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
Shonen Jump Round Up: RuriDragon is perfect and Karl has a rare Blood disease
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Richard and Karl take a deep dive into the current Shonen Jump landscape, analyzing what makes certain manga stand out while others falter. The hosts examine more than twenty ongoing series, from popular heavyweights to newcomers, evaluating their storytelling quality, character development, and creative elements. Also Karl could fie to the slightest cut and people are paying Richard to put words on paper.
• Chainsaw Man represents peak storytelling with authentic character relationships and thoughtful exploration of teenage development
• Boruto struggles with antagonist development and character agency compared to its predecessor
• Kagurabachi stands out for exceptional pacing and creative action sequences
• RuriDragon provides refreshing simplicity with genuine character growth
• World Trigger suffers from pacing issues despite strong worldbuilding
• Kaiju No. 8 impresses with consistent quality and focused storytelling
• The Martial King's visual style outshines its narrative substance
• One Piece has lost focus on its main characters' dreams and motivations
• Spy Family's slow pacing undermines its interesting premise
• Dandadan and Sakamoto Days show promise but struggle with growing character rosters
• Anyone remember Psyren or Doron Dororon
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Hello InfoSpear and welcome to Richard and Carl Presents Deep Space and Dragons. I don't think we have any deep space or dragons to present this week. I'm Richard failing the premise.
Speaker 2:And I am Carl and I mean, yeah, I mean our topic, if we ever get there, is another Shonen Jump roundup and there's surprisingly few. There are dragons. There are dragons in Shonen Jump, right now.
Speaker 1:You sounded so excited about that because I can't think of any dragons. Oh, are we?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, there's one dragon and she's not even really. She's like a half human, half dragon. Anyway, that's not really the point, it might get there the point is that we always, that we always present our awesome parody show. That should not be taken seriously or as fact.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Don't sue us the internet, don't sue us politicians, don't sue us people flying to space on dick-shaped rockets.
Speaker 2:We always present our Deep Space Dragons with a little side of what's new with Richard and Carl.
Speaker 1:Sometimes A few times, I'm like, no, I'm vetoing you. This has happened. And to find that episode, my advice is listen to all 100 of them at 1.25x speed.
Speaker 2:I think 1.5x speed when I watch YouTube videos. There's some videos that I love watching them, like Doug T Murrow. He's one of my favorite YouTubers, but I always watch it at one and a half times speed because it's too slow otherwise, I find 1.3 is like before it starts getting too distorty.
Speaker 1:I did Critical Role at 1.5, but I'm a human being and that's how you do it.
Speaker 2:I have done a few videos at two times speed, but yeah, it does get a little bit hard to follow when you're that fast, or if you go like 1.25, you're basically in the clear.
Speaker 1:That should be enough with how fast I talk to be able to follow still.
Speaker 2:But what's new with?
Speaker 1:you there, richard. So, because my life is mysterious, I'm working on Redacted Research Project. I got a commission to write a redacted novel for Redacted, about Redacted, and it's awesome. I love when people pay me to write them books. That's the best feeling. So, any listeners, if you want to hire a ghostwriter, since I've recently graduated, my rates will never be this low. I'm not going to tell you what they are on air in case a future employer comes back to bite me, but you can get me a pretty reasonable price right now. I'm talking like you can get 100 books for the price of a downtown Toronto house. Yeah, I did the math right. I think it would actually be 100 books for the price of a downtown Toronto house. It may take me five to ten years to write those hundred books, did you?
Speaker 1:imagine someone's like I want to commission a hundred book series, because my story concept is as long as one piece can you imagine if they paid you with a house?
Speaker 1:gambling on that there real estate market. So I have my graduation coming up soon. For the people out there stalking me, I got published in a poetry journal recently, which is cool, so I have to go to a lunch party for that. It's also almost my birthday, which is funny because people can watch this asynchronously and will probably come out after said birthday and they'll have to figure it out through like context clues.
Speaker 2:Uh yeah, it is me, isn't it said birthday and they'll have to figure it out through like context clues? Uh yeah, it is me, isn't it?
Speaker 1:hey, you just made it like. Now they have a 1 in 31 chance of getting it right. 32 of their stupid laughing, laughing, laughing. But yeah, like between having commissioned writing work and research work and my natural inclination to only go into the sun once or twice a day, I'm living a pretty ideal summer at the moment. Can't complain about it. So what's new in the Carlverse? All happy, fun times, right.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean first little mini movie review. Final Destination Bloodlines came out this month. Another clue as to what month it is when this video was recorded.
Speaker 1:Oh man. I do enjoy the idea of someone playing detective to figure out my birthday through this and not just Googling Richard Kivas and seeing if they can find it.
Speaker 2:So my fiance and I have decided to watch the Final Destination movies and so far we've just watched one and two. Number one, I think, holds up pretty good. There's a few weird writing choices, but for the most part it's pretty good. Number two is kind of getting a little bit cheeky. It's not campy but it's kind of taking itself less seriously. And number three I'm starting to think that maybe number three will start to get like Because everybody watches Final Destination just for the crazy, gory, insane ways that people die.
Speaker 1:So Final Destination. Here's my hot take of Final Destination. It is a good drinking movie in the sense that you can like easily speculate during it who will die, what order and how. So it's like it's a fun movie to watch in a meta context. But I don't think I'd enjoy it Watching it silently with people who cared about the movie, like if we were watching with people who didn't care about the movie. I think it's actually a pretty good franchise Because it's stupid. But it's like I don't want to say clever, stupid, that's too much credit but like the puzzle of oh, there's a logging truck in front of you, that's what's going to do it. Oh, is it the Ferris wheel? Oh, is it the snake? So it has a certain satisfaction.
Speaker 2:See, then I'm at work, right, and I I'm climbing up a ladder to change what?
Speaker 1:did I tell you about doing any physical activity at all right now?
Speaker 2:He says I'm climbing up a ladder to try and pull down light covers. I can do a sidebar here.
Speaker 1:So I had a conversation with a dear friend of mine today a mutual friend and I explained some things about how certain individuals are weak to paper cuts right now and I'm concerned they're going to get themselves killed because of how they live their life and are always in danger. Now please, continue your unrelated story.
Speaker 2:So I'm climbing up the ladder and you have to pull these tabs to swing the light cover down and then kind of lift it up off the hooks and bring it.
Speaker 1:You have to like Carl don't speak down to our audience. Obviously, everyone who's ever watched an episode knows how to change a fluorescent light cover.
Speaker 2:Well, no, they're recessed. They suck royally, but one side is sharp and pokey. Ah, I don't know why they do it. Does it help diffuse the light? I'm not sure, but it's the side that points down, and so you have to like carry it.
Speaker 1:You have to climb back down the ladder with yeah, I took one of those across the palm of my hand one time and just shredded it.
Speaker 2:It was like full cheese grater damage and then you have to, like, you know, like spray it off because it gets all dusty, and then you have to climb back up the ladder to try and put it back in. And you know, it's bright light in your eyes, it's not diffused by the light cover anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're not presidential enough to stare directly into the sun during an eclipse.
Speaker 2:But then so I get the light cover back in and I am having trouble in the last clip to actually clip back in place. And yeah, I cut myself trying to put this thing back in. I thought I was going to cut myself on the sharp pokey side of it, but I actually cut myself on the rim around the light cover. And yeah, I mean I have a medical condition right now where I have a low platelet count and so it's like it's just a tiny little scrape but it bled for like three hours and I'm at work and I'm like I don't know it doesn't seem that serious, but should I go to the hospital?
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:I didn't, you were under specific instructions to not do this spoiler alert I, I did not die. Are you still bleeding, though?
Speaker 1:no, no, I'm not bleeding anymore because, like so my brain's been enjoying the anime trope of okay, I guess carl now has blood powers and ate the blood blood fruit. Because, like, as like an anime side effect like oh, my nun ability is a control blood but the side effect is I have no platelets makes a weird amount of like somatic sense. But like I just have this mental picture where you're just never not bleeding now and it's like your solution isn't to like get treatment, it's okay, better chug some electrolytes and try to make sure my body's producing blood at the rate I'm losing it.
Speaker 2:I am getting treatments. I just haven't watched Final Destination.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like that's such a fun interactive novel idea though, where it's like you have this condition where any injury kills you, and then you get like the interactive visual novel. Of which thing do you think's gonna kill you? That's actually like this visual novel design, by the way, is every prompt is like you have to pick the one that doesn't kill you and they're all like spiky lip rough edges I, I.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure whether or not watching the final destination franchise is making me feel better or worse about my, my uh condition worse but I do think that the medicine is actually working, uh, and I am getting getting better.
Speaker 1:So, um, you know, that's, that's the good news see the thing is, it's like I want to be emotionally supportive, but you're also carl, so it's like I can't just be like I'm concerned, my friend could die. I have to be like I'm concerned, my friend could die because he's a bitch. Like I can't just be concerned, like I'm like I was fully prepared for the what's new with me, to be like oh, I took out a life insurance policy in Carl's name for Carl. So how's it going? Friend, you should reach for this candy I put at the bottom of this jar of knives, like today. I'm like has he had this his whole life? Did I nearly kill him with a sword? Fight by pushing him into a thorn bush a decade ago. And if so, fight by pushing him into a thorn bush a decade ago.
Speaker 2:And if so I mean, I do think I might have had thin blood for a long time, but I don't know if I've had it my whole life or not. It's tough to say.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty sure that's exactly what killed Mr Svartengu.
Speaker 2:But I mean, yeah, besides that, you know what's probably a?
Speaker 1:red flag for our friendship. I have such faith you're going to tell the entire world your private medical problems. I set up several bits in advance for it. I'm like I have such complete faith this is going to come up. I'm going to do nothing but make preemptive homages to it. That only I'll find funny, like I was going to be. Like, did you really make the cut today? Did you get through with a clean bill of health? What really sucks.
Speaker 2:So far, so good.
