The Christmas Fallout: 2022!

It's that time again. Santa's back at the North Pole for another year and I've got a spread of shiny new goodies to enjoy. Hope you all had a nice season or at the very least found a tiny bit of peace or happiness some time during it.

This is our FIFTH Fallout post, so you should know the score by now. I share my gifts with you, you can share yours in the comments, and we're able to have one last bit of materialistic holiday fun before the new year comes. Always love doing these each year, so let's put a cap on The Lazy Shell's 2022 in the most proper way!

$20 Nintendo eShop Card 

Peanut Butter M&Ms

Fudge Brownie M&Ms

Reese's Pieces Candy Cane

A Whole Squad of Mini Reese's Nutcrackers

Palmer Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Milk Chocolate Bumble

Sour Big Chewy Nerds

Stocking pickings were a bit less varied this year, but they still provided me with a HUGE pile of candy, including personal favorites (can never go wrong with Peanut Butter and Fudge Brownie M&Ms) as well as some more interesting inclusions. (Those Nerds in particular I'm intrigued by.) Rounding out the sock filling was eShop cash, which I used to score some Switch DLC and an old gem or two on the 3DS and Wii U Virtual Consoles.

Sonic Frontiers (Switch)

Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope Gold Edition

Pokémon Violet

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion (Switch)

Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3: Slime Speedway (Switch)

Digimon Survive (Switch)

Was treated VERY well this year on the video game front, as every one of these titles promises to engross me for hours upon hours. Currently alternating between Sonic Frontiers (it's like 3D Sonic mixed with a collectathon and an action RPG!) and Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3. (It's understandably janky, but I've been having a TON of fun mastering each course and unlocking the LOADS of customization options. Plus, any game where I can have Invader Zim drive a hover version of the Turtle Van complete with tailpipes that look like Sal Ami from Wacky Delly is a GOTY contender by default.) Definitely excited to start digging into the other titles as well. (Especially the NEW OPEN-WORLD POKÉMON WITH A CROCODILE STARTER and the MARIO + RABBIDS SEQUEL WITH MORE RPG ELEMENTS AND PLAYABLE BOWSER. Can you tell that those two in particular have me a bit psyched?)

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog: The Complete Series (SD Blu-ray)

Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm (Blu-ray + Digital Code)

Sonic X (English): The Complete Series (SD Blu-ray)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012): The Complete Series

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Half-Shell Heroes: Blast to the Past

Pokémon BW Rival Destinies: The Complete Season

Went big on the physical media this year!

Starting with the Blu-rays up top, despite growing up with the show as my primary televised Sonic entertainment, I had never actually gotten around to picking up any previous disc release of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog for a variety of reasons. Well, Discotek recently provided the PERFECT opportunity to finally add it to the collection. Their amazing set features the ENTIRE series (including the Christmas special) on just two Blu-ray discs with a ton of special features all wrapped up in a gorgeous case complete with multiple pieces of brand new artwork based directly on the old Sega Genesis Sonic game covers. I certainly couldn't pass the series up again with THAT kinda extra mile physical presentation. Adding to the animated Sonic fun, Discotek had ALSO previously released the English dub of Sonic X on SD Blu-ray and despite already owning the entire show on DVD, I figured there'd be no better time to finally pick the set up than now alongside AoStH. (Especially since it features all 78 eps on just TWO discs, making it ideal for a marathon rewatch, AND includes the previously-unreleased US pitch pilot.) Rounding out the BDs is the new Aqua Teen movie. Didn't quite measure up to the first in terms of hilarious insanity IMO, but this release has one BIG advantage over the first film's DVD: IT FREAKING WORKS. (AND it included a digital code so even if the disc DID stop working, I'd still have access to the movie. PLEASE rerelease the original movie with these upgrades, WB, I'm begging ya.)

Moving on to the DVDs, I had been collecting the 2012 TMNT sets pretty casually throughout the series' run, owning only Season 1, the first chunk of Season 2, and the Wanted: Bebop & Rocksteady part of Season 5. When a budget rerelease of ALL of those old discs in one set surfaced on Amazon, however, I knew that it would be the PERFECT way to complete the show on my shelf all at once. (Sure, the new packaging has several of the discs stacked, but since this is 124 episodes of Turtles for less than forty bucks, I ain't complaining.) Also threw in the Half-Shell Heroes special for the sake of absolute completion. (It wasn't included in the Complete set because it wasn't technically part of the series proper.) Wrapping up this section is the latest Pokémon set, featuring Ash's remaining Unova gym battles, the return of Dawn and Cynthia, and the awesome debut of Krookodile.

Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 9: Chao Races & Badnik Bases 

Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 10: Test Run!

Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 11: Zeti Hunt!

Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 12: Trial by Fire

Sonic the Hedgehog: Imposter Syndrome

More Sonic action with my yearly dose of super speedy comics! Multiple new characters are introduced in this batch as part of the leadup to the milestone Issue 50. (Which will be available in trade form itself next year.) Evan Stanley also joins the book as a writer. (Alongside mainstay Ian Flynn, of course.) Excited to finally check out some of her stories. (Especially the first one where she introduces Shadow's little Chao buddy from the Sonic Channel artwork into proper canon.)

Invader Zim Volume 5 Deluxe Edition

Invader Zim: Oodles of Doom

More comics by way of the Irken Empire! Volume 5 completes the 50-issue ongoing run of the Oni Press Invader Zim series while the Oodles of Doom trade collects the four Quarterly issues that released after. Provided that they never reprint the Dookie Loop Horror one-shot in a trade (which I picked up digitally,) these should be the final Oni Press Zim books that I pick up. Looking forward to finishing up Zim's adventures on the printed page!

Sonic Mania Shirt

Shadow the Hedgehog Shirt

Kirby Shirt

Squirtle Shirt

Nerd shirts! My favorite's the Shadow one. (My sister's too, who helped pick it out.) The Kirby one's also really neat since I didn't really own any shirts representing the franchise before. (Aside from a cameo on a Smash parody shirt or two.)

Jakks Pacific Shadow the Hedgehog Figure 

Jakks Pacific Rouge the Bat Figure

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Amazing Adventures: Robotanimals!

Finishing things up, my sister's family added to my Jakks Pacific Sonic collection with Shadow and Rouge, allowing me to represent two-thirds of Team Dark on my shelf. (It's ESPECIALLY nice to finally own a plastic representation of Rouge, who had only ONE previous action figure to her name.) Now all I need me is an Omega! They also gifted me the final mini-series that IDW did based off of the 2012 TMNT show, Robotanimals, which, as evidenced by the title, features the Mighty Mutanimals being turned into evil robots. The irony of that particular book being included alongside SONIC figures is not lost on me.

That does it for the last of this year's Lazy Shell posts! Hoping you all have a great 2023!

Hauls: Pre-Birthday Clearout!

Hey, guys. Been a while. Hope you're still all safe out there in the nastiness. On to business, I've got a couple of things to archive here before my 29th Birthday on Sunday, so let's blow through some more nerd paraphernalia!

But first...

I've actually moved since my last post, so here's a peek at my new digs! Been really enjoying it here. (Just being able to play console games from my bed again is a significant upgrade to my situation.)

Now that that tangent's out of the way, on with the stuff!

TMNT Vintage Super Shredder Figure

This guy was a neat surprise! My parents actually found him at a thrift store a little while back and I was shocked by how intact he was. Still had his armor AND his belt. Actually have quite a bit of nostalgia associated with this guy (both because Secret of the Ooze was the TMNT film I grew up on and because he's one of the earliest TMNT figures I remember getting), so it's really nice to have approximate Kevin Nash here back in my collection after all these years. He'd make a great companion to NECA's upcoming Super Shredder figure...if I can manage to score one.

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle - Rabbid Peach Figure (Amazon)

World of Nintendo Cranky Kong Figure (Amazon)

This order was half patchwork, as that Cranky Kong figure I bought specifically to replace one that got lost in the previously-mentioned move. (Good thing he was still a decent price.) While I was browsing Amazon for that, I found that the smaller scale Kingdom Battle amiibo-esque Ubisoft figures were readily available, so I decided to use the opportunity to add one to my collection. (Went for Rabbid Peach, as she was kinda the star of the show in that game.)

