Deep Space and Dragons
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Deep Space and Dragons
The Chainsaw Man Made War Sexy, and Other Wild Takes... in America
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Karl faces a medical challenge as his "cursed spleen" requires removal to treat a condition called ITP, while Richard prepares for upcoming changes with a new job and master's program starting soon.
• Karl's consultation with a surgeon reveals Saskatoon lacks a spleen specialist, potentially requiring travel to Regina for surgery
• An unexpected eye issue leads Karl to visit an optometrist who refers him to an ophthalmologist
• Richard discusses writing accomplishments, having completed five full-length books in five years
• Discussion of how anime portrays Americans, from Bandit Keith in Yu-Gi-Oh to G Gundam's America colony
• Chainsaw Man's War Devil proclaiming love for America because "America made war sexy" leads to analysis of military glorification
• Hosts propose anime series that deserve American sequels or spinoffs, including Kaiju No. 8 and Chainsaw Man
• Critique of Solo Leveling's recent awards dominance despite lack of character development
• Random questions segment: whether it's better to speak only in rhymes or only in whispers
• Final debate on immortality with aging versus 30 years of peak physical condition
Follow all things Richard and Karl, and check out "The Minuet of Sorcery"
https://linktr.ee/rajkevis
Hello Internet. I'm Richard co-host of Carl and Richard present Deep Space and Dragons.
Speaker 2:And I am Carl co-host of Richard and Carl present Deep Space and Dragons.
Speaker 1:I like how much of a loop that threw you through, like I heard your face cracking at that. So as we get into our typical things new time viewers, starting on episode 100 and something we talk about stuff we be professional yakkers, we yap, yep, yep, yep. I guess I think we have credentials.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know if I'm a professional yapper, I'm a professional, professional listener sometimes I mean the other day when talking about you behind your back to a third party party. You are considered media illiterate versus some other friends that are media illiterate wow that's. That's quite good again. So fourth year english students believe you to be english literate, media literate. And remember media literacy isn't the same as like do you speak English? It's like oh, you can actually understand things behind things. Words can have two meanings. It's crazy.
Speaker 2:Well, that's very nice that your educated friends think so of me Like it's entirely possible.
Speaker 1:But I digress. What's new in the carl infosphere of doom?
Speaker 2:uh well, interestingly enough, I I don't have a movie review. I managed, actually managed to go a whole week without watching a movie. This this time oh no, it's. It's actually super serious shit, and now I'm worried well, I mean, who knows, maybe it is serious, but that's probably not serious okay.
Speaker 1:So what's new in the carl verse is nothing which is such a red flag like crimson, no, no no, no, there's.
Speaker 2:So, there's there. It's just mostly uh more medical stuff which uh, uh. As richard is aware, I was attacked by some migratory vampires. They were heading north for the winter because longer nights make sense.
Speaker 1:Turns out they were thralls. I looked this up.
Speaker 2:They were thralls, mm-hmm, oh, dang it. Well, that's concerning, because I mean they managed to curse my spleen, yeah, and so I mean getting my spleen removed is not the only option for removing removing said curse, uh, but it sounded like the best option, like it was at the highest chances of of completely fixing the issue. Um, so the hematologist, uh, referred me to the surgeon. I don't know what specific discipline the surgeon does.
Speaker 1:Singlomancer.
Speaker 2:But so actually just today, whatever day that you're listening to this podcast I had a consultation.
Speaker 1:That's a such timeline buckery so, like recently on a date. I was talking about how the sword and bleach that sends you into someone's backstory causes so many logistic troubles, like they'll have a character flashback to 200 years but they'll be in normal tokyo. So if it's when you hear this, this is what happened on the day, no issue. But you're using time manipulation to change when listening to this episode to happen after this consultation happened, which causes some chronological issues. Please continue breaking our timeline uh well.
Speaker 2:So I mean, consultations are kind of like boring. They just, they, uh, they just ask you all your medical history and and then they uh, they're like, okay, you know your spleen is in your belly. So you gotta like they gotta like prod the belly to see whether or not anything's tender or whatever, and then like, yeah, okay, so uh, the uh, what was the word? That doesn't sound quite right. Uh, but I guess there's a specialist, or was a specialist, who dealt with spleens. I'm assuming the vampires got to him, but the specialist for spleens in Saskatoon has retired. Oof, which isn't to say that I can't get the surgery, but if my spleen is too big then I will have to go to Regina for my surgery because there's no spleen specialist in Saskatoon that's such a Saskatoon thing to have a specialist and they're not there well, I mean, I don't know how you specialize in the spleen.
Speaker 2:I don't know how common this procedure is. I haven't really done that much research. Maybe I should do some more.
Speaker 1:I don't know the way the Internet is right now. People might be like spleen. Ain't real Liberal lie.
Speaker 2:So I mean, the consultation was boring but coincidentally well, um, well, maybe coincidentally, maybe it's actually well, actually related, I don't know uh. But uh, my, my left eye is is acting all wonky. So I go in there I'm like, yeah, so my, my eyes acting all wonky and they're like, yeah, um, we'll call down to the emergency, see if they can take a look at it, uh, and if they can't, then we usually go to like fyi, doctors and you're doing a podcast.
Speaker 2:Take a look at it like you don't need eyes to do a podcast technically no, all right, fair enough.
Speaker 1:And apparently, if I learned anything from adara, you can just plug in some new one usb style yeah, well, I mean I'm that would be pretty sick to get a new eyeball.
Speaker 2:But so I finished my consultation. There's not really any news. They're just like oh, you're getting your spleen taken out to deal with this ITP thing. I wish there was a V in the acronym. That would be so much easier, so much nicer for my story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay fair enough, anyway. And so then I go to the optometrist. I guess optometrists are not medical doctors, they're just regular doctors, sure, well, no. So I go there and they're like, okay, uh, we'll see if the doctor has time to see you. And then they did, but just barely, because they close at 5 pm and I got there at like three, so I had to wait pretty much right till five, and then the doctor was nice enough to see me, uh, and do like all the eye exam stuff, and then like, all right, we think we know what's going on, but we're gonna call the ophthalmologist, which is the medical eye doctor. Yeah, that's what I don't know. I I didn't think that optometrists were doctors at all, but apparently they actually are genuine doctors.
Speaker 1:I kind of knew that because one time I had like an eye sty thing and I'm like I could either go to a walk-in or go to the glasses person because they're an optometrist in. I just want them to look at my face and tell me if I should go get medical treatment worked. Really well, they told me exactly what it was and how to handle it. I'm like, oh, this was super efficient. What?
Speaker 2:Like yeah, I mean, that's basically the hospital told me to talk to the optometrist so that they could refer me to the ophthalmologist to get the medical treatment. Um, so it's kind of like the optometrist is the entry-level eye doctor, I guess.
Speaker 1:Okay, I don't know, I don't know. Note if you're getting podcast, if you're getting medical advice from deep space and dragons, don't you come to the wrong place.
Speaker 2:I I do think it's valuable for for listeners to hear about uh people's experiences in the medical system, uh like, but definitely not the place.
Speaker 1:You have to to always be like we're storytellers, not professionals, and this is a comedy podcast. So, like you know, sometimes I feel the need. It's like you made a statement like consultations were boring. I'm like did you want, like who wants to be a millionaire where they ask you a question and that gives you a percentage of success like in Star Trek, based on how many you get right on your consultation questions?
Speaker 2:success, like in Star Trek, based on how many you get right on your consultation questions. Well, I mean, it really helps. My, my mindset is a very like there's a very serious thing, but I'm also very relaxed about it, like it's just with the way my mindset is. So so I uh have an easy time absorbing the the information and be like you know, this surgery gives me the highest odds of actually beating this ITP, and then, even if it does fail for some reason, I'll be down to spleen. But there are still at least other options that are less desirable to me.
Speaker 1:Well, they say that, like when you're more relaxed when you fall out of an airplane and you don't tense up, you're more likely to survive when you fall out of an airplane and you don't tense up, you're more likely to survive.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, and like as a fun fact about that as well, if you're drunk driving and you get into an accident because you're drunk, you don't tense up and the person who's drunk ends up tending to survive the crash more easily because they don't tense up and they're in response to the accident and most of the other people end up not surviving, which is terrible all around. But that's like you say the more relaxed you are, the less damage you receive from shocking things like accidents and bad news.
Speaker 1:It makes me think of something we talked about pre-stream, where it's like see, whenever there's a problem, there's an opportunity, because on one hand, you're losing your spleen right, on the other hand, you're now gaining the ability to gift a pickled spleen to somebody on your will.
Speaker 2:I don't know. Are they going to let me keep it? I don't know. But back to the ophthalmologist. I mean the story is pretty much done. There's not much there to it, Just that apparently it is. Whatever is going on is serious enough that the ophthalmologist wants to see me tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1:And you're doing a podcast.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm not, I don't, I don't think I'm dying.
Speaker 1:I mean, what else are you going to do? Like, yeah, like I was watching the new season of Kaiju, number eight, weird, tangent. But like they just got to the part with bayonet contact kaiju, contact lens guy right, and I'm like, wait, an anime eye power that actually involves vision. It's been so many years because they're like gojo's god eyes don't do eye things at all. No, they do not. They apparently give him math powers. So I'm like, wait, an eye power made from something's eyes that make you see better. That's just insane. That is weird anime. Remember when sharing gun was about like tripping people because your eyes look trippy and copying things and not about summoning meteorites or controlling magnets or shrinky dinks so so what's new with you there, richard?
Speaker 1:so, other than the fact I need to like finish updating my health card and go get myself a checkup, because new job means new benefits, which means I need to spend my new benefits Right, obviously. But it's like, so I start a new comms job soon. I have four chapters left of this novel. I'm ghostwriting before I start doing editing laps and it's like I was going to be useful Monday and Tuesday but just kind of wasn't. And I think it's like people like to say, when you have ADHD, if you have a meeting booked, like people like to say, when you have adhd, if you have a meeting booked, then that time between now and that meeting you just can't do anything. That'd be insane.
