Hello Shiquers and welcome back to Nerdy Shique Universe! Guess what? HAPPY NEW YEAR! Yes, it’s that time again and that is ringing in 2016 once our midnight rools around here in the states! To make tradition even better, it’s time for the Bests and Worsts of 2015 according to us at Nerdy Shique Universe! Let’s start with our Bests!

BESTS!

Best EP: Soul Switch’s Regenerate album! This year was a big year for our friends of Soul Switch! This past April they released their third album, Regenerate, and even had an album release party at the House of Blues. We also got to interview Jimmy Kwong and Matt Larson from the band! I loved this album and sing along when I saw them last, hell I even did the growls and screams the best I could along with “Demons.” Hoping they come out with another video since “Hang On” is a great song and video, I recommend these guys since you might be able to find them on ITunes! I also did recommend them to Rhett Fisher who played the Titanium Ranger on Light Speed Rescue along with our other buddies in Traverser! Speaking of which, we did have David from Traverser appear in that interview but will have a full on interview with them when their next album, Jupiter Doesn’t Care About You, drops next year! Congrats Soul Switch!

Best Come Back for a Local Band: Leaving Haven! Well, the reason why I am mentioning this is that a year or two ago we heard of Leaving Haven and back then we didn’t like their music style nor their performance style either. Once we heard one of their songs on Native Noise all thanks to a friend, we noticed how much they changed and then when we saw them perform on the night of Soul Switch’s album release, they improved tremendously! Their performance style and music have improved and we noticed it that night the most. I have two of their CDs and they are amazing! I would highly recommend this band.
Best Event We Finally Went To: Earth Day Birthday 22! We finally went to it after hearing so many things happening and who was going to be there this year and that is Earth Day Birthday! For many years, Gondras and I always wanted to go to this thing, especially the years Sevendust made their stage appearances many times over and over again, even before we saw them at Carnival of Madness back in 2010! As you know, I have been a fan of Sevendust ever since I heard the song “Denial” back in 2003. This year got us going because our buddies in Soul Switch announced at their album release that they are going to open the show and we got there to see that. It was kind of sad that Florida Anime Experience was that same weekend and they were bringing people from Evangelion and haven’t gotten to meet Tiffany Grant. So, we sent Papa Jeriyah on a special mission to get stuff signed by her, Spike, Brina Palencia since she’s Rei in the new movies, and Trina Nishimura even though we were catching up with her at Omni and getting to interview her. Was it worth it? Yes. I do love anime but music has been a major love and this year’s Earth Day Birthday did have artists Gondras and I do like which included Flyleaf, Trapt, Sevendust of course which was a last minute add on after Bush back outdue to a stalker situation, Buck Cherry, and the main band we really wanted to see the most and that is Rise Against! We seen them once in Orlando at the UCF Arena and got to see them again and perform some of their music from Black Market. What surprised Gondras when they performed “Chamber the Cartridge” from their Sufferer and the Witness album which he didn’t know that was a song they did and now he knows about it. Next year’s line up for this thing…he and I agree this year’s took the cake since next year they are having Hailstorm, Escape the Fate, and 311. Not sure if we will go to another, let’s see how time will tell!

Best Interview at a Con: The Cast from Attack on Titan! It was hard to choose for what was the best interview we have done this year but this has to go to the ones we did with Mike McFarland, who directed, Bryce Papenbrook, Eren Yeger, Josh Grelle, Armen, Trina Nishimura, Mikasa, and Lauren Landa, Annie Lockheart. As you guys know, I already interviewed Matthew Mercer during 2014 and apparently it was one of the most viewed posts here on Word Press which I thank you guys for that! Anyways, we had fun interviewing these guys, especially Lauren which it went into many tangents towards the end, not sure if the video camera caught it but we had fun with her, Bryce, and even Josh as well! I do have one entry for Bryce and that is…

Best Headbreaking Moment: Bryce Papenbrook Revealing His Daddy’s Voice! If you haven’t seen the video, but I asked Bryce how did he get into voice acting and that is through his dad, which by the way was a major surprise! I didn’t reveal it to many people because we wanted to have everyone see the video first and then hear many heads break and now will reveal it. Bryce Papenbrook’s dad was the voice of Rito Revulto on Power Rangers. Our reactions were priceless! I did watch clips after the convention and was surprised even more, he is very talented and see where Bryce got his talent from! You can hear Bryce’s voice as Maliotis in Seven Deadly Sins which you can catch on Net Flix! It is very good series by what we saw and people are starting to cosplay from it, we seen a few and taken pics, which you will see in our Holiday Matsuri gallery coming soon! So, enjoy that series!

