiro 749 nodding god 750 daniel saylor 751 jakob ogawa 752 richard youngs 753 diät 754 w00dy 755 omar souleyman 756 vōx EP 757 topdown dialectic 758 penelope islea 759 gbv 760 glass beach 761 james hoff, hobo ufo 762 euglossine 763 dream ritual 764 terry allen 765 office culture 766 ghostie, devour 767 beat detectives 768 red channel 769 octo octa 770 julien baker [toyko single] 771 shackleton as "tunes of negation" 772 sons of raphael 773 lena raine 774 fitted, first fits 775 velf 776 cvn 777 black country, new road, [2 singles only?] 778 chief keef 779 andrew bird, LP and EP 780 tamaryn 781 vagabon 782 zelooperz 783 brian jonestown massacre 784 angel dust 785 pere ubu 786 vatican shadow, church... 787 spencer radcliffe 788 mr muthafuckin exquire 789 earth to mickey 790 beak> 791 byron westbrook 792 major murphy 793 nicole yun 794 the divine comedy 795 sote, parallel persiao 796 the radio dept. 797 prince daddy & the hyena 798 mudhoney 799 truth club 800 shura 801 underworld, drift 802 lil texas 803 that dog 804 gary wilson / r. stevie moore 805 divino nino 806 spiral heads 807 claire cronin 808 devendra banhart 809 c.y.m. EP 810 dude york 811 sangri 812 vegyn [2 lp's?] 813 brooke candy 814 caroline polachek 815 hurt valley 816 O.L.I.V.I.A, modo avion 817 ziúr 818 pepper mill rondo, it's christmas time 819 ben vida 820 nick hexum/george clanton 821 meara o'reilly 822 tyler holmes, devil 823 blood incantation 824 guenter schlienz 825 gavilán rayna russom 826 loraine james *** 827 lithics, Wendy Kraemer EP 828 navel, ambient 2, in space 829 the proper ornaments 830 jon hopkins & kelly lee owens, single 831 julianna barwick 832 park hye-jin 833 bea1991 834 men i trust 835 erika de casier 836 ducks unlimited 837 lyzza 838 refused 839 jim o'rourke, to magnetize ... 840 analemma, 2 singles on a comp? 841 zack fox, "the bean kicked in" 842 real life rock n roll band 843 prefab sprout 844 daniel lopatin, uncut gems ost 845 kaytranada 846 the voidz, 2 song single + video? 847 grandaddy, single (add scissors icon) 848 dark thoughts, must be nice 849 loose nukes 850 sam mallet 851 very good, adulthood 852 henge, nothing head 853 kaleidobolt 854 nebula, holy shit 855 terminal cheesecake 856 uzeda 857 wet tuna 858 sean mccann 859 black dresses, love and... (2nd LP) 860 nefew 861 taylor swift ??? 862 lala lala, the lamb 863 jenny lewis 864 33EMYBW 865 blood orange, angel's pulse 866 caterina barbieri *** 867 yusu 868 white reaper 869 rozi plain 870 bamboo, daughters of the sky 871 seragina steer 872 clear channel, hot fruit 873 patience, dizzy spells 874 mope grooves, desire 875 current affairs, object & subject 875 comfort, not passing 876 bill orcutt 877 bonnie baxter 878 carl stone 879 thurston moore 880 alameda 5 881 john zorn 882 the membranes, what nature gives... 883 meemo comma 884 ana roxannne 885 whistling arrow, s/t 886 dis fantasy 887 giant swan, s/t 888 buck young, buck ii 889 abdu ali 890 ifriqiyya électrique 891 $hit and $hine, doing drugs, selling drugs 892 ghold 893 theon cross 894 yao bobby & simon grab 895 solange *sure whatever ok 896 the comet is coming 897 the utopia strong, s/t 898 karenn, grapefruit regret 899 brìghde chaimbeul 900 nav, bad habits 901 chance, big day 902 nostalgia critic's the wall 903 uboa, the origin of my depression 904 hobo johnson 905 ana frango elétrico 906 dorian electra

[kpopotd2]

December Wrap Up

Wow. It has been a whole twelve months since we have started this blog and now we are on the final, official post of the year! A mega-post compiling the top songs of the past year, as well as official departures and disbandments of groups from 2019, will be up on our main blog @kpopsunbae​ (make sure to go and follow us there for more content, although it will be quite a bit different than what we put on this blog). 

As some of you may know, this blog (as well as the previous one, @kpopotd​) are project blogs that end once the year is done. This means that while we will no longer post on this blog it will remain as an archive. We will however be back with a third blog in the future as a continuation of this blog (it will cover 2016 and onwards!). This does not mean that we will go completely off grid once 2019 is done though! 

This coming year of 2020 has a lot in store for us, your K-Pop Sunbaes! We currently have a website to overhaul, an Instagram to properly launch, and of course we will continue releasing podcast episodes! Remember to follow us on Twitter too, our handle there is @kpopsunbaes (updates will be on there and you can interact with us too!). 

On a final note, we are so appreciative for the love that you all have given this blog over the past year. It has been such a fun experience and the three of us have had a blast working together on the blog, having meetings, and eventually completing just under 900 posts. We hope you will continue to support and follow us in our upcoming endeavors. We wish you all a very Happy New Year! 

새해 복 많이 받으세요!

❤ JR, Min, and Onyx 

NEWS:

December 5, 2010: Lee Young-hee, a well-known social activist, dies of cirrhosis at 81. December 20, 2010: The Republic of Korea Marine Corps stars to hold live-fire drill exercises on Yeonpyeong Island. North Korea responds by saying they will not retaliate.

December 12, 2011: An incident occurs where a Chinese fisherman, who was illegally fishing, is confronted by two SK coast guards. He stabbed them and one died from the injuries. The fisherman was sentenced to thirty years in jail and a fine in April of 2012. December 19, 2012: The 2012 presidential elections were held in which Park Geun Hye is elected as the first female president of South Korea. She would eventually be impeached and removed from office due to corruption in 2017.

Album of the Month 2009 - 2015:

2010 - GD & TOP by GD & TOP

2011 - The Boys by Girls’ Generation 

2012 - Winter Poetry by Shin Hyun Seung

2013 - Miracles in December by EXO

2014 - Exology Chapter 1: The Lost Planet by EXO

2015 - SING FOR YOU by EXO

DRAMAS:

December 2009: Father’s House (This show was a year end special that brought in over 15% viewership ratings and garnered generally good reviews. It stars Choi Min Soo, Moon Jung Hee, and Kim Soo Hyun.)  December 2009: Will it Snow for Christmas (This melodrama brought in around 10% viewership ratings. It stars Go Soo and Han Ye Seul.)

December 2010: Athena: Goddess of War (This action/spy drama is a spin off of the hit show IRIS. It’s in the same universe as IRIS, but stars Joo Woo Sung, Cha Seung Won, Soo Ae, Lee Ji Ah, and Super Junior’s Choi Siwon. IRIS’s cast also made cameos throughout. It averaged around 15% viewership ratings.) December 2011: What’s Up? (This musical drama stars Lim Joo Hwan, BIGBANG’s Daesung, Lim Joo Eun, Kim Ji Won, and Jo Jung Suk.)  December 2011: Vampire Idol (This sitcom style drama stars Lee Jung, Davichi’s Kang Min Kyung, Lee Soo Hyuk, Kim Woo Bin, and Hong Jung Hyun. There are also a couple idols as supporting characters including ZE:A’s Kwanghee and Girl’s Day Bang Minah.) 

December 2012: School 2013 (This is the fifth installment of the popular “School” drama series. This iteration stars Jang Nara, Choi Daniel, Lee Jong Suk, Park Se Young, and Kim Woo Bin. It did pretty well, bringing in over 10% viewership ratings.) December 2013: Prime Minister and I (This 17 episode drama stars Lee Beom Soo and Girls’ Generation’s YoonA. The main OST is a song called “Footsteps” sung by SHINee’s Taemin. The show brought in over 5% viewership ratings and won two awards: the Best Couple Award for the main characters and an Excellence in Acting Award for YoonA.) December 2013: You Who Came From the Stars/My Love from the Star (This hit romance/fantasy drama stars megastars Kim Soo Hyun and Jun Ji Hyun. The duo had previously acted together in the movie The Thieves. Dal Shabet’s Serri and Subin, former miss A member Suzy, and former 2NE1 member Dara make cameos throughout. Lyn, K. Will, Younha, Hyorin, Huh Gak, Sung Si Kyung, and Kim Soo Hyun all participated in the OSTs. The show did incredibly well and ended up selling out products that the characters wore, being the highest rated drama of it’s time (not only in South Korea but throughout Asia), and bringing in over 20% viewership ratings.) 

December 2014: Healer (This action drama stars Ji Chang Wook and Park Min Young. The show averaged around 7% viewership ratings, but while it only did moderately well in South Korea it boosted Ji’s international fandom immensely.)  December 2015: Remember- War of the Son (This thriller stars Yoo Seung Ho, Park Woo Sung, Park Min Young, Min Namkoong, and Jung Hye Sung. K. Will, Jooyoung, Jang Jane, Jang Han Byul, and Bobby Kim participated in the OSTs. It averaged around 15% viewership ratings, and won a few awards at multiple award shows.

