Pinkie’s Saturday Anime Adventure (Week 1)

Hi Island guests! Earlier I talked to you about how having unlimited access to anime and media to critique it on, has opened it to nitpicking and devalued appreciation. Why would we bother with a 7/10 show when we can watch a 9/10 one.I said I would love to get a format reminiscent back of Saturday morning cartoons.

A format where I have to work myself around anime instead having access to everything at my convenience. For true love doesn’t bow to your every whim.. you have to put some effort into it. This is the story of that quest…

Setting Up

The adventure began with laying down some ground rules and a schedule. Like how I have my fictional tropical Island I would now have a fictional anime network as well. Anime of my selection would air the way I would want to, yet be sorted out in certain time slots. I opted for a five series time slot which I could expand upon later. Running from 9:00 until 11:30 (in order to fit it in with my medicine imposed insomnia or occasional night terrors, I put it a bit later in the morning). Five series would air at the full hour mark. Midway down a series (around the 11 minute mark for anime) I would pause the anime and play some Japanese commercials on youtube for about 5 minutes.

I am not allowed to pause the anime earlier, nor am I allowed to go backwards if I miss anything. If i need to get something, I need to step away and let the anime run.. except for during commercial breaks. During the commercial breaks I would make notes for the blog, refill my drink and schedule bio-breaks. Obviously I can not skip ahead either. With this set up I have about 3 minutes to make some final notes and set up the next series. If I am late for example I start at 9:05 I will have to skip my episode until the anime runs as if it was started at its original time slot. So in this case five minutes in. Each Sunday I report to you all about my little adventures.

Pinkie-TV-Guide

Originally I browsed for the first five random picks I wanted to watch. Which ended up being Hikaru no Go, BNA, Bofuri, Yu-Gi-Oh Sevens.. and the second season of Ducktales, (from where I left off). Turns out the the second season of Ducktales isn’t on Disney + yet, which I discovered in the middle of my watch, so as a sensible tv network I had to fix this by adding in a double episode of what came prior. So for the next six weeks my schedule ended up being the following.

9:00  AM : BNA (I really love studio Trigger Stuff)
9:30  AM: Yu-Gi-Oh Sevens (Because I love card game anime and YGO)
10:00 AM Bofuri (Because cute girls with shield sound adorable to me)
10:30 AM Bofuri (So the Pink Network could correct their stupid error)
11:00 AM Hikaru no Go (Because I read Iridium Eye’s compelling review about it)

Having bought some cereal the day before, I was ready. The japanese commercials were set up, my phone was on silent as Saturday morning cartoons were back! Sitting on the couch I eagerly waited for the nine minute mark and pressed play.

BNA Episode 1

The moment I pressed play I realised I made a pretty rookie mistake. I forgot the milk with my cereal, so I ran to the fridge while the opening credits played. It was weird to see how a first episode had an opening in the first place. That isn’t that common.I couldn’t tell you if I liked it because I had some cereal prep I forgot. Luckily I was back before the main action started.

A Tanuki girl that looks kinda to human compared to the other beastman out there is fleeing from some racist humans. They end up trying to kill her when she is fleeing to some sort of beast city. Mind you guys that I am telling this from my headspace while viewing this. I know the name of the character now but not at the time.. nor do I think the first episode ever told us. When things seem dire for the main character a weird scientist lady shows up.. which suddenly is a weasel like creature, which we later find out is a mink. She has some henchmen as well. A fight breaks out between humans and the animal-people and the tone for the series is set. 

I thoroughly enjoyed watching this episode, though I can not help but feel it is kinda heavy on the racist allegory. In the same way X-men can be a bit jarring in it’s world building as well. Even in the first half of he episode. After the rescue I am positively surprised that the mink isn’t like a best new friend but some sort of shady figure who extorts those she rescues for all their money. Like what we see in a few american shows when they smuggle chinese or mexican people inside the United States. We then are introduced to Animacity home of the animals as some happy place, but what seems like a terrorist attack happens just as the little Tanuki girl enter, which leads to my favorite moment in the show.

A huge tv screen drops down on the crowd in the city which were looking at the screen for the cities tenth anniversary.(Which kinda felt a bit exposinatny for my taste) and the Tanuki girl tries to save an old goat.. the face on that goat made me smile so hard. Also when she is yelling crap crap crap.. when she is about to get crushed really amused me. She is saved by a crying wolf who is blisteringly fast while the old goat still has his 10/10 face. Amazing I loved this moment. Tanuki girl is accused of the bombing by the wolf, who seems like some sort of private detective but she convinces him it was some sort of other wolf she saw earlier. Using his nose, which was a really cool visual, he pursues the actual terrorist.

The episode concludes in a big epic fight that like other Trigger feels quite over the top. Yet I feel could have been a bit bolder. It felt very visceral and violent though and the punches have this nice connecty feeling and characters can bulk up to the extreme. Visually this is why I love Trigger so much. The bad guys are hired by humans which triggers the wolf into wanting to kill them. The Tanuki girl catches up and stops him.. revealing she was once a human to setting up  a mystery for the next episode.

All in all a fine first episode. I wasn’t as amazed as I would like from Trigger but it is definitely I will enjoy seeing again next week. There is plenty of stuff. My rating of this episode is a Peach out of Pink.. it’s on the right track but it could be pinker!

YU-GI-OH SEVENS EPISODE 1

The moment this started up with a big commercial for a new form of card game named Rush duel I knew I was going to have a rough time. It did not help that my second serving of cereal had to much rice thingies with to little milk. My mouth was getting dry as in horror I saw the main character bursting through something.. with a giant mecha..while holding some Yu-gi-oh cards. In the second scene we see him trying to install some new duel rules and I began to really regret putting this on the list. I could have put the new pokémon season here.

The opening did not help either, many of these characters look super generic and referencing to old shows a bit.  I liked the girl with the purple hair in it though..so perhaps there is some hope. After the intro we get a glimmer of hope though, the world building seems quite interesting with a Kaiba Corp clone really bogging people down with super strict rules, enforced by camera robots. Breaking these rules will get you a strike and getting six strikes will get you banned from dueling.  While trying to install the new rules.. and he failed Yuga the main character failed and now has five strikes. All in all fair.

This attracts the attention of three peers. Gakuto looks like the Seto Kaiba from season 1.. but with purple hair and the demeanour of Bastion Misawa from GX.. but more snively and whiny. He is the type that is afraid of breaking the rules and he annoyingly yells it out all the time. Tatsuhisa is a blue haired kid who has the power.. to do a sparky thing to disable electronic devices. He duels an ancient tablet under the city that spawns a crowned man .. but he lost and got six strikes due to it..due to the prophecy written on this tablet he now thinks Yuga might be the one to activate it. Romin is the purple haired girl.. she plays music and doesn’t know how to duel.

That is all the characterization we get in episode 1 because we have to move into a rush duel. Yuga installs his new rules but they have to be implemented or such.. but a guard droid spots him and he has 6 minutes and 66 seconds ( which ISN’T even a legit time expresion and just is there to tell us this new Kaiba Corp is evil i’d guess) to implement the rules by a live action programming. Luckily his duels can be fought in that time he says. Which basicly involve a weird form of dueling with three zones instead of five and where you can always draw five cards, and summon and tribute as much as you want in a single turn… like Yu-Gi-Oh needed more speed?!

While the duel itself was entertaining enough, the ace monster of the main character feels insanely gimmicky (it powers up 300 points per any of the seven attributes) an ability Yuga called road over 7 or something. The duel disks also changed into a seven, It’s the seventh series and the series is called Sevens. Well Sevens is correct as there are a lot of them not subtle either. My favorite moment came just before the hero summons his ace though, when Blue Eyes white dragon makes it return. Too bad it’s massive 3000 attack gets hit by a 7000 attack ending the duel in one turn after it was summoned. This show is going to have some serious pacing issues.

Now this might sound super negative and in a way it is, but there is some merrit behind the concept of rush dueling. If they make better duels than this, the format could be interesting for the anime allowing for some more storytelling on the side. It’s like a really ugly oyster.. it still might hold a pearl. For now however this gets a Salmon out of Pink. It can be called pink.. but you could also say it’s a soft shade of orange.  There is a charm factor in there.. but something about it is really Fishy.

BOFURI EPISODE 1

No more cereal, I can pay some serious attention to this one!  Immediately I find the main character Kaede very appealing. There is something about her mindset that I really dig. Gaming with your friend but then being left alone to your own devices is something I can relate to fairly well. While I have absolutely zero interest in her school live, we jump into the virtual world of the mmo she is about to play very soon and I really enjoy the way she over simplistically builds her character. I like the concept of being so Noob in strategy  that the devs would not realise how broken this is. It’s nothing special.. but it brings me back to the age of classic Dragon Ball. Which is a good thing.

Kaede choose the handle Maple, because I assume that is what her name translates into? Unsure though.I enjoy how she is depicted as a newbie in the style that I would act as well. While I am a gamer MMO’s can at times feel overwhelming to me and instead of reading a 40 page guide on how to Cleric I prefer to pick up  skills as I go. Also I love the concept of this MMO not having a tutorial, it would bring some sense of community, which I feel a virtual MMO should be about.. so points for world building. We see how Maple is super slow.. she doesn’t want to feel pain so she goes for a full defensive build..which makes me wonder why they even feel virtual pain in the first place that seems kinda cruel.. point retracted from world building.

Soon after we get my favorite scene in the episode. Maple encounters a cute bunny enemy which she completely outstats. She is just having a lot of fun letting it attack her and playing with it, just enjoying how it relentlessly tries it best. I would play an MMO like that as well. Just having fun, enjoying the animations and the cute creatures.However in this MMO your skills are developed situationally which I think is a cool concept. When she after a long time of playing accidentally kills it she is actually upset as she bonded with it.  That did happen to me.. when I played a MMO once.  Since Maple plays at night she dozes off while playing which triggers a number of defensive boosts. I found this set up pleasing throughout the entire episode.

To gear up she is told to go to a dungeon as she lacks money to buy crafted items, under explained that you should not clear dungeons alone we see her do exactly that, locking her up into some more insane upgrades ending up with her getting some amazing gear since obviously all drops are now for her! I would love to be able to play an MMO that way! This is how I want to play I absolutely adore it.  Her eating the monster because her weapon broke was funny to me to and felt as if the cooking mechanic kinda was exploited. Fun fun fun fun fun!

I’d rank this episode a Bubblegum out of Pink. Cute adorable and exactly in line with my mindset, there is little gripes I have against this one.It might be a bit to pastelly and lack true colour depth.. but  for a Saturday morning “cartoon” this is what I want.

BOFURI EPISODE 2

Forgive me for the length of this post, this is about a whole weeks worth of blogging in one. But starting from second episodes I can be a bit quicker so next weeks installment will be a bit more brief. As now I do not need to talk about set up as much.  Episode 2 of Bofuri  started with me missing the first minute. Due to set up issues.  I dropped in to see Maple eating some bugs to raise her explosive awareness and acquire an enemy devour trait she puts in her shield.

The first half of the episode revolves around a PvP event, I love how Maple due to being such a Noob is able to  outplay many enemies, simply based on how her mindset is so much simpler. Enemies strategise wrongly against her, and she ends up easily being able to take them down due to her non gamer build. That really is something special about this show to me.  I also really love the set pieces. The locations are quite pretty, nothing to special but there is a way they work with lighting here that really makes it stand out to me.  I also really like how Maple starts drawing in the sand during the PvP event .. Jeesz I wish we could get mmos like these. That concept of “just have fun” is something I deeply DEEPLY appreciate in Maple. The drawing scene while she casually dismisses some enemies just to say “back to drawing” was my favorite moment of the episode.

Which is why I like the second half of this episode significantly less. This focusses on Risa or Sally as she is known inside NewWorld Online.  It’s about her start in the game and while obviously that was a point that needs to address this feels like a more normal brand of gamer. Sally doesn’t dump everything into a stat. she is more of a min-maxer that tries to go for an optimal build. This vexes me for two reasons.. she sees how powerful Maple is.. so if your goal truly is to never get hit by anything, why not try to experiment in the same way as Maple did?! Secondly we see her solo a boss as well which invalidates the whole concept of Maple being so strangely OP.. it kinda feels like it’s “Just an easy game” now.

That being said, I do like how they play together, like true friends should. Maple even wears her newbie gear to they kinda look like they belong together, which I appreciate. Sally helps Maple fish because her dex is to low.. and Maple needs scales to get  cute white shield she wants. It felt wholesome .. the idea of discovering something cool while doing that fishing also quite appealed to me. I hope Sally doesn’t rub of Maple to hard and she will do her own thing in building her character.. but I do not mind them having moments. I am also surprised how the anime keeps putting in a lot of content in each episode. So far both episodes feel like 2 smaller episodes strung together .. and it’s pacing that really pleased me.

Not as good as the first episode but still among the best I watched this saturday. I rate this one a Seashell Pink out of Pink. It’s like a mario game! It’s cute, it’s fun and you want more of it… but when you find out this is a water level, you can not help but to prefer to have seen something a bit different.

