You've got it pretty wrong.
Hello, and welcome to our weed. There yet an exploration education than anime. I'm your anime idiot, patrick dugan.
I'm an anime expert, dana hollander.
And I'm brenda mccullough. You're whiter than anime snow and contractually obligated superhero.
That first piece has been established knowledge.
I mean, listen to my name. It screams, I burn in the sun.
I think that's all three of us, though.
Yeah, you can't really get around that.
That's why we watch anime, because the sun, it hurts us. Hurts my bones.
Oh, God.
It's a deep burn. It's a deep, deep burn.
Someone.
Yeah. You need a lead shield to go outside.
I'll take one if anyone's offering.
So what do we have going on this week?
Today we got one of my picks, which means it's convoluted and dumb, and I love it.
Scared? Because, yes, that's usually the case.
I had to paste them out. Looking at the list of like, what shows are you going to watch in the future? I'm like, oh, I can pick this show and this show. I'm like, no, I got to space these out a bit. Here's a chill show. Here's a dumb show. Here's a fun show. Here's a dumb, dumb show. I got to manage direction, expectations. Just too many in a row. You're just going to kick me off the podcast. I can't afford that risk.
Weird, because most of the shows you show me make me want to kick.
You off the podcast. Maybe you shouldn't have started a podcast about anime. Some of them are fun. They're all fun for me.
That seems fun. That just big asterisk after.
Fun for one person. Anyway, as you can tell from the title of this episode we're watching, darker than Black.
I don't know what this is, and I'm scared.
This is advanced darkness.
Supreme darkness.
No, I don't I've heard the title, but I don't know anything.
Sorry. Hang on. marshall's attacking his own ass. Let me kick him out of the room.
He scream at his own ass.
Get out. Go and get a wrangle.
A cat.
Oh, no.
He's under the bed, literally hurting cat.
Well, okay.
He's there.
We'll hear more from our feline correspondent, our field reporter.
And now we come back to Marshall in the field.
Marshall reporter.
All right.
But yeah, no one but Brendan knows what the show is.
Yeah, basically, that's a bad omen. I'm surprised, though, because anyone I do know who knows the show really enjoys it or talks highly about it. And I love it. A friend of mine loves it. But then it seems like a good show, but it just seems like no one really talks about it or knows about it or like, Dana, you've heard of it, but not much more than that. So it's interesting how this just seems to fly under a lot of people's radars, because I think it'd be wildly popular, but maybe not. Maybe we'll find out why it isn't but wildly popular.
Yeah, because what year did this come out?
Well, you're asking me information and research on a podcast. You know, that's a bad movie about.
The show that you brought to us.
You know I know nothing about anything. 2007, it came out okay, and I'm just going to go on a limb here and say that manga is probably like ten years earlier than that.
Fair enough.
Wait a minute. What? The manga came out in 2009. What?
Backwards?
Yeah. Maybe it was just an anime first and then became a manga because then there is a sequel series. Interesting, but I likes it.
Secrets abound.
All right, well, we are watching episodes one, two and five. Let's turn off those lights, get it super dark. Dark viewing.
Ha ha.
Midnight run.
I'm scared.
Let's get some rude lighting.
I am sick right now. I don't know if this was a fever dream or if I actually watched this. What is happening? My brain is melting. Help me.
Someone got the good sonic brain vibes.
Sonic is an entertaining thing to have running through my head. This is just nonsense.
Starting off song.
Guess who likes this show and who does right off the bat.
Yeah, not surprising you this week, folks.
This isn't even one of my bad shows. This is one I genuinely enjoy. This is why I pick bad shows, because everything I like is shit on. So I'm like, let's all shit on it together then.
I'm sorry. I love you, but God, I don't know what happens. That's an hour of my life that is now an enigma in my brain forever.
I mean, there's more. There's a 20 some episodes and a sequel series and the spinoff manga if you want.
And they will never be uncovered by this brain ever again.
We're locking it up with the arc of the covenant and just hide it away.
That's my contract. By watching these three episodes, I agree to never watch it, ever.
Well, let's get this.
Let's discuss.
Let's gosh. So darker than black. Episode one opens with a girl standing in a lake with a telescope looking at them stars. And that'll never be touched on upon again until like 15 episodes later.
Great.
I forgot.
It's a long con. And then we cut to a dude in a suit running around on top of rooftops and the cops are chasing out for him down below on the street. And then when he gets to a rooftop, he stops and he looks, seeing if he could jump or not. And the cops run up on top and corner him, pull out the guns. Got you, punk. And he's like, cool, cool. But what if? And he makes one of the cops start floating away. And then he starts floating away and he returns to his home playing it. He's poochy.
End of series, end of done.
Wrap it up. And as he's glowing his eyes are glowing red, his body's glowing blue, and he just floats away. And one of the cops radios down to the people on the ground. He's like, ah, shit. He's a contractor and a French agent. All right, rad.
Cool. Concepts. Concepts. Great.
Good. He had a packet of cigarettes in his one pocket and a big old baguette in the other till, you know, he's French.
He put on a beret and laughed.
As he fool used to make up us. And the detective starts following him, saying, like, oh, he's got power. He's got gravity nullification powers. And to shoot him on site. So little explanation. We'll get to it. Contractors have superpowers. There you go. That's just the name they gave him in this series.
Great.
The guy in the suit lands on the rooftop. And when he lands, he, like, rolls over. So for the bingo card, I counted this as sitting on top of a rooftop. I know that's typically for, like, high schoolers.
