Episode 96: Sakamoto was almost cool.

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Imagine a world where a mythical Canadian province exists, and our listeners are hilariously trying to locate it on a map. This episode kicks off with a playful narrative exploring the whimsical dynamics behind our podcast, "Deep Space and Dragons." We marvel at the mysterious "Carl Kaur" energy that seems to influence our analytics and ponder the chaos of surprise movie reviews and unexpected cameos, possibly from Ryan George. Strap in for a journey filled with humor, spontaneity, and the quirky unpredictability that makes our show truly unique.

As the cold weather bites, we grapple with the daily conundrum of layering up for frosty commutes versus the comfy perks of remote work. Ever heard of a "dipping pizza"? You're in for a treat, as we dissect this delightful Pizza Hut innovation that promises a new culinary adventure. We also take a lighthearted look at the quirks of writing style guides and word processors, adding a sprinkle of laughter to the minutiae of language in professional settings. Our candid conversations are here to keep you entertained and informed!

Anime enthusiasts, get ready to dive into the rich world of evolving storylines and character arcs. We explore the fascinating narratives found in "Sakamoto Days" and other beloved series, focusing on the creative gimmicks that bring non-superpowered characters to life. From the anti-government themes in "One Piece" to the complex character developments in "Naruto," our discussions are both insightful and engaging. Wrapping things up, we touch on the societal implications of a cigarette ban and emphasize the importance of self-care. Join us as we weave thoughtful insights with playful humor in this episode!

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Follow all things Richard and Karl, and check out "The Minuet of Sorcery"
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, esteemed listeners, guests, people stuck
in transit or shopping malls.
Maybe you're in a bubble bathlistening to this podcast.
Maybe it's the only way you canget through dinner with your
family.
Welcome to Richard and Carlpresent.
Deep Space and Dragons.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
I was waiting for you to introduce yourself instead
of the show there, Richard.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Well, carl, I was going to passive-aggressively
introduce you by throwing aback-ended compliment you,
fantastic bastard.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yay, introduction.
There's this one person at mywork, or not at my work, but
they order from my work oftenenough and I don't want to dox
them, but their last name is Idon't know how common this last

(00:52):
name is, but their last name isBarstad.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
I mean I'm pretty sure you just doxed them because
, like we've given, I love theidea of someone actually going
through 100 episodes to likebuild the map of the Carlverse,
just to realize Saskatchewan'snot a real place.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well, no, it's just funny, because every time you
see it it's like it's Bastard,but R's in the wrong spot.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Batard.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
It's Barstad.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
I just keep thinking imagine when we started this
podcast and we just invented asmall town and a province and
just committed to that bit forlike 100 episodes of yeah,
carlin Twidaho.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Twidaho, that'd be pretty funny.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
And just committed to it so strongly that people in
Germany are like I didn't know.
Canada had a province calledEurasia.
It's weird, between Alberta andBC there's Eurasia Eurasia it's
weird Between Alberta and.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
BC, there's Eurasia.
That would be pretty funny ifeveryone's looking for this
province and they can't figureout where we actually are.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
I mean, I do appreciate commitment to the bit
, so I guess I'll have to ask,and you sort of started it so
what's new with you other thanBatards?

Speaker 2 (02:08):
No, I mean, that was just a random segue.
You called me a beautifulbastard and I was like ha, that
reminds me of this Barstadperson.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Good point.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Who I don't know.
I've never actually directlymet.
But what's new with me?
I know that you said thatreviewing movies doesn't have
that Carl Kaur energy.
We don't even know what that is.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
So what's interesting about the Carl Kaur energy?
So I've been staring at ouranalytics this morning before
our meetup, and it's likethere's just no correlation
between what we talk about andhow good an episode does.
So it's like we do a show andjump roundup we do really good,
we do a Sonic Sigmatic saga, wedo really bad, but why though?

(02:53):
So maybe I shouldn't declarethings Carl Corp or not Carl
Corp, because there's no ruleshere.
Deadpool and Wolverine didgreat.
I don't know if we started witha Carl.
Corp opening, or if you justtalked about a random, unrelated
horror movie, I can't possiblyknow.
I don't take notes.
Our best episode was abouttropes.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
See, people aren't.
People don't really have highexpectations for video game
adaptations, so maybe somepeople just skip that because
they're like eh, sonic's not forme.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Or they're like Sonic's not for me, or they're
like spoilers movie's still intheaters.
How dare you?
I know these guys.
I'm just going to spoil theentire movie and I just played
through Sonic Adventure 2, whichis an identical plot, and I do
not want my movie spoiled.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
So way, way back in 2015,.
Apparently.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
How dare that be?
Way back, Well, way way back in2015,.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
apparently, how dare that be way back?
Well, so, um, that's when theBorderlands movie was announced.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Apparently.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Okay, you see, here's the thing about the Carl giving
movie reviews.
It's a super old brand and theonly reason it irks me is you
use it as a surprise so we can'tjust talk about the movie
you're reviewing and similartopics.
That's the problem, right?
Because if you said, what am Igoing to do, what do you want to
talk about?
You're like I want to talkabout Sakamoto Days and board
games.
Also, I'm going to give a15-minute explanation of the

(04:17):
Borderlands.
I'm like you know I played allof those right, right, like this
could be an episode Easy.
You're like no, no, no, this isan unrelated, unsolicited movie
review that I'm surprising youwith at the start.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
And you're not allowed to coordinate our
content because I'm going to dothis to you and I'm like you get
a big episode.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Thebes.
You could just say, hey, I sawBorderlands.
Like no, this has got to be asurprise.
Carl Kaur needs to be.
Mr Batard decided to put shrimpon this pizza.
We didn't stock shrimp, so Iwent to the river with a
crayfish net.
Things I can't plan for.
This I could have planned for.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Well, no, Okay, so I mean where this actually begins
is that Ryan George did hispitch meeting for Borderlands.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Not a sponsor, just a fan.
We're a fan of him.
If he's a fan of us, pleasetell us.
Raya George, Please comment.
That just says the word seed onour video.
You don't even have to say youliked it.
The knowledge that you saw thisalone will make me giddy.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
I was actually thinking about commenting on one
of his videos and asking him,since you're famous enough, to
get cameos with Simu Liu, theTen Rings guy.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
Sean G.
Yeah, or Sean, if it's right.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
Anyways.
So Simu Liu did an episode withRyan George and I was like,
yeah, he's got some actualcontacts, I guess.
And I was like, yeah, he's gotsome actual contacts.
I guess I was going to ask himhow often he gets unsolicited
requests for to be a guest staron various things.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
It's wild.
As part of my course, we haveliterally classes on how to
interact with famous authors andcelebrities and things.
Here's the takeaway If you makesomething that requires work
for somebody, they innately willshrug against it.
You're like hey, read my book.
No one's ever reading a bookthat way, but what they like is
quick, answerable questions.

(06:16):
So how do we send a message hey,would you like to star on our
podcast?
That would never work, that'swork.
But if you do, ask, ask.
Oh, do you turn down guestthings all the time?
That's a question.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
So that way they can answer it because like yeah okay
, people like that are oftenvery generous.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
But when it feels like someone's like being overly
clingy and unless you're inlike an inauguration crowd you
don't want to be overly clingylike you're trying to take
advantage of someone so I wouldsay be like how often do you get
the fair question?
But if you try and spin thatinto do you want to be on our
podcast, he'll let us know right, right, right, uh.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
but more to the point , he did his, his pitch meeting
for borderlands, uh, and nearthe end of the pitch meeting the
producer guy asked uh, writerguy, who is this for?
And writer guy, he goes on thiskind of this eloquent rant
about how Borderlands was made.
For that, that person who has avaguely positive feeling about

(07:17):
Borderlands but doesn't actuallyknow enough about Borderlands
to be able to make any commentson their bizarre casting choices
and their interpretation of thesource material, the creative
license they took with it, andyou know, quite honestly, I
think I am the target audience,right, I have vaguely positive

(07:39):
feelings about Borderlandsbecause I've heard that the
games are great and they do seemlike they're fun and I really
appreciate how they invented agenre of video games, basically
because shoot and loot did notexist before Borderlands,
basically.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
I'll let them have it .
It's like if I there's always agame that did it first, but
Borderlands brought it into themainstream.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
Like it's the first looter shooter I played.
Right.
So I really respect thefranchise as a whole and so it's
like man, I do have vaguelypositive feelings towards this,
but I don't really know anythingabout the games.
So I mean, I wasn't surprisedwhen lilith had weird alien
powers, but it didn't bother mein any way.

