Fire Emblem: Three Houses / Fire Emblem: Wind, Flower, Snow, Moon - A series of analyses

 The following is a series on Fire Emblem: Three Houses that analyzes the story elements, characters and theming. For reference, here are the links to each one:

Intro/Basic review, White Clouds (Common Part 1), Cindered Shadows (Ashen Wolves DLC Route - Part 1.5), Crimson Flower (Black Eagles/Eagle House Part 2, Adrestia route), Silver Snow (Black Eagles/Eagle House Part 2, Church route), Azure Moon (Blue Lions/Lion House Part 2), Verdant Wind (Golden Deer/Deer House Part 2) Non-house leader characters (Eagle, Deer, Lion, Church) Music analysis (very surface level)

On a whim this year, I decided to try to get into a few more JRPG games. I have been chipping away at Dragon Quest XI for a while now, but the longer the game goes, the more obvious it is that I am nowhere near the end. I enjoy the game’s story, but there is only so much passive running around and battle watching I can tolerate in a single session.

This has always been the bane of the JRPG genre. The gameplay is, by its nature, less active than other genres. An adventure game requires you to control the movements and attacks in real-time, while turn-based RPGs are more focused on picking your attack and then watching the result of your decision. With that degree of separation in the gameplay, my enjoyment hinges mostly on the story.

This means that the stories of JRPGs tend to stick with me more than any other game genre. Since the storyline is the main reason I got into the game and kept following it, I get VERY invested.

All of this endless prattle has brought me to the game I want to talk about today: Fire Emblem Three Houses.

I had never even heard of the Fire Emblem series until I started playing Smash Bros and realized the sheer number of FE characters that were in it. So when a friend of mine recommended the newest entry for the Nintendo Switch, I figured it was worth a try.

Needless to say, I’m glad I did.

Three Houses is the 13th unique entry to the series and it’s done enough to get me interested in the other games. That said, though, I have a lot of thoughts on FE3H that need to be expressed before I’m ready to close the book on it.

This will likely be a six-part blog. The game is split into two halves: an academy half and a war half. The academy half is common in all situations, and the only differences based on your choice of house is the dialogue and what characters/elements get focus.

The war half has entirely different storylines based on your house selection. There are three different house routes, and one of those routes splits in two, creating a fourth storyline. As such, I’ll be doing a blog for the common storyline, as well as one for each war storyline.

All that, however, will follow the basic gameplay review I conduct here.

So for those that have never heard of tactical RPGs (i.e. you’re me from earlier this year), you and your enemy have armies with a set number of people (units) you can send forth in battle. You get a turn where you can move up to all of your units to new locations on the battlefield. If you get within range of an opponent, you may engage them in 1-on-1 battle. Once you’ve moved all the units that you want, the turn ends and your opponent moves.

Effectively, it’s like chess if the board was 10 times as large and you could move all your pieces in one turn.

There are three difficulties and two modes: Classic and Casual. Casual resets your team after each battle, while in Classic, anyone who dies is permanently removed from the game. Basically, think like you’re playing a gauntlet of chess opponents, and every piece you lose is lost for the next game.

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Honestly, I recommend Casual mode for your first few playthroughs. The story in this game has a lot of twists and turns, and people need to survive for that to reveal itself. Play the story out in casual mode first, then switch to Classic if you want the challenge.

Those who are playing Classic in this game and are worried about losing too many people do have a tool that most FE games don’t give them: the Divine Pulse. This is a tool of the character Sothis. Basically, you rewind the battlefield to any earlier point and try your strategy over again. You won’t have much use of it early on, but it becomes a big deal toward the end.

If you’re in Casual mode, you’ll probably only use it on a couple occasions, since you’d have to be routed to need it. But Classic mode people will become VERY familiar with it by the end.

Outside of battle, there is an academy (exploration) stage of the game where you talk with all the characters, do quests and engage in bonding activities to increase the support level with all your students. 

This is where I should probably mention the military academy setting of the game. The Church of Seiros has a military academy where Byleth (the player character) ends up working as a professor. You are named the homeroom teacher (head of household) for one of the three houses.

This group will serve as the backbone of your battle experience. You can also recruit other students to your house during the academy stage by increasing your abilities in the skills they want to learn. I would recommend recruiting 6-7 people because your maximum professor level will allow you to use up to 12 people in battle, plus three in a supporting role. As such, the 8-9 you are given in Part 1 will not fill all the roles.

