Nobody tagged me, but...

1. Pick up the nearest book ( of at least 123 pages).

2. Open the book to page 123.

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the next three sentences.

"Say it."
"Well--Ms. Krotenjager, Mr. Dalton--I think we've covered all the major points."
"Yes," I agreed. "Do you have a card?"
"I...no."
(his dialogue goes on, but that's the fifth sentence)

A Gaia Story: Snake and Rabbit

The bunny makes a peace offering of mochi. The snake contemplates the offered confection cooly, waiting for the right moment to strike. And I, as usual, am too busy being cool to notice the upcoming feeding frenzy.

Strawberry Shortcake - Upcoming characters

I've mentioned my love/hate relationship with the 2000s Strawberry Shortcake series. A lot of the hate comes from the animated portion, with it's bad voice acting (with a few exceptions. Very few.) and wallbanging stories. But the love all comes from the character designs. There is something aesthetically pleasing about the characters, although I can't really describe what it is. I guess it's the potential that the official art holds. Looking at the characters, I get a sense of who they are, which is often dashed by their actual performances in the animated series. Case in point, Lemon Meringue. When her character design first showed up, I thought she'd be great, kinda snooty, but pretty enough that you didn't care. But when she finally turned up in the series, she actually had no personality at all, which is odd, considering how all of the characters are a blatant stereotype. Like Ginger Snap is the token inventor, Angel Cake is the Preteen Drama Queen, Orange Blossom is the hippie, Peppermint Fizz is the bad girl, Rainbow Sherbert is the pirate, Huckleberry Pie is the token boy, etc. I guess she's supposed to be the dumb blonde, but the majority of her dialogue is just a variation of "Huh?" That's not blonde, that's blank.
Anyway, I finally got to see Let's Dance, which I had been looking forward to because of Apricot, although as usual I was slightly let down (but only slightly this time). But one of the extras on the DVD (glad to see them after their absence on The Berry Blossom Festival DVD) was a "photo album" of all the characters, including a few that haven't shown up in the series (like Cherry Cuddler), and three that are going to be in the upcoming DVD:

Nerd Power!

Scarf Power?

Well, she looks...nice...

Watermelon Kiss is giving me some serious Yamato Nadeshiko vibes, especially since her mini-profile says she's "always looking for ways to be extra helpful." I just bet she's the character that's so nice it drives you nuts. Not that it'll drive any character in the series crazy, just the viewers at home.
Plum Puddin' is a girl once again, the second time she's changed since her original debut as a boy back in 1980 (speaking of which, where are the boys in the new series? I mean, I know that this it's primarily aimed at little girls, but come on!). Personally, I think she looks way too much like Tea Blossom. Other than that, she's got the nerd-prep look down. I think she's the first character to have glasses, which is fitting for the token nerd character. So, the question remains, who will she hit it off with better? Will she bond with Blueberry Muffin over their mutual love of books, or will she use her genius to band together with Ginger Snap and build some kind of super robot the likes of which has never been seen in Strawberry Land?
Out of the three, I like Banana Candy the best, although I dislike her name. What's wrong with Banana Split? Or what about Banana Cream Pie, huh? Too risque or something? But seriously, she's rocking that scarf. I have a feeling that the reason I like her best is the hair. I tend to go for the characters with fluffy styles.

And I just have one more thing to say:

Apricot, you don't have to be a pathological liar just to make people like you. You're cute just the way you are.
That is all.