(08:21):
You know, like nothing.
None of the choices they madespecifically bothered me.
And I was like, yeah, I mightbe their target audience.
And when I saw the trailer, Iwas like, yeah, that looks like
it could be a fun movie.
Then I heard the fan reactionto the trailer.
I was like, hmm, that's not agreat sign.
And then I heard that it bombedin the box office.

(08:42):
I was like, hmm, that's alsonot a great sign.
And then I watched RyanGeorge's pitch video and it's
like he says I'm their targetaudience, but there's a lot of
red flags.
I don't know if I actually wantto commit to watching this
movie because it's like atwo-hour movie or something
right.
But my fiancee, she justrefused to let it go like.

(09:06):
She's like, oh, we got lots ofmovies to watch, like
borderlands.
And I'm like, are you sure youwant to watch borderlands?
It's probably not going to bethat good.
She's like, yeah, yeah, let'swatch borderlands.
And she refused to just likeforget that it existed.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
How dare you have object permanence?

Speaker 2 (09:28):
Right, right.
And so then we came home aftergoing to an enjoyable family
gathering, a baby shower for mycousin.
So we came home and it was like, okay, fine, let's watch
Borderlands.
There are very, very few moviesthat my fiance actually thinks

(09:51):
are bad, but Borderlands, eventhough we were watching it
because she wanted to, she fellasleep.
She really did not like it andI mean there's almost no really
did not like it and I mean likethere's almost no redeeming
qualities about it.
It's just it is exactly as badas all the reviews would suggest

(10:14):
.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
So here's what's kind of interesting about
Borderlands and like to go like,make some big sweeping claims.
So Borderlands was inspired by,like mad max, firefly, trigon,
like the space.
It was inspired by the conceptof the space, western right and
the movie john carter of mars,which is a weird pivot, also has

(10:37):
the same problem where, like,the ideas that inspired it are
better than it and enough thingshave come out since then or
before then that, like by tryingto make a marvel movie,
effectively, it's like theywanted to make guardians of the
galaxy using the borderlands ip.
Borderlands ip was only goodbecause it was a bunch of
references to other thingseither subtle or overt right

(10:59):
like the blindit like it comes off as
profoundly bland Because, forone thing, we just watched Dune
and Borderlands wishes it wasDune.
Yeah, like Dune's the thingthat's perioding not
particularly well, and it's likewhen we were talking about the
Sonic adaptation on that episodeno one saw.

(11:20):
It's like you can be inspiredby things but you still have to
have a core and a heart to yourmovie.
And Borderlands is just like sobland and I don't really know
if you could have fixed it,because Borderlands was already
kind of like a novelty knockoffwhen it's like I was playing

(11:41):
through a Borderlands gamerecently, tiny Tina's Wonderland
, which is like an in-universednd borderland spin-offy thing,
right, and you mash a throughthe text.
You don't read the text ofborderlands.
You enjoy how there'soccasionally like a quippy thing
when an enemy introduceshimself and then you shoot them.
It's just it wasn't a good ipto do this, for, unless they

(12:05):
want to like go all in on thecomedy, you would have needed
the directorial staff of HotFuzz to have made that movie
good.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
Oh, hot Fuzz, that is a great movie.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Because you would have needed characters to take
that premise completelyseriously and that would have
been the joke to get away withit seriously, and that had been
the joke to get away with it,yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
And then it's just like why did they cast Kevin
Hart as the serious mercenary?

Speaker 1 (12:32):
Seems like a misplay Because.
Ben and Reese turned them downto play Shadow the Hedgehog All
the good actors are busy in thatfranchise, because they believe
in it, because it's less stupidthan Borderlands.

Speaker 2 (12:49):
In any event, what's new with me?
I guess a takeaway could bethat my cousin had a baby on
Christmas Day, so I made a quipwhen I was describing you to a
friend of mine.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
I think I've given this monologue on the podcast as
well, so I have.
Adhd, where I can't regulateattention.
You have extreme attentionregulation where it's like all
things get your attention of allevenness, at all times.
So it's like, yes to Carl, thischild being born on Christmas,
you could very literally beJesus.
But also, this Borderlandsmovie was very mediocre and I

(13:27):
knew it, but I watched it anywayAre of equal importance.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Well, you know, like you say, we don't know what our
fans or listeners actually like.
Like, we appreciate all of ourlisteners, we don't know who our
target.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
Our target audience are three people.
I have this narrowed down.
First, it is not native Englishspeakers who need something
bland, to listen to thebackground, to practice the
language.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
Second, people who love watching Richard get dunked
on and are willing to wait anungodly amount of time for it to
happen.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
Right.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
And three of the Carl fanboys oh, the ones with the
tattoos.
Yeah, so it's like I love theidea that we're just like the
number one source of like somerandom german english class and
like they like have to likewrite essays and like fix our
grammar because we're just solike the perfect level of bad

(14:23):
that they need to use as like ahow not to english class and
they're like oh, I can'tunderstand this, richard.
He talks so fast, it's likegood learn well, I mean speaking
of talking fast.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
What's new with you, richard?

Speaker 1 (14:38):
so I had a weird day.
So I'm back to full classes andthere's just like Frozen ice
hell outside Right.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
So I don't have class on Mondays, because life is
straight up rigged for me.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
Nice.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
My class today Was cancelled for a work period
Because we have to write a novel.
So I had to put in 7,000 wordson this novel.
But I had work today as welland I am so conditioned that I'm
going to start this with aquestion.
I actually did some prep workfor what's new section.
So with your current job a jobI've worked in the past before

(15:13):
what is your morning procedureto get ready to work, to work
when you know it's minus 30outside?
Like what do you do?

Speaker 2 (15:22):
What do I do, yeah?

Speaker 1 (15:26):
Assuming you have to, like you have to go a decent
distance to get there.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
Well see, I'm fortunate enough that eons ago,
when we were both learning howto drive, I actually finished
the course, so I can drivemyself around 100 episodes to
get that sick Richard burn.
You were so close and then youmoved and had to reset.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
There's so many steps , though, still like socks,
pants, underpants, shirt,overshirt, gloves, toque, get to
the car, turn on the car, leavethe car, make yourself
breakfast, go back to the nowwarm car, drive five minutes.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
Well, firstly, my daily commute is about 11
minutes and, secondly, I,actually I just I put on a
sweater, I put on a winter coat,I go out, I start the car and
then I immediately drive to work.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
So here's what's funny.
I have flashbacks when we livedin Speedy Creek.
It wasn't a long walk, but thewind down that highway would
literally tear through yourflesh.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
Yeah, that was rough back before I could actually
drive, although I mean itwouldn't have been a distance
worth driving.
What's?

Speaker 1 (16:43):
interesting.
Even that short walk was justbrutal.
Like I think about how Naruto'swind shuriken slices someone on
a cellular level, I'm like,yeah, I can relate.
So the thing is so I look at mywork schedule right, and I
start thinking like I alwayshave of coats layers.
I have, to like, go from myhouse to the bus stop.

(17:04):
Do I take the closer bus thattakes longer, or walk further to
the further bus that takes lesstime?
So I'm doing all my morningprep for my 9am shift right, I
get outside and then I realizesomething.
I work in tech, so I send myboss a message being like it is
cold.
Can I just zoom into themeetings today and they're like
yeah, of course, and that'swhat's so wild is we have like a

(17:29):
decent percentage of theworkforce who have just not go
to work as an option.
So much of my life is I have togo to work to make the money to
live that I would never.
five years ago, 10 years ago, 15years ago.
Consider not going to workbecause it's cold, but my class

(17:50):
was canceled for a work period.
Today, like I mentioned, and Ilike this big internal moment of
I'm like I could ask Carl ahundred things he would do
before going to work and none ofthem would be call the office
because it's cold and not go towork.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
And none of them would be called the office
because it's cold and not go towork.
Oh yeah, when it's cold out weneed more people to work because
nobody else, nobody in the city, wants to actually like cook or
go anywhere, so they orderpizza.

Speaker 1 (18:12):
Yeah, I had pizza for dinner.

Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, it was cold.
That pizza place was probablybusy.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
Well, pizza Hut actually has an interest in new
products to steal.
Oh so my brother orders thisnew kind of pizza.
Okay, oh so my brother ordersthis new kind of pizza, okay,
and follow me here, because it'sso obvious that it'll actually
hurt you that you didn't thinkof this.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
All right.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
So start with a pepperoni pizza.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
Shape it like a cheesy bread where you slice it
into like the dipping-sizedstrips.
Okay, put four dips in the box.
Okay, call it a dipping pizza,call it a dip in pizza.
Does it cost more?
Nope, costs less.
I love it.
I love the idea of slicing yourpizza so it fits in the dip
specifically.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
Right, right.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
Having a good flavor instead of just cheesy bread and
having a variety of dips.
That's just I.
I'm like, how has no one donethis in my 35 years of existence
?
To be like, hey, we cut, cut itinto the dipping bread shaped
dips strips so you can dip themin the nacho cheesy goodness
easily well, I mean, we do havea couple varieties of of cheesy

(19:22):
bread.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
Uh, like you know, a ranch bacon wedgie gets ranch
instead of the garlic butter andgets bacon.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
I mean, those are good, I can confirm Bullseye
bacon wedgie.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
that's another, not super popular because bullseye
is kind of a love it or hate itthing.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
Well, you get the idea of like hey, if we cut a
pizza like the dipping and putit with a bunch of dips, you get
like five flavors of pizza.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
And it costs you like nothing.
You're just cutting it in adifferent way and putting some
dips in the box and if you do itright, you put in those dips
that expire next week.

Speaker 2 (19:59):
Okay, but did this pizza get ordered today?

Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, and it was delicious.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
But yeah, so that's what's new with me is.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
I had that epiphany that I work a white collar job
and I can just remote in, had anhour long meeting about grammar
.
I'm living my best life,basically it was like.
We had a lengthy conversationabout why are people using all
case?
Why are people bolding things?
Why are people doing this?
And then I wrote a style guideto be like.

(20:30):
Examples are E, period, G,period, comma, all lowercase?
So my boss asks me so why aresome of them uppercase, when we
know this?
And I'm like this answer isgoing to hurt you.
Some of this starts with anexample in a new line and every
word processor ever made wantsto turn the first letter capital
.
So what happened is we fixedall this and then Word just

(20:52):
unfixed it for us, Because ifyou start a sentence with a
lowercase, it makes Word mad andbecause it's egcomma, it
assumes the next word startsuppercase, because that's how
Word has been trained.
So, literally we fixed it,moved it onto a new file and
then it unfixed itself.
So tomorrow I get a copy editall morning, which is great.

(21:13):
By the way, Best money I canmake is going through a Word
file and being like and that'slowercase, and that's lowercase.
Why did you bolt this?
But also we had a fullconversation of like who uses
single quotes and why and Igotta give my fun fact that
single quotes are used whenhaving an internal monologue,
when italics have a differentpurpose in your writing and are
also used for quotes withinquotes, and I give this speech

(21:36):
and my boss is like, all right,so it's for internal dialogue,
or a quote within a quote.
Why would we ever use that?
I'm like, oh, we should neveruse.
We should ban everyone forusing that.
I don't even think I should beusing these.
The quotes within quotes Singlequotes in general should not be
used by people Because that usecase is so specific.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Right, because the norm is to use italics when
you're having an internalmonologue.

Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah, but a lot of people.
I have to take away theiritalics privilege when I'm
editing for them.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (22:10):
Because they'll use italics for emphasis as well.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
Ah, in which case they should be using the single
quotes, but nobody should beusing single quotes, so using
single quotes.

Speaker 1 (22:18):
So yeah, because it's like, if you use italics for
something, only use it for thatthing.
You can't also use it forhandwritten letters, and use it
for internal monologues, and useit for texting and use it for
emphasis.
Pick one, you only get one, andthen I shake my fist at the.

Speaker 2 (22:38):
Shake your fist angrily.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
And one of my books, I was using brackets for texting
and I got mixed results frompeople, because I'm like in my
brain that makes sense becauseyou send texts in little boxes.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
Right, right.
But yeah, that's what's newwith me, is I got to?

Speaker 1 (22:52):
avoid the cold and copy edit.
I am very much not thatexciting and it is lovely.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
It is lovely that you're not that exciting, uh,
but you know what is excitingsakamoto days all right.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
So we've talked a lot about sakamoto days.
In passing.
I don't think it's ever been anepisode focus, except like when
it came out, when we did one ofour show and jump roundups.
So I'm gonna start with one ofthe things that drives me mental
in anime and manga.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
Okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
You're allowed a plus size character whose specific
power isn't turning skinny afterthey use their powers.
So I'm going to start listingsome animes that have a fat
character that turns skinny as apower up.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
Dragon Ball Naruto.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (23:44):
One.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
Piece, okay.
Dragon Ball, naruto, okay.
One Piece Okay, no, no, no,naruto, it's kind of the
opposite he powers up and thenhe becomes skinny because he
burns all his fat but it's notthat.

Speaker 1 (23:53):
That's a power-down, power-up and stay jacked.
Oh yeah, you're right, as longas the end result is I turned my
fat into skinny to be better.

Speaker 2 (24:05):
Yeah, okay, anyways.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
Bleach, one of the Squad Zero.
People had that specific power.
Right One Piece.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
My.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
Hero Academia.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
All right.

Speaker 1 (24:16):
Probably JJK, I haven't checked.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah, I don't think there were any fat people in JJK
.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
I'm sorry if that's offensive, that's somehow worse,
not better, and I'm surethere's more.
But I hate, like all of them,like every big show and jump
series in the last like 50 yearshas had the fat character get
skinny as a power-up.
And I hate it Becauserealistically, if you're the

(24:46):
size of Sakamoto but kept hisspeed and strength, you'd
actually be so much moredangerous at that size because
how mass works, it is way moredangerous for a 600-pound man to
dropkick you.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
Well, and then the series kind of like teased this
idea.
Uh, like the assassin doctorlady like hit hit sakamoto's
pressure points and and then hecouldn't go skinny to power up.
But it turns out that he justhad to actually learn how to be
comfortable in his own body andit's like man, that's such a
good surprisingly, yeah, yeah,it's a good message, uh.

(25:23):
And then probably about 20chapters later he just starts
going skinny again, and now thelatest few chapters he's just
been skinny constantly becausehe needs the extra power.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
I guess but also like to kind of like follow that one
a bit like dragon ball z isfunny because the fat one is the
good one, but like, eh, theystill get the shade, Like I'm
not giving the back to them.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
You know, maybe we should read Roboco just to see
if the robot gets skinny as apower-up.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
I refuse so to talk a bit about the premise of
Sakamoto.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
Days.

Speaker 1 (26:13):
So I can't remember the name of it, but there's an
anime that made it on Netflixthat was really more an animated
slideshow that was like about aYakuza husband.
Okay, I'm drawing a Yakuzahusband Okay.
I'm drawing a blank on the nameof that, but it's.
One of my favorite concepts isI love when you give someone
like the Rionin catch-em-backstory but they get to be happy
afterward Like bonus points toSakamoto.

(26:33):
Days of badass assassin meetscute cashier, falls head over
heels, starts a family, getsoverweight, lives his best life.
That's great.
That is a character arc.
And then other characters arelike don't you want to be a bad
ass?
Like no, my life is great.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yeah, so I mean that exact premise.
Like I do think the absolutebest arc in Sakamoto Days is
when they realize that there's aarc in Sakamoto days is, uh,
when they realize that there's abounty on Sakamoto's head but
they have to take his daughterto the fair.
Yeah, uh, because it's justlike it's this great mixture of

(27:14):
him trying to be this awesomefamily man.
Well, also have to dealing,deal with all the crap that
comes with being a retiredassassin.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
So, like the first two episodes have come out and
we've been kind of like spoiledfor good animation for things.
So I watch this and I'm like,oh man, watching me deflect a
bowl of chopstick was sick andit's like I swear as it sounds.
I like gag series and I likeseries of overall arcs, but

(27:45):
these overall arcs are like it'skind of a hot take.
But a lot of these assassinanimes like Assassination,
classroom, logo, 13, um, give itattention to a certain extent
ever find that thing where theyhave to come up with
increasingly weird gimmicks togive assassins because they
don't have a power system.
So they have people sucking onguns and other nonsense.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
Right.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
I'm just kind of curious your thoughts on that
where it's like, yeah, we havethis league of assassins, but
we're not actually going to givethem superpowers, so instead
we're just going to give themincreasingly gimmicky gimmicks.

Speaker 2 (28:23):
I would definitely agree.
Sakamoto is supposed to be alegendary assassin and he is
supposed to be somewhat powereddown because he's been retired
and got out of shape and whatnot.
But then like it's impressivethat he doesn't die to all these

(28:43):
other crazy assassins.
But what actually made him solegendary compared to all these
people who have these incredibleand strange powers, like the
film director guy who has anincredibly steady hand as long
as he's filming something and helike it, and he like what the

(29:04):
heck?