HIKARU NO GO EPISODE 1

A young boy with two shades of hair finds an ancient relic from their grandfather and then becomes possessed by an ancient spirit which prompts them to become the king of games, by creating traps for their opponents.  Haven’t I seen this plot somewhere before? It even ran around the same period as Yu-Gi-Oh. Starting in 2001.  Come to think of it Shaman King aired in 2001 as well. I guess ancient spirit buddy cop series were the Isekai show of 2001.

Now unlike Yu-Gi-Oh I have not a clue on how Go is played.. and after this first episode I think it’s about surrounding an enemy stone with your own and you win if you get 4 or 5? But I am not sure yet. Anyway this first episode of this anime felt like  a bit of a mixed bag for me. With some highlights and some lows.  The lows mostly taking part in the first part of the episode. We see Hikaru find a go Board in his grandpa’s attic along with a girl.. he sees blood stains on the board while she does not.. he then hears a voice and gets a vision of this spirit.

An ancient Go player that got cheated out of a coveted position in the king’s court, which made him drown himself.  Having last possessed an ancient Go player from the Edo period this spirit now wants to be able to do some divine move so he can rest. While a fair set up I can’t help but feel what an incredibly sad figure Sai is. Not sad as in tragic but as in pathetic. His suicide is something that really made me dislike him. I get that I might miss a cultural significance of importance and honor here but man. The way he cries when he can play a match again trough Hikaru, his goal.. it all just feels kinda.. meh.

Hikaru on the other hand I understand, playing games to get the spirit that possessed you out of your head while also letting him help you with your homework, I really like that form of synergy as  base to start a show out of. I personally do not buy that you are send to school just hours after you collapsed into a catatonic state that lasted long enough for paramedics to come pick you up and rush you to a hospital even if it  had no medical but spiritual grounds. I’d figure people would tell him.. take it safe stay home today.Even when he starts to vomit  out of nowhere and talk into nothing.. he is still forced to make a test….  So I had big credibility issues with the first episode. Which could have been simply solved by establishing Hikaru as a “Boy who Cried wolf” type of character, as is though this is one cruel school.

The second half focussing on a match against youth prodigy Akira whom he randomly encounters in a Go Café.  The way things are framed, the way the game is paced out, the back and forth from camera angles the way we take a peak in both players heads as well as Sai’s really makes for an interesting mixture for matches.  It feels like what makes Yu-Gi-Oh  great.. without the stupid shenanigans which dragged it down again. The fact that Hikaru can count so fast on a Go Board and picks nuances up quite fast gives potential for the future as well.  I love the character design so far as well. It doesn’t feel as lavish and zany as some of the other early 2000 stuff. Making it much more based in reality. In a way making the characters, except for Sai much more relatable. Not an amazing first episode but a nice solid first match.

I’d rate this a Piggy Pink out of Pink. At first glance it looks a bit dirty but than you stare in it’s eyes for a bit longer and you can not help to be endeared. If the tone moves more towards that of the second half of this first episode.. this show can bring home the bacon for me.

Week 1

Now with a Whole  weeks worth of blogging we end on a quick sumary.
Favorite Watch: Bofuri (Episode 1)
Favorite Moment: USAGI SAAAAN! (Bofuri)

Least Favorite Watch:  Yu-Gi-Oh Sevens (Episode 1)
Least Favorite Moment: Sai Crying (Hikaru no Go)

Cereal: Brandless Choco Rice things.. with a monkey on the box!
Bowls Consumed : Two
Favorite Commercial: Sweater Chicken

Top 5: Normal Type Pokémon

Two top fives in one week?! How uninspirational of me! Yet it is time to talk about pokémon again and stories about pokémon are just so much easier in top five form since there are so many of them and so much stories to tell! I never told you my favorites of each type, so let’s start with the most basic one! The Normal Type.

Before we start a few rules. I will only use one entry per evolution line. Other than that I have to actively use them AS normal types. Chansey for example is one of my favorite pokémon ever, but I run it as a toxic stall or counter set (a poison and fighting type move.. as well as a normal type recovery)  it just doesn’t feel like a normal type to me.

Ditto and Smeargle are in a similar situation for me. Pokémon who once were normal  type do not count either, their typing stands as it is currently. Dual typings are allowed..but did not make the list this time. Yet now you know for the future! Now onto the ranking

Normal Type Number 5: Regigigas and Slaking

Another top 5 AND a shared spot… Boo Pinkie Boo… but hold up! These two normal types have a shared trait that endears me to them. Aside from their monstrous strength they are known for having BAD abilities. Their abilities hinder them and make them unpractical to use, which compensates for their amazing stat pool. Slaking has to skip his turn every other turn and Regigigas has it’s stats quashed for the first five turns it is on the field. 

Slaking is the more viable of the two as it usually is set in as a revenge killer using moves like retaliate, or sometimes slash. It’s first form Slakoth shares it’s truant ability but it’s second form VIgoroth has the ability Vital Spirit which prevents it from even being asleep Design wise Slaking feels rather intimidating even it it’s lazy… something I would see as a viable evolution of Snorlax as well… just  not AS large. This is the only normal type that gave me more trouble as  the infamous Whitney’s Miltank. In Pokémon Colosseum the final boss Evice uses a Slaking alongside a Slowking that skillswaps the bad ability away leaving a relentless raging monster for you to face . Truly scary.

Regigigas is a bit of a weird beasty. It’s robot/golem like thing that makes the weirdest cry that really endeared me to it. It’s fun to try to keep a Regigigas alive on the field until it can unleash its full stats.  The issue I have with this one however is that if another pokémon keeps boosting it’s stats .. it can outdo even a Regigigas at it’s “normal”  level.  So you have to find ways to break Regigigas ability, which makes it super fun to use in double battles. But I even had fun with it in singles.. pairing it up with a Cofagrigus, who has the ability to create an infections ability to everything that uses contact moves… thus would allow you to replace it’s hated Slow-Start.  You really have to build your team around these two..which makes for fun little dips into battle and for memorable pokemon.

Normal Type Number 4:  Wooloo

While I loved the feeling of the world in Gen VIII’s  Pokemon Shield, there were few pokemon I feel head over heels for. Of course there was Galarian Ponyta, Polteageist and Alcremie but I had little sentiment for Corviknight or Perserker for example. I would describe the 8th generation of pokémon games as having lots of pokemon that I think “Wow thats an awesome looking pocket monsters’ but lacking in “O.M.A. I love it I love it.. add it to the team now”. However Wooloo was definitely in the latter category. It’s the generation mascotte and a lot of work went into making Wooloo and it shows.

Wooloo quickly became a fan favorite and was turned into a meme. I cried a bit when my Wooloo evolved because even though it was still my pokémon some of that appeal had gone. I swore not to catch another Wooloo because I loved Beep so dearly that even now that he became kinda ugly, nothing would take his place. So I started to shiny hunt for a black one., why do  normal types have such awesome shinies anyway?! My Switch controller broke which ended my hunt and I sending them in was a bit difficult for me.. since it happend in Corona time.. so I just got a new controller and Animal Crossing. Which meant I haven’t searched for Beep Beep yet since.

Wooloo DID make me cry a second time. During the animated series Pokémon Twilight Wings. It’s a  seven episode series of 6 minute short episodes, telling self contained stories from the pokémon game universe, opposed to the more liberate anime universe. These stories are connected by the fact that they feature a corviknight taxi, hence the name. The third episode is about Hop’s (your rival) Wooloo. This six minutes of animation are amongst the best I have seen. This is so utterly adorable and charming and since it is on the pokémon official channel I can share it with you! If you want to spend six wholesome minutes please.. look at this youtube link.. if you are using wordpress reader.. please look at it from my site.. or just look it up after.. it is so worth it.

Normal Type Number 3: Furret

Another  route 1 rodent making it on this list makes a lot of sense in my opinion. You encounter these pokémon first in the game, so whenever you add them to your team very soon. You build a bond with them because they are often lackluster in stats. You struggle with them so you talk to your screen. You can do it Sentret, you can get a flinch Rattata or even I’ll EV train you into a Bidoof! While Hoehn Form Linoone is the most competitive and “factually” good starter it never became that endeared to me. Simply because I first  caught a Poochyena instead and ran that on my team.  Had I had the third gen rodent as my first encounter the day I first played pokémon Sapphire, this spot might have belonged to the shaggier , belly drumming rodent.

Yet it was not the case so my favorite rodent is that of my favorite pokémon game.  Sentret’s evolution Furret has since the publication of pokémon animation have gained some pretty big popularity, Walking all across the world to the sweet tunes of Accumula Town (Gen V had some REALLY good music) it has walked into people hearts as well. The Shiny Furret Candycane is one of my most treasured pokemon  in Pokémon Go, It’s pink! It has some minor combat options as a  Frisk , Toxic Orb , Physical Sweeper, with moves like Trick , Brick Break and Facade. It’s solid and cute and it walks in my mind a lot. It is a perfect analogy for mt brain at times.

Normal Type Number 2: Cinccino

Now it is actually time for pokémon I use in battle and really enjoy running on my team. It’s the Chinchilla pokemon  Cinccino, whose name I always spell wrong. Cinccino is the evolution on Minccino.. so it has the the tiniest name change of all the evolutions. It’s cute and fluffy and it has the ability Skill Link. which makes it quite useful. 

While Aipom, my number six ..so barely not on this list shares this ability , Cinccino can run it much more effectively.  Skill link is a move that make sure multiple hit move always hit the maximum amount of times. The little chinchilla learns, tail slap (which gets same type attack bonus), Bullet Seed (which is a grass type move) and Rock Blast (which is a rock type move if you would believe it) 

Equipped with a Choice Band, this pokémon  can really kick ass and take names. It’s super easy to counter and it is very frail. Unlike chansey this one gets access to a solid Normal move it can deal a lot of damage with, it can be fun and trolley if you run it with a Kings Rock which allows for super high chances to flinch your enemy which can be great in a toxic stall team. There is just so many ways I can have fun with this little guy and ontop of that it just looks super cute and fluffy! I really want a plushie of this one as it looks Kawaii as  heck and I just want to snuggle it’s fur!

Normal Type Number 1: Exploud

Exploud has a horrible shiny, it goes from a blueish purple to a more Muk/Grimer is purple.  Changing from a Lavender shade to something more akin to the Amethyst or muddy Lilac spectrum is not that special. With both 91 base attack and base special attack it can really make you hurt. Pokemon like these is where the normal type shines hence it is my favorite. 

It’s sound based moves, like Hyper Voice and Boomburst, move through substitute. Not a single type resists them, though ghost types are immune.However Exploud can come with the Scrappy Ability which solves that problem as well. It’s super reliable and since you usually would only use it for it’s sound move it’s great with Choice Specs.  Really fun to use as it just shouts it’s enemies to their demise.

It’s ugly. but it’s ugly in a good way. Whenever you look at it you feel like it is gonna be loud and obnoxious and gonna ruin your party and that is exactly what an Exploud does. It’s the number one pokémon to justify making Sound  an official pokemon type and it that happens.. you bet I will get a plushie of Loudred as well. It is just such an amazing pokémon to me. It’s evoltion line tells a story of it getting louder and angrier as it evolves and it makes sense for it to go that way.

There is also something oddly satisfying about yelling, Exploud use Boomburst to your game.You encounter it relatively early in Hoehn as the shy and pink Whismur.. so of course  since I caught that Poochyena I mentioned earlier.. I’d take this as my normal type. Given that Zinnia made me like Whismur even more it just helped push this pokémon to greater heights to me. Fun to use, solid design and for now embodies what the normal type to me is about! An absolute number 1.

Special Shout-out to The Holy Mailman
Whose love and support on my Ko-Fi go above and beyond!
His love for the Furret Walking the World is big.. so let’s hope the song sticks in his head for the entire day! That way I can repay him for all the love… trough earthworms!

Which is your favorite normal type?
What type should I list next?
Let me know in the comments and enjoy Paradise!


XO
Pinkie

Pinkie makes a Boomer post: That Saturday Morning Feeling

We live in the era of great convenience nowadays. With all the streaming services we can watch whatever we want when we want it. Yet when Pinkie was a kid, she would have to get up at 6am to watch the first episode of her favorite cartoon. We had to take bathroom breaks and snack runs during commercials, and we had to watch through a lot of stupid series for the next good one to show up. It was amazing! 

Pinkie the Grey

Yes I know I have grey hair! I dye it that way as cool colours really complement my pastell wardrobe a lot okay?! Today’s post is not about how things used to be better but about an emotional component that we have kind of traded in for the sake of convenience. There is something to be said about both. I love being able to see what I want and being able to pick from so many things. Yet I also notice how this has changed our mindset. Back then we used to love just about all cartoons, even the ones we disliked became tolerable after three or four weeks, by the end of that anime arc we were following that series that fell in between Yugioh and Dragon Ball was part of our beloved ritual.

