ACCA 13 Discussion & Review | Anime Watch Club
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Anime Watch Club, a bi-weekly group discussion and review. We're the hosts of the What You Say Anime podcast. Nominate and vote on shows either we haven't seen or hopefully lead to a great discussion. In today's episode, the bread boys of the What You Say Anime podcast will be reviewing the 2017 anime Aka 13. Let's meet today's secret pure-blooded royals. First up, he was promoted due to his hatred of pupper nickel bread. We got Jay. Jay, how's it going?

going well honestly really enjoyed this show unironic hidden gem in my opinion awesome to hear next up inspired by aka a land that named itself after an extinct bird he named his 3d printing company edron 2 we got cat cat how's it going that's funny as hell thank you i was happy about that one

I'm doing great. I actually just started a second company underneath our 3D printing company where I do CAD design. You gotta call it Edron 3. Oh, God. That'd be a funny name. That would be funny. That was one of your better jokes, Pete. Thank you. Thank you. I'm very proud of that. That was really funny. Thank you. Our first moderator tonight, he has a conspiracy theory that Gene is also best genus from My Hero. We got Miles. Miles, how's it going?

I don't know what that means. You don't know who best geniuses? No. Oh, you should Google them real quick. Okay. Best. And then come up with a conspiracy theory, how they're the same person in the next like five seconds. Okay. Oh, best genius. Genius. Like, like a pair of jeans. Oh, is this the jeans guy? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I guess I know who that is. I'm not going to, they both have the same hair. Yeah.

I just wish he knew his name at the beginning, but it's all good. And we got Pat.

Yeah, Pat, there we go. In a new spot. We're making it work. Yep. And welcome back to Watch Club, where we watched ACCA 13, the Territory Inspection Department. It was a 2017 winter, 2017 specifically, anime done by Studio Madhouse, sourced from a manga, genres of drama and mystery, and themes of adult cast and detective. And it is a sign-in, I guess. That makes sense, actually, now that I think about it. Just like Rosen made it.

Yeah, sure. Yeah, they're basically the same show. My rating will reflect that too, I'm sure. But yeah, let's get right into our first impressions. It's a pretty spoiler-heavy show, so let's try and keep it out of that realm for now. But Miles, why don't you start with your first impressions, and would you recommend this show? Yeah, I would recommend the show. I think it is a good show. I think that at the beginning, I was pretty intrigued by everything going on. I think it does a good job of setting up

the general espionage flavor that it's going for, right? Like I think the main character is a pretty charismatic character in a pretty unique way. I sort of find where throughout the whole time and especially the beginning, the characters and myself were never quite sure how much he knew and like how much he didn't know about

Because there were signs that maybe he, you know, could be like masterminding some stuff in the background versus maybe people are like pulling puppet strings on him. So I like that whole dynamic. I thought it was fun. And I'd recommend it. I think I think it's an enjoyable show all around. All righty. Cat, what about you?

Yeah, so my first introduction to this show was when I first started watching anime, I went through Crunchyroll and I just started adding a bunch of shows that I thought I would like to my watch list. And I watched about an eighth of them. And then I removed most of them. The one show that I didn't remove from my watch list, never watched. The one show I didn't remove was Aka 13. And I was like...

It just looks so good. It looks like it's a good show. And then I never touched it. And then somebody nommed it and I was like, oh yeah, yeah, I'm gonna watch it. And then it won. And I'm very excited. I'm very happy that we, that we watched it because this is a really, really good show. I really enjoyed it.

I would absolutely recommend it. I would say, and this may just because I like mysteries, but I would say that this is honestly, like, I don't think it's completely up there with, what's it? Odd Taxi. Yes, Odd Taxi. I don't think it's up there with Odd Taxi, but I think it is very, very good. And I think a lot of people will really enjoy it. Alrighty, cool. Jay, what about you?

Yeah, I would say as far as like first impressions go, I don't think that the mystery aspect of the show is really what jumped out at me at first. I think that in terms of what really did, it was sort of like the more visual and sound aspects of the show. I think that is a very distinct look to it in terms of character design and environmental storytelling with the different districts.

And then the soundtrack and sound design in general is just top notch in my opinion. Like whenever he, you know, smokes a cigarette or something, they're getting like the click in and all that sort of thing. Or whenever they're walking in the snow, you can very much tell they're walking in the snow, that sort of thing. Yeah. I also agree with miles about gene being a very charismatic guy. At first I was like, Hey, he's kind of quiet and not really doing a whole lot, but then it was like,

Oh, holy shit, actually. This guy is like, he keeps you guessing the whole time about what his end goals are and if he even has any. And I really like a protagonist that can keep you on your toes like that. So, yeah, if you're somebody who likes sort of like slow burn mysteries, I would definitely recommend this.

Alrighty. Pete, what about you? Yeah, I think everybody has said pretty much what I would agree with. If you're fans of shows that do like a one season bigger mystery picture instead of like multiple mini mysteries, I think this show is really good. Like stuff like...

ask for lost in space or odd taxi where like the core structure is like there is one bigger mystery behind like the whole thing that's going on in the story miles gave me a look i don't care what you say i just have to go lower astral lost in space score again i just i just remembered that the entire thing was contingent on everyone in the world keeping a secret sorry please please continue very true but the

But it was fun. Like, like, I think like the world building was awesome in this show, like showcasing different territories that they had, like go to and sort of get an understanding of like what this world was. I thought was really interesting kind of behind of like, what, what does it mean to be like a territory character?

inspector and kind of breaking that down and then to find out like the bigger picture of the story was awesome to see yeah this is just like a really fun show i would definitely recommend it if you're a fan of mysteries um yeah i just feel like mysteries in general there you go all right and uh i also would recommend this so i think that's five recommends right across the board i really like the show i will say that it starts very very slow i think even for a slow burn show i

I wouldn't say I didn't enjoy the first few episodes, but I definitely wasn't... I think Jay kind of said it. I wasn't as hooked or wasn't really playing into that final arc of the show as much as I wish it was. But it was still really cool. I really liked seeing the inner workings of the politics of the fictional state. And I think that the idea of...

how they coexisted and worked together, it was pretty cool. We'll dive deeper into that, but I think that the world building is one of the stronger parts of the show in terms of the politics, at least. And I think that that's really cool. And yeah, my little history brain was on full throttle for most of the show, which I thought was really fun. So it almost resembles the United States in a way, I would say, in a very, very similar way. Just maybe not in execution, but

But yeah, and I also think that the show asks a very good question at the end of the show that we'll get into later as well. So yeah, I guess that the five recommends from us and we're going to get into spoilers for it. And again, this is a very spoiler heavy show. There's a lot of stuff around like episodes, episodes.

seven to nine where things kind of change significantly and then the ending the show is a big spoiler as well so be warned and uh yeah let's get right into it miles do you have a little synopsis or a pre-planned thing at the beginning i have a the most important talking point to start off with okay sure we could get into a synopsis of the show so that our audience is grounded but more important than that the country looks like a bird are we pro or anti this bro pro pro

It's fun, but it's dumb. Yeah, I think I'm also pro, but I think the little leaf and its mouth is too much for me. I think that's the only immersion breaking part for me, personally. Sorry. Where do you get off? Picking a bird that's extinct is also like...

