Deep Space and Dragons

Episode 71: Delving into Anime Movies: Adaptations, Box Office Splendor, and how Studio Ghibli is somehow underrated?

• Richard • Season 2 • Episode 71

Share episode

Click Here to send in your random question to have a chance to win!

Have you ever pondered the delicate balance of storytelling in anime movies and their impact on a series' legacy? Richard and Karl, invite you to a spirited debate as we dissect the evolution of manga in Shonen Jump, the intricacies of anime movie adaptations, and the wondrous world of anime box office phenomena. This episode peels back the curtain on the anime industry, examining the successes and failures that keep fans like us on the edge of our seats.

Our conversation isn't just about what's on the screen; we also shine a light on the dedication of anime aficionados who navigate language barriers and limited releases to celebrate their beloved medium. As we navigate the challenges of continuity in films like "Demon Slayer: Mugen Train" and "Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero," we toss in our fair share of nostalgia for the Pokémon movie's unexpected depth and the unforgettable climax of the Digimon film. If you're curious about how your favorite series fares on the big screen, our analysis of narrative choices and box office trends is just the ticket.

But it's not all about animated action and cosmic confrontations; we also embrace the zen side of fandom with a nod to the ritual of tea drinking. Imagine unwinding with a soothing cup of your favorite brew as we tease the possibility of guiding you through a meditative journey. From the climactic battles of digital monsters to the tranquil moments of introspection, there's something for every anime enthusiast in this episode. So, grab your preferred mug, settle in, and join us for an animated discussion that's as diverse as the world of anime itself.

Support the show

Follow all things Richard and Karl, and check out "The Minuet of Sorcery"
https://linktr.ee/rajkevis

Richard:

indescript weekday. I'm Richard who decided it's a weekday.

Karl:

And I am Karl. Well, I mean, I don't really have any control over what day of the week it is, I guess.

Richard:

With that attitude you have to self-actualize and get a ridiculous superpower.

Karl:

The ability to control what day of the week it is. Is that actually? Would that even be time travel?

Richard:

I think so, or it'd be like calendar manipulation, or like mass hypnosis, because, like theoretically, I think it'd be easier to just brainwash everybody than to actually change where the Earth is in rotation to the sun.

Karl:

Hmm.

Richard:

Yeah, probably With that, welcome to Deep Space and Dragons, the hip new radio podcast where we talk about things. And disclaimer we are not a valid source of information. Do not cite us on your essays.

Karl:

Oh yeah, we're definitely not worthy of a bibliography. Don't, don't give us an entry.

Richard:

And if you do, don't use Chicago style, like if you must quote us, please use MLA like a standard human being. So what's new in the world of Karl?

Karl:

Oh well, so there's been quite a few series that like in Shonen Jump, kind of a revolving door. Yes, you know, some series are good, like Doron Dorororon. That one was really good and both of us were somewhat disappointed when it was cancelled prematurely.

Richard:

Like the part of me that's a smug batard enjoyed how accurately I predicted the timeline, but the part of me that likes good things was sad.

Karl:

Well, I mean, some of the things on there aren't necessarily good, like I definitely saw some of those things. The things on there aren't necessarily good, like I definitely saw the Shadow Illuminators. There was no way that was making it big, making it going all the way.

Richard:

But it didn't help my mathematical argument that 80% of new manga is just bleep.

Karl:

Mama Yu Yu had a lot of charm right at the very start, but lost its charm in, like the first five chapters, so not surprising that one got cancelled, but an incredibly charming series that has actually become a long running part of the Shonen Jump catalog. Is Spy Family, yes, or Spy X Family, if you decide to pronounce it wrong.

Richard:

To be fair. To be fair when Japan had decided that using the English letter X was silent in their manga titles. I don't think the English language consented to this. Like is it supposed to be a time symbol? And it's like you're just multiplying the two things, which is why it's silent. Because I appreciate spy times family.

Karl:

Yeah, I mean why it's silent Because I appreciate Spy Times family. I mean, it's not exactly clear, but as a charming and enduring manga series it got animated and the animation was very top-notch last year and whatever has come out this year has generally been quite good for animation quality.

Karl:

um and uh, I'm guessing, I don't know, when uh anime becomes successful enough to propagate a movie oh, when a group of investors say so obviously uh spy family has been successful enough that they made a movie and I believe the movie came out in Japan in like December and then must have done well enough in Japan and been enough of demand that they decided that Cineplex in North America or Canada at the very least. I don't know about American movie theater companies, but If it's in Canada, it's probably in America.

Karl:

I mean, yeah, sometimes it's the same company with a different name, or sometimes Canadian companies just don't make it in the United States. Regardless, cineplex has a habit of playing anime movies. They played Dragon Ball Super Broly, they played Jujutsu Kaisen, they played the Demon Slayer movie, and the most recent movie that they decided that they would put on was the Spy Family Code White decided that they would put on was the spy family code white, um, and so I don't remember exactly what movie we're watching. When it came up as a trailer, uh, it wasn't even remotely anime related. I do recall that because it was just, it was like ghostbusters or something like that.

Karl:

I'm like I'm not sure what movie it was, but they advertised the trailer and it was about a month before the movie came out. Well, it was playing in theaters anyways and I was like, oh nice, I should check to see what time it's playing, because it was playing on a Saturday, so maybe I would have been able to go before work. And a month out from when it was actually playing, it was confirmed to be playing in five cities Edmondson, winnipeg, ottawa and two cities in Quebec. I don't remember what they were and I don't really want to butcher, the. I mean, I feel like I do a pretty good French accent, but that's just because I You're from Saskatchewan French and French accent, but that's just because I I you're from Saskatchewan.

Richard:

There's no possible way. That's true.

Karl:

There's no right, there's no possible way that I I speak French sounding.

