No way, Jose. Hello, and welcome to our week There yet an exploration and edge education and anime. I'm your anime idiot, patrick dugan.
I'm an anime expert, dana hollander.
And I'm brenda mccullough, your anime Jersey devil in an aim chatroom about foraging.
We got to find that devil.
Don't look too hard, because it might all just be a sham for where the mobsters bury the bodies. Jersey pine baron. There's a lot of dead people in there.
I don't know what to say. A chat room about foraging sounds something I'd be into.
I mean, if I found some good.
Mushrooms out in the woods.
If you want to be hitting up anyone about foraging, it's a cryptic because it's like they're out there all the time.
That's true.
Bigfoot knows where those good berries are. And he also knows where those good berries are.
No. The ones that will kill you.
Yeah. The sweet release of death, those berries.
I don't know what this has to do with the show we're watching other than a chat room. Oh, wait, no.
What?
I'm getting it. That happened. We're there. That's not over, everybody.
We solved the mystery going on.
Guys. Thank you. It's a snow day for me, I guess. Go home and sleep. Thank you to camille Ruley for our kids.
We're still not up top. No.
What do we have going on?
I say it because the show we're watching is Do RA. That classic catchphrase, that colloquialism that we all know.
It rolls off the top.
Yeah, the catchy title, ralls off the Top.
Sometimes it's abbreviated to just it's a good show I watched way back when, and it's on. I think the two seasons are on Netflix, and I think there's a season three that isn't. I don't know if it's dubbed or if it's just not on Netflix. Okay, cool.
And do you have what year this came out?
Research. You expect me to do research on my own?
Should I'm? Pretty sure I watched it in middle school or early high school.
2010.
Yeah.
Got you.
And it's one of those where each season kind of has a different name. So season two is, like, Du rahra, like Edo or like, Du rahra something rasonic sonic. Yes. Du rahra and du Ravara x two. And then, like, X two is broken up into three different segments.
Sounds like an anime already.
Yeah. So the most recent one was 2006, and the first one was 2010. So it's like a six year span.
I'm sorry.
That 2016.
2006 was the most recent one.
Oh, sorry. Yeah, 2016 all over the place. 2016. Yeah.
Do you smell toast straight now?
I do, but it's because my roommate's making raisin bread.
Oh, okay.
Are you sure of that?
Do you want to go check?
It's either that or I'm having a delightful stroke, in which case I'll just ride it out. Just ride this baby out. See where this takes.
Pleasant way to go. You mentioned you've watched bits and where do you all stand with this show?
I remember watching it and I think probably thinking it wasn't for me. But I had friends that liked it, so I think that's why I watched it. Definitely didn't finish it.
I think I just stumbled across it on Netflix. Or maybe you have just caught a glimpse of it, like, here and there on the Internet. And then I picked it up and started watching it, and none of my friends watched it, so I was on my own. And then when they did watch it, they didn't like it, which made me double it down much harder. So I watched all of it.
Oh, no. This is not bearing well for me. Both of you have are saying, ha ha. A lot of people don't like it. Do.
Robert armand. It's digima. digima, part two.
This is something when I was interning at the studio, I don't know what season of this show was being worked on, but some form of it was being at the time. So I have that peripheral. I know it exists, but that's about as far as I got.
I believe it was actually started as a light novel, which is different from mango, where it's just straight up a book, like a novel, and then every seven pages has a picture or something. So there's much more light novels that I do not feel like reading because too many words get me tired.
Great.
There he is. There's our man.
A sleep boy winner. Yeah. So I enjoy the series. It's not an ironic joke series like some of my other shows, like most of your shows. And just because I have bad tastes and stuff doesn't mean it's a joke.
I take this very seriously.
I very much enjoy it. I think there will be things you enjoy. But I'll also warn you, there's a lot of character, so it might get confusing.
Oh, boy.
Yeah. I cannot wait. That's a preface to have.
All right, well, we are watching the first three episodes. Do RA, you want to watch this with me now?
I don't.
That was that was sweaty.
Me either. Goodbye, everyone. What happens these episodes?
Oh, you know, it's a sports anime. bicycles are spawned at this point.
If they dropped in some sports stuff, I would not be surprised.
It's a sharcootery board of anime. We just get a whole bunch of shit. You can pick what you like. You can leave some of the others. The candles edible for some fucking reason. I've seen a few reports. I'd try to sell you on that and it's like, cool. It doesn't taste good.
Meat.
Anything'S edible. Enjoy everything's edible at least once.
I'm sorry.
It doesn't mean you should eat.
That sounds like something someone would say in a fan fiction. Like, instead of penis.
His dingle dangle his meatbangle.
Try and say anything other than penis. This is irrelevant.
Dripping wax meat candle. I'm using that.
I'm writing that down.
Please don't. Please do not.
Taking notes for my next fanfic.
Oh, do not send it to me, please.
I want nothing to do with this. Jesus. Okay, Dewarra, let's get into this. There's a lot going on. If our recap sounds all over the place, the show kinds all over the place, going to give that warning right now. It jumps around. So we got to run one of the rare instances where we get the opening in the first episode, usually we get a cold opening and this goes right into the opening. This opening is a fucking banger. It's a bop and a half. I got it on my ipod. Fucking love this song.
It's pretty good.
I just need to dwell on every time you bring up that you still use an ipod. I just need to live in that moment for a little bit.
Get that genuine ipod nano, 14 years strong.
Oh, wow.
It's older than some of our listeners. You think so? I hope not. I say a lot of horrible things.
Yeah, I hope our audience is older than that. Right?
In.
Children should not be here. We talked about meat candles.
It says explicit for a reason.
That laugh peeked in my headphones.
Anyway, so we get the opening, and it's just a pretty standard opening of just, like, all the characters. And it's good in Japanese because it says all the character names. It's bad in the dub because it doesn't if they don't translate the names.
For the first season dubs, you're watching because every time I watch a dub, you get the subtitles for the text.
I did not have it either.
And I watched your guys'dubs.
We got that back alley dub. I'm sorry.
