The Chainsaw Man Made War Sexy, and Other Wild Takes... in America

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello Internet.
I'm Richard co-host of Carl andRichard present Deep Space and
Dragons.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
And I am Carl co-host of Richard and Carl present
Deep Space and Dragons.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
I like how much of a loop that threw you through,
like I heard your face crackingat that.
So as we get into our typicalthings new time viewers,
starting on episode 100 andsomething we talk about stuff we
be professional yakkers, we yap, yep, yep, yep.
I guess I think we havecredentials.

(00:36):
Yeah, I don't know if I'm aprofessional yapper, I'm a
professional, professionallistener sometimes I mean the
other day when talking about youbehind your back to a third
party party.
You are considered mediailliterate versus some other
friends that are mediailliterate wow that's.
That's quite good again.
So fourth year english studentsbelieve you to be english

(00:57):
literate, media literate.
And remember media literacyisn't the same as like do you
speak English?
It's like oh, you can actuallyunderstand things behind things.
Words can have two meanings.
It's crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Well, that's very nice that your educated friends
think so of me Like it'sentirely possible.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
But I digress.
What's new in the carlinfosphere of doom?

Speaker 2 (01:27):
uh well, interestingly enough, I I don't
have a movie review.
I managed, actually managed togo a whole week without watching
a movie.
This this time oh no, it's.
It's actually super seriousshit, and now I'm worried well,
I mean, who knows, maybe it isserious, but that's probably not
serious okay.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
So what's new in the carl verse is nothing which is
such a red flag like crimson, no, no no, no, there's.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
So, there's there.
It's just mostly uh moremedical stuff which uh, uh.
As richard is aware, I wasattacked by some migratory
vampires.
They were heading north for thewinter because longer nights
make sense.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Turns out they were thralls.
I looked this up.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
They were thralls, mm-hmm, oh, dang it.
Well, that's concerning,because I mean they managed to
curse my spleen, yeah, and so Imean getting my spleen removed
is not the only option forremoving removing said curse, uh
, but it sounded like the bestoption, like it was at the

(02:33):
highest chances of of completelyfixing the issue.
Um, so the hematologist, uh,referred me to the surgeon.
I don't know what specificdiscipline the surgeon does.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Singlomancer.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
But so actually just today, whatever day that you're
listening to this podcast I hada consultation.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
That's a such timeline buckery so, like
recently on a date.
I was talking about how thesword and bleach that sends you
into someone's backstory causesso many logistic troubles, like
they'll have a characterflashback to 200 years but
they'll be in normal tokyo.
So if it's when you hear this,this is what happened on the day
, no issue.
But you're using timemanipulation to change when

(03:25):
listening to this episode tohappen after this consultation
happened, which causes somechronological issues.
Please continue breaking ourtimeline uh well.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
So I mean, consultations are kind of like
boring.
They just, they, uh, they justask you all your medical history
and and then they uh, they'relike, okay, you know your spleen
is in your belly.
So you gotta like they gottalike prod the belly to see
whether or not anything's tenderor whatever, and then like,
yeah, okay, so uh, the uh, whatwas the word?

(03:58):
That doesn't sound quite right.
Uh, but I guess there's aspecialist, or was a specialist,
who dealt with spleens.
I'm assuming the vampires gotto him, but the specialist for
spleens in Saskatoon has retired.

(04:19):
Oof, which isn't to say that Ican't get the surgery, but if my
spleen is too big then I willhave to go to Regina for my
surgery because there's nospleen specialist in Saskatoon
that's such a Saskatoon thing tohave a specialist and they're
not there well, I mean, I don'tknow how you specialize in the

(04:43):
spleen.
I don't know how common thisprocedure is.
I haven't really done that muchresearch.
Maybe I should do some more.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
I don't know the way the Internet is right now.
People might be like spleen.
Ain't real Liberal lie.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
So I mean, the consultation was boring but
coincidentally well, um, well,maybe coincidentally, maybe it's
actually well, actually related, I don't know uh.
But uh, my, my left eye is isacting all wonky.
So I go in there I'm like, yeah, so my, my eyes acting all
wonky and they're like, yeah, um, we'll call down to the

(05:20):
emergency, see if they can takea look at it, uh, and if they
can't, then we usually go tolike fyi, doctors and you're
doing a podcast.
Take a look at it like you don'tneed eyes to do a podcast
technically no, all right, fairenough.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
And apparently, if I learned anything from adara, you
can just plug in some new oneusb style yeah, well, I mean I'm
that would be pretty sick toget a new eyeball.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
But so I finished my consultation.
There's not really any news.
They're just like oh, you'regetting your spleen taken out to
deal with this ITP thing.
I wish there was a V in theacronym.
That would be so much easier,so much nicer for my story.
Yeah, okay fair enough, anyway.

(06:09):
And so then I go to theoptometrist.
I guess optometrists are notmedical doctors, they're just
regular doctors, sure, well, no.

(06:29):
So I go there and they're like,okay, uh, we'll see if the
doctor has time to see you.
And then they did, but justbarely, because they close at 5
pm and I got there at like three, so I had to wait pretty much
right till five, and then thedoctor was nice enough to see me
, uh, and do like all the eyeexam stuff, and then like, all
right, we think we know what'sgoing on, but we're gonna call
the ophthalmologist, which isthe medical eye doctor.

(06:51):
Yeah, that's what I don't know.
I I didn't think thatoptometrists were doctors at all
, but apparently they actuallyare genuine doctors.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
I kind of knew that because one time I had like an
eye sty thing and I'm like Icould either go to a walk-in or
go to the glasses person becausethey're an optometrist in.
I just want them to look at myface and tell me if I should go
get medical treatment worked.
Really well, they told meexactly what it was and how to
handle it.
I'm like, oh, this was superefficient.
What?

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Like yeah, I mean, that's basically the hospital
told me to talk to theoptometrist so that they could
refer me to the ophthalmologistto get the medical treatment.
Um, so it's kind of like theoptometrist is the entry-level
eye doctor, I guess.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Okay, I don't know, I don't know.
Note if you're getting podcast,if you're getting medical
advice from deep space anddragons, don't you come to the
wrong place.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
I I do think it's valuable for for listeners to
hear about uh people'sexperiences in the medical
system, uh like, but definitelynot the place.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
You have to to always be like we're storytellers, not
professionals, and this is acomedy podcast.
So, like you know, sometimes Ifeel the need.
It's like you made a statementlike consultations were boring.
I'm like did you want, like whowants to be a millionaire where
they ask you a question andthat gives you a percentage of
success like in Star Trek, basedon how many you get right on

(08:23):
your consultation questions?

Speaker 2 (08:26):
success, like in Star Trek, based on how many you get
right on your consultationquestions.
Well, I mean, it really helps.
My, my mindset is a very likethere's a very serious thing,
but I'm also very relaxed aboutit, like it's just with the way
my mindset is.
So so I uh have an easy timeabsorbing the the information
and be like you know, thissurgery gives me the highest
odds of actually beating thisITP, and then, even if it does

(08:49):
fail for some reason, I'll bedown to spleen.
But there are still at leastother options that are less
desirable to me.

Speaker 1 (08:57):
Well, they say that, like when you're more relaxed
when you fall out of an airplaneand you don't tense up, you're
more likely to survive when youfall out of an airplane and you
don't tense up, you're morelikely to survive.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
Well, yeah, and like as a fun fact about that as well
, if you're drunk driving andyou get into an accident because
you're drunk, you don't tenseup and the person who's drunk
ends up tending to survive thecrash more easily because they
don't tense up and they're inresponse to the accident and

(09:27):
most of the other people end upnot surviving, which is terrible
all around.
But that's like you say themore relaxed you are, the less
damage you receive from shockingthings like accidents and bad
news.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
It makes me think of something we talked about
pre-stream, where it's like see,whenever there's a problem,
there's an opportunity, becauseon one hand, you're losing your
spleen right, on the other hand,you're now gaining the ability
to gift a pickled spleen tosomebody on your will.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
I don't know.
Are they going to let me keepit?
I don't know.
But back to the ophthalmologist.
I mean the story is pretty muchdone.
There's not much there to it,Just that apparently it is.
Whatever is going on is seriousenough that the ophthalmologist
wants to see me tomorrowmorning.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
And you're doing a podcast.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
Well, I'm not, I don't, I don't think I'm dying.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
I mean, what else are you going to do?
Like, yeah, like I was watchingthe new season of Kaiju, number
eight, weird, tangent.
But like they just got to thepart with bayonet contact kaiju,
contact lens guy right, and I'mlike, wait, an anime eye power
that actually involves vision.
It's been so many years becausethey're like gojo's god eyes

(10:40):
don't do eye things at all.
No, they do not.
They apparently give him mathpowers.
So I'm like, wait, an eye powermade from something's eyes that
make you see better.
That's just insane.
That is weird anime.
Remember when sharing gun wasabout like tripping people
because your eyes look trippyand copying things and not about

(11:05):
summoning meteorites orcontrolling magnets or shrinky
dinks so so what's new with youthere, richard?
so, other than the fact I needto like finish updating my
health card and go get myself acheckup, because new job means
new benefits, which means I needto spend my new benefits Right,

(11:26):
obviously.
But it's like, so I start a newcomms job soon.
I have four chapters left ofthis novel.
I'm ghostwriting before I startdoing editing laps and it's
like I was going to be usefulMonday and Tuesday but just kind
of wasn't.
And I think it's like peoplelike to say, when you have ADHD,
if you have a meeting booked,like people like to say, when

(11:46):
you have adhd, if you have ameeting booked, then that time
between now and that meeting youjust can't do anything.
That'd be insane.
So it's kind of been my weekwhere I'm like I know,
intellectually the new job isgoing to be me going through
four or five online trainingmodules and clicking next right.
But like my brain had like nofocus today and I'm like I
hopefully you probably know thisis about me the more projects I
have and the more stress I'munder, the better my

(12:09):
productivity is Right, right.
So I'm hoping when I have likethings to do it'll kick me back
into TurboGear, although I didrealize in a casual chat with a
friend earlier today that I'vewritten five full length books
Like I published two, but Istarted writing five years
agolength books Like I publishedtwo, but I started writing five
years ago and I have like sixmanuscripts.

(12:29):
I'm like you know.
It's not like for how much Isay I'm a slacker.
I'm at least accomplishingthings I'm supposed to be doing.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
Yeah, a book a year is pretty good.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, when people are like I've worked on this book
for 50 years, I'm like thatsounds rough, buddy, how do you
even keep everything straightfor that long?
Like geez.
I was going to make some jokeabout how writers are bad at

(13:00):
being straight.
To begin with, it was a thing Iwas reading about how I think
it was Brian Stoker like senthis height, weight and age and
all this information to anauthor he had a crush on and
it's like, did he just like mailhis grinder profile in the old
1800s, like you get like some ofthese old writers being like

(13:21):
history says they were pals inthe letters like and I licked
the glue for a lingering tasteof you, I'm like, yeah, that's
straight people doing straightthings.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
Licked the glue for a lingering taste.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
Yeah, that's just a famous published thing between
two gal pals who are pals Justpals.
Nothing says just pals, likethe phrase lingering taste.
But yeah, like most of the newwith me is pretty much identical
to when we recorded last weekof big chillin'.

