Hello and welcome to our week. There yet in exploration and education and anime. I'm your anime idiot, patrick dugan.
I'm an anime expert, dee hollander.
And I'm brenda mccullough. Your anime city mouse.
Maybe we got a city slicker over here.
Got some curly's gold, don't you?
How dare you reference something older than me?
We got babe in the big city over here.
We got sheep in the big city.
Oh, boy. That is a very Brendan reference.
It's kind of old. It's like a fever dream that some people remember but aren't sure really existed. It could have been Mandela effect on its own.
Yeah, that's my thinking of shawn the Sheep.
Is that shawn? The sheep?
No, it's not.
I don't know what you're talking about. So I was like, Is it shawn the sheep? It's not Sean the sheep. I know it's not.
I can't even just because Sheep in the Big City was like, a weird cartoon, but it wasn't like curves, the cowardly dog weird of like it'll traumatize you as a child. This is just off. It's just odd. It's just weird about it.
It was like the animation sensibilities of courage but without the horror elements. It was just like chaos in the city.
It's just like, who's this for? Because it doesn't feel like kids. But I also don't get the tricks as an adult.
But speaking of chaotic cartoons, anime, what's going on this week?
Well, it was your choice.
Don't look at me.
I love starting a segue when I'm and then halfway through realize, oh, you throwing it to yourself.
How do you get?
So this was a recommendation from Victoria kodak. We're watching Nonnambiori today. Seems chill. As I mentioned last time, my only frame of reference for this show is there's a popular TikTok song that's apparently from this. So that's all I have to go off of.
That's more than I got.
Yeah, I've never heard of this.
I love the hesitation. I love the audible sound of dugan flinching of like, it seemed chill. Or it could be a weird twist in episode three where it's like an existential horror show.
We've been burned so many times that if something is called, like, cotton candy fairy scene and when's the demon coming in? When does it become a hell mouth?
I was talking to a friend of mine about yiki yuna as a hero, and I was just reliving that episode. Oh, boy. I had a great time.
I just can't believe it. It's what I've come to expect from magical girl shows that there is some horrific twist because of madoka magica. But nothing could prepare me for what yuki una is a hero would do. Nothing could prepare me for that.
I watched all of it.
Why?
Because we had a deal that if I watched that, you would watch elf and Lee.
That's funny.
How'D that go?
Well, I couldn't tell you anything about elf and Lee.
There you go.
This seems chill. I'm ready for the other shoe to drop. But this is a 2013 series, so I keep wanting to say, like, it's not that old, but it's almost ten years old. But yeah, don't really have too much else to say. So shall we just do it? You ever get nostalgic for a life you never lived?
Absolutely. That is it.
My damn family. I could have been a dairy farmer in the azores. But no, they had to go to America.
I feel like I've said I don't know if I've said this on the podcast, but I found out. My grandma Barbara, she passed away. Rest in peace. I loved her very much. She owned a farm and she sold it to somebody. I could have been living stardu Valley. She could have left that for me in her will.
So close.
I've also said this, I would not do well on a farm. God, it seems great.
Yeah. I'd be down for a homestead where I'm like, I got to feed me. I don't need reliable crops for the community. But that's about it.
Yeah.
I think of being a sheep rancher all the time.
The dream back in Pennsylvania. My grandpa lives out in lancaster. For anyone doesn't know that's where a lot of the amish are. Just a whole lot of Amishu or recluses and shun electricity and all that stuff. And he's just out there saying, I grew up in Philadelphia. Fuck this, I'm moving to the country.
Good for him.
So going out, watching this, it brought back a lot of memories of lancaster County and stuff. And for anyone who dreams of being a farmer, it proves you've never done a day's worth of farm work in your life. Because that is an exhausting.
Yes, it's a lot.
It's so fucking much. But it does have a charm. Yeah.
My great grandma had a dairy farm back in good old rhode Island. After she passed, it ended up selling. So we did like the evil version of Star Due Valley. Think back and be like, dammit, I could have said, didn't.
Give me the.
Deed, but I had to go. And like, goddamn cartoons.
Now we're here. We got an amex.
Speaking of cartoons, shall we get into it?
Yes.
So we start out the first two minutes on the show immediately sold me because it's just a beautiful montage of the Japanese countryside while a first grader plays the recorder.
I was trying to figure out if that was part of the background music.
Or if it was a bit they started in like, oh, yeah, just gentle vibes. And then they just slowly fade up the recorder because we see a first grader walking down country roads just tooting a tune.
I love it.
The off tune recorder just like, yanked me fully back to grade school. Like, oh, God, it's that thing.
Yes, it hits you right in the nostalgia. Immediately they're like, if you didn't grow up in the country. Who cares? You played recorder in first grade.
It's a universal experience.
But, yeah, she's walking down the road, and we see her friend run up to her, and then we get an internal thought as she thinks, do we live in the country? As the camera zooms in on a cow in the background. It's a very good cow, but yeah. And then we get the opening credits. Just vibes. vibes. This show is the warm. This is what I need summer to be, not the hellscape reality of Los Angeles that I have.