FILMS:

December 23, 2009: Jeon Woo Chi: The Taoist Wizard (This fantasy/action film stars Gang Dong Won, Im Soo Jung, and Kim Yoo Seok. A 2012 K-drama spin-off was made with the same main character played by Cha Tae Hyun, although the rest of the show’s plot was different. It was the third best selling movie of the year.)  December 9, 2010: Finding Mr. Destiny (This movie adaption of the musical of the same name, stars Gong Yoo and Im Soo Jung. It did well at the box office, bringing over a million admissions.)  December 1, 2011: Spellbound/Chilling Romance/My Girlfriend Can See Ghosts (This rom-com stars Son Ye Jin and Lee Min Ki. It was the 7th biggest movie of the year.) December 25, 2012: The Tower (This disaster movie stars Sol Kyung-gu, Ki Sang-gyung, and Son Ye-jin. The movie did very well at the box office and become the first movie of 2013 to hit five million theater admissions. It was sold to multiple countries and eventually got an English dub with voice actors such as Buba Kachow, Erin Fitzgerald, and Todd Haberkorn.)

December 11, 2013: Way Back Home (This movie, which is based on the true story of Jang Mi Jeong, stars Jeon Do Yeon and Go Soo. It follows the story of a woman who unknowingly attempted to smuggle drugs out of Paris and is caught, and how she eventually got back to Korea. It did fairly well, bringing in just under two million theater admissions.)  December 18, 2013: The Attorney (This law drama, which was inspired by a true story, stars Song Kang Ho, Kim Young Ae, Oh Dal Soo, ZE:A’s Im Si Wan, and Kwak Do Won. It became the 8th best-selling movie in Korea of all time with over 11 million admissions. It won many awards at various award shows.)  December 24, 2013: The Suspect (This action/thriller starring Gong Yoo was a box office hit, bringing in over 4 million admissions. It received praise from various western newspapers and reviewers.) December 31, 2014: The Tenor - Lirico Sprinto (This movie, which is based on the true story of Bae Jae Chul, stars Yoo Ji Tae, Yusuke Iseya, and Cha Ye Ryun. The movie took eighteen months to film and six years to fully complete.)

HAPPY STUFF:

December 12, 2012: Sungah was added to the line-up of Nine Muses. Her first comeback with them would be with “Dolls”.

SAD STUFF:

December 21, 2009: Hangeng leaves Super Junior and files a lawsuit against SM Entertainment. December 11, 2009: Inyoung and Jungah leave Jewelry to pursue solo careers.

December 24, 2012: Trinity leaves GLAM.  December 21, 2013: Sohee leaves Wonder Girls to focus on her acting career.

December 2014: Sunye leaves Wonder Girls and says she will retire from the industry.  December 31, 2014: Jooyeon contract with Pledis Entertainment ends and she graduates from After School the following year.

December 12, 2013: Singer Kim Ji Hoon, half of the duo Duke, passes away due to suicide at age 40.

POST OF THE MONTH:

iKON - Dumb & Dumber

[1358456]

Review Response, Dec 22 - 28, 2019

“28″, but I’ll be including the reviews that came in this morning. Because hey.

And... there are a lot. The most this year.

Legacy Prologue - Kalos

1) That first part DEFINITELY reminded me of the XY chapter, except Y is being the Hikikomori (shut-in) and X is trying to drag her out... It’s a good role-reversal!

I also wanted it to be like the time in XY where Y found out what happened to her mother and she got super depressed. Except this time, X tries to do something about it. Finally.

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Legacy #008

1) LOVED IT!

Thank you!

2) Poor moon. I loved this chapter

Hey, it’s you! <3 Thank you kindly.

3) WoW cool chapter. So blue confessionele next chapter hopefully? Lol have been waiting on that for the entire story so Lets hope its the case

Haven’t we all. ... Except for those that don’t like this pairing...

4) It’s nice to see platinum trying to help blue move things was a good chapter with nice interactions with the juniors and seniors all under the same roof

It’s like a big Dex Holder family! ... But not too big, since there are far too many of them nowadays! And despite Platinum not really wanting to get involved, she helps out anyways, as “foretold” by the Headcanon Chronology!

5) While Moon really should rest, the idea of her getting that Spirit of Vengeance team you posted about on your Tumblr sounds way too awesome. ...Also Umbreon bias since it's my first (and only) shiny, but yeah.

Poor Blue - it really is probably only going to hurt her the longer she keeps it in. Wonder how that is going to play out, since I guess Platinum's now put things in motion. I think the first scene in this chapter is the one I enjoyed the most.

Damn, for Moon's Pokemon to die like that...that's gotta be traumatizing. I have to admire that determination though, even though she's shaping up to be a revenge-obsessed character from what I see.

Awesome chapter as always and can't wait for the next one!

Hehe. Spirit of Vengeance. The amount of curse in that team would be quite terrifying. Hehehe... ... Only shiny, you say? Aww...

Platinum has gotten the ball rolling despite not really wanting to. MVP of the confession? Hehe... Sisterly bonds, indeed. Now, will it work out in favor for Blue??

Moon can’t be filled with a lust for vengeance if none of her friends and Pokemon have perished. And so now she rises from her agony with ice cold determination for blood to be spilled for the blood that had been shed. ... Or does that saying go the other way around? Heh. Regardless. She’s pissed, has a bow, lethal poison, and soon to be a team packed with ghosts (and Dark types).

Thank you as always! And you won’t have to wait long~!

6) Eh lucky really isnt my cup of tea but the way you write stories is pretty awesome keep up the good work!

I could tell by the anon ID you picked. To each their own. And thank you!

7) Awww blue being so shy hahahaha. Its like the roles have reversed since the first time they met thats so cute! Anyway Great story as usual

Hehe. Timid Blue~! It’s new and very cute, isn’t it? And thank you.

8) Hey man Great story looking forward to the next chapter

Thank you. It’s coming very soon.

9) Wow this is A really underrated story I really like how you keep most characters so in character!

Still underrated... in comparison to my previous stuff. But that’s to be expected, I guess. And thank you.

10) Well Colour me surprised ! A Pokemon story thats not forcing crack pairings! Anyway Where is green in this story?

Heh. Crack pairings... Only once in a solar eclipse. And... who? Heh. He’s in Kalos and thus off screen.

11) Wtf did moons Pokemon just die? Great story but damn thats fucking dark

Yes they perished in the fire. “Die, insect” and all. ... And one of them was an insect! Heh. Ahem. ... Dark? That’s not dark. Have you seen the stuff I did in SA and Destiny? Heh...

12) I mean I kinda like the story but isnt specialshipping canon? Also this is really really dark

No, it’s not canon. What is canon is that Yellow has a crush on Red. What’s also canon is that Red is uncomfortable with the idea. And of course he is. He thought she was a guy the whole time and then suddenly found out all at once that she was a girl and had a crush on him. His response is not going to be positive. And again, this is not dark. ... Though I guess that depends on your sensitivity.

13) hey sorry for not leaving A review for so long but I still really like the story lol!

Hey, you’re back. ... Then... who’s the anon with the v2 of your ID?

14) I love your writing style!

Thank you!

15) I somehow found Pearl smacking Black across the face to wake him up funnier than it should’ve been. Haha

I wonder if Blue really will confess to Red today. If so, I wonder how the opportunity would present itself.

Its quite sad that Hau, Lillie, and two of Moon’s Pokemon died. I guess this is where Moon’s overhaul comes in. I cant wait to see Moon’s viciousness unleashed when she inevitably meets the guys responsible for all that.

I look forward to more!

Hehe. Black always getting smacked around in my stories, literally and figuratively.

Will Blue truly confess on that day (which is a day before the stuff in Alola happens), or will she fail again due to anxiety? And will it end well for her??

Moon’s overhaul is happening now, yes. For that, she’ll have to go to Galar too. And I don’t know sh*t about that region, so... that’ll be difficult. Hehe. And much later in the story when she meets her foe... oho, Rage Unleashed Moon!

16) Moon and Lillie sure get burned really bad. Also, what about the kid with the malasadas? Hopefully, Blue will confessed to Red soon...

The local boy with the malasada had the same fate as Lillie. Two stretchers with a body on top, with the white blankets pulled all the way up.

17) I figured that now would be the best time to give a review for one of your works. therefore, I should review my personal favourite.

I been a consistent and long-time reader for numerous years now without ever leaving a review. I simply didn't have an account until recently just so I can give my thoughts on some of the series that you make.

Regarding Legacy as a whole, it truely showcases your ability to take the wide variety of dexholders and thiee different personalities and place them in situations that would absolutely never occur in the actual story. I have always loved the way you portray each individual character, improving thier teama and strategies and having genuine character growth. Although Sun and Moon are my uncontested favourite characters so far, I adore the way you use Platinum B in your stories, giving her a genuine personality and character traits.

You also generate a wide range of different and creative settings for each of the characters to go through. Legacy is the perfect example of this in terms of one truely coherent story setting. by using the opportunity of the highest stakes that these dexholders may ever face, you use the opportunity to explore all of the aspects of each character amazingly and how they would face this danger.

