After trying to search for a few new mangas to read, Ranger Reject caught my eye and I ended up reading it. Fair warning, this review might be a little long cause I really do love this manga and think it's quite enjoyable.
Ranger Reject, in a very boiled down state, is very interesting. The story revolves around Footsoldier D, who is part of the enemy faction called the Invaders. More specifically, he's a "Duster", part of an army of minions created by the Executives given regeneration and decomposition powers over their body. Dusters are effectively immortal unless they get attacked by a Divine Weapon (more on this later). 13 years ago, the Invaders were at war with the Dragon Keepers, the equivalent of Power Rangers. The Divine Keepers had slaughtered the Executives with Divine Weapons but kept the leaderless Dusters alive in order to use them for entertainment.
Dusters are now forced to enact a "Sunday Battle" every week, where they fight the Dragon Keepers in a televised and scripted battle where the Dusters are meant to lose in order to convince the public that the Dragon Keepers are glorious heroes meant to protect humanity. Footsoldier D gets fed up of enacting obvious battles for 12 years and believes that the Dusters should still conquer humanity, leaving the Invader's sky fortress in order to complete his new-found goal of killing the Dragon Keepers.
Already I think this is one of the coolest concepts I've seen in a manga for a while. Following the actual supposed "evil" of the manga is super cool and Footsoldier D is one of the most enjoyable main characters to read in a while. He's chaotic but sympathetic, constantly doubting his goal as he reaches multiple crossroads throughout his journey, but in the end the only thing he exists to be is a Duster that causes chaos throughout the world. He might not be as strong as an Executive or Dragon Keeper, but his willpower is matched by none. His ability to persist sets him apart from the others.
His skillset is also super dope too. As I mentioned before, Dusters get the ability to regenerate and decompose their bodies at will. They're literally immortal. Footsoldier D uses this in multiple scenarios to "suicide" bomb other enemies or detach his limbs to use them as a surprise attack against the enemy. I actually really love the very small power system in general.
It's not much of a "power system" as it is a "weapon system", but the entire point of the Dragon Keepers is that they can use Divine Weapons, powerful weapons that cast off multiple abilities. For example, Red Keeper uses a railgun that shoots out lightning hydra heads, while Green Keeper uses a hammer that he can control the size of at will and also change the size of himself at will. The other soldiers in the Dragon Keepers who are below the Keepers themselves have replicas of divine weapons, allowing them to manipulate abilities too.
Moving onto characters themselves, the manga hits this HARD. Character development is literally top tier. Characters will constantly change, they will shift, they feel interesting to follow and no character, not even the side characters, feel very "one-note". It makes the world feel so alive, and makes everyone feel like a constant moving human within the world instead of just a static character to move behind. Character designs are also really good. I don't think they're incredibly amazing and I don't think there's that many perfect designs but I do think the designs are good enough to be eye candy. Green Keeper has my favorite out of everyone, both masked and unmasked.
The Keepers especially are characters you are going to have mixed opinions on. You will love some of them, you will hate some of them. This manga does the trope of "the Heroes aren't always the Heroes" very well and I genuinely think it's one of the highlights of the manga in general.
Story pacing feels a little harsh in sections, a lot like every other Shonen manga of the type, but I will say the story developments keep you on your toes. Not gonna spoil anything, obviously, but the developments that happen and the twists that happen will take you for a ride. Combined with the sometimes off pacing, however, it might give whiplash.
I've neglected to mention setting because it's something that I personally am still thinking about. There's two big locations within this manga - Milky Way City, the city where everything takes place in, and the Sky Fortress, the homebase of the Invaders that floats above the city. I think this is a really cool setting, but maybe generic, especially if you read a lot of manga or stories like this.
Although I did complain a little, I still do think Ranger Reject is a manga/anime to keep an eye on. It's on about chapter 136 as I read this, and episode 3 of the anime, and I highly reccomend you to give it a shot, especially if you love things relating to Power Rangers or tropes like how the heroes aren't always the good guys. In my book, it'll definitely be a manga I keep reading weekly, and one that I hope keeps giving me enjoyment all the way until its ending.
I wanted to be Goku when I grew up.
