Pinkie’s Guilty Pleasures: Hikonin Sentai Aikbaranger

“A tiny paradise amongst a sea of skyscrapers: Akihabara. There we find three warriors who believe pain is power and who fight battles that exist entirely in their heads. They are…Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger!” With these words we open this amazing Sentai Show that I just finished the first season off entirely and I adore it. It’s basically Power Rangers..but instead of do gooder teenagers we get low life Otaku with Deadpool powers.

Plot Power

The word Hikonin stands for unofficial. When this show came out in 2012, it originally aired at a different time slot than any other Ranger show. It was not a morning show for kids.. no this was a tribute show to all Sentai Geeks who have loved the genre for all their life. This was a show designed for Otaku.. but since it veered away to much from the base formula, it was set in another world…our world… but not really. Where Super Sentai is just a show, where the main characters in this show could recognise former power rangers as both the ranger or the actor. So the tag unofficial as added.. and it became  a plot point.

This show is about as fourth wall breaking as it gets. Let me try to set up the basic plot. Three Otaku get recruited by a mysterious woman named Hiroyo Hakasa, who gives them devices called  Moe Moe Z-Cune’s which allows to transform them into the Unofficial Sentai, Akibarangers. With these new powers they have to stop the Blatantly Evil Marketing Firm (rough translation) from turning Akihabara into a dull commercial wasteland. Fighting the good fight, the rangers hope the be one day be acknowledged as actual rangers and be official and marketable. There is one problem however, they aren’t actually fighting evil.. they are just Otaku imagining they are fighting through the power of delusion/imagination. 

The Moe Moe Z-Cune allows people to share imaginations with each other and thus can create powerful delusions that Hakase studies. Also seemingly using the sense of the Otaku people to sense evil.. to let the police do the actual work. So while our heroes are fighting in their suits, the real world only sees them punching in the air as if they are pretending to  rangers. This pain apparently has some sort of power… yet  a mysterious chain of events bring these two worlds of Akihabara closer together..with serious consequences.

This is their Morphing Device

Fourth debries pile

That was the most sober description of Akibaranger I could muster because this show is completely and utterly INSANE and I love it! These rangers powered by the power of delusions for example do not fight with their strength and determination, no their main way of combating evil is to trigger “victory flags”.  They are so Otaku they know how these shows go, stats do not matter. If the main bad guy teleports away and tells the other villain “take care of this” the victory flag has been raised and the rangers become unbeatable. On the other hand if such flags are not triggered or they miss to acknowledge it they can’t really win either.  A fighting style that is quite different from the usual shows and that works as hilarious tool to understand what makes this genre so lovable.  If you loved Power Rangers, you see these guys as your peers. These guys look at the show through the eyes of the audience which can create a surreal experience.

The early episodes are focussed on the three heroes trying to figure out “which episode/which story structure” will apply so they can trigger their story flags. For example in an episode that focus on the training of one Ranger they have to get the spotlight. In an episode where a ranger leaves the team for a bit, the victory flag can only be triggered by having them rejoin this fight. The problem of such an episode is not the monster fight but making a phone call ..with flippy phones, to call up the last ranger to come and share a delusion with her friends. There is a beauty in how low-key this all can be and how simple the solutions actually are. As they grow the rangers learn  more and more to break the fourth wall until they accidently shatter it…. literally.

Oddly enough this show has an amazing progressive curve but since episode 1 starts out weird, episode 10 and mostly episode 12 are completely out there. While I will not completely spoil this show to you all because I really recommend watching this the final fight the rangers have to conquer is quite literally “the end” . The thirteenth episode is a clipshow with commentary episode.. set IN UNIVERSE. The characters realise the series creator Saburo Hatte has set them up to make a lame last season episode in the end. Other examples include that the rangers have the power to hit their opponent who is far away with melee punches as long as it on camera looks like you are punishing them  or by imagining older rangers they can make them show up and take their weapons, and even combine cross series weapons into a new super weapon. Oh and don’t forget.. once they break the confines of their fictional fourth wall.. they also break that new set ups fourth wall into ours. .. so that the 5th wall or the 8th  wall they break?

Red Yellow and Blue

Let’s step back a bit and let me introduce you to the three Sentai making up the team and take a bit of a closer look at their powers and their abilities. To maybe make some sense of this.

The first ranger I want to talk with you about is Nobuo Akagi, who is better known as Akiba Red.He is a 29 year old man who still lives at home and has a job as a part time delivery boy, which he uses to finance buying Sentai Toys and figurines of the popular anime Z-Cune Aoi. His trope is that of the super otaku. He knows all tropes of Sentai shows and can quote every line of it. He is desperately in love with this girl he often has to bring deliveries too, but because he usually just imagines kissing her ..nothing ever happens between them. (Pre show) His name Akagi has “Aka” in it which is Japanese for Red because he knows so much about the genre he is the leader but the other two rangers keep calling him Old Man.. because he is a 29 year old living with his parents. He also complains that his mother nearly threw away his Aoi Dakimakura.

When he transforms he becomes Akiba Red.. his suit is based on the anime protagonist haircut. A black lighting shaped visor goes across the helm that has the “anime protagonist” haircut modeled on top.  As he is the most delusional of the three rangers he is also the strongest, he can summon red rangers of the past to fight with them for a while usualing heading them a weapon. These include a pair of giant handcuffs a giant shovel and a flight suit that also can be shot forward as a launcher.  He is also the first ranger that is so delusional and otaku that he is able to transform in reality as well as he is first ranger that realises he is just a character in a tv show. His signature is shouting out Super Sentai trivia during their Ranger Roll Call.

The second ranger in the first season is called Mitsuki Aoyagi , with Aoi representing as a word.  She is takes on the role of the Closet Otaku.  She fell in love with the Z-Cune anime because of the strength she displays, Mitsuki is a martial artist and trough that passion she discovers the art of fight choreography and anime and steps into Otakuism showing a deep but hidden love for it. Because of the fact she keep her geekism hidden she has seen significantly less tropes  than her peers and is the worst at things like ranger roll call until she discovers martial artistry is her thing.
She also is the youngest character, stating she is underage to drink and can not drive.  Her age is never fully disclosed. In the second season (which I will review later) the creator  makes a retcon to get her to leave the show.  Yet her development in the first season was amazing we see her embracing her hobbies more and more as she makes friends accepting of that hobby. 

As Akiba Blue she starts of as the ranger with the most fighting potential, but is not very good at recognising tropes, costing them a few battles.  She is the first ranger to be able to use cameras  to make punches connect while not actually making an impact and she is very potent with the shovel weapon the group takes from BoukenRanger Red.  She can not drive .. so she is the one ranger who is not able to control their “zord/mecha’ Machine Itasha. Her suit is based on the classic ponytail anime trope. Her rollcall is usually a kata of fighting moves and she has the most consistent and professional one. 

Yumeria Moegi is the yellow ranger, which apparently has something of yellow it as well.  Her real name is Yuko Yamada though, as Yumeria is just her cosplay name. As such Yumeria is the cosplay Otaku and my favorite character. Her personality changes depending on what cosplay she is wearing. Usually this means her voice changes and she has an anime sentence ending. If she cosplays a catgirl she ends sentences with Nya and if she plays a Warlord she ends sentences with De Gozaru for example. Over all she seems to be bubbly but can be Tsundere as well if it its her cosplay. She creates Yaoi Doujin and seems to be romantically interested in monsters. However she mostly is drawn by Seme characters. Having a great weakness for anime smut and Seme characters she can even faint at the sight of them.

As Akiba Yellow she has less stand out features as the other two rangers. Though her delusional powers  do outclass that of the others at several times, allowing her to imagine Yaoi scenes that create a stunlock for everyone involved.  She is quite versed in Sentai lore and is idolised by many in the city, when the rangers appear in reality she becomes the most popular one. Her suit is based on the anime trope of twintail characters. Her roll call just as her ramble on conventions, cosplays or discussions until she is interrupted.   This character made me cry with sadness, in the fifth episode of the first season and her story .. as well as the other rangers is pretty fleshed out.  She needs to be together with the other rangers to be inspired as a Yaoi creator because if she is alone she tends to fall back in the same type of delusions. This is reflected in her delusion themes coming back numerous occasions showing she has some dominance in that.

Unexpectedly Good

While this show is really low-brow comedy, it succeeds way too well in making a great show. The first season is SOOOOO well paced it is insane. The rangers actually grow at a pace that makes sense, even in this weird setting. The moment where the rangers are able to break the fourth wall and fall into reality makes so much sense! There is actual build up to it, foreshadowing as well. While the twelfth and final real episode bulrushes you with insanity and weird twists, it is actually a plot point. This show is so incredibly meta that the final villain basically is the plot itself, again that is not completely true but you can watch this for yourself  to discover the full details.

Every single character, except for the one that is made to be bland gets story, character development and interesting opportunities. This includes the main villain, but even the secondary villain , and no that is not a spoiler because everything that happens in any other sentai show will happen here it is designed like that. It is easy for fourth wall breaking shows to go stale.. but this one doesn’t .. because it knows when to change it’s pacing. I had a Megu-Nee cry moment in episode 5.  I really felt inspired by episode 7. I felt nostalgia , I laughed and I felt confused. This is a show is set in reality but realises that it still would be fiction thus not would be set in reality and the characters realise this in time as well?! It almost feels like inception.. but campy and with deadpool.  There should be no way this should work this well, it’s to campy for this to work so well yet it does.

The rangers gets startled by their posing explosions!

The show is meta enough to suddenly shift tones and you can be taken aback by it, things suddenly becoming really cool and epic in terms of fighting, keeping you engaged. When you are fed up with the main character, he suddenly becomes someone much more respectable.. when we grow to like him he has to leave, it plays with all these set ups and throws it in your face that it does yet it succeeds so well in them that this show to me surprised me all the way throughout In one episode for example (major spoilers for episode 8)  they encounter a super weak alpaca monster  named Tsukishimaalpaca (All Monsters have very long or tricky names the rangers instantly remember). Because they want to show themselves in the real word to the real Sentai producing head honcho, they need to move through the fourth wall again which they are only able to do with a strong monster.

We see them  try to train up the Apaca in which they learn he just wants to sell street food, they take him to a theme park to conquer his fear, cook with him to hone his craft and also make him stronger. We see them bond and they suspect it might become the monster turns extra ranger trope or a switching side pattern! Yet in the end they decide it should be a reward him for his effort and make a tragic decision pattern as they murder their new friend by blowing him up with a new super weapon.  While it flies of to explode it congratulates his friends for using him as a stepping stone… I did not expect that. The way this is paced is just so well done.. I felt really heartwarmed when the heroes hugged the Alpaca and just when I think.. well this is going to be hard to write yourself out off, they misinterpret a trope  to end the deadlock.. surprising me. 

In the first episode we see a monster called Shibuyaseitakaawadachisohidenagaaburamushi face of against the Akibarangers, a standard corporate monster villian that is defeated by the power of the Moe Moe Magnum, in the second they fight Shibuyakouzorinahigenagaaburamushi a monster that looks exactly the same.. but deems this racist and he tells the rangers there is a big difference between them. He has the power to induce nudeness in people.. but not like regular.. in real life he sells these sort of bubble screens  that are skin coloured that you can lay over a the Aoi Tan anime character movie so it covers up her clothes so it seems nude.. he can create these screens for everyone! Trying to turn official dvd’s into bootleg versions of themselves and kill Akihabara’s degeneracy like that. However it is never revealed what the difference is. Until the Clip Show episode where the characters finally realise! The slow burn joke really made me cough up some soda. It would be kinda funny to reveal they actually have a difference but making the character realise after the season was so much better.

The mecha being a giant weeb car, the morpher being a anime figurine all seem like jokes but this all actually is somewhat believable interwoven in a story between father and child… because obviously the main villain is someone’s father..it’s a trope. Despite how weird the show is except for the twelfth episode it never really makes weird story stretches.  Reveals in episode 9 make sense since there were hints since episode 1. Despite how utterly random the show feels all episodes have a part in the story and a place where the need to be and I was really amazed by it all. I felt like this was made for me and I very much look forward to delve further into season 2. I only know one spoiler for it! In this season they can harness the power of their Waifu.

Pinkie’s Saturday Anime Adventures (Week 4)

Hello everyone, it’s sunday again which means Pinkie watched anime! In my saturday morning program I have slotted 5 shows in time slots including commercial breaks! Today I review the episodes of my fourth week! Check the anime tab on my homepage to track down the originals!

BNA
Episode 4

At 9:00 I was ready for some more Brand New Animal. Studio Trigger’s show that I so far quite liked and this episode was certainly no exception. It spotlights Michiru even more than before taking Shirou out of the equation for a bit as the Tanuki girl gets a brand new phone..from her mink “friend” to get access to human internet.  This leads her to discovering a girl named Nina, living in anima city. She is streaming on Facelook as she desires to be part of the human world and.. while Michiru approaches her she gets knocked out and captured. My least favorite moment of this episode as I thought we would be in for another one of Shirou’s heroic  moments, but luckily this was quickly subverted.

