Episode 84: Anime Squad Dynamics, Comic-Con Adventures, and The Fly(for some reason)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to Carl and Richard, or Richard and
Carl, if you're nasty presentDeep Space and Dragons.
I'm Richard, sometimes peppy,mostly sassy.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
I am Carl and I'm I think I'm mostly peppy and
sometimes sassy.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
So your ringtone went in with I'm Carl immediately
afterward, like it played you inand it was kind of great.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah, I don't know Some 1833 number.
I always ignore those.
I think it might be Shaw slashRogers trying to get me to sign
up for another value plan, whichmaybe I should take that, but
this is more pressing.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
We are not sponsored by Rogers.
If we were, we would have saidsomething nice there, allegedly.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Allegedly.
Alright so what's new in thecarl verse?
Well, it's september.
Oh shit, why do you use up ourone swear for this?
I said ships ah, right, right,right, classic.
Yeah, i'm'm good Anyways.

(01:05):
So my girlfriend absolutelyloves Halloween and September
those leaves start changingcolors.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
To that beautiful orange.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Well, I mean, I generally dislike orange.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
I'm aware.
That's why I said it.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
I do find that the falling leaves and fall in
general it's actually quitebeautiful.
I don't know that seems sus.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
I feel like you're social chameleon here.
I don't trust it.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
But you know it's nice because then you can get
like the fun like Frankensteinand Ghost and Pumpkin, like leaf
bags, and you know it's a listof like 30 to 40 horror movies

(02:11):
we have watched, because it'skind of our halloween tradition
leading up to it anyways, to uhwatch horror movies I love the
treehouse of horror marathon.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
It's become quite the day-long affair at this point
and those consistently the onlygood Simpsons episodes.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
I mean, maybe we should check it out sometime.
I mean, it does just get longerand longer every year.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
but so, like for our podcast, I honestly think if we
do like a Simpsons Triodos ofHorror tier list, like that
could be a thing.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
The most recent horror movie that we watched on
September 1st.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Gundam.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Seed Freedom.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
That's probably not actually a horror movie no, but
I really enjoyed it last night.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
But please continue have you ever watched the Fly
from 1986 starring Jeff?

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Goldblum yes, I have, it was in our science fiction
class.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Oh, so you've watched it recently then.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Well, with that reminder that we're somehow in
September, thanks for that.
Probably like six months agonow.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Okay, well, see Within the last year.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Sorry, I had to remember my classes were yeah.
No, it would have been about ayear ago Roughly.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Well, I mean, that's, that's recently enough that
it's like I I'd never seen itbefore, and it's always
described as the movie where, um, the, the guy messes up a
science experiment and startsturning into a fly.
But I mean, so there's thethree characters the journalist,

(03:54):
whose name I don't remember,the creepy ex-boyfriend whose
name I don't remember, andBrundle, whose first name I
don't remember, but I mean,that's neither here nor there,
and so you know, in the so thestory can happen Brundle and the
journalist fall in love and,for a pretty direct euphemism,

(04:18):
they make love, gasp, and theydo so before the accident and
after the accident, and so, likeI saw it coming, but I didn't
believe it.
I didn't believe it and I wassurprised, because she gets

(04:42):
pregnant for science, butobviously not for science.
She gets pregnant For science,obviously not for science.
She got pregnant for passion,because they fell in love,
because that's what twoattractive leads do in a movie,
right?
Well, yeah, by federal law.
But I did not expect the movieto she's pregnant, it could be a

(05:07):
monster.
And so then she decides tohashtag, trigger warning and
then the like sociopathic,creepy exploit.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
I really enjoyed the hashtag trigger warning as the
entire explanation.
Good job.
Like you just said, triggerwarning I'm like, yeah, we all
get it.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
We're good.
But so then suddenly the creepyex-boyfriend is super
supportive and he like takes herto a clinic and then you know
the fly.
At this point he busts throughthe, busts through those like
glass, privacy, brick windows orwhatever, and like takes her
back to the lab.
I don't think it's supposed tobe a social commentary.

(05:50):
Maybe it's because it's so old,but it kind of played it so
straight that I expected somesort of twist.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
That's kind of funny when you're an originator.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah, I know it originates a lot of the body
horror tropes.
I don't know if it originatesthem, but it's.
It's entrenched in some of theclassic tropes of body horror.
Um and uh.
Then at the ending, the the,the climax of the movie, I was
also uh, like I.
First I expected him to try andmerge with the creepy

(06:25):
ex-boyfriend, then I expectedthe creepy ex-boyfriend to
actually accidentally kill thefly and the journalist, but then
again they just played itstraight and then she shoots the
fly in the head and it's done.
I was like, wow, that's beingnot Not having twists actually

(06:50):
ended up being somewhat of atwist for what I was expecting
with modern movie sensibilities.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
So, like on the topic of, like I said, I watched the
Gundam Seed movie yesterday.
It's interesting to try andmatch tone to a 20 year old
anime and it succeeded in 99 ofit.
Like it had some of the bestcharacterizations of people ever
okay, but also it had acharacter roll up in his easy
gawk playing the shower musicand did the charzee gawk stab

(07:21):
and I'm like I can't believe Icaught this remix.
And I caught this remix becausethere can't be that many people
who are like, no, it's like thespecific Zegok music.
So it wasn't like it was evenlike lyrical, it was just I
recognize it, that was for me,that wasn't for anyone else,

(07:43):
that was for me specifically.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
But to finish off my segment, though, our listeners
can expect many movie reviewslike that throughout September
and October, because that's justkind of a movie tradition, and
I do think that the I meanclassic horror.
Classic horror, obviously we'retalking about how, how it's
aged and and what thedifferences are between modern

(08:10):
movie, movie storytelling andclassic storytelling.
Uh, but you know, it's just afun tradition to watch all sorts
of horror movies.
So there's some some moremodern ones, like I've heard
that the movie came out I thinktwo years ago.
It was called barbarian.
I've heard that was really cameout, I think two years ago.
It was called Barbarian.
I've heard that was really good.
We're going to have to watchthat this year.
So we're going to get a diversemix of horror movies that are

(08:32):
going to be mini-reviewed inthese what's New With Me
segments.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
That's a strategy.
I mean people enjoy Carl CraftProjects, carl Touring, carl,
very nearly getting us canceledwith theories about potential
large-scale figures beingpotentially endangered, but glad
to hear that your Halloweenplans are Halloween plans.
It's like there's the plottwist, is there is no plot twist

(08:56):
exactly, I really hope ourepisode ends up being called the
plot twist.
Is that there is no plot twist?

Speaker 2 (09:06):
But so what's new with you, besides watching
Gundam Seed movie?

Speaker 1 (09:14):
there, richard.
So the Gundam Seed movie wassick.
I don't know if it was good,but it was sick.
They basically took like whatyou think would be 48 episodes
and made a movie out of it.
But what was weird is theyactually got the character
emotional growth and beats rightlike I was blown away that they

(09:34):
actually finally had kirayamato come to terms with his
trauma of being told he's theonly person strong enough to
make a difference.
Like I'm like wow, was thisactually well written?
What the heck?
This wasn't supposed to be wellwritten.
This was supposed to be stupid.
Oh, here we go.
So I enjoyed it.
But as for like life outside ofthings, so recently I've
started volunteering at a locallaw firm yeah, and I don't think

(09:55):
I can say anything about what Ido there other than I do legal
stuff.
Ah, and it's nice, and theysend me home with food often
they send you home with food.
Oh yeah, my boss came in.
He's like I make the bestbutter chicken.
You want butter chickentomorrow?
I'm like yes, and he came injust handing me like four
takeout containers of food.
It's like you're a student eat.

(10:15):
And then I did, and it wasgreat.
I've had snacks all weekend,huh well.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
So was it like, uh, like genuinely spicy butter
chicken, or was it more likeWestern sensibility?