It was on Netflix. That shady, shady vendor netflix. Honestly, though, because I watched the rest of it the second season, they do have the names translated. I'm just not sure why they didn't do it for the first one. I guess they didn't think you'd be that popular. So opens up with narration over some of the city scape shots. You just get, like, some of the slice of life of the city. And a few of the shots are following this motorcyclist who's wearing all black with his yellow helmet with some cat ears on it. It's become a very iconic look after the series. And we see the main character presumably just standing in a subway, and he's kind of overwhelmed and he's new to the sea. And we find out his name is mikoto. Yeah. No, I'm battery.
I wrote it down.
Mikado. mikado. Emphasis on that egg. mikado. I like the series. You wouldn't know it by how I pronounce some of these names. And this is the first time he's ever been outside of his hometown. He didn't go on all those field trips like everyone else. I guess he's just a homebody. They never give a reason for that. And he's in Tokyo because he transferred to a new school in the city. Check student. And as he's there, fumbling around kind of nervously, like, oh man, see how to overwhelmed by the city. It's so big. There's a lot of people and this is actually a thing I really enjoy with this anime. It's in a city with a ton of people and you actually see it versus a lot of anime where it's like, hey, we don't feel like drawing all these unnecessary background characters. And it's just a massive city, but so empty all the time. This is one where you actually see a lot of the city life around everybody all the time.
But a lot of background characters are drawn in grayscale because they're like, well, we'll animate people in, but we're not.
Going to color them. Yeah, there's not as much detail, but I still like that they show them like the city's lived in. It's not just this weird, barren wasteland with just main characters.
I like that they're not colored also because then you know that they're not important.
Yeah, it's not distracting. And as he's kind of overwhelmed, the buddy of his runs up and greets him. It's old, god, why can't I read masaomi? I know these characters. masaomi is his best friend from way back in the day. And they're reconnecting because they used to talk all the time. He used to be best friends. And then masaomi moved, so they lost contact for a bit. And now he's seeing him again. And mikado is kind of surprised because he's like, oh, wow, masaomi, you look you look pretty different. City city life's had an effect on you. And he's like, oh, weird, because you look exactly the same. mecado? Yeah, country boy. Don't change it if he doesn't need to.
I ain't seen any new stuff in 40 years. What's this big metal snake going through a train, you say?
I dare say my own mind. As they're walking out of the subway, my zone is just telling them different stuff. I was like, yeah, we're supposed to be going east into the city, but we're not going to take the east exit. We're going to take this exit so we get a better view. He's just talking about all this different stuff and all these different tricks of the city of like, oh, you got to watch out with this on the subway, or like, like make sure you do that. And just teaching the country bumpkin the way it is. The country mouse. And while he's talking to mikado, we get a jump cut to just a chat room. And this is kind of a Greek course. We see a lot through to this show, and it's a way of having the different characters to interact but not knowing there are those different characters because everyone's got a screen name, so it's not watching the show. You can piece together who these characters are, but it's not very clear right away. And they don't know who they are either. Like, they don't know who the people they're talking to are at first.
We just not super clear in general.
Yeah, it doesn't get easier. I'm aware.
I'm grateful that in episode two, the one that I was focusing on, there was not a chat room.
And I will say in this first season, the dubbing and the voices reading the text in the chat rooms are different voice actors. And then in season two, after you figure out who these people are, it is the same at voice actor, so it becomes easier to manage and piece together.
Why?
Because they're different. There's a lot of characters interacting. Yeah. And they don't know they're talking to who they're talking to. And it's all mind games, man.
Okay.
And the chat rooms are I guess in the chatroom, one guy is just talking about like, hey, I'm moving to the city. So it's like and then we cut back to masaomi showing the cartoon around. He's talking about different color gangs. And color gangs are just gangs in the city that are associated by colors, like the crips and the bloods. So it's just real simple. And he's saying, like, oh, yeah, the color gangs have kind of died down. He's like, oh, so the city secrets like, oh, no, it's just less organized chaos. You just don't know who's going to muggy now, so still be on your toes. And while they're talking, mercado bumps into an anime girl cut out. It's got like, foxy ears and this tail and stuff. It's like, oh, sorry, ma'am, I didn't see oh. And turns out it's being carried by two big old fucking nerds. They're not weebs because they're actually Japanese, but they're big otaku anime. Yeah. And turns out Masoomi knows these two. I don't think we get their names right now, but it's erica and Walker.
You get the names here?
Yeah, briefly. Okay.
The names are, like, never mentioned again.
Yeah, at least in the episodes we used to watch. And they introduced mecado, the main name is mercado Roger, Mayor, or riga manny or whatever. They're like, oh, wow.
Your name sounds like something like that.
You're so much better with names than me. And they're surprised, and they're like, oh, wow. Your name sounds like an anime character or like a shonen jump manga or something. I guess it'd be a bigger point in the actual Japanese. But everyone harps on mikado's name, and it's just like, okay, I guess there's a thing there. We find out. erica, Walker, and there's two other guys, like, hanging out in the van back there. They're friends with Masoomi is like, friends with all of them. He's like, oh, yeah, hey, here's my buddy. He's from the country. Like, I'm showing around. It's like, oh, hey, nice to meet you. So we find out masoomi's got some friends around town. He's a popular person, just not with the people he wants to be popular with. And we over here, erica and Walker saying like, oh, yeah, we were out buying 30 copies of this manga. Oh, wow. 30 copies were like, oh, yeah. Ten for each of us and then ten for something else.
Wink. Wow.
On an ebay store. Great.
You're one of those assholes.
How uncommon of you.
This is a real slow burn that doesn't pay off for, like, a while. So I'm surprised.
Let's introduce it in episode one then.
Is that what you're doing?
No, the other reason, yes. But we don't see it for a while. We won't see it for a few episodes. But they don't harm the books. Yeah, they're fucking books. So masami just starts bragging. He's like, I know all about how to pick up ladies. I'm a ladies man. I'm all about them girls. And like, the one that just walked past, she's a real cute girl. We should try and chat her up sometimes. We ever come across her again? Last time, he's just kind of a sleaze ball. But it's just because he's so bad at it. It never pays off and ends up just being kind of a joke most of the time. And it's at that moment that we over here, see three guys talking about kidnapping that very girl. They see her walk by and they're like, oh, is that the target? Yeah, we got to grab her. Like, all right. And we cut back to the chat room. And there are three people in the chat room now, and they're talking about recently moving to Tokyo. And that the new guy that joins the chatroom is talking about suicide pacts and all this stuff. And it's like, oh, morbid.