Richard:

Well, one of the joke is I actually know a lot of French immersion bilingual people in Ontario, Cause they believe in that over here. So like I'll talk to friends like oh yeah, I just don't know that much conversational French. I only did it for 12 years and I'm, like you know, in Alberta and Saskatchewan. We just don't believe in it, right Like it's like French immersion in Alberta. Yeah right, you should be eating steak.

Karl:

Anyways, I was very disappointed because it wasn't confirmed to be playing in Saskatoon, even though I know that they've played all of the aforementioned anime movies. So I just kind of gave up on it. I was like, okay, fine, I'm not going on a road trip like six hours to frickin' watch a movie. I'd respect it. I mean it would have been respectable, but well for anime fans anyways. But that is 12 hours of driving.

Richard:

Or just road trip fans, and the anime is unrelated.

Karl:

Well, as it turns out, those five cities were just the ones that were confirmed a month out from actually playing. And actually the Spy Family had three different showings Saturday, Sunday and Monday, I believe they had a showing and so my girlfriend's like, hey, you really wanted to go see this, we should go see it together. I mean, she's not really a big anime fan, but she is willing to go see whatever I want to see, because I go and see whatever she wants to see.

Richard:

That makes sense. That's what sense looks like, yeah.

Karl:

And so what's new with me? I was just a long-winded way of saying that I watched the new Spy Family movie and, aside from lingering a bit too long on some poop jokes, I thought it was pretty good.

Richard:

And that kind of pivots perfectly into our topic of anime movies.

Karl:

But first up, Well, I mean, yeah, it pivots perfectly into our topic of anime movies and I decided not to tell you to go first with what's new with you because I just felt like you asked me, so I felt like talking. That's fair. But what is new with you?

Richard:

Richard, not a whole lot. So I'm on a semester break between my two semesters. I have recently learned that I can technically get into law school if I write an exam in August with my degree, and then I learned I can get a master's in English and law somehow, which would take me as long as what I was already going to do with an extra year, but I get a law degree out of it. So I might, through procrastination, end up as a law-practicing human being. So I've been doing practice tests for the exam and this that because the idea of it is amusing.

Karl:

Okay, so I'm assuming that would mostly get into copyright law.

Richard:

No, it's just law, law. So it'd be like the major would be in English and law and then I can subspecialize afterward into what I want to specialize into. But yeah, IPRA and copyright law would be a good place to go. But technically if I just write an exam for that, I could just go into courtroom and practice law.

Karl:

Well, I mean, yeah, that's, oh, you could, that's for sure.

Richard:

So I'm like it started as a bit, and the more I'm thinking about it, the more I'm like wait, I could actually do this in theory. That's crazy.

Karl:

Well, I mean like maybe you could become a vampire secretary or something like that.

Richard:

That is the dream. I'm going to be perfectly clear. If we flip the roles just slightly in Midnight Secretary and I am the secretary, slash blood bank for the hot vampire done. That is objectively my end game.

Karl:

Is to be a blood bank for a vampire.

Richard:

Well, no, to be the best secretary to win over the vampire.

Karl:

So I'm not just a blood bank oh, ah, right, right, so you can be more more to them than just an object exactly so yes, you're correct, that would exactly be my objective and I would succeed and it'd be amazing.

Richard:

but between that, like because I'm between semesters, I'm mostly just like submitting stories to journals, getting occasional rejection letters. It's like a lot of literary journals don't want my story about someone using a goblin as a mace. It's weird, but eventually one will. Well, I mean, yeah, eventually. So like between that, like just applying to things for the summer, preparing for my fall internship I'm a very boring human being and I'm fine with that.

Karl:

It's fair.

Richard:

Yeah, I'm a very content.

Karl:

Boring person. You do tend to get hyper-focused on things.

Richard:

Yeah, it's like. My medical condition is called attention deficit hyper disorder.

Karl:

Yeah, I mean, sometimes it seems like there's not a deficit of attention, but that's because, like the, deficit goes in weird directions.

Richard:

It's like I'm really good at one thing, I just don't get to pick what it is, ah, yeah okay. Which is why I can like list all the triggers in Border, but don't know the cities in Ontario, Right, Regust is the most durable trigger and has an expansion option of booster. Where are you?

Karl:

I don't know. Brampton, I think you may or may not be in Brampton.

Richard:

I have to look up my post literally every time I fill in a form, but could accurately break down all the chakra, natures and combinations.

Karl:

Well, yeah, but would you include rainbow chakra on there?

Richard:

No, not only is it non-canon, it's actually ice chakra and it angers me because it's like, yeah, I got chakra from the arctic around you. I'm like shouldn't just make a snowball, why would it? There's nothing here like rainbow is not a. It's like having something be like blue raspberry and regular raspberry and you have both flavors. You're one of these is fictional.

Karl:

You got so mad that you almost used up her one F-bomb for the episode.

Richard:

At Rainbow Chakra Like how dare you For the record still better than Boruto?

Karl:

I mean, that's another great segue into our topic about anime movies.

Richard:

So I actually googled the highest grossing anime movies in the United States and Canada, just kind of like as a basis for this discussion. So I've seen all of the highest grossing movies on this list except for three, so we're going to start with. I'm curious Did you see Pokemon, the first movie, in theaters? No, have you seen Pokemon, the first movie?

Karl:

That is the one where Ash dies and all the Pokemon cry to bring him back.

Richard:

Spoilers, spoilers, unlike Boruto where. I have no problem spoiling it Pokemon. The first movie was surprisingly well written.

Karl:

It also had a Minnesota Vikings joke in it, which just shouldn't work in any context.

Richard:

The more you think about it.

Karl:

the more you think about it, the more immersion-breaking the fact they made a Minnesota Vikings joke is that's probably a localized joke. They probably made a different sports reference in Japan.