(13:53):
Until I have to start doingthings Like I had to do a lot of
college paperwork today.
I filled in my course selectionsurveys, which is funny.
So you go to a big universitylike u of t or u of s and you
probably remember like thecourse book and picking the
courses in this big elaboratelike conspiracy board you had to

(14:13):
do to assemble your schedule.
So I get to my master's programat a bigger school than my
bachelor's and I'm expecting tohave to like put together this
cork board right.
They send an email with fourPDFs and the PDF is about 12
classes and it's like in each ofthese boxes, rate them one, two
and three and we'll try andgive you your first picks.
I'm like there's no digitalsystem, there's no sign.

(14:37):
You just I just type numbers onthis PDF and send it back.
Yay, master's program.
I was so happy that no efforthad to go into this whatsoever.
I'm like rate these in orderfiction or non-fiction.
I'm like fiction andnon-fiction, so it's like, out
of 10 classes, I take eight.
So it's like, oh, all of themlook good and I don't care what

(15:03):
I get.
This is the easiest courseselection of my life.
Because I'm like, oh no, don'tmake me take creative
non-fiction, as I'mprofessionally writing creative
non-fiction, although, to befair, I wouldn't be a smug
batard in that class okay, so doyou have any issues with
scheduling?

Speaker 2 (15:22):
because when I was signing up for my courses in
university, do you have anyissues with scheduling?
Because when I was signing upfor my courses in university,
the biggest issue was findingtime slots for all your stuff,
especially like certain courseswith my program were like a
specific time slot, and so it'slike you couldn't take any
electives in that time slotbecause you had to be taking

(15:44):
music history or music theoryMasters is slick, so our classes
are only for us the 20 of us inthe master's program.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
Okay, so you can't screw it up.
It's like the first semester.
It looks like I have classMonday and I either have it
Tuesday and Wednesday or Mondayand Wednesday, and there's just
like no room for error.
I just do the thing.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
Well, but then they're also expecting you to do
undergraduate student work withlike potentially teaching small
portions of the classes.

Speaker 1 (16:17):
So I don't know how long I'll be there, but also
because my day job is remoteasynchronous work when I want,
and my book contracts are remoteasynchronous work when you want
there's a version of realitywhere, like no matter when my
classes fall, I can just chillin the library, do my day job
and go home, right right.
So even if I have to make thisfull two-hour commute every day

(16:39):
and I end up going there Mondayto Friday, I'm such a slacker
that I'm still fine with plentyof free time.
Fair enough.
Their monday to friday, I'msuch a slacker that I'm still
fine with plenty of free time.
Fair enough, since writing thisnovel takes me six hours a week
and my other job is 10 to 24hours a week.
Worst case, I occasionally haveto not have a full 48 hour
weekend where I do nothing.
Have I mentioned so how mucheasier my life is than when I

(17:01):
was a cook, like if I'm?
so happy I suffered before Iwent back to school because it's
like things people complainabout are such non-issues to me.
They're like could you imagineputting in 10-hour days?
I'm like, oh no, not a 10-hourday, just 10 hours.

(17:22):
That's not 4 pm to 4 am.
Yeah, yeah, that's like I hearpeople be like I have two
classes in a day and that's sixhours of sitting still.
I'm like I just have aflashback to be like no, I'm
pretty sure that's how I wentthrough gundam seed, with six
hour sessions of sitting, stilllike yeah, it's from my

(17:48):
perspective, working those longhours.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
I don't like to belittle people's struggles,
because your personal strugglesare real.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
I love to belittle people's struggles.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
I do have hard times sympathizing with people who you
know they work a six hour shiftand they come on like, oh, I'm
so tired.
And it's like, oh, really.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
Well, think about me why I'm like hours a week.
So I'm a fan of trying to helppeople with problems.
But if people don't want to behelped, I become just such a
sarcastic twat.
So it's like if someone has alegitimate concern, I'll be okay
.
Call this number, talk to thisperson, try and get this funding
.
Let's see what we can do tostabilize and fix your life

(18:32):
right.
But if someone looks me in theeyes like you don't understand
well, like a professor will be.
Like do you know what life'slike in the real world?
Like I am a peasant, born intoa poor family whose hands don't
work, who decided to be a writer, I don't feel particularly like
I can.
I need to learn about the realworld.
Like my day job was doingprecision chopping with hands

(18:53):
that didn't work.
Think about that.
Someone whose hands don't work,using knife skills to make a
living, there is just a collageof terrible choices going so,
like as a general rule, ifsomeone comes to me with a
problem, I'll try and fix it.
If they come to me with a notproblem and I'll try and fix it,

(19:15):
before I realize I'm like Ihate to say this, but the
problem's you bud Six hours,just ain't that hard.
I think you need to like I don'tknow lose some weight so it
puts less pressure on your feet.
Maybe take a yoga class, go outfor more walks.
You know what people don't likewhen they're like oh my life is
so hard.
You suggesting exercise anddieting.
That's not what anyone wants tohear.

(19:35):
That's not what they're askingyou.
They're not actually asking youanything, carl.
You anything?

Speaker 2 (19:42):
Carl, no, they aren't really asking you anything.
They just want to vent abouttheir personal issues, I guess.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
Could you imagine, if you're like I'm having blood
problems and I'm like, well,it's because you drink too much
cola, you should remove thatfrom your diet.
Idiot, that does seem to be alot of people's approach to
things, but my actual approachwould be go to a doctor.
You're like I'm going to adoctor, good job, should I look
it up online?
No, you should maybe like lookup actual medical things.

(20:09):
If you want to look it up onlike Sask Health's website or
like the University ofSaskatchewan.
Like if you want to find likepapers on this or professionals
or textbooks.
Like if you want to actuallylook it up, like go to the
library and say I'd like to finda actual source on this disease
to look up.
Sure, do not chat, gpt yourdisease and do not reddit your

(20:31):
disease oh, dr google says it'scancer every time 100 or lupus.
It's never lupus, except for theone time that it was well, it's
funny because it's like workingon the thing I'm working on now
.
They're like, yes, ask forsecond opinions and information,
but not from dr google.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
Go on like the cancer webs or society and other
societies that study thesediseases oh, the worst is with
the, the increase of, and sothey do those like AI summaries.
Yeah, that's not the thing thatpisses me off the most.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
You know what drives me nuts.
So I spend a lot of time onLinkedIn because it's actually
my favorite social media.
Okay, because you can't be asmuch of a belligerent lasso on
LinkedIn.
Ah right, because it's forprofessionals, yeah.
So like you'll go into LinkedIn, daggerheart, for example and
they'll be like look at our newproduct, looks awesome, sounds
great.
You'll look at the same launchon Reddit and they'll be like

(21:30):
I'm going to have to use up alot of swears and upper age
rating, but they'll be like acritical role or a bunch of
selfish cucks trying to stealD&D's money to make their own
profit.
I'm like.
You found them.
You had to google daggerheartto complain about this.
Research went into you findingand hunting them down to
complain about this.
Like they announced like mattmercer's not dming the next

(21:53):
season of critical role.
He gets to be a player.
Oh, and I'm like that's great.
Tell more people they shouldlet their gms be players.
That's directly relevant to myinterests.
And they're having Brennan LeeMulligan do it, who's delightful
.
I think I've sent you his videowhere he pretends to be the
Oreo CEO, losing his mind overOreo varietals.
Oh, that guy, that guy's great,right.

(22:17):
So I'm like, I'm excited.
People are like are they goingto play D&D or their new game?
And I'm like, honestly, I'mgoing to lose a lot of respect
for them if they sell it oftheir new game but they don't
believe in it enough to makethat their show.
You know?
Like, imagine the Pokemoncompany decide that World
Pokemon Championships was to beplayed using Digimon instead.
Like, yeah, you show you don'tcare about.
Like that's bad.
But my quips aside, you go onLinkedIn and people are like,

(22:42):
yeah, positivity.
You go on other social mediashate.
But what they've been doing onLinkedIn is people will write
what I call nobody asked for itcontest posts.
Well, we'll give a bigmonologue about their field.
Like, they'll be like here's mythoughts on creativity or copy
editing or whatever, right, butthese Chad bros will write this

(23:03):
article on creativity and put anAI, generate image in front of
it.
And I'm like dude, if you'retelling like I was so annoyed
looking at this this morning,because I'm like so you're like
here's 10 ways to be creative.
The image tells me the text isAI.
But, more importantly, youdidn't need an image for your
post.
Who is this for?

(23:24):
You can just use text.
Like, if I write a post beinglike hey, I'm excited to be
taking on new projects.
Here's my commission sheet.
Like an actual LinkedIn post,I'd write, right Hi, I just
graduated, recent graduate,looking for some contract work.
Here's my portfolio.
Why would I AI generate apicture?
I'm a writer.
Would I generate a picture I'ma writer like I might like if I

(23:50):
really want to be pretty with it, I might take like a picture of
the kids book I wrote with agnon-such, where I'm like yeah,
this is like a beautiful sample,I'll put that in because it's
pretty.
But like, imagine I a Igenerate like me riding a dragon
and use that.
I'm like, why would I do that?
Though it was text?
mm-hmm yeah, that's my mini rantof what's new with me is

(24:12):
getting angry at social media,while being a relatively
successful writer, whoadmittedly spent too much money
last month and just kind of getsto be broke till payday.
Well it's like, I'm aprofessional well, it's like yes
, I survived on being a writer,I'm a professional writer, it is
my career.
Did I agree to do some weedingfor somebody this weekend for a
couple extra bucks?

(24:32):
Yes, yeah, I'm not gonna say no, I need a couple extra bucks.
Sure, I'm a writer.
That's not exactly a field yougo into to make cash money.
The fact I can make cash moneyis, quite frankly, amazing.
Uh yup, but that's what's newwith me.

(24:55):
Also, it's hot outside, that'snot new uh, oh, yeah I guess I
also ran some dagger heart todayto play test some stuff against
a friend.
But that'll be more for otherstream.
I'm just kind of plugging thatwe also do a richard and carl
play dagger heart stream.
You should check that out, butwe do.
But let's pivot into whatthey're here for us yapping

(25:18):
about things.
So I'm going to see where thesnowballs, because our topic's
kind of loosey-goosey.
First time I noticed thatcharacters were not, that
characters had races in anime.
So in anime you look at likeGoku and characters and you
don't actually think American orCaucasian when watching a

(25:39):
cartoon, right Like you don'tthink Caucasian or Japanese.
So I was watching Full MetalPanic, which still holds up.
I enjoy Full Metal Panic andthere's a scene where a
character goes oh right, we'regoing to do a hostage exchange.
Send the Caucasian woman over,then the Japanese one.
And I'm like, wait, they'redrawn identically.
It didn't occur to me that theywere different races until this

(26:00):
moment.
And the reason I bring this upis watching dubbed Yu-Gi-Oh as a
kid on Fox Kids and YTV.
Bandit Keith is just such anexceptionally funny concept when
he's dubbed in a show that'salready American, because you
watch Yu-Gi-Oh growing up, right, and you assume everyone in
it's already American orCanadian or whatever, because

(26:21):
you're a kid watching it and youdon't know the difference
between anime and cartoon.
And he's wearing an Americanflag going in America the most
American of Americans, pullingguns on people and robbing them
over card games like a goodAmerican should.
And it got so much funnier whenI realized that this is how the
mangaka of Yu-Gi-Oh sawAmericans in general and it

(26:45):
filled me with joy.
So that's our topic is howanime views americans, because I
don't know why.
I was just thinking aboutbandit keith when the new
chapter of chainsaw man came out, and I'm gonna hand the mic to
you for that oh man, chainsawman it's.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
It's apolitical for the most part.
It doesn't really focus much onpolitics.
As Richard has said in the paston our podcast, the main theme
of the show is adolescence anddepression adolescence- puberty,
romance, depression, it's, it'sa lot.
But puberty, basicallyAdolescence, puberty, romance,
depression, like it's, it's,it's a lot.
But, um, america has a uh richhistory of war, basically Yep,

(27:38):
uh and uh, I mean I, I shouldhave seen it coming.
But the latest chapter, uh, the, the Americans they manage.
Chainsaw man has a strangeability where when he eats other
devils, people forget aboutthem.
They forget about their fearsof whatever that devil was.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
If he eats a devil, the thing that devil represents
disappears.
So it's not just they forgetabout it.
It's like if he eats thehatchet devil, there just are no
more hatchets.
Which isn't to say apparentlythat people can't reinvent the
hatchet.
That was a spicy plot twist, bythe way, because that actually
reconstructed a lot of things.

