Deep Space and Dragons
Follow the Nerd duo of Richard and Karl as we explore what grabs our attention each week on Deep Space and Dragons. Submit your random question of the week or dragon question to win your free E-copy of the Waltz of Blades Deluxe. Like what your ears see? Support us by clicking the little heart on the top right <3
Deep Space and Dragons
Episode 84: Anime Squad Dynamics, Comic-Con Adventures, and The Fly(for some reason)
Click Here to send in your random question to have a chance to win!
Have you ever wondered how your favorite Halloween traditions stack up against ours? Join us as we kick off this episode with a hilarious chat about ignoring phone calls and dive into the excitement of fall, a season Karl’s girlfriend is especially fond of for Halloween preparations. We share our own spooky traditions, like horror movie marathons and the iconic Simpsons Treehouse of Horror. Karl gives us the lowdown on the 1986 classic "The Fly," while Richard revisits his childhood through the nostalgic Gundam Seed Freedom movie.
Ever tried juggling a job at a law firm with comic book conventions? We’ve got stories for you! From shredding documents to taking the stand, and even a thrilling visit to Toronto's Fan Expo, we cover it all. We discuss the importance of literary magazines for budding authors and dig into the ethics of museum collections, inspired by a visit to the ROM. And for a sprinkle of fun, we imagine ourselves as an anime-style three-man squad, complete with character tropes and quirky roles.
Anime fans, this one’s for you! We break down character dynamics and squad formations in series like "My Hero Academia," "Naruto," and "Jujutsu Kaisen," analyzing how these elements impact storytelling and audience engagement. We also tackle the effectiveness of three-man squads and the lack of meaningful character bonding in some of our favorite shows. Wrapping things up, we discuss superpowers tied to weather conditions and offer listeners a chance to win unique podcast merchandise. Don't miss out on this blend of horror, anime, and light-hearted banter!
Follow all things Richard and Karl, and check out "The Minuet of Sorcery"
https://linktr.ee/rajkevis
Hello and welcome to Carl and Richard, or Richard and Carl, if you're nasty present Deep Space and Dragons. I'm Richard, sometimes peppy, mostly sassy.
Speaker 2:I am Carl and I'm I think I'm mostly peppy and sometimes sassy.
Speaker 1:So your ringtone went in with I'm Carl immediately afterward, like it played you in and it was kind of great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know Some 1833 number. I always ignore those. I think it might be Shaw slash Rogers trying to get me to sign up for another value plan, which maybe I should take that, but this is more pressing.
Speaker 1:We are not sponsored by Rogers. If we were, we would have said something nice there, allegedly.
Speaker 2:Allegedly. Alright so what's new in the carl verse? Well, it's september. Oh shit, why do you use up our one swear for this? I said ships ah, right, right, right, classic. Yeah, i'm'm good Anyways. So my girlfriend absolutely loves Halloween and September those leaves start changing colors.
Speaker 1:To that beautiful orange.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I generally dislike orange.
Speaker 1:I'm aware. That's why I said it.
Speaker 2:I do find that the falling leaves and fall in general it's actually quite beautiful. I don't know that seems sus.
Speaker 1:I feel like you're social chameleon here. I don't trust it.
Speaker 2:But you know it's nice because then you can get like the fun like Frankenstein and Ghost and Pumpkin, like leaf bags, and you know it's a list of like 30 to 40 horror movies we have watched, because it's kind of our halloween tradition leading up to it anyways, to uh watch horror movies I love the treehouse of horror marathon.
Speaker 1:It's become quite the day-long affair at this point and those consistently the only good Simpsons episodes.
Speaker 2:I mean, maybe we should check it out sometime. I mean, it does just get longer and longer every year.
Speaker 1:but so, like for our podcast, I honestly think if we do like a Simpsons Triodos of Horror tier list, like that could be a thing.
Speaker 2:The most recent horror movie that we watched on September 1st.
Speaker 1:Gundam.
Speaker 2:Seed Freedom.
Speaker 1:That's probably not actually a horror movie no, but I really enjoyed it last night.
Speaker 2:But please continue have you ever watched the Fly from 1986 starring Jeff?
Speaker 1:Goldblum yes, I have, it was in our science fiction class.
Speaker 2:Oh, so you've watched it recently then.
Speaker 1:Well, with that reminder that we're somehow in September, thanks for that. Probably like six months ago now.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, see Within the last year.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I had to remember my classes were yeah. No, it would have been about a year ago Roughly.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, that's, that's recently enough that it's like I I'd never seen it before, and it's always described as the movie where, um, the, the guy messes up a science experiment and starts turning into a fly. But I mean, so there's the three characters the journalist, whose name I don't remember, the creepy ex-boyfriend whose name I don't remember, and Brundle, whose first name I don't remember, but I mean, that's neither here nor there, and so you know, in the so the story can happen Brundle and the journalist fall in love and, for a pretty direct euphemism, they make love, gasp, and they do so before the accident and after the accident, and so, like I saw it coming, but I didn't believe it.
Speaker 2:I didn't believe it and I was surprised, because she gets pregnant for science, but obviously not for science. She gets pregnant For science, obviously not for science. She got pregnant for passion, because they fell in love, because that's what two attractive leads do in a movie, right? Well, yeah, by federal law. But I did not expect the movie to she's pregnant, it could be a monster. And so then she decides to hashtag, trigger warning and then the like sociopathic, creepy exploit.
Speaker 1:I really enjoyed the hashtag trigger warning as the entire explanation. Good job. Like you just said, trigger warning I'm like, yeah, we all get it.
Speaker 2:We're good. But so then suddenly the creepy ex-boyfriend is super supportive and he like takes her to a clinic and then you know the fly. At this point he busts through the, busts through those like glass, privacy, brick windows or whatever, and like takes her back to the lab. I don't think it's supposed to be a social commentary. Maybe it's because it's so old, but it kind of played it so straight that I expected some sort of twist.
Speaker 1:That's kind of funny when you're an originator.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know it originates a lot of the body horror tropes. I don't know if it originates them, but it's. It's entrenched in some of the classic tropes of body horror. Um and uh. Then at the ending, the the, the climax of the movie, I was also uh, like I. First I expected him to try and merge with the creepy ex-boyfriend, then I expected the creepy ex-boyfriend to actually accidentally kill the fly and the journalist, but then again they just played it straight and then she shoots the fly in the head and it's done. I was like, wow, that's being not Not having twists actually ended up being somewhat of a twist for what I was expecting with modern movie sensibilities.
Speaker 1:So, like on the topic of, like I said, I watched the Gundam Seed movie yesterday. It's interesting to try and match tone to a 20 year old anime and it succeeded in 99 of it.
Speaker 1:Like it had some of the best characterizations of people ever okay, but also it had a character roll up in his easy gawk playing the shower music and did the charzee gawk stab and I'm like I can't believe I caught this remix. And I caught this remix because there can't be that many people who are like, no, it's like the specific Zegok music. So it wasn't like it was even like lyrical, it was just I recognize it, that was for me, that wasn't for anyone else, that was for me specifically.
Speaker 2:But to finish off my segment, though, our listeners can expect many movie reviews like that throughout September and October, because that's just kind of a movie tradition, and I do think that the I mean classic horror. Classic horror, obviously we're talking about how, how it's aged and and what the differences are between modern movie, movie storytelling and classic storytelling. Uh, but you know, it's just a fun tradition to watch all sorts of horror movies. So there's some some more modern ones, like I've heard that the movie came out I think two years ago. It was called barbarian. I've heard that was really came out, I think two years ago. It was called Barbarian. I've heard that was really good. We're going to have to watch that this year. So we're going to get a diverse mix of horror movies that are going to be mini-reviewed in these what's New With Me segments.
Speaker 1:That's a strategy. I mean people enjoy Carl Craft Projects, carl Touring, carl, very nearly getting us canceled with theories about potential large-scale figures being potentially endangered, but glad to hear that your Halloween plans are Halloween plans. It's like there's the plot twist, is there is no plot twist exactly, I really hope our episode ends up being called the plot twist. Is that there is no plot twist?