A choice? It's like saying that your country is an extinct bird? Is that where your country's headed? I thought that was the biggest thing to take away from it. You can name a bunch of birds. Why are you picking the extinct one? The island itself was shaped like the bird, right? That has to be why they named it that. No, 100%. It's like naming the United States of America the dodo. It's just like

we're naming ourselves just say america looked like the dodo bird even if it did it's an extinct bird it's like your country you're naming yourself after something that no longer exists to me seems like a bad naming convention for a country 1776 though um however yeah i it's the answer to 1984 yeah

There we go. I don't know. I do see that. It is also a peace symbol, though, so maybe that's what they were going for. Maybe it's to build that tension. What if they terraformed it? What if the people from Astro Lost in Space are actually in there, and before they left, they terraformed it into the shape of a bird, and then that's the new generation? The...

this is actually just one of the the island nations in attack on titan um they weren't nearly racist enough to yeah so like no one else no one else interacts with him that's why they're just like not a single ghetto shown yeah so true okay uh now for like an actual i guess maybe the lame is place

I was about to say there literally were ghetto shows. Yeah, but we learned how much they like that. Or how happy the people are or whatever. They don't have a cell phone. Imagine how cool that would be.

We follow a guy named Gene who works for ACA, which is like a State Department thing. And they go around. Like a Sapo, if you will, almost. Yeah, it's almost like... I don't know if I was... I don't think he has the authority to arrest...

Sorry to continue the attack on Titan joke, but sorry. No, it's not that level, but still. He works for Doge. Okay. That's crazy. That's arguably worse than what Pat said. That's also true. I was about to say that. I got to say it is closer to his job, though his job seems to be

More effective. Anyways, he goes around to the different places and does inspections and meets with the people to make sure that everything's been being run ship shape. They're also in a monarchy, but there are like 13 states as well. It's a pretty interesting like sort of socio political climate. A thing of note is that the king is.

is 99 this year, I believe. And he has kind of a shitty bratty grandson who is next in the line of succession for reasons, I guess. Did we figure out why? What happened to his parents? Because

All of his, all of the people in the lineage were women. Women, okay. So it was, his mom was a woman. Okay. Yeah. His mom was a woman. That's very progressive of you, Miles. Thank you. Happy Pride Month. Basically, it's just all the, the only people that can actually rule the throne are people that are blood descendants of the king. And if you don't have that, you're as well.

Okay. And you, I guess you need to, it's like patriarchal or whatever. They don't like England. Okay. And so he, there's like that sort of thing going on. Um,

As Jean, who's our main character, goes to the different territories to investigate, you get the sense that some sort of conspiracy is brewing. People seem to think that Jean is at the center of a coup d'etat plan to overthrow the heir of the country, who...

Isn't in power, but will be eventually. So I to install a new air, though, he seems not aware of this, but aware that he is at the center of these rumors. And it's pretty interesting, in my opinion, in these early episodes, because I think when you're watching this, you could kind of go either way on if Gene is part of this plan actively or

Or not. You get some internal monologue that would suggest no, but you also have moments like when his friend Nino is like in a fucking like on a mountaintop using binoculars to like spy on him. And he just sort of looks at him and then like goes into like where he's going. So my question would be for everyone. This early on.

characterization we get of Gene, of the world and stuff. What did you think was initially going on? What was the initial conspiracy you had in mind? Did you think he was involved? Did you think he was not involved and will get entangled? You know, what do we think there? Jay looks like he wants to start us off, so let's have him do it.

I just thought, okay, so I've been spending some time at bars and I'm not really a smoker, but I smoke whenever there's hot gay people around. And what one thing I've noticed is that if you give people cigarettes, they fucking like you, they will like you if you give them cigarettes. And I just thought that he was just the wizard when it came to having cigarettes and being like a fine connoisseur of cigarettes. Like I imagine he would smoke like

American spirit blacks or something like that. Like something pretty harsh that normies wouldn't understand. And yeah, I just I thought that people just thought, hey, this guy smokes cigarettes. He looks cool. He's got Riz and has a high. He's already high up in the chain. So but I didn't actually think he was a part of it. I thought that they were just like kind of using him as like a symbol, which I guess they sort of were spoilers. Have you ever seen the usual suspects?

At some point in my life. Okay. I haven't. Okay. I'm going to spoil the movie. The usual suspect for everybody. I'm going to take the headphones out, but I already know who did it, but I'm still taking headphones. So how I thought that this was going to work was in the usual suspects. It's like five goonies or whatever lackeys. And they're kind of like, you know, they're dumb. You pay them money, whatever. And they'll, they'll go whack a guy for it. And then at the end of the usual suspects, one of the five lackeys was actually like the mastermind the whole time.

and it's like gotcha so that when i saw like the five gen or like what they call like the five heads of aka and they are all sort of like heads or whatever they're all sort of like gravitating towards gene in these like audits that he's doing like go like the the five heads all knew about like the coup like sort of happening and everything and gene was the one so i thought it was gonna be something along the lines of like you know these five heads are trying to get

into like gene's pocket so they can sign so gene would like side with them that way they have like an insider on this guy who goes everywhere but then like the twist at the end was gene was actually sort of running the behind the scenes the whole time and that's where i thought it was going to go but i was pleasantly happy with like sort of like the outcome of how like

you do get an element of that a little a little bit but it's not like the same in the five chiefs right there's one who seems most subservient and at the end he's like hey i wasn't yeah uh a little bit for sure i guess it's like how was in my mind wasn't the same as how it played out but like it was similar yeah yeah i understand jay you were you were

No, I wasn't doing anything else. Oh, I thought, I thought you were listening. I did. No, I was listening at the end. Oh, okay. But I did want to say, yeah, Pete, you would know about five heads.

That's just mean. That's pretty good. Speaking of that, they do have massive foreheads in this show, don't they? It's kind of crazy. I didn't know this, really. But maybe it's because I also have a pretty big forehead. Mouth has... I gotta say, I think they do have big foreheads, but also just sort of like elongated skulls. Yeah. Like, scale-wise, it's not. But if their heads... You know how there's that famous meme of it's like...

what do you why are you running this is what you wanted or whatever and it's like the girls with like the big like oh yeah if these were humanoid like or real people their their heads would literally be like the size of like like i don't know like jorge the jalapeno from that jeff dunham guy like i don't know who else to reference but like that's how elongated it would be uh on a stick by the way god i loved jeff dunham too bad he's come out as a

hmm kind of guy yeah yeah so he's the people you most suspect yeah i mean he reaped of it but he's still funny sometimes at least it happens i mean but with the whole the whole i kill you bit sort of you could have guessed hot one time i understand sometimes you know broken clocks etc

Peanut's a good character too, at least. But yeah, no, to get away from that point though, the forehead point, I didn't really know where it was going to go, honestly. I was kind of just enjoying the ride. I wasn't really trying to

For a show that is definitely like a mystery. I feel like I do this a lot, though, with mystery shows. I kind of just go with the ride and I don't sit there and go, oh, I think it's like whodunit. I don't care about that at all. I kind of just want to see how it unfolds. But again, especially in those first few episodes, there wasn't a lot to follow, specifically at least for me, that I didn't pick up on. I kind of just enjoyed him going from place to place and learning how each state operates within the...

the geopolitical climate. And I was just like, it felt very like Violet Evergarden-esque, just because that's what first comes to mind, where it's like, you got this piece of a story, and then this piece, and then genes going around and filling in the blanks, or finding the blanks, or finding the errors, and things like that. I thought that that was really cool. And then obviously, though, that second half of the show, it really heats up when the initial

you know, the ball is dropped, so to speak, that he's a...

the grandson of the king. I think that that's really where it took off for me in terms of mystery and trying to figure it out. But even then, I didn't really know. I was kind of just like, I have no idea where they're going to go with this. Is he going to live? Is there going to be a random gunshot and he's dead kind of thing? Or was Lilium going to try and come in and snake his way through something else? There was a lot of potential for backstabbing, and I don't know if I really felt that that much.