Speaker 2 (28:23):
Because so, apparently, america reinvented
the nuclear bomb after the wardevil was eaten, and so the new
war devil is like oh man, I loveAmerica because they have made
me beautiful and sexy andpowerful by reinventing weapons

(28:46):
of mass destruction.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
Like I read into that line a little further too,
where it's like I thought Iloved Chainsaw man but I love
America.
I just love the line thatAmerica made war sexy.
And you think about every movieamerica's put out for the last
hundred years and like,unironically, they go out of
their way to make war a trulyawful thing, a sexy concept.
They're like the best thing youcould be is a veteran who shot

(29:10):
30 starving kids on the gazaborder.
That's the best person you canbe and they are a hero and
deserve our full respect.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
Well, I mean that's true.
A lot of war movies are highlyromanticized in that way.
I mean there are definitelysome much more accurate movies.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
But there's also the existence of Michael Bay.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
But I mean, yeah, actual realistic war movies, I
don't think they have a hugemainstream audience.
There is enough of an audiencethat a really good one will be
successful.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
Well, it's like every .
Marvel movie is pro-US militarysomehow yeah, that's true too.
Like they're like yeah, we'regonna build these flying
aircraft characters that canshoot everyone from everywhere,
and the only problem with thatwas it was invaded by Nazis.
That's the only reason this isbad.
Otherwise, it's just a goodplan to have flying death
fortresses built with taxpayermoney.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
Uh, yeah, I mean, shield is basically like plan to
have flying death fortressesbuilt with taxpayer money.
Yeah, I mean SHIELD isbasically like hopefully their
ideals don't line up with Nazis,but like, but they kind of do.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah, Like you look at America right now, it's not a
hard sell for someone to tellme that SHIELD could get
corrupted if, like, a particulargroup of political figures
decided to fund it a certain way.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
Uh, but I mean, the point of the matter is that with
this historical context of howAmerica has gone throughout the
world, um, it is, they do have avery pro military stance and I
I think that that is a I meanit's kind of a surface level
assessment of Americans ingeneral as gun loving war

(31:01):
mongers.
But that does seem to be asignificant amount of how Japan
and anime views America and thething it's like when I think
about it.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
it's just like you look at All Might, who's trying
to be like the most Americancharacter in the manga, in anime
, and he's a Japanese dude thatdresses up in red, white and
blue and then punches criminalsin super bombastic ways and,
quite frankly, that's justhilarious to me that they didn't
actually super bombastic waysand, quite frankly, that's just
hilarious to me that they didn'tactually make him American,

(31:41):
like they made him blonde hair,blue eyes and like all his
attacks are named after States,but they didn't actually commit
to making all might in American,which is wild to me.
Could you imagine if I dressedup as samurai man and my whole
entire theme was samurai basedpowers and I ran around?
Oh wait, we called that ironfist and that happened.

(32:03):
Danny Rand was the worst uh,cultural appropriation the dude
in the tackiest way oh man, uh.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
but uh yeah, it's just kind of that latest chapter
of Chainsaw man was just like.
That's what a statement to makein the current political era.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
Like another statement was when there was
that Death Note sequel and theUS president just gives in to
the Kira.
Just straight up, just folds.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
Oh man, I think we've talked about how the main
character was done dirty in thatseries.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
Only because the like the Shinigami cheated.
That's some bullshit.
You don't get to add new rulesto your death note because you
don't like how the guy played.
That takes the strategy aspectcompletely out.
That's like that's as badwriting as it was all a dream.
If you set up explicit rules tosomething and make it like a
thriller and then change therules, that is as bad as it just

(33:09):
being a dream.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
That is a bad is your alien child comes back from the
future to solve the negotiation, like but the series itself was
pretty interesting because thekid with the death note he
doesn't actually want to killanyone, but he knows that people
who have interact with theShinigami in the past can still

(33:35):
see Shinigami.
So he sends a Shinigami on livetelevision to hold a piece of
paper saying that Kira's backand that he's going to sell the
Death Note, and then he actuallyjust sells it to the highest
bidder, which happens to beAmerica, which doesn't surprise
anybody, right, right.
And then this is a fairlyAmerican response too.

(33:57):
Uh, shinigami gets there.
He's like okay, uh, there'sactually a new rule.
Uh, whoever sells the death note, uh, they die when they receive
payments.
Uh, and if you accept the deathnote, uh, you die when you
accept it.
Uh, so basically there's likeyeah, we don't like the fact
that this guy outwitted us anddecided to sell the Death Note,

(34:18):
so we're just gonna make it sothat doesn't happen again.
Oh, and then the Americanpresident is like well, I guess
I'm not gonna take the DeathNote because I don't want to die
, but we're gonna say we did sowe can control the world.
I mean not in so many words,but like just the fact that they
have the death note and canpotentially kill anyone they

(34:39):
want at any moment.
I mean the amount of influenceyou would get from being a
country that has that kind ofpower well, it's kind of funny
is a.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
They kind of have that part of her already really,
but that's true.
Another example is in baki.
They literally just straight upput in obama and trump, like
they didn't even try and hide it.
They just called him tramp ortrump and then, yujiro shows up
and just calls him a littlebitch.
And made them swear fealtybecause every us president who

(35:09):
comes in as part of theirnon-abortion pact with this
martial artist has to vow an actof friendship to him.
So there's literally just ascene in Kananbaki where Yujiro
Hama meets with President Trumpand Elon Musk and threatens to
rape both of them.
That is a thing that gotpublished in Baki and then held

(35:32):
to most by their heads.
That is just a scene thathappens in their series is this
martial artist just goes andstraight up threatens them.
If Trump knew about this, itwould devastate him to the point
where I've sent you thispicture, this screengap from
actual Baki on it to take a look.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
That's pretty funny it is so good.

Speaker 1 (35:59):
That's kind of what prompted this episode.
As I'm reading this, I'm like,wow, they're not even pretending
, that's just straight up Trumpbeing destroyed by this
long-running martial arts mangafor no reason.
And I love it.
You see, I love free speech,and free speech means you can
have a martial artist threatenthe president.
You know I love free speech andfree speech means you can have
a martial artist Threaten thepresident.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
You know, actually somehow I don't know how this
slipped my mind, actually,probably because the medical
news was more pressing.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
Why no way?
That's weird If you callyourself a nerd.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
I've been reading this manhwa On Webtoon called
Elisede I don't know if that'show you pronounce it
E-L-E-C-E-E-D, I don't know.
Yeah, that's the name.
Okay, found it, and it's afairly generic Korean story.

(36:51):
You know, normal kid realizeshe has uh awakened powers, um,
meets his mentor and gets drawninto this uh shadow world of of
high-powered martial artssuperhero or super-powered
martial arts people.
Um, now, the first thing that'ssaid apart though it gives me

(37:15):
mad the Breaker vibes Like thementor is laying low after
picking a fight with the wrongpeople.
But the main thing that sets usapart is A in order to lay low,

(37:35):
he accidentally creates a newawakening skill that lets him
turn into a cat, nice, and sonow he's just this fat orange
cat, but he was all injured.
And so then our main character,ji-wu, his for the first
hundred chapters or so, hisdefining characteristic is that

(37:57):
he loves cats.
And so he finds this injuredcat in the alleyway and he takes
it home and nurses it back tohealth.
And then the cat's like yeah,you know, I'm actually a talking
cat and actually I'm a supermartial artist and you were
super nice to me, so I'm gonnamentor you.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
I like that.
That feels like it ignores someplot contrivance that normally
finds its way into things.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
I guess actually the other reason he wanted to mentor
this kid is because the kidalready had an awakened power of
super speed.
There it is and he just didn'tknow it.
And then it turns out that thiskid is like a super genius and
300 chapters in that.
This kid is like a super geniusand 300 chapters in.
Now he's like within the top100 of global rankings of all

(38:42):
the people.
But as the scope of the serieshas grown like it starts out
just being in Korea and then itmoves on to the World Academy
and then it moves on to theWorld Academy and then it moves
on to this global ranking system.
Firstly, I have no idea howSouth Korea in particular views

(39:08):
America, because in all of theseries that I've been reading on
Webtoon it just doesn't come up.
And this is the series where itwould make the most sense for
america to come up because ofhow the global scale of it, um,
kind of interesting.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
It's like when my hero had a character role in
star and stripes, like I'm thetop hero in america and I'm just
like just from logistics andnumbers and this rarely comes up
in anime.
When you go to a global scaleand you just look at population
numbers, if we have a mutantsuperpower situation america and
china would be ridiculous likejust from sheer mathematics and

(39:46):
odds, right, right, right, likeyou get to soul leveling brought
up.
It's like here's the top onesfrom korea, japan and america.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
It's like the american ones would be
ridiculous just from sheernumbers yeah, like they're just
way more likely to have morehigh rank awakened people also a
country that decides itsfunding based on how good you
are throwing a ball would trulybe ridiculous in the superpower
lottery world.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
It's a place that fundamentally believes the gifts
you're born with are the mostimportant thing about you as a
person.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
But yeah, that is.
I mean, I guess it's good forauthors not to get out of their
depths and make these sorts ofstereotypes willy-nilly about
America and other countries.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
I mean counterpoint Lieutenant Surge.
You take one look at LieutenantSurge, you're like that's an
American.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
Like you say, as a kid, watching these animes,
reading these comics, readingthese mangas everyone's
basically drawn the same, Likeanime is simultaneously very
racist and yet not racist,because race almost never
actually plays a role.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
Well, I have to do a shout out here.
Anime is extremely racist.
When they have the ability todraw someone of a different race
because there's some particulargroups, that anime is like all
right, we're gonna have allthese ninjas look the same.
This one, we have to paint intoa giant lips, just this one.

(41:29):
It's like that's not how thesepeople work.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
It's like no, no, no, no, we just have to every time
uh, well, yeah, uh, generallyspeaking, uh, anime characters
are very homogenous, uh, butthen every now and then they do
throw in race, uh, and it's very.

(41:51):
It's super interesting for usin north america to see what
they think about canadians oramericans, or, uh, like, what is
, um, what does g gundam have tosay about america?