Speaker 1 (10:27):
So actual, Indian food is spicy not really, so
their main chili is greenchilies, right and the level of
spiciness is mostly just theamount of green chilies in it.
If I were my mother, it wouldbe spicy, but I grow piri piri
peppers on my desk.
It would be spicy, but I growpiri piri peppers on my desk.
So Indian food spicy isn'tactually that high on the spicy

(10:49):
scale.
Trinidad's food that'll killyou.
Filipino food that'll getdangerous.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
Indian food, not as much as you would think.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
It's more like there's a lot of different
spices.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
It's very complex flavors, but you're definitely
right that it's like there's alot of different spices, it's
very complex flavors, mm.
But you're definitely rightthat it's like the peppers that
they grow in like the Caribbeanand in more tropical places like
that definitely outspice India.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Like my one friend was saying that for a scotch
bonnet pepper, because I'm like,oh yeah, I diced it up and it's
seasoned like 20 tacos.
They're like, yeah, you don'teat the pepper, you just cook
the rice with the pepper thrownin and then remove it afterward
and you will have seasoned it.
So, yeah, what's me is workingpart-time at this law firm doing
redacted and redacted.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
I get to shred a lot of documents.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
It's fun.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
Oh, that does sound like fun.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
Because anything, nothing can leave the office
right.
So anything we print, read over, look at there's a lot of print
, something then putting itthrough the scanner to convert
it to a PDF, then shredding it,and then I went to an actual
courthouse last week, which wascool.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
Ooh, and it wasn't like a traffic court courthouse.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
It was like a small claims courthouse, but still so
like I've been doing theseadventures along with my various
writing things.
Oh, and at Fan Expo, me and myprofessor gave a talk at Fan
Expo.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
Fan Expo.
Being from Saskatchewan, I havenot heard of this expo.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
So you know what a Comic-Con is.
Yes, right, it's Toronto's bigone, so for our so let's put it
this way there's about 20 eventsrunning simultaneously for just
like side panels, not countingthe giant merchant halls and
things.
Our side panel had 200 pluspeople at it Is that the one

(12:41):
that we went to.
when you got the unicorn hat andwe got, we entered that pokemon
tournament no, that's the wimpyone that's the wimpy one, okay
now, fan expo is huge andimpractical and my prize for
volunteering with my professorat that is I got an exhibitor
pass.
That let me just go througheverything.
Oh, nice, right, because it'slike we can't pay you for this.
I'm like.
It's like 200 for tickets and Iget a ticket.

(13:02):
Now I'm winning.
That's fair.
It's funny because we weretalking about edits earlier
today.
I'm like.
My professor said this.
I'm like, no like.
At a talk he gave at Fan Expowhere I was clicking next slide,
he literally said this this isrecent.
That's like information where Iwould have had to get to Fan
Expo and get a ticket for thistalk to Fan Expo and get a

(13:24):
ticket for this talk.
I'm giving you all the freeinformation You're saving tens
of dollars from my coursesAlmost offsets the value of you
sponsoring our podcast andtaking me go-karting.
That's my plan, by the way, isto coach you enough in writing
that you can start entering inliterary journals, getting
stories published, so you gethonorarium.

(13:45):
So I feel like I help pay youback in the most indirect way
imaginable.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
It would be funny for me to become a professional
author and for you to become alawyer slash legal assistant.

Speaker 1 (13:59):
I mean to be fair.
I'm still going to be aprofessional author.
I have published works Like Ijust am a professional author.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, you are technically already a
professional author, which islike the best kind of being a
professional author.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
I just really enjoy literary magazines Like.
I'm just going to give a shoutout to Fusion, fragment, science
Fiction and the Familiar'sEclectic Collection.
They're both open forsubmissions right now.
Send in your writing samplesand maybe you can get published.
Submissions right now.
Send in your writing samplesand maybe you can get published.
Literary magazines are such agood stepping stone before
trying to get entire bookspublished that writing short
stories for literary magazinesis the way to go.
Note I'm not sponsored byeither of these things, I'm just

(14:35):
a fan.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
Fair enough.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
Not that I, oh man, A literary you know how good a
literary magazine would have todo to sponsor a podcast Like
they.
Pretty much Literary magazinesbasically make exactly enough
money to pay authors forsubmissions and accept a number
of submissions based on how manypeople buy their literary
magazine.
It's like a reverse pyramidscheme.
It's built in the oppositedirection.
The people at top make no money, so the people at the bottom

(15:01):
can make some.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
That is pretty funny.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
So that's why I fully support them.
Where it's like these arebasically profit neutral for
writers to get their firstpieces of work published and get
feedback and things Definitelysupport literary magazines.
That's why I'm just giving thisunscripted advertisement for
two minutes for them and Iregret nothing.
I'd do it again.
They're just good.
Also the Red Cross is just kindof good, not related either,

(15:31):
some days.
I have to offset the naturalevil that is me.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
That's pretty fair.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Oh yeah, also my mother came out to visit for two
weeks, so that was an event.
We ended up going to the ROM,which is cool.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
I do like the ROM.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
Right.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
Although we did pay the extra money for the.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Cats exhibit and I have mild regrets.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
Yeah, the last time I was there we wanted to go.
I went with you and your friendand we wanted to go see the
Winnie the Pooh exhibit, but itwas sold out.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
Ah, and the worst part is how come it was extra
tickets when it just went publicdomain Libraries and museums.
Well, no, I'm not going to saymuseums are just good.
That can be a loaded topic.
Looking at you, brinton, don'tknow how good.
Like I haven't actually takenthe time to see how ethical the

(16:25):
ROM is.
I like to imagine it's anethical one, but it could not be
.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah, I mean, I guess that's fair.
Who knows where they sourcedall their artifacts from?

Speaker 1 (16:36):
Indeed.
So my next question, to pivotinto our main topic, is do we
have a third person that wouldgo on our stereotypical anime
three-man squad?
That's required by law,although I'm mildly concerned.
We're both senseis now and haveto build our own three-man
squads.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Well, I mean the anime law is that our third
squad member has to be female.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
Only if they're the main characters.
If we're side characters, wecan go all of one or the other.

Speaker 2 (17:04):
Oh yeah, I guess that's a good point.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
And we're absolutely side characters.
Hate to break it to you.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
We're side characters in our own story.

Speaker 1 (17:11):
Yeah, we're like the Inoshika Cho trio, like we're
the best side characters, orlike the literal panda bear.
The cursed speech guy andbludgeons people with
staffswoman definitely fits ouraesthetic better than being the
actual protagonist.
And you know it, heck, weactually have the panda.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
Do you think the panda would be our third squad
member?

Speaker 1 (17:36):
Probably Considering some of the other options we had
.
Either that or it would havebeen the one that literally
betrayed you, and it was like awhole arc.
But then we're going back intomain character territory.
So to go into the topic of whyI want to talk to you about
animes that have schools, havethe three-person squad trope and
have character names, isactually because of something

(17:57):
interesting you said to me awhile back in relation to a
project I'm working on.
Okay, so I've been working onmy apathetic professor at the
Esper Academy project off and onfor a while.
There's a few of the roughdraft chapters up on Wattpad if
anyone's interested.
But I had like a bigbreakthrough on the emotional
core of it so I startedrewriting it last week.
Okay, I basically figured outwhat it's actually about rather

(18:20):
than what it's superficiallyabout.
But then a Carl quote wasrattling in my head.
It than what it's superficiallyabout.
But then a Carl quote wasrattling in my head.
It was when we were doing ourmy Hero Academia episode.
Check our backlist.
We have other episodes, no bigdeal and you're like there's too
many characters and I can'tpossibly remember them all or be
bothered to.
So it's funny.
You should say that because Iwas thinking about various

(18:41):
classroom animes and I guesslive action shows, but really
it's only some of the X-Menspinoffs.
You know some of those clearlyanime-inspired things like
Totally Spies or MartinMysteries Right, they'll follow
that structure as well, and someof the Canadian-made ones will

(19:02):
do that.
But it's very obvious that'swhere they got the structure and
they like to say naruto is aseries that really popularized
that.
But my question for you is howmany students should be in a
classroom in my esper academyseries, like should I actually
have 20 characters or I shoulddo that anime trope?
You know the one where, like,there's five characters who have

(19:23):
fun hairstyles and outfits andthen just shadowy silhouettes,
like if you look at ruby, forexample they're.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
Oh yeah, those first few seasons where, like everyone
who wasn't, the main characterwas literally just a shadowy
silhouette which honestly wasamazing.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
They made a joke about that in the chibi spinoff.
But, like more to the point youmade about too many characters
in ruby team.
Ruby team juniper and the bullyguy are really the only first
year students who get names.
And then there's just otherpeople sitting in the room and
for me as a world builder itbugs me the idea that I have

(20:00):
characters that literally haveno names.
But, then my Hero Academiaintroduced 20 characters and I
was able to follow it easybecause they had the perk of
having them look reallyaesthetically different and
giving them code names.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
Okay, I got to double check which series this is
again.
Okay, I gotta double checkwhich series this is again.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
So my first thought is, for example, assassination
Classroom all 30 of thosecharacters got names.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
They were just very slow with actually introducing
them.
Well see, that's kind of whereI'm at.
Oh, that's what it was.
It was Total Opposites Attract.
They released some polaropposites attract, I think it
was.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
And meanwhile we don't have time in this episode
to go into the new Chainsaw manchapter because that was an
off-stream conversation.
But why is that so cool?
All I'm going to say noexplanation, but you know the
part I'm talking about the wellI guess I have to sacrifice my
children.
Moment.
Talking about the well, I guessI have to sacrifice my children
moment.
And then the big season onecallback.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
Oh, that was cool.
That was pretty cool.
But so, to more or less answeryour question, it's not
necessarily about the number ofcharacters and it's more so
about the slow roll of rollingthem out when they do matters,
Especially if, like, it's reallyeasy in more visual mediums

(21:34):
where the characters are notshadowy silhouettes and they're
in the background and you seethem and you recognize their
face and then you know, severalepisodes later, suddenly they
get a face and they interactwith our main character and you
kind of slowly build up thatclass, but my problem was that
I'm writing a novel.

