WE DON'T UNDERSTAND IDOLS | Trash Taste #155
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- Paid for by the US Department of Health and Human Services. - Welcome back to another episode of Trash Taste. Oh my God. - Way to go, Joey. - I'm here once again with the boys, Jerry and Garnt, and I'm your host for today. - Was that your way of saying hello, Joey? Was that your way of saying hello? - That is my way of saying hello. - I can't walk. I did a Ring Fit stream yesterday and my legs don't function.

- Yeah, you, what was it? 'Cause you don't have anywhere to cycle, so you're like, "I'm gonna destroy my legs inside my house now." - I don't know, I wanted to do a Ring Fit stream, 'cause I thought Ring Fit was a fun game. And I actually play Ring Fit sometimes casually. - Right. - Because it's fun. - It is fun. They have gamified exercise Nintendo have done something right? 'Cause it was worryingly fun doing exercise. - It's a fantastic game. - Yeah, it is. - Pretty well made.

And I think casually it's an amazing game. I think grinding it is absolutely fucking stupid. - I don't think it's supposed to be grinding. - Well, no, 'cause the game every time you clear a stage, it's like, "All right, good job, man. "I wanna do those cool down stretches now." And then I have to keep pressing like, "No." So it keeps going. But I don't know, I thought, "Huh, I wonder if I can burn 1,000 calories "on the in-game thing." And I wondered how long that would take. And so I thought- - How long did it take? - Eight hours of in-game time.

- Wait, you streamed Ring Fit for eight hours? - Yeah, I streamed straight for like one break. - What's wrong with you, bro? - Well, I wanted to exercise too, so I was like- - Oh, you're alive right now. - Well, I can't walk. I actually had to get stretched into the set today. No, I woke up with such immense pain 'cause it's all like stretches, yoga, squats,

And I don't know, I just thought it would be fun. And I guess I didn't consider how it would cripple me the next day. And I'm still tired. Like I slept like nine hours and I'm still tired. - Yeah, no shit. But was it fun? Was it fun? - It was pretty fun actually. Yeah, I mean, it's like Ring Fit again, it's a goaded game. Like the music goes unfathomably hard.

- Yeah, but for eight hours bro? - Yeah, eight hours, yeah it was too long. - You're sadistic. - And like, I tweeted out being like, "Oh yeah, I beat, I got 1,000 calories in Ring Fit." Which by the way, I didn't know, the calorie count only goes up to 999 and then it doesn't roll over.

So that was kind of anticlimactic. - So technically you click baited. 'Cause you said a thousand in the title and I'm waiting for that extra calorie still. He's still going. - Fine, fine. And everyone's like, "Really? Only 1,000 calories in eight hours?" I was like, "Well, yeah, of course it's not 1,000 calories." Like, what do you, this game- - Yeah, this is Ring Fit Calories. - Yeah, the game also like fucking lies about how much you're burning.

- It is app, 'cause like my, I was wearing two different Fitbits and they both said I burned 5,000 calories by the end of it. - How are you not just like skin and bones? - What do you mean? I got junk in the trunk. A lot of reserves to work through.

- But I mean, if there was a direction to lie about how many calories you're burning, I think it's better to be inaccurate about burning less calories than just overestimating it and being like, oh yeah, I put like 5,000 calories last night actually. - And your ring fits as five. - Some exercises you're like, yeah, this makes sense. This wouldn't burn that many. And then when you're doing squats, you're like, there's no way this is four calories. I just did 20 squats.

This feels like 500 calories. It's too much. Yeah, right.

- The important thing is though, like, okay, so it's a game, right? Did you find a way to like break the game in any way during those eight hours to be like, I'm doing the exercise, but I don't feel like I'm doing the exercise in the way they're intended to do the exercise. - Is it possible to speed run Ring Fit Adventure? - Yeah, absolutely. So the trick to speed running it is I guess the first level you would get to a ledge and normally the game will tell you to jump over it.

but your character will keep running. And when you're running, you're burning calories. And the by far quickest way to burn calories, like in real life, is to run. It goes up a lot faster. So if you literally just stand in place and jog for like two hours, you'd burn a thousand calories, which I think actually is kind of accurate. I think if you stood in place for two hours and jogged, you probably would burn-

- Yeah, probably I think around that. - Yeah, that sounds about right. - Maybe, maybe not, maybe a little bit less. - God damn it, I can never get away from the running. It's always the running. - It turns out it always comes back to the best way to burn calories is just to run. Or like cycle or do any kind of cardio intensity exercise. Running I don't like doing as much normally 'cause it hurts my legs after a while. Maybe it's 'cause I have improper running form, I don't know.

That's why I like cycling. It's like, you can't fuck it up. Swimming's also great too. Swimming's like actually a full body, which I really enjoy, but Japan is just allergic to pools. - Yeah. - There's pools fucking nowhere unless you pay like $500 a month for membership. - Yeah, it's pay to win for the swimming pool. - And it's like, even then it's like, there's nowhere like, there's one that is kind of close to me, but it's still just a little bit inconvenient. It's like, dude, I'm not gonna go swimming if it's like fucking so far away. - Yeah, I'd be swimming. - Swimming's OP as fuck though. - Yeah. - So that's me getting into it.

'cause I was getting tired of doing these 12 hour streams where I just sat there and at the end of the day, I'd be like, "Wow, I'm tired from all that streaming." I look at my Fitbit and it's like, "You walked 1000 steps today." I'm like, "Jesus Christ." - I'll be honest, 'cause I tried streaming a bit more this past month. Most of it is just one single game, which you can probably guess what it is. And I'm just like, I remember like finishing a day of streaming and some days I'd stream like six hours and I just feel like, "Wow, I've done nothing with today."

And tomorrow I'm gonna wake up and do nothing as well. I'm like, how do streamers do this? My mind has literally gone to mush. I did it for a week and I'm like, no, I actually need to touch some grass. - I guess 'cause you have, if you're a full-time streamer, you're like, oh, this is my, this is how I make money, right? But I guess for you, it's like, well, I got obligations and I got main videos to work on. - No, because the thing is, I did feel like I was still, okay, it's,

It's so weird because I'm like, I'm streaming, but I always felt like I was tricking my brain into doing work when I actually wasn't doing work. Even though like I was making money and you know, I was making like second channel videos and everything like that. So technically I was working, but it never felt like, I don't know, the work that I was doing never felt like actual work. It just felt like I was tricking. I had found like a fucking work hack

to be like, yes, I'm actually working on making money, but am I doing anything to benefit society? I don't know if I do. - Would you categorize your normal videos as benefiting society? - You know what, I didn't, but after I've done streaming for like two weeks, I'm like, maybe I am benefiting society. - Most self-aware streamer on the planet. - That's why I can't just do like only game streams like constantly 'cause I just feel like I'm not doing anything. - Yeah. - I'm like, I gotta like, so this is like,

And lately I've been trying to pack more streams in and manage my schedule, which means normally something needs to get cut out and it's only the gym. So it's like, fuck. 'Cause the time for streaming in Japan, again, this is like YouTuber talk, so I'm sorry to anyone who doesn't give a fuck.

because we live in this time zone, right? The best time zone to start streaming normally is pretty early in the morning for us or late at night. And if I start at like 1:00 PM, it's like, no one's gonna watch. 'Cause everyone in every other time zone can't really watch that. So it's kind of like, all right, well, fuck you. So normally if you start pretty early, but I hate going to the gym at night. So it's like, if I wanna go to the gym, I gotta go.

- So you gotta stream at night, go to the gym in the morning, right? - So therefore stream Ring Fit. Therefore you fix your own problem. - Or do a week's worth of exercise in one stream. That's not how exercise works, I know that. - That is not. - I'm joking. Yeah, I mean, I just wanted to do something kind of weird and contribute to society actually. That was a big part. - What are you contributing? - I informed people how many hours it takes to burn a thousand calories from Ring Fit.

- There's your contribution to society. - Was it psychotic? Absolutely. - Nutritionist or just- - I don't know. I think you probably feel that way about streaming 'cause it's not your full-time, like it's not your focus. So I think if you- - I don't think I could make it my full-time focus, but after trying it for a week, I'm like, I don't know. I feel...

it's weird, right? Because I, you know, there are some, there are some streams where you're like, yeah, that was, that was really fun. And then some of them, you were just like, that was really mind numbing. And I was just playing a game for eight hours. Didn't really feel like I did anything. And I couldn't imagine doing that every single day where I wake up and I'm like,

don't really have anything to talk about 'cause all I did was play a game for eight hours. Yeah, that was my life. - The problem is you found the joy of touching grass. That's your problem. - You're also bringing a lot of,

I guess a lot of the streaming, and I guess it kind of gets easier is when you kind of only get content or you only get like stuff to talk about from the thing that you're doing. You're not relying on external things to bring topics to talk about. Obviously there can be things to talk about. But yeah, I know that that's one of the biggest problems of streaming is that it dedicates so much for your life. You almost get like no other life experiences. 'Cause your whole entire life is just this thing. Whereas YouTube, right? I remember I used to do this.

Back when my videos took a lot less work.

And I still thought I was working really hard. 'Cause you know how it is when you're a YouTuber. - Yeah, of course. - It's like, oh my God, I work so hard. And then you're like, I would make like three videos in one week and I would just do nothing for three weeks. 'Cause then I was like, oh, this is sick. - That's what I do right now. - Joey's on that gig up schedule. - Yeah, exactly. - 'Cause you're like, man, I work so hard. And you're like, wait, I have like four days a week empty. I'm like, I don't work that hard. - I upload other stuff.

- I organize, yeah, but I mean, I guess you got like nonsense, you're working on stuff like that. So that makes sense, right? Like that's just how your priorities shift. But yeah, streaming is just so time intensive.

- Dude, I don't know man, it's weird. - Yeah, that's why I went to a Touch Grass this weekend actually after my two weeks of streaming. - Where did you go? - I didn't realize this was going on until the weekend actually. There was a Thai festival in Tokyo and like one of the biggest festivals outside of Thailand for like Thai culture. Yeah, I got a little piece of home, which was interesting.

So I turn up to this, I turn up to this. - Hey, where you guys at? - My homies. - Okay, but first thing. - First thing, the only place in the world where I literally did not know what languages speak. - English, Japanese, Thai, which one? - Do I speak English? Do I speak Japanese? Do I speak Thai? I remember like, I turned up and I was like,

within like two hours, a fan recognizes me and we start the conversation. He asks if he could take a picture in Japanese. I reply in Japanese. We have a short Japanese exchange.

Then Sydney comes in and she wants to flex her, the little Thai that she knows. So she starts speaking to him in Thai. He replies in Thai, speaks back to me in Japanese, but then I noticed we're starting to speak in Thai. So I reply in Thai, right? And then another fan recognizes me, starts speaking to me in English. So the conversation just switches to English. And I'm just like, this is, I feel like I'm in like that YouTube video where it's just like,

- Polyglots, it's like so many languages they can speak. 'Cause we were, it was so fucking weird because everyone there was basically bilingual at least. - Yeah. - Most of them were like- - How many of them were like actually Thai?

- Quite a lot actually. So there were quite a lot of Thai people there. So most of it was like food stalls and everything like that. But there was one, so I was looking around to see what stall had the longest line. 'Cause I was like, I wanted the best Thai food. I miss home. I wanted a piece of the home. So I look around and I see one stall had a bunch

by far the longest line out of any stall in the entire festival. - Okay, I've had time. - Right? - I swear to God. - And I subconsciously just start lining up just in case I wanna do. And so I like track the line and the line's so long that it kind of like loops round. So it's like a line loops round and it loops back round again. And I'm like, oh, what is this line for?

it's line for the fucking garbage. - I shit you not. - You're like damn, what are they cooking? - It's smelling kind of rancid right now. But I bet it's good. - I smell durian coming. Oh no, it's shit. - I don't know if this is a normal thing for like Japanese festivals 'cause this is kind of like the first festival that I've been to. So they don't have like,

they don't have like bins there. They have like garbage stools where you have the same old, you know, you have the same kind of like station where you can separate your garbage, but they have an actual like,

they have an actual stand for that. - Well, it's like manned? - Yeah, it's like manned. - Oh. - Yeah. - Man, that must be a shit show. - Yeah, yeah. So the problem was there's only so many stores where you could get rid of your garbage 'cause there were no public bins or anything like that. - Yeah, of course. - So I don't know if this is normal for a Japanese festival because I went there and most of the time,

Most of my waiting time was waiting to get rid of the shit I kept buying. And unfortunately I was very hungry and I wanted to go to as many stores as possible. So anytime I bought something, I was like, for fuck's sake, I got like a Thai noodle in my hand and I can't put it anywhere. - That's very Japanese. - Yeah, which kind of shows how dedicated the Japanese culture is to,

following the rules and not littering because I swear to God, if this was in place, 'cause at bare minimum to get rid of any garbage, even if you had like a single bottle in hand, it was like a 15 minute wait.

