Platelets, Pizza, And Shonen Jump

We trade recovery notes after a splenectomy, call out an ambulance delay on the shop floor, and pick apart how vacation pay models discourage real rest. Then we dive into AI remixing, creator leverage, and a Shonen Jump sweep from Chainsaw Man’s earned madness to One Punch Man’s drift.

• platelet rebound after splenectomy, targets and confidence
• light duty at work, paid leave structures, and why vacation banking matters
• two-hour ambulance delay, frontline tradeoffs, dignity in crisis
• AI tools as amplifiers, citation leverage, and where originality lives
• pacing as craft: Chainsaw Man’s scope vs One Punch Man’s sprawl
• One Piece long-game payoffs and Kagurabachi’s style vs character
• Ruri Dragon’s teen core with dragon set-dressing
• new series: post-apoc teeth that actually bite, romcoms that stall
• grad school bandwidth, burnout management, and project pacing
• folklore thought experiment and Pokémon electability for fun

Send in your questions to get entered for a signed copy of The Waltz of Blades

Chapters

• 0:00 Cold Open, Banter, And Tech Glitches
• 1:29 Health Update: Splenectomy And Platelets
• 4:28 Work, Recovery, And Vacation Pay Rant
• 10:56 Ambulance Delay And Public Safety Friction
• 16:45 Canada, Cost Of Living, And Where To Live
• 18:36 AI Remix Of Their Show And Creator Rights
• 25:30 Tools Vs Talent: Using AI Without Garbage
• 30:22 Grad School Burnout And Creative Projects
• 34:04 Shonen Jump Roundup: Pacing That Works
• 39:45 One Punch Man, Chainsaw Man, And Scope
• 45:02 One Piece Payoffs And Kagurabachi Cool
• 49:58 JJK Sequel Misfires And Missed Stakes
• 55:40 Rury Dragon, Slice Of Life That Lands
• 1:00:04 New Series: Gory Surprises And Duds
• 1:05:18 Sports, Romcom Harems, And Fatigue
• 1:10:40 Bug Ego Intrigue And Smart Writing
• 1:15:20 Folklore Thought Experiment: Best And Worst
• 1:20:15 Which Pokémon Wins An Election?
• 1:25:10 Listener Giveaway, Sign-Off, And Teasers

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Greetings and welcome to the Carl Show, starring Richard. I'm Richard, starring in Carl's show.

SPEAKER_00: 0:09

And I am Carl, the other star of the show.

SPEAKER_01: 0:14

Speak with confidence, man. At this point we have the two of us. We have more episodes than PDZ. Do we really? I don't know, probably. I haven't checked the Dragon Ball Z episode count in a long time.

SPEAKER_00: 0:35

It's fair. It's not exactly relevant to our daily lives.

SPEAKER_01: 0:39

Oh, I think I ran into a technical difficulty. Can you hear me, sir?

SPEAKER_00: 0:45

I can indeed hear you. There does seem to be a bit of a lag spike, though.

SPEAKER_01: 0:48

Oh well, that'll just be in the polished episode. To go down in history.

SPEAKER_00: 0:55

Oh yeah, the most polished episode is because that's what our a podcast is all about.

SPEAKER_01: 0:59

To be fair, if they all bought more copies of my book, we could afford an editor, so it's our listeners' fault for our quality. Oh, that's so rough. Okay. This is the classic Simpsons meet of no, I'm not wrong. It's the children who are wrong. Uh but real talk. What is new with you? Platelets, I hope.

SPEAKER_00: 1:26

Uh well. Well, so I mean, on that front, um I I had mentioned to you off stream, uh, but so like my platelets were low, uh, pre-splenectomy. Um, and then they took out my spleen. And they shot up through the roof. Uh the upper panic limit is a thousand. Uh oh well. I guess that would be a million platelets per microliter of blood.

SPEAKER_01: 1:54

These are numbers, yes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:56

Um but they uh for whatever reason it's like RPM, they had to count platelets. You know, it's like you're you're at a thousand when you're at a million. Uh anyway. More to the point, uh at the peak I was at over like twelve hundred uh platelets. Um but apparently that's a normal rebound for post-uh splenectomy. Uh and this week they're down to a much more respectable, like 400 and or 550-ish. Uh, and the target is around 300. So, you know, not above the upper panic line, but I'm still a little bit uh above the platelet's normal range.

SPEAKER_01: 2:44

I mean that at least implies the surgery did something.

SPEAKER_00: 2:50

That definitely did something.

SPEAKER_01: 2:52

Because I have to imagine that uh if having a rebound effect is better for your mental health than if it did literally nothing and you're like, oh cool.

SPEAKER_00: 3:02

Yeah. Yeah, that's that's fair.

SPEAKER_01: 3:06

Not to transplain how you should feel about your surgery.

SPEAKER_00: 3:12

So, well, I mean I I do feel a bit more confident that uh you know I'm not gonna die in a random knife fight or something. At least not from you know, local.

SPEAKER_01: 3:20

Maybe to our long time listeners, they have no increased confidence that you're not gonna die in a random knife fight. From the information you yourself have given them.

SPEAKER_00: 3:29

Uh, but so um unrelated to the medical drama, um guess nothing really interesting's happened on that front.

SPEAKER_01: 3:39

Yeah, it's just a shame for you to be recovered. Huh? Well, I was gonna say it's like oh no, Carl's not having medical drama. That is bad for our show. Better send it back into surgery.

SPEAKER_00: 3:54

I'll just say, tune in, tune into our podcast next week when we play uh Tiger Heart, uh, and you'll probably hear uh the results of my meeting with a neurologist.

SPEAKER_01: 4:05

But that's a funny sequel hook to be like, will Carl die in medical complications? Watch our spin-up sh. Could you imagine you're like watching an episode of Young Sheldon and they're like, to find out who won the presidential election, tune into next week's Big Bang Theory to find out.

SPEAKER_00: 4:27

Anyways, um but so I I I am fairly nearly uh fully recovered from uh the splenectomy. Um and uh so I've I've returned to work. I've been working for I guess this is like week three um uh post-surgery. And uh been on light duty, so I've had to do work in the back instead of making or cutting pizzas, which I don't really enjoy, but you know, gotta focus on recovery, do some things that are unpleasant to make sure that you actually get recovered.

SPEAKER_01: 5:04

That makes sense. Some people would take multiple days off.

SPEAKER_00: 5:10

I I took I took multiple days off. I took two weeks off.

SPEAKER_01: 5:14

Okay, okay. I mean, I've seen people take two weeks off when you get to like academic positions, like, oh, I'm taking two weeks off just to go to a cabin because I'm feeling kind of stressed. And you're like, well, I lost an organ, so that's 72 hours on paid leave, seems fair. Unless you've got paid leave, and in which case I can suck it with my negativity.

SPEAKER_00: 5:38

Uh well, so I did take two weeks off prior to the surgery, which I did get paid for. Uh, and then the two weeks off I took to actually recover from the surgery, uh, I was paid a portion of my wage through uh employment insurance.

SPEAKER_01: 5:52

Um You tried so hard to like not throw your employment under the bus there, but fair enough.

SPEAKER_00: 6:02

I'm just saying, uh my my boss pays out uh the required Saskatchewan vacation pay on every paycheck, and then in addition to that, uh offers people two weeks of of paycheck.

SPEAKER_01: 6:13

I hate that, so I'm gonna give a mini rant. So we've seem to have created some special laws for food service, and every time I see a law where I'm like this was clearly designed to not benefit the employees, my eyes roll. So the theory behind vacation pay is that money is taken off your paycheck, so you can take some time off like every human being needs.

SPEAKER_00: 6:35

Employers that backwards, like that they just add money to your paycheck for vacation pay.

SPEAKER_01: 6:43

Yeah, that's the problem.

SPEAKER_00: 6:44

Well, I mean, but employers are supposed to either bank it or pay it out each paycheck, which my boss pays out each paycheck.

SPEAKER_01: 6:50

Yeah, that's the problem. Do you not see the problem here that to ensure that my staff stays consistent so I can run at the minimum viable employees, under the assumption that no one ever takes time off, I give them their vacation pay slight amounts that barely affect their paycheck, so no so I never have to have large coverage gaps so people never actually rest? Do you not see like the fundamental systemic problem there of if we don't let people build up vacation pay, they won't take vacations. Therefore I can hire less employees, therefore my employees get less days off. Hmm. Because if you weren't allowed to just give them their vacation pay, they would take vacations. But no food entry-level job I've ever worked at has had enough staff to actually cover if every employee took a vacation every year.

unknown: 7:41

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01: 7:42

So it's actually just a way to make sure you don't have coverage gaps. Which isn't particularly ethical.

SPEAKER_00: 7:48

I guess that's uh I I guess that's why it's nice that, as I said, my boss gives us actual paid vacation in addition to the uh legally required Saskatchewan vacation pay.

SPEAKER_01: 8:01

Like I'm not shitting on your job here, I'm shitting on my previous jobs here. Good job to your boss for letting you actually take a vacation.

SPEAKER_00: 8:08

Uh and additionally, uh I uh I I have a friend who works at an entry-level uh he's a wine cook. Um and uh during COVID, uh he well not during COVID, but he made uh for a very long time, he uh accrued a lot of vacation pay. He has something like six or seven grand uh accrued in vacation pay. Uh and his uh place of employment would not allow him to uh withdraw his vacation pay if he wasn't actually going on a vacation. He had to prove he was going somewhere before they would let him let him take it. And he probably board No no He probably could have gone to like the the labor board and uh actually had them forced to pay out a vacation.

SPEAKER_01: 8:54

Yeah, you don't get to choose what counts as a vacation. If someone wants to just take their vacation pay and play Pokemon Go in their apartment, the lamest way to play Pokemon Go, that is their right.

SPEAKER_00: 9:06

Uh, but now uh his workplace is worried that when he quits, uh he'll break their labor budget because he has too much vacation pay that has to pay out.