Richard:

I hope not, so the thing about that movie. So I was young enough to go see it that my mother was there and my brother and my mom walked out because they had the Pokemon Pikachu's vacation mini movie and then, like, after the movie we told her all about it's, like, oh, I thought it was just the animal noises for like two hours so I left. I'm like no, no, there was an actual movie involving a psychotic clone. And imagine my mother being like watching pikachu's vacation, like oh, this is just a stupid kids movie.

Karl:

And then learning it was actually about the ethics of eugenics yeah, I mean surprisingly deep for a kids movie from the 90s so, quite frankly, it deserves a spot in number one here I don't even think it's adjusted for inflation, which is really funny. I think it's just that much better okay, so what's number two on the list?

Richard:

demon slayer.

Karl:

The movie mugen train yeah, I didn't actually go see that. Um, I'm pretty sure uh it was. It was subbed when it was played at cineplex.

Richard:

I actually prefer dub anime. Don't come at me, Chad.

Karl:

Well see, I definitely prefer dub for the theater because it's a big immersive experience and I don't want my immersion ruined by subtitles where I might miss something in the subtitles or I might miss something in the action because I'm too busy focusing on one or the other.

Richard:

I agree, but I have some thoughts and I'm curious about them, with you focusing on one or the other, I agree, but I have some thoughts and I'm curious about them with you. So Demon Slayer the movie's only noteworthy to me because it did one weird thing I haven't seen an anime do. It just adapted a plot arc as a movie and then later turned it into episodes, like Gundam, unicorn later turned into episodes, but it was weird. The idea you'd watch two seasons of Demon Slayer in the movie would be canon, because anime movies are notoriously non-canon To the point where, like, if someone's like, hey, add these Dragon Ball Z movies into the timeline, you can't.

Karl:

Right. Well, I mean even Dragon Ball Super, the Battle of Gods and Resurrection F. I mean they were made into a season or they're based on the season, but they aren't exactly canon either, because they don't exactly follow the main main story.

Richard:

They're very close, right so like I'm curious your thoughts like do you think that's a good idea to just grab a chunk of your story and movie it? Because on one hand I kind of hate that, because then it's like, okay, it leads to that problem of gundam seed, where the movie versions were the superior way to watch it but also are the harder to get your hands. Like, so this is gonna date our age here a bit. So if our viewers were thinking we were like 17 year olds or something we I firmly remember you buying the orange box, dragon Ball Z seasons on DVD and the marathon mode which lets you just watch the show in it's like intended, clean format yeah, just cut out the opening, cut out the ending credits, cut out the last time and next time.

Richard:

And one of my biggest rants about the Dragon Ball Super manga is it's incomplete because it expects you to have, like, watched things that aren't quite canon, so like well, I mean the Broly movie.

Richard:

I guess technically is canon, but not like they just didn't want to draw it out, but then they're willing to draw out like frame for frame, the freaking heroes movie and that's why I found, like the Demon Slayer movie an interesting idea, because adapting just an arc of an anime into a movie means you probably have a better written movie than the normal filler garbage we come up with. But also. It means it's not really special.

Richard:

It's just a season of the show where like if we go back to gundam wing endless waltz, for example, where it's like, okay, we did a series and then ended it with a big dramatic canon movie. That's awesome.

Karl:

Well, so JoJo's Bizarre Adventure also has the first two seasons as movies ends up being the superior way to watch the series because it's just so much more concise, but it still hits all the major points and shows all the major set pieces in action.

Richard:

It's ironic because it's the opposite of the live action adaptation problem, where it's like, yeah, we cut a bunch to make it. It's like that doesn't work if it's still a 10-episode, hour-long episode, miniseries, guys. So the next one we have on the list is pokemon the movie 2000.

Karl:

I don't know if you've seen that one so no, I mean I the only pokemon movie I've actually watched was pokemon the movie so, just for some context, it did half as well as the first movie, which makes sense because it was half as good.

Richard:

Fair, just straight up. It was like the big point of the movie was to tease Lugia because Gold and Silver weren't out yet, and it was a perfectly functional movie. And the Pokemon movies were interesting at this point because the first movie was canon, except everyone's mind got wiped at the end of it. So it was canon it happened, but none of the characters remembered it happened.

Karl:

Right right.

Richard:

The second movie didn't have a MacGuffin so technically it happened, but Pokemon just also doesn't have strong enough canon and continuity to care Right. So I'm pretty sure later they meet Lugia for the first time outside the movie because they just didn't care enough about the canon, meet Lugia for the first time outside the movie because they just didn't care enough about the canon. So it really felt like that movie felt like your typical anime affair of we wrote an original movie that doesn't really fit into the plot, where all the characters yell out their special attacks, where the first one because it literally had the 150th and 151st Pokemon that weren't shown in any form of media and it came out near the end of the first season actually felt like a conclusion, almost like an endless waltz or a charged counterattack, where every Pokemon movie after that because it became apparent the series was infinite means nothing, so perfectly timed. Our next one on the list is the Dragon Ball Super, super Hero movie.

Karl:

Where they tried to see if they could trick the fan into watching CGI instead. Demon Slayer makes sense, being that was number two, right? Yeah, then Pokemon, obviously being first and third, yeah.

Richard:

Dragon Ball Super Super Hero did better than.

Karl:

Broly Really.

Richard:

Yeah. So I didn't see that one in theaters. I saw Broly in theaters, dragon Ball, super, super Hero. The main reason I didn't watch it is they spoiled all of it in trailers. Every single thing was spoiled. They're like check out these new forms. And I and I'm like, well, why would I go watch it? Now, look at cell return. I'm like, wasn't that a twist like the marketing ruined the movie for me, which is funny well, I mean, that's kind of a problem with with trailers in general or especially for comedies.

