071: The SoraRabbit Update #3 — The SoraRabbit Hole

Hey everyone, I’m finally back with another SoraRabbit Update! This will also serve as a farewell to 2023, which I think we can all agree was a horribly light year for the SoraRabbit Hole. I have a ton of excuses, but I owe my faithful readers more than excuses. So while I will explain my sparse updates, I won’t excuse them and I will promise to do better. I do want to thank you all for reading and sticking with me during this light time. It’s very much appreciated.

Some of my collectibles that watch me work.

2023 was a strange year for me. I started it off with a serious lack of energy and motivation that followed me throughout the first half of the year. I just couldn’t force myself to work, and maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough. Eventually I got it together enough to finish two big projects that I’ve been chipping away at for ages: the Untangling Kingdom Hearts series, and the Archie Multiverse post. I also started my new series: Journey Through the Forgotten Comic Book Bin.

After that I ended up unexpectedly undergoing a series of dental surgeries. I won’t go into details, but it required three surgeries and months of recovery. (I’m still recovering, honestly.) After the second surgery I ended up getting the Covid for the first time ever. Yeah, I’d been lucky up to then, and it was absolutely the worst time to have gotten it. Needless to say, I didn’t feel much like doing anything for a long time.

Once I recovered enough (and some of it during recovery) I had my usual flurry of end of year posts: my usual Silent Hill Halloween post, my Christmas post (that ended up as a two-parter this year), and finishing off with my Video Game Recap post. (I worked for over six hours straight finishing up the Silent Hill post in time and I found out later I was already sick by then.)

So yeah, there you go, excuses. Because of all this I had a light productivity year, and once again my YouTube channel didn’t get launched. I only did a few TikToks also, which you may not be aware is something I started doing. (I’m officially a multi-media star now.) I’m not super active on there, but I’m trying. I’ve already reached an upswing in work, having updated my Video Game Blog several times, and I have a whole list of posts to get out this year. (28 at the least.)

But I’ll get back to that. What else did I do in 2023 if not work? Mostly read comic books and played video games. We also watched some cool stuff. I won’t get much into the video games, as I’ve already covered that in my year-end post. But I’m gonna nerd out for awhile on the rest of the stuff.

Finally! (Credit: Brendon Small, Adult Swim)

One of the notable things we watched was Metalocalypse. It was my third time through and Cocoshade’s first time through. I wanted to rewatch it in preparation for the long-awaited conclusion of the series. Also because Cocoa got us tickets to see them live, along with BabyMetal. (Incredible show, by the way.)

For those who don’t know what Metalocalypse is, you’re missing out. It’s amazing. A comedy/heavy metal/horror series about an unimaginably popular band, a shadowy group of evil men, and the end of the world. It’s an epic story consisting of 61 episodes, a special, a movie, and five albums. After being unceremoniously cancelled years ago, they were finally granted a new movie (and album) to finish off the series the right way.

Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar was finally released in 2023, ten years after the series originally ended. No spoilers here, but I will say the movie perfectly concluded the story in a satisfying way and watching the entire series was so much fun.

This is not the screenshot I wanted to use. The one I wanted would have been a huge spoiler. (Credit: Jackson Publick, Doc Hammer, Adult Swim)

The other series Cocoa and I watched straight through was the Venture Bros. This was another great show that was cancelled, but we only had to wait 6 years for this conclusion. I’d been through some of the seasons multiple times but nothing beats rewatching straight through to catch all the things you otherwise would have missed.

The Venture Bros.: Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart was released in 2023 and was a full-length movie serving as the conclusion to the seven season series. Again, no spoilers, but we had a similar experience with Venture Bros as we did with Metalocalypse. We watched the entire series straight through over the course of a few months and ended on the movie. The movie was everything we could have hoped it would be, spending time on all the characters and tying up many of the loose plot threads. Of course, there is always room for more Venture Bros if they get to make more— the world of the series is unbelievably vast and complex— but if there is no more, I would be perfectly content with this being the ultimate ending for the story.

Go Spidey, go! (Credit: Sony Pictures, Marvel Comics)

Out of the many things I anticipated coming out this year (I still haven’t even seen The Marvels, Ahsoka, Monarch, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force) this was the one I was awaiting the most impatiently.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was released in 2023 and is the sequel to 2018’s Into the Spider-Verse. As I did with the first one, I watched this one twice in the theater. The first time with my wife and son, and the second with my brother.

I loved this movie, as expected. It was a great continuation of the story, raising the stakes and expanding the universe more. The soundtrack was great, the bigger focus on Spider-Gwen was welcome, and I loved the new Spider people that were introduced. The only disappointing part was the cliffhanger ending, which I expected but still managed to take me by surprise with its suddenness. Sadly the continuation has been delayed due to multiple factors, but I know it’ll be great when we finally have it.