And my faith. That was like, so, like, they were just having a conversation. And then one of them was like, you ever heard of suicide pacts? And it's like, no. Why?
Chill.
Yes, but why?
I can't criticize because I'm about as subtle as this character sometimes like, hey, you guys know about Four. I can't judge him. So it's bad. It's not good. But I also am just as bad. And the new guy mentions that. Oh, yeah, a lot of these suicide packs are people trying to go out together. And sometimes it's like runaway kids or it's like a trend that's popping up in the city and stuff. So you got to watch after that. And then while they're talking, we cut back to the girl meeting up with anita character because he's wearing glasses.
He's not like any EDA character we've seen. He's not, like EDA at all.
He's a bad.
Ida secrets megaita shadow. And he meets up with her and he says her last name. I forget it quickly. But he's like, oh, it's you. She's like, yes. It's like, oh, nice to meet you. Come on, let's get going. We'll meet up with the others, and she starts following him. And he leads her to a van. And as soon as the van pops open, it's one of the guys back there with a weird chloroform like mask thing. He's like, hey, babe, sorry to do this to you. And he jumps out and chloroforms her and drags her into the van because they're kidnappers kidnappers and human traffickers and the fucking scum of the earth. And as the van pulls away and you should say, true, yes. Can't stress that enough. And as the van pulls away, we see a dark haired guy walk out from the shadows. And he kind of stomped out the cigarette. One of the guys was smoking. And he just like, wasn't as clean of a getaway as they think. And then we cut back to.
We.
Cut back to mercado and masaomi. And they're still walking around the city. He's showing them around. And they bump into this real malevella. And it's a black guy working at a Russian sushi place named Simon. And he's got the I kind of love it, though, because we meet other characters from different countries and stuff. But he still got the really heavy accent and, like broken I mean, in this broken English, but broken, like Japanese. He's just real thick Russian accent. And, oh, he's such a he's just a good character. And masami saying, like he's like, oh, come on in. Have Russia sushi. masami is like, oh, no, we don't have any money. We'll catch you next time. And he kind of tells me kato like, oh, yeah, that's Simon. He's cool. Don't piss him off, though. He'll destroy you. He's real strong. But otherwise, he's generally cool. As I'm talking about, who not to piss off? There's some other people you might want to avoid walking around the city. And then at that moment, we see a vending machine off in the distance just fly up over top of some buildings and then come crashing back down. And he's just like, look at it. Or Masoomi is just like, oh, speaking of which, that's probably shinzo Hiwichima. Don't ever piss him off. It's like, well, he just threw a vending machine up. So I'm guessing he's real strong.
They're all at us snickers.
You're not yourself when you're hungry. This is a brand deal at the time. He's a cheesy. O is good.
Good character, an interesting boy.
He's actually there's not a Du RA game. But he's in a few different, like, fighting games because he's just so strong and can go on par with ridiculous characters. So we don't see him right away, but we see the vending machine. We hear him yelling and stuff so he'll be introduced later. It's a foreshadowing. And then we cut back to the kidnappers in the garage or in a parking garage. They're waiting for their contact. You know, you never want to go to a second location. And that's what they're doing here.
Thanks, John mulaney.
You never want to go to another location street smarts. And as they're waiting, they see personal on a motorcycle wearing all black. And they're like that are contact. And you hear like a faint horse winnie at that moment, just like, that's weird. Anyway, they're like, no, pretty sure that's not our contact.
It's the wear horse.
It bites you when you turn into a horse. Oh, I hate that. And right at that moment, it cuts back to the chat room and they're talking about like, oh, hey, speaking of dangerous stuff, have you heard of the Black Rider? It's like, what? Yeah. The Black Rider. One of them is talking about saying like, oh, yeah, the Black Rider is one of the color gangs. And another one says like, oh, no. The Black Rider is like this demon monster thing that picks on people who are wandering dark alleys by themselves and stuff. And this is talking about all these rumors about this black bike rider. And then we cut back to the rider and the kidnappers. And as one of the guys goes up, he's like, no, that's not our contact. Let's teach him a lesson. He pulls out like a pipe from the van and just goes up to go to attack the rider because he's an asshole. We've established this kidnappers. And as he goes up to try and swing at the biker, biker just reels back on the bike and just slams his head against the wall nearby and the bike tire and just really kind of mashes it in and just knocks his ass out and maybe crushes his skull in. That's a lot of damage. And it's fine. It's cool because he's a bad guy. He deserves to be hurt. And the biker gets off the bike and starts approaching the van. And as they're going up, they grab the Shadow. ita negaita. They go to grab him. And he's like he's freaking out, screaming. And then he reaches into the van and he's like, you shouldn't grab on to me and tasers the biker right at the moment. And he's all cocky like, ha ha. Got you, Tasers. As the biker gets passed out and he's like, there's a driver in the front of the van. He's like, all right, let's get out of here and shut the back of the van. He's like, let's go find her. Contact at another location. And as he's shutting the back door, you see the biker just stand back up and grab him. And he starts freaking out. And the driver of the van just peels out just like, fuck this. I'm out. And just drives off, leaving all of his guys behind. And as the van pulls away, we see the biker just smash shadow eat his head into the wall again. There's a lot of blood. That's a lot of blood for a head wound. And we come back to it.
I was confused. And they decided to show blood in this because motorcycle to the face. He was fine.
He had a bruise. He had like a tire mark.
Yeah, he had like a loony tunes tire mark on his face. But no blood. Nothing. He's good, but smash against the wall.
Gallons. gallons. A lot of blood. A lot of blood. And we cut back to the chat room and they're talking about the black rider this whole time. All the different rumors they've heard and this and that. And we cut back to the chase between the black rider and the van. And the van slams on its brakes trying to catches the rider off guard. Rider just slams into it, falls off the bike and peels out. And during all this, we hear more, like rumors from the chat room to talk about like, oh yeah, it's a demon because it's actually a headless rider. And at that moment, you see the rider stand up and the helmets knocked off and there's just nothing there. It just stops at the neck.
