Happy Birthday Karl, I totally didn't forget.. yup also Viz Manga?

Two friends spiral from birthday chaos into a sharp, funny tour of the Viz Manga app, game design gripes, and why Frieren’s quiet heart punches harder than loud power fantasies. We weigh sincerity versus spectacle, then argue for craft that respects time, panels, and readers.

• King Domino and tech failing a birthday
• Commutes shaping cities and energy budgets
• TA life with tiny tutorials and high impact
• One‑page RPG design, dice math, bell curves
• Mao as Takahashi’s under‑the‑radar marathon
• Inuyasha’s clean spine versus villain bloat
• Hunter x Hunter’s text walls and lost motion
• Rooster Fighter’s serious art, silly premise
• Junji Ito’s horror depth and Uzumaki motifs
• Black Lagoon pulp and odd Marvel crossovers
• Frieren’s pacing, philosophy, and set pieces
• Algorithm herding on webtoons and curation
• TTRPG loot tables that should exist
• Life habits with no proof that we keep anyway

“Viewers who have a Deep Space and Dragons mug: send a photo and I’ll mail you a free copy of The Waltz of Blades”

Chapters

• 0:00 Cold Open, Birthday Chaos, Spleen Bit
• 6:00 King Domino Obsession And Expansions
• 10:30 Commutes, City Design, And House Hunting
• 16:30 TA Life: Tiny Tutorials, Big Wins
• 24:00 One‑Page RPGs, Design Takes, Dice Math
• 33:30 Viz Manga Roundup Plan
• 36:30 Mao By Rumiko Takahashi: Surprise Marathon
• 42:30 Hunter x Hunter Paneling And Fix-It Rants
• 48:30 Rooster Fighter: High Art, Dumb Premise
• 55:00 Ito, Uzumaki, And Horror On Viz
• 1:00:00 Black Lagoon, Spider-Man, Ultraman Oddities
• 1:05:00 Frieren Praise: Philosophy And Fights
• 1:14:00 App Strategy, Webtoons, And Rankings Beef
• 1:21:00 More Viz Gems: Nostalgia And Deep Cuts
• 1:28:00 Random Questions: Strong Opinions That Don’t Matter

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Yo. We have a title. We're a podcast. I'm Richard, probably.

SPEAKER_03: 0:10

And I am Carl, the one who's gonna tell you the title of our podcast, which is Deep Space and Dragons.

SPEAKER_00: 0:19

Yeah. Nice. I'm still waiting for you to like send me a poorly photoshopped title card, and I will use it that week, and it'll be great. Like, it can't just be a nice title card that flips the names. It has to be like copy editor symbols, like sharped out with red pen, a circle, an arrow pointing to where it goes. But before we go on our voyage of eh, something probably, what is new in the Carlverse?

SPEAKER_03: 0:46

Um well, see, um, our our long-term listeners might recall um my my spleen was cursed. And uh the only way to break the curse was to actually physically remove the spleen.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00

You know, every time you open with the medical drama after we had like our pre-sho-chat, like three-minute catch-up, I'm always mildly concerned I'm gonna find out you're terminally ill bid podcast. And like our podcast does pretty well, but I don't think it does well enough to like imagine going on the daily show and just being like, oh, by the way, and that's where you dropped this information for the first time. I mean, I I aspire to do that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:25

Well no, see, um they they took out my spleen, uh, and then uh they sent it to the lab to be tested because um, you know, they needed to research the these vampire curses and they figured it would give us more information on patterns.

SPEAKER_00: 1:39

We weren't allowed to give it out as a prize.

SPEAKER_03: 1:42

Right, right. Uh but so when they were done doing their tests in the lab, they claimed uh that uh that it was incinerated, right? Claim Well, you see, uh it it seems uh that my spleen was uh was actually stolen by the Russians because of the research they were doing. It turns out the vampires migrate across the Bering Strait. Um And uh long story short, uh, I'm actually a clone, uh Russian sleeper agent clone. I was in fact born yesterday.

SPEAKER_00: 2:16

I should probably inform people that this is the comedy podcast and not take anything we taste too seriously. But that does sound factual, yes.

SPEAKER_03: 2:24

Well, actually, it's a subtle jab of the fact you didn't wish me a happy birthday on my birthday. Did I not? Oh wait, what? Uh-oh. I have no idea a vampire is migrating across the Fairy Strait. It kind of makes sense, but kind of not.

SPEAKER_00: 2:41

No. How is none of my devices reminding me of this? I have so many apps and none of them said Carl's birthday. Oh no.

SPEAKER_03: 2:53

But so I hear you were worried that I was gonna tell you I was terminally ill. No, this is much worse.

SPEAKER_00: 3:03

Yeah, clear as day, Carl's birthday yesterday, alarm didn't go off. I'm more mad at technology than I am at myself. Like, how is it? We have AI technology being like, here's your trade tariff rate, but not your best friend's birthday is today. We thought you should know. Shenanigans. Does it help at all I left my house at 6 in the morning and got back at 9 p.m.?

SPEAKER_03: 3:36

I I I just assumed you were living your best life. And we did have a change in conversations.

SPEAKER_00: 3:44

Uh for the record for your birthday, I got you nothing.

SPEAKER_03: 3:51

That's fine. It's fine. Um There's a there's a game called King Domino. Um and uh have you ever played Carcassone?

SPEAKER_01: 4:03

Yes!

SPEAKER_03: 4:05

Okay, so Carcazone has the same similar tiles. Um, like I mean, King Domino calls them dominoes. Um, and it's a similar method of selecting tiles where uh each person goes through, they select a tile, and then based on the value of those tiles, that's who gets to select first, or the sequence they can deflect the tiles from the next round. Uh so I bought this game because I was like, it looks kind of interesting and it was fairly simple, quick, and easy to learn. Um, and it turns out that there are a few expansions for it. So uh my my fiance is like, oh, you know, he's obsessed with King Domino right now, so she bought me this expansion for it called uh Age of Giants. And uh you know uh that's that's what's to do with me, is I've been playing a lot of those King Domino g King Domino games, and I highly recommend the uh Age of Giants expansion. It's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00: 5:03

Also, I think you're legally a year older than me for a few months, which means I can make fun of you for being an old man. Oh man. Out of all of the shenanigans yesterday, I'm still absorbing the fact that I missed that. I'm normally so good at this. Disclaimer to those listening, Richard is a liar and is not good at this.

SPEAKER_03: 5:26

I am also terrible with birthdays, so don't feel too bad at the end.

SPEAKER_00: 5:31

Most of my like DD group friends I on New Year's took the time to manually add everyone into my like Google calendar to show up like over Zoom meeting.

SPEAKER_03: 5:40

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00: 5:44

I mean, for your birthday, if we can find the time, I do want to actually get around to fixing those rage cards and sending them to you. Hmm. Yeah, yeah, that would be good. Once I'm no longer in this eminent having to find a house, therefore my funds are tied up, crisis. Hmm, makes sense. House hunting is stressful.

SPEAKER_03: 6:05

Well, speaking of house hunting, what's new with you there, Richard?

SPEAKER_00: 6:09

So this will be a definitely a relevant contemporary story that people enjoy after the fact. But long story short, my apartment I'm currently in needs renovations, so I'm using this as an excuse slash being forced to find a place where I don't have to do a two and a half hour commute every day. I would like to get that to a zero hour a day commute. I would be happy for under an hour a day level commute.

SPEAKER_03: 6:35

But it turns out as a random side note, actually, uh I read a I I saw a video, uh you know, don't know if this is true or not. But basically, uh it stated that the size of a city has always been based on uh a half-hour commute, so like half hour there, half hour back. I can see people are people have been generally been willing to do that half-hour commute, and people actually spend on average the same amount of time in traffic commuting as they did like 200 years ago. Because sizes have grown to the cities have grown to match the size of how fast fast people can commute.

SPEAKER_00: 7:14

That is amusing. Because yeah, like I spend a lot of time commuting, doing my course readings and things. And it's just also I spend a lot of money on transit fees, so my rent going up is slightly offset, my transit fees going down because I have to take a train to school. Right, right. I mean, trains are awesome. I'm pro-train. But conceptually, it's energy draining. So my classes this semester are like so goaded. I probably already gloataboted this in the last episode where I'm like, oh, I guess I have to make a 1PHRPG for game development class, followed by a chapter of my sci-fi story for s uh fiction class, and then I guess I'll round it up by talking at length about the paneling and bleach today in manga class. This is great. Like, I was literally talking to one of my classmates, and like, if someone had a challenge to write me the semester where I have the most stuff already pre-written and ready to go, these are the topics. In theory, I could literally just take our episode of Boruto, pull out my words of the transcript, and have that hand that in as a paper. So when they're like, what are your thoughts on like time transitions and paneling in comic books? Like, oh man, do I have thoughts? Poroto is so bad at that. And that's the thing I gotta say in class and get participation grade for. Uh another really funny one is that so you were in university long enough to do tutorials, right? Mm-hmm. My undergrad did not.

