Hello, and welcome to our reverriet and exploration and edge education and anime. I'm your anime idiot, patrick dugan.
I am an anime expert, D hollander.
And I'm Brandon mccullough. Your anime shroudinger's cat.
Is he in the box or isn't he? We'll never know.
He didn't pronounce that, right?
Absolutely. No, that's factually. I did not. You can you can cite how wrong it's the base level quantum physics reference that everyone knows, but no one really knows.
It's the thing. If you're me, you learned in Sight class and went, oh, I'm an intellectual now.
If you're me, you've learned it from watching Adventure Time, going, the hell's this weird cat about? And then someone on Four chan reference, and I was like, what? And I just died for, like, two days.
I know about it, but I don't know where. And that's fine with me.
That's fine. You're free from the curse of knowledge.
I simply exist, and it is a prison. Existence is a prison. I'm pushing through.
I am very with you on that point today. What do we have going on this week? Why the metaphysical references immediately?
Apparently we're fighting today. Apparently we're getting ready for a brawl. That's what's happening today. I panicked the last episode and just pulled something. And I yanked this from d's list. So apologies. D. Yeah.
What kind of bad host would do that on a regular basis? Come on. irresponsible.
I picked it because this is actually one I've already watched. So I have the full experience. Though. While getting ready for this episode I recorded, I realized I missed an episode in the middle of it. The twelve episodes I missed episode nine. So I guess I missed some context, and I guess I just ran with it. This week we're watching Sunny Boy. Despite me watching all of it, I genuinely have no idea why that's the title. So I'm interested to see if we can see if you can figure it out.
People just pick titles and it doesn't matter. I don't know song titles. Sometimes they just don't make sense.
Bleach was named after nirvana song. Why it has anything to do with the show? It doesn't. It's a badly written show.
There you go. Up on pop punk. I know about titles that have nothing to do with the content of that.
Yeah, something catchy to scrub your attention. And when you're locked in, you're locked in you go, oh. Anyway, do either of you know anything about Sunny Boy? I know it's a newer show.
I, of course, heard about it from Mother's basement. And then I watched the first episode a little bit ago, but I was too sleepy, so I was like, I have to rewatch that. That's where I'm at with it.
Good enough. Starting point. Anywhere else?
But I got nothing.
Yeah, based on what I heard about it, I was interested, so I'm excited to watch it again.
I was looking up shows for, like, halloween time. And I saw this one as a psychological thriller. And after watching it is when I realized thriller doesn't necessarily mean horror. After watching it, I was like, what? That wasn't scary at all. But yeah, learning my genres. That's what I learned from the show, at least. Perfect. Yeah. I'm going to apologize in advance of the listeners having already watched it all the recap is going to be rough, so just buckle in. It's going to be a fun time. So we'll see where we get to.
I'm ready to party.
It so well, I enjoyed it.
That's not always.
No. We already assembled garbage taste.
Yeah, that usually goes bad for us.
But no one reflects my opinions. It's fair.
Is this anime lost? I haven't watched lost either. Is this lost?
I didn't think of that until right now, but yeah, sure.
But you're not wrong. In a lot of ways, yes. In other ways, no. I only saw the first episode of Lost and I was well, if you've.
Only seen the first episode of Lost, you can't really speak for the rest of Lost, I'll tell you that much.
They just start like a beach resort and like, hang out for a long time. Right. And then like, seven seasons happen.
Yeah, exactly.
That's what I figured that happened.
It all takes place on sandals. It's very corporate outside of what they're experiencing.
Yeah, that's what it was about. It was about the founders of sandals Beach Resort.
It was a biotic. All right, let's get into Sunny Boy once again. It's going to be a hard recaplessness. Just brace it. Just lock in. We're going for a ride.
We have given this note previously and yeah, they were justified in the past. This felt like trying to write a dream diary on someone else's dream. So I in points, just had to say, like, I don't fucking know, man. Go through it. So heads up. I have minimal details for you. Did I get really any character's name? I got one.
There you go. That's more than I should get it. This is an arg for your listeners. You got to try and piece together yourself. Have fun. We'll start off with episode one. It starts off we find the characters names piece by piece, like two of the characters. We find out their names and up to two I'm just going to say them now. nagara is the protagonist. He's the main boy. And Nazumi is like the dual tagonist, like the main girl, basically. So I'll just get their names out right front. Starts off with gara laying on the floor, looking at his phone and then looking up at the ceiling in a classroom. And the Zumi shows up with a cat. And she's like, oh, having fun down there on the floor? He's like, no, not really. It's like, well, you're doing it a lot. You might as well like something of it. And she pulls a feather off of his face. And while they're talking, you hear a window break somewhere else in the school. And we cut to some kids in the hallway playing. It's not clear. It's like soccer or baseball. We see, like, a few different kids playing a few different sports in the hallways. And nizami says, like, they're screwing around their superpowers again. They're breaking windows. And he's like, oh, did you get any superpowers? He's like, no. If I did, would I be lying here on the floor? He's like, Good point.
What if their superpower is lying very still? It's not peaceful, but it is a power.
It is supernatural, and he is very good at it. And they are saying how the school recently just disappeared somewhere, and it seems to be only their class in the school. Everyone else in the bony is gone, so we get a rough number later. But I think it's like 36 kids. So basically just like a large classroom. And when she says that, you notice outside the school windows, it's just a void. They're in a school building, and they're just in pitch blackness all around them, nothing else. She's like, I wonder if this is, like, hell or like a utopia of some sort and purge Tory. There really was lost, wasn't it? And we cut to two boys in the bathroom talking about how, like, some kids are getting superpowers and some kids are getting a little unruly with them because, I mean, who wouldn't? Your teenage kid with superpowers all of.
A sudden also in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do.