SPEAKER_01: 9:16

Like, good though, right? Like, the idea is people should be able to take time to rest and recover. And I find those little like tact on vacation pay actively discourage people from resting. Because you just lose money if you take time off that way, because there's no buffer zone. Yeah, that makes sense. So then thus your people don't take time off, they become miserable, and they beat their wives. Like, it's not great. I can say, I'm gonna be brave for coming out and saying this, people should not beat their spouses. I do apologize for the enforced heteronormativity of my statement. Anyone can beat any partner, and it's bad.

SPEAKER_00: 10:00

Gotta be inclusive with your beatings.

SPEAKER_01: 10:02

Oh yeah. It goes both ways. If I'm gonna argue that you should be able to choose whatever gender you want for Lincoln Legend of Zelda be male, be a male anywhere in between. I also have to acknowledge that same-sex couples can beat each other. Like, fairness, quality.

SPEAKER_00: 10:19

Anyways, um, so I'm at work, working in the back section, doing dishes or whatever.

SPEAKER_01: 10:26

Relaxing the pool and shooting some meatball by the school, we get it.

SPEAKER_00: 10:30

Uh a driver cashes out. Um, and so I'm like, okay, the person who cash took the driver probably isn't smart enough to drop money from the till to make sure we don't get robbed.

SPEAKER_01: 10:41

Reasonable. I wouldn't think smart enough, I'd say aware to do so. I'm gonna be nice to make.

SPEAKER_00: 10:50

I'm the manager there. I I have told people that they need to do more drops. Nobody really does drops from the till.

SPEAKER_01: 10:55

I mean, I mean, try giving them a caramel cube whenever they successfully do it.

SPEAKER_00: 11:00

You know, I haven't tried that sort of uh positive reinforcement. Maybe I maybe I should.

SPEAKER_01: 11:04

Like, if I learn anything TA, you treat them like pigeons.

SPEAKER_00: 11:08

Or set up a little like gold star chart and give people stickers on the day after, like, oh, this person did a drop.

SPEAKER_01: 11:14

You know, I literally have like a bunch of stickers in my backpack. I am fully prepared to put stickers on these papers I have to grade tonight.

SPEAKER_00: 11:22

Hmm. That's that's funny. But so I go up front, I I account some money, put it in the safe, and then I realize uh that there's actually someone who's just like sitting on the floor right by the front counter where you wouldn't really be able to see them on camera. You can hardly see them when you're standing at the cam at the counter. So I lean over, ask them if they're okay, if they need an ambulance or something, and I notice they have someone like laying in their lap. Uh, and they're like, oh yeah, he had a seizure. And I was like, oh, so you guys need an ambulance? And the guy working in line behind me is like, oh yeah. I I called an ambulance like 15 minutes ago. They must be crazy, basically they haven't shown up. Okay. Well, I swear. I tell these people that the ambulance is on the way. Uh, and then like an hour passes. Oh no. Uh I come up front to serve a customer and like, hey, you know you have a homeless person sleeping on the floor here around the discounter. It's like, uh, no, they they had a seizure, we're waiting for an ambulance. Like, okay. Uh I don't think the person was very pleased either way. They were kind of laughing about the fact that a homeless person was sleeping there, but I think they felt bad when they found out that it was actually a medical emergency. Um, but so they get their feet and they leave. Um, and then we like called 911 back. The person was on hold for like five minutes. They couldn't couldn't wait that long because we other had other stuff going on, so we had to hang up. They eventually called us back, being like, oh, we had a hang-up call from this phone number. Like, yeah, we were trying to keep you appraised of the situation that we called about like an hour and a half ago. Uh, it took like two hours for the ambulance deck to show up to this guy who had a seizure.

SPEAKER_01: 13:11

So, I often make a joke where I'm like, never go to Saskatchewan, and then I'll be like, nah, I have like personal beef with it. It's not the province's fault. I'm growing and maturing as a person. And then I meet with my friend Carl every couple weeks, and I think to myself, no, no, never go to Saskatchewan.

SPEAKER_00: 13:30

Well, yeah, I I wonder if that's like a uniquely Saskatchewan problem, or if other provinces actually like just have better emergency response services or or what?

SPEAKER_01: 13:40

No, no, because like I go to the Toronto Corps, and it's not like I don't step over human beings on the street while people literally saying, give me money to do crack at Union Station whilst drumming on a ukulele. So it's like it's not like I live in a more pleasant place, it's that I haven't been public-facing in years. Fair enough. So I'm in a like, I live in a suburb. I commute to a place where I'm like, mmm. Uh, this is some sketchy behavior, and then I return back to like my bubble. And I just think to myself, yeah, my bubble's pretty nice. I just chill it in my apartment. I very rarely have to step over somebody on the way. But there's like some key areas where I'm like, mmm. The place where I get off my bus and catch my train, that is probably as sketchy as TJ's pizza. Or Union Station is probably some areas are as sketchy as TJ's pizza, maybe. But then other areas are dark. Oops. Oopsie doodle. Redacted, redacted, redacted. No! Oh no, the feat's being cut. I assume you're fine if we continue this episode, or do we need a re-record?

SPEAKER_00: 14:52

Oh yeah, yeah, no, no. I I I mean, I I joke. We we I've probably said the name multiple times on our podcast.

SPEAKER_01: 14:59

Oh no. I mean, the funny part is though, like, the joking aside, I think anyone who's in Saskatchewan who listens to our podcast, because of who we are as people, out of sheer curiosity, this would be good for sales. Cause the takeaway, like, is like I need to go take a look and see Carl so I can get my tattoo updated to match his new facial hair, and that can't be bad for business.

SPEAKER_00: 15:24

Uh-oh. Oh no. So So but it's like, um. I don't I have no special loyalty to Canada in particular. The the main advantage Canada has over other countries, in my opinion, is the fact that I'm already a Canadian citizen, so I don't have to worry about any immigration shenanigans.

SPEAKER_01: 15:43

One of what my main advantage is for being Canadian. We actually give out literary grants and sp like we actually care about our media, and you can get grants and bursaries and scholarships. Like, Canada's great if you're an artist, because we actually like need those, so we don't just turn to Republicans.

SPEAKER_00: 16:02

Um and I also don't really have a specific loyalty to Saskatchewan, aside from the fact that I I don't know if it's actually true, but I I think Saskatchewan is the cheapest province to live in.

SPEAKER_01: 16:15

Um I'm so bitter that my rent did not go up by nearly enough. It's like my rent in Saskatchewan because they were in that like housing bubble when I moved there. I'm like, no, this is overpriced for where I am. By like a lot. Hmm. Like housing's much better. Like, my good friend's house it like million dollar house in redacted, redacted, redacted, they could just buy like a castle in Saskatchewan. Like, picture a million dollar Saskatchewan house, and the scale is simply different.

SPEAKER_00: 16:45

Right, right. Uh but no, I was I was joking with my fiance. I was like, yeah, maybe we should just like jump ship to move to France. Maybe. But uh apparently she uh she likes Canada and she doesn't want to move to France, so no plans to move to Europe as of yet. But we'll see.

SPEAKER_01: 17:07

I'm apathetic and lazy, right? I'm a human being who's desperately tried to seek out stability for the last 35 years or so. So, like, my main motivation to not move is like I'm trying to just structure to be in a situation where I don't have to move. But also in academia, I'm probably in the best place I could be in Canada, realistically, for just like the number of universities within range of me.

SPEAKER_00: 17:34

Right, right. I mean, like Vancouver.

SPEAKER_01: 17:37

Well, think about it. From my current location at Redacted, I can take a train to go to six different universities about equal distance. Oh wow. And several of them are in the top university, and there's the ones I go to. So, like there's some like options available.

SPEAKER_00: 17:58

Okay, so be but before we move on to what's new with you directly, um, I uh I have some questions about uh Mutual, what's new with us, uh, which is um you had a meeting with Man in the Hat about the uh recording of someone analyzing our episode, um one of our episodes. Uh and uh On the initial listen through, uh I was completely fooled. I did not realize there was an AI uh creation. Um but my question is, uh, through your meeting with Man in the Hat, firstly, uh this might be useful information for people who are creative and or create content for the internet, um did he give us any tips about what should do if someone steals your content? And secondly, do we have any idea who prompted an AI to analyze our content?

SPEAKER_01: 18:49

So, the first thing is Man in the Hat himself assembled that pseudo-podcast. Ah, okay. So, for what the situation was interesting because he used a feature to take our podcast and create a shorter, more condensed version of it where it was in the form of people analyzing our podcast on a meta-level.

SPEAKER_00: 19:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 19:10

But he didn't use that to illustrate the AI as bad points. Instead, he was using it to illustrate the bridge between the humanities and the tech sector. Because we're in a situation right now where with all these digital tools and the idea of like prompt engineers emerging that a humanities basis is actually in the most hirable position it's ever been in because content can be created so easily, good quant quality content has actually spiked drastically. So let's take that 15-minute pseudo-podcast about us example. Okay. If they didn't have the source material of me and you doing deep dives into gingerbread and medical problems and things, that content simply couldn't exist. So if someone goes on the internet and creates a ghost copy of our content. A, we can send a cease and desist and have it pull it down. But B, we just simply reach out and say, you need to cite us, and then their traffic gets redirected to us because we're the authority on it. So if that video got posted and someone Googled it, it would actually leave them to us. Because we have an existing creative set. So what happens in theory is the more people who steal us with generative content, the more traffic it actually directs to us. Right. And the more power and authority we have. So we're in this weird area where like the people, the tech bros are the ones most at risk of being eliminated by tech bros. Like, tech bros and middle management are doomed. Yeah, okay. Where creatives kind of need to exist, because they're the only ones who can make the tools make anything of value. Like if you try and have Sora 2 make a video and you have no cinematography training, you're just can only make bad cloned videos that then get decent assisted and take down. Where, say for example, someone does like five years of screenwriting and gets their screenwriting MFA. The things they could make are just simply not on the same scale. Like for example, uh if someone gives me an essay written by ChatGPT, I can edit it to being good in like ten minutes, right? Right. Where they would never be able to figure out what was wrong with it. So it's like this cheat code has made it's basically if you've only played Mega Man X with save states, and then they release all games that have save states, they won't actually know how to play the game, and then we'll just get stonewalled by the boss of the game because they don't actually I didn't build up any skills to be able to do the thing. Right, right. So I was flattered by the idea that someone stole our content. And I'm still flattered by the idea of people stealing our content.

