Just the Ticket

Happy 23rd, everyone! It seems I couldn't stay away..., and I hope some of you chose not to stay away, either. I made a promise to myself and to you out there in the Ticketverse that I wouldn't post any new content on here until my studies had concluded and I was in a position of true financial security and personal happiness. But three and a half years is a long time to put something I love (or, considering the maddening itch that runs through my brain any time I am in arm's length of a computer keyboard, something that I am most likely addicted to , as well) on the back burner. Further evidence of my might-as-well-face-it relationship with writing and blogging can be found in the thought that I finished my first semester of work a month early and I am "entitled to reward myself," and that I have a growing library of anime and comic book reviews gathering digital and mental dust on my computer that I "must share with the world" despite repeated remind...

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 J...

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...

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 ...