Jay and Kat both had something to say. I think Jay indicated first. So, Jay, what do you have? You've watched seasonal anime. Obviously, you don't watch a ton, but Mysteries, watching that week to week, do you think that works better for you to question the mystery or are you still somebody just along for the ride if you're not binge-watching a show? That's a good question, actually. I don't know if I've ever... Yeah. Because in the Discord, join the Discord, by the way. Sickplug.

Everybody loves discussing like the Apothecary Diaries week to week. And I don't think it would be quite the same if the Apothecary Diaries was like a Netflix show or whatever that dropped all at once. Like there would obviously be a huge surge, but a big part of what is fun about following something like the Apothecary Diaries is discussing it week to week. Yep.

That's so interesting because it never came off to me like that's how that show would be. And I avoid all the spoilers because I know I'm eventually going to watch it because of how good it is. But I've just never sat there and been like, oh, there's a mystery element to it too, which I guess speaks to how well I've avoided all of the spoilers. I just thought it was about Mau Mau being a gremlin, robbed of gremlin of the year, by the way. Or did she win? Either way. There's a whole discussion to have there.

Sorry, Kat. The Supreme Court is currently looking... Yeah, well, the Supreme Court better vote correctly. Either way. But Kat, go ahead. So, honestly, when it comes to mysteries, it's just I hate having to wait for a good mystery. It's why I never...

get to the end of like, like when Burley is like really, really excited to, Burley's my wife, by the way. If Burley is really, really excited to watch Apothecary Diaries and we binge all the rest of it, she is very sad when we finish and there's not more and the season isn't over. So we just wait. I do like discussing with the rest of you, but to be honest, I would rather not

just wait in lieu of discussion because I like discussing at the end of the show. I just be like, wow, that was a really good show. That's valid. Yeah. So I guess the further answer to Jay's question, I don't really know which I would prefer because I'm trying to think of like what mysteries I watched seasonally, like week to week, I guess. Bunny Girl Senpai's first season I did, although that wasn't really...

episode to episode mystery. I guess there was like within the arcs, like what's going to happen. That's also not like solvable, right? Like in the same way that something like odd taxi or this or like show, show the carry diaries is like,

or yeah sure she meant you can be like oh let me let me get my own cups and see how many it takes to make hot chocolate bro you hate that episode what what how is this solvable though i wouldn't i would argue that the show to me at least other than like sitting there and like i guess my thought is that this is more more solvable than something like bunny girl senpai or like monogatari which is like

supernatural in a way that is not particularly predictable in the... You know what I mean? It's like, oh... I suppose. You know what I mean? You could be like, oh, I think these people are doing the coup because of, like, X, Y, and Z, and you can, like, kind of get some of the way there, whereas it's like, oh...

this lady has, we're in a time loop now and like you can like kind of solve that, but it makes it harder. And especially with like how it's like serialized, like you have like two episodes to do it. There's not like a ton of

information being given in like bunny girl so i'm not like trying i know that i'm normally like oh buddy girl so i'm not trying to do that i'm just saying it's like no i know structurally sufficiently different that i think that's fair yeah i i understand what you're saying now yeah uh i i'm sure watching it week to week would yeah then make it a little more likely on my end but at the same time i didn't i can't remember like between episodes

At least consistently, I was kind of just like, oh, I just want to watch the next one. I really don't know where it's going, but I'm excited to see how it gets there. I guess it was a surprise that he was a descendant of the king. I think I clicked on a spoiler in a Mal thing that the first line said that, and I was like, damn it. Why did I click on that? Well, I try not to. I try not to normally. But the end of the show felt...

I guess, do we want to talk about that now? Just because, like, why not? Like, how we got, or the final resolution we got to? Yeah, I suppose we could do it. There's some other topics that are more vibey of the show, because I think the end of the show might be where we have the most disagreements. Oh, then perfect. Yeah, let's start elsewhere then. Okay. So, like, another thing I want to talk about, and I think multiple people sort of referenced this, but someone thought of a show that was, like, the first show, setting-wise, that came to mind.

which is Violet Evergarden. But like, there are a lot of anime that take place in like vaguely post-World War Europe. And those are different, you know, like this has more modern technology than Violet Evergarden, except for the like top tier prosthetics that Violet has. But I thought out of all of the anime that I've seen that are vaguely post-World War whatever Europe,

this felt the most distinct to me. I feel like they did a good job of making it feel like vaguely different post-war Europe, and that the regions felt like they were different enough. Like, they were not incredibly different, mind you, but they were different enough that it made me happy. But, like, even stuff with, like,

bread and like the different flowers that were in different locations and stuff I think they just did a good job of like expanding that so what do we think about the general setting of this country because there's a lot of imaginary European countries in anime and sometimes I feel like they can feel a bit samey and this one was samey but had enough garnish on it for me to be like I like this place what did everyone else think

I didn't feel the exactly the post-World War Europe vibe, mainly because they had like cell phones and other like modern technology, I guess. But technically after the World War, Pat. But yes, no, you're correct there. It is definitely like more technology. You got me. You got me. Well, I what I yeah, I think the world building is the strongest part of the show personally, because, yeah.

I got frustrated with how many characters there were and their names and everything, like trying to keep track of it in my head. I mean, that's probably why I had that character sheet up the entire time because I had to keep looking every time they'd say a name or remind myself who who was. But I think the, like you said, every region felt very different and it felt...

Maybe it's a different pop culture reference than we necessarily want to bring up because this might be some debate too. But I think it's one of the strengths of The Hunger Games as well or that series is the 13 districts. I think it's pretty damn cool how they took the 13, the United States and split it into 13 theoretical districts that all have their strengths. The lumber, fishing, electricity, mining, whatever, all those things. I thought that that was...

very similar to what this show did almost in a literal sense because there's 13 city states or states whatever each within their with their own specialty that contributes to the wealth and the well-being of the of

of the country. But I thought that they, like you said, established them very well with different sceneries. You know, you had the snowy land that does lumber and the different breads that they have was a cool way to like tie in an interest level within him and his family. And it was, I guess, I suppose it was also a little, what do you call it? Nod to the fact that, oh, she really loved sweets and the great, the king himself, her grandfather also loved sweets. You know, I thought maybe that was like a,

A hint, so to speak, of how they were related. It never really clicked for me until I just said that now. But yeah, I really thought the world building with the technology was cool. And it also showed, I don't think the show in particular took a big stance on it.