I'll give you that, okay?
Because I got bingo with that one. So I'm taking it. So we got the French man in the suit sitting on the rooftop and he's kind of huffing a puffing after using his powers and he takes his ring finger and just snaps in half. It's like oh, no. And he takes his pinky and snaps in half. It's like oh, no.
Hated that.
Yeah, that was bad.
That was bad.
Time had by all.
Good. Way to introduce you to the show.
The sound was bad. hated the sound of him, like, stretching his finger bag, like, even more than the crunch.
It was, like, straining to get there. And then we just hear a voice from out of nowhere. He's like, that's your price for your contract. That's rough, buddy. They start freaking out, looking around, and the guy in the suit sees this little ghosty face called a specter coming out of a bucket of water. And he's like, fuck, I've been made, and starts running. And then so we see badass tuxedo mask show up and he wraps him up with this grappling hook thing. And he's got, like, a dagger attached to the wire. And he's just asking where it is. And the guy in the suit says, like, oh, a girl has it.
Where is it?
He's basically Batman. He's a poorer Batman. And then we see a girl with her hands in water, I think. And she says, like, the cops are coming. She's a doll. They're able to look through spectrum, which was that little ghosty thing. And she can look through spectrus through water. There's a lot of stuff here. I'm sorry.
Wow. I wish at any point any of this was explained in the actual text of the show.
Not in this part, but, like, in the second episode, I was like, all right, context clues.
Piece them together. I like shows that take a little effort because I don't do any of my own free time. Anyway, the guy sees let's Info dump.
Everything except the weird explanations.
Let's Info dump all the bureaucratic bullshit of the government, but not the superpowers that no one has any context for. And so the guy in the suit, the French agent, he's like, no, you need me alive. I can help you out. You got to say you got to keep me alive. And the guy in the mask is like, yeah, all you contractors say that you just want to live. That's your only priority. That's like most people's priority. I don't feel like that's exclusive to contractors. And we see him, like, grab the guy's head and he's like, trying to crush it. And we hear that voice from off camera again, say like, no, you got to keep him alive. And then it cuts to the detective, the chief driving along, and we see a star fall in the sky. And then one of the detectives calls the chief and tells her that the star just went down, which is when a contractor dies. A star falls, the contractor's lives are tied to the stars.
That's the gayest thing I've ever heard.
I legitimately believe the creator of this series was just like an astrology major or astronomy major in college, because there's no reason for any of this stuff to be tied to stars.
We're all made of stardust.
There's literally no after watching all the series and stuff, and I love it, but there's no reason it's tied to stars.
Great.
Good thing to establish 2 seconds into.
The show, and then we get this big info dump about the Hell's Gate and contractors and dolls. Basically, shit happened one day. No one knows why, and a big explosion happened. They quarantined it and then the giant gate around it, they call it Hell's Gate. And then after that explosion happened, contractors, people with powers and dolls, solace vessels that can connect with spirits showed up. And that's the plot.
This is like ergo proxy because Big Wall also like Attack on titan, because Big Wall and also it seems like everything's fine on the outside. And spoilers for attack on titan. Everything's fine on the outside.
I love Mike the village. I deeply enjoy the show. I forgot how convoluted it is right away.
Can I also mention because we talked about Hell's Gate being in, there's two gates, one's Hell's Gate in Japan, and there's also the unfortunately titled heavens Gate in South America, which I'm sure in 2007, they're like, hey, heavensgate, should we do a cursory Google to make sure this doesn't mean anything else? And we're like, no, it's fine. We're good. No actual people died from this. This is fine.
What's the big deal? Yeah, so there's a Heaven and house game and then we had the opening song, which ain't bad. Not crazy about it, but it ain't bad.
I don't even remember it. I'm so sorry.
So long. It's a minute and a half.
So long. Yeah, I mean, there's a reason I skipped in the other two episodes and we come back to the police station and the cops are going to break down, found out the guy in the suit, the French gravity guy, his name was louie and found out he's dead. So tuxedo mask killed him.
Apparently he grips to louie and they.
Say he was like a French secret ops, like black ops agent sort of. Or like a secret investigate investigatory team. Why am I choosing words I can't say? There's other words I can use.
I mean that's you on this show talking about any character shit.
So they say like, oh, louie is dead, but the only thing we found when we did the autopsy is he had two broken fingers. We have no other reason why he's dead. So it's like that's my question, right?
If that's the price for him using his powers, are like all of his bones broken? Or did they just fix after that? Because that's not much of a price. But also, like, my hero, academia, he's deku. He's deku. Got to break his fingies.
Sometimes his leg, sometimes his legs. Yeah, it's like a contractor, they'll have the price, but some of the prices are too steep. So it's like, hey, I have powers. I just never use them because I don't want to eat an entire bowling ball, which is my contract.
He gives them these things. Where do the terms of these contracts come from? Because some of them are like, yeah, that's fine, that's fine. You could totally do that every single day.
But others, yeah, it's just once they use their powers, the people just feel compelled to do the thing and it's like, ocd. Like they can't stop until they do that thing.
I hate that.
It's not like a negotiation thing. They just have to do it. It's for no reason.
I hate that.
That'S why the contract. But then you get powers.
But the range is so weird. Later on we see someone has to chug a beer and this guy's breaking several fingers.
