There you go. That was a forceful clap.
The odds were like, what happened?
Yes.
OK. All right.
Turn your camera on so I look at you instead of like looking away from things.
So I like look at the. I forgot we do that.
OK, that way it's like I'm talking to you and then I face you and not like
wherever I'm normally looking.
Uh-huh. My wife will just be in my face.
So you won't see me.
She'd also.
Oh, let me get my notes pulled up.
And make sure my phone is on silent.
OK, dookie and my notes.
The new show.
Yeah, I mean, big energy.
OK. Oh.
New people could be listening.
OK. OK.
Oh, this water bottle is leaking.
Oops. Good thing it was in my bag with my laptop.
OK. All right.
Freaking do this.
OK. Ohio.
Right.
That's our open salvo out the gate being like.
Jeff.
People are thinking of Japanese phrases.
No, yeah. I don't think that.
Hello, listeners.
All the new. Here we go.
OK.
Reasons.
Greetings, fellow anime enthusiasts.
It is I, Sarah, joined by Joe.
And we make up the podcast show Joe where we talk about show Joe anime,
mostly me, Sarah, showing Joe, Joe Joe, hence the name and the spelling and all
that. Pretty brilliant.
Am I right?
Yeah. Such a good name.
Yeah.
Is this right? Yes.
It's brilliant.
If only we thought of it.
Yes. My sister gets the credit for that.
It was just right there and I didn't see it.
So that's us.
And today we are covering a new anime series,
Chihaifuru, which I think is technically Joe say and not show Joe,
but it's not like Joe say in a mature way.
Really?
I don't know why I categorize as that.
Well, Joe say is like.
More for women where show Joe is for like kind of girls, like young girls,
young adults and Joe say, I don't know.
A lot of the slut is Joe say tagged.
Yeah, I guess there are some clean ones, apparently, and this is one of them.
So it's like it's like overlapping.
Yeah. So they overlap.
And it's just.
It seems like relatively one day ways. Yeah, it's just that the themes,
I guess, typically it's more like whereas show Joe is like school life
or magical girl and you Joe say is like.
You're an adult and like real life, like, I don't know.
It's a lot of like office work spaces and.
Or like serious drama or, you know, things like that.
Or that make up. I'm reading the Wikipedia page.
OK, yeah, I may.
I'm determined to write a more clear.
This says on the Wikipedia page for Joe say manga, it says the term originated
by critics and academics in the late 90s to determine or distinguish all
men manga aimed at adult women from show Joe manga.
While not commonly used among general Japanese audiences,
they term mostly most commonly used by Western audiences to describe this
category of manga. So it is a academic distinction, I guess,
more so than an actual like difference in marketing, it seems like.
Sure.
I mean, I guess that makes sense.
Like, because, you know, like Western cartoons tend to have a tendency
to either be for children explicitly or for be adults explicitly.
Right.
There is very little in between of like SpongeBob and Family Guy, right?
Yeah. Whereas like anime is all in between that stuff.
I mean, I guess comics is a little bit different because you have superhero
comics that are both obviously for kids and then like more adult gritty ones.
So there's like a bit of a transition point there as well.
Yeah. So bit more fluid.
So I should be expecting some like real hot scenes.
No, I should expect some like someone's going to get decapitated.
And seeing in like episode 10. Yeah.
Someone like hits the card too hard and just slices their opponent.
Yeah.
No, no, no. I think it's I guess it's just I don't know why it's almost a sport
thing in my honestly.
And it just has the other stuff sugar or sprinkled in.
So I think it's just a little bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a
bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of fun.
So it's just a little bit of of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit
of a bit of a bit of fun.
So I it's kind of a bizarre labeling, but we're counting it.
We're covering it.
So either you've been listening to us up to this point and you kind of
yay, another fun adventure with Sarah and Joe or you're new.
We get some really interesting conversation about the distinction between, I guess, marketing
terms.
Yes.
Or in this case, academic terms more or less.
Yeah.
I'm trying to think of how I would describe our podcast, but I guess I am the airhead
of the podcast and just the one with like the expert.
You know, you've seen these shows.
You're not the airhead.
Who knows things?
I have seen the show and I have been the targeted demographic, but I don't look at things as
critically as you do.
Or like, you know, I don't ponder things deeply.
So like we get both kind of like you.
You know, just leave this.
Okay.
Well, I like to, I don't know.
Well, I mean, I'm a bit nerd.
So it'd be like, oh, yes, the academic study of whatever the hell because that's just who
I am now because I went to school, but I don't.
Does that make it better?
Is that, is that make for a better conversation?
I kind of feel like it's exhausting.
So I'm thinking we've got it all.
You've got it all.
We've covered the two ways you could enjoy a thing by having actual joy and enjoying
a thing and me has to like read everything through a lens.
Yes.
Well, yeah, so if you're just here for ships and giggles or for like looking closer at
things, we're the, we're the podcast for you in either case.
And so typically we do our intro here and then now we'll do a little catch up, just
some galpallon here.
Uh, Joe and I do not get to hang out.
No, because we do not live anywhere remotely closely to each other.
So this is like our big friendship platform segment in the first segment.
Sarah gives us an update on the Texas weather.
How is it?
Yes, normally I'm bitching about how hot it is.
This week is this week.
It is getting better.
Like it's still kind of, and this is typical of Texas where it's like, oh, now it's chilly
in the morning and evenings, but still hot.
And like the sun is burning you if you're wearing a jacket midday.
But we're like getting closer.
I'm just really hoping this is for real the start of our fall.
Uh, in my mind, Texas has summer and winter and that's it.
And it's not evenly split.
Um, but yeah, so like I, you know, it was like 60 when I went to the dog park this morning
and it was lovely.
I just had to stand in the shade, but it's lovely, lovely weather.
Good.
Um, yeah.
So it's finally be outside for a couple of hours.
Well, I don't know about that.
I'll still get sunburned.
It doesn't matter how cold it is.
So it can only get so much better.
We need the sun not to be out.
Well, now I can like turn now.
I'd well now that I don't have the ferrets anymore.
It's like just me, the two dogs and the cat.
I'm, I'm gonna, we're going to see how long we can go with no AC or a heater on just cause
the ferrets were so temperature sensitive, but now I'm like, look, we can just not go
for a warm and save a buck.
Um, in the winter.
But, um, so there's the weather report from yours truly.
Um, how else has it been going?
Good.
So last weekend I, so I'm the maid of honor for my sister who's getting married in about
a year and we went to try on some wedding dress or she went to try some wedding dresses
and I accompanied her and, um, she like freaking incredible in every single one.
So she's got her work cut out for her, like narrowing it down.
Um, but I mean, it took a lot longer than I thought.
I was like, Oh, this is going to be a few hours and then I'll get back and play some
Dragon Age or something.
But it was like all day endeavor and she hasn't picked one yet.
So I have a feeling I'll be doing that again soon.
Um, let's see.
I got to learn to like fluff.
I don't know what they, I'm like in charge of the train of the dress, I guess, like
making it look good and all the photos and stuff, so I got to be practicing.
You know, it makes me think of an elementary school when they have that like rainbow circle
tarp that everyone like flaps to make it all wavy and like someone goes under it.
Do you remember that?
Did you guys play that?
You're like with the big parachute parachute.
That's the word.
Yeah.
I was like, that's why I'm imagining it's gonna be like, I don't think I'm supposed
to use quite as much force.
Yeah, no.
Uh, well, it depends what kind of length we're looking at on the train.
But um, but yeah, that's been it.
Uh, really Dragon Age.
I've like slowed down drastically because I think I feel it.
The end is near and I don't really want it to be over.
Um, so I'm like slowing down on that, but Love Island Australia is going.
So I'm super happy about that.
And I think so nothing like super life changing life altering.
Did you watch the anime?
Um, I watched Hiya through.
