Roasting our Trash Taste in Manga | Trash Taste #61
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- Welcome to this episode of Trash Taste with me, your host Connor and the boys, Joey and Garnt. - That's us. - That's us. Nice of you to be hosting the manga episode, right Connor? - I was gonna get into that Garnt. - Okay. - We're all gentlemen here. We're all connoisseurs of the fine arts. We all read words. - You know the Trash Taste lore, right? You know our character development and you know the best reader of all time is obviously Connor. - That's true. - I am reading.

- That's it. - Librarians wish they could have Connor's brain right now. - They wish they could access this fountain of knowledge. - And we thought, obviously the best host for the manga-centric episode, which we are going to be doing today. - We don't choose hosts, Garnt. It's a rotation.

And it just, the stars aligned. They were sending us a message. It's like, it's Connor's turn. - Connor must host this episode. - To the manga episode. - Yeah, so that's what we're doing today. - I like how you've hosted the doujinshi episode as well. I just realized by complete chance. And now you've also hosted the manga episode, right? - Can I say, I read. - Yeah. - I'm somewhat of a reader myself.

Anyway, yeah, as we've said, this is the manga episode of Trash Taste where we're gonna be discussing our favorite mangas on our favorite preferred methods. It's gonna be the three by three, which you see on that. - We've talked about manga in the past in a lot of different episodes, but I don't think we've actually established like what our all time favorite manga is or like our manga tastes, quote unquote. - It's really weird 'cause when we were thinking about what haven't we like specifically talked about on theme in an episode? And I was like, wait a minute,

we've never talked about manga. And for some reason I just assumed that we already had. 'Cause it feels like we have, right? - Yeah, definitely. - I was like, well, we did the anime once, so obviously we did the manga once as well, right? - And of course, I'm a bit thinking, I was thinking about the fact that

I wonder, 'cause the movie one that we did recently is probably gonna have a lot more variation. I feel like there's must be some more overlap this time, right? - Yeah, I really don't know. - Like there's one or two where I'm like, I'm pretty sure if it's not on your list, you would put it on your list anyway. - There's at least one I know that I probably, I mean, you're kind of limited in your, I mean, you're so expansive.

- I mean, I know I've probably got at least one that's the same as you. I think I might have one that's the same as Joey as well. - Here's what I realized when I recently read "Records of Ragnarok" is that I've only read really long running manga. I don't think I've read a single manga that had like less than 150 chapters.

I would actually agree with you on that. Okay, so I realized when picking my three by three is that there isn't that much choice or there isn't as much choice as there is in the anime world, right? Of like manga that really left a deep impression on me. And that's because like manga, you know, if you watch a season of anime, it actually takes less time to consume it than reading a really long running manga series. Because if it's like a one shot,

or like a one volume kind of thing, it probably was not gonna leave that deep of an effect on me. - I don't know, man. I've read a lot of one-shots that were like, man, this is dead ass better than some like 20 chapter plus shows. - Yeah, like the Death Note Donald Trump one-shot. That was good. That left an impression on me. I didn't expect to see manga Donald Trump, but.

- True that. - And we saw it in the best art style as well. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Give him a fucking fist bump to re-hook. - Honestly, that one shot, I didn't realize how much I missed "Death Note" until I read that one shot. And I was like, damn, we kind of need a sequel to "Death Note". - He was just playing with us. That's the worst part is that it was like,

- It was like the pro coming back and just styling on everyone. They'd be like, "See you by the way." You know what I mean? Just being like, "I could come back. I could kill it." - It's like that villain wrestler who just comes in clotheslines and then leaves. - Builds all your furniture, leaves. It's like, "Oh shit, okay, that was good." - Oh cool, thank you. - Yeah, but then I also realized making this three by three is that I really haven't read

as much manga as I have watched anime. I mean, I'm unfortunately not the manga man. That's probably Joey, right? - I think in your head, you feel like manga is easier. Maybe because you can speak, you can read Japanese fluently. Maybe that it is because you can just pick them up. You can just go to the store, pay two bucks, get the manga and you're good to go. - I mean, as someone called the anime man, I obviously read a lot more manga than watch anime.

- As we all know by now. - Go figure. - The running meme. And I do think that if that was the case, I think I would probably read more. But I think because of the fact that I'm not, I do enjoy reading digitally. I like the ease of it, but I do find that it's a little more, I don't know, it feels harder to get into. I don't know why. - You mean digitally? - Yeah, when I'm reading it, I like it. But it's getting into it where I'm like, I don't know. 'Cause when you see it in the store, you can pick it up, you can flick through, you're like, oh, okay.

There's no better feeling than like a physical- - Right, right, right, right. That's how you really get into it. Especially with manga 'cause unlike normal books, you have to actually just read it. Manga, it pops right out. You can see, oh, okay. Oh, damn, okay. - You can like look at it. - It just feels like it. It feels much better. - It feels like I'm reading.

- It really feels like I'm reading. - Yeah. - Something about it. - It feels more special and it feels a bit more intimate, I guess. And I guess like most of the manga that I've put on my three by three, I actually read on paper. - Oh, okay. - And I feel like, I don't know if that's a complete coincidence. Some of them, some manga I know are really good and I purposely will not read it unless it's

physical copies. Other manga, I kind of like, I maybe read online and if it's like good, then I try to go out my way to buy physical copies.

- Yeah, but I mean, like I was saying, I think that for me at least a little bit, anime is slightly easier to consume. It really depends. I don't really understand how I consume manga. I don't really get it. I like to think I understand, but I don't think I get what I'm doing. - It depends on the series for me, definitely. Like there are some where it's just like, I really fucking struggled to like get into the manga, but for some reason it's really easy to watch the anime and vice versa. - Yeah, also another thing when I was picking my three by three is that I really did, I tried not to pick,

titles that already had like a big anime adaptation or something that I watched the anime and I feel like it doesn't make a difference. - You're trying to be like guy of like, I don't watch the main, I don't read the main. - No, because like- - You're trying to be the artsy boy. - For example, like I don't think there's any point in me putting one piece on my three by three. - As good as the manga is. - As good as the manga is. - I'm fucking haunted with everyone asking me why haven't I started it yet?

- Yeah, 'cause like the manga is amazing, but I feel like with that, you could either read the manga or watch the anime and you could either have like a good experience on each. - I don't think there's a single person watching Trash Taste that doesn't know what One Piece is. - Yeah, and I'm just like, do I really need to tell my Trash Taste viewers that I am a One Piece fan? Do you really need to know that?

- I was in my Japanese class this morning and they made me listen to Japanese people speak and tell them what they were saying. And I got totally thrown off in one audio clip because there was a woman talking about her dress, but it's one piece. - One piece. - One piece.

- Oh, she likes red one piece. I was like so, I couldn't listen to the rest of it. Cause I'm like, did she say one piece? Like the anime? - And it's just like the PTSD of the incident. - Yeah, I was like one piece.

- I can't escape it. - When I was first getting into One Piece, I really wanted to buy the manga volumes. Obviously anime. - You typed One Piece on it? - Yeah, I typed in One Piece on eBay and I'm just like, don't give me a fucking dress. I want the manga. Give me the manga. And I scroll down and it's just like dress, dress, dress, dress, dress. It's like, God damn it. - All right gentlemen, it's time. - Okay. - All right, trash box-kun, decide it all.

- Man, we've got some real mileage out of this. Dollar, dollar. - Yeah, thanks, Naby. You're the real MVP here. - He's my son. - 4K hearing. - 4K trash box going. - Who's gone first? - All right, first up, let me get the trash bin. - All right, yeah. - First up is...

- Connor spelled incorrectly. - Connor. - Who did this? - Connor. - Connor. - It's an O. - I'm kidding. - Yeah, I'm first. I think I've actually only read, coincidentally, like nine manga. - I can probably name all nine that you've read. - Can we make a guess?

- Can we make a guess before you show them? - I'm not gonna confirm if you're right or wrong. You can just say it. - Okay, okay. Well, obviously JoJo. - JoJo part seven. - Yeah. - Berserk. - Yep. - Claymore. - Claymore. - Eyeshield 21. - Eyeshield. Gantz. - Gantz. - That's five.

- No, that wouldn't be on there. What's like- - Something else. - What's the cockroach one again? - Oh, "Terraform". - Oh shit, I didn't put that on. - Oh damn. - We'll talk about that. - We'll talk about that as well. What else has he read? "Villain Saga"? - Yeah, "Villain Saga". - That's seven. I can't think of any more that he's read.

- Did you read Death Note or watch it? - I think he watched it. - You know what? - All right, we got seven. - You're gonna kick yourself when you missed one that you're gonna be like, of course. - I know there's one that's like very obviously we missed. - All right, Ashley, put it up. - Put it up on the screen.

- Oh, One Punch Man, duh. - Oh, One Punch Man, of course. - Oh, and Black Butler. - Oh, and- - You Are My Princess. - So, I'm just gonna do a bit of self promo real here, quick. I love this manga so much that I made an audio book of it. You can go buy it, by the way, on Book Walker. You Are My Princess full audio book edition is available. - We did not condone of this self promo. - Yeah, I wasn't allowed to do this, but I'm gonna do it anyway, just by the way. It's actually okay.

- That's where terraformers would go. - Yeah. - Okay, okay, we'll get into terraformers. I'll quickly actually, I will lightly touch on this. It's actually genuinely a really good BL story. If you wanna get into BL, it's good, man. It's about a guy who's like, "Yeah, dude, I like this guy, but I don't know, this isn't normal, right?"

But then he really likes the guy. - That's literally every alley. - Yeah. - No, a lot of them are really rapey. - Oh yeah, that's true. - A lot of them are like, "Oh, you don't like me? Well, let me make you cum and that'll change your mind." And it's like- - Cyberpunk music. - It's like, hold on. It's like, isn't this- - No, no, don't say it. - It's not weird. - Shut up, it's hot. - It's weird if you make it weird. - Shut up, it's hot.

- Yeah, but it's actually a really wholesome manga. And yeah, if you wanna listen to an audio book form, you can officially license. - Anyway, do you wanna go through the list in case there are some that some people don't know? - In case we didn't mention them already? - Yeah, so you got most of them, right? Claymore, One Punch Man, Berserk,

JoJo, Black Butler, Gantz, Vinland Saga and Eyeshield 21. - I wasn't expecting Black Butler there for some reason. - Actually, okay. - I thought you were more of a fan of the anime. - I didn't realize you read the manga of that. - Yeah. - I've read, which chapter did I read up to? I've read a good chunk of Black Butler. I haven't caught up 'cause I know that a bunch of shit happened and there's a lot of big plot twists that I know about, but I haven't read yet. - Right. - But I've read most of Black Butler and it's so, so much better in manga format than anime 'cause the first,

- The first season is basically like kind of like a, I don't know, episodical slice of life kind of thing that doesn't really progress the story that much. And the second season is just non-canonical. - Right, right. - Of "Black Butler." Sorry. I just didn't, the water just fell down. - I just dripped on myself again. Did you miss your mouth?

- Cue another montage of me not being able to drink liquids. - It's a shame, right? 'Cause it's the whole meme, right? I kind of, I don't really talk about it 'cause I don't wanna be, you know, people kind of wanna be like, "Oh, he's the Black Butler guy." But I don't mind talking about it now. But yeah, the third season of "Black Butler," the anime is based on like the manga and it's amazing.

Like it's like a really morbid part. It's really dark and you kind of realize how good it can be. But yeah, the manga is a really, really good read. And I'd recommend it if you kind of like the idea of Black Butler, but don't want to go through with the anime. And I wouldn't have read it if it wasn't for my YouTube videos. - Yeah, because like I've heard the second season of Black Butler, is that different from the manga? - Yeah, totally. - That's what I heard. - I think it's anime original, yeah. - It's completely terrible. It's universally like hated. But like genuinely give the manga a shot. It's pretty good.

- So what's like different about the manga than the anime that you would recommend the manga over it? - Well, it's like way more serious, way more like it doesn't like fuck around and it doesn't really feel like, 'cause the anime very much feels like it's kind of just yaoi bait at times. - Yeah, it's definitely trying to like pertain to its audience. - Yeah, and the first season again, it's very casual, it doesn't really,

- It does cover a lot of the same things, but it does it in a way that I've just, I think, okay. - I watched season one of the anime and I thought it was like- - It's fun, it's fun, but the manga does it so much better. It does it so much more justice. - And I feel Tobu Sayana's art style is a lot more gritty and kind of dark. - It's so good, but she gets better as well and it's so good. And the third season of Black Butler covers a circus arc and it's so good. And the anime does it justice. - Book of Circus. - Book of Circus, yeah. - It's actually so good. - Is the anime finished now?

- Or is the manga finished, sorry? - I think the manga's still going. - The manga's still on go. - Oh, it's still going. - It's still going, yeah. It's quite long running. And I don't know how many volumes are on. I think we're over like 13 at this point. I think it's quite a lot. - I think it's way more. - I think it's like over 20 now. - Is it really over 20? I think I've already read up to like,

- 10? - Right. - But I really enjoyed it. I don't know why I stopped. I'm pretty good at reading it. 'Cause you know when you catch up to a certain point, you're like, "I'm done." - Yeah, because for me, my manga reading habits is that I just love binge reading manga so much. - Yeah, same. Once I start a manga, I can't stop. - We're on volume 30 now. - Volume 30 of Black Butler? - I know I've read over...

- Half I think. - Right. - But I don't know how long ago that was. 'Cause I think what was happening is that I got really burnt out on it. 'Cause I read so much of it in like a space for a week. - And your entire career was essentially not. - Yeah, then that happened and I got, which, but I think this is probably gonna remind me to get back into it. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - 'Cause with "One Punch Man" I did that as well, which we'll talk about later. - Yeah. - But genuinely, I think,

even though if you've seen the show, I would give it a shot. - Yeah, I've definitely, I did remember giving the Black Butler manga a go, like after I finished watching season one. 'Cause I just, at that point, season two had already finished airing and I just heard, "Don't watch season two." So I was like, "All right, time for the manga then." And I just never got to it. - Yeah, and there's some,

really, really dark at times. Like you forget like the main premise is that in Black Butler, it's a demon and then he's made a contract with him to have his life at the end. And like, they kind of play off it a lot in the anime and make it seem like, oh, it's kind of hot, hot.

It's kind of, okay. But yeah, in the manga, they constantly remind you sometimes like, oh shit, he just like murders people. Like straight up. And they're not afraid of like showing like really morbid stuff. There's some really good plot twists, you know? Like I won't spoil some of them, but there's some really fucked up shit that happens in there. And it's really worth giving it a shot. Even though all the stereotypes, not stereotypes, but all the, what's the word? - Facade, I guess. - Facade or the preconceptions that a lot of the Western anime fans have.

'cause I think in Japan it's pretty fucking popular, I think. - Oh yeah, yeah, it's popular, but it definitely does have like a strong female audience. - Well, I mean, Sebastian is iconic. I mean, being the sexy man of long-term anime. - I mean, he was like the sexy man of anime for like the early to mid 2000s. - I'd still argue if you make a list of top five sexiest anime characters, Sebastian's on there. Like he is just sexy. - He just has that like cult- - He has that like cult- - Hit the pubs, lads.

- It's Black Butler in it. - He's just an icon of his time for anime and manga at the time. There's a few, I'd say characters in anime that just personified a certain character trait. You think of Yandere for our generation, it's fucking Yuno Gasai. You think sexy man, it's Sebastian from Black Butler. I don't think anyone's replaced him yet. - Yeah, no. - I mean, the one that got close was maybe Yuri from Yuri on Ice.

- Even then though. - Even then. - I don't think he's as charming as Sebastian. - Sebastian is just a staple of like, it's like the sexy butler, but also just very suave, very charismatic. Like he is very entertaining. And I feel like Sebastian does carry it a lot of the time 'cause he's just so fun. And even though he is like obedient, he makes it so entertaining.

And you know, again, even my videos didn't even remotely do him justice. He's so witty and so clever in the anime, in the manga, sorry. He's so fun to watch. And the third season of the anime is good. And the Book of Murder, I think it's called. Is that correct? Book of Murder is pretty fun. It's kind of like a mini whodunit. Right, right. Within like two hours. It's pretty fun. That's cool. Yeah, and it's obviously...

Sebastian solves everything and does it magically. Which is always fun because it's like, what if Sakamoto became a butler later on in life? That is Sebastian. - I feel like Sebastian and Sakamoto are just like twins. They just got separated at birth, you know what I mean? - They're literally the same person. Sakamoto is just Sebastian in school. 'Cause they literally have the same kind of like,

Maybe Sakamoto is a little more tongue in cheek, but Sebastian very much has the same kind of visual humor a lot of the time and does like a lot of, you know, the joke is often that he is just so insanely competent at everything. - Right, right. - He's just so OP. - He is literally OP as fuck, but it's amazing. Like it's so good. I just love it. And I feel like there's not a manga that has the same feeling as "Black Butler."

I don't think there's a single manga that feels like it or anime show that has the same kind of vibe. - Yeah. - Yeah. I feel it definitely like created a staple for that kind of genre. Like there's probably a lot of manga that's imitating Black Butler. - 100%, 100%. - But yeah. - Because there's not many manga out there that do like,

deal with like pretty intense themes. They have like all these like thriller aspects. They also have the, you know, the parts that appeal to the fujo is quite a lot. So it kind of mixes a lot of genres together. And I think even Yana Tobiso herself said that she didn't even know what genre she'd put it in.

because it touches on so many genres throughout the manga. And that's why I think it's super unique and worth reading. - Okay. - Did you watch the anime or read the manga first? - Anime first. - Okay. I should have expected that actually. - So anime, I watched the anime and I thought, I just watched it and I thought it was kind of meh, it was kind of boring. I thought it was okay. I thought season two was god awful. And at this time, "Book of Circus" hadn't came out yet.

And basically I did that and then someone was like, "Oh, you should just do like character impressions for my YouTube channel." I was like, "Oh, okay." I did a few and then Sebastian just happened to be the one that I tried first. And I thought I sounded nothing like him.

- Posh British butler guy. - Oh my God, it's him. But then looking back, I'm like, it doesn't even sound like J. Michael Taylor. But you know, I'm sure he was offended that people were, I'd be offended. And then I did that and then I got, you know, I got surrounded by people who loved it and who kept like telling me, read it, read it, read it. And I was like reluctant. I was like, no. - So wait, what was the first manga you ever read? Is it on the three by three?

that you distinctly remember. - Might've been Black, no, it must've been Black Butler. - It was Black Butler? - It was Black Butler and I didn't read any for like two years. - Right. - You just thought manga equals Black Butler. - Because the reason why I actually got into it, I remember this now, 'cause I did a manga dub of part of the, I can't remember what the boat arc's called, the campaign arc, campaign? - Just the boat arc. - The book of Atlantic, is it?

Book of Atlantic. Because they made a movie about it. I haven't watched the movie. I did a comic dub of a portion of that. And so, yeah, I just ended up reading it because I was like, oh, this arc looks cool. And I had it out of context and I was like, oh, okay, well, this is cool. I'm going to go read the rest. And I started reading it and I read past that point and then I stopped. Right. But,

- Right. - But everything before I enjoyed, but I'm probably gonna go finish it. - Yeah, because what I want to know is that I'm looking at most of these and I'd say a lot of these have come from recommendations, literally from us telling you to go out and read it. - I know exactly which one's gone recommended. I know which ones I recommended.

- So let's- - So do it in the order of I read them? - Yeah, yeah, yeah, go for it. - Okay, so next up was "One Punch Man." - Okay. - Yeah, so what inspired you to read "One Punch Man?" - I guess the anime, right? - Season one was too good. Like how can you, you can't cock block me like that, right? Like season one was so good. - Yeah. - And...