Speaker 1:Well, it's kind of funny because, like for one of my research projects, I've had to listen to a lot of like medical stuff lately One of my natural weaknesses. So I was like reading an article about getting a heart pump installed and I'm like either this will kill me or I'll develop tolerance to these things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I've heard that they are using 3D printing to create like a titanium lattice that you can use as a joint replacement. So then the bone will actually grow into the lattice and it'll be not organic, isn't the right word but you're definitely a cyborg, and it's that's sick.
Speaker 1:More integrated, I guess.
Speaker 2:I don't think that's going to help me in my situation, but medical technology is advancing and it's kind of crazy the things that can be done nowadays you are so close to being a Morbius, though, like I'm pretty sure the exact plot was he had a rare blood condition and he gave himself vampire bat powers for that specific reason.
Speaker 1:I mean, if anyone's going to be using morbid time, it's you.
Speaker 2:Alright, we ready to move into a show and jump roundup I was just gonna I was gonna transition by saying that I don't think there are any vampires in shonen jump right now that's wild, you like.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna have to use generative ai technology, because this is a weird question. What percentage of Shoin Jump runtime has had a vampire in it? So to quickly answer this question, with some vampire series, jojo's had a vampire from 1987 to 1989.
Speaker 2:Isn't Dio still actually a vampire?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I don't know if we're still counting, like I don't know what percentage of JoJo's counts as having a vampire in it, anyways, and then they had Seraph of the end in there from 2012, which had vampires in it seraph of the end.
Speaker 2:I think it's still ongoing, isn't it? Yeah yeah demon slayer they're not vampires but they're vampire adjacent.
Speaker 1:But apparently only less than 10% of show and jumps runtime has had a vampire in it. Huh, because risotto vampire wasn't in jump. Only less than 10% of Show and Jump's runtime has had a vampire in it Because Risotto Vampire wasn't in Jump. Seraph of the End wasn't technically in Jump it isn't. And Hellsing wasn't in Jump. So yeah, and Chainsaw man is relatively vampire resistant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, chainsaw man is definitely not about vampires. Even the Blood Demon or the Blood Devil is relatively vampire resistant. Yeah, chainsaw man is definitely not about vampires. Even the Blood Demon or the Blood Devil is not a vampire.
Speaker 1:The Bat Devil had vampire vibes but like so, vampire free, not exorcist free, but getting an exorcist reduction. So I'm going to talk about and I'm going to talk about it briefly, but I'm going to start on World Trigger.
Speaker 2:OK, what do you want to hate on World Trigger about today?
Speaker 1:So they're like the bottle episode ends in one day, but apparently they're doing like a 24 hour calendar day. So I'm like, fuck off, yeah, I use my F-bomb for that. And then we get to part two and I'm like I forgot what this exam in two phases. What's part two? And I'm like I forgot what this exam in two phases. What's part two? Please tell me. It's action based, the amount of money I'd pay for an alien invasion to happen right now, instead of it going into another wave of exams because, like, I don't actually know if the exams have taken up an egregious amount of time or it's just that its release schedule got delayed by so much that it feels like it's been egregious.
Speaker 2:It's definitely been a significant number of chapters spent on this bottleneck, which really highlights some of the issues that World's Record has, which prior to the bottleneck it just was a bottle test. It had issues, but you could still focus on a few main characters and they were still doing cool and interesting things. But now it's like they're trying to get you to focus on everybody talking about how everybody's doing. It's just so much telling and not showing.
Speaker 1:So here's what I'm going to say about World Trigger, and this is a controversial statement. If World Trigger has the runtime of One Piece, it can get away with this arc. So if World Trigger goes for 750 more chapters, this goes from being the entire length of Fullmetal Alchemist spent in a bottle cap to being a singular arc. And, like, if World Trigger has a truly comically long runtime, then it was worth getting to know all of the characters, right, right, because then we spent all this time with all these characters and then, if they all start going off on missions, scattering, dying, whatever, this did a lot, because there was about 50 chapters I'd say probably so like a fifth of the series. If the series goes long enough, then it was worth getting to know the characters at this level of depth, right, right. However, if world trigger only goes to 300, this is a colossal waste of my time and a waste of a series, because you could have fit the entirety of Fullmetal Alchemist in here.
Speaker 2:It's just so sad because I mean A, it's unlikely for any series to go past 300, I think, especially with a release schedule like World Trigger.
Speaker 1:It's released one or two chapters a month, but then also it's like it has so much potential at the start but yeah, that's kind of my weird hot take like I think it can, on a long enough timeline, recoup from this, but I don't think it's going to right, like I don't think it's going to outlast the run times of dragon ball and bleach and things. I just don't think it has it in it. But what's weird is it's done so much world building and lore building, I believe it could run that long without the story imploding. That's kind of my hot take is the scope is big enough that it actually has enough story to sustain a thousand chapters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I wouldn't be surprised if the author has like a Tolkienian level of world building and like probably even has alien languages that he's developed, that it's like eventually one day we'll see all of the hard work and like history textbook of this fictional world.
Speaker 1:But let's move along to Mor trigger so that's me being like I'm being kinder on it than it deserves, because I'm like is the bottle test almost over? Please let the bottle test be over, all right. So the next one is black clover. Black clover just kind of stalled out completely. It needed to go weekly to keep my investment. Sorry, black Clover.
Speaker 2:I kind of agree. The chapters aren't really that much longer, so it doesn't really have the extra content to be like yeah, this is worth it. I get that the author needed more time to be able to live his life and not die, but it is sad also.
Speaker 1:Also, black Clover has always just just been one piece with wizards. It's just Naruto and One Piece fused together, set in wizard land. He wants to be the wizard king instead of the Hokage. It's probably more Naruto than it is One Piece. I'm going to say Black Clover's just Naruto, pretty much straight up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it really hasn't done anything wrong, but it really hasn't done anything exceptional either. It filled a void that was left by Naruto.
Speaker 1:And then the Marshall King angers me.
Speaker 2:I was going to segue into Boruto, but oh, let's go into Bort.
Speaker 1:Oof, I have infinite thoughts on Bort. It's a black clover, worse than Naruto, better than Boruto, pretty comfortably put it in that range.
Speaker 2:Boruto could not fill the shoes of its predecessor, that is for sure.
Speaker 1:So I gave this talk a while back while helping, working on a project, editing something, and while playing through the fantastic Expedition 33, claire Obscura, and it's like the best pieces of media are about something. Boruto's not about anything, it's just member berries. It's like ooh, look, watch us reference things that were cool, like even Boruto teleporting. They're like ooh, look, he's basically, but not really, using the lightning, flying lightning technique. Isn't that cool? And I'm like no, oh, look, she has Mangekyou's Showering Gun, despite us explaining why that can't happen.
Speaker 1:And I'm like not only did you dedicate a truly obscene amount of screen time into explaining why she shouldn't have this power right now and the side effects this power should have you forgot to give her a character, a personality, motivations, or have her pass the bechdel test, or has not passed the bechdel test in its entire runtime. No two female characters had a conversation. That's not about a male character. I'm not entirely sure Naruto passed it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're probably right. I don't think Naruto passed the test either.
Speaker 1:It's like I think I'm giving this speech where, for Naruto, every fight built on itself, every technique was a setup for the next technique to kind of like remix things, and they really only gave characters one trick or two with the like specific notion that these were going to be used to murder people. Right, so like you're, like, okay, he makes clones, turns clones into things, oh, turned himself into the clone into a thing to do, a shuriken. That's cool. Oh, you learned a death ball. Oh, he grappled them with the clone to hit them with the death ball. And then even you get to like the sick moves of like, oh, he has a wind death shuriken under the other wind death shuriken that's actually hit. Like everything he did built on itself and it was sick. Boruto is going through so much and so little at the same time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they had this whole big thing about his planetary rotation, rasengan. And then you know, he goes and uses it on the big bad and the big bad's like, oh cool, I just beat your move.
Speaker 1:So my problem isn't even that though. So my problem isn't planetary rotation Rasengan. My problem is Boruto is being aired like a highlights reel, not like a series, so there's no emotional connection to the planetary Rasengan. So original Rasengan was he meets Tsunade, who's like hey, jiraiya says you're a big deal, come back to the city. And he's like I hate all of you because my little brother died. And so you get.
Speaker 1:Naruto has seven days to learn this to get this person to join the village. But really it was. Naruto wants to prove to this person that says he village. But really it was. Naruto wants to prove to this person that says he's a scrub that he's not a scrub, right, and then while he's doing this, he watches his buddy sasuke get owned by his older brother. He's like no, I need to prove myself. And then lands a hit on kabuto with it, and the whole thing was like every character there had a motivation to be there, right, it wasn't.
Speaker 1:And then storytelling. It was because of storytelling. Orochimaru was there because he got his soul arms ripped out, because his plan failed, because his sensei didn't trust him, because he was a rap bastard whole structure there. Doraya was there only because Naruto reminded him that, hey, I should probably care about my student's kid and do my job, right. And then Tsunade was going to sell them both out. It's like no, no, this kid's working hard. I feel kind of bad screwing over this kid. I don't feel bad screwing over Jiraiya Fuck him.
Speaker 1:But every character's arc for him learning the Rasengan was built on not only previous experiences in this show but character motivations. Everyone was there for a reason. I don't know the names of these new sand characters that showed up for no reason.
Speaker 2:Nor do I care about.
Speaker 1:Koto Hamaru's tree clone girlfriend, because Koto Hamaru's actions were not what resulted in a tree clone girlfriend. Boruto's actions were not what resulted in a tree clone girlfriend. Boruto's actions are not responsible for the actions of the characters in Boruto. He hasn't shaped the plot of Boruto in any way, that's true, so it's impossible to care about. And, of course, oh, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, it keeps coming out monthly and it's like I gotta it's a. That's definitely one of those sunken cost fallacy series where it's like we've invested this time already. I'm too invested to just give up. I want to see how bad it gets, you know right.