But it did show the inequalities of the different districts and what they had, such as that very historical one that saw a cell phone. It was like, what the heck is this? Oh, my God, that's crazy. Weren't allowed to interact with commoners. Then there was the desert one. There was the gambling-friendly one, Pete's favorite one probably. Yeah.

all i thought it was really cool like again it didn't take like a pro or con anti stance on the existence of the or the way things are set up but i thought it was really cool how they'd established it extremely well too but yeah cat what about uh you had something else on this um yeah so i really enjoyed the setting because while i was watching a lot of my

Yeah, a lot of relations that I had from this world to like existing places in the real world. I thought about how I kind of thought about America and not like...

early like post like 1950s uh america but more like 1980s 1990s mainly because not just the cell phones and uh computers but also like with the uh inequality of like how things are being run it reminded me of about how like the uh existence of

of different technologies and how slowly and how prohibitedly some of the technologies had spread throughout the country. Because I grew up in a very secluded place. It was 30 to 45 minutes to the nearest hospital type of thing. I don't know how long it took for Appalachia to get like

internet and all that. Right. Like exactly. Like it's, it's thinking about all of that and thinking about how like the different, the different countries kind of represent different areas of America and how they and how they interact with each other and how the people that have the most, that do a lot of the,

most like grunt quote-unquote brain dead work are the people that have the most to say about the inequality in the system currently because they are being they are feeling that the most and seeing that in this world i think is actually a stance on that and seeing like there needs to be a

There needs to be an actual effort to put that forward. And I think they did take a stance with how everyone talked about the person that runs that district or that country. Did they though? Because they kind of also had those districts where –

They were like, oh, we're poor and we're simple, but we like it. You know, we're very happy with it. Like, you know, I would almost say that it took the opposite stance to what you're saying, Kat, the show did, which is one of the things that I was going to eventually criticize it on towards the end or just in our general more controversial part. But like, and I guess that's what kind of what I was trying to get at too earlier is that it was like, it was cool to see them coexisting, but it also kind of had that weird moment where it was like, oh yeah, you know, the people that don't have cell phones, right?

but are like literally a state's border away from the capital that live like they're 200 years older than we are. Yeah, but they're really happy though and they want it that way. And it's like, is that? You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of the Amish. Like they're aware of everything that's going on. They just choose that lifestyle. However, in Akka, it's like they're based off their region, their forts do. But it just kind of reminded me of the Amish.

That's a fair point, I guess. I just was thinking like, like you said, Pete, like specifically in the show, they're like, oh yeah, but we're really happy. And it's like,

are you you guys were like but you guys were like literally like salivating over the cell phone and the existence of a cigarette you know like how good is that uh for them like they're just seeing some weird stuff to them you know but they don't know what it is so yeah it's just novel to actually see yeah it's like you saw like a helicopter or some shit near your house

That's a good point. I gotta say like my copter up back. Yeah, exactly. The miles copter. Yes. You'll pick me up tomorrow. Yeah. I just say, Pat, if you're a fan of like this border possible war territory thing, if that's like something that tickles your fancy, you should really watch full bell Alchemist Brotherhood.

Because that's what this this the Akka map and all that stuff that went into it reminded me of two things. It reminded me of like post Yugoslavia with all and then full Mel Alchemist Brotherhood, like sort of just like how the territories are very like you're not only does this show make an effort to expand on the world. I feel like it does a good job at giving the territories that it wants to cover the time it needs.

And so that's something that I want to give props to with this show that, you know, when you talk about like, this is like a different form of world building and they took a lot of detail and a lot of effort and time. It took like full ass episodes to explain to us what some of these territories like mean to the country.

And I could see that being like a positive and a negative, depending on like, you know, like, come on, let's get through this. Like I get it. But like, if you find like the territory is interesting, I think it's like an incredible addition to this type of show, especially with like the political side of it where like, we want to understand why these different countries are doing coups and they're different, like, like why, how they're set up and then why they're all sort of rebelling at the same time.

for like kind of different reasons so i thought like that aspect of the show was like awesome loved it i agree uh with everything except for the full metal aqua's part surely that bro you would love that show you would love that show it's like 70 episodes too long 70 episodes too long or so no i'm kidding obviously i'll i'll get to it someday ashley's actually watched that for five years

since i know you you've been saying that look how long it's taken me to watch end of evangelion i mean can you imagine that's just one movie can you imagine how long it would take me to finish a a 70 episode show at this point like oh no no i'll watch it one episode it's like 50 something out of 60 something

It feels like 70 in my head. It says so many things that Pat would just fucking love and he just refuses to watch it. Like this is like a huge thing in Fullmetal. It's like the territories. It's 64 and it takes place in vaguely post-war Europe. Which is a cool setting. It is. It's an objectively cool setting. Yeah. You know. Well we can't all say we've watched everything. Can I be a bit controversial?

Okay. Because I might be the most controversial person on this. I don't know. So we've started talking about how the show's pacing is sort of slow at the beginning. I want to make the claim. Here's my claim. The show's pacing is slow throughout the entire thing. Nothing happens in this show. That is my claim. My claim is that

I liked the show. I thought a lot of the things was interesting or a lot of things that happened were interesting. And then also nothing happens. Like I know there was a scene in the scene was like, we're going to maintain the status quo and we're going to like reorganize our internal structure for this one department. Um,

But like, I don't know, maybe it's just that I'm an older man now and my company does a reorg every other year. But it just felt like it could have been an email. I see where you're coming from with this, though, too, because I had the same feeling. Like when I finished the show, my initial reaction was like,

Really, nothing catastrophic happened. Everything that they said was going to happen in the show happened. They kind of establish everything as it continues on. There was no real massive twist. And then I kept reading to make sure I didn't miss anything. And I shouldn't say nothing happened either, of course, too, at the end. There's the big twist that, oh, everyone was aware that Lilium was planning a coup of the coup or to gain more power, be through the coup.

even though everyone else was kind of just playing along and trying to keep the status quo. I thought that the, I guess the resolution with them ending up as a separate state or a succeeding state was interesting, especially because it

I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the train accident happens on that, on their border. Correct. So it brings, it brings in a question to whether they were involved in the initial train accident that ended up killing specific people, not William themselves, but their family.

faction or whatever their faction their family their house of you know like I'm pretty sure that that's where it happened I don't know I had to have a map the map open in another tab when I was watching this show every time too to try and make it make sense you put in more effort than I did so perhaps you were correct there I don't know I look I've been reading Rose of Versailles okay so anytime the solution is like let's keep the royals and just like continue being a monarchy I'm like

Boo. Kill him. Kill that kid. Kill him. It wasn't really that they continued. And I guess they were still in power. Just they changed the kid's mind into being like, yeah, no, you're in power. But in name only, I guess. Yeah, it was like, you better watch the fuck out, you little brat. Yeah, that's what it was. And they should have just killed him. That's my take.

It would have been fun. It would have been like the second time we see someone die in the show or at least get shot. Like for, for, for a show that like feels like it's going to be dangerous. It only had like,

the one gunshot, right. That I can remember, which of course was, uh, Nino taking the shot for, uh, for Jean like that. It was like high tension and no like release fell for like a large period of time. Pete, you had some thoughts here. Well, I'll add on to your, uh, hot takes and some maybe controversial stuff along with this, because while I was just talking about how I loved how they took the time to showcase these different territories, um,

to really bring the world to life. I think there were some that like didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. And I think that the show was too long and they do this in the show itself, where I think if you wanted to, I think the flow of the pace would have been better in like a movie format. If you gave us,

hints through like news because they do it in the show where like you see like a news broadcast for like a couple seconds and then that way we get some ideas about the other territories if we had that with like new segments or like newspaper articles or stuff like that to like that way it could also build the world but like not take full episodes to like showcase some territories i think that this show could have flown a little bit better but that was like my biggest

It's like, I loved what they did and I also hated it at the same time. So I'm in the same boat as Miles where like things were happening, but like also things

i don't some things like weren't happening and well i was like go ahead no i was gonna say just slice of life pete not liking this the fact that like people will watch slice of lives and someone will make a sandwich and they'll be like nothing happened and i'll be like holy shit they made a sandwich it's like it's it's like to each their own type of thing where like i i get that things are happening but

But like, I kind of wish that they weren't or showcase in a different manner. Go ahead, Jay. You know, the prince is your guy, Pete, really quick. Uh, VA. Oh, he's your. I'm gonna keep a bead with you. Bob Bruce kind of not been hitting for me this year. So. Okay. Well, I'll be honest with you. I didn't even know it was him.

