Trash Taste Podcast - Dark Fantasy Anime is so BACK! | Trash Taste #305

Episode Date: April 24, 2026

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Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19 speaker AKG surround audio system. This city demands agility and optic delivers with precision to make every drive extraordinary. Let's take the Cadillac. Find out more at Cadillac canada.ca. Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. Boys, welcome back to another episode of Trash Taste Anime Club. Woo! I'm Connor, once again, joined by the boys. Joey and Garn. Connor's trying so hard to stay awake. Yeah. No, because I'm fighting because we had a bunch of fried

chicken. Connor's chickened out right now. It's blowing me down and I'm fighting through it. But we watched three anime. Yeah, this is a special anime club. And this is a special anime club because, not only because we have three, but we actually got sponsored in our first show that we watched together. So in case you missed it, we uploaded a Vod on the Trash Tastes After Dark about a week ago. Yep. Watching Rooster Fighter.

Yes. Since this segment is going to be sponsored by Viz Media. Thank you, Viz. We're also going to be talking about 100 meters and sentenced to be a hero later on the episode. So time stamps are on the screen right now. But for now, ladies are. gentlemen, should we talk about Rooster Fider?

Yeah, do we need to bring... We got hats. We got some hats. We need to bring out the chicken hats. We got some hats. I just want to say, I'm very glad that, you know, sometimes you get sponsored and, you know, you're like, you have to pretend to be like a fan.

I'm glad that we got sponsored and watch this. Yeah. Because this show is just fun. It's so fun. It is dumb. I think they all mind of saying that, but dumb fun. I think it's the best. And that's why we're wearing our chicken hats to celebrate the dumb fun.

Yes. Yeah, this is a show that's the best way in us it's kind of like bucky, but with chickens. Yeah. You know? It's got that like, I don't know how to describe it. It's got that like classic 90s like hyper masculine yet incredibly dumbness of like a Jojo or like a fist of the North Star. Yeah.

But they're all chickens. I mean, the second scene in the in the show is our main character, rooster, Kiji, banging another rooster. And there's no censoring. No nothing. see it all. Yeah, it's like a nature document. You know, it's really censoring. It's beautiful.

And the girl is loving it. She's having a great. So in case anyone missed the afterdog vod, should one of us explain what the show's about? Where to even begin? So there are, what I thought to be kaiju that are terrorizing humanity. But no, they are demons that are transformed from real people. We don't know why they transform. It's kind of implied that maybe a person is strange.

and they transform into this giant monster, or like a fucking kaiju monster-ass being. And apparently the only thing that can combat them are roosters and chickens. And how can I describe, and that's basically the shot, right? I mean, if you really think about it, it's kind of an analogy on real life. Like, when something terrible happens in humanity,

you know what's the easiest and quickest fixed? Some chicken. Okay. Everyone's in a good mood after some chicken, you know? That's the whole point of the show. So the first episode opens up, KG saves a little kid and does some kind of like lightning speed move plus kick and destroys this kaiju the size of like a 20-story building.

Yeah. And that's how you introduce the show. Then it kicks into this anime opening, which is essentially an 80s like rock song. It just goes like, it doesn't waste any time. Immediately into a scene of Kiji, the rooster, banging a girl, and then leaving her and she is distraught. And then he's like, I don't need anyone to tie me down.

I don't need baggage. So he hits her with the line, I just gave into my animal wind. That's KG special right there. And then, yeah, it's just kind of like a monster of the week for the next couple episodes while the characters kind of develop. We see Kiji kind of going around and just dealing with demon shenanigans.

Yeah, Kiji has a special move. I can't remember what the special movie is. It's Koke Koko. Which is the Koko Dudo do. It's basically Japanese and Koko Doodle Do, but it's like a Kama Hama Hama and a phosphor put together. Yeah, so Kaji screams at the top of his lungs and apparently hits a note that makes these demons explode.

Shit themselves. Shit themselves and explode from the inside out. And my god, I don't know who voices KG, but some of those screams Let's look it up actually Was insane, right? I don't know what pair of lungs they have I hope he got paid well His throat is absolutely damaged Yeah, I mean that is like impossible

Let's see yeah, let's see In English is voiced by Patrick Sites, that's so funny The guy versus Dio Miyake, Miyaki Ken Don't, Jojo as well Oh yeah, I mean, no, he's a, um Miyaki Kanto's he's in Georgia, right? Oh, he's Steve,

uh, steal Stephen. Was it Ormite? Yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. Damn, broken still go that high? My God. For all intense purposes, I guess KG is kind of the, the superhero king of this world.

Yeah. He kind of just is able to deal with everything. Yeah. Um, yeah, I think the first thing that threw me for a loop was every one of these characters, that gets introduced has a tragic backstory. Including Kajee.

Including Kajee, whose sister is eaten right in front of him. Not in that way. But his sister gets eaten right in front of him. And that unlocks Kiji's limiter or something. His cock limiter. Don't say cock. Even though you're not wrong. Am I wrong?

You're not wrong. I'm wrong. The thing limiting his cock is no more. Yeah. He's no one. longer the normal cock. And he becomes, you know, the super rooster, the super cock. The super cock.

The super cock. And cock, if you will. Oh, my God. How many, how many cock jokes can we make in this same? There's too many, too many. But essentially, he unlocks this superpower. And apparently that is the power system. And there are a few characters in here that unlock their own powers,

including KG's system. as well as... We've seen a previous flashback. Yeah, we've seen another flashback, I believe it was. Where she's attacked by a dog and she unlocks this firepower? Fireballs? Fireballs?

I don't know. I don't know. She basically turns into the Dio and cooks this dog alive. Yeah. And so... But yeah, and then in episode two, we're introduced to a chick. Piyoko. Not like, not a girl, like an actual chick.

Yeah. Like a baby chicken called Piokul, who is like owned by this, like, Yaku guy, I guess. Yes. A bit of a failed man in some senses with a lot of stress and a lot of debt. But she learns the

yakuza duty, the jinghi in the yakuza world. And basically once Kiji saves her, she's like, that's my boo now. I'm going to go along with him. I'm going to fulfill the duty and go along with him. Yeah, one thing that I was surprised

about was how like, how sad like the situation she was in with what is essentially her father figure. I thought when Cage came along and killed the demon, she just basically saw her dad getting murdered right in front of her. Not even murdered. His head fucking exploded. Yeah, I was like, probably the worst thing to see.

I was like, damn, how much therapy, do chicken therapies exist? They will. They will. Because they need to after that. Yeah. And then in the third episode, we get introduced to the Elizabeth. The female chicken, who... Good. Oh. Joey just went straight for it.

Yeah, Joey's very into this. Joe, Joey went straight for it. For me, I'm just like, damn, she... Well, she's a very nice voice, okay? She has a very nice voice. And she has nice eyes as well. True, true. She's got the constant bedroom eyes

where I'm just like, that had to have it on purpose. I mean, come on. So Elizabeth is introduced, and she's immediately trying to kill our goat, KG. We're like, why is she doing that? So while she's middle of fight, she explains, bitch, don't you remember? He's like, I don't even know who you are.

He's like, six months ago, we made laugh. Not sex, we made laugh. And you just walked out. And then we get a flashback way he's like, he says the same thing that he says to all the girls. Yeah, yeah. He's like, I just gave into my animal desires. I got to leave now. And so he's like, what the fuck?

So in the middle of their fight in the middle of the street, by the way, everyone's like watching this fight go down. Kiji pulls an absolute bangor of a move. and does kind of like a suplex, gets around her and then kisses her. And somehow she suddenly remembers her feelings. Yeah. And then Kagee starts trying to go for it.

In the middle of the street. He starts like laying it on her. He gets like two inches deep and then Elizabeth's like, whoa, whoa. She does like the jolly move. Who's getting his cockat? He may be a rooster, but damn, does he have that dog in him, man?

He's got a dog, you know. He's got a dog. He just can't help him to the hit and run. Yeah. Elizabeth turns up like, go go gadget and is like, hey, by the way, I got this thing called a smartphone. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You should take a look at this.

I don't know if Elizabeth has superpowers, but she has a stick that apparently has 10 million volts in it. Somehow, just carrying that around. I want on what the logistics of that is. We never know how she charges this shit off. Yeah. And then we end off episode three. with a hot spring episode where they go into the hot spring.

And we find out more about the demon that ate KG's sister and the... A little bit more of the backstory. Yeah. And power scaling of the world. Apparently the demons are different colors and different features. That's how you can kind of identify. I have a lot of questions.

Yes, me too. So, like, first off, okay, what are the humans doing? Well, Jack's shit. I just want to know. Yeah, it's in this world. I mean, the entire, like, first couple of episodes when you just saw these demons just destroying every part of Japan imaginable. Yeah.

I kept asking, like, you know, there's usually like a military operation or something, you know, this isn't just like a freak occurrence kind of thing. This seems like it happens every other fucking day. Yeah. And then we saw that footage of the white demon just annihilate about 17 tanks. Who's the same guy that ate KG's sisters? Yeah, supposedly. Yeah. Do you know what's the most insane thing?

about this world. The fact that apparently, you know, from what it looks like from the first three episodes, chickens are the only line of defense against these demons. And yet humans still willingly eat them. They reference fried chicken. They fucking, they reference like, in one of the first episodes,

a kid tries to feed one of the chickens a fried chicken. Yeah. You know? They try to get them to commit. Cannibalism right then and there. And it's just like, oh, hey, Hell no. You are eating your last line of defense. What is going on? But it's so yummy. It's so yummy. If there's any anime that's going to turn me vegan, it's this one.

I'm joking. Look, I'm just saying, like, if these birds are the only thing defend you against these demons that are popping up, how about you are, how about you not eat them? You know, there are other meats that you can do. Chicken is delicious. Well, that's the thing, right? I think what it is is that maybe it's implied that because the, because KG and these other like, I assume other chickens that are defeating all these demons, I'm doing it so discreetly that the humans are just like, oh.

Wait, where, where, where. Descrete. What, in what way? Who's how he was banging their rooster in public? And they're not fighting, the police are chasing them. No, okay, but- Discreetly. Okay, just, okay, so you're just, okay.

The same way when you rip a fart, it's discreet on the park. Oh, we hear it. No, one of the, What I'm saying is, right, like when KG fucking makes a dude, like a kaiju's head exploit, for example, right? And then it's like, oh, okay, I guess he just got destroyed by some. Well, that's what I'm saying. Like, none of the humans is like, wow, did you see that chicken just destroy that

Kaiju? Maybe we should look into that shit. No, no, no. They never do it. The old guy was like, damn, that chicken perfectly did the resonance. He was literally talking about the chicken. It's that one guy that's acknowledged the chickens have power. I don't know.

I think he made him pick up the trash. Yeah. Like clean up off to yourself. It's just, I don't think there is anything to screw about what we just watched. Literally half the city got destroyed. Yeah, and no one is like, oh man, I wonder if the chickens will come and save us again. Like, no one's been saying that. They're just like, oh, fuck, it's another kaiju, what are we gonna do?

It's because they're racist. They are. I think that was like out of everything that the show presents me with. That was the biggest thing I was just like, damn, it kind of bothers me that this, that they're not acknowledging the chickens. Yeah. You know. They're not acknowledging them.

I just want, I just want my ghosts to be acknowledged and not ignored. Because I was like, because it's kind of established that chickens can understand human language, but they still cluck. You know, they can only cluck to each other. So they can actually communicate with humans. Yes. But humans still treat them like they are like, you know, sentient, sentient beings, I guess. I'm not sure.

