#non-watchathon

So, I have finally finished Kamen Rider Build, save for a few extra things which I may or may not do eventually.

And that means I’m back to doing more western animation, at least until January next year when I cover yet another tokusatsu, because this blog has the most confused demographic ever.

First up: starting next Monday, May 17th, I will be covering Season 3 of Carmen Sandiego, saving the fourth and final season for September. I know I said before that I’d only cover one season a year for every series, but when one of those seasons is only five episodes and the other is eight? Yeah, I can do two.

Then, I will be starting a whole new series at the start of summer vacation in my county, June 7th. Well, okay, technically summer vacation starts on June 9th here, but I don’t wanna start on a Wednesday, so...

Anyway! You might be asking, why specifically do I want to start at the same time as summer vacation? Why would it be appropriate to start specifically at the same time as kids around the country are leaving behind school for a few months?

Well, hypothetical person asking these questions, to that I say: Summer vacation only lasts so long, before school comes along just to end it! So, the annual problem for our generation is finding a good way to spend it. Like, maybe...

Watching and analyzing Phineas and Ferb, the cartoon that I and many from my generation consider to be the absolute best cartoon we grew up with!

This is, like Kamen Rider Build, a series that I’ve been wanting to do since before I even started the blog. Why, it was one of the reasons I wanted to start the blog; to log my thoughts as I revisited my favorite cartoon from childhood.

Phineas and Ferb is one of those series that stays just as good when you’re an adult as it was when you were a kid, but I’ve never really given it a full rewatch, only ever watching a scant few episodes.

Heck, come to think of it, I don’t believe I’ve ever actually watched Phineas and Ferb properly. Considering that as a kid, I just watched reruns as they came on, which left me unable to really appreciate the character development and continuity.

So join me, come June 7th, as I watch Phineas and Ferb in order for the first time in my life!

First things first, I’m not doing a whole multi-season show in one year again. ATLA is only three twenty-episode seasons and it still took a lot out of me. For the selfish reason of my own mental health, any other shows with multiple seasons will be one season a year.

Not to say that I’m only doing one season of TV a year. Not only am I hoping to catch this blog up on Carmen Sandiego and Hilda sometime this year, I’m starting a new show this summer.

And then there’s the matter of that show I was teasing in my post about Sozin’s Comet. Love and peace, was the phrase that brought this to mind. A show where a driving theme is whether or not such a world is even possible, especially when the situation just keeps getting worse and worse.

The next show I have in line for the Watchathon? Kamen Rider Build.

This show is one that I’ve been wanting to cover since I started this blog. Though it is a lot more niche than anything I’ve covered so far, and that would probably include everything I covered for 12 Days of Christmas, so I’m not expecting many notes. Unless, somehow, hopefully, I can introduce a few of my 50 followers and 20 bots to check it out.

And I would recommend that you check it out, because, if you can get past the colorful suits, and the belts reciting toy jingles, then I think you’ll find that Build, and many other Kamen Rider series, are in the top echelon of superhero stories.

Specifically talking about Build, I don’t think I’ve seen another series with this many twists and turns, where none of them feel like they’re coming out of nowhere. I don’t think I’ve seen another show that balances lighthearted and dark moments quite so well.

But, I should probably save some of my gushing for during and after my watching the show, huh?

I’ll be using the complete series batch from OZC-Live, which has Over-Time subs on the Blu-Ray version with some revisions for consistency. If, somehow, I’ve convinced anyone to give this show a chance, then I would recommend KRDL.moe for by-the-episode downloads.

Now, I’d been planning since the start of this blog on doing a season of some other show as a break in between seasons of ATLA (and future shows I’ll cover), rather than doing every season in a row. Variety is the spice of life and all that. But I’m thinking now that maybe it might not interest the people following this blog. 

Not to mention (speaking selfishly) that I may get antsy myself waiting for whatever I’m covering to finish so I can get back to Avatar. But on the other hand, I may get impatient for Avatar to finish so I can cover something else I like.

I kept going back and forth, so I figured I should ask my followers for their input! Answer honestly, I just want to get a feel for what you guys would want. The deadline is two days from now on the 25th.

EDIT: I should add, for the case of Avatar at least, the shows I’m planning on covering have very short seasons. Like, 10-13 episodes.

Hey, remember when I said that I’d do Season 4 of Carmen Sandiego in September? As in, September this year? September 2021?

I wish I could say that there’s a perfectly good reason why I’m so late, but I’m not so sure I can even say there’s a reason, so much as a big amalgam of different super-minor reasons that kept me from working on stuff for this blog.

But I’m definitely not going to delay this any further. Starting tomorrow, I’ll begin doing posts for Season 4 of Carmen Sandiego, and I’ll even be posting on weekends, so that after I upload my post for the series finale, I can start uploading Christmas posts the very next day.

In case you’re finding this post just by browsing the tags I’ve used, this is the Watchathon, a blog where I watch a movie or TV show, with a short blog post where I give my review.

Y’know what my favorite holiday is? Christmas. Something about the music, the decorations, the whole aesthetic, it fills me with a kind of merriment that no other time of year can match.

So, of course, I had to do something super-duper special for the Watchathon Christmas Special. I spent a while thinking it over, searching for the holliest jolliest way to represent Christmas on this blog. Then it occurred to me...

Why do I need to do just one Christmas special a year?

From there, things snowballed into this concept that I present to you; the 12 Days of Christmas, a randomized list of twelve Christmas specials or movies that I’ll be covering for the Watchathon.

...And also, for those who are following me already, this is going to be the testing grounds for a new format for the blog. Instead of just writing down all my thoughts as I go, I’ll be writing a review right after I’m done watching, the only exception being one post. I liked the old format for giving me the opportunity to highlight any moments that stood out to me, but it did mean I had to either keep constantly pausing, or not pay attention to the screen while I typed.

That, combined with some personal stuff I’d rather not talk about which slowed down my typing speed immensely, means that for the foreseeable future (as in, this and the show I’ll be starting in January), I’m going for the review-right-after-watching format. And hey, maybe it’ll be a permanent format change, depending on how well this goes. 

The period of merriment starts tomorrow, December 13th and goes on until December 24th. And, these posts are all made ahead of time. All I’ll have to do is click on “Post Draft”, meaning no days will be missed.