You can make it rain whatever you want, and then you get a shotgun, his guinness bra, or you can float away and you have to smash your hand into a pulp. So yeah, contractors, that's weird. Anyway, at this police precinctly break down, someone's suggest like, oh, the Reaper might have had something to do with it. The rumor is there's this contractor going around killing other people, like a specialized hitman. So that's the Reaper BK 201 the start designation burger King. And the police are also talking about the scientists are looking into who's involved with pandora, which is an organization that's investigating contractors, dolls and Hell's Gate and all this stuff. Apparently she was a scientist there and she ran away and is in hiding. So they got to figure out what's happening with her. And if the Reaper is looking for her now. And then we get another info dump. There's a lot of info dumps. I've already given a few myself in this podcast about the contractors and dolls and all this stuff is supposed to be kept secret from the general public, except there's a giant ass wall and like the sky's cape's painted on it and stuff. So like people get to see it, but with this wall and with hell's gate and stuff, they have me technology, which is just deus mocking a bullshit term that they just don't feel like explaining like anything else. And if any citizen finds out too much, they erase their memories somehow.
Real men in black flashing shit.
Yeah. Hey, men in black didn't explain it. We're not either. Yeah, so we cut to a guy showing up and we're not going to.
Explain anything else in this show. So this is the least of your worries.
Why start here?
Sometimes you just got to enjoy the ride. Just don't think too hard, just go with it.
But this enjoy like you should be. They're like, Think about your existence, buddy. And it's like, no thanks. You're not what?
So we cut to some guy showing up in his new apartment. Landlord mistakes him for a bunch of different people, thinks he's like the TV repairman. He comes in, he's trying to explain he's not. Starts hitting the TV, and the TV shorts out with electricity and smokes and it fixes it. So it's like, oh, weird. Turns out this boy's name is Lee Shankshin and is new to the city.
Sounds fake.
Yeah, there's no way he's a guy from mulan. Hey, wait a minute. And he's new to the city and he's here for school. So the landlord is like a student. I know how you get, you can have some fun, but nothing too crazy, kid. Ha ha ha. She's a saucy old lady. And since he's a student and he's there for school in that new city, I'm counting that as a transfer student check. I'll take what I can get. And Rose, he gets there, he sees his neighbor leaving her apartment and he's like, oh, hi, I'm new. And she just runs off it's like, okay. And then we got a shot of this like, old frumpy guy who's like a little Irish cap sitting in a cafe, smoking with an earpiece, and he's like, he's in. Now we'll see if our black reaper can find his mark. His name is Juan. He's not super important like everything else in the show. Lee looks around at his new place and he settles in. And then we cut to like a commercial bumper. And we cut back to two cops at a hostess club. And this is where I got a question. Does the hostess club count for titties on the bingo card?
I mean, she has side boob.
Yeah, like they're emphasized, but we don't it's not full titty, your bingo is.
Just as convoluted as.
Due to the laws. You can call this a titty.
Is this a titty?
Damn titty.
Question mark.
No, my bingo is technically not an incest info dump sitting on a rooftop and delicious cartoon food, which we get to later. So the bingo is legit. All the other stuff, it's just nonsense. Let me shot. Anyway, hostess club cops are there. They're undercover, pretending they're not undercover and they're trying to get info on the scientist who they think might be around here. Turns out it's the hostess they're talking to. It turns out she's also lee's neighbor that we saw earlier, nanny. And so she figures out what they're doing. She tells the guards at the hostess club, like, hey, if these guys try to come after me, slow them down. And that's when she runs off. And then the cops fall after her, and the guards stop them, exactly as planned. And as she's running away, she's trying to find a place to hide from these cops. And she bumps into Lee, who's out in the park with his telescope because he's a big old nerd. And Lee takes her side and pretends like there are a couple, like, making out to cover her from the cops so she can lose her trail. And then after they're gone and they have a minute to talk, she has like, oh, why are you even looking up at the stars? Like, they're all fake. The real ones are gone. And it's just like, at this moment, I remembered. I'm like, oh, man. They don't tell you anything. This is when I feel sort of feeling bad for you to watch this. Yeah.
I was like, fucking they're fake stars. Why does this matter? Fine.
It doesn't, though. I watched the whole series. It doesn't.
Then why did they make so much shit on it?
I think he just has an astronomy degree. Because there's nothing anyway because it's not.
Even, like, detailed, like, this constellation. Like, the symbolism of these stars being so far apart. It's just, like yeah, stars. Cool. This star is called, like, BK 69.
Yeah. Funny.
Dope. All right.
They got a lot of work.
Star fell. Cool. It's, like, not even, like, astronomy.
Yeah, it's not even you know what that means?
An angel got its wing.
They could have just had it. Anytime a contractor died, a star fell, like, in the background. Like, the camera pants up, and you see it fall and never address it. But if the fans piece it together, cool. But it doesn't have to be, like, the D plot of this entire show, because it does not pay off.
No, this is, like, the Tea plot. There is so much shit they're trying to cram in here.
Yeah, I love it. Anyway, she talks to Lee, and he's like, oh, I'm your new neighbor. She's like, cool. I'm not tying you into this. I'm out, and runs off. And then Lee gets a very disgruntled look in his eyes and say, oh, no. And then she runs off and hides, and it sees the cops are still chasing her. And then a guy shows up. I forget his name. I'm going to call him John Jun, because he's also French. Sean he shows up, and he's like, hey, louie's out. I'm your new contact. Let's roll. He said, we got to move the stuff. She's like, nah, louie wouldn't say that. What's happening? And she's like, something's different about you, Jean. I don't trust you. And that's when he gets clubbed over the back of the head with a telescope by Lee, who's now a stalker. And he saves her, and they run off again. And as they're running, she's trying to explain like, no, you better not getting involved. I'm in some shit. And as they're running, the guy that Lee attacked just appears in the bridge. They're on, like, in the wall of the bridge and bust out of it like the koolaid man. Then he pushes Lee over the bridge and onto the train tracks. And lee's dead forever. But he's oh, no characters.
