ANIME

[00:00:03] Speaker A: He had been to the mall before, but never with his four year old child. In his teens, the mall was an escape, a hollow deck of adulthood. He had money in his pocket for the first time from bagging groceries and making lattes and lassies at the local Indian restaurant. He could spend an entire day at the mall, get a smoothie, buy a quicksilver T shirt feature featuring a nude mermaid with a surfboard. Even though he lives in the Midwest, he could talk to girls at the mall. It wasn't school, it was a different social environment. He was within this bubble of commerce in excess with his trusted friends. His friends and him would get into silly fake fights with younger children at the KB toy store using plastic lightsabers, eventually getting kicked out. They would go to Sam Goody and browse the electronic music section, seeing overpriced imports. After that, to the arcade across the parking lot. Skeeball, air hockey police trainer, mortal fucking Combat. Next to the arcade was the dollar theater, third run movies and urine stained floors that only cost a dollar if the other child that works behind the [00:01:18] Speaker B: counter even bothering to charge them. [00:01:21] Speaker A: Let's go see the Matrix again. And of course back to the mall proper and to the video store, because mom was picking us up in a few minutes. And there, in a curious and deeply seductive section of Suncoast Video, or whatever regional chain you had, was a red lit shelf of something new, different and even dangerous. Imported age animated media. Stories about existential dread and giant robots, fighter jets that transformed into humanoid figures, ninjas that sought revenge. Children going through horrific historical events, characters that had telepathy thrust upon them, characters that forget which body their own mind started in nightmares, sublime dreams. A new awful vision of the future imagined by a culture from another hemisphere in this new kinetic form that felt so new and unknown we thought we would be in trouble if our moms who were on their way knew we were watching it. And watch it we did. We learned that the subtitle translations weren't very accurate. So we went back to school and learned the fucking language. Not a genre, a medium, a form, a culture. He returned to the mall years later, his child's hand in his own, like summoning Mjolnir. He thought the mall was done out of business. A dead form of shopping for art and clothes and pretzels. Instead, the mall was at capacity. Food courts swinging, smoothies being poured and jewelry being thrown. Shops are all there, but different now. And one big difference screams to him. Every store, every kiosk for minmal shopping had an element of that secret shelf he found with his friends so long ago. T shirts, toys, games, posters, candy, vinyl records. What characters he grew up with were considered classics or iconic in the theater. The latest wildly animated, violent movie Sold out every fucking seat. The form had now become ubiquitous in the monoculture. He knelt down to his child so he was an inch from her ear, so she could hear him over the cacophony of the busy, crowded mall. He just had to tell her the most dumb hipster thing he could say. I was totally into this way before it was cool. Today on Sippinos Anime, I think it's [00:04:29] Speaker B: time to blow this thing. [00:04:30] Speaker A: Get everybody in the stuff together. Okay? [00:04:33] Speaker B: Three, two, one. [00:04:34] Speaker A: Let's jam. [00:04:51] Speaker B: Welcome back to Sip and Mimos, the Internet's premiere, sometimes citrus based show where we talk about music from the 90s and beyond. Jake is not here. Jake bailed. I killed him. He's. He's bleeding out in the street from allergies. But for a long time now, like, for even a few years, I've been talking to. To my dearest mates about doing this and Jake, of course, asterisk about. Well, we did like a Disney episode a while back. And fine, but like, more important than the Disney animation of the 90s and all that was this other form, this other medium that really affected me all through adolescence and beyond. And I knew we needed to do an episode or maybe a part one and part two about this. And it's, of course, anime. So I had to bring two very close friends onto the show to talk about this for an extended period of time and just nerd out about it, about. About anime, about the culture, about the form, and certainly about the music involved, which is stellar. So everyone please meet Alex and Dave, my anime experts. Hey, guys. [00:06:10] Speaker C: Hi. [00:06:10] Speaker D: Hello. [00:06:11] Speaker C: Hello. Hello. [00:06:12] Speaker B: All right, so I've asked Alex and Dave to put together, like, a top five, like, spanning decades, like, of intros, outros, you know, interstitials, supplementary material scores and all that. And they did that and then some. We have like 21 songs on a playlist that I'll. I'll get on our sipping Mima's YouTube page as a playlist so you can, like, listen along and everything. But. Fellas, how are you doing? Pretty good. All right. [00:06:41] Speaker C: Yeah, doing very good, but excited about this? [00:06:44] Speaker D: Yeah, no, I've been. I've been kind of geeked. Well, because we've been talking about this for, like, yeah, months. [00:06:51] Speaker B: I was just at the bar with Alex the other night and I was like, who's gonna get to tank who's gonna get to the Evangelion intro first. Like, you guys might have some overlap, but it kind of worked out serendipitously. [00:07:05] Speaker D: Right. Well, it's like I went on instinct because I'm like, like I'll be. I'll get decision paralysis here. Like there's. There's so many I could pick. [00:07:13] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:07:14] Speaker D: And it. I'm just like my. I had to go with my gut feeling. I'm like, boom. Just how does this make me feel? Like this. I think this is indicative a. Of this decade or this song is really great and it's in my playlist all the time. [00:07:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:29] Speaker D: Like, not just for watching anime or. Or whatevs. But yeah, it was, it was a. A difficult task, but worth it. [00:07:41] Speaker C: I. I also found it a difficult task, but I also cheated because I intentionally made Dave go first. [00:07:49] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:07:50] Speaker C: So I could, I couldn't be like, [00:07:51] Speaker B: okay, I think Dave was just ready, man. He was just like, here it is. [00:07:59] Speaker C: I'm real happy with the, the. The playlist we got going between the two of us. [00:08:03] Speaker B: Well, there's like some analysis paralysis, I suppose, of looking at all that. All of it. I took my kid, my about to be 5 years old kid to the. A candy store, like one of these hipster Austin candy stores. And. And she was like, there's so much candy here. And we like grabbed a few things. She's like, can we just leave? I'm like, yeah. She's like, I don't want to be in her anymore. I just want to get home so I can. [00:08:27] Speaker D: Well, see, that's an important moment to teach her about the concept of chunking. Like, if you get something that's like overwhelming, like you break it into small sections and then it's not so overwhelming. But no, I think you made the right choice. Like, let's go. [00:08:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:08:42] Speaker D: She's. [00:08:43] Speaker B: Place like that. We'll go to Target. It's like her favorite store. And she's like, she'll pick out her one thing because I don't want to. I don't want her to be an. When she grows up, you should only chat and all that. So like, she gets to have one thing. And like, oh, well, this one's less than $30. How about that? And she's cool, let's go home. I'm like, well, I have to get you bananas too, because if you don't eat, you die and I'll go to jail. But she doesn't quite. Yeah, but okay, so full disclosure, Dave is like a very old friend of Mine. We've known each other for years and years and we. Davey introduced me. Or at least we found it together. I don't know. Anime. [00:09:21] Speaker D: I'd say we found it together. We were, we were very much into comics at the time and like there happened to be a significant overlap and we were right there like on the ground floor. The golden age. When it started to be a little bit more accessible and, and maybe not quite as niche as it was like in the 80s. [00:09:42] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, I remember like just going to. Going to the mall all the time and going to Suncoast and getting like thirty dollar import VHS that was like, with two episodes, like sixteen of Evangelion. Like there's two episodes on this. Great. [00:10:00] Speaker D: You watch one of them, immediately watch another one. [00:10:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Imagine. [00:10:05] Speaker C: Who knows if like the subtitles were like anywhere remotely accurate on those? [00:10:10] Speaker B: Like, that's a good question. How were the subs in the mid-90s? [00:10:15] Speaker D: Depends on who was producing them. They're like. A lot of the times I feel like Viz did a lot of dub titling, like where they would just take the ADR script for the dub and then turn it into subtitles. [00:10:31] Speaker B: Okay. [00:10:33] Speaker D: Like, some of their job, some of their dubs are, are kind of charming in their own way. And then you get like Central Park Media or, or manga video. Like a lot of times those dubs were straight ass and like, oh, just awful. [00:10:49] Speaker B: But some of them memorable that they're good. [00:10:52] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They kind of come back around and are charming somehow. [00:10:56] Speaker B: You sent me in spoiler alert like, like, like you sent me like over Instagram like a clip of Macross plus and I didn't realize it was Bryan Cranston the whole time. Dude, I know character and I know he like did stuff for like Power Rangers and all that. He's like a voiceover guy for the longest time before he got like Malcolm in the Middle. And then now he's like one of our biggest guys. [00:11:15] Speaker D: But I was like, that was Cranston, dude. It totally is too. Like, because we watched the OVA series and it was only available dubbed, which is odd to me. That's so weird to me that, that like something is available only dubbed. Of course, this was like maybe a year or two ago. That was before all of Macross is on Hulu now. [00:11:43] Speaker B: All of it. All of it. Because there's like a lot, all of it series, right? [00:11:47] Speaker D: Like the original series, Macross 0, Macross Plus, Macross 2, Macross Frontier, like Macross 7 and all of its movies. Like, it. Like there's. There's just a glut of Macross. [00:11:59] Speaker B: But then, like, what about, like. Because then they import Macross and call it Robotech. [00:12:04] Speaker D: It was incorporated into Robotech and because I have done a lot of reading into. The guy's name was Carl Masek, and he started a company called Harmony Gold. And Robotech was their first big project. But in order to air it on TV for kids in the 80s, obviously Macross had to be edited or censored because it's. It's pretty violent and deals with a lot of really heavy themes. But then they also took like, two other, like, lesser performing shows from the same studio and kind of chopped them up and cobbled together like a. Like a story of. Of some fashion. It's okay. But I prefer the component pieces on their own. But I will always have a love for Robotech. Tbh. But the one thing that Robotech did fumble was the music for Macross. [00:13:06] Speaker B: Interesting. [00:13:07] Speaker D: Like, because that. That is what Macross is really about. Like, it is about human culture and by way of music, and that is a common theme that you find through all iterations of Macross. [00:13:25] Speaker B: What did I think Macross plus was like an outlier kind of Elseworlds thing, like 500 years later, this pop idol, blah, blah, blah. [00:13:34] Speaker D: I mean, it does take place within the continuity. Okay, so Macross plus takes place a couple years before Macross Frontier, which is an excellent series, by the way, but it takes place like decades after the original series, right? [00:13:50] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Okay. Because there's like a weird alliance with the. All right. Anyways. [00:13:55] Speaker D: But it was like, it was. It was sort of a passion project from what I can imagine. [00:14:01] Speaker B: Yeah. When we were kids, found anime and we were. We were like, okay, like, you know, Ghost in the Shell. What? Akira, of course. Ninja Scroll. These, like, kind of classics. Way before that when we were like, buying or. Or. No, that was like 98, right? Ghost in the Shell. Like proper Ghost in the Shell. [00:14:27] Speaker D: That was like Ghost in the Shell that came out on VHS in America in, like, 1996. And that was the first anime VHS that I ever. [00:14:37] Speaker C: Wow. [00:14:39] Speaker B: That was a big one. [00:14:40] Speaker D: I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that I've watched that movie over a hundred times. Or like, I would literally just watch it over and over and over. And I have thoughts about that movie. I love that movie. But the score is amazing. [00:14:56] Speaker C: It's other. It's otherworldly, haunting. Cyberpunk would have been in my track. [00:15:04] Speaker B: And like. Or like the all right. [00:15:07] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. [00:15:09] Speaker B: That would have been in my top five. Alex was asking me what my top five would have been. That one and like, from like 88 Sakura, dude. [00:15:17] Speaker D: And I think on the DVD that I had that first printing of the DVD for Akira, which is. They do a making of the soundtrack and it's so interesting because they use, like, microtonal, like, Indonesian, like, instruments and performers. [00:15:38] Speaker B: Well, it's crazy. Drums and. [00:15:40] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, what that is, dude, it's like a series of planks, like, over a hole in the ground, and you get like six people and they're like, beating on them, like in sequence. Yeah. [00:15:53] Speaker C: That's awesome, man. [00:15:54] Speaker D: That movie, it's wild. [00:15:58] Speaker B: And then like. Oh, and recently I. To segue a little bit into Alex's intro. Like, we. I've made Alex and his roommates watch Ninja scroll, which is very hard to find right now. [00:16:12] Speaker C: Sell the. Sell the High Seas in order to get that. [00:16:15] Speaker B: For X reasons, whatever. But. Yeah, but I think. I think you liked it. [00:16:21] Speaker C: Yeah, no, no, like, it's. I. I love over the Top and. [00:16:27] Speaker D: Yeah, and I think that's. That's a good thing that you do because Yoshiaki Kawajiri, the director of that, that's kind of like his trademark. The. The style over substance. Yeah. And it. It follows the rule of cool more than anything else, which, you know, you watch some of his older stuff. He also did Wicked City. He did. [00:16:50] Speaker B: I remember watching that one with you, Ben, and my. [00:16:52] Speaker D: Dude, that movie is int. [00:16:55] Speaker B: Hoping my mom doesn't come downstairs. Like, it's crazy. A lot of. A lot of vaginal. [00:17:03] Speaker D: Oh, God. That's something I'm afraid of now. [00:17:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Like. Well, that changed me as a person. [00:17:08] Speaker C: Yeah. I definitely wasn't expecting the vagina snake and. [00:17:12] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:17:13] Speaker C: But not. Definitely not a low point of the movie. [00:17:16] Speaker B: But now. Now you'll know never to not expect it. Right. [00:17:21] Speaker C: Exactly. [00:17:22] Speaker D: But he also ended up doing Vampire Hunter D. Bloodlust. [00:17:27] Speaker B: Which one is that? I know there's the Talking Hand and all that. [00:17:31] Speaker D: Well, there's. [00:17:32] Speaker C: That. [00:17:32] Speaker D: The. The. There's the original OVA from like 85, which is the classic one. And then you have the movie from 2000. That's a great movie. [00:17:50] Speaker B: So I. I moved around a bit. I, you know, went to Florida for school and New York for a minute and then ended up in Austin and met Alex. And Alex got me back into this world and I'll accept me into. Well, I had to share Minecraft plus and Alex shared Gunbuster. I'd Never seen it. Which is like that cross adjacent. But like you know, it's a different thing. [00:18:17] Speaker D: I would still say that it's, it's kind of niche [00:18:22] Speaker B: non stop for this. Okay. I, I don't have my anime street cred quite as much as y', all but. But, but yeah, Gun Buster, which is, which is amazing. And, and Frieren when that was a big thing. And Demon Slayer, Death Note, Chainsaw man, like it's this modern era of stuff. Your first anime. [00:18:48] Speaker C: So my first anime like growing up there would be in a block on Adult Swim where they would show stuff like Bleach and One Piece and Naruto and they would often have like really shitty four kids dubs that completely butcher the plot of the original. [00:19:08] Speaker D: But God forbid if you smoke a cigarette in an anime, it's now a lollipop. [00:19:14] Speaker C: Yeah. So something that like I now ironically miss the four kids used to do is like if a character had a gun, they would replace it with like a walkie talkie. And so then people would be like pointing walkie talkies at each other, all threatening. [00:19:27] Speaker B: My broken remote. [00:19:30] Speaker C: ET didn't even replace literally the exact same. [00:19:34] Speaker D: Oh man. [00:19:37] Speaker C: But hey, like like eight year old me never questioned it, so I guess it did. [00:19:41] Speaker B: Was it Tsunami? Because in our day it was called Toonami. [00:19:44] Speaker C: Yeah, well so like Toonami has its own like fabled history. But most of the stuff I watched ended up being on Adult Swim later on where. Yeah, it was like, like Saturday nights. Yes, Saturday nights. Detective Conan, Bleach, Ghost in the Shell. They had like a trigun. [00:20:09] Speaker B: Okay. [00:20:10] Speaker C: They had like a really expansive black. And then like that. That's when I saw the first episodes of Cowboy Bebop and Neon Genesis Evangelion. [00:20:17] Speaker D: Which I remember when they heard that I'm like why are they airing this on tv? That doesn't make any sense. Nobody's gonna get it. [00:20:25] Speaker C: Yeah. And like just extremely like formative shows and kind of ingesting them in a way that it's kind of impossible to replicate now because you can just kind of go online and find any of these things and binge watch them. But kind of watching it out of sequence week to week, not even like me being young, not even be able to stay up every night and missing some weeks. It was this really big air of mystique around these shows that was just deeply kind of like fascinating and yeah like above all like something that definitely didn't was not just sort of a fad or kind of short lived