Karl:

Uh well, movies that think they're comedies, because you know it's like at most a three minute trailer and that's already kind of a long trailer, uh, and then they managed to actually spoil every single joke. That's actually funny in the movie yeah.

Richard:

So, like at this point too, I really think their movie was an experiment, just to straight up see if they could go forward with making dragon ball things in cheaper CGI, if they could actually get away with it. According to these numbers, they can.

Karl:

Well, I mean, the Broly movie was also the same CGI style, because they're probably just literally reusing the Bandai Namco style, because they're probably just literally reusing the Bandai Namco.

Richard:

Uh well, the Dragon Ball Super Broly movie is about half that style and about half traditional animation yeah, that's fair all right. So right between the two Dragon Ball movies is a Jujutsu Kaisen Zero movie uh, I didn't actually go see it.

Karl:

Um, that one I find particularly strange, um, and actually somewhat infuriating. Um. So jujutsu kaisen zero uh covers literally the first like chapter of jujutsu kaisen, because yeah, because the pilot wasn't what ended up being the first chapter yeah, so they always.

Karl:

The first chapter always ends up being a bit longer, and it's actually pretty easy to adapt the first chapter into a movie. Oh, yeah, but when we talked about Sorcery fight Okay, it was just straight up about sorcery fight, right when we talked about it. It's like the placement of Chapter Zero being at the beginning kind of set a different tone for the series as a whole. And then, additionally, there's a fight between Gojo and Miguel. That's in the movie, and Miguel uses up this black rope thing and everyone's like he's so powerful he can keep up with Gojo, but he burnt up his entire black rope and without it he's nowhere near as powerful as Gojo.

Richard:

So what's funny for Jujutsu Kaisen is they have their main series and then at the start of season 3, 2, they just flashback to Gojo's time as a student, yeah, and then Zero doesn't take place before the series flashbacks, it just kind of takes place before the main show. So it's like both required viewing and isn't. Because when we got into season two, me and my brother were like, oh wait, does this not make any sense? Because we didn't watch the movie. Because when we got into season two, me and my brother were like, oh wait, does this not make any sense? Because we didn't watch the movie. But the movie doesn't really fit into where it should either, but also kind of avoids the anime filler movie problem completely, because it also evolves the Mugen Train problem completely, because it's a story you don't actually need other than the manga recently bugging me with that Like if you don't watch Zero, you'll be fine.

Karl:

Well, the thing that bothered me about the the movie adaptation versus the original chapter is that that the fight between Miguel and Gojo happens off screen in the original chapter. So you know, I read the original first chapter, I read the series, I kept up and then, uh, I had no idea who Miguel is. And when I'm looking up who he is, uh, and it's like, oh he's, he's so strong in Gojo as long as he has this black rope, that he burnt it all up and now he's just a normal sorcerer and it's like the whole gauntlet arc has just been tedious so like let's use my Bleach example, because I love flashing back to Bleach, because anime getting worse has made Bleach retroactively better.

Richard:

Imagine if you're watching the Thousand Year Blood War example, because I love flashing back to Bleach because anime getting worse has made Bleach retroactively better. Imagine if you're watching the Thousand Year Blood War in Bleach and then, like, captain flips things upside down, shows up but he was introduced in a movie that's just bad storytelling right there. And my Hero did that recently too where Mecha All Might happened because his pal from the first my Hero Academia movie built him a mecha suit. And I'm like I don't like this Marvel Cinematic Universe notation in things. I do not like when you cannot enjoy something in a vacuum. That's why most of my highest rated movies are ones that the story stand alone, like even Pokemon, the first movie if you've never watched an episode of Pokemon, you'll be fine. Dragon Ball, super Super Hero you don't know who any of these people are or why it matters. Broly, weirdly enough, actually worked as a standalone story because it introduced Goku, vegeta and Broly and then just talked about them and then punched each other while yelling out Go Go Vegeta. So I don't actually like Jujutsu Kaisen referencing things that happened technically outside of Jujutsu Kaisen, unless you download the mobile game or whatever they decide to do next. And I hear silence Hm. And I hear silence Testing, testing. This is unfortunate. Pauses like this, where the entire narrative starts because Karl disconnected, is not great for us not editing these episodes in any way, shape or form. So as I wait for my co-host to return, I will finish giving my monologue about anime movies and continue on the topic valiantly, with a heart of gold, while I wait for my comrade to return.

Richard:

So, interestingly enough, after the Dragon Ball Super movies, we get into the Yu-Gi-Oh movie, which did particularly well. It was a non-canon affair. It wasn't particularly well written. There was zombies for no particular reason, but you got free trading cards at the height of Yu-Gi-Oh. So it was like the movie didn't have to be good, but I also didn't expect it to be good. So I weirdly found that movie enjoyable because I knew it would be terrible. But I find it fascinating that it took like seven movies down of things that were in Show and Jump or show and jump adjacent, before we get to the first Studio Ghibli movie on the list, with Secret World of Arrietty, which, quite frankly, was a masterpiece. There is no shade. I can throw at a high quality Studio Ghibli movie and I don't really have any follow up thoughts on that quality Studio Ghibli movie and I don't really have any follow-up thoughts on that. It was just, quite frankly, beautiful soundtrack, artwork, smooth animation. All in all a spectacular movie to every sense of the word.

Richard:

And then, continuing down, we get to the third Pokemon movie, and I think that's the last one that they bothered showing in theaters before they gave up. So at this point, each Pokemon movie and I think that's the last one that they bothered showing in theaters before they gave up. So at this point each Pokemon movie, by literally grossing sales cuts in half. And the third Pokemon movie, which tried to explain the unknown but didn't bother, other than Entei, being cool, didn't really do a whole lot to work as a standalone movie. There's a few people who would probably claim it as their favorite Pokemon movie. But, to be perfectly candid, skipping that one will not cause any deep problems. And following that we get Ponyo, one of the few Studio Ghibli movies I have not seen, and with that Karl has returned.