Um, of course.
Good.
Let's see.
I tried.
I feel like I just tried.
Okay.
I watched like the first three episodes.
I do number eight.
Okay.
Um, I don't know.
I don't know.
Not interesting, you know, like he's old.
No, he's like our age.
Don't tell him all that.
No, I don't hate that.
Um, he's old for like a shown and jump.
Yes.
Well, I feel like it's hard cause shown in.
Like a lot of them follow the same formula.
So it's like, I feel like I've seen this before, you know, just with like different looking
characters.
Um, not that I do want to give like a brief summary of it just in case no one's ever
heard of it before.
Uh, sure.
Okay.
Let's go.
Five seven summary.
Really.
Um, okay.
Kaiju number eight.
It's like this world where Kaiju, which is that just the Japanese word for monster.
Yeah, it's like a genre of like, yeah.
There's other ones.
So it's like a world.
There's like a mill.
I don't know if it's government or there's a military force that takes care, like takes
out these Kaiju.
And I guess they just pop up randomly.
So it's like, dang, you got to have Frenchers insurance or you can't get right.
Uh, but like when they destroy these Kaiju, they like explode and their guts get everywhere.
And so our protagonist works on like the cleanup crew where they like clean all the disgusting
bits of the Kaiju.
But I guess he's like been wanting to be one of these officers that hasn't passed the test.
Blah, blah, blah.
Uh, something weird happens and this disgusting, weird, weird, weird, weird, weird, weird, weird,
disgusting little Kaiju like crawls into his mouth, gross.
And then like he turns into a humanoid Kaiju.
And, um, I guess he's going to be like, I'm special and I can be in the force as a Kaiju
to fight Kaiju, blah, blah, blah.
I'm assuming I have not watched very much of it.
Um, setting wise.
Do you ever watch Pacific Rim?
Yeah, that's similar to that.
I'm like, I'm going to have like the cleanup.
Yeah.
The music rules.
Okay.
So I'm so good.
Um, so I tried that.
I was going to try Dan to Dan or whatever just because something.
Yeah.
Tell me to try it, but I'm like, it's going to be weird, isn't it?
I don't like weird.
I'm like, I don't know.
What do you think is going to be weird about like, is it like the supernatural stuff?
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
Cause I feel like if it's based off Japanese lore, I feel like those creatures are always
so scary or freaky looking.
Um, yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, they're monsters.
Yeah.
I know, but they're not.
Well, I think, I don't know.
It's like a drag.
It's easier to, yeah.
It's easier route for them to take those gross ones out than if it was like a beast.
Yeah.
I don't find like Wolfman yet.
So I don't know if they're going to have you watch Wolf's reign.
I've not watched Wolf's reign.
You need to watch it.
It's so good.
Sorry.
That just came to mind.
Okay.
Oh, anyways.
Um, Joe, have yourself, what have you been up to?
Watch anything?
I feel like I've been super busy.
So my parents came to visit me last week.
They were in town for several days and we went and did a bunch of stuff for that.
It was pretty fun.
Um, it's kind of cold here.
So there was some stuff that was not as easy to do, like going outside and doing stuff
was not as good, which is, you know, I think that's like pretty fun to do.
Um, it's on this, but you know, uh, couldn't do that much.
So there was a lot of staying inside and eating, which was pretty good, except I'm not a big
stupid guy.
Um, so for me, it was a lot of staying inside and drinking, uh, which, which is also pretty
good.
So that was most of my week.
Um, I did get the chance to, I didn't want to go to the gym.
I did get the chance to, I didn't watch an anime.
I finished watching cyberpunk edge runners, which is the trigger show in the universe
of cyberpunk.
I think it came out.
Yeah.
It came out alongside that game in order to get people interested in the game after the
release was pretty rough.
Um, on Netflix, it was pretty good.
I did not play the game.
I have no interest in that game.
I do not like open world games.
I think open world games are bad most of the time.
So I was not very interested.
Um, that being said, I do kind of like the setting.
Um, well, one of the problems with that game, like when I watch, like I watched some friends
play and stuff like that, the humor in that game is not really my deal.
Uh, it's a lot of dark and like, I don't know, violent and sexual.
Yeah.
It's really violent.
I really, I feel like on the nose and kind of not that interesting sex jokes.
You know what I mean?
Like you could tell good sex jokes.
I think these were pretty lame.
Um, so I was not super into the game.
Uh, the show on the other hand does not do that nearly as much and is much better.
It's a, but like the thing with the show, okay.
So the show follows a kid named David.
Um, he has bad things happen to him and he kind of ends up on the street.
And so he ends up hooking up with this group of edge runners, which is like the term for
murder less mercenaries.
Yeah.
They're like mercenary hacker groups, right?
So some of them are hackers.
Some of them are like enforcer types.
Um, he acquires a like future tech thing.
So in the world of cyberpunk, everybody is like cybernetics, right?
So you can get like implants in your head.
You can also get like, you can replace your limbs with machinery, which can let you do
things.
Um, he gets one that lets him move very fast.
Um, like almost clockstopper kind of flip fast where it's like all of a sudden you're
here and then all of a sudden you're there.
Um, which is cool.
The animation on that looks really cool.
And so it's basically just a story about him traveling with this crew and then the things
that happen.
Um, it's a trigger studio trigger thing.
I'm pretty sure let me make sure that's actually correct.
I'm pretty sure that's right.
Um, I've watched about half of that.
Um, of the show of cyberpunk or yeah, there's like a couple of girls that are popular cosplay
characters.
Uh, yeah, the, the, uh, the, the one with the pigtails and then the, the chick that hangs
out David.
Oh, Lucy and Rebecca.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
Not the, not Kiwi, the one that I like who has the weird mouth.
No, probably not that one.
Uh, but yeah, I mean his jacket is cool.
Yeah.
Yeah, the fashion is pretty cool.
I mean, you know, I like futuristic.
Like I like this kind of setting.
Uh, the genre, I mean, it ends up being kind of tragic and like a bunch of other stuff
happens.
It has the, the, everything that trigger makes always has this thing for me where like, you
know, the action is really good because they animate action really well.
But like there's something about the story that makes me just wish they did more.
Like I'm always just watching these shows and being like, man, I wish they like did more
with this and like really explored more of the ideas here than what it is, which is usually
like just ends up being like a fairly straightforward action show.
Uh, but that being said, it's a good straightforward action show and it has very colorful and it's
extremely violent.
Yeah.
I mean, it's cut.
I feel like cyberpunk is not a world that's like, I like how do we get to that point where
it's so desensitized to everything.
Yeah.
Like, yeah.
It's like a game.
The number of jailbows is insane.
Yeah.
Like it's in that game.
Cyberpunk as a, as a, like the vibe of it is closer to Mad Max than like Blade Runner.
You know what I mean?
Like the setting is like Blade Runner, but the vibe and like the way people act is way
closer to Mad Max, which I think is interesting.
Yeah.
But it's not my favorite type of sci-fi aesthetic feeling, what it evokes, that kind of thing,
but it's still pretty good.
You know, it's only like 10 episodes.
So it's on Netflix.
They have Netflix for that.
Yeah.
And you know, pretty good.
So that's what I watched.
Pretty solid.
Nice.
Other than that, not doing that much, you know, I'm catching up on behind on stuff.
I have to make a bunch of dishes for a friendsgiving later today.
You said you had your mom read a manga.
How did that go?
Did she like it?
Was she confused by anything?
Oh, I mean, she was just reading the first, like I was showing my mom because she was
interested from the previous.
Because she's a big fan now.
So like check it out at Barnes and Noble or whatever.
And you know, you read that right to left and like down diagonally the other way.
So I let her read some of the.
Which hat earlier.
Manga just to kind of get used to reading in that direction.
And you know, seems fine.
Just being used to so.
