Short answer, no.
Hello my lovely word readers who direct their browsers to my little blog’s URL. It is I, Twix. Person who writes the words that sometimes make sense.
It’s been two months since I last posted in here, but if you missed my tweet about this a while ago, fear not. I did not abandon my blog baby. I’ve been here every day, actually. I’ve been on a mission to deep-clean my blog for sake of improving past mistakes, fixing issues with the blog, and removing some overly harsh/unfair/flatout incorrect/poorly articulated statements. I know I’ve said I’ve done this before, but those were very cursory cleanings. This was a ‘get some overalls, a power washer and press ‘edit’ on everything’ cleaning. Most were just spruced up a little bit for the sake of consistency and proofreading, some got a bit more of an overhaul. I thought it wouldn’t take that long, but I was obviously wrong. I’ve been working on this bit by bit since March. It didn’t click with me that I had over 1100 posts to go through, soooo…..womp womp.
My review of Pokemon the First Movie and Pokemon Movie 09 were some of the most changed with the first getting an update because I’ve had a slight change of heart and recognized a good deal of bad writing on my part, and the second was to include a significant note about the voice actor changes to Pokemon that I thought was very important to include.
Most notably across all posts, however, I have been working to purge my reviews of all number ratings. This change might be a bit confusing or maybe even annoying to some people, but I honestly think it’s for the best. I have gone without number ratings in my reviews for a year or so now, prompted by someone else posting that they weren’t including number ratings anymore, so I thought I’d give it a try, and, honestly, it’s made my blogging life a lot easier. Giving set ratings based on numbers or stars has ALWAYS stressed me out since way, way, way back when I first started writing reviews around 15 years ago (oh god….the oldness…ow.) I was always bad at it, and I always struggled trying to settle on a number, even when I allowed it to go into decimals. I don’t even like leaving number/star ratings on MAL or Anime-Planet because it seems like people always just make snap judgements without wanting to hear why I rated it that way. And, even when they do read why, they still seem focused on the number. Granted, it’s not like a cheat into getting people to agree with me, people still disagree with me all the time, and that’s fine, but I’d rather be rid of the stress of coming up with the number at all and worrying how people will accept that, as if that’s the most important part of the post, than stick with it just because that’s what a lot of reviewers do.
Other updates: Officially canceled Analyzing the Criticized: Sakura Haruno. This has been quietly canceled for some time, but just officially announcing it now. I’m probably not going to do anymore ‘Analyzing the Criticized’ again. I just didn’t think I did a good job even with how much effort I put into it. I had read more to prepare for the fourth entry, even wrote some of it and read some of the Sakura Hiden novel, but I just didn’t enjoy writing it anymore and I still think I wasn’t doing it ‘correctly’ if that makes any sense.
If you want my final say on Sakura, here it is. She’s gotten a lot better as an adult than she was ever allowed to be as a kid/teen. I respect the living hell out of her efforts to improve the mental health of children in their war-torn world – not just in Konoha, but everywhere. I also have a fair amount of respect for her as a ninja and a medical practitioner. How she was treated as a character through basically the entirety of the series was one of the story’s biggest sins. She could have been so much more, but, then again, we can say that about so many characters in Naruto – Sakura is just one of the worst examples. It’s weird how neither Sakura nor Sasuke was meant to exist in the series in the first place, but Sasuke was made into a creator’s pet because Kishimoto wound up loving him so much, and Sakura just puttered through the story on Sasuke’s leash for the most part until Kishimoto finally decided ‘Oh yeah, let’s give her something to do.’
I do stand firm in my assertion that her relationship to Sasuke is one of the worst-written most toxic and unhealthy relationships put to page or screen, and the fact that they ended up together and had a kid still rattles my brain cells. I don’t care about the pittance of affection he shows her after he becomes a good guy again. I don’t care about him smirking when she shows off her strength or him catching her after she nearly fainted in the final battle or him booping her on the forehead (Which I find far more weird than romantic. That’s more like a sibling/familial gesture of love, not romantic.) – it’s bad. He should’ve wound up alone, and she should have taken several years to mature emotionally in her romantic life before pursuing literally anyone else.
Even Sakura Hiden, which I was kinda enjoying otherwise, was constantly marred by Sakura’s annoying yearning for Sasuke. You wanna hear some of my notes from the novel?
– “We started at “You’re annoying.” and we’ve made it all the way to “I’ll see you soon.” Along with the remembered sensation of that poke. My heart feels a little warmer somehow when I think about it like that.”