interest was the music that lived in all these shows, it's the number one thing that, like, stays with you after watching a show is, like, you associate and anime just as much the visuals as you do the audio. And I. I think that's the cool thing about anime is that it. It feels like the soundtracks, definitely the openings, they. They just have like, much more of a character and active presence in the shows than in. Absolutely. Media. [00:21:42] Speaker D: So, like, it's. It's almost like it's. It's part of the full package. Yeah. [00:21:48] Speaker C: And, like. And, like, when you, like, kind of learn more about how, like, these shows come about, like, through production committees, you really get an appreciation for how, like, everything is just being simultaneously developed. Like, it's not a thing where, like, the music was created first and then the animation. Like, everyone's working together to get the vibe that they want for the show, and it just creates, like, such a strong identity for the final product. Yeah. And then. But then also it's a giant robots shooting lasers. [00:22:23] Speaker B: That brings me to my first and kind of only question. And then we'll just get into the whatever. Can you define anime beyond Japanese animation? Like, I was. I was just thinking. And then speaking of, like. Like how it's now, like, kind of ubiquitous, like, culturally. Like, I was talking to Dave about it. Like, when we went to the mall as kids, it was like in that dark corner of Suncoast and like, like these weird animated imports. And now you go to the mall and I thought they were dead. I thought. I thought malls were done. We loved them all. You could speak to. Spend eight hours there, right. Beat up a kid at KB Toys. You go buy $3 Evangelion. [00:23:06] Speaker D: Yeah. Break. Break some lightsabers at KB Toys and then sneak over to the Sun Coast. [00:23:13] Speaker B: Go to the Dollar Theater or whatever. And all. You know, you spend a day there and your mom picks you up at 8. But like, now. Now I go back to the mall and it's. Every kiosk is like, anime and like, I don't know. I guess I don't want to be, like, oversimplification or anything, but, like, I got Pokemon helped. I don't know. But now I get. I don't know. But like, like, the game, you're not. [00:23:36] Speaker D: You're not wrong. [00:23:37] Speaker C: But. [00:23:38] Speaker B: But like, like, culturally, it's just. It's just there now. Like, we. We went to the mall to go see, like, the new Demon Slayer or whatever. Like, it's. It's in the AMC in the mall. It's crazy. [00:23:48] Speaker C: People. People were literally cosplaying like cosplaying characters at the showing that we were going to. [00:23:54] Speaker D: Oh God. Yeah. You guys, you guys live in Austin, right? And I, I live in Ann Arbor. So like. Yeah, it's, it's kind of the same town. Like we get all these, these college kids who are, well, God bless them. They're just really into it and [00:24:13] Speaker C: you know. [00:24:14] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, God bless them. That's all I can say. It's like, it's like I go to anime conventions and see the people cosplaying and there's just like, like it makes me happy but also makes me go, what? [00:24:26] Speaker B: Like, why get it? This used to be punk rock. [00:24:30] Speaker D: No, it's, it's like they're like super cringy, but I love that they're cringy because they, they just purely love it. And I'm just like, yeah, yay. Don't talk to me, please. [00:24:42] Speaker C: Yeah, braver. Braver than me is the thought I often have. [00:24:46] Speaker D: Right. [00:24:49] Speaker C: But yeah, no, it's, it's cool. Like, I like, I think defining, defining anime is pretty hard. And yeah, like you kind of brought it up. Like there's this sort of like knee jerk reaction to really want to go kind of region lock that word. Just like just animation produced from Japan. There, There are a lot of purists that that's, that is their go to. And, and like I can see the argument for that. Sure. [00:25:14] Speaker D: I mean, and, and I'm kind of to that like that way to a certain extent. But I mean, I think it's more of a, a way of telling stories. [00:25:27] Speaker B: Okay. [00:25:27] Speaker D: Like a, A way of presenting fiction in a way that, that you can't normally do with filmmaking ear. To a lesser extent in like comics and stuff like that. Like the stories you can tell, the type of stories that you can tell, which has obviously changed in anime over the decades. Like obviously we, you know, we were there for, for evangelion in the 90s and how that literally changed the way that stories were told. Not just, well, eventually, like immediately in the medium itself, but that had actually filtered out through like the cultural zeitgeist. Like you can have these stories with these, with these themes that go beyond just selling toys or you know, monster of the week type. Like you could actually have like deeply affecting works of fiction, speculative fiction. [00:26:26] Speaker B: There's a world where Ava could have been just another Voltron. [00:26:31] Speaker C: Right. [00:26:32] Speaker B: But, but it's so wildly intimate and well written, depending on who you ask. And like, it's clearly not Vulture. [00:26:45] Speaker D: It's funny that you mentioned that because like Just. Just a short, short little segue. My partner Ezra and I, we were going to the movies here in town, and I was wearing an End of Evangelion T shirt, you know, with. With unit one busting out of Ray's eye, like, yeah, right, right. [00:27:04] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. [00:27:06] Speaker D: And. And the person taking my ticket is like, oh, sweet show. A terrible show. [00:27:10] Speaker C: And I'm like, what? [00:27:12] Speaker B: Why? [00:27:14] Speaker D: I'm like, why is it terrible? [00:27:16] Speaker B: Easy. Don't share your opinions about Ava with Dave. [00:27:21] Speaker D: I did not. I did not engage. I'm like, yeah. [00:27:23] Speaker B: Oh, cool. [00:27:24] Speaker D: Thanks. Thanks, man. Thanks. And this kid was like, maybe 19. [00:27:28] Speaker B: I'm like, he said, cool shirt, but terrible show. He said. [00:27:34] Speaker D: He's like, the show's awesome, but show's also terrible. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. You can't just say that. [00:27:41] Speaker B: Like, I would have engaged. [00:27:43] Speaker C: I love. I love. I love how polarizing Ava is. I. I think it's. I think it's the mark of, like, a show that actually kind of, you know, talked about something truly. [00:27:54] Speaker D: Like, people are still talking about it. Like, it's still. It's still relevant after, you know, almost 30 years. Like, I think exactly 30 years. Holy [00:28:08] Speaker C: to your, like, kind of like Voltron point. Like, I think Voltron probably had an episode where they, like, try to be dark and edgy, or they had a different episode director that wanted to, like, take things in a different direction, and then he got a shot on a later show that somewhere down the rabbit hole, like, then goes on to inspire Hideakiano with Evangelion. [00:28:31] Speaker D: Like, right. [00:28:32] Speaker C: It's. It's this thing where, for whatever reason, within that medium at the time that it was really developing, there wasn't a whole lot of oversight over the creatives and how they went about. Like, right, they. [00:28:47] Speaker D: They were like Autours. They could kind of do whatever the. They wanted as long as the money was there. [00:28:53] Speaker C: And, like, because of that, they, like, I think the. Like. Like, all the way back to the question of, like. Like what? Like, can you. Like some of anime. I would probably say anime is animation made from Japan. I probably would also go for, like, the purest answer. But I think people conflate what anime has done with what it is. And what it's done is it's taken animation to a more serious artistic level than the west has. And it's not. It's not to say that, like, the stuff that Disney did wasn't important, but [00:29:30] Speaker D: it very much stayed in its lane. It was not provocative and not. [00:29:34] Speaker C: Not only that, it. It cornered the market. For other adult animators like, it. It basically ruined Ralph Balchi's career, made [00:29:43] Speaker D: Fritz and Don Bl. [00:29:44] Speaker C: Yeah. And. And like, those guys could have brought animation in the west to something completely different. But for whatever reason, whatever, you know, puzzle piece or Tetris pieces of circumstance in Japan, it just kind of allowed it to kind of bloom into this really wild, crazy and fun kind of direction that, you know, has kind of captured people for decades at this point. [00:30:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, how about this as like a really, you know, above, you know, cloud level question? Like, why in Japan is it fine to animate adult stories, but in, you know, our. Our hemisphere, it's like fairy tales or musicals. Like, like, like. And then Disney essentially animating Broadway musicals and animals, doing Shakespearean. [00:30:40] Speaker D: Because I. I believe in the west that animation is. It. There is this. This belief that that animation is strictly for kids. And I think that's. That's due in part to, you know, Walt Disney back in the 30s and 40s. But even back then, like, they. They made, like, Warner Brothers and, you know, RKO and Tex Avery. They made animation they made cartoons for too. But it was. It was the kids one, you know, Chuck Jones, for God's sake. Chuck Jones. Genius. But no, and I think it is the way that. Well, it's the same thing with comic books in the West. Like, comics in the west are viewed as, I guess, infantile. I don't know if that's necessarily the word I want to use, but I'll go with that for right now. [00:31:40] Speaker C: Yeah, definitely. For sure. Used to. I think. I think now it's probably become a little bit more mainstream. [00:31:44] Speaker D: Oh, sure. But I mean, there's still a little bit of stigma to that. Whereas in Japan, I feel like manga and anime are. They're for everybody. Like, they're not specifically for children. [00:31:59] Speaker B: Comics in America also had that code, and it didn't have that stigma. And then the parents came in and they started claim censoring. Right. That appears to have not happened in Japan. [00:32:13] Speaker D: Well, we could talk about the Comics code and the hay's code for that metal, for that matter. And the. The Hays Code, which was for films. [00:32:21] Speaker B: Okay. [00:32:22] Speaker D: For movies. That also very much affected the way that Americans and the west consumed media in the 50s, 40s, 50s and 60s. [00:32:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:33] Speaker D: And then the comics code was in effect until the late 80s or the early 90s. [00:32:40] Speaker B: I mean. [00:32:40] Speaker D: Yeah, right about the time when that, like, Spawn and whatnot were coming out. Like, that was. I remember that was. That was so edgy. And I think that that the edgy 90s, the extreme 90s in comics was a knee jerk reaction to the doing away the comics code. [00:33:01] Speaker B: That's how we got image and all that. And like, exactly, like the spawn's gonna rip some guy's spine out and it's gonna be. [00:33:07] Speaker C: It's no. No coincidence that, like, around that same time, like, the big anime crossover sort of started happening. [00:33:14] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:33:15] Speaker C: Like the first kind of renaissance. [00:33:18] Speaker B: How about like the. Well, I don't know if it's even like a thing, but like the 80s, like, horror collector boom of like, you know, this, like this kind of culture [00:33:27] Speaker C: around [00:33:29] Speaker B: genre and stuff again emerging and like, people being, you know, metal fans, horror fans, like, just weird fans. And like, I don't want to call anime weird, but it certainly kind of [00:33:40] Speaker D: was in the West. I would say that anime and manga were definitely counterculture for a while, and it would filter its way into counterculture circles like, like your goths, your metalheads, your horror fans. Like, that's who initially saw these things, and they're like, whoa, holy [00:33:59] Speaker B: Wicked city would be NC and 17. [00:34:02] Speaker D: NC 17, absolutely. [00:34:03] Speaker B: That would. [00:34:04] Speaker D: You would not get a theatrical release for that, I don't think. Not in a mainstream theater for sure. But what Ninja scroll either, like, for as, like, sexually graphic and violent as that movie is. [00:34:17] Speaker B: Jenna Snake. [00:34:20] Speaker C: There's a. [00:34:21] Speaker B: There's a rape in it. It's rape. There's literal race. There's sa. For our SEO. [00:34:27] Speaker C: Great. [00:34:28] Speaker B: There's a grape. So much. I'm 43. Can we just call it what it is you're gonna make? You're gonna connect grapes to this sexual violence. [00:34:39] Speaker C: All right. Keep up with the times, old man. All right. [00:34:42] Speaker B: Alex, by the way, is younger if you haven't. [00:34:45] Speaker D: Damn kids. [00:34:46] Speaker C: I turned 30 recently. [00:34:48] Speaker D: Oh, gosh. [00:34:49] Speaker B: You're just hurting SEO. All right. It makes me mad. So should we, like, have we defined anime? Should we get it? [00:34:58] Speaker D: Yeah, it's. It's a difficult thing to define, but I. I agree with Alex, going with, like, the purest definition. I think that is the. The textbook definition, but it's something that carries a lot more meaning [00:35:14] Speaker B: the. [00:35:15] Speaker D: The more you look at it. I think it's deceptively simple on the surface, but layers, man. [00:35:23] Speaker B: Like, it's. It's animation from Japan, but I also know it when I see it kind of thing. [00:35:28] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah. [00:35:30] Speaker B: All right, cool. Well, along with a lot of these awesome films and shows comes the music. So I've asked our panel. I don't want to be this organized over organizing because Jake's not here. Let's just make Jake jealous he's not here. Be Feel free to tell embarrassing Elliot stories of which you both have plenty, I'm sure. So I've asked y' all to like put together. I said five, but you both put together ten and a half songs that you enjoy from. [00:36:05] Speaker D: It's like I included honorable mentions. I gave you five core ones. [00:36:11] Speaker C: I think the instructions were five plus some honorable mentions. [00:36:15] Speaker B: I said include some honorable mentions just in case one of the hosts fails, which has happened. [00:36:25] Speaker D: The excrement has hit the fan and here we are honorable mentions. [00:36:30] Speaker B: Oh, I should honorable mention is Jake who's not here and he's an honorable host. Oh I should ask like since it is like the the idea of the show is like electronic music kind of versus or comparing and contrasting to Radio rock before we get into the anime music and talk for three more hours. Who Dave and Alex, who are your electronica guys? Who are your radio Rock guys? [00:37:02] Speaker D: I mean the deaf punk Orbital. [00:37:08] Speaker C: That fun for me too. [00:37:13] Speaker D: This turd right here. Saw them in New York. [00:37:17] Speaker B: Oh me? [00:37:17] Speaker D: Yeah, I did and I am literally seething with. With jealousy. [00:37:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:37:23] Speaker D: Hey, I'm just a guy who [00:37:26] Speaker B: it's the happiest I've ever been and I have a daughter. [00:37:30] Speaker C: Dave and I are hoping for a live 2027 trying to like make out code like Da Vinci Code style secrets and their social medias about oh no, I'm. [00:37:41] Speaker D: I pay very close attention to to anything that comes across their social media platforms. [00:37:46] Speaker B: I'm like did you see tama Tomas Bengalter DJing with Fred again. Again? Yeah, put that whole thing out. He put the whole tour out apparently. But you can watch like two hours of Tomas M. Galer just playing tunes with Fred again. Man, he seems like the sweetest dude ever. Fred. Oh my God, I want to hang out with that guy so bad more than I want to hang out with Tomas Big Alger. Honestly. Because I don't want him to be like an be like no, the music [00:38:17] Speaker D: you listen to his sheet [00:38:20] Speaker B: because he is French. Don't forget Fred again is like oh Canadian or something. I don't know. I don't even know where he's from. [00:38:27] Speaker D: But speaking of of electronic music, like obviously Orbital. I know that's a big one for you too. [00:38:34] Speaker B: Also when we were getting into anime we were all getting into electronic music [00:38:38] Speaker D: and yeah, I am actually a huge fan of like I'm. [00:38:46] Speaker C: I'm really. [00:38:48] Speaker D: Dude, he is. He is so cool. I I love his music and doing also sent Carpenter Brute. [00:38:57] Speaker C: Yeah yeah. Another One. God damn it, Dave. [00:39:00] Speaker D: I'll have to send you some of some of Carpenter Brute's songs. Like he did the soundtrack for Hotline Miami, which is a, a retro inspired game. It's amazing. [00:39:10] Speaker B: Oh, see the games. You lose with the games. I don't. [00:39:13] Speaker D: You don't even have to play the game. Just listen to the music. The music's incredible, Alex. [00:39:18] Speaker B: Killer video game music. And I've like saved a lot of it. [00:39:22] Speaker C: Obi Fox, the Fury soundtrack. I think that also has some carbon to bread on it. [00:39:28] Speaker B: Also, Kavinsky did stuff on Drive, right? [00:39:31] Speaker D: Yes, he did. He did. Night Call. [00:39:35] Speaker B: Yeah, that's, that's now like one of like the man, whatever that is that could have. Imagine like the animated flickering buildings behind as the car stays stationary, but and yet somehow animated. [00:39:49] Speaker D: It definitely has an anime aesthetic. It does. [00:39:53] Speaker C: He's wearing fingerless gloves. Like that already is like 90% to [00:39:58] Speaker D: the way the jacket. Like that, that, that drip, that is like some, some old school anime drip. [00:40:04] Speaker B: Like, and like, and he'll stand still because he couldn't afford to animate his mouth too much. You know, [00:40:11] Speaker D: never talks like, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:40:14] Speaker C: They paid Ryan Gosling by the word. [00:40:17] Speaker B: An anime vibe to him for sure. And so who are the do. Are you like any pop rock guys? Reader rock guys? Jake's are like, you know, Tool Corn, Blink. [00:40:31] Speaker D: Like, honestly, I gotta go with. I mean, I love Tool. [00:40:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:36] Speaker D: You know, Ana is an amazing album. Mastodon. Absolutely. I wouldn't even really call them like Radio Rock. Like, like elo. Like, I have really come to love elo. [00:40:49] Speaker B: Sorry. Boy, Alex likes elo, right? Or did you kind of. Or did, did your dad say hello [00:40:56] Speaker C: and he said, I feel like Padre would be an ELO hater? [00:41:01] Speaker B: Well, yeah, your dad's weird about. [00:41:03] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Very