RJ Writing Ink

Ho-ho-ho, Internet!! Tomorrow marks the start of the Christmas Season. For me. I don’t count the days after Thanksgiving until December 1st. It’s a quirk. It’s the 25 Days of Christmas!

But that’s not why I am here. I’m here for Holiday traditions. It’s a tradition of mine during this time of year where I watch at least one holiday special or movie a day to get me jazzed for Christmas. This year, I have a blog, so I thought “why not make this a theme?” So that’s my plan.

Check back every day leading up to Christmas to see what special I’ve watched. I’ll be giving you my honest thoughts and what I liked and hated about it, all leading up to Christmas Day. If you’ve got a good holiday special that I haven’t seen, let me know in the comments below! If I watch it, I’ll give you a shout out.

Until tomorrow, Happy Holidays, no matter what religion you follow!

Now, let’s watch a clown ride a christmas tree. Take it away, Joker

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One Piece Chapter 926 Review/Recap

This chapter of One Piece continues to set up the Ninja-Pirate-Mink-Samurai Alliance (which I will just call the Alliance for simplicity’s sake) plan to launch an all-out rebellion. 

There are a lot more samurai loyal to the Kozuki Clan left than I thought there would be, but that is an excellent thing. That just means there are a lot more people ready to put Orochi’s head on a spike where it belongs. The rest of the Straw Hats have split up to do their part:

What Is the Alliance Doing?

Nami is working with Shinobu to gather intel. For the moment, Shinobu seems to panic easily.

Sanji is doing what he does best and what he’d like to do best: cooking for people and flirting with girls. 

Despite Nami’s frustration, though, I think there’s a purpose behind Sanji’s actions. He could be trying to a.) gather intel by filling people’s bellies (full bellies can lead to loose lips), b.) win people’s support for the rebellion or c.) just flirting. Probably all three.

We then are given a glimpse of the prison where Kid and Luffy are being held. Backtracking for a minute, though, remember what I said in my recap of Act One of the Wano Arc? About how they would be running the place within a week?

Yeah, I was right. Though if you stayed with the story long enough, you’d know that Luffy wouldn’t break. Bonus, he and Kid seemed to be fully healed.

The guards can’t believe how much work the two captains are doing even with seastone handcuffs on them. Far from breaking, the two remain as defiant as ever, beating the crap out of the sub-warden. Their actions are winning over the other prisoners pretty quickly, which I think is Oda’s plan. Why? Think about it.

New Allies for the Alliance

Every single one of those prisoners will have an axe to grind against Orochi and Kaido for turning them into slaves. Until these two came along, they probably gave up any hope of living. But now they have two people willing to openly defy Kaido, and that will inspire them to do the same. When Luffy and Law get out of prison, and we KNOW they will, those prisoners are gonna follow them. Speaking of which, there’s a familiar face among them:

That’s Caribou, all right. He’s that pirate with the swamp-swamp fruit that tried to kidnap all those mermaids on Fishman Island. After a series of misadventures, he got captured by Kaido. And I know he’s gonna want to get payback!

In less than two weeks, the rebellion against Orochi and Kaido will begin. The Alliance is going to need all hands on deck to take down the Beast Pirates. Here’s who they got so far: The Straw Hat Pirates (minus Jinbei); the mink warriors of the Mokomo Dukedom; the Kozuki clan’s retainers; the Heart Pirates, and several ninja. Now add in the samurai they’re recruiting, and the prisoners, which include Kid and Caribou. That’s an army, and they’ll need one if they want to stand a chance. I have confidence in them, though.

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One Piece Chapter 925 Review/Recap

This chapter does not do a lot to advance the immediate plot: we don’t see Luffy at all, but he’s still in prison. The real focus of this chapter actually takes us abroad to the rest of the world, and there is a lot of big news. First, it’s now confirmed that Gekko Moriah is still alive, with Perona leaving Mihawk’s island to reunite with her captain. That could be a mistake, though. Moriah went to the headquarters of none other than the new Yonko, Blackbeard. I already Blackbeard was already incredibly powerful, but the Blackbeard pirates are getting stronger with each passing day.

The fact that Shiryu now has Absalom’s Clear-Clear fruit means that they most likely killed him. If everyone in Blackbeard’s inner circle has fruit powers, then I am honestly terrified.

