Episode 98" Solo Leveling leveling as friends, random Manuha, and the immortal king for some reason

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We dive into the narrative intricacies of "Solo Leveling," discussing character development and its emotional core, all while juxtaposing it with other notable series such as "Tower of God." The conversation flows through Richard's reflections on his writing journey and Karl’s thoughts on manhwa's appeal in modern storytelling. 

- Exploring the deep character struggles in "Solo Leveling" 
- Examining the emotional undercurrents in fantasy narratives 
- Richard shares insights on his journey with "The Arcana" 
- The importance of world-building in captivating storytelling 
- Contrasting "Solo Leveling" with "Tower of God" analysis 
- Listener curiosity about character drive and motivations 

It's time to tune into our latest episode, where we unravel the emotional threads that bind fantasy together. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
We are alive.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
We are alive.
Just for those who missed thestart of the stream.
Before we introduced the nameof it, I did try and countdown
using legendary bird Pokemon andfailed.
I'm Richard who got Zapdos andArticudo backwards.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
And I am Carl co-host of Richard and Carl present
Deep Space and Dragons.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Nice.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
You're like almost 100 episodes in.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
You know the drill we talk about nerdy things,
sometimes we go off tangent.
I like.
I like our viewers to think wescript this because that's
really funny.
It's like when people excusecritical role.
It's like critical role scriptsit.
They scripted an eight hour dndsession, dear lording.
Like when you think about howmany pages a movie like John

(00:48):
Wick is and then think theypre-planned an eight-hour D&D
session.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yeah, like what do I mean?
They don't show the dice rollson stream.
I suppose I don't think.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
They kind of do, they kind of do.
Yeah, you can see them.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Well, because, like, yeah, they're rolling dice, but
if it was scripted, then theywould have to know what all the
dice rolls are.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Well, it's like the camera angle doesn't show you
every dice roll, right, so it'spossible they could roll in a
tray and then be like it'spossible.
It could be scripted, but itwould be so much more effort
Because they're writing a scriptfor eight people that pretends
to be improvised.
With rigged dice rolls, youdrama da, da, da da.

(01:28):
But an eight hour script islike I don't know, 5 000 pages
or something.
It's 500 words a page and aboutone page takes about one minute
to read or something, and so itwould, yeah, be thousands of
pages.
Why would you ever do that toyourself and your poor writers?

Speaker 1 (01:52):
well, okay, so what?
Uh?
Eight hours, 60 minutes an hour, that's 480 minutes.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Uh, so the script would be 480 pages long at least
I think, I'm not sure likescreenplay is something I do,
but not my specialty, so I'm notsure I have these numbers right
off the top of my head, but itwould be it wouldn't even

(02:22):
exactly be a screenplay, though,because, because, like.
Like it would be the entire Lordof the Rings script but you
don't get any action sequencesright.
It'd be the Lord of the Ringsif it was three hour, if it was
the entire Lord of the Ringstrilogy.
That was just dialogue, puredialogue.
Ok so that would be much longer,right, because your screenplay

(02:45):
you get to say action scene goeshere yeah, yeah, that's true, I
mean that tangent has nothingto do with anything at all, but
I just want people to believewe're scripting these and we're
just putting in a trulyimpressive amount of work.
So I can be like hey, carl,what's new in the carl verse?

Speaker 1 (03:00):
probably not a sandblaster ah, dang it, you're
right about that.
We actually talked a little bitabout.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
We did talk about this a little bit off-stream,
but you know what's even afunnier headcanon If the idea
that we're not friendsoff-stream and this is our only
means of communication.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Okay.
So when I went to university Ihad a professor.
He was very adamant that youcall him dr kreitzig, because he
was a doctor.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Sure, not a medical doctor, though, uh, his
doctorate was in musicology youknow what we're brainstorming
today, what to call the soundtype Eevee and Musicologyon.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
That does sound pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
I lost.
By the way, my friend went withSymphonion.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Oh yeah, I mean, that's kind of in the same vein
of thought.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
But please continue.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Well anyways.
So especially actual full-blowndoctors and other in the in the
professors in university.
They're also there on likeresearch grants, right, like
they're not just teaching.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Most of them, I assume Somebody who recently was
looking at master's programsand it says right in it you will
be doing TAing as part of yourmaster's.
Yeah, I can see that.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
Yeah, so it's's like that's not all that they're
doing, um, but I just I have areally hard time imagining, uh,
what exactly you researchpertaining to musicology, like I
don't you see the differencebetween me and I can visualize
it perfectly okay, okay, give,give me what you think it is.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
So as longtime listeners to the stream of Peace
Together, I work in academiaand I do a fair amount of
research on redacted, redacted,redacted.
And what I've learned is, youcan research anything, because
really what you're doing islooking up peer-reviewed papers
on things, looking up thecitations that make that
peer-reviewed paper and justkind of doing a rabbit hole of
reading.
So like, for example, when Iwrote a page on how

(05:09):
homosexuality is onlystigmatized because one person
was running for an election init in the roman empire and
wanted to slander their opponentand therefore re-edited the
book, which worked its way intothe king james book.
You get this massive chunk ofhistory right.
Musicology is literally justdeep diving history about music
or about psychology and things,right.

(05:36):
Like you'd be looking at peoplewriting papers on what effect
music has, if you want to belike a music therapist route,
but I'm guessing it's history.
I'm almost certain they're likewhere did this?
Who was the first person to usethis combination of chords and
notes and how did it evolve andwhat did different people over
histories effect have to shapemusic?

Speaker 1 (05:52):
so I can picture how this particular, this particular
professor was in fact the uhprofessor for music history
called it, of course, of coursewhich I failed multiple times,
Partly because I'm a terriblestudent and partly because his
tests were just Okay.
So an example question It'd belike blank composed, blank in

(06:16):
blank.
So it'd be like composer songyear, song year.
And then, according to thequestion above, Blank did Blank
in Blank, and so then, if youget that first question wrong,
it compounds into the nextquestion.

(06:37):
So it was just, he just hadextremely difficult tests.
And then there was also themusic listening portion, where
you had a list of songs that youhad to listen to and then you
had to be able to identify themfrom excerpts that he would just
play in class during the test.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
Oh, lovely.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
It was just a very difficult course because the
professor was very demanding.
He was a nice guy, he was justA, he demanded the respect that
you call him a doctor and then B, it's just.
His tests were extremelydifficult, but if you actually
pass his tests then you would befor certain that you would know
a great deal about musichistory, as he taught it.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Man, it's such a trip because I've been doing my four
years of creative writing andpublishing and I think I've
written four tests total.
Like I can't even remember thelast test I wrote.
You see it's funny becauseyou'd think like, oh yeah, it's
Richard, he can bullshit his waythrough any paper ever.
But, actually my test scoresare almost higher than my paper
scores because I but actually mytest scores are almost higher

(07:48):
than my paper scores because I'mreally good at bullshit.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
I am inconsequentially scary at
memorizing random bullshit,right, but okay.
So, um, moving forward a littlewhile.
I guess I'm not not sure howfar forward I have to move for
this, or if I even actually haveto move forward at all, because
this is the part that Imentioned to you off-stream.
The Beatles are from Liverpool.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
Yes, and so.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
The University of Liverpool has a master's program
in the Beatles.
I don't know what the actualtitle of the program is and
you've given me somewhat of anidea of what a musicologist
would study.
But when it gets even morespecific to be a master's degree

(08:36):
in the Beatles specificallylike what are they researching?
What exactly?
How many research papers canthey even peer review about the
Beatles?
Maybe it's even.
Maybe there's more writing onthe Beatles than I even realized
, because I mean, they were ahuge phenomenon, to the point

(09:01):
where, when they landed inAmerica, their security guards
had to basically throw them intotheir car and they got bruises
from being thrown so violentlyinto their car to get away from
the crowds.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
Well, it's interesting.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (09:21):
I was going to say.
I feel like you're not going toget a line of credit if you
tell the bank you're takingBeatles studies and they should
pay for your education.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Well, I mean, it must actually be a serious program
because, like I say, the reasonthat I that I am aware of this
fun fact about them gettingbruised from being thrown in the
car is because the firstgraduate from this master's
program they apparently died in2023.
But they wrote a concertdocumentary I was about to make