I heard his head is insured for a million dollars.
It's a lot of money. I keep it somewhere safe. And turns out the head of those riders actually Christopher Walkett now. And as the rider stands up, we just see this black smoke coming out of the neck where the head would be. And they pull out just this huge sight from out of their neck and like out of the smoke. And the guy in the van who got out to try and see what was happening, he's like he has a knife on him. He's like, what the fuck are you? And he just of course, if you're terrified of something and it's clearly just took a van to the face and rolled off of that, you go charging at him with a knife, which is what this guy does. He just starts panicking and tries to attack him with the knife. And at that moment, the rider just swings the sight. It just cuts the guy in half. But it's not like bloody. It's not physically in half. It's just like his soul, I guess.
Ghost cut.
Yeah. So his body is fine, but he gets knocked out from being cut by the big black slip. So it's kind of just like, what the fuck is this? And then we cut back to masaomi warning. McConnell is still about all this other stuff. He's like, oh, also watch out for the dollars. They're kind of a newer gang. He's like, I don't know much about them. I just know there's a lot of them and they're crazy. So be aware of that. And that's at this moment, while they're talking makoto. Yeah, no picado got hit. That egg machiato tobelong bumps into another girl because he's so distracted by the city. And he bumps into another girl and he's like, oh, sorry, I didn't see you there. Let me help you. And as he goes to help her out, he knows just a huge scar around her entire neck. He's like, oh, that's kind of strange. And then she just runs off screaming kind of like weird. Everyone just kind of watches her. She runs off and then they hear this weird noise, this kind of like weird echoed groan or squeal or something and mosawi's like, oh, come on, hurry up. You want to see an urban legend? And they go running to the street corner.
You want to see a dead body.
Depending on the urban legend. And as they get to the street, they just see the Black Rider fly by and mikada is just like blowing away. And that's when he started getting his narration from earlier. It's just like his inner thoughts of just saying how excited he is to see something truly new and just being in the city and just experiencing everything new. And he's just so overwhelmed and excited for the first time in years. And when we come back to the chat room, we just see two people saying like, oh, I saw the Black Rider tonight. Oh, me too. Weird. We were probably in the same area. It's like, oh, we probably passed each other and didn't even realize it. Wow, what a winky dink. And then when they were talking about all the different gangs in the headless Rider, one of the people mentioned dota chin. So at the very end here, we're like, oh yeah, we finally just passed by each other. It's like, oh, what a coincidence. Hey, by the way, who the fuck's Dotachine? And we see just one person like really into trying to figure out who's who. And that's it. Then we get the ending and it's just like a continuous shot of all the characters panning up with the credits. The song is also very good. I enjoyed all the music of the series.
It really took this song back to.
The good old days. It's just 2000 crazy.
Sam.
Yeah, solid bomb.
Similar time.
Well, I mean, it took me back.
To the time that I watched it and I was watching it and I was into this song.
That's a beat. That's how you get dana into a show.
Good ending or opening song.
Yeah.
Episode one.
Episode two. I'm excited that I got this one because as I mentioned before, there's no chat room. And I also really liked this episode. It felt different than the other two.
And I liked it a lot because it was different. In fact, it mostly dropped everything established in that first episode.
You sound bitter.
I wonder.
So it's the first day of school and all the people are sitting in a people all the students are sitting at like the first day assembly and there's people that are staring. dudes, they're students.
They're not humans.
Not yet anyway. There's teachers staring at a girl's tits and legs. Cool.
He's a gross man.
I can tell there's a narrator in this episode, which I guess Masoomi kind of. Acts as the narrator in the first one, but this one has a narrator, and she's talking about the possibility of different realities. And then they're in class, and students are introducing themselves. The girl with glasses that the teacher was oggling before is named henri. And then the girl that was kidnapped is also in class. Her name is Rio. And then they call out for nica harima, and she's not there. And then a guy comes in late, and his name is saji. And the teacher is like, oh, hello, you're tardy. And he's like, yeah, I just came to school to tell you that I'm never coming back. To which I say, why go? And also, if you are going, why even bother putting on your uniform and bringing a back pack?
For the drama.
For the reveal.
Pretty much, yes.
They live for the acts.
Yes, for the drama of it all. And it's at that point that the narrator is talking about cracks in reality when you can see others seeping in. And I think that made me realize that it's kind of not, like, supernatural other realities, but like, the reality of other people's lives kind of thing.
Yeah, that's who that kind of is.
Yeah. And we're learning about Rio in this episode, which made me happy because I.
Don'T know that's my favorite animated movie.
Those birds from the Rio movie are extinct now.
Yeah. I was going to say Rip the blue macaw. I never saw Rio, but climate change is real.
Yeah.
So we're learning about Rio. She lived a pretty normal life until junior high, when someone put an envelope in her mailbox that contained pictures of her dad cheating on her mom and a note that said, are you going to let him get away with this? So she hid them, and then she felt guilty about it. So instead of telling her mom, she put the photos back in the mailbox for her mom to find. And while she's doing this, she's been texting a boy and kind of telling him what's going on.
A boy?
And I recognize his voice, but I won't do that reveal. Yet, after her mom found the photos, nothing changed. So either her mom just decided to ignore the problem, or they worked it out on their own. And that really concerned Rio. So she decides that maybe it would be better if she just weren't there at all. And she's standing on the roof of her school, but she doesn't do it. She doesn't jump. Good on you. I'm glad. And then the boy that she's texting says, like, I can't even imagine what you're going through, but I kind of can, because here's something that happened with my family. Here's my baggage. He says, like, my problems aren't as bad as yours. But then he tells the story about how he had a girlfriend that banged his dad, and when his mom found out about it, his mom was more worried about their family's reputation than his feelings, to which I say that's pretty much the same problem. Yeah, it kind of is worse because it was his girlfriend. It was someone and his father.
It's not the same. There were different people involved. The dynamics were slightly different.