SPEAKER_00: 21:56

I I was I was also flattered. Uh like I said, I was duped uh by the uh by the AI. Looking back, I would like to say that I could have figured out it was AI. There were a few telltale signs like uh it didn't uh seem to fully understand that my hospital visit was for the splenectomy and not necessarily having anything to do with the palsy of the third nerve.

SPEAKER_01: 22:17

Where I'm kind of like having my hot take on AI is sort of pivoting a bit to it's the worst, and more that people are the worst. Because, like, as we were talking pre-stream about grading and essays, is that you mentioned like, would you rather read ChatGPT generated essays, or would you rather read handwritten essays? What's gonna be more interesting? And it really determined by the quality of the person and how many I'll use up my F bomb early fucks I give. So if you wrote an essay on anything, and you're like, okay, and you use Chat GPT and generative sources, but actually like uploaded the articles manually, made sure the citations, right? Like, you use it to write the essay, but you assembled all the research, all the pieces. It would probably be a better read than if I locked you in a room for two hours and said, here's a copy of the screenplay for Pokemon the first movie, tell me what it's about. Because in theory, having the AI write the essay part, if you do the research, make the points, build the through lines right into the story beats, it will be a more interesting read, because you've removed the barrier of logistics, right? You've removed syntax from the equation and went straight into here's my idea, I had to tool shape it. But what happens is people aren't using it to build something, they're using it to fill it full of blood. And I, with my six years of creative writing training, if I see a sentence that says, The themes of the play were influenced by the themes of the play, I'm just gonna be, no! You said nothing! So, if someone has me something ChatGPT written, I am going to be savage about it. I'm gonna be like, oh, that's a colon where there should be a semicolon. You had a robot write this, get your life together. Hey! What do you mean that's a fake quote? Fail! So it's like if someone uses all the tools to the best of their ability and writes something good, sure. But you already have to be kinda good, or else you wrote nothing. And it's easier to fail though. So it's like if these 50 essays instead of handwritten were ChatGPT written, that'd be kinda great. Because I could just look at them and be like, fail, fail, fail, fail, ooh. Or send an email and be like, send me a screenshot of how you generated an M-dash. And they'll be like, um, and like fail. Hey, I saw that you use parentheses instead of braces. What's a parenthesis? Uh, fail. Right, like, it's almost like it's easier to sift through the garbage when their garbage is so obviously garbage. Like, if I'm doing submission reading and it says Chat GPT set, I'm like, that's great, fail.

SPEAKER_02: 25:08

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01: 25:09

But yeah, I'm not actually opposed to people using AI tools to make stuff. I am opposed to them making money off it because no one should legally loan anything made by AI because it's a crime machine committing crime. Like, my per my crusade against copyright infringement not being forced by these AI tools is unrelated to my crusade against quote unquote artist end quote using the tool. Because it's like, I'm not gonna be mad if Carl uses Sora 2 to write Aizen versus Madara Sheehan animated. However, Sora 2 should not have the footage needed to generate this, because that's a crime. And Carl should not be able to sell me this video, because that's a crime. Like, you see the problem, right? Like, they're crime machines that committed crime, and crime shouldn't be legal because enough people crime at once. Like, why is it that if I steal a line from Harry Potter, that's a crime. It's like, why isn't Nintendo can copyright strike me for a Zelda mod, but OpenAI can put the entirety of Majora's mask into its coding base and then output Majora's mask. Like, why why is the not a crime in that case?

SPEAKER_00: 26:26

Well, anyway, that's enough of AI ranting. Uh sure, I got another hour. Well, yeah, but we need we need to get through what's new with you so that we can get onto our actual topic, which I believe is shown and jump roundup since there's new content in shown and jump.

SPEAKER_01: 26:40

Fair. So the what's new with me is typically how it's been a lot of times of grad school, fun classes, working on stuff. Like, not a lot of interesting things. So this week, I'm not gonna say I hit burnout, but there's a couple days where I went home and like instead of working on this project, I'm going to slowly make bacon-fried prokies and take a nap. So, like, Tuesday I came home, cooked dinner, took a nap. Wednesday I came home, caught up on anime, went to bed. Cause it's like I need to like save what little bits of brain power I have left in the tank so I can work on these massive assignments.

unknown: 27:16

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 27:17

Because this weekend I need to write a 40-page paper.

SPEAKER_02: 27:20

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01: 27:21

Which means I've kind of been like saving up my energy, because that's how sleep works. So I can spend it all this weekend.

SPEAKER_00: 27:28

Make sense.

SPEAKER_01: 27:29

And then I have to like start getting my paperwork together to apply for doctorates. It's a whole thing. So nothing. So you actually have you're gonna have to apply for your doctorates already, eh? These timelines are brutal. They'll be like, send out an application by end of December, and I'm like, but I haven't done anything yet. Anywho. So there's a good chance I send out applications this year. Don't get in, then send it out next year when I have more stuff done.

SPEAKER_00: 27:57

Makes sense.

SPEAKER_01: 27:58

The games. And yeah, like, I'm just kind of being slammed by work. I have this stack of essays I'm clearly procrastinating grading. I'm using this, I'm using this as an excuse to practicate rogue. No, I woke up today, I'm like, well, I'll do the essays after my podcast, because clearly that's a good strategy. I should play through a Mega Man game instead of grading these papers, because I need to kill time for the podcast, right? Mm-hmm. Although we did get a surge of random questions in this week, which is lovely, which will come up later at the end of the episode. Because I like giving outside copies of the book. I had to order another ten pack of Welta Blades to start signing and handing out, which is I'm happy I burned through my stock. That is great.

SPEAKER_00: 28:39

That is great news.

SPEAKER_01: 28:41

Because I do enjoy giving people free things.

SPEAKER_00: 28:44

Well, and uh the entire point of this podcast has been to build your brand, so the fact that it's been successful is is fantastic. Indeed.

SPEAKER_01: 28:52

Our objectively high quality media content. And then later AI will then scan all of our episodes and write our biography. Oh, that should be fun. I should do that. Load up every one of our transcripts into a machine and be like, write the life story of Richard and Carl and see what it gives us. That would be pretty funny. I think it'd give us, like, it'd basically output JoJo's bizarre adventure. Like, I wonder how many generations of Carl it thinks is talked about, because he've definitely died on podcast at least four times. As far as the algorithm's concerned.

unknown: 29:24

Yep, that's true.

SPEAKER_01: 29:25

Like, I think at one point I've said on here I'm actually a 20,000-year-old vampire who's just simply hides indoors so much that no one noticed I don't go in direct sunlight.

SPEAKER_00: 29:35

I I think you've also said that I'm like the fourth or fifth generation of Carl clones. Yep. Because I keep having spleen failure.

SPEAKER_01: 29:46

And it's like we keep taking a chunk of spleen that makes the last one, and then it just kinda keeps going. But yeah, not a whole lot new with me. Like, I I run Daggerheart. I actually like booked the Fancy conference room to run a cohort Dega Heart game in a couple weeks. But I was gonna run the prefab adventure, but there's not enough characters, so I have to write some more pre-fab characters. Ah. Because I think I'm gonna run for like I'm capping it at nine people, because that's the most like I've ever Well, I ran pretty massive games. But you started diminishing returns around that point.

SPEAKER_00: 30:22

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01: 30:23

And then like I'm actually asking one of my classmates to like take notes about how it goes so I can use it for a research paper later if I want. Which is the excuse I use to get the nice boardroom. Yeah. So like this weekend I have a daggerheart session, next weekend I have a daggerheart session. Uh two weeks into the boardroom I have a daggerheart session. But I'm really just not that exciting right now. I was exciting last week and the week before, but I'm like, no no, I got I got stuff to do. Student life has come up.

SPEAKER_00: 30:53

I mean, that's fair, because Short and Jump, I don't know if I'd say it's exciting right now, but it's worth just slowly shifting.

SPEAKER_01: 31:01

Alright. Yeah. So let's start with what I have to dunk on every week. Has the Martial King gotten good yet? Because I don't think so. I'm still very mad at it.

SPEAKER_00: 31:13

It still doesn't know what it wants to be. Uh the artist is amazing. The story is written by AI. And thus the main character is shifting to be an AI.

SPEAKER_01: 31:23

I'll allow it. That seems accurate. It just It's so inconsistently written that it frustrates me. And I also. So a podcast I was watching was complaining about My Hero Academia. And what they're complaining about was why is there fan service when you put all these kids in high school? Like, it's like they'll come up with these asinine justifications, like, oh, she uses her body fat to make objects. That's why she wears this. Like, you could have just not wrote the power to work that way. So, in Marshall King, I always think, why are they high school students? This has makes no sense. There's literally no reason to do this at all, whatsoever. So you're doing this like anime fan service bullshit, which happened a lot in this chapter. Because, like, there's no narrative justification whatsoever for her to be wearing a skirt. It simply does not make sense.

SPEAKER_00: 32:21

In the desert that used to be the Pacific Ocean.

SPEAKER_01: 32:24

In the desert that used to be the Pacific Ocean, why would you be in a high school outfit? There's simply no reason it would work out that way. And it's like, why are these characters even minors in gun school? You choose how old they are. And then like the character designs just are so inconsistent that you say the art school and I disagree, because every character's either weird, angry, chibi, or 32-year-old that says they're 18. I'm like, what is happening here? So Marshall King, despite doing fun things of color effects, just keeps making me mad.