Yeah. Now I get summer homes.
Yeah. When there's actual weather, you want to escape to someone that's warm. When it's all warm, you want to escape to literally anywhere else on the planet.
So we see this first episode, I feel like doesn't do a great job saying all of these characters names, so I only have some of them. So we see an older girl, not sumi, and the first grader with the recorder, ren, they meet up. They're walking to school, and they go and meet up another kid at the bus stop, and they're like, oh, yeah, it's such a beautiful day. What a waste to go to school.
Blah, blah, blah.
And then they catch the bus, and only one other kid is on it, and it takes them to Asahiga. Yeah. Brendan moment.
What? Hey.
Asahi galka Branch school. And that's the last time I'll say the school, mate.
Yeah. Okay. I didn't there's five students. I just called it school. Yeah.
So they go to school where yeah, we see the entire school is a single classroom made up of varying aged kids because there are five children in this town. So literally back to, like, a one old school prairie School house. But we have our fifth student being introduced. We got a transfer student from Chaos chick. This is a fifth grader, ichi Joe Hotaroon, and she is the new student from Tokyo. Her dad oh, weird. Her dad had to move her business to the country. Okay, don't think about it too much.
He's really getting into cows.
He had a midlife crisis.
Yeah. So she's new. She's nervous. The teacher is so unreliable, so unhelpful. I love her so much, but she just sits back and it's like, oh, yeah, introduce yourself. I do no work here. Don't worry about me.
But if it's all students in all different grades and I think at one point they say, like, oh, yeah, we kind of do our own self studying. So I'm like, yeah. Why is there a teacher?
Yeah. Truly just a babysitter.
Yeah, pretty much.
But Hodorun is introduced. Everyone is like, oh, she's a city girl.
City.
I've heard about that in stories. But they sit down and they're like, okay, first period is Japanese. And everyone pulls out different workbooks because this is where she learns. Oh, everyone else is doing their own thing. Oh, I guess I don't actually have classmates my age. Just everyone else in this school starts to sink in as they just have homeroom study breaks, sort of learning.
That must be very difficult.
Yeah.
The teacher, I'm sure, also has like a third grade education level based on.
How much she teaches.
So I assume all the older students are like, yeah, no one else can help me. If I don't know this, I'll never learn.
It the real world.
But yeah. So they break for gym class. They go out and see a bunch of buckets lining the hallway. Because it's an old school house with five kids. We're not repairing it just a bunch of leak buckets everywhere. And they go out and play dodge ball or some version of it. It's kind of monkey in the middle. It's fine. But Hodoron tries to catch the ball and drops it, but also drops the keys from her pocket. And all the other kids are like, oh, keys.
What?
What? And she's like, oh, yeah, my parents are going to work late, so I got to make sure I can let myself in. And they're all like, you can lock your house door. Who's breaking in? Phil ten people in this town. I can make a checklist and systematically check in with everyone and be done before lunch.
Good old days where you didn't have to lock your doors back before cities invented crime.
But yeah. So this episode is just a lot of culture shock for Hodorun, getting used to country life. So later on they're all walking home, and ren invites Hodorun over, and the whole gang goes with her. And they see she has, like, a little family farm. They mentioned that the town, the quote unquote town is a candy store and a co op grocery and that's it crazy.
I think they said they have, like, a police box, so not even like a police station. It's just like, no, we call the police from the next county over if anything happens.
It's very charming, but I think about actually growing up in an environment like this, and it makes me like, yeah, it must be very you got to make your own entertainment.
Yeah, like my grandpa living, like, way out there. It's like, if you want something, you got to wait until you want a few other things because it's going to be like an hour and a half trip in and back.
Or even just the people. You can't make any new friends. You just know the same four people your whole life.
Wait, that's small town living, baby.
You guys know more than four people.
You know, and then got a little family farm. And they go into the yard and run. Is like, I got a magic trick for you, and tries to, like wolf whistle, but no sound comes out. And they're like, what is happening here?
What's going on?
It's a dog whistle. And the good kind because she summons a tanuki.
Hell yeah.
Hell yeah, baby. So, yeah, she's like, yeah, this is my friend. This is goo. And yes, it's just a little animal friend. And she's like, it's going to do a trick and actually whistles. But he just sits there.
I have two notes for this episode. It's a look at that cow and hell yeah, you. And that's it. Yes.
That's all you need. That's the complexity of the plot in this show. That's a good animal. So the next day, they're all walking to school, and ren is like, hey, Honoru was saying, we live in the country, but we don't live in the country. Country, right, right. And they're all like, no, no. Essentially going like, country is anything poorer than us. That's the country. We're just a small town. And they just keep discussing, like, yeah, there's like, cows and stuff. But it's not like the middle of the woods. That's the country.
Your definition of country is country as Hell yeah.