Today I wonder if having access to everything doesn’t kill off a part of our viewing experience. Is it the reason that we have become so hyper critical trying to highlight the bad? I am not such a boomer that I think the old shows were better, because they were not. If we see how far writing and animation has come since the 80’s , we get a much greater consistent output. Back then there were 5 anime that were super great and 20 that sucked, with cartoons it was even worse!

For every Scooby Doo, we had 10 shows about 90’s kids spouting already outdated taglines, trying to save nature with their instruments and rad attitude. Yet back then… those shows were “okay I guess?” Now when we see another Isekai show being made we Hiss and tell it’s the worst thing ever .. for picking a genre. Something changed and I think it might have to do with what South Park described as the “Death Of the Living Room”

Finish your homework, choke on your cereal

Watching anime or series has become relatively effortless. You do not have to plan your schedule around catching the latest episode of game of thrones, you do not have to finish your homework in time to see the latest episode of My Hero Academia. You don’t have to ride home your bike with all your might to catch the latest episode of Ducktales. All we have to do now is pay a few extra bucks. It’s worth it for convenience.. but that rush of making it in time for a show is gone, that sensation of telling a friend “not tonight because it’s the final episode of Seinfeld” is gone.

When I ran home from playing with my friends to catch Dragon Ball in the late afternoon and I scraped my knee getting there.. I didn’t care so much the episode wasn’t that good, my knee throbbed in excitement for this show. .and it was worth it!  Even if nothing happend we would find a reason to validate why it was worth it! OMG! Goku and Gohan just did normal things but in super saiyan for.. to save on energy from transforming so cool! They just beat up some normal humans!… Sugoi!

Part of this is of course not looking through stuff as a kid anymore, but even  when I already was grown up, in my early twenties on saturdays we’d watch Crime Scene Investigation with the family. I’d had to give up whatever game I was playing at the time, save my pokémon game and put it away to watch with my family. Not waiting till I finished a boss fight.. it was on NOW and we could not start it later. It was back in the time before tv channels began to endless loop their content so if you missed it you could catch it again six hours later. If you missed that episode, you had to illegally download it to catch up or miss it , until rerun season.

It’s this inconvenience that truly forged you into loving a show.. you had to plan your schedule around the show instead of planning when you’ll watch the show around your schedule. It sucked… but it must have meant we really loved these shows. I have great memories of rushing my breakfast because Biker Mice from Mars was about to air.. and it was a to continued episode, I ended up nearly choking on my sandwich and still I was trying to crawl to the living room to put on the episode so I would not miss a thing.

Paying the Time-Bill

Our time has become more expensive, more valuable in recent years. Ten years ago my time was worth less than the newest episode of CSI, or the first Season of Australia Master Chef.  Now my time is more important than these shows I still watch them, but I watch them at my leisure, not when they air on tv… there is a different source to watch them anyway! Websites where I can rewatch them as aired on tv, but also websites that also stream these. If I want to finish that game first I easily can,  if I want to get some groceries and leisurely eat my dinner before watching them, I can. 

All the effort of watching a show is gone. I don’t even have to pay attention to a show, if I miss something crucial I could just watch it again, so if Mom calls during the show I can easily answer. Back when Pinkie still had a Nokia 3310, her phone would be turned off during tv night so I could not be disturbed, because if I missed a clue in CSI, the episode was ruined. 

All we have to do now is somewhere somehow have 20 minutes and we can watch an anime. On any device we want… it’s there for us when we are to sick to do anything else.. it’s there instead of the magazine whilst making stool, it’s there the moment we get bored of backtracking again in the video game we played.  Anime and cartoons have become our best friends, always there for us, but it’s kinda easy to be mean to someone who is always there for you regardless if you are shitty to them.

Plenty of you guys will probably know this, how people walk over you because you are always the good guy that will support others regardless how mean they are to you. Back in the 80’s and 90’s we were trying to get Senpai (the show) to notice us ( the viewer)  now we are the Senpai and the show is pleading for our attention and we can be pretty Tsundere, because we also got so many other worshippers.

If Fruits Basket is no longer worth our time we can easily fill it with something else. It’s only logical that we only pick the shows that resonate the strongest with us. Yet with this attitude we have all become somewhat Chinese Tiger Mothers  to anime, cartoons and tv shows…games as well. If Midoriya isn’t amazing enough we disown him and focus on Touru.
Midoriya still can be an 8 out of 10 guy, but we have the possibility to only surround ourselves with 10/10 stuff. 

Now this is an exaggeration of course but I still think that since the living room died, the tiger mamma attitude is there. We had to make some effort to spend time with little Goku and even though that play he did about Garlic something .. was passable at best.. we loved our time spend together.. now if Little Carole misses  one beat.. we take out the Twitter Ruler and bash at little Carole! Our time has become more expensive and she just wasted a few seconds of it. 

Finding Love

Our perspective have changed, saturday morning Pinke could strangle Angela Anaconda and got fed up seeing Bobby’s World with Howie Mandel  but Shin-Chan would show up after that, or Medabots. Which also weren’t the best in the lot..but it was what we got and we are proud of them. Back then , during the Saturday Morning Cartoon Arc, we were looking for love. A show that stuck with us despite its flaws. We saw the flaws but we did not care , like meeting a girl on the street by bumping into her. She has a plain looking face and poor taste in shoes, those big boots nearly broke your pinky toe, but she has the sweetest smile.

To see her again, you have to do your groceries at the exact same time you did last time when you bumped into her.. and there she is walking on the other side of the street. She isn’t always smiling but when she does you just melt a little inside. Eventually you see her so much something deeper grows, something you had to bleed for and inconvenience yourself for. There was something magic about watching shows on Saturday morning, about setting your alarm clock about nearly dying on a spoon of rice krispies.. to see her smile.

Now that we have entered the “Content on Demand Arc” we aren’t looking for love anymore, we are looking for art. Imagine that plain faced girl again..but instead she is on a picture, with a thousand other girls, maybe even on Tinder for a more elegant metaphor. Now she isn’t always smiling on her pictures there is one.. but on she just poses at an exotic location and on the other she is doing a weird pose and there is this jarring catchphrase slogan like “believe”  on her profile as well.

There are ample more beautiful girls on the picture or on Tinder and you share what you swiped with your friends would you really spend a right swipe on that same average looking girl with just the super cute smile?  Many of you will say yes…but be honest. Anime will always swipe right… even the prettiest once that are out of your range and they will talk back to you when you talk.. would you still swipe on the average girl? 

Bringing back THE INCONVENIENCE

I think I am going to bring back my saturday morning cartoons! Just open My Anime List and pick five or six series based on their cover art alone picking something that resonates with me . Assigning them to a certain time like BNA at 9:00 , Yu Gi-Oh Sevens at 9:30 , Bofuri at 10:00.  With commercial breaks at the 15 minute mark. If I am few minutes late I have to skip those minutes, if I miss the time slot, next week I have to watch the next episode skipping the one I would have seen. If I don’t like a show and want to drop it I will have to wait until it reaches mid season to drop it having an open time slot in between.

No pausing allowed only during the commercial break. Better make sure I have my breakfast ready! Better make sure everything is set up in time! Or else I will miss parts of the episode! This way I’ll have to commit a bit to anime.. I will have to go out of my way for it! Giving it the value it deserves again. Anime is greater than just my free time! It deserves my attention  and dedication!  “Oooh” I can add season two of DuckTales into the mix.. I still need to watch (most) that! You see I am in love with this idea!  Let’s make our shows something we need to work for again! Let’s show our love! Pinkie’s Saturday Morning.. is starting! It will be inconvenient as heck!…It will be glorious. I’l be ready!

XO
Pinkie

Top 5: Weird Nintendo Peripherals

Hello again island guests, as you might now I can be a bit of a weirdo. I am into weird things like making Luffy and Naruto play Mario Party against each other instead of them having fight a Death Battle.  I prefer old games over new ones (except for maybe animal crossing) and I am very charmed by clunkiness. So what do we get if we combine those all together? Older video game stuff that is totally weird and doesn’t work all that well? Exactly! Luckily there is Nintendo who offer me the weirdest gaming peripherals out there.

Weird Peripheral Number 5: The Inflatable Kart
(WII)

It’s a strange world where someone can make a inflatable Kart that functions as an odd on for a controller and having it barely make the top of weirdest Nintendo gadgets. In fact technically it really is not, but I chosen to exclude items I actually deem as alternate controllers, otherwise the kart wouldn’t even scratch the top 10.  Anyway … since most of you are at least old enough to have played the Switch, I think most of you know that Mario Kart Wii came with a plastic steering wheel. This is about the same thing… but with an inflatable Kart Attached to the steering wheel. 

Now Pinkie lives in a 23 square meter apartment so when it comes to add-ons for or your gaming experience she is a little bit selective , yet even in a game-room of a wealthy person I can’t imagine this working out.  It’s inflatable so prone to get leaky unless you deflate it each time after use! It’s a big kart as well so that is a lot of air you need to put in to inflate it so you are going to need something to provide enough air as well. After that you get a kid sized kart , and I can tell you that sitting in a kart like that is majorly uncomfy. I haven’t sat in this one but in a similar sized one and it killed my long dutch legs!  So without a pump this can causes intense leg cramps, respiratory issues, seasickness (yes I can get seasick from laying down on softly inflate air mattress) and you kind of look stupid sitting in a plastic kart. The Wii wheel  was bad enough.. but all this thing does is make you look sad. 

Weird Peripheral Number 4: R.O.B.
(NES)

SONY DSC

Gyromite and Stack-Up where two NES CO-Op games. Mostly the first one had some mechanics that could make for a fun puzzle game, with one player controlling gateways and the other the character. By working together you guide this little professor guy across the stages. It’s not a bad game… however it wasn’t intended to be played with a friend. Or at least not with a living one. This game was meant to be played next to R.O.B. your robot friend who could read the screen of Gyromite and Stack up and who would help you play the games.  So yes .. this is an actual robot that plays video games with you.. an actual Robot friend made for NES… that’s kinda weird right?! I mean it’s super cool but still weird. “Honey what should we hook up to our NES today?’ How about our robot friend?!

Nowadays R.O.B. I mostly know to be a fighter in smash but back in the NES era he was a true friend! Playing games with you.. however R.O.B.’s gaming skills leave a bit to be desired. First of all setting up R.O.B.  already takes about as long as beating your average NES game (once you know how to do it) so you spend 20 to 30 minutes setting up all the parts, positioning him to a screen, using the C batteries (I think it was four of them)  setting up the gyroids or the stackable blocks and then you also have to activate him. Now ROB is a 90’s robot so he is incredibly slow. Imagine Super Mario Bros world 1-1 with a question mark block this time being a gate ROB needs to open for you .

Now.. Rob doesn’t press buttons he picks up a gyro from a docking station and puts it on a scale this scale will then push A or B on Robs controller, this determines which gate is opened, the Red ones or the blue ones. .. now to switch Rob doesn’t pick up the gyroid from the controller and puts it on the other spot … no.. Rob picks it up , puts in back in the docking station, then makes another capture of the screen sees what is required of him and he moves the gyro from the docking station to the new position. So there is roughly a minute .. if everything goes well between each Mario Question block.. this is the pace that Rob holds.  And it doesn’t always go well.

ROB has butterfingers he constantly drops the gyro.. and if he does you need to make sure the gyro spins again. In Stack up where he builds coloured towers to mimic the screen he is even worse. Yet who cares you have a robot friend to play with. Now I bet GeekGirlJoy could build us another robot that does do its job better than ROB but until then either you have a gaming friend or a fairly low Tier Smash fighter.. either way if you are truly into a fluid gaming experience ROB probably should be avoided. Still a robot gaming friend.. is a pretty zaney idea for a peripheral.

Weird Peripheral Number 3: LifeCycle Exertainment (SNES) 

Nintendo always wanted that we stayed fit. The NES had a mat for running, the gamecube has a very popular DDR mat, the Wii had that Yoga balance board thing to work out with and on the Switch we now have a ring! However… there is one device that easily trumps these devices and makes them seem like child’s play. There is an exercise bike add on, for the SNES or Super Nintendo. That’s right a full fledged fully functional exercise bike. It’s extremely rare to find one these days.. as not a lot of them were sold… but back when it was made the company had full trust in this. They even released two models. One for gyms which had build in monitors and the SNES integrated into the cabinet or a home user model in which you connect the bike to an add on for your SNES that you connect via a phone cable.

It was very weird back then.. but what was actually weirder is that it actually works. The bike supports two games, of which only 1 is a bike game.. the other is a Speed Racer port.. from the same system but adapted to work with the controller. While the Bike itself actually works quite well and even can detect angles in the mode-7 graphics and increase or decrease pedal resistance based on it… the controller part really fumbles. The D-pad is horrible and since the bike’s steering wheel is fixed you need to press left and right to steer in these games…which basically is barely functional. So by playing these things on easier difficulty settings you can skip steering completely and just focus on having enough power to pedal trough. However this means earning less unlock points..and thus forcing you to exercise more.. so now it’s tiring and it’s not fun?!  Sounds like actual fitness to me, and if so this thing is completely overpriced.