I’ve known it for a long time now: Blackbeard is going to be Luffy’s last and most significant obstacle to becoming the King of the Pirates. The Blackbeard Pirates are essentially the antithesis to the Straw Hats, down to most of the crew’s skills. When the day comes that they finally clash, it might be one of the biggest fights in manga history.

Meanwhile, in Wano, the Straw Hats have split up to prepare for the rebellion in two weeks. Chopper and the minks are looking after Tama, Raizou’s gone to bust Luffy out of jail, and I don’t know where everyone else is. But we also get a glimpse of two more of Kaido’s officers, and if they are tough as they look, they could be a problem. Even Jack seems scared of them.

King also seems to be responsible for trying to break Luffy and Kid. He’sepgoing to be sorely disappointed.

Other News From Blackbeard

Oh, one last thing: Blackbeard mentions that the Revolutionary Army attacked the Reverie to get Kuma back. Hope they are all safe!

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I have wanted to do this since I started my blog, but I couldn’t find the time. I’ve wanted to do a review/recap of Hiro Mashima’s latest manga, Edens Zero. I think that it would be a good idea to go back and explain some of the main characters and what’s happened so far to prevent confusion. There’s only 22 chapters so far, so I don’t have to go far.

Edens Zero is the new manga that is being written by Hiro Mashima. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because he previously created two other successful manga, Rave Master and Fairy Tail

Fairy Tail will probably be the one you know. It’s got pretty popular in the West thanks to Funimation’s dub of it with some of their best voice actors. Rave Master did have an anime, but it sucked, so it got axed.

Anyway, back to Edens Zero. Now, the story takes place in deep space and has a lot of sci-fi elements mixed with fantasy. It starts off when a young girl named Rebecca and her best friend Happy visit this abandoned theme park planet called Granbell Park. Even though it’s supposed to be populated by robots, there is one human living there, a boy named Shiki. 

Our hero, Shiki

As a kid, Shiki was brought to Granbell by the robot’s leader, known as the Demon King (not as scary as he sounds) and raised as his adopted grandson. He’s been offline for years, but he left Shiki behind a powerful gift: his ether gear.

Ether gear is this type of power that lets a person use their bodies natural energy, or ether (AKA Ki, Chakra, Magic, Spiral Energy, and any other source of power from manga) to give them crazy abilities. In Shiki’s case, he can manipulate gravity. 

Since he died, Shiki’s been staying in Granbell and taking care of the other robots, but before he went offline, Grandpa Demon King told them to find a way to get Shiki off Granbell. Their batteries were slowly dying, and they would all go offline within a few years, leaving Shiki alone. 

When Rebecca and Happy show up, the Granbell robot’s see their chance: they pretend to act all evil to force Shiki to leave, and thanks to Rebecca and Happy, it works. What nice friends. So Shiki decides to stick with Rebecca and Happy and travel the universe to make new friends.

Things Get Weird

Rebecca and Happy take Shiki back to their home planet of Blue Garden and register him as an adventurer with their guild, Shooting Starlight. Unlike Fairy Tail, though, everyone in Shooting Starlight doesn’t really get along like a family. That’s where Shiki also sees Mother, this giant, cosmic entity that’s called the goddess of space. 

People have been trying to sail beyond their region of space, the Sakura Cosmos, to meet her, but no one has ever done it. Shiki gets the weird feeling that he’s met before, though, and decides to go on a quest to meet her. Rebecca and Happy come along because they think it would get them tons of views for their B-Cube Channel (the stories version of YouTube).

To help them, they decide to upgrade their ship and go to visit an old friend of Rebecca and Happy, Professor Weisz. When they get to his home on Planet Norma, something’s not right. The entire planet is covered in clouds, and they end up crashing their ship. On top of that, everything and everyone in the world seems like 50 years in the past. Because it is. They literally traveled to the Norma of 50 years ago.

See, I told you it was gonna get weird. Well, you better get used to it, as the story’s narrator explains that time has little meaning in this story. Meaning this is going to be a regular thing, probably. 

Time-Travel 101

Back in the past, they end meeting with the younger version of Weisz, who was a thief at that point in his life. He also just betrayed his former boss, Sibir, and stole a briefcase containing a tiny robot named E.M. Pino. Like the three, Pino is from the future but got stuck in the past. She has this ability to shut down machines using EMP’s, and Sibir is a jerk, he tortures her and forces her to work for him. He even erased her memories of her creator.  Total jerk.