(09:55):
a tasteless joke.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
Where I was like, did it turn out, they had a
strawberry allergy and they werestuck in those fields forever.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Now they're with Lucy in the sky with diamonds rip
random person yeah, I mean,unfortunately I don't actually
remember their, their name,because uh a, they weren't
actually part of the performanceuh, and uh, uh b, and so the
performance was more about thebeatles and then the authors of
the performance was more aboutthe Beatles than the authors of

(10:25):
the performance, but it was like.
So it was at a theater, like astage theater, and the woman who
was presenting well, she wasactually part of the musical
performance but she uh would uhdo a little blurb about the

(10:51):
beatles during a specific timeperiod.
You know, focus on a specificone of the members and or
whatever, what have you.
So it's like the.
The start it was talking aboutum, I say I'm a fan of the
Beatles, but I don't actuallyremember.
I think she started with JohnLennon saying he was born in
1940 during air raids, like,literally, they're dropping

(11:15):
bombs on the streets while hewas being born.
Poor John Lennon, I justdeserve my innate hatred of him.
But anyways, most of theperformance, like so she would
do a little blurb and then theywould play a song and then she'd
do another blurb and she wouldkind of go through in
chronological order, going over,like the songs they wrote

(11:37):
together, the songs they wroteindividually, how the band
actually formed when, where andwhen they met, how the band
actually formed where and whenthey met.
And, one of the mostinteresting points to me, one
song in particular.
It's one of my favoritesbecause it's called A Day in the

(12:00):
Life and it's on the Beatles'Blue Album, which is actually
just a compilation album.
They never actually released aBlue Album, but not while they
were actually a band.
But it's like it's their lateryears of music and so they have
more avant-garde techniques andmusic in general.
So first, when she was talkingabout how this song came

(12:22):
together, she starts playing asong and I don't know the name
of the song, but due to musichistory and these listening
excerpts from my course Irecognize the song.
I'm fairly certain that thesong that she played as an
example of avant-garde modernmusic in post-World War I and II

(12:44):
was a song by Arnold Schoenbergyou went Gundam Seed Rain for a
moment you had the Gundam Seedsound effect affected by this
post-World War mentality wherethey were experimenting with

(13:08):
non-traditional musicalprogressions or mathematical and
not intended to be melodicallypleasing and a lot of people at
the time thought that that musicwas terrible because it's hard
to listen to.
But when you look at the sheetmusic, thought that that music
was terrible because it's hardto listen to.
But when you look at the sheetmusic it's absolutely
fascinating to see the patternsand shapes that emerge on the

(13:30):
page which are so hard to followwhen you're listening.
But then she was talking aboutthe song A Day in the Life and
it was like, yeah, there was alive orchestra, that they
actually hired a live orchestra.
And they're just like, yeah, uh, when we tell you you just got
to play like the lowest note onyour instrument and then it'll

(13:51):
just be like this big crescendoof notes joining in whenever
however they want, it's like itsounds like chaos as they
transition from one portion ofthe song to the next.
Uh, and because it was such aninvolved process to actually
even record the song, apparentlythey never performed it live.
So that was an interesting funfact about the song.

(14:14):
I was like, huh, I mean, I 100%recognize and see what they're
talking about because I love thesong.
I just didn't.
I thought that was somethingthat, like, the music producer
added in post, but apparentlythat's actually a recording of a
live orchestra doing thischaotic crescendo to transition
between the portions of the song.
Uh, and then obviously it wasinteresting to hear the people

(14:39):
on stage tried to play that songbecause, like, she emulated the
orchestra by playing on on thepiano, like slamming all the
different keys and slowlyworking your way up and just uh,
and it was, it was, it wascaptivating, uh.
So what's new with me?
I mean, I had a really, reallyenjoyable experience with my
fiance because we went to thisshow as a date night.

(15:00):
Um, and I mean, I don't know,I'm not going to retain much
information about the Beatlesthat I didn't already know, but
I I still wonder what exactlyyou'd be researching as to be a
master.
I have a master's in theBeatles, but the performance was

(15:23):
great very fair.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
Well, that's a fascinating what's New with Carl
.
I appreciated this one.
It only took a cool entirelength of an episode of South
Park, not actually.
We came in at like a clean 15minutes and I gave a five-minute
monologue about nothing, justabout literally nothing.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
What's new with you there, Richard?

Speaker 2 (15:46):
So I find myself on reading week which is lovely.
My school just does it,different than a bunch of other
schools, because that's how theuniverse works.
So I finished my rough draft ofthe Arcana and now I'm going
through and doing my edits and Isay to myself and my mentor I
can have this done by the end ofreading week.
So today is tuesday right, Ihave edited one chapter.

(16:10):
However, I also worked a fullshift today and tomorrow I don't
, so I'm hoping to pick up thespeed.
But also, the first chapter isthe hardest one to edit because
like I had to go retroactively,add in like characters and
cameos through the rest of thebook.
Like I have a mysterious councilwho didn't exist when I wrote

(16:30):
the rough draft and now I had tolike put them all in and make
their voices sound right andadjust the characterizations and
things.
So it required a lot of work.
Thankfully, the second chapterI already edited for a magazine
submission, so I technically gottwo done today.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
Oh, excellent.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
But I pretty much have to edit four chapters a day
between now and Sunday.
Ah, which is about.
It takes me normally like anhour or two to do a deep line
edit.
This one took me like three.
So really I'm on schedule but Ihave to actually do it.
So I'm hoping my ADHD clicksinto hyper focus more and I gain

(17:07):
superpowers hmm, that's true,adhd is both a blessing and a
curse but like I do want tofinish this lap through the book
, I enjoy one chapter where Itook a screenplay.
I wrote for screenplay class andthen I had a character
transport their brain intomultiple robot bodies to play
all the characters because Icouldn't find anyone competent
so the chapter's written half inscreenplay format and half in

(17:30):
cursive, with them writing notesabout how bad their actors are.
Who are them?
oh man, I love that suggestionright, so, like as I go through
this and work on refining thisbook, that's pretty much what's
going to be new with me for awhile.
Is between that and schoolrelated stuff which, until I
click the accept button, I'm notgoing to gloat about on stream.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
But I personally am happy to hear about your Arcana
story because of how manysuggestions that I made which
made the final cut it just itmakes me happy.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
So it's like there's parts of it.
A lot of them didn't turn intoverbatim chapters, but they
turned into bits here and there.
My big debate I'm having rightnow during this rewrite, is I'm
trying to decide if I want toadd in four more chapters that
are like the four suits of cardsto be like.
But I'm like, no, no, no, Ican't make more work.
This thing's already too long.
It's like at a hundred thousandwords.

(18:29):
I want to trim it down, Right,Right, but there's a few
chapters that I have to do aweird rewrite where.
So I want each chapter tofollow a different side
character and then the maincharacters are all doing things
in the background over thecourse of the book.
A few chapters.
I have to add in that sidecharacter and pivot the focus,
because I have the main storydown but it needs to be told

(18:49):
from other people's point ofview, Because I like making my
life miserable for no reason.
It's kind of like when I wasediting chapter one, what took
so long is I had so muchplaceholder dialogue.
I'm like, no, I need these twocharacters to actually have
romantic chemistry, which means.
I myself have to have romanticchemistry, which is questionable
if that's ever been true,although I have been paid to

(19:09):
write redacted and redacted oncommission anonymously before.
So I get good reviews when Iwrite redacted stuff, so I have
the ability in theory.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
You are a professional shipper.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
Yeah, actually by definition.
I guess I don't know how I feelabout that when it's spelled
out like that, but it is true Ihave been paid to ship things.
That is funny actually.
That'd be such a good bulletpoint on my resume, though, just
like the last bullet point,other skills, paid shipper.
It's like do you mean shippingand receiving?