Yeah, got to do something. And we find out they're on the student council, and they're like, you know what? We got to create some order. We're the council. We got to take some responsibility and at least get some order within this building until we get rescued. And then we see our main boy negara is also in the bathroom, but quiet. He's kind of just eavesdropping. And they say they need to create some rules for this world. And that's what they refer to this world as this world. They don't give it a real name. So they're like, yeah, we got to figure something out. We'll set up like a leader or something. We'll go from there. Cut to nagar Nazumi up on the rooftop. rooftop check. And they're like, did the city disappear around us, or do we disappear from the city? Like, what's happening here? Why are we in this blank void? And he points to something up in the sky. She's like, oh, he knows that shiny thing up there. He's like, what? No, there's nothing up there. She's like, no, there's definitely something up there. And it's bright and kind of close.
I do like that in this first episode, there's, like, no music up until the very end because it really does make you feel like you feel the weight of their situation, of just being in a black void.
Yeah, there's no mne. There's no just residual sound, which you get a lot in cities of just like cicadas or like distant cars driving in the street or something. And you have absolutely nothing in those of that really makes it feel more isolated without drawing a lot of attention to it. It's well done. And then everyone at the school gets text on their phones and it's like an invitation to a group text thread by the student council. And they're kind of just posting new rules where the one member of the student council is like this pretty boy with a star on his face. He's kind of dictating it to this baseball captain looking guy who's kind of like the big goon and the student council president. She's also there, she's not doing much, but they're kind of just coming up with new rules and they're sending out to everyone saying like, hey, don't break shit. Don't use your powers on other people. Like all this other stuff just pretty much some basic rules of like you got to keep stuff in order. And they're saying to help out with this. We're also going to give chores for everyone just so we can help maintain this. Not as punishment, but just like no one wants to claim but you got and we're basically going to do this until help arrives, until someone comes to find us. In the meantime, we got an elected leader. So voting time. And they all put little papers in a box and they all vote for the leader. And they decide to all vote for this kid, big guy wearing a baseball cap. They just call him Cap or Captain or Baseball Cap. But he's just a big old dude. He seems nice. I think you find out he's actually not the leader. He's not the captain of the baseball anyway. He becomes the leader of the group. So he's walking around with the bad kind of enforcing stuff. And we see Nizumi with nagara asking about like, hey, don't you remember any strange occurrences happening at the school before this? Wasn't there these weird aurora fish in the sky and didn't a million yen appear in someone's locker out of nowhere? Yeah, I don't know. It's just like school stories.
Things happen.
It seems unrelated.
Yeah, why would you bring that up? And as they're talking to another kid runs in and he's like, hey, why aren't you guys cleaning? You're on the cleaning duty? They're like, what? Why? They're like, oh, you missed the group text. He's like, yeah, I didn't think I was involved so I didn't read it. No. And he tells them like, join the group text, see what your role is. And he asks Nazumi, he's like, what about you? She was studying abroad. She doesn't have a smartphone, so she never got the text. Good luck, you'll need it though. And then we see this one kid in a red shirt. His name is Asakazi.
I just call him Bad bowie.
Yeah, that works. We don't get his name till, like, episode three or something. He comes in all pissed off and like, hey, the fuck is this about? Like, we got superpowers and now you're punishing us for it? Like saying we can't use them and stuff. Are you just jealous because you don't have superpowers? And he's kind of chastising the student council for it. He's like, yeah, you're just jealous of it. Like, no, you can't just think your hot chick is all of a sudden you got power for no reason. It's like, we're not even in the real world, so it doesn't matter what power she can do here. And the student council president is kind of berating him about his powers. And he's like, oh, okay, my powers aren't real cool. And he starts using them, which appear on screen as like the whole screen gets, like fractal and different, like polygons. And he hears loud screeching while he's using them. And it's basically like a form of, like, telekinesis. And he starts breaking, like, window after window after window after window. And Cap gets up. He's like, hey, knock it off. He's like, no, what are you going to do? Like, you can't stop me. I have these powers now. And Cap says, like, oh, you're not going to follow the rules. I got to give you a penalty. So he points at meals penalty. And as the casa gets a black X over his face and then is compelled to do long division as his punishment.
Poor guy.
It looked like he was, like running out the decimals of pie. Like it was just an infinite number. And he was forced to write it out as much as he could. So that's his punishment. That's what happens when you break the rules and cats got to enforce them. And we see the student council eventually finds in azumi, who's just in the gym with theme park carousel. Just in the middle of the gym. It's like, yeah, okay, fucking why not?
Might as well be. Who knows? Maybe some kid manifested it there.
Yeah. And they're like, oh, sorry. You're not part of, like, the cleanup grill. Like, what happens? Like, oh, I don't have a smartphone. Like, oh, well, here you go. And they give her a smartphone. It's like, now you can join the text thread and help out everyone else. She's like, okay, cool. No, I don't want to do that. That sounds restrictive and boring and I don't feel like it. Well, you have to because we're creating this order. She's like, let everyone do what they want. We'll see. We'll see where it goes. Why why structure so much?
It's like, oh, sorry, did you not know I'm a libertarian, so you all can fuck yourself and I'll take care of myself.
Did you not notice my Pixie cut? I'm the manic Pixie dream girl. And smashes a cell phone, which she actually does. And she's like, thanks anyway. I'll see you guys and starts walking away and caps like, rule number three, kids. Joy school property penalty. She's like, whitty. Do you really think you really proud of that power of yours? And then we see a big black eggs go over her face. We cut to her, like, breathing heavy on the school floor, like, exhausted because her potential is running a laps around the school. And bad boy comes in complaining like, you guys also got punished by the student council. You think they're going to run this shit? Do you think they're so great we got to do something about it? He's got a few of the kids with them. And then we cut to one kid, rojani or Raj.
I just called him Raj.