Weird Peripheral Number 2: Sewing Machine 
(Gameboy) 

So this one is where things really start to get weird,  this is a sewing machine you can use by hooking it up to your gameboy, and unfortunately this isn’t even the weirdest gameboy invention ever. It’s just the weirdest you can actually play.  There is a cartridge that helps you set up sewing patterns I think which actually sounds incredibly helpful for people like me! I’d love to make cosplays but I barely even know what a sewing pattern even is. I am just not sure how helpful this tool actually is.  Aside from a few cosplayers I haven’t met a lot of people who own a sewing machine and a gameboy. The two demographics don’t overlap that much, so unless this was created for a niche of a niche specifically this one seems like a really weird idea to try out.

The Singer Izek is purchasable, which put it above it’s competition the Pedistate. The pedistate was a medical tool that never got released. It was a tool for hospitals that doctors and nurses could hook up to a gameboy, put onto a kid and …..sedate children… as they play their favorite handheld video games.  Feeling it was less traumatic for kids to be sedated this way they even build it in colours to match the original purple of the game boy colour. Honestly I would have loved to knock myself out with my gameboy! Sleeping doesn’t come easy to me so that tool would have been very useful, though I doubt I would be allowed to use it unsupervised.  Maybe the idea of sewing stuff together with my gameboy is enough to put me a sleep as well. 

Weird Peripheral Number 1: Babies  (Nintendo Wii) 

The fact that I had to write this title in plural instead of singular form amazes me. There are to my knowledge..at east two baby add ons for Nintendo wii. Both come with their own game and their own baby. Baby and me takes a realistic approach and offers you a classic baby doll. To start playing you insert the wiimote…into to baby …………and start playing the game. The game pursues this realistic like style. Unfortunately with the graphic capabilities of the Wii that doesn’t always pan out.  Aside from the fact that the baby wears pink the actual baby toy you get is kinda scary looking This baby has some serious as to it. She dons a weird headband that no other baby would.  You use the nun-chuck.. which … comes out the baby to do stuff powder it’s bum and change it’s diaper all while it’s soulless eyes stare up and scream in agony for allowing it to continue it’s miserable existence. The on screen baby is even scarier. I’d honestly rather snog with Cthulhu than bear that kid’s gaze. The baby sells pretty cheaply on eBay with models going for under 10 euro so at least it’s not hard to get.

I get this was made for little girls…but you technically can do this with regular dolls as well.  These are just baby dolls  but instead of taking care of the one in your hands you take care of the one on screen…that just doesn’t really make sense to me.. nor does seeing a baby as a gaming peripheral shout good parenting to me. The second baby possibly is even weirder. It was made for a game in the cooking Mama series named Babysitting mama  in this game you control a daycare center and insert your wiimote into a plush anime like baby. By doing well in the minigames Mama can collect more babies to play with. Taking care of these babies earns coins and unlockables. Minigames include making the baby move on a seesaw or burping it. These babies all are insanely expressive  and can get super grouchy or super happy which is scary! There even is a minigame where you have to change it’s diaper which involves removing the diaper from the plush baby a putting it on again to change it of virtual baby. This version is a lot more fun to play though and requires the use of the nun chuck a lot less often. Which makes this the de facto game to go to if you want to you an actual baby as a gaming tool, all you need is to remove it’s  diaper.. take a wiimote … and you can imagine the rest…. it will even fix some sensitivity problems this game has for the force of an adult playing this.

Pinkie’s Who Would Win: Naruto VS Luffy

Hello my dear island guests. It is time for yet another new series on my blog. It’s all based around a simple question. A question anime fan ask all the time! Who would win? Now of course Pinkie’s Paradise is a haven of peace and joy! Gladiatorial combat will not be part of it. Ram would have to much cleaning to do! That’s right she stayed! So instead for each face down we let our combatants duke it out in more mundane situations. This time the Gum Gum Pirate and the Nine Tailed Ninja duke it out…. in my game-room!

<This post features some atmospheric music suggestions found below each segment title viewing this post on the actual site is recommended for the full experience>

The Challenge

Of course the challenge will vary every installment of this. Combatants are allowed to use their abilities and we take into account how their mindset works. By placing them in a much more humble situation we do not need to do some math to find out that Luffy punches with the power of one octillion ton of tnt or having to go to weird science to show that Naruto’s beast bomb can blow up the moon.. which is more than Luffy can handle or something! No! These fights would cause planetary devastation and that’s not nice!  We would pick something you and I could compete in and feasibly win against them, why? Because that is how we make friends with them! Also I think it’s a bit more of an original idea than just analyzing their abilities or letting people vote who would win! This is more on brand for me.

Culling the competition!

So how do we place a flexible man and a duplicating man on equal level? Well it is very simple! We call in the help of Nintendo! In februari 1999 a game of theirs released that could test how flexible your hand was, how fast you could tab buttons and how strategical one can be! It forces people to work together..as well as against one another.  Today we will find out who of these two will be our Superstar. That is right! We are playing Mario Party. Now there are a lot of Mario Parties to choose from and the winner may depend on our choice. Obviously the ones with the car would bore both to death.. as those are proper mario party games. To keep things a bit simple.. I decided to go with the first game. This way there can always be a rematch, should there need be one!

The Set-Up

Luffy and Naruto would meet in an epic staredown, but smiling, both be handed their N64 controllers for the first time. Immediately we see a difference between our two contestants. Naruto like any normal human being has difficulty  holding this weird spaceship shaped controller, while Luffy wraps his hand around it with ease! The Rubber-Devil-Fruit Powers are coming in clutch already! Now since Naruto is Japanese he will hold the controller by the middle prong, tiny hands and all that, as the N64 controllers were designed that you could hold it depending on our hand size or what stuff you needed. Since the D-pad is barely needed in this game Naruto is not to disadvantaged but Luffy struggles less when needing to switch positions and has an advantage in minigames.

Now it’s onto selecting their characters, this doesn’t give them a advantage… or does it?  Luffy would as mentioned before have less trouble with the controller and would be able to select his character first. Choosing Yoshi.Why? Because I believe Luffy would get excited of having a dinosaur as a Nakama. Naruto who saw the frog like features of Yoshi would have most likely picked him as well but now decides to choose Peach. A choice which will come into play later.  Donkey Kong and Wario would be selected as the computer controlled opponents, as both tend to fight villains and these two are the closest to that..even if they are thinking of the wrong Donkey Kong. 

Now for a board they will select DK’s Jungle Adventure. Luffy would be to distracted by the cake .. in Princess Peach level and Luffy would not want to give Luffy the advantage of duking it out on a tropical island, as a pirate, islands like that would be Luffy’s favored terrain. They would consider the Wario Stage for a bit but both have had their fair share of war and are not to keen on reliving it.  Which brings me to what versions of both characters we use. We use both their “young adult” post time skip forms with most of their abilities intact. However transformation states are not allowed. So no foxfire Naruto and no Geared up Luffy. 

The First Half

Immediately after the turn order is decided,  Luffy tries to activate his conquers Haki to knock Naruto out or gage his inner strength, which obviously would not knock out Naruto but would knock out just about everyone else on the island… maybe if Irina is visiting she would have already been knocked out by the cocktails beforehand. This action does come back to bite Luffy in the posterior though. Now that there is no one to tell them how to play the actual game.

Naruto is much more likely to pick up video games more natural than Luffy. His world is a lot more contemporary than Luffies. Just less for ninja’s .. however there are computers and technology in his world. Additionally Naruto is less obsessed with his goal. While in his free time Luffy would eat, train or think of what new Nakama he wants to at, Naruto would actually spend his free time more “normally” making it much more likely he can slip into the right mindset. As a result in the first five rounds of mini games or so, Naruto would most likely come out on top, though perhaps still losing to the A.I. ..at least in the first two games.

In the second quarter of the game however we will see a much more balanced and equal game.  Luffy would use his gum gum arms to completely dominate the stick spin minigames, (these are mini games where you rapidly spin your analog stick around to win a minigame) and Naruto would use his shadow clones to win the rapid button presses minigames, however since Luffy is cute used to his Gum Gum Gatling Gun.. he develops a finger technique based on it called the Gum Gum Mini gun as he gains ground on Naruto. Having two clones aid with button presses is less effective than a flurry of rubbery fingers, so it looks like the most minigame award would go to Luffy. 

There is a reason that Naruto chose Peach. He readies his ultimate distraction technique as he asks Luffy. “Can you see my character”  he uses his Sexy-No-Jutsu to transform into a bikini Peach. This distraction would work, for about two minigames. Not because Luffy got a nosebleed.. but because he is super excited that he now might be able to add a Genderfluid-Ninja Nakama to his team and become Pirate King for sure.  Naruto would tease Luffy for long enough to win a couple of games and take some momentum back.

Luffy gets excited about a cool trick he sees!

The Second Half

In the second half of the game Luffy would recover, Sanji would somehow burst in and begin to swoon over Naruto causing him to turn back and yell at the chef. Where he came from nobody knows.. but when there is a half naked girl he just would show up. Luffy is gaining more and more advantages in minigames.  In games like Bumper Balls, where you try to bounce each other of a small island using big rubber balls for example would be akin to physics Luffy is very familiar with, there are a few similar games like swimming around a rubber hammer and other things. 

However in the water based games Luffy is a bit overly careful and ends up losing more than once.  For some reason in the bonus game you can dive up treasures he manages to get his character down under water.. but he can’t get it back up, not because he really can’t but because he believes he can’t .  As a result Luffy is not very good at the bonus games that allow you to earn more than 10 coins.. as a large part of them include water. Around turn 15, Luffy has won about 8 minigames, Naruto won 5 and the NPC’s have won two. However since Naruto wins the bonus games.. he would most likely still have the most coins…it doesn’t really help that Luffy likes to land on red spaces as that is is defining colour.

Team games are alway won by Luffy.. if Naruto is in his team or not.. he is very good at working with other people, while Naruto technically should he is much more a I need to do this guy. Something that really developed more after his time skip. Luffy is having more fun than Naruto, he lands on more question mark spaces and would luck out more having three stars where Naruto only has one. He is enjoying himself so much he loses sight of the tactical aspect of the match, as Luffy is prone to be distracted. 

This will end up costing him dearly in the final five turns, coins are ample except with Luffy who keeps spending them. Still seeing Naruto as a potential Nakama he shows him kindness and doesn’t steal from him using Boo. The Water 7 arc shows how easy to forgive Luffy can be and in general he really treats his friends well. Now Naruto  is not a bad person but he had Sakura tell she had feelings for him even if she did not and his best friend betrayed the village.He also wants to knock sense into said friend…destroy his goals and motivations and drag him back to the village. He also has more drive to win. Naruto has been in way more petty competitions than the stretchy pirate and he wants to win them all, while Luffy is more prone to see non essential competitions as “fun”

This will result in Naruto tactically allowing an NPC to steal a star first, as Luffy has the most he would always be the target of the NPC.Naruto holds off until this has happened to snipe a star of Luffy as well, planning it out as close to the final turn as possible, just to end up using his coin lead to buy himself an additional star as well. Luffy who is just having fun would tactically not be prepared for this being considerably less intelligent compared to Naruto. While both are tactically about equal in combat, Naruto’s time with Shikamaru makes him much more likely to pick up some of the strategic skills needed here. He has also displayed them more in finding enemy bases and plans where Luffy usually shouts enemies out of hiding or creates other ruckus.

The betrayal would anger Luffy and cause him to go all out in the last phase. Activating his armament Haki for more rigid button presses and even faster spinning. Most of the future pirate king’s  big fights end with an enraged Luffy giving it his all. This can result in either two things of which the latter is more likely to me! Luffy completely dominates the last two minigames crushing all former records OR he accidentally breaks the analogue stick or buttons during a flurry of matches and in actuality losing the last two matches due to controller failure. Since normal people already break N64 controllers when Mario Partying to zealously, this would be the scenario I’d think would unfold with angry Luffy as well.

The Super Star

Now that the match is over it is time for the bonus stars.  First of is the minigame star, a bonus star that has been present since game one. This would be very close since Luffy won more mini games but really struggled with bonus games..because his fear of water. Naruto would have won less but he is more money aware than Luffy and would have  bested him in the bonus mini games, partially due to more natural gamer instincts part due to a lack of fear. Wether or not the controller broke for Luffy during the end phase will decide whoever wins this bonus star. Which in fairness would be more likely to be Luffy so we will give this star to him.

The Happening Star is a bonus star that would be awarded to those who landed on the most green event spaces. This would definitely go to Luffy, he is much more prone to experiment on a games board and just see what happens if he goes on that square. Naruto oftenly being short on cash would prioritise blue spaces and getting cash..because he also is put on the backhand of minigames.