Speaker 1:So it's kind of been my week where I'm like I know, intellectually the new job is going to be me going through four or five online training modules and clicking next right. But like my brain had like no focus today and I'm like I hopefully you probably know this is about me the more projects I have and the more stress I'm under, the better my productivity is Right, right. So I'm hoping when I have like things to do it'll kick me back into TurboGear, although I did realize in a casual chat with a friend earlier today that I've written five full length books Like I published two, but I started writing five years agolength books Like I published two, but I started writing five years ago and I have like six manuscripts. I'm like you know. It's not like for how much I say I'm a slacker. I'm at least accomplishing things I'm supposed to be doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a book a year is pretty good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when people are like I've worked on this book for 50 years, I'm like that sounds rough, buddy, how do you even keep everything straight for that long? Like geez. I was going to make some joke about how writers are bad at being straight. To begin with, it was a thing I was reading about how I think it was Brian Stoker like sent his height, weight and age and all this information to an author he had a crush on and it's like, did he just like mail his grinder profile in the old 1800s, like you get like some of these old writers being like history says they were pals in the letters like and I licked the glue for a lingering taste of you, I'm like, yeah, that's straight people doing straight things.
Speaker 2:Licked the glue for a lingering taste.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's just a famous published thing between two gal pals who are pals Just pals. Nothing says just pals, like the phrase lingering taste. But yeah, like most of the new with me is pretty much identical to when we recorded last week of big chillin'. Until I have to start doing things Like I had to do a lot of college paperwork today. I filled in my course selection surveys, which is funny.
Speaker 1:So you go to a big university like u of t or u of s and you probably remember like the course book and picking the courses in this big elaborate like conspiracy board you had to do to assemble your schedule. So I get to my master's program at a bigger school than my bachelor's and I'm expecting to have to like put together this cork board right. They send an email with four PDFs and the PDF is about 12 classes and it's like in each of these boxes, rate them one, two and three and we'll try and give you your first picks. I'm like there's no digital system, there's no sign. You just I just type numbers on this PDF and send it back. Yay, master's program.
Speaker 1:I was so happy that no effort had to go into this whatsoever. I'm like rate these in order fiction or non-fiction. I'm like fiction and non-fiction, so it's like, out of 10 classes, I take eight. So it's like, oh, all of them look good and I don't care what I get. This is the easiest course selection of my life. Because I'm like, oh no, don't make me take creative non-fiction, as I'm professionally writing creative non-fiction, although, to be fair, I wouldn't be a smug batard in that class okay, so do you have any issues with scheduling?
Speaker 2:because when I was signing up for my courses in university, do you have any issues with scheduling? Because when I was signing up for my courses in university, the biggest issue was finding time slots for all your stuff, especially like certain courses with my program were like a specific time slot, and so it's like you couldn't take any electives in that time slot because you had to be taking music history or music theory Masters is slick, so our classes are only for us the 20 of us in the master's program.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you can't screw it up. It's like the first semester. It looks like I have class Monday and I either have it Tuesday and Wednesday or Monday and Wednesday, and there's just like no room for error. I just do the thing.
Speaker 2:Well, but then they're also expecting you to do undergraduate student work with like potentially teaching small portions of the classes.
Speaker 1:So I don't know how long I'll be there, but also because my day job is remote asynchronous work when I want, and my book contracts are remote asynchronous work when you want there's a version of reality where, like no matter when my classes fall, I can just chill in the library, do my day job and go home, right right. So even if I have to make this full two-hour commute every day and I end up going there Monday to Friday, I'm such a slacker that I'm still fine with plenty of free time. Fair enough. Their monday to friday, I'm such a slacker that I'm still fine with plenty of free time. Fair enough, since writing this novel takes me six hours a week and my other job is 10 to 24 hours a week. Worst case, I occasionally have to not have a full 48 hour weekend where I do nothing. Have I mentioned so how much easier my life is than when I was a cook, like if I'm?
Speaker 1:so happy I suffered before I went back to school because it's like things people complain about are such non-issues to me. They're like could you imagine putting in 10-hour days? I'm like, oh no, not a 10-hour day, just 10 hours. That's not 4 pm to 4 am.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's like I hear people be like I have two classes in a day and that's six hours of sitting still. I'm like I just have a flashback to be like no, I'm pretty sure that's how I went through gundam seed, with six hour sessions of sitting, still like yeah, it's from my perspective, working those long hours.
Speaker 2:I don't like to belittle people's struggles, because your personal struggles are real.
Speaker 1:I love to belittle people's struggles.
Speaker 2:I do have hard times sympathizing with people who you know they work a six hour shift and they come on like, oh, I'm so tired. And it's like, oh, really.
Speaker 1:Well, think about me why I'm like hours a week. So I'm a fan of trying to help people with problems. But if people don't want to be helped, I become just such a sarcastic twat. So it's like if someone has a legitimate concern, I'll be okay. Call this number, talk to this person, try and get this funding. Let's see what we can do to stabilize and fix your life right.
Speaker 1:But if someone looks me in the eyes like you don't understand well, like a professor will be. Like do you know what life's like in the real world? Like I am a peasant, born into a poor family whose hands don't work, who decided to be a writer, I don't feel particularly like I can. I need to learn about the real world. Like my day job was doing precision chopping with hands that didn't work. Think about that. Someone whose hands don't work, using knife skills to make a living, there is just a collage of terrible choices going so, like as a general rule, if someone comes to me with a problem, I'll try and fix it. If they come to me with a not problem and I'll try and fix it, before I realize I'm like I hate to say this, but the problem's you bud Six hours, just ain't that hard.
Speaker 1:I think you need to like I don't know lose some weight so it puts less pressure on your feet. Maybe take a yoga class, go out for more walks. You know what people don't like when they're like oh my life is so hard. You suggesting exercise and dieting. That's not what anyone wants to hear. That's not what they're asking you. They're not actually asking you anything, carl. You anything?
Speaker 2:Carl, no, they aren't really asking you anything. They just want to vent about their personal issues, I guess.
Speaker 1:Could you imagine, if you're like I'm having blood problems and I'm like, well, it's because you drink too much cola, you should remove that from your diet. Idiot, that does seem to be a lot of people's approach to things, but my actual approach would be go to a doctor. You're like I'm going to a doctor, good job, should I look it up online? No, you should maybe like look up actual medical things. If you want to look it up on like Sask Health's website or like the University of Saskatchewan. Like if you want to find like papers on this or professionals or textbooks. Like if you want to actually look it up, like go to the library and say I'd like to find a actual source on this disease to look up. Sure, do not chat, gpt your disease and do not reddit your disease oh, dr google says it's cancer every time 100 or lupus.
Speaker 1:It's never lupus, except for the one time that it was well, it's funny because it's like working on the thing I'm working on now. They're like, yes, ask for second opinions and information, but not from dr google.
Speaker 2:Go on like the cancer webs or society and other societies that study these diseases oh, the worst is with the, the increase of, and so they do those like AI summaries. Yeah, that's not the thing that pisses me off the most.
Speaker 1:You know what drives me nuts. So I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn because it's actually my favorite social media. Okay, because you can't be as much of a belligerent lasso on LinkedIn. Ah right, because it's for professionals, yeah. So like you'll go into LinkedIn, daggerheart, for example and they'll be like look at our new product, looks awesome, sounds great. You'll look at the same launch on Reddit and they'll be like I'm going to have to use up a lot of swears and upper age rating, but they'll be like a critical role or a bunch of selfish cucks trying to steal D&D's money to make their own profit. I'm like. You found them. You had to google daggerheart to complain about this.
Speaker 1:Research went into you finding and hunting them down to complain about this. Like they announced like matt mercer's not dming the next season of critical role. He gets to be a player. Oh, and I'm like that's great. Tell more people they should let their gms be players. That's directly relevant to my interests. And they're having Brennan Lee Mulligan do it, who's delightful. I think I've sent you his video where he pretends to be the Oreo CEO, losing his mind over Oreo varietals. Oh, that guy, that guy's great, right. So I'm like, I'm excited.
Speaker 1:People are like are they going to play D&D or their new game? And I'm like, honestly, I'm going to lose a lot of respect for them if they sell it of their new game but they don't believe in it enough to make that their show. You know? Like, imagine the Pokemon company decide that World Pokemon Championships was to be played using Digimon instead. Like, yeah, you show you don't care about. Like that's bad. But my quips aside, you go on LinkedIn and people are like, yeah, positivity. You go on other social medias hate.
Speaker 1:But what they've been doing on LinkedIn is people will write what I call nobody asked for it contest posts. Well, we'll give a big monologue about their field. Like, they'll be like here's my thoughts on creativity or copy editing or whatever, right, but these Chad bros will write this article on creativity and put an AI, generate image in front of it. And I'm like dude, if you're telling like I was so annoyed looking at this this morning, because I'm like so you're like here's 10 ways to be creative. The image tells me the text is AI. But, more importantly, you didn't need an image for your post. Who is this for? You can just use text.
Speaker 1:Like, if I write a post being like hey, I'm excited to be taking on new projects. Here's my commission sheet. Like an actual LinkedIn post, I'd write, right Hi, I just graduated, recent graduate, looking for some contract work. Here's my portfolio. Why would I AI generate a picture? I'm a writer. Would I generate a picture I'm a writer like I might like if I really want to be pretty with it, I might take like a picture of the kids book I wrote with ag non-such, where I'm like yeah, this is like a beautiful sample, I'll put that in because it's pretty. But like, imagine I a I generate like me riding a dragon and use that. I'm like, why would I do that? Though it was text?
Speaker 1:mm-hmm yeah, that's my mini rant of what's new with me is getting angry at social media, while being a relatively successful writer, who admittedly spent too much money last month and just kind of gets to be broke till payday.
Speaker 1:Well it's like, I'm a professional well, it's like yes, I survived on being a writer, I'm a professional writer, it is my career. Did I agree to do some weeding for somebody this weekend for a couple extra bucks? Yes, yeah, I'm not gonna say no, I need a couple extra bucks. Sure, I'm a writer. That's not exactly a field you go into to make cash money. The fact I can make cash money is, quite frankly, amazing. Uh yup, but that's what's new with me.