SPEAKER_03: 8:51

I never actually did have to do a tutorial. Huh? I never actually did have to do a tutorial.

SPEAKER_00: 8:56

Huh! So I didn't have to do tutorials in my undergrad either, because I went to a like specialized program in a college. So tutorials, the thought being they're smaller, lower student county can engage again do projects. When my cast uh class size was capped at 20 in undergrad, that wasn't really there was no reason to do tutorials. Right. Also, my college probably didn't really have the cash flow to pay TA. It also didn't really have TAs because TAs are typically grad students. Fun fact. Right, right. Sheridan opened its first master's level program this year. Yeah, you can get a master's in I think it's like uh animation game it's like a master's that combines animation, game design, and some other things. So like the things they're good at. Yeah. I'm like, oh I'm really proud of you guys right now. You took the things you won Oscars in, and the fact that you had people on Turning Red and people on K-pop Demon Hunter, and decide we should do a master's in that field of study. Like, yes. Yes, that that makes sense. I am proud this is a smart decision. Weird.

SPEAKER_03: 10:01

Yeah, it definitely lends credibility to the fact that your redacted university in Toronto uh is uh a legitimate university, unlike redacted university in Calgary.

SPEAKER_00: 10:12

Alright. Yeah. But logs, like, I'm not gonna go too much harp into those particulars, A, because some of these people I talk about still employ me and I'd like them to continue to do such, and it's So it's so weird. Professors and professional workers and people, when you do a job for long enough, you start, like, w unpolitely bitching about the downsides. But then I remember what kitchen worker life was like, and I'm like, ha ha uh, petty restructuring squabbles and funding packages are not are definitely I was on the roof pulling leaves out of a vent. I I think my life's gotten better. I I was not trained to be on this roof.

SPEAKER_03: 10:58

It's not climbing up the ladder that's hard, it's it's climbing down.

SPEAKER_00: 11:02

Oh. Or like taking the flat iron scraper and just getting the grease off the underside of a conveyor belt, and I'm like, you know. I think trying to fight with various funding packages is absolutely the preferable experience.

SPEAKER_02: 11:16

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 11:17

And to follow that up, so my tutorials now that I've explained the concept of a tutorial vaguely and quickly to the like 50-50 percent I think most people get the concept of it being the smaller class the TAs run so people can do things. Right right. Last semester, my tutorials were about 18 to 20 students each. Okay. So I split them into groups of four. We'd like work on projects and things, fun times for that. Due to I don't know what calculation error happened. And I tried to see if it was they meant this for realsies. It turned out to be for realse. My first tutorial has three students. My second tutorial has four students. Wow. So my the number of students who attended the first one I ran this semester was one student out of three showed up. Huh. So this one student just sitting there, I'm like, well, I'm gonna let you know, you are the only student today. Let's do everything we power to get you straight A's, I suppose. Here's exactly how to do everything, because I could just It was switched from me using like doing like a lecture method to me just sitting down and doing a tutoring method. Right. And then the other one, two people showed up. I'm like, alright, I guess our group project is two people.

SPEAKER_02: 12:36

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 12:37

So technically, this is really good news for everybody involved except the school who is not getting their money's worth.

SPEAKER_03: 12:44

Fair enough. Because although they aren't actually paying you to run these tutorials, are they?

SPEAKER_00: 12:49

Yeah, straight up. Right. I make bank on running these tutorials. Because yeah, being a TA is like grading tutorials and other little knick-nacky things. So the tutorials are part of I'm literally hourly paid for the tutorials as part of my uh funding package slash being paid as an employee. Well then. So, like, these students are going to do exceptionally well or die trying. Because you get participation grades for the tutorials, right? And do you know how hard it is to be locked in a room for an hour with two other people and not say enough to get full participation? Like, it'd be actively difficult. So, like, I even told my prof, I'm like, there's a good chance all these students get full participation grades every week because there's three of them. And I can actually bother to learn their names. So I think they're gonna have a great experience. It's just really funny to me because I'm like, you know, I could probably handle 10 more of these and eat each of these of no issue, but here we are. And then, like my other TA partners, like, well, why do I have 24 and 21? I'm like, because a computer scheduled things based on students scheduling availability, are scheduling availability, and rolling D20s. Like, there's no human being that decided this as an act of choice. That's not how this works. I'm pretty sure you even just clicked the button on the scheduling software and then edit it afterward.

SPEAKER_03: 14:21

Uh well, I mean, it's been a while since I went to university. Um they actually had like um a tier system where uh you're only certain certain years were allowed to apply at a certain time for for like the electives and stuff, and you had to like I had to like line up my own schedule.

SPEAKER_00: 14:39

But you see what I mean, that if you're doing that, there's computers that are like I don't think a person is looking at all hundred people in this English class and going, like, okay, we should put you in tutorial three because that one can use more people.

SPEAKER_03: 14:51

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 14:52

Yeah. That's kind of what I meant by the it's handled by computers, is like, I don't think anyone's making these choices. I think the system is in place. So I'm just celebrating because I only have to grade like seven papers a semester.

SPEAKER_03: 15:11

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00: 15:12

I told my other TA people where I'm like, listen. I'm happy to redistribute for the grading if that helps anyone, but we can't just move people's tutorials because not everyone's schedules work that way. I even sent an email to be like, hey, are you guys sure you don't want to battle these numbers out more and give me more? They're like, no. It is what it is. I'm like, is it? Okay. If you're sure. Like, ugh. So that's what's new with me is that my classes are going great. I made a one-page RPG about surviving grad school. It needs a little refinement. One of my classmates made an RPG about a day in the life of a barista on break at their shift. And that is how it's done. Because they're like, they send it in, like, they take a picture of it, they're like, I still need to digitize it, but here's what it looks like. I'm like, you know, I think if you just handed this sketched one in, it has so much charm to it that it'd probably do better than mine. Like, in the TT RPG community, like, a hand-scribbed one-page RPG goes over really well. Like, Crash Pandas and a few other one-page ones I've played are just like, yeah, someone just scribbled this in pen and took a photo of it. Perfect. 10 out of 10. No notes.

SPEAKER_03: 16:30

Crash pandas, that was the racing game one.

SPEAKER_00: 16:32

Yeah, it was the four raccoons street racing. It was fun when I ran a different RPG every week for TT RPG Club. I learned a lot in that chunk of time. Which is why, like, I'm in class and they're talking about these RPGs. I'm like, guys, I once spent a year trying out hundreds of these. Please. Please ask me questions, because this will never matter again. This is like I do think I'm probably. This is almost gonna be a cocky claim, but I'm probably in the top hundred people for knowledge about one-page RPGs specifically. Yeah? Because most people don't have the resources to just force club members to try out new games every week. And just go through stacks of them.

SPEAKER_03: 17:22

It's funny, because then you turn to me for uh for uh I don't know, inspiration or I'd already made three.

SPEAKER_00: 17:28

I just enjoy working with you. Fair enough. I just I don't know that I've ever played a single-page RPG. Like the thing is too though, huh. Something arrogant I said to my brother the other day. Where I was I was having him ha I was asking him to read over and help me with a paper, and I'm like, you're a really good editor, probably because I sat and edited all your work in front of you for four years and taught you to edit at my level. Anyone who knows the context of how often my brother beats me at everything would find that extremely funny. It is pretty funny. But like, weirdly enough, the follow-up is to say to you, after spending time with me and me talking your ear off for the last five years or so, I think through osmosis I've forced your level of RPG knowledge higher than a lot of people's. Maybe. Because I'll just be like, here's an essay on my thoughts on dice weighting systems, and you're all be like, scene, takes a bite of your pizza, actually thinks about it for the rest of the day.

SPEAKER_03: 18:33

That is true. I do actually think about these things.

SPEAKER_00: 18:36

It was like when I was talking in class and I was explaining the mathematical difference between rolling two d6 versus rolling one d6 twice for decision making, because when you do two d6 you have a bell curve, which means you can choose the mathematical odds of your prompts happening. Right. Where if you're like roll on a table and then roll on a diff and then roll on a subtable, it doesn't arc it, it becomes linear. And then I'm just getting like this my classmates like taking notes, like blown away, and I'm like, my time is here. It's arrived. Although admittedly my usefulness tunes down a bit over the next few weeks, because like I'm less knowledgeable about parser games and twine games and things. Like, I'm more knowledgeable than the average person will be. Because I am a nerd. But less knowledgeable to the point of being like, here's 30 examples of this that I just have on my desktop in the folder labeled one page RPGs.

SPEAKER_03: 19:33

If you can find that folder.

SPEAKER_00: 19:35

No, I can. I use that one often. Oh, okay. That's the only thing that Romit Packet Gaming Project I did in my undergrad did was one page RPGs. Like, that was what the company was for. Hmm, yeah, that's true. So we tried to put out one a month for a year.