(19:44):
I do not, I mean redacted andredacted ninja getting the love
story they deserved.
So with that, let's move intomanhwa, our topic of the day
okay, well, so first thingsfirst.
Manhwa Korean manga.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah, so one of your friends, who you say has taste,
told you that solo leveling isactually good.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
Yes, which caught me off guard.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
Well, I mean.
So I think I agree that it isactually good.
That's the first thing because,like the story does, the first
few episodes do an incrediblejob of setting up the tone, the

(20:44):
themes.
Few episodes do an incrediblejob of setting up the tone, the
themes and an excellentemotional core to the story.
The main character is anextremely weak hunter who goes
into these dungeons that arecreated just random portals that

(21:06):
open and it's a dungeon.
And then the hunters go intothe dungeons to loot them and
try and get money.
And even as, quote-unquote, theworld's weakest hunter, he
still manages to make enoughmoney to pay for his mom who's
in a coma.
He has to pay for her medicalbills and he's paying to put his
sister through school becauseshe hasn't awakened as a hunter,

(21:28):
so she wants to become a normaldoctor.
So here's my mini rant aboutthe series.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
So soul leveling is kind of like people who just
hate Marvel movies, butoccasionally they'll put out a
banger right.
My thing with soul leveling,which is my thing with the
ecocide genre, even this onebeing a reverse ecocide as a
whole that bugged me is they allwant to be sword art, like I'm
going to make this fictionalsetting with video game rules,

(21:55):
but they're more interested inborrowing a world than making
one.
And my hot take is if sololeveling didn't have the video
game bullshit, like fleshing outthe world, like take the
characters, the action, the plotof soul leveling and put it in
like Fullmetal, alchemist oreven Lucifer and the Biscuit
Hammer.

(22:15):
That would be much more invested, much easier.
But like it's one of thosethings where, in an infinite
multiverse to find the realitywhere you have a skill leveling
system, it's just like, okay, Iwant to be on board, but like
Doofy Delicious in the dungeon,I rated higher.
Or even Tower of God I ratedhigher, which is another manhwa,

(22:37):
because Tower of God'smechanics made no goddamn sense
and I prefer that to everythingbeing conveniently video game
coded.
But no no, my complaints aren'tabout the characters, which are
the important part.
It's kind of like to give soulleveling some praise.
So you know naruto's notactually about ninjas right so
leveling's not actually aboutekisai, no, like it's a power

(23:01):
fantasy, sure, but it's kind oflike a reverse character arc
where you just kind of watch aperson get shittier and shittier
with power.
So it's like I do, I kind ofenjoy watching him become a
worse person.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
I mean, he does kind of slowly become a reverse
person, but that emotional coreof trying to put his sister
through school while paying forhis mother's medical bills
drives the entire first twoseasons of the show and it's.
I really, really think thatthat is a huge strength and even

(23:38):
if you're not a huge fan of thevideo game style leveling
system, it's the emotional core,uh, and the struggles of this
character, and the themes andit's it's all.
It's extremely well written,despite having a premise that
you don't particularly enjoywell, it's like even the like

(23:58):
real world of dungeons comingthrough.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
It's like there's a lot I could get on board with.
It's one of those saturationsituations, right Like had I
read Soul Leveling first beforeI got indoctrinated with your
shield heroes, your reincarnatedas the slimes, your
ba-da-ba-da-ba then maybe Iwouldn't be so salty but like I

(24:23):
definitely there's an episode ofthe show where it's like all
the like hero association peoplemonologuing about the world and
I'm like you didn't write aworld, why are you even
bothering?
Can we get back to the sickanimation of him just rolling up
after going in his s-rankdungeon, coming out and just
one-shotting a godzilla but notrealizing he one-shotted a
godzilla?
Like I'm on board for that Ifit was this character writing.

(24:45):
But you threw it in kaijunumber five nine, setting
completely on board orcounterpoint.
You actually make the skillsystem consistent enough that it
could work if you were toactually make the video game.
Because that's my actual rantabout these genre is they don't
actually work Like sort of it'slike here's our skill system and

(25:08):
you're like that wouldn'tactually work in a video game.
Like it wouldn't, cause they'relike the way the skills are.
Like as you level up you getskill slots but like there's no
like correlation between satsand moves and how they
physically do things in the game.
So like sort of and it's one ofthe more consistent ones.

(25:31):
So, like my question to you isif I told you you have to
program a solo leveling game,you have an infinite budget.
Could you successfully do it?

Speaker 1 (25:42):
well, see, there's two things about solo leveling
one which you've already touchedon that do make that quite
difficult, and the first is Ait's not actually an isekai,
because it's them living in afictional world where everyone

(26:03):
well, people will randomlyawaken skills to fight monsters
and go into these dungeons, andthen he happens to awaken a
super skill that allows him toraise his power level, which is
something that's unheard ofamong other hunters.

Speaker 2 (26:16):
The I'm the most special, special, awesome boy
skill.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
Yeah, that's kind of the I'm the most special,
awesome, awesome boys genre Likeit's it's.
For some reason it comes alongwith this video game style game.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
Well, yeah, it's like built as the core of a power
fantasy.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
But the number one thing that I say about solo
leveling is A that emotionalcore and the themes and the
setting.
Like I think they did a reallygood job of setting everything
up and it's something that wedon't actually like.
Can you name any north americanseries that have this?

Speaker 2 (27:00):
you gain a level up system um, the problem is, I
know they exist and I can'tthink of them because, like,
there's like a whole wave oflike anime inspired random
bullshit and I'm like trying toremember some of this, like
random bullshit to be like.
Have I seen this trope in NorthAmerica?
I'm like what the hell was thatthing called?
It was like Zyx or something,where it was like a CGI actor

(27:25):
show where they went into thisvideo game dungeon to get skills
and that was CGI, and then itgave them items they could use
in the real world.
It was like Zix Level 1 orsomething.
I can't recall his full name.
Well see, obviously in Koreaespecially people want to get
hit by trucks and wake up withsuperpowers.

(27:45):
Really badly.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
I mean, from what I've seen, people in Korea do
want to be reincarnated into adifferent world, but Truck-kun
does not make an appearance inmost Korean manhwa Well.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
I kind of want to follow that one up a bit where
I'm shitting on solo leveling.
It is by far the best of allthe examples I've listed by like
a lot, like the only egosidesbetter than it that come to mind
were like Inuasha when it wasairing.
And let's be honest, if thisand Inuasha were, airing at the
same time.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
This is better.
Oh man, so, but I we're nottalking about Chinese anime or
Manua.
Slightly differentpronunciation, I don't know.
It's very similar but differentfrom Korean.
But anyways, the point is thethe Life of Daily Life of the

(28:43):
Mortal King, a fairly excellentshow for the first three seasons
, and then the fourth season.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
I'm going to pivot into Tower of God first.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Okay, okay.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
So have you seen Tower of God yet?
Or read it.
That is not one that I read sotower of god has the exact
opposite problem with solarleveling.
Oh so, tower of god is you haveprotagonist kid who decides to
climb this mcguffin tower toimpress his childhood crush,
basically that he grew up with,and then, while climbing the
tower, he becomes friends with,basically, lario from hunter.

(29:16):
Hunter, a lizard man gets likeweird water energy controlly
powers and the first season ofthis, which was like 12 episodes
, has.
They didn't explain shit rightthey didn't even try like, and
the thing is, what's funny isfor those first 12 episodes it
worked, but then they had a timeskip where he came back as edgy

(29:37):
in an Akatsuki cloak and had toclimb again.
But they still haven'texplained what the fuck the
tower is or what the point.
Apparently there's a casesystem based on how you climb
the tower.
They weren't actually preparedto explain why some people have
devil horns in this tower andwhy there's just a straight up
crocodile man.
They had no intention of everexplaining this and then I think

(29:59):
it led on for too long andimploded on itself Because the
second season's like here's thestakes.
I'm like there are no stakesbecause none of this makes any
sense and it's like Special Boyhad the Special Boy power to
control the water the best, Iguess but they just weren't
actually committed.
Like it was basically someone'slike I'm gonna write a tuning
exam that takes place on a towerand something happens at the

(30:21):
top and that's as far as theygot in brainstorming it.
So I gotta say, like SoulLeveling beats Tower of God,
which didn't even try.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
Um, but like soul leveling beats tower of god,
which didn't even try, um.
But for the anime, specificallyum, I told you that I think
that season four of immortalking was mediocre.
Um, and I'm not sure if this isactually a trend or if it's
something I should really beconcerned about, but one of the
things that I thought wasmediocre, uh, was um.
There's a battle where um I'mblanking on his name but the

(31:01):
immortal King imbues his, hislady friend, with one one
millionth of his power, and thenthey have this epic battle
against the, the other evil badguy, um, and evil bad guy um,
and uh, the.
I don't want to disparage theanimators, but they didn't know

(31:21):
how to animate a fight and itended up just being like a burst
of funky colors and shapes andit's like I.
I was really disappointed withthat fight, considering the
quality of the fight scenes fromthe first three seasons what's
funny is like to loop back tomoving from korea to chinese
productions.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
So the daily life of the immortal king is a sweet
spot between.
It's like if one punch man hadinteresting world building and a
compelling character.
So I've talked a fair amountabout how the overpowered
characters they go one of twoways.
You go I'm an angsty, lonerkirato way, where it's like I'm
so edgy and all my superpowerswon't make me happy.