Speaker 1:Also, it's hot outside, that's not new uh, oh, yeah I guess I also ran some dagger heart today to play test some stuff against a friend. But that'll be more for other stream. I'm just kind of plugging that we also do a richard and carl play dagger heart stream. You should check that out, but we do. But let's pivot into what they're here for us yapping about things. So I'm going to see where the snowballs, because our topic's kind of loosey-goosey. First time I noticed that characters were not, that characters had races in anime. So in anime you look at like Goku and characters and you don't actually think American or Caucasian when watching a cartoon, right Like you don't think Caucasian or Japanese. So I was watching Full Metal Panic, which still holds up. I enjoy Full Metal Panic and there's a scene where a character goes oh right, we're going to do a hostage exchange.
Speaker 1:Send the Caucasian woman over, then the Japanese one. And I'm like, wait, they're drawn identically. It didn't occur to me that they were different races until this moment. And the reason I bring this up is watching dubbed Yu-Gi-Oh as a kid on Fox Kids and YTV.
Speaker 1:Bandit Keith is just such an exceptionally funny concept when he's dubbed in a show that's already American, because you watch Yu-Gi-Oh growing up, right, and you assume everyone in it's already American or Canadian or whatever, because you're a kid watching it and you don't know the difference between anime and cartoon. And he's wearing an American flag going in America the most American of Americans, pulling guns on people and robbing them over card games like a good American should. And it got so much funnier when I realized that this is how the mangaka of Yu-Gi-Oh saw Americans in general and it filled me with joy. So that's our topic is how anime views americans, because I don't know why. I was just thinking about bandit keith when the new chapter of chainsaw man came out, and I'm gonna hand the mic to you for that oh man, chainsaw man it's.
Speaker 2:It's apolitical for the most part. It doesn't really focus much on politics. As Richard has said in the past on our podcast, the main theme of the show is adolescence and depression adolescence- puberty, romance, depression, it's, it's a lot.
Speaker 2:But puberty, basically Adolescence, puberty, romance, depression, like it's, it's, it's a lot. But, um, america has a uh rich history of war, basically Yep, uh and uh, I mean I, I should have seen it coming. But the latest chapter, uh, the, the Americans they manage. Chainsaw man has a strange ability where when he eats other devils, people forget about them. They forget about their fears of whatever that devil was.
Speaker 1:If he eats a devil, the thing that devil represents disappears. So it's not just they forget about it. It's like if he eats the hatchet devil, there just are no more hatchets. Which isn't to say apparently that people can't reinvent the hatchet. That was a spicy plot twist, by the way, because that actually reconstructed a lot of things.
Speaker 2:Because so, apparently, america reinvented the nuclear bomb after the war devil was eaten, and so the new war devil is like oh man, I love America because they have made me beautiful and sexy and powerful by reinventing weapons of mass destruction.
Speaker 1:Like I read into that line a little further too, where it's like I thought I loved Chainsaw man but I love America. I just love the line that America made war sexy. And you think about every movie america's put out for the last hundred years and like, unironically, they go out of their way to make war a truly awful thing, a sexy concept. They're like the best thing you could be is a veteran who shot 30 starving kids on the gaza border. That's the best person you can be and they are a hero and deserve our full respect.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean that's true. A lot of war movies are highly romanticized in that way. I mean there are definitely some much more accurate movies.
Speaker 1:But there's also the existence of Michael Bay.
Speaker 2:But I mean, yeah, actual realistic war movies, I don't think they have a huge mainstream audience. There is enough of an audience that a really good one will be successful.
Speaker 1:Well, it's like every. Marvel movie is pro-US military somehow yeah, that's true too. Like they're like yeah, we're gonna build these flying aircraft characters that can shoot everyone from everywhere, and the only problem with that was it was invaded by Nazis. That's the only reason this is bad. Otherwise, it's just a good plan to have flying death fortresses built with taxpayer money.
Speaker 2:Uh, yeah, I mean, shield is basically like plan to have flying death fortresses built with taxpayer money. Yeah, I mean SHIELD is basically like hopefully their ideals don't line up with Nazis, but like, but they kind of do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Like you look at America right now, it's not a hard sell for someone to tell me that SHIELD could get corrupted if, like, a particular group of political figures decided to fund it a certain way.
Speaker 2:Uh, but I mean, the point of the matter is that with this historical context of how America has gone throughout the world, um, it is, they do have a very pro military stance and I I think that that is a I mean it's kind of a surface level assessment of Americans in general as gun loving war mongers. But that does seem to be a significant amount of how Japan and anime views America and the thing it's like when I think about it.
Speaker 1:it's just like you look at All Might, who's trying to be like the most American character in the manga, in anime, and he's a Japanese dude that dresses up in red, white and blue and then punches criminals in super bombastic ways and, quite frankly, that's just hilarious to me that they didn't actually super bombastic ways and, quite frankly, that's just hilarious to me that they didn't actually make him American, like they made him blonde hair, blue eyes and like all his attacks are named after States, but they didn't actually commit to making all might in American, which is wild to me. Could you imagine if I dressed up as samurai man and my whole entire theme was samurai based powers and I ran around? Oh wait, we called that iron fist and that happened.
Speaker 1:Danny Rand was the worst uh, cultural appropriation the dude in the tackiest way oh man, uh.
Speaker 2:but uh yeah, it's just kind of that latest chapter of Chainsaw man was just like. That's what a statement to make in the current political era.
Speaker 1:Like another statement was when there was that Death Note sequel and the US president just gives in to the Kira. Just straight up, just folds.
Speaker 2:Oh man, I think we've talked about how the main character was done dirty in that series.
Speaker 1:Only because the like the Shinigami cheated. That's some bullshit. You don't get to add new rules to your death note because you don't like how the guy played. That takes the strategy aspect completely out. That's like that's as bad writing as it was all a dream. If you set up explicit rules to something and make it like a thriller and then change the rules, that is as bad as it just being a dream.
Speaker 2:That is a bad is your alien child comes back from the future to solve the negotiation, like but the series itself was pretty interesting because the kid with the death note he doesn't actually want to kill anyone, but he knows that people who have interact with the Shinigami in the past can still see Shinigami. So he sends a Shinigami on live television to hold a piece of paper saying that Kira's back and that he's going to sell the Death Note, and then he actually just sells it to the highest bidder, which happens to be America, which doesn't surprise anybody, right, right. And then this is a fairly American response too. Uh, shinigami gets there. He's like okay, uh, there's actually a new rule.
Speaker 2:Uh, whoever sells the death note, uh, they die when they receive payments. Uh, and if you accept the death note, uh, you die when you accept it. Uh, so basically there's like yeah, we don't like the fact that this guy outwitted us and decided to sell the Death Note, so we're just gonna make it so that doesn't happen again. Oh, and then the American president is like well, I guess I'm not gonna take the Death Note because I don't want to die, but we're gonna say we did so we can control the world. I mean not in so many words, but like just the fact that they have the death note and can potentially kill anyone they want at any moment. I mean the amount of influence you would get from being a country that has that kind of power well, it's kind of funny is a.
Speaker 1:They kind of have that part of her already really, but that's true. Another example is in baki. They literally just straight up put in obama and trump, like they didn't even try and hide it. They just called him tramp or trump and then, yujiro shows up and just calls him a little bitch. And made them swear fealty because every us president who comes in as part of their non-abortion pact with this martial artist has to vow an act of friendship to him.
Speaker 1:So there's literally just a scene in Kananbaki where Yujiro Hama meets with President Trump and Elon Musk and threatens to rape both of them. That is a thing that got published in Baki and then held to most by their heads. That is just a scene that happens in their series is this martial artist just goes and straight up threatens them. If Trump knew about this, it would devastate him to the point where I've sent you this picture, this screengap from actual Baki on it to take a look.
Speaker 2:That's pretty funny it is so good.
Speaker 1:That's kind of what prompted this episode. As I'm reading this, I'm like, wow, they're not even pretending, that's just straight up Trump being destroyed by this long-running martial arts manga for no reason. And I love it. You see, I love free speech, and free speech means you can have a martial artist threaten the president. You know I love free speech and free speech means you can have a martial artist Threaten the president.
Speaker 2:You know, actually somehow I don't know how this slipped my mind, actually, probably because the medical news was more pressing.
Speaker 1:Why no way? That's weird If you call yourself a nerd.
Speaker 2:I've been reading this manhwa On Webtoon called Elisede I don't know if that's how you pronounce it E-L-E-C-E-E-D, I don't know. Yeah, that's the name. Okay, found it, and it's a fairly generic Korean story. You know, normal kid realizes he has uh awakened powers, um, meets his mentor and gets drawn into this uh shadow world of of high-powered martial arts superhero or super-powered martial arts people.
Speaker 2:Um, now, the first thing that's said apart though it gives me mad the Breaker vibes Like the mentor is laying low after picking a fight with the wrong people. But the main thing that sets us apart is A in order to lay low, he accidentally creates a new awakening skill that lets him turn into a cat, nice, and so now he's just this fat orange cat, but he was all injured. And so then our main character, ji-wu, his for the first hundred chapters or so, his defining characteristic is that he loves cats. And so he finds this injured cat in the alleyway and he takes it home and nurses it back to health. And then the cat's like yeah, you know, I'm actually a talking cat and actually I'm a super martial artist and you were super nice to me, so I'm gonna mentor you.
Speaker 1:I like that. That feels like it ignores some plot contrivance that normally finds its way into things.
Speaker 2:I guess actually the other reason he wanted to mentor this kid is because the kid already had an awakened power of super speed. There it is and he just didn't know it. And then it turns out that this kid is like a super genius and 300 chapters in that. This kid is like a super genius and 300 chapters in. Now he's like within the top 100 of global rankings of all the people. But as the scope of the series has grown like it starts out just being in Korea and then it moves on to the World Academy and then it moves on to the World Academy and then it moves on to this global ranking system. Firstly, I have no idea how South Korea in particular views America, because in all of the series that I've been reading on Webtoon it just doesn't come up. And this is the series where it would make the most sense for america to come up because of how the global scale of it, um, kind of interesting.