I'm so confused. See, I think we're falling into the trap here of trying to figure it out with logic. No, Joey. No. It's important, Joey. I don't think this is the point of the show. It matters, Joey.

It's important to me, okay? Power scaling is very important to this universe as well. Right, who's the goat? Where they line up. Who can they handle? As long as the, as long as the logic is set internally of the world and the logic is consistent, that that is what's important. I just want to,

to know what is up between the human and chicken relation in this show. I don't think you know. So one thing that I am confused by is that Elizabeth seems to be able to know how to use and wield a smartphone. Yes. How is she, is it face ID? Is it pin code? How are we opening this phone?

Because I put my thumb on it and it apparently recognizes my thumb and it doesn't work. Yeah. I always have to fucking type in the goddamn code. Did chickens have fingerprints? No. No. They go for voice recognition, right? Voice recognition?

Yes, it's just like, Bucca. Jarvis, open up. She did it. Sub-Syri and a girl. Hey, Siri, Bap, blah, blah, blah. So they're using Elizabeth and her

smartphone wielding powers to actually discover all the information. Neatly enough, there's a database online that tells you all about all the demons. Well, that didn't bother me too much because it's pretty clear. set up that Elizabeth comes from a privileged background.

Yeah, you didn't see her playing the piano and doing calligraphy. Yeah. Her childhood was ridiculous. She's drinking wine in the baths daily. Yeah. Ramat... She's drinking Romani-Conti. Romani-Conte. Romani-Conte? How much is that a bottle? Like, it's very expensive.

Navi-Gougal. A average bottle of Romano-Conte in Japan. Yeah. Let's see this. Copy that much, surely. Bottle. And she was just drinking... Holy shit.

Holy fuck Wait, 200, wait no No, that's 20 million 20 million That's 10 G's bro That's yeah No, that's 100, that's 100 gs That's 100 million

That's a hundred million That's 20 million 20 million for a bottle Just drinking that shit in the You're giving it to a chicken How rich are you where you can feed Romani-Conte to your chicken? I aspire for that level of wealth

Yeah, right The cheapest one, the That's not even real Romani Conti. Yeah, there, yeah. The cheapest one I could see is $11 million, which is about $80,000. All right, well. Okay, who's buying this online as well?

That's insane. Yeah, it's crazy getting this ship. Do you guys accept card, cash in delivery? Can you take PayPal? Cash and delivery on that one. And she drinks that in the bath. But, damn, her family kind of chill. They played fighting games together?

Yeah, that was the biggest, like, surprise? I'm like, damn, mom and dad, I didn't know you would chill like that. Damn. I can't believe she can do calligraphy. Yeah, right. And the owners are just like, wow, she's so smart. It's like, bro, take her to Mensa. Like, what are you doing?

This is a genius animal you have in your house. Get that shit checked out. A lot of people would say it's crazy to have a rooster as a pet, but I, you know, this world. We used to have chickens as pets. Uh, what? Like, you wouldn't have them in the living room, though, like fucking playing street fighter with you. No, not that, but my grandma had two chickens when we were growing up. Yeah, and they stay outside. Yeah. And we ate both of them. We did. I'm just saying, my grandma was like, I'm...

Joe, Joe, you can't call it a pet. Will you sound about that? Yeah. I was like, I was like six or seven. Did they take kids? Yeah. I'm sorry, you can't call it a pet and then end the story off with... And then we ate it. I literally, I remember seeing my grandma walk out into the backyard with the hatchet.

And she was like, all right. Chop. Aida that night. Were you, uh, what was it's name? I don't even remember. It was delicious, though. He remembers the taste. I remember the taste.

The taste, but not the name. Yeah. That's all that's important. She gave us some good eggs. You were remembered for your taste. You'll be remembered. These 11 secret herbs and spices on you. You were delicious.

You're part of me now. It's like poached over. It's like he's a part of me now. Yeah, I mean, this seems like one of those shows that kind of like knows how ridiculous it is. Yeah. Who animated this? I'm so curious to see who animated this as well. It was like studio Sanjigen, I think it's called.

I've the first time I've ever heard of this studio. Scroll up, let me. Yeah, scroll up. It's on a sidebar. Yeah, what else is the... Above. Yeah, Sanjigen. I think they've made more 3D anime as well.

Oh, they made... Oh, wow, terraformers. Oh, my God. Aoki, Haggne-Rapaghani. Oh, no. They made Bang Dream. Oh, that's where I've seen it from. I've seen their work on Bang Dream.

Oh, they did the initial. D movies as well. Guys, Bangdream. Okay, they made a... Yeah, they've done a lot. Wow. Okay. Oh, shit.

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is the Alienware Experience, distilled into one iconic machine. Visit Alienware.com. Visit Alienware.com slash Alienware 15 today. But of course they did rooster fighter as well. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. Who asked? Nobody cares. I only care about rooster fighter right now, obviously.

Nobody's listening to what I'm saying. Roustified a time of my life. Yeah. I will say I want to watch the rest of this, just because I just want to know where this ridiculous plot goes. I mean, it's nice as well when you have an anime like this, where there is a story, but you do feel like, I can just kind of like chill and watch it by week

It is the best. Enjoy the show the tea. Yeah, it is the best just turn your brain off and enjoy the ridiculousness type of show. Because you said you read the manga for this before watching this, right? Well, because I went into the bookstore. I guess it was like maybe a day after the first volume got released. And imagine, like, you know, I'm just like, all right, let's see what kind of new stuff is, you know, going on in the manga wall. And the first thing I see is this fucking aesthetic as shit rooster on the front cover, just staring back at me and I'm like, I have to read this.

what the fuck is this? And yeah, it was just as absurd as this. I think the anime, though, does a really good job of, like, again, it's that fine line of ridiculous and just epic. Yeah. Which, you know, is what anime is all about, in my opinion. They're really interesting to see where the story goes as well. Yeah. Presumably there'll be more characters introduced.

I want to know if Kiji saves his sister, bro. Yeah. One thing that I really appreciate watching a show like this is how, what? I'm just so curious. What is the process in character designing when it's not human characters? Yeah, right? You know, it's, I've, I know how hard it is to give characters the exact features you want to characterize them in the way that you, in the way that you envision,

which is hard enough for human characters. How do they find that balance? How do we see a character like Elizabeth and you're just like, ooh, okay, okay. What reference material are the artists, drawing for. I'm so fucking curious. I'm just trying to imagine how many chickens did this author have to draw in order for them to be like, I've got the one. How do you look at like an aesthetic looking chicken and being like, all right, how do I make this like kind of sexy? Without being, without like going all the way? Like ha ha. It must inspire. Yeah.

Why they take Japanese chicken and then this all comes out. Yeah, it's just like cooked chicken. Yeah, like that's the thing, right? Like it needs like this author is just just teetering on the cusp of like, is it furry? Is this furry art? No, this is just, this is proper mangrove. I'm taking this fully seriously. I mean, luckily there's quite a lot of variations in how chickens look. Yeah.

The amount of like different kind of pattern that they have. Totally. And chicks are so cute. They are so cute. Adorable. And Piok was so cute as well. Yeah. Have you had held it like a chick?

Yeah. I have. Oh, that's like, they're so fluffy. So soft. God. I feel like this is a random fact. Maybe random bullshit that I just made up. I think like,

uh, determining the sex of a chicken is like one of the like hardest jobs in the world or something. It's like one of the most well paid. Well, I mean, apparently like it's impossible to tell the sex of a chicken. Oh, you mean like a chick?

I think so. Yeah. But apparently there are people who can do it. Yeah, I can tell who's on top. That's, that's what rooster fighters told me. I mean, Yeah, actually, he was like, what is the meeting ritual for chickens?

Cause, uh, is, was they, do you, dude, you just remind me, I have a friend from school who has this job. Isn't it like, I, I feel like I saw it on episode, IQ. Yeah. It's like one of the hardest fucking, like, and like, hardest things to train for. Yeah, I just remember my, my childhood friend, Sora, he had a job where his whole thing was, like, trying to determine the sex of a chicken. And I remember he got paid really well. Yeah, because apparently it's like an insanely hard skill to learn.

I just remembered that. So there's a Wikipedia called chick sexing with some methods of chick sexing. Oh, by a trained person called a chick sexer. That's... Okay, go to the chick sexer Wikipedia. Can you just imagine if you read someone? Can you Google how much do chick sexes get paid? What do you do?

I'm a chick sexer. Your job title is a chick sexer. Yeah, you go to like immigration and a man. Yeah, what do you do? It's like, I'm a chick sexist. I don't know what, excuse me? Excuse me? Where they get paid nothing.

Wait, what the fuck? Oh, in the US. It's probably that side gig, though. That's be real. Okay, now Reddit's saying 60K a year. And that was in like eight years ago. Damn. Shortage of chicken sexes in the UK, despite 40,000 pounds out of.

Damn. Wow. Damn, come on. Come on UK. Who doesn't want a sex and chicks? Just now and again. Why is that the one? You might make the next KG.

You might be the next KG. You can find KG, you win one million dollars. Yeah. How do chickens actually reproduce? Like, Is the show, like, law accurate? I say law, is the show like nature accurate?

Law accurate. Yes, accurate to the chicken law. Well, I mean, because chickens have like, it's called it, I know it's called a cloaca, which is what all birds have, which is just kind of like the one hole for everything kind of thing. Right.

Internal fertilization. There you go. Oh, yeah, there you go. The rooster mates with a hand by pressing their cloakers together, also known as a cloacal kiss to transfer sperm.

Yeah, so basically their butt hole and the chicken's butt hole kiss and then they get pregnant. Oh, they go ass to ass. They go ass to ass. They go ass to ass, baby. How many kids just cage you have that he doesn't know about?

That's what I'm with. Is he? Kiji probably has a lot of kids out there that he doesn't know about. Yeah. Do the chicken society have child support? No, I feel for my bro, Kiji. His support is destroying the world.

Yeah. Ring up Peter. They'll take care of him. Maybe Kji's actually the bad guy. No, he's my goat. He's my goat. Or is the alpha male of chickens? Yeah, watch one too many, like, alpha podcasts

and you become the KG, the chicken. Oh my God But if you want to go and watch Rooster Fighter You can do so on Hulu in the US Or on Disney Plus internationally So go and watch it You absolutely will love it Thank you so much for this media

For sponsoring this section It was a lot of fun To be able to talk about the show And all of its absurdity Yeah And make sure to if you missed it Check out our reaction To the first three episodes

Over on the After Dark channel Should be up there right now So check out that link in the description down below Hell yeah All right And now from one anime Without another.

To another. Which one would you like to talk about first? Let's talk about what's freshest in our minds, I guess. Okay. Because we just watched it this morning. This was Gant's recommendation, I believe. I mean, I guess. I mean, for the most part, yeah.

Yeah. Because you're the only one that had seen this prior to us reacting to it. Yeah. I mean, I can't remember who chose this one, but this was 100 meters. I mean, I think we all wanted to watch this one. Yeah, we all wanted to watch this. I think this was also mentioned. Yeah, so everyone wanted to watch.

Everyone wanted us to watch it. It's 100 meters and this came out New Year's, New Year's this year, but it was also out in theaters for a while last year as well. So it's been a while since this came out, a while depending on your sense of time. Yeah.