Since Sun and Moon are my favourite characters, the wait for this chapter absolutely killed me. Although it sucks that due to the lack of reviews for these characters I will get few opportunties to read your way of presenting the characters What I am trying to say is that the way you write your characters makes them feel REAL. I genuinely believe that these are the actual characters as they personalties are replicated and refined to perfection The way both Sun and Moon react in this chapter is exactly the way I would have expected them to. Being a Deliveryshipping day 1, seeing even the slightest interactions in any media, especially in your stories always brings joy to me. I have regulary reread most of your works such as Special Chronicals and Distinct Events becuase each story is chapter is amazing in its own right.

Your amazing work has inspired me to possibly start my own project one day. I am sorry for the stress that you have gone through this year and the issues with the Discord. It will get better this year. Seeing as you use reviews to indicate the popularity of a particular series, I had to write this review so that this series can get the update it deserves so that we can all see how this fantastic story ends. Thank your for all of the amazing work you have done.

Whoa, hello. Haven’t gotten a review this long since a certain someone stopped with Destiny reviews back in July.

Accounts aren’t necessary for the reviews. Guest reviews exist! And if you use the same anon ID, I’d know it’s you. But thank you for going through the effort! It’s much appreciated!

Aww, thank you very much! <3 And while I don’t know about Sun, but Moon is going to be in the spotlight quite a lot, so enjoy it! Since Platinum is my uncontested favorite, she gets plenty of development in my stories, with new character bonds, teams, battling style, etc. And unlike in DPPt, she actually gets to do things against the enemy.

Of the three major stories I’ve written (SA, Destiny, Legacy), Legacy has the lowest stakes. But I think it’s also the most personal, which I guess means it’s much more important for individual Dex Holders. Well, we’ll see as time passes. And yes, these are kind of things that would never happen in the actual arcs, so the Dex Holders get to be stress-tested. How would they react given their personalities, tics, relationships, etc, in a realistic situation?

Oh. ... Ahem. Sorry for making you wait 7 months. Ehehe... And while it’s true that Sun and Moon currently have the lowest “viewership”, that changes as time passes. Like Black and White in SA and X and Y in Destiny. As the “meh” torch is passed down to Sword and Shield, Sun and Moon might rise in popularity, thus increasing the chances of them appearing in my stories.

I don’t really know if this was how Sun would react though. But I also don’t know how he would’ve actually reacted, so this might not be outside the possibility range. I kind of had him act like Black, really, but without being as sweet... or loud. Well, there will be more Sun & Moon interactions for you to enjoy in the upcoming chapters, so... there you go!

You should start your own project! Go for it! And eh, Discord. Sh*t happens. I wouldn’t call that stress. Anyways. Yes, I use the review count as an indicator of how many people have finished the chapter. Of course, there are plenty of people who read the chapter to the end without reviewing, and the number of people who review after reading tends to fluctuate. But if there is a trend, that indicates a trend in viewership as well. And that is what I look at. Hence the charts. And yes. We’d all like to see how the story ends. Me included. Keep up with the reviews and we’ll all see it by 2021.

And thank you so much for the review and the... sweet talking. Hehe <3

18) Just found this story and am enjoying it thoroughly. Big fan of your Blue characterization as well, I used to enjoy shipping Red with Yellow, but recently, I've come to enjoy Blue with Red.

A small nitpick - Did none of the juniors comment on Red and Blue sleeping in the same room/bed while they stayed in Red's house in the last two chapters? I would assume the female juniors already know Blue likes Red and so won't say anything unnecessary, but I guess the guys are a little more tactful than we give them credit for?

Looking forward to me. Cheers.

Red with Blue works very well. And it’s cute! Hehe... ... biased.

Heh. The girls... already know, since the girls who are in the house were Platinum, White, and Y, and they already know of Blue’s crush and all that. So White and Y would just snicker at the fact that Red and Blue are sleeping on the same bed, while Platinum would just smile. As for the boys... Diamond might notice something if he spent more time talking to Red and Blue before and after. But I doubt Pearl or Black would notice anything odd. They’d probably just assume that Red and Blue are sharing the bed because a ton of guests were sleeping in the living room, so there were no other options.

Of course, all that’s assuming that the juniors know that Red and Blue are sleeping on the same bed. I don’t recall having Red and Blue give them a tour of the house, so as far as the juniors know, there might be another bed upstairs. ... Though a house tour is generally the first thing you do, but... heh. Ambiguity. No one knows for sure.

And I look forward to seeing more reviews from you!

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Well well. Would you look at THAT. Way above the average now. So... looks like I’ll have to keep my word and update Legacy again before this year ends in 3 days. Heh. Of course, I did notice a few things but... well... whatever.

18. That’s the most reviews I’ve gotten in a chapter in all of 2019. Or 2018. ... And vast majority of 2017 (Legacy Prologue - Kanto was in January 2017). If this kind of thing happened much more frequently, I would be updating Legacy like once every two weeks, instead of 3~4 times in a year.

But, there you have it! New record in almost 3 years. As a result... Legacy update in 3 days.

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DE #031

1) Sun and moon are so cute. I love them

Support the new...ish pairing!

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And with that, DE #031 is no longer in the top 4 least reviewed. Yay!

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SC #017

1) Awesome story.

Thank you.

2) Well that was...brutal alright. Thugs deserved it though. I'm mildly surprised no one died, but I think that's more because I'm used to seeing that from your old "doom hammer" chapters.

I admit the Santa part was an amusing touch, and I guess that explains why you needed to release this by the end of the year. Heh, Blue's gadgets are useful as always and very effective - that's a nice disguise. That action scene was awesome and easily the best scene in this chapter. The situation aside...it was nice to see Red be a hero even without his Pokemon.

You were right - this is an enjoyable chapter and I like this "brutal Red" experiment. Can't wait for the next chapter!

Heh. The doom hammer is for serious stories. Not comical ones. So no one dies in the hands of Santa Claus. This time.

Ahem. Well, there’s the inspiration for the chapter, and the reason behind the line of “Or Santa will go jolly on your naughty asses with a candy cane axe”. Hehe. Cheers, everyone, Santa has come to town!

And the duo of Red and Blue becomes much stronger. Mercenary Red with technological support!

Hehe. Much more serious brutal Red (instead of comical) to come up later as the experimentation continues. Ohoho!

3) holy crud, santa beating up a gang is greatest thing ever

Yep. Santa going to town on their naughty asses with a candy cane bat. What’s not to love?

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And with that, the latest SC chapter is now in the top 4 least reviewed. For now?

... Looks like the “A Day at Work” chapters are failing miserably, since they’re at 1 and 3 reviews respectively. So... I guess I won’t be doing that again.

And with this, the longest review response post of 2019 has come to an end.

[thecomicsnexus]

Jailbreak

SECOND COMING #4 DECEMBER 2019 BY MARK RUSSELL, RICHARD PACE, LEONARD KIRK AND ANDY TROY

SYNOPSIS + REVIEW

Now in jail, Jesus makes a new friend in Larry. Both of them will talk about what went wrong with Jesus mission on Earth, while surviving white supremacists.

In the meantime, Sunstar will ask some help from his super-friends to find Jesus. And Satan will arrange a meeting with God to save “junior” in exchange of going back on God’s side.

This issue was a bit too much on the nose, and not much progress in term of story. The past two issues have been more about what’s wrong with the real world, than anything else, and I feel like this title is losing itself a little bit. Sunstar’s story is kind of lost in the background and him being the co-star of the comic is hardly justified at this point. It’s almost like reading two different comics in one, with a different cast. Perhaps this was done on purpose to provide some perspective, but it is a strange decision at this point.

As a result, all the sequences with Sunstar feel like a loss of time. At least the sequences with Satan seem to move the plot.

Also having two different artists with different styles make that difference more jarring. Richard Pace is a good choice for this book, but I feel like he fits more in scenes that happen in “the beyond” or in flashbacks. At least that would have some logic than just following Jesus.

As for the message of this book, it’s not new, but you cheer for Jesus, especially if you don’t buy into organised religion. It’s pretty obvious that there is a disconnect between what the church says and what the church does, and in that regard, this book is crafted around presenting the “better” version of it (with this I mean that, this Jesus is just a character, but in a perfect world, religion would have to be more like what this character preaches, think of it as the best version of Christianity).

I give the issue a score of 7.

[sadbi-hours]

2019′s Roswell Rewatch, S1 Ep. 01: Pilot Review

“I'm Liz Parker, and five days ago, I died. After that, things got really weird...”

Promises of a long lost friend// Speaks to me of comfort// But I fear, I have nothing to give// I have so much to lose here in this lonely place 

Okay, I can admit it. When I originally began Roswell back in 2011, I was 16 going on 17 and in a really bad place in my life. I had just dropped out of High School before my junior year due some major anxiety and bullying. I was super depressed...aimless... wouldn’t leave my house...sleep for hour on end and didn’t have much in my life that gave me joy. 

I had my mom, who I love tremendously and was trying to be understanding and supportive...and she did the best she could...but for some reason, her love wasn’t enough to get me out of my funk. 

And then I stumbled across Roswell and it’s Pilot... 

