The Ringer-Verse - Ringer-Verse Recommends: January 2025

Episode Date: February 1, 2025

New year, new recommendations! Join the Ringer-Verse and House of R crews as they gush about geek content in the latest installment of their monthly mini-pod about fandom favorites from TV, anime, movies, video games, books, comics, and beyond that were (mostly) released recently but not yet covered in-depth on a full-length episode. Host: Ben Lindbergh Guests: Mallory Rubin, Steve Ahlman, Jomi Adeniran, Matt James, Arjuna Ramgopal, Johnathan Kermah, Charles Holmes Producer: Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Hello and welcome into the Ringerverse, your nexus feed for all things bandham. I am Ben Lindberg, Buttmash host, and senior editor for The Ringer, welcoming you to a new year of Ringerverse recommends. The calendar and content are different, but our passion for sharing our favorite recent releases with you is unchanged, as is the format for this show.

You probably know how these go by now, but I'll lay it out in case you weren't with us in 24, at the end of each month, the hosts of House of Our, the Midnight Boys, and me, along with a few of our friends and accomplices, form a ringerverse Voltron to create a minipod and video in which we pay tribute to some stuff we like that we haven't had a chance to cover on a full-length episode. Generally, these are releases from the last month, though some of our ringerverse recommends rebels don't always abide by that rule. We each select something, we explain why we like it, and we tell you where you can find it. Then we put our tributes together, and we'll voila, we have Ringerverse Recommends. I wrangle the recommendations, and then, like the collector on nowhere, I put them in my museum and admire my curated collection of treasures. And what a collection we have for you this month, hailing from the realms of movies, video games, novels, audio, live action TV, anime and animation, comics, no nerd culture medium left behind.

That lineup includes this month's listener nomination, which was sent to Ringervverse Recommends at gmail.com. I'll save that for the end of the episode right before I recap the picks. We're without Joanna Robinson's book corner this time, but Joe will be back on next month's edition. In the meantime, her podcast partner is filling our fantasy quota with some titillating literature. So I'm passing the mic to the mother of dragons, and today, the mother of Romanticy. Where in Malik's name is he going? I hurry through the tunnels beneath the quadrant, trying to follow, but night is the ultimate shadow and Zayden blends seamlessly into the darkness. If it wasn't for our dragon's bond leading me in his general direction

and the sporadic disappearance of mage lights, I'd never think that he's masked somewhere ahead of me. Fear holds me with an icy fist and my footing grows unsteady. Hey everyone, it's Mal, and I am here to make my January pick for Ringiverse recommends. What is it? That was my dragon impression. I hope you liked it. latest dragon impression at least. It is Onyx Storm, the third book in Rebecca Yaros' Imperian series. This book came out on January 21st, and it is an instant sensation yet

again. According to the New York Times, Onyx Storm sold 2.7 million copies in its first week. And again, according to the New York Times, that is a adult fiction record over the last 20 years. So maybe that makes this seem like a strange picture. for Ring of Verse recommends, because if you have read the first two books in the series, Fourth Wing and Iron Flame, you likely either are currently reading Onyx Storm, are about to read Onyx Storm, or have already read Onyx Storm, and if you have not yet read Fourth Wing and Iron Flame, you probably think that you can't just go right into reading Ony Storm, and guess what,

you're right, you can't. You've got to read the first two books first. But this is a moment. This is a moment in the Romanticy boom, and it could be your moment to dip in and participate in the Romanticy boom if you have not yet, because guess what, folks, the water's warm and people are fucking in it. Join us. Now, I'm not going to get into any of the plot particulars from Onyx Storm, both because I am only about 50% into the book and don't yet have a ton to spoil for you, but also because I want to keep the experience for you pure if you have not yet begun Violet's journey. But while the mileage, I think, can vary, despite the obsessive and robust and vast fandom around this on whether the pro-style is for

you or the particular mythology and mystery are for you, one thing that I think is irrefutable is that the story is propulsive and these books are addictive. They are very, very, very hard to put down once you pick them up. And not just because you're racing to get to the next sex scene, though the sex scenes are dynamite. Maybe I'll read some to you on the House of our V-Day Quickie Pod.

We love to do a V-Day Quickie Pod, and Joe and I are cooking up a little romanticcy episode for the middle of February. Stay tuned for that. In the meantime, this episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, Reliable Internet means everything for your business.