Those who are familiar with the series will know there’s a dancer class, and it is present, but it only can be won in a specific competition and you can only give the role to one person. I’d recommend someone who has decent sword or black magic skills, and it should be someone you don’t mind taking out of an offensive role. This is where recruiting is important because it lets you fill the black mage/swordsperson role with someone else.

Your students increase in proficiency through battle, but most immediately through personal tutoring sessions, weekly lessons and seminars. It’s up to you to determine which roles get increased and when. Speaking as someone who loved NFL Head Coach, a fan of manager modes in MLB games, and an actual teacher, this was a deeply engaging experience. And every support level I earned with the house members felt like a real achievement. 

The voice acting was excellent in this game, as every sequence was fully animated and voiced. The roles were chosen well, and they really got into the story.

My main gripe seems to be that some of the translation was slipshod. It undermined some of the main themes of the game, and the director of the voice actors ended up directing scenes in a way I felt were unfitting because of said mistranslatons.

That said, it doesn’t undermine the story to the point that I couldn’t figure out the main points, but it was frustrating nonetheless when I found translated versions of the Japanese text and realized a lot of the quirky storytelling botches I had were actually not in the Japanese version; they were there solely due to a slapdash effort on the translation team. I'll bring up some of the more egregious examples as they arise.

I feel like that explanation as to why the translation tripped up is a reasonably one because the game was running against the time limit a good bit. It got delayed and certain ideas that may have gotten fleshed out never materialized. Still, the core story is still a complete one, and the only things really lost in the shuffle were a playable character or two, a number of supports, a split path that would have only lasted for a few battles anyway, and a possible epilogue that I personally would have wanted, but I don’t think was ever planned anyway (more on that later).

Overall, as far as games go, this one feels extremely complete. It joins Breath of the Wild in terms of games where I’ve put more in than 100 hours of play time. (I mean, ALL my playthroughs of Link to the Past and Link Between Worlds may add up there too but…)

I highly recommend the game in terms of enjoyable gameplay. It’s the most involved I’ve felt with a JRPG from a gameplay perspective ever.

That said, I stand by my thought that story is what makes or breaks a JRPG, and this one is a doozy. I will be touching upon all the possible routes over the next few blogs, specifically their thematic elements and my stance on their overall quality. Each one will be pretty exhaustive in terms of plot details so if you prefer to go in blind, this is the only entry you should read until you've started to beat routes of the game.

But honestly, I think you’ll find the story far more interesting if you know how each route frames itself, so I would say to let me spoil the tar out of this story!

If you would like to hear my character analysis, I'll save my thoughts on each character for their house's war phase route. I want White Clouds to stay at least vaguely streamlined since it already has to cover the events of every house, so the characters will be split into their houses of origin. That said, I will raise things from their alternate routes in the same description. For example, the Church of Seiros figures will be mentioned in the Silver Snow route, and I'll also touch on what they do in the alternate routes at that time as well.

Whether you read this as a prospective buyer, or a fan who has already finished the game, I hope you enjoy this journey.

I'm having... thoughts... on "Another" and "Toradora!"

This is my first post since everything went down on this planet last March. Much has happened, to say the least.

I was just going to wait for my annual NFL conference championship weekend blog to return, but I was busy getting back into creating media again and got an idea. In between writing a soft Hylian-Zora romance story chapters, I started looking up various anime. I've finally seen the first four arcs of Hunter X Hunter; I'm anxiously awaiting season 2 of Dr. Stone; and I've seen a couple standalone anime series.

In particular, I want to talk about two of them: "Another" and "Toradora!" Genre-wise, these two don't belong together at all. Another is a primarily a horror anime and Toradora! is primarily a slice-of-life romantic comedy.

And yet I feel like the two share one major trait in common that I notice a lot in anime: the dramatic shift in style, tone, or even genre about two-thirds of the way through the show. I've seen this happen a lot - Yu Yu Hakusho, Mirai Nikki, Little Witch Academia, etc. 

As a general rule, I don't like these shifts. At best, they're pedestrian enough to shrug and roll with, but at worst, they can destroy the entire reason the show was appealing in the first place. Once YYH started dealing in the demon realm, it got way less interesting. LWA scaled back much of the fun cast in favor of a more serious group of characters who were not given much interesting with which to work.

