Just the Ticket

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. The Retrospectre. I suppose that when you're playing a Game of any kind, turnabout is fair play. So because last week, I reviewed (as much as I could, given its length) the A Shadow Falls prelude to Unleashed (which was first included with four seemingly random reprints as part of the Best Of Zenescope Special Edition ) as an Omnibusted post, I'm reprinting that review, along with my thoughts on Unleashed #0: The Game , as a Retrospective post today. Unleashed Volume One Unleashed is the second largest of the three Zenescope events I have read before ( The Dream Eater Saga was a straightforward enough twelve-issue series with a few One-Shots, and that was it, while the Age Of Darkness will have more content to it than the Being has torso muscles), with several short stories and crossover issues, and five Tie-In comic series, as well as an intervening One-Shot that I'll probably get to next month, and a huge batch of character bios...

Ship's Log by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. Master Of the Tickets, Meister Of Anime. Ahoy, Ticketholders! Friday ended up being my first thousand-plus-view day in awhile (since 2024 , I think). In One Piece Pirate fashion, I'd like to say that if you're actually a human reading what I write (or at least giving me clicks out of pity because I'm still bothering to blog in 2026 ), thank you very much. But if you're just following me on social media to farm my content for AI training, unfollow me immediately, go to an actual farm, touch grass until you find a particularly tall patch of it, and hide therein while you go fuck yourself. When we last left things , Trafalgar Law was in a rematch with Donquixote Doflamingo while Luffy was stuck between a String double of Doflamingo and a puppeteered Bellamy the Hyena. And because the Dressrosa Arc in particular (though it's happened before on a smaller scale in shorter arcs) likes to ruin the pacing of its fights and the impac...

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. The Ticketmaster. August is looking like a high-traffic month, as we're just past the halfway point and  Just the Ticket  is already over ten thousand views, making it the fourth month in a row to do so. And speaking of things happening four times in a row, today's  Goj -Year- ra  entry is the fourth continuity reboot of the Millennium Era. For the third and last time (for now) that we will have to deal with the confusion of which Mechagodzilla film we're talking about, 2002 saw the return of director Masaaki Tezuka , screenwriter Wataru Mimura , composer Michiru Ōshima , and the Millennium Godzilla suit (though I think this or the Megaguirus appearance was a new casting from the same mold, and is once more worn and performed by  Tsutomu Kitagawa ) for Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (stylized with the "×" symbol as seen on the banner and poster). As stated above, it is the fourth instance of the Millennium Era rebooting...

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. The Omnibuster. I'm taking some liberties here by calling this an Omnibusted review because, while Best Of Zenescope : Special Edition  is a Trade Paperback collection celebrating eight years of the company's existence, I'll only be talking at length about one of the stories in this seemingly completely random assortment of issues. The rest, you can follow the links I'll provide later to see my thoughts on them. Best Of Zenescope Special Edition The cover (which I also used for my banner) is by  Alfredo Reyes  with colors by Ylenia DiNapoli . There's a rare exclusive cover by  Anthony Spay and  Ula Moś  that you'll see when I get to talking about the Unleashed prelude later, but first, those other four issues bear some discussion. Some. Like I said, they have no connection to one another or Unleashed , so I'm not going to bother reprinting my reviews of them here. Grimm Fairy Tales #8: Jack and the Beanstalk  - I k...

Ship's Log by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. Master Of the Tickets, Meister Of Anime. Ahoy, Ticketholders! Usopp in One Piece  has gone on a huge journey, not just from Syrup Village in East Blue through the Grand Line insanity and being trapped on a giant carnivorous flower for two years , and now into the New World ; but from being a liar and coward to just a coward , to a strategic coward and makeshift shipwright who wants to be a Brave Warrior Of the Sea , to someone who can stand toe-to-toe with Luffy, to a revolution-igniting superhero who can befriend giants and emotionally scar ghosts , to a man driven by survival to become the peak physical version of himself . His cowardice has always been a part of his character, but as the story has gone on, it's become less of a "this is this person's one defining trait" situation, and more of a...power-dampener for Eiichiro Oda- sensei to figure out ways to write Usopp as a character who is powerful in ways that don't ...