The Song at the End of Kamen Rider Ryuki 33

September 17th, 2012

So I’ve been marathoning older Kamen Rider shows to help me fall asleep. (Not that they’re boring, but I’ll talk more about that another time.) And as I watched episode 33 of Ryuki, I was on the verge of dozing off until I got to the end of the episode.

Without ruining it for anyone who’s never seen the show, the end of this episode has a deliciously over-dramatic slow motion sequence backed by an amazing instrumental song. Folding laundry has never been so hype. But I also knew I’d heard that song somewhere before, so I was suddenly wide awake and searching the web to figure out what it was.

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No Fate But What Cell Makes

May 12th, 2012

Time travel and deadly robots are both common sci-fi cliches. So it’s probably no surprise that both of them are used heavily in the Terminator franchise, and in the Cell arc of Dragon Ball. But I believe the similarities between these two series go beyond mere coincidence.

In explaining these similarities, I’ll obviously have to spoil major plot points from both series. So, be warned, if that’s actually a concern to anyone. But note that I’ll only be referencing the first two Terminator movies, since everything else was produced long after Dragon Ball ended.

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Audio Foolishness

April 5th, 2012

As you may have noticed, I like talking to myself about TV shows. I like using my blog as an outlet for that sort of thing, because my friends, social networks, and IRC aren’t all interested in all the same things I am. (I don’t think there’s anyone on the planet who shares all the same interests as me.) Also, I hate spoilers, and I don’t want to risk spoiling things for other people without the ability to warn first. And I rarely watch anything within 24 hours of its airing, so it’s odd to try striking up conversations about things that aired days, weeks, or even months ago.

But anyway. My TV rambles have always been more talking than writing, so I’ve been wanting to try doing it in audio form for a while. But I couldn’t really use my microphone until recently. And on a whim I decided to try it out in late February, rather than waiting until summer. So rather than typing up unordered lists for each episode, I recorded myself saying sentences. It’s still just as disjointed, but with brief silence instead of bullet points for separation. And I ended up doing stuff for January, February, and March episodes, so I’m not gonna bother listing every show before the cut. Also, there are no text spoilers, but there are tons of them in the audio files.

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To Weeaboo Or Not To Weeaboo

January 6th, 2012

Over the past year or so, I’ve seen lots of comments about translation practices, mostly in regard to Japanese to English. Some people favor heavy localization, while others prefer to be so literal that they leave many words untranslated. In essence, I think both viewpoints get too extreme. Too much localization can result in loss, while being too literal can make things confusing. It’s all made me do a lot of thinking about my own translation practices, too. I think there’s a healthy middle ground, and that’s something I aim to show. (Whether or not I’ll succeed, who knows.)

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Super TV Thoughts: Babies, Santa, and Abraham Lincoln

January 5th, 2012

Since every show took some sort of holiday break, I decided to wait and throw November and December thoughts into one giant post. But the problem is I have no short term memory, so I’ve had to Google to figure out what the context was for a lot of my notes. Also, I can barely read my own handwriting (“armstrong kick” looked like “armstrong lock” and confused me for a minute). So at the very least this has been very interesting for me to type up, but I can’t guarantee you will enjoy it as much as I have.

Anyway, many many sentences this time. There are thoughts on November/December episodes of Kaizoku Sentai Goukaiger, Kamen Rider Fourze, Pocket Monsters: Best Wishes, and Chuck; the mid-season finales of 90210, CSI: Cheers, Young Justice, and Star Wars: The Clone Wars; the season finale of South Park; the something finale of ThunderCats; and the series finale of Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Everything is a spoiler for everything, and you can use the anchor links to hop around between shows.

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Who Watches This Crap?

November 29th, 2011

Before I get to the actual subject, let me just say that I’m not trying to sell you on anything or change your mind. I’m only trying to explain my own reasons and maybe clear up some misinformation. In other words, this is meant to be informative rather than persuasive. And I feel the need to give this little warning up front because the subject in question is one of the most polarizing forms of entertainment in existence. So much so that non-fans probably would have stopped reading by now, which would be unfortunate considering that’s my target audience in writing this.

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Super TV Thoughts: Democracy, Musicals, and Emilio Estevez

November 3rd, 2011

So much TV, so many sentences, so little else. This time, the subjects are the season premiere of Chuck; the mid-season premiere of South Park; and October episodes of Kaizoku Sentai Goukaiger, Kamen Rider Fourze, 90210, CSI: Cheers, Pocket Monsters: Best Wishes, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Young Justice, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and ThunderCats. Lots of stuff and such, including thousands of spoilers, so watch out, and use the anchor links to help avoid stuff.

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Super TV Thoughts: September 2011

October 11th, 2011

Fall TV begins, and so does my desire to shoot words about it at the internet. I’ve combined both of my ramble formats into some strange concoction of mixed-tense sentence fragments, sprinkled with some profanity for the most natural flavor. Thus, you’ll find words about the season premieres of 90210, CSI: Cheers, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Young Justice, and Star Wars: The Clone Wars; the series premiere of Kamen Rider Fourze; and the September episodes of Kaizoku Sentai Goukaiger and Pocket Monsters: Best Wishes. So a mix of new and old subjects, and of course lots and lots of spoilers, so be careful.

This isn’t exactly the new format I wanted to try, because computer problems ruined my plans. But I kind of like this one, so maybe I won’t bother to try that anyway.

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South Park Season 15, Episodes 1 to 7

August 12th, 2011

This should have been done two months ago, but I missed a scene in “City Sushi,” so I had to wait 30 days for it to be re-added to the official site. Then another month passed before I watched it again because… I don’t know. But anyway, these were some South Park episodes, and below are my scattered, mixed-tense little thoughts on them. There are many spoilers, as usual.

There is a chance that this will be the last post of this type, but that depends on how well my experiment goes.

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Buffy Seasons Eight and Nine Thoughts

June 22nd, 2011

I was waiting to get every issue of the final arc so I could marathon the whole thing at once. But in typical me fashion, I forgot about it until the other day, when I got an email titled, “Buffy Season Nine #1 now available for pre-order.” I realized I needed to finish Season Eight so I could figure out what the story was with Season Nine. (IE, is Whedon involved, or is it gonna be bad fanfiction like Angel: Aftermath?)

And after the previous arc, I assumed I’d want to write some kind of ramble or review for issues #36-40. But I’m not going to do that. All I really have to say is, “Well, that was pretty good. They salvaged that craziness into something cool after all.” Instead, I’m going to talk about all these new (to me) franchise comic developments. There will be a few spoilers, in case you’re actually further behind than I am.

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