Speaker 2:But so what's new with you, besides watching Gundam Seed movie?
Speaker 1:there, richard. So the Gundam Seed movie was sick. I don't know if it was good, but it was sick. They basically took like what you think would be 48 episodes and made a movie out of it. But what was weird is they actually got the character emotional growth and beats right like I was blown away that they actually finally had kira yamato come to terms with his trauma of being told he's the only person strong enough to make a difference. Like I'm like wow, was this actually well written? What the heck? This wasn't supposed to be well written. This was supposed to be stupid. Oh, here we go. So I enjoyed it. But as for like life outside of things, so recently I've started volunteering at a local law firm yeah, and I don't think I can say anything about what I do there other than I do legal stuff. Ah, and it's nice, and they send me home with food often they send you home with food.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, my boss came in. He's like I make the best butter chicken. You want butter chicken tomorrow? I'm like yes, and he came in just handing me like four takeout containers of food. It's like you're a student eat. And then I did, and it was great. I've had snacks all weekend, huh well.
Speaker 2:So was it like, uh, like genuinely spicy butter chicken, or was it more like Western sensibility?
Speaker 1:So actual, Indian food is spicy not really, so their main chili is green chilies, right and the level of spiciness is mostly just the amount of green chilies in it. If I were my mother, it would be spicy, but I grow piri piri peppers on my desk. It would be spicy, but I grow piri piri peppers on my desk. So Indian food spicy isn't actually that high on the spicy scale. Trinidad's food that'll kill you. Filipino food that'll get dangerous.
Speaker 2:Indian food, not as much as you would think.
Speaker 1:It's more like there's a lot of different spices.
Speaker 2:It's very complex flavors, but you're definitely right that it's like there's a lot of different spices, it's very complex flavors, mm. But you're definitely right that it's like the peppers that they grow in like the Caribbean and in more tropical places like that definitely outspice India.
Speaker 1:Like my one friend was saying that for a scotch bonnet pepper, because I'm like, oh yeah, I diced it up and it's seasoned like 20 tacos. They're like, yeah, you don't eat the pepper, you just cook the rice with the pepper thrown in and then remove it afterward and you will have seasoned it. So, yeah, what's me is working part-time at this law firm doing redacted and redacted.
Speaker 2:I get to shred a lot of documents.
Speaker 1:It's fun.
Speaker 2:Oh, that does sound like fun.
Speaker 1:Because anything, nothing can leave the office right. So anything we print, read over, look at there's a lot of print, something then putting it through the scanner to convert it to a PDF, then shredding it, and then I went to an actual courthouse last week, which was cool.
Speaker 2:Ooh, and it wasn't like a traffic court courthouse.
Speaker 1:It was like a small claims courthouse, but still so like I've been doing these adventures along with my various writing things. Oh, and at Fan Expo, me and my professor gave a talk at Fan Expo.
Speaker 2:Fan Expo. Being from Saskatchewan, I have not heard of this expo.
Speaker 1:So you know what a Comic-Con is. Yes, right, it's Toronto's big one, so for our so let's put it this way there's about 20 events running simultaneously for just like side panels, not counting the giant merchant halls and things. Our side panel had 200 plus people at it Is that the one that we went to.
Speaker 1:when you got the unicorn hat and we got, we entered that pokemon tournament no, that's the wimpy one that's the wimpy one, okay now, fan expo is huge and impractical and my prize for volunteering with my professor at that is I got an exhibitor pass. That let me just go through everything. Oh, nice, right, because it's like we can't pay you for this. I'm like. It's like 200 for tickets and I get a ticket. Now I'm winning. That's fair. It's funny because we were talking about edits earlier today. I'm like. My professor said this. I'm like, no like. At a talk he gave at Fan Expo where I was clicking next slide, he literally said this this is recent. That's like information where I would have had to get to Fan Expo and get a ticket for this talk to Fan Expo and get a ticket for this talk. I'm giving you all the free information You're saving tens of dollars from my courses Almost offsets the value of you sponsoring our podcast and taking me go-karting.
Speaker 1:That's my plan, by the way, is to coach you enough in writing that you can start entering in literary journals, getting stories published, so you get honorarium. So I feel like I help pay you back in the most indirect way imaginable.
Speaker 2:It would be funny for me to become a professional author and for you to become a lawyer slash legal assistant.
Speaker 1:I mean to be fair. I'm still going to be a professional author. I have published works Like I just am a professional author.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you are technically already a professional author, which is like the best kind of being a professional author.
Speaker 1:I just really enjoy literary magazines Like. I'm just going to give a shout out to Fusion, fragment, science Fiction and the Familiar's Eclectic Collection. They're both open for submissions right now. Send in your writing samples and maybe you can get published. Submissions right now. Send in your writing samples and maybe you can get published. Literary magazines are such a good stepping stone before trying to get entire books published that writing short stories for literary magazines is the way to go. Note I'm not sponsored by either of these things, I'm just a fan.
Speaker 2:Fair enough.
Speaker 1:Not that I, oh man, A literary you know how good a literary magazine would have to do to sponsor a podcast Like they. Pretty much Literary magazines basically make exactly enough money to pay authors for submissions and accept a number of submissions based on how many people buy their literary magazine. It's like a reverse pyramid scheme. It's built in the opposite direction. The people at top make no money, so the people at the bottom can make some.
Speaker 2:That is pretty funny.
Speaker 1:So that's why I fully support them. Where it's like these are basically profit neutral for writers to get their first pieces of work published and get feedback and things Definitely support literary magazines. That's why I'm just giving this unscripted advertisement for two minutes for them and I regret nothing. I'd do it again. They're just good. Also the Red Cross is just kind of good, not related either, some days. I have to offset the natural evil that is me.
Speaker 2:That's pretty fair.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, also my mother came out to visit for two weeks, so that was an event. We ended up going to the ROM, which is cool.
Speaker 2:I do like the ROM.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Although we did pay the extra money for the.
Speaker 1:Cats exhibit and I have mild regrets.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the last time I was there we wanted to go. I went with you and your friend and we wanted to go see the Winnie the Pooh exhibit, but it was sold out.
Speaker 1:Ah, and the worst part is how come it was extra tickets when it just went public domain Libraries and museums. Well, no, I'm not going to say museums are just good. That can be a loaded topic. Looking at you, brinton, don't know how good. Like I haven't actually taken the time to see how ethical the ROM is. I like to imagine it's an ethical one, but it could not be. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I guess that's fair. Who knows where they sourced all their artifacts from?
Speaker 1:Indeed. So my next question, to pivot into our main topic, is do we have a third person that would go on our stereotypical anime three-man squad? That's required by law, although I'm mildly concerned. We're both senseis now and have to build our own three-man squads.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean the anime law is that our third squad member has to be female.
Speaker 1:Only if they're the main characters. If we're side characters, we can go all of one or the other.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I guess that's a good point.
Speaker 1:And we're absolutely side characters. Hate to break it to you.
Speaker 2:We're side characters in our own story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're like the Inoshika Cho trio, like we're the best side characters, or like the literal panda bear. The cursed speech guy and bludgeons people with staffswoman definitely fits our aesthetic better than being the actual protagonist. And you know it, heck, we actually have the panda.
Speaker 2:Do you think the panda would be our third squad member?
Speaker 1:Probably Considering some of the other options we had. Either that or it would have been the one that literally betrayed you, and it was like a whole arc.
Speaker 1:But then we're going back into main character territory. So to go into the topic of why I want to talk to you about animes that have schools, have the three-person squad trope and have character names, is actually because of something interesting you said to me a while back in relation to a project I'm working on. Okay, so I've been working on my apathetic professor at the Esper Academy project off and on for a while. There's a few of the rough draft chapters up on Wattpad if anyone's interested. But I had like a big breakthrough on the emotional core of it so I started rewriting it last week. Okay, I basically figured out what it's actually about rather than what it's superficially about. But then a Carl quote was rattling in my head. It than what it's superficially about.
