Kitchen Princess

Long time no see! I'm going to cut to the chase right now and discuss a manga series known as Kitchen Princess by Miyuka Kobayashi. It is a shojo or girl's manga series following the culinary adventures the orphaned Najika Kazami.
First, I'd like to say that I am a very open-minded person when it comes to what's marketed at who and I won't let my sex decide what entertains me. I've enjoyed the occassional romance and chick flick, is all I'm saying. Granted, while I will lean more towards Chuck Norris vs. Cyborg Hitler mounted on an Undead Bear, a manga about cooking sounded interesting to me. And y'know what? I WAS WRONG! So, as you can see, I think that the series blows. Let's dive right into the art first...


Y'see? See what I just did? I just showed you what every single character looks like! It goes without saying that character design is lousy, as all characters of the same age group and sex have the exact same face and none of them have distinct features. That makes it really hard to keep track of who's who, especially if the characters change hairstyles and clothing.

The style is standard manga, with nothing distinct about it. Not much else to say about the art, but those are two big issues! The characters all look the same and the art has no personal touch. But what's good about the art? It's, urhm, clean?

Now onto my favorite part; the writing. The writing would make it hard for even Nicholas Sparks to keep his lunch down. It's overloaded with sentimentality to the point of exploding with a heavy helping of stupid and just a wee hint of sexism.

Let's start with the least problematic, the sexism. Before we start, I'd like to state that I by no means suffer from MGS (Male Guilt Syndrome) and I will be very slow to call something sexist. Perhaps sexism would be too strong of a word, but still... The main character, Najika, wants to perfect her cooking skills. Why? To impress a boy (now a young man) who gave her some flan she really like. And one of two of the boys she meets at her new school MAY be the "Flan Prince," so love interest!

Basically, her entire life, her ambitions and her dreams all revolve around a man. She doesn't wanna become a cook just for the sake of being one, because everyone knows women can't get motiviated unless there's a man on the line! Perhaps I am exaggerating and there's nothing wrong with a girl wanting a boyfriend, but still... If that's her life, I'm leaning towards sexism. Chef Ramsay, she ain't.
Finally, the sentimentality and the stupid. First, look above for what I called the love interest. The "Flan Prince." That term is used frequently by Najika and each time it's spoken, a golden heart turns to steel. It is so stupid, my rolling eyes have enough power to pull a train.
Above: Who the Flan Prince grew up to be.

And since it's about cooking, it's going to be a lot about Najika making people happy. One little arc revolves around the mean girl (who, along with her group of indentical friends, picked on Najika for no apparent reason) gets a bad case of the binge and purge, and now she can't keep anything down! Najika deduces that the only way to get her to eat something is with an exact replication of the mean girl's late grandmother's peach pie! And it works! *blarf* Okay, I use the term "Grandma's apple pie" frequently to describe something overly sentimental. And this arc only changed the fruit!

If the above arc isn't enough to convince you that it's overloaded with sentimental bullshit, then you'll enjoy the series! It's as high as I can go and nothing I say can convince you. And, the first bit of stupid I was hit with in the series was when Najika descirbes her orphanage, say it's a place for "orphans without parents." Y'know, as opposed to orphans WITH parents. It could just be the translater, but still, I'm shocked for it not convincing me to turn back.

Also, the characters aren't that great either. Najika is your typical kind-hearted and somewhat clutzy shojo protagonist, the two love interests are your typical shojo love interests and the mean girl... well, she does go through changes, but that's not enough to keep me interested! The writings bad, the art is severly lacking and I can barely keep my lunch down.

On a positive note, the author of this piece knew nothing of cooking before she began writing. However, she thought of some rather creative and convincing recipes throughout the book and if she hadn't told the reader, I woulda guessed she was a chef before taking on a manga career.

Other than that, it blows. I managed to satisfy my need for a cooking manga by reading a shonen or boy's manga about it... one with superhumans and giant beasts!

It's called Toriko. It ain't perfect, but I can keep my lunch down while reading it. It won't decieve me with its cuteness.

Justin Bieber!

Justin Bieber... That name should ring a bell in this day and age for anyone; President to prostitute and me to your Grandma. Even if you have no idea who he is, you likely heard his name somewhere.