I watched the dub. I also watched the dub. So that also helps why I didn't notice it was him. Yeah, that was Damon Mills. We can't let that one slide. I didn't notice that the voice actor... Well, I didn't notice. So true. Yeah, no, he's technically correct. It's the best kind of correct. Jay, you have thoughts here.

Yeah, I agree that the show was a little bit too long. I think, first of all, the assassination plots were literally meaningless. Nothing happened from them, and even the guy who did get shot was just alright afterwards. And I think it should have just been like Aka 6, and then spend 12 episodes, give each sector like two episodes, and really dig into like...

the culture and that sort of thing. They literally had him in the cars with the assassins and then they said, nah, we won't just kill him there. We're going to drive away and get caught in traffic. I thought that was really dumb. There was also a guy there. Like, that's why they stopped because the guy who's a fun character, his like,

you know mustache man yeah mustache man who like has interactions with the sister who's like a whole character who has like major plot points that we've just not even touched upon well the fact that he's he's the other guy they reveal it at the end right yeah he's nino's boss as well yeah but that's like he shows up they could have just what oh someone saw it just shoot him and shoot the other guy and drive away

I don't know. Use the guns. Jay is making a good point here. That's my point, I agree with you. I think we all are. They also killed themselves afterwards, remember? Yes, yeah. They said they killed themselves. They could have taken another shot while he was like, like, no, no! Just like, sitting there on his knees. Shoot him again! Like, oh, fuck. And I guess this sort of like...

Another encapsulation of like my general issue with the show is that even when things happen, the end result is,

maintains the status quo relatively heavily like even at the end like okay they've reorganized aka sorry to interrupt but if it does help there is an ova set a year after i would love to see that maybe that'll help because i might help yeah yeah you know i i was just like reading a synopsis of the final episode to like get a thing and it's like oh like this place

You know, they secede, but it actually didn't impact anything because they found the resources that they like. Nothing happens. It's like you're just shuffling around the pieces on the board, but nothing's happened. It's sort of like how unique of an ending of a show, though, at the same time, in a way where it was like, oh, by the way.

No, like their whole goal, the whole show was, like you said, maintain the status quo, keep things the same. And then the fact that they kept saying that near the end of the show over and over and over again, every single chief deputy, whatever, the fact that they kept saying that made me think that they weren't going to do that. You know, like that there's no way the status quo maintains the same. And again, guess technically not because the 13th state secedes, but like

Then they retconned that in the last line of the show as well, where it's like, oh yeah, no, they found the resource. So there you go. So what was the point? I guess it's bold and cool that they won and succeeded in keeping the status quo, but then also what's the point of the message or what happened? Again, I do agree that OVA must have more to it, right? Surely. No, it doesn't have to, because again, I don't know. Kat, do you have any thoughts on this? Because you...

Like you said, you like really enjoyed this show, which I think we all liked this show. But like, did you what did you think about this aspect of it? Because it seems like the rest of us are kind of in agreement that like, I don't know what it is like the vibe and like atmosphere of the show is like really good. And you're just sort of there. But then like.

it's not that big of a historical moment in this country. I feel like. So my, so part of the reason why I enjoyed the show is because it's, it was a way for me to, uh,

for me to point at something that's in media and go, hey, this is American politics. Weirdly enough, because like the thing is that them trying to continue the status quo is like, oh, this is going to hurt. This hurts me saying it, but it made me enjoy it. The son or the grandson, the not Jean, the other blonde-haired kid,

He is. Yeah. The press one. Yeah. Prince one is kind of like Trump. And it's I can't. I'm sorry. I didn't. I was wondering where you're going to go with this. And I just don't see it at all. It's not even close. I know. I like maintaining the status quo. Neither of them like like the the entire Democratic Party.

Like if out of the two parties in our system, doing the coup. Yeah, he literally was the one doing the coup with Jan six. Like, I don't know. Like, this is where I'm like, I'm not seeing the analogy here. I'll let you go. OK, there's an argument. Miles disagrees that Trump was doing a coup on January. Yeah, I think that was completely justified. No. Clip it. OK, you too short right there.

Oh, fuck. My dad will be proud of me.

To make a comparison to Prince Ron and Donald Trump, which I am going to defend Kat, and I don't do this very often. Kat has some ideas. I usually find them to be pretty far out there, but they both did try to assassinate someone that would, in theory, be a threat to their country.

Successorship, be it the next democratically elected president or be it someone who is actually higher up on the air, a line of succession than they are in order to maintain power. Was it not the aunt or the the daughter, whatever of the.

The sister of Jean's mom. I think they both do it. I thought it was her twice. I don't know. So I think she does Jean and he does... What's her name? The sister, Lotta. I thought he lusts for her at first. I don't even... No, are you thinking a bullhead guy who's different than the prince?

No, Schwan, doesn't he say, oh, I took an interest in her because he finds her. I don't know. He blushes. Oh, yeah. He notices her at like the party or whatever. But then he puts together and this is the part where he's not like Trump, right? Because he's like actually able to to like do some basic deductive reasoning. Yeah. By not being that smart. But like, yeah, he I'm pretty sure he attempts to assassinate these people. Like he is one of.

The aunt does. And then does he not do any sort of like, hey, kill people to anyone? You just sit there. He's just like, that sucks that this is going to happen. I feel like he tries doing something. Well, he doesn't know it's going to happen, doesn't he? Until he learns about it pretty midway through the not the coup that just affected this guy exists. Right.

Just the fact that he's alive and is higher up on the line of succession. If you're going like purely by birth order and not accounting for like people who have like renounced their titles and stuff like that. Oh, right. Cause he has the photo removed of the princess. Yeah.

Although that's the mom, not her. He didn't have it removed. He just put his next to it. No, no, they literally switched it. That was the whole, he was like, oh, it replaced it or whatever in that spot. I thought. Yeah. Cause that's where he sits. Yeah. But yeah. So like he realizes through talking to his aunt and the photo and the, her and like a lot of being at the party or whatever that, and then also his assistant who's actually working, uh,

with our team kind of but explains that like the other sister could have had a son and that would be a threat to you because they would be higher in the line of succession than you are i feel i don't maybe i'm phantasming this i remember him being semi-active in the assassination plot i i can't remember and i just watched it today so you're not

at fault here i can't i do i do vaguely i feel like you might be right and okay no harm no foul like they failed so it's fine whatever that is that is a plot point yeah that is a point he threatens to have me assassinated all the time literally all the time yeah but he keeps trying to send me and i'm like i'm not trying to die

So I guess we got to the broader point that I was going to try to make at the beginning of our discussion. That was like, what do we think about the ending of this show and the fact that it ends the way it does, you know, without anything really happening, obviously something happening. But so like, I want to make sure I fully understand it. The five, the district or the council of five vanishes, right? Yes. And then they get dissolved or sent back to their districts to focus on them.