I can't relate to you at all.
But he says specifically that her problem is worse. And it's like, not really.
She's trying to make her feel good.
So they're messaging each other, and he suggests that they make a suicide pact, as mentioned in the past episode. He suggests that they get together and kill themselves to show their parents what really matters.
What's that? They tie in something from the first episode.
Weird. The one thing that makes the jump to this one thing.
Stop. And then here she is, where she was at the beginning of not the beginning, but in the first episode. And we have someone watching in the distance, presumably the guy that she's actually been emailing, because Negaita is not the guy she's been emailing. And the narrator says that Rio, when she was kidnapped and put in the van, she didn't care what happened to her anymore because she figured that she was coming out to die anyway. So she would die, and this would be it, and no one would know what happened to her. And that was fine with her. And then we're finally shown the guy who said the coast wasn't as clear as you thought. It's isaya. And he is the guy that's been emailing Rio, and he gets out his phone and contacts the Black Rider cryptid. I know their name. I don't know if I should say it.
We don't get it.
Yeah, just for the sake of instead of saying the Black Rider, every time.
Her name is celti, a girl, they show her leaving, like, an apartment building, and she's leaving a guy in a lab coat. I think his name is sheena.
Shera okay, cool.
Who knows? Because Brendan probably doesn't.
I say out, but that's a very accurate statement.
So she's leaving sheena, and he's like, all right, good luck. And it's then that we get chezuo's little thing from the first episode, what he was up to.
What? Another tie into the first episode?
Wow.
All right.
Sorry. dugan just made a point of saying they're warden on it, but this is irrelevant. It's not that they're different stories. They're not all the same. Yeah.
So he's talking to a guy that owes him money. I think I wrote, Someone owes him money. I guess. I don't know. Vending machine time. Because shizuo. I really like shizuo's. English voice actors, very growly. I'm into it. And he pretty much is like, I'm losing my patience with you, sir. And he tosses vending machine up in the air as someone would fire a warning bullet. He uses a vending machine to show off his strength.
The thing that I don't get creative.
I'll give him that.
The thing I don't get is, is shizu is like, very known. And like, this guy knows who shizu is. He still tries to say, like, oh, sorry, I don't have your money. But also don't come after me because I'm connected to some good people. It's like, have you seen this fucking guy? Don't threaten him.
I could push you down and ruin your ribs.
I could literally shove I could literally smush you into a ball. I could turn your humanoid structure into just a ball. Like, don't piss them off.
But people keep you with me. So then we get isaiah calling celti and saying, just scare them. Just like, rattle them a little bit. Fuck them up a little bit. Have fun.
You do you.
And then she does we're shown the stuff that she does for them again. And then she I'm sorry. She communicates through using her cell phone, like notes because no head. And that's what I'm laughing at because I'm thinking of that vine where the guy's on the phone, and he's like, so no head. And then he throws it on the fucking ground. She uses her phone to show Rio, someone sent me here to take you somewhere, so I'm going to take you somewhere. And Rio, even though she was just kidnapped, she's like, okay, cool.
Yeah, fine. Sure.
I'll trust another stranger.
This is mine as well.
Fine. So stealthy takes her to a building, and she shows her phone, says that someone's waiting for you on the roof. This is as far as my job goes. Later. And then she goes up on the roof and who's there but isaya. Wow. And she's like, oh, you sent her to save me? And he's like, yes, I also organized the kidnapping. Clever, huh? And it's like, no, not really.
No, you just did a crime, my dude.
Unnecessarily elaborate crime.
Yeah. And he talks about how she was feeling through the situation, like he knows so well. He's like, yeah. So at the beginning of the whole ordeal, you were like, if I die, I die. But now you're really excited to be alive, aren't you? So I knew that you weren't really ready to die tonight. And he calls her prophetic, which is stellar. And then she's like, you didn't love.
Getting kidnapped, you fucking pose her pussy. You're not goth.
You're not gotham, though. Look how big my coat is. I'm so dodged.
And then she kind of is like, well, why did you do this? And he's like, it's a little philosophical, but I'll try and explain it to you. And it's like, cool, apple.
Fuck off.
God, no one loves I forgot that he sucks.
If you read infinite just like I have.
Do you know Ann Ran? Of course you don't want I would, you fucking scum.
And he said, I bet you just read the wiki synopsis of camus.
He says, I love humans, not you. It's important that you know, that I don't love you. And I was like, Then be a sociologist. Go to college.
Don't. I'm getting philosophical, but I'm still on the Internet.
That's not what that's for.
And he says, like, come with me. I'm going to show you something. And he, like, grabs her by the wrist and takes her to the edge of the roof. And he's like, you see that, like, little splatter down there. People kill themselves on this building all the time. All the time. You're not special. Everybody has their secrets. Why can't your parents, you dumb bitch.
Let your dad she idiot.
It's at this point, I wrote a lot of his quotes because he's terrible. Even though you have secrets, you still laugh at the same dumb jokes and eat the same sweet stew, which is like a direct quote from one of her emails to him. So she slaps him, but he grabs her wrist, and with the force of it, he dangles her off the side of the building, kind of. She's, like, leaning, and he's holding her by the arm, and he says, everyone is equal before God. Do you want me to let go? Because he's a sociopath.
Yeah.
And then he pulls her back up and turns to leave and says, thanks for proving how ugly and immature you are. It's been real.
And then he reviews deuces.
Oh, my gosh.
You're showing me you fucking suck.
He's so awful.
Such an asshole.
So he leaves her there on the roof, pretty much challenging her to jump. Say that you're different from everyone else and jump. Say that you're not afraid to die. So she does. She jumps, but celti is still there, and she uses her demon powers to catch her. So yay Rio doesn't die.
Yay demon powers.