Lost for you I'm so lost for you// You come crash into me// And I come into you

I don’t remember how I discovered Roswell and I guess that it doesn’t really matter in the end, but i’m glad I did.

Because I wouldn’t be where I am without it.  I went on Amazon the next day and asked my mom if I could buy the complete series.My mom was shocked...I hadn’t been so excited about anything in a while. I think she even cried when she bought the series for me.   

But, keep in mind i wasn’t cured of my mental health issues, no matter how magnificent the show was. I still went through a long, hard road to get to a good place...heck, i’m still having to work hard at being better. 

But, Roswell still came at a time in my life when i needed something...it gave give me purpose...a reason to get out of bed in the morning and move forward. To this day, I still believe that Roswell is magical...otherworldly. It’s unique...and every time I rewatch it, it’s still feels like the very first time...all the same emotions come rushing back to me.    

And to think, it all started with a little spat between gentleman, a bullet wound, and the willingness to sacrifice yourself to save someone you love. 

How can a Pilot get any better than that? 

“I’m Liz Parker and five days ago, I died...but then the really amazing thing happened. I came to life...”

go read @guerins review here

[davidardiansyah]

2019: A Year in Kpop

Dickens once wrote in his novel, A Tale of Two Cities, “It was the best of the times, it was the worst of the times”. This phrase aptly sums up the year of 2019 for Kpop - a moniker for Korean Pop.  Some called 2019 the best year for Kpop in this decade while others called it the worst year of Kpop. 

In my last review, I wrote how 2018 was a big year for Kpop as it wrecked havoc much of the western world like a storm. And as expected, in year 2019, Kpop is just getting even bigger and gaining more momentum outside its safe haven of South Korea and the larger Asian continent in general. Known for its dedicated and strong fanbases, Kpop industry has become a commodity. The soft power of Kpop — and the corollary fashion and beauty industry — catapults the South Korean economy, racking in billions of dollars back into the country, especially with the success of the global acts like BTS and BlackPink. Suddenly, everyone wants a bit of Kpop. The western media were scurrying to appeal and sign on with Kpop acts such as BTS, BlackPink, Monster X, Ateez, TXT and SuperM to name a few. 2019 saw Kpop acts appear in many American TV shows and music festivals, as well as performing concerts in many cities. In all, it is safe to say that Kpop has taken ground in America.

To begin, 2019 is a year of BTS. A year ago I also said 2018 was the year of BTS. I told my friend that BTS has such an amazing year in 2018. To that, my friend replied: BTS hasn’t even reached their peak yet. I was a little skeptical back then. How much bigger would they get? Oh boy I was wrong. 2019 is a huge year for BTS — and even huge might be an understatement. For those who are still unaware, they are the biggest boyband in the world right now. A short for Bangtan Sonyeondan or literally Bulletproof Boyscouts, BTS broke many records and took home countless of awards this year with the release of Map of the Soul: Persona. The album takes inspiration from Jung’s thesis in psychology of the same name: Map of the Soul. Following Persona, fans are expecting that Shadow and Ego could be the next releases. For the first time since the Beatles, they had three number one album in Billboard 200 within a year. This year, the septet completed their world stadium tour and sold millions of seats, with historic performance in Wembley London and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. However, for me, it is the performance for the MMA stage that left strong impression, especially so the solo performances.

Moreover, their single Boy-with-Luv, a collaboration with Halsey, is named the song of the year in Korean year end music awards, broke the Youtube records, and last but not least loved by many. Boy-with-Luv (Korean name:  A Poem for Small Things) is a catchy pop-song with bubbly and cheerful tones complementing the visuals.The B-side tracks also shine with Mikrokosmos being the feel-good song and Make it Right, composed by Ed Sheeran, as your mainstream chill-pop song. Home is my personal favourite with its jazz and R&B textures, followed by Jamais Vu for its interesting musicality. The album ends with Dionysus, a hard-hitting hip-hop of old school Bangtan. 

If the Kpop boy group is dominated by BTS, one could said BlackPink is the counterpart for the girl group. BlackPink released its most anticipated comeback yet with Kill This Love which top many charts. Kill This Love was briefly named the most viewed MV in YouTube, only to be sidelined by BTS’ Boy-with-Luv just a week after. Kill This Love is a marching-band style hip hop song that is a typical of BlackPink hard-banging repertoire. This comeback pulled through YG amidst the scandals embroiling their senior group Big Bang and YG’s executives. Some might even call BlackPink as a saviour for YG. However, fans lamented for the lack of supports for BlackPink, arguably the sole powerhouse of YG right now, with Kill This Love remains but another mini album. To date, BlackPink, a three-year old group has not released a full album yet. In this album, Don’t Know What To Do is my personal favourite, followed by Kick It and Ddu Du Ddu Du remix. Admittedly, Ddu Du Ddu Du was the most successful BlackPink release ever, with the MV crossing the 1B stream in YouTube this year. BlackPink too went for a successful world tour and was featured in Coachella this year.

Now that we have cleared the big acts of 2019, let us sails through the rest of the Kpop acts. Older and senior groups like EXO and Super Junior made comebacks this year as well with Obsession and Super Clap respectively. With the members starting military services, remaining active EXO members such as Baekhyun and Chen releasing solo songs and Chanyeol and Sehun as duo. In addition to individual EXO members having busy schedule, it is no wonder and expected that we will only getting only one comeback each year. The following year we may expect more solo activities or subunits as well, especially with more members serving the military. Meanwhile, Super Junior is finally coming back as a full group, with Ryeowook and Kyuhyun ending their military service. 

It is worth mentioning that Seventeen, another rising star in Kpop is having a big year in 2019 with three releases, Home, Hit and Fear. Of those, Home catapults Seventeen to greater height earlier in the year. In my opinion, Home appeals to larger audience, while Hit is a banger and Fear just okay. Seventeen, known for their amazing vocals and dance synchronisation, is going for world tour in 2020. We can expect big thing from Seventeen. Meanwhile, MonstaX has a bumpy year in 2019. Embroiled with controversies, MonstaX saw Wonho leaving the group in the second half of the year, shocking fans both in Korea and internationally. This was a major setback given 2018 had been a big year for MonstaX. They were featured in many American shows as well as making cameo in Bare Bears series. We can only hope Wonho and the rest of MonstaX members are are coping well through this unfortunate incident. Alligator and Follow were two major releases from MonstaX this year. Both are arguably typical MonstaX sounds. Other acts like Got7, Nuest, Winner, NCT also make comebacks, but are lacking the hypes compared to Seventeen and MonstaX. Perhaps, NCT 127 who are riding into their popularity in America is worth a special mention. However, Superhuman isn’t as powerful as Regular or Simon Says. NCT dream meanwhile, cameback with Boom Boom, which surprised me with catchy chorus.

In the girl group scenes, Twice has a good year as well. I mean when will Twice not have a good year right? This nation-loved girl group has two major releases with Fancy and Feel Special. Fancy is another Twice-ish song, loved by many and doing well in charts, but pales against Boy-with-Luv and internationally against Kill This Love. In fact, all these songs were released back to back. 2019 is indeed a year fandom war. Besides BlackPink and Twice, Red Velvet made three comebacks with Zimzalabim, Umpah Umpah and Psycho. The first two were the ‘Red’ sound while Psycho ‘Velvet’. To be honest, Psycho trumps them all. Befitting the name, the soft yet piercing high pitch sound is the unique signature of this song. It’s new and fresh. Similar concept to Peek-a-Boo and Bad Boy, Psycho is a must-listen. Unfortunately, Wendy, one of the members suffered injury during the year end music festival and I wish for a swift recovery for her.

Mamamoo was another big girl group that dominated 2019. Riding on the rising popularity in 2018 with their four seasons’ albums, Mamamoo had a comeback with Gogobebe and Hip. Both songs earned high spots in Korean major charts. One of the members, Hwasa also had a successful solo career with Twit, a catchy song laced with flute textures. Other acts such as GFriend, AOA and APink also made comebacks among others. APink, being a senior group among the rest, is worth mentioning for their comeback %%. If you haven’t listen to it, please do. %% was definitely a good song to start 2019.

In the rookie scene, Tomorrow by Together, the new Bighit boy group and the junior group to BTS had an amazing year with two major releases, Crown (Korean: One Day Horns Grew Out of my Head) being the debut song and Run Away (Korean: I Will Wait for You At Platform 9 3/4), their first comeback. Crown is the fun and bubbly pop song with Run Away delivering emo-rock style. We give a round of applaud to TXT (the short form — Bighit with its naming sense) for fresh sounds, setting them apart from the senior group BTS. ITZY, the new JYP girl group also had successful debut year. If TXT is called global Global Super Rookie, ITZY is the Monster Rookie for stellar performance in Korean charts and abroad especially wth Dalla Dalla — though not my kind of sound. One special mention is Oneus with Lit, a banger with Korean inspired sound — think of BTS’ Idol. 

