I should open a Tanning Parlor: Sunshine Blogger Award 8

My dear Island Guests, I wasn’t really planning to do these so soon but than I got pretty sick and wasn’t really able to keep up with my writing and I have a busy week ahead! So In rapid succession I will fire a few Blog Tags I have left open to get ahead a bit again. STAFF posts also had a bit of delay due to circumstances so welcome to catch up week! We start with my 8th Sunshine Blogger Award.

The Rules

By now I think we all know the rules of the Sunshine Blogger Award.  Display the logo, thank the one who tagged you and provide a link to their blog. Answer their 11 questions then ask 11 questions to 11 new people. However while I will ask 11 questions in none of my Sunshine Blogger Award Posts I shall tag people! If you want to answer these questions leave a comment and I will put a tag to your blog in there.. but I think this one deserves a bit of a rest.

I was nominated by Anime Good Reads! So thanks to them for providing me with the means to actually catch up with my work! Their Blog is filled with bite sized anime goodness so do give it a glance or two!  Unlike me they seem to know how to make their post short but sweet. Now it’s time for answering some questions! Yay!

As a blogger, what is more important to you other than just writing blog posts?

Writing posts isn’t that important as a blogger either, at least not as a hobby blogger.  What is important to me at least for blogging is putting myself out there. People might not read my Isekai story or think I ramble too long about pokémon. People might just stare at their names and the pictures on those lists … but what I put out there is me. People can like that, or dislike that or they can pretend to have read that. I have seen people calling themselves bloggers who just post a synopsis about an anime and list the main characters straight from MAL or Wiki and it gets more likes than my insightful post on the emotional impact of things. I have followed a Pokémon Blog who just posts straight up links to other news sites or slightly phrase a factoid in the news differently. To me that is not blogging. Having a blog is not just writing posts.. it’s adding yourself to online content. Adding your own voice.If I see a blogger who just rehashes content from elsewhere or doesn’t add any flavour of their own .. just to get a post done quicker. I quickly unfollow them. I can read anime news on bigger sites than your blog! I am there because I want to know what YOU feel about it. That is also what I want to do on Paradise. This is me

If you were to create your own anime, then explain how the “protagonist” would look and behave like?

In the series Pinkie gets Anime Powers, I often self insert as a main character in a spin-off anime or a very important character. For example in the stories about Yu-Gi-Oh and One Piece I  make myself a main character, so there are two good examples right there. Then there is my D&D Danganronpa show that I made a post for.  In it people would be trapped in a mansion and forced to play D&D experiencing a full on deep dive if they play.. as the two realities blur.  I never really went into the main character.  She would be a gay woman, as tends to be my defacto, as I find it easier to get invested in my own writing if I go with that.
She would look very girly, but also sloppy.  Think Tomoko but then normal anime girl sized.  Blonde Hair in the house and Pink in the Isekai world.  She would be socially awkward and clumsy. Let’s be honest here! Every anime hero is written as a blank slate for the ideal hero.  Their personality is toned down so we can all relate.  Yet I think it’s fairly safe to say  that nearly all of us here have experienced social awkwardness in some shape or form. A flawed character that has trouble getting things done in the way they do..instead of being overpowered. Make a character really based on your demographic for once. not glamour them up.. most Mangaka should know how we are because most are just like us!

Any best moment or scene from an anime/movie/drama show that you would like to share with us?

Not particularly no! I have talked extensively about a particular scene with a Radio from School Live, a slew of moments from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and a certain stage theme from a video game. Since we are a fairly close circle with people coming and going a bit..but still a fairly close bunch I would hope that people by now know. I can name the favourites of a few of you. So instead I will show you something random! My good geek buddy Geek Girl Joy showed this to me in a reply to my comment on one of her posts. It allegedly is the best scene from the movie so it fits the brief.. but also fits my spirit of randomness and I got to shout out a friend!

Are you a gamer? If yes, then which types of games do you prefer to play the most?

More so than most of the people reading this yes. I am not competitive, I am not a completionist and I might not be particularly skillful but I am a big gamer. I tend to stick to (J)Rpg’s the most.  In particular the subgenre of collectable creature games. About 90% of what I play in that genre is Pokémon games, fan games or rom hacks. However currently I am playing another collectable creature game and you can expect a review on my blog very soon. I am also a big fan of the older (up until X) Final Fantasy games, with VI being my absolute favourite and Chrono Trigger being a bit ahead of that too. I am also a big fan of Tales Of games.  They are a tad predictable but very fun!  I recently also got completely hooked on the mobile game Castle Cats!  Like HOOKED …  and I wasn’t even a cat person! 

What is more important to you, sports or academics?

Is there anyone who got tagged here  that picked sports? I mean we are all geeks! Would I have to choose between the two, Academics go for a much longer way. Up to a point where I think sports is factually the wrong answer. Sports can last you until you are 30 and even then the margin of success is fairly low. At least with academics you get a diploma that can get you into some places. Sports is such an overhyped measuring  standard. .. but so are Academics.

We should not have to prove our worth by being good at something.  We are human beings regardless if we are good at anything. We hold value even if we aren’t fast, strong, clever or wise. Maybe that uneducated friend really is good at comforting you when you are down! Even if she sits at home without a diploma. That freeloader guy who just roams the world and cleans chimneys to make a buck prevents you from monoxide poisoning. A good person is not persé sporty or educated to me. They are happy! Some reach that trough sports, other trough academics others trough freedom.  Whatever route you choose is fine however. What matters isn’t how you stack up to other people! It’s about making choices that make that person in the mirror smile at you in the morning. THAT is what is really important.. I couldn’t care less about the way you get there. I respect those who create their dream world! No matter what skills.. and it depends per person on how they get their. Achievements are hollow if they don’t lead to your happy place.

Any thrilling childhood experience that you had with your friends or family, maybe an adventure or a memorable trip? If yes, then please share!

A few. I share these fairly regularly but let’s talk about the time I almost drowned.  I was a small kid and for a friend’s birthday party we all went swimming in one of those sub tropical pools. At one point we went to play tag in the rapids.  It was a fairly weak stream so it was normally easy to get out. However.. My motor skills aren’t the best and sometimes I can experience moments of great muscle weakness. This was one of the first.  As we exited the rapids all my strength left me and I got sucked back in again.  I could still do the motions but I lacked the strength to push myself out. Unfortunately everyone went on land..to have lunch and they kinda forgot about me. That happened a lot at these type of parties. I lived across the kid throwing the party so I was one of those.. must invite.. type of people not really a part of the clique.  So people usually needed a while to notice when I was gone. I was left in the woods the year before.

So minutes past and I was still stuck, my strength was now leaving me rapidly and I barely had any strength to keep above water anymore. This was like 26 years ago or so , so there weren’t as many lifeguards yet either. Normally there is a rope you can use to exit.. but I lacked the strength to hold onto that. Just as I went under water for the second time I was bumped into a man.. and I thought I was saved. I tried to yell for help but he just looked at me annoyed and pushed me away. Then I went underwater again. Besides the man.. there was no one in the rapids. There were waves in the other half of that pool so everyone went there. I struggled to keep above water, and the guy pushed me away again now exiting the thing calling me a brat. I thought I was done for when two of my friends actually came back for me. They noticed I was gone (within minutes)  and as one of them chased after me the other swam to the exit to catch me. I was so weak I was just tumbling in the water now so my friend swam underneath me and scooped me up as a whale. I managed to put my arms around his neck and he swam me to the “shore”. There they yelled at the guy who let me drown.. and he said.. very dryly  “Oh.. sorry”.  I did not have lunch as I spent a little while throwing up all the water I had slurped in afterwards.

The weird thing after that.. I felt amazing.. two people noticed I was gone and came to save me! That was new to me!  They were so genuinely sweet to me for the rest of the day taking in account my weaker physique , playing games in the water I liked as well as them and in the end we all had fun. It took me a good three years to ever enter a rapid again though. 

Your thoughts on the current “COVID” scenario. (Very Odd Question)

I do hope that “COVID” between these brackets doesn’t mean you think it doesn’t exist or that people over react. I lost my grandpa to COVID19 and for a while we thought we might lose grandma as well. I was so sick I could not attend the funeral. That was quite a bad experience.  Now as for  the whole scenario. People are doing what they can. Everyone who thinks people are being overly careful .. well I’ll be honest I think they are utter idiots. If feel like you don’t need to clean a pen at the bank because you don’t feel sick and you don’t care if you kill someone’s grandma who is next in line as you don’t know her, go ahead and do what you want to do. It’s your life I can’t judge. Maybe you are really not sick! Yet I do get very annoyed when people think it’s an ploy.. or it’s related to 5g or whatever. I am pretty sure they harmed themselves more from smoke inhalation as that they stopped it from creation Corona shaped viruses.

It’s a disease people! Simple as that. While some people might be overly cautious which we will only know in hindsight, it can not really hurt. If they ask you to decontaminate a pen..just to be sure.. What is the friggin harm in doing that? It costs you a second to do that, it might give a 80 year old lady five more years to live..I am not saying it will.. I am saying that the fact that it MIGHT be good enough for you to obey the rules of your country and the places you visit.  Wear a mask in the places you have to,  disinfect your hands when asked and for the love of whoever you worship keep that distance. Is your night really THAT much more fun if you can invite too large of a group?!  Is it worth risking someone’s beloved eldery family member?! Heck is it worth risking someone like me?! I might not be old but I have bad lungs.  I do go out very sparingly but I keep my distance, I disinfect  and I also think of others. (that’s a thing here). My life might be a bit less fun I agree, but if by sacrificing some fun now me.. and that person who got to live can both have fun next year it is very much worth it.

If there are people out there who are of the opinion that old people should sacrifice themselves for the economy I can’t respect that opinion unless you feel so confident about that point that you’d say in your own grandfathers face. Grandpa please sacrifice yourself to the economy.. if you don’t have one anymore.. your dad or favourite teacher or whatever. If you are that convinced  that you would even sacrifice your own family, then you do have my respect. I do not agree…but at least you truly agree with yourself.. instead of the majority of people who spout this nonsense. 

Some skillful dreams that you want to accomplish (Ex. Riding a horse, Practice shooting with real Rifles and Shotguns, Mountain Climbing etc)?

All of those would kill me.Once our school organised a ski trip and I was called into the principal’s office by him and the gym  teachers requesting me to please not sign up for this trip. Because with my motor skills I will get harmed and ruin the trip for everyone. Today looking back at that, that might have been offensive but I actually wholeheartedly agreed.  I even laughed at it back then! I was really worried I was called in for something bad.  They just expected me to cry and feel left out and did not want to create drama in front of the school for asking the clumsy kid not to go on a ski trip. My toxic father also always discouraged skillful dreams as he always said I would not be able to do it.  So nothing in the adventurous sense.

I would live to learn Japanese properly though! Preferably with a study buddy so I have like a partner to spar with. Like Fitness you don’t do it when you’re alone.. at least for me. Of course this knowledge would be used to make a trip to Japan.. maybe I’d even migrate. I feel sometimes I need a change of pace. At least for a few weeks I would love to live in that other world and a language as foreign as Japanese can help me feel like I am in that strange place even more.

Any countries or places where you want to visit just to relax and chill?

So in Japan I would have lots I actually want to do! To Chill I love to go to Spain. Mostly the regions of Barcelona.  A smaller town nearby there. Like Calella or even more so L’Escala. I also would love to take another  trip to Porto in Portugal, such a pretty town! I would love to just sit there sip Port and watch the trollies or the boats pass by.  I oftenly have sore muscles and some sunshine and heat really makes me feel much less cramped up..so again would finding a job not be so hard for me while sick.. I’d probably move away. 

Arrange the following points based upon the priority (high to low) that you consider the most while watching an anime. The points are : Story, Characters, Animation, Music and Dialogues.

Characters: I very much want to care about people and if I don’t I tend to not like an anime that much. I really dislike Lelouche so I don’t like Geass. I do really like the characters from Hitman Reborn so that’s an anime I really enjoy. If we compare anime to a car, characters would be the engine. You can’t get far without an engine.

Story: If Characters are the engine of a car, the story is the road the car drives on .. the trip you make with it. If I don’t want to drive to Heroes-Victory, I will not drive on Shonen Street.  I can choose a trip across the things I want to experience based on the premises of a story alone. If I want to feel peppy all I have to do is read what an anime is about and I will know if it’s for me or not. The road of course has to be smooth for me to enjoy the ride. If there aren’t enough signs to tell me where I might be going I might be lost and end up stranded.  If there are too many bumps in the road I will never make that trip again. We all want a smooth and somewhat streamlined ride! Sometimes it can be fun to search a bit for that ideal spot we want to go on a road.. but it really depends on the trip

Dialogue: This is the steering wheel of anime. It keeps the car in check and on the road. Need a character to follow a certain plotpoint? An exposition line can keep him in check.. or through dialogue he can find a reason to follow the story. It also helps us understand the characters better than just their art or their actions so obviously I can’t put this one too far down my list! Good written dialogue can make so many other things obsolete and enforce them.

Music: The Radio of the car, it will make a trip more passable and helps make your experience a lot more pleasant. Nothing feels greater than putting some Radar Love on while on the road, or Highway to Hell when cruising on the American numbered routes. It makes you feel more powerful and it will help you on your trip. In anime this is the same.

Animation: Ah the windscreen wipers of anime. I do not get why people think this might be the most important. I do like motion and seeing an impact but I have as much fun with the animation of Castle Cats than I do in say Mirai Nikki. A Kamehameha in Super Sonic Warriors on GBA  feels as impactful to me as one in full HD in Dragon Ball Kakarot.  It’s just like windscreen wipers. Sure it helps you imagine the road for you better.. but even in the rain you DO have a functioning brain that can fill in the blanks you might miss. Sure you NEED some visuals but I like slide shows just as much as actual anime if the rest of these are good enough. So yes.. windscreen wipers.

In future, will you change the ‘prime niche’ of your blog or continue to write on the same topic?

I already have like six niches on my blog, I don’t really write in a single Niche.. I write about what keeps me busy. Which is divided in six different sub niches in general. But mostly I am my Niche… will I change that? No never. Might I shift from anime into fashion? Probably not but if I really get obsessed with dresses or cosplay I will tell you about it. I can’t tell how I will change.. heck  my heart might stop tomorrow and the blog is left to my staff and then horror fiction becomes it’s main niche. Or I might be able to blog from another world.. and the niche will change to my adventure.  I don’t write for you guys, I write for me and I am me..that won’t change. I just hope you can enjoy me.. or some of the things I do. 

My 11 Questions

I tend to theme my questions a bit and this posts one will be around the WordPress community.So if you like to answer these let me know in the comments if not the tag dies here. If you are a coconut you however are always nominated.

  1. Who is a blogger you respect very much here on WordPress
  2. Do you have a BlogSenpai an example you want to live up too?
  3. Do you have an example on YouTube or another platform?
  4. How long have you been a part of this WordPress community
  5. How did you start your blogging adventure? 
  6. What is one of the aspects you like less about the community
  7. What is your take on social media?
  8. What is your take on idolisation of influencers?
  9. What makes you the happiest to be a blogger?
  10. Is there a person who reads your blog whom you really appreciate?
  11.  What is your stance on Blog Tags?


Again all my Coconuts are nominated by default so Thank You MikeKelly666 TsubakiKuro, The Holymailman and Ospreyshire for your Kofi support and always consider yourself nominated in my posts. As for everyone else out there! Just ask to participate and I will add you in my nominees list and act as if I always nominated you! I think this tag has been going on long enough to switch to the self nomination system. If you are to shy to self nominate you can also of course donate to my Kofi and get a default nomination as well! Yay!
Post done!

Pinkie’s Saturday Anime Adventure 17

Another week is done! It’s been a post where I struggled with my health a bit. Insomnia caused some extreme fatigue issues in the middle of this week and my heart being a bit weak at times caused me some extreme nausea in the earlier parts of yesterday! All good now though! Happy and with colour on my cheeks again! Time to tell you about the anime I watched saturday!

Digimon Adventure Episode 5

Holy Digicow  another week that Digimon is my favourite view of the day?! What’s up with them?! Yet again another very solidly paced  episode with plenty of action to balance the fair amount of exposition! And so much great foreshadowing! Wow!

In this episode Sora and Taichi reach some ruins of what was once a great temple. Using their digivices they can read the mystical text on giant stone slabs and it asks them to feel the words. Once they touch the slab they get a vision of a digital world of the past. A war was fought with the Mega forms of the Digidestined digimon partaking in this war. They also see Omnimon again. They learn that they, along with other chosen ones, have a role to fulfill to help their digimon evolve and face evil. If they can’t stop this evil it will leak out into the network and eventually into their work. From inside the belly of a Whamon Koshiro deduces that this in fact must be happening right now.. but through his digivice he shares this vision. 

Also it turns out the statue is not of Hououmon but the digimon whose feathers Takeru and Kairi have been getting.  Almost as if it is one of the three digimon deities. Yet to my knowledge the holy trinity was always Ophanimon, Seraphimon and Cherubimon.  So who is this?!  Before all exposition is given however both Koshiro inside Whamon as Sora and Taichi are attacked by the forces of evil! The Goggle boy and helmethatted companion are attacked by Dokugomon who trap them inside the pantheon of ruins with their webs and Koshiro is attacked by Tylamon. Through the power of evolution all the forces of evil get dispatched and we learn of a mysterious digimon that controls others with sound.. and it seems to belong to Devimon! Now that Kabuterimon has been introduced.. Koshiro travels on him to meet up with the group and we pan to plant-village. A cute Pelmon runs around..towards a girl with a pink dress and pink hat! Mimi is here! Yay!

This show is SO well paced out in comparison to the original. We get background story, we get world mythos, we see every character so very much established!  Koshiro uses his smarts to analyse attack patterns and uses it to dodge foes. Sora once again is very lovable towards Biyomon (whom I shall keep referring as Biyomon even if in Japanese it’s Piyomon)
We see their mission, get teased  with the return of a classic foe, and now that we know these three digidestined we get introduced to the next one. There were so many great moments and the pacing is so nice. For example at one point Birdramon needs to escape from a web so Biyomon digivolves real time. In the fight that happens next that has much more a montage feeling to the beat of the new intro song we see the “stock footage” digivolution scene of Greymon. Both feel incredibly well paced.  Koshiro is making contact with Tentamon when the evolution occurs so he also gets a real time evolution sequence which again fits the tone needed greatly. The whole backstory about the original war gives this world so many more layers and Kabuterimon’s fight was pretty awesome. My favourite scenes would be the hints of Devimon and Mimi coming, I want more! And I nearly broke my own rule and continued to watch on! I was that excited.

