Daniel Dockery
@dandock
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Senior writer @crunchyroll / words @polygon @wired @vulture @inverse @pokemon / Wrote MONSTER KIDS, a book about Pokemania/Rep'd by @jmdargz at @AevitasCreative
Durham, NC
Joined February 2009
I AM VENGEANCE. I AM THE NIGHT. I AM (writing a) BATMAN (book!)
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Legendary Pokémon after Gen 1: "They are two forces, one representing harmony, the other chaos. Years ago, the prophecy foretold a trainer that would come to combine them and nurture their spirits.". Gen 1: "I heard there's a big ol' bird in that cave over there.".
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"Now, on Fox Kids, it's Eek! The Cat. And after that, a former child star grapples with a physical condition that keeps her from ever growing up and forces her into a state of psychosis that shatters her ability to process reality. And then, Bobby's World!"
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So many Batman: The Animated Series episodes end with the villain in tears, unable to process their fears and obsessions, while Batman, a looming presence born of the inability to rationalize terror, is the only one there to comfort them. It's, umm, a really sad show.
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This article reveals that the drowning death of Yu-Gi-Oh!'s creator Kazuki Takahashi happened while he was attempting to save someone from a deadly rip current. He was a hero. Once again, thank for you everything, Takahashi.
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I'm glad BTAS understood that Joker is most fun when he's deeply petty. His best stories are rarely "tries to destroy Gotham" but rather "gets mad that someone cut him off in traffic" or "wants to copyright fish" or "bombed during stand-up" or "a casino stole his likeness."
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Whenever someone says "This children's cartoon was ACTUALLY for adults," what they tend to mean is "This children's cartoon did not approach children like they were a clueless, undeserving audience.".
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One Piece fans are beautiful because there are characters who haven't spoken dialogue since, like, 2002 and they will show up in the current chapter saying nothing in a panel half an inch wide and at least one person will treat that appearance as the manga event of the year.
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I have never wanted a Pokémon product more than Ash Ketchum's poster in the first episode
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Once again basking in the absolute wonder that is Noriyoshi Ohrai's Heisei era Godzilla posters
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One of the reasons why Batman Beyond is so continuously refreshing is that it never lets Bruce Wayne off the hook. He never gets personal atonement for a life's worth of mistakes. He can never actually fix things himself.
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HBO Max deleting so many shows and not putting out any physical media literally accomplishes nothing but allowing their parent company a way to weasel out of paying the proper residuals to the thousands of people that worked on them. Nothing else.
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I love anime adaptations of classic literature, because sometimes it'll be fairly faithful and gentle, and other times "The year is 2096. The citizens of the Ophelia District don't know that their king is secretly an assassin with paranormal abilities. His code name? HAM.LET.".
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Batman: The Animated Series is probably one of the best examples of the fact that if you don't talk down to your audience and instead give them cool adventures and themes to chew on, they'll remember your show forever.
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I will always trust people that got into anime through Sailor Moon in the mid 90s. You had to want it SO bad. 5:30 AM airtimes on a channel that was looking for any reason to boot it off. An incoherent schedule. A relative lack of standard promotion.
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Today is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the birth of Toonami, a programming block that introduced millions of people to the wonders of anime. Read about what made it so special here:
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I think it's great that we have to ask every living filmmaker what they think of the MCU. Nothing says normal like interviewing someone about a project that they've poured years of their life into and then making the headline about how indifferent they are towards Thor 2.
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I think the best Batman media reflects this. It's why I'm so moved by a lone Batman just solemnly watching the Penguin's little funeral at the end of Returns. Batman's the only one who ever understood the dude.
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One of Tokusatsu's biggest problems in the US will always be the fact that so many people are raised to believe that the "best" special effects are the ones that most closely resemble reality and that not achieving this is some kind of failure of technique.
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Jim Halpert inspired a legion of dudes to believe that they could get by on sarcasm and having literally no other personality traits.
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The beauty behind Jack Nicholson's Joker is that he's a two-time Academy Award winner making a massive paycheck with huge residuals and has nothing left to prove and no real reason to try and yet there he is, dancing in every goddamn scene of the movie.
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Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of the last Digimon Adventure episode "The Fate of Two Worlds." . Ya know, just in case you're a Digimon fan and you wanted to know exactly how old your sadness is.