- That's wild. - I would just eat the plastic. - What I would have done is just like, I would have gone to like the nearest company or something and just buy something, get a plastic bag and just hold that shit. That's what I would have done. And then like once I'm like back at a station or another company or something, I just fucking dump it out. - Because it was so fucking frustrating to get rid of just the simplest thing.

but at the same time, no one littered. I was fucking, I was amazed. There was not a single piece of garbage I saw at this massive festival, which had like 2,000 people there. - Yeah, 'cause in any other country, if they see a line to throw shit out, people would just be like,

fuck this and just like start littering, right? - I was like, guys, let's make a pile. - Yeah, I'll start, everyone join in. - Yeah, especially when you throw in alcohol into that mix as well, which was the biggest, like, I can't believe this is actually happening. People are getting drunk in public and people are actually still conscious enough to throw their shit away and wait in line to throw their shit away.

But yeah, props up to the Japanese people. I didn't know this, but I went there and I didn't know there were Thai idols that were a thing as well. - Titles? - Titles, titles. So there was a main stage where different concerts and different performances.

And I was like, Sydney, we got a beer in hand, why not? Let's watch some time musicians perform. And we go in and they go, so next man coming off is BKT48. And I was like,

- Bangkok 48? I was like, ain't no way. Ain't no way this is a fucking thing. And yeah, and apparently on steps on BKT 48, I guess the- - Oh my fucking God. - I guess Bangkok went, we want AKB 48 at home and- - Why? - Bangkok Thailand 48. - Yeah, I think it's just BKT, which is like Bangkok, yeah, Bangkok Thailand 48.

- Yeah, Bangkok have their own BKT48. And I found out that basically every doing research, I was like, there's no way this is real. It is real. Apparently there's a Bangkok sister idol from AKB48. - Holy shit. - And there's JKT48 as well. - Jakarta. - Jakarta 48.

- No way. - I had no idea this was a thing. - Oh my God. - And they basically all do the same songs. It's like they all do the same songs. - Wait, so are they like original songs or are they like covers from AKB48? - Some of them, I believe some of them are covers and some of them- - This is my nightmare.

- I love it. - I was like- - I hate idol groups. - Yeah, I do too, but I just love that concept of just like, let's just take the city name, condense it down to three letters and get 48 of them. - Yeah. - And do that for every country. - Ramadan special, JKT48. - Yo, JKT48 is doing a Ramadan special, let's go. - Are you serious? JKT48.

- JKT48 Ramadan. - She's like, what is the fucking point of having 48 members? That's so fucking many. - Because you get all the choice in the world to choose who your Oshie is, right? - Yeah. So I have basically zero knowledge about AKB48. So I kind of missed that train.

- You're probably better off to be honest. - Yeah, it was so fucking weird, right? Because obviously this was a Thai festival and even though there are a lot of Thai idol fans, I'm sure this festival was full of just different members of people who just wanted to come to the Thai festival. And you just saw the dichotomy between there were like one or two

hardcore BKT48 fans that were just like, there was one, there were two people that were just like sitting on each other's shoulders and just like hardcore. You know when you know the choreography, but you like go, you like, they're those guys that just lean into it. It's not just like they know like the choreography, they're like.

- It's like they're doing a fucking, it's like they're doing a full on exercise. They are leaning into this 100%. And then they're just like some Thai grandmas to be like, I don't know what's going on right now, but I'm going to clap. I'm going to clap. - Is this a karaoke session? - Is this a karaoke session? - Should I go up on stage? - Correction, it's B and K for you.

- Oh, BNK. - Bangkok, all right. - Bangkok. - BNK48. - BNK48. - Apologies, BNK fans. - Apologies. - I wanna know how that discussion of the original AKB48 got to 48. Some guy was like 20 and the guy was like, "More." And they were like, "30." - Yeah. - "More."

- 50, that's too much. - I just wanna know why 48? - It's so fucking, I'm sure there's some reason. - This is one thing I never understood about idol groups that were that big. Up to like, let's say,

eight is like pushing it for me. 10 is like the maximum to how many I can like reasonably follow along with. I'm just trying to think of like- - See, I feel K-pop groups got at the best where it's like they limit it to between like five and 15. Like I think that's like a manageable size, even 15 is a lot.

- Yeah, five, five, five. - Five to 10 is like a manageable size. - I don't know why I view, I don't know why my mind has made this distinction, but I view like K-pop bands, I suppose, very differently to how I view idols, I guess. I guess they are kind of different. - I mean, they are idols. - Yeah, they are idols, but I guess that the way that they market themselves are very different, right? Whereas- - Is it though? Do they? - In a weird sense, I think K-pop groups almost,

I think they, again, this is me talking out my ass. Somebody doesn't consume either of them. Yeah. In my head, I feel like, whereas the idols focus on,

I suppose catering to the customer and interacting with the customer directly. K-pop groups tend to focus more on releasing music and having kind of, I don't know, in my head it's just, I guess I see it as like, 'cause idols, most idols, it's all about the fan meetups. It's all about the handshake things, you know? Whereas it feels that the K-pop groups are more like, yeah, I'll be a fan, but it's mainly you consume it and interact with it through all of the,

- I disagree. - I could be wrong. This is the perspective of a man who's talking out of his ass. He doesn't consume either. - I mean, I'm not super knowledgeable on either, but I know for a fact that like in Japan, at least, you know, like when we think of like Japanese idols, right? Like AKB48 is usually the first one, like just large groups of Japanese girls all dressed the same, you know, interacting with fans. Like, you know, if it's like the underground idol scene and stuff like that, but like Japan also has a massive

massive male idol culture as well. Like there are so many fucking super groups of like just dudes who are doing basically like, you know, boy band shit, like, you know, Backstreet Boys type stuff, right? And it's like, and a lot of that underground scene is yeah, from the most parts, majority filled with like all female groups, but there's also some like highly, highly dedicated like male groups as well that do the same thing. I think it's just that,

because that whole like underground scene of like the all girl groups has just been so well documented compared to the male counterpart. - Yeah, I think that's it. - That I think a lot of people just aren't aware that, no, there's male equivalent to that as well. - There's so many documentaries about the idol industry.

- Exactly. And they're all based around like the female groups, right? - Yeah. - Yeah. I remember there was one that released where it was like, it was, they were interviewing people who are fans of underground idol groups. And there was one where it was like, I guess the mom was getting her like 12 year old daughter to be an idol. - Oh, I saw that. - And then there was like a bunch of 40 year old dudes who were like paying to have Zoom calls with her. And the mom was cool with it. It was fucking wild.

It was like, it was just so bizarre. And it was like, she would do live streams on some, I don't know, some weird website. It wasn't like any of the mainstream ones. And she would get like a thousand viewers.

- And she was like 13. - Yeah, I think- - And I was like, this is weird. - I actually do remember there is an app in Japan or website- - It's for idols to go on, right? - That's specifically for, I think it's called Ichinana or something? - Yeah, it was like one of those where you can like, and you just like, you watch them and you have to like keep paying. - Yeah. - Yeah. - It's basically like cam going, except they're not like doing sexual stuff. - They literally just talk. - They're just like talking basically, yeah. But like you can tip to like have conversations with them live, right? - Yeah. - And it's very, I mean,

one it's parasocial as fuck, but it's also just like little creepy. - I mean, I'm the one to judge people who wanna stream and make money. Cause that's what I fucking do. - My opinion, it's a bit creepy. - Yeah, I think it's like, you know, it'd be hypocritical of me to be like, man, they look at these people going online and asking for money from people. Cause you know, it's what I fucking do. Although please don't fucking give me money. - Thank you patrons.

- But I feel like the creepiness, what it could be, 'cause I feel- - It's like when you see the 12 year old fucking do that and the mom's encouraging that. - Yeah. - I mean, we've seen that on like YouTube as well. You know, some parents- - Parent YouTube channels, yeah. - Definitely like shilling their kids. - But I guess it's 'cause you, in this documentary, the one that was on YouTube, and I can't remember who did it, it was one of the journalists. It was like, they would go and interview the dudes who were consuming it, which were like 50 year old men. And then that's where you're like,

'Cause if it's a kid, like Ryan's Toy Reviews where other kids are watching. You're like, okay, that's, I mean, there's still gotta be some kind of questionable thing. What's going on here with the parents? How are they involved? Is it being run in a way that is fair to the kid? Is the money going to the kid or not? All those questions need to be answered, obviously.

it's like fine, yeah, I mean, obviously you would want kids to be within kids content 'cause it helps, that's them. They wanna be represented. They don't give a fuck, they just wanna see other kids living cool lives 'cause that's swag. But the fact that if like 50 year old men were consuming it and you would like, you'd see this dude on like a Zoom call,

with like this girl and she's like 12 and you're like, why? - Yeah, like on the surface it is the most like morally questionable thing that you could ever see. - It's fucking weird. - Even though he may be, he may go into it just like completely fucking innocent, right? Like on all,

all circumstances, right? Fair enough. But still like when you just look at it at the surface, your first instinct is what's going on. - There's absolutely no need for a 50 year old man to be interacting with a kid in any way that is not like a professional, like a doctor or something. You know what I mean? Like if you were just hanging out with kids and you're paying to hang out with kids. - I'm definitely gonna go to watch this. - You would be on the watch list on any other country.

- I mean, I just find like, I've always found the psychology of the idol industry fascinating. Especially watching these documentaries. 'Cause a lot of the times you come in and you're like, oh, anyone, if you're a,

if you're a businessman watching this kind of stuff, then obviously there's something nefarious going on. And I would say from most of the documentaries I've seen, a lot of these people, it's more of just like, they are just lonely and it's kind of like they have like a sad story. - With the adult idols. - Yeah, with the adult idols. - I was gonna say, I was like, all right, if you're lonely, don't talk to a fucking 12 year old.

- Let the 12 year olds cook for the other 12 year olds. Come on. - Yeah. - Yeah. It's like, to me, I find it like really interesting to see what kind of psychology goes into how someone really, really gets, you know, honestly kind of like addicted to

to this kind of content. - It's total loneliness. And I think there's a lot of conversation online about like male loneliness. But the problem is a lot of the time it gets hijacked by like incels and very right wing conversations. So a lot of the times it's kind of not, it's kind of hard to talk about,

- I do think a lot of dudes out there are very lonely. Guys aren't good at expressing their emotions or talking about it. So it's very hard for them to kind of open up and kind of learn about themselves more and know how to express yourself. So I think a lot of guys turn to things like, at least in Japan where it's even compounded even more, I think. - Yeah, yeah. - The moment you leave,

high school, you don't really get pushed to socialize much. I think that is just compounding like lifelong loneliness that when you get to this age, you're like, I have disposable income. A cute girl can talk to me who's very talented and I can feel like we're friends. And yeah, of course, like this is gonna happen, especially when people are marketing and telling you, hey, this isn't weird. Look at all the other dudes who are doing this. You know what I mean? So it's kind of like this,

this whole thing that's compounding just from Japanese society. And I feel like it's happening slowly in the kind of Western world, but more with other services. - Do you think maybe that aspect is the reason why, say like in Southeast Asia, like the whole fucking existence of BNK48 and JKT48, do you think maybe it's like an Asian thing? - This episode is sponsored by ExpressVPN. Going online without ExpressVPN is like not having a case on your phone.