I have little gripes with this episode. If anything, displaying Digimon’s names even if we saw them before looks a bit tacky in red but it is very readable.. I just don’t read Kanji so it feels a bit wasted. The only real gripe I had is that Taichi and Sora seem to have forgotten soundwaves were running through the web earlier, when Koshiro mentions a soundwave using Digmon over communications. That feels a bit cheap. Biyomon tells him  that she saw  Digimon before and in fairness Digimon eyes , especially birds would be much better than that of a human so the problem is subverted a bit but there the exposition given in this episode felt a bit forced. Only standing out because of good the backstory is delivered in the rest of the episode. It is a very lore heavy episode and to me as a fan, that lore came with a lot of interesting visuals. I could recognise Mega’s I could recognise other important elements of the digital world. Perhaps if you are less versed with this world it might be less appealing to you. But I can’t judge that I can just speak for myself! 

This in a way reminds me of my beloved DuckTales reboot..but maybe better. Both tell an old story in a contemporary way but add much more substance to the world. However where Ducktales came from an episodic format to this mory story driven one.. Digimon already had this sort of Origin with a progessive storyline. It really seems to fix everything what did not work about the old digimon and weave a much more interesting tale. Assuming this show will run as long AS other Digimon series I love this pacing! I love how this episode gives us something new.. some fun action to digest it and then sets us up for another episode! As far as my viewing experience goes! I can’t fault it!

Samurai Flamenco Episode 12

Unlike Digimon this is an episode I can fault! I loved a lot.. but there was also a lot of stuff I really hated as well. I am still not sure but the show seems to be making choices I really don’t think fit in with what came before. For the first time since I started watching it Samurai Flamenco was my least favourite watch of the day.

We see Masayoshi be part of the Flamengers and do their thing in this episode. In a style very similar to how Samurai Flamenco.. the character got rushed to his final battle.  We see all three of the other monster generals being dispatched in this episode!  We also get a really weird new opening. Why weird? Because it only shows the fight against Ugly Toxic Poison and no new stuff. It barely even focuses on the flamengers.  Something feels fishy about it.
We see Masayoshi struggle with his new command and with being respected…this leads the Flamengers to be in more danger than they have to be! We see some act to cold others to be hot headed and Masayoshi needs to pull them all together! Even if his heart might point out one way or the other. Because he misses his old life he goes back to Goto.. mostly because the new team doesn’t want to eat Curry with him.  They talk a bit and we find out that Moe has been depressed because Mari went missing.  She is living in Goto’s closet and still trying to seduce him. He seems less averse of her but that might be me! Masayoshi tries to recruit Goto as the Yellow Flamenger but he refuses. The Flamengers fight the final two generals of From Beyond and defeat them ..after they find out one of them is actually 43 monsters. Slowly the team begins to respect Masayoshi and they go eat curry together.

I did not enjoy myself that much with this episode. Something felt off for me. I don’t like how easy controlling that giant Robot feels like and how easy these new abilities are to wield for Masayoshi.  I do not like that Moe suffers without Mari! Yet I also saw a lot of good things. As always it does a great job on setting up stuff. I liked how their robot’s emblem could melt in the heat, I love how Masayoshi’s career is now inverse as how he started. My favourite scene is him encountering a drunk man on the street smoking. Masayoshi tells him it’s a no smoking zone and the guy recognises him and puts out the cigarette without polluting and puts it away. Thanking Masayoshi for all his good work. That is a really great callback to the show before. I also like how his reliance on Sentai Tropes makes him think of a good solution later on in the episode! There are some very solid thoughts going into here. I also really liked how the Giant Robo took realistic damage from the fire! That isn’t a thing in Sentai shows normally.

I really do not like the flamengers though! The way everything is paced, how Masayoshi suddenly doesn’t have to learn things anymore, the way every important element is dispatched without impact. this doesn’t feel like a team. In part that is what this episode meant to convey. I like how everyone tells what they add to the team in a documentary style but suddenly that style is dropped near the last bit of the episode so it doesn’t fully pay off. It also shows you a big problem. I know nothing about these other guys. So I am not invested at all in what they do. I don’t feel invested in these fights. I recognise it’s still solid. I am just not having any fun with these guys, they feel flat and one dimensional.  It feels like I suddenly have really bad seats in a cinema.  I can sorta follow the movie and it’s sorta good still but with all these tiny little annoyances around I just can’t get sucked up into it anymore. I do not like the Flamenger design as it feels as a downgrade of the very personal costume Masayoshi had, I can’t be invested in their weapons because they now have so much less flavor.  Even their posing explosion is dull and grey as if something is off! It lacks the energy it should have..maybe it is intended..but I just felt a whole lot of meh.

I can’t score it to harshly though because there still is so much great writing going on! I just don’t care about it as much! It is an issue that needs to be fixed though, maybe now that Masayoshi is forming bonds so can we.. or maybe we go with something new yet again.. like I said things feel off! The opening was weird and a few things do not align and this show is to clever for it to not mean anything. As a solo episode however this did not do anything for me.

That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime Episode 11

Slime climbed back up a fair bit after last week’s episode. It still did not reach the level of some of the episodes before but this was a very entertaining episode nonetheless. It takes the number three spot for me. 

Gabiru the named Lizardman shows up at the Village of Rimuru and tells him he now can serve Gabiru.. which doesn’t go over well with the Ogre’s , Ranga or Rimuru himself.. but first we see Shion’s cooking actually kill Gobta. …well not actually kill.. but everyone assumed he was dead. He has become a bit of the Meg Griffin of Slime which I had a lot of fun with.  Gabiru challenges Rimuru for ownership of Ranga but there is one problem. If any of these guys fight Gabiru they will almost certainly kill him and they want to find out what he has to say. So a Gobta.. who luckily gained poison resistance because of Shion’s food is there to fight for them. Threatening that Gobta might have to eat more of that food if he loses the little HobGoblin is unleashed and trashes Gabiru who tells the village that an army of 200.000 orcs is coming. Which one of their scouts confirms. Rimuru tells Gabiru he can come back later to talk about an alliance but he will not work under him.. and then a Dryad shows up! Pleading for Rimuru to go out and defeat the mysterious Orc Lord named by Demon Lord Gelmund. Since the group more or less were gonna do that anyway this hardly seems like an offer Rimuru will reject.. but the episode ends before we see an answer.

Comedy-wise this episode had a few great hits for me. The poisoned food scene was very funny and Shion and Shuna’s fight for Rimuru’s affection was done in a way that visually really pleased me.  Even if Shuna is a bit of a throw away character for a princess for now , instead just weaving. The other ogre’s also all add something to the village. It fleshes them out a bit more.  The treat of the Orc Army is now nice and thickly layered on and it will allow the show to go a few directions. Will they go for a direct confrontation or first recruit more allies for Rimuru’s little group? Everything is possible and that is what this show does well. It sets up expectations but also ways to subvert them. The way to write off Gobta so cold and cruelly came out of nowhere yet felt in line with what was shown before. His return however also did! I really expected him to be dead. The way Gobta used his powers as cool and I loved the visuals in this episode! I am happy that not everything is solved through Rimuru’s powers and they do come with a drawback.

Yet this episode felt like it was slacking a bit. It dragged in some parts. The rivalry between Shuna and Shion for example.  It was pretty established yet the seen lingered for a while to make some boob jokes and fangirl jokes. It wasn’t bad but it feels like it just could have been a bit snapier. Gobta’s fight was an example of how it was paced well but for some reason Rimuru kept imagining how the situation would have gone differently.. which all was super obvious! I don’t need to imagine Gabiru annoying people so much they will beat him to death! I know that would happen anyway. It kind of feels like those skits in Scrubbs the tv show where JD imagines a situation going elsewhere, it can be fun..but for some reason those fantasies are kept really toned down.. almost still images as if it’s a virtual novel..with some extra art. Because of this these scenes do not land for me and put a brake on the flow the episode. 

In the end the episode felt like a kid in one of those pedal cars. It’s cute and charming and it does move forward and you can clearly see where he is going..Yet it is also a bit impractical meaning the kid can’t really move as fast as they would like and the spectacle becomes a mix of endearing but also awkward. Still a mighty fine episode!

Flip Flappers Episode 7

This episode made me appericate the episode before a lot more! It contributed to things before I even knew! So with that my gripe against the last episode was gone. This one I really liked..yet because of the theming it ended up  at the fourth space when it came to my favourite views.

The plot of this episode.. how do I talk about that?!  Papika and Cocona discover that they have altered the personality of Iro-Senpai and feel really guilty about it. Suddenly she doesn’t care too much for art anymore and she paints her nails. Did they break her? Did they fix a trauma for her? Nobody exactly can tell them what happend and thusly Cocona doesn’t want to dive into pure Illusion anymore. “The Break-up”  is one of the anime tropes I really like the least so doubts if they should continue what they are doing midway a show.. that is about them doing THAT thing..fllies under that same banner for me.  They force Cocona into Pure Illusion however and she ends in an exact duplicate of her world.. with all sorts of different Papika’s.  Reflecting her doubts about change most likely. Is Papika still Papika if she is a pretty boy, or a scary girl? It seems these all reflect different aspects Cocona’ thinks about when thinking of Papika. The girl she can learn from, the scary girl, the pretty boy which she is attracted to and the little sister she must keep safe and tries to appeal to her. These are all aspects we have seen from Papika towards Cocona before.  In the end Cocona is unable to find the real Papika and she falls into a hole but Papika comes to rescue her with a spaceship made of the sewer pipe where they first met and Papika’s alleged house. or her stay over place at least.  They then fall into a field of flowers and Papika’s shard glows.. as she suddenly has a memory of being Mimi? A man has a shard that resonates with hers.

I really liked this episode from a distant observer kind of way. It was fun to see these different incarnations of Papika and see how they actually tie in  with the actual Papika. It was strong to see a much more realistic but empty world reflecting Cocona’s worries. It also shows to me at least how hard it sometimes is to separate dreams from reality. It can be really hard to tell, and sometimes in the real world even when there are actually people around you can feel as Lonely and lost as Cocona feels.  I do think once more they depicted her struggle very well. I like how we do not get a magical girl transformation in this episode either  as it was much more about Cocona’s issues to deal with what just happened and given what just happened these are very reasonable and logical doubts. So as far as cohesion is concerned this is one of the stronger episodes. The tinier form of storytelling, the much clearer metaphors. It very much works for the episode they made.

But yet again, I did not feel that swept up by it. I know why Cocona is having doubts and it makes so much sense..but with half a series to go I know it won’t last and that is my big issue with this trope. I get that it’s a storyline and in the context of what happened it works yet this trope never carries too much weight with it because there still is half a show to go until characters will get over it. Just like I know that Cocona won’t die at least not before the second to last episode, it feels just a tad pointless to make us the audience think she won’t be.. because.. who are you trying to fool?! While a character is in mortal danger there still is an excitement in showing how they escape. However when a character has to make a decision that struggle is much harder to make exciting. As a result the issue of Cocona’s inner conflict feels a bit like a non issue. We know she will flip the switch and no matter if it is because of Papika rescues here with a spaceship.. or she would have found the real Papika amongst fakes.. it would not have really mattered to us which one it was.. I am glad we got from A to B .. and A and B are legit. The stuff in between just feels just a tad filler.. entertaining filler but filler still.

It really is a great episode, it is just not MY episode. While this show really earned the feelings on display and does it well, I really do not like to see the hero in doubt about their involvement in the show, especially in such a short show. I want to see more content like episode 3 and 5 rather than this, so in a way the show just spoiled me. I still had a fine time watching it..but I want my amazing things from this show not just good things.

Hikaru no Go Episode 17

This episode was really simple yet effective. It is weird how involved I got with this. I might even argue it is a bit of a messy episode, but I had so much fun watching it!  Just because of a weird way to raise the stakes.

We pick up at the same go convention we left last time. People talk to each other about Sai and Waya even hypes him up to be that great historical figure whose name I unfortunately forgot..the legendary Go player that was indeed possessed by Sai. We see everyone going completely mental over Sai once they figure out that half the people of the convention are there.. and Waya’s word of hype triggers a young prodigy to get involved. That is right Akira shows up! A laptop is brought up ..with the internet for some reason even though I am pretty sure there was no  wireless internet yet? Where Dongle’s a thing? There is a thingie sticking out of the computer. Akira faces off online against Sai.. and they replay their second match stone for stone! But then to avoid being recognised Sai plays a different stone and  Akira resigns making an appointment to face him in the middle of his own Insei exams, showing he has not let his obsession go yet. Maybe he recognises Hikaru and wants to face him alone?! Whatever is happening clearly he is willing to risk anything for it, which angers Waya a great deal. The episode ends with Hikaru and Sai going to the café to face off against Akira when at the exams it is revealed Akira has not shown up.

I really liked this episode more than I should, for the most part it’s just a bunch of agitated foreign men shouting at each other if they know who Sai is. An international bunch of confusion. We mostly see side characters do unimportant things as they all speculate, until Waya recognises the playstyle of Sai and tells his master. Also adding in his theory that it might be a school kid. This triggers Akira to become involved as well, stepping a bit on Waya’s turf giving into his obsession. I like how the psychological game between him and Sai starts and how Sai is able to identify Akira because of it. I also really like that Akira recognises the online player as Hikaru. Opposed to Waya who sees Sai, though not knowing it is Sai in name of course. Hikaru got completely unmasked without being unmasked. It also gives Akira a bit of a different rival and maybe a potential friend in Waya. Sure Waya really seems to hate him now..but should they find out they obsess over the same guy. This episode has a way of building tension towards its conclusion..and then by making Akira resign it takes the tension to even bigger stakes. Thingies just got real.

Like I said before though, with all the international players shouting through one another the episode kind of starts out very cluttered. It’s a bit tiring to be tossed around all those international players whom we barely know. I recognise most of them but they haven’t been that established yet so I am not that invested in their perspective. The shouting can be a bit draining to the attention as it is hard to focus your attention on one thing. The show cuts around that fairly smart but it is very VERY clear that the goodness that was this episode came from the second half. I became so invested in this episode and the set up for the next during that half. The first half falls a bit flat in comparison. What it did though was show the emotional involvement of all these people! It shows all these people are really committed and that for me helps with the world building for Hikaru no Go. I complained a bit on how oddly these kids react to things.. almost inhuman but by mirroring them to these guys their reactions feel less over the top.It’s just how this world is. Visuals in this episode are a bit off I feel.The dutch guy seems to suddenly have lost a few pounds of weight and Akira looked a bit differently to me too. Hikaru no Go doesn’t have the best visuals and by setting this episode on a busy convention floor we do see some issues I think. Yet nothing I really worried about.

This wasn’t a flawless episode but it was one I was really engaged in and thus really enjoyed. While if I would measure with more objective standards for all we would get an entirely different list and different grade.. but as for my enjoyment this took second place. I really loved the ending so that’s why it gets my highest grade!

I already updated you on my last week! I have also been catching up with my laundry! I hate doing that as it makes noise that might bother other people! All caught up now again though! Also did a few cleaning things throughout the house where energy allowed at least! This week I have a nice family outing planned! The one that should have happened last week but due to my health.. and my sister making double plans this worked out better! Excited for that. Later today I might get some very important news that could be a big change in my life as well so I am a bit nervous today! So be sweet in the comments!

14 Reasons Why: Anime is Better When Watching Alone

So 13 reasons why, is a bit of a glum show! So I decided to make it a bit happier! I will use it’s title in a bit of a different way! Life can be depressing and sad! We do not always get what we want.. but there are always more reasons to be positive than to be sad! That’s why this column is called 14 reasons why! In this first installment we will discuss why Covid preventing you to watch anime with your friends isn’t the end of the world. In fact there are many reasons why to think why watching anime by yourself might even be better.

<Disclaimer> This post is not meant to illustrate why anime by yourself is FACTUALLY better, than watching anime with friends, many of the reasons are done for fun and just meant to spread a lighthearted positivity with a dash of humor to see the best from a certain angle. It is not meant to convince you to stop hanging out with your friends. Nor will all reasons be all that serious! <End of Disclaimer>

First Reason Why: You get all the Snacks!

For those who ever hosted an anime evening for friends , you all know there is always that one guy! The Snacker.. the one who puts the whole bowl of crips on his lap and doesn’t pass it around to anyone unless they ask. Meanwhile you don’t really want to interrupt the anime for something silly as a handful of crips and the way he is shoveling those snacks down.. you might want to think twice before putting your hand in there. But fear not! When your alone.. YOU can put that bowl on your lap! In fact you get all the control! Would you rather have crips or M&M’s , how much do you want! Maybe you want some vegetables or even pig out with a pizza for your own! It is all possible and no one will judge when you watch like that alone.

Second Reason Why: It’s your party and you can cry if you want to!

So watching anime with friends can be great! it’s fun to see them again and socialise. Yet there is one thing that is usually not done among friends! That is crying . Yet it is one of the most powerful emotions we have. I personally like it when an anime makes me cry! It feels good to get those boos and hoos out of my system. However.. when watching with friends , it’s super awkward! You don’t want to be the only one to cry over a death. People tend to really patronise you! Awww Poor Pinkie come here for a hug! It’s okay! .. YUCK! It even gets worse when you are the only person in the room who doesn’t cry over Ushio’s death. People can get mean then!  “You are dead inside, why aren’t you crying?” It’s super awkward. But there is a solution! Do you know what it is?! That’s right!  By watching alone you don’t get those pity hugs or people telling you you are emotionally out of whack! You can give in to your sincere emotions. You experience a scene the way you want to! That is a very great good!

Third Reason Why:  You can Haha Hard

In a similar way, this also applies to comedy. I watched prison school with my friends…or well I tried to.. one of them is immature as heck and with the least bit of innuendo and poop and fart humor he laughs his ass off. Most of my friends really prefer sexual humor and I don’t like that. I laugh at clever puns, cute Dojiko moments or at silly music, face expression situations that convey how awkward a situation is. That means me and my friends do not laugh at the same things or at the same time. During Prison School I barely heard anything of the anime because two guys were rolling around on the floor laughing. It was annoying. I am glad they were enjoying themselves but I felt left out.. and kinda pitied them for liking THAT kind of humor. I mean to each their own and all but in my world they just shown they are more related to apes. I laughed a lot during Konosuba or heck even Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid.. and those same guys shushed me! Excuse me?! You can ruin my anime watch but when I laugh I need to shut up?!  If your sense of humor is in the minority, you are better off watching comedy alone! Speaking of Shushing!

‘Shut Up Pinkie”

Fourth Reason Why: No need to play the Shushing game

When watching anime as a group not everyone is as invested in the same things as others all the time. It results in what I call the shushing game. Some people there wanted to watch anime with friends..because they wanted to watch WITH friends. Meaning there is a social aspect to it. Others want to watch anime with friends.. to not watch anime alone and maybe have a brief recap near the end. So there are people trying to talk, and people trying to watch anime in quite almost always. Sure like in a movie theater you can whisper to the one sitting next to you but if you watch with a bit of a larger group.. like I did.. It’s always a bit of a hassle to make sure you sit next to a person who shares your level of social requirement. If you want some company and sit next to the quiet one..you are gonna get shushed! If you really like the anime you are watching today and watch it in focus and sit down next to a person who keeps asking about your day.. you are going to shush them!  By the end of the night you will have picked up more social modifiers than your average TellTale Game! Pinkie will remember that alright! Next time she will bring her axe! Don’t shush or get shushed! Just watch alone! It offers much more stability in your friendships!

