Mood Bored #5

Pokemon cards, Rasslin, JRPG - Look I'm 13 again!

Welcome to the first edition of the 2025! I’m honestly surprised I’ve now made 5 of these considering I always change my mind on what I want my newsletters to focus on. But to those new here, this blog summarizes everything I’ve gotten into for the past month. From hobbies, travels, experiences, music, and everything else I’m currently geeking on.

Without further ado..

Gaming - Metaphor Re Fantazio

I’ve never played a persona game, but the style and art design attracted me to it, so I decided to start here. And from what I’ve heard, Metaphor is a more “adult” version of the Persona franchise. I love me some JPRG, let alone innovative ones with a strong/more mature story. Hence why my favourite game that I played last year is Yakuza: Like a Dragon.

Currently 35 hours in and I’m digging the timed calendar system to doing quests, as it keeps me on track with the main mission as opposed to getting distracted by 100 sidequests and being over-levelled by the time I feel like tackling the campaign.

Wrestling - Royal Rumble

I watched this event with my who also writes about WWE and reviews events. This was her first rumble, check out her blog on it!

I was on the edge of my seat for this entire thing. Maybe the most exciting rumble in recent years because of the unpredictability this year with so many possible main eventers in both the men’s and women’s rumble matches. I’m not the biggest Jey Uso fan, but he’s starting to grow on me and I do think he can be the next big babyface of the company. I want him to challenge Cody so we can slowly pass that babyface role as Cody turns into Homelander. Also how about that absolutely SAVAGE Ladder match?!

As for the women, I picked Charlotte Flair to win because I want a Tiffany vs Charlotte mania = aging superstar vs rising one, similar to the movie The Substance.

Music - “Mend” by Eidola

I can predict this as one of my contenders for albums of the year already! This album blends soaring post-hardcore with progressive complexity, delivering both raw aggression and delicate beauty. Lots more synth and groove-heavy riffs than their previous work, but still with the same heaviness and experimentation.

I also think Andrew Wells is one of my current favourite vocalists in the core-genres, especially when he comes into his own-like moments where he hits a deeper registered, almost classical-like.

Watched - Squid Games Season 2

I liked everything about this follow-up to one of the most talked about shows, except how it ended! I’ve heard people say it’s just not as good as the first one, it’s not trying to top the original. In my opinion, they executed how a sequel should be set up masterfully here. Not relying on the same old tricks, moving forward with new characters while keeping the same familiarity.

Actually, I think the characters here are much more varied, and act more human than the first. Thanos is a blast to watch troll other competitors as he reminded me of my 24-year-old self and how I’d act if put in these games. Let’s hope they close this out with the final season coming up proper!

Obsession- Pokemon TCG

I won’t go too much into the details of what got me started collecting in Dec.2024 and what appeals to me about them since I covered it in my last post here. But this is what I’ve been playing, and most of the money is going lately.

..I know what you’re thinking, “is that a lot of money?” because of the current market for Pokemon cards today, but the answer is: not as much as you’d think. I learned to play the card game along with my wife and a couple of friends, and we all just collect casually for cards we want, and what works well with decks we like to build, rather than getting into the investment side of things. Because of this, there’s a lot of digging for cards no one wants cause they’re considered “worthless” to scalpers and resellers. So yeah, having a lot of fun here avoiding the FOMO and Costco fistfights for products!

One Piece Board Game

Surprised to find this at my local game store and it was an auto-cop. While the pieces, cards and presentation are vibrant and have all the flair you’d expect from a One Piece licenced product, man does the rule book suck in translation!

So, we are house-ruling so much of the game and closer to the Anime. So far, we’ve tried the crew battle mode several times, but there is also a Co-op adventure mode that we can’t wait to get into!

@ezeekatWhich crew should I play?? @JapanimeGamesOfficial @Toei Animation #onepiece #boardgames #onepieceadventureisland #gamenight

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News ish - Crunchyroll

So I officially write for Crunchyroll now as a contributor! This was an awesome thing that happened to me this month and was much needed in fighting Seasonal Depression in cold-ass Canada with nothing going on in January.

So happy to have my first blog featured on their website, and I’m currently working on more pitches for the lead editor. Stoked to see what other opportunities this creates for me moving forward in the Anime industry, as it’s been a dream of mine to do this kind of work.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to geek out with me about any of these or make some suggestions in the comments. Have a good rest of your week!