SPEAKER_00: 33:05

Uh well, I mean, sad rhymes with mad, and uh One Punch Man has made me sad, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01: 33:15

One Punch Man, I hate to say it, it comes out so inconsistently and slowly that they should have just ended it after the Garo fight, because like I don't care, man.

SPEAKER_00: 33:27

Well and that for some reason, we've probably talked about this before too, but but for some reason they've posted official chapters on the uh Shonen Jump app, and then when uh the authors uh decide to rewrite these chapters, they'll just take those chapters down and replace them without any sort of notification whatsoever.

SPEAKER_01: 33:50

It does seem like what I would do, to be fair.

SPEAKER_00: 33:53

Yeah, but like do these authors write themselves into a corner? Do they not know what to do with Sitom anymore? Where it's like, oh, he's fighting a powerful monster and he just jumps into space and then comes back and there's news coverage that makes a little gag about it about him being the one who was kidnapped.

SPEAKER_01: 34:12

So I made this rant a while ago where one of the problems of new gen anime is they it was I call it the pendulum effect. So we started by having simply too much filler being added into things, right? Where we hit a point where Naruto was what, 70% filler? Like, or Bleach was like literally 70% filler. Right. So then we pendulum and they switch from doing a weekly model to a season model, and then My Hero Academia has literally no filler. Yeah, okay. My favorite example of this is Inuwasha's first six seasons, every major conflict or plot arc took place over two or three episodes, right? Like the hair demon was a problem that took like three episodes, Soshomaru took like three episodes. Then they take their three-year break and they release their like Inuasha the final act, and suddenly every plot point goes from being three episodes to half an episode. So it's like like each episode will have like one to two major story beats happen. I didn't care for the second part as much on a rewatch. Because a lot of the show almost had like a horror or a romance atmosphere going on, like part of the show was the slow shots on the water lilies going down the stream as like the claws drove across someone's neck, like really dragging it out helped the atmosphere a lot. Yeah. So when we get to things like modern show and jump, they're all trying to like target this ADHD things need to happen. And One Punch Man suffers from both. So early One Punch Man once spent an entire chapter of Genos versus Saitama, right?

SPEAKER_02: 35:44

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01: 35:45

And I think that is to this day, it was a chapter so well drawn that it's better animated than the anime. Yeah. Like Garo vs. Saitama was better animated than an anime. But its pacing is like when it slows down and lets moments breathe, it's good. But then they're just blitzing through all of this exposition random crap, and they're like, we want to make so much story happen when there's no story here. That pacing is just abysmal. I agree. Now let's go to what's possibly the best thing in show and jump right now, and has been for a while, Chainsaw Man. Chainsaw Man spent 110 episodes for someone to get hit with Michigan. And when you build up a character for 110 episodes, I deeply invested in him being beaten by the state of Michigan.

SPEAKER_00: 36:37

Michigan got turned into a sword.

SPEAKER_01: 36:40

Which you can't just pull that out if you're just jumping through plot reel. You gotta build to that, right? It's like because they've established their powers to turn things into weapons they have to control over. They gave this full speech about America. I am completely on board with just being hit by Michigan. Yeah? I have no problems with it being hit by Michigan.

SPEAKER_00: 37:02

It has been hurt. One Punch Man uh is absolutely ridiculous. Uh it has a lot of scenes that kind of toe the line of uh what might be considered appropriate, but it all makes sense in context, and it it's really one the Chainsaw Man is is one of the best uh series in Shona Jump for sure. Because what else say about what apparently uh um I I saw a video uh people were asking a Japanese person how do you say chainsaw man in Japanese. And apparently uh it's just chainsaw man. Perfect, flawless ten out. Because the actual words for chainsaw and and man are kind of a tongue twister in Japanese, apparently.

SPEAKER_01: 37:51

So, like the thing comparing the difference between like one punch man and chainsaw man here, I do think it's largely about pacing and scope. So Chainsaw Man only ever follows maybe two or three characters at a time. Right. So season two's big twist is there's now two protagonists. Which, for the record, having two protagonists for a hundred chapters to then make them be the final battle, beautiful. Ten out of ten. Great strategy. Like, this is Narda vs. Sasuke without any of the Madara bullshit in the middle. Like, this is great. But One Punch Man has two main characters, and then they waste our time. So One Punch Man is as long as Chainsaw Man. They're about chapter by chapter the same length. Mm-hmm. We don't care about the Neo Hero Foundation, because our two characters we care about, it's not following. Because we only care about Saitama and maybe Genos. Remember Genos? Because One Punch Man doesn't.

SPEAKER_00: 38:53

Genos was even given the opportunity to join uh the Neo Hero Association, and they just he's just like, oh yeah, no, I just won't.

SPEAKER_01: 39:03

So it's like. not following these characters is just bad form. Like, they're taking their own energy. So now to move into One Piece, you don't follow One Piece. There is no real reason to discuss it. But I will say briefly, One Piece is interesting that the things happening outside the main story of One Piece are typically more interesting. And his long game payoff, if I've ever given an argument if I'm try is the thesis statement of this episode is that slow burning a show is worth it, especially if you're doing a weekly release format. One Piece is getting rewards. They're like, oh yeah, our main villains this arc, we showed you a thousand chapters ago. Like, One Piece is at the point where it's like really doesn't have to add more characters to it. And as long as it bites that impulse and only adds like a few an arc, if any, it'll be solid. So One Piece is just living its best life right now. I'm gonna pick it though to Kagura Banchi, which is suffering a bit from Bleach problem at the moment. So Kagura Banchi, coolest show in Chow and Jump, series of Chow and Jump right now. Best, I don't know, objectively coolest.

SPEAKER_00: 40:19

I I would say so.

SPEAKER_01: 40:21

My thing with it though is, remember when you first got into Bleach, you couldn't remember what the hell anyone's name was? Right. I have that problem a bit where I'm like, I've seen these characters, I don't know anything about any of you. At all. Whatsoever. And like, hey, do you remember his blonde partner from the start? I'm like, that got me back into it, because I'm like, okay. There's a lot of things happening, and I respect that they're at chapter 100. And out of like the big six steel blade guys, only two have actually only one's been pulled off the roster, and then two have become active characters. So I'm like, okay, you said we have the Yakotsky, and you've literally only used two of them. I respect the self-control. I really enjoyed the guy being like, I need to kill you, because you went mad. He's like, no, no, I did it. They're like, oh never mind, I guess I need to promote you then. My B. And I'm like, so I'm keeply invested, but I cannot tell you anything about the characters in it. And I think for it to survive in modern show and jump, it has to be running at this speed. But if I were in charge of the anime for it, I would probably make 25% of it filler just to get to know these people on their off days. Like, Bleach did a thing where at the end of their episodes they would literally just do like little skits about the Soul Society captains living their lives. Huh. And I think that was really relevant for people's understanding of what these characters are like, because they like built them up off-screen almost. So they'd have personalities.

SPEAKER_00: 41:44

Um, I I I definitely never actually watched uh the Bleach anime. Uh I d I don't actually watch a whole lot of anime.

SPEAKER_01: 41:52

But you do know a lot of these fun facts through me.

SPEAKER_00: 41:56

But but because of the just the fact that it takes longer to like it takes a half hour to watch an episode of anime, for me, it takes maybe five, ten minutes to read the chapter that just gets way more content across generally. Um but that is interesting when the anime does actually add extra little bits of content like that that's sometimes they'll be the anime, sometimes they'll do like data books for fun facts and things.

SPEAKER_01: 42:24

But what's funny is like I also liked Bleach more than you. Pretty substantially. And I think it's because part of it is the characters in it, I simply knew more about than you. So I probably care more when they got. Although, I was saying the other day, Bleach would have been so much better if whenever a character got death baited, they actually just died, so the cast kept shrinking in size, so we could actually all the characters. Like, imagine how much better Bleach would be if after the Eisenark, half the captains and uh three-quarters of the lieutenants were just dead. So new people we already knew got promoted, so there's just less care. Like, if act if the Thousand Year Blood War, you're like, oh yeah, Captain Kuchki's just dead, Toshio's just dead, and this random lieutenants have been promoted, like that would be great, because there's just less people we'd have to care about. Because he killed them because they died.

unknown: 43:16

Huh.

SPEAKER_01: 43:17

But hot take aside, have you been reading the JJK sequel?

SPEAKER_00: 43:22

I I have. Um. I don't know, I I don't think it's it's not probably not worth my time, but it comes out on the same day as everything else, so.

SPEAKER_01: 43:32

Because I've given my speech, I'm like, why are all of you Borotoing when Borotoe is objectively bad? Stop making it be like, oh, and then aliens fighting ghosts, and I'm like, that's called Dandadan, and Dandadan's good. I'm so bitter, because it's like JJK's ending didn't feel like a series ending. It felt like a plot arc ending, right? Like it felt like when Chainsaw Man's like public security arc ended. They like if JJK just popped up, Sukuna arc ended.

SPEAKER_00: 44:02

Fine. Uh I I think that the the JJK sequel, uh, they realized um that they made a mistake in in uh doing a time skip. Uh and that was like, actually, now we need to find uh Itadori uh to fight the aliens to make sure the aliens are scared of us.

SPEAKER_01: 44:23

But that's so lame. And like I remember I was reading the newest chapter and they're like, but I have cancer. I'm like, I don't even know your name. Why is you using this as a plot twist? Why was this not the first thing we learned about this character to add any depth or content? Because like a dramatic twist only works if there's a status quo to twist.

SPEAKER_02: 44:43

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01: 44:44

Like if you open with that, like, oh, I only have six months to live, that like recontextualizes everything a character does. Would work if you had characters.