Is your mom going to buy skip eat the manga?
So you get that.
Okay.
Do you tell her she can read online?
I don't know.
Okay.
She wants to know what happens with Kyoko.
Yeah.
Well, that's fun.
I got my step.
I think I was like 14.
I got my stepdad to read Gacken Alice.
And he was like, what the hell is happening?
And he'll still reference it.
Like that punching teddy bear from that one thing.
And.
Because that one has a lot of like little author like.
Scribbles like contact scribbles, but they're so tiny.
It's hard for someone with not the best vision to read.
But yeah, it's fun.
It's fun that they're willing to try.
Check them out.
Yeah.
Always, always try to get your family members to engage with
stuff you like, I guess.
Yeah.
But I, that's a big deal.
Let's see.
Do we want to roll into our new series?
Yeah.
I think so.
So.
You have like a little blurb you want to say or do you want
me just to roll into the.
My blurb about the production of this.
I first watched this.
I like, I watched it when it first came out and I was
absolutely enchanted by it.
I was like, oh my gosh, this is like the best thing ever.
So I had never watched a sports.
But like something about sports and it just like evokes
excitement.
Like.
Like you're rooting and like, oh my gosh, what's going to
happen?
And so it's like really fun to watch it.
It came out in 2013, maybe the first season.
But I'm sure Joe will have the details on that.
But yeah, it's just been a favorite anime.
One of my top.
Animes since I first watched it over 10 years ago.
So that's what I've got to say about it.
Very pretty art.
Yeah.
So you read this.
No, I haven't read it actually.
I've never seen it for.
Well, I try and like, if it's something I would buy,
I don't want to read it online.
So I haven't, but also I have never seen it available
for purchase.
But yeah, I would, I should, but also I should like
not spend all my money on manga.
So this is bouncing.
Easy to do.
Yeah.
Yeah, you saw it firsthand.
I bought so many books.
Ohio has all the manga for some reason.
Yes.
Oh, yeah, that's all I got.
All right.
So here's what I got.
So she hired for the anime.
Or I guess I could talk about the manga for a second
because I just happened to look this up.
So it's.
Where is the the manga was first published in 2007
and spanned up to 2022.
It appeared in the manga magazine, be love and is
created by Yuki Tsutsuga.
Be love sounds like boys love boys love.
Yes, but it is not that the anime season one came out
in 2011 and it spanned in 2012.
So it was the first 25 episodes.
There are three seasons of it.
I guess it's with some gaps in between.
So season two, so they're all 25 episodes.
So there's 75 total episodes.
Season two showed up basically immediately afterwards.
So that was 2013 is when that aired and then season three aired
in 2019 and went to 2020.
So pretty large gap.
Yeah.
Between season two and season three, which seems to be
a common theme in the show because Kimi, you said, OK,
also the genre.
Yes.
I don't know.
Maybe these companies only have a tolerance for so much
show Joe and or they are like waiting for enough of a
fan base to grow to then release another season.
I don't know.
It gives me hope that maybe there will be another season
of these shows in the future at least.
Yeah.
So the anime was from Studio Madhouse, which does a lot of
stuff.
You've probably heard of them.
They've been active since the 70s.
They did Ninja Scroll.
They did Perfect Blue.
They did Death Note.
They did Cardcaptor Sakura.
They did the original Try Gun.
They did the 2011 Hunter Hunter.
Most recently they've done stuff like Free Wren.
So they're, you know, big production studio has a lot of
stuff.
The director for this series or the person who's credited as
the director for the whole thing, essentially.
Whereas like often individual episodes can be directed by
other people, but I guess you have like one chief director
is Mario Osaka.
He appears to be like a pretty long stay with Madhouse.
So he has directed things or is credited as like the chief
director of stuff, including Cardcaptor Sakura, basically
all of it.
Yeah.
My love story, Ace of Diamond, all of Nana, monster, things,
things of that nature.
So quite a bit of stuff that we will probably, yeah, we will
probably get some of those.
Yeah.
Nana is another Jose for sure.
Definitely more suited for that genre association than
Chihaya Furu, but give it Mario Osaka.
Give you all the good stuff.
So quite a bit.
Cornedium to be.
No, good stuff.
Yeah.
I like Skip B.
Where there's a bunch of random people.
Like it seems like who skipped B was the height of this career.
This is the benefit of having a studio that sticks around for a
long time is that you can have people that have long careers at
it and so they can touch a bunch of different stuff.
I mean, the other, you know, the other shows we've had.
Who did Angelic Layer again?
I don't remember.
I feel like you said it was, was it not?
Aren't they also another big one?
It was like a boner or something.
Oh yeah, Bone Studio Bones.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So we're going to, we're going to, the more we do, we're going
to run into the same studios over again.
So far, I don't think we've had any repeats.
Nope.
But that's because we're trying to keep it.
With some variety.
We are not.
Believe it or not, we are not paying a lot of attention to the
production studio.
Would we decide what we're going to watch next?
Yeah, Joe's not anyone who pays to listen to that.
It'll start paying off when we get some repeats, when we get some
of the same people here, we could talk about how they, I don't know.
Maybe we're going to find we'll watch She Hire a Furu and then
we'll watch Nano and be like, ooh, this, this guy really likes this kind
of, well, I guess it's not written by the same person, but, you
know, camera shots, I don't know what the director does.
I was going to say, like, what does the director do within
animated series?
Like, I'm not that I'm in my mind.
They're just the person he like, coordinates and then watches
things unfold and then either gives the thumbs up or thumbs down.
But yeah, it seems we should go into this at a later point.
When I look at the Wikipedia for animation director, they just
kind of are in charge of the aspects of the animation process,
which I can't tell if that's like an administrative job more
than like how like a creative job, right?
So I assume that they're involved in like storyboards and stuff,
but like, who knows, maybe they really are just doing a bunch
of logistics all the time.
Yeah, we'll look into that later.
I'll look into that later.
That could be my homework.
Anyway, so for this show, we watched the first two episodes.
We're going to cover two episodes for as long as we think we can do
that.
If we think we can get away with three, then we will start doing
three, but at the at the at the moment, we're going to do just
the first two.
Yes, I actually, I watched all three.
Oh, you watched the third one.
Cool.
Yeah, it's fine.
You can just sit on that.
Yep.
But to start, we've got episode one.
Episode one of Chihair Furu is called Now the Flower Blooms.
We love titles like this.
I feel like Skippy had the same similar titles of like.
Declared in sentences like this is happening now.
Decorative and making sense.
Yes.
Yeah.
Okay.
So we open on a high school.
We learned that a new student there is the younger sister of a model.
And the model's name is Chitose Ayase.
Some boys are eager to meet her and see a mysterious flyer that
says, let's start a competitive karate club.
We see the beautiful transfer student grab the flyer and then
she stands on a chair and starts to hang it up on the Bolton board.
She seems a little weird because she's wearing a skirt over her
track pants and a teacher gets mad at her because she's like,
I told you not to wear, but she gets mad at her.
She's like, why are you wearing a track pants and a skirt?
And this chick is like, will you tell me not just to wear a skirt if
I'm standing on a, like a table or whatever chair.
She's like, okay, but like don't wear the skirt over the track suit.
It's like a whole back and forth thing, right?
Yeah, I guess so.
Yeah.
Go ahead. You go ahead.
She's a weirdo.
Yeah, she's just kind of weird.
Kind of weird, maybe a little airhead-y.
Doesn't care what other people think.
Yeah.
On a mission.
Anyway, we got the OP.
I think she's a first year.
So that's why she's a new student.
Not that she's a transfer student.
She's just some sub-center transfer student.
So I'm a transfer student.
15.
Yeah.
This is their first year.
Yeah.
Yep.
Let's see.
So we jump back after the OP plays.
We learned that this girl is our main character.