Speaker 1:But then a Carl quote was rattling in my head. It was when we were doing our my Hero Academia episode. Check our backlist. We have other episodes, no big deal and you're like there's too many characters and I can't possibly remember them all or be bothered to. So it's funny. You should say that because I was thinking about various classroom animes and I guess live action shows, but really it's only some of the X-Men spinoffs.
Speaker 1:You know some of those clearly anime-inspired things like Totally Spies or Martin Mysteries Right, they'll follow that structure as well, and some of the Canadian-made ones will do that. But it's very obvious that's where they got the structure and they like to say naruto is a series that really popularized that. But my question for you is how many students should be in a classroom in my esper academy series, like should I actually have 20 characters or I should do that anime trope? You know the one where, like, there's five characters who have fun hairstyles and outfits and then just shadowy silhouettes, like if you look at ruby, for example they're.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, those first few seasons where, like everyone who wasn't, the main character was literally just a shadowy silhouette which honestly was amazing.
Speaker 1:They made a joke about that in the chibi spinoff. But, like more to the point you made about too many characters in ruby team. Ruby team juniper and the bully guy are really the only first year students who get names. And then there's just other people sitting in the room and for me as a world builder it bugs me the idea that I have characters that literally have no names.
Speaker 1:But, then my Hero Academia introduced 20 characters and I was able to follow it easy because they had the perk of having them look really aesthetically different and giving them code names.
Speaker 2:Okay, I got to double check which series this is again. Okay, I gotta double check which series this is again.
Speaker 1:So my first thought is, for example, assassination Classroom all 30 of those characters got names.
Speaker 2:They were just very slow with actually introducing them. Well see, that's kind of where I'm at. Oh, that's what it was. It was Total Opposites Attract. They released some polar opposites attract, I think it was.
Speaker 1:And meanwhile we don't have time in this episode to go into the new Chainsaw man chapter because that was an off-stream conversation. But why is that so cool? All I'm going to say no explanation, but you know the part I'm talking about the well I guess I have to sacrifice my children. Moment. Talking about the well, I guess I have to sacrifice my children moment. And then the big season one callback.
Speaker 2:Oh, that was cool. That was pretty cool. But so, to more or less answer your question, it's not necessarily about the number of characters and it's more so about the slow roll of rolling them out when they do matters, Especially if, like, it's really easy in more visual mediums where the characters are not shadowy silhouettes and they're in the background and you see them and you recognize their face and then you know, several episodes later, suddenly they get a face and they interact with our main character and you kind of slowly build up that class, but my problem was that I'm writing a novel.
Speaker 2:Right, that's true.
Speaker 1:Because a lot of these animes are based on novels. There's a lot of light novel-based series that have the full classrooms, but I don't know.
Speaker 2:I thought it was an interesting topic. I would definitely say like assassination classroom. They didn't really do the three man squad thing so much. But no, I feel like that was almost too many characters because, like not, I feel like that was almost too many characters because, like not, I think in a book you could follow more characters more easily.
Speaker 1:I think the opposite is true screen time. So what I find is, in visual media you'll almost always have the A plot, b plot structure, like any good sitcom will do that because you can move between voices. I find and this comes from like my first two books and feedback on those plus things I've read in a book you really only can have like three or four points of view before it becomes too much, or if an anime you can literally just follow those characters and cut away to them In an anime.
Speaker 1:You can literally just follow those characters and cut away to them in a book. You lose people's interests like there's entire game of throne novels that switch to viewpoints people didn't care about and my brother's like oh, I just skipped this one because I didn't follow any character characters I actually cared about. So it's like most novels I've really enjoyed only have like 10 or so characters you really get to know.
Speaker 1:well, right, like I'm even thinking of like some of the greatest novels of all time and they cap it like five characters, like like, lord of the Rings only had, like, let's look at it this way, lord of the Rings only had about 10 relevant characters Because, let's be real, each member of the Fellowship was an important character, but that was just the Aragorn chunk, right Then Frodo and Sam mattered, goa mattered, merry and Pippin didn't. Gandalf, really didn't matter.
Speaker 1:Ironically, right. So the characters that, like, actually got screen time were aragorn and pals. Sam and pals and marion pippin get stoned because we never really even go into the villain's brain at any point, right? And lord of the rings is famously for being complex, even though it's really not so. Lord of the rings has less named characters than naruto by like a lot I suppose that's a good point.
Speaker 2:It is much easier to cut away to a different character. Uh, I just I really find, I guess in terms of visual media, you're right that you can cut away between different characters. I find that a lot of anime and manga will often spend significant chunks on a single character and then by the time and maybe it's the release schedule, but by the time they go back to another character, I've already kind of forgotten who they are and what they're doing.
Speaker 1:Well, what's interesting is to go to JJK, which absolutely just straight up stole the three-man cell structure from Naruto like literally did the three-person and a sensei thing, verbatim. I am shocked it ended with them getting to keep their three-person squad Like I am in awe that it's like oh, you just defeated the bad guy. The merging thing never happened, you just went back to school with your friends. This is weird.
Speaker 2:This is weird. You went this route. There's still like two more chapters or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's just gonna be fluff. It's probably gonna end with. It's gonna end with Yuji explaining to his three students and saying, nah, I'd win.
Speaker 1:Also, JJK is so much better when it feels like being funny, like I actually laughed at the yeah, I wasted your dad's ass Like that was by far the best chapter of that series in a long time. It's just they set it up to be so climatic that they had like eight shark jump moments. But I gotta say one of the things that bugged me about jjk which is why it's on my like list of things to talk about for this classroom episode is they only had seven students and they immediately abandoned the high school concept entirely. They had their junior exam and then it didn't matter. So my thing is, why was there a school? What purpose did a school serve in that story? Why not just?
Speaker 2:have it be an exorcist building.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think that happens quite a bit, like, uh, like d gray man, I I don't think that was a very well-written series in general, but uh, it definitely. It started with like a exorcist academy where they're learning how to be exorcists and then he just goes off on his own into their like three-man squads uh, and yeah, there was only one three-man squad that even really mattered. And then again, by the time I go back to the other characters and what they're doing, it's like I don't even, I don't even know who you are, except for like there was the one character I don't remember the name, but it was like they looked like a female to me when they, when they started, and then it turns out that they were a dude. And then it's like they looked like a female to me when they, when they started, and then it turns out that they were a dude, and then it's like they were just in the background for like 50 or 60 chapters and suddenly we're back to them when I was supposed to care about them.
Speaker 1:It's like I don't were a series that actually did the three-man squad really well was soul eater, because they gave those three characters. Technically it was a six-man squad, because it was a three-man squad but each person's weapon was a character. But they actually kind of kept the three-man squad together the entire runtime and they kept going back to the school.
Speaker 1:So it's like they only bothered to have their squad and I think there was one other squad in their year and that was it where it's like, like yeah, we don't have a ton of students, but then they had full lecture halls of students and like, okay, I guess, just both most of them suck, I see which I always find weird because it's like one thing I'll say to JJK is like, yeah, we only have three students because there just isn't that many sorcerers.
Speaker 1:It's actually a really fair plot point. If you're a superpower school, maybe you do only have three first-year students. That actually is completely fine to me. It's just like they use the classrooms to explain the MacGuffins of the series and then throw it out when they're done.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, so in terms of your Esper at the Academy story, I mean that one's definitely way more built around the school itself, right? Because, because it's about that, the apathetic professor, um, and I mean, uh, so from his point of view, it would be pretty easy to at the very least, uh, you can throw in like references to be like oh, this character is really bad at this, or this character frequently plagiarizes, or or cheats, or so you can give your characters a hook without directly introducing them so like, ironically, one of my big twitch shifts I was making for the series was it was about the professor, but I didn't have the character.
