cover of episode ANIME FANS ARE EATING GOOD IN 2025 | Trash Taste #255

ANIME FANS ARE EATING GOOD IN 2025 | Trash Taste #255

2025/5/9
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- Yeah, I've been listening to it daily. - Oh, so funny. - It's such a banger, dude. - Such a bop, man. - Such a banger. - Hey boys, welcome back to another episode of the Trash Taste Podcast. I'm Joey and I'm with the boys Connor and Garnt as usual. - They've been singing that the entire time. - Dude, it's so funny. - Did you finish it? - I did finish it. - Oh my God. - Can we talk about it a little bit? Sorry, Joey. - It's fine, yeah, you can talk about it. - Spoiler alert.

they actually like that we figured out that we can move around the earth. - Yeah. - No way. - Eventually. - What? - In history. - Eventually. - Holy shit. - That's, I mean, my whole life view has changed now. - I mean, you could also read the manga also called the Wikipedia. - Yeah.

- I can't believe you spoiled the Wikipedia page. - That's the web novel that the manga is based on. But holy shit, yeah, I just finished it as well. 'Cause I just finished like a few weeks ago and- - It's peak.

- It is. The thing is people will say peak for everything now. - This is actually peak. - This is like actually. - That's why the word peak is just like lost on me now. They're just like, yo, it's peak. And it's like 10 minutes of the first episode. - Yeah, it's like, yo. - It's like, here's a shiny new thing that's come along. Everyone's like, yo, it's peak. But no, this is actually peak. - I've like summoned every,

influences like DNA in my body to like get people to watch the show. Everyone I come across, I'm like, "Orb, watch Orb, watch Orb." - I mean, I would go far to say, as far to say as, 'cause by the time this episode comes out, my video about Orb will already be out. So I'm praising Orb on every platform I can possibly do. - Number one Orb Glazer, number two Orb Glazer. - I've been the number one.

- Number one orb glazer from the beginning. You can see the history of this podcast. You should watch this anime called Orb. And it is just gotten, it's an anime that's gotten progressively better and better. - Right, right. - To the point where I think now that it's ended, 'cause it is a full story. You get the end of the story. I think it's,

- I don't know which one I prefer, Vinland Saga or Orb. That's how fucking good this- - That's saying a lot coming from a Vinland Saga glazer.

- If there's a couple of shows that Garnt has glazed over the years, it's been "Lasaga" now "Orb". - For the 19th time, if you don't already know what "Orb" is, Garnt will now give you a brief explanation about what "Orb" is and why you should watch. - We have basically talked about the basic premise. It's a show about proving the earth goes round, but the real selling point. - The earth goes around. - The earth goes around. Heliocentricism. - Which is a new word that I learned. I did not know this word before. - You didn't know the word before?

- I didn't actually. I learned it from all. - If you had told me the word, I could have pretty much guessed what you're talking about. - Oh yeah. - But I wasn't in my vocab. - Oh, okay. - Now it is and I love saying it. - When do you say it? - Because when I talk to my mom, it's about heliocentrism. Of course you know what that is, right mother?

- You're a dirty geocentrist. - Look at this motherfucker geocentrist right there. - We allow these socioeconomic times of our parents. - That's why we're the ones in the suit and the shirt and he's in a sweater. - Of course you don't know how the earth rotates. - The moment I come around to heliocentrism is when I finally can get a collar on my shirt.

- But it was so fucking good. - It's one of the most like inspirational shows with some of the best cast of characters I've seen. - So to give context, the manga I've read about way when it was still first serializing. I think I read the first like four volumes and the anime I'm only watched the first three episodes. But I mean, yeah, I already from the get go, I knew it was gonna be a show I fucking loved. I just haven't had the time to watch it. - I gotta ask, who's your favorite character?

- That's how you know it's a good show. You're like, who's your favorite character? - If there isn't one standalone, that's how you know it's good. - 'Cause I had such a hard time. 'Cause one of the things that's amazing about it is that it follows so many different stories and so many different characters. And then what will happen is you'll get invested into this one character and then it'll move to another character's story. And you're like, I don't want another character's story. I want that character's story. And then two episodes, you're like,

I love this person. I love this person. Never leave me again. And then you go to another character and you're like all over again. And then it starts all over again. - Yeah, for sure. - Yeah, it is so fucking hard to choose a favorite character. - Yeah, yeah. - Man, it's tough. - Yeah. - There's so many amazing characters in it. I don't think there's like seven characters that I all think are like the best character. - I know, right? - 'Cause they're so well written, fuck.

- Yeah, first you're like Raphael, who is the first one. He's like such amazing character. And you can feel, even though he's just a kid, you can feel his presence throughout the entire show. And then we move over to two other characters, Bill,

I was gonna say Bell Dandy, but that- - I always think he's called a Boudainy, but that's like the priest guy, the other guy. - No, no, it is Boudainy and Ozki. - Yeah, okay, it is Boudainy. That's Boudainy, right? Why did I think Boudainy was like the,

- One of the son of the head of the church. I don't know why I thought that. - Yeah. Is it Badainy or Baldainy? I can't- - Oh my God. - I got it. Got it in my head. I don't know. I don't know. - Baudainy or Baldainy? Which one is that? - I think- - Badainy. - Badainy. - I think Badainy's maybe my favorite.

- I love Badani, but Schmidt is also so fucking cool. - Schmidt is amazing. I love, out of everyone, Ozki's like character development is fucking incredible. And I think he arguably has like one of the best moments in the show, which I'm not gonna spoil, but I think in terms of like pure energy, Badani is just like, I,

- I bow down to the amount of gatekeeping he has. - He's such a dick to everyone. But that's why it's so fun, 'cause you kind of see like this guy tried this, it didn't, you know, maybe it did work, it didn't work. Maybe this guy tried this, this worked for him, this didn't work. And then kind of seeing the evolution of like how it keeps evolving. And obviously the whole time, Noak's there and he's just goaded. And he's got such a presence. - One of the amazing things about the show is that

- Yes, it's about proving the earth goes round the sun and everything like that. But really what it's about is all of these characters who have these different personal philosophies coming together,

with a common goal and just kind of like influencing each other by just like being around each other. So, Boudaini starts off and he kind of ends off as just this egotistical dickhead priest. Like he, one of my favorite scenes with him is that he has this conversation with Ozki, the other guy who's like,

- If you wanna learn how to read and write and Boudin is right, why? You're a fucking peasant. Reading and writing is for the privilege and Ozzy's like, shouldn't that be for everyone? And he's like, but he's like, no, fuck no. If everyone could read and write, do you know how much unreliable information would flood?

- Like the earth? - This is like AI now. - He's like, "Damn, you know what?" - Bro's ahead of his time. - Yeah, bro's actually speaking facts. Maybe he's onto something. Maybe we should have gate kept knowledge, man.

- I just love that it was always like, no matter how different these characters were, the underlying theme of just sharing ideas, collaborating was always the ultimate way to progress anything, was to team up. You can never do it alone. - Yeah, 'cause I think one thing that sets "Villain Saga" apart from like so many other anime and manga is that I think it has,

that so many people need to hear. You have no enemies was like a meme that was spread around and I generally think it was like- - It's true, man. - It's true. - People need to know that online. - Yeah, people- - If Twitter users knew that they have no enemies, they might be better off in life. - Yeah, they won't be on Twitter. - Yeah, exactly. And I think Orb has like an equally important message, which to me, like the biggest factor in terms of like separating who were like,

the antagonist in here is that every protagonist

listen to other people. They allowed, they had their own personal philosophy. They had their own personal beliefs and it's not like they did a 180, but you could see the effects of listening to other people like- - Yeah, it affects them in like different ways, right? - Yeah, yeah, exactly. And if there was a message to Orb, like the message I got was like belief, blind belief for like anything is just a really dangerous mindset. Because if you don't allow

if you don't listen, even like even want to listen to other ideas, other conflicting viewpoints, then you just stop progressing as a human. You stop humanity from progressing itself. - You hear that internet? That's probably the internet needs to learn. - And there are just so many fucking beautiful moments in this. Like I, you know, it's not necessarily that I cry, but there are moments where, you know, you finish an episode and you just like, you just have to say like- - Yeah, you sit there.

- Yeah, let us soak in. - Fucking damn man. And I thought it was like, okay, it happened once. And I was like, okay, this is a good show. Happened twice and I was like, shit, this can't keep happening. And then it kept on happening. And I think part of it is just because it's so unpredictable as well. It's been so long since I've seen an anime that is just like, you will have a scene, right? Especially any fucking scene with no whack, right? Normally you know how the scene is gonna play out.

he comes into the scene and you're just like, what the fuck is gonna happen? - Yeah, yeah. Shit always goes down when he shows up. - And it's a kid's hero as well, so you get that like the silkiest fucking voice on the planet. - Oh my God. He's got insane aura. - Yeah, he does. - And it's really fun as well, and how it kind of,

Science as well often requires a lot of collaboration. Einstein does his little EMC, MC squared. Someone else is like, "All right, I guess I'll figure it out. "Guess I'll figure it out for you, boss. "I'll test it." It's just like the collaboration where like,

Like it's not about what you can achieve in your lifetime, it's what can you progress and what can you give to other people who are gonna come next? - Yeah, it's that whole idea of like, you know, science is like that thing where like they adjust their views based on what's observed, right? - Yeah. - Whereas like faith is like,

the denial of self observation, if that makes sense. - And the thing is like, this could have been so easy to like be like a preachy anime. - Yeah, religion bad. - Yeah, religion bad, science good, and stuff like that. But what I find like that's really cool about it is that it doesn't say any one message at all.

kind of gives you the perspective of like both sides and allows you- - It's like, here's both sides of the argument, make up your mind. - And allows the audience to make up their mind. And like your conclusion might not even come to the same conclusion as the characters do. 'Cause the characters could come to a different conclusion. But what's important is that it teaches you to understand why they came to that conclusion. And I think that's just such a fucking beautiful thing and such an important message we need in this day and age. - And it's like so hard to do.

as well, objectively especially. - I was really glad when some characters, when they were discussing religion, 'cause I'm not religious and so it's so easy to be like, "Eh, I don't care for it. "The church is corrupt, yada, yada, yada." But I really appreciated that there were a lot of characters that were like, "Look, I'm here to fight for science here, "but I still believe that when the sun rises, "that's God, baby, that's not special." And I think,

- The level of, I suppose, respect for every aspect of like the characters, their beliefs felt so real and so raw in a way that I feel like is so rare in anime to get like such depth in characters and with not that much screen time each character. Like they didn't get 19 episodes each to flesh everything out.

the dialogue was so well- - No time wasted. - Yeah, and it was like, you never, like Garnt was saying, whenever you meet a new character, you're like, "Oh, fuck it, another new character." But then within one episode, you're like, "Fuck, I want another new character." - It's like, "Hold on, this guy's got an insane worldview. I gotta listen up real quick." - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, one of my favorite scenes in all of this wasn't even one of like the climactic scene. There's two characters, Schmidt and Draka. - I love that conversation.

