My Random Thoughts

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.

Created By Darkarax

The End of 5D's

SPOILER ALERT: The following post contains information about the final three episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's. If you haven't seen those episodes yet on Youtube or are waiting for the dub to come out, than avoid reading this post.

This post is for all the Yu-Gi-Oh! fans out there. As many of you probably know, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's ended last week in Japan, so I thought I'd do a little review of the three part series finale. About half a year after Yusei defeated Z-one and saved Neo Domino from being wiped out of existence, all of our heroes find themselves at a crossroads in their lives. Each of them had to decide wether to stay in Neo Domino, or leave to pursue their own futures. After a dinner party at the old garage, Jack arrived and challenged Yusei to one last duel, which Yusei accepted. Once the duel began, Yusei told Jack and the others that within the duel, everyone would find their futures. As the epic final duel between Yusei and Jack raged on, Aki, Crow, Leo, and Luna, all remembered how each of their lives were changed by Yusei. Towards the end the duel, Yusei showed the others how no matter how far apart they were, their bonds would always connect them, so they shouldn't hesitate following their own paths. After the duel, each of our heroes decided what path each of them was going to take. The next morning, everyone except Yusei left Neo Domino, all vowing to return to the city one day. During their final ride, the Crimson Dragon appeared and removed the Signer marks from each of our heroes, for the power of the Crimson Dragon was no longer needed on Earth.

For the most part, I think the series ended quite well. In life, everyone has to deal with the kind of choices that each of the main characters had to make. Choices that may involve leaving behind family or friends. So I think there are a few people that can identify with this episode and can take a very helpful message away from it. The duel between Yusei and Jack was absolutely incredible. Yusei had some epic riding moves in that duel. Riding through fan blades, jumping over a pit of molten steel, riding up and jumping off a construction crane, Yusei was quite the daredevil. The best part of the duel though was that it wasn't some major battle with the fate of the world at stake. It was just two old friends, old rivals, having one last all out blast before going their separate ways.

The one thing that both thrilled and disappointed me about these final episodes was that final moment between Yusei and Aki. The thrilling part was that it confirmed that there actually was a romantic relationship of some kind between these two characters. The disappointing part though was that I was expecting more. During the part where Yusei and Aki looked deeply into each other's eyes, in my mind I yelled, "KISS ALREADY!" Then when they let go of each other's hands and Aki left, I slapped myself in the forehead three or four times in sheer disgust. Still, I suppose it's better than nothing. I guess, that one could assume that after ten or more years, Aki would return to Neo Domino to work as a doctor, and she and Yusei would just pick up where they left off. I suppose that one could do a fanfic about that. I might try. Although I actually have a couple of different ideas for some 5D's fanfics, which I may or may not do.

So in closing, I'm a little sad that 5D's has ended. It was a great series with great characters. I wish that it had gone on at least one more season. Still, every series must end at some point. Besides, now I have Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL to look forward to. I'm not sure if it'll be as good as 5D's, but the only way to find out is to watch. Now, to end this post, here is the final end theme of 5D's, Future Colors, by Plastic Tree. Sorry there's no english translation.

4kids Rip Off

I read a rather shocking story on the Anime News Network. It seems that 4kids is being sued by a couple of companies for their own exploitation of the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise. 4kids apparently owes both companies a big chunk of change. For more detailed information, click here. Now I've never been too happy with 4kids. Especially with their dub of 5D's. The voice actress they got for Aki just does not fit the character at all. Quite frankly, I've always thought that 4kids has gone overboard with a lot of the changes that they've made to make the 5D's and the previous shows in the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise more suitable for a younger viewing audience. Then of course we have the thing with the Tokyo Mew Mew anime, but that's another story.

Anyway, now we have 4kids short changing these two companies and making shady Yu-Gi-Oh! home video deals. This is the Upper Deck thing all over again. The bigger question is, what does this mean for the Yu-Gi-Oh! fans here in North America? There's a good chance that once the dust settles with this law suit thing, 4kids will no longer be able to air any show in the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise. It could be that I'm being a bit overdramatic. After all, the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise is quite profitable, mostly because of the card game. There's a good chance that some other company will take over the dub of Yu-Gi-Oh!, though I don't know if that means that they'll have to redub the previous Yu-Gi-Oh! shows. Although with 5D's that'd be an improvement. Anyway, I just needed to rant about this new development. Thanks for reading.