And this is the first ever published work from the author of orb, right? Yeah, Uoto. So before making orb, they made 100 meters and they've only made currently two

finished manga, Orb and 100 meters and God damn, back to back banger, man. I'm saying they got two shows like this back to back that are, one, both amazing and two fantastic adaptations in such a short time. Totally. Two very different adaptations. Yeah, they're very much so.

Because I guess, I guess, what is what is your guys thoughts of it because uh before we get to our thoughts we did all watch this together on the same couch and if you want to go and see that reaction please go and do so you can sign up to the patreon uh to watch uh more of our reaction to the show hell yeah uh this obviously you know it's a very uh thought provoking and a very uh not a very reaction heavy yeah movie but still we gave a lot of uh a lot of commentary during it and uh yeah my god this is a 10 out of 10 yeah it's very very genuinely a 10 out of 10 yeah Yeah, this is such a good movie.

I was so fucking, like, I came in with high expectations, and it met all of them in my eyes. I didn't know what to expect from the story, except for it was probably, it's everything that they make is probably going to make you think and probably going to make you reflect. And I feel like choosing a sports anime as the very first piece of work that they ever made was perfect for the themes that it tried to, like, it tried to express. Just something about sports anime, when. it's done like this, it just becomes like incredibly, like, philosophical to the point where where you don't even need to know or care much about the sport in question for it to, like, really leave a lasting impact. Like, I feel some of the best human dramas to come out of, like, in the world of Bangor and anime,

a lot of them are the sports ones. I think that's because sports, uh, is a universally understood way of, um, kind of delving into that concept of like, okay, we, we, everyone has competed in a sport at some point. even if they're not very good. And I think we've all had that feeling of like, I'm not the goat. Yeah, yeah. Like I am racing.

I'm in this thing, but I'm not like the best at this. Yeah. So I know the sense of defeat. I know the sense of not being good enough. And I know the sense of, even if you're like, you know,

like I was the fastest in my school. Yeah. I was the fastest in my primary and my high school. So I was like, oh yeah, good. I got hot shit. Yeah. And then I get to nationals and I got humbled.

Yeah. You know? And it's that, It's that realization and that moment of being like, oh, wow, I, I'm not the best. Yeah. There's actually a lot of people that are better than me. I just wasn't near them. Yeah, exactly.

I didn't this narrow view I was very good. And that human aspect of, you know, at some point in your life, you have to move on. Yeah. You have to be like, all right, I'm not. Yeah. This isn't my life. I'm not, I'm not like the. I'm washed.

I'm washed. I'm kind of washed. I'm fell off loki. I'm not the Michael Phelps of the sport. Yeah. I have to move on. And so I think that's why sports anime have always been, especially when they take this kind of route to it

instead of the Carocono Basket Route, a really good vehicle for kind of analyzing, you know, life, motivation. The human condition. Yeah, like everything about just what it means to be happy. And, you know, that's, again, when you're watching the show, it is a sports anime, but it's not about the sport. Yeah.

Yeah. Totally. And I've, okay. So, can we get this off the screen? It's so distracting. Yeah. The animation constantly. Sorry, I'm just dumb.

Yeah. I have a monkey brain. And yeah, that's basically what this movie is about. It is about the 100 meters and it is about a group of characters and their different approach and philosophy to why they compete in the 100 meters or why they compete in track, track and field. Why do they run? Which is a question that is constantly asked in this film, which is kind of a metaphor to why do we do anything in life? What is it that drives you? What is it that drives these characters?

And you can tell that it's from the author of Orb because every character has such a deep philosophical, kind of like... Like viewpoint? Viewpoint. They're all differing viewpoints as well slightly, but in the same way they also slightly overlap, which makes for like just really interesting dialogue exchanges

between characters because there's a lot of like interactions where you could have two different characters that run for different reasons in their own head, but then maybe one thing another character says or one different viewpoint that another character has kind of makes them reflect on why they think a certain way or why they want to continue to run or why they even run in the first place, right?

And so getting to see, as these characters grow older as well, getting to see that overlapping, but also this like head-to-head in kind of philosophical ideation is just really interesting because, yeah, as you said, like, even though it's a movie about track and field, it's also about just how you run through life, I guess. Should we briefly explain the story? Yeah, go ahead. Okay, I can try.

Since you brought it up. Okay, okay, so it starts off with, we have... We have the character names up again because of Togashi. I'm bad. Togashi, who goes by Koyama for most of the movie, right? No, Komiya. Oh, Komiya, sorry, Komiya. No, Komiya's the other guy.

Oh, yeah, sorry, sorry, sorry. So the movie opens up with Togashi, who is this kid, who is by far in a way, the most talented runner in this school. He's that kid. Yeah, he's that kid. And even, like, the news is picked up on this kid. He's so good. That, like, this kid is a generational talent.

He's going to be the goat. And then also at the same time, a new kid transfers to the school because it's anime, of course. And that's Komiya, who is a kid that runs like a, feral animal. He has no technique. His shoes are shit. But he's got willpower, but he is definitely a worse runner than Togashi. And it's

kind of shown that. But he's got the will and that's like his secret weapon is that somehow looks like he might be able to catch up to him. So they both race in these the school day in different races and they both win their respective races. And then suddenly

Komiya gets transferred. And then we skip time and go ahead. And then we skip, what, like five? I guess they're in high school now, the end of high school. Yeah, about five years, yeah. And Togoshi now, even though he is the goat. And he also, when he was a kid,

met the current best runner, Zatsu, who is the Japan's number one runner. Everyone's always talking about how amazing is. No, he met Nagami. Yeah. Oh, Nigami. Oh, sorry. Oh, my God.

Sorry. So, Nigami is like someone else who is an up-and-coming track and field star. Zaitzu is kind of like the... He's like the national champion. He's like the Otani of this world. You know what I mean? He's like, he's the goat setting all of the records.

He's the Lebron of Tracking Field. Yeah, he's like right up there at the top. But mainly the show focuses on Togashi and Komiya. And kind of like their convergence and everyone else is kind of like circling around their main kind of like storylines. And you see an opposite narrative between both of these two characters. Togashi is someone who starts off very young, very young. very talented and someone who has high hopes and would be the person that you think would be like stand at the top of the track and feel world. And then as he grows older, he comes to this

realization that he may be not as talented as he thought he would, as he thought he could be, you know, as everyone told he would, as everyone told him he would be. And he just kind of like starts achieving less and less and starts losing motivation. Whereas Comia starts off as an absolute nobody and rises as to one of the most promising track and field stars of this world, someone who can actually rival Zaitzu in terms of his speed. And it's a story about Takashi finding acceptance with his current kind of like skill level and Komiya kind of like finding why he wants to run in the first place. Why is it that he's so driven to try to be the best? because he kind of like, his character kind of feels like empty outside of running, you know?

And I feel like he comes to that realization at the end where he's like, I don't even know why I'm fucking chasing records. Well, I think his whole philosophy was like, you know, he would say like, you know, if you feel anxiety about like a race or like that you're not good enough, then like put all of that to the side and only focus on you want to run because you want to be in the first place, you want to break records. That's the whole reason why I do it. And then in the end of the movie, he gets absolutely creamed by Togashin Kormia.

And another character, Kaido, as well, who's also another really interesting character. And I think that's the moment where he kind of realizes that, like, once he has actually lost at such a high level, that kind of makes him be like, I think it makes him realize that he, the motivation that he had to do what he was doing was kind of foolish in a way. or maybe misguided in a certain sense because he's seeing these other runners who just beat them, but having completely different motivations that have almost usurped his, you know, philosophy of running, for example.

Yeah. If that makes sense. Yeah, I guess, yeah. There's a lot of ways to interpret this. Yeah, I feel like I interpreted it differently. Oh, really? Yeah, I think so. How did you interpret it?

Well, I always interpreted, because, okay, so for example, in the show, let's just so we can get everyone up to speed. Yeah. There's a lot kind of in the middle, but for the main focus of this discussion, I think we can kind of explain the end.

Sure. Where the end is basically, there's these, I guess there's four main runners, I guess, three really, but I guess four, kind of. Sure. Because Kaido is kind of introduced quite later on into the story. But basically it's just one big race at the end. Because Togashi and Komiya had a race prior,

which was 10 years prior to the big race, where Koyama beat Togashi. And then the final race at the end, they have one big race where Togashi and Komiya are like neck and neck. And then they're finally happy because they're racing and they're at the same speed. And they're happy because they found an opponent who's, you know, both inspire each other basically to keep improving. And then it cuts. We don't find out who won. Start your alienware journey with the streamlined Alienware 15.

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Visit alienware.ca slash alienware 15 today. But I think like before this, there's a lot of kind of, there's this like weird part. Well, weird. I mean, it's fun. It's like where all the characters all kind of start talking and realizing, oh shit, why are we actually doing this? And I think too, in a sense, the whole movie, obviously it's about running, but I feel like it's also just not about running at all. No, it's not. In any way.

Like, the running is just the metaphor. The metaphor for what it is. And you'd mention that Togashi's motivation's gone. What did you say they were again? I just felt like that. Togashi's motivation, I said he kind of lost his motivation midway through when he started getting humbled. Yeah. Originally when Togashi was a kid, his motivation to run was.

kind of void. Like he, he would say as a kid, he's like, oh, I don't really have a motivation to run. I just run because I know that I'm the fastest kid in the school. I read it as I thought like Togashi as a character had never like, he's never had like suffered defeat. Yeah. And like there's a really good scene.

Although I was, I was, there's one part of the shot that was goofy and it made me laugh. I feel back. Where Togashi's in this park. And at one point in the story, Takashi is told by a doctor that he shouldn't run. Yeah. He's injured himself. He's injured. He's injured. He can't run. And if he runs, he might permanently damage his leg

for life. But because at this point in the story, Takashi hasn't really competed at a serious level, and he hasn't won anything, his sponsors are like, hey, if you don't run, you will lose your job. Yeah. Yeah. We'll make you a coach and you'll never run again. So, you know, he's quite torn about it. And he sees these kids in the park. You're trying to win their 100-meter race and they're kind of, you know, talking to you know, talking about. Yeah, Sports Day about how they're like,

what should I do? And Togashi is talking to them, and he's explaining the technique on what to do and how to win. And then there's this moment where he kind of breaks and he realizes that he's explained to these kids, hey, it's important to make sure that you're okay with losing. Yeah. And I think in that moment is when Togashi realizes

that he's never okay with it. He's never been okay with it. And the whole story arc of Togashi was, you know, and we're so humans, so we're dumb. And we will literally live a whole life. to avoid feeling something, because that's what we do. We're creatures of comfort.

Comfort is the enemy of progress. So I think that Togashi's character is that he's just unwilling to his entire life to be defeated. Because he's won so many times. Because in high school, it's not expressed that he ever lost anything, but suddenly he started waning his interest.

And I felt like that was because of the fear of he never wanted to lose because the higher competition he keeps going and the older he gets, the more chance he's going to have to face you to someone who might make him lose or someone who does. And so when actually facing defeat, he's never

been equipped to deal with defeat. Whereas Comia is totally fine getting defeated. For him, it's what inspires him more because being defeated is to be able to try again and learn. But all the characters have such interesting I think, I mean,

this discussion that we can have this. Yeah. But it reflects on all of us. Yeah. And I feel feel like that's such, that's like such a good part of Loto's writing where he will have characters and he will present, he will use these characters as a vehicle to present different ideas, different viewpoints, but he never explicitly says, this is the right one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, he will say, okay, uh, you have a bunch, he's a bunch of different interesting characters, uh, and you can make your own interpretation and you can make your own, you can find

your own answer through one of these characters. Yeah. Because I would say the character that by far, I thought, had the big, one of the biggest impacts, even though he had like some of the shorter screen time, Kido. Oh, yeah, kind of. My God, what a fucking goaded character. Unc shows up for like five scenes and steals the show, man. I mean, if you make Kenjuro voice anything, bro.