- And they basically had a conversation where they thought they had a similar viewpoint. It turns out they had completely opposite viewpoints. 'Cause they were like, "Yo, you disagree with what the church is doing, right?" And Draka's like, "Yeah, yeah, I disagree wholeheartedly." So Schmidt's like, "Ah, another one like me." Correct. And Draka's like, "Yo, you don't believe in God either?" And Schmidt's like,

"The fuck you just said? "The fuck you just said to me, you little bitch?" - They're both doing the same actions, but for entirely different reasons. It's so cool that that has been like,

using generational characters to give these like the perfect characters to appear at the perfect time. Which is like what it felt like. It's like, and it feels like real life, right? Where there's always that one person that comes around and happens to be at the right place at the right time that manages to change things. - Yeah, exactly. - For sure. - It's just really beautiful. - Yeah. - It's so fucking beautiful. 'Cause like going off that, they end that conversation with Schmidt going like, I can't remember exactly what he said, but he's like,

I just want you to know, I absolutely despise you. We will not be able to get along. And he ends the conversation with that. But then after that conversation, you see how they affect each other. And even two people with completely opposing viewpoints that cannot find no middle ground, eventually find a way to at least give respect to each other. And I think that's just the most,

the best part of humanity that you can fucking hope for. - Absolutely. - And part of humans that we need to see more of, honestly. - Yeah, yeah. - Felt like it came out at a really good, important time. - Yeah, yeah. - Absolutely. - We need to hear other viewpoints and listen to each other a bit more, be more respectful. - Yeah. - And coexist. - So yeah, honestly,

- I think this is a generational anime. It's up there with "Villain Saga." It's like one of the anime of the decade for me. - Yeah, no, I definitely will. - Go fucking watch it. - I definitely will finish it. - I really hope in like 20 years, this is still one of the shows like you got to watch it all. - Yeah, I think it will be. - And then on top of that, one of the best openings

in anime in a long time, so fucking goaded. I never skipped the opening a single time. It was so fucking good. - No, hell yeah. - Nor did I. - It was so fucking good. This opening is fire. - It's peak. - It is, man. - It is peak. - I listened to a couple of Sakana Action songs before in the past that I liked and I didn't know it was them. So when I listened to the song, I was like, "Oh, this sounds familiar to the other song." - They're such a good band too. - Yeah. - Yeah, they have some really amazing songs. Go check out the rest of the songs. They're amazing. - Yeah.

- And yeah, just a great fucking song. - It'll be shit. - And I love that the intro changes. I love when they do intro changes. It's so fun. 'Cause then you're like, "Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh." - "Oh, it's a new one." - Just, yeah, yeah. Just a genuine 10 out of 10. Or as everyone keeps saying, it's a nine out of 10, 'cause you gotta give 10% to Patan. - Yeah.

but amazing show. - Yeah, have you seen the full upload of the opening that they did? - With the four things? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's so cool. - Oh, no, no, no. They officially uploaded it and they basically made an AMV of the entire show. - What? I haven't seen the full AMV version. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it's fucking great 'cause it distills the essence of the entire show within their full song. - I'll cry.

- I listen to the full song though a bunch. Every morning I've been listening to it. - Yeah, it's such a bop. - Hell yeah. - Yeah, go watch Orb. - For the 50th time, go watch it. - Yeah, I'm never gonna stop singing his praise and that's it. But then the real peak, solo level. - Oh my God.

- That's all I've seen anyone talk about lately. - It is, it is the only thing- - I've heard it on and off. So like, can you give like the full context of it? 'Cause I feel like I haven't like fully figured out what's happening here. - No, I don't know what's happening either. You have to explain it to me. - Because the last I heard from solo leveling was that it was, and this is quite a while ago, but this like, it was like, you know, I think it was episode 7.5 or whatever it was, was getting absolutely flamed. And now it's like suddenly peak again.

or something, I don't know. I don't know the full context. - Yeah, I mean, the thing with solo leveling is that season two has fucking eclipsed season one in terms of like popularity and hype. It's pretty much all that anyone's talking about right now. And it's doing pretty much the same thing as it was before. I will say. - Nothing has changed. - You tell me anything has changed in solo leveling? Nothing much except Jinwoo, Sungjinwoo has gotten

- Even more OP? - Even more aura, even more OP. I will say that season two has been a lot more enjoyable than season one because we've gotten most of like the leveling in solo leveling out of the way. And now it's just pure fucking aura farming in season two.

- There's always a show that comes out that's pure like aura farming. - Yeah, yeah, of course. We need one. - Just a guy who's basically, we called him Kirito back in the day. - Yeah, yeah. - 'Cause here's the thing, people think, whenever I talk about solo leveling, it's almost like people think that I do not like solo leveling and it's,

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That's Z-O-C-D-O-C dot com slash trash. ZocDoc dot com slash trash. Back to the episode. Not that I don't like solo leveling. I enjoy solo leveling for what it is. It is pretty much very well animated junk food. You know, that is what it is. It's dumb fun. Yeah, yeah. It is dumb fun. It is turn your brain off. You watch it for one guy who has maximum fucking aura. Um...

basically solos everyone and that's it. You have a good time. When I start like punching down is when people are like, yo, this is peak man, peak anime can't get better than this. And I'm like, okay, wait, I was on your side. I made a video telling people to go read solo leveling. We were all on the same side here. And then you just overshot, man. You guys need to roll.

- We just overshot here. - You can't say that when Orb is happening at the same time. - I think there's a lot of teenagers online. I think a lot of young adults here, I think they just, they get super pumped about something 'cause they want it. Then they get excited about it.

it's cool and they just want to share it with other people. I think sometimes people get carried away. And I think that's, I mean, I don't think- - I mean, look, I don't blame them 'cause like, you know, the same, we saw the same phenomenon with Sword Art Online back in the day as well, right? Like, you know, a lot of people are like, "Yo, this is peak, anime can't get better than this." And then, you know, it's like, all right, relax. It's fine to like it, it's fine. - Yeah, that's good. Like you said, I-

- Junk food. - Yeah. - I think like enjoy it man. - Yeah, totally. - Fuck it, why not? I think it's sad when people are like, "It's terrible, it's zero out of 10." It's like, okay, now you're just being a dick 'cause you're mad that people are happy about something. - Yeah, exactly. - Like, yeah, it's not gonna be the best thing ever, but why does it bother you when someone says that? - Yeah. - 'Cause if you've watched Orb, you know like you're happy. - Yeah, it's less cringe to say "Solo Leveling" is peak than to say that it's like just shit. - Yeah, and why does somebody else loving the show too much

Why does that affect you so much? And vice versa, if you love soul leveling and someone's like, "Yeah, I just don't think it's that great." Don't get upset about it. Get over it. - I get it because when I was younger, I had that mentality for sure. I'm not even gonna hide that fact. - Yeah, me too. - Actually, when I was younger, I had better taste. - We have no enemies, right? They need to learn they have no enemies.

- Yeah. - Vinland Saga, like I used to think that way where it's like, there was like a really popular show that I didn't like. And then I was like, nah, this is ass. If you like it, you're ass, you're wow. And now, thanks to Vinland Saga, I was like, hang on, I have no enemies. It's fine. It's fine to like it. I don't like it, you like it. There you go, end of story. - Yeah. - Yeah.

We should save our hatred for what really matters. B-tier Marvel movies. That's what really we need to get through. Hey, I've been there since day one. I'm kidding. But yeah, it seems like everyone is talking about it. They had like, oh, they also have on like, I saw on Crunchyroll, they have the most liked episode of all time in anime and the most disliked episode of all time. Oh.

- 7.5. - Yeah, 7.5 was the most disliked. - Which is good for them. - Yeah, hell yeah. - Look at the end of the day, I'm sure Crunchyroll is very happy. - Yeah. - A lot of traffic. - I mean, it's going to say a lot because Soto Leveling I think is the first super, super popular anime that's basically

- Maybe this needs to be fact checked, but off the top of my head, I can't think of another anime that is as successful as Solo 11 that didn't come from a Japanese IP. - I don't think Solo 11 is popular in Japan, is it? Anime.

- I'm not too sure. I mean, I don't- - I haven't seen anything- - I haven't seen it. - 'Cause that's how I normally judge what anime is popular based on what I see outside. I haven't seen a single solo level thing. - I've maybe seen like one single solo level. - I've met a taxi driver who watched solo level. - You did? - Yeah. Wait, haven't I told this story? - No. - Oh shit. No, I was in the,

I was in a random cab and we just have a random conversation. He asked me what I do. I said, I'm a YouTuber focusing on anime and manga. And he's like, no way. What kind of anime are you watching? What's your favorite anime? And I'm like, oh, right now I'm watching Orb. I recommend that. And I was like, oh, I like One Piece. I like JoJo. I don't know.

I say all of the things that are normally popular in Japan. And then he's like, "Oh, I'm watching, I'm currently watching this show called-" - "Sword or Everinger." - No, no, no. I'm probably watching the show called "I Parry Everything." And I'm like, "What?"

- Bro's a D-Gen, he's a D-Gen. - What? - He's a D-Gen. - He's a secret giga fan. - Which if you don't know, I parry everything. It is basically what it sounds like. It's a- - Isekai Sloth. - It's a not Isekai, but Isekai, you know, in spirit power fantasy where this guy literally can only parry and he gets really overpowered by parrying.

And then he's like, "No, but actually, but for real, my newest obsession, have you heard of this? Solo leveling." I'm like, "Ah, ah, you are the first person in Japan that I've met that is watching solo leveling or is excited about solo leveling." And he's like, "Yeah, but the first season was so short." And this was back in winter. So I was like, "Actually, episode one of season two is next week." He was like, "No fucking way. Next week?

Next week, you for real.

- So let's go. - Also the Parianimate title is so AIDS. It's so long. - Aside from that one taxi driver, I have not met another single Japanese person who is watching "Soda Leveling." - Yeah, I think right now in Japan, it's still, you know, the like, you know, "Blue Lock" is still like really far up there. You see that everywhere. - Yeah. - "Given." That's one that I see a lot of. - "Given." - Yeah, you might've seen it around. It's like a,

- It's Fujoshi bait from how I'm seeing it, but like- - I mean, it's a really good show. - This one is really popular in Japan right now. - But yeah. - Yeah. - A lot of pretty boys. - A lot of pretty boys doing music. - It's very highly rated. - No, no, it is a fucking fantastic music show. - Yeah. - When you mean Fujoshi bait, do you mean just-

appealing to middle-aged women in Japan? - Yeah, just a lot of pretty boys. I've probably seen more pop-ups of this anime than anything this year. - Yeah, that makes sense. - Yeah, like every mall you go to in Tokyo has a pop-up of this show. - Yeah, it's kind of, I think people in Western spheres don't really understand sometimes how different the Japanese taste is and what gets popular.

- Yeah, solo leveling obviously anything. - No, I mean Japan has always been in its own bubble in terms of like what's popular and what's not. And for the longest time, I just think that the international anime community didn't play such a big factor and Japanese anime creators only cared about catering towards Japanese audiences. But I think solo leveling has just kind of like blown the lid

off of everything with how popular it has gotten. And I can only imagine we've had like webtoon adaptations before we've had a tower of gods. We've had- - God of high school. - God of high school. - I'm sure there's- - A lot of gods. - A lot of gods. - Yeah. But there's only one God for me. The God of solo level. - The aura God. - The aura God himself. - The aura God.

- Yeah, I mean, I can only imagine that after solo leveling, there's gonna be an influx of new- - Is it gonna be the new battle? - Well, you think like Manwa gonna get adapted like crazy? - Yeah, I mean, already there's a lot of Manwa that have been announced for adaptation. There's Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint has been announced.

The beginning, is it the beginning after the end has been announced as well. And they are both very, very popular Manwa. - Okay, cool. - And I think this is going to kind of like pave the way for not just like Manwa or like international adaptations. - Just non-Japanese IPs. - Non-Japanese IPs to really have a space to like fucking explode in popularity. - Just have a chance. - I just really want,

- More good stories to be adapted and not the same type. - I'll be honest, I'm not sure if I'm excited right now. - Why is that? - Okay, so I've done a video going through manhua and there are some fucking fantastic manhua and manhua as well from China.

they are just not on the level of the Japanese manga and light novel industry. If you think there is a lot of slop in manga,

and light novels with Isekai, you have not felt true brain rot till you go into like the manhwa world, man. - Right. - I mean, yeah, the Japanese manga industry has had so many decades of kind of perfecting the system of how they're making it. So I feel like it's understandable that like your average manhwa might not be to the same standard as your average manga.

