Hello there. Welcome to my world of Random Thoughts. In this world I’ll be posting stuff about anime and manga. Not to mention various other topics. I may post the occasional music video every now and than. And from time to time, I’ll just talk about my life in general. But first, here are a few things about me.

I was born an only child, for one thing. Originally I was planning to go into art professionally, but recently I’ve been more inclined towards writing. I still do the occasional wallpaper every now and then though, and I also still draw a little. But much of my energy these days goes into writing fan fiction. I’ve also recently become interested in archive and library work, which is something I’ve discovered I’m good at. Finally, like most people on the Internet, I like cats.

Favorite Anime/Manga

Yu-Gi-Oh!, Sailor Moon, Tokyo Mew Mew, Card Captor Sakura, Vampire Princess Miyu, Dragon Ball Z, Code Geass, Digimon (Adventure and Tamers), Pokemon (Misty era), Gundam SEED, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Strawberry Panic, Rideback, Full Metal Panic, Slayers, Psyren, El Cazador de la Bruja, Sword Art Online, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Yurikuma Arashi, Kill la Kill, Parasyte: The Maxim, One Punch Man, and Mob Psycho 100.

Other Anime/Manga I Like

Buso Renkin, Gurren Lagann, InuYasha, Kannazuki no Miko, Shattered Angels, Bleach, Naruto, Durarara!!, Spice and Wolf, This Ugly Yet Beautiful World, Dragonaut: The Resonance, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Trinity Blood, Blue Gender, Eden of the East, Last Exile, Soul Eater, Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040, Space Dandy, Black Lagoon, Citrus, Riddle Story of Devil, and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

Favorite TV Shows

Original Star Trek, Star Trek the Next Generation, Star Trek Deep Space 9, Star Trek Voyager, Magnum P.I., Numbers, Shark, The Simpsons, The West Wing, Hawaii Five-O (Remake), NCIS, NCIS Los Angeles, NCIS New Orleans, Blue Bloods, Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, Leverage, The Mentalist, Elementary, MASH, Bones, The Red Green Show, Almost Human, Rizzoli & Isles, Supergirl, and Sherlock.

Other TV Shows I Like

Murder She Wrote, Simon & Simon, Adventure Time, Regular Show, Steven Universe, Powerpuff Girls, The Closer, Major Crimes, Columbo, Matlock, Futurama, JAG, The Rockford Files, Unforgettable, Emergency, Mysteries at the Museum, Castle, Covert Affairs, Alias, Due South, Nash Bridges, Body of Proof, Longmire, The Flash, Arrow, DC's Legends of Tomorrow, It Takes a Thief, Frasier, Home Improvement, and Last Man Standing.

Favorite Movies

Summer Wars, Short Circuit, The Abyss, The Karate Kid, The Karate Kid Part II, Tron, Tron: Legacy, Highlander, The Ghost and the Darkness, Dark Shadows, Ghostbusters, Twister, Apollo 13, Alien, Aliens, Predator, Predator 2, The Martian, Rocky (1-3), Creed, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Iron Man (1-3), Original Star Wars Trilogy, Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens, Star Trek (The Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock, The Voyage Home, The Undiscovered Country), Star Trek Next Generation (First Contact, Insurrection, Nemesis), and the Star Trek Reboot Films (Star Trek, Into Darkness).

Favorite Musical Groups/Artists

Phil Collins (and Genesis), Journey, Styx, Boston, Queen, Heart, Meat Loaf, Billy Joel, John Denver, Survivor, Chicago (and Peter Cetera), and Josh Groban.

In addition to being a fairly good wallpaper artist, I'm also a fan fiction writer who's written quite a few stories on FanFiction.Net. To check those stories out, CLICK HERE

That’s pretty much all you need to know about me. I'm not sure how often I'll post something here, but I'll try to as often as I can. In the meantime, I hope you all enjoy visiting.

Done For Another Year

Well, today finished all the manga that I usually read every fall and winter. This final book of manga in this little list of mine is the second and final volume of Tokyo Mew Mew a la Mode, the short-lived sequel to Tokyo Mew Mew. At this point I'd like to give my opinion of Tokyo Mew Mew a la Mode. Those of you who wish to ignore this opinion can just skip to the last paragraph of this post. Otherwise feel free to read on.