See that Kenjuro's characters are just aura. They literally, I did so unfair, one man is to have all that. I know. I know. I'm a voice. It's chills, dude. Chills. And it's like a totally different character from the other character he voices in Orb, which is Noak. Two totally different characters, but damn, steals the show in both different series as well. Because Cardo's introduced really late. And he feels like his whole point is kind of just breaking these characters and making them all realize almost like, he's like, hey, I'm old. I know I'm here, Mitch.

Yeah. I'm in for the love of the game. This is why I want to fucking be. Totally. But I feel like, I think, like, there's a lot of lines in these that are, like, really powerful. But I feel like the line, when I first watched this by myself, the line that hit me, like, the hardest was Kaido's speech to Tokashi. Oh, yeah. Where he was like, look, I've been second best my entire life.

You know, I'm fucking tired of being told I was born in the wrong generation, you know, everyone. Doesn't even like, I'm not even a blip on anyone's radar. But his speech about breaking out of the reality that he sees for himself by never once, like, never stop, never stopping to believe in himself. You know, he has one job and that is to believe in himself. So even if no one else does, he still thinks he's going to craft his own reality. And the way Uolto phrases it to is so good because he phrases it like, like, Kyto's like, I'm running from reality. Yeah. Which is like such a cool, like, analogy to present in a character like this because it's like, it links that analogy to what he's actually doing physically, which is like, I, again, he's like, I'm running for the love of the game.

I'm running so that I could just be like, I don't give a fuck what anyone says about me or what they call me. I'm doing this because I believe in myself and I know I can be the best. I mean, yeah. I mean, in human life, like introspection is one of the hardest things to consistently do to yourself. Like to be able to actually sit down and come to terms with what is happening emotionally for yourself, what is happening in your life, and to be able to genuinely, and I'm like, not like, yeah, I know there's some problems in my life. Like to genuinely be uncomfortable with those feelings. Because for Kydo, right, like he's mentioned, he's number two, sure, on the track, cool. But what that entails is that you're on the track for 10 seconds.

The rest of your time, you have to sit with what happens. and on those tracks for 10 seconds. And in between all those races and all those competitions. And to be able to push that, hey, I am introspective. I have been able to see that I'm realistic here. Yeah.

I know what I'm dealing with. You need to do it too. Yeah. It was such a cool moment. Yeah. And then he fucking gets a win in the semi heeds. Oh, man. Yeah.

Which is so sick because he locks in. He locks in. He locks in. He goes, alternate reality. Boom. That moment where he just like locks in and he goes, I will break this reality and he does it. I remember like

first time watching it. I was like, fuck. Yes. Into the kangaroo's voice. Oh my God. Unka's still got it, man. I don't know how old he's meant to be, but I feel like he's way older. He looks way older than he's actually like canonically meant to be in this one. I mean, he

looks how every Final Fantasy says you look when you're like 30. He looks, he looks, like decrepit in Final Fantasy terms. I also really love Zaitzi? Yeah, Zaitzzi didn't get too many scenes either. No, but the scene where he goes into,

there's a scene in this movie, which maybe is all time for me. He goes into school to give a speech to all the aspiring athletes in Kushu with Komiya. And he's kind of weird. Because he's, he's just kind of like very weirdly up front and... Emotionless.

Yeah. Kind of like nihilistic and... blunt to all these kids. I feel like this was Woto reading a book on nihilism and he was just going to be like, I want to make a character solely solely around that.

So, you know, the school leader is like, I forgot what he even asks. It doesn't really matter that much compared to what. He asked something. He asked, why do you run? Right, right.

And then Komiya goes, hey, I have like really bad anxiety. How do you deal with it as a runner? How do you deal with anxiety? And he goes, what did he say? He goes something along the lines of like, deal with it. Run from anxiety or something.

Yeah, yeah. You should outrun your anxiety. Yeah, he's like, don't let anxiety get in the way. Yeah. Yeah, just put it to the side. But I will say, I think for me, like, one of the most memorable lines in the movie is from Zaitu, like near the end where he, I forgot who he was talking to,

but he says this line, which I thought was really good, where he was like, um, if you're, you know, being in first is no different to being in last if there is no one around you. Oh, I like that line. I love that line so much because it's like, because, you know, his entire life has just been, he's always been at the top of the game.

He's always been first, you know, almost to the point where he's, oh yeah, he's talking to Comeo. Yeah, he was like, you know, his entire upbringing, he was always like the national champion, you know, always at number one. Even, you know, when you look at his character,

it's almost like he wasn't even trying to like be that. It's just like God-given talent. And then when he finally confronts Comio about like, you know, being number one all the time isn't the point. And, you know, maybe being number one all the time isn't the reason why you should be running all the time. And it's this kind of moment where even Zaitzu realizes that the way, or I guess the mentality that he has towards running is potentially a little bit flawed. Yeah. Especially off. And this is before he loses in like a really, really bad way at the end that, you know, makes him be like, actually, I quit. This game sucks.

I thought it was like a really memorable line. Yeah, I also, I mean, there's this, oh my God, there's so much fun stuff to talk about and to analyze. Yeah. Even the scene directly after this, there's a scene where, I think his name is Suneda, who is the, at the time of where the scene was placed, was kind of the number one runner in the club at the school that Comey was at. And he kind of breaks down for like a number of reasons. Like, I'm sure like he's jealous of the potential that Comey is showing. Yeah. And there's probably a lot going on.

But he kind of explodes at Comeyer and it's like, hey, your fucking body is like begging you to stop running. Yeah. It can tell something's not right. Yeah. And even, and I think there is like, although the motivations might be misplaced where that might be coming from, I think it's such a cool. He's still spitting. He's right. Yeah, he is right.

Because what is like, through all this like aura farming and cool fucking one liners is that like, I, he's, he's quite a right. Like, even Zaitzzi, who does. He doesn't realize it at the time when he's telling him, hey, you should run from your anxiety. Yeah. It's that Zaitzhu's also not got it figured out either. Zaytu at this point doesn't realize why he's even running, really. And he's so confidently saying these things because he's just the fastest runner. Yeah.

And so we're listening to him in this story because he comes from a position of being the best, to being number one. Yeah. Which, you know, in the world and of what we've built is that, oh, that guy must be right, because he's the best at what he does. Yeah. And he must have it figured out when he might just be more mentally broken

than the rest of us. Totally. But we're listening to him because we put people on a pedestal for the results they can achieve in certain things. And he's right about, sooner that is right about Commia

because, you know, the one time that Comia gets beaten in the race by the old guy, it's like he gets mind broken, like in a hentai, bro. His whole world view is broken now because he realizes, what the fuck is it all for?

This old guy who's like having fun just beat me. Yeah, totally. And so it's, it's such an awesome, like, take on, uh, you know, sometimes, sometimes we, when we're working or when we're, we're spending time with people, we're so willing to, like, throw ourselves into something to not have to think about that anxiety, to not have to think about reality, like, what is actually happening around us. Yeah. Um, and even in this, it's like, we don't see anything of their lives outside of racing. We don't. Which I think is great.

Because if they had like a sad backstory going on or whatever, I think it would take away from it. Because I think it's meant to be like you don't know anything about these guys, of them what they show through their like on track and track life. Yeah. And it's so powerful because of that. And there's a lot to take away from this. And I feel like a lot of people will probably end up watching this and feel a lot of the things, maybe not know how to break them down and kind of internalize some of the messaging and kind of be a bit more introspective about it. Because that's the takeaway here is to be introspective, is to look at what you're doing in your life and why are you doing it?

Like, why are you really doing it? Are you really happy? Like, go deeper. Don't just feel like, yeah, I think I'm happy. Like, there's so much more layers. And we're so bad as humans, kind of like really delving into how we feel about these things. And it's so cool seeing almost like four or five different perspectives

and how that changes based on who is currently the guy at running 10 seconds fast. You know? Like, it's so fun. Like, what a cool thing. Yeah. And I think it speaks volumes that you've just seen three people, quote, three different lines that have hit us in three different ways. There will be a line in there that hits you. Yeah. And makes you think.

Because there'll be a line that makes you think, oh, oh, shit. I kind of relate to this or I never thought about like that because that's just how dense this movie is in terms of how many, like, life-changing or, life reflecting lessons and viewpoints there are in this one short film. Yeah. Which just, it's so fucking powerful. And also, can we talk about the fucking animation? Yeah, I was going to get to that.

Oh, my God. Like, so this anime does rotoscoping in a way that is probably the best I've seen in anime. By far. By far. This is the coolest fucking thing I've seen. Some of the most accurate running animation you'll ever see that actually looks a amazing and realistic, which is what you want for a show that's this grounded in reality. Yeah.

And that prolonged shot of that one race in the rain is insane. I've never seen anime do that before. Because that was the shot before the midpoint turn before we jump 10 years ahead. Yeah. But it was just the perfect, perfect shot. So good. There is a shot that lasts for about a minute and 40 seconds. I think I timed it out.

Yeah. Something around there. It's a very, very long shot. It is the start, shows you the entire beginning and build up of what is the culmination at that point of like the biggest race at that point that we've seen, where both the two main characters get to race it out. And it just holds on this shot and the music builds and it just lets you live in the moment before the race. Because the race doesn't last, the race barely last like anything compared to the buildup. It's 10 seconds, that's it. 10 seconds.

Right? But it lets you build, it lets the audience feel that anticipation before this monumentally big race. Yeah. And then after the shots over, it goes like, it goes to silence and it's only like sound effects and heavy breathing. It's basically like, yeah, it's just 30 seconds of just like the rain getting stronger and stronger and strong until it just turns into white noise.

Yeah. And it, yeah, and then it just cuts. And it's, it's this beautiful moment because it's, it's the moment when you really see Togashi and everything that he has kind of built his life around when it comes to track and field and like, you know, what he thought was his purpose in all of this and what his whole purpose and just life is in general and what he, you know, believes in, just snap at that moment. I mean, he hadn't lost before this. Yeah. This is the first time he's ever lost. And he lost the Komiya as well of all people, you know. So that was that was the real turning point

where I guess in a sense where reality actually sets in for talking. Togashi and he discovers for the first time the anxiety and the the true scariness that is the reality of his life. And as he becomes an adult, he's still trying to figure that out. And I think that's what I like about Togashi is that he really is like a fantastic representation of a person who is just in a constant journey to figure out what their purpose in life is and why they do, what they want to do and what they want to achieve. what they want to strive for, which I think a lot of people can relate to. You know, it's like, there's a lot of people out there that think they know what they want to be or think they know what they want to believe in. And then something or some element in their life makes them maybe pivot a 180 or makes them think otherwise or maybe makes them self-doubt. But at the end of

the day and at the end of this movie, it's kind of insinuated that maybe Togashi hasn't exactly figured out the answer to his life. Yeah. But he's gotten one step closer. Yeah. You know, Which is how I interpret the ending of the movie. I think Togashi was probably like the right choice to be the main character. Because I think a lot of people, pretty much everyone can relate to that feeling of feeling like you're a superhero when you're a kid at a certain thing. Yeah. And then just that moment where you get humbled when you reach adulthood or you enter a bigger high school, something like that. Into the real world.