- For sure, for sure. - And also like culturally speaking, becoming a Manco is like really sought after. There's a lot of people trying to do it. And I think obviously that also plays a factor

it's the same reason with like voice acting as well. I think the level of voice acting in Japan is generally quite high. - Yeah, I think it's like- - There's just a lot of people who want to do it. - I remember I read like a thing from like Shonen Jump, like this was like pre pandemic, but I'm sure nothing has changed. But it's like out of like every, I think it was like 2000 creators that,

write their own manga, only a handful of them actually make it. And it's stuff that you actually read. So it's like, it just goes to show just how many people in Japan are wanting to release their own manga and just how little you actually see. Even though it might seem like Japan has a fuckload of manga and they do. That's not even scratching the surface of the amount of people who actually want to strive to be in this scene, right? So-

We always say like, oh, there's so much slop in the manga world, but like there's so much more that doesn't even make it out there. - I'm not a fan of the trend of just adapting

like manga that just got like popular like two months ago. - Yeah. - And like, oh, we're gonna do an adaption for this thing that's got eight chapters out. And it's like, why? Like there's so many classic manga that have never been adapted. - They haven't even given it enough time to like actually figure itself out. - Yeah, like there's so many banger manga out there or stories or light novels that never been touched. - Yeah. - Because they're not popular at the moment. I think there's a lot of worry from these.

studios, not studios, sorry, it's the committees. They're like too worried to touch something that isn't hot right now. - Exactly. - Like, come on man. - Exactly. - When we think about the peak of anime, it's like they weren't necessarily hot at the time. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think right now there's, you know,

- It's about the question of like, when does a manga get greenlit for an anime? What is like the right amount of chapters? 'Cause you know, when something like, let's say Kagura Bachi came out, pretty sure we all knew it was going to get an anime adaptation every now and again. It wasn't a question of if, it was a question of when. But then the question comes down to, shit, how long do we have to wait

to like before there's enough content to adapt and not just like for season one, but like for like multiple seasons as well. And I feel like in some ways it's getting like earlier and earlier in terms of like trying to find the next big thing. - Yeah, that is true. - Sometimes.

- Because I think back in the day, there were only like a handful of manga and you have like Naruto effect where instead of doing seasons, they would just do filler. And I'm so fucking glad that the whole filler era is over now. - Because like even like back in the day, right? Even though the amount of anime that was coming out was way, way, way less than before, you still got a handful of shows that

had a lot of expectations from its original adaptation or its source material. But then because they didn't give it enough time to actually let it cook, the anime just ended up kind of fizzling out.

and it's becoming just thrown into the pile of meh whatever type shows, right? And I feel like now that anime has gotten even more popular than ever, ever before. And there's just like fucking what? 50, 60 shows that are coming up per season now. It's just like, we're just gonna keep getting so many shows where it's like, oh, I just found out about this manga two weeks ago and now there's an anime coming out next week for it.

It's like, okay, you haven't even given me the time to figure out what it even is. And we're already getting an adaptation of it. And some studios are just like, yeah, we'll put all of our fucking budget into this thing that we've only seen two volumes of. Like, yeah, let's put our entire lifeline on this show. - Yeah, it does seem like,

- Yeah, quite frustrating. I hope it changes. - I hope so too. - Yeah, 'cause I think a big thing is you look at an example like "Blue Lock" season two, where I think that got memed to shit for some of like the animation quality in there.

And I honestly feel for the animators because it just felt like you have two options, you have two paths. You go the Re:Zero path where you have to wait literally like four years between adaptations. Not ideal, but this new season of Re:Zero has gone so fucking hard. It's been such a good adaptation, right?

but the hype is a lot less just because we've waited so many years. And then you have "Blue Lock", the manga that was the top selling manga of that year, right? When season one came out and you know, because of the world cup as well. And so season two, we didn't have to wait too long to, we didn't have to wait too long for season two. And considering the product that we got, I can, this is like, okay, so this is just my hypothesis, but I think what happens was

instead of like it being green-lit ages ago, my hypothesis is that it feels like it got green-lit after they saw the success of season one and then rushed out this product for season two. And that's why a lot of season two aside from like the final episode is the quality that we got. - Yeah, and I mean, that makes sense because Japan has and always probably will be

an entertainment industry that relies so much on trends. Where it's like, oh, this thing is trending right now, we need to get something out right fucking now, regardless of, you know, to the best that we can in terms of quality. But sometimes that quality is not the quality that everybody else is expecting. But then of course you get, you know, in the case with like Blue Lock in Japan, for instance, even though it was meant to shit in the international community, the Japanese community was just like,

"Peak anime, let's fucking go. More soccer boys, hell yeah. I don't give a fuck. We just got a new anime adaptation." It's like, you know, at that point, you know, if it being the studio, it's like, okay, which do you look at? Do you look at just like how well it did domestically regardless of the quality drop or the amount of fucking memes that came out of it in the international community? It's hard, right? 'Cause at the end of the day, it is a business and it's like, well, if this is the best move,

We just need to fucking get something out there and just make the bag while we can. - Yeah, which is why like it's whenever I see people arguing over, you know like how they released "Invincible" with like, that got like so much controversy because there was like time between episodes and time between

time between the release of one half of the season from like the second half of the season. - That was season two, right? - Yeah, that was season two. And I was thinking, damn, compared to anime, this got made super fucking fast for how much content was made compared to like some anime adaptations. - I guess so, it'd be the equivalent of like 20 episodes. - Yeah. - It took, I think, what, two years for it to come out? But then season three came out one year later. - Yeah, exactly. - So it seems like they've figured it out a bit with the growing pains of that. Seems like it's good.

- Some of the animation was not great in the earlier parts of season three, but by the end it was really good. - I haven't watched season three yet, so. - Yeah, it's pretty good. Really recommend it. I mean, look, the last episode's fucking banger.

- You might've seen some clips or something. - I think I did, yeah. - So check it out. I actually really, really loved "Mid-Sport Season 3" a lot. I had a really good time with it. I love that show, except when he cries all the time. I'm sure he'd cry a little bit, like 20% less. - That's good. No, I mean, I'm always of the mindset of just fucking let people cook. I don't mind waiting for a good product. And I know that people are impatient nowadays and obviously it's a business, so hype is,

a big factor in terms of whether you can keep some, keep continued success. But my mindset as a personal watcher of anime and just in general is that there is so much shit to occupy my mind at any certain point. I can wait a year, two more years for this really cool thing. - Yeah, it's not like there's nothing we're watching in between that time. - Yeah, I do think like,

Maybe some of the pushback I feel like comes from the fact that we used to get stuff a bit more consistently. When there was a show coming out, if there was multiple seasons, we'd often just wait one year. And now sometimes, I know this is not anime, but like Severance, I know people were like super annoyed that the fact that it's hit like three years, season two to come out. Yeah, but I don't know if this is, maybe this is a hot take. I'm just playing, I'm like trying to explain like the other side. I don't necessarily agree. I think shows are better now.

- No, no, I think shows are better now. We do have better shows, but I think people are used and have that frame of reference of like when a show is good, we get a season two or three a year later and they're not used to waiting. - 'Cause like what would happen before? And I don't know if this is still a thing, but I see this less and less is that you would have shows like, for example, like "House"

or fucking Dexter or like shows like that. - 24. - Or 24, shows that you got a new season every year. It was always a constant on television and my God, did it fucking drag on. It was basically like a lot of like episodic episodes. There were some really, really good episodes and stuff like that. But for the most part,

- I look at shows like that and I look at the more like, in my opinion, tightly written modern shows where it's like things are more compact into seasons, seasons may take more time. And to me, I can see a quality difference between modern shows and the yearly shows we got back then. - Absolutely. - But back then we just didn't have

a lot of time, you know? - Yeah. - And then something like Breaking Bad came along and it was like, wait, we're gonna plan for five seasons and only five seasons. And I can't think of like many other shows before Breaking Bad that just had that kind of philosophy. - But Breaking Bad didn't have long breaks between seasons if I recall correctly. I don't think it was that long. Can we check actually? I'm actually curious now.

But you know, I think TV shows are just better now for sure. - Definitely. - But I think there is, yeah, like three years, three years, too long? - I think three years is a good amount of time for a production. - It was like pretty much every year. - Yeah, damn, it was every year. - But I do, I mean, I do find myself and like, is this a criticism of me as a consumer? I don't know.

- Sometimes I do find myself like after three years, I do get to the point where it's just not been in my life for three years to the point where I can just move on and be like, you know what? Like, I don't care. I've waited so long that I'm okay. Like if it wasn't like Severance is amazing. So I'm more than happy to wait. 'Cause I've been singing its praises since I watched it and I thought it was amazing.

But there are occasionally shows that maybe didn't grip me as much as Severance, 'cause that felt like a very much once in a five, 10 year kind of show. - Well, maybe that's the thing, right? Where it's like, it probably didn't leave as much of an impact on you as like what you initially thought. So that's why after three years you're like, I mean, I could give or take. - But then I also think that like three years in development, that also sounds super fucking expensive. That sounds like a lot more money

on the table with these shows. And I don't, you know, you have to, I feel like a bit concerned. I'm like, I don't want shows to just become stupid, like insanely expensive things that always take forever. - Yeah.

So I don't know. I feel like there is some valid Christmas to taking too long with the show, but at the same time, I, yeah, as a, I would much rather just let them cook. - I think, yeah. I think the other thing as well is that if there is so much time in between say seasons or whatever, the expectations for that next thing to be good just keeps increasing, increasing, increasing, right? So it becomes a double edged sword. - This is like a kind of a silk song situation. Like Hollow Knight, where it's like, I think,

- Hollow Knight Silver Song, which you probably have heard more about this fucking thing than the game itself. - Yeah. - Which is the fact that this is DLC that they've

- Supposedly it's coming out this year. - They say that every fucking year. I fucking love it. So, you know, maybe we'll be out, maybe by this time. And you know, knowing our luck, it'll be announced in between this episode. - Yeah, probably tomorrow. - You know, like, 'cause that's just how our luck goes. But like, I think sometimes when you announce something, which I think is the hard part, or like when people expect something and then too much time passes,

the expectations almost overtake anything that could possibly be delivered. - Yeah, totally. - 'Cause they're like, why is it taking, how long has it been in developed for now, Silksong? - Silksong? - Like the expectations out,

outlive anything that you could ever deliver. Yeah, absolutely. You basically have to just do Hollow Knight 2 at this point. Yeah. The size of like how long people will be waiting for this thing, right? Yeah. Hold the phone, ladies and gentlemen, because it's that time. That's right, because this episode is sponsored by Shopify. You guys know Trash Taste. Every now and then we drop some pretty dope ass merch and there's still a lot more to come. Don't worry. But the first time we decided to drop merch, we thought, damn, man,

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- It's ridiculous. - Five years. - Five years. - Yeah, which is like for a DLC that's kind of ridiculous. - It's kind of long. - It's pretty long. - People like let them cook. - Yeah. I mean, people still hype for it. - It does get to the point where you're like, is there anything they can deliver that will match the hype now? - Yeah. - Is that like, I don't know. - I don't want empty promises. - Yeah, like I don't know if,

if it can reach it, you know? It kind of becomes its own self-fulfilling prophecy of like suffering. - It's like no matter what you release, it might not ever actually live up to the hype. - Because people who don't even know whole, I was gonna say whole life,

I don't know anything about this game, but they know about this. And like, that's a problem. That shouldn't be it. That's not normal. - It's like the Half-Life 3 effect, you know? - Yeah, it really is. - You're like, "Ain't no way we got this for GTA 6." But people know GTA 6 will come out. - Yeah, exactly. - People don't actually think that way about it. - Yeah, totally. - So I just came back from Thailand and every household in Thailand has one of these.

- Oh my God, I can smell yours. - Yeah, yeah. - That's so fucking strong. - Basically it's a- - Holy shit. - I mean, my nose is blocked as fuck from the hay fever. - So open it, so open it. - Whoa. - You're missing that clip of that Joe Rogan clip. Where's that guy who's like, "What's this smelling sauce? I never smelled them before. Let me smell them." And he gets like a big whiff and he goes like, "Grrr."