Raj. He's one of my favorites. I love him. Yeah, we see him experimenting in a library, and he's, like, talking to himself and planning on what happened. He's very smart. And we see him just, like, draw a circle on his hand, put it into the void of the space, and then pull it back in. The circle he drew was gone. So he's, like, experimenting. Like, time doesn't seem to be moving any faster or slower or progressing at all. We still get hungry. We still get sleepy, but there's no real indication of time. We see one girl with, like, a broken arm, and he's like, she's never going to heal that arm because time is not progressing. So our bodies are healing. He's like, we also got these powers out of nowhere, and it looks like the school is sinking into the darkness. And then we cut back to a flashback of nakara talking with this homeroom teacher teacher saying, like, I'm here to help you if you need it. I know your mom's struggling a bit with this stuff, but let me know. We can help out and figure something out. And we see. Nazumi is also there getting some paperwork from a teacher in the teacher's lounge. And then it cuts to nagara walking up on the rooftop, and he just sees a bunch of papers flying about. And he looks over it's. Nazumi taking the textbook she got from the teacher, just ripping them up and throwing them. Why are you doing that? She's like, uh, it's fun. It's like, great sound logic. Can't argue with that.
She is very much a manic, pixie dream girl of just like, I do what I want because I'm quirky for.
The sake of angst.
And the guy was like, all right, I'm not going to do that. I got to be somewhere. Do you really have to be somewhere or just pretending like you're busy? Because I know a lot of people who pretend like they're busy all the time but don't actually have anywhere to go. And it's just a way to escape things. And he's like, cool, accurate. I'm trying to escape the situation right now and goes for the door, but the door is locked. She's like, hey, I'm trying to talk to you right now. Why are you trying to leave? That moment, we see, like, a big lightning bolt crash down, and it's the storm that sent them a direct hurt. So Raj is speculating that's what caused it. And then we see the rebel faction with the bad boy leading them going to the school office. And we see one girl's got a little electricity powers, and she kind of shorts out the lights of the school for a bit, and then they go into the main office, and they twist the whole school into this weird shape.
Mcscher.
That's it. I'm trying to think of an artist. It just turns into this weird, like, amorphous shape, and it cuts to them on the side of the roof or the side of the building, with the student council and basketball ball hoops tied up and being held captive. And they're like, oh, is this your plan? You want to overthrow the student council and start running things for yourself? And they're like, well, we figured it'd be better than how you guys are running things. Like, well, you're not the only one with powers. We see the student council president switching all three of the council with random objects, like, to escape from the basketball hoops. Turns out more powers than they realized. And while they're arguing back and forth, we see nazoomi once they get out of this world. She's talking with the garlic. We got to figure something out, because this is just yeah, it's effectively purgatory. It's like, this shit sucks. We got to try and do something and experiment, get stuff moving. So back up on the rooftop, the Caps dishing out penalties to the other two rebel gang members that use their powers to break the school. And he tries to give a penalty to the bad boy, and it doesn't work. And he's like, you always thought you were a hot shake because you're good at baseball, and people praise you for it, so you just coasted by on that and develop no real skills for yourself. That's not how the real world works. And, yeah, Cap tries to give him a penalty again, nothing happens. He's like, I didn't break any rules. I didn't use my powers, so I can't get a penalty.
Punish me because you don't like me.
Yeah. And we see him lift up like a chalkboard with a bunch of words and diagrams written on. He's like, the penalties aren't your power capped. This is the power of the world. We're in this world. That's that power. So anyone get to shut the penalties? It's not specific to you. Cap loses it. He's like, okay, well, I'm still the leader, so I still have to enforce the rules, and clocks him in the head with a baseball bat and just lays him out and when he's on the ground, he's like, oh, so the rules don't apply to you because you're the leader. And Caps like, yeah, I can do what I want because I'm the captain, so I have to enforce all the other rules by any means necessary. And as he's walking away, he's kind of clearly unhinged the pretty boy, starchild, from the student castle. He's like, no, you also got to follow the rules. Yeah, who's going to stop me? And starve kid gives Cap a penalty, which is forcing him to strip down naked and do squats around the school.
Embarrassing.
So even he's got to follow the rules. And the bad boy is like, oh, so anyone could have given out penalties. And starboy is like, yeah, but you didn't need to know that. You could have just show up and followed the rules, and we would have been fine here. But you just had to go and push him. And bad boy starts getting mad and using his powers. And then starboy is like, you can't just be whipped out powers left and right. You got no imagination. And then we get just a weird shot. I think this is Star boy's power because he sued a few times with him, but we get shots of just, like, a Grim reaper looking character with all the students turn into, like, dried husk or corpses and with a voiceover saying they can no longer go back to the world they came from. So I think he kind of, like, manipulates other people by showing them these, like, images and stuff, and he gives this weird sense of manipulation and controlling them. Yeah.
Later on in a different episode, he says his power was he heard a voice from God or something. So it seems to be like just being able to show people in their minds different images and talk to them telepathically or something along those lines.
So then while this is all going on, zumi and nagara get up to the rooftop, and she's reaching out to the light that she sees but no one else can see. And while she's reaching out, we see another feather fall down from the sky. She's like, there you go. Feather means the birds got to be around, which means there's got to be something around here. So got to go and just starts taking off and runs to the edge of the school and just leaps off into the void, into the abyss. And as she's falling, she gets caught by nagara, catches her at the last second. And while he's holding on, he's only onto, like, a rusty railing off the rooftop. And as he's holding, the weight of them both just snaps it, and they fall into the void. And as they're falling into the darkness, poof. They're in an ocean. The old school gets teleported to an ocean with an island nearby. That's episode one wild, and we don't have, like, an ending per se. It's just credits, but the ending song very good.
It sticks with so we start off episode two. Everyone has naturally moved away from the sinking school and set up shop on the island. And we see Nizumi found, like, a crab that she's like, yeah, this is our dinner.
But then lets it go.