Toriyama is a huge reason of why I'm even here today, along with influencing most of who I am. I wore a Vegeta halloween costume in the 4th grade. I had a Goku shirt in the 6th grade. I had played Chrono Trigger a few years ago and absolutely LOVED it. I read Sand Land in middle school and was super excited for the game coming out this month for it.
The most broadest reason how Toriyama changed my life was Dragon Ball, though. I spent countless hours with my brother playing on his Xbox 360, playing either Budokai 1 or Budokai 3 (there was a duo collection released, and I had bought it one day when I was 8). 8 was also about the age where I truly got into the series. I had caught a glance back when Nickelodeon was airing it on their program. It was in the middle of the Frieza saga, right when Second Form Frieza had showed up and completely obliterated Krillin. My eyes were glued to the screen. An 8 year old child in amazement, watching cool designs fight each other with flashy effects and this feel that I got nowhere else.
As I said, I wore a Vegeta costume when I was in the 4th grade. Some people already knew what I was wearing, some other people asked me who I was. Looking back on it, it was a really emberassing thing but I had loved Dragon Ball so much it had influenced me. I doodled DB characters on my homework constantly. I was doing Super Saiyan poses and I was trying to do Kamehameha's. I'd lean down, like I was Goku doing the Instant Transmission Kamehameha on Cell, and then I'd try to do a Kamehameha to no avail.
I used to watch constant DB clips on youtube due to the fact we were too poor in order to actually buy the show. I'd watch glances of it on Nickelodeon and get so intruged. Piccolo vs 17 was my favorite fight by far due to how cool it looked. I remember recreating it constantly on Budokai 3 with all of the special moves. DB was a huge lifechanger to me and was one of my great childhood wonders. I will never forget it for as long as I live.
BLEACH, my favorite Animanga of all time, was actually saved by Toriyama. Back when it was first pitched to Shonen Jump, it was knocked out and was told it was "too poor". Toriyama had saw the pitch, saw good influence, and then wrote a letter to Kubo in order to tell him to keep going. Toriyama had also helped convince Shonen Jump to pick up the manga. Without Toriyama, I wouldn't even have my favorite animes today. One Piece, BLEACH, Jujutsu Kaisen. All of that wouldn't exist.
I was literally molded by Dragon Ball's influence. It's the entire reason why I'm a shonen meathead today. I don't talk about Dragon Ball as much as I used to, but it holds a special place in my heart.
As taken from Eiichiro Oda, the author of One Piece: "May Heaven be the joyous world you envisioned."
Rest well, Akira Toriyama. I hope you're in a better place.
I'm sure we've all heard or played Wizard101 when we were younger. The cool-looking wizard game that existed by virtue of constant commercials spammed on cartoon channels since the late 2000's, that ended up having an insurmountable paywall in the first world that we begged our parents to let us buy so we could get the cool looking spells from the commercials.
That game is still completely alive, actually. 16 years after public release, Wizard101 still sees thousands of players daily, mostly people who have stuck with the game for years on end. The game was ported to Steam a couple of years ago which spiked up some interest. However, the players weren't the only thing that remained constant. The paywall is still exactly the same.
16 YEARS AFTER RELEASE!!
To be fair, when Wizard101 originally came out the paywall made sense. The game only had 2 worlds and not that much content to offer, so they needed a way to get money and unfortunately the trend worked at the time. But it's 2024. The paywall is still exactly the same. 5 hours into the game MAX and you get paywalled into paying 10 dollars per month.
I've spent an embarassing amount of money on Wizard101, got multiple wizards to atleast level 50, and my main one is level 100. There's about hundreds of hours of content, nearly 20 main worlds, 3-4 side worlds, and a ton of features that keep getting added. And the game is still constantly updated by Kingisle, who constantly posts updates on the game on their twitter or website.
For a year now though, Kingsisle has made events that promote that the first world is free for a week, or that the first two worlds are free for a week, or that the first five worlds are free for a week. It's really neat events because you can tell they're testing the waters with making more worlds free, but the constant decision to not do this makes me jittery. The playercount would literally double if the game was actually playable for free past a few hours.
