Deep Space and Dragons
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Deep Space and Dragons
Episode 98" Solo Leveling leveling as friends, random Manuha, and the immortal king for some reason
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We dive into the narrative intricacies of "Solo Leveling," discussing character development and its emotional core, all while juxtaposing it with other notable series such as "Tower of God." The conversation flows through Richard's reflections on his writing journey and Karl’s thoughts on manhwa's appeal in modern storytelling.
- Exploring the deep character struggles in "Solo Leveling"
- Examining the emotional undercurrents in fantasy narratives
- Richard shares insights on his journey with "The Arcana"
- The importance of world-building in captivating storytelling
- Contrasting "Solo Leveling" with "Tower of God" analysis
- Listener curiosity about character drive and motivations
It's time to tune into our latest episode, where we unravel the emotional threads that bind fantasy together.
Follow all things Richard and Karl, and check out "The Minuet of Sorcery"
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We are alive.
Speaker 2:We are alive. Just for those who missed the start of the stream. Before we introduced the name of it, I did try and countdown using legendary bird Pokemon and failed. I'm Richard who got Zapdos and Articudo backwards.
Speaker 1:And I am Carl co-host of Richard and Carl present Deep Space and Dragons.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 1:You're like almost 100 episodes in.
Speaker 2:You know the drill we talk about nerdy things, sometimes we go off tangent. I like. I like our viewers to think we script this because that's really funny. It's like when people excuse critical role. It's like critical role scripts it. They scripted an eight hour dnd session, dear lording. Like when you think about how many pages a movie like John Wick is and then think they pre-planned an eight-hour D&D session.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like what do I mean? They don't show the dice rolls on stream. I suppose I don't think.
Speaker 2:They kind of do, they kind of do. Yeah, you can see them.
Speaker 1:Well, because, like, yeah, they're rolling dice, but if it was scripted, then they would have to know what all the dice rolls are.
Speaker 2:Well, it's like the camera angle doesn't show you every dice roll, right, so it's possible they could roll in a tray and then be like it's possible. It could be scripted, but it would be so much more effort Because they're writing a script for eight people that pretends to be improvised. With rigged dice rolls, you drama da, da, da da. But an eight hour script is like I don't know, 5 000 pages or something. It's 500 words a page and about one page takes about one minute to read or something, and so it would, yeah, be thousands of pages. Why would you ever do that to yourself and your poor writers?
Speaker 1:well, okay, so what? Uh? Eight hours, 60 minutes an hour, that's 480 minutes.
Speaker 2:Uh, so the script would be 480 pages long at least I think, I'm not sure like screenplay is something I do, but not my specialty, so I'm not sure I have these numbers right off the top of my head, but it would be it wouldn't even exactly be a screenplay, though, because, because, like.
Speaker 2:Like it would be the entire Lord of the Rings script but you don't get any action sequences right. It'd be the Lord of the Rings if it was three hour, if it was the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. That was just dialogue, pure dialogue.
Speaker 2:Ok so that would be much longer, right, because your screenplay you get to say action scene goes here yeah, yeah, that's true, I mean that tangent has nothing to do with anything at all, but I just want people to believe we're scripting these and we're just putting in a truly impressive amount of work. So I can be like hey, carl, what's new in the carl verse?
Speaker 1:probably not a sandblaster ah, dang it, you're right about that. We actually talked a little bit about.
Speaker 2:We did talk about this a little bit off-stream, but you know what's even a funnier headcanon If the idea that we're not friends off-stream and this is our only means of communication.
Speaker 1:Okay. So when I went to university I had a professor. He was very adamant that you call him dr kreitzig, because he was a doctor.
Speaker 2:Sure, not a medical doctor, though, uh, his doctorate was in musicology you know what we're brainstorming today, what to call the sound type Eevee and Musicologyon.
Speaker 1:That does sound pretty cool.
Speaker 2:I lost. By the way, my friend went with Symphonion.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I mean, that's kind of in the same vein of thought.
Speaker 2:But please continue.
Speaker 1:Well anyways. So especially actual full-blown doctors and other in the in the professors in university. They're also there on like research grants, right, like they're not just teaching.
Speaker 2:Most of them, I assume Somebody who recently was looking at master's programs and it says right in it you will be doing TAing as part of your master's. Yeah, I can see that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's's like that's not all that they're doing, um, but I just I have a really hard time imagining, uh, what exactly you research pertaining to musicology, like I don't you see the difference between me and I can visualize it perfectly okay, okay, give, give me what you think it is.
Speaker 2:So as longtime listeners to the stream of Peace Together, I work in academia and I do a fair amount of research on redacted, redacted, redacted.
Speaker 2:And what I've learned is, you can research anything, because really what you're doing is looking up peer-reviewed papers on things, looking up the citations that make that peer-reviewed paper and just kind of doing a rabbit hole of reading. So like, for example, when I wrote a page on how homosexuality is only stigmatized because one person was running for an election in it in the roman empire and wanted to slander their opponent and therefore re-edited the book, which worked its way into the king james book. You get this massive chunk of history right. Musicology is literally just deep diving history about music or about psychology and things, right. Like you'd be looking at people writing papers on what effect music has, if you want to be like a music therapist route, but I'm guessing it's history. I'm almost certain they're like where did this? Who was the first person to use this combination of chords and notes and how did it evolve and what did different people over histories effect have to shape music?
Speaker 1:so I can picture how this particular, this particular professor was in fact the uh professor for music history called it, of course, of course which I failed multiple times, Partly because I'm a terrible student and partly because his tests were just Okay. So an example question It'd be like blank composed, blank in blank. So it'd be like composer song year, song year. And then, according to the question above, Blank did Blank in Blank, and so then, if you get that first question wrong, it compounds into the next question. So it was just, he just had extremely difficult tests. And then there was also the music listening portion, where you had a list of songs that you had to listen to and then you had to be able to identify them from excerpts that he would just play in class during the test.
Speaker 2:Oh, lovely.
Speaker 1:It was just a very difficult course because the professor was very demanding. He was a nice guy, he was just A, he demanded the respect that you call him a doctor and then B, it's just. His tests were extremely difficult, but if you actually pass his tests then you would be for certain that you would know a great deal about music history, as he taught it.
Speaker 2:Man, it's such a trip because I've been doing my four years of creative writing and publishing and I think I've written four tests total. Like I can't even remember the last test I wrote. You see it's funny because you'd think like, oh yeah, it's Richard, he can bullshit his way through any paper ever. But, actually my test scores are almost higher than my paper scores because I but actually my test scores are almost higher than my paper scores because I'm really good at bullshit.
Speaker 1:I am inconsequentially scary at memorizing random bullshit, right, but okay. So, um, moving forward a little while. I guess I'm not not sure how far forward I have to move for this, or if I even actually have to move forward at all, because this is the part that I mentioned to you off-stream. The Beatles are from Liverpool.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so.
Speaker 1:The University of Liverpool has a master's program in the Beatles. I don't know what the actual title of the program is and you've given me somewhat of an idea of what a musicologist would study. But when it gets even more specific to be a master's degree in the Beatles specifically like what are they researching? What exactly? How many research papers can they even peer review about the Beatles? Maybe it's even. Maybe there's more writing on the Beatles than I even realized, because I mean, they were a huge phenomenon, to the point where, when they landed in America, their security guards had to basically throw them into their car and they got bruises from being thrown so violently into their car to get away from the crowds.