(31:58):
Or you go the saitama way, whereyou have all the superpowers
but they have nothing to do withtrying to live a normal life
right so the first season of thedaily life of the immortal king
, I think, is better than onepunch man, because they also
have the weirdest setting, sosoul leveling, being like, yeah,
we're in tokyo, but gates andmonsters cool whatever the hell
is going on in the daily life ofthe immortal king with flying

(32:20):
swords and yin yang spacestations and magic pills and
crystal pokeballs and a powersystem about like ascending to
different stages of ascensionfor some reason and just Chief
Toad being turned into a wolf.
The background setting has somuch stuff going on.
A character's like I'm just abutterfly demon.

(32:42):
I'm like, what is that?
I have questions, but, unlikeTower of God, they have the
answers.
They can explain their setting.
They explain how they'reessentially Regan from Mob
Psycho.
Got his impressors impressed.
They can explain their setting.
They explain how they'reessentially regan from mob
psycho.
Got his promotion because hewas a good dude, so the kids,
just like you, could just havethe credit.
And he's like trying to be abetter person while being like

(33:04):
part of the elite sword policeto fight the literal assassins.
And it's just like a characterlike I'm a Jurek's ascendant of
Sun Wukong.
I'm like why?
But awesome, so like hissetting is.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
I think I would like it even more if, instead of
overpowered protagonists, I justgot more of this ridiculous
setting but so the point I wastrying to make about that
particular fight scene fromseason 4 well, not even
necessarily is it was bad.
Well, not even necessarily thethat it's bad Like.
Firstly, I am wondering, like,uh, the Dragon Ball Broly movie,

(33:44):
uh wasn't quite as bad, butBroly and uh Fujita were
fighting or Gogeta, I don'tremember which.
Anyways, fusion and broly arefighting, uh.
And then it's just like, for noexplained reason within the

(34:05):
movie and I don't know if it'sbeen explained anywhere in any
part of this they got likepunched out of reality.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
Oh no, you cut out.
I think you got punched out ofreality for a second.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
I got punched funny, funny, funny.

Speaker 2 (34:24):
I gotta make our tech issues entertaining, or what am
I even doing here?

Speaker 1 (34:29):
but so firstly I'm wondering have you noticed an
increase in fight scenes, justhaving scenes that aren't really
fights, they're just explosionsof color yes, also the cubes.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
Have you noticed that things explode into cubes now?

Speaker 1 (34:48):
I'm not kidding, things just get punched into
cubes.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
But um, the latest episode of um solo leveling at
this point, um is, uh, the maincharacter fighting the demon
king in his in this s-classdungeon which by the way at what
point does it stop being randomchance and that this kid's just

(35:15):
cursed because it's like I gointo a dungeon and there's
always something gimmickly andwrong with it, and the show's
trying to play it off like it'snot his fault.
It's his fault, though, right?

Speaker 1 (35:25):
uh, well, I mean this dungeon.
He, specifically, he completeda quest and got a, a blessed key
to open the dungeon, uh, andthen it's just a hundred-floor
tower of fighting demons andwhen he gets to the top he
fights the Demon King who giveshim the final piece to the
Elixir of Life, which heultimately does use to save his

(35:46):
mom from her unnamed eternalslumber, illness or whatever,
which, again, that's part of thewhole emotional core, because,
even as he's becoming a worseand worse person, he'd never
lose his sight of his goal tohelp his mom and put his sister
through school and his mom'sillness is called being a mother
in an anime it is a dangerous,dangerous profession there are

(36:08):
some, uh, artistic choices theymade during that fight that I
didn't particularly enjoy, butat the same time it was the most
epic and cinematic fight.
It was so good I had to watch ittwice because it's like man
this is and they're just.

(36:30):
It was actually just lookedlike a choreographed fight where
they had thoughtful moments ofpausing and parries and the
camera just swings around themas they're fighting.
So Soul Leveling is wellwritten and has peak fight
sequences.

(36:50):
It's true.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
Soul Leveling has the second prettiest fight
animations this season, or third, third prettiest, which is
pretty good.
It loses to Bleach ThousandYear Blood War, shockingly.
And it loses to Arcane, likeeveryone else, arcane's just out
here being like hey, I see youmade a fantasy movie.
I'm Laura of the Rings.
You're like well, that's notfair.

(37:11):
Arcane's like hey, what if thismovie had a larger budget than
Sonic 3?
It's like but you're a series.
Yes, they're like every frameof Arcane could be an Imagine
Dragons music video.
It's some nonsense.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
Slash news.
Moving on from showering sololeveling with praise, like I say
, I no, you have to balance itbecause I showered it with
negativity.
I think that your friend iscorrect that solo leveling is at
least up to the end of seasonone of the manhwa.
I haven't read past chapter 110, because I was like I'm just

(37:50):
going to wait for the anime tocatch up.
Chapter 110 because I was likeI'm just going to wait for the
anime to catch up, but at leastto the end of the first season
of the manhwa is, I think,tightly written and just so.
They captured the essence ofthe manhwa so perfectly with all
these awesome fight sequences.

(38:10):
And yet there's all muchpolitical stuff going on in the
background, with Jeju Island,which it comes up a lot in
Manhwa because it's actuallyKorea's largest island Just Jeju
Island is the real place.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
Chilling there, being awesome.
So to pivot into the daily lifeof the Immortal King a bit.
So does it have the best fightscenes?
No.
Does it have several of thebest jokes I've ever seen?
Yes, so I'm a strong advocateof watching it dubbed, which I
mean I probably just lost halfour fan base for there.
But I stand by it because likethe delivery of froggy, to be

(38:45):
like.
Why do I hear theme musicbefore being up a kind of space?
So it's one of those comedieswhere the show treats itself
seriously.
But it's just absurd, like whenhe breaks into the third
dimension and they turn it intoa PS2 cutscene until he crashes
the universe.
It's actually my favorite jokeof all time dimensional space in

(39:10):
three dimensions, but you canshow three dimensional space in
two dimensions, like that's somuch more clever than this
deserves.
Why is this so clever?
Or just I love the bit ofthrowing the weapon around the
world.
Even though they did it twice,that bit was good both times.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
Well, like I say, I didn't really like season four
because seasons one throughthree had this through line of
the relationship between.
Okay, what is his name?
Again, I don't even rememberhis name.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
Wang Ling.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
Ling Ling.
Well, that's his pet name,anyway, wang Ling.
Well, in North America we wouldcall him ling wong, I guess,
but anywho, asian countriesanyways.
So wong ling, um, and froggytoo.
Uh, they have an arc together.
That's so good comes together,it's so good, uh, and it ends at

(40:10):
the third season, and it endsat the third season and then the
fourth season.
Like I said, it had a differentstudio, so the light quality
dropped drastically with thestyle and choices they made.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
And then they reused a lot of jokes and they just did
make some weird choices, likeopening with the Men in Black
neuralyzer thing let's be honest, the problem with season 4 is
if the show just ended at season3 it would just be locked and
goaded like I don't think theyhad 4 seasons of things to milk

(40:47):
from it but I don't know likethey could go a direction.
But he also blew up theuniverse like and rebuilt it.
Yeah, I mean I just so, let'smove away from that to something
that we both know is too good,and when it someday gets
animated it'd be amazing.

(41:08):
But they pulled a Star Warswhere.
Oh Well, the first part reallygood, the second part even
better, the third part, eh, theyknew it'd be worse, so they
never bothered.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
So we're getting into the breaker.
The breaker.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
So the breaker's so wild to me so it starts with the
deck and plot arc of let's justgive a kid superpowers to
introduce him to the setting andthat part made my eyes roll but
I'm like, oh man, thisprotagonist is just such a
douche nozzle training hisapprentice like he's just a bad,
bad dude.
And I was all for this.
I was all for asshole kakashibecause nine arts dragon did not

(41:47):
have gojo syndrome.
Gojo's problem was gojo couldhave just fixed every problem in
the show, but chose not tobecause reasons?
right niner's dragon could havefixed every problem in the show
but was too busy being anunrepentant asshole who
basically got gaslighted totaking care of a kid because his
girlfriend didn't really givehim any outs and it's like.