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- I think, yes. I think definitely in terms of just opening up and talking about your feelings, especially in Thailand. When I was growing up, mental health issues just weren't really a thing. - They weren't in the UK until I was like 10. - Exactly. And even now it's still, I would argue that it's still

especially in our parents' generation, you know, people in the West may have been more aware and may have heard about it more, but it feels like at least in, you know, Thai culture and Asian culture, it's not really talked about like at all. And you know,

there are some things that you come across in, let's say Asian family gatherings that are just kind of like normalized. It's kind of like normalized in Asian culture. You go to a family gathering and

- Whatever weight you are, you better be prepared for your in-laws and your family to talk about your weight, whether you're too thin or you're too fat. And you are never the perfect weight. You are either too thin- - Goldilocks does not exist, right? - Yeah, exactly, exactly. It doesn't matter- - It's either too little or too much. - It doesn't matter if you're fucking ripped as shit. You've been going to the gym every day. They're like, "Yo, have you been carb loading?" I feel like you've been carb loading a little too much recently. - They will find any way to not compliment you.

- And the thing is the only way to solve that issue is to eat more.

- I don't know what it is about, even if they say that you're overweight as shit, they'll say you're overweight in the same sentence where they tell you to eat like 10 dishes that they've cooked for you. I don't know what, the psychology, I don't know. - Yeah, 'cause I just don't see that whole idol thing existing outside of Asian countries. Like, could you imagine a fucking LND 48 in London or like a CRD 48 in Cardiff? Like, it's just never gonna happen.

Although it would be kind of epic. - I think it's like that doesn't, I don't know why, I think it just doesn't gel well with the Western mindset of like that's how they kind of get rid of that loneliness. I don't think that's how they do it.

But then we have stuff like OnlyFans and stuff that a lot of guys turn to. - And VTubing. Streamers just in general, I think. - Yeah, but I think even then, the way that the Japanese VTubing set up to Western VTubing is very, very different. - You think so? - I think so. At least the way the audience approach it. - Yeah, I think the big difference between East and West in this kind of sense is that,

I feel like idols and let's say, you know, OnlyFans streamers and all that kind of stuff. They both kind of sell a similar product, right? It's like the kind of like parasocial kind of thing where you feel like you have a connection with that person or with that streamer. I just feel like here with idols, it's just a bit more in your face.

And I feel like the big difference is that at least in the West, people don't wanna feel like they're being sold something. - Yeah, they don't wanna feel like a fan. They wanna feel like a friend. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - So I think when they're sold a fan experience, at least with some people, I don't think it resonates as widely as it would in Japan. - There needs to be that natural feeling of like self discovery. - Rements. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Rements, right?

I wasn't sold this. I made the conscious choice to be like, oh, okay. I discovered them for myself. And then you slowly spiral down into that rabbit hole. Whereas with idols, it's like front and center. Here are the girls. They can be your friends, okay?

If you just pay the money, they will be your friends. They will shake your hands. - All right. - And then Japanese people are like, "Is that easy?" - Yeah. - Okay. - It's like, you know, you can, and if you keep buying their albums, maybe they'll go on a lunch date with you or something like that. You know what I mean? It's like, it is, you know, it's a lot of the times, and it's the same thing with like girls bars, right? Like dudes will go to the same bar in the hopes that they might, they've paid enough money at one point to hopefully get a date.

- Yeah. - I also almost feel like, at least in the West, the whole idea of like boy bands and like idol groups and stuff like that is kind of like a past thing. Like, 'cause like- - I don't know, I feel like K-pop has really, they've kind of like modernized it, I feel. I feel like Western boy bands and girl bands have kind of, you know, petered off. - I mean, the last one I could think of was like,

Backstreet Boys are like NSYNC. And that was like fucking 20 plus years ago, right? So it's like, since then we haven't, the West hasn't really adopted that style, at least in like the music sense. - It's just 'cause K-pop is just so fucking dominant. No one can do it as well as they can. - I also think that, you know, you have to look at the landscape of,

agencies and contracts. Like in Korea, it's still a lot, and Asia in general, the contracts, you don't normally very heavily favored in the producer or the person making the group or controlling shit. - You can say that. - Whereas over the years, especially in places like California and stuff like that, like contracts have become,

very, very well documented that it needs to be a lot of abuse, right? So now nowadays you kind of can't make these contracts. They're all very one-sided and you can't force the talent to do a bunch of stuff they didn't agree to. So there's like a realistic, like, do you really think that half of these idol groups or bands perform as much if they didn't have

a producer who had a lot of the power kind of pushing them to do more, right? Like realistically, there'd probably be less. - 'Cause did you hear about like the Backstreet Boys contract that they were on? - It's pretty, I assume it was pretty- - Do you know, like Backstreet Boys, right? Like, he's one of the most fucking popular Western boy bands of all time. Do you know how much money they walked away with when they disbanded? - I don't know how much. - 100K. - What? - Yeah.

- Well, yeah, like that's crazy. - The contracts were so shit. They sold that many songs, the like most well-known boy band walked away with a hundred K. - Yeah, that's like, that should never happen. And I imagine there's something, you know, I'm just speculating that I imagine the deals, you know, are always,

very, very heavily leaning towards way favorite for the talent, sorry for the agency. Like in Japan, like MCMs or like agencies for YouTubers, even though it's like a modern thing, like they're still like very heavily skewed towards whoever's running, not necessarily not the YouTuber. Like I think the pretty common one was like for one of the YouTube networks or something here was like 20% for the talent.

It's like 20 or 30% for the talent, yeah. Which is like egregious. - Yeah, to give more preference to explanation as what it is normally in the West,

tops 10% nowadays. It used to be 20, you'd hear a lot, but 10 is kind of a standard. - 10 for the agency. - Yeah, 10% for the agency and 90% for the talent 'cause you're the one making. - Exactly. - And you're the one who does everything. So that makes more sense. - Yeah, I mean, I feel like a big change is that back then agencies just had a lot more power

because the internet didn't exist. And now you, because, you know, back when, back in the day, there was no way if you wanted to be like independent to get your name out there because you would have to rely on these big agencies that had all the marketing power. They were like, we can get you into stores and get you in people's radars where now you can have a song go viral, anything like a video go viral and there that's boom, that's your name out. You're now independent, you know?

So I feel like, you know, it's more power to the artist because,

The internet, we complain a lot about the internet for a lot of things, but this is one of the good thing that's come out of it. - Yeah, what I found really interesting is that in like VTubing, I've noticed that they, even though it's the, you might like a particular VTuber from a particular company. I've realized that they've been like the groups have been really, really smart about getting you invested more so in the brand name

as opposed to the talent. So that when you're like, oh,

we don't want this talent anymore. It's like, all right, well, people will still want the brand, which is really impressive. And it's like, I think if idol companies had figured this out, this would be game over. The contracts would be like 100 to zero. You pay us. - Well, I mean, Japan basically did that with the Johnny's group, which is like the biggest idol, which is right now getting a lot of shit. - Wasn't that the guy who was like sexually harassing boys? - Wait, what's this?

- I haven't heard about this. - So the guy who found it, yeah, so I don't know the full story. I was gonna make a section on- - I think he made like boy, okay, this again, maybe you could pull up a fact. - Yeah, so Johnny's is basically the biggest idol agency in Japan. - For boys, predominantly. - For boys. So like they produced like SMAP, Arashi, like pretty much like all the top fucking boy bands in Japan, which were fucking huge. And the guy who owned it, Johnny something, he's like a half Japanese guy,

I think he died recently and all these allegations came out about how he was just like horribly sexually abusive. - Oh, by the way, these allegations had been known publicly for like 20 plus years. But you know, in Japan, a lot of the agencies have a shit ton of power over the media because

Oh, you have a Saturday TV show that has variety? If you talk shit about any of our agency, you fucking goodbye talent. - Well, I mean, if you turn on Japanese TV at any time during the day, there was at least one Johnny's Idol member like hosting or co-hosting or being on one of these shows. Like they are everywhere on Japanese TV. And so yeah, like this fucking story came out. But like, you know, as you were saying with VTuber agencies, I feel Johnny's has done that where it's like,

even if one group disappears or they disband or whatever, and a new group comes out and you think to yourself, oh, this is just a new group, whatever. Oh, they're part of Johnny's though? Okay, now I gotta fucking check it out. And it's like, they've used the name Johnny's as like a brand power to be like, even if it's someone completely new, completely irrelevant to what you used to like, just based on their association with that agency, people are just instantly on that. - Yeah, and that kind of power that he had allowed him to do stuff.

very horrible things for decades. - And he got away with it, 'cause now he's dead. - Yeah, even though it was publicly known that he was doing this before, and it was reported elsewhere, it was never pushed in any of the news here again, because...

Japanese news is, from what I've seen, they don't report things negatively a lot about the government ever. And let's say if there's a talent agency, again, if you were gonna report negatively, you don't get any talent in your shows. - That story almost reminded me of that. What's that British guy? - I was gonna say, this reminds me of Jimmy Savile. - Jimmy Savile. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It is literally like that. - Yeah, I was like, yeah, British, so much better. We would never do that.

- That's never happened in England. - This has probably happened in many, many, many, many countries. - Of course, yeah. - You're so popular that you can get away with doing this heinous shit. Or you can just use your company's influence to bully other companies around and make them do what you want. And it's fucked up. But hey, I mean, again, when we call this shit out in Japan or whatever, it's not that we're trying to be like, look at Japan, look at all the problems they have. It's like, no, obviously, the UK is a fucking mess 24/7. - Yeah, it happens everywhere.

I just think it's important to point out and talk about it when you talk about the whole industry as a whole. - Yeah, exactly. - Of course. - I mean, everyone knows that there are some dodgy shit going in the idol industry. Everyone knows that now. - It's like the worst kept secret in the idol like fucking companies. Everyone knows that they're treated like shit. - Exactly. That's why we're all watching "Oshinoko", right?

- They sell a dream and that's why they work. - That's the thing, no matter how much comes out, as long as you sell that dream, people are going to buy into it. - See, that's why Idolmaster was a five head move because you can't abuse an anime character. - That was their way of being like,

these pathetic human beings with their emotions are too unreliable. Yeah. Yeah, we can milk them for money, but we should make AIs or fucking characters that have their own mind and will say what I want them to say and will promote anything I want them to promote. Yeah. And then that way, I don't have to worry about it. Everyone wins. If a person's okay with it, I'm going to fucking do it.

- It is just a matter of time before that happens. Like the first AI idol group or the first AI VTuber group, you know, we've gotten to the point now. Did you hear about that influencer that made an AI version

of themselves? - You mean Amaranth? - Amaranth, you mean? - Was it Amaranth? - Yeah, Amaranth. - She just announced it, but there was another streamer who was doing it, another OnlyFans person who was doing it. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Amaranth is coming out with her own AI version of herself. - Yeah, yeah, would you imagine just jacking off to an AI conversation? Just like, what the fuck? - Hey, man. - Can you imagine a Trash Taste one who's like, "Hey, you can have a conversation with the boys."

- Come drink with us, man. - Trash AI. - Can you imagine that? You just like hike on a poop and poop and stinky. - Bread, bread. It's like, are you eating crusts? Get those out of here. Get those out of here. But no, it's so, I mean, it's so,

weird seeing that you can just, I guess, sell your own image now, but just have an AI version that they can interact with. So you're not technically selling yourself, but you are kind of at the same time. How, how,

How do you like morally draw the line or where'd you morally draw the line with that? - Well, that's the big topic, isn't it? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I guess with that argument, it's kind of up to the individual really. And if you're comfortable doing it, then it's like, all right, well fine then, but maybe no one will give a fuck. There you go. - Yeah, 'cause it's so weird 'cause like I've been on like YouTube shorts like recently and there have been some videos, it's getting scary to me now 'cause there've been some videos where

I think the voice is AI generated. Like there's- - Oh no, there's so many of them. - Yeah, yeah. - There's so many. - Some of them are like super, super obvious. Like I'm hearing like a story of like 50 Cent about how he made like his first million or something. - Yeah. - And like,

- This sounds believable enough that maybe this could be a out of context clip, but this could also be an AI generated monologue as well. And I'm not sure which one it is. And the only way I check is I go in the comments and I'm like, oh, this is AI generated. I was like, okay, thank God. Something felt off about this and I wasn't sure if I was just-

- Isn't it terrifying though that you had to ask other people to confirm that? - That's what's so scary to me. - And like, who knows? Like all those people in the comments section might also just be like getting it wrong. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. It was a genuine, I think this, genuine so many times it's happened now where I'm like, I think this is AI, but it wouldn't surprise me if this was also real. 'Cause I have no idea everything that Joe Rogan has talked about in his podcast.