Sort of just like the passing it down the line. Anyone in a more remote place is more country than me. So they're like, no, it's fine. Don't worry about it. And they go to school. They're eating lunch, and it's made of some of the foods that they gathered. And Hooroon is like, oh, fresh, delicious ingredients. This didn't come from a package.
I love sober spoon.
Yeah, it just cracks an egg in her mouth. ren says, like, hey, save your dessert. We got a little adventure planned. So they save their little mochi, and they go walking out into the woods, and they take it up to a beautiful cherry blossom tree on a hill with a great view of the countryside. But it's not the country. It's just countryside.
Don't worry. It's just the side.
And finally, Hodorun is like, okay, I'm not as nervous now because this fucking rules. This is great. I can finally relax. I feel like I've been initiated. But because they went on their little excursion, they missed their bus home. So they're sitting at the bus stop, and Hodarun is like, when's the next bus? They're like, oh, don't worry. It's 2 hours from now.
That's country. Yeah.
And they say, yeah, I guess these country buses are kind of inconvenient and Run latches onto that is like, I knew it.
We are country lying to me.
And that's where we end episode one. What plot really happened? A student went to school. That's great. That's about as much complexity as I can deal with right now.
Yeah.
And that's all there is.
Good news at the cherry blossom trail. I was fully expecting Rent to be like, this is where my family is buried. As I was raised by I was waiting for the other shoe to still drop. And I was like, they just have.
To have a tragic backstory.
Surprise. gu is her father. So in episode two, we get the perspective of Ho taru. And we just see them in class. And she's just kind of reiterating all of the things that are different in this class compared to her classes in Tokyo. And the teacher is full on snoozing.
Hell yeah.
Because she doesn't have to do anything. And now we get all the names plain laid out for us. She introduces us to all the students. So ren, we've already said she's the little one. She's in first grade. We've got natsumi. She's the tall one. I think she's in 8th grade. And then there's komari, natsumi's older sister, and Sugaru, who is their older brother.
Who is just not in this show.
Yeah, he doesn't say anything. I love him. So when she pokes Hotaru's back and she's like, should I turn in my worksheet? And she's like, yeah. So she takes it up to the teacher. And now she can just have a break.
Knock my work for the day. Goodbye.
I'm just going to sit over there now. So nasimi is having trouble with her worksheet. And she's worried that at the rate she's going, she's not going to get her break at all. So she asks the teacher if she can take her break now. And the teacher is like, well, I mean, if you're finished as a human being, then I guess. But think about it first. And she seems to be thinking about it. She gets up from her chair and walks to the back of the classroom and then grabs the ball. And she's like, anybody want to play? So I guess she's done.
I'm a drop out. It's fine. I get about as much education as I am enrolled in this school.
I do love that they just like they do play. Like even though she's like 13 or whatever and her sister is 14, they still play with a ball and crawl around in caves and stuff because that's all there is to do.
I remember going to Mills and be like, oh, you don't get recess anymore. I was like, what the fuck you mean I don't get recess anymore? This is also where we find out the teacher's ren sister, like much older sister. So I was like, oh, literally everyone in the school is related to each other except for hodor.
Wow.
Like one family makes up three fifths of the school.
It's pretty crazy. Yeah. So Hautaru explains that komari, Natsui's older sister, got her nickname comicon. Not because of her name, but because she's small. komai means small. So she asks Ho Taaru what their next subject is. And Houtarou just can't get over how cute she is. And kumari opens the door to the classroom and an eraser falls on her head. And ren and natsumi are like, oh, that was a prank for the teacher. But she's angrier that her sister calls her comicon than about the actual eraser. So she yells at natsumi to apologize. Houtarou says that they should apologize. natsumi and ren and she offers to get the chalk out of kamari's hair, but she just ends up, like, patting her head and rubbing her hair.
She's so small.
So small.
She's so cute. I got a petter.
Her hair must be so soft. So kamari sits at her desk, and she finds a candy in her backpack. And ren and nazami are there. They're, like, smelled some chocolate. She's like, oh, I got it at the candy store yesterday. I forgot to take it out. And she's talking about, like, candy trends. And ren is like, I don't care about that. I just want to eat some candy. And komari is like, I'm not going to give it to you. So she offers us a ho saro ho taru. And she's very happy that komari gave her something, a gift from senpai. So nazami is like, Rent, if we cry, maybe she'll give us some candy. So they try to make her feel guilty, and it works. And kumari is like, ho tarri. Can I have the candy back? And then she starts crying. hatari starts crying. She's like, I'm so happy that you gave me a gift. So they're like, no, okay, we can't take it from you. You could keep it. And then she's all peppy again, and she just, like, frolicks out into the hall. She's so happy.
She's to the moon and back. She is so excited just to get this game. What a simple life.
And then later on, probably on a different day, we see Ho taru at home, and she's admiring her candy. I also like that the show is kind of segmented, but we see, like, little things like that from the segment before, so it's still all tied together where it's like, yeah, this is a different thing on a different day. But also remember this.