And then Rio asks her why she saved her. And celti holds up her phone, and it says, because the world isn't as bad as you think. And I loved it. I thought it was very nice. I really liked this episode, but it's not the end. So isaiah watched this happen, and he was like, selfie safe. dang it. I wanted to watch someone die tonight. And the narrator says that Rio thinks about life differently now. She thinks about her parents and decides that she'll forgive them. And she looks at people differently because everyone has their own lives and their own secrets. And then we kind of get back. We get back to reality, back to the bullet. There goes gravity. masoomi and mikado are walking after school, talking about where they want to go. And the narrator says that they have secrets too, as normal as they seem. And I know they're secrets, and they overhear. Andre talking to sagey, saying, Where did she go? Have you heard from her? And sagey is like, I'm not telling you. And he runs away. And then masumi asks if Andrea is okay, and she kind of, like, ignores him and chases after sage. And masoomi is like, she's so into me. And the narrator says that Rio wishes she could tell people what she learned that the world isn't as bad as you think. And then celti meets up with isaiah and she asks him if he is the one that made other people jump off that building. And he's like, no, but who am I to stop people from doing what they want? And that's episode two. Yeah, I really liked it, but it is very different from the first and third episodes.
Yeah. Weird that there's not, like a through line or anything. Anyway, let's see. Episode three.
We saw rio's kidnapping from just a different angle.
Oh, boy. I love it.
I mean, I like that. And I wish I keep talking. Let's go.
We'll discuss that at the end.
Yeah, well, we'll get there, but I don't have a lot of notes because muddled garbage. anyways, wow. We open up on Simon. He's promoting the Russian sushi stuff and great dub. We get some Russian tourists that walk up and speak to him in Russian. And I have Japanese subtitles for this, so I don't know what they were talking about.
They asked for directions. That's it.
Yeah.
Figured it was that. But if there was any vital info there, the audio was Russian. The subtitles were Japanese.
When you all right, it's probably because.
On Netflix, you can either have the subtitles on or off. And probably if you have them off, they just, like, get rid of everything in English.
Well, no, because I watched it on Netflix with the subtitles off. And this had Japanese at the bottom, but then it had English subtitles at the top. So it had two sets of subtitles for this only this scene.
And this one we get. The narrator changes each episode. This one is Simon in the narration. He does not have his Russian accent. So I don't know if that is fake or what, but some I don't know. I assume it's addressed later on, but whatever.
It's just kind of Simon, like, talking in his own head. So I'm just assuming it's him in his native language. So it just flows better. But then it's just translated for us. That's how I saw it.
See, I'm I'm confused by it because they say in the first episode he was an American that fled to Russia. So we tear him with a Russian accent. But he has an American accent in his head, so I don't know what they're trying to do there. I don't know.
There's a lot of mysteries with Simon.
Basically, he has some generic garbage narration of people come to the city for different reasons. anyways.
Just so resistant to everything.
Region always gets so mad when it's a show that he actually likes that it makes me sad. I don't like when mom and dad fight.
Oh, I shouldn't be a parent even in a hypothetical situation.
Your anime dads are very disappointed in you. anyways, we're back in the classroom. The very tired, uninterested teachers like, okay, I guess we should get a class rep or whatever. And we have a girl. eda character raises her hand. This is henri, and she's going to be the rep. They need one boy and one girl to rep the classroom. And what's the main guy's name? Okay, in my notes, but it's okay.
There it is.
So, yeah, she's at the front of the class asking. nicaro is like, hey, I want to do it. She's cute, but it seems like a bunch of fucking nerd shit. Fine, I'll do it. And he volunteers. So right after class, he goes to talk to her and be like, hey, so we should plan stuff, I guess. And she's like and runs away. Cool.
Because she saw the furby teacher.
Yeah, I did not pick up on that. But yeah, after class, Masanomi is like, hey, you're into her. You want to bang it out in the class? eh, being his purvy self? And he's like, okay, we need to step up your flirt game because you're going to strike out because you're a fucking nerd. And yeah, we see him try to demonstrate his abilities. He goes up to a group of Valley girls and is trying to hit on them, and they are just fully ignoring him, talking about how one of the girl's boyfriends is in the Dollar Gang. And then we get a little bit of description from the chat room saying, oh, yeah, the Dollars are like a mix of all the color gangs. They don't have an actual color, but they are like, the most hardcore gang in the city.
They're transparent.
You can't see that.
You can't see them also jorts mandatory shorts on the Dollars.
They all were shorts. That's the coffee card.
They're also all marines for some reason.
Yeah, it's weird.
So, yeah, they meet up with all the otaku friends after school, more talking about the Dollar Gang. We see. What's his name? Cool guy?
Yeah.
I forgot his name. I don't think we actually wrote down Cool Cat.
I don't think we're actually cold as time.
This is shizuo. He sees the headless rider riding around, and he's like, angst. You can tell I love this show, right?
You're just, like, not even trying to watch it, right?
I haven't thrown in the towel five minutes into the first episode.
That's my thing. If you don't like it, fine, but it's you intentionally dragging your feet. I don't want to deal with this shit. Hey, man, that's the podcast. I hate to tell you this, but that's the show.
This is me slowly coming to terms with it. andree thinks she sees one of her friends, but it's actually Rio. And no, there's so many fucking care. It's the girl with, like, the scar around her neck. Yeah, I thought that was Rio. Fuck me. All right, cool.
I'm happy here. dana can follow it.
I've watched it, some of it. So I know it's not Rio, but it does matter.
So, yeah, then the Valley girls that Mastanomi was trying to hit on confront her, and they're like, oh, you want to be the class rep? Well, my boyfriend is a gangster.
I don't understand this.
Yeah, this makes no sense. Literally. Oh, you want to be class president? Well, my boyfriend's in a gang. Cool. What's the connection there?
Why there's backstory to this? That we find out in later episodes. But it's basically they're just picking on honorary. And then the one girl is trying to brag, like, if you think you're such hot shit, I'm dating a Dollar. I'm the newest hot shit. Because they're popular right now.
Cool. All right. They're bullies anyway.
Yeah, they're bullies.
So Masanomi and nicaro see this, and nicaro is like, oh, I guess stand up to them. But then the wackest poser gangster comes up, guesses the boyfriend, and like, yo, I'm a gang member, my dog.
I mean the dollars.
Sorry, my notes are.
He'S trying, folks. He's trying.