Its been quite a while since I last posted, huh? Well, I've been busy, what with college and all and I've been a lazy SOB too. Ah well, who exactly is waiting for the next post? But, the show must go on, dammit!

Anyways, Justin Bieber; judging by my age and gender, you'll probably assume I'm not a fan of his, therefore, I hate him, correct? WAIT! Before you stop reading, assuming I'm just another angsty Bieber-hater, hear me out; I don't hate him. *duh duh DUUUUUH!* As in, don't get me wrong, I can't stand his music; I find it dull, annoying and sometimes repetitive. But is that any reason to hate the person? No, not really. He could be the nicest guy in the world, for all I know. To me, he's just a guy doing what he loves and getting paid for it.

In this era of Twilight, Jonas Brothers and Bieber, the crowd that makes them popular outnumbers the rest of us greatly. My best guess is that people feel threatened by the numbers and feel the need to fight back against the odds. What's the best way to take away the enemy's morale? Kill their god (or write mean things about them on the internet), of course!

Purge the Bieber!

Therefore, you have people making fun of Bieber for his obscenely high voice and his inability to hit puberty!

My point being is that people will hate what's popular, for good reasons or not. Why? Because they don't want to be sheep, and that's great! I, for instanced, hated Hilary Duff. Why? Well, I just did. I ran into a crowd of people who did and I wanted to be "cool" like them, so I did. I didn't know why I hated her, I just did. In a way, I was still being a sheep; just one of a different color. When you hate things just BECAUSE they're popular or actually have an unreasonable hatred for someone, then that's when you become that type of sheep.

And not one as badass as the one above.

What I'm saying is that you should only hate Bieber's music. Don't hate him unless he did something really shitty (he may or may not have, I just have my head up my ass when it comes to pop culture). You're not impressing or shocking anyone by saying "Justin Bieber sounds like a little girl on helium!" And for the mindless fans; remember to respect differing opinions and don't be too much of a sheep.

This little rant was buzzing around in my head for two reasons...

1. I'm so damn sick of Justin Bieber jokes! And again, I'm not offended, but I'm just tired of hearing them from people who think they're being witty. They were funny the first time, but they're getting old and fast! Can't you think of something new?

They seemed to have taken to the place of Michael Jackson (rest his soul) jokes. Every two-bit chump has made, like, 20 of them (usually involving his voice), 'cause they're just too damn easy. Listen, you're not being witty and you don't sound educated. You're just making jokes about the new international punchline.

2. Really, what's the point? I know I said earlier that his music was annoying, but I'm not the target audience. I mean, it's like if I started hating teddy bears because I don't enjoy playing with them. It would be creepy if I DID! Therefore, I shan't complain of something not even aimed at me.

3. I once heard this rant coming from a person who was also not a fan of Justin Bieber, the Jonas Brothers or Miley Cyrus, comparing people who go on endless tears about them to 3rd graders bragging about how they're going to kill Barney because they believe it makes them sound grown-up. What are the odds? I was one of those in 2nd grade!

Come to think of it... Justin Bieber and Barney the Dinosaur aren't too different, are they? Both are popular, have annoying voices, sing horrible songs, but they're both kinda harmless.

How can you hate that face? Huh?! How can you?! I LOVE YOU, BARNEY! *cough* I mean, fuck the system! RAWR!

Anyways, my final point is that sheepishness swings both ways. I chose Bieber as the topic because he's one of the most popular and I've heard countless people squeeing about his hottness and others calling for his crucifixion. Remember; don't hate people without a good reason, don't go to the extremes of either side and don't be a sheep of ANY kind. Have a nice day!

And Justin Bieber, if you happen to be reading this, I've got three things to say to you...
1. Are you that bored? Out of all the posts and comments about you, how did you come across here? Do you google your name constantly?
2. I was kinda kidding with the insults. I don't enjoy your music, but hey, I'm not the target audience.
3. Seriously, how bored you?

P.S. Also, don't make fun of people for the way they look (Robert Pattinson is ugly! Justin Bieber is girly!); when you do that, you're being just as fucking shallow everyone else.

But would it kill him to use a little shampoo?