- Holy. - I love this shit. - Holy shit. - So basically- - Oh my God. - So basically this is- - I'm high as balls. - Clearing out my sinuses. - Yeah, this is for like clearing out sinuses for colds and for like car sickness as well. 'Cause if you ever feel queasy, if you ever feel queasy, you take a whiff of this and you're like, oh, okay. - I feel fucking amazing. - Okay, I feel a lot better. I fucking love this shit. - What is in this?

- I have no idea. - Okay, it's a Thai classic. - Some Thai herbs. - I will say that this is something you shouldn't be carrying around. - Joey got a five gram on him. - That looks like a bud. - Every Thai household has one, so I thought I'd give you boys one. - Relieve dizziness, yeah. - Yeah, it kind of like relieves dizziness. Just 'cause of the smell. - This is helping my sinuses a lot 'cause my hay fever has been so bad recently. - I went to Hokkaido for two days just to chill.

And I gotta tell you guys about this, 'cause it's changed my life. - Okay.

I went to this onsen in Noboribetsu, which is one of the famous big onsen towns in Japan. I highly recommend going there if you're in Hokkaido, you may as well. It's very beautiful. I stayed in an onsen and in this onsen, in the outdoor area, they had a place where you could buy beers and sit in the onsen. - What? - Which I've never seen before. - That sounds hype as fuck. - And look, that makes you sound like an alcoholic. I'm like, that's so sick. But dude, getting in that hot bath with a beer,

- It was next level. - It's winter as well. - I just gotta tell you boys, it exists. - Give me the address. - It exists. - I thought this was like the forbidden land in Japan. - You can only really do that in like private onsens, right? - And normally, yeah, it was like a public onsen. So I went to this like door and I, you know, it's like a little window where you could get the beers and you just had to give your like room number.

And I ordered the beer and I was like, "Onsen, how do you must go?" And she was like, "Oh, how do you must?" Like, "You can go in the onsen." I was like, "Really, really?" She's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." It's a woman, by the way, I'm naked by the way while I'm ordering this.

It's like a 50 year old, 60 year old woman. I'm just naked. I'm like, I get a beer, yeah it's this room. It's very unusual, very Japan. And then they give you a little floaty tray that you can put the tray- - Oh, you got the floaty tray? - I ended up putting it on the side 'cause it was a bit- - Yeah. - It was a bit wobbly. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It was a bit wobbly. And so I'm rocking up with the beer and it was like, all the Japanese people look at me like, "Nani?" - You can do that? - They're like, "What?"

"Are you gonna enter the onsen with it?" And that's when I was like, that's why I double checked. I was like, I couldn't see anyone else who had a beer. I was like, "Are you sure?" She's like, "Yeah, go in with the beer." Sat down and everyone was like, "Damn."

- I will say though, just a preference, drinking a lot in an onsen is actually quite dangerous. One beer is fine, but you don't want to like get shit faced in an onsen. That's dangerous. - 99% of onsens absolutely like forbid drinking alcohol in the onsen as well. They will not let you. Which is why when I saw it, I was like, ain't no way. 'Cause occasionally when you're in there and you're pruning away, you're like, man, one beer would go crazy.

- That is true. - I just want that first sip of the crisp refreshing with the foam and it went crazy. It was phenomenal. - That is dare I say peak. - I've never been so relaxed in one moment in my life. - Hell yeah. - And then I just did like 19 cold plunges in the onsen, in the bath and sauna. It was amazing. - Nice.

- Is this for a video or did you found it? - I just found it. - Just found it? - Well, yeah, it was like a, there's this like two story onset. Like it was two floors. It was crazy. It was like a giant Roman bath looking thing. I'll send you the link. - That's cool. - It's a really cool, really cool onset. I don't think there's, there's a couple of hotels in Nobunibatsu, but there's, it's the one that's closest to the Hell's Valley.

so if you look oh yeah yeah okay yeah you go to nobody betsu just stay at the hotel closest to the hell's valley and there's a like giant onsen yeah you stop there for your cyclophone

- Actually, no, sadly not. 'Cause this cycle- - I've got to reskin my appearance. - You could go right after though. If you wanted to, you could like go to Sydney. - While you're up there. - We're turning away. We're taking the ferry at Tomokomai, which is the town before nobody bets you. - Right, right. - So if you want, you can cycle off to Tomokomai. - Actually, I'm busy during your psych-a-thon Connor. I think I gotta cancel my appearance. - No!

- I have places to be. - So far, so far. It was so fucking good dude. - Hell yeah dude. - So peak. - Very nice. - I just wanted to tell you guys about that just so you know it existed. - I mean, I went to Noboribetsu when we did Journey Across Japan. I don't think we went to that one though. If we knew about it, Chris would have definitely been like, "I got a great place to go." - I told Chris, I was like, "Chris, by the way, this exists." And he was like, "Oh yeah, I've been to a couple." I was like, "No, you haven't."

- I've never seen this. I've been to so many fucking onsets. - That's a lie because we would have at least seen one video from you. - And he would have mentioned it. - Yeah, he would have absolutely mentioned it. - And I know that you can have drinks in your own private onsen. Everyone knows this. Like, if it's your onsen in your room, yeah, you can have drinks as you want.

but there's something about being like getting it served to you. - In public as well. - Yeah, in public around everyone out. Like it was sick. - Yeah, that's different. - I was like, "Oh, I know a couple of places." I was like, "Where?" He was like, "Oh, you know." - Oh really? Name three. - I didn't believe him. I was like, "I've never seen this, Chris." And you know the reason why I think they did this? I think because in this hotel, it was like, there was a lot of Japanese people, but it's mostly Chinese people. So I feel like it must've been for tourists that they changed this. And it was only allowed in the outside bath.

- Oh, okay. - Which I didn't mind. 'Cause I was like, I only really wanna do this in the outside. - Yeah. I feel like if it's the inside bath, the beer would get very warm very quickly. - Yeah, it's nice. So yeah, I think that's why, 'cause maybe there's a lot more focus on tourists at this hotel as opposed to get to Japanese people. - That makes sense. - Yeah. - But yeah, Nobodeibetsu, go check it out. Cool area anyway, just to go to in general. - Yeah, 'cause it doesn't really seem like, I like Nobodeibetsu, but it definitely doesn't seem like a touristy location, I feel. - I was kind of surprised. There was,

I've been around quite a lot of Hokkaido and this one, there's so, so many Chinese people. - Really? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the bathroom, it was like always Chinese. - Hell yeah. - Interesting. Yeah, it was cool. I mean, I didn't know, I didn't see any other white people though. Not that it matters, I was just curious. I was like, 'cause it's interesting where, how the tourism splits. Like, you know, you go to certain areas and it'll be like only white people. And then you get to some areas and it's like only Chinese people. And you're like,

What's going on with the marketing here? Like why is this one crushing it in China and not crushing it here?

- I think it's because most people, or I don't know, does China have an onsen culture? - That's a good question actually, I don't know. - I don't know. - It's China, they probably do. - Probably. - They have everything. - True, I mean, it's a huge country. - It's a fucking massive country. - Okay, they do. - They have bath houses? - Bath houses. - Okay, okay. - Oh, natural hot springs. - Oh, okay, they do. That probably makes sense then. - Maybe that's why then. - Maybe that's why. - I mean, nobody bets it was really cool, but kind of annoying to get to if you're not driving. - Yeah, I mean, you can say that about,

- Basically 95% of Hokkaido. - Yeah, I mean, Hakodate, Asakawa and Sapporo are probably easy, but that's about it. Everything else is kind of shit. - Other than that you need a car. - Yeah, I mean, some hotels will arrange buses and transport for you, but.

- It is a lot of effort and you gotta be at a certain place at a certain time and it normally means you're less rigid. - For sure, for sure. - Still trying to tell people to rent cars in Japan more than when they come here. Go and check out some other cool shit. - I mean, especially for this, if it's their first time, they're probably not gonna do that. It's intimidating. - First time for sure, I don't think you should 'cause you should do the classic.

and then second time, third trip, rent a car, go and do some cool stuff. - I think maybe the other reason why is because like, you know, nobody bets is not in the top 10 for most people, right? And if you're coming from China, it's relatively cheap than say America or Europe. So that's probably another reason why. Although I do say that, but the last time I was in Hokkaido and we were in Kushiro,

during Journey Across Japan, Chris and I were in an onsen and it was like quite late at night. And there was just like one other dude sitting there in the onsen.

He was like an American guy. - Oh wow. - And yeah, he like, it's so awkward 'cause like he was already sitting out there and then Chris and I walked in and I could feel him looking at me the entire time. And I was like, oh, maybe it's 'cause you know, I think he was like, he was like Chinese American or Chinese Canadian, something like that. But just, you know, without having heard him speak, he looked like a Chinese guy. So I was like, you know, oh, maybe he's looking at us 'cause you know, we were like talking and you know, maybe being a little bit loud, I don't know. And then he was just suddenly like,

"You're Joey and Chris, aren't you?" In the most like American Canadian accent. And I was just like, "Well, that's awkward. You've been staring at my dick for the past 20 minutes. Can you at least say something quickly?" And he was like, "Oh, sorry, man. I don't know if my glasses on, so I couldn't figure it out." So I had to hear your guys' voice and be like, "I think that's them." - Oh wow. - Yeah.

- Motherfuckers squinting in the onsen being like. - Yeah, being like, is that them? I don't know. - I'd be offended if someone was squinting at me in the onsen. Is my penis that small? - It's like hiding in a way. It's like stop. Stop looking at me. - You should be opening your eyes much wider than that. - Please. - It's just so small.

I also, I played Bioshock for the first time. - Oh shit. - You never played Bioshock? - No. I didn't know anything. - Original or infinite? - Original. - Oh shit. Okay. - I didn't know anything about the twist or anything. - Oh really? - That was fucking high. - That's one of the, like, I don't know if it still holds up today. - Oh yeah, it fucking holds up. - Yeah. It's one of the greatest Paul twists as well. - Yes, dude. The story was phenomenal. - Did you know there was a twist?

- I'd heard about one of the games having a twist. I didn't know which one. - Okay. - I'm surprised I never heard of it 'cause it's one of the most like infamous like plot twists in the games.

- Everyone says the story is amazing and the ending is amazing. I didn't really know why. And so I didn't, I've never been told about it. So I was actually pleasantly surprised. I had a feeling something was happening. Like as I got closer to the big twist in Bioshock. And then I had a feeling, I was like, okay, something feels like they're about to, they're giving me a couple of crumbs here. And I feel like something's about to change. If you haven't played Bioshock,

Don't worry about it. You can play it, but, or you can just- - I haven't played it. - You haven't? - Actually, no. - You should, it's a great fucking game. - Well, so it's set like- - I'm one of those motherfuckers that got spoiled on the twist though, so. - No! - I'm like, you know when you get spoiled on something, you're like, shit, do I play this now? Do I fucking play this?

- It is one of the games where I would say knowing the twist would have changed how I interacted with it dramatically. So I think not knowing the twist is good, but then you could also play Bioshock 1, I heard 2 and 3 also are amazing.

People argue that two is equally as good. - Yeah, Infinite just gets like insanely confusing. - I don't know anything about Infinite either. - So Bioshock 1 is just like it's set like 1960s, 1950s. And this eccentric rich guy builds a country under the water. - The world building is so cool. - And there's like no laws and scientific freedom to do any fucked up experiment you want. And obviously that quickly devolves.

- Also some scenes are like genuinely scary. - Fucking cinema. It's like cinema the game. And it was really cool how like playing it, seeing the limitations of the console at the time and seeing how they worked around it. But must've been one of the first examples I can recall of like voice actor being that fucking good in a video game. - Oh yeah, probably. - The voice acting is phenomenal. - When did Bioshock 1 come out? - 2006, I think if I could be mistaken. - God damn. - I mean, that was back when- - 2007. - 2007. - Jesus.