The reason I wanted to talk about this is because Another and Toradora! epitomize how to handle a shift like this well (i.e. it doesn't affect quality) vs. how to handle it poorly (i.e. it makes me actively hate a show that I had been loving mere episodes before).

I should note that, except for mysteries since guessing along is part of the initial viewing fun, I don't really care about other spoilers. Shows should have rewatch value, and that means there should be a lot to enjoy even when you know what's coming. If spoiling ruins a story, then it likely had deep structural flaws anyway.

Nonetheless, before I go through them, I'll give you the heads-up that I'll be spoiling a lot of each show, but not so much that I think you need to avoid this blog. I can avoid the mystery reveal at the end of Another and I can gloss over much of the Toradora! ending.

ANOTHER

Let's start with Another.

This show, as the opening scene explains, is about a school that is dealing with an alleged curse of returning dead students. A transfer student, Sakakibara, has to have a hospital stay before entering the school and meets a short, eerie girl with an eyepatch one night after visiting hours ended.

The first four episodes of the 12-episode series play out like a psychological suspense mystery. The girl, Mei Misaki, pops up in random places and says to avoid her. The other students are clearly scared of her name and act like they can't see her. There are creepy dolls all over these episodes, and two characters who managed to get a lot of screen time are killed off in two of the most absurdly unforgettable death scenes ever put to animation.

But then, the final third of the show (eps. 9-12) drop the psychological elements entirely and go full slasher flick. The deaths, save about three, are effectively extras thrown in to bulk up the body count. Gore takes top priority; and the multitude of mysteries by this point is down to just one, which gets solved in between slashings.

And yet the two parts feel like they connect and were well put-together. I actually quite love this show and think it's a great example of horror mysteries done right.

So how did they do it? It all comes down to the second third of the show (eps. 5-8).

Many shows commit a cardinal sin in shunning the most enjoyable characters when things get serious in favor of underdeveloped "serious" characters. This is never a real problem because the first episodes of this show really only prioritized Sakakibara and Mei. There were others on the periphery, but they don't get a real focus until the middle of episode 7.

By that point, though, the two main characters have actually grown closer, with episodes 5 and 6 being almost exclusively driven by the two of them hanging out. The only reason the others get added is to give the show more people with which to tease death.

The show also pares back the mysteries naturally. When Sakakibara gets "unpersoned" in episode 5, it frees Mei up to actually tell him what's going on, and the librarian becomes more helpful. The mysteries cleared up because of a legitimate story development. By the end of episode 8, the only two mysteries left are: "Who is dead?" and "How do we stop the curse?"

While researching, it becomes clear that whatever stopped the curse once before happened at a cabin in the woods, which sets the students up for a cabin trip in the final episodes, securing the classic slasher setting.

Everything in the story felt deliberate, and because of that, accepting the change in tone was easier. And the final mystery's payoff worked out great because there were plenty of clues that were placed with multiple meanings -- it's revealed that memories have to be altered to allow the dead to walk again, so the erratic behaviors among the cast cannot easily be pointed toward one person on a first viewing (though it is absolutely possible. Enough clues do exist.).

That's not to say the show was perfect. The break beach trip in ep. 8 was anime-exclusive and undermines both future deaths and future reveals by creating circumstances that shouldn't be happening. And some characters go full-Castlevania II and lie until it's convenient in the story. (Most notably, the original dead student is called female and 'Misaki' until it's blatantly clear that Mei is eliminated as a suspect to the audience. Then, suddenly, we learn the original Misaki was male.)

Overall, however, I adored this story and have been playing the theme song non-stop. Seriously, both shows have excellent opening themes, and I'm glad Another just stuck with the one opener for its entire run.

For the record, both Japanese and English voice audio are excellent. English does a better job with phrasing what's going on so it's easier to follow, but there's no topping Mei's Japanese VA. She has the creepy ghost-like voice down to an art.

TORADORA!

And then there's Toradora!

I will start by saying that I absolutely loved the first 15 episodes and about 20 minutes of episode 16. It had a story I loved, characters who were great fun, witty dialogue, smart slapstick, heartfelt moments, and a litany of other great traits. It was well on its way to being a candidate for one of my favorite animated series ever.

And then the last nine episodes happen.

I should note that this show is considered a classic. While looking up the first opening theme (another banger), I found out that this show was many people's introduction into the greater anime world and Crunchyroll as a website. So I know many will find meaning in the final episodes and may even identify with some of the subject matter in the final episodes.