Best Correction in an Interview: Josh Grelle Correcting Me With His Last Name! Another unsuspecting moment and that was when I was introducing you guys to Josh Grelle. The thing was I pronounced his last name with the pronunciation all thanks to my screen reader and when you see part one, you hear him correct me. It is actually pronounced “Greely” and so glad he helped out! Now I know how to say it whenever we meet him again since I have Attack On Titan Part 2 all nice and clean and waiting for Sharpie ink to touch! He is the voice of the devil in Devil As a Part Tim,er.

Best Voice Actor for a Convention: Jessica Calvello! Oh man, had to mention this one and it was hard to think who would’ve been the best since conventions do get pretty good guests to appear. This category goes to someone who hasn’t appeared at a Florida con by what I remember and that is Jessica Calvello! Due to how Omni was doing all Attack on Titan for the most part, Jessica was one of the actors who appeared and she does the voice of Honshi the scientist who loves looking at titans! Not only she does the voice but she did appear in cosplay as her character for Omni Expo! As in, jacket, glasses, and everything else and even acted like her throughout the thing, there was a part where her character ran into a door and did that as the 18+ Saturday panel with Matt Mercer, she explained what she was doing and wished I recorded that but it wasn’t allowed. But I can say that she also fangirled over Matt’s voice, who wouldn’t, I have been too and he is Number 1 on my Sexiest Voices in Anime and Gaming! I wonder how she would react to his British accent? Anyways, she was funny and very friendly and also very talented, even as Rip Van Winkle in Hellsing Ultimate Abridged.
Runners Up: Todd Habercorn and Joshua Seth! It was hard choosing runner ups because these two were also great at the same convention and that is Todd Habercorn and Joshua Seth! They are entertaining when it comes to panels, even you will get a lot of laughs from my interview with Mr. Seth as well. Couldn’t help but also finding Todd’s photo and signing war with Jess Harnell even funnier. On top of that, their panel with Sean Schemmel and Grey Deloisle as well.

Best Guessing My Age Moment: Walter Jones and Austin St. John at Ranger Stop! I had to put this on here because everyone knows that I don’t look my age! I turned 30 this past year and when people look at me they have to do a double take! Even when the ID gets taken out, it’s even harder to believe that I was born in 1985. This past year I went to Ranger Stop and told some of the people I was into Power Rangers when it first came to the states back in the early 90’s and was seven around then! When Austin St. John and Walter Jones asked me how old I was, I asked them “How old do you think I am?” They were guessing around the twenties, but Walter had more in the teens and then revealed I was 30! Austin was a bit speechless and then said, “You look good for it!” and Walter was like “Nooooo! Really!?” Hell, should’ve said, Veronica Taylor was speechless when I told her which she was actually speechless at AFO since I just turned it.

Best T-Shirt Props: The Rita Repulsa “Make My Monsters Grow” Shirt from Aardvark Tees! I had to mention this because so many people loved it when I wore it to Ranger Stop and it’s all thanks to Aardvark Tees! I got this shirt during AFO from their stand and it is of Rita Repulsa throwing rare candy to some Pokemon and it says “Make My Monster Grow!” It made sense and great thing about it, while asking my question during Ranger Recap’s Pre-Con panel for the regular pass holders they had the camera on my shirt! Even the Blue Rangers pointed it out during their panel that same night! And Christopher Kaman Lee saw it and asked where I got it from since he recognized it and told him I got it from Aardvark’s stand during AFO. I did get props for my Iron Man hoodie since it did get cool in the evening and morning during the convention!

Funniest Internet Review: Anime Abandoned Review on Jungle De Ikou! Yes, time to point out the best internet stuff for this year! Starting with the Funniest Review and that is by hannel Awesome’s own Bennet the Sage with his show Anime Abandoned! We got to meet him during MythiCon and did go to his 18+ Panel and of course Q&A which you can catch on YouTube, the Q&A one! He does very funny reviews on many anime OVAs and movies and an occasional series review. Some of these include Wicked City, Akira, even the InuYasha Movie which I should’ve included that as the funniest review for last year but forgot about it. This year I give it to his review for a really bad OVA known as Jungle De Ikou! It is a bit on the mature side and it does have jokes that are kind of….make you want be like how Bennet says it in his review, “WHAT!?” Basically the plot deals with a girl gets a magical totem figure from her dad who returns from New Guinea, Africa and gets visited by a spirit in her dreams and gets told if she gets in trouble while meeting the eviler spirit that was locked away to do a special dance. Yeah, the dance is ridiculous, ejven one of the other girls have a Macarena type dance but Bennet does end the review early due to it because…yeah…you have to watch it to see what I mean. What I like about watching Bennet is that he does make good points, even with this review talking about how there are bad movies out there and comedies that exist that are equally bad how this anime goes with the movie known as Movie 43. The jokes are pretty funny and he does quote Mad Max: Fury Road! If you are around my age, give it a watch and prepare to laugh your lungs out, Gondras and I sure did!
Runner Up: Nostalgia Critic Reviewing Fury Road! I know, what!? Well, around the time Fury Road came out Nostalgia Critic reviewed it and man he pulled a lot in making the review as a movie type review with his crew. We haven’t seen Fury Road ourselves but we seen the review and you should see it as well, the jokes a very good and does discuss it pretty well.