The Coin Star would be close again but I feel like this would end up going to Naruto, even though he spend more money than Luffy. Here is my “math” for that.  During an average math on DK Jungle you can buy about 5 ish stars. Due to him dominating in the Minigames I gave Luffy 3 and Naruto 2. However Naruto spend 50 coins to steal a star of Luffy as well. So Naruto spends 90 coins and Luffy 60. From minigames Luffy wins somewhere close to the 150 mark the Ninja boy not being that far behind due to the bonus minigames paying out a lot more. However where Luffy would explore a board and see what stuff does, plus he likes his icon being red I feel on the board Naruto would easily make double of what Luffy makes.  Easily compensating for the 30 coins he spend more. Luffy would want to try out a bowser square just to see what it would do and from that alone losing that amount of coins is fairly easy. The fact that Bowser is on this board and sells you fake golden banana figures for 10 coins is something I feel Luffy would also fall for more than once thus Naruto ends up with the most coins.

Now depending on how RNG went four likely scenarios can unfold.

–Naruto did not manage to buy a second star after stealing Luffies, because he needs to time it close to the end if the game, in which both players would end up with three stars.
–The NPC blundered and did not steal a star, in which case both the heroes would end up with four stars.
–Naruto’s strategy worked completely, in which case he would end up on 4 stars and Luffy on Three.
–The NPC would fail to steal a star, and Naruto would have bad rolls on the final dice and not make it to his third star. In which case Naruto would end up with 3 stars and Luffy would take 4.
Now it would seem that we have two ties and and one victory for both, but in Mario Party in case of a tie the victory goes to he who holds the most coins. So in most of our simulations ..victory would go to the blond boy! Naruto is the super star!

Now I hope you all enjoyed this first edition of Who Would Win! How do you think should win?! What type of match up would you like to see you next? I had a blast making this post so there will be a lot more of these!
I shall all wish you an amazing day and will leave you with the teaser for the next one.

A Rare Candy? Pokémon Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution Review

This Pokémon Movie has been on Netflix for a good while now and while I originally planned to review all the Pokemon movies leading up to it, I have felt the call call of nostalgia. Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution is the CGI remake of the first Pokemon movie. It’s weird animation style caught the eye.. and the critique of many. So is this movie truly an evolution or did I wish the original had it’s everstone equipped? 

Update: I found out I can’t make Netflix Screencaps! So while I actually had an impressive selection of cool screenshots.. we will have to do with stock google images.

How does it Look?

I think it is best to address the elephant in the room first and that is this movies looks. It uses a fairly strange CGI look that has gotten a lot of fans scratching their heads. Ash looks like a young boy! Also everything looks almost as if we are watching a weird claymation cgi hybrid. Models can feel a bit oily and this doesn’t really match with any pokémon style we have seen so far. After seeing the entire movie twice now though I must say, I am not opposed to this , I am not in love with it but I think it has some big advantages over the old style on the one hand and comes with a few downsides on the other. A mixed bag of negatives and positives.

Let’s start with the negatives as most people out there come in with a negative mindset about this movie, rather than scaring you off by proving your are wrong right away, I will side a bit with the haters first. While modern animation is increasingly moving towards fluidity in motion and stripping things of non essential elements to increase focus on what is important, this is not what can be seen in Evolution. There is a level of clunk to the motions, the models seem to polished and glossy and Ash his redesign seems odd. Brock feels a lot more dishevelled, team rocket seems a bit overly moe and way less “mean spirited” and there are some odd choices  when it comes to certain pokémon. As a result this definitely is a style we need to get used to. It doesn’t feel right and that feeling is indeed hard to turn off. Due to the clunkiness in some motions but the focus on detail it’s flaws really stand out as well.

Yet to me there is a charm to this clunk. A lot of the clunkier attack animations really reminded me of playing Pokémon Stadium again or the later Coliseum games.  There is a level of mechanicalness that conveys something computer game esque.. and for a series that started out as a video game, I actually kinda see a lot of charm in that. I would love to see a pokémon game in this graphic style someday, and while Ash design is weird, for the first time I believed he was 10.  Misty and Brock are visibly older than Ash which validates his demeanour a lot more. While I watched the original run I often find myself annoyed at Ash. Stupid choice!.. Now I see him much more as a naive kid and I feel much more in tune with his mindset. 

The action also feels a lot nicer in this 3d style. While the animations to fire off an attack can feel clunky, these models have more weight to them.. smoke animations feel more simulated, dust clouds more calculated. If Charizard is dropped in the sand.. it feels like someone just threw a heavy creature in the sand. Fire has more “heat” to it, water actually feels wet..instead of being a spirally  blue beam. Pokémon eyes feel more alive, where watering eyes in normal anime style are usually a cycle of frames there is more motion to them. While this does not apply to all pokémon and less to the humans this version had a sense of gravitas in some of it’s graphic design. Which I think is very important in things like these.

I can see people hate this and would not think they are wrong but I can also see people really liking it. It has that Jump Force feel to it and that isn’t for everybody but I do think it makes battles more exciting.. and that’s an important part of pokémon. Now regardless if you like the style or not this movie has some stunning cinematography.  Shots are really beautifully framed. Camera angles are so much more carefully chosen. It feels a lot more cinematic in the big moments. The moment Ash rises from the clone laboratories followed by all the other pokémon nearly dropped my jaw. The end framing and the secret ending again..both beautiful shots! Regardless if you like the style or not, the shot choice was among the greatest in pokémon history.

How does it sound?

Now that you all think I am nuts for being positive on the looks let’s throw my credibility further in the trash by talking about how much I loved the sound design. The weird star trek and star wars stock sounds that were everywhere in the first movie have been replaced by long standing sounds in the pokémon anime. When Mewtwo activates stadium lights we no longer hear the first tones of a lightsaber and when Mew is waking up under water we don’t hear star trek effects from his shield. Explosions sound like proper explosions now and feel like they are canon to the pokémon series but done really well.  It seems all the voices have been re-recorded as well to match the new animation flow a lot better than using the old tracks would…unfortunately that doesn’t always pan out. 

Not all the voice work in this movie is great. Mew firstly feels a bit less cutesy than it did in the original..which was a source of great joy for me. The original mew sounded a lot more dreamy, while this one sounds a bit more kiddy. It isn’t bad just not as great as the original..I kinda cringed while it laughed once. It’s giggle is pretty bad.  Speaking about bad. Jessie and James have been voiced really poorly in this movie. I could not decide who was worse. James voice lines really feel phoned in.. but match the character while Jessie tries harder but really REALLY feels off brand to me. Her normal tones of arrogance and disdain are gone. While the new voice does line up with the cuter model more.. I can’t help to constantly think these are not Jessie and James. It somehow makes them have even less impact on the movie than before. Misty and some of the other trainers are a bit meh as well.The ace trainers who use their Blastoise Shellshocker and a Venussaur called Brute-Root I really had trouble understanding. At least when they called out their pokémons nickname.
Misty was okay but at times she was a bit flat.

Ash and Mewtwo are quite okay and Brock has his highlights but the real star is the voice actor of Pikachu. You can sense Pikachu’s emotions so well from the Pika Pika’s. During the chase by Mewtwo’s pokeballs we really can hear the fatigue in it’s cries, but the best moment is absolutely following Ash’s death/petrification. The anguished cries of Pikachu felt so real.. there was so much pain inside just the word Pikachu being repeated, it was crazy. Never EVER have I felt so much for Pikachu. I could tell exactly how distraught it felt and it’s tears weren’t even show! Instead of constantly focussing on Pikachu.. that cinematography cuts away .. allowing us just to hear its voice as we can hear it’s little spirit break.  Some great sound design in that scene and some incredible voice acting.

The music and the sound design are amazing in general. Gone is “Brother my Brother” that melodramatic song from the first version that I absolutely hated. Instead they choose for much more neutral background music that sound like they could be in a Final Fantasy game.
Which again enforced that video game movie feeling for me. Where the vocal song had issues keeping up with the story beats and felt poorly timed and thus melodramatic this version goes for a different approach. Silence, during a few scenes this movie decides to fade away the sounds only leaving some impact sounds  or for a brief period even nothing at all. It works so well as you see the seen as Ash sees it.. something terrible. The Final Fantasy esque music oddly really fits the setting of Mewtwo’s castle as well and keeps for a much more neutral accompaniment of the story. It boosts the story and scenes rather than trying to explain it on it’s own and overall I’d say this movie does it waaay better than the original.

How did it change?

I am not going over the movies story again because I think this story is so famous it would be redundant and I already embellished way too much again on looks and sound. Are there any significant changes to the story? Yes and no again honestly. The story is mostly a one on one translation of the original. However this time we get the extended cut.. not the Pikachu’s vacation stuff that was placed there to hide the dark and twisted beginnings of the original! This time…. ..it’s darkest part is still skipped. We get a set up for Mewtwo.. but the story about Fuiji’s cloned daughter dying in front of Mewtwo is completely emitted from the story again, so if you want to see that you will still have to watch the first movie, in Japanese.

Missing this however causes a slew of narrative problems that the first dubbed version also had. In the sub version we see a young mewtwo growing up in the tank. Sharing a collective dream with the three starter pokémon and a young girl.  They are happy together and monster 150 learns about friendship. Something goes wrong and all the clones end up destabilizing/disintegrating including the little girl which taught Mewtwo about humanity. Her disappearing is accompanied with him crying.. the girl tells the ultimate pocket monster that he should not cry as she has to go and it can not be helped. However when a Pokémon sheds true heartfelt tears it is claimed to have some healing powers. We then see Mewtwo being picked up by Team Rocket and strapped to another machine.. alone.. his humanity fading away. While the second part is included as we start with Giovanni finding Mewtwo.. we see the evil part.. however the good part.. and the big reason why he has his change of heart are omitted and it is a worse movie because of it. 

However this movie knows it had to censor that important scene so they make their fair attempts to rectify this.  While Mewtwo is the 2 dimensional version of himself they use Mew’s dialogue as a reason to snap him awake more. Mew,although somewhat uncharacteristically , tells Mewtwo that true strength doesn’t come from the advanced techniques his clones have.. it comes from the heart.  This prompts Mewtwo to make his clones attack without using techniques or their special ability he will just win with their presence. This explains why the pokemon suddenly just try to slap each other and why they get so tired and hurt with it.. they don’t have the heart for it. It lifts up one of the weaker scenes in the original and it gives Mewtwo a makeshift redemption arc in the fact that due to seeing Pokémon truly care.. and their heart is more in stopping the fight and everyone siding with Ash that he can acknowledge their strength and stops thinking of himself as a superior. It isn’t as strong as feeling his heart again but at least it’s something.

Other than those changes not a lot has been altered, some lines are a bit different here and there. For some reason Jessie and James don’t show up as vikings anymore.. but now dress like sailors on a paddle boat, which was random.  The best joke from the movie is a alteration when Brock tries to seduce a girl with his “famous Jelly Filled Donuts” hinting at that dubismn and there have been some changes to the layout of the arena. Which makes much more sense the way it is now.  It’s all fairly minimal but I would say that this version has a lot more consistent world building. 

Did it Evolve? 

So is this movie a true evolution? Honestly?! Maybe… It fixed almost all the issues I had with the initial version but replaced them with some others. Storywise it’s a step up from the  dub, sound wise three steps up from the dub and visual.. well that depends on the person. So if I had to say if it is an evolution I’d say yes. However it isn’t a particularly useful evolution. It’s like your typical normal or bug type evolution. It helps your Pokédex out but you don’t really gain that much more from it otherwise.  It’s a more contemporary , cohesive and impactful version of the story. It looks weirder now and packs a bit more punch, but in the end it has the same moveset and really doesn’t add anything to your team. It’s nice that it’s there but the memories you made with the pokemon come from when it was unevolved. Back then it mattered.. right now..only for completing.

Since it is on Netflix I do feel it is the perfect medium to see such a movie, so I do recommend you take a peek at it. I really hope they will do something else with this visual style.. preferably a coliseum like game for the switch or so. For this movie it’s fine, I did not waste time watching it but I also gained little experience. It’s like using an old rod to get a Magikarp in order to train your level 60 Zapdos.  Sure it can be fun to blow the fish away and it offers even some experience, but if we put it in perspective it hardly seems to matter. It’s good with my favorite moment being the “death” scene by the great voice acting. Yet it is also very inconsequential.

XO
Pinkie

Pinkie is bad at Crafting Yet she got nominated for the Craft Lover Award?!

You deserve this award, take a chance! With these words the Craft Lover Award opens in its logo! Now other than crafting dinner or creating scissor based injuries while trying to craft something.. only to give up after I bled all over the cosplay I tried to make.. or the pokémon thingy I tried to make out of papers, I am not sure I actually do deserve a reward by this name! I love crafted things… but my motor skills are really bad for crafting! I took a chance and accepted the reard anyway! However it came with a few rules.

Selina’s very own Blog tag!