So overall I think that Tokyo Mew Mew is a good manga, but I do have one problem with it, it's too short. At most it needed to be at least two volumes longer than it was. The ending was kind of abrupt, though in a one-page mini comic in volume two they did mention that there was going to be more manga, but the editor just decided to drop it. That in my opinion was a mistake. Of course it seemed like in volume one that the story was moving a little fast. It had a promising beginning, and it was a fun story, it just fizzled out a little too soon. There needed to be a little more development.

For one thing I would've liked to see a little development with Mew Berry's character. As for the villains of a la Mode, the Saint Rose Crusaders, they were an interesting group, but they weren't really fleshed out enough. I mean I got that they were humans with special powers and that they were rejected by the rest of society, but I still felt that their backstory needed more to it. Like who or what was that Duke guy and why exactly was he trying to conquer the world? They never explained that part.

As for other stuff that the writers could've done differently, I see two options. They could've either done chapters where Berry got to know each of the other Tokyo Mew Mew members better, or they could've just had Berry lead a second team of Mew Mews, sort of like how there was a second team of Sailor Scouts in Sailor Moon. Then Mew Ichigo and her team could've just shown up in the later chapters of the story. Either of those options would've been good, but oh well. The Tokyo Mew Mew a la Mode manga that we ended up with is still a fun read, you just leave wishing that there was more to it.

So anyway, I'm done with my annual Fall/Winter Manga Reading list for another year. I've already changed the schedule for next year. For next year I've included the Sailor V and Sailor Moon manga, and I really had to move things around so that I'd read Sailor Moon and Tokyo Mew Mew in the same month. It felt a little weird, because to make it work I had to bump up the other manga on the list up a month earlier than it was before. Every now and then though, some traditions have to change to adapt to the times. Besides, if I don't like how the schedule goes next year, I can always change things back around. Well, I just wanted to share all that. Thanks for reading if you did.

ZEXAL Opening 2

Just because I think it's a cool song, here's the second opening theme to Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL.

Well... Now What?

So I got my driver's license this morning. I guess it's a pretty big achievement, yet for some reason I don't feel like anyone needs to make a big fuss about it. Why, I'm not really sure. It could be that I felt that the test was a bit anticlimactic. I went into it expecting this half-hour long trek that went briefly onto the highway and maybe the interstate, supervised by some retired drill sergeant. It actually turned out to be a fifteen minute drive around town run by just one of the two women in the DMV office. I guess I was also a little surprised that I actually passed. It's not like I was expecting to fail, but I wasn't too sure if my driving skills were good enough to pass. I did end up making two little mistakes during the exam, not that I dwelled on them during the exam. If you dwell on mistakes you make while driving, you just end up making more. Just note the mistake, move on, and wait to think about them when you get home.

Anyway, after I made those two little mistakes, I thought to myself (for about five seconds) that I had blown the test. I went on with it though. At the end, the woman who was administering the exam said in an unenthusiastic manner, "You passed. Let's go back to the office and finish the paperwork," and I was like, "Really?... Okay." So I guess I did better than I thought. I don't really feel the need to jump for joy though. So I can drive a car now, big deal. Although maybe it really is a big deal. It could be that I haven't fully realized just what kind of changes this license will bring. Plus I've never been one to make a big deal out of things like this. So I decided that I should do some small thing to celebrate this event. That thing turned out to be getting a few more Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, which included a new deck that I've been wanting to try. I also found a card that I've been needing for my Six Samurai deck for awhile. That deck is now 94.43% perfected (I actually just made that figure up. It is being close to perfected though). Well, I just wanted to share all that. Thanks for reading.

Haircut

As you can guess from the title, I got a haircut this evening. No I'm not going to show you all what it looks like. The main reasons are:

A.) I don't have a camera.

B.) I'm not happy with how the haircut looks (it's too short for my taste).

C.) I'm not yet comfortable with showing people online what I look like yet. I might be one day, but for now I prefer to remain in the shadows.