Sakura, can I be real with you for a second? That is, without a doubt, the most pathetic thing I’ve ever heard in all my days of breathing oxygen.
In the course of like four or five years, much of that time being spent with Sasuke being a horrible crate of fresh assholes/a terrorist and trying to kill you twice, you went from “You’re annoying.” to “I’ll see you soon.” and got a little poke on the noggin, and that puts you on cloud nine? You have severe problems, Sakura. I’m not even joking right now. This is disturbing.
– Sakura is jealous of Naruto and Hinata when she sees them on a date. She’s jealous of Ino and Sai, who are close to confessing their feelings to each other. She’s jealous of Shikamaru and Temari. She’s even jealous of Choji and Karui.
– Sakura has a dream where she gets to see Sasuke again. It actually seems like it’s developing into a genuinely sweet and romantic moment for the two of them, capped off with a….head pat…but nope. It was just a dream. Sakura is so hard up for Sasuke’s affection, that she’s dreaming of him patting her head like a dog.
Another uneasy thing about her dream is that dream!Sasuke has a new arm courtesy of Hashirama cells, and he tells her that he’ll contact her if he has any problems with it. Thing is, real!Sasuke didn’t get a new arm, and it really feels like she’s dreaming this detail just so he’ll have a slightly bigger chance of visiting again in the future.
I never finished reading Sakura Hiden, and I’m not sure I want to. Granted, Sakura is, in my opinion, at her best here, but maybe that’s because this story isn’t even written by Kishimoto.
In conclusion, for the last time, finally, Sakura deserves a very hefty amount of criticism for a variety of reasons, but, at the very least, I can say that they could have done a lot worse. At least near the tail end of everything they made an effort to improve her, which is a lot more than I can say for some other characters. I don’t really think there’s any real defense for Sasuke as Sakura as a couple, though. If they’re happy the way they are, fine, I guess, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is a dumpster fire within a dumpster fire.
Officially Canceled Smile Precure SSBSs and SDCs. Sorry, but I felt like a few series needed to be dropped to help me stay on course, and my heart just wasn’t in this anymore. However, if you do want to read some reviews and SDCs on Smile Precure/Glitter Force beyond what I’ve written, by someone much more qualified than I, please visit my friend GlitterInformer’s blog.
Officially put Dinosaur King on hiatus. I feel like I’ll probably revisit this one somewhere in the future after I’ve finished a different SSBS project, but it’s just not entertaining enough for me to keep in my list for now.
I’ve now added episode titles (both original Japanese and English dubbed) to all of my archives. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while. I realized that it could be very difficult to navigate the episode lists if you only know the title but not the episode number, so hopefully this will make things a little easier.
I’ve added “Next episode….” and “….Previous Episode” links to every episode-by-episode review and SDC. This is also meant to help people with navigation. Now you can just immediately jump to the next episode or visit the last one to easily read the reviews or comparisons in succession.
I have acquired the rest of the Cyborg 009 manga beyond volume ten and the novel. So, in theory, I should be able to review quite literally everything Cyborg 009 now. However, big-ass asterisk, the thing about the manga beyond volume ten (and the novel) was that no company ever acquired or translated the rest of the manga (or novel) in English. I….do not speak Japanese. I am currently learning it and enjoying it, but I am nowhere the level I would need to be to read this properly. It’s going to be a struggle, and I guarantee manga updates will slow to a crawl once I get to that point, but I’m just thankful I have the files and can maybe sorta kinda talk about them…..maybe…..I hope.
I’m gonna have the same issues with the 1968 anime series beyond episode 16 as well. Subs stopped for that series, and I am forever sad. I’ll do my best.
Some minor updates: I fixed the Twitter social media button at the bottom of the posts, and fixed my Twitter feed over on the side. This may have just been a problem on my end, but neither was loading no matter what browser I used for months, and now they are, so hopefully I fixed whatever problem that was.
You can now see likes on comments. I had no clue how to turn that functionality on despite seeing it everywhere else, but now I’ve found it, and you can like comments and see other likes on comments.
And I think that’s all folks. I am still not done with the cleaning, but I am nearing the finish line. I think I can finally start posting again, likely sometime in the next few days, and once I’m finally done I should be back to regularly scheduled shenanigans. Thank you for being so patient with me! Thanks especially to the people who have dropped by to comment around here in the meantime. I love all your faces, and I’ll see ya soon!
~Twix
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The Anime Madhouse 