(42:10):
So the first season of thebreaker was really good and but
I had that little pet peeve ofokay, you Deku'd him, you gave
him a bunch of powers off thestart.
Why are you doing this?
Eh, whatever.
And the second season theyUndeku'd him.
I'm like, okay, now he has toactually learn to do it.
And I was super on board withthat, because my rant with Deku

(42:31):
and my problem always was, ifyour moral of your story is hard
work and effort, handing peoplepower-ups is some bullshit.
Now, handing people power-upsat the start so you can get to
the cool stuff, and then takingthem away and making them do it
again, can be really good, butwe each dropped the ball a bit
because they tried Nobody likesfull bringers.

(42:54):
Well, no one likes full bringers, but also he didn't really have
to work to get his powers back.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
Right.

Speaker 2 (42:59):
Because they nerfed him, then gave him the different
powers, then said, ah, screw it, and nerfed him again, then
gave him back his full powersthat he originally had.
I'm like, what was the point ofany of this?
And Bleach also had the problemthat, like.
And bleach also had the problemthat, like, by the time he
loses his powers, there's like13 good guys that can bail him
out.
You're like, why?
I remember reading that arc andbeing like so why isn't like a

(43:21):
soul reaper watching this tolike, send in the troops this
whole time?
Like, why are you guys lettingthis play out?
It's like, oh, bags reasons.
And I'm like, yeah, you don'tknow either, do you?
Well, moving on from that, likesome of my favorite scenes in
manga are or mawa in this case,the cast punch, that's like top

(43:42):
tier the snipe, the best snipein fiction, got me so good yeah,
it came completely out ofnowhere, which I mean a sniper
should.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
But like, guns aren't just a real thing in this
setting, people mostly don't usethem because if you can see the
gun, yeah they'll just run upand punch you in the face before
you can even actually use saidgun.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
But not only that, they went out of their way to
reduce their gun resistance bymaking them climb up through
smoke and powder and dideverything they could to lower
their super martial artist tothen just shoot them in the
goddamn face.
And then the third one is whenhe had no super martial arts and
the person put a hundred tonsof force on his fist where he
broke both his ankle and hisfist on that guy's face.
Well, technically that guy'sface broke his ankle and his

(44:29):
fist.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
Oh, but that guy was knocked right out.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
Like that was such a good moment of we took away your
powers.
What are you gonna do?
Throw hands?

Speaker 1 (44:40):
Use your own powers against you Like.
You control gravity, so howabout if you fall on my fist?
That's gonna hurt.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
Right.
And then like you get to liketheir rematch where Nyan Shrag
is just kicking escalators atpeople.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
But like you get to like their rematch where Night
of Shrug is just kickingescalators at theirs at people.

Speaker 2 (44:55):
But like the escalator stairs thing was cool,
but the cast thing was coolbecause it got me.
That's the thing is.
I'm so genre savvy that it'srare for me to just get got like
that and I got got good.

Speaker 1 (45:09):
Well, they got you twice in quick succession too,
because it's like I don'tremember if that was before or
after.
I think that was before thesnipe.
So it's like you get this bigmoment where it's been like
probably half the series, wherehe's been wearing a cast,
recovering from a broken arm,and then he just like turns
around and punches someone andbreaks his cast off, and then

(45:32):
after that epic moment do youthink you can't be any more
surprised until his girlfriendjust gets sniped out of nowhere.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
And I also really liked where it's like okay,
they're doing the chakra thing,but they're more subtle about it
.
But the best martial arts inthe world's signature technique
was step around you and punchyou in the skull.
And I just low-key was so happywith the cunning strategy of
sidestep face punch.

Speaker 1 (45:58):
But like I don't want them to do an anime for the
breaker unless they're giving itsolo levelings budget, but also
they need to bring the originalauthor back to finish it,
because it is not even remotelydone, because they very clearly
built it to be three acts yeah,I think the third act is being
released right now uh, but thisis probably I should probably do

(46:21):
something about that uh, butI'm also not a hundred percent
certain that I actually read allthe way to the end of the
second act, because they took ahiatus to write a different
series right when they announcedthe like tournament, which I
remember you kind of being irateabout that.
That they're like oh, it's likean anime law you have to have a

(46:44):
tournament in your series,especially if it's about martial
arts well, it makes sense.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
I'd be irate about that because, well, I'm just
going to say, remember whathappened with JJK and how that
went down.
Does that not prove I'm justright that everything doesn't
need a fucking tuning exam?
And, like I'm someone whowatched all of Baki and all of
Kanganashira, if you're going todo, a tournament.

(47:09):
It's fine if that's your pointof your show.
But like just throwing in atournament.
It's fine if that's your pointof your show, but like just
throwing in a tournament cuzdoesn't work if you haven't
built up a cast of characters.
I care about fighting, sothat's kind of.
The problem is like the breakervery much followed.
I know the protagonist couldn'ttell you his name.
I know narns dragon and there'sa few side characters I see

(47:30):
show up once in a while none ofthem would I ever read a full
chapter about?
because I do not care, they donot matter.
Like sketchy doctor dude'sentire goal was to be like oh,
he's a good dude, so I'm gonnaput aside my romeo and juliet
nonsense and help him.
And that was the guy's entirearc.

Speaker 1 (47:47):
And my cool guy that's fun dude whose name I
don't remember uh, in any event,uh, they um, they finished the
second arc, which I haven't readyet, and they started the third
arc, which I also haven't readyet, because, a it's ongoing and

(48:09):
b uh, it's sort of lockedbehind a paywall on the app that
I'm using and I don't likepaying for stuff we're so used
to like in our scandalous youthmanga was just, it was the Wild
West, and I'm not going to saywhat I did or didn't do, but you
could acquire manga prettyeasily and it was pretty
unregulated and people wouldjust upload things that were
just fan comics with the regularmanga and you would never know

(48:34):
Like it, Like it was just theuntamed seas, Some wild nonsense
.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
But do you have any other mawa or Chinese mawa you
want to highlight while we're onit?

Speaker 1 (48:45):
Because I think we've done a full episode of the.

Speaker 2 (48:47):
Breaker before, and I'm fine with that.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
I don't have any other Chinese content that I
know about, as I mentioned toyou off stream as well.
Uh, there's a app.
I'm gonna double check what thename is, but I think um not a
sponsor.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
oh yeah, another series I watched was the first
little bit of before I gave upwas the god of high school,
because it's we're going to do amartial arts tournament where
everyone gets superpowers of adeity, and then it was just kind
of not good.
Ah, too bad, Because it's likeit's not like it's going to be a
martial arts thing, and thenit's like actually we're doing

(49:26):
that thing where my maincharacter has monkey king powers
.
I'm like I've only ever seenthat work once.

Speaker 1 (49:31):
just stop, go away uh , so anyway the the app is
called webtoon I feel like Idon't know what webtoon is at
this point?
Probably um, and I I actuallyreally enjoy it because I've
just kind of been reading randomseries, um and one series that.

(49:53):
So actually I have a questionfor you how long can a series go
before it establishes a actualemotional core?
Uh, before you think that it'snot good enough to even finish
reading?

Speaker 2 (50:12):
It really depends because in my youth I got some
really far deep into some lamestuff but current me.
They got ten chapters to hookme.

Speaker 1 (50:24):
With the emotional core.

Speaker 2 (50:25):
Yeah, like let's take Sidcraft, for example.
Sidcraft has hooked me aroundchapter seven, I think.
It was when it's like, okay,you've created this weird
triangle and I'm invested nowbecause you're like okay we have
a background villain.
The protagonist is not a creepand he wants nothing more than

(50:46):
to be in a romcom, but can't lethimself be in a romcom.
But it's like, okay, like, evenlike the assistant character.
I'm like, okay, everyone'smotivation here checks out, let
himself be in a rom-com.
But it's like, okay, even theassistant character.
I'm like, okay, everyone'smotivation here checks out, and
everyone's actually a good,likable person and that's all
their problems is they keepsabotaging themselves because
they're busy being good people,because the core issue of the

(51:08):
show is he can't not save theday and it's very distracting.
He'll be like huh, now that I'mfinally no longer distracted.
Yeah, that's a murder.
I should probably do somethingabout it.
I was enjoying my hot cocoa,damn it.