I'm sure he'll never pop up again.
No, I'm sure. He's definitely not that guy in damask we saw earlier.
What? No, I told you.
My brain.
It's obvious. Everyone has the same hair. It sticks forever. So the guy gets the lady, and she wakes up in a warehouse. She sees three guys just sitting around talking. And the guy that attacked her is a contractor. That's how he's able to teleport into stuff. And his contract is he has to take all these little pebbles and line them up in like it was like a five by eight grid or something. And he has to do it anytime he uses his powers, and he has no idea why, but he's compelled to do it. And this is when he tells her, like, oh, yeah, louie super dead. You're up. Your body your boy. You're indeed with dead now. You're in with us. And she's like, oh, no. And she's trying to get out, boy. And she tries to get out. And they're like, oh, you can't get out. That door is locked. It's like a high grade lock. And then we should see a shot of yin. I know her name because I watched the show. We definitely don't get it in this episode or ever in any of them, ever. She's sitting with her feet in the water. And then we see the specter pop up out of the sink in the warehouse, the girls being held in. And the guy sees that. He's like, ah, shit. We got a specter watching us. The lights go out. The lock on the door shorts out. And then the lady runs. And then all the guys go chasing after her. And then the cat attacks them. And then blonde, he says, this wasn't a coincidence. It's like, I hope not. It's a very bad run of luck. And then right as the lady's running away, lee shows up again to save her again, thank God. And that's episode one. And then we get the ending, which sauce is not bad. Not amazing, though, I'll be honest, I.
Skipped it every time.
Not surprise.
Okay, episode two.
Here we go.
This is where Girl says, when you see a falling star, that means the contractor died. They took the stars when they showed up in the city, and they're the stars now. And I guess that's all they felt they had to explain. If they don't explain it ever yeah, like no sense.
Are they manifestations of the stars? Are they tied to a being that is now the star that ate the other star? Honestly, all of those things could be plausible because we don't ever learn.
And then she talks about how people don't know about the contractors, and if they find out about the contractors, the government erases their memory. Yeah, glad I had this one. And then she tells Lee that she worked for the government, and when she was younger, she saw a contractor kill her parents. And then we see the cops in their briefing room or their little whatever, and they're talking about John and what he can do. And then they talk about Burger King 201 or whatever it is.
That's fair.
And then Lee and Girl get back to her apartment, but it's been ransacked. And then she starts crying because, you.
Know, she's on the run from Current middles.
Sure.
I wonder if she's just real messy. And it's like, oh, no, your police got ransacked. It's like, yes.
No, never live like this.
Well, that's the thing. Okay, hold on. No, I won't yet. So she starts crying, and then she's like, no, this feels real. I can't believe this. And I'm like, Girl, you were working with the government on some pretty heavy stuff.
Yeah.
You were actively researching all this shit.
What do you mean? And you ran away from it. What do you mean you can't believe this is happening?
This is your fault.
This is exactly what would happen.
And then she asked him not to leave because he was like, I'll grab what you can change. Like, maybe in my apartment, but then whatever. This is supposed to be romantic.
I don't know.
And then they're in his apartment laying on the floor because he doesn't have furniture.
He moved there that day.
Yeah. And then she gets deep and she's like, let's reflect on my life for a minute. And she's like, oh, I've only been living in this building for two weeks, but I can't remember living anywhere else. And she used to work in a lab, and now she works in a hostess club. But it didn't matter anyway because louie was going to come take her away from all of this, but now that's not happening because he's dead. So now she has to start over. And he's like, what are you going to do now? And she's like, I don't know. louie's the one that had the answers. I'm just a dumb woman, but also.
A scientist with all the critical information.
This is so wild. She's like, supposedly a genius, probably, but we see none of that.
We see later on. She's a doll, so she only has implanted memories of the last.
Hey, I'm just saying that's sex spoilers for shit.
This is my effort really care about.
I just have in my notes, she reflects on life and everything up to this point. And Lee exists there as well. He doesn't say anything.
He's just laying there. He doesn't give a shit.
No, he's just a college student.
Don't mind me. I'm just laying sexy on the floor venting.
And then Lee is like, hey, let's run away together. Check. Yes, juliet. And then he's like, it was fate that we ran into each other. I'm like, boy, you laying it on thick. If a boy said that to me, I'd be like, you're shitting me right now.
Get out of your mind.
And she's like, that's crazy. They've seen your face. They're going to come after you. But he knows this.
Yeah, obviously.
That's why we'd run away together.
Can I really trust you? And I'm like, no, you cannot.
Absolutely not.
Poor choice.
So here here. They hear footsteps and the detectives get to her apartment next door. And this is where I was like, what do you mean the detectives aren't the one that ransacked her place? Because that was what I thought right away. I guess it was John and his fellows. But I don't know. My immediate thing was that it was the detectives because that's who we last saw were chasing after her body. But whatever.
Ape.
Detectives at her house. Yeah. And then they go to a diner and they're discussing their game plan. And he's like, I know a guy that can get us passports, but we need a lot of money. But maybe there's something we can trade for it. I don't know. And then she's like, oh, I know about these really important files. Is that enough? And he's like, oh my god, that's perfect. What a crazy coincidence that you know about these very important government documents that I definitely didn't know about before. And then she tells him that her real name is Chiyaki. Cool.