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There's obviously a lot of discourse to be had about how Batman treats these ill comic people. Beating the heck out of them while dressed as a bat probably isn't the healthiest option. But also the fact that Batman is their only relationship, and vice versa? Terminally tragic.
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When I was in middle school, I had a crush on a girl whose favorite movie was Titanic. So, to impress her, I wrote an outline for a sequel called Titanic 2. And for every like this tweet gets, I will reveal another awful detail of this story.
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The Venom trilogy is great because 99% of superhero movies these days are about "This is a broad new era for our expanded universe that will change everything" and Venom is about "What if Tom Hardy was just as weird but sweatier?".
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21 years ago on the One Piece anime, the future King of the Pirates met his first mate
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I mentioned it in this thread, but if I ever end up writing a book about a TV series and why it specifically works, I'd want to do it on Batman: The Animated Series. So much to dive into. Beautiful series.
So many Batman: The Animated Series episodes end with the villain in tears, unable to process their fears and obsessions, while Batman, a looming presence born of the inability to rationalize terror, is the only one there to comfort them. It's, umm, a really sad show.
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Today is the nineteenth anniversary of an anime scene that's come to define One Piece
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I think Dave Bautista's greatest asset as an actor is that he brings a real sense of loneliness to his roles. There's a pitiable solitude there - a big man trying to figure out his place in the world. He always seems desperate, on the edge of grief.
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Anyway, Batman The Animated Series is good. I know, I know. Scorching hot take. But I alone have the courage to make it.
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I like this picture of Edward Norton because he looks like he's playing Chandler in the dramatic HBO version of Friends
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This is terrible. Dude was tremendously talented and also started a non-profit to help provide resources and counseling to communities while also encouraging youth participation in the arts. Donate if you can:
EXCLUSIVE: ‘The Wire’ actor Michael K. Williams found dead in NYC apartment
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I've mostly enjoyed the recent wave of American kaiju films, but the best thing to come out of them so far remains the Japanese poster for RAMPAGE
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Arlong Park is a great arc, but if we're talking about a One Piece moment that hooked us, 31 episodes earlier A LITTLE DOG WAS TRYING TO PROTECT HIS DECEASED OWNER'S SHOP AND HE DOESN'T KNOW THAT HIS OWNER IS NEVER COMING BACK BUT HE'S STILL SUCH A GOOD BOY.
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It's pretty funny to see all of these executives saying "These strikes are going to harm the MOVIES and ruin the BELOVED ART of CINEMA" when a few months ago, each news story about them was like "CEO Removes Every Movie Made Before 2002 From Streaming Service".
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@slimyswampghost The more I watch it, the more one of my favorite scenes in the original Texas Chain Saw is when Leatherface briefly pauses between bludgeoning someone to death and chainsawing someone to death to have a panic attack in his house about all these teens showing up.
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It is 1997, and I am experiencing One Piece's East Blue arc. It is 1999, and I am experiencing One Piece's East Blue arc. It is 2017, and I am experiencing One Piece's East Blue arc. It is 2023, and I am experiencing One Piece's East Blue arc. It is.
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Yoshihiro Togashi is one of my favorite authors (Yu Yu Hakusho is my favorite anime and Hunter x Hunter is absolutely wonderful) and the manga industry is notoriously harsh, so it was great to learn how much he took care of his assistants.
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To celebrate the birthday of Monkey D. Luffy, I've picked out 42 moments that make him one of the most memorable characters in anime. Check to see if your favorites made the list here:
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One of the greatest features of Batman: The Animated Series was that it always focused on those that were left behind - the people that proved that, in whatever small way, someone was capable of being loved.
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Every metaverse thing looks like those Dollar General cgi animated kids movies with titles like "Sherry Sherbet and the Race To Mega Mountain" and "Hercules: A New Future"
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The latest One Piece episode sees the return of director Megumi Ishitani, someone who doesn't just understand what makes One Piece work, but a good anime adaptation in general. Read here for how she displays her mastery of the medium:
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Thank you, Dr. Stone, for the most relatable character in anime
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Believe the hype. Today's Black Clover episode is an anime original that surpassed every expectation I had. Read about its glory here:
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Seeing discussions about how people can "save" a show from being cancelled, and I just want you to know that even the most popular show in the world isn't immune from some high level executive saying "I don't like this and I don't understand why anyone would, so it's gone.".