And I was just like, and I'm just like, this is actually fucking terrifying. 'Cause it's getting to the point now where I'm having to question whether some outer context clip is actually AI generated or is actually a real monologue that I'm hearing. - I think Philly D said it best where it was like, the AI you hear today is the worst it's ever gonna be. - Yeah. - When it's like, that's fucking terrifying to think about. That like it's gotten, we're talking about how good it's gotten over the years.

over the past like even just year and it's just gonna fucking- - 'Cause do you know what terrifies me the most? I've had moments where I've-

I've heard an out of context clip from Trash Taste that has obviously been clipped by our fans. And I've been like, I don't remember fucking saying this. The proof is right there. The proof is in the video of me saying it. So obviously I said it on like a previous Trash Taste and I just blanked it out. But if I don't remember what I'm saying now with real content, how the fuck

- What the fuck am I gonna be like? - Is that an AI issue or is that just a memory issue? - That is a memory issue and that is an AI issue that I'm calling out now 'cause there might be an AI like generated voice line of me that I'm like, I don't remember saying that.

- But shit, am I gaslighting myself? Am I getting gaslit by AI now? - I might've been dumb enough to say that. - I wouldn't put it out of the realm of possibility for me to actually say this. But I don't think I said it. - Oh my God, don't do that. - Gaslighting us in a fucking 2025 AI generated trash days content, man. - I heard God said some real racist shit. Here's the context. And it's just like, I don't remember. No, that's not.

- There are some things I know I wouldn't say, but if there was like a shitty food take, I'm like, I don't even remember saying that. - You did say cup noodles were better than that. - But maybe I did say that. I couldn't put it past myself to say that. - Maybe I did say that semen tastes okay. I don't know. I'd have said that.

But yeah, no, it's terrifying. But yeah, I mean, yeah. Going back to the idol thing. I saw them perform and I was like, I don't get this. And then they ended it off with, I think one of the most famous like AKB48 songs. I think it was again, fucking "Fortune Cookie" or something like that. - Oh yeah. - I don't fucking know. I don't watch this shit. - Yeah, yeah. - "Fortune Cookie." - And I was like, shit.

- I feel a bit of serotonin right now. Oh no. - Honestly, God. - This is how it starts. - You say that you missed the whole idol train. You're probably better off because I was in Japan when the idol train was kicking off and it was un-fucking-avoidable. It was goddamn everywhere to the point where I tricked myself into liking some songs.

- Wait, wait, wait. - 'Cause that was the only way I could be like, I need this torture to end. I'm just gonna tell myself that this is a banger. And then after a while I was like, this is unironically a banger. Fuck, is that how they do it? Could you do that with any song? If you just hear it enough times, you could trick your brain into thinking, you know, I used to hate this, but now it's kind of fire now. - Yeah, I don't know. Have you ever been to an idol concert yourself?

- No, you wouldn't catch me dead in one, but. But like, you know, there's been so many, like, again, like Japan loves to do this thing where like, if there's a song that's popping off at the moment, they're like, how many stores can we put it in?

- Oh my God, yeah. - Yeah. - In Tokyo, even just in Tokyo. - Yeah. - To the point where it's like, you could be walking just down the street in Shinjuku and you could hear the same song coming out of like four different stores at the same time. And it's just like, and that was like that with AKB when they first came out, like some of their like biggest hits. It was just like, okay, well,

- Fuck, I can't go outside anymore. - I figured out the reason why hearing like fortune cookie, like fired off some serotonin in my brain because I was like, I don't know, something about this field was homely and I don't know why. And so I look it up and it's got like fucking 200 million views. The BNK 48 has like 200 million views. - God damn. - God fucking damn, what the hell?

- And Sidney told me, "Oh yeah, they play that all the time in like supermarkets in Thailand." I was like, "No way, I would remember this." And she was like, "No, no, no. How have you never... Every time we go to like a convenience store in a 7-Eleven in Thailand, they play this." And I was like, "Did I just get gaslit into liking an idol song?" - It's just the soundtrack of your life.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Jesus Christ. - And I'm like, does subliminal messaging have this much power over me? And I'm like, I guess I'm just another sheep following- - Classic sheep. - Yeah, classic sheep. - It's always the songs that are just like placed in the most discreet ways

- Right, right. - Where it's just like, you don't even notice. You just like, you listen. I've had so many moments where some person has like showed me a song where I've heard a song on like YouTube or something, right? And in the back of my head, I'm like, this is definitely the first time I'm hearing this, but why do I think I've heard this before? And then I realized it's like, oh, it's been, I've heard this song maybe like 50 times just unknowingly. - Yeah, yeah. - It's just like, and then everything clicks together and you're just like, oh fuck, that's how they do it. That's how they get them.

That's how they just fucking do this. - Do you think that's where deja vu comes on? - Yeah, probably. - It's just like, I've experienced this before, maybe in a dream or something, but it feels oddly familiar. And I don't know if it's got any scientific backing. - I'm sure there is. - Figured it out. - Figured it out. - Didn't know Thailand was like that, man. - Yeah, I'm finding out new things as well. Yeah, I know. But yeah, also, okay.

- You guys have done the Anime Cafe with Emily, right? - Yes. - How did it feel seeing the anime, the demographic of the anime that you had watched in real life? Because I went to the Bochy the Rock Cafe

- I can already see the demographic. - Seeing average Bocce the Rock fans was interesting to say the least. - Break it down, what's the demographic? - So I'm like, Bocce the Rock, right? What can I garner from this fan base?

I was guessing they're gonna be probably about my age. I was wrong. They were quite a bit older. We go in line, everyone is in business suits. I thought that we were lining up for a fucking catacombs meeting or something. I'm like, "Emily, have you gone to the right place? We're not gonna do a Geeks Plus meeting, are we?" And no, everyone was lining up for this Bocce the Rock Cafe. - In like 50s?

- In like 40s and 50s. - That awfully sounds a lot like the K on demographic. - I wonder why. - I thought there would be a few more girls there. I don't know. And they were only like, aside from Emily, there were only two other girls there. - Based. - Emily posted a tweet of the picture of the food. Put it on screen, Mudan. It looked fucking vile. - Yeah. - It was shit.

- I don't know why. - Did Boshi vomit on that omelet? Like why does it look like that? - I saw that and I'm not the biggest fan of omurice anyway, because I don't like ketchup and they poured ketchup on it over it, but somehow they made it look even more disgusting by just felt like a unicorn vomited on it.

And they were like, "That's the dish, that's the dish guys." - Look it's the pink bocce, it's bocce's color. - It's bocce but it's melted. It's bocce the rock. And of course that one dish we liked to eat there. You had to buy a set meal that costed like $40. That included, and that was why one of two food items that was like the savory food item.

I got like the, there was a chicken curry which has nothing to do with bocce the rock. - Just easy to make. - Yeah, but it had Ryo's face on it. So I'm like, oh, I guess this is bocce themed. Ironically enough, like that pink vomit omurice was the only real bocce themed dish on there.

But I was more interested in just looking around and seeing the kind of, it was interesting going to a theme cafe and seeing the actual people who watch the anime, the same anime you watched, right? - Yeah. - 'Cause I was asking Emily, what was the cafe that had the most female demographic, that had the most female viewers go to that theme cafe? Do you know what it was?

let me guess, some kind of like either like BL one or something with like two boys, right? - It was Berserk.

- The Berserk. - Based, based Japan. - The Berserk themed cafe. She told me had the highest ratio of girls to guys in that cafe. - God damn. - And I'm like, kind of based actually. - See weebs, this is another reason why she comes to Japan. If you want to find a wife,

- Go to the Berserk Cafe. - Go to the Berserk Cafe. - You wanna have something in common, what can I say? Yeah, 'cause you ain't finding any girls in like the Bochy the Rock Cafe or I'm guessing like most cute, 'cause I was surprised

the demographic was like that old, you know? - Yeah. - I'm not. - When I went to the, when I went to the, when I went to the Nichijou cafe with Emily, that also had quite a few girls there as well, which was also surprising. And I was like, yeah, 'cause I thought there'd be a lot more boys. I don't know. I never really thought about like the Nichijou,

I guess, 'cause that's kind of like open for everyone. The one that was hilarious though was the weathering with you, Cathay. There was no one there, so that describes the demographic of that. - Well, that describes that demographic. - Yeah, that describes that demographic. - I'm already surprised about that. - It was literally just Aki and I, and we're just like, "Oh, all right."

- All right, let's just order something and get the fuck out. - Oh God. - Yeah, it was sad. - Yeah. - I still haven't been to a collab cafe that does good food yet. I'll let you guys know when I find one. - I think the Nichijou Cafe for me was probably the best one. - Was it good food though? - Like the food was decent. What I appreciate about- - It's always decent. - Yeah, the one I appreciate about the Nichijou Cafe is that all the items were actual references to the show and they did them in really funny ways. I think when it comes to themed cafes, the best food I've had is probably the Kirby Cafe.

- I just wanna go to a place where I get as good food as something like another good cafe or restaurant. - I don't think you're going to. - Otherwise I'm like, fuck this then. I'd rather just look at pictures 'cause what's the fucking point? - I think maybe then the Kirby Cafe might be good because like that's a permanent store. - I'm not a big fan of Kirby though. I know you look sad there. - So you're not a fan of happiness, I see. - I don't give a fuck dude, Kirby's boring as fuck. - How fucking deep.

- I gotta agree with Connor here. - What the fuck does Kirby do other than just eat shit? Which I can relate to, but he's just like,

- Come on man, do something. - He's just a cute little fucking pink ball. Like anytime when I was a kid and I felt really fucking sad or angry or just had negative emotions, I would just play a Kirby game, depression gone. - I played a Kirby game as a kid and I was like, why does this shit suck so much? - Oh my God. - It's not a game of- - I played one of the DS games, I don't know which one it was. And it was just, I was like, God damn, this is like worse than every other platformer I've played.

- Kirby fans are just the bocce the rock fans of the video game industry. They're just like, oh look cute pink thing doing things. - Is that how it feels? - Serotonin. - I take Kirby over bocce.

- Like Kirby is a character I think is aight. But every game I played- - But you're not a Nintendo fan. - Yeah, I am. I love Nintendo. - What's your favorite Nintendo franchise? - Okay, what counts as being a Nintendo fan? Because I would say I'm a Nintendo fan, even though I don't know if I am a Nintendo fan. I like Nintendo stuff. - Mario franchise is probably the best one, let's be real.

- Yeah, but that's anyone that breathes at this point. - Yeah, but I mean, it's like, it's the best. Like when I think about Pokemon, like there's too many misses. I think about other games, like if someone says like F-Zero, I'm like, fuck off. You've had really this one- - That's the pretentious Nintendo fanfic. - Yeah, I'm like, there's two games, you haven't played it. If someone tells me like, oh, fan, I'm like, are you okay?

- Hey, I like EarthBound. - It's your favorite. - It's up there, but it's not my favorite. - Are you okay? - Zelda, I'm like understandable. - No, Zelda's probably the best. - Yeah, it's understandable. - Zelda's the best. - Okay, let's keep Nintendo for a second. Let's keep Nintendo fans. At which point does someone become a true Nintendo fan versus just, "Here's some shit I played as a kid." - I think...

- Okay, this is just my definition of it from how I see it. But like, I think it's one of those things where it's like, it's been with you all your life and you're still heavily involved in it. - Right. - Right, because it's like, you know, there's a lot of games that people like, you know, a lot of people, especially in our age group, right, grew up playing Nintendo games, right? It was, you were either like team Sony or you were team Nintendo or team Sega, right? Like that was the three genders.

