Samurai Equine

Hello there, my crowd! Welcome to my Weekly Musings: Red Edition. 

[I ❤ JAPAN] -- [I ❤ THE COLOR RED] -- [I ❤ CELESTIA]

 Welcome everybody to my weekly musings! What is this, you may ask? Allow me to explain! Expect a long read, my crowd. (Also, I am thinking of moving this to LiveJournal since the forum was really glitchy lately.)
Back on DeviantArt.com, I would always post a new Journal at the end of a Sunday night to go over how my week has gone. I start off up here with a random thought, the middle is filled with bullet points of stuff that happened over the week, the bottom ends with a random word of wisdom, and I leave you with something I found on YouTube. This week is the RED EDITION, meaning I leave with a song or piece of music. Next week will be the ORANGE EDITION, meaning I'll leave you with an interesting video. And it'll keep alternating each week like that. DeviantArt.com has made it nearly impossible to format the journals the way I liked so I'm doing it here instead, but if you're interested, you can read tons of old journals at my account: CLICK HERE!

 We start off by talking about the biggest thing that happened to me or my family this week. The biggest thing is: I went to see a doctor about a pain in my side that I've had off an on for a few years now. I am on medicine for it, and it seems to mostly be doing a good job. However, I'll be going to get an actual scan and some blood work on Friday, the 18th, to make sure the medicine is actually doing what it needs to do. Then I'll have a follow-up visit to my actual doctor on the 25th.  It's a lot of work, but don't be worried about me, my crowd. So far, things seem to be going okay.

 Next off, I normally talk about movies I've seen each week. Right now is not a good time for that, unfortunately. (Don't worry, I have a huge list of movies to see.) I'm busy catching up on an old Tokusatsu TV show, Kamen Rider Decade. I'm about half-way done with the show, give or take. But I will gradually share my thoughts. I also have some other things to catch up to, but I should start clearing up some time when I finish with Decade. For now, I am compiling a list of TV shows I have either completely missed and NEED to see, or shows that I temporarily stopped watching. Let's see what I have here... Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Netflix Transformers, Ducktales reboot, Gravity Falls, Pony Life... There's probably more I need to add to my list.

 Speaking of Decade, I want to talk about what I think of some of the Alternate Reality worlds he travels to. They are suppose to represent the old TV shows that came before, but how good of a representation are they? They change some things because that's how mutliverse works, but were they good or bad changes? Round 1, the first 4 worlds:

• KUUGA'S WORLD. A.R. Kuuga is surprisingly similar to the original Kamen Rider Kuuga show. Sure, they gender-bent his cop friend, and they gave him a new ultimate super villain (Decade is famous for making new monsters that would fit-in with the old shows, I call them Decade-Exclusives). However, the spirit of the show is mostly there. You can say what you want about how Kuuga's actor was recast and how he was told to play the role, but for the most part, this representation is just fine. None of the changes are big enough to say otherwise. ✔️
• KIVA'S WORLD: They tried, but this world really makes too many creative changes, even for an alternate reality. I'm okay with Wataru being a kid and most other things, but they ultimately ruined his reason for avoiding humans, and they utterly destroyed his relationship with his father for a cheap, over-done trope. The bonds of family was a major theme in the original show, and they did NOT do a good job representing that here. X
• RYUKI'S WOLD: This one is hard because it doesn't really touch on the main themes of the original show at all. Instead, it replaces the battle-royale, Highlander-esque setting of the original show with some kind of weird legal drama that involves fighting. It's kind of sad. But outside of that one glaring difference, everything else would be perfectly fine. Still, if I was a kid and saw this first, I think I would get the wrong idea about the actual Kamen Rider Ryuki TV show, so I have to say it fails. X
• BLADE'S WORLD: I REALLY wanted to give this my approval, but I just couldn't. The episodes focus on super heroes that work for a company, but in the original TV show, the company "BOARD" was kind of an afterthought. They give away too many plot details from the original show to the point of spoilers, and retconned other details, making things completely inaccurate. Once again, another failure. X

YIKES!  Not looking good for Decade so far, but there are still 5 more A.R. worlds to visit, and some bonus worlds too! I'll try to watch more episodes this week. Hopefully next week, I can get to Round 2 and cover the next 5.

