AAA 766: Are you a Baka?
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Hey, anime addicts. The audio quality on this episode might be a little less than optimal. We did have some problems recording, which does happen occasionally.

Did my best to recover the audio and make it as nice as I could for you. And I'm not on the episode today, but I hope you still enjoy the podcast. I know they're going to play a fun game for you and review a particularly good anime, so I think you'll enjoy that as well. And I'll be back next week, so you won't have to miss me for too long. But again, I apologize for the audio. I think it'll probably be okay because every time I put one of these messages out, nobody ever complains. So it'll probably be just fine. I hope you enjoy, and we'll see you next time.

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Welcome to the Anime Addicts Anonymous podcast, episode 766.

I'm Mason, and I'm your host today. I don't know. These are all questions because we have an exciting trivia game today, and I don't know the answers to anything that's going on because I didn't put it together. The person at the helm leading the ship today, really, and pulling all the strings, is our game master, Raggedy, who is consuming a one-piece beverage of yogurt-flavored shenanigans and consuming and giving his live reaction...

It tastes like yogurt. It tastes like yogurt. Wow. It lived up to all expectations. Yeah, that sounds great. It's okay. I love yogurt, but I don't know if I would ever want something yogurt flavored like that. That's not where I would reach for, but. The yogurt is flavored, so it's not just yogurt. Yeah, maybe. Anyway, Raggedy's here. Caroline is here. Caroline, are you drinking anything of interest?

Just water. Oh, my goodness. You're just a loser like me. And finally, we have Andrew, who is drinking something far more interesting than water. It looks like yellow. Well, sexier than a Japanese pop idol after surviving a UFO crash. I'm drinking a smoothie, mango pineapple flavored. Because there's mango and pineapple in it?

Nope, there's peach. The grape bamboozle. Sorry, misdirect. Playing with our emotions. Wow. Does it taste like summertime?

Looks outside window, see snowstorm. Yes. Shut your eyes to the outside world and just stay with us here where we're going to make your anime addiction worse. We might learn something today. As I mentioned, we're doing trivia, but we're also are doing a review of Dead Dead Demons Day to Day Day Destruction.

And I'm counting the days now. I told you to keep me accountable. So everyone, make sure I only do four days. So that's your task. Take a sip every time I mess it up. Thank you all for joining us today. It's a bit unhinged off the bat, but please go to aapodcast.com. And the most important thing you do today is actually not listen to this episode because...

who cares about what I have to say, but I care what you have to say. And when you go to our website, you can vote in our 2024 Anime Oscars, which is the big event. We're going to do it like a month from now. So you do have a timeline and there you submit your best shows, the ones you like the most in all your favorite genres from action to comedy to

Slice of life your favorite girl best boy anime of the year the worst thing you watched well conglomerate all your answers and we're gonna do a big show like I said and it's a bunch of fun so please go and vote as well as voting for the winter 2025 listeners choice so the shows that we're not passing but you still have a chance to make them reviewable and

Also go to aapodcast.com. It's like a one-stop shop. You've got links to our Twitter and our Instagram and most importantly, our Discord where you can join our little community and hang out in anime clubs and talk about seasonal shows and just have a good old time. So that's the place to be. That's the whole thing. That's enough housekeeping. Are we ready to start the show? Because I think we have a lot to talk about today. So much. So much. So much.

It's time for big news of the week. My big news of the week is that you can go watch a roughly 50 minute long behind the scenes look at the making of the manga of Detective Conan. And it's great.

pretty neat. It's pretty interesting. It's an intimate look of the work process and history of Aoyama Gosho, most known as the mangaka for Case Closed, aka Detective Conan, which is the fourth best manga selling thing of all time. So it's kind of a big deal. And even as someone who personally isn't the biggest fan of the show, this documentary is

It's so interesting, so insightful. It was filmed throughout 2023. And really, it's the first time that he let people have access to like film and see his studio. And you get to see his philosophy, his favorite foods, his work ethic, and kind of what's keeping him going for the decades that he's been working at it. And if you're someone like myself who likes that Shiro Bako-esque behind the scenes, looking at the, you know,

methodology of what goes into making our favorite pieces of media like anime and manga, it's just always so insightful and really endearing in a lot of ways. So

Go check it out. You can watch it for free on NHK's website, or if you just click on the link in our handy-dandy show notes, which you get by supporting us, so plug, plug, plug, you can just watch it there, though it is only available through the end of 2025, which sounds like a long time, but I guarantee you it will be here before you know it. So check it out if either you like Detective Conan, you like what it takes to be a mangaka, or you just like looking into the industry. So go. There you go. What do you got, Caroline?

Very quick. I didn't really see much that I was all that interested in, except it was announced that Bochy the Rock season two is in production. So hopefully that'll be out in the next year or so. That's it. There is no release date or anything, just that it's in production. It's been a pretty slow news week, and I haven't looked too far into this, but I have heard

reports musings i'm not really sure how validated they've that they've been but there seems to be not as much returning staff members to this installment as i think people would like i don't think the director and some other high profile right people are joining the thing so i'm very interested to see what comes of this and how it compares to season one so i'm tentatively excited but i

Yeah, I did read that the assistant director has been made director for season two, but I have not really paid attention to any other staff announcements. But, you know, hopefully it's good and we can enjoy more Bochy. Yeah. Nice. Andrew, anything?

No, because I don't really look at news. I don't really look at news at the moment. It's too cool for us. And I looked at it quickly and I saw the only thing I saw that I think was Land of the Lustrous is won a sci-fi award. Yeah. But I didn't actually click on the article. So deservedly. Awesome. I didn't want spoilers. Yeah, that's fair. Raggedy, what do you got?

I have kind of a follow-up to something we've talked about a few times, which is how horrible it is to work in the MMA industry.

The UN released a report about kind of the exploitation and harassment that's happening in the anime industry. I've included a link to the actual UN report itself in our show notes if you want to go into the legal mumbo jumbo of it and see all the details. But the gist of it is that compensation is really poor. You know, the average...

Entry level for an animator is $13,000 annually, which is terrible, obviously. The pay can take up to six months or longer to be reached. There was a lot of times with no formal contracts for a lot of these freelance workers. And the good news, though, is that the Japan Fair Trade Commission has launched its own official study

into the anime industry. And there have been a bunch of new laws that have come out, um, to kind of correct a lot of the stuff. So for example, uh, in November, uh, there was a new law for freelancers that actually mandates written contracts for all freelance workers, including those in the anime industry. So these people who were getting these very crappy, uh,

Quote-unquote contracts that weren't even getting rewarded on the sort of verbal agreements that they were getting now They actually have to be kind of written down and taken care of properly Which is nice and hopefully they're going to kind of progress forward with this official study and get even more out of it a few things that were mentioned in the UN report that were seemingly nowhere in

like Japan Fair Trade Commission's response, at least as of yet, has to do more with the in-work harassment and disparities, unfortunately. So stuff like female workers earning 75 cents per their male counterparts or the fact that minority workers, so like

particularly women, they found that the average annual earnings for a woman in the anime industry is around 3 million yen. But if you're a Baruka woman, it's actually 2 million yen. And if you're an Ainu woman, it's 1.5 million yen. So it's pretty significant disparities there. So hopefully that's another part that they will eventually get around to fixing too.

Yeah, it sounds like a good start besides not just like doing a study, but doing a study that results in laws that hopefully get either enforced or just followed. But yeah, still definitely a way to go. I don't think we are like near the end of the working in anime is a brutally un...

you know, compensated position, but hopefully these are the beginning steps to rectify that to some degree. I mean, anime is being more global, more worldwide, more, you know, generative of profit than ever with all these different avenues. So hopefully we start getting more of that flow to the people who actually make the thing. Yeah, sounds good. Any other thoughts on this? You said it all. Nice, nice. Pretty, pretty diverse thing.

With that, I think we can get to our main topic, which is the trivia battle. So Game Master, take it away. Welcome.

To Baka and Trivia. For those of you who have been on the Discord and played the Trivia game on the Discord, this will be very familiar to you. Another reason to join the Discord while we don't do the Trivia game anymore. There's still plenty of fun stuff like this, so plug, plug, plug, plug. To explain the rules of the game, it's fairly simple. I'm going to have a series of statements. A series of statements with something that is incorrect all these statements are about.

The various anime that we all know and love. And the job of the contestants is to find what's wrong and correct it. There are two main rules. Main rule number one is you have to say baka before you give your correction. So kind of Jeopardy style. You have to, if you don't add that to it, I will not be able to give you the points.

And the other rule is you can interrupt me at any time because how dare I say something so wrong about your favorite anime. You must let me know immediately that I did so. And with that, we're going to start with our first statement about Vinland Saga.

In Vinland Saga's second season, Kettle's farm has numerous guards known as guests. These guests have largely abandoned their real names and are instead referred to by various animal names. Guests include snake, badger, wolf, spider, wild dog, and lizard. Baka. Caroline. I don't think spider was a character. Did you say Baka? I don't know if that's what you used to bug me. I think it cut out for a second, but she definitely said it.

Nope, Spider is indeed a character. Baka, it's Wild Dog isn't a character. Wild Dog is also a character. Dang it. There's no penalty for guessing, but we can only guess once, right? Yes. You can only guess once until everyone guesses. Well, Andrew, it's up to you. Baka... I didn't have a guess, I just wanted to call you Baka. That...

attend this whatever I completely forgot the question you can read the question it's on the screen what screen on the stream I've shared it with you the stream screen oh shit

Uh, sure. Uh, yeah, hold on. Oh dear. It's gotta be something else. Oh yeah, Baka, it's not just animals that can be referred to as guests. That's what my statement is. Uh, nope, they are all animals. Yeah, they're definitely all animals. We'll go, I'll reset it one more time. So if anyone wants to jump in again. Yeah. Uh, Caroline. Caroline.

Lizard is not a character. Lizard is also a character. They're definitely all characters. It's definitely... Largely abandoned their names, maybe? These guests? Maybe they're not... Baka, it was not in the second season? It was in the second season. I do like... I have not watched Vinland Saga. I don't know anything. I'm just guessing. That was a good guess, though, actually. Why is the stream spazzing out? I was wondering that, too.

