Happy New Year, Shojo listeners. I'm your host, Sarah, joined by Joe live in the studio
of my desk. Exciting stuff here. Yeah. Today.
It's 2025. Wow. I mean, not when we're recording it.
But when you're listening to it, it is. That's right.
Oh, our year. It's going to be.
Says nobody. Nobody has any good, I feel like,
feelings about the upcoming year, which I think is fair, because it does seem like
it's going to be pretty bad. Yeah.
I mean, my sister's getting married, so hopefully it's not too bad.
Oh, maybe it will be.
I mean, maybe this will be like the thing where it's like, well, everybody else
be having a bad year. Yes. But maybe you'll be having a good year.
Yeah, maybe. Yeah.
2024. Eh, not.
Oh, you don't like this year?
Well, OK, our podcast started the podcast fun.
Good. That's a net negative.
Yeah. Go on.
I don't know.
I was at home every week.
Sorry.
It's an hectic year a little bit, but hopefully.
How was your year in review?
Like of life? Yeah.
How was the last year?
Emotional roller coaster.
Um.
I work was good, at least, I guess.
The work was also just full.
Well, work is always busy.
Got a new dog, but we did lose two ferrets this year.
That's kind of a bummer.
I don't know if lemon's enough to make up for that.
Does she make up for two ferrets?
One dog. I am not to me to say to be honest.
But yeah, Joe, Joe, you've met lemon and cricket now.
I've met your dogs.
Cricket would not shut the hell up for the first day.
Your dogs like me now.
Yeah. Although cricket, every time you leave her line of sight,
she forgets you were here and then barks like you.
That's also true.
Emerged out of nowhere.
Yeah. Oh, God.
How about you, Joe?
How's my 24 been for Mr. Joe?
Your interview pretty good.
I think it's gone more or less well.
You know, don't have a lot of.
I mean, I ended up doing most of the things I wanted to do,
I would say, for the most part.
I did find a note in my like iPad notes
and like resolutions for last year. Oh, really?
Yeah.
I didn't do most of them.
Oh, I didn't do a marathon run of Kingdom Hearts.
That was I need to do this.
I was always to do this.
But I mean, a lot of games to play.
It is.
And I didn't play any of them this year, actually.
So instead.
Yeah, I was making a friend do it.
But other than that, you know, I think I think it did pretty good.
You know, did that nice.
That birthday stream. Oh, yeah.
24 hours that worked pretty well.
I'm through all the years of war games for some reason,
but not really has anything to do with resolutions or anything.
But that was also pretty good.
Yeah, just for fun. Just for fun.
I do a podcast. I've watched more Gundam.
I'm very close to being done with Gundam Wing,
a show that I think is ending pretty badly.
But I'll be done with it.
And I can watch a different show.
Another great.
More and more Gundam.
Yeah, I'm on to the O8MS team.
How many more are there for you to watch?
There's a lot. Oh, God.
Nice. Yeah.
So, you know, you're pretty good.
Next year, I don't know.
It'll probably be pretty good.
Like on a personal level, it'll probably be fine.
Yeah, I don't have probably fine.
It'll probably be fine.
That's the attitude I'm working into it.
I mean, you know, sure.
Oh, dear. OK.
Well, as far as the podcast go, it's going to be a great year.
Oh, yeah. No, we're going to be watching some stuff.
I'm excited to watch soon.
The next thing we watch should be pretty interesting, at least.
Yes, it'll be one I haven't seen.
So that'll be a different dynamic.
Have you seen it?
Are you just not OK?
So neither of us have seen it.
So we'll be going straight.
No, should prior fondness.
Yeah, clouding.
Yeah. Yeah.
Sweet.
Well, I guess with our joyful
year end and looking for discussion over, should we jump in?
Well, have you watched any anime?
Oh, right. OK.
Just visiting, which is like, OK, so this is like six days of me
socializing straight. That's crazy.
I know. Oh, my God.
I know I'm getting naps yet.
It's true.
You did go to sleep at 9 30 PM last night, though.
I was tired.
Um, I did watch like the last episodes of Miraculous Ladies.
Oh, yeah, I came over.
So Jenny and I watched Miraculous Ladybug, a French superhero show for children.
It's actually very fun and like goofy and ridiculous.
And we watch it a lot and we watch the last two episodes of season five,
which actually is like extremely plot relevant.
Like they kind of just they they they they deal with the main villain of the show.
So it's like those are the only episodes that Sarah has seen.
You're crazy.
Uh, let's see.
We were freaking out watching it.
And while Jenny was here, we got a cosplay set up.
So we'll be doing our first ever group cosplay.
Yeah, a few weeks.
So that'll be exciting.
It's dying. It worked out pretty well, actually.
Yeah, I was thinking it was going to go way worse than that.
That's right.
I actually dumped the dye water over my patio.
I don't know why you guys did that.
You guys did that while I was doing something else.
Yeah, it's fine. It's right now.
Fine.
But.
Watch some.
Watch the first episode of free run.
Yeah, you were not into it.
No, not really.
Um, let's see.
It's just like a chill show about like what if you spent the time
to actually learn about your friends coasting?
It's too real.
It's too real for me.
That's too real.
It's like too much of a lesson that you would take your heart.
Uh huh.
That's sad, Sarah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yes, just saying firsthand my miserable little existence here.
It's mostly just when you say stuff about your life.
It's sad.
I'm alone.
There's no one to say anything to.
I'm just silent all day.
I.
I stream.
That's right.
You talk out loud.
Yeah, I can go full days without talking to anybody.
We work from home.
Yes.
Have you watched the first episode of
what? Oh, God, Prince of Stride.
Yeah, alternative.
It just reminds me of when I played Mirror's Edge
Lee recently.
And I was like, damn, remember Mirror's Edge?
That was a fun game.
But they're not going to make any more of it
because the video game industry is in shambles.
Yeah, don't worry.
Walk by my golf is here forever, though.
That's good.
So you don't need to worry.
You guys need to make a free running VR game.
I'm sure that won't make me want to throw up.
It sounds cool.
I mean, like it would be cool, but also so
disorienting.
Yeah, that would be pretty rough.
How about I guess others?
But oh, God, see, I'm like, I'm going to be recording my eyes
closed and like I'm awake.
My God, coffee, like
I'm awake. An hour and a half ago and you're falling asleep.
You get good sleep. Do you have apnea?
I don't. Are you narcoleptic?
Like, are we going to have to take you to the doctor?
Well, a danger to society when I'm behind the wheel.
Yeah.
Um, I don't know.
So I finished show.
I finished today.
I finished Space Runaway, Idyon, which ends in
there's like a final episode, but then there's a they made like a movie
to like expand the final episode.
So like the it's the same animation in there.
So you don't really need to watch the final episode.
That being said, I thought it ended really well.
There is another there's a mecha anime.
It's very popular called The Ungenous Is Avangelion.
That show ends with a movie called End of Avangelion that I hate.
I think it sucks.
I do not like it.
Part of the reason I don't like it is that
a lot of the characters just feel like they're acting out.
Like it just feels like everything's out of character.
A lot of stuff happens as kind of a bummer.
And then it kind of ends in a way that is like a downer kind of.
But like a downer in a way that isn't even fun.
It's not like bleak.
It's mostly just like, OK, we just got to the end of this.
And I'm like, I don't think what you have to say is very good show.
I think what you have to say is pretty uninteresting.
And the Space Runaway, Idyon movie being invoked does a similar thing.
Like it is very similar to End of Avangelion.
And if you've ever seen it in terms of like the attack on nerve,
basically just happens like all this other stuff.
But it ends on like such a higher, more optimistic note that like this type
of movie actually works.
It's really interesting to see how a lot of like, especially like mech
anime stuff, like I guess the Macross movie kind of also did this.
They basically are all doing the same kind of thing with like the big ending
movie, but it never really works as well as Idyon does.
Like Idyon pulls it off in a way that I'm like, this is actually really like nice,
even though it was like pretty harrowing to get through this part of the movie.
So I was very impressed with it because I just didn't think I liked endings like that.
But now I'm like, OK, like I can see where you got this from.
And then everybody made, you know, their own version of it that was not as good.
Yeah, we were flipping through like Netflix yesterday and it was like,
why don't you watch the this and our time movie or that one piece new year?
This man, well, this is like an ending movie.
Like you need to have watched everything up to that point.
Like it's the finale of the show.
Basically like the things we were talking about are just like one
off movies that don't matter. Not canon. Not canon.
Gotcha. Well, yay. Another show under the belt.
Another show under the belt. That one was really good.
Good. I'm like, I should get that on Blu-ray, except I'm not going to be able
to because I don't think they print it anymore.
Bang. So rip to that.
I mean, yes, physical media.
Yeah, even books you get.
I have incomplete books because I'll never be finished in English.
That's you do.
You seem to print out some fan translations and then find them yourself.
You've gotten into TikTok is big on binding, but binding right now.
That could be you.
You could you could bind your own fan translated manga.
Oh, my God. That sounds like anything that requires effort.
That's not for me. Come on.
That could be your thing. You can get your own following.
You could be like, oh, well, they're never going to translate this one.
Here's how I did it.