SPEAKER_02: 19:53

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 19:54

And to make those, we had to download and try all the best ones we could find on itch.io.

SPEAKER_03: 20:00

Sensible. Hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 20:01

Like, I even got one of them published in Ninth Level Games as Level Zero magazine they put out. Like, I've made money on one page RPGs. A decent amount, actually, over my various channels and sources. And by decent I mean like I could buy a Nintendo Switch game. I could buy a Nintendo 2 Switch game with profits I made up one page RPGs.

SPEAKER_03: 20:24

Oh, getting fancy.

SPEAKER_00: 20:26

I mean Kirby Airride's like a fucking$140 investment right now. Provided you had the Switch 2. Yeah. Actually, Kirby Airride 1 might be that much as well, because you'd have to if you like to actually physically buy it and set it up to work on a GameCube. Hmm. Maybe I should get Kirby Airride 1. I do have a GameCube. We never use it though. You know what I kinda want? And this is absolutely off topic. So you know like those like MAME arcade emulator machines you see? I think it'd really cool to put in the break room in my like master's program an arcade machine that's you know those like demo stations they used to have of consoles? Yeah. I want to build one of those with a GameCube and four controllers, and like a jailbreaked GameCube that has all the GameCube titles preloaded on it, so you just go up and play on your GameCube machine. So instead of like having to like set things up, you could just stand there, hold your controller, and play a few games. And I think the GameCube specifically has the best software to just stand there and play a game for an hour. Quite possibly, yeah. Like, you think it'd be the Switch, but no. Joy-Con's break, their software's unoptimized, they just don't have all the game. The Wii, you could argue, would be better than the GameCube, because the Wii is also a GameCube. But a Switch isn't also a Wii, which is deeply tragic. That is deeply tragic.

SPEAKER_03: 21:55

The the Wii U was also a Wii, that was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00: 21:59

Yeah, but like. So if someone comes into a room and sees like this cool GameCube kiosk, they're be like, yeah, awesome. They come in and see a Wii U kios, and be like, the hell is this thing?

SPEAKER_03: 22:11

Yeah, that's true. Like I don't even know what it is on topic.

SPEAKER_00: 22:17

Uh how awesome Rooster Fighter is. Alright, so this week, instead of doing a show and jump roundup, we're doing a Viz manga roundup. And I learned something, because there's a s I only managed to really go through one series when we decide we're gonna meet up and do this. Cause it turns out the creator of Inuatcha is up to chapter 306 of their new series, and no one's ever said anything about it.

SPEAKER_03: 22:42

Wait, that's on the Viz app? I saw Inuatha on here.

SPEAKER_00: 22:45

I thought that was the new series is called no, not the sequel to Inuatcha. The author's doing a new series called Mao.

unknown: 22:53

Oh.

SPEAKER_00: 22:55

And it's about a character that's transported back in time to Supernatural's early 20th century, gets recruited by a loose exorcist Mao, and they go on a venture. And this has been going. It is longer than Inuasha was. And I swear, I've never heard of this thing before in my life, and I feel like I should have.

SPEAKER_03: 23:19

Considering how much you liked Inuyasha.

SPEAKER_00: 23:22

Well, not just that, but like a relatively famous manganka, because they also did Rama one and a half, right? The idea that they've been putting out a new series.

SPEAKER_01: 23:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 23:33

So she's been putting out the series since 2019 consistently. And I'm just like. Huh. And apparently it had an ad it hasn't had an ad it has an anime coming out, and I'm like. I just feel like the fact that this isn't completely new to me, I'm like, I'm torn. Do I blitz through the manga? Or do I just wait for an anime to come out so I can like see how this goes if left to its own devices? It's just funny because Anywash's viewership was higher than Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon combined, because both audiences watched it. That makes sense. So I just find it amusing that like this has actually gone this long. Also, I feel like they get a pass, them specifically, about doing an exorcist thing when I'm like, oh, it has the same basic premise that someone falls back in time and gets recruited. And I'm just like I haven't dived into it enough, but I'm like, will this cross over? What is going on? Like, what is happening here? But yeah, I just it's funny to see someone like you always oh, you know what came up naturally in class yesterday? Hunter Hunter giving up on paneling. We had a 15-minute conversation in class about how Hunter Hunter is so text heavy now that we're not sure it has enough motion to qualify as a comic. It's so text heavy. And like, we're giving like these examples of how you can literally just use empty frames in one dialogue box, how changing like we even had examples of like changing the dialogue box to change the register and temperature of a steam, and then just Hunter Hunter is just a brick wall.

SPEAKER_03: 25:30

Hunter Hunter is just a brick wall. None of the characters have any personality anymore.

SPEAKER_00: 25:35

None of the characters are characters anymore. Like they're just blot devices sitting there to exposit mechanics they never use. I keep saying it too. It's so easy to fix Hunter Hunter right now. First off, he outsources it to an artist who can draw who's not a crippling back pain, just tells them the story. And all they have to do is on the boat with this dragging story, one of those portal doors open from the portal door guy, and Gone jumps out and punches a spider in the face. And then happy Hunter Hunter music plays. And then later we can explain how he got his Nen back and all blah blah blah blah. But that's what would fix it right now is Gone just jumps out of a portal door, punches a person in the face, and Killy is like Gone? Confused, and you shift the entire tone. That's how I'd fix it. Oh, I'd also fix it by just ending it and burning everything past the world tree in a fire.

SPEAKER_03: 26:34

But uh, interestingly enough, like it's is Hunter Hunter distributed by Viz? I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00: 26:41

Well, technically, like sh in North America, Viz is distributing all the show and jump stuff, technically. So technically, it's not in our VizMonga app because we're trying to look at things that aren't in show and jump. But Hunter Hunter doesn't seem to be in show and jump either right now, so but Well, yeah, because you know, of the aforementioned health issues. Well, it's not the health issues that bugs me. It's the continuing to exist mediocre that bugs me. Mm-hmm. That's true too. It's that it's not cancelled. It's like the George R.R. Martin thing. He has no reason to ever actually finish Game of Thrones because he keeps getting money on the potential of finishing Game of Thrones. And he can't possibly because he keeps getting guests ex- If he finished it, no one's calling him to talks and things, right? No one's calling him to conventions, no one's asking him about it, he loses all attention and can't possibly write a good enough ending that people will be satisfied. Right. Partly because the story of Game of Thrones people are familiar with aren't even the novels.

SPEAKER_02: 27:42

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 27:43

So it's not like people are gonna read the novel in a vacuum. They're gonna read it, compare it to the HBO one, and not like it. Well, they might like it better than the end of the HBO one, because apparently the last season will be. No, they'll make it worse. Because people want to be loud and upset on the internet. Reactioners don't talk about how awesome things are. A popular thing, you're never gonna turn onto a popular and say a guy goes popular thing is popular because it's good, and here's why. Occasionally they will, and those videos make me happy, but they're rarer. I watched a video yesterday of what each Pokemon generation did best in the franchise. Oh. And talked about one good thing about each Pokemon generation. That was fun.

SPEAKER_03: 28:26

Okay, I mean now we're definitely on a tangent, but what did they have to say about uh your least favorite, black and white?

SPEAKER_00: 28:34

So black and white, they liked it being a fresh setting. They liked the Pokedex being completely unique. The story of Black and White is the best story in the franchise. And is the most compelling villain in the franchise.

SPEAKER_03: 28:52

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00: 28:53

The evil team trying to liberate Pokemon, that was interesting. Ens Castle coming on the ground, it was cool. The story written in black and white was the strongest story in the franchise, I claim. They were only counting mainline games, so I can't be like Pokemon Coliseum. For the record, it's Pokemon Coliseum, but I can't, so. I don't disagree, by the way.

SPEAKER_02: 29:17

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 29:19

Black and white had a compelling story. Yeah, like it's probably the Pokemon game's story and characters you hear mentioned, probably the most. Alright, let's get into some weird BizMonga in the BizMonga app. So I started with Mao, which is an Iniwasha inspired original series that is paced and structured in such a way to trigger all the happy nerves in my brain cell. Where it's like instead of jumping back in time and meeting a demon, they jump back in time, meet an exorcist, fight demons, and it's I'm pretty sure a slow burn romance. Oh, okay. And it's not feudal Japan, it's like tension Japan? Which I'm not gonna start throwing out different Japanese eras successfully in conversation. But it's interesting enough that I gave the first free three chapters a read, and then tried to decide if I wanted to read it, or wait for the anime to come out. Right, right. Because I do think just looking at like the artwork in the paneling, it has they as an artist have gotten better. That makes sense. I've been very clear that I like long-running series as slow burn concepts. So when I see this has 306 chapters, a lot of people are like, oh god, and I'm like, woo. What's this? You're still putting out weekly manga attack 20 years later. I'm proud of you. 30 years later.

SPEAKER_03: 30:58

That is pretty impressive.