arbitrarily so. No, I, I love yellow. Dave, have you seen that? Daikon 4. [00:41:11] Speaker D: Yes. [00:41:12] Speaker C: Animation. Yeah. [00:41:13] Speaker D: Yes. That was how Gainax got their start. [00:41:16] Speaker C: Twilight Electric Light Orchestra. [00:41:20] Speaker D: It's perfect. They like, so basically like before they even had a studio, these guys did this like animated trailer for an anime convention. And it's like they hand animated it and it's set to the song Twilight by elo. And it is, it is a thing of beauty. I try to watch it at least once a year, you know, just to commemorate the event. [00:41:44] Speaker C: But yeah, I, I, I highly recommend anyone listening to Look it up because it's just a short four minute stint and the, the loads of references in it are, is actually impressive. But it's, yeah, if you look up Daikon 4. [00:41:58] Speaker B: Okay. [00:41:59] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:42:02] Speaker C: The only problem is that it is. There's like no original scan of that. [00:42:11] Speaker D: No, no, it doesn't exist. Yeah, I mean it was. It was like a animation. Like these guys made it themselves and they didn't even get permission to use the song. But Jeff Lynn's a cool guy and let it happen. [00:42:26] Speaker C: The story is that they. They were literally like, they finished the last frame of animation literally like 30 minutes before the. [00:42:33] Speaker D: Yeah. The opening ceremony. [00:42:35] Speaker C: Yeah. And got in just some time baller. [00:42:39] Speaker B: I love that. Well, speaking of. And before we get. We're gonna. This is. Oops. All segues, but. Dave, can we tell Alex about Ava Fest when we were kids? [00:42:51] Speaker D: Oh, man. [00:42:51] Speaker B: I mentioned it in like the. I mentioned it in like, if you [00:42:54] Speaker D: could even call it. We call it Ava Fest. But it was awes. And I don't know if you guys knew this, but. But Elliot was a PK growing up. [00:43:06] Speaker B: Yes, he was a pk. [00:43:07] Speaker D: And so we had access to a youth building of a church, a mega church that. That we attended at the time. [00:43:16] Speaker B: Walked at, graduated. [00:43:17] Speaker C: This took way too long. The PK stood for passer kid. [00:43:21] Speaker D: Yeah. Player killer. [00:43:24] Speaker B: I was. I was at. I was at an apartment complex. My. My old apartment complex. Like, and like meeting a new neighbor, just like having a beer in his apartment. And like he said something and I go, pk, are you a pk? I just, I just vibed. He's like. He goes, yeah. I'm like, nice. We like sense each other's presence. Like I was Daredevil or something. It's crazy. Yeah. We watched Evangelion in a church, which is wild. [00:43:50] Speaker D: And we had our buddy Mark, who is a. Is an amazing artist. [00:43:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:43:56] Speaker D: He got. He made shirts and we got him silk screened and everything. [00:44:03] Speaker B: And we invited girls to it for some reason. [00:44:07] Speaker D: Like, girls wanna. [00:44:08] Speaker C: All right. Okay. What was. What was the room reaction? [00:44:13] Speaker B: It was just. It was just like us and it was just Evangelion and like 15 friends hanging out watching 12 Hours of Evangelion. We just marathon as much as was. As much as was available at the time at least. [00:44:24] Speaker D: Really? I think we were missing just the last like four episodes, which would have [00:44:30] Speaker B: been a real weird. [00:44:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:44:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:32] Speaker C: That would have changed the entire tone of a fes. [00:44:37] Speaker D: That was like, oh, you had to make it weird. [00:44:39] Speaker B: Oh, at the end of the series, he stands up out of his chair and everyone applauds. [00:44:44] Speaker C: All right, congratulations. [00:44:44] Speaker D: I say congratulations. It doesn't make us. Yes, it does. You just. [00:44:51] Speaker C: That's not to you unironically. One of the greatest show endings of all time. [00:44:56] Speaker D: Truly a dude got death threats for that. [00:44:59] Speaker C: Yep. Yep, that was good. [00:45:02] Speaker B: Okay, who wants to start with their 5? And then we'll go. [00:45:07] Speaker D: Alex, you wanna. You wanna jump in with your. With your five and I'll take mine. [00:45:11] Speaker B: Alex thought maybe we go chronological of release. Well, who's got that, Dave? [00:45:18] Speaker D: I think I do, actually. With Safari Eyes by Miki Matsubara. [00:45:25] Speaker B: So this is the. Wait, is this from something or is it just like. [00:45:28] Speaker D: It is from Dirty Pear, Project Eden. [00:45:32] Speaker B: Dirty Pear? I don't remember watching a lot of Dirty Fair, but remember the commercials for it? Are we gonna have to talk about how horny this gets? [00:45:42] Speaker D: Oh, dude, for real, for real. But dude. And the cool thing about this song is that the opening sequence that they do for the movie doesn't look anything like the rest of the movie. It is like some seriously avant garde. Like it is gorgeous even now. Like you know, 30 years after the 40 years after the fact that like it is like stunning. Like you studied in art school stunning. [00:46:11] Speaker B: Right on. I'm gonna have it. I'm gonna have it playing underneath us. Very cool. And what year was that? [00:46:20] Speaker D: 1984, I believe. 84 or 85. [00:46:24] Speaker B: All right. [00:46:25] Speaker D: Right at the. Right at the apex of the whole city. Well, shortly after the apex of the city pop movement. [00:46:34] Speaker C: I just love how like that entire genre has had like such a huge resurgence. [00:46:39] Speaker D: Dude, it makes me so happy. Cuz like I first started hearing and I'm like, whoa, what? This sounds familiar, but I know I've never heard it before, but I used to watch a lot of old anime, so I'm like. And then I. I really fell in love with it. You can like ask my people that I work with, like, like. Yeah, listens to City Pop all the time. [00:47:00] Speaker B: Oh, is this the. The vocalist that did the. [00:47:04] Speaker D: Yeah, Stay with me. [00:47:05] Speaker B: Stay with me. Cuz I was in viral like a year ago. Like on Tik Tok or whatever the like, like, is your mom Japanese and above 48 years old? Does she know? And like kids would play to her like, stay with me. How cool is that? All right, is this a good idea chronologically? Do we know? [00:47:32] Speaker C: Yeah, we can find out. [00:47:35] Speaker B: All right, well, you guys take the lead. I'm gonna. I'll let you all go. What's next? [00:47:44] Speaker D: So I think the next one would be. Oh, no. Yes. Yeah, yeah, it would be Gunbuster. [00:47:50] Speaker C: Yeah. 89Y. [00:47:52] Speaker B: Wow. Well, Alex, tell us about Gunbuster because I know it's like your fave [00:47:58] Speaker C: yes. Real, real quick, though, Like. Like, this song is honestly just like nostalgia heroin. This is what I imagine heroin would feel like if I were to ever do it. [00:48:08] Speaker D: It's. It's like a. A sweet nostalgia. Like, it's. It is like the. I don't even say prototypical pop song, but, like, it gives you warm feelings as you're like, yeah, this is gonna be fun, but it's a lie. It's all a liego is gonna hurt you. [00:48:26] Speaker C: Like, I think it's a great first bop because, like, it starts this trend of Japanese music where they have like pretty upbeat rhythm sections with like, just the absolute most like, depressing and somber melodies. And like, it just is. It's this weird mix where, like, they could be like, singing about the saddest thing in the world, but, like, have like, just such a nice poppy tune at the same time. But yeah, no. Gunbuster. Gunbusters is my favorite thing that I've ever watched. It's a six episode ova. [00:49:10] Speaker B: Explain the story in 11 seconds. [00:49:13] Speaker C: 11 seconds. It is a story about a girl who pilots a robot and is really bad at it, but then is like, I need to stop being bad. And then she becomes good and fights for humanity. And all through the power of blood, sweat, and hard work. It's great. It is extremely goofy and corny, but every single episode, it just gets a little bit more serious. The stakes brace just a little bit, until episode six is just something else [00:49:53] Speaker D: entirely that's gut wrenching. Well, you don't realize how bad the odds are. Of course. They. They lie to the kids. Like, they're like, yeah, you're gonna be. You're. It's like, we're gonna beat him back. It'll be fine. But in the background you're hearing, like, how desperately bad this war is going and how they just keep losing territory until they're right at Earth's door. [00:50:17] Speaker C: Yep. Yeah. And it's. And this song, Fly High comes in at a time where it's. Gumbuster has like three climaxes for episodes four, five and six. And this song comes in. In episode five where one of the main characters has just fully given up on the mission because it would mean being forever separated from the person they love. And in a desperate plea to get her to save humanity, our main characters find their resolve and together they sing a duet and kill space aliens while they do it. [00:51:07] Speaker D: And at an honestly comical scale. Like, it's. [00:51:10] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, like so much. Yeah, they do. They do like a lightning kick and somehow billions of Aliens are just blowing up, even though they're not. There's no contact being made, but even [00:51:21] Speaker D: though it's like a drop in the bucket compared to the size of the actual force, like, they have literally, like, like fleets of aliens that are like the size of galaxies themselves. [00:51:32] Speaker C: And it's great because, like, you don't. You don't even really question it because at that point, you're so swept up in the emotion in the setting that you're just. You're fully bought on. And you're at the point where, like, if you knew the lyrics to the song, you would be singing it along with the characters as they go and they squish giant space bugs. And it's just amazing. [00:52:00] Speaker D: What did you think about Die Buster? [00:52:03] Speaker C: Oh, Die Buster is so good. Die Buster is the spiritual actual sequel. Slash, actual sequel. [00:52:10] Speaker D: Like, and that's another one that they kind of hoodwink you. You're like, what the hell is this? How. What does this have to do with Gunbuster? And then you're like, oh, I get it now. [00:52:19] Speaker C: Yep. Yeah. No, Dive Buster is awesome. I. I prefer Gunbuster over Die Buster, but not by much. [00:52:30] Speaker D: And [00:52:32] Speaker C: along with Gunbuster fully, Cooly is one of my favorite shows of all time. And Die Buster, stylistically, is like, beat for beat. Flcl. [00:52:43] Speaker D: Oh, absolutely. Same team. [00:52:46] Speaker C: Yep. And so there is a lot of love for Die Buster also. And Die Buster also has amazing music too. Like, GR Magic would have been on. On this list in another day. You know, it's. It's. It's just all so good. Yeah. [00:53:06] Speaker D: That's another. That's another opening. That kind of. It almost like it tricks you. [00:53:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:53:12] Speaker D: Like, you're like, wow, this is so sweet and bubble gummy and. And then you get to watch the show. You're like, holy. [00:53:19] Speaker C: Yeah. Yep. Just gets. Gets super serious out of nowhere. It's like, oh, but I want to see these characters in this situation. I want to see how they get out of it. [00:53:27] Speaker D: And I think the next one on the list. This is the first of the Yoko Kano produced tracks on my playlist. [00:53:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:53:38] Speaker D: Is after in the Dark. Torch song. [00:53:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:53:43] Speaker D: From Macross plus, which is. If you watch the actual episodes. Like, it's the ending theme to all the episodes. But song is amazing. [00:53:53] Speaker B: This one shook me, man. Like, I hadn't heard it in a while and Damn. Like, I remember, like, I. I found a CD wherever in our day, but you couldn't just, like, get it online or whatever? I must have found it somewhere for [00:54:09] Speaker D: a long Time it was unavailable anywhere except YouTube. [00:54:15] Speaker B: And I. I was saying to the group chat before the prepping for the show and all that, like I've looked and I wanted vinyl so bad and like, you know, like I've put so many of these tunes from Macross plus on like Mixtapes for Girls and like, like Myung's Theme and all that. Like. Oh my God, Voices. [00:54:32] Speaker D: I know Voices was a big one for your playlist. [00:54:34] Speaker B: Oh, for sure, man. Oh, like that movie kind of existed. It's an awesome flick, but like, or an OV or whatever. [00:54:44] Speaker D: I think both have their merits. I think I. I'm glad I sat down and had Ezra watch all six episodes with me. And of course I've seen the movie version a lot more. But watching the app, actual episodes, it's. [00:55:01] Speaker B: It's nice. [00:55:02] Speaker C: Cool. See, we like. Elliot showed me the movie and the [00:55:07] Speaker B: way I saw it. [00:55:09] Speaker C: Yeah, like, like similar. Similar to Gunbuster. Like Gunbuster also has a movie version. And I lowkey think that like just like the original, like episodic OVAs are probably the true way probably see them. [00:55:21] Speaker B: But that's how I saw it. [00:55:23] Speaker D: But the fact that they were even recut and released theatrically, like, I think that that's a testament to the. How just the quality of the. The. The story. Like. But they realized that, you know, maybe having a like a three and a half hour cartoon movie in theaters is. Is a little bit of a big ask for people to sit through and I'd be inclined to agree. [00:55:47] Speaker B: I don't anymore. I think you do. Like a limited engagement. You know, like it would be a thing. Perhaps Karen Apple. Come on. [00:55:57] Speaker D: Oh yeah. You know what? And Sharon Apple. That. That is oddly prescient simply because, you know, a rogue AI. [00:56:06] Speaker B: Yeah. In an AI celebrity. Like. [00:56:11] Speaker D: Yeah, we're. [00:56:12] Speaker B: We're right there. We're really close. And how. Yeah, yeah, it's just weird. Like this, like this movie about robots that turn into jet planes has also circulate circles around a pop Idle. That's an AI, but also secretly voiced by one of our protagonists who have deep. [00:56:36] Speaker D: That happened when they were kids. [00:56:39] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:56:40] Speaker D: There's a lot there. But dude, some of the fight scenes in Macross plus, like they still slap like. Oh yeah, yeah. It is all hand drawn. Like a lot of like they didn't have to go that hard, but they did. And which kind of leads me to believe that this wasn't made to be a product. Like this was made to like art for art's sake. Like it was really? Like an auteur vision of Macross. Like, Like a story within. [00:57:14] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:57:15] Speaker D: Because it is absolutely gorgeous even now. [00:57:19] Speaker B: Absolutely. What's next? [00:57:24] Speaker D: I want to say, because there's a couple things on there. I've got oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Cyan Shade, One Third Pure Heart Emotion, which is from the Rurouni Kenshin TV series. [00:57:38] Speaker B: Okay. [00:57:39] Speaker D: I think it was 94. It's like, what an absolute banger of a pop song. [00:57:46] Speaker B: Like, [00:57:48] Speaker D: like, I, I remember watching Tension on fan subs. That's how old I am on vhs. You pay the shipping and they send you a blank tape with at times poorly translated bootlegs off of Japanese tv. Yeah. Oh, I had a collection. I had a collection. I mean, that's how I saw Berserk for the first time. [00:58:18] Speaker C: 97. Yeah, it's my, my favorite PowerPoint presentation. [00:58:25] Speaker B: Alex got me into Berserk. [00:58:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:58:29] Speaker B: Holy. That's some next level. Yeah. Yeah. [00:58:35] Speaker C: Oh, Yep. Nice. [00:58:39] Speaker D: All right, well, I got the, the brain to sacrifice, like, shortly after. Yeah, shortly. Like, like two weeks after Mira died, which also happened to be my birthday. [00:58:55] Speaker C: Yeah. God work. Rip the goat. [00:58:59] Speaker D: Seriously. And I had honestly thought about putting some of the, the instrumental pieces from the Berserk soundtrack on the list. [00:59:10] Speaker B: I think it's a song called Guts the Piano. It was. Oh, that's, that's one of my top [00:59:16] Speaker D: five one Berserk Horses. Like, that song. Like, he was like, [00:59:31] Speaker C: Like a scotch backpipe playing for no reason. [00:59:33] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. [00:59:34] Speaker C: Most epic thing. Yeah, I did like this song. Like, this is the first time I, I, I, I listened to this song and I, I just thought it was like this really good, like, bridge from kind of more old school J pop to, like, the modern stuff. [00:59:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:59:54] Speaker D: And it has a timeless quality to it. Like, it feels very, very current. But, like, it's an old song. [01:00:01] Speaker C: Yeah, but, like, and it has, but it has, like, notably more like, bite to it also than, like the 80s. [01:00:10] Speaker D: And I think the guitar work on the song is, is really, really good. [01:00:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:00:15] Speaker D: Like, these guys were good musicians in addition to being, like a pop band. [01:00:20] Speaker B: Jake said it was his. One of his faves from the playlist. How about that? All right. [01:00:29] Speaker D: And then I think, I think the next one, it's like, I, I realized I like, if, if you took my stuff as like a bell curve, like, a lot of it falls in the 90s. [01:00:38] Speaker B: We're gonna bounce neck in the 90s. [01:00:40] Speaker C: Yeah. I think after, because you said this is 94, I think then that brings us to 95. Cruel angels, thesis, Neon Genesis, Evangelion. All right, well, okay, the big one. [01:00:57] Speaker B: We. We could just talk about Evangelion for three hours. [01:01:02] Speaker C: It's dangerous. It's dangerous. [01:01:03] Speaker D: What could we say that hasn't been said Said already by three white guys? [01:01:11] Speaker B: Evangelion Explain. [01:01:12] Speaker C: End of Evangelion was a happy ending. [01:01:14] Speaker D: And it's a four and a half hour YouTube video. [01:01:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I was like, hey, man, I just like fell asleep to like watching Evangelion Explain videos. I'm like, these guys don't get it. Everyone has a different opinion and everyone's like, like, no, I think it's actually this, like. [01:01:30] Speaker D: Well, it's not. [01:01:34] Speaker B: There's probably an absolute truth there. Yeah. But you're. You're kind of missing a few things and blah, blah. But clearly. Okay, listeners. First time I've