I'm wondering what else came out in that kind of like era of gaming. 'Cause when did stories and games start to get really fucking immersive? - Well, what do you mean? Like the full voice acting animation? - Yeah, full voice acting animation. - I'd say it was probably around this time. - Around this time. 'Cause I also just played- - Assassin's Creed. - Oh, Assassin's Creed. - Portal, Mass Effect.

- Halo 3. - Okay, yeah, it was around this time. - Mario Galaxy, the goat. - I feel like Half-Life obviously like kind of- - Yeah, Half-Life changed a lot. - Catalyst for that change. - Yeah. - I just played Final Fantasy 10 as well. - Oh, you finished it? - Yeah, I loved it. - Hell yeah, dude. - It was so fucking fun. - Yeah, it's such a good game. - How's it rank on the Final Fantasy rankings?

- Man, I've been thinking about this so much. - Don't worry, anything you say, someone's gonna disagree with it. - Yeah, I've been thinking about it so much. You haven't played any of them, have you? - Only Final Fantasy IV, no.

- 16? - The newest one. - The newest one. - 16, yeah. - And you've played- - I played all of them except for 11, the MMO and 14. - So you've played like one, two, three, four, five? - I've played all of them, yeah. - What? What the fuck? - But I grew up with the series 'cause my cousin is like a huge Final Fantasy nerd. - So 10 is like the first time in Final Fantasy where they had like voice acting. And I think that's like out of the 42 hours of story, 10 hours of cut scenes.

- Quite a lot of cut scenes. - And the cinematics to this day look fucking incredible. - They look amazing. - They're so good. - They held up so well. Phenomenal game, loved it. Looking like the story, I cried at the end 'cause it was so fucking good. It was amazing. I really, really liked the story. And it was nice to have a Final Fantasy story that wasn't stupidly convoluted.

- It was probably one of the least convoluted Final Fantasy stories. - Probably. - Which doesn't say a whole lot. 'Cause like, look, I fucking love the Final Fantasy games and I've loved it,

- We have to admit as Final Fantasy fans that the stories, sometimes they're a bit weird. - They do, you know, most- - JRPG fans. - Yeah. - I don't think it's a Final Fantasy thing. I think it's a lot of JRPGs. - But I feel Final Fantasy especially, like most, if not all mainline Final Fantasy games, if we're going with a straight line of the story, it's just kill me.

but a lot of them are just like, all right, so here's the kill God ending. Here's the beginning of story. And we're just gonna fucking go around as many times as possible. - It's like, it's the so much, and there's always like a part in this, in these games often where there's one big plot twist that reveals a bunch of information of like, you're like, what?

- What? - Yeah. - What the fuck is going on? - I do like how 10 though is like kind of just like the- - It's like the least weird out of all of the stories. - It is the least weird. - There is some aspect of it that's a little odd or unusual, but like it never felt like it was getting away from what the story was trying to tell. I really enjoyed that. I think-

- Looking back, it was definitely a lot more linear than the other games. You don't get to like explore as much. It's go here, go here, go here. - Did you enjoy playing Blitzball? - Fucking hate Blitzball. Fucking sucks. - Everyone's least favorite part of the game. - Everyone was like, you just need to learn the rules. I'm like, the rules are fucking dumb. - Yeah, they're so dumb. - I don't wanna fucking learn the rules. - It's the worst part of 10. - Fucking sucks. - All I remember about Blitzball was my cousin complaining 'cause I've never played Final Fantasy 10. - Fucking sucks, bro. - But my cousin complained about playing it

- Every time it came on. - Everyone does, everyone does. - I only played it the one time I had to and I didn't touch it again. So I'm not doing this. - No, you're psychotic if you willingly play Blitzball. - Best battle system I think in Final Fantasy yet from six to 10 that I played. I think it was my favorite one. The battle system was phenomenal. - Yeah, definitely like cleaned up a lot from seven and eight. - I don't know why, but I still think I like nine and six a bit more. - Okay.

10 story-wise might be my favorite story. Yeah, 10 is definitely a crowd favorite. I think... 7, 9, and 10 are the crowd favorites. Dude, the more I think about 6, the more I think 6 was kind of peak. 6 was kind of amazing. I'm telling you, bro, 6 is peak. Dude, there's a boss battle in 6 that is just...

- So fucking good. - The Kefka one? - Yeah, it's fucking godlike. - And dancing mad is one of the greatest boss themes ever created. It's so good. I'm so glad you liked that. - That was the one thing I was kind of disappointed with in 10. Sorry, Garnt, I'll wrap up in a second. - No, no, no, it's fine. - I feel like a lot of Final Fantasies and JRPGs, I feel like the final boss fight matters so much in like,

how the story wraps up. - Yeah. - And more importantly, how like the mechanics of the boss fight, like what is the boss's like main way of fighting you? So in six, it's like four stages of fucking in more intense, it gets really hard and it's an amazing challenge.

there's no crazy mechanic way to do certain things. He just fucking kills you fast. And that's kind of like, that's all I needed to do. And in seven, you have the Zephyr fight, which is amazing. And the fucking animations and it's so good. Eight, I forgot the one in eight.

I'll be honest. - No, I had like the fucking, it's just the school, you fight that like seven stages, it's ridiculous. It's so long, there's so many stages to fight. - I don't remember the eight final boss. - You fight that woman thing. I forgot what it was. It's been a while now. - Yeah, it's been a while for me as well. - And then nine is like, eh, the nine final boss fight. And then 10 was like, okay, look, we have the best fucking boss fight theme, but the mechanics of the boss fight kind of suck. - Nine is definitely the journey is more important than the destination, I feel.

- Yeah, 'cause the final villain in "Nine" sucks. - Yeah, it wasn't very memorable for sure. - But everything else about "Nine" was like the best in a Final Fantasy game. - I agree, I agree. - But yeah, sorry, sorry. Final Fantasy ran over, "Tam" was amazing. - Hell yeah. - There's still not a single Final Fantasy game that I haven't loved, that I really enjoyed. - So you've played what, six, seven, eight? - Six to 10. - Six to 10. - Yeah, I think I'm gonna do,

- Are you gonna do 10-2 or you're done with 10? - I don't know. - 10-2 is contentious. - Yeah, it's kinda bad. - I wasn't a huge fan of 10-2. - It's long. - It is long. - It's also not as good as 10.

- No. - I already know it's not, I can tell. - It's not. - Okay, are there any other highly beloved Final Fantasies after 10? 'Cause I feel like from my perspective being an outsider, like people talked about six, seven, eight, no, seven, eight, nine, 10. - Six to 10 was like the generational run. - Yeah, yeah, everyone's like, and then afterwards, after 10, everyone was kind of like,

Eh, it's just not hitting as much. - I asked Pete about this. Pete is like the law master of all of this. 'Cause he played all of them and was like present. He was telling me that 11 was like an MMO. - Yeah, 11 was an MMO. - And it was bad. - Which is why I didn't play it. - And 12 was like an offline MMO where it was like, it was basically an MMO, but solo. - Yeah, well 12, I feel,

especially recently has started getting its praises again, especially with the remake, the Zodiac Age. That was a really good game. It's a bit different from like the mainline Final Fantasies, but still really good game. And then we got XIII, which a lot of people- - Always simulator, that's what I did. - A lot of people absolutely hated it. I don't think XIII was as bad as people made it out to be. - I think people just didn't like how linear it was.

- It was quite linear. And also the thing with 13 was that it was such a linear story. And then right basically like before the final boss fight, it's like, okay, here's an open world. And it's like, well, I don't want to go through the open wall. I just want to go and beat the final boss. Cause I've already played this game for 50 fucking hours. I don't want to, I don't have time or energy to explore an open world after all this time. - Yeah.

In saying that, I don't think 13 was as bad as people made it out to be. 13.2 and lightning returns suck. And I will die. This podcast is brought to you by Aura. Imagine waking up to find your bank account drained, bills for loans you never took out, a warrant for your arrest, all because someone committed a crime in your name. It sounds like a nightmare, but

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- I had three games about that game and 14 was the- - 14 was the MMO. 15 was just a sausage fest the game. - Which people didn't really like that game much. - I didn't like 15 much. - I tried playing 15. - Yeah, I finished it, but it wasn't that memorable. - No one has anything super positive to say about that game. Everyone's always like, yeah. - Yeah, it had potential, but I just feel like- - I just like the idea of the open world Final Fantasy. That's why I got in and that's when it kind of like switched to

- Semi turn-based instead of like, - Yeah. - Yeah. - And then the story of 15 was just kind of whatever. And then 16 was also just like, it was fine. - You know what? I used to not like turn-based, but now I've like turned around and now I fucking love turn-based. - Oh yeah, turn-based is where it's at.

- I mean, playing like Chrono Trigger in six, you're just like, damn, this fucking works. - Well, you've turned around to it because you've literally played the peak of the turn-based music. - Well, the thing is, what I've figured out about turn-based is that I have, it sounds counterintuitive, but I have the most fun if I figure out how to make the game trivial. I don't know if you understand what I mean, but if you figure out, you sit down and you figure out the perfect fucking build, right? And then,

it might take you like an hour or two. You sit down and you're like, this build sounds kind of broken. And then you try it out and it actually works. And then it kind of like trivializes so much of the game. But for that first fucking bit, when you're like, holy shit, I am a God for figuring this out. 'Cause I remember in the trail series,

I figured out what I now have understand is what's called a dodge tank build because there was just like some enemies that were just like fucking one shot my entire party. I was like, how the fuck do I get past this boss? How do I do this? And then I figured out this build where

one of my characters would have like close to 100% evasiveness. It would be like a very, very high percentage. And then you give him like a taunt as well. And then you're like, I am a God. I am a God. This is just me.

that he is a tank. He basically gets one shot if he gets hit, if that 10% of the time when the evasion doesn't work. But you're like, when I figured that out, I was like, holy shit, I'm a fucking god. This feels so amazing.

- They made the rest of the game easy, but for like that first bit, it was a fucking amazing game. - Yeah, for sure. I would say to end off the Final Fantasy talk Connor, I would say personally, I don't know if people will agree with me on this, but I'd say the only other Final Fantasy mainline game you should probably give a try is 4. - Yeah, everyone says 4. - Yeah, because the 4 story is fantastic. Definitely not as good as 6, but still a really, really solid entry. - Would you ever do other JRPGs?

- What are you playing? - Ah, dude, I hated the persona thing. I didn't like the whole like,

"Go do nothing, lie down for two hours, go to Shibuya Station, go home, do nothing." I was like, "What is with this?" - You never do nothing, man. - Yeah, you're always doing something. - It's always moving. Something's always happening. You're moving the story along and like, you know, someone dies here, you're like, "Ah!" And you gotta recruit this guy to your party. - Yeah, that's the same thing in Persona. - Persona's like, "Dun, dun, dun, dun, go to bed." - Persona is like, "Hey, I'm gonna go out," you know, in the case of Persona 5, it's like, "I'm gonna go out, go see my friend in Shibuya,

get a little bit friendlier with him so that he can help me out in the next battle. - Yeah. - That's what's up. It's exactly the same. It's grinding, but not grinding. - I just, they got to cut down on the time, bro. The time is ridiculous. - Nah. - Were you not saying that like "Persona 3 Reloaded" was like bit long? - Okay, "Reloaded" was a bit long. - "Reload" was longer because it had more cut scenes.

- That's the only reason. - I would say so. - That's cope. - I'd say what was the perfect pace game actually was a metaphor, even though that was like, yeah, 64 hours. Not bad. Not bad. - Bro, that's a work week. - That's one amazing work week. - What's metaphor? - I think metaphor is around the same. - Probably.