(21:56):
Right, that's true.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
Because a lot of these animes are based on novels
.
There's a lot of lightnovel-based series that have the
full classrooms, but I don'tknow.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
I thought it was an interesting topic.
I would definitely say likeassassination classroom.
They didn't really do the threeman squad thing so much.
But no, I feel like that wasalmost too many characters
because, like not, I feel likethat was almost too many
characters because, like not, Ithink in a book you could follow

(22:29):
more characters more easily.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
I think the opposite is true screen time.
So what I find is, in visualmedia you'll almost always have
the A plot, b plot structure,like any good sitcom will do
that because you can movebetween voices.
I find and this comes from likemy first two books and feedback
on those plus things I've readin a book you really only can

(22:55):
have like three or four pointsof view before it becomes too
much, or if an anime you canliterally just follow those
characters and cut away to themIn an anime.
You can literally just followthose characters and cut away to
them in a book.
You lose people's interestslike there's entire game of
throne novels that switch toviewpoints people didn't care
about and my brother's like oh,I just skipped this one because
I didn't follow any charactercharacters I actually cared
about.
So it's like most novels I'vereally enjoyed only have like 10

(23:21):
or so characters you really getto know.
well, right, like I'm eventhinking of like some of the
greatest novels of all time andthey cap it like five characters
, like like, lord of the Ringsonly had, like, let's look at it

(23:44):
this way, lord of the Ringsonly had about 10 relevant
characters Because, let's bereal, each member of the
Fellowship was an importantcharacter, but that was just the
Aragorn chunk, right Then Frodoand Sam mattered, goa mattered,
merry and Pippin didn't.
Gandalf, really didn't matter.

(24:04):
Ironically, right.
So the characters that, like,actually got screen time were
aragorn and pals.
Sam and pals and marion pippinget stoned because we never
really even go into thevillain's brain at any point,
right?
And lord of the rings isfamously for being complex, even

(24:24):
though it's really not so.
Lord of the rings has lessnamed characters than naruto by
like a lot I suppose that's agood point.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
It is much easier to cut away to a different
character.
Uh, I just I really find, Iguess in terms of visual media,
you're right that you can cutaway between different
characters.
I find that a lot of anime andmanga will often spend
significant chunks on a singlecharacter and then by the time

(24:59):
and maybe it's the releaseschedule, but by the time they
go back to another character,I've already kind of forgotten
who they are and what they'redoing.

Speaker 1 (25:07):
Well, what's interesting is to go to JJK,
which absolutely just straightup stole the three-man cell
structure from Naruto likeliterally did the three-person
and a sensei thing, verbatim.
I am shocked it ended with themgetting to keep their
three-person squad Like I am inawe that it's like oh, you just
defeated the bad guy.
The merging thing neverhappened, you just went back to

(25:29):
school with your friends.
This is weird.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
This is weird.
You went this route.
There's still like two morechapters or something.

Speaker 1 (25:38):
Yeah, but it's just gonna be fluff.
It's probably gonna end with.
It's gonna end with Yujiexplaining to his three students
and saying, nah, I'd win.
Also, JJK is so much better whenit feels like being funny, like
I actually laughed at the yeah,I wasted your dad's ass Like

(26:02):
that was by far the best chapterof that series in a long time.
It's just they set it up to beso climatic that they had like
eight shark jump moments.
But I gotta say one of thethings that bugged me about jjk
which is why it's on my likelist of things to talk about for
this classroom episode is theyonly had seven students and they

(26:24):
immediately abandoned the highschool concept entirely.
They had their junior exam andthen it didn't matter.
So my thing is, why was there aschool?
What purpose did a school servein that story?
Why not just?

Speaker 2 (26:38):
have it be an exorcist building.
I mean, I think that happensquite a bit, like, uh, like d
gray man, I I don't think thatwas a very well-written series
in general, but uh, itdefinitely.
It started with like a exorcistacademy where they're learning
how to be exorcists and then hejust goes off on his own into

(27:00):
their like three-man squads uh,and yeah, there was only one
three-man squad that even reallymattered.
And then again, by the time Igo back to the other characters
and what they're doing, it'slike I don't even, I don't even
know who you are, except forlike there was the one character
I don't remember the name, butit was like they looked like a

(27:22):
female to me when they, whenthey started, and then it turns
out that they were a dude.
And then it's like they lookedlike a female to me when they,
when they started, and then itturns out that they were a dude,
and then it's like they werejust in the background for like
50 or 60 chapters and suddenlywe're back to them when I was
supposed to care about them.

Speaker 1 (27:32):
It's like I don't were a series that actually did
the three-man squad really wellwas soul eater, because they
gave those three characters.
Technically it was a six-mansquad, because it was a
three-man squad but eachperson's weapon was a character.
But they actually kind of keptthe three-man squad together the
entire runtime and they keptgoing back to the school.

(27:54):
So it's like they only botheredto have their squad and I think
there was one other squad intheir year and that was it where
it's like, like yeah, we don'thave a ton of students, but then
they had full lecture halls ofstudents and like, okay, I guess
, just both most of them suck, Isee which I always find weird
because it's like one thing I'llsay to JJK is like, yeah, we

(28:16):
only have three students becausethere just isn't that many
sorcerers.
It's actually a really fair plotpoint.
If you're a superpower school,maybe you do only have three
first-year students.
That actually is completelyfine to me.
It's just like they use theclassrooms to explain the
MacGuffins of the series andthen throw it out when they're
done.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
Well, yeah, so in terms of your Esper at the
Academy story, I mean that one'sdefinitely way more built
around the school itself, right?
Because, because it's aboutthat, the apathetic professor,
um, and I mean, uh, so from hispoint of view, it would be
pretty easy to at the very least, uh, you can throw in like

(29:00):
references to be like oh, thischaracter is really bad at this,
or this character frequentlyplagiarizes, or or cheats, or so
you can give your characters ahook without directly
introducing them so like,ironically, one of my big twitch
shifts I was making for theseries was it was about the

(29:22):
professor, but I didn't have thecharacter.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
It was weird because it's like a classroom series you
immediately want to focus onthe students and their dynamics.
So one of the big changes withmy big epiphany was I made the
why today moment in the story isbecause he's been an apothecary
professor.
They paired him with a superenthusiastic TA, so I made it

(29:45):
more like a buddy cop betweenthe apostatic professor who
doesn't want to do anything andthe TA whose literal job to be a
full-time teacher is to makethis professor do stuff.
I'll take your silence as myidea is brilliant.
Complete silence.
If you is brilliant, completesilence.

(30:05):
If you disconnected, that'sbrutal.
If my rewrite was that savage,that's even worse.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
No, my Discord on this phone sometimes is just
like nah bro.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
So what I was finding with my rewrites is I really
only have the screen time whereif the professor and the ta are
the two main characters, so theycan banter and live their lives
, and then I add in a thirdteacher, then I add in the rival
school slash villainorganization, because I kind of
fuse the two together then juststraight up put in a tuning exam

(30:40):
.
Really, only one or two studentsactually get time for screen
time in my first novel.
So I'm like I'm going to dothree-man squads where they get
to pick three people to send totheir tuning exam and I guess
the rest of the students can getscreen time later, because I'm
entering a light novel contest.
So I mean sending threestudents off to a tuning exam so

(31:03):
that way the students can getdone dirty and the professor can
end up declaring war on theother.
School is great Because I enjoythe like.
I have like ideas brewing.
I don't want to do too manyspoilers but I found that I
scaled down the classmatesbecause I found I was almost
doing like a short storycollection of different
classmates and it was drainingso much of the bandwidth that I

(31:25):
forgot I gave the professor anantagonist and a dual antagonist
to build up their dynamic Right, because the reason it's three
men plus a sensei, as I wassaying before, is four
characters is a good amount ofcharacters to have meaningful
banter without getting lost.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Right.