shouted them out. If you're listening, wake up. We've had a few listeners that have told me, like, I fall asleep here. [01:01:50] Speaker D: You. You do have a rich, sonorous voice that is very smoothing. [01:01:55] Speaker A: Well, thank you, Dave. [01:01:59] Speaker C: That's a. [01:02:00] Speaker D: Hey, man, you need to get on NPR or some like. [01:02:03] Speaker B: Don't do that, Dave. [01:02:05] Speaker D: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm going let you do that. [01:02:15] Speaker C: Isn't that compliment. You get those because it's just like. Oh, yeah, like they're. That's like engagement for the entire. Yeah. [01:02:24] Speaker D: You know, they're listening to the full show. [01:02:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Anyways. What? I forgot where it was because I was just imagining people's thesis. Evangelion. Yeah. So this intro is like, unbelievable. [01:02:38] Speaker C: It's classic, like you said. There's like almost nothing we can say about it that hasn't been said by other people. But for the. The uninitiated, this intro was so iconic. [01:02:51] Speaker D: Like, it, like, it was unlike anything I had ever heard at the time. [01:02:55] Speaker C: Yeah, it stood the test of time. And it was also one of the most popular anime openings, like. Yeah. Of all time. Like, it was. It was part of that. It was also part of that kind of 90s, like, crossover resurgence of anime. They're like, like, how like Ava, Ava. The fest was a direct result. [01:03:17] Speaker B: But it's interesting to think about it, like, culturally, like, the music, like, it's not. This is like peak, you know, electronica, big beat, new metal nonsense. It could have been that. It could have been some metal thing. But no, they went like, for this like, weird jazz fusion thing, which is a choice. And like. And of course, course, like, the clothes are like, plug me to the moon. [01:03:42] Speaker D: Me to the moon. Oh, they don't have in the Netflix Yeah. It's not on the Netflix version. [01:03:49] Speaker B: Like, I said, recast the dub because Sinatra or what. [01:03:54] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:03:55] Speaker D: They didn't want to pay for the rights. [01:03:56] Speaker B: Come on. What's the point? [01:03:58] Speaker C: Then I will say for the Blu Ray disc, I totally got legally, like, every episode. Episode. Every episode has, like, a different [01:04:09] Speaker D: version. [01:04:12] Speaker C: And it's. It's great because I. I no longer know what the original one sounds like. [01:04:20] Speaker D: Oh, I know. I'll hear the original. I'll be like, [01:04:27] Speaker B: Anyways, listeners, if you haven't seen it, check out Evangelion. It'll be a lot. Lovely journey. [01:04:33] Speaker D: It's. It was a watershed moment. Like, much like Akuta did back in 88. Like, it literally changed the entire medium. That is not an overstatement. That is. That is just actual fact. That's what happened. Look at everything after. [01:04:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:04:50] Speaker D: And it. It changed everything. [01:04:53] Speaker C: And not. Not only that. It was. It was just so huge in Japan itself. Like, it. It became a household name, like, overnight. Fun fact. Someone did a video where they were like, can you live entirely off of Evangelion merchandise? And the answer to that question is, yes, you can. [01:05:12] Speaker D: Even still, it has managed to remain relevant this entire time. [01:05:19] Speaker C: Yep. [01:05:19] Speaker D: Even though there. There really hasn't been much new. I mean, the Rebuild films, which I love. [01:05:29] Speaker B: Like, here it is. [01:05:30] Speaker D: It's gonna happen. [01:05:31] Speaker B: I love it. [01:05:32] Speaker C: I was waiting for our first contentious beef moment. [01:05:35] Speaker B: Yeah, here we go. [01:05:36] Speaker D: I. I am a. I like how weird they got. And. And I think Mari's a great character. I think Oscar's a bag. Always has been. And. And Ray isn't even a person. So, like, [01:05:53] Speaker B: would you say three fifths? [01:05:58] Speaker D: Like, straight up, 50. 50, like, half angel, half dead lady. [01:06:03] Speaker B: I'll say for me, like. Like, with Evangelion, like, that hit me so hard. Like, the mythology of it all as a PK, even. [01:06:12] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:06:13] Speaker B: Holy. [01:06:13] Speaker D: I know. That's. That's what. That's what got you. [01:06:16] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I know what some of this is. You know, and, like, we were reading X Men at the time and all that, and I was like, yeah, all right. X Men. [01:06:26] Speaker D: Cool, cool, cool. [01:06:27] Speaker B: Chris Claremont. [01:06:28] Speaker D: Whatever. [01:06:29] Speaker B: I think that was the Net era and, like, Age of Apocalypse and all that stuff. [01:06:34] Speaker D: Slot. I think that was the. [01:06:36] Speaker B: You know, after that. But, like. But meanwhile, giant robots fighting God, literally. I'm like, oh, that's. That is how it would go down the Rapture. [01:06:49] Speaker D: Like, yeah, we all get turned into Fanta. [01:06:52] Speaker B: They're fighting against these angels that are trying to. Like, I could look this up. Like, I could ask my dad about this. And he said, dad. He said yangelion. Neon Genesis. He. I remember I asked him what does Evangel. Evangelion. Nar. Neon Genesis Evangelion mean? And he said, that's the gospel of the new world. Like. Like translated. Yeah. So man. And that hooked me. So I was like. Almost like X Men. [01:07:25] Speaker D: This is crazy. [01:07:29] Speaker B: Like, like, okay, yeah. How would humanity defend itself against God that wants to rapture his loved ones and then eradicate the rest? It's crazy. Meanwhile humanity being. And it's crazy. It's awesome. I love that. I'll re. Watch it. [01:07:49] Speaker D: It's just I. I've been thinking about it, but I don't know if I wanna. If I want to watch it with Ezra or watch it on my own. Because it's a lot if somebody's never seen it and there's. Well, it's heavy. [01:08:03] Speaker B: I bet you could like pick five episodes of the show and then a couple of the movies. [01:08:08] Speaker D: And we did watch the first Rebuild movie because that's like a one for one of like the first four episodes. [01:08:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:16] Speaker D: And that. That first Rebuild movie. You can't even lie. You can't even lie, dude. [01:08:22] Speaker C: I. [01:08:23] Speaker D: It's like when you hear it scream for the first time, you're like. [01:08:28] Speaker C: Well, like Ram. I own is the best angel in. In both. Both. [01:08:35] Speaker D: I don't know, man. I'm kind of down with cerule. Like. [01:08:40] Speaker B: All right, everyone said that. Favorite angel. [01:08:43] Speaker D: Favorite angel. Top five. [01:08:45] Speaker B: I don't have mine. What's the one? Oh, I guess I would have to. I was just like if I had to pick. I just. I love when is really is the one that unit. You have to do the ballet together. It's a great episode. [01:08:58] Speaker D: I love that episode. [01:08:59] Speaker B: I'll go for the aircraft carrier Starfish. [01:09:02] Speaker D: Sure, sure, sure, sure. [01:09:04] Speaker C: If you ever had to show someone a single episode of Evangelion, the that's dance Dance. Like you have to win is. Is probably the episode to watch. [01:09:16] Speaker D: Especially end of Evangelion and death and Rebirth. Like that. That fight scene with unit two versus the production AVAs like dude, that's intense. That is intense. [01:09:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:09:31] Speaker B: Those nasty ass non human things, man. They should all be destroyed. The lethal at three months. And I do mean lethal. Right. Hey, I really love the record of Lewis. Word tune. Is that one next? [01:09:45] Speaker D: I actually think next. Oh no. You know what? BBZ was 1989. [01:09:54] Speaker B: 89. [01:09:56] Speaker C: Going in the honorable mentions. [01:09:59] Speaker B: I missed out on Dragon Ball. I never watched it. [01:10:02] Speaker D: You know, I appreciate it for what it is. I appreciate the cultural impact that it's had. I've seen a lot of it. I. People are like, the stands are fine. Like, you can like it as much as you like. I love Akira Toriyama for what he contributed not only to anime and manga, but also to video games. Like, oh, yeah, Drag, Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger, like, all that kind of stuff. Like, his losses, it's felt, yeah. [01:10:34] Speaker C: Literally, like the basis of the entire JRPG genre is, like, created off of his character designs. [01:10:42] Speaker D: He was such a cool guy. He was such a fun dude. Like, but I feel like, well, that. And honestly, there have been a couple times I've. I've actually watched a couple episodes of Dragon Ball super and it's. I've gotten a little emotional watching. I'm like, this show, man. Like, how dare you? [01:11:02] Speaker C: There are a couple moments of the Tournament of Power where I'm like, yes, exactly. Let's go, let's go. But yeah, like. Like, for me, like, I think I. I start falling off of DBZ after the cell arc a little bit. I would go. I would go as far as to say, as if people are iffy about getting into Dragon Ball. Just watch the comical abridged version. Oh, sure, [01:11:29] Speaker B: if. [01:11:30] Speaker D: Yeah, if you're into that. No, DBZ Abridged is hilarious. [01:11:35] Speaker C: Yes. [01:11:38] Speaker D: Lesbian. [01:11:39] Speaker B: Oh, is that like a YouTube super cut thing? [01:11:42] Speaker C: Yeah, this. This group on YouTube team four star basically abridged the first few arcs of [01:11:49] Speaker D: Dragon Ball and is so funny. [01:11:52] Speaker C: My preferred method of re watching Dragon Ball at this point because. Because, I mean, I love the series too. Like, they did genuinely love it, but also of dbz. [01:12:04] Speaker D: The poor pacing of DBZ is legendary. They invented it so One Piece could then take it and make it worse. [01:12:14] Speaker C: For perspective, there's a fight in Dragon Ball Z that allegedly takes five minutes, yet spans like 17 episodes. No, no, no. I was gonna say 19. And then I cut it down. You. Yeah, like, I think like 17 to 19 episodes. And in India Bridge, like, there's just a moment where, like, the character asks the enemies why. He's like, do you know what a minute is? Like, the super. Super. [01:12:46] Speaker D: The dude singing. Singing this song. Hironobu Kageyama is one of the iconic anime opening singers. Like, dude, he's just got pipes, man. He did the theme to One Punch man, which is incredible. Or he's one of the singers on that Soul Taker. He did that one too. I'm. And he also did stuff for, like, Getter Robo and all. Just all kinds of. Like, we. We don't have time to talk about going a guy right now. But like I could talk about him for a minute. Like dude was a maverick and a pervert. But like, like, dude, you're gross. But not, not like in an abusive sort of way. He was just horny as like, okay, he likes him some pornographies. [01:13:43] Speaker B: All right, moving on. [01:13:44] Speaker D: Next one with adults. [01:13:46] Speaker B: Musicians be with adults. [01:13:49] Speaker D: Right. But then I believe I have my second Yoko Kano pick after. After that, which is a Dance of Curse, which is a part of the score from the Vision of Escaflowne, which is a really unique fantasy mecca. That's not something you see very often. Not only that, but it is also also the first time I ever recall what would become known as isekai. A teenage. A teenage girl from our world gets transported to another world magically. And they. In this world, they have giant robots that are powered by dragon heart stones and feed off your blood and like it's badass. And Yoko Kano did the squad score for that with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. So just like really rich like lush orchestral score that. That really fits the show. And yeah, it's just epic. I use. I use snippets from that soundtrack for like DND campaigns and like that just because it's bad. [01:15:03] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, that's part of that. Similar to like one third primarily. This is also my first time listening to this and like I. I immediately went to like the sounds like DS Ira, that one classical tune that's like super dramatic that is in every. Every movie. [01:15:21] Speaker D: Right. [01:15:21] Speaker C: And it's like a mix of that and one winged angel from Final Fantasy. [01:15:26] Speaker D: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Name dropping Noble Uematsu in here because the dude is the goat. [01:15:33] Speaker C: But yeah, it's like really awesome. Epic choir. [01:15:38] Speaker D: Well, not to mention like you get the name of the. The hero Mecca and the name of the show. It's like, yeah, yeah, dude, this is [01:15:50] Speaker C: badass my white ass saying Eska fl. [01:15:56] Speaker D: But if you haven't seen the show, you should check it out. You probably really dig it. It's really good. It has a lot of modern sensibilities. Now that I think back on it, what would eventually become the isekai genre I feel like was influenced a lot by well, Escaflowne and also Aura Battler Dunbeam and Orgas. [01:16:18] Speaker B: Are we still on Girl in a Magical World? Yes. Would that like predate Lightning Witch in the Wardrobe kind of? [01:16:29] Speaker D: No, no. But I mean I guess you could call that is. [01:16:34] Speaker B: But trying to draw parallels and like find the. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I'm trying to find checker books to read to my kid. [01:16:46] Speaker D: Oh, that'd be cute. [01:16:50] Speaker B: What's it? Red Wall. I've got Red Wall. It's on the shelf. And we're. We're 40 pages into Charlotte's Web, and it's getting hairy. [01:16:58] Speaker C: Nice. [01:17:00] Speaker D: Although, I gotta say, [01:17:04] Speaker C: if you read [01:17:05] Speaker D: her Red Wall and you don't do the voices because he writes in dialects. You're up. [01:17:10] Speaker B: No, I've been working on my Matt bear, [01:17:14] Speaker D: so, like. [01:17:15] Speaker B: Like, she'll. Like a lot of different, like, little. Little comic book off, like, one of these little books. I go. I am. Okay, sorry. [01:17:22] Speaker A: Wait. [01:17:22] Speaker B: I messed up. I am. I am an apple. Would you like to meet my yellow friend? You know, I am a banana. You banana. You said you were single. Where's your boyfriend? You know, [01:17:43] Speaker D: New York City. [01:17:45] Speaker B: New York City. Gay is hot. Gay is cool. I want some gay. [01:17:51] Speaker C: You know, Elliot, my dad never read Red Red Wall to me, so I'm hoping after this podcast episode's done, you can. Girl, you can read me. [01:18:04] Speaker B: My kid just says read louder. The Matt Berry bars. I am a banana. You know, Has Matt ever done an anime voiceover? [01:18:19] Speaker D: Because, like, I doubt it. I. I would strongly doubt it, but I. You know, I could see him doing, like, a. Like, if you're working for, like, G Kids, like, maybe him being in a. A Ghibli movie or a. Like. [01:18:31] Speaker B: Oh, sure, yeah. [01:18:32] Speaker D: He'd be like a soda movie. [01:18:34] Speaker B: He make a. He'd be like a big warthog. Whatever. My name is Shinji. I don't want to pilot the robot. All right. Why am I so sad? All right, next one. [01:18:51] Speaker D: Where's my mom? [01:18:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [01:18:53] Speaker D: Oh, there you are. [01:18:55] Speaker B: Sort of. Man, it shows. We could just do. We could just do it. Our own podcast about Evangelion. Maybe we should. [01:19:05] Speaker D: I don't. [01:19:06] Speaker C: I don't. [01:19:07] Speaker D: I don't think that's a good idea. [01:19:08] Speaker C: We wouldn't be the first three white [01:19:10] Speaker B: guys talking about Ava. What? We could call it Evangelion Explained. I just came up with that. [01:19:18] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:19:21] Speaker C: Incorrectly exploded. [01:19:24] Speaker D: Are you liking Evangelion? Wrong. A podcast. [01:19:29] Speaker B: Yeah. If we're going rock, everyone's wrong takes [01:19:35] Speaker D: about, and then we correct them and make them feel stupid because. Yeah, that's what fandom is about. Yeah. Gatekeeping and toxicity. [01:19:44] Speaker B: Like those shows where they, like, the. The incels. Bring on only fans, girls, and, like, berate them. They show up in my algorithm a lot. I don't know why. [01:19:56] Speaker C: I have never gotten a single one of those videos on my algorithm. [01:19:58] Speaker B: Good for you, dude. [01:19:59] Speaker D: No, no. [01:20:01] Speaker B: Oh, well, they're like, so. [01:20:03] Speaker D: So. So what's your body count? [01:20:05] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. What's your body count? Right. I don't know. A million? It's like. [01:20:10] Speaker C: Oh, gross. [01:20:11] Speaker B: You're not. [01:20:11] Speaker D: Oh, serious? You're not even really a person. You're just. You're just a flashlight with legs. [01:20:16] Speaker B: Like, I want a man that's like over six, two, and. And he's like, oh, you're a horrible person. And like. [01:20:22] Speaker D: But under. [01:20:23] Speaker B: Undercut, like, so am I right? [01:20:27] Speaker D: Yeah, he's like, full on nagging, like, like, nagging this girl. [01:20:32] Speaker B: Yeah, he's just berating porn stars. And they all sign up because they all get, like, a billion. All right, sorry. Anime next. When are we getting the Tank? [01:20:42] Speaker D: Right now? [01:20:43] Speaker C: Well, yeah, if we're doing honorable mentions and we've already skipped over. Oh, so. But we gotta do bebop. [01:20:52] Speaker B: Yeah, we have to. This is crazy. [01:20:55] Speaker C: Yep. [01:20:55] Speaker B: So Tank. [01:20:56] Speaker D: That. That would be the trifecta of Yoko Kano. Like, her work with the seat belts. [01:21:03] Speaker B: So I was asking Alex, I think. I think before he pushed record. What is happening here? Is Yoko Kano just like the Han Zimmer of Japanese. Japanese animation? That's just pretty much. [01:21:17] Speaker C: Yeah, like, every. [01:21:18] Speaker B: Like, it's a. It's. It's bonkers. Like, how many genres and styles can this person do? It's insane to me. [01:21:26] Speaker D: Well, she also did Kiseki no Umi. She did the soundtrack for Chronicles of the Heroic Night, which is a great show. But Kiseki no Umi, like, especially the. The opening sequel sequence for that song. Like, it is. It is. It's gorgeous. Like, it is stunning. And the song just accentuates it. Like, Maya Sakamoto is a frequent collaborator with Yoko Kano. I want to say she was Mun in Macross. [01:22:02] Speaker B: He Stole My Heart. [01:22:04] Speaker D: Yeah. And she's saying as Mune too, I believe. Like, I'll have to check, but. Oh, my God, I could be misremembering. [01:22:13] Speaker C: Yeah, no, she's. She's just, like, amazing. And yeah, it's like, I think, like, her presence in at least, like, season to season, like, anime production kind of falls