We don't need to look fine.
And this is the delicious cartoon food. The waitress brings a but ton of food and then chiki does some sick fat shaving.
Yeah.
But running for your life will burn the calories.
This is just a really uncomfortable laugh sequel.
Yeah. They laugh for such a long time. That's something that isn't very funny.
Nothing tastes as good as fleeing the police. Feels.
That'S funnier than what she said. Yeah. They laugh for so long, and I'm just sitting there being like, he's fake. Why is he laughing like this?
Because he's fake.
And then her eyes go glassy, so she has a weird moment. And then she gets up and goes to the bathroom.
I have to powder my nose.
Excuse me. And then there's a guy in the booth behind Lee. It's the guy with the hat. And he's like, wow, Lee, you make this look so easy. But it's pretty easy when you don't have a conscious anyway. Conscience.
Conscious.
Conscience. And then he's like, Lee, why don't you just kill her? And then he leaves.
Thanks, dad.
We'll do, dad. Except not will do because maybe he's falling in love with her. Fully unclear. And then jean's boys arrive at the diner's. Boys and Lee and Chiyaki run to the kitchen and they start shooting. And then one of them is also a contractor, and he uses his laser eyes to explode some dishes. So shards go flying everywhere. One of them gets Lee in the arm, but they just run away and they're fine. And then the boys go outside and they call Jean, presumably saying that they lost them and that Lee is the rat shit. And that means nothing. Nothing. It means nothing.
Hey, that guy's opener out. Who's? Lee? What?
Shut up. This is my favorite part of all three episodes we watched. The dude, he crouches down and looks at some dandelions, and then he picks one and eats it. He just puts it in his mouth and chews it up. I'm like, bruh. Same. That's the vibe. The one with nature.
We're just in a cafe. There's food in there.
Dude, that's his contract.
That's believe so much. yummy. None of it.
He has to eat like, what does he have to eat?
Dandelions. Or maybe flowers in general. We don't know. This is the only episode we see him.
Then why fucking this showdaking sucks.
Because it shows that he's a contractor. And it's established that all contracts have to have to pay a price. And this is his price.
Oh, my God. There's so much more that happens. Okay, where is it? Okay, he ate the dandelion. And then we see the doll girl with her feet in the water kicking her. And there are two guys. One of them is the hat man, the other one is anonymous. But they talk about the situation, and they're just like, Lee should fucking kill chiaki. I don't know what he's doing. And then the dog girl says that she can't see them anymore because there's no water around them. And then we see Chiyaki tending to his wounds by ripping some fabric and tara and putting it around his arm. Is that still on the bingo card, or was that just discussed?
I think it was discussed, but we really should add it. That's such a staple.
Yeah. And then he's like, you look really pale. You should try and get some sleep. You must be tired. And she's like, I am tired. I'm tired of running.
Here we go again.
She's like, I haven't felt safe since back then when my parents died.
Like we know we can. Let's add some more shit. No one cares.
Well, she talks about how her parents were killed by a younger looking girl, but she didn't tell anybody what she saw because whatever not supposed to.
Contractors.
But she didn't get her memory erased because nobody knew that she saw what happened. And then Lee is like, well, why don't you just erase your memory? And she's like, the memories are who I am now. And hey, if she only has memories of the last two weeks, why would she remember her parents being dead?
That was part of the implanted memories.
It's a little suspicious when it's like, I can remember last Sunday and also, like, 30 years ago. Just those two things.
This is who I am.
I mean, she's not really thinking for herself, I suppose.
So then why is she so damn introspective?
Oh, God, I built a robot with self awareness. What have I done?
Oh, no.
But only selective self awareness.
And then she hands leah a key, and then she asks him if he would erase his memory, even if it meant it was, like, changing who he was. And then he's just like, listen to me. Listen to me, girl. Contractors aren't human. They're monsters. They'll kill anybody. And I guess this is where we're supposed to be like, oh, my God, he's different because he doesn't want to kill her. Oh, my God.
I can fix him.
The rise of skywalker was so bad. Anyway.
Hey, there's something worse than the show.
Yeah, that's true. Anyway, so it's the next day, and they're on a train, and then they go to a locker, like, a train locker, and they take a book out of it. And if this book has sensitive information in it, why are they keeping it in a train locker?
They got to find the baby's parent. No. Wrong movie. Sorry.
And John and his boys followed them, so they have to run away again, but they just follow them. And then they're walking down the street, and Lee, like, leans down to Chiyaki and says, Try to forget. And then she collapses, and he runs off. And then Jean and the boys run after him. And then we see the woman police officer chief. The chief, she gets a call about that happening. And then they also say that bk 201 is showing activity again. We have no idea what that means. And then she gets another call that they've idied Chiyaki's body in a river. And then that Chiyaki wakes up the other one. So at this point, I was like, what the heck? What? Who's? The real Chiyaki twist. I don't know. I thought that she died and then this one was going to wake up, like, as a contractor. And that's how you get powers. I have no idea.
Yeah, no.
Which is kind of like a book that I read called vicious. It's a really good book.
This isn't a book podcast. It's an anime podcast.
If you have a really close to death experience, you get superpowers. It's a really good book. Highly recommend.
Anyway, back to this bullshit.
Back to this back on this bullshit.
I'm sorry, Brendan. Are you giving someone shit for going on a tangent?