And like, I feel like Nintendo fans, like I classify myself as a Nintendo fan because I never touched any of like the Sony stuff. I never owned a Sony console. - Faithful. - Yeah, I was faithful. I was faithful. I only had Nintendo consoles growing up. So it was like, I played Nintendo games all my life. Nintendo games are still like the main games that I play.

to this day as well. So like, I would say I'm a Nintendo fan. - Just a game fan. I like good games. Nintendo have a lot of good games. - And that's fine, yeah. There's a lot of other games I like as well, but I think at the end of the day, I always go back to playing Nintendo games. - Like I was always the Nintendo kid.

Like up to the- - I am the Nintendo kid. - I am the Nintendo kid. - People refer to me as kind of the Nintendo kid. - You should put that in your Twitter bio. - Yeah, the Nintendo kid. - The Nintendo kid actually. Everyone was like, are you playing Sonic? And I'm like, oh, like I would ever buy a Sega Mega Drive. Are you playing Metal Gear Solid? Oh, what is that, a PlayStation?

- Is that available on GameCube? Which Twin Snakes was actually available on the GameCube. - Yeah, it was. Good game. - But yeah, up to the GameCube, I owned nothing and I played nothing but Nintendo games. Whenever someone talks about their nostalgia with Tony Hawk's or some shit like that, I'm like, I don't get that.

I went to my cousin and he had a PS2. - You didn't have a PS2? - I didn't have a PS2. - They were like giving those away. PS2 is like 10 bucks. - I did not have a PS2. I was like, I had this like weird,

like loyalty to Nintendo. I was like, no matter what, I was like, no matter what all the other kids are playing, I refuse to play anything but the GameCube. And then I became a gamer and got an Xbox 360. And then I was like, oh, good games are on other platforms as well. - I mean, we had a PS2 and I remember the one thing about it was that like, we used to get so many pirated games.

And it made it so much cheaper to play on PlayStation 2. 'Cause Nintendo, they were always full price till the GameCube kind of like tanked and then they were like, "Okay, we gotta do a few sales." But yeah, the PS2 games, you could just get them super easily. I'm pretty sure my dad got like half of them from like the pub. He would just go and some guy would just give out CDs.

- He was doing PlayStation drug deals at the pub. - I think there was just a guy who's like, yeah, if you want PS2 games, let me know. - He's like, "Here's me for speed swing." - Give him a tenner and he just hand over like 50 games. - God damn. - And you're like, oh, okay. - Yeah. - I think, yeah. - Like, look, like,

- No one has the right to like fucking determine like, oh, you're a Nintendo fan, you're not a Nintendo fan. It's like fucking whatever, right? But like, you know, I think there's nothing wrong with like, you know, like in your situation where it's like you grew up playing Nintendo games and then you discovered other games, right? And you're playing that, right? - Yeah.

I don't know, somewhere deep inside of me, there's still a part of me that's just like, I will always go back to playing Nintendo games. - But I find that really interesting because I feel like Nintendo, like I totally get where you're coming from. 'Cause I feel like Nintendo is the only, let's say gaming brands that has that kind of brand loyalty to them because

Back in the day when there was the console war, you would have people like the Xbox kid, fucking Sony fans as well. But nowadays it's just like hardcore, there's hardcore Nintendo fans and then there are gamers. You know what I mean? - Just like there are idol fans and music fans.

- It's exactly the same. - No one with a PS5 is going like, "Oh, I'm a fucking PlayStation fan, man. I bullied Sony. I bullied PlayStation." No one does that. - I think during like the Wii U era, it felt like Nintendo was kind of a joke. - I mean, they were. - And everyone was kind of like, "Nintendo's for little babies.

- Nintendo fell off. - They did. - They did fall off. - They fucking fell off and then the Switch kind of- - And then they came back with the Switch. - Yeah. - I think the loyalty is, will probably only keep up as long as they keep making good games and consoles. - Oh, of course. - Yeah. And they still make great games, but I have no loyalty to their games like I used to. And I feel like some people will play Nintendo games. - Should be loyal to a company that doesn't care about you guys.

- Yeah, but like we've talked about Pokemon before, but you know, people are fucking loyal to Pokemon, even though comparatively to the other franchises like Mario and Zelda, I feel like Pokemon games are a lot worse designed and a lot worse games. - I've still played every single one.

- That's the point, right? I'm like, when a new Mario comes out, when a new Zelda comes out, I'm playing it 'cause it's gonna be a banger game. When a new Pokemon comes out, I'm like, this is a 50/50 right now about whether this will actually be a good game or not. - I mean, in saying that, I haven't enjoyed every single Pokemon game. There's been some real fucking boring and shit ones as well. - A lot of stinkers. - Yeah, but at the end of the day,

whenever there's a new Pokemon game announced, I'm gonna be playing it. 'Cause I'm just like, I'm like this far in, I might as well fucking see it till the end, right? - Yeah. That's a horrible mentality. - Well, you know, like I also am just like genuinely curious to see like, okay, you know, I've literally grown up with this franchise my entire life. Like some of my most fondest gaming memories when I was a kid was playing fucking Pokemon Gold and Silver on my Game Boy, right? Like that shit is like- - But how far can nostalgia go?

- Well, that's the thing, right? And so like, you know, with the newest game, for example, I was like, I saw a lot of merits in it, but I also saw a shit ton of flaws in it, like everybody else did. And you know, as much of a Pokemon fan as I am, I can't ignore the fact that yeah, the newest game was completely unpolished fucking rushed game. - Yeah. - Right? Like I can't deny that,

I'm still gonna play it because I still see the little enjoyment that there was in that game to see it. - Yeah, we had when the game came out, we had this discussion and I remember I was like, do you know, I don't wanna buy those games. I don't wanna be like, hey,

let me support this practice of you rushing out shit. - Right. - Yeah. - And making it seem like it's okay. 'Cause I just don't wanna buy games that I know are gonna be like that, that I know that are rushed. 'Cause you're kind of like supporting that almost. And obviously if that's not how you view it, that's not how you view it and that's totally fine. That's not me being like, you should feel this way. It's like for me, just personally, I don't wanna be like, hey, keep making games this way. I'm like, no, no, no.

- Take your time. - Yeah. - No, no, I totally get that mentality as well. But unfortunately with Pokemon fans, that didn't stop- - Oh no, no, no, no. It absolutely doesn't stop them. - Like Violet and Scarlet stole the most sold Pokemon game ever. - Yeah. - And I think that that's more of a testament to the Switch being in more hands than ever. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Like the amount of Switches sold is,

- It's like almost the most sold console after the PS2, right? I'm pretty sure it's up there. - It's a lot. I still think- - It's not that much because I think the DS still- - If you add up all the DSs, it's ridiculous. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's still a fuck ton of consoles, especially in this modern day where it doesn't, a lot of the times it doesn't really matter what console you play because most games are available on most consoles now anyway, especially if you have a PC.

- I love PC gaming the most by far still. It's just so easy. It's so easy to PC game. I love it. I mean, I guess if you have a good PC. - Yeah. That's the hurdle, isn't it? - Like, what do you have a good PC? Like, just like, you know, I'm also don't give a fuck about building your own people. Some people are like, you have to build your own PC. I'm like, no, don't fucking do that. It's a pain in the ass, but just buy one. Yeah, you pay a little bit extra in the parts, but that's how everything, when you fucking assemble it costs by professional. Like obviously you have to pay extra.

And it takes a lot of the stress out of PC gaming. 'Cause once you have it, it's just a PC. We all know how to use a PC. People are like installing games is hard. Come off it. Steam is so goddamn easy. I have way less stress buying games on Steam than I do on the Nintendo eShop. That shit is like nine layers of security. I got to enter my PayPal. Do you know how horrible it is to type on the Nintendo Switch as like a console? You're like- - You have to put your information in every time?

- Yeah, my PayPal, it makes me put it in every time. - I just attach my credit card and it's like just as fast. - They're like, he gets the pass, he gets the pass. - I get the pass, bro. It literally- - It's still like- - I bought Tears of the Kingdom in like 10 seconds. - Like Steve was just so easy. It's so great. I love it so much. And then I love that I can tweak the settings.

Like if there's motion blur in the game, like off with that right now, take that off. I can change the frame rate if I want. I'm like, this is just great. Like having this customization is fantastic. And like, you know, even though I've got a Steam Deck recently, which I like, and I just wish every Nintendo game I could play on that 'cause it's so much better. It's so nice.

- Yeah, I'd like for me, I would say that, now I just want a good game 'cause I barely have time to play games as it is. I wouldn't say I'm a Nintendo fan 'cause I definitely- - You're just a game fan. - I'm just a game fan. I would say I grew out of Nintendo actually. - In saying that though, you should play Tears of the Kingdom.

- No, no, no, I will play Tears of Kingdom because like here's the thing. I don't care if it's made by Nintendo or not. I just care if it's a good game. So the last games I played from Nintendo have been Mario,

- Odyssey. - Mario Odyssey. - Yeah, it's a great game. - Completed that. Not "Tears of the Kingdom", "The Breath of the Wild" completed that. And I know the only reason I haven't started "Tears of the Kingdom" is because I'm currently trying to touch grass. - When's you gonna start Elden Ring though, huh? When are you doing Elden Ring? - I would, I'll do it after I finished "Tears of the Kingdom". - No, you're not. I'm not trying to get you, Joey. I know you're not gonna play it. - I know, sometimes you do.

- Sometimes, I don't know. Sometimes it's just a vibe of something. I like the vibe of the whole Zelda aesthetic and you know, the breath of the wild. - This is fucking Genshin. - Yeah, but.

- Every masterpiece has its cheap copy. - You mean Genshin 2, right? - Yeah, Genshin 2. - Genshin was just fucking exactly like Breath of the Wild. - Yeah, exactly. - It just took so many aspects of it. No wonder you like it. - I don't know, the one reason I've never completed a Soulsborne game is that I just don't really like

- Oh, so your reasons have changed in the past months, huh? - Huh? - Your reasons have changed. You went from, "I'm definitely gonna play Elden Ring. I just gotta wait." And now you're like, "Ah, it doesn't gel with me anymore." I'm like, "What happened, Garnt?" - No, I am gonna play it because- - Oh, okay, okay, okay. - Like, like- - He lied as easily as he breathed. - I don't really like the whole dark fantasy setting. And yeah, yeah, dark fantasy is just not for me.

- Wait, you like Berserk? - That's the thing. The only time I've really get into a dark fantasy show or story or game is when it's actually pretty fucking good. So the product- - Is "Olden Ring" not good? - No, no, no. So the product has to be good enough to make me to get over that hump that it is a dark fantasy setting.

So I know Elden Ring fits in that category, which is why I know I'm gonna play it. It just takes that extra bit of push to be like, oh, you should get into this game because I don't really like dark fantasy stuff. I'm more like a sci-fi kind of like person or- - What if you streamed it? 'Cause then it'll give you the push that you're making content and you're finally playing that game you wanted to play.

- Do I wanna do that though? - You could go the Dydus route and stream it for 15 hours. Make content out of it. - You know, like Honkai and Genshin, I'll just turn your brain off and kind of do whatever. I would have to like actually be a gamer if I did Delden Ring, you know? I don't know if I'm prepared for that. - What's wrong with that? - I don't know if I'm prepared for that guys. - I forgot he's a Hoyoverse fan. I forgot. - True, true.

- I'm a whole verse streamer. There is a difference. - They sponsored you and then they made such a good investment. They locked you in for life. Just a few lump sum payments. - That's how they get you. - They got him on lock.

- God damn. - But another news, we're gonna be at AX. We're being gone off. - But Trash Taste is gonna have a big ass booth. - Yay! - We're leveling up. - I'm hyped for this. - Yes, we, we, right Joey? - We, we, I'm part of Trash Taste. - I'm involved. - Yeah, Joey,

is having a family holiday, right? - Yeah, I think we talked about it before, but yeah, I'm going to Vietnam. So I unfortunately won't be at AX this year, but these two will be, and we're gonna be having a massive Trash Taste booth at the entertainment hall. - Yeah, that should be interesting because- - Giving a booth at AX is interesting as well. I mean, the whole process was like,

Normally just for like giant companies. - Yeah, I mean, I saw we've so technically it's already been announced that we're gonna be at AX but I don't think people know currently that we're gonna have an actual booth there and it's not like Geeks Plus, it is like us.