Richard:

I just gave. So what you missed was I went over the Secret World of Arrietty, the third Pokemon movie, and Yu-Gi-Oh the Movie the Pyramid of Light.

Karl:

Secret World Arrietty.

Richard:

Yes.

Karl:

Never even heard of that one.

Richard:

It's a Studio Ghibli masterpiece about a kid with a heart condition who shrinks down and meets fairies.

Karl:

Oh yeah, okay, I mean I'm surprised I haven't heard of it, but then again, studio Ghibli has been defunct for a long time, because making anime masterpieces doesn't necessarily make money.

Richard:

However, as I mentioned while you were reconnecting, I can't bash a Studio Ghibli movie, because I'm not a sociopath.

Karl:

Yeah, well, I mean, they are very high-quality artistic films that have a lot of merit.

Richard:

It's just sad that they don't be funny. They're usually superbly well-written, beautifully animated, excellently scored, superbly acted. But the other thing you missed was Yu-Gi-Oh the Movie the Pyramid of Light, where people went to get free trading cards. Okay, which was the exact thing we complain about in anime movies, about a non-canon filler nonsense that advances none of the plot or the characters that consisted of two card games, but here's my favorite Yu-Gi-Oh, the movie the Pyramid of Light Trivia.

Richard:

So you got a card called a Blue-Eyed Shining Dragon. To play the Blue-Eyed Shining Dragon, you have to sacrifice a Blue-Eyed Ultimate Dragon. Blue-eyed Ultimate Dragon wasn't printed in North America, so you got an unplayable promo card. That simply did not function which is pretty good for like and I did see that one in the theaters and I enjoyed it because I had no expectations of it whatsoever fair enough so with that yugioh, the movie the pyramid of lights probably best contribution is the abridged version.

Richard:

Okay, so where are we on the list now? Next we have Ponyo, another Studio Ghibli movie.

Karl:

Okay, but is this like this number, 7 out of 10?

Richard:

I don't even know if this list is top 10. It's just the list I found.

Karl:

Just the list. Oh see, Spy Family's not even going to be on there yet because it's too recent.

Richard:

But we did talk about it first, though.

Karl:

so Well, I mean, yeah, if you want to talk more about it.

Richard:

Take the stage. People do not count on us for following lists in list form or staying on topic.

Karl:

One of the other things that I have found about a complaint that I have about anime movies. I kind of glazed over this in the what's New With Me is when they're subbed in theaters, because that's a barrier to entry for non-anime fans. They're just not going to go see a subbed movie. But then one of the other things and it's kind of difficult to deal with is the fact that anime movies are made for fans of the anime, but that's also kind of another barrier to entry for non-fans because they don't necessarily know who all the characters are, and Spy Family often has this small amount of narration at the beginning of episodes, and so they included this bit of narration that explained who the characters, the main family is and what their goals are.

Richard:

Yes, that perfect narrative technique of tell don't show.

Karl:

Well, they did a little bit of both, because they showed Twilight on a mission where he, like he, sounds terrible because he drugs a female noble in order to be able to get intel from an office that she has access to. Oh, he's a spy. And then he uses his polymorph ability because he I don't know how he can make these disguises. He's like better at disguises than Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, that's a surprisingly low bar.

Richard:

He has a center tooth, like you just could tell. It's him every time.

Karl:

No, no see, Tom Cruise manages to polymorph in people in impossible amounts of time, and Twilight just does it even better yeah, twilight's just competent, which is what happens when you let your enemy protagonists go through puberty but so when they're explaining that twilight is a spy, it's because he successfully recovers this document from this office that, while escaping from the, the party dressed as the female noble In this polymorph disguise suit.

Richard:

We haven't done our Spy Family episode. I just enjoy Spy Family. But what's funny is to loop a bit back into when I was talking about Dragon Ball Super Broly. That's one of the few anime movies that bothered to naturally introduce the characters in it.

Karl:

And when we get a little, further down the list, but any was a good one too.

Richard:

But any more closing thoughts you have on that, because I believe I cut you off and I also gave an uninterrupted six-minute monologue while you reconnected.

Karl:

No, I don't. It's difficult for an anime movie to naturally introduce the characters, and I do think Spy Family did a really straightforward job, a good job in a straightforward way that matches the style of the show and, like the Dragon Balls Broly movie, also did a really good job of introducing characters in a way that made sense to viewers who aren't necessarily immersed in the series proper.

Richard:

And then our next movie on the list, cheated in a truly beautiful way. So the most recent One Piece movie, which got to be like 15th or 16th at this point of One Piece movies. One Piece film Red was a musical. The main character, slash, villain. Slash hero's power was when they sing things. That traps people in a dream world with music effects. The movie, about 90% of its runtime, was set to epic music, fun fact if we learned anything from Cats.

Richard:

if you set something to epic music, no one cares who the characters are Like it really didn't matter, because the only characters who mattered to the plot were Luffy, the new character, uta and Shanks, and they explain their three dynamics and then everyone else is just either a pirate or a marine or somebody, and they're just wacky background characters and it's like, weirdly enough, there's so many of them. It doesn't really matter who they are because the movie isn't about them. So it was one of the better One Piece movies I've seen, but that's like saying it was one of the better bread sandwiches I've eaten.

Richard:

Bread sandwiches have been around forever and it will continue to be around forever so, before I continue down this list, is there any other anime movies you've seen, either in theaters or like independently, you think are worth mentioning? Because, to be honest, I've seen 10 naruto movies, four bleach movies, four in yuashin movies, and none of those well, the first bleach movie went an interesting direction and none of those well, the first Bleach movie went in an interesting direction, but almost none of those would be considered good movies. It was more. They were either on YTV or Netflix and I was sufficiently bored.