I'm just trying to bring any joy into this that I can. She wakes up and she's, like, surrounded by people and the police, and she's like and then she runs away.
Wait, she grabs one of the cops guns, too?
Yeah. And shoots nobody somehow, like, the slowest.
Sequence of, like, hey, lady. Need a help? She collapses and hugs this cop for, like, 5 seconds and then just stands up with a gun and no one says anything, and she just runs away.
There's a bad cop.
Bad cop. Okay, so she runs away, and then we see Lee running, and he does this cool costume change where he puts on his jacket. And, like, when the jacket is off him, it's, like, green. And then he puts it on, and it's like a black trench coat.
Yeah, it's like a reversible jacket.
Six Superpowers.
That's his costume.
And then he opens the book, and there's nothing in it.
Not me.
And then the secret was in your heart the whole time.
The secret was the friendship we made along the way.
And then John catches up with him, and he's like, I know you're the one that killed my friend louie. And then Chiyaki gets there, and she's upset about it, and he's like, But I told you, contractors are liars and monsters, baby. I'm no different.
I want to play in the game.
I told you.
That's just who I am.
It's all part of this wacky business we call Hollywood.
And then John goes to shoot Chiyaki, but then Lee gets in front of her for some reason completely unclear to me because it's like, you obviously didn't care about her this whole time, so why are you doing this now? Much like in Rise of skywalker. I'm sorry. spoilers. Also, I hate it. So, yeah, he gets shot, and then John is like, bitch, you just got shot for a doll. This is just a doll. We put shiyaki's memories in.
It's just a doll.
Puts.
But she did her job. She brought you to us. And then he's like, face down on the ground, and then one of the guys comes up and shoots him in the back a bunch. And they're like, we thought this would be much harder. Thought he would put up more of a fight. And then a voice happens. Whatever. They hear a voice, and he's like, he will. And then they turn into the talking cat.
A talking cat?
This shows God why he's like, you.
Didn'T turn a talking cat.
This show didn't put in the hours.
Because I don't give a shit.
You didn't turn a talking is it Sailor Moon?
It's sailor moon. We got tuxedo mask. We got the talking cat, we got unexplicable powers.
Marshall is walking out of the room because even he knows that this cat was not justified.
Goodbye, Marshall.
I mean, I could explain the cat if we want.
No, I don't want to know.
Okay.
I kind of do.
He was a contractor that could possess animals bodies. And then when he was possessing a cat, they killed his real body. Oh, does it make it worse?
That's not as fun.
That's just a talking catamorph's.
Rules to bias.
But anyway, cat tells them that the jacket's bulletproof. So he gets up, he's up and fighting. He kills a guy. They use their powers to fight. Lee uses cheat. Lee uses a chiki doll as a human shield, even though he just tried to protect her.
No, he doesn't. John what's his name? blondie. John his powers to teleport stuff, like to swap places with stuff. So he was targeting Lee. He was going to rip out his heart and Tiyaki dives in front of him. So Lee doesn't do it. Tiyaki does it herself.
Well, that is also unclear because it seemed at this point I'm just like, she well, she's a husk now. She don't got feelings no more.
Doesn't she?
I don't care.
We get to the end of this episode, none of it like this whole fight sequence might as well be like the anchorman fight sequence, where it's just nothing matters. Everything's just coming out of the blue. It's garbage.
It's important to know that John rips off her titty. That is the thing that happens. And then John just turns into water and leaves. And then the guy with the hat shows up out of nowhere, and then he's like, the thing has been acquired by another team. You should have killed chiaki when you had the chance. She's just a doll. And then Lee is like, she's not a doll. She's the love of my life. No, he's not. But he gets, like, huffy because he's like, well, then I'm just a doll, aren't I? And then the guy is kind of like, yeah, you're idiot.
The guy is always doing it for some doll.
I'm a mission doll. Is that what she says? Anyway, and then the cat why did I say this? Cat says that they should finish the job. Doll girl. locates John yeah, okay. They're trying to get rid of John.
Yeah.
So she finds John, he comes out of a river and he, like, starts to do the pebble stuff. And then Lee finds him. And then the cops come and see. When I thought that the Contract things were relevant, I was like, is a demon going to come kill him or something? Because he didn't do his Contract thing. So there are no stakes for whether or not they actually have to do the thing that they're compelled to do.
I mean, they're compelled to do it. That's the stake.
I watched this one dubbed. I don't know if the same song plays at the end, but there's just like some music playing with some words. It's just like a weird, slow pop song. It's like the end of, like, an NBC drama show.
Yeah, no, I have the same end of scrubs.
And then Lee is at home, and the police come and they're like, hey, do you know your neighbor? And he was like, what? Me?
No, never mind the new guy.
Shucks.
No, I came straight from Nebraska.
And then the chief asks for his ID, and he shows her. And then they turn to leave, and he closes the door. And then she looks back because she knows something's up with that. And that's the end of episode two. And I'm erasing that note from my ipad forever.
I mean, good, because we jump to episode five. And you know all the painstaking detail we just went into on those last two episodes? We'll fucking throw it all out the window because we're going to introduce new characters today.
I'll be completely real with you guys. I, like, slept through this one. I have no idea what happened in this.
My job, I'm out.
I downloaded disco elysium, and I was so ready to start playing it. But I was like, no part of the craft for the craft.
You made this do it for the pod, okay? You made this a possibility. Digging.