I saw the manga and I was like, oh, a lot of the times when I'd see the manga and when I wanted to go further, like past the anime, I would start reading the manga and I'm like, ah, it's not the same. But "One Punch Man" was the one where I was like, holy shit, this is insane. Like this artwork is just,

- Yeah, I noticed you have two Murata Yusuke manga. - Yeah. - I love his art, man. - He's a beast. - And he's so good at visually conveying like- - Action. - Action and also just kind of like metaphors I've seen. - God, yeah, let's talk about, I swear like, because I think especially in sports anime, sports anime a lot of times live and die by the metaphor.

Because concepts need to be explained. Because how can you convey a certain move or a certain aspect of a sport that people who do not understand a sport can easily understand? You go for metaphors. And by far, the manga that does the best visual metaphors is Aisho 21. Fuck your haikyuu and your fucking crows or whatever. This is why I would want him to do a trash anime.

He would explain the concepts of chess through metaphors. Like this is a pin and he'd figure out some weird fucking way of showing it. I would love that, but sadly it's not popular in Japan. Big rip. But yeah, One Punch Man. I just like, dude, this one was still to this day one of my favorite manga. Out of all of these, I still think that One Punch Man is maybe one of my favorites. It's so hard. - Yeah, that's the difficult one. 'Cause you have Jojo there as well. - 'Cause Jojo's there as well. And I think Jojo might be my favorite, obviously.

- I think JoJo is my favorite, 'cause I have a difference between my favorite and the one I enjoyed the most. - Yeah. - Right. - And I think I enjoyed "One Punch Man" the most, 'cause it was just pure fun. - Yeah. - But JoJo is my favorite, 'cause there's so much about JoJo that I love. - Oh yeah. - And I love the style of JoJo, I love all of that. And I feel like JoJo is so much more than just

the manga, it's experience. - It's a culture. - You don't just read Jojo. - You live it. - You live it. You experience it. You become Jojo. - There's just something about Jojo, which we'll talk about later, but yeah, there's something about it. But "One Punch Man", man, like I finished season one

And I was like, okay, I'm gonna check it out. I'm gonna see what happens after. 'Cause it ends, because I mean, after you watch the Boros fight, which, you know, if you haven't, if you don't know what One Punch Man is, I'm gonna explain to you. It's a guy who beats everyone in one punch. That's literally it. - And he's a man. - And at the end of the season one of the anime, he has this amazing fight that is so visually stunning and just amazing. And it's so hype. And it's probably one of the coolest animated fights in anime.

And I was like, okay, I have to know where this can go. 'Cause everyone's saying the story's amazing onwards. So I started reading it and I was like, oh, okay, this is pretty cool. The next arc starts and I'm like, okay, this is really interesting. 'Cause we start the, what's it known as the monster arc. - Yeah, and the Garu arc.

- Garou. - Yeah. And they introduced Garou, which is like one of the main characters going forward in the anime and manga. And season two covers, I'd probably say the beginning, just barely the beginning of one of the next arc. - It's a long arc, yeah. - It's very long. It's still ongoing on the manga. Yeah, I started reading it and I was like, "Goddamn, this man's drawings are just another level." - Yeah. - But actually insane.

It's insane because I remember reading One Punch Man before the anime came out because everyone was hyping it up. So I was like, it was the one show when I'm just like, let me just see, let me just read like a chapter or two just to see what I can expect. So I tried reading a chapter or two and then I read everything that was out. You can't pick that up and not read everything. It's impossible. And then I remember reading it and being like, there's no way the anime is going to live up

to this height. I was just like, there's no fucking way. But like not because the art is like, I think some of the best art that's available. I mean, there's- - Dude, when you turn the pad, there's a panel, right? Where Saitama punches so hard, the clouds split. And in this panel, like the detail on the earth and the clouds is insane. - No, there's some panels that are literally just animated key frames where you read it and it's just like an anime because it's just,

basically key frames, right? So like I was very, very impressed at the team at Madhouse for being able to put their own spin on his amazing fucking art. Like living up to this amazing art. But even without that, One Punch Man is some of the best battle shonen like art that you can find in all of anime and manga. - Yeah, and I think that I'm very glad that One Punch Man season one was animated the way there was because I think anime season one

is more of a comedy. And then season two onwards is an action. I feel like the comedy very much takes a backseat after the first arc. - Well, yeah, because I mean, you can only do so much with that single concept, right? - Yeah, but like the way that they made it work every time was so genius and funny. Like "One Punch Man" season one is one of the funniest shows in anime.

- Yeah, I agree. - And in the manga, I feel that although the art is much better, I feel like the comedy doesn't hit as hard because the comedic timing is super important for jokes. And I feel like you can't have as good comedic timing when you're reading something as when you were experiencing it, the joke. - I think it's just like a different experience or a different like- - It's a different type of comedy. - But a joke read aloud will always be funnier than a joke you've read. Like that's just- - I don't know. - I disagree. - I disagree. - I mean, I thought that too until I read like stuff like "Gintama."

- Yeah, but I bet the Gintama anime delivers the lines funnier. - I don't know, it's hard to say. Like sometimes it does, yes. But then there are some chapters that I think Gintama is the only manga that's genuinely made me laugh out loud reading it.

And that's like a very powerful thing to say. 'Cause like, again, it's like, as you said, a joke is much funnier said out loud. - But it's like timing, timing, you know, everything playing into the joke. There's so many aspects that can help elevate the joke in anime. - I think that comes down to at least with manga, how good you are at like framing. And I think Munata Yusuke is so fucking good at framing like a

that he can just somehow do that with comedy as well. He already proved it with actual 21's action scenes. And this man can also do comedy as well. I'm like, what can this man not do? - I've read the original one web comic. - Oh yeah, how was that? - Yeah, it's a lot harder to go to.

- So explain one can't draw. - So the original, yeah, the original "One Punch Man" is a webcomic. I'm sure you guys know this. It's a webcomic. And then Manato Yusuke picked it up and was like, "Hey, let me draw good for you, like real good." And then it published and shown in not jump. It used to be jump, right? - Jump plus. - Jump plus now, right? It's once a month, which is painful because I think one did weekly.

I believe the webcomic's over now, right? Is it? Kind of. It's not over. It's just on hiatus. Oh, okay. Because I've read up to everything that's out and it's just kind of in the middle of an arc right now. Yeah. But like the manga right now is adapting the, it's so- It's in the monster arc still. Yeah, it's still in the monster arc. So it's taken the webcomic as kind of like a basis and just really expanding on that. Yeah, I've noticed because that they've, in the differences between the manga and the webcomic is that they've,

put aspects of the story that happened, they've moved them around in the manga into better timings. Yeah, yeah. There's some characters that got their backstory in the webcomic at a certain time that they were shifted to them when they were having a fight. They got the flashback and their backstory. There's a superhero called Super Black Alloy

who is a man that is super muscular. Yeah. That's his thing. And he gets his flashback at a different time, but in the actual, the redone manga, he gets it during one of his fights with Garou. Right. Which I noticed was like, oh, okay, that's interesting. I didn't know they were mixing things around. Yeah. But yeah, the manga is...

- Oh my God, just take a one look at some of these panels and you'll be reading it for sure. - Oh yeah, yeah. It's definitely one of the best action manga I've ever read, if not the best, honestly. - Yeah, it's hard. I can't think of anything that in terms of just pure action and fights that comes close in my mind. I mean, I haven't read many, so I can't say, but anime and stuff. - I mean, I still think it's one of the best. - It's definitely one of the best, yeah. - This episode is sponsored by ExpressVPN. Going online without ExpressVPN is like not having a case on your phone.

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- It just works. - It works. - It just works. - I have no complaints. - The key to online activity today by visiting expressvpn.com/trashtaste. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N.com/trashtaste. And you can get an extra three months for free. - Expressvpn.com/trashtaste. Links in the description. Back to the show. - I really like, as you said, Terraformers. Terraformers is great action. - That was a great moment. - Yeah, but like,

the story is kind of mad at times. Yeah. But the action is spot on. It's so cool. We've spoken about Terraformers before, but Terraformers is just the, it's a manga, which is one of my favorites. And I've, it has like a ridiculous amount of chapters. I think like 400 something. I think it has. Yeah.

- It's almost 30 volumes, I think. - Yeah, and it's like, I think they just started a new arc when I stopped reading it and it felt like it was gonna be the last and biggest arc. And I was like, fuck me. - I think it's already finished. - Has it finished? - I think. - Has it? - I don't know. - No way. - 'Cause I only read up to around volume 11 or 12. - So the concept of terraformers,

which I was so fucking sold on this concept. Cause I was like, that's fucking bad. - Yeah, it's very cool. - So they sent a mission to explore the moon. And when they got there, there was cockroaches that could just, that were just ripped.

- Giga Chad. - Giga Chad cockroaches. - Someone had shot their fridge into the moon and it had cockroach on there. - Yeah, sorry about that. It's like Giga Chad cockroach. I know we've spoken about terraforms before on like the third episode or something. - Yeah, it's been a while. - Yeah, so there's cockroaches on the moon and turn the moon

Turns out they're not just any normal cockroaches. They're giga tad cockroaches that are like super human beings. Super smart, but have the senses of cockroaches. So this whole team dies that goes there. And you see this right away, so it's not a spoiler. So then Earth goes and they're like, we must do something. So they go and get...

or people they think are worthy to fight and they inject them or in their DNA with insect DNA. - Yeah, insect DNA. - So each one of them has insect attributes. So one of them is like a praying mantis mixed with a human. And so he can punch really like lightning fast. - One of them, I think they inject it with like a flea so they can jump really fucking high. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this was an Irish soul. One of them got the, what is the, fuck, what's it called?

it's the shrimp that can like flick at like- - Oh, the punching shrimp. - The mantis shrimp. - The mantis shrimp. - Yeah, yeah. - It's the mantis shrimp that can break glass by flicking the air in front of it. And I was like, "Oh shit, I know the mantis shrimp is badass." And so then they send them to the moon to go and do research and fight back against this. - Fight the tchats. - And it's so fucking cool 'cause then it turns into like a political thing because obviously if there's shit on the moon, there's gonna be a lot of countries arguing about what's going on there and who did it, why was this here? How many chapters does it have?

- 22 volumes. - 22 volumes? - Okay, is it over or is it still going? - It's 2000, yeah, it's over. - Oh, it's over? - Yeah. - Oh, okay, I need to finish it then. - Well, I guess this is just a "Conan needs to catch up to manga" episode. - I read it three years ago and it was still ongoing. Was it? - Yeah. - When did it end? - A couple of years ago, right? - 2014. - No. - Oh, is it? - I think it started in 2014, didn't it? - It started in 2011. - Oh, shit. - Wait, when did it finish?

- Really? There's no way I could have read everything 'cause when I finished reading it, it was not done. - Yeah, it was still going at that point, I'm pretty sure. - Are you sure it's over? - Either way, you need to catch up on it. - Either way, I need to catch up and it was such a fun manga. And if you like "One Punch Man," I think you'll love "Terraformers." - I'm curious, how did you find "Terraformers?" 'Cause most of these- - I watched the anime.

- I'm sorry, I'm sorry you had to hear that. - What convinced you from the anime to be like, "I'll read the manga, maybe the manga is better." - Okay, so Terraformers had an anime adaptation and it was notorious for being absolutely dreadful because what they did was they made this extremely gory anime and they were like, "This is great, let's just censor everything." But they did it in the worst fucking way. They literally just put

black dots and bars across the screen. So there was some scenes where you couldn't see anything. - It's literally infamous. 'Cause I remember when it first- - Put some screenshots on the screen. - Yeah, 'cause I remember I read some of the films before the anime came out and I was just like, how are they gonna adapt this? 'Cause some of these scenes are pretty like brutal, pretty gory. And then I saw that, I think the famous scene is where like the cockroach is holding someone's head and he's just holding a black dot. - Because dude, this, I'm still convinced, right? If this had like,

like a good anime adaptation, like a solid animation, like not one punch man level, but close to it, right? Of the action scenes being done that well, this would be like fucking top 10 anime. - And that's why I was looking forward to it. 'Cause I remember I got recommended the manga from like one of my friends who was like, "Dude, you have to fucking read this, it's amazing."

- Because could you imagine the shock people would get when they're like this? 'Cause there's a scene, right? Where it's very early on. So it's not really a spoiler, but one of the scenes, 'cause all the teams drop in different locations on the moon. So you kind of get like play by plays of where all the different teams are on the moon. And one of the scenes where one team just goes out of the ship and immediately just they see a flash and someone's lost their head already. And it's like,

- And it was like right after she was injected as well. So it's like, all right, here comes the part where she kicks ass and then immediately dies. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like, oh shit, they're stronger. And it's like, everything about this show is so hype. And like reading the manga is like, okay, how are they gonna build on this? And they just keep finding ways to make it more and more interesting. It's like, holy shit. - And the art style is so good.

- The market just never stops kicking off. It's like permanently just kicking off. - It's constantly popping off. - There's always fights and if there's not fights, there's some like Game of Thrones political shit going on. And it's like, all right, just as we're on the moon doesn't mean that China doesn't hate Russia. Like there's stuff going on. And then it's like, it's so good. And it's yeah. And I love how they introduce like,

I love it when shows, when there's a lot of characters that is like, this is the character, this is where they're from, this is their height, this is their ability. And you're like, sick, sick, thanks. Now I can mentally remember that information. - Yeah, 'cause how I discovered "Terraformers" is moving on to the next show on your list, which is "Gantz." Like I literally finished "Gantz." I was like, I need more shows like "Gantz." - Yeah, it's very reminiscent of "Gantz." - I think it's just like how brutal and unpredictable, like,

- Unpredictable it is in terms of who's gonna live, who's gonna die. And I feel like it's the meme where if you can't predict what's gonna happen or who's gonna die, it's like, oh, it's gonna look like the Game of Thrones. But like the first time I actually was like properly shocked at who lived and who died was fucking Gantz. Which I don't know if how much we can go into spoilers about Gantz, but like,

You cannot predict who dies in it. - It's insane. - Yeah. - And the anime was like, it was decent. It was pretty solid. - I feel like if you are between the ages of like, even though you shouldn't be reading this if you're 16, but if you are the age of 16. - No, no, no, no. This is like the perfect, I think I watched the anime when I was 16 years old. - This is like the most I'm 16 and I want to be experiencing badass. Because, okay, there's a scene that happens very early on, right? And this is quite graphic where,

So I wish I could explain the premise, right? So Gantz, what happens is, wait, how does it very, very start? It starts with the two main characters jumping in front of a train. Yeah, so- Oh, that's, oh my God, that's right. So the two characters die in a train crash or like- And that scene was fucked as well. Yeah, so they died pretty brutally in a train crash. And afterwards they wake up in this room and this black-

has transported them to this room along with a lot of- - It's so fucking iconic. - Along with other people who have just died and the- - They're all wearing suits, right? - And everyone's wearing a suit. They kind of look like they're wearing like GIMP suits or whatever. - Morph suits. - Yeah. And they're told that they have to go kill this alien. - Oh wait, no, they don't wear the suits. They're told to wear the suits. - Yeah, they're told to wear the suits. - Some people don't want to wear the suits. - It looks like a fucking-

- It does look like a gimp suit. - Yeah, it does kind of look like a gimp suit, right? - And there's just a moment in this anime, the animanga, it's a slight spoiler, but not really, it happens really early on, where

like a girl gets transported in the room and he's like a teenage boy and he's like, let's have sex. And she's like, okay. - Yeah. - And then you just have sex. And you see it and you're like, whoa, okay, what? - And they don't do a terraformers in the anime. - Oh no, no, no. - They show it in the anime. - In the anime there's literally two sex scenes in the anime. - Yeah, and he just start having sex there in the fucking hallway of this house. - That's right. - And it's like, whoa, okay.

I haven't experienced this before in a manga. - Yeah. - Just fucking happening. All right. - I don't even think doujins get into the sex scene. - No, no, no. - It was literally just the girl appears like, "Do you wanna have sex 'cause we're dead?" And he's like, "Yeah, sure." - Yeah.

- And I remember watching, literally watching Gantz when I was about like, yeah, 15, 16. - It is the most I'm 16 and one of the baddest show. - And I'm just like, oh my God, they're showing a sex scene in an anime. - But even now, when I read it like last year, it's one of those shows that there's nothing quite like it. So you're like, whoa, this is really fresh, holy shit. I haven't experienced anything like this. And it doesn't hold punches, and the whole aspect is that they have to,

kill these demons that exist in the human world? - Aliens. - Aliens. - Yeah, they say that there's been aliens that have been living in the human world and then they have to like kill them and so- - And they're worth points and they have to get X amount of points to come back alive. - Yeah, exactly. Or there's different things that they can do with points. They can bring,

people who have died before back to life as well. The point is that to kill an alien first, you think it's like an easy thing to do, but like it's really, really fucking difficult to kill these aliens. And every arc, there's a different alien that they need to kill. And there's a different, and it gets harder and harder and progressively like more and more people die to the point where you can never really expect who's going to live and who's going to die. And I remember like, I feel like,

I feel like the peak arc was part two because it's like separated into three parts. I think part two was the best. Part three had some really, really good moments. I feel like there is a certain climax to Gantz

that really like it made me really existential. - Yeah, I know what you're on about. - And without spoiling too specific details, when they find the creator of these balls, that fucking scene just like, I remember reading the events of that scene and I'm just like,

- This man did like 10 tabs of LSD. It's so like giga brain existentialism. - I mean, have you read anything else by Oku Gido? - Yeah, I know he did the- - Inuyashiki was fucked. - Yeah, I know of the other stuff he's done and it's all fucked from what I've heard. - He did Inuyashiki, the most recent one he did was this one called Gigant. - I've heard of it. - Gigant? - Yeah, Gigant. It's like Giga and Gant put together.

- Yeah, another just awful. - Gigant is also just like, I've started reading it. - Is it finished? - No, it's still going. - I can't take that title seriously. - It's really fucking good, but it's like, you know it's an "Okuhiro" manga 'cause it's just fucked. - There is one scene that I will warn you is extremely questionable.

in the show. - Oh yeah. - And we spoke about this before on the podcast, it's extremely questionable. Just giving you a heads up. Yeah, it's a little racist, quite racist. - I mean, I should have a similar scene. - Yeah, I think we spoke about this before on the podcast as well, but just get heads up if you do go into it, there is like that moment. It's very yikes and like, okay, all right.

- All right. - All right, cool. - What I love about Gantz and Terraformers is just it's pure batshit insane fun. - Oh yeah. - It is. And like, it's kind of like the edgy 16 year old in you, but like there are some- - But it brings out the 16 year old in you that thinks like,

- Just fighting and death is badass. - But there's like two kind of different categories I put this in. There's like the edgy 16 year old kind of shows where it brings that out of you and it remembers what you felt like when you were 16. And then there's shows like "Elf and Lead" and "Mirai Nikki." - I was about to say "Elf and Lead." - Yeah, that you watch and I'm just like, damn, why the fuck did I ever enjoy this?

- Yeah, Gantz I can look back and I'm like, that was good. - Yeah, that was good. - Elfen Lied I look back and I'm like, why was this even remotely popular? - Yeah, I was like, Elfen Lied 10 out of 10 when I was 16. - I'm just like, was I this easy to trick when I was 16 when I saw blood and tits? - Because yeah, when you were 16, this is new to you. Like this shit is exciting. You're like, whoa, they can do this? - It's edgy, it's artistic. - Yeah, it's just like, it's crazy. - Yeah, I remember a point when Elfen Lied was literally, when I joined the community, Elfen Lied was,

considered like a modern day classic. - I think to a lot of people it still is. - No. - I think to a lot of people it still is. - A lot of people still do. - Really? - Yeah. - And then someone was like, if you thought the anime was good, read the manga 'cause it's like completely different. And I was like, all right, bet. - And it's no different. - No, it is. It's actually more fucked in the manga. But like, you know, 16 year old Eiji Mi was like, how could they improve on this? And then you read it now and I'm like,

- I mean, I think I like watched like Fullmetal Alchemist before it, you know? And then just going from that where I was like, okay. - You went from Fullmetal Alchemist to Elven? - Yeah, I was like looking at my monitor on like all, like with all these fucking pop-ups everywhere. Like, whoa, what the fuck? She just cut them up. With like ghost arms, like what?