- That's a big boy booth too. - It is a big booth. We are competing against, I believe, Hoyoverse, Amiplex. - You know, they have booths. Some big fucking boys. - If you go to the AX Instagram. - We are definitely the underdogs in that room. - Ghibli, Bushiroad, Hulu, Bandai Namco, Cygames, Yo! Star, Bandai, normal Bandai,

- And then there's pitiful old us. - And the trash taste. - We're just chilling. - We're just chilling. But yeah, we kind of decided to do something for AX because we go every year and this year we tried to, we decided to try something a little bit different and try to actually see what the booth experience is like. 'Cause we've seen a lot of other people try to do booths.

And we kind of just wanted a little bit of experience to what that was like, whether we're gonna do more in the future kind of depends on how well this one plays out because we tried to go as big as we could. We didn't like spare any expense with our ideas. - We have a giant gacha machine. - Yes, yes. - Which has a lot of good goodies. - We mean giant. - It's huge. It's like 12 foot or bigger than that. It's massive. - Yeah.

so big that one of us can get inside of it. - So if you go to the Hoyoverse booth, then you can go to our booth for like the real gacha, like the actual gacha.

- Hoyaverse fans, Genshin fans, if you need that gacha fix, just come to our booth. - Yeah, you can win some of the figures on the set, I think, 'cause we were planning on, like, we were, 'cause the gacha, 'cause the main way that we're funding this booth is by selling limited AX merch, which looks fucking sick, by the way. I don't know if we can show it, but I mean, if we can. - Pictures, maybe. - It looks so fucking sick. Especially if you buy some merch, you can spin the giant gacha machine. Some of the prices go up to, like, this fucking thing.

- You're this bad boy. - Yeah, we're getting the fate statue. It hurts to give the face statue away, but you can also win the face statue. And I feel like this is gonna be the one that people want the most. We're gonna have black Goku or Goku black, you decide. - It's black Goku. - It's just fucking, yeah.

I'm just hyped 'cause we always get asked to be at other people's booths and I guess it was always kind of like a, it'd be like a fun little, I don't know, see what happens. - Challenge. - Yeah, because normally only giant corporations can do this and we found out why 'cause it's ungodly expensive. - It's very expensive. - So we were like, let's sell them.

so we hopefully don't go bankrupt. - So if you're at AX, do us a favor, do the boys a favor and stop on over, check it out. There's obviously a bunch of other stuff as well. - We're gonna have claw machines as well. - We're gonna have a ton of claw machines. Again, stuff you can only get at AX. - And photo op stuff as well. - Yeah, we're gonna have a replica of our set as well, where you can sit with the boys. - You can finally be a member.

- You can be the fourth member of Trash Taste. - Is Fortnite overrated? - Yeah. - Let's find out. Yeah, I think we're just fucking high. I mean, it's been really cool going through the whole process of getting a space, figuring out how to build what in it and how much that costs.

- It's been eye opening and I can see why normally when you need to have a booth in AX, you are a big massive established company. 'Cause I don't think we're gonna make a profit from this. - I don't think so. - Yeah, if I'm being honest. - Yeah, me and Connor are gonna be at that booth, I don't know when, occasionally. - Yeah, we can't announce when me and Connor are gonna be at that booth because one of the big problems is,

We don't wanna cause a fire safety hazard because we will be kicked out. - That makes you sound so badass. We're just so popular. I mean, like if people know you're coming and lines are not good, they don't like lines. So we'll be there. So just make sure you tell us. - We'll be there at some time. We can't tell you when we'll be there, but we'll be there.

- I'll be there in spirit. - And Joey will get on a Zoom call with us. - I'll get on Zoom call. - Sometime. And yeah, we're gonna be filming a bunch of stuff there as well. So come check us out at Anime Expo this year. We have an actual booth. - I'm hyped for that. - Yeah, yeah. - I'm hyped. - But that's not the only thing we're doing at AX. Well, not the only thing you're doing at AX. - What else am I doing at AX?

Did you not wanna talk about this last week? - Oh yeah, I did, sorry. That's not at AX though. Yeah, that's okay. I was like, what? This has nothing to do with AX. - I should have said LA. - Yeah, we're doing the charity auction, which I think 100% hopefully should be announced by now. And if it isn't, I'm very worried. Yeah, on June 29th, we're doing a, well, I'm doing a charity event.

where I've just asked a bunch of YouTubers to bring items to sell for charity. Really excited for it 'cause this has been like months, months, months, months in production and getting it right and getting it perfect. And the idea has changed a lot over time. Initially, I was just like, I'll just bring a bunch of my cosplays and we'll auction them off in front of like a real crowd. And then it was like, well,

it kind of seems like a waste to do all that just for that. 'Cause I can do that in my room. Let's get more people involved. And then as I was getting more people involved, I was like, I should just get everyone to bring an item and we'll auction it off or a service. - Yeah.

- Or serve service. - Well, yeah, like you could be like, so some people, 'cause they don't have anything like physical, they can give away, they're just like, "Oh, like you can have an hour with me teaching you something or a dialogue." - Oh, okay, that's cool. - You know, 'cause then that way there's different ways people can get value. - Yeah. - You know, and there's some of those that I think are,

I don't know what I will and won't announce before. 'Cause I kind of want to get, like I want to keep some things a secret, but some things are really cool and I want people to know it's going to happen before. But I, you know, and luckily pretty much everyone I asked said yes. So we've got a ton of really big creators and a ton of really cool items that I'm super hyped to show off. Some really, really expensive stuff and some absolutely dog shit stuff, which I think will make it funny.

And yeah, we're gonna have like a whole real crowd and people can buy tickets that are very, very expensive. But then the ticket will, I can't remember what exactly what it was. Basically it'll be a donation to charity. - Right. - Yeah. - So very excited for that. - Is there anything you want to reveal before or do you wanna keep it all a secret? - Just trying to think what I should reveal and what I shouldn't keep secret. 'Cause right now I haven't said anything.

- Well, I mean, it's happening in LA. - Oh yeah, it's happening in LA, but like, you know, the tickets are like, there's only like 20 tickets. So watch online, it'll be fun. Should be able to watch it in every time zone, hopefully. I'm excited for it. It's gonna be fun. We have like an actual auction house

- Nice. - And we have- - Do you have like a proper auctioneer guy as well or? - No, I'm gonna be the auctioneer. - Oh, you're gonna be the auctioneer. - I'm gonna be the auctioneer. - Oh, okay. - So I'm gonna be the host, gonna be auctioneering. - So I expect you to do like the whole thing of like, "Oh my God, $10, $20, $20, $20, $20." - Yeah, you just might not understand what I'm saying. It's cool 'cause they're like, people can bid in person and at home. - Right. - So it'll be,

Interesting to see how quickly it might go up with people bidding online versus in person. So very excited for it. It should be a fun little mix that I don't think anyone's done before 'cause it's kind of weird and ambitious. And the whole thing came about 'cause I was like, hey,

I was talking to Ludwig and I was like, I'd really like to do this thing. And do you reckon you guys, the off-brand would be interested, which is the company that he's a part of. And yeah, they were super down for it and managed to find a good production company in LA. So very hyped for it. Should be like my most well-produced stream of all time. Nice. Let's hope that people turn up and watch. I'm sure. I'm hyped. I'm so hyped for it. Go check it out. We've also donated items. Yeah. Yep.

- Garnt gonna be there in person as well. - I'll be there in person. - I'll be there in spirit. - Joey will be there in spirit from Vietnam again. - Yeah, a lot of people will be, if they're not, like a lot of creators that can't make it who are still interested will still be there in some way. So don't worry. But yeah, I think it's gonna be a lot of fun. I'm super excited for it. - Hell yeah. - Yeah. - It's been a fuck ton of work. - Nice, fuck yeah. Yeah, every day I see Connor messaging like different people being like, "Oh, what item are you doing?" - Yeah, I've never,

many people for a project ever because I always just felt kind of weird asking people for stuff. I know you've done this before. And I was just like, God, this is so annoying having to chase after everyone. - Yeah, it's like herding cats, isn't it? - Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, and it's like, and I understand 'cause you're asking for someone to give their time or something. So I don't like asking people for stuff a lot.

And so it was kind of like, I was like, all right, here we go. Got to contact literally everyone I've ever met who is a significant creator to kind of get an item and get them involved in somewhere. But I'm really happy so far with the people we have on board. So really, really interesting items as well. - Hell yeah.

- Good and bad items. So excited. - I couldn't imagine trying to keep track of that many people and sort out something like that. - And physically then getting the stuff or getting the people to turn up is kind of a lot of work, but I mean, it should be fun. - I'm bad enough, okay.

I guess change the topic now unless there's something else you wanna say. - No, no, no, I'm just hyped for it. - Keep your eye out on it. - Keep your eye out. - I'll probably talk more about it when, maybe, I don't know, when they come up to it or when, I don't know, when it's done. I have no idea. Just turn up, come watch 29th of June, excited.

- Yeah, I'm mad enough keeping up with messaging people who like owe me money, you know, for like a group event. I fucking despise it, man. I feel like I'm the type of guy who, if it's just like a small amount of money, I'm just like,

Fuck it, whatever. Let's just forget about it. - I don't think anyone likes being the repo man. Just being like, "Oh, by the way, I'm here to take your shit." No one likes that. - That's why I'm the guy who's just like, "If I can pay a debt, I hate being in debt." 'Cause I know the pain of the person

who is waiting, not even like, even if they're not waiting for money, the fact that they have to go out of their way to like message me to be like, you need to pay your money 'cause I know I'm gonna forget. I know I'm gonna fucking forget, man. - Yeah, sure. - Yeah. - Oh, I'm also doing a panel with Iron Mouse. I forgot about that.

of some time at AX, so that'll be fun. - Oh yeah. - I think that'll be streamed as well. - We don't have a full AX schedule right now. I'm sure I'm gonna have some events. - We'll just check out on Twitter. - Yeah, just check out our Twitter. - That's probably where we'll be telling. - We'll actually update it for once, you know?

- I'm excited. I like going to anime expo. It's always crazy. I mean, you just see the most insane cosplayers. - Yeah. - It's just very busy. - I can't wait to see the amount of Honkai cosplayers this year. - Oh my God. - I'm calling it now. - It's gonna be one in two. - It's like all of us have just taken over cosplays, right? Last year, like last year I was surprised. Not really surprised, actually kind of surprised 'cause I knew Genshin was big. - I was not surprised. - I knew Genshin was big. I didn't know. I didn't like,

A year is like quite a long time in my mind, right? 'Cause that was, was it last year? Last year was the first time that we had gone to conventions again after like COVID and everything. And I knew Genshin was big. And it was then that I realized how big Genshin was, you know? And with how big Honkai I think is gonna be.

That's just gonna like, they've just monopolized pretty much every cosplayer. - I mean, it's because all their characters are just so cosplayable. It's like these character designs are built for cosplay. - The amount of cosplayers and artists that don't even play the games were like, "Yeah, I just do it 'cause I like the character designs." - It just looks good, yeah. - Yeah, do you remember like previous cosplays

or previous conventions where there would always be like that one character at every convention. - Every year there was always like a hot series. - There was always Kirito and Ashina. - That was way longer ago. - For me, the one character I never understood 'cause I didn't realize it was this popular was Junko Inoshima from "Danganronpa". There were so many and I did not understand why because I didn't,

My friendship group, we had one person that played Danganronpa and they hardly talked about it. So I was surprised that

this one particular character was just this popular in pretty much every anime convention I went to that year. - Yeah, and it's only Junko. - Yeah, it was only- - No other Danganronpa characters. - No other Danganronpa characters, just Junko and Ashima. - Yeah. - Why is that? - I don't know. Another one I always see so much of, even to this day, is fucking Yumeko from "Kakiguri." - Oh, yeah.