Fifth Reason Why: You don’t miss anything

So when you are watching with friends there are two ways a view can happen. First, if you need a drink, a smoke or need to use the toilets your friends keep watching. Depending on when nature calls you might miss important moments, funny jokes or important set up!  Asking you what just happened either gets you shushed or people tell you. “You missed something, it was AWESOME’  after which they proceeded to clue you in with the vaguest nonsensical description you ever heard.  No one ever tells you… so This person turns out to be a bad guy! They either forget the name and use a vague description, they give you only a half hint like.. someone was revealed to be a bad guy..or they just describe how big cow letters are.. BETRAYER appeared in a purplish hue and that is why the windows are broken.. cause when they slammed down it broke the windows.. not mentioning who the traitor is. If you watch an anime you haven’t seen before you better watch it  alone because then you can take breaks whenever you want and won’t miss a thing.

Sixth Reason Why : No Lengthy Breaks

The second way a view can happen is that you watch with a group of three or so people! Each time one of you goes away the series is paused. While this seems more sociable and you won’t actually miss any sweet sweet anime content.. it actually is horrible! Like watching an American Football match. Between each episode a peabreak is scheduled and if you have a smoker in your group or warm snacks to be served the time between each episode can be more than the actual time an episode lasts. Yes it’s nice to socialise in these breaks..but if you really just wanted to sit down on the couch and relax with an anime.. this is like the Freemium  version of that! That’s right, having friends can make watching Anime feel Freemium! Pay all friends to remove all ads and gameplay interruptions and go home! Now you can watch at your leisure and you control the pace.. as a true VIP. How awesome is that! And  you know what.. if you want to socialise with your friends between episodes.. you can call them on the phone or reach them on discord and actually tell them about something they HAVEN’T just seen! Awesome! Which leads us to the next reason!

Seventh Reason Why:  It’s hard to talk about anime you just saw together.

‘Dude… have you seen Kabaneri and the Iron Fortress?’ is a question you might love to ask your friends ‘Yeah Gal we are watching it together right now’  is the response you get if you watch anime with friends. It’s fun to talk about anime.. but if you are constantly watching with others.. what is there to talk about. You can speculate what happens next or what that power means… you can talk about the colours used but there is always a guy who doesn’t want to know your thoughts in what happens next.. because if it turns out you are right.. it’s spoilers.
So if that one is available to you or not as a topic is a bit of a gamble. Yet it is incredibly hard to talk about something you both just saw.. you already need to ANALYSE it to make it a topic. Did you see Naruto’s new technique? Well yeah are watching with you.. so you need to add.. that was pretty cool right? ..Risking your friend disagreeing.. or just saying Yeah..and you do the Bill and Ted Air Guitar together..Or you analyse where the power may come from or what it might mean..but sometimes you just want to turn your brain of and watch an anime. If your friend suddenly drops an analogy on you.. you have to play that game..just to talk!

Eight Reason Why: You can Enrich your friends

Now.. imagine you watching Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress by yourself.. and for some reason you think it’s pretty sweet. Now you phone up a friend and say.. “Dude…have you seen Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress?”  it goes silent a bit on the other side of the phone and then ‘No I haven’t Sis.. tell me all about it’  so you can rave about what you saw for the next couple of minutes your friend genuinely being interested in what you have to say as it seems quite cool to him. The next day you meet for lunch and he says. “Oh I watched that show you watched as well sweet” You fistbump and do the Bill and Ted air guitar thing again..but now you had an actual interesting conversation about it. With all those philosophical debates available to you AS WELL cause you made your friend watch it! And even better YOU made your friend watch something awesome!  YOU made THEIR lives better by the power of your words! Now who would not like to enrich their friends by informing them of something you saw first!….Also you can be like the trendsetter of the group and become a Guru! Upgrade!
So conversation wise.. it’s MUCH better to watch it alone!

Ninth Reason Why: You can call it quits whenever you want

I only ever watched the first episode of Megalo Box, my friends would rather watch something like Goblin Slayer or Darling in the Franxx ,however I really wanted to watch Megalo Box some more! Yet the group decided.. this is not for us let’s move on and fawn over a 2d girl instead. I never got back to Megalo Box after that as one other guy wanted to see more and we promised to host an anime night for that one.. but since so many people did not like it .. it just never happened. Each time we would host .. others tacked in  and pulled the plug on Megalo again.We ended up watching the Tengen Toppa movies which is sweet…but I saw that like three times now?!  Sometimes people really want to keep watching something you really dislike as well. For example Goblin Slayer for me! I asked politely if we could not watch something else as I really hated it..but my plees were ignored. At home however I can decide myself when I call it quits!  If I want to drop something after an episode I can.. If I want to binge an entire season in one night I can! I do not have to worry about other people’s bedtimes.. I do not have to wonder if they are still enjoying themselves! I am in control! 

Tenth Reason Why:  No Dubbers versus Subbers

So me and my friend Jay-Ron went to see the Dragon Ball Super Broly movie in 4d. A friend really wanted to come along , but he had one stipulation. I want to see the movie in English. Meanwhile I watched the entirety of Super  in Japanese so I did not really want to back up from the voices I knew. Just as much as he did not want to move from the ones he did. My friend Jay-Ron was with me.. we both prefer the sub. I prefer the Japanese Goku interpretation compared to Sean Schemmel’s one and I really prefer Japanese Broly. (For non voice actor related reasons). The other friend got super salty at us for wanting to go see the sub version..while we ALSO grew up with the english version.He avoided us for about two weeks feeling left out. There is always a guy who wants to watch a Dub in Sub group or a girl who might be a sub purist in a group of dub loving people. This debate has been done to death.. and can be avoided by watching alone!

Eleventh Reason Why: You can be Silly

So whenever I see the Kobayshi intro..or was it the end credit scene.. I think it was the intro!? I get the feeling I should T-Pose and Spin around.  When I see the Assassination Classroom opening I want to put up my first in the air and jump around..then put on a better anime. At a friend’s place however, I can’t just do that! Their downstairs neighbours light might come off the wall, and he’d have to take responsibility or my female friend’s cat sees me spasming there and decides to attack me. People might think I am insane  for holding up my hands to lend Goku power for the Genkidama  and if I want to hide under a Blanket from a scary scene.. I should be able too. Sure with the right group of friends you still can do that..but there are so many modifiers. You have to have been friends for so and so long, you have to make sure it’s not that one night someone brings his new girlfriend or boyfriend or it’s a viewing at their parents house! So many rules.. you know where they are not! in your room when you are alone!

I unfort can not edit in a Pinkie here!

Twelfth Reason Why: You can pause to make screencaps for your blog

The vast majority of people reading my blog are actually bloggers themselves. I have zero friends I have met in real life who read this one.. well maybe one on occasion but most of them laugh at me having a blog! Which means if I have an anime viewing party I can’t really be engaged with using the anime that I am watching now for my blog! If I make notes people will poke me and ask me what I am doing. If I think a scene is amazing and I wiggle the mouse to see a timestamp so I can screencap it later I get booed.  Yet we never know when we strike upon gold! I can’t make a screencap and my blog might suffer for it because I can’t recreate it myself.. or worse..because we are doing it with a group we are watching a Netflix anime. So while it’s easy to combine our passion with our hobby it is hard to combine you friends with that hobby! If you watch anime by yourself though.. you can repeat a scene over and over again until you have that perfect screenshot!  Your online friends will surely like it! And there’s like 100’s of those compared to your handful of real life friends! …So you are better off watching by yourself! Unlike your friends we have never seen it before so that screenshot might mean a lot!

Thirteenth Reason Why: You can make yourself comfy

When you are with friends one general expects a group of people huddled together on a small couch looking at a screen. Perhaps one guys Mullet is in your way, perhaps he put his smelly feet on the table. Then there’s this one guy who stole the crips bowl.. you are trapped in between and there is no way out, you lean a bit forward to see a bit more but it is no use.  The scene gets more tense and Mr Mullet leans forward as well..at least his feet are of the table for now!  When you watch anime with friends.. generally you can’t take up a really comfy position on the couch. I love to wrap myself in a pink blanket with a laptop on my leg and a bowl of treats besides me and dream of the wonderful worlds. I can lay down on the couch, or take the laptop to my bed, I can build a pillow and plush pile and watch from that.  When I am with friends I have to share my couch.. or due to my cramped living space.. usually their couch and I just can’t reach the same level of comfort! If you are like me and you want  your comfy Cocoon! It is better to watch alone! Crying in a cocoon is also much nicer!


Fourteenth Reason Why: You can pick the anime yourself

If you EVER watched anime with friends ..without determining what anime to watch beforehand you know my pain. We are a fairly large group consisting of about seven people.
One guy always and exclusively wants to watch shows about big burly knights that fight for loyalty and honour. The type of shows I already hate. Another guy constantly wants to watch fanservice shows that preferably are explicitly sexual because that is funny. One of my best friends can’t even stomach those. I prefer weird and colourful shows like Kyousougiga, Flip Flappers or more game based anime like Saki, Beyblade or whatever.  No one hates those in particular.. but it’s something you need to be in a mood for.. and with seven people there always is someone not in the mood for it. So we debate hours on what we watch. Vetoes flying left and right, people leaving saltily because their anime did not get picked. I never had a fun time selecting anime with friends.  I am always the one who has to settle as two people just refuse to not have their pick be the one to go for.

One time we got to a point where we all put seven anine names in a box and we ‘d just raffle one. My pickiest friend wanted to veto a few picks or he would not come..so facilitated him they installed veto rounds. We’d have to vote and downvote and whatever.. so I bailed. It took them three weeks to set up a single anime night. I stayed home.. not the way I want to watch anime.  They raffled something from what was left from the box and had a horrible night.. they all said so! I had my own anime night.. I saw exactly what I wanted to see and had a blast! So.. proof right there! Of the people that watched alone 100% had fun.. the other group of 5 all rated their experience at 60% or below. So .. watching alone is at least 40% more fun! Hard science there. Also it’s so much more stress free! Live long and watch anime alone! Since there are more than 150 anime’s out there! I listen to the advice of a wise immortal boy! ‘Anime……

The gif is part of my losing line!

So you see! If you ever feel alone and nobody wants to watch anime with you, think of these fourteen reasons why watching alone is awesome! I could do this type of list for watching anime together as well, so again I am not opposed to it at ALL. I am just showing some positives of being by yourself! In times like this and of social seclusion let’s look at the positives! Now I am gonna go snack and roll up in a blanket! Cause I am all by myself! Screengrab gallore!

Elle’s Real Quest! What Bad Luck! I got Reborn into another Life and Now I am a Side Character 4

It has been a while since I have returned to my Isekai and my beloved character Elle.. who now combined with me! In this series we explore a fictional me being reborn in another world.. yet because she did not want to give up her qualities she asked the gods to just amplify every trait of herself. Her intelligence rose, her memory became almost perfect and she even became able to also do magic. However also her social awkwardness rose and worst of all her bad luck!  Her bad luck in fact was so bad.. that she did not reincarnate in her own story as a main character.. she was reborn as a side character.

In the last part Elle got a mock quest of her guildmate Carlita to find her cat Autumn. When Elle came home with a wrong (black)  cat she adopted it herself and named it Autumn.. a few days have passed since then.. since the main character is out of town..nothing really interesting happened. Part 1 , Part 2 and Part 3 can be accessed by clicking on those part names.

Day 29: Morning

Dear Diary, I groggily awoken on the 29th day of my residency in this new world by a thumping sound on my door! As the temperature began to rise as the summer season drew closer the air was thicker than before. The smell of the ocean gathered deeper into my house. It made me sleep more soundly. With nearly one month of being in this world nothing has changed much compared to my first five days. Maine returned a few times.. but each time I want to grab her for a mission.. she relegates me to the side. I have been taking on side missions like shearing sheep and gathering a rich kid’s balloon among other things. It has left me with numerous injuries but also enough coin to provide for myself and Summer. Who now has a collar!  The tieflings at the docks still shun me! I do not know why! Oh but yes! As I was telling there was someone knocking on my door. As I stumbled with my fooves down the stairs I got another splinter stuck into them.. for those who may find this diary and open it somewhere in the middle.. fooves are what I call my feet.. they are a mix between hooves and human feet.  I tumbled down the stairs.. but I landed in the pillows I placed there. I fall off the stairs a lot so I spend some money on pillows to prepare myself.  I used a spell named Mage Hand.. which I had been practicing for about ten days.. to open the door and there was our guild Cleric.

Ynaja in Elle’s House

Ynaja stared at me from the door opening. Her raven curled hair tightly kempt behind her melanated face. Her holy light reflected in her eyes given them a goldenish tint. Her holy symbol was that of “the Gentleman” a god in this world that represents romance and adventure. It is rumored that he has a mortal form publishing all those picture book romance novels she loves a lot! It is just a rumor though! I think real books should have more words personally! Also for a god to pursue such trivial matters seems unlikely. Regardless, she asked if she could come in to help me up and I agreed.  She smelled like wet clay and strawberries. ‘Did your sealing break again’ I asked, trying to show interest for her social situation. She looked at me really surprised.  ‘Uhm.. how did you?!.. Maybe we should start with Hello?” I shook my head “Hello is a great greeting to make acquaintance, however we have since long passed that phase I am at the guild on a semi daily basis so I feel greeting each time is redundant.. so how is your ceiling’. Ynaja let out a chuckle “I am surprised you noticed there is some stone in my hair?” I once again shook my head. “Negative! Your bodily scent however has undergone a tonal change, normally you smell more like the wood teak wood that your guild booth is constructed out of now you smell like clay..since you told your ceiling to crack earlier.. I figured the scent of clay would explain that you once again had to fix it up’ Ynaja blinked telling me I was really something.  My inquiries on what that exact thing was she thought I was however went unanswered. She interrupted my questioning with a smile when she told me she had a real quest for me.

Apparently in the nearby city of Twiddir there is a Grande Casino that has been losing money to a roguish figure by the name of Romegg Xanwych. Some kind of young rich kid who enriches himself more by cheating and taking state money! The Twiddir Grand Casino is owned by the state. I was to travel there with Mirina the Drunken Monk and Ynaja. Mirina was there in case we got in a fight and Ynaja was there in the , according to her , a somewhat likely case that I got injured. I was to use my analytical ability to find out how Romegg cheated and put a stop to it before he stole more of the state’s money! I could totally do that! I was finally going to apprehend a criminal! So I quickly got dressed..which might have embarrassed Ynaja a bit in hindsight.. not that I slept in the nude but I had my duck Pyjamas on! My first real mission I was so happy!

Elle’s room.. a little more broken than last time

Day 30 : Morning and Noon

Dear Diary..that was a 51.2 Kilometer cart-ride from Windmere Port to Twidder. It took us a whole day, we arrived the next morning at the crack of dawn. This city smelled quite differently.. Dusty and manurey from too many horses kicking up the dust and dropping their colon’s  contents. Houses were plentiful oftenly stacked on top of  each other. All roofs had white shingles and blue songbirds nested on most of them. People were loud here! Yet nowhere were real conversations.  Instead people just shouted stuff at each other. I was too broken up from the trip to really enjoy it though. Shouting people are also scary! A heavy poluted rivier streamed trough the town..it would end up in Windmere Port but by then it would have cleared up in quality a bit again. Here you could see well.. everyone’s number two’s flowing. Judging by the smell when passing into town number 1 was also there a plenty! Living in a world without sewage is not what anime makes it out to be!

The town of Twiddir

Ynaja had  hired a donkey cart to move us forward..it was so slow! I miss cars! Mirina got really drunk and began ranting about a book of friends she once read. Like for hours and hours… she would not stop! When I told her I have not read it, she told me she could read it to me! She had the book with her! But every time.. a certain character would do a certain thing I would have to indulge in alcohol! That seemed detrimental to our mission so I passed. After a very long cartridge.. in which I actually managed to finish the book of friends which she borrowed for me to read in peace after me asking for it.. we arrived at the inn that hosted the casino! We checked in.. washed up.. and Ynaja guided me to the casino hall straight away. I could use a nap but she told me it was very important that we get this job as quickly as possible. After me explaining my cognitive functions had be impaired.. she went to vent as she said for a bit.. After coming back she agreed to let me sleep until lunch and after lunch I would have to hit the casino.

During lunch I was pretty sure I saw Maine and Rho sitting at a table in the back! I waved at them but my visual stimuli did not seem to reach them! The audio stimuli of calling their names was ignored as well. They just stared at each other and then I saw them kiss. I had my suspicions before but now I felt like a Facehugger had laid eggs in me and I was giving birth to a Xenomorph..but instead of in my stomach the Xenomorph was in my heart! Ynaja told me that it wasn’t Maine and Rho, just people who looked like them. However I was sure it was them. Maine with her length of 1 meter and 72 centimeter or 5.6430446194 feet as some readers would prefer, was taller than the average human female. While Rho’s crimson hair colour only occurs once in every 80 half elves or so. With the average woman is almost 8 centimeters smaller as Maine I think the fact that a woman of her age, hair colour and height would date a man confirmed to Rho’s states would be a statistical near impossibility.
Ynaja snapped at me however and told me to leave it alone so I did.

Elle is hurt her love interest found someone else

I was forced into the casino soon after eating lunch and I was brought to a table that had a young blonde man who reminded me a bit of Spark from Pokémon Go.. just in more medieval clothes. His blonde spiky hair, and youthful look fitted his tacky noble roguish look. An air of self confidence came from him as he played with coins between his fingers. He was playing a game of Roulette, which is strange because in our world Roulette only was invented in 1796..I am not sure why I know what because I never knew that before! Either Way this would make my mission challenging. Ynaja gave me 100 gold of the guild funds to play with! Should I win anything I was allowed to keep it for myself she said! If I lost I would still get paid.  She told me she and Mirina would keep track of me! I introduced myself to mister Xanwych and wished him a nice play! Now in full expectation of what Ynaja told me I knew that Romegg would be winning a lot so I placed a single gold coin on the number he bet on. We both lost! Also Roulette here has three colours and 45 numbers but no zeroes! He frowned a bit and I noticed he tabbed the table with a coin.. is that how he cheats? He bet on 42… so I did too! I was pretty sure he would win this time.. but when then number landed on 1 instead… I was actually pretty shocked! Did I just read that wrong? His mannerism seemed to reflect utter surprise too. Could he just have failed his cheat?!

