Just the Ticket

I've decided to do a crossover between  New Piece Offerings  and Anime-BAW  this week because of an anime that has gotten me thinking about animated comedy in a new light. I'm speaking, of course, about Chio's School Road . It's a slice-of-life comedy series that centers around the hardships and shenanigans of a socially awkward girl named Chio as she attempts to get to school on time. Each episode is split into two or three segments, each focused on a single situational gag, usually with a cast of no more than four actively participating characters. This may sound like any number of modern American cartoons that have cropped up in visual media recently, but it's an apples-to-oranges comparison when you think about it. To make a point, I'm specifically talking about two cartoons based on previously enjoyable, non-comedic--at least, not entirely comedic, and not always on purpose--licensed properties that have been given the fully comedic or comedic-action trea

Hey, everyone! It's Old Comic Book Day again, and the Retrospective  has returned with some new material to whet your appetites. This is another miniseries, so I'm going to just put the TicketVerse Trades  stuff right up front for you if you'd like to avoid spoilers before getting into my commentary and analysis. Beyond Wonderland Digital Trade: Beyond Wonderland Includes the following: Beyond Wonderland #0-6 Beyond Wonderland Cover Gallery Calie Liddle's Diary Interview w/ Fantastic Realm Calie Statue Artist C.S. Moore And with that, on to my review of Volume Two of the Wonderland Trilogy, which includes some rules for going on the run that should be followed (however strangely Wonderland -specific they may be), but aren't because there has to be a plot or something. So, what do you do when you’ve started out your trilogy by Return ing to Wonderland ? You go Beyond Wonderland in the second miniseries, obviously! Well, at least that’s what

I had difficulty deciding what direction to take with this post at first because I hadn't seen the fourth season yet and thought about doing a spotlight on Full Metal Panic! as a series. But then I finally did  finish the Invisible Victory season..., and realized definitively that a return to Anime-BAW  was in order. I've already told you how bad I think the Fumoffu!  season is in my Anime-WTF?  spin-off series (which is that it's of such sub-atomic consequence to the plot and is so fucking terrible that it might as well not exist at all), so it gets no further consideration here. I only need three seasons or series to do an Anime-BAW , and I have enough to talk about without mentioning it again. So welcome back to #AniMonday, fellow weebotaks! Best: FMP! The Second Raid -- This is the third season produced of Full Metal Panic! , an action-dramedy anime about Souske Sagara, a socially inept former child soldier tasked with undercover bodyguard detail at a Japanese

Good morning, Ticketholders! It's #NCBD again (or in this case, I guess I should call it Old Comic Book Day), which means it's time for the final--for now-- TicketVerse Trades  before the Grimm Fairy Tales  Retrospective continues properly once more. Digital Trade: Grimm Fairy Tales Volume 5 GFT Retrospective #30: The Little Mermaid Collection       - Grimm Fairy Tales #25: The Little Mermaid (Part 1)       - Grimm Fairy Tales #26: The Little Mermaid (Part 2) GFT Retrospective #31: Three Blind Mice       - Grimm Fairy Tales #27: Three Blind Mice GFT  Retrospective #32: The Ugly Duckling?       -  Grimm Fairy Tales  #28: The Ugly Duckling GFT  Retrospective #33: The Golden Touch Returns       -  Grimm Fairy Tales  #29: King Midas GFT  Retrospective #34: Rip Van Sela       -  Grimm Fairy Tales  #30: Rip Van Winkle GFT  Retrospective #35: Pawns, Puns, and Punctuation       - Volume 5 Short Story: Pawns I still plan to write more anime content and

Welcome to another #AniMonday, weebotaks! Today's anime selections are two series that showed great promise in many aspects of their production early on, but ultimately wasted or neglected every possible hope they might have once had. Darling In the FRANXX --Yes, the title has two consecutive X’s in it. Even worse, it’s about children called Parasites (also termed Pistils and Stamens by gender) who pilot cute, magical girl-looking mecha (the FRANXX from the title) in male-female pairs by “connecting” doggy-style in the cockpit. The purpose of the FRANXX waifu -bots is to defend the world’s giant, mobile plantations from Klaxosaurs: kaiju -sized, blue, shapeshifting robo-monsters who are attracted to the plantations by a theoretical steampunk-inspired power source called “magma energy.” The plantations share this resource with one another by “kissing” (a docking sequence). In addition to all of this sexual innuendo, the adults in the series look like chicken-themed chess piece