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Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything. you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus,

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But I can't see any light. Maybe all isn't lost if we work together. Hello, Steve Olman here. Here to recommend, guess what? Sexy vampires. They're back. It's Netflix's Castlevania Noctrine Season 2. They're back.

I had a great time with this season. I'm very impressed with how wildly ambitious and fun this Netflix, Castlevania anime universe has been. Two already successful seasons, along with the first normal Castlevania season. This season has Richter, Maria, Justine, and Aloucard fighting a brand new evil presence that is set in the backdrop of the French Revolution. The animation gets even better. I'm wildly impressed with how well the voice cast is. We have a lot of good high-level talent that's going to be talking to you throughout this season.

We have a lot of sexy vampire talk. God damn it. I really like it. It's a lot of fun. Nobody really can beat a lot of good anime fight scenes that come from this studio. It's definitely going to be worth your time. Check out Castlevania Nocturn Season 2. Feathers McGraw. You have been found guilty of the attempted robbery of the blue diamond. If not for two upstanding citizens, you would have succeeded in your wicked plan. Morning Gromit, how's my favorite pooch? Another great day of inventing beckons. Wait till you see the next thing I'm working on. A smart gnome. Hey, what's up?

It's Arjuni here with my Ringyberts recommends. And for the month of January, I'm going to recommend Wallace and Gromit, Vengeance Most Fowl. It's the second feature-length movie featuring Wallace and Gromit. There's sixth adventure overall. There's four other shorts as well. And it's just like a really fun family movie for everybody. You know, the adults can enjoy it, the kids can enjoy it.

I will say there are gnomes featured in it, which are a little scary. So maybe if you have little kids, check out the trailer first before you check it out. But whether you've watched all previous Wallace and Grommets or this is your first time in, it's a really fun adventure. For the longtime fans, there's lots of references to previous adventures. It's even a direct follow-up to one of the shorter, a real event. original tales with Wallace and Gromit, I believe it's called the Wrong Trousers. So yeah, check it out if you want. It's on Netflix. I enjoyed it. Yeah.

In the beginning, there was blood. And a code I learned from my father. The code is to make sure you are different from the people that you kill. It was simple. Kill the bad guys who escape justice. Don't get caught myself. Hey, friends, it's Ben back again for my recommendation. I was planning to salute the new Star Trek TV, movie section 31. But then I watched it. And now I am not recommending it. Let's leave it at that. Positive vibes only here at Ring Reverse recommends. So instead, I'll be recommending

something else you can watch on Paramount Plus or on Showtime, Dexter Original Sin. Hence the Henley I have on right now, which I wore when I once dressed up as Dexter for Halloween in 2011. My attachment to Dex runs deep. The Dexter of Original Sin doesn't have his Henley yet. This is a prequel series set in 1991 when Dexter is just out of the time. of college and new to both Miami Metro and murder. The first Dexter series featured flashbacks to Dexter's younger days when he was learning his code of killing other killers and Michael C. Hall was wearing a ridiculous wig. Imagine those flashbacks being a series unto themselves and you have Original Sin.

Except Original Sin also features flashbacks with wigs to an even earlier period of Dexter's life. It's just Dexter's all the way down. At the end of Dexter, everyone's favorite fictional serial killer faked his own death. At the end of Dexter Newblood, the sequel series that came out in 2022, Showtime faked Dexter's death. Really, Showtime intended to kill the character for good, and then it realized there was more money to be made. So now the network has brought Dex back not just for this prequel, but also for a sequel series, Dexter Resurrection, which is coming out later this year. So we're going both backward and forward in the Dexter timeline. What a tangled web. And these series are still pretty popular. So as Dex once said, it's going to happen again and again.

Again, it has to happen. This is why I'm comfortable calling Dex nerd culture, like Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. He's almost immortal. Original Sin revolves around most of the same characters as the actual original series, and the casting is uncanny, starting with Young Dex, played by Patrick Gibson from the O.A. And Shadow and Bowen, Angel, La Guerta, Masuka, they're all so spot on that in most cases you quickly forget that these are actors imitating the original portrayals and you just accept them as the same characters.