They have, like, a common episode narrative where it's like, okay, this is all about this relationship or this dynamic or something. Like, the first one was technically segmented, but it's, oh, new student feels weird but finally feels accepted. And now we have different things. So this is a good way to do this sort of segmented rather than like, yeah, that was cute. Don't think about it. It does not matter for the rest of the episode.
Yeah, you can easily just take the individual, fast paced, segmented moments of other shows we've talked about, like, nietzsche or something, and just put all the segments that are focused on one character into one episode, and it'll kind of easily convey a story like this.
So hotaru is at home. Yeah, she's admiring her candy. And her mom comes in, and she says she has a phone call from a friend, and it is komari. And she says, hey, I'm close to your house, so I thought maybe you'd want to hang out. And she's like, of course I do. So they get off the phone, and Ho Taru is like, what should I wear? I need to look grown up because it's my senpai. She's so old and cool. So we see kumari. She's out waiting by a tree, complaining that ren and natsumi didn't care about her new grown up dress. And Houtaru comes, and she's wearing some very business casual clothes. She's got, like, a blazer on, and for some reason, she's wearing glasses. And she has her hair in a side ponytail, got purse. And komari seriously doesn't know that it's her. She thinks that she's just a lady visiting from out of town.
Oh, no, you went too far. You went two adults too much.
Yeah. So she's like, oh, I need to handle this situation like a grown up. And she says, I'm not supposed to go anywhere with strangers. And she's like, Fuck, that was not grown up at all. And Houtari says that she just wants to go to the candy store. Like, completely oblivious that komari doesn't realize that it's her. And komari tries to say, like, I'm waiting for my friend. Whatever. But she doesn't voice it loud enough. So they go to the candy store. komari follows her anyway. And so Hataru asks where the candy store is. komari says, oh, it's through this tunnel up ahead. And Hotaru asks if it's safe. And she's like, oh, yeah. It's just something the locals use. They get to the tunnel. It's very dark. komari is like, there's a longer way around. You might want to go that way because it's so dark. But Hoaru is already walking in candy, and komari is spooked. But Ho Taaru is relaxed. And komari is like, oh, how could she be so relaxed? I guess it's just because this is a grown up woman. But Houtaru is just excited to eat candy, and they make it out, and now it's candy store time. And Houtaru is so excited, and komari is like, oh, I don't really have much money. So hotaro offers to buy her some. They're looking around, and Hotaaru notices that they're already selling shaved ice, so that's what they're going to get. She picks the green tea and red bean flavor, but it's expensive. But she's like, don't worry about it. Here's a ¥10,000 bill. Like, paying with $100 bill for $8.
I've done that. Sometimes you got to break that bill, and people don't want to do it unless you buy something.
Yeah, she says it's her New Year's money. She's like, I'm glad I saved this. So they sit down to eat, and they both think that the green tea flavor is bitter. And kumari is like, oh, this must be what grownups eat. And Ho taaru is like, I just got this to impress komari.
We're both so grown up, right?
Yeah. So komari is like, I got to stick with it to make sure this grown up lady likes me. So she shovels a bunch in her mouth, and then she gets a brain.
Freeze when she still fully thinks it's just a stranger. Yeah, come along, child. We're going to candy store.
Yeah. And Hotaru still hasn't realized that that's the case. So afterwards they're walking along, they both have some flowers, their whole little flowers. And Hotaaru says that it's beautiful out here, that she was nervous about moving, but she likes it. So they're parting ways. And Hotaru thanks her for hanging out and walks away. And kumari is like, wow, that grown up lady is so cool. She gets home, she tells natsumi and Sugaru about what happened, and they're like, oh, what was the lady's name? And she's like, I didn't ask. And then she's like, oh, heck, I was supposed to hang out with Ho Taaru. So she goes and calls her up and apologizes. And Ho Taru is like, what? Yeah, and that's episode two.
It's a weird instance of simple miscommunication as a plot device, but it's not annoying.
Yeah, I didn't read it because it didn't last long enough for it to become annoying. And it wasn't about something super big.
Yeah.
It was just comical enough to be like, okay, this is fine without it. A third party is introduced and neither of them introduce each other to the other person. It's weird that no one was like, hey, school. Or Hodoru wasn't like, oh, yeah, remember this thing before? But yeah, it was fine. This is so light. And it doesn't matter.
It's inconsequential, it's fabid, but not in a bad way. As an insult. Yeah, very light and airy. It reminded me once when me and Duke and were down in San Diego and I saw my old roommate there and didn't recognize him at first. Hey, wait a minute.
Neither of us should be here.
We caught each other sneaking out. Yeah. Then we get episode three. Starts off with natsumi and kamori. Once again, my only notes for up to two were just their names because just nothing happened.
Yeah.