Dragon Ball Z (part 2)

Aaaand we're back! My apologies for taking so long, but now we'll get back to the original topic! What was I talking about? Oh yes, reasons why I don't like DBZ! Remember, I have plenty of *SPOILERS* so if you want to read DBZ, don't read this. Without any more delay...

No Point in Having a Group: Now as I've stated in the previous post, Goku and Gohan are more powerful than their allies, despite the fact that they had the exact same amount of training, due to the fact that Goku was born under the right star and Gohan was born in the right womb. Naturally, they win 99% of the battles in the series.
I ask you, what's the point of having so many allies, such as Krillin, Yamcha, and Vegeta, if they aren't going to that much use, except to provide cannon fodder? Now in my opinion, when you have a group of heroes, they should all provide an important purpose within the group, in a similar way to the protagonist or with an ability that he or she lacks.

I understand that as a protagonist, Goku has to get the most glory. Believe me, I do. But why can't any of the other characters get their moment of glory? Why can't they have any other use besides showing how awesome Goku is? As in, at least with Dragon Ball, it sort of started off as having team members be useful; Bulma and her gadgets often aided the group, and then you had Oolong the pig, who could transform. Basically, it was a basic group of brawn, brain and unique abilities...
But, as you know, brains have no place in Dragon Ball Z!


Time Skips: Throughout the plot of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, we see our characters grow older, going from, usually starting as young teenagers or young adults and going all the way up to being middle aged. Time skips are, as you can guess, used to skip over long periods of time between the aging and time periods between the arcs of the story. While I appreciate the fact that Toriyama for getting straight to the point, this does present one problem...

Lack of character developement! Characters will suddenly change, new characters will be introduced, marriage occurs, kids are had, and we're not shown any of it! I mean, how cheap is it to take two characters who initially hate each other, like, let's say, Vegeta and Bulma, and then TIME SKIP! They're now married and have a kid.

Or, how about, let's say, Goku dies AGAIN, and TIME SKIP! Chi-Chi now has a 7 year-old son named Goten with no foreshadowing or hints whatsoever.

Sounds stupid, right? Well, my good friend, those actually happened. One idiot I met tried to justify it by saying it's funnier that way; well, it's NOT funny! I got my smartiness insulted!




Brawn > Brains: Another flaw with DBZ; fights are not only repedative, but often in fights, only the ones who are the most powerful in brute strength will win. In Dragon Ball, this wasn't an issue, as Goku and others would have to use strategy and clever tactics in order to defeat their foes. However, in DBZ, equippment, where you fight and strategy matter not; all that matters is who is stronger and faster.
And as anyone can tell you, the humans biggest advantage is his BRAIN. Even in senseless action movies, the protagonist has to use his head. Not here, though.

Where's the fantasy?: This problem is rather small, but here's the thing; Dragon Ball was, for the most part, mythical. It had demons, dragons, shapeshifters and Goku's origins were a mystery. However, come Dragon Ball Z, all the magic was replaced with science; both Goku and his last antagonist, Demon King Piccolo were revealed to actually be aliens. Don't get me wrong, Dragon Ball had quite a few science fiction elements, but I enjoyed the mix of sci-fi and fantasy! Why take away the other?

How can anyone thing this guy is an alien?

Kids can do what?: This is also a minor problem, and that would be the children. No matter what arc of the story one is in, there NEEDS to be little kids. Why? Because kids can't relate to adults, that's why! That's what make Batman and Superman better; if they were kids!
Sarcasm aside, my sense of logic is thrown out the window when I see children around 7 years old easily fighting city-destroying monsters. Why? Because they were born to powerful parents and as we all know, skill is inherited. It's a nice message; if you weren't born under the right star, you have no hope of being as good as those who were.
Another thing that bothered me was at the end, Goku's granddaughter, a 4 year old, easily took down a 7 ft. tall bodybuilder. Now, either she was born with martial arts training inserted into her head or they basically groomed her into a cute little assassin...



Not sick at all.

Those are just the major problems. If I pointed out every minor problem, my blog post would be a mile long.
So, one must ask me, do I think Akira Toriyama is a bad writer and unworthy of his fame? To be perfectly honest, no, I don't think that. Along with Dragon Ball being a lot of fun, despite what I said about it, I've enjoyed many of Toriyama's short stories. I just happen to think DBZ is his weakest work. So, in short, I suggest you give Dragon Ball a try, but leave DBZ untouched.