The new cops, played by Patrick Dempsey and Sarah Michelle Geller, aren't quite as compelling, but Christian Slater does a decent Harry, and it helps that Michael C. Hall is here, too, to do Dexter voiceovers as the older version of the young decks on screen. It also helps that Clyde Phillips, the showrunner for the classic first four seasons of Dexter is the creator and showrunner of this series, as well as Resurrection, which will also star Hall. So there's a creative continuity across the Dexter decades that links the series and leads to a lot of Easter egg. opportunities. I was very skeptical of Showtime's plan to turn Dexter and billions into Yellowstone-style franchises, and I wouldn't say this series necessarily needed to exist. It pretty unapologetically tries to recapture the feel of the first series, but it comes closer than I expected it to, and I've decided I don't need more than that. After watching the original Dexter twice, once when I was in college and once with my wife, and then binging New Blood, I am in too deep to ditch Dexter now, Dex is my dark passenger. Eight of ten episodes of Original Sin have already aired, and the finale is February 14th.

So schedule your romantic Valentine's Day, Dexter, date now. And then start streaming, in the words of Dexter, tonight's the night. Yo, what up, midnight, mom, midnight writers. It's a Coke baby. And for this recommends, we're going to do a little bit of a throwback. Recently, I've been getting a lot of stuff from the library, old con. stuff that I was reading as a kid, just to kind of refresh and remind me why I felt in love with the genre. And something that I just actually bought after reading it at the library because I wanted it as part of my collection is we three read this as a kid.

It's by Grant Morrison and Frank Quightly. This is one of my favorite comic books of all time. And I think the reason that I'm recommending it is because you have a foreword by James Gunn. This is something that he would even tell you. I think is something that really inspired him during Guardians of the Galaxy. And I think it's honestly going to inspire him with the new Superman film. This is a story about three pets that are basically made into these killing machines. That's all I'll give you. But it is so beautiful.

Like, just you can go to any single page of this comic and just see something that is quite just like. like nothing you've ever seen. Yeah, and it has all of this great content in the back about how Frank Whiteley, one of my favorite comic artist, designed this. If you're interested in the new Superman, if you're interested in, let's say, All-Star Superman, which Morrison and Quightly also created,

this came before it, and it's just great. So it's available probably at any library where you can get it at a bookstore, We three, though, is my recommendation for this month. What's up, guys? Welcome back to Ringiverse Recommend, Jomi here. And this month, I'm basically like Charles now, the way I've been recommending anime to y'all.

This month, I am giving you guys the gift of Blue Box an anime on Netflix. You know me. I love me a love story and this one is spectacular. It's got everything. Heartbreak, sports, love triangles, the whole thing. The story of Chinatsu and Taiki, them getting along. Like, it's just something that you have to watch to believe.

In the first episode, it turns out, what? I have to live with my crush. How crazy can that be? And it just gets better and better. Look, even this, the second OP, banger, absolute heater. In fact, when I leave here, I'm going to listen to it in my car. That's how hot that song is. If you love love and if you love seeing love blossom between two folks that, you know, one plays basketball, one plays batminton, they don't know how to feel their feelings and watching that all come together. If you love that sort of stuff, you're going to love Blue Box. I can't recommend it enough. It's one of my favorite animas of this season, and it's almost done.

So tap in while you still can because the week to week angst I'm getting, oh, my gosh, every Thursday, I'm loading up Netflix. Like, yo, let me tap in the Blue Box. This is that gas. Ladies and gentlemen, if you love anime and if you love, love, tap in a Blue Box. You will not regret it. It's Matt James, the deputy art lead here at the Ringer, and also frequent button mash guest. And this month, I'm here to recommend to you a new video game called Ender Magnolia, Bloom in the Mist, which is a whole bunch of words, isn't it?

Let's go with Ender Magnolia. It's out on pretty much everything, Switch, Steam, PlayStation Xbox, and it's one of those Metroidvania games like Metroid or Castlevania, 2D side-scroller, big emphasis on combat and exploration. and it's just a really solid entry into the Metroidvania genre. It's set in a post-apocalyptic world in which these creatures known as homunculi that have been man-made have all been corrupted by the toxicity of the planet, and you play as Lilac, a young human girl who has the ability to cleanse the homunculi and then recruit them. And this is actually pretty cool because Lilac doesn't attack in the game.