Once Michiru wakes up she finds out Nina is the daughter of the gang leader of “The Family” lead by Flip.. which is a last name but he is referred to as Flip and he looks like a Flip to me. Flip in Dutch was a fairly common name for people of the Silent generation and before. Flipje is the mascot of the city Tiel and it’s jam factory and he is like a raspberry man so it sounds like a first name to me..This also results in me thinking Flip will turn into a raspberry but it looks like he is actually some kind of whale. As I get side tracked we move back to our story by saying that by being honest to Nina about her preferences  of the human world, she is able to take on her human shape. The two then decide to visit a party they saw on Facelook together. 

I am happy they are giving Michiru a friend and I do hope the character stays that as well.  It felt nice and needed for her character as well. I dislike  that the first friend she made is connected to the Family.. it feels so convenient again. The Major also has made some discoveries about Michiru’s condition which conveniently allows for some exposition on Beastman lore. While kinda cool to know the conversation is kind of nonsensical. “Michiru if A Tiger Beastman loves A Lion Beastwoman very much.. their kids take on the properties of one parent and can not become a liger. It has to do with your spirit and all. “Your cells can morph so it’s completely not like that”.  I mean I know Michiru might not be smartest .. it kinda felt off. 

Shinies?! *Readies her Pokéballs*

What I did liked about the episode is that it shows the other side of racism, people like beast people at the party so when they discover Nina is a beast person they revere her and want to play with her.. however apparently aquatic beastman can not breath under water or at least Nina can because she was tired so they put her in an aquarium and she ends up choking. The whole turn around showing that some people are supportive but not understanding made the show feel nicer. It did not hammer in “humans are racist butterscotchcandy-holes. Yet there is also danger in the unknown a lesson that prompts Michiru to go back to Animacity and learn. That was nicely set up!

I also liked the stand off with Flip and Shirou and how a random guy just got killed by Flip. Shirou did not stop it.. so clearly he knows something we do not know yet. Shirou is also said to be a beastman with an immortal body by the scientisty bad guy person.  So things are feeling like they are heating up! Still we do not get overfed exposition and each episode just offers us some puzzle pieces. All in all this was probably my most enjoyable watch of the day.

Yu-Gi-Oh Sevens
Episode 4

Ugh… Episode 1 was all about Yuga, Episode 2 introduced us more to Rook, Episode 3 was about Romin so that means Gakuto is up next right? Will they colour within the lines?  The first 10 seconds already tell you that you are going to get what you expect and nothing more. A narration of the fourth main character shows us this is his episode. Unoriginal.. but maybe needed.. yet he turns out to be not very well written as this episode crashes before it ever takes flight. 

Gakuto is the studious boy the one who plays by the rules. He arrives each day at school at 6:66:66 which make me think he might be the son of the Goha President or something later on as that is exactly the time they give you to redeem your flaws.The episode for this plot is that the student council president has trouble keeping up with his work now that he hangs out with Yuga and Rook a lot. (I know Rook might be called Luke but my translation says Rook so running with that one)  So obviously to make time for his duties again he decides to ban Rush Duels on School Grounds. Yuga challenges  him to a duel and if he wins there will be no ban on duels but if Gaktuo wins they will promise not to duel in the school.

This already creates a problem, the consequence to this duel is to limiting for the narrative to ever take fruit. In the duels with Rook and Romin , Yuga CAN lose because it would not block the plot, in this setup there is no way the main character can lose because it would not allow the story to continue .. or at least place it under severe restrictions otherwise. This is somewhat resolved by letting Gakuto place his title as council president on the line.. but why would they force their friend to lay down something he loves that much.. that is quite horrible. Of course it could be to give him some free time to join their adventure but that would be super convenient again.

The duel itself is the worst one so far. Gakuto’s ace card SUCKS! By changing mode it can prevent either side to tribute for a 7 or higher level monster on the next turn. The set up he has to do to utilize this is quite large and the pay off blows. You can still special summon a level 7 monster.  Since it’s Yu-gi-oh this is super easy and the boy gets his ass handed to him by Yuga. Sure he learned to enjoy himself a bit more during this duel instead of sticking to ceremonies and traditions, that  was a trait he did not need to have from the get go. His aides never showed up before and now they are everywhere where he goes.

This feels forced and as soon as Gakuto loses his Student President title he gives it up as he promised… then he runs for Student President again in the next election which makes no sense! Why would the school allow these shenanigans, he also gets reelected (in favor of his only competitor Rook) as well. Such a weak choice! This really was a weak episode and the only highlight is that Romin wore a cute new outfit! I really like her more and more.

Bofuri
Episode 7

Ah that is better, a nice dose of Bofuri cuteness. The seventh episode is all about preparation for the third and fourth events. Mostly the guild competition. We see Maple grind a dungeon with Yui and May, the one with the Hydra she ate to get some levels on the two. Because of one Maple’s ridiculous plans to speedrun it the group manages to complete it under two and a half minute which allows them to gain a skill that doubles their attacks. Putting them on a similar track as Maple. Iz makes new hammers for them which they now also are able to dual wield..because of another skill they unlocked. For the most part I think this part of the episode worked quite well as they are a sort of reflection of Maple.  They also finally use a montage without skipping some sweet parts this time it skips grinding! Yay!.. Also I am happy grinding is a thing it makes the game more legit.

The white hammer girl is my favorite! She has pink details!

The second part relies on the guild members doing their jobs, gathering materials helping each other train etc. Kuromu is the only one who died enough times to unlock a secret dungeon from which he gets a pretty edgy armor that seems pretty good. He kind of feels like the Yamcha of the group.  Kasumi goes hunting for wool so Iz can craft robes for the event, which gives the group some bonus event drops. She encounters Maple while doing this who was playing with some sheep and learned the Wooly ability. An ability that allows her to turn into a ball of wool, or a poisonous ball of wool. Shielding her from attacks. It does seem to trap her though which results in some cute wholesome comedy. 

The final act of the episode has Maple wandering in town figuring out how to be useful once more when she encounters a quest.  What actually should be a high level escort quest becomes easy as Maple just flies with Syrup, This entire questline was my favorite part of the episode. The NPC spouts random dialogue based on their location which confuses Maple as she is totally immersed. The npc is startled by npc’s they fly over, the program thinking she is on ground level. I like this a lot, it contributes to the MMO feeling of this game, this episode that that very nicely throughout. The fact that Maple found the item needed as a follow up already and can finish it then and there is something that happened to me in MMOs as well, so that is some relatable writing. 

This ghost encounter…obviously ends up getting skipped…………….

Of course the questline awards maple a skill that breaks her even further, into complete unfair territories. She gains a skill named Loving sacrifice. By giving up a chunk of her HP all her guild members standing in the light share her defence modifier which by now has surpassed the 1000 mark due to her finding modifiers. While it is cute to see her transform into a golden haired angel I dont think this form has much to offer in the form of great moments that I love this show so dearly for. All in all quite a good episode.

Bofuri
Episode 8

An episode that I liked significantly less, than the previous episodes.  I likes Syrup Hyper Beaming a boss into oblivion but this episode to me waaaaaay overdid it in terms of hand me outs to Maple.  Let’s begin at the start though. It’s the day of the third event and the guilds can now hunt ..cows… for medals titled cow. Since these cows are kind of fast. Maple or the guild for that matter is not very geared up for it.  So Maple tries to find spawn spots where no one else can come using Syrup’s flight. Clever enough.. but she falls off and stumbles into a dungeon and a secret boss again. Using Wooly she survives his onslaught of Attacks while Syrup uses its new beam attack. Wiping out the boss first form.. the second form absorbs Maple and would deal her poison damage.. but since she is resistant.. she eats him up from inside. Thus Maple gains a demon form.

Like always we see Maple demonstrate the abilities to her group, who all acknowledge that Maple now officially has transcended into something that is not human anymore, completely leaving her humanity behind. While it sure is another funny, her getting a new form this close after her Angelic form and having it feel almost just as broken feels a bit wrong. Rather unrewarding. I still had some laughs for Maple sounding very ridiculous as a demon so it was still great for laughs it just didn’t feel clever or compelling. Slapstick if you will. Demon voice Maple still is something worth your time so do not mind me nagging on semantics though. 

After the event the third level opens which now is a steampunk , cyberish city which delights Iz for having so many new crafting Materials. As everyone goes explores we go into another montage which includes great things such as the “Do Not Push” button. I love this trope! I am sad yet again we did not see what happend.  By now I begin to notice how far Sally is relegated away in importance in these last two episodes. She barely said a line and even when Maple become an actual demon she was just there in the background. The whole real life thing also has kind of extinguished , which by now I kind of yearn for.. to see Maple normalise just a bit.

The final act involves Maple stumbling upon a questline again, falling of Syrup landing in a dungeon with a new mysterious boss with lasers that seems to knock her back quite a bit.  Trough an item she found during the last event she now manages to unlock a mecha form, with  big lasers and all sorts of guns going off. A well animated fight.. but TWO brokenly OP new forms in ONE episode. I mean I get that is part of the joke .. but the fight is also set up in almost the exact same way?! Again.. unlike Yu-Gi-Oh it wasn’t bad but it just is not memorable at all. I had trouble memorising this 3 hours after I’ve seen it. So Bofuri for me was a bit Meh! I totally want a Syrup though! Since this episode it talks and says Kame Kame.. so I am pretty sure it’s actually a Pokémon as Kame is turtle.

Hikaru no Go
Episode 4

Unfortunately even the fourth episode of Hikaru no Go could not stop this saturday viewing experience from being mediocre. As I feared Hikaru backed out of is fight with mister Touya thinking that placing the stone as epic as he did was because Sai took over his body. Mistrusting the spirit for a bit, this is quickly resolved.  I mostly noted that Sai at one point seemed to address us as the viewers, though it was probably just him thinking to himself, which felt a bit to in your face exposure like. Hikaru is beginning to like go and that is scaring him?! Alright?! Sure. Touya Senior seems intrigued by the boy but has not played him long enough to judge his skill.

He meets up with Akari and she invites him to some sort of fair.  Hikaru refuses not liking those kind of things. This is the scene I disliked the most because Hikaru really is a rASSpberry here. Maybe he is stressed ? Maybe it’s because he is so young? I am not sure. What’s even stranger when he finally decides to do what is right Akari doesn’t show up at all. I mean I would not wait for him either if he said he would not come.. but still it felt like a very clunky setup  Sai hints at possible romance but he gets the typical girls have cooties kind of reaction and both Hikaru and Akari seem to react against the character previously established. Hikaru seems a lot more prickly and Akari  seems much more spiteful towards the boy. She still sees him talking to himself and notices his behavioural changes, if you really like someone I’d say after being hospitalised and claiming to have a voice in your head you can at least give them a few days.

She’d even buy him Takoyaki! I’d travel to Japan for that offer!

Luckily the second half of the episode picks up the slack of the first half.  First we see Hikaru take some interesting puzzles, which remind me of the duel puzzles in Yu-Gi-Oh games, before a guy solves the final problem for him.. with gum! Uh-Oh! It’s a Go bad boy!  He looks like your standard Vagrant and bully and in a way he is. I squirted milk out of my nose laughing when he told his new passion though. This bad boy.. who looks like danger.. or a villain.. now is into SHOGI. He used to be into Igo but now Shogi is the shit, even if he has beaten Akira in a game.  Why is this so funny?! Because it is basically your high school bully, or standard movie bully if you never had one, saying I used to play checkers but that wasn’t bad ass enough so now I play Chess.  The way how menacing they made him sound while saying this was just hilarious to me. 

If Chess club looked like this.. they’d have Cheerleaders!

Obviously the two eventually decide to settle their difference over a game of Go, making some wagers that involve Hikaru jumping into a pool if he lost?! Seriously how uncool is man. Why do they try to make him so cool?! In every other show he would have a bowl cut, a buck tooth and super thick glasses. If he is the cool one.. how uncool is Hikaru?!  Regardless of this brainworm I had to yank out, their showdown is pretty well set up and seems very intense. Sai enjoys playing this boy so he doesn’t give it his all.  Once Hikari gets distracted by Akiri walking by he places a wrong stone allowing mister cool guy to get 5 Moku.. Will Hikaru be able to come back from this?!  Or will he have to .. jump in a pool.. find out next saturday.. I can hardly wait. 

In Closing

Now that last line sounded sarcastic and in a way it was meant like that.. but in a good way.. I find it funny how enthralled I can get by the little stuff in this show.

Overall all episodes where quite okay with BNA being the only one that really sang for me. It makes sense though I have been singing praise on Bofuri for three weeks now, at some point I will not see episodes that top the best. Hikaru fizzled were I think it could have popped and Yu-Gi-Oh.. I might drop that one at the 6 episode mark and first line up change.  Now that all characters are in play it has until Bofuri finishes to impress me or it will be pulled off the pink network!

When Bofuri is done one time slot will go to Tower of the Gods and one to another episode of Hikaru. If you have any good suggestions I could replace Yu-Gi-Oh with?  Let me know in the comments!

https://ko-fi.com/pinkiesparadise

Adapt don’t change: OWLS May Blog Tour

Hey Island guests, it has been a while since I partook in an OWLS tour! I skipped the last three. February and March featured themes that did not match up with how I see the world. April’s theme while beautifully themed around hope came at a bad time for me. There was a lot on my plate.. but now that I have adapted a bit better to the new situation I feel stronger than ever before.. and adapting is this months topic.