Anyway, one of the reasons why I had to get a haircut is because I have a job interview tomorrow. It's not like a scheduled appointment. You just walk in and someone comes in to see if there are any applicants. Still, I have a better chance of getting the job if I have a "normal" hairstyle. Especially in the small town where I live.

The other reason why I got a haircut is because I was tired of having a ponytail (that's right, I was one of those guys who had a ponytail). I didn't set out to grow a ponytail, I just didn't go to the barber for over a year and just decided to tie my hair into a ponytail so it wouldn't get in the way. But I got tired of having to redo it every few hours, especially when I was outside. There were times when I thought of just grabbing the scissors in the kitchen and just cutting the thing off.

So I didn't like getting a haircut, but I didn't have much of a choice if I wanted a chance of getting the job. I just bit the bullet and got it done. Besides, I can just grow it back out over time (hehehe). I swear though, if too many of my relatives make a big deal out of this haircut, I am going to march down to my bathroom, get out my electric razor, and just completely shave my head. We'll see how they react to THAT!

Just needed to vent that. Thanks for reading.

First Impression of ZEXAL

This morning, someone posted a comment on a wallpaper I did a month or so ago saying that they weren’t a big fan of Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL. Not the first time I’ve heard of someone having a negative impression of the series. Still, it made me realize that I haven’t really shared my first impression of this fourth anime in the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise. I actually meant to do that a few months ago, but it seemed like I didn’t have the time. So I guess I go ahead and do it now.

In general, ZEXAL is certainly a lighter series than its predecessor 5D’s. Of course 5D’s was a little darker than its two predecessors. That’s probably one of the reasons why I don’t like the dub of 5D’s, because 4kids had to lighten it up a little to make it more kid friendly. It seemed to me that 5D’s was aimed at an older audience in Japan. Specifically those who were fans of the franchise since the original Yu-Gi-Oh! (face it, the original anime was about a decade ago, so it’s kind of old). Anyway, it looks to me like ZEXAL might be aimed at a younger audience in Japan, so that means that 4kids probably won’t have to make as many radical changes and cuts as they did in 5D’s.

So there are good things and bad things about ZEXAL, and I’ll go through the good first. Probably the best thing about ZEXAL in my opinion is that it introduces the Xyz monsters to the actual card game. This makes the game a little more interesting (not to mention refreshing to players like me who’ve grown a little tired of Synchro monsters). Also, there are some pretty cool monsters that have appeared in ZEXAL so far. Below is a list of my favorites, in no particular order.

• Number 39: Utopia
• Number 17: Leviathan Dragon
• Number 34: Terror-Byte
• Gagaga Girl (Cell-phone Magic Attack!)*
• Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon*

*Note: Two of these monsters have yet to appear in the dub.

Well I’ve talked about the good, now for the bad. The worst quality of ZEXAL might be in its hero, Yuma. He’s kind of a dummy. Yuma can’t even duel well, which I guess sets him apart from the previous heroes who were all great duelists from the beginning. But it’s also an unappealing quality for a hero to have. I mean the hero of a story can be a little bit dense, but you can’t go over the top with it.

Another one of ZEXAL’s negative qualities is that rather than coming up with brand new concepts, it’s recycling old ones from previous shows in the franchise. The best example of this is the relationship between Yuma and Astral. Yuma has a magical item that in some way links him to Astral, a supernatural being that has lost his memories. And it’s up to Yuma to help Astral regain these memories. It’s basically the same sort of relationship that Yugi and Atem (Yami Yugi) had in the original series. Of course there is one difference, Yugi and Atem never bickered the way that Yuma and Astral do. Still, the fact that the writers are reusing stuff seems like a warning sign that the franchise itself is becoming stale.

The final negative quality of ZEXAL is that none of the main characters aside from Yuma and Astral really stand out to me so far. Sure, ZEXAL is still a relatively new series, but it so far does not have the best cast of characters. There does seem to be a bit of potential with a few, like the female lead, Tori, but so far they aren’t very memorable. I guess that about covers my first impression of ZEXAL. Right now I’ll say that ZEXAL is not the best series to come after the original anime, and probably never will be. Still, I’m interested to see where it’s going.