Anyway, here's why the show nevertheless crashed and burned in a span of just six episodes. Yes, starting from episode 17 and going through episode 22, by the time I completed them, I hated the show. I'd describe the episodes as a stumble that sends someone down a hill, which leads them off a cliff, down into a canyon, and when they land, they create a sinkhole that connects to a bottomless crater.

To explain what went wrong, I need to explain what the show was doing so right in the first place.

As I said before, this show is a romantic comedy, slice-of-life show that occasionally dealt with teen melodrama. It's the story of two main characters: Ryuji, a tall boy with a strong face that intimidates most people from even approaching him; and Taiga, a short girl who has instilled fear in most students at the school by being comedically violent toward most everyone.

In the first episode, the two realize that 1. they're neighbors, and 2. they're each best friends with the other person's crush. So although they get off on the wrong foot, they quickly join forces to pair each other off.

One thing I immediately appreciated was how the show approached the possible relationships. The standard in Rom-Coms like this (I've seen many that use variations of this trope) is to 'babyface' the two leads, to steal a wrestling term. See, in Rom-coms, the idea of destroying a current relationship with a new one via infidelity kind of kills the vibe of the film. So 'babyfacing' is where the current/prospective love interests are revealed early on to be either bad people, destructive, abusive, unwilling to compromise, or something else that allows the audience to justify leaving the current option.

(Unrelated, but one unique example of this is "Bride Wars," where the flaw is tipped, but not made clear until later. Anne Hathaway's fiancé enables her own self-defeating behavior of giving up on her interests, so when she starts asserting herself, he can't reconcile her new confident self with the meek people-pleaser he preferred. Not the best example, mind you; her assertiveness never benefits her and only makes the situations worse, so the positive message gets buried under incompetence. But it's one example that's still memorable to me for some reason.)

In Toradora, the main characters are made sympathetic, but they have very obvious character flaws that are preventing them from being with their respective love interests. Meanwhile, the two love interests are excellent reflections of what each one needs to work on.

Yusaku, Taiga's love interest, had been interested in her and seems to gravitate to girls who are similar to her but channel that aggressive energy into productive projects. So Ryuji needs to help her trust herself and others enough for her to become a positive force at the school.

And Minori, Ryuji's love interest, approaches stress in the exact opposite way Ryuji does - where he scales himself back and withdraws, she involves herself in everything she possibly can. The two serve as a good balance to each other's disposition, and with Taiga's help, gets them both to open up and discuss their approaches to the world.

I will say straight-up that I LOVE both of these relationships as they motivate the main characters to improve as people, and it seems clear that by the time everyone is officially together, they will all be the emotionally whole adults they were always meant to be.

And then there's the Taiga-Ryuji dynamic. Taiga is revealed to be living on her own because she didn't get along with her dad and stepmom, so she gets taken in by Ryuji, his mom and their pet bird. It creates this surrogate, found-family dynamic that I absolutely love. Although, the running gag is the two are a couple, it always plays up like more of a brother-sister dynamic. The two are mutually building the other up and the foursome really feel like a lifelong group joined at the hip.

And then, thrown in on top of all this is Ami, a model who transfers in a few episodes into the show. Ami is childhood friends with Yusaku, immediately hits on Ryuji, and both girls can't stand her immediately because she puts on an obviously fake-nice act to earn sympathy from people. 

Ami works as a great foil and bisected love triangle force. She is characterized deeply enough that you can see her with either boy, but her arc is clearly not romantic focused and it's clear the failure to be with either will force her to grow as a person as well.

So you have two main characters, one of which is assimilating into her newfound family, helping each other improve as people; two romantic interests who come across as great people and who already love their best friends, creating a tight-knit group; and a fifth wheel who is learning both how to be honest with herself and that 'herself' needs a lot of work.

This is the dynamic of the show for the first 16 episodes, and had it kept going like this, I'd probably be giving it a standalone blog as one of the greatest shows I've ever seen.

Unfortunately, there were still nine episodes left to screw it all up.

So what happened? They chucked nearly all of what I said out the window over the final nine episodes.

Episode 17 marked the debut of the second and final intro song (a major downgrade), and a song change has never so perfectly signaled a drop in show quality.