SPEAKER_00: 44:53

It would have added a lot more uh urgency to the idea that she needs to get this ring back from her brother, so she needs to become strong enough to to take it. Um And then if her brother doesn't know, it'd like recontextualize his like not necessarily recontextualize, I guess, but the the idea that he's uh not letting her have this ring because she's not strong enough, uh, and he doesn't realize she only has six months to live. Just like it would have been so much more poetic and interesting in the dynamic between the siblings uh if we had opened with that instead of learning that several chapters in.

SPEAKER_01: 45:30

Well, it's like when I was giving advice for annotating this book for this assignment, I'm like, plot twists aren't for writers, they're for readers. And it's like read the last chapter first when you're analyzing lit, so you can like understand where they're going with it. But like, a lot of these weekly series that just try and like do dramatic plot twists too early with no foundation, I'm like, but we don't care. Right. Like, ironically, like if we learned that Main Dude's daddy Kagura Banshi was evil, we wouldn't care. Not really. Because that's not a useful plot twist.

SPEAKER_00: 46:06

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 46:07

What is a useful plot twist is like that blind guy chose to stay blind because that way he could not have to look at his daughter in the face because he knew he'd be too emotionally weak to continue if he saw her smile. That's good, right? That's a good plot twist. The plot twist of why haven't you healed your own eyes, then asshole? That was great. Like, I loved that. I'm like, oh yeah, wait a minute. He has healing powers, he's the coolest cleric in DD history. Why hasn't he healed his eyes? Like, because if I saw what that I was giving up my daughter, I wouldn't be able to go through it, and I'm like, that's depth, right? Like, that did something to me, because that actually like, oh. I see. That's interesting that you chose to do that. Like to like leave your eyes not working because you don't want to grow too attached to someone? That's beautiful. And Kagurobomchi's not trying to be like a like Kagurobomchi's a John Wick movie, and I'm like, I wasn't expecting that level of depth from my John Wick movie. This is great.

SPEAKER_00: 47:07

Hmm. Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_01: 47:10

You know, Spy Family suffers from pacing. Actually, I think Spy Family just suffers from a really schedule. If it was weekly, not monthly, I think it'd be fine. Yeah, probably.

SPEAKER_00: 47:23

Uh, but so uh Um Ping Pong Peril.

SPEAKER_01: 47:30

Uh perfect 10 out of 10 flawless manga. Read Ping Pong Peril.

SPEAKER_00: 47:36

It was a very interesting series. Uh but somehow, it managed to get in fewer chapters than Nice Person, and Nice Person uh was apparently capped and it ended after only 19 chapters, which is a which is again uh the curse of Showmod and Shown Jump. Uh and some series deserve it, like Nice Person. Uh but Ping Pong Peril, I don't know how much longer they could have actually kept it up, especially when they jumped the shark to go to space and say it was actually a galactic.

SPEAKER_01: 48:08

So I talked about you this with you off stream actually, where Ping Pong Peril understood the spirit of what made Yu-Gi-Oh good that it lost. Because Yu-Gi-Oh was never about card strategies that made it good. It was about shenanigans, right? Like it wasn't- No one remembers that time that Yugi fused the summon skull, the mammoth to the dragon to- That's not the part that people remember. People remember the flamethrowers and the smelling card perfume and the shenanigans. Right, right. The idea of doing a weekly series of high stakes ping pong with ridiculous shenanigans. Flawless strategy? I do think from like reading it and rereading it, it was supposed to last as long as it did, and it lasted the right amount of time. Cause I feel like the let's do the last one in space is something they decide to do when they're told you have three chapters left. They're like, alright, we're going to space. Right. But also, like, we're good. We nailed it. You can just be done. Cause it is true that it would require a lot of creativity, and he would have had to slow the power curve of the series to make because you have to like make each ping pong match increasingly ridiculous. Right, right. And what matched four was someone shooting themselves up with steroids to try and hit on his sister. And then like then like playing ping pong in the middle of a traffic jam, bouncing off the heads in Shibuya Square. I'm like, the ramp is real, but like. You wouldn't need to like slow your roll a bit to keep it going. So I think but it nailed it. And I think it was flawless and could couldn't have gone much further.

SPEAKER_00: 49:50

Uh just just like the I mentioned nice person, uh, because uh that was a a through and through gag series uh that was so bad, uh I appear to have dropped it after chapter twelve. Uh and I I just don't generally drop series because You're not me. I don't there's not I The more content I have to read, the better. And even if it's bad content, there's still something to be learned less than.

SPEAKER_01: 50:16

Oh yeah, especially like when we're technically professional literature analysis.

SPEAKER_00: 50:21

But Nice Person was uh just so bizarre and just generally awful. Uh I didn't even notice when it when it got fffff got canned. Uh apparently. September 7th was the last chapter. I I I do agree, I it deserved it. Uh, I just thought that was kind of funny. I was scrolling back to see what what's been going on in Shonen Jump, and it's like, huh, nice person hasn't been updated in in over a month. Because it deserved to die.

SPEAKER_01: 50:48

And then our my beloved World Trigger, where I'm like, World Trigger is the kind of ex-girlfriend that puts out cigarettes on my forehead. Because like, I want to love World Trigger. I do. And it's like, I gave the argument, like, our last show on Jump Round out, like, six months ago. Which is funny, because like that's like six chapters of World Trigger. And I made a quip where I'm like, if World Trigger runs on a long enough timeline, it's spending a hundred chapters on, you know, characters in a bottle test is worth it if it lasts long enough, which is a wild thing. Because the takeaway tet mission test was 23 parts. Right. So it was about 23 chapters or shit. So maybe longer. I'd have to, like, actually look this up. Which is pretty telling of the idea that I'd actually have to, like. The away mission test, according to just looking at this, was chapters like 200 to 226. And then before that, we had some actual lore drops. My argument that if the follow-up from it. Like, if the away mission test in its 26 chapters, which it felt longer. I'm gonna be real. I'm like looking it up right now, I'm like, oh, that wasn't as long as I thought it was, because it was slow and tedious.

SPEAKER_02: 52:15

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01: 52:17

It could easily, if the next one is also 26 chapters of a badass battle royale, we're good, right?

SPEAKER_02: 52:23

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01: 52:24

Because now we know what everyone does, their personalities, yada yada yada. If it pulls a one piece and this just goes for a thousand chapters, absolutely worth it. Right. Cause now if characters like when they actually start going and leaving, die, we've kind of at least passively a bit had every character's name and quips beaten into us. Right. Like, in My Hero Academia, if they made us sit with the 20 classmates for 26 chapters where they talked about their feelings. Maybe I'd care about them. So, long story short, that's my thoughts on World Trigger, as I'm like, man, you can she can be good to me, right? Like, if I give her enough kindness, she will love me, right? Right, Carl? Right? Yeah, hopefully.

SPEAKER_00: 53:15

As a quarter of World Trigger is a freaking bottle exam. Okay, uh, so on on uh a different note. Um, firstly, what was the name of that uh the series uh that was about the people writing a manga? Bakuman! Like Bakuman. Uh yeah, I Bakuman had a surprising number of chapters. Uh I don't think it was actually published in Shonen Jump, but um It was, and it was about Sho and Jump.

SPEAKER_01: 53:44

Like it was first party.

SPEAKER_00: 53:45

Oh, yeah, yeah, okay, okay. Uh sounds right. Well uh it's not in the app, but that's not really the point. They don't have every Shonen Jump series in here. Um but uh Kurumu Z Kurumizawa's Folly. Uh has eight chapters. Um and I I I it's about a uh struggling manga artist uh who discovers basically a copycat who's illiterate, and so he tricks the copycat into writing his new series for him.

SPEAKER_01: 54:20

Um wishes it was Ghost Writer Paradox.

SPEAKER_00: 54:27

Well, so so like I said, Bakuman uh had a surprising number of chapters. I didn't think the story could go on that long about people writing a manga in a manga. Uh and so it's like I I don't really feel like this story can go on that much longer. Like you've been surprised before. But I've been surprised before, yeah. So like I I don't know, have you actually been been reading the Ollie?

SPEAKER_01: 54:52

Have, and it's like the reason I said about that, I don't remember the exact title, but it's like Ghost Rider Time Paradox something or other. Yeah. Is that one, kind of like the Bach one that we'll talk about briefly that also finished up, is for something like this to really bite into me, it needs a strong central hook. Bakumin's strong central hook wasn't manga, it was it was a slow, slow, slowest burn romance, right? He became a manga artist because sexism. And because toxic masculinity said the way he can win over his girlfriend and spending time with her was to become successful as she became successful. Inmittedly, my own real-world relationships kind of paralleling that at the moment, which is amusing to me. But the idea of, like, actually the point of this is I'm going to work hard and they're gonna work hard, we're gonna follow our dreams together. That's enough of a hook for me to be invested. Like, as someone who's ride or die on Kaguasama Love is war, give me a slow burn romance and frame it however you want. I love me a slow burn romance. That's why I love Naruto Shimputa. Naruto and Sasuke was such a good slow burn romance. The point being that this folly is missing a a compelling B plot. Right? Like the A plot's fine, but it doesn't have a B plot to really drag me in yet. That's it, that's where I'm at is. It doesn't quite have the B plot I would need to get my investment yet.

SPEAKER_00: 56:26

Yeah, I th I think that might be might be why I don't think it has I have high hopes for it to actually succeed. Like the the B plot is probably the the dying girlfriend.

SPEAKER_01: 56:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 56:39

But she hasn't actually, like, done anything.

SPEAKER_01: 56:45

Well it's funny, like, a series we always throw braise at, even though it's so off of our normal reading list, is Rury Dragon. And that's because the A plot of Rury Dragon is actually accurately authentically written teenage angst. And then the B plot is, but also dragons. And like we're compelled every week because we're like, oh, let's tune into these the coming of age story of stro like it's one of those rare anime Well mangas, sorry, where the characters' ages are what how they're actually acting. It's like, oh, look at these high school students acting like high school students and being like, I wanna befriend the dragon person, but also they scare me because they're a dragon, or the other one be like, I hate the dragon person because they get all the attention. And then they whine about it, and I'm like, this is great. I'm gonna read these well-written series. So I'm like, yeah, Rury Dragon's B-plot is interesting, but its A-plot is not about being Rury Dragon at all.