It's dancing. It's dancing. Well, Mace, if you want to give one more guess, otherwise I'll call it. I don't. I don't. I can't embarrass myself. I don't know what it is. All right. I will. I'll stop it there. So Wolf may sound familiar, but Wolf has nothing to do with the farm or kettle. He is Knut's right hand man, the head thing. So we should have just kept on guessing the animal. You should have just kept on guessing. Can you like reset your window? I can.

Can try to reset my window and we'll- Or like stop the stream and then start it again? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I will do that. We'll just edit all this out in post. Yeah. Post, post, post. Stop streaming. And I will now share my screen again. Yeah, it feels like I'm both dancing and having a seizure at the same time. You love to see it. Let's try that again. Nope. Let's try this. It's still spaz-spazzing. It's still happening. It's still spazzing. What the heck? It wasn't doing this before.

Do you have other things open? I have another piece of PowerPoint open so I can read the question before you, but that is it. Okay, well, it's not spazzing now, so we're good. We're good. Oh, now it's spazzing. It is. Okay, we're good. Nope. Stop. You can't jinx us that way, Mason. I know. I shouldn't have said anything. The problem is I can't see if it's spazzing or not.

It is, but we'll just have to deal with it. Oh, I see how it does a little spaz spaz, but can you still read it? Yeah. Yeah. I will just make it smaller so our listeners and viewers don't get assaulted. Fair enough. Let me know when to start with the next one then. Yeah, just go for it. All right. Our next question is about love after world domination.

That is tough.

I'll be honest, I wasn't listening because I'm just setting up the thing. So this is not spazzing out on the viewers. Okay. Baka? Yes, Rigi. The command isn't freezing change? The command is freezing change. It is quite stupid. No, it's pretty on brand, actually. Like I said, quite stupid. This is why you suck. It's okay.

Caroline, you're the chosen one. You got to do this. I know. Baka. Pink gelato is not peach? Pink gelato is indeed peach. Man, we're just getting stunted on. Let's give each of you guys another guess. Otherwise... Okay, Baka, it's not actually a bracelet type morpher.

It is a bracelet-type morpher. Oh, I could have sworn it was. They have a whole thing. I know there's a sequence. It doesn't always have to be a bracelet, is all I'm saying. That's fair. This one is. I'm sorry. It's a wrist tension device, just saying. It's not a bracelet-type morpher. It's a wrist morpher. It's the technical terminology. Okay. Baka. Baka.

Blue gelato is not blueberry. That is correct. Yay. Do you happen to know what flavor blue gelato is? Ramune? It is. It's soda. Like, what else is blue? So we don't have to give the correction. We just have to say what's wrong with the statement.

Yes, if you want extra nerd points, or if you're way too vague, then maybe I'll toss it up for a steal. We'll see. So Caroline gets 1.1 points. She gets one for getting it right, and then the .1 for getting the correct answer. Okay.

No, she gets one point. Next question is about Attack on Titan. Only the top 10 training corps graduates can apply to the military police, giving them the privilege of living in the inner district. However, of all top 10 graduates in the 104th Southern Division, only Annie Lionheart applied to the military police, while the other nine joined the survey corps, with none of them choosing the garrison.

Baka, wasn't it only seven of the ten that chose the garrison? You have... You're not very... You're not particularly correct, but you have found the... It's not the number. You found... Yeah, you found the thing that's wrong. So the question is, is it not ten that make it, or is it not only one that join? If someone can be more specific than Frigia, I will let them steal the point from him. Hmm.

I can't be more specific than that. I'm going to guess. The number. If you can tell me the number. Vaka. Eight of them joined the survey corps because Marco died. I'm sorry, Fridgie, but Caroline has swept it out from under you. That's so nice. It is.

All right. I think this is the Caroline segment of the trivia game. I'm so happy right now. Heck yeah. Heck yeah. Speaking of which, our next question is about Fruits Basket. Okay. Baka. The Soma. Me. Me. I'm the Baka. So the Soma family curse in Fruits Basket causes those afflicted to be possessed by the animals of the Zodiac, and they turn into their respective animals when hugged by a member of the opposite gender.

However, the transformation is not always the exact animal. For example, Kurino becomes a sparrow instead of a rooster, and Hattori becomes a seahorse instead of a dragon. While there are 12 animals officially in the Zodiac, there are actually 13 Kurosomas since Kyosoma is possessed by the spirit of the cat. A little bit of a denser one. Caroline? I don't think Kurino becomes a sparrow. Kurino indeed becomes a sparrow. Oh.

Why not a rooster? That's so strange. That exists. Is it the names of the characters that's wrong? My goal with a game like this is that there is some listener out there who is screaming. It doesn't have to be a member of the opposite gender. There are other ways they can turn into it, but one of them is that. So it's not incorrect to say that. Yeah. Yeah.

There's something way more incorrect than that, as opposed to just an omission. I think we should let Caroline just keep on guessing. She's got another one up her sleeve. Baka. Yes.

Is it actually 14 cursed Somas? Because you got, I forgot her name, the head of the family. They are also technically cursed. Caroline, did you steal the answer sheet? That's another point for Caroline. Now, does she turn into someone, though? She becomes the god, the god of the Zodiac.

Okay, so technically also like that part could have been wrong. Is that like it's not 13? I'll be honest. I have not watched anywhere near enough of Fruits Basket to know if she physically turns into someone different. Gotcha. I don't think they do. Okay. There we go, Caroline running away with this.

Well, maybe, maybe you guys can do a little better on this one. This is what I call an OQA. Like it's, you know, original question about anime, kind of like an OVA. So it's a little bit different, a little bit longer than the previous questions. This one's called once more without feeling. I am going to, uh, not sing, but read the lyrics with as little rhythm tone melody as possible. Yeah. So it's like my singing. Yeah, exactly. Uh,

And you have to tell me what anime it is. It's all dubbed songs because that's more interesting. Are these OPs? They're all OPs. They're all OPs. But also translated. So this is going to suck. Oh, no. This is like the Kids WB translated. So it's even more fun.

Oh, this is going to stink. No, you're going to love it. I swear. Should we interrupt you mid-song if we... Of course. Yeah, I only have a verse. Do we also have to call you Baka here or no? If you want to keep in the habit, please do. It's his kink, so we encourage it.

That's right. Not a hentai episode. Not a hentai episode. There are eight of them. Whoever gets the most right gets the point for the round. So here comes your first one. Dreamin', don't give it up. Give it up. It's one piece. Yeah, it's one piece. I got a point. I'm not a loser. No, not yet, technically. All right, here comes the next one.

She will never turn her back on a friend. She is always... Sailor Moon. Caroline buzzed in first from what I heard. I was going to say Sailor Moon. I heard Caroline. Oh, okay. Caroline, what is your... Sailor Moon. Yeah, Sailor Moon. See, I told you it'd be fun. All right, here comes your next one. Then suddenly my power and confidence start swelling up. Baka Yu Yu Hakusho. That is Yu Yu Hakusho.

Good job. That's a point for everyone. Okay. Next one is, come with me. The time is right. There is no better team. Yes, Caroline. Hunter, Hunter? This is not Hunter, Hunter. Arm and arm will win the fight. It's always been our dream. Baka, Pokemon. Yeah, it's Pokemon. Gotta catch them all. It's the second verse, Caroline. Yeah, I was like, that's not the first. I was like...

I couldn't. Yeah. Anyway, continue. I don't even see Hunter Hunter. I don't even know why I guessed that. All right. Your next one is look around you. Look beyond. You could make an unbreakable. Yes. No, no. Sorry. Oh, my God. Shaman King. This is Shaman King.

Very nice. All right. We have one more left. Sorry. Look beyond you. Look beyond. You can make the unbreaking law. The world around you is not as it seems through the eyes of something, something, so many things I never could see. So many voices calling on me. Could it be my destiny to be shaman? Continue. Sure. Last one.

Each card possesses a power of its own. Baka. That's Caroline. That would be Yu-Gi-Oh. That's not Yu-Gi-Oh. Frigie was, or I think, who was next? Was that Mason or Frigie? They morphed together. Go ahead, Mason. You need this. I'm panicking now. Every card has a power of its own.

Attack on Titan. It's not. No, guys, it's Cardcaptor Sakura. Yeah. So with four of them correct, this point goes to Friggy. Good job, Friggy. Nice. You found your mold, Friggy. I mean, I knew the second it was a singing type thing, I was going to get absolutely bodied by the two people who actually know my songs and do karaoke. So...

A lot of these shows I've actually never seen. No, but well, that's because you haven't watched the first like the Secrets of the Cloud were all a mystery. And then when Mighty Book was open, a power was set free. I've seen Cardcaptor. I've never seen Cardcaptor. Oh, my God. I could I could see all of these openings. I've heard them a million times. Anyway, continue. So back to our normal, normal style of questions. This one's about Monster.

I haven't finished Monster yet. However, you have...

He can't speak Latin? He can speak Latin. Baka, he's not 15 when he does the things you said he did? He was indeed 15. I knew it was some teenage age. I just know that's all I had. Andrew, the cards, they're in your hand. Yeah, I've never seen Monster either. Baka, he's not actually fluent in French.

He is fluent in French. What was it? You said he did cold readings? Yes, cold readings. I don't even know what that is. Oh, it's just being able to essentially like it's the Sherlock Holmes thing when he show up and he's like, I know basically everything about you based off of just looking at you. Baka. Yes. Can he not speak Japanese?

That's correct. He cannot speak Japanese. Despite the fact the show is in Japanese. Yes, you fools. You've been fooled. You stupid sub-watchers have been fooled. Wow, got him. Got him. Wait, did he say he could speak English? I did not mention that, but he... So in the dub, once again, it works either way. This is true. Yeah, actually, I don't know if he speaks English. It wouldn't surprise me. He's a smart cookie. You can speak Latin?

You can speak English. Our next question is about Steins Gate. The phone wave, name subject to change, is one of the inventions of the Future Gadget Laboratory, specifically Future Gadget number 8. With it, you can send a d-mail, short for Darumail, which is a message that can be sent to a phone or a pager in the past. Baka, it can be also sent to...