First, remember how I said it was rom-com driven with some melodrama thrown in? Those reverse completely, and suddenly we're in a Degrassi-style teen drama with rom-com elements present but scaled back.

Now, unlike Another, these elements were always present in the show, so it didn't feel as jarring looking back. But suspense/mystery to horror is a much smaller jump from comedy-driven to drama-driven. The show almost feels like an imposter of itself. (Tora is sus... I apologize. That was horrible.)

This is further emphasized by the fact that characterization of the five main characters gets altered, reversed or chucked out in order to fit the direction the story wants to move.

Taiga's aggressive demeanor vanishes almost entirely for the Christmas episodes (because she still believes in Santa... as a high-schooler...) and remains scaled back for the rest of the show. Ryuji goes on meathead-mode for a while and can't seem to intuit any of what the people around him are feeling, which he had been working on and much improved on over the show. A minor setback is one thing; he felt like he was back in episode 3 or 4 again.

It affects the other three as well. Minori probably gets it the worst, as she begins to feel guilty for events at the end of episode 16, and it costs her team the game in episode 17. She mopes for THREE EPISODES STRAIGHT because of this, and I was getting unnerving Sayori from DDLC vibes about her for a while.

Ami's personality switches back-and-forth depending on what role the writers need her to fill in a crystallized moment, and I'm pretty sure Yusaku had his main character status revoked at some point in all this because he fades in the background a lot and has his character destroyed in contrived, stupid ways. Basically, he becomes the Yamcha of the group.

Remember the found-family dynamic I loved? Yeah that went right out the window. In a move that was just unfortunate on so many levels, the writer decided that Taiga and Ryuji should be the main couple. This is despite the fact that Ami even calls out that the two have a family dynamic (though she notes that she sees Minori and Ryuji as surrogate parents for Taiga, which makes what's happening here SO MUCH worse).

This is why the changes in character and tone had to be made. By not 'babyfacing' the main characters at the beginning, they set up a scenario where the initial romantic relationships weren't DOA. That's great when you plan to let those relationships pan out to the end of the show, but when you plan to just pair the two main characters off anyway, it doesn't generate good feelings toward your show.

Because of all that, they had to do a rush job in the middle of the show. The next six episodes try to keep Minori mostly good by having her give Ryuji up on her own (She comes across Taiga crying in one of the least sensical sequences of the whole show and decides to tap out.), but not before making me genuinely nervous about this show going the tragic death route. Meanwhile, Yusaku gets caught up in multiple lies and feels like a weird appendage to the rest of the show.

Even the found family dynamic gets abandoned in favor of bringing both Taiga and Ryuji's extended families into the story. Hey, remember when we all learned that lesson mid-series about how family members who constantly use and abandon you are not family worth keeping? Remember when Taiga found her support system in Ryuji and his mom, who even called her 'family?' Clearly not, based on these last few messes of episodes.

I won't go into specifics of the ending; honestly, this should be enough to make the point clear. This show (and from what I can tell, the books they're based on) did not realize when the story they wanted to tell - and the story they were telling - had diverged to the point that they needed to change course. By sticking to their plan all the way to the end, they derailed a story that was proving to be great fun, and drove it off the roof of a building in favor of nonsense melodrama.

I do recommend the first 16 episodes, but be ready to be disappointed if you choose to see the final nine. I actually may have to rewrite the last nine episodes myself if I get some time.

Though, for right now, I have a lot of side stories for my current fic that need attending.

NFL Conference Championship teams and their wrestling counterparts (Year 10: 2019-20)

NOTE: To see the previous years, follow these links: 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19).

It’s down to the final four again!

This year’s wrestling-NFL blog will complete a decade-long tradition, but it will also represent a #10yearchallenge for this blog.

When I started out with this idea, I was watching WWE consistently and had a good grasp on the talent. A decade later, my wrestling fandom is more entrenched, but I have gained a better grasp on my tastes in what makes a good wrestler, a good angle, a good match, and a good overall show.

Ultimately, it has led me away from the WWE programming and its overall incompetent structure. My weekly wrestling fix is now filled by three promotions that represent, to varying degrees, what I think should be present in professional wrestling.

As such, I am going to tie this year’s teams to the promotions I think best represent their personalities. If you like a certain team’s playing style, you can kind of extrapolate from there whether the company might be the one for you. Let’s begin!