The budding acts like Ateez and (G)Idle both have two comebacks this year. The former with Wave, a tropical house sound and Wonderland, a marching band-inspired sound, while the latter, continuing the Latin vibes with Senorita and Lion. Everglow also had successful comeback with releases such as Bon Bon Chocolat and Adios. Both are good catchy summer songs, with Adios being another marching band-inspired sound. It seems that 2020 will see the trend shift to this style of music. Meanwhile, Pentagon made a comeback with Humph!. This was the first comeback after EDawn left the group earlier. Humph! continues to deliver the signature sound of Pentagon, with its minimal layers of instruments.

The solo scene is dominated by Chung Ha, with successful releases such as Gotta Go at the start of the year and Snapping the second half. Chung Ha overshadowed Sunmi, who made a comeback with Lalalay. Lalalay is unique for its retro high-pitch eastern inspired instrumental sound. Big acts like IU and Taeyeon also made huge comebacks this year. IU’s Love Poem and Blueming performed well in charts as usual. Taeyeon had two releases, one at the start of the year with Four Seasons and one at the end of the year with Spark. Both songs did well. In the R&B scene, Heize released We Don’t Talk Together, composed by BTS’ Suga. The song is laden thick with emotions coupled with melancholic instrumental and visual. It seems that females dominated the solo scene, even in the OSTs scenes, with songs from Hotel del Luna blocking the charts. Of which, Heize’s Can You See My Heart?, Taeyeon’s A Poem About You and Paul Kim’s Goodbye are my personal favourites. Correction, Paul Kim is perhaps the only male act worth mentioning here who had a successful year with Me after You, Goodbye and Every Day Every Moment (a 2018’s release!).

In the duo scene, Bolbbagan4 and AKMU had an amazing 2019. Being digital Monster, Bolbbagan4’s releases are loved by Koreans. This year, the duo cameback with Workaholic. Meanwhile, AKMU is finally making a comeback after Lee Chan Hyuk’s release from military service with How Can I Love the Heartbreak, You Are the One I Love. Both songs earned them Perfect-All-Kill (PAK) in Korean charts (after the new system). The other PAK worth mentioning are IU’s Love Poem and Blueming as well as BTS’ Boy-with-Luv — the only PAK with the old system, arguably harder to achieve. Congratulation to all winners.

The band scene saw the rise of Jannabi, the indie band with retro sound. For Lovers Who Hesitate is an ode to the nineties, with its warm and tender retro sound. It’s also worth mentioning that the vocalist of Jannabi has charming and swoon-worthy vocals. Although the band faced some bumpy road that ended up with one member leaving the team, Jannabi is an act to watch for. N-Flying also had a successful start of 2019 with Rooftop. Originally the song didn’t do well in the chart but slowly rising and top the rank eventually, making them a rising newcomer in this industry. That leaves us with mature group like Day6 who has had stable releases over the years. This year Day6 releases Sweet Chaos, an alternative-rock bop.

While 2019 was a good year for many acts, 2019 also saw the rear side of Kpop. I won’t go through them in detail but it’s good to reflect on these series of events and hopefully do better in the next decade. To begin, 2019 is marred by the Burning Sun prostitution and drugs scandal that led to Seungri quitting Big Bang and Yang Hyun Suk leaving YG. Following this, the Jung Joon Young’s scandal on the sharing of explicit content in KakaoTalk, a Korean messaging platform, caused many acts to retire from the entertainment industry and brought others into the spotlight. The floodgate didn’t just stop there, B.I., the leader of iKon was also reported to have purchased drugs some years ago. B.I. left iKon, who had a successful 2018. The end of the year, we also learnt that the Produce 101 series were rigged with briberies and vote manipulations. The producers reportedly picked the final line-ups prior to nation-producers’ final voting counts. That is why also X1 and IZ-one had tough year in 2019, despite both of them having good releases prior to the exposé. I wonder how their future will look like? Lastly, Park Kyung exposed some artists for suspicion of sajaegi, or chart manipulation, that sparked a nationwide discussion. In fact, the issue of sajaegi had been raised up multiple times in the recent years but seemed to have blown-up more this year, with many artists stand in solidarity against sajaegi and fairer system. 

Before we end, allow us too a moment of silence. 2019 saw the passing of fx’s Sulli and Kara’s Hara, victims of malicious commenters and haters. It seems we didn’t learn from the passing of Jonghyun two years ago. While we are deeply mourning for the loss, I hope they are now in better place, happy and resting in peace.

In short, 2019 is indeed the best year of Kpop — and the worst at the same time. However, as previously said by Jang Geu Rae of Misaeng: when a project fails, it means we never planned properly, but we shouldn’t throw away the lessons from this failed project, we should learn from the setbacks and plan for better future. Echoing RM’s speech in Golden Disk Awards, we hope that Kpop artists will continue to work hard, produce good musics and be rewarded fairly. Let us hope for better Kpop scene in the new decade.

Happy New Year.

[hazyheel]

NJPW Best of the Super Juniors 2019 Day 9 Review

First match of the night was SHO vs Tiger Mask. The two were very reserved in the beginning of the match, keeping the fight on the mat. Tiger Mask showed his experience edge with some inventive counters and submissions. Tiger Mask worked over the arm quite a bit, and delivered some stiff kicks to the midsection. Sho responded with his own attack on the arm, but obviously he injured it faster because of his strength advantage. Tiger Mask absolutely destroyed Sho with a kick to the head, to the point that Sho couldn’t capitalize on a shock arrow. However, Sho fought back into it with a bunch of brutal lariats and then another Shock arrow for the win. Sho: 6, Tiger Mask: 4

Grade: B-. I liked this a lot in the beginning, but it fell apart a bit towards the end. Tiger Mask seemed a bit gassed, and he didn’t really have as much snap on his moves after that. I think his matches should stay more on the mat, because that is where he is best. His strikes devolve quickly. However, this was still a good match, and I’m glad Sho won.

Next up was Will Ospreay vs Ren Narita. Narita knew that Ospreay needed a lot of space to get his offense going and tried to stay on him, but got frustrated too quickly and lost control. At one point, Narita caught Ospreay out of a springboard with an awesome German suplex for a near fall. He also hit a release German on the outside, and nearly got the win off of a countout. Narita then countered an Os cutter into a sharpshooter, and he came shockingly close to the win. Narita was going out of his mind, even countering the storm breaker into a backslide. Ospreay still got the win with an os cutter, but only by the skin of his teeth.

Grade: B+. Narita did super well here, and was an awesome underdog. Those German suplexes were awesome, and it seemed like Ospreay was going to tap out to the sharpshooter. Ospreay’s selling was super good, and I was almost believing. I like this a lot, and I still think Narita can do better.

And then we had Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs Marty Scurll. Right out of the gate they both threatened to smack each other with their weapons, Scurll with the umbrella and Kanemaru with the whisky. Scurll was using a lot of dirty tricks during this match, such as attacking Kanemaru while he was getting in the ring. They brawled in the crowd a bit, right in Kanemaru’s wheelhouse, and he tried to get Scurll counted out. It worked against him though, as Brody King got in his way and they both nearly lost. Kanemaru gave the ref a bump, and got a tornado DDT for a visual pin. He then went for the whiskey spit, but Scurll blocked it with the Umbrella. They then switched weapons, and as the ref confiscated them, Scurll spit the whiskey in Kanemaru’s face and hit Black Plague for the win. Scurll: 6, Kanemaru: 4.

Grade: B. I love cheater vs cheater stuff. Kanemaru got a taste of his own medicine. Scurll is one of the most entertaining part of the tournament because of his charisma, and Kanemaru is awesome to watch lose. This match did it all for me.

Into DOUKI vs Robbie Eagles, Douki tried to get a jump start, but Eagles was ready and fought back. They soon spilled to the outside for some brawling with a chair, which split him open. Eagles stuck to his gameplan of going for the knee, while Douki continued to try his “hit until they fall” strategy. The clash of styles here was very evident, being a brawling vs flying match. Eagles was able to finally get the win with a 450 to the leg and a Ron Miller special. Eagles: 8, DOUKI: 2.

Grade: C+. Eagles sold super duper well during this match, so props to him. I don’t think that they blended well, and I am really losing steam on Douki. I like him in theory, but he hasn’t impressed me since his match against Bandido. I won’t need to watch him after the tournament, so that’s nice, but I thought Eagles did well here. He sold his ass off, and even pulled a blade job, but still couldn’t get Douki over in any meaningful way.

Next up was Shingo Takagi vs TAKA Michinoku. TAKA worked some dirty tricks right from the start, going for the eyes and the beard as they fought. He worked over Takagi’s right arm after he dodged a lariat and it slammed into the post. He transitioned right into assaulting the knee that had been bothering him throughout the tournament. Taka attacked Shingo in the crowd, with chairs and a cross face, and he barely beat the count, only to face an onslaught of offense in the ring. At some point in the match, probably during a moonsault to the outside, it looked like Taka hurt his leg, but I don’t know how serious it is. Even when Takagi was fighting back, TAKA was able to reverse into a cross face, which was his gameplan for the match. However, it only took one move for Takagi to get the win, as he reversed a knee strike into last of the Dragons for the win. Takagi: 12, TAKA: 0.

Grade: B. TAKA is having a very underrated tournament. I thought he was putting on very good matches, putting a lot of guys over, and telling a good story of desperate offense. He broke down Takagi in a fast and strong manner, and nearly got the win. He kept Takagi on the back foot for most of the match, but just barely lost. I hope TAKA gets a win at some point, because he is too much of a legend to buster out at 0. Also, Takagi did well.