SPEAKER_00: 31:00

It also undercuts sexism, because notice how she didn't break her bones to do this. Uh kind of on a similar sassy note. Not related to anything, but Stargate got renewed and they're putting out a new Stargate series. And they got the original writers on board, and like, so Stargate had original Stargate, Stargate Atlantis, and Stargate Universe. Their new sequel is just kind of grab-bagging characters who wanted to come back for a new series across all three. Okay. Which is interesting because it's like Stargate uh SG1 and Stargate Univerlantis ran co-currently, like their shows took place and they like had characters jump back and forth for a while, which is neat. Okay. So a bunch of Stargate has showed up on all the streaming devices everywhere. It's basically gotten out of limbo hell. And I asked my brother a question, and then I had Jenner of AI try and give me the answer, and I'm curious if you think this sounds right. I claimed that because they're denser, longer episodes, that if you were to convert all of Stargate into a manga, it would be longer than One Piece. The AI looking at the length of the average script of uh Stargate, the length of the average chapter of One Piece, removing stage directions from the script, and accounting for having to draw and panel things, and having to like put in more text details, uh concluded that Stargate franchise would in fact be 30% longer than One Piece if it were a manga.

SPEAKER_03: 32:40

You might be right. Like just the the One Piece uh episodes contain so little content, uh it's kind of absurd. So the idea that converting it the other way around with a more dense uh information dense episode. Yeah, like probably would be.

SPEAKER_00: 33:03

There's there's a lot of content there. Like the first episode of Stargate Atlantis is an hour and a half special, or like now I think it's even longer than that, because they had like 45-minute episodes. It took like a one-hour block. So it's like two hours minus commercials like show, where they go to an underwater alien, they introduce characters, introduce a base, go to an underwater city, go to an alien planet, learn about these alien invasions, explore alien runes, get chased back, go back to the city, and then have the city greased to the surface. I'm like, yeah, that's like an arc. Like an episode or two at partner of Stargate is like a Zamuza arc.

SPEAKER_02: 33:41

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 33:42

And I'm like, man, that'd be a sick weekly manga. Like, I know we're against Generative AI and we're against it, but like, would it be so bad if we built a machine that turned each episode of Stargate SG1, removed the racism, cleaned it up, and put it out as a monthly manga a weekly manga for me to enjoy as it went through the entire show in a new format. Would that be a bad use of technology? Like, provided we like paid people. I mean, the better use is to just pay an artist to convert SG1 into manga chapters forever. I would rather that. Right, right.

SPEAKER_02: 34:18

It's uh Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 34:20

It's like, oh man, if there's we like to talk about adaptations, if it's like, for shows that had cool ideas that if they were remastered and repolished would be amazing. Long run in sci-fi has a lot of gems in there and a lot of trash. Anywho, that's my mini rant about the conversion from manga to live action doing the reverse, how interesting I personally found the logistics of that to be.

SPEAKER_03: 34:50

Uh, but so um this uh Rooster Fighter series. I actually I I read one article saying that it's actually a popular enough to get animated uh this year, uh, but I'm not sure that it's gonna be localized this year, so that kind of makes sense.

SPEAKER_00: 35:09

Why is he as good as the One Punch Man artist? Can you answer me this? Cause right now I'm looking at a biblically accurate angel chicken rooster head in a double-sided cave of blood tissue, taunting him about finding the exit. Can you answer me why it's this good?

SPEAKER_03: 35:31

I don't know. But the like the the art is is incredibly like detailed and interesting and and uh has a lot of those grotesque characteristics uh characteristics that I enjoy. Uh and it takes itself super seriously, like Dragon Ball Z fate of the world serious kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00: 35:50

Well, Dragon Ball Z didn't even take the server Z didn't take itself as seriously as fans take it, weirdly enough. You know what this reminds me of art style-wise? It reminds me of King Claymore and Gance. Like Oh, actually, it has a lot of energy of uh not the breaker, because it's better art wise, which is ridiculous.

SPEAKER_03: 36:20

Right, it's just but then it's so stupid because it's it's Dragon Ball Z with chickens.

SPEAKER_00: 36:27

Like, but it's not I like to make this distinction. It's not that it's Dragon Ball Z. Because Dragon Ball Z is dumber than people remember. It's what people wanted Dragon Ball Z to be. Like, it's like history of trunks with chickens. It's Toey Dragon Ball Z with chickens.

SPEAKER_03: 36:46

In any way, I truly hope that uh it does get localized. Uh but uh I was trying to look up when it would actually be released, and I I found that it's supposedly gonna be animated in like Q2 of this year, but um I couldn't I couldn't actually find any other confirmation of it, so I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 37:06

Well it's funny, it's like when One Punch Man had the alien versus Saitama fight, and Dragon Ball Super was airing around a similar time, and we're like, why is One Punch Man better at being Dragon Ball Super than Dragon Ball Super is at being Dragon Ball Super? And like Rooster Fighter makes me ask that question a lot of like, is it like just so people are like, no, I don't want to do straight show and I need a twist? And I'm like, I get the bit. I really do. But you like well, uh, I'm gonna take back a little bit of my Dragon Ball gun, because like they definitely run gags and bits. Like him spitting water at people at the very start, like. But this artwork really makes me think of Claymore and Gance specifically. And definitely makes me think of the good parts of One Punch Man's manga.

SPEAKER_03: 38:00

Yeah, the good parts for sure.

SPEAKER_00: 38:02

Like the Cockadoodle Do Cannon is taken completely seriously, but has like the death punch energy.

unknown: 38:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 38:13

And I'd say this is a better parody than One Punch Man is, because it's maintained the bit the entire time. It hasn't pulled a bleach and added me 68 number letter fillets. No, no, it is just following. It is committed, uh.

SPEAKER_03: 38:29

Yeah, I'd I'd rather enjoy watching this chicken with his spiritual core called uh the inner egg. No, the not the egg, the something egg. I can't even remember. It just blows my mind how like they literally go with the I'll never forgive you, Aura. Their hyperbolic time jamer is called the inner yoke.

SPEAKER_00: 38:58

Beautiful. 10 out of 10. So so far, for random mangas we've read on the uh app, I've given like an 8 out of 10 and a 10 out of 10 score. So far, it has been strong with these two manga, it's done better than Show a Gemp this week. However, there's a lot of random crap on here that is random crap.

SPEAKER_03: 39:20

Well, so uh speaking of grotesque art styles, um Beyblade X's grap, and we should no one should ever read it. So Uzumaki uh was one of my favorite horror that came up in class.

SPEAKER_00: 39:33

We were talking about recurring visual motifs in manga uh sorry, visual uh motifs in comics, and my god is Uzumaki the best example of that you can think of.

SPEAKER_02: 39:43

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03: 39:44

Uh it turns out it's by an artist author named uh Junji Ito. Mm-hmm. Um and he has put out a lot of stuff that is.

SPEAKER_00: 39:56

He has, he is the most prolific horror manga writer of all time. He's one of those worms. Manga writers, that's good enough that he gets talked about in Western comic book classes by people who aren't me.

SPEAKER_02: 40:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 40:07

Uh so he has like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty series on the Viz app. I don't know if Viz puts their entire catalog on the app or or what, but he has twenty different series that are on the on the app that you'd be able to read.

SPEAKER_00: 40:32

He's absolutely manga Stephen King, and I respect the shit out of it.

SPEAKER_03: 40:37

I I I almost think I I might actually uh activate my subscription again so I can read some more of these horror stories. Because like uh there's uh like a Frankenstein story story collection, and it's like uh so many cool looking like it's pretty easy for me to say that.

SPEAKER_00: 41:02

I don't think I'm gonna get a lot of pushback by saying he's the best at it.

SPEAKER_03: 41:07

In any event, uh Uzumaki, uh, it's in their anime tie-in section, so apparently that one's actually getting uh getting animated.

SPEAKER_00: 41:15

Oh, it did get the anime.

SPEAKER_03: 41:16

The anime's bad.

SPEAKER_00: 41:18

The anime's bad, really? Yeah, they didn't give it the budget it needed, and also it works better as a graphic novel.

SPEAKER_02: 41:25

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 41:26

You know what's real good that they've been putting out in Little Bursts? Just because the source material's really good? Black Lagoon. Black Lagoon. It is such 90s anime. It is literal so it's literal pirates, like with guns and they shoot you. Shipping cargo in the Mediterranean, and occasionally finding submarines full of Nazis and killing them.

SPEAKER_03: 41:53

The description on the Viz Manga app is four hardcore heroes, one high-speed torpedo boat, ten thousand four.

SPEAKER_00: 42:02

I missed the most important part of the show in that piece. And one Japanese salary man. So they take a guy hostage, chapter one, who becomes one of their four main characters, as he just slowly breaks bad when realizing that being a broke pirate hostage on a boat was better than his office job. And here's the most important part, because you'll have someone like in a made outfit with a shoe knife stab someone uh kick someone in the crotch. And then you'll just be like, why? Why is life like this? Uh oh yeah, it's Peak TV. Well, peak manga anyway. Peak manga. Uh. Screw you, Hayate the Combat Butler. Well, part of it, the Viz app, is they're definitely releasing things that finished years ago that they're just kind of slow releasing.