- Yeah, I think that like the next show after Elfen Lied and Mira Aoniki was probably Akamagakill where I remember it got so fucking popular. And I'm just like, I watched the anime. - That is peak I'm 16 energy. - I am 16, I'm 14 and this is deep. - I am convinced, right? Okay, I like Elfen, not Elfen Lied, I like Akamagakill. I'm just gonna say it right now. I like it, okay? I don't care what people say. I like it, fuck you. I like the anime. - Wait, did you finish it? - The anime? - Yeah.

- You still like it? - I still like it. - Okay. - You can clown on me all you want. I liked it. - That's fine. You're entitled to your wrong opinion. - I think this will make sense. This is how I view it. POV, you're a fairytale fan. You're tired of fairytale. You want something a little edgier. You go immediately to "Akamega Kill." It feels, think about it. It is literally,

with fans, but with way more edge. Because it feels like fairytale in many aspects where it's like, this is dumb, dumb shit. - Why specifically fairytale? - Because people who like Akimega Kill are fairytale fans. - You are right. You are right about that. - It is literally, if you are a fairytale fan, I bet you love Akimega Kill. - Yeah, you are right, 100%. - Think about it, think about it. - I'd say it's more Seven Deadly Sins.

- No, but that's- - They're all kind of in the same pool. - Seven deadly sins I think is slightly different. - You think so? - We need to make a chart of like what you're likely to like based on which show. - Can we just get like a cork board and- - Yeah, we do, right? I think if-

- If Seven Deadly Sins is on one end, it's like Hunter Hunter is on the other end, I think. And then what other Sheridans are there? Like, I don't know. Just like, I don't know, fucking Seven Deadly Sins somewhere else. - To me, I Can't Make a Kill is just like the generation that go into Seven Deadly Sins or Fairy Tale. And then they also watch Mirai Nikki and they were like, what if we just combine the two?

What if we just combine the two and then you get a Akamega Kill and you're like, great. You require even less brain cells to enjoy this. Brilliant. - Even though I recognize the ending was fucking dumb for Akamega Kill, I liked it. I thought it was fun. I had a great time watching that. I'm not afraid to admit that. - The plot twist.

I was just like, come the fuck on. - Yeah, it was come the fuck on. But I still had a lot of fun. Like before that, I had a lot of fun with the show. I really enjoyed it. - Admittedly, as much as I clowned on "Archimedes Killed," first like five, six episodes, pretty fun. It's just like brainless fun. - You know what else I read all of as well? I just remembered now. Sorry, do you have anything else to say? - No, no, no, I was just gonna say. - I read all of "Deadman Wonderland."

- Oh really? - Yeah. - Oh, that's also, I'm 16 and that's you. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I was just sure. It's all rushing back now. - I wanted, you know what? I went on the thing where I was like- - Yeah, because the anime ending sucked. - Yeah, I was like, I had this, this was like two years ago I read it. I had the feeling, I was like, you know what? I just want to finish a manga to an anime that didn't get an ending. And I was like, okay, "Demon Wonderland."

And the manga was definitely better, but the manga had a shit ending too. - Yeah, I mean, not as bad as the anime, but it's still not as, yeah. - It was still shit. It was fine. "Deadman Wonderland" was very fine. - Yeah, I think I was exactly the same 'cause I finished "Deadman Wonderland." - And I liked the anime a lot. - Yeah, the anime was great until about episode 10. And then there's the last couple of episodes where they're just like, "Oh, ran out of budget."

- Yeah, basically. - And so I was like, okay, okay. I need to see how this ends. - So what did we talk about? - Do we need to talk about JoJo? Do we really need to talk about JoJo? Do you wanna talk about JoJo?

- To read seven. I haven't actually read "Djolion" yet, but- - It's about to end. - As of the time of recording this, they just announced that it's gonna end next month. - Yeah, next month. - I'm probably gonna speed run reading "Djolion" so that I can talk about it. - I still have to read, I think I'm like one volume behind right now and it's pretty fucking good so far. I'm surprised that ending of this

because I'm not gonna go into it. - I've heard that it was not too long ago that we got introduced to the main villain. So yeah, I don't wanna say anything 'cause I don't know anything. That's just what I know. So, 'cause everyone was telling me that it had so much left, but whatever.

- Whatever. I'm probably gonna read it. I might make a video about it. I don't know if I should on my main channel. - It's pretty good. - Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. - I wouldn't say it's as good as- - I think it would be on brand for you, right? - Yeah, it'd be on brand for you. In my opinion, it's not as good as like past six or seven, but it's up there. It's still pretty good. It's JoJo. - We'll see how this,

how your feelings will change with the new. - Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Like the ending of JoJolion might be fucking amazing, right? - True. - Who knows? - But yeah, JoJo, I mean. - I mean, it was the JoJo manga that made you a JoJo fan, right? - Yeah, so it was definitely, I was watching part five and I wanted more of part five 'cause it hadn't fully aired. We were only like 10 episodes in and I was really enjoying it. So I went and picked up the manga and I just fucking loved it. Like I just had such a great time.

It's a shame that the English official releases are quite slow. I think they just finished

- Part four translation. - Yeah, I mean like- - Oh really? - Yeah. - Oh geez. - Like a lot of people forget that JoJo just like was this super fucking underground manga that only like a select few people really read before the anime became a thing. - In the West. - Yeah, in the West. And so like there was just no interest to translate it officially until the anime came out. Now it's weird seeing it become this like massive, one of the most biggest anime franchises out there right now. - I remember I made a video on, what was it? It was like,

- I had this series like back in the, it's like five years ago. I had this series where I would like go into manga and like kind of find like myths and like kind of secrets and stuff like that and kind of talk about it. And I remember I made a video on, it was part three, Oingo Boingo. And there's that like, you know, the manga that he opened? - Oh, the 9/11. - The 9/11 thing. I made a video on that five years ago, no views.

- No views at all. I was like, oh my God. And that's when I realized I was like, oh, no one in the West knows JoJo. - Yeah. - At that point. - I feel like JoJo was such a 50/50 on whether it would do well. - Yeah. - I think it just- - I'm really surprised that it did. - It just got, I think it just got lucky with the memes. - I think so, yeah. - I think the memes- - It was like so perfected for meme culture that it was like so ahead of its time. - Yeah. - And it's really weird. - Because it wasn't really memed until part three.

Yeah, yeah. The anime came out.

I feel like I did not see anything about it until part three came out. And then I saw, I never stopped seeing the Dio versus Jotaro, like steam sale memes, you know, and I would see, you'd see a ton of memes with the order and all that. Yeah. That's when it really started picking up steam, I think. And then it started, then I think the people started realizing how good the anime adaptation was. And then part, I remember it really kicked off during part four. Yeah. In the West was when it started really getting some steam. Yeah.

And then part five, just like insane. - Pull it out of the water. - The part five anime adaptation of JoJo really like centered into like this, like, 'cause the fucking Jordan knows theme did numbers for the meme community. And JoJo in general, I mean, how many people got into part JoJo in general from the Jordan knows theme?

- Yeah. - 'Cause I mean- - It's like the, what was the Undertale theme? - "Megalovania." - "Megalovania." - Yeah, it's up there with "Megalovania" in terms of like iconic meme music. - It's that of the anime community, right? - Because think of like iconic meme music that came out in the past 10 years. What have you got there, like actual like,

like iconic, like super iconic. You've got the Jewish theme, Megalovania. There's probably some other that I'm forgetting. - Yeah. - But I think that wasn't really an explosion of like, JoJo never exploded. It just slowly crept up in popularity until you couldn't like- - I thought it was inescapable. - I thought the part five really helped.

since part five started airing, it really blew up. I feel like a noticeable change. Yeah. In my opinion, part five is probably one of the only parts where it's actually better in the anime. Yeah. Yeah. Part four, I think you can go either or. Part four is yeah, either or. Three, three, two, and one, a hundred percent the manga. Yeah. I think part three was like dragged out too much in the,

anime. Yeah, you can speed run it. You can be like, all right, obviously don't do that, but you can get through it at a good pace. But the part three of the anime is very slow, which I think Jojo in general is better in manga also because you have part six and seven, which are very good. Part seven being especially notorious for being amazing. Part seven is- Part seven is amazing.

- Part seven is where I feel like Araki really came into his own and finally made like the perfect JoJo part where there was no pacing issues. I feel like every part of JoJo had some kind of weird pacing at some point or another. - Every character was fun and like memorable. - Yeah, so for example, like part three, it drags out a bunch. Part two is very short and sweet. You don't really get too much, but it's very nice. And that's why part two is really nice. - I mean, Joseph's the only redeeming factor about part two in a lot of ways, right? - Yeah, Joseph is very, yeah. The villain's boring, right? Part one.

I mean, it's notoriously boring. It's quite boring. I won't lie. It has a lot of charm as a JoJo fan. - But at least it's short. - It's very short. You can read through it. Part four, Kira, who is arguably one of the best villains in JoJo, isn't there for the first half. So you kind of get a slice of life for the first part, which is fun, but it takes a while for it to kind of find its footing. - If you're not a fan of that kind of stuff, then you can easily like fall off it and be like, why is this popular? Why do people like this? - Part five is very solid.

I think that Jonah is one of the weaker Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo- Jo-Jo-Jo-Jo- Jo-Jo- Jo-Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo- Jo

But part seven is like from start to finish, banger. Every single character, banger. Like the villains, even like the side villains are amazing. - It does have kind of the least memorable JoJo's though.

- Johnny. - Yeah, I don't know. I feel like when we get- - Johnny doesn't get good till like the last quarter maybe. - Johnny comes into his own. - Yeah. - But I feel like Jono doesn't really come into his own. - No. - At any point. - No. - Sorry if we're going on a whole talk about JoJo. - Watch or read JoJo. - Just talk about JoJo. - JoJo fans being JoJo fans. - Exactly. - Right? - You need to read it 'cause then you can experience part seven, which you should 100% read. It is amazing. No, you can't skip to it. Don't do that.

'Cause part seven has so many references to previous parts. You'd be spoiling it. Read it all. It's amazing. - Yeah, yeah. - All right, what else? - Vinland Saga. - Vinland Saga. Did you put this on your list or not? Or did we get into it? - I didn't put this on my list. - Oh, okay. - I almost did, but then I was like, the anime's out. - Vinland Saga gets to go on my list. Wongs the Banger too because they spelt a Welsh town correctly. - Yeah, it's got one of the most badass antagonists

in like manga and he's Welsh. He's Welsh as well. Of course, I knew you'd love this. - Let's go lads. - Represent. - Represent. They went to like somewhere and I was so glad that they, I really wanna, 'cause obviously I read it in English. I really wanna see how they spelt this Welsh town in Katakana. - In Katakana. - 'Cause it was like Brcheinog or something. - Right. - And I was like, how the fuck do you, how the hell on earth do you- - I don't remember how, I'm pretty sure I got up to that part, but I don't remember how they spelled it.

I really want to see how they spelt it. - I was just like, oh, that's a funny name. - 'Cause how on earth did you put the sound? - They probably don't. - They probably didn't. - Yeah, they probably did. They probably did like, rock cook. But yeah, no, honestly, memes aside, Vinland Saga is amazing. - Brilliant. - I think even if I had read more than 10 manga, it would still be on there. It is so fucking good. - And it's on hiatus and it's still amazing. - Is it on hiatus? Yeah, isn't it? - I don't know.

- I feel like it's still on. - I read up to a certain point, I caught up and then I stopped. - What is it about like all these like seinen manga, the seinen classics, I would like to call them that just eventually go on hiatus. - The seinen masterpieces always go on hiatus. - Yeah, seinen masterpieces always go on hiatus, right? - Man, it's just villain saga is just amazing.

when you realize it's a fucking prologue, the first arc is just a prologue. And yet it's still one of the best stories ever told. - Okay, what do you think for, 'cause if you've seen season one of "Villain Saga," you know what the prologue is, you know what the main beginning arc is. What do you think of the farmland arc?

I really like the "Farmland Arc." - I'm excited to see the reaction of the anime only viewers to the "Farmland Arc." - Okay, so we won't talk too much about it, we don't wanna spoil it, but it changes the pace drastically. - Yeah. - Okay, so if you think that, if you go into season two thinking that it's going to be in the same vein as season one, you're going to be disappointed. - The way I find a feel about it, right, is that,

Berserk and Vinland Saga, they have a crossroads and they both went different ways with it. Whereas, for example, Guts, right? Never stops becoming violent. Guts arguably becomes more violent every time. And Vinland Saga tries to make a character that maybe feels a little bit more guilty about that. And so that's what was really interesting for me is that they weren't just like, okay, this guy's good at killing. That's what he does now. He just keeps killing. It's like, no, he actively, he matures. He doesn't want to keep doing that.

And that's what's so interesting about it and really recommend reading it. It is just amazing. - It's like a huge artistic risk he took with that. - Oh yeah. - I think it paid off. - It paid off. - It's like the worst thing he did

was making the prologue so fucking good. Like imagine that being the worst thing you could do. You made it so fucking good that people expected you to keep doing that. And it's like, he keeps doing it, but in a completely different type of story. Cause it's like villain saga is fucking incredible, but like the prologue is...

so different than the rest of the story that if you come into it with the same expectations, you're gonna just get whiplash. You're gonna be like, where's the action? Where's the killing? Where's the violence? There was so much of this in season one. And I was just like, well, once you realize that the story was never about that, that the story was all about- - They were building it up the whole time. - Yeah, when you realize that everything that his father said

at the beginning was what the story was meant to be about from the get go. And everything else was just like, everything else was like a bigger tangent than anything that we've ever gone on. - Yeah. - It's brilliant. - Yeah, season one is just a tangent. - But it's so true to life 'cause even if your dad told you shit, you wouldn't fucking listen to him. But then you'll realize when you're an adult, he was right all along. - Yeah, exactly. - And it's genius. - I'm sorry I went against you, Father. - It's so good because it's so, like even though the situation's obviously crazy, but even though it's not that unbelievable 'cause it's set on like a real part of history.

It builds characters in such a compelling way that are so realistic. And every single character in this show, you're like, I believe that could be a dude. Yeah. I believe that I see parallels to myself and some of these characters that are uncomfortable. Yeah. And that's what I loved about it. It was so good. And it presented war in a horrific way. Yeah. As war should be. Yeah.

And so if you haven't, please do yourself a solid and read Vinland Saga. It is amazing. And I'm so excited. - If you like Vikings, it's all about that. - If you like Vikings, and just at least read it for Askeladd. Or at least watch the anime for Askeladd. - Whilst I present? - 'Cause he is honestly like, I think one of my favorite characters in the medium. - Oh yeah, straight up. - And also, I mean, I'm very excited for the reaction to anime fans, anime only fans to the season two. To be like, "Hey, when does stuff happen?"

- So how long are they gonna stay on this farm for? - It goes from like Doom to RuneScape in like one chapter. - It's like Doom to Farmville. - Like Stardew Valley or something like that. - I guess that's spoilers enough, right? - I mean, Berserk, we literally just talked about Berserk. It's a classic for a reason. - I've spoken about Claymore before.

Claymore again is a very similar to, I guess, Berserk in some ways. - Yeah, I mean, stock fantasy, right? - Would you say you enjoyed it enough that if you had read more manga, you think it would still be in your- - I don't think it would be on here if I had read some other big names that I know I would enjoy. I think it's got a banger first half and then loses its steam. There's some stories where you're reading the manga and you're like, this motherfucker planned everything like a blueprint. He knew exactly what was gonna happen and he knew exactly where this was going.

Whereas with Claymore, I feel like they were just writing it and he had a core idea and he just didn't, or they, I don't know if it's a guy or a girl. They just didn't really know how they wanted to finish it. But I believe George R.R. Martin talks about this. There's two ways of writing stories and there's the architect and the, something like the,

something to do with like growing plants or something. One likes to design everything like a building. You have every single aspect out perfectly. And the other, it's like a greenhouse. You just kind of grow things, see where it goes, see what goes with it. And I definitely feel like that is a riskier way of doing stories, but also can lead to some super interesting results. And I feel like Claymore just kind of lost- - And I felt like the architect type is like, the downside to it is like you could build too much and then you kind of have to like, oh, should I have to pick up

all these pieces somewhere. - Maybe you build too much of the world, which sometimes is a bad thing. - I mean, you can pull a Togashi, right? And just like hunter hunter, introduce like 17,000 things. It's just harder to maintain as well. - Yeah, exactly. - You put more bricks down and then you forget the foundations you laid. Then you start building a chimney where you've already built like a fireplace on the other side. It doesn't make like any sense sometimes. - Maybe I'm running out of bricks. I don't have much time left. My back hurts. I can't draw shit. I should have thought about this. - Or you could just be like Araki and just be like, I'm just gonna,

- I'll plant the seed here and see how it goes. - Which is what I love about, that is the perfect example of that kind of writing. Araki literally just gives you ideas and then he just keeps expanding on it. And you can tell he has some idea of where he wants it to go, but you can tell also there's so many moments where he just, and he even says it himself, right? Where he just decides to do things. - He doesn't remember half the shit he wrote. - It's such a fun way, and it leads to such fun writing. - Yeah, 100%. - But yeah, Claymore, although,

- An amazing concept, amazing first half. Yeah, definitely. - And the art is so good. - Yeah, the art is like up there. - It's one of the best. - Fucking love it. - What is it about dark fantasy where just the art is just always a bang? - I don't know. It's like a rite of passage, right? Oh, you want to write a dark fantasy? Show me your drawing. - You better have godly art. - And for some reason I'm a simple man. I like rankings. So whenever there's characters and they have ranks,

- It's like a true game. - They're clearly defined as this is number one strong, this is number two strong. I don't know why I love that.

- I mean, you're a gamer. - Yeah, because it's like- - I mean, I feel like there's just something embedded into like humans that just like ranking things. - We love ranking things. And I love, and then the story aspect of number seven could actually be stronger than number two in some ways. And that's super interesting. - I can see why you like "One Punch Man." - I love the hero rating system of "One Punch Man." I think it leads to such interesting characters in really strange ways.

Like, yeah, I love the bicycle man in there. - Yeah, I mean, that's just why that's just part of like shown in anime, right? We need to rank people 'cause people like ranks. People like power. - I love it. - What are the show on YouTube is gonna make videos about if we can't fucking rank? - Exactly. - In Japanese companies, you get ranked on your performance with a rank and a grade. - I wanna be number one. - Yeah, so like, it's like they love doing it. Everything needs to be ranked here.

- I'm gonna go bidet rank. - What I love is how everyone's just found out like power ranking things just like people just, you could power rank the most mundane things. - This is why we have tier list. - This is why tier list. - This is literally why tier list exists. - It's literally just power rankings. - And then obviously I shield 21, which is I've watched Kuroko no basket. I've watched Yomushu Petal.

What other sports anime are famous? - Haikyuu. - I've watched Haikyuu. - Slam Dunk. - I haven't read Slam Dunk. I'm gonna read Slam Dunk. But so far, this is my favorite sports story. - Oh yeah, it's awesome. - And again, like the visual- - This single handedly got me into American football. - Yeah, I still don't know the rules fully, but I had a fun time. - I mean, it's very deviated from real life. - It is. I'm watching real American football and I'm just like, where are the metaphors? Where, where, where?

- Not gonna lie, I was like, when I read this, 'cause I was in the prime of my childhood when this was in Shonen Jump, right? So everyone was trying to do rodeo drives and Devil Bat Ghosts and shit like that. - Where's the Devil Bat Ghost? - It's just a great fucking manga, man. It's so good. - I'd be lying if I said I didn't practice rodeo driving. This is the one move that is probably the most,

- If I ever throw a football ever again, you bet I'm gonna like picture a fucking angel behind me. There's a panel where like he throws this ball and it's like this amazing artwork of like this angel. It's like the angel throw or something. I don't remember what. This panel, it's like a spread and it's fucking beautiful. And it's just, oh.