XOXO,

Some guy

Dragon Ball Z

Salutations! Since I talked about Dragon Ball in the previous post, talking about the infamous Dragon Ball Z was unavoidable. Despite what I said about Dragon Ball, it was at least a fun read. This, my friends, is where all the fun gets sucked out. We have exited the park ride and entered the projectile vomitng. Metaphorically, of course
Ginger, anyone?

Now, for those familiar with the series, you're probably asking yourself, "What can this guy say that hasn't already been said?" Well, since I've read the manga and have not watched the anime, I shan't be talking about the constipation-slow fights or how entire episodes can be dedicated to a guy screaming.
ACTION-PACKED!


Now, I'm going to spoil a lot of things in the series, so if you have ANY interest at all to read DBZ, I suggest you stop reading. Right. Now.

For those not familiar with the series, I'll give you a briefing; It begins with the protagonist from Dragon Ball, Son Goku, now the world's greatest martial artist and all grown up, along with many of the other characters. Now, Goku is married to a woman named Chi-Chi (who he met in Dragon Ball, knowing her for a grand total of two days) and has a son named Gohan.

BUT THEN, a visitor named Raditz comes, revealing to Goku that he is his brother and that he's part of an ALIEN RACE called the Saiyans, sent to kill every earthling and sell the planet to other aliens! So, he kidnaps Gohan and Goku kills Raditz at the cost of his own life. HOWEVER, a new threat emerges, as the other Saiyans discover the death of Raditz and come to Earth to take matters in to their own hands. The other Saiyans consist of two men named Vegeta and Nappa, who are far superior in combat to Raditz, so it's up to Gohan to save the planet!
Awww, Raditz looks like a nice guy!

Or it would be, save for the fact that the author of the series, Akira Toriyama, thought fans would not like him killing Goku and replacing him with Gohan, so Toriyama decided it'd be best to bring him back to life. So, now it's up to Goku to save everyone from this huge threat! However, in order to defeat his fellow Saiyans, he must train harder!

Get the idea? Big threat is said to arrive. Goku and others train, the big threat arrives (who's so powerful, he can blow up the universe by farting) Goku is occupied and the others are forced to fight. Others hold him off pretty well, but then he reveals a 'true form'. True form is ALWAYS, visually, the least threatening and the smallest. Others get defeated by the true form. Gohan shows massive potential and, despite being 7, can easily hold off the true form. Goku arrives and enters fight, eventually defeating big threat.


Now that you understand that, allow me to tell you the first thing I hate about the series; That formula is what occupies the entire story, being used about four times throughout the series. In fact, the only one that's a little different is the first one, the Saiyan Battle! It's different in the fact that Goku falls during the battle and the others end up taking the Saiyan, Vegeta, down. Other than that, the other battles follow the same exact formula. So, the first thing I hate about the series? It's repetitive.
Which is boring.

Now, my friend, now that I've got the plot out of the way, allow me to pick apart what parts bothered me, personally!

Gohan: Here I was thinking that Goku was the boring, soulless Marty Stu in the story. Gohan beats him in that regard, no contest. Seriously, Goku at least had the flaw of being ignorant to the rest of the world and Gohan doesn't even have that. He's smarter than his daddy and has the pontential to be stronger than his daddy.Gohan SMASH!

Somehow, he has the potential to be more powerful than his father, being able to learn techniques at seven years old that Goku didn't even learn until he was in his late twenties. But you know what I don't get? Goku is more powerful than his allies because he's a Saiyan, a warrior race of aliens, right? And he married a human, right? Then, how do you explain why Gohan is supposed to be more powerful if he's only half-Saiyan? As in, that makes no sense! If you take booze and water it down, do you get stronger booze? No, you get much weaker booze! Therefore, if you put an inferior race into a race of warriors, you'll get a weak warrior.