SPEAKER_03: 42:59

Right, well, because uh stuff that finished years ago in Japan hasn't necessarily finished being multi-wise.

SPEAKER_00: 43:06

There's a lot of stuff I read Bad Pan translations of. So, when I was younger, like 15, I found Kahaite the Combat Butler amusing. As a fully functional adult, don't read it. Zero stars. You don't like it anymore? No. It's increasingly problematic. There's a few good lines in it, but the writer in me knows that this plot wasn't written and goes nowhere slowly. And like, they do that thing where they tease that there's like big secrets and big plot and there's isn't. Oh.

SPEAKER_03: 43:40

So there also does seem to be a lot of stuff on the the Viz app for uh LGBTQ.

SPEAKER_00: 43:47

Um well, yeah, that's where all manga comes from. So I'm gonna be political for a minute and get us canceled. How a country that populized two genres of Yuri and Yowie be anti-gay marriage means everyone there's a hypocritical piece of shit. Cause your economy gets a boost from acknowledging these communities you legally refuse to. Like it affects your budget as a nation. And you're like, no, no, it's not a real thing. It's just a massive literary industry here. To the point where we label them on bookshelves, but we're also not gonna acknowledge rights for these groups. Fuck that. You're gonna look me in the eye and tell me that no manga have trans people? Have you opened a manga?

SPEAKER_03: 44:34

I uh not necessarily trans, but I I found this uh I haven't actually read it. I'm a little bit curious about it. But it's just called How Do We Relationship? And the description is a romance of convenience between two college women soon becomes the real thing.

SPEAKER_00: 44:50

Gas! I I've gonna lie, I've never remembered the name of a title of a series like that, but I've read many. Although I read to a human being who had also read Midnight Secretary last week. That was funny. That's what so there's a lot of things I've read where I'm like, if someone else read it, like if someone else read Record of the Angsty Vampire, that wouldn't be super shocking. Like, I ran into someone's like, oh yeah, I enjoyed Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer. That's possible. Midnight Secretary is a weird thing for me to have read specifically. Right. It's extremely unlikely for me to run into someone else who's read it. And willing to admit it.

SPEAKER_03: 45:34

What you saw I I've I thought about your your comments about uh Japan's stance on gay marriage and and and whatnot, and just saw this how do we relationship longer? I'm like, man, what what is going on in Japan?

SPEAKER_00: 45:48

They're worried they're going well well, to editorialize reminder, this is a comedy podcast, and nothing I say is true. Like, I do think it's a large push A for like corporate and religious values and nuclear family values and declining birth rates, and B, it's scapegoatism. You pick a minority and you hate them. And then people will ignore that you're the majority isn't the problem. The minority isn't the problem. It's the oligarchs that are the problem who are telling you to hate each other instead. It's not that complicated. You just pick a group that can't fight back and tell everyone they cost your problems instead of you, and then while they're killing each other, you sip your from your solid gold throne.

SPEAKER_03: 46:28

Ah, but so then obviously uh Viz also has Inuyasha, but they say it's the Viz Big Edition. I don't know what difference that makes.

SPEAKER_00: 46:38

I don't know either. But as someone who actually, like, last year went through all of Inuasha again, Inniwasha's good. It's not great, but it's good. Actually, I'm gonna give Inwasha a weird piece of praise here. Okay. So a lot of long-running manga don't feel like they've really arced out where they're going. Like, I talk was talking to someone with someone about Death Note yesterday while walking to the comic book store. And I mentioned my life's pretty great. So I'm walking to the comic book store talking about Death Note, and Death Note ended after the first act and then had a second act that they felt like they had to tack on. Right. Inuyasha, despite its pretty lengthy page count, doesn't tack on, especially the manga, the anime was a little worse for this for Piller, doesn't tack on new plots. Like the core, this villain did this and messed up this and this, so we're trying to find these things while slowly falling in love. They don't really feel the need to pull things out of their butt to continue the story, like it was consistent. So the ending of Anywash is actually really good, because it was they didn't preemptively ruin their own ending. Right. So it doesn't have Tokyo Ghoul syndrome of, oh, I ran out of ideas halfway through.

SPEAKER_03: 48:03

Or got tired of the idea that they were currently running, anyways.

SPEAKER_00: 48:07

And they couldn't so. You know how I absolutely despise the mid- or uh the mid-story character bloat syndrome? Especially when it's in the last core of your show and you're like, here's my 26-lettered villains, or here's my Zetsu in clone army, oh it's actually Midara, oh no, it's actually Zetsu, oh no, it's actually an alien queen. Inuwashas, to spoil Innuachas, main villain Naraku stays the secondary villain, but the actual main villain was the evil spirits in the sacred jewel the whole time. Where you put a bunch of evil in it, and eventually the evil became sentient, basically absorbed Naraku and was trying to like do evil wish-granting jewel things.

SPEAKER_03: 48:51

Right. So it was like it felt like Naraku's the main villain, but at the same time there was the screw line of the of the jewel.

SPEAKER_00: 48:58

And then the jewel, to defeat it, you had to basically, instead of wishing for your happy ending, wish for the jewel to blow itself up because it monkey boss everything.

SPEAKER_02: 49:07

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 49:08

And the idea that the evil spirits within the jewel were like the main villain. Yes, the first thing you see that's evil is anything that grabs this thing turns into a horrifying monster. Right. And then Naraku being like the second main villain. There was a little bit of some bullshit near the end of Inuasha, when Shoshomuru gets his infinity plus one kill you with Cancer's killing you sword to hit Naraku and kill him with the killy sword. That was bad. Bad writing on that one. Okay. Cause like. Yeah, didn't need it. Did not need to give Shoshomuru a buff, we were fine.

SPEAKER_03: 49:44

But Shoshomuru was already kind of a badass.

SPEAKER_00: 49:47

Yeah. Also, the times when Shoshomaru would use his I Heal You Sword to fuck up ghosts and things were great. And the made Billing functionally being a ghost meant like, oh no, this is actually paying off perfectly. You did not need to give him a buff. At all. Oh, whatever. But yeah, the show for being 558 chapters long predates the ninja war feeling of adding a shit ton of new characters in. And really just gives names to existing things. But moving along, so I don't just harp on one author's good work, objectively good work. You know what came up in class as well? Good night pun pun. Oh really? It specifically came up because we were talking about how, like, just changing the artwork of one character drastically changes an entire story? Good night pun is amazing. Yeah, okay. Like that one came up in our artsy fartsy manga class. Which isn't about manga, by the way, it's literally about Western comics, but we're nerds, so manga keeps being brought in. A dark coming-of-age tale with slice of life, slice of back. You see, that's completely accurate, but the main character is Poonpoon, the bird-looking thing. Right. And it's just the artwork just makes that truly hilarious the entire time. Because you have this deadly serious manga, and the main character is a poorly drawn paint file. That's great. Right. I've talked a bunch. What do you want to- what series do you want to talk about next that you've managed to dive into a bit?

SPEAKER_03: 51:28

Well, no, okay, so I've never actually watched uh or read uh the Magi series. Okay. Uh but uh that it's interesting to see that AA it's on here, and I think it's been animated into like several different like series.

SPEAKER_00: 51:44

Yeah, like blocks. Maji, like, was really popular for a while too. I never really got onto that hype train. But you're right, like, it was at the point where spinoffs are being animated.

SPEAKER_03: 51:56

Um I just like yeah, the the Viz app definitely has a very wide selection of very popular series, and then obviously, like you say, some of the more bizarre ones, but still have huge artistic merit, like that pun pun.

SPEAKER_00: 52:14

Um the exact opposite of artistic merit is Ultraman along came a Spider-Man. Which has no artistic merit whatsoever. It's just Marvel crosses over with Ultraman, who crosses over with all of the things. And it is great. And it is not good. It is great, but not good, huh? Like, I very much enjoyed, like, they made this Ultraman Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher game where you raised Kaiju, but it was just Monster Rancher mechanics. And that's one of my favorite pieces of software. Right. Will forever be one of my favorite pieces of software. And it's like I never really got onto the Ultraman hype train. I did watch the live-action show on Fox Kids when it came out forever ago. That like when we actually got localized. Mm-hmm. But like, yeah, Ultraman crosses over with a lot of things. There's also a shocking amount of Spider-Man just straight up on this app. Japan likes Spider-Man. Well, everyone likes Spider-Man.

SPEAKER_03: 53:20

This seems to be uh localizing Japanese adaptations of uh Marvel series. So it's like there's X-Men, there's Spider-Man, there's well Wolverine is kinda.

SPEAKER_00: 53:32

Man, I wish I liked Deadpool. Like it feels like I should, but I don't know Deadpool. Deadpool's just a little too stupid for my taste. It's close. Just a little too stupid. Oh, also, everyone everywhere, read free rid. I don't think I need to talk on this very long.