Speaker 1:It was weird because it's like a classroom series you immediately want to focus on the students and their dynamics.
Speaker 1:So one of the big changes with my big epiphany was I made the why today moment in the story is because he's been an apothecary professor. They paired him with a super enthusiastic TA, so I made it more like a buddy cop between the apostatic professor who doesn't want to do anything and the TA whose literal job to be a full-time teacher is to make this professor do stuff. I'll take your silence as my idea is brilliant. Complete silence. If you is brilliant, complete silence. If you disconnected, that's brutal. If my rewrite was that savage, that's even worse.
Speaker 2:No, my Discord on this phone sometimes is just like nah bro.
Speaker 1:So what I was finding with my rewrites is I really only have the screen time where if the professor and the ta are the two main characters, so they can banter and live their lives, and then I add in a third teacher, then I add in the rival school slash villain organization, because I kind of fuse the two together then just straight up put in a tuning exam.
Speaker 1:Really, only one or two students actually get time for screen time in my first novel. So I'm like I'm going to do three-man squads where they get to pick three people to send to their tuning exam and I guess the rest of the students can get screen time later, because I'm entering a light novel contest. So I mean sending three students off to a tuning exam so that way the students can get done dirty and the professor can end up declaring war on the other. School is great Because I enjoy the like.
Speaker 1:I have like ideas brewing. I don't want to do too many spoilers but I found that I scaled down the classmates because I found I was almost doing like a short story collection of different classmates and it was draining so much of the bandwidth that I forgot I gave the professor an antagonist and a dual antagonist to build up their dynamic Right, because the reason it's three men plus a sensei, as I was saying before, is four characters is a good amount of characters to have meaningful banter without getting lost.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Like to use that Naruto example from before. Naruto was absolutely at his strongest when it was just Kakashi and the three of them on missions or the three of them doing tuning, exam stuff Like that is when the show wasn't at its strongest, when they only had like three or four characters out doing missions and things. It actually got worse the more people they threw in at the pod.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I guess that's a fair assessment, because that's kind of where I feel about. Like my Hero Academia, it's like I don't remember how much I actually read, but they never really split up into squads like that and it just I couldn't track everyone. Everyone had their own unique power and with their own unique rules. It was just like an information overload.
Speaker 1:Now Hunter x Hunter has the opposite problem and I'll forever have a grudge with Hunter x Hunter. Yeah, so Hunter x Hunter introduces their cast of four characters and then just throws one out, throws the other one onto a side adventure that has nothing to do with anything. Then it's like hunter. Hunter was such and then storytelling it killed me because like each arc had nothing to do with what happened before and like they're like all right, we're gonna make kura pekka a character, but then his story and gone story didn't even touch after their introduction.
Speaker 1:Really, for some reason, like kura pekka just had nothing to do with greed island or the battle tower or the chimera ants, but he still somehow managed to get a stupid amount of screen time yeah, uh, that was definitely interesting.
Speaker 2:We'll have to see how it goes forward, because it has been confirmed to be returning to shonen jump just kill it. Just give the man free life insurance that seems to be what he needs, because there's no way they're taking themselves out of that.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry. Gone, encountering his dad and looking at the tree was at least an ending Like where the anime chose to end. It was a good spot, right. I have such a mild pet peeve about Assassination Classroom. Oh so Assassination Classroom, I think, did a really good job of having a large cast and very slowly introducing them, because really you're only following Nogasi and Karma for the most part and then learning that the quiet chick in the background was totally just long gaming everybody. But the show did one thing wrong.
Speaker 2:The series.
Speaker 1:So the entire premise is they're learning how to kill a tentacle monster. Then an evil tentacle monster shows up and the students did not kill the evil tentacle monster, the one thing they were training to do this entire story. I am forever mad about that, because they set it up perfectly so they could show off their assassination skills against the actual main villain without having to kill this teacher. They all adored Ugh Like when he was captured. They should have been the ones to just take down the bad guy, because that is literally the thing they trained to do. The entire show, that's it. Everything else of it was really good, including the ending.
Speaker 1:I was just mad that they forgot to put a final fight where the assassination classroom assassinated something and they went so far of the way to set up that they could.
Speaker 2:They did do a good job of actually maintaining the classroom dynamic.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it gets bonus points for staying a classroom series.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because my Hero Academia is not at all about academia.
Speaker 1:Such a wasted potential there too, because that was part of what would have made it stay strong. And, like I was saying, JJK shouldn't have even had a school. They should have just took him in and be like cool, you're now a sorcerer Done.
Speaker 1:Like the funny thing is that I'm fake as death and then have awesome character train him and I'm like why did you even bother introducing him to the school then? You should have just had him team up with these people. And then like there is no reason for there to be a jujitsu high.
Speaker 2:Okay, but so the shifting gears a tiny bit. Absolutely. Do you consider Border from World Trigger to be an academy?
Speaker 1:Yes, so Border's weird in that case. So Border is three-man squad. The show Right and, much like I was talking about Naruto, the series got way worse the more it paid attention to people who weren't our actual protagonist. Three-man squad. You can only really care about so many three-man squads.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, even in this current arc, I mean it still would have been terrible. But if they were just focusing on the three characters in their new squads for the bottle test, then they're also focusing on all the other squads and it's just. I can't follow it all.
Speaker 1:I'll be real. If they put were put as a squad in the bottle test and we just followed them, it would have been a good arc and over it would have been over so long ago because, like the premise of all, we're going to mix up the squads to see how they interact, to play off the other characters.
Speaker 1:World trigger. One of its plus sides are realistic characters. Well, the downside is there is no drama or conflict in these new groups. To make it interesting to read like you're not seeing different personalities clash because these characters don't have personalities because they're sensible, so pretty much everyone in the bottle test like I guess we'll work together. I'm. I'm like okay, goggles guy. Like ironically to use a my Hero phrase these characters aren't quirky.
Speaker 1:Like Yuma was interesting as a fish out of water In Border. He's not a fish out of water anymore, he's just another agent, which means he has no personality in these situations whatsoever. Like Asumu's personality comes from being the wimpy underdog who, through effort and planning, wins. That character trait's gone. So all of their character traits have been stripped away in this bottle test. So no one's important or interesting because you're not doing anything to make them interact, but Border is definitely just a school for being a Border agent.
Speaker 1:It is so school structured it's ridiculous. They're literally doing homework right now, Like if Border was a college. It was called Border College and they did normal classes and then did Border stuff. The show wouldn't change. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2:I'm actually surprised they didn't do that and just have border be the school um, but so then, prior to the bottle test, do you feel that they were a good example of three-man squads?
Speaker 1:they were so close to being a good example. So once they're literally like said, we're forming a three-man squad, we're doing the rank wars. Here's our team. Had they after that actually went on a ship and went on adventures, it would have been perfect, because they followed the trope to a t and each squad they like made look cool and thematic but they didn't have enough depth to really bother fleshing them out. But yeah, no, like it was a, it was straight up Naruto of sci-fi.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's pretty true.
Speaker 1:But instead of giving them one sensei, their senseis were just the squad that was above them and I guess Jin really, for being honest, jin was just their Kakashi. In the early episodes, when he did his awesome, I Stomp Everyone to show how good this weapon is so I can sell it. Interaction man, early World Trigger was sick.
Speaker 2:That is definitely true.
Speaker 1:And like to switch gears a bit. Part of what's making Kagura Bashi so good is it's not being a school anime and he's not going to swordsman school. And the thing is I like this X school make squad structure. Like I think it's a good narrative structure if you use it. Bleach is funny. So there is a soul reaper academy, but they just used it for flashbacks to flesh out how the soul society people knew each other. So you never watched anyone go through soul reaper academy Academy, but they just used it for flashbacks to flesh out how the Soul Society people knew each other. Huh, so you never watched anyone go through Soul Reaper Academy? It was just a thing so that we could explain why Renji and Rukia's backstories mattered, and I'm like you know what? That's fine. I don't think Soul Reaper Academy would have been a good show.