Kansas City Chiefs - All Elite Wrestling

The thing about KC this year has been that, after emerging as a legitimate threat to New England in the AFC, people assumed that this would be the year that they could take over as the new guard in the conference.

Then, lo and behold, they got off to a VERY rocky start. People began questioning if they had it together enough to actually live up to their potential, or if they would become the New York Knicks to New England’s Chicago Bulls.

What we did not count on, though, was the teams ahead of them collapsing around them so that when they righted the ship, there was no resistance. New England failed to even get out of round one this year.

This represents AEW and their wild opening journey. The show is still heavily flawed. The women’s division is booked incompetently and the tag division has chosen to focus on being a spectacle more than actually creating must-see tag teams.

Nonetheless, an impressive top of the card, solid main event angles, and most of all, a monster collapse of the WWE’s product quality and viewership, has convinced TNT that this company is worth $175 million.

AEW, like KC, is here to stay. Question is: Will they live up to their potential?

Tennessee Titans - Major League Wrestling

MLW has seemingly come out of nowhere after reviving itself in the mid 2010s. Court Bauer convinced BeIn Sports to give them a rights deal, and not only has the show been successful, it may be getting upgraded to Showtime or the Paramount Network.

Such a move would pole vault the company into world-class discussions with world-class money. And it’s fitting for a company that mixes old-school simple booking, with international styles that blend surprisingly well, an adherence to actual weight classes (!), and some (admittedly) trash deathmatch stuff. Can’t be perfect.

Regardless, this is the crossroads where Tennessee finds itself as well. They are relying on old-school running backs - like Jim Brown old-school - with a modern twist to find themselves on the verge of being a legitimate force in the conference. They just need one more signature moment to validate themselves.

Green Bay Packers - Ring of Honor

Green Bay is that team that always seems to be in the hunt, but never actually cracks the top tier. They have all the ingredients offensively that make you think they’d have more titles by now, but a porous defense and coaching always seem to degrade them in the playoffs.

Ring of Honor’s fans could tell you the same stories. Despite great talent coming through over the years, a mess in the booking department, letting people get over at the expense of the larger brand, and unsupportive management have left the brand damaged.

Both, however, have seen recent upsides. The Pack is finally moving in the right direction, and it seems like, in spite of all his controversy, Aaron Rodgers is finally making his run behind some real support.

Meanwhile, after ROH hit its low point with the recent Kelly Klein issues, they were able to re-sign top star Marty Scurll as well as some big talent from Mexico to pad out their roster. There may be life in them after all.

The rest of Green Bay’s year, and all of ROH’s 2020, will go a long way toward determining their futures.

San Francisco 49ers - National Wrestling Alliance

San Fran has not seen relevance in a long time. Just a few years back, they were a punchline.

But sure enough, a move to pick up a backup quarterback from the Patriots changed their trajectory, and they have been on the upswing ever since. Do they look invincible? No. But do they look closest to a consistent squad that won’t make major blunders? Absolutely, and that could carry them to being the best.

Likewise, the NWA has not been a relevant company since the early 90s (or mid 2000s, if you count when their belts were in TNA). The name had long since been a relic of the bygone territory days.

But like San Fran, the best thing to happen to them seemed innocuous. Billy Corgan’s purchase of the name and rights has revitalized the company, and through small-scale growth, he has built a brand that mixes retro with the modern, quick-paced style of television. While the show is currently YouTube exclusive, the simple matches and easy-to-follow storylines have been an excellent display of why the older wrestling style still can work in modern day.

End of the day, I suspect the 49ers pull off a narrow win, and KC finally gets over the hump after a very difficult game with the Titans.

NFL Conference Championship teams and their wrestling counterparts (Year 9: 2018-19)

NOTE: To see the previous years, follow these links: 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18).

Hard to believe it, but I've been working on this thing for nearly a decade. Next year will be one decade of the NFL conference championship blog, and I already know what gimmick I'll be using next year.

As for this year, I actually kept switching between different gimmick ideas for a multitude of reasons. Among them were: 1. Each gimmick had one team that had trouble fitting with its counterpart when I thought of the explanation, and 2. I have basically been avoiding WWE like the plague for most of the year.

That's not to say I didn't watch wrestling at all this year. Heck, you may have seen that I tried to keep a monthly best matches column on this blog before it became clear my teaching schedule would make doing anything on a scheduled basis difficult. I'm sure it won't stop me from trying again, but realistically, I should stick to writing when I have an opinion I have a MIGHTY NEED to give out.