Sushi Pack - Fish Tales

This ep opens with a news report on the Wharf City Museum's newest exhibit: the Golden Beachball of the Incas. Sophia Tucker talks with the mayor, who points out that the ball is protected both by lasers and by the Sushi Pack 24/7 just in case someone, i.e. White Oleander, tries to steal it. For reasons that are never specified, she wants it and has even teamed up with a DNA specialist, A. Scientist, to try and get it.
Kani's crabbier than usual, and Ikura wants to know why. Kani makes him promise, really promise, not to tell, and he does. They go off to the side to talk in private, unaware that Wasabi followed them. Kani spills the beans: it's molting season, and she's going to lose her shell soon, which is apparently like a big Hollywood production (I'm not sure what she means by this, really), so she's going to hide out on the beach pretty soon until her new shell grows in. Wasabi splits to tell the others.
Over at Oleander's hideout, the scientist whips up a DNA smoothie designed to give her a shell strong enough to bypass the museum's lasers, but it doesn't work. The scientist calculates that in order to make a smoothie that will do the trick, they need the hardest crabshell DNA in the world, which happens to belong to Kani. Oleander sends him to the museum to find a way to get that shell, so he dons a beard as a disguise.
Desperate to tell someone what he heard, Wasabi interrupts Tako's shift guarding the beachball and Tako translates for our benefit: Kani's leaving the pack to go to Hollywood! Wasabi also tells him to stop repeating everything he says (^_~). Tako goes immediately to tell Maguro. I just love the way she just tells him to go away, since she's mediatating. Of course, once she hears the news about Kani, now with the addition of a job as a stuntcrab, she loses her meditative cool. Kani shows up and tells Tako that the police chief wants to talk to him, and when Maguro tentatively asks if she's going anywhere, she just about bites Maguro's head off. The police chief fills Tako in on Oleander's supposed whereabouts and asks the Pack to look around, since she's taking a vacation day (it's a running gag on the show that the police chief always has something else to do other than fight crime). Maguro tells Tako about Kani's apparent confirmation, and they decide to go tell Ben.
Having heard all this, the scientist calls Oleander (her comment on Kani becoming a stuntcrab: "I bet that's a tough union to get into."), and they make plans to nab Kani once she sets out for Hollywood. Kani, meanwhile, is putting a few things together in preparation for her trip. Ikura shows up to tell her that Ben is coming to talk to all of them, and comments on how bad she looks. With her shell already starting to crack, Kani beats a hasty retreat, hopping a cab for Deserted Beach State Park without even waiting to hear what Ben has to say. The scientist relays all this to Oleander, and they get set to make their move.
Ikura joins the others, who are upset that Kani left without saying goodbye, but Ben points out that they don't know what's really going on. So he interrogates them one by one, whittling the story down, but Ikura stays true to his promise to Kani and doesn't tell them what's going on, only that it has nothing to do with Hollywood.
On the beach, Kani is trying to rush the molt, and finally manages to crack out of her old shell, but before her new one can harden, Oleander and the scientist strike! Not only do they capture her in a net, but they seize her old shell for the DNA. Meanwhile, Ben, learning that Ikura promised not to tell what Kani told him, elucidates on the nature of gossip, which in this context is "personal opinion painted as truth," in other words, a rumor. But since Kani really is gone, and Ikura isn't talking, the rest of the Pack still try to figure out where she's gone. Hollywood for real, or perhaps Paraguay? (Is this a crab joke? I don't get it...) Finally, Ikura has enough and, even though he promised Kani, he has to set the facts straight. Hearing the truth, everyone else feels dumb for thinking otherwise, but no one feels dumber than Ikura, since he could have set the rumors straight earlier. Now that everything is all right, Ben has to get back to The Green Donut, since he's the only one who works there, after all.
The new DNA smoothie actually works this time (good news for the scientist, whom Oleander threatned with physical violence if it didn't), granting Oleander a hardy shell on her back and pinchers for hands. The effect only lasts two hours, so she sets off. Kani, trapped in a cage due to her still soft shell, realizes that the heat lamp she's under will actually work to her advantage, hardening her shell extra quickly, and soon she's able to bust off the lock and get loose! The scientist tries to stop her but ends up smashing one of his beakers, blowing the roof of the sea cottage they've been hiding in, just as a police chopper goes by. Kani hitches a ride with it to the musuem, and manages to get there in time to warn the rest of the Pack. Oleander is not discouraged, as her shell protects her from all their attacks. She gets past the lasers and manages to grab the ball, despite her pinchers. But Kani, being a crab, comes up with the perfect strategy: the Pack uses their powers to make the floor as slippery as possible, knocking Oleander flat on her back, unable to get up.
Two hours later the police show up and take Oleander into custody. Ikura apologizes to Kani for spilling her secret, but she acknowledges that he made the right decision. And while she's annoyed with Wasabi for starting the whole thing in the first place, she's able to look back on it and laugh already, so it's all good.

This is going to haunt me for weeks, but why did Oleander want the beachball? Did she have some kind of plan for it? Was she just going to sell it on the black market? Maybe she had a trade set up for some kind of legendary ingredient, since she's a foodie villian and all. Whatever it was, it was worth changing her DNA, so it must have been big.

