#there are like 3 episodes left this year so i don't expect him to comeback before 2023 ends

[big-moon-little-moon]

Matt Mercer bring Dorian Storm back in 2024 challenge

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 12/01/2024

9​来​4s

Season 2

Featured on: THE SILVAGUNNER CHRISTMAS COMEBACK CRISIS ORIGINAL SOUNDTRAXX: vol. 1

Ripped by dante

Uh, so, hi, everyone. I'm going to apologize ahead of time if this post reads a bit more shakily, a bit less structured than what it maybe usually does. I always have a timeline of rips to cover over the week laid out ahead of time, and was really not expecting to cover 9​来​4s as part of it - I thought, naively, that today would just be a day like any other, one more on the pile. I wake up, get dressed, check the SiIvaGunner YouTube feed - and almost collapse onto the floor in shock.

The Christmas Comeback Crisis is back. Ten hours from the point of writing this sentence, the eleventh episode of the main SiIvaGunner storyline will premiere on YouTube.

I don't think I've ever done an effective job of conveying to people just how much the Christmas Comeback Crisis means to me. Sure, rips that I love are one thing, with those you can understand what I'm talking about with just a listen yourself. But the Christmas Comeback Crisis series is so difficult to truly appreciate without the knowledge, the memories and attachment to the channel from having been with it the whole time. To me, it marked the point where all of SiivaGunner's potential as a narrative, all of the loose threads of lore and jokes, all of those feelings of joy and sadness and comradery that flew like sparks throughout Season 1s 9-month run, were distilled into a streamlined narrative. It felt as if a bunch of stray thoughts were finally put to paper, a world envisioned by all of SiIva's viewers finally envisioned with an engrossing conflict and beautiful art. And it felt to me like the team themselves knew just how golden the idea they'd landed on was, as the scope of the storyline quickly expanded from just Christmas of 2016 to eventually enveloping the entirety of Season 2's run.

The final core episode of the Christmas Comeback Crisis released at the tail end of Season 2, on Christmas Day. That is to say, December 25th, 2017. It is currently January 12th 2024 - six years, two weeks, and four days have passed, as the main story of the channel has remained in limbo. When I watched that episode, live on the date of upload, I was still a teenager. I've followed the channel since, still immensely invested, still closely following and paying attention to the lore introduced since - the Side Stories and Haltmann's Archives of Season 3 and Season 4: Episode 1, the King for Another Day Tournament and its fallout across both episodes of Season 4, the many misadventures of Wood Man across Season 5, having seemingly left the Christmas Comeback Crisis canon altogether to explore different worlds where he could have fun with little consequence - only for it all to come crashing down on him in Season 6. After all of that time, all of that buildup, after Season 7 has already been one of the channel's all-around, best-ever years - the cherry on top has landed. Episode 11.

Beyond the lore, the world, the artwork, the storyline, the characters, and the community that's supported it all, what has held the Christmas Comeback Crisis together for me and many others has been the sheer passion present in all those aspects - including, of course, its outstanding soundtrack. I've talked about it before with voiceless, with 時の回廊 ＜ver. CCC＞, with vlEP, and now here - but dante is, genuinely, an *exceptionally* talented musician, possibly my favorite amidst the entire SiIvaGunner team, and he has been completely outdoing himself on the Christmas Comeback Crisis' soundtrack since the day it first began - his music, remixes, arrangement, and overall sound direction has breathed a kind of energy and life into the story that's immersed me in ways I could never have expected.

9​来​4s plays during Episode 8 of the Christmas Comeback Crisis, An Acrimonious Assault - which sort of marked a point of no return for the series. After the 6th episode, Advent of Hell, just barely managed to release during Christmas of 2016, and the 7th episode, Loves the Ladies, released four entire months later due to expressed production issues, it felt like the team had officially realized just how big the project was getting. Yet, despite the woes that the 7th episode had presented, the team pushed on - and the series continued until the end of the year. That energy, that hype and love for the channel, is echoed all throughout 9​来​4s, and it's a feeling I haven't truly felt since that Season that the series once ended during.