Her name is Chihaya Ayase.
She's very disappointed that nobody
came to join a karate club, which we have not explained yet.
But that is the card game that we
are going to be playing in this show.
Her friend tells her to just join the track team instead,
because she was good at it before in middle school.
But Chihaya just says that she was just doing that to meet people
and she doesn't really care about that.
She's super bummed out because she wanted
to focus on Karuta in high school,
but can't because she doesn't have anybody to play with.
She kind of just like lazes around and doesn't really do much.
But we're eventually introduced to her childhood friend
named Tai Chi.
He tells her that her nickname is Beauty in Vein
because she doesn't do anything.
Nope around because she can't play this card game.
Well, she's listening to the poems being read.
That's what she was listening to on her little iPod.
OK, so that's part of the game.
I have a section where I explain how the game's played
in a little bit.
Yeah, yeah.
And Tai Chi, I don't remember who,
but his voice actor was in one of our other series.
Yeah, I'll do the voice actors a little bit later on in the series.
She's excited to learn that he went to her high school
because she thought he was going to go to a different high school.
So she's excited that he's here.
He clearly has a crush on her and she is acting like super
familiar with him, which makes him blush.
While waiting for the train, he gets a phone call from his girlfriend.
She high figures out that he has a girlfriend.
It is shocked.
Tai Chi tries to be nonchalant about it,
but she is mostly bummed because if he has a girlfriend,
he probably won't play Karuna as seriously because this is her whole life.
It's like so dismissive.
Like, oh, yeah, I have a girlfriend,
but I'm just dating her because like a thing to do, you know.
Yeah, she asked me not.
He does not come across well in these episodes.
Particularly now he doesn't.
Nope. No.
Also, Karina is how I say it.
But yeah, I don't know.
Somebody somebody tell us we're right or wrong.
Anybody I mean, I could just pronounce it.
Well, I don't have the best track record of actually pronouncing things correctly.
Yeah, we can say whatever they know what they're talking about.
OK, so OK, at this point, we get just a flashback that lasts the next two episodes.
So we go into flashback mode.
It's like doesn't there's no visual like implication that we're in a different time.
It's just caught to her being a kid.
Yeah, it's just they're on the train.
She was bummed out because Tai Chi probably isn't going to play Karuna anymore.
And then all of a sudden it's like she explains that three years ago,
she got into Karuna.
Chi Haya was a tomboy and was good friends with Tai Chi at the time.
But when they were at what it was, I guess it was three years since she was supposed to be.
Well, they were in sixth grade.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
OK. So they're in sixth grade.
There was a mysterious reclusive transfer student that was getting bullied by everybody else
because he was like a bumpkin, I guess.
They say where he's from, but I don't I don't I didn't look it up.
Foucoui or something.
Yeah, his name is Arata Wataya.
He's getting bullied by everybody, but she hire a stands up for him
without kind of realizing she's doing this because her whole deal is she kind of just says stuff.
The first thing that comes to her mind very loudly without thinking.
Yeah, she's yeah.
So I mean, because she's climbing them out and then it makes them look bad, like, you know, saying,
hey, you're bullying him, which most people maybe would try to do it more tactfully.
But she's just blind and oh, yeah.
Because they're like, they're like the weird phrases he says.
And she's like, why are you all being jerks?
And they're like, oh, yeah, it's pretty funny.
Yeah, they're being so mean.
Kids stink.
Yeah. Let's see.
Still in the flashback we cut to Arata on his paper route.
He's really good at memorizing stuff, which makes him awesome out of paper route.
He delivers the paper to Chihaya's place and finds her waiting outside in the rain for him to give her the paper.
She gets the paper and then goes shows it to her sister who's in bed.
She's showing her like an article about a beauty contest that her sister was in but lost.
So she's like in the background of a camera shot of the person who won.
Chihaya is very proud of her sister.
But she does say her sister is annoyed that she lost and is like, go away.
Back at school, we learned that the students are assigned a task to memorize 100 poems as like part of a school assignment, I guess.
Chihaya couldn't do it, but Tai Chi and Arata both did.
So they both qualify for the Karuta tournament because memorizing these poems is part of this game.
So I guess it's a game that you play in middle school.
Chihaya suddenly realizes that Arata was the one who delivered the paper to her and stands up and shouts it out in front of the whole class just during class.
Because she just says whatever comes to her mind.
This causes everyone to think that Arata is poor and needs money from a job.
It turns out he is poor, but what?
Yeah, well, he's because he I think legally he's not supposed to be working.
Oh, yeah, there's like, yeah, yeah, blue is cover.
You blew something.
He did not want people to know.
She's she's very bad at sensitive.
She's just not aware.
Yeah, I think her that one.
Through all of this, Tai Chi is jealous that she high.
He's giving Arata attention.
He sees them talking after school and then shoves them both down in the rain.
Arata invites Chihaya over so he can clean up and his place is a little run down.
So he is, you know, he might he might need more money.
It's just them in the house and Arata is shy.
OK, eventually, Arata asks why she was waiting for him for the paper this morning.
Chihaya explains that her about her sister's beauty contest and says it's her dream to see her sister becomes Japan's next top model.
Arata comments that it's not really a dream for you if it's something somebody else accomplishes.
Chihaya gets a fence defensive and asks Arata what his dream is, and he pulls out the Karuda cards.
She recognizes them and he insists that they play together.
We learn the rules of the game.
So I look this up.
They refer to the game in the show as Karuda, but Wikipedia says that Karuda is the type of cards in the literal game they're playing.
It's called Uta Garuta or like a poet like poetry, Karuda.
I don't think this distinction does not matter.
I just look this up.
So the way the games basically played is that there's a hundred cards that have the second half of a poem printed on them.
And then one non-player person will read out the full poem.
So there's the first half of the poem and the second half, which is printed on the card.
They'll start with the first half and then they will read all the way through the whole thing.
So the first player, so the two players that are playing will look at all these cards and they will listen to the poem.
And the first player to recognize the poem and tap the corresponding card with the rest of the poem on it wins the round.
And whoever wins the most rounds wins the game, essentially.
So you have to memorize a hundred poems. Yes.
Yes. So I think in a typical match, it's like there's 50 out of the hundred cards in play.
So each player has 25 cards on their side, but they have to memorize all 50.
And there can even be dead cards, which are like lines from the poems that aren't in this session.
Because they like not all hundred poems are in play.
And then the point is to get to where you only or you get rid of your cards on your side first.
So there's things like if you pick the wrong card, then it's like a fault and they get to send you one of their cards.
Or if you take a card from their side, then you get to send them one of your cards.
So the point is to get rid of all the cards on your side, but there are like things that can add cards to your side if you like mess up and stuff like that.
So it's very much speed and memorization are the two skills needed here.
Yeah. They don't they don't really go through all these rules.
Like they didn't really explain that much in this.
I don't know if this is just like a common game that they assume the audience would know or we're just going to talk about those rules later.
Yeah, it'll like those things will come into play more.
OK, right now this is pretty much all I got.
Also, in this case, it's a recording like they don't have another person to read the poems out.
So it's like a tape recording because this is in the past where tape tape recordings popular.
Arata and Chi Hai I started playing.
Arata is super focused and he recognizes the poem at the first word and flings the card so hard it gets stuck in a wall.
We like throws it.
Arata is crazy good at the game and Chi Hai is overwhelmed.
She vows to take at least one card.
So she sees a card she recognizes that she knows the full poem for and waits for it.
Eventually comes up and she like full body dives for it.
She gets the point and Arata is impressed.
After the game, he thanks Chi Hai for playing and he tells her that he's that where he's from in Kui.
This is a popular game, but nobody in Tokyo really plays it.
So he has to play it by himself most of the time.
He also notes that because it's a Japanese specific game and that it's pretty complicated,
if you can become the best in Japan, then you're basically the best player in the world.