Shiki and the others get super mad at Sibir when they hear of his cruelty, so they do what heroes do: kick his ass. They then leave Norma with Pino in tow, only to find that younger Weisz stowed away. He then uses his own ether gear (he has it, it’s called Machina Maker) to remodel their ship and let them escape.

Don’t worry about any paradoxes. As soon as they leave the planet, they’re back in the present (or future, in Weisz’s case). They get a video call from the older version of Weisz who explains that a space monster had eaten Norma’s timeline, leaving it permanently stuck 50 years in the past. This also makes younger Weisz an alternate timeline version of Professor Weisz, free to do what he wants. Boom, paradox solved.

The New Demon King

Soon as they escape Norma, though, the group gets caught in a tractor beam from this massive ship called the Skull Fairy. It’s run by a group of space pirates led by a woman named Elsie Crimson, who is the spitting image of Erza Scarlet from Fairy Tail. 

So, Shiki being Shiki decides that he’s gonna take over her ship and runs off. After battling it out with Elsie (who was seemingly a robot), they end up taking over the entire ship. Turns out, though, what they beat were just these weird parasites that had copied Elsie and her crew. They’re on another ship in their fleet.

But get this, the Skull Fairy used to belong to Shiki’s grandpa. The Demon King (real name was Ziggy) had helped Elsie out once and asked him to give his ship to Elsie before he died. It also isn’t called the Skull Fairy: its real name is Edens Zero. Even crazier, though, is that Ziggy was once known and feared as the ruler of the Sakura Cosmos! Crazy!

Elsie gives the Edens Zero to Shiki and then leaves as the space police arrive. Everyone gets settled in, and they find this female robot called Witch. She used to work for the Demon King, and proclaims that as the ship’s new captain and Ziggy’s grandson, Shiki is the new Demon King.

Current Arc of Edens Zero

The android, called Witch, reveals she was one of four robots than maintained and protected the Edens Zero, known as the Four Shining Stars. They brought the ship to its full power. Ziggy had tried to take the ship to meet Mother himself, but he couldn’t get past a nest of space dragons that blocks the path out of Sakura Cosmos. After that, the Four Shining Stars split up, Ziggy went back to Granbell, and Witch stayed on the ship in stasis.

To have a chance to make it to Mother, Witch explains that they need to find and recruit the other three Shining Stars, whose whereabouts are unknown. One of them, though, Sister, was reported to be headed to Blue Garden after they split up.

So everyone heads back to Blue Garden. Rebecca and Happy go off to meet the guildmaster of Shooting Starlight, Weisz ditches everyone to explore the future, and Shiki and Pino go explore the place. But it doesn’t last long.

Taken: In Space!

Shiki ends up fighting this cyborg ninja called Jinn, who has Wind Ether Gear, and they end up fighting to a draw. Jinn leaves after being ordered by his boss but tells Shiki to come to find him on the planet Guilst for a rematch.

Things get worse, though. Happy comes up to them half-dead and collapses, telling them that Rebecca just got kidnapped! The group of mercenaries that Jinn is a part of had captured her and a bunch of other B-Cubers across Blue Garden, and was gonna take them the planet Guilst, which is lawless central in the Sakura Cosmos. They plan to sell them all as slaves to this slimy piece of garbage called Illega, who likes to kidnap pretty girls, strip them, and turn them into naked statues and pieces of furniture. Why? Probably because it’s his fetish or something, I don’t know. I just want to punch him.

When Shiki hears about this, he goes absolutely ballistic. Liam Neeson’s Taken level ballistic. Yeah, that fat frog made the worst decision of his life pissing off the new Demon King. So they grab their stuff and chase after them all to Guilst. Weisz also comes back after hearing what happened, and he brought a new friend: this girl named Homura who has this Ether Gear that lets her make this cool sword thing. They head to Guilst where they learn that Rogue Out works for Sister, but even though she has the same model number, she’s not the Sister Witch remembers. 