- I think some of the best is where you see the battle of the metaphors. And I think it just makes the, it makes the sports scene so much more hype. Cause I can't remember the exact cause it's been years and years. But I remember like very vividly just someone kicking a ball and it just like, it's kicked with like so much force or something that it like penetrates something that's

- Fuck, I'm speaking. What was like the second to last match? - Second to last match was against the best school. They were like the best school in Japan. 'Cause that was probably the highlight of it. And then afterwards they fight America. - That's right. - And that was kind of, that kind of sucked. But yeah, they go against like the best players. The real number seven? - The real number, the real- - 21, 21, I showed 21. - The real I showed 21. - What was the number?

Sorry, I don't know if that's spoilers. That might be spoiler actually. Murdan, spoiler warning. Put this before. Yeah. Yeah, it's brilliant. Yeah, they face the real Aishu 21. And they all have interesting powers. Yeah. It's literally Crokino basket on the field. I think,

- I think the guy who wrote "I Shield 21" went on to do another Shonen Jump manga. - Dr. Stone? - Yeah, he wrote Dr. Stone. - Right? - Yeah. - Oh, that's right. - Yeah, I remember that. Very good, very good story tell. - Very different as well. - Yeah, I like that. All these I would recommend. - Honestly, all these are very, very solid shows. I mean, it's like, it kind of gives off the vibe of just like, yeah, I've only read nine manga, which you kind of have. - At least you've read nine great manga. - You've read like nine great manga. - Thank you, thank you.

- Assuming the bottom left is replaced with- - It's amazing. Yeah, and this one you can read on Book Walker or listen to on Book Walker as well. - I guess it's kind of good you went first because I guess you can listen to some of mine and Joey's recommendations or like some of our favorite manga. I mean, I'm not gonna say I recommend everyone that's on my three by three. - Yeah, me neither. - But there are definitely some recommendations that I think everyone should read on my three by three. So shall we move on to-

Who's next? Good evening. It's me, the monk. Have you ever listened to Trash Taste and Thoughts? That doesn't seem too hard. I can do that. Well, you're in luck because today I want to talk about Anchor, the easiest way to make podcasts and it's completely free. Anchor will distribute your podcast for you so it can be heard on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and many, many,

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- Next, manga three by three. We have beer now. - Yeah, we have beer. - This just appeared. - Cheers, boys. - Cheers. - Cheers. - Cheers. - Cheers. - It's been a very civilized three by three so far, but I mean, what can we complain about this, honestly? - Normie. - Yeah. - Is it normie though? - Kinda, I'd say it's pretty normie. - I don't know, man. - Listen, ain't nothing wrong with a bit of boys love. That's as normie as it gets. - Who's next?

- Whichever you wants to go next. - I don't mind going next. - You don't want to go next? - I don't mind going next. - Let's see what Joey has to say then. - This might be, oh no, okay. - Why is that so tight? - Hold on, I'll wait for him. Joey! - Oh, it's me. - Oh, okay. - I actually thought this was Garnt. I could have sworn I folded Garnt's tiny. This is not fixed. I'm just saying. - You're exposing us, Connor. You're exposing us. Scripted. - This is Joey too.

- It was destiny. - There was two Joey's. That was not me. I swear we did not, when I asked him what to go next, that was not fixed. - This is like the Google when people search up, what is Gigux's real name? - Joey Bissinger.

- All right, well, put mine up. - It was rigged, but whatever. We'll have Joey's up next, I guess. - Is mine rolling? - Do I know all of these? Okay, let me try and guess this. All right, so Berserk. - Obviously. - I guess you put Joey to part six specifically. - Yeah, I like part six specifically. - Yu Yu Hakusho. - Yu Yu Hakusho. - Do you know this one? - Is that Misa from Death Note? - I think so.

- Do you recognize? - I kind of recognize this. - Wait, isn't it the assassins thing? - Assassins thing? - No, that's Hitman Reborn. - This was a fucking- - It's a Shonen. - It's Shonen Jump. - Yeah. - Black Cat. - It's Black Cat. - I've seen the anime Black Cat. - Yes. - Very good. - Is the manga good? - Yeah, it's fucking awesome. - Wait, why did the anime suck

- I don't know, I didn't watch the anime. - This is a manga tier list. - This is a manga three by three. - I've seen this boy with the X triple three Vin Diesel. - That's Train. - I forgot his name was Train. - This is the line writer, right? That mini clip. - Yeah, line writer. - What is this? I don't know what it is. - Yasumi Punpun.

- Of course I knew that was gonna be on there. - That doesn't look depressing. - It's hella depressing. - That doesn't look depressing. - He's the main character. - Yeah, he's the main character and everyone else is a normally drawn character. - And then slam dunk, Beastars. - So Love Room? - No.

- You bought the whole collection of Telovra recently, right? - Yeah, accidentally. - You wanna explain the story? - So I got scammed, quote unquote. So I bought, I bought,

all the volumes of Bobobo, which was one that I thought about putting up here. But it was only volume one and four though. So basically I opened up volume one and I bought it secondhand. So I was like, okay, it was whatever, it's cheap, so it was whatever. And I was like, all right, cool. I'm gonna relive my childhood. Open up volume one of Bobo, it's volume three of Toll of the Ring. They just literally replaced the cover. - I got scammed. - You have bamboo, so hold on.

They literally just put the cover of Bo-Bo-Bo on the front of this, but it's volume three of the locker. - Do you reckon they did it on purpose or an accident? - I reckon it's by accident. So I was like, wait, don't tell me all of these are taller. Luckily they weren't. For some reason, volume one and four was. - So it's probably just, you know when you're like,

take a DVD out to watch it and you have to put the DVD in the DVD player back in the box. And then you forget that you've just like- - Who the fuck replaced the car? - Yeah, I was gonna say, how does that happen? - That analogy would be fantastic if manga were interchangeable things. - It was more like- - Loading book in brain. - Yeah, it was more like the Bobobo set was owned by like a teenager and it was like, well, I need to hide the degenerative shit from my mom. I'm gonna put the Bobobo car- - Oh my God, that was tough.

- That was totally it, wasn't it? That was totally it. - It could be it. - Like they'll never know. My mom will never know. - Mom will never know. - She'll just think it's Bobobo. - Some kids jacked off to your Bobobo volume one. - Time to throw that out. - Is this Junji Ito? - So that's Uzumaki. - Oh. - Yeah. - And this, I'd be surprised if you know, it's Ichigo 100%.

- Oh, it's Ichigo 100. - I've heard of this. - I have not read it or watched it. - Okay. So which one would you like to know first? Obviously, I think we can get rid of Berserk and JoJo 'cause we already talked about that. - Already talked about that. - So Yu Yu Hakusho and not Hunter x Hunter? - Okay.

I'm probably gonna get destroyed. - Okay. - Haven't read "Hunter Hunter" yet. - Oh, I can't believe you haven't. - Wait, wait, wait. - I haven't done that before. - Shut the fuck up. - You haven't, the reason why- - Have you watched it? - Nope. - Okay, well I've watched it and it's amazing. - Yeah, the only reason why I- - The biggest Togashi Sim hasn't read "Hunter Hunter." - I know so much about "Hunter Hunter" just from outside information, but I haven't actually read it or watched it. I own-

- I think it's- - It's sitting there waiting for a rainy day. - I think it's safe to say this, it's the best show in the anime. - I feel like- - Why do people say that? - I feel like I've been lied to. 'Cause the amount of times we talk about "Hunter x Hunter" and me and Connor have just like been talking about the Dark Continent. - We always mean like "Netero" getting hyped up. - I just always assumed that Joey was just like- - Literally all the information I know is because people around me don't stop talking about "Hunter x Hunter." - That is not okay.

You need to go watch it, what the fuck, or read it. The anime's amazing. - I never said I read it or watched it. - I just assumed the anime man had watched "Hunter Hunter."

- I feel like this has just been a game of Among Us now. - Yeah, he's a fucking imposter. - We've exposed the imposter. - I should have known the guy who animated in this game was the fucking imposter. - There's an imposter among us right now. - Again, I know so much about "Hunter." I could probably give you the outline of how it goes, but I don't know the details. - What are the names of the arcs? - I wanna go back to every clip now that we talked about. - I know like "Dark Continent" and "Arcumera" and "Arc," all of those, the "Hunter Exam" arc and all that.

- I know them. Again, because I hear it from everyone. - What is this? - Again, I know I will love it. Of course I will. I fucking love Togashi stuff. You, Hakusho, I fucking grew up with. - What's holding you back? - I don't know.

- What I wanna know is how we've just found out about this despite the fact that we've talked about "Hunter x Hunter" so many times on the podcast. - Is this publicly known? Is this widely available information? - You've been a part of the conversation, I swear to God. I don't know, we're gonna have to rewind every clip where we've talked about "Hunter x Hunter." - I've said it on streams multiple times. I've never read or watched it. - I can't be there for the whole three hours, Joey.

- But yeah, like again, I know so much about "Hunt Under" and I know I'm gonna like it. That's why I'm not in a rush to read it or watch it 'cause I know I'm gonna like it. - Me and "Full Metal Alchemist." - Yeah, it's like, of course. - We've just found Joey's "Full Metal Alchemist." - It's like, it's Togashi. - It's right up your street there. - I know. And again, like I know it's gonna be good 'cause I love Togashi. - So when are you gonna read it? - I don't know. - Don't read it, watch the anime. The anime is better. Do you agree?

- Yeah. - 'Cause I've heard both sides of the argument. - What's the other side of the argument? - The other side is that the manga is good because Togashi is good.

- So it's basically just like a preference in medium then, right? - Pretty much, yeah. - I mean, yeah. - I mean, I'm probably gonna watch and read both to be honest. It's just a matter of which one to do first. - Yeah, I mean, "Hunt Hunter" is just prime Madhouse and Madhouse haven't been at the prime for like a long time, I think. - Yeah, and the manga also looks like napkin drawings a lot of the time. - Not in the beginning. - Not if you buy the volumes. - And the volumes are fixed as well. - Oh, so they fix it? - Yeah, in the Shonen Jump volumes,

the magazines, it looks like shit. But then he redraws it for the actual moment. - I finished the anime and then carried on reading. And I was like, am I reading like one web comic right now? Like what is this? - It was about that drawing style. - Honestly, it's yeah.

- Yeah, wow. - Yeah, but then he takes the time to actually redraw everything properly for the actual book. So the books look fucking amazing. - I guess that makes sense, but also kind of sad if you're a big hunter, hunter fan who waits and then you have to go back and read it. - If you read a weekly, then you're probably, yeah. - Read a weekly Lamal. - When it was serialized in weekly. - Yeah, read a weekly.

- So that's your favorite Shonen Jump title of all time. - Well, I mean, here's the thing. A lot of these are Shonen Shounen. I kind of realized that. What's Black Cat doing? - Yu Yu Hakusho, Black Cat, Slam Dunk, Ichigo 100% Jojo, it's all Jump. - Let's talk about Yu Yu Hakusho, 'cause I've never watched it. I think I mentioned on the podcast one time I tried to start it and I just couldn't stand the audio on the, I don't know if it was double-watch. - Oh, so you watched the anime.

- I watched five minutes. Oh, I can't take this. - So Yu Yu Hakusho, it does like what I like to call a reborn. Basically it starts off as a comedy, ends up as an action. Same thing with Dragon Ball, right? Like Dragon Ball started off as a comedy and then Z came along and it became the action that it's known for. So like Yu Yu Hakusho, the first couple of arcs, like when Yusuke, the main character dies, like it's kind of like a slice of life. - Yeah, that's how it starts. - Yeah, it's not a spoiler. - It's not a spoiler. Literally first panel, Yusuke, our main character gets hit by a car and dies.

- This was before Isekai was a thing. He didn't go to another world. He just died. - I know a lot about Yu Yu Hakusho without ever watching it. I know the bad guy. I know there's an epic fight with one guy and I know who it is.

- 'Cause you know the tournament arc, right? - I know the tournament arc. - He literally just described literally every shonen anime of all time. I know the bad guy. I know there's a big fight with the bad guy. - I know what the bad guy- - You literally could have fucking described Jojo. - I know what he looks like. I know who it's gonna be. - The Giga Chad, right? - Yeah, yeah. - What's his name? - I don't know, Giga Chad. - Giga Chad. - It's Toguro, Toguro. - Toguro, that's it. - I don't think he's even the best villain of the arc of Shonen. - He looks like the, you know, if you watch "Fairy Oddparents",

- He looks like, yeah, you know like, have you watched "Fairy on Parrots"? - Oh, the buff fairy, right? - Yeah, he looks like the buff fairy from "Fairy on Parrots". - I have not seen "Fairy on Parrots". - Let me pull it up, let me pull it up. - Oh my God. - That's like, like Toguro like 0% looks like the buff fairy from "Fairy on Parrots". - He looks spot on.

- Every time I see the bad guy from Yu Yu Hakusho, I just see that guy. - Really gonna be do my boy Takura like that man. - 'Cause he has the muscles, but like the weird neck. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's literally like the fairy on parents.

- He looks exactly like that. - Oh my God. - You've just ruined one of the best villains in all of Shonen anime. - I can't believe Togashi copied off fairly. - I can't believe they did him dirty like that.

- Probably Nickelodeon got plagiarized. - Oh my God. - It's the same. It looks the same. - Good old Toguro. - All right, so like, so have you ever seen the anime of Yu Yu Hakusho? - I have. - I love it.

- Not a fan, not a fan. - Not a fan? - I don't know, it's bittersweet, right? Because it's like, same thing with "Black Cat" where it's like, I love the manga so much that like, it wasn't like the perfect adaptation that I wanted. Like it was good, but it's like, I'd rather just reread the manga. - What was missing to make it the perfect adaptation?

- As someone who's like, I haven't read the manga of Yu Yu Hakusho, I've only seen the anime. - Oh really? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Oh, did you like the anime? - I fucking love the anime. - Well then you'd fucking love the manga even more probably. - Okay, but like, is there anything I can get from the manga that I couldn't have already gotten from the anime or just rewatch the anime? 'Cause I thought the anime was like a really good adaptation. - Yeah, like "Records of Rek'reok." - No, it's better than that. - That's solid animation, you know?

I mean, I don't know. Like, I think this might just be like the whole thing with like how manga art styles, I feel age better than animation in a lot of aspects. Yeah.

- Demon Slayer begs to differ. - You think so? - Demon Slayer in the manga just looks terrible compared to the anime. - Well, I mean, that's because like the animation, the character designs changed differently, right? But like in the anime adaptation of Yu Yu Hakusho, they did a pretty good job of like readapting like Togashi's art style, I feel. - I haven't read it, but from what I've just seen of it, it looks one-to-one to me.

I don't know if that's just a glance. That's like a person who should have glanced at both. - I sometimes look at clips of the anime of you, Hakuchan, I'm like, something about this hasn't aged as well. - But like '80s, what was it, '90s? '90s? - Yeah, it's '90s. - The '90s animation is, some of it hasn't aged very well 'cause it was quite- - Yeah, I mean, some of it's like very janky, limited animation. This is like a '90s anime. But like they still had like, when during the big fights, there are still like those sakuga moments. - Absolutely. - Like those have aged wonderfully.

- I mean, I honestly think at this point it's just like a personal preference to me. Like the same thing with Slam Dunk, right? It's like Slam Dunk for me, like I watched the anime as well. Fucking banger of an anime. And it's like, I just personally prefer the manga to be honest. - I actually have like huge problems with the Slam Dunk anime. I think that's age horrible. - I've heard the Slam Dunk anime is very good. - And that's because- - Might be a nostalgia factor too. - Yeah, it probably is a nostalgia factor 'cause I watched it in university and I was just like, man, this is a really slow sports anime.

- My fucking God, it literally like take 10 episodes or something. - It's like 120 episodes. - I do think sports anime, sorry, sports shows, sorry, sports properties in general.

almost better in manga normally. Like I just, just cause of pacing. - I think that's true like 10 years ago or 20 years ago now because like Slam Dunk, Ice Shield, I would like recommend the manga way over the anime because- - That's why for me, like both Slam Dunk and Yu Yu Hachouren, my manga three by three, not my anime three by three. I much prefer the manga of this. - Yeah, because like, I feel like old sports anime, they had horror.

horrible pacing, but like shows like Haikyuu, Kuroko. - Actually, Yomushi Petal I really enjoy. - Yeah, Yomushi Petal. I think within the past, like new generation of sports anime, they've really fixed their pacing issues to the point where if a match lasts more than three episodes, then it's like a super, super important match. Have you seen Haikyuu? - I've watched the first two seasons. - Okay, so season three is like one single match. It's like 10 episodes. - Yeah, I've heard that, yeah. - And when I saw that, I was like,

here we fucking go again. Another like Dragon Ball Z-esque fight scene in a sports anime. But like that-

- The match was so fucking intense that it needed 10 episodes. And then like, it was just what it was not stretched out as all at all. And that was like, to me, like the highlight of Haikyuu so far of the anime. - I enjoyed Kuroko no Basket. I thought the, I enjoyed the pacing on that. - Yeah, because- - It was very quite fast really. - Yeah, I think it was like actually good pacing. 'Cause it was like never more than three episodes. Because how many times, how like, I can only be invested in one match for like so long.

And there's only so much that can happen in a single match. - Coco was really good at building up the bullshit, I think. - Yeah, yeah. - They were like, they weren't rushing too much into like the powers. They were pretty sparingly adding them in, I felt. And then I didn't watch the movie.

But everything else, the movie was everything past the main run of the, what is it? Three seasons, two seasons, three seasons. Yeah. Three after the, how many is that? 50 episodes. Something like that. I guess over 50 episodes. Yeah. It's where they beat the, uh,

Does it end? It doesn't matter. But the point was that I found that after like that, that was like not really invested anymore. - It's such a shame for me 'cause like, I didn't watch all of "Kuroko", but from what I did see, I really enjoyed it, but it sucks because for me now, "Slam Dunk" is just like forever just ruined basketball. - I wonder if I will read "Slam Dunk" and I'll feel like I can't enjoy this "Kuroko" better or if I'll feel that like- - There's definitely been both cases. So like I've recommended "Slam Dunk" to people who,

first read Kuroko. And they were like, ah, it's not as good. 'Cause they just used to the Kuroko format. 'Cause unlike Kuroko, Slam Dunk doesn't have any superpowers. It is like- - It's just very realistic. - Bare bones, raw- - So it's like NBA Jam versus NBA 2K.

- Yeah, yeah, pretty much. - It kind of like takes the fact that it is probably one of the most realistic adaptations of sports in manga. - Yeah, but it still makes it just as exciting. - But it does it in the most like cinematic, like fuck yeah type of way.

And I mean like, you know, in the case of Slam Dunk, like when that first came out in Japan, it created a fucking cultural phenomenon. - Well, every time I have an old taxi man here and he asked me if I like anime or whatever, I'll be like, yeah, I like anime. And then he's like, oh, do you like Slam Dunk? They always ask me, they're in their like forties plus, they always ask me if I like Slam Dunk. - Yeah, it was like a cultural phenomenon here in Japan, wasn't it, when it came out? - I think the year that it came out, I think I read something like of all like middle schools and high schools in Japan, the attendance of basketball clubs raised by 600%.

- Well, basketball is a huge sport in Japan as well. - Yeah, but it got big because of Slam Dunk. I mean, it was that good. I mean, in my opinion, Slam Dunk, the final chapter of Slam Dunk is still one of the most beautiful chapters in all of manga in my opinion.

- Yeah, I mean, he had balls to just put zero dialogue. - Yeah, the entire last chapter has zero dialogue. - Yeah, I'll get that one. - And it just stands. And it is the most cinematic final chapter of manga ever in my opinion. But I mean like, yeah, so I mean, obviously that's great. - So Black Cat. - All right, so Black Cat for me.