So that's his goal.
Chi Hai thinks that's pretty impressive.
And then Arata comments that Chi Hai's name is phonetically the same as the first half of one of the other poems in the thing.
So he's like, you have a good name.
And then Arata's mom comes home and they kind of get cut off.
Chi Hai goes home, your girlfriend.
Yes, she's like, you just randomly brought some girl home.
Yes, Chi Hai goes home thinking about Arata's dream with some inspiration as we cut to credits.
First episode. What do you think?
The first episode we get that we get shown we meet the cast, the main two boys, I am assuming.
Uh huh.
Taishi who sucks.
Yes, he is a little shit.
Taishi.
Yes, even like older, even high school, Taishi ain't seen even.
Yeah.
I mean, he's well, I feel a little bit like uninvested in his life at scenes.
This is a trend.
I'm noticing a trend with the main character women in these shows where it's like there are boys that are really into them, but they're kind of oblivious about it.
Yeah.
Yeah. Very, uh, not intentionally oblivious, but like more than the average person.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
I mean, it's mostly like it's better to be oblivious because you just want to be friends than like make it clear that you understand so that they then move forward with like trying to confess or something.
So it's better to just kind of not notice and nothing will have or nothing will change and you'll just stay friends.
Kind of.
I mean, I get that as a tactic, but they seem like they genuinely don't understand.
Yeah.
Which is interesting.
Interesting trend.
That's how much they are in the friend zone.
Yeah.
They can even fathom.
Yeah.
I'm interested to see how they play it in adult because the next episode is all flashback too.
So, yeah, they're like, you know, 12.
So that doesn't really matter.
Yeah.
It's kind of a strange start to a series where like, like what maybe you just start with the kids and then jump in time rather than like, like five minutes, maybe of current day and then like a long ass flashback or like spanning episodes.
I mean, there's starting.
There's some stuff in here.
I mean, I guess like at one point on the train, um, Tai Chi asks.
She hire if she has talked to Arata recently and she's like, no.
So like there obviously they had some weird falling out.
There's going to be some drama in their in their reunion, right?
So like that's going to be a piece of it.
I see we're building up to that.
This is interesting.
This seems like not the best game of all time.
We played it.
We did play it.
Yeah.
I bought so you can buy.
There's this company called.
Google, uh, Arata, I think and, um, that you can either, you know, obviously this Japanese game.
So it's like not very many options for translated versions of it.
But so they have like the option where it can be like like Western poet poems being read or it can be like the English translation of the original poems.
Um, that like those are the two different types you can get.
So I got like the original one just translated for my deck.
Um, so they're kind of pricey.
Um, and not that many options, but watching this was I was like, damn, we should have Karda and VR.
That'd be cool. I'm like, so few people would play it, but I'm like, I want that so badly.
The most niche product.
Yeah.
Yes.
That's pretty funny.
Oh man.
I don't like it a lot.
I'm not good, but I think it's a lot of fun.
Mostly because it's yeah.
And I only got into it because of this anime.
So I'm just a huge dork.
Yeah.
We'll get more into the mechanics of it.
Maybe this can win me over.
Yeah.
Oh, you're not one over.
I mean, it was fun.
I just don't know any of the like the tactics, right?
Yes.
Yeah.
It just seems like a game where you memorize poems and then point it stuff, right?
Which is fine, I guess, but like I want to learn the like the tricks.
Mm hmm.
All right.
Well, we haven't gotten the yet.
So we're still in the flashback episode two is called the red that is we open on Child
Chihaya trying to remember the poems she gets to class and everybody ignores her because
Tai Chi somehow convinced everybody to ignore her as part of his bullying campaign against
Arata.
Tai Chi tells her that they'll stop ignoring her if she stops talking to Arata and Chihaya
is like, wow, maybe you should just stop ignoring Arata because he's cool.
He could beat everybody here at Karuna.
Arata says that he'll beat Tai Chi without letting him take a single card because Tai Chi
is also pretty competitive in this game right now.
Tai Chi tells him that if he takes at least one card at the upcoming tournament that they're
going to have a school, then he'll just ignore until graduation.
So if I get even one, I get to ignore you as much as I want the OP plays and then we
immediately jump into the school tournament.
Tai Chi's mom is there and is recording the match.
So like the pressure is on for him, I guess.
Every single parent has the camcorder glued to their hand.
Oh, yeah.
It used to be how it is, you know.
Yeah, I never had that, really.
You don't have a bunch of home movies of you playing a weird card game at school.
No, I'm assuming this is kind of like the equivalent of a spelling bee where it's like a thing that they do,
but it's not like in the curriculum.
It's just like a thing to gauge interest for them to then pursue on their own time.
Yeah, we had a couple of those in high school.
I remember doing or maybe in middle school.
I don't quite remember.
Yeah, we would just like randomly do like a chess thing where you can go for one period and play that or something.
Yeah, yeah.
No parents showed up though.
No, no.
Well, I have a fucking I did the spelling bee and you did my parents did show up and they were the only parents to show up.
And then I got OK, and then like the first word is skunk.
No, first words were easy and then they were getting more difficult even though it was still like people's first word.
So like I got like a really hard word even though the first person had an easy word.
Oh, the first word I was embarrassed and then my parents followed me so everyone knew it was my parents who were there.
And I was so mortified.
What was the word?
You remember?
I can't I don't I think it was some kind of medical term or something.
Oh my God.
I was like what this is rigged.
This is crazy.
They should they should know that's embarrassing for the people who put it on.
Honestly, I was just I was so embarrassed.
I mean, it's really nice that both my parents separately came to like support me in this thing.
They were the only ones to do it.
My sister sheltered so I think we were just both like, oh, parents. Yeah.
Like she had our stepdad come to lunch in middle school for Thanksgiving or something and he was the only parent and she was too embarrassed.
So she didn't sit with him at the lunch and our childhood friends out with him instead.
Oh my God.
That's pretty good.
Yeah.
I was continuing.
Yeah. Anyway, Titus mom showed up in a way that I think is going to be a net negative.
He's doing pretty well though, but he's annoyed that she high isn't paying attention to him.
Arata has his match because they're kind of in waves that they do these matches.
And he's incredible and he wins all the points and just owns his opponent.
This makes Titus a little nervous about Arata's win.
She has tells Arata that he's got this, but Arata points out that she hired to a card from him.
So it's not like he's, you know, unbeatable.
They go out in the hall to talk and Titus catches up with them and throws a soda at Arata for winning.
He's like on the house, man, but then Arata opens it and it like sprays soda all over himself
because you just opened a can someone's through at you.
Yeah, dumb.
He goes to clean up and Chi Hai tries to help him.
Yeah.
T'ai Chi sees this and gets jealous.
So he steals Arata's glasses because he is a boy with glasses.
A little shit.
T'ai Chi sucks.
Chi Hai asks T'ai Chi if he's seen Arata's glasses.
He just lost them suddenly and he's like, no, Arata thinks that T'ai Chi definitely took them,
but Chi Hai is like, no, he's like, T'ai Chi might be a jerk, but he's not that mean,
which she is wrong about.
We also learned that Arata's eyesight is extremely bad.
Like he has to be inches away from a thing to see it.
That being said, they just keep going with the tournament.
It's the match between T'ai Chi and Arata, but he still hasn't found his glasses.
So he's like squinting real close at the cards so he could try to see him and T'ai Chi taunts him,
despite the fact that he stole his glasses.
That being said, even with his poor eyesight, Arata still starts dominating T'ai Chi
because he memorized all of the card positions because we know he's very good at memorizing things.
T'ai Chi realizes what's going on and starts to switch the card positions around,
which I think is probably...
Wait, is this a race?
Yes.
I don't know what the rules for this elementary level, but in actual matches,
you're supposed to raise your hand so that the speaker doesn't continue
and now it's that you're moving cards so that the opponent has the chance to re-memorize.