Sure. And they see a kid that has flying powers come back who was out scouting just the world, see if they're on Earth or whatever. And he's like, no, it's just ocean. I think this is the only land. I think this is just another world that we're stuck in. So they're like, cool, at least we have solid ground that isn't sinking into an inky void. So we see a girl, she sneaks into the supply room, and she's like, oh, I see some makeup. I'm just going to steal it. No one sees me. Goodbye. Someone else did see. So they have, like, a big group meeting. Raj is like, hey, being the one science kid, I guess being the guy who knows all every kind of science, I've been trying to broadcast out, like, sos radio transmissions, but no one is responding. So it's safe to assume this is another dimension. As we've been exploring the school, we found there are different pathways, different portals. Basically, we found one that gave us an island, so we kept looking for more. And essentially there are different dimensions, but some of them are beyond the comprehension of humans. Some are just, like, very just abstract and just completely uninhabitable by humans. So those ones we know we can't go into. But since we already entered one world, there has to be more out there and potentially a way back. So you got to keep looking. And they also figured out that time works differently in the worlds because the school is technically still its own separate world where time resets. After a certain period of time, they establish that their food supplies and the school keep replenishing, so they scarcity, don't have to worry about it. Great. So things work differently. They're still trying to figure out the island's rules, but as of now, they're like, okay, this works. We'll figure some stuff out. This episode just keeps cutting around, so it's going to be a little bit jumbled. Please excuse me. I am translating as well as I can. So we see the girl that stole the makeup. She's in, like, her own little hut. And the lipstick, it catches fire. This big blue flame just sparks out of it and burns down her hut. What happened? What could have done this? She doesn't say anything, doesn't want to admit she's a thief. So we get what I thought was a flashback, because naturally, a mansion just doesn't exist on this island, right?
Why not?
It's wilderness, apart from this mansion. So I was like, oh, okay, we're seeing, like, back before the rift happened, right? No, this is in sequence. So we see a girl, the girl who saw the lipstick thief. Her name in my notes is somewhere. It is everywhere, but my eyes aren't locking on it.
Yes.
Her power is that she can just manifest things. She can just pull stuff out of thin air. So I guess she built herself a mansion at this point. Wasn't established. So cool. So we see our main boy, nagata. He goes up and talks to her through the gate and is like, hey, so about earlier in the forest, never mind, goodbye, doesn't really establish anything, but Mizuho has a cat that disappears. She was feeding him as he was on the intercom. So cats missing, that is about as much context as we had. So that made as much to you the list as it did to us.
The watchers at the beginning of this episode, we see him watching her burn a tree or see if that's what he thinks he sees.
Yeah, she's standing in front of a giant sort of gnarly tree and it's in that blue fire.
Okay. So I sorry missed that. And that was a big pivotal point. So cool. Great. Doing great.
That's okay.
Yeah. So it seems like she has firepowers. Right? Cool.
Or something.
Yeah, that's the page we're on. All right, so there's more fires that just keep popping up. And nagata, he's like, yeah, so I saw Mizuho around a burning tree. I don't know if she found it or all that stuff. He just says like, yeah, I saw Mizuho around a fire to another kid he was on building detail with. So that kid is like, oh, shit, mizuho is starting all the fires, right? And just starts spreading the rumor of like, yes, she is definitely responsible. We have an eyewitness that she had a flamethrower and was just out in the woods just burning shit. And nagata is like, no, I didn't say that. No, that's objectively wrong. But it's already out of his hands. He unleashed the beast and it's gone. Now we get an actual flashback, I guess.
Sure.
Yeah. So we see Mizuho has some sort fuck. God damn. Just talking about this is so hard.
It's a lot.
Excuse me. As I try to find my footing. So we get a flashback of starkid and the student council president, and starkid is like, yes, I went through the records. I found this thing, proof of something. So apparently what he found was like an online record of Mizuho sort of like talking shit about the student council president.
So what happened is starboy and student council president did rig the election for her to win. And Mizuho thinks that that happened, so she's posting about it online. So starboy is like, I found the person who's posting about it online. That's what happened.
Okay.
He used his grandfather's lawyer to send cease and desist or something to unarchive, like, the exact username who was doing it at the school. So. She makes a comment of, like, the privileged class is able to access stuff that us commoners can. How blessed.
Okay. I was already so lost in continuity with this episode that just apparently any, like, relevant details that actually helped me in understanding this, I just glossed over. Great. Glad it's a me problem. So, yeah, we get that flashback, and they confront her and say, like, hey, you're spreading lies. And she's like, no, it's not a lie. I'm not making this up. I just think it happened. And they're like, you have to take back your word. And she's like, no, I'm not going to lie about lying. So we see the main nagata and Nizumi. They find, like, an injured seagull, and they're like, oh, this is, like, the day that we disappeared. Remember, nagata, you ignored a hurt bird. This is all your fault.
No. Be kind to all animals. Said nozomi.
Yeah, you walked into a school and saw a dying bird. The fact that you didn't drop everything and nurse bird back to health, like, misery style, you're a criminal and should be in jail.
Yeah. They bring the seagull back into the school where time resets. So they're like, oh, it'll heal. It's like, yes. In this context, that works. Back in real school where that bird died, I couldn't have worked. So what did you want me to do?
Because he even says, yeah, the rule I was taught, like, if you don't know what you're doing, don't try to intervene. You know how medicine works.
You can make it worse.
Yeah. Oh, this bird just needs some good homeopathic medicine that'll save you. Oh, no, I killed it. Oh, I should have just left it there for potentially someone else to save it.
Shit.
So mizuho again has a mansion because she can yeah. So she's, like, walking back there, but a group confronts her because words spread around, and they're all like, oh, yeah, Mizaho is starting all these fires. Got to tell her to cut it out. And the starkit is like, yeah, you got to change your attitude. You're doing all this stuff, blah, blah, blah. And she's like, no, I'm giving you so many things. Why would I just immediately light it all on fire that doesn't make sense and is just defending, like, yeah, I'm not the cause of every fire. Some maybe, yeah, but not all of them. What?
Also, she orders everything off. Nanazon legally dissimilar brand name check.