Into Bandido vs Ryusuke Taguchi. The two started with the double fist bump, and went into some paced technical wrestling. This was quite the comedy match, with Taguchi forcing Bandido to run the ropes until he fell down. He challenged Taguchi to do the same, but drilled him with a superkick right at the start. At one point, Bandido hit a sunset flip powerbomb, but picked up Taguchi to powerbomb his ass into the post, followed by a somersault senton through the ropes. Bandido continued to counter Taguchi’s hip attacks with atomic drops, really destroying the ass. Bandido kinda tried to get a little cheeky with a few hip attacks, but Taguchi picked the ankle for the ankle lock, but Bandido was able to fight out of it. Bandido hit the go to sleep, right into the 21 plex, that he botched, for the win. Bandido: 6, Taguchi: 8.

Grade: B. Not as good as I thought it would be. They had the chemistry, but couldn’t really decide if this should be a comedy or a serious match. Not to mention the 21 plex botch, which he seemed very upset about. But it was still a fun match with a lot of funny and interesting spots. I loved the war of hip attacks in particular.

Then we had Jonathan Gresham vs Taiji Ishimori. Ishimori was super pissed about the loss last week, and spit on Gresham before the match. Gresham picked the leg and tried to spit on him back, but Ishimori dodged it, only to land facedown on it to avoid Gresham while running the ropes. Gresham was really feeling himself during this match, hitting flying knee strikes and drop kicks. At one point, Ishimori countered a rollup into a yes lock, but Gresham fought out. Gresham worked over the arm, and was able to lock in his own octopus hold, but Ishimori countered but just falling on his back. He followed up with a massive shotgun dropkick, double knees and a bloody cross for the win. Ishimori: 10, Gresham: 6.

Grade: B+. Good match here. They really worked to keep each other down, and Ishimori’s anger at his loss was very much a factor here. I liked how Gresham was really excited after his wins, as it shows his personality a lot. A fun match with a couple of great talents.

Next up was YOH vs BUSHI. These two are huge rivals in the junior tag division, and it showed, as Bushi attacked before the bell with a dropkick and a suicide dive that just about wiped out someone in the crowd. Bushi whipped him with his belt and did everything he could to keep the advantage. Yoh went for the leg of Bushi, both to slow him down and soften him up for the calf crusher. The two really beat the hell out of each other with slaps and ensiguris, but Bushi got the win with several lung blowers, followed by the MX for the win. Bushi: 6, Yoh: 6.

Grade: B+. These guys are really good together, and this match proves it. They beat each other down in a very intense way, and it was super fun to see. I love Bushi hitting his stride just as he is out of the tournament. Also, Los Ingobernables de Japon both got wins over Roppongi 3k, so they deserve another title shot if the G1 doesn’t work out for Takagi. I liked this a lot.

A battle of CMLL, Dragon Lee took on Titan. Red shoes actually wore a mask for this match, which was kinda funny, but he took it off and got booed. The match began with not just a handshake, but a hug. They started out with a mirror spot, each doing lots of moves in quick succession. Dragon Lee totally lit up Titan with an overhand chop, and Titan responded with his suicide lariat, only for Lee to respond with a ridiculous dropkick, and then a low dropkick from Titan. At one point, the two sat facing each other, shook hands and traded crazy elbows back and forth. At one point, Titan went for a hurricanrana off the top, but Lee caught his legs and nailed a double stomp in the corner. There was an unbelievable sequence where Lee hit a snap German followed by a knee lift, Titan hit a destroyer, but Lee followed up with a running knee strike. In the finish, Lee destroyed his friend with knees, before hitting Desnucadora. Lee: 8, Titan: 4

Grade: A-. This was the definition of flippy. These guys did so many high flying moves that it was tough to keep track of. Between the respect during the match and the hard hits, this was a really fun match. I like when the competitors respect each other almost as much as when they don’t. Really good match.

Our main event was Rocky Romero vs El Phantasmo. Two more people who hate each other. As Rocky entered the ring, Phantasmo stole his hat and threw it in the crowd, which prompted Rocky to start early with a dropkick and suicide dive. At one point, Phantasmo cleated a whole section of chairs just to start throwing them. The two began fighting in the crowd. And I mean literally in the stands, like on the chairs. Phantasmo went for a moonsault off of an entrance, but Rocky snuck away and hit a flying knee off of it instead. Phantasmo worked on Rocky’s leg, while Rocky went for the arm. Phantasmo tried to disrespect Rocky with slaps, infuriating him enough to fight back, only for Phantasmo to brutally dropkick the leg. The crowd was firmly behind Rocky during the match, popping especially loud when Rocky pushed him off the top while he was walking the ropes. On the outside, Phantasmo tried to give Rocky a CR2 on the exposed floor, but Rocky countered and brutally attacked him on the outside, ending in a senton off the top to the floor. They cheered like crazy when he beat the living crap out of Phantasmo’s arm. Rocky teased the crotch stop that Phantasmo normally does, but chose not to do it, instead delivering several back kicks to the face in tree of woe. Rocky hit an awesome tornado DDT into falcon arrow into an armbar, only for Phantasmo to reverse it. Rocky then reversed that into a triangle, and ELP powerbombed him out of it. At one point, Rocky hit a super sliced bread for a near fall, reversing the lockout into an armbar. At one point, Phantasmo was so desperate that he threw Rocky into the crowd and wanted a countout. Rocky made it back in, narrowly avoided a frog splash, allowing rocky to hit several clothesline’s and sliced bread. Phantasmo kicked out and Rocky landed on Red Shoes. While Red Shoes was out, Rocky blocked a low blow and then tapped Phantasmo out, only for ELP to hit the low blow anyway for a near fall. He then hit a huge splash in Rocky for a near fall, and once again Red Shoes was hit. Phantasmo used his Cruiserweight championship as a weapon, but Rocky ducked it, and then pretended he got hit. In the confusion, Rocky rolled him up for a near fall, then a backslide for a near fall. Rocky then countered CR2 into a spike rana for a near fall. At the 2 minute call, Rocky Locked in an armbar for the submission victory, and I actually shouted in excitement. Rocky: 4, Phantasmo: 10. After the match, Roppongi 3k all celebrated together.

Grade: A. The match started a bit slow, but by the end I was totally buying into everything. Phantasmo is such a good dickhead that I needed to see him lose, and Rocky was the perfect babyface to do it. They killed every emotion from the crowd and put on a hell of a show. This was an awesome story from beginning to end, and the match of the night.

Overall Grade: B+.

Pros: Ospreay vs. Narita; Scurll vs. Kanemaru; Taka vs. Takagi; Bandido vs. Taguchi; Gresham vs. Ishimori; Yoh vs. Bushi; Titan vs. Lee; main event

Cons: 21 plex botch

Losses: SHO, Marty Scurll, Jonathan Gresham, Tiger Mask, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, DOUKI, Titan

[academla]

how many courses did u take per sem for psych? ik it varies person to person but what would u recommend if u could?

Okay, so I figured that the best way to do it would just be to show you the classes I’ve taken thus far! I don’t have my updated official transcript yet so I just used a screenshot from my school portal for spring 2019. Hopefully it will help you get a feel for what type of classes and courseload you might be looking at as a psych major. Bear in mind that I can only speak for my school and you will be limited by your degree requirements, so what classes you end up taking will be mostly up to your advisor and your specific university requirements.

I do hope seeing that I’ve only taken 4 classes some semesters will make you see that you don’t have to take 5-6 classes and be super stressed to be on time with your degree, though! Online classes are a great option if you’re concerned about fitting your credits/requirements in but feel overwhelmed by attending 5-6 classes every week. They can be more expensive, but if you do community college first, you’ll save lots. Taking online classes enabled me to take 5 classes a semester during my sophomore year, which got a lot of credits out of the way (and I wouldn’t have been able to do that if I’d had to take 5 classes on campus as well as work two part-time jobs). 

This is going to be long considering I haven’t even gotten to my course history yet lol so I put a read more for everybody’s sake!

Okay, so your first year is typically going to be focused on gen eds. I got my English, language, and math requirements out of the way. You’ll obviously take intro your first semester, and I opted to take social psych second semester, but abnormal would probably be the natural sequence. I’m in the honors program so I also have honors-specific requirements (both English classes and my Ethics & Society seminar were honors courses, and I have to take two honors classes at my university as well as my honors thesis).

My second year, which was the last one before getting my Associates degree in psychology, was also spent completing my gen eds, but I took two psychology classes each semester instead of just one. The most common ones to take during the first half of your degree are intro, abnormal, social, child, and personality psych. Research methods and statistics are also two major requirements, pretty much everywhere as far as I know. I took statistics first semester (though many people don’t take it til their second year) and research methods my last semester before getting my first degree. Note: both of my history classes as well as my child psych class were online, which is possibly the only reason I could actually handle 5 classes at a time. There’s no way I could’ve taken 5 classes on campus!