Idk. I don't even know why I love Wizard101 as much as I do today. I think it's a mix of very nice aethestic/nostalgia along with a pretty decent gameplay loop. I honestly reccomend anyone to try out Wizard101 nowadays when the first few worlds are free. It's more fun than you think.
Been a while since the last blog post again, so I thought I'd just say a few miscellaneous thoughts.
First of all, happy Valentines Day everyone! I'm gonna be spending today with my girlfriend once I wrap up this update, and I'm very very excited. We're probably just gotta hang around and watch movies and play games together, as we both agreed going out for a date would be a bit of a pain considering how crowded everything is.
I've been playing Dino Crisis lately and I have been loving it. I really like survival horror games ever since I played RE a few years ago. It's incredibly fun and I reccomend anyone to try it out, as long as you can bear tank controls. The story is cheesy but the concept of being chased around by dinosaurs is so stupidly incredible it interested me all the more. Gameplay is also decently fun.
On the animanga side, I've been really delving into a few things. I just read Gachiakuta (review coming eventually), which was a great manga. It's only 80 chapters and still ongoing, but it has heavy Soul Eater or Fire Force vibes and deals with some pretty good topics. Some people say that the main character is exceedingly edgy but it's whatever. I like the concept of a trashed world and spiritual weapons.
I also have been watching Solo Leveling and Mashle, both weekly animes. Mashle is in its second season, while Solo Leveling is on its first. Solo Leveling is fun as hell to watch but also pretty bland and the pacing is pretty awful. The main character is a blast to watch though and is a really well written underdog. MASHLE is the opposite. Imagine Harry Potter (bare with me) but the main character has no magic and instead just uses pure muscle. It's a really funny concept and it leans into it heavily. Every character and the power system is genuinely unique and I actually really love watching it.
Otherwise, not much for me to say. I hope everyone has been having a great day!!
Today marks about a solid month I really delved into HTML. Maybe a month and a half.
I feel like I should discuss my thoughts on HTML, especially my inspirations and why I chose to do it in the first place.
First of all, I actually do check everyone I follow sites. I'm a very impressionable person and I love to look at other peoples sites, as usually it gives me inspiration for new things. If I'm not too busy and I have freetime I also go through my "recent updates" page and check out the changes my mutuals have made to their sites. I follow about 100-200 people on Neocities already since I joined about a month ago, mainly because I had a slight obsession with making a site early-mid December.
But man. So many of you guys make such beautiful and clean sites it almost puts me into awe. Great aethestics, cool gradients, and such a clean or interesting interface. It reminds me of the exact reason I started to love Frutiger Aero: the aesthetic is just simply unmatched. I'm glad I chose self-learning HTML instead of picking a layout, although I have no qualms against you if you did pick a layout. Sometimes you just want to make a site. I totally get it.
I never self-learn myself though. I have pretty weird motivation when it comes to things, and I often drop things after I exit my "honeymoon phase" with them. I obsess over learning a new skill, learn that maybe it's not for me, and I drop it. I'm very glad HTML stuck. The freedom of Neocities and the ability to create any site I want is why I came here in the first place. Also I'm truly blessed to have a bunch of good mutuals here.
As I write this I have 99 followers and about 9.8k views. I'm about to reach 100 followers and 10k views pretty shortly. I could not be happier, even if this sort of monotone feel through the screen doesn't show it. It means a whole lot that people follow this site, I wasn't expecting anything at first. I'm just here to give a mid-2000's-early 2010's feel and stick with it. Even if my site is a little rough around the edges (understatement), I'm still very happy I decided to make this site and I'm very happy for anyone who read this far.
We think a flower on a cliff is beautiful because we stop our feet at the cliff's edge, unable to step out into the sky like that fearless flower.
I have been gone for a very very long time!
It's been a while and I did not mean to take a break this long away from managing my site. Unfortunately on Christmas Day my SSD died out so I lost all my original website assets along with a bunch of personal files and I spent the next week trying to get a new one. I finally have one implemented into my computer and all that, so I'm back to being the webmaster.
I've been enjoying a bit of time away from the site though. I was very obsessively managing it and thinking about which update to do next constantly. It's nice to lean back and take a little bit of a break, though.
