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.

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.

Edited Intro

Just thought I should let you all know that I edited the introduction to this world. I added the TV shows and music that I like to it. So go ahead and take a look at it.

New World Idea

I just got an idea for a new world here on TheO. As many of you know, I'm a huge of both the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime/manga franchise, and the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game. One thing that some people don't realize is that a few of the cards themselves have stories behind them. Stories about certain monster cards, or groups of monsters. Many of these stories are pieced together from the illustrations of various Spell and Trap cards, but there are some that are fleshed out in guide books released only in Japan. So I was thinking that what I could do is create a world where I retell these stories. I would appreciate any input from those of you reading about whether or not I should do this, though the ultimate decision will be mine. Either way though, I'm planing to do a post about the story behind the Duel Terminal archetypes (the cards found in the Hidden Arsenal sets). If I decide not to create this new world, I'll post the story here, so stay tuned.

Moving Forward

That's what I seem to be doing right now anyway. This evening I had a little more driving practice. Overall, it went okay, but I did end up making a few mistakes, like not stopping soon enough and things like that. Plus it was my first time driving in the dark, so I was a little nervous. It wasn't completely dark, but dark enough. Not to mention the car he had me using this time was not at all comfortable to drive. My right ankle still hurts. Still, I think it went well. I've made mistakes and I think I've learned from them. At least I hope I have.

Anyway, things have been moving forward with my art. I did four new wallpapers, so that slump I went into wasn't quite as long as I thought it would be. I also did a new piece of fanart that I'm kinda proud of, and I'll probably do a sequel to it soon. Plus I've already got a new wallpaper challenge going here on TheO. I actually came up with the idea for the challenge weeks ago. I basically copied and pasted the description from a Word document I typed up, but this new challenge already seems to be somewhat of a hit. There are already two people entered in it. So like I said, things seem to be moving forward.

A Quick November Rant

Well, it's November again. Autumn is coming close to an end, and soon winter will be upon us. I planned to do this little rant later in the month around Thanksgiving, but tonight something I saw made me just want to get this off my chest. I was doing a little channel surfing before hoping into the shower, and it came to my attention that the Hallmark channel was showing a Christmas movie. And it wasn't just some old Christmas movie that was made years ago, this was some new original movie that they just made. Plus it won't be the last Christmas movie that they'll be showing this month. Christmas is still about a month away and already they're showing Christmas movies. Sadly, I'm not surprised by this. It's been going on for years. Somewhere along the line, it seems that Thanksgiving has become a sort of warmup act, or rehearsal for Christmas and perhaps other December holidays. Think about it, you kinda do the same thing on both major holidays. You get together with your relatives, eat a huge dinner with them, and spend the rest of the evening doing other stuff. The only difference is there are no gifts. That pretty much covers this rant. Just thought I'd get it off my chest. Thanks for reading.