Speaker 1:But like that's my main thing is that they went for this like fate of the universe scope to keep power scaling their show, but forgot to write characters. The villains literally don't have personalities. So one of the best written characters in early Naruto that got people into the series was Zabuza. Because Zabuza was like, hey, this is an evil ninja, but he's just doing his job. He's not malicious, he doesn't hate our protagonist, he's just doing his job. He's not malicious, he doesn't hate our protagonist, he's just doing his job. And then his minion dies. It's like you let your friend die, your friend die, you're a terrible person. And then Zabuza sheds a tear and he's like, yes, I loved my minion, but we're ninjas and this is our job. That was great because we rooted for Zabuza and we rooted for Kagashi, because we were invested in both characters. Mm-hmm, no, boruto characters have Villains, have personalities whatsoever.
Speaker 2:That is definitely true. But you know what characters have tons of personality. I'm listening All the characters in Chainsaw man. Chainsaw man is so like.
Speaker 1:So Chainsaw man is wild right now because I'm like Denji's getting character growth.
Speaker 2:He's here not molesting people.
Speaker 1:Way to go. Denji. Denji's aware this is toxic. Yeah, Denji's had insane character growth over the last 20 chapters.
Speaker 1:And then just generally insane things happening in Chainsaw man is just Chainsaw man is Such perfectly orchestrated chaos, like I brought this up in one of my classes when we were talking about body org, and it's like my prof asked me a question Do you recommend Chainsaw man? And my answer, which I'm answering to our audience here as well, is you have to go into it analytically. If you read it surface level it's trash, but if you analyze it it's fascinating trash. It is the most interesting trash because it's like, yeah, it's so, it's the weirdest thing.
Speaker 1:I I think I've given this rant before that a lot of fan service in anime is hyper chaste but also like super inappropriate where chainsaw man is actually sexual and awkward and uncomfortable and gross right. So like to compare to like let's go hematan, that one, the weekly series about the makeup influencer and their housekeeper boyfriend who's torn between his other love interest because, honestly, he's actually surprisingly dateable. Like that one I kind of give to them. It's like what's your skill set? Oh my, I'm passionate about cooking and cleaning and being a good housewife is kind of give to them. It's like what's your skill set? Oh my, I'm passionate about cooking and cleaning and being a good housewife is kind of like a all right, I can see the appeal here. Like your skill set is literally dateable, but like that series will be like here's some uncomfortable fan service but never actually like have characters interact and it's like no chance on.
Speaker 2:Man is written by an adult for adults, so it's like this is a super uncomfortable grooming relationship and they're being very clear about this well, and the other thing is like it's hard to tell what chainsaw man is about, but it does feel like it's trying to make a social commentary I know exactly what chainsaw man's about.
Speaker 1:I guess it's not subtle. Chainsaw man is straight up about puberty and how external influences affect someone going through puberty. Denji's not subtle metaphor of turning into a literal murder chainsaw. It's literally just the story of how society affects hormonal teenagers. The first season was literally about what happens if you follow the rules when you're a hormonal teenager and learn that society is just trying to exploit you. So it's like it's a really honest reflection of teenage development, probably one of the more honest ones I've ever seen. Like this relationship right now we're like both of them kind of like each other, I guess, but are just kind of together via inertia and both have things they actively dislike like each other, I guess, but are just kind of together via inertia and both have things they actively dislike about each other. I'm like this is by far the most believable relationship in manga. Like I'm like I see every part angle that's going on here and it's like, yeah, this is like toxic, terrible and ineffectual.
Speaker 2:This is exactly what a relationship at 16 looks like so, like just the, the characters have so much depth and motivation. They have like like you were saying about naruto and boruto, it's like the characters have reasons to be there and doing the things that they're doing. Um, and they're they're just, they're very full-bodied and I think I really recommend it. I do I recall, uh, after reading the first arc that you had actually like you were like, oh, this is trash. I was like, but wait, it's, it's kind of awesome. And then now it's like you, you're recommending it to professors because it's so, it has so much depth.
Speaker 1:But I do have to put the it's trash, but it's so. The main thing, too is like it ended really satisfyingly and I'm like all right, let's see how you. I think the moment I got sold on Chainsaw man is when they did a time skip and put in Asta and I'm like okay, I see where you're cooking with this. All right, you got me, I'm listening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because, like Denji, still is unequivocally the main character, but it's almost a dual-tag in this series now.
Speaker 1:And it's like that is exactly what it needed to be fresh for the new season.
Speaker 2:So like yeah.
Speaker 1:I have to revoke my Chantelman's trash statement. It's art, I'm sorry, universe, it is. It is simply art I lost. So to move into something else, that's simply art. Kaiju, number eight is just good.
Speaker 2:Oh it's. I mean it's getting so close to the end. It's been confirmed that it's very, very nearly done. I find the release schedule seems to have. The release schedule seems to have slowed down quite a bit. I mean it's getting so close to the end. It's been confirmed that it's very, very nearly done. I'm fine with that. The release schedule seems to have slowed down quite a bit and that makes me a little bit sad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but like I get it. He's putting everything he's got into like His artwork went up to like Saitama vs Garou quality Mm that is definitely true. I do think it slowed down so we could draw more elaborate final fight sequences. Yeah, as she was using the sniper eyes with the sniper rifle to line up the hyper mega death cannon to then punch the core.
Speaker 2:I'm like this is sick so like, and it's like right around my between 100 and 150 chapters that's what I have always said is a good length for a series, because you go past that and you end up losing focus. But this has stayed very focused, very on brand, and one of the things that you've said about it is that it's nice that the protagonist is actually an adult and like to loop back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, like on earlier episodes of show and jump round out. I focused on protagonists, so I'm kind of like focusing a bit on antagonists this week, just cause Cause I was having that thought about the difference between Boruto and Naruto is largely antagonist and pacing. So Kaiju, number eight for being villain of the week, has really only had the one villain. Yeah, it's kind of just been the mushroom man this whole time.
Speaker 2:I mean he had like a super villain buried inside him.
Speaker 1:But yeah, and I'm like okay, like a lot of what they've set up, or it's like yeah, this is just just peak, just good anime, good manga, no further notes, good job. Kaiju number eight kaiju number eight definitely all right, I felt you dodge around this one, the martial king, which still has the credit for the best use of color in Show and Jump. No other credits for it.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't say I necessarily dodged around that one as much as I I'd rather talk about Boruto. Yeah, I just have more to say about Boruto. The Martial King is just.
Speaker 1:So you know, what's a weird one for me is a sassy comment. I'm not sure where I'm gonna take it. So in fairy tale, slash, rave, master slash, I'm forgetting the name eden zero, eden zero, yeah, yeah the author just reuses character models straight up and then actually explained that they're from alternate realities. And we're so audacious to have three sets of Natsu in fairy tale proper and like five Urza's yeah okay, so the.
Speaker 1:Marshall King feels like I'm seeing it reuse character assets from Dr Stone and they don't work in this setting. It just bugs me. It's so petty to be like they have the short glasses girl's character model They've reworked to be the girl crushing on Marshall T King or whatever his name is.
Speaker 2:Jimu Godspeed Sure.
Speaker 1:Why not? And I'm like hot take, you can't be a rodeo cop in four feet tall easily. That doesn't really work. I know that's ableist. But in the Wild West, like design characters that like at least look like they fit in your setting Right, like Dr Stone, they got away with it because, like your characters, look like random people, because they're literally random people, mm. But I'm just like ugh and he's like watch. Also, I'm so mad they set up for what would have been the coolest gun move in manga and then didn't. Oh, so they make the quips that he has to fire. He has nine what 11? Targets and only 10 bullets.
Speaker 2:I think it was 12 bullets, 13 targets, but regardless.
Speaker 1:So he fires his bullets and the revolver chamber is open and he goes into bullet time right and it looked like he was going to catch one of the bullets shot at him in the chamber and shoot at someone else, but instead he throws his gun. I'm aware that, because of how bullets work, you could not catch a bullet in a chamber and shoot it back. That's physically not how bullets work, but I wanted it that would have been sick and shoot it back.
Speaker 1:That's physically not how bullets work, but I wanted it. That would have been sick. Throw your gun has been done Like. That's not particularly cool. So I'm like, eh, and it's like also, apparently it just has a continent destroying handgun for some reason. Like I'm usually pretty ride or die for anime, but I'm like your paler scaling's stupid. I know that's the weird thing to make about a manga when we can come on here and talk about solo leveling for an hour, but marshall's king's power scaling stupid in a setting with bullets. Why is their magical arms to stop the recoil of the anti-continent gun? And why is anyone talking to a person? Why are they bullying a guy who has an anti-continent gun? Can't he just erase all of them from existence with a shot like why is anyone talking to a person? Why are they bullying a guy who has an anti-contact gun? Can't he just erase all of them from existence with a shot Like why is he talking to anyone and not just leaving?
Speaker 2:A he doesn't have any bullets. And B I don't know if the author actually knows where he wants to go with this, because he hasn't set up any other sorts of antagonistic forces.
Speaker 1:See earlier comment about antagonists. Martial King doesn't have one. It does not.
Speaker 2:I mean, I guess you could consider the principal an antagonist, because she set up this challenge to be like we're going to give you your martial badge if you can do our little trials.
Speaker 1:Also, there's no tension there, because we know we can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's definitely, he's 100% going to do the trials, and then it's up in the air whether or not he'll just decide to stay at the school. Anyways, because the I just hope this inspires cool dynamic lighting for things.
Speaker 1:If it's just that, then its existence is justified.
Speaker 2:The artist is very talented. I would say that marshall king uh, visually is art.
Speaker 1:Ah nah, I don't like his character models I might be a about it.
Speaker 2:So the the storytelling is like it doesn't. It's unfocused.
Speaker 1:Alright, we're going to go into One Piece very briefly, because you don't read One Piece. Okay, so around episode 1000, toei Animation Studios quintupled the budget on One Piece. Okay, so every arc in One Piece has been the coolest arc because the show went from looking like a Hanna-Barbera cartoon to looking like solo leveling. One Piece as a story has absolutely forgotten what it's about and I don't know why. No one else has caught on but me and I'm worried. I'm going insane. So they do. This Wano arc, which is the slow Wano, was like 200-something chapters. One piece. It was absurd. It made the free to freeze a fight.