Speaker 1 (51:23):
Well, so solo leveling is about these portals
that open up and they allow youto explore these dungeons filled
with monsters, and thenmonsters can come out of the
dungeons and attack the world,and people have awakened powers
to fight these monsters.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
Like you do.

Speaker 1 (51:43):
Solo Spellcaster.
The Solo Spellcaster Also Imean this might be a
mistranslation, but because it'salso translated as the lone
spellcaster but solo spellcasteris about these portals that
open the way to dungeons thatpeople explore with powers that
they've awakened to fight themonsters.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
What no?

Speaker 1 (52:04):
way.
Yeah, it's the exact samesetting.
And then our main character hasa close encounter with death
and awakens video game-esquesuperpowers.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
Yeah, that's less good than Leviathan.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
Leviathan.
Oh, it's so good.
And so, firstly, I think thatSolo Spellcaster probably named
itself intentionally to ride offthe hype of solo leveling yeah,
you want it sitting next tosolo leveling on the bookshelf.

Speaker 2 (52:34):
So when they go to buy soul leveling and the new
issue's not out, they mightaccidentally pick up soul's
bowcaster.
Yeah, he would probably legallychange his pen name to be one
letter off of the author too.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
But it doesn't have a very strong emotional core
within those first two chapters.
Yeah, it's almost like the maincharacter wrote it, the in
those first two chapters.
Yeah, it's almost like thefolks who wrote it.
The main character is just ageneric salaryman who's on his
way to close some sort ofbusiness deal when he gets
jumped by monsters and awakenshis power and then literally
says fuck you to his boss Likethat's a quote.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
Eh.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
As I said before, you have to be careful for F-bombs.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
You have to be careful for.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
F-bombs, you have to have people not expect them.
But so then he proceeds to usehis powers in a completely
different way than Gene Wu fromSolo Leveling, because he uses
his powers to amass incrediblewealth and political influence
while he's investigating theorigin of his powers yeah, I
need to pause here for twominutes incredible wealth and
political influence while he'sinvestigating the origin of his

(53:36):
powers.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
Yeah, I need to pause here for a few minutes and give
an unrelated rant aboutsomething I'm still mad about.
Oh, so, do you remember whenthey did like that Death Note
one-shot of the kid who foundthe Death Note and tried to do
like a banking scheme to sell itto the president?
Right, right, I am so mad thatthe guy's plan was good, so like
, actually, we had a new rulethat you just die if you sold it
.
It applies now, so you die.
I was so mad about that becausethat was the part that made me

(54:00):
upset.
It's like no, you're not cleverif you just change the premise,
that's it.
I don't know why it made methink of that, but it's like
yeah, if you want to have youlike, I'll get my superpowers to
mount's wealth.
That could be interesting ifthe writer knows how to do it
compellingly.

Speaker 1 (54:17):
Well so Solo Spellcaster, I think, grabs in
its audience because it readsmore like a dating sim than a
serious fantasy like sololeveling.

Speaker 2 (54:26):
Bah.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
Because he kind of sort of builds himself up a
harem of female.
Isn't it ironic that?

Speaker 2 (54:33):
I'm like screw this, as I'm excited to read Sidcraft,
because at least Sidcraft is aself-aware harem.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
Yeah, and then he actually starts dating one of
them and it's like I've read 110chapters of Solo Spellcaster
because that happens to be thenumber of chapters of Solo
Leveling and I feel like it'sonly now starting to, uh, show
its emotional core.
Um, and it's like, how, howmuch time do I invest?

Speaker 2 (55:05):
how can I actually say that this is good because
eventually it gets around to anadequate emotional core and an
interesting mystery you cannot,I'm sorry I say that like I
didn't read the entirety of mageand demon queen um, there are

(55:28):
are three other series that Iwant to highlight really quick.
Oh, I'm quickly highlighting ageand Demon Queen.
So the premise of Mage andDemon Queen is this mage in a
fantasy setting is supposed tobe an adventurer and is just
trying to hit on the Demon Queenthe entire time instead of
actually doing it.
That is, her entire goal Is tobe like no, I have a crush on
the actual villain and thevillain has a crush on them, but

(55:49):
they're busy being the demonqueen and the mage yeah, okay it
is trash and it is delightfultrash uh, but so, um, another
series.

Speaker 1 (56:03):
I I actually did read this one, because it's called
the lone necromancer.
Uh, and I'm like, okay, likeagain this could be a
translation error, but I'mamused a, because uh jinwu uh in
solo leveling becomes anecromancer, uh, so there's that
crossover and then obviously,the lone necromancer could
potentially be a pokemon trainer, but that's not either there um

(56:29):
, but uh, that one is aninteresting.
It's actually a completelydifferent implementation of the
level-up system, because,instead of it being given to a
single player, it's like okay,the entire world has just been
turned into a video game andpeople have to choose their

(56:50):
class within 20 seconds and then, if they don't choose a class,
they get a second chance, and ifthey don't choose a class at
that point, they get turned intomonsters because they decided
not to be players.
And that one I actually really,really enjoy the contrast and

(57:12):
how they implemented the samebasic premise a necromancer that
levels up in a video game-esquesystem laid over the real world
.
But yet it's so substantiallydifferent and it doesn't exactly
have this.
It has a pretty good emotionalcore too, because our main
character is is a young collegestudent who served in the

(57:34):
military to become strongerbecause uh he wants to be able
to show a leveling.

Speaker 2 (57:40):
I missed every anime it's a bonus one star bump on me
if you make your protagonist anactual adult yeah, well, that's
like bills to pay it, a life tolive.
like I said, if they didn't egosI am and they put him anywhere
else I would have been so many.
It's like I took a star awaybecause there's a leveling
system and I would give it back.

(58:01):
If it had a hard magic systemfrom something better, like if
we were using Legend of theLegendary Heroes, logic of
swords and spells and things,I'd be completely on board again
.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
Well.
So again, I feel like the solonecromancer, or sorry, lone
necromancer, has a solidemotional core and really nice
visuals as well.
So I think that one, despitebeing in the same genre and
general vein, is unique enoughthat it should exist on its own.

(58:35):
I'm not sure about SoloSpellcaster.
Apparently it's very popularagain, probably because of the
harem of beautiful women thatsurround the main character,
because he's the main character.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
Like I said, a rom-com can work.
This is my last mini-rant.
Horror is a terrible genre thatI've read a ton of in my life.

Speaker 1 (58:58):
Right.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
I've also read a fair number of visual novels.
It's a curse.
My problem is to create abalanced dating sim environment.
They're designed that you goone romance at a time.
And then a show tries to belike okay, we'll have five
options, but don't bother togive those characters interplay
with each other, and that's whatkills the?

(59:18):
genre like.
For that to work, these need tobe actual characters, which
means they have to have screentime and dynamics, which will
never happen in thiscircumstance, because this is
just being the worst.
Also, throw a guy in yourharems, be fair.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
So Lone Spellcaster, another manhwa that I oh sorry
the Lone Necromancer, I don'trecommend the Lone Spellcaster.
It's gone on for far too longand I think it's stupid.

Speaker 2 (59:49):
So here's a weird hot take because I want to throw in
one of my recommendations thatwe've raised over social media.
I really liked Leviathan and inmy brain it's good Attack on
Titan.

Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
I concur, leviathan was an excellent read.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
Because, yeah, it's very much Attack on Titan.
If they got their head in astress, it's like I'd say it's
very much Attack on Titan.
If they got their head in astress, it's like I'd say it's
somewhere between Attack onTitan and Monster Hunter, in my
opinion.
I can't tell you anycharacter's name.
That information is forevergone in my brain, but I was

(01:00:25):
thoroughly amused by AquaticMonster Hunter.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
Yeah, I thought that was an excellent series.
The next series I want tohighlight is one called Paranoid
Mage.
I thought it was good.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
I'm deep into the Ikasai waters this season.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
No, it's not.
None of these are actuallyisekais.
That's the thing.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
Yeah, okay, a reverse Ikasai is still an Ikasai.