Yeah, into the real world. You're raised to think that life is going to be easy, that you figure stuff out. and then you, everyone reaches that point when you realize, oh, this shit is hard. Yeah. Because even in the movie, we see everyone, you know, he gets the fucking press tour with the current record holder.

Everyone's telling him he's the best. He's the goat. So, you know, it's a hard thing to have to grow up with that and then realizing you're not. Yeah. Yeah. Especially when, you know, you go, even for him, he goes up until he's like 18

before he suffers a defeat. Yeah, yeah. And then it takes him 10 years to get over it. And then he only gets over it because he only thinks he has three races left. Yeah. Because he thinks he medically won't be able to. It takes him literally having to like force retirement from to finally get over the fact that he can lose. Yeah.

Like he can't get over that for the entire show. Yeah. And I just I just thought when it ended and I just, I thought it was such a perfect ending where we didn't get to see who won. After all this build up, after all this build up about who the fastest person can be about records, about shattering your preconceived reality, we don't see who won, because it doesn't really matter. It never was about winning or losing. It was always about why and what the drives are. And I thought it was such a succinct ending to this film that encapsulates all of the themes that it was trying to portray in it. We could literally talk about this for hours.

We could. Music, godlike, as always. I would actually say what stood out to me in a lot of this wasn't actually the music. It was the lack of it. It plays with silence a lot. It does. The sound, the folly was like phenomenal. All the sounds of everything sounded so good.

Yeah. But I also feel like what made some of these lines really like stick in was there's a lot of times when the silence holds for an almost uncomfortable period of time where a character will say something and you see they have this kind of like the thinking or they have this realization. And they won't say anything. They would just stand there.

And it just lets, it gives you that breathing room to just also feel what the character is feeling as well. Yeah, the movie takes its time because it understands that the messages that is trying to convey to the audience takes time to process, I think. This spring, Denham gets a softer, lighter, update. Introducing Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg, a new fit that moves with you. It's everything you want denim to feel like for summer. Easy, breathable, and effortlessly cool. With a fit that

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that's sure. Yeah. Used to be normal length. Yeah. It's a very good and it doesn't overstay. It's welcome. It's phenomenally paced. You know,

there are a lot of characters to kind of keep track of. Yeah. But it never feels overwhelming. Yeah. It's all just meticulously done and the time skips are never jarring. Like it always feels like it makes complete sense. At the perfect time as well. Yeah.

Like you never feel like you're lingering too much on an era. There's like three different eras that they're on. And yeah, it's just phenomenal. Like really, really amazing stuff. And yeah, it's just so cool. And like, what a cool depiction of just

being a human being. Yeah. You know, and dealing with like, you know, your reason for life. Mental, mental wellness, all this shit, man. Like, it's all here. Everyone is flawed in different aspects. And I think this movie does such a good job of like exploring all of that and characters

trying to figure all of that out. Yeah, I also just thought that they chose just the perfect sport for this. The concept of 100 meters, which is your entire life being condensed down to 10 seconds. That's like... And it's so primal as well. Yeah, there's the act of running is so primal. Yeah, there's just something fucking romantic about that idea.

You know, like you sacrifice your entire life for just 10 seconds. 10 short seconds. Yeah. You know, I'm like... This is the most serious we've ever been on anime club. So that tells you something about this movie. I mean, I could praise this for days. Yeah.

Last thing I want to end on is, damn, what is, what is the mangaka gonna do next? Yeah, I mean, Dave. Back to back of this hard. It is also kind of, like, frustrating. I don't really care about this kind of stuff in general normally, but it's so annoying that, like,

why can we never get Japanese movies, like, nominated in, like, Oscars and stuff for awards? Yeah. This fucking needs awards, bro. Yeah. This is so fucking good. I wish more people would watch this, but they won't, just because it's Japanese and they've been watched subtitles.

But there's a dub, too, but it's just like so frustrating because the both of these shows are amazing and it's awesome seeing the aspect of character writing and and just the absolute understanding of human emotions that this author has. I have a name Uto. Uto, Uto, because like even in Chi, you can see them kind of take these these same ways of handling characters but putting them towards something else, which is the goal of just human progression. Yeah. And what that looks like when people are, different types of people are willing to sacrifice for the goal of progress and understanding, which can be kind of a nebulous kind of thing at times

that, you know, is a thankless job to advance human understanding. But, you know, we're all better for it. And it's such a cool thing to see. And I mean, yeah, if anything, this is probably like the most exciting author right now to watch, I feel like. Yeah, I feel like top two right now is like anything that Uwuta makes and Tuskefugemoto as well. Yeah.

You know, it's, we are living in an era of exciting ass mangaka coming out. You know, you look back in the period where, you know, you know, imagine what it would be like, living through the period where you get to see what now Kew or Sauer makes next. You know, that's how I feel reading these works. Totally. I'm like, damn, this is just goaded after goaded stuff, man. They can't go back to back to back to back. What the fuck?

Wait, they can. Wait, you made monster, then 20th century boys? Then Pluto? Then Billy Matt? What the God. Oh, my lord. He don't miss. It's just awesome to see that there's still so many talented authors.

Like still kind of, you know, making amazing manga and stories. And what's to say, there's like so many mangaka out there that are just hiding in the rough, you know? Yeah. And just need to be dug up either by an anime adaptation or whatever it might be. It feels like a must watch. Everyone's got to watch 100 meters It's an hour and a half of your day Go and watch it is fucking life changing

If Orb wasn't already a must watch Like 100 meters is also a must watch Anything that I think this author is responsible for I think is a must watch Yeah You're hitting two out of two bangers like that It's kind of crazy It's crazy out of the gate

What the hell are they gonna make next? Yeah, no right How did they top this? Have they announced what they're working on next or? I'm not sure Sure I think she ended quite a while ago From my understanding

Like the manga The manga started in 2020. Can we see when she ended? Yeah. Yeah. What was the... Yeah, the manga.

When did the manga end? Because it only has like eight volumes? Yeah. It's only got eight volumes. Oh, yeah, April. Yeah, 22. So they haven't done anything since

in about four years. They're cooking. They're cooking. They're cooking. I believe. You know, it's good when the genres is award winning. Facts.

I mean, even if they never made another one, I'd still be very happy. So I hope they're working on something because they have a lot to say. And I think they're a fantastic rider. Like imagine the flex of having two anime adaptations within a year. And they both actually be run out for like anime of the year contenders. Yeah. Crazy.

It's it is that's an insane body of work. Yeah. So we're excited to see what Uolto has to offer next. But we've got one more anime for this week's anime club. And it is a Patreon. suggestion. Is it safe to say it's maybe one of the more talked about shows of this season?

When I looked at this season's chart, I think it was sitting at like number four. There's a lot. There's a lot going on the season, though. There is a lot going on the season. It was weird because when episode one came out, this was like, this would not get off my feet. And then I feel like I haven't heard

as many people talk about this. Maybe when we had the anime club patron suggestions, they were like, this was when sentenced to be a hero, which is what we're going to talk about, was like the hottest IP. And then it's just kind of continued as usual. Everyone is talking about Judi-Kaysen, Free Wren, and...

So there's a couple of things happening there, at least with the conversation. I think Free Wren and Jutikisen are like massively memed constantly. Yes. So I think that is also helping quite a lot with the fact that they're constantly in public dialogue. It's rated quite highly.

But it's, you know, that first episode was pretty, pretty insane. Yep. I mean, I don't know about you guys, but I'm caught up on it. What the fuck? Yeah, I just, I'm quite, how many episodes are out? Right now there's 10. Yeah, have you watched all 10 episodes? I watched all 10 episodes because I don't know about you guys.

I really fucking love this show. Yeah, I fucking loved it. This was fucking sick. It was sick. I'm just like, because, you know, when I saw the title, not reincarnate, sorry, sentence to be a hero. You know, I thought to myself, oh, fuck, another Issa Kai slob. And then that first one hour long episode, I was like, okay, okay, this is different.

This gave me, like, I don't know why, but like, Rising of the Shield Hero vibes. I was about to say, this is Rising of the Shield Hero if you darkened it up. Yeah. Yeah, and it's not, I don't think it's as edgy as Rising. I don't think, no, it's definitely not as agey. Yeah. I feel like it hit a lot harder in some way. ways, dare I say.

Not to say I didn't enjoy rising the show hero. I watched the whole season. And Kevin's music was amazing. Yeah. Sorry, Kevin. But I didn't watch the rest. But this was, this was phenomenal. That first episode,

I like, I love this trend of like when you know the, when the episode is an hour, you know, you know you read it. You know you're reading gear. So when I first saw this first episode was an hour, I was like, oh, okay, okay, shit.

You didn't say that about O'Shenocco, though. Yeah, that's true. Well, no, okay. I want to say, by the way, I was fucking right about Oshinoco. I called it from episode two. That shit was going to go downhill so fucking fast. The writing was on the wall from episode two.

And if you couldn't see it, you were in fucking competent. Okay. I saw it. Okay. Sorry, I was getting that. No, you're good. I'm so annoyed of people being like, I had no idea this show fell off. I'm like, it fell off from episode two, you dumb bitch.

Anyone can tell. Sorry. But anyway, back to Sanis to be a hero. Wow. Wow. If we weren't talking about Sanders to be a hero now. We're talking about a good show. So it opens up.

Insane animation from the get-go. Oh, my God. Not only does this... Okay, the first thing that stands out is that the creativity of the shots in the action of the first... The POV shots, dude? Oh, it starts off with a POV shot.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, we've seen this a couple of times, but it's nice. Constantly, they use the action and the swipes of the actions to change the camera angle. Yeah.

And it is just absolute cinema from the get-go. I don't know who directed this, but they fucking cut in the direction. I will tell you who directed this. This was directed by the guy. You haven't watched Michelle Contente. It's the guy who directed probably some of the best episodes of season one

in Meshokitense. Oh, okay. It's the one where they fight in the ice thing. Yeah, turning point two. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's that episode. He was the episode director of that episode. Oh.

And he is now directing Sent us to be a hero, which is why it looks so down fantastic. It looks so fucking good. Yeah, this first episode, well, you know, the first, there's a sequence of the first. part that goes on for about four or five minutes. And it is just like movie level.

It is movie level. Yeah. But five minutes straight and you're like, okay, they run out of gas. Yeah. And then he changes into second gear and they keep going. And the show for the whole hour just keeps getting better and better with the animation. It goes off the fucking charts. Yeah.

But it's like it's got this awesome fucking and I love the colors as well. It's so. The explosion. I was about to say. Beautiful. Yeah, it's really, the one thing that I immediately noticed from episode one is that even though this is meat and potatoes dark fantasy, like it is dark, dark fantasy, very gory, very violent, it is so vibrant, which is such a nice contrast because you never, because, you know, when you think dark fantasy, you think like dreary, gray scale, very dark, you know, to make sure that like the gloomy atmosphere is like holding on. Whereas this anime was just like, no, the monsters are going to be like neon colored. Yeah.

Which somehow works. Yeah, I like it. I don't know how, but it works. There's, when I watch a lot of, like, new fantasy, like, basically fantasy slash Isakai adaptations, there's always, like, the filter. There's always the checklist about, okay, is this going to be a trashy show?

Number one, they had demon laws of this. The demon laws weren't fuckable. All right, they probably are trying to take this world seriously. Yeah. Number two, you don't start off the episode with, like, a five-minute long monologue. Yeah, a reincarnation monologue. Yeah, like a reincarnation monologue, be like saying exposition about the world building and stuff like that.