Speaker 2:Well, it's interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:I was going to say. I feel like you're not going to get a line of credit if you tell the bank you're taking Beatles studies and they should pay for your education.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, it must actually be a serious program because, like I say, the reason that I that I am aware of this fun fact about them getting bruised from being thrown in the car is because the first graduate from this master's program they apparently died in 2023. But they wrote a concert documentary I was about to make a tasteless joke.
Speaker 2:Where I was like, did it turn out, they had a strawberry allergy and they were stuck in those fields forever.
Speaker 1:Now they're with Lucy in the sky with diamonds rip random person yeah, I mean, unfortunately I don't actually remember their, their name, because uh a, they weren't actually part of the performance uh, and uh, uh b, and so the performance was more about the beatles and then the authors of the performance was more about the Beatles than the authors of the performance, but it was like. So it was at a theater, like a stage theater, and the woman who was presenting well, she was actually part of the musical performance but she uh would uh do a little blurb about the beatles during a specific time period. You know, focus on a specific one of the members and or whatever, what have you. So it's like the. The start it was talking about um, I say I'm a fan of the Beatles, but I don't actually remember. I think she started with John Lennon saying he was born in 1940 during air raids, like, literally, they're dropping bombs on the streets while he was being born. Poor John Lennon, I just deserve my innate hatred of him.
Speaker 1:But anyways, most of the performance, like so she would do a little blurb and then they would play a song and then she'd do another blurb and she would kind of go through in chronological order, going over, like the songs they wrote together, the songs they wrote individually, how the band actually formed when, where and when they met, how the band actually formed where and when they met. And, one of the most interesting points to me, one song in particular. It's one of my favorites because it's called A Day in the Life and it's on the Beatles' Blue Album, which is actually just a compilation album. They never actually released a Blue Album, but not while they were actually a band. But it's like it's their later years of music and so they have more avant-garde techniques and music in general.
Speaker 1:So first, when she was talking about how this song came together, she starts playing a song and I don't know the name of the song, but due to music history and these listening excerpts from my course I recognize the song. I'm fairly certain that the song that she played as an example of avant-garde modern music in post-World War I and II was a song by Arnold Schoenberg you went Gundam Seed Rain for a moment you had the Gundam Seed sound effect affected by this post-World War mentality where they were experimenting with non-traditional musical progressions or mathematical and not intended to be melodically pleasing and a lot of people at the time thought that that music was terrible because it's hard to listen to.
Speaker 1:But when you look at the sheet music, thought that that music was terrible because it's hard to listen to. But when you look at the sheet music it's absolutely fascinating to see the patterns and shapes that emerge on the page which are so hard to follow when you're listening. But then she was talking about the song A Day in the Life and it was like, yeah, there was a live orchestra, that they actually hired a live orchestra. And they're just like, yeah, uh, when we tell you you just got to play like the lowest note on your instrument and then it'll just be like this big crescendo of notes joining in whenever however they want, it's like it sounds like chaos as they transition from one portion of the song to the next. Uh, and because it was such an involved process to actually even record the song, apparently they never performed it live. So that was an interesting fun fact about the song.
Speaker 1:I was like, huh, I mean, I 100% recognize and see what they're talking about because I love the song. I just didn't. I thought that was something that, like, the music producer added in post, but apparently that's actually a recording of a live orchestra doing this chaotic crescendo to transition between the portions of the song. Uh, and then obviously it was interesting to hear the people on stage tried to play that song because, like, she emulated the orchestra by playing on on the piano, like slamming all the different keys and slowly working your way up and just uh, and it was, it was, it was captivating, uh. So what's new with me? I mean, I had a really, really enjoyable experience with my fiance because we went to this show as a date night. Um, and I mean, I don't know, I'm not going to retain much information about the Beatles that I didn't already know, but I I still wonder what exactly you'd be researching as to be a master. I have a master's in the Beatles, but the performance was great very fair.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a fascinating what's New with Carl. I appreciated this one. It only took a cool entire length of an episode of South Park, not actually. We came in at like a clean 15 minutes and I gave a five-minute monologue about nothing, just about literally nothing.
Speaker 1:What's new with you there, Richard?
Speaker 2:So I find myself on reading week which is lovely.
Speaker 2:My school just does it, different than a bunch of other schools, because that's how the universe works. So I finished my rough draft of the Arcana and now I'm going through and doing my edits and I say to myself and my mentor I can have this done by the end of reading week. So today is tuesday right, I have edited one chapter. However, I also worked a full shift today and tomorrow I don't, so I'm hoping to pick up the speed. But also, the first chapter is the hardest one to edit because like I had to go retroactively, add in like characters and cameos through the rest of the book.
Speaker 2:Like I have a mysterious council who didn't exist when I wrote the rough draft and now I had to like put them all in and make their voices sound right and adjust the characterizations and things. So it required a lot of work. Thankfully, the second chapter I already edited for a magazine submission, so I technically got two done today.
Speaker 1:Oh, excellent.
Speaker 2:But I pretty much have to edit four chapters a day between now and Sunday. Ah, which is about. It takes me normally like an hour or two to do a deep line edit. This one took me like three. So really I'm on schedule but I have to actually do it. So I'm hoping my ADHD clicks into hyper focus more and I gain superpowers hmm, that's true, adhd is both a blessing and a curse but like I do want to finish this lap through the book, I enjoy one chapter where I took a screenplay.
Speaker 2:I wrote for screenplay class and then I had a character transport their brain into multiple robot bodies to play all the characters because I couldn't find anyone competent so the chapter's written half in screenplay format and half in cursive, with them writing notes about how bad their actors are. Who are them?
Speaker 2:oh man, I love that suggestion right, so, like as I go through this and work on refining this book, that's pretty much what's going to be new with me for a while. Is between that and school related stuff which, until I click the accept button, I'm not going to gloat about on stream.
Speaker 1:But I personally am happy to hear about your Arcana story because of how many suggestions that I made which made the final cut it just it makes me happy.
Speaker 2:So it's like there's parts of it. A lot of them didn't turn into verbatim chapters, but they turned into bits here and there. My big debate I'm having right now during this rewrite, is I'm trying to decide if I want to add in four more chapters that are like the four suits of cards to be like. But I'm like, no, no, no, I can't make more work. This thing's already too long. It's like at a hundred thousand words. I want to trim it down, Right, Right, but there's a few chapters that I have to do a weird rewrite where. So I want each chapter to follow a different side character and then the main characters are all doing things in the background over the course of the book.
Speaker 2:A few chapters. I have to add in that side character and pivot the focus, because I have the main story down but it needs to be told from other people's point of view, Because I like making my life miserable for no reason. It's kind of like when I was editing chapter one, what took so long is I had so much placeholder dialogue. I'm like, no, I need these two characters to actually have romantic chemistry, which means.
Speaker 2:I myself have to have romantic chemistry, which is questionable if that's ever been true, although I have been paid to write redacted and redacted on commission anonymously before. So I get good reviews when I write redacted stuff, so I have the ability in theory.
Speaker 1:You are a professional shipper.
Speaker 2:Yeah, actually by definition. I guess I don't know how I feel about that when it's spelled out like that, but it is true I have been paid to ship things. That is funny actually. That'd be such a good bullet point on my resume, though, just like the last bullet point, other skills, paid shipper. It's like do you mean shipping and receiving? I do not, I mean redacted and redacted ninja getting the love story they deserved. So with that, let's move into manhwa, our topic of the day okay, well, so first things first. Manhwa Korean manga.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so one of your friends, who you say has taste, told you that solo leveling is actually good.