Speaker 2:Look swift that is the the anime record for the longest fight in anime history, right I don't like it.
Speaker 1:So they go to this egg and island arc right, which covers a lot of like. They bring back some characters from oh so long ago, like name dropping things, solving mysteries, explaining what the void center, like they do all this world building lore stuff, right. Then they go to the giant land where they're doing all this world building lore stuff, right. One piece's stories have not focused on the goals and motivations of a member of the straw hat crew since sanji's arc in the big mom arc, like 500 chapters ago, and then the rest of the time skipped in focus.
Speaker 1:This hasn't been about the straw hats following their dreams in like 600 chapters if not longer, and I'm sorry my eyes are glazing over when I'm reading these chapters because they're like the royal knights have come in and you're meeting this guy who's on goldie rogers crew and the giants and they're unraveling the mystery of emu and I'm like none of this relates to anything the characters are trying to do. None of this has anything to do with Zoro being the best swordsman, sanji hitting on women, robin solving the mysteries kind of has to do with it, but she's not the one doing it. So it's like he's made such an expansive universe that his character stopped like mattering. Might just be a me problem, but I'm like it's like when I watch Garp do a galaxy-destroying punch. I'm like I don't actually care about Luffy's grandpa. I'm a B-Romanist.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, One Piece is way past my 150 chapter mark, where things start to get difficult to maintain focus so like the last arc again wasn't too bad because they only introduced three new characters.
Speaker 1:So it was like, okay, you filled me with cameos, but at least I, you don't have to explain who anyone is. I'm fine with that. And then we're on giant island explaining all these giants. I'm like I don't care, I do not care about this giant island's population. Understand, this is your shtick, from chapter 100 on, where you go to island and meet a bunch of characters, have an adventure, leave, but a lot of your characters are forgetting to leave the story so I'd rather follow any of these people who I know it's my classic.
Speaker 1:You shouldn't be adding characters to stories after the halfway point? Yep, I know.
Speaker 2:It's my classic.
Speaker 1:You shouldn't be adding characters to stories after the halfway point. Yep, that's my mini rant on One Piece. I'm like I don't care about the giants from Chapter 50. Don't so? We've almost made it to Show and Jump proper. Any thoughts on Spy Family, which my thought is? It's going too slow. They found one Dragon Ball, they found three Dragon Balls.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would definitely agree. On the one hand, I really do feel sympathetic for content creators that aren't us, because they put way more production effort and value into their content. Because I mean, we do. I'm a novelist. We just talk about what we want, and so it's easy, but when you're actually trying to write a cohesive story, it is hard to.
Speaker 1:I've written three books. I can be a bit bitchy.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it's just.
Speaker 1:Imagine if my first novel only covered the walk to the northern city. See, I can judge them. I have had two books and I can safely say my first novel covered more story than 116 chapters of Spy Family that's true, but the difficulty of the content creators for Shonen Jump than 116 chapters of Spy Family.
Speaker 2:That's true, but the difficulty of the content creators for Shonen Jump is that weekly release schedule Nah, I still call bullshit.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to be mean to creators, which is funny because I'm like Mr Arts Rights and things. The problem with Spy Family isn't the monthly. It isn't that it's that they don't, it's pacing issues. I've read probably 100 plus anime and manga in my life right Easily.
Speaker 1:I know in 116 chapters with confidence you can tell all of Gundam and Zeta Gundam and all of it's more complexity, only doing 15 pages at a time a month, like I read through all of gundam the origin, which was releasing monthly and yes, they covered all of gundam in the length of spy family and sometimes it's just literally empty pages where nothing happens, or sometimes condensed pages where too much happens, like the second half of tokyo ghoul.
Speaker 2:but I'm not saying it's about output.
Speaker 1:I don't care how long it takes you to tell your story, I care about your pacing. How, like spy family story arcs aren't doing anything to advance the plot of spy family right, like none of his missions have actually got him closer to his objective. None of your missions have got her closer to her objective and nothing anya's done's got her closer to his objective. None of your missions have got her closer to her objective and nothing Anya's done has got her closer to her objective. They're just not achieving things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess that's a fair criticism.
Speaker 1:The fact that Lloyd hasn't had a conversation with the alien big bad of the show is ridiculous. I'm fine with him being an alien, I'm more fine, with him being a mind reader.
Speaker 2:I probably. I think it still has potential and it is being somewhat hampered by its release schedule, but I definitely, when explained that way way, I definitely agree that there is some pacing issues with spy family because, like for stories that have come out monthly that have been the same lengths just going sheer pacing, need to remind you that claymore came out monthly and was about this long.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, that's fair, things can definitely happen. Fullmetal Alchemist came out monthly and was about that long. There's a balance, because I also think that things that fly through ideas too fast Fall apart as well. So, on the note of nothing happening, psychic Policeman Cho chozo, I like your characters, I like your concept.
Speaker 1:You gotta do something I, I, I dropped that one it's mildly amusing every week, but it's like garfield comics and I'm like oh, buddy, you could be so good, you could be so much better than this. Like to give a weird example, if it had brooklyn nine nine energy. Or like, yes, it's a weekly police sitcom but like you have some plot threads of you, have character driven arcs going through the series and people are like aging and advancing, it's still working right on a different?
Speaker 2:no, it does.
Speaker 1:It just does nothing yep, have you been following Star of Beethoven?
Speaker 2:I have been reading Star of Beethoven. I'm intrigued, yeah, because on the one hand, it's just a simple story about rediscovering your passion and figuring out what makes your art uniquely yours, but then, on the other hand, it has this strange sci-fi resurrection ring, that what even is that? How many chapters do we have of Star of Beethoven? 14?, 14? So I was like there's a huge mystery which currently it's on a cliffhanger.
Speaker 1:That's like I guess the best way I can put it. I can say this Go ahead.
Speaker 2:The best way I can put it oh, go ahead.
Speaker 1:The best way I can put this one is I've seen the historical figure comes back to Impassion. A Youth story before there was one about a guy that was rediscovering hot springs because he was an original Roman aqueduct professor. Anyway, I've seen that plot thread a few times but it matters in this one and is going somewhere and I'm kind of blown away that the beethoven thing is actually going somewhere.
Speaker 1:I just assumed it wouldn't be ever like. I'm like, wait, this b plot actually has characters in it and you're going to introduce me to some villains doing like there's villains in this. I was actually like, wait, there's villains in bit. Star of bateman what?
Speaker 2:yeah, I I think that one has a lot of uh potential. I I don't really see it going super long. It's like it's definitely not a whole series.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I want it to be like oh, what was it? It gives me similar energy to like that paradox, ghostwriter, one where I'm like, okay, you're going somewhere with this and I'm willing to let you have your like 50 chapters to go somewhere with this. Yeah, yep, all right. So news Exorcist, I dropped.
Speaker 2:Fair. It's currently in the middle of the most fanservice-y fanservice arc possible. Sure Well, this arc. It makes sense to unlock more of his hidden potential, that he needs people to protect, and the person that he could protect the most would be someone he is dating, that he has emotional romantic feelings towards, and so he's currently going through the harem of powerful female exorcists that have formed around him to choose one as a girlfriend, and they're at a festival. They're all trying to make their case because they all like him, but he can only choose one and that'll unlock his potential.
Speaker 1:Didn't AI write this by just scanning a bunch of show and jump? I know?
Speaker 2:This Lewis arc is just why it felt like it had potential, but it's really like ugh.
Speaker 1:And I refuse to give Roboco a single click ever. Okay, just out of concept. Just out of concept. Kill Blue also lost me. I really think they're trying to go for the old man dates high schooler.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, they did straight up. He is actually planning to. Well, he proposed to the main character Norin.
Speaker 1:And I dropped it that instant.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, the plan makes sense to actually just be like hey, these challenges are are garbage and the only way to stop them is just like counterpoint.
Speaker 1:Why did the author write a story of an old man becoming a teenager to propose to another teenager? Like to pull up to a meta level at its core? An old man wrote a story of an old man being thrown in a kid's body to go to high school. To propose like convoluted plot reasons whether it makes logical sense or not. He wrote a story for that to make logical sense to happen, which felt like his goal from day one. And that's a problem. He should be on a list. Straight to jail. Directly to jail. Let's just not even play around.
Speaker 2:So well, I mean, at least that one's not hyper-sexualized.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because he'd be in jail, straight to jail, anyways. So next is a series called Embers. I've never read a simple chapter of, because I think it's about soccer.
Speaker 2:Wow, way to judge a book by its cover. Yeah, completely. I mean, it is about soccer. I haven't actually read any either, but it is about soccer, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I haven't checked into Witch Watch in a while Because I remember being mad that it's like why is this a reverse harem when the first option's the best option? You could just give me a nice rom-com. No, screw you.
Speaker 2:I also dropped Witch Watch.
Speaker 1:All right, I also dropped Witch Watch, alright.
Speaker 2:Sidcraft is messing with my head. Oh, Sidcraft is messing with your head. Alright, alright.
Speaker 1:Alright. So four chapters ago they introduced this weird artificer, love interest, childhood friend thing and my brain immediately goes ugh, the show's going the harem route. I hate this, Damn it. I had faith in you said craft and you broke my heart. Then the next chapter comes up and I'm like, oh, more of this crap. I hate this, you've ruined my show.