 Next, let's talk about random news. I got some new elastic laces for my shoes (they're black laces). I also got a new USB thumb drive too. Thankfully, there's no negative news to report about my family. Not much to report on any pop culture stuff that I keep up with, like Sonic the Hedgehog or Doctor Who or whatever. I am thinking of starting a new blog to help keep notes on Tokusatsu Fansubs and Official Releases. It will have links, where to buy, who you should avoid at all costs, etc. I wanted to make a podcast about it, but there's just so much information to keep up with, I may have to rely on something text-based instead. That's it for now. For the next few bullet points, I am going to talk about shows I am currently watching and keeping up with... WARNING! SPOILERS!!!

 Transformers Cyberverse 324: War is Building!  After seeing how useless the last episode was, this one more than makes up for it with its two story lines. We’re down to the last two shards of Windblade’s soul, and one of them resides in an angry titan at the bottom of the sea. The other resides in Megatron’s matrix of leadership. Speaking of, Prime has been given the mission to destroy it. Seems they really are diving into prime lore after all, and Maccadam is a prime also! Nice.

 Saber 01: Cutting Right to the Chase!  A new Kamen Rider TV show begins yet again. It's 2020 and the annual tradition carries on! That episode was a HUGE cluster of events all at once. I feel like I need to watch it more than once just to absorb all the subs, but I got the gist of it on the first viewing. Just as the trailer showed, this year’s Rider is going to be very CGI-heavy. I wonder how long they’ll keep that up. I do get tired of it after a while. Tokusatsu should focus on practical effects more. I like that the main hero is joyfully quirky, probably related to his previous life somehow. He’s like a jolly version of Tsukasa/Kamen Rider Decade. I am sure the show will explain what is going on in better detail as it unfolds. As for the arguments I’ve been seeing online, I can see why people think the ED theme should be the OP theme instead. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a theme song that actually calls the Rider by name! Regardless, I’m just glad we have it at all. Most of the time, Kamen Rider doesn’t have ED themes.

 Kiramager 22: A Setting Moonstone!  All’s well that ends well for this story arc. It’s good to see that Silver has taken on a full-fledged hero role because of Mabusheena. I think he finally feels like a complete, fully fleshed-out character. I just hope they don’t regress him back to his old habits in future episodes. It was great seeing the new robo. King Express Zabyun is way better than the first King Express. The head is better, and the body isn’t this distracting black & white two-tone. And now I look forward to seeing how messing with the past changes the present! And unlike what is happening in Kamen Rider, this show is a PERFECT example of how to use CGI correctly. Sure, there was a big amount along with dynamic camera angles that could give you motion sickness. But it doesn't sacrifice practical effects to make it happen! Instead, it enhances the practical effects, makes a fight scene look WAY more intense, and makes the giant monster look like he's actually destroying the city while our heroes helplessly watch for a while. It's like I always say, if one of these shows isn't doing it for you, the other most likely will.

 And to finish off these musings, I usually end with any important or unimportant final thoughts. I don't have any important news right now, but I did have a weird dream lately. I dreamed about an anime, of all things! I'll save some of the more complicated details and try to summarize things in simple terms. There is a shy high school boy who has the power to alter reality, but only on a small scale (little objects and stuff). He doesn't want the power to go to his head (think of Mob from Mob Psycho 100), he just wants to live a normal life, and also it physically hurts him to try and change reality on a wide scale (the entire world/universe). He attracts different friends, friendly rivals, and women for various different reasons. He also attracts a few enemies with super powers. The final boss has a power very similar to him, but the main character is able to beat him by sharing his powers with his friends. Doing that unlocks the full length of his powers without feeling any of the physical pain. Yay friendship!

That's all for now, my crowd.  Take care, and remember, life is what you make of it.

And now for the music! Recently, someone reached out to the makers of the Sonic OVA. On top of unearthing the long lost full version of "Look Alike", the OVA's theme song, they also managed to get a BGM soundtrack! Granted, it's not the one that was actually used in the OVA. This is more like a placeholder soundtrack for the final draft of music that was used in the OVA. Still, it's better than nothing! And wow, does it have some nice gems. Here's "Sonic the Hedgehog OVA OST - Official Soundtrack ~Production Demo Recording~" uploaded by Mefiresu.