OWLS

While I am sure that most of you know who the OWLS are, in fact most  of you reading are OWLS I bet a little reminder for all those marketing blogs that follow me or mysterious passerby’s in the future. The OWLS are the Otaku Warriors for Liberty and Self-respect. Basically it’s a bunch of people who do not care about your skin colour, disabilities or how you identify yourself. If you are an Otaku or Geek you are one of us. A message that Pinkie very much supports.

In May we talk about adapting. Covid-19 has altered the world, it has brought us closer together in some ways but also put us further apart. Little things like shopping can now be a lot more anxiety inducing. We all need to recalibrate ourselves to a new lifestyle and constant uncertainties Through our favorite anime we can show you how hard it can be to adapt but to give you tips and insights! Words like.. Subaru  handled it like this.. be like Subaru.  So obviously… I am going to take a slightly different approach..because that is the type of OWL I am.

Hacking Through the Gate

Today I will talk to you about adapting to a new world compared to changing. I believe these are two very different things, and we should never allow a new world to change who we are nor can we expect the world to change for us. Adapting is needed.. but also a slippery slope.
If we change to much we risk losing ourselves and if we try to change external factors to make the world adapt and change to our bidding we are oftenly in over our heads. It’s a balancing act. In the anime Steins Gate, we can find a lot of of stories on how NOT to adapt. Yet also a few on how it is done correctly. So prepare your flippy phones as we take a trip into the past.

For those who don’t know what Steins Gate is about. A guy is Microwaving Bananas and more or less discovers a way to time travel through that. We all pretty much know what Steins Gate is about though. Okabe Rintarou can send messages through time and he uses it to change things in the past that he does not like.. including preventing the death of Makise Kurisu. As it turns out things are not that easy. You can not just change without consequences . As his life spirals more and more out of control we see him clutching for straws to keep his friends safe from the CERN organisation and to unravel what is going on.

The reason I chose this anime is because it highlights Okabe being unable to adapt. He can not accept things the way they are and tries to change the world rather than adapt to it in order to be happy. For those who have seen the show, those endeavours usually do not end great and in a way the solution was to adapt to a situation rather than change it. While it all may sound a bit flimsy I hope you keep on reading as I try to explain. As Steins Gate teaches us that the only thing we can truly change is us. 

Adapt yourself

Now note that this post has nothing to do with our current situation. I assume plenty of people will have talked about it and have talked about it better than me.  So think of these words more as advice in general. While I am all for adapting I am very heavily against change.  Take for Example Urushibara Luka, the character that looks like a girl but he is a guy, smells and dresses like a girl.. but he is a guy.. you know that scene if you saw this show. Luka is tormented by gender dysphoria and always wanted to be a girl. Okabe’s answer to solve this for Luka  is to convince her mother to eat more vegetables in the past. Which works and Luka is born female. We see change. However this completely invalidates Luka’s personality.  Changing magically like that would create a completely different person, as we are made by our highs and lows. 

While I get their plight, this is not something we need to change. Luka regardless of her body is a girl, she identifies as a girl and was molded by that. Changing that means Luka never existed in the new timeline, the new girl is someone else. While it is easy for society to say, you are born like a male.. act like one, for transgender this would not be adapting, it would mean changing. It is to big. The person we know and see would stop to exist and become another. Imagine changing physically that much each time you have to pretend to be another person.. forced to put on a mask.. pretend you feel your bones shifting and you got a good idea what mental agony change like that invokes.

This is NEVER the way one should adapt. What we can adapt though is stuff like , our location, what people see of us and who we interact with. We can move to a town or city that is more open minded, usually city cultures are much more tolerant towards the different than small town, we can adapt the way we dress so people might not even see the physical wrong gender  and we can replace who we interact with. One can call it fleeing, but I ‘d say it is not. It is finding hapiness elsewhere. Don’t dig in a dry well.

Okabe’s reaction to Luka is rather toxic, calling her a guy while everything about her is female except for some chromosomes. Rather than asking for change in such a definite way, Luka should ask to be referred to as a girl by her friends. They are close enough and will do it for her, it’s not a complete road to happiness but it is a first step. If they don’t she should find friends who would.. It isn’t easy but adapting never is. Don’t adapt for others follow your heart and instincts for this one.

Same goes for those who have a “undesirable” sexual preference, you can pretend to be different but that doesn’t bring anyone happiness. Adapting.. is about making things work FOR YOU. While change is making things work regardless the cost. There is a gravitation on being standard.. but being like others never made anyone happy in its core. Do not change yourself… only change within the confines of yourself.. that to me is what adapting means.
Don’t change so others can live with you! Adapt so you are happier with yourself.

Deal with pain

To adapt let no one tell you, your fear, anxieties and pain is not real, or over exaggerated. Only you know how you feel inside. Real men don’t cry is a stupid statement and I am sure many would agree. In the same vain, you are over-reaction is also ALWAYS wrong. While it serves a purpose and can make you look back.. that feeling you initially feel is genuine. That is never taken away.. if you feel so much pain that you overreact.. it must have really hurt you. Never change the pain to go away, accept that it hurts and adapt to it. “My friend said a nasty thing.. . I better suck up and pretend that I do not care because it’s guy talk” is wrong. You pretend to be someone you are not which means you slowly lose yourself. I have lost myself in the past adapting into the person others wanted me to be.. in time it will just feel miserable.

 At the same time you can also not expect your friends to completely change. Nowadays we want to ban so many words because if offends somebody but that is not the way either, you can not expect the entire world to bend to you. It would force others to change. To ask them to change is just as unreasonable. Your friends might hurt you at times by being different, they might be stubborn and be unable to relate. Don’t demonize them for it. Instead you reach out.. so all can changes within the confines of themselves.  You tell your friend “I was really hurt by what you said, could you please not do that when I am around” Your friend doesn’t have to suddenly not find his jokes funny.. because they are not PC, he just has to tone it down in front of you.  Or give you a heads up he is going to make such a joke… two adapt so neither has to change.

Okabe SUCKS at this. He can not accept the death of Kurisu so he changes it.. which sets in motion a counter movement, which ends up hunting Mayuri. He can not accept the world he now has created and has to change it again. And Again and Again. Okabe refuses to accept things the way they are and suffers greatly for it. He changes things.. even himself to an extend but never adapts. His blossoming love with Kurisu make sure that regardless of what he chooses he always loses.. and he is unable to adapt to it. Up to a point where it is nearly driving him mad. He gets his happy ending.. not by changing the world..but accepting what he sees. There are facts he has to deal with! However what those facts means is where he can adapt. Just because he saw something.. and assumed the worst doesn’t mean the worst actually happened. He saw something.. and now has to make the best out of that. He adapts. Yet it was a lesson that does not come easy to him.

Alter Ego

We see this inability to adjust amplified by his alter ego Hyojin Kyoma, he in a way changes himself to another person. Someone he is not. The fact that Kurisu falls for Okabe and not Hyojin once more shows that you have to remain yourself. You can not just change everything and expect to be happy. That just doesn’t happen, we have to accept things in order to make them work. Okabe learned that lesson which is important in order to adapt and we have to do so to. 

Yes if you are not a straight-cis person some people will think poorly of your sexuality, yes people can be racist if you have a different skin color and no we do not have to accept that. We can make other people adapt, make them see there is much more than a binary spectrum of right and wrong. What they see doesn’t always have to be true.. like it was for Okabe.  We can show them they make false assumptions and enlighten them. Allow them to adapt… we can NOT change them. They have to be the one the instigate this within themselves.  We can just help them along their way.  Just like we can not allow them to change us. We can adapt, but we should not change.  Like how Rintaro can step up to save Kurisu or Mayuri, yet his alter ego his change is useless. Happiness can only be achieved if adjustments come from the real self.

Because we are forced to stay inside doesn’t mean you change into a recluse that is isolated from their friends. Send them them a postcard a gift or put on a webcam. Hang out with them on your Animal Crossing island perhaps.  Stay yourself and allow them to stay themselves and just tweek the way you can meet.  If you have trouble being accepted because of who you are, find a common ground from which you can be accepted rather than change others into accepting that one aspect they approve of, and certainly make sure you don’t change and take on an alter ego of yourself.

In that spirit the OWLS set a good example in adapting. Yes we are all very different, yes at times it can be polarising and no we will not always agree. We can refuse to accept this and refuse to adapt.. but it would end up driving us apart. We accept.. some things aren’t easy as we want them to be.. and instead of projecting this ideal world we accept that it’s not.. so we adapt.. to find that glimmer in the dark. We adapt to not see each others as those labels that set us apart but the label that we all share.. We adapt to bearing our Otaku badge as a symbol of togetherness while still being our true selves. 

Check out these amazing other OWLS Posts as well!

Hikari went before me and you can check out her certainly amazing post right here!
Aria will do the next one , three days from when this post releases… so if you read this after the 19th you can click here to check more adapting goodness! Or if you read it before you can click here to visit the blog in advance.

What Bad Luck! I got reborn into another life, and Now I am a Side Character! (Part 1)

Hello guys gals and everyone else that visits my island! Today I decided to start writing a Isekai like story! What would happen if I got Isekaid?! Well here is my story! Including a super long title!

Intro

I never thought it would happen to me, but then I died! Everything went black when I saw that cute little cat, it’s skin was so black and it made the cutest meow! I remember .. falling. From a stairway perhaps? Man I am never lucky! Yet then I heard it’s voice.. Kami of the new world.. the voice said I would be reborn… there was no real shape but I imagined him like a moose..or maybe a powerful stag… something forestry and wild.. and pride was in his voice.

He told me I would be reborn in a new world. I told him , I like me I wanna be myself. He told me a girl named Elle accidently magicked her soul away and I would get her body, but I could take a boon into my next life. So since I wanted to be myself.. I asked to be myself.. but amplified! Isekai characters usually get a huge stat upgrade.. so I just asked for that. Just upgrades so I would be be.. I have a pretty good brain on me.. so if this Elle is magic.. I bet it will turn out fine! I just forgot.. how unlucky I can be!

Day 1
Morning

Dear diary.. I woke up in a strange bed today! Lot’s of clutter on the floor, drawings and some runic things , which I think are spells. I woke up with a strange headache.. but I guess having your soul mushed into a new body that sort of thing is expected. Anyway I decided to get up filled with energy, I am going to be an overpowered and beloved heroine and make lots of money from quests and live in a mansion! At least that was what I thought at the time.

I got up out of bed and tried to search for a bathroom… now let me tell you Isekai shows do never really explain this well.. but baths are hard to find in medieval times. A bar of soup is even harder to find! The girl I am now does seem to have a lot of rose water though.. I guess it is used to mask the scents.. when I tried sniffing to see how bad the damage is I noticed something though my skin was blue?! Nani!

So upon further investigation I also discovered there was also a pillow stuck to my head. While stepping away all flustered I accidently stepped on my tail.. which I did not know I have and I fell into a mirror and broke it.. I wasn’t very hurt though.. because I hit it with a horn.. which did break off.. the pillow stuck to my head was skewered on the other..I somehow know the other will go back.  Which is good because soon after I after I fell of the stairs, trying to find another mirror.. apparently I have hoof-like feet. It’s not exactly a hoof.. but it’s not like the human flat foot either. So with two broken horns.. and these features.. I think I might be something close to a Tiefling.. or maybe like a Draenei from World of Warcraft… they are about the same thing anyway. Well at least my skin colour combines nicely with pink!

Day 1
After Noon

I was surprised.. and slightly injured,  as I managed to get dressed from my sleeping gown. Which wasn’t easy! I can hardly see anything! I had pretty bad eyesight when I was human..but this was ridiculous…that’s when I realised that bastard Moose guy must have amplified that trait of me!  I hoped opticians were thing in the city! I also found a coin purse apparently Elle had some money! So I decided to go out and see if I can get my eye problem fixed.

Now while Elle doesn’t smell that bad, I guess it’s a Tiefling thing, the same can not be said for the human males at least I assume that’s what they were.. obviously with my eyesight this impaired it is impossible to verify. As I was stumbling around someone asked me if  everything was alright. The blob looked blond and sounded female. Could this be my fated encounter.. where I meet my side character?! I explained her that I had bad eyesight and lost my aid. She offered to take me to a man who made glasses. I guess that is a relief.Now those glasses cost me nearly all my coins..I am not sure if I have enough for food now.. but at least I will be overpowered so finding a job should not be too troubling.


My estimations proved to be correct. The blond blob person was a human lady. She wears this regal blue coat and a fancy scabbard. She waited for me , in case these glasses would not help, also she was curious about my species as she never saw a Tiefling before. She said she was new to this place, having only been in town for a couple of days.

Her home town is far away and apparently does not have the diversity. I guess it means Elle is not from this town originally either.. or she would have seen more right? I had not seen any blue blobs on the way here. So I told her. I just rented the place.. I lived in and arrived yesterday.. but in the move my glasses had gone missing. She said she could show me around town… she definitely is my fated encounter. I bet we are going to be a popular ship! Though I never experienced that pausing moment with the hearts and the glow. Maybe that is anime only?