I've been watching and reading more things. Jujutsu Kaisen just finished it's second season, which was absolutely phenomenal. Friends got me to watch this anime called Frieren: Beyond Journey's End which is about an old elf called Frieren who reminisnces about the party that she was in that killed the Demon King.
I've also been playing Jujutsu Kaisen: Phantom Parade on my phone. It's only out in japanese territories but I got interested to play it and downloaded an emulator and VPN. Game is really fun for a mobile game and I've been having a good time. I've also been replaying through Kingdom Hearts 3 in order to beat Yozora, who I still haven't beat in a very long time. Very excited to get back to doing that.
All in all, I'm alright. Very easygoing days of my life recently. Excited to get back to managing this site and I hope everyone reading this has a great day.
People I've known have got me on this one manga called Sakamoto Days. It is a wonderful piece of work!! There's about 140 chapters and I've already read through 100 of them. I've gotten completely addicted to the manga completely...
For people who don't know what Sakamoto Days is, the basic concept is that Sakamoto, an unrivaled hitman, falls in love and decides to retire and work at a convenience store. The world of hitmen still follow him and endanger his family, so, with Shin (a young hitman who has telepathy), Sakamoto decides to set out in order to erase the bounty on his head and live a peaceful life.
The main characters in general are insanely good. There's no clear defined ONE main character as the point of view switches a lot. There's Sakamoto, Shin, Lu (a chinese girl from a triad family who's a master at drunken fist), Heisuke (a sniper who is incredibly dumb), etc etc. All of them are incredibly personable and are great
There's also a few side characters that are really really good. Nagumo, who's a former classmate of Sakamoto, Shishiba, who's cynical and angry, Osaragi, who's Shishiba's trainee, and more that I wouldn't wanna spoil.
The villians is where this manga sort of dips though. I don't really think any of them are interesting because not many get to be built up or they just don't really have interesting motivations. A few can still be cool but I feel like this is where the manga is at its lowest.
Otherwise, I completely enjoyed Sakamoto Days. This is such a great manga and I implore anyone to read it. Has great slice of life moments with some really good action. Very good!!
Oh MANN that episode was so good. I'm a bit biased because it had Choso continuously appearing but I was in awe from start to finish. The animation quality on some scenes along with the extended fight between Choso and Kenjaku looked absolutely wonderful.
I still think MAPPA are complete dickheads for their horrid crunch and forcing people to leave, so I will not thank them. Instead I will thank the animators who made it possible!! This might be a little long as I'll be listing every name.
Hiroshi Seko, Ryota Aikei, Yousuke Takada, Yuuji Tokuno, Hiromi Niwa, Souta Yamazaki, Mitsue Mori, Yuriko Ishii, Yousuke Yajima, Reina Igawa, Teppei Okuda, Takahiro Watabe, Chihiro Shimada, Saori Sakiguchi, Anri Yamazaki, Lu Yazhi, Aya Yamamoto, Yuudai Iino, Satoshi Ikeda, Shinya Kitamura, Roccia Nobili, Tomoyo Nakayama, Tomomi Noda, Ayaka Oofusa, Howa, Su-Min Oh, and Honehone.
Please watch Jujutsu Kaisen if you haven't already, especially if you love Shonen or battle animes in general. Great animation, great quality, and has some really great themes. Really glad I got into it when I did.
I think this is going to be my new blog page! Granted I would much rather love to do my CSS and HTML solo instead of using a library...but that would require me to entirely code Windows 7 into HTML and CSS all by myself. That's way too difficult for someone who just started HTML 2 weeks ago.
Again, all thanks to khang-nd at github for creating this css library. This is absolutely beautiful and there's no way I could've even fufilled this without getting this work.
Not much I want to talk about in my blog post, to be honest. I think I'll use this for personal reasons or for reviews of games, or just what I really think about for life and stuff. I'm really glad for all my mutuals, anyone viewing this page, and the person who made Frutiger Aero.
All of my blog posts will have this tab look. I might try and seperate my posts into genres but the buttons code that came with the CSS doesn't work. I'll have to figure a workaround. For right now I'll just make my windows have different colors depending on the genre.
If you have any suggestions on how to make this look better, shoot me a message in my guestbook!
In the meantime, have fun with this button!