Speaker 1:Then it decided to get good and I'm like, wait, what villain shows up? Character ends up having their secret blown way earlier than I was expecting, faking deaths, dramatic declarations, and I'm like did did you get good? Did you read my hate mail? Did you read? Don't you make this a dumb harem show? I'll drop you like a sack of bricks and decide to accelerate the plot instantly because, like this, the contrivance that made it like an open-ended harem nonsense of he thinks the two at love interests are dating each other, therefore off the market got thrown out. But also the main villains like actively showing up and trying to murder them, right, I'm like, oh, the main villain is actually attacking your assistant, who now you've had this dramatic reveal about. But also have to like the status quo is changing and you can't keep a harem series going. Have to like the status quo is changing and you can't keep a harem series going if you change the status quo and I'm like, did you, did you get my letter? Because, yes, do this.
Speaker 1:That is pretty funny because like, I don't mind a rom-com but like, yes, they added so much momentum back to it. I'm like I was so worried with this really dumb nonsense character going down the dumb nonsense gag route that I was going to hate this and drop it, but then he pulled me right back in by doing things I did not think you had the courage to do. I'm worried they put up those two chapters and nearly got canceled and now have like 10 chapters to wrap it up. I mean that is possible. I'm fine with that, by the way. Yeah, do you? I mean that is possible. I'm fine with that, by the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do you have thoughts on Sidcraft. Uh, no, I just I did find it a little bit odd that. Well, maybe not odd, but when you texted me saying that Sidcraft was dead to you, and then obviously it wasn't, but I believe that was the first chapter where there wasn't a mystery to solve, yeah, I thought he'd given up on the mystery and leaned into the harem. I thought that was an interesting coincidence which apparently was worth noting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't catch that until you just said it. But yeah, you're right, that's why it pissed me off so much, thank you just said it. But yeah, you're right, that's why it pissed me off so much, thank you. Not only was it a pointless hour of bullshit, they stopped having a mystery to solve in my mystery manga. Could wonder I got pissed?
Speaker 2:but now you're you're right the, the mystery energy, is definitely back in um and it's. Hopefully it has enough momentum to carry it forward and continue to be an interesting series.
Speaker 1:And, like I said, if it's not a death clock and they only gets like five more chapters to wrap it up, I won't have hated my time I spent there. It gets bonus points for being adults Fair. On the next note, have you read the first four chapters of nice prison? I?
Speaker 2:have.
Speaker 1:I don't like it.
Speaker 2:I'm in the same boat. It is just I don't understand what it's trying to be.
Speaker 1:It's trying to be like Kochikame. It's trying to be like 90s show-and-jump slapstick humor. It has very similar energy to Chozo in that one, but it's stupider, objectively stupid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe that's the problem. The problem is that it's not even remotely trying. Or maybe it would be clever if we read it in the native language.
Speaker 1:I don't think so. He has handcuffs as glasses on his nose.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and his ball and chain is some sort of dieboard robot thing. It has no subtlety.
Speaker 1:That's my issue. It has no subtlety, but I will give it this weird credit. Does that not feel like a random character to play, as in a 2D Jump Ultimate Stars, where you're like, who the hell is this? Like he'd be right at home in Jump Ultimate Stars. So I'm giving him that credit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe that's why they okay a whole bunch of series is so they just have a bigger roster for their inevitable fighting game that they released.
Speaker 1:Nah, because they switched to making 3D arena brawlers because Ninja Storm made a good one, so they felt compelled to make nothing but bad ones. Since Fair, I don't get it. Ultimate Stars not only sold out all its copies, it sold internationally when it was region locked still. And they're like no, no, no, everything's 3D now. And I'm like no, hire a sprite artist for 20 bucks, yeah.
Speaker 2:Jump Stars was a great game for the DS.
Speaker 1:Indeed Trucking along. I don't follow Akane Banshee because I don't understand the cultural significance. Me neither. I dropped Shinobi Undercover after like four chapters because I don't know. I wanted it to be more full metal panic where it took itself seriously. I don't know you still follow shinobi undercover.
Speaker 2:I am. I kind of was surprised that you actually dropped it.
Speaker 1:I thought that you were standing for it it's weird because, like I don't read it consistently, sometimes I'll get curious and check. It just didn't quite grab me and I'm not sure why. I didn't do anything to get it. It didn't get blue box where I had to throw it out, right, I don't know. I don't think it made anything wrong.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's not really doing anything exceptional right now either.
Speaker 1:And then we have Elusive Samurai, which I just haven't followed for 202 chapters.
Speaker 2:That's another one where I guess, if I wanted to learn more Japanese history, it would be interesting to read, but the cultural significance is significantly diminished here.
Speaker 1:So full disclosure. I have been reading Hematin and I don't understand how it's still going or how they plan to keep it going. But I'm like, oh, this is just completely wholesome for the most part, I'll allow it, I guess, even though everyone involved is stupid. Wholesome for the most part, I'll allow it, I guess, even though everyone involved is stupid. It's the cardinal sin of being like here's a love triangle. And I'm like why is there a love triangle here? You've already solved it. There is no reason for this to be a triangle. Person A just dates person B and you have literally no reason not to.
Speaker 2:Well, it's kind of weird because there's not even really any drama or tension.
Speaker 1:Honestly, that's probably why I'm still reading it. It's just I'm like nothing's happening here. Scroll through, quickly, absorb it Like I've read all of it. It I can't speak for it. I I don't know what specific reason why I've read it all. Maybe just nostalgia, maybe for a simpler time, I don't know.
Speaker 2:All right then buggy go, some fucked up shit yeah, I'm wondering what, what's up with this release schedule, because, again, that's definitely a series that's really high on my list of incredible potential but like so disappeared for a couple months so it's wild.
Speaker 1:Release schedule, as I was talking before, pacing and release schedule can combine to create or kill a monk. Right, bug ego has so much acceleration going on, like so much weird shit happening per square foot. But it's very much like jojo's four and jojo's five where there's enough happening in each individual chapter that I don't feel like I need to read the next one, like it doesn't. It's Trigger where I'm like, oh, just get through this thing. So I don't mind that. It's inconsistent as hell, as people are getting haircuts and being straight-up murderers. Right, it's also just weird. It's just weird Things get bonus points for being just weird.
Speaker 2:But I mean there has to be, like you say, there has to be some sort of subtlety about it, like nice person doesn't have enough mystery to its weirdness. I think that's it.
Speaker 1:Bug ego is bizarre.
Speaker 2:Prison is weird. Bizarre is definitely a better word to describe when Nice Prison is just.
Speaker 1:Nickelodeon and Ruri Dragon is perfect. No notes, just keep on keeping on. It's just a perfect manga.
Speaker 2:I'm so happy that that series actually came back and continued going, because it was just the idea of the half-dragon, half-girl Well, half-human, I guess, half-dragon, half-human, half-girl, don't mind that. Anyways, the awakening of the dragon powers, and then just like the crazy interactions that it causes. It's been it's wholesome and it's interesting.
Speaker 1:To like loop back to an earlier rant about Boruto Ruri. Dragon is 100% character driven, like it's literally using the plot device of magical dragon powers. It's really about different character, social reactions, how they act to it. Who's a good person, who's a bad person, who's a famed chaser who's just pretending to be on team dragon versus? I mean to this person because I treat them like a person. Therefore, I'm actually a good person because I'm giving her shit and I'm giving her shit because I don't care about her dragon bullshit. Therefore, they should be friends and I'm like deeply invested in this teenage drama, being like I'm not gonna treat you special because you have dragon powers and she's like that's all I wanted.
Speaker 1:It's like I can't go to school anymore, so I guess I'll just jump in the pool and freeze it. Look, I have spikes. It's like I'm watching someone like defeat their social awkwardness due to dragon powers. I'm like they're going through character growth. Look at that character growth. They did a bit. That's such character growth that they did a bit like actually that was a huge character moment.
Speaker 1:They stood in front of a room and did a bit instead of just wanting to curl up and die yeah, uh, I, I am definitely here for rury dragon, that's one of the series I definitely watch which is wild, because I'm like it's just like, oh, these superpowers aren't anything to do with anything and I'm like, wow, that's so brave. I'm so proud of the willpower. This author has to have not introduced another dragon character.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, they kind of did, I don't know. I think they're going to actually meet the father soon.
Speaker 1:But you know what I mean. Right, Like the easy thing would have been is to like slowly transfer in other half dragon kids from reasons to create drama, right right. Instead, it was like the big dramatic moment was taking garden shears to snap off the horn so they'd be less dangerous, and it was like, yeah, I'm gonna cut off one of my horns to traumatize a classmate. Calls their mom, do they throw back? Am I mutilating myself? This is probably worth knowing before I do my dramatic gesture.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's definitely a very cute, wholesome and unique series, and then the opposite of that.
Speaker 1:Ichi the Witch. I just don't care.
Speaker 2:Are you actually reading it or did you?
Speaker 1:drop it. I'll occasionally speed read a chapter to see if it can catch my eye.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, I don't think that it will. It's not really doing anything.
Speaker 1:It's just kind of a ball of tropes and like I hate when something tries to take a setting and has no interest in saying anything interesting with that setting. So I'm the only man among witches is being written by some dude, I have to assume, because there's like if you're going to make your show about gender politics, you should probably have gender politics in your show, right? I've seen a few anime do that, where it's like women get superpower except the one guy, so he's the most special guy, and I'm like that's, that's bad, that's toxic for so many reasons.
Speaker 1:don't do that, get that out of here unless you actually want to say something about it, like if you were showing jumps, first openly trans character, then suddenly you're doing something and I'll give you my respect right but like oh yeah, it's like the premise of straight white guy enjoys the lesbian cult doesn't sound as good when you put it like that does it right, like they're doing nothing with it and ultimate exodus. Kiyoshi is also a nothing murder I dropped.
Speaker 2:Oh, I was so, so mad. They did a chapter where Ultimate Exorcist Kyoshi, he gets poisoned with the poison that turns him into a baby.
Speaker 1:Sure, that's a pretty common poison. I think that happened in both Blue Box and Sakamoto days and Black Cat.
Speaker 2:It's a very common poison in the world of anime the poison that turns you into a baby, or magic, or whatever. It's pretty.
Speaker 1:The entire premise of Dragon Ball, Daima and GT. So good they stole it twice.