She told me her name was Maine. She seems to be a high level hero because as soon as we stepped out the store I got robbed of my last few coins! She raced after the thief, which was a Half Elf Rogue..they seem to have been acquainted “You Again?” She asked? Which was followed by him apparently making playful remarks at her “We got to stop meeting like this” “Seriously you might starve me if you keep stopping me.. wouldn’t you be sad if I died”. She and him bantered for a while.. before he gave her my nearly empty coin purse back.

She told him, designating him as Rho, to join the guild that he could make some honest coin. “He asked where the fun was in that”. I got a bit excited and said I might join the guild. Maine snickered a bit and told me that I might need to get better at staying out of harm’s way first. Then we hurt a scream…. This was it.. the moment where I could say a cool one-liner “Maybe Danger is just drawn to me”  or maybe something sugoi like “It is harm that should stay out of my way”… but Maine totally stole my spotlight. “Maybe it’s me, who is drawn to danger.. if that’s the case.. let’s get dangerous!’ She totally stole that from Dark Wing Duck! Anyway as we ran towards the sound I tripped on my tail and I think I hit my head on a trashcan!

Day 1
Evening

When I woke up it  was already sunset was upon us. I looked around but neither Rho or Maine were around. The screaming had stopped as well instead I could hear.. singing? Not like the beautiful kind.. but you know the songs that those sunburnt brits in shiny t-shirts sing when people  have chased a round leather object for 90 minutes. Why is my mind describing like that? I know the name.. but see it in my head all analytical like?! Is it a result of my good stats?! I could not linger on it .. we had a villain to defeat.. by now it has certainly captured my new friend and I must save her! This is the moment where the heroine will save her dashing young companion and they start traveling together! Let’s go!

Perhaps I have a very high wisdom modifier.. or perhaps my perception check is quite high despite my eyesight.. but it did not take me long to locate Maine. Apparently she was the reason people were singing. They lift her up and sing the song of a hero or something. Saying she vanquished a servant of the Dark Order. Apparently this Rho guy helped.. but then escaped before he could be arrested.

I finally met up with Maine in the bar and she forgot my name! I guess it might be the Tsundere.. like trope.. or well what is it called.. the one where the Heroine is invisible to her crush until she can prove her worth!?! Of course that would not happen in the first episode! She gave me on of the drinks people bought her and we talked a bit. She seems to be hiding something. At one point Rho showed up.. kind of disguised he apologized for stealing for me… but not before the two had this weird epic stare down for a moment they did not even seem to move at all. I kinda felt ignored.

I should report to the hero guild .. because apparently my money will only buy me like a weeks worth of food. So at least I have plans for tomorrow. Of course this is the perfect place to get a mysterious encounter.. someone who hands me a note.. “I know what you are, meet me at the docks tomorrow after sunset’ It will be amazing and I will finally shine. I also discovered that as a Tiefling I have an impressive blatter.. it was late at evening when I first had to make a sanitary stop… knowing this a medieval fantasy world though..

I knew it wasn’t going to be pleasant. Even expecting the worst it did not disappoint. If you think what Shou Tucker did to his daughter was disgusting, you have never seen a medieval toilet. Well it’s just a box.. with a hole.. but at least they had booths with locks in the tavern. When trying to open it I accidently dropped the key into the hole though… On the plus side I got some practice with my tail ………After a good wash up I got back to my company though.

Maine looked a bit shocked as Rho was trying to comfort her when I got back. He is acting super awkward for some reason it doesn’t seem to help her a lot and she calls him Baka for not understanding. Shouldn’t see call me stupid for being trapped in the bathroom?!  Maybe she is not my encounter but like a senpai?! I did not know what to think so inquired to her state of mind. She said it was nothing.. but I pushed on!  “I might not see a lot but this I can tell” .. reluctantly she shown a note a mysterious stranger just gave her.

It read “I know about you, meet me in Blackshroom Forest tomorrow when the clock strikes twelve times at night. I blurted out “Well technically he means the day after tomorrow then” after which I pushed my glasses back on my face… “Wait that is not a very main character thing to do, they do not nag about the details they rush in”.. Maine kind of ignored me and just got up and dashed out. …. Wait … “she helped a helpless character, had a flirty encounter, defeated a monster and got a plot hook onto the next episode?” Could it be?!  I AM A SIDE CHARACTER?

Day 1
Night

More investigation is needed,  however a continues streak of misfortune  has made this quest for knowledge rather impossible this day. I never was a lucky girl on earth either but it seems a lot worse now. Maine seems to have her secrets to.. but if she is the lead character of this story..perhaps my key to getting a life.. lies with her.. or a way to get home! Tomorrow I shall set out to the guild she is part of .. if I can join I am sure I can force myself in a role inside her life. I never heard of persons being reincarnated as a side character before.. so I am sailing blind here.. I need some money first..so tomorrow morning I will go to the guild, tomorrow afternoon I shall do a quest and then I will go to the forest to discover more about Maine. Now it’s time for bed.. but it will be a uncomfy night because I just spilled ink all the over my matra….

Pokémon Top 5: Favorite Psychic Types

My dear island guests , the Psychic type is super effective against the fighting type so using this technique it steps in the ring. The question which are my favorite fighting types are much harder than most other types. I do not dislike the type at all, nor is it my favorite type, yet almost all psychic types are good in some way or another. Where usually I have deep depths and high highs the psychic type is 7’s and 8’s throughout the board. I even kind of like Bruxish!

Rules and Honorable Mentions

Starting with this list I am instating a new rule. Any duel types that make it on one list can not make it on another. For example Medicham is my favorite fighting type but it would be a bit redundant to put it here. I will favorite it to the type I most associate it with.  This gives more pokémon a chance to shine. Other rules apply like normal like only one entry per evolution line.  While I am free to choose what form I want.. If I dislike later forms and have to evolve them to be able to play them.. those later forms will be held against them. So while I am quite fond of Woobat, Swoobats weird design kinda ruins it for me. The same would apply to Munna.. but I love Woobat just a bit more.

Another rule, a type has to “feel” part of it’s typing to me. If a Pokémon doesn’t feel like a psychic type to me or I don’t use it as one, it will not make this list. Luckily the Psychic type really has good atmosphere and there are virtually no pokémon I would exclude from the type this way. Only one I could think of is the pokémon Victini and even than I still could believe it. Though I’d make it pure fire type.  The final rule is that pokémon has to have it’s typing in its base form. So no Silvally , Arceus or Genesect with typing stuff equipped to them or Mega Evolutions that change typing. Zen Mode Darmanitan is a pokémon I really love that is excluded for this reason. 

Psychic Type Number 5: Mewtwo

Let’s begin with the favorite pick of just about everyone else. Mewtwo is THE icon when it comes to psychic type pokémon and for good reason.  He is the embodiment of the type.The poster boy of the psychic type.   He is the second most powerful pokémon ever and when we count his mega evolutions he even IS the strongest pokémon ever. Even outclassing Arceus.  His design is very menacing and well done, his portrayel in all sorts of media is sublime. He gets some great pokémon cards,  I like playing him in Smash, he is a decent villian in the sub version of the pokémon movies and his part in Detective Pikachu , I like him in Pokken. Mewtwo does deserve to be listed and favorited.

 So why is he my number 5 pick and not number 1?  Because he is to easy to love. Mewtwo gets so much attention we get that been there done that sensation He feels like the easy pick for its power and because that I like him less. It is the same reason I do not like Charizard all that much.. though much less prominent in this case. His spot in the top 5 in favor of Espeon and  Hatterene is saved because of the lore  and how connected Mewtwo is to the world of pokémon. Mewtwo is an important part of the pokémon world. The yang to Arceus yin in a way. Nature versus science,  a theme that is very important to pokémon. In a way he is more pokémon than anything else on this list or any other poké list for that matter.

In combat he is mostly disallowed because of his high stats, but we all know we run a set with psychic on it because of nostalgia. With the inclusion of Mega Mewtwo X however it now also can be ran as a physical set, trough moves like Psycho Cut, Foul Play and  Power Swap. The special set, usually ran along Mega Mewtwo Y comes with Psystrike  and Aura Sphere but I have seen with the nostalgic psychic from time to time as well. Regardless of what you put on your Mewtwo it will hurt like a truck..because it’s Mewtwo. You can’t really go wrong. Not the best pokémon to use if you want a challenge but one hell of a lucky find if you play randomised Nuzlockes because it will wreck hard. It still is the most powerful pokémon ever.

Psychic Type Number 4: Galarian Ponyta

Of course I had to include this rainbow unicorn. While of course it’s final evolution Galarian Rapidash is better, and I will be discussing that one for a viable battle set (because it can’t be run with eviolite or something)  galarian Ponyta is my favorite form of the two. It just feels so happy and cute and fluffy and I WANT one. Had I not spent the entire 24 hour livestream of Glimwood Tangle hoping for more.. and had galarian Rapidash had become a pegasus with a flying type instead of the fairy type.. this line would have taken my number one spot. Still.. a fluffy unicorn that has rainbow patterns when it is happy! That is amazing! If we Dutch believed in Santa that is what I would ask of him… we have this other old bloke who rides a white horse so he would probably steal it from me and never look back.. so I never got to.

When Pokémon and My Little Pony meet, you get this beautiful equine creature. It’s black horn is also super cute. Just seeing this little beast parade around your camp having fun while it is racing other pokémon just made me smile so hard. I loved tossing a ball to it, feeding it banana curry and of course waving a stick with a bell in front of it. This pokémon which I named Flufflepuff,  is still my favorite horse pokémon, and though I do prefer the shiny of the original fire variant of this pokémon it’s base design far surpasses that of its kantonian counterpart. If I could just customise it a bit and give it a cutie mark it would have been absolutely perfect.

Galarian Rapidash can be quite fun to play with during a playthrough through the Galar Region. It’s eyes are a bit to arrogant for me. Which prevent it from being higher on this list. What makes it fun to use is how diverse it’s moveset can be. It still learns a bunch of fire moves to cover the bugs it is weak against, it gets access to moves like High Horse Power for some earth type hits, it has psycho cut, which isn’t seen on a lot of other pokémon other than Malamar and Mewtwo as there are not a lot of physical fighting types out there.  While it’s stats aren’t too amazing with its strongest stat  being speed at 105 and attack at 100 it borders on being “average”. Yet that is what made this pokémon fun to me. There is a nice balance in its power and frailty which makes it interesting to use. It learns lots of elemental attacks and with the way Galar balanced T.M’s and T.R’s  It can be fun to kit out the unicorn with a custom set for each fight. A unicorn that won my won my heart, even if I am not all over the rainbow for it.

Psychic Type Number 3: Wobbuffet

Now this might polarise some people, Wobbuffet, that is such a useless pokémon!?  Honestly it really isn’t. I love the blue weird thing. From its intrinsic stiffness and weirdness, to it The weird lipstick thing on the females as a gender difference I find hilarious, and it is my favorite Team Rocket Pokémon. Just so awkward I love awkward things. It’s voice in the anime is something I am very endeared to and just the fact that it’s one of those.. what is that supposed to be pokémon adds to it’s mystique.. of which their actual is non it’s just Wobbuffet.  While I could easily give this spot to Alakazam that one is basically just slightly lesser Mewtwo while Wobbuffet is completely it’s own thing. I could have given this spot to Hypno.. who steals kids and made some big lore splashes but no.. I love this pokémon so much more.

Wobbuffet has no interesting Pokémon Lore, in fact it doesn’t really do anything…at all.. It just stands there. It’s pokédex entry says so. It just is there to endure other pokémon’s attacks. If it encounters another Wobbuffet it does even less as it stops eating to out endure the other of its kind.  So if you’d put a female Wobbie and a male one in the daycare centre with some incense in reality they would not breed for you to get a wynaut .. they’d die of starvation showing off to each other. The only weakness of Wobbuffet is it’s tail. When you attack that.. it does down.. but it will always try to take you down with you.. and this is why I love Wobbie so much as a Psychic type.

This pokémon is all about predictions. It can only learn Counter, Mirror Coat, Destiny Bond, Safeguard, Encore, Amnesia and Charm.. well that and Splash.. but we all know what happens if you use that move.  It’s stats are very bad but they do not matter. All that matters is it’s hp.  Counter will double any physical damage taken and send that towards your opponent, Mirror coat does the same but for Special damage and Destiny Bond will take a target down with it.. it goes down before it uses another move. If Wobbuffet is actually hit and you as it’s trainer predict correctly it basically means the opponent goes down. Encore which locks an opponent into their last used move can guarantee success in this. Obviously a Machamp will try to punch it so counter is a good option.. but you can only take so much hits so at one point you need to set up destiny bond. During gameplay plenty of pokemon are mixed sets.. so using Wobbie can just be so much fun.. that actually involve predicting the future! So it deserves this spot!

Psychic Type Number 2: Gardevoir

Yes this scored very highly since my first playthrough of Gen III and is a regular staple on my team. Ever since it has gotten the fairy subtype that has even increased how much that I love it.. now when I say that I love it.. I do not mean that in any physical or lustful kind of sense.. which apparently is a thing you need to clarify around this Pokemon. It is often waifu ed and lewded and though I will not kinkshame. I love it’s totally unique design  Even among the human like pokemon. Weirdly enough until Galar this Pokemon never belonged to the human like Egg group and only played with amorphous Pokemon.