SPEAKER_02: 53:58

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 53:59

The free run manga. Season two just started coming out, so although I don't think the free run manga is better than the anime. They're just both works of art.

SPEAKER_03: 54:12

Well, so the free run anime. The free run anime um it manages to act like perfectly captured the pacing of the manga. And expertly just I think it's an expert adaptation um that is extremely faithful to the source material. Um so they're both excellent pieces of art, that's for sure. Um and it's a it's a very interesting slice of life story that follows an adventurer, so it's like there are some action sequences, but a lot of the adventurers is literally just traveling, right? Going from city to city, seeing pi what people say, buying gear, like throwing deep philosophy at you.

SPEAKER_00: 55:01

The show throws a crap ton of deep philosophy at you. Like it's really trying to like actually answer what is the meaning of life, like unironically and seriously.

SPEAKER_03: 55:13

Although, funny enough, uh, I've been re-watching season one because I I wanted to watch it with my fiance, and then we'll watch season two together as it comes out. Um I forgot that the objective of their quest was to go to the the farthest reaches of the northern continent to reach heaven. Yep.

SPEAKER_00: 55:36

That's pretty pretty funny. Uh I thought that's what I'm saying. That feels weirdly deliberate, like how the show's structured though, because she's like, I want to get to know humans more. So it kind of makes sense that it zooms in more to like her day-to-day interactions with people, and you kind of forget why they were going north. Because it really becomes less about the destination. Like, it's absolutely this journey is not about the destination at all. It's more I'm going through and retracing my steps with my apprentice daughter.

unknown: 56:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 56:09

And best boy who did nothing wrong and deserves to be treated better, Stark. He's so aggressively bullied for having literally never done anything wrong in his life. He'll just be like, Good morning. I forgot your birthday, and she's like, I hate you forever and die. He's like, I've known you a year. I'm sorry. I didn't know what to buy you because you always hit me. Hashtag Dark Lives Matter.

SPEAKER_03: 56:44

That's like the the exact episode that we just watched, me and my fiance, and it's like, uh, she gets mad at him for not buying him any buying her anything for her birthday. And then he's like, um, well, I was gonna ask you to like come with me to buy something, but then you thought I forgot your birthday and I didn't want to sound like I was trying to suck up.

SPEAKER_00: 57:04

And also at one point he's talking about free rate, it's like you forgot her birthday. He's like, I didn't have birthdays. Well, what did you do for your birthday? Nothing. You sure it's nothing? Oh, in retrospect, we ate burgers. Yeah, that's what dwarves do for their birthdays. Why would I know that? Like, you like you like to think about it, like Starks' or Storks Starks' orphan, his entire family dead found by a dwarf being like, do you not recognize it's significant as a birthday? He's like, correct. Sorry, I it never occurred to me people would care about this. Um bat. Uh yeah. Hashtag Starks is like, maybe I don't want to fight a dragon 1v1, proceeds to beat up the dragon. He's like, well, I'm sorry, I thought a dragon was scary.

SPEAKER_03: 57:59

Um that was one of the like the peak character introductions where it's like, okay, you just need to give us a 30-second in 30-second opening, and then he runs in there, starts fighting dragons, like, okay, I gave you a 30-second opening, and they're like, Yeah, the dragon's already dead.

SPEAKER_00: 58:14

So good. Like, that's the thing about Freerid, is it does such a range of tone well, it'll be like deep, solemn, wistful, and then it'll be everyone stuck in a box. And people in the Mage exam are like, aren't you the most powerful? How did this happen? Why? Uh. But yeah. Anything else stick up to you in your various readings on this other app that isn't show and jump? Because, yeah, because they're pulling out plastics from everywhere, like, I gotta say, there's more stuff that I didn't click on, but there's some absurdly high-quality things hidden in here.

SPEAKER_03: 58:55

Well, so uh, it's just something that I've I've only seen a couple episodes of the of the North American adaptation localization, I guess, but I find it really funny that Yokai Watch has uh a manga that is being published by Viz.

SPEAKER_00: 59:12

So one thing I did used to read a bunch of back in the totally me just pirating things off of OneMonga Days is a lot of video games and things got manga adaptations. Like Alfre Zelda game has a full-length manga with it.

unknown: 59:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 59:29

All the Persona games do.

SPEAKER_03: 59:32

Persona 5 is on here.

SPEAKER_00: 59:34

I don't think I would go. I probably there is a version of reality where I go through the entire Persona 5 manga. I don't know if it'd be a superior experience to the game, but the game's long Persona 5. I remember I was in this dungeon for like two hours and then died, and then it's like brought me back sent me back like two hours of progress, and I just gave up forever. Because the way I died was an enemy used an AoE confusion spell. Which confused my entire party, and they all just died. And I'm like, well, okay, it's like, yeah, you didn't manually save. I'm like, I live in 2025. I have been spoiled with when I die in a game, a pop-up pops up, would you like to try again? Because game developers have realized sometimes you die to pure bullshit. So it's like I won't read the Persona manga because I kinda want to do the game first, but I don't know if I'll ever go back to the game because it made me so mad.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:31

That's funny. But I mean, yeah, that's really the the only other other thing I thought I thought that was funny. Um I guess we could I It doesn't really look like there's a whole lot of like really good anime tie-ins. You understand the Uzumaki anime is not good. We already talked about free rinse.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:54

Like, I'm not gonna be out here and try and explain why someone should read a hundred chapters of Case Closed. And by a hundred I mean eleven hundred. Either you're into Boy Detective Solves Crime or you're not.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:11

I did really like that uh what was it, the detective series that didn't last very long.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:17

Uh it it's so bad because it just had to not be a harem and keep having mysteries, and then it gave up on both those things and it exploded instantly. And I'm like, that's what you get. You deserve to be cancelled.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:28

Dick. But Case Close is is very faithful to the voice hall's mysteries. True. True? Formula.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:37

Formula. It's formulatic.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:40

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:43

Because yeah, like the tie-in sections like Comey can't communicate. I'm not the target audience for that one. Um Rama shows up, which I don't know enough about it to really jump.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:57

Rama Rama one half has been done for so long, it's like it's weird that they put it in the anime tie instead.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:03

Oh, it has like a new anime. Like last year, I think. Really?

unknown: 1:02:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:08

Uh Rion and Ketchu got a new anime as well. Yeah, I I think it hurt his reputation that it turned out the artist was just a straight-up pedophile. Wasn't great. Oh that would do it. Yep. Yeah, it's bad. Don't find yourself on a list. And certainly don't run a country while being on a list of pedophiles. That'd be bad. Can't imagine that happening though. Cause that would just be absurd. Stare directly in camera.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:47

But yeah, so I I don't know, there's a lot of good stuff that it's like should I renew my subscription so I can binge read a read a bunch of stuff and then cancel my subscription because I read everything on here? Or you do apparently do weekly releases for some series.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:04

Well, what's weird about it is a lot of things I'm spotting on this are from like the one manga days of me just reading things that were on top of charts seemingly at random. And like back then I was more willing to just try a few chapters of whatever showed up, probably because I wasn't reading three books a week. And no one was asking me for money. Like, for example, they have Downfall on here, which is a really dark, shitty manga about a person's life falling to pieces. But I had read it on one manga. Yeah. And like, it's well written, but it's like depressing as hell. It's like you watch this person's life self-destruct due to the bad choices they've made in real time. Like, oh great. But like, yeah. Like, I'm we're not here to like recommend whether people buy an app or not, just kind of experience for things. And I'm like, there's interesting things on here, but I do think it's hard to know what you're looking for. Because, like, show and jump's weird, because showin' is a genre. Right? Like, everything will fall in show and jump somewhat in that genre. Where Viz's other category still seems to lean towards showen, but is so cosmically all over the place. Mm-hmm. That you absolutely could find stuff enough stuff to read to be worth your time, if you're in the mood to go gambling.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:34

Well, yeah, for sure. things going on.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:41

It's like you can read about Spider-Man or Beyblade.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:45

It's a very diverse catalog.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:48

Because, yeah, like a lot of things, it's kind of ironic as we've been going through it, it's like things are mostly pop popping up to us as we're aware of this from its other tie-in. Like, the things inspired by this manga are already successful, so it retroactively brought us back to see if the manga's there. But like, I'm not about to just click cosplay cop viz one shot and see what it's about. I might, but I'm probably not. Or like, the odds of me going into X-Men the manga remastered. I can't see you going through every Juju Ito thing on here. That wouldn't surprise me.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:37

I uh I realized that I am a pretty big fan of horror.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:42

Cause yeah, there's like a lot of titles I recognize from like older monks. That's the thing, is like chronologically this app makes no sense. Like they have Flames of Recca on here, and that was an anime in like the 80s. Like in the free chapter section, they have Anywasha, and I'm like, that's not new. Like, there's that Mar manga that got an anime on YTV that I never watched where I'm like, I've seen this title decades ago.