Speaker 2:So he gets turned into a baby. And then the next chapter he gets found by another character and saved and then immediately back to being an adult. And it's like why? Why did you choose to put this garbage trope in the middle of what's supposed to be a climactic battle?
Speaker 1:So to kind of follow up on that one a bit, to go to an earlier rant we were giving about character driven.
Speaker 1:One thing that didn't really come up that I think is worth mentioning is kind of some of my problem I have with pacing is things have to matter in your story. So nothing in boruto has really changed the status quo in boruto. Somehow, like even naruto and sasuke, they didn't have the courage to get rid of them and have that have a lasting impact on the village. Somehow naruto being sealed hasn't affected day-to-day life in the leaf village. It's not different under shikamaru. It's the exact same village. No one's right like. It's not like someone declared war and the village alliance broke down and the status quo changed. Even boruto being like plot hacks into being the villain didn't actually do anything because all the characters who care about boruto still care about boruto for some reason right, they haven't even bothered to explore that yet so it's like if you do something like make someone into a child and then turn them back into adult, that only works if it changes the status quo.
Speaker 1:So in black cat, the reason they did that is our murderous train, something or other, got to be a kid and be a happy kid for an episode, and the plot narrative for that was he was able to reflect on the fact that his childhood was fucked up and resolved to give his teammate a good childhood. So for him it was a turning point of I gotta be a kid again and I liked being a kid this time around. Now I'm gonna make sure to protect eve I think it was and give them a childhood. And that resulted in him getting his death laser ability. Somehow, and even though there's a lot of logic jumps of why, the nanomachine virus that turned him into a kid gave him a laser cannon. It changed the dynamic of the show going forward, right, because it made him less edgy.
Speaker 2:It caused him to have character growth him less edgy.
Speaker 1:It caused him to have character growth or somehow sadara's magekyo sharingan ability that's activated by the death of a loved one specifically, has not changed her character in any way. The power that literally drives you mad from emotional outbursts did nothing in any event.
Speaker 2:uh, the kyoshi, ultimate exorcist, Ultimate Exorcist, Kyoshi, that one, it's just. I read a lot of the comics ongoing in Shonen Jump, but a lot of them they're right on the edge of me dropping them. They're not doing so bad, like Witch Watch, where again that character turns into a child, and that's kind of where it lost me what a trope.
Speaker 1:What a weirdly specific trope, although, to be fair, it'd be fascinating if Chainsaw man did it. But Chainsaw Man's better than that. Chainsaw man has the. I crawl out through my own mouth, but Chainsaw Man's better than that. Chainsaw man has the I crawl out through my own mouth. I put my arms through Denji's mouth to have it exit through Pooch's mouth to fire a tank shell. Any given panel of Chainsaw man has more creativity than the entirety of Witch Watch, not a chapter, a panel. Yeah, I agree, as I'm thinking about the last chapter panel of Chainsaw man I looked at which was the inverse devil causing things to flip, while a bunch of faces covering a body screamed to not get punched and while his love interest laughed in the background. So much going on.
Speaker 1:Like literally, literally one panel. It's kind of funny because like chance on man's art style is closer to like the attack on titan, art style that you're not on board with, but the content just has you, so invested yeah, I mean it's a little bit cleaner than attack on titan.
Speaker 2:Attack on titan was just a little bit too messy for me.
Speaker 1:I just had a hard time with it well, it's kind of wild like looking at chainsaw man right now. I felt the need to open a chapter for this point. Most of their panels and characters have no background drawn on them, so there's actually like a lot of white space in the average chapter of chainsaw man, and I think it's so we can conserve energy for that aforementioned final panel of gravity being flipped on somebody, while it falls on somebody else, while a girlfriend laughs, while the famine devil eats its hand, while the chef devil tilts its head sideways. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Pandemonium.
Speaker 1:All right, so moving on from Kyoshi, because I'm doing this in somewhat order, odor of the Flame have you read the first two chapters of that?
Speaker 2:I have, and actually that's Ironically. Well, not ironically, but the reason I was actually interested in doing a Shonen Jump Roundup is because I find that series, in particular Ice Head Gil, was a series that didn't really do much but it kind of had this Nordic inspiration and like ice zombies and you know, a character with a powerful weapon, artifact, going and fighting zombies and sailing across the sea. And I am very surprised that they cleared that, they okayed the Odor of the Flame so close to Icehead Gil being canceled. It's just less than six months ago. I think I would have to double check.
Speaker 1:Maybe they canceled it so they could run Odor of the Flame.
Speaker 2:I mean, maybe I will say I liked the other artists' work, red Hood Guild or whatever, yeah, although that one also seemed like it got canceled before it actually said everything it wanted to say.
Speaker 1:So Odor of the Flame, I mixed, but mostly positive.
Speaker 2:So I'm not vibing on the art style, but mostly positive so I'm not vibing on the art style, yeah, but I mean, who doesn't vibe on Nordic Shaman King?
Speaker 1:So here's why I'm giving it bonus Nordic bod he's definitely good. So you know how I threw all that shade at Black Clover earlier, where it's like they just borrowed a setting, and then I threw that same shade at Naruto, where it's like you call them ninjas. They're not ninjas.
Speaker 2:We don't even know what the tech energy is and they dress in orange.
Speaker 1:So a lot of mongolians, like their theme is set to adding like itchy the witch is like I want that witch aesthetic with floopy hats, but we're not going to sacrifice a single goat or have a single moonlight orgy, like they don't even understand the point of witchcraft. But odor of the flame. Not only is it hitting those nordic vibes I mean, there's no vinland saga, which is like vinland saga is right up there with legend of arslan, where it's like, oh yeah, this is just history, but good, where odor of the flames. Like you get the point behind it. It's like, yeah, you're a fighter, because the way you fight is you cook, you keep the fire lit and you support us. And I'm like, oh, you're going like you're leaning into the valhalla warrior but acknowledging that every soldier, even this kid you have as a line cook because he's a battle line cook, is in fact a warrior and the weapon in hand is him cooking. I'm like that's good flavor. Like they're using this fire and ice motif but actually like using it symbolically.
Speaker 1:So shaman kingness aside of, yeah, I'm gonna summon the fire spirit out of the sacred flame. I love how much of not an ass pull. That was hey, specifically. Bring this fire, set to contain spirits, to the battlefield and be a good dude. Oh, the spirit in the fire thinks you're a good dude. That made so much sense. It really did.
Speaker 2:I don't say that to throw shade, I just that's I. Maybe it's a little bit too obvious, but the idea that he might burn his arms to ash suggests that he is going to learn to imbue a weapon of some sort with his spirit. And most likely there are going to be other. It's Nordic, so they're not using Undine and Selphie and Gnome and whatnot.
Speaker 1:Well, some of them they are, because those were swiped from Nordic. Shows what I know about the spirit tree yeah, they might use all of those actually Like the real bear game.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure it's like Salamander's a translation of the fire, one from Nordic, like I think they're all bad translations of those. Yeah, okay, anywho, but like, yeah, like the elemental power battle feels like it's going that way. Also, I was amused by the character design for like oh yeah, we're not sexist in this one, we're just gonna put the beefiest woman we've ever put in show and jump and make her a badass commander. I'm like I respect, I respect how built this woman is, so much like you're not just saying they're built and then making the miyotoichi where they have toothpick arms despite being jacked. No, no, they're built. I mean, we're going immediately into training arc, which I'm like. Alright, you're going to use that to explain the power system, sure?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, maybe so far we only have one example of someone actually using a spirit in this way. But, like I said, I just immediately get Shaman King vibes, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, because Shaman King was a pretty good series.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and, like I said, I'm not super vibing on the art, but I'm vibing on the story, which is so much more important Because I'm like OK, like it's simple but also good, because, like all right protagonists who they show, don't tell is a good person god, I hate when they tell us the protagonist is a good person. Then the chode never does anything of value for anyone, at least like, at least denji knows he's a douche and I'm on board, right. But we get so many blando calrissians who are like I'm a good dude, because I'm a good dude, I'm like no, this kid was like getting stabbed with spears trying to melt his commander because he's like, and then his commander's like oh, I would have just killed them with fire powers, but you went to save us as your move.
Speaker 1:Respect so I'm like all alright alright, you joined the military to feed your sister. I can respect that. Also, they have people drinking hot mead, which I'm like, alright.
Speaker 2:I definitely think that that one has a lot of potential, which means they'll be cancelled as soon as it gets good Looking at you, duran, duran. Doron Dororon.
Speaker 1:Alright, so I'm going to just let this episode run a little long because there's still three series left talking about that I want to talk about. Probably won't take too long though. So Kagura Bachi is sick. Probably won't take too long, though. So Kagura Bachi is sick and it's just better than Weekly Show and Jump. It feels like it's a better manga that deserves to be a monthly release, like Chainsaw man and Gaiju, because it's just better. No one's on its level.
Speaker 2:Chainsaw man is released weekly on Tuesdays. Kagura Bachi is released with the rest of them on Sundays.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but if Chainsaw man takes breaks, I just accept it as a cost to do a business.
Speaker 2:But those two series are definitely the standout series in Shonen Jump. Um, that they're just.
Speaker 1:They're on a different level than everything else in the magazine right now so you know what kagura banshee makes me feel like it's like rion and kenshin in its peak, but also it's like more creative than that, I don't know. Like the new chapter, like okay, we're gonna, okay we're going to bring back Teleport Kid, who had brain damage, so your powers are less because he had two superpowers, so we had to give you brain surgery. And I'm like interesting, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're not sure how well your superpowers are going to work anymore. You just got to try them and see, I guess this is what we want you to do.