Romegg Xanwych

Day 30: The Encounter

For some reason Romegg Xanwych began coughing violently and tabbed the table harder with his coin! By now it was not even subtle anymore! Yet the croupier guy seemed not to notice.. or did he? He did get flustered!  Wait could they be in cahoots?! I like that word. I told Romegg he would be my lucky charm and we would win together and he did not seem to mind me so much..but he was very much glaring at the ball guy! When we lost our money again he however turned at me!  “Is It you, are you messing with us”. The Croupier drew a weapon and Romegg as well.  The ball guy asked me “How are you doing it, did you see through our plans”.  He signalled five security guards to come in closer. ‘Mister Xanwych, we will make our payments to you as soon as possible.. we are sorry.. I am not sure what magic she uses,’ Romegg nodded at the guy ‘If your boss wants to keep the magic box you better bring me this girl’s head’. The Rogue then made his way outside but Mirina got in his way.. but she backed off with a tisk when she saw the Croupier called in more guards and drew a dagger from his sleeve as he charged at me. In his other hand still that steel little ball! That frightened me more than the dagger I would trip on it if that ever fell on the floor! I would have to finish this fight fast.

The attacking Croupier

A sharp pain went through my gut as I was shanked by the dagger. My brain was working harder than it ever did, my body however was not fast enough to react..I guess as a mage I have a low armor class and I bet my Dexterity modifier is trash! However.. if I did not stop him I would die! I had to cast a spell.. even if it might have harmed harm me! I know that one ice spell a bit!  The knife twisted in my gut a bit as he was clearly trying to kill me!  There wasn’t even a hiding it anymore.  Or was there?.. the guards drew away the sight of the crowd.. I was being murdered and Ynaja would most likely not be able to help me soon.. I had to do this myself. After the boar killing idea to become an owl.. I was offput on killing. I did not really study much.. offensive spells.. but perhaps if I approached it trough science I could still make it work! I saw that in a really lame Isekai show once. Cheat Magician. Since I was here to stop a cheater..using an approach like that seemed appropriate.


Elements get colder when their molecules get pushed closer together. I just had to use my Mana to slow down his molecules and put them closer together. I imagined my hand casting a mana net.. or more like a mana wrapping paper.. that I would cast around him then tighten to chill him.. but I was so scared! Being stabbed hurts a lot more than I could have thought! For those who think.. oh it’s a dagger..she probably only lost like 10 to 20% of her HP! Well .. Health Points mean nothing if you are actually stabbed! In games we always shrug it off but this was nothing like that. I had difficulty focussing! I might hurt this man.. but the pain and fear.. really made me let go of that desire not to hurt him. So when I touched him..I felt my mana flow as I let it out.. it felt as if a dam broke! Energy washed out of me all over the room! A Dewish..frosty white appeared on the floor, the glasses and even that roulette table froze shut… and the guy… well he just disappeared.. I heard a soft thud.. but he was gone.. and all around me was snow and ice forming.

Mirina meanwhile was using her monk abilities to deal a few Stunning Strikes and some flurry of blows knocking out three of the guards with ease. Using her reactions to deflect some throwing knives the others tossed at her. Their success hindered by Ynaja who was hindering her foes with the Bane spell.  Mirina approached the fourth and the fifth guard but she was low on Ki.She seemed genuinely concerned about my safety and spent her final Ki on another series of attacks. Her way of the Drunken Fist style fighting made her immensely hard for her opponent to hit. ‘When the Pink friend cries in panic, take a jab’ she yelled. “When Ynaja casts a spell take a Punch” she set knocking out some teeth of the fourth guard.  and when Mirina spends the last of her ki.. take a Nutshot” the guy grabbed his groin and fell down. Ynaja dealt with the other guards showing me both fighters were so much stronger than me. She casted the Area of Effect spell .. Spirit Guardians. A third level conjuration spell generally learned by Clerics. Four super pretty anime like boys  made of light appeared. They seemed slightly based on fairy tale tropes. As I touched her shoulder and smiled at her then dashed at all the guards invading our private space and they were knocked out by the light magic.

Mirina versus the guards and Ynaja’s Spirit Guardian (One of them)

There I was the dagger still in me.. but no more croupier in sight. I knew I was about to fail my mission again! Mirina had gotten a scratch from her scuffle as well.. I could not let her wounds be in vain so I searched around and I found a previously guarded door now open.. but there.. slithering against the wall was Romegg. He was almost at the exit.. I had to stop him.. but I knew no spell that was within range..I was not gonna fail however.. what felt like a breaking dam suddenly felt as if everything broke.. I wasn’t going to fail more! I had failed enough! By instinct I pointed my hand at him…and then everything went white! It was over! 
Oh no! Now that I read it that almost sounds like I died or passed out.. no I meant like.. the entire area I pointed at went white.. It all just deep freeze. Unfortunately so did Romegg. Like if you ever saw that Jason X movie?! Where he kills a girl with liquid nitrogen?! Kinda like that.. only he fell while his head froze and then.. well… at least he won’t be stealing money from the casino… wait a minute….

Day 30: Wrap Up

I remember crying a lot! I killed a man! I did not want to do it ..but it happened! Ynaja came over to heal me and Mirina seemed really angry at Ynaja. ‘You should have told her the truth’ I was crying so much that actually I did not realise this until much much later.. but whatever you are reading now is the revised version. I was a bit traumatised by my first kill that is not that easy either.. just because I get Isekaid. Regardless.. so yes.. Mirina told Ynaja she should have told me the truth. Ynaja scowled ‘She would not have come if I told her the truth’  Mirina apparently put my head on her shoulder and let me cry out! I don’t remember but I do  remember smelling tequila that day! ‘She failed her mission again.. or so she thinks, she actually did exactly what you wanted her to do, didn’t she?’ Mirina asked Ynaja shrugged. ‘No idea what you are talking about’ Mirina slightly rocked me up and down with her eyes glaring at Ynaja. ‘You used her bad luck to make Romegg lose all that money and cause a conflict ..so that Maine and Rho could get inside and do the real mission and find that box he was talking about right?’ Ynaja smiled. ‘Correct, we just needed Elle to create discourse. The real price is inside.. but trust me.. that artefact justifies the means’ Ynaja went on to pull the dagger out of me and heal me. However from the shock I completely passed out. For all those who ever role played a character getting stabbed with a knife!.. It hurts! ..It’s not just.. Ouch!… Mirina saw something laying next to my unconscious body.  She picked up a diamond and studied it. Inside it was a little steel roulette ball. ‘Did she just?’ Ynaja shook her head and looked at Mirina sternly. ‘Sell that and give the money to Elle as her share of the loot but don’t tell her about this’ 

 The dark skinned woman then said ‘We are done here’ Mirina wanted to object. Elle could be dangerous if that was the extent of her abilities. Suddenly a voice in  the drunken monk’s head appeared. “Seize this act Mirina, Elle acted precisely as I predicted. She has her uses to us and her role in this world and she has her flaws.. if it ever needs be we can take her down easily’.The voice thundered in Mirina’s head sounding femine and commanding.  ‘She is our Guildmate.. I’ll protect her like all my allies’ the monk objected. The voice boomed in her head once more! This time more divine and more regal ‘Do not forget your place, your loyalty lies with your guild not with one member’  The voice would then grow colder and more cruel.. almost inhuman for a moment. “Besides would you really risk HIM for someone not even of this world?.. Our mission is bigger than just one girl, if you can even call her that now do as Ynaja orders” The monk picked up my unconscious body and lifted me over her shoulder  “Yes of Course Guild Master” Mirina answered to the voice..

I woke up in my own bed?! How long had I been out! Summer was pawing at me looking hungry! There was a big sack of money  there at that time I had no idea where it came from! It had a note from Mirina saying it was all the stuff we could loot from our quest. It said the dagger that stabbed me was poisoned with a poison that made me see things that were not there. They kept me asleep for it to wear out. They captured Romegg after I made him slip because I froze the floor?! That’s not what I remember! Wasn’t he dead? I was told I must have been delirious. That knife did not feel poisonous! Also the way the croupier held his dagger did not make sense if it were poisonous. He hid it in his sleeve! Had my memory been that tainted?… I felt I had to investigate but something in my head told me to leave it alone and buy a fat fish for Summer… so I ended up doing that instead! She likes fish so much!.. Also I fell in a fish pile again…..

With that another episode is done! Will Elle ever realise she just did the side mission yet again?! What is this box? And what plans does this Mysterious Guild Leader have? What will Mirina do? So many questions, so if you like to find out, there will be a next time! Of course you can help to ensure there will be a next part by making sure I don’t starve to death, get bored to death or croak from Cafeine shortage! That is right! This is another Kofi plug! Until Raid Shadow Legends start to sponser me at least!

Pokémon Top 5: My Favourite Ghost Types

Welcome again Island Guests!  We have discussed Pokémon 15 Types so far.  Three more to go!  The Ghost type is not super effective against the poison type I discussed last time..which had determined my order until now ! But it IS super effective against itself! One of the fan favourite types that is kind of frail. While definitely one of my favourites when it comes to Pokédex Entries this type is my absolute favourite. When it comes to actually favouring a type it’s actually quite mid tier for me!  I did this list once.. but my answers have changed a bit with how much I learned!

Rules and Honourable Mentions

As always to keep this list diverse I will not allow Pokémon that were on prior lists. I am not sure any ghosts made it on my lists normally due to how prominent the typing is. So there aren’t that many conflicting issues. However under the same rule I only add one entry per evolutionary line in! Since Gen VIII made evolution harder to cancel if I do not like a final evolution, I will mark down the previous forms. Even if it’s not a Gen VIII Pokémon it seems fairer that way. Pumpkaboo and Phantump are for me forms I really like, but both their final evolutions feel a bit meh! With Trevenant being okay but Gourgeist not feeling fully evolved for me. I can’t shake the “is this it?” feeling. It’s fine.. but it really feels like a mid evolution to me! So Pumkaboo takes this honourable mention. Had there been a form above Gourgeist it would have made the list.

Another rule is that ghost types have to feel like ghost types. Decidueye for example doesn’t feel like a ghost type to me and simply gets the type because it’s based on an extinct Owl. However I talked about him enough so he doesnt get the honourable mention on this rule. That goes to Dhelmise. While I very much get why it’s a ghost.. and it’s possessed seaweed around an anchor..and it fit’s the ghost ship theme.. I feel like it should be a Steel Grass type. Dhelmise gets the ability Metal Worker which effectively gives it a steel typing in the form of adding Same Type Attack bonus to his attacks but I feel that should have been swapped out for Possessed..which would give Ghost STAB as a result. In the end I do just see a seaweed covered anchor. I love it but it’s the ghost part that is implied rather than the steel bit. 

Temporary forms also do not count! So Mega’s do not count. This for me excludes Mega Banette. Which designwise is one of my favourite mega’s. I like Banette fine enough in it’s normal form but it’s mega is something I found really amazing. One of the best designed Megas and a Pokémon that could really use one.  Banette is somewhere like my seventeenth favourite ghost type or so but it’s mega might have made it a contender. Unfortunately..we judge pokémon for how they are for the majority of their journey, without any special items or so! So it falls short! The backstory about Banette being a discarded plushie swearing on revenge though! One of my all time favourites.

Ghost Type #5 Mimikyu

I thought Mimiky would be higher on this list. It is cute, has a great backstory, is fleshed out in the anime a lot and truly is a fan favourite! I love Mimikyu as well..but I do not like putting it on my team all that much! It’s design is top notch and I appreciate it a lot more than Pikachu itself..but it’s a physical ghost and fairy type. Which does make it rather unique but also a bit trickier to use.  To effectively use Mimikyu you have to sacrifice one moveslot to use Sword Dance. One for Shadow Claw and probably one for Play Rough ..because fairy types do not get a lot of physical moves either.  That means Mimikyu is one of the most rigid and less versatile ghost types with  three moves more or less being set. It managed to fight off Marshadow from the fifth place though, who is arguably the better physical ghost type due to its move Spectral Thief, by sheer love! There is so much fun stuff about Mimikyu including his Z-move! Let’s Snuggle Forever. The story of this Pokémon wanting love.. despite it cursing people to death if they see it’s true form.. is just heartwarming and wins me over every time.  Even though I do not always want to run it on my team.. I can not stop from helping to want to adopt one! It is high on my list of Pokémon Plushies I want to get and it’s song is one of my more played Pokémon tracks!

As for his Pokédex entries! I am so familiar with his lore that I do not even need to look these facts up anymore.  No one has ever seen Mimikyu’s true shape….well at least no one who did lived to tell the tale. However, looking at the true Mimikyu gets cursed ..which if you get a good view of the thing usually means you die. This made Mimikyu sad as he also wanted to be among people! So it created a disguise it could wear.  It noticed that humans really liked Pikachu so it based it’s design on that! So it could be loved as well.  For those of you unfamiliar. The Pikachu-like head is completely empty ..the actual eyes are on its body!  If it’s costume ever breaks Mimikyu gets extremely down and won’t stop working on repairing it’s costume, no matter how long it takes. It shall not rest until it’s costume is complete yet again. Mimikyu is a bit scared of sunlight, probably because it might think it’s costume doesn’t pass as much or who knows what is underneath that disguise it might be allergic to sunlight. Mimikyu can get jealous of Pikachu if it really gets lonely! Yet all in all it’s a crafty little who knows,  with a heart that wants to be loved and a disguise that wants to be hugged.

Like I said before, Mimikyu in battle is kind of boring to use. His Ability disguise  allows it to take one free hit per battle , without taking damage. (Excluding Hazards and status) Mimikyu’s strong ability however is countered with a lackluster stat pool. It’s physical attack is only 90, which is not bad but no where near the ballpark of others. Since it’s most targetable weakness is ghost it does really benefit from his high special defence and his decent speed. I ran Leech Life as a final move on mine since Gen VII really improved that move , giving it 80 base power instead of 20. With his high defences it can get a fair bit of recovery of types Leech Life is super effective against. It doesn’t offer much covery though as it overlaps a lot with both it’s fairy typing against dark and ghost typing against psychic. Woodhammer is an option to make it more diverse.. but that last slot really depends on what kind of teams you are facing.. you can not swap the other moves out at all so that one changes depending on what you face. I always give it it’s Z-crystal as a held item because I want to use Let’s Snuggle forever! Cause you know! It’s cute!

Ghost Type #4 Polteageist

My Polteageist Earl Grave was one of my favourite Pokémon during my Pokémon Sword and Shield run! I bet the nickname has been passed around a lot so it’s not very original but I did not want to go South African/Dutch with Dooibos  and it was a male and I felt Deadjeeling felt a bit more feminine.  Still I never thought tea would make such a good Pokémon. When I say good I mean that for a while it was amongst the top 10 most powerful Pokémon in Galar. I haven’t kept up with it so I am not sure if it got a bit nerfed but I know this Pokémon without any imposed limitations can kick ass and take names. It’s design like a pot of tea also is quite unique and I really prefer pure ghost types a lot!  With only two weaknesses, one that it always has covered, it just works for me!  Also it’s dead it loses some of those other aspects. I never got why Gengar got the poison type! This is just ghostly black tea haunting a cup! Sure you could add the water or grass type to it.. but it would only end up with more weaknesses.  So they did well with this one!

What many people did not know is that Polteageist comes in two forms and this has to do with a lore thing. Polteageists are formed if you leave a bit of black tea in a teapot and another ghost usually another polteageists comes to visit it in the night!  If it does it will move into the tea and possess it after it leaves the beverage a new ghost is formed.  Ever after they roam around. Usually they originate from fake chinaware but once every now and again it is an official antique teapot they possess. Which is also mentioned in the Pokédex. But this is actually a feature in the game! If you manage to tilt the camera below your Polteageist, you can see a blue stamp of a prime brand if you have the anique form. If there is nothing it is called the Phoney form. If you use a cracked pot evolution item to evolve it .. your Pokémon is a fake antique..however if you used a Chipped Pot.. it is the real deal!  There are no stat differences here.. and it’s just tea possessing tea but I love how much detail went in such a seemingly throw away pokedex line. When it trusts its trainer it allows them to sample some of their tea. However if it is angered it will shoot some bad tea in your mouth that will cause severe chills. No gruesome stories for this one it seems!

Polteageist has a Special Attack stat of 136. Which means it is more offensive than nearly all other pokémon I listed before. No more than 5 pokémon of the 75 I mentioned before are more powerful than this tea!  Yet that is not all! Polteageist gets the excellent combination of  Shell Smash, a move that changes all your stats .. dropping your defensive stats for offensive stats and speeds, as well as Stored Power.. a move that deals damage equal to the number of stat boosts you have gotten. It’s ability weak armor raises its speed when it’s hit by a physical attack and equipped with a white herb or a focus sash; this combination can wreck teams if they do not have a proper special wall.  (A wall is a pokémon whose main purpose is to take damage and shift momentum in your favour)  It also gets moves like Willow Whips to lower physical damage, it gets Shadow Ball the most powerful Ghost special move and it gets Giga Drain which with 136 special attack can offer you some very reliable recovery. This Pokémon needs to be taken out because with just two goes of Shell Smash it can nearly one-shot an entire team…as long as the opponent doesn’t have a dark type or priority moves. Truely a scary ghost!

Ghost Type # 3 Gengar

While I do not understand why it has the poison type, and that typing often is more a nuisance as a boon, I do love the original ghost pokémon.  That is right both in generation one and two there was only 1 ghost pokemon line for each. Gengar is a classic and for good reasons. His design is haunting, the idea of incorporating him with shadows pays off, and the way he reflects Clefable in a way has led to many interesting theories. He is still one of the better designed ghost Pokémon for me. Both his Giganta Max and Mega evolution are amazing in their own rights. I particularly like the Mega! Even if its forbidden to use because of how amazingly powerful it is! It fits in Gengars Pokedex lore! So love that one! There is something intimidating about Gengar. It seems the most insane and chaotic of the ghost pokémon and Haunter and Gengar are arguably the first pokémon that killed Ash. Haunter at least ripped out his soul long before Mewtwo and Mew ever turned him to stone! Gengar was also the first trade evolution I ever managed to obtain so he was something very special to me!  Later becoming one of my staples in Pokémon Stadium! I also had a Gengar toy which looks awesome and translucent!  So with this many memories he was sure to be on this list and I am fairly sure that no one really thinks this is a bad ghost type Pokémon!