Something else. Those aren't the only two things that can be sent to. I just can't remember what the they sent it to something else. No. Anyway, that's it. Those are the only two things. Oh, yes, Caroline. Is it not future gadget number eight? It is numero ocho. I was going to say, it seems like he's setting these questions up so easily being like, oh, this could be like a made up number, but it's always.

Not that. It's not called D-mail, the Baka. It's not called D-mail because it's not Daru-mail. It stands for something else. That's correct. Do you know what it stands for? I'm going to give you the point anyway. I don't know what the D means. The kids, they come to me, they say the D, and I do not know. It stands for...

DeLorean male. Because, of course, it does. I thought it stood for Daru, the assistant guy. That's why Raggedy is so nefarious. Raggedy, you are really good at faking us out. Not good enough. I'm learning. I'm learning. I love how your background, the horns of the guy behind you fit around your head perfectly. That was the intention. Thank you.

Our next question might, I think it's probably just for Friggy. This is a mobile fighter Gundam G. Just for Friggy? I only know Gundam D for Glorian. It's not just for Friggy. I mean, you can still get the answer. You never know. I might get it wrong. I haven't seen that in forever. Let's go. Let's extend it. Second wind. Here we go.

Mobile Fighter Gundam G is set in the future century where war amongst countries has been replaced by the Gundam fight.

The space colonies compete in the Gundam fight once every four years. The mobile suits in the show include Neo Mexico's Cactus Gundam, Neo Spain's Matador Gundam. Yes, Andrew. It's the Tequila Gundam, not the Cactus Gundam. That's right. It's the Tequila Gundam. I literally made a joke that it was called the Taka Gundam. Sorry, you should go through all the Gundam names. They're pretty ridiculous. They are, yes.

So we have to finish the statement just because of how silly it is. There's Neo Mexico's tequila Gundam, as Andrew has rightfully corrected me. There's Neo Spain's Matador Gundam, Neo Holland's Hurricane Gundam, Master Asia's Master Gundam, and Funasaki, a horse-like mobile suit piloted by Master Asia's horse. Funasaki. Funasaki.

Wow. And they do combine, by the way. And if you've ever seen the horse getting put into like the skin tight suit, it's like the stuff of nightmares. Poor horse. Anyway, with that, why don't we go from one mecha question to another mecha question with our second OQA. This is one called order up mecha. I'm going to give you six mecha.

And I want you to put them in height order from shortest to tallest. You're each going to get to go. And whoever gets the most correct again gets the point. Oh, my God. So I'll give you all a second to think about it. Look it over.

Make your decisions. I will read to the people who are listening at home and cannot see. Though you should watch the YouTube or Twitch live stream or video later because, hey, we do this for you guys. Is the stream still spazzing out? I hope not. Okay, I haven't been showing it because it's so flashy. It's like secret inducing. So I have not seen any of these questions. So I'm running blind here. So I'm trying my best.

Excuses for what you lose. Exactly. Got it. So, but to read them out, your options are The Big O from The Big O, Lancelot from Code Geass, Getter Emperor from Getter Robo Arc, Gurren Lagann from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, specifically Gurren Lagann for you pedantic ones out there. Yeah. Thank you. Those who know, know. Gurren Lagann,

Gunbuster from Gunbuster and the Colossal Titan from Attack on Titan because we all know Attack on Titan is a secret mecha anime. No, I'm trying to... I haven't seen all of these so I'm just trying to like... I thought you were arguing with calling Attack on Titan a mecha anime. I'm like iffy on that a little bit. But yeah. At points it can be but who's going first? Whoever... I can go first.

If you're ready. Is everyone ready before? So it doesn't really matter. I don't have the screen. So I think... Are you just going to stop us when we get it wrong? Nope, you're going to give me all of them and then I'm going to figure out who has the most correct. Okay. I can't read my notes that I just put. Can I go from tallest to shortest? No, it's from shortest to tallest. I can't read my notes at the bottom. I think I have here...

Lancelot. Okay. Then get her. Okay. You said Code Geass was on there? Code Geass. Sure. We'll put it there. I don't care. Gurren Lagann, Big O. You said Code Geass twice. Oh, Lancelot was from Code Geass. Okay. Lancelot then at the bottom. Then get a robot. Then whatever one goes next. Then... Then...

Gurren Lagann, then Big O, then Colossal Titan. So whichever one I didn't name goes third. Got it. Thank you. All right. Caroline, what do you got? Okay, let's go. Getter Emperor, Lancelot, Gurren Lagann, Colossal Titan, Gunbuster, and the Big O.

All right. Gunbuster. That's who I forgot. Yeah. Oh, God. Okay. So you guys are all wrong. Of course. I've never seen these shows. Gunbuster is the largest one of them anyway, but that's not the order we're doing it. So if I'm going to make this where it gets a little bit tricky. So I know Lancelot's the smallest for sure. And then I think it follows Gurren Lagann. Then it's, I think, the Big O. Okay.

Then the then get a no then then get a emperor. OK, the colossal titan. And then we end with Gunbuster.

Alrighty, so let me tie up the points. So that point is going to go to Fridgy, but he was not nearly as correct as he thought he was because he only got half of them. Yeah. The middle ones are really hard. I know Lancelot was the smallest. I mean, Gunbuster is the largest. Oh, you actually got the middle ones correct, my friend.

Oh, interesting. Lancelot, 4.5 meters is the shortest. Gurren Lagann, 12 meters. Then the Big O at 30 meters. Colossal Titan at 60 meters. Gunbuster at 240 meters. And then Getter Emperor at 12 billion kilometers is the tallest. Yeah, I got the first one right. I love all of them are meters, but then you go to this guy is kilometers. I mean, it's the same thing. It's just kilometers. Oh, did I reverse Big O and Colossal Titan? No.

You reversed. No, no, because you had you had the first. Oh, I got all but the last two. Okay. You got the first three right, I think. Yeah. Well, oh, did I put get a emperor before colossal? Yeah. Oh, I thought I could. Okay. You get the move on. Moving on. Nice.

Next, we shall talk about... Actually, before we go on to our last slate of questions, point check-in. Currently in the lead, Caroline with four, followed closely behind by Fridgie with three, and then Mason's here with one point. One, one, one, one. You did it, Mason. You got a point.

All right. Our next question is about Ranking of Kings. Ranking of Kings follows the journey of the deaf Prince Boji and Kage, who's not deaf, but additionally, and Kage, who is a member of the infamous Shadow Clan. While these two are humans, they meet other species throughout their adventures, including demigods...

Yes, Caroline. Kage is not a human. Kage is a human. What the frick? When? Since when? Since when is Kage human? Since always. He's just built different. Bochi or whatever his name is, is not. He's only half human.

- So you're correct that calling him a human is wrong. - Okay, but that's not the actual Baka you want. - Can you be more correct? If not, I will have to let someone- - Well, he's half giant. No, he's just a giant, sorry. No, he's not half, he's just a giant. What am I saying? Yeah, he's a giant, sorry. Baka, he's just a giant. - Boji, Boji is a giant.

How is it that Kage is human but Boji is not? Because his name is Boji the Rock. Like, I don't... It's obvious. He's a rock. No, no. So that's actually the trick in the show, right? Kage's clan are all human. It's just that they present themselves in that shadow form. Yeah. Was this a season two thing? No. It's in the first season. What? Yeah. I remember this. Yeah. All right. All right.

We got a tie game. We got a tie game. Everyone's in it. I'm sniffing distance of second place. You can pull the come from behind victory. In Princess Mononoke, Ashitaka and his red elk Yakul travel after their village is attacked by a demon, eventually discovering a war raging between the spirits of the forest and the humans of Irontown.

While the wolves and boars of the forest are indeed fierce, a group of brassy, loud women in Irontown are busy inventing new guns to destroy them. Baka, the ladies in the town, aren't the ones inventing the guns? It's those like weird, not weird, that's an insult. The bandaged folks in the back of the town who could be women, I guess, but I don't know.

They're not the ones. Come from behind victory has begun. Oh my goodness, I actually have seen something. Yeah, it's not the women who were inventing the guns. It's the lepers who are up in an attic. Yeah. Kept away from polite design. Behind the throne room. Solid. All right.

Now for our last regular question. Let's see who was paying attention to this week's show for review because this one's about dead, dead demons day to day, today, today, today, today, today. Lots of days. Too many days. Yeah.

Yes. So in Dead Dead Demons Day Day Day Day Destruction, August 31st of 2030 is when the mothership arrived onto Tokyo and the invaders and humankind got contact for the first time. Mass destruction occurred when the United States attacked the mothership. Oran and Kodode, who were best friends since they were eight years old, were in their third year of junior high when this happened.

This is also the date when Nobuo Koyama, Kido's father, and the famous idol Oba Keita disappeared. Baka? Oba. That's Mason. Disappeared before 831? No, he disappeared 831. Okay. Baka. They were not in their third year of junior high. No, no, no, no, no.

They were not in their third year. For August 31st, they were indeed in their third year of junior high. Not in the timeline I was talking about. I'm going to say it was very hard to make a question for this show without spoiling something. Yeah, that's...

So I'm pleased with myself on this one. - Well, maybe I have. - Friggy has a chance before you go again. - Oh, Baka, that wasn't the first time that Humankind and the invaders had contact.

You know what? I'll allow it. You know what? That is my mistake in how I wrote this question. Because that's not the thing that I intended to be wrong. So here's what we're going to do. I want to get a minus one point so that he can lose the game and I don't get laughed. And then I die just like in Yu Yu Hakusho. Yeah.

So what happens now? What happens now is because Mason thinks he might know something. If Mason gets the actual thing correct, I will let him get the point, especially because Fridgey is ahead of him. I don't remember the question. I was just going to guess something like the U.S. actually didn't attack on 831 or something like that. I don't remember the question. I will give the point to Fridgey because he caught me. He caught me fucking up.

Hold on, can I take a guess? Do you want to take a guess at the other thing? Was it because it didn't arrive in Tokyo, it arrived in Setagaya? No, it was because the show doesn't take place in 2030. It started in 2010. I was going to...

I just couldn't remember if they even mentioned the year. See, that's the thing. I didn't remember that the year was set. They weren't very big on the year. They were big about timeline from when the attack happened, but I don't remember the year it was being brought to. I'm not sure about the specificity of it, but it is very clearly set in the contemporary time period and not the future.