And now Malve is just in power, right? Like, she's just the replacement of all of them, essentially. Yeah, it kind of seems like they might have started... Stalled the dictatorship? Like, you know? Like, that's what I'm trying to pick... Because I was trying to piece it together. Like, how does it make sense to dissolve the council and then put one person in charge? I guess they all supported her, but at the same time, like, that's not very democratic or representative of... But they are a monarchy. Yeah, so they don't care. It's a monarchy, but...

Yeah, that's fair. Because they do. The way that I viewed it is like, this is the Magna Carta of this country, right? Where the, not exactly like the Royal line, but whatever the like house of Lords would be basically flexes their power to the nobility and like,

solidifies that they are that right like because the the king guy was trying to dissolve them because he viewed them as a threat to his power or the prince he's not even in charge yet what does the 99 year old king think of that you know what it doesn't matter he likes that i thought he thought of it as a symbol of peace like it started because of the uh

as a way of calming down the unrest in the 13 countries. And then he said, this is, I've kept you around because you are a symbol of peace because like this, you have helped keep this. Yeah. So, you know, when liquors recoil, there's a secret organization or a not so secret organization that sort of does a, like a soft fascism thing. Is that, that's just sort of what's happening here. Huh?

yeah it's all fascism isn't so bad as long as i agree with me yeah exactly are you with me on the january 6th thing were you not i feel i can't say something controversial at this moment

um okay you're gonna tank the stock even more bro you can't do this here's my here's here's the clip let me find out tomorrow if i have a job or not and if i don't you know i'm going to full right wing grifter i'm down that's what i was gonna say twitter blue i'm saying tv reviews time it's easy money it's so easy buddy that's the sad thing dumb people are making more money than me and that makes me sad

I want him as president. You know, it's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. The, uh, are the deal baby. But the, this show does almost feel like to me with the, like you said, the Lords essentially just like being sort of dictators in a way. Like, it's like very much like, Oh, if everyone just listened to me,

everything that was wrong in the world would be right or fixed or whatever. It's that classic middle school train of thought that you might have where it's like, oh man, I have all the answers and if everyone just listened, we wouldn't have any problems. I don't know, maybe in this 13 country state thing, it works. Maybe the US should do that. Maybe we should make New England or the Northeast one state and Midwest one state and then everything would be better. Hell no.

no no no no be it be the same state well the population wise it would make sense i mean the northeast alone being one state would be kind of crazy like think about like so stinky it gives you your cheese though it gives you the cheese we have cows in minnesota i'm just saying it could work or in theory like when you think about like the way that this is set up

It would be the solution that it's proposing for us as a country. And then each part would actually be accurately, I guess, represented by those lords, assuming they are all not corrupt, which I guess was also a weird thing about this show, the fact that there's

like lords, so to speak, because we're, I can't remember what they were called district chairs or whatever. Yeah. And not a single one of them was like truly corrupt or maniacal or evil. And that's not, that might be the most unrealistic part of the show. Right. Other than I guess technically kind of, they were like soft evil though. Like he was really bad evil. They're like lawful evil. Yeah. The self-service, they're lawful evil, not like chaotic or, uh,

Because like, I don't know, I mean, even like self-serving evil in this case, like, like, William is self-serving in the sense that he wants for his people to be in power rather than, or hit, well, so him directly, but like, his people to have the most important voice rather than an equal voice to the other 12 districts, or districts, country, whatever. Versus like in real life, like we sit here and we see senators or politicians like constantly, like,

You know, like literally the land doesn't vote debate, you know, in the whole electoral college. Like we that's what we see in our country. And we and it just there's no resolution. It's not like all of them are good or bad. It's like just I don't know. Why did we start talking about politics? Who brought that up? What idiot? That would be me. Oh, no, it was me. I thought I was joking. That was me. But yeah, fair enough. Cat, you did bring it up. It's a heavily political show. It's hard to draw analogies.

It's not like we haven't talked politics on the podcast before. Never, never once have we done it. I finally listened to the High School of the Dead and I was surprised to learn that all of you were libertarians. No, no, no, no, no. When it comes to boobies, absolutely. Yeah, I'm...

I'm very libertarian about them. There you go. Take with that and form whatever conclusion you want. Bonk. Yeah, thank you. 2017, though, being the time of the show's airing, I mean, there can't be... Well, maybe there's a coincidence. Who knows when the manga is written? But yeah, maybe there's some similarities. I mean, the 13 things, though, the 13 states definitely resemble the United States more than almost any other country in the world, other than, I guess you could say, like, Europe as a continent. But...

Europe has more than 13 countries. Holy fuck. Thanks, Miles. The U.S. has more than 13 states.

Fair enough. I thought that's what you were getting at. No, no. I'm saying the different climates and all of them having to work together. What does a person from freaking Connecticut have in common with some random Iowan other than liking anime? Apparently, like myself and another member in our Discord. You know what I mean? That's where I just don't... I see it as a broader...

representation or analogy for the us or for europe in the same way that like clearly lilliam's meant to be the italians versus the ruling party being the english i guess or something i don't know uh but we should get on to final thoughts anyways because we are running long but that's not always a bad thing it means we uh had a good discussion so uh let's get on to those final thoughts so miles what is your final score as well as first your final thoughts on great

ACA 13. Yeah, I enjoyed a lot of this. I think the cast was a pretty strong point of this that we didn't necessarily get to talk about as much because there was so much intrigue going on.

Jean and Lada had like a pretty nice relationship and they contrasted each other pretty well. This is the brother and sister. I thought that was nice. Nino was like a cool character and you weren't always exactly sure where he stood, but like you learned that he was like a really good guy like later on, which is nice. And it's not like he redeemed himself. You just because it's a spy thing, you couldn't figure that out. And like he had a good flashback episode. I'm usually not a big flashback episode fan, but I thought that one was pretty good.

Where you learn more about the royal heritage and how all of this is coming out. And that episode was pretty good for letting me piece together future things and how everything was fitting into place. As we sort of talked about, the ending of this, I think, is like underwhelming. Honestly, they do a lot of build up.

For like a secret counter coup to happen at the end. And it's like, it makes sense for what the show is, but I just found it underwhelming and like not particularly satisfying, which I guess is a bit redundant. But what do you do? I'm going to give us a seven. I enjoyed it though. It was a good seven. Seven. Alrighty. Kat, what about you?

Yeah, other than the existential dread that this has given me because of the current climate of our collective country and the way that things are going right now, I really enjoyed this show. It gave me a bit of a reprieve from, as I said, the existential dread. And it has helped me...

find a little bit of relief from the anxiety that I'm having right now. So, maybe it's the timing of when the show came and I watched, but I...

I really enjoyed the show. And even though like, I do agree that there's that it is kind of underwhelming with the ending. I really enjoyed that. There was a bit of, you know, a trying to return to normalcy.