When I transferred, all of the classes I’d taken at community college transferred over and I was able to slide right in as a junior without having to make up any classes. By that point, your remaining requirements will pretty much be psych-specific and you will get to choose electives. Typically, you’ll still have to take a neuroscience-type class and a cognitive science class. My PSYCH 392 class (junior year writing) is also a psychology-specific requirement. Second semester, I took two electives (the PSYCH 391s), a required cognitive psych class (learn & think), and since I fulfilled my major requirements for the most part and am just racking up credits, I opted for a 4-credit sociology class. The Prac-Research that you see is also from working at a child development lab, which you can also get credit for so that’s pretty cool!

Anyway, I hope that was at least minorly helpful. Basically, talk to your advisors constantly, if you ever have a question, if you’re ever concerned, etc. I replicated my own spreadsheet because the degree audit at my university was a lot more confusing than the one at community college, but use your student portal! If it’s confusing, reach out to your advisor! As long as you are proactive, keep on track, and ask questions as soon as they come up, you’ll definitely take whatever classes you need to take.

One last note for all majors: do your research on professors. Profs make or break the class. My friends have erred many times taking a class without reading reviews beforehand, and then going back after and finding out that the professor had like a 2.0 on RateMyProfessors. I always read reviews (but make sure they’re recent and preferably the class you’re considering) and if two course options seem good, I’ll always go for whichever has the best professor. And there’s no info on the professor, just go with the later class ;)

[interludepress]

Pre-Sale Now Open: HOW TO BE REMY CAMERON Audiobook

Heard a Good Book Lately? Pre-Sale for HOW TO BE REMY CAMERON Includes Bundle Deal

Everyone on campus knows Remy Cameron. He's the out-and-proud, super-likable guy who friends, faculty, and fellow students alike admire for his cheerful confidence. The only person who isn't entirely sure about Remy Cameron is Remy himself. Under pressure to write an A+ essay defining who he is and who he wants to be, Remy embarks on an emotional journey toward reconciling the outward labels people attach to him with the real Remy Cameron within.

From the author of the bestselling novels Running With Lions and The Summer of Everything, a story about overcoming the labels that try to define our lives.

HOW TO BE REMY CAMERON

Release Date: September 21, 2021

Price: $19.99

Running Times: 9 hours, 38 minutes

ISBN: 978-1-951954-17-8

Narrated by Silas Whitaker

Cover art by C.B. Messer

Pre-Sale Bundle:

Pre-order the audiobook of HOW TO BE REMY CAMERON from the IP Web Store, and get 30% off the print or ebook edition with code REMY DEAL.

Also available from Audible, Apple, Audiobooks.com, B&N, Google Play, Kobo, Libro.FM and more!

About the Author

Julian Winters is a best-selling and award-winning author of contemporary young adult fiction. His novels Running with Lions, How to Be Remy Cameron, and The Summer of Everything (Duet, 2018, 2019 and 2020 respectively), received accolades for their positive depictions of diverse, relatable characters. Running with Lions is the recipient of an IBPA Benjamin Franklin Gold Award. How to Be Remy Cameron and The Summer of Everything were named Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selections and received a numerous starred reviews. A former management trainer, Julian currently lives outside of Atlanta where he can be found reading, being a self-proclaimed comic book geek, or watching the only two sports he can follow—volleyball and soccer. His next novel is Right Where I Left You from Viking Children’s/Penguin in 2022. He was also a contributing author to Black Boy Joy (Delacorte, 2021), a NY Times #1 bestselling middle grade anthology.

About the Narrator

Silas Whitaker a lifelong fan of audiobooks and brings a passion for great storytelling to every book he reads. He specializes in contemporary fiction, sci-fi and fantasy. silaswhitaker.com Twitter: @whitaker_silas

Add HOW TO BE REMY CAMERON to your Goodreads TBR here.

[bccity]

JULY 2019 BC ENTERTAINMENT SCHEDULES & REVIEW

Members may earn 3 points each (up to 6 points) for writing, by the end of July 31 KST:

A solo para of 400+ words based on their monthly schedule (does not count toward your monthly limit).

A thread of six posts (three per participant, including the starter) based on the monthly schedule.

Threads and solos do not have to take place directly during an important date listed on the schedule, but must be related to what the muse is mentioned to be doing in the paragraph explaining their schedule/the company’s schedule for the month and/or their thoughts on the mentioned activities or lack thereof.

These schedules may be updated throughout the month if new information needs to be added.

Overall Company

BC artists are again encouraged to attend WISH’s concerts again this month, especially once news regarding Goeun’s case drops. The success of WISH’s concerts will be one of BC”s two main media play defenses. Thankfully, the news won’t lead to too big of a stock drop like the initial lawsuit news did, but all idols under BC are still forbidden to publicly speak about the case to the press or fans.

Post-July 8 update: All idols are still forbidden to talk about the case and it seems that the higher-ups that know more about what’s going on have been told not to be open with people about more details as well. The general atmosphere of the company this month is a little tense, with management on high alert to keep all of their charges out of trouble. Any questions raised about Goeun will be dismissed and those questioning will be told to focus on their own schedules instead of other people’s business.

Important dates:

N/A

BC Soloist 1

Now that her debut is imminent, she has a packed schedule this month. The album has already been fully recorded and choreographed, but the music video still needs filmed. She’ll also make a special surprise appearance on an episode of Weekly Idol with senior soloists that will air a week before her debut to introduce her to the public.

Important dates:

July 8: Release of pre-debut single “Week”.

July 15: Why Don’t You Know MV filming.

July 16: Special appearance on Weekly Idol Soloist Special filming (also appearing: Dimensions Soloist 1 and Gold Star Soloist 3, to air July 24).

July 31: Release of “Why Don’t You Know” & Hands on Me mini album/debut showcase, promotions continue until August 31.

Decipher

Along with the company’s two other boy groups, Decipher is being sent off to KCON NY this month. Decipher is a bit less popular than their two junior groups overseas, but they still have a number of fans that will be attending just for them. The week before KCON will be packed with group and individual English lessons packed in to provide the members with, at the very least, memorized lines to recite. They’ll have a hi-touch, a meet and greet, and participate in the second concert day.

Important dates:

July 7: Performance at KCON NY at Madison Square Garden in New York, NY, USA (also performing: 7ROPHY, Knight, & CHARM).

              ↳ Decipher R & V

After the meeting last month with Decipher V, the members will be called into concept meetings this month and record the single for their comeback at the end of the month. It’s a song that had originally been in consideration for a full group comeback but has been repurposed for the unit after management deemed it more fit for them after deciding Decipher V should make a return.

Important dates:

N/A

BEE

After music show promotions end on the fourth, they get the news from the manager that they’ve been gifted almost two weeks of vacation time from the 6th to the 18th thanks to their successful comebacks since re-signing their contracts. The members are free to leave Seoul or the country as long as they remain on their best behavior. Once they come back from vacation, they’ll be met with the news of a new brand deal with hair care brand Mise En Scene, which they’re scheduled to film a CF for straight away. At the end of the month, they’ll hold a fan sign for the brand deal.

Important dates:

July 4: End of music show promotions.

July 19: Mise En Scene CF filming.

July 28: Mise En Scene fan sign in Jung, Seoul.

Knight

Management is confident that this comeback falls comfortably into Knight’s image and artistic niche, but the results after the mini-album drops might say otherwise. It could be the numerous albums BC has made Knight pump out every year for the last few years catching up to them with the fan base, poor marketing, a song a bit too dark for the season, or the fierce competition from groups like Femme Fatale and Fuse for digital points and music show wins hurting their chances with casual fans, but this comeback under performs much more noticeably than the last in physical sales, digital charting, and music show wins. They’re still clearly going to end the year in the top three selling groups of the year physically as always, but with BC more concerned with building up CHARM, it becomes obvious BC doesn’t plan to have them come back again until next year and they’ll be relied on for second half of the year concert profits instead.

Important dates:

July 6: Performance at SBS Super Concert at AsiaWorld-Expo in Hong Kong (also performing: CHARM).

July 7: Performance at KCON NY at Madison Square Garden in New York, NY, USA (also performing: 7ROPHY, CHARM, & Decipher).

July 9: Release of “Now or Never” & Sensuous mini album showcase, promotions continue until August 9. 

July 13: Fan sign in Yeouido, Seoul.

July 14: Fan sign in Gangnam, Seoul.

July 27: Filming of “Now or Never Suit Version” choreography video.

July 27: Performance at Boryeong Mud Festival in Boryeong.

              ↳ White Knight

No schedules for the month.

Important dates:

N/A

Lipstick

Music show promotions continue to go well though BC doesn’t have them promoting too extensively. As soon as promotions end, the members will be hopping on a plane for their Taiwan concerts, then returning to South Korea where they’ll be shooting for a summer-themed photo book and behind the scenes video on Jeju Island that will be released near the end of summer for fans (admin note: if you want to reference exact outfits/concepts/photo pairings, you may use the respective AOA line distribution with the maknae aligning with Choa since Chanmi is absent from the shoot). After that, they’ve got one last tour stop for the month in Malaysia. They’re asked to keep attending pole dancing classes in preparation for their Japanese music video as well and, in general, avoid putting themselves too much in the public eye this month following the news on Goeun’s case.

