IT'S BAGAN

In my lifetime as a Godzilla fan, having watched every movie and played every game made available to me, Bagan always stood out to me as something special. Maybe it's just a hefty amount of nostalgia for the Super Godzilla game and the killer final boss theme that plays while fighting Bagan, or the allure of an unused (at the time) monster that made it further than any other scrapped character on the cutting room floor at Toho. He at least managed to get as far as going toe to toe with Godzilla in an officially released capacity.

Surprising anyone in the know, Bagan's sudden revival in the Godziban series earlier this year was a huge deal; To the delight of Bagan followers and to the dismay of those that simply don't see the appeal, which is fine and dandy. I personally don't get the appeal of Shin Godzilla, but that is not the subject here today. 

Bagan's official arrival into the cinematic realm was super exciting for me personally, and while I never allowed myself to hype it much beyond absorbing every little bit of info about his new appearance that I could, there was a tiny seed of hope at the back of my mind that Bagan would receive a figure in the Bandai Movie Monster Series line of vinyl figures, and sure enough, in an early leak for what's to come on this year's Godzilla Day on November 3rd, we got the reveal of an honest to Satan Bagan figure, based on his unused finished design from the Heisei era no less.

I honestly expected Gabara and Godzilla 1998 to get figures long before Bagan ever had a chance, but alas, here we be. 

Currently Watching 📺: IT Chapter 1

Having finished reading IT over the weekend after dedicating three and a half weeks to it. Been a good long while since I read anything so massive, but it was time well spent and I really felt like I got most in Derry. It was the first Stephen King book I read to completion on top of that.

Now that that is over with, I can settle down with the film adaptations and watch them with knowledge of how the actual story went in the book. Picking up a lot more elements of the story that the films either didn't have the time to adapt in full or just chose to omit in favor of a more Pennywise-centric story. 

Froggy Tuesday

Went out to try some fishing today at the river, and while I didn't have much luck beyond a topwater hit from what I could have only assumed was a trout of some kind, I did encounter a frog!

A pickeral frog to be exact! 

Library Check-In

With the holiday season getting ready to begin in full in just a few weeks time, I had the idea of adding some things to my library that I typically wouldn't have have much consideration to otherwise due to space and money,

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, A Christmas Story, A Christmas Carol and to spice things up, Krampus. The books that I would like to tackle sometime between the second week of November and Christmas Day. Particularly A Christmas Story as the movie adaption is my favorite Christmas movie period, so I will definitely be reading that one.

Also got Nick Cutter's The Troop and Little Heaven. The former I read last year and loved to death, but had given the paperback away to an co-worker. Little Heaven will be an all new experience for me. 

Just shy of hitting the 80% mark in IT; I knew that it would be a long read considering how dense pages are and how big the physical book is, but I didn't expect that I would actually need the entire month to finish it! I have been giving 2-3 hours a day and still not feeling like much damage is being done. 

But that's okay, because I am having one heck of a time with it. 

I Unlocked The Phoenix!

Now here's something I never thought I'd own; The rarest of all Monster Rancher figures, the legendary Phoenix! Found only in the 18-pack of Monster Rancher figures released way back in 1999 as an ultra rare. Playmates had the admittedly genius idea to assimilate the game's unique ability to give you monsters based on the compact disc inserted into the PlayStation into the merchandising, making it so each set of figures - 4 packs, 8 packs and the most expensive 18 packs - each had their own assorted of random figures thrown in to encourage repeat purchases.

The catch was that, like trading cards, the figures were randomly chosen, had a rarity aspect on top of that AND each sku had their own unique rares, so you could technically buy an 8 pack and get nothing but 4 pack uncommons and not even see a rare from the 8 pack lineup.

The Phoenix, which was at the center of the anime's plot line for the first two seasons, was only available in the $20 set of 18 figures and was the rarest figure of all; Meaning that you could buy multiple $20 packs and see most everything the line had to offer, but never see the Phoenix.

So few of the figures were ever found, and the ones that were fell into the hands of adults that could afford to drop that kind of money back then. Nowadays waiting to find one of these pop up on ebay is a long drawn out waiting game. When I randomly did a search for this last week, only one had been listed and sold prior to that was last July. I was surprised as heck that the seller accepted my offer.

I need maybe three figures now. None of which are even remotely as rare as this one.

Currently Watching 📺: Alien vs Predator Requiem

The film gets a lot of hate that I've never felt was really justified. The only real complaint I personally have is that it's just too dark. The characters are nothing but gore fodder for the warring species, and while yes having likeable characters leads to more impactful deaths and story moments, I can't honestly see wanting that out of such a film as this where the main show is just watching the Xenomorph and Predator slaughter one another. 

Evil Dead (2013)

Dealing with a headache and not feeling much up to reading, though the chapter in IT earlier with Pennywise appearing before Ben during a winter storm was really cool.

I really love what Rise and 2013 did for the Deadite characterization; The first three films depicted them as bumbling goofballs that never posed that much of a threat even though they were capable, but when this and Rise came along, we got to see them as far more terrifying, dangerous creatures. Which when combined with their capabilities of wacky cartoon-like antics and ability to rapidly increase their numbers via infection/possession, makes them a super effective horror antagonist.

CURRENTLY READING 📖: IT by Stephen King

SPOILERS will be openly discussed. 

Owned the hardcover for years. Made a couple attempts at starting it but something else always crept it's way into my line of sight that would stop me about 70-something pages in. Lugging a 1000+ page book around wasn't exactly easy either, particularly when a lot of my reading was done in my car or, while working my old job, in the break room.

But alas now thanks to the Kindle my mother got me for Christmas last year and the decision I made to transition to a digital platform for my books to save both physical space and money, I have been reading books left and right with hardly a day's break between a piece. And now it's time for the big one, the horror masterpiece that I've attempted more than a few times to conquer and had placed it at the top of my TBR pile for the September/October time frame.

I made up a list of about seven books to read for spooky season, with the majority of them being read throughout September. I finished well in advance and held off on starting IT until the first of October as it, besides Dark Harvest, was the most Halloween-y of the books that I had lined up.

***

So where do I currently sit with the book? About 6% of the way in according to my Kindle. Stanley had committed suicide and sent his spastic wife into a screaming fit. I last left off at the beginning of the Richie introduction chapter, and it is just about there or slightly after it that all my attempts at reading this book have failed. 

But not this time. 

Welcome to the spooky season. We fall float here.