Speaker 1:It's like when my hero had a character role in star and stripes, like I'm the top hero in america and I'm just like just from logistics and numbers and this rarely comes up in anime. When you go to a global scale and you just look at population numbers, if we have a mutant superpower situation america and china would be ridiculous like just from sheer mathematics and odds, right, right, right, like you get to soul leveling brought up. It's like here's the top ones from korea, japan and america.
Speaker 2:It's like the american ones would be ridiculous just from sheer numbers yeah, like they're just way more likely to have more high rank awakened people also a country that decides its funding based on how good you are throwing a ball would truly be ridiculous in the superpower lottery world.
Speaker 1:It's a place that fundamentally believes the gifts you're born with are the most important thing about you as a person.
Speaker 2:But yeah, that is. I mean, I guess it's good for authors not to get out of their depths and make these sorts of stereotypes willy-nilly about America and other countries.
Speaker 1:I mean counterpoint Lieutenant Surge. You take one look at Lieutenant Surge, you're like that's an American.
Speaker 2:Like you say, as a kid, watching these animes, reading these comics, reading these mangas everyone's basically drawn the same, Like anime is simultaneously very racist and yet not racist, because race almost never actually plays a role.
Speaker 1:Well, I have to do a shout out here. Anime is extremely racist. When they have the ability to draw someone of a different race because there's some particular groups, that anime is like all right, we're gonna have all these ninjas look the same. This one, we have to paint into a giant lips, just this one. It's like that's not how these people work.
Speaker 2:It's like no, no, no, no, we just have to every time uh, well, yeah, uh, generally speaking, uh, anime characters are very homogenous, uh, but then every now and then they do throw in race, uh, and it's very. It's super interesting for us in north america to see what they think about canadians or americans, or, uh, like, what is, um, what does g gundam have to say about america?
Speaker 1:like I love g gundam, so g gundam is from a different time. And, yes, g gundam is racist.
Speaker 2:It's hard to argue otherwise but it's such awesome, awesome gems like the, the nether gundam, the gundam from the netherlands that's shaped like a giant windmill, the tequila gundam from mexico with its sombrero and exploding maracas.
Speaker 1:America's gundam, that's a rock'em sock'em robot. But that's not when they threw the shade at america. So america's gundam basically being Optimus Prime with boxing gloves and a surfboard Not that stereotypical. The most American thing in G Gundam, possibly the best moment in anime. So in G Gundam all the space colonies look like the countries. For some reason they're just country-shaped. America except is shaped like a star Because it can be, they deploy the Statue of Liberty cannon.
Speaker 1:So the Statue of Liberty, which is attached to their space cannon, separates off, the torch, lights up and their most powerful weapon is the Statue of Liberty cannon, which is a high-powered beam cannon built into the torch of the Statue of Liberty in the Neo-America space colony that looks like America but is star-shaped. There is nothing more American than taking a french gift, claiming it to be the most american thing and putting a death laser on it. That is just perfection.
Speaker 1:I couldn't write something that good that is such a scathing, nonsensical parody like yeah, the, yeah, the Canadian Gundam is a lumberjack with hatchet arms that they find up in Niagara Falls. Who fights the Russian dude? Who's an ex-convict. Who beats people up with a ball and chain Not an ex-convict, sorry, a current convict. They have a bomb strapped to him. He's a current convict.
Speaker 2:Oh, so they're doing it like Suicide.
Speaker 1:Squad style. Yeah, just Russia, because that's how they roll. No one else is doing it in Suicide Squad, just I like to be like yeah, everything in G Gundam is 100% how Japan views the world. Obviously there's no nuance here. What's media literacy? And then the funniest joke is in all the Gundams. So Gundams will rarely have America, except Gundam 00, I think Okay. Instead they'll have the Atlantic Federation, which is America after it's conquered the rest of the Atlantic area.
Speaker 2:Makes sense and in Gundam Z.
Speaker 1:The leader of the Atlantic Federation was a. He was a Nazi. Of course he was a Nazi. He was like naturals are superior and coordinators need to die. We need to nuke them all guy. He was some rich tech bro.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny because it's like I mean, obviously conversations about eugenics do still occur, but it's like, current presidents aside, we've kind of like, as an entire globe, have kind of been like yeah, no, that's, that's not right, and yet other countries still view America as being oppressive enforcers of potential eugenic policies.
Speaker 1:Which I mean to be fair America makes it real easy. Fair america makes it real easy. When they have a literal quote world like it's, people don't realize how absurd they sound with what they choose to explain their own views. Woke is bad. We are against it. It is wrong. Define woke. Treating other people of equals is bad. You just outed yourself so hard. It was like I watched a review of the new superman. It's like, anyway, it's like I don't like Superman. It's too political. It's kind of telling on themselves because it's about a dude trying to stop people from being bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and people that like oh, it's an immigrant story, it's like that doesn't make it woke, and also that's like that's more like the subtext, like that's just, he literally is an alien.
Speaker 1:That's just the text. He is a literal illegal alien. The joke of Superman is he's the most powerful person in the world and still gets treated like shit because he's an illegal immigrant. I don't think it was a coincidence.
Speaker 2:Pretty sure that's the plot, yeah, but I mean like then people were like oh, I don't like Superman because of that. It's like whoa, you're missing out on a lot of really interesting and dynamic conversations like that are not about being woke.
Speaker 1:Also, you might just be a bad person. If the idea that an immigrant wants to protect people's freedoms is bad to you, you might be a bad person. If the idea that an immigrant wants to protect people's freedoms is bad to you, you might be a bad person. It happens. I'm not saying you're not allowed to be a bad person, but just own it like, don't be like I'm a good person. Beating, taking these food stamp money and using it to build a gold-plated ballroom.
Speaker 1:Literally a thing that happened is people being like well, yeah, he put it's his right to have a solid gold ballroom and I'm like let's say it is his right to have a solid gold ballroom. Should you not still be bugged that he built a solid gold ballroom instead of doing literally anything to help anybody with that money? Just because it's not illegal for someone to do something bad doesn't therefore make the thing good. Like if on this podcast, I'm like thank you everybody for supporting our podcast with your donations. I bought myself a switch too and I'm gonna enjoy it. You guys should really have more followers.
Speaker 1:That last line right, that's like what people are actually like, though it'll be like yeah, look at my deluxe pokeball collection. I bought, as they say, that on a stream and they're a professional streamer, which means, hey, look at these cool things I bought with your donations. I'm awesome. Like that's still bad. Like I built a solid gold ballroom in the white house. He could have spent that money I don't know on anything else okay, but so I mean coming back to our original topic here I wanted to bitch about uS politics.
Speaker 1:I want to get cancelled in England.
Speaker 2:Does Pokemon have an American equivalent in their zones? Do you think there's?
Speaker 1:two for sure. So black and white is just New York.
Speaker 2:Okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:It's widely believed that Unova is New York. Okay, and then the Oro region from Colosseum feels very American Southwest coded.
Speaker 2:Hmm.
Speaker 1:Right right, right right.
Speaker 2:It's American Midwest.
Speaker 1:Riding through like there isn't a ton of like Arizonas around the world, mm-hmm. So it's like, yeah, just straight up. People like to argue that America is just the Inova region outright, which is an interesting thing, because the villain of the Inova region being PETA and animal rights is an interesting approach. Like I don't think they meant anything by it and I don't even know if it's true. It's just we all widely kind of agree the Internet as a whole that Unova is their America.
Speaker 2:Hmm, Well, I mean most likely, given that they have largely they've always used their own naming system for their regions.
Speaker 1:It's probably just an Internet coincidence that they didn't actually intend there to be any subtext there, but yeah, it's kind of like Kalos is clearly France, Sword and Shield's clearly the UK, Like it's not subtle.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I don't know. Do you think they've started leaning into it more than with Pokemon? 100%, they're just going for it.
Speaker 1:Now. They're like asking, like cultural consultants, to help them design architecture to be more likely the real world area. They're just straight up going for it.
Speaker 2:I'd be doing x and y is definitely based on france uh, no, the uk.
Speaker 1:X and y. Yeah, it's definitely england in the area around it. Oh, x and y is france. I thought you said, ah, my brain got looped. Yes, you are correct, x and y is france.
Speaker 2:It's not even pretending, it's not the louvre's there, straight up because I I played x and y and then, uh, got frustrated by alpha and omega sapphire because they added new Megas but didn't make them reverse compatible.
Speaker 1:So bugged by that Worst crime, worst crime Japan's ever done, Japan's worst crime. Although I do really appreciate Spear Draggler when they had the Americans blow up the money oh man, uh, that that is a super funny uh.
Speaker 2:The the series isn't funny uh, but the villains plan to get the japanese government to over invest in his pharmaceutical company so he can liquidate their assets and trick america into blowing up a tower full of all of japan's money. Oh, and the fact that america fell for it is kind of like that's the social commentary there. It wasn't hard to get America to blow up a tower in Japan.
Speaker 1:And yeah, it's kind of funny because I'm trying to think of more examples of American characters in anime. But I'm like now my brain's just going for kids dubbing things, where it's like to throw the shade on the other foot, taking the rice balls and calling them jelly donuts, because people couldn't understand the idea of a rice snack.
Speaker 2:Isn't sane.
Speaker 1:Like the funniest thing is the Pokemon world's already fictional. So, like a kid who sees a triangular rice snack and someone calls it a rice ball, first thought isn't going to be canceling the show, it's going to be. Oh, that's probably fictional food in the fictional show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then when they see an actual rice ball, they'll be like what the?