Speaker 2:Yes, which caught me off guard.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean. So I think I agree that it is actually good. That's the first thing because, like the story does, the first few episodes do an incredible job of setting up the tone, the themes. Few episodes do an incredible job of setting up the tone, the themes and an excellent emotional core to the story. The main character is an extremely weak hunter who goes into these dungeons that are created just random portals that open and it's a dungeon. And then the hunters go into the dungeons to loot them and try and get money. And even as, quote-unquote, the world's weakest hunter, he still manages to make enough money to pay for his mom who's in a coma. He has to pay for her medical bills and he's paying to put his sister through school because she hasn't awakened as a hunter, so she wants to become a normal doctor. So here's my mini rant about the series.
Speaker 2:So soul leveling is kind of like people who just hate Marvel movies, but occasionally they'll put out a banger right. My thing with soul leveling, which is my thing with the ecocide genre, even this one being a reverse ecocide as a whole that bugged me is they all want to be sword art, like I'm going to make this fictional setting with video game rules, but they're more interested in borrowing a world than making one. And my hot take is if solo leveling didn't have the video game bullshit, like fleshing out the world, like take the characters, the action, the plot of soul leveling and put it in like Fullmetal, alchemist or even Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer.
Speaker 2:That would be much more invested, much easier. But like it's one of those things where, in an infinite multiverse to find the reality where you have a skill leveling system, it's just like, okay, I want to be on board, but like Doofy Delicious in the dungeon, I rated higher. Or even Tower of God I rated higher, which is another manhwa, because Tower of God's mechanics made no goddamn sense and I prefer that to everything being conveniently video game coded.
Speaker 2:But no no, my complaints aren't about the characters, which are the important part. It's kind of like to give soul leveling some praise. So you know naruto's not actually about ninjas right so leveling's not actually about ekisai, no, like it's a power fantasy, sure, but it's kind of like a reverse character arc where you just kind of watch a person get shittier and shittier with power. So it's like I do, I kind of enjoy watching him become a worse person.
Speaker 1:I mean, he does kind of slowly become a reverse person, but that emotional core of trying to put his sister through school while paying for his mother's medical bills drives the entire first two seasons of the show and it's. I really, really think that that is a huge strength and even if you're not a huge fan of the video game style leveling system, it's the emotional core, uh, and the struggles of this character, and the themes and it's it's all. It's extremely well written, despite having a premise that you don't particularly enjoy well, it's like even the like real world of dungeons coming through.
Speaker 2:It's like there's a lot I could get on board with.
Speaker 2:It's one of those saturation situations, right Like had I read Soul Leveling first before I got indoctrinated with your shield heroes, your reincarnated as the slimes, your ba-da-ba-da-ba then maybe I wouldn't be so salty but like I definitely there's an episode of the show where it's like all the like hero association people monologuing about the world and I'm like you didn't write a world, why are you even bothering? Can we get back to the sick animation of him just rolling up after going in his s-rank dungeon, coming out and just one-shotting a godzilla but not realizing he one-shotted a godzilla? Like I'm on board for that If it was this character writing. But you threw it in kaiju number five nine, setting completely on board or counterpoint.
Speaker 2:You actually make the skill system consistent enough that it could work if you were to actually make the video game. Because that's my actual rant about these genre is they don't actually work Like sort of it's like here's our skill system and you're like that wouldn't actually work in a video game. Like it wouldn't, cause they're like the way the skills are. Like as you level up you get skill slots but like there's no like correlation between sats and moves and how they physically do things in the game.
Speaker 2:So like sort of and it's one of the more consistent ones. So, like my question to you is if I told you you have to program a solo leveling game, you have an infinite budget. Could you successfully do it?
Speaker 1:well, see, there's two things about solo leveling one which you've already touched on that do make that quite difficult, and the first is A it's not actually an isekai, because it's them living in a fictional world where everyone well, people will randomly awaken skills to fight monsters and go into these dungeons, and then he happens to awaken a super skill that allows him to raise his power level, which is something that's unheard of among other hunters.
Speaker 2:The I'm the most special, special, awesome boy skill.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's kind of the I'm the most special, awesome, awesome boys genre Like it's it's. For some reason it comes along with this video game style game.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, it's like built as the core of a power fantasy.
Speaker 1:But the number one thing that I say about solo leveling is A that emotional core and the themes and the setting. Like I think they did a really good job of setting everything up and it's something that we don't actually like. Can you name any north american series that have this?
Speaker 2:you gain a level up system um, the problem is, I know they exist and I can't think of them because, like, there's like a whole wave of like anime inspired random bullshit and I'm like trying to remember some of this, like random bullshit to be like.
Speaker 2:Have I seen this trope in North America? I'm like what the hell was that thing called? It was like Zyx or something, where it was like a CGI actor show where they went into this video game dungeon to get skills and that was CGI, and then it gave them items they could use in the real world. It was like Zix Level 1 or something. I can't recall his full name. Well see, obviously in Korea especially people want to get hit by trucks and wake up with superpowers. Really badly.
Speaker 1:I mean, from what I've seen, people in Korea do want to be reincarnated into a different world, but Truck-kun does not make an appearance in most Korean manhwa Well.
Speaker 2:I kind of want to follow that one up a bit where I'm shitting on solo leveling. It is by far the best of all the examples I've listed by like a lot, like the only egosides better than it that come to mind were like Inuasha when it was airing. And let's be honest, if this and Inuasha were, airing at the same time.
Speaker 1:This is better. Oh man, so, but I we're not talking about Chinese anime or Manua. Slightly different pronunciation, I don't know. It's very similar but different from Korean. But anyways, the point is the the Life of Daily Life of the Mortal King, a fairly excellent show for the first three seasons, and then the fourth season.
Speaker 2:I'm going to pivot into Tower of God first.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:So have you seen Tower of God yet? Or read it. That is not one that I read so tower of god has the exact opposite problem with solar leveling. Oh so, tower of god is you have protagonist kid who decides to climb this mcguffin tower to impress his childhood crush, basically that he grew up with, and then, while climbing the tower, he becomes friends with, basically, lario from hunter. Hunter, a lizard man gets like weird water energy controlly powers and the first season of this, which was like 12 episodes, has.
Speaker 2:They didn't explain shit right they didn't even try like, and the thing is, what's funny is for those first 12 episodes it worked, but then they had a time skip where he came back as edgy in an Akatsuki cloak and had to climb again. But they still haven't explained what the fuck the tower is or what the point. Apparently there's a case system based on how you climb the tower. They weren't actually prepared to explain why some people have devil horns in this tower and why there's just a straight up crocodile man. They had no intention of ever explaining this and then I think it led on for too long and imploded on itself Because the second season's like here's the stakes. I'm like there are no stakes because none of this makes any sense and it's like Special Boy had the Special Boy power to control the water the best, I guess but they just weren't actually committed. Like it was basically someone's like I'm gonna write a tuning exam that takes place on a tower and something happens at the top and that's as far as they got in brainstorming it.
Speaker 2:So I gotta say, like Soul Leveling beats Tower of God, which didn't even try.
Speaker 1:Um, but like soul leveling beats tower of god, which didn't even try, um. But for the anime, specifically um, I told you that I think that season four of immortal king was mediocre. Um, and I'm not sure if this is actually a trend or if it's something I should really be concerned about, but one of the things that I thought was mediocre, uh, was um. There's a battle where um I'm blanking on his name but the immortal King imbues his, his lady friend, with one one millionth of his power, and then they have this epic battle against the, the other evil bad guy, um, and evil bad guy um, and uh, the. I don't want to disparage the animators, but they didn't know how to animate a fight and it ended up just being like a burst of funky colors and shapes and it's like I. I was really disappointed with that fight, considering the quality of the fight scenes from the first three seasons what's funny is like to loop back to moving from korea to chinese productions.