(Probably my favorite thing that ever happened on Invader Zim... well that or this one:

Or maybe the Christmas special... I'm getting off track.)

Anyway, since I did stables last year, this go-around I wanted to touch on tag teams. But OH MY does WWE not care about tag teams. When I looked at the current tag team roster, I saw a crew that gets jobbed out like no one's business.

Admittedly, SmackDown at least seems to have a little more protection, but even with a cursory following of Raw on recaps, I know that the tag division is broken. When one of the teams who held your World championship is literally called the B-Team, you have given up on trying to make money with your division.

So as an act of protest against this load of garbage, I'm going to do a WWE counterpart, but only as a secondary thought. It's also only going to be women's wrestlers, since when I do hear positives about WWE, they almost always come from the women's division.

My main idea will be tag teams from the companies I actually followed this year (New Japan Pro Wrestling, Ring of Honor and CMLL). Because they have earned the right to be talked about this year.

Let's do this! AFC first!

KANSAS CITY CHIEFS - THE YOUNG BUCKS (WWE: ASUKA)

The Chiefs have had an entertaining year to say the least. Their offense was at the top of the league and their new rookie quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, has been a source of great fun on the field.

Despite the youth, though, it's the experience that is helping carry this team through its more difficult moments. Travis Kelce is a long-time monster at the tight end position, and Andy Reid is nothing if not legendary as a coach at this point. The only thing missing from his résumé is a championship, and he may finally have a team who can do it, so he is clearly on a mission this year to make that happen.

The Young Bucks represent all of these emotions pretty clearly. They have always come across as the "NEXT GEN" of professional wrestling, but at this point they are past the 30-year mark in life. They look like they don't age, but Nick and Matt Jackson were at a point this year where this current free agency was their last good chance to make money.

So what did they do this year? They moved up to New Japan's heavyweight division and captured the championships, then did the same in Ring of Honor. This is the only tag team in the world who could force themselves in the tag title matches of both companies' biggest shows (despite not really being involved in the storylines at all) and not have the bulk of the internet get mad at them. (Though I was annoyed at the New Japan one.)

And now their mission carries on into 2019 when they start their own wrestling company. If anyone has a chip on their shoulders the size of Andy Reid, it's these two.

I should note that I don't think the women's wrestlers I'm using are great matches for the teams, but they're the closest I can get to WWE talent that makes sense for this blog.

Asuka works because she has a high-octane offense (when it's allowed to be shown), and despite being new to fans of WWE, she's actually one of the most veteran talents on the roster. Her credentials speak for themselves... honestly far more than the Chiefs can boast, though her year has been spotty due to injury (which doesn't match the Chiefs success this year). That said, she's the best option from WWE to match KC.

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS - THE BRISCOES (WWE: CHARLOTTE FLAIR)

I'm really getting tired of coming up with new analogies for the Patriots. I'm tired of the AFC east being so collectively incompetent that the Pats keep winning the division despite getting markedly worse by the year. I'm tired of them using those easy wins to stack their record into getting a bye week in the playoffs. I'm tired of them getting through a home playoff game with an extra week to plan so they can get on this blog.

The continued perpetual round of New England madness continues this year, but at least this time they're at a disadvantage compared to most years. Usually, if the Pats go to the Super Bowl, they're at home in the conference title game. The fact that they have to play in Kansas City this time may be the difference maker. At least it better be... I already have money on the outcome.

But regardless of any of the previous statements, they nonetheless are never totally out of the picture, which makes the Briscoes of Ring of Honor the perfect team for New England.

"Dem Boys" won the ROH tag title on two occasions this year, bringing their grand total to 10 times in their careers dating back to ROH's creation in 2002. Teams have come and gone, but the Briscoes are a permanent fixture in the ROH arenas akin to furniture or weird, creepy men at ringside who cheer for everything the company does (even when they need you to boo, you annoying little man!).

But yeah, the Briscoes rose to power around the same time the Pats did, and chances are they'll exit the scene around the same time. Unlike the Pats though, I highly recommend you go and find the work of Jay and Mark Briscoe ASAP. It's a great time.

As for the Charlotte comparison, I think it goes without saying. She's in the title picture constantly. She's gotten all the major "first time ever" matches they have been doing for the women's revolution, and at the rate she's going, by the end of next year, she will probably have broken Mickie James' record of nine women's world title reigns (Mickie had 6 in WWE, 3 in TNA).