Speaker 1 (31:43):
Like to use that Naruto example from before.
Naruto was absolutely at hisstrongest when it was just
Kakashi and the three of them onmissions or the three of them
doing tuning, exam stuff Likethat is when the show wasn't at
its strongest, when they onlyhad like three or four
characters out doing missionsand things.
It actually got worse the morepeople they threw in at the pod.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
Yeah, I mean, I guess that's a fair assessment,
because that's kind of where Ifeel about.
Like my Hero Academia, it'slike I don't remember how much I
actually read, but they neverreally split up into squads like
that and it just I couldn'ttrack everyone.

(32:28):
Everyone had their own uniquepower and with their own unique
rules.
It was just like an informationoverload.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
Now Hunter x Hunter has the opposite problem and
I'll forever have a grudge withHunter x Hunter.
Yeah, so Hunter x Hunterintroduces their cast of four
characters and then just throwsone out, throws the other one
onto a side adventure that hasnothing to do with anything.
Then it's like hunter.
Hunter was such and thenstorytelling it killed me

(32:59):
because like each arc hadnothing to do with what happened
before and like they're likeall right, we're gonna make kura
pekka a character, but then hisstory and gone story didn't
even touch after theirintroduction.
Really, for some reason, likekura pekka just had nothing to
do with greed island or thebattle tower or the chimera ants
, but he still somehow managedto get a stupid amount of screen

(33:23):
time yeah, uh, that wasdefinitely interesting.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
We'll have to see how it goes forward, because it has
been confirmed to be returningto shonen jump just kill it.
Just give the man free lifeinsurance that seems to be what
he needs, because there's no waythey're taking themselves out
of that.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
I'm sorry.
Gone, encountering his dad andlooking at the tree was at least
an ending Like where the animechose to end.
It was a good spot, right.
I have such a mild pet peeveabout Assassination Classroom.
Oh so Assassination Classroom,I think, did a really good job

(34:02):
of having a large cast and veryslowly introducing them, because
really you're only followingNogasi and Karma for the most
part and then learning that thequiet chick in the background
was totally just long gamingeverybody.
But the show did one thingwrong.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
The series.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
So the entire premise is they're learning how to kill
a tentacle monster.
Then an evil tentacle monstershows up and the students did
not kill the evil tentaclemonster, the one thing they were
training to do this entirestory.
I am forever mad about that,because they set it up perfectly

(34:41):
so they could show off theirassassination skills against the
actual main villain withouthaving to kill this teacher.
They all adored Ugh Like whenhe was captured.
They should have been the onesto just take down the bad guy,
because that is literally thething they trained to do.
The entire show, that's it.

(35:03):
Everything else of it wasreally good, including the
ending.
I was just mad that they forgotto put a final fight where the
assassination classroomassassinated something and they
went so far of the way to set upthat they could.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
They did do a good job of actually maintaining the
classroom dynamic.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
Oh yeah, it gets bonus points for staying a
classroom series.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
Yeah, because my Hero Academia is not at all about
academia.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
Such a wasted potential there too, because
that was part of what would havemade it stay strong.
And, like I was saying, JJKshouldn't have even had a school
.
They should have just took himin and be like cool, you're now
a sorcerer Done.
Like the funny thing is that I'mfake as death and then have
awesome character train him andI'm like why did you even bother

(35:49):
introducing him to the schoolthen?
You should have just had himteam up with these people.
And then like there is noreason for there to be a jujitsu
high.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
Okay, but so the shifting gears a tiny bit.
Absolutely.
Do you consider Border fromWorld Trigger to be an academy?

Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yes, so Border's weird in that case.
So Border is three-man squad.
The show Right and, much like Iwas talking about Naruto, the
series got way worse the more itpaid attention to people who
weren't our actual protagonist.
Three-man squad.
You can only really care aboutso many three-man squads.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
Yeah, I mean, even in this current arc, I mean it
still would have been terrible.
But if they were just focusingon the three characters in their
new squads for the bottle test,then they're also focusing on
all the other squads and it'sjust.
I can't follow it all.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
I'll be real.
If they put were put as a squadin the bottle test and we just
followed them, it would havebeen a good arc and over it
would have been over so long agobecause, like the premise of
all, we're going to mix up thesquads to see how they interact,
to play off the othercharacters.
World trigger.
One of its plus sides arerealistic characters.

(37:03):
Well, the downside is there isno drama or conflict in these
new groups.
To make it interesting to readlike you're not seeing different
personalities clash becausethese characters don't have
personalities because they'resensible, so pretty much
everyone in the bottle test likeI guess we'll work together.
I'm.
I'm like okay, goggles guy.
Like ironically to use a myHero phrase these characters

(37:32):
aren't quirky.
Like Yuma was interesting as afish out of water In Border.
He's not a fish out of wateranymore, he's just another agent
, which means he has nopersonality in these situations
whatsoever.
Like Asumu's personality comesfrom being the wimpy underdog
who, through effort and planning, wins.
That character trait's gone.

(37:57):
So all of their charactertraits have been stripped away
in this bottle test.
So no one's important orinteresting because you're not
doing anything to make theminteract, but Border is
definitely just a school forbeing a Border agent.
It is so school structured it'sridiculous.
They're literally doinghomework right now, Like if
Border was a college.
It was called Border Collegeand they did normal classes and

(38:18):
then did Border stuff.
The show wouldn't change.
Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
I'm actually surprised they didn't do that
and just have border be theschool um, but so then, prior to
the bottle test, do you feelthat they were a good example of
three-man squads?

Speaker 1 (38:38):
they were so close to being a good example.
So once they're literally likesaid, we're forming a three-man
squad, we're doing the rank wars.
Here's our team.
Had they after that actuallywent on a ship and went on
adventures, it would have beenperfect, because they followed
the trope to a t and each squadthey like made look cool and
thematic but they didn't haveenough depth to really bother

(39:00):
fleshing them out.
But yeah, no, like it was a, itwas straight up Naruto of
sci-fi.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
Yeah, that's pretty true.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
But instead of giving them one sensei, their senseis
were just the squad that wasabove them and I guess Jin
really, for being honest, jinwas just their Kakashi.
In the early episodes, when hedid his awesome, I Stomp
Everyone to show how good thisweapon is so I can sell it.
Interaction man, early WorldTrigger was sick.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
That is definitely true.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
And like to switch gears a bit.
Part of what's making KaguraBashi so good is it's not being
a school anime and he's notgoing to swordsman school.
And the thing is I like this Xschool make squad structure.
Like I think it's a goodnarrative structure if you use
it.
Bleach is funny.

(39:56):
So there is a soul reaperacademy, but they just used it
for flashbacks to flesh out howthe soul society people knew
each other.
So you never watched anyone gothrough soul reaper academy
Academy, but they just used itfor flashbacks to flesh out how
the Soul Society people kneweach other.
Huh, so you never watchedanyone go through Soul Reaper
Academy?
It was just a thing so that wecould explain why Renji and
Rukia's backstories mattered,and I'm like you know what?
That's fine.
I don't think Soul ReaperAcademy would have been a good

(40:19):
show.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
Did they ever really form a three-man squad?
Oh?

Speaker 1 (40:25):
no, blee just did it, so they specifically did it.
I think he was gonna.
So it's like he sets up hischaracters into a cliche band of
.
So to deconstruct anime tropes,we go back far enough to the
band of five, the Sente squad,your five-power ranger squad.
That's where the trope starts.
That gives you your Sailor Moon, your Tokyo Mew Mew, your Biker

(40:49):
Mouse from Mars, your NinjaTurtles, your five-man band's
pretty iconic right Right.
Then what they realized was bytaking one of those members of
the band and making them ateacher, you could then pump
exposition and like mad.
So Naruto's what cut the squadsize down from being the band of

(41:09):
four to being a three-man squadwith a sensei.
Because you go back to Inuasha,you got your five-man band.
Your what is it?
Commander, lancer, heart,strong One, smart One, yeah,
okay.
So Bleach followed thestructure you'd expect from
something like Inuasha of here'sour five-man band.

(41:30):
But when they got to SoulSociety, he literally had a
character proclaim it'sone-on-one duels now, literally
a dude says to him welcome toSoul Society.
We are a one-on-one duel showand I'm like, well, that's easy.
And I see why he did it,Because Bleach has some of the
best one-on-one duels in anime.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
Right.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
It was a choice and he committed to it.
There's a few times where theygo like two-on-one or
three-on-one or things, but as ageneral rule it's one-on-one
duels or they're impactful powermoments and it was a deliberate
choice.
Dragon Ball did the same thingAt some point.
They decide that all fights inDragon Ball are one-on-one and

(42:13):
for Dragon Ball thejustification is people like
fighting.
That's it.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
Yeah, Dragon Ball at least old-school Dragon Ball
never really broke into squadsin the first place.
That one was very truly andcompletely Goku's story, until
you get to Z, and then it'sGohan's story.
So, what's really funny is.