Speaker 1:real crazy and then I mean it's not real. It's funny to me that Bandit Keith had to use invisible guns. Nothing to do with our topic. I just enjoy that very much that they left the seeds the same but had the pointing instead of holding a gun. Yeah, and there was an episode that was straight up removed from Pokemon. Where they're in the Safari Zone, everyone just kept pulling guns on things. They're just like nope, uh, they did try and americanize some names in one piece and pokemon and stuff as well, which is always funny when it's like we're gonna change zolo to zoro to zoro to zolo, and I'm like you guys just don't. One piece is funny because they do live action One Piece. They're like oh yeah, all these characters are different races. Oda said so we're just going to cast whoever, and I'm like great, perfect, 10 out of 10. And then Fullmetal Alchemist live action, like we're just going to put awful wigs on people for the series that takes place allegedly in Germany.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, fullmetal Alchemist is also a pretty interesting example. I don't really remember if there's anything any specific American examples in that show, though no, they just did end up in Germany originally. Right, yeah, that was the original ending of the anime, where they just like and the truth is World War II, germany, what?
Speaker 1:I know in Shamanaman king they end up in like nevada, if memory serves, but it's been a while since I put thought into shaman king even though it is actually a pretty good series, it's also been done for like over a decade.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when did it?
Speaker 1:That's a very good question. I know the manga finished, but they didn't give it an ending and they didn't release the real ending until the hardcover volumes came out. It was a whole thing.
Speaker 2:Shaman King was serialized from 1998 to 2004. The anime adaption ran from 2001 to 2002. And then, from 2008 to 2009, they released the books, the Kanzan Band edition, concluding with the true ending of the series. That is the AI post that I was complaining about earlier. So take that with a grain of salt. That is reasonable and fair On a different note. Sorry, go ahead. Oh, you go ahead. Sorry, I was just going to finish up saying that that information is supposedly also from Reddit, which is Wikipedia before Wikipedia.
Speaker 1:So it's kind of funny. It's like Shaman King definitely are like here's characters from around the world, because we have to do that to give them different random spirits, mm, hmm, so they absolutely had characters from all over. Oh, they definitely pulled a racism play, literally naming their character Choco Choco Love. That feels, that feels like a crime, right. But then we get to other things. I remember we had a full talk about when Naruto ended, how because it takes place in a pseudo-Japan steampunk America would have been interesting.
Speaker 2:Or them growing their world outwards in some direction thing, or them growing their world outwards in some direction yeah, it's so sad that Naruto decided not to make any comment about America because, like they even started doing the steampunk thing in Boruto and then just dropped it because apparently that was alien technology, somehow based on aliens, I don't know.
Speaker 1:That drove me nuts, by the way, because aliens themselves weren't using any technology.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, we love to complain about Boruto, but that's not really on topic.
Speaker 1:Vaguely on topic, so vaguely Like I mean, the next thing I was going to go for was like shows like Kaiju no 8, where they'll like they had a board meeting and they're talking about we've heard some countries are experimenting using kaiju tissue with things. I'm like is that country America or is it Russia? And then my brother's like wait, didn't they make the contact lenses that country's Japan? Because, yeah, kaiju no 8, just straight they make the contact lenses that country's Japan. Cause, yeah, yeah, kaiju number eight to Strat mentions there's an American U S defense force.
Speaker 2:And I'm like I kind of want to see that story too. Yeah, yeah, I am really wondering, like, obviously the author of the series is going to be taking a break. I would, I would assume, um, but that was also a very apolitical focus just on one country, uh, and you could easily expand the world outward to be talking about, um, well, kaiju in other countries such as america or china, or well, we had this chat a bit about it russia we were like the ending was not in my top 10 anime endings but it is the easiest to sequel point.
Speaker 1:I've seen something ended in a while Because it's like it was like how Chainsaw man 1, part 1, ended, where you're like, oh, the series is over, oh, we're sequeling it and just adding some characters and going forward. Yeah, okay, sick.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I would definitely be really interested to see the world, well, to see the globe of Kaiju number 8. Not necessarily even that these countries have to interact, because they're obviously all very busy dealing with their own Kaiju problems.
Speaker 1:But but like easy side stories. It's like how original Gundam's, like we're gonna follow this Amuro and Char kid and that was like the most mediocre one year war content, because there's a whole war going on around the world and it's like the side stories in the universe were probably more interesting than the main stories. Star wars has that problem a lot, where it's like the non-skywalker stuff is usually the best stuff by miles. The further we get from anyone who's met a skywalker, the better the show is. Yeah, and then they'll ruin it by bringing it back closer to someone who specifically knew Anakin Skywalker. Somehow Too many people knew.
Speaker 1:Could you imagine in the real world if, like one in ten people were a direct blood relative or associate of, let's go with Keanu Reeves? Like if every movie the character was just some direct relation to John Wick in every other action movie and they felt the need to mention it? How insane that'd be. You're just watching Taken and it's like, yeah, my uncle John is busy fighting a dog, so I'm here and it's like what? And it gets so much stupider when you do it with sci-fi and space is infinite the odds you'd ever run into Darth Vader are zero.
Speaker 1:There's literally trillions of people in trillions of places. You would never run into somebody by coincidence, ever. It's like actually mathematically impossible that you would just run into Darth Vader's apprentice in space. Yeah that's pretty true, not related to our topics at all. Just need to complain about it. Star Wars manages to be American free, which I'm fine with. Yeah, because has Star Wars ever even gone?
Speaker 2:to earth. I I'm fine with yeah, because has Star Wars ever even gone to Earth? I don't think so, no, nor should it.
Speaker 1:Well, it was a long time ago in a galaxy far away. So Earth is a ramification of Star Wars. Star Wars will technically end with Adam and Eve being exiled to this planet while the universe dies, and then we're going to learn that Jesus of the Christ was obi-wan kenobi's apprentices, apprentices, apprentices, clone ah yeah, gotta be a clone. Yep, who returns somehow, although I'm gonna pivot to my personal random question a bit early in this episode because I was kind of thinking about it what animes do you think would benefit the most from just adding America as a sequel, having a sequel take place in America?
Speaker 2:Like we opened with.
Speaker 1:Kaiju no 8 being like oh yeah, what's going on in America? So your job is you're given any existing anime or manga until you need to write a spin-off sequel in America, any oh man. I like how I'm not choosing Canada, even though we're Canadian, because that's just not reasonable. Just not reasonable, like I was going to go. Bleach has their weird spinoff in England with their Burn the Witch and then it says on the building Soul Society East.
Speaker 2:Oh Burn the Witch was. And then it says on the building Soul Society East oh Burn the Witch was a spin-off of.
Speaker 1:Leech, yeah, it was straight up took place in the same universe, like they're dragons and witches and things. It's just how the power system works in England and I love that implication that Soul Society has a Shinigami and it's this and then America. It could just be completely different. It could be likeasquatches and jabberwockies and have a completely different power system. I'm like that's hilarious. Hmm, technically they made ichigo's adult job being a translator as an excuse to send him to england for crossovers later uh, backstep, just one second.
Speaker 2:Uh, elephant in the room. Jojo's bizarre adventure, specifically season three, which takes place in like old-timey new york so jojo's to talk america, because I don't know how jojo's didn't get mentioned.
Speaker 1:This is worth talking about. America participles cannonball run feels like the most authentic American thing ever written out of Japan. Huh, self-resident being a multiversal time-traveling threat, trying to collect the bones of Jesus Christ to make a super army is the most American thing imaginable the bones of Jesus Christ. Being an American in America feels like the most American written thing imaginable. So Jojo's part 2 doesn't American in America feels like the most American written thing imaginable. So Jojo's part two doesn't feel like it's written by someone who doesn't understand America. It feels like it was written by somebody who does as he's flicking Coca-Cola caps and pulling out two Tommy guns as a distraction for the cape of grenades. Also.
Speaker 1:Jojo's kind of get to pass because it didn't have anything happen in Japan.
Speaker 2:Till part 4 oh yeah, yeah, part 1 and 2 were in. Well, season 1 and 2 were in England then it went to America.
Speaker 1:Then part 3 spent a week in Japan before they went to Cairo, because part three spent a week in Japan before they went to Cairo Because it was just a road trip movie. So Japan wasn't until part four. Part six is Florida. Yeah, that's true, which is why no one questioned the stand attacks, because that's just Florida. When it just started braiding frogs, frogs, no one batted an eye. Like nothing's more florida story than person found turned upside down with their feet removed. That's not even making the front page, full page. Ford has man robs convenience store by flailing around with a crocodile. Yeah, now I'm thinking about it. The majority of JoJo's took place in America.
Speaker 2:Or Italy.
Speaker 1:They took a break to be Italian. That they did. To be fair, he actually goes to the places. The newest JoJo's is in Hawaii and everyone's just like oh so you had to pay for you to take a two-year Hawaiian vacation for research? Huh, jojo's is the only manga series I could actually see having a Canada arc.
Speaker 2:A Canada arc.
Speaker 1:They would actually put in Canada. He's that crazy and unhinged.
Speaker 2:Where did Black Cat take place in?
Speaker 1:Fantasyland, I feel Black Cat. This is a hot take. Black Cat took place in the Hunter Hunter world. Ah, okay, there is no evidence to prove me wrong. Internet come at me. You cannot confirm that Black Cat's fictional continent wasn't in the Hunter Hunter world, where the enemies were literally using an artifact to gain, quote, nen abilities. Unquote. That's my hot take. Black cat and hunter. Hunter took place in the same world. Anywho, l from death note was american.
Speaker 2:Anywho, l from Death Note was American. I mean the first L, I believe he identifies as a twink, legally speaking, but yeah, I think so no, I'm just going through all the series in the Shonen Jump app to see what stands out to me as a good series to have in America.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Black Cat was too fictional.
Speaker 1:Oh, hair punch meanwhile, marshall King is American coded, but also terrible yeah, no, marshall King is terrible they pulled one of those science diagrams right out of Dr Stone and that made me so mad.
Speaker 1:He's like I'm going to rely on this because that was such a specific writing device for that series. That's not just a thing you get to use now. You can't have development diagrams in your fantasy setting and me want to follow you on this one. That only works because you're using actual science. Also, americans were just evil with Dr Stone and used machine guns and wanted to use science to conquer the world. The only part I disagree with is that they'd be using science for it. Yeah, that's fair. If we have any American viewers, they have left after this one, although most Americans that listen to me talk will just be shaking their head in deep shame.