Rebecca’s Escape

Meanwhile, Rebecca takes stock of her situation but manages to prove more than capable of taking care of herself. She rallies all the other B-Cubers to come up with an escape plan that actually works! She uses this bubble foam that dissolves inorganic matter to destroy the window inside their cell and gets out. But then she’s caught by Illega, who decides “screw it. It’ll be more fun to make her my toy.” Pretty sure this is an innuendo. But don’t worry: Shiki busts and gives Illega a well-deserved face kick

Caught Up to Speed on Edens Zero

And that’s where we left off. No telling what happens next, but I’m really looking forward to it. I like Mashima’s work for the plot. And so far, this story is turning out to be very interesting. 

That’s it so far. I was gonna explain more about some of the characters, but this blog has already run pretty long. I’ll upload part two in a couple of days before the next chapter is up. If you want to learn more, check out the Edens Zero Wiki. They’re always looking for more people to help them improve. Until next time, J out!

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My fellow goofy goobers, nickelodeoneans, and millennials: yesterday Nickelodeon announced on social media that Stephen Hillenberg, creator of the legendary show Spongebob Squarepants, had passed away from ALS.

You may now commence with the crying.

 I’m crying too, by the way. But not just out of sadness. I’m crying tears of joy, laughter, and gratitude. Growing up, Spongebob was probably my favorite cartoon to watch on TV, not counting Avatar: The Last Airbender. I loved watching Spongebob and his friends in their adventures through Bikini Bottom. I played the video games, I saw the original movie, and read the comics. For a time, my parents even banned me from watching the show because it was making me too silly. That just made me love it more 😉

Spongebob was a massive part of my childhood, and I’m taking the creator’s passing pretty hard. As hard as I took Stan Lee’s passing. But after I wipe the tears off my face, I just started remembering all the good memories Spongebob gave me. And then I wanted to just start laughing. Now, I just want to talk about a few of my favorite episodes and moments in Spongebob in honor of the man who gave us so many laughs. In no particular order, by the way.

Pranks a Lot

I remember this one very well. It came out on video before it ever aired on TV, so I got my parents to haul me to the Library to check it out first chance I got. Spongebob and Patrick bought that can of invisible spray from a jokes shop and decide to use to prank everyone in Bikini Bottom. So they strip down and go around scaring the whole town into thinking they’re ghosts. But when they try and scare Mr. Krabs, he turns the tables on them and exposes them.

The whole plot of the episode is funny enough as it, watching everyone freak out over the “ghosts.” But the real clincher is how Mr. Krabs gets payback on the duo. Instead of getting mad, he pretends to laugh it off. But as soon as the two leave the bathrooms in the Krusty Krab, this happens:

I don’t remember if I laughed at this or just sat there smiling, but I can imagine that I was laughing myself to death on the inside. The way Mr. Krabs sets up the prank by fooling Spongebob and Patrick and then timing it just as the episode ends is comedic gold. Now THAT is what I call comedic gold.

I Had an Accident

I think this episode aired right before the Kid’s Choice Awards in 2003. Spongebob breaks his butt in a sand-sledding accident and then gets too scared to leave his house. Then a gorilla attacks Sandy and Patrick and he has to go outside and save them.

I liked this episode as a whole, but the really funny came at the end, with this:

To this very day, I have no idea what it was that I had witnessed. Like, no idea at all. I think that that was the point, though: to get people to laugh at the sheer absurdity of what had happened. That or the staff couldn’t come up with an ending. Either way, Stephen Hillenberg did good.

Goofy Goober Rock!

I loved this movie as a kid! I was one of the first people in line to go see The Spongebob Squarepants Movie. Not to mention I read the junior novel and played the video game. But this was my favorite scene by far because it has to do with the underlying message of the film: it’s alright to be yourself.

Spongebob spends the whole movie trying to prove to everyone that he’s not a kid, but by the film’s climax, he learns to accept that he is very much a kid in a man’s body. And he’s fine with that because he still managed to do everything a “kid” shouldn’t do. Then he proceeds to jam out to one of the coolest songs I had heard in my childhood. 