God, my life. Anyway, so they are confronted by a stranger who pushes them into the confrontation because he's like, oh, you want to jump in and save the girl, huh? Let me give you a little hand with that. So he jumps in, and he takes the lead, and he's like, oh, you think you're hot shit? I don't give a fuck about you, high schoolers. I'm an adult, you see. When master phone. What's that? He says, his age 23. He says, Big man over here.
Concerning myself with these high school students.
Let me get into the high school gang drama. I am an adult, you see. So, yeah, he smashes one of the Valley girls phone. The poser gangster is like, yo, dog, you're looking to throw down my dude?
The best part is, dude is not exaggerated. That's what the guy says.
I didn't write down any quotes because life is meaningless. But he just took a character, finally getting anime. Nothing matters. So he hits him and shaves his head or something, cuts his hair off. So he runs away crying. And after he runs away and the fight is over, we get introduced. And this is isaiah Oihara, introduced to the main gang. He gets hit with a trash can because shizuo throws one at him.
Full ass air conditioner unit. Yeah.
They're like, that is a full on trash can from a convenience store. Like, heavy duty metal just tossed casually at him. So apparently shuzuo is here. He's mad because izaya set him up or pinned something on him that he didn't do. So he's looking to throw down. Then all the Dollars come out to get their revenge. There's a weird thing where they say, like, these are posers who aren't really dollars, but it's not super clear if they are or not. I don't know nothing makes sense.
In the show.
One of them attacks shizuo, hits him in the head. shizuo literally punches him out of his clothes. Just big, all out brawl.
He's just straw.
And then Simon, the sushi Ban was delivering sushi in a nearby building, jumps down and breaks up the fight. And that's the episode, basically. Why narrative when you can have some cool moments?
I'm reading through my notes to make sure we didn't skip anything because I got like five more bullet points that apparently don't matter.
No, they mentioned, like, oh, yeah, after that fight, there was some bigger dollar gang activity, but basically that was it.
We see sage run around the corner and bump into the girl Henry saw earlier. And he's like, My love, I finally found you. So that's teeing up that storyline.
He's very dramatic. He's like, My love has led me to you.
I wish because he's just a very, like, stoic person. He's like a very stoic and quiet person. But his mind is so fucked and so dramatic. I wish it was like, morphia, my love. I had fat. Like, I wish he was more of a caricature. But he's just, like a very quiet, sombre person. And then it ends with shizo talking with the headless rider.
Everyone knows each other.
They're all connected.
As big as Tokyo is, all these people know each other.
Sure. Let's introduce a tangled web that won't be explained for another 50 episodes, I assume.
No, it's less of, like, the whole city of Tokyo. More of just like this one, like borough they mentioned a few times. Yeah. So it's just this, like, one area. So it's like a neighborhood rather than a whole city. So it's not as outlandish of bumping into each other.
I don't think there's anything you can say that's going to make dugan think that this is good.
No, he already checked out episode halfway through episode one.
I liked episode one. It was more light hearted than I thought it was going to be in that first episode because we got some cartoony motorcycle to the face, but it didn't rip his skull open. Like we get in a lot of anime, so I like that there were, like, cartoony fun elements to it. But then they just kept adding things and adding elements that weren't necessary and unexplained and at this point, still disconnected.
It's the set up. They're not unnecessary. It's teasing stuff to then explain in a later episode. We only watch three episodes, so it's like, yeah, we only get a whole lot.
And how many episodes are in season one?
I want to say, like, 26, maybe. It's popular, but it's not like neuroto where it's like one piece, where it's 725 episodes. No, nothing ever will be. Yeah, 25 episodes for season one.
Cool. So we're an hour and a half in and there's no clear plot. We our main characters, I guess, are the the farm boy who moved in, but we see him in maybe a combined episode in the third. They're just trying to do way too much and it's sort of I don't know. What I really don't like about it is it's striking me as it's trying to be more edgy arthouse than it is or than they can pull off. It feels like they want to do tarantino edgarietti Fun Gang stuff, but as you mentioned, they have that. Or as you mentioned during the break, that didn't make it to air. There's the pulp fictiony narrative structure of jumping back and forth in time between characters and the loosely connected stuff, but there's not anything to latch on to here. Like, I thought it was going to be okay. This kid's gang introduced to the city. Okay, let me try to be there. Okay. He's not in the second episode anyways. So there's this other character. Okay. Are we following her? Are they going to meet up? No. Here's back to the first character with some more people that can do some cool, like demony extra strong power stuff. Okay. And there's a ghost motorcycle, too. She'll show up about five minutes each episode. Cool. She saves the day a couple of times. How does she tie into the story? We'll find out later.
What to tell you to stop is.
That no, cause that they're just trying that's so much shit. That's so much shit that they're trying to squeeze in here. And I cannot follow any of it.
But it's also not trying to squeeze it into an hour and a half. I mean, even if it's a tarantino comparison, he usually goes two and a half hours on most movies. And this is a show that's got 25 episodes. So it's like if we're building a story, I'm not going to front load the entire plot in the first five episodes. We're going to string it out for the whole season.
True, but look at any other anime in the first episode. Its purpose is, okay, we're going to give you enough information to make you want to keep watching this show. Something that I did not get well.
That's why it's not like every other anime, and that's why I enjoy it. One of the biggest appeals of anime, at least for me, is that there's so much variety. There are a ton of stuff that follows the same Tropes, like shonen and stuff, but there are enough series that can just do a lot of weird stuff and really just try new experimental things. And that's why I enjoy that, especially this one.
That's why I didn't like this one because it felt very generically trying to tick off all the anime boxes. We joke about our bingo card, but I feel like this really hit a bunch of things. We got new kid. We got high school tropes we got high school romance. Tropes we got gang violence, Tropes. We got is that a Troply? Stranger tropes. We got the very, very strong superhero cool guy tropes.
Is that a troop? I don't know if those I don't know if those would just be, like generic anime tropes. I feel like those are very specific genres. We watched a race, but that didn't have a very super strong guy in it. Yeah, but I don't feel like a super strong guy. But I feel like that wouldn't be in the trope. Are there enough series beyond just shown in Fighting shit?
What dugan is saying there's a lot of different things happening in this show that it seems like they're taking things from a lot of different anime and putting it all into one anime.