Speaker 2:So the daily life of the immortal king is a sweet spot between. It's like if one punch man had interesting world building and a compelling character. So I've talked a fair amount about how the overpowered characters they go one of two ways. You go I'm an angsty, loner kirato way, where it's like I'm so edgy and all my superpowers won't make me happy.
Speaker 2:Or you go the saitama way, where you have all the superpowers but they have nothing to do with trying to live a normal life right so the first season of the daily life of the immortal king, I think, is better than one punch man, because they also have the weirdest setting, so soul leveling, being like, yeah, we're in tokyo, but gates and monsters cool whatever the hell is going on in the daily life of the immortal king with flying swords and yin yang space stations and magic pills and crystal pokeballs and a power system about like ascending to different stages of ascension for some reason and just Chief Toad being turned into a wolf.
Speaker 2:The background setting has so much stuff going on. A character's like I'm just a butterfly demon. I'm like, what is that? I have questions, but, unlike Tower of God, they have the answers. They can explain their setting. They explain how they're essentially Regan from Mob Psycho. Got his impressors impressed. They can explain their setting. They explain how they're essentially regan from mob psycho. Got his promotion because he was a good dude, so the kids, just like you, could just have the credit. And he's like trying to be a better person while being like part of the elite sword police to fight the literal assassins. And it's just like a character like I'm a Jurek's ascendant of Sun Wukong. I'm like why? But awesome, so like his setting is.
Speaker 1:I think I would like it even more if, instead of overpowered protagonists, I just got more of this ridiculous setting but so the point I was trying to make about that particular fight scene from season 4 well, not even necessarily is it was bad. Well, not even necessarily the that it's bad Like. Firstly, I am wondering, like, uh, the Dragon Ball Broly movie, uh wasn't quite as bad, but Broly and uh Fujita were fighting or Gogeta, I don't remember which. Anyways, fusion and broly are fighting, uh. And then it's just like, for no explained reason within the movie and I don't know if it's been explained anywhere in any part of this they got like punched out of reality.
Speaker 2:Oh no, you cut out. I think you got punched out of reality for a second.
Speaker 1:I got punched funny, funny, funny.
Speaker 2:I gotta make our tech issues entertaining, or what am I even doing here?
Speaker 1:but so firstly I'm wondering have you noticed an increase in fight scenes, just having scenes that aren't really fights, they're just explosions of color yes, also the cubes.
Speaker 2:Have you noticed that things explode into cubes now?
Speaker 1:I'm not kidding, things just get punched into cubes.
Speaker 2:But um, the latest episode of um solo leveling at this point, um is, uh, the main character fighting the demon king in his in this s-class dungeon which by the way at what point does it stop being random chance and that this kid's just cursed because it's like I go into a dungeon and there's always something gimmickly and wrong with it, and the show's trying to play it off like it's not his fault. It's his fault, though, right?
Speaker 1:uh, well, I mean this dungeon. He, specifically, he completed a quest and got a, a blessed key to open the dungeon, uh, and then it's just a hundred-floor tower of fighting demons and when he gets to the top he fights the Demon King who gives him the final piece to the Elixir of Life, which he ultimately does use to save his mom from her unnamed eternal slumber, illness or whatever, which, again, that's part of the whole emotional core, because, even as he's becoming a worse and worse person, he'd never lose his sight of his goal to help his mom and put his sister through school and his mom's illness is called being a mother in an anime it is a dangerous, dangerous profession there are some, uh, artistic choices they made during that fight that I didn't particularly enjoy, but at the same time it was the most epic and cinematic fight.
Speaker 1:It was so good I had to watch it twice because it's like man this is and they're just. It was actually just looked like a choreographed fight where they had thoughtful moments of pausing and parries and the camera just swings around them as they're fighting. So Soul Leveling is well written and has peak fight sequences. It's true.
Speaker 2:Soul Leveling has the second prettiest fight animations this season, or third, third prettiest, which is pretty good. It loses to Bleach Thousand Year Blood War, shockingly. And it loses to Arcane, like everyone else, arcane's just out here being like hey, I see you made a fantasy movie. I'm Laura of the Rings. You're like well, that's not fair. Arcane's like hey, what if this movie had a larger budget than Sonic 3? It's like but you're a series. Yes, they're like every frame of Arcane could be an Imagine Dragons music video. It's some nonsense.
Speaker 1:Slash news. Moving on from showering solo leveling with praise, like I say, I no, you have to balance it because I showered it with negativity.
Speaker 1:I think that your friend is correct that solo leveling is at least up to the end of season one of the manhwa. I haven't read past chapter 110, because I was like I'm just going to wait for the anime to catch up. Chapter 110 because I was like I'm just going to wait for the anime to catch up, but at least to the end of the first season of the manhwa is, I think, tightly written and just so. They captured the essence of the manhwa so perfectly with all these awesome fight sequences. And yet there's all much political stuff going on in the background, with Jeju Island, which it comes up a lot in Manhwa because it's actually Korea's largest island Just Jeju Island is the real place.
Speaker 2:Chilling there, being awesome. So to pivot into the daily life of the Immortal King a bit. So does it have the best fight scenes? No. Does it have several of the best jokes I've ever seen? Yes, so I'm a strong advocate of watching it dubbed, which I mean I probably just lost half our fan base for there. But I stand by it because like the delivery of froggy, to be like. Why do I hear theme music before being up a kind of space? So it's one of those comedies where the show treats itself seriously.
Speaker 2:But it's just absurd, like when he breaks into the third dimension and they turn it into a PS2 cutscene until he crashes the universe. It's actually my favorite joke of all time dimensional space in three dimensions, but you can show three dimensional space in two dimensions, like that's so much more clever than this deserves. Why is this so clever? Or just I love the bit of throwing the weapon around the world. Even though they did it twice, that bit was good both times.
Speaker 1:Well, like I say, I didn't really like season four because seasons one through three had this through line of the relationship between. Okay, what is his name? Again, I don't even remember his name.
Speaker 2:Wang Ling.
Speaker 1:Ling Ling. Well, that's his pet name, anyway, wang Ling. Well, in North America we would call him ling wong, I guess, but anywho, asian countries anyways. So wong ling, um, and froggy too. Uh, they have an arc together. That's so good comes together, it's so good, uh, and it ends at the third season, and it ends at the third season and then the fourth season. Like I said, it had a different studio, so the light quality dropped drastically with the style and choices they made.
Speaker 2:And then they reused a lot of jokes and they just did make some weird choices, like opening with the Men in Black neuralyzer thing let's be honest, the problem with season 4 is if the show just ended at season 3 it would just be locked and goaded like I don't think they had 4 seasons of things to milk from it but I don't know like they could go a direction. But he also blew up the universe like and rebuilt it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I just so, let's move away from that to something that we both know is too good, and when it someday gets animated it'd be amazing. But they pulled a Star Wars where. Oh Well, the first part really good, the second part even better, the third part, eh, they knew it'd be worse, so they never bothered.
Speaker 1:So we're getting into the breaker. The breaker.