At least, that's what I once said. Because now, *we are so fucking back.*

[protagonistheavy]

I dont have time to rant much about it but JCA season 5 is off to a sucky start. Im glad there's only a handful of episodes left because man it's really lost the charm at this point.

First off, maybe most important even... why the fuck did they straight up ruin the theme song???? For WHAT reason!! They removed the first few measures of build-up from the song so the intro just BEGINS right in the middle, but the animation still plays from the beginning, so you have this intense music replacing what used to be a snippet of "urgent mystery." And seriously, for WHAT REASON? They don't add anything to the intro animation!! In fact it's actually shorter because they put Jade and Uncle's animations side-by-side rather than separate. Yet not only does it play the whole song, but it has to awkwardly loop one of the parts because it isn't long enough! I think they did this so the intro credits could have a few more seconds to show off a few more names lmao, which is just terrible. It's not like JCA had a boppin theme song but it got me in the mood! And now it just looks and sounds so bad, the action doesn't line-up, ugh.

Drago is an interesting concept for a villain but his ineptitude and attitude as a child/teenager makes him unimpressive as the main villain. Honestly the series has a had hard time since season 2 making new villains feel like proper successors; the move from Shendu to Shendu and his demon siblings was an AWESOME transition of power/stakes, but Daolong and Tarakuda were lackluster. Drago has way too many one-liners for a guy that gets kicked into walls by Jade.

That last point is another problem, which is that the action went back to being lazy again lol. It picked back up in season 4, but it's returned to season 3 levels of "just guys hitting each other," with not enough circumstance and environmental fighting. Jade doesn't have to do any tricks or kiddish maneuvers, she just kicks people around; Uncle zaps people with his magic fish while Tohru becomes less and less competent.

And oh Tohru, god they've made him a giggling child. It's honestly disturbing how little of his old self still seems around. I legitimately wondered if he went back to having Jade's chi like in that vampire episode lol, he's just so childish and naive now. A real bummer since Tohru was for sure one of the most compelling characters.

The Enforcers aren't around : ( Bad move, these are just such good and funny characters, and their replacements are simply not worthy. It IS funny to see Strikemaster Ice make a comeback, I wasn't expecting that lol, but him and his two buds are nowhere near as interesting as the Enforcers. Additionally, their Drago-given dragon-forms are just sooooo ugly, oh my god. Considering we already did the "turning henchmen into super-henchmen" thing once before, this is pretty hard to look at, clearly the inferior take on the idea. It's taken lifeless characters and made them look even more lifeless, harder to tell apart, and with nothing making them unique; when the Enforcers became Dark Chi Warriors, they had individual weapons that made them varied as fighters, but these guys are all just dragon things with fire powers, it's a real downgrade and just straight-up looks worse.

So this might be a disappointing end to JCA. I think what's unfortunate is that the series had so much innate charm that the writers didn't capitalize completely on, I genuinely think they just didn't have the creativity to make strong and emotional episodes that an adventure series like this needs. I think A LOT about one particular quote from Alex Hirsch... a show ten years ahead of JCA lol but still relevant. Alex explained that when writing an episode for Gravity Falls, the episode couldn't just be "evil tooth fairy," it had to be a compelling plot about, like, Mable loosing her teeth, or going to the dentist -- there had to be a human character arc that made the evil tooth fairy aspect have context and relevance. JCA badly needed this sort of emotional touch and thinking, because they clearly understand what COULD make the characters more compelling, but they failed to weave that into the episodes themselves. Take the episode about Jade's birthday -- which has NOTHING to do about Jade's birthday, other than it's something she keeps complaining about while they do typical episode stuff. In a better written version of the episode, the plot of Jade's birthday would be interconnected with things happening, it would serve a purpose -- but it's just a random element here, a random point to put pressure on the characters, that ultimately goes nowhere related to the rest of the episode.

Anyway I do love this show but after watching it almost completely, I suppose I do understand why this show didn't retain popularity. The first two seasons are great, but not so fantastic that it shines through its later, less impressive seasons. My brainrot tells me so many ways this series couldve been way more interesting lol, but something like this is super unlikely to inspire any remakes or reboots, so, it is what it is. A cute toon. The ultimate question I have to ask is: is it better than Kim Possible? It isn't. Kim Possible claims another head.