Selina from  the blog “Craft Lover” or Selina’s Craft World created this tag and it is in concept very similar to the Sunshine Blog Award or the Real Neat Blog Award. So here are the basics! As written on Selina’s site!

  • Put the Craft Lover Award logo on the top of your post.
  • Thank the person that nominated you.
  • Answer their 10 questions.
  • Nominate up to 10 more people.
  • Ask them 10 more questions.
  • Comment on their posts to let them know they got nominated for the CRAFT LOVER AWARD!!

Like always I will not be telling people they have been nominated for the reward in any comments as I prefer comment sections to be topical myself I instead will link to specific posts so people get a pingback instead.

Thank you to Selina for nominating me among the first  six people to participate in this. She deviates from her own rule in a way I actually find really inspiring and engaging so I will follow her example. Instead of 10 named nominations I will do six the other four spots will go to people commenting on the blog! It is a nice sentiment to create some extra community engagement I think.. making blog tags a bit more proactive. Very smart on your end Selina.

This is a crafty Selina rather than a crafting one.. but close enough!

Selina’s website is about crafts and inspiration. In the times of the virus you can find a lot of inspirational quotes, healthy smoothie recipes, and she even tells you how to get your kids some fingering practice, using a cardboard pipe and a screwdriver. Now as a musical, slightly spastic grey sexual single woman without the money to break my NEET status, I doubt I will need that craft any time soon but her words of wisdom are always welcome! Check out her blog and enjoy one of the cutest most innocent bloggers I have seen around the web!

Selina’s Questions

What is your favorite animal and why?

Ducks! I love ducks. The way they waddle, the way they sound and even the way they emote. A duck can make a great pet and a great friend. There is this awkwardness to a duck, or maybe rather a lack of elegance in a duck I really like. I like non-elegant pets such as sharpei dogs or any dog with piglike qualities, pigs and ducks! Just everything about a duck I find amazing.

Like the way their little feet go pat pat on the ground, their easy to clean droppings and the fact that you get an aquatic, land based and avian pet all in one!  The ducks also have a great theme song for the moon… but that is another story. A certain Dr Cannard also told me being nice to ducks is also great for your health.. but he was kinda a quack.

Ducky Goodness!

Which post of Selina’s is my favorite?

Not my favorite type of question. I feel social pressure to pick something the writer is really proud of. Some post I write mean more to me than others and if people would favorite others I feel kinda sad for that other post.
Posts have feelings to! So I will just tell you about some posts I really like.. maybe my favorite, maybe another posts asks me and I can tell .. that THAT one is my actualy favorite.

I really like Selina’s most recent featured Quote Pablo Picasso once said “Everything you imagine is Real” though he probably said it in spanish.  As a Dungeon Master this already really sits well with me.. but it is also something I live my life by. What if my plushies can actually hear me?! I imagine a personality for them, is that me coming up with it or is it actually picking up something from a realm unknown to us.. Maybe in some place that personality is real.. so I always try to treat them right. Same goes for posts on the web! They might cry if I am to mean!

Last time I answered this question is her post on a snow globe!  Since then she added a crafted penguin to the mix as well that really looks interesting.. because it’s kinda like a duck!  Unfort in the time of the virus there is no way I am going out to get me some feathers! So it will have to wait. For just a bit.. but I will let my readers find these posts on her blog herself.. just so they can see the other fun content she makes.

Did not make this just googled! I want that tablecoth though

What is your favorite Book

Pinkie is not that much of a book reader anymore. Between other people’s blogs, an ocassional manga and every piece of media I consume I find books the most bothersome to keep up with. I have very little space to keep physical books, I do not have the cash for an E-Book and while I enjoy a good story I rather enjoy 20 from you all on WordPress , along with two anime series. I loved books but I rarely find the time for it now. My taste in books is in fantasy/adventure and mystery novels and there is a sense of fatigue that can sneak into those. Mystery Novels, like the Dan Brown books tend to show repetition and along with the time I spend on a book compared to the time of a movie I just prefer to spend it elsewhere.

If I had to name a book  by name though it would be Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  I think I finished the entire book in two days. It has great character development, plenty of interesting set pieces and challenges and of course a very dark, somewhat twist ending. The entire Harry Potter book series is close to my heart still and as it stands with my feelings on big reading projects nowadays it is likely to linger in that top spot.

Who is your favorite blogger (apart from yourself) and why?

Do any of my split personalities like Princess Pinkie and Chibi Pinkie count? No! Well I guess I am going to have to gush a bit more about how amazing Irina is then. When I first saw her blog name “I Drink and Watch Anime” I was thinking, “Oh that might be someone who doesn’t take things to seriously she might be interesting to follow” Since then I have been proven both right and wrong in the most wonderful way.  Irina is both insightful as airy.

Her content has a level of rambliness yet also of great care for the subject matter, Irina writes for herself and I can imagine her laughing at her own jokes and that just shows in her blog. I can only half imagine the amazing person that is behind it and it is to connect with people like her that I restarted blogging. There are plenty of other blogs I deeply admire but in all honest Irina’s blog somehow is a fair bit ahead on the competition for me, so when asked for my favorite I can not lie or be PC and talk about someone else. Not sure why but it just connects with me.

Who do you look up to and why?

No one, this might seem sad but I feel that I have to find my own way. By creating idols I really want to be as I will do things that are not me. I feel very strongly about this sentiment ever since I was in a dire situation with my health. I wanted to be me. I bowed out the OWLS legacy post because I did not want to promote, following in someone else their footsteps! There are better people out there than me sure, smarter and even in positions I covet. Yet they aren’t me. There are some great and inspirational people in the world, but just because Bono helps the kids in Africa doesn’t mean we should. Just because all those YouTubers totally and really play Raid Shadow Legends, …. really.. they do?! 

Everybody lies is a quote from M.D.  Gregory House that I firmly believe in. We all pretend to be altruistic and noble but in reality we all do what feels right to us.  Who knows I might really want to help the children in africa.. If I struggle to pay my bills, I can’t help there either. Not being able to help , or aspiring to be a Hollywood actress I look up to , I set myself up for disappointment. So the person I want to be is me! Recently I have really started to look down on Gwyneth Paltrow though so there is that.

I really REALLY dislike her and these endavours! The show is terrible too!

When did you start blogging

I made some attempts before but Pinkie’s Paradise/Pokemon is the first thing that really took off. The blog started on the 16th of June 2019 but I started writing for it three days prior. It was a Thursday if I remember correctly.  Playstation Network and Fortnite had major issues that day! Which cause quite a ruckus. On this day the Pokémon Company also made it possible for mariages in Japan to include Pikachu’s to get married alongside you (not even joking here)

I really want to see the Pikachu tails to see if they did this right!

Wby did you start blogging

Around the time I started blogging my best friend was moving away, the other friends of the group are quite Hikikomori so I feared I would be left alone. I wanted to talk about stuff with a passion again, have fun with pokemon and anime stuff and find some amazing people to befriend so I would not feel as alone! I also am filled with so many stories and ideas that now I finally could let out! I wanted to do that on youtube at first..but my voice is to weak.. and the friend who would have helped was the one that moved away! This was my little place on the internet I can host myself.

Do you like blogging, If so why?!

No, I am actually being held against my will by a one eyed man named Osmandiyas, he has put a device around my heart called the imagination engine, in which he harvest the power of my creativity to power up his giant combiner robot named Stavros. If Stavros gets enough power it will take my brain and use it as the AI..which I guess isn’t A then. If I refuse the imagination engine however will crush my heart and I will only be able to produce lame memes.. and strive for Tiktok Stardom..send help.

Just kidding I do enjoy my blogging endavours just fine.. why? Because I can be the truest me I can be.. I can put my thoughts into code.. which shows letters to anyone who reads. Regardless how my health will fare, both mental as physical there will always be a place where I left a legacy.. where my thoughts are mine and mine alone. Unaltered by pressure or conformismn.. this is me.. and I enjoy being me…
(Osmandiyas made me say that…still send help!)

How are you feeling today?

At the moment of writing this my heart is being a bit troublesome , so I am going to need to lay down for a bit after I finish this. I also have a nagging headache and I am thinking I might get a discharge a bit later if things keep up. I slept poorly and kinda overate on lunch. Someone in my flat is playing their music very loud and it isn’t very good music and along with my headache that adds some annoyance to the mix.

I am however entertained while writing this post with a strangely explainable sense of euphoria, no I did not take any herbs or chems , somewhere deep inside I feel very happy and pink. Even though I kinda feel like some digimon poo otherwise. Having some fun talks on discord with some friends so all in all 6/10. Ask me in the comments how I feel when you read this though! I might be 10/10 then!

Did you help your family today?

No, I did not. I live by myself a fair while away from my family. I do not have a driver’s license and I have weak lungs..so I am to scared to visit them with public transport. My dad and I are on fairly cold terms with each others, with him this year not even having shown up on my birthday, nor letting himself be heard at christmas.

My only grandparents left, live even further away with grandpa not recognising me due to stage 4 dementia, grandma always being a bit wary around me due to my quick to flip over health. Mom and my sister are on fairly good terms but in lockdown all we do is call a bit, as we all are a bit loners by nature we phone about once a week. Sometimes twice, sometimes we skip a week.. so all I can help them with is staying healthy and staying me.. the person they love.. but I don’t count that one. Not a big family person! So here is the Whooves family!

Nominees and Questions

The Nominees

Like I said before I will follow Selina’s system of 6 people being hard nominated and the other 4 being those who want to comment. Both as an experiment and to make these tags a bit more engaging! Here we go first my nominations.

-Because I talked about her anyway, and since she is doing more quick tags due to all the time pressure let’s nominate Irina! Maybe if we all tag her and she gets a few easy posts she can actualy finish Kingdom Hearts.

Since I basicly have seem them do every tag and I want them to keep up with the full set of all tags out there.
A Geeky Gal
The Otaku Author
GeekGirlJoy

Since their names popped up in my head first when thinking of more people!
Inskime
Iniksbane

Questions

  1. What do you think about the new WordPress editor?! Pinkie has a lot of troubles with the new block editor how about you guys?
  2. If you were to describe yourself as a candy or cake (something sweet at least) what would you be?
  3. If you were to describe yourself as something mechanical what device would you be?
  4. What is your greatest weakness when it comes to blogging?
  5. Say you switch bodies with an anime (or other fiction source ) character, in which character would we never notice you switched places? (IOW pick an anime character that is like you , or you could easily pretend to be)
  6. What is a YouTube Channel you watch regularly?
  7. What does your latest whats-app message say.. out of context. (If personal info skip to the next unless you want to share)
  8. At what time in the day do you generally write your blogs
  9. Have you ever written for your blog while drunk?
  10. What do you see in this inkblobby thing?
I shall comment on your post with what I saw!

XO
Pinkie

Top 5: Pokémon I Forget Exist

Now I bet this is a list very little people are waiting for! The top five Pokémon I keep forgetting are a thing! So I bet for most of you this will be a list of “these are pokémon?” But I have been recently been replaying Pokémon Reborn and hunting for shinies. Thus I encounter many pokémon and since the game kind of starts handing you Never Used tier pokémon at the start, I encounter a lot of these. There are a few rules in this list such as one entry per evolution line.. because obviously if I forgot one stage exists I barely know the other as well.

Forgotten Pokémon Number 5: Buizel

This is the strangest case of a pokémon I keep forgetting about.  Each time I see the sea weasel pokémon or it’s evolution it barely registers with me. Even though I really like the design of a weasel with flotation devices. I recently caught a shiny one in Pokémon Reborn and I was like… oh yeah that’s a pokemon!. When it was first released in Pokémon go (and that’s not even that long ago) I had the same experience. There is something so forgettable to me about this pokémon that It faded away in relevance within months. Which isn’t even the weirdest thing.

Buizel and it’s evolution Floatzel formed a important part of my playthrough of Pokémon  Pearl. It was of my core squad members. I know it was there… but that is all I can remember about it.  I know I started with Piplup that I nicknamed Scottie Pippin, I also had a Shinx/Luxio/Luxray that I named Star Boy. Even though I already had a water pokémon I know Floatzel came with me… but I can’t remember what it did, where I caught it, what I nicknamed it. It definitely existed but still I have no memories of it. I actively used it and was charmed by it’s design so much I kept it even with type redundancy.. yet in my mind there is nothing.

This  is very uncharacteristic for me. I know what table at which restaurant I sat in 27 years ago, I knew what I ordered and where it was on the menu… and yet a Pokémon that I carried with me for an entire game… I think…. is one of the pokémon that keeps slipping my mind. Even the Floatzel I have in Reborn I like forgot the next day! Oh right I have a Floatzel now?!

Forgotten Pokémon Number 4: Chingling

Another Pokémon that Reborn remembered me it existed. I think the shiny one in reborn is the first one I ever bought catching. It’s evolution Chimecho outdated it but I didn’t even know that. I  have ONE memory of Chimecho and that is seeing it in the anime going Chim-Chow.. and I was like.. that’s how you say it?! And it’s not! It’s pronounced as Chime and Echo strung together… so why do I remember this?! I can’t even find the episode anymore?! It’s baby form.. even more forgettable. It’s one of those breed with incense things and since Gen IV was a loaned game to me.. I never got into finding them all.

