Mezmero

@redhotchilimist: Eh, I played a little Pirate Warriors 3 on a rental and I didn't much care for it. I think the ways the mechanics of the game kind of shoe horn in certain story beats is just pathetic. They miss out on a lot of the gravitas of the big cut scenes by having a soundtrack that is far less impressive than the original score of the anime. I actually REALLY liked Pirate Warriors 2 more than I thought I would because they went with an original story line so the narrative presentation wasn't nagging at me as much. They still threw in some of the iconic scenes from the series in different ways and even created some fun new ones, (Kizaru and Enel clashing). I may go back to PW3 at some point but it did not make a good first impression on me. Also World RED is terrible.

I don't really read books much if ever so I can't really compare and contrast any adaptations. I'd rather watch a movie anyway. I guess I thought The Flashpoint Paradox was more enjoyable than the actual Flashpoint comic book event. They take some liberties with the retelling of events obviously but it hit some of the emotional beats in the overall story harder than any of those comics did for me.

I actually built one of those scorpion Zoids when I was younger. Not sure why I never pursued more of them.

Let's not forget "Are you okay? Busta Wolf!"

@frodobaggins: Best I could come up with from that description is either King Arthur and the Knights of Justice or Visionaries. I honestly can't think of what else that could be.

Haikyuu!! is soooo good! I never thought I would care about bench warmers in a sports anime which should be a testament to how good this show is at constructing characters. In other series within this genre bench warmers are exactly that, bench warmers and nothing else. I really hope this show runs for a long time. I'd love to see the 2nd year versions of Hinata and Kageyama though I doubt it'd ever come to that.

One Piece. Pfffffft. That's all I can muster at this point. This is getting just plain stupid.

Finished the 2nd night of 2008 Battle of Los Angeles. Pretty good, better than night one by design I'm sure. All I'll say is LOL that losers' bracket tag match. I like that these days that match feels like the real main attraction to the final night of BOLAs and the finals in the actual tournament are typically good but not quite as entertaining. That said the finals on this show turned out great despite a big mishap with the ring.

I can't tell you how happy it makes me to know that Ciampa is doing well there. He was one of my favorite regulars in PWG last year so I was somewhat apprehensive that he was being given a second chance in NXT. He also seems like some kind of strategic get for Triple H leading to a hostile takeover (get it?) of WWE. What I mean is that I don't think he will ever be called up based on Vince's taste in wrestlers but he could be a part of a super solid foundation for NXT programming going forward. Same goes for Swan, Gargano, and Busick who I think are great but who I don't think Vince will ever like.

@ericsmith: Fair enough. Unfortunately my current wrestling docket is plenty full and I fear I'll never get around to watching more of it but everything you say makes sense to me. It's nice to know that those are solid alternatives for awesome women's wrestling if that is in fact your thing. Plus I got other stuff to do, games to play, anime to watch, Giant Bomb content to absorb.

Well I've got a whole other grip of PWG DVDs to get through this weekend. First stop is the 2008 Battle of Los Angeles night one. It's decent but nothing mind blowing. It should've been a red flag as soon as I realized it wasn't set in the American Legion Hall but there's still some okay stuff here. The main standout to me was Kenny Omega. He had a great match and my favorite part of the DVD was listening to him and Excalibur shoot the shit about video games on commentary. If you ask me WWE should've gotten him from New Japan because he's the full package as both a wrestler and as a character. Bryan Danielson also had a terrific match with Davey Richards. It's this kind of performance that makes me get why people like D. Bry so much. I however have only seen him wrestle maybe 4 times in WWE and two of them were in the same Wrestlemania so I never really had the exposure to him over the past 2 or so years to know how I feel about him in that promotion.

On a slightly negative side note, I feel like Stardom is becoming the Undertale of wrestling (I love that game but that's beside the point). Like clearly it's something of high quality that people like for good reason but I'm beginning to become weary of how hip it is to like it. Also, while I think Kairi Hojo is an excellent wrestler I don't buy the pirate gimmick at all outside of the cool outfits. Maybe if I watched more of it instead of talking a bunch of shit I might think differently.