Dude, not supposed to do that.
Little freaking cheater.
We're going to find him.
This is a very not-regulation game.
It turns out.
Yeah, it's just kids at a school.
Yeah.
So T'ai Chi is moving around cards, which means that Arata can't hit the right cards
because he doesn't know where they are.
So T'ai Chi starts scoring some points using this method.
Arata is frustrated and starts to cry when suddenly T'ai Chi shoves him out of the way from nowhere
and offers to be his sub.
The teacher thinks this is weird, but T'ai Chi says that he doesn't have his glasses,
so he's at a disadvantage and T'ai Chi agrees to the substitution,
so they just let him do it.
T'ai Chi starts playing and her basic strategy is to listen to the first syllable
and the second half of the card so you can actually see which one it matches up with
after it's read.
And then swatting a bunch of cards to throw T'ai Chi off.
I don't really understand what's happening here.
So you, as long as you are getting the right card when you're making that just
or when you make the move to swipe cards, as long as the right one is in the group of cards you hit,
you can do that.
I think it's kind of frowned upon or not very polite way to play, but it's in the rules.
So as long as she's getting the right card, it doesn't matter how much of a mess she's making of the others.
Although, if you have to place them back where they were,
I feel like that's hard to put them all back where they were, except for the card you got right.
Yeah, this feels like it's technically allowed, but it's kind of bad manners.
But this game is off the rails.
Nobody cares.
Yeah.
But she does this and it starts looking like, or she also starts looking at T'ai Chi to see if she can like see where he's pointing.
So she could just like grab a bunch of those cards before he can because she's just trying to be as fast as possible.
Yeah.
It's a strategy.
Losing.
So he starts to like focus and try to get on it.
And finally, it comes down to the last round, but she hire doesn't recognize any of the remaining cards.
She suddenly remembers that one of them is the second half of the poem that her name phonetically is the first half of.
She's like, oh, it's that one that Arata pointed out last episode.
She tries to focus on that one and it turns out that that's the one that gets read aloud and she's able to tap it before the second half of the poem.
So she gets the point and she wins.
Yeah.
Suck it, T'ai Chi.
Yeah, get wrecked, kid.
T'ai Chi is disappointed, but Chi Haya says it was a fun game.
Then she says that Arata will be a master one day and Arata says that she will be a queen, which is the title of the best woman player,
which is a wild exchange to have an episode to.
She's going to be a queen.
Well, master is the male top player and queen is the top female player.
Those are not equal though, because like master isn't even a gendered title.
I mean, these are translations, but like.
Yes.
It's not king.
It's a master and queen.
I mean, I could imagine it being like, oh, maybe originally only men were competing in this and then they open it up to women.
So they wanted to be like very clear.
There's a difference.
That's right.
Is this going to be it?
Wait, is this a gendered sport?
You can.
I think it just depends on the tournament.
Like for the official, like if you want to go against the reigning like queen or master, you would only be facing against that gender.
But there's like team matches where you can play like where it's like, okay, you have a team of five and like three of your your teammates need to win their matches to win the collective team round.
So that can be kind of of assortment of like different genders playing against each other.
And so, yeah.
And then there's like skill levels.
This will be addressed later in the show.
But like, because you this is kind of like how paintball works, like how much you play and how well you do like will propel you or like give you the points to be ranking up to a different level.
And then you can pee against people with the same rank as you.
So it's not like everyone's playing against everyone.
Yeah.
Okay.
So that's kind of but but this is all so unofficial at this point.
We'll get into that stuff later.
Cool.
Yeah.
So that game ends.
She'll be the queen one day.
She calls her calls home to tell her mom that she won the tournament.
But her mom tells her that a talent scout has come for her sister and she kind of just blows her off.
Her sister.
I know her like her mom is like, oh, there's a talent scout here.
Which she is also like, oh, that's awesome.
So yeah, but this is like the first time she's excited about something for herself and her family.
I know.
Totally disregards.
She's like totally going to be a neglected kid.
Her sister gets on the phone and she hire starts to tell her that she won like a tournament, but her sister thinks that's lame and then like hangs up.
Yeah.
So mean to her.
Like our sister just wants her little sister worshiping her and doesn't want.
Yeah.
Like she was so proud of herself and excited to share with them and they just totally dismissed or didn't even want to hear about her accomplishment or anything to do with her.
It's like the household revolves around her sister's success as a model.
Yeah.
That sucks.
Yeah, that sucks.
Elsewhere in the bad family department, Tyche's mom tells him that he shouldn't spend his time on things he can't win and should focus on stuff he can win.
So I guess stop playing this card game.
Oh, mom sucks.
Yeah.
Another another shitty parent.
And she's like, oh, and you lost to a girl too.
I was like, it's fine.
It's fine for him to lose to a girl.
No, he can't lose to a girl in the poetry memorizing card game.
Yeah, she was like, I came and show this video I took to your father because he didn't win.
And a lot of pressure.
Just ending post.
Okay, it's fine.
You can you can give your dad misinformation.
He doesn't care.
Oh, man.
It was not fair.
Yeah, just lie to him.
She hired Tyche run into each other in the hallway and they hear some like thumping somewhere.
So they go and investigate.
They talk about a caruda on the way and she high tells Tyche that he shouldn't feel bad to losing in a fair game.
They find out that the thumping is a rata practicing slapping cards, but he's not he's not doing it with cards.
He's just slapping the ground.
That's kind of lame.
He's like he's doing what's the thing you do in sports visualization or whatever.
Yeah, shadow boxing, but with card slapping.
Yeah.
But he's doing this after the games already over.
He didn't do that.
Well, he's probably frustrated.
Yeah, that he didn't get to finish it and when she high remembers that they never found his glasses and she goes to look for them because then he can play caruda.
She runs off and Tyche hands the glasses to a rata.
He first lies and says that he found them, but then he admits to stealing them.
He asks him not to tell Chi Haya and a rata calls him a coward, but also agrees not to tell her outside.
She had climbed a tree.
Oh, sorry.
I was going to say, I thought you would like the I don't know what you call these like the little thing where the fun animation where he calls him a coward and then like a card like flies in with the word coward on it.
Oh, yeah.
Tyche and he's like looking at it.
He's like, what?
Yeah, there's a good visual gag there because the ride.
His whole thing is that he flings cards too hard and they like, you know, you're basically throwing a playing card.
So it gets stuck in the walls and stuff.
So the walls are like, yeah, the paper walls.
Yeah.
It's not like plaster.
I don't think you know, you could do it with plaster still.
You can mess things up with playing cards.
But yeah, the visual gag is that he says that it's like he does that flick into Tyche.
It's pretty good.
It's the most it's probably the most cartoony thing that happens this episode.
This is not like a particularly show.
No, but I like that even sometimes it like, I feel like the quality will drop for those little gags.
But I feel like at least the quality stayed the same for that.
I mean, this is mostly like a fond memories flashback.
Yeah.
It's like a little once we get into it, there'll be more.
Yeah.
Outside, she has climbed a tree looking for the glasses because I guess she thinks that like a bird picked it up or something.
Yeah, because they're shiny.
The boys come out to look for her.
She hears them and she jumps out of the tree and lands on them as we cut to credits.
Yeah.
Friendship.
I mean, I guess it's basically like establishing the stakes or emotional stakes of like this friendship they had as kids and like why it's still so important.
She hired especially, right? Because clearly she's to this day super into card is grateful for being introduced to it and has a lot of friendship memories tied into it.
Yeah.
I mean, we do have a good amount of work here, right?
Because like we understand like Tai Chi is a guy who's being very heavily pressured by his parents, both.
Well, it sounds like his mom on behalf of his dad in order to succeed at everything.
