Werewolf Wednesday!

Today has been a hectic one, what with a perilous journey to work today and a landslide alert!

 

My lesson ended at noon and the rain stopped a little later but the ride home was fraught with flooded streets. I was forced to drive through a flooded area and it did a number on my car window. I couldn't roll it back up! (Do we still use the term "roll up" for automatic windows?) ALL of the Yellow Hat service stations were closed, I can only surmise that the staff were put on flood duty. I managed to find two staff who hadn't yet departed and they helped me raise my window. Phew!

Anyway, The Countdown to Halloween  begins, click there to find participating bloggers and here for Instagrammers. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do this month, haphazard as always! Let's start with my Mandalorian Calendar entry for October. Not very spooky, Grogu rides a Blurrg.

  

I bought a cool looking book on sale, hoping to have a spooky pic a day from it. I should have inspected it more closely, it's an Oni Encyclopedia. 

 

Still, there should be enough in there for me to scam from. Werewolf Wednesday is a bust, there are no vulpine creatures in it. Best I can do is this cool Monkey Demon. 

 

The 猿鬼 Saru-Oni is from the Noto Region of the Ishikawa Prefecture and is a large monkey with a horn on its head and is unaffected by normal arrow-fire.

Fortunately, it was dispatched by Kamisugihime using a special demon decapitator.

Here's a rendition of it from the Gegege page.

 

Okay, so today's Gatcha/UFO Catcher creature IS a Werewolf, courtesy of Kaibutsu-Kun.

 

My treat today was a different canine, unfortunately it does not have ZERO calories.

 Hey, I just realized. I'm wearing a Werewolf T-Shirt today!

Today's video experience was Walking Dead starring Daryl and Carol. No Werewolves but some lovely fiery Walkers!

AND I'm going to start watching this, though I may give up soon after it starts. 

Night Carnage!

I'll let you know how it turns out.

I'll leave you with a link to Caffeinated Joe, you may find something there to your liking.

See ya tomorrow... 

Spiraling out.

Let's get the preliminaries out of the way, "Welcome to the 2024 Edition of the Countdown to Halloween!" As soon as I figure out how to do so (gadgets?!?) I'll add a little sidebar to my bloggy thing so you don't have to click the above link and can just click the badge to check out all the participating bloggers.

Since it's October 1st, I'll add a page from my calendar to prove it. According to this, Godzilla's 50th anniversary was 20 years ago in October with the release of Final Wars. I'll let you do the math to figure out what anniversary 2024 is. 

During the Countdown, I'll keep my Godzilla references to a minimum. I will need to save something for Govember! (Gojira + November, duh.) So instead, let's give a shoutout to my estranged and very strange sister who celebrates a birthday today! This Puffy tune showed up in my Facebook memories ten years ago when she was less estranged and less strange.

So let's get to the meat of the Countdown. Several days ago, I received a Facebook ad for a Popup store featuring Junji Ito. (Click there to zoom to his website.) I thought to myself, "Hey, why don't I feature Junji daily on my blog?" Here are the highlights of that ad.

I'd love a couple of these standees.

So, I spent the past week scouring stores for some Junji goodies, mostly to no avail. What I did find, I'll share later...

Today I watched the first episode of UZUMAKI, a creepy little anime about Spirals. 

I'll let you watch the show yourselves and not spoil anything (Except for this pic.)

If I can find it for a reasonable price, I might pick up the Manga.

Less likely, I'll find a cheap copy of the Colouring Book.

This clip of the ending tune (Dojoji no Kotoriuta) won't spoil much, so give it a listen.

I've amassed enough Gatcha-capsules and UFO Catcher Crap over the last while to showcase one daily.

Since this hebi (Snake) is Spirally, that's what I'll start with.

Check out the little caveat that they give you. I wouldn't dream of causing mischief with this.

UPDATE! I scored the green snake today. These are pretty nice for two bucks.

I'm trying to diet (not very hard it seems) so the Treats part of Trick or Treat will be a minimum.

I saw this today at 31 (Baskin Robbins) but didn't indulge.