Karl:

Yeah, I mean. The only movie I would mention as an example of the non-canon nonsense which we alluded to at the start of the episode was the Naruto and the Ice Princess, or whatever it was called Smooth, perfect, 10 out of 10.

Richard:

Oh, it's so bad.

Karl:

Which, yeah, I mean there's lots of cool stuff and ideas in there that I wish they had just consulted with the author or someone so that those ideas could meld better with the series Because, like the chakra-sealing chains never comes up again. Right, the rainbow chakra. Complete and utter bullcrap.

Richard:

Yep. So here's my biggest pet peeve of that Naruto movie and this is going to be stupid. It's going to be a journey and I'm going to compress it down to one minute to get this out of my system. Naruto introduces within the first plot arc the idea that there's five elements and you can combine two elements to make a special element with the character Haku. They explain that one of the special elements is ice, a special thing only Haku can do. They do an entire movie where all the villains have ice powers. That is the one thing they canonically knew they could not do at this point in the series.

Richard:

The people who wrote this Naruto movie had not watched a single episode of Naruto Because literally, it was built around the premise of one of the three things at this point in the show you had stated were special and rare and wouldn't work. So I was so mad that the villains had ice powers and you didn't make them related to the one ice villain with ice powers. They could have saved it If they had consulted anyone who'd read the manga. Be like, oh, for them to have ice powers they'd have to be related to Haku and be like his clan that was persecuted or something Boom Fixed it Easy, but no. And then like the technology inconsistency where they're like, yeah, they're in a movie theater upside down with shortwave radios.

Karl:

Like you, you would think that the fact they have shortwave radios would be more relevant in that series. Well, especially seeing as I mean, I guess shortwave radios make more sense to people who aren't immersed in the series. But it's like and and maybe they would make more sense than the, the sensory unit's ability to just telepathically send messages well, it's one of those weird societal development questions.

Richard:

If you have people who can telepathically send messages, why would you invent this?

Karl:

well, exactly, uh. So it's like the writers of the movie didn't consult the writers of the show slash manga and then, like the writers of the show slash manga, didn't decide that anything in that movie was even worth carrying over to the main series.

Richard:

And to follow that one up a bit, there was a train that had a kunai machine gun in it and I'm just like, wait you have gunpowder to shoot kunais Like you heard my head tilt there in confusion. And the worst part of that Naruto movie is it's probably in the top four. Okay, Like that Naruto movie, which I dunked on for so many reasons, was one of the better Naruto movies.

Karl:

Well, I mean, I did enjoy it as a standalone movie. Hmm, so well, I mean, I did enjoy it as a standalone movie. It's just kind of like the dragon ball z movies, where it's like you you can't. You can enjoy it, but you're definitely you're not enjoying it. For the same reason you're enjoying the main show although interestingly enough so.

Richard:

I recently watched a video on the dragon ball z movies and why they're quote like that unquote okay so originally in dragon ball they made the movies to be like little recaps of the show.

Richard:

but what happened was when they did the chaotzu movie, they took the themes and the characters of a plot arc but told an original story. The dragon ball z movies are deliberately designed to take the themes and key moments of the show and compress them to a movie with different characters. So each Dragon Ball Z movie corresponded to a chunk of the show and acted as an alternative to it. Huh, so it was like the idea that the Turtlis movie is an alternative to the Vegeta saga, the Cooler movie is an alternative to watching the Frieza saga. So the reason they're so similar is they were trying to hit those points. So in theory you could watch all the Dragon Ball Z movies and get the gist of the series, but it would work as standalone movies.

Karl:

Yeah, I mean, I kind of feel like they missed the mark.

Richard:

A little bit, but as a weird side effect it made it that if you want to put optional characters in your dragon ball z game, they got like a full list of like.

Richard:

It's like if you're to take the ideas of the dragon ball z movies, flesh them out more and blend them with the series, you can make a much more interesting dragon ball z game, because then you don't have to follow the main plot but like.

Richard:

Here's something one of the naruto movies did that blows my mind. So it's called naruto the last and they want to do a slow-born romance movie between hanada and naruto, from someone who's never read a romance novel or interacted with someone of the opposite gender. So it was awkward, stilted, slow and also naruto goes into a weird mode he's never seen before and cuts the moon in half and then they shoot the falling moon with a laser cannon. But the movie was trying to take itself completely seriously and I hated that movie because it had no sense of joy to it whatsoever from a show that was doofy Well, being doofy where, like one of the better naruto movies, was literally to get caught in an illusion and it's just bizarro world where everyone has inverted personalities. I'm like that's a great idea for a movie, because none of this matters anyway.

Richard:

You might as well lean into it right unlike the weird time traveling one that adds the implication to series of time traveling. But none of the naruto movies hit this list, and neither did they deserve to. But what's truly criminal is Spirited Away is like the second lowest thing on this list.

Karl:

My Hero Academia World Heroes.

Richard:

Mission beat out Spirited Away.

Karl:

That is sad.

Richard:

And, like Princess Mononoke, is not even on here.

Richard:

So Studio Ghibli went bankrupt because they put their all into making excellently crafted pieces of art that targeted a niche audience. That just didn't pay back. However, I'm looking at the successful in US and Canada specifically list which the thing after Spirit Away is Digimon the movie, which I need to give a brief explanation. Have you seen Digimon the movie? I have not. So digimon had a lot of tv specials that were about the length of one of those. Like you know, a lot of the dragon ball z movies were really not long enough to be a full-length movie right. So they took three unrelated digimon movies, glued them together, added a new character in to try and bind them into one story. So it's like almost like an anthology, that kind of mished.