Pokédexwise this pokémon used to be moderately innocent. His earliest entries seem to focus on that shiver you feel down your spine when you’re scared or anxious! They explain it is Gengar stealing heat from its surroundings. It can hide in your shadow or mimic to be your shadow and if  your shadow ever overtakes you on a full moon or when you are passing by streetlights it is actually the ghost running and having fun. As soon as early as Pokémon Silver though it already mentioned that it preys on lives to steal.  Hiding in the shadows to do so. It becomes quickly clear that this stealing of heat is more a stealing of life force. He also likes to curse you without reason.. just to have a laugh. Yet Gengar is at his darkest .. in Pokémon Sun and Moon. Sun’s ingame pokédex entry states: Should You ever feel yourself attacked by a sudden chill it’s the sign of an approaching Gengar. There is no escaping it. Just give up! Which… is quite dark!  Moon then explains that it was once a human himself and now he is looking for a traveling companion which he achieves by taking the lives of other humans hoping the dead turn into other Gengar. If you ever think .. well I will just not leave the house then.. Ultra Moon states.  Not even your house is safe… all Gengar needs is a Dark corner to wait for a chance to catch its prey!… Darn Game Freak.. that would have given Kid Pinkie sooo much nightmares!

Gengar got infamy in the competitive scene when Mega Gengar was released. In its Mega form it’s base special attack became 170. The most Powerful special attack ever. So promptly Mega Gengar was cast into the Ubers Categorie.. where it rests with all the overpowered legendaries. Since that is not possible in Gen VIII I will discuss his non mega evolving set from the Under-used tier! Here he works as a special sweeper with 130 special attacks.  Ev’s go into special attack and speed and it is equipped with Focus Blast, Shadow Ball , Sludge Wave and Substitute. The idea is to keep a substitute up and bombard your enemies from behind cover.  Since virtually all sound based moves, except for bug Buzz, which Gengar resists,  are normal type moves he works great behind a sub. These moves offer a wide variety and deal a lot of damage against fairly common archetypes. Myself I oftenly swap out Focus Blast for Thunderbolt since I oftenly lack proper covery against flying types and the paralysis chance is neat as well. The Focus blast slot once more is the most swappable slot.. though substitute can also be replaced if you face off against a trick room team!   Gengar has a few options and lots of types covered.  

Ghost Type Number # 2 Mismagius

Mismagius to me is mostly an improvement of Gengar.. but more femine. It has a bit more defence, for a bit less offensence, It lacks the pesky psychic type and ground type weaknesses the number three has and it has a hat! While Gengar feels more scary. Mismagius feels more ghostly! It also has a bit of a scholarly quality! A mage! …well duh! Oddly that mage like quality isn’t on to many pokemon. Alakazam is more a mentalist like Uri Geller, Gardevoir is more of a Bride or something. While we had plenty of warriors , there are not that many real mages. So as a D&D Player I am happy! It is also something I really would like to cosplay as a Gijninka version.. which is basically the pokémon interpreted as a human. I just love this design that much!  The colours are more vibrant than on Gengar, it has a  better shiny form then Gengar (it becomes greenish yellow, where Gengar slightly hue shifts to barely noticeable less saturated). I really like how it differs from the other ghosts as well. 

Most Ghosts have insanely dark Pokédex entries. Like people dying from looking at them, them praying on human lives just to have a playmate to stuff like “this ghost is a child that got lost in the woods and starved to death’  , this ghost carries its former human face with it and sometimes looks at it and cries tears of blood (yes that’s a  real in game thing). Mismagius though is a half and half. It is a chanting/spellcasting pokémon befitting its name.  While it certainly can cause trouble with it’s chants, such as intense migraines and visions of absolute terror , Mismagius can also induce Happiness in people with some of it’s chants. The Pokémon is feared for it’s wrath and the curses that it places but it on a whim also bestows positivity upon humans. For example , besides the happiness, Mismagius is known to be able to cast love spells. It can make two people fall deeply in love with another. This means some people desperately seek it’s aid. I like how it once again is a bit of a counterpart to Gengar’s doom and gloom.. and with him most of the other pokémon. It makes Mismagius much more of a balanced Pokémon, a creature you could actually see people use as a pokémon.

Mismagius is a Pokémon in the Never Used Tier. It’s offensive stat of 105 makes it an average  but solid sweeper. This rating is mostly based on how dominant Inciniroar was a presence in the Metagame though.  In Sword and Shield it would most likely be more successful due to a much lesser presence of Dark types. It is best on a team with Webs, Hazards and possibly Sleep. As it is dependent on Nasty Plot to get properly set up! It having Nasty Plot though means that IF you can set it up.. it gets powerful FAST. People really used to run it with Power Gem but that is a rather specific counter.  Due to how Dynamax fighting moves offer one of the best stat buffs, Dazzling Gleam might be a better shout. Protect and Taunt are good support moves to run on it and if you can run it on a team that keeps you in the driver’s seat when it comes to momentum this pokémon is great. As it doesn’t require a trade but just a Dusk-Stone to evolve this Pokémon is also a lot more viable to use on gameplay stuff. Let’s be honest if you are playing an older game who is going to reliably trade a Gengar to you?! You already need a friend with a game! So while it’s not the BETTER pokémon I think it is the better pick.

My Favourite Ghost Type: Chandelure

A lamp.. My favourite ghost type is a lamp! Back in the early days of my blog I bumped him down a little as recently I had used a Gengar again and to be safer with my audience! However since then it has climbed in my list again. Somehow this always climbs back to the top! I love purple flames! The whole dark fire thing is one of the tropes I like the most! I loved it in Underhero, I loved in Pokémon, I love anything that has a canonical purple black flame! It is my main in Pokken.. not that I play Pokken a lot but as far as it goes..it’s my main. I just want to own one and swing on its arms.  I also want to hug it ..as long as it doesn’t burn me!  The Pokémon also has a great Gijinka which I love very much.. but that might be a topic I cover on it’s own.  There is just so much to love! The  black frame.. the bluish intended glass, those endless yellow eyes and the dancing purple flames together create a stunningly designed pokémon. I absolutely adore the design and it is one of the very few Pokémon that uses a jet(ish) black in it’s design so well. Zekrom is a thing but other than that most pokémon are more a dark blue than a black.. yet here it works so incredibly well! This makes it more unique in my opinion. Of course Jynx used to be jet black but we like to forget about that one and even if we considered it.. it’s not much competition. This Pokémon perfectly fits it’s ghost fire typing for me and it works very well in my shadowy mansion with a big haunted library ..old tea pots and seemingly moving plushie collection!

While it’s  pokédex entry  is nowhere near as scary as both its earlier evolutionary stages.. which are a candle that mesmerises you by looking at it’s flame.. but also drains you off life force as you do.. or a smaller lamp that if it burns you , you will experience that pain forever from then on out. Chandelure still is a bit of a creeper. It is said to live in ancient dilapidated mansions. It hypnotises those who visit it with it’s swinging arms. Then it burns your soul from your body. Leaving around a soulless husk of a corpse. While a part of your spirit fades a part of it is doomed to wander this world forever, never finding rest. Being a generation V pokémon it has only seen pokédex entries in Unova, Kalos and Galar. Unfortunately missing out on those sweet sun and moon dex entries. However Shield does have a bit of a zinger as well!  It mentions that those who have their homes illuminated by Chandelure will not get light in abundance. In place of lights, there will be lots and lots of funerals. At least it hypnotises you before it kills you! So that is better as just giving into your fear like is the case with Gengar! I much rather be murdered by a Chandelure!  So of course it is higher on this list.

Chandelure is commonly used as a Under-Used Tier Stall breaker. That means this is the Pokémon you set in if your opponent is bunkering down. It gets the ability Infiltrator which allows it to negate substitutes which can come in handy against some Pokémon! Yet you normally do not even have to run it to be effective. Just by being one of it’s possible abilities means  they can not risk staying in against it if they are weak against its unique typing. Fire and Ghost is great against a great many Meta popular types so it should get the most powerful but reliable moves for those.  Shadowball and Flamethrower. Yes Fire Blast is more powerful but the general consensus in the gaming community is that due to its accuracy Flamethrower reliably deals more damage. However Fire Blast should be taken if the enemy has some very big special walls, such as Aggron! While it is super effective against it. Aggron also can use super effective moves against it.  This means Chandelure is a bit more versatile but also more tricky than say Gengar. Like most Chandelure is best if it can set up. It’s set up move of choice is Calm Mind. With it’s 145 base special attack it  can already pack a wallop but with just One Calm Mind already..it becomes a massive treat leaving you in control of the fight.

Chandelure is everything I want in a Pokémon. It is more versatile to use, it is a bit trickier to use due to how frail it is but it is also something that really can boost your team rather than just be a stand alone thing. It’s slightly more than just a cannon. Combine that with one of the best ghostly designs and its ability to literally leave it’s mark upon one’s soul and it is not hard to see why this one is my bright and shiny light on top of the Ghost Pokémon list.

So what is your favourite Ghost Type? Do you prefer any of the legendaries maybe? What is your favourite ghost pokédex entry?! Do you use the ghost types often? Let me know and let’s talk Pokémon! Next week..we shall cover our penultimate type! The Dragon-Type! Feel free to let me know your favourites on that one in advance! Now I still feel a bit under the weather so Pinkie is heading back to bed.. or next time she might actually be a ghost herself.

A Bitter Girl in a Pokémon Candyland: Pokémon Sweet 2th Review

Hello Island Guests, as you know I search the lands far and wide to play interesting Pokémon Rom Hacks and fan games. One of my all time favourites was Pokémon Sweet Edition, a game where Pokémon turn in all sorts of pastries and sweets and their typings get replaced by flavours.  It was adorable. The only thing that was annoying was that it was set in canydised Kanto.. we have seen that region so much before! So when the sequel offered us Mega Sweets and a region they built from the scraps of Kanto.. I could not wait. However lighting never strikes twice apparently.

Lemony Road

Pokémon Sweet version did not offer a wide variety of candies, by my guess there would be like 90 or so?! I am not fully sure! This game was marketed as more candies, more variations, bigger regions and a story about mega evolutions. Or Mega Sweets..  I may use original terminology here to make this all a bit more understandable. Immediately the game starts with a bit of a set back. You see this game offers you the exact same starters as the first game. Browniesaur, Strawmander and Squirpie! While cute and actually pretty balanced Pokésweets there is a problem. The prequel already allowed  me to obtain all three and I ran most of them.. so I did not feel that compelled to use them. So I started with Squirpie the candy that I did not get to use enough the last time. An apple flavoured candy. After picking a starter something interesting happens though.. a choice that seems so smart but makes this game even more of a hassle.

Depending on what starter you pick you are locked in a certain route! You see in this game Pokésweets (the name for candy pokemon) have an ability to use a HM-move by instinct. Or they may not there is no real way to tell as far as I am aware. Browniesaur can cut trees, Squirpie can surf on the cream and Strawmander can roll around rocks. This is not explained very well so if you follow your trainer instinct you end up being stuck straight away. Each route leads to a Battle Bakery, which are basically gyms! Here you fight the head baker for a medal. If you have 8 medals you can participate in the pokéweets league. So far so good! Well.. the issue is the open ended route of this game. We can land at three separate gyms at first.  Either one you can challenge first depending on your starter.  While this sounds great it brings issues. Once you past the first one, the next two are no challenge at all and after them there is a lot of grinding to do because the game has to guide you to gym A B and C before moving on to D & E.. so while Pokémon felt super linear this feels like you are backtracking a lot! There are alternative ways to get somewhere but you need the pokésweets of routes anyway so instead of walking in a line we now zigzag our way through.

I do like the concept of a more open ended pokémon world but  you really need  a sliding leveling scale for that to work. Now some parts are super easy and starting on a next tier is super hard. The way the world map is designed is UGLY as well. It kinda feels like a kid has drawn a map with just some random aspects scattered anywhere. In Kanto , even in Pokémon’s sweet version everything felt unique. It had a reason to be there! There was a harbour town, there was a mining town, there was a town by ocean and a village of the dead.  Here most towns are copies of another with one having slightly more milk ponds or having the Pokésweet Center and the shop swapped around.  In the end I could not find the final badge I was missing because I felt .. I had been to that down before.. because it looked that much like another town. No village has a purpose.. it’s just a few houses.. in one house you get a move to teach your pokémon , in one house you get maybe some potions or have to trade some soda and in others there isn’t anything. The battle bakery sprites look really ugly in the world and lots of buildings have no doors. It just feels so sloppy. Put an asset on the world just so you can have an asset.

Since you need particular Pokésweets through travel through certain areas it quickly becomes tedious! I for the life of me could not found a Sweet that learned Rock Smash and if I gave up on a Pokésweet for not liking it’s design I often had to get it back still, because it was the only one who could roll away a boulder or cut a tree. It isn’t all bad though There are a few cool areas such as the halloween fields or the inverse world, where typings are different.. but those are few and far between. Weirdly I’d rather be playing Kanto yet again.. so unfortunately the world left a sour taste in my mouth. And it’s super pink! I loved it the last time around so why do I think it’s so ugly now?! Well because there went no love or thought into this.

A mixed Bag

Luckily there are the cute Pokésweets right?  Yes you are half right! Pokésweets are still very cute! For the most part! I got a really quite Chefchop which was a machop in a chef outfit with pink hands. I also got a muffloom which is a Muffin Gloom.. I could not evolve it though no matter how hard I tried.. some Pokésweets are a bit bugged. They might not actually evolve! So heck! I was stuck! Also for some weird reason. my Muffin Gloom could fly?! I am not complaining..but it’s pretty weird since I also had a banana bird who could not fly! These bugs were present in the original though and they come with the territory of Rom Hacks.. it’s a shame but you learn to deal with and move on. There are a lot more sweets this time around and there are some very very nice designed ones. Like Noibats sweet version. Who looks very pink and tasty. It has a bit of a donut-like quality. I also really liked oddish and Muffloom as I said before and here and there there are a few great new clever Pokésweets. So there is a charm to this! ..And then there are the “new” new ones.

In this game it is clear that you can tell who knew anything about pixel art and sprite design ..also who was invested in Pokésweet design and who is not. All those Pokésweets from last time look amazing and there are a handful of hits here as well.. There are also Pokémon that are just sprite swaps. Give Pignite a wine colour and it’s a grape flavoured Pokésweet. Same goes for Torchic and for about 60% of the new roster.  Pokemon either have one random element added to it.. like Treecko having a little mint leaf hat that clearly looks added.  It gets even worse that some sprites even get cut off. Like if Pignite fully evolves you get an Emboar that has no arms or leg as the sprite is cut off.  Same goes for Blaziken! The first game showed so much love, and this feels like a rushed project where most people don’t even seem to care. I wish I could go softer on it..because there ARE people who care in that team.. but there are also a lot of people who very clearly don’t and it’s just sooo noticeable.  

Now I could forgive bad sprites if the other flavouring was intact. It was super cute to see Pokémon use flavoured type moves like . Apple Claw, Zester or  Karate Choc! I used about 10 pokésweets during my journey and I have only gotten about 9 moves with candy-themed names. Four of them are on my Starter.  Which means 29 moves were just their literal game translation. A few Pokésweets never EVER learned a name based on sweets including Blaziken..whose sprite gets cut off. So now I have a yank Blaziken sprite.. with the same moves as a normal.. also Blaze Kick is a Strawberry movie while Ember counts as a lemon type move or something?  This may not be an actual example but it does happen that some moves just have been retyped randomly. This also leads to broken Pokesweets. For example Wineboar.. never learned any grape type moves. He learns a lot of lime ones.. but he doesn’t get the same type attack boosts thus suffers. You can feel that this group who designed the game lacked synergy. It feels fundamentally broken and given how great the first game is I can not forgive them for giving us THIS as a sequel.

No more Bug Types.. But there Sure are Bugs.

Still I would be willing to forgive them, it’s a fan game. Not everyone can design a great world, not every pokésweet you design can be a hit. Yet there is so much wrong with this game that in fact you almost nearly did not get a review!  It happened when I found a rare move I could move by pushing a Boulder, luckily I had a Sweet who could do that.  I got stuck! I saved my game and I got stuck!  Saving booted me to a menu and it resetted the rock position leaving me in a box from which there was no escape. By then I was, including grinding,  about four hours in the game and I had to restart my entire game. Luckily I had save stated before (I do not know how pokémon evolve so I do save states to quickly experiment)  Had I not.. all game progress would have ended as I would have locked myself in a game over type situation! Surely this counts a game breaking error. You can get trapped. Then there are pokésweets that should not evolve even if they should. Making your grinding them up a waste.   There are a few visual glitches and  the entire map has so little design in it that there are invisible walls everywhere! You can almost at EVERY  spot travel to the boundaries of the world and just bump the invisible wall. Pokémon at least brings some confines by placing mountain ranges in between.. or peer buoys or whatever. Here this is just part of the map map you can’t walk onto. Or even a pixelated mess of assets to form a barrier.

Mega evolutions are a cool new addition but I have not seen a single mega evolution work. Except for my Back Sprite, if someone uses a MEga evolution but me I see they activated it but the sprite does not activate.. it only activates if the pokémon is switched out, then the next pokémon that swaps in will show up as the actual mega sprite. So as cool as Mega evolutions are.. they are not in this game for you to see. Also it’s a wild guess who evolves! Besides from my starter I was unable to find any! Apparently Arbok mega evolves..into a blue form.. but I barely saw it..because I oneshot that Rattitart that it actually was. I got to see a few sprites during the final fight against my rival which I named Mailman! He used six Mega evolutions sweets but those are the only six sprites I saw. To fight him however you have to find all 12 mega sweets which are named after their flavour not the pokésweet that can evolve with it.  These can be given by any random people on the map or trough story. Which seems like a cool concept.. however the world is open now. Which means each town you can reach in three or four ways. So you have to interact with every single npc, on every single route and there is no clear indicator of items you have and dont have. If a mega sweet happens to be in your pc.. and you forget.. there is no way the game shows you have it.  You can be lost forever.


Pokéballs don’t break this time around, they are reasonable.. but if you try to switch bals you lose a pokeball of any type you used during that catch. While it has a major glitch this system is actually quite great! Just buy once and you only lose a ball upon a succesful catch! This makes the catching aspect really appealing and since this is a game where you really want to collect good on them! I managed to catch three boxes full of pokesweets in my journey and still I missed a lot of those that I already catched in the prequel. It also makes it pretty useless to buy any other pokéball than a sweet ball/pokeball.  Yet in later towns you can only buy the more expensive ones… so you have to backtrack. This game has so many great ideas but it’s just that everything and I mean everything ends up in a broken mess.

Artificial Sweetner

The story last time was kinda clever, featuring the evil team trying to steal all the rare candies to create the ultimate army. That is a great story! Dark Chocobun trying to betray humanity and you having to try and stop her felt pretty satisfactory. This time your rival is just a capital D who wants to rule the world. He fled into another world where all typings are inverted, which again would be clever..but the movesets are so random that it barely leaves an impact. The Chocolate bunnies who are deities of the candy world help you stop the guy ..and then there is a Pokésweet league that is not even part of the plot. All dialogue felt super lazy and while I actually cared and was invested in the plot of Sweet Version, Sweet 2th did nothing for me.  It’s just an evil guy! No twists, no development.. nothing! How? Clearly you had a great writer on board last time what happened here?! The last one was good?! It was really good.