off as the years go on. Like, you have other names like Yuki Kadra and Horiki Sawano start kind of popping up more and more. But I. I don't think there's a composer that, yeah, had such a varied, like, impact. Like, literally, she did everything. [01:22:45] Speaker D: Like, all varieties of music. Like, she was. She had her electronic phase in the. In the early 90s. Macross plus went into more like classical stuff and then full on jazz. [01:22:59] Speaker C: Yeah. Start our own jazz group. [01:23:01] Speaker D: Which I have to credit Cowboy Bebop for actually being my introduction to jazz proper. And I had never really listened to it before and I ended up really liking it. [01:23:14] Speaker C: Tank is playing right now. [01:23:18] Speaker B: Dave, you saw Whiplash. [01:23:20] Speaker D: Yeah, dude, amazing. [01:23:22] Speaker B: But like, like, Tank sounds like Caravan to me. And like, you could just put Tank over that ending scene and I would, I would. But like, damn the prowess of this composer. Holy. [01:23:37] Speaker D: Well, and then she went on to do other things, obviously. But he did Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex. Did the score for that too. Which that is. That is on my. My top 10 list of favorite single seasons of any show ever. The first season of standalone Complex. [01:24:00] Speaker C: I've shown. I've shown Elliot a single episode of standalone Complex. It was from season two. And Elliot, do you remember what that episode was about? [01:24:12] Speaker B: No. [01:24:13] Speaker C: It was the episode where they're playing poker and the Sniper. [01:24:19] Speaker D: That's the best episode of the second season where. [01:24:21] Speaker C: Oh dude, Sniper on the team talks about how he met [01:24:26] Speaker D: Saito, talking about how him and the Major met when they were on opposing sides. [01:24:33] Speaker C: Sniper versus Sniper battle. And it is the greatest, like one of the greatest episodes of TV I have ever seen. It's perfectly encapsulated story in a single episode. [01:24:45] Speaker B: And I. Yeah, is this like one of these ball episodes? Like that one episode of Firefly where the guy comes into the. Into the ship and all that? Like, is it a standalone episode? Yes. [01:24:56] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:24:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. I love those. Those are great. [01:24:58] Speaker C: Also, the cool thing about Santa Bone Complex is that in the little title drop of every episode, it will literally tell you whether it is a standalone episode or a complex episode, whether it is a self contained story or whether it relates to the. Which is actually just like it's so fun. Like, I showed. I showed my roommate Sam stanlow Complex Season 1 for the first time. And it'd been a while since I've seen it. It was always fun waiting to see whether this episode was going to relate to like the interesting narrative at all or there's gonna be the little robot Tachikomas having an adventure. Which are also somehow some of the greatest episodes too. [01:25:40] Speaker D: Dude. [01:25:41] Speaker C: They. [01:25:41] Speaker D: They make up for the absence of Tachikomas Fuchi Comas in the Mamoru Oshi movie by having them be like one of the core focuses of the TV series, which I think is great. And I am beyond geeked for July of this year when the new show is coming out. [01:26:02] Speaker C: Yep. [01:26:02] Speaker D: And it Is produced by Science Saru, which is Masaki Yuasa's production company. He's directing Hyped. [01:26:11] Speaker C: They make amazing shows. Like one of the songs we'll listen to later. Ochinoke was the opening for Don To Don. Which side Saru also does the production for? They are just an A class studio that kind of came out of nowhere. [01:26:28] Speaker D: Yeah. Well, they also did Enuo, which Stunning. [01:26:37] Speaker B: What's the. What's the next one? I need it. You're going. Y' all lead? Yeah. [01:26:43] Speaker D: Okay. So we got Tank for sure. [01:26:46] Speaker C: We could go with Space Lion. Also from Bebop. [01:26:50] Speaker D: Yep. I think there's a lot of really great. We're still a big fan of, like, mushroom hunting or O Flying Teapot. I really like that song from the. The Bebop soundtrack and their version of A Maria is really good. Just in general, like, the. The whole. Like, I. I have the soundtrack on vinyl. [01:27:17] Speaker B: Like. Okay, I'm gonna ask you to present your vinyl later. What. What's the song in. In the movie. The movie where he's final on. And like, the flashback with the. The. [01:27:30] Speaker C: That was a. That was a TV show that was blue. Okay. Yeah. [01:27:36] Speaker D: The name of the song is Blue. Yeah. Where it has, like, the. The child chorus and then like the. [01:27:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:27:47] Speaker D: As he's falling through the stained glass window. Yeah, that's. I love that song. [01:27:55] Speaker C: So. It's so haunting. Oh, yeah. [01:27:59] Speaker D: Well. And she cleared up the. Or Yoko Kano fixed the mistake. Well, no, not really a mistake, but a choice that she made. She actually got, like, native English speakers to do a lot of the vocal roles or the vocal parts for the songs in Cowboy Bebop, which I really like. [01:28:21] Speaker C: Yeah. Like, a lot more natural. [01:28:24] Speaker B: Right. [01:28:26] Speaker D: Because it kind of takes me out of it a little bit if, like, this Japanese lady's really selling it, but she can't speak English for. And it just. It doesn't sound right. Like, the. The vocal delivery just. It's in the wrong places. Like, she's putting the emphasis on the wrong syllabic, basically. [01:28:48] Speaker C: Yeah. There was a term for it growing up that probably isn't as okay to say now. [01:28:54] Speaker D: A little problematic now. Yeah. [01:28:57] Speaker B: I'll cut it out. [01:29:00] Speaker C: English. [01:29:07] Speaker B: Oh, Dave, tell Alex about how we took Japanese for many years and you took. [01:29:12] Speaker D: Yeah, we did. So, yeah, we. We had to be nerd weirdos. And our school offered Japanese for the first time ever when we were sophomores in high school. And so of course, we, like. We were. We were weeb trash. So we do. We got to do it, bro. Well, I think I did it first. Me and Jared, [01:29:37] Speaker B: who is a full on polyglot. Holy. [01:29:40] Speaker D: Yes. Dude has a knack for language. [01:29:43] Speaker B: Gifted man. [01:29:44] Speaker A: Yes, he is. [01:29:46] Speaker D: Love that boy. But that. And we had like, our Japanese teachers. Ryan Burgess, the. Just the most adorable twink ever. [01:29:59] Speaker C: Like, that I was gonna meet. Like, immediately my thought went to the teacher. Like, yeah, he. [01:30:06] Speaker D: He was a Navy brat, so he grew up in Japan, but his dad was in the Navy. They were stationed at Yokosuka, which is not too far from Tokyo, but. [01:30:18] Speaker C: Oh, wow, bro. [01:30:20] Speaker D: Oh, man, he was such a twink. Like, like just. Just very thin. And he said, I missed that guy. Like, I. I actually learned quite a bit. [01:30:37] Speaker B: I was. I was on. Can you hear me okay? [01:30:41] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:30:41] Speaker B: I was on Brian. Brian V's trampoline in his backyard for a minute with Becky. And we were bouncing up and down. We were like, know, be funny if we called Bajisan or B. Son. And we looked him up in the phone book and we called him. And I'm like, it's. What was my name? Like, Kenitu San. Oh, I thought it would be you. And like, he goes, well, I have to go. I'm rollerblading. [01:31:17] Speaker C: Was like, we. [01:31:18] Speaker D: We were dumbass kids and this was like. Like 1998. So we didn't, like, we didn't know what a twink was, but there it was. Now whenever it's like, oh, yeah, he's a twink. I'm like, yes, that does fit. It's like, oh, why don't you bring your girlfriend, Mr. Burgess? It's like, [01:31:45] Speaker B: Well. [01:31:45] Speaker D: And then after that, we had Kumagai Sensei, who was. She was a housewife in Japan, but she was originally from Philly. Like this white lady from Philly. It would. Married this Japanese guy and divorced him and moved back here. And she was. She was something. He was something. [01:32:08] Speaker C: She. [01:32:08] Speaker D: She was like a judo champion teaching [01:32:10] Speaker C: Japanese out of spite at that point. [01:32:12] Speaker D: Or she lived there for like 20 years, but she. She was like a judo champion in like their. Their home prefecture. And like that. And like, she. Elliot, do you remember when she threw me? [01:32:26] Speaker C: No. [01:32:28] Speaker D: She was doing like a judo demonstration. She's like. She's like, through my fat ass. [01:32:37] Speaker B: Who was like the. The tall Japanese lady that took over later. [01:32:40] Speaker D: That was Wesley Sensei. She always smelled like cigarettes and we [01:32:45] Speaker B: all quit the class. [01:32:49] Speaker C: She was. [01:32:50] Speaker D: She was a tough teacher. I had. I think they. They let me get AP Credit because I was like the only surrounding. [01:32:59] Speaker B: You were like, apart AP Study and all that. You're just like, figuring out you're, like, learning on your own because, like, this lady's not gonna. [01:33:05] Speaker C: This is like Harry Potter Defense against the Dark Arts teacher, where, like, you get a new one every year. [01:33:10] Speaker D: He was the Snape of our. Yeah, she was the Snape of our. Of our Japanese career. [01:33:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:33:18] Speaker D: And then I took a couple more years in college. [01:33:21] Speaker C: Oh, wow, you added, like, an actual Japanese teacher that was, like, old. Always, like, really resentful that he never got the Japanese class. [01:33:30] Speaker D: That was kind of Wesley Sensei, because she taught at, I think Calvin. I think she taught Japanese at a collegiate level at Calvin. And, you know, she was just, like, kind of a miserable bee. I think she was drunk. [01:33:47] Speaker C: That was. That was her Snape. That was your professor snake. [01:33:49] Speaker D: She always smelled like cigarettes and alcohol. [01:33:55] Speaker B: How is your Japanese these days? Would you say, like, on a scale of 1 to 10, fluent, you know, how are you? [01:34:01] Speaker D: I don't know, man. I like speaking wise. I could probably muster up a 4 or a 5 out of 10. My reading. My reading comprehension has gone to like, [01:34:12] Speaker B: oh, my God, that goes. That goes away so fast. It's crazy, dude. [01:34:16] Speaker D: I can. But, like, I can hear Japanese and, like, I can suss out what they're saying. [01:34:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:34:22] Speaker C: For the most part, all I know is curry mustard. [01:34:27] Speaker B: No, you know more than that. Alex, you're being coy. [01:34:37] Speaker C: I don't. I know a little bit for, like, picking up. [01:34:39] Speaker B: But look at this. [01:34:41] Speaker C: It's like the weirdest experience. You'll. You'll hear a word and then, like, you can like, almost kind of get the context of, like, the very little [01:34:54] Speaker D: bits, you know, Like, I'll literally make coffee in the morning for Esther and I, and, like, I'll bring them their cup and I'll be like, [01:35:04] Speaker C: yeah, yeah. [01:35:05] Speaker D: Will you drink coffee with me? [01:35:09] Speaker B: Why aren't you. Yeah, I do that. Oh, [01:35:18] Speaker D: Disney. [01:35:22] Speaker B: All right. Do we have any other tunes left? [01:35:26] Speaker C: We do. We have. We have over half. [01:35:28] Speaker B: Oh, half. All right, we gotta. Okay, let's go. Bullet round. [01:35:32] Speaker C: Gonna lock in. [01:35:34] Speaker B: Let's go fast. [01:35:35] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I. I think. I think we're in the odds. [01:35:40] Speaker D: You had that song by Flow from. From Code Gas, and you and I talked a little bit about Flow in the group chat, and I think code gas and Erica 7 came out about the same time, and they both had openings by Flow. [01:35:56] Speaker C: Yep. [01:35:57] Speaker D: And that's a really cool. [01:36:01] Speaker C: Was it. Was it Jason staff that did both of those? [01:36:06] Speaker D: Yes, actually. [01:36:08] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:36:09] Speaker D: No, no, I take that back. I think it was sunrise. [01:36:13] Speaker C: Sunrise for both of them because, like, that. That could that would explain the. [01:36:18] Speaker D: I think. I think so. [01:36:20] Speaker C: Yeah, I think crossover. [01:36:22] Speaker D: Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was Sunrise because honestly, whenever I see anything with cool mecha designs in it, I automatically think of Sunrise. Because they're. They're the House of Gundam. [01:36:32] Speaker C: Yep. [01:36:34] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:36:35] Speaker C: So. [01:36:35] Speaker D: Oh, man. Gundam. [01:36:37] Speaker C: This. This opening was also formative, like in the mid 2000s. It has become a meme. It is beloved, but it has just got this really, really killer melody to [01:36:54] Speaker D: it and it's a really upbeat, like, energetic vibe. [01:36:58] Speaker C: Yep. And like insane harmonics also, like, it is basically like everything you'd ever want from like a pop song. It has like really explosive rhythm section. Yeah, it's insane. And it is just so easy to listen to and like, vibe instantly. [01:37:24] Speaker D: Oh yeah, I say that would. That would sum it up. [01:37:29] Speaker C: Yeah. Like this, this. This was. This was on repeat for me all the time when I was a kid. It was just so Good. [01:37:38] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. ECA 7 and code GAS came out about the same time, like probably within six months of each other. But yeah, it would make sense that like, flo's been very busy for that time, like since then. [01:37:53] Speaker C: Just like really, really blew up in like the. The 2000s. And it, it. It is also kind of interesting thing where, like, when you. When you kind of watch a lot of shows over the years, like, kind of like seeing like, bands kind of like rise and fall, like they'll have the. Those moments of kind of like explosive popularity and then kind of like they left their mark and then kind of just sort of proceed back into the ether. [01:38:20] Speaker D: It's like Lurk N, I think is another one of those bands that happened a little bit earlier than Flow did, but it's sort of the same vibe. [01:38:31] Speaker C: We have hacking to the Gate signs gate in the 2010. [01:38:35] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:38:36] Speaker B: Yeah, dude, that. [01:38:39] Speaker D: That show is such a slow burn. Like, is probably one of the best examples of like, time travel fiction I've ever seen. It. It is very slow to start, but once you get there, once it hooks you, you're like, what the. [01:38:56] Speaker C: Yep. And Elliot, this is the next show that we're watching. [01:39:01] Speaker B: All right. [01:39:02] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:39:03] Speaker D: Steins Gate is awesome. Like, like, just. Dude, the writing is. Is incredible. [01:39:12] Speaker C: Yeah, it's like, I. I love time travel fiction. Yes. Yeah. It is the easiest thing to get wrong. But the way that it's handled in this is at the very least they. They mask all the, you know, metaphysical physical blemishes well enough to where like, you never question anything that's really happening in the show. [01:39:40] Speaker D: And [01:39:43] Speaker C: yeah, you mentioned it, but, like, it's a slow burn. Like, the first, like, six episodes are they really kind of like, carry the lead on what the show is actually going to be about. But you have this, like, explosive opening theme that is just, like, so hype and loud when the first few episodes of the series are just really quiet and calm. So it's just kind of, like, eerie sort of dissonance between what's happening in the first quarter of the show and what it ends up becoming. But then the opening does kind of earn its merit and kind of comes into its own as you're, like, watching more and more. [01:40:28] Speaker D: That is an absolute banger of a show. And the opening is. I'd say it's pretty iconic, especially for the time. Is Oshi no Ko like, newer than that? It might be, because I think, yeah, they're. They're just on their third season. [01:40:45] Speaker C: 2023. Season one premiered in 2023. [01:40:49] Speaker D: Okay. Yeah. And I think, yeah, Ranking of Kings was. Was wrapped by the time Ochi no Co came out. But no, Ranking of Kings is amazing. If you haven't seen. Has a very almost cartoony or, like, child's picture book art style, but. And the main character is the son of a giant of two giants, but he is very, very small and weak and death and mute. And you're thinking, oh, like, how are you gonna have a anime with a protagonist who can't speak or hear? Like, this is gonna be annoying. This dude's gonna suck. But Boji is probably. Probably one of the sweetest, most genuine, like, most heartfelt protagonists I've ever seen in an anime. Like, you love this kid. You will love this kid because he just. He has so much heart and he is such a good person deep down. Like, not even deep down. Just, like, all through him. Like, he is just the best. And the stories, they're, like, the visuals seem very, very childlike at first, but it. The story is actually really dark and complex, but not in, like, a. Like a shocking sort of like, Promised Neverland or whatever. Like, it's just like, there is a lot of, like, serious stakes in this show. It just happens to be presented as if it were a children's picture book. And I feel like Hidaka no Yusha is one of the best opening songs of an anime I've heard. Like, hey, this band is awesome. They also did Chainsaw Blood from Chainsaw Man. [01:42:55] Speaker C: Yep. [01:42:56] Speaker D: Which was the. I want to say that was the. [01:42:58] Speaker B: The. [01:42:58] Speaker D: The ending theme to episode one. [01:43:02] Speaker C: That. That sounds right. [01:43:04] Speaker D: Yeah. But then, like, it well, and this is the second opening for Ranking of Kings. So you're already established has already started to happen, and you're just getting down with it, and then this. This song comes on. You're, like, all up. That was one. Like, when we were. When I was doing a re watch with Ezra. Like, we never skipped that song. The first one. We skipped that. Like, it's fine. This one. [01:43:41] Speaker B: I'm teaching my kid. We don't skip intros. Like, even if it's. [01:43:44] Speaker D: I mean, eventually you're gonna have to, like, watching a couple times. Times, and then. [01:43:52] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll get there. Yeah, maybe. But, like, right now, no, we. We set the table before we eat. [01:44:02] Speaker D: I love that. It's like, we never. It's like we don't skip Inner Universe from standalone complex. Like, we watch that intro every single time. Yeah, because it's. Well, it's like you watching the first season of gto, like. Like, we don't skip Driver's High