- I'd be metaphor- - 'Cause I thought metaphor was a perfectly paced game. - Yeah, 80 to 90 hours. Yeah, I'd be at an 80. - 60 to 70. - 60 to 70. - 60 to 70. But yeah, I thought out of like Persona 3, Persona 4 and Persona 5, metaphor I thought had no point did it ever like drag or have a point where I'm like, I don't think this is important for the story. - How the fuck are they casually dropping so many 60, 70 hour games?

- 'Cause they're the goat. - They're also the goats, that's why. - Like where did this come from? No one spoke about this game and it just came out and everyone was like, "Yeah, 70 hour game."

- Not only a 70 hour game, but I dare say one of the best JRPGs that's come out in a long time. - Yeah. - It's crazy, man. That's nuts. - They keep cooking. - Yeah, I don't know. I've been enjoying JRPGs. I don't know what to go next. I know that, I think I will end up playing Tactics 'cause Pete really wants me to. - Oh, Tactics is so good. - And I heard the story's phenomenal. - Very good, very good. - But the gameplay obviously is kind of a lot less- - It's more like Fire Emblem. - Elden Ring?

- I gotta do the LC, yeah. - Yeah, I gotta do that as well. - I gotta do it, I gotta do it. I will do it, I will do it eventually. Gonna get around to it. But 10 was peak, so I wanted to play 10. - How long did it take you to beat? - 40 hours. - Oh, that's fast.

- Yeah, yeah. - Did you have speed up though? - Yeah, I had the speed up a lot. - Oh, okay. - 'Cause it felt like grinding. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - That helps a lot. - Oh, and I turned on, you know, I do think there are some things in older JRPGs or even now they do it as well too where they add, they make certain game design choices that force you to grind. - Mm-hmm.

I mean, Pokemon figured this out a while ago. It's just kind of annoying to have to keep swapping your Pokemon out. - Yeah. - And it just adds time. And I don't think anyone enjoys doing it.

- And so in that Final Fantasy to level up the characters you have to keep swapping them in. - Yeah. - Which is so fucking annoying to do. And then in this mod you could just turn on that everyone gets the XP. - Oh, okay. - So I just turned that on and it made it so much more fun. - Well, yeah. - 'Cause I was like, oh, this is great. Now I don't have to consciously grind nearly as much. - But now you just shaved off like 10 hours of the game. I think more. - Yeah, it would have- - You probably shaved like 20 hours. - Yeah. With the speed up, it wouldn't have saved like a crazy amount. I would have had to make more inputs, which I don't-

- Yeah. - I'm gonna do this anyway. - Up, down, and A. - Oh, you're cheating. And it's like, bro, what do you want out of this? What are you playing this game for? - Do you wanna watch me grind for 20 hours? - Yeah. - Like, I don't understand why you want to grind.

I think like there are certain, like we're going through the story and the game's quite linear. Why would you want a part of the game we have to stop for five hours and fight the same mob? - Especially on stream as well. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think it makes it more enjoyable. So I enjoyed it a lot more that I kind of went to go through it. - You still playing Monster Hunter? - I have been kind of on and off.

But yeah, I just haven't really had the time this month, unfortunately, to actually sit down. Because it's fine to play single player and everything. And especially now with this one, you can just enter a random online lobby and just play with randos. But I want to play with friends. So if my friends are not on, then I don't really want to hop on and do anything. It's just everyone's time schedules are different and all that. So I haven't been playing it recently, but my God, it's such a good game.

It's so fucking good. Also the story is like trivial. - Trivial? - It's like, "Monstarda," no one's ever really cared about the story for "Monstarda." - I did skip through a lot of the cut scenes. - I skipped through all of them. And my friend, like I sat down with him to play, he played "Monstarda," I think it was for like the first time. And I was just like, "Bro, don't even worry about the story, just skip it and I'll help you with all of it." - I'm here to hunt monsters. - Yeah, I'm here to hunt monsters. He beat the story in less than two hours.

- If you skip all the cut scenes and just do the fights, it's like literally two, three hours.

- Oh right, 'cause then you get to the part of the game where you- - The actual part of the game. - Yeah, the actual game. - Yeah, because like the story's just there to kind of set up the world. And then once the story is done- - You monster hunt. - Then the real game actually begins. - Title card monster hunt. - Yeah, title card monster hunt. It's like now you can play the game. It's a two to three hour tutorial basically. - I played it for about four hours. I played a little bit offline. I enjoyed it a lot more than the last one I played. - Oh yeah. - Did you play "Monsters Hunter Worlds" before?

Which one's the last one? Rise. Rise was the last one. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah.

- Yeah, it might've been Rise. But I liked that I wasn't having to, the one thing I didn't like about Monster Hunter for a while was even when you start off the game, you often had to fight the same monster three times right away. Which is like, why am I fighting the same? Final Fantasy doesn't make me fight the same fucking boss three times in a row. I understand later on you need to grind and that's part of the game, but I found it weird that they made you grind so early on. I was like, what? Don't you want to show off how sick the game is? - That's what I liked about World 2. - And this one, yeah. - With the wilds, yeah.

- And Wild's great. I only had to refight a boss when I wanted to. When I was like, oh, I actually want this class. - When I needed a new fit. - Yeah, when I wanted like the Ezio Assassin's Creed fit, I had to go and kill the spider three times. Which I didn't mind, 'cause I was like, okay, good. And this boss fight is not like 19 hours long. So it was quite fun. And obviously later on when I'm like 30, 40 hours in, yeah, I'm gonna want those big 50 minute fucking chase fest where I gotta like actually think, but like,

when you get in the game, like, okay, I just want a nice linear, let me get into it, let me learn the mechanics. - Totally. - Yep. - Don't make me fight the same fucking boss three times in a row. So I'm glad, I'm glad. I'm really, it was a lot more fun. - Yeah. I'm also like taking my time with it as well because it's not really a game that you wanna like rush anyway, because again, it's, especially after you finish the story and you actually get into the meat of the game, it's like,

it's a constant thing of like, all right, yeah, hop on, you know, kill a couple of monsters, gather the materials, blah, blah, blah. And then I think they also like do like event quests and stuff like that now. So it's, it's literally like weekly missions and stuff like that, that they post onto the game. Yeah. So it's, it kind of, it forces you to,

kind of take your time with the game as well. So I'm not too worried about it. But yeah, I just haven't really been playing a lot of games these past couple of weeks. I've just been going out and doing stuff, which is the worst time to go out because my hay fever has just been fucking going AWOL. - You're like honking away over there. - Yeah, I'm so fucking blocked up. It's not even funny. So I'm really glad I have this now. - This is amazing. This just smells so good. - It actually, it helps me so much. - Oh my God. - This is what I smelled as a kid in Santa Barbara. - How long has this been?

- Oh, quite a while. - Dude, this is amazing. - Yeah, just shoving in my nose, man. - Being an adult is so weird. I get so fucking excited about this. And then like, you could give me like, I don't know, some like a genuine, like expensive gift. I'm like, eh. - Yeah. - On this, I'm like, oh my God.

I was like, yo. Yeah, because I asked Mei Lin if she wanted anything from like Southeast Asia. She was like, give me the smelly things. Give me the fucking smelly things. Yeah. You had beer and a nonsense, but getting into, I don't know if this is sacrilegious, but I was in Thailand for about a month. Frozen beer. I just...

- Oh no man, in a fucking hot climate, it's just- - Frozen beer. - Wait, so frozen. - Like a beer slushy? - So kind of because, okay, so have you seen those videos where water gets like super cold, right? - Yeah, where they spin it. - So yeah, it's like liquid form and then it comes out and then it's like instantly frozen or like beer slushies. So Thailand's had a lot of that recently.

because as you may have remembered last time we went to Thailand, they normally you go to a restaurant and you have beer and they give you a bucket of ice. And you know, everyone has their own opinions on that. I'm not too big of a fan on that. - Ice does nothing wrong in a beer. - Personally, but what if you don't add ice into a beer? The beer dies.

- No, no. - And it's a slushy. - No, I don't agree with this. - It's a slushy. - It just doesn't sound good. - I would rather room temp beer. - No. - Yeah. - Okay, that's fucking wild. - No. - No. - Okay. - Beer does not need to have anything in it. It should just be a drink. - There is nothing less satisfying than like warm beer. - Look, okay. - I agree. - 20 Europeans, okay. I understand the disgust you feel like right now, but let me just set the scene, okay.

- It's a country where the average temperature is at least 34, 35 degrees. - Yeah. - All right. When you go out, not just that. - How hot is it right now there? Like when you were there? - Some days, some days. - That's wild. - I mean, you simply not leave the house. You must feel so like overjoyed being back. - I mean,

- Some days it's nice when you have a breeze, right? It's not the temperature, it's the humidity. As you know from Japanese summer. As you know from Japanese summer. - It's the wetness. - It is the wetness. So I don't even care about the temperature. I care about the humidity. It is 35 degrees today, but only 51% humidity. - Oh, okay, so it should be quite nice.

- Not bad. - Probably quite nice. So that's the average temperature, right? You have two options. You can have a beer that will become room temperature before you reach the halfway point. - Not me.

- Before you reach the halfway point. - I'm fucking vortex chilling that shit. - Or you can have a beer that's gonna be super, super cold that is going to stay cold. So you have the two evils. - Yeah, I was gonna say, it's the lesser of two evils. - You can either have room temperature beer or you can have frozen or in ice beer. - I wanna try this slushy first. Let me try this beer. - So actually there's this new glass that's being used where it's like,

there's a glass that has gel on like the inside of the glass, right? So you freeze the glass and then you pour the beer into it. And because the gel was so cold, as you're drinking it, the beer will, the outer edge of the beer will freeze. And so it kind of like turns to like half beer. And the longer it goes on, the more like,

it will keep the beer cold permanently, but also you get these like little bit of like beer slush and beer ice. And it's just a nice- - Crystallized. - Yeah, crystallized beer. And I'm like- - That sounds a lot better than,

or what I was envisioning, which was a beer slushy. - Yeah, I was imagining like a 7-Eleven slushy that's beer flavored. - There is also that as well where they super freeze the beer. So like when you pour it out, it just instantly fucking. - Yeah, I don't know if I love that idea. - See, it doesn't look appetizing, but I'm sure. - It feels appetizing. - Yeah, I'm sure it feels appetizing. - You don't understand. - I've never been one for slushies. I always feel like they're the worst form of a drink.

- Why? - Why? - Why? I feel like- - Slushies are the best. - Because oftentimes- - What about smoothies? - A smoothie's amazing. - What's the difference between a smoothie and a slushie? - Maybe I'm in the minority in this thought, but when I have a slushie,

- Often, you know when you go to the cinema in the UK, they always had slushies. I used to, you know, I'd get them. And you know, the first couple of sips would be phenomenal. - Yeah. - Because you'd be like, "Oh my God, I'm getting all the flavor." And then you get to the point where you've kind of ran out of liquid and then it's now just getting to ice and you're like, "Am I supposed to eat this now? Or do I just wait for it all to dissolve?" - Yeah, I do that thing where I pour it down and then I do like the

- Yeah, yeah. - Get the ice out of the bottom. - There's quite a lot of ice still, I feel like in slushies. - But then you just get like the nice little crunch. - Then you can chew on some ice. - Yeah, chew on some ice. - No, I'm not a Neanderthal. I don't need that in my life. - You get the nice little texture, you know? - So I find that the slush is in an awkward spot of not belonging. - What's your opinion of shaved ice? - I hate shaved ice.

- I fucking hate shaved ice. I hate it so much. - Hate is a strong word. - I hate it. People are like, "Let's get Kaki Gori." No, no, let's get a real dessert. Let's get gelato. Let's get ice cream. - Even bingsu? - What the fuck is bingsu? - Bing-bing. - Bing-bing is like the Korean like shaved ice, but it is so fine. - I don't think I've had that one. - Oh my God, bingsu is so good.