Never ever have I seen such a drop in quality between the first and the second part. The first game I love to bits and if you want to play a Pokémon game filled with the delicious looking monsters that is the way to go! This one feels like it’s deformed , barely viable brother. I am sure it’s parents will love it..but that is about the extent the love goes. The map is horrible, un-inspired and very frustrating to traverse. It basically requires you to carry specific pokésweets all the time.. or at least typing wise. You can get trapped in several spots due to how bad the world is made.  Save a lot.. and use save states to avoid this.  While the original candy monsters are all sweet and adorable the majority of the new ones is either lazy or broken, their movesets have not been adjusted to fit their new flavouring what so ever. If you want a fun team you have to play the game “what do I think is the developers favourites , because not every pokésweet gets the same love.. With some bad luck like me you can have a team without any of the unique flavour but with all the broken stuff. Every cool system this game has comes with a huge downside due to not being balanced, as a result it is a glitchy mess that is playable and finishable but not enjoyable. The lackluster story finishes it off perfectly.


This game could have been passable if not for it’s sublime predecessor. It shows just how incapable this game is. This game has been done better, more balanced, more functional, more flavorful and a LOT sweeter.  Unless you want to really play Pokémon on a map that feels like a 10 year olds custom age of empire map or Tony Hawk Pro Skater custom course, I am gonna have to see I can’t find ANY reason for this game to exist. It does not expand the story of the first game, the new sweets are neglectable Therefore this is the first pokémon fan  game.. and perhaps even a pokémon game that gets my lowest rating. Guys I loved your first game to bits… but this feels like the Beta test of Pokémon Sweet that did not work out. Clever ideas.. is all it has..and a cute Noibat!   The first one is briljant still … this is it’s broken little brother! Pass on this one guys! It’s a waste of your time.. and teeth.

If you like me to play better games please consider supporting my Kofi so I can buy some decent ones! Or feel free to suggest a fun pokémon fan game/rom hack in the comments if you do not have any money to burn! I hope you all will check out the prequel! Despite everything I all wish you a sweet day!

The Damphir and the Dumbkopf: Bloodrayne Review

Yay Island Guests it’s time for everyone’s favourite director again! Uwe Boll! Where Postal made me hate him as it was one of the worst movies I’ve EVER seen, I had high hopes that this one would at least be better.  Then I found out that 2005’s Bloodrayne fairly commonly is seen as Uwe Boll’s WORST movie. Where Postal just proved Uwe Boll is a horrible person.. this one taught me that Uwe Boll is a horrible writer as well. The greatest mystery to me is not the Loch Ness monster, it is how Uwe Boll can get well known names in his movie… and there are quite a few of them .. in Bloodrayne..
As Michelle Rodrigeuez with her super fake british accent would say in this movie… it was bloody awful. This post will spoil the entire movie as we will need it to unearth it’s flaws.. but trust me.. it is not relevant to your enjoyment of this film.

Writing Rule Number 1: Every Story Needs A Setting

Lord of the Rings is set in Middle Earth in the third era or something.  Star Wars is set a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Rampage is set in modern day Chicago.. and Bloodrayne isn’t set anywhere. We start in an undefined kingdom in an undefined timepiece and we do not know if this is our world or some magical world. Only the THIRD movie in this series would reveal  that it is set on earth at least with the subtitle Bloodrayne Thirdreich. The THIRD movie has a setting.. this one not so much!  Now you may argue that it does , it’s probably the dark-ages as black powder from China is new and unknown and everyone talks with a British accent except for Michael Madsen and Matthew Davis, who both play vampire hunters.. with american accents.. .. before america was even born. But heck that is the least of the consistency errors in this movie! This movie doesn’t do world-building at all. 

The movie opens with Michael Madsen and his crew riding in a town, they are looking for someone or something, the local barkeep might have some answers when Davis character Sebastian spots a tavern goer not having a reflection and stabs him, everyone takes this very calmly..so it seems we have a world where vampires are very common and hunters as well. That could be cool…the next scene we are introduced to Rayne, she is a captive at a circus where she is used as a freak show, where they make bank on showing the monstrosity known as vampires to the world…..uhm.. but did the last scene not show the world accepts them as common? Also why are vampires allergic to plain  water… I would not mind but later they go trough lengths to get holy water..uh oh.. its going to be THAT type of movie?

A scene later Rayne is raped..cause Uwe Boll thinks women are equal to condoms just something to hang Woody Woodpecker in, but she escapes, in a weird mix between a flash forward that through cinematography reads as a dream or flashback. They add in some nausea inducing screen smears and we are in the next scene, the vamp hunters now are in the camp, Rayne went on a rampage and killed those who wronged her and bit her friend on accident..so without explaining to the circus troupe the hunters  start beheading their dead and murdering those who have been bitten. Of course there is no reaction from the carnies whatsoever because to them vampires are common now! Jeesz Uwe cant even be consistent with this on the same group of characters! And I am only 10 minutes in. Then we see Rayne killing a vampire by just stabbing and slashing her?! So why stab that other guy in the heart with a stake?!…Oh.. this rule isn’t gonna be consistent right?! ..That’s right!

Writing Rule Number 2:  Every story should happen for a reason

We get the backstory of Rayne told soon after, she is a Damphir a half human half Vampire that can wear crosses and feed on vampires. She seduces a female vampire, who from being into guys completely abandons her male prey to get killed by Rayne allowing herself to be bitten and drained in seconds. First of all.. if you had a sure thing.. why trade it in? Second for Rayne to seduce the woman and assume she is into women as well is quite a stretch whenever this movie is set and third, the woman is a vampire! Surely she’d be aiming at Rayne’s neck not expose hers for some cheap thrills? She was hunting why turn her into just a skank looking for some hot woman on woman action?! Because Uwe Boll doesn’t understand the difference between a woman and a sextoy thats why! Anyway.. the vampire is dead now from a two second bite..stupid but more movies do that. A Roma fortune teller shows up and sees this and tells Rayne to follow her and trough tarot her backstory is told. Rayne’s father Kagan played by Ben Kingsley raped her mother and later to kill his daughter from said rape. Since he is an evil vampire he wants to be immortal… or more immortal?  For this he needs 3 items called the talisman and with it he can rule the world… also he nearly destroyed everyone who can resist him already and actually manages to dispose of every organisation oposing him during the movie BEFORE he gets any relics…so had he not done the whole plot thing.. he would have won anyway..so Why is he looking for these?

Rayne must find these things to stop him, why he hunts for these relics now and not when she was little? Who knows?!It would have made sense if he searched for the relics while his enemies were at full strength but now there is only a single cell left! Okay he didn’t know where they were. No one does, so the fortune teller obviously just tells Rayne the exact location of one With these artefacts Kagan may be able to rule the world and become immortal..which he already is..one of them just allows him to take a bath..another would allow him to wear a cross around his neck….. so these artifacts sounds REALLY underpowered., so if Rayne wants to save the world.. she has to find these artifacts before he does. Regardless Rayne tells the Roma lady “No I do not care about the world .. I just want revenge”. Then she goes out to find these artefacts.

The first one is guarded by a bunch of monks. Who immediately believe a woman of healthy colour, no damaged clothes and carrying two huge swords indeed lost her family on her road and is so sick and weak that she needs shelter. In a world where vampires are established to be super common(sometimes). Mind you these monks protect a relic from vampires! So without a doubt they invite this Vampire into their monastery and allow her to kill their molten faced guard.. who for no reason at all has a face like that.. He can wield a big giant fake hammer.. and again for no reason he swaps that out for a spiked club… Both are bludgeoning weapons and both are used in the exact same way.. the only reason the creature swaps is so Rayne could feasibly lift it to bash it’s face in. I am willing to believe these monks don’t turn away a plea for help..but come one Uwe! These monks protect the relic against vampires..and when a warrior woman without a scratch on her body shows up at night they just allow her to roam into their reliquary? Jeesz.. also why is there one monster monk?! It makes NO sense!

His necklace unlocks a secret passage because..of course it does.. and Rayne finds a room that is trapped by the Looney Tunes.. like seriously its that exaggerated. THink hexagonal tiles and across all lines sawblades are fired faster than your eye can track. I mean that literally I could not keep up with the trap visually.. so of course she leaps trough it seeing a pattern..to discover the relic is an eye. When she takes this eye.. which allegedly makes her more immortal.. she activates the final trap. Now before we move on from here let me explain how these relics work. There are A Rib, an Eye and A heart.  One makes you immune to sunlight, one makes you immune to the holy stuff and one makes you immune to water. So I would assume the eye would make you immune to sunlight, cause blinding light etc.. the heart against holy stuff cause you know heart/love goodness god etc.  And why a rib makes you immune to water would be a bit weird.. but a rib kinda looks like a boat?!


But no.. the eye makes her immune to water. The heart makes you immune to sun and the rib lets you resist holy stuff talk about random! Now let’s play a game! How well can Uwe Boll Write! I am gonna write a scenario Uwe Boll has set up.. and then you have to think like him.. for an awfull solution to the problem. Here we go : So a Damphir/Vampire just stole that item that can make them immune to the harmful water… Oh no! The vampire can take a bath now.. and travel across a lake apparently..cause they would normally not be able to do that either. What trap do you design to stop them after gaining Water Immunity?! Mind you.. you already fired 20 cartoon sawblades at them and it missed. … How would Uwe Boll write the NEXT trap. To stop an even stronger vampire! …………….. If you thought that stopping someone with water immunity through a water trap would be the way to further this story… you are correct! The room fills up with water..about ankle deep. But that is not all.. there is a trial after that.. a monk politely tells her off! Also fun little detail NONE of these monks wear the same cross around their neck… which just feels stupid. They are an ORDER..

So for some reason, Ben Kingsley Vampire who never knew his daughter was alive.. now knows she is alive and exactly where she is .. and has a guy from his castle follow her..which means riding out with a battalion of dark knights.. obviously they arrive at the EXACT time that Rayne finished the trial.. despite not having searched for her.. they just go to the right location.. fight some monks and if they do not want to tell where the eye is .. they kill them..including the last guy who could possibly know. This of course lets the bad guy realise it is Rayne who has the talisman so he captures her. Because..otherwise they are stuck and the plot won’t further. Obviously the Bad Guy actor knows Rayne has the eye! He has the script! They bring her to Meatloaf Vampire who can offer them shelter for the night but he wants to add her to his harem.. because 14 boobs are not enough. The henchmen guy doesn’t agree which sends Meatloaf in a very over acting rage. Then the vampire hunters.. two of them.. come in after having fought off dozens of vampires and the henchman guy..decides to flee…..later he would demonstrate he could take both of them at full strength fighting them simultaneously.

Meatloaf being a vampire of course chose the room with windows that have the sun shining in from 4 different directions and while Rayne perfectly rolls in a blanket four beams poof Meatloaf vampire away.  Man.. the price of that house with every side facing the south (or west)  must have been hella expensive. Also… dear Mister Boll… that is not how Sunlight works. It’s a beam.. You can never have four perfect beams of lights from all directions.. heck with one direction it is even flat out impossible whatsoever. Why am I even surprised by this though! Stuff doesn’t happen in this world because it makes sense in the context of a world. Things happen because Uwe Boll thinks it’s cool..or because he feels he needs to proof women are all floozies and addicted to male genitalia..or female ones.

Writing Rule Number 3: Give your characters relevant development.

So after that the hunters take in Rayne and train her as one of their own… Sebastian doesn’t trust her too much and she is very mean to them.. because she has suffered so much!  She explains her backstory…which by the way she also told the monks so this is the third time we see that story in flashbacks and it is also depicted in art in the opening credits I think.. so this story .. He raped my mother and killed her.. is now VERY well known.  She tells no one else could possibly feel what she feels. Sebastian tells her his parents both turned vampire and he saw hunters kill them right before his eyes.. as they saved him as his parents were about to kill him.  I lost both my parents, he says!…This of course triggers the romance scene and Rayne and Sebastian begin to fuck like animals against a cage… because both of them had dead parents… here I thought the Martha from Batman versus Superman  thing was kinda lame! Boll did it first and worse though.

After that they are in love , which is shown by the fact that they smile at each other cutely once or twice.. other than a few spars together with the worst looking swords you have ever seen in a movie.. and I am not kidding.. There are high school plays that have better looking swords and no I am not overreacting. I shown these pictures to some weapon buffs and some who barely saw a movie and both set this was the fakest stuff they had ever seen. Sebastian is tagged out by Katarin, who is the character played by Michelle Rodriguez and has a very weird british accent. She seems friendly to Rayne at first but then shows her narrow mind. Also her father is a vampire..that is her backstory. He wants to get back in touch with her as they care for each other…so clearly she totally isn’t going to betray the group and have a fight with Rayne right?! Nah.. 

Actually no.. set up for a destined fight! Hah! No time for that plots gotta happen! Katarin betray sthe group almost immediately after this scene and that sword fight they kinda hinted at happening never does . Katarin betrays the order and it gets slaughtered. Her reason.. she doesn’t believe in Vladimir anymore and doesn’t want him to make everyone rush into their death. So obviously she kills everyone! This happens Rayne Sebastian and Vladimir are fetching weapons because.. one of Raynes blades broke.. and they have to go to a few hoops to get two crates of weapons. Why is this a task that needs to be done by the leader of the order?! Also there are SOOOO many weapons in the order already. They just did this for two black powder grenades and Raynes akwards swords! Why did they go?! Well so that Katarin can betray them of course. It turns out she has the third talisman as well. it was always in the fort hidden underwater. How lucky Rayne got the water immunity earlier. Why she never told anyone this when she still trusted her leader.. who knows! It’s never explained. Oh also Ben Kingsley found the second talisman of screen somewhere. Each time he is shown on screen we are shown the exterior of his castle first with a lightning sound effect.. it’s basically the same as lord Zed is introduced in power rangers.. so Sorry I forgot.. I did not take it seriously enough. Katarin and Rayne wrestle in the water.. because… it’s an Uwe Boll Movie and women have to mud wrestle. Michelle Rodriguez’s character is finished off without any honour and in a very lame splashy way. As we move towards the finale of this movie.

Writing Rule Number 4: An Ending should feel earned and in line with the story!

Rayne of course now knows where her father lives.. while she was looking for him earlier.. because everyone instantly gains knowledge they did not have before as soon as the plot requires it. And no.. she did not learn this from Vladimir or Sebastian.. she seperated from them! Knowledge directly being gained from the script is the most consistent thing in this movie.. Now to stop Kagan she lets herself be captured and hands him an artefact..which in fact is an empty box like all movies. One that not one but 4 seperate people fail to check before it is time for some sort of ritual. Oh yeah this ritual since Rayne absorbed one relic…but secretly two.. it will allow Kagan to remove these parts of her. Even though no one ever obtained these before and originally they were part of a very hard to kill vampire. There is no way this ritual should exist let alone that Kagan should know about it .. but the plot would strand without it so now he knows!

Rayne is disarmed and put in a prison! But no worries Sebastian and Vladimir come rushing in and ..get themselves captured. Which leads to Rayne being strapped to an altar as the ritual starts. This must have been part of her original plan..even if she did not know Vladirmir and Sebastian would come.. in fact.. she should not know or assume this.. but had they not been here.. this plan would have surely killed Rayne.. without a fighting chance. So why did she settle for it? By now you should know.. her actress read the plot. In the fakest Guard My Cellmate has vanished act, which no real person would belief.. heck which 90% of fictional characters would not believe, except for Looney Tunes Villains and Uwe Boll characters, the two guys are freed and manage to get to the altar to free Rayne . A fight breaks out and  Vladimir and Sebastian now effortlessly kill the soldiers that stopped them before also effortlessly I might add .. but it’s different not because now the soldiers are aided by some more elite troops….uhm you might have gotten that reversed Uwe. Ben Kingsly gets the lamest kill in the movie.. as he impales Vladimir who is held by two vampires .. ..by simply walking into him. Of course no one reacts to his death.. not even Vladimir himself. Sebastian gets mortally wounded.. with again.. no one  reacting to hit.. but by holding the plastic stick close to Hencheman’s neck.. his neck  explodes and henchman is killed instantly as Sebastian slowly fades away. There is an extreme amount of blood in this fight. Everyone is equipd with red water balloons and squirty devices.

Rayne and her father face off and it is revealed Rayne absorbed the heart. Shocker!. Ben Kingsley calls Rayne an ungratefull bitch..which makes perfect sense, such elegant dialogue.. he given her so much to be grateful for.. nearly sacrifiing her.. killing her only friends, murdering and raping her mother and leading her to lead a cursed existance as a Damphir.  What not to be thankful for. Well she is a women.. in a Uwe Boll movie so she must be grateful for sprouting of the seeds of a man I guess.  She isn’t though and manages to kill him.. after a super lame fight scene that had more dialogue that  most of the movie even. Riveting combat! Kegan dies.. in a very weird effect..again that only the vampire in the beginning mimicked.. no other vampire died like that. I was shocked to see he had Pigtails all along!

Rayne goes to her fuckbuddy and is so upset that he is also passing away and that he doesn’t want to be a vampire that she sits in Kagan’s  throne and thinks about blood..seemingly turning evil.. and with that.. we end this  atrocity..

I had my way of fun with this flick! I was amused in analysing it..but do not misunderstand This movie was bad! It made no sense anywhere.. , the effects were super lame, the writing was non existent and how the heck did all these actors agree to this?! What the heck is wrong with people?! I think Uwe boll might be some sort of Incubus! THis movie made it very clear to me.. while he can remember like 20 video game titles.. and can befriend movie actors.. he can’t do anything else! Stay away from this one! Please! If you like me can enjoy a bad movie it might be fun.. but Uwe Boll doesn’t do the “so bad that it’s good” thing. It feels to lazy for that. It doesn’t take itself seriously enough.. yet also takes itself seriously enough for it to never be clever or witty about it’s bad or shitty choices. While this movie made me less angry than Postal did.. this one clearly shows less competence as a fill maker. So once again even though I really hoped ot only give this grade once.. this movie is …….

PS all of this had very little to do with the actual video game!

Now I am sure that next week there will be a more competent film waiting for me… I might not be strong enough to pick up the sequel just yet…then again it can hardly be any worse! Now that I have a security guard I am not even that afraid for Mister Boll. If he challenges me to a fight Indigo said he would fight in my stead! I would still love to see mister Boll make a Fortnite movie… as long as I do not have to see it! That would be so bad it would probably kill me.. then again… maybe two negatives cancel each other out!


Pinkie’s Saturday Anime Adventure 16

It’s been another sleepless week for me but little by little I am getting in a few sleep hours that remotely approaches a normal human sleeping pattern. From an hour a day I am up to four or five hours now! Sleep deprivation DOES lower my standards for what I find funny though. So I might grade a bit high here, or perhaps these episodes were all pretty good again.