I also plan to feature a Yokai from my Prefecture (Miyagi), going alphabetically, we have Amazake Baba, an elderly hag who goes door to door asking for Sweet Sake (amazake). Whether you give her any or not, should you answer the door, those within the household will fall ill. (That's putting the Trick in Trick or Treat!) For some historical significance, check out the link above. Just don't answer the door!

On my way back from the local Shrine on New Year's Day, I am often offered a free cup of amazaki. I shall be a bit more discerning about accepting now.

I'd be neglectful if I didn't mention the Yokai, Rokurokubi, who has a long spirally neck. For more, go to previous blog entries here or here.

Before I go, I had a difficult time finding someone who has already started their October blog yet (pesky time difference), but I did discover one by Alexis so go check them out.

Be back tomorrow, Same Bat-time, Same Bat-Channel for more Halloween hijinks.

UPDATE 2! I forgot that I had intended to showcase some of my spooky comic books that I have with me or at a friend's place (or for sale on consignment.)

I chose this one because Mera's hair is spiraling.

25 Days of Christmas...

I was flipping around my Twitch Channels and watched a bit of Final Wars and Destroy All Monsters and then switched over to a Cartoon channel. (CartoonBlast if you wish to check it out.) Well, they've entitled their feed, "The 25 Days of Christmas" and I've decided to steal their idea. First, I watched Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983) which features some cool cameos by Jiminy Cricket, Mr. Toad, Willie the Giant, the Weasels, and others. Here's a snippet, search for the whole thing yourself.

Next Toy Tinkers (1949) with the Chippendale Dancers Chip & Dale and Donald. 

Good Will To Men (1955) is an incredibly bleak but fascinating short by Hanna Barbera. 

Finally a Silly Symphony of The Night Before Christmas.

I'll try and add some cartoons daily. There are plenty to choose from!

Meanwhile, being the 1st of December, that means it's Calendar time. Here are my Star Wars and Jurassic Park entries for this month. 

Last year's Chibi-Godzilla calendar.

Picked this up yesterday for a buck. I may find a place for this Kubrick on my tree. (If I had one.)

Since Poker night was cancelled, here's the next best thing. (Scott Hilburn)

Lastly, I just can't get away from posting Godzilla stuff. I scored 4/6 tumblers at a buck a piece and a tea cup. Far cheaper than a full price Kuji at 900 yen.

I'm off to bed soon, I have an early morning of HoHoHoing with the kiddies tomorrow!

That's a Load of BullMark.

It's the finale of GOvember!

While I'm typing this, I have Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: All Out Monster Attack on in the background. I don't mind them making Godzilla the villain, but I do take umbrage at allowing Ghidorah to be one of the Guardian saviours. (Oops. Spoiler.)

Anyway, for the last day, I saved some vinyl figures from way back in 2004 in the Final Wars days. Iwakura/Bullmark put these colourful figures in a box and urged one to buy them up. I did so. Furthermore, HMV also had a slightly more colourful version of the same 10 figures (plus one secret.)

I'm still missing a few, but for now, here is round one. HMV on the left, regular on the right.

Godzilla towering over Tokyo Tower.

Varan.

King Ghidorah.

Baragon.

Only the regular version of Gorosaurus, no HMV.

Kameba.*

Missing a Kanime.*

Megaro.

Jet Jaguar.

And MechaGodzilla.

Here is HMV in all their glory.

And the rest of the gang in more subdued tones.

I'm missing the Secret ones as well, they go for a pretty penny so I suspect they were Very rare. HMV has a coloured Gorosaurus, the regular ones have a coloured Megalo.

Round 2 came out the following year, starting with Godzilla naturally which unfortunately has eluded me.

Rodan and Mogera.

Mothra from above and below.

Ebirah.

Anguiras.

I also watched a bit of Hedorah today.

Gigan

And Gezora.* (I'm missing Minya as well.)

Here they are all together (minus 2 and a Secret Hedorah.)

*Who the heck are Kameba, Kanime and Gezorah, you might ask. They are sea creatures enlarged by the Space Amoeba, Yog of course.

Only 30 days in GOvember so as an added bonus is the 31st picture from my daily calendar by artist Yuji Murakami.

Back to our regularly scheduled Blog and its infrequent occurrence starting tomorrow.