Ultraman! (Credit: Shinji Higuchi, Toho, Tsuburaya Productions)

Another thing that happened in 2023 was I got to watch Shin Ultraman. This movie came out in 2022 but we only got it in America this year. As soon as it was available on Blu-Ray I ordered it and sat Cocoa down to watch it with me. We both enjoyed it. It was extremely stylized, well-directed, and fun. It drew from the massive history of the Ultraverse while still making the movie its own, unique creation.

I love Ultraman and have started a series of posts about the franchise on here. So far I’ve only gotten through the first two series: Ultra Q and Ultraman. You can expect much more coming up, and I have two more Ultra-related posts planned for this year. (Plus one Ultra-adjacent.)

Movie poster. (Credit, Toho, Takashi Yamazaki)

With everything going on this year, I actually forgot about this one. No one should be surprised that when a new Japanese Godzilla movie hits the states, I would be right there with my wallet in hand. I love Godzilla, and while the Legendary Films series is great, there’s just something special about the Toho Japanese productions. In fact, the Godzilla channel on Pluto TV is part of how I got through my recovery period. Godzilla and Tokusatsu just make fantastic background while I’m doing other things.

This is so freaking cool. (Credit: Toho, Takashi Yamazaki)

Godzilla Minus One was released in 2023 and did something few other Godzilla movies have done: it ignored the events of the first movie and retold it altogether. (See, every other series of Japanese Godzilla movies use the original 1954 film as the starting point, branching off from there. Except, of course, Shin Godzilla. The Shin movies are their own thing.) I was able to watch this one twice in the theater as well. Unfortunately Cocoa was busy when it first came out, and so I had to go alone. I don’t like going to movies alone, but I couldn’t wait to see this one. This was my first outing since my surgeries, and so I think that was part of why I enjoyed it so much. The following week I was able to bring her and Sora Junior to the theater and watched it again.

I loved this movie so much. The hype surrounding it is real, and if you haven’t watched it yet, you should. Godzilla is truly terrifying in this movie, a force of nature like he was originally envisioned to be. This is the first Toho Godzilla where I actually cared about the human characters as much as Godzilla. It was well-directed, well-written, well-acted, and altogether just a fantastic movie. Six out of five stars.

This made me laugh so hard. (Credit: Steve Gerber, Marvel Comics)

But enough of the visual entertainment. Let’s talk comic books. I read a lot of comic books this year. Mostly X-Men. But I also made my way through the whole catalogue of Howard the Duck, including the old black-and-white magazines from the late 70s / early 80s. While uneven and a bit up and down in quality, I love the character. The works of Steve Gerber and Chip Zdarsky were especially enjoyable.

Aside from the Howard stuff, I finished Marvel 2099 and started on MC2. I discovered the Marvel By the Month podcast and started reading the original runs of Amazing Spider-Man and Avengers alongside listening to it. I’m also reading through all the Deadpool series, the new phase of Marvel’s Star Wars comics, and Avengers starting from 2015-on. I’m taking those series leisurely, though. My main focus has been on X-Men.

One of my favorite Mutants singing one of my favorite songs. (Credit: Tom DeFalco, John Romita Jr, Marvel Comics)

Yes, over the last few years I have become an X-Men fan. I can’t deny it anymore. It all started with Jonathan Hickman’s amazing House of X / Powers of X. After reading the Ultimate Comics version of the X-Men I was curious enough to start reading from Uncanny X-Men #1 and just kept going from there. So I’ve been reading the originals from issue 1 and am now up to 1987 and the Claremont run. I’m reading all the series, limited series, and one-shots. (X-Factor is really fun so far.) I also read everything from 2015 forward and have now caught up to current releases on Marvel Unlimited. I am reading all of it. ALL of it. One of my favorite side series that I’ve come across so far was Dazzler. I love disco and apparently love Mutants, so combine them and you’ve got some good entertainment there. Dazzler was a fun and VERY 80s comic and she’s quickly become one of my favorite Mutant characters.

I’ve been having a lot of fun reading the entirety of the X-Men. Cocoa and I even watched all the movies, which were a lot more enjoyable than I expected. I’m going to keep going with my reading and really get my money’s worth of Marvel Unlimited. You can expect more posts bashing Rob Liefeld when I reach the 90s comics. That will help me get through the dark years.

So that’s some of what I’ve been up to. It hasn’t been wasted time since I enjoyed it, and it all leant itself well to this post. I do wish I’d gotten more content done, but it will get better. As of the writing of this, we’re a little over a week into 2024 and I’ve already seen an improvement in my productivity.

As I mentioned earlier, I have a long list of blog posts, Short Hops, Video Game posts, TikToks, and yes, even YouTube videos that I want to put out this year. I’ve found I work better under a deadline, so as of right now, my plan is to put out something every month… multiple somethings if they’re ready. This is a big year for the SoraRabbit Hole— the fifth anniversary— and I feel like my workload needs to reflect that. I’m going to get a lot done, it’s going to be quality, and I will continue to build on what’s come before.

Thank you all for reading my latest update post. I will have another one out later in the year when I have more to update you on. I appreciate you all, and I’ll see you soon with new content!