Speaker 2:So much my Hero stuff on here.
Speaker 1:My Hero would actually be a pretty good one, honestly, like they showed like three.
Speaker 2:American characters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because we know that the main character Vigil to america at the end of vigilantes, so like he'd be there with captain celebrity and like the us marines and star and stripe star and stripe was the most pointless added thing in my hero and I'm still mad about it so they had a plot point that she comes in right. He steals her ability, it ability, it sabotages him and then he pawns it off on somebody. He specifically gives that power to somebody. That never came up in the ending of my Hero in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 2:It was just a dead.
Speaker 1:They were like we're going to introduce America to then not use America ever, and it was a bad choice. Because you get to the finale and you're like, where is America? Then We've got a villain so powerful they destroy entire cities. And I'm like, if America knows this guy exists, that city is glass. You understand, right? I don't care how good your superpower is when you can drop sulfur fuel air bombs on people.
Speaker 2:So the promised Neverland actually is a pretty interesting one, because they're they're in the alternate demon world, uh, and then they managed to, like all the humans, get sent back to the real world, uh. I think an interesting sequel would be uh, the demons reinvading the, the human world, because they just negate, renege on their uh, on their treaty that would be interesting.
Speaker 1:Another interesting one to take place in america. I know this is kind of a hot take, but not really. I think a yugioh series in america would be fascinating if you give it the energy of ping pong peril. Not on topic at all, I just shout out to ping pong peril being yugioh season zero. When hinged. It's the first yugioh spin-off I've read in a very long time. That understood what made yugioh good in the first place, because it was never about the cards. And then the future yugioh sequels are like we're gonna all be about the cards. I'm like no, it was never about the cards, it was about the. When I lose this card game, this anchor drags me under the ocean. It was about the. I've cut in some of my cards a millimeter small, so when I look at it under the right light, the light bends around it and I know what I'm going to draw. It's the marking my cards with perfume. That's what made Yu-Gi-Oh Good.
Speaker 2:Out of all the series that are currently available on Shonen Jump, promised Neverland was the only one that stood out to me as deserving of a sequel in America, and that's mostly just because I don't know where exactly in the world the kids end up moving to. But the fact that they get sent to the real world primes for that sort of sequel where the demons renege on their treaty and invade.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one Piece and Naruto. Well, naruto, we already talked about Naruto. In America, one Piece is already globetrotting. Well, except that their globes are all messed up. Well, the thing is, they go to all these countries but they're much softer than G Gundam. Right, you go to a country in One Piece and it doesn't strike you as being coded off a particular country, except for, like, samurai Land, right, right. So it's like maybe you could say, alabasta, was america coded? I don't know, it might have been. That'd be hard. But, as I mentioned, I'd love to see like a completely different power system in this weird spinoff for bleach in america.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because there just be so many more hollowos because there's so many more people dying violent deaths.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it could be, it could be.
Speaker 1:And then, yeah, pokemon, just kind of their regions are homage, so there's no reason to make Pokemon in America. They kind of already did it.
Speaker 2:Four kids put in their best effort to make it to the origin. Kaiju, number eight, like you said, just America kind of already exists off screen. So it'd just be, that'd be so easy, it'd be sick.
Speaker 1:I'd be so many kinds of on board. Like you would just call it Kaiju number eight. America Like you know, America's SDF anti-kaiju force would have cool stuff going on. Yeah, that's true. Pretty sure they're building jaeger robots kaiju.
Speaker 2:Number eight is in the pacific rim universe. I would love that.
Speaker 1:So the thing is I've given this rant about crossovers, where I love somatic crossovers and I hate Fortnite and Super Smash, the Gathering crossovers right. So, like I've been on stream and mentioned, I love that they did a Kengan-Ashura-Baki crossover movie where those two could be in the same universe, that they did a Kengan Ashura Baki crossover movie when those two could be in the same universe. As I just mentioned, I would totally throw Black Cat and Hunter x Hunter in the same universe and never explain it Because I can, right. So it's like Godzilla and King Kong already got their crossovers Right and if they just are like, yeah, this is the Kaiju Earth and then in parallel on the other side of the rifts is the pacific rim earth, I'm like, yeah, kaijus come from different dimensions, I have no problem. Actually, let me rephrase I would love a kaiju number eight godzilla crossover. That would be amazing, yeah that would be amazing.
Speaker 2:I'm also on board with a Godzilla King Kong Pacific Rim crossover. Okay, actually, starting this back one moment, you said that Kaiju no 8's ending was not in your top ten. Yeah, it didn't feel like it ended.
Speaker 1:Hmm, I have to give a top ten anime ending list now, don't I?
Speaker 2:No, no, no, that seems like that would take up too much time. We've already been rambling for almost our entire hour.
Speaker 1:That would be a full episode, wouldn't it?
Speaker 2:It probably would. I'm assuming number one anime ending of all time for you would be Kaido, the right answer.
Speaker 1:That's the best I probably would say, if I'm being honest and non-facetious. It's a toss-up between Gundam Wing, Code Geass and Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer. Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer did not deserve how good it ended. I'm like, oh you ended this, you stuck the ending clean. Also, I hate to give credit where credit's due. I hated Attack on Titan, Part 2. It ended as good as it possibly could have, Unlike Assassination Classroom, which missed the semi-ending part of having them use their alien assassinating skills to fight the evil alien and assassinate it. Just Rawr.
Speaker 1:Assassination Classroom does deserve a better ending, and it would be kind of cool to see it Americanized like just thinking that would actually be dope is like you have another squid alien in america, especially if america said you know? I'd go as far as, instead of doing like a spinoff for assassination classroom in america, like taking place in the same setting, I would do a reimagining, like a straight up netflix anime, of what it would be like if Koro-sensei was American, because the education system is just so different it would be so much harder to fix it. Japan's like yeah, we take the problem kids and put them in the bad class so they'll have trouble getting to college. America is like there's gun shucks the easy part. Like there's gun shucks the easy part.
Speaker 1:Like so you know how in Assassinate Crash, most of the students are like I don't really want to try and kill my teacher at the start. America they would love to try and kill the teacher and would struggle hard learning. Yeah, like first episode. Someone's like these are the anti-sensei weapons. They just pull their already existing Glock and shoot him in the face.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, so, since my answer to your random question was the Promised Neverland, what is your answer to your own random question?
Speaker 1:So I'm annoyed because I already used up some good ones with Kaiju. Number eight, right, I think so. Eight right, I think so. And uh, I'm very fickle, so this answer could change by the time I finish saying it.
Speaker 2:I do think chainsaw man in america would be fascinating yeah, I mean it's hard to say how close the Chainsaw man is to actually ending this arc, but another arc that took place in America, especially after that bold comment about how the War Devil loves America, would be on point and super interesting.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying here's my pitch for the start of Chainsaw man Season 3. So we've dealt with some of this War Devil stuff already, right, and life sucks in Japan for Denji. So we go. Part two ends part three. We see denji, we see asta, because I wanted to survive this holding hands, and in the background is the chicago riots. And it just takes place in America. Yeah, the idea that they end the season by fleeing to America and there's Chainsaw man in America would just be amazing.
Speaker 2:I don't know if Asta's going to survive this or not.
Speaker 1:I don't know if Denji's going to survive this or not. It's Chainsaw man. Yeah, I was a little bit worried that he was going to survive this or not. I don't know if Deji's going to survive this or not. It's Chainsaw man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was a little bit worried that he was going to be dead after like what, was it like two chapters back where he just had a spike in his head?
Speaker 1:Well, also like the author, I've read some of their one-shots. They have no problem hurting me. Hmm, no hesitation whatsoever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no hesitation whatsoever yeah, yeah, you know what would not work Ryota and.
Speaker 1:Kenshin in America, but it is a really good end. So Ryota and Kenshin in Kaiju. Number 8 had very similar endings where it's like are you trying to set up a sequel? Because you can, hmm okay.
Speaker 2:So I guess actually, like I know, I was a little bit dissatisfied with the ending kaiju number eight, just because of how no consequences your term hollywood it became.
Speaker 1:It was the hollywood ending oh yeah, um, okay, actually I gotta go on a little side tangent here, beautiful, we have the.
Speaker 2:Was the Hollywood ending? Oh yeah, okay, actually I got to go on a little side tangent here, beautiful, we have the time this week. So I don't remember if I mentioned it on this podcast or on the Dagger Art podcast, but I was on Webtoon. The little ad came up Read the action series. Everybody's talking about Ordeal.
Speaker 1:Yep, this was on the, not in. This didn't make it into this podcast perfect uh and uh, I, uh.
Speaker 2:So I was like, well, I mean, it says that everybody's talking about it. I might as well at least watch the trailer. And for the trailer they just like straight up animated the first episode of the manhwa, and so it looks sick. Because it's about this human in a world where people have basically awakened powers and he's trying to be the best fighter. But because he's human and the other people are like increased durability and have superpowers, it's a real struggle for him. So his master gets killed is a real struggle for him. So his master gets killed, yeah. And then there's a four month time skip and we go to a tournament which only has two rounds before the murderer basically announces on live television that he's going to kill the main character because he killed the main character's master, and so then, since he gets out of the tournament, shuts down, and then there's another four-month time skip, which is one of the other reasons I dropped. It is because ten chapters in and there's already been two time skips. Who do you think?
Speaker 1:you are Solo leveling. The best anime of all time that won all the awards for its peak writing.
Speaker 2:Solo leveling had no time skips, isn't it? Well, I mean, it kind of did, but that's way later and kind of. Anyway, that's not really the point, solo leveling read like a montage like a montage. The point of the matter is, almost immediately after reading these 10 chapters of ordeal, having these two four-month time skips, I read Kaiju number eight, the final chapter, and there was a four-month time skip. Yep, and I'm like is there something special about four-month time skips? Like how did this come up so often?