Speaker 1 (29:05):
what's kind of funny is like we've done our whole
episode the overpoweredprotagonist on why saitama works
and why when a reincarnated asa sexy harem leader doesn't and
a lot of it comes down to likethe likability of the
protagonist and them havinggoals that are hard to achieve.
So right.
I like OG Superman because OGSuperman's win condition is

(29:26):
never kill the enemy, it'sprevent bad things from
happening.
So even though Superman has allof the superpowers because his
goal is like live out healthywork-life balance and be
inspirational, a lot of it comesto the oh, I could just punch
through this person like they'remade of cardboard, but I can't

(29:50):
Because I'm more than that.
So, like Sakamoto's interestingbecause it's like oh yeah, his
motivation isn't being badassand I'm willing to give badass
assassin backstory a free passin anime.
Like Rion and Kenshin took like200 episodes to bother to
explain why he was thislegendary badass that was acting
as a doof.
I've been watching that again,also on Crunchyroll because they

(30:13):
reanimated it.
The pacing's a little off.
But it's Rion and Kenshin, soBad person.
The writer may or may not havebeen not getting into that
Entertaining series.
Nonetheless, no characters gothrough magic weight loss that
I'm aware of.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
They do have an openly trans character and I
don't think they handled itpoorly.
I'll get back to you on thatone.
I mean I also enjoy, I alsoreally enjoy anime where the
characters are.
I like to say, as a rule ofthumb, every anime character
should just be aged by fouryears to make these series make
any sense and the proportionslook sensible in the slightest.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
Right.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
But yeah, I love me a good adult protagonist.
So Sakamoto Dei's super strongprotagonist, strong, silent
family man, secret badass, worksat a convenience store Right,
His struggles is that his wifesaid no killing.
And his daughter is moreimportant.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
How do you feel about ?
Those were his struggles andthey kind of come up in passing
every now and then.
But I've said before in thispodcast that usually between 100
and 150 chapters there's atonal pivot and that it's really

(31:35):
hard to create a consistentseries that doesn't have this
big turn around that mark.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
Attack on Titan.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
Ugh, but uh, Sakamoto Days.
Surprisingly, like I say, thebest arc is the amusement park
arc, but that was only likechapter 60, and it's right there
that suddenly it shifts juststraight into an action series
and something that actuallyreally annoys me.

(32:04):
They had this character, theformer triad member, and she's
working on the convenience.
It's a female character workingon the convenience store and
after the amusement park arc shejust gets written out of the
story like she just stops havingany lines, the story.
She just stops having any linesor doing anything meaningful,

(32:26):
and we just I don't understandwhy.
And then they feel like theyneed another female character,
so they add another femalecharacter, but it's.
I don't get it.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
So Sakamoto Days.
So we'd like to talk how a lotof show-and-jump series recently
as we went through and listedall the ones that have been
cancelled have that like chapter60,.
Hey, I guess we need a biggerstory now because I lived longer
than we were expecting.
So it's like most manga thatcome out now aren't as ambitious

(32:59):
.
I'm going to use One Piece and.
Naruto as examples.
In One Piece and Naruto, theylist out that their worlds have
truly stupidly massive scopesearly on and don't use them.
One Piece is like yeah, I'm noteven at the grand line yet.
I'm not at the part where theadventure starts yet.
For the entire duration of.
Sakamoto days.
They haven't actually hit theocean yet.

(33:22):
Right, naruto's like there'sfive great villages and then
they introduce one dude from thewater village and then they're
like okay, so there's a fullworld here and we're only
looking at the children, whilethe adults look cool lurking in
the background.
Because they're like oh yeahlurking in the background,

(33:42):
because they're like oh yeah,not only it's like, orochimaru
is a local villain, and then wehave the actual, every other
ninja village and ninja worldgoing on, and then the ten
clouded villains are like okay,naruto's setting itself up
forever.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
Bleach did the opposite.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
Bleach is like.
I'm going to name drop all 13of my important characters in
the first plot arc.
Oh crap, my power scaling isruined because now he's as
strong as a captain.
Which we established were thestrong characters.
Bleach doesn't feel like itexpected to go as long as it did
right because it's like yeah,no, you didn't really write past
soul society and you absolutelydid not plan the quincy thing

(34:16):
as a thing, despite anime recons.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
Well and again the Soul Society.
Each arc in Bleach is actuallylike that tonal pivot.
Oh yeah, the first arc is allabout hollows, the second arc is
all about soul reapers.
The third arc is all aboutHoikomando.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
I'm so mad that the Placomundo stuff doesn't
actually like talk about hollows.
They're like we introduced anew kind of hollow.
I'm like if I wanted to knowabout the old ones you'd
actually set up.
No Okay.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
Yeah, no, All they did was set up that the new
hollows because they're oldhollows that ascended.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yep, but not to do another Bleach episode, as I am
one to do, the point being thatthese huge pivots happen.
One Piece avoids it to a largeextent because each arc, which
is just a series of islands kindof, has its own tone, except
for the go-get To the pointwhere they even animate each arc

(35:23):
differently, almost Really.
They did the Egghead Island arcrecently.
It was more bright and bouncyand colorful animation where
Wano was more serious.
Almost they went from Rion andKenshin to my Hero in vibes and
they can get away with thatbecause he started out with a
huge scope.

(35:43):
Hunter x Hunter is another onewhere it's like they started
with a huge scope and they nevereven got close to using it.
They never explored their wholeworld before.
It's just an island in a biggerworld.
They didn't even get close toscoping out the size of the
world.
they set up when Dragon Ballthey had to keep upping the
scope every season, scoping outthe size of the world.
They set up Right when DragonBall.

(36:04):
They had to keep upping thescope every season, but they did
it in a way that's bothbrilliant and idiotic.
Alright, he's the strongest onEarth.
I guess there's aliens now.
Also, the afterlife is just aplace you can take a plane.
I guess there's a demon worldnow.
Oh, better, throw in some timetravel for good measure and

(36:24):
they're like wow, yeah, better.
Like okay, we've used everyonein the universe and all the
timelines, so we should probablypull someone in from the
multiverse.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
Hmm, that is definitely true and ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
Dragon Ball gets like a pass.
It like got grandfathered intosome things.
It wouldn't pass.
It's kind of like how ifalcohol was a new invention, it
would never get sold.
There is no way you can patentliquid poison that gives you
cancer with the only intendedside effect of making you silly.
There is no way you'd ever getthe license to sell beer when
you explain what it was and whatit did if it was a new

(37:00):
invention, because it just killspeople and it's upside is it
kills people.
That's the point.
The point is you're drinkingpoison, but back to Sakamoto
days.
So, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
No, you go ahead.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
I'm opting out.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
You're opting out.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
Freedom.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
So yeah, the first roughly 60 chapters.
I don't know how long that'sgoing to be in terms of the
anime, but the first roughly 60chapters are, With modern
numbers, probably like 30.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
Like they go through the material way faster than
they used to because ADHD.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
Hmm, but so that's focusing on Sakamoto just trying
to live his best life as acashier, and there's lots of
characters that could have beenfun and interesting that they
introduced.
Fun and interesting that theyintroduced, like.
There's the one chapter that'sabout this female police officer
who's chasing down Sakamotobecause they think he's related

(38:09):
to this bus incident in theprevious chapter and she seemed
like she could be a recurringcharacter, but then she's just
kind of not, because that wasreally close to that tonal pivot
.
I don't know why I keep sayingshivit.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
Because it's fun I.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
I don't know why I keep saying shivit.

Speaker 1 (38:23):
Because it's fun.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
I don't have problems with the tonal shivit, where
suddenly it's all about theassassin world and I almost feel
like, as an assassin world,sakamoto Days is kind of
starting to have that sameproblem that John Wick had,

(38:46):
where, the more you learn wherethey could swing an election
with sheer numbers.
Quote Ryan George the more youlearn about this assassin world
and the crazy powers that theseassassins have, the more
unbelievable it becomes, becausethere's plot holes and

(39:08):
inconsistencies and this worldjust doesn't work for the sheer
amount of damage that theseassassins do.
Or there's this museum arcwhere the chairman of the
Japanese Assassin Associationjust wants to go see some art
and so they put all thisassassin art in there.

(39:28):
Everyone seems to know thatthere's an assassin world, but
like nobody really does, I don'tknow.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
It has.
So remember that new mangathat's like about Yakuza, but
not really so.
This has the Naruto problem,where they're ninjas who don't
do ninja things.
Right so an assassin issupposed to be stealthy.
These aren't assassins.
If they were super martialartists, the show would work
better.
If this was like hot take.