- It's so fine that it's basically snow. So with Japanese shaped ice, it's like, you know, still you can feel the crunch in this. With bingsu, it is basically like you are eating the finest snow.

- You can possibly get. This shit slaps, man. I love this shit. - One spoon, sure, it's a nice flavor. But after that, I'm kind of like, the texture doesn't do it for me. The flavor often is just sweet syrup. And it's often not like a, like ice cream, I find the flavor is like really nicely mixed. Whereas with shaved ice, it's ice plus syrup. And I don't really like how that flavor feels.

You don't like the flavor of the syrup? No, often I don't really like syrupy things in general. Like I'm not a big fan of like putting syrup on like pancakes or whatever the fuck it is. Like I don't think syrup and syrupy kind of- What do you put on pancakes then? I just have them on their own.

- Hold on, you have dry ass pancakes? - Sometimes you get cream or ice cream. - That's like eating a mattress. - You don't put anything on pancakes? - That's why I also don't eat pancakes often. - Not even like whipped cream or? - Whipped cream, whipped cream. - Like butter even? - Butter 100%, love butter on pancakes. - Okay, well that's not nothing. - Yeah, but it's like no syrup. - Yeah, no, but you made it sound like you raw dog pancakes. - Well, if I'm given a pancake and there's only syrup, I'm like, I'm good.

- Pancakes need to have something sweet. - Yeah, butter is peak. - I fucking hate savory pancakes. I cannot, pancakes should not be savory. Pancakes should be sweet. - I'm not arguing this with you, Garnt. - They should be sweet. They should be sweet. - But my, okay, I also think like, I'm gonna say, I think pancakes are generally mid as fuck. - I agree with that. - I think pancakes are one of the,

- Not only is it like one of the most calorifically dense desserts, it just doesn't feel worth the trade off. - Breakfast. - Fuck no, it's not breakfast. - Americans be like, "Dessert? "Hold on a second, what?" - Yeah, I mean like, it's so much fucking food often as well. And it's like dessert, I often just want a little bit. I want like a little light thing. I don't want a whole fucking like cement block of calories, which is what it is. Do you like pancakes that much?

- You gotta admit, it's like a mid tier of desserts. - For me it's like maybe like a two, three times a year kind of thing. Where like, you know, I'll order like a big thing of pancakes and then maybe like share with our people. Like I'm not gonna go out of my way to be like, "Oh, I feel like pancakes today." - That's why I like the ones that they have in Asia and Japan quite a lot. 'Cause it's more like a,

- I'm like, I like the fluffy ones. - Yeah, which is like, it's like getting close to cake at that point. - It's basically a sponge cake. - And I'm like, I like that. I like cake. When it's like a thick, like a thick rubbery, like,

- Yeah, sometimes you just have a pancake and you're like, I think I'd rather just like eat a Frisbee. Sometimes the consistency just throws me off so much. - Yeah, no, not for me. - I don't get the Americans obsessions with pancakes. - Let them have it.

- I'll let you have it. - I'll let them have it. - Let them have it. - Except for breakfast. That is one thing I don't understand. - I'm just a breakfast hater all around. - Yeah, I don't, yeah, saved. I don't care much for breakfast. - Coffee is the best breakfast. - Agreed, agreed. - It's the best breakfast. Or I can just wait till lunch normally. - Yeah, coffee and a nice banana. That's all I need. - I'm down for that. - Yeah. - A croissant maybe. - Bananas on pancakes though?

- Yes. - Sure. - Yes. Fruit pancakes I actually like. - Fruit pancakes? - Yeah. - I just rather the fruit. You know what I mean? - I mean, that's true. - Just give me the fruit. - Yeah, that's true. - Just give me the banana. - Just give me the banana. - But I haven't been watching anything new, but I've been going back and actually watching stuff recently. - Oh really? - Yeah. I mean, Sydney went back and we watched "Harrahy" recently. - Oh shit. - Just to see how well that aged. - First season? - Yeah, first season. - And? - God.

- There are some things that have aged well. There are so many things that have not aged well at all. - I'm sure. - Okay, when you were first watching Harry,

- Was she as annoying? Did you register Haruhi as being really fucking annoying? - Yeah. - That's why I never really liked Haruhi as a character, even while I was watching it. Everything else I liked about it, but...

- Yeah, she was always kind of annoying, which is why like when people were like, "Yo, Haruhi, I love the Haruhi series and Haruhi's my favorite character." I'm like, "You need help." - Cope. - Cope, that's Cope. - Do you know what was so weird going back and watching Haruhi is? Just seeing Haruhi as a character and just seeing

how many personalities it helped shaped. - Oh yes, she founded the, what the fuck was the trope name? Kamidere. - Kamidere? - Yeah, that's like the, you know, there's like tsundere. - Goddere? - Yeah. - What does that mean? - Kamidere are deres who have a god complex.

- Oh, that's an actual thing. - That's a real thing. And Haruhi is the one who started it. - She's the face of it all. - She's the face of Kamidere. - Yeah. - How dare her. - And I'm just not into that archetype. - Top pages this week, Yandere. - Always on top. - Always. - Yandere, Deredere is second? What the fuck?

- No, 'cause like going back and watching this, I was like, first off, me and Sydney just had a big fucking nostalgia trip. Second off, I'm just like, damn,

she doesn't stand out now as much anymore, but I was just trying to think because like going back and watching this, she gives off such the energy of like, "I'm not like other girls." You know, "Tee hee, I'm so quirky. I'm not like other girls." And then you think about it back then, I'm like, "Shit, back then she really wasn't like other girls. This shit was revolutionary."

- Exactly. - And now everyone's trying to have like their own quirk, their own like weirdness to them. - Yeah, that's the thing. It's like, it's like Haruhi, there's a reason why Haruhi is just like such a time piece because you know, so many characters now are pretty much based off of Haruhi. - Yeah. - Haruhi ran so all these other Kaffi Darius could walk, dude. - Also made me think like,

If we had the modern anime community today, how insufferable would some of these old anime have been with the modern day anime community, man? With the modern day fucking Twitter spoiler ass communities and this kind of shit. Imagine trying to keep up with Death Note. If we had the weekly discussions we did today, man.

- I don't even want to think about it. That genuinely sends a shiver down my spine just thinking about it. - Yeah, no, I'm good. I'm good. - I'm totally fine with that. - Like you literally just like, you would get spoiled before every single week, before every new episode comes out, man. - You'd find out like L dies like two months before it actually happens. - Right? - He dies? - I thought he went on vacation. What the fuck? - He went to the Bahamas. He never came back.

- No fucking way. - Yeah. - Before someone comments, it's too late. If you've been spoiled by that, you should have watched that then by now. - Yeah, you had like what, 20 years? - In my head, it's in the same realm as like the Sixth Sense, "They Were Dead All Along" or whatever. - Yeah, yeah. - Spoiler alert. - Wait, what? - Yeah, like I didn't even watch the movie, but I'm like, you know, it's fair game. That's pop culture, I should have known that. - Yeah. - Like that's, it's on me.

- Do you remember what show, doesn't have to be anime, what show or game you thought was your peak when you were like 13, 14? - I thought Hannah Montana was like the fucking peak of my life when I was like 13. - Did you like unironically? - Unironically it was a gesture. - Not a meme. - Not a meme.

- I was obsessed with like the Disney Channel. - Yeah. - And Hamilton was like 13. - Okay, then in that case, as a long time Hannah Montana glazer. - Okay, well, okay. Hold on, hold on. - Of Trash Night, not a long time. There was a period of my life where I was a glazer. - Did your homies know about this? - No, I couldn't tell. Are you kidding me?

- Are you fucking kidding me? I told my friends, by the way, I was already getting bullied for playing COD. - Yeah. - Which they were all playing. - Yeah. - You think I could tell them I was watching Hannah Montana? That I knew the hoedown throwdown? - What if they were also secretly like really into it? - That's the thing about kids. They all were pretty into something dumb. - Of course. - That they could have been made fun of. - Of course. - That's what growing up is and learning not to give a fuck. - Oh my God. That's the most like fucking frustrating thing now as an adult.

that I see. - I've thought down about this and everyone else had a funny idea. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, that like kids today go through where they're like, oh, you know, they almost feel like embarrassed or whatever to be like into a really, really, you know, maybe, you know, subjectively shitty thing or like something that you shouldn't be into. And it's like, bro, that's like the perfect time to get into all sorts of dumb shit. - Yeah. - It's fine. - I think it's like in early 2000,

early 2000s and early 2010s, but mainly late 2000s I feel like. - Yeah. - Where like Disney Channel like had like, was it like its peak? - Yeah. - In terms of, I felt like it was at its peak at least for the Disney image. - Yeah. - In terms of like young adults. To me, I think it just came to the part of my brain that was like, man, it just seems so fun. They're just fucking like doing a whole bunch of stuff and I'm stuck in a fucking field in Wales.

And then I would watch them do this like sports day thing with all these actors that were on the shows. - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. - I think like, wow, this was just so cool. - How did you get into Hannah Montana? I never asked you. - I don't know. That's a very valid question. - What was your first exposure to Hannah Montana? Was it on TV? - Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think like for me, I think as a,

as a confused 13 year old boy in terms of like, I didn't know what the fuck I wanted to do in life. - Sure. - And I, you know, and this is, it's the around the age where everyone kind of starts putting pressures on you to start thinking about things. - Yeah. - Even though you're like- - They start putting pressures on you to have a personality. - A direction, a direction. Like they want you to know, like, even if,

- Even if you're not like, I wanna be a national, not like that. But I mean, I feel like even like parents or teachers, they wanna know what type of kid you are. They wanna know, are you the science kid?

- Are you this kid? - Are you the artsy kid? Are you the sporty kid? - And like for me, it was like almost even decided before I even joined high school, which kids were like the theater kids. So I almost like, because I wasn't a theater kid in primary school, I almost wasn't like allowed to join the theater I felt like. And I like when I tried to, it was kind of, I felt like I got a bit of pushback where they're like, well, we're not gonna cast you or anything 'cause you're not one of the like theater kids. And also I was pretty dog shit as well. I was never given the opportunity. - Did you wanna be a theater kid though?

- I wanted to like try theater. Like I wanted to, 'cause I thought it looked fun. It looked interesting. I watched all these TV shows and I would think like, wow, it looks so fun. And I wanted to try, but then I felt like there was never that environment that,

because I didn't start the moment I was at the first opportunity, I was kind of not given a space to try. - Right. - Which I feel like is kind of rough as a kid, 'cause you can't communicate that. You're not like, "Hey, I just want to try this." - Yeah. - But what you get is like, "Oh no, we just don't think you're a good fit for this or whatever." And it's like, "Okay, well, let's, yeah, all right, fine. Let's move on." But I think for this, this was kind of like that kind of,

Hannah Montana was, I guess, I don't know why this show in particular resonated with like 13 year old me so much. I think I liked the idea that she was in school, but also doing shit. - Right. - Yeah. - 'Cause I think I was like- - She was on the grind. - She was on the grind. 'Cause I was like, that's so cool that she's just like me and she's in school. - Yeah. - But she's like also like- - She's got this double life. - She's also like doing so much cool shit. - Yeah. - And I wish I could like do that. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - 'Cause I would go to school and I'd be like, I've got half a down.

everything else sucks though. I'm doing half of the head of Montana. Why is the good half? You know, like, and so I think I just, I just, I don't know if something about it. I was just so jealous, I think. And like, I wanted to live this life where I could,

I could live this boring life, but then also do like this cool, amazing stuff that I never got to do. And it's so weird that Hannah Montana of all things kind of gave me that the most. 'Cause I watched like a high school musical and I'd be like, "That's fun." But like, didn't really feel like I ever, like it made sense. For some reason this fucking show as a kid permeated my existence. - I mean, I don't think Hannah Montana was the only show on the Disney channel during this time. - No, I ate it all up, bro. Like I loved like the fucking Zack and Cody.