in this. In this. [01:44:21] Speaker C: Oh, God, that. That opening is so good, dude. [01:44:23] Speaker D: The bass in that song, he's like, [01:44:28] Speaker C: the point. The point of the opening where, like, he paints, like, a target on himself [01:44:32] Speaker D: and then shoots himself in the mirror. [01:44:34] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, God. Oh, my God. GTO is awesome. [01:44:36] Speaker D: That is probably one of the funniest shows. [01:44:38] Speaker B: Y. Y' all just, like, start compiling the list, and I'll put it all in the show notes. Like, so many recommendations. Everyone that's listening to this is gonna get, like, so many dope recommendations. [01:44:49] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [01:44:49] Speaker B: Of to watch. Love it. Yeah, you're welcome, listeners. Also, if you're a new listener, wake up. [01:44:59] Speaker C: One more thing on on Ranking of Kings, like. Like, you mentioned, like, the simple art style, but, like, it really is, like, so impressive that they, like, contrasting with that simple art style. The characters just have, like, such, like, texture. [01:45:14] Speaker D: Oh, they do. They painted them with such broad strokes to begin with, but they're all deeply flawed, like, human people. [01:45:24] Speaker C: Yeah. Like, they set everyone up as, like, really trophy. But then they go to great extent to, like, reveal that there's, like, very human reasons why they're even acting that way. And characters that you would think are, like, oh, this is, like, clearly just like, an evil stepmother character, but she [01:45:40] Speaker D: is, like, the heart of the whole show. [01:45:42] Speaker C: Like, yeah, like. Like, it. It is. It. It truly is. [01:45:46] Speaker D: Like, like, you grow to love her so much. Like, she's such a. Such a wonderful character. And, like, the. The. The spy master. Like, the. The dude with the curvy blades talking to snakes. You think he's a Bad guy. But he never was, like, no, he's [01:46:01] Speaker C: the most chill dude. [01:46:03] Speaker D: Like, he was the one who was like, he was a fan of this. He was a fan of Boji right from the beginning, but he knew that his. His younger brother was gonna get picked. [01:46:13] Speaker C: Yeah. Which, like, really goes with, like, the themes. Like, you, like, don't judge a book by its cover. Like, that's, like, definitely the main statement of that show. And. And I always. I always love it when there's like, an actual, like, diegetic kind of implementation of a theme like that within the show. Reggae Case is awesome. [01:46:37] Speaker D: Well, and they. They do a really great job with making, like, all of the antagonists, like, really terrifying, but also, like, genuinely tragic and, like, it's. It is a hell of a watch. Like, what a great show. Like, it blew me away. I did not know what to expect when I. When I first got into it. But, like, I will literally sing this show's praises until the day I'm dead. And, like, the. They ended up. Instead of a second season, they did, like, a bunch of side stories for a second season. Like, a bunch of one, one or two shots and, like, background on characters and stuff like that. Like, it's nice, but it's not what I wanted. Like, I want more. I want to know what happened. The manga's been on hiatus for an extended period of time because I think the. The author was having health problems. But, yeah, it's like. Like four or five years it's been on hiatus. [01:47:39] Speaker C: That's surprising. I thought the, like, the show concludes pretty succinctly. I had no idea that it actually went on past that. [01:47:49] Speaker D: Sort of along the. The lines of Made in Abyss. Except Made in Abyss is very much on the nose. Like, do not ever let a child watch that show. That. That is a bait and swish. Like, they was like, oh, wow, these characters are young and cute, just like me. And then horrible things happen to them a lot. [01:48:09] Speaker B: Great. [01:48:09] Speaker C: Yeah, I. I have. I. I have some. I have some hot takes about that show so much, which I like. I like. I. I enjoy. Like, I think it's entertaining, but I think. I think it has some, you know, issues. [01:48:21] Speaker D: Oh, no, there's. There's problems. Like, the people who came up with this. Like, you're sick. Like, you are sick. Like, more, please. But damn. [01:48:34] Speaker B: All right, where are we? [01:48:35] Speaker C: Well, I think as far as the. The five, I think we might be on the last. [01:48:39] Speaker D: I think. Yeah, we just got your last one. [01:48:42] Speaker C: Yep. Which is Otanoke by Creepy Nuts and is the opening for the hit show Don to Dawn, which is this really cute, also awesome kind of story about really bizarre high school girl and this high school boy. The girl believes in ghosts and the boy believes in aliens. And to the surprise of both, they both exist and they both are problems that they have to deal with. [01:49:16] Speaker D: The kid loses his nuts to gain superpower. [01:49:19] Speaker C: He loses his balls in the exchange of superpowers. I think that's a fair. [01:49:24] Speaker B: Really. [01:49:25] Speaker D: Yes, really. [01:49:26] Speaker B: Really. [01:49:27] Speaker C: It is, it is the driving plot narrative for the first. First half of the series. [01:49:35] Speaker D: It is, it is an assault on the senses. Like that show is like. It is like out of left field frenetic like, like, like quippy like whip smart, like, but bizarre [01:49:55] Speaker C: and still is not afraid to get like real out of nowhere. Like the. I forget, I forget what the ghost name is. But like the, the silky ghost, the one that the pink hair girl has like that connection with the episode regarding that is just one of the most tragic things I've ever seen. It is so intensely sad. But yeah, like they, they'll have, they'll have like an episode on that. And then like the episode either previous or after is about a mannequin that is haunted that runs really, really fast. So like it has, it has this really interesting whiplash kind of tonal shifts that somehow. Yeah, yeah, because they established that the show is already batshit crazy from the get go. Like it works. It's. It's. It's great. [01:50:50] Speaker D: The, the tone is all over the place but. But it is highly watchable. It looks great. The cast is great. It is, it is. It's a, A very high energy fun show. [01:51:07] Speaker C: Yeah. And. And then Creepy Nuts, which is one of the like talking about groups that kind of rise and fall. This group is definitely on their rise. Creepy Nuts is amazing. They. They. They have, they have done openings for. And endings for a plethora of shows and they just have this really kind of like. It feels like this unique voice for hip hop that is like very kind of fresh and all like really in your face too. It just. This song has like such a insane beat beat and yeah, and like kind of like, like talking about like the production and pipeline of like how these openings get made. Like literally the main course of the song is like the show name, which is always, always a nice little. Yeah like always like a nice little treat when you're watching the opening too. [01:52:09] Speaker D: And if I'm not mistaken, the. The author of the manga, like that's his first work, isn't it? Like his first major Published work. [01:52:18] Speaker C: Yes. Prior to that he was an assistant for another really famous work, Chainsaw Man. [01:52:26] Speaker D: Okay, so he worked for Fuji Fujimoto. [01:52:30] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:52:31] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:52:32] Speaker C: Yep. [01:52:33] Speaker D: That's awesome. I'm glad he's getting his, his, his due because I think Fujimoto's artwork is, is really incredible. [01:52:42] Speaker C: No, like that guy, like obviously the talent is contagious there or the coal lessons. Because love Donda Don, love Chainsaw man. And it's cool. [01:52:55] Speaker D: Chainsaw man is something special. [01:52:57] Speaker B: So Dave, what do you think about like the modern era of like these things are getting theatrical releases? [01:53:05] Speaker D: I think that's so cool, dude. I would have begged for that back in the day. [01:53:10] Speaker C: Yeah, it's, you're right, you're right in like talking about it too because it's a really new development where we're getting these huge global releases and like the movies are actually doing financially really well. [01:53:22] Speaker D: They're doing better than Disney movies. Yeah. In a lot of respects. [01:53:26] Speaker B: Famous Player like annihilated box offices. [01:53:29] Speaker C: Yes. [01:53:30] Speaker D: Well, the fact that that Chainsaw man, like that was rated R. It did like $350 million years. [01:53:37] Speaker B: We went and saw that was awesome. [01:53:40] Speaker D: It was so good. [01:53:41] Speaker C: Amazing. [01:53:42] Speaker B: What I call it. Bunker Roomies. [01:53:47] Speaker C: Did you hear about the controversy regarding the direction of Chainsaw man season one? Did you see anything about that online? [01:53:57] Speaker B: No. [01:53:58] Speaker C: So there's this really big controversy regarding Chainsaw man season one and that is that a lot of Japanese fans and then retroactively a lot of western fans thought that the direction of season one was too western and too serious for Chainsaw man, which is why they fired the director of season one and they replaced him with episode director of the show. And I like putting my opinion on the table. I, I, I was so pissed off when I like heard these complaints about this guy got like from reports say that he is quote unquote blacklisted, but it could be over. [01:54:48] Speaker D: You know, that may not be an exaggeration because it's a pretty close knit professional community. Like Eds like everybody knows everybody. [01:55:00] Speaker B: Like. [01:55:01] Speaker C: Yeah. And like, I think, I think he like said he said something online about like on the state of Anime or whatever. We're having some problem with it which like ruffled a lot of feathers obviously. But the, the main contention, like contention for the argument is that Chainsaw man is this really crazy, wacky kind of like series and season one plays it in a much more kind of western tonality, kind of sort of, well, tone like. And there's like aspects of that that I kind of can see to a degree. [01:55:45] Speaker D: Well, I think it's also very referential towards Western, well, film culture. I mean, just look at the opening sequence. Like, yeah. Like you can count no less than 10 references to. To like classic Hollywood movies. [01:56:01] Speaker C: Yeah. Big Lebowski, Reservoir Dogs. Like, [01:56:06] Speaker D: yep. Among other things. There's lots of little shots like Taxi Driver, like. Like little blinking, you'll miss it things. But if you know what you're looking for, like, I mean, I. I guess I. It. That feels kind of gatekeepy. Like. [01:56:26] Speaker C: Like God forbid a director wants to try something different than just like the super over expressive kind of like, like and like, like this play for laughs in the movie. And it is pretty funny. But like, like Denji like sees a girl and he's like, oh, kawaii. Comic effect. And like, like in my opinion, like the thing that makes Chainsaw man work, the thing that specifically makes Chainsaw Man's like humor work is that you have this insane character of Denji who reacts to very serious situations in atypical ways. Every character around him though, is reacting to that situation. Like, this is like a. Oh, we can. [01:57:15] Speaker D: As a normal person would. But Denji is far from a normal person in just about every manner of speaking. [01:57:21] Speaker C: Yeah. And like, like, it's like him and Power are like exceptions because they're literally not even fully human. [01:57:29] Speaker D: Yeah. Like those two idiots feed off each other. Like. [01:57:32] Speaker C: Yeah. And it's great and it's like comedic. But like the actual presentation of the show, I think in its like, most pure form is that like, things should be treated seriously as opposed to things just being like, inherently quote unquote, like anime, you know? [01:57:53] Speaker B: Right. [01:57:55] Speaker D: I think the show itself is zany enough on its own. They don't need to amp that up. And I think you're right. The juxtaposition between like, normal people reacting to, quite frankly, ridiculous situations is perfectly normal and rational. But yeah, Denji and Power are not. Are neither normal nor rational. [01:58:15] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. And then like that. That's like where like the humor comes in. Like, like the moment where like Himado, when they're facing off against like the Infinity Devil, like, uses her ghost hand to like, re pull the rip on 10 cheesy's Denji's starter after he's like, collapsed just for him to go back into his like blood haze again. It's like she's like horrified. Then she's like, oh yeah, round two. Like it's well. [01:58:43] Speaker D: And I feel like, like Makima is like the. One of the best villains to come out of Manga and anime ever. [01:58:49] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. 100. [01:58:51] Speaker B: How about this, like, as a. As a cultural piece? Anime, like, is there. Is there room for like, this like, appropriation? Like, how do you feel about like, say, like the anime sequence and Kill Bill 1? [01:59:04] Speaker C: It was done by Production IG, which was already like a killer anime studio. [01:59:10] Speaker D: Yeah. They are like the. The top tier OG like them in Madhouse. I'd say Madhouse is better just across the board, but production ignore is really, really important to anime as a whole. [01:59:27] Speaker B: Is there something to be said about utilizing a phenomenon and like a style and a work to inform their own. [01:59:39] Speaker D: Paying homage but still doing your own thing kind of thing? [01:59:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:59:43] Speaker D: Is that what you're getting at? [01:59:44] Speaker B: I guess so, yeah. [01:59:45] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:59:45] Speaker B: Or. [01:59:45] Speaker C: Or like, like a western studio just decided to go like, like anime with their design and like, copied like, techniques and stuff. [01:59:53] Speaker D: Like, like, speaking of which, have you guys seen arco? They got nominated for best animated feature, and it's a French animation. It's really good. [02:00:06] Speaker C: The French are like. It's like Japan's number one and then France is number two. [02:00:12] Speaker D: You know, you're not wrong. [02:00:14] Speaker B: I saw flow that like. [02:00:17] Speaker D: Yeah, I heard that was great. I haven't sat down and watched it yet. [02:00:21] Speaker B: It's. It's a good. It's good two hours. It's fun. Amazing. Like. Oh, man. [02:00:27] Speaker D: Like, you gotta watch arco though. [02:00:29] Speaker C: All right. [02:00:30] Speaker B: For sure. [02:00:30] Speaker D: That just came out, I think, for rent and streaming, so [02:00:38] Speaker B: there's no denying, like, a lot of western film owns O's anime. Some credit. We wouldn't have. We wouldn't have the Matrix without Dark City or our. Or Wicked City. Sorry. And all this, like the. These like, bending of the rules of physics and all this. Is there a point when it breaks and like. Oh, you're just. [02:01:02] Speaker D: You're just ripping it off. [02:01:03] Speaker B: Ripping it off. Yeah. I guess that's a. [02:01:06] Speaker D: You could also. You could like taking that point. You could also take it back a little bit further. Like, what would anime be without Mobius or a lot of the, like, Sid me, like, stuff like that from like a design standpoint, like, those two were both heavily influential in the 70s and 80s, which in. Has informed the generations that subsequently followed. Like, I think. I think there is a point where it ceases to be homage and it becomes just plagiarism. [02:01:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's tricky. [02:01:54] Speaker D: Like. Like true. Like, you have to. It's like, I feel like plagiarism is. Is homage without the respect. [02:02:03] Speaker B: There you go. There you go. [02:02:04] Speaker C: I am. I want. I Want them. I, I want the plagiarism. I want, I want them to go full on copying. Because the like. Let's look, let's look. [02:02:15] Speaker B: I just watched Kill Bill 102 of the Internet. [02:02:18] Speaker D: The, the unified, the, the Whole Bloody Affair all plagiarized. [02:02:25] Speaker C: Our jank remake of the Whole Bloody affair including middle YouTube scene. Like the connects to like doesn't fit at all. Which is why they've got it. But it's so awesome. No, but like let's look at like what the current state of adult animation is for the west that actually tries to be like serious not like adult scavenger reign. Scavengers reign. Sick and awesome. [02:02:53] Speaker D: Common side effects. [02:02:55] Speaker C: Common side effects also cool but like like as far as like mainstream that like tries to like emulate kind of the action that I was like we're looking at like Invincible and the thing with Invincible and before Invincible there was like Avatar, the Last Air Bender. And the thing with both of these shows is that they were not in house productions within the US they were. The animation was largely outsourced to Korean [02:03:22] Speaker D: studios which has been a fairly common thing. [02:03:26] Speaker C: Yeah. Even with like Japan animation. But there is a lack of infrastructure within the US to even if you were to say plagiarize what Madhouse is doing with Freer and in the US they would not be able to do it. They literally don't have the infrastructure available to copy. And there's arguments to be made about like whether they even really need to like why not just have someone from Disney go over to Madhouse and say hey, we want to like collaborate or something. That's perfectly fine and would be really cool so too but like there it's. It always just saddens me like like and so it always my greatest self perceived failing that like like I, I myself am not an animator. So me, me bitching about like the state of animation in like the US industry is like I was. [02:04:26] Speaker D: Oh I mean considering that the head of Warner Discovery Media gutted Cartoon Network and all of their animation projects and not even, not even hyperbole. Like he just canceled everything, fired everyone. [02:04:43] Speaker C: It's such a huge problem because like like you go on YouTube and like you'll see all these like great anime. Yes. Self made creators that are literally Elliot, the term for like well this isn't like the exact property usage of the term but there's this term in for anime called Sakuga which is basically. It's this idea that they're basically saving 90 of the budget for like a 30 second animation sequence, Naruto. [02:05:14] Speaker B: Oh, okay. [02:05:15] Speaker C: Yeah. And. [02:05:16] Speaker D: And so when that animation hits, like that fight with pain and shipping, bro, it's insane. [02:05:25] Speaker B: Is that kind of Demon Slayers clearly