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
Well, okay, Like, a reverse Ikasai is still an
Ikasai.
Well okay, Like, do you thinkit's not exactly a great example
?
But John Wick has a hiddensociety of assassins.
If someone ends up in theassassin world, does that make
it an isekai?
Because it's in the real world.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
If a stat screen shows up where they can move
around their skill points, thenbecause that's what breaks it?
It's the stat screen thatbreaks me.
Then you hold up your hand.
You're scanning things andpicking skills like you're in a
bad vr game.
That's what breaks me.
If chan wu's leveling systemwas a talking animal like in

(01:01:28):
Madoka Magica, who is like avery clearly evil, soft-spoken
QB type, who is like and now youdo this, I'm good.
If it's a talking lizard, I'mgood.
It's the fact that it's afucking stat screen.
That is the most annoying tropeto me.
I'm fine with the portalopening and you go into a

(01:01:49):
dungeon and you kill things andlearn new spells it's not you
have to use a fucking chatwindow for it.
Real video games all use thesame menu UI now, other than
maybe Persona, they all have theexact same garbage windows that
Fortnite uses.
Why does your magic system useFortnite?

(01:02:10):
Graphics Be better.

Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
But so Paranoid Mage.
I thought it was going to be avideo game system type game.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
And it did have a strategy.

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
It didn't.
Oh, it was about a characterlike so Enjoy a hot star post On
the day of his mother's funeral.
After the funeral, the maincharacter whose name I don't
remember.

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
I'm really bad with these Korean names.
I have to get this off mysystem.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
I thought you said the last one was your last mini
rant.

Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
I lied.
So one of the first Ikisai's Iever watched was Digimon World
right Characters literallythrown into a digital world with
their partner Digimon.
Right Characters literallythrown into a digital world with
their partner Digimon thatdidn't have stat screens pop up
where it would have made logicalsense, because they realized it
was stupid.
A character pulled a laptop outof their bag to do digital
things, or they had their littledigital computer in their hand

(01:03:04):
to do digital things, instead ofjust a magic floating screen.
What angles does it look at?
Why can't other people see it?
How does that work?

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
Why, I'm good, I'm good Paranoid Mage, the main
character.
He's at his mother's funeral,and then he decides to go to the
gym, and while he's at the gym,his trainer gets attacked and
turns out his trainer is somesort of dragonborn that breathes
fire, and so the gym ends upstarting on fire and he

(01:03:37):
accidentally awakens his ownsuperpower, which is to create
portals.
Well, he's a spatial mage.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
Damn it.
I feel like my idea got swipedhere, but please continue.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
And so he ends up saving a mundane, as the series
calls them, with his magic.
And then the Guild for ArcaneRegulation GAR for short is like
hey, you use magic, so you'regoing to have to work.
You're going to say that he hasto serve a draft with this
arcane regulation organizationand he's just like actually no,

(01:04:11):
I'm out of here, I'm just gonnabe on the run for the rest of my
life.

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
Man.
The fact that he's an actualdragonborn though like that it's
just a dragon man with a towelover his shoulder is just great.

Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
He's not actually a dragonborn.
I'm pretty sure he's actuallyjust a dragon and he has a
humanoid avatar.
But then he, like like, goesdragon mode to breathe fire and
beat up this guy that attackedhim and causes collateral damage
.

Speaker 2 (01:04:38):
Like I didn't hate this one, to be fair.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
The reason I recommend this one, and this
might be a little bit of aspoiler, but it's like he's on
the run, he's trying to learnabout his powers, and then he
has to fight a nest of vampires,and so it's like the first nest
of vampires he fights, he justhe creates portals beside their
heads and just shoots them inthe head with a shotgun.

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
So this sounds pretty good, like, I feel like I
should spend my time with thisone, because I gave it a first
chapter read and I'm like itseems to address most of my
concerns of people not beingwilling to make their own
fictional setting but so thenthe second nest of vampires he
has to fight.

Speaker 1 (01:05:18):
He's like, okay, I gotta be smarter about this,
because they know I'm coming, sohe drops thermite bombs into
their nest so oh man and thenthe third attack that he has to
do, and this is the one that'sthe most clever, because he's
learning more and more about hispowers and he learns how to

(01:05:39):
create a little like pocketdimension bubble that has more
space on the inside than it hason the outside.
So he takes the amount of waterit takes to fill a jar and then
he puts that water into hislittle bubble dimensional bubble
.
Then he puts that water intohis little bubble dimensional
bubble.
Then he fills that jar withshrapnel and teleports the

(01:05:59):
shrapnel jar into the generatorfor the building he's trying to
take down, basically, andreleases the water from the
pocket dimension, which expandsand causes the shrapnel to
explode outward to take out thisgenerator so that he can just
warp in, do his thing and leave.
And it's like I can't wait tosee how much more clever this

(01:06:23):
author can get with ways to usethese spatial powers.
It's just that it's so cool.

Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
So, like as someone who has a character with spatial
powers and the thing I'mworking on, yeah, spatial powers
are cool.

Speaker 1 (01:06:39):
And then a complete pivot Well, not a complete pivot
, because it's still an actionseries.
But I'm going to start with onequestion.
Can you name a series wheresomeone works for an
organization and the number onerule is don't get emotionally
attached and they don't fall inlove?

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
And they don't fall in love.
Ooh, that got spicy.

Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
I asked this to one of my co-workers and they said
that Obi-Wan Kenobi has enoughscreen time that he might count,
because he did actually end upbeing a Jedi warrior with no
worldly attachments, right tothe end.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
But thankfully I purged the Obi-Wan show from my
memory.
The Obi-Wan show was terrible,but I mean in Clone Wars he
hooks up with Mandalorians.

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
Anyways.
So Mafia nanny is a seriesabout, about, uh, an elite nanny
.
She trains at the elite nannyacademy.
Um and uh, her parents weremurdered by mafia, by the mafia,
and so she becomes a nanny toan underboss so that she can

(01:07:52):
investigate the death of herparents.

Speaker 2 (01:07:56):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:07:58):
But the number one rule of the nanny organization
is don't fall in love.
And obviously the twocharacters are going to fall in
love.

Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
It would be weirder if they didn't.
It's like I literally got thatnote on a chapter I was revising
where it's like either you makethis relationship better or
just don't.
You could just not.
And I'm like, but for someoneto accidentally murder their
loved one, it does work betterif they love them.

Speaker 1 (01:08:28):
But the premise, I think, sounds cheesy, but the
execution, the way that itdefinitely shifts from this
childlike wonder of watchingthis kid and trying to get the
kid to actually like her andprotect the kid, and then it

(01:08:50):
shifts to these action sequenceswhere the kid's in danger and
she has to respond.
And then it switches to thepolitical side of being a family
member of a mafia family andwhat it means and how they
literally find people andtorture them in the series so,

(01:09:13):
like the show, this one'sgangsters are actually gangsters
they are.
They are straight up gangsters.
Uh.
And then her, uh, change ofheart where she's like oh, can I
actually be a part of thisworld where I know people are
just straight up being torturedand murdered?
Uh, I, I accidentally searchedfor this guy and then he got
brought back here to be murdered.
Like, is that my fault?

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
Oh man so now.
I can't talk about the newchapter of Kagura Banshee
because it'll take too long, butsimilar vibes.

Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
Mafia Nanny.
I mean it sounds stupid, butsurprisingly nuanced and complex
characters with, again, anexcellent emotional core of her
trying to investigate the deathof her parents without like,
because she is working for oneof the families that may have
been involved with the murder,so it doesn't want to get found

(01:10:04):
out that she's from this other,basically mafia family while
she's trying to investigate thedeath.
Oh man, man it's.
I was completely caught offguard by what I thought was
going to be a stupid series, andit turned out to be extremely
competently written like.

Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
That's like a recurring theme where people
like to be like oh, it's thisidea to cliche to them, like
anything could be well written.
It could catch you off guardwhen it's well written because,
like you're right, if youpitched me this, anything can be
well written and can catch youoff guard when it's well written
Because, like you're right, ifyou pitched me this story I
would have rolled my eyes Likeno, no, but it's for real.

Speaker 1 (01:10:43):
They actually got it figured, they went for real with
it.
Yeah, like that's right.
They literally have likegunfights and like gunfights and
kidnappings and politicalintrigue.
It's so good.

Speaker 2 (01:10:55):
Nice, and with that we'll move on to our random
question of the week.
So first random question.
This is an interesting one.
Would you rather be the onlyperson in the world that
understands sarcasm, or the onlyperson who doesn't?

Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
Hmm, the only person.
Hmm, well see, a lot of peoplewith autism actually end up
having hard times with sarcasm.
What thing, my brother's wife.