- Yeah. You see that still to this day, so many Kakeguri cosplays and I'm like- - I think when the cosplay is easy, you know, like, you know, that's an anime that is kind of,

- Kind of easy to cosplay. - Pretty easy, yeah. - You get a little, a normal school-esque outfit, throw on a wig. - Yeah, true, true, true. - I think it's like a- - But Junko is not easy. - Yeah, Junko is not easy. - But I mean, I guess it's easy to wear as well. - I guess. - It's kind of more, the closer it is to normal attire, the easier it is to- - Fuck, I'm starting to see a pattern here. Okay, so Junko, Yumeko,

- Yuno Gasai from- - It's all the insane characters. - Fuck. - But also it's also kind of easy to cosplay. - Himiko Toga from "Mahiro Academia" as well. Fuck, oh my God. What is it with the insane girls and cosplayers, man? Holy shit. - Toga cosplay is pretty good though. 'Cause you gotta do a lot of work,

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - All the cosplays I've seen of all these characters are fucking sick. Like they look so good. Like I could never do that shit obviously, but like, yeah, it's all the insane characters. - It's literally all the insane characters. - 'Cause they're just like me for real. - Oh my God. - I can fix her. - I can fix her 'cause she's like me. - I don't know. - Yeah. - It'll be all "Chainsaw Man" this year.

- Oh yeah, fuck. I wonder how many Machima and Power cosplays it's gonna be. - Because Machima and Power is easy, so we'll see a lot of it. - Sure. - There were quite a few Aki cosplayers already, like from the few conventions we went to and stuff. - Yeah, I thought Chainsaw Man was already pretty popular when I- - Well, did you see the-

the Mapper thing from the, I don't know which guy it was. He was just like, yeah, Chainsaw Man didn't do as well as we kind of thought it would do. Jujutsu Kaisen did way better. - Yeah, it was actually a commercial flop. - Yeah, yeah. - Really? - Yeah, like I saw in an article, like they made close to no money off of Chainsaw Man. - Yeah, I think- - So they broke even? - I don't even think they broke even. - I think the article headline that at least I saw, and this is me reading article headlines in the article, it was like,

Chainsaw Man was a success, but didn't have the same impact that Jujutsu Kaisen did for the company. Like for MAPPA. - I don't get it. - I don't get it either. - I started thinking, I was like, yeah, you know, the Chainsaw Man kind of came and everyone was like, yo, and at least in Japan, this is not online in the Western sphere. This is Japan, everyone's like, yo, Chainsaw Man, three months. And it was like, okay.

- But like, whereas Jujutsu Kaisen, it felt like it just wouldn't leave. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Jujutsu Kaisen just felt like it was, and then the movie came out and that was huge. - The movie was a huge commercial success. - It just felt like Jujutsu Kaisen hype did not die in Japan. And then I guess when I heard that I was like,

- Yeah, that does kind of make sense when I think about how it was being in Japan only. Nothing to do with online discourse or anything like that. Just being in Japan, Jujutsu Kaisen was fucking everywhere. - I think what Jujutsu Kaisen did really well was that they kind of had this like constant stream of new content happening as well because it was like the first season happened and then not too long after that, there was like the movie and in between that, there was lots of promotional stuff and now like, you know, second season and all that kind of stuff. Whereas Chainsaw Man, it was kind of just like, here's 12 episodes.

and nothing so far. - Yeah. Here's the weird thing though. When did people start getting hyped over "Jujutsu Kaisen"? - Like right away. - Really? 'Cause it felt like, did you start watching it right away? 'Cause it felt like when I first started watching, like let's say the first arc of "Jujutsu Kaisen", I was like, oh, this is a hyped up new shonen that everyone talks about. Let's see what it's about. And I'm like, oh, it's good, it's good.

And like not many, I didn't really see much discussion or talk about it. I think it just felt like overnight everyone was watching it. And I was like, when did, what happened? Or when did this happen? At which stage did everyone start watching "Jujutsu Kaisen?" 'Cause you know, at least- - I think it was the moment when "Gojo" came out.

- Oh shit, it might be. - I think Gojo. - Yo, no, you know what it was? It was the fucking eye scene. - It was the eye scene. - Oh my God, that's it. - That eye scene was clipped and uploaded everywhere. - Holy shit, you're so right. - I also think like when I watched Chainsaw Man, I thought it honestly, when you compare them both, you're like,

- Chainsaw Man is maybe a little too much. Like in terms of like, you know, when you think about a general audience. - Yeah, yeah. - It's very sexual, very, very sexual. - It's very weird. - It's very weird. The gore is fucking intense, which makes fit for all things that I love and I really fucking dig it. But I could see how on like a general scale, how something like Jujutsu Kaisen would be way easier to market with. - Yeah. - You know, when you have these characters and yeah, it's about killing fucking,

there's not guns and there's not humans being killed. A lot of times it's mainly these spirits. And yeah, some of the cast, maybe some of them get hurt and stuff, but you know what I mean? Like when you sit down and look at it from like a business perspective, it would make way, it does make more sense. - It's more marketable, broader audience.

- That in Japan as a whole, that something like "Jujutsu Kaisen" would pop off more, even though "Chainsaw Man" was marketed towards like teenagers here in Japan. - I mean, I feel that's like a reason why "Demon Slayer" for example, was so huge in Japan. Because I think on a broader scale of things, it's so much more aspects to that show that are just so much easily marketable to as wide of an audience as possible. Whereas "Chainsaw Man", I feel a lot of the hype that was created around "Chainsaw Man" was, it was two part, it was,

the fans of the manga of Chainsaw Man and the fact that MAPPA's name was attached to it. - Definitely felt like the Western hype for it was so much more intense than what I saw in Japan. - Yeah, for sure. - I also feel like,

I also feel like "Chainsaw Man" only being 12 episode kind of hurt it a lot as well. - Yeah. - I agree with that. - I feel like that was the biggest factor 'cause I'm kind of realizing now, especially with long running battle shonen, you need more than 12 episodes to sell a shonen show. I mean, "Demon Slayer" now one of the,

grossing anime franchises of all time. Before episode 18, I remember no one really fucking watched Demon Slayer. Then suddenly everyone was watching Demon Slayer because of like one banger moment in episode 18. And I remember for that moment, I was like, oh, I remember.

I remember I literally made a video about Demon Slayer being like, oh, I don't think many people are watching this when it first came out and then it just blew up overnight. And I feel like something similar happened with Jujutsu Kaisen as well, where it kind of- - The Gojo-I scene bro. - The Gojo-I scene. - They only have 12 episodes though, right? No, do they have 24? - Sorry? - Jujutsu Kaisen only had 12 episodes though, right? - No, he had 24. - 24. - Oh, that's pretty why it felt so fucking good to watch. I mean like Vinland Saga now, I'm watching it weekly and I'm like, I already know what's gonna happen.

I love, I fucking love that we have 20, like I can get my teeth in it. You know what I mean? 24 episodes, I'm like, all right, buckle up. It feels like my watching it weekly, the investment is worth more. And I wonder if it's gonna swing around. - Yeah, 'cause I feel like with "Chainsaw Man", it's like the 12 episodes barely got me invested into-

- They didn't even get to like the meat of the story yet. - Yeah, it does kind of suck 'cause you know, and they're like, all right, wait three years now. - Yeah, exactly. 'Cause it's like, if I compare the first 12 episodes of "Jujutsu Kaisen", we're gonna start a war right now, by the way. If I compare the first 12 episodes of "Jujutsu Kaisen" versus the first 12 episodes of "Chainsaw Man", I would say I'm more for "Chainsaw Man", but now that the final product is there, there were more banger moments in "Jujutsu Kaisen" because it had 24 episodes and,

had some really, really good fucking fights in the second half, which is my favorite part of the first season of "Jujutsu Kaisen." - Yeah, "Jujutsu Kaisen" fights went hard. - Yeah, and I don't even feel like "Jujutsu Kaisen" has even come close to reaching its peak, which is why it's good. They're both good, but they're both-

that in my eyes have not come close to reaching their full potential yet. - Is "Jujutsu Kaisen" season two 24 episodes as well? - Yes, it has just been confirmed to be 24 episodes. - They're cooking. - I mean, they'd be doing a disservice if they only gave you 12 episodes.

- I'd rather wait like three years and get 24 episodes than wait one year and get 12 episodes. 'Cause I don't know what it is. Something about like, yeah, you often can't reach a good climax in 12 episodes without it feeling rushed for like this kind of shonen. - Yeah. - I mean, I feel that's why like the latest seasons of like "Attack on Titan" struggled a lot, right?

because it's like we were only given like small increments of like 12 episodes where it would have just been much better if we just gave us a huge chunk of 24 episodes to actually invest ourselves in. And now like the hype for it is like kind of slowly dwindling away because it's like, oh fuck, we have to wait again for the continuation. - Yeah, I'm kind of starting to realize how,

what 12 episodes is. 'Cause there's so many 12 episodes anime that I like, but now when I think about the anime I'm excited about, it's all of them that have like multiple seasons, right? - Yeah. - That have a longer ongoing story than just 12 episodes. I'm trying to think of like- - Just imagine if 1% of the power that One Piece animation had was put into other shit, we'd get so many episodes. We'd get so many episodes, dude. I don't know.

- Yeah, definitely again, like watching Vinland Saga really has made me appreciate that. - Yeah. - Like, I mean, Map is animating that. - Yeah. - Like the fact they were given so much time to let that story breathe. And you know, 'cause I think there could have been an argument where a lot of fans would be like, the fucking farm arc is boring, yada, yada, yada. It's not, I'm sure I'm saying like, this is what like maybe people would say. 'Cause a lot of people were worried that anime watchers wouldn't like.

the new season of Inland Song. Cause they're like, what the fuck? Why is nothing happening? - Yeah.

But I think it really, really helps sell that story in particular and helps get the message across by just having this kind of slow progress and letting you go through it in a way that isn't rushed. 'Cause I do think there could have been a world where it could have been rushed and it could have been glossed over 12 episodes. - Yeah, for sure. - It wouldn't have been good, but I think it could have been done. - Well, I think the problem is right now that there is so much anime being made and most of them are- - You have to do it in 12 episodes, right? - And most of them are 12 episodes, right?

Even if you have a banger 12 episodes, just by having 24 episodes, it will stick out more in people's minds because they've consumed more of it compared to like other shows. And I'm looking at a lot of these like 12 episode shows that I've watched.

And a lot of them, I know, like, I think the last one that had like a massive impact was probably like "Bocce the Rock", you know? But that's because it was like something new, you know? - New, okay. - I can't really think of a lot of 12 episode shows that stick in people's mind years after they air. Whereas I think now like the meta is having,

having longer running series run over multiple seasons. - Yeah, and also releasing them in a way that it makes sense. Like, I mean, again, we spoke about this on a prior podcast, but JoJo hype was killed by how it was released on Netflix. And I think if it was,

if that was just, they were like, hold up, let's just wait an extra year and a half or two years and let's just drop it all in one go. It would have done better. Or I think even better yet, I kind of prefer just the weekly model. As the older I've gotten,

I don't know why. - No, I can't. - The more I kind of like the weekly model a lot. I'm like, yeah, I like this. I can get invested over a course of a long period of time. - I fucked myself over with "Ocean of Coen: Hell's Paradise" and I hate it. I hate waiting a week for an episode. - You hate that? - I hate it. - I like that. - I'm like, I just want to watch the next episode now. - And I think one of the things I like most about that is that the show can come out and I can reflect on my life as the show is coming out.

'Cause sometimes if it's so- - What the fuck does that mean? - 'Cause like sometimes it's like a 50 episode series, right? - Yeah. - And it's, I can be like, damn, I've been watching this for a whole year and I can think about how I've had this whole thing to look forward to and I can think back to like where I was when I was watching. - It ain't that deep, dog. - But I really like that. I don't know why. Like being a part of something for that long is kinda nice. - Right, yeah.

Whereas when you binge it, I don't feel the same way. - That's for One Piece fans. - I genuinely think like One Piece fans, they must get some, like there's, 'cause I mean, obviously I'm still reading it, but I'm not reading it like weekly, but it must be kind of cool to follow something like One Piece fans who've been following it for like 10 plus years. It must be pretty fucking cool to follow One Piece and have it kind of follow your like life. - Yeah, that's kind of, yeah, you grow up with it. Like that's kind of sick.

I mean, as that one piece fan and also as someone who's had some franchises that's happened to me before, I think the biggest one that sticks out my mind is Ava.