(39:59):
If we replaced assassins withmartial artists in this story
and made Sakamoto a retiredmartial arts master who used to
kill people with his bare hands,it works better, yeah yeah, I
think it does.
It's kind of like how Luffy'snot actually a pirate because he
never pirates anything.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yeah, pirates were not good people.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
Luffy's a sailor.
He's a sailor, but I digress.
One Piece gets away with itbecause it has very
anti-government overtones whereit's like they're pirates,
because the authoritarian rulingclass has labeled anyone who's
a dissident among their societya terrorist.
Basically, he's doing somethingwith it society a terrorist,
basically Right.
He's doing something with it.

(40:44):
I'm a let out a cook, but like,yeah, naruto's not about ninjas
.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
Naruto's not about ninjas.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
The Sakamoto days is just not really.
It's not about the time.
It drives me nuts.
I don't know in the currentseries if he's in his human body
or his ghost body, because thatstopped being a thing they
cared about.
It's like you're bleeding outon the ground, I'm like.
But they're ghosts, they haveblood.
Then how does a hollow holework if you can stab them in the
liver?
We're prepared to answer thesequestions.

(41:15):
So also Sakamoto Days hasanother problem their genos
isn't compelling.
So Shin's, the main characterof Sakamoto Days, has another
problem.
Oh, their Jettos isn'tcompelling.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
So Shin's the main character of Sakamoto Days.
Right.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
We made him a psychic because we needed to do
something interesting with him,mostly so Sakamoto can say what
he's thinking to Shin.
So the reason Shin's psychic isspecifically so Sakamoto can
say sassy things in front of hisfamily to Shin is specifically
so Sakamoto can say sassy thingsin front of his family to.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
Shin.
But see that gag apparentlywore thin and didn't have enough
.
You know there weren't otherpsychic people, so it's like
it's almost not even a thingthat he's communicating
telepathically to Shin anymore.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
Right, he's like I'm going to use my telepathic
powers to react before peopleshoot to Ultra M.
But I'm like, dude, watch somespy movies or something.
You either need to reduce theanime in this or ramp it up, and
I'm not sure which way thisshould go.
But to flip the script a bit,to give random, unprepared spy
family comparisons.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
First up, Spy Family versus Sakamoto Days.
They actually have reallysimilar premises.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (42:27):
Sakamoto comes out more consistently, and I like
the character Sakamoto more thanI like any one character in Spy
Family.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
Right.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
Spy Family has a substantially better ensemble
cast, I will say, though SpyFamily being like the main
villains, also psychic spoilersmade so much sense.
I was happy with it.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
He might be psychic.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
Oh, he's definitely psychic.
Like it clicks together sonicely.
He was doing experiments.
He made a little girl psychicthrough these experiments to do
on himself, To be able to be amind reader.
That drove him insane.
No, there's like a lot of waysit can go.

Speaker 2 (43:07):
There are a lot of ways it can go.
It's true.
It would make sense and beuniverse consistent for him to
be psychic.

Speaker 1 (43:14):
Yeah, so it's like the main villain being psychic
is really funny, because here'swhere this pays off.
Amazingly, if we get into anendgame situation, lloyd doesn't
know you're a badass and you'redoesn't know.
Lloyd's a badass, which meansif he's dealing with one of them
, reading the mind would warnhim nothing at all about the
other, which is an amazingcheckoff's gun.

(43:38):
If they end up defeating thebig bad because he can't spy on
the other one, because theysimply don't know.
Right so there's a lot of waysit could go, but it releases
slowly so it's like I'll put thehold on Spy Family, where
Sakamoto days it's like he'spsychic, but so what?
Because they don't have anyintrigue.
Hot take A mind.

(43:59):
Reading character is kind ofpointless if there's nothing
interesting, nothing sassy forthem to mind read Like.
The dude has the best skill setfor a rogue imaginable and
mostly just fights people withchainsaws.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
Well, I don't know, he's got his like super glove
that has a half-second delay,that he has to use his psychic
powers to account for.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
Yeah, that's lame.
Mind reading's already a sickability.
Use that, just use it well.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
Yeah, so I mean we've levied a lot of complaints
against Sock Motor Days, but itis a series that I do follow
every week, so like I do stillenjoy it, I dropped off for a
while because I dropped off atthe JCC tuning exams because
they were yeah I don't get it.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
Maybe you can explain this to me.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
So we go through sakamoto days.

Speaker 1 (44:51):
We start with the amusement park arc, best arc.
We go to the lab arc where thefemale love interest is
kidnapped shin's female loveinterest because it is required
by anime law.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
This love interest gets written out of the show,
basically, yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:07):
Then we get to these death row prisoners also
required by show and law.
Then we do the most contrivedshuning exam in existence,
because maybe they explain thislater.
But if everyone in theorganization knows who Sakamoto
is, they know he's a superbadass, dangerous John Wick

(45:30):
fellow yeah, no-transcript.
So he's willing to disguisehimself as his wife to enter a
tuning exam where people arefucking remote piloting drone
operating assassins.
But it never goes to him towalk through the front door.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
You got it a little bit mixed up.
He goes through the tuningexams and because he's
overweight, they don't recognizehim, recognize him, and then
when he gets to the end of thetuning exam it's like oh, that
was Sakamoto, so we can'tactually allow him to pass the
exam because he's already anassassin.
And then has to sneak into theschool in disguise because they

(46:07):
won't let him pass as a student.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
But why a school?

Speaker 2 (46:10):
Why is?

Speaker 1 (46:10):
he sneaking into it.
That's where I'm stuck.

Speaker 2 (46:16):
Uh, yeah, I don't.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
I don't remember why they're doing any of this.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
So they're sneaking into the school because the
school has a database on formerstudents and the main villain is
a former student.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
See what breaks me is like so Sakamoto is John Wick.
Mm-hmm is a former student.
See what breaks me is like soSakamoto is John Wick, mm-hmm.
Why would John Wick not justbreak into the building and
steal the data?

Speaker 2 (46:47):
Uh well, I mean, nobody's ever found the database
, because the database is aperson.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
It's only if you had someone who could read minds, to
interrogate someone, to thenbreak into the base Like they
forgot to.
So to then break into the baseLike they forgot.
So to lap around my rant aboutthe tuning exam, a format I love
in a lot of series, in your spyassassin thriller, you don't go
tuning exam, you go MissionImpossible movie.
It's so obvious.

(47:11):
You take your cast of three andhave them plan elaborate heist.
Instead, it was week after weekof random bullshit until I got
burned out um, yeah, okay, sodid you.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
I don't know, I don't remember.
I think it was after the tuningexams that they reveal uh that
uh Sakamoto's friend, uh slurthe big bad yeah.

(47:46):
Uh, moosehead guy, I can'tremember, no Moosehead slur X,
the slur next to the same person.
The Moosehead guy is, uh well,he seems to be pretty much
completely a cyborg.
Okay, but anyways, slur wasstrengthened in murdering this

(48:07):
lady named Rion, and the traumacaused him to create a second
personality within himself, thatis, this person that he killed,
and then his second personalityputs a bounty on Sakamoto's
head so that Sakamoto will comeand find them and kill the crazy

(48:29):
guy, which then there's awrench thrown in their plan that
Sakamoto doesn't kill peopleanymore, even though there are
numerous times throughout theshow where they appear to snap
people's necks.
Shin and Sakamoto just kind ofgo around knocking people out

(48:49):
with like what definitely looks,and there's even a little sound
effect that looks like theysnap people's necks.

Speaker 1 (48:56):
But there's no blood, so they're probably not dead,
sleep it.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
And so now the latest arc is that the crazy guy
created another personality ofsomeone he killed, which is the
apparently not so legendary butmore powerful than Sakamoto ever
was swordsman.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
Yeah, and so now he's the main big bad.
He has three personalities Onethat's trying to just see the
world burn because he doesn'tlike the JAA, one that's trying
to stop the guy that's trying tosee the world burn.
And one that's just a mumbling,ridiculously powerful swordsman
that's just murdering everyoneindiscriminately.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
So here's kind of we've had this talk before about
narrative design, so theproblem with this villain in
Sakamoto Days is for a characterarc, you need your protagonist
to go over her journey andchange.
Sakamoto and Shin don't haveanything to learn from this
story, so this villain isn'tthematically resonant.