Richard:

Well, but, also, the main villain, broken to the internet, was going to nuke Colorado Specifically and they defeated him with spam email Digimon, the movie With spam email. Part of what made it amazing is it's completely canon, because it takes place after the series, between the two series mm-hmm so it's 100%.

Richard:

Canon is ridiculous, had some of the best performances of the characters but kind of shot itself in the foot because the metal chunk was so much better than the first chunk in the last chunk. That's like, guys, if you had remade that metal chunk into a full-length movie, it would have been a truly amazing movie. And then years later they like did a season of like called Digimon Shrive, where it was like six movie only things like Gundam Seed style, but was with new characters and new timeline and this and that which was just substantially higher quality than Digimon, the first movie.

Richard:

but the first movie the villain was trying to nuke Colorado. As early 2000s, metal bands played in the background. It was amazing. So I pulled up the highest grossing worldwide list because it's drastically different. Okay, so somehow Mugen Train is in first Worldwide.

Karl:

Mugen Demon Slayer. Mugen Train is in first Worldwide Mugen Train Demon.

Richard:

Slayer Mugen Train, oh yeah, okay, okay, but then it's Spirited Away and it's like Spirited Away your Name, the Boy in the Hair On. I'm like those are things that should be this high up, yes.

Karl:

Yeah, because Studio Ghibli, like I say, they make masterpieces.

Richard:

Yeah, and then like there's just some things that are funny to make it in there, where it's like Detective Conan and I'm like, yeah, that is a series that just did not catch on in North America. Yo-kai watched the movie Evangelion 3.0 plus 1.0 thrice upon a time.

Karl:

Evangelion 3.0 plus 1.0 thrice upon a time ah yeah, the incredibly confusing conclusion to Neon Genesis so Neon Genesis' third movie had the universe's most impossible task.

Richard:

It had to summarize the second half and ending of Neon Genesis and be a reboot, that's canonically a sequel that brings the franchise to a satisfying conclusion. It had a satisfying conclusion. Karl, you don't understand. That is the most impossible task anyone's ever been given. Imagine if I handed you I don't know half, just random pages, just random pages Psyren and and mixed them up randomly with random pages of Thousand Year Blood War and I said now, end this satisfyingly. You're like where do I even start? What is satisfying? This is a series that famously ran out of budget for its finale and then did a different finale when a character murdered all of mankind, I guess, and then choked out his love interest on a beach. Yeah, give it a happy ending. What so, kudos? They ended it, it's over, it's done. They actually did the task. The On Genesis is over and I can actually say with confidence it was a good series with a satisfying conclusion.

Richard:

That should have been impossible should have been impossible so like just straight up kudos, but other than like yokai watch and detective conan movies, this list doesn't have a ton of things that weren't on the other one, just the order's pretty substantially different and there's like a Doraemon movie in there for good measure.

Karl:

Yeah, okay, Another anime that didn't take off in North America, Although that one's a bit old, because it was like I think Doraemon is older than Dr Slump. Yeah, but this Doraemon movie was 2014, so it was like a reboot kind of movie.

Richard:

Oh, yeah, okay, and it was the highest grossing film in Doraemon's history, which, to be fair, most people don't know what Doraemon is, but it gets easter egged in video games all the time.

Karl:

Hmm, and.

Richard:

I'm like, yeah, this list is effectively what we'd expect it to be.

Karl:

Hmm, this list is effectively what we expected, to be like the main difference between international is. Ghibli is where it should be but part of it is if, like Ghibli, like I say, they've made super high quality masterpieces.

Richard:

But like we didn't air them in theaters when they came out for the first thing. Oh okay, we just straight up.

Karl:

Princess monoke never was released in theaters in north america I was kind of wondering if breaking into the north american market is what made studio ghibli go under, because, like their films, were held in such high regard for a good reason and yet they went bankrupt.

Richard:

Yeah, but a lot of people go bankrupt Going bankrupt doesn't mean what it used to. It usually means someone needed to get out of a tax scandal and they go bankrupt and end up with more assets and like, looking at the list to like, the international list and then the in Japan list are much more similar and the North American list was literally just weirdly dominated by Pokemon, because that is all we knew. Yeah, that's true.

Richard:

But moving on from that as we try and wrap up our episode, so to just give a bit of a summary, most animes have non-canon filler movies that are roughly the length of three episodes. That are usually somewhere in the mediocre to adequate range. Like I really liked the third Inuasha movie, which talked a bit more about Inuasha's dad, and I have no idea if that was canon enough to matter or not, but I enjoyed that movie and I find that if you end your anime with a movie, the movie will be a lot stronger. Also, gundam has not topped any of these lists, which is frankly absurd to me. I'm like wait, so Hathaway's Flash just didn't even ping anywhere well, that's because Hathaway's Flash got nothing from being Gundam.

Karl:

It might as well just been it's own animated movie about children in war.

Richard:

It was awesome, though, like it's funny, that Gundam has put out so many movies and none of them even like hit a list. And I'm like, oh yeah, that's because Gundam makes all its money in model kits. Like I'm not even kidding, Like Char's counterattack was just an hour and 45 minute model commercial. That happened to reflect on the tragedy of war, which is just funny to me.

Karl:

I'm so curious about the new Gundam Seed movie, but I don't want to ask my girlfriend to go with me to see it in theaters because it's subbed, not dubbed.

Richard:

Oh man. So you know what broke me. So the sub we listen to of Gundam Seed is not the one that's streaming places and the voices are just not the ones I watched it the first time with, and I don't know why, but it bugs me so much I can't do it. That's funny much I can't do it, that's funny. And with that let's move into our random questions of the day. So has anyone mailed you in or Pigeon mailed you any random questions, because they're allowed to send them to you.