- Okay, so you know how my character, like my avatar on YouTube has that cat mask? - Yeah. - Oh, so that came from Black Cat? - That came from Black Cat. - Oh my God, okay. - So Yabuki Kento, who's the guy who made Black Cat, he has this thing in all of his manga. So he also illustrated To Lover as well. - Yeah. - And- - It's one of Shiro's favorite. - I mean, it is fucking good. But he has this like kind of Easter egg thing in all of his manga where in every chapter of his manga, he puts this like little white cat

in at least one panel of every chapter of his manga, just as like a little hidden Easter egg. And it's that cat face that I use as my mask. So like originally like fucking back way back when on like Newgrounds and shit like that, that was just my logo. And then it adapted into my current avatar. But like, I don't know, Black Cat was like, it's weird. It's definitely heavy nostalgia factor, but I think this was the first time I ever read a manga and I was like, wow,

like manga artists are fucking talented. It was the first time where I was actually wowed by a piece of artwork. - Do you wanna explain what happens in it? I can try and explain, but I honestly can't remember anything. - It's been a while. - Yeah, it's been a while for me as well. So like, you wanna try and explain?

- He's not a black cat. - No. - But that's like his code name? - Yeah. - He's an assassin, right? - He's an assassin. - He's an assassin. - He's number 13. - That's it. - His name is Train. - He has two guns. - Train Hartnett. - Two guns? - Oh, is that it? - Yeah. - Train Hartnett. - Train Hartnett. - Is it two guns? - Yeah, he has two guns. - Two pistols. - Yeah. - And he shoots people. - And then there's Sven and Eve, I believe.

- I remember that this was the first, 'cause when I just got into anime, this is the only thing I remember about it. This was the first show that I was like, yeah, you know what? Not every anime is above a seven. This is the first show that I was like, I'm gonna teach you a lesson as an example to the other anime, you have five.

- I gave it a lower score than I would have just to be like, yeah, you know what? I'm fat. - Just to prove a point. - I give out fat scores. So I gave it five. I gave it five because I didn't. - I think I remember watching like a few episodes of "Black Cat" years ago and it was just me. It was just that phase where you'd watch everything. And then I was like, cool, guy in a black coat. He looks kind of cool. I watched a few episodes and it was just like, wow, I am extremely overwhelmed. - So what happens then?

- So Black Cat is like, he kind of, so Train, obviously he starts off as this like assassin, but then he escapes from the organization that he's part of. And he basically, the entire manga, he gets chased by the organization members to come back to the organization because he has like all the series or whatever. And like, there's a dude in the organization, or I think who also left the organization who was like, he's basically like the quintessential male yonder.

Like it's really like, I remember the main bad guy is like, I don't know. I've never really heard of like a male Yandere antagonist before in a manga. - Yeah. - Especially in a Shonen manga. - I just realized out of context, you kind of sound like you're describing John Wick or something. - It's like, and he left the organization and he's an assassin. - He's just gold coins. - They killed his dog. They killed his black cat. - How dare they?

- He's on a mission to tear down the organization. - But yeah, basically, and then like Sven is the guy who like has like, he's like an explosives expert. And then Eve is this, she's like this test tube, like experimental. - This is when every single manga had to have like a rag tag band of-

who could do special things and have comedy with. - Okay, so why is this in your three by three? I'm so curious. - It's in my three by three because it was one of the first manga series. Okay, so when I was growing up reading manga, I obviously started off reading things like Doraemon and like the Koto Koto Comic Magazine, which is more aimed towards kids under the age of 10 years old, right? And then when I got to around 10, 11 years old, I was like, oh, you know what?

Throw him on quarter quarter stuff. It's a bit too young for me. - I've got a big pee pee now. - I'm a big boy now. I'm about to enter middle school, right? I wanna read some of this middle school. - Gants. - Gants.

So I was like, you know, I want to read this like Shonen Jump thing that I keep hearing all my Japanese friends talk about. So at the time I borrowed one of my friends Shonen Jump magazines. And I think that particular magazine, Black Cat was on the cover of it. - Oh, okay. - 'Cause Black Cat had like, 'cause like every month and every week on Shonen Jump, they have like- - Changed the cover. - Yeah, they changed the cover. You know, some chapters have like, you know, colored pages and some of them are like, have like center colors and stuff like that. And I think Black Cat had a front color chapter.

And again, like, you know, you go from Doraemon to this, right? Like clearly this is gonna make you go, whoa, what the fuck is that? And so, yeah. And I think like, honestly, I really enjoyed it. I mean, Yabuki Kentaro, I think still makes some fucking godly character designs. I mean, you know, the reason why Tolaveru is so fucking infamous is because like the character designs are,

like he knows how to draw really just aesthetic looking characters. And like, you know, Black Cat I feel was definitely when he was still kind of in his like younger times where like he hadn't quite refined his art, but near the end of Black Cat, his art just got better and better and better and better. And like, I don't know. It's just like a, it's nothing like deep or anything or like profounding in any way. It's just a really solid shonen manga with like really just intricate, nice art style. - Does it hold up today?

- You know what? I haven't read it in quite a while. - Would you recommend it to someone to read now? - It's hard. It's really hard. 'Cause like, I don't know. 'Cause I'm obviously looking at the show, 'cause this show is very personally important to me. - Nostalgical. - It's very nostalgic. Obviously looking at this with like rose tinted glasses. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - So like, I don't know. Maybe if you're a fan of like Yabu Kintaro stuff, like if you liked, you know, what you saw in Toa Avaru. - Okay. - And want like that with action.

- Does the story, does it kind of wrap up? Does it have a good conclusion? - Yeah, it does actually. It has a really nice conclusion. And like the final fight with like the male Yandere antagonist, who is a really fucking interesting character and the powers and everything, like super cool. Yeah, I don't know. Again, it's just like a really solid Shonen Jump manga that's like very inoffensive, I feel. - I think this was the start of the time where I started to realize anime,

- Anime sometimes just don't have endings. - What do you mean? - Well, 'cause I started off with Death Note, Code Geass, Full Metal Alchemist. I'm like, sick, these are great. - You spoiled yourself. You literally spoiled all of anime for yourself. - No, I did not, I had a great time. - 'Cause what I mean is that no other anime that just is a normal anime is just gonna live up to those standards. - Yeah, exactly. - So then I started watching shows and I'm like, wait,

- Why didn't this end? Where's the ending? And this is how you know everyone else said the same desperation as me. 'Cause whenever you type in the show, the first auto-fail is, when is season three coming out of this show? There are no plans for season three of this show. - Literally when you type in no game, no life,

- You know what I mean? - Because everyone's like, wait, why would that not be a season two? This was a popular show, right? There's season two coming, right? - Never happened. - And then this is when I started to realize, I'm like, oh,

- They're just not gonna finish shows. They're just gonna like release shows? - They're just gonna be like, we released it. We're not gonna finish it. Fuck you, go read the manga. - This is why sometimes I wish anime was produced by Americans 'cause you know that it would fucking end. It might not be good, but you know it's coming out. - I mean, that's why I feel like manga takes more of the same form as like American TV shows 'cause some manga just go on for fucking ever. And like, you're just like, you know what? I don't know if I'm even invested to see this end anymore, right? - Yeah, but then anime will make like a billion dollars and they're like,

- No, I don't think we need another season. No, there's no more seasons. - No, 'cause sometimes an anime makes like a billion dollars, but then it's like one hundredth of the entire story. And you're just like, how are they ever gonna adapt the entire story? It's gonna take like fucking 10 decades to do this. And so, you know, there are some stories where I'm just like, I know I'm never gonna see the end of the anime and even like manga form.

like I'm still waiting like fucking Ippo. Like how long is Ippo gonna go on for? - True. - Right? Like Jesus. - Or Baki. - Or Baki, right? - Baki should go on forever. - Yeah, Baki should go on forever. - Should go on forever. - But speaking of Baki, obviously Baki's the fucking Idoaki sense's daughter. - Yeah. - Beastars, fucking amazing manga. - So that's like the newest one that's on here, right? - That's probably the newest one. Like after I finished reading Beastars, I was like, oh, that is so close to a modern masterpiece in terms of manga. - How come Baki isn't on here?

- Bucky, I don't know. Like for me, Bucky is one of those shows where it's like, it's good, don't get me wrong. It's fucking amazing and it's so unique. But I feel that it's like, there are some parts where it's just like,

it's just a blur when you read it. You know what I mean? Where it's like, it's so long and there's so much shit that happens in it that is just so insane and ridiculous that you think of one fight scene and it blends in with about 10 other fights. - That's just true, it's true. - Like part two, for example, right? With the whole tournament arc. I'm just like, I can only remember maybe like one or two fights. I read right at the other day, there's like 20 fights in the manga.

- Yeah, in the anime, they only showed like four. - Yeah, right? - But that's probably 'cause most of them are kind of underwhelming. - Yeah, true, true. - A lot of the fight, even in the anime, there was only, they only showed like six and I was like, "Ah, three of these are boring." - Like with Baki, you remember the most like notable, like meme worthy, ridiculous type of scenes, right? Whereas with Beastars, for example, it was like,

just as like one cohesive story, it was just a really fucking unique, really done well. And it's just, yeah. - Has it concluded? - Yep, it ended. - When did it finish? Could have been too long ago. - About a year ago, I think. - So how many seasons of the anime do you think there should be if we were to adapt everything? - To adapt everything? - Yeah. - So we're in season two right now, which is, oh, I probably shouldn't say where we're up to in season two, but that's probably about,

- Volume seven or eight. - And how many volumes are there? - Over 20. - Well, to be fair, it wasn't season three announced already.

- I think so. - Yeah. - I'm sure Netflix wants to keep that coming. I am very happy with that. - And it gets more and more interesting after that. - I'm hoping we finally get a fucking anime that finishes in anime form. We never fucking get it anymore. - I mean, we're getting like the latest one I can think of that we're getting is "Attack on Titan." And that's only like one of the most successful anime of all time. - So it takes the whole fucking world watching it for them to be like, "Maybe we could do this."

- They're like, "I've just finished this one." It's like the studios are like, "Start new anime, finish old one." And they're like, "Ooh, I like this." They're like, "No, stop, finish this one, finish this." - 'Cause it's just like, if an anime gets over three seasons, 'cause even if we get a season two, that's just like getting the table scraps, right? You're like, "Oh my God, I can't believe I've got a season two." - "Is this an OVA?" - "May I have some more?" - "May I have some more?" And then for some reason, there's like fucking four seasons of "Mahoka" or something.

I'd be like, "What's going on?" - There's a fucking spin off of "Mahogany". I'm like, "Nobody asked this." - There'll be like fucking 10 seasons of Saki playing Mash-Up. And I'm like, "Oh, fuck off. Fuck off, is this doing well? You cannot tell me this deserves a second season of "No Game, No Life", doesn't it? Fuck right off.

- But yeah, so Beastars. So you think it's like up there as a modern classic now? 'Cause I feel like- - I think so. The ending wasn't exactly like amazing, amazing. Like it was just a solid ending. - If we get the full anime adaptation of the manga in the way that it's going right now, would it be considered a masterpiece?

- Man, I personally would see it as like an easy, like nine out of 10, at least. - I mean, I can see that. If the anime keeps up the quality of the story, because I love season one, but it felt like season one just felt like a kind of a setup season. - It's like the ending of Beastars is very much like the ending of part six where it's like the people who love it, love it. But the people who didn't like it were like, you know.

- Yeah, I mean- - It's like a lot of people say that it's like kind of an anticlimactic ending, but I thought it was kind of fitting to how the entire story went. 'Cause like the final part of Beastars, there's like this big fight that happens, obviously. - Yeah, of course. - And then from that big fight, it kind of suddenly winds down into just like regular stuff. - Okay. - And like to a lot of people that was seen as anticlimactic. - Sometimes I like that though. I like a little breathing time to say goodbye. - Yeah, right? - You know what I mean?

All right guys, just kind of read a few more chapters with you guys before you guys fuck off forever. - 'Cause like, what gets me sometimes is I know like there's always the hype around the last chapter, right? Because the last chapter you're saying goodbye to everything and you know, this is where this is, and people like try to put a conclusion in the last chapter. Whereas some of like my favorite manga is when that last chapter is just the climax is over, it's done. It's purely just an epilogue.

And I feel like epilogues are so fucking underrated in so many anime and manga because most of the time it's just like you get to the final episode, right? And half of this episode is the climax. So you got like 10 minutes to say goodbye to all these characters. - Give me a full episode. - I hate the epilogues that are like,

there's like seven minutes left of the episode. It's like, are they gonna stick the landing? And then you know that it's a rushed epilogue where they start talking and the ending song plays. - Yeah, no, no, no. And it's not even an epilogue. It's just like a slideshow of just like, here are the characters now. - Oh, here they go. - Here they go. - They're going away.

And then we have Ichigo 100%, which again for me is like another, I wouldn't even, it's weird. - What's this about? - I've heard of playing this. - Okay, so Ichigo 100% is just this really just super simple rom-com essentially. Like, you know how Shonen Jump every time, right? They replace harem rom-coms, right? Like once one harem rom-com ends, another one takes its place kind of thing.

- Ichigo 100% was probably, yeah. Ichigo 100% was the one that, well, first of all, it was like right at its prime when I started reading Shonen Jump. So again, big nostalgia factor. I'm gonna completely admit that. But second of all, to me, it is like the one manga series where there was no one clear winner, like right up until the end. It was like, all the girls are so liked

through and through. Like people think quintessential quintuplets is like the ultimate, like any one of these girls could win type of thing. It's like, no, no, it's not. Ichigo 100% is because you start off with liking one girl as you do with any harem romcom, right? - Of course. - But Ichigo 100%, I don't know how the fuck Kawasato Mizuki did it, but she did it in a way where by the end of it, any one of them could win.

but you don't know who, like right up until the end. And it's just so simple, but so well done. And again, I really like Kowalski's art style, 'cause again, very different. - It looks super 90s. - Oh yeah, I mean, 'cause it is very 90s. - And they all look like the Chobits robots.

- Oh yeah, they do. - A little bit, yeah. - It's around the same era, yeah. - It looks like the exact same characters are in as well. - Yeah, they look like they're all robots. - And it's weird, right? - We are programmed to fall in love with you. - And it's weird, right? Because it's like, to me, it's not even the best rom-com manga, in my opinion. - Oh, okay. - So is this a harem rom-com?

- Well, we all know that Joey loves a good rom-com. - I like a good rom-com. - Joey loves a good rom-com. - I love a good rom-com, don't get me wrong. In my opinion, the best rom-com manga ever written is "Eyes", which is also from Shonen Jump, which came before this one. So like this one basically replaced "Eyes". - I've heard of it. That got an anime adaptation, didn't that? - In like early 2000s. - Yeah, it was like a very shit adaptation. - It wasn't a very good adaptation. - It was forgettable, that's all I know. - But yeah, it's done by the same guy who made "Zetman".

- Oh, okay. - Yeah, like all of those. He's done a lot of manga. But yeah, I don't know. Again, this was one of those shows that I think this show is the reason why I love "Haram Roncoms." - Okay, so do you watch the anime adaptation of this at all? - There's an anime? - Yeah, there is. There is an anime adaptation. It's not good.

- Basically every like- - Joey's like, "There is an anime, just don't read it." - Just don't watch it, sorry. - Basically most of the shows on here have like very mediocre anime adaptations. - The only- - Aside from Beastars. - Aside from Beastars and- - I'd argue you have a show, but that's just me. - Beastars, yeah, probably you and JoJo obviously. - Okay, JoJo. Well, part six hasn't got adapted yet. - Hopefully it's good. - It's coming. - Oh Lord, she coming. - Oh Lord, it coming. - Oh, you know it's gonna be good. - Oh Lord, she coming. - Oh, you know it's gonna be good.

But yeah, and then we have Uzumaki. - Of course. - Junji Ito. Honestly, anything from Junji Ito could have been in here. Again, he's probably the reason why I love "Horror Mountain." - I mean, I do think Uzumaki is like kind of like in terms of like a long form, I think it is his magnum opus. - I think so. - Some of my favorite works of Junji Ito

isn't Uzumaki, but just his one shots actually. I feel like Uzumaki is his like only long form work that I think is like the best. - Yeah, and again, like that's why I feel like I could have put anything in there. Like I also fucking love Tomie, which was his first one that he made,

which is also brilliantly horrifying. Like if you love like your kind of body dysmorphia, macabre horror type of thing. - I do really want to read "Jinji Ito" at some point. - Yeah. - It's part of the more, again, it's on the infinite list of I need to get around to that. - Well, it's just like with "Jinji Ito", you don't even need to like be that invested in it because I think the best,

entry point for Junji Ito is just to read some of his one shots. Because I feel like there's only like a few genres that really work well with one shots and horror is some of them. Because all he has to do is like, he hits you with this like really weird fucking idea and then it just ends. - Yeah, it's like he definitely like has taken a lot of inspiration from like classic Asian horror in the sense that the stories don't necessarily make sense. But at the end of it,

you're somehow still invested and still terrified. - Yeah. - It's purely that he purely just assaults you with all of these senses of just super disturbing shit. And then kind of just like, that's the end. How do you feel? - How do you feel? - Why are you here? - I'm sorry. - Yeah, so obviously I think it's no secret that I love Jujutsu stuff. And then I guess we should talk about the center one.

- There's a reason why I put it in the sender 'cause I still think to this day, it's one of the greatest manga series ever made. - It's the one manga series that I know like I'm building myself up to be ready for. - Yeah, it's like, I haven't watched the last season of BoJack Horseman. It's not because I don't want to. I'm just kind of not in the mindset where I wanna be depressed. - I mean, with your three by three, right? You were talking about like the one that you enjoyed the most and the one you think is the best is different. - Yeah. - This is definitely that. - The one that you think is the best. - I did not enjoy reading "Asumi Bunbun."

- Yeah, like you don't enjoy it, but you just can't stop. - Yeah, but it's one of those, I know this even though I've never read it, it's one of those series or stories from what I understand that it's just, it hits you and it sticks with you. And it's like, you read it once and it's just a part of you. - I just got like shit to do, you know? Like I'm gonna be sad for like a while, right? I gotta deal with it. - I remember I binged,

this manga for the first time. And I finished reading it at like 4:00 AM. And I just kind of, the moment I finished it, I just kind of closed it and just sat on my couch. - I know exactly. - Let's say me after every BoJack episode. And then they're automatically playing the next one. Like, no, no, no.

- Give me some time to recover. - Give me a minute, that was so depressing. - But I think the one thing that I really like about "Oyase Mipunpun" is the fact that it almost like, it almost goes beyond manga. Like what Inuyosano did in "Oyase Mipunpun" is so like, we were talking about metaphors before, right? With, you know, Aishu 21, stuff like that.

The metaphors in Oyasumi Punpun are insane because literally like what kind of mangaka has the balls to turn their main character into a metaphor? - I think it's genius. - I think it's absolutely genius. So to explain Oyasumi Punpun for those of you who don't know, this is the main character. His name is Punpun.

He's a bird character, but, and every other character in the manga is a human. - Yeah. - But all the human characters see Pun Pun as a human. - It's okay. So it's like how he sees himself is different from everyone else. - It's how he sees himself, but it's also how you as the reader see him as well. So like throughout the manga, as he's got, so basically it's this manga where it follows this life of Pun Pun growing up. So he starts off as a kid and he takes

and he turns into a teenager. - I don't like the sound of this. I don't like shows that follow them growing up. I know it's gonna be fucked. - And it kind of very slowly yet steadily, it goes through every inch of his life. - Oh, I don't like those. - There's a lot of things that happen to him and around him that are very fucked. - Yeah, that's how, oh, I can't remember. - So like, you know, it starts off with him as a kid. He meets this girl, you know, learns what falling in love is, right? Learns the joys and the heartbreak of puberty.

- I feel you man. - And then that drags on with him. And then he has family problems. He has problems with his friends. He has problems with- - Basically just a broken life. - It's a broken life. And what's so brilliant about Oyosumi Punpun is that as obviously, like when he like gets older, he gets bigger, taller, but still the bird.

But then there are certain points in the manga where his look completely changes. So there's one part in the manga where he just turns into a floating pyramid.

for about two chapters. - Oh, okay. - And it's not really explained why it happens, but as you're reading it in context, it represents something in him. And it's very literal in that sense. - How long is it? How many chapters? - It's seven volumes. I own all of them. I've owned all of them for years. It's been sitting- - It's 12 volumes, I think.

