A to Z Challenge 2017 -- Alucard, Asuna Yūki, and Allen Schezar #atozchallenge

 As an Anime fan, I find that different characters are essential.  Also, I like different genres.  These three characters are different as night and day as well as the anime genres.

Escaflowne (es-cah-flow-nay) is from the 90s. It's about a girl from our world that gets transported to Gaea (guy-yah), a world of dragons, humanoid species, and mechas called Guymelefs (guy-mel-ef).

Allen Schezar is a gentleman with great secrets as well as a soft spot for protecting the "damsel in distress." He is also a ladies man as he sort of hits on the female main character, Hitomi.

He is one of the Knights of Caeli, an elite group of swordsmen from Asturia. His past is checkered with bitterness and death stemming from his father's fascination with the Mystic Valley and Atlantis.

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Asuna Yūki comes from the Anime Sword Art Online.  It takes place in near-future Japan where full-dive virtual reality is possible.  The game, Sword Art Online (SAO), premieres as the first VRMMORPG of its kind. 10,000 players enter the game world of Aincrad (eye,n-krad) on the first day.  Soon they discover they are trapped and that if they die in-game they die in real life.

Asuna is not a damsel. She is (excuse the cursing) a bad ass bitch with a blade.  She becomes one of the strongest players in the game and in her guild Knights of the Blood.  Her moniker is "Lightning Flash" because she wields her rapier in a swift and deadly fashion.

As the game progresses, her softer side is shown when she and Kirito form a relationship and adopt an NPC AI called Yui.

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Alucard has been one of my absolute favorite characters since I first watched Hellsing. This anime is a strange combination of Horror and Comedy. It comes in two incarnations Hellsing and the newer Hellsing Ultimate.

There is no way to describe him other than he's crazy as all eff, seriously deranged, and psychotic to boot.  He has a tendency to go overboard on his enemies in a fight.

As an ageless creature, Alucard is the ultimate vampire. He is all powerful and very bored.  His ennui leads him to turn Seras Victoria, a police woman, into a vampire.

He works for Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing, a woman that takes no sh*t from anyone but deals a great deal onto her enemies. She runs the Hellsing Organization, which is responsible to protect England from vampires bent on destruction.

His archenemy is the Paladin Alexander Anderson who works for Iscariot (Vatican Section XIII) a top secret section of the Vatican.  He is as insane as Alucard.

A to Z Challenge 2017 -- Theme Reveal Ooo La La!!!!

So this is where I totally tell you my theme for this year's A to Z.

Last year was fun with the spookables and ghosties.  I learned quite a bit.  Surprisingly it payed off.

 I watched Gantz 00 on Netflix on the 11th and, OMG!, Japanese yokai everywhere!  Gantz is a gory story about dead people fighting in a death match against monsters in the cities of Japan.  They can die on the field or die by not killing all the monsters in the time allotted.  It was bloody, sick, and twisted CGI movie.  It has manga and an anime to boot.

But what got me to want to do this theme is Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale.  It is the second film in the most amazing anime, light novel,  manga, and video game series! Monsters of Aincrad have invaded the augmented reality game of Ordinal Scale.  The dangers become real when Kirito's friends  are targeted by an unknown enemy.

 I got to see it in the theater (Yay!) and it was amazing!

So now we come to it.  My theme:

My Favorite Anime Characters!

via GIPHY

That's right! I'm delving into the world of anime. From demons and devils to swordsmen and heroes, I will cover a range of genres and of species.

Warning:  There will be Spoilers  I mean it!  Spoilers everywhere! Maybe even masses amounts of them.  If you're not into finding out the secrets of the anime universe, you are henceforth warned to stay away. Perusing these posts is hazardous to your spoiler free life.

This is the only warning I will give.  Be it at your peril.  Mwhahaha!

A Big A To Z Announcement Is Coming!

Hi All,

We who have been A to Zers have been asked to spread the word about a stupendous, monumentous, and huge announcement.

ON FEBRUARY 6th 

That's next MONDAY.

So don't forget to go to Blogging from A to Z to see this post and the Announcement post.

MY TOTALLY BIASED REVIEW OF (FUNKY FOR MY HOMETOWN) SODAS -- # 10 OLDE BROOKLYN RED HOOK RASPBERRY

My next soda looked hot pink in the light. It was a pretty color really. The soda is called Olde Brooklyn Red Hook Raspberry.

I popped the top and sniffed.  Surprisingly, it didn't have a strong smell. Only a hint of raspberry tickled my nose.

The taste was also mellow.  It was mostly cane sugar sweet with the raspberry flavoring hitting my taste buds in the aftertaste.  Long lasting and not too strong, it was sort of pleasant to have it linger.

I've noticed a difference in taste between high fructose corn syrup and cane sugar.  How do I describe it?  I want to say its the difference between cheap maple syrup and molasses.  High fructose has a thinner sweet quality than cane.  Cane, for me, feels like it coats my mouth more.
Anyway, the raspberry taste was subtle, and the soda wasn't too sweet either.  I did like this one quite a bit.

MY TOTALLY BIASED REVIEW OF (FUNKY FOR MY HOMETOWN) SODAS -- # 9 CHEERWINE

So this one was one of the funkiest so far.  It was dark like a cola.  That is until I held it up to the light. Then it turned a beautiful blood-red burgundy.

From the bottle, I could tell it was wild cherry flavor.

The smell hinted of the cherry flavor.

The taste was not there.  I didn't get a cherry flavor at all.  I was expecting something like that of a Cherry Coke, where the taste is in-your-face.  There wasn't much flavor at all.  It was more tart/acidy than anything else.

Who knows.  Maybe my tastes buds were off that day. My disappointment knows no bounds on this one.

MY TOTALLY BIASED REVIEW OF (FUNKY FOR MY HOMETOWN) SODAS -- # 8 VANILLA ROOT BEER

Frostie Vanilla Root Beer was the second choice my sister made when she was here for 4th of July weekend.  The first being Coco Fizz.(What can I say? She's a chocoholic.)

So this one smelled like root beer with a hint of vanilla.  It was very promising.

I poured all three of us some.  My mom thought it was too sweet.  My sister approved.  I thought it tasted as if it was a root beer float.

The vanilla flavor was big enough to make it seem as if there was a scoop of vanilla ice cream hanging out in the bottle.

My only complaint about this soda was that the root beer part lacked bite. I prefer my root beer to stab my tongue with its flavor.  This particular root beer was a palid version. The flavor was there, but not like it is with Barq's.

My mom thought it was okay but not great.  My sister liked it a lot.  I thought that it was pretty much a winner.

MY TOTALLY BIASED REVIEW OF (FUNKY FOR MY HOMETOWN) SODAS -- # 7 COCO FIZZ

So now we are about half way or more through the sodas.

How can you go wrong with chocolate soda.  Hmm, chocolate soda.  Yep.

Upon opening the bottle, the scent of Toosie Roll is pungent. I didn't even have to put the bottle to my nose to smell it.

Pouring it, it is brown as you would expect. If I rememeber correctly, it was about the color of a Toosie Roll as well.  Maybe even a bit lighter.

My sister and mom both hated it. They made the lemon juice squishy, gag-a-maggot, yucky-poo face.

To me, it literally tasted like I was drinking a Toosie Roll in soda form.  It was a bit too much for me, but it definitely was better than Big Red.

I say it was on a low like scale.  I don't mind it, but I would not go out of my way to buy it again.