Speaker 1:I don't know Like I understand the idea of a season time skip, right? So like, if you're going to time skip, you either go for a season or a year, right? The reason for the four-month time skip, in my theory and I'm just like most things I say and do, pulling things out of my ass at random is the idea that if you want to show something in a visual media time passing, you show the leaves on a tree, right, you show the snow, so four months is enough time to go from winter to summer, and then you do the one year time skip and then you show them with kids that are made by taking the hair of one character in the face of another.
Speaker 2:The breeder ending. At least Kaiju number eight didn't do that.
Speaker 1:You know, the worst part is I would have let Kaiju number eight get away with that, if Kaiju number eight. The next scene was Kafka married to Asi, though I would have been fine with that because it was kind of low-key, a love story in the background, but not really. They didn't go that way. They never kissy kissy, which is actually wild self-restraint. They might have just admired each other and been friends, which is almost impossible in manga.
Speaker 1:So it's like they give Kafka a dope little beard thing for being in the hospital and he runs around being spec ops. I'm like, yeah, this is a great ending for him another just random side note, this LSE series.
Speaker 2:Another just random side note, this LSE series. So his mentor, caden, is like top 10 global power ranking and the only reason he doesn't fight anyone in the course of this year where he's recovering is because he's recovering. But because he's recovering, but because he's so powerful and his skills are so unique and important and he's teaching his apprentice, his apprentice ends up meeting the number one ranked, awakened in South Korea and she's a beautiful young woman and Awakened in South.
Speaker 2:Korea and she's a beautiful young woman, and it's just Two attractive characters. Now they're dating.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Sure is writing in there I I stand by my statement that, after about 150 chapters, series will lose their way, and I do genuinely feel like I'm still reading it. It's still ongoing, but I definitely feel like the LSE has lost its way.
Speaker 1:Fair. The thing about Kaiju no 8's ending is it was a non-bo-ending. It ended before 150 chapters, but it didn't lose its way at any point. No, and to be fair, the World Trigger selection arc is probably the length of Kaiju number 8.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure if World Trigger is losing its way or not. I think it's really just sticking to its gun and having a bad editor.
Speaker 1:Well, like, just put some things back into, like the kaiju thing. It was a while back when we got near the ending, where I'm like, oh, they did their dope team-up. I guess we're pretty much done here. And you're like I don't know if we're pretty much done. I'm like, yeah, we're pretty much done because we hit our like thematic conclusion and I'm happy that we but I do want them to expand laterally with the franchise Like I want spinoffs of this Because it wouldn't be Aspuls.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean the ramifications Like if the spinoff was Americans trying to figure out who Kaiju no 8 is.
Speaker 1:Right, or, like I said, you just call it kaiju, number eight. But like it's a hot take, the fact he turned into a kaiju was the least interesting part of his character. Yeah, so I'm watching through it again and like he would have still made it as an officer without his kaiju powers Straight up. Oh yeah, well, he passed that exam with his 1% power by saving people doing data analytics passing the test Like he made it in on his own and that was being a good, useful person. But yeah, for him to have cool fight scenes, we're going to give him a super mode.
Speaker 2:I'm like man. If he was just the old dude doing his best, I would have been completely on board.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but also he could have been the man in the chair. Well, I like to be on the field with a handgun, being like, yeah, my specialty is dismantling kaiju and studying them, so I'm gonna like do that on the battlefield and occasionally like set up for my allies to the idea of a protagonist, like back when World Trigger was good being, I'm a protagonist. I'm aware I'm not that good, so my job is to set up my awesome teammates. It's such a reasonable and like well sound out motivation and plot mechanic and like lesson for people right, because we've had enough of the super special boy is the best at everything ever.
Speaker 1:Well, we say that, but solo leveling. One more worse than free rent. So writing is dead People are dumb.
Speaker 2:Give solo leveling some credit. No, particularly season one, his motivation for going into the dungeon that gave him his powers and the weight of the choice that he made. And he's so consistent right up to the end of that season that all he really wants is that elixir to wake up his mom.
Speaker 1:So here's my problem with soul leveling. He has a really really strong core motivation, I think so here's the problem with solo leveling he has a really really strong core motivation, I think. So here's the problem with solo leveling beating out other things. The problem with solo leveling is it's really easy to make a bad solo leveling clone. True, because it's in the worst genre, the most popular genre, so it's like solo leveling being I won all these awards, I'm amazing means people are going to write hundreds and thousands of solo levelings.
Speaker 2:You have no idea how many dungeon series I've seen on Webtoon.
Speaker 1:And the thing is, frearin was harder to write. They had to draw a map. They had to name characters and interactions. They had to write a thousand. They had to name characters and interactions. They had to write a thousand years of history before and after. They had to write an entire novel behind freerun to be shown through snippets through freerun. Right like. If you told me what would be easier to write solo leveling of freerun, I could write solo leveling. Dude with motivation keeps getting powered up and oring on people. Well, following ekasi rules that are lifted directly out of old school JRPGs, I could write solo leveling. Right, right. So it's like solo leveling. Doing good is fine, I freely confess solo leveling is good. My problem is being inspired by solo leveling will create garbage.
Speaker 1:Being inspired by Free Rain being inspired by something weird like Moonrise, being inspired by Kagura Banshee means we'll get cool shit If everyone's like, solo leveling is the best anime of all time. We don't need overpowered protagonist fights through RPG system to become the most have the biggest dick. We simply do not need that. So it's like the Naruto example I love to give is a lot of things want to be Dragon Ball Z. After Dragon Ball Z, right, naruto came out and then suddenly everyone was in three person squads, right, right, yeah. However, as a writing device, pairing three characters together with different motivations under a sensei to do the MacGuffin Still means there's a lot of room for creativity in there. Right, right, like JJK, is just Naruto and Bleach fused together. World.
Speaker 2:Trigger is just sci-fi. Naruto, I can see what you're saying. Solo leveling is probably the peak of a mediocre genre.
Speaker 1:So it's like if Free Rin won all these awards, we'd have people trying to write fantasy epics. A poorly written fantasy epic is going to be better than the second best all these awards, we'd have people trying to write fantasy epics. A poorly written fantasy epic is going to be better than the second best Ikasai by a mile, because the difference is one of them has to do work to build a world. The 1970-something Record of the Lotus War holds up better than the Ikasai genre.
Speaker 2:So there was this Dev devourer artifacts series, I think. I think that's what it's called. I don't even know. There's only three chapters out. Um and uh, it's like the. The characters have a uh status screen to check their level and and they have quests and inventories and whatever. God.
Speaker 1:I hate it. I hate it so much.
Speaker 2:The basic premise is that this guy, he gets his power when he's 25, but he doesn't actually figure out how to use it until he's 55. Right, so he spends 30 years just becoming a badass swordsman. But he's really tired of being a badass swordsman because it's so much harder for him than the people who are actually using their powers effectively. And his power is to absorb artifacts and learn the skills that are in the artifact.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Then for some reason he gets sent back 30 years in time. So now he's in his 25-year-old body, he has all of his swordsman skills and now he basically has a glimpse of the future and can easily find more artifacts to become more powerful.
Speaker 1:It started to go into Ikasai. Redo your another life. Sub-genre territory.
Speaker 2:And then it also has dungeons.
Speaker 1:Sure so. Remember when I gave my rant the other day about the badass swordsman dude who's just an old dude from the boonies. What was it like? The old dude from the boonies is the best swordsman in the world or something some literalized name from country bumpkin to master swordsman I close, and I was watching that one and they're like there's magic in this world. I'm like there's literally no reason for there to be magic in this world. You gain nothing.
Speaker 2:Well, but so the worst thing about people trying to copycat solo leveling with this dungeon mechanic even solo leveling, it takes place in Korea but they don't actually bother to do any world building, because you just go into a dungeon instead of actually exploring the world.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:It's a cop-out, and so it's like, yeah, I've seen so many of these dungeon-style series. There's another one which I actually do enjoy, but that's just because it has more compelling characters. But Dungeon Porter, again, they have a whole world but they aren't actually exploring the world because they go into the dungeons.
Speaker 1:I think part of why I throw so much shade at solo leveling other than genre burnout is it's easy for me to imagine ways that solo leveling would be better. So here's a hot take we take everything that happens in solo leveling right, but instead of dungeons it takes place in the Hunter x Hunter world. So he's still doing his, everyone has their Nen powers and his power's still leveling, trying to save his mother by doing these dangerous missions and gets killed in a mission. But instead of portals, they're actually going places.
Speaker 1:It would just be better, in my opinion, because there would just be a magical island of ants, because Ants that escape from the dungeon.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of what always makes me complain about solo leveling. It's like, yeah, have like the best possible production value on the best possible ekosai. But man, oh man, would I be more excited if berserk had a resurgence and people were trying really hard to make good stories. Because you can't half-ass freerun. Now, that's true, you simply can't. If you half-ass free-ran, that's true, you simply can't. If you half-ass free-ran, you just end up with an ikasai. So, yeah, that's to summarize my rant. It's not that I'm against solo leveling, it's that I'm against solo elevating being considered the best because it's like you watch leveling, you get hyped with it. Solo leveling will be forgotten in five years Because it doesn't have anything really to say by the end of it.
Speaker 2:Like it's sick to be in it.
Speaker 1:It's like the MCU of anime, no MCU like Marvel Endgame. Best movie of all time. Objectively, no one has it listed as their favorite movie of all time. Sales say it was Budget and acting says it was Right. That's what solo leveling is.
Speaker 1:It's like it's really cool, competently assembled, decently written for what it is, but doesn't have anything more deep or meaningful to say about the world. Let's take Kaiju number 8, for example. The core message in Kaiju number 8 is really straightforward You're never too old to put in the work and fight for what you believe in. Right, that's it. That is the entire message.
Speaker 1:It's not a complex message well, and then also uh, don't try and shoulder everything to yourself too yeah, like there's a big part of it's never too late to give up on your dreams, but there's a time in place to trust those around you. So, mm, so like, yeah, kaiju, number eight, which is a great comparison to solo leveling, by the way, because they're both the most special special boy, right.