And despite being pretty good at everything, he can't get the girl he likes to pay attention to him.
So that bums him out.
Arata is a bullied nerd who's good at memorizing stuff and probably doesn't have a lot of good social skills, but he's super into this card game.
And likes hanging out with Chi Haya because she also likes this card game.
Apparently they have some falling out coming in the future. Not sure what's up with that. I guess we'll get more of that next episode, maybe.
And then Chi Haya who has very little going on in her life until this card game, which she's going to be obsessed with as her family basically ignores her.
And her sister outshines her at everything.
Yeah, I mean, like we've seen where like she sees things, she says them like she just seems to like fixates on a singular thing, like how she was with her sister.
Now it's Karada.
But I guess I mean, for what it sounds like in middle school, at least she was like branching out a little bit and doing like track and field to people.
I can't tell if this is going to be a regression because she seems way more closed off in high school and the, you know, five minutes we get of her in high school.
Uh-huh. It'll be just like a talker where it's like, girl, there is more to life than angelic layer.
There is more to life than Karada.
You can take it seriously, but also don't forget.
Yeah, we'll see. We'll see where that goes.
But yeah, so far compared to the other shows, this is does not seem like it's going to be super romance based.
The romance also seems like it's going to be Tai Chi's very into her and she is very not interested in engaging in romance in any way.
I'm assuming Arana will probably also be interested in her and she will similarly not be so very interested.
We'll see.
I mean, there's.
Yeah, it's well, it's like hard games and like the bonds and friendship and teamwork.
And then the romance is very lightly covered in at least from what is covered in the shows.
I'm assuming you're the conclusion of the series, but it becomes more like a that comes to a head.
But yeah, it's very much I don't know this game bringing people together kind of.
Is right, like it's going to be a place. Maybe I mean.
That's what's anime we got.
Yeah, that's true.
But that's like popular and this is like a thing that maybe is more popular like back in the day.
But now in this new age of technology and stuff, people aren't as interested.
So it's like a much smaller tight knit community.
So like Arana coming from a more rural area.
That's a thing they do a lot there, but here in the big city of Tokyo, like it's not that common of a thing.
So the people who are into it, it's like exciting to meet them because it's not as often that you find them or something along those lines.
So yeah, it's like it can be intended for women and not be super fixated on the romance elements and still be interesting.
Oh, no, I wasn't I wasn't saying that I'm just saying.
No, no, yeah, yeah, where that's the card game is going to be the focus.
I mean, you already said this sports anime more kind of thing, which will be interesting, I suppose.
Yeah, I'm excited.
Not not a skit.
No, I think we're going to get a lot of visual gags.
Skit is very like like humor is so enthused with skit be in Kyoko and and Chi Furu is just a lot more like competitive, like getting better training kind of things like that rather than humor.
Yeah, I don't quite have the tone yet of this show.
No, no, I mean, they're kind of strange.
Yeah, yeah, so we'll see.
Well, I know you'll see.
But yeah, so those are our first two episodes of Chi Furu and yay new series.
I guess I'm trying to think because this is not as like the game is happening.
It's like every step of like, oh, they made this new thing that move like we haven't gone to that point.
So I don't know what the coverage is going to look like as far as like recapping it.
Yeah, I'm going to be fascinated to see how they present this game.
Like because I don't even have an analog of like what other games would be similar to because I'm usually, you know, most sports anime I've heard of the sport before.
So I like, you know, even if it's something like water polo or whatever, right?
Like, I know I understand the basic rules of it.
This is like totally a different thing.
I don't even know how you would cover this.
Like, is it really going to be like move per move?
Like, are you going to have episodes where one game takes place?
Yeah, it's not like they have a commentator for official matches being like, yeah, it just seems like it's going to be kind of tough.
But so I'm interested to see what they do for that, especially for this.
Yeah, you'll in turn.
Yeah, like how that will, what the experience will be of watching this.
Yeah, we'll find out.
Yeah.
So I'm interested in this bizarre card game.
I love it.
I'm not very good at it, but I really like it.
But you think it's hard to get people to play with you there.
Just imagine you're here and your whole family is lazy.
They don't want to memorize anything.
Please, please, please, please, please.
Yeah.
I mean, the problem with this card game is that like in order to be good at it,
you would have to memorize the first and second half of all of these poems.
But like that's a hundred poems for a card game.
Yeah.
It's like, yeah.
Not a casual.
Well, I mean, the only way I've done is that it's more like, OK, I just as soon as
I hear the actual card being read, look for it or have it memorized versus like.
Yeah, I mean, when we played, I was just waiting for the read what's on the card
and then just trying to pick it out there.
That wouldn't fly in competitive game plays, what I'm saying.
Yes, you could never be competitive.
I know.
Oh, man.
Well, yeah, now I just want to play this.
I'm now in the play of it.
I'll just be like, aren't I play by myself because on Spotify,
I have it where I can shuffle the poems being read.
You can just you can slap the ground.
You can shadow box like Arata is doing at the end.
You don't even need the cards to start slapping the desk.
Oh, man.
No, no, no, no.
Also, they play on Tatami maps and the cards are like like thick.
They're like not playing card material.
They're thicker.
So like, I don't really have optimal playing conditions for how it would
or where it's like this flighty is more like this slap on it rather than like.
Which oh, yeah, movement. Yeah. No. Yeah.
And let's see.
But yeah, so that's that's yep.
Bad adults again. Another show with with shitty parents.
Yeah. Yeah.
We got a fine one where like the parents.
Well, I guess teaming needs to doke ahead.
Her parents are cool.
Yeah.
Just not very many.
Um, I think that covers the first two episodes.
So now we'll switch to gears and go into our recommendations where we just,
you know, obviously, if you're listening to this, you have a very specific
interest in anime and, you know, there's a lot of like overlapping.
Like, oh, I feel like anime a lot of times you like games or this or that.
And so I think it's fun to just share like things that we like.
And I know at least one person is rolling with these recommendations
and checking them out.
So that's cool.
That person being Joe's mom, but still.
Oh, is she doing the recommendations?
You said she started watching something I had recommended.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
OK, I should do that.
She's not taking my recommendations.
No, that's because clearly.
She's not doing my I have the better taste.
Yeah. Oh, you read your book about gambling.
I try to give it to her.
I got close to being able to give her the gambling.
I recommended a book about gambling machines called Addiction by Design.
Incredible book. You should read that book.
It's not my recommendation because I recommended it earlier.
Go back to a thousand.
Go back to Angelic Layer and skip to the recommendation sections
of all those episodes.
If you want to hear all of our recommendations, we should put them
somewhere. I don't know if we've done that yet.
Probably not. No.
Well, I had been, but I've gotten lazy.
But yeah, I should update.
Well, once more people freaking listen to us, then they'll like
justify the effort of me going through and let's do this somewhere
other than in the show notes.
I see because we have them linked in the episode description.
Yes. At the very least.
So what are you recommending to us, Sarah?
I can't mix it up.
I'm going to be recommending a app or store.
I'm not sure how to best describe what it is exactly, but
I'm going to recommend Thread Up, which is a site where people will send them
their old clothes.
You know, obviously they have to be in like good condition and still have tags
and stuff, but they send them and then they will, you know, like take photos
and present them for repurchase by people using the app.
And then you'll get like a cut of it from your stuffing sold.
But it's really good because I don't know, fast fashion is like a big thing.
It's terrible for the planet and stuff.
Like the amount of water that goes into making a pair of jeans is wild.
And but so this is like a good way to like reuse clothing like me, you know,
the one man's trash is another man's treasure kind of thing.
So a lot of my clothes I've gotten from there and they recently improved
like the because you can like upload a photo and it'll like find similar
looking items to suggest for you.
It's constantly getting new things.
And so like or it could be something really old that you can never purchase
from a store and it's all like very well priced.
Like and they have a ton of sales.