What I really enjoyed was like you could see, for example, some of the like weapons and technology that the like the soldiers were using. Yeah. And it seemed like they had their own kind of like logic about how they function, but it never. The sacred seals. Yeah, it never really gets like explained to you that you just, they just show it and let you kind of like figure out what these certain things do. I can very quickly explain the first episode. We start off

with a really cool sequence of action of I believe daughter who's carrying some kind of box that's all wrapped up and it looks very heavy

and he's running around with it, getting away from these guards. Then a giant frog covered in this like infection looking thing is just absolutely decimating them

and the action sequence is so cool, it's so gory so over the top. Then Xilo our main character kind of pops in kills this thing

and it's like what the fuck are you doing you dumb little bitch? I don't know I was just stealing this coffin. And we're kind of introduced to one of the most, like, interesting things this world at this point. Because as the Xilov saves daughter from this frog that's about to kill him, he's got this, like, steak impaled in him. And he's like, just fucking kill me.

Kill me and resurrect me later. He's like, are you fucking dumb if I do that? You'll be reborn with less memories and you'll be stupid. You'll fucking hate me for that. He's like, no, just fucking kill me. He's like, you're a dumb bitch. Stopping a baby. He's like, let me just fucking do this.

So he helps save him, even though it's very painful. And then it cuts, and that's the first sequence. It's a really fucking cool sequence. I'm glossing over it just to get you all up to speed. Gives you the information nice and quickly. And we get to learn about one of the main mechanics of this world, which is that these heroes, for whatever reason, can be resurrected. And it seems like an almost like a curse.

We don't know why. Yeah. And then he's like, bro, what the hell are you? I was like, what the hell is that in that box? He's like, I don't fucking know. I just stole it. I don't remember why. He's like, you're a dumb bitch.

Bro, it's the biggest kleptomaniac event. It says our daughter is definitely a klepto. And so he goes over, he's like, bitch, let me see what's in this box. He's like, is this a fucking coffin? He's like, yeah, I guess it's a freaking coffin. So he opens the coffin and inside is a lolly. Now, this is where I was like, oh, no, please. No, no, what is this?

Please don't go in a weird direction. And he's like, why do you have this? He's like, have what? He's like, this is a motherfucking goddess. This is a weapon that kills the fucking demon lord, you dumb fuck. how did you get this? I hate these things. He's like, I don't know, man.

And so anyways, like, they hear some fighting going on, so they run away from the coffin to look at the fighting. And as they're looking over, this girl, Teorita pops out and is like, Baha, you have summoned me.

I will be your goddess. And he's like, bitch, I don't fucking like goddesses. Get out of this. Yeah, he's like, who ass? So he goes over and saves these knights from all these fucked up frog things by throwing his, like,

Koonai that explode on touch. Yeah. And it's explained later on. This is from his sacred seals. Yeah. Which is, I guess, some kind of like tablet, which allows him to harness this energy. Some kind of power system.

If the drawing and carvings are just right. So it's pretty interesting. So he does that. Saves these guys. Then these knights who he just saved to our main character, Zylo, and they're like, oh, you fucking piece of shit. He's like, bitch, I just saved your life. And they're like, oh, you're a fucking hero.

You're disgusting little bitch. This is exactly the dialogue. Paraphrase. And then the Guardian comes over who's kind of playing this role of like helping us get a bit of the story the expedition. She's like, why do they hear you? You just save them. He's like, well, it's because I'm a hero.

I don't know. I did some fucked up crime and I've been my sentence is to be a hero. Which is in this world is a punishment that is worse than death. Yeah, your sentence to be a hero, which is why they can be resurrected and called upon because they are they have to, they have to serve the orders given to them.

Yeah. Anyway, the knights are like, why the fuck do you have the goddess? That's fucked up. And she's like, I want to be tied to Zylo, the hero. And they're all like, that's disgusting. He's a hero. You're a goddess. You should be with a holy knight. One of us. And then it gets ring ring. It's the guy in his voice in his head. The guy who's controlling these heroes like, bitch, you've got to go over here. There is a World War III happening. And the demon lord is approaching. And for some reason, the holy knights are going to sacrifice themselves to try and kill it. Yeah. He's like, oh my God, for real. So he goes over there,

goes to try and help them. And all these holy knights are just, just getting decimated. But this is also where we start to see some of the cool technology. Like we see like they have a mixture of like medieval with like magical. Yeah. And I do like this, but I like when it's rooted in a bit of like, there's a bit more mechanicalness to the magic as opposed to it just being magic with sticks. Yeah.

It's like there's capsules filled with some kind of lightning that they can shoot. But it runs out like a shell. Yeah. So it's quite cool. They try to fight off this demon lord who is approaching the 47th demon lord. Unfortunately, they're not strong enough. And Zylo, our main character, has been absolutely wiping out all of these, like, mini, uh, sporns. But, you know, the, the demon lord's still there.

Yeah, we should say that the demon lord is kind of like this big fucking kaiju, massive, massive kaiju that like, pumps out chlamydia or something like that, you know, or like the creatures out the entire time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like an actual demonic creature, which you never see in anime fantasy anymore. And for some reason, you know, it's, the knights all hate the hero. a lot, even though they're helping. And it's kind of almost forbidden for them to fight the demon lord without specific orders

for some reason. Yeah. We don't know why yet. Anyway, Zylo tries to fight it with no luck. And all the Holy Knights are being wiped out. But Zylo throughout this entire hour has basically been like, I hate guardians. I do not want to use this little lolly girl's powers because I hate these fucking things. Base.

No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. And then finally he realizes he can't beat it unless he accepts her power. Yeah. So of course, they make a pact. Yep. Which involves him letting the blood sacrifice, basically. He has to let the girl lick his blood, sure.

And in return, he has to give headpats to her because, of course, why. I mean, that's the current. That is always the currency. Little lolly. Yes. So with the power, they can vanquish the demon lord. And then yippee, everyone's happy. Oh, no.

Yeah. He broke a lot of laws, apparently. while doing this, even though he saved the world. So everyone is pissed at him. He is the worst hero that has been sentenced to be a hero because he committed the crime of killing

a goddess. He's a goddess killer. He is a goddess killer. Not guardian, sorry. Yes. And Telling to hear that and she's like, word, I'm stuck with this guy. Right before the episode ends, we get a flashback where it pretty much alludes that he was kind of set up. Yeah. But Zylo learned something. We

We learned something very important from Zylo and the flashback where he explains he killed his previous goddess because apparently when the goddesses used their powers, they overused her power. Yeah, overuse their powers. It's kind of like a life force when they've used it all. They start kind of deteriorating and kind of get the weirdly enough, the demon infection. Yeah, they get infected by that demon lord. So he killed it to put her out of her misery because she was, you know, already gone. Yes.

But they, but the church covered it up. They deny it. They deny it. It never happens. The church are like, goddesses are completely safe. Do not worry. They cannot be corrupted by demon lords.

We see no evidence in our files. We have done an investigation on ourselves and found we are not guilty. That's the first episode. But what I'm glossing over is that it is a absolute treat for the eyes. Annie is watching us. Yeah, that was episode one, by the way.

Yeah. It's episode one. It's 50 minutes. And it's basically just like a movie. And it is movie quality by like, And I'm not exaggerating by any means. This is like an insane first episode. And then it does kind of slow down a bit.

And then obviously, because that's such an insane first episode. And then we kind of start setting up to the more the side characters. In the next couple of episodes, we are introduced to my favorite. Norga, the king. Yeah, the king. He's my favorite. Your Majesty. He's so cool.

He's not an actual king. He's a terrorist. He's a terrorist. That's it. This is your go? And Zylo goes, that's Nogel. He thinks he's the king. He's a terrorist.

I'm no kidding. I was like, that's my goat. And then they have, uh, Tatsia, who's kind of like the berserker guy. Yeah. He's been resurrected so many times. He's kind of lost all his memories and sense of self. Which, by the way, if you guys didn't know, funniest thing, he's voiced by the same guy who voiced Kiroito.

Yo! So everyone's joking. He's just like crack at Kirito. Yeah. But like these and the side characters are so fucking good. And like all their dialogue. Best girl. Best girl. Yes. Kivya is best girl. Yes. Kivya is best girl. You think Kivya's best girl? Yeah. She's still not best girl for me because she still doesn't redeem this up. But you can see, but you can see that she's gonna, she's go, she's on the, already in episode three, they're setting up there. She learns maybe the church is the bad guy. Yeah. Well, I'm on episode 10. She's best girl.

But far and beyond best. Far and beyond best. I remember the first time you see her out of her armor and just being a normal person, I'm like, Ooh, okay, damn. Can I see? Do we have Kivya outside of armor? No, it's just her being,

it's not even fan service. It's just like, finally, when she stops being nightfully for a sec, I fucking love this trope. When they stop being like this, oh, ho, I'm a honorable knight and then you just see them as a normal person. You're like, ah, that's the other thing, right, that I love about the show.

No fan service. 10 episodes in, and there's not a lick of fan service because it takes itself so seriously because it is, again, meat and potatoes, dark fantasy with some really interesting elements. Yeah.

I mean, that's why when, you know, admittedly, when I saw Teteria, Teorita. Teorita. Sorry, I'm thinking of the Pokemon. Tottera. That's how I keep reading it. Teorita.

You know, there was always that worry when you build a really edgy world and they introduce the cute Lolly character. You're like, oh, no. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Oh, no. Are they going to make. her like some kind of weird fucking thing.

Like weird relationship. Yeah. You know, I mean, because... No, I get it. I get it. You know, when they introduce kind of like this, you're always like, oh, fuck. Yeah.

But, you know, thank God. She's just, you know, she's just really freaking cute. She's just a cute, wholesome goddess. At least in the first three episodes, you know, you can appreciate her just being a fucking cute little feisty girl, you know?

And it's so, it's so cute. She just wants headpats, yeah. And I love the relationship that they all have with her, too. It's all so sweet and endearing. Like, it's just, I'm just so fucking happy, man. It's so good to see.

It's fucking awesome. And it feels like a fucking, fucking awesome team, dude. It's sick. I really like the team that we've been introduced to. Right now, I am not as far as Jerry.

I'm a few episodes behind, but it's just been a very, very fun show. Yeah. It's nice to see dark fantasy coming back because last year we also had a show

called Clevertis. Yeah. Oh, I heard about that. Yeah. I feel like that sentence to be a hero has just been like classic dark fantasy

coming back where it is less just like, oh, here's some edgy fan servicey kind of like show and more actually, okay, we're actually going to spend time and effort with proper world building, building up this cool fucking fantasy world with this own logic and own rules and everything. I feel like my only issue with this show right now is that the story is a little bit tropey. It's kind of like, okay, the church is the bad guy in a fantasy world. And like everyone is so annoyingly, like, racist towards heroes. But it's like, it's like I believe, I wholeheartedly believe in this world that heroes could be seen as like, oh my God, you can't go near those guys. But like, to an extent that you're like, oh, my.