Speaker 1 (42:40):
I asked ChatGPT to list anime that have three man
squads with a sensei.
So it gives us Naruto and JJK,obviously, and this is Dragon
Ball Z saiyan saga, and I'm likeyou're just wrong, because
they're like, yeah, it was gohan, krillin and yamcha were a team
led by piccolo.
I'm like that's just not true,that's not what happened you're
wrong.

(43:01):
Pretty pretty sure yamcha isstill dead at that point right
and then you go to like and thenit's like my hero was one of
them because they had a senseiwho mentored an entire class,
but often Bakugo, toji andMidoriya form a squad.
I'm like, no, they do differentsquad configurations every plot
arc.
There is no squads in my hero.
They probably should have donesquads.

(43:23):
Yeah, probably like if they'drestructured.
My hero were like all my tookthree characters.
Eraser head took threecharacters and like each of
these teachers took threecharacters.

Speaker 2 (43:35):
Probably would have made it easier to follow yeah, I
, I definitely think so because,like naruto did get
overwhelming closer to the end,but each of the squads were like
distinct and they had their own, their senseis, and they
actually, as a squad, felt likethey mattered and it was like

(43:59):
it's like the squad became thecharacter and then they only had
like five or six squads right,like shikamaru squad was a
character, rock lee squad was acharacter, but then chachi squad
was a character, but thenChatGPG's trying to argue,
hunter x Hunter and Bleach Countand I'm like, no, we both just
went over this episode.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
Why they don't Right, like some mecha anime, older
ones, particularly like NeonGenesis, had the three-person
squads, the three-person squads.
None of the Gundams really havea three-person squad.
Usually you have yourprotagonist and then your older
pilot dude and then your tragiclove interest, but Gundam mixes

(44:40):
it up every single franchise.
They have no consistency forhow many characters are on the
battlefield.
Like I was saying, it was aplot point in Gundam Z that
Kiriyama fought alone and thebad guys just ganged up on him
four on one, which was somebullshit.
But also they're in war, so whywould they fight fair?
That's just dumb.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
Right right.

Speaker 1 (45:03):
And I'm trying to think if there's any other big
three-man squad things that cometo mind, or even like so
there's some classroom anime.
I've read that like staying inschool is more of the point,
like Classroom of the Elite andPsyche K were examples of like
they were just classrooms ofclass sizes, right, but like
that's not really my genre,really Like.

(45:23):
There's a few series where it'slike Witch Watch takes place
mostly in a high school but wedon't really know who the
students in the classroom areand all the rom-coms will be
like it's a full class ofstudents but there's a
protagonist and the two mirroredlove interests and the rival
character.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
Right.

Speaker 1 (45:41):
Like what is that new one called again the one with
the housekeeper and his obviouscrush that they should just give
up and start dating?

Speaker 2 (45:47):
It's like Hima Tae I think.
Yeah, Hima-te, I think.

Speaker 1 (45:51):
Yeah, but he has that other love interest from before
the new love interest shows up.
I'm like oh man, this is justto chat.
Gpt, right, this like.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
Hima-ten is what it is.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
Right, but it's like, yeah, trying to think of shows
where we actually cared aboutthe entire classroom of
characters, like Ichigoliterally had a class of
characters and like two matteredand then the rest did not, but
they'd show up for gags once ina while.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
I, uh, I definitely think that you might be right
about that sweet spot of like atmost having seven characters
that truly matter to the story.
Or if you're going to have morecharacters that matter to the
story, like you say, the squadskind of become characters that
you can follow.

Speaker 1 (46:41):
Well, it's interesting.
So JJK, when it was like here'sItadori's squad, here's the one
upper-year squad, here's theKyoto squad, here's the other
kyoto squad, that's pretty easyto follow, I had no problems
with that.
My problem with jjk was thecullen game made no sense and

(47:03):
then they just had everycharacter ever mentioned, jump
suku, no one at a time, whichalso, like they did the dramatic
reveal of the character I likedwasn't actually dead, but it
didn't matter because theyhadn't done anything in a
hundred chapters.
So, even though I saw that plotwas coming like thirty miles
away and it did not satisfy meat all because I wasn't invested

(47:26):
in them as a three-man squad,because they'd only went out on
two missions- yeah, that seemsto be the general consensus,
like even mainstream media.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
like I read an article on MSN that said that
you know it was fairly obviousit had to happen, but it wasn't
really an example of goodwriting because they basically
killed the character off just sothey could have the shock value
of bringing them back.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
And of course it was a female party member.
Of course it was.
Why would it not be?
The male party member withblack hair gets taken by the
villains and the female one getsput in a coma.
It's what you do.
Don't know why.
It's what you do?

Speaker 2 (48:01):
I don't make the rules yeah, that's, it's just.
I mean, I guess you have toknow the tropes before you can
subvert them.
Uh, just at this point it feelslike there's a lot of three-man
squad tropes that could just besubverted well.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
What's really funny, though, is when they actually
commit to the three-man squadthing of like.
We have our characters ingroups of three.
I know why they do it becauseif you go four, then you like
form sides and it's likebalanced A three-man squad, even
though it often ends in lovetriangles, which I hate creates.
It makes it that it's alwaystwo-on-one in every argument,

(48:41):
which creates dynamic changingviewpoints.
Right, because almost everyconflict comes down to character
A doesn't want to do it,character B does want to do it
and character C tie-breaks, andthat makes it really easy for
the characters to play off eachother when, like in World
Trigger when they added a Forceguy to there, it makes it did
nothing.

(49:04):
And I find that things likeInuasha, for example, which was
the five-man squad, or let's gowith the Scooby squad, the OG
squad.
Once you hit five, you breakinto two and three, and it's
almost always the same two andthree.

Speaker 2 (49:18):
In Inuasha it was.

Speaker 1 (49:19):
Inuasha could go and make a one direction, Sango and
Marouk could go the otherdirection and Shippo goes
wherever he's funniest.
And that's how every PowerRangers squad ever, and
occasionally you'd mix it up.
You'd like deliberately do oddpairings once in a while to keep
it fresh.
But that just was the structure.
Like Sakamoto days even brokeinto like a three-man squad for

(49:42):
no reason for a while.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
Sakamoto days.

Speaker 1 (49:48):
Just going into Assassin Academy to ruin my life
.
Did not enjoy that, even likeFairy Tail split into the five
man squad.
But Fairy Tail is one of thoseshows where everyone would split
off on their own each plot arcanyway, kind of like Bleach.
Fairy Tail was like a lot ofone on one fights, with the
occasional two on two fight ortwo on one fight but it gets

(50:10):
points for having like 30characters and me actually
knowing who they all are becausethey slow-rolled it.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
Yeah, I think they definitely did a much better job
rolling out all the charactersin that.
I just wish I could somehowanalyze it to figure out what
exactly worked about it.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
Oh, I know exactly what fairy tale did that worked.
I can just spell it out for you, real easy.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
So every character in fairy tale got a plot arc.
So the first plot arc is justNatsu and Lucy.
They do three missions together.
They go fight crappy Natsu,they go find a Yeti and they do
like a three episode long.
We go to this maid, solve thisbook.

(50:54):
Right from that point we get afull array of both of their
powers.
Then gray gets a plot arc wherewe go to an island about his
backstory.
They add an urge at that point,but it was gray's plot arc
right.
Then they do the plot arc and Imight have some of the
sequencing wrong where the guildgets attacked and they
introduce all the sidecharacters.
But that plot arc is stillabout Natsu and Lucy.

(51:17):
It was about Lucy's backstory.
And then that same squad ofcharacters goes to Urza's tower.
So at this point both Gray,lucy, natsu and Urza not so much
Natsu have had a full adventure, first with just a character,
then with the squad with thatcharacter.
So by the time they do theirtuning exam, like as stated by

(51:42):
international law, we're veryfamiliar with them because we
played out entire plot arcs foreach member of their core squad
and then the other members wereantagonists.
So it's like, oh yeah, we knowNatsu, gray, Lucy and Urza, but
we also know Laxus and Palsbecause they're the antagonists
in the plot arc.
And then Juvia was anantagonist in the plot arc and

(52:04):
Gajil was.
So it's like, oh, we know allthese characters now, because
each one got like 30 episodeswas.
So it's like, oh, we know allthese characters now, because
each one got like 30 episodesLike Wendy got the entire Oricon
sex plot arc was just to giveWendy screen time with the squad
.
So if you want to have peopleknow all 30 members of your
characters, give each charactera 50-episode plot arc with them

(52:26):
bonding with the main cast.
It's a good strategy.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
Fair enough.
How many episodes does FairyTail have?