SPEAKER_00: 57:46

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 57:50

So, oh, I read a weird interview about Phineas and Verb the other day. So people are like, does it what is the structure for Phineas and Ferb? And their random science experiment of the week wasn't the plot, it was the setting. And the other characters the side characters were actually the plot. Right. So it's like, no, no, the main characters, shenanigans, aren't actually the plot of the story. They just create a setting piece for other characters to have arcs. Right, right. So it's like, yeah, Ruby Dragon is a good example of doing it well where it's like, no, no, the plot is high school shenanigans, and the dragon is just setting. Where the Martial King has nothing.

SPEAKER_00: 58:32

It's just a but so speaking in with the the high school theme, uh, have you been reading someone hurt? Uh it's a pun.

SPEAKER_01: 58:44

So the pun gets points. Right. And the concept is amusing. But it's like, oh, what was that one about like the performing art one? Uh I'm blanking on it. Anyway. My point where I'm going with this is that I just. It's one of those things where this seems pretty good, but it's not really for me. Like, I'm just not quite vibing with it.

SPEAKER_00: 59:12

Yeah, I'm I've been surprised.

SPEAKER_01: 59:15

Um I was drawing a blank on. Where I'm like, this I just don't think I've the target audience for this piece.

SPEAKER_00: 59:22

Uh the I I've been surprised at how many um of these one-liners are actually still uh funny and interesting when translated to English. I was really worried that it was gonna be like a uh extreme cultural uh divide because Japanese puns are generally different than English puns.

SPEAKER_01: 59:43

This is why like comedies I enjoy dubbed rather than subbed, because localizing the jokes makes them better. Bleach is so much funnier dubbed, it's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00: 59:54

Uh but uh yeah. The Radio station uh plot point is obviously with the the A plot and the the B plot does kind of just seem to be high school shenanigans as they build up people who they realize have this common interest. I don't know. It it's kind of interesting, but it's also like I I don't know how long it can go since they've kind of uh put themselves into a They've written themselves into a corner with the romance, it seems.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:26

Fair. And I'm gonna make a controversial statement about O Tur of the Flame that you're gonna agree with, but it's gonna be one of those moments of that was uh what was the m Marvel line it was like You're out of line, but you're right. Odor of Ota of the Flame is a nineties manga.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:46

Mmm.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:47

It is the most 90s ass anime manga I've read in a very long time. Cause it's like I have my element spirit, and I'm going and meeting the other element spirits, and I'm JRPGing through Viking land, and there's evil fun, and I've made it to Elfland, and I fuse to the spirit tree to talk to my fire spirit, to go into fire spirit burning mode. I'm like, man, this is such a callback to a simpler era. Like, if there's a series that was coming out that would make an actual we can release this weekly and put in pillar arcs, it's Odor of the Flame, like. It is such a Knights of the Zodiac, Shaman King ass manga. And I love it personally, because I'm like, yeah, you go with your kind of mediocre artwork and adequate dialogue, decently written, competent shown in ass series, and showin' and jump. Thank you for not being an edgy exorcist wants to be chainsaw man, but I'm too much of a bitch to hit someone with Michigan series. Like, let's look at News Exorcist. It wants to be JJK, but it doesn't have the balls to be JJK. It's JJK written by ChatGPT.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:59

Like, it doesn't have the willpower to be cool. News Exorcist uh wants to be Hima 10. That's rough. It's it's it's so bizarre. Uh the it's just constantly talking about getting the main character into a relationship and building up his harem of all these uh powerful Exorcist girls who think that uh the main character's uh stalwart honesty and and straightforwardness is an uh attractive quality.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:33

Um it's just I mean to be fair, Japan is going extinct, so I can see why people w really want to like do something about that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:43

It's a very bizarre mix. I it's actually a series. I've I've read all 122 chapters, but it is a series that I'm considering dropping. Uh because it just doesn't the exorcism story.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:57

What's really funny is Witchwatch is the exact same plot, but gender inverted.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:02

Yeah, I dropped Witch Watch too. Although Witch Watch I dropped because of the the age regression that just kind of reset the plot. And I was like, well, this is dumb.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:12

And then I refuse to ever read Me and RoboCo, which exists simply because bad shaming is a cultural staple. But it did outlive ping pong peril, so we can put another mo notch on the better things it's outlived chat chart.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:24

Uh well, Me and RoboCo is gonna outlive a lot of things. It has 257 chapters.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:30

Right. Uh so my like secret shame series I read every week is Hematen. And the thing about Hematen is I read it to get mad at it. Because there's literally no reason for any of the plot of it. Oh no, my attractive boss who likes me, but I kind of had a crush before someone else, before this successful woman who pays me invited me for Christmas in her home alone. Oh no, the conflict. I'm like, what conflict? She wrote you a handwritten card that says, Do you like me? Check box. You check the box. Where's the conflict? Well, the thing is, there's other beautiful people in my life. I'm like, okay? But you won already. Just what? And then she's like, I don't know if I should tell this person who clearly likes me that I clearly like him. I'm like, how is this happening? You're literally having a candlelit dinner right now. How is there a plot here?

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:27

Uh and then somehow, somehow the former idol becomes their teacher.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:32

See, the thing about that is I'm like, that's a fun plot twist that does nothing, because there's no core conflict. It's like the idea that I read this every week to be like, how is this still go like legitimate curiosity of like, because they wrote him, like you said, the nice earnest guy trope, right? Which is directly contradictory to the harem trope. And it's the funniest thing they keep trying to do is be like, this guy who's so perfect is in a harem. I'm like, but if you're perfect, you wouldn't be in a harem. You fundamentally physical like So like, I don't know, when they're doing crap like crappy harem anime 20 years ago, 10 years ago, the main character was usually a derp bag. Right. That narratively makes more sense. Because this guy being like, oh, I guess on Christmas I'll spend time with her, but I'll buy all people equally costed gifts. I'm like, you're a derp bag. It's like, oh no, he's just so oblivious. Well, if you look at his most recent received text, no, he's just a dirt bag, I guess. Like when three people are like, I want you to spend Christmas just with me, you go like, okay, as friends to all three, you kind of suck. Right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:45

So he's very indecisive.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:48

Well, it's not even that he's indecisive, because that would be drama. He just is empty. There's nothing there. Like, he's not registering that conflict is happening. Uh, and then don't care about ultimate extras Kyoshi. Shinobi in your cover did nothing wrong. I'm just not following it. It's not his fault. I just didn't say it, it just didn't grab me.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:14

The uh the main ninja uh has uh realized that he's in love with his uh with his charge. Um and he's having uh internal emotional emotional turmoil over it because he's supposed to be doing a job to protect her, but how can you do that if he has feelings for her?

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:31

Honestly, fair though. Like, I know that's like a cliche, but that's a cliche I'm fine with. When we're talking about romance tropes that I enjoy, bodyguard falls in love with a person they're protecting but be unprofessional, so instead they just kind of sit there and mope, and then when the person they're bodyguarding gets attacked, they brutally beat the shit out of the person because they're overly emotionally invested. Like, that's actually one of like I know it's a toxic writing trope, and you should not do this in real life, but I do enjoy that in my fiction. Like, it's makes narrative sense to be like, oh, I spend all this time with this person, I care about them because it's my job. Oh no, I accidentally care about them for real. I need to do something about this because this is dangerous for everybody, is good. I can get behind that. Maybe it'd like it better if they just weren't high school students, which is a weird thing to complain about for show and jump.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:23

Well, yeah, I mean, we're we're I mean I've been medically diagnosed as young, um, but I I'm probably not the target demographic for show and jump.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:34

Yeah, but we also have the hindset of having followed it for a decade means we can be grippy about it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:40

That that is true, we have followed it for a long time.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:43

So, like, Sakamoto days is suffering from last arc mashle problem or from like, okay, can we like do s I hate protagonist and coma so we can follow side characters as an arc, fundamentally. I'd be like, no though. Unless your side characters are well written, the waiting for Goku's trope is terrible. And yes, it is the waiting for Goku trope. Goku or Mashal or Ichiko or Naruto or anytime you have a character in a MacGuffin healing situation, even if it's a bed, so we have to follow the side characters till he wakes up. Bad. Right. Bad writing every time. I'm including Dragon Ball in the bad writing list. Goku getting immediately re-hospitalized was bad writing. Just have him take longer to get there.

unknown: 1:08:30

Ooh!