Speaker 1 (42:06):
like I love g gundam, so g gundam is from a different
time.
And, yes, g gundam is racist.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
It's hard to argue otherwise but it's such awesome,
awesome gems like the, thenether gundam, the gundam from
the netherlands that's shapedlike a giant windmill, the
tequila gundam from mexico withits sombrero and exploding
maracas.

Speaker 1 (42:30):
America's gundam, that's a rock'em sock'em robot.
But that's not when they threwthe shade at america.
So america's gundam basicallybeing Optimus Prime with boxing
gloves and a surfboard Not thatstereotypical.
The most American thing in GGundam, possibly the best moment
in anime.
So in G Gundam all the spacecolonies look like the countries
.
For some reason they're justcountry-shaped.

(42:51):
America except is shaped like astar Because it can be, they
deploy the Statue of Libertycannon.
So the Statue of Liberty, whichis attached to their space
cannon, separates off, the torch, lights up and their most
powerful weapon is the Statue ofLiberty cannon, which is a
high-powered beam cannon builtinto the torch of the Statue of
Liberty in the Neo-America spacecolony that looks like America

(43:14):
but is star-shaped.
There is nothing more Americanthan taking a french gift,
claiming it to be the mostamerican thing and putting a
death laser on it.
That is just perfection.
I couldn't write something thatgood that is such a scathing,
nonsensical parody like yeah,the, yeah, the Canadian Gundam

(43:35):
is a lumberjack with hatchetarms that they find up in
Niagara Falls.
Who fights the Russian dude?
Who's an ex-convict.
Who beats people up with a balland chain Not an ex-convict,
sorry, a current convict.
They have a bomb strapped tohim.
He's a current convict.

Speaker 2 (43:57):
Oh, so they're doing it like Suicide.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
Squad style.
Yeah, just Russia, becausethat's how they roll.
No one else is doing it inSuicide Squad, just I like to be
like yeah, everything in GGundam is 100% how Japan views
the world.
Obviously there's no nuancehere.
What's media literacy?
And then the funniest joke isin all the Gundams.

(44:25):
So Gundams will rarely haveAmerica, except Gundam 00, I
think Okay.
Instead they'll have theAtlantic Federation, which is
America after it's conquered therest of the Atlantic area.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
Makes sense and in Gundam Z.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
The leader of the Atlantic Federation was a.
He was a Nazi.
Of course he was a Nazi.
He was like naturals aresuperior and coordinators need
to die.
We need to nuke them all guy.
He was some rich tech bro.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
Yeah, it's funny because it's like I mean,
obviously conversations abouteugenics do still occur, but
it's like, current presidentsaside, we've kind of like, as an
entire globe, have kind of beenlike yeah, no, that's, that's
not right, and yet othercountries still view America as

(45:25):
being oppressive enforcers ofpotential eugenic policies.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
Which I mean to be fair America makes it real easy.
Fair america makes it real easy.
When they have a literal quoteworld like it's, people don't
realize how absurd they soundwith what they choose to explain
their own views.
Woke is bad.
We are against it.
It is wrong.
Define woke.
Treating other people of equalsis bad.

(45:50):
You just outed yourself so hard.
It was like I watched a reviewof the new superman.
It's like, anyway, it's like Idon't like Superman.
It's too political.
It's kind of telling onthemselves because it's about a
dude trying to stop people frombeing bad.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
Yeah, and people that like oh, it's an immigrant
story, it's like that doesn'tmake it woke, and also that's
like that's more like thesubtext, like that's just, he
literally is an alien.

Speaker 1 (46:21):
That's just the text.
He is a literal illegal alien.
The joke of Superman is he'sthe most powerful person in the
world and still gets treatedlike shit because he's an
illegal immigrant.
I don't think it was acoincidence.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
Pretty sure that's the plot, yeah, but I mean like
then people were like oh, Idon't like Superman because of
that.
It's like whoa, you're missingout on a lot of really
interesting and dynamicconversations like that are not
about being woke.

Speaker 1 (46:50):
Also, you might just be a bad person.
If the idea that an immigrantwants to protect people's
freedoms is bad to you, youmight be a bad person.
If the idea that an immigrantwants to protect people's
freedoms is bad to you, youmight be a bad person.
It happens.
I'm not saying you're notallowed to be a bad person, but
just own it like, don't be likeI'm a good person.
Beating, taking these foodstamp money and using it to
build a gold-plated ballroom.

(47:12):
Literally a thing that happenedis people being like well, yeah,
he put it's his right to have asolid gold ballroom and I'm
like let's say it is his rightto have a solid gold ballroom.
Should you not still be buggedthat he built a solid gold
ballroom instead of doingliterally anything to help
anybody with that money?
Just because it's not illegalfor someone to do something bad

(47:35):
doesn't therefore make the thinggood.
Like if on this podcast, I'mlike thank you everybody for
supporting our podcast with yourdonations.
I bought myself a switch tooand I'm gonna enjoy it.
You guys should really havemore followers.
That last line right, that'slike what people are actually

(47:57):
like, though it'll be like yeah,look at my deluxe pokeball
collection.
I bought, as they say, that ona stream and they're a
professional streamer, whichmeans, hey, look at these cool
things I bought with yourdonations.
I'm awesome.
Like that's still bad.
Like I built a solid goldballroom in the white house.

(48:20):
He could have spent that moneyI don't know on anything else
okay, but so I mean coming backto our original topic here I
wanted to bitch about uSpolitics.
I want to get cancelled inEngland.

Speaker 2 (48:38):
Does Pokemon have an American equivalent in their
zones?
Do you think there's?

Speaker 1 (48:44):
two for sure.
So black and white is just NewYork.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
Okay, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
It's widely believed that Unova is New York.
Okay, and then the Oro regionfrom Colosseum feels very
American Southwest coded.

Speaker 2 (49:02):
Hmm.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
Right right, right right.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
It's American Midwest .

Speaker 1 (49:06):
Riding through like there isn't a ton of like
Arizonas around the world,mm-hmm.
So it's like, yeah, juststraight up.
People like to argue thatAmerica is just the Inova region
outright, which is aninteresting thing, because the
villain of the Inova regionbeing PETA and animal rights is

(49:26):
an interesting approach.
Like I don't think they meantanything by it and I don't even
know if it's true.
It's just we all widely kind ofagree the Internet as a whole
that Unova is their America.

Speaker 2 (49:40):
Hmm, Well, I mean most likely, given that they
have largely they've always usedtheir own naming system for
their regions.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
It's probably just an Internet coincidence that they
didn't actually intend there tobe any subtext there, but yeah,
it's kind of like Kalos isclearly France, Sword and
Shield's clearly the UK, Likeit's not subtle.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
Well, yeah, I don't know.
Do you think they've startedleaning into it more than with
Pokemon?
100%, they're just going for it.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
Now.
They're like asking, likecultural consultants, to help
them design architecture to bemore likely the real world area.
They're just straight up goingfor it.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
I'd be doing x and y is definitely based on france uh
, no, the uk.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
X and y.
Yeah, it's definitely englandin the area around it.
Oh, x and y is france.
I thought you said, ah, mybrain got looped.
Yes, you are correct, x and yis france.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
It's not even pretending, it's not the
louvre's there, straight upbecause I I played x and y and
then, uh, got frustrated byalpha and omega sapphire because
they added new Megas but didn'tmake them reverse compatible.

Speaker 1 (50:59):
So bugged by that Worst crime, worst crime Japan's
ever done, Japan's worst crime.
Although I do really appreciateSpear Draggler when they had
the Americans blow up the moneyoh man, uh, that that is a super

(51:21):
funny uh.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
The the series isn't funny uh, but the villains plan
to get the japanese governmentto over invest in his
pharmaceutical company so he canliquidate their assets and
trick america into blowing up atower full of all of japan's
money.
Oh, and the fact that americafell for it is kind of like

(51:45):
that's the social commentarythere.
It wasn't hard to get Americato blow up a tower in Japan.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
And yeah, it's kind of funny because I'm trying to
think of more examples ofAmerican characters in anime.
But I'm like now my brain'sjust going for kids dubbing
things, where it's like to throwthe shade on the other foot,
taking the rice balls andcalling them jelly donuts,
because people couldn'tunderstand the idea of a rice

(52:14):
snack.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
Isn't sane.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
Like the funniest thing is the Pokemon world's
already fictional.
So, like a kid who sees atriangular rice snack and
someone calls it a rice ball,first thought isn't going to be
canceling the show, it's goingto be.
Oh, that's probably fictionalfood in the fictional show.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
Yeah, and then when they see an actual rice ball,
they'll be like what the?

Speaker 1 (52:44):
real crazy and then I mean it's not real.
It's funny to me that BanditKeith had to use invisible guns.
Nothing to do with our topic.
I just enjoy that very muchthat they left the seeds the
same but had the pointinginstead of holding a gun.

(53:05):
Yeah, and there was an episodethat was straight up removed
from Pokemon.
Where they're in the SafariZone, everyone just kept pulling
guns on things.
They're just like nope, uh,they did try and americanize

(53:26):
some names in one piece andpokemon and stuff as well, which
is always funny when it's likewe're gonna change zolo to zoro
to zoro to zolo, and I'm likeyou guys just don't.
One piece is funny because theydo live action One Piece.
They're like oh yeah, all thesecharacters are different races.
Oda said so we're just going tocast whoever, and I'm like
great, perfect, 10 out of 10.

(53:47):
And then Fullmetal Alchemistlive action, like we're just
going to put awful wigs onpeople for the series that takes
place allegedly in Germany.

Speaker 2 (53:59):
Yeah, I mean, fullmetal Alchemist is also a
pretty interesting example.
I don't really remember ifthere's anything any specific
American examples in that show,though no, they just did end up
in Germany originally.
Right, yeah, that was theoriginal ending of the anime,
where they just like and thetruth is World War II, germany,
what?

Speaker 1 (54:19):
I know in Shamanaman king they end up in like nevada,
if memory serves, but it's beena while since I put thought
into shaman king even though itis actually a pretty good series
, it's also been done for likeover a decade.

Speaker 2 (54:36):
Yeah, when did it?

Speaker 1 (54:38):
That's a very good question.
I know the manga finished, butthey didn't give it an ending
and they didn't release the realending until the hardcover
volumes came out.
It was a whole thing.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
Shaman King was serialized from 1998 to 2004.
The anime adaption ran from2001 to 2002.
And then, from 2008 to 2009,they released the books, the
Kanzan Band edition, concludingwith the true ending of the

(55:14):
series.
That is the AI post that I wascomplaining about earlier.
So take that with a grain ofsalt.
That is reasonable and fair Ona different note.
Sorry, go ahead.
Oh, you go ahead.
Sorry, I was just going tofinish up saying that that

(55:34):
information is supposedly alsofrom Reddit, which is Wikipedia
before Wikipedia.

Speaker 1 (55:42):
So it's kind of funny .
It's like Shaman Kingdefinitely are like here's
characters from around the world, because we have to do that to
give them different randomspirits, mm, hmm, so they
absolutely had characters fromall over.
Oh, they definitely pulled aracism play, literally naming
their character Choco Choco Love.
That feels, that feels like acrime, right.