But it actually helps me. So, yeah, natsumi and kamori are getting ready for a school outing and natsumi comes in. camari is making rice balls for lunch. She's like, oh, let me help you out. Yeah, you can help me. Just don't goof around. Don't do anything weird with them. He's like, nah, nah, I won't do anything weird. Unless while they're talking that to me, like, stumbles upon some, like, spicy mustard. It's like, hey, what do we put spicy mustard in? And that way the lucky person will get a little treat in there. kamara is like, your definition of lucky is weird. And then we get the opening, and then in class we see Houtarou is surprised that they're doing an outing. And Kumar is like, yeah, I only remembered because natsumi told me. natsumi is like, ah, you two got to pay attention better in class. Says the person that's easily doing the worst in the class within the two episodes we've seen so far. And turns out their outing is to go to a rice field and plant some rice at the teacher's family's rice field farm.
Yay. Unpaid labor.
It's definitely not to get out of work. It's definitely an educational field trip for the school students and not free labor. That's not what that is.
That's how we know there's literally zero regulation on the school.
I remember when I was a kid in elementary school, a lot of library time was, hey, learn how the dewey decimal System works by reshelping books for me. Ten years.
That sucks.
It was fine. It was like a tiny elementary school library. But hey, I would love to be, like, reading or something now. And it's like, no, put these books back on the shelf for me.
Cool.
All right, great.
I just had a lot of movie days because the teacher was hungover as hell, and it's like, hey, we're hey, we're watching elf. It's like but it's it's me. It's like, yeah, we're watching that funny wolf feral. Ha ha. I love him. And I saw elf so many fucking times. Yeah. So it turns out, yeah, the teacher's Ran sister, and they their family owns a rice farm, so free labor. Here we go. When it comes back to the students, I think it's camori says, like, oh, yeah, I forgot. She does this every year. Like, we should have expected this. And turns out the teacher only told not to me. And she's like, basically being like, I told the dumb one because I didn't want the other smart students to realize what I was doing sort of thing. But also, I have a way of excusing myself for doing this by saying I told somebody. Like, giving yourself an out and hatori is bumped. She's like, oh, I didn't know we were doing an outing, so I didn't bring lunch because I didn't know about it. Tomorrow is like, oh, don't worry. We made plenty of rice balls so we could share some of those tourists. Like Sembi's rice balls. I got to earn them. I got to do good. I got an impressor.
Got to impress a 13 year old.
Because I am dead. Yeah. Looking at just, like, the girls in the opening, I fully thought Victoria was going to be the oldest, so I'm just like, oh, she's in fifth grade.
She's a sophisticated Tokyo girl.
Fancy. And we see the teacher teaching Rent how to plant the rice, because Rent is planting the rice plants and then stopping on them, walking over. She's like, no, you got to plant them and then walk backwards so you don't step on them by accident. And then we see not suing over on the side out of the fields has a little tantrum just rolling around the grass, being like, I want to go to the zoo. I want to go to the city. I want to go to move there. I want to ride on a train, at least. Being like, I want a real. Outing. And then she sits back up. She's like, all right, I got that out of my system. That's good. That's nice. And it just pans over. And we see her brothers just sitting next to her, and she's like, oh, were you there the whole time? He's, like, nods because he does not speak ever. And she sees, like, a few supplies on the side, and she just picks up, like, a bamboo shoot and a hat and, like, an apron and puts it on him. And she's like, Ha, we got a scarecrow. And he's just standing there in a scarecrow position, like tea, posing. It's like, you want to not do that? But no. Okay, you're fine with this? Okay.
He just loves his little sisters. He'll do anything.
I don't have to speak in any of these episodes. I'm game.
Yeah. I don't know if he has a soul. I don't know if he's alive.
Goo, is that you in there violating a man body?
And then we see komori's out in the rice field, and she gets stuck in the mud, and she yells over to Nassumi, like, hey, can you help me out? I'm stuck. I got in a little deeper than I thought it was, and I can't get my feet out. And we see she's wearing those fishermen, like, the long suspenders, like rubber suspenders and stuff for being in wet fields and stuff. And now suddenly gets a little smuggling, like, ha, got in over your head? Need help from your little sister? All right, I guess I can help you. And she gets in all suited up too, and she goes to help kamari, and, whoops, she got stuck too. She didn't look where she was going. Fell right into the same trap. So then they try and wave down hatoru like, hey, can you help us out? And she can't hear because she's just in the zone. She's got to plant these rice plants and get those rice balls. She's got to impress them by so she's just in overdrive, can't hear them and assume he says, like, oh, I got an idea. Come ore you climb up on top of me. Used me as a stepping stone to get out of this, like, mud pit we're in, and then you can climb out and get someone else to help you. All right, good idea. So she, like, bends over a little bit. kamori climbs up on top of her back, and while they're doing this rent, it's just planting the rice plant and walking backwards and bumps right into them and whoop, knocks them both over. And then it cuts to all four of them on the side of the rice plants, like, cleaning off the sisters because they got stuck in the mud. Meanwhile, we just see the teacher riding by on a tractor, like, rice planter machine, like, it's planting as she's riding by, and she's basically laughing. Like, I wanted to test out to see what was better to the machine or manual labor? The machine is always better. Ha ha. And it just drives off anyway.
You guys can leave.