And maybe don't like.
Well, it's not about to go under.
So well, it's not going to go under.
It might get bad. I don't know.
Who knows. It seems like maybe they won't do that.
Question mark. Well, it's someone who works in social media.
It's annoying with the uncertainty.
I'm sure it is. Yeah.
But like, Instagram is just copying it so you can just move over to there.
Well, they need to be there needs to be more editing within the app stuff
on Instagram, then. Oh, is it bad?
I've never used Instagram post anything because I don't like it.
Well, you just to.
Well, most people have like a thing and that's their thing
that people follow them for. But you just do everything.
So like hard to keep.
Why don't we do anything consistently? So it's not even like this.
Check out what I'm doing this week. You know what I mean? Yes.
Well, just have like a Joe tries.
That's God basketball.
Try. That would be what my basketball take.
Basketball stuff.
Yes.
Oh, man. Yeah, I don't think that's going to be happening too bad.
Too bad.
Yeah, I used to think you'd be so good back when like the rage quit
or whatever was popular.
I was like, Joe, you'd be so good at being like an angry person.
But I'm not angry.
Is the thing like I don't get mad.
I can sound mad because it's easy, but like I don't think.
I don't have that.
When you were playing the Persona five Egyptian boss, you were like,
who put this over?
Listen, the bosses in persona are not well designed.
I am like on record as being like, I don't like these bosses.
The last boss of the third game that's like 15 phases or whatever.
And you lose like in the very last phase is just like, I don't even want to play this.
I know that's where I'm at in my play through.
Yeah, it's terrible.
It's bad. Why would they even have this?
I'm basically done.
Count is a completed game.
I'm like a big fan of like, if you want to have super hard bosses,
they should be like optional side bosses.
And like the mainstream ones to like do the do the plot should just be like,
you know, decently hard, but not like ridiculous.
We're going to lose hours of gameplay if you die.
Yeah.
Side bosses are like whatever.
You're like challenge boss to tears.
You know, I like that set up better than like,
ooh, this is also in the air of like unskippable cut scenes.
Like, God, it was so bad.
It was so bad.
Why?
Why aren't they skippable?
Because it's an old game.
I don't know.
Yeah, that's true.
Like 2018 or something.
Three.
Five. Oh, sorry. I'm five.
Oh, no, five had skippable cut scenes.
OK, I was giving that stuff all the time.
OK.
There's not a portable house, I think, the skip option.
Yeah, but not in the like, like in the.
There's no actual cut scenes.
It's like not like the boss starts talking to you in the middle of it
and like, then you do like a scene transition.
I'm like, can I just like press start and be in the next phase?
I have to watch this whole thing happen.
And I do. Yeah. Bad.
Have you watched any of the persona enemies?
No, no, I've never been interested.
Are they any good?
I've never watched them.
OK, I don't want to.
I don't want to think about the main character having a personality.
Oh, that's true, right?
Because then that's just going to affect the entire thing.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't really like silent protagonists that much
because I feel like especially in like the persona ones,
I'd rather than just have a personality.
Well, just at least give them freaking voice, man.
And like maybe I don't know, like, I don't know.
It's just tough because like either you don't have a personality.
It's more just based off whatever your decisions have been made.
Yeah. Well, like it's only for that conversation that it.
Like they do railroad you into having it sort
like a certain type of personality.
Otherwise, the story just kind of doesn't work, which like I get.
But also, I don't know.
I don't like games that are like, oh, you have so much player freedom,
but like actually not really.
You actually don't have any player freedom at all when you actually play it.
I'm like, why even like give me the illusion of choice here?
You could just you could just play it out.
Yeah, it's fine.
I don't need to pretend like it's.
It seems to be a game where the game play is like different routes
of playing as a very intense character type.
And like all your options are bad if you pick to be the bad guy.
And she's like, what way do you want to go about being terrible?
Yeah, but I don't even like that.
Like the the video game thing of like, well, you can either be a perfect little
angel or the worst guy ever born is like really uninteresting to me.
This is like the Mass Effect thing.
Or I'm just like, really, who cares?
It doesn't matter.
Like, I don't.
Being a bad guy is dumb.
Like you just like a cartoon is filling.
And Mass Effect, though, there's funny moments.
But like in Star Wars, you're just like, there is.
Funny moments, but it's also like you don't know if they're going to be funny
or not, or they're just going to be like sad.
Sometimes I mean to people and I'm just like, oh, that feels bad.
Sometimes it's funny.
And I'm like, well, that was worth it because I was funny.
Oh, man.
I bet you again.
So maybe we'll get to the point where there.
What do you think?
What's the future of video games looking like?
Um, everything's a terrible triple A game or it's made by like, or there's
like only like any games with no medium sized games anymore because the
entire industry fell apart.
Or if the first any game is good and then they get the budget to make it
even better, then it gets ruined by people now interested in success.
You know, it's crazy.
So I have a Tumblr and there's like a thing that talks about like most
popular like video game characters.
It's like a big ranking.
And a lot of them are like characters from the Call of Duty franchise.
I didn't even know there were characters in the call of.
And I played some of those campaigns.
They have campaigns, but like you're going to remember these dudes name.
They all look the same.
Well, what's that?
Or Tumblr? Yeah.
Tumblr. I haven't been on there since.
I just I can't imagine the fandom for Call of Duty, a game about like playing
online against like 11 year olds who are just using slurs all the time.
Like, I don't really understand how you could have a fandom around that.
I don't know. I don't understand that either.
Well, like Game Informer.
God, I really wish I had kept my Game Informer copies, but like they did
an edition where it talked about like the maybe it was of the decade or something.
But like they did a ranking of characters.
I think Smash or Commander Shepard was like number two, maybe on the list.
But I guess that's because like, well, the thing with Commander Shepard is
maybe you can't do as much, but like it's still like you do have some choices.
But the character still has a distinct personality.
Like the voice act, or at least Jennifer Hale does such a good job at
like Commander Shepard having identity and then like, I don't know.
Commander Shepard is a good, I don't like silent portraying this is right.
Like, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, with like Mass Effect, like with like the thing with Shepard is like
Shepard does have personality, but you can also control like if they are
like a bad guy or not.
And I think that's weird because it is like it feels like if you go down
a path, the actions that your character does canonically just don't make sense.
Well, it's not even like you're it's more like because it's like because you're
like military, so obviously you're going to be more like a hard ass and
like do what you got to do to get it done.
It's just the manner in which you do it.
And, you know, I guess because of that, it's like nothing you do can be bad
enough that you can't continue being that person in that role.
Yeah, it's just kind of weird. I don't know.
Yeah.
It's fine. Ultimately, I mean, it doesn't really matter.
Like, I don't think about Mass Effect through the lens of like character
decisions anyway, because I kind of don't matter.
Yeah. Well, this is basically what.
So you've only been here for like
48 hours and.
Other conversations are just like this kind of just random, like let's get
in depth about things or we've been talking about Shihaya through a lot off.
Let's go. We watch it together.
Yes. We didn't talk about it that much.
Yes, we haven't gotten into the meat of it, which we're going to do here.
But yeah, I mean, this is just how I talk about stuff.
I know you don't like it.
I just know I just don't like it when I talk about stuff.
No, that's not true.
You can talk about stuff. Just don't.
Don't have the expectation that I'm going to be good at answering questions.
OK. About myself.
All right. Good.
We'll see. This is like a Sarah training boot camp week.
What does that mean?
And I'm going to be doing my part.
I size is you should be doing those.
Fix my posture.
Mm hmm. Yeah.
No, I think that would be good if you did that.
Yeah. All right.
And do we want to get into Shihaya Furu?
Let's do it.
We watched three episodes of Shihaya Furu.
If you watch these episodes, you may have noticed that episode 16 was a recap episode.
We're going to have very little to say about that one.
So mostly it's going to be like two episodes.
So go ahead and be ready for that.
If you haven't watched them yet, you really don't need to watch episode 16.
It's a recap episode, but there are some like little funny interludes
that we'll cover that might be worth watching.
So you can just skip through it.
That would be that's basically what we did.
Actually, no, we did end up watching the whole thing.
Yes. If I was watching by myself, I would have just skipped it in its entirety.
There was nothing in there of any particular value.
It's nothing you need to see to continue to apply it and all that.
Yeah. All right.
So Shihaya Furu verse 14 is called
or there is no one else here.
We're at day two of the Orme Jingu or whatever.
And it's like, oh, also because I watched this in person,
I didn't take like regular notes that I normally take.
I mostly just like took notes on my iPad and we watched it twice.
So this is going to be a lot more casual recap.
So, you know, it's the benefit of the new year and being in person.
So this is like the individuals.
They're doing individuals today.
And they're all separated by class.
So Shihaya is a class A, Nishita and Taichi are a class B and Satomu and Kana are class D.
So they all have to go and play on like different floors also.
So like Shihaya is on the top floor.
Class B is on the second to top floor.
I think it's just like that.
Taichi does not seem that interested in playing the individual maps.
He's just like, oh, right. I guess class I'm class B.
So I'm not going to be able to play this class A,
which means I wouldn't be able to play against Shihaya or Arata if he was theoretically here.
But even though he's not participating in the service.