Chingling is a bell with a ribbon and a psychic type. It’s only known feat to me is that it appears on both this list and the next pokémon top five I have planned. It’s pokédex entries are bland and even when evolved it knows little good combat moves. I have known zero people who used Chingling or Chimecho and I have watched Pokémon Free for all Roulettes for years now (where people battle with randomly rolled pokémon)  and I don’t think I ever saw a chingling or Chimecho there. I can recognise it when a picture is shown to me, but it one of the ones that fils me with the greatest doubt.

Forgotten Pokemon Number 3: The Spiky Eared Pichu

Now it might be a bit unfair to put a special event pokémon on here…but  I know all the other ones!? In fact if a pokémon is more unique and rare should we not be able to remember it more?! It’s even an event in my favorite pokémon game! So I would count among those mystical pokémon or movie releases and the likes but I know all of those. For this list I was scrolling true a list of all the types to make sure there aren’t pokémon I forget.. you know kinda needed for this type of list. When I passed this one I knew it had to be included.

I know all the cosplay forms of Pikachu, I know all it’s cap forms and in general I am fairly up to date with  the line but to hear there is a special form.. was new to me… though I remember knowing it before. Like when I saw “Spikey Haired Pikachu” I was like “THats a thing?” then when I read how you are supposed to take the Pikachu Coloured Pichu (which I do remember.. although vaguely.. on account of lame it’s name is) to Ilex shrine I was like… wait I do know this! I also remember that Pichu..except I don’t.

The Spikey Eared Pichu can not be traded outside Heart Gold Games (not sure if that is fixed now or not) It can not evolve and so it’s not really anything you can do anything with. It isn’t even that special looking. It just has three little spikes and can only be female.  I often wonder why all those special pikachu forms exist , however when I am confronted with this Pichu.. I only wonder.. did It really exist?

Forgotten Pokémon Number 2: Deerling

Now I am fairly alone on this but I do not mind if Pokémon are depicted as objects. People really hate Vanilluxe and Klefki  and I really like them myself. I think it is cute that monsters can also take on the shape of objects and it helps distinguish them. What I dislike more is pokémon that are “just a <blank>” with the exception of Wooloo.. man do I love Wooloo. But you know the kind.. pictures of animals and you wonder.. am I looking at a pokémon or at an actual animal. Examples are Finneon, Sentret, Herdier, Pidove and Deerling. 

Now Deerling can be Pink and Green but also a orange or brown depending on what season you catch it in. If you get a fall or winter deerling it’s kinda like Bambi with a Ribbon. It is the only pokémon I keep forgetting it’s typing off.. and it has a unique typing! Why did fire hit me super effectively?! Oh wait it is a grass type. Unless you catch the green spring form.. it doesn’t feel like a grass type and if I use the green form.. I keep forgetting it’s a normal type.

There is something so aggressively forgettable about this pokémon to me that I can’t even  remember it while I use it. While Sawsbuck makes an occasional appearance in Pokémon Showdown I keep thinking it’s like an alternate evolution for Skiddo for some reason (probably because  they use the green one). The fact that I forget one of the pokémon that can be pink is speaking volumes on how forgettable this is to me. Me not remembering a pink pokémon?! There aren’t even that many deer pokémon, with other than them just Stantler being there and Xerneas of course. It’s moveset is very similar to Gogoats and it arguably might be better because it gets a boost on Normal Attacks so it deserves some love. Unfortunatly by the time that I post this I probably will already have forgotten it.

Forgotten Pokémon Number 1: Glameow

In the entire pokémon library there is only one pokémon  whose name I keep forgetting. Whose existence is only know to me because I casually like the evolution..thinking it is the evolution to Purrloin. A Pokémon I very much loved until it began to stand up straight.  Glameow evolves into Purugly, which sounds like it could come from the third loveliest cat pokémon in the game. With some slight recolouring I think the evolution would be better than Liepard as well. Glameow however.. means nothing to me. 

It’like a diva cat with a springy tail. The springy tail have seen on spoink already, the diva behaviour works better on Snivy, Misdreavus even Kirlia and Gardevoir to an extent.  It feels a bit like the Gen IV’s rendition Spearow to Pidgey.. this feels like edgier counterpart to Bidoof. At least bidoof became a meme. I love my bidoof pokemon cards. I am not even sure if Glameow cards exist. It doesn’t help that they made it grey. I even tried to imagine it’s design after looking at it and I still remember it wrong. I remember it with make up in the face and facing the other way around.. so my retention span for this pokemon is less than 15 minutes.

Maybe it is because I am not a cat person, I really like using Normal types.. so that can’t be it! This is the only pokemon whose name I keep forgetting. I keep forgetting what generation it is from and I know nothing about it’s moveset. It’s pokedex entry tells us how it plans to hook it’s claws in it’s trainers nose if it isn’t fed.. but it hides these fantasies so it’s a meanie bo beanie as well! It’s also described that when it is happy it purrs. So even the pokédex doesn’t really know anything about it! It literally just does stuff a normal cat can! Oh it also stares at an enemy before clawing at it… just like a cat and it’s prey again.Which is kind of a relief.. I haven’t been mean to a pokémon.. just to a cat..but less real.

Honorable Mentions

Finneon and Lumineon are pokémon people easily forget but I really like them. Mostly for their cries because state wise they are quite forgettable indeed. I do love both their designs though and I feel like they are a welcome addition to the plentiful fish pokémon the game has.  Clamperl is another pokémon that is quite forgettable due to it only existing under water on diving spots, and the strange methods to evolve it.

Yet Clamperl with Shell Smash a move it legally learns has the potential to have one of the highest attack stats possible in the game, which makes it memorable at least. Gorebyss wears Ariels Bra and it has slightly become a meme for that and Huntail.. is an okay-ish pokémon! THat honestly could have made this list but he is something I just don’t actively remember than something I forget.

What are some pokémon you keep forgetting?! Did you remember the pokémon on my personal list?  I have a feeling lots of people will mention Audino..but I have a weak spot for that one. Let me know in the comments!
Audino might feature in the next top 5 next to chingling.. so maybe you can already take a guess what we will be talking about next time?! Impress me!

XO
Pinkie

The Story of Luma: My Online “D&D” Campaign ST6

Hello island guests! Fresh from my day off I come to you today with a very personal post! A story about the online tabletop RPG I have been hosting for well over a year now. A game we have since called ST6: The Curse of Mormo. A contemporary eldritch themed campaign with a lot of possibilities. Featuring a ruleset that allows to be the players to be everything they want. 

Dystopian Near Future

The campaign is set roughly 20 years in the future from the days of writing it.  Which took place in late 2018. The story is set in summer time 2038. So 19,5 years later to be exact. It tells a “What If” type scenario of Donald Trump closing down all the borders to ensure America’s economic self dependence and greatness. Britain was in the process of separating and followed suit. China then followed.. feeling demonized by the rest of the world. So around the times the British left the European Union the world went into lock-down. Borders were closed and people or goods had a hard time moving across one place or another. ( I managed to predict Trump buying greenland as well.. though in this scenario he bought Canada as well) 

The world now enter its greatest economic crisis in forever, known as the great sparseness.  While europe had some of the greatest irrigation techniques there are no cheap parts from china to make it going. While China had the biggest factories they had nowhere to ship it.
Nations became unable to sustain themselves without import and export. Luckily there was Elon Musk, who found a way to “tunnel” into other worlds using his Boring Company.  Wanting to save the world.. but unable to do so because of laws Elon Musk bought Hawaii and moved to it.. in order to be able to share his technologies with the entire world. He only produced five of these devices, because overuse could create rips in reality.

One he shared with Japan, placed in Tokyo,  people who decided to tunnel into worlds devoid of man. Worlds ruled by giant beasts who had no use for the resources that fueled mankind.  Great Britain got one as well, deciding to delve into worlds where mankind is fading, they delved into worlds where man was dying or had died of diseases and plagues.  Hidden deep inside the basements of Buckingham Palace. The European union got for themselves based in Paris, who rebuild the Bastille to keep it safe. They decided to tunnel into primitive worlds, who lacked technology therefore would not miss critical components to it.  One was shared with America, who took a different approach to the rest of the world. Where all the other groups decided to cause minimal harm to the worlds they stole from.. Trump decided to focus on blossoming worlds, with technology more advanced than theirs so America would grow faster than the rest of the world..at the cost of some unworthy ones.

Elon gave some very specific rules on how much these devices could be used, but Trump did not listen. In response other world leaders followed suit. Reality began to tear open. Causing breaching between worlds. Not only trade goods crossed over, all over the world portals began to pop up.. one ways streets, trapping people from other worlds in this one.
Overpopulation skyrocketed and Elon’s devices worked over hours! Yet could not keep up. At this time mysterious dark portals began to appear.. breaches that seemed more irregular and did not seem to spawn creatures yet. To small for that. World Leaders began to act strange.. and took some extreme measures in keeping their people well fed. 

The Fall of Order

 Around 2035 the great cullings began, population control in the newly formed nations. Britain began organising their version of the Hunger Games an annual day where all crime was allowed. Those who would cull would even receive rewards from their government. This was called the great Fox Hunt. In the first hunt King William fell leaving the throne to his wife, Queen Kate. She commanded the country now known as Neo Britannia. Europe united and formed one great nation under one ruler, Emmanuel Macron. Being the most tolerant to breachers, they took a no nonsense issue to crime. Even for the silliest crimes one could be sentenced to death. 

Japan was the only that did not do any culling however it formed a pact. China which was collapsing needed help so a deal was made. Japan would release some of the breached giant creatures upon their lands, after which North Korea would respond with nuclear strikes.. to safeguard their important cities. A fake  justification to decimate the majority of china, only it’s coastal regions left intact. Ever since they formed a new nation known as the three dragons. Toshi-no-miya Aiko Naishinnō would be called their empress but she was heavily influenced by the other leaders.. and her spokeswoman. Trump reformed America into a big corporation, prior to these events.. so he could maintain his rule, not as it’s president but as it’s CEO. During the crisis he began putting just about  every breacher he found into labour camps, those who would not be productive enough would be “fired” ..which he began taking more and more literally as time moved along. Later this began to expand to non breachers as well. Creating Super Soldiers using technology he stole from other worlds Trump ruled with a quite real Iron Hand.

He is more grey, but I haven’t made that edit yet!

The Arrival of Luma

The campaigns story  begins in Amsterdam, which has become a haven for those who are different.  All players, play a breacher from worlds they invent or reinvent, that have either been cast out, managed to flee or somehow hope to regroup in Amsterdam, finding allies and like minded sprites during their Breach Pride parade. Yet a series of vicious attacks is leaving people behind dead. Emptied to death.. left as only a pile of skin and clothes. A larger dark breach has opened and a creature emerged for it. Known as “The Drinker” this creature seems to select it’s targets very randomly, a call goes out to all those able to fied to bring down this mysterious foe. The starting group of players all are connected to this mission in some way, shape or form when  a young elf named M’yr’Lissa.. or Lissa and her boyfriend the nerdy whining Davion find out they have been attacked in a candy store!

Lissa’s Earliest Looks

In this store the group finds an infant girl, with tentacles on her head, bat wings on her head and colossal powers named Luma. Her powers unlike anything the group has ever seen. She unbeknownst to the players is an accidental spawn of an Eldritch being named Mormo. The only Eldritch born in mortal realms, from a mortal body. Deemed to dangerous to be left alone, but to innocent to be killed , nor would they have the power if she angers, the party decides to look for her parent. A hooker from the Red Light district who found her egg. It turns out that this hooker was the first victim of the drinker.  A series of incidents occurs, which leads to the drinker killing Davion, as well as the pub owner where the group take refuge. It quickly becomes clear to the group the Drinker is after this mysterious little girl, that is insanely powerful.

Luma

Enslavement

As the group investigates further it seems this creature has some relation to the drug culture in Amsterdam. The vampire of the group Desdemona A Remington tries to drink it’s blood in one of their earliest encounters and goes insane.. seeing visions of in how much pain the creature is. Their mind links and she discovers this creature was sent to kill Luma for she has the power to eat and thus close the dark breaches forming around the world. If Mormo  however can get six particular souls sacrifice, she can open a breach large enough to breach into this world and consume it. Thus the group now has to raise and protect this Eldritch Baby, which is extremely volatile in order to save the world from it’s end.

The Drinker seems to sleep in a lake where some druids are growing weed underwater. Not touched by oxygen at all this weed creatures an even more powerful high and is very popular in amsterdam. Grown by the Cult of the 5 pronged leaf. Crime in this city is run by a man named Lord Brahm a former loyal turned crimelord after working with plenty of them. Having gained incredible insights on crime he gets away with just about everything. After the drinker is slain the group decides to take out Lord Brahm and the Cult of the Five Pronged leaf, as a large breach opens in their camp. A large Eldritch creature tries to show up… summoned here by Lord Brahm to cause havoc during the Breacher Pride Parade. The creature gets nicknamed the Puppeteer and is also known as Horseman Number 5: Enslavement.