(56:02):
But then we get to other things.
I remember we had a full talkabout when Naruto ended, how
because it takes place in apseudo-Japan steampunk America
would have been interesting.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
Or them growing their world outwards in some
direction thing, or them growingtheir world outwards in some
direction yeah, it's so sad thatNaruto decided not to make any
comment about America because,like they even started doing the
steampunk thing in Boruto andthen just dropped it because

(56:34):
apparently that was alientechnology, somehow based on
aliens, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
That drove me nuts, by the way, because aliens
themselves weren't using anytechnology.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
Yeah Well, we love to complain about Boruto, but
that's not really on topic.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
Vaguely on topic, so vaguely Like I mean, the next
thing I was going to go for waslike shows like Kaiju no 8,
where they'll like they had aboard meeting and they're
talking about we've heard somecountries are experimenting
using kaiju tissue with things.
I'm like is that countryAmerica or is it Russia?
And then my brother's like wait, didn't they make the contact

(57:14):
lenses that country's Japan?
Because, yeah, kaiju no 8, juststraight they make the contact
lenses that country's Japan.
Cause, yeah, yeah, kaiju numbereight to Strat mentions there's
an American U S defense force.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
And I'm like I kind of want to see that story too.
Yeah, yeah, I am reallywondering, like, obviously the
author of the series is going tobe taking a break.
I would, I would assume, um,but that was also a very
apolitical focus just on onecountry, uh, and you could
easily expand the world outwardto be talking about, um, well,

(57:47):
kaiju in other countries such asamerica or china, or well, we
had this chat a bit about itrussia we were like the ending
was not in my top 10 animeendings but it is the easiest to
sequel point.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
I've seen something ended in a while Because it's
like it was like how Chainsawman 1, part 1, ended, where
you're like, oh, the series isover, oh, we're sequeling it and
just adding some characters andgoing forward.
Yeah, okay, sick.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
Yeah.
So I would definitely be reallyinterested to see the world,
well, to see the globe of Kaijunumber 8.
Not necessarily even that thesecountries have to interact,
because they're obviously allvery busy dealing with their own
Kaiju problems.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
But but like easy side stories.
It's like how original Gundam's, like we're gonna follow this
Amuro and Char kid and that waslike the most mediocre one year
war content, because there's awhole war going on around the
world and it's like the sidestories in the universe were
probably more interesting thanthe main stories.
Star wars has that problem alot, where it's like the

(58:49):
non-skywalker stuff is usuallythe best stuff by miles.
The further we get from anyonewho's met a skywalker, the
better the show is.
Yeah, and then they'll ruin itby bringing it back closer to
someone who specifically knewAnakin Skywalker.
Somehow Too many people knew.
Could you imagine in the realworld if, like one in ten people

(59:11):
were a direct blood relative orassociate of, let's go with
Keanu Reeves?
Like if every movie thecharacter was just some direct
relation to John Wick in everyother action movie and they felt
the need to mention it?
How insane that'd be.
You're just watching Taken andit's like, yeah, my uncle John
is busy fighting a dog, so I'mhere and it's like what?

(59:32):
And it gets so much stupiderwhen you do it with sci-fi and
space is infinite the odds you'dever run into Darth Vader are
zero.
There's literally trillions ofpeople in trillions of places.
You would never run intosomebody by coincidence, ever.

(59:52):
It's like actuallymathematically impossible that
you would just run into DarthVader's apprentice in space.
Yeah that's pretty true, notrelated to our topics at all.
Just need to complain about it.
Star Wars manages to beAmerican free, which I'm fine

(01:00:16):
with.
Yeah, because has Star Warsever even gone?

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
to earth.
I I'm fine with yeah, becausehas Star Wars ever even gone to
Earth?
I don't think so, no, norshould it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
Well, it was a long time ago in a galaxy far away.
So Earth is a ramification ofStar Wars.
Star Wars will technically endwith Adam and Eve being exiled
to this planet while theuniverse dies, and then we're
going to learn that Jesus of theChrist was obi-wan kenobi's
apprentices, apprentices,apprentices, clone ah yeah,

(01:00:46):
gotta be a clone.
Yep, who returns somehow,although I'm gonna pivot to my
personal random question a bitearly in this episode because I
was kind of thinking about itwhat animes do you think would
benefit the most from justadding America as a sequel,
having a sequel take place inAmerica?

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
Like we opened with.

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
Kaiju no 8 being like oh yeah, what's going on in
America?
So your job is you're given anyexisting anime or manga until
you need to write a spin-offsequel in America, any oh man.
I like how I'm not choosingCanada, even though we're
Canadian, because that's justnot reasonable.
Just not reasonable, like I wasgoing to go.

(01:01:31):
Bleach has their weird spinoffin England with their Burn the
Witch and then it says on thebuilding Soul Society East.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
Oh Burn the Witch was .
And then it says on thebuilding Soul Society East oh
Burn the Witch was a spin-off of.

Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
Leech, yeah, it was straight up took place in the
same universe, like they'redragons and witches and things.
It's just how the power systemworks in England and I love that
implication that Soul Societyhas a Shinigami and it's this
and then America.
It could just be completelydifferent.
It could be likeasquatches andjabberwockies and have a

(01:02:02):
completely different powersystem.
I'm like that's hilarious.
Hmm, technically they madeichigo's adult job being a
translator as an excuse to sendhim to england for crossovers
later uh, backstep, just onesecond.

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
Uh, elephant in the room.
Jojo's bizarre adventure,specifically season three, which
takes place in like old-timeynew york so jojo's to talk
america, because I don't knowhow jojo's didn't get mentioned.

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
This is worth talking about.
America participles cannonballrun feels like the most
authentic American thing everwritten out of Japan.
Huh, self-resident being amultiversal time-traveling
threat, trying to collect thebones of Jesus Christ to make a
super army is the most Americanthing imaginable the bones of

(01:02:53):
Jesus Christ.
Being an American in Americafeels like the most American
written thing imaginable.
So Jojo's part 2 doesn'tAmerican in America feels like
the most American written thingimaginable.
So Jojo's part two doesn't feellike it's written by someone
who doesn't understand America.
It feels like it was written bysomebody who does as he's
flicking Coca-Cola caps andpulling out two Tommy guns as a
distraction for the cape ofgrenades.

(01:03:14):
Also.
Jojo's kind of get to passbecause it didn't have anything
happen in Japan.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
Till part 4 oh yeah, yeah, part 1 and 2 were in.
Well, season 1 and 2 were inEngland then it went to America.

Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
Then part 3 spent a week in Japan before they went
to Cairo, because part threespent a week in Japan before
they went to Cairo Because itwas just a road trip movie.
So Japan wasn't until part four.
Part six is Florida.
Yeah, that's true, which is whyno one questioned the stand
attacks, because that's justFlorida.

(01:03:56):
When it just started braidingfrogs, frogs, no one batted an
eye.
Like nothing's more floridastory than person found turned
upside down with their feetremoved.
That's not even making thefront page, full page.
Ford has man robs conveniencestore by flailing around with a

(01:04:17):
crocodile.
Yeah, now I'm thinking about it.
The majority of JoJo's tookplace in America.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
Or Italy.

Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
They took a break to be Italian.
That they did.
To be fair, he actually goes tothe places.
The newest JoJo's is in Hawaiiand everyone's just like oh so
you had to pay for you to take atwo-year Hawaiian vacation for
research?
Huh, jojo's is the only mangaseries I could actually see

(01:04:49):
having a Canada arc.

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
A Canada arc.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
They would actually put in Canada.
He's that crazy and unhinged.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
Where did Black Cat take place in?

Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
Fantasyland, I feel Black Cat.
This is a hot take.
Black Cat took place in theHunter Hunter world.
Ah, okay, there is no evidenceto prove me wrong.
Internet come at me.
You cannot confirm that BlackCat's fictional continent wasn't
in the Hunter Hunter world,where the enemies were literally
using an artifact to gain,quote, nen abilities.

(01:05:24):
Unquote.
That's my hot take.
Black cat and hunter.
Hunter took place in the sameworld.
Anywho, l from death note wasamerican.

Speaker 2 (01:05:39):
Anywho, l from Death Note was American.
I mean the first L, I believehe identifies as a twink,
legally speaking, but yeah, Ithink so no, I'm just going
through all the series in theShonen Jump app to see what

(01:06:00):
stands out to me as a goodseries to have in America.

Speaker 1 (01:06:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:06):
Black Cat was too fictional.

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
Oh, hair punch meanwhile, marshall King is
American coded, but alsoterrible yeah, no, marshall King
is terrible they pulled one ofthose science diagrams right out
of Dr Stone and that made me somad.
He's like I'm going to rely onthis because that was such a
specific writing device for thatseries.

(01:06:29):
That's not just a thing you getto use now.
You can't have developmentdiagrams in your fantasy setting
and me want to follow you onthis one.
That only works because you'reusing actual science.
Also, americans were just evilwith Dr Stone and used machine
guns and wanted to use scienceto conquer the world.
The only part I disagree withis that they'd be using science

(01:06:53):
for it.
Yeah, that's fair.
If we have any American viewers, they have left after this one,
although most Americans thatlisten to me talk will just be
shaking their head in deep shame.

Speaker 2 (01:07:08):
So much my Hero stuff on here.

Speaker 1 (01:07:10):
My Hero would actually be a pretty good one,
honestly, like they showed likethree.

Speaker 2 (01:07:14):
American characters.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
Yeah, because we know that the main character Vigil
to america at the end ofvigilantes, so like he'd be
there with captain celebrity andlike the us marines and star
and stripe star and stripe wasthe most pointless added thing
in my hero and I'm still madabout it so they had a plot
point that she comes in right.

(01:07:37):
He steals her ability, itability, it sabotages him and
then he pawns it off on somebody.
He specifically gives thatpower to somebody.
That never came up in theending of my Hero in any way,
shape or form.

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
It was just a dead.

Speaker 1 (01:07:50):
They were like we're going to introduce America to
then not use America ever, andit was a bad choice.
Because you get to the finaleand you're like, where is
America?
Then We've got a villain sopowerful they destroy entire
cities.
And I'm like, if America knowsthis guy exists, that city is
glass.
You understand, right?
I don't care how good yoursuperpower is when you can drop

(01:08:12):
sulfur fuel air bombs on people.

Speaker 2 (01:08:17):
So the promised Neverland actually is a pretty
interesting one, because they'rethey're in the alternate demon
world, uh, and then they managedto, like all the humans, get
sent back to the real world, uh.
I think an interesting sequelwould be uh, the demons
reinvading the, the human world,because they just negate,

(01:08:37):
renege on their uh, on theirtreaty that would be interesting
.

Speaker 1 (01:08:42):
Another interesting one to take place in america.
I know this is kind of a hottake, but not really.
I think a yugioh series inamerica would be fascinating if
you give it the energy of pingpong peril.
Not on topic at all, I justshout out to ping pong peril
being yugioh season zero.
When hinged.

(01:09:02):
It's the first yugioh spin-offI've read in a very long time.
That understood what madeyugioh good in the first place,
because it was never about thecards.
And then the future yugiohsequels are like we're gonna all
be about the cards.
I'm like no, it was never aboutthe cards, it was about the.
When I lose this card game,this anchor drags me under the
ocean.
It was about the.

(01:09:24):
I've cut in some of my cards amillimeter small, so when I look
at it under the right light,the light bends around it and I
know what I'm going to draw.
It's the marking my cards withperfume.
That's what made Yu-Gi-Oh Good.