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:31

Lame! Bad. You know what's sick though? Goron Egg. Are you you you like the series? I don't know yet, but it's interesting, and it gets so many points for being interesting. So it's like graphically, it's like, hey, I'm going to pull a Tokyo ghoul and just be violent. And I'm like, oh, that's brave. And like, oh yeah, the monsters here suck. They're just terrible. And I'm gonna be decapitated. And this one monster's befriending me, not because he's a good person, but because he has plans to screw over the other monsters who are awful. And I'm like, oh. Right. So you know how I mentioned that, like, some of these series, especially some of these exorcist ones, want to be edgy, but they're too cowardly to actually be edgy because they'll get cancelled, so then they're just pretending to have edgy tropes. This one's at least giving me the decency of being edgy. Right? Like, kid goes off, has a bubble bath, talks about it, and then a giant scorpion tries to murder him, and then people call him a blood soaked naked pervert. I'm like, okay, you're trying to be interesting.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:38

Uh so actually, the I I think my problem with the Gone Run Egg uh is that um they recently had they uh I gotta look back for it, uh Ke Dagami. Kae Dagami. Um, which is a series that recently ended, uh, and it was a kind of similar series, uh where uh this like spirit of war uh accidentally befriends and becomes friends with a kid, and then they form a contract and he goes around trying to recollect her body parts and violently murdering all the other um spirits. Um and the series just ended um just because it I ran out of steam, I guess. And it's just it's just weird to me that they essentially uh introduced another series that's the exact same conduct concept, um, except that the monster is a is an egg instead of a sexy hum sexy lady.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:39

Well, first off, you get bonus points for that in my book immediately.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:44

I mean that's true. Solid change.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:47

But there is one big systemic change between the two. Okay. The people don't like his monster. Hmm. I think that's relevant that the people So invisible monsters are lame. Actual monsters are interesting, because this is an actual post-apocalyptic world, and people are like, oh, you have a monster companion. Screw you. So a lot of times the protagonist will be like, oh, people should hate him, and then it doesn't actually make sense, it just turns into the bully, the superpower kid syndrome. Right, right. Where he's walking around with like an actual Satan in his pocket while like giant veiny monster mushroom person is eating people, and they're like, Yeah, kick him out, he sucks. I'm like, yeah. That makes sense. You should be mean to this kid. He's carrying an actual monster with him that eats people.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:38

I mean, I've I've been I've been reading it, and I'll continue to give it the benefit of the doubt because I uh I do give series the benefit of the doubt for quite a bit longer than I should sometimes.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:47

I'm just saying it seems less cowardly than things I've read recently. It feels like I'm not gonna say it's original, but I'm gonna say like they actually made they like tried to make the monster scary, and they tried to build a setting. You know how much I'm like, uh, Eka size, I can't be bothered to invent a setting are kinda lame.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:06

Well, and the Kage Dami or whatever, um was just the most generic feudal Japan fantasy setting. Like there was nothing interesting about the setting itself.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:17

Where this one at least is post-abangelian.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:20

Mm-mm.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:21

So it's like, yeah, these monster designs, there's some effort that went into these.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:26

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:27

And I appreciate that his just got his head chopped off episode one.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:34

There's some serious chainsaw man vibes there.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:37

Well, like, when he pulled out his Bon Kai, I'm like, okay, this is actually kinda sick. So, like, I I'm It's not It didn't blow me away, but I'm like, okay. This is at least different enough weekly for me to read it and not roll my eyes. Then Mage Next Door is doomed. But at least it amused me kind of.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:59

You think it's doomed?

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:01

Oh, it's so doomed.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:04

What makes you say that?

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:06

So how can I put this? There's no plot. So if I pull up my like Blake Snyder story beat, save the cat, mark up a plot, right? His plot is, and it's kind of like why you ended up dropping Psychic Detective Choserou. There's no plotties. I have weird ma gimmick magic, and I'm gonna go fight other wizards and open up a w uh location. It's like, okay. You got a bit, you have your bit established of what you're doing. But like, much like early One Punch Man, this doesn't like have an arc. And season one of One Punch Man worked pretty good as an anime, because they gave Saitama that arc about, hey, I'm just gonna save people even if people don't care, and it was stupid of me to care. And then he just starts getting increasingly diminishing returns, because there's no actual arc there. So I'm watching this guy be like, I have water gun magic, I have key magic, I have whatever Gupin magic I need. I'm like, yeah, this guy can't lose a fight. Because he's not fighting, he's just winning. But like, there's no like central mystery or hook really to keep it going. So it's gonna run as a gang, it'll either run forever as a gang series or dry up and burn up. Like Chosero, psychic detective Chozaro needed an antagonist so bad. If that series had, like, an actual antagonist, it would have been amazing. Mage Next Door does not have an antagonist.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:40

I don't know, it's only on chapter two, so it does still have time to introduce them. And there's the whole mystery of like this mages aren't human, but this character is.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:54

Nah. Yeah, exactly. It's not a central mystery if you just came from MacGuffin Land to your MacGuffin.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:00

Yeah, well, I mean, uh there's something there about him being a human that got sent to Mage Land and then came back, but not really.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:09

I call bullshit on that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:12

There's still time for them to introduce other characters to carry the plot forward. But you are right that he himself does not have enough content to actually make a long-running series unless it's just a forever-running series.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:27

So, I'm gonna use the Reiner Lute example. So Reiner Loot as a character of, oh, I'm a lazy mage, that's boring. Was only interesting because he was pretending to be a lazy mage, because when, quote, while I'm asleep, I'm not horrifyingly murdering anybody. No one dies while I'm sleeping, and the world will be better off of sleep. I'm like, oh, he's not lazy, he's severely traumatized for all that murder he's done. So I'm like, that's compelling. This guy's like, oh, I'm Reiner Loot with no edgy backstory. I'm just a lazy slacker. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. You need like. And then another series that started that I'm shocked started so close to it was Hero Girl and Demon Lord Call It Quits.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:07

Uh that's that's definitely a series that I think is is doomed. Um because the the Demon Lord, chapter one, um just reversed time for everyone except for the people who didn't want to.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:22

So, yeah, I believe the it's funny that the problem is power scaling, not concept. So the idea that they're like having their fight to death, like, you know what, screw it. I'm just gonna be your roommate, let's do a rom-com. I'm like, okay, but you're too busted. Like, you needed to be the right level of busted for this bit to have worked. Because, like, he's so busted that she shouldn't have been able to beat him in the first place, because he's too busted.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:49

I I agree. Um unless she somehow has equally ridiculous powers, uh, but she doesn't appear to because the aliens came to Earth to attack after the Demon Lord disappeared.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:01

So, you know what I would have done with this series if it was me? So I would have made them an equal match, and I would have had them mid-fight to the death both realize that they weren't in it. But like, I would have put them at like, uh, let's say. Try to think of like the right power curve. Like, I would have probably put them at like Naruto and Sasuke powerful. And like I would have opened with like a one-punch man quality, epic fight scene, to then flash forward to them him being like, hey, do you want instant noodles for dinner? Because it could definitely be done. Like, I read one that was The Devil is a Part-Timer where Satan had to like be a line cook.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:39

Yeah, I was gonna say, like, the the concept is not unique. It's unique in Shonen Jump at the moment, but uh the concept has definitely been done before of the big bad decides to retire.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:51

Right, and like, to be fair, like one of the most classic ships of all time is Hero Girl and Demon Lord. Like, I read one that was like literally Archage Mage and Demon War, which was just the lesbian version of the story that was immensely better. Part of it was because the mage was constantly fighting the Demon Lord as an excuse to see the Demon Lord, which just kept leaving the Demon Lord super uncomfortable. Hmm. And it's like you can do this stroke well, like I'm sure it makes up a third of Web2. But I'm shocked this got published in Show and Jump, because as you mentioned, Time Rewind ruined it, like you broke the scope. There needed to be a scope.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:30

Hmm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:32

Which is why Chainsaw Man's allowed to beat people with Michigan. Because they built up the scope. They had earned certainly did. I'm shocked that a character hit someone with Michigan, and I'm like, that's awesome, it makes perfect sense. And then Bug Ego suffers from slow monthly release.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:51

Ah, I I rather did enjoy this chapter, although I kind of uh um I kind of foresaw the the end result uh where it's like, oh yeah, if you mistake something for something else, it becomes that thing while you're doing this hack, and it's like you know you're gonna like make yourself disappear, right? Like well. Well, I mean, the the ultimate result where he's just like, yeah, this hack is too dangerous and he he shuts it off uh makes sense, but it was like they should have seen that coming from the beginning for how smart they appear to be.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:30

It's hard to write an intelligent character when you yourself are not that intelligent. Like the writing joke that Light Yagami thought he was really smart, but then you actually really think about it, he's actually like the worst at his job. Like, imagine having a magic notebook that can kill anyone anywhere and they narrow it down to like a two-city block where you live.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:51

Like he's like, aha, to stop these FBI agents from tailing me with my magic notebook, I'll use an elaborate scheme to have them kill themselves with it. And I'm like, counterpoint. If you don't kill them with your magic notebook, they won't be able to prove magic notebook. Right? Like, your murder weapon, if someone has your note like if a cop, if you don't use it on the cops, and a cop finds that you have a notebook where he wrote down when people died in the times, won't they just assume you're creepy and stalking these killings? Like, how could they prove you did it? Right. You just don't use the magic notebook. They're not gonna test the bad thing to test a magic notebook. Like at one point he like gives Elle a cryptic anger where he's like gods of death like apples, and Elle's like, oh, magic's involved, solved it! Like, wow, like you suck it. He's like, I'm gonna kill them all the same way, so they think there's a pattern to make a better world. I'm like, you're so bad at death noting.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:50

In any event, uh, I am really enjoying Bug Ego. The characters are a bit inconsistent. It's interesting. It's super interesting.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:59

It gets so many points being interesting.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:02

It is a very unique series. Uh I mean it is written by the same person who writes One Punch Man, and the guy is an amazing author when he's not working. When he feels like it's artist.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:14

Just when he feels like it, let's be honest.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:17

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:20

Well, it's like we've made through most of Showing Jump here. I kinda dropped Ichie the Witch.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:26

It's kinda doing something interesting. Uh, where one of the magics and a human is actually they're actually uh having a child together, uh, but the birth of the child is draining the magic's powers and it's I don't know, it might be going somewhere.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:42

I think I've done too much feminist studies to be like in a world where only women can be witches, a boy acquires the power. I'm like, and you're saying nothing about gender identity in this piece? Fuck off. Like, the porse Logine this pitching this story to Marvel. I got a stor story for you. All the superheroes are women, and our protagonist is a guy. What? Crazy! I'm like, fuck off. Like, each of the wins would objectively be better if the protagonist was a woman, at least, so you could at least try and do a series. Like the blandest ass protagonist on the planet. Nothing there.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:22

I agree.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:24

And yeah, just kind of looking at series, I don't follow Minexus as Kyoshi, I don't follow Blue Box, I don't follow Hakazoki Mound. And I don't follow Lucius Ammonai or Dog's Red. And I don't think Dog's Red is really its fault that I don't follow the sports manga.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:43

Uh yeah, I mean I was following it uh at the start when it was actually like he was applying his figure skating skills to hockey. Um, but then it turned out to just be him training for hockey and not using his figure skating skills. And I was like, well, I I'm not in this for hockey, I'm in this for the weird quirk.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:02

Right. And then Blue Exorcist is still going, which is wild. And Black Clover's still going, and man have I not cared about Black Clover in a long time.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:12

Uh Black Clover's weird. They switched to a uh quarterly release cycle. Which is Well, but then they release three chapters at a time. And it's like, well, why couldn't you just have switched to like monthly?