All of her abilities and attacks come from the homunculi that she recruits. And there are really interesting ways of combining those abilities that allow a lot of customization for your particular play style. The controls feel excellent. The soundtrack and art style are hauntingly beautiful. There's some really excellent boss fights. And if you've ever been into Metroidvania's like Oriol, The Whisp, Hollow Night, maybe last year's Prince of Persia, The Lost Crown, this is definitely a game you should check out. What's up, Ringerverse? it's your boy Kerm here

No surprise I'm doing a comic book this month As I do anytime I'm on here I'm gonna go with The new Ultimate Wolverine Issue 1 just dropped Written by Chris Condon And art by

Alessandro Capuccio Not gonna lie man This one got me in the feels This version of the Ultimate Universe Reimagines Wolverine As essentially the Winter Soldier Working Under the Thumb of Collier working under the thumb of Colossus,

an assassin for Russia. He's just killing mutants, and I'm not going to lie. He killed one of my favorites. I'm not going to spoil it too much, but it's just, it's not a good time, but I'm interested to see where things go with this. You know, we've seen Wolverine's Weapon X and plenty of iterations of the comics,

and eventually he finds his way. So I'm interested to see where this story goes, and I hope y'all, y'all check it out, and enjoy the journey with me. You know what I'm going to be sure of all right, Ben here for the home stretch.

Hope you found a few of these picks to your liking, and we have one more in store. Four more, really. We received several nominations from listeners who wrote into Ringiverse Recommends at gmail.com.

Ben Carl's recommended Heartstopper, the Netflix show adapted from the graphic novel and web comic. Lucas Bowman recommended the Realm's Unknown podcast hosted by Alice Frazier,

and Colleen M nominated the Netflix anime Sakamoto Days. But two listeners, James Long and Rachel Davidson, recommended the same series, so the plurality wins. James writes, One of the big anime shows from 2023 to 24, The Apothecary Diaries, is back with its second season. The short description is the TV show House, but set in a fictional version of Imperial China.

And House in this show is a 17-year-old girl named Mao who is obsessed with medicine and poisons. The Apothecary Diaries is very much a Sherlock Holmes-type mystery show that deals with a variety of events around the Imperial Court. It is different from a lot of the more popular anime series in that it is not an action show, but instead focuses on intrigue and how the main character's knowledge separates her from everyone else. It's interesting to watch Ma'amau work her way through the rules and customs of the Imperial Court as she solves mysteries. The show is thrilling, funny, and has absolutely gorgeous animation. With Season 2 having just started, it's a great time to start season 1.

Season two is airing weekly on Crunchyroll, so there's plenty of time to finish season one and get into season two before it ends. And Rachel adds, I'm here to recommend an anime called the Apothecary Diaries and I don't even like anime. Young Ma Mao is just trying to survive as a servant in a mythical medieval Chinese harem

filled with concubines and eunuchs, but soon she's using her medical knowledge to solve murder mysteries. She's a grumpy, brilliant weirdo, and she makes some wonderful friends while saving the day. If you ever wanted a mashup of House and Bridgerton, I've got the show for you.

Well, multiple listeners can't be wrong. Thank you, James and Rachel. Anime fans out in force this month. All right, let's recap these picks, shall we? From Mallory Rubin, Onix Storm, the third book in the Imperion Romanticy series by Rebecca Yaros. From Steve Allman, Castlevania Nocturn on Netflix.

From Arjuna Remgapal, the BBC and Netflix film, Wallace and Gromit, Vengeance Most Fowl. From me, a Dex wreck. Dexter, Original Sin, on Showtime, Paramount Plus. From Charles Holmes, the comic book miniseries, We Three, which definitely didn't come out this month, but well, we'll allow it. From Jomea Denneron, another anime, Blue Box on Netflix. All these anime mentions, and none of them from Charles. What an upset. From Matt James, a video game for all platforms, Ender Magnolia, Bloom in the Mist. From Kerm, the comic Ultimate Wolverine. And finally, from listeners James Long and Rachel Davidson, the Apothecary Diaries on Crunchyroll. Thanks to Steve Allman for producing this episode, to Arjuna Remgapal for supporting this series, and to you for listening.

Stay tuned for Buttonmash on Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 and a quarter century of the Sims. Plus, reactions to the forthcoming Fantastic Four trailer, an Infinity War black recast and a Falcon and the Winter Soldier reappraisal from the Midnight Boys, Pugh, Pugh, and a winter mailbag on House of Art. Thanks for sticking with us into 2025.

We look forward to spending the year with you and until next time we hope that you'll recommend the ringerverse.