Yup.
He does not seem to care about like winning or like Nishita is all into it.
And like Kana Satomu and Taichi is just like, oh, yeah.
Yeah, I guess I'll go play the individuals.
I'm already here.
Yeah.
Can't stare at Shihaya in the same room.
Yeah.
Round one happens and Shihaya is playing against some woman.
Sudos also there.
And so they're like looking at the lineups and pseudo is like,
oh, you know, who else is at this tournament?
Shihaya, it's the queen, the current queen,
Shinobu Wakamiya, and she's here and she's 16.
And she's going to be playing against the PSP kid.
She shows up. She's a prodigy.
She's got bad fashion.
What's she wearing?
She's wearing like sweatpants with a graphic tee tucked in.
But then she's wearing like loafers with sweatpants,
like leather penny loafers.
Yeah, sweatpants.
They're like capris.
It has like, yeah.
And then they cut off.
Yes. And they have she has like a thermos with tea in it hanging off.
Yeah. Oh, man.
Right. She's a T-shirt that has a snowman on it.
That says snow, snow. Yeah.
So yeah, even one guy says like, oh, she's really pretty,
but she has a fashion sense of a rock.
Yeah, she's like a little weirdo.
So like all the hot chicks in this show, freaks,
I guess, you know, just like in real life.
Yeah, the crazy hot matrix or whatever.
She recognizes pseudo and he hates her.
She like says a thing that's like, oh, you showed up
even though your team didn't qualify, you must really like card and he takes it
as an insult.
And I don't know if she meant it as an insult.
I think she's just weird.
Okay. No, I think she knows that it's up to that head.
OK.
Like she's just kind of teasing and has more like haunting rapport.
She doesn't seem very social. No.
She doesn't seem like she has any friends or a life worth living.
So we're better close.
Let's see. She wins her game against the PSP kid by 24 cards,
meaning he only took one card the whole game.
So get back to PSP. That's crazy.
The next lineup, Chi Hai goes back and forth between like one.
I mean, Chi Hai wins her match, whatever.
We don't we see like five minutes of it or something.
They go back to like the round two where they're just like lining up the different
players and Chi Hai in her head goes back and forth between wanting to play
against the queen or not.
And she ends up getting matched against her.
So she has a player the round starts and
Shinobu is crazy fast like anime.
I can't even see her move fast.
Like the two like her advisers recording it like plays it in slow motion.
It's like her hand is just a blur in slow motion.
That's how fast it is.
It's like ridiculous.
Let's see. So that's going pretty bad for she loses the first several rounds.
Cards. Yeah.
First several cards.
Let's see. We come back to B class.
T'ai Chi gets matched up against somebody who doesn't there, I guess.
So he wins by default, which means he doesn't have to play.
So we can go watch somebody.
And she is like, oh, you should go watch Kana.
And he's like, why would I go watch her?
That's not terrible. You are the president.
You should just favor going to watch.
I feel like it makes sense to go watch your best player.
All right. Like that seems interesting.
But she is like, but I told Kana that if she finished her match early,
she should come watch me.
So you should go watch her since you don't have to play at all.
Yeah. And he has like a little blushy as he's saying this.
That's true. Is Nishida and to Kana a little?
It's hard to tell because he's telling her to go.
He's telling him to go watch her and say, tell Kana, I said, good luck or something.
Yeah. Yeah. But then like he's also forget.
Satomu bad guys on zone.
Well, if you're watching Kana, you're also watching.
Yes. Right. Like.
Well, let's not mention him at all.
Well, yeah.
He does not mention him at all.
So I don't know what's going on there.
Anyway, T'ai Chi does not do that.
He goes to watch Shia because of course he does.
He sees that she's playing. He's playing the queen and he's like, oh, shit.
He knows that Shia can be as fast as Shinobu.
But only when she's doing one syllable cards,
she can't be as fast for every card, but Shinobu can be as fast as every card.
So that's the difference.
Shinobu knows how to play.
We also learn the rules for card disputes.
And we learn that there is a ref even though we can't see one.
I don't know where the ref is.
I don't know if it's like maybe it's because they call them the judge.
And maybe there's one on like each side of the.
Roan. And so like each one's responsible for certain.
I don't know how one person could be tracking multiple games.
And yeah, it doesn't seem.
It's the second round, right?
So like there's still lots of people.
Yeah, there's probably like 40 games happening.
Yeah. So it's like, how do you how do you have?
They don't have 40 reps.
No, I yeah.
So strange.
I guess it's mostly just relying on the players to figure it out.
Yeah. Anyway, that happens.
Let's see.
Shinobu recognizes the mascot and she hides shirt and says its name.
Danny Bear. Yeah, it's because it's a terrible man.
And she hires like, dude, she's wearing the snowmaru T-shirt.
You have to like custom order that or something.
Yeah, it's only in the store.
But it's only in Osaka.
So you get to order online.
And yeah, so they have like a shared moment of like, ah, shirt.
Oh, mascot.
Yes.
We love these little mascot guys.
And kind of snaps.
She hide it out of her funk a little.
Yeah. And she is like, oh, that's right.
She knows also like a six.
She's the same age as me.
We're both 16.
It was a real honor that she's 16,
which I guess we knew because it was her birthday.
She was her birthday. Yes.
Birthday.
She does not feel like she's 16.
No.
Anyway, she had guards a card
by like putting her hand over it as they like read the syllables of the thing.
But like, you know, we still get it from under her guard and like the most absurd.
It is.
Card take.
Because basically they each have a card that starts the same on both their side.
So they start by guarding the one on their side, so that at least it doesn't get taken.
And then once they hear enough syllables to know which one it is,
then take it if you can.
Or it was on Chikaya's side.
So all she had to do is lower her hand to take it.
But somehow Shinobu went from guarding on her side all the way to Chikaya's card
before Chikaya could even lay down her hands.
It's crazy.
And like she didn't.
And then like, there was no like physical contact even.
Like she just touched the card from under her hand about even grazing Chikaya.
Yeah.
This is possible.
Crazy stuff.
I didn't realize.
This is no way you could do that.
Let's see.
Chikaya hasn't taken a card yet.
Shinobu thinks that Chikaya has given up after she like doesn't even really try to take one of the cards.
But she also knows that this happens a lot.
Like when she played PSP kid, it's like you start just dominating them and then they just kind of give up.
So she's like, well, guess this is happening again.
That doesn't happen though.
And someone actually turns the lights off and on.
Chikaya sees Tai Chi and their advisor and she like, like, oh, I need to like reset myself.
I'll do the thing that pseudo does.
He like stands up and looks real arrogant.
And so she stands up and looks real arrogant and then we panned his left a little bit to see Sutil behind her doing the exact same.
It's probably the funniest part in all these episodes.
Yes, I love it.
You know, I hate to do this.
It sucks.
Yeah.
Chikaya gets back in her head, gets her head back in the game.
They both go to take a card, but like Shinobu is a little bit faster.
And then the next time they both go and take it and like they take it basically at the same time.
So Shinobu was like just going to give it to her, but she's like, no, I think you actually took it first.
Shinobu was like, all right.
Yeah, it was on Chikaya's side.
So it should have gone to her if it was unsure who got it.
But and then she's like, and then Tai Chi's on the sideline.
I mean, like, what the hell are you doing?
Take the card for your own.
And then, you know, she's scolding herself with the image of her doctor, her Rana saying like every card on the field is yours.
Don't surrender any of them.
You should be disputing everything.
I feel like you would need a ref to play like a better higher level game.
You're just going to dispute every time.
Possibly can worry about being polite, but she justifies it by being like, if I'm going to win, I'm going to win.
Like without a doubt, no, like Luke.
Yeah, she says, yeah, let's see.
She then takes a one silver card on Shinobu's side, which is like a big deal because those are the ones that are the easiest to get.
And it's also if it's on your side, then you're most likely going to get it.
But she takes it from her and it's like a big deal.
Everyone's like, oh, shit.
Because she takes her opponent's card, she gives her one card and she gives her the Shihaya Fever card.
And then the next that's the next card that's read and she immediately takes it.
So she takes two cards on Shinobu.
Man, fasting as we cut to credits on that episode.
Yes.
So we're two cards in a row, which I guess doesn't happen against the queen a lot.
She's the best person.
Yes.
Unexpectedly.
Yes.
She sent her to you.
Well, right.
Because when she's getting kind of losing it, she's been trying to do offensive card.
And so, but not taking any cards like, oh, do you just naturally?
Well, also as you lose and more cards are on your side than your opponent's card, it's more likely that they're going to be read on your side.
So then it's you like are forced to become more defensive because like the probability of it being on your side and defending versus attacking becomes higher.
Yeah.
Having an early advantage is really valuable.
Yeah.
Well, okay.
And we were talking about this a lot, but like, yeah, I just like for being like our best player on Mizuzawa's school team, like she kind of always sucks in the first half of games.
Yeah, we're going to get more on this next episode.
Yeah.
Man.
But yeah, so ends on a high for this episode.
Yeah, kind of.
Or like the stage of comeback.
Yeah.
All right, we'll go to the next one.
So episode verse 15 is called as though pearls have been strung across the autumn plane.