Speaker 2 (01:09:44):
Out of all the series that are currently available on
Shonen Jump, promised Neverlandwas the only one that stood out
to me as deserving of a sequelin America, and that's mostly
just because I don't know whereexactly in the world the kids
end up moving to.
But the fact that they get sentto the real world primes for
that sort of sequel where thedemons renege on their treaty

(01:10:09):
and invade.

Speaker 1 (01:10:11):
Yeah, one Piece and Naruto.
Well, naruto, we already talkedabout Naruto.
In America, one Piece isalready globetrotting.
Well, except that their globesare all messed up.
Well, the thing is, they go toall these countries but they're
much softer than G Gundam.
Right, you go to a country inOne Piece and it doesn't strike
you as being coded off aparticular country, except for,

(01:10:32):
like, samurai Land, right, right.
So it's like maybe you couldsay, alabasta, was america coded
?
I don't know, it might havebeen.
That'd be hard.
But, as I mentioned, I'd loveto see like a completely
different power system in thisweird spinoff for bleach in
america.

(01:10:54):
Yeah, because there just be somany more hollowos because
there's so many more peopledying violent deaths.

Speaker 2 (01:11:06):
Yeah, it could be, it could be.

Speaker 1 (01:11:11):
And then, yeah, pokemon, just kind of their
regions are homage, so there'sno reason to make Pokemon in
America.
They kind of already did it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:19):
Four kids put in their best effort to make it to
the origin.
Kaiju, number eight, like yousaid, just America kind of
already exists off screen.
So it'd just be, that'd be soeasy, it'd be sick.

Speaker 1 (01:11:30):
I'd be so many kinds of on board.
Like you would just call itKaiju number eight.
America Like you know,America's SDF anti-kaiju force
would have cool stuff going on.
Yeah, that's true.
Pretty sure they're buildingjaeger robots kaiju.

Speaker 2 (01:11:52):
Number eight is in the pacific rim universe.
I would love that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:59):
So the thing is I've given this rant about crossovers
, where I love somaticcrossovers and I hate Fortnite
and Super Smash, the Gatheringcrossovers right.
So, like I've been on streamand mentioned, I love that they
did a Kengan-Ashura-Bakicrossover movie where those two
could be in the same universe,that they did a Kengan Ashura

(01:12:21):
Baki crossover movie when thosetwo could be in the same
universe.
As I just mentioned, I wouldtotally throw Black Cat and
Hunter x Hunter in the sameuniverse and never explain it
Because I can, right.
So it's like Godzilla and KingKong already got their
crossovers Right and if theyjust are like, yeah, this is the
Kaiju Earth and then inparallel on the other side of

(01:12:41):
the rifts is the pacific rimearth, I'm like, yeah, kaijus
come from different dimensions,I have no problem.
Actually, let me rephrase Iwould love a kaiju number eight
godzilla crossover.
That would be amazing, yeahthat would be amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:13:06):
I'm also on board with a Godzilla King Kong
Pacific Rim crossover.
Okay, actually, starting thisback one moment, you said that
Kaiju no 8's ending was not inyour top ten.
Yeah, it didn't feel like itended.

Speaker 1 (01:13:19):
Hmm, I have to give a top ten anime ending list now,
don't I?

Speaker 2 (01:13:24):
No, no, no, that seems like that would take up
too much time.
We've already been rambling foralmost our entire hour.

Speaker 1 (01:13:29):
That would be a full episode, wouldn't it?

Speaker 2 (01:13:33):
It probably would.
I'm assuming number one animeending of all time for you would
be Kaido, the right answer.

Speaker 1 (01:13:43):
That's the best I probably would say, if I'm being
honest and non-facetious.
It's a toss-up between GundamWing, Code Geass and Lucifer and
the Biscuit Hammer.
Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammerdid not deserve how good it
ended.
I'm like, oh you ended this,you stuck the ending clean.

(01:14:07):
Also, I hate to give creditwhere credit's due.
I hated Attack on Titan, Part 2.
It ended as good as it possiblycould have, Unlike
Assassination Classroom, whichmissed the semi-ending part of
having them use their alienassassinating skills to fight
the evil alien and assassinateit.

(01:14:27):
Just Rawr.
Assassination Classroom doesdeserve a better ending, and it
would be kind of cool to see itAmericanized like just thinking
that would actually be dope islike you have another squid
alien in america, especially ifamerica said you know?
I'd go as far as, instead ofdoing like a spinoff for

(01:14:50):
assassination classroom inamerica, like taking place in
the same setting, I would do areimagining, like a straight up
netflix anime, of what it wouldbe like if Koro-sensei was
American, because the educationsystem is just so different it
would be so much harder to fixit.
Japan's like yeah, we take theproblem kids and put them in the

(01:15:12):
bad class so they'll havetrouble getting to college.
America is like there's gunshucks the easy part.
Like there's gun shucks theeasy part.
Like so you know how inAssassinate Crash, most of the
students are like I don't reallywant to try and kill my teacher
at the start.
America they would love to tryand kill the teacher and would
struggle hard learning.
Yeah, like first episode.

(01:15:36):
Someone's like these are theanti-sensei weapons.
They just pull their alreadyexisting Glock and shoot him in
the face.

Speaker 2 (01:15:43):
Okay, well, so, since my answer to your random
question was the PromisedNeverland, what is your answer
to your own random question?

Speaker 1 (01:15:51):
So I'm annoyed because I already used up some
good ones with Kaiju.
Number eight, right, I think so.
Eight right, I think so.
And uh, I'm very fickle, sothis answer could change by the
time I finish saying it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:09):
I do think chainsaw man in america would be
fascinating yeah, I mean it'shard to say how close the
Chainsaw man is to actuallyending this arc, but another arc
that took place in America,especially after that bold
comment about how the War Devilloves America, would be on point

(01:16:29):
and super interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:16:33):
I'm just saying here's my pitch for the start of
Chainsaw man Season 3.
So we've dealt with some ofthis War Devil stuff already,
right, and life sucks in Japanfor Denji.
So we go.
Part two ends part three.
We see denji, we see asta,because I wanted to survive this
holding hands, and in thebackground is the chicago riots.
And it just takes place inAmerica.

(01:17:00):
Yeah, the idea that they endthe season by fleeing to America
and there's Chainsaw man inAmerica would just be amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:17:13):
I don't know if Asta's going to survive this or
not.

Speaker 1 (01:17:16):
I don't know if Denji's going to survive this or
not.
It's Chainsaw man.
Yeah, I was a little bitworried that he was going to
survive this or not.
I don't know if Deji's going tosurvive this or not.
It's Chainsaw man.

Speaker 2 (01:17:20):
Yeah, I was a little bit worried that he was going to
be dead after like what, was itlike two chapters back where he
just had a spike in his head?

Speaker 1 (01:17:29):
Well, also like the author, I've read some of their
one-shots.
They have no problem hurting me.
Hmm, no hesitation whatsoever.

Speaker 2 (01:17:39):
Yeah, no hesitation whatsoever yeah, yeah, you know
what would not work Ryota and.

Speaker 1 (01:17:46):
Kenshin in America, but it is a really good end.
So Ryota and Kenshin in Kaiju.
Number 8 had very similarendings where it's like are you
trying to set up a sequel?
Because you can, hmm okay.

Speaker 2 (01:18:02):
So I guess actually, like I know, I was a little bit
dissatisfied with the endingkaiju number eight, just because
of how no consequences yourterm hollywood it became.

Speaker 1 (01:18:14):
It was the hollywood ending oh yeah, um, okay,
actually I gotta go on a littleside tangent here, beautiful, we
have the.

Speaker 2 (01:18:18):
Was the Hollywood ending?
Oh yeah, okay, actually I gotto go on a little side tangent
here, beautiful, we have thetime this week.
So I don't remember if Imentioned it on this podcast or
on the Dagger Art podcast, but Iwas on Webtoon.
The little ad came up Read theaction series.
Everybody's talking aboutOrdeal.

Speaker 1 (01:18:40):
Yep, this was on the, not in.
This didn't make it into thispodcast perfect uh and uh, I, uh
.

Speaker 2 (01:18:47):
So I was like, well, I mean, it says that everybody's
talking about it.
I might as well at least watchthe trailer.
And for the trailer they justlike straight up animated the
first episode of the manhwa, andso it looks sick.
Because it's about this humanin a world where people have
basically awakened powers andhe's trying to be the best

(01:19:09):
fighter.
But because he's human and theother people are like increased
durability and have superpowers,it's a real struggle for him.
So his master gets killed is areal struggle for him.
So his master gets killed, yeah.
And then there's a four monthtime skip and we go to a
tournament which only has tworounds before the murderer

(01:19:33):
basically announces on livetelevision that he's going to
kill the main character becausehe killed the main character's
master, and so then, since hegets out of the tournament,
shuts down, and then there'sanother four-month time skip,
which is one of the otherreasons I dropped.
It is because ten chapters inand there's already been two
time skips.
Who do you think?

Speaker 1 (01:19:54):
you are Solo leveling .
The best anime of all time thatwon all the awards for its peak
writing.

Speaker 2 (01:20:01):
Solo leveling had no time skips, isn't it?
Well, I mean, it kind of did,but that's way later and kind of
.
Anyway, that's not really thepoint, solo leveling read like a
montage like a montage.
The point of the matter is,almost immediately after reading

(01:20:24):
these 10 chapters of ordeal,having these two four-month time
skips, I read Kaiju numbereight, the final chapter, and
there was a four-month time skip.
Yep, and I'm like is theresomething special about
four-month time skips?
Like how did this come up sooften?

Speaker 1 (01:20:45):
I don't know Like I understand the idea of a season
time skip, right?
So like, if you're going totime skip, you either go for a
season or a year, right?
The reason for the four-monthtime skip, in my theory and I'm
just like most things I say anddo, pulling things out of my ass
at random is the idea that ifyou want to show something in a
visual media time passing, youshow the leaves on a tree, right

(01:21:08):
, you show the snow, so fourmonths is enough time to go from
winter to summer, and then youdo the one year time skip and
then you show them with kidsthat are made by taking the hair
of one character in the face ofanother.

Speaker 2 (01:21:24):
The breeder ending.
At least Kaiju number eightdidn't do that.

Speaker 1 (01:21:28):
You know, the worst part is I would have let Kaiju
number eight get away with that,if Kaiju number eight.
The next scene was Kafkamarried to Asi, though I would
have been fine with that becauseit was kind of low-key, a love
story in the background, but notreally.
They didn't go that way.
They never kissy kissy, whichis actually wild self-restraint.

(01:21:51):
They might have just admiredeach other and been friends,
which is almost impossible inmanga.
So it's like they give Kafka adope little beard thing for
being in the hospital and heruns around being spec ops.
I'm like, yeah, this is a greatending for him another just

(01:22:17):
random side note, this LSEseries.

Speaker 2 (01:22:19):
Another just random side note, this LSE series.
So his mentor, caden, is liketop 10 global power ranking and
the only reason he doesn't fightanyone in the course of this
year where he's recovering isbecause he's recovering.
But because he's recovering,but because he's so powerful and

(01:22:42):
his skills are so unique andimportant and he's teaching his
apprentice, his apprentice endsup meeting the number one ranked
, awakened in South Korea andshe's a beautiful young woman
and Awakened in South.
Korea and she's a beautifulyoung woman, and it's just Two

(01:23:04):
attractive characters.
Now they're dating.