So in one of the wreckages of one of the fires that they find, someone found, like, an actual working Game Boy that didn't burn in the fire. So it was brought to Raj, who is just, like, investigating and trying to figure stuff out. So he's talking with Nizumi, and they're just discussing all of the stuff going on. He's like, okay, so I think I figured out a new rule. So this Game Boy was paid for. This wasn't something that just was manifested and then taken for granted. This was something that was traded for, and therefore, it didn't burn in the fire. So nizumi. Take this. Not Mario leaf. It's the tanoki leaf from Mario. Don't worry.
Not at all.
So she picks it up, and weird, gets a tanuki tail and ears. Okay, sure. But they immediately start catching fire, and raja is like, don't worry. The fire is not actually real. It seems like fire, but it won't actually hurt or burn you. So we don't have to worry about dying in flames.
But it's still hot. Still hot as hell, but it doesn't burn.
Yeah. You being a human being with instinct. Yeah. You're like, oh, fire badge, get away. But you're not actually in any danger.
We all saw avatar Blue fire is cool.
Yeah. But he's like, so I figured out this is another rule of this island. This island doesn't want us to just take things. It wants us to buy things. That's right. Nature wants us to have capitalism, baby. That's what nature really wants.
Ridiculous.
I think the most absurd thing I watched, he drew a qr code on a chalkboard.
So yeah, he uncovered this rule. So it turns out these fires are caused by people taking things that don't actually rightfully belong to them. I eat the lipstick and stuff and doesn't happen if you actually earn or trade or purchase the things that you're getting. Back to mizo, she's, like, looking for her missing cat, and people start throwing rocks through her window because they all think she started all the fires and isn't owning up to it.
Good old fashioned witch hunt.
So she's like, all right, if you're going to mess with me, I'll mess with you, and just makes a bunch of money in the sky that just rains down. Just bundles of cash, just like, stacks of thousands falling out of the sky. And everyone's like, oh, shit. Free money. They got to start taking this stuff I didn't earn. So weird. All that money catches on fire wow. And burns down the entire island. Great.
Rad.
So nagata finds mizuho's cat, who is hurt, and he finds it, and he's like, all right, I feel bad for starting this rumor that led to a literal witch hunt, so let me take the cat back as, like, an apology. I'll give it back and say I'm sorry and own up to what I did. So he finds her and gives the cat back and is like, hey, the reason people are after you is because of me. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen. I just saw you around a flame, and people assumed and oh, weird, the cat isn't hurt anymore because he apologized.
The magic of friendship.
Great. So she like, seeing this, and it's like, oh, great. Awesome. Thank you. All right, I know what I need to do now. And calls like, everyone together has a big meeting is like, hey, sorry, everyone. I am both the cause and not the cause of the fires. It was just a very confusing moment where she's like, hey, I'm sorry things got out of hand. Like, my powers were too much. But also, I firmly deny doing most of these fires. Just some of them.
I did the big fire, but not all the other ones.
Yeah, so Raj is like, all right. On that note, speaking of stopping these fires, I have a new system for us all. So since I now know this and I'm telling you all now that stealing is fire, I'm going to invent an app that is now ready for all of your phones. Because, again, I'm a web developer. I'm the science guy. I can just do whatever I want.
He's real smart. He knows all.
I invented bitcoin. He sure did.
He invented cryptocurrency. I was like, what the fuck, man? You're kidding.
He's like, all right, now whenever you need something, we now have a system. Weird. Digital currency is bullshit. We all know that, right? But it will still appease the island because we're saying it's currency, even though.
We all know it's bullshit.
But we can stop the fires now. Isn't that great? And then we see Nasami later on. She's like, I think I see something the way I thought I saw something in the school, which turned out to be the exit. I think I do have a power. I think I'm some sort of compass to find the next way we have to go. And it's almost like everyone has a power. Some of them just don't know it yet. But no one's going to acknowledge that. And that's where we end episode two.
So at the beginning of episode three, nagara, nozomi, and the bad boy are in the bathroom in the school, and Nagara goes into a new world that's just red liquid, and then they pull him back out. So they're exploring these portals that they're finding around the school.
Just one hell of a swirling the red rum room.
They go back to Raj, and he asks what it was like. nozomi says, oh, if bad boy wasn't there, nagara wouldn't have made it back. We had to pull him back out. And they're talking about how that's the 13th portal that he's found this week. But that must be a coincidence, right? Like, it's not all agara. We're finding these together.
He's just the only guy who happens to be looking. Everyone else is so busy with their powers. With no powers, it's fine.
Everyone else found portals on their own, right?
No.
And Raj has been trying to figure out nozomi's compass power. He's like, having her describe the light that she sees, but they don't know what it is, and it stays the same distance away, even if they have bad boy, like, fly closer to it. And again, nozomi is the only one that sees it, but she's like, sure that it exists and that maybe it'll lead them home. And bad boy gets contemplative and he's like, what are these worlds that we're finding? And who gave them powers? How do we get these powers? Then we see a boy who is he's like in the middle of the jungle. And he's like silhouetted. His entire body is black except for his clothes. And he's like bending over to pick up an airpod.
Oh, she's got his AirPods in. He doesn't know.
And it turns out that he went missing and then he was found like that. So he's just like frozen somehow. And they're at a meeting discussing it and they're like, oh, maybe it's like a new rule in this world. Or maybe it's somebody's power. We don't really know. Things are cropping up all of the time. And then a boy raises his hand and he's like, oh, hey, actually I know somebody who went missing about a week ago also. And the student council president is like, why didn't you fucking say that before? And she's like, okay, so we need to investigate that student's disappearance and also why this kid might be frozen. And at this point, mizuho has shown up 15 minutes late with starbucks. And the student council president kind of looks to her being like, hey, maybe you should do this. And she's like, I don't want to. And she's like, okay, then let's vote on it. And she's like, okay, fine, fuck it. I'll do it.