This is crazy.
Right now, the current standing between Shinobu and Shihaya is seven to 23, meaning that she's up 14 cards.
Nope.
She's up 16 cards.
But everybody's impressed that Shihaya hasn't given up yet because usually their opponents just kind of give up if you were if you were down by like 13 cards, it's probably over for you.
However, Shinobu's looking pissed.
She's just got two cards taken on her.
And she just starts like acting and like being drawn like an anime villain.
It's very weird.
Yeah.
I don't really get what her deal is.
Shihaya can't take multiple syllable cards, though, but Taiti does note that she gets better in the late game because there's fewer things to memorize.
And so she seems to like be more of a comeback player as opposed to being good at early game, which is unfortunate because being good early game gives you a big advantage.
Yes, very much so.
Let's see, Shihaya is feeling better, but she still loses after only taking five cards. So she lost by 20 cards.
Shinobu leaves and goes to look up who she just plays because like that she just didn't pay attention.
And she sees that it's Shihaya and she hates her.
She's just like, she's just like, she's just like, who the hell is this chick came out and nowhere kind of, you know, well, I think she tries to play it off like, oh, don't call me queen this and that.
But I think she very much has a lot of pride and arrogance about being the best and like having anyone like generate shatter of excitement against her, maybe makes her notable enough to keep an eye on in the future.
The only person we see her talk to is Toto, a guy she hates.
So it's like she goes to his competitions and has no friends.
Yeah. Yeah.
And everyone's well, because when before Shihaya got selected as the person to go against her in the last episode, it kind of pans across a crowd of people and pseudo is being like, bring it on.
I'll go against her as they're like picking up on her for the queen.
And then everyone else is like, don't let it be me.
Not me. I don't want to go against her.
Yeah, but it's like, does she even because everybody else came here to like, I was like, you know, usually a part of like high school teams.
She's on a high school team. She had a teammate. We don't see her talking to anybody.
No.
It's like you just come to this tournament and don't talk to anybody and win and leave.
That sounds like it sucks.
Yeah. I guess they started walking up the shrine alone. Maybe she's the only person.
Oh, I forgot to mention that.
Oh, yeah.
She's the girl from the shrine in that one episode who shows up and then disappears.
Why did that happen?
The one that thought.
The one that looks like her and Arata. Yes. Combined together.
No. But she's like kind of the female Arata, like really good blue eyes, black hair.
Yeah, but Arata has friends we learn in high school and I don't think she has any friends.
No.
So I'm guessing maybe she's from an incredibly rural area and maybe there's like, really
anybody that she could play with, let alone that would even be interested in Karada.
So maybe she's just had a very solitary life in general.
I'm going to be honest. This does not seem like a game for like social people.
Maybe that's why I like it.
Right. Like it's like Arata who is very good, anti-social.
She seems very anti-social.
I mean, I guess like Dr. Harada seems like pretty like a fun guy, but that's basically it.
Yeah.
Sudo seems unlike nobody likes him really.
His teammates like him, but he seems unapproachable.
Yeah.
Retro is weird.
Yes.
I guess, yeah, because we don't we don't see, I guess he would have been in class B with
Tai Chi and Nishida.
Or you might have been in class now.
They have three classes.
I don't know who the third one is.
Oh, he might be a lot.
Surprised I didn't see him a little bit.
Yeah, that's where we did commentating.
Yeah.
All right.
Anyway, let's see.
Chi Hai comes up to Shinobu and compliments her snow Maru shirt and Shinobu was shocked
that the snowman has a name.
She's like, this snowman has a name.
Somebody recognizes the snowman.
That's crazy.
I think she got her like a thrift shop or something.
I don't know.
Or hand me down.
Let's see.
Tai Chi is upset that Chi Hai lost because he was watching her match.
He goes to comfort her and sees her practicing while also crying where she's just like trying
to quick draw in the air, but she's also crying.
And Tai Chi is like, oh, she's in it now.
She's in it for good.
And then he thinks about how he's going to get left behind by her and Arata is like,
I should I should get my head in the game.
Yeah, they call for a round three.
Yeah, this is where.
No, this is not where this happens every month.
Well, he's like, oh, her dream is fully.
It's finally real now because she's seeing the person she would need to beat to make
her dream come true.
Yeah.
Being the queen.
Right.
She had to beat Shinobu and official the Queen tournament.
Yeah.
The bar is set now.
Yes.
That's something.
Yeah.
She lost by 20 cards.
Yeah.
That's quite the difference to make up quite the difference.
Yes.
Let's see.
There's a time skip.
It's the finals and Shinobu is planning to get pseudo.
She wins by 12 cards and pseudo is pissed, which yeah, we're kind of like, OK,
because she high up beat pseudo and the team matches.
But then he did way better against Shinobu than she did.
So it's kind of like a.
Yeah, it's like this should be like a rock, paper, scissors thing.
Right.
I mean, some stuff could be like luck of like what gets read because maybe there will be
strings of things where it's like, oh, man, it's all being read from their side.
What are they going to read from my side or something?
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, there can be things like that.
There can be a lot of like one single card.
There can be a lot of multiple, so what cards I guess.
Yeah.
Just like the 50 that you get.
Or maybe it's because she she only stood up once and when she did that's when she started
doing better, but pseudo stands up constantly.
And that's the key to success.
Standing up every card taken stand up.
Don't just sit there.
Yes.
Oh, man.
Yeah.
Chi is watching this match.
I say as she's mostly just in the room practicing again.
She's not really watching.
Yeah.
What is she doing?
She okay, right?
She meets the queen.
She should be like.
With her obsessive personality now obsessed with the queen who is so much better than
her that she would want to learn from how she plays the game or at least get more familiar
with the way she plays it for when if she were to compete against her as a clean candidate.
But no, she's just insanely saying in the corner of the room just swiping her arm.
You're crazy person.
God.
Yeah.
And then, well, you know, her other teammates, she could have been watching playing and
supporting any of them.
Oh yeah.
No.
Well, Kana comes to get her.
She's like, Chi, you need to come with me.
And Chi is like, why?
And she's like, tight.
She's in the finals for class B.
And she's like, oh, okay.
Which means she hasn't like been paying attention to anybody else's stats, even though she got
out in round two.
Yeah.
That's very early.
She had so much time.
There's so much time.
Like there's probably like six or seven rounds or something.
Several hours have passed and she didn't bother to go check on anyone else.
Well, because and then when Kana says that she's like the first thing she thinks is like,
oh, I haven't eaten all day.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
I haven't eaten anything.
Yeah.
Not like, oh man, who is everyone else still in it or no.
That fish.
No.
She didn't know he was in the finals.
I mean, she hasn't even been paying attention to the score line at all.
No.
Sarah just whacked the desk at the microphone is on.
My bad.
Yeah.
Not paying attention to her.
No.
Worst captain ever.
Terrible captain.
Let's see.
We go to Tai Chi's match.
It's pretty close.
Tai Chi thinks about catching up to Arata.
And this is where we get the thing where he, you know, this the Tai Chi conundrum,
which is I could play my entire life or like I could spend my entire youth playing this
game and never catch up to Arata and then Dr.
Harada.
God, it's Harada and the other guy's names.
Arata.
Yeah.
Dr. Harada is like, you should save that kind of talking.
So after you gave it your all, which like is a weird response.
I'm having a weird time with that being a response because the thing Tai Chi is saying is that
should I spend all this time of my youth practicing this game to just not be the best at it, right?
Because his whole thing and like he's been actively encouraged to only do stuff he could
be the best at.
And Dr. Harada's response is like, well, maybe you should just do all the practicing and then
decide later, which is like, but the conundrum is should I spend the time practicing?
No.
Okay.
Well, I mean, it is a sports anime, so they're not going to be like, yeah, you should just
give up.
But, um, well, like, because Tai Chi is, yeah, in the mindset of wanting to win everything.
And so he's just assuming Arata so good that like there's no point in even trying to beat
him or put the time into getting good enough to possibly challenge him.
But you can't decide if you can never reach that skill set.
If you haven't even really tried to develop your skill set.
Also, like, maybe just have fun doing this thing.
This is the part.
This is the thing.
This is the thing, right?
Or it's like the answer to that question.
And I feel like every other sports anime stuff is that like, if you like playing the game,
you should, regardless of whether you think you're going to be the best, you should try
to be the best you can be, but you should really enjoy the game.
But Shiai Furu as like a show has not focused on people enjoying the game very much.
Like it's never about Tai Chi having fun.
I don't know if Tai Chi ever really does have fun.
The only time he has fun is when he's like winning or doing well.
You know what I mean?
Like it's never, he never just like enjoys Karna, which is the thing that confuses me
about his conundrum being like, am I ever going to be good enough to beat Arata?
And then like the solution is like, well, you should just keep trying until you can beat
Arata.
It's like weird to me.
Like, shouldn't it be about you enjoying the game or like the process of the game?
But like everything is couched in being better than somebody else or being the best.
Like I can see the pressure of like playing it to win when you're doing the team thing
where it's like everyone else's dreams also depend on you.
But when it's an individual, I feel like, well, he's also like, if I am going to keep
doing this, I need to be winning these so that I can get to class A.