Sure enough. Okay. I guess I didn't hear 20. Either way. Nice. We're up to our final OQA. Oh, I thought that was the end. No, that was the last question. Oh, no. You're still in the torture chamber. This is called, oh, no, my one weakness. I'm going to show you eight characters who all have a very, very dumb weakness.

You're going to take a look at the characters, come up with what the weakness is. Everyone's playing. Whoever gets the most correct gets the point. So these are your eight characters. Okay, I guess I got to go to streaming now. Sorry, people on Twitch. You'll have to deal with it. You're going to have to deal with the seizures. So for those who are listening, we have Ranma Saotome from Ranma 1.5. We have Lord Geparuinti.

Oh, Jesus Christ. I'm sure Frigie will say it correctly. Oh, I never watched actually Macross 7, but I would assume it's Geperuniti. That's definitely better than what I said. So that guy from Macross 7, Inuyasha from Inuyasha, Kagura from Gintama, Natsu Dragneel from Fairy Tail, Lina Inverse from Slayers, Monkey D. Luffy from One Piece, and Son Goku from Dragon Ball. So wait.

Well, I have only seen one of these shows and of which I've only seen, you know, a few dozen of Gintama. So that's all I've seen. So let me just rattle off some random weaknesses. Hold on. Wait, wait, wait, wait. What? Jeez. Go ahead. Okay. Ranma, his weakness is that... Oh, yeah. It wasn't his, like...

Getting a bucket of water thrown on him because then he changes gender. Is that a weakness? I don't know. This Lord Geperunity, his weakness is that nobody can say his name right. And that really makes him sad. Inuyasha's weakness is Kagome. Kagura's weakness is food. Natsu's weakness is...

skipping leg day. Lena's weakness is being really fluorescent orange. Monkey D. Luffy's weakness is, oh yeah, he can't swim. And Goku's weakness is, I actually don't know, thinking. Are you thinking or is that his weakness? He can't think. He's not very smart. Understood.

Mason, would you like to give your guesses? Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to do much better than that. I mean, we'll just wait until Friggy gives us the right answers. Ranma is water that transforms. Inuyasha is the Kagome, like down boy or whatever. Kagura is just sweets.

Maybe? I know that's like Gin's weakness, so I don't think that's Kagura's weakness, but just food in general, maybe. Natsu is just strong chill. His midriff gets cold. Lina, inverse, same thing, midriff. Once again, downfall of a lot of anime characters. Monkey Luffy can't swim. Son Goku is...

his crippling inability to be a decent father and the shame that his children have for him. To be clear, this is Son Goku from Dragon Ball. He has no shame. Son Goku's weakness is wearing clothes. And then Lord Geperuni, if you can't see the screen, he has these really spiky shoulder pads sticking up, so if he turns his head too sharply, he just chops off his nose. So that's why he looks like he doesn't have one. So that's my guess.

Okay. All right. Ranma is not water. I don't know what the weakness is, but the water isn't a weakness because they're basically just as strong in both forms. Lord Geparuniti is...

Music, but if I had to be more specific, metal slash rock music, because that's the type they play in Macross 7. Inuyasha is the necklace that was put around him that basically forces him to obey the Sit Boy command. Kagura, I think it's Pretty Boys. Ikemen.

Natsu, I think his weakness. I think it's like an elemental weakness. I couldn't tell you which one specifically. It might be like metal for some reason. Metal. Lina inverse. That's a rough one.

I want to say big boobs, but because she's I know she gets jealous of those. But I'm going to just say it's like pretty boys. Luffy is ocean seawater or sea stone. And Goku's weakness is his tail. Son Goku's weakness is his tail. So Friggy will take that with three of them. Correct.

I'm gonna reveal the real answers. I'm not giving anyone the Inuyasha one because that's not really his weakness. So, Ranma Satome, he's weak to cats. He is deathly afraid of cats. Lord Geperuni-T, like you said, is singing. That's correct. Inuyasha is the new moon. When the new moon hits, he loses all his powers.

Kagura is sunlight. Her and all of her people, clan, whatever, are weak to sunlight, like vampires. That's why she has the umbrella. And why the other people from her thing have umbrellas as well. Yeah, I knew that.

I was too busy just enjoying Caroline's rant and I wanted to do the same. Listen, it's all about entertainment, baby. Natsu, like all other dragon slayers, has motion sickness. Lena Inverse, like all other women in the Slayers universe, are weak to their own...

menstrual cycles. Not you using an icon to flow from progressive. Why? So yeah, when they have their periods, they lose their magic power. It's really weird that that happens, but it does. You've all got this one right. Monkey D. Luffy is weak to salt water or sea prism. And yeah, Son Goku, his tail is a weakness like all other Saiyans before Toriyama got bored with that.

And this now brings us to our final, final question. Our Anime Addicts Anonymous question. Is this worth like multiple points so Caroline can stage a comeback if she needs to? So Fridgie has six. Caroline has four. Mason, you have two. And while this is still only worth one point, it is the most important point because it's who cares the most about the podcast that we're all on. Well, there goes my win. I don't know. I might have you beat me.

All righty. For the final question, a perfect five score is a pretty rare thing for the AAA podcast. So a perfect five anime should be pretty easy to remember, right? Previous winners of this honor include Odd Taxi, Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu, Ping Pong the Animation, Your Lie in April, A Place Further Than the Universe, and Scum's Wish. Baka. Yes, Caroline. Odd Taxi was not a perfect five.

Odd Taxi was not a perfect five. It had... I remember because I gave it a 4.5. A paltry 4.5. Oh, okay. Yes. Caroline giving herself her own point. Fridgey, again, with six points, has claimed the true victory, but Caroline has the moral victory. Yeah. And I have... Mason did not get a zero. Yeah, that's... She's a little asleep tonight, and that's what counts. And I managed to win...

My own personal goal of forcing Mason to play a trivia game. Yeah, you made it happen. And I got absolutely bodied. And those are tough questions. I had fun. They were good, though. They were a lot different than the typical stuff you get in these kind of games. So thank you so much for putting it together. If those multiple like those multiple show questions that you had a couple of times, if they were shows that I saw, yeah.

If there were shows that only I saw, I think I would have won. Otherwise, I thought it was fantastic. Just got to watch more shows. Well, how about whoever made this last trivia question the most important question for the listeners? Read that one off.

Oh, hey, that was me again. Oh my goodness, what a madman. So for today's in-show weekly trivia question, what is the name of the female lead character in the Iso Bayan manga in Dead Demons Day Today Day Destruction? Find out after the break. ♪♪♪

you

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Thank you for watching!

Alright, thank you back. Welcome back to the podcast following that little news break that was not even a news break because there wasn't much news this week. So we'll just get into the answer to the trivia question, which was what is the name of the female lead character in the Isobion manga in Day to Day? And the answer is Debiko. Sorry, Caroline, what was the answer?

Baka. The answer is Devico. And with that, you tie Andrew for the six points.

What do we do next? Oh, that's right. We usually thank listeners for subscribing and helping our bonus content and making this podcast a thing. I don't have the list to it this week, so if you did support us, just internally say thank you to yourself. And when Mitsugi is back next week, he will officially bless you with his blessings. But with that, we will move on to mailbags. It's time for an almighty anime mailbag! Anime mailbag.

If you want to submit a mailbag, you can do so at aapodcast.com and click on the mailbag button. And here we have one from XJL or JL, if you will.

They ask, out of the recent anime, who is your go-to couple for Valentine's Day? And who are you asking out for Valentine's Day? Now, when they say recent anime, how recent did we have to be? Because I just took that as any anime that I've seen in the last several years. Oh.

I'll be honest, I had to make some edits to this question because I didn't know really what they were asking. So whatever you want is my response. I think the assumption was in the last year. Yeah, let's go with that. Well, I did not read the question deck closely. So I put down Horimiya as, you know, obviously. Best boy is Miyamura, but Ishikawa is also pretty high up there for me, too.

Though, if you give me a second and run back around me, I'll come up with an answer from the last year.

I mean, didn't the Horimiya like side stories come out with in the list? Yeah, I guess. But that doesn't feel, that feels like I'm cheating. That's fair. You think you're cheating? Yeah, when I thought recent, I thought like this season recent. And, you know, why choose your favorite couple when you can choose all the couples with the hundred girlfriends who really, really, really, really love you? I mean, they're just, you got the whole buffet of them. Yeah.

Who am I asking out for Valentine's Day? I guess from that show, Nano. She's the best. I mean, you got to pick a partner that's smarter than you. If you pick someone that's dumber than you, you're the dumb one. That's all I got to say about that. Raggedy, what do you got? Yeah, so I definitely cheated and picked a show that was a remake because Rama is awesome.

Quite old, right? Well, I guess not that old. No, not the remake. Wearing the Ranma shirt, I must say. Yeah. Topical Ranma shirt. Best girl. If I'm picking my Valentine from the show, it's going to be best girl shampoo. Who am I actually asking? My wife. My wife. My wife. My wife.

Just can't get shampoo out of your eyes? Hair? Hair. It's shampoo. Hair. Come on. I'm just dealing with mitts. I don't know how to do these hair puns with him. Andrew, you have a best couple? Sure, let's just go with Oshinoko season two. Let's go with Aqua and Akane because obviously to have a girl so devoted to your...

your, your cause that she will actually even would willingly murder someone for you is like the height of obsession that I look for, but she's also like a strong, a bad-ass person. Um,

And like pretty competent and, you know, industrious of her own nature, which and, you know, they work very well together, even though he's an idiot who doesn't see how perfect she is for him. And who am I asking out for Valentine's Day? Well, this is not a hentai episode, so I got to keep it PG. And not answer it. Yeah, fair enough. Caroline, did you wrap around on a.

recent show that you also want to add if not i was just looking through my recent romances though i should have opened it up through like all of because i just they were just asking for the couple not for the romance anime but like yeah i guess i mean but they can't hold the candle to horimiya really well there we go and with that

The time has come for a review of Dead Dead Demon's Day to Day Day Destruction. This is from the acclaimed mangaka Inuyo Asano. It's based on a manga. It came out in summer of 2024. I passed it on episode 738. You can watch it on Crunchyroll. And the synopsis is that, as Raggedy's trivia question alludes to, aliens appear on Earth. Big ol' mothership comes floating down above Tokyo. And, uh...