I know. You remind me every time. So I'm going to blaze through this because who fucking cares? There's a shady backroom cafe business meeting between a previously unseen, like, mob boss and just now being introduced British wise cracker guy. Sure. He goes on to a very tarantino esque, like, anti smoking psa because one of the thugs tries to light up a cigarette, and he hands the mob boss a briefcase full of cash, being like, so now you'll have to give us the location of this vague thing, this mcguffin. I'm not going to talk about how the accent works.
I watched this one in Japanese again. I can't believe they gave this man a British accent.
Oh, he's very bright.
Yeah, it is fine.
That's better than a lot of the accents we've seen in anime.
Yes. So the mob boss is like, oh, you're giving me this much money, and you're going to give me two more briefcases after this thing is really that valuable? Well, that deals off because I'm going to take it for myself and I'm keeping this money. So of course, this British man, they call him just Smith. He gets several names. Of fucking course I'm just going to call him Smith, because fuck you. Smith. Surprise is a contractor that can freeze people and things and stuff. So he freezes the thugs and has them rip their arms off and all that stuff. And the mob bus runs out trying to escape across a bridge. But we see two more contractors. One who is definitely not Storm from I mean, yeah, so definitely not. Storm summons like a rainstorm above him and just like drenches him with water and using this, Smith freezes him in place. And he's like, so give me the location or I'll kill you. And then my boss is like, don't hurt me, please. I'm just a weebaby boy.
I'm just a baby.
Here's the location. Go to this place. Just don't hurt me. So of course they still freeze him to death after that. And they go to a hotel where they find this thing, which is a girl. And this is Havoc, another contractor. And we are introduced. The actual names definitely legally dissimilar. Storm is named April. April Showers. Get it? Fucking get it? Do you fucking get it? And there's just this very dapper Angus McDonald kid that is named July. And they're all with M I six.
The British guy's code name is November.
11 in November 11.
Do you get that they're British yet?
No.
Do you get it? Hey, real quick, stop the podcast, right? Do you get it?
No, I didn't because I was very tired.
And also watching the sub.
Watching the subs.
Also, the British guy, his contract prices. He has to smoke a cigarette and hates it. That's why he was going on the spiel earlier.
That's a good one.
While Storm just cracks open a cold one with the boys and enjoys her.
Life with the literal boy. This child.
Did you want a sip, child? Suit yourself.
Finding you be a little narc.
Oh, and of course they had to have a guinness, which isn't even a British beer. But sure, fucking go off. I guess.
I like at one point he's like smoking. He's like, we all have to pay our price. She's like, I don't know what you're bitching about. I love this. And she's like, got like a whole six pack cracked open.
I'm going to just finish all of these. I only need to take a sip. I'm just going to chug this shit.
I'm enjoying life.
My contract is I just need to crack open a cold one. I don't need to drink it. But I don't like to be wasteful.
But I ain't a pussy. I'm killing this.
Apparently these contractors hand over Havoc to the cops. And the cops are going over havoc's file and info dump saying she's like the deadliest contractor in the South American heavens. Gate wars. Still not comfy with that title, but sure. No, that still works for hell's Gate. Damn it.
It doesn't matter.
God's Door.
There you go.
So she's becoming a lab rat so they can just experiment and figure out what's up with the contractors. She's apparently worked for the CIA at God's Door and is now going to fight hell's Gate. Yeah, satan's patio. So they meet Smith and the gang meet the lady cop who I just learned her name was kiri hara. Sure. Fucking lady cop. That's chief. That's fine, whatever, it doesn't matter. And questions why they handed over Havoc. Because everyone wants this high value target and they mentioned just vague laws. Fucking shirt. If you don't want to explain something, that's fine.
Crowded in mystery. Yeah.
And the helicopter havoc away. But no, another helicopter is going to intercept it's the CIA. They're going to try to steal Havoc. We see none of this off camera.
You can believe me though, it's definitely happening.
Yeah, they're driving away and they're talking about this over phone calls because apparently they couldn't animate more helicopter shots. So surprise. It was actually a bait and switch. And Smith put havoc in their trunk. But oh no, we were monitoring her the whole time. Well, fuck you. We needed this for plot, not the whole time. Yeah, so they actually have Havoc. So everything is fine. They drive away and the cars get intercepted by leave in Black reaper form.
What? No, it's totally not him.
What? No, but he splits him off as a classic Japanese anime stuff. A train goes by, splitting the party, and then the one with Havoc gets attacked and they fight. Sure. Then they end up stealing Havoc. So the cops are back at the office being like, we failed our supreme leader. If I'm the chief, I don't know who I'm reporting to. But yeah, the head honcho is like, okay, well, you're working under pandora control until you can retrieve Havoc jargon. And they're all mopey sitting around because they failed. And they're like, it couldn't be the CIA because they don't want an international incident. Let's introduce international politics into this because we need this to be even simpler. And then the kid, his deus ex machina powers kick in and he just magically knows where to go because he just chants about like a theater or something.
He's a doll. And inspectors can see through class.
Sure. Who will not explain to me. And then we see reaper has Havoc and he's like, where's my sister? Introducing yet another thing. And my last note is triple underlined. Fuck this shit. Cool. That's episode five, right?
Do you guys have any questions I could enlighten you about?
Why have you forsaken us?
I like it.
Or not. My question, but my realization to think about this and also do ravara. You just like some convoluted bullshit. It's just what you like in an anime.
I don't like being spoon fed all of the story all at once. I like a slow burn over the course of five episodes.