I think that was Disney, right? - Yeah, that was Disney. - All these shows I fucking ate up, but I think this was the one that like definitely stuck with me the most for some reason. And I can't even tell you why, 'cause I recognize how fucking dumb this is. I'm a fully grown man. I'm nearly 30. Why was I obsessed with this fucking thing?

- And like, look, the reason why I'm telling you about this is 'cause I don't really care. I'm not ashamed of it. - Yeah. - I could easily just never be some alpha bro. - Oh no, Draco just was Nickelodeon, you're right. - Yeah, I wasn't Nickelodeon. I could easily just move on and pretend like I never had this phase in my life. But I think it's also funny and I think maybe it'll help someone out there who's also maybe like something they feel like they shouldn't like.

- I feel as well as, like, you know, as you can see now, you know, you're more open to talking about it. You're not so much embarrassed about it because you're an adult now, right? - I knew the dance. I knew the hoedown throwdown. There was a dance in the movie. It was the first movie I ever pirated because I was so desperate that I figured out how to pirate. Cause I was like, I want to watch Hannah Montana. So yeah, I just got like super, super fucking into Disney. And I think,

For me, they- Disney shows or Disney movies?

- Disney shows, the movies didn't, 'cause the Disney show and what I think they tried to sell and very successfully at that time was like this kind of like this to teenagers specifically, they sold a very good like, "Yeah man, you can just do whatever you want. "Life will be great, just pursue your dreams." That I felt like other shows didn't really sell me on it as much. But also I think sold me on a lot of Americana as well, which I think is why I got so obsessed with.

a lot of American things. - I kind of had something similar to that where it was like, not so much an obsession, but something I really, really like unequivocally loved, but I was just kind of too embarrassed at the time to admit that I loved it. I was fucking obsessed with Britney Spears. I fucking loved Britney Spears music. And it was like, it was so bad. - It's good music. - Yeah, no, she makes fucking fantastic music.

- It's fantastic music, right? And it's like, you know, nowadays, you know, so much of that recognition is finally out there and, you know, people just like love her as just an icon of the time, right? But, you know, when I was like 12, 13 years old and, you know, it wasn't really like a, it didn't so much fit, I guess, like the gender norms, if you will. - Yeah, like Hannah Montana. - Yeah, let's say with Hannah Montana, right? It's like, oh, boys shouldn't be listening to Britney Spears. And especially, you know, during this time as well, all my friends around me were just like Britney Spears, fucking whatever. Especially my dad, you know?

It was so hard to like go home. - My dad is a football geezer. - It was so hard to sit there and listen to Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd with my dad and then secretly be like, yeah, but I want to listen to that new Britney Spears song.

- But now I'm just like, yeah, fuck it. I've got like her vinyls now. It's fucking great. - It's so strange and I think if I can remember, if I get old and if I have kids at some point, I hope I can remember how I felt watching Hannah Montana. And I can, whenever if a kid in the future has like some strange hobby that I don't quite understand, I hope I remember that feeling of watching the show. And I guess like what it gave me at the time, which is so weird 'cause I don't think the show ever tried to do anything like that.

Never tried to be anything deep. But I think for me, it just came at the right time where it like meant like so much to me. - Well, it's like you kind of like looking back, you don't realize how much of the shit that happens to you in that part of your life basically forms everything about your personality. It forms how you deal with pressure, how you deal with the tough times and also just how, you know,

how your personality forms as an adult as well. It's because it's like, you don't realize that it's, you know, as an adult, you realize it's a lot harder to unlearn something than it is to learn something for the first time. And sometimes watching shows like this, even though it's like just weird Disney Channel or Nickelodeon sitcoms, you're like, damn, I want the life that they had. 'Cause I think for me- - There was a lot of that too. - Yeah, I think for me, I don't know if anyone fucking remembers this, 'cause this was back when I was like a kid,

Sabrina the Teenage Witch. - Yeah, I remember that shit. - That was kind of the same style, right? - Yeah, that's kind of like the same style. That was like constantly on TV. - It made life seem so interesting. - Yeah, right, 'cause I was like, yo, this girl has this secret fucking, she's a normal girl, but she has this secret life as a witch. She has a talking cat as well, yo.

- I think it just made, especially growing up in a bunch of fields and countryside where it's like nothing happening. It made life seem so exciting. It's like, oh my God, this could be my life. - It's like this is happening somewhere out there in the world. - Yeah, 'cause at the time I think she was quite young as well when she filmed it. Even I was like, man, that's crazy. - It's easy to relate to. - Yeah, you're like, damn, she's got so much.

- As a 13 year old, I didn't like see the show as real. Like I knew it was actors. And I think also that helped as well. I was like, oh my God, so many like teenagers are doing what I think is so cool. - Oh yeah, yeah. And I feel that's why like, you know, these kinds of Disney shows and Nickelodeon shows were just so impactful to a lot of people in our age group, right? 'Cause it's like, oh wow, there's these like kids who are roughly the same age as me doing way cooler shit than I am.

- I'm sad I missed the whole like high school musical phase actually. - I never got into high school musical. - I never got into high school musical. - I never got into that specifically. - Or like Glee, that was another one as well. Which I was just like, whatever with. - I didn't really like the musical stuff. I was like, I just liked the funny acting stuff.

- That was always more fun. - The sitcom-y stuff. - Yeah, it was always more fun for me until I realized, you know, you grow out of it and you're like, yeah, okay, time to move on. - I never got into it, but anyone who was into it just seemed like they're having so much fun. And you know what, I'm jealous of that in a sense. - That's true, that's true. - I was definitely like,

"I'm better than these guys." But you know what? At the end of the day, I think they were having more fun than me. - It's like, now that I think about it, maybe I wasn't. Maybe I wasn't better. - Yeah, man, I had so much fun. It was so much good times. But like, I think it's fun to talk about now and look back on it and be like, "Yeah, it was maybe a bit odd." But it was a lot of fun. - How then, as someone who loved Hannah Montana growing up, like how did you personally see what became of Miley Cyrus?

- I didn't really care for it. - You didn't really care? - No, I was kind of like, okay. I never really liked her music. - Oh, okay. - The songs were always the part I didn't really like in Hannah Montana. - Which is hilarious. - Which is kind of a big part of it. - Yeah. - When she started like releasing music, I was like, what is this? - Go back to acting. - What the heck is this? What the heck? Yeah, I kind of fell out of it pretty quickly. - Oh, fair, fair. - You know, you move on. - That's fair. - You know, as a kid, you sometimes,

'cause I feel like now it takes me quite a while to move on from stuff that I like. Like to find new things, I feel like it takes quite a lot. - Really? I think it's pretty fast 'cause there's so much things now. - I don't know, I feel like I like the stuff I like and it takes me a while to,

- I think it's just because you had more time to invest in it. - For sure, for sure. Yeah, 'cause you were like, "Damn, what are we gonna do this Sunday? "We got an important-

Hannah Montana episode, go watch "The Simpsons" later, okay. - Yeah, exactly. - Put some cards. - Just stacked on Saturdays. - Yeah, like this, Saturday's full, mom, sorry. - Yeah, sorry, I got things to do in front of the TV. - Oh no, actually, I feel like as an adult, it's infinitely easy, at least not really as an adult, I would say more this time period, it's infinitely easier for me to slip into a fucking rabbit hole 'cause sometimes you just get- - Well, it's just like targeted. - Yeah, yeah, 'cause sometimes you just get recommended a random video or random thing that you never would have been exposed to before.

And now you're like, it looks pretty fun actually. Like, I remember just like, I would never have, for example, found any interest in, what's the thing?

- Outdoor boys, the camping style. - Outdoor boys throwing magnets into rivers and seeing what fucking comes up. - Magnet fishing. - Magnet fishing. If not for the internet, there is no part of my brain that would have thought that this was like a hobby or an interest. But now that I see it, I'm like,

- How much are magnets? - Let me look it up. - Yeah, it's like, I wouldn't think this was a hobby, but if someone gives me a magnet, I'd be like, let's see what we can uncover with it. - That is true. - Also there's like- - Japan magnet fishing, when?

- Ooh. - That's hard. - I'm sure there's a ton of crazy shit in like Megiddo River, for instance. - I wonder if you need a permit or some shit for that in Japan. - Probably. - You know, probably in Japan. - Not in Japan. Yeah, you probably need a fucking license for it or something. - Yeah, exactly. - Yeah.

- No fun allowed. - Yeah, so I feel like in this day and age, it's just so much easier just to find like niche hobbies because there's always a community for it. It's much easier to find the community for online. - Maybe you felt that way Connor because there is so much stuff happening and because back then you had all the time in the world to just like almost 100% put your focus in on something so you could go a lot deeper and be more, I guess, obsessed with it. Whereas now,

you could still be as obsessed with it and even potentially be going deeper into that rabbit hole. But because there's so much other stuff happening, not just in your life, but also just in the world of entertainment and the world around us that it doesn't feel like you're going as deep into it potentially. - You never felt like you wanted to learn a musical instrument? - Yeah, always. Every time I see the saxophone, I'm like, "Shit, I wanna learn." - Why don't you?

- A lot of work, a lot of work. Maybe in the future, maybe in the future when I have a bit more time. - I mean, I wanna learn sax as well, so we can learn it together. - You'll gap me, you'll gap me. - No. - You'll be like, "Chord." I'm like, "What's that?" - You can't play chords on saxophone. - Yeah, right? See, I don't know that. I don't know this. I don't know any of this, Joey. - We can learn it together. - It's okay, it's okay. - That's the fun part about doing a hobby together. It doesn't matter if one is better than the other. - True, true, true. - It's the journey.

- It's not the destination. - It's about the friends we make along the way. - It's about the friends we made along the way. - Oh, true, yeah. - You know, when you give up on this YouTube thing and you have infinitely more time to just do whatever. - Oh yeah, become a sax, professional sax player. - Yeah. We're gonna hear from Connor like 20 years later, he's like, "Yeah, he was playing in the jazz club." Like on a saxophone for some reason. - That'd go hard.

- Yeah, I mean like I went to Thailand this time and my dad, you know, he's at the age where he's retired and stuff, just randomly just got into fucking drawing. And I'm like- - What?

I'm fucking jealous of you, dad. You've never had, he's never showed an interest in drawing and he tells me, yeah, I woke up one day and I'm like, I want to try learning how to draw. - It's a meditative thing, I think, to draw. - Oh, I see. - When you do it relaxing. - Yeah. And you know, anyone, I'm jealous because anyone who's seen any drawing videos of me, knows I have negative art skills, you know?

- But sometimes I feel like- - You can learn to. - Exactly. - Well, I mean, watching Felix's video, you're like, yeah, it's just a learning thing. - Exactly. - Everything's just a skill. - It's a skill. - It's about persistence. It's about putting in the work. - Yeah. I mean, there's some talent involved, but you know-

- It's at the end of the day, no one gets anywhere without any skills. - Exactly. - Sorry, without any learning and practice and putting time into it. - Absolutely. - And I'm just reciting the entire message of ping pong right now. - You gotta get good, you've got the hours in. - You gotta put the hours in, put the work in. - So hopefully you're putting some hours in and selling your love and it's satisfying for you. - Like Hannah Montana. - Like Hannah Montana, letting the hoedown throw down, nothing more satisfying in life.

- All right, well, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. - Hey, here's all the patrons though. - You sounded so sad saying that. - They're on that grind set. They're on that grind set. Hey, if you want to support the show, then you can head on over to patreon.com/trashtaste. By the way, every single week we have patron exclusive content that you guys can go check out right after this episode. But if you want to check that out and support the show in the process, head on over to patreon.com/trashtaste. Also follow us on Twitter, send us some memes on the subreddit. And if you hate our face, listen to us on Spotify.

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