Digimon Adventure Episode 4

This episode is titled Soar Birdramon, so it already got me excited! I get to see Sora! I get to see Sora. I might have to raise my expectations for Digimon Adventure a bit because again I was very pleasantly surprised by the quality I have seen so far.

Taichi has reached the Digital World, which in this episode is explained, is the deepest part of the Network. The world Taichi visited in the first three episodes. Koshiro however is stuck in the Network itself so the two are seperated. However, as I suspected last time.. Sora got drawn into the digital world as well. There she stands looking at Taichi a bit sheepishly very accepting of her random predicament. Asking if Agumon is a dinosaur.   Even when he talks she doesn’t seem that surprised. They encounter an ancient stone tablet that Taichi can read despite not being able to read it normally. A beam of light makes them journey to a colourful mountain. Yet a cry suddenly draws Sora’s attention and a pink bird glomps onto her.. as she is chased by a Snimon!  Sora rescues the pink bird and Taichi holds Snimon off. The group escapes the monster by jumping in a river and the bird goes unconscious with Sora nursing her back to health. 

Yes that pink bird is Biyomon! Sora empties her bag of groceries revealing all sorts of camping equipment and her signature hat!  To get to the mountain they decide to make a raft. Biyomon wakes up and tells Sora she has been waiting for her.
A confused Sora travels with the group and Biyomon down the river when two Champion level digimon attack. A fight ensues and Sora not wanting to see Biyomon get eaten goes through great lengths to save her. This causes Biyomon to evolve and the fight is subsequently  won fairly easily. The group is then carried by Birdramon to a temple where I can see statues of Seraphimon and Hououmon respectively, which are Sora’s and Takeru’s Mega Digmon.

We get our first digivolution/evolution animation in this episode and it looks stunning! I love the new visual for digivolution. I also really liked that the first evolution of Birdramon like with Greymon is done differently! It gives it more of an impact. The cinematography in this episode is really good! Sora for once is portrayed as a very loving character. In the old show they tend to depict her as a bit cold. Sora this time around is much more the crest wielder of love. Immediately and without a doubt hugging  that strange pink animal that holds onto you.  Accepting her situation along with Taichi, even stating that since she is here she might as well make the best of it and there is no point to stress around this. I love this!  So many shows waste our time with the acclimatization phase. I know that  getting used to your environment makes sense but we all know it will happen anyway and this show wastes no time in having her faint at the strange sights.Forward! Towards the content we want to see. The statues of Hououmon and Seraphimon.. depicted from the looks of it as a Digimon deity also shows that this episode really respects the previous lore and just seeks to retell a tale in a new way and we might just get Mega’s for everyone! I really loved Sora’s depiction throughout and that is this entire episode so .. Digimon soars to new heights today.

Were there parts I did not like about this episode? I am not sure, maybe Sora was a bit TOO casual about her situation, but I get a feeling there might be something behind that. I think she might have a crush on Taichi so she is glad she is here with him?!  There are also a lot of little tributes to the old show here and there. I like how Sora’s new shirt which is pink holds a yellow BUTTERFLY, the yellow seems to be the colour of her original outfit yet at the same time it is kinda strange that some characters get different outfits and some don’t. I also had some issues with Sora’s immense physical strength. She can hold herself to a phoenix with one arm while flying very fast, she can lift a bag filled with camping supplies and a digimon without effort. Then again Ash held a 72 kilogram weighing Larvitar so this one isn’t that special.  While it may be a tad much it is great to see other destined can now shine! So while it took some suspense I am all for it. This show has clearly evolved.

I am going to do something strange and give Digimon Adventures Episode 4 my highest seal of approval. I had a blast with this episode. Perhaps it was the most amusing watch I have seen today. Sure this is no Flip Flappers and no Samurai Flamenco but what it did it did so well that I can barely fault it! I had a great time!

Samurai Flamenco Episode 11

I am so proud of Masayoshi he is finally legit.While I did love this episode this  one did make me a bit more unwilling to suspend my disbelief as it went somewhere I can’t exactly agree with yet.

The episode starts where we left off last time! Masayoshi has just revealed he is Samurai Flamenco when Red Axe or Jouji shows up at the scene. He tells Masayoshi to board a strange airship. Apparently all his travels abroad were a lie, in fact he has in secret been founding his own Sentai organisation. the Samurai Flamengers. He wants Masayoshi to become Flamen Red. They even have an underground base. You see.. King Torture was only a mild villian he was suported by a new evil organisation named From Beyond.. which seems to consist out of monsters who love to send people pixelised Trailers from their submerged space ship. To introduce their organisation in a way that looks a surprising lot like the intro from the old Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles cartoon. When Jouji wants to introduce Masayoshi to his new team we find out they have been murdered by a monster called Ugly Toxic Poison. So a back-up team is summoned.. The only problem is these are only Red Flamengers candidates. After some struggles Masayoshi is elected red and the group fights the monster as official Sentai..including a fight with a giant combiner robot.

As expected.. This episode fixed my issues with the last episode. The weird technology that King Torture had.. it was these alien folks of From Beyond who sponsored him.  Okay that was explained quick enough, the escalation also feels like how we swap Sentai seasons even. Including a replacement of the cast. Goto is sidelined and we see a new team of Sentai united in fighting for Justice.  While we know little of this new cast , and I doubt they will stick for too long, as the outfits do not seem on brand for Masayoshi.. weird reason to think they will be replaced soon huh,  and something just doesn’t feel right! The show is under my skin now.. what is happening.. what is going on? Will this last?  I love how this show makes me wonder about these things. Added with so many sentai tropes being tossed my way I feel like a girl who just got spoiled with lots of candy from grandma! So much happens and so much is done so well! The fights, the whole super robot thing, there is so much to unpack here I feel my appreciation for this episode might grow.

There is a big BUT in this one though.. it’s big enough to prevent it from getting my highest score and arguably big enough to even boot it to just being fine.  This episode killed a bit of the spirit of the show for me for now!  While it makes sense that Masayoshi can function as a ranger since Jouji trained him a lot of things are quite unbalanced by it. Why did From Beyond wait until the exact moment that King Torture croaked. It makes sense from a Sentai perspective.. so it is a great reference but in terms of narrative it makes very little sense. This show always walked that line perfectly for me and this time they heavily tilt over to one side. The fact that Masayoshi is able to pilot a plane for example makes no sense to me at all. Just minutes before Jouji explains that Masayoshi isn’t as ready to be a real sentai as those other people he trained here and so far Masayoshi has always operated within limits and now that is broken?  It is explained why his Sentai suit makes him stronger but it should not be able to allow him pilot a combiner mecha?!  I also REALLY hate Jouji as a character so I am not too pleased to see him survive this! …but hey props for at least having a lethal monster again… I think.

I liked this episode but I don’t want to lose Moe and Gotou from the show, I am afraid we will lose that humble tone it had before and instead move into a more classical Sentai show! I also had a bit of issues with the name of Samurai Flamenger on something Jouji came up with.. unless they link Masayoshi’s grandpa to the organisation in the next episode or so , so much came undone here! Yet that is why I will leave my verdict at Bery Good.. I feel the show will fix this and the episode in hindsight was very good! Right now it’s actually lower for me but this show has told me to trust it so for now I will.. with a healthy dose of scepsis.

That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime Episode 10

I got more of my pink ogre, they even made her cuter now!  They fixed a few designs I did not particularly like…. but that is also about all what this episode did for me.

Phew explaining the plot of this episode is kinda heart. We begin with a feast and the Ogres are invited to join Rimuru. The lead ogre doubts in swearing his loyalty to Rimuru and needs to think about it. We get some exposition on someone named Gelmud which seems to be the Plague doctor that is also named Rigur’s brother.  He serves one of the demon lords.
The ogres accept Rimuru’s offer and he names them all, after which he passes out.  After that we see more exposition on the orc army and learn there is a Lord Orc.. also a group of Lizard men seeks out aid in their war against the orcs who approach with a 200.000 strong army. Led by this Orc Lord. And that’s all that happened really.

I would not say this is a bad episode but it is even less a good episode. I love the new design for the most ogres, especially the pink one, named Shuna and Souei.. the sneaky blue one. The old man is cool as well and I like they have an Ogre who looks like a middle aged man as well. It offers some diversity among the Bishounen guys and pretty girls. Shion is one of those boob characters again so I don’t really care. Benimaru’s design is a bit too sleek for my liking but  it does submerge the standard trope-conform look he was before. The way the war against the ocrs is set up is nice and slowly builds some drama.

However this episode is in truth nothing more than exposition. They talk exposition during a meal, they talk exposition after the ogre’s have given names and even during they establish levels of monster classes. Almost every minute of this episode is exposition. Nothing is established through showing us everything happens through dialogue. Even the change in looks of all the ogres is mentioned into detail. After discussing the villain behind this, Gelmud, and discussing monster classes, we discuss the look change and then the lizard men begin to recruit people! We get hard numbers. Their army is only 100.000 strong and the orc army 200.000. Those seem like super weird numbers anyway  but after they tell us that 100.000 is a smaller number than 200.000 we see the son of the Lizardman king get a mission to recruit more people!  This could have been implied and might have gotten some tension but no everything has to be explained in this episode. Had I just listened to this episode (albeit in english then) I would have missed NOTHING important.. and that for an anime I think is a bad thing.

This episode easily is the worst I have seen in the series so far. It showcases some good new designs but once  more does the slime boob joke thing and other than that..it just tells us stuff we need to know. Also stuff we don’t need to know! Why linger 5 minutes on how everyone changed! We can see that! It wasn’t a bad episode but I did not enjoy myself here either.

Flip Flappers Episode 6

This was a cute episode that felt a bit clutterly here and there!  The second episode that isn’t going to get the highest grade. but one that still came pretty close by to snatching that appreciation.

Summarizing Flip Flapper Episodes can be quite hard and this one is no exception. Cocona and Papika baked cookies and they wanted to give their Senpai, the artsy one Iroha is here name Iroha Irodori.. or Iro for short.She likes Cocona’s cookies who for some reason are super nervous to give them to her! Papika is afraid to  walk into the class because the nailpolish overwhelms her senses. The three share a moment and suddenly we cut to a battle for one of the amorphous in Pure Illusion! This realm seems to be based on abstract paintings so it clearly represents Iro’s mind!  When the monster is defeated and the Amorphous is obtained, Yayaka comes to steal it. A fight ensues and while Papaki manages to retrieve the stone a portal is opened..one that seems to go deeper than Pure Illusion.


Inside we see how Iro had an old lady friend, who was suffering from dementia and ends up forgetting Iro. Cocona and Papika get to relive how happy Iro was with the woman unlike how locked up and limited she felt as an artist around her own parents. Scared off by the demention Iro never got to tell the demented lady her name so she rememberd and because of the guilt..she can’t wair nailpolish.  Papika and Cocona cope with the pain of losing a loved one in Dementia and introduce themselves as Iro to the old lady! Fixing the memory and allowing Iro to finally wear nailpolish .. or something?! So now Papika and Cocona can dive deeper so they can influence people’s minds? Maybe?! We will see soon.

My grandpa at the end of his life had dementia. I have seen him not recognise me anymore.. but also that spark of .. it is someone important I have forgotten. That is something this episode captures pretty good. The whole metaphor of an abstract painting or the weird style fitted in really well with it. It’s also nice to see that there is more at stake than just these Amorphous things.  Once more there is a duality in this episode. Papika and Cocona can only walk in one world of Iro at the time. The world of her parents where she had to hide her creativity where she had to be normal.. or the world with her “auntie” who supports her dreams and lets her bloom in the way she wants to be. However it is soon shown that that last world is not as durable. It will come crashing down sooner. The pain of loss can seem greater than the pain of locking things away. Eventually though both join together in realising that both sides of Iro have grown and can finally face that obstacle she could not overcome.
I really liked a lot of things here.

At the same time, I am not sure about the relevance of it. Where the last episode developed Cocona and Papika further as a possible couple and at least boosted the rivalry between them and Yayaka, this seems to not do anything for anyone at all. Except for Iro.. who in the big picture seems irrelevant. Maybe that is the point but this is a relatively short show so It can’t afford too much to linger without progress. It really is quite a touching episode but it is hard to grasp what just happened. Did Cocona and Papika help Iro? What was that portal even?  Maybe it was Iro dealing with things herself and that allowed Cocona and Papika to take a peek? I don’t mind the vagueness normally but here I am not sure if anything was gained with this episode so I am not as impressed as usual.

The topic of dementia is handled pretty well and I was emotional a few times during this episode. I felt what the characters felt can say it certainly was powerful. Yet I can’t say this episode felt relevant.  As if it’s a Van Gogh and a Rembrandt Exposition. It sure is a pretty piece of art and it can stand well on it’s own but you still can’t shake it doesn’t fully belong. Even if it’s strong on its own accord if you are at home and tell the weakest part of it to your art loving friends you are going to mention there was a Van Gogh that did not really fit and designate that as the flaw ..even if some of Rembrandt’s works could not hold a candle to that piece.

Hikaru no Go Episode 16

We get introduced to a new character in this episode! Also the Dutch player returns with a lot of art from his team! One guy is so horrible! He wears an orange shirt and has orange hair.. based on our sports teams that all play in orange! Like.. please don’t make him important!

I could summarise the plot by saying Hikaru let’s Sai play more online matches. And that would perfectly encapsulate what this episode is about! But I think I can add a few more lines. In the process of playing. Sai defeats a few people online including the young Insei (which is a sort of protege that tries to go pro) Waya , who plays by the name of Zelda. I do hope he realises it’s the name of the princess. A chinese, Italian and the Dutch Pro alos get defeated by Sai so all travel to Japan to some sort of expo on Go to find Sai. Waya however is the first to discover Sai might be a school kid! At the expo thing the search begins. Also Waya took the exam to go pro and faced Akira for a bit.


That is all I can make of the plot, there aren’t many other matches shown except parts of them. It offers a nice variation on the previous episodes. Waya is very much like Touya , he got beaten by Sai and now wants to find out everything about this person. His obsession takes about the same levels, but Waya seems less interested in playing against them and more so into discovering who they are. As Sai seems to be one of the most talented players he has ever seen, not believing he is a pro. I really like the Waya character, he is clever and driven and in my opinion a bit of a less annoying Akira. Later on he will also be the perfect crutch for Akira and Hikaru to become entangled again. Right now with how Pro players are set up and Touya Senior keeps getting named dropped I suspect they will host a big online tournament where Sai ends up defeating Touya Senior at the end of the arc or so.. and Waya revealing to him it was Hikaru. I might be very far off here.. but regardless I feel this show is steadily building to a big  story!  With Waya being an element I might very well come to appreciate. 

I once again think that the cinematography for the online matches isn’t that great. About half way in the episode in a montage we see a cool visual of Sai’s fan going over a board followed by clicks of Hikaru but over all, it lacks the impact the other episodes did!  It just feels less impressive.  I also really lack a bit of mentoring Sai could give to Hikaru here! This is the perfect time to make him a better player.. show him explaining to Hikaru why he plays what where so we know Hikaru is growing. Instead we see him depicted as a gleeful manchild who just wants to play! Come on guys do something that bond! Show you are a pair not two individuals in one body! I miss the synergy here! This is the perfect time to train Hikaru and teach him things. I get that this tournament focusses on Pro’s and Hikaru is not at that level.. but they also establish that Sai also challenges no pro players.. use those moments to show that against a weaker opponent Sai quizzes Hikaru on what to play next or something and I would be content.. but  just do something!

I love the set up for Waya and his potential, I really like how the story possibilities are set up as they go along. I feel this  series builds itself as an actual Go game.. not just making a moves for that episode but also setting up moves for later in the game. I see potential, I see a possible future. Yet at the same time I feel more and more that this bond between Sai and Hikaru isn’t fully utilised because both  the focus is too much on the individual. I want that bond from episode 6 back! I know you can do it! In the end it’s a strong episode that did not quite live up to its maximum potential.

So that was five shows again! While all episodes did amuse me, except for Slime.. there was a theme there! Most of these episodes did not live up to their potential in the bigger picture while providing some decent entertainment on it’s own! Maybe my mind is on the future a lot? On the personal front I had bad experience with my father, he really dropped us as his family! So that was a bad experience! I planned something with Mom and my sister to have some fun and shake it off and we did that fairly well. I had a pretty persisting case of insomnia as well. I think I haven’t reached over four hours of sleep for almost 10 days now. So my brain is a bit mushy! I have dinner with a friend today! He kept wanting to make it an entire day out but I told him I had no energy at all so with Covid reservations and the prices it was not something I want to risk.. I can feel so drained I can barely walk. I can sit out a dinner but after that I need a nap or some quite time. He is very intense as well, I tried so hard to make it clear that I am low energy but it did not work for a long while.

Next week we are celebrating my sister’s birthday. Indigo’s first blog should also go live! Maybe even Kuro’s if the weather doesn’t go insane! I might skip a day of posting somewhere to do some house cleaning but I will try to make sure you will get some amazing content! I wish you all a great next week! Tell me how your week was in the comments!


Pinkie Watches a Random Anime 2: Nanana’s Buried Treasure

As you may know I have a love for everything that is random! Once a month I use a website that gives you a random list of anime. I then roll a random number and flip to said item on that list. If I am not totally off-put by the title or the sheer episode number (which it usually tells you)  I try to find if it streams somewhere.  If it does I watch the first five episodes of it without reading the synopsis! Last month I failed.. I watched The Reflection.. a Stan Lee anime.. but I had nothing to say about it.. this month I got Nanana’s Buried treasure and here I am writing a blog! So guess I have more to tell about this one. 

<Disclaimer>
This Review is mostly spoiler free, characters will be discussed and several settings and situations will be mentioned, however I will not discuss specifics or loyalties etc. The synopsis of this show will be mentioned so if you call that a spoiler you want to avoid… you are kinda a weirdo for clicking on this review in the first place
<End of Disclaimer>

Technical Treasures

So let’s talk about the technical/paperwork stuff first. This anime is a one season anime which aired in spring 2014. It is produced by A1 studios and aired on Fuji Tv. I watched it on Crunchyroll and I actually managed to watch all of it before I wrote this blog! It has 11 episodes and leaves the story rather unfinished and finding the light novel to finish the story can actually be quite a hassle. So straight up, if you can not stand open ended.. uhm… endings…(great writing Pinkie), then this show is not going to be for you. It very much feels like a promotional anime. “That’s how far our story goes, now go and buy the manga or light novel” which will put a lot of viewers off. For those who stick around though the show can offer you a few fun adventures with a passable ending.  There is a conclusion even if nothing is resolved. Depending on how you look at it.  The show targets a shonen demographic..which most likely is less equipped with the ability to deal with open endings. It feels a bit like Lupin meets Indiana Jones, meets Mission Impossible, meets detective Conan, with a fair bit of fanservice mixed in between. It blends traditional anime with a lot of that cgi quasi 3d animation and a colour and style that reminded me bit of Persona. 