Speaker 1 (52:34):
A solid chunk.
Their plot arcs are a littlemore condensed than Naruto ones,
but let's see.
Hmm 328 episodes.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
Okay, but so if that's how Fairytale managed to
introduce characters and make uscare about them, then what did
my Hero do wrong?
Was it that their plot arcsabout characters weren't long
enough?

Speaker 1 (53:03):
So that was Fairytale's episode, not chapter
count, Right?
So Fairytale's chapter count is545.
My Hero's chapter count.
So Fairy Tail's chapter countis 545.
My hero's chapter count is 423.
What my hero did differently?
So Fairy Tail had morecharacters.

(53:23):
My hero didn't pair existingcharacters with new ones and the
plot arcs weren't about thecharacters, right?
So in my hero, deku, none ofthe plot is actually about deku.
It's not tied to his backstoryor his motivations.
He's not.
He's reactive, not proactive.

(53:45):
Deku's not achieving things,he's being thrown into things.
Todoroki, the tuning exam arcfor Todoroki was actually about
him and his abusive dad.
Right?
Todoroki gets three plot arcsabout this topic.
There's the Hero Festival.

(54:06):
There's the fact that one ofthe League of Villains is his
evil brother.
There's the mentoring under oneof the League of Villains is
his evil brother.
There's the mentoring under hisdad.
Like he gets a lot of screentime about him as a character.
Bakugo doesn't have a backstory.
Not really His backstory was.
He's a dick who bullied Deku,so none of the plot arcs were

(54:27):
actually about Bakugo.
Really, you could argue that hegot screen time in the big
tournament and then won Deku andBakugo team up against All
Might, but he didn't really havean arc or growth.
So what my hero did wrong is wedidn't take characters and
slowly add them to Deku's squadto get to know them.

(54:47):
We paired them with othercharacters we didn't care about
right so like, for example, theyliterally make a two-man squad
for each teacher to fight in oneon one, two-on-one duels.
And we're not going to learnanything about bird guy and frog
person.
When bird guy and frog personteam up to fight someone,
because there's no emotionalbonding going on, because their

(55:07):
protagonist bonding with thesecharacters is how us, the viewer
, bonds with the characters.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
So to give a JJK example, Megumi and Itadori.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
They bond really well .
They learn each other on therooftop.
They get that speech of oh Idon't save everyone, I just save
you because I like you.
They get some moments together.
Right then hammer girl and yujiget a moment together where
they team up to fight theseblood curse paintings and they
have their one three-man squadmission.
He doesn't go on any adventureswith anyone else.

(55:45):
That's not nanami.
That's like an actual adventurewhere they talk to each other
and get to know each other.
It's just fights and missions,so that's why we're not caring.
When they went to introduceToto as a character, none of
those other characters mattered,because he had this ridiculous
flash-forward bromance psychicconversation with Toto.

(56:05):
So the only character who showedup during Jump.
The Tsukuna Gate that we caredabout was toto, because they had
non-combat moments of bondingright super superficial bonding,
but we bought it.
He's like I declared thisperson my brother because I
asked him a question.
He didn't give a boring answer.

(56:27):
Because it didn't give a boringanswer Because it didn't matter
what Yuji's type was.
It mattered that, when askedwhat his type was, he gave an
answer instead of giving them, Idon't know, a personality, toto
likes conviction.
So like, for example, we wouldhave cared more about Gojo had
we saw more interactions withGojo that weren't the mission.

(56:49):
Like the end of episodestingers, like when they
destroyed Gojo's laundry or whenthe group got together to
gossip about Megumi's love lifeone time, that those moments are
actually better for your story,even though people consider
those borderline filler, becausethey bond your characters
together and that's how you bonda reader to a character.

(57:10):
So to loop back to worldtrigger, oh, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
well, I was gonna ask uh, do you think that there's a
correlation between chaptercount and the like?
Because naruto has what?
700 chapters, um, and it is oneof our examples of having a
large cast of characters thatyou do actually care about, and
then it gets worse when they tryand introduce more characters

(57:35):
that we don't care about.
Yeah, but it has the largestchapter count as well, so it
makes sense that it would havethe most characters that we care
about.

Speaker 1 (57:44):
So, interestingly enough, Fairytale probably had
as many name characters asNaruto, but they did something
different.
That's worth noting.
Fairy Tail never wasted acharacter, so people throw shade
at Fairy Tail because no oneever dies.
But when?

Speaker 2 (58:01):
Fairy.

Speaker 1 (58:02):
Tail had its big ninja war.
They introduced the 13 numberedvillains, like you do, but all
the good guy forces were alsothe antagonists in each of these
plot arcs.
Like you learned about Grey'senemy because he got a plot arc
about him, you learned aboutGeralt and his mercenaries
because that's just where allthe reformed villains went, you
learned about the other guildsfrom the other tuning exam.

(58:25):
So Fairytale did a good job ofhere's our core cast and we kept
them the entire run.
Naruto, any character in theGreat Ninja War that was
actually established before theNinja War were easy to track.
Anyone from the Hidden LeafVillage.
We had no problem, even thougheveryone's parents and their
kids were basically clones ofeach other.
Everyone from the Sand Village,we knew who they were.

(58:49):
We cared about them.
The mist village we neverinteracted with before the war
why would we care, other thanthey have cool swords right
cloud village we cared aboutkiller bees specifically right
because he'd interacted beforethe fighting started.
So it's definitely those out ofcombat interactions, so Naruto

(59:10):
versus JJK, all Before thefighting started.
So it's definitely those out ofcombat interactions, so Naruto
Versus JJK, all the charactersin the end game.
They literally just knockedeveryone off the board who
wasn't squad 7.
And it's like yeah.
We're on board.
I mean, resurrecting the fourKages was cheesy but like, yeah,
we know who these charactersare.
We're pretty confident you'vetalked enough about them that,

(59:32):
okay, we'll care a bit.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
But really the actual climax of the show was naruto
versus sasuke two charactersright and obito was interesting
because he was there the entireshow but sakura, being the lone
female in the squad, justsomehow didn't sakura's problem
was never actually her writing,it was naruto and sasuke's

(59:57):
writing.

Speaker 1 (59:59):
So sakura at the start of shippuden was awesome.
Straight up in part one, naruto, she was lame.
She was lame because theymessed up three things with her
they didn't bring her for themeetup with Tsunade plot arc and
they didn't bring her for theretrieve Sasuke plot arc.
That's what doomed Sakura isInstead of Neji, and so Neji

(01:00:24):
Kiba, like all of them, got avery close, dramatic win with
one of the sound ninjas.
Right, right, sakura shouldhave had one of those.
Sakura should have beat upFlute Person.
Ah, yeah, that's true, becauseshe wasn't there to help bring
Sasuke back, which made her seemso whiny and terrible.
She didn't do it herself.
And then Shippuden they brokeNaruto and Sasuke's power,

(01:00:48):
scaling so hard that hercharacter couldn't keep up,
because they didn't hand her outpowers ups like candy, like
they did the other two.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
And it's like why would you not give her abilities
?
I've said this before If theygave Sakura Rock Lee skill set
instead, naruto as a serieswould have been 100% better.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
Mm.

Speaker 1 (01:01:07):
Because she just didn't get to have any of the
cool moments.
Like my guy got a cool momentversus Madara and Sakura didn't.
I don't know why they would doit like that.
That's a good point.
But like we cared about most ofthe characters in Naruto because
they got screen time likeShikamaru got a full Shikamaru

(01:01:28):
got like two plot arcs that werejust his.
They got like Shikamaru got afull Shikamaru got like two plot
arcs that were just his.
They got like Shikamaru at thetuning exams being the only
person who gets promoted.
So like the Sasuke revivalthing had a lot of learning who
Shikamaru was as a person andthey just got to avenge his
sensei in a full plot arc.
But it's funny becausecharacters from part one of

(01:01:48):
Naruto, where they got like fullplot arcs about them, even if
they did nothing in shippuden,are still on the top lists.
Gara didn't do a single thingin shippuden.
He still was the most popularnaruto characters, same with
broccoli, because you introducedthem early.
I'm a firm believer youshouldn't even be adding
characters past the halfwaypoint of a series.

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
Like at all.
I mean that's fair, because atthe halfway point of the series
you should be knocking piecesoff the board and building
towards your exciting climax.

Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
So that's where I'm at with the squad things for the
classrooms.
It's like three squads of three, I think is the easiest to
track if you group them, if youkeep mixing them around you
can't.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
But also to loop for things.
We, like some of the bestseries of all time, have three
characters like.
Let's take full metal alchemist.
Chat gpt tried to tell me thatfull metal alchemist was a
three-man squad of edward,alphonse and winry.

Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
That was not true yeah, no, winry is not really on
their squad no, their squad isedward and alphonse.