Richard:

Well, I mean we haven't posted my email address or anything on on our socials or whatever, so I don't know I'm talking messenger pigeon going to every redacted pizza in north america hoping to spot you looking at their tattoo and checking citizens in the street well, well, I mean good news on that.

Karl:

uh, my girlfriend really likes the mustache so I shaved the rest of my face and the mustache is coming back in. So in the next couple of weeks here, mustache will be full enough that I'll match your Karl tattoo. If you are looking for me, you can check your shoulder or wherever you have.

Richard:

So, on that note, it's not an icebreaker question, but I do have a random question for you, so I'm going to get a haircut this week because I need one. I kind of want to dye my hair a fun color. What color should I pick?

Karl:

A fun color.

Richard:

Because I'm in the humanities and social sciences, I can look stupid.

Karl:

Well, blue and green I would say are are probably out. They fade horribly. I mean maybe if you get it professionally done, but blue and green are terrible after they start to fade. I mean I like pink, but I would say probably like purple.

Richard:

Interesting.

Karl:

I think purple will look. It'll look very shocking when you see it the first time and I think it'll fade better than most other colors.

Richard:

Interesting. That is strongly under advisement. And here's our random question Cause. That stalled exactly for enough time for me to find it All right. Your boss has ripped the back of his or her their pants and has asked you to create a distraction so they can sneak into their office. How do you create the distraction?

Karl:

Huh, that's. Should I answer this one first, while you?

Richard:

while you hum and haw about it. This one first. While you hum and haw about it.

Karl:

So for me it's kind of rigged.

Richard:

Because I mostly work remote. I would just turn off the meeting chat. Yeah, okay, I mean that's If it's a hypothetical of, like I'm also in a pizzeria and it's a pizzeria manager, then the only effective thing for me to do is to say guys gather around, who wants to go get donuts? I say it loudly to get everyone around and then I like count out the money slowly for our donut person, and that should buy enough time.

Karl:

You know, honestly, I would not, I wouldn't make a distraction. I would just tell people to get out of the way Jeff's got to get to his office because he ripped his pants Just straight up.

Richard:

You would just use honesty.

Karl:

And I would laugh while I was doing it Because he would be embarrassed and stuff. Trying to run to the office, I was like nobody, look here. He ripped his pants. Everybody just keep on doing what you're doing.

Richard:

I enjoy the part where I like throw a water bottle on a server and just shut down the internet, so the Zoom call ends. And this next one is a good one. If you could create an entirely new flavor of tea out of a vibe, situation or environment, what would it be? For example, a tea that tastes like sunset viewed from a mountaintop.

Karl:

A tea that tastes like sunset viewed from a mountaintop, a tea that had a vibe.

Richard:

Yeah, so you choose a physical experience and you somehow turned it into a tea flavor.

Karl:

And what physical experience would I want to turn into a tea flavor?

Richard:

Yeah. So, for example, my pick would be I want a tea that tastes like top decking, the correct card at the end of a match. And also for my enemies sorry, I need a second tea first For my enemies people. I'm serving tea first for my enemies people I'm like serving a drink to, but I don't like I want the tea to taste like being picked second for best man at a wedding because someone else was busy. That was clear.

Richard:

First pick, okay so it's like, yeah, this tastes good, but it's also weirdly bitter and disappointing.

Karl:

Just as a random side note, side tangent, obviously, if you've been following our podcast for long enough, I like to play Magic and I was playing a game of Magic with my deck that I had mentioned a couple episodes ago, and I played a card that filtered for artifacts. It's like look at the top four cards of your library, pick an artifact, put it into your hand.

Richard:

You got 50 seconds.

Karl:

And when I looked at the top four cards of my library, the card that was on top of my deck was not an artifact and probably would have won me the game. But I had to filter it away because I was looking for artifact.

Richard:

So that's the opposite of how that first tea would taste.

Karl:

Definitely the opposite.

Richard:

Oh, filter out my win condition Dang it, but no but no Knowing you, you'd make a tea that tastes like punching your friend with an inflatable glove in a bouncy castle until he falls over repeatedly.

Karl:

No, no, I think. I think this probably would actually just be a normal tea, but like I really enjoy a nice warm shower with like fruity herbaceous, like shampoo, it's funny because with the structuring of the question.

Richard:

That's a delicious tea. In reality, you put soap in someone's tea, but in this context, you are correct. Fresh shower flavor would actually be really good as a tea.

Karl:

And with that it doesn't sound appealing it doesn't.

Richard:

But you're right, like in the context of this question, you are correct and with that, thank you everybody for tuning in. Feel free to submit your random questions for a chance to win things, possibly free e-books, because I have those and I don't know. Go have some tea, and if you don't like tea, that's fine, drink it anyway.

Karl:

Well, I mean, I was going to say self-care. Tea is good for meditation if you want to do that kind of stuff. Or tea is good for just general drinking if you don't like to meditate. Or if you don't like tea or meditating, then I and to follow that up, if you'd like us to do an episode where me and Karl just guide you through a guided meditation with our soothing voices.

Richard:

Send your emails to the listed email address for Deep Space and Dragons. I will happily have me and Larl read a guided meditation for an hour. Yeah, yeah, that I mean, I don't know what kind of meditation you'd be guided through, but I just enjoy the part where it's like think of things that calm you like an Espeon and an Umbreon in a doubles battle that calm you Like an Espeon and an Umbreon in a doubles battle.

Richard:

Find your spiritual center, like the opposite of what someone tells, you can rotate a block in the stage. Editor in Smash Bros.

Karl:

That guy doesn't exist anymore.

Richard:

And with that I don't know. Enjoy your lives.

Karl:

Maybe drink some tea. It might help you enjoy your life more, maybe Bye.

Richard:

Bye, buy my book.