(50:14):
So we're going to loop back toBleach as a character example,
weirdly enough.
So if we take Bleach and pretendit was just Soul Society for
the fun of it, we had CaptainKuchki who was I will follow the
rules above all else, even withmy own family, even if I hate
to do it, because someone needsto follow the rules to set an

(50:34):
example, or there'll be no rules.
Then you have Ichigo being like,yeah, I literally needs to
follow the rules to set anexample, or there'll be no rules
.
You have Ichigo being like,yeah, I can't, I literally can't
follow the rules because theyweren't written for me.
I don't dislike any of you, butthe current hierarchy you've
built does not account for myexistence and what you're doing
is wrong, because even thoughthey broke a rule, the rule is
stupid.

(50:54):
So that way, their final fightwas literally on character A,
who wants to enforce the rulesat the detriment of losing his
family, to character B sayingit's not that you shouldn't
break the rules, it's that therules themselves are stupid.
You have a thematic fight andthen each blow between the two
is getting that message across.

(51:14):
You zoom into.
Naruto, for example and you haveRock Lee versus Gaara is the
best example of this Hard workand effort versus the cruelty of
growing up and then Narutobeing the character in the
middle, who could be Gaara, orhe could be Rock Lee and chooses
to go the Rock Lee route ofhard work and effort instead of
just leaning into the monsterroute like Gaara where he could

(51:37):
have just let the fox out andmurdered Gaara, but he chooses
to use hard work and effortinstead.
So the Sakamoto Days villain.
If his motivation was I want toprotect my wife and my daughter
, he'd be a great villain forthat series, right?
Or if he was like a MrSweetangu and was like I want to

(51:58):
make a better war, the villain.
If Sakamoto's core drive isspending time with his family.
The villain's core drive eitherneeds to be he can't spend time
with his family because they'redead and Sakamoto killed them,
or I'm also trying to perfect myfamily in an opposite way.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
I guess.
A little more backstory on onthe villain uh, spoiler alert.
Uh, he grew up in an orphanage.
Uh, that was used by the JAA tolike.
They just had orphans that theywould train to be assassins and
send out on missions, and ifthey died it didn't matter.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
I've seen Black Widow .

Speaker 2 (52:35):
Um and uh, uh, he had it gets sent out on a mission
to kill a specific person.
Uh, and they're holding all ofhis quote-unquote family from
the orphanage hostage to makehim do these missions, uh.
And so then uh he eventually uh, it's kind of convoluted, but

(52:56):
essentially essentially after hekills the other female assassin
character, and then he just islike you know what, I'm strong
enough, I could just go beat thepeople up and free my family
from the orphanage and then wecan just burn the world down

(53:16):
burn the world down.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
So it's like, if the twist is, sakamoto was supposed
to be this guy's family and thendecided to start his own family
, there could be some symbolismgoing back and forth.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
There's no real direct connection between the
two characters.
Like you said, he's a villainof the show, but he's not really
Sakamoto's villain.

Speaker 1 (53:36):
And to loop to Speedgrapher, for example,
because your characters don'thave to have a connected
backstory to be symbolic mirrorsor metaphors to help, because
all good writing is yourcharacter has to go through a
journey and be transformative,and that's who determines who
your protagonist is.
So, let's go.
Speedgrapher, photographic guyhad no actual connection to Mr

(53:58):
Sweetangu, but Mr Sweetangu'smotivation was manipulate
everybody to make a better world.
And photograph guy's motivationwas paint the world clearly and
report on it, no matter howshitty.
So, their conjistic ideologieswere Mr Swatangu wanted to scam

(54:18):
everyone to make a better world,and Mr Photographer Guy just
wanted to tell the story.
Effectively, he was trying tosave the girl, but really it was
just getting the informationout was his modus operandi.
So they actually don't end upbeing enemies at the end because
Swatangu does his thing andthen Dude Guy retires as a
photographer, metaphoricallystating you know what?

(54:40):
It's not worth outing MrSwatango at this point.
My search for truth wasn'tworth it.
So he went through a fullcharacter arc of changing from a
relentless produce of truth tothe people I tried to save cared
, doesn't matter if I go blind.
So even though those twocharacters had nothing to do
with each other, they arcednicely.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
Hmm, right, there are more like antagonistic forces
than actual antagonisticcharacters for each other.

Speaker 1 (55:10):
It's more like they were story arcs to define each
other.
So now, to focus into Shin.
Shin is the main character ofSakamoto Days.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
Right.

Speaker 1 (55:19):
What is Shin's arc?

Speaker 2 (55:23):
Uh well, so far Shin's arc has been.
I don't want to be useless toSakamoto, and that's really it.
Everything he does is to not bea burden to Sakamoto.

Speaker 1 (55:37):
See what's wild is.
They arced him in episode one,right Like I'm going to kill
Sakamoto.
Who is this badass I once knew?
Now I work at Sakamoto's shopand his family has accepted me
and I must protect the shop.
That's cute, but that meanshe's already arced.
He's at the end of his storyfrom the start, really.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
Yeah, pretty much.

Speaker 1 (55:59):
And I'm curious to see where they're going with
that, because, ironically, how Iwould have wrote in Shin is I
would have given him a loveinterest as well, so that way he
wants to be where Sakamoto's at.
If I want to be happy andretire so here's what I have to
do have to do.
But I also kind of enjoy theidea that, like if Shin kept
getting Sakamoto into troublewith his efforts to protect
Sakamoto's life, where theactual life lesson was no, you

(56:21):
just need to live your life thenthere could be something to be
had there.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
Right.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
But however, to loop back to my original rant, this
is one of the better weeklythings in Show and Jump.
I just enjoy tearing thingsapart that I like.
Like I'm not going to tearapart witch watch.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
There's no point, oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
Witch watch is tearing itself apart.

Speaker 2 (56:43):
There is very existence and then spy family is
too damn slow.
Well, I mean, the good news isthat one punch man seems to be
on a weekly schedule so far thisyear.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
I'll believe it when I see it.
And one punch man is too damnlong, so Spy Family's too damn
slow because it's setting up allthese plot threads that'll pay
off in years.

Speaker 2 (57:05):
One.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
Punch man, so Saitama cannot arc.
We acknowledge this.
That is the joke of the show.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
I mean he's currently trying to arc because he's
training against other Ordermembers to become strong enough
to take over the JAA to make hisconvenience store a national
chain.

Speaker 1 (57:27):
So that's interesting .
That's an interesting like.
It's not an arc, though,because the character's
personality needs to change overthe course of it, weirdly
enough.
Sakamoto could easily have hadan arc of learning to speak up
for himself.
That could actually be his arc.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
Yeah, he certainly doesn't seem to be the strong,
silent type anymore.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
But it's weird because it's like he's also at
the end of his story and if wereflect on Rion and Kenshin,
because it has a very similarstructure to Sakamoto Days
Kenshin's arc he started with Iam traumatized because I
murdered my wife and I've justkind of been wandering around

(58:11):
doing good deeds, but I can'tstay in one place too long
because I'll get attached.
Kenshin's arc was literallyretiring from being the badass
and working through his PTSD byletting other people in the new
generation step up so he couldhang up his sword and retire.
Kenshin had a really compellingarc because he literally

(58:32):
watched and be like oh I reallylike this new person that I
could easily fall in love with.
Nope, can't do that.
Better, go fight the seven toten assassins, kenton literally
went and fought bandage guy toavoid being in a serious
relationship because that wasmuch easier and got called out
for it by like everyone in thecast be like dude.
And then when the next villainshows up, they're all like dude.

(58:54):
There's four of them, you havefour friends.
He's like, well, this is myproblem to clean up.
And they're like, no, it's not.
And then he beats the guy.
Good You're done, go home, yourwife's waiting for you.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
Yeah, that sounds about right.
But it was a pretty good series.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
My mini One Punch man rant.
Here's my next arc.
Here's my next arc and I'm likecool, Saitama can't arc by
design.
Genos needs to do something.
But they're doing the my HeroAcademia thing of just
introducing hundreds uponhundreds of characters and
sometimes it works and sometimesit doesn't.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
Right now One Punch man has three concurrent arcs
that are going on and it's likeit's just wild.