Yeah. She's like, you're done for the day. Because I remembered that we bought this tractor, and I forgot I could have been using it the whole time. I was like, god damn it. Okay.
How good of an educator is the person that is like, what's faster, a rice planting machine or a varied age group of children? Better than manual labor?
And so they take a break. They break for lunch, and the tohru gets his rice ball. She's working so much for it's. Like, yeah, now we can relax. And then we just go off and do something else because we don't have a teacher anymore, so I guess we don't have to go to school. And NASA may grabs the rice balls like, yeah, we spent all morning making these, so they should be good. ah, shit, I got the muster one. It's like, haha. So she ended up tricking herself.
You played yourself.
That night we see Kamori's binge watching a bunch of movie rentals they got from the rental store. That's how you know this is the country, because we see a house with, like, solar paneling. So it's like, oh, it's pretty modern. It's recent, but there's still a rental store in town.
Well, the rental store is actually ten stations away.
Yeah.
And that's why she's binging them.
But they're due back tomorrow. I guess she was slacking on them. She's like, I got to make it worth the rental price, so I got to watch everything tonight also.
Just worth the trip.
Yeah, just to justify that fucking ten station ride. So she's like, watching a romance movie, like a tragic romance movie. When Natsumi comes in, Natsumi is like, oh, it's tragic. I guess one of them gets, like, an illness and dies or something. And while they're sitting there talking, memorial is like, watching. She's like, I didn't expect the virus to wipe out every single character in the entire movie, and they all die. It's like, that's a weird movie.
They got to keep it fresh. They got to surprise the audience.
And not to me, is like, all right, well, I'm going to bed. I'm tired. And kamora's like, all right, I got to watch this. Like, one last movie. It's like, oh, it's a scary movie. Shit, I forgot to rent it. That's fine. It seems to scare me as a kid, but I'm 14 now. I can handle this. She could not handle this. So she watches the whole scary movie, and then that night, we see komori crawling into natsumi's room and then crawl underneath her futon, like with her. She's like, oh, what are you doing? Wait. Get out of my room. She's like, no, I just I'm not scared or anything, but I just I want to be here. All right. I'll sleep in your room. Then it's like, no, I want you to be here too. But I'm not scared. All right, fine. Oh, God. What's that? It goes behind it. She freaks out. nancy's just teasing her sister repeatedly because she's clearly very scared. She's like, all right, fine. I'll get you your old teddy bear. And this other thing in this blanket. She's like, oh, here it is. And that's if he turns around and is wearing, like, a clown mask and scares the crap out of komori again. And she's like, oh, don't worry. You got your teddy bear here. But if I'm being honest, it's been through some wear and tear. It's looking a little rough for his age. And it's just basically just like the felt skin of, like, a stuffed animal. everything's beaten out of it. It's all ripped up.
I love when older people have stuff like that, though, where it's like, yeah, this is my blankie from when I was a baby. And it's just like a torn strip of fabric at this point.
Oh, yeah, my parents still love the blanket from when I was a little kid, and I'm like, yeah, my baby baby blanket. It's just like one sheet of, like, satin. That's the only thing that survived. But, yeah, she's like she, like, throws the stuffed bear into the futon with kamori and it sits on the edge of the futon so komori can't get out. She's, like, freaking out because it's her stuffed bear. But it's so bean up and it's dark, it scares her. And then they eventually wind down and settle in for bed. And now to me saying, like, don't worry about ghosts. Ghosts don't exist. She's like, wait, ghosts don't exist? Does that mean her spirits don't exist? For spirits don't exist? What happens when we die? And it's just like staring up at the ceiling for a while. It's like, what the fuck, baby's?
First existential crisis.
Yeah.
So cute.
And she, like, stares up at the ceiling and we get a shot of the ceiling and it's just like wood. But I couldn't tell if she was seeing stuff in the wood, like faces and got scared or if she was actually just having an extension of Chris of like, kumar, what happens when we die and we're freaking out because of that?
I think it was I think she was just thinking about it.
Yeah. I get used to a kid over the next 40 years of your life. nassima kind of freaks out and tries to wake up kumari, but she's already asleep. She's like, I'm disturbed or scared. And then the next day at school we see natsumi's late because she had to sleep in because she couldn't sleep all night because she scared herself. We cut to new scene. We see natsumi's teasing her sister. But she said she can be a good sport. Man, I got to write better notes. That doesn't help anyone, Brendan. And then we see Natsumi and kumari outside and their mom's yelling at Natsumi for breaking a flower pot. She's like, no, I didn't break a flower pot. It was a straight cat. It stole some food. I forget what type of food it was, but the cat stole the food. And as I was running off, it broke the flower pot. It wasn't me. komori, come back me up. Break kamari. kamari is like, no. What do you mean no? It's like, no to me or no to mom? It's like, no, make me choose. So she's kind of freaking out, and that's me. Starts arguing with her mom more, and it's like, why should I believe you, Natsumi? You lied about the last time you broke the pot. You lied about failing a test. You lied about something else. She's like, I didn't lie about that. I just didn't show you it. It's like, that still means you're a shaky, basically saying, like, you're the troublemaker of the three kids, so why should I believe you? Now? That to me is like, fine, don't believe me. I'm just going to run away. See you, and runs off and grabs kibori on the way out and drags her along with her. Well, what are we going to do now? We ran away from home. It's like, oh, we're going to go to our secret hideout. It's like, I don't want to go to the secret hideout and say, Come on. And we see. It's like they're crawling through, like, a sewer canal sort of tunnel, very clean. And when they get to the other.