Passions - Perfectly Frightful

One of us should split
One of us should vanish
It's clear who should be banished
Don't think I'm being spiteful
It's just you're perfectly frightful!

Above is the song Perfectly Frightful from when Passions did their parody of Wicked. I'm mainly posting this because the choreography is almost exactly what I thought should have happened during Loathing in Wicked (minus the pajamas). And for good measure, here's the Defying Gravity parody, Spellbinding:


Now I'm free and I'm gonna be
Spellbinding
Look at me and you're gonna see
Spellbinding

Sushi Pack - Deep Sea Diver Dude

Okay, this one starts off cheesily good, gets a little weak near the end, but still scores mega-points for being so unabashedly Tako-centric. Still, it definitely is one of the odder eps.

I mean, the whole thing starts off with Kani, Maguro, and Ikura talking about their families and how they keep up with them. Now, I can kind of dig this for Kani and Maguro, but isn't ikura salmon roe? As in, eggs? Now, the conceit of the show is that the Sushi Pack were created by a freak lightning storm. There hasn't been an explicit origin episode (yet), but it's been mentioned offhand a couple of times. So, I'm just curious about how 'alive' roe is before being made into sushi. I mean, with the others, they obviously had life before becoming sushi, so it makes sense that they would remember their relatives when they came back to life, as it were, but an egg? Or really, more than one egg? The more I think about it, the less sense Ikura makes. No wonder he's so headstrong, he's got twenty or so eggs in his head.
Anyway, the point of everyone's families is to set up the episode's scenerio: Tako feels left out because he doesn't have any family. Neither does Wasabi, being a condiment and all, but they don't hang out and wallow in their mutual lack of family or anything. First, Tako walks in on Kani surfing her family's blog and she tells him about her little nephew having a growth spurt, and then he notices Maguro organizing postcards from her relatives on vacation, and then Ikura comes back with photos from his family reunion trip upstream (did he go to spawn or what?). At last, I realize why he's afraid of bears! After each encounter, Tako gets all down and says stuff like "I wish I had a brother or sister." And I confess, this just gave me a fit of giggles. I'm sorry, Tako, but angst just is not your thing, even with that eyepatch.
Later, Tako is sitting all depressed on a pile of dishes (which look like pancakes IMO), and while he engages in a small bit of feelings talk, I'll forgive him because he's Tako. Let's just pretend that Wasabi and Ben, who are entering the frame as he speaks, asked what was wrong. And apparently Tako's so depressed that it's effecting his ink flow. Ben doesn't have an answer for once(!), so Tako tells his story and we get a flashback: When he was just a baby octopus (born with an eyepatch, it seems) he had a thousand sisters. But one day he went exploring and got caught in a current (and was presumably caught soon after), and he never saw the rest of his family again. So technically he has a family, he just doesn't know where they are.
Hearing his story, Maguro tries to reassure Tako by telling him that the Pack is his family now and she thinks of him as a brother (probably not the kind of reassurance he was looking for ^_~), and the rest of the Pack agree. Ben is remarkably off-form today, but is saved from saying too much by a sudden tremor.
The cause is not an earthquake, but the titular diver walking down the street. The diver comes across a policeman and a driver, and sprays them both with water, making them both disgruntedly say, "Thanks, deep sea diver dude," for some reason. Seeing this, the Sushi Pack leaps into action! Noting that the diver is looking for something, and also noticing that the suit is leaking salt water (not just water, but salt water) and its supply hose goes all the way to the harbor, Tako knocks the diver over easily and opens the mask to find...a squid? A rather polite squid who apologizes for making a mess. She introduces herself as Hideki, Tako's cousin (isn't Hideki a boy's name?), and gives him an invitation to the Spring Shindig held by the International Neighborhood of Kinfolk (INK, anyone?). Once it sinks in that he has a family, Tako is thrilled and plans to leave right away. Maguro, fittingly, is the one to ask if he'll be back. Tako says he will, but is so excited that it sounds like he won't, and he bids his friends adieu. Hideki starts up the diver suit again, though she warns Tako that she failed diver's ed (badum ching!), and they head back into the ocean.
Ikura laments how slowly time passes without Tako, but Kani points out that only three minutes have gone by. Somehow inspired by this, Ikura wonders if Tako was tricked into leaving, since they don't really know if Hideki is his cousin or not. Could this be a plot to unravel the Sushi Pack?! Again, I find it fitting that Maguro corrects Kani: taking Tako is cephalopodnapping, not fishnapping. Regardless, they take off in their mini-sub. Ikura comments on how they've never been this low, which Maguro misinterprets. They follow the supply line that Hideki left (Maguro refers to Hideki as 'he,' but I'm pretty sure that Hideki is a girl, having not only the same up-curled eyes as Maguro and Kani, but her voice is pretty girly, too. But like I said before, Hideki is a boy's name, so I can see why Maguro is confused), and soon come to a big, black hole. Predictably, they try to go in, but it turns out to be a whale's eye, so they beat a hasty retreat.
Finally, they come to the real cave and use their gadgets to eavesdrop on two octopi and hear something that sounds cryptically bad, but obviously is not sinister. Regrettably, the Pack doesn't even consider this option, and they get into position to protect Tako.
They sneak into the shindig and spy Tako hanging out with Hideki and having a good time. As they go in for a closer look, the master of ceremonies (calling himself the Grand Octopu) pops up and introduces Tako as their "very special guest." This is when the rest of the Pack drop in and cause some mayhem, but the multitude of octopi retaliate and drive them back. Tako understandably demands to know what the rest of the pack was thinking, but the Grand Octopu is not upset at all. In fact, he's glad that the rest of the Pack showed up, since it means they get to hear the special poem he composed for Tako (I'm assuming he composed it), honoring him as Octopus of the Year! He also commends the rest of the Pack for coming to rescue Tako, even though he wasn't in any danger. And he gives them pens, making them honorary octopi. Maguro and Tako expound on the lesson that you can be part of more than one group and family is where you find it. And then the pens shoot ink all over the rest of the Pack, and they jump out of the ocean for a final pose. The End.