NEW ORLEANS SAINTS - THE GUERRILLAS OF DESTINY (GoD) a.k.a. THE OG BULLET CLUB (WWE: BECKY LYNCH)

If there's a tag team out there I enjoy more than Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa, they are escaping my mind right now. This has been a year of revival for the classic era of the Bullet Club.

Over the last couple years, the Elite of Kenny Omega, the Young Bucks and Cody (notRhodes) have been dominating Bullet Club storylines to the point that I had largely forgotten about the original members who had not gone anywhere.

This quickly changed when the OGBC's laid out the Elite and have basically stuffed them at every turn since then, ensuring that the Elite were purged from the classic crew. The Elite may end up with way more money by the end, especially if All Elite Wrestling takes off like I think (hope) it might, but as far as New Japan fans go, GoD got one up on them on the way out.

The Saints feel like a redemption tour has been long in the works. Despite winning a title and having a candidate for Greatest Quarterback Ever, New Orleans has been almost perennially on the bridesmaid list without any hope of actually getting back to the altar.

(Actually come to think of it, marriage is a terrible analogy here. The point of football is to get to the big stage more than once... eh, forget it. You all get it and I'm on a roll here.)

This year has felt like a renaissance with the renewed offense and a revived defense that has given Drew Brees and the Saints a real shot again. I'm still not a believer in Sean Payton, but we'll see how this goes.

Oh, and hey! The Saints beat the Eagles, who claimed last year's Super Bowl by beating the Pats. You know what that means...

New Orleans is THE MAN.

Please give Becky Lynch the main event of WrestleMania. She is quite literally the best thing on any show right now.

LOS ANGELES RAMS - SO CAL UNCENSORED (WWE: RONDA ROUSEY)

So this is the team that I said didn't fit ideally with this specific gimmick. I have looked at tag teams across multiple companies and simply have not been satisfied with any of the choices for who could match the Rams.

The closest WWE came was Lucha House Party, but giving anyone a WWE tag team for a comparison feels like a cruel prank at this point, so that was out.

I thought of Suzuki-GUN in New Japan, but the teams they field don't usually revolve around new wrestlers. I considered Los Ingobernables de Japon's junior heavyweight team of Shingo and BUSHI, but the team only started mid-year.

I had really considered Nueva Generación Dinamitas in CMLL (El Cuatrero and Sansón), but they despite being in major storylines most of the year, they never felt like a team they were going to focus on as a team. (Kind of the nature of CMLL, but nonetheless...)

I finally settled on So Cal Uncensored because like the Rams, their offensive output and ability to impress has returned to previous levels this year. I have gotten enjoyment out of basically all the SCU matches I've seen, and their quest to become champions again was the best thing on ROH TV this year. I am truly glad that ROH recognized their talents and gave the tag titles the main event of 2018's biggest pay-per-view. Whether the team was Daniels and Kazarian, or Kazarian and Scorpio Sky, they delivered.

That said, the biggest draw to the Rams was youth and inexperience. There is no team that represents young blood in this league quite as well as the LA Rams. Fact is, across the major companies, the teams right now have all established themselves pretty well.

Luckily, using women as well in the comparison has saved me here because Ronda Rousey is perfect for the Rams.

Rousey, like the Rams, had been famous for being dominant in a previous time, but their stock had faded over the last few years... mostly thanks to incompetent coaching on both their parts.

Recently, though, both have revived themselves and appear better than they may have ever been. The Rams broke records that "The Greatest Show on Turf" set during their brief reign atop the football world. Meanwhile, Rousey has entered WWE and immediately become both a huge draw and a steady working hand in the ring.

Rousey matches are one of the few guarantees of quality left in the company, and few teams can boast being as exciting as a Rams football game.

Had it not been for "The Man" appearing on SmackDown, Rousey would be the biggest deal in the company right now among the fans. And had it not been for the Saints upending their undefeated season, the Rams would be the big deal Holyfield in the NFL going into this week's games.

WrestleMania and the remaining NFL playoffs will be monumental in determining whether the years of Ronda and the Rams will be simply another great season with a flat finish, or if the year will go down in the annals of history as being legendary.

(For the record, football-wise I think it will be, as I will take the Rams to win a rematch with the Chiefs to pick up a championship.)