Death Battle of the Year: Death Stroke vs. Dead Pool! Most of us who have seen Death Battle on Screw Attack know that they have awesome pairings like Felicia from Darkstalkers vs. Taokaka from Blaze Blue, Iron Man vs. Lex Luther, and the one that really have us laughing and loving is Death Stroke from D. C. Comics vs. Dead Pool from Marvel! With the comparing stats, the episode got Dead Pool’s breaking the fourth wall like always and even hilarious in messing with Wiz and Boomstick. I would say watch Death Battle, even this battle if you’re a fan of Dead Pool or Death Stroke since they are entertaining and very informative! Anyways, don’t want to spoil who wins if anyone hasn’t watched it but the battle was pretty close!
Runner Up: Gaara vs. Toff! Yes, have to mention this one because it was one that Gondras thought I would be disappointed because I love Gaara from Naruto but at the same time Toff is my fave Avatar: The Last Airbender character. Both stats were very good but there is one thing, they pitted a guy against a skilled Earth Bender that can use the sand and the golden sand to her advantage. Yeah, sorry, ust spoiled that Toff won this battle. As always said, never underestimate the power of a blind girl, even when she Earth bends!

Internet Reviewer of the Year: Louis Lovehog aka Linkara! This was a pick from Gondras and I agree so I created this one and that is “Internet Reviewer of the Year” and this year it goes to Linkara from Channel Awesome! Why? Well, he has done awesome reviews when it has comes to comics, even caught up with all the Power Rangers for his History of the Power Rangers since he has done Super Mega Force recently, and has done really good story work with his movie! I haven’t seen the movie yet but heard it’s really good from Gondras but I seen enough of his comic book reviews that he makes really good sci-fi- story segments on his show! This is why he should be a guest at more Florida cons, especially Orlando after MythiCon ending! I did suggest him to AFO due to the Power Rangers stuff since I did watch In Space, Lost Galaxy, soon to watch Light Speed Rescue and Time Force after watching his reviews on those seasons! He even used clips from Attack On Titan Abridged during his Jungle Fury review and that is one other season I may see all thanks to him. Still he is a really good reviewer even when you go to his live panel at cons like we have the past two years. That is why Mr. Linkara, you get Internet Reviewer of the Year here on Nerdy Shique Universe!

Best Movie: Star Wars: The Force Awakens! Yeah, I know it seems abovious but think about it this way, it has been years since we got a new Star Wars movie evne though the prequels weren’t the best. I didn’t even seen the third one out of those because of how Episode 2 felt like I could make a drinking game out of the many “My lords!” and “My ladies!” they say throughout the film! When we heard that the story after The Return of the Jedi will be continuing and JJ Abrams will be directing it, we were worried and a bit skeptical since the new Star Trek films were not that great. We saw this on Christmas and man we enjoyed it! Hell, we even applauded when we saw Han, Chewy, and Lea returning in this film with the rest of the audience! Even the emotions in this movie was kept in tact since the original three really got us loving them with the suspense, emotions, and the action that is linked to it. Ohhh we can’t wait for the next episode with how this one ended on a very nice note! If you haven’t seen this film, you must!
Runner Up: Ant Man! II know, I know! Why wasn’t Age of Ultron the Runner Up? Well, I think that Ant Man kind of deserved it a bit more in my opinion! Yes, I was excited like everyone else about the second Avengers movie and how interesting it was with Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, plus having Jarvis being humanish. Ant Man, on the other hand, had a more interesting premise! It told the story differently as a way of passing down the mantle of Ant Man to someone new due to Hank Pim being older and it’s good to see that instead of the original story behind it. We are going to get glimpses of Hank in the next season of Agent Carter from what we see and it’s good to get the idea of the story before the movie in the show. Michael Douglas as always had a great performance, not only that this movie gave us our next glimpse into Civil War and we got to see one of the Avengers on top of it!

Worsts

Worst Press Turn Down: AFO! Yes, got to mention this because it was one of the worst things I went through this year. Not only with personal life but of course with being turned down hard by Anime Festival Orlando for press. We have given great chances by great conventions such as MetroCon in Tampa, MythiCon, now Holiday Matsuri, but the big one that gave us the biggest chance to do press was of course Omni Expo because they found us due to a typo! If you read all the press stuff we done, we didn’t start this blog to get free passes into conventions, we started this blog back on Blogger when Hot Topic discontinued their first cosmetics line and it blossomed from there into other things like gaming, cosplay, and many more! Plus, we brought you interviews with voice actors like Dameon Clarke, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, Lauren Landa, and so much more! Now we have Joshua Seth and Todd Habercorn to add to that long list! I know I am harping it but all I have to say is we worked hard and if AFO doesn’t want to give us that chance even in 2016 and beyond, well we go to the next convention and try there! Even Ranger Stop is letting us try out again for next year, who knows if we get that one.