We got to deal with it and we follow these two best friends Kodode and Ontan who kind of are high school girls just live in their best life and tried to do that despite the fact that aliens are right above our heads. It is done by Studio Production Plus H. Pretty new studio. Most notably, they've done the movie The Orbital Children, another kind of sci-fi experience. And what was everyone's experiences and...

expectations going into this review. Let's start with Raggedy. So this show was, it felt fairly slept on and most of the talk that I saw about the show from anyone was just about how no one was talking about it, which is a little circular, I guess. So I didn't know much from the very limited information I had going in. I was expecting cute girls doing Don't Look Up and that's about all I really knew.

Nice. Caroline. In difference to what Raggedy said, I thought I heard a lot of people talking about it, but because it was a show that I wasn't watching until now, I didn't really pick up any of their conversation. I just knew that they were talking about it. What I did know is that it follows two girls and aliens, but...

I have also, while seeing people talk about this show, I also got a bit mixed up with Dawn to Dawn due to their similarly alternative. Yeah, they're dead. Alliterative. I put I wrote down alternative in my notes, but alliterative names and the fact that they are both shows about aliens and they came out within seasons of each other. So.

A lot of my expectations going into this show were kind of affected by my expectations into Dandedon. Hmm. A high bar, one might say. Andrew, any expectations? I mean, other than it was this week's show, I'd seen the poster and I read the description and the description was like,

The daily lives of two girls with while like this, basically the supernatural exists besides them. Right. So there's an alien ship. It showed up. And then these two girls are just basically living out their lives. And I'm like, OK, it's going to be a cute girls doing cute things. Anime with, you know, maybe sci fi. And at the worst, maybe we'll get some, you know, you know, philosophical discussions on the nature of life, right?

And yeah, that was sort of what I expected, more or less, going into it. Yeah, and for myself, I came in reading quite a lot of Inuyosano's previous works. Obviously, we have Goodnight Poon Poon, Solanin, Downfall, Mujuna Into the Deep. Just a ton of stuff that I tend to really enjoy. I like how unwell he makes me feel. All his series just have an air of pessimism and just a pit in your stomach, and you never...

get through one of those manga feeling good about yourself. You always are just like, man, that sucked in the best way possible. So I was very interested to see how this adaptation of his is something we really haven't gotten feared for a work that tends to be a little bit lighter than some of his other stuff. So big expectations, but curious to see how they would be implemented. With that said, spoiler-free recommendations, Raggedy, would you recommend Day Day Day Day?

So this show is different, right? It's very different from what you're usually going to see. And the thing I found most impressive about it was how much it kind of forces you to think about things without really moralizing at you, which is a problem I find with a lot of shows that try to have some sort of meaning or message as they tend to moralize at you, where this doesn't give so much of a clear, distinct answer to some of the problems it brings up, which is...

It forces you to come up with it for yourself. It's less entertainment and more experience, and it's an experience I would recommend. Nice. Caroline, would you recommend?

I would also generally recommend this show. I think it's really interesting how they took like an apocalyptic story where strange and dangerous things have become so commonplace instead of like a constant like it's constantly happening. But the main characters have become so indifferent to all of these situations. So

So at times, it's just like a normal slice of life anime that just so happens to be under threat of falling UFO debris. But then it also expands to a large cast of organizations with different agendas and ideologies. And people within those groups have varied opinions about their situations as well. So as Raggedy said, they all have different...

opinions about what's happening but none of them are specifically said this is the correct way um of course there are some that are more incorrect than others but there really is no one right answer to how to react in this uh situation um i feel like that was the star feature of the show for me and the characters themselves were pretty enjoyable too

However, I'll say that some of the pacing was a bit disjointed for me and I wasn't a huge fan of how it ended. Like, I think it was an okay ending, but there were a lot of things I wish they touched on and wrapped up before they ended. Overall, I think it's a worthwhile show and I think it's very easy to make real life connections to things like COVID, which interestingly, like this manga came out, started coming out before COVID happened.

Then COVID happened and then it finished within the next couple of years. So it's just interesting how one thing might have affected the other.

Yeah, for sure. Andrew, what do you think? Well, I guess I'll say no. I don't actually think I would recommend this anime to most people in general. I wouldn't even say I like overly enjoyed it in any way, shape or form myself. I think there are things about it that I liked, but overall, I think it is honestly largely empty and just mostly full of platitudes.

It says a lot, but without actually ever saying anything, I feel of consequence. And I think Raggedy alludes to that it's not moralizing, but I think in not moralizing, it gives people the impression that it's actually saying more than it actually is. And there's a whole bunch of things that obviously come into the spoiler part of it that also lets me go into it. But for the most part, I'm like, I think...

It doesn't. I think if it has a point of view, it doesn't express it very well. And I think it just tries it diver. It divides itself among too many different things slash characters to give any sort of real satisfaction to the whole part.

Nice. I think that was it. Sorry. Yeah, no, no, all good. I think we have a pretty diverse cast here because this is probably my anime of the year, which is not surprising considering my love for the Heavenly Delusions and Sunny Boys of the World. To me, Day to Day Day is a bubble tea packed to the adhered on lid with tapioca boba balls of succulent concept nuggets that just make you stop and chew on all the ideas it presents.

Like Andrew said, maybe it doesn't always give you the answer to that, but you're kind of always being fed these ideas of how maybe like the government is hiding and gaslighting information from the public, how you expect the sexy invasion of aliens to come and shake up the galaxy. But your world is decidedly unchanged. And really what you care about is if broccoli is on sale or the little things that just make your life go on.

whether or not massive defense lasers are built to patrol the skies, but you can still buy cute little souvenir mascots of them because still gotta make a profit somehow. It's about the life of these daily, ordinary, normal Japanese children with their own struggles, interests, and conversations despite all the noise, all the hecticness, all the crazy apocalyptic stuff that's just on the other side of the threshold. Like,

This show is not some high IQ, obtusely intricate art house work that's only championed by like glasses pushing elites and those faking it. It's the show just grabs you by the lapels and looks at you with this big old goofy drooling face and just like shakes you and just like spells everything out for you with simplicity and elegance.

it's kind of brash, it's very anime at times, it's very XD random kooky, but it's still brilliantly human and tactile in a way that a lot of anime aren't today. And I can't pretend that everyone should adore this show. I probably wouldn't even recommend it to most people. It's really not part of the popular zeitgeist, as we talked about earlier, because of maybe the atypical release method or lack of JC on its manga spine, but

to not watch this show is to miss out on one of the best shows 2024 has to offer, if not one of the best 2024 takes on 2014 takes on 2024 has to offer. So, yeah, the show's awesome in so many ways, but it's not flawless. Before we get into our spoiler discussion, if someone wanted to watch this show, would you recommend that they start with episode one?

As seems obvious to a lot of folks or start with episode zero and we'll get into why later, but I just want everyone to give an answer in my episode one.

Sorry, what was that? I was going to say start with episode one. I started with episode zero. And I think if you put episode zero after episode 16, I think it just makes, I mean, the whole show itself could use some reordering in general. But I think if you put episode zero after episode 16, I think that works as a much better viewing experience, to be honest.

Okay, so we got one vote for one. I 100% agree that episode zero belongs between 16 and 17. If you want to be hoity-toity and watch some spoilerified, random, out-of-context craziness first before anything else, you can do that. But put zero after 16. Okay, Raggedy?

So I have not read the manga because, again, I can't read. But the intended order from the author would be 1 to 16, then 0, then 17, which is the order I watched it in. I think it's the better order. That being said, the mark of a good show is even if it is spoiled for you, you can still enjoy it regardless. So I think you can do it either way. But if you're asking for preference...

I echo what Caroline and Fridgey have said. Well, I will be the one standout. I enjoyed how I watched it, which was watching Zero first. We'll talk about why later. But just so you know, you can do it either way. So watch whatever you prefer. But if you prefer chronological and want less of a shakeup, start with one. So I think that answers the question of listeners on where they should begin. And now we're going to play the drop.

And then we're going to get into a whole heckin' lot of spoilers. So you're going to be warned when this drop plays. This one always just wants to not work very well. Spoilers are coming! Oh my god! Man, we got a lot to talk about. Where do you guys want to begin? It would make sense to talk about why you think we should start with zero. Yeah, let's do that. Let's get that out of the way. So over the course of...

this show, you find that there are different timelines that one of our characters kind of bounces between to affect the outcome of things. And I honestly, the best way to watch it is the way I did, which is watch zero months before you watch the rest of the show and then rewatch it again between 16 and 17 to reacquaint yourself because

Really, episode zero spells out a lot of what has happened to you. It takes place the furthest into the future in some ways, and it breaks down what has happened to you. And then episode one flashes back and you figure out how you got there. And the decisions that people make with switching timelines are supposed to, when you learn about episode zero ahead of time, fill you with dread and be like, oh, these decisions are going to have consequences that

are not going to be good for humanity as a whole. And knowing that kind of puts you on this inevitable track of you've seen where fate leads and you should not feel great about it. And I think it's also interesting in some aspects of just how... I don't know. It's funny to me if you watch it chronologically order where you see this group called Ship, which is like these...

I don't know, activist group that's trying to defend the aliens and protect them. And at the last time we see them before episode zero, they're wielding these little handmade toy-looking guns to stage this coup. And then you flash forward and see them all in high-tech technical tactical gear with headlights and stuff. And it's a funny transition. And I feel like seeing the people... I don't know. I feel like having that foresight...

leaves you with this emotional that very I know us no feeling unwell pit in your stomach of you know where it leads there's no getting out of it and all the decisions that you the characters might otherwise make in good faith for I'm gonna save my friend because that's what friends do should leave you feeling not well so that's where I enjoyed it and it didn't feel like I was I was brought up to speed quicker but if I may yeah

balance off of that because I think I'm a little less stringent than Frigie and Caroline are on the watch order so it might be a nice transition for me to go next the thing is like I said if having things spoiled for you in a well-written show will largely not impact your ability to enjoy the show it just gives you a different viewing experience not a worse one a different one um

For me, the fact that you still had this sense of dread of the constant six months until humanity ends, there was enough of that where I didn't necessarily need that from episode zero to still feel that way. Plus, something I do want to talk about later that I kind of alluded to when we were doing our pre-show prep is the fact that one of the biggest things the story is about is about Asano himself.