The message rings true even today now that I’m grown up. With everything negative that comes with being an adult, it’s easy to end up being a Squidward. I’d rather be an optimistic goofball like Spongebob and enjoy my life than spend it being a Squidward! #GoofyGoober4Life

Help Wanted. Stephen’s Legend Begins

This was the episode that started it all: Help Wanted. Spongebob goes to get his dream job as a fry cook at the Krusty Krab (not something most people would want, but Spongebob made it look cool). Mr. Krabs and Squidward sent him on that wild goose chase, and then the infamous scene happens:

I wish I had a video of what happens next, but YouTube seems deadset on not letting that happen. But it was one of the coolest things I had ever seen in my life.

Band Geeks

For nearly every fan of Spongebob out there, this is considered to be the best episode of the entire show. The finest moment of Stephen Hillenberg. It gave us so many jokes and funny moments: from the “dying animal” joke at the start, to the “kicking” incident, and of course, Patrick’s words of wisdom up above. Also, eager face:

But that’s not why it’s the best. It’s the ending. It wouldn’t be a stretch to call it one of the greatest moments in cartoon history. IT’S THAT GOOD! I actually call it “Squidward’s Finest Hour”, because it is one of the few times that Squidward, or any of the other cast members, is able to be this successful. I read a tweet on Twitter yesterday from another fan, saying that they felt this moment perfectly encapsulates Spongebob’s rise to success: it was nervous and unsure of itself, but once it got going, everybody loved it, and everyone loved Stephen Hillenburg for giving it to us. Just look at how much love the clip of it got when someone posted it on Twitter. It’s clear that Spongebob meant a lot to my generation, and that a lot of us will miss Stephen Hillenburg and thank him for what he gave us.

What Stephen Hillenburg and so many others created nearly twenty years ago has become one of the greatest cartoons of all time, with a cast that’s right up there with the gods of cartoons like Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, and the Simpsons. Decades from now when it’s all over, the fans of today are probably going to be sharing this with their grandchildren and scholars are gonna study it as an example of what cartoons can do for our culture. So, I’m only going to say this once: Stephen Hillenberg, THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING!!!!!

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Introduction

Stan Lee passed away in November, 2018. I had planned to do this some time ago, but I could never find the right words to use. I wanted this to come from the heart.

My Love of Heroes

When I was in school, I didn’t really interact with people as much as I should have. Every moment I wasn’t working on some assignment or listening to some lecture, I had my face buried in a book. With no video games or TV, they were the only entertainment I had. I would spend my lunch-time in the library reading books. I would read any book that looked interesting, but what I really loved were comic books and superheroes

The 2002 film Spider-Man gave me a proper introduction to superheroes, but this was my crash-course. I dove into every comic book, encyclopedia or paperback collection I could get my hands on.

I don’t remember when I first learned about Stan Lee. It was probably from watching the DVD’s for Spider-Man The Animated Series. But I grew to learn how important he was. I came close to meeting him twice, actually.

How I (Almost) Met Stan Lee

The first time I came close to meeting him was when I saw a commercial for a local comic book convention. It said that Stan Lee was going to be at the convention signing autographs. I begged my Dad to take me down there. We were able to get in, but then I realized how much money it would cost to meet him. I’d never considered that, and since I didn’t have the money, I chose not to meet him. I caught a quick glimpse of him walking by his booth, through the curtains.

The second time was because of forces outside my control. I had bought a ticket ahead of time and had made sure to pick it up. I didn’t have anything for him to sign, but I bought a comic book with him on the cover. But when the time came to get in line, my ticket was gone. To this day, I don’t know if I dropped it or if someone had stolen it. It didn’t matter: the people operating the booth refused to let me in otherwise. They got my comic book autographed, but that was of little consolation. I knew Stan was getting old, and that this was probably the last chance I had to meet him.

In hindsight, I don’t think I should have taken that lying down. I want to go back the second time and tell myself to forget what the booth guys said: to find a way to get in, even if you had to sneak in. Now, I’ll never get that chance.

Reacting to His Death

I still remember what I was doing. Looking back, it feels fitting that I was playing Marvel’s Spider-Man; a video game based on one of the characters he created. Then I saw the headline flash on my laptop. I just put the controller down on the table in front of me, and just sat there for a minute or two, my jaw hanging open in disbelief. Then I started looking it up.

Stan Lee Was Gone

I knew that Stan wasn’t going to be around forever, that he was already very old, and that he had had a lot of issues in the last year. His wife, who convinced him to stick to comics when he wanted to quit, had died the year before. That would devastate anyone. But then for all the reports about people taking advantage of him, and the allegations of sexually harassing his nurses. I had kept hoping that he would live at least long enough to see Infinity War. I got my wish, but now he won’t be around for the culmination in Avengers 4. 