And if you buy from them, then like it points that can then be like
redeemed for five dollar, ten dollar coupons or freak shipping and stuff like that.
And so they sad thing is they don't have a men's section.
They have women's and then they have boys and girls like children.
And but they have like dresses, pants, tops, accessories.
And then they you can search by like brand.
So like, oh, anthropology, I love their stuff.
And look through everything from that brand that they have on there
and buy your size and stuff.
So yeah, if you're looking to like get new clothes,
but want to get something at a good price and, you know,
like not impacting the planet, then I recommend using thread up.
It's the app that you can find on both Google Play and Apple's.
That's like.
Read.
Oh, yeah, I got.
I just.
It's like the specific product.
I mean, I guess I recommend that.
You can just like that.
No, it's good. No, it's just good.
Yeah.
Yeah. Find it in stores today.
They should.
I mean, maybe I just I really like it.
I just got a new package from them.
I have been needing like little little camis to wear
that I can wear like a long sleeve, but not have to like button up all the way.
And it's just like easy to find like it delivers pretty quickly.
I really, really like it.
Is anything like fine, really?
You know, it's like the ref shopping, but online.
So it's, you know, more and that maybe higher standards
than maybe your local thrift shop.
But yeah, I really like it.
Oh, yeah, that's that.
And how about you, Joe?
What are you going to recommend today?
I'm going to recommend a movie.
I'm going to recommend the 1981 Hungarian animated fantasy adventure film,
Son of the White Mare. Did I recommend this last time?
I have never heard of this.
No, you did not recommend this last time.
Good, because this movie is very weird.
So this is a animated movie.
It's it's fairly famous amongst like animation circles is what I made
because I like won some awards and things like that.
Yes, sir. Yeah.
Yes. And I also had a 4K restoration in 2019, which is cool,
because this is a movie that is
for me really about like spectacle.
So it is about this is some like Hungarian legend
or like a combination of several like mythological legendary
kind of stories about some gods that have these sons.
Then there are wives for the sons and then they unleash a bunch of demons
or dragons and things kind of go bad.
It's the plot of the movie really isn't that important.
I mean, one hand is fairly straightforward.
It's like, oh, we got everything gone bad in the kingdom.
We have to restore balance by defeating these evil things
and freeing these women, etc. etc.
The thing that's interesting about this movie is that the visuals are striking.
You could basically take any shot of this
and it would be like a pretty good screensaver or background
because it just like looks really great.
A lot of interesting visual stuff going on
because they will call the bad guys dragons.
But then it turns out they are these weird things,
like sometimes these big golems.
Sometimes they are one of them is just like a literal tank with a bunch of guns.
One of them is like a weird multiheaded creature
that is difficult to even tell what it is.
So it's very fascinating in terms of the like visual imagery,
how stuff is drawn, how stuff moves around.
It's like her son of bosses or something.
Yeah, they're a little weird.
They're a little weird stuff going on in it.
You know, it's like that kind of fantasy feel
or like an old time myth feel.
So some of it's a little weird.
But I think that can kind of contribute to the overall feeling of this movie,
which is very interesting.
So I would check it out.
Distribution wise, I don't.
You can find this in places.
Well, if they just had the redo, it's got to be somewhere.
Or the. Yeah, I think you could rent it.
They posted it. They posted it on Vimeo.
I don't think it's translated, though.
But like, I think they have an official post of it there.
So you can go and look at some of the visuals like for free on Vimeo.
If you are interested. Yeah, it's cool.
Yeah, there.
That's a taste of what our recommendations can and.
I don't know. I feel like at some point I've been like,
I'm just going to recommend pets.
It's like a thing to recommend my dog to you.
Now, just pets in general.
Yeah, I don't know.
I've done like a band before.
It can just be anything that others can enjoy as well.
Yeah, sure. It's our podcast. We can do whatever we want.
That's right. It is our podcast.
So speaking of which, if you had a good time,
you should rate us five stars out of five stars on your podcast platform.
Whatever you're listening to right now, go to it and do this.
Also, leave a comment. If you can leave a comment.
We like that. It's good for discoverability.
This is our first new.
This is the first episode of a new show.
So hopefully we have some new people jumping on.
Maybe this is a good time to tell people to jump on.
It also means we just finished up another show.
So if you have any friends or anybody
you think might be interested in Skip Beat,
they can listen to our coverage of Skip Beat.
I've also covered some other shows.
We covered Kibbe de Tadoké,
which is how did season three come out earlier this year?
We covered Angelic Layer, which shows it's not streaming anywhere.
But you know, maybe that's like a little more reason why you should watch it.
Right. What are they hiding from you?
What do they not want you to see?
So please, please recommend us with that.
You can also if you have any questions or comments
you want to leave about the show or about the podcast,
you can email us at showjoepod.gmail.com.
So yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So if you're playing or making
card into a VR video game, let us know at that email
because I am so down to promote where I can.
Oh, I want to play a fictional thing that does
will never exist so badly.
Uh huh.
Or like at least a phone. I don't know.
Yeah, it's tough.
Um, I guess because I like I don't know what it is.
It's like even.
Yeah. Well, it's like a thing is not based off.
Well, some scenarios can be come down to luck.
But I don't know.
It's like memorization is a good thing to work on and anyone can play it.
You know, I don't. Yeah, I just like it.
Um, the sport I don't have to go outside for.
Oh, it's not a particularly athletic sport is what you're saying.
You saw sweaty. They got playing it.
Yeah. OK, I see why you like this.
Uh huh. Uh huh.
Um, yeah. So.
Or something.
Uh huh. I guess.
I don't know.
Volleyball is indoors.
That's indoors.
It is also pretty.
Yeah, you do got to jump around, though.
Yeah, knees.
Not good. I'm.
I oh, I like fell down in a parking lot like a week ago.
So hard, like.
Oh. So hard.
It like I had like my hands are scuffed up.
Oh, it was all bruised.
I was like, damn, like I could have.
I could have boxed a hip at my age.
Like. OK.
Yeah, I like what?
Luckily, I mean, my phone case is kind of scuffed up,
but my phone is it because I like had my phone in my hand.
And I like fell and it was like like scraping as I was flying.
Oh.
So at least it kind of protected my right hand from getting to.
Could have been a disaster. Yeah. No, that's good.
I know.
Well, it's better.
I still went into Barnes and Noble.
Was it stopped me?
I was hobbling around the bookstore.
I still went shopping.
Nothing nothing can prevent me from my mission.
No, that's right.
I would have just gone home.
I just feel like that's it. I'm done for today.
It's over.
No, I was determined.
I'd already walked out of my car is.
And. But yeah.
And so that's the pod.
Yeah, we'll see you next week.
Two more episodes.
Yeah, welcome new listeners.
Yeah, we're we're happy to have you.
And we'll we'll we'll hear from us next week.
Every Wednesday.
So till then.
What have we learned this episode?
Don't steal someone's if you.
Well, yeah.
You're being interested in your child, all your children.
Like I pay attention to your kids.
Just favor one.
Yeah, don't don't just favor one just because she's winning.
You contest maybe.
You're not going to press the girl by stealing some other kids'
glasses. That just isn't going to do it.
She's probably never going to be into you.
You should just give up.
Don't tell her she looks like a boy.
That's also not going to also your 12.
So like none of this matters.
You're 12. Who cares?
If you if someone asks if you have a girlfriend,
don't just like immediately be super dismissive of her.
That's not great.
Yeah, even if that's true, it like reflects poorly on you.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, you shouldn't say that out loud.
You should at least be like, oh, you know, I'm still kind of like new.
So I'm like, you know, don't immediately like girlfriend.
Get in between you and card.
Like, yeah, why even date somebody play this weird card game?
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah.
All right. Playing weird card games.
But OK, on that note.
Bye bye. Bye.