Speaker 2:So the breaker's so wild to me so it starts with the deck and plot arc of let's just give a kid superpowers to introduce him to the setting and that part made my eyes roll but I'm like, oh man, this protagonist is just such a douche nozzle training his apprentice like he's just a bad, bad dude. And I was all for this. I was all for asshole kakashi because nine arts dragon did not have gojo syndrome. Gojo's problem was gojo could have just fixed every problem in the show, but chose not to because reasons?
Speaker 2:right niner's dragon could have fixed every problem in the show but was too busy being an unrepentant asshole who basically got gaslighted to taking care of a kid because his girlfriend didn't really give him any outs and it's like. So the first season of the breaker was really good and but I had that little pet peeve of okay, you Deku'd him, you gave him a bunch of powers off the start. Why are you doing this? Eh, whatever. And the second season they Undeku'd him. I'm like, okay, now he has to actually learn to do it. And I was super on board with that, because my rant with Deku and my problem always was, if your moral of your story is hard work and effort, handing people power-ups is some bullshit. Now, handing people power-ups at the start so you can get to the cool stuff, and then taking them away and making them do it again, can be really good, but we each dropped the ball a bit because they tried Nobody likes full bringers.
Speaker 2:Well, no one likes full bringers, but also he didn't really have to work to get his powers back.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Because they nerfed him, then gave him the different powers, then said, ah, screw it, and nerfed him again, then gave him back his full powers that he originally had. I'm like, what was the point of any of this? And Bleach also had the problem that, like. And bleach also had the problem that, like, by the time he loses his powers, there's like 13 good guys that can bail him out. You're like, why? I remember reading that arc and being like so why isn't like a soul reaper watching this to like, send in the troops this whole time? Like, why are you guys letting this play out? It's like, oh, bags reasons. And I'm like, yeah, you don't know either, do you? Well, moving on from that, like some of my favorite scenes in manga are or mawa in this case, the cast punch, that's like top tier the snipe, the best snipe in fiction, got me so good yeah, it came completely out of nowhere, which I mean a sniper should.
Speaker 1:But like, guns aren't just a real thing in this setting, people mostly don't use them because if you can see the gun, yeah they'll just run up and punch you in the face before you can even actually use said gun.
Speaker 2:But not only that, they went out of their way to reduce their gun resistance by making them climb up through smoke and powder and did everything they could to lower their super martial artist to then just shoot them in the goddamn face. And then the third one is when he had no super martial arts and the person put a hundred tons of force on his fist where he broke both his ankle and his fist on that guy's face. Well, technically that guy's face broke his ankle and his fist.
Speaker 1:Oh, but that guy was knocked right out.
Speaker 2:Like that was such a good moment of we took away your powers. What are you gonna do? Throw hands?
Speaker 1:Use your own powers against you Like. You control gravity, so how about if you fall on my fist? That's gonna hurt.
Speaker 2:Right. And then like you get to like their rematch where Nyan Shrag is just kicking escalators at people.
Speaker 1:But like you get to like their rematch where Night of Shrug is just kicking escalators at theirs at people.
Speaker 2:But like the escalator stairs thing was cool, but the cast thing was cool because it got me. That's the thing is. I'm so genre savvy that it's rare for me to just get got like that and I got got good.
Speaker 1:Well, they got you twice in quick succession too, because it's like I don't remember if that was before or after. I think that was before the snipe. So it's like you get this big moment where it's been like probably half the series, where he's been wearing a cast, recovering from a broken arm, and then he just like turns around and punches someone and breaks his cast off, and then after that epic moment do you think you can't be any more surprised until his girlfriend just gets sniped out of nowhere.
Speaker 2:And I also really liked where it's like okay, they're doing the chakra thing, but they're more subtle about it. But the best martial arts in the world's signature technique was step around you and punch you in the skull. And I just low-key was so happy with the cunning strategy of sidestep face punch.
Speaker 1:But like I don't want them to do an anime for the breaker unless they're giving it solo levelings budget, but also they need to bring the original author back to finish it, because it is not even remotely done, because they very clearly built it to be three acts yeah, I think the third act is being released right now uh, but this is probably I should probably do something about that uh, but I'm also not a hundred percent certain that I actually read all the way to the end of the second act, because they took a hiatus to write a different series right when they announced the like tournament, which I remember you kind of being irate about that. That they're like oh, it's like an anime law you have to have a tournament in your series, especially if it's about martial arts well, it makes sense.
Speaker 2:I'd be irate about that because, well, I'm just going to say, remember what happened with JJK and how that went down. Does that not prove I'm just right that everything doesn't need a fucking tuning exam? And, like I'm someone who watched all of Baki and all of Kanganashira, if you're going to do, a tournament. It's fine if that's your point of your show.
Speaker 2:But like just throwing in a tournament. It's fine if that's your point of your show, but like just throwing in a tournament cuz doesn't work if you haven't built up a cast of characters. I care about fighting, so that's kind of. The problem is like the breaker very much followed. I know the protagonist couldn't tell you his name. I know narns dragon and there's a few side characters I see show up once in a while none of them would I ever read a full chapter about?
Speaker 2:because I do not care, they do not matter. Like sketchy doctor dude's entire goal was to be like oh, he's a good dude, so I'm gonna put aside my romeo and juliet nonsense and help him. And that was the guy's entire arc.
Speaker 1:And my cool guy that's fun dude whose name I don't remember uh, in any event, uh, they um, they finished the second arc, which I haven't read yet, and they started the third arc, which I also haven't read yet, because, a it's ongoing and b uh, it's sort of locked behind a paywall on the app that I'm using and I don't like paying for stuff we're so used to like in our scandalous youth manga was just, it was the Wild West, and I'm not going to say what I did or didn't do, but you could acquire manga pretty easily and it was pretty unregulated and people would just upload things that were just fan comics with the regular manga and you would never know Like it, Like it was just the untamed seas, Some wild nonsense.
Speaker 2:But do you have any other mawa or Chinese mawa you want to highlight while we're on it?
Speaker 1:Because I think we've done a full episode of the.
Speaker 2:Breaker before, and I'm fine with that.
Speaker 1:I don't have any other Chinese content that I know about, as I mentioned to you off stream as well. Uh, there's a app. I'm gonna double check what the name is, but I think um not a sponsor.
Speaker 2:oh yeah, another series I watched was the first little bit of before I gave up was the god of high school, because it's we're going to do a martial arts tournament where everyone gets superpowers of a deity, and then it was just kind of not good. Ah, too bad, Because it's like it's not like it's going to be a martial arts thing, and then it's like actually we're doing that thing where my main character has monkey king powers. I'm like I've only ever seen that work once.
Speaker 1:just stop, go away uh, so anyway the the app is called webtoon I feel like I don't know what webtoon is at this point? Probably um, and I I actually really enjoy it because I've just kind of been reading random series, um and one series that. So actually I have a question for you how long can a series go before it establishes a actual emotional core? Uh, before you think that it's not good enough to even finish reading?
Speaker 2:It really depends because in my youth I got some really far deep into some lame stuff but current me. They got ten chapters to hook me.
Speaker 1:With the emotional core.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like let's take Sidcraft, for example. Sidcraft has hooked me around chapter seven, I think. It was when it's like, okay, you've created this weird triangle and I'm invested now because you're like okay we have a background villain.