WarioWare Gold (Amazon)

Speaking of Amazon, this was an amazing deal. I had never played a WarioWare game (aside from the Game & Wario spin-off that I got free from Club Nintendo), so I was really interested in WarioWare Gold when it was announced. (Both because it featured a lot of microgames from throughout the series' history and because it had full voice-acting.) However, I never got around to picking it up because it was hard to justify buying a full price 3DS game in a series I had never jumped into in a Switch-dominated world.

However, that all changed when Amazon had it down to ELEVEN BUCKS at the start of the month. I just COULDN'T pass up a deal that good! (It was even better than that time I got Project X Zone 2 for thirteen bucks!) Beat it a couple weeks ago. Really fun and hilariously quirky. Definitely worth the full price, but ABSOLUTELY worth the severely discounted one. Glad that I was able to jump on it when the opportunity arose.

Mega Construx Pokemon - Psyduck (Cracker Barrel)

Mega Construx Pokemon - Ditto (Cracker Barrel)

Another find from my parents! They picked these up for me at Cracker Barrel while they were caught in the middle of an intense saga of car troubles. (Don't ask.) These are my first Mega Construx Pokemon and they're definitely neat little things. Having a Psyduck figure with arm articulation is a very amusing novelty and I didn't have that much Ditto merch to begin with, so they're nice additions to the collection.

Nintendo Heroes: Mario and the Incredible Rescue (Amazon)

Here's a random one! Picked up this old Mario book I had my eye on for a while. (Chiefly because Origami King hype put me in the mood.) Why did I have my eye on this one specifically? Well, it's because the content of this book is made up of the most eclectic and disparate Mario references despite the year it was published. (2006.) This book not only features all the usual Mario beats and characters you would expect from a typical kids book based on the franchise, but also locations and a couple minor players from Super Mario RPG! Yep, this is the only other story in the franchise to feature appearances from Frogfucius and Toadofsky despite SMRPG not even being on the Wii Virtual Console when it was published! Crazy, right?

Being the huge Mario RPG fanboy that I am, I just had to get it based on that detail alone. Story itself is okay. Just a simple plot about Mario, Luigi, Toad, and Yoshi finding magic Mushrooms to repel evil ghosts summoned by Bowser. The odd-for-2006 references are easily the best part. It's not even just Mario RPG nods, either. They even throw in a detail from MARIO & WARIO, a game that didn't even release in the West! Someone seriously knew their stuff. Very unique addition to my personal treasure trove of Mario merch.

Wii Fit Trainer amiibo (Best Buy)

Ordered Ms. Trainer here when I pre-ordered some other amiibo from Best Buy. (Stay tuned for those.) I like having all the weirdo characters, so she'll be right at home on my amiibo shelf.

Remember in 2014/2015 when these three were the most rare, sought after amiibo in the line at that point? The Lazy Shell remembers.

NECA Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cartoon Two-Pack - Slash and Leatherhead (Zavvi)

Finishing up this post with a DOOZY! A little while back, I got in NECA's Slash figure based on his appearance in Turtles in Time. I also mentioned a couple of their other upcoming TMNT figures that I was interested in and thanks to Zavvi's US site, I was able to score two of them without having to deal with the bot-dominated nightmare of Target distribution: the 1987 Cartoon versions of Slash and Leatherhead! 

Some of my earliest memories of watching the '87 Turtles involved renting the old "Bad Guys Series" VHS tapes and "Turtles vs. Leatherhead" was easily my favorite. Not only was it the only video in that series where BOTH included episodes involved the villain spotlighted on the box, but Leatherhead himself was just a cut above that show's usual recurring threats. Jim Cummings' super entertaining performance slathered in cajunisms made him really likeable and he held his own against the Turtles far better than Bebop and Rocksteady. Leatherhead's been one of my personal favorite TMNT characters ever since and he might've even helped to spearhead my lifelong affection for Alligators, so to have an incredibly nice, high-quality figure of the version that introduced me to him complete with way more accessories than I know what to do with is simply amazing.

As for Slash, well, he's mostly a bonus, haha. I was introduced to Slash through Turtles in Time, so to later see him in the cartoon with his...unique redesign was more than a tad underwhelming. Still, it's really fun in a way to finally have a toy version of this design and he looks great next to his Turtles in Time counterpart. He even comes with his binky! 

That's all for now, but stay tuned in a few days for my 29th Birthday haul!