- Okay, well I- - It's 120 chapters. - I was like, shit, okay, so I own seven of them. - Well, no, I believe at least the translated volume. - Yeah, the Western volumes are a lot thicker. - Yeah, so they're a lot thicker. So I have, I own like- - At least 13 volumes in Juman. But it's like 120 something chapters. - Oh, so you could probably read it in one day? - You could easily read it in one day. I mean, I read it in one day. - It's been sitting on my shelf, I think for years. It's just been staring me and I'm like, I stare at it and I'm just like, it's today the day, it's today the day I read it.

- Just the thought about reading it. - I'm happy today. - I hear like guts theme in my head. - Yeah. - Basically. - My very first experience with hearing about Yasmeen Punpun was actually like when I first started dating Sidney. And-

So this was back when I didn't know Sydney too well and she gets really, really invested in stories, right? And stories, she's one of those people that gets truly gets invested and involved into a piece of fiction. So I'm just here sitting in my room, sitting in my office doing like YouTube videos or whatever. And then I hear Sydney just like bawling

I mean, this is like, I'd never seen her cry harder than this. Like she was like beyond ugly crying. It was like, I came in and like my- - What's wrong? - My gut just sank because like, I've only like, this is the kind of reaction you see when someone's family members just died, you know? And I'm just like, I take a few deep breaths. I'm like, okay, I know we're gonna have to deal with something serious, something really fucked up. And I'm just like,

"Honey, are you okay? What happened?" And she just went, "I just finished a manga." And I dead ass just went, and she's like, "It's gonna be awesome." And I'm just like, "I am going back in my office now." - Here's some Kleenex.

But yeah, like I, I mean like I didn't like ugly sob at the end of "Poon Poon" but there were definitely moments throughout "Poon Poon" that I kind of just opened my eyes wide and I was like, holy shit. Like there were many times where I actually said to myself out loud, I was like, no.

- No, not like this. - Not like this. - And again, it's the way that he can somehow fit this fucking bird character into a super realistic context of very realistic setting with very realistic characters and give this bird the most human life possible is so insane to me. And the fact that he can just do it seamlessly. Obviously at first, if you're going into this blind, first couple of pages you're like, what the fuck is this?

What the fuck is this bird? - Yeah, true. - But you kind of like learn to grow with it. And again, like, you know, it's one of those things where like a lot of people say like, oh, he turned it into a bird so that you yourself can put yourself into Punpun's situation. - That's what it sounds like. - Yeah, so that you're not fixated on one particular type of person, you know, when concerning looks and stuff like that. Like you can just imagine this is any human. And it's just, yeah. And again, it's like, Inio Asano literally just took all these like,

rudimentary concepts about manga and just went, throw out the window and just went, I'm just gonna draw what I think is cool. And it's like, there's lots of like weird shit in it as well. But like, I mean, I've been trying to write a video about this manga for so long, but literally every time I reread it, first of all, I get destroyed for about a week. So I try not to do it. But second of all, there's just so many subtle things in it that I keep picking up on that I didn't before. That just completely makes me change the way I view this manga. And it's just-

Yeah, it's insane. So like, again, probably the manga I enjoyed the least, but definitely one of the best. - Yeah, that's what I assumed it was going to be, which is just like, I'm not reading this manga to enjoy it. I'm reading this manga because I know it's probably gonna be one of the most like powerful pieces of media I've ever consumed. And that's like my assumption

going into it. - And the final chapter made me cry like fucking crazy. I was like, fuck man, it was brutal. But yeah, I don't know what else I can talk about. I realized that, you know, even though I've read a lot of manga, you know what, at the end of the day,

- Shonen Jump's just kind of the king, to be honest. - I mean, it's kind of the king for- - That's how it's always been. - You can't hate it. - Yeah, yeah. I mean, Shonen Jump just has a formula and I don't know what that formula is, but they just keep- - It works. - They just keep pumping out bangers, not just bangers, like everything they pump out just seems to be like a global sensation. And even if it's not, it's going to have some kind of cult following behind it. - It's just kind of the ones that I remember the most

for some reason. - Yeah, like fucking now, I remember when the big three ended or like Naruto, not the big three, but the era of the big three where Naruto, Bleach and One Piece, One Piece is obviously still going on, but everyone was just like, what's gonna replace it? How can anything replace Naruto and Bleach? Those were like global sensations. Then My Hero came out and was just like, hold my beer. And then Demon Slayer came out and it was just like, hold my sword. And then like fucking now Jujutsu Kaisen and now like Chainsaw Man's coming out

which is going to be a massive fucking hit. Like where do they miss? Are they fucking aim botting? Like what's their secret? Like what the fuck is going on? - You don't miss!

- No, legit. And it's like, you know, again, it's like, you know, you kind of get in that period of your manga reading life where you're just like, you know what? Maybe it's time to graduate from the Shonen. You know, it's like, it's kind of formulaic. I want to try something new. So you go out, read some of the more obscure seinen manga or like the Shojo or the, you know, the Jose manga or, you know, some like weird gore or edgy type of shit. And it's like, there's lots of good ones. Don't get me wrong. But at the end of the day,

you're always gonna go back to Sean and John. I don't know what it is. I remember I said that opinion on Twitter and I got a lot of shit for it. And I'm like, look- - I agree. - I'm just spitting the facts, man. There's a reason why it's still the greatest selling. - They hated him 'cause he told the truth. - Exactly. So yeah, I don't know. Is it normie?

- I don't know, is Berserk normie? I feel like Berserk is legendary. - I just seen the fact that more than half of these are Shonen John. - I will say this now, I've got Berserk on my three by three as well. And I was just like, can I justify not putting Berserk on my three by three? I just went through this mental gymnastic of just like, is there any manga that I could like,

- It's the goat for a reason, right? - It's one of a kind. - We can talk about it at the end maybe. - Yeah, we can definitely talk about it at the end. - But I honestly like, no trash taste here. You have a very solid list. Obviously there's some that I haven't seen.

- Seems well rounded though. - If I had to recommend to anyone who's never read any of these, obviously Berserk, please go read that. Beastars, fucking fantastic. And if you can handle it, please read Oyasumi Punpun. It will change your life. - I do wanna read most of these. - Yeah. I mean, Slam Dunk as well is one of the greatest. - I wanna read Slam Dunk too. - Fucking amazing. - How many chapters? 'Cause like, fuck dude, I still 21 took me a long time. It's got a lot of chapters. - Slam Dunk's got 30 volumes.

- It's gonna take you some time. I mean, I'd say there's a lot of these that- - But the payoff is insane. - If you like your sports manga, you kind of need to- - If you like sports manga, you oughta- - I do, I do.

- This is the quintessential sports manga. - And that is Joey's taste. You can judge. I mean, we've had two very solid three by threes now. - Let's see if we can keep up that momentum. - I'm kind of worried about mine now. I'm like, oh shit. - Actually put up Garnt's three by three. - All right, all right. Let's take a break and then. - Okay, yeah. - Garnt's like click manga version.

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- All right, go on, pull up my three by three. - Pull up the three by three. Let's see. - Some of these shouldn't be surprises at all.

- Okay, okay. Okay, well let's go through the- - It's a mix. Okay, so before we get into it, there are some that I feel like I would put in there if there wasn't already like an amazing anime adaptation of it. I really want to put Vinland Saga on there for example, but I'm just like, well, I've also really, really enjoyed the anime. So- - Do you wanna go through them? - Okay, so from...

Going down from Great Teacher Onizuka, Kingdom, The Breaker, 20th Century Boys, Domestic Girlfriend, Love Hina, Berserk,

- Beck and Siren. - Siren really? - Yeah. - I was not expecting Siren. - What is, is Breaker, is it the Korean one? - That's the Manhwa. - That's the Manhwa. Yeah, yeah. To me like Breaker, I'll start off with Breaker because that's the only one on there that is actually not actually a manga, but a Manhwa. I feel like Breaker is that one, it takes,

it's basically everything I wanted from a shonen anime that you could not get from shonen jump because it's, it takes the kind of the shonen shonen jump, like battle, battle manga formula and adds martial arts to it. And it's, it's so rare to see something, uh, to see a manga that just does martial arts well. And I've kind of realized if, if I'm looking for martial arts, cause you know, if, if you watch the, uh,

film three by threes, you'd know that I'm a huge fucking fan of Kung Fu movies and stuff like that. And it's just so hard to find that same vibe in manga. - But Marwa does martial arts. I mean, you know, God of High School as well, right?

- Yeah, yeah, so you got like God of High School. - I just don't really care about Kung Fu in Japan. - Yeah, exactly. - In a sense, almost. - Yeah, almost. But like Veritas is like the perfect balance between martial arts and superpowers because people are like still very human in here and you can still take someone out with a gun, but they have enough power that they're kind of also superhuman as well, right?

it's kind of balanced in that way. And like, it's got a like a very, you know, it's got a very standard story. It's about this guy who has zero martial arts powers and zero ki as you know, which is the power system here. And he meets, he just meets this guy who, you know, he's beating up some street thugs and turns out he's just like a fucking, you know, martial arts master or whatever. - Right, right. - And so to help teach this guy or to help this guy basically like

and not be bullied and all that. He gives him like this medicine, which is technically he gave it to him by accident.

And it ends up this guy is just like, obviously a secret genius in martial arts and kind of like takes on the entire martial arts world. - Performance enhancing drugs. - Of course. - Always say yes. - Of course. - Limitless. - What if we could use 100% of our brain? - But like it's like- - Sounds cooler. - But like in terms of like formula, yeah, it's a very, very standard formula. But one, okay, like the art is fantastic.

- Fucking fantastic. - The cover looks amazing. - It's like so much more detailed than you see in a lot of just standard Shonen Jump manga, right? And what blows my mind is that this was like a weekly release, but the art quality is that of like a monthly release manga. You know what I mean? Like One Punch Man, for example, is a monthly release, right? So you can see why it took the time to be

to make it a monthly manga. This was released weekly and it's not as good as One Punch Man in terms of art quality, but it's like way better than pretty much most standard Shonen Jump weekly manga. Damn. And it's like the action choreography and the action art is fucking insane. And it's just...

It's just like pure fun. It's just pure. If you know what you're getting, this guy is like a weak link. Okay. But the amount of times that he fucking, he fucking does something bad-ass unexpectedly is just like, it's just insane. And it keeps like the stakes keep rising and rising. And what I love as well as they really build up, I really love the board building of just like the secret organization. That's of like martial artists who like kind of rule the world. You know, it's like in real life. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of like in real life. It's got like,

It's got like the same kind of like vibe as the John Wick world, if you know what I mean. - I'm down for that. I love John Wick. - Obviously the main protagonist isn't John Wick. It's someone who grows into someone who's going to be that skilled in that world. - Right, right. - But it's kind of got that same vibe in world building. And it's just, I fucking love it. And not enough people talk about the breaker. - I've definitely heard of the title because it's just one of those shows you hear when someone says, oh, you know, fucking amazing Manwa. What was the other one, solo leveling?

is the other one that I hear a lot of and that I really need to read. - I mean, solo leveling I feel is, it's good, but it's, I don't know why solo leveling works so well. It's basically just an isekai in disguise, but for some reason it feels, I think it's mostly carried by the arts, to be honest. The arts just fucking amazing. - Dude, manhwa art is like next level. - I don't know how they do it so consistently. - Literally every manhwa I've read has just been like, oh my God,

- Yeah, I really don't know how they do it so fucking consistently. - Yeah, it's insane. - And then- - Yeah, what else do we wanna talk about? - "Kingdom", I haven't read "Kingdom". I've been considering it. - I've read the first five volumes of "Kingdom" 'cause I read it- - It's long, right? - Yeah, it's like 60 volumes. - It's like, okay, okay. - It's still going. - 60! - It's still going, so. - Okay, okay, okay. I remember because I remember when I was like trying to get new manga to read, I was just like,

"Fucking hell, this has 500 chapters." I'm just like, "Oh, for fuck's sake." And then I read the first hundred chapters in like two days and I'm like, "Thank fucking God this has 500 chapters." It was like one of those manga when I'm just like, "I'm so glad that there is just like an infinite number of chapters." - It's not that I dread, it's that I dread that I literally can't do anything else. Like I can't watch anything, I can't read anything else.

- I love that. I'm like, that's the feeling I'm constantly looking for because I love the feeling of just being so absorbed into this manga or anime or something that I literally can't get on with my life unless I'm finishing this thing. Because like that to me is like pure enjoyment, right? And Kingdom gave me that for like a good like month. - I only had time. - Just a month.

- I lost a month of my life, I think. And it was like the best month ever. - I only read like the first five volumes of it. Cause I was like at a manga cafe, just like chilling, waiting for a friend or whatever. And I had to leave. I was like, no, I'm not leaving. I need to continue reading. This is fucking insane. - So like to give a brief like sell of Kingdom.

- So it's like when China was like fragmented into different kingdoms, you see what they did there? - The three kingdoms, right? - Yeah. No, it was, I think this one has seven kingdoms, right?

And so it's the story of, it's just an epic basically. It's the very definition of an epic where it's just the story of, so one like there's one farmer boy Shin who's the main character and by complete chance he meets one of the future Kings of the kingdom that he's living in, right?

And throughout the entire history of China, no one's been able to unite all of the kingdoms. No one's been able to take over everything and just unite everyone. And so it's very simple. It's just the basic story of the king growing up to be a king and uniting everyone. And it's the farmer, the farm boy, who grows up literally as a peasant. And it's his story of becoming the greatest general of...

- It's basically if you took the golden age arc of berserk and just made it an epic. - Yeah. - That sounds good. - Which is awesome because golden age arc was fucking awesome. - I love the golden age arc. - Yeah, like imagine the golden age arc, but the biggest, to me, the biggest selling point of kingdom is the battles. - This man's dying over here. - He can't contain his love for kingdom. - He's choking up thinking about it. - Yeah, I just want to talk about kingdom, okay?

So I have never seen any other piece of media depict warfare in as much detail as I have Kingdom, right? Because there's only like this, it's been 500 chapters and one single battle can easily take up like 50 to 100 chapters. - How many? - Yeah.

- It's like Lord of the Rings. - Yeah, I mean it's- - Battle for Helm's Deep here? - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Literally like imagine- - But every battle. - Imagine if that was just every battle, right? But it's fucking, it's actually fucking insane. Go for it. - Are we close to finishing the story? - No. - We're about halfway. - Oh, fuck. That puts me off because I don't want to get into something where I'm gonna be like 50 years old and I'm like, "Hey son, my favorite manga is finishing."

- Kingdom. - Literally every One Piece fan. - But it's one of those manga where it's such a simple kind of, well, it's simple and it's not right because obviously there's a lot of politics involved. There's a lot of intricacies into how they basically try to take over their kingdom because I really can't condense down into whatever I'm gonna say now. - It's an epic. - Yeah, it is an epic for a reason.

But like it's because it's broken up into like different arcs. You can just read one arc and you just, you can just like, it's, it's kind of, you can take a breather. Like I literally binge one arc, then binge another arc and then binge another because I'm just like, I just want to see what happens at the end of this battle. And it's, it depicts war. Like I said, it depicts warfare in a better way than I've ever seen in any other manga. Cause like,

you know how they like try to write smart characters in a lot of fiction, whereas to write a smart character, you have to make the other character dumb, right? So there's been so many like warfare kind of scenes where it's just like they introduce this like really smart general or something. And it's because he sees a strategy that the other general doesn't see. And it's like to the reader, it's the most obvious fucking strategy of all time. - We're gonna go around the back.

- Yeah. - Holy shit. - They'll never know if we flanked them to the right. - Yeah, exactly. And with Kingdom, the reason it takes like about like 50 to a hundred chapters per battle is because it's so- - They're playing 5D chess. - They are, like, it's so incredible to see so many styles of generals battling against each other because it's,

It is literally like watching two GMs play against each other. And no, I'm absolutely serious because like you're turning the page and you're like both sides are making moves. Both sides are like taking pieces. They're taking rooks. They're taking bishops. It is kind of like watching a chess game, except it's...

because it's a battle, it's not just all about strategy. Sometimes you have people who fucking flip the board and then there's nothing you can do about that just because they're too powerful. And then there's some people who knows that this guy is someone who is gonna flip the board and he takes that into account. And so the winner of the battle isn't the person who's like,

necessarily dumber it's just the person who maybe thinks that extra half step ahead and you really don't know until you turn like the final few pages of an arc how

how it's gonna turn out. - The author must have like fucking binge read like the art of war like 10 times over. - Honestly, that's it. - I've only heard like the most insane battles. - I'd love to be like, "Do you like when there's reviews?" - Yeah. - Sun Tzu, five stars. - Yeah. - Copy my work. - Without sporting some of the best moments of this manga, like I think with this,

- This manga has an arc, which is one of my favorite arcs of like all of manga. And that's because it's like, it's an arc without spoiling the exact plot points. It's an arc where you have like fucking five, six generals. All of them have like, are making fun playing 5D chess

with each other, making moves against each other. And you're just like, holy fuck, I can't even keep up with the amount of strategies going on and the different pieces like that that are being pushed around. It's absolutely fucking insane. It's so big brain that I really cannot explain. - Ever since I read those five volumes of "Kingdom" I've been this close to just saying fuck it and just buying the rest of the volumes. - Is it published weekly?

- Okay, that's good, that's good. - It's published, but there's no way they're gonna get to 500 chapters. - I've just given up hope on manga where they're like, okay, now we're publishing a month, and I'm like, all right, and I'm never gonna read it 'cause it's never gonna finish. - Yeah, if you wanna see like the brain expands me more of just like, of just reading something that is just like super smart without making it like seem pretentious or something. - Yeah. - And the art is so good. - I saw this, I think someone asked, I don't know who it was, it might have been George R.R. Martin. The question was like, if you're not smart, how do you write smart characters?

- If you're not smart yourself, how do you write a smart character? Like legit. I remember they answered something, but even me, I was thinking about it, I was like, I don't know how you would. How would you, 'cause you wouldn't know what smart is 'cause you're not smart. - Yeah. - It's like, I think this is smart. Is this smart? - Is this what smart people are like? - Yeah. - Ask your smart friend. - How do you write a smart character who's like 300 IQ when you're not 300 IQ? - Yeah. - Very good question. - What I would guess is that

the author of this must've just studied so many like history, historic battles because some of like the tactics and strategies that can they come up with this? It's just like it's 300 IQ versus 302 IQ. And it's just like that extra two IQ that gives them the edge in battle. - It's the porn that matters. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's such a good read. - I'm sold, I'm sold. - Yeah, it's fucking fantastic. - Another one to add to the fucking list. - If you want something that is just an incredible epic, "Reed Kingdom."

- "Great Teacher Onizuka" is a classic. - I've heard all about this. I've never watched it. - It's weird, I've never read the manga for this. I've only watched the anime. - I've heard the anime is amazing. - The anime is amazing, but I've heard the manga is even better. - I think the anime is, I mean, it's good because the manga is fucking amazing. That's the only reason the anime is. - The recipe is so goddamn good you can't mess up the thing.

Because like, okay, have you seen the anime? I've seen the anime. When did you think it came out? What, the anime? Yeah.

- It was like late eighties, right? - It came out in the year 2000. I'm not joking. - Are you serious? - I am serious. - That was a trap question. I felt the trap when he asked that. - It feels like late eighties. - It feels like late eighties, early nineties. - It feels like late eighties, early nineties anime adaptation. It came out in the two thousands. It came out after Cowboy Bebop. - I'm sorry. - But because-

But because like, because the anime adaptation- - I wasn't expecting to have an existential crisis of a GTO today.