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:25

I mean, if it doesn't kill the author, because you gotta remember, show and jump authors have a high mortality late. Like, Oda's out here recommending specific doctors to people.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:33

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:34

Uh like it opens up an illustration of everyone in swimsuits, and then it's like, I don't know, man. I'm always gonna be annoyed when someone's like, I'm the have the worst power. Actually, it's the best power. Actually, it's genetics, actually. Fuck off.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:56

Like Black Clover just kind of it scoped itself out of being fully to me.

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:03

Uh but I I think that you're right that we put up most of the show and jump and we could probably move on to uh the plethora of random questions you said that came in this week.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:12

Yeah, so the first random question I got. Hmm. If you wanted any folklore being to be real, which one would it be? Or the other way around, which would be the worst folklore being to come to life? Oh. So first off. I'm sorry to our viewers, I'm gonna hurt some people here, and I apologize. Spoiler warning, if just skip this next session if you're a big fan of Christmas. Alright. Everyone's had time to turn it off. I want Santa real!

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:46

Oh Yeah, for a second I thought you were gonna say you wanted Krampus to be real.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:51

No, no, I want Santa to be real, but I feel bad if someone just learned Santa's not real from our podcast somehow. Like, yeah, Santa would be great! Like, yeah, uh. Santa should be real.

SPEAKER_02: 1:25:06

Mmm.

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:08

Folklore characters. I really hope you say Jesus. That was my B option, which is just so funny.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:21

Well, so uh I mean I haven't I'm not I'm not actually that big on on folklore characters. Like I'm trying to think of like uh the Brothers Grim type characters, but that's like drawing a drawing a blank on good characters. Uh the worst character to be real, I say uh Krampus would be pretty terrible.

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:42

Krampus would be pretty terrible. Oh, there's some bad ones, like like the werewolf that just eats her grandmother and becomes her is pretty bad. Just be real. Like God from the Bible is pretty bad to be real. One that has you chop babies in half.

SPEAKER_00: 1:26:03

Uh yeah, yeah. Go and sacrifice your son to prove your loyalty to me.

SPEAKER_01: 1:26:10

Such love, such compassion. Uh. Loki would be pretty bad to be real. That could be a problem.

SPEAKER_00: 1:26:23

Uh, you know, I I think actually, um if we if we're allowed to use ancient myths, uh I I do like the idea of I don't know how Icarus does it with his with the wings made of wax. Uh so I would really like it if Icarus was we was real so I could learn how to make these wax wings, and then hopefully not fly too close to the sun myself.

SPEAKER_01: 1:26:46

I enjoy that being like a YouTube tutorial he gives. You know what I think we actually need though? I think we need like the actual mythological unicorn that goes around and purifies water. I think we need one of those pretty bad right now, just logistically.

SPEAKER_00: 1:27:05

Yeah, quite possibly.

SPEAKER_01: 1:27:07

And our second random question: which Pokemon is most likely to win a presidential election? Amusingly, my brother off stream has some thoughts about this question. But I'm gonna let you take the first crack at it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:27:22

Well, I mean, the obvious answer is Mewtwo.

SPEAKER_01: 1:27:24

So that's what I thought at first, but then my brother brought up some really interesting points. So in New Zealand, it would be Kangaskhan. As the most recent election, the nominee traveled everywhere with their child. So, like, yeah, that's a good one. But here is his theory about it. Is that in America, it would be Charizard. So Charizard is a dick, canonically, right? Just shoots his trainer in the face with fire. And competitively, is garbage. Right? Like, four times weakness to rock, has been an underused or never years the entire time. Yet somehow is the most popular and valuable Pokemon. So America would absolutely elect objectively, statistically, the worst starter who hates them to run their country. Yeah, okay. And then that is my brother's take, but does that change your take at all? It's like Mewtwo has psychic powers, but like, it is still a popular vote, and you can only brainwash so many people at once.

SPEAKER_00: 1:28:34

I I think it's gotta be like I was thinking Pokemon that can actually communicate with people. Uh Mewtwo is uh top of the list. Uh the other obvious answer would be uh Team Rocket's Meowth.

SPEAKER_01: 1:28:46

I was gonna say Hepno, because he's also in the Epstein list. Same with Drift Loot.

SPEAKER_00: 1:28:59

Uh but but if if if it's not uh if it's just limited to like metaphor metaphors, then uh then you have to put a lot more thought into it, like you said with Charizard and Or if you think about it, like people just writing into ballots, because you gotta remember people don't actually listen to their politicians, they just write who they want to win on the ballot. Well, in that case, it would be Pikachu, like I don't think it would.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29:20

I don't think Pikachu tops Pokemon popularity contests. No? Think so. They did a massive Pokemon popularity contest. I'm gonna find it.

unknown: 1:29:30

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:35

Uh see. Because like Pikachu is basically the mascot of Pokemon, so so if you're going by that that kind of logic, like Charizard's logic, uh, there are probably more people who would recognize Pikachu than Charizard.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29:50

Alright, here is the results of a recent survey. So, Mimiku was in first place. Ghost Pikachu got. Gotcha. Followed by Sylveon and Gengar.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:07

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:10

So it's interesting.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:11

Pikachu even in the Was Pikachu even in the top ten? No. Huh. I still think he's more recognizable than than the Pokemon you just mentioned. Yeah, but as nerds, I recognize them. Uh, and Sylveon is sick.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:24

But Sylveon would be so good for trans and bisexual rights if elected as president. Like, I like Sylveon's policies. Like, let's go with Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Dungeon Logic that all the Pokemon can speak. And their personality is kind of influenced by what Pokemon they are. Let's pivot the question: who would you vote for to be your Pokemon Prime Minister? Based on like just their like vibes and how you think they'd be personality-wise. Just under the assumption that they can all talk.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:57

That's a good question.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:59

And then specifically for Prime Minister of Canada.

SPEAKER_00: 1:31:05

For Prime Minister of Canada. Who do I think is going to um?

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:12

You know, I think I uh I might vote for like uh Mr. Mime. You know, that actually came up from like earlier today as well, that someone's pro Mr. Mime, but I want to know why.

SPEAKER_00: 1:31:26

Well, you know, like Canada is uh well known, like you say, for uh uh our artistic merits and and protecting our our artists. I really do think that Mr. Mime would fall in line with that. Uh and uh I think that he would uh represent marginalized groups. Uh and then also he is psychic, so that's gonna that's gonna just gonna help him in general uh with uh being a politician.

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:52

So I'm feeling I think I'm voting for Togekiss.

SPEAKER_00: 1:31:57

I do like Togekiss.

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:59

It's literally spreads peace and goodwill wherever it flies, literally avoids conflict, and is loved unanimously by the public. It might end up turning us into a socialist communist hellscape, but I'm willing to give that a risk.

SPEAKER_00: 1:32:14

Uh well, okay, so so if we actually if communism had some sort of proper governance that, you know, like basically mind control people to be happy and loving, then uh it wouldn't really be a hellscape.

SPEAKER_01: 1:32:28

To be fair, if we were to go on the whole idea between authoritarianism and various like th philosophies, altruism, utilitarianism, like there is a full two-hour podcast on it's like most of the things that people associate that are bad with communism are actually being associated with dictatorship. Via communism, but that's a full other discussion. But for now, thank you for submitting your questions into Deep Space and Dragons. Your names have been entered into my monthly draw for a signed copy of the Waltz of Blades. Send in your questions.

SPEAKER_00: 1:33:04

Don't worry. Uh, you're you're not being docked like my workplace.

SPEAKER_01: 1:33:08

Why would you bring that up? Besides, they don't think your pizza place is real. They're like, oh, that's a fake name.

SPEAKER_00: 1:33:16

That's a fake name.

SPEAKER_01: 1:33:17

They would have given it's probably actually called like family pizza or something.

SPEAKER_00: 1:33:25

One of our slogans is Peace, Love, and Death to Family Pizza.

SPEAKER_01: 1:33:30

So it's much funnier if you worked for Family Pizza this whole time, and this was just a psy-off. That would be funny. I would respect the commitment greatly. Also, rest in peace, kaiju number eight.

SPEAKER_00: 1:33:45

Yeah, hopefully it gets a sequel or a spin-off series that's interesting too. It'd be so easy to do.

SPEAKER_01: 1:33:50

And that one's allowed to have aliens invade. I'd be fine with that. Because if they said the kaijus came from space originally, I'd be like, yeah, it makes sense.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:03

Uh with that, and you know, self-care, rest, hydrate, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:34:09

And buy them a book, I guess, if you want to.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:12

Or submit random questions to get it for free.

SPEAKER_01: 1:34:15

That is the value way to do it. Like, those books are like potentially a$20 value. Like, if you were to like sell five of them on the black market, you could get the down payment on the Switch game to get the virtual unlock key. Bye. Uh, show a Jeff Roundup's always an easy episode to make. Hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:40

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_01: 1:34:41

It's so funny that I'm like, yeah, Ruri Dragon probably wins. I think if Otter of the Flame had like the artist from One Punch Man drawing it, it'd probably be in first. Hmm. But like, eh, it's okay. It's okay art.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:56

Yeah, I agree. It's it's just okay.

SPEAKER_01: 1:34:58

Yep. Clearly, we need to enter that contest and get them to make something good. With monsters and menageries, perhaps. Uh