No. Yeah. This is like a genuine question. Do you just have the trust that by the end of the series you will get all the answers? Or are you just on board for the ride and if things are left unanswered, you're happy with it? Or if not, that's fine. What's your thought process going into these heavily convoluted shows.
Real talk. I got a lot of free time and not a lot of hobbies. So anything that kills the monotony of life, I'm going for it. No, I'll watch, like, three episodes of a show, and if I like it for any reason, I'll keep watching it. So some of them are just I like the animation style, but I don't like the story. I'll keep watching it. And this one, I was like, I like superpowers and bullshit. I'm on board for the show.
All right, fair enough.
I broke this up because, like I said, the first two episodes one and two are like a little mini story. Three and four, a little mini story. Five and six and seven and eight are all like, little mini stories. So it's hard to get what the through line is with this whole show until, like, episode ten.
And I'm just not about that kind of thing. Like, whenever people talk about how much they like near automata and they're like, oh, just wait until you get to the fourth ending, the fifth ending. Those are the ones that get you. And it's like, I would never yeah.
There'S definitely something that requires the time investment, but then I also make the argument with a lot of other stuff, like supernatural words. Once you get to season three, it's really good. It's like, that's not fandom. That's stockholm syndrome. And it could also apply to this, but it's a much smaller time frame. But yeah, if you're not hooked by episode one with all the bullshit, you're not going to enjoy the rest of the show.
I can enjoy stuff like this where there is like a big thing at the end that pulls it all together. But I need those little clues, those little hints of like, hey, trust us. Trust us. We're setting something up without spoiling things like The Good Place, where you have to get through the whole first season to get what's going on. But it's an enjoyable ride up until that point, and it's sort of telegraphed through that point so you can go back and rewatch it and go, oh, okay, this is clear now that I know what's going on.
Well, I also think what this is going to come down to is what we like to be entertained by, because dugan and I are the same in that we like something like The Good Place, where there is a pay off after 13 episodes. But it's fun to watch. Well, yeah, you do, but I don't want to say fun to watch. It's more fun for us to watch something like this, where it's just, like, a lot of information.
Ride is as enjoyable as the destination.
I don't agree with that. But I would also agree for me, darker than Black is also enjoyable on the ride.
Well, yeah, that's what I'm trying to say, is that we enjoy different personal rides. I guess it's fun for me. It was fun for you. I don't like roller coasters, but other people do.
And I would say, like, derara, there was stuff tying together. I will admit it is subtle, and if you're watching for the first time, you could easily overlook the stuff. But like, with takia, where she's a doll and she's like, I feel like I spent my whole life in this apartment. It's because she has she doesn't have memories of before then. And like, the memories of her parents are just implanted memories. Those aren't really hers. And the real takia was the one dead in the river.
That wasn't her name, but okay, I.
Don'T remember what it is, and it doesn't matter. She's dead.
That's true.
But stuff like that where it does tie together. But I won't deny it does take a good amount of effort and either contest clues or, like, retroactive clues, where you get to episode seven and you're like, oh, that's what they're talking about in episode two. There is a lot of that. I won't deny that. And if that's not enjoyable for some people, this is definitely not your show.
Yeah, I feel like the biggest thing is a lot of this stuff felt like it was coming out of the blue. It's like, episode two, we just get a talking cat. Like, unexplained, unannounced, not addressed at all. You're just like, hey, it sort of needs you to realize this is anime, which for me, takes me out of it a little bit.
Why are you making anime?
No, I'm saying the idea of, like, hey, this is just this type of show. Just go and go with it, rather than like, hey, this has a narrative purpose. This is going to actually do something rather than have a character we see in two scenes that is inexplicably a talking cat.
I mean, it does have narrative purposes and it does pay off later, but we only watch three episodes of a show, so it's like everything's not going to pay off within the first.
We can't do this again.
We have the same fight every time, convoluted stuff.
I don't want to hear this again. This has happened once before, and I'm not about it, okay? Because someone will not convince us to like it. But he likes it, and that's fine. Yeah, it's his thing, and it's not our thing, and that's what it comes down to. And Brendan, you have to know that every time we watch something like this, this is what's going to happen.
Your price to pay.
If they're going to ask me questions, I'll just answer them.
So what do we have going on next week? If someone says, Another convoluted cop drama, I'm throwing myself out a window.
Psychopath.
It is, well, a cultic nigh.
Our next episode, I'm considering it the valentine's Day episode.
Ooh.
So I have chosen a show that I have heard is good, and I will know nothing else. Well, I know the plot a little bit. I know the idea of the plot, but all I've heard is that it's good and it is. kaguya sama. Love is war.
Yeah, I have heard a lot about this.
Yeah. And we're just going to watch the first three episodes because, I don't know.
You have no other context, but I.
Know it's not a convoluted cop drama, so we're good on that front.
Oh, thank God.
It's a convoluted love drama.
Yay.
If there's a show you would like us to watch, you can send recommendations to us at our email rweebariat@gmail.com or reach out to us on twitter and instagram at rweebeveryet. You can find me on twitter and instagram at mrpatrick dugan.
You can find me on instagram at queen. Period. weaboo and on twitter at queen underscore wihu and queen underscore weebu art.
You can find me on twitter at aBTS brendan it stands for Almost better than silence, which is a video game podcast that's much less convoluted.
Thank you to camille ruley for our artwork and thank you to Louis zong for her theme song stories off the album beats. You can find all of louie's music at louisong bandcamp.com. Thank you and we hope you'll join us next week as we learn to live with anime.
I have nothing to say.
Don't fight contracts before you dad.