- So, I mean, I think I've talked about GTO briefly before, but to give a brief synopsis of GTO, it's about this teacher who is a delinquent. - Oh, he great. - Oh, he great. - Oh, he a great teacher. - No, no, no, no, no. He's not a great teacher yet because he's just, so his name is Onizuka and he's delinquent who finds himself in a teaching job, right? - Let me guess, let me guess. He's just-

He's not a good teacher in the start, but he learns to love the kids and he wants to help the kids. So he becomes a good teacher along the way. No, actually, he wants to be the greatest teacher in all of Japan. Hence the name, Great Teacher Onizuka. But he's given like a very problematic class, right? And yeah, he's not like the greatest teacher academically. And that's part of like, part of the point of this manga is that he doesn't teach academic lessons. He teaches life lessons.

I don't know. - How do I reach these kids? - He ain't book smart, he's street smart. - This is how you wear a bag kids, making you sort it correctly. - Yeah, but like it's,

- It's a manga that I think really affected me when I read this as like a teenager, because it sounds, it is like a completely cheesy kind of set up, right? 'Cause it's just, oh, it's a teacher who reforms a problematic classroom and teaches them life lessons and makes them appreciate life and stuff. And yeah, that's exactly it. It's probably the best feel good manga I've ever read. - Japan loves those kinds of like, there's another manga like that called Rukies. I don't know if you know that one.

- I don't. - It's like if you took GTO, but you made them play baseball.

- But it's like, it's the exact same like feel good vibe. You have the delinquent teacher who like teaches a bunch of delinquents to like join a baseball team and stuff like that. Exact same feel as GTO is like just as good. - It's just really, it's also a comedy one. And I do like the comedy, but like what I really love is that, you know, it doesn't teach you so much cheesy life lessons, right? So much just teaches you that,

you, especially growing up in Asian culture, it tries to teach you that, you know, grades and like this, the school system isn't what defines you as a person. And I feel like a lot of people might need to like hear some of the things that this manga has to say. Especially in Japan. Especially in Japan and especially in Asian culture. And kind of the cherry on top is just,

how fucking goofy and at the same time, badass Onizuka is. I fucking, seeing the antics he, seeing the antics they put him through is just like, everything is such a treat. Like one of my favorite, one of my favorite scenes in the manga, which never got adapted to the anime was like, he was trying to,

He was trying to teach this like leader of like this gang to like try to attend school and take it fucking seriously and all that shit. And so this guy, this student leads him to like this underground like fight ring or something. I can't remember the exact setup, but he's just like, look, if I arm wrestle a hundred of you and win,

then you got to come to school. And it's just like, this is so fucking stupid, right? Because it's just like, how are you gonna fucking arm wrestle 100 people? And then he beats one person, he beats two persons. He starts taking on three at a time and like- - Three at a time? - Yeah, he starts taking on three at a time. It's a Shonen Mark, okay? And it's just like, it's the way that it just kind of builds up and like escalates is like,

Hilarious And badass At the same time And it's It's something where It's not 100% serious But when it hits It fucking hits And some Like It's a manga That can really I wouldn't say change a person But it's

- If you're looking for something that affects you in the opposite way of Pun Pun, where it's just like, wow. - It uses comedy to teach you, not depression. - Yeah, it still teaches you like very important life lessons, but you feel wholesome at the day. You don't wanna cry. - I feel that genre of manga is so beloved and known and quite more common, especially to a Japanese audience. I feel it's slept on in the West.

- Probably. - Like there are so many like good, like feel good comedy centered life lesson type of manga that is out there and they're all fucking great. - Yeah, because I feel like to do this type of manga or to do this type of story, it's so hard to just not be cheesy. - Yeah. - You know, like, and I feel like GTO is that one manga when I'm just like,

- Like you see this done in any other way and it would just be cheesy, but the way that they do it in this just, it doesn't- - It almost doesn't take itself seriously. - Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So yeah, Odezuka is like, I think one of my favorite characters in manga for that reason. What do you want to go on next? - Can we talk about Siren? - Okay, why is Siren here? - What is Siren? What the fuck is that? - Shonen Jump. - It's Shonen, I'm surprised you've heard of Siren. - I fucking love Siren. - You love Siren?

That's why I was like, why is this here? - Because it's one of those like, it's one of those underground Shonen Jump manga that like, it didn't have very long runtime, did it? - It had like a good a hundred chapters. - Did it?

- It got canceled. - That's right, yeah, it did get canceled. - Tell the plot. - I will tell you the plot. Okay, so there's gonna be like a slight spoiler, but I feel like it's within the first four chapters and I feel like it's a big twist that I feel is what got me hooked into this manga, right? So...

- So that's the main, I can't actually remember the character names 'cause it's been so long since I've read it. But it's this main character and he, I don't think there's anything too special about him at the beginning. He runs a service where he solves problems, right? That's got nothing to do with what happens, right? And so he sees this girl, she looks like she's going through some issues or something. So he tries to help her. And in that process,

He follows her and then he gets transported with her to just this new place. He doesn't know where he is, right? - He gets isekai'd. - Yeah, he basically gets isekai'd, right? - So he goes to another world. - Yeah, yeah, kind of, kind of. He goes to another world. - Oh. - He goes to another world. - I see a theme here, Garnt. - Yeah, no, he goes to another world with this girl, right? And then they're just in this barren wasteland

And then they get transported with a bunch of people and it's kind of like the Gantz kind of theme where it's not as brutal because it's like Shonen Jump Gantz. So it's not got like massive gore, but like people just start dying left, right and center. And it's,

For some reason, she has like a special psychic power that she uses to survive. So he kind of follows her, right? And so in like fighting through this kind of death game, kind of barren wasteland kind of thing, he like tries to figure out where the fuck he is, how he got there and what the fuck's going on, right? And then it's like the big twist at the end of episode four is that he goes on top of this like building that's just been like,

It's like, what's the word I'm looking for? - Like abandoned or? - No, not abandoned, but it's just like, what's the word where it's just like, it's been years since this building's been- - Overgrown, dilapidated? - Dilapidated, yeah. It's this dilapidated building, right? And he goes on it and then he sees Mount Fuji, right? And it's just, he realizes that

for some reason he's in japan he's in a city that is in complete ruins and the apocalypse has happened and so he doesn't know how he got there or where he is that's right or should i say it

- Okay, I'm gonna say, okay. - Spoiler alert. - Or when he is, but- - I mean, I guessed when you said that he's in Japan. - Yeah, yeah. - It's a time thing. - When you said it was the lapidation. - Yeah, I was like, okay, well that's it. That would signal the passage of time. - Yeah, yeah. So I guess that spoils it. But yeah, I mean, so what I love about this is that

it's a Shonen Jump action manga that has a mystery core. 'Cause the core of this is him going back to his own world or his own time and kind of figuring out what the fuck happened. How did it happen?

And in that process, like that's all I'm gonna say because in the process there's so many twists and turns that come from that and him trying to figure out what's going on. And it was just nice to see like a Shonen Jump that has action in it but also has this really mystery aspect that keeps you coming back and just keeps you like reading the next page just to figure out what happens. Because I feel like there's been Shonen Jump with a mystery aspect for example,

What's the one where they eat kids again? - "Promise Neverland." - "Promise Neverland." It's been like "Promise Neverland." And it's been like, obviously- - I've never heard "Promise Neverland" be described as, what's the one where they eat kids? I mean, what?

- Am I wrong? - I don't know why I got it right away. - Am I wrong? Am I wrong? - That is what it is. - That is what it is. - It's not the one about the kids trying to escape. It's the one where the kids get eaten. - I like the fact that it had a mystery aspect and also a battle shonen aspect. And I feel like it was so underground 'cause nobody fucking read it. - I think the problem with "Siren" is that it kinda came out at a time where "Shonen Jump" was just absolutely stacked.

where like everything else in Shonen, 'cause this was like mid 2000 Shonen Jump, right? So this was not only in the midst of the big three, but also like the lesser known Shonen Jump stuff that was not the big three was still very, very popular. - So why did they get canceled then? - Just 'cause it wasn't popular enough. - I'm just like, I feel like,

- I feel like another thing is that unfortunately the art style just looks so generic 'cause this came off the bleach. - It does look, the main character looks like Ichigo. - Yeah, yeah. It kind of looks so generic but it has so many original ideas. Like I really like, without spoiling what the main character's power is. So like anyone who goes to this world gets a special power of their own, right? And I like, as an engineer, he has like a really unique power where I'm not gonna spoil exactly what he is but he can't control this power. Like he can't,

consciously control this power. So what he does to kind of figure out a way, different ways to use his power is he makes subroutines for this power. So it's basically like he makes programming loops for this power to like follow a set algorithm to do exactly what he wants.

And I'm just like, that's such a unique idea. - I'm slowly remembering this manga and talking about it. - Men can type 2000 words per minute. - But yeah, I mean, I could have put like "Hunter Hunter" or other "Shonen Jump" manga on here. - It's nice to see some variation. - But yeah, like I said, every "Shonen Jump" manga I can think of putting on here has an anime adaptation.

So that's the only reason why I put Siren on here. 'Cause it is my favorite Shonen Jump manga that does not have an anime. Because it got canceled because it wasn't popular enough. - The other one I would put on there is, did you ever read M-Zero? - I did not read M-Zero. - Okay, that's another one that was like kind of, it came out around the same time as Siren where Shonen Jump was just stacked. Never got an anime adaptation, but it's so good. - What's that about?

M zero is about, it's this basically, it's this kid who enters this magic school, but he himself has zero magic abilities. So this is literally like, think of like fucking My Hero Academia, right? But instead of quirks, it's magic power. And you have like certain levels of magic. And the higher your magic level is, the more powerful of like a magic card you get that can like activate magic skills. And the main character, again, he has zero magic. So he gets an M zero card. And it's just him basically just trying to

and graduate the magic school. But like the art style is so unique and it's such a dope solid story. But again, it never got an anime adaptation and like hardly anyone read it because again- - Did it get canceled? - No, it didn't get canceled. It had a proper ending. It got like 12 volumes or something.

- And it had a proper ending. It just, no one read it because during that time, Shonen Jump was so stacked with all these other insane shows. - It's stacked now as well. - It's stacked now, but like mid 2000 Shonen Jump was like peach. - So you can recommend it even though it doesn't have an ending? - Oh no, it has an ending. It's just very rushed.

- They're like wrap it up, come on. - I mean, the hug show was kind of the same as well. - Yeah, but I feel like I can still recommend it because the mystery aspect got solved and it got solved in a decent amount of time. What didn't get, what was like a bit unsatisfying was just each character's resolution because it got wrapped up so quickly. But the mystery aspect, which was the reason I was so addicted to this and reading, that gets wrapped up just fine. And that's why I can still recommend it. - So what's "Love, Hino" about?

- Wait, have you not read "Oshlo Hina"? - No, I don't know anything about "Love Hina". - "Love Hina", okay. I'm gonna say it right now, this is nostalgia. - I mean, look, "Arkham Unskinned" is fucking amazing. - Explain yourself, what is it about? - It's nothing you haven't heard before. - It's a manga where a guy loves Hina. - Oh, for fuck's sake.

- That's Hina. - Is it interesting? - That's Naru. - Oh yeah. - That's Naru and okay, so a guy moves into his grandma's onsen, right? Because his grandma owns an onsen and it turns out it's also a girl's dormitory and- - Hey!

- Okay, it's a fucking harem anime. Sorry, it's a harem manga. And how can I say this?

- It's just a solid harem manga. And there's nothing I can do to convince you to watch it. I'm not gonna try and convince you to read it, okay? I'm not here. This isn't for you Connor. This is for me. This is for me Connor. - I never said it was. - This is Garth Ichigo 100%. - Honestly, this was the very first manga I've ever read. - Oh really? - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Out of everything, right? 'Cause I remember watching, it was the first anime I ever watched because before that I had this like- - First anime? - No, sorry, it's the first anime- - I was gonna say this is the first anime you ever watched? - This is the first anime I watched where

before that I had this massive complex against manga, right? 'Cause I was like, I know because like- - I discriminated against manga. - Honestly, honestly, because I'm like, how can you get into black and white drawings? I'm sorry, I'm sorry. This is disgusting. This is for peasants. - Western comics go through the trouble of coloring in. - Where's the movement? - Where's the color? - Where's the color? I'm just like, how am I supposed to get into this? And like Love Hina was the first anime I watched where I'm just like,

I wanna see what happens. I'll fight through the black and white. - I wanna see what happens enough that I'll fucking read the manga. - She looks cute, but she looks like a Pokemon reject. - I think every character in the 90s looked like a Pokemon reject. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's true. Because I think they all had the same kind of character. - So out of 10?

- Just give me a fucking score Garnt. - 10. - Oh fuck off. That stutter was a five. - I think Love Hinted to this day is like a solid six or seven.

- Is it just a fun six or seven? - It's a fun manga. - If you like harem manga, which you don't. So, okay, if you like harem manga, I still think "Lafina" is such, is a very, very solid harem manga. - It still stands up to its time. - Why do you love harem manga so much? What about the harem speaks to you, Garnt? - I just like girls, eh?

- I want all the girls. I want them fighting girls. - I'll break it down because this is gonna be a really weird analogy. If there's a harem manga that I'm invested in, it's not specifically about, oh, there's a bunch of girls. What I equate reading a harem manga to is kind of like watching a sports match, right? - I know you're gonna fucking say that. - Yeah, yeah, 'cause, okay.

- You pick your team and you root for them. - You pick your team and you get emotionally invested, right? And you pick your best girl and you fucking root for them and you stick through it through thick and thin and then- - Even if they don't win, they've won in your heart. - Yeah, even if they don't win, but if they do win, it's like, "Yes!" - It's such an emotional rush. It's like, "Yes! Yes!"

- Yes, yes. - You literally become a fucking sports fan. - I bet Garnt's never as happy as when his fucking harem. - Honestly like part of the best part of harems, right? Is watching it with the community. 'Cause like half the fun is seeing your girl win, but also half the fun is shitting on the fans of the losing girl as well. That's like equally as fun. - That's what I love about Ichigo 100%. 'Cause I read it with a bunch of my Japanese friends who are all just as invested and they all had their own winners. And when my girl won, I was like,

- Fuck you. I told you. - Joey had the biggest dick that week. - I did, I did. I felt good, I felt good. - Okay, I mean. - So like, I mean, it's, I still think it's a solid harem. I think one of the biggest differences to a lot of harems I've met is that I do like the character development of the main guy. He starts off as obviously a fucking loser with no personality, but as the series goes on, he actually develops. - Why don't we ever get Chad's as the main characters? - Because they wouldn't be interesting. - 'Cause then it would be a hentai. - Yeah. - Chad's would become more,

- That's the difference between- - More Chad. - Where's the space for growth if they're already a Chad? - Maybe they become more modest. Maybe they learn modesty. - No one wants to see that. - I wanna see a man learn modesty. - He goes from like this brick shit house brood. - Just a guy who's too full of himself and just gets modest. I'd watch that, that'd be wholesome. - I'm sure that exists somewhere. - And I guess like the other classic on there, of course, is 20th century. - I thought you were gonna say domestic golf. - Yeah, I thought you were gonna say domestic golf.

- I was about to like give you the backhand. - While we're on shit, let's keep talking about domestic girlfriend. If we're talking about love here. - He's not gonna stop talking. - We've seen it on your channel. - We've seen your video. - We can literally go and get the fountain of like non-existent youth from you on this thing where you just never age and you talk about this for 10 years. - I can continually talk about it.

- I don't want to, give me a five minute. You got five minutes Garnt. - Sell this to me because I watched three episodes and I immediately dropped it. - Domestic girlfriend fucking awoke something in me. Like this, this, this,

- Single show basically dictated my hentai taste from like, there's me before domestic girlfriend and there's me after domestic girlfriend. - So wait, if I'm correct, is it there's a guy and there's a teacher? - Yeah. - And a sister. - Okay, okay. - That's correct. Is that correct? - Okay, so let me break it down for you, okay? So there's this guy who's in love with his teacher, right?

And one day he just randomly goes up to a meetup and he meets another girl at a karaoke. What's it called in a car? Like a bar. What's the event where- - A mixer. - A mixer. Thank you, Sydney. You know, so he goes to a mixer and he meets this girl and this girl for some reason wants to lose her virginity because she just

at the age where she just like, fuck it, I got nothing better to do. - Doesn't the anime literally open with them like after six? - The anime literally opens with them just after six, right? And so he sleeps with this girl and then it's who he's just met and then they say goodbye and then he goes home and then he finds out that his dad's getting remarried.

And then he meets the family that he's getting, like his dad's getting married to. And it turns out that the mother of, or his future mother-in-law, or his future stepmother, she has two daughters. One is the girl he slept with. And the other is the teacher he's in love with.

And that is the premise of "The Domestic Girlfriend." - Where is the incest sign when we need it? - Literally, this is incest, Garnt. And this is just like, what if we made all porn categories into one? This is what it sounds like. - Basically. - This is like, combine every porn. Where are the laundry machines? Get four of them in this house. - Okay, so like, I will fully admit that the concepts, I mean, yeah, this is a hentai plot.

- This is your kisses. - Let's be real, it is. - It's better than the kisses. - It is. - People were like, when we did the anime three by three, people were like, why is the domestic girlfriend anime not on there? It's because I actually read the manga. I think it's a good fucking manga and I will defend it till the day I fucking die. - Would you say it's a masterpiece?

- I would say, I mean, it's a masterpiece in my heart. - Okay, I understand. - Because like what happens is like this is- - If masterpiece is short for masturbating piece, I guess. - What I love about this manga is that it takes the most like, the situation is a complete car wreck and it just turns to a car wreck, to a train wreck, to a fucking nuclear holocaust. Like the layers of how complicated

the situation just gets stacked on top of each other. But what offsets this is that it's actually a really well written manga. It's like a lot of thought- - You're being very oxymoronic right now. - Okay, okay. 'Cause a lot of thought was really put into the characters. So the characters actually seem really realistic and you can kind of like empathize with them, right? What you can't relate to is the fucking situation that they're in.

- So you put really- - I hope not. - You put like, you put actual like realistic characters or well-written characters into this really fucking trashy wacky situation. And it's such, it's like a juxtaposition of just you're actually invested in these characters, but also the stuff that's happening is so wild that you just wanna keep reading just to see what happens next. It's like a soap opera, but the characters are actually really like, you're really, really invested in these characters.

- I just couldn't get to that point with the anime, honestly. - What's more of a battle, this or kingdom? What's more of an epic battle? - It's two different battles, isn't it? - Which is the bigger battle? - I don't know which one's more five head, man. - One of them is like you're physically getting hurt, the other is like chipping away at your brain. - Okay, because like the anime is a really, okay, what the anime did is that it just took

all the trashy moments in the manga without any of the character moments and just put them and just speed ran it. - So it made a bad porno. - Huh? - It made a bad porno. - Yeah, it made a bad porno. I mean, what porno doesn't have character development? Well, how can I get invested? - Most of them. - A good one.

- We don't need it. - And yeah, I will keep talking about "Domestic Girlfriend." - I'm sure if you wanna hear Garnt talk about it, just ask him in public, ask him anywhere. - Watch the 17 videos he made on it. - I realized that I've made like a manga three by three,

Hentai three by three, sorry, doujin three by three. - This is all in there. - And an anime three by three and all of them have incest in it. I just wanna say for the record. - Where is the incest sign? - I just wanna say for the record, I do not like incest. - You are very lucky that you're an only child. That's all I'm saying. Otherwise the incest would have destroyed you.

If I put this many in set things in mind, everyone would be like, yo, Connor's got three brothers. - I've got a sister, can I be fucked? - Look, all I'm saying is at least I don't like step-mom porn because everyone has a mother. Everyone has a mother. What's your excuse? What's your excuse Connor for mother knows breast? - Let's not get into that.

- Let's talk about 20th Century Boys. 'Cause that is actually a good manga. - Okay, this is my favorite manga of all time. - It's brilliant. - I've never read this. I've been wanting to read this. I've actually got it downloaded, ready to read. - Everything by Urasan Nafi is- - I can give you the manga volumes instead. - Oh, you have them with you? - Yeah, that's- - In English? - Yeah, in English. - Oh, sick. - That's a much better- - What other language is he gonna read? - Thai?