Gardevoir is the near perfect pokémon, it looks unique , it looks psychic, it has great stats, awesome moves, gets love in all media  but ,with exception for the meme and lewding scene , not OVERLY much. It looks like it’s evolution is telling a story and over time it only has gotten better with the addition of split evolution Gallade. It’s cute a girly, even if it isn’t always a female pokémon and a testament of being yourself. I took one along on my Omega Ruby playtrough just because I knew Wally would have a Mega Gallade in the end. I wanted to give them an epic showdown naming it Virgo as I named my main theme after constellations and I had to capture a pokémon to fit that constellation.  She was my most memorable Gardevoir.

A well played Gardevoir with Trace can do amazing things but is rather situational so the synchronize  set usually more stable. Regardless of your ability though , Gardevoir hits hard. Mega Gardevoir hits harder With a special attack of 165  and a special defence of 135 it dwarfs even legendaries. While still a fair bit away from Mewtwo’s base stat total of 680, it hits harder (specially)  than Mewtwo and it takes more hits (specially) than Mewtwo.. for the role it’s going to be used as it’s simply amazing.  Equip it with Psychic , Moonblast, Shadow Ball and Hidden Power Fire (or Pixilate boosted Return)  and it can get around just about everything. In base form it’s one of the best looking pokémon in the entire game and while it’s mega evolution is a bit balloony for my taste I still enjoy it looks. When a pokémon kicks ass and looks good doing it.. you got a good one!

Psychic Type Number 1 : Mew

It’s Psychic, It’s Pink, It is adorable and playful. While I had trouble determining which pokémon would be on this list there was no doubt in my mind that Mew is my favorite psychic type. Have I mentioned it’s pink?!  Mew has gotten significantly less love than Mewtwo over these past few years but it has been made up for in spades with mystery.
Britain once voted the identity of the Stig from Top Gear as one of the greatest mysteries of the world.. but had Nintendo played their cards a bit closer to the chest I’d theorise “how to get Mew” in Pokémon Red and Blue could have made this list.

Everyone knows about that truck that his hidden on the water next to the SS Anne.  Temtem made a amazing reference to it by placing a island with a  truck somewhere on the map hinting a powerful Temtem might be hiding there. I caught a Missingno and somehow managed to trade it with strength and cut equipped in order to finally get Mew from underneath that truck (As rumors stated the pokémon using strength needed a level higher than 100) No Mew!  I got Pokémon Stadium and Pokémon Snap in the hopes to get it to my Game Boy game.. I caught Mew in Snap.. but I still did not know how to get it in my game. I wanted so bad because the movie made it seem so adorable and playful.. it became that toy people said you could not play with.

In lore Mew is basically the genetic ancestor of every non legendary pokémon. Basically the son of Arceus that got lonely and made some friends to play with.. the lake trio was involved in creating Mew (Uxie Azelf and Mespirit) but how can a pokémon that is basically the source of all other pokémon NOT be the best psychic type out there?  Every Pokémon is like part of it! Without it there would not be any starters to start your journey with.. without it  zero of the other pokémon on this list would exist.

In combat Mew is absolutely amazing. It learns  all learnable moves and it gets 100 stat points in everything. Which means there is no correct way to build Mew.. everything you do is fine. Physical Tank with Screens? Viable.. Speedy Special Sweeper with wide covery? Viable. Toxic Stall set?! Okay! .. It will never be your best option for either of these things but it will always keep your opponent guessing. In a way Mew is still the mystery it has always been. When your opponent brings a Mew  you never know what you are going to get. Unlike with a box of chocolates.. what’s in that should at least be on the back! While Mew’s mysteries live on we now know to things about Mew for sure. It is my favorite Psychic type by a large margin and he is not under the truck.. no .. the way to find Mew has since been found! An ancient secret has been unlocked… You can purchase a single Mew alongside a Pokéball controller for the price of 50 dollars!

What is your favorite Psychic type?! Like I said this one was hard.. there are just so many good ones , so please show the love for your favorites! All pokémon deserve it some love! Next week we will cover the bug type! See you then…and hopefully in the rest of my posts! Do not forget to subscribe!

XO
Pinkie

Pinkie Plays On the Internet: Random Topic Generator

Hello Island Guests! I felt like doing something a bit odd today. Perhaps I am running a fever, perhaps I am slipping into a insanity but I wanted to talk about stuff I would normally never talk about.. as well as find a way to keep myself entertained! So i found a random topic generator and as a blog I will adres some topics it spouts at me! Onto the first topic!

Topic: Where is the most beautiful place you have been?

Hmmm well I have been to lots of places that have been beautiful to me for lots of different reasons. If we have to do the generic general aesthetic concept of beauty I would have to say it’s a tie between the wooded areas near Alanya Turkey or the city of Porto.  The turkish forests I visited during a Jeep Safari thing while traveling there with friends. We were invited in a classic turkish home in the middle of the wilderness and it was quite a sight to behold. Yet.. I would not want to live there ..so I’d have to say the city of Porto takes the win in the end. It’s such a pretty city so few from above. It is a very layed city with all sorts of plateaus and coloured houses, almost as if a child builds with legos.. there is colour everywhere. 

There are so many beautiful spots in this city like the mozaic train station, the port and of course the famous bookstore the Livraria Lello. This bookstore is an important inspiration for Hogwarts and it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see the similarities. It’s the prettiest store I have ever seen and truly seems magical. If only I could read portuguese I would have bought a book.. but things there are a bit pricey. A bought a super pretty pink bottle of water though, which was the most beautiful throw away bottle of water I have ever seen. I might even still have that around somewhere. If you ever find yourself in Porto definitely visit this bookstore.. and of course visit the boulevard and the major bridge as well. Don’t go in heels though or Porto will kill you.

Topic: What is the Most Frustrating App You ever Tried

Hmmm this is a hard one, I don’t play a lot on my phone, I guess for me the most frustrating one would be Pokémon Masters. You see… I happen to like Pokémon but because of in game purchases this game was not allowed to release her in the Netherlands.. So I installed it through a work around. At first the game was a bit sparse, while I enjoyed it very much I felt so much iconic stuff was missing. Also the one weakness mechanic while understandable felt super counter intuitive for what I have known for most my life now .That’s when I learned about events.. all those super iconic trainers are available on alternating banners.. event banners. So my issue got fixed or so I thought.

It would soon turn out that  for every event I would need to update my game, and my work around for installation of Masters could not allow updates. Which basically meant each update I had to uninstall wait a few days for the updated file to be presented for me to install on a website I trusted.. grind out the event with a few days less and NOT pull any of the major event characters. I never got one of the major pulls. Since I am not allowed to play this officially I was afraid to put money in it as well so that was no option .. and the way to gather actually currency is just way to slow, given the time I have available for such a thing. It was a lot of work to get nothing over and over again.. until eventually I stopped updating, moving on.

Topic: What is the least favorite job you ever had?

There are actually two jobs that come to mind. First was pressing buttons in a bread factory. They were implementing a new production line and I had to press buttons at a certain interval to make the machine learn. Yet the machine broke that so many times I had to do something else like working the oven. Pinkie is not heatproof. Even though I said I could not take it they made me do it until I fainted.. they brought me back and I was feeling miserable and they made me work there for another two hours. People who worked three years with each other didn’t even know from each other they were married so it wasn’t very sociable either. It was horrible and I felt sick constantly due to the smells and the heat. 

Another job I had was with a company that important american goods and sold them to a us europeans.  Stuff like special cans of Monster Energie, Twinkies,  snickers. I had to put some orders in boxes, put a label on them and make sure they were safe for shipping. I got a bunch of papers i could shred to make fillings and all in all, it seemed like a fairly nice job with low pressure, I could easily keep up. However things began seeming off when the supervisor who would judge if I did a proper job or not went on vacation during almost the entirety for my evaluation period.

I discovered that the papers I shredded was our invoices.. the pieces of paper that said how much we paid for stuff.  I noticed people ordering a single can of monster energy drink shipping it to finland or sweden for over 3x times what the can itself cost. Maybe someone collected the cans? When the same address ordered a box of twinkies for 7x more delivery cost than the costs of goods however I began to have serious doubts. I would get the day off for the weirdest reason like.. “we have a party tonight and we want to sleep in, let’s just skip a day”  I presented this to my mediator who immediately pulled me out after that.

Topic: If you could learn the answer of one question about your future which would it be? 

When will I die? It would suck to know that I am about to die, but since I am sick I think that oftenly enough.  Think about all the insurance money I could save  and not having to worry about my own sickness and whether or not it will kill me. If the answer would be tomorrow or something close by I would be super upset but hey at least I can now do things I was afraid to. I can eat Fugu without worrying if I will die or not, I could even walk everywhere in the world without having to worry.. to much.  While I do not think I would be happier, I think it is a matter of problem substitution , I would at least have a bit more money!

Topic: What is the craziest, most outrageous thing you want to achieve?

I am not that outrages in my plans at least something that I am actively pursuing. Winning the lottery seems like one of those but that is such a boring answer. I do believe that I have enough bad luck to compensate though so I am an active believer that I can have that turn around magic moment, where suddenly I can break free of my monetary and entropic chains and live without a limit. I keep playing in lotteries because it is something I very much belief in. Magic is possible and due to my health issues I am a bit stuck right now so in magic I must belief.


Achieving magic might be another thing I try to achieve.. I do feel there is more to this world than we can see, I saw ghosts in the past, I felt as if I could do more with my mind. It feels as if something is locked away and discovering what lies deep inside me can be that outrageous think that Pinkie strives for. I can read people very well and I do not know why. I have these intuitions and this feeling that is more than what I currently can define and I wish to discover what else is out there. I just know there is more.

Topic: Where is the worst place you have been stuck for a long time

Okay, this is not a really fun story, but at least you all might get a laugh out of it. I told you all in some of those tag posts that I can get stupidly unlucky and that I was left in a forest once. Well that second statement was not fully correct it happened twice, though the second time was way more mean spirited. We had a school camp and we had a game where we would play drug runners. Having to run from some parents trying to  capture us we had to outsmart them and score as much as we could. If you got caught wearing drugs the parent could tie you to a tree for 5 minutes or so as a time out. … now you can already probably see where this is going. 

When my time was just about to be up a boy ran by.. drawing the parent guarding me away for a bit… a shout from that boy could be heard as the boy twisted his ankle maybe even broke it so was thought at the time. The parent went along with him.. forgetting me. The game wrapped up and a few boys were tasked to check if everyone is complete.  The boy who found me was someone who bullied me in the past and just grinned and left me. The boy who was injured was a friend of mine so for a bit it was believed that I went along with them. It wasn’t until after the parent returned with the boy from the hospital they noticed I wasn’t there.  

The girls whom I shared a room with did not really mention anything either, to this day I do not know if this was out of disliking me or because they thought I went to the hospital with my friend.. they claim the latter but timewise it doesn’t fully check out.   I got freed after being tied to that tree for about two hours maybe even more. This was before cellphones as well so I could not text.. I left camp the next day as it was ruined for me. The boy who left me got expelled from camp so that was a bit awkward. 

Final Topic: Do you have any siblings?

Yes Pinkie has a little sister, we aren’t particularly close but when we do see each other we can be really similar. While she isn’t a geek we have the same comedic timing, we laugh at the same sort of things and we just can agree on so many things. It’s really nice, she has a very calming presence on my mind as well. Normally I am trying to come off more sociable or more normal than I am but around her I really am me. In the past we could not have been more different she wanted attention, I wanted less, she would rather smack someone I would rather flee, I was not good at fleeing so I often got smacked.

Even though we have little contact , the talks we do have are always nice.. as of late. We had a bit of a troubled past which is mostly due to her former partner who wronged our family and I could forgive for what they made me go trough. That is water under the bridge now.. but now that I think about that.. the partner caused me to be stuck in a place  as well.. but I kinda  really liked it there so unlike the tree i guess it wouldn’t count. Me and my sister are doing great now and I am happy to have her in my life.

Now this concludes my first Random Topic Generator post, it was actually kind of fun! I might do it again if inspiration fails me! Want to try it out for yourself? This is the random topic generator I used this time! I only skipped two questions it gave me, one was very similar to the travel one and one topic I recently talked about. Hope to see you next time!

XO
Pinkie

Crafting Bliss: Yoshi’s Crafted World

Sometimes a game looks so adorable and appealing we lose all sense of reason. Even with mediocre reviews across the board I opted to start playing Yoshi’s crafted world. Through the help of my Ko-Fi supports MikeKelly666 , LaughingReaper and whom I believe to be Iridium Eye..  we got to be able to purchase the game and finally play it. Was it worth it?

Scotch Tape

This question is not as simple to answer as it may seem. For after playing through the biggest part of this game I found all the negative aspects to be very true. This game forces you to go through each stage three to four times. More if you are unlucky and that all has to do with the format that it has chosen that I will admit is fairly poor. Like in most Yoshi games it’s all about collecting Daisy flowers. These work as an unlocking currency and as a completion criteria.  If you want to complete a stage, you are making several passes through that same stage and I will admit, the stages aren’t THAT interesting to justify that. The pacing feels impractical.. like as if you are walking across scotch tape .. your feet sticking making advancing way more difficult than it needs to be.