But that's what makes me want to know why in this society, heroes are treated this way. Like, what led it, has it always been like this in this world? And if so, if not what led it to become like this? Because we don't have the, you know, at least in episode three, we're missing a lot of the context of why everyone seems to be so terrified and hates these guys. Yeah. You know, whereas like when the miners get, like,

rescued by the heroes, they're like, hey, I think you're cool, man. Yeah. You thought you were just a dumb, stupid hero, but you're all right, miss. You are, you are, you, I, wife, like. So, you know, like, I think I would, I'm just hoping that there is a bit of progression

on the point where they kind of explain that, that aspect of it a bit more. Yeah. Instead of just being like, we all just hate them. It's like, oh, yeah. Yeah, because my problem with Shield Hero, and it's something that I don't think this is going to fall into, and I hope this doesn't fall into,

is when, so they both are revenge stories about, against, like, someone or a system that has wronged the main character. Yes. In Shield Hero, it is like everyone is the dumbest motherfucker in this world, and the most incompetent person, and it's now Fumi, who is the only, actual competent person. And the narrative

brings him up by bringing everyone else down. And I feel that's just a little bit cheap and a little bit like, okay, kind of like takes me out of it. It makes the story and the characters feel less realized and it more feels like the world is revolving around the character as opposed

to just the character being an aspect of this world itself. Yeah, definitely. And I hope that this doesn't fall into the trap because right now, Zylo seems like he's like, he can do like a triple backflip, save five armies, and people be like, nah, you're a fucking hero, though. I'm blind.

So annoying. Yeah. He's a filthy hero. Because it's like, you know, I could understand there being a lot of prejudice there. Yeah. But like even when he saves the Holy Knights initially, there's like no wavering whatsoever in their prejudice at all. Yeah.

And it's like, I understand that they've been conditioned, but it's like, it doesn't feel realistic. Because you could still be extremely racist or prejudice against all the heroes. But if the guy just saved your life, you might be like, you know what I mean? You might, you might drop it for a second. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's a very human thing to do to put on up a face to someone to lie to them. Especially if we don't respect them. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's, it's kind of like that, that was like kind of, you know, what I feel is keeping this from being like the top, top tier shows that might... Yeah.

Something you have to Jerry, 10 episodes in. Yeah. 10 episodes in. So a bunch of other characters are introduced 10 episodes in. And we are currently right now kind of in like a pivotal point, I guess, because the, there's only a one core, I believe. So there's only going to be 12 episodes. Yeah.

Which is a shame. Which is a shame. But there is a lot of material in the original wide novel. So I reckon there's going to be a season two of this. But even if not, right now we're kind of in like this. interesting case where like we're slowly starting to figure out what the demons might actually be or what they're even capable of being. And it's also building a really interesting point about how the humans in this world interact with not only the church, the holy church that is clearly

reigning supreme on everybody, but also the people who are against that church or even against the demons and how their dynamics are happening. So it's kind of going in an interesting direction. I hope they continue to like explore that because it is, I think, an interesting point that makes the world feel more alive, like, independent of the characters. But again, I don't know, because I've never read the source. Yeah, I mean... I'm glad there's like factions

because I think that makes a world a lot more or, you know... Organic. Yeah, because, you know, there would be different levels of devotion and extremists, you know, depending on what their beliefs are. Definitely, definitely. I'm sure there's such a big kingdom. Yeah, I think the thing that stood out for me about this thing outside of just the amazing animation,

production, values, and action and all that. It's just, it's an interesting world with, you know, its own, like, political system as well, but also the concepts, not only the hero dynamics as well and the hero mechanism, but also just having your weapons of mass destruction be like, be just little girls. Little girls. Yeah, I want to get some, I hope later on or at some point they explain, why the fuck it's little girls. Well, we do actually, I think it's in like episode seven, right? we do very briefly see another goddess.

Yeah. Like very, very briefly. Because she's like number 20? 13. 13. Yeah. But it's only ever been known

that there were 12. Yeah. Oh. So Tehrotita is like the secret 13th goddess and no one knows why. And that's been hidden by the church. Oh, because they say it in one of the,

in the dialogue when they say like something about she's a mistake or something. Yeah. Yeah. Some kind of failed experiment. Yeah. Something like that. It's a flashback. Yeah.

Did you see like the eighth goddess or something? And she also demands headpats. So I guess it's just like a goddess neutral thing. It's just a... Light novels always have something like this. This is the power fantasy part of this fantasy series. Every single fucking edgy-ass show will have one on with a like, but we demand headpats. You're like, uh...

Men want one thing and it's to give headpats to cute anime girls, you know? That's true! That is all we want. Valid! All right. Is it a crime to want headpats? God. We don't always want to be Kirito or Sung-jin-Wu.

You know, we just want to give cute anime girls headpats. That's it. That's it. I really enjoyed Norgo when they went a little bit into the, like, the sacred stone. I've already said that as a... Sacred Seals. I said, I forgot it. The sacred seal system. Like, I thought that was a really cool system because it's kind of...

And how he kind of has the only... He's, like, kind of the only one known that possesses the ability to create seals as well. Yes. He mentioned briefly that it would take... four to five really skilled people to work on one's seal, and he can somehow do it alone. And he's like, I can do it in five minutes. Yeah.

And Zylo is using like a couple of them, which is like his explosion power. Yeah. But again, there's like quite a lot left to be explained. And it's just really fun. Like the world, they've given enough about some of the systems

that keeps it really engaging and it makes it the world feel organic and real and there's stuff going on, which is exciting. I always love when Fantasy World to do that. take two minutes to explain something that offers, that teases more depth. Yeah.

Because that's, that's fun. That's what people want in fantasy. I love a story that doesn't treat its audience like they're dumb asses. Yeah. I think that's the thing that throws me off about a lot of like the modern Issaquai shows is that they, they treat people like, the people who watch these like their dumb asses where they need to like lay off like

in order every single minuscule detail and not leaving any room for the audience to be like, oh, let's speculate on like how the world works or how the power system works or anything like that, which I'm glad that this show at least is doing a lot more than other Isocai or like fantasy shows of recent times. How is the pacing? Because episode one to two is quite a stark slowdown which obviously was going to happen given how hype episode one was. But it does slow down. I'd say quite a bit in the next couple of episodes. I can imagine that could be hard to keep people. The fight in episode five is just as good if not better than episode one in terms of animation. It is. It is, crazy. Like, I'm just like, they can't peek after episode one. And then I think it's like episode

five or six. I'm like, okay, I've spoken too soon. This is insane. Because the only thing that I'm not a fan of in these shows when there's like a lot of fighting going on is that when we watch them just fight and kill little mobs for like two minutes in a scene. It's like, yeah. We know none of these guys pose a fucking problem to you. I just fucking skip this shit. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's boring. Like, I don't want to watch the MC mow down the 900th mob in this episode. It's like, you know, a lot of the times it can feel very samey. Yeah.

And it's the only criticism I think I had, at least during the cave fight. It was like, okay, we're killing these little centipede things. Yeah. And then we get to the sequence with the plant monster. Yeah. Where they have that awesome sequence where Norgle chops his leg off. Yeah. And goes like fucking berserk to try and stab this thing in the eye.

And that was like a really, when they started fighting that monster, that was for cool. Yeah. Because it was like a puzzle. How do they beat this thing? But for the whole first part of the episode, they're just fighting these fucking centipedes that just keep us warning. You're like, come on, man. Yeah.

I get it. I get it. We're protecting the people. Just chop, chop. Yeah. My brain is rotted. Come on. And they do that a couple more times in like the,

I guess the story arc after the, the mine. But after that one, around like episode six or seven is where I guess they get to like the main meat of the story because there's a bunch of characters that are introduced that are very like, It takes the story in like a slightly different direction. Oh, awesome. Okay. Where it's not just a matter of like kaiju of the week. Like there's,

it's like you learn a lot more about these demon sporns and that they're actually way more intelligent than what everybody thinks they are. And that's like a really, it's not, they don't do anything new. Like they don't reinvent the wheel or anything, but it's just nice that they decided to,

you know, maybe just like skip the whole monster of the week thing and actually add a little more depth into what the demon spawns actually are. This is the rare case where you actually watch more than us. Dude, honestly, like, after episode three, I was like, shit, I want to know what happens. Like, I want to keep watching this. Damn.

After I, after I filmed my three episode reaction, I just continue watching. He just kept going. You're like, I want to know what happens, dude. There's like nine, nine, ten episodes out. I'll watch it. And it was great. It is a great show. Yeah, really good.

I'm such a sucker for good dark fantasy and I'm glad that is coming back. It was very, very fun show. I recommend you watch Cleverters as well. Yeah. The season two is coming out this year as well, so. Was Cleverte's really good? I've heard good things about it. If you enjoyed this, the productive values aren't as high,

but it's just classic dark fantasy with its own kind of like, everything I said about sentence to be hero, I can also say about Cleverters as well. Okay, okay. I think a lot about shows like Claymore quite often, and I really love the world of Claymore. Yeah. And kind of the vibe they had going,

and I just wish that it didn't get shit. But I think about that. world a lot. I really, really like that fantasy world. One of my favorites. So anything that can recapture that kind of vibe, I really like. Yeah, I mean, Cleaverters is, this was like my biggest surprise of

last year, because I thought it was just going to be another, like, trashy, fancy show. It was, it was honestly just, like, a lot of fun. The world revolves around, like, four, I don't know if they're called demon laws, but four big monsters that are so fucking powerful that they basically

determine, like, world politics. and stuff like that. Oh, okay. And humanity has been trying to kill one monster, which is one of the main characters, which is, uh, I can't remember his name because it's been a while since I watched it.

His name is, oh, his name is just clivertus. I should have remembered that. I should. Could he possibly be the titular character? Yeah. Uh,

and in episode one, they, they bring the, uh, bring a gang together to try to kill Clivetes. And the gang gets completely solos. Uh, And Cleverters is like, you know what?

That kind of pissed me off. I'm just going to wipe out humanity. Oh, damn. Why not? And then he ends up soloing this entire city by himself. And as he's killing the king, the king, he discovers this like human baby. Right. And he's like, you know what?

If I'm going to wipe out humanity, I'm curious why they care about each other so much. Right. He kind of like adopts this baby to, uh, adopts his baby to understand humanity in case he wants to wipe it off. Right. Uh, but he doesn't know a thing about babies. So he resurrects one of the first heroes he killed called Alicia, uh, who is a badass fucking night with an eye patch. And he just resurrects her because he's that all powerful. Right.

And he's like, okay, I'm going to pretend to be a human. Uh, can you fucking take care of this baby while I learn about the human world? And as you learn about the world, you figure out that there's something weird going on in the magic system. Humans may have more powerful technology than what they might be able to let on. And there's a lot of mysteries in the world that are slowly being uncovered. Right. So it is a very, very, very fun dark fantasy show, very, very brutal. And it doesn't, like, it doesn't treat its subject matter.

like the same as every other East Guy fantasy. Like, for example, there is, there is a girl there, right? There is a girl. They find this girl, and she is a prostitute, right? Okay. And she's also a slave as well. And you hear those two things in fucking Issaquite fantasy, you're like, okay, here we go again.

But the way they treat these themes is they give it the same, like, they give it the respect that something this fucking dark tragic should be given, which is... She's not just like a throwaway, like, fan service character. No, she's not. You can, you can see how fucking dark

these subject matters are. And it feels weird to say when I, when I talk about shit like... And slavery. And you kind of hear that in traditional East guy, you kind of roll your eyes. You know, okay. Here we go again.

Here we go again. Weird fantasy thing. Yeah, yeah. This is just trying to be edgy. But no, it... When I started taking this series seriously, was when it treated the subject matters with the same level of respect as you would expect for something like this. Yeah, right. And it's just a really interesting world.