Speaker 2:The protagonist is not a creep and he wants nothing more than to be in a romcom, but can't let himself be in a romcom. But it's like, okay, like, even like the assistant character. I'm like, okay, everyone's motivation here checks out, let himself be in a rom-com. But it's like, okay, even the assistant character. I'm like, okay, everyone's motivation here checks out, and everyone's actually a good, likable person and that's all their problems is they keep sabotaging themselves because they're busy being good people, because the core issue of the show is he can't not save the day and it's very distracting. He'll be like huh, now that I'm finally no longer distracted. Yeah, that's a murder. I should probably do something about it. I was enjoying my hot cocoa, damn it.
Speaker 1:Well, so solo leveling is about these portals that open up and they allow you to explore these dungeons filled with monsters, and then monsters can come out of the dungeons and attack the world, and people have awakened powers to fight these monsters.
Speaker 2:Like you do.
Speaker 1:Solo Spellcaster. The Solo Spellcaster Also I mean this might be a mistranslation, but because it's also translated as the lone spellcaster but solo spellcaster is about these portals that open the way to dungeons that people explore with powers that they've awakened to fight the monsters.
Speaker 2:What no?
Speaker 1:way. Yeah, it's the exact same setting. And then our main character has a close encounter with death and awakens video game-esque superpowers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's less good than Leviathan.
Speaker 1:Leviathan. Oh, it's so good. And so, firstly, I think that Solo Spellcaster probably named itself intentionally to ride off the hype of solo leveling yeah, you want it sitting next to solo leveling on the bookshelf.
Speaker 2:So when they go to buy soul leveling and the new issue's not out, they might accidentally pick up soul's bowcaster. Yeah, he would probably legally change his pen name to be one letter off of the author too.
Speaker 1:But it doesn't have a very strong emotional core within those first two chapters. Yeah, it's almost like the main character wrote it, the in those first two chapters. Yeah, it's almost like the folks who wrote it. The main character is just a generic salaryman who's on his way to close some sort of business deal when he gets jumped by monsters and awakens his power and then literally says fuck you to his boss Like that's a quote.
Speaker 2:Eh.
Speaker 1:As I said before, you have to be careful for F-bombs.
Speaker 2:You have to be careful for.
Speaker 1:F-bombs, you have to have people not expect them. But so then he proceeds to use his powers in a completely different way than Gene Wu from Solo Leveling, because he uses his powers to amass incredible wealth and political influence while he's investigating the origin of his powers yeah, I need to pause here for two minutes incredible wealth and political influence while he's investigating the origin of his powers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I need to pause here for a few minutes and give an unrelated rant about something I'm still mad about. Oh, so, do you remember when they did like that Death Note one-shot of the kid who found the Death Note and tried to do like a banking scheme to sell it to the president? Right, right, I am so mad that the guy's plan was good, so like, actually, we had a new rule that you just die if you sold it. It applies now, so you die. I was so mad about that because that was the part that made me upset. It's like no, you're not clever if you just change the premise, that's it. I don't know why it made me think of that, but it's like yeah, if you want to have you like, I'll get my superpowers to mount's wealth. That could be interesting if the writer knows how to do it compellingly.
Speaker 1:Well so Solo Spellcaster, I think, grabs in its audience because it reads more like a dating sim than a serious fantasy like solo leveling.
Speaker 2:Bah.
Speaker 1:Because he kind of sort of builds himself up a harem of female. Isn't it ironic that?
Speaker 2:I'm like screw this, as I'm excited to read Sidcraft, because at least Sidcraft is a self-aware harem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then he actually starts dating one of them and it's like I've read 110 chapters of Solo Spellcaster because that happens to be the number of chapters of Solo Leveling and I feel like it's only now starting to, uh, show its emotional core. Um, and it's like, how, how much time do I invest?
Speaker 2:how can I actually say that this is good because eventually it gets around to an adequate emotional core and an interesting mystery you cannot, I'm sorry I say that like I didn't read the entirety of mage and demon queen um, there are are three other series that I want to highlight really quick.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm quickly highlighting age and Demon Queen. So the premise of Mage and Demon Queen is this mage in a fantasy setting is supposed to be an adventurer and is just trying to hit on the Demon Queen the entire time instead of actually doing it. That is, her entire goal Is to be like no, I have a crush on the actual villain and the villain has a crush on them, but they're busy being the demon queen and the mage yeah, okay it is trash and it is delightful trash uh, but so, um, another series.
Speaker 1:I I actually did read this one, because it's called the lone necromancer. Uh, and I'm like, okay, like again this could be a translation error, but I'm amused a, because uh jinwu uh in solo leveling becomes a necromancer, uh, so there's that crossover and then obviously, the lone necromancer could potentially be a pokemon trainer, but that's not either there um, but uh, that one is an interesting.
Speaker 1:It's actually a completely different implementation of the level-up system, because, instead of it being given to a single player, it's like okay, the entire world has just been turned into a video game and people have to choose their class within 20 seconds and then, if they don't choose a class, they get a second chance, and if they don't choose a class at that point, they get turned into monsters because they decided not to be players. And that one I actually really, really enjoy the contrast and how they implemented the same basic premise a necromancer that levels up in a video game-esque system laid over the real world. But yet it's so substantially different and it doesn't exactly have this. It has a pretty good emotional core too, because our main character is is a young college student who served in the military to become stronger because uh he wants to be able to show a leveling.
Speaker 2:I missed every anime it's a bonus one star bump on me if you make your protagonist an actual adult yeah, well, that's like bills to pay it, a life to live.
Speaker 2:like I said, if they didn't egos I am and they put him anywhere else I would have been so many. It's like I took a star away because there's a leveling system and I would give it back. If it had a hard magic system from something better, like if we were using Legend of the Legendary Heroes, logic of swords and spells and things, I'd be completely on board again.
Speaker 1:Well. So again, I feel like the solo necromancer, or sorry, lone necromancer, has a solid emotional core and really nice visuals as well. So I think that one, despite being in the same genre and general vein, is unique enough that it should exist on its own. I'm not sure about Solo Spellcaster. Apparently it's very popular again, probably because of the harem of beautiful women that surround the main character, because he's the main character.
Speaker 2:Like I said, a rom-com can work. This is my last mini-rant. Horror is a terrible genre that I've read a ton of in my life.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I've also read a fair number of visual novels. It's a curse. My problem is to create a balanced dating sim environment. They're designed that you go one romance at a time. And then a show tries to be like okay, we'll have five options, but don't bother to give those characters interplay with each other, and that's what kills the?
Speaker 2:genre like. For that to work, these need to be actual characters, which means they have to have screen time and dynamics, which will never happen in this circumstance, because this is just being the worst. Also, throw a guy in your harems, be fair.
Speaker 1:So Lone Spellcaster, another manhwa that I oh sorry the Lone Necromancer, I don't recommend the Lone Spellcaster. It's gone on for far too long and I think it's stupid.
Speaker 2:So here's a weird hot take because I want to throw in one of my recommendations that we've raised over social media. I really liked Leviathan and in my brain it's good Attack on Titan.
Speaker 1:I concur, leviathan was an excellent read.
Speaker 2:Because, yeah, it's very much Attack on Titan. If they got their head in a stress, it's like I'd say it's very much Attack on Titan. If they got their head in a stress, it's like I'd say it's somewhere between Attack on Titan and Monster Hunter, in my opinion. I can't tell you any character's name. That information is forever gone in my brain, but I was thoroughly amused by Aquatic Monster Hunter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought that was an excellent series. The next series I want to highlight is one called Paranoid Mage. I thought it was good.
Speaker 2:I'm deep into the Ikasai waters this season.
Speaker 1:No, it's not. None of these are actually isekais. That's the thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, a reverse Ikasai is still an Ikasai.