Everyone's going to vote for me.
I don't trust you, so I didn't.
Even think of that. That's a good point.
Yeah. And she's like, okay, so can I have an assistant? And so she brings Nagara along and they're out with the frozen kid. And she gets really close to him and she can hear him talking as if he's live streaming. So she's like, what the heck? So they go to try to find the other person who went missing and they find him in a cave frozen as well, the same way. And they can hear him too, but it sounds like he's working out. Like he's like, one, two, three. Like that kind of thing. So they try to figure out what these guys have in common and why they'd freeze like that. And she has produced this couch and they're chilling and she's like, don't get me wrong, I'm the boss. You're the assistant. And he's just like, whatever, I don't care. She gets some kind of food delivered and she can give people things. And if she says like, this is on me or this is my treat, it doesn't matter. It won't burn. So he's like, you should just be giving things to people. I don't understand why you're not doing that. And she's like, no, I don't want to.
Yeah, system with no scarcity. You should just be giving all the people who need things things but Wild don't wanna okay, all right.
Bitcoin the way I think about it is like because she's very much like, I mean, this is how it was in our old world. And he's like, but it doesn't have to be like that. And she's like, Get over it. So it's just a bunch of teenagers being like, this is just how it is, and it's all we know.
Yeah, capitalism worked great on Earth.
Let's try it again.
Let's just do exactly what we were doing before, right?
I will say if someone threw a bunch of rocks at me and split open my skull and tried to burn me and my cats alive, I probably wouldn't give them much aid.
That's true.
So they go around the island asking people if they know anything about these kids that are missing. They're all working, like planting things and building stuff. And there's one guy who says that he wants to be friends with mizuho.
She says, no, shut that shit down.
And this whole time she has her cats in like this tote bag that she carries around. And negara is like, Why are they there? Why do you have cats with you? And she's like, oh, they're my grandmas. Because she ended up in a home and no one else wanted them and she's just a freak. So she brought them to school.
Hell yeah.
While they're talking, she also very casually mentions that her power started before they went adrift, but she could only do it at the school. So she's like, probably other people could too, and they're just not saying anything. And then we see a very quick flashback of Star boy looking at a test or something when a voice tells him about a power that he can only use at school. So that's a little hint about things dugan was talking about earlier. And also that he started developing his power before they went to drift.
I'll be honest, I already forgot about what I talked about earlier.
Great. I'll get to it. So then we see him starboy examining the frozen guy in the cave. Knows when he joins him, she's worried about what's been going on. What's going on with all of these rules? It really feels like someone is testing us. And he always has this weird look in his eye. So she's like, you knew? You knew we were going to go adrift. And we see a flashback again of that same moment where someone is telling him that just like this deep voice in his head. And he's honest and he says, yes. He says, there's a voice in my head that tells me what's going to happen before it does.
How did you know? Because you're a smuggle of shit with this shit eating grin on your face all the time.
Yeah, it's not like you've been set up to be the villain since your literal introduction in episode one.
Nah, it's not like you stare into camera with that vacant look in your eyes. So Raj and the bad boy are saying that they haven't this is separate from this a different scene. They're saying they haven't found any portals since Nagara has been gone. And Bad Boy is like, it's just unlucky. We've just been unlucky. But it's been three days. So mizuho and Nagara are still trying to figure out what's going on. The student council president is upset and she's like, you've been at this for a few days now. Do you have anything to show for it? And their current theory is that the people who went missing are weirdos no one cares about. And they think that it might be somebody's power. So turns out they've made a list of everyone's powers. So they go ask the guy who made the list if they can see it. He's talking about how some of them are really simple, others are really complex. They say that he gave himself an A rating in his book. And they're like, well, what can you do? And he's like, I can make my finger glow like in Et. And they're like, that's an A rank.
Yeah, we got grounds enough to dismiss. Like, all right, we got a list of powers, but we can't trust that this might all be bullshit because this guy's an idiot.
Even in there, they don't find anything that corresponds to this freezing stuff. So Bad Boy goes to them and tells Nagara that they definitely don't need him for the portal stuff and that even nozomi said so Nagara is just like, okay, well that's fine. If you don't need me, then I won't help you.
Guess I'll fuck off then.
Yeah, this is so funny. This fucking Bad Boy kid is just like probably has a crush on nose of me and is just like, yeah, we don't need you. And she's the one who said it. So she doesn't take your breath stinks.
And you don't have style. How do you.
It'S moments like these that really help to just find herself. Like, what a shitty character. Oh, yeah. He's like 15.
These are children.
These are actual children.
Anytime they have a bad opinion or do something stupid, I'm like, these are children and fending for themselves. Of course they're going to stuck.
Also, there's a walking research lab who can just make any technology who wants.
Yeah, but he doesn't talk to anybody. He also has bad ideas because he said, let's do capitalism again.
True. They're all idiots. That's the secret.
Even if they seem smart, they're doing better than Lord Of.
Aren't all teenagers that way?
Yeah.
So they get an alert that there's another frozen kid. mizuho asks Nagara what the bad boy was talking to him about. And he was like, yeah, it's nothing. She gets upset. At this point, they're back with the student council and they're just kind of talking and she gets upset and she's like, oh, you want to beat him up? And he's like, I mean, even if I did, I wouldn't win that fight. Oh, no. Just kidding. They're not back with the student council yet. They're with the new kid that's frozen. So while they're having this conversation, the world around them closes, like, curtains, and they're all black, and they're, like, on a stage, and they move through the curtains, and they see a couch, and there's a kid laying on it, just scrolling through his phone. He's surprised to see them, and it's the missing boy they were just with. He was, like, sitting on a log. He says, no one cares about me. I don't want to go back there. Nagara asks how he got there. He says, I was just thinking about how I'd had enough, and I opened my eyes and I was here. They move through the curtain some more. They find the boy who's live streaming, please.
Pacman.