You know, I've gushed over the voice acting in Adventures in Care-a-lot, but I haven't really mentioned it for this show. That's not because it's bad, in fact, I think that Sushi Pack has very good voice work. Whoever does the cast directing does a very good job. Maybe too good... What I really want to say is that I really liked the voice actor and actress who did the Grand Octopu and Hideki.
Also, I feel like I recognize both Ikura and Tako whenever I listen to them, but every time I look them up on the IMDB, I haven't seen anything they've done. Well, I've seen one thing that Ikura did (Soujiro in Boys Over Flowers), but since that was the dub, I didn't watch very much of it, so I know that's not where I'm getting the feeling from. It must be all the "additonal voices" credits, I guess.

Just some random Sushi Pack stuff

I've been doing a little searching around, and picked up a few Sushi Pack-related pieces of info.
Two new episode titles are out, and I'm especially interested in the one titled "Starring Ikura." Sounds good for some overinflated egos. Possible lesson: be modest? don't sell out? Then again, with Sushi Pack, you really can't tell what an episode is going to be about just from the title. I mean, just look at the ones I've blogged. Or "When Will Ben be Zen?" I'm going to blog that one when it reruns, but seriously, from the title alone you would have no clue that it's about the Pack trying to cheer Ben up because a fake official is trying to shut down The Green Donut (the name of the bakery they live in, fyi).

Also, according to World Screen, DVDs will be coming --- in fall 2009 -_- I want screenshots sooner than that! The official quote:

Throughout 2008, a variety of Sushi Pack social expressions will be on shelves at retailers. In the fall, Carlton stores will carry an exclusive Sushi Pack specialty program at all of its stores. A Sushi Pack publishing program from Random House and DVDs from Fox Home Video are also scheduled to be released in Fall 2009.

What the heck are social expressions? I'm guessing greeting cards, but that's the first time I've seen them called that. And what is this mysterious specialty program, eh? I don't want to wait until the fall to find out. By the fall, I may not even be near a Carlton Cards.
No word on merchandise yet, but I did find an image of figurines (I want the Tako one!) from this blog, which also has some very weird early concept images.

Speaking of concept images, this blog has some images of personal vehicles (including Titanium Chef's motorcycle. Just more proof of his awesomeness), plus concept art from two upcoming episodes, "Sushi Roll Model" and "From the Planet Citrus."

Lastly, here's an article about the creative team behind the show, Studio Espinosa.