Speaker 1 (59:49):
Garou's arc was interesting because that's a
character who went through aplot arc.
I actually really enjoyed theGarou plot arc.
If One Punch man had endedafter Garo, I could say you're
talking about.
Yes, saitama didn't learnanything, but Garo learned that
being an edgelord badass meantnothing, because someone will
always smack you down a peg andlike literally you would be God

(01:00:11):
himself, and then the universewill smack you down a peg.
So grow up and apologize toyour master because he was right
.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
No amount of being a crazy edgelord will make you
happy yeah, the one thing thatSakamoto does have going for him
which, like I said, I have onepunch man, three different arcs
going on at the same time andnone of them have anything to do

(01:00:39):
with Saitama.
He did catch a light save, atleast.
At least Sakamoto is at thecenter of each of his arcs,
except for the one where Shinwent into the prison to try and
find a fortune teller to helphim get more powerful, but even
still, sakamoto shows up to bailhim out.

(01:00:59):
Because of they actually setthis up like hundreds of
chapters before that.
Sakamoto has GPSs in the nametags of all his employees.

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
I do appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
And so A it's come up once before, but now it's like
the second time.
It's like I'd forgotten aboutthat.
It's like how does Sakamotokeep showing up at the right
time?
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
because of the GPS trackers.
It's like just now, like chapter196, we're going to do the Shin
Sakamoto backstory, because Igot back into it after you
mentioned a couple weeks ago Ishould get back into it.
It's just like.
It's just so interesting to belike where do you want to go
with Sakamoto's story?
It's kind of where I'm at.

(01:01:44):
I'm like what is Sakamoto's arc?
And if Sakamoto doesn't haveone, that's fine, but then Shin
needs to be going somewhere withsomething.
My question to you is how longdo you think Sakamoto Days is
going to keep going somewherewith something?
My question to you is how longdo you think Shakumoto Days is
going to keep going?
Do you think it's ramping up ordo you think it's winding down?

Speaker 2 (01:02:05):
Because it's already been a lot of mangas at 196.
I think we're still in a bit ofa ramping up stage, but I feel
like the big bad absorbing theswordsman's personality or while

(01:02:26):
creating Sona, because hedoesn't actually, he doesn't
quite, he doesn't push them forall intents and purposes, but
doesn't actually mushy boot them.

Speaker 1 (01:02:34):
Yeah yeah, there's no magic science, or?

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
technology involved.
Masha boosts them for allintents and purposes, but
doesn't actually Masha boostthem?
Yeah, yeah, there's no magicscience or technology involved,
but he absorbs their personalityand abilities.

Speaker 1 (01:02:45):
Which I'll allow.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
In any event, I feel like that's the final stage of
the boss and I think it's stillramping up because the Order is
trying to track down Sakamotoand friends.

Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
Loop into narrative design too.
Right now, we're in the middleof the.
Shin Sakamoto flashback.
That almost always is whathappens before the final arc.
When you go back into thecharacter's origin story and
your Kenshin stories, yourJoJo's, your Bleach, even like
you saw Ichigo's mom and dadmeeting and then mom dying,

(01:03:24):
you're like, okay, this is whatyou do to grind up before your
final plot arc.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
Yeah, so I definitely think that Sakamoto is heading
towards a final plot arc, but Ithink there's still a little bit
more ramping up to do, becausethey have a lot to do with
facing the Order, I guessBecause they've introduced so
many not villains but so manyassassins.

(01:03:51):
That are cool and interestingconcepts.
They're not characters, they'reconcepts.

Speaker 1 (01:03:59):
So what's?

Speaker 2 (01:03:59):
fun is they have to deal with.

Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
So what would be wild and a flex they would not do,
is they want to extend Sakamotodays by I don't know 400
chapters.
Here's what I would do Fill andkill Sakamoto and get Sakamoto
powers.

Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
Oh, that would be interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
And then suddenly, Shin now has to protect his
master's wife and daughterAgainst evil Sakamoto.
But I don't think they're goingto go that direction.
Like I said, they're probablyjust going to knock down all the
bowling pils they set up.
Finish it and then the lastscene is going to be Chonky Shan

(01:04:41):
being remembering when he was abadass, helping one of the
younger people he encountered inthe story Working at his
convenience store franchiselocation.

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
He did specifically say that he wants to be a
manager of the second location.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
Yeah, that's my theory and with that, sakamoto
Days, it's interesting because Ikeep comparing it to Rion and
Kenshin and to Spy Family and Ithink the problem is that you're
right.
They had a third character tohave a nice balance and then

(01:05:16):
they abandoned that Because ifyou're doing the mentor-mentee
story, it really works well togive them parallels and it's
like.
Sakamoto is a great sensei, heis the best Master Roshi I've
seen in years.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
I love wife-guy Master Roshi as an archetype.
Right, I love wife guy.
Master roshi as an archetypelet's move away from.
Should be in jail.
Master roshi as an archetype to.
I love my wife and daughter butI'm actually the most badass at
this thing.
That is a great archetype Iagree but they just didn't quite
know what to do with shin.
Like I don't think he learnedanything over the story and, I

(01:05:54):
think, having a more charactersto interact with would have
fixed that.
Because if it was like if Shin'slesson should be from Sakamoto
the secret to being the bestassassin in the world is being a
chill dude who loves his familyLike that should be the life

(01:06:14):
lesson, but they forgot to putit in.
But it's also moving at such anicer pace than a lot of things
I've complained about, Like Spy.
Family is moving so slow.
They have one of the eightlightning bolts and they've just
now explained the concept ofthe villain.
Maybe yeah.
Like they have established theirmain villain from Chapter 1,

(01:06:37):
and had him say three lines ofdialogue over the entire thing
so far.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
So there's bonus points to sakamoto days for
having momentum yeah, even ifthey have tried to stifle their
momentum by having random sidearcs.
Like I said, shin going intothe prison to find the fortune
teller and then this flashbackarc.

Speaker 1 (01:06:59):
They forgot banter.
That's the only problem I havewith these, because it's a
long-running manga, right,sometimes you need a beach
episode, but that works if yourcharacters have chemistry.
So the problem is, if you sendjust Shin on a side quest, he
doesn't have anyone to banterwith.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
Well, he can banter with the sniper guy.
That's kind of completelyuninteresting.

Speaker 1 (01:07:22):
Exactly that's the problem Everyone's a gimmick and
no one's a dude.

Speaker 2 (01:07:28):
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 (01:07:29):
But with that it's time for our random question of
the week.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
Ooh, I love random questions.
Here is our random question Wowweek.

Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
Ooh, I love random questions.
Here is our random question.
Wow, really.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
Alright.

Speaker 1 (01:07:41):
Should cigarettes be banned?

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
Should cigarettes be banned?

Speaker 1 (01:07:47):
I think this falls into the same category of if
alcohol was invented today, itwould not be able to be sold, so
yeah, so here's my hot take oncigarettes, Because if you just
ban them overnight, people gothrough withdrawals and die
Right.
I think, the solution is wejust keep upping the age limit

(01:08:10):
on them.
Every year you have to be onemore year older to buy one, and
we just phase them out that way.
Because they should be bad?
They do nothing good for you atall whatsoever, they're just
bad for you.

Speaker 2 (01:08:23):
That's kind of hilarious.
You know, if someone who's 17and the age limit is 18 and then
they turn 18 and the age limitups to 19, they're never going
to be able to legally buy acigarette.
Good.

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
That just saved our healthcare system billions.

Speaker 2 (01:08:42):
Hmm, well, I mean, that's probably true.

Speaker 1 (01:08:47):
They're bad for you.
Anyone who inhales a cigaretteand thinks this is good for me
is a liar.

Speaker 2 (01:08:56):
Hmm.

Speaker 1 (01:08:57):
As a former smoker.
Anyone who's ever smoked acigarette knows it's bad for
them instantly.

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
Wait, you're a former smoker.

Speaker 1 (01:09:06):
Mostly just to hit on people and smoke breaks.

Speaker 2 (01:09:10):
Oh yeah, it's kind of like the same reason that my
brother started smoking.
It's because smokers get morebreaks at work.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
Yeah, but I haven't smoked in like 10 years.
Anywho, long story short.
Also, I used to enjoy cherrycigars and they banned those
because they taste good, becauseif they taste good, more people
will smoke them, which is,ironically, exactly the case

(01:09:38):
right I'm a weird one where it'slike, if someone bans something
I like and I can look at thelogistics and the reason they
banned it is because it'ssomething I like, I can kind of
like give them a pass.
Almost it's like oh yeah, thisis bad for me, I see yeah, I
mean.

Speaker 2 (01:09:54):
So in essence it's like I can.
I can see an economic argumentbecause, you know, cigarettes
and and liquor kind of fall inthe same category where they're
very heavily taxed, and so thereis a lot of government revenue
that comes from the sales ofstupid people buying things that
are bad for them I do enjoytaxing shit out of stupid people
.