Worst Band: Blaine the Mono! I have to mention these guys here because ughhhhh! I respect a lot of local acts but Blaine the Mono is not one of them. Their music is not that great, it would improve greatly if the lead singer doesn’t scream or get a different person. Let me describe the screams, they sound like harpie screeching in my ears, really! We first heard about these guys when they performed at the House of Blues on the night that Soul Switch did their album release and they didn’t get better by the time we saw them operform with Mr. Bella and Soul Switch in September. Some people said they were better than Mr. Bella but here’s the thing…Gondras notices how the bandmates in Mr. Bella play music that fits the range of their lead singer and I agree with that! Blaine the Mono…not so much! Plus, there werne’t many people cheering for them as much as people were cheering for Mr. Bella and Soul Switch combined! Sorry to say, Blaine the Mono needs to improve or don’t come back because the competition is getting bigger!

The Most Meh Month for Beauty Subscriptions: May! I had to mention this because it kind of fits the Worsts categories and that is how the month of May was a bit of a meh month for Ipsy and BOxyCharm. I have been a member of both for over a year now and the products that I got in both were okay, not the best, just meh! I did like the lipstick I got in BoxyCharm which was the Lip Bar, which really made me excited about that. Ipsy, it felt like they focused a bit more on the anti-aging stuff more than any other items, heck I got the Blue Iceland eye patches but gave them to my mom since I wouldn’t be using them. December was also a bit meh but mostluy for Ipsy since two of the products were ones I swapped for better items while the rest were five star worthy items, heck even the Elizabeth Mott eye primer had me at happy because I got to try something else from the brand. I am hoping with 2016 that there won’t be much of meh months for both because the selections of products would be better. Heck, crossing my fingers on the Revealed Smoky pallet from Coastal Sense next year! Let’s see what it holds!

Well, that is it! Longest Wait for a Convention: Ranger Stop! Uhhhhhhhh! Seriously, never thought with a convention I would have to wait for the longest time for everything on the first day! What do I mean by that? Well, I had to wait until 2 PM to pick up my three day pass, wait until 4 PM to be let in, well mostly 4:30 since I wasn’t VIP, so yeah, longest wait ever! Most conventions just open around 10 in the morning and then dealer room around noon for VIP and an hour later for regular passes, Matsuri was 11 AM to open up dealer room for VIP! But nope, Ranger Stop opened their dealer room at 5! I know it seems like I am ranting but this convention needs to look at how some of the other ones run because it would help immensely, especially where this is the convention that felt like it catered to the VIP holders more than regular pass holders, which there were more events for VIP than doing more panels and special events. I will try again for press and hoping next year they have a better convention not only that did see there wasn’t much of a great turn out for Saturday since I only went for two days after knowing Sunday didn’t have much to do. Again, they need to improve with events and panels the most.

Well, that is it for this year’s Bests and Worsts. There weren’t that many worst things but still the worst of them all was the AFO Press thing and it still stings! I feel as though this year had a lot of bests and it is hard to fit them into one post so I stuck to what was the most best ones of all! There were great other moments from conventions like how Steve Cardinas thought my cane was a wizard staff and of course finally finding the Tiger and Bunny messenger bag I was looking for! And of course, showing up as Lucy to Todd Habercorn’s signings, first time doing it was at AFO after not seeing him since 2012 and shown my appreciation for trying Fairy Tail again.

What will 2016 bring? Well, crossing our fingers on year three of Omni Expo press! They gave us a major chance in press and hoping they give us a third time doing it. Plus, they are earlier this year due to MegaCon now being in May! I am not sure if we are going, I am almost thinking about press for it but at the same time it might not work or anything. I will have to look into that. Any new cosplays? Well, my Pokemon designs will be extending since I am thinking, hoping to get done by Omni, doing Link from Legend of Zelda as a Pokemon Ranger! I already got the Silveon plush, gotta get the rest of the parts! And of course, Lucy as a Pokemon Trainer! Not sure what got me thinking to do it but it came out of nowhere in my thoughts and already got a Vaporeon for Aquarius!

Of course, we will be looking forward to Captain America: Civil War! Even Dead Pool despite not being done by Marvel but it is already proving to be hilarious!

More to come in 2016! Stay tuned for the rest of our Holiday Matsuri coverage in January, hoping we get it up before December next year sneaks up on us again! Hey, 2015 did that to us and the next will do it too.

So, have a safe Happy New Year and be careful driving! So, til next time and follow us on Twitter if you haven’t!