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:15

But it's interesting. It definitely The fact that the Shonen Jump and Viz are so like closely intertwined, and yet we've been doing the Shonen Jump app for years and we didn't even realize Viz had their own app.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:31

Well what's funny too is like it would my brain is more likely to try and just acquire from like a comic book show or a library, or literally on a couple occasions, Internet Archive for me to find like a if I want to like reread something retro for a point, that's probably gonna be my approach. So it's like it's actually almost a bad strategy that they have show and jump and vis manga separated into separate apps in that just being a button.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:03

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:04

Because they're like just giving their it's like they're just giving their non-show and jump things less exposure.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:11

Yeah. Yeah, it would be more convenient if they were just combin combined into a single app. Although then I guess Fiz wouldn't make as much money by selling two separate subscriptions.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:21

And also, to be fair, then you can get the webtoons problem where if you put everything in the world on your app, then no one can ever find anything.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:30

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:30

I have never just tried to read on webtoon. I have to be looking for something really specific to even consider it. Cause like I'll cur the front page of Webtoon right now is five soul leveling knockoffs. All class awakening, COD Slayer, the Divine Ring descends, the strongest other world. Beware! Double trouble, I stole the first ranker's soul. No. No. I don't even think that's a natural trending list. I think they artificially inflated it because they have solo leveling.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:07

Well, no, it is somewhat based on your your reading patterns, but those do seem to be the most popular genres on the website.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:16

Not for what you think. So here's my conspiracy theory. Because I don't know exactly how it's built. So someone finishes solo leveling, right? At the end of the chapter, it gives them five recommendations, so they start reading a new thing. And then, because everyone read solo leveling, what got recommended a solo leveling spin-off, it artificially inflates the solo leveling spin-offs. Because they didn't click the new one because they wanted to read it, they clicked the new one because they finished the old one. And it doesn't really account for like completion or click-through. It counts on how many people physically clicked this. So these aren't like sorted by reviews or ratings, they're sorted by views, and views are artificial. Because you'll see the things at the top list, click them, and then it'll keep them at the top list, and they only got up there because you finished reading the good thing.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:11

First and second season were really good.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:13

Well, if someone who comes out often as a solo level or hater, I'm gonna say the facts. These are objective facts. The one time that my podcast isn't subjective. Solo leveling is good. Free Rin is better. Fair. That's it. When we look at these anime awards, there isn't a single category other than pure action that solo leveling should have won. Because people voted for it to win categories because they like solo leveling, not because they liked that category of solo leveling. Solo leveling did not have the best character this year. Or last year. No. Did not have the best plot, did not have the best setting, did not have this best soundtrack, and a couple things could fight it for art direction. It did it was like a B in every category, resulting in an S-Class product. Hmm. Where, like, let's take Bleach Thousand Year Blood War, for example. It had a worse plot than solo leveling. Right. No one's following Thousand Year Blood War Bleach in a vacuum. It admittedly, I will say Ichigo is a less compelling character than Gen Woo. That is that's a low blow to Ichigo. Yeah, but Ichigo's thing is I am an average college student who does decent exams, who occasionally gets in fights and not really, whose hard work and struggle is undercut by genetic advantage, who likes these people, I guess. Like Ichigo doesn't arc at all. Hmm. Like he's like, my mother died, but that's not what motivates me. What motivates me is other characters dragging me into the plot. Rukia is a more interesting character than Ichigo.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:01

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:02

And ironically, wasn't the protagonist but was like the driving emotional core of the story. Rukia got a great plot arc over Bleach. A lot of characters who aren't Ichigo got great plot arcs. But Ichigo himself is almost a plot device. So solo leveling, I would say, beats Bleach Thousand Year Blood War in plot and story and mechanics. But doesn't lose an art direction. Bleach Thousand Year Blood War's anime has some of the most beautifully drawn fight scenes I've ever seen in my life. And people like, look how sick soul leveling is, watch him fight this bug man. I'm like, did you not see the part where Captain Hippy died the entire world sebia toned as ink splattered renditions of a lover committing a double suicide caused him as an enemy to both gain cancer and then wrapped wire around their necks and chopped off their necks simultaneously as they fell backward into Inkscape? Did no one else watch this but me? No. Screw you, solo leveling. You were not the prettiest fight scenes I s did no one else watch Free Rin versus Mecha Freerin. Nothing that happened in Solar Leveling was sicker than Free Rin versus Mecha Free Rin. Yeah. But solo leveling, on average, every episode was sick. Free Rin had like four fight scenes across 26 episodes. Yep, that's true. It takes eight episodes before someone throws a bunch.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:27

I don't know. I I've been willing to take more uh uh risks on uh webtoon just as the final thing here gets like this is one series uh uh it's about uh guy um and he gets reincarnated as a magic book.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:47

Uh uh You're gonna have to do some work here for me to not just throw bleach in your eyes.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:55

Well, I just think it's funny because then like he's a book, so then he's trying to like teach people magic from the book, trying to get people to read him and then teach the magic so that he can get his revenge on the demon that cursed him. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:12

Well, absolutely gives things a try.

SPEAKER_03: 1:13:15

I'd so kind of like interesting stuff on here for sure.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:18

So it's kind of funny is with Shoan Jeff's current level of quality, which several things are wrapping up or ending abruptly, and I feel like Kagura Banshee's on his last legs because the power curve kind of curved itself too high.

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:33

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:34

Yeah. I feel like right now between the two, Viz absolutely has the better collection because it's like it's hard to spot Viz, but I'm like, oh, you have some of the best anime and manga ever written, objectively speaking. Sitting there in second place below Rooster Fighter. Like, yes, read Uzamaki. Uzamaki is good. Zob 100, pretty good. Call of the Night, a lot of people like that. Not me, but like, titles like Call of the Night, Komi Can't Communicate, Nana, How Do We Relationship, these are things you hear about often that are not showing jump. And I'm gonna read this Kamudo series that is the artist who did the Zelda mangas, has a story of like a prince and a dragon, and I'm like, this is sick. Okay, I want a classic adventure story. I really like that uh Odor of the Flame being just an adventure story that just gave up and ended, but like conceptually it was cool. I also recommend you give the first reading of that Komodo series a chance. It's very pretty and very Zelda Twilight Princess energy, but with dragon people.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:48

Yeah, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:51

The guy who's been doing the Zelda manga, for the record, all of the Zelda Tide mangas are actually really good. I don't know if I actually said that in my scathing nonsense review of it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:04

No, he did not mention that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:06

Like the Twilight Princess manga is really good.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:10

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:11

Because you don't have to dig up bugs. Uh yeah, that was that was annoying. I'm kind of surprised the Zelda mangas aren't readable on the app. Like, they're owned by Viz. But like they're not like integrated into the app, so you can't just win read the ten volumes of Wind Waker. Probably because Nintendo. Would it surprise me if Nintendo dema uh told them they weren't allowed to put their mangas up on their app? Yes. They're Nintendo. I am pissed at Nintendo, openly so. Nintendo could sponsor me to play a video, and I would still feel obligated to complain about the game card system. They could pay me to advertise the game card system, and then I would do it, and then the next episode complain about the game card system and be like, now that I'm no longer being paid specifically, screw this. I would have breached my contract over it, but like, man, game card sucks. But do uh do we have a random question this week? We probably do. I'm I still have the Viz app open to see if there's anything else I want to talk about on it. Cause like, it's mildly baffling how much stuff is on here that like is and isn't. Like, they have the manga adaptation of Fate Stay Night, which is one of the better adaptations of it. Cause they combined all three routes into like one followable story. So it's like most big name things are on here somewhere.

unknown: 1:16:49

Huh.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:53

Fate State. I'm actually checking if they have something specific. It's one of the better manga I read. Yeah, like on the Viz app, you can read the Neon Genesis Evangelian manga, which went back and like fixed the series to be readable. Which I yeah, it's like most things on here that I'd recommend aren't because I read them on here and I don't even know if they work on here. They're just things that I've read that are good. Right. Does that make sense? Almost found the question file. I really need to like put these somewhere nicer than a random. So I keep burying my Google Docs and other Google Docs, and I had to go through ten drafts of binary noir to find the file labeled random questions. Oh, this one's pretty good. What's a strong opinion you hold about something that absolutely does not matter? My answer to that is tune into the 200 episodes of Deep Space and Dragons. All of them. Every episode is specifically what's a strong opinion you hold that on something that absolutely does not matter. But yeah. What is your answer to this one? Hmm. My entire personality is strong opinions that don't matter. I really gotta think. I really gotta think. So I'm gonna answer with a non-nerdy one that I hold a strong opinion about, but literally affects no one on earth.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:34