I wanted to cry. I honestly felt like I was going to cry. Pop Culture wouldn’t be the same as it is now without his work. Not just Stan Lee, though; he wasn’t the sole creator of Marvel. Marvel had been around since the 1940s, and despite what some headlines may say, he was not the sole creator of characters like Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, X-Men or Avengers. He created them alongside other men, Steve Ditko, and Jack Kirby. There are probably countless others that deserve part of the credit, but never will. 

So, yeah, Stan Lee wasn’t the end all, be all when it came to Marvel Comics. He did play a big role creating them, and he certainly deserves the recognition that comes with it. But I can’t help but wonder if we liked Stan as we did because he was one of the last survivors of the great people who gave us comic books. Everyone else of note had already passed away; he was the only one left. If that were true, though, then people would have reacted the same way to Steve Ditko’s passing. Plenty did, but not as many as Stan Lee.

I Wish I Could Have Met Him

I am going to miss Stan Lee. I’m going to miss his cameos. But most of all, I regret not being able to meet him just once. I want to walk up to him and say hello. I just wanted to be able to tell him “Thank you for everything that you and your friends did.” But now I’ll never get that chance. But I know that he helped to leave the world a far better place. 

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This is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while but never had the time to. I’ve been a big fan of Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece since I was a kid, and I’ve been reading the manga since the start of the Punk Hazard arc. The Wano Country arc is shaping up to be one of the biggest arcs in the manga, and with Act One having ended and the series on a break this week, now’s the best time to talk about some key things from the arc.

The Straw Hats are now in Wano

As of this arc, all of the Straw Hat pirates, except for Jinbei, have arrived in Wano Country. Franky’s working as a shipwright, Robin’s pretending to be a geisha, Ussopp’s become a street vendor, and Zoro’s a fugitive ronin. Yeah, he killed a corrupt magistrate who tried framing him for murder. Go figure.

The rest of the Straw Hats got separated when they entered Wano, with Luffy ending up with the Sunny on a beach. It will take some time for them to regroup, but for now, they will need to lay low.

Ace’s Visit to Wano is Touched Upon

It was mentioned before that Luffy’s late brother, Portgas D. Ace, had visited Wano Country before, and now that’s come back into play. At least, in a small form. Enter Tama, a young girl training to be a kunoichi who Ace had befriended when he visited Wano. He promised to let her join his crew when he came back, and she’s been waiting for him ever since. It only makes it even harder to see her learn of Ace’s death.

She’s devastated to learn that Ace had died two years ago and took it out on Luffy. I understand how she feels, but with Ace being Luffy’s brother, Luffy went through even greater pain, especially considering that his brother had died right in his arms.

I don’t know why Oda didn’t make it so Tama knew that Luffy was Ace’s brother, but I think it would be interesting to see how she reacts to that.

Wano Country is Choking to Death

Twenty years of being under the rule of the corrupt Shogun Orochi and his master Kaido have turned most of Wano into a barren wasteland. Factories strip the land of any resources and churn out noxious fumes, the rivers are too polluted to drink from, and everyone is starving. The only reason Wano hasn’t rebelled is because Orochi brainwashes the people in the capital and oppresses all dissent.

I thought the situation in Dressrosa was bad, but Wano is a thousand times worse. If this keeps up, the country will be destroyed. Good thing the Straw Hats and their allies have experience overthrowing corrupt regimes.

Momonsuke and The Other Retainers Are From the Past

Long story short: so it turns out that Lord Kozuki’s wife at the Time-Time Fruit (yeah, I didn’t even guess that would be a thing). When Orochi and Kaido burned down the Oden clan’s castle, she used it to send their son and a few retainers twenty years into the future. And we know the rest.

An even bigger plot point is that there are nine surviving retainers that served Lord Oden. I’m not sure if the three are part of them, but I think they are. The point is that they are all incredibly strong. If they reunited, they could defeat Orochi, something that Orochi is paranoid of. But it’s gonna happen; we know it will!