Which isn't it slightly sad to say that that is like an uncommonality in anime? Like, it should be commonplace for any kind of like fantasy or like writing when using those kinds of sensitive topics. And the fact that somehow the genre has evolved to the point where people just can't take those kinds of things seriously anymore is a little sad. Yeah, I mean, because it's quite a, like, a childish way to use them a lot of the time. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It feels like cheap. It feels like throwing it in because of, wow, no one's done this before.

Oh, it's edgy. It's like, I feel like a lot of the times it's there for shock value. Yes. Or there to, you know, for example, the slavery trope in fantasy anime is that, oh, the main character is, you know, becoming, is buying the slave. But it's because he's one of the good slave owners, you know. Literally, she's. He's a real hero, literally now foamy. It's like, guys, guys.

He bought Raftelia from the kindness of his own heart. Now, he's treating her well. He's the good guy. And it kind of like, to me, he kind of like cheapens the story. Because it's just like, okay, we're just going into this trope. This, to me, because I still like, I name out of this trope, but I enjoy enough shows with that trope in it. But to me, it is the indicator where I should go from actually enjoying a show for its story

returning, it's well burdened to just, okay, I'm just going to turn my brain off and just enjoy cheap power fantasy stuff. Yeah, totally. That's kind of like the indicator for me. Yeah, it's a fine line, unfortunately. Yes, yes, it is. It is. Yeah. Um, but yeah, bottom line, um, yeah, fucking, said it to be a hero. Was it awesome. Fantasy anime is peaking right now. It's pretty good. In every single aspect. Thank God. Like, Freerun was this year, next, next season. I'm enjoying season two right now as well. Yeah, next season, we're going to getting witch atitilia, which is... Yeah.

Very, very excited about that. Yeah, fantasy is back. Maybe it never went anywhere, but it feels like... Well, it deviated a little, I would say. And by a little, I mean, a lot. I mean, we're just getting, I think, you know, new iterations and new takes on the story. And, you know, it's quite, quite exciting to see the new takes.

Absolutely. I think fantasy was stuck in a couple of pitfalls that kind of always did. And I think it's... I mean... Learning to experiment a bit more. It is still there in a lot of fantasy anime, but I feel like right now we are that we are still getting the trashy power fantasy stuff, but there's a balance now. We are getting a lot of critically claimed, very well-realized fantasy shows. So, you know, best of both worlds.

Yeah, totally. Yeah, this is probably the fantasy anime I'm most excited about coming out next season. Yeah, me too. Which is a very famous manga, right? Very famous manga Has, I think, my favorite power system in fantasy

in fantasy anime or manga, I should say, right now. Is this the Shonen Jump one? It is not Shonen Jump, I don't believe. Which one am I thinking of? It is, this is Kodancho. Oh, Kondasha, okay. It won't be shun-jew- Oh, it's still going on in manga as well.

Yeah, it's still going on. But, like, this, this is coming out next season, and there's a lot of great things about this show, but the thing that excites me the most is to me, it has a power system that not many things can rival Nen

in terms of my love for a power system, but I feel like this is up there. It's that good to my eyes. Looking forward to that, man. Yeah. Bam, can rival Nen? Yeah, be claim. Yeah, be claim.

Be claim. Can kill God. But yeah. But do you want to know what else is hitting the season though? What? Oceanoco. I'm going, I'm going back to it.

I'm going back to it. Dude, season three is so highly rated. I saw that the other day. Season 3. 8.6. Season 3 is so fucking good. Really? I need to finish season 2 actually.

Season 2 is fucking great as well. Yeah. Season, okay, here's the thing. Wait, wait, wait, so wait. Let me get this straight. Yeah. You tell me it's good now? No.

Orchon. Maybe it always has been. But maybe it's not always hasn't. It has not always been good. But maybe it never has been as well. I'm gonna say right now, season three is going to be the last good season. Well, yeah, because I haven't...

Okay, why do you say that? I've realized what the pitfalls of O'Shenoko are, but go ahead, Joe. Okay, no, well, I was just gonna say, I haven't caught up on the manga for Oshonoko. I have. Okay, you have, yeah. And from my understanding,

the fall off happens really close to the end. Yeah. It's actually really good up until the very quick fall off at the end. From my understanding, Yeah, it's the final arc, but season two of Oshnoko was an absolute banger. I've really, really enjoyed it. And I think I've realized why I think season two and season three are way better. It's because Aqua isn't the main focus of either of these seasons.

And I kind of realize Oshinoco is kind of at its peak when the main character isn't the main character. Yeah, right. of either of the seasons. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, this, this season of Oshnoko, like, there's, I mean, this season of anime has just gone so fucking hard. And I feel like one of the strongest the season has been Oshinoco. I feel winded every year is usually like the strongest season.

And that's because AQUA, isn't it? Yeah, because AQA's, yeah, he's basically a side character in this season three right now. Because this season, um... Who does it mostly focus on season three? This season is a mix right now between Ruby and Kana. I don't know. I don't know if you've seen any of the spoilers of Twitter crashing out over Kana this season. Thankfully, I haven't been on Twitter in years, so no.

Oh, bro. It was like... I can imagine. There's a moment with Kana this season where this is like, Pure like, O'Shenoka was always a criticism against like idol culture and stuff right there. Yep. And I found it fucking hilarious where, uh, minor spoilers to the season of O'Shenoka, if you want to catch up, whatever. Um, where Kana almost has like, kind of goes through the, kind of goes through her 100 meters kind of like moment where she gets humbled, right? Okay.

She gets humbled. Everyone starts out shining her. And I thought it was a really interesting place where she has always been the most realistic character in my eyes where she was someone who peaked early. You know, we talked about child prodigy. We talked about child prodigies and kind of like getting humbled as you grew older. And I always thought that was an interesting part of Connor's kind of like character arc.

And she, like her character arc in season three is that she is really, really desperate to further her career. And in the process, she almost sleeps with a film producer. Oh, oh, damn. Oh, damn. And my God, I saw, I saw the crash out. I saw the nuclear ass fallout from just that character moment.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So she didn't sleep with him. She didn't sleep with them. But people crashed out because she nearly did? Yeah. Why? Because she even had the thought of it. Why?

Because she's an idol. Because idols need to be. Pure. Real life people, not in the show, Twitter. No, no, no, real life people. Real life people on Twitter. So they became the thing

that the show is making fun of? Yes. Yes. Are people that dumb? Yeah. It's Twitter, bro. What do you expect? How do they not have brains?

Because they're on Twitter. They're idle fans and they're on Twitter. I just saw the street. The show that makes fun of idol fans, they're watching and participating in idol culture for the show that is making fun and a critique of them. Yes. It's a weird reality we live in.

All right. Yes. I'm not even surprised by the way. I'm not surprised at all. I just found that wholly ironic and hilarious. Oh my God. Get a grip, everyone, please. But yeah, like I said, I still think this continues to be one of the most realistic and dark evictions of the, not just the auto industry, but the entertainment industry as well.

Yeah. And it's super fucking interesting just to see. to see a lot of topics that we have to like go through and we have to handle behind the scenes get really portrayed in a much more, like a really interesting way. And I think the biggest shortcomings of this is Aqua, the more that, the more, the more that I watch, the more that I watch it. I mean, he was a, he was a aspect of the show, at least in the first couple of episodes. I just didn't, I really didn't fuck with him. Yeah. He's such an annoying character.

It's, the show is at his peak, I think, when it kind of ignores the murder mystery kind of like aspect of it. Yeah. Yeah. And this whole act we're trying to be like a fucking edgy protagonist going for revenge. Yeah. Trying to be like hero. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was what annoyed me when I got into the first three episodes is that like, what is this show trying to be? Yeah. Yeah. Like it is like a mess trying to figure out where it wants to go. It's a plot that's trying to pretend it's an A plot. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was just, it was confusing. And it was, it was like, what are we doing here? Yeah.

And obviously, it sounds like it's found an avenue that is clearly working, but frustrating that at least for me, when I got into it, I really, really did not like the writing style. Yeah, because season two focuses on Kana and Akene, where they basically get casted into a theater, into a play. Yeah. And you have a lot of interesting things about their character dynamics. and like season two did such a good job at portraying

their own character arcs and also this external character arc when it comes to a mangaka having your having their IP like adapted into a certain like into a different medium right and the sacrifices that need to be made

when seeing your stuff adapted because you have a certain sense of pride when something that is beloved to you is being given into other people to adapt, right? And this current third season is obviously doing really interesting thing with Kana's character, but also Ruby as well, which I never really saw.

I never really, like, Ruby, which is Aqua's twin sister, wasn't really on my radar, but you really see her kind of being manipulative. In terms of, like, manipulating herself to be like the most appealing character to, how can I say this? Be the most appealing character

to be picked to host certain shows or to be a part of certain events. And I'm like, damn, this feels so fucking accurate to the streamer world. And the world that I've seen behind the scenes. I'm like, damn, this is getting a little bit too real right now. And yeah, it just, it is just such a fantastic show. And I feel like every character is interesting.

I mean, it definitely helps that Akasaka is just probably the most terminally online moncrawth. He is. Out there. You feel that. And yeah, enjoy while last O'Shenoka fans, because this is, this is... Season four is going to be a wild ride. Season four.

So big highs, massive lows. just a massive low. But like in general, the story of Ocean O'Cow. Great, great highs, big lows. I mean, great highs. As far as I've read, it's been nothing but high. But I haven't gone to the low yet. Great high, but how can I say this?

Game of Thrones level, fucking bad season at the end. But he likes the endings. Yeah, but I'm just like for like a vibe check of like how bad we're talking. No, I don't like the ending. I said, I said latter seasons. Oh, the latter seasons. Season eight, season eight was fucking dog shit. Is it a season eight situation?

That bad or not as bad? I would say, yeah. It's more or less. I don't know. Because there's nothing worse you can do, and I assume maybe this is the case. Yeah. An ending that truly pisses people off is when all the lessons they've supposedly learned or all the character traits they have get thrown out the window

by a couple of big decisions that kind of be like, oh, so this character is not this fucking character, and they've learned fucking nothing. I wouldn't say they betray any characters. It's just, hmm, how can I say this without spoiling it? Like, my main issue with the ending is the character arcs and the character decisions

around the entire murder mystery aspect around it. Oh, because they probably had to clean that part after. And it was like, to me, a lot of, like a lot of people were pissed. I was kind of expecting it because I was like, I don't know how you solve this aspect of the story cleanly. Oh, so they, they introduced the murder mystery and then they go like, well, the murder mystery is something that kind of gets pushed to the background and yeah, it gets pushed the background in season two, season three and a lot of season one as well. Yeah. But it's a big driving force of Aquas character.

Oh, because they realize they got to wrap it up. And how they wrap it up is just that. I, I couldn't see how they could wrap it up cleanly, and then they didn't. It was Aqua all a lot. How does that? Yeah. Well, okay. Well, fair enough. I mean, hey, I might be wrong.

Yeah. Who knows? I was wrong about my hero. I'm going to wrong about this. That's true. I mean... Who knows? Yeah, yeah.

We'll see when the final season drops. We will see. We will see who's laughing laugh. Well, ladies gentlemen, let us know what you thought of this anime club. And a reminder, once again, you can go to the Patreon to see all of our reaction to these shows. Yeah. They're all there.

So go and watch them. if you want to go and watch some anime with us, it helps support us as well. So please go to the Patreon. You can also go to the Patreon as well to suggest what you guys want us to watch next anime club as well. So we'll take all of your votes. Vote away over on the Patreon

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