So it's not like he can just enjoy playing class.
Like if that's the reason he wants to play.
Oh, lost in losing the plot.
Like what is.
What's going on?
I would almost like it more if he just basically like phoned it in and lost round one.
No.
You know, in the individuals and then everyone's like, why did you just like.
He has never going to fall for him.
That is the only chance of making her like him is beating Arata.
It makes more sense from like a character perspective.
You're something that I feel like, you know what I mean?
Like really show that like he's only he only cares when it's the team game,
but he doesn't care.
Yeah, I mean, that's a like.
Yeah, well, he is kind of considerate to other people, just general politeness and like to
just not even give your best against whoever it is that you're playing because they're
here doing the same thing.
Like it would be frustrating if you're just.
Not trying in your matches and the opponent you have is like, well, that was just a waste
of my time.
You didn't even try to play against me.
I don't think that's true.
It's like he gets a buy.
I mean, he basically plays against an opponent that forfeit and he just like doesn't care.
He's just like, oh, I don't have to play.
All right, cool.
Whatever.
He's not like, oh, I got robbed of a game of Carter.
Well, no, but that doesn't care if he's actually playing against them and they weren't trying.
I don't think he would care.
I don't think out of everybody in the show, I think he would care.
You know what I mean?
He would just be like, whatever, man.
Oh, God.
I want to like, I want to feel like he doesn't care.
Like it seems like he does.
But then every dialogue he has is just like it's just framed and beating a rata.
Like it's just framed in like the romance competition for him.
Well, I think he cares and I'm okay.
I'm like my brain's getting tired trying to think of like why he cares and why he doesn't.
I don't think it's explained.
I don't think they haven't gone into depth in the show yet.
Like you can come up with theories, but there's theories like they're not supported by the text in the show, particularly.
No, yeah.
I mean, like clearly he kind of enjoys it, but he just doesn't let himself fully enjoy it because he either has to be doing it for the sake of beating a rata for, you know, to be better than him because she has into Carter players being good or to win just in general because that's what he's always done.
And like if he can't, if he doesn't do either of those things, then he doesn't think he can enjoy it just for the sake of it.
Then maybe it'll just be a matter of him like learning that it's fun.
But he does actually like playing, although he plays him such a like, let me just recite all the things that haven't haven't been read yet.
It's so confusing.
Yeah, that's exactly.
He hasn't got like he basically has just regained all of his abilities from before.
He hasn't really advanced at all.
And he's the whole thing is that he stopped playing because he plateaued.
Yeah.
Which like makes sense as to why he'd be kind of indifferent to it.
Like Sato-mu and Kana are both both love Carter because it's like a new game for them and they can keep getting better at it because it's like they're just kind of learning everything.
But like he's basically stuck and he hasn't really like improved upon anything than where he was before since the show started.
Right.
He's basically just like, you know, brushed off the rust.
Right.
I mean, it's not like you have to like beat your own best record to advance to like class A.
You just have to beat everyone else at whatever event it is you're at.
So you could just like keep doing tournaments and eventually like the chances of you being the best at that term, it may be.
Right.
But I mean, this is the whole thing, right?
Where he's like, I could suck it.
You know, I could become class A, but I'm still not going to be better than a raw because I plateaued.
Yeah.
Like I can't get any.
It doesn't seem like I really get any better than this.
And that's why he's like, should I keep putting effort into it?
That being said, he's in the finals here, so maybe he can win.
Nishida scolds Chihaya for being late because at least somebody cares about him.
Yeah.
He's pretty invested in this.
Nishida is like all in on like this, this match.
Well, we don't even see him because he's the same.
Yeah, we didn't see him lose when he when he lose.
One of these guys must have beaten him.
Yeah.
They must take she's going again.
We don't even learn who he loses to.
And she notes that Tai Chi is confusing his games up because it's harder to forget previous matches the longer you go.
So like he's he doesn't remember which cards have already been read for this game or like where everything's placed because he remembers the last game because like all of his things like his whole deal is memorizing stuff really well.
But if you play like eight games in a row, they're all going to kind of blend together, which has happened here.
Yeah.
So that's pretty interesting.
Insane.
We get a scene where we learn that Tai Chi is in a pretty stressful position because there's a lot of like multiple syllable cards left and like all these different things can happen.
Chi Haya is like so intense.
She holds the Tomas hand and then someone was like, OK, and then he holds Connors hand and Connors tries to hold the she is hand.
But she is like so into it that she like drops it.
I don't really know what was happening here.
I was like, Missy, if you're into her, this is your chance to hold her hand.
He's like totally absorbed by the gameplay.
I guess this is like.
Like the she does actually love Carter.
Yes.
And he feels similar like he feels close to Tai Chi Carter wise because both of them like feel like they're comparing themselves to Arata because she lost against Arata.
Tai Chi like doesn't think he could be him.
And so like they both are like kind of working towards the same goal.
So it's like if Tai Chi wins, it's like almost like he's himself is moving towards the end goal.
Yeah.
I feel like I guess their car that motivations are similar and that's why he's so.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, I mean, I feel like it makes a little bit more sense to for Nishida because Nishida is comparing itself against Tai Chi like a guy he can play against.
Right.
Like somebody he knows does certain things and he's like, well, I'm as good as him.
There's just these things I could improve on.
Right.
Like it's a it's like a concrete goal against the person you can observe.
Whereas Tai Chi is comparing himself to Arata from four years ago.
Like Arata doesn't even play anymore.
You know what I mean?
So it's like the theoretical concept of Arata.
He's comparing himself to and he feels like he's plateaued.
So it's not even like there's obvious things he could get better at.
Right.
So I can see why he would be less interested in like not taking it as seriously.
Anyway, Tai Chi is too slow to take cards, even though he knows like which card he's going to take.
He's just like physically too slow and he ends up losing and he loses by three cards.
So it's pretty close.
Yeah.
He says to himself that he lost to an older player after he had quit after like several years.
So like he's, you know, he's still pretty new.
This is like his return year and he lost against somebody who's been playing for a long time.
So overall he did pretty well, which is true.
And then he looks over at his teammates and they all look super disappointed because they all feel very bad for Tai Chi's loss.
They're like, ah, they're empathizing too hard.
Yes.
I don't even know if they're empathizing because Tai Chi doesn't even feel bad of that bad about his loss.
Well, he was like, I shouldn't feel bad about it.
Like it's clear that he's like a little upset and has to compose himself before he then goes and faces his teammates.
And then once he sees that they are fully feeling it, then he's like, ah, well, now I can't pretend to not care anymore.
And it like breaks his resolve a little so he gets emotional too.
Yeah, I don't know.
I'm not being frustrated.
I don't know what was up with that.
The next thing their advisor says in like a voiceover that it's hard to accept defeat even as an adult, but they aren't even consoling each other.
But she says it like a positive.
She says it like they're not even like trying to minimize their grief or something.
I don't know what's happening.
I think like I get the purpose of that is to be like, you know, oh, it's hard losing even as an adult, but even these kids who are adults yet are still like taking the loss and accepting it.
Not like being like, oh, it's, you know, they're not having to comfort each other because they already know.
I don't think it's like an adult.
You know what I mean?
Because it's like, I understand sometimes it's like sometimes you take an L and like people will try to be nice to you and you're like, listen, you just need to give me some time.
You know what I mean?
But like, I wouldn't say that it's bad that people are trying to console me.
You know what I mean?
She's like, it's a bad thing.
Like they're really mature.
You know, for not trying to console me to be able to like get over issues on your own with that.
Which is so weird.
I mean, it seems like the most like like bleak interpretation of like a sport being like you're basically just on your own.
Like you just need to grow up and like learn how to deal with disappointment.
Well, she's a stern lady.
She sucks.
I think this is a bad thing to say.
Well, I got things to say out loud.
I know.
I don't know why we like, oh, it like makes me annoyed to be like, it's OK to like console your teammates.
Like maybe give them some space.
But like afterwards, it's fine.
Like it's good to know that other people think that you did a good job.
But even if you felt disappointed in yourself, right?
Like it's good to get that feedback.
I don't think it's bad to get that feedback or like it's mature to not console somebody.
That's weird.
I don't know.
Different people.
I don't know, I'm like, I don't want to be controlled because then I will just start crying a bunch.
Like if you're upset and someone's like, are you OK?
And then it's like, no, I'm not OK now that you asked me if I'm OK.
Yeah, I don't know.
It was really weird.
Let's see.
Two sentences.
We'll just let it go.
They walked back and they passed the Toby Jingo shrine and she high up bows to it.
Even though the shrine got you sick, girl.
Yeah, I curse her.
You shouldn't be bowing to that shrine.
You should be pissed.
You should be thrown a rock at it.
They all bow to it because they're all respectful adults or whatever.
Even though it didn't respect her prayers.
Listen, if the local God doesn't like it, give you give it a one out of five star rating.
Rate that local God low.
You think you can write shrines on Google Maps?
I bet you can.
You kidding me?
Of course you can.
I'd be rating that shit one star.
I pray to not get sick and I immediately got sick.
Good.
It's funny.
Excommunicate this.
This devil at this shrine.
Yeah.