Also, despite the fact that Goku's allies have trained alongside him for so long, Gohan is stronger than them, even as a child. Toriyama loves bruising his supporting character's egos, doesn't he? Some guy once explained to me on Youtube that Gohan is more powerful because he is a pacifist and somehow it charges him up and makes him more powerful... Which shows that people trying to defend this are idiots. By his logic, Ghandi could easily defeat Mike Tyson in a fight.Getting ready to kick some ass.

In short, I'm glad Gohan was rejected as the main character by Toriyama. I prefer Goku, the lesser of two evils.


Everyone is interesting but Goku and his family: Despite what I said about Goku and Gohan, Akira Toriyama is actually capable of making some interesting and flawed characters. For example, there is Piccolo Jr.; The final enemy of Dragon Ball, Piccolo Jr. was the son of Demon King Piccolo (later revealed to be an alien from the planet Namek), birthed for the sole purpose of killing Goku, born just as his father met his demise at the hands of Goku. During the events of DBZ, he stills holds onto his purpose of killing his rival. However, throughout much of the story, he's forced to join Goku to defeat a common foe. As a result of the many fights he endured alongside Goku and helping to train Gohan, he starts to go through many transformations, starting out as vengeful, then chaning to just being cold-hearted and finally, he ends up growing a soft spot for humanity.
Or then there's Vegeta! His story is similar to Piccolo's, only he's ten times more evil and a hundred times more insane! After his defeat to Goku, his pride as a Saiyan warrior basically took control of him. He cares for no one but himself and values his own pride above all else. Anyone who tries to get in the way of his ambitions will be crushed by him without even the slightest bit of hesitation.

Plus, he had one of the most badass lines I've ever heard; "My heart is pure... Pure evil!" Haha! Now, that was awesome!
But then, he later started to change. In the end, he started to care about people, such as the family he created on Earth (he married Bulma, FYI) and later even admitted that Goku was a worthy rival.
So, why couldn't these guys have been the main characters? They had flaws, they went through changes over time and, despite being aliens, they felt like real people. Goku and Gohan went through none of that. It saddens me when a writer shows he has abilities, but he doesn't use them.

Continued in part 2...

Introduction to Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z

Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. What can I say about those two series'? I've been wanting to talk about them for a long time, but I know I'd have a lot to say about it. So, to prevent it from being too long-winded, I'm breaking it into two (possibly three) parts. Now, shall we dive in?

The plot of Dragon Ball revolves around a superhumanly strong little boy with a monkey tail named Son Goku. When he's found by a teenage girl named Bulma, he learns about the existence of magical orbs called "dragon balls", which, when gathered together, summon a powerful dragon named Shen Long, who grants the collecter of the balls a single wish. So, as you can guess, the two go on a quest to find them and make form allies with many unusual characters, which includes, but is not limited to...

... a Shaolin midget named Krillin...

... a bandit named Yamcha...

... and a transforming pig, Oolong.

The series, though, is not limited to the adventures of finding the dragon balls (especially considering that all of them are found by the second volume), as most of the series revolves around martial arts fights and tournaments or adventures that have nothing to do with the dragon balls.

Far as the artwork goes, it's actually pretty good; It's clean, appealing and has a unique cartoony style.

So, we have some fairly interesting characters, a not-so-bad plot and some good art. What's to complain about? Well, for the biggest problem, you need look no further than the first cover...

That's right, I speak of the main character, Son Goku. So, what do I hate about this obnoxious little bastard? He's booooooring! How does one make a monkey-tailed little boy with superhuman strength boring? Like any bad writer, you erase any trace of personality. Give him a "pure heart" (meaning, make it so he never sinned a day in his life).

Then, if you really wish to make the audience hate your character, bludgeon them constantly over the head with how special he is and how much better he is then you could ever be!

In short, Goku is a Marty Stu if I've ever met one. Why does he even have allies if they're not going to be as powerful or useful as he is? And I'm going to be honest; I don't throw around the word 'Marty Stu' often.

Also, his "pure heart." Having never sinned a day in his life basically means he has no flaws. Now, very few people don't know this, but; characters need flaws. And more importantly, they need their flaws to set them back a bit. Know why? Because it makes a character feel more human, which makes them easier to connect with. The reader will lose interest if he or she does not connect, you know? Then again, I suppose Goku DOES have flaws, but no one seems to notice or react like real people would, so it means not. Oh and if he has a "pure heart," then would someone explain to me something about the first thing he did in the series; Bulma parked her car a little too close to him and as a result, he flipped her car over and tried to kill her when she was about to fight back. Isn't attacking someone completely unprovoked count as something? A little something called 'Wrath'?