funded but like, is that what you're talking about? Like when like. Like this like opens up a rainbow with his sword and. [02:05:35] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. [02:05:37] Speaker B: It takes a minute and a half. [02:05:38] Speaker C: There's. Yeah, there's an immediate 30 second segment in every episode where some hype. [02:05:45] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [02:05:48] Speaker C: And that has done so much for resurrecting anime for a modern audience because like you just. You throw that segment in a tick tock and then suddenly people are like embracing like the coolest moment of this show or this episode. [02:06:06] Speaker D: Without the context. [02:06:07] Speaker C: Yeah, without the context. And they want to know more. So like now there's just this huge drive to create really awesome animation moments in anime. Like, like the most popular show right now that ended airing recently is like Jujutsu Kaisen. [02:06:28] Speaker D: Which is a good show. [02:06:30] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a good show. And like, like, I have my problem. [02:06:32] Speaker D: That movie was dope. [02:06:33] Speaker C: Like, narratively, Jujutsu Kaisen 0 is like amazing movie, both narratively and. [02:06:39] Speaker D: And animation wise, it is intense. [02:06:42] Speaker C: But a thing that the show creators know to the point where like, they kind of abused their animation stuff, is that there is so much buzz and hype around the action in that show that it is clearly a priority beyond standard priorities for them. And there is no drive like that at all for western animation. You look at Invincible and although episode, [02:07:13] Speaker D: was it six or five or six of this last season. Holy, dude. Like, that is the only time that show has made me like, I got squeamish watching fighting. Conquest. Yeah. [02:07:28] Speaker C: Yes. Conquest. The Conquest fight is so intense, dude. But it could have been better. [02:07:36] Speaker D: No, no, it's good. There needs to. They just need to keep making it. And they're doing a great, great job. I've loved every single episode of Invincible. [02:07:44] Speaker C: The problem, the problem is, is they're paying seth rogan like $2 million or whatever. Well, not. Not Seth Roan because he's a producer for the show. But they're. They're like, they're making literally even like side characters that have like five lines of dialogue. Some like aist actor to come in for however much money. [02:07:59] Speaker D: And they don't think that's great though. But it's good. [02:08:03] Speaker C: It's good for hype. But the trade off is the animation budget in. In that scenario. Like they're like having read the Invincible comics, like, there is a different feel from the comic than there is from the show. And some of that is literally intentional, too. [02:08:20] Speaker D: And I think. And I think there always has been, and I think that's a great thing. I think it's great that the show is different from the comics. Yeah, the show, like, feels and breathes differently than the comics do. I love the comics, dude. That is, like, probably one of my favorite superhero comics ever. [02:08:41] Speaker C: It's so good. [02:08:41] Speaker D: It is that good. [02:08:42] Speaker C: It's. It's awesome. I love Invincible, dude. [02:08:45] Speaker D: I love, I love the last line on the last page where he goes back to this. Like, what will you have in 500 years? He's like, yep, this. [02:08:57] Speaker C: Yeah, well, it's great because, like, I, I, that is such a good line too, because, like, it's like, first, it's like, I'll have you, dad. But, like, if you extrapolate the actual meaning, it's like, I'll have family and what he has in 500 years is. [02:09:11] Speaker D: And, and I'll have everything. You didn't. [02:09:14] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. But, like, oh, God, no. I, I, I love Invincible. I just, like, there's, like, there are awesome compilations online. It's got to become a meme at this point where people will show them cutting corners on animation where, like, they're enlarging a png. Like the, There's a moment where Oliver is fighting the dragon guy. Yeah, Oliver's hiding by the building. But the dragon is, like. Starts off as a small png. It's like, okay, come on, don't do the dragon dirty like that, man. Like, come on. [02:09:53] Speaker D: But I, I also, I don't know. [02:09:56] Speaker C: Minor complaints, too. [02:09:57] Speaker D: Feel like a lot of the controversy involved with Invincible right now, the, the, the anime animation gate, as they want to call it, like, it's a nothing burger. Like, just shut up. Be happy that they're paying as much attention and following the story as closely as they, as they are. It could, it could have been shitty. It could have been bad, but it's not. [02:10:19] Speaker C: But, like, like I said, I, overall, I, I still really enjoy it, and I enjoy it definitely for what it is. But there's, like, something to be said about visual storytelling and keeping a certain level of quality for visual storytelling. Like, one of the things that I think is lost between the show and the comics that I don't know, like, definitely it was an active decision to make Mark way weaker in the show than he is in the comics. I, I think that was an active thing, and I think that's good, the [02:10:54] Speaker D: way that they're pacing the story in the show. I think it makes more sense. [02:10:59] Speaker C: Yeah. You have that awesome moment with Thrag where you like punches Frag in the [02:11:04] Speaker D: head and like nothing, nothing, like doesn't even phase him. He just looks at him. [02:11:11] Speaker C: They have a good moment of Sakuga there also where like, like Donna, they do some crazy thing like they show like frags, like skeletal face or something like that. [02:11:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:11:23] Speaker C: Frame that. He punches them right on. [02:11:26] Speaker B: Okay, if you had to tell listeners in the modern era, what would their first new anime, Ben Fairen, [02:11:39] Speaker D: which had Atelier is really good. [02:11:41] Speaker C: I watched the first four episodes of that and it's like, okay, I'm, I'm liking this too much so I'm going to stop watching it. So I can wait for a couple weeks. [02:11:51] Speaker D: We watched like the first four episodes and then we watched the fifth episode and then the sixth episode ended and we're like, now we gotta wait a week. [02:12:01] Speaker C: We gotta slow things down and like actually enjoy this in full. [02:12:05] Speaker B: Like it's like, it's like the Wire or something. Like it takes, it's a slow build. [02:12:10] Speaker D: Well, it hooks you right away. Like it's got a great first episode. I would say Free Run is more like the Wire. It does not rush anything. It is, it is slow, almost prosaic, contemplative, melancholy. But it is, it is a beautifully told story. It's beautifully animated. Madhouse at their best. [02:12:40] Speaker C: Yep. [02:12:41] Speaker D: Dude, that three episode fight arc in season two Holy. [02:12:47] Speaker C: Episodes ten is like, oh, in season two. Yeah. Yeah, it's awesome. No, like, like I, dude, I got goosebumps. [02:12:58] Speaker D: I'm like, oh. [02:13:00] Speaker C: The greatest thing about Friend is that it does this magic trick where it makes you think you've watched two episodes in the span of one episode. [02:13:07] Speaker D: Yeah. Because they'll take like narrative breaks where they'll be, it'll be like a couple weeks later and they're just like walking down the road. Or it's taken them like six months to a year to get to get someplace by walking because they end up having to stay in a town for a month or two and make money and then they just move on. [02:13:26] Speaker C: And for an episode that like in discounting the ending and opening theme last 20 minutes, like they get so much out of the show that it's just impressive. I, I, I don't think I've ever seen a show that makes use of its time economy. Yeah. [02:13:47] Speaker D: As well as, like, and it gives you time for like moments to breathe. It's not in a rush to get anywhere or to even say or do anything. Like something happens and then like, you let. It's like it doesn't exposition dump. It doesn't over explain it. It lets the moment breathe, which I think is really. That. That's challenging. That challenges the status quo of. Of anime pacing and it. It makes for a more compelling narrative and you get more nuance out of the characters because they're not constantly blurting out exposition or. Yeah, in. In constant motion. Like there are quiet moments where they just sit there and have to carry like their emotions. [02:14:44] Speaker C: Like, which like again is like almost like an oxymoron given that, like they adapt two chapters per episode and like have like two entirely different stories per standard episode. Like, like you still. It still gives itself time to breathe, even though it's cramming in so much at the same time that it. But it doesn't feel like it, which is like, it causes the episode to feel longer in like the greatest way possible. Like, usually stuff feels longer because it's boring, but in this, it's like you're fully enraptured with each and every episode and yet it's still somehow finding a way to take its time. [02:15:23] Speaker B: Right. [02:15:25] Speaker D: I feel like, like Frieren has a level of sophistication in terms of its storytelling that you don't ever see in anime. Really? [02:15:39] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:15:40] Speaker D: And I. I think that's why a lot of. Especially younger viewers, the. The Shonen crowd tend to take issue with it. Because. Because, you know, let's face it, a lot of. A lot of your. Your big deal Shonen anime, like, they. They lack a lot of narrative sophistication. They're very trophy. They stick to the tried and true format. And to me, honestly, that it gets kind of boring after a while. [02:16:12] Speaker C: Yeah. Like at some point you want actual, [02:16:15] Speaker D: you know, content, like plot, like characters, like a reason for me to keep watching this. [02:16:23] Speaker B: Yeah. All right, so are there like Western Western directors you think have political anime the most? Maybe like besides the Wachowskis, Christopher Nolan. Nolan. For full on. I was thinking no one. I was thinking Nolan too. [02:16:46] Speaker D: Christopher Nolan [02:16:49] Speaker B: is interstellar, not Gunbuster. [02:16:52] Speaker D: That would be. [02:16:53] Speaker C: That would be the greatest confirmation of all time is if he revealed that [02:16:57] Speaker B: Nolan does after he does Odyssey. [02:17:01] Speaker C: No, he can't. He can't. You can't do. You can't hear you. Yeah. [02:17:09] Speaker D: I would watch a trailer. I'll be like, that looks like ass. [02:17:12] Speaker B: Ah, really? [02:17:13] Speaker D: That looks like straight booty. [02:17:16] Speaker C: What's like one character character that you're like, wow, this is a good character from a Christopher Dolan movie. [02:17:23] Speaker B: Yeah. McConaUGHEY [02:17:31] Speaker C: what's the name of Leonardo DiCaprio's character from Inception? [02:17:33] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Leonardo. Yeah, no, that's a fine point. [02:17:40] Speaker D: Right? [02:17:41] Speaker B: I don't like. I don't like Nolan's editor, whoever edits this movie. It's all montage. It's all weird. It really. [02:17:50] Speaker C: The whole. The whole line. The saying about the audio mix is, oh, is it? [02:17:54] Speaker B: Well, you wouldn't be able to hear Bane if you were in a gun. [02:18:01] Speaker C: There. There also wouldn't be this, like, omniscient camera recording everything. Like, also, like, if he wants to be like, a found footage movie, then, like, sure, go for. [02:18:12] Speaker B: How about this? And we do need to wrap up a little bit, Dave. Go ahead. [02:18:16] Speaker D: But I also feel like. What's his name? Aronofsky. But he did the right thing. He actually purchased the rights to Perfect Blue because he has ripped off entire scenes. [02:18:30] Speaker B: Whoa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [02:18:31] Speaker D: Put in his movies. But he did it properly. [02:18:35] Speaker C: He would be able to pull off a Perfect Blue. [02:18:39] Speaker B: No. [02:18:40] Speaker D: Satoshi Kon. Like, why is he still alive but Makoto Shinkai still. Or. Well, no, why is. Why is Satoshi Kon dead but Makoto Shinkai is still alive? There's injustice. [02:18:52] Speaker B: Are you thinking of Nolan? Because. Because I. Didn't Nolan take a lot from. Is it Perfect Blue or for Inception with the. With the mirrors and all that? [02:19:04] Speaker D: He paprika. But Aronofsky did that in Black Swan. Yeah, and he got. He got permission. Nolan did not. [02:19:15] Speaker B: How did he get permission? [02:19:17] Speaker D: He bought the rights to the film. [02:19:19] Speaker B: Well, okay, well, well, Nolan's not broke as a poke. Like, he could. He could afford that, but he just didn't care. [02:19:28] Speaker D: He's just ripping off no one. [02:19:29] Speaker C: No one's also full of himself, is [02:19:33] Speaker D: so far up his own ass. [02:19:34] Speaker B: Okay, how about this? How about this? Do anime fans not like Nolan? [02:19:39] Speaker C: I. [02:19:39] Speaker D: Okay, no, they love Nolan because of the Dark Knight movies and Interstellar, which is a great movie, and I love it. [02:19:46] Speaker B: Love Interstellar. [02:19:48] Speaker C: Nolan is a great director, and my problems against him are personal. Maybe. [02:19:54] Speaker D: Maybe he was a great director. I don't think he. Like it remains to be seen. I hope the Odyssey is good, because, honestly, Dunkirk and Tenant, I don't know, man. They were all right. [02:20:08] Speaker C: I'll say. Nothing reveals a hack director faster than doing some, like, medieval fantasy or medieval movie. [02:20:14] Speaker B: Like, oh, like, what. [02:20:17] Speaker C: What is one of those movies that have succeeded well for me? [02:20:21] Speaker D: Kingdom of Heaven. [02:20:23] Speaker C: Like, Troy. [02:20:24] Speaker B: The thing with. Another thing with me is like, oh, everyone's gotta go see Oppenheimer and imax. [02:20:32] Speaker D: I have not seen Oppenheimer. [02:20:34] Speaker B: Oh, you're fine. But, like, see it in imax. But, like, why? It's exactly. Because it's just. It's just people talking to each other [02:20:46] Speaker C: because you see all the pores. The pores. [02:20:50] Speaker D: Like, granted, I love. I love movies in the 70 millimeter format too, but I don't think I need to see Oppenheimer in 70 millimeter format. [02:21:00] Speaker C: Well, it's like. It's like a hateful eight situation where it's just like. There's so much. I love that movie, though. Look, I enjoy the Hateful Eight, but did it get everything out of, like, shilling the. No. Film that it was. You think? Like, there was, like, three sequences where it showed, like, outdoor shots where it was, like, really impressive, but then everything else is like a. It's. Yeah. It's literally a closet episode. [02:21:27] Speaker B: I don't know. Anytime they push IMAX too hard, a MA is suspicious. Yeah. [02:21:33] Speaker D: Yeah. [02:21:34] Speaker B: But honestly, looks dope. I don't know. But. Okay, how about this? [02:21:37] Speaker D: I mean, I'm gonna go see it. I'm gonna probably really like it. [02:21:39] Speaker B: We're all gonna go see it together. [02:21:41] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:21:42] Speaker D: No one. [02:21:42] Speaker C: No one has my ticket. Probably for the rest of my life. [02:21:46] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. [02:21:47] Speaker C: I mean, I. I just. I just love On Memento. [02:21:50] Speaker D: Yeah, dude, it's. It's on our list. It's on our list because I've seen it so many times and Ezra's never seen it. Like, oh, let's watch Momento. I'm like, [02:22:00] Speaker C: again, like, I just said this really dead conversation. I think. I think. [02:22:05] Speaker D: I feel like it doesn't stand up to rewatch. [02:22:08] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah. [02:22:09] Speaker B: Once. [02:22:09] Speaker D: Once that. Once that. Once. It's spoiled for you. It's not like the usual suspects where you get something different out of it every time you watch it. I feel like once it's. Once you know what's happening and what happens, it. It gets a little tedious. [02:22:24] Speaker B: I thought, like, Tenant was, like, oh, neat. But, like, yeah, like, this is a lot of homework. Like. And, like, am I watching this wrong? And like. And frankly, he doesn't shoot action sequences very well. It's all, like, shaky camera and, like, really close up. Oh, and like, oh, one guy's backwards. What are we doing? [02:22:48] Speaker D: No, here. Here's the thing. My. My dad had a. Had a little nugget of a saying. [02:22:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:22:53] Speaker D: And my dad was very wise. And I have found the. A lot of his. His aphorisms to. To come to bear in my later life, especially, you know, in leadership positions. If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with I think I feel like, dude, that's what Nolan's been doing since interstellar thousand percent [02:23:19] Speaker C: olin to a tea. [02:23:24] Speaker D: And he is baffling like because that's what my trilogy. [02:23:28] Speaker C: It's a guy who hates comic books making a series of comic book movies. Every single movie in the Dark Knight trilogy is about why Batman should not be Batman. Meanwhile, there are super villains in the streets like plotting mass weapons of destruction that only a Batman shaped peg to solve. [02:23:51] Speaker B: Like, that's why James Gunn gonna, is gonna get us out of this because we live with like, like six Lex Luthors that literally live. [02:23:59] Speaker D: Yeah, unlike the, the Lex Luthors we have. The Lex Luthor they have in in, in the DC universe is actually brilliant. Like Lex Luthor is a smart guy. Like our billionaires are idiots. What an idiot. [02:24:22] Speaker B: Okay, to, to wrap this up because I do, I didn't, I do need to go back. [02:24:28] Speaker C: The episode is still going. [02:24:30] Speaker B: Yeah, we're still going. [02:24:32] Speaker D: Okay. [02:24:36] Speaker B: Might be a two part or whatever. [02:24:38] Speaker D: Jake's gonna be so jealous. He can come in for part two. It can be part two. The Revenge of Jake or the Return of Jake. Enter the J. [02:24:51] Speaker B: Okay, how about this as my last question to my panel of experts. [02:24:58] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:24:58] Speaker B: When we were kids, Dave, anime was pretty punk, rocking underground. And it was kind of, it was even, even as you've said before, like, like perceived as kind of gross and like there, there was a stigma. And then Alex, he came up in this world like in where it's kind of normal and all that. It's, the stigma's gone. What is the new anime? [02:25:32] Speaker C: I, I, I disagree with the premise because anime was still pretty gross when I was, when