Side, there's like, no one in this town. No one has that much poop.
You don't need a lot of people to get a lot of poop, I can tell you that.
Please.
Yeah, that's it.
So they crawl through the tunnels and they find, like it's like an old industrial building. I think it's still in service. I think it's just like, yeah, it's a small town. No one's, like, running it 24/7. They kind of only go there when something breaks, I guess. So it's perfect for a hideout, perfect for a little corner that they can find in the building where no one ever really goes. And they got a table there and they got, like, a little tea kettle and some, like, tennis rackets and stuff. So clearly they've been there before and they get bored immediately because, yeah, if you've had a secret hideout before, you know there's fuck all there.
So it takes a lot of effort to get in there. And then once you're in there, you're.
Like, well, this wasn't worth it. And they play some sort of rhyming game.
I looked it up. It's called cheery Tory. And it's just a word game where you have to start your word with the last character of the word that came before.
Okay? So they play that for a bit and find out that kamori is absolutely awful on it like, just garbage. And they're sitting around longer, and they're like, I'm hungry. kamari is like, oh, I got a little candy. She pulls out a kitten moat Bar, legally Disseminal her brand name. Check to kitkat Bar. She's like, oh, great, we can split it. So they split it up, and they eat it. And while they're eating it, kimura notices some old drawings behind a piece of what they had propped up. And it was old drawings Natsumee did the last time she got into a fight with her mom and ran away. We're going to live on our own. We're going to be we don't ever have to go back. We don't follow anyone's rules. And she's like, oh, yeah, I remember when you did this. Yeah, you ran away last time you got in trouble. And then when we got hungry last time, we didn't that food. So you started eating the grass over there, and it made yourself sick. And then I had to carry you back home. And we got a little flashback of them of being like them as little toddlers, little babies, their mom running out, being like, oh, God, what happened? Their mom picking them up and carrying them back home. All right, yeah, I got nostalgic. I cooled off a bit. Let's go back home. And on the way home, they noticed the cat. That's that straight cat that broke my pot. Come here a little back. And they go chasing after it. And it's got the little piece of food it stole from earlier. And as they follow it, they see the cat cat's a mama brought it back to the three little kittens, taken care of and wanted to feed the kittens. Three kittens, just like the three siblings. I mean, it's like two siblings, but like, the one doesn't really count and not simply sees that. And, like, as they get closer to the cat, like, kind of hisses at them to, you know, back off from the kittens. And they eat up their little food. And then the cats run off. He's like, yeah, okay, let's head back. And on their way back, they run into their brother, who's out on his bike. He gives them a ride home on the bike.
I love it. I love the little tiny characterization he gets where it's like, yes, it's clear he loves his sisters.
I was curious how they're all going to fit on that one bike, but it works. Yeah, come more small. She fits. And then once back home, their mom, they're like, sneaking in. Like, all right, we just got to get back to our room before mom finds out we ran away for so long. And while they're sneaking in, the mom sneaks up by and like, you two daughters ran over again. And they flinch, like, thinking they're going to get hit. And her mom's hand flies out of them and just kind of pats him on the head of like, you idiots. Don't get in trouble. We see them having dinner, just like old times. So it seems like everyone cooled off and forgave each other. And then that night, we see natsu May crawl into Kamori's bed saying, like, what are you doing? It's like, I don't know. I couldn't get asleep. I was thinking a lot. I had a lot of my brain. I think I kind of recruit dragging you into everything today. She's like, Are you doing this to forgive me? She's like, I don't know. Maybe trying to play it all come on. Is like, yeah, I guess you really can't do much without me, Kenny. And that's him. He's like, yeah, wait. And then it cuts right there. And that's episode three.
Yeah.
The vibes. I needed this.
It's very sweet.
Some are weave there yet. No, it's garbage. Is awful. We all hated it, right?
I need intense narrative. This, this.
I need 40 more characters to be invested.
Too much linear plot in this. I need to take fragments of each episode, but just swap them so I don't know what's happening. But, yeah, this was just a nice little palette cleanser. This was just a good little break. I was about to say we're towards the end of summer here, but no, summer goes like October in Los Angeles. So I've just been reflecting on, like, oh, I haven't really had summer for several reasons, but this is just a nice little thing of, like, remember going outside, being a child. Great. Delicious.
Yeah.
This just really hit the spot.
Yeah, I enjoyed it. The characters are really cute and the short little stories are nice in terms of, like, a vibey kind of show. I do prefer, like, a laid back camp where there is more of, like, a narrative just because Russian yeah. I don't know. We've watched shows where nothing happens, but typically those are, like comedies.