Pure heart!

Like I said, characters need flaws, but stop feeding me that "pure heart" bullshit.

But I digress. My comments so far have been a bit of a hyperbole, as Goku isn't an intolerable protagonist. He may not be a terribly complex character, but he's entertaining and can carry the story. He certainly would not ruin such a creative, fun and humorous series such as Dragon Ball. No, that's Dragon Ball Z's job! And that will be the subject for my next post. 'Til then, *salute*

Crazy Bones

Crazy Bones. You remember these things? What, you don't? Wow, I'm sorry, you musta been one of the LAME kids. But, since you're so cute, I'll explain it to you; Crazy Bones are game pieces/collectibles which were a huge fad in the late 90s. Well, at least in my school, they were the shit.
As you can see in the picture above, they're small hunks of plastic in the shape of weird, cartoony things.

Basically, Crazy Bones are based off some game in Ancient Greece or some such crap called "Tabas", where children would use the bones of sheep knuckles in a way similar to jacks or marbles. My best guess is that the founder of Crazy Bones thought something among the lines of "Hey, you know what'd make marbles more awesome? If they had FACES on them!" Here were some of my favorites...

Jaws: Guess what he's supposed to resemble? That's right, the E.T. poster!

Hippy: For the longest time, I thought this was a girl.

Nitro: Holy crap, a living missile!

Swirly: I was eight, this one's a toilet. Do the math.

Anyways, now that you've got a good idea of what these little things are, time for a story of my adventures with them! Sit the hell down. Crazy Bones started becoming a fad at my school when McDonald's started doing a promotional for them by selling their own version of the toys in Happy Meals.

Like normal Crazy Bones, but bigger, hollow and lame.

Most of the kids at school had them, because let's face it, we were all a bunch of little shits who demanded our parents take us to get some McDonald's slop so we could get our cheap hunks of plastic.

A common game we'd like to play with these was "Battle", where we'd put opposing rows of Crazy Bones and flick them at the other teams in an attempt to knock them all down. Of course, the McDonald's ones had to be pushed, 'cause their size hurt our tiny fingers when we flicked. I once thought that the big ones had the advantage against the little ones, but all they presented were bigger targets. FUCK!

One day, on my friend's birthday, he offered for us to keep his McDonald's Crazy Bones and revealed to us that he got the cool, small Crazy Bones.

So, naturally, I begged my parents to take me to Toys 'R' Us and buy some myself. Sadly, when I got there, I discovered that they only had Dragon Ball Z Crazy Bones.

The problem comes from the fact that the "Battle" game easily takes several episodes just to complete. Get it? 'cause fights in Dragon Ball Z take a long time! Haha! Oh, forget you.


Luckily, I had one called "The Great Monkey" (for those unfamiliar with the show, the protagonist could turn into a giant monkey) and it was a really powerful piece. With it, I've never lost a Battle! Eventually, I was able to trade it and thus, I started my quest to collect them all, or at least an assload of them.

Now, as a kid, I thought that since they had faces, they were sentient beings, despite the fact that I bashed 'em against each other for games, traded them without a second thought and put them in a cramped box. But, you know, I thought they didn't mind. Why am I telling you this? Simple; because I can.

Anyways, one day at school, the teachers decided that trading Crazy Bones was bad, so it was banned. WHAAAAT?! They ban Pokemon cards, then Gameboys and forbid "clubs" unless everyone is invited (What's the point of having one if you can't exclude people?) and now you take away one of the things that makes Crazy Bones awesome, just 'cause some lil' bastard starts bitching about how he's unsatisfied with the trade he made?! Damn you, school, you're pure evil...

Of course, I wasn't going down without a fight! Being the devious little bastard I was, I thought of a code word we'd be able to use in order to trade undetected; Borrowing. Obviously, my little circle had no intention of returning the trades we "borrowed", but how would the teachers be able to tell? After all, most kids who owned Crazy Bones had, at the least, twenty of them and all of them were the size of a quarter and the teachers don't have time to keep track of who "borrowed" what. Even if they did, they'd never know how long we intended to "Borrow".