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The beauty of the early Pokémon anime is that it's never really about the battles or becoming a master, but rather growing up and learning to rely on others and eventually yourself. Read about its importance here:
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I think my favorite Toriyama memory is my old middle school friend Dustin drawing Vegeta in science class and gifting it to a girl he had a crush on and telling me "If she doesn't like this, we can't even be friends.".
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Me, before I read/watch One Piece: You know, it's only natural for a series that's lasted twenty years to show some fatigue. So I'll likely feel disappointed by some aspects of it. Me, after:
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If I wasn't a writer, I'd want to be a friend in a mid 2000s romantic comedy. All I'd have to do is get beer out of my bro's fridge without asking and say sarcastic stuff like "Uh, THAT went well.".
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The use of lighting and shadow in Digimon Survive looks absolutely gorgeous.
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In Pokémon, there's worldbuilding and then there's mythmaking. In the former, you see how everything comes together to provide a real, functional place. Pokémon hasn't really changed a lot in that regard.
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All 224 episodes of the original subtitled Yu-Gi-Oh! series are now available on Crunchyroll. Read here for why this show (and the story of its creation) are so inspiring:
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The most jacked dude I've ever seen at my gym asked me today if I'd be okay with him playing music out loud since he forgot his ear buds and I said it was okay and I swear to god, his workout playlist was all angry metal and then, out of nowhere, a single Weird Al song.
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They usually only last for about half a second, but I love how dedicated the One Piece anime crew is to the "Ah, maybe I shouldn't have fought Luffy after all" face.
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One strength of early Naruto is its ability to deliver huge moments through simple, graspable actions, thus giving its audience a better chance at sticking around for the long haul. Read about their power here:
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Big fan of this Japanese Digimon toy commercial that uses stop motion and thus gives it a kind of 80s horror vibe
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RIP to voice actress Rachael Lillis, perhaps best known for her roles as Misty and Team Rocket's Jessie in the original Pokémon dub. A deeply underrated piece of the international franchise, Lillis found depth and sympathy amid the fantastic and the boisterous.
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The loss of Yu-Gi-Oh! creator Kazuki Takahashi is a huge one. I wrote about the joys of his talents and the spark that drove his unforgettable work:
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Batman: The Animated Series, Avatar: The Last Airbender, the later Star Wars shows - all of them were made with kids in mind. But they rarely talked down to kids and instead treated them like they could value stories in almost the same manner that adults can.
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The Pokémon anime turns 25 today. Over the years, it's served as an adaptation of the source material, a commercial for the games, a stepping stone for new fans, and an exercise in worldbuilding. Read here for why it's remained so important:
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Today, Black Clover aired its final episode. I'm truly gonna miss this series. Read here to check out some of the things that made it so fun:
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I really love how dream-like early Digimon episodes are, especially when it comes to all of the real world stuff that has seeped into them. It allows what could be a pretty stereotypical fantasy setting to feel surreal, a place you can never quite totally understand.
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The soundtrack for Digimon: The Movie is the greatest of all time. Read about its perfection by clicking here:
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Sharing your passions and discovering that other people accept them is one of the most relieving experiences. And My Dress-Up Darling captures it wonderfully. Read here to find out how:
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One of the reasons why Toonami's efforts have aged so well is because early aughts branding was often this embarrassingly out of touch, loud "WHOA, geeks are COOL NOW?!?" manifesto, while Toonami's presentation was a simple assurance that, yeah, anime could be pretty great.
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Also, if you like this thread and want more BTAS stuff, maybe follow me? I know BTAS is maybe the most discussed superhero cartoon in history, but I've been slowly working on something pretty big with it.
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Water 7 and Enies Lobby are more than just a high point of One Piece. They strengthen the core themes of the series, testing them in order to prove their continuing narrative validity. Read about how they pull this off here:
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Black Clover keeps getting better and better at paying off long-running storylines and character arcs. On this week's FIGHT SCENE FRIDAY, I look at how Asta vs The Devil exemplifies that strength:
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One of the main reasons why Tokyo Revengers has such a good first episode is because its use of time travel feels so personal. Read about why this is so appealing here:
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Mythmaking, though, dives into how much importance and spiritual weight and reverence is placed upon things, and I think that's where Pokémon has evolved the most. The ethos has always been "Love Pokemon!" but it's only in Gen 2 that a sense of heavy mysticism is applied.
