Samurai Equine

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

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

   Feel free to leave a song request. Your song will eventually be featured in a future Weekly Musings entry!   

Here we are again, my crowd. Care for a cookie or a piece of fruit?  Being healthy and occasionally treating yourself are both equally valid.

 The biggest thing that happened for me was the release of a new episode of Elements of Justice!  So good, but at the same time, really made me want more. It was like a prologue to the real story. But I have hope that if they released this much, the next part won't be long behind.

 My uncle gave me a nearly impossible mission.  He wants me to hunt down to full version of the original Twilight Zone theme song, and then he wants me to splice in the opening narration. There are SO many factors working against me on this that I'm not sure I'll be able to deliver. However, my secret art project is coming along smoothly. It should have been done much faster, but that's a different story for another time. Also, I guess I should mention Gilbert Gottfried passing away? I'm a little late to this.

 Speaking of watching things... I saw the trailer for the new Thor movie. Adult Swim has been posting a lot of new Aqua Teen Hunger Force shorts lately, and they are wonderful. Apparently, The Batman is all ready out on Digital.  ...I may need to see that next week. Maybe do a double feature somehow?

 It was delayed for some reason, but I saw the newest episode of MLPTYT, The Unboxing of Izzy.  Admittedly, this might be the weakest of all the episodes so far. Sunny forgot how the unicorn trap boxes work, Hitch forgot the emergency release until the end of the episode, and Izzy... Can she teleport? It would be so easy to go get out if she could. I know that most fans have agreed that teleportation is a more advanced level of magic, but Izzy just levitated an entire metal box for the better half of a day. I think she might be powerful enough for a teleportation spell, if she knows it. Still, despite all this, I did laugh at the comedy. There was something incredibly silly about a box blindly destroying the town while on a tour that Izzy is only pretending to see. And hey, as long as the series doesn't get any lower than this, I think we're good!

 SUPERHUMAN SAMURAI SYBER SQUAD!  My thoughts:

• Episode 17, hello free money! The plot and monster footage are lifted from Gridman 11. Surprisingly, they went more serious than they have in a while. Sam's off-screen sister got hit by a car, and Malcom forced him to throw a pie at his girlfriend's face. Not even Naoto nor his brother got it that bad. Yay healing scene. No PSA either. By comparison, Takeshi raised the stakes by purposefully attacking his local economy for the sake of causing chaos. Malcom only wanted to make Sam's life miserable and give his own ego a boost. Tough call to make. They really could have done more with the plot of this episode. I'll say Gridman 11 wins, but just barely.

• Episode 18, contaminating the water supply. Monster and plot are lifted from Gridman 10. Yay healing scene. No PSA, thankfully. Hard to judge this one. For once, the episode matched the stakes of the Japanese show, but Malcom still had pettier reasons for this monster attack. The Japanese episode didn't push for any PSA directly, but they did make it about the importance of environmentalism, which can be just as annoying. I'll be nice and say it's a tie. Both win.

• Episode 19, a ruined date night. Monster footage comes from Gridman 16, but the plot is very original. I can understand why, threatening a high schooler with a wanted serial murderer is kind of extreme for a kids show in the 90's. The only saving grace is that they lightly hint at the fact that the monster is an upgraded version of a previous monster, but they chose a terrible time to have monster continuity. Yay healing scene. No PSA. I ALMOST gave this show props for bringing Jennifer on board Team Samurai, but instead they gaslight her with a weak excuse of hallucinations via stomach poisoning. The Japanese episode is WAY more hard hitting. Gridman 16 wins.

• Episode 20, a part two?! What a weird episode to follow up on. Props to Kilo for going full nuclear terrorist, but how did no one in the cafeteria notice Sam going into the computer? They yelled the catchphrase and everything! Ouch, my brain... Monster footage comes from Gridman 24, plot is fully original. Yay healing scene. No PSA. Surprisingly, Malcom actually tried to stop Kilo from doing this, and I can't tell if Takeshi would have allowed this or not. Still, dumb moments aside, this story raised the steaks impossibly higher than just about all of Gridman's episodes. SSSS 20 wins.

• Episode 21, there goes the power! It's all over the place but once again, the monster footage comes from Gridman 24. However, the plot is VERY loosely based on Gridman 23. At this point, Kilo is acting as a free agent. He's not even waiting for Malcom to hook him up; he's just digging into his database of monsters and acting on his own. His half of the story is more interesting than the rest of the episode, and his actions are more menacing than the events of both Gridman episodes. SSSS 21 wins.

 ReVice 30: Word We Couldn't Remember.  All right. So this episode wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. There was still some pampering of Vice's voice actor, who I still cannot morally support, but at least this episode had some story and a mystery. I am invested after all.

 Dear Gaga 01: Left Me Speechless.  Vail is on hiatus right now, so I'm watching Dear Gaga instead. It seems to be loosely connected to the TV show, but still kinda fits in with the timeline so far. Well, on top of finding out Hiromi isn't dead, we learn he's faking amnesia too. I want to hate it, but I can tell they are trying to justify this with story. They are trying ever so hard. I will say, when it comes to the scene of Ikki saying that he believes Hiromi is still alive, I wish we had gotten that much sooner in the series. It would make all of this so much easier to accept. It's kind of awesome knowing Hiromi is actually a country boy. But now I am just hopping that this isn't the last we see of Gaga.

 Genms Smart Brain 01: Any Excuse.  Let's be clear, if you're watching this, you honestly don't care anymore about plot or how this ties into any of the previous Kamen Rider series. You're watching this because it's hilarious to see the two big President characters together again. Also, Smart Brain has been teased. What have they been up to after all these years? Who knows! We won't learn 'til next episode. But this was a pretty fun, random start. And props to Dan's actor. He totally absorbed becoming a Humagear version of himself.

 DonBrothers 07: Talk More, Learn Nothing!  Despite the appearance of multiple teachers in this episode, I genuinely feel like we've learned nothing. Saru Brother may have some kind of super natural power of imagination that can be taught to others, but this episode didn't really do anything with it. Who knows if we'll even see it again. At least we got an answer for why Don Momotaro attacks his friends. The MOTW's host was a principal and the GOTW (Gear of the Week) was Fiveman. Makes sense; the members of Fiveman were teachers after all. I will honestly consider it a miracle if we keep DonZekai-Oh for 10 episodes or longer. I still want the other four to have their own giant robots and eventually move away from Zenkai Zyuran. I hope Super Sentai isn't cutting financial corners in the super robot department, but all that CGI and the surreal battle ground look really expensive.

That's all for now, my crowd.  Take care, and pull the right cord.

I  like Sonic the Hedgehog. I like the song "Fist Bump". ...Don't have the most positive of feelings for Sonic Forces, but I do like the music at least! So here's a fanmade Japanese cover of "Fist Bump" by Isaac | 星東, with an accurate yet interesting take on the lyrics. And all of it just makes me wonder... When can we get Japanese covers of the other vocal Sonic songs?