Speaker 1 (01:23:07):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:23:08):
Sure is writing in there I I stand by my statement
that, after about 150 chapters,series will lose their way, and
I do genuinely feel like I'mstill reading it.
It's still ongoing, but Idefinitely feel like the LSE has
lost its way.

Speaker 1 (01:23:30):
Fair.
The thing about Kaiju no 8'sending is it was a non-bo-ending
.
It ended before 150 chapters,but it didn't lose its way at
any point.
No, and to be fair, the WorldTrigger selection arc is
probably the length of Kaijunumber 8.

Speaker 2 (01:23:50):
I'm not sure if World Trigger is losing its way or
not.
I think it's really juststicking to its gun and having a
bad editor.

Speaker 1 (01:23:57):
Well, like, just put some things back into, like the
kaiju thing.
It was a while back when we gotnear the ending, where I'm like
, oh, they did their dopeteam-up.
I guess we're pretty much donehere.
And you're like I don't know ifwe're pretty much done.
I'm like, yeah, we're prettymuch done because we hit our
like thematic conclusion and I'mhappy that we but I do want
them to expand laterally withthe franchise Like I want

(01:24:18):
spinoffs of this Because itwouldn't be Aspuls.

Speaker 2 (01:24:27):
Yeah, and I mean the ramifications Like if the
spinoff was Americans trying tofigure out who Kaiju no 8 is.

Speaker 1 (01:24:36):
Right, or, like I said, you just call it kaiju,
number eight.
But like it's a hot take, thefact he turned into a kaiju was
the least interesting part ofhis character.
Yeah, so I'm watching throughit again and like he would have
still made it as an officerwithout his kaiju powers

(01:24:58):
Straight up.
Oh yeah, well, he passed thatexam with his 1% power by saving
people doing data analyticspassing the test Like he made it
in on his own and that wasbeing a good, useful person.
But yeah, for him to have coolfight scenes, we're going to
give him a super mode.

Speaker 2 (01:25:25):
I'm like man.
If he was just the old dudedoing his best, I would have
been completely on board.

Speaker 1 (01:25:27):
Yeah, but also he could have been the man in the
chair.
Well, I like to be on the fieldwith a handgun, being like,
yeah, my specialty isdismantling kaiju and studying
them, so I'm gonna like do thaton the battlefield and
occasionally like set up for myallies to the idea of a
protagonist, like back whenWorld Trigger was good being,
I'm a protagonist.
I'm aware I'm not that good, somy job is to set up my awesome
teammates.
It's such a reasonable and likewell sound out motivation and

(01:25:53):
plot mechanic and like lessonfor people right, because we've
had enough of the super specialboy is the best at everything
ever.
Well, we say that, but sololeveling.
One more worse than free rent.
So writing is dead People aredumb.

Speaker 2 (01:26:11):
Give solo leveling some credit.
No, particularly season one,his motivation for going into
the dungeon that gave him hispowers and the weight of the
choice that he made.
And he's so consistent right upto the end of that season that

(01:26:32):
all he really wants is thatelixir to wake up his mom.

Speaker 1 (01:26:34):
So here's my problem with soul leveling.
He has a really really strongcore motivation, I think so
here's the problem with sololeveling he has a really really
strong core motivation, I think.
So here's the problem with sololeveling beating out other
things.
The problem with solo levelingis it's really easy to make a
bad solo leveling clone.
True, because it's in the worstgenre, the most popular genre,
so it's like solo leveling beingI won all these awards, I'm

(01:26:57):
amazing means people are goingto write hundreds and thousands
of solo levelings.

Speaker 2 (01:27:02):
You have no idea how many dungeon series I've seen on
Webtoon.

Speaker 1 (01:27:11):
And the thing is, frearin was harder to write.
They had to draw a map.
They had to name characters andinteractions.
They had to write a thousand.
They had to name characters andinteractions.
They had to write a thousandyears of history before and
after.
They had to write an entirenovel behind freerun to be shown
through snippets throughfreerun.
Right like.
If you told me what would beeasier to write solo leveling of

(01:27:32):
freerun, I could write sololeveling.
Dude with motivation keepsgetting powered up and oring on
people.
Well, following ekasi rulesthat are lifted directly out of
old school JRPGs, I could writesolo leveling.
Right, right.
So it's like solo leveling.
Doing good is fine, I freelyconfess solo leveling is good.

(01:27:53):
My problem is being inspired bysolo leveling will create
garbage.
Being inspired by Free Rainbeing inspired by something
weird like Moonrise, beinginspired by Kagura Banshee means
we'll get cool shit Ifeveryone's like, solo leveling
is the best anime of all time.
We don't need overpoweredprotagonist fights through RPG

(01:28:19):
system to become the most havethe biggest dick.
We simply do not need that.
So it's like the Naruto exampleI love to give is a lot of
things want to be Dragon Ball Z.
After Dragon Ball Z, right,naruto came out and then
suddenly everyone was in threeperson squads, right, right,

(01:28:42):
yeah.
However, as a writing device,pairing three characters
together with differentmotivations under a sensei to do
the MacGuffin Still meansthere's a lot of room for
creativity in there.
Right, right, like JJK, is justNaruto and Bleach fused
together.
World.

Speaker 2 (01:29:02):
Trigger is just sci-fi.
Naruto, I can see what you'resaying.
Solo leveling is probably thepeak of a mediocre genre.

Speaker 1 (01:29:12):
So it's like if Free Rin won all these awards, we'd
have people trying to writefantasy epics.
A poorly written fantasy epicis going to be better than the
second best all these awards,we'd have people trying to write
fantasy epics.
A poorly written fantasy epicis going to be better than the
second best Ikasai by a mile,because the difference is one of
them has to do work to build aworld.
The 1970-something Record ofthe Lotus War holds up better

(01:29:34):
than the Ikasai genre.

Speaker 2 (01:29:39):
So there was this Dev devourer artifacts series, I
think.
I think that's what it's called.
I don't even know.
There's only three chapters out.
Um and uh, it's like the.
The characters have a uh statusscreen to check their level and
and they have quests andinventories and whatever.
God.

Speaker 1 (01:29:58):
I hate it.
I hate it so much.

Speaker 2 (01:30:01):
The basic premise is that this guy, he gets his power
when he's 25, but he doesn'tactually figure out how to use
it until he's 55.
Right, so he spends 30 yearsjust becoming a badass swordsman
.
But he's really tired of beinga badass swordsman because it's
so much harder for him than thepeople who are actually using
their powers effectively.
And his power is to absorbartifacts and learn the skills

(01:30:24):
that are in the artifact.

Speaker 1 (01:30:26):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:30:27):
Then for some reason he gets sent back 30 years in
time.
So now he's in his 25-year-oldbody, he has all of his
swordsman skills and now hebasically has a glimpse of the
future and can easily find moreartifacts to become more
powerful.

Speaker 1 (01:30:43):
It started to go into Ikasai.
Redo your another life.
Sub-genre territory.

Speaker 2 (01:30:50):
And then it also has dungeons.

Speaker 1 (01:30:55):
Sure so.
Remember when I gave my rantthe other day about the badass
swordsman dude who's just an olddude from the boonies.
What was it like?
The old dude from the booniesis the best swordsman in the
world or something someliteralized name from country
bumpkin to master swordsman Iclose, and I was watching that
one and they're like there'smagic in this world.

(01:31:16):
I'm like there's literally noreason for there to be magic in
this world.
You gain nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:31:22):
Well, but so the worst thing about people trying
to copycat solo leveling withthis dungeon mechanic even solo
leveling, it takes place inKorea but they don't actually
bother to do any world building,because you just go into a
dungeon instead of actuallyexploring the world.

Speaker 1 (01:31:41):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:31:42):
It's a cop-out, and so it's like, yeah, I've seen so
many of these dungeon-styleseries.
There's another one which Iactually do enjoy, but that's
just because it has morecompelling characters.
But Dungeon Porter, again, theyhave a whole world but they
aren't actually exploring theworld because they go into the
dungeons.

Speaker 1 (01:32:03):
I think part of why I throw so much shade at solo
leveling other than genreburnout is it's easy for me to
imagine ways that solo levelingwould be better.
So here's a hot take we takeeverything that happens in solo
leveling right, but instead ofdungeons it takes place in the
Hunter x Hunter world.
So he's still doing his,everyone has their Nen powers

(01:32:26):
and his power's still leveling,trying to save his mother by
doing these dangerous missionsand gets killed in a mission.
But instead of portals, they'reactually going places.
It would just be better, in myopinion, because there would
just be a magical island of ants, because Ants that escape from

(01:32:48):
the dungeon.
So that's kind of what alwaysmakes me complain about solo
leveling.
It's like, yeah, have like thebest possible production value
on the best possible ekosai.
But man, oh man, would I bemore excited if berserk had a
resurgence and people weretrying really hard to make good
stories.
Because you can't half-assfreerun.

(01:33:11):
Now, that's true, you simplycan't.
If you half-ass free-ran,that's true, you simply can't.
If you half-ass free-ran, youjust end up with an ikasai.
So, yeah, that's to summarizemy rant.
It's not that I'm against sololeveling, it's that I'm against
solo elevating being consideredthe best because it's like you

(01:33:34):
watch leveling, you get hypedwith it.
Solo leveling will be forgottenin five years Because it
doesn't have anything really tosay by the end of it.

Speaker 2 (01:33:45):
Like it's sick to be in it.

Speaker 1 (01:33:47):
It's like the MCU of anime, no MCU like Marvel
Endgame.
Best movie of all time.
Objectively, no one has itlisted as their favorite movie
of all time.
Sales say it was Budget andacting says it was Right.
That's what solo leveling is.

(01:34:09):
It's like it's really cool,competently assembled, decently
written for what it is, butdoesn't have anything more deep
or meaningful to say about theworld.
Let's take Kaiju number 8, forexample.
The core message in Kaijunumber 8 is really
straightforward You're never tooold to put in the work and
fight for what you believe in.

(01:34:29):
Right, that's it.
That is the entire message.
It's not a complex message well,and then also uh, don't try and
shoulder everything to yourselftoo yeah, like there's a big
part of it's never too late togive up on your dreams, but
there's a time in place to trustthose around you.
So, mm, so like, yeah, kaiju,number eight, which is a great

(01:34:56):
comparison to solo leveling, bythe way, because they're both
the most special special boy,right.

Speaker 2 (01:35:04):
But Shinwoo doesn't learn anything?

Speaker 1 (01:35:08):
No, he does not.
He is a static character, andRichard the writer Cannot
tolerate A static, staticcharacter winning Crunchyroll's
Most Interesting Character award.

Speaker 2 (01:35:20):
Wait, the most interesting character he won.
Most Interesting Character?
Yeah, no, he's not the mostinteresting character.
Like I said, I reallyappreciate the depth of his
motivation and the weight of thechoices that he makes,
particularly early on and evenwhen all the other S-Ranks go to
Jeju Island to fight the antsand he decides to stick back in

(01:35:44):
Korea because he wants to stickback on the mainland, because he
wants to spend time with hismom and help her after her coma
or whatever spend time with hismom and help her after her coma
or whatever.
Like, I really do think seasonone, in particular season two
somewhat, his motivation and hischaracter was really solid, but
you are right that, aside fromthat motivation, there's not

(01:36:07):
much to him.