Well, that's the end of our nationals tournament.
The end of nationals.
Let's see.
We got a couple more scenes, but it's the next day and the card club is running in the
morning to Bruce Damona.
That's pretty cool.
That's brutal.
Yeah.
There's like a time.
Yeah, I hope they got at least a day off.
See, Chi has a nightmare about about Shinobu and snow, Maru, the mascot snowman.
We also get a cut to erotic who asks to rejoin his local Carter to club society.
We see Shinobu practicing by herself in a dark room because she's weird.
Yeah.
And then we see the card club practicing as we get credits as they announce that the
season's over.
We're going to have to wait until it's fall now.
Yeah.
So I don't know something going down.
Well, if nationals is what high schoolers are looking forward to, then that's the end
of high school, really, Carter.
But there will be other tournaments.
I guess not.
Whatever the like providing association of Carter in Japan is, I'm assuming they have
events, right?
And then because they represent the society.
Chi Haya says that the maps that they're playing on at nationals are the maps that they play
on when they decide who the king or the.
Yeah.
Well, we know that.
The guy college that.
Yeah.
Like he's going to go for master.
That hasn't happened yet.
So that happens in January.
Oh, OK.
Yeah.
So we got some more stuff coming out like until January of which there's no way too
high.
It can be good enough to like be running for Empress.
Well, I'm sure they have like a mean might as well go right.
Yeah.
See where you stand amongst the competition.
There's no reason not to go.
Yeah.
So I think, I don't know.
I think that like is that what they're going to be trained towards now or is there something
else before that, that they'll be competing in?
I don't know.
Will we get any school life or more romance or what's it going to be, Joe?
I don't.
I don't think we're going to get I think we're going to get the least satisfying thing we
probably can get, which means that it's probably just going to go around to go.
Overmedia do another tournament or something.
And what we had like 10 more episodes of the season, essentially.
Yeah.
So we'll.
See.
We'll see where it ends.
Yeah, Joe is still unsure where he's in.
Well, we did all the nationals.
So we got through it.
Both of these episodes were basically just playing through that game.
Yeah. And then Taishi loses his game.
Yeah, I don't feel like we ended anywhere.
I mean, we know that like she has a like a benchmark now.
Yes. Which is a reference point.
Taishi does not have a reference point.
No. Arata is going to start playing again.
Not that much really happened.
You think he's going to email Tia high at telling her?
No, of course not.
He's going to email Taiti.
Oh, my God, it makes me crazy that he like center of thing
being like the next time we meet, it'll be in a match like you can just email.
She could have just came back the next day.
Yeah, but to why didn't he do that?
I don't know how far of a triple is for him.
I don't know.
But like, you know, he could call him on the phone.
We talked about this like he like his inability or like
it did not interest in like reaching out to them just as people.
Weird.
I don't want to terrible friend Taiti, but also Taiti is a friend with intentions.
Well, Taiti is a fine friend to everybody else in the car.
Yeah. I mean, like he seems friends with them.
Yeah. He's the reliable one.
Imagine if there was no Taiti in that club and it was just too high.
That's what I just wouldn't work.
It's like we need Taiti.
Yes. I don't know.
You think they're going to hang out as friends?
Probably not.
Yeah, we were talking like, is there going to be a beach episode?
Probably not. No beach episode.
They need to be friends for this show to work for me.
Yeah. They're not.
Nobody's actually friends.
They all like think they're friends, but they're not.
They're teammates, but maybe not friends outside.
Well, I mean, even like even like Chihaya thinking that her Taiti and Arata are friends,
you guys are not really friends.
I mean, you and Taiti are friends, kind of.
Well, like how much time did they even have when like
they all became friends as children to when they all separated?
You know, like how long was that even?
I don't know.
Well, I guess we want to get into our weird ass.
Yeah.
I like that.
Well, you have any final thoughts.
I like that.
You know, it was a little weird.
I hope like she hangs out with them.
I want them to hang out.
I don't want them to just play card together.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Well, it's weird because she's the best.
It's not like.
Yeah, but she's all 16.
Yeah.
Well, I'm trying to think of like if we'll see her have any
struggles within card or growth, but probably not.
I want her to be friends with Tai Chi.
Shinobu.
Yeah.
That would be funny.
There's no way.
And he can like Tai Chi is just like a generically nice.
No.
And she's like, oh, I can have a friend.
I can't believe it.
I feel like.
It's not going to happen.
She Haya is the person who's so into card as the only person
who could be friends with Shinobu, who is also that into card.
Everyone else will be intimidated or like I can't.
Well, I don't think this is what I'm saying.
Like I think Tai Chi could work because Tai Chi doesn't care
about card that much.
So I don't think you need to add a timid environment.
He doesn't care about daddy bear and snow Maru either.
You got to connect with on that.
That's true.
I just want people.
I just want weird friendships to happen.
I want no one people be friends in a show that is not about
friendship.
It has been a strange pace show.
There's been like no downtime outside of recruiting members.
I am shocked by how because I usually consider like a sports
anime to also be about like, oh, the French.
You make a lot of a way.
This is not about the borderline boys love.
This is not a show about borderline boys love or the friends
make a long way.
Yeah, I don't know.
We'll see.
I guess because it's not like the things they're doing are
you look like a lot of the times in sports, AMA will be like,
we're better now because we trust each other to be trust each
other for friends now.
Yeah, that's like nothing.
It's not like there's no trust.
She Haya.
It's like they make up a team version of the game.
Yes, but it's very much not a team game.
No.
Yeah, they don't even like high five each other.
It's like devastating to me.
You know what I'm saying?
Yes.
Well, you got a high five.
So we're hoping for they need to do a combo.
If nobody does a combo move by the end of the season, it's over.
They're never going to be friends.
They didn't do their chant.
They didn't do their chant either.
Only that one time.
Episode or verse 16 is a recap episode.
It's called the autumn leaves of Mount Ogura.
I don't know.
I thought they were lines from poems, but I don't know now.
But they have to be.
They must be.
It's a recap episode that just recaps everything up to this point.
That being said, there's a couple of interludes and they do like little comedy bits.
So we'll just cover those.
Everything else is just like a straightforward recap.
Yeah.
Of what we just watched.
Of what we.
Yeah.
Why do we have the first time in the middle of the season?
And this is like a thing that happened.
It happened in Gundam Wang in episode like 26.
So you're recapping 20 and there was two episodes.
So each one of our recaps like 10 episodes.
But like that makes sense because it's like, you know, if that was airing on TV,
I guess it would have been 26 weeks later from the thing.
And if you have missed something, you might have gotten something.
I guess it's like like 10 episodes.
I don't know.
Hmm.
Anyway, we have these little interludes.
The first interlude is about Chitose.
She steals Chi Hai's New Year's money to buy a coat.
Basically, it's funny like, oh, here's your New Year's money.
Also give this to Chi Hai.
And she's like, OK, and then she goes and buys a coat with Chi Hai's money.
And she tells her that a new law was passed that 10 year olds can no longer
receive money for New Year's.
Yeah.
And I was like, oh, no.
She just believes her.
I feel like this is something I would do to my sister.
Yeah.
It's pretty funny.
Yeah.
We also learned that like all of Chi Hai's outfits are like hand me down
because she's two years younger.
Hmm.
Um, then we got a follow up scene where they're like at the park or something
and Chi Hai, like, you know, there's like a model there and she tells us
like, oh, that lady's really pretty.
And like Chi Hai is like, but you're the most beautiful sister ever.
So she gives her the coat because she feels bad.
Yeah.
And then Chi Hai is like, are you sure?
And she's like, yeah, I'll just get I'll just get mom and dad to buy me another coat.
And they're like, what?
And her parent or mom caught her doing that and she didn't tell Chi Hai like,
hey, your sister took all your money.
Yeah.
Like and she didn't get in trouble for it.
Yeah.
It's just running that family.
She is.
She's so the favorite.
She is trying to pay the mortgage.
So I guess she that's how you become the family.
Yeah.
The head of the family.
Let's see.
We got another little thing where tight six stole flashbacks when their kids
Tai Chi is like, how much money did you guys get for her?
Like his friends are like, how much money did you get for a new year's Tai Chi?
And he was like, I had this much and he's like, what'd you get?
Arata is your poor.
You probably didn't get anything because this is still the past for having a huge
bully and Arata is like, well, don't you know, it's like a legal for kids over
the age of 10 to get new year's money and Tai Chi is like, you just made that up.
And then Chi Hai is like, nope, that's real.
My sister told me that.
It's like, you guys are just making that up.
Yeah.
Well, it's funny because yeah, Arata's parents probably told him that just
because they sadly can't afford to give him anything and then Chi Hai just
because of her sister.
That's funny that they just both happened to have been told that.
So they're in the majority of this conversation.
Even though it's not real.
And then Tai Chi's friends are like, well, how much money did you get?
And he got $1,100.
In sane money for a 12 year old.
Yeah.
I had 12 year old.
My God.
I don't know how much you would normally.
I'm assuming most kids get like 30 boxes on the way.
Yeah, like $40 or something.
Yeah.
Crazy.
We got another little intercut where they play an idiom game, which is like
you say an idiom that describes the next person in the chain.