And that is mostly in that story with the father at the end. So breaking that up makes that part of the story a little too disjointed. So I think they do belong together. And like I said, I rewatched Zero in the middle of 16 and 17. And it was nice having that return to it. And I would agree that if you watch Zero at the beginning and then never revisited it,

Especially if you watched it so far in advance, you might forget a lot of the intricacies there. So it really expects you, if you watch Zero First, to keep that in your memory and retain that for as long as it takes you to watch this 17, 18 episode long show, which is a bit of an ask for folks. I also like Zero First because it's a show with time travel. You feel like a time traveler because you yourself are bouncing around and discombobulated in some ways. But

I mean, there's no... I don't have any reason against watching Zero after 16. I'm not adamant about it, but I just tend to like to watch shows the way that the people making the show intended for it to be watched. Now, you see stuff like this with Haruhi where watching in broadcast order really whips you around and is way harder to follow, but ultimately perhaps gives you a more...

I don't know, immersive experience. So I'm not torn either way. I think it's pretty much broadcast order. I think you misunderstand how he's broadcast order broadcast order on a character journey for the main characters. Actually, as much as it doesn't seem like it, an actual arc in broadcast order. Otherwise, if you look at it, it just follows like the main arc is really in the first book for that character. But.

But how the characters represented all the other chapters and how they split it up comes at specific moments for those other for the other characters in the book as well, giving them what feels like an actual proper character arc in that particular sense that you don't get where you get basically not broadcast order, which is just standard order. Book one happens every a lot of people have a lot of their main crux in that first book. And then it's just a lot of side stories. But that's my sorry. That's just my side tangent. Yeah.

Um, okay. I don't get it. Why would you watch an episode that has no context to any, anything that they're talking about? Even, okay. I watched it one, two, three, four, five, six, 17, 16, zero 17. That is how I watched it as a person who watched it in that order.

It still felt a little confusing. It was a big jump that they had to take to tell this story. If I had watched episode zero where it was quote unquote meant to be watched, I honestly would have no idea. It was confusing for me watching it in that order. It was, I can't even imagine how I would have felt watching it without any context when you

When you have acronyms like SHIP and the New Japan Harmony whatever and the Fujin's and the aliens, the invaders and all these different groups in these different places. This man, who is this man? These girls, who are these girls that don't show up at any other point in this show? Unbelievable. You're not supposed to understand it at that point. You're supposed to be as lost and out of it as this character. It puts you in his shoes.

But then you as you go you're like, oh I remember shit being mentioned I remember that character with big old buck teeth showing up and you kind of see where that was coming into place and it's like it shows you a quick flash of the completed puzzle piece and then you have to assemble it as you go through the show and it all the images slowly converge on that and I'll give you a more I can kind of understand your points

But those points don't seem to outweigh the annoyance I would feel watching that. I would assume that watching episode zero first, I would assume that this show is going to be super hard to understand, that they will take more into account their artistic vision over telling a understandable and interesting story. And I would have probably, if I had not had to watch this show for the podcast and I watched episode zero first,

There would have been a possibility that I would have never picked it up again after episode zero.

So, yeah, I can answer your question. Actually, it's really, really easily. Episode zero is designed to make you want to continue watching the show because the first four episodes, the first arc of the show, really, the first four episodes, nothing happens. Honestly, I watched episode zero. So I started episode zero. I got to some part like first five minutes or in it. And I went, oh, this might have been something I should be watching later. No.

Not the case. I watched like four, six, seven, six after episode five or six or something. I decide I'm like, OK, I'll just or four. I watched it. I went back. And honestly, because I saw what I saw, I think it is designed. And this is the first Asano work to be adapted into anime if I read somewhere. Yeah. So I think why they did episode zero first, which includes later chapters, is that the average person isn't going to really watch anything.

anime watcher isn't going to watch it as soon as it works. And so they have to give them something to look forward to. I thought that thing was going to come way sooner than it did because of episode zero. And that's why I was willing to engage with the show for as long as I did, obviously outside of the podcast. If I'd seen episode zero, gone back and watched some more show, this would have been after somebody recommended it to me. I would have gone on and I've been like, oh, okay. I would have stopped in the first four episodes. I literally had to watch

I fell asleep at least three or four different times during the first episode. And yes, it was probably because I was tired, but at the same time, the show wasn't engaging me in any way, shape, or form that made me want to just stay awake. I've watched a lot of stuff when tired. I don't fall asleep during all of it. I fall asleep during most of it, but the stuff that grips you will grip you. So yeah, I went along with the show waiting for this moment only to find out that really the whole show ended

Basically, episode zero is essentially an epilogue. The beginning of the epilogue in episode 17 is the epilogue itself. Most of the rest of the show is about those moments. And I also feel a little bit lied to because...

It made it sound like more banal, generic life things, but they kept introducing all of these sci-fi elements at the end of each episode to make you go, ooh, something more intense is about to happen. And they kept, you know, cutting to all these different characters to make this bigger story. But like...

The one thing I hate sometimes in anime, and I'm just going to go along, is when you're going to put in mecha elements into a show just because and not give me any real good reason for it. That, you know, that episode 17...

Pissed me off with the men fucking fujins that only show up for those five minutes. And I go, why? Why even bother? Yeah, that pissed me off too. And it's not just because, you know, they introduced Mecha and then dropped it. It's because there was so much more to explore with this specific timeline. Like, okay, so are we saying that Oran and Kadode became...

became a resistance group that started stealing mechas and fighting against other robots. And we're not going to, like, see them do that. We're only going to get the suggestion that they are, possibly.

And we're not going to explore that and many of the other things that happen in that alternative future. That was one of the things that made me dislike the ending because they keep they kept on introducing like more that we could go through and really explore, but

That honestly, I kind of wish that they didn't, they didn't get into it. I wish they would have wrapped it up with episode 16. I think that would have, like the, the climax could have been 16. And then 17 could have been, you know, a return to normal episode. Oh, Mason's making a face. I'm making a face. Go ahead, Reagan. Because I think, I think me and Mason may have a similar thought process. Because again, I am not a,

Yeah, no reading right, but I did do some research and dug a little bit and

I think that some of this stuff, right? Like, yeah, it feels a little bloated towards the end with the multiple sci-fi elements. It does. I'm not going to say it doesn't, but the lack of exploring that stuff is kind of the point, which maybe you don't like that or jive with that, which is totally fine and fair, but it is kind of the point, right? Like how, though, I can't remember her name, the trans character who decides...

Makoto, thank you, decides, oh, I'm not using the time machine because there's more here for me to do, right? So you don't get to explore everything

every possible option in your own life, right? It's like one of the things you kind of have to pick and decide what you're doing. So you don't, even if you kind of see that grass is greener on the other side or even worse, other things, other options, other forks in the path, you don't get the choice to explore those in your own life. And I think that's kind of what they were doing with that. The other part of it too, with why you need zero and 17 in this show is because

of the exploration of who Asano is as a creator. He made this show or this manga initially with the intention of doing something a little more fun and lighthearted because he does these, you know, very negative kind of stories, dark stories. So he wanted to do something fun and he wanted to do it because he wanted to kind of succeed a bit more than he was from a financial standpoint.

And it's this idea of sacrificing like his artistic vision. And the, that is kind of played out by the characters in the show and through these sort of jumping timelines, right? So you have the main timeline that we're seeing that most of the show takes place in. It's the timeline of Asano doing, uh,

what doing day-to-day it's the timeline of him being a little bit more what people want right so it's the overly anime it's oran being goofy and wacky and not really how she is because as we see in the past timeline and then the alternate future timeline she is much more of a reserved introverted kind of character and that's more of the real asano so that's why you kind of need those bouncing back parts because it's also an exploration of asano himself

This show is interesting to me because at its core, it is all about Katode and Orin. Those two characters, their banter, their relationship, their life within this hectic sci-fi megaverse is the absolute core of everything. That's the whole point. That's the whole gimmick. It's

The show is, to Andrew's point, a slow unwrapping of this world. And it's gorgeous wrapping with immaculate sound designs, great voice acting. I love all the outfits that people wear. Like, it's a really well-produced show. And...

Oran's goofiness, her comments, literally every time she opened her mouth, I didn't know what she was going to say, but it always hit whether she was being funny or silly or, you know, just babbling nonsense. Like I just enjoyed their dynamic and the show makes it all about them. And you have to care for them to really care about the show. But then you also have to accept the fact that

the world is bigger than them. And even though no matter what iteration of timeline you're in, whether they're mecha pilots together or best friends together or committing suicide of some kind, like they're always together and you have to kind of both love them for them being a unit and also accept the fact that you're letting them go. And as the story devolves into, oh,

Other things or other versions of themselves so it's so much asks you to care about these two characters and then take them away from you in different ways which can feel like that's not who I care about anymore this is not the storyline I care about I don't care about the sci-fi I don't care about this so it kind of asks you to do two things at once which is difficult in a lot of ways so I understand.

the discontentment with where the ending goes and kind of why are we getting into this whole sci-fi stuff? But I think at the end of the day, they are always together orbiting each other and you have to be okay with that, even if they're not the same characters that you initially fell in love with. So it's a tricky show.

I don't actually mind how they became as characters because I think it makes sense. I was more wanting to see... We don't even need to have full-on scenes, but I would want to see little vignettes, if you will.

if you will, of the other characters we care about. Like, where's Makoto during this timeline? Where's the other girl? Where's... There's, like, so many characters we've met along the way. I wish this show was, like, 42 episodes and we just had 20 more episodes of little... Like, why didn't we get a whole Rin side story about her working in the maid cafe? Why didn't we get a whole side story of Hiroshi doing his thing? Maybe...

