"It's a Video Game!" - Ghost of Tsushima

Since Cyberpunk 2077 ended up being a bust for the PS4, I almost shelled out some money for Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. While perusing PSN, I did come across a game that piqued my interest sometime last year. Some said that it was more like Assassin’s Creed than the current AC games are. Being pretty curious, and seeing that I could get this for 40 bucks, I decided to check out Ghost of Tsushima and test that claim out. It took three weeks to do it, but I think I’m ready to go over my findings.

Ghost of Tsushima was released exclusively for Sony in 2020 by Sucker Punch. Sucker Punch is known for also developing the Infamous series and the Sly Cooper series. I’ve played the first two Infamous games, but I haven’t finished Infamous: Second Son yet… need to get back that one. Anyway, the game was pretty much lauded by folk. I started to play this during my quarantine. Now that I’ve finished, what do I think?

Movie Talk - Batman: Ninja

If there’s one thing you can link to Batman, it can be martial arts. It seems like DC thinks that too since we’ve gotten quite a lot of stuff involving Batman going up against ninjas, monks, and everything in between. Heck, some throw Batman into the whole “World’s Greatest Fighter” title, and that’s just silly. He’s already the World’s Greatest Detective, and adding any more “Great” titles is just overcompensating. When the alien from another world is a bit more relatable than the human male who learned to do everything within a decade, you might be overdoing it. Anyway, why did I go down that tangent? I guess I wanted to hold off on talking about this movie. That’s not a good sign!

Batman: Ninja was released in 2018. Someone at DC had the interesting idea to let some anime creators get their hands on the Dark Knight again. This was done before with Batman: Gotham Nights from 2008. While that movie wasn’t the best of the bunch, seeing Batman (specifically the Nolan Batman) done in anime form was pretty cool. This time, Junpei Mizusaki was the director, Kamikaze Douga and YamatoWorks did the animation, and Takashi Okazaki (created Afro Samurai) designed the characters. When it got adapted for American audiences, Leo Chu and Eric Garcia rewrote the movie. It seems that folk are a bit split on this one. Heck, I didn’t even think about looking at this one till now since the animation wasn’t pulling me in. Still, was it worth it?

5 Pros/4 Cons - The Legend of Korra

Last night, I finally finished The Legend of Korra on Netflix. It took me a while to get through four seasons of it (season 2 was a drag, but I’ll touch on that below), but I finished this race. I never got to watch the show as it aired on Nickelodeon since we didn’t have cable at the time. Yeah, I could’ve found a way to watch it online, but I wasn’t really into getting a lot of streaming services at the time.

For those not in the know, The Legend of Korra was the sequel to Avatar: The Last Airbender. I talked about Avatar here years ago, and my opinion on it hasn’t changed: it’s perfect. There aren’t many American animated series that I can say that about. Can I say the same about Korra? Well, this is 5 PROS/5 CONS, so that’s a no. I do think it was a pretty fun show, though. I know the show was kinda divisive with some fans of the franchise. Avatar: The Last Airbender is a perfect show, so trying to create that again would be tough.

Random Thoughts #56 - "2020, A Year in Infamy... For Now!"

Well, it has been quite a few interesting days. 2021’s already started, things are a bit topsy-turvy. Wasn’t this a Billy Joel song? Anyway, I’ve been trying to take it easy this time. While I might be done with Themed Months for now (I’ll touch on that below), some kick-A$$ery will be talked about for a while. Anyway, onto another edition of Random Thoughts.

2020 – Kinda glad that’s over?

Well, 2020 has ended, and we can all agree that it wasn’t that good of a year. Yes, some good things happened in the year, but it was plagued with… a plague. COVID screwed up a lot of stuff for folk. Lives were lost, folk have been laid off, and people have been idiots. There are also the protests to consider. Add all that happening in a pretty messed up election year, and you end up with a pretty “eh” year. Oh yeah, it feels like the election woes are still continuing into this year with “Sore Idiots R Us” trying to riot a few days ago in Washington DC.

While COVID has done a number on the world, things for me have been okay. My health has gone through some changes, and we lost one of our oldest relatives. A lot of stuff has happened, but I ultimately can’t complain. I still have a job which is a new position, I finally got some stuff fixed with my house (my parents’ house is another story…), I’ve started to do more at the church I go to, and me and Liz are back together. I won’t say too much yet, but things are definitely going to change in this year. I got some news right before I went into quarantine that put so much excitement and worry into me. I will touch on that here soon.

By the way, I did indeed get the bug around Christmas. I will say one thing: I’ll take it over the Stomach Bug of Thanksgiving 2013. That’s not to say that it’s something to play around with since I’ve done my best to be careful out there. Before I got tested, I went right into quarantine mode because I wasn’t sure what was up. It hit like the flu to me. I either got it at an eye appointment or the dentist, but I’m not sure. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one to get hit in my family since my mom and great aunt had it too. How they got it is a mystery since I barely had contact with them. Still, it looks like the holidays are the most vulnerable times to get sick. I’m doing much better (I’ve been downing Vitamins for a few months before this), and my mom and aunt are getting better.

The Blog

Jin Sakai is definitely ready for COVID-19.

I’ve been blogging less. Most of that has to do with being busy in other areas of life. I still want to write about stuff, so you’ll being see some come soon. It may be like the previous years’ posts where I just do 50 in a year, but that sounds right for me now. I think I’m also doing away with themed months too. That’s something that I’ve wondered about over the last couple of years, and I think it’s time to do it. It frees me up to talk about more during the year anyway, and if I want to have a theme for a bit, I can always do it again.

Plans for 2021

Yes, I have plans instead of resolutions for this year. I ain’t letting no pandemic stop that! Yeah, those plans may involve me dressed up in the Urban Costume of Sub-Zero, but you can’t stop me! ‘Murica!

Anyway, here they are:

• Be a better man – This is a continual thing. I want to do better as a son, boyfriend (and maybe more), worker, and anything else that enquires
• Lose weight – 2020 didn’t help in this fact. I think the last time I went to the YMCA was March. I’m around 231, which isn’t bad but not great. I’ll get down to 200 one day. I just need to lay off the fast food.
• Learn More – I didn’t get back to my coding for Python I tried to start last year, so I may take that back up again. Since I’m in a bit of a new field, I’ll also try to learn some more skills.
• Read more – One thing I didn’t get to do this year was read more. Too much other stuff got in the way, so this is one plan I need to stick to.
• Get Rid of Debt – This is an obvious one. I’ve gotten a couple stuff paid down last year, but it’s still going. With this new year, I know some will be coming because my Cruze just hit 250,000 miles a couple weeks ago. Goldie, you did me good.

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I think I’ll cut it off here for now. I gonna catch up with some old movies that I’ve been wanting to cover here on the blog. All I can say is “wax on, wax off.” I also need to finish off this game I’ve been playing for a bit. Until then, Peace, God Bless, and keep ya head in this new year. Remember to calm down, do a little self-reflection, and most of all, be careful. We got some idiots doing dumb stuff. Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t call someone an idiot, but there are worse things I can call them. Besides, if I see ya doing something STUPID, someone’s got to call it out and maybe make a joke about it.