Hello, everybody. Ready for this week’s article? Of course you are. I’m actually starting the writing for this at school, so forgive me if the first few paragraphs seem more… depressed than usual. That said, let’s move on to our topic. I actually had quite a few choices in my mind, but I opted to go for a review of Venture Bros. simply because its stint on [adult swim] will end soon and it’ll be out of date if I don’t write about it now.

First, though, I’d like to make a few announcement thingies. First is that the Inuyasha TCG (Trading Card Game) will have its official release on October 20th. I’m pretty sure they’ll be having release events, though I really don’t know any details. Those who have actually perused the mechanics and gameplay will probably know that it’s a horrible example of a TCG, so why am I, an experienced and distinguished gamer, helping it out by advertising it? Well, it’s mostly because I feel a certain duty as an Inuyasha fan to at least give it a shot. If you’d like to learn more, you can check out the official site here.

Speaking of TCG’s, the first set in the new block of a good TCG made its street release last Friday, October 1st. Champions of Kamigawa is the first set in the Kamigawa block, the latest in the Magic: The Gathering series. It’s a great opportunity to get started playing. I feel absolutely no shame in hyping it because it’s actually a great game. The theme of the set is Legends, so it’s great for fanfiction. Check out my story about Horobi, the spirit of Death’s Wail, here.

[Axem Titanium: It might just be my browser, but you may need to highlight the text in order to see it.]

Okay, enough with my ads. (And no, I wasn’t being paid for them. =puts dollar bills he was counting behind back= Okay, so I might have received some… compensation…) This week I’m taking a critical eye to the Venture Brothers, [adult swim]’s latest new series. As such, this is one of my less, er, family oriented articles. It’s rated PG–14. Feel free to disregard that if you really think you can handle it, though. Hell, I started watching [as] when I was 12.

Ah. It feels so nice to be able to curse again. Did you notice I really reined in my swearing in previous articles? It might not have been too noticeable, but I did. I think the only swear word I ever uttered was “crap”, and I tried to not say that too much either. Now everything’s so nice and unconstrained. I can rattle off a whole sentence of curses for no reason and no one would really care except my editor.

[Mad Mod: I wouldn’t care.]

Good. I won’t, of course. That’s just not my style. I curse to get–wait, what am I saying this for? I’m supposed to be writing a review, not telling you about my policy on swearing.

Venture Bros. features the dopey twin brothers, Dean and Hank, their father, selfish, egotistical, pill-popper Dr. Venture, and their hulking Race-Bannon-on-lots-and-lots-and-lots-of-steroids bodyguard Brock Samson. Oh yeah, I forgot their wimpy robot assistant H.E.L.P.eR., who, er… I’m trying not to say “helps them”, but that’s pretty much what he does. Plus he talks like a fax machine. They go on all sorts of wacky adventures, from trying to avoid death at the hands of Dr. Venture’s two archenemies to helping clone theme park owners.

… wow, that was a helluva short summary.

Anyway, popular opinion really differs on the show. I mean, of course I don’t really care about popular opinion, I’m just saying this to all you thrice–damned conformists out there (no offense meant). Some people love it, some people hate it. What group do I belong to? Well, that’s for me to know and you to torture me to find out.

I apologize for anyone who was hoping I would do another one of my split personality reviews. Bob and Bing are currently too busy getting eaten by negators, stomped on by marids, roasted by demon dragons, poisoned by Naraku, and paralyzed by Darcia. And still no one has guessed who they’re named after.

So what do I, in my superb judgment, think about it? I’m one of those who love it. I believe it’s sorta like Wolf’s Rain in that it has excellent potential but that potential isn’t always used to its fullest. I’ve slowly grown to like it more and more, though, as the shows began to get funnier. I’m normally a rather numb person, and I give lots of credit to anything that can make me actually all out laugh. Very few things have actually achieved this, believe it or not. The only ones I can think of are the two books in the Bartimaeus Trilogy and Venture Bros. Believe it or not, I’ve never actually all out laughed during Family Guy or Futurama. I’ve chuckled or given a wry smile, but a laugh? Nope. Not a chance.

Um, well… Actually, that’s about it. Disappointing, isn’t it? I should say so. You, my loyal fans, come to me eager for laughs and intelligent thought, then gets two ads for TCG’s, a bunch of useless pratter from me, and a three or so paragraph review. The truth is that I really can’t develop that much more of an opinion. I like it, it works well, if you disagree I’ll smack you–end of story. So I apologize if this is a flop. However, if you’re still spoiling for material, I advise you read my Horobi fic (which is linked above but also here) or this little tidbit featuring
Bob and Bing. Both these stories are pretty funny, so go ahead and give ‘em a skim, okey dokey hokey pokey? Until later, ciao.

Grondring wants to be left alone. He was much work to do, a very predictably small amount of it actually begin schoolwork. If you interrupt his writing he’ll lose his inspiration, get pissed, and bite you. Still, if you have some sort of bizarre fetish for being bitten, you could always email him at grondring@hotmail.com.

Mad Mod’s feeling lonely. None of Grondring’s readers are talking to him. Go email him about how crazy Grondy is and how he should be locked up somewhere. His email address is madmod52@yahoo.com.