I was growing up. [02:25:38] Speaker B: Maybe I should rephrase it. I don't want to. Like, [02:25:43] Speaker D: what is a hobby that you would be embarrassed by. Yeah. That you don't broadcast. [02:25:50] Speaker C: When I was in high school, I was still embarrassed about my, my enthusiasm for anime, but at the same time, I was starting to hear people in like my ceramics art class talk about like Attack on Titan. That was like the first big like pioneer in like breaking into like the mainstream. Our friend Caleb. That's like his favorite show. [02:26:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:26:13] Speaker D: I mean, I like, I like Attack on Titan, but it's just like, oh, Dave. [02:26:18] Speaker B: C plus on Attack. [02:26:19] Speaker D: It is just so much despair. [02:26:23] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:26:24] Speaker D: Nothing good ever happens to anyone in that show ever. Nobody ever wins, only loses. [02:26:30] Speaker B: I'm so curious about the lore of it because read the manga. [02:26:34] Speaker D: It's good. [02:26:35] Speaker B: Skim it. Just. Just watch children being eaten non stop. [02:26:41] Speaker C: No, it's great. [02:26:43] Speaker D: Like every, every time they go to do something like, it always goes horribly and like you have these small moments of victory. Meanwhile, everybody around you is getting violently dismembered and eaten. [02:26:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:26:56] Speaker C: That's brutal. And come to find out, I think it's. [02:27:00] Speaker D: It's a lot worse behind the scenes than you even think it is. Even though you're in it, you're getting eaten with your buddies. But things back home are even worse because the ruling family is. They're. They're terrible. Beyond terrible. [02:27:15] Speaker C: Okay, well, like hypothetical, would you rather be shot in a war or eaten by a giant Titan? [02:27:23] Speaker D: I don't want to get chewed up and digested. You're still alive. [02:27:27] Speaker B: I'd rather be like way into that a little bit. [02:27:31] Speaker C: Right. Like it's like, oh, shoot me in the face. [02:27:33] Speaker D: I mean, maybe I'm finding out a little bit of stuff about some more here. But. [02:27:38] Speaker B: But okay, like, like 10 years from now, are we gonna be talking about like underground independent video games or something? [02:27:47] Speaker D: Like they cost too much money to make, period. [02:27:50] Speaker C: Video games are already like insanely popular. But like, I. As far as like animes. Correct. Current state, like anime's only gonna get more popular like in 10 years. I. I think it's going to make. It will become bridge to. [02:28:05] Speaker D: It will become more ubiquitous, I think. [02:28:07] Speaker B: Well, how about independent animations? Like, and I don't want to say that you know the acronym, but like, you know, with artificial creativity, like is. Are we going to get a bunch of slopes in the. In the next few years that looks like it's like, look like it's good and like we're already there, dude. Yeah, we are. [02:28:32] Speaker C: Like, like there's this current thing with AI Slot where like AI Slop is still. You can detect that it's AI Swap. But we're gonna get to a point where you literally cannot tell what is AI swap and what's like, you know, created by humans. And that I think is going to be a real interesting point singularity in human history. Because like, if it hasn't already happened [02:29:01] Speaker D: and we're just not aware of it. [02:29:02] Speaker C: Yeah, let's say like, like my favorite show, like Gunbuster. Like, like what if Gunbuster was AI Slot or some somehow AI miraculously innovatively created Gunbuster? Like would. Would your feelings on it as a work by itself without considering anything? Like the productions change? Like, like for me, like, I think it kind of would but also, I feel really weird about it, only because [02:29:29] Speaker D: a lot of the. The AI generated stuff. It's just a regurgitation of what it's been fed. It doesn't create anything new. [02:29:37] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that. That's a good point. There. There's like a lack of a spark some. Somewhere in that pipeline where it's just like Legos. [02:29:46] Speaker D: Like. Yeah, like we. We fed them the full sets and now it's. It's like recombinating all of these things based on what it's been fed. [02:29:56] Speaker C: But like. Like, in my mind, like some weird, like, Cyberpunk 2047 kind of deal where it's like you can literally choose the fiction that you partake in. Like, is the trade off of it being just regurgitated? Is that noticeable enough to offset just the dopamine rush of getting, like, literally exactly what you wanted? That. That's a question that I asked myself. [02:30:23] Speaker D: I don't think I would want that. I don't think I would want exactly what I want all the time. [02:30:29] Speaker B: Yes. [02:30:31] Speaker D: Because a lot of people think that they would, but. But then like, you. You would get so bored. You want to be everything. [02:30:38] Speaker B: You want to be intrigued, yet challenged. And that takes in mind, I think. [02:30:42] Speaker D: Yeah, nothing. Nothing would. Would take thought or, or analysis or. Or even a second look because it's just like, oh, hey, giant robots. That's what I wanted. [02:30:53] Speaker C: Yeah, we. We don't always know what we want, truly. Like, the human brain is too complex for us to really put a pin in that or put a nail in it. [02:31:04] Speaker D: It's like saying. It's like, what if you could just masturbate all the time and just feel awesome all the time? That would be awesome. [02:31:11] Speaker C: That would be awesome. [02:31:12] Speaker D: But it wouldn't. [02:31:15] Speaker B: That's why. That's like literally why there's a natural refractory period. So we're not just [02:31:24] Speaker C: glutes, loot. [02:31:27] Speaker D: All the trees are right now. Which is what. This is what Jake's dealing with. [02:31:32] Speaker C: All the PK kids are out there being like, that's what God did. [02:31:38] Speaker B: Healing tree come. But. But if you had asked me logging [02:31:43] Speaker D: up his sinuses when I was a [02:31:46] Speaker B: kid, if I, you know, in high school, as a pk, if I had asked AI to give me a challenging big robot movie about God, it would have produced something interesting, but it would never have produced Evangelion. [02:32:01] Speaker A: No. [02:32:02] Speaker B: Challenging to this day. And like, I still am still intrigued by it. And I still wake up at 3 in the morning and. And me at 43 years old. Like, what was, but what was, what was that about? You know, I'm still intrigued by it. So there's no way, I think we're all. AI is going to be able to edit our videos and our podcasts and all that, and it'll be able to fake a lot of things and probably start some wars, but it will never be able to make an Evangelion. [02:32:36] Speaker D: I, maybe they'll make something different. And when they become fully sentient beings, [02:32:41] Speaker B: we'll have to respect them and then fight them with our robots. [02:32:44] Speaker D: Or we, or we just treat them the same as normal human beings so they don't wipe us out. [02:32:49] Speaker C: Like in the Second Renaissance, we'll become the second. We'll become the second class citizens. My thing is, like, it's impossible for a single human being to encompass the entirety of art, right? Like the entirety of the art base. But for a computer, that's theoretically, that's theoretically possible. Like, and so [02:33:14] Speaker B: what do you, what do you say? [02:33:15] Speaker D: Well, like, it's possible for a computer or an artificial mind or an AI to literally absorb the entirety of the Internet. [02:33:25] Speaker B: Yeah, sure, yeah. [02:33:26] Speaker D: But now you get like, like the puppet master. When, when the puppet master comes around, maybe I want to talk to him and not Gronk or whatever the it's called. [02:33:37] Speaker C: So it, it might not need to be creative if, like, the AI already has such a large base that it's already beyond an individual's ability to like, understand its library that's trained on. Right. Like, and that, that's the, that keeps me up at night because it's like, that's, I hate this idea. Idea. But it always, like, again, I always think about how, when, when I would enjoy something fully AI created from A to Z. And I, I don't like saying that the idea is impossible or that there's some innately special human aspect to creation. Because I'm a very, like, I don't know, I, I don't think humanity is all that special in the grand scheme of like, the universe. Right? So like something like, oh, I'm kind [02:34:35] Speaker D: of a pessimist too, but yeah, like, there might. [02:34:38] Speaker C: There might. [02:34:39] Speaker D: I'm also a Star Trek fan, so I gotta have hope. [02:34:43] Speaker C: I love Star Trek. Like, like there might be a mathematical way to quantify art and then that depresses me. [02:34:55] Speaker B: You would have to have some great organic filter to decide what's art and not. [02:35:04] Speaker C: But in Gunbuster, in Gunbuster, they had dolphin brains. [02:35:09] Speaker B: Dolphin brains. All right, we've all seen, we had [02:35:14] Speaker D: a few flipper Babies. [02:35:18] Speaker B: There were [02:35:20] Speaker D: liver babies. [02:35:27] Speaker B: There were a few babies. Oh, my God. All right, we gotta wrap up the show. [02:35:34] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, no, we need to do a part two. I'll come up with another list. [02:35:39] Speaker B: Absolutely. Part two is gonna be. What could y' all talk about beyond anime songs, more animals, video games [02:35:55] Speaker D: scores, political songs. [02:35:57] Speaker B: Oh, legit. Done. Done. [02:36:00] Speaker C: Booked video game stores. [02:36:02] Speaker B: Yeah, be cool. But I like legit. Have no idea about that. So you'd be in another situation. [02:36:08] Speaker D: Oh, I got some things for you. [02:36:12] Speaker C: There's so many good directions. [02:36:15] Speaker D: Oh, my God. Oh, dude. Oh, Mick Gordon, look up Mick Gordon. [02:36:20] Speaker B: Yeah, Gordon. What? [02:36:22] Speaker D: You will love him. [02:36:23] Speaker C: The guy that does the doom. Eternal doom. Osc. I, I, I, I, I. I've shown you a couple of those. [02:36:29] Speaker B: You play me some of it. All right. [02:36:30] Speaker C: Yep. [02:36:31] Speaker D: BFG division. [02:36:34] Speaker B: Hey, do you guys want to give a cool, like, send off before we close out the episode? Well, this. [02:36:42] Speaker D: This anime Mimo has definitely been sipped. We have sucked upon the Nemo. The Nemo. [02:36:57] Speaker C: I'm. I'm sorry that I. Inazuma kicked Jake out of this episode. Incapacity did. I was too eager to talk about anime. [02:37:08] Speaker D: Yeah, Austin used Sport Cloud. It's super effective. [02:37:15] Speaker B: Well, this is rad. [02:37:17] Speaker D: Yeah, dude. [02:37:18] Speaker B: Good to see you, man. Hey, let's do this, like, next week. Legit game. Gaming. Gaming scores. Let's just do it. I have no idea. Contra. I don't know, dude. Seriously, Mario has to be there. [02:37:33] Speaker C: What is Contra? The first video game that came into your head, regardless of music quality. [02:37:38] Speaker B: Because I remember Contract, but like, like, you have to. If you want to go classico, like, you gotta go like Tetris and Mario and all that. [02:37:48] Speaker D: Well, dude, Koji, Kondo, Yuzo, Kushiro, Nobu, Uematsu, all these guys. [02:37:56] Speaker B: Oh, let's get. Let's get bg. Sign on the, on the, on the, on the horn. We'll get. [02:38:03] Speaker D: Dude. Oh, man. Daddy Malk from Ninja Warriors. I'm gonna put that. I'm gonna put that song in the chat. Like, dude, you gotta listen to this. Daddy broke like, dude, the. They did with midis back in the day. Like, it's unreal, man. Oh, bro, dude, you don't even know, man. Colin Stetson did the score for red Dead Redemption 2. [02:38:34] Speaker B: Oh, all right. Well, Alex does this. [02:38:37] Speaker C: Okay, if we're choosing a track from red Dead Redemption 2, it has to be the one where they're building the house. [02:38:46] Speaker B: All right, all right. Let it. Let it percolate. Let it percolate. [02:38:52] Speaker D: I'll work on a list. [02:38:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Hey, y'. All. And. And I can't wait to launch our Evangelion rewatch show. Oh, man. [02:39:02] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [02:39:03] Speaker B: Because no one's ever done that, ever. It's gonna be, it's gonna be white [02:39:09] Speaker D: guys of a certain age talking about Evangelion. Genius. [02:39:18] Speaker C: It's different. [02:39:19] Speaker B: And start your episode now. Oh, he's still in the chair. So. [02:39:25] Speaker D: But this was like, really next. [02:39:27] Speaker C: This is ground. [02:39:28] Speaker D: Why is he sitting next to her bed? Yeah, [02:39:33] Speaker C: you see ghost right here in episode one the time. Continuity of instrumentality. [02:39:44] Speaker B: No, he's jerking off. [02:39:46] Speaker D: He's, he's, he's jerking it. [02:39:48] Speaker B: He's, he's, he's a scumbag a little bit. [02:39:52] Speaker D: Dude, every 14 year old is a scumbag. Like, come on, man. [02:39:56] Speaker C: Yeah, I hate the Netflix slub sub where it says, I'm the lowest of the low. Whereas, like, fan subs were like, I'm so up and I'm so up. [02:40:08] Speaker B: The line was I'm so up. [02:40:10] Speaker C: That was the, that was the original translation. But now Netflix is like, I'm the lowest of the low. So you just jerked off on a girl? Like, come on, dude. [02:40:20] Speaker B: There's some art to it. [02:40:22] Speaker D: Yeah, there's, there's nuance. Like, wait, I'm the lowest of the low. Now I'm gonna. Now I'm gonna crank my hug in shame. [02:40:32] Speaker C: That's like something you say when you litter intentionally. I'm the lowest. [02:40:36] Speaker D: Lowest of the low. [02:40:38] Speaker B: I'm messing with Texas me. [02:40:40] Speaker C: I don't recycle. [02:40:44] Speaker B: No legit. We should do like a commentary podcast. [02:40:47] Speaker C: That be. That be great. [02:40:50] Speaker B: That be so funny. That'd be great. This. All right, and then that was 43 times. All right, y', all, thank you so much for being here. David, honestly, let's do. Let's figure out the video game thing. I have no idea about it. Maybe I'll make Jake do that solo. No, but I'll be there. But I appreciate you all's time. [02:41:20] Speaker D: Yeah. [02:41:21] Speaker C: Yeah. Super fun. Glad to meet you, Dave. Absolutely. Long time coming. [02:41:26] Speaker B: Y' all are best friends now. I love it. Keep the conversation going. Let's do anime. [02:41:32] Speaker D: Yes. [02:41:33] Speaker B: Yes. [02:41:35] Speaker D: Part two. [02:41:35] Speaker B: What we. We do this. Like, it would be like, instead of like. Well, this one was meant to be like, music. I think part two would be like best long running sagas or something like that. [02:41:51] Speaker C: This one, like, I, I, I stuck with, like, kind of more J Pop, like lyric based songs. Like, like, for me, I would want to go like, more actual, like, orchestral stuff, you know, [02:42:07] Speaker B: as I spent anime footprint Like. Like. Like who's. Who has the biggest imprint, like, socially, like, as a social piece. Like, is it. Is it Akira or is it Robotech? You know, like. Like what. What. What is more in the monoculture than the other. You know, you could do your top. Top three. [02:42:27] Speaker D: A lot of interesting questions. [02:42:30] Speaker B: Yeah. But I wanna. I wanna know what Dave thinks about Demon Slayer and too. So we'll have to. We'll have to meet up. [02:42:38] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [02:42:41] Speaker B: What a dream. [02:42:43] Speaker D: Yes. Well, no, we'll. We'll say. We'll save my hot takes for later. Okay. Okay. [02:42:49] Speaker B: Okay. [02:42:49] Speaker C: I'm. [02:42:50] Speaker D: I'm not a hater, but. [02:42:53] Speaker B: Okay, it's. Well, real quick. Demon Slayer or Chainsaw Man? [02:42:59] Speaker D: For Chainsaw Man. [02:43:02] Speaker B: Okay, your. Your answer opens up three more questions. [02:43:09] Speaker C: All right, Elliot. What. What. What character died in the. In the Demon Slayer movie? [02:43:14] Speaker B: The dude with the eyeshadow on the train? [02:43:18] Speaker C: Yeah, that's. That was the last movie. Or that. That wasn't. That wasn't the most recent movie. That was the movie. Before this movie. Before this movie, there have been in. In. In Infinity Castle. I don't recall exactly. [02:43:40] Speaker B: Right. Brutal. But. [02:43:42] Speaker D: But, like. [02:43:43] Speaker B: But yeah. Okay. [02:43:45] Speaker D: I. I think. I think Kimetsu no Yaiba is a gorgeous show. It has a banger of an opening like that. That first opening. [02:43:58] Speaker C: Oh, good. [02:43:59] Speaker D: He's an amazing artist. I like. I like a lot of her stuff. [02:44:03] Speaker C: Tanjiro, no Utah from the soundtrack also is amazing. [02:44:08] Speaker D: I. I gave that show a solid five episodes and I just couldn't get into it. It's not that I dislike it. I don't think it's bad. It's. Maybe I'm not the target audience for this. [02:44:20] Speaker B: Yeah, probably not. It's clearly aged. It's age. Age. [02:44:24] Speaker D: It. It feels. It feels a little. A little tropey, a little samey. Like, I need a little more spice in my. [02:44:33] Speaker C: Do you have. Do you have siblings? Did one of your, like, siblings turn into a vampire? [02:44:45] Speaker B: Perhaps the tension says. Designed for people that have. Whose ages start with a one, two or a three, or their. [02:44:54] Speaker D: Or their birthday starts with a two do. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like, I. I appreciate it for what is. It's an incredibly well made show, but it's. I feel like the story's not very strong. [02:45:08] Speaker C: I say season one's worth watching and then the rest of it is, like, how much you want to gush over the animation. [02:45:15] Speaker D: Yeah, no, it's gorgeous. [02:45:16] Speaker B: It is. [02:45:17] Speaker D: It is gorgeous. And they did a great job. [02:45:19] Speaker B: Work off animation, like, spend the money here and it's twirling thing. [02:45:23] Speaker C: Yeah, that's like a. Like a UFO to bowl, which just has infinite money off of Fate, say, Night franchise. [02:45:31] Speaker D: It's like an infinite printer, and people just devour the. The ancillary meal. [02:45:40] Speaker C: Yeah, it's the same with the studio Shaft with Madoka Magica, which is like infinite money for all, except I love that show. No, no, no. Madoka is amazing. [02:45:53] Speaker B: Hey, all right, we're gonna. [02:45:54] Speaker D: All right, we gotta go. [02:45:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Usually we say. We just close out and we say thank. We say stay sipping, stay sipping. [02:46:07] Speaker C: Stay sipping. [02:46:08] Speaker B: Stay sipping, Stay sipping. Cheers, y' all sa. [02:46:39] Speaker C: Ha.