Speaker 2:Did they ever really form a three-man squad? Oh?
Speaker 1:no, blee just did it, so they specifically did it. I think he was gonna. So it's like he sets up his characters into a cliche band of. So to deconstruct anime tropes, we go back far enough to the band of five, the Sente squad, your five-power ranger squad. That's where the trope starts. That gives you your Sailor Moon, your Tokyo Mew Mew, your Biker Mouse from Mars, your Ninja Turtles, your five-man band's pretty iconic right Right. Then what they realized was by taking one of those members of the band and making them a teacher, you could then pump exposition and like mad.
Speaker 1:So Naruto's what cut the squad size down from being the band of four to being a three-man squad with a sensei. Because you go back to Inuasha, you got your five-man band. Your what is it? Commander, lancer, heart, strong One, smart One, yeah, okay. So Bleach followed the structure you'd expect from something like Inuasha of here's our five-man band. But when they got to Soul Society, he literally had a character proclaim it's one-on-one duels now, literally a dude says to him welcome to Soul Society.
Speaker 1:We are a one-on-one duel show and I'm like, well, that's easy. And I see why he did it, Because Bleach has some of the best one-on-one duels in anime.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:It was a choice and he committed to it. There's a few times where they go like two-on-one or three-on-one or things, but as a general rule it's one-on-one duels or they're impactful power moments and it was a deliberate choice. Dragon Ball did the same thing At some point. They decide that all fights in Dragon Ball are one-on-one and for Dragon Ball the justification is people like fighting. That's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Dragon Ball at least old-school Dragon Ball never really broke into squads in the first place. That one was very truly and completely Goku's story, until you get to Z, and then it's Gohan's story. So, what's really funny is.
Speaker 1:I asked ChatGPT to list anime that have three man squads with a sensei. So it gives us Naruto and JJK, obviously, and this is Dragon Ball Z saiyan saga, and I'm like you're just wrong, because they're like, yeah, it was gohan, krillin and yamcha were a team led by piccolo. I'm like that's just not true, that's not what happened you're wrong.
Speaker 1:Pretty pretty sure yamcha is still dead at that point right and then you go to like and then it's like my hero was one of them because they had a sensei who mentored an entire class, but often Bakugo, toji and Midoriya form a squad. I'm like, no, they do different squad configurations every plot arc. There is no squads in my hero. They probably should have done squads. Yeah, probably like if they'd restructured. My hero were like all my took three characters. Eraser head took three characters and like each of these teachers took three characters.
Speaker 2:Probably would have made it easier to follow yeah, I, I definitely think so because, like naruto did get overwhelming closer to the end, but each of the squads were like distinct and they had their own, their senseis, and they actually, as a squad, felt like they mattered and it was like it's like the squad became the character and then they only had like five or six squads right, like shikamaru squad was a character, rock lee squad was a character, but then chachi squad was a character, but then ChatGPG's trying to argue, hunter x Hunter and Bleach Count and I'm like, no, we both just went over this episode.
Speaker 1:Why they don't Right, like some mecha anime, older ones, particularly like Neon Genesis, had the three-person squads, the three-person squads. None of the Gundams really have a three-person squad. Usually you have your protagonist and then your older pilot dude and then your tragic love interest, but Gundam mixes it up every single franchise. They have no consistency for how many characters are on the battlefield. Like I was saying, it was a plot point in Gundam Z that Kiriyama fought alone and the bad guys just ganged up on him four on one, which was some bullshit. But also they're in war, so why would they fight fair? That's just dumb.
Speaker 2:Right right.
Speaker 1:And I'm trying to think if there's any other big three-man squad things that come to mind, or even like so there's some classroom anime. I've read that like staying in school is more of the point, like Classroom of the Elite and Psyche K were examples of like they were just classrooms of class sizes, right, but like that's not really my genre, really Like. There's a few series where it's like Witch Watch takes place mostly in a high school but we don't really know who the students in the classroom are and all the rom-coms will be like it's a full class of students but there's a protagonist and the two mirrored love interests and the rival character.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Like what is that new one called again the one with the housekeeper and his obvious crush that they should just give up and start dating?
Speaker 2:It's like Hima Tae I think. Yeah, Hima-te, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but he has that other love interest from before the new love interest shows up. I'm like oh man, this is just to chat. Gpt, right, this like.
Speaker 2:Hima-ten is what it is.
Speaker 1:Right, but it's like, yeah, trying to think of shows where we actually cared about the entire classroom of characters, like Ichigo literally had a class of characters and like two mattered and then the rest did not, but they'd show up for gags once in a while.
Speaker 2:I, uh, I definitely think that you might be right about that sweet spot of like at most having seven characters that truly matter to the story. Or if you're going to have more characters that matter to the story, like you say, the squads kind of become characters that you can follow.
Speaker 1:Well, it's interesting. So JJK, when it was like here's Itadori's squad, here's the one upper-year squad, here's the Kyoto squad, here's the other kyoto squad, that's pretty easy to follow, I had no problems with that. My problem with jjk was the cullen game made no sense and then they just had every character ever mentioned, jump suku, no one at a time, which also, like they did the dramatic reveal of the character I liked wasn't actually dead, but it didn't matter because they hadn't done anything in a hundred chapters. So, even though I saw that plot was coming like thirty miles away and it did not satisfy me at all because I wasn't invested in them as a three-man squad, because they'd only went out on two missions- yeah, that seems to be the general consensus, like even mainstream media.
Speaker 2:like I read an article on MSN that said that you know it was fairly obvious it had to happen, but it wasn't really an example of good writing because they basically killed the character off just so they could have the shock value of bringing them back.
Speaker 1:And of course it was a female party member. Of course it was. Why would it not be? The male party member with black hair gets taken by the villains and the female one gets put in a coma. It's what you do. Don't know why. It's what you do?
Speaker 2:I don't make the rules yeah, that's, it's just. I mean, I guess you have to know the tropes before you can subvert them. Uh, just at this point it feels like there's a lot of three-man squad tropes that could just be subverted well.
Speaker 1:What's really funny, though, is when they actually commit to the three-man squad thing of like. We have our characters in groups of three. I know why they do it because if you go four, then you like form sides and it's like balanced A three-man squad, even though it often ends in love triangles, which I hate creates. It makes it that it's always two-on-one in every argument, which creates dynamic changing viewpoints. Right, because almost every conflict comes down to character A doesn't want to do it, character B does want to do it and character C tie-breaks, and that makes it really easy for the characters to play off each other when, like in World Trigger when they added a Force guy to there, it makes it did nothing.
Speaker 1:And I find that things like Inuasha, for example, which was the five-man squad, or let's go with the Scooby squad, the OG squad. Once you hit five, you break into two and three, and it's almost always the same two and three.
Speaker 2:In Inuasha it was.
Speaker 1:Inuasha could go and make a one direction, Sango and Marouk could go the other direction and Shippo goes wherever he's funniest. And that's how every Power Rangers squad ever, and occasionally you'd mix it up. You'd like deliberately do odd pairings once in a while to keep it fresh. But that just was the structure. Like Sakamoto days even broke into like a three-man squad for no reason for a while.
Speaker 2:Sakamoto days.
Speaker 1:Just going into Assassin Academy to ruin my life. Did not enjoy that, even like Fairy Tail split into the five man squad. But Fairy Tail is one of those shows where everyone would split off on their own each plot arc anyway, kind of like Bleach. Fairy Tail was like a lot of one on one fights, with the occasional two on two fight or two on one fight but it gets points for having like 30 characters and me actually knowing who they all are because they slow-rolled it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think they definitely did a much better job rolling out all the characters in that. I just wish I could somehow analyze it to figure out what exactly worked about it.
Speaker 1:Oh, I know exactly what fairy tale did that worked. I can just spell it out for you, real easy.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So every character in fairy tale got a plot arc.