The Return of Sailor Moon

Those of you who visit the Anime News Network site probably know that the Sailor Moon manga is going to return to the U.S. this September. I'm now really looking forward to September. I've never read the entire Sailor Moon manga. Heck, I've never even seen the entire anime, just one season of it. Frankly, I'm surprised that the Sailor Moon manga hasn't been more available in the U.S. before now. Sailor Moon is such an iconic series. Without Sailor Moon, we wouldn't have Tokyo Mew Mew, or even Card Captor Sakura. Well, come September, we'll all finally have a chance to read the original Sailor Moon manga.

PBS Overtime

Last night was slightly frustrating. Usually what I do on a Saturday night is watch a couple of episodes of a little series called the Red Green show on Iowa Public Television at 10:00 PM. Then at 11:00 PM I change to Adult Swim to watch some of their weekly anime lineup. Last night was different though. You see, another show that I like to watch on Iowa Public Television is Doctor Who, which is on at 11:00. So I record Doctor Who while I watch anime, but last night Iowa Public Television didn't follow their regular schedule. Once or twice every year, Iowa Public Television has what they has what they call "Festival" which just them showing special programs which they interrupt repeatedly to ask for money. Whenever a public broadcasting station takes breaks in the middle of their shows to ask for money, they usually run long. Last night, IPTV was supposed to show a special episode of Doctor Who which I had never seen before at 10:00, and I usually have my recording device set to record from 10:00 to midnight in case I miss Red Green. Last night though, when I turned on IPTV at 10:00, they were still showing this british sitcom that went on until about 10:36 I think. So I thought to myself that maybe I should watch Doctor Who just in case my recorder didn't get the whole thing. It meant that I'd miss Bleach, but Adult Swim usually runs the same episode of a show twice in one night, so I thought I'd just record Bleach when it ran again at 3:00 AM. So Doctor Who finally came on, but about twenty or thirty minutes in, IPTV interrupted to ask for donations. They went on for what seemed like thirty minutes, repeating how important is was to donate money to their station and what people could get by donating a certain amount. They must have gone over that list of stuff one could get for donating about five times in that break. Finally, IPTV resumed the show, and than when there was probably only fifteen minutes left in the episode, IPTV interrupted yet again. By the time Doctor Who was over, I had missed not only Bleach, but also Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, which isn't one of my favorite anime shows, but it has grown on me a little. Anyway, I also had an extra load of laundry that night, so I forgot all about recording Bleach. Anyway, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that all PBS stations need a new and better way to raise money. Who's going to watch a show when they interrupt it for thirty minutes to talk about the same thing over and over again? Thanks for reading.

Bent Package

Today was a nice, 60 degree day in the little Nebraska town where I live, so I decided to walk to the only store in town that sells Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. To my surprise, the store had restocked their supply of Storm of Raganrok booster packs. That store is usually terrible at restocking their merchandise. Anyway, I usually buy only two packs at a time, but as I took the first two packs off the rack, I noticed that the upper left-hand cardboard package of the fourth pack on the rack was bent. Now I'm a little superstitious when it comes to buying booster packs, and I thought that perhaps that bent corner meant something. So I took that fourth pack off the rack, bought all three packs, and went home. When I opened the pack that was in the bent package, the I discovered that the first card in the pack was damaged. The bottom was crimped. It probably happened when the wrapper was sealed. That was the only damaged card. Unfortunately it was also a card that I could have used to power up my Six Samurai/Obelisk the Tormentor deck. Still, the card was a common one, so I'll probably find another copy of it sooner or later. I put it aside and looked at what the other cards in the pack were. To my surprise, the rarest card in the pack was Odin, Father of the Aesir. It turned out that my feeling about that booster pack was right. I'll need to find the Nordic Ascendant Tuners before I can use Odin in a deck, but this was quite a find. Now my familiarity with Norse mythology is a bit lacking, so after I tried taking my cat out side for a walk (that's right, I walk my cat on a leash), I got on Wikipedia to find out more about the myth of Odin. I know Wikipedia isn't the most reliable source of information, but it's a good way to find out general information about something. Just don't use it to write your school papers. Anyway, her are some interesting fact I found out about Odin.

He had two ravens named Huginn and Muninn who'd fly around the Earth daily to report information about world events.
Odin road an eight-legged horse.
Odin also had a severed head that foretold the future.
He commanded a pair of wolves named Geri and Freki.
Odin consumed nothing but mead or wine.
He tore out his left eye to gain knowledge of the past, present, and future.
Santa Clause is apparently based on both Odin and Saint Nicholas of Myra.

Quite the interesting mythological god, huh? Anyway, that covers the most interesting highlight of my day. Now for no reason, here is the full version of the song, Clear Mind, by Masaaki Endoh. Enjoy.