Good morning, Ticketholders! You can blame my wandering, caffeinated mind for this one. Seeing as how Disney's The Lion King  came out in 1994 (twenty-four years ago, which makes me, at thirty -four, feel ancient AF for some reason that defies words right now), and Star Wars  has been around for at least ten years longer than I have, chances are high that dozens of someones have already thought through this comparison for themselves. But because I'm buzzed on a Salted Caramel Mocha right now, I'm going to talk about it anyway. The Lion King  is basically an animated musical version of Star Wars . Never mind that both films had incredibly difficult tie-in games on the Super Nintendo, or that both properties are currently owned by Disney, or that James Earl Jones, who voiced Darth Vader (AMISH SPOILER: Luke Skywalker's father) in Star Wars  is also the voice of Simba's father, Mufasa, in The Lion King . That fruit is so low-hanging that it's bruised on the

Happy #NCBD once again, Ticketholders! Today's TicketVerse Trades  takes a trip to Wonderland for some interesting but nonsensically convoluted character origin Tales . So here are a few rabbit holes to make your way down this week. Digital Trade: Tales From Wonderland Volume 1 GFT  Retrospective #26: The Queen of Hearts         - Tales From Wonderland #1: The Queen of Hearts GFT Retrospective #27: The Mad Hatter         -  Tales From Wonderland  #2: The Mad Hatter GFT Retrospective #28: Alice         -  Tales From Wonderland  #3: Alice GFT Retrospective #29: The Experiment         - Volume 1 Short Story: The Experiment Despite my efforts to increase my viewer count by putting helpful links in my posts and adhering to a regular schedule, I still don't have many people looking at my blog . If you are one of the few out there who actually read what I post, then please spread the madness to your friends. Sean Wilkinson, Ticketmaster and Trademaker, Out.

Happy AniMonday, fellow weebotaks! In this third issue of  Anime-WTF?  (a monetization-friendly, shit-based take on the title of the third  Star Wars  prequel, Revenge Of the Sith ), I have decided to try once again to come up with a clever form of address for my readers. For those of you who are wondering why you've never seen a weebotak in a Star Wars  movie, it's a portmanteau of the words " weeaboo " and " otaku ," not a member of some cute, alien species from your favorite medieval spaghetti western space opera franchise. I must comment here that I am not a true weeb or otaku . I don't randomly spout Japanese buzzwords, the only manga I've ever read are Codename: Sailor V and maybe half an issue of Sailor Moon , I own exactly zero pieces of non-DVD anime merchandise (what I do own amounts to the one season of One Punch Man and an incomplete set of Dragon Ball Z/Super/GT seasons, all dubbed), I am deeply annoyed by Japanese voice actresses a

Welcome to yet another #NCBD, everyone! If you haven't noticed, I've started scheduling my posts for 6:19 AM as a San Diego shoutout, with TicketVerse Trades  releasing every Wednesday (New Comic Book Day), and Anime-BAW ,  Anime-WTF? , and other limited anime-based content releasing every Monday (AniMonday). I will attempt to adhere to this schedule for as long as is feasible (and as long as I have anime and Zenescope comics to review), but as has been the case in the past, changes in focus and multiple "yatuses" can be expected in the--hopefully distant--future. Digital Trade:  Grimm Fairy Tales - Volume #4 GFT Retrospective #22: A Tangled Perspective          -  Grimm Fairy Tales #19: Rapunzel GFT Retrospective #23:  Timmy Returner          - Grimm Fairy Tales #20: The Boy Who Cried Wolf GFT Retrospective #24: The Song Of Ice And Snow Arc          - Grimm Fairy Tales #21: The Sorcerer's Apprentice          -  Grimm Fairy Tales  #22: The Sno

Happy Ani-Monday, everyone! Yes, I am basing my Anime-WTF?  post titles on the Star Wars  prequel trilogy. Why? Because they objectively suck. Just like the anime I'm about to review today. And like Blogger's inconsistent saving ability; but more on that after the two reviews that survived. Now, as for the title, said reviews are of anime series that were meant to be comedies, but were instead too predictable, annoying, painful to look at, or otherwise unwatchable. Let's go! Daimidaler: Prince VS. Penguin Empire --A guy who looks like your average, overpowered anime protagonist is suddenly thrown into a conflict of some kind between aliens or supervillains or something and a secret organization of some kind that may or may not also be aliens, and finds out that he can become an overpowered anime protagonist by groping women’s breasts. Also, the villains’ henchmen are dressed in penguin unitards and have “front tails” (read: perpetual boners). If I sound vague, sorry

Happy #NCBD to all my stand-up readers out there. Seasons change, the weather heats up, and another TicketVerse Trade  is upon you. Digital Trade: GFT Different Seasons #2 (2011) GFT  Retrospective #18: 2007 Annual GFT Retrospective #19: 2008 Annual GFT Retrospective #20: Halloween 2011 GFT  Retrospective #21: Christmas 2011