- The cover looks badass. - It's fucking amazing. - So 20th Century Boys is my favorite manga of all time. And I only read this just before moving to Japan. And it's kind of like the Yasumi Punpun where I knew I would love this for ages. And I held off reading it until I had just the right amount of time and the right mindset. And that just so happens when I had the few week break before I moved to Japan. And I was like, okay, I am now ready to experience 20th Century Boys. - I am now ready for emotion.

it lived up to everything and more. I like, I knew it was like a magnum opus of a piece of work. And I still like, it's amazing, but also it like every lesson and every message you try to say, like it spoke to me personally as well. So it was kind of like a mixture of,

- Personally, this was my kind of story and also it's an amazing story. - This was the manga that made me go, wow, Urasa Naoki is a fucking genius. - 'Cause you're a very quick rundown of the plot. - Sure, sure. - 'Cause I don't really know anything about it. - It's pretty convoluted plot, isn't it? - It's a very convoluted- - Just give me the most bare bones explanation. - Okay, so I'll try to sell you this as quickly as possible. So imagine like when you're growing up as a kid, right? You play hero and villains, right?

And so like you play a hero and someone plays the hero and someone plays the villain. And normally a super villain, they try to take over the world, right? It's a cartoony plot. They take over the world and the hero stops them. Now, what if you could make this very childish plot believable? That is basically what 20th Century Boys is, right? It's someone who basically...

tries to take over the world and Naoki Urasawa went, how can we actually make this actually seem realistic and feasible? And terrifying. And terrifying as well. That's like the bare bones basic premise of this. What I love about this is that it's kind of like a mystery. So it doesn't open up with that premise. What it opens up with is this guy who's just a normal guy who stumbles upon a conspiracy, right? And so...

Of course, you stumble upon a conspiracy and you see how deep this conspiracy goes. - There's a sweat. - Yeah, exactly, exactly. And the way the story unravels is that

Like you are given pieces just to how deep this conspiracy goes and how far it runs. And the more chapters you read, normally like you see a mystery and like you're able to like kind of get a feel of like how big this mystery is, right? What I find fucking amazing about 20th Century Boys is that

I was like five to 10 volumes in or something like that. And it felt like I was staring into an abyss in terms of this mystery. Like this feeling where you just don't know how deep this rabbit hole goes. Like you were just like, there's no way this can go deeper. And then something gets revealed and you're like,

"Where does this end? "How the fuck, how far does this go?" And like the way that, and that's what I find, I find that incredible. There's no, been no other mystery that's just given me this feeling of just like, it was kind of like almost existential dread because I didn't know how far this sank or how deep this went.

And it's probably like, it's my favorite manga of all time. I think it's my favorite mystery of all time. - Urasawa Naoki is just so amazing at writing these just mysteries where it's just like, you don't know where it's going. And also, I don't know about you, but Urasawa Naoki I feel is a genius at writing

some of the most perfect antagonists in manga. I mean, he also did "Monster." - Oh, okay, you should have said that. - Oh yeah, yeah. - Same guy who wrote "Monster." - Same guy who wrote "Monster." - Okay, I'm sold, I'm sold. - But like "Monster" is like way more character driven and I think it's like much more smaller scale. This one is like a fucking massive scale. - This fucking sucks, there's so much to read now. - And like this is never going to get an anime adaptation because like compared to "Monster," this is- - You got a live action. - Yeah, I don't know.

- Yeah, I don't know. - It did? - Yeah, it's shit. - Yeah, it's shit. - I mean, compared to "Monster," this would be like hundreds of episodes maybe because that's just how far it went. - "Monster" was like 70 something episodes. This would easily be like 150, 200 episodes. - Yeah, yeah. - I'm down, make it happen. "Hunter" got over 148. - True. - Yeah. And yeah, I feel like it's the greatest manga I've ever read.

- It's definitely up there. - Yeah, yeah. - Is there anything more than that? Can you give a higher praise than that? I guess I have to read it. - You have to read it. - Oh fuck me. - Yeah, it's brilliant. - I can't even pick a favorite anime of all time, but the fact that I can pick a favorite manga of all time. - Is telling. - That's telling. - Ladies and gentlemen. - We got him. - We got him. - And it's not domestic girlfriend. - Thank fuck for that.

- I didn't put anything significant in my middle one. I just clicked. I should have. - It was the Oromo square. That's why I put it in the middle. - And you have, well, two more, I guess one more. We'll talk about berserk after. Beck.

- The manga for Beck. - I've only watched the anime. - You've only watched the anime? - I've only watched the anime. - Joey. - Joey. - Joey, my boy. - You would actually love the Beck manga. - I mean, dude, I fucking love the anime. And again, same thing. Everyone's saying the manga is even better. - The manga is even better. - Before you get your dicks out and start comparing them, what would be the plot of Beck? I know nothing.

- I mean, it's like a, it's a music anime, right? - Fuck off, it's not a music. - It is a music anime. - It's just music? - Yeah. - He just plays music? - He just joins a band and tries to get big. - Yeah, so it's- - Come on, come on, fuck off. - I'm not even joking. - That's it? - I'm not joking. - That's literally the plot of Beck. - What's good about it then?

It's just the journey. - It's completely character driven. - You looked at me dead in the eyes and you said, "It's the journey." - Well, it's just like- - I don't know why- - It really is the journey. - Yeah, yeah. - It's the journey. - I mean, it is. Like it's-

- It's what I love about Beck. I mean, it's a very simple story in that sense. It's a completely character driven story where it's about a boy who joins a band and they're very underground and they're trying to make it big. And it's literally just their journey of making it big. Right? And you know, I mean, you've seen movies and fucking, you know, stories before. - A star is born. - Yeah. And obviously there's, I mean, there's- - Sabrina.

- Miley Cyrus, Hannah Montana. - The best of those worlds. - Sorry, sorry. - Think about that, but just like better. - How dare you dis my Miley like that. - Is it just a good musical anime? - It is just the most- - Does it just relies on the characters? - It's very heavily relying on the characters, but like the way the characters are written and just how they like play off each other and like all of the, I mean,

A, it's very realistic, which is already like a big plus for me, especially with like a character driven story like that. But also it's just like, yeah, I don't know. It's just a really good journey. - Do you think I'd enjoy it? - Do you like rock music? - I enjoy rock music.

- I mean, if you are like, to me Beck- - I feel like Mark Zuckerberg answering that question. Do you like human things? Yes, I like human things. - I kind of realized I asked the person who enjoys the beeps and the boops. Do you like rock music? - I do enjoy rock music, but I felt like the pressure was on for some reason. Sorry, go ahead. - Yeah, I mean, what I love about Beck is that it just captures

the love for rock and good old classic rock and roll and just like how rock has evolved through time. - So do they mention like all of like, do they mention the fact like they play like a cover of the Beatles and shit? - Yeah, yeah. - Oh, okay. - How does, is it, 'cause I just thought about it in a second. I'm like, oh wait, surely you'd wanna listen to the music.

- Yeah, so I thought that- - That's why I watch the anime. - Yeah, that's what I think. - I thought that as well, right? Because I was just like, "Shit, I kind of really want to know what happens, but I don't know if I can get invested in a fucking manga about music where

I don't know if you know anything about manga, but you can't really hear anything that's going on in the manga. - That shit don't have audio. - And then I realized, I kind of realized a super life hack when reading Beck, right? Because I also watched the anime, that's what got me into reading the manga. - I know what you're gonna say.

And I realized that when they're playing in their concerts and it's hype, you can literally just play whatever song you fucking love and you feel the fucking emotion. - Mega brain. - Fucking brain expansion. - That sounds like a lot of work, you know? I gotta go through my playlist. - Brain expansion. - I mean, like you can do it if you kind of like want, if you want to like really get invested and really like put yourself into this rock concert. But what's amazing about the manga is that

it somehow captures the energy of a concert so fucking well. And like, if you've ever been to a gig and if you've ever like seen, sorry.

- Sorry, man. - Thank you, Connor. Thank you. No, I'm joking. - I'm just so bored. - I sneeze when I'm bored. - Connor, when he listens to someone talking about music. - He's not even gonna logic reaction to it. Play music, yeah! - Someone like read musical sheets near me. - If you've ever been to a gig and especially like a rock concert, there's a certain like energy to seeing your favorite bands live. And I don't know how,

the manga, which is a medium where you can't hear anything, it captures the energy so well that you can play the music of whatever your favorite band is and you're just like, "Holy fuck, I'm feeling hyped." - It's more about conveying the feelings than the music itself. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. And the music is just like, kind of like complimentary to that as well.

And if you like the anime Joey, then you're gonna fucking love the manga. 'Cause the manga takes the best parts of the best scenes of what happens in the anime. And there are scenes in the manga that are like five times as high as anything that happens in "Grateful Sounds." - I know what I'm buying next time. - I'm gonna get them sold. - Yeah, yeah. And it's hard to sell Beck.

if you haven't seen the anime. Because if you haven't seen the anime, I think that's the best way to get into the manga. Because it's like I said, it's a musical manga. And it might be a hard sell if you don't know if...

if you don't know what you're getting into. - But if you like rock, if you feel like good old rock and roll. - I still remember that scene in Beck that made me be like, hell yeah. It was like the scene where he does the cover of "I Got a Feeling" by the Beatles. That scene is like the most fucking like, hell yes moment. It is so good.

I don't know what you're talking about, but hell yes. - It's just so steeped in rock culture that if you like that. - There's a lot of people in Japan who just love fucking rock and roll. People always say, when you see a British like, "Oh, Sex Pistols." Yeah, yeah, that's me. - That's a British man. - That's me. - Honestly, they make so many references to real life bands, which is something I also love as well. They say like, "Oh, this person's inspired by Hendrix or Sex Pistols." - There's another manga that does that.

- Jojo. - Yeah, Jojo. - Exactly right. - That was the joke I was gonna go for.

- And of course the only square that's been taken up by all three of our three by threes, Berserk. - Rightfully deserved. - Well, I think last time we spoke about it, I don't think I'd finished it on the podcast, had I? - No, you hadn't. - No, I finished it. - You caught up to it. - Yeah, I caught up. But I mean, you could tell it was nearly done. - It kind of had like its own somewhat conclusion around that point.

- When I was reading it and I saw the dreaded, I saw how many chapters I had left, a little sinking feeling was coming in my heart, but I still, I'm very sad 'cause I felt like he was so close to the end. Like we were there. Like he was literally prepping. He was prepping. - I don't know, I still think he had a lot. - I don't know, 'cause you know how before a big raid, you get some new armor, you get some new stuff, right? That's what was going on. - There was definitely a prominent fight coming up for sure.

- We were gonna, and it was gearing up that it was like, all right, we're getting a big boy fight coming. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Might've been like 10 years away, but it was coming. - It was coming, it was on its way. It was like, oh, she coming. - But like, yeah, I mean, do we need to explain the plot of "Berserk"? Do we? - I mean, it's just- - I guess we should a little bit, right? If you haven't read "Berserk". There's probably people watching this who have not read "Berserk". - Yeah. - 'Cause I mean, I was one of those people. - Would you like to explain the plot then? - There was a boy.

who was orphaned. He was thrown to the wayside in a pile of horrible fluids on the ground. And there was a woman who was like, no, we must pick this up. And the mercenary band that was traveling with this woman was like, no, let him die.

But then somehow the woman convinces the man to let her pick the baby up and raise this child who is going to be Guts, our main character. And as you can tell, this upbringing is not the best. And many more horrible things happen to this child through his upbringing. So many horrible things. So many gross things. But the band of mercenaries also train him to be a warrior. Yeah.

And then, you know, 'cause he's had so many bad things happen to him during his childhood. He becomes kind of the lone gamer warrior that we all think is the coolest thing ever. - Yeah. - But you know- - The black swordsman. - Yeah, the black swordsman, right? The guy who can carry the big ass sword- - Not Kirito. - Isn't that Kirito? - Not Kirito. - The one who can just beat everyone alone, right? And, you know, he slowly realizes that's a bit of an empty life and wants to make friends.

And then bad things happen. Very bad things happen. And bad things continue to happen. And it's about getting over those bad things and trying to learn to accept people and love again, I suppose, in certain ways. It poses itself as this big,

- Big bad guy with a sword fights monsters and bad dudes and tries to survive the war. But at the end of it, you realize, oh, it's not about that. It's about his journey. - Yeah, it's always about that. - It's always about the journey. - It's about him. It's literally just like a manga about his life. - And the cherry on top is just God tier art. The art is just insane. It's just like fuck. - No one can draw like Miro. - And if you haven't read it,

I had not read it for a very long time. I knew it was good, but I just didn't do it. - You didn't know how good it was. - I didn't know how good it was. I mean, I've watched the anime and I thought it was pretty good. It's pretty good this thing, it's pretty all right. - Wait, the 2016 anime?

- Or the '90s anime. - Oh, okay. - I was about to fucking say. - That's what I was gonna say. - We don't do that here. - We do not do that here. - We do not do that here. And yeah, I read it and I'm saying like, if you're sleeping on it or you've been putting it off, like now is the time, like, you know, while it's still fresh in everyone's hearts, you know, it's, pay tribute to the king, read it, it's amazing. You will not regret it. Like it has, dare I say, a little something for everybody.

- I mean, there's a reason why- - Whatever you want out of a manga, I guarantee you'll get something out of this. - There's a reason why it's been goaded forever now. - It is not just like overhyped at all. It is just- - Rightfully deserved. - It is not overhyped. I thought of every possible reason I could to not put this on my three by three, because it's just like, it's just the one that- - I know we all know that we were all gonna

It's just like the manga that goes on everyone's three by three. And I'm just like, can I be that person? Yes. I've had many manga. Did I? Well, not many.

that I've had one or two chapters that I have been like, you know what? Let's just kind of speed run this part. Let's get through it fast. I never, ever, ever felt like that during Berserk. Even though I'd seen the first arc, I still was like, fuck, this is good. Taking my time. Exactly. What I find incredible is that, you know, people will look at Berserk or people who have never read Berserk, they look at it and they see, oh,

must be man with big sword go brr. That's kind of like what it looks like on the cover, but like what everyone who's read berserk and the moments that stand out in berserk and the parts that people remember are always like the quiet moments. It's the beautiful moments. And that's because there's the juxtaposition between like the fucked up shit that happens and the bloody and gory and amazing action that is in the manga. Like it's juxtaposed with some of like the most beautiful moments you can find in fiction.

Just the scene of God standing in the field of flowers. - Yeah, just that whole like mini arc, if you will, was like one of my favorite moments reading it. 'Cause I was just like, oh shit, they just took like, they were like, hold up, let's bring fields.

- Yeah, 'cause I feel like the story of "Berserk" speaks to just a core that so many people can relate to. To get fucking real for a second, if you've ever felt lost in life or you don't know what your purpose is or you don't know- - If it's worth it. - If you don't know if it's worth it or why you're fucking here, if you're just ever having a bad day, that's exactly what Gus goes through in "Berserk." He may look like a big, muscly man,

he like the journey that he goes through is exactly the same realization that a lot of us have gone through in our lives. - Under that hunk of muscle, there is a heart. - You can't chop your way through every problem. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - That's what, you know. - He tries and he realizes, no, he can't. - As much as we'd all love to be the overpowered MC, like at the end of the day, that's not gonna help you solve every problem. - Yeah, yeah. - That's what, you know,

I guess in some ways not to get too lost in the things that are right in front of you, right? Which is a lot about what Berserk is about. - Yeah, I think the scene that sold me on Berserk, if I can get to the small spoilers of the Golden Age arc,

It's like the scene after he beats like the hundred men. 'Cause like you think in warfare, you fuck one man takes on a hundred men. That's fucking bad ass. In any other anime that would like that's framed as like, holy fuck, this is an incredible feat, which it is. And like, I remember like it was just Gus's reaction. It was just realizing

it doesn't fucking mean anything. - And then also the aftermath of everyone coming in the forest and seeing him just murdered 100 people. They're just disgusted. They're like, "What the fuck?" - It's like, "How is this man alive?" - Yeah, like, "What the fuck?" - But yeah, it's afterwards that he just realizes I'm doing this for no reason. I'm literally just killing 100 men and it just means nothing to me. - Yeah, even right away, even though...

I think I said this in the last episode, the last time we spoke about Berserk. I do think that I would have preferred the first part, which they, 'cause they have like a time skip. I would have preferred they've just put that in the right time. 'Cause I feel like it kind of- - Oh, and just start from like golden age. - Yeah, I think it would have been perfect to start from there, even though I'm sure people disagree with me. 'Cause I feel like you get so many real,

really cool experiences if you didn't know what was gonna happen. And also just getting to see his childhood from the start would tell you all about the how fucked up this thing is gonna be. - I guess they needed a hook, right? To sell people in. - I think so, I think that's why. But like, you know, I wonder if it was done again, you know, would it be ordered differently? Looking back, I wonder. I don't know. That's obviously just pure speculation. And I'm sure people would completely disagree with me.

And that's fine. That's opinions, right? That's what we have. - I think especially what happened recently, Berserk's really changed my perspective on how I view media as well. 'Cause I'm just like, before I'm just like, something that's not finished can't be a masterpiece. And then I think about it and I'm just like, Berserk,

is a pure example of something that has done more than fucking enough to be a masterpiece. Like an unfinished masterpiece is still a masterpiece, you know? And I feel like that's really changed my perspective on other shows, which may be not have ended and may never end. And I'm just like, well, I think it's still done enough to be called like a masterpiece. And I think Berserk has really showed me that as well. I agree.

- I agree. - Yeah, read "Berserk." - Read "Berserk." - Please. - And listen to Guts' theme. - Even if you're not into dark fantasy, I think it's still- - I'm not into dark fantasy. - Yeah, I still think it can be very much enjoyed. - I love dark fantasy. - I mean, I guess there's nothing else to say really, is there? - There's nothing else. - I hope you've had some new recommendations. - Yeah, I mean, you know what, Garnt? Not bad. I mean, let's take into consideration this middle one. - Get that shit out of here. - Other than that,

- Good choice. - Anyone who's read "Domestic Girlfriend" knows that this shit slaps. - Let us know your three by three on the subreddit. - I'm sure you will anyway. - I'm wondering how many people will have "Berserk" on there. - I'm saying, man. - I wanna see a three by three that doesn't have

- It's not normie to put berserk in your three by three. - It's not overrated. It's just that good. - It's like putting salt in my favorite condiments. It needs to go on everything. Come on, don't boo me, I'm right. - It's like three by three of essential things. I put water, water is overrated. - Water really? Wow. You're really putting water in an S tier?

- I think phantom belongs in ST, not water. But yeah, anyway. Yeah, please send us your three by threes in the subreddit. Go and follow us on Twitter. And Joe, you can go and do the rest of this stuff. - Okay, well, hey, let's talk about our patrons first of all. - Oh yeah, let's do that. - Let's bring them up on the screen right now. - I bet they have good taste in manga. - I'm sure they have good taste in manga. - But this guy right here has a great taste in manga.

- I'm sure Grant Gaylord has great taste in vodka. I love that boy. - Yeah, he has the best girlfriend in his mind. - Oh God. - I know he does. - But hey, if you'd like to support the show, then make sure to go to our Patreon, patreon.com/trashtaste. Also follow us on Twitter. Send us your memes on the subreddit or your three by threes on the subreddit. And if you hate our faces, listen to us on Spotify.

- Cheers gamers. - I honestly like there weren't too many surprises this episode. - I know we went from trash today. We weren't trash taste. We were great taste. - We were gentleman taste. - Yeah, gentlemen taste. - Refined taste. - Yeah, we had refined taste.

- What a nice episode with minimal arguing. - Exactly. - I just feel like manga, there's so much less variation in taste because everyone knows what like, if there's a good manga, like everyone can kind of agree. It's a good manga. No one reads like 200 chapters of something that they are not enjoying. - True. - So yeah, that's been this episode of Good Taste. - I guess we'll see you guys soon. - All right, bye. - Bye.