Speaker 1 (01:36:08):
Because, yeah, for it to be a character, the events
of the story need to change youover the course of it.
Right, you need to be adifferent person at the end than
you are at the start for thestory to have meant anything you
want, kate.

Speaker 2 (01:36:21):
I don't know about that definition there, because
he literally becomes a differentcharacter at the end.

Speaker 1 (01:36:25):
No, he becomes a different character.
The character he is 10 episodesin is a character he is 200,
the first 10.
He goes, that's fair, and thenhe stays the exact same right
where we take something likefull metal alchemist and he goes
through like you literallywatch him grow in real time.
So it's like, yeah, yeah, to belike solo leveling dethrones,

(01:36:50):
full metal alchemist is His bestanime of all time.
Like that can't be true.

Speaker 2 (01:36:55):
Simply cannot be the world we live in Something,
something media literacy.
Also did nobody watch Arcane, Idon't know.
I watched most of season oneand, uh, I mean it was beautiful

(01:37:16):
.

Speaker 1 (01:37:18):
It was interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:37:18):
It's very interesting Uh but it all felt kind of
oddly contrived and I didn'tactually bother watching season
two.

Speaker 1 (01:37:29):
Yeah, well Also.
I also find it some bullshitthat Soul Leveling won Best New
Series, when it's like you don'tget Best New Series.
Yeah, well also.
I also find it some bullshitthat solo leveling won best new
series, when it's like you don'tget best new series if you're
already a successful novel.

Speaker 2 (01:37:37):
That feels like some bullshit well, the studio that
picked up solo leveling is oneof the contenders to pick up
Kaga Robachi for the animeadaptation that is expected to
be announced at the end of thisyear.

Speaker 1 (01:37:58):
I only want Kagura Banshee to start when solo
leveling is over.
Also, kagura Banshee will beatsolo leveling into the ground
for the best anime ever if itgets the same attention to
detail as Soul Leveling's animegot.

Speaker 2 (01:38:15):
Like I said, that same studio is one of the
rumored picks for a studio toactually pick it up and get it
animated.

Speaker 1 (01:38:24):
But yeah, I'm not even mad.
Soul Leveling won Best Anime.
I'm mad.
It won Best Main Character.
That broke me.
Like the characters that wouldgive a better main character.
That broke me.
Like the characters, I wouldgive a better main character
than Sun Jin Woo.
I find Mashal more compelling.

Speaker 2 (01:38:46):
Oh, Mashal is just one punch man.

Speaker 1 (01:38:50):
Yeah, Saitama is absolutely more compelling than
Jin gen woo at being gen woo themost special special boy.
Well like, gen woo is basicallybella from twilight.
Like anyone could projectthemselves into being gen woo.
That's why the series did sowell like.

(01:39:11):
It's not hard to imagineyourself being Jinwoo.

Speaker 2 (01:39:14):
For like literally anybody.

Speaker 1 (01:39:17):
Where you cannot imagine yourself being Freerun
Like you physically can't.
I am simply not old or autisticenough.
So our original question,though soul leveling in America
would be great.
They do mention America hunterslike it's one of those worlds

(01:39:41):
where I'm like, yeah, you canjust see what's going on,
although, to be fair, it didn'treally do much with being in
Korea well, aside from JejuIsland, because that's like one
of their most iconic landmarksis Jeju Island.
It's a hot take, but I feel likethe average viewer, if you
weren't to tell them if it tookplace in Japan or Korea and they

(01:40:02):
watched the Japanese dubbedwould probably assume Japan
until they start throwing shadeat the Japanese hunters.

Speaker 2 (01:40:10):
Until the Japanese hunters show up to try and help
with Jeju Island yeah, theclassic.

Speaker 1 (01:40:15):
Oh, I didn't realize these characters weren't the
same race until a characterspecifically on screen told me
they were different races, I seebut uh, do you have any other
random questions for us today?

Speaker 2 (01:40:25):
yes, our random questions.

Speaker 1 (01:40:28):
Ba ba da da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da da.
Okay this one is.

Speaker 2 (01:40:34):
So you've been cursed .

Speaker 1 (01:40:35):
So you've been cursed by a Jabberwocky and you have
to choose one of two curses youcan only speak in rhymes or only
dramatically whisper,dramatically whisper.
So what's more of a detrimentyou can only speak in a whisper
or you can only rhyme.

Speaker 2 (01:40:54):
Oh, you can only speak in a whisper.
Or you can only rhyme.
Oh, you can only speak in awhisper, as a way bigger
detriment, but you can saywhatever you want.
I mean yeah, but I mean onlyspeaking in rhymes.
That's just a skill you canincrease over time.
Your ability to lay down somesick bars would be off the
charts.
You'd be able to grab people'shearts.

Speaker 1 (01:41:16):
The reason I'm choosing rhymes, especially for
this times, is if I'm magicallyforced to do it, not only would
it give the average person a fit, but I can't complete this.
The actual point I was tryingto build up to rhyming before I
caved in is, if I'm magicallycompelled, it becomes a thing I

(01:41:38):
just do.
And since I'm a public facingcareer, the fact that I just
rhyme at everything because Ican't not rhyme would be insane.
As a, as a shtick Cause, thatmeans Richard Kivas writer,
author, dah dah, dah, dah neverdoes it rhyme would be insane.

Speaker 2 (01:41:57):
Yeah, commitment to a bit or, if you're forced to
speak, an iambic pentameter likepeople feel like is he doing it
intentionally?

Speaker 1 (01:42:07):
if someone asked me like, why are you doing them?
Like I've been cursed, it's theworst.
And they'd be like stop it.
It's shaking me as I'm gettingmrs done to figure out what's
wrong with my brain.

Speaker 2 (01:42:18):
Uh, yeah, so I mean essentially the.
The dramatic whisper isdefinitely a far worse detriment
.

Speaker 1 (01:42:29):
I would much rather be cursed with rhyming than
whispering it really dependswhat you do, though, because
part of me, like I might have topick whispering, because I dm
in things, like I think Iactually have to pick whispering
because if I can whisper loudlyit's annoying, but I don't know
if I could do my job onlyspeaking in rhymes, like I might
just get fired so I hate it.

(01:42:53):
But like whispering I could belike what happened?
I inhaled fire and this isloudest I can talk and then give
me disability funding.
It'd be harder to prove thatrhyming is a disability.

Speaker 2 (01:43:05):
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
Okay, you can be, you can bethe whisperer and I will be the
rhymer.

Speaker 1 (01:43:13):
Yeah, I think you could get away with it.
More Oof this one's rough.
Would you rather be immortal,but you're constantly aging, or
live only 30 years, but inabsolute peak condition?

Speaker 2 (01:43:29):
Well Too real.
No, well too real 30 years, butan absolute peak.
I mean, I think I wouldprobably still go for the peak
condition because, I don't know,I'm going to be immortal, but

(01:43:49):
constantly aging, because thatlevel of immortality, uh, the
fact that you're super old, uhit's something that eventually
medical sciences might just beable to help with, like you
might just be able to ship athesaurus yourself see, that's
what I was thinking.

Speaker 1 (01:44:08):
So I was gonna pick aging.
But also I feel like I'm it'sweird I'm almost old enough for
the 30 years to be tempting, sothere's a certain threshold.
So if I was 40 and like, oh, Ilive to 70 in a better condition
than I'm in now, like hmm.
So it's like the later I am inlife, the more likely I'm

(01:44:28):
inclined to pick the peakcondition one.
Because if I was 60 right now,I'm like oh, my next 30 years I
live, like I'm in my 30s Done.
So it really determines wherethe counter starts.

Speaker 2 (01:44:45):
I didn't even consider the fact that you might
still have your previous lifeexperience.
I was just like literally onlylive 30 years.
I would rather be immortal.

Speaker 1 (01:44:53):
I really want to know what my hands would be like if
I was in peak condition, like,how peak is this peak condition?

Speaker 2 (01:45:01):
If it's peak condition for you, then that
would just be how you were whenyou were 25.

Speaker 1 (01:45:08):
For me, not actually because I was so underweight as
a kid.
I think peak condition is menow oh Actually it condition is
me now oh Actually it might havebeen me.
I think peak condition isprobably mid-kitchen manager.
So probably about four yearsago was probably my peak
condition, but I didn't peak tolike 30s because I was like,
didn't treat my bodyparticularly well and wasn't in

(01:45:31):
particularly good shape.
I was not in my prime in my 20s.

Speaker 2 (01:45:33):
That was simply untrue Gentle breeze and I was
dead as you were a kid drinkingthat poisonous milk.

Speaker 1 (01:45:43):
To be fair, I don't think anyone should be drinking
milk, but yeah, it was rough.

Speaker 2 (01:45:50):
Well, but yeah, those were some very interesting
random questions.
Uh audience members, if youkeep submitting them to us, we
will uh feature audit randomquestions and until uh, well, I
mean this is going to go onforever, since today is the day
of my uh consultation, so it'llnever be ending, but we both

(01:46:12):
just agreed to be immortal, butconstantly aging, so send in
those questions there are deepspace and dragons, mugs do exist
, and oh yeah I have oneexciting things will be in the
horizon at some point.

Speaker 1 (01:46:30):
I'm always on the fence of being like do we want
more merch?
What direction do we want totake this show?
We are so swayed by fanfeedback.
Guys, you don't understand.
You could send us a thing andbe like I need you to read the
Iliad and do an episode on it.
We would do it.

Speaker 2 (01:46:48):
Yeah yeah, I do love looking up classic literature.
My next classic novel I want totry and find is Dr Jekyll and
Mr Hyde.

Speaker 1 (01:47:02):
I might have gotten that backwards, but I don't
think so.
Really funny though, me gettingmy master's in literature and
you having read more books thanme.

Speaker 2 (01:47:10):
I don't even recommend reading Dracula.
I don't even recommend readingDracula.
It's the cornerstone of vampirefantasy and yet it's just not
worth reading.
It was good, but it's not worthreading.

Speaker 1 (01:47:22):
The correct way to enjoy Dracula is absolutely to
watch the animated Castlevaniaseries.
That is just the correct way todo it.

Speaker 2 (01:47:32):
Thanks everyone for listening.

Speaker 1 (01:47:34):
Stay, stay hydrated, and we mostly stayed on america
topic.
Bye, mostly bye.
I still can't believe bach.
He just has a character show upbeing like I would rape you on
musk and donald trump, I'm likewhat?
There's no way, this is realjust straight up, he actually
name drops them, he's.
It was so close to a name dropthat like legally, legally it

(01:47:59):
wasn't, but he said the twopeople he met with were
literally called tramp t-r-a-m-pand elso e-l-o-S-O.
And I sent you the screenshot,it was Donald Trump and Elon
Musk.

Speaker 2 (01:48:17):
That character model was definitely based on Donald
Trump.

Speaker 1 (01:48:20):
They just weren't even trying to hide it.
It's kind of funny because ineach Baki series so the fourth
one had Obama and Trump, thefifth one had Biden and then
Trump, and then the sixth onehad Trump and Elon, and they
literally had a bit where Trumpwas excusing Biden of stealing
the election, trying to talkYujiro Hama into killing Biden,

(01:48:42):
and then he just threw him.
So good such could you imaginehaving your manga run long
enough to have commentary aboutevery presidential election and
then actually doing it.
That was the main thing Iwanted to talk about was when I
saw that in my feed and I'm likehow is this possible?

(01:49:04):
So good.

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