In fact, one time the rich lil' bastard in our school (for the sake of privacy, I'll just call him Rich lil' Bastard) caught us and threatened to tell. I told him we were only borrowing, and he said "Okay, ou'll make sure you have the bwue one tomorrow." Hah, even as a kid, I thought he was being a moron. Like we'd let that little snot look at our collections! In your face, Rich lil' Bastard!

Sure, I was breaking the rules, but it was a BULLSHIT rule! And if there's one thing I learned through my life, it's that it's okay to break rules if they're bullshit.

Above: Me in grade school. What's wrong?

Anyways, as the years went by, Crazy Bones started to fade away like the fad they were, especially because they stopped selling them in stores, due to idiot kids breaking their teeth on them, thinking they were candy. As I got away from that school, my interest faded away as well and I just went on to collectiong other things. A few years later, I tried to get interest again, but it wasn't the same without other children collecting alongside me.

So, for awhile, I still had the Crazy Bones, but never did anything with them. Eventually, I sold my entire collection to some children for a couple of bucks when I moved out of state. At last, my long journey with these toys had ended and I could move onto greater things, like writing blog in order to scream about stuff.

These things are actually kind of creepy.

Giant Oily Turk

Okay, take a goooood look at that character. And yes, I mean the man. If you're not like me (that is to say, normal), then you're probably asking a lot of questions, most of them consisting of four letter words. "What. The. Hell." you're probably thinking. "A giant red man with some weird swimming-cap, little girls wearing the same cap and a woman in the background? Dude, this alone should be able to get people to stop using drugs."

I introduce to you Hakan, of the video game Super Street Fighter 4! And yes, that thing on his head is actually his hair. Those little girls are his daughters, so that means that they're not wearing helmets either. Oh, and that woman in the background is his wife, because unattractive women don't exist in the Street Fighter universe.

Alright, I should probably tell you a little more about who this guy is. As most people already know, Street Fighter games revolve around an international fighting tournament called "The World Warrior Tournament", and as you can guess, the characters are from all around the world, usually utilizing a style respective to their nation.
Recently, they came up with a truly awesome idea; a man from Turkey, who uses Turkish oil wrestling as his style! Genius! Here's his trailer, in order to make your head explode with the sheer amount of awesome.

As you can see, his moves are rather... suggestive. But hey, the Russian wrestler, Zangief, has been guilty of that since Street Fighter 2!
Plus, his catchphrase on the trailer, "Looks like it's time to oil up!" can be taken the wrong way with ease. Hell, if you had a mind half as dirty as mine, a thousand sex jokes instantly popped into your head the moment you finished watching the trailer. He's even become something of an inside joke.

Nonetheless, I think Hakan is an awesome character and they really used their imagination on this one, and it got me interested in oil wrestling.

But I must ask, why do half the fans of the game (the other half love him) hate him so much? They find him "ridiculous" or "stupid" or any other meaning of said words! Basically, they're telling me they're okay with a game that...

...has a stretchy and bald Indian guy (who, by the way, also has a hot wife)...

... a loud-mouthed, obese, kung fu master biker (for the record, he has a hot girlfriend)...

... and a Mexican chef/wrestler...

... but a giant oily Turk with an unusual haircut somehow crossed the line? Don't get me wrong, I love the characters I mentioned above and in the hands of a good writer, anything can be taken seriously. But if you can take those guys seriously, you can take a Turkish oil wrestler seriously, dammit! *sigh* People just don't like change, I suppose. That's why there are so many headswaps of the main character, Ryu, in the game and why his token headswap, Ken, is so damn popular. Okay, I can't resist this joke...

Ken and Ryu: Totally not gay.

I'm sorry, that wasn't very PC of me! I just couldn't resist! Yeah, I know I just made a joke like that, despite the fact that I just spent all this time talking about a muscular oily dude who was given seven daughters and a wife JUST to show the American audience that he's not gay, but still...

Anyways, the the thing I'm trying to say is that oddity is a gift and giant oily Turks are awesome.

"Looks like it's time to oil up!" - Hakan