And everything going back to the status quo, even though the status quo, in my opinion, is not good, it's still better than Anarchy, which is what I desperately don't want. So I really, really did enjoy this show, and it definitely felt like a really nice bit of escapism for me. So for me, I'm going to give this a 9.

marking it down a nine wow all righty uh jay what about you

Yeah, I thought that this show was pretty good. I thought that it had really interesting world building. I just wish that they would have kind of dove into it a bit more. I think that the themes that were presented were really interesting, particularly the sort of conflict of order versus individuality. I also am not a huge fan of the ending. I think that it was underwhelming in a lot of ways, but I also did like that it was, it kind of ended with like,

I like that it was underwhelming, and this sounds like a bad thing to say, but I like that it ended with a whimper. I like that it was a bloodless sort of, not even coup, but change of the... I would even argue that the status quo did change quite a bit, because obviously Mauve and Akka came out ahead of the...

sort of uh situation whereas yeah like aka status quo definitely changed right more so than the countries i guess 100 i really really enjoyed the music for this i think that the direction in general was really solid the soundtrack or not soundtrack

The subtitles were pretty funny. At the ending, it always kept saying that the opening line was Mario Lemieux, who was a famous hockey player known as the Magnificent, is what I learned. He's arguably the best player ever, too, if he wasn't so injury-prone. He would have been better. Old heads say that he would have been better than Gretzky if he just didn't get injured and had the people protecting him like Gretzky did. I see. Well...

All that to say that I did enjoy this show quite a bit. I just wish that it was maybe a little bit shorter or perhaps a two core or something like that to really give the mystery time to like develop and go even slower burn with it. Even though I was complaining that it felt like it was too long. I think if the pacing was a bit different, I could have gone for two cores of it. For me, this is an eight.

And I'd be curious, too, about the again, source from a manga. Right. So like, what would be the did it rush over chapters? Did it extend to them? Like, it's only 37 chapters.

Yeah, it's probably pretty beat for beat. Yeah, it sounds. Yeah, that seems like it would be pretty, pretty close to the pace that they chose, like three chapters or so per episode. So very interesting. Or I wonder how many of those chapters are in the OVAs as well. Makes you wonder. I'm going to zero since no VA, which is an original video animation.

That means completely original from the manga too? Normally the O stands for original, yeah. I don't think so, actually, because the Golden Kamuy OVAs are all stuff that was from the manga but was cut. That's what I thought most. We can get into it later.

yeah i was gonna say well the original video just means it's never been made before now in theory ovs are normally not canon and not um that's fair source or if there is it's lightly like touched on or it's like the inspiration but i feel like there are two usage of ovs one is like the konosuba ones right where everything is just like horny and stupid and fun and then there's ones where it's like

We finished the story. Oh fuck. Oh, here's the movie. It's like real life, you know, right? We're like the OVAs in real life are like literally what happens next. And it's like in lieu of a second season. Here you go. All right. But either way, no, that's fair enough. Well done. All right. You have your turn now. Did anybody watch this subbed by any chance?

I didn't think so. So I forgot. I actually have one bigger complaint and it's when, uh, Groshular is more into the story is that the entire time they call mob mob until he shows up and then they started calling her move. And I hated that. It drove me crazy. I was like, you've been calling her mob for eight episodes and now she's move. Okay. I move. This is like a show where it's like,

At no point was I like really bored, but I also like wasn't like thoroughly entertained. Like I was happy with what I watched and I'm glad I watched it. But if you ask me if I ever wanted to watch the show again, probably not. Like I think this was like a really fun one time watch. It was fun to talk to you guys about it. I don't really have any like interest in like

diving into more of this stuff it was just like a really solid 12 episode show that i liked watching and talking with my friends about i'm trying to think because like i do think like the sound design and soundtrack is like the best feature of this which is a good or bad thing uh gene was cool as shit uh i just loved it very cool his character from like episode 1 to 12 was such like a cool transition and just sort of seeing the flow of his character and

for Pat his sister reminded me a lot of the girl from Tadaku never falls in love yeah looks exactly like her so maybe she's a secret princess of a vaguely European country yes she is literally yes if we ever seen them in the same room I'm just saying if there's a rainbow Shogun commercial at some point in the show that'd be super fun

uh just this would be like wink wink nudge nudge type of thing but yeah i mean this is a it's an enjoyable show i think the payoff was like kind of like mild um but i enjoyed it i'm gonna give it a seven i think it was a fun a fun good show god forbid you make my math easy pete how dare you my bad it's still relatively easy because we're dividing by five so no work i also have a calculator i did the calculator mr texas instruments over there

It's actually just a spreadsheet. It is a calculator. Yeah, no, no worries. Let me get my abacus out. I meant to say this earlier, but Jay, loving the earring and shirt combo today. That is phenomenal. I was also about to add that this is perfect for podcast content, but however, we do have a video component on YouTube and Spotify, I believe, right? So why

Why not come check it out and give us a like and a sub and a comment if you're feeling so bold. But yeah, my final thoughts, I had a couple notes written down. I'm glad, Miles, you touched on it, that the cast was very good. Well, that's what I wrote down. I should say I wrote down the cast is very good, albeit a bit bloated.

And bloated in the sense that there were just so many figures that it was hard to keep track of, especially in a 13-episode show. Maybe what I'm thinking about it, you imagine a Gundam show, but that's because there's 20 different Gundam shows with all of their casts interconnected and intertwined in some way. But it also did add to the

add to the show and add to the character's depth that they are all interconnected in a different way too so i don't know my complaint is also a compliment to the show the cast themselves though their interactions were really fun i thought a lot of the characters were cool their designs were pretty unique but at least they all reflected where they were meant to be from and or or their personalities in some way i thought that that was pretty well done as well you know some visual storytelling combined with their personalities and i the only other note i wrote down was uh

Like everyone else has said, the ending felt underwhelming in terms of its execution, although it is also kind of just how politics also work at the same time when you think about it. Throughout history, most of the time, if it's not a literal war, you know, like what happens to coups? They either succeed or they don't. And they don't usually end up in a blood in like a crazy war, at least in especially in modern days. You know, it's like you either know you're fucked or you know you're going to get you're going to win.

One way or the other, right when the gun drops, so to speak, or the shoe falls. So I wrote down, good guys win or do they? And I guess that that's more of an ethical or thought-out question there that we won't know the answers to. I guess that that's kind of the intention of the show as well. Do you watch the OVA? I'm tempted to. I really am. Because I...

Like Pete, I would say I wasn't falling out of my seat ready to watch the next episode of this show. But I also enjoyed it the whole time too. I don't think it... Those first few episodes were a bit slow, but it was enjoyable enough that I wasn't dreading putting on the next one. I don't think I would ever reach that point with this show. I thought that the political interactions were really, really cool to see and really well done. So I gave the show an 8 out of 10.

final score, final answer. Pretty satisfied with it. I'm pleasantly surprised because I had no idea what to expect coming in. So I'm very, very happy with it. But yeah, that brings our total aggregate score to a 7.88, which is 0.22 or 7.8 flat. Pardon me. Thank you, Miles. I could sense your breath from however many miles away. That brings it...

maybe a little more maybe closer i did move closer to you so there is less than a mile now i'm coming oh oh oh you meant literally oh yeah you're coming for me oh that's very scary your whole house is coming to yes this is this is a green screen i'm running with it behind me that'd be crazy that'd be like oh yeah it's a lot of effort oh but uh but

ACA 13 on MAL has a 7.66. So we're pretty in lockstep with MAL on this one. And yeah, I guess that wraps up our discussion on ACA 13, Territory Inspection Department. Miles, you know what one is.

for our next episode what would that be yes and i spoiled it for everyone however except for cat let's tell nope he demanded i tell him so i spoiled it for him too i figured he might as well be the only person who doesn't you know i would i wouldn't do that to cat in third place we have interspecies reviewer gaining a fifth and ever looming higher score of legacy points and

And second, we have Mind Games with a very strong debut performance. And in first place, we have Scum's Wish by like a lot, which is nice. So we will be watching that. And I want everyone here to remember that this is I'm even going to put Cat's name next to the nomination when I do it, because he had all of the power in the world to not make this happen. And he chose to.