The show like said earlier has 11 episodes which feeling wise takes us about one third through midway in the total story of the series. I’d call it an adventure comedy with some slice of life elements. We deal with a main character struggling to deal with rent.. and visiting an onsen.. and what girl to date but we also see him scale buildings and collapsing floors to find treasures. There even are a few actual anime fights. It’s a little bit of everything. It scores as 7.1 on MAL which I think is a surprisingly accurate grade  and nearly identical to I would give it on a scale of one to ten. The main character Yama Juugo is voiced by Yuki Ono, whom I know as Isami Aldini from Food Wars and Moral from Hamatora. He also played Seaman A in Hunter X Hunter (the 2011 version)  and Fish Dinosaur in Muromi San.  Deuteragonist Nanana is voiced by Rui Tanabe.. whom I have never heard in anything before and whom I can’t tell if she had any important roles! I like the voice though but you can tell she falls a bit flat when having to work a bit with her voice (As in when she has to make it quiver or shout) The series is directed by Kanta Kamei for those people that find such things important.

Tomb Raider the Anime

The anime opens up with Nanana and some female friends exploring an ancient ruin. We get some heavy Indiana Jones vibes as we see poison darts flying around, crashing ceilings flash floods and more. Nanana is smiling widely from happiness while doing this while her friends have mixed reactions.  Eventually we see them enter an antechamber and everyone catches their breath before we cut to the opening credits. Which brings me to my biggest problem with this anime… this show isn’t about that! I would have LOVED the show to be about that! Indiana Jones with anime girls! Sign me up! Yet instead we discover Nanana is not even the main character.

We meet a boy named Juugo who get exiled by his father and forced to live in the cheapest room he could find. An alcoholic female landlord makes some advances on him but then shows him to his room. To his surprise it is not empty. A girl is there eating pudding and playing video games every hour of every day . When he informs the landlord she tells him.. it’s not a girl.. that’s a ghost. Nanana got murdered 10 years ago and now is trapped here. She is a legendary treasure hunter and through those treasures she once found and had this island built they might find her killer so she can kill him. Since Yuugo starts feeling some affection for the poor girl he decides to help her and join up with a treasure hunting club. The anime is about the adventures of that club and Yuugo’s personal quests. Trough the many factions within this world.

When Nanana died her treasures had been spread all over the island hidden in so called “ruins” which are basically just puzzle rooms that each hold a magic item. Of course everyone Yuugo meets has their own agenda. Like the president of the Treasure hunting club, the all perceiving great detective Tensai and her male androgynous crossdressing assistant Daruku.  Which in series is given a nasty name for that particular type of character.. which is another strike against the series.. but it is actually a very enjoyable character. He is adorable and comfortable with being a male, he just really wants to be a maid as well. Then there is the mysterious thieving organisation Matsuri ..which has deep connections with the very Treasure club and then there is some evil bloke!  And a criminal gang and the little writer girl who is kinda into Yuugo. There honestly is a lot happening in this show and it’s surprising how much they are all fleshed out over the course of only 11 episodes. Of course there is still more to tell but by the end I had a pretty good idea of who everyone was and why they did the thing they did ! The show makes that very clear.. which means that despite it not telling the whole tale.. all pieces are pretty much on the table. Good thing! 

To help Nanana discover who killed her, Juugo explores these ruins all while manoeuvring across all the treacherous elements. These artefacts can possibly hold great powers . Some are rather harmless, yet others could in the wrong hands be used to rul the world. So Yuugo can not just ask for Nanana’s sake! These ruins are life or death situations that each time are very different but usually contain some very Tomb Raider/Indiana Jones like challenges.  Filled with trials of agility, wits and of course strength. These ruins are often riddled with traps or hidden mechanics keeping each episode fun and varied. The way the Treasure club moves through these can be reminiscent of Mission impossible .. with each team member fulfilling a certain roll and allocated to a certain strength. While the weight usually lies with Juugo and Tensai (the detective girl)  others get involved as well   which results in a fairly competent series with lots of plot twists and fairly fleshed out characters!  More good things. The fact that people risk their lives for a CHANCE to get what they want and they might end up with a dud makes it feel more alive and makes you feel there is a world, behind just this group as well.

Oh Valley of Plenty, Oh Valley of Plenty!

Since this is a bit of a mystery story I am not going to explain everything that happens here, it’s all about how these relationships work but overall the stuff that happens and how it happens offers a plenty entertaining show. The way it is presented though rubs me a bit in the wrong way. We get some harem tones with the main character having obviously a connection to Nanana, but also to detective Tensai.. then there is a writer girl whom he has chemistry with and a flame from his past. Four girls.. in an 11 episode anime?! That’s a bit much for me personally.  Add to this that there is a lot of fan-service comedy, like him wrestling with a girl and him allowing his arm to be dislocated just so he can cup a feel and  there are a few scenes I am not particularly interested in. Oh right the drunk landlady also solicates for some action at times so I guess it’s five girls. It just feels unneeded for me.. then again I am not a young boy and people do like that stuff so happy for them it’s there. For me it’s plentiful enough that I can get a bit annoyed at it. I must commend them though .. I could see him ending up with all four of these girls, non of these romance options feels disingenuous. All ships have a charm to them. If I had been a manga would have tracked the series down to find out how this ended. 

Then there is the cross-dressing maid… who looks like a girl sounds like a girl.. but is actually a guy. He gets upset when people mistake him for being  a girl but he acts very girly. This show names him as “trap” which I find quite nasty and does bump this show down a peg or two. They mention it a few times.. and the worst one if when Yuugo calls him a trap claiming this person has an Excalibur just like his own” The wordt Trap can easily be harmful to trans-people so it should not be just a joke. Luckily they do portray him well! He identifies as male and can get kinda upset if people call him a girl. He is a man that just happens to look like a girl and likes woman’s clothing. He just wants to be himself and is sad if people do not see the real him. Nice  However they also give him this quirk that wants to taste Tensai’s saliva but feeding her with his chopsticks and then licking them.

This is a returning gag and actually quite a good example how the humor in this show is taken. Everyone acts so awkward about their feelings here.  Then there is a character whose name I honestly have forgotten as his character trait is to be Juugo, but a bit stealthier and just missing out on being on par with him. .. He keeps telling the girlish guy everything he does is so erotic and how he could initiate him. Why is everyone so horny when their lives are in danger or heck when there is food. As longs as you might die.. or can score some food there is no reason to feel the tinglies just above your legs! At least nog as much as these guys do! I don’t get it and feel this disconnect to that kind of joke. There are also a lot of boob jokes if that is your thing.. they aren’t even cringingly bad.. I just feel nothing for them. 

The show also has a lot of jokes that actually did make me chuckle. Like the club president’s assistant constantly trying to let her beloved help her as well as Yuugo helps his girl to no avail or even the silly Nanana pudding humor. Nanana the ghost can only eat pudding.. and for the rest she just plays video games as she is bound to the room she died in.  This means those puddings are what little she can experience of the world outside.. and she prefers puddings made at locations.. like the special pudding from the mall or from the town that made the onsen. It is cute. It might seem shallow first and it can feel kinda gimmicky but there is something humble enough about it. Like when Juugo asks her about a hint on one of the ruins..she tells him she has one condition.. as he says “yes of course I will get you pudding from said location ” she thinks and says “I have two conditions” showing she forgot about that but now can not let it go.  Nanana has three things in her afterlife.. pudding, games and her rules and that’s so little she can’t give any up.. so I liked those kinds of jokes.

GIga Pudding

In the end this show is much like a pudding. It’s sweet, easily digestible and something you watch after coming out of a very serious series or after watching something long.  It’s a bit of a palette cleanser.  Unfortunately for Nanana this isn’t one of those custom made puddings she made.. this is a bit of a store brand ones.. she still loves them just they do not make her list of favourites. The vanilla flavour is fine and the treasure hunting is like that chocolate/cherry sauce that shift it towards a more unique experience. Tet if we look a bit better at the composition we can see it is made  out of some lower grade materials. Which are fine.. but also not that special. It’s a tasty mix of all elements being good enough but there is also not that much to make it stand out.

The way all these puddings are structured does leave you wanting for more though. After I finished each episode , I wanted to watch the next due to a cliffhanger .. that almost always got resolved off screen weirdly enough, to find out what actually happened I had to watch through almost nearly an entire other episode for it being mentioned. Which is a great way to make you hooked on a show that otherwise might not be strong enough! So it is at least clever!  I wanted to watch 5 episodes for this review and see if I wanted to continue it..but  episode 5,6 and 7 ended on a cliffhanger and then i was like.. I only need 4 more episodes and before I knew it I was out of pudding! I consumed it almost all as one as a sort of Giga Pudding. …I think I heard a song about it once… it was really long. I liked this anime it was a nice way to spend three hours or so. However I am pretty sure it will not take that long for this anime to be buried deep within my mind!

I really wish this concept would have been used for a slightly better show, it’s not that this show is bad.. I just think the concept is amazing but the show never aimed for that standard. Instead of ending up with a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow we end up with a pudding cup at one of the shelves in your fridge..it will still make you happy for a little while but that happiness will not linger. Hmmm now I feel like getting a pineapple pudding! Why Pineapple?!
Because this anime is

Now that is done it’s time for me to go on a treasure hunt myself! By that I mean raid my fridge for some lunch, have you seen this anime?! Do you know of any more Indiana Jones like, treasure hunting anime? I don’t mean One Piece.. I mean .. traps, puzzles and stuff!
Let me know and have a nice weekend! All the love! Stay Happy!

XO

Pinkie

P.S. I remember that song now!

If you want to make the song stop but are powerless to click away I suggest you get redirected by supporting my Kofi! Now this is the best Kofi add I ever did!

STAFF Introduction: Sunny The “Cabana Boy”

My dear Island Guests! Today we introduce our third and for now final STAFF member to our team. As in these are all the people who applied! You are of course always welcome! So who will join the team on this sunny day?! Why it’s Sunny of course! Sunny is our Cabana Boy. A Genderfluid biassed towards male who oftenly calls himself a Demi-Boy! Please give him a warm welcome!

<Disclaimer> Only the first picture for now is officially Sunny’s official art, another tool is used to make it.. more might come later. The extra images might deviate a bit but I wished to treat him the same as other STAFF Members <End of Disclaimer>

The Cleanest Cabanas

Sunny is a bit special as he is not the traditional avatar of his writer! He is but one avatar! He in fact is not even a human! He is a pixie! Recognisable by his Dragonfly wings and relatively short height of only being one and a half  meter of  five foot tall. He really is a chibi of sorts. His skin is kissed by the sun, while his hair is bleached by it. He prefers to wear his hair shaggy without much product in it. He goes for a very natural look. His golden dragonfly wings almost make it seem like he is radiant like the sun itself. His signature look is a fully yellow haiwain shirt he wears over a white T-shirt. He wears very short hand cut jeans and waddles around the resort barefooted. If he is not fluttering around chasing after little yellow bugs that is.

If you ask Sunny what is his function at the resort he will claim he is the Cabana boy! When you ask the manager , she tells you she hired him as an interior and exterior attendant. While both are vague the manager hired him to clean the pool, mop the hallways of the main building and clean up the cabana’s our guest can stay at.  In practice Sunny is found way more in at the pool or in the gardens then inside Cabanas or even the main resort. Yet he manages to keep everything sparkly clean. It is clear though he is an outdoor person.  His preferred pronouns are he and him as he personally finds they or them to be to much akin to the royal we. He is a down to earth Pixie that Sunny is! For the most part.. he claims he is a magical broom closet!  Sometimes he takes people there and once they get there they just get a slight sprinkling of fairy dust.. It soothes you and as you listen to what he has to say it takes you away to some magical story worlds. Like a little fantasy world – where the Tanuki King is waging war on the Chinese Astrology Animals, or Fluff Bunnies tend their Sacred Dandelion. Of course manager Pinkie has not experienced this yet because as demi-sexual as she is .. she is scared that the Broom closet is code.. after all you know what they say about cabana boys!

Back in the day, the Cabana Boy was basically a pool boy but was generally some super cute, sexy, got a six pack young Cuban male that all the middle aged white women drooled over and sometimes had an affair with over their vacation but he wasn’t someone you could be seen with in public you know? So if you ask, he’ll say he’s the Cabana Boy and grin winningly. It is unknown if Sunny does those Cabana boy things.. or what other powders might be mixed in with that pixie dust but the manager asks him to put these stories of his world into words on her computer screen. Just to be safe that she doesnt get lucky! So regardless if you want to go into the broom closet with you .. or you want to read through the story on your tablet while at the pool..sunnies stories are there for you to enjoy. While you are at the pool however Sunny may walk up to you and begin to talk about interesting bits of trivia about Japan, folklore, anime, games, animals and nature.So that is plenty of content this pixie can offer.

Sunny is a helpful but easily distracted fellow, he will fetch you a drink while you are at the pool to lazy to move, he will change your light bulb if you’d be to scared in the dark and he would take out the batteries of the smoke detector in your room, so you can light a candle or burn incense without you setting of the alarm. Indigo finds this irresponsible and sometimes wants to scold him  but after covering him in pixie dust the two they wander off together. Oftenly to go fishing!.. Or well they reel in fish.. give them a name then cast them back in. Unlike Indigo however , Sunny seems to recognise all the fish.

If he isn’t in the mood for fishing he is oftenly helping Kuro clean their glasses, talking about Daffodils or Butterflys. Fake sneezing so they can accidentally get a few colourful sprinkles on Kuro to make them look just a bit brighter and help them when their mood is at their darkest. He likes to help people find their way and because of this he often carries a little lantern. Which he borrows out to people when they feel they are stuck in the dark. Inside is a bunch of warm emotions and what seems like sunlight which guide people back to a happy place. For this reason he can be rather friendly with the manager when she tries to over decorate the island with pretty lights and sparkles again.  They can make the place so bright it even feels sunny at night.. and go as extreme as Pinkie putting her pink sparkles on Sunnies fairydust.. or Sunny wrapping pinkie’s coloured lights all around his guidance lanterns. Sunny also does some heavy lifting! Something the manager is utterly incapable of! So yes these two bounce off of each other very well!

A very Sunny Summer

The writer behind Sunny, is my blogging bestie Summer, by some of you better known as Foovay. She is  the reason Pinkie believes in real life pixies! Because.. if they are real Summer certainly is one. She claims to be one and I believe her. Just for all you sceptics out there interpret it as you want. A pixie and an alien together would make for a great anime!
My bestie has been around this earth for 29  years longer than I have, and she got married when I was three. So there is life experience and geek experience which will without a doubt result in some amazing stories from Sunny. She is Pagan as well, which I am pretty sure is like a Witch of sorts.. so she is a Pixie Witch.. which makes me think I need to add something to my Alien! What should I pick up? Let me know in the comments! I can’t stay behind my Blogging Bestie of course! As an american she isn’t going to help me much in my quest in finding all variants of English spelling but she lives in an RV so Imagine she is actually Miss Frizzle’s sister! The magic RV! She even scored herself a younger husband.. being eight years younger. Her husband’s health is a bit frail which at times can prevent her from writing so please be patient.. Good content will come from this amazing person.

Unlike Pinkie, Summer is quite an adventurer. She loves to  kayak, bike, hike and to travel. Kayaking will make me very sick.. and thus will probably kill me! (I get seasick from even swimming to long or standing on anything that doesn’t move solidly). While I am dutch I wrecked several bicycles. One time I was biking in the woods for gym class in school and we had to hop a tree.I woke up from a gym teacher talking at me.. I never felt so dizzy and when I saw what shape the bike was in I was so scared I would have to pay the school a new mountain bike..so doing it again would probably kill me. Hiking I kinda like.. but once I got myself trapped as I could not descend a hill with my footing.. so I ruined my clothes by sliding myself off.  I am not made for adventure.. but that is what makes me appreciate Summer so much. Having been an artist, animal control officer, a vet tech, an exotic dancer and  of course a writer she had a very interesting career which no doubt can lead to some very inspirational tales.  I am the NEET princessy girl locked in an attic because she is so frail and should not go out!  Summer is like the person who throws pebbles at my windows so we can sneak out and we end up Isekaid somehow! With her being like a very powerful fighter and me being the OP mage or healer.  Which again is neat because I really detect such an energy I can bounce off with her! So a great addition to the team.

There are still more colours to give away

Pink, Black, Blueish purple, Yellow!  Those are the colours of Paradise right now. With three people I can rely on I am extremely content! I did not think I would be having this many people here already! Yet if you too want a fun team to write with, if you are looking to blog without having to actually need to  do the whole backend! If you just want to write and have fun! You are also welcome to Paradise. As long as what you want to tell us is remotely geeky, we do not require you to have the skill for writing! Paradise is welcome to everyone.. We look at people with the drive to share their passions!  Kuro, Indigo and Sunny will undoubtedly produce some amazing content as we go along but so can you!  Passion and geekiness is what unites us and what will make you amazing as well! So if you are out there know that you will always be welcome… provided you can abide by the terms and conditions stated here.. As long as there are colours there will be a place for you!

In this welcoming spirit I would like you all to invite Sunny to the team. Have a chat with them on Twitter, leave something nice here in the comments or visit their own website! There are some sweet little posts there as well. I am not much of a mobile phone gamer, (not that I hate mobile games I just hate grinding in general)   but she sure tempts me with those cat and horses games.. and weirdly horses scare me a bit… not like really but if it’s not a pony I will keep my distance  a bit.. Even though I love unicorns.. I do know why though! When I was young a classmate of mine got bit by a horse right in front of me. His cry of pain was so intense I never forgot that pained cry.. So I am kinda scared to pet them. Okay I got sidetracked there! Anyway show some love! Stay tuned for some awesome content.. and allow this Sunny Summer to warm you up with wholesomeness..or possibly cute stories with some serious gruesome undertones!  It will be glorious either way! So show this new author some love!

As for my words to Sunny, whom I will address in their avatar form. Time for me to welcome him to the island! Dear Sunny! You are already such a fleshed out character, you have quirks and traits and that just shows how capable you are behind the keyboard as well. You have this energy and experience that makes me better and more peppy so I am incredibly excited to have you here! You were there for me for quite a while now and you helped me trough a major low!  You are like my duracell battery.. or my g-fuel.. (I think at least I still have no idea what G-Fuel actually is) . You can be the orange juice in every cocktail and bring that sunshine and pixie magic to everyone. I have zero doubts that you will fit in great and compliment the team greatly. I love the stories I have written of you so far and to share some is actually quite amazing. I may have gotten quite the amount of Sunshine bloggers alive in my one year career, you Sunny have already truly brightened my blogging experience! Now even more so!  Welcome to Paradise and thank you so much for being here!