Maybe even yet, it's not the word I was looking for, but maybe in a montage in the credits of the last episode, just where these characters are. Just like, where they came from. Because I was kind of, that's kind of the thing you do, you know, when there are, there's time shit and you don't longer, these characters no longer know those characters in this timeline. Yeah.

you kind of see where they ended up without each other. You kind of got a little bit of it where like, because in the end when aliens don't evade, they don't meet Rin and her friend like as early. They don't meet them until like in college because they didn't have to move because of the attack to meet in like junior high. Like, so there is a little bit of stuff like that. I just love seeing the world. And when this nightmare is happening and this potential invasion, people are still just doing their daily thing. And like,

how emblematic that is of today's society of, you know, we persist despite no matter what is happening as awful as like, it's very, I don't know, prophetic in a lot of ways. Yeah. Prescient. And the only thing with the ending that, uh, that, uh,

Like oh the characters saying they were like this didn't end up happening. I'm kind of disappointed I was such an Oba and Oron shipper. It was so cute a little intergalactic romance that we will never get to have Honestly, nah, that missed the boat for me You know as much as I think the first half of the show really sold me on the characters they try to land all these big emotional impacts in the last couple episodes and

And it doesn't work for me. Like, this Oran Oba ship, like, that would have worked better if we just focused on them and not, like, pulled away constantly to the sci-fi world, which is the bigger thing happening. I get it. But all of a sudden, I'm like, wait, they're in love now? Like, it felt... They needed a couple more episodes with the slice of life stuff, like the manga had, where it just was a bit longer in just doing with the characters, living their lives, and...

I mean, yeah, the sci-fi stuff was cool. I liked that aspect. I like how the world grew. And, you know, for the most part, because of the wacky character designs, it was easy to keep track of everyone. That said, it just... I wish some of them didn't look like literal butts, though. Yeah. Yeah. But it's, I don't know, it's part of its charm. Which is kind of funny considering, you know, Asano has, like, such a...

realistic lifestyle kind of art. Yeah. You know, that he does in his manga. So when you have characters with butts for faces, I think it's just a virtue of kind of being Doraemon inspired in a lot of ways with a meta and wink and a nod that cooked a little too much.

Yeah, but it also was a cast of 100 people. You've got to draw some funky chins to make it look different. That aside, I think it looked great. It's digestible, but overall I thought the show looked really good. It was just pretty well done. There was a lot of care. I liked little things, like when they did flashbacks, it was in a 4x3 aspect ratio, so you could kind of instantly identify that it was more old-timey and help to place yourself in the timeline, but

I don't know. I think this show was extremely ambitious. And despite all the flaws that it clearly had, big and small, like I can be okay with that because it was reaching for something so different. Here's a fun thought experiment. We have realistically, right, three timelines, three endings. Which one's the good ending? You know, which one's the quote unquote, this is the good ending? I mean, for us, the viewer or for the characters? Yeah.

Just in general, or even for the characters, however you want to answer it. I feel like we've got the best... I think it's implied that's the last ending. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because ending one, Katode becomes a serial killer and commits suicide. Yeah. Ending two, the entire world gets destroyed. So ending three, I think, is where nobody gets destroyed. I think that's the... So that's... The reason I ask is because, to me, like, yes, ending three is supposed to be, like, the good ending.

But I got a lot of this almost vibe of it's like this almost sad ending, this more deeply sad ending of these characters who are kind of living this middle of where they were supposed to be. And it's like, obviously the world ending stuff is terrible, but it kind of forced the characters to be more real and

even in that first ending right where she commits suicide obviously a terrible thing

But again, the characters get to be kind of more themselves. So I don't know. It was just more of a thought that struck me when I watched the real ending. I'm like, is this really a quote-unquote good ending from that standpoint? Yeah, it's funny that you mentioned characters. I think the first two, I think what you're touching on is they had to explore more and they were challenged more in those first two scenes.

timelines of their lives. In this third timeline, they were so...

you know, in comparison, so comfortable that they did not really have to expand themselves. Well, I feel like that it's interesting that you say, you know, they felt maybe more authentic or got to be more of themselves in such and such timelines when really across all three timelines because of their friendship and parental love and affection, like they pretty drastically changed as people from being shy introverts to like,

literally blubbering extroverts, like trying to like, they pretty much are very different people in a lot of ways from the whole butterfly wing flapping thing. So I, it seems like, yeah, it's not the Katode I knew. This is a different Katode. Her hair is dyed. What's up with like, but it's her. And you just have to accept that, you know, that's the concept. The absolute is their friendship together. And you had to be okay with that. And that,

the characters you know and love are not the ones that you're seeing happy at the end it's supposed to be conflicting in a way and I think a lot of these emotional beats once again don't quite land as much as I would like that's where I needed a show to be a masterpiece is for these things to really hit home which I think from maybe the writing the ambition the

Ending that was all over the place maybe took away from a bit But I still think the show did a good job of its core messaging even if I didn't quite feel the way I think the show was asking me to I Wonder how much of it is from the original manga run because from the research I did when they asked him how long he wanted to do the story for it was basically like well as soon as people start losing interest I'm basically gonna end it so I wonder how much of it was him

him seeing the kind of writing on the wall and deciding, okay, I'm, I'm done. And maybe that's why it feels a little more bloated and rushed towards the end. Someone who's read the manga can correct me if I'm wrong. Um, but it fits. And I wonder if that's the reason for it. I mean, at the end of the day, we got the show we got, and you could argue for it happened because of X, Y, Z, or because of COVID or because of popularity or how the thing was going. And

Yeah, those all could explain lots of different things. But with what we got, I'm pretty satisfied in how it turned out. I liked the thing along the way. Yes, it went on some tangents. Yes, you had to care about a lot more than we're usually given on our plate. But it was good eating. It was substantive. It made you think. It made you reflect about the world in the show, which was well presented, as well as the real world for me. And yeah,

I don't know. I feel like a lot of anime don't reach through the screen in quite the same way and make me look around. And I think there's a lot of powerful ideas at play, even if it doesn't always commit to all of them. So I don't know. Now here's a question. Did anybody else feel a little, like it felt a little out of nowhere that Katodei, in the first timeline, became an incel and a vigilante, killed people, then herself?

I don't know if that's because we saw the second timeline version of her first, where she's very normal. But even in her original timeline, where she's being bullied and it took a little while for Auron to help her out. And when those things happen, she did not... I was shocked that she took the first steps to become so ruthless and then kept going. Yeah.

I think the show jumps time a bit and expects you to fill in a lot along the way. Similar to, oh, it's been six years and now they're piloting a mecha. It's been so many years and now she's assassinating the prime minister like a ruthless Batman. Like, yeah, you do have to fill in a bit of the blanks with assumptions of, you know, the alien powers and gadgets she's been given and where her mental state was at. So I definitely see where you're coming from. I...

Once again, I can make that leap, I can digest it, but I could see for a lot of folks being like, this is a bit of a change, especially like you said, because you start with the shy second timeline, Kato Day, and it feels even more out of character compared to that.

I would also want to point out that I thought Oran and Katode's voice acting was pretty good, especially because I later find out that they're both pop idols. One of them is from Yoasobi. Another one is another idol I'm not really familiar with. But it's really surprising how they have very little... Yeah, they sing the OPs and the EDs. Yeah, they were pretty good. No, for sure. Despite being not voice actresses. I thought all the voices were pretty solid. I don't know. Raggedy, how was the dub?

I liked the dub. I did. They did something cool where they mix and match people's experience. So they were like, Kodode's voice actor was very experienced. And I think Oron's wasn't. I'm double checking actually as we speak. But I think they did like a mix of people who are very experienced and not. So it kind of gave that same effect that the sub probably did. Yeah, I thought they did a good job.

Yeah. And like I could go in way too deep about like all the different metaphors or visual storytelling in different scenes. I could go into just a lot of deeper stuff. But overall, I feel like I've expressed why I think the show is good despite its fall faults. And like I don't have too much more to say if there's something someone wants to bring up.

One minor, somewhat minor thing, I guess. Speaking of minors, I was kind of... Kat O'Day getting involved with her teacher. And I'm like, I hate it when they're like, whoa, the student likes the teacher. That's such a common thing. I don't think it's as common as TV makes you think. I mean, I guess maybe a student might find their teacher attractive, but...

Uh, I, the Kataday and the teacher thing really was weird. I was even weirded out when Oran's older brother was kind of hitting on Kataday and he's known her since she was eight and he was like in his teens at the time. And I'm like, uh, yeah.

That was a far-reaching one. And then I feel like I could have kind of... I feel like what also made it worse is that it's not just Karudei finding her teacher attractive because he has the same... has, like, a similar kind of personality to her dad, and her dad disappeared and died, and, you know, she has daddy issues, and that's why she's so attracted to her teacher. I could kind of understand that. But in a timeline where her father survives and she's...

present in her life, she still not only is attractive to him,

but also has a long relationship and moves in with him. Like, ew. So Asano has never really shied away from problematic relationships. And yes, that is the appropriate reaction. The show never presents it as a student-teacher relationship that you feel good about. Like, even the characters themselves know this is not good. This is a problem. You should feel uncomfortable. And even if your best friend is saying, show him your boobs, like...

It's a darker subject than we normally get, and it does appropriately make you feel like this is not good. This is not how it should be. So yes, by design, I would say it succeeds. I disagree. I think it actually is bad because I think it minimizes the actual problematic nature of the whole thing. I think he...

says that it's bad and it's a thing that people do where it's like i'm oh it's i'm it's meta i'm aware of what we're doing is terrible and i'm not saying it i'm not i'm not actively trying to like you know get with younger kids it's just like i don't think they put any real emphasis on it uh all the people who make comments on it are making it almost lightly so i don't think he's actually he doesn't present it in any way where you're supposed to feel uncomfortable about it i

Sure, O-Tan basically says a whole bunch of times this is debaucherous and whatnot, but she basically is just a sex-repressed person who feels something of a way because she does this and basically most of the other girl, Kiho, when she gets a boyfriend who for no reason at all becomes basically the leader of a cult effectively, right? And a terrorist group cult as well, so...

She was more critical of Kiho getting a normal boyfriend than she was of her best friend going out with her teacher. I think the Watarase, like the teacher stuff would have been better if in the third timeline she doesn't still end up with him. Yeah, that's what I would hope. Like, it's like if the world is all effed up, then yeah, you make some effed up decisions. That makes sense.