The puppeteer, also know as Horseman 5: Enslavement

The group fights off the creature long enough for Luma to gather her energy and blast it back in it’s portal. After which she proceeds to eat this portal. It is revealed that 5 more of these portals exist and if all the big ones are closed the small ones will as well. However eating the smaller ones will make Luma..and the group stronger.. as they since have gained the ability to take on some of the energy of the dark portals.  Now the group has to decide on the best course of action. Save the world as fast as possible..but eating the bigger portals might kill Luma or get her strong enough to stand a fighting chance. It is up to them to decide. Because they are sealing the breaches, they decide to name themselves Seal Team Six (as there were six at the time)

The ST6 Logo

Lord Brahm and the Council of Mormo

A chi’qen  (the player is just a chicken from another world )  bard takes a shine to Luma and adapts her as his daughter.  Not wanting to risk her saftey he convinces the group to go after Lord Brahm to keep Amsterdam safe and eliminate those who want Luma dead. Perhaps in his house they can find clues.. When they arrive their however it is shown that his house is no longer there. It vanished, but dark energies surround the premiss. If the group takes Luma along, they can enter the plains of R’lyeh where this house now resides, all it’s residents being twisted more and more as even the house itself is being twisted.  The group decides to go in for a stealth mission, but their human viking barbarian Allan Borg, ruins it for them. Causing a riot that get Luma injured.

Lord Brahm

This inspires the Chi’qen to develop more into a healer, learning a spell from the five pronged leaf druids called Magic Mahealuana. It also means that the associates of Lord Brahm flee before fully revealing themselves. They discover that Lord Brahm recently had a wife named Nienke, still a lawyer who was pregnant with his daughter. A painting on the wall began to show a tiny tear.. and began whispering to him..turning into the depiction of a pale tentacle haired woman.. Brahm fell in love with. This woman named Mormo spoke to him.. telling him she needed a vessel to walk this earth until she could hold him in his own arms. He along with five others would work on bringing her body to the real world. He sacrificed his wife.. to give Mormo a body! All that had to happen was six sacrifices to be made.The Child, The Father, The Predator, The Knight of Death, The Animal and the Queen. Since the group consisted out of Luma, her adoptive father, a vampire, a axe wielding death dealer, a trickster kitsune and a water elemental queen at the time.. the group deduced this prophecy was about them.

Queen Mormo

In their first major dungeon the group could reconstruct some of Brahms memories as his house and memories became linked in this plane. Trough seeing his memories they saw a man playing a piano with nienke sitting on his lap hiding his face. But the others joining Brahm where Trump, Macron, Empress Toshi and  Queen Kate. Their ways to cull the population, only a ruse to seek for the sacrifices to release Mormo. Proceeding further into the Dungeon the group finally faced Lord Brahm and finally slaying him. Upon his final breath he uttered an apology to his wife. “I’m Sorry Nienke.. I was deceived… I am sorry Luma.. that you have never been born”
After his death, his plain on r’lyeh collapsed sending the group back to Amsterdam.

The council of Mormo before I made animatedd renditions

Aragorn and Dr Light

The group now knew who they had to take down, four world leaders while discovering the identity of the Piano man. Yet they would not be able to enter London without a proper vehicle. Searching through their former base they discovered that the tavern owner used to be a Valkyrie , she was a breacher who hid who she really was and took on the guise of Tante Roosje “pub owner” .. using this ring the group could summon the mystical carriage Aragorn, which would change shape. It began for them.. as a Mitsubishi Chariot which they could summon by whistling a fitting melody. However this car would only get them so far. A mysterious mailman from a desolate world shows up at their place of residence asking for a mysterious parcel the water elemental had on her. In this world she took on the job of being a delivery person to make some cash but due to being bad with technology she lost where this package was supposed to go.

Johnathan Douglas, The Sevent Courier of New Vegas

Containing an item this mailman named Johnathan Douglas had wanted another item and a letter led them to the trail of it’s sender, claiming they were fighting for London’s safety the sender talked about a way of getting into London.  Telling his base was hidden in Amsterdam’s Madame Tussauds the group decided to visit the museum. At the desk they were greeted by a little mushroom man, which they tricked into letting them into the museum for free. Which would end up getting him fired and later on meeting the group again. Underneath a box where the wax figure of Albert Einstein sat on the group found a stairs into the secret lab of Dr Light. A scientist who has discovered the truth on his own.. and has partnered up with Dr Wiley to take down Queen Kate before she can cause mayhem at the great hunt. However Dr Light reveals that Dr Wiley has since flipped sides for mysterious reasons! He is now developing killer robots for Kate so she can cause greater bloodshed during the Great Fox Hunt that is just 10 days away.

Luckily Dr Light had developed two items to stop his now rival. Rush the robotic dog can  modify any car and give it the ability to fly for a “short” distance as well as the DNA Sync Software he made for his own robot Rock. However Rock is unfinished. Using the Water Elemental however he should be able to adapt it into a device people can wear. If they have been exposed to breach  energy they should be able to copy parts of one’s genetic make-up that allow people to use the ability of other “enhanced”. Dr Light believes that his group of resistance fighters, can take down the three supporters of the queen that will turn the next Fox Hunt into a Blood Bath.. and so the party ventured to London.. to the mansion of one of their allies! Vampire Hunter Joseph Joestar. 

And this is a story for next time!

XO
Pinkie

Pinkie’s Guilty Movie Pleasures: Face/Off

Overacting is a cinema sin that is one of the most beloved movie mishaps out there.  There is something fascinating by grown up man and women that we can see as actual people, acting like cartoon characters. Nicolas “Not the Bees” Cage is one well known for his zany madman acting. John “Battlefield Earth” Travolta is another one of those actors who plays his characters as if they are anime characters. When you take their face *flourish and dramatic pause*  off and put it on each others.. we get some seriously delicious ham.

Woo are you

Some movies are all about great dialogue, clever , insightful, thought provoking. Movies like those made by Quentin Tarantino.  Some are all about a great story, some about great characters. The Ang Lee’s and Steven Spielbergs amongst us. Others hope to just entertain us trough great songs,  cute stuff or badass action. However it’s rare when a movies main selling point is the actors, being their utter and complete self. We have the Expandables and possibly Machette can be marked for this one, but no movie has been completely like this.. this feels next level.

John Woo made this 1997 movie in such a way it could not have been made for anyone else. It feels like this movie was made for Cage and Travolta..also in their specific parts. It feels as if they are cast for their oddities rather than their acting prowess and in doing so.. it becomes something truly unique.

John Woo has an excellent eye for action cinematography.. even though he really loves to use birds in them, as some weird signature, that again blends so well with these actors and this cheesy story. It feels like the combiner robot made of the most incompatible parts that somehow come together in a mecha that can kick Burning Gundam and Gurren Lagann’s ass. John Woo is an alchemist who turned lead into gold… golden cheese. That kind of his his thing.

Bulletproof Monk, Mission Impossible 2, Hard Target and Broken Arrow are some of the other movies in his repertoire and all these movies show that same signature. If you’d review them you’d give them a poor score but when your watching them you are just having a dopey grin on your face. An alchemist I’ll tell you.

Face Swap

So long before we had apps to swap faces John Woo decided he was hungry for some cheese again and all he had was a mediocre script. His lead! A movie about a cop named Sean Archer who loses his son to the terrorist Castor Troy. He turns into the stereotypical 90’s badass action cop who lost it all and now can only think of revenge. How do you make this interesting?  Well let the terrorist be played by Nicolas Cage, who hides a bomb some sort of convention center thing of sorts. How about we open up with him dressing up like a priest to make sure he can walk around without too much suspicion while a choir is singing Hallelujah! Let’s let him totally rock out to that music, while smoking and let him off key sing along while he gropes a nun while he makes his eyes pop out of his head!

Is that interesting enough for you yet? No! How about a plot where John Travolta gets Nicolas Cage face.. because only Castor’s brother Pollux and Castor himself know where the bomb is?! Because Castor is totally in a Coma… but he wakes up early.. and then forces the medical staff to put John Travolta’s face on him?! Good I thought that would get you.
So now we get Nicolas Cage’s overacting on steroids because he plays overacting actor John Travolta, playing overacting actor Nicolas Cage. I know these characters has names..but this feels more like some odd and delightful social experiment that is about overacting three times over and my Arceus do I love it.

But look at me getting all ahead of myself skipping over some important plot. After seeing Nicolas Cage rock out to songs of the lord we see him boarding a plane before his nuke thingy goes off. He has a private jet for some reason including some floozy who he makes a makes a lot of butt allegories to. It turns out she is an undercover agent working for Sean Archer as Sean and his team invade the airfield to make  the arrest. Castor kills the lady and shrugs with a face that somehow looks as if it was drawn onto him.. during that fifth episode of Dragon Ball Super… inhumane. Sean chases Castor’s plane with a helicopter..causing to drive into a hanger.. including more fireworks than an american fourth of July. 

With a scene that feels as if it was the grand finale of the movie already.. in how over the top it is. Castor gets knocked into a fence by a plane engine and slips into a coma. Only after that Sean discovers Castor has left a bomb..and now the only person who is awake to know.. won’t cooperate…so time to slice Castors Face *Flourish and dramatic pause* off… and put it on Sean.. so he can convince his henchmen to give up the location.

No Face, No Limits

This is just the Set-up for the movie and we aren’t even done with that yet. During the airplane scene Nicolas Cage acts so insane…I genuinely feel we are looking at a madman here! Asking to be executed, singing.. while also acting like he is scared… all at the SAME time. At this time he is still playing just Castor.. so playing himself in a way.  Of course the top medical research facility that does these kind of prints.. has no security at all next to a comatose terrorist that is one of the most dangerous men of all time.. so it is easy for him to get the surgery done to him?! How?! Because there is an open phone line in his unguarded room he calls some henchmen with. So once again this movie shows us it’s not about the journey.. it’s about how cool anything looks and how hammy you can make it.

Seriously there is more ham in this movie then there is in Germany during Oktoberfest. Normally you have a director telling you to tone it down a little.. those words were NEVER stated during this movie.  Nicolas Cage .. now Sean, gets send to some sort of sci fi prison with magnet boots and cattle prods , advance tracking systems and what not. Here we get the most briljant scene of all. Nicolas Cage pretending to smile as his crazy zelf. Standing Ovation Right there! John Travolta is possibly even more fun. You see Nicolas cage has to pretend being nicolas cage.. John Travolta is in a position where he can both pretend to be him…OR Nicolas Cage. It’s like watching two chinese people play pingpong! It flips so forth so fast you lose track..but it sure looks fascinating

After that point the movie takes some ridiculous plot twists that leave Sean to fend for himself and Castor getting a bomb again. More helicopters, gunfights explosions.. and possibly the best sequence in the movie, Nicolas Cage, playing a Drugged up Sean Archer, pretending to be Castor Troy.. talking about capturing fake Archer and taking his face *flourish and dramatic pause* off. There has been a reason I have been writing it like this. This scene is amazing!

If people remember that family guy episode where Peter loves when a movie title is said in the movie.. than this would be a joyride. It’s so insanely overacted so in your face/off out there that you can’t help to chuckle. I wouldn’t even call it acting anymore… this is something else like the Super Saiyan 3 of acting. We shall call it Cavolta’ing ..or maybe Travolcaging.

Face it, it’s awesome!

Now of course just overacting alone would not be enough! The same tone is taken to the action scenes, from the epic conclusion scene in the first minutes to the epic conclusion in the end .. all the action movies feel completely over the top. The Scarface Mansion shootout wasn’t over the top enough.. so let’s try to do that in full slowmo .. while a children’s lullaby is playing as Sean tries to save Castor’s son from being killed by Travolta and his Swat Team that somehow try to shoot a kid… even though they are cops.

How about an extremely explosive shootout in a church while white doves fly about.. to symbolise Castor’s god complex. Shooting scene where both have to shoot their reflection in a mirror which also symbolises their foes. Or a high speed chase with speedboats.. going through other boats which violently explode on contact. It’s all there!

When I say symbolism I mean it is about as deep as that children’s toy where you have to  clean your toys in a bin by putting the ball through the ball shaped hole and the triangle through the triangle shaped hole.. and the square. in the square.. but there definitely is symbolism. It might be cheesier than a swiss fondue but it fits the movie so well yet again.
Start to finish, scene by scene, it feels like everyone on the set was over-compensating in their field. Pyrotechnics.. over the top.. analogies ..over the top… Travolcaging…WOW! It might not be a good movie when we look at it objectively..but when it comes to enjoyment .. this is a hard one to face *flourish and dramatic pause*  off against.

XO
Pinkie