
The bad news is that I won’t be doing reviews for the month of January. Sorry about that. I’m still doing my best to prioritize different things in my life. The good news is that I’ll be having a tag post which I haven’t done in a long time. I was recently tagged by Chris from Never Argue With a Fish. Thank you very much! This tag was created by Yomu for those scoring at home.
Here are the rules for the Failure to Launch tag:
Put the logo and rules in your post.
Thank whoever tagged you and link back to their post
Link back to the original post.
List some brief excerpts where stories (anime, book, movie – anything is fine) failed to launch due to a missing call to action. As many as you want. Readers can then try and guess the story in the comments!
Nominate 3 other blogs to continue the tag!
Alright, let’s do this! I’ll focus on some more popular works mixed with a few things I’ve reviewed on the blog for the harder excerpts.
Story One:
An orphaned high school boy gets sick and has to miss a big science exhibit. He goes through the motions once he gets better and his only responsibility involves his studies as well as possibly hanging out with his girlfriend from time to time.
Story Two:
A delinquent has a habit of getting into fights. He goes home one day and a little boy gets himself out of the street to his parents. The ruffian sighs in relief as he doesn’t have to worry about going into the afterlife or seeing various poltergeists on earth or beyond.
Story Three:
A black cat manages not to cross paths with a ditzy girl. A destiny of saving the earth as well as memories of a past life become ignored.
Story Four:
A ship isn’t capsized after dealing with stormy weather. Someone from another kingdom will never have to be obsessed with someone she never met and can keep on talking.
Story Five:
A couple of friends clean up an attic of one of their respective grandfathers. They do their best to straighten things up on that rainy night, but they don’t even think about a wooden board tucked away in the room. There’s no interest in the board, clubs, or any ways to work full time that’s associated with it.
Story Six:
(This is the most difficult one and it’s a trick story, but I did review it a long time ago.)
A king doesn’t get killed, so his younger brother can’t attempt to claim the throne. In the meantime, the prince (as in the king’s son) is blissfully unaware of any wrongdoings from his kingdom despite being at war with another group.
I will give some bonus points to anyone who gets number 6.
For this challenge, I tag the following:
Scott
Moyatori
Ashley Capes
5 is Jumanji I think..
And going to take a stab at 6, is it Hamlet?
Not sure about any others.
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It’s not it for those two but I appreciate you trying. I’ll give you a hint about the ones you guessed on.
5 is an anime series I reviewed on here.
6 is a western animated work. Think marionettes…
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Here’s my guesses…
1. Spider-Man
2. YuYu Hakusho?
3. Sailor Moon
4. Little Mermaid
5. Hikaru no Go?
6. Kimba the White Lion?
Some of those are complete guesses, and I’m sure 6 is wrong but it’s all I’ve got at the minute.
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Wow! You got every one right except for number 6. Great guess for number 5 because that’s what could happen if Hikaru and Akari didn’t pay attention to the old Go board. Number 6 is actually a Western animated indie movie that I reviewed way in the early days of Iridium Eye.
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I’ll be honest I only got number 5 because it was in your 2021 in review post. It was still floating around in my recent memory,
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That’s fine. It’s also a series I’ve been an open fan of since I reviewed it back in the early days of lockdown when I re-watched HNG. Did you ever get a chance to watch anything from that series yet?
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Not yet. It’s on my list of things I want to watch, but said list could encompass the Earth several times over by this point, so I probably won’t get to it any time soon.
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Just wondering. I’m sure my list is getting close to the length of yours, but who’s counting anyway? Haha! Feel free to take your time before you watch it since it is a longer series. I do think you might like HNG.
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Darn, I would have guessed Kimba the White Lion too! I thought Lion King at first, but that would have been too obvious. Hikaru no Go was the only other one I knew, so I’m impressed you got so many!
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Oh my goodness. Haha! I’m guilty of talking about Kimba more than other bloggers, but I didn’t want to use that anime for example. The answer isn’t The Lion King despite some hints being similar and could apply o a critique I made involving protagonist centered morality. That’s cool how you got Hikaru no Go, too! The 6th story involves a Scandinavian/British production. That’s another hint.
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Thanks. I’m surprised I got as many as I did. Still haven’t figured out 6 yet.
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You certainly dominated by getting most of them. I’ll reveal the answer this Saturday if no one gets #6 yet.
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Sorry for delay! The answer was Strings!
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Cool! Thanks for the tag – I could only recognise ‘YuYu Hakusho’ off the top of my head, will have a think about #6 🙂
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You’re welcome. I thought YYH was one of the easier ones. #6 is the trickiest one and it involves a very old-school review I did.
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Yu-Yu Hakusho and Sailor Moon are easy enough. Can’t place number One, or number Fo-…wait, is Four, The Little Mermaid?! (can’t resist and scans previous comments to see…) Wow, I did not expect to guess that one!
Hm, I can forgive myself for not thinking of Hikaru no Go, as I only saw the first two episodes, I think, more years ago than I care to admit. But Spider-Man? Which version of him is that?
Number Six… Number Six… hmmm, uncles usurping thrones is something of a storytelling staple, as are princes who are thrust into adventures where they must account for their nation’s wrongdoings. Hamlet did that to a degree, though I don’t recall them being at war with anyone in that one. Lion King did that, except the lions and the pride lands didn’t commit any crimes against anyone else. The movie version of Ella Enchanted did all of that pretty thoroughly, but the main thrust of that is, of course, Ella, not the prince. …Prince Caspian? No, that doesn’t quite fit either. (looks back a second time) Especially not with the hints you’ve dropped, LOL. Well, I got nuthin! 😛
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Those two anime examples were fairly easily. Yes, number four was The Little Mermaid and this applies to several versions. I actually reviewed the 70s anime version months ago. I wanted to mix it up with more popular and lesser-known works.
With Hikaru no Go, the situation happens in the first episode anyway. That would be a series to watch the whole thing back. For Spider-Man, I just meant in general with the basic origin story and no movie or cartoon in particular.
Number six was my most obscure example and I worded it as carefully as I could. It’s not Hamlet despite the whole uncle usurping thing going on. It’s not Lion King even though what I said could be a red herring to Mufasa’s protagonist centered morality or how the good guys got away with doing horrible things as well as being hypocritical with the “circle of life” speech. I haven’t seen or read Ella Enchanted, so I couldn’t tell you anything.
I realized that I was supposed to answer last Saturday. The answer was Strings.
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Huh. Never heard of Strings.
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That was the only obscure work on that list and I wanted it to be the toughest one. It is the best marionette movie I’ve seen. The storyline is very strong, it covers important themes not many movies cover, and the characters actually know they are marionettes which makes for some very unique world-building.
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