Backlog Dialogues
Backlog Dialogues is the nerd culture podcast where we dig you out of your backlog, BEFORE it buries you. We attempt to bring a literary eye to nerd culture media, like video games, films, TV shows, and more. Think of us like a book club, but for video games and other types of media. Our second backlog-buster is: When They Cry!
Episodes
It's time to talk about one of the biggest anime hits ever, Neon Genesis Evangelion! Would you believe John hadn't watched the original series in full until recording for this podcast? We dive in to the characters, themes, and (third?) impact of the original series, and the fandom and culture that surrounds it. Does Shinji need to pilot the Eva? Does the religious symbolism mean anything? Is Gendo a wifeguy? The answers may be more...
It's time for an out-of-character after party! The cast discuss what happened in the story, and WE discuss the anime and manga adaptations of Onikakushi! What will happen next now that Keiichi, Rena, and Mion are all dead? Heck, what CAN happen next?
(For those who have seen all there is to see in When They Cry, there is an additional after party after the credits. If you are unbound from time, join your fellow monsters, won't you?...
Keiichi's story comes to a bloody and abrupt end. All around him are friends he can no longer see as friends. The hidden secrets of the village are coming for him, even as he gropes blindly for the truth. In the fight to protect himself, he pushes away everyone who he cared for, and picks up a bat. The stage is set. The tragedy is real. The truth is hidden. It will all end... when the higurashi cry.
Things start to get creepy in Hinamizawa. Keiichi finds himself being interrogated by shady cops and his friends start acting... strangely. Are the legends about demoning away real? Is Keiichi next? Also, will he ever get out of one of the most severe cases of denial you'll ever see?
The story begins! We meet Keiichi and his classmates, Rena, Mion, Satoko, and Rika, and get familiar with their totally normal lives in a mountain village where nothing bad ever happens. Except, you know, the grisly murder at the dam construction site a few years ago. But that doesn't matter, what matters is BOARD GAMES!
We're finally back with a new Backlog Buster! We break down why we're so excited to talk about When They Cry for the foreseeable future, and hope to get you excited for it too!
This is it, the final minilog of the Kingdom Hearts era of Backlog Dialogues. Though looking at the file length, it's more of a megalog. In what could best be described as the weight of our sins and pinnacle of our hubris, we go deep in discussing Final Fantasy XIV for a second time, this time focusing on Shadowbringers and Endwalker, the two best stories in all of Final Fantasy. We dig in to the themes of anti-utopianism and hope ...
This is it! The final Kingdom Hearts episode! We made it! And since it's a recappy music game with only the tiniest sliver of story to hint at what's to come, we turn it in to a little postmortem on the series before getting a chance to call Nomura and the Fairy Godmother on their bullshit. It's been fun, so let's kick back and remember it!
We've finally made it to the end of Kingdom Hearts 3 - the kino packed extravaganza that is the Remind DLC! First we go over the secret reports, which contain hints of things to come in the series, and then we follow Future Sora as he revisits the events of Keyblademania to try to bring back Kairi. Getting to play as other characters, some extremely amazing cinematic battles, and even a few weird puzzles and minigames await. Then, ...
This is it, the final act of the base game of Kingdom Hearts 3, and the biggest night in keyblade entertainment! We begin by following Sora claw his way out of the afterlife yet again this game, and then proceed to get in to way too many cage matches in the lead up to a lumberjack match with all the Xehanorts and chase the Bald Man himself to the memory of Scala Ad Caelum. Incredible spectacles await as we enter our biggest episode...
Our wrestling metaphor cup runneth over as Kingdom Hearts 3 crams its last bits of story in to the spaces between the end of the Disney Worlds and a fateful showdown in the Keyblade Graveyard, all to set up the biggest event in Keyblade Entertainment. We still need to fill out our card for the big match, so we venture to the Realm of Darkness and the Land of Departure to get back Aqua and Ventus, and then round things out with a bu...
On the last stop of our final Disney world tour of Kingdom Hearts thus far, we visit San Fransokyo, a world of balloon robots and shugyo, a world of skyscrapers and weird blimp fans, a world... of heroes. Six heroes. Big Hero 6! Our own Keyblade Hero 3 (ignore the fact that only Sora has a keyblade) joins their cosmic level power with a collection of minor heroes that collectively amount to about one Iron Man in dealing with Heartl...
It's time for John's favorite world in all of Kingdom Hearts, the open world high seas pirate adventure world The Caribbean! There's also a story here but who cares about that, we're here for Jack Sparrow made of crabs, a cool ship with super moves, and some of the coolest lucky emblems in the entire game! Let's have some fun!
It's time for John's least favorite world in Kingdom Hearts 3, the world where everything looks like Olaf and they keep knocking you off the mountain instead of interacting with the Disney characters. That's right, it's Arendelle! Join Sora, Donald, and Goofy as they continually fail to make friends with the characters we actually care about but do manage to ultimately recruit a massive snow golem (which is cool I guess?) At least ...
We take a break from talking about Kingdom Hearts to get a whole bunch of Final Fantasy XIV talking out of our system! But because Final Fantasy XIV is huge, we decided we can't do it all at once. So we have the discussion of A Realm Reborn through Stormblood in the middle of the season while we save the best part for the end!
Join the Warrior of Light, chosen champion of Hydaelyn, as they are tasked to slay primals, push back an e...
This week, we visit Monstropolis for good times with Sully, Mike Wazowski, and Boo! Sora, Donald, and Goofy get adorable monster forms this time around, and less adorable monsters show up to make a connection to the emotional dark side of Kingdom Hearts, Vanitas and his Unversed! And then, after we deal with that pizza cutter, we take one last stop in the land of true existential horror, Hundred Acre Wood, as Merlin makes one final...
It's time for Jared's least favorite world in Kingdom Hearts 3, the Kingdom of Corona! Join us as Jared helps us understand the context of a world story built entirely out of contextless movie scenes in a linear gauntlet without much interesting really going on. I guess Marluxia shows up, though, that's a thing. But even he's acting weird, even for an Organization member. Wanting us to PROTECT princesses of light. Can we go now?
This week, we go to the first Pixar world in Kingdom Hearts, Toy Box, based off Toy Story! It's one of the best designed worlds in the game, and we examine every inch of the coolest toy story with no real toys. We also make friends with a neurotic gamer dinosaur voiced by Wallace Shawn, see the writers go wild applying Kingdom Hearts metaphysics to the very pertinent question of 'just how are the toys sentient', and Woody doles out...
Time for Kingdom Hearts 3 to start for real! Our goal is to find Terra, Aqua, and Ventus, but to find them we first need to find one of them. Also we can't beat Airman. So instead, we go to Twilight Town to search for Roxas (doesn't seem even more likely to succeed, but hey). There we meet up with some old friends and Pixar begins to bleed in to Kingdom Hearts! Remy from Ratatouille shows up to puppeteer us in some cooking minigame...
Popular Podcasts
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Anna Sale explores the big questions and hard choices that are often left out of polite conversation.
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people.
A straightforward look at the day's top news in 20 minutes. Powered by ABC News. Hosted by Brad Mielke.