As my grandpa used to say, home is a branch of heaven.
Today’s reading feels like it’s talking about how emotions overflowing might feel like it’s hindering me, but it’s actually a skill I should harness creatively.
Plenty of things come to mind with that. But some of you might remember me talking about wanting to try writing smut a while back and that not going much of anywhere. Part of it came from feeling scared of letting that part of me out.
Mind you, not fear that stops me, more just “it’s an effort” sort of fear. But it’s one I keep wanting to push against and there’s something to that.
Honestly, I might find writing smut fun or I might do it once and be done. The main thing is that I hate feeling limited, whether by circumstance or by my own brain.
No weird dreams today, but I did wake up thinking about two related things.
As most of you are most likely aware, Power Rangers is basically an American version of Super Sentai. And they had a season (which I always think of as the third but it’s actually the fifth) called Power Rangers Turbo.
The first thing is that funnily enough even though Turbo is an adaptation of Carranger, the 20th Super Sentai (by year, Ohranger was the one used as 20th anniversary season after Goranger and JAKQ were added to the roster), there WAS a Sentai season called Turboranger that was the 13th one. A fact which trips me up every couple of months.
The other, related to that, is that Carranger is my own personal metric of what a parody should be at minimum.
Carranger is by design a parody of its own franchise. Not a goofy season like Kakuranger but one that’s set out to poke fun at itself.
So here’s an example. The Cheap Sentai Parody starter pack includes cliches like “why don’t they bring the giant robot from the start” “what’s with the goofy costumes” and so on.
Carranger’s premise is that a Biker Gang from space is invading and the heroes are harnessing the powers of cars. So it’s motorcycles vs cars.
And yes, I said “harnessing”, because you see, the powers of the main cast come from CAR CONSTELLATIONS. Like if Saint Seiya was about cars.
And to me that’s the key to a good Parody. You don’t demean what you’re making fun of, you learn what makes it tick and amplify it to absurdity. Making it funny for those that don’t know, and funny AND clever for those who do.
“But Fer, what about Akibaranger?” I said Carranger is the minimum not the peak necessarily.
The red one in Carranger is Ken’s voice in Street Fighter since 3rd Strike by the way.
I think about that bit in Umayon where their Sentai Parody ends up with like two pinks being more fun than just going “yeah all the bright colors are dumb!”
…or Carrotman now that I think about it. It’s very clearly having fun with genre conventions but from a place of people CLEARLY having fun with it all.
Now why I woke up thinking about this is anyone’s guess.
Maybe it’s the fact that I was in that very specific hell of “I don’t wanna get out of bed but I’m not sleepy” and my brain started wandering around.
Thankfully I had packed everything so I just had to dress and leave. My luggage felt suspiciously light but I traveled light this time around and I decided to put some of the stuff in my backpack instead.
I talked the first day of the trip of the hotel being disorienting, another element about it is that, for example, my room number was 2329. Logic would dictate that I’m in the 23rd floor, but the building only had like 10 floors.
No, I was on the third floor but I’m assuming the hotel is the second branch or something and so it’s more like 2-3-29 instead of 23-29.
That shit confused me to the last though, that hotel was unnecessarily, confusingly designed.
The extra 2 part did make me think. I actually didn’t have to connect to the wifi but I can’t remember staying in THIS hotel before… But I do remember staying in one like two blocks away in late 2023. This time it was Grand Prince Shin Takanawa and last time it was Grand Prince Shinagawa if I remember right.
So if they keep that crossover where even the wifi credentials are the same maybe they need that extra number to differentiate which Grand Prince the room is at?
…how did they copy the same wifi credentials anyways? I assume they had to get into the deeper configuration because I don’t think same name and password is enough. Right?
Sidenote, there’s legitimately an area called Takanawa and it fucks me up because I never think about Family Guy until I go to Tokyo and go through the area.
I had to wait like 40 minutes when I made it to the station but eventually I got on the train back. There wasn’t anything too eventful on the ride, I didn’t even have anyone on the seat besides me. I just entered the hibernation mode that years of living through hours-long blackouts taught me and I was back in my home turf.
There was a bit of a flash rain but I thankfully caught a taxi. My mailbox also wasn’t about to explode like the last few times I’ve left which was nice.
The thing that was about to explode was in my fridge though. I had bought a bag of pineapple slices at the conbini before I left and forgot about it and it was so bloated I was scared that grabbing it might make it pop. I didn’t even try to take a pic because WHAT IF IN THE HALF A SECOND OF TEMPERATURE/PRESSURE CHANGE IT POPS?!!!
Then something magical happened…
…the pineapple bag popped I managed to complete a bunch of pending tasks at once.
Emails sent, averiguations made, requests requested. Enough space had freed up in my brain that I finally had the bandwidth to do… anything else, really.
It’s kinda nuts how much space was taken up by TWO pending passports and how much was accomplished with only ONE pending passport.
Then I dissociated for a few hours while watching tokusatsu hensin compilations in YouTube and when I got to a B-Fighter Kabuto one I got slapped like thrice.
First: I had forgotten that Reuben Langdon, the voice of Dante of Featuring Dante From The Devil May Cry Series has a part there.
Second: I forgot that Seiji Takaiwa, the suit actor of beasically every main Kamen Rider from Kuuga to Zi-O played the part of a Peruvian.
Third: These two things made me look up a cast list AND I LEARNED THAT KAORI ASO OF WILD ARMS FAME HAD A PART IN THAT SHOW TOO.
I did notice that after I came back to reality from whatever bliss hole I was in, I was SO afraid something had blown up, like not nursing my phone’s notifications would lead to something going wrong.
I really need to relax.