Luffy got the crap beaten out of him by Kaido

The Whole Cake Island arc already showed me that Luffy still wasn’t at the level of the Four Yonko yet. Yet I never thought he’d be so outclassed by Kaido. Luffy hit the monster with one of his strongest attacks, and Kaido not only shrugged it off, but he also knocked Luffy out cold in just one blow!

I have a feeling that the Wano arc is going to end with Luffy confronting Kaido, so it would make no sense to fight him now. Plus, this first skirmish serves a purpose by letting readers know how much Luffy has to improve. We all know he’s going to get onto Kaido’s level, though. It’s just a matter of time.

Speaking of which, this brings me to the last thing I want to talk about. What I call

Kaido’s Three Big Mistakes

Kaido made two fatal mistakes in the last chapter of Act One. His first mistake was letting Luffy live. He had Luffy at his complete mercy, and Kaido chooses not to kill, arrogantly seeing him as no threat to him. If you’ve been watching the anime or reading the manga long enough, though, you know that Luffy’s gonna come back for more. And he’s gonna win. If I were Kaido, I’d have killed Straw Hat right then and there.

Then there’s his second mistake, one that actually made me laugh: Kaido thinks he can break Luffy, turn him into his subordinate. *laughs even harder* Luffy will never break no matter what Kaido will do. There’s only one guy who’s broken Luffy, and he still bounced back from that thanks to Jinbei.

And then there’s the final, and BIGGEST mistake Kaido makes: throwing Luffy into the same prison as Eustass Kid. Both of them are at the top of the Worst Generation of Pirates, have crazy strong powers, and have an axe to grind with Kaido. And now that they’ve met for the first time since Sabaody, they could team up against Kaido. And they’re in a prison with criminals and people who probably hate Kaido as much as them. They’ll be running the place inside a week.

Kaido and Orochi are Screwed.

So let’s recap: All the Straw Hats, barring Jinbei, are in Wano along with Carrot. Law and his crew are in Wano. The warriors of the Mokomo Dukedom are probably en route if they’re not there already. There are the remaining retainers to the late Lord Oden waiting to come out of hiding. Tons of people in Wano probably have an axe to grind with Orochi and Kaido as well. And to top it off, Luffy has reunited with Eustass Kid.

The numbers all add up: Kaido and Orochi are toast. It’s going to be a long and difficult fight, but they’re going down.

To see my other animanga work, click this!

Introduction to My Blog

I have had this blog for several months now, and yet I have done very little to build it up so far. I have never been able to find the time to do so. Now’s a good a time as ever, then, so here’s an introduction to my blog. I’d prefer not to use my real name on this blog, so I came up with a pen name. Here, you can call Roderick J. Fritz, or just “Jay” for short. There’s a story behind that pen name; and maybe, when the time is right, I’ll tell you about it.

Now that introductions are out of the way, let’s sink our teeth into what I do. There are a lot of things I love in this world, but a big one is pop culture. Books, movies, video games, comics, cartoons, the whole nine yards. And I’m ready to share that love with everyone in the world.

Origins

People I know have been telling me for years that I am good at writing, and if you’re good at something and you like doing it, you should try and turn it into a career.  So I’ve started working to become a freelance writer. I have already taken a huge first step: I was a part of FANDOM’s Contributor Program. What is FANDOM, you ask? FANDOM’s a website dedicated to the latest news about pop culture. They also serve as the hosts to countless wikis about pretty much everything.

Yeah, and they had a contributor program where people can submit article ideas, write them, and then have them published. It’s a great way to build up a portfolio. I’ve gotten several articles already published. The cool thing, though, is that one of my articles ended on FANDOM’s trending list for a while.

I wrote this article on what I thought were the five best ships from Fire Emblem: Awakening, and it just got insanely popular. I didn’t even expect that to happen, but I’m glad people read it so much. It was nice, and I’m happy it happened.

My Plans

This blog actually started as a place where I could put links to the various articles that I’ve done for people; not just for FANDOM, but any client I’ve worked for. But now I want to use it to write my ideas that I can’t write about anywhere else. Ideas like:

• Movie reviews
• Game reviews
• Manga recaps
• Big news in pop culture
• Anything I want to write about

So, that’s basically the concept behind this whole blog. I hope you guys enjoyed the introduction to it. If you want to see my FANDOM writings, check out my page on that. I’m also coming up with a page for my other writings.