Basically, all we learn is that Chi Hai and Nishita don't understand idioms
and Tai Chi is the punchline, which is pretty good.
Let's see.
We got another interlude where like we get an explanation for why Nishita
has all of these shirts that are just like graphic tease with words on them.
And they're all like talking about eating or something.
Oh, yeah.
So I'm talking about how he's fat because it's our favorite joke about
Nishita because the fat phobia is insane in this show.
Uh huh.
He tells us that his sister makes them so she made her sister.
Printing is a hobby.
Yeah.
It's a hobby for her to make a weird shirt.
So she makes some weird shirts for.
So it's a sister making these for her for him.
I don't know.
Yeah, she's like, oh, yeah, he asked me so I make them.
So like, does he want the shirts to say those things?
I don't know.
Or she put them on him?
So his sister is treating him like this too.
Anyway, that happens.
Then we get then we get some talk about who who the guys think is the most
dateable girl in the credit club between a Kana and Chihaya and Nishita
and Satomu both vote Kana without a doubt without a doubt.
Winner.
They're like, it's obvious.
Yes.
And they're like, well, what do you think?
Tai Chi and Tai Chi is like, hold on.
You guys are just voting for Kana because she has big boobs and like
they're like, no, that's not why we're voting for Kana.
And then Satomu was like, listen, Kana is nice and I can imagine going on
a date with her.
If I try to imagine going on a date with Chihaya, we would end up just playing
Karda and it would suck.
And Tai Chi is like, damn, you're so right.
And he also votes for Kana.
Yeah, it's so good.
Oh, man.
And the last one is it's girl talk, but there's no third girl.
So they just have to invent a classmate for Chihaya to have to ask her this
question about who's the most dateable in the Karda club.
And she says Kana also.
So Kana wins with four points.
Yeah.
Kana's the most dateable.
By being a generic girl.
Yeah.
By being normal.
Well, I mean, look what her competition.
Yeah.
Her competition is Chihaya.
Like one or the other.
Super normal or abnormal.
Yep.
Oh, man.
That's it.
It's pretty funny.
You know, I wish they had more little funny moments in there.
Like I wish these were happening at like the ends of episodes or something.
Yeah.
Like each episode had one of these.
Yeah.
They kind of do that in like demons layer where they have a thing at the end.
They tell the jokes.
That's pretty fun.
Yeah, they're fine.
I mean, they don't matter, but they're at least funny.
They should be putting those in there.
This show needs more jokes is what I'm learning.
Like these more comedy.
So I'm like, oh, they can do it.
You know, they got jokes.
Yeah.
Not in the show.
So.
But they got the capacity.
Yes.
They have the material to work with.
I don't love the.
The she does fat jokes.
I don't love that.
Like his sister is just like the girl version of him.
I mean, that's kind of funny, I guess.
Well, I'm kind of indifferent towards that.
Yes.
Just wearing a wig basically.
Maybe they shouldn't do comedy.
Well, they also have the one where like, oh, they have,
they had her make shirts for the whole team.
Oh yeah.
But it's like in a specific order because it spells out their school.
Yeah.
And so it's like, well, we have to play in this order now or
else our shirts aren't going to make sense.
And then she's like, oh, they made the order based off of how
much my sister likes your aesthetic or something.
And Satomu is first.
Yeah.
And Tai Chi and Chi Haya are like both are like second to last
and last.
Yes.
Mostly they're just funny because Tai Chi is the butt of all these
jokes and it's funny to watch Tai Chi get on.
Well, that's quite poor Tai Chi is the sentiment through the
whole show.
I know.
It's doubling down on that.
The rich kid who gets everything.
Yeah.
So it's like a squad at least.
Yes.
Oh man.
Yeah.
That's these episodes.
Yes.
So I know I was, I was bummed we didn't have a third like for
real episode to talk about.
No, not, not a lot to say about these.
I mean, these are just like, these feel like season enders.
Well, cause they, this is like not the first time where they
have like mid episode.
They play like credits on the screen with like the opening
which always is like what the ending of a season looks like.
And then it's like episode continue from that point.
Like it's not just not the end of the episode, but not the
end of the season either.
It's so weird.
Yeah.
But like we have maybe they have like causes between.
Cause we have nine episodes left.
Yeah.
It just seems like a weird split to have like the first thing
be 15 and then the next be nine.
Yeah.
Unusual.
Oh well.
Yeah.
I see.
Let's see.
You did not play more forgotten.
I did not play any more forgotten and I'm still ahead.
I don't know if I get, should I keep talking about it?
If you haven't played it, like what, how are we supposed to do
this?
Cause I've like played far enough ahead where like it's plot
spoilers.
Like we're in a different.
Well, I guess it's, I didn't talk about anything last time
because I hadn't watched my thing and you talked about yours.
We could do that for this time where I just thought cause I
watched early, watched like.
Okay.
Yeah.
So we watch more G which.
Yeah.
Watched it together.
Yes.
Um.
An episode four, an episode nine or something like that.
Eight or something.
Well, okay.
What's happened?
Basically how guy, cute guy, like his whole arc happens in
like three episodes where like he is starting to try and
get out with her more for ulterior motives because his
company is trying to research Gundam stuff.
Yep.
And so he's just under the pretense of lying to hang out with
the sealata being like, Hey, let's hang out all also bring
Ariel, your gun, you know, your suit thing.
Yep.
And then so they're out doing that and she's just trying to,
she's trying to act like it's a normal social thing where it's
like, let me learn something about you and try to ask him for
his birthday and he's like, Oh, I don't have one.
Super dramatic.
And then he's like, Hey, can I, can I try piloting this?
And then while she, while they were both in there, she was
piloting and he was hanging out.
But as soon as he does, she's like left in the dust on the
side while he goes and.
Your Gundam.
And she's like, okay.
And like so, I feel like if so surely her mom sent her there
not knowing anything because she wanted people to look into
this thing to cause a rocket.
Yes.
Otherwise she would have like told her daughter like, Hey, you
can't let other people pilot it or you gotta keep this on the
download.
But like, she doesn't know any of that.
So she's like setting up her daughter daughter for like failure.
And so like, I think her mom's a terrible mother.
And like, God dang.
Yeah, she's got her mom definitely has some ulterior motives.
Yeah.
And, and it turns out.
L. M. or whatever the howl guy is is like, not.
The actual identity he's presuming to be.
This is like a rando who's a stand in for the guy.
Well, I guess it's like the air of the company, blah, blah, blah.
Or I don't know if the actual guy is doing important stuff or
just doesn't want to go to school.
And so he has like these rando strays basically take on his
his appearance and go to school in his stead to do all this stuff.
Yeah.
Well, we know that like being good at Gundam duels can like win you
things.
You want to have somebody who's good to be your representative.
So I think that's why they've modified all of like his replacement
guys to be able to like pilot Gundam stuff, which like for regular
people are not aerial.
The Gundam that Salah drives it like messes you up like it like
because it does like nerf stuff.
And it like starts breaking your body essentially.
So that's why he doesn't want to do it because he's like, well,
the actual air of this company can be dying.
But we can certainly just pay someone else to do it.
That's what they do.
But this.
OK, but the one that she's hanging out with isn't even the first
of these replacements.
So like, so like, what were those other ones doing?
Because it's not like there were other Gundams were there.
Up to that point.
I don't know.
Maybe.
But anyway, it turns out they're like, OK, we're done with this model.
And then they just kill him or maybe just kill him.
And like, that's it.
Bye bye guy.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
So I thought he was going to be more of a character.
So that is a dumbass that she'll never know.
And so that was like a whole thing that happened.
And then weird pink hair.
Guy is like, definitely has the hot for her and like did another
dual loss.
Now he's like he's like a dessert or he's like he's banished a
homeless person now.
They banished him from the house because he kept losing and they're
like, dude, you just stop doing.
Yeah.
He doesn't anyway.
Yeah.
Because he sucks.
So it's weird.
But like.
And and then she goes, this is the second one.
But like.
And then she goes this fancy party thing with her.
And they can't they call her a bride groom.
You're watching the dub.
I don't realize you're watching the dub.
OK.
And the sub they just call her the groom.
That's still dumb.
Just call her a fiance.
Why?
Because it's the name of the title.
It doesn't matter.
It bothers me.
They go to this thing.
She they have a joke where it's like my dress doesn't fit you because
your boobs are bigger than mine.
Look.
Slip in a thing where we think about booze.
At least if even if we don't specifically say booze.
And then.
Her hair looks different.
Also when she's piloting her hair is different.
But basically all she does is clip up her little rat tail ponytail.
And like stupid.
It looks like a noodle being held up to her head instead of just like.
Making a new hairstyle.
Stupid.
I hate it.
Let's see.
So she's like house humor or earth.
Earthians.
There's like houses.
Yeah.
There's houses by.
Like planet or by company.
It's by company.
It's mostly just like you form like a little group.
And so all of the people from Earth form a group even though they're not like part of
the same company or anything.
Oh yeah.
And then pink chick like clocks a girl.
She's like.
She was just the shit out of a girl.
Oh it's a girl.
It's so good.
I hear her hair.