Live streaming.
Pacman. The most riveting entertainment.
Hey, guys. Welcome back to my stream.
I could probably find you twelve people doing it on twitch right now.
I think it's pink main.
Originally. paku paku. Yeah, we all saw Scott pillow.
So there's another girl there. She's, like, making a bunch of, like, sewing crafts and the boy who was exercising, but none of them want to go back because they all like being alone here. They leave this weird space, and they figure it's just another rule of this world. And then they report back to the student council, and the president asks if they can get them out, but they don't want to. mizuho suggests that they lure them out with stuff, and if that doesn't work, take them by force. But Nagara is like, no, we shouldn't do that. mizuho gets upset and says it's no wonder nozomi wanted to give up on you. And then he gets upset, and then they argue, and he accuses her of lying about using her powers before going adrift, and that she just wanted to seem more important and more powerful and that she should be giving things away for free. And she gets very upset, goes quiet, says Die, and goes away. So Nagara goes back to the portal team and knows him. He tells him that it hasn't been going well. Bad boy can't find anything. And at this point, she's like, I wish you would come back. And he's just like, okay, so we're cool. Bad Boy just sucks. She asks how his and mizuho's investigation is going, and he explains what they found, talks about the place with all the curtains, and Raj is surprised to hear that he found a portal in this world and not in the school. And it turns out that they actually found this place before, and Nagara had just forgotten they found it in the closet in the school. So mizuho is back at her own place, and he texts her apologizing and saying that they should get back on it tomorrow, and then it's the next day. We see. He has these little device dogs that sniff out the people. I don't know, but I love them. They're like slinky dogs.
Yeah. raj's superpower is he can really just make anything.
But not, like, Mizaho's power, where she can just make anything. He can just make it anything. They're totally separate powers. Don't worry about it.
She can make real world stuff that they know about. He can make fantastical nonsense, bullshit devices that do whatever he wants. I always like them because they're always, like, bright technocolors, and sometimes they have a white outline around them, so they're really clear which ones are his. But they're charming.
Yeah. So they go into the portal, and they use this big giant fan to blow all the curtains away. And in nagara's head, he's saying, like, oh, these people were excluded by the island itself. Like, it was one of the rules to get rid of people who are or feel excluded. So they break the people out of the place, and all of the black curtains just kind of fall to the ground on the island. And once they're finished with that, nagara apologizes to mizuho, like, in person, and she stops him and says, no, that fight was both our fault. We shouldn't have argued. I am also sorry.
Character girl.
Wow. Bad Boy is in the school looking out at it all. Wow.
I have no character girls for him.
No. Raj and Nosumi are looking at the mound of curtains left behind, and Bad Boy, I guess he joins them, and he says the portal is gone. Oh, no. He texts Raj and says that the portal is gone from the school to raj wonders how they found the portal in the first place on the island. And of course, this is when nazomi is like, I think it's probably negara's power. Like, he can travel to new worlds, and all of the portals are his doing. Like, they're not just showing up. He is the one who's making them happen. Then we see the student council president. She's messing with one of the black curtains, and she's transported to the stage area and then to another place. It's also a jungle, but it looks really different. Not really different, but different colors. And we see Starboy speaking to, like, a solar eclipse in a black void, and he just wonders out loud, a savior. I wonder who could that be? And then that's the end of episode three ominous foreboding.
I hope any of this made sense, to if it didn't, can't blame you. Sorry.
This is another show where taking notes on it is difficult because it's a lot of talking, and it's all very visual, and it's weird things going on, so it's annoying for us to have to take notes and not just pay attention to what's happening, and it's hard to convey when talking about it.
Yeah, there's a lot of scene transitions that aren't clear. Like duggan said, with some of the flashbacks in other parts of the island. Without knowing the rest of the island, it's not clear if that's another part or the present, but the future present. And it's tough, but it doesn't help my case. But I will say, watching this the second time, I definitely picked up on a lot more because I was like, even with the whole election thing, I was like, oh, I didn't catch that the first time through. Got you.
Yeah. This show immediately was appealing to me because something we always talk about is shows, like, really hammering home. Well, we need to just explain all these concepts and just verbalize it. And as you know, Dave just, like, really exposition heavy. I really liked the start of this, where it was like, yeah, we're starting. The school is already swallowed by the void. We don't need to set up all the dynamics of these characters before. And then, oh, no, what happened? We just immediately start out, yeah, school got eaten. sucks. School got eat to figure this out. I loved that aspect of it, but then I lost.
Then the rest of the show happened.
Yeah, the rest of the show happened. I was like, oh, cool. They're setting up like a Lord of the Flies thing. Right. And then weird superpower inconsistencies and just like, weird time stuff. And it's like, no, there's also supernatural elements and all that sort of stuff. And a show endorsing capitalism that's immediately a no in my book. Yeah, it was it was rough because immediately I was like, oh, yes, we cut through the stuff that annoys us, but then we didn't have any explanations for anything. I'm like, oh, no, I see why it's necessary.
Yeah. Doubled the drawback of just show and no tell.
Yeah, it was rough because, like, a lot of the elements I liked, like, the first episode was very beautiful. Like like, even that was inconsistent, where episode one, they had a lot of detail in, like, close ups and stuff. A lot of the animation seemed like rotoscoped and just had, like, a very unique style. But at the same time, anything that wasn't like a close up, like, they didn't draw the detail on people's faces to the point where a character was speaking in episode three, but you just don't see her face because she is, like, far enough from the camera that they were like, yeah, we don't need a draw face. So I don't know, there's just a lot of weird inconsistencies that felt strange to me. I mean, it seems to go with the show. It seems like there's a lot I just am not comprehending currently. But yeah, it felt like it was trying to do a lot, and it seemed like it wanted to say a lot, but also, I don't know, it's a no for me. It was just too over my head.
Yeah. What about you, D?