Speaker 1:It's like we don't know if you can do it, but then they like set up these villains for 17 straight pages so the hero can be set up as a complete fucking monster. I was so happy they got me with that warping so good, because, like security's like oh no, these guys are dangerous. Oh no, these three brothers are dangerous. Oh no, these three guys are dangerous. And it's like no, no, boy band guy just absolutely turned one of their heads into paste. That was just such a cool panel like. And then samurai dude's like oh, just sits there hand on his chin. Like oh, oh, no, wait a minute. That was definitely my favorite chapter in show and jump this week. Like, as good as chainsaw man is, they got me like kagura banshee. The reason they actually got me Like Kagura Banshee, the reason they actually got me here so good, is all of the times they've introduced a villain. The villain has actually been a threat, right, they'll be like this guy's dangerous and the dude will proceed to roofie the entire apartment building, right, right. So they introduce these new guys and they're like mouse protocol everyone hide the fuck away and just let him go to the murder chamber and I'm like, okay, we're, we're following day job tony and much like myself, day job tony's like I want to kill this guy he killed my brother. But I'm day job tony and I'm not going to get myself killed over this right. So looking at the photo of his nephew on his desk, he has to let these villains go past and like they do such a good job for this. So zero guy to just face punch one into paste. And I'm just like, oh, you got me, because you've never pulled this trick on me, that's true. Like there's a line where he's like the executioner was livid, just face piece something. I'm like what? And I'm like, because everyone's this is morally ambiguous. I'm like not only do I believe this without hesitation, but like this guy might end up face placing our protagonist, who's a good guy, a temporary license, who kind of disobeyed them last episode. It's also the first time this series has really taken a break from chozero as a who kind of disobeyed them last episode. It's also the first time this series has really taken a break from Trozero as the focus of a chapter.
Speaker 1:That's true, I was worried this was going to come to an end, but you're at chapter 80 here You've dealt with one of the six swords and you've mentioned Swordbearer and Chimera, ant Island and the things like you do. But you're also setting up like the police department is like, oh wait, this man just spaghetti, one of the bad guys, into the face, into pace. Do we trust the cops? I don't think we're supposed to. And it's like the show's telling me I shouldn't trust blind guy, but I trust blind guy because he's busy being too cool. And then blind guy's daughter does she get a? Stay a character? I want her to stay a character, I want her to get his sword, but I want me to make me work for it.
Speaker 2:I wonder, like the healer kid from the first arc, like I'm wondering, is she like just in the Like the healer kid from the first arc? Like I'm wondering, is she like just in the background healing people so that you don't have to like injuries aren't permanent? Or like is she actually going to get more screen time? Or like how much? I am wondering how he's going to divvy up the character development going forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because there's two characters that haven't got screen time his original partner, teleporty mcteleport, blundy right and healing kid. But it's like I think this is going places, like I'm giving this series because it's just been better than most of the other things I've been reading in show and jump the benefit of the long game, because it's like let's take bleach, for example, because I love using bleach it's the most show and jump show and jump series to ever exist, so it's a good comparator series, mm-hmm. So bleach made a bit of a mistake early on, so they gave superpowers to a squad right to Chad, odehime Uriu, and then they all stormed Soul Society right, but then he never really did anything with them for the rest of the series.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not really at all, Except for using them as baits for Ichigo.
Speaker 1:So it's like by putting these guys in the background for Kagura Banshee, I'm like I'm getting more Full Metal Alchemist vibes, that every character is going to come together by the end and be relevant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like Teleporty McTeleporty guy is doing something. Who knows what he's doing, who knows where he is. He could be anywhere, but he's doing something.
Speaker 1:Right. So I'm like, now that he's made it a little further into the series, it's like okay, we have pieces on the board. I think this is going to be more full metal alchemist, where the pieces will come back into play, rather than bleach, where the pieces got dragged along and then not really used. Right, because sometimes you got to like move a character off the screen to like have them do something sick later. So, yeah, I'd get a hot take from me. Kagura Banshee's been sick every week. I genuinely believe he hasn't forgotten about those characters. I also don't think he knew he was going to get past the first arc, because the first arc was pretty self-contained.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I was worried about pacing at that point because it felt like it was blitzing through it, uh, and I didn't know where it was going to go from there.
Speaker 1:And then the second arc came out and it was like, oh, wow, okay because the first dark dealt with a sword and then the second arc dealt with the same sword mostly, but like that sort of get pulled off the board. One sword's been broken, the other six swords are still players in the story. And then they're like, yeah, the swords are the key to the actual plot because like blood link, magic seals, swords, magic chimera, ant iron island, etc it's a very consistent island that makes me I.
Speaker 2:I don't know why that makes me laugh, but that is because it happened twice because that island specifically happened twice with chimera ants on it.
Speaker 1:Can we get three for three? Can it have chimera ants on it a third time? It consistently had chimera ants be the really high tier shows what's the next series on the list here? Sakamoto Days, how we feeling about Sakamoto Days and him yelling at people to fire their guns to the ground for this really nonsensical gun bullet setup they have going.
Speaker 2:I appreciate the villain's plan. I do, I do. I appreciate the villain's plan. Do you? I do, I don't. If you want to test humanity, go bold. I think it was a bold test of humanity and I honestly do think that he might be right that the society would just fall apart in that kind of situation.
Speaker 1:Here's my problem with this whole give everyone a gun and three bullets thing first. That's impossible. You don't get to just say the assassin society has conquered japan, you all get guns in for three bullets. No one would believe that, because it's impossible, like there's no way, like like something's missing, like maybe they had a nuke under this country or something to like blackmail people into fault. He has no authority. What?
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, I can see how that would bug you.
Speaker 1:Like he literally has no authority to enforce this.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean he has some sort of dirt on the prime minister. The prime minister, okay did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then would just get vetoed in Congress Like this is insane, yeah okay, anyway, but here's what also bugs me and it might just be because I'm from North America America already has this. This is just how America already operates. You think there's more guns than people in America? Everyone does have three bullets and they can just shoot each other. Fair enough, yeah. So what are you trying to prove? That America exists? That I don't know.
Speaker 2:I still kind of like the villains plan, even if it is stupid what I did show was superpowers.
Speaker 1:They're not using superpowers to enforce this, to make this be a thing.
Speaker 2:But the thing I do dislike about Sakamoto days and it's kind of been a long time coming is that Sakamoto himself is this quote-unquote legendary assassin. What has he actually done that's uniquely legendary to him? Like every other character that he comes across actually has a superpower and is clearly capable of any feat that Sakamoto has done.
Speaker 1:It's kind of interesting because, yeah, where I was going with my rant is I hate the problem but I like the solution. So my brain still can't wrap around this evil plan. I'm like how like did you find?
Speaker 1:a factory to mass produce guns and bullets, like did you fedex, ship them to people? Like how do you do this? Like physically, logistically, how does one, as an assassin who has a league of assassins, give every citizen a gun with three? Like how do you even do that? But let's suppose you magically did this, which I don't even think a genie could make this actually play out to do this prisoner dilemma experiment. But then, like the solution of, I'm gonna use my psychic power to yell at everyone's head, shoot the ground. Okay, that's fair.
Speaker 1:I do like when the solution is based on, like a character's development, their arc through this thing, blah, blah. It's not emotionally connected to anything. Like shin developing this ability doesn't have an emotional connection to it. Because it's like if this was him, like coming out of his own from sakamoto, like if there's like somehow tied to his character development, it would be a sick moment. But instead it's a cool moment. Because, yeah, a cool moment is yelling to the intercom, everyone fire your bullets in the ground of your psychic power, so they fire the bullet on the ground. An epic moment is when things connect. Like lee dropping the lates was epic because he has a sick, cool superpower and it directly showed the character arc of this is a guy who can't do these other things, so he became the absolute best at the one thing, right, right. But yeah, when a character busts out a new superpower, it works better when it's tied to some kind of emotion, like that Rasengan thing of like. Yeah, he Rasengan Kabuto by using a shadow clone and he learned shadow clones because he's so fucking lonely. And then Sasuke pointing out like, of course, you learned a technique to make clones because you're so lonely, and then punching him with a loneliness attack, like that's beautiful, right, right, right, there's no beauty that happens here.
Speaker 1:It's like, for example, I watched like an essay on Hunter x Hunter the other day and they're talking about how Gon went into adult mode and what that actually meant symbolically. So the story of Hunter x Hunter was Gon trying to maintain his innocence against a cruel world Right, and the moment he sees kite killed in front of him, he can no longer be a kid in this world. So since he can, his childhood innocence thematically snapped and he had to grow up and be an adult. Emotionally his power was literally he grew up into an adult and murdered the shit out of somebody, which was like, yeah, this was a story that society failed to protect. Gone from the shit out of somebody, right, which was like, yeah, this was a story that society failed to protect, gone from the harshness of reality, so he became a sociopath.
Speaker 1:And when the core theme of the show was he wanted to find his dad because he was trying to preserve his childhood as long as possible, there's that thematic point of like his whole arc is I want to stay a kid, and then reality made him grow up. It's like they're going somewhere with it. I don't know how perfect an example it is, but you see what I mean. Right, like when things tie together, you get the sickest moments.
Speaker 2:That is, that's true. The emotional through line is a very important part of making incredibly cool moments.
Speaker 1:To give a weird example, we're going to go to the end of Dragon Ball here. You know who got a character arc in the Boo saga, who, mr Satan. Mr Satan learned that he couldn't lie to defeat this enemy couldn't trick him and he had to be a sincere version of himself, the doofy person who ordered Uber Eats and befriended Majin Buu by making silly faces. And then the thematic final attack of the show wasn't Goku and Vegeta teaming up and coming together, coming over their pride. It wasn't Goku overcoming his goofiness or Vegeta overcoming his seriousness. It was Mr Satan, the egomaniac actor asking for help from the people around him, him taking his fake goodwill and pretending to save the world and switching that into power to actually save the world. And it was one of anime's most iconic moments of all time and it was, mr.
Speaker 1:Satan, who had the character arc in the Buu Saga. I mean, if you want the actual, less doofy example, the Gohan scene in Dragon Ball Z, which was literally the accumulation of a 10-year-long character arc when the message is literally screamed at him A pacifist watches his friends die in vain. You're gonna have to grow up, you're gonna have to take responsibility and you're gonna have to eat that horse anywho.