Speaker 1 (01:10:13):
I would rather tax rich people, but I'm willing to
like, do both.

Speaker 2 (01:10:18):
Well, yeah, because you know it's.
Yeah, the economic argument Idon't think outweighs the other
benefits of just like notselling poison to people.

Speaker 1 (01:10:30):
So it's kind of funny is, with all the talk of
tariffs and things going on and51st State things which we will
not get into at the end of ourepisode, our premier actually
had a suggestion that one of theways they're going to fight
back is they're going to removeall American alcohol from the
LCBO.

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:10:49):
And my first thought was and see if you disagree or
agree removing all.
It's like if our liquor storesin Canada could only sell
Canadian liquor, like thegovernment-owned liquor stores
isn't that just?

Speaker 2 (01:11:03):
good Right.

Speaker 1 (01:11:04):
Doesn't that just give more revenue to Canada
outright?

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):
I mean, provided that we have the infrastructure to
keep up with the demand.

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):
yeah, I mean it's alcohol Like we should be, we're
.

Speaker 2 (01:11:16):
I mean it's alcohol, like we should be.
We're canada and it's alcoholwe should be fine.

Speaker 1 (01:11:20):
It's like sure people would have to like go out of
their way to import alcohol.
Like if they really want thatamerican booze, they'd have to
like have it mailed in orordered special or go from
america right but I'm kind oflike yeah, wait a minute.
Why don't we just make it thatthese stores have to sell
Canadian goods?
I'm not that concerned ifsomeone's fermented grape juice

(01:11:44):
has to come from the localvalleys instead of France.
I know it's not technicallychampagne, it's just sparkling
grape juice, but I'm fine withthat.

Speaker 2 (01:11:56):
Again, my point about the infrastructure does kind of
stand, just a kind of adifferent angle.
Amazon Web Services has asignificant market share of
website hosting capability andthere are lots of websites that

(01:12:16):
have to deal with Amazon's termsand conditions because there's
no one else that has theinfrastructure to support their
web traffic.
So the idea that if Canada juststarted trying to be
self-sufficient and use Canadiangoods, we don't necessarily
have the infrastructure to cutoff foreign imports in that way,

(01:12:37):
because we might not be able tomeet the demand of our people
using only Canadian goods.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
But Mike's take weirdly being that if we in
individual cases, instead of ageneral rule, we could meet that
demand, especially as, like adirect bargaining tactic to that
nation, a direct bargainingtactic to that nation, that
seems like a win-win to me.
Being like hey, we're going tostop selling your alcohol until
you drop this tariff.
Also, we now get an uptick ofour own alcohol being sold.

(01:13:05):
Sounds great.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
Yeah, I mean I'm not an economist, economist,
economist, so this is just likeoff the cuff.
I don't actually really knowwhat I'm talking about, me
either but not my degreespecialization.

Speaker 1 (01:13:20):
This isn't about quotation marks but.

Speaker 2 (01:13:24):
But the point is um that I, as a non-smoker, I don't
really care whether or notcigarettes are banned.
I see the economic argument buthonestly, the strain on the
health care system caused bycigarettes, I think it'd be a
net benefit to have them banned.

Speaker 1 (01:13:42):
Also from like a personal point of view.
I grew up with my mom smokingin the car.
It's like well, I had thewindow open.
I'm like I'm pretty sure thisfucked my lungs up, pretty sure
this is bad for me.

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
Are you sure it wasn't when you inhaled like
straight fire that burned offyour eyebrows?

Speaker 1 (01:13:59):
That's the thing about how bad cigarettes are.
For me, the straight fire washealthier for my lungs.

Speaker 2 (01:14:04):
Burned out some of that cigarette tar.

Speaker 1 (01:14:09):
Probably, probably gave it a good deep cleaning,
yeah.
So yeah, random question I'mfine banning cigarettes.
I see this likeslipperty-slope-lipperty
argument and I'm like, okay, butyeah, if cigarette was released
as a modern product, it wouldnever pass FDA approval.
Like, let's take marijuana, forexample, because it's legal in

(01:14:31):
Canada, I can talk about it,it's not a controversial subject
.
Cigarettes cause cancer.
Marijuana prevents cancer.
You couldn't buy the marijuanafor 20 years.
Yeah, One of them is literallyprescribed for glaucoma and the
other one would never beprescribed for anyone for any
reason.

Speaker 2 (01:14:53):
Although it's so funny when you look at like when
pregnant women were uhencouraged to smoke because it
helps relieve stress yep.

Speaker 1 (01:15:04):
So, in conclusion, I personally am absolutely fine
with cigarettes being banned,but also, like I don't know,
after watching this days for awhile, I'm not the biggest fan
of freedom these days.
Just in general, it seems thatpeople are like freedom means I,
a tech mogul whose name shallbe removed from this video
clipping, can just do a Nazisalute at an inauguration speech

(01:15:28):
straight up because I'm free todo so, and I'm like are you
sure this is freedom?
Or it's like the freedom forthese companies to scan my data
and take my YouTube transcriptsand then feed them to an AI to
make a robot sound like me tosell pornography?
Is that too much freedom?
It feels like too much freedom.

Speaker 2 (01:15:47):
Well, to be fair, the Nazis culturally appropriated
several things, the Roman salutebeing one of them.
So maybe he wasn't being a NaziCounterpoint, maybe he was just
being a Roman.

Speaker 1 (01:16:01):
Counterpoint Everything he says and does
publicly.

Speaker 2 (01:16:07):
The guy is crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:16:09):
There's a lot of evidence that he's a bad dude,
like I don't know what's worsethat he did a Nazi salute or
he's just that bad at dabbing.
But yeah, I, I love the note.
That's like freedom to use oneof four people's electronic
devices and web hosting servicesbecause it's their freedom to

(01:16:30):
have a monopoly on that.
I'm like, um, wouldn't freedombe that I don't have to give him
money?
Or, like you'll hear, like thegovernment be like due to the
free market, I gave 11 milliondollars to bail at the liquor
stores to deal with thecompetition I created by letting
corner stores sell booze.
I'm like that doesn't soundlike a free market.
That sounds like you put yourtongue on the scale, because

(01:16:55):
free market means businessesshould be allowed to die.

Speaker 2 (01:17:00):
Well, anyways, there's enough rambling about
economics and politics.

Speaker 1 (01:17:05):
Hot.
Take Richard's anti-freedomstraight up, because people have
done too many stupid thingswith it recently and he's
revoking their freedomprivileges.
You can earn your free speechafter you take an etiquette
class.
Skill testing questions toaccess the internet.
Like you have to pass a GEDtest to be allowed internet

(01:17:25):
access.

Speaker 2 (01:17:30):
Yeah, yeah, that's all.

Speaker 1 (01:17:33):
I got.

Speaker 2 (01:17:34):
You have to have a minimum level of intelligence to
be able to use the internet.

Speaker 1 (01:17:38):
Pretty much it would help.
Anyway, to everyone out there,don't smoke.
Controversial take.

Speaker 2 (01:17:49):
Don't.
Yeah, you know, self-care isimportant and smoking is not
self-care.

Speaker 1 (01:17:55):
Unless it's like, I'll say that like smoking
cigarettes is bad.
If you tell me like it was thebirth of my grandson so I had a
singular cigar, I'll be like,well, it looks cool
aesthetically so I'm going tolet you have that.
It's kind of funny, like youwere talking about it earlier,
to loop back in.

(01:18:16):
It's kind of funny, like you'retalking about it earlier, to
loop back in the idea that youcould simply just tax advice so
unreasonably high that yousimply couldn't afford enough
cigarettes.
For it to be problematic mightactually be the solution.
Enjoy your 200 pack ofcigarettes.
Each one of those you are freeto buy that each one of those
cigarettes is worth an entirelunch, so really question how
many of those you want toconsume.

(01:18:36):
Cigarettes are all illegal nowin Richard Land.
If they're wrapped in gold leaf, that should reduce the number
of smokers.

Speaker 2 (01:18:46):
Anyway, self-care, you know, stay hydrated,
exercise, go outside.

Speaker 1 (01:18:54):
if it's not, you know , too horribly cold man, I hope
we get so much hate mail fromsmokers after this episode.
Bye, I just love the idea wespoil an entire manga series
where I'm most like, yeah,sakamoto days was kind of good,
but this villain's conceptstupid, and it's like, yeah,
yeah, I agree, smoking is bad,cancel, block.

(01:19:16):
How dare you encroach on myfreedom to poison myself by
lighting tar on fire andinhaling it?
But take a break at workcomplete pivot.