I liked it a lot. I didn't have that much trouble following what was going on for whatever reason. I guess because I don't know, just the way it is set up, where it's just like, yeah, this is just fucking happening. And we're finding out things as they happen. It doesn't bother me that they do some wild shit, especially with someone whose ability is literally just to manifest anything. Like if Raj is smart enough and I'm just like, sure he is. He understands alternate realities. I'm like, sure, he can build stuff, whatever.
I trust him. He's a good man.
Yeah, I guess I'm kind of just on board for anything. So I don't know, I feel like some stuff I don't know, whatever's happened so far, it doesn't feel out of left field for me. I'm just kind of like, yeah, sure. So I'm really intrigued. I'll probably finish it since it's only twelve episodes and I really enjoyed it.
Real quick since you said that. That sort of gave me vocabulary to explain why I wasn't a big fan. I feel like with the things just coming out of left field, I feel like the show tries to set up like, okay, there is some sort of internal logic here. We're going to figure it out. Raj is on the case of like, okay, time works differently. We're trying to chart that stuff, but then we just have unexplained things happen. And then they're like, yeah, don't worry about it. So I feel like if they went with sort of like a hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy of like, oh yeah, there's nonsense for the sake of nonsense, and we're just going to acknowledge it. I'd be like, Cool, yeah, fine. But since they're like, no, there has to be a reason. There has to be a logic here, but also this just happens and we're not going to address it, but there has to be logic for all these other things happening and like, you can't really have your cake and eat it too, in that sense. Sorry, you just inspired me to verbalize it better.
I would disagree with that because it's not so much we have a clear point of logic here. We can deduce the puzzle and the physics of the world and abstract insanity over here. And I think they can work because we see the different groups working out on their own pace. Some of them are finding the throughpoints through it and what connects what to each other and others don't. And there's going to be a lot of it where it's like, yeah, the bad boy, he's kind of got telekinesis, but also not like he can fly into stor reality and stuff. They turn the whole school into an Mcscher painting. Like it's not super clear, but they're also not really giving us clear distinction of like, raj can build zero point 25 objects per day. This is a limit. And they don't map that all out. It's just like. Shit's happening. You kind of we don't we're figuring out as we go and there isn't really logic to it other than the logic we're putting it to it.
I get what dugan is saying in terms of like, oh, they really want to figure out the rules of each universe and the time that's working and why things are happening. But at the same time, it seems like some people just have limitless powers and that feels a little disjointed. So I understand that. But I also am really looking forward to seeing the star boy just fucking lose his mind at some point. It's got to happen. And I really want to see that because I love characters that kind of just go nuts. And he very much has the potential for that, hearing pretty much God's voice in his head. So, yeah, I liked it.
Even with all the super powers, if someone's like, yeah, I hear the voice of God telling me what to do, like, I'm going to take ten steps.
Back from you, bug one, you can tell, like, he's a sociopath. He's like running this show, but you can also just see the vacantness in his eyes of like, there's something unhinged in there. He's just going to snap at some point.
Yeah.
He'll break someone's neck and not even flinch. He's definitely got some sociopathic tendency.
Yeah. So definitely an interesting program.
Yeah. I think I was on the same point with duggan with episode one when I first watched it. And then yeah, like D when I was just like, fuck it, let's just go for this. Let's just strap in and go for the ride. I really enjoyed it. It became a very fun, entertaining show. I couldn't tell you any underlying themes. My critical brain was just shut off. But I did very much enjoy the show. I ended up watching.
It. It's early to talk about what it might be, but I think it's just about like teenagers, which is a broad thing to say, but in my head it's just like teen issues and it's manifesting in a weird way and they're going to figure it out. So I don't know if anyone comes.
To me with any theories of what the underlying things are, I'm going to agree with you because I just disagree. It could be anything. I don't know. I've accepted that. Yeah.
Because it seems like first one, they're like, we're in a world with no rules. We got to find some sort of society. It's like, yeah, social commentary great. And then they're like, no, we just got superpowers. We're going to burn stuff and make our own currency and stuff. I don't know. And then the third one is just like, yeah, we're going to get real deep into society. The first two were about setting basics of governance and currency. And now it's about social isolation. I'm like, I was seeing things on.
The micro scale where it was like, the second one was about mizuho and the student council president and their issue and how that blew up into what happened in the second episode. And then the third one is about teenagers who feel excluded and fixing that. So it's all a matter of perspective. And yeah, I think it's easy to not like this show. And I think it's also if you're intrigued by it, you're going to like it. And I am one of those people.
Yeah, I saw this more of a character piece of a show about the character for that than the world building, because there's a lot of different worlds. nagara found like 14 of them, or whatever the physics of the world is.
To build in twelve episodes.
Yeah. So, like, the physics of the world, I'm like, you just got to go with it because it's just about the character interaction stuff, which I really enjoyed.
Yeah.
But, yeah, it's a fun time, especially for twelve episodes. Like bite size. It doesn't overstay it's. Welcome. It's great.
All right. A lot to unpack. My brain is still reeling. I got to just lie down and like the start of the show, I just got to lie down and stare at a ceiling for a little bit.
It all comes back.
Oh, that's a purpose. I get it. Now, if there's a show you would like us to stare at the ceiling and think about, you can send those recommendations to us. Our email is arwibariat@gmail.com or you can reach out to us on Twitter or Instagram at arweebeveryette on both. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Mr. Patrick dugan.
You can find me on Instagram at honey. Period. D and on Twitter at honey. D eight and honey. D art and Honey is spelled H-U-N-N-I-E.
You can find me on Twitter at aBTS brandon not a lot going on there. Instead, I recommend checking out your local Thai cuisine place that shit's tasty support small business.
Thank you to camille ruley for her artwork, and thank you to Louisong for themed song stories. You can find all of louie's music at louisong. Bamcamp.com. Thank you, and we hope you'll join us next week as we learn to live with anime.
Time to drift into the void.
The void she calls mapel duvey.
Key you.