Speaker 1:So the first plot arc is just Natsu and Lucy. They do three missions together. They go fight crappy Natsu, they go find a Yeti and they do like a three episode long. We go to this maid, solve this book. Right from that point we get a full array of both of their powers. Then gray gets a plot arc where we go to an island about his backstory. They add an urge at that point, but it was gray's plot arc right. Then they do the plot arc and I might have some of the sequencing wrong where the guild gets attacked and they introduce all the side characters. But that plot arc is still about Natsu and Lucy. It was about Lucy's backstory.
Speaker 1:And then that same squad of characters goes to Urza's tower. So at this point both Gray, lucy, natsu and Urza not so much Natsu have had a full adventure, first with just a character, then with the squad with that character. So by the time they do their tuning exam, like as stated by international law, we're very familiar with them because we played out entire plot arcs for each member of their core squad and then the other members were antagonists. So it's like, oh yeah, we know Natsu, gray, Lucy and Urza, but we also know Laxus and Pals because they're the antagonists in the plot arc. And then Juvia was an antagonist in the plot arc and Gajil was. So it's like, oh, we know all these characters now, because each one got like 30 episodes was.
Speaker 1:So it's like, oh, we know all these characters now, because each one got like 30 episodes Like Wendy got the entire Oricon sex plot arc was just to give Wendy screen time with the squad. So if you want to have people know all 30 members of your characters, give each character a 50-episode plot arc with them bonding with the main cast. It's a good strategy.
Speaker 2:Fair enough. How many episodes does Fairy Tail have?
Speaker 1:A solid chunk. Their plot arcs are a little more condensed than Naruto ones, but let's see. Hmm 328 episodes.
Speaker 2:Okay, but so if that's how Fairytale managed to introduce characters and make us care about them, then what did my Hero do wrong? Was it that their plot arcs about characters weren't long enough?
Speaker 1:So that was Fairytale's episode, not chapter count, Right? So Fairytale's chapter count is 545. My Hero's chapter count. So Fairy Tail's chapter count is 545. My hero's chapter count is 423. What my hero did differently? So Fairy Tail had more characters. My hero didn't pair existing characters with new ones and the plot arcs weren't about the characters, right? So in my hero, deku, none of the plot is actually about deku. It's not tied to his backstory or his motivations. He's not. He's reactive, not proactive. Deku's not achieving things, he's being thrown into things. Todoroki, the tuning exam arc for Todoroki was actually about him and his abusive dad. Right? Todoroki gets three plot arcs about this topic. There's the Hero Festival. There's the fact that one of the League of Villains is his evil brother. There's the mentoring under one of the League of Villains is his evil brother. There's the mentoring under his dad.
Speaker 1:Like he gets a lot of screen time about him as a character. Bakugo doesn't have a backstory. Not really His backstory was. He's a dick who bullied Deku, so none of the plot arcs were actually about Bakugo. Really, you could argue that he got screen time in the big tournament and then won Deku and Bakugo team up against All Might, but he didn't really have an arc or growth. So what my hero did wrong is we didn't take characters and slowly add them to Deku's squad to get to know them.
Speaker 1:We paired them with other characters we didn't care about right so like, for example, they literally make a two-man squad for each teacher to fight in one on one, two-on-one duels. And we're not going to learn anything about bird guy and frog person. When bird guy and frog person team up to fight someone, because there's no emotional bonding going on, because their protagonist bonding with these characters is how us, the viewer, bonds with the characters.
Speaker 2:So to give a JJK example, Megumi and Itadori.
Speaker 1:They bond really well. They learn each other on the rooftop. They get that speech of oh I don't save everyone, I just save you because I like you. They get some moments together. Right then hammer girl and yuji get a moment together where they team up to fight these blood curse paintings and they have their one three-man squad mission. He doesn't go on any adventures with anyone else. That's not nanami. That's like an actual adventure where they talk to each other and get to know each other. It's just fights and missions, so that's why we're not caring. When they went to introduce Toto as a character, none of those other characters mattered, because he had this ridiculous flash-forward bromance psychic conversation with Toto.
Speaker 1:So the only character who showed up during Jump. The Tsukuna Gate that we cared about was toto, because they had non-combat moments of bonding right super superficial bonding, but we bought it. He's like I declared this person my brother because I asked him a question. He didn't give a boring answer. Because it didn't give a boring answer Because it didn't matter what Yuji's type was. It mattered that, when asked what his type was, he gave an answer instead of giving them, I don't know, a personality, toto likes conviction.
Speaker 1:So like, for example, we would have cared more about Gojo had we saw more interactions with Gojo that weren't the mission. Like the end of episode stingers, like when they destroyed Gojo's laundry or when the group got together to gossip about Megumi's love life one time, that those moments are actually better for your story, even though people consider those borderline filler, because they bond your characters together and that's how you bond a reader to a character. So to loop back to world trigger, oh, go ahead.
Speaker 2:well, I was gonna ask uh, do you think that there's a correlation between chapter count and the like? Because naruto has what? 700 chapters, um, and it is one of our examples of having a large cast of characters that you do actually care about, and then it gets worse when they try and introduce more characters that we don't care about. Yeah, but it has the largest chapter count as well, so it makes sense that it would have the most characters that we care about.
Speaker 1:So, interestingly enough, Fairytale probably had as many name characters as Naruto, but they did something different. That's worth noting. Fairy Tail never wasted a character, so people throw shade at Fairy Tail because no one ever dies. But when?
Speaker 2:Fairy.
Speaker 1:Tail had its big ninja war. They introduced the 13 numbered villains, like you do, but all the good guy forces were also the antagonists in each of these plot arcs. Like you learned about Grey's enemy because he got a plot arc about him, you learned about Geralt and his mercenaries because that's just where all the reformed villains went, you learned about the other guilds from the other tuning exam. So Fairytale did a good job of here's our core cast and we kept them the entire run. Naruto, any character in the Great Ninja War that was actually established before the Ninja War were easy to track. Anyone from the Hidden Leaf Village. We had no problem, even though everyone's parents and their kids were basically clones of each other. Everyone from the Sand Village, we knew who they were. We cared about them. The mist village we never interacted with before the war why would we care, other than they have cool swords right cloud village we cared about killer bees specifically right because he'd interacted before the fighting started.
Speaker 1:So it's definitely those out of combat interactions, so Naruto versus JJK, all Before the fighting started. So it's definitely those out of combat interactions, so Naruto Versus JJK, all the characters in the end game. They literally just knocked everyone off the board who wasn't squad 7. And it's like yeah. We're on board. I mean, resurrecting the four Kages was cheesy but like, yeah, we know who these characters are. We're pretty confident you've talked enough about them that, okay, we'll care a bit.
Speaker 2:But really the actual climax of the show was naruto versus sasuke two characters right and obito was interesting because he was there the entire show but sakura, being the lone female in the squad, just somehow didn't sakura's problem was never actually her writing, it was naruto and sasuke's writing.
Speaker 1:So sakura at the start of shippuden was awesome. Straight up in part one, naruto, she was lame. She was lame because they messed up three things with her they didn't bring her for the meetup with Tsunade plot arc and they didn't bring her for the retrieve Sasuke plot arc. That's what doomed Sakura is Instead of Neji, and so Neji Kiba, like all of them, got a very close, dramatic win with one of the sound ninjas. Right, right, sakura should have had one of those. Sakura should have beat up Flute Person.
Speaker 1:Ah, yeah, that's true, because she wasn't there to help bring Sasuke back, which made her seem so whiny and terrible. She didn't do it herself. And then Shippuden they broke Naruto and Sasuke's power, scaling so hard that her character couldn't keep up, because they didn't hand her out powers ups like candy, like they did the other two.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And it's like why would you not give her abilities? I've said this before If they gave Sakura Rock Lee skill set instead, naruto as a series would have been 100% better.
Speaker 2:Mm.