Speaker 1:Well, okay, Like, a reverse Ikasai is still an Ikasai. Well okay, Like, do you think it's not exactly a great example? But John Wick has a hidden society of assassins. If someone ends up in the assassin world, does that make it an isekai? Because it's in the real world.
Speaker 2:If a stat screen shows up where they can move around their skill points, then because that's what breaks it? It's the stat screen that breaks me. Then you hold up your hand. You're scanning things and picking skills like you're in a bad vr game. That's what breaks me. If chan wu's leveling system was a talking animal like in Madoka Magica, who is like a very clearly evil, soft-spoken QB type, who is like and now you do this, I'm good.
Speaker 2:If it's a talking lizard, I'm good. It's the fact that it's a fucking stat screen. That is the most annoying trope to me. I'm fine with the portal opening and you go into a dungeon and you kill things and learn new spells it's not you have to use a fucking chat window for it. Real video games all use the same menu UI now, other than maybe Persona, they all have the exact same garbage windows that Fortnite uses. Why does your magic system use Fortnite? Graphics Be better.
Speaker 1:But so Paranoid Mage. I thought it was going to be a video game system type game.
Speaker 2:And it did have a strategy.
Speaker 1:It didn't. Oh, it was about a character like so Enjoy a hot star post On the day of his mother's funeral. After the funeral, the main character whose name I don't remember.
Speaker 2:I'm really bad with these Korean names. I have to get this off my system.
Speaker 1:I thought you said the last one was your last mini rant.
Speaker 2:I lied. So one of the first Ikisai's I ever watched was Digimon World right Characters literally thrown into a digital world with their partner Digimon.
Speaker 2:Right Characters literally thrown into a digital world with their partner Digimon that didn't have stat screens pop up where it would have made logical sense, because they realized it was stupid. A character pulled a laptop out of their bag to do digital things, or they had their little digital computer in their hand to do digital things, instead of just a magic floating screen. What angles does it look at? Why can't other people see it? How does that work?
Speaker 1:Why, I'm good, I'm good Paranoid Mage, the main character. He's at his mother's funeral, and then he decides to go to the gym, and while he's at the gym, his trainer gets attacked and turns out his trainer is some sort of dragonborn that breathes fire, and so the gym ends up starting on fire and he accidentally awakens his own superpower, which is to create portals. Well, he's a spatial mage.
Speaker 2:Damn it. I feel like my idea got swiped here, but please continue.
Speaker 1:And so he ends up saving a mundane, as the series calls them, with his magic. And then the Guild for Arcane Regulation GAR for short is like hey, you use magic, so you're going to have to work. You're going to say that he has to serve a draft with this arcane regulation organization and he's just like actually no, I'm out of here, I'm just gonna be on the run for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2:Man. The fact that he's an actual dragonborn though like that it's just a dragon man with a towel over his shoulder is just great.
Speaker 1:He's not actually a dragonborn. I'm pretty sure he's actually just a dragon and he has a humanoid avatar. But then he, like like, goes dragon mode to breathe fire and beat up this guy that attacked him and causes collateral damage.
Speaker 2:Like I didn't hate this one, to be fair.
Speaker 1:The reason I recommend this one, and this might be a little bit of a spoiler, but it's like he's on the run, he's trying to learn about his powers, and then he has to fight a nest of vampires, and so it's like the first nest of vampires he fights, he just he creates portals beside their heads and just shoots them in the head with a shotgun.
Speaker 2:So this sounds pretty good, like, I feel like I should spend my time with this one, because I gave it a first chapter read and I'm like it seems to address most of my concerns of people not being willing to make their own fictional setting but so then the second nest of vampires he has to fight.
Speaker 1:He's like, okay, I gotta be smarter about this, because they know I'm coming, so he drops thermite bombs into their nest so oh man and then the third attack that he has to do, and this is the one that's the most clever, because he's learning more and more about his powers and he learns how to create a little like pocket dimension bubble that has more space on the inside than it has on the outside.
Speaker 1:So he takes the amount of water it takes to fill a jar and then he puts that water into his little bubble dimensional bubble. Then he puts that water into his little bubble dimensional bubble. Then he fills that jar with shrapnel and teleports the shrapnel jar into the generator for the building he's trying to take down, basically, and releases the water from the pocket dimension, which expands and causes the shrapnel to explode outward to take out this generator so that he can just warp in, do his thing and leave. And it's like I can't wait to see how much more clever this author can get with ways to use these spatial powers. It's just that it's so cool.
Speaker 2:So, like as someone who has a character with spatial powers and the thing I'm working on, yeah, spatial powers are cool.
Speaker 1:And then a complete pivot Well, not a complete pivot, because it's still an action series. But I'm going to start with one question. Can you name a series where someone works for an organization and the number one rule is don't get emotionally attached and they don't fall in love?
Speaker 2:And they don't fall in love. Ooh, that got spicy.
Speaker 1:I asked this to one of my co-workers and they said that Obi-Wan Kenobi has enough screen time that he might count, because he did actually end up being a Jedi warrior with no worldly attachments, right to the end.
Speaker 2:But thankfully I purged the Obi-Wan show from my memory. The Obi-Wan show was terrible, but I mean in Clone Wars he hooks up with Mandalorians.
Speaker 1:Anyways. So Mafia nanny is a series about, about, uh, an elite nanny. She trains at the elite nanny academy. Um and uh, her parents were murdered by mafia, by the mafia, and so she becomes a nanny to an underboss so that she can investigate the death of her parents.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:But the number one rule of the nanny organization is don't fall in love. And obviously the two characters are going to fall in love.
Speaker 2:It would be weirder if they didn't. It's like I literally got that note on a chapter I was revising where it's like either you make this relationship better or just don't. You could just not. And I'm like, but for someone to accidentally murder their loved one, it does work better if they love them.
Speaker 1:But the premise, I think, sounds cheesy, but the execution, the way that it definitely shifts from this childlike wonder of watching this kid and trying to get the kid to actually like her and protect the kid, and then it shifts to these action sequences where the kid's in danger and she has to respond. And then it switches to the political side of being a family member of a mafia family and what it means and how they literally find people and torture them in the series so, like the show, this one's gangsters are actually gangsters they are.
Speaker 1:They are straight up gangsters. Uh. And then her, uh, change of heart where she's like oh, can I actually be a part of this world where I know people are just straight up being tortured and murdered? Uh, I, I accidentally searched for this guy and then he got brought back here to be murdered. Like, is that my fault?
Speaker 2:Oh man so now. I can't talk about the new chapter of Kagura Banshee because it'll take too long, but similar vibes.
Speaker 1:Mafia Nanny. I mean it sounds stupid, but surprisingly nuanced and complex characters with, again, an excellent emotional core of her trying to investigate the death of her parents without like, because she is working for one of the families that may have been involved with the murder, so it doesn't want to get found out that she's from this other, basically mafia family while she's trying to investigate the death. Oh man, man it's. I was completely caught off guard by what I thought was going to be a stupid series, and it turned out to be extremely competently written like.
Speaker 2:That's like a recurring theme where people like to be like oh, it's this idea to cliche to them, like anything could be well written. It could catch you off guard when it's well written because, like you're right, if you pitched me this, anything can be well written and can catch you off guard when it's well written Because, like you're right, if you pitched me this story I would have rolled my eyes Like no, no, but it's for real.
Speaker 1:They actually got it figured, they went for real with it. Yeah, like that's right. They literally have like gunfights and like gunfights and kidnappings and political intrigue. It's so good.