(01:11:33):
It's hilarious to prank her bysaying something sarcastically
and then she takes it seriouslyand then you just kind of keep
snowballing and then eventuallyit's like, hmm, this sounds made
up.
And it's like, oh yeah, you'reright, you got me, it was all
sarcasm.
She's like, ah, dang it, I knewit.
It's like, oh yeah, you'reright, you got me, it was all
sarcasm.
She's like, ah, dang it, I knewit.
It's like, um, but just basedon on that interaction, um, I uh

(01:12:00):
, I don't think I want to be theonly person who doesn't
understand sarcasm so I'm gonnago the other way.

Speaker 2 (01:12:08):
So I think the problem is, if I was the only
person who understood sarcasm,it would be kind of useless
Because like, okay, I get that,I understand sarcasm, I'm using
sarcasm.
It's like that awful movieabout where everyone had to tell
the truth all the time but theylike couldn't lie of omission.

Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
The Invention of Lying with Ricky Gervais, no bad
.

Speaker 2 (01:12:32):
It's such a bad take on that concept.
Anywho, I think I'd rather bethe only person who doesn't,
because being the only personwho does, I don't think I could
get the reactions out of peopleI want.

Speaker 1 (01:12:45):
Ooh where, like I already have some communication
issues for like understandingpeople.

Speaker 2 (01:12:51):
So I don't think I need that extra filter.
I think I'd rather just beprofoundly oblivious and, just
like I said, I think I'd ratherbe your sister along the
scenario and be like thatdoesn't sound right.
Do, do, do, do, do.
But it's also like in my oldage of 35, ignorance is bliss
sometimes.
I think, just not catching it,I don't know, it's like a weird

(01:13:12):
kind of armor.
It's like people could beshit-talking me.
I would just have no idea everand I think I'd be better for it
, especially as a writer,because someone would write a
comment and be like that wassuch a good book.
I'm like, thank you,do-do-do-do-do, everything is
awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:13:28):
Well, I mean, I guess you're right being the only
person who understands sarcasmthat would Well, I thought it
could mean you could use sarcasmon people.
Well, yeah, but I mean like itwould essentially wipe out
sarcasm.
You'd be the only sarcasticperson.

Speaker 2 (01:13:45):
So I think it'd be more like let's rephrase it to
you're the best person at it orthe worst person at it.
To old, like let's rephrase itto you're the best person at it
or the worst person at it, tomake it a more applicable.
So neither just puts you inlike a weird bubble situation
where it's completely uselessand then I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
I still like being the idea of being the best at it
, being able to make thesassiest comments and I kind of
enjoy being the worst at itbecause it would give me
complete immunity to it.
That's why we're such a goodpair.
Indeed.

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
Although, ironically, I'm pretty sure I'm the more
sarcastic one, but maybe I justcan't read it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:22):
I do tend to be straightforward and earnest, I
hope.

Speaker 2 (01:14:26):
So our second question Would you rather be
able to rewind five minutes intothe past or see five minutes
into the future?

Speaker 1 (01:14:34):
Ooh, hmm.
Well, time travel always adifficult mechanic to deal with
when writing stories in general.
Seeing five minutes into thefuture, it's much more
reasonable, like'm thinking Swenfrom Black Cat.

Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
Yeah, I mean, but I kind of love being able to save
scum.
The downsides to the rewind iswhen you find yourself in a no
win scenario and you just sufferforever.
Like that's when you findyourself oh, they locked me in a
room and I run out of air infive minutes and I can go back
exactly far enough to suffocateforever.
Where the future feels likeyou're changing it more, but

(01:15:19):
also like it's the five minutesin the future feels like you
have less control over yourability but less chance of
getting yourself safe in ain-stil-lose scenario.

Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
Yeah, I think I'm going with the reading into the
future, provided that seeing theprophecy doesn't cause it to be
concrete.

Speaker 2 (01:15:40):
Alright and I think I'm actually going to keep the
saves coming, but partly becauseI'm just so accident-prone.
Like time travel's dangerous,but my primary use is to not
hurt myself.
Like crap, I burned it.
Crap, I burned it.
It's stuck in the infinite loopbecause I burned it five
minutes ago, like I shouldn'thave this power, but I think I'm
taking it anyway, deliberately,choosing a terrible ability

(01:16:07):
because I think it'd be funnywith someone like me having that
power.

Speaker 1 (01:16:10):
Choosing a terrible ability because I think it'd be
funny with someone like mehaving that power.
I don't know what actual use Iwould have for looking five
minutes into the future, but Iwould like that oh no, you.

Speaker 2 (01:16:17):
I know exactly what you do with it because you're
both boring and prudent.
Someone walks in the door andyou already rung up their owner
every time and it starts to getuncanny and people are trying to
be like I'm gonna get.
Yeah, I know, I already got it.
You're like how.

Speaker 1 (01:16:34):
I would get extremely annoyed with the customers that
take more than five minutes toplace the order, though.

Speaker 2 (01:16:41):
Yeah, but you also know now, so you can just go to
the bathroom and come back or bean ad celebrity, to be like
dude.
Are you going to take fiveminutes?
I think you're gonna, hmm.

Speaker 1 (01:17:00):
I think I would also.
Probably the more prudent useof it in my workplace is if I
see someone that I think issuspicious coming in and well, I
mean I can see it, look fiveminutes in the future and it's
like, okay, are they going to bea problem within the next five

(01:17:21):
minutes, or are they actuallygoing to place an order?
And if they're going to be aproblem in the next five minutes
, I just kick them out.

Speaker 2 (01:17:28):
You know it's really funny the quip I have to make.
I enjoy this version of realitywhere you can see five minutes
in the future and still lose toJeremy at Magic.
You know exactly when he'sgoing to play and when, and
there's not a damn thing you cando about it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:45):
See this is kind of like the rewind power, almost.

Speaker 2 (01:17:47):
I kind of like the idea you look into the future
and be like nope, shuffle thedeck, look again.
Like nope, shuffle the deck,look again.
Nope, shuffle the deck.
And it's just like, are yougonna keep shuffling, just play
your cards?
And then I'm like doing theopposite, where I'm like make
the wrong move, rewind time,make a different move,
completely still I'm wrong itturns out there is no right move

(01:18:10):
, we just lose time travel didnot help our win loss ratio but
with that, thank you everyonefor tuning in to carl and
richard present.

Speaker 1 (01:18:21):
Deep space and dragons uh, I appreciate the
alphabeticalness of it it couldbe fixed if you made us a new
banner.
Instead of taking a screenshotof a screenshot, it's like that
thing where someone goes toscreen share and it creates an
infinite cascade of their ownscreen.

(01:18:43):
Yeah, screenshot of ascreenshot.

Speaker 2 (01:18:46):
I feel like I need to give them a call to action, but
I don't really know what I wantthem to do.
I don't know.
Go buy local Canadian products.

Speaker 1 (01:18:53):
There we go, yeah, yeah, we actually my work just
released a new flyer.
It's our mascot and he'swearing a Canada jacket, he's on
a Canada snowboard, he's usinga Canada flag as a parachute and
then it says proudly Canadian,because we are, so are all your

(01:19:13):
ingredients Canadian sourced.
Yeah, that part I'm not 100%sure about.
I mean I assume, so I don'tknow.
Maybe Saputo actually getstheir stuff from Italy.
They're an Italian mafia familyapparently, so that's
interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:19:30):
Yeah, you're good.
Saputo's canadian dairy companycool.

Speaker 1 (01:19:33):
I was ready to fact check you live on this podcast,
but now they're based inmontreal and probably actual
monsters so you're a mafia nanny, so you're prepared for when
they try and take over you knowwhat's deeply concerning, though
.

Speaker 2 (01:19:49):
You know what the little blurb says about Saputo,
a leading cheese manufacturer influid milk and cream processor.
I'm like the sentence.
Fluid milk concerns me morethan it should.
That upsets me.

Speaker 1 (01:20:03):
You don't want none of that solid milk.

Speaker 2 (01:20:05):
Well, that's the thing.
The existence of fluid milkimplies solid and gaseous milk,
and we don't need that up inhere.

Speaker 1 (01:20:14):
Oh, because the existence of fluid milk implies
solid and gaseous milk, and wedon't need that up in here.
Yeah, just distill all the milkfats out of your milk.

Speaker 2 (01:20:18):
The last 2% is the hardest part.
That's why they leave it in themilk.
Bye, Bye Also.
Go out and vote.