Ironically the low difficulty of this game kind of amplifies this flaw. There is not a lot of challenge in these stages. One of the main unlockables is a costume that can tank 2 to 4 hits for you depending on its rarity. While I all wore them for their cuteness I rarely broke the 2 hit costumes and I mostly damaged them from pits. If your costume breaks you still have about a 5 hit life bar left. So it is not hard to feel like this game is rather unengaging. It is to easy and 80% of the gameplay is set in replaying levels you have done and seen before. On my first encounter with the game.. I got fed up with this soon enough and burned out on it.. now I realise I have been playing this game wrong.

The Arts of Crafts

One can’t deny the visual appeal of this title. Just by looking at this game you cannot help but smile and feel cheered up even if things seem super dark. This game is so sweet, adorable and cutesy it might as well just be honey or maple syrup that was in the box. Or a hand full of sugar for that matter. This game is not meant to challenge you, nor to send you off on some epic journey… no this game was made to make you go SQUEEEE. It will reveal the weeaboos in the room as we all go Kawaii when the pink Yoshi decides to wear a coffee milk cup as armor or if the yellow yoshi puts  a coloured paper ribbon snail on his side. This game is not meant to be played like Super Mario Odyssey or Shovel Knight. This game is meant to help you relax and lose the frustration of those. It is a relaxy game… much  like the same role Animal Crossing has in gaming.. yet more casual and finite.

Eager as I was I started completing stages on my very first pass of them, acing all the rankings replaying them several times because a lot of collectables are missable.  I had so much money by the time I entered the fourth world I could instantly buy all their cute costumes. It only got worse… while I love how happy the world looks when you complete it.. this is not a game to bite into harshly.. no this is a game you play a stage or two for whenever you feel a bit blue. See the wholesome happy Yoshi world unfold in front of your very eyes.  Which is reflected in the way stages are designed. Everything is so detailed. Everything is craftable. With the write items you could make these stages yourself in real life.. minus the enemies and the sentient felt-like yoshi’s themselves of course.. but you can build their world. Which is amazing, everything more or less feels like it actually works, from the way some pathways unroll to hiding secrets behind background elements because they COULD be knocked down.. this game is all about atmosphere.

Compare it to a warm bath with some etherical oils sprinkled inside… sure it’s kinda boring to sit in the tub.. but after you come out of it you feel all tingly and buzzing, aglow with happiness. That is almost EXACTLY what a bathtime worth of Yoshi’s crafted world can do for you. Also equal to a bath.. that warm fuzzy feeling doesn’t linger infinitely.. that bath will cool. Soak to long and you notice that since your fingers went wrinkly not a lot changed after that. The wholesomeness is finite. For me the ideal pace is like 2 or 3 stages each time I feel a bit tense. Just put it on and let the world these dinosaurs live in wash away your grievances of the moment. In pokémon terms.. a normal video game is an ether, it restores power points… a mana potion for just about everyone else.  Yoshi’s Crafted World.. is like A Full Heal.. it restores any bad conditions, a Esuna or status removing potion. It is carefully constructed .. yet somewhat awkwardly formatted.

Forwards and Backwards

The format that was chosen is a 2d Collectathon  and this doesn’t always work out in this games favor. First of all we have to acquire all the daisy flowers per stage, finish a stage with max health and find all the red coins to complete a stage (you can finish it without any of these things) after which a backwards mode will unlock, in which you collect three Poochy pups within a time limit to get more daisies. After that is done several treasure hunts will unlock for stages which either take place on the front side or the backside of a stage. However treasure hunting usually means revisiting both sides at least once. On it’s own this already feels a bit like an awkward idea because of the fact that it is only 2.5d there is not THAT much to explore unlike in 3d collectathons.. so to make your journey feel expansive.. they locked it in tiers.. you can’t hunt the second treasure before you found the first.  Even if they are on the same route.

It feels as if this game mixes genres and elements that should not be mixed at the cost of pacing and our gamer instincts do the rest. It is easy to get sucked up into trying to complete a stage from the get go. and get everything and as for the daisies and red coins you really should try to get these on your first attempt ..because with these flowers you can already easily advance the game, no need to break your back on the treasure hunts and not even on the backwards stages.  You can just do that the next time, when the stage seems a bit fresh again. It goes a bit against gamer instinct but if you just move forward and revisit from time to time when you feel like it you can certainly have blast even in the backward stages.

Speaking off the Backward stages, they are absolutely adorable once more. While  on your journey forward you can see the beautiful and cute world of Yoshi, on backwards mode the camera now shows the undecorated side of the crafts. That house  you needed to jump over you now see.. was a pack of cookies, that cow is now invisible.. it is a cardboard backside with a little peg. That big house in the background? Cereal box! ..  And so the crafted world unfolds before you, by breaking the magic they actual validate this world so much. I squeed and forgot all about my neck pains.  This world is so vibrant and so alive.. in a very clean way.  I loved the addition of backward stages. Yet again more in an artsy appreciative way than enjoying it for it’s gameplay. Which is a weird thing to say about a game.  So I can see how wonderful it is but also how badly it fails as a game.. at least the general perception of what a game should be.

Bathtubs and Cookies

Whether or not you will like this game will really depend on your mindset, are you a bath person? Can you just enjoy nothingness and soak up atmosphere? If yes than this game is among the most unique games I have played and I deeply appreciate it. If you want a game where you actually want to be invested in the gameplay , there are probably better choices. Crafted World is not a bad game, it’s graphical style is amazing, it’s world building sublime and the controls are quite tight. It is completely held back by the reason what we want when we play games. It doesn’t cater to completionist nor does it cater to those who want to rush through.  It caters to someone in between.  With people’s thinking going more black and white each minute that kinda means this game isn’t for anybody?!

Should I judge this game equally as other games, I’d probably rank it 5/10  but I can’t shake the feeling that this is not the purpose of this game. If I rank it like I would a hot bath I’d probably rank this a 9/10.  In reality it’s probably something in between. Something like the opposite side of tetris. Where short bursts of gameplay are so enjoyable you do not need fancy visuals. This is the oposite , nothing more and nothing less. Visual interactive entertainment where the graphics and world building.. and sometimes even the puzzles themselves are so cute you do not mind the lackluster gameplay.

It’s like one of those highly frosted cookies. When you see it you absolute want it.. and because it looked so cute you do not mind it mostly just tastes like sugar.  However you don’t go in for a second cookie, yet the next day you can not help yourself to another one of those delicious looking cookies.. it is fine yet again after one you had enough.  Eventually you will finish the pack.  Half of us would buy it again.. the other would not it all depends on your mindset. To me this game is absolutely amazing, SINCE learning to take it slowly it made me smile so much. Yet it isn’t something I can easily recommend to everyone simply because not everyone can game casually.
So no review score for this one.. instead I want you to take apart the pieces of this review that are important to you and craft your own verdict!

Thanks again to my Ko-Fi supporters for making this review possible
Thanks to:
Laughing Reaper
MikeKelly666
TsubakiKuro
Donator I cant find back anymore but assume to be Iridium Eye
(Initials CB)

So we got death.. the devil, something black and something metal… So Edgy.. but that gives me an idea! I love you all

XO
Pinkie

Pinkie’s Guilty Series Pleasures: Power Rangers

Normally I have this reserved for movies that deserve some praise but this week I thought I would change it up. Today we look at a series of my childhood that I really got into. I love some good western fantasy series as well as some anime and secretly I also enjoy teen comedies like saved by the bell or even Lizzie McGuire. Luckily there is one franchise that combines it all in one hilarious and captivating mix.

Zyuranger

Now it is commonly know how this show came to be. In order to adapt the Sentai genre for western audience, which of course would not be very relatable to western audiences in its pure form  some very smart tv makers decided to splice footage of the original sentai show, of the costumed heroes, with shot in america footage with western audiences so that we as the viewer could connect to these heroes. The  Sentai show chosen for this was Kyouryuu Sentai Zyuranger which translates as Dinosaur Squadron  Beast Ranger, which aired about a year earlier as Power Rangers. Zyuranger was the 16th season of the Super Sentai series and features some significant differences from it more well known western counterpart. 

The most well known difference is that the yellow Zyuranger is not actually a female  but rather a boy named .. well Boi.  This is why Trini does not have a skirt unlike the pink ranger. Which is kinda funny because the season before that DID in fact have two female rangers.. but I guess based on Birdman it seemed less cool. The most notable difference however is in the way things are themed. Power Rangers is not just an acted out dub it is a completely different series with a very different tone. Where the Sentai series focuses on ancient magical powers, Power Rangers usually spin their series with a very technological aspect. Which kinda makes more sense to me given that for the biggest part is about combiner robots.

Zordon does not exist in Japan, the team is assisted by the immortal sorcerer Barza, whose footage is used for back when Zordon was NOT an interdimensional being. The rangers are not random teens but ancient warriors of five clans kept in stasis for 170.000 years until the witch Pandora escapes. Pandora and Rita are the same person however in Zyuranger she is not the ultimate villain of their season.. it’s a floating head called Great Satan. There is no command center, no alpha 5 and no Angel Grove High. These are fairly serious warriors. The Green Ranger is the brother of the Red Ranger and he eventually ends up dying, so this series had a bit more consequence something that would take power rangers five seasons to really kick in. In the first Sentai series one of the team members already permanently died.

Another difference is between the tone in narrative. While Power Rangers is episodic with only a mild tread going through their show, the Zyuranger have a much larger journey to go trough. They do not get their signature weapons right away they have to find them. Also they have to find their power crystals to combine their robots. They earn their powers as they go on.  Which makes a much more compelling show to follow compared to the rinse and repeat power ranger format that seems to borrow more of it’s narrative structure from Sailor Moon than the actual Sentai show. This is usually the argument that Sentai fans throw in your face for liking Power Rangers, their show makes more sense.. which is fair.

Yet I usually reply “If A super powerful being has the power to bestow you with magic power to fight of great evil, why would he hide the keys to your weapons and zords?’ In the world of Power Rangers that set up would make very little sense. Since they are american they can’t really go with the asleep for 170.000 years either.. or else by the first series standards they would all have to be native americans and all red rangers. While the Sentai Series is definitely worth a watch and does indeed make more sense, I am on team Power Rangers. Though I  might see if I can track down Battle Fever J the third season of sentai based on great nations!
Can you imagine if these were our first rangers?

Yes this was an Actual season

Power Rangers

Now enough talk about Sentai for now it is time to look at the Western product. Apparently to make colourful superheroes in spandex and helmets interesting to us we needed something else. No not giant combiner robots that still was not good enough! Saved by the Bell! That’s it we need some highschool drama about bullying, school projects and dating. We need teenagers with attitude…  and with attitude we mean that they have to be so squeaky clean they could be on the Disney Channel. Their favorite hangout is a juice bar and they all take sports and are very well performing students, that on the side do a lot of charity work as well.

Kimberly Hart is the only Power Ranger that actually has some attitude. She would rather go back to gymnastics and read fashion magazines when this show starts but after their first move she also flips over like a leaf. However throughout the show she keeps at least a slight bit of pettiness making her the most teenager feeling in the show. To know surprise this makes her my favorite ranger in the earlier episodes. Amy Jo Johnson portrays a wonderful character that we can see and grow. While the Zyurangers grow as a team, I rarely see them grow as people. 

Billy Cranston is another good example of this growth.. while definitely not having Attitude as promoted he grows throughout the series so much. David Yost to me is the BEST blue ranger ever to this day. It was such a shame when he was bullied to leave the show. Even when he stopped being a ranger he was such a welcoming and warm presence. In the first episodes he talks needlessly complicated and completely unhuman which is so stereotype and cheesy.. I love it.. it feels wrong.. but in the right kind of way. The auditory stimuli of this  social gathering hub is perceived as pleasurable and I wish to express this sensation by applying motor skills to said output..  would be a way Billy says he wishes to dance. In fact he even talks more complicated than that.. so I could not remember an exact example.

MMPR has it issues but these are part of the beauty of the show. While Trini Kwan and Zack Taylor are oftenly subject of debate because of the colour of the suit they were put in let’s not forget that  the yellow ranger was hispanic first, but got recast because of failed contract negotiations a theme that would follow the series. Regardless wether you find some choices offensive one can not help but be amazed by how iconic Zack’s Hip Hop Kido was.  Back than it was super cool. Zack was my favorite guy in the team. I liked his zord the best as well.. but hey I got a thing for clunky animals so it makes sense I’d choose a Mastodont. Because of the anime-esque stereotyping of characters all these guys became dear to me.

I never played with barbies when I was a kid, but I kept had a lot of barbie like dresses and some Ken clothes I used them to dress up my Power Ranger figures, and most of what I played was romance between Tommy and Kimberly because I was a big Tommy fan, like the rest of the world. Jason David Frank plays the most iconic ranger ever. To this day he is deeply involved in the franchise and loves the character so much. No matter if it’s the comics , which are quite good too by the way, or the newer series, we can always wait for Tommy to make an appearance.. and even though he is such a 90’s product that tells you how well this series has aged.