But like when she wears her outfit at least we want to see the crazy hair.
Yeah.
Pom pom hair.
Yeah.
It's like crazy.
I mean like you know earthlings are like an oppressed class.
Yeah.
For like a bunch of people that live in space and oppressed them which is kind of like.
The opposite.
Wild because they're the originators of everyone else.
All of you.
And you see the like main Gundam line.
It's the opposite.
Oh.
Where like all of the like rich no building stuff live on earth and like forced all of
like.
Okay.
Poor laborers and stuff out into space.
This is just reversing it.
Okay.
So it's so peculiar.
It's like Final Fantasy Gundam where it's like each child is unrelated to each other
and the rules don't apply.
Oh yeah.
It's pretty similar.
Like there's the same stuff.
Like there's a Gundam.
It's like a different thing in different worlds.
But like it's like how you have the same summons in Final Fantasy.
Like if it's always there.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Or like in Persona like you always have you know.
The freaking Jack Frost or whatever the hell.
Yeah.
The little snowman.
Yeah.
Even though they're not related.
Yeah.
So it's crazy and it's trying to get more like.
Political and like business oriented.
So that's all going over my head and I had to have Joe explain it to me.
It's not clear.
Like it's pretty hard to follow.
Like these do not make it very easy.
You don't really have to pay that much attention.
Like the thing about that I like about this show is that everyone else in the show is
having like a corporate espionage plot except for Salletta who's trying to just have like
a school life.
Yeah.
So like if you're always just like I hope like what's Salletta doing?
It'll like the plot will be simple.
Yeah.
And then when you try to figure out what the hell everyone else is doing you're like what
the fuck.
At least you know you will never be more confused than Salletta is.
That's true.
Yeah.
This is the same.
This is the same mentality I have with Kingdom Hearts where it's like as confusing as the
Kingdom Hearts plot gets you will never be more confused than Sora.
So it's OK.
Yeah.
I guess in that case you're like actually experiencing it the way the protagonist is
versus a lot of times like you can gather what's happening but the protagonist hasn't
been blatantly told what's happening.
Yeah.
So it's more like you're experiencing it along with them.
Like after any complicated scene like the one where like you're gonna form that company
Salletta's like.
Yeah.
So what happened?
What just happened on screen?
Just to explain it to her.
Yeah.
It's pretty good.
Yeah.
So we'll see how much more complicated it gets for when I don't have Joe here to explain
it to me.
Yeah.
But are you how are you feeling about it so far?
I mean I guess I like it.
It gets OK.
I feel like it's like I'm gonna have to consume it in short batches to process.
Yeah.
It's hard to just watch all of it.
Yeah.
You watch a lot of episodes in a row.
Yes.
Well that's normally I just binge.
I'm not like a like this is you know having a way to find out what happens to Chihaya.
Normally I would just watch it all.
I could.
Yeah.
I feel like Chihaya is pretty good to binge because so little happens in an episode.
Yeah.
That mulling it over.
I mean at least with these shows some of them I'm getting to do that where like I've done
the binge version and now I'm doing more like.
Is it changing your opinion?
Like as your opinion of Chihaya through were changed by us going really slow.
I guess so.
Like the pacing is more noticeably odd than if I just wash it back to back.
That won't have the time to reflect on like oh it's weird that that only was an episode
or this or that.
Does it seem weird knowing that like this show aired week to week like this is before like
the streaming era.
Yeah.
So like this just like you're supposed to consume it the way we are.
We're supposed to consume it at an even slower pace than we are.
Yes.
Yeah.
I'm like what.
Because even like as a kid to show that the shows I watched I only watched when I had
a chance to watch them and not in order.
Yeah.
And that worked for shows like Pokemon where it's not like.
They're not designed to do that.
Yes.
But I mean reality shows are like the only shows that I watch as they come out.
I mean oh.
Oh speaking of which I got Joe to watch the first episode of Love Island US season six.
Yeah.
And that's that's like the most dramatic.
The one that like bumped up Love Island to like top streaming show for the summer 2024
and all of this.
And that's a very dramatic season.
He doesn't like Rob one of the notable players.
I don't.
And I don't really like the how the game play works either.
I think it's weird that someone could just show up and decide they were coupled with
you and then you have to be coupled with them.
That's weird.
No consent.
Yeah.
It's like what.
Well yeah.
People would be like six like double check like OK you made sure to make it clear to
her that you weren't interested right.
But I'm like seemingly doesn't.
Yeah.
Look it's like he's very clearly they didn't have them.
Like they didn't have a connection and she picked them anyways.
Yeah.
And he was hitting it off.
Pretend to be like I don't see what it means.
What does it mean to be cobbled up with somebody because it seems like it doesn't matter.
You know you sleep together and participate in challenges together but basically nighttime
is when people get hanky-panky.
It's like damn we can't like get crazy under the best shoes now.
You can't like sleep with who you want.
You have to sleep with who you're in the couple with.
So.
It just I don't really it's weird.
Yeah.
We're going through outfits.
We're judging outfits.
Yeah.
It's a bad.
Yeah.
We like Cordell style.
We love Cordell wants to be a cheese it.
He's brand ambassador.
Of course Cordell is very stupid.
It's so good.
Yeah.
It's you know.
It's fun.
I wouldn't I could there's no way I would commit five hours every week watching this.
No.
Every morning when every month month well yeah.
Australia is only four episodes a week and then I would feel the void on Friday morning.
He's like damn there's no yeah.
Yeah.
I mean it all feels like I mean it's all like super fake right like nobody actually
like really likes anybody else on this show.
You know.
A few like marriages and some of the violent kids.
It just doesn't happen very often.
Yeah.
It's happened in recent season.
There's nothing about this format that would make me think that any of these people would
actually be.
They would have to test shows that they can survive on the outside if you can if you can
pass the temptation test here then you can.
What's the temptation.
New hot folks coming in every few days.
It just seems like what if you were surrounded by a bunch of hot people you didn't know very
well which is like okay sure.
Yeah.
Well and these are all people who would ghost each other normally if it didn't work out
so they're like forced to like be around people that they don't necessarily want to
get to know each other and it didn't work out and coexist with them in like a strange way.
Yeah.
Yeah the vibe seemed bad.
It was my take.
We want bad vibes.
It makes drama and we want drama.
But yeah we're we've been up to so far.
We're just kind of when I went to visit Joe is like okay here's what we're doing on this
day and there's a schedule.
And it's not the case here.
That is not the case.
I don't know if Joe is like secretly dying on the inside because we don't have like set
and done plans but I'm very much more like what do we feel like doing today.
Well also I'm like trying to be accommodating but also like because there's no schedule
and I'm the one who lives here I should be the one being like okay here's what we're
going to do today.
I don't want like force you to do something you don't want to do.
No it's fine.
We can do stuff.
We're going roller skating at some point.
That's all I know.
Okay that's good.
I like roller skating.
Playing it day by day otherwise.
Yep.
That we'll see.
We'll see how it goes.
Yep.
Anything else?
New year, new time to.
Rate us five stars.
Yeah.
In the new year.
Hey you want to give us a new year's gift you should rate us five stars.
That would be happier.
You know your eyes are like glazed over.
Like I'm like scolding.
Yeah you know I used to do that.
We're going to finish up She-Haya Furu in three more episodes and by the time we're
done it will be February and we'll have a new show.
It'll be our year.
Our first anniversary.
Yeah it'll also be around our first anniversary time so that'll be good.
You should let people know about the show.
I think we're going to it seems like we're going to do we're going to finish up this
season and we're going to watch another show and then maybe we'll do the second
season we're going to like split it up so we're not just you know watching
She-Haya Furu all the time.
Yep yep yep.
And we kind of have we have a new show that we're going to do that's a little
based on kind of some stuff being released so that should hopefully be good.
Let people know about the show if you think it's good and you think someone else
would enjoy it.
You know we're about a good way to spread stuff.
Yeah so please do that.
Yeah do it for us.
Pretty please.
Yeah so I think that's it.
What did we learn in these episodes?
Support your teammates.
Yeah go watch your teammates play instead of just like zoning out watching someone
else play.
Shinobu should be like me I only wear graphic tees of things I know so that
if people ask me about it I'm not like a poser who doesn't know what it is I'm wearing.
She didn't even know the snowman had a name.
Oh my god.
Oh embarrassing.
Yeah so like that's like when they do on Man on the Street and they like ask
people who are wearing band shirts to list three songs by that band.
They don't do that because they're just an asshole.
That's just like such a that's like such a dick thing to do.
If someone ever asks you to like list three things from a thing they they're like oh I'm
not sure you're a real fan you should tell them to fuck off.
Okay.
You should ask them to list three friends they have.
Oh that's good.
Okay.
They won't be able to do it because they're like that.
In sufferable losers.
God.
Yeah okay well on that note we hope you all had a good 2024 and here's to.
It's going to be our year.
2025.
Just go ask the old people it's our year.
Yeah that's right.
255.
Okay.
Chat to you next time.
Chat to you later.
Bye bye.
Tootaloo.
Farely well.
Sayonara.
Um.
Nihao is hello isn't it.
We don't even do this.
Bye.
Say bye Joe.
Bye.