I have a really strong opinion that it's okay to order everything on your sandwich. So like, I get a lot of flack when I go to Subway and say I'll take everything on it. Or I'll go like everything except jalapenos, for example. And people like to assume that more options on an item is more work, but if worded simply is actually less. So I have a strong opinion that when you ask somebody to do something, a lot of people will actually make the task harder in the efforts of being simpler. Cause like by trying to like break the flow, they make it more complicated. Right. So yeah, I have strong opinions that asking somebody to do more work in a clear, confident way is actually less work than asking them to do less work in a convoluted, annoying way. But sandwich toppings absolutely don't matter. But unironically, every one of our episodes is me holding strong opinions about things that absolutely don't matter. Like my deep, deep hatred of 5e crafting rules. Actually, I also have a deep hatred of Tiger Heart crafting rules. Because they didn't fix this. So here's a strong opinion I hold that does not matter. But maybe matters. So In most TTRPGs, they put in some kind of crafting mechanic of roll for X number of downtime to build something on a table. And maybe they're trying to avoid sounding too much like video games. Why do monster stat blocks not list the things you can build from them on the stat block ever in any game? Why not just put on the dragon stat block dragon armor made from the dragon does this? Like a video game drop table. Like this is a solved problem everyone refuses to use the solution to. Which is have the it creature drop the item, and if you want to go more RP, drop the materials that turn into a set item. We solved this! Hmm. Yep. That one comes close to mattering. Although, I think my best example this episode for this question is the fucking game key switch two cards. It doesn't actually matter. It will never matter to 99.9% of people that the game Kirby Air Riders isn't actually on the game card, because you plug in the game card and play Kirby Air Riders, and simply would not know or care that the file for it isn't actually on the card.

SPEAKER_02: 1:21:14

Hmm.

SPEAKER_03: 1:21:21

I I don't know why, but I'm having a really hard time thinking this.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:24

I know there are things that I'd like seems just like when I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday about why I like Carl specifically, because we were talking about how all white men eventually have to form podcasts as part of our evolutionary process, is you're incredibly flexible on topics. So you're good for a debate, but our friendship will never be at risk because we can literally just disagree to the point that we'd punch someone else, and meaning we'll just talk it out and be fine, just disagreeing. But like, I have strong opinions. I'm like the unstoppable force and you're the immovable object. I have strong opinions, it you don't, which means that our discussions can happen because you can like spin and flex. It's like Siegfried and Kenichi, where you just jump out of a helicopter, spin, and spin whenever I punch you.

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:14

Okay, okay, I I I I've got one. And I don't don't remember if it's come up on the podcast or not before. But uh a while a long several years ago now, actually, uh I got a phone, uh the TCL20 Pro. Okay. And it had and it had an infrared sensor that allowed it to be used as a TV remote. I recall this. Right. Right. And then I got a new TV, and my TV was too smart to use infrared, it used Bluetooth instead. And uh I I just infrared is so like simple and functional, uh, and it just it really bothers me that the that the supposed improvement in technology made something that was like that was an odd the best feature I really love. And I just I wish I could just continue using that feature. Uh but it's obsolete, and now it's it's uh it really doesn't matter how much I love that feature, but it it's obsolete and never gonna make a comeback.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:18

That is a great answer to this question. Alright, we got two other questions we can go through. Hmm. The question too, and this is a good one. What's a habit you're convinced improves your life even though there's no evidence?

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:35

Hmm. A habit I'm convinced improves my life.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:44

For me, I think I know huh. I think there is evidence, but I don't personally have it. So I try and go for a one-hour walk a day.

SPEAKER_02: 1:23:55

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:56

And doctors would tell me there's evidence. I don't physically feel like if I don't go for my walk, it won't improve my life. Like taking an hour to like walk to the coffee shop and back. I don't actually have the evidence that that is making me live longer and stronger, or doing anything good for me at all. But I'm pretty convinced I need to do an hour walk a day for my health. But no one's actually written that down and told me what it does. Oh, here's one that's absolutely true for this question. When I'm stressed out, I'll take a bubble bath. There's no evidence that improves my life in any way. None. I'm pretty sure it's just bad for my skin.

SPEAKER_03: 1:24:36

Hmm. Um sometimes when I uh have a headache and I feel dehydrated. It's like, you know, obviously you can take some anvil or tylenol and and uh drink some water. Uh but I also take an excessively long shower. And I I I don't really have the evidence to back up that like you can absorb the steam through osmosis and and and like that it helps rehydrate you. Uh well that is a habit that I have. It's like, hmm, if I have a headache, one of my instincts is to shower.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:11

Fair and reasonable. So those are my big ones for that one. And then our third question. What is the skill you thought you'd have by now, but definitely don't. Oh. I have two answers, but I'll let you go first this time.

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:30

Well, video game coding, like, I really thought that uh between our our passions and the fact that we, you know, I thought for sure we we would have that skill by now, but we do not.

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:44

I was gonna say the same thing. I thought for sure I'd be able to design a playable like Super Nintendo game by now. If you asked me ten years ago if I'd be able to make a Super NES game, the answer would have been yes. But no, I definitely don't.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:58

Like, I get paid for analog game design, like TTRPGs are like a revenue stream, but no video game designing has really You know what? I'll do one even like simpler. I don't have the ability to make a visual novel. I was confident through like open source artwork or Inkscape, I'd have the artistic ability I would need to put together a Fate Stay Nile visual novel over the last ten years. I had complete If you ask me now, I would say I could do it. But I definitely can't. I would maybe get like one character done and be like, well, that was two days. And they can smile and frown. But thank you all for sending your random questions in. I actually gave away s so one of our random questions a couple podcasts ago came in from one of my classmates. So their free copy of the Waltz of Blades I signed and handed to them instead of having to mail, which was lovely. Nice. So, like, the prize right now for Deep Space and Dragons is we do have merchant things, but I've definitely just been the enter to win a copy of the Waltz of Blades or Menuette of Sorcery. I just have my stack of c uh promo copies I just been signing and handing out or mailing. Mailing to the states is brutal.

SPEAKER_03: 1:27:24

What and you had to mail to a copy to the states? Yeah, they won!

SPEAKER_01: 1:27:28

That's what happens when you win.

SPEAKER_03: 1:27:30

You get a copy of the book. Well, I mean Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just uh I would have thought I would have thought we had gone like random questions from Brisbane, Australia.

SPEAKER_00: 1:27:40

So nothing from Australia. I had one though where what was it? Uh uh much like the president, I get Greenland and Iceland backwards. But instead of mailing to them because it was too expensive, I set that as my Amazon Prime address and then like ordered it for myself to their address.

SPEAKER_01: 1:28:00

Cost me six dollars. That'll learn you prime. Ha ha ha ha ha, idiots. That's funny. Uh but yeah, just to let people know that prizes do actually go out for random questions.

SPEAKER_00: 1:28:17

Although I think the funniest one is I did use one of my brother's questions on air and just walk over and put the book back on his shelf.

unknown: 1:28:27

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00: 1:28:29

Uh actually, my grad school cohort's really good for sending in questions. Get out a few to my classmates because it's like, yeah. Alright, viewers who are in walking distance of me, I will happily just give you a prize.

SPEAKER_03: 1:28:44

There are several of your grad school cohorts that watch our or listen to our podcasts. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:28:52

Well, thank you guys for supporting us. Absolutely. Like, I was in shock when they're like, oh yeah, when you talked about this, I'm like, you listen to it? You got out of a class with me, who gave a 20-minute presentation, went home, and listened to me talk. Are you okay? That's that's impressive.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29:16

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:18

Uh, but yes. I've also sent out a couple prizes in the form of PDFs from like, do you want a book? It's like, ah, a PDF will be fine. I'm like, cool, and I emailed a PDF.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29:29

It's a crappy prize.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:30

They wanted that one. They didn't want the physical book for some reason.

SPEAKER_03: 1:29:34

Do you know if anybody else has actually gotten one of our Deep Space and Dragons mugs?

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:38

I have I have not seen evidence of it to the point where, to those listening, if you have your Deep Space and Dragons support mug, text a f uh, put a send me a photo of it, and I'll send you a free copy of the Waltz of Blains. Because you won free merch, I'm gonna give you merch to reward you for your free merch.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29:57

Amazing. Oh, that's very good. I know I have one of those. Because I am a firm supporter of us.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:08

I really need to go up and clean around the Patreon at some point and make that nicer. It's like I'm not gonna say I'm overworked because I work in the literary field, so I'm absolutely not. But I'm just like not ambitious for something, so I'm like, I need to clean that up. And then hits the bottom of the pile and I write another chapter of my sci-fi novel.

SPEAKER_03: 1:30:29

Sensible choice.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:30

Uh, so thank you all for tuning in. You are loved and respected, probably. Maybe you're not. You might just be a garbage person who likes your podcast. If so, we respect you, trash man. Bye. Bye. Uh apparently you could be a president by just calling your follow your supporters hating losers, so I might as well just be mean to our audience, right?

SPEAKER_03: 1:30:54

Oh, I thought it was so funny that video of Donald Trump saying fuck you to that uh union worker at at Ford main Ford plants.