Dinosaurs Lighting and Metal

In a weird way this show has aged well by aging poorly. While the Ranger action itself has clearly aged and has long been surpassed, the teenage drama the weird scenario set up are so dated they become timeless.  Set in the 90’s  has become part of these first four seasons.  It gets a bit Wonky when we enter age of Zeo and nearly came crashing down when we enter the Turbo season. While Power Rangers in Space saved the series with some actual amazing storytelling and belongs to the top seasons for me and many fans, this first one i’d classify as cult. It’s zanier, more repetitive and not always acted out the best but something about it is just so fun to watch.

I’d even argue this show is better now than it was before Power Rangers was so in your face nineties and cheesy that back than it polarised people but now… it’s like Fudge Yeah that’s the sound of the nineties. If we compare the opening of Zyuranger to Power Rangers there is not a shadow in my mind of which is the best opening. Zyurangers one is forgettable while Power Rangers one is iconic. Now you can blame Nostalgia for this but I actually prefer Head Chala over Rock the Dragon so I would say I have an open mind about this. When you hear the Zyuranger theme you think “Oh dear Arceus this has not aged well” when you hear Go Go Power Rangers you are like “Heck yeah 90’s’.  Synthesizers metal, the clothes , the simple mindset it was something I really appreciate.


Where the, at times ,  hammy acting, bad effects and clunky dialogue  often annoyed me in Star Trek TOS and caused me to drop it here, I find it much more tolerable Again part of it is the setting but also the pacing. With 20 minute episodes and two to three stories to tell per episode this show doesn’t linger it rushes past everything. Some episodes are very strangely cut together, like the rangers being transported out their zord for no reason..the giant monster “won”  and apparently shrank without damaging their zord.. he just allowed it to leave, now being in tiny form again the rangers defeat it with new weapons.  It made no sense  to see all those lighting filled transport effects within a minute but I sure was entertained.

It’s ……..

When I watch this I feel like a kid again. I can shut down my brain because “it’s Power Rangers’. It’s like how you do not question the logic in a Jojo series or apply fluid simulations to the debate on how to eat chocolate croissants in Lucky Star. Power Rangers is in the so Bad that it’s good kind of category when it comes to world building yet if we look better it’s ALSO actually good. The whole lore of the Morphing Grid that was later tacked on still kinda makes sense today. The whole reasons how rangers are chosen, what the colour of their suit represents still matches up. Tommy Oliver always being an exception. Tommy has been a green, white,  two reds and a black ranger by now as well as becoming the iconic villain Lord Drakkon in the comics. That being said extra rangers are always except from the colour rules so even he makes sense.

Power Rangers is filled with clichés but there is so much commitment to these that  they can get away with so much. A monster based on traffic lights would suck in just about everything but Cute Earth Defense Club Love… yet  in Power Rangers it works too. A piece of wall that turns the team into bricks from which they are freed by treating them with pollution sounds like a very bad Captain Planet episode yet with Power Rangers it works.

In fact it’s something we WANT  to see from this show. We dont care about the episode with this dark edgy knight guy.. we want to see a the rangers face a lipstick martial artist, a turkey in an armor made of an oven, using a baster as a blaster or a  evil tentacled pineapple that turns people into cardboard cutouts… these are all real examples by the way. This show made a candle threatening. Where like half the episode is images of a green candle slowly burning down… we all watched in horror as it became smaller and smaller and we lost our beloved icon. Because obviously Ranger powers can be linked to candles.

In many ways MMPR introduced me to staples that would cause me to fall in love with the anime  genre. I loved the randomness and over the top storytelling. How it was more imaginative than anything i saw before. While the Japanese story in part is responsible for that .. much also comes down to the american writing giving us something truly unique.  As a kid that is what I saw in power rangers. It wasn’t like anything else. It was different from Turtles, it was different from Saved By the Bell. It helped me learn English AND German. 

Sentai as a genre is unique in western media. Though VR-Troopers tried (which almost cast Jason David Frank as the main character after Tommy lost his powers)  and Masked Rider made a fair attempt.. only Power Rangers really stuck. While I enjoyed Big Bad Beetleborgs, nowadays there is only one contender. It is a show that has been running for 27 years now.  While not everything is as good as In Space, or Time Force , I am looking at you Mega Force,  it is hard to deny the work the first season did. Heck in fact Jason shows up for the new season of Beast Morphers and people are really excited about it. The classic theme is still being used in mash ups and even main themes. The show has adapted and grown.. and dialogue even for MMPR would get better as the show goes along.. but some things never age. While not all do it..plenty of rangers still shout out  “It’s Morphin Time”

Did you ever watch Power Rangers? Have you ever watched A Sentai Show? Let me know in the comments! I will look at a certain Sentai show next… a very unique one at that. Once I am done with the first season expect a review coming up! Until then, Keep smiling! May the power protect you!

XO
Pinkie

Pinkie’s Saturday Anime Adventures Week 3

Hey Island guests, it is sunday for me again which means I spend my saturday watching some sweet sweet anime! Unfortunately I am rather sick so my rule of no pausing allowed and commercial breaks really came back to bite me in the touchee this time around! Yet Saturday Morning cartoons also comforted me in my misery. 

Pinkie’s TV Guide

I did not manage to work ahead enough to give myself an extra timeslot. I also don’t want to make these posts any longer as they already are so Hikaru no Go will be kept limited at one episode until I finish Bofuri and BNA my schedule will then change to give room for the classic show. For now the schedule is as follows. Which will also be the order of my reviews

9:00  AM : BNA
9:30  AM: Yu-Gi-Oh Sevens
10:00 AM :Bofuri
10:30 AM: Bofuri
11:00 AM: Hikaru no Go

I decided to abandon the colour review scores and the summary to  make these a bit more brief and searching for these colors can be a time consuming hassle.

BNA Episode 3

I love Studio Trigger and this episode was something I really could get into. The mystery of Michiru being human is properly set up this time around as we are introduced to an institution that may help her. But the terrorists from the first episode seem to be at it again, endangering the clinic and so a cure for Michiru. She and Shirou have to get over there to investigate.. but if there really is a sickness that can turn humans into beastman she will be a target, to Shirou’s great concern. In this episode we learn more about Michiru’s shapeshifting powers as she shifts animal parts to fit her situation a few times throughout the episode. A nice concept that really makes sense with the title.. she really is a brand new animal. 

We get some backstory about the tanuki girl which leaves rooms for new story hooks. Her friend changed into an animal as well and she was deported, when Michiru underwent the change she was forced to stay inside her room, but she felt that was no way of living so she came to animacity to be free until they found a cure. While not very original it makes sense and is an effective way to keep such a frail girl engaged with the plot, so I at least have to commend them for their writing there. Even though the mystery we are presented with feels somewhat cliché I felt very engaged, more so than the other two episodes.

I love the pastel colour scheme that is set throughout everything it softens everything , as if we are looking more from afar into a dream. I think that is a smart choice because obviously we can’t really relate to these characters and their struggles, by dabbling this form of surrealism I found myself expecting less to relate as well. The fight scenes look great and the fluidity  is something I really appreciated, there is this form of speed in there that really impressed me.  There was  a chameleon working as an antagonist and the way he moved his eyes to get visual info on an upcoming sneak attack really worked for me.

Favorite moment goes to the introduction of a possible main villain. The scientists recognized Michiru as being a former human, the implications of that are pretty amazing. Perhaps this thing was willingly developed..but why was she chosen?  The show barely gives you any answers just a strong hook with a mysterious pretty boy being set up as someone menacing. They sprinkle just enough detail for us to be interested but without having a clue what he is up to.. at least for me.  Least favorite moment would be the Deus Ex Machina that the mayor , who knows of Michiru also knows she is human , being a geneticist that can help her as well. That kinda felt forced. Still I am excited about what is to come.

Yu-Gi-Oh Sevens  Episode 3

Honestly?! This was a pretty sweet episode. While the pay off is not as rewarding as with the other shows I am watching taking a look into the mysterious Romin seemed like a sensible move that is set up quite nicely. Social Media videos of the new Rush Duel begin to vanish across the web so that means Goza the evil company is aware of it.. how does it know?
Yuga and Luke/Rook (as Tatsuhisa is called) is called begin to suspect the purple headed girl that is quick with her mouth but also quick with her smartphone might not be completely genuine in her intentions. 

I like the Romin character her design and generally aloof personality really speak to me , so given that this episode was about her really helped my enjoyment of this episode. We see Yuga invent some sort of lie detector to force her to tell the truth, which to be honest felt a bit forced. If he can make so many inventions that can really be used as a easy way to cheap out of troubles.. my least favorite moment of this episode.  Luckily they fix themselves right away and the invention breaks due to a dubious statement. Now with the invention gone obviously there is only one way to verify her intentions which obviously is a duel.

We get some nice comedy with Luke (according to the Wiki and Rook according to the sub)  getting his hair accidently washed and turned fabulous as well as him and Gakuto sneaking closer to Romin’s guitar case to find out if she is a super spy or not.  Using a duel as a distraction has been done before but this show kinda shows us how ridiculous that is, it made me chuckle at least. We also get some minor backstory for Romin.. turns a singer she idolises gave her that card during one of her concerts and even though she had no interest in dueling she kind of wanted to try the card out. Rush duels clearly more amusing to her and when making new friends.. she decided to set them up.. so she could try it out.. more or less.

The duel itself is my favorite so far. Romin has no deck of her own and has no idea on how to play the game so Yuga gives her his spare deck, which contains the same core cards without his ace.  The way he reacts to her putting a card of her own in there and how he wishes to pit ace against ace made him feel different from the more calculative Yu-gi, Yusei and Playmaker.   I am not sure I like the way they summon their aces yet. They give a speech much like with Synchro summoning which I loved..but these feel worse and the fact that their analogies are animated makes it a bit tacky. Romin’s ace card showing up and it’s effect was my favorite moment, by paying 1000 life points all 3 of her monsters gain 300 life points per monster the opponent has summoned for a turn. A card that really can be fun and actually useful in this format. I hope I’ll see her duel again..and since I want to see more..i’d say good episode.

Bofuri Episode 5

My least favorite view of the day. It still was amazing!  While Bofuri episode 5 does that same thing with so many plotlines again that I disliked in episode 3 at least this time it feels cohesive. We pick up with Maple and Sally in a mexican stand off with a woman named Kasumi. While she thinks about attacking for a moment she decides that two against one might not go in her favor but Sally wants to kill her in order not to risk any more.  Their speeds are equal and they zoom off into a desert leaving Maple behind. A short half finished battle follows. Which would have been my least favorite moment if they had not committed a crime in this episode!

When Maple shows up who was surfing on her shield they accidently get knocked into a dungeon where their life is linked. However this dungeon holds no monsters, just snails with no hp.. get hit and you die . This dungeon is a test of agility so Maple is completely bypassed as we learn some of Kasumi’s abilities.  It was funny and I like these types of dungeons so I was pleased. We show Maple’s kindness again as she makes sure Kasumi gets some medals and gear as the dungeon reward and we move to a time skip, while Sally and Maple hunt to get 20 medals.

…..  *Sob*  ….. In this time skip the horror zone gets skipped AGAIN! We see a few still images of Maple playing with a skull and I wish I could have been there! Least favorite moment by far!  After that their medal count sort of racks up. Which ends up with a shot of Sally fishing. We move back to normal time and we see Maple playing on the beach with a level 5 boy named Kanade which tells them about a puzzle dungeon. The puzzle is quickly solved and we go to my second favorite moment.. Maple completely murdering a boss spamming the hydra Skill to pollute the ocean so much it has no chance.  I laughed as I felt bad for the poor squid.

After that we see why this episode is my least favorite view off the show so far. More convenience to get the pair 20 medals. Sally goes on a murder spree to kill as many players as she can, murdering out an entire camp just to get the perfect amount of medals she needs. Maple in the main time is training up Oboro and Syrup and OMG does THAT pay off. Syrup learns the skill Megamorphosis so Maple decides to spent her 10 medals on the psychokinesis skill..Now she can enlarge her turtle and fly on it.. it doesn’t really make sense but hey flying turtle I am in!  Weakest episode in my line up, favorite moment of the day! So  if that doesn’t tell you how good my Saturday view was , probably nothing will!

Bofuri Episode 6

The episode begins with Kaede instead of alter ego Maple and how her being so invested in the game has caused her life to be a bit skewed. Sally advises Maple to take a few days break, which is a very smart way of allowing Sally to feasibly fully catch up with Maple. Of course it also tells us to have a healthy game/life ratio but we all know that if VR games like these come out we will say farewell to the real world. Just put me on some IV drips to keep me alive and you can bury me for all I care! So I am not buying that message.

The sixth episode is all about setting up a guild. New Bugs have appeared and if you are highe enough level to catch one you can purchase property in the game.  This leads to Sally and Maple house shopping just to come across a super cute fifty people house inside a tree. It’s adorable and I would so love to live there! Since the house is to big for Sally and Maple alone they decide to found a guild and they invite Kanade, the smart boy who has a rubikscube that gives him a random skill each day and Kasumi.. who is pink so I do not object. Iz the crafting and Koromu join as well and Maple is made guild leader.