Speaker 2:But Shinwoo doesn't learn anything?
Speaker 1:No, he does not. He is a static character, and Richard the writer Cannot tolerate A static, static character winning Crunchyroll's Most Interesting Character award.
Speaker 2:Wait, the most interesting character he won. Most Interesting Character? Yeah, no, he's not the most interesting character. Like I said, I really appreciate the depth of his motivation and the weight of the choices that he makes, particularly early on and even when all the other S-Ranks go to Jeju Island to fight the ants and he decides to stick back in Korea because he wants to stick back on the mainland, because he wants to spend time with his mom and help her after her coma or whatever spend time with his mom and help her after her coma or whatever. Like, I really do think season one, in particular season two somewhat, his motivation and his character was really solid, but you are right that, aside from that motivation, there's not much to him.
Speaker 1:Because, yeah, for it to be a character, the events of the story need to change you over the course of it. Right, you need to be a different person at the end than you are at the start for the story to have meant anything you want, kate.
Speaker 2:I don't know about that definition there, because he literally becomes a different character at the end.
Speaker 1:No, he becomes a different character. The character he is 10 episodes in is a character he is 200, the first 10. He goes, that's fair, and then he stays the exact same right where we take something like full metal alchemist and he goes through like you literally watch him grow in real time. So it's like, yeah, yeah, to be like solo leveling dethrones, full metal alchemist is His best anime of all time. Like that can't be true.
Speaker 2:Simply cannot be the world we live in Something, something media literacy. Also did nobody watch Arcane, I don't know. I watched most of season one and, uh, I mean it was beautiful.
Speaker 1:It was interesting.
Speaker 2:It's very interesting Uh but it all felt kind of oddly contrived and I didn't actually bother watching season two.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well Also. I also find it some bullshit that Soul Leveling won Best New Series, when it's like you don't get Best New Series. Yeah, well also. I also find it some bullshit that solo leveling won best new series, when it's like you don't get best new series if you're already a successful novel.
Speaker 2:That feels like some bullshit well, the studio that picked up solo leveling is one of the contenders to pick up Kaga Robachi for the anime adaptation that is expected to be announced at the end of this year.
Speaker 1:I only want Kagura Banshee to start when solo leveling is over. Also, kagura Banshee will beat solo leveling into the ground for the best anime ever if it gets the same attention to detail as Soul Leveling's anime got.
Speaker 2:Like I said, that same studio is one of the rumored picks for a studio to actually pick it up and get it animated.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I'm not even mad. Soul Leveling won Best Anime. I'm mad. It won Best Main Character. That broke me. Like the characters that would give a better main character. That broke me. Like the characters, I would give a better main character than Sun Jin Woo. I find Mashal more compelling.
Speaker 2:Oh, Mashal is just one punch man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Saitama is absolutely more compelling than Jin gen woo at being gen woo the most special special boy. Well like, gen woo is basically bella from twilight. Like anyone could project themselves into being gen woo. That's why the series did so well like. It's not hard to imagine yourself being Jinwoo.
Speaker 2:For like literally anybody.
Speaker 1:Where you cannot imagine yourself being Freerun Like you physically can't. I am simply not old or autistic enough. So our original question, though soul leveling in America would be great. They do mention America hunters like it's one of those worlds where I'm like, yeah, you can just see what's going on, although, to be fair, it didn't really do much with being in Korea well, aside from Jeju Island, because that's like one of their most iconic landmarks is Jeju Island.
Speaker 1:It's a hot take, but I feel like the average viewer, if you weren't to tell them if it took place in Japan or Korea and they watched the Japanese dubbed would probably assume Japan until they start throwing shade at the Japanese hunters.
Speaker 2:Until the Japanese hunters show up to try and help with Jeju Island yeah, the classic.
Speaker 1:Oh, I didn't realize these characters weren't the same race until a character specifically on screen told me they were different races, I see but uh, do you have any other random questions for us today?
Speaker 2:yes, our random questions.
Speaker 1:Ba ba da da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da da. Okay this one is.
Speaker 2:So you've been cursed.
Speaker 1:So you've been cursed by a Jabberwocky and you have to choose one of two curses you can only speak in rhymes or only dramatically whisper, dramatically whisper. So what's more of a detriment you can only speak in a whisper or you can only rhyme.
Speaker 2:Oh, you can only speak in a whisper. Or you can only rhyme. Oh, you can only speak in a whisper, as a way bigger detriment, but you can say whatever you want. I mean yeah, but I mean only speaking in rhymes. That's just a skill you can increase over time. Your ability to lay down some sick bars would be off the charts. You'd be able to grab people's hearts.
Speaker 1:The reason I'm choosing rhymes, especially for this times, is if I'm magically forced to do it, not only would it give the average person a fit, but I can't complete this. The actual point I was trying to build up to rhyming before I caved in is, if I'm magically compelled, it becomes a thing I just do. And since I'm a public facing career, the fact that I just rhyme at everything because I can't not rhyme would be insane. As a, as a shtick Cause, that means Richard Kivas writer, author, dah dah, dah, dah never does it rhyme would be insane.
Speaker 2:Yeah, commitment to a bit or, if you're forced to speak, an iambic pentameter like people feel like is he doing it intentionally?
Speaker 1:if someone asked me like, why are you doing them? Like I've been cursed, it's the worst. And they'd be like stop it. It's shaking me as I'm getting mrs done to figure out what's wrong with my brain.
Speaker 2:Uh, yeah, so I mean essentially the. The dramatic whisper is definitely a far worse detriment.
Speaker 1:I would much rather be cursed with rhyming than whispering it really depends what you do, though, because part of me, like I might have to pick whispering, because I dm in things, like I think I actually have to pick whispering because if I can whisper loudly it's annoying, but I don't know if I could do my job only speaking in rhymes, like I might just get fired so I hate it. But like whispering I could be like what happened? I inhaled fire and this is loudest I can talk and then give me disability funding. It'd be harder to prove that rhyming is a disability.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's true. Okay, you can be, you can be the whisperer and I will be the rhymer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you could get away with it. More Oof this one's rough. Would you rather be immortal, but you're constantly aging, or live only 30 years, but in absolute peak condition?
Speaker 2:Well Too real. No, well too real 30 years, but an absolute peak. I mean, I think I would probably still go for the peak condition because, I don't know, I'm going to be immortal, but constantly aging, because that level of immortality, uh, the fact that you're super old, uh it's something that eventually medical sciences might just be able to help with, like you might just be able to ship a thesaurus yourself see, that's what I was thinking.
Speaker 1:So I was gonna pick aging. But also I feel like I'm it's weird I'm almost old enough for the 30 years to be tempting, so there's a certain threshold. So if I was 40 and like, oh, I live to 70 in a better condition than I'm in now, like hmm. So it's like the later I am in life, the more likely I'm inclined to pick the peak condition one. Because if I was 60 right now, I'm like oh, my next 30 years I live, like I'm in my 30s Done. So it really determines where the counter starts.
Speaker 2:I didn't even consider the fact that you might still have your previous life experience. I was just like literally only live 30 years. I would rather be immortal.
Speaker 1:I really want to know what my hands would be like if I was in peak condition, like, how peak is this peak condition?
Speaker 2:If it's peak condition for you, then that would just be how you were when you were 25.
Speaker 1:For me, not actually because I was so underweight as a kid. I think peak condition is me now oh Actually it condition is me now oh Actually it might have been me. I think peak condition is probably mid-kitchen manager. So probably about four years ago was probably my peak condition, but I didn't peak to like 30s because I was like, didn't treat my body particularly well and wasn't in particularly good shape. I was not in my prime in my 20s.
Speaker 2:That was simply untrue Gentle breeze and I was dead as you were a kid drinking that poisonous milk.
Speaker 1:To be fair, I don't think anyone should be drinking milk, but yeah, it was rough.
Speaker 2:Well, but yeah, those were some very interesting random questions. Uh audience members, if you keep submitting them to us, we will uh feature audit random questions and until uh, well, I mean this is going to go on forever, since today is the day of my uh consultation, so it'll never be ending, but we both just agreed to be immortal, but constantly aging, so send in those questions there are deep space and dragons, mugs do exist, and oh yeah I have one exciting things will be in the horizon at some point.
Speaker 1:I'm always on the fence of being like do we want more merch? What direction do we want to take this show? We are so swayed by fan feedback. Guys, you don't understand. You could send us a thing and be like I need you to read the Iliad and do an episode on it. We would do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, I do love looking up classic literature. My next classic novel I want to try and find is Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Speaker 1:I might have gotten that backwards, but I don't think so. Really funny though, me getting my master's in literature and you having read more books than me.
Speaker 2:I don't even recommend reading Dracula. I don't even recommend reading Dracula. It's the cornerstone of vampire fantasy and yet it's just not worth reading. It was good, but it's not worth reading.
Speaker 1:The correct way to enjoy Dracula is absolutely to watch the animated Castlevania series. That is just the correct way to do it.
Speaker 2:Thanks everyone for listening.
Speaker 1:Stay, stay hydrated, and we mostly stayed on america topic. Bye, mostly bye. I still can't believe bach. He just has a character show up being like I would rape you on musk and donald trump, I'm like what? There's no way, this is real just straight up, he actually name drops them, he's. It was so close to a name drop that like legally, legally it wasn't, but he said the two people he met with were literally called tramp t-r-a-m-p and elso e-l-o-S-O. And I sent you the screenshot, it was Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
Speaker 2:That character model was definitely based on Donald Trump.
Speaker 1:They just weren't even trying to hide it. It's kind of funny because in each Baki series so the fourth one had Obama and Trump, the fifth one had Biden and then Trump, and then the sixth one had Trump and Elon, and they literally had a bit where Trump was excusing Biden of stealing the election, trying to talk Yujiro Hama into killing Biden, and then he just threw him. So good such could you imagine having your manga run long enough to have commentary about every presidential election and then actually doing it. That was the main thing I wanted to talk about was when I saw that in my feed and I'm like how is this possible? So good.