Speaker 2:So sakamoto days emotional through lines are are a little bit weak. But what? What's our next uh series?
Speaker 1:I think the final series unless you're following Dan to Dan. It was Dan to man, chainsaw man and Boruto that were at the top of this list, but we touched on all of them earlier.
Speaker 2:Oh, Dan to Dan is. I don't know if that one's in an. I would say Chainsaw man is the highlight of Shonen Jump On. In my opinion, Kagura Bachi is a close second and Dan to Dan is probably in third place Dan to Dan fluctuates a lot for me, so I'm going to put it in third.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but man doesn't try and distract me If Dan to Dan cut its character roster in half because, like the core cast I love, and then they're like. If Dan to Dan cut its character roster in half Because like the core cast I love, and then they're like I'm nerdy robot guy, I'm like I don't care, go away, I'm piano playing, ghost Shut up. It's like they almost want to put in too many characters now. And we were good. I was good with two and I allowed four, and then I was tolerating six, but now we're up to eight.
Speaker 2:The roster is getting a bit big, uh, but I still appreciate um, oh, the sheer creativity on display is pretty freaking fantastic that's that's. The main thing about these top three series is that they are incredibly creative with the characters, with the powers and with the fight scenes.
Speaker 1:They're just insane well, it's like part of why I'm putting Kagura Banshee on my rating above Chainsaw man. Chainsaw Man's thematically more interesting. How cool was the scene where the daughter starts sword fighting and so she doesn't get horrified by murdering people. She's practicing blind because she grew up watching her blind father and learned to sword fight blind as a way of playing with her dad and then use that skill to not die to assassins. How sick is that?
Speaker 2:come on, I mean you're right, I don't know why I love chainsaw man, it's good like don't get me wrong.
Speaker 1:It's really good, like when I cry, like as to firing the hand cannon through his mouth, through the pocket, like it's good.
Speaker 2:I think I like Chainsaw man more because it's more bizarre than Kagura Bachi. I love Kagura Bachi. It's a very creative standout series, but it's not. It doesn't do much to be bizarre.
Speaker 1:So I think the reason I give it to Kaga Rabanchi, especially right now, is it's getting better, that's true. Like so Chainsaw man is fascinating every week, and I thought it capped and then they threw him in a toxic relationship. I'm like okay, okay, but like it plateaued at a few points in the series, kaga Rabanchi ishee's like okay, now we're starting to stretch out the cast. We're trying to like world build and explain things. I'm like, if you're growing, if you're growing instead of contracting, if kajira banshee felt like it was getting near his end, I'd give it a chance, I'm in. But like kagura banshee, you're just hitting your soul society arc. Your auction hall was like parallel line along with soul society. You're just hitting your Soul Society arc. Your auction hall was like parallel line along with Soul Society. If you're growing, if you're going to take full use of this setting you've created, you will be better.
Speaker 1:Although I will say, though, our protagonist in Kagura Banshee, chohiro, is just less interesting than Denji. He gets some credit because he S saitama, faces a lot and he deadpans a lot, like in my brain he's cooler. Ichigo right. So, like ichigo's problem for a long-running series is he started at his coolest and kind of got lamer, I agree, and kagura bachi. Like I'm not really sure where the protagonist has to go, which is why I'm like more invested in Samurai's daughter than I am in him at the moment. But like he's having some moments because like there's that bit where he's like okay, I need to learn how to actually fight. And like when she shows up, he's like I need to know how to do this, help me out. Shows up, he's like I need to know how to do this, help me out. Like he's Right, he has room to develop. He's just kind of not yet so like as a personality, like he was edgy loner, like he's the most generic show and jump protagonist currently running, probably right now.
Speaker 2:Not the most generic. He doesn't have spiky hair. Yes, he does what he does.
Speaker 1:Kinda In the panel I'm looking at with the sick blood angel reassembling a building.
Speaker 2:Okay, I guess he does kind of have spiky hair. It's just pretty tame for a Shonen Jump protagonist.
Speaker 1:I just find it amusing that his default facial expression is Saitama face. I'm not really sure what to do with that, because like I'm curious to see how this acts when animated, if he deadpan deliveries everything, because that could be amazing. But yeah, like Ichigo had that problem too, where it's like it's weird to make your protagonist the straight man of your story, because usually you make them the fool, so they consistently pair them with a different fool, right, right?
Speaker 1:So it's like the characters around him seem to have the arcs and he's not really having the arcs. I'm curious to see how it goes forward. Yeah, and we didn't hit our random question of the week because this episode running real long okay, let's uh.
Speaker 2:Well, first I got a random question for you. Oh, you found one. I'm listening. No, um, it's actually, uh, based on an error on my part, nice, um, avatar 3 and shrek 5 both come out at Christmas time, but so the question, the random question, is actually, I guess, before I spoil my error, the random question is which would you rather see, shrek 5 or Avatar 3?
Speaker 1:who am I going with?
Speaker 2:oh, let's say you're going with panda oh then avatar you don't think panda would go for shrek 5?
Speaker 1:no so that's where I'm at is for a comedy I would. I would take you to shrek 5, because we would talk during the entire movie and enjoy it and occasionally yell out random catchphrases. I would take Panda to Avatar, because then we'd low-key talk about it afterward but you wouldn't say a word during it.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's fair. For me it's audience-based, my error is that Avatar 3 comes out this year and Shrek 5 comes out next year.
Speaker 1:Oh then, both Easy. But for the record, I think I personally I'm more likely to watch Avatar with a person because they're going to want to watch it, and Shrek, I'm probably going to throw on in the background on Netflix and play a Gundam game on my phone or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean there's quite a bit of hype about Shrek 5, but I don't think it's going to live up to Puss in Boots the Last Wish. That's because that movie was actually good.
Speaker 1:I just don't it was actually good it was genuinely good.
Speaker 2:I just I don't think that they're going to be able to write something that good for Shrek 5 because it was really good.
Speaker 1:Alright, here's our random question of the week. If dreams were a currency, what would your most recent one be worth? So let's say canadian dollars, like let's go like movie ticket prices, almost like dollar value. How much do you think you would charge for someone to watch your most recent dream?
Speaker 2:if dreams were a currency. But how much would I charge people to watch my dreams?
Speaker 1:the most recent dream specifically and if you want to compare it to you to get like some price points okay, um.
Speaker 2:Well, see, here's the thing, and it's kind of weird. And sometimes, or well often, I think I should have a journal by my bed to like write down my dreams so I can actually remember them. Sometimes I spam text them to you, but when I go to sleep and I'm dreaming right, and a lot of the times I will wake up to my alarm, I will hit snooze, alarm. I will hit snooze, and then I guess you might call it lucid dreaming, but I will actively go back to that dream that I was just having. It's like that was a cool dream. I'm going back there.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty good at doing that.
Speaker 2:Then I wake up and snooze my alarm. I'll come in and out of the dream three or four times and then actually get up. But then, as soon as I get up, even though I actively tried to go back into the same dream and have that experience again, I forget what it is. And then it's like man, I should really let these down. So what I'm hearing?
Speaker 1:here is the amount would be how much would you pay to revisit the dream? I think I'm asking you the wrong question. How much I charge you for dream a mission to your own dream dream admission to my own dream.
Speaker 2:I feel like you'd give me a solid 10 bucks for that to go back to your dream last night and see what it was oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah I would. I would, uh, yeah, I would. No see, I think I would. Probably It'd have to be like a dream vending machine. I think I would pay a dollar for a dream vending machine.
Speaker 1:So for my last dream.
Speaker 2:Or two of the dream vending machines.
Speaker 1:My last dream was pretty good because, like I said, I binged that Clara Obscura game. Okay, my subconscious was full ofed that Clara Obscura game Okay.
Speaker 1:My subconscious was full of Bleach Clara Obscura and Gundam Dracuix. I can't give a narrative structure to what I experienced, but there was giant robots made of blood, destroying ink monsters. Okay, that's like a $20 watch. I feel like a full Edge of Tomorrow arthouse film played in my head last night like it was pretty good. I think you were there and you were bleeding and you formed your blood into a kaiju I was gonna say I I feel like the the blood might have been my doing so long story short.
Speaker 1:That's like, yeah, I think I could get 20 bucks for that. Like a lot of my writing is what can I grab from my dream space? That's where my good scenes come from, so my real season one like 20 bucks.
Speaker 1:The one the night before. I had like an angsty college dream about like not graduating correctly and walking across the stage and getting denied. Like a super cliche dream that one would probably sell for more, but it's so lame, it was a stereotype. All right, I think, with that, since we went pretty far into this episode already. No second question and if you want us to answer random questions, submit your random questions to deep space and dragons and you may find us yourself on the air. You may have a coffee mug and if you email me, I'll probably just send you a free e-book. I don't care.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean definitely. If you sign up for our Patreon, you might actually just get a coffee mug. I'm Currently, I think I'm probably the only person in the world with one, but I don't know what the statistics are. You are not. We have a few patrons. Really, they have gotten to the tier where they get a mug. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty sure I know who it is, but I really need to update our Patreon. It doesn't have any unique or fresh content. I watch YouTube and people give their Patreon plugs and I'm like I've never given a Patreon plug because I just do not have an editor to invest in. If we had someone to take our best clips and animate them and put them on Patreon, it'd be sick. There's nothing on the Patreon. I literally went to an author convention a few weeks ago where they explained exactly how I should set up my Patreon. I never did, but you are supporting us and that is greatly appreciated so we can get more quality content like this, where I complain about Boruto and talk about Bleach every week week, even though bleach isn't even my top 10 favorite manga.
Speaker 1:I like siren better than bleach in the meantime, you know self-care, hydrate exercise, read a book I I think that all our listeners, if they get rained on this week, should go find like an indie coffee shop and like slowly sip a matcha green tea while it rains outside.
Speaker 2:Ooh Right, sounds sophisticated.
Speaker 1:Bye, bye. Also, it's my birthday, buy my book.