Speaker 2:Nice, and with that we'll move on to our random question of the week. So first random question. This is an interesting one. Would you rather be the only person in the world that understands sarcasm, or the only person who doesn't?
Speaker 1:Hmm, the only person. Hmm, well see, a lot of people with autism actually end up having hard times with sarcasm.
Speaker 1:What thing, my brother's wife. It's hilarious to prank her by saying something sarcastically and then she takes it seriously and then you just kind of keep snowballing and then eventually it's like, hmm, this sounds made up. And it's like, oh yeah, you're right, you got me, it was all sarcasm. She's like, ah, dang it, I knew it. It's like, oh yeah, you're right, you got me, it was all sarcasm. She's like, ah, dang it, I knew it. It's like, um, but just based on on that interaction, um, I uh, I don't think I want to be the only person who doesn't understand sarcasm so I'm gonna go the other way.
Speaker 2:So I think the problem is, if I was the only person who understood sarcasm, it would be kind of useless Because like, okay, I get that, I understand sarcasm, I'm using sarcasm. It's like that awful movie about where everyone had to tell the truth all the time but they like couldn't lie of omission.
Speaker 1:The Invention of Lying with Ricky Gervais, no bad.
Speaker 2:It's such a bad take on that concept. Anywho, I think I'd rather be the only person who doesn't, because being the only person who does, I don't think I could get the reactions out of people I want.
Speaker 1:Ooh where, like I already have some communication issues for like understanding people.
Speaker 2:So I don't think I need that extra filter. I think I'd rather just be profoundly oblivious and, just like I said, I think I'd rather be your sister along the scenario and be like that doesn't sound right. Do, do, do, do, do. But it's also like in my old age of 35, ignorance is bliss sometimes. I think, just not catching it, I don't know, it's like a weird kind of armor.
Speaker 2:It's like people could be shit-talking me. I would just have no idea ever and I think I'd be better for it, especially as a writer, because someone would write a comment and be like that was such a good book. I'm like, thank you, do-do-do-do-do, everything is awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I guess you're right being the only person who understands sarcasm that would Well, I thought it could mean you could use sarcasm on people. Well, yeah, but I mean like it would essentially wipe out sarcasm. You'd be the only sarcastic person.
Speaker 2:So I think it'd be more like let's rephrase it to you're the best person at it or the worst person at it. To old, like let's rephrase it to you're the best person at it or the worst person at it, to make it a more applicable. So neither just puts you in like a weird bubble situation where it's completely useless and then I don't.
Speaker 1:I still like being the idea of being the best at it, being able to make the sassiest comments and I kind of enjoy being the worst at it because it would give me complete immunity to it. That's why we're such a good pair. Indeed.
Speaker 2:Although, ironically, I'm pretty sure I'm the more sarcastic one, but maybe I just can't read it.
Speaker 1:I do tend to be straightforward and earnest, I hope.
Speaker 2:So our second question Would you rather be able to rewind five minutes into the past or see five minutes into the future?
Speaker 1:Ooh, hmm. Well, time travel always a difficult mechanic to deal with when writing stories in general. Seeing five minutes into the future, it's much more reasonable, like'm thinking Swen from Black Cat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, but I kind of love being able to save scum. The downsides to the rewind is when you find yourself in a no win scenario and you just suffer forever. Like that's when you find yourself oh, they locked me in a room and I run out of air in five minutes and I can go back exactly far enough to suffocate forever. Where the future feels like you're changing it more, but also like it's the five minutes in the future feels like you have less control over your ability but less chance of getting yourself safe in a in-stil-lose scenario.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I'm going with the reading into the future, provided that seeing the prophecy doesn't cause it to be concrete.
Speaker 2:Alright and I think I'm actually going to keep the saves coming, but partly because I'm just so accident-prone. Like time travel's dangerous, but my primary use is to not hurt myself. Like crap, I burned it. Crap, I burned it. It's stuck in the infinite loop because I burned it five minutes ago, like I shouldn't have this power, but I think I'm taking it anyway, deliberately, choosing a terrible ability because I think it'd be funny with someone like me having that power.
Speaker 1:Choosing a terrible ability because I think it'd be funny with someone like me having that power. I don't know what actual use I would have for looking five minutes into the future, but I would like that oh no, you.
Speaker 2:I know exactly what you do with it because you're both boring and prudent. Someone walks in the door and you already rung up their owner every time and it starts to get uncanny and people are trying to be like I'm gonna get. Yeah, I know, I already got it. You're like how.
Speaker 1:I would get extremely annoyed with the customers that take more than five minutes to place the order, though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you also know now, so you can just go to the bathroom and come back or be an ad celebrity, to be like dude. Are you going to take five minutes? I think you're gonna, hmm.
Speaker 1:I think I would also. Probably the more prudent use of it in my workplace is if I see someone that I think is suspicious coming in and well, I mean I can see it, look five minutes in the future and it's like, okay, are they going to be a problem within the next five minutes, or are they actually going to place an order? And if they're going to be a problem in the next five minutes, I just kick them out.
Speaker 2:You know it's really funny the quip I have to make. I enjoy this version of reality where you can see five minutes in the future and still lose to Jeremy at Magic. You know exactly when he's going to play and when, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
Speaker 1:See this is kind of like the rewind power, almost.
Speaker 2:I kind of like the idea you look into the future and be like nope, shuffle the deck, look again. Like nope, shuffle the deck, look again. Nope, shuffle the deck. And it's just like, are you gonna keep shuffling, just play your cards? And then I'm like doing the opposite, where I'm like make the wrong move, rewind time, make a different move, completely still I'm wrong it turns out there is no right move, we just lose time travel did not help our win loss ratio but with that, thank you everyone for tuning in to carl and richard present.
Speaker 1:Deep space and dragons uh, I appreciate the alphabeticalness of it it could be fixed if you made us a new banner. Instead of taking a screenshot of a screenshot, it's like that thing where someone goes to screen share and it creates an infinite cascade of their own screen. Yeah, screenshot of a screenshot.
Speaker 2:I feel like I need to give them a call to action, but I don't really know what I want them to do. I don't know. Go buy local Canadian products.
Speaker 1:There we go, yeah, yeah, we actually my work just released a new flyer. It's our mascot and he's wearing a Canada jacket, he's on a Canada snowboard, he's using a Canada flag as a parachute and then it says proudly Canadian, because we are, so are all your ingredients Canadian sourced. Yeah, that part I'm not 100% sure about. I mean I assume, so I don't know. Maybe Saputo actually gets their stuff from Italy. They're an Italian mafia family apparently, so that's interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're good. Saputo's canadian dairy company cool.
Speaker 1:I was ready to fact check you live on this podcast, but now they're based in montreal and probably actual monsters so you're a mafia nanny, so you're prepared for when they try and take over you know what's deeply concerning, though.
Speaker 2:You know what the little blurb says about Saputo, a leading cheese manufacturer in fluid milk and cream processor. I'm like the sentence. Fluid milk concerns me more than it should. That upsets me.
Speaker 1:You don't want none of that solid milk.
Speaker 2:Well, that's the thing. The existence of fluid milk implies solid and gaseous milk, and we don't need that up in here.
Speaker 1:Oh, because the existence of fluid milk implies solid and gaseous milk, and we don't need that up in here. Yeah, just distill all the milk fats out of your milk.
Speaker 2:The last 2% is the hardest part. That's why they leave it in the milk. Bye, Bye Also. Go out and vote.