Since they live in a tree, they fly on a turtle named Syrup and their leader is named Maple the guild is named Maple Tree (though in japanese). Totally expected but it does fit, given how Maple is super famous now for how broken she is it feels deserved and very much in line with Maples naming conventions. I really appreciated that very much it feels really cohesive and while not surprising you have a hard time to disagree with the writers the story has to move this way. 

The episode ends with Maple recruiting May and Yui two girls who masked out offence and like Maple are becoming a bit broken. No one wants to party with them though because they wipe so easily and they are rather shy. This makes them a rather nice addition to the team and I do look forward to seeing what they do next. If I had to describe this episode in one word it would be wholesome. It’s nice of them starting their little guild and it’s done right. Not great, not exciting… but right. You nod and smile from start to end.. it is as it should be. That really makes this anime just a perfect Saturday snack.

Hikaru no Go Episode 3

Best episode in the line-up. It starts with my least favorite moment, Akira Touya completely losing it over a game like Go. Hikaru doesn’t take it very serious and the boy loses his marbles over it. It felt completely unreltable as it is something very much that I am not.It’s about Zeal and honour of a the game.. and mostly honour is a trait I absolutely despise.  People do such stupid things for that.. honour is a mock up word for pride in my book so I could not really support the little whining boy.

He challenges Hikaru to a angry game of Go where he is trying to play relentless and without joy! He has to prove a point. Sai then proceeds to remorsely crush the young boys spirit as there is no room to play a friendly game in this one.  This upsets Hikaru which shows his kind heart but also makes him think. Why does this matter so much. Which by now as a viewer I question as well. Why would someone really care about Go so much. I have trouble buying it with Yu-gi-oh and those live in a world where it’s set up. Hikaru no Go basically takes place in the normal world where Go means as much as it actually does here. I liked that this episode completely broke Akira as a character. It made me feel pain.. even if it was just a game.. clearly there are stakes here. While I can not relate to the importance of Go… I can relate to feeling so crushed.. and in doing so this episode got through to me. 

As Hikaru pondered what about this Go thing.. so did I as a viewer, we are really taken on his journey and feel as he does. So far this has been consistent throughout all three episodes. Hikaru’s thoughts reflect mine and this episode I became very much aware of that.When he encounters Akiri and brushes her off I felt like.. Oh please.. not an Akiri scene right now. Even though I do like the character I wanted a resolution, I wanted to see Hikaru find his beliefs and discover what makes a go player tick. We get a scene which I bet you anime eyes enthusiasts would love in which Hikaru compares his own stare to that of Sai and the  Touya family. He discovered they had a passion something he has been lacking so far. He wants to find that passion. Thank you for that moment! That is character growth!

We end this episode with a match between Akira’s father and Hikaru.. testing the young boy and Sai out. Yet the focus is not on the stones or the plays , the focus in on the passion the drive. We see how stones are placed on the board. The difference between passion and being forced into this and this is where Hikaru breaks through and where I as a viewer also see the beauty of the game. With some pretty big effects in both the visual as audio department he copies his opponent in how they place the stones. His eyes have now changed! As the match heats up .. so does Hikaru’s spirit.. so did my investment in this show. I loved the mind games it played with me.. may I have some more of this please?!

Saturday morning viewings is really working for me!  Anime Saturday Banzai! I am already looking forward to next Saturday!

Pinkie Gets Anime Powers: Soul Eater

Yay I am getting buffed again with more fictional powers. In the last post I hinted that I would tackle Beyblade next. Upon researching though I found that there is so much to Beyblade. It has a active competitive scene, people talking about parts, set up etc. While I could make a dumbed down variant based on the anime I feel like it might snuff out someone’s hobby so for now I tend to not do it. The Holy Mailman suggest Soul Eater to me, and now he is stuck with me!

The Meister

Meister Name:
Pinkie Liefmans
Race:
Human (With Demon Weapon Ancestry)
Classification:
Great Sword Master with Utility Master traits
Wavelength:
Pinkororo
Partner Name:
John Howitzer
Age:
Claiming to be younger than John when clearly she is not
Role:
Guest Character
Combat Role:
Support/Ace
Quirks:
Otaku, Weebspeak, Pegasister, Cute Freak ,Claims to be from another world

Soul Eater did not have any particular naming conventions, though last names seem to reflect where a character is from. Liefmans is Dutch and Belgian surname which one could basically take as “Sweet Person” Which would fit the character well NB It’s not my real last name. Her age would be slightly but noticeably older than whoever would be the main character. So say if we place her in the original series she would most likely be 18 or 19 with John her partner being around Maka her age. Pinkie and John would be a form of comical side characters but not like Jarjar or even Excalibur. The episodes she would appear in she would take a very prominent role. Pinkie is a very detached character not having much ties to this world, even claiming she is not from there at times. Claiming she was Isekaid whatever that may mean. She speaks in odd ways, clearly drawn to all things cute.  She would be seen in episodes because she happened to chase a cute puppy around town trying to pet it, or if the main heroes get a task that involves interacting with a cute life form she would force herself into involvement. 

Pinkie hates to be lady or woman instead of girl even though in most scenarios we put her in she would be a mature/ish woman. She and her partner John would work as a sort of counter-weight for the normal Meister/Demon Weapon Partnership. Where Maka and Soul and Black Star Tsubaki can argue outside of combat mostly and have this polarised relationship, Pinkie is very much in sync with John in their free time. So much so their wavelength resonance stems from that. Yet more in the wavelength later. John uses the same weeb-speak out of combat. Their antics would involve fourth wall breaking adventures such as picking up a dirty novel and John then mimicking Kakashi and Pinkie forcefully launching herself with an anime nosebleed when she sees a pretty girl. Seemingly aware they are characters or at least enjoying and ridiculing some anime tropes. Very much in sync about that.

In combat though their demeanour changes with Pinkie very much not liking the look of her blade. It should look cuter, so when battle begins she usually starts with decorating the Great Sword first. Pinkie carries plenty of purses filled with cute stuff like glitters and ribbons alongside her. Outside of combat she tries to decorate John, a bit in the hope it would mean he would shift into a more cute weapon as well. He gently brushes all these decorations off before she can get very far, so she oftenly results to trickery in an attempt to decorate him. Like using explosive gift boxes to cover him in glitter or trying to drug him so she can decorate him in his sleep. However they have been traveling together for a while he knows her trough and trough so these attempts never succeed and are often turned against her.

While very whimsical  Pinkie is incredibly sharp of mind and can analyse characters very quickly and she has shown great adeptness for manipulation. Though seemingly genuine in her attempt to befriend people she never really ends up worse off. She joins a mission and somehow ends up sharing the reward, she asks you to fight with her so she can get a cute ribbon, even if she just dances with you she always seems to gain.. when asking her she just claims “Friendship is Magic”. Pinkie would rather befriend people than fight them. Claiming that if she befriends 99 evil souls it will be way easier and they wont leave. She is also very adapt in telling peoples motives and emotions. This can backfire creating socially-awkward situations when she blurts out the two main characters or others are romantically interested in each other, or if she catches characters hiding things.

The Wavelength

Pinkie’s Unique wavelength is the Pinkoro wavelength. Unlike other wavelengths it allows Pinkie to let others adapt onto her wavelength. In a way she is a counterpart to Kilik Rung who can jump onto other wavelengths to use multiple weapons. Pinkie’s wavelength stems from friendship by befriending other Demon Weapons she can use them in combat as long as there is an emotional need from the Weapon to assist Pinkie.  Pinkokoro is called the adaptive wavelength  which as Pinkie often points out is a half truth. More so than the other way around it allows others to mimic this wavelength momentarily.  This results in Pinkie easily having won a tournament. Rather than win it fair and square though she simply befriended all the weapons of the opponents than made them synchronise with her.. rather than their meister, effectively rendering them powerless. 

People question what she could do should she turn evil or betray them but Pinkie always susses these talks telling that if she was evil they would not be friends anymore and it would not work. She just used the power so less people would get hurt during a spar.  However since Pinkie likes cute  things she actively tries to steer away from weapons she thinks are not cute. For example when interacting with Tsubaki she would act super sweet, even flirty at times , same would go for the Thompsons, however she would show very little interest in Soul even trying to act Tsundere like against him though she clearly is bad at mistreating people and does not mean it. She just doesn’t want “another ugly weapon but would rather have a Kawaii one”

The Weapon

John Howitzer is a hybrid between a typical american army man and an edgy teen.  He keeps coming up with code names for Pinkie and himself and mostly those of himself can grow pretty edgy. “Pinkie for this Mission your handle will be Duckling.. and I will be Crimson Toxic Mist!’ In his human form he much like Pinkie can act pretty geekily. Very akin to the pink lady he seems to be aware he is a character or at least he tests out tropes.. using “this new body” to put Death the Kid to shame. Death the Kid and him would have a bit of a rivalry going on at times not getting along to well.  Where Pinkie wants to make things cuter, John likes to put skulls on everything or paint stuff black.  The two seem to have no trouble sharing though with John most of the time willing to part with some findings if Pinkie really wants it. At times Pinkie shows the same sentiment by acting like she doesnt want particular items.  They always seem to be trying to collect stuff or find a way home. 

As a weapon John turns into a Eldritch looking like sword equipped with some military tech. His demeanour changes very much. His Goth persona fades away and the military trades take over. His lingo shift to full on Military speech. Pinkie “Bogeys at 3 O’Clock’  “Enemy encampment detected five clicks from here’ This confuses Pinkie as she becomes unable to understand him so in time their wavelength will desync. As a pair they have a timer.  In return for this timer John as a sword holds incredible power. As a sword he is very capable of letting Pinkie  use the combat style of Instantaneous Maximum Fire Power.  A way to reflect their Isekai’d fighter gimmick However throughout the show it never really becomes clear if they actually stem from another world or not in fact there is proof for the opposite. 

John as a Sword akin to a One Punch Man in the Soul Eater universe. Whatever he hits dies. However by the time that Pinkie has decorated enough so she is confident it looks cute enough to strike with some time will have past, usually near their deadline before they fall out of sync. As a result the fights they are in usually end up having the main characters fight stuff they can not defeat and defend the pair until their setup is complete. To offer them another way of fighting. Changing up the rules.  Action would still be focused on the main characters  however they would fight to stall out their opponent often against superior force. A twist which works well with John’s wavelength… much to complication of his Meisters set up.

Like Pinkie John is part of the Pinkokoro wavelength so much like Pinkie he can convince fighters to move into his wavelength. However since John mostly does this from the desire to protect, when he syncs up with other people he becomes a shield. A super could light glowing shield.. almost akin to how the Green Lantern would be able to conjure up as a light construct not having the time to properly manifest.  After a hit has been taken by John and the immediate danger is gone he reverts back and Pinkie has to start all over glamping him up again. Usually moping she wanted a cute looking thing like that.

Extra Powers

Aside from John’s technique Pinkie comes with a few powers of her own.  These come in the following forms

Super Soul Perception

Pinkie’s wavelength made it easy for her to master this technique. Because she is aware of wavelength changes she is very much aware of how other souls works and uses this as one of her big assets. Lie detection is something she seems to have instinctively and given how John’s abilities work people also assume together they can negate a witches soul protect. Usually to be able to do this Pinkie has to at least converse with the person or observe them for a bit though.. claiming she can then understand their soul.  To get the base knowledge of the soul she can do as simple things as offer someone a choice between two pieces of candy or asking them for a small story. 

Meister Techniques

Pinkie’s Meister Techniques are almost all non combative, when wielding other Weapons she clearly is not as capable as their usual Meister, having more openings and less accuracy in return for a damage boost. Which she calls the Isekai gene. She posseses great physical strength that she treats with some form of obliviousness.  She can lift boulders and heavy weaponry with ease, she doesn’t seem aware of what is normal weight to be able to lift. She can wield the great sword John with one hand while decorating with the other.  While lacking combat Finesse she is skilled at dodging and is even able to decorate her sword while dodging.  Defensively she is lacking though mostly due to being pre-engaged with her sword. While she has no problem dodging on command her environmental awareness is lackluster. She does seem to be very durable though, claiming this sort of stuff happens a lot and she hardened up.

Weapon Change

Pinkie does seem to be able to turn into a weapon, much like Maka there does seem to be an ancestor in her bloodline who was an Weapon which would seem to invalidate her claim from being from another world. While Pinkie doesn’t show her full weapon form it will incur when she sustains enough damage to not look cute anymore. Desyncing with John before they could finish it off she would get knocked out.. or seemingly so.. instinctively getting back up again growling about not being cute spiky but pink spiky protrusions can be seen forming.. possibly indicating that she is a mace or something like that. In her hybrid form she just slams herself into her opponent with great speeds, losing the abilities that come with Super Soul Perception and instead gaining a blind rage that make her seem impervious to pain.

While certainly overpowered, Pinkie’s Set-Up would offer interesting scenario’s for a main cast to work around. Forcing them more into protective, and distracting fighting scenario’s. Combining some tropes into a character that is both cute and frighting and who seems quite off, without explanation.

Her and John’s super friendly behavior out of combat would also offer a nice role reversal. Keeping the concept of Pinkie throughout these anime power series cohesive troughout the series.
So would you be a Meister or a Weapon? Let me know!

Previously on Pinkie Gets Anime Powers:

My Stand
My Zanpakuto
My Digimon
My Yu-Gi-Oh Deck