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
That is the squad.
But there is three other squadsin full metal alchemist that
stay squads the entire waythrough.
There's Edward's squad, whichis Edward, alphonse and whatever
NPC they pick up that week.
There's Mustang's squad ofMustang Hawkeye and whatever NPC
they pick up this week.
There's Scar's squad of ScarGirl.

(01:03:27):
From what did they call it?

Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
Well, I mean, it was basically Asia.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
Yeah, I couldn't remember.
I was gonna call it Wano, butthat was in One Piece and
exactly seven villains fromstart to finish.
They're aside villains, butthey introduced all seven
villains like Episode 2.
They didn't show them all butwhen you name one Envy, one
Gluttony and one Lust, wefigured out they're seven

(01:03:56):
Through the power of it would beweird if there wasn't.
Yeah, that's true.
They set up Bradley as early asepisode one in Brotherhood.
They have him just murder IceGuy in the street.
So like as Fullmetal Al Guy inthe street.
So like as Fullmetal Alchemisthas always caught.
For like winning so many BestAnime Awards is they definitely

(01:04:17):
grouped characters together,like his sensei and her husband
were their own little duo.
Olivia Armstrong has her ownlittle squad.
It's not like they're alwaysthree.
But, it's like they built theminto very clear, consistent
factions that didn't switcharound members.
Often Mustang Squad was doingtheir thing the whole show, scar

(01:04:37):
Squad was doing his thing thewhole show, ed and Alphonse were
doing their thing, and thenthey were like oh, let's add in
the Asian characters and theydid their thing for a while.
But it's interesting because,like I was saying, you bond to a
character by having theminteract with your protagonists.
Almost every character inFullmetal Alchemist went on a

(01:04:59):
plot arc with Ed and Alphonse,or Ed or Alphonse, and that's
when we cared about them, Exceptfor Scar.
Weirdly, it's weird.
At some point they're just likeall right, I guess Scar's the
fourth protagonist now, so let'sjust give him a POV through
this adventure.

Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
Well see, scar has the same benefit that Luxus has
in Fairytale, where he startsout as an antagonist and then
you learn a lot about him as anantagonist and then you learn
even more about him as anantagonist and then you learn
even more about him Like youcare about him as an antagonist
and as you learn more about himas a protagonist.
It really, like theantagonist-protagonist shift I

(01:05:40):
think, also creates very Well,can create very powerful
characters.

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
Well, that's how we ended up with Gaara.

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
You don't really want the enemies-become-friends
trope because that's just alittle bit too straightforward.

Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
Well, yes and no, I was saying, gaara is another one
that follows that trope prettymuch perfectly.

Speaker 2 (01:06:00):
The enemies become friends.

Speaker 1 (01:06:01):
Yeah.
Where it's like, yeah, it's.
One of the best moments ofShippuden is when Narch is like
what's everyone up to?
It's like, oh yeah, gaara'sjust a Kazekage now and Naruto's
like no, what?
So it's like it was aninteresting pipeline, because
Gaara was like a mirror imageNaruto, which made him work
really good as a villain.
And then because of thatinteraction grew a lot, but then

(01:06:23):
they killed him and then theybrought him back and then he was
just kind of there.
For Naruto, as a series, is notwithout his flaws.
It is no film and alchemist.

Speaker 2 (01:06:33):
That is fair.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
And then Dragon Ball is just Bad sometimes, like it
was, and then Storytelling tothe absolute Max.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):
Well, having actually finished Reading all of Dr
Slump, I don't understand how DrSlump got like 235 chapters,
because that's like, well, Imean it was a gag series, so I
mean it's supposed to be, andthen storytelling, and then
Dragon Ball has a little bitmore structure, but it's still

(01:07:06):
also fundamentally a gag series.
Also fundamentally a gag seriesand so like that also leads
very leans, very heavily intothe end-end storytelling.
But at the same time, I likeDragon Ball as a whole because
Kid Goku is this through-linkthrough all of these like things
keep happening.

(01:07:27):
But he is a very dynamic, he isa very proactive character.

Speaker 1 (01:07:32):
What's really interesting is you kind of hit
the nail on the head.
Every compelling Dragon Ballcharacter did a villain to hero
pipeline.
All of them, every single one.
Because you introduce them asan antagonist, then Goku beats
them up, then they become aprotagonist.
All of them Bulma, krillin,yamcha, tien, piccolo, vegeta,

(01:08:00):
the androids, majin, buu,hercule, even Bloody Frieza, the
actual genocidal maniac withthe disposition of Donald Trump.
All of them.
So like call it good or badstorytelling, that was the
entire tactic.
To make believable, like tomake compelling characters in

(01:08:21):
dragon ball is introduce them asan antagonist and just keep
them like even roshi wasn'tparticularly protagonist at the
start.
He was to be defeated, eventhough they defeated him in a
weird, stupid, not good for 2024way.

Speaker 2 (01:08:39):
Not safe for work.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
No, oh, dragon Ball.

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
Like you say, even the greatest shows are not
without flaws.
I mean, Fullmetal Alchemist ispretty close to perfection, I
think.

Speaker 1 (01:08:56):
Yeah, but it's no Freerun.

Speaker 2 (01:08:59):
Well, yeah, Freerun is.

Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
So Freerun is one I was going to talk about a bit
and I'll get a bit into, but wedon't have a ton of episode left
.
So Freerun had two, three tofive man squads episode left.
So Freerun had two, three tofour, five man squads.
Freerun's original squad wasthat cliche band of five, even
though I think it was only four.
They literally were a JRPGparty.
They were literally cleric,wizard, barbarian, paladin.

(01:09:23):
They just were the squad,technically one less member than
they normally find, but youknow.
But now?

Speaker 2 (01:09:31):
Well, I mean, it fits into the video game logic.
Where video game logic isfour-man squads, for some reason
.

Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
I'm pretty sure it was sprite.
Count on Final Fantasy.

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
Yeah, you might be right on that one.

Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
Although, to be fair, D&D was designed like three to
five players, so I can see whyyou would just go four then.

Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
But, it has this squad of her original squad.

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
And then she literally is just the Kakashi to
Fern and Stark and they justpick up an NPC to fill their
slot.
But it's funny because it'slike they didn't give a three
man squad, they gave an obviousto ship two man squad.
It is the most obvious ship infiction, but both people are

(01:10:22):
incredibly socially awkward.

Speaker 2 (01:10:25):
But then the two characters that are currently
being followed in the serieshave definitely done that
villain to protagonist shiftBecause we really care about
them, because they were superinteresting and engaging
villains.

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
During the tuning exam.

Speaker 2 (01:10:42):
Well, I mean kind of sort of yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:44):
You gotta have a tuning exam.
It's by federal law.

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
Oh no, in the tuning exam they were the villains yeah
.

Speaker 1 (01:10:54):
That's true, but that was like that's what I find was
an interesting one that got methinking.
It's like okay, if you onlyhave a two-person squad you
don't get as much dynamicsbetween the two, but that let
the sensei have way moredynamics, like because freerun
only had to.
Like freerun introduces fernand that's your entire show and
then stark and then rotatespeople in and out to like mix it

(01:11:15):
up a bit.
Definitely made you care aboutthe characters, because every
single person got a ton ofinteraction with the title elf
right like bearded guy with theelf at the party being like want
to dance.
She's like I'm at a buffet, whywould I dance?
He's like you know what fair,so definitely.
It's like how much you expectpeople to track because world

(01:11:38):
trigger you weren't supposed totrack the other characters.
It was impossible and now theyexpect us to care and I'm like
not okay, brett they expect usto care about the most mundane
arc possible too.

Speaker 2 (01:11:50):
That's the real problem.
The arc is just so mundane.

Speaker 1 (01:12:00):
Yeah, but there's nothing I can do about it.
But I guess my follow-upquestion to you is do you think
Hunter x Hunter would have beenbetter if they stayed a
three-man squad Instead of justshifting characters around
randomly?

Speaker 2 (01:12:16):
I do think so because , like there was so like Greed
Island is all about Gong tryingto find his dad or whatever,
trying to find clues.
And I really do think that,like Kurapeka, they could have
dropped breadcrumbs forKuropeka's quest on green idling

(01:12:37):
.
Like they just could have soeasily integrated all these
characters together better,because by the time Kuropeka
came back, I don't actually careabout his Scarlet Eyes quest
anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:12:49):
What's interesting, too, is if they stuck as a
four-man squad, if Lero andKoropeca had a good banter off
each other and the thing is Leromade an interesting sensei
figure in the early parts, notbecause he had any skills, but
because he was the onlyfunctional adult at like 16.
So, like when they were tryingto, like, get money for the

(01:13:12):
video game, that would have beena great character to be there.
When they're using theirsuperpowers to go antiquing
Right and during, like the fighttournament, just having them in
the room bandaging people up,learning superpowers but opting
out of the fights, that wouldhave been a great character to
have there.

Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
Like, I think the show would have been way better
if they'd kept Lero and Kuropekaaround the entire time yeah,
and I think it could have, justlike you say, so many of the
plot arcs seem so disjointed butthe characters banding together
kind of glues unrelated plotarcs together and yeah, I think

(01:13:52):
that was part of what would havereally helped Hunter Hunter is
adding that kind of glues,unrelated plot arcs together and
yeah, I think that was part ofwhat would have really helped.

Speaker 1 (01:13:57):
Hunter x Hunter is adding that connective tissue to
it Because, yeah, likeFullmetal Alchemist is the
epitome of because ofstorytelling not, and then Like
literally every step of thatbuilt on itself, freerun is a
little more and thenstorytelling.
But it's held together by thatnarrative of like.
It's held together by theemotional context of her

(01:14:17):
retracing her journey.
So she's not going to theseplaces and this happens.
It's because she went here.
She's now going back to reflectand see what she learned.
To impart that on the othersquad member.

Speaker 2 (01:14:31):
Yeah, I mean she's still being a very active
protagonist that's makingchoices, Like they go to places,
they see a problem and thenthey decide how to fix it, but
their path is an active choice.

Speaker 1 (01:14:46):
And I think the extra spice that made that series
work so well for me is, almostevery place they go, freeran
makes a different choice thanshe made the first time, with
the Power of Hindsight andhaving adopted a child against
her will, because they'll belike last time I was here.
I did not enjoy the burgersbecause I didn't think to try

(01:15:07):
them, so let's have burgers.
Didn't think to try them, solet's have burgers.
But with that we'll move to ourrandom question of the day,
unless you have any morethoughts, because, interestingly
enough, a lot of things thatwere classroom anime we didn't
me and you don't really thrivetoo much on, like oh, this is
literally just an anime thattakes place in the classroom,
about whatever classroom, be itassassins or education or mecha

(01:15:32):
or whatever, because a lot ofthem forget to use their
classroom anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:15:36):
Well, I think the truest classroom series that
tried to stick to it, like thatCypher Academy or whatever it
was called, yeah, or thegambling one.

Speaker 1 (01:15:48):
What was the gambling one called, where the guy was
trying to?

Speaker 2 (01:15:50):
buy the school.

Speaker 1 (01:15:52):
Yeah, that was another one that definitely used
the school to maximum value.

Speaker 2 (01:15:59):
Yeah, but then it just.

Speaker 1 (01:16:01):
But it's kind of like the school animes are different
for my purposes Because I waslooking more into like the, If
I'm entering a light novelcontest, I'm writing shounen
right to like the if I'm rightentering a light novel contest.
I'm writing shonen, right, anda lot of these shonen ones are.
There's a school in it for thepurpose of explaining the plot
quickly, right, and my wholefresh take was man, these poor
school administrators at thesesuper coward academies.

(01:16:23):
That would just have to breakyou right uh.

Speaker 2 (01:16:27):
But but examples of uh, of like school animes, like
Food Wars, that one stickspretty close.

Speaker 1 (01:16:36):
It didn't even occur to me.
My question is do you rememberthe characters in Food Wars?
Did they introduce them well,or did they just like?

Speaker 2 (01:16:44):
here's a bunch of people enjoy.
I don't remember the charactersin Food Wars, mostly because
the absolute absurdity.
It takes itself seriously thatit's a gourmet academy at the
start and then it's like wait asecond, how are they letting all

(01:17:05):
of this random crap happen?
At the school Right, theintensity is just raised so high
and it's like no, this isbreaking my suspension of
disbelief that this is actualschool.

Speaker 1 (01:17:23):
Where it's kind of funny because world trigger
feels more like a we're in classthing than most, which is
really funny to me because itwas mostly just FPS simulator of
the series.

Speaker 2 (01:17:40):
Well, now it's an FPS simulator of a simulator.

Speaker 1 (01:17:43):
Why would they do that?
They could just be using theactual simulator fights.

Speaker 2 (01:17:49):
Did I give you enough time to find our random
question?

Speaker 1 (01:17:52):
Oh, I got super distracted.
I ended up like I'm like I waspivoting out and then I, like,
highwayed right back in,completely lost my focus.
Because, like I was about to goon a tangent on how Persona is
like a good example of a schoolanime, even though it's a video
game.
Because, like you meet eachclass member and they either
power up your superpowersthrough their side arcs or they

(01:18:14):
join your party, and then it'slike you school during the day,
to go to the dream world atnight and you actually literally
are scheduled through a schoolyear.

Speaker 2 (01:18:25):
Yeah, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:18:27):
Or there's something like.

Speaker 2 (01:18:28):
Did you ever read?

Speaker 1 (01:18:29):
Sayonara Zembosaru Sensei.

Speaker 2 (01:18:32):
I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (01:18:33):
It was literally about a depressed teacher who
kept trying to kill himself.
Oh, it was played as a comedy.
I don't know how well it agedat all.
And then every terrible haremromcom ever Is just that each
class member Is a dating optionAlright, harem rom-com ever,
it's just that each class memberis a dating option, alright.

(01:18:56):
So here is our icebreakerquestion If you could choose a
superpower, but it only worksduring a specific weather
condition, what superpower andwhat weather?

Speaker 2 (01:19:08):
Ooh Well, okay, so Assuming that flight is like a
complete package of needing lessoxygen at the road's height and
being able to produce enoughbody heat to stay warm when
you're flying?

Speaker 1 (01:19:26):
Yes, yes, functional flight.

Speaker 2 (01:19:29):
I would love to be able to fly during clear weather
.

Speaker 1 (01:19:32):
What I find funny is this question is, weirdly, how
Superman works.
So what I think I would want is, since I spend so much time in
Canada, I enjoy leisurelywalking places in the summer and
spring, but in the winter Ireally can't.
I kind of want acceleratoreverything bounces off me once
the weather is in the winter.
I really can't.
I kind of want like Acceleratoreverything bounces off me once

(01:19:54):
the weather's in the negatives.

Speaker 2 (01:19:57):
I just want a barrier around me in the cold Change,
the vector of the cold air.

Speaker 1 (01:20:03):
Or like Guild Arts, as things just hit me and break
into cubes.
So I could just like walk at mynormal speed and normal
direction through the snow andthe weather completely unfazed,
and then like for like thelogistics of how fun that would
be as a writing exercise in aseries to animate a character
who's literally strong in thecold and is like that becomes a
gimmick of how can I cool thisdown to the negatives, like do I

(01:20:25):
have to like turn on all the ACin the building and wait for
the sun to go down to beat up myenemy?
It's like turn on all the AC inthe building and wait for the
sun to go down to beat up myenemy.

Speaker 2 (01:20:37):
It's like a reverse Escanor and I'm on board Escanor
.

Speaker 1 (01:20:39):
And that one's definitely the classic band of
five.
But they upped the number toseven, which I think is too many
.
I think seven deadly sins wastoo many characters to follow.
We really only cared about fiveof them.

Speaker 2 (01:20:54):
That is definitely true.
The last ones to get introducedjust didn't really get that
emotional resonance.

Speaker 1 (01:20:59):
It's like we just did not care about Gunther, just no
one did.

Speaker 2 (01:21:05):
Hmm.

Speaker 1 (01:21:07):
I think about six of them people cared about, but
they did introduce them allslowly enough so we could follow
them all.
But anyway, thank you everyonefor tuning in to Richard and
Carl Presents Deep Space andDragons.
You can find our episodes whereall fine podcasts are found and
also on YouTube.
Submit your random question foryour chance to win free copies
of the Waltz of Blades or maybeeven a Deep Space and Dragons
mug.

Speaker 2 (01:21:27):
Follow us on Patreon Was it Patreon, yeah, I mean,
mean that's what I pay money toevery month to Patreon for a mug
.

Speaker 1 (01:21:35):
Yeah, that was a good plug, right like I didn't even
put a joke in there, maybe Ishould have yeah, the mug is
super cool because it has like alittle silhouette logo on it
right and I don't know, go forma three man squad and do some
Naruto running down the street.
That seems like good advice togive people.
Right, you know, hydrate.
Go form a three-man squad anddo some Naruto running down the
street.

Speaker 2 (01:21:55):
That seems like good advice to give people right.

Speaker 1 (01:22:00):
Hydrate, a Naruto run .
It just seems like a great plan.
Bye.

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Episode 84: Anime Squad Dynamics, Comic-Con Adventures, and The Fly(for some reason)

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