Important dates:

July 19: End of music show promotions.

July 20: Prima Donna tour concert at National Taiwan University Sports Center in Taipei, Taiwan.

July 21: Prima Donna tour concert at National Taiwan University Sports Center in Taipei, Taiwan.

July 23: Lipstick Hot Summer photo book shooting day one in Jeju Island.

July 24: Lipstick Hot Summer photo book shooting day two in Jeju Island.

July 25: Lipstick Hot Summer photo book shooting day three in Jeju Island.

July 27: Prima Donna tour concert at Stadium Negara in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

              ↳ Lip Gloss

No schedules.

CHARM

This month, the members will only be in Seoul for around a total of two weeks, from July 5-6, 9-12, and 18-25. The rest of the time, they’ll either be doing their Japanese concert and fan meeting tour or performing at the SBS Super Concert or KCON NY. This means English lessons the first week of the month and expectations to be studying Japanese if needed the rest of the time. Time when they are in Seoul will be spent learning and recording for their Japanese single album Happy Ending and in practice learning the choreography for it so the music video can be filmed and released next month.

Important dates:

July 2: CHARM 2019 Japan Tour ‘Haru’ concert at Marine Messe Fukuoka in Fukuoka, Japan.

July 3: CHARM 2019 Japan Tour ‘Haru’ concert at Marine Messe Fukuoka in Fukuoka, Japan.

July 6: Performance at SBS Super Concert in Hong Kong at AsiaWorld-Expo in Hong Kong (also performing: Knight).

July 7: Performance at KCON NY at Madison Square Garden in New York, NY, USA (also performing: 7ROPHY, Knight, & Decipher).

July 13: CHARM 2019 Japan Tour ‘Haru’ concert at Ecopa Arena in Shizuoka, Japan.

July 14: CHARM 2019 Japan Tour ‘Haru’ concert at Ecopa Arena in Shizuoka, Japan.

July 16: CHARM 2019 Japan Tour ‘Haru’ concert at Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.

July 17: CHARM 2019 Japan Tour ‘Haru’ concert at Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.

July 26: CHARM 2019 Japan Tour ‘Haru’ concert at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan.

July 27: CHARM 2019 Japan Tour ‘Haru’ concert at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan.

July 28: CHARM 2019 Japan Tour ‘Haru’ concert at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan.

July 29: CHARM Japan Fanmeeting - ‘Hana’ at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan.

July 30: CHARM Japan Fanmeeting - ‘Hana’ at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan.

WISH

The stricter diets and curfews and additional practice time don’t let up this month, but their public schedules do at least. Their tour begins this month with dates in Seoul and Bangkok. The rest of the time, they’re scheduled to film a Pocari Sweat CF and record for their Japanese releases for next month. The double title tracks for said Japanese comeback will be filmed at the end of the month with contrasting concepts, one more typical bright pop WISH and one more in the vein of their latest Korean comeback.

Important dates:

July 6: WISHlights Tour concert at KSPO Dome in Seoul, South Korea.

July 7: WISHlights Tour concert at KSPO Dome in Seoul, South Korea.

July 11: Pocari Sweat CF filming.

July 25: Happy Happy MV filming.

July 27: WISHlights Tour concert at Impact Arena in Bangkok, Thailand. 

July 31: Breakthrough MV filming.

[puroresu-musings]

NJPW SUPER J CUP 2019 Review

Day 1 (August 22nd, Temple Theater, Tacoma, WA)

SUPER J CUP ~ First Round

Rocky Romero vs. Soberano Jr.  ***

Clark Connors vs. TJP  ***3/4

Carístico vs. BUSHI  ***1/4

Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Jonathan Gresham  ***1/4

Robbie Eagles vs. El Phantasmo  ****1/4

YOH vs. Dragon Lee  ***1/2

SHO vs. Taiji Ishimori  ***3/4

Will Ospreay vs. Amazing Red  ****3/4

Day 2 (August 24th, Student Life Events Center, San Fransico, CA)

SUPER J CUP ~ Quarter Final Round

Carístico vs. Soberano Jr.  ***

El Phantasmo vs. TJP  ***1/2

Dragon Lee vs. Ryusuke Taguchi  ***

Will Ospreay vs. SHO  ****1/2

Day 3 (August 25th, Walter Pyramid, Long Beach, CA)

SUPER J CUP ~ Semi Final Round

Dragon Lee vs. Carístico  ***1/4

Will Ospreay vs. El Phantasmo  ****+

SUPER J CUP ~ Final: Dragon Lee vs. El Phantasmo  ****1/2

Photos.

This was a great tournament which featured an absolutely tremendous main event on all three nights, and there wasn’t a match that was anywhere below being good. However, lets get the negatives out of the way now; the presentation of these shows (from a home viewing perspective) was atrocious. The camera work was sub-indy levels, with nauseatingly jerky movements, and even missing some key spots, and some of the lighting wasn’t much better. It all lead to this whole tournament being brought down a bit for me. The second night in particular suffers as its a single hard-cam show, which is focussed soley on the ring, essentially with just the turnbuckles on either side in frame. This means that whenever someone dives out of the ring, or if the action ends up outside the ring, and with this being the J Cup, that essentially means every match, they disappear into the void and all we can see is an empty ring and a crowd popping for unseen spots. This effects the commentary too as whenever the action spills outside, Kevin Kelly for example, on the English feed, has no idea whats happening, so there’s just dead air until they get back inside. Also, the camera is placed in such a way that if someone goes on the top rope, their head and shoulders vanishes out of sight too. This was very frustrating as it really hurts some of the action, a lot of which was probably way better than we got to see here, and I feel somewhat unfair rating a lot of the matches on this night, as you do miss quite a bit. I know that these are essentially fancy house shows, but this is pretty unforgivably shoddy production from a mainstream promotion. Anyway, these gripes aside, onto the action. In notable happenings from the three nights:

The Tacoma show saw former LA Dojo Young Lion TJP very unsurprinsingly roll over current LA Dojo Young Lion Clark Connors in a surprisingly great little match, that ended up being amongst the best of the tourney. The dastardly ELP was victorious over Robbie Eagles in an excellent 12 minute match. The was the second best outing of the first round, and both guys looked great. Phantasmo won after hitting a punch straight to the dick, followed by a small package. The finish was flat given all that came before it, but it playedinto the bigger story they were telling with Phantasmo. Dragon Lee’s victory of YOH, and the latters tag partner SHO’s win over Taiji Ishimori were both really good indeed, with SHO/Ishimori being the better of the two. Lee put YOH away with Desnucadora, and SHO advanced with Shock Arrow. On the plus side, Ishimori looked much better than he has in a while since injuring himself in the BOSJ. And in the final first round outing, Will Ospreay advanced over one of his childhood heroes, Amazing Red, in a fantastic high flying outing, that was the best match of the Cup, and the best match I’ve ever seen Red in. He looked like a guy in his prime out there, and it was like it was 2003 again. They went 28:19, which it felt half of, and the worked incredibly well, with Ospreay doing everything in his power to make Red’s offence look great. Of course, Ospreay went over when he put the veteran away with Storm Breaker. Will put Red over on the mic in the post-match, and thy hugged to send everyone home happy.

The second show in San Fran had the problems I mentioned above in that it just wasn’t possible to keep track of a lot of the action, so as a result it’s kind of hard rate or review them. The one exception was the Ospreay/SHO match, which was excellent. Yes, it featured the complete blind spot whenever they left the ring, but the action in the ring was exceptional. It was a hard-hitter which went 30:32, and was slightly more methodical than Ospreay’s match with Red the previous night. It was, however, a completely different kind of match to almost anything else in the tournament, so it really stood out. To the surprise of no one, Ospreay won with Storm Breaker to advance to the semis.

The final show in Walter Pyramid saw a couple of excellent contests. Dragon Lee was the first to advance to the finals after he pinned fellow CMLL superstar, Caristico, in a good Lucha outing, when he pinned Caristico with Desnucadora in 11:10. ELP moved to the finals next when pinned foe Will Ospreay with CRII after Taiji Ishimori broke up a Storm Breaker attempt, and layed the Ariel Assassin out with Bloody Cross. This was a fun grudge match, but was lkept short (11:25), undoubtedly so they could have rematch for the Junior Title down the road. It was still a ton of fun, regardless of this though. And in the finals of the 2019 Super J Cup, the dastardly Phantasmo won the sought after golden jacket, when he pinned Lee after hitting a second rope, walking reverse TKO, followed by CRII, at 25:33 of an exceptional and dramatic Tournament final. There was an amazing spot which lead to ELP bleeding heavily from the forehead after powerbombing the masked man onto, and through, the announce table, then followed up with a massive double stomp off the top, and over the guardrail and into the wreckage. Upon landing though, he slipped and hit his head off a chair in the crowd, which lead to the juice. After winning, Phantasmo disrespected Jushin Thunder Liger by kicking over the cup as he was handing it to him, then demanded the legend adorn him in the winners jacket. This disrespect brought out Ospreay, who was laid out by Ishimori again, but this time Robbie Eagles charged down to even the odds. Ospreay buried ELP on the mic, then promised to get his win back in a Junior Title Match.

NDT