Speaker 1:Because she just didn't get to have any of the cool moments. Like my guy got a cool moment versus Madara and Sakura didn't. I don't know why they would do it like that. That's a good point.
Speaker 1:But like we cared about most of the characters in Naruto because they got screen time like Shikamaru got a full Shikamaru got like two plot arcs that were just his. They got like Shikamaru got a full Shikamaru got like two plot arcs that were just his. They got like Shikamaru at the tuning exams being the only person who gets promoted. So like the Sasuke revival thing had a lot of learning who Shikamaru was as a person and they just got to avenge his sensei in a full plot arc. But it's funny because characters from part one of Naruto, where they got like full plot arcs about them, even if they did nothing in shippuden, are still on the top lists. Gara didn't do a single thing in shippuden. He still was the most popular naruto characters, same with broccoli, because you introduced them early. I'm a firm believer you shouldn't even be adding characters past the halfway point of a series.
Speaker 2:Like at all. I mean that's fair, because at the halfway point of the series you should be knocking pieces off the board and building towards your exciting climax.
Speaker 1:So that's where I'm at with the squad things for the classrooms. It's like three squads of three, I think is the easiest to track if you group them, if you keep mixing them around you can't.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But also to loop for things. We, like some of the best series of all time, have three characters like. Let's take full metal alchemist. Chat gpt tried to tell me that full metal alchemist was a three-man squad of edward, alphonse and winry.
Speaker 2:That was not true yeah, no, winry is not really on their squad no, their squad is edward and alphonse.
Speaker 1:That is the squad. But there is three other squads in full metal alchemist that stay squads the entire way through. There's Edward's squad, which is Edward, alphonse and whatever NPC they pick up that week. There's Mustang's squad of Mustang Hawkeye and whatever NPC they pick up this week. There's Scar's squad of Scar Girl. From what did they call it?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, it was basically Asia.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I couldn't remember. I was gonna call it Wano, but that was in One Piece and exactly seven villains from start to finish. They're aside villains, but they introduced all seven villains like Episode 2.
Speaker 1:They didn't show them all but when you name one Envy, one Gluttony and one Lust, we figured out they're seven Through the power of it would be weird if there wasn't. Yeah, that's true. They set up Bradley as early as episode one in Brotherhood. They have him just murder Ice Guy in the street. So like as Fullmetal Al Guy in the street. So like as Fullmetal Alchemist has always caught. For like winning so many Best Anime Awards is they definitely grouped characters together, like his sensei and her husband were their own little duo. Olivia Armstrong has her own little squad. It's not like they're always three.
Speaker 1:But, it's like they built them into very clear, consistent factions that didn't switch around members. Often Mustang Squad was doing their thing the whole show, scar Squad was doing his thing the whole show, ed and Alphonse were doing their thing, and then they were like oh, let's add in the Asian characters and they did their thing for a while.
Speaker 1:But it's interesting because, like I was saying, you bond to a character by having them interact with your protagonists. Almost every character in Fullmetal Alchemist went on a plot arc with Ed and Alphonse, or Ed or Alphonse, and that's when we cared about them, Except for Scar. Weirdly, it's weird. At some point they're just like all right, I guess Scar's the fourth protagonist now, so let's just give him a POV through this adventure.
Speaker 2:Well see, scar has the same benefit that Luxus has in Fairytale, where he starts out as an antagonist and then you learn a lot about him as an antagonist and then you learn even more about him as an antagonist and then you learn even more about him Like you care about him as an antagonist and as you learn more about him as a protagonist. It really, like the antagonist-protagonist shift I think, also creates very Well, can create very powerful characters.
Speaker 1:Well, that's how we ended up with Gaara.
Speaker 2:You don't really want the enemies-become-friends trope because that's just a little bit too straightforward.
Speaker 1:Well, yes and no, I was saying, gaara is another one that follows that trope pretty much perfectly.
Speaker 2:The enemies become friends.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Where it's like, yeah, it's. One of the best moments of Shippuden is when Narch is like what's everyone up to? It's like, oh yeah, gaara's just a Kazekage now and Naruto's like no, what? So it's like it was an interesting pipeline, because Gaara was like a mirror image Naruto, which made him work really good as a villain.
Speaker 1:And then because of that interaction grew a lot, but then they killed him and then they brought him back and then he was just kind of there. For Naruto, as a series, is not without his flaws. It is no film and alchemist.
Speaker 2:That is fair.
Speaker 1:And then Dragon Ball is just Bad sometimes, like it was, and then Storytelling to the absolute Max.
Speaker 2:Well, having actually finished Reading all of Dr Slump, I don't understand how Dr Slump got like 235 chapters, because that's like, well, I mean it was a gag series, so I mean it's supposed to be, and then storytelling, and then Dragon Ball has a little bit more structure, but it's still also fundamentally a gag series. Also fundamentally a gag series and so like that also leads very leans, very heavily into the end-end storytelling. But at the same time, I like Dragon Ball as a whole because Kid Goku is this through-link through all of these like things keep happening. But he is a very dynamic, he is a very proactive character.
Speaker 1:What's really interesting is you kind of hit the nail on the head. Every compelling Dragon Ball character did a villain to hero pipeline. All of them, every single one. Because you introduce them as an antagonist, then Goku beats them up, then they become a protagonist. All of them Bulma, krillin, yamcha, tien, piccolo, vegeta, the androids, majin, buu, hercule, even Bloody Frieza, the actual genocidal maniac with the disposition of Donald Trump. All of them. So like call it good or bad storytelling, that was the entire tactic. To make believable, like to make compelling characters in dragon ball is introduce them as an antagonist and just keep them like even roshi wasn't particularly protagonist at the start.
Speaker 1:He was to be defeated, even though they defeated him in a weird, stupid, not good for 2024 way.
Speaker 2:Not safe for work.
Speaker 1:No, oh, dragon Ball.
Speaker 2:Like you say, even the greatest shows are not without flaws. I mean, Fullmetal Alchemist is pretty close to perfection, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's no Freerun.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, Freerun is.
Speaker 1:So Freerun is one I was going to talk about a bit and I'll get a bit into, but we don't have a ton of episode left. So Freerun had two, three to five man squads episode left. So Freerun had two, three to four, five man squads. Freerun's original squad was that cliche band of five, even though I think it was only four. They literally were a JRPG party. They were literally cleric, wizard, barbarian, paladin. They just were the squad, technically one less member than they normally find, but you know. But now?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, it fits into the video game logic. Where video game logic is four-man squads, for some reason.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty sure it was sprite. Count on Final Fantasy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you might be right on that one.
Speaker 1:Although, to be fair, D&D was designed like three to five players, so I can see why you would just go four then.
Speaker 2:But, it has this squad of her original squad.
Speaker 1:And then she literally is just the Kakashi to Fern and Stark and they just pick up an NPC to fill their slot. But it's funny because it's like they didn't give a three man squad, they gave an obvious to ship two man squad. It is the most obvious ship in fiction, but both people are incredibly socially awkward.
Speaker 2:But then the two characters that are currently being followed in the series have definitely done that villain to protagonist shift Because we really care about them, because they were super interesting and engaging villains.
Speaker 1:During the tuning exam.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean kind of sort of yeah.
Speaker 1:You gotta have a tuning exam. It's by federal law.
Speaker 2:Oh no, in the tuning exam they were the villains yeah.
Speaker 1:That's true, but that was like that's what I find was an interesting one that got me thinking. It's like okay, if you only have a two-person squad you don't get as much dynamics between the two, but that let the sensei have way more dynamics, like because freerun only had to. Like freerun introduces fern and that's your entire show and then stark and then rotates people in and out to like mix it up a bit. Definitely made you care about the characters, because every single person got a ton of interaction with the title elf right like bearded guy with the elf at the party being like want to dance.