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I think a lot about this picture of the Undertaker with Dennis Rodman and Ric Flair where he's double fisting whiskeys in the SAME HAND
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Also, if you've never watched any of Batman The Animated Series, but this thread interests you, lemme throw some episode recommendations your way: On Leather Wings, P.O.V., Two Face Parts 1 and 2, It's Never Too Late, Heart of Ice, See No Evil, Beware The Grey Ghost, 1/.
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For this week's FIGHT SCENE FRIDAY, I'm looking Asta vs Vetto from Black Clover, a battle that really shows off the strength of the Black Bulls. Check it out here:
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If you're a fan of martial arts, then The God of High School will be a treat. Read here for all of the real life fighting styles found in the first episode:
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Batman: Hush is such a weird comic. A parade of cameos and dramatic moments loosely arranged into a halfhearted detective story. No sense of quiet whodunnit intrigue. Mostly an excuse to have big splash panels and Batman go "Bwaaah?!?" every few pages.
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The Chunin Exams. Rock Lee. Gaara. The Dropping of the Weights. This is how a Naruto battle became one of the greatest in fight scene history:
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In One Piece, defeat is more than just physical punishment. It is a shattering of a villain's beliefs and ideals. Read here for how this theme persists throughout the entire series:
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Digimon: The Movie turns 20 today, so let's celebrate by remembering its soundtrack, which I believe is one of the greatest of all time:
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A lot of "old superheroes come back" stories end up revolving around a renaissance for the main character. They get to go out in a blaze of glory. Batman Beyond is the opposite - there are some things that Bruce did that he'll have to sit with for the rest of his life.
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If you told me that your Batman story is about "the depths of depravity as reflected by a clownish visage," I might tune out. But if it was, like, "Joker gets furious that Netflix removed a show he was watching," I am DOWN.
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Digimon has ruined my brain to the extent that I saw the word BACKGAMMON and thought "Huh, I don't remember that one.".
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Mob Psycho 100 is a wonderful story about how we relate with others and the way connection makes us emotionally stronger. On Mob's birthday, read about it here:
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My Hero Academia was born into a world of expanded universes, streaming service spinoffs and continuous box office records. Read here for how this series fits into a superhero-obsessed culture:
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Those are all, without any amount of exaggeration, actual plots of the show. I know we always talk about the pathos and the tragedy and the atmosphere of Batman: The Animated Series, but it's also, and this is just as important, a hoot.
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It's Sanji's birthday, so let's celebrate by remembering his debut in which he beat the crap out of someone that was mean to waiters:
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Gen 1 is obviously about this kind of childlike view of balance between encroaching industrialization and the natural world. By Gen 2, though, that natural world has become increasingly deified. You essentially live at the altar of the forest.
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In fact, the series might be Bruce's ultimate sacrifice. He ruined a lot of lives because of his self-obsessed quest. Beyond is him essentially going "Okay, you can be Batman. Perhaps you can do this better and in a healthier fashion than I could.".
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I've been re-reading Yu-Gi-Oh! since the first news of his passing and god, what a great series, created by a man who truly loved his chosen art form and the delight of games. I urge you, if you haven't, to check it out.
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In the past twenty-three years, franchises have come and gone. Series have been cancelled and rebooted. Pop culture has changed as a whole. And yet, One Piece remains strong. I wrote a love letter to it and the friends I've made because of it here:
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It's a shame that The Spectacular Spider-Man only lasted 26 episodes. The way it melded three wildly different decades' worth of Spider-Man history into a cohesive distillation of why the character works in the first place is honestly a little awe-inspiring.
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The older I get, the more haunting the last bit of the 1978 Halloween is. These shots of average, suburban domesticity feel like crime scene photos, and as Michael Myers' breathing gets heavier, it doesn't really matter whether he's survived or not. This town is forever spoiled.
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Walton Goggins thanked me for an article I wrote, which means that my day has pretty much reached its peak.
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The Joker's whole plot in the 1989 film was kicked off, not by "I MUST GET REVENGE ON BATMAN FOR TURNING ME INTO A MONSTER," but rather "He's in the newspaper and on TV and I'm not and that's weird."
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The One Piece "WE ARE ONE" collection of short films isn't just a celebration of 100 manga volumes but an affirmation of the series' ability to tell (and retell) its stories effectively. Read here for how it pulls this off:
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There are few Naruto storylines as memorable as the Chunin Exams, a test that balances the arcs of the expanding cast while raising the stakes of combat. Read my article about its effectiveness here:
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