And I have succeeded, and he has to watch it again. I can choose not to be on the episode. Yeah, you don't have to show up. You don't have to show up. It's so true. Pete famously says,

What are we nominating? More specifically, yeah, that's what we're watching, Scum's Wish. Sorry, I was waiting to see if you had more to say. We are watching Scum's Wish for our next episode now in honor of Pride Month, which started yesterday. As of the time of recording, we are going to nominate shows.

That have to do with pride in some different way, whether that's LGBTQIA plus characters or discussions around those plot, their lives or things involving them. It'll make a lot of sense once we're done nominating. But Miles, do you have one ready to off the rip like you said?

Normally do or? Yeah, I am like I do every time and never once have I not. I do. I'm going to be nominating. I'm in love with the villainous and the trying to split the Veronica vote. Yeah, I'm splitting the Veronica vote, unfortunately, because I think we all will find out what she's nominating here, but it will, in fact, split the Veronica vote. But I've read these light novels, a couple of them, and I like them and I want to watch the show.

There you go. That's usually a good reason to nominate. I also want to make sure no matter what we fucking nominate and wins, we get to discuss incest. I know that's what Pete's... That's why I dropped the show. There you go. All right, Kat, what have you got?

uh yeah it's probably a fairly cliche choice but i'm going to nominate given it's a banger i love given yeah so and if you like music what was really good music and given thinking of was it a show a movie or a movie in a show which

are you it's are you doing the movie two seasons no the movie is like the third season okay then it's the show yep yeah that was one by question thank you there we go all right no worries we got there uh jay what have you got oh i'm nominating citrus okay about this pete citrus probably has way more incest than i'm in love with the film it does not actually

it actually has infinitely less incest oh yeah i forgot you don't care about the actual ethical quandaries that it presents uh that that wasn't the question you said you said it had incest it does not does it have does it have moral questions that probably should be talked about yeah yeah it does you don't need to be blood related for it to be incest

I mean, based off my knowledge, you do, but fuck it. That's the definition. You don't like at least per Massachusetts law. Okay, whatever. I learned this as I was getting married. Miles is the type of guy who knows like the age of consent and different states. It reminds me of one of my favorite community endings where there's like an episode where two cousins get married and like this guy is just like,

I'm like, whatever. And they said, I can make this episode as long as I get on after and say, I wrote the incest episode. He's just like, has to like completely sell himself out. Miles. Yes. We'll also say, do you know what the incest law is in North Carolina? As let's not, let's not, let's not, none of the shows have it then. Um, yeah,

Alright, Pete, what have you got? What are you guys' thoughts on pirating? Because the show... Well, we're gonna have to pirate Scum's Wish because it's apparently off of everything. It's not right out? Okay. Then... Wow. Because apparently Crunchyroll got rid of Wandering Sun and it was there last year, I thought, but it's not there this year, so...

look we live in a capitalist hellscape let's take some stuff back let's take a stand against pirating if it is available however it is not available so they're yeah i'm gonna cover all the bases we got lesbian we got gay i'm gonna do trans i'm gonna nominate wandering son ethical pirating right there you go i like it hey why don't you roll got rid of wandering son that's transphobic so therefore i'm actually doing the society a like a good by pirating it

Not just any society, the society. The society. There we go. We're fighting against Sony. What do you expect? Even though I think it got removed before Sony bought it. Yeah, I was going to say, at least before the acquisition was final. But still, fuck Sony. Oh yeah, 100%.

That's why I protested by not getting a Sony television for my living room. Instead, I got a... What did I get? TCL. Who owns TCL? Google. Google, the less evil corporation. Ah, yes. Gulf of America. Hell yeah, baby. What are we doing? All right. My show. I thought about doing like Zombieland Saga because I thought it would be fun. And one of the characters is very specifically trans and I think that they do it

in a very like good way but also in a way where it doesn't even acknowledge it it kind of just acts as if it's normal without like questioning it which I thought was really cool however I think it's done exceptionally well not that I guess my opinion as a cis straight white male matters that much but instead then I sat there and I went

Let's do something I haven't watched or that most of us haven't watched too. I'm going to do a whisper me a love song. Cause I think that that sounded interesting and it's new and it looks pretty animated wise, at least like, Oh, you were not around when this was airing. Were you?

I was probably intentionally avoiding it because this is not my cup of tea. Yeah, I got delayed like months to finish. The cover art is beautiful. Oh, it is. Yeah. Yeah. A really great PowerPoint.

Oh, is it? Oh, because I'm an ally. Got my whisper me a love song. I'll go right here. Should I? Should I nominate something else? No, no, it's a fine show. It's it's perfectly fine. Is it just when you said it looks lovely, like animated or whatever? You don't care about animation. I understand. He said Pat said it looks like it's lovely animated. So I did the ooh along with you because I know it's not.

It's it's not. It's fine. We agree. It's fine. Okay. Just dominate it. All right. Yeah. Because I was going to say it's like I just kind of went down the girls love category and I was like, what would like what are ones that didn't look problematic or ones that I did not enjoy that I watched myself already?

And it took me a while of scrolling to get to one, but I did find that one. I was like, that looks interesting. You should have just two birds, one stone and done that show you have to watch. Oh, gushing over magical girl. I thought about it. I did think about it, but I thought that that would be cheating. No, you can do that. You can do that if you want to. Well, no, I'm not going to do that. I purposely skipped seasonal so we could do it here. So it's one less show I have to watch, though. I get I do it all the time.

Yeah, no, I'm good. I will watch that on my own and suffer on my own for your guys' sake. I'll watch with you. I won't. Okay. Yeah, you shouldn't watch it with me. It's just funny that this is all same category, including Foodaboo as well, apparently, according to Mal. Is that a hentai? Yes, it is. Literally a hentai. And for some reason, it's categorized. That's allowed on Mal. Yeah, hentais are on Mal. Oh, it is? Oh, interesting. Good to know. Yeah.

Not that I would know what hentai is. I know. Also could have been nominated for this. There's a gay romance in it. Oh, true. And what? Scott Pilgrim takes off. Oh, yeah. That would have been fun. Shall we end this? All right.

I don't know. Should we? Yeah, no, that'll be my nomination. Yeah, no, that's it. But yeah, that's Watch Club. Thank you so much. And Pete, take it away. If you have made this far and you want to support us the best way to do so, like, comment, subscribe, leave a review on whatever platform you're watching or listening to us on. Next week is the fan favorite MyAnimeList game, Volume 8, coming back with a vengeance. I think it's been like seven months since we've done a Mal game, so we'll be doing that next week. Otherwise, if you are here for Watch Club, we will see you in two weeks for Scum's Wish.

Thanks, and we'll see you next time. Peace! Bye-bye! Bye-bye!