I think it's kind of creepy. I mean, also the brother also with his sister, Siskan stuff. But I think it actually is probably fine in the first timeline because at least the first time where she goes to his house and all this stuff happens and nothing happens. When he's hot, it's okay.

No, we're talking about the teacher still. No, no, I'm talking to the teacher. The first time she goes to his house, there's all this implied where basically you can take advantage of me now, but I'm not going to. And he's like, no. And what I thought it was a dildo the first time she picks up a thing on the floor. Oh my God, I thought that was a dildo. Me too. A face massager that looked very much like a dildo. But anyway, yeah, no, I think there's just too many characters. I think at some point that some are just exposition characters

And I think that's where some of the problems like I don't have many positive things to say about this show. So that's why I've been mostly quiet this entire time.

If I'm being honest, it's not a bad show. That's where I also have problems. I think it either needed to take its concept more figuratively and cut out most of these side characters so that, you know, it doesn't feel like what it is is because it really feels like he's trying to have his cake and eat it too. Right. In a lot of what he does with these characters. Right. Like it's supposed to be about the daily lives of these girls, but they are so intrinsically linked to everything that happens that

You know, and I think I would have been OK with them just being the main characters, but like the side characters in the plot. Right. She gets an alien boyfriend for a little bit, but the alien boyfriend doesn't need to be the one that basically solves the problem. And I mean, there's like a lot of things also like the first invader that showed up.

who basically says if somebody is watching this timeline uh i'm playing 5d chess where i'm gonna tell you the code to deactivate the reactor but actually it's the code to make sure the reactor explodes because we know that the higher power that exists was actually going to try and destroy the world so i'm setting up a thing where basically you uh i'm gonna blow up the ship

Is that what that hand thing was? Yeah. It's just a higher power. Okay. I had no idea what that was about. I was like, is that going to get explained? No. They explain it in the fact that they say that the invaders talk about the great mind that they're all connected to. And there's an implication that...

early on that there's a higher power than the humans and the invaders because the humans have advanced in a way that doesn't seem logical without there being some external interference. So there's an implication that there is a higher power that exists. And they also said that they were sent here by whatever to die, basically. Yeah, they have overpopulation problems and this was all just like a false arc.

I do like that part of it, though. I like that at the end of the day, the invaders are in and of themselves also living through the same problem that the humans are. Yeah, it's all just victims all the way down. And they're so cute.

Was there little helmets? That's because you don't see their true faces. I mean, they just look like human faces, but blue. Which is the kind of, it's kind of the point is that they're supposed to be like, that's supposed to be one of the big reveals, right? It's like, oh, they're actually kind of just like us.

One thing I was not the biggest fan of is when they did the, we were the earthlings before the earthlings, which that went a little too far for me. Like you did enough to set up what we're supposed to get from these, these invaders. We didn't need the also, Oh, we're also humans. Yeah. We have like ancestral claim to this land. Yeah. Like the Mar, uh, was it, uh, uh, God, the Mars anime, um,

Oh, why am I blanking on the name of that shitty anime? The one with like 11 people in the spaceship or the... I'll look it up. I'll figure it out. Oh, we were 11? You're thinking it was like a terraforming thing. You're thinking Carol and Tuesday or... No, no, this is a famously terrible anime. I'll look it up. Yeah. Mars of Destruction? I was going to say it's not. Mars of Destruction.

I think it's that one, yes. It's like the aliens were actually the humans all along, and the humans were the aliens. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Any other closing thoughts before we give a scratch? Yeah, I just want this known. I think when people think I dislike this show, I'm just going to maybe prescience or whatever this. I got the show. I got exactly what it was doing, and I think that...

This feels like the equivalent of what is currently happening with the Oscars before the whole controversy with Emilia Perez, a movie I haven't seen, but I understand the problems with it. Right. I think it's just the thing where it's not the normal fare and that by that nature gives it this bigger boost than what it's actually doing. And I think it ultimately fails in the

almost basic storytelling aspects to some extent. I think I think that either the show has to go in my personal opinion, either more esoteric and more weird with the storytelling or

Or it has to play the concept extremely straight to get the whole idea across, right? And I think it's trying to do both. And in the end, I don't think it does either particularly very well. And personally, I think I would have...

I don't know what I wanted more, but I think part of and I think maybe I agree with Mason that maybe it was too short of a show. I don't think I would have wanted to watch more. I think that it really feels like the show honestly should have ended with the destruction of the world. Yeah.

So, yeah, I think that's where it was, honestly. And honestly, another side problem I had was the whole like, actually, no, I'm not I'm going to ignore that. I don't I don't really need to discuss it. But that's where I feel like it should have been. I think I would have had a much better experience with it, I think.

If you just want to be happy, Asano, just be happy, right? You don't have to be obtuse to be happy. I don't think he knows how to be happy, which is part of the problem with the show is that he at the end realized he's not allowed to be happy. But then that's a whole problem with collectivism and the society he grew up in, probably, without making this a bigger thing. But honestly, my point is, like, look, you want to be happy, be happy, right? You don't have to do, like, fakes

this thing where you want to pretend to be happy to be happy you can just be happy you can just do whatever right you don't have to validate your happiness to anybody and that's where i will i think i'll fall on that i guess we should also go to ratings unless there's something else yeah yeah let's go i mean i feel like you were kind of giving your overall thoughts you want to just finish that out with your score and your other thoughts reggie sorry can you go come back to me okay yeah sorry

I missed the point. You gave your wrap up. Do you want to cap it off with a score? I got a call. I'm so sorry. Just go ahead. You busy man. Three out of five. Raggedy, because you were the first one to give your expectations going into it. Let's just follow the same order then. Raggedy, go first. So I think overall the show is

is a challenge to both the viewer, to the studio, to everyone. It does challenge you to think. Like I described in the beginning, it's more of an experience than something to watch for pure entertainment value. There is a balancing act that it has to do that it doesn't do perfectly, but I think it does it well enough. And as Mason touched on earlier, the production is very solid. It sounds good. It looks good. It feels good.

I would recommend this. It's not my anime of the year, but I would say it's up there on my list. So I'm going to give this a Fuji number four out of five. Wow. Nice.

Um, for me, I thought the show did a lot of interesting things and a lot of things done right with the world building and the characters and how unfortunately it got it was very accurate to how real people would behave in a situation like that, where they would become indifferent to crazy things happening and then become, you know,

radicalized terrorists or radicalized liberalists and just like a full spectrum of reactions to how this would play out. When I was discussing the show a little bit on Discord over the weekend, I did get some criticism over me saying like, oh, the ending was unsatisfying and I really wanted to see where, like I didn't feel like characters had their full

had their full loop, you know? It didn't really feel like it came to a satisfying end. And, you know, there were people whose stories stopped midway, like the journalist lady that got trapped under rubble with the interviewee she was interviewing. The interviewee survived. We see her in that future. What happened to the journalist? We don't know. It didn't really show.

So there's some things that I just didn't really like about it. The pacing was not that great sometimes. There were things I found interesting and they would change perspectives. And I'm like, I don't want to hear any more about Fujin's anymore. But overall, it was a very interesting experience that I think I, you know, I think it definitely is more unique than many of the other shows we get to watch. So with that being said, I'm going to give this show three and a half points.

Katode is finding a sonic screwdriver and becoming this world's equivalent of light Yagami and going on a tirade. Out of five. Out of five. You didn't say Baka, so your score doesn't count.

Um, yeah, this series is far from flawless, no doubt about it. But given the complexity of Asano's works, it's really just about as good of an adaption as I could have wanted. I think if you liked this show, I definitely recommend checking out his other works. I think there's a lot to enjoy.

Enjoy? I wouldn't say Yasumi Punpun is enjoyable. I think it's enjoyable in a similar way of a show that, or experience with all his stuff, has unbelievably well-developed worlds and characters that suck you in and feel far more realistic and grounded and human than a lot of stuff we get in anime.

And as it gets to the end with these big emotional climaxes, it does make the viewer, the reader, the listener do some legwork to provide their own thoughts. It's never a clear cut black and white. This is a bad character. This is a good character. It always makes you kind of take that last step on where do you fall on these very ambiguous, complex situations. And yes, that's not always spelled out and you don't always get it.

this is bad, but it makes you come to your own conclusions. And if you like that kind of stuff, I think this is a pretty decent show for it. I liked the risk it took, even if they didn't always pay it out. And it was a good time. I enjoyed pretty much it all the way through. I'm going to give it four days, day, day, day out of five. And, uh, did you give it that just, uh, just so you could remember the number of days? No, honestly, maybe episodes like, uh,

seven or eight when like the rainfall of invaders like are falling around the plane that like just avoided getting blasted by stuff i was like this could be a four and a half or five but with the ending with just general how things ended up i couldn't give it the full nearly great perfect score but this still really is an experience that is unique and i think that deserves some acclaim um

Any final thoughts before we actually take a break and stop this podcast? Oh, Pritchie still has to give his score. He gave it the three. I gave it three. Out of what? Three what's? But we need to know what they were. Three what's out of five. Okay. You did Pugins. You did something. Problematic teacher relationships. Did anybody do timelines? No. You got timelines. No.

Three, sending your consciousness in some way, shape or form to the past, but not knowing how much it is because the technology is not there yet. But we might make it better someday out of five. Yeah, kind of hand wavy, timey wimey stuff. You might remember. Who knows? It's all luck of the draw. Anyway, everyone, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. I know we rambled quite a bit. I know it was quite a wild, diverse discussion. Hopefully we inspired you to watch either this show or something else you might watch more. I don't know.

Thank you again, Raggedy, for putting together a very fun trivia game. Thank you all for joining me. Thank you all once again going to aapodcast.com, doing the Oscars voting, doing the listener choice voting. Next week, we're doing a review of Don DeDon, a little show you might have heard of. Don DeDon, Don DeDon, Don DeDon, Don DeDon, Don DeDon. You want to do the rest of the rap? I'm not going to stop you. I could. Boo!

I can't. Just do it as we slowly fade out. Anyway, guys, once again, thank you so much for joining us. We have been the Anime X Anonymous podcast. We'll see you next week. Be good. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.