Yes. clearer comparison is how we said yuki una is a hero. Just took all the magical girl things and tried to put it in one show. I feel like this show is just taking anime in general and is trying to put it in one show.
Okay.
And I don't think it's pulling it off. That's my point.
I have feelings.
Yeah.
Sorry, I've been bringing on too long. What do you think?
It's been like debating, so I don't remember a lot about it. I remember some of the twists of the show, but something I will say, like I said, I really liked episode two. If the episodes after that were all about telling us about the different characters, because I don't have a problem with that, I think that would be really interesting. There's a show on HBO right now called euphoria, and at the beginning of every episode, zendaya, who plays the main character, talks about another character that goes to this high school and their life and what led them to this point. So I think it would be interesting if episodes were then kind of like that telling us about each character and how they got there. But it is hard to have one kind of light hearted episode with just silly boys hanging out and then that heaviness and then another episode kind of with that light hearted energy. It's a lot of up and down.
Yeah, I would agree with that.
Knowing where it goes, I stopped watching it for a reason. I think it's just really not where it goes is not my thing. I was always interested in finding out selfie's resolution, but I guess I didn't care enough to have to sit through the gang stuff.
Yeah. Celti's major character of the show and kind of became, I guess, the mascot of the show because she's the most recognizable, but is still just like the same third of a story as the other two storyline storylines are. So she doesn't get most episodes about her or anything. She's just like every other character. But yeah, that's what I enjoyed about it. We do get a lot of episodes that are just character pieces where it's like, we're going to follow this character, this episode, and there's going to be. A few moments that tie in with other characters. But for the most part, this episode is just about like radio in episode two. And we saw the crossover with some other characters as she's walking around, but primarily focus on her. And that's most of the series, it follows mainly one character an episode and it has a lot of crossover. And then all of the storylines are told cumulatively by getting the different pieces and adding them all together and seeing rather than just one episode, we're following around shizuo for 24 minutes exactly, like entirely. We get a lot of his story told out, like through other people's perspectives and stuff and seeing how they see it. So in episode two, we saw celti like driving to go rescue Rio. We see she's able to throw in the vending machine in the background in one of the shots. So we see it where it's like, oh, it's in the same area, but we're not going to focus on that too much this episode. And she keeps going. And that's something I agree.
That is if in the next episode, if that episode was about she's will and how he got to that point, I'd be interested. I don't think that would change dugan's opinion at all because it will still.
Be I agree that would be a stronger because it's building on each narrative. We get like if it was like one storyline, we see a tiny little snippet in the background and that episode continues. But then the next episode just fully explains that and then builds looping. The previous episode in rather than being like a completely unrelated story that just happened to be in the same area. And I guess 16 episodes later it will connect. I don't know. My brain is all melted.
Dugan didn't finished this episode.
It's a no for me.
Doug I'm not surprised. No. But I would say that is what happens. But the stories have to start from somewhere. They don't always just meet up. Like one story doesn't start in the middle of someone else's. Sometimes they'll cross over both at the end of their stories or something. It's not all just a straight like me, how to admit this person and then we're going to follow their story like no, we might not see them for three episodes.
I get the structure. I'm saying I don't think they're doing it well.
Okay. Yeah. It's less about the confusion. Can we be done now?
I don't talk about it anymore. We're trying to save things now.
Yeah, we are.
That's a no for me. Harry elk I don't think I'm going.
To keep watching it again now.
Hold on. Is it because of the episodes or is it because of this episode of work?
I didn't want to ruin it for you.
I was like only interested in selfie. So I remember from watching it back in 2010 or 2011 that I was only interested in finding out what happened to Celti's head. And I don't care about gang stuff. That's just not what I don't care. So I stopped watching it because I.
Was like, yeah, if it's only Selfie.
That'S remembering that, I don't think I'm going to keep watching it.
Yeah, if Selfie storyline is the only one that's really catching your interest, then yeah, I would say you could drop it. I'm curious if there's like a super cut out there that just has just these character storylines. So that way you don't have to sit through all the rest. that'd be interesting to look up.
That'D be interesting.
Weird that people would want to cut together just single storylines. So it makes sense in one sitting, anyway. So thank you. Thank you for joining us. What do we have going on next week?
Well, next week, I'm pretty sure is episode 50, which is yeah, it's the milestone, right? jeez pretty cool. Sorry. I made sure, so I figured I would dust off something that I haven't watched in a long time. But as in the first episode, we did Death Note, which was like the first anime that I finished. I thought I would bring the melancholy of haruhi Suzamia, which is the first anime that I loved. Yeah, she was my first cosplay oh, cool. When I was 13. Have you watched it, Brendan?
I know of it, and I have one of the songs from it on my ipod. My antiquated old crank ipod.
Your grand machine?
Yeah. So I don't know anything besides that one scene, like, where the song is from.
Cool. I'm really worried about it. Now we're going to watch episodes one, three and four.
All right? And if there's a show you would like us to watch, reach out. We are. Are we there yet? On Twitter and Instagram? Or you could email us. Are weverriet@gmail.com? You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at mrpatrick. duggan.
You can find me on Instagram at queen. Period. Weebu and on Twitter at Queen underscore Weebu and Queen underscore Weebu art.
You could find me on Twitter at abts. Brendan it stands for Almost Better than silos, which is a video game podcast I do. Also, I'm doing dogist, which is just a Twitter art thing where you draw dogs. And I'm real bad at it.
I loved your charte.
Thank you.
Also, I keep meaning to do this, but we have a bunch of international listeners, so I want to shout out people listening in Mexico, Canada and Switzerland, which are the three biggest outside of the Us. Listening places. And it's mind boggling. And we love you. And let us know what you would like us to watch.
Enemy is a global phenomenon reaching out across countries and Weebing out bringing people together.
Weeb is universal in every language.
Camille ruley.
Thank you to camille ruley for artwork. And thank you to Louis zong for theme song stories off the album Beats. You can find all of louie's music at Louisong bandcamp.com. Thank you, and we hope you'll join us next week as we learn to live with it.
I have nothing to say, but I'm sorry.