Speaker 1:She's like I'm at a buffet, why would I dance? He's like you know what fair, so definitely. It's like how much you expect people to track because world trigger you weren't supposed to track the other characters. It was impossible and now they expect us to care and I'm like not okay, brett they expect us to care about the most mundane arc possible too.
Speaker 2:That's the real problem. The arc is just so mundane.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but there's nothing I can do about it. But I guess my follow-up question to you is do you think Hunter x Hunter would have been better if they stayed a three-man squad Instead of just shifting characters around randomly?
Speaker 2:I do think so because, like there was so like Greed Island is all about Gong trying to find his dad or whatever, trying to find clues. And I really do think that, like Kurapeka, they could have dropped breadcrumbs for Kuropeka's quest on green idling. Like they just could have so easily integrated all these characters together better, because by the time Kuropeka came back, I don't actually care about his Scarlet Eyes quest anymore.
Speaker 1:What's interesting, too, is if they stuck as a four-man squad, if Lero and Koropeca had a good banter off each other and the thing is Lero made an interesting sensei figure in the early parts, not because he had any skills, but because he was the only functional adult at like 16. So, like when they were trying to, like, get money for the video game, that would have been a great character to be there. When they're using their superpowers to go antiquing Right and during, like the fight tournament, just having them in the room bandaging people up, learning superpowers but opting out of the fights, that would have been a great character to have there.
Speaker 2:Like, I think the show would have been way better if they'd kept Lero and Kuropeka around the entire time yeah, and I think it could have, just like you say, so many of the plot arcs seem so disjointed but the characters banding together kind of glues unrelated plot arcs together and yeah, I think that was part of what would have really helped Hunter Hunter is adding that kind of glues, unrelated plot arcs together and yeah, I think that was part of what would have really helped.
Speaker 1:Hunter x Hunter is adding that connective tissue to it Because, yeah, like Fullmetal Alchemist is the epitome of because of storytelling not, and then Like literally every step of that built on itself, freerun is a little more and then storytelling. But it's held together by that narrative of like. It's held together by the emotional context of her retracing her journey. So she's not going to these places and this happens. It's because she went here. She's now going back to reflect and see what she learned. To impart that on the other squad member.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean she's still being a very active protagonist that's making choices, Like they go to places, they see a problem and then they decide how to fix it, but their path is an active choice.
Speaker 1:And I think the extra spice that made that series work so well for me is, almost every place they go, freeran makes a different choice than she made the first time, with the Power of Hindsight and having adopted a child against her will, because they'll be like last time I was here.
Speaker 1:I did not enjoy the burgers because I didn't think to try them, so let's have burgers. Didn't think to try them, so let's have burgers. But with that we'll move to our random question of the day, unless you have any more thoughts, because, interestingly enough, a lot of things that were classroom anime we didn't me and you don't really thrive too much on, like oh, this is literally just an anime that takes place in the classroom, about whatever classroom, be it assassins or education or mecha or whatever, because a lot of them forget to use their classroom anyway.
Speaker 2:Well, I think the truest classroom series that tried to stick to it, like that Cypher Academy or whatever it was called, yeah, or the gambling one.
Speaker 1:What was the gambling one called, where the guy was trying to?
Speaker 2:buy the school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was another one that definitely used the school to maximum value.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but then it just.
Speaker 1:But it's kind of like the school animes are different for my purposes Because I was looking more into like the, If I'm entering a light novel contest, I'm writing shounen right to like the if I'm right entering a light novel contest. I'm writing shonen, right, and a lot of these shonen ones are. There's a school in it for the purpose of explaining the plot quickly, right, and my whole fresh take was man, these poor school administrators at these super coward academies. That would just have to break you right uh.
Speaker 2:But but examples of uh, of like school animes, like Food Wars, that one sticks pretty close.
Speaker 1:It didn't even occur to me. My question is do you remember the characters in Food Wars? Did they introduce them well, or did they just like?
Speaker 2:here's a bunch of people enjoy. I don't remember the characters in Food Wars, mostly because the absolute absurdity. It takes itself seriously that it's a gourmet academy at the start and then it's like wait a second, how are they letting all of this random crap happen? At the school Right, the intensity is just raised so high and it's like no, this is breaking my suspension of disbelief that this is actual school.
Speaker 1:Where it's kind of funny because world trigger feels more like a we're in class thing than most, which is really funny to me because it was mostly just FPS simulator of the series.
Speaker 2:Well, now it's an FPS simulator of a simulator.
Speaker 1:Why would they do that? They could just be using the actual simulator fights.
Speaker 2:Did I give you enough time to find our random question?
Speaker 1:Oh, I got super distracted. I ended up like I'm like I was pivoting out and then I, like, highwayed right back in, completely lost my focus. Because, like I was about to go on a tangent on how Persona is like a good example of a school anime, even though it's a video game. Because, like you meet each class member and they either power up your superpowers through their side arcs or they join your party, and then it's like you school during the day, to go to the dream world at night and you actually literally are scheduled through a school year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Or there's something like.
Speaker 2:Did you ever read?
Speaker 1:Sayonara Zembosaru Sensei.
Speaker 2:I don't think so.
Speaker 1:It was literally about a depressed teacher who kept trying to kill himself. Oh, it was played as a comedy. I don't know how well it aged at all. And then every terrible harem romcom ever Is just that each class member Is a dating option Alright, harem rom-com ever, it's just that each class member is a dating option, alright. So here is our icebreaker question If you could choose a superpower, but it only works during a specific weather condition, what superpower and what weather?
Speaker 2:Ooh Well, okay, so Assuming that flight is like a complete package of needing less oxygen at the road's height and being able to produce enough body heat to stay warm when you're flying?
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, functional flight.
Speaker 2:I would love to be able to fly during clear weather.
Speaker 1:What I find funny is this question is, weirdly, how Superman works. So what I think I would want is, since I spend so much time in Canada, I enjoy leisurely walking places in the summer and spring, but in the winter I really can't. I kind of want accelerator everything bounces off me once the weather is in the winter. I really can't. I kind of want like Accelerator everything bounces off me once the weather's in the negatives.
Speaker 2:I just want a barrier around me in the cold Change, the vector of the cold air.
Speaker 1:Or like Guild Arts, as things just hit me and break into cubes. So I could just like walk at my normal speed and normal direction through the snow and the weather completely unfazed, and then like for like the logistics of how fun that would be as a writing exercise in a series to animate a character who's literally strong in the cold and is like that becomes a gimmick of how can I cool this down to the negatives, like do I have to like turn on all the AC in the building and wait for the sun to go down to beat up my enemy? It's like turn on all the AC in the building and wait for the sun to go down to beat up my enemy.
Speaker 2:It's like a reverse Escanor and I'm on board Escanor.
Speaker 1:And that one's definitely the classic band of five. But they upped the number to seven, which I think is too many. I think seven deadly sins was too many characters to follow. We really only cared about five of them.
Speaker 2:That is definitely true. The last ones to get introduced just didn't really get that emotional resonance.
Speaker 1:It's like we just did not care about Gunther, just no one did.
Speaker 2:Hmm.
Speaker 1:I think about six of them people cared about, but they did introduce them all slowly enough so we could follow them all. But anyway, thank you everyone for tuning in to Richard and Carl Presents Deep Space and Dragons. You can find our episodes where all fine podcasts are found and also on YouTube. Submit your random question for your chance to win free copies of the Waltz of Blades or maybe even a Deep Space and Dragons mug.
Speaker 2:Follow us on Patreon Was it Patreon, yeah, I mean, mean that's what I pay money to every month to Patreon for a mug.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was a good plug, right like I didn't even put a joke in there, maybe I should have yeah, the mug is super cool because it has like a little silhouette logo on it right and I don't know, go form a three man squad and do some Naruto running down the street. That seems like good advice to give people. Right, you know, hydrate. Go form a three-man squad and do some Naruto running down the street.
Speaker 2:That seems like good advice to give people right.
Speaker 1:Hydrate, a Naruto run. It just seems like a great plan. Bye.