Seinfeld.
And this was funny. Like, it had its moments, but for me, it wasn't funny enough to, like, got you be completely about nothing. But I did enjoy it.
Yeah, even. We just watched Mr Osamasu as redundant Mr Osamatsu, which was comedy. It was sketch. It was, like, segmented, like we talked about. But I would say that's a sketch show where there is no plot. It's all just joke, joke, joke, joke. And that's kind of like what nietzsche was. And then we've had I always forget the title. It was similar to nietzsche gio, but less Azumanga dio. That was kind of like a chiller version where it was segmented and it's kind of slice of lifey, but that had nothing going on.
No, that was too slow.
Yeah, this definitely has stuff going on, but it is very much like, I think, the first, like, two minutes of this episode one, which is, like, establishing shots of the environment, which was nice. It was nice, but yeah, it was definitely, like, slower pace than I talked about. I've mentioned already, but like, silver spoon, where it's reminiscent of that rustic farm life mentality of, like, wouldn't it be nice to have a simpler lifestyle that is tied in with the school element? So that's got more plots of going on, but it's kind of like a calmer version of that. But yeah, there's some comedic moments in there, and there's jokes. One joke in episode one is with the leaking in the roof, like, with the buckets underneath. They're like, oh, don't stand around those buckets because the wood gets rotten around it and you'll drop through the floor. And she's like, oh, really? And that's when he's like, nah, no one's dumb enough to fall through the floor around here. And as she's saying that, the camera pans back or zooms out, and we see their brother is halfway through the floor as he fell through it. And I was like, that's a funny.
Moment that made me laugh.
But I wouldn't categorize this whole show as a comedy because yeah, it's literally.
Just a show for the vibes.
Yeah. Which isn't bad. It's good. If that's what you want, that's what you'll get.
I feel like on the scale, this is also giving just such strong barackman vibes of just quiet countryside with a small child. I feel like that is the correct level of narrative for this type of show because it is very slice of life, but it does have plot progression and things going on. So I feel like if this was just a touch more in that direction, even if they just uniformly said, like, okay, there is a theme to this episode. Like, we kind of got in the first two, but they just carried it through a little bit more. That third one got a little too fragmented. But I feel like if they just had, like, a core central thing, and even if they just do scenes related, that would help it. But again, I can't complain too much. It's just putting those wishes of what would push it over the edge to be even better.
Yeah.
You get to like something and say it's great, but it could still be improved in some places. It was cute. It was very cute. The problem with this level of chill for me in a show is if I'm watching something to chill out this much, I'm just going to fall. I struggle to stay awake, not because it was born, but because I was just, like, real relaxed. I was like, I can just sleep right now. I don't have to be watching something.
It's a security. It's so low.
So if I'm watching something that's like this chilled out, it's nice, it's pleasant, but I'm probably going to opt for just sleeping. But yeah, I'd say we enjoyed this. I don't know, we'll continue watching it, but I'd say collectively, it was enough to be a yes. Yeah.
There's like three seasons of this. I don't know if I could do that.
That's a lot.
That is a lot of this show. So if it continues at this pace, I assume they have to heighten it at some point. So maybe, like, if you jump into season two or three, you'll get some more narrative. But yeah, as of now, if you got to chill out and you've already watched laid Back camp yeah.
Maybe one episode where he just followed Q the whole time, like, what's he doing on his days?
What's his he just has, like, a secret, like, dexter's Lab sort of thing. He's literally the most city of everyone in this town.
He's running things. He's running this town.
He's the mayor. Well, what do we have going on next week?
Next week is not so chill.
Break while you get it.
We talked briefly about Hunger Games anime when we made our own anime. And this is adjacent. We're watching the first three episodes of future Diary. Yeah, future. Everything is chrome in the future.
Oh, God. It really is.
If there's a show you think is shiny and chrome, you can send that to us. Our email is arwaver@gmail.com or you can reach out to us on Twitter or Instagram at. Are we there yet? On both. I got so relaxed, I just closed my eyes and forgot I was speaking for a moment.
Right.
It happens.
You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Mr. Patrick dugan and other things out there.
You can find me on Instagram at honey, period. D on Twitter at honey d eight and honey d art or on twitch at honey underscore d and honey is spelled H-U-N-N-I-E. Let me share that's.
Done. dugan gather. I was kid like I'm an offer for you. Come on down to Twitter. We can find abt on brennan for the hottest takes on everything you do not care about. Do you need that information? No, sir, you do not. But it will come to you free of charge.
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God, there's a lot of them. There's a lot of bad takes. Also test for almost pairs of sounds, which is a video game podcast. You like podcasts? You're listening to one right now. Come here for the video game talks. It's bad dog's. Been playing nothing but for like a year and a half. We don't talk about video games anymore.
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Thank you, camille ruley, for our artwork. And thank you to Louisong for theme song stories. 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.
Fat raccoon dog. I'm going to name scruff easy.