Ava wasn't exactly a weekly show. It wasn't exactly a weekly wait to get the next piece of Ava, but I waited, we were Ava fans, we waited and seeing it come to an end after fucking 25. - And then you couldn't imagine how you were when you first watched the second one or the first one. You kind of look back and like, oh, that's kind of cool. - And you look back, but I don't,

I feel like a year is not enough time for me to be like emotionally invested enough to be like, oh, I watched this for 50 weeks. - You'd be surprised how much change in a year. I think it's important to self reflect on your past year. - 'Cause like for me, my biggest thing I look for whenever I watch anything, doesn't even matter if it's anime, is just to get like immersed in the story, right? - Of course. - That's why I kind of, I'm fine with watching US TV shows a lot of time weekly because they're like an hour long. 20 minutes is,

- It's barely enough time. - It's not enough, yeah. - Yeah, it's barely enough time for me to like properly get immersed in a story. - Which is why I love it then 'cause I feel super good that when I, maybe one way I go super busy and I couldn't watch the show and then you have two episodes to watch, you're like, oh. Okay, oh yeah. - Grab the popcorn, get a drink. - You're like, 40 minutes, yeah.

Someone else must be relating to this. It's so, it feels like it's just treat when you get- - No, no, I get the sentiment you're going for. - It's so nice, dude. - I've just never done it myself. - I don't know. - I've tried doing it, yeah. - And I'm sure Jujutsu Kaisen will be like that for me 'cause I'm gonna try my goddamn hardest to not watch for the first few weeks so that I can, 'cause you know, a lot of anime suffer from the first few episodes being kind of- - Shonen's even worse, man. Shonen's even worse. - Well, it's like my personal rule with Demon Slayer

from the second arc onwards, I was like, I'm not watching a goddamn episode till episode eight is out. 'Cause it's, you just get blue balled till episode eight. Like nothing happens most of the time, except the sword arc. I did that rule and then like two episodes in stuff started happening. I was like, oh, okay, that's good. - I just wait till the whole season's over so I can just binge it. - Yeah, I need at least like five episodes. I watched like five episodes. - 'Cause that's how I get properly hooked.

that I have that five or six episode binge. And then I can be like, now I'm ready to wait weekly. I know it's worth it. - No, with Shonen, it's okay. There are some series I can maybe like bend the rules and watch weekly. Shonen is nigh on impossible because the amount of times I've tried this before where I've watched it, it's the first episode of the fights. You are just getting invested and you're like, damn, shit's about to pop off.

Episode ends, you wait a week. You're like, I've forgotten what's happened. Oh yeah, they're in a fight. Okay, let's, it's about to pop off. And then there's always like the three stage act in the fight where at first it looks like, you know, things are going well or maybe this time the protagonist is losing and you're in my mind, I'm just like, okay,

I'm waiting for the episode where the protagonist turns it around. And it's not that episode, it's the next episode. So I gotta invest myself again, wait a week and then in a single fight last three fucking weeks, I'm like, I didn't even- - Third part is a protagonist makes a realization about themselves and uses that knowledge to fight and win. - And I'm like, shit, this is enough time for me to use my brain. I'm like, I know what's gonna happen.

And it's not enough time to reinvest back into that fight to really see the hype moment where the protagonist turns it around or that hype moment happens in the fights. Especially with Shonen, there needs to be like a natural progression in the fights. - But Boshi the Rock.

- Bocce the Rock is like, yeah, I could watch that weekly. I'm just like, yeah, turn my brain off. - Because nothing fucking happens, that's why. - Bocce scare, oh, she just like me for real. Okay, that's enough. Yeah, it's yeah, they're definitely not shown in, but that's why I kind of, I like the Netflix model, even though I would still like them to release weekly just because

I have patience, I can wait until this. I can wait. - Skilled if. - Yeah, I can wait. - We get bigger hype for series and the problem is that I don't know what hype translates to for like profits. Like does hype help at all? Like probably, right? 'Cause you can probably sell more merch or more DVDs. - I mean, it didn't help change one man.

- Yeah, well, I wonder how Chainsaw Man released in Japan. I don't know if it was on TV, what time slot it was on. 'Cause Japan sometimes fucking fucks anime over and they stick it like- - Yeah, I think Chainsaw Man though was on like most streaming sites from what I remember in Japan as well. So I think they did a decent job then like compared to like some of the older shows. - But I can easily see a world where Chainsaw Man struggled to find

a solid demographic that really- - Yeah, 'cause it's fucking weird. - 'Cause it kinda touches a lot of, I guess, kind of different niches that would appeal to different kinds of people, but none of them are all like,

Like, "Poetry of the Rock," like you said, you know the 50 year olds are gonna show up. You know what I mean? Like, "Chainsaw Man," who are you 100% targeting here? 'Cause it's like edgy teenagers, sure. Young adults, probably. 40 year old men, probably it's a little too weird for them. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's such an odd,

it's an odd show that appeals to, I think just hardcore anime and manga fans, which is great 'cause it's in a fucking amazing show. And I don't think anyone would argue it's not. But I think I can 100% believe that it probably had a hard time just selling itself to a demographic in a way that would meaningfully make money. - But there are some franchises like, okay, the biggest one that has never made sense to me, right? It's Evangelion.

I'm just like,

- Why this? Because if you look at the history of like anime franchising in Japan, Eva was one of like the first that had such like a massive hit all around. I mean, we had like, obviously like Mecha before like Gundam and everything like that. But Eva was just everything. Everything about this was seen everywhere in Japan. - It was a cultural phenomenon. - It was a cultural phenomenon. And I'm like- - The time it came out and the type of show it was. I think if Eva came out today, it probably wouldn't be-

- Like you look at Ava and I'm like, this doesn't look like a marketable show. You look at what's happening on screen and you just see it. No one's looking at being like- - I think it's more marketable than "Chainsaw Man." - You think so? - I think so. 'Cause okay, first of all, mechs, mechs are great for money. Number one, because you can sell the mechs, they're iconic.

Number two, I think the main character, I think Shinji is way easier of a sell than Denji. - Hell nah, hell nah. I'm a disagree with you there. - Because as we've learned from Bochy the Rock, socially anxious characters that are depressed fucking resonate.

They do well. Denji is too happy go lucky. - No, no, no. - And he's too horny. 'Cause you don't wanna identify with him. - Okay, look, look, look. - You don't wanna be that horny. - Look, you need to go with, you know, the reason Denji works- - Denji's the best mate. Denji's not the guy you wanna be. Denji's the guy you wanna have as your mate. - No, Denji, I feel resonates more with today's audience than

- Denji is the guy that everyone wishes they could be, but they're too scared to admit. - Yeah, because that's, okay. You look at someone like Midoriya, right?

Good kid follows the rules. Oh, I just wanna be a good boy. Nobody fucking thinks like that anymore. - Bitch boy. - Yeah, like you look at fucking- - We're fucking grown ass adults, that's why we don't give a fuck. - You fucking look at like teenagers now and they're like, yeah, I'm a fucking denji. What do I give a shit about? I don't know.

I actually don't know. - I just wanna touch some tits. That's all I can say. - I just wanna touch some tits. Denji definitely would subscribe to an OnlyFans if he had fucking income, okay? Look, Denji- - I'm trying to make an argument for some shit I made up for a show I don't like.

- Listen, I think that Shinji being a little bitch boy probably helped a lot. They had sex in Eva, I think, right? There's cum on the hands or something like that. - Someone had sex, but it wasn't Shinji. - It wasn't Shinji. - Oh wait, I know this is through memes only. It's like, yes, I had to have that 30 second sex scene where I show everything. - Dude, Shinji like fell on top of a naked Ray and still got no pussy. Like he's got no hope.

- Yeah. - Yeah, but like I came out, wait, wait, when did they get, 90s? - 1995. - '95. - What a horny year that was. I can see why it worked. I can see. - I think maybe Ava might've like kind of banked off of the whole like 90s OVA era of just like, I think anime fans in general were just looking for more weirder, out there unique shit. - Yeah, I don't think Ava would be,

- Like Ava would not work today. - Yeah. - No way. - Yeah. - I think it just came out at the perfect time and it was that one show that was like, it's just- - Also banger opening. - Yeah, of course. - It is the weird national anthem. - But like, I think Ava was one of those shows where like it came off a time where people were looking for something that was like weird and unique, but still new.

not so weird that it alienated his entire fan base. And I feel like Ava was just like kind of right on the cusp of that.

- I think in terms of, from the Japan perspective, the struggle of being a teenager who's being told what to do and you kind of struggling with that. That's a very, I mean, obviously that's a very universal concept, but I think very much so in Japan where it's like, I'm a teenager and I'm struggling with my identity here. I don't know where all my places in the world and all the adults are telling me to do all this stuff. So I think that's also a massive reason why I was successful. And again, it was horny.

and have robots. - I think as well Ava just like really grew from just like word of mouth. - Probably, yeah. I don't know. This is all speculation I've made based off only watching one season and fucking- - Yeah, because like, I feel like not only was Ava like so, like I think the people who really liked it, it started off kind of small-ish and then it kind of grew from just a word of mouth because anime was just getting more, I guess,

in the late nineties and early two thousands. And then not to mention like the countless number of like people in the industry who like directly, you know, looked at Ava and was like, that was a huge influence or like, you know, that we took a lot out of Ava. And it's like, I think it's just like the combination of the influential factor in the industry. And just the fact that it just came out at the perfect time. And it's just like, everything just came together with a banger opening on top of that cherry on top.

- There you go. - 'Cause I think the big difference between something like say Chainsaw Man and Ava is that I think they just have different demographics like period. I think Ava has, I think the topics explored in Ava probably,

resonated with a lot of the older working like generation in Japan at the time where there was a lot of this societal pressure. Once you grew out, once you graduated from high school and everything, and that kind of like story really resonated with the whole generation of people in Japan. And I think that's one of the big reasons why it became the massive hit that it did.

- And then 30 years later they became bocce fans. - Actually, actually.

- Those 50 year olds in business suits, they were once in their 20s Ava fans. - I would argue that I think Ava fans and Bocce fans have more in common than Bocce fans and Chainsaw Man fans. Sorry, then I'm more likely to have something in common than Bocce fans and Chainsaw Man fans. - I mean, yeah, I truly believe that Chainsaw Man just hasn't found its,

die hard audience yet that it appeals to. - I mean, I think they exist, but it's only in the manga form right now. - Yeah, maybe. I mean, I don't know. I also think it's harder to sell merch for Chainsaw Man. - Yeah, it's just a little. - Ava, you can do anything, Ava. - That's true. - I mean, Chainsaw Man is just a little bit edgier.

- It's a little bit too weird, I think, for the regular person. - Yeah, yeah. And Jujutsu Kaisen, I feel, is that perfect middle ground from, you know, there's, let's say, My Hero Academia, the kind of like the poster child of like safe kind of like here's like a safe- - It's got a very similar vibe to like Gantz almost, like very horny, very gory. - Oh, Chainsaw Man? - Yeah. - Oh, I thought you said My Hero Academia.

- Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Sorry, fuck no. - Remember when Deku fucked in episode one? Just like Gantz. - But I think Gantz came out at a time where,

- Edginess was very much in demand. I think edginess is not as in as it used to be. I think people are kind of over it. - Again, 'cause like all these shows banked off of the fucking edgiest period of anime, which is the 90s OVA period. Those were some of the edgiest fucking shows ever made. - I feel like there will always be a,

for edginess. - No, they will be. - Maybe it won't be mainstream. - But it's not as in the forefront as it used to be. - Yeah, I think it goes in and out of being in the mainstream popularity, but there'll always be a demand for edgy shows in terms of like peak popularity. - 'Cause like I'm waiting for, I'm not sure if this already exists, but whatever this generation's Mira and Nikki will be,

because every, okay, hear me out, hear me out. Every generation, every generation has a shit show that for some reason, when you were a fucking teenage kid, slapped so hard, all right? For me, it was like, for me, like the progression goes Elfen Lied, Mirae Nikki, Akami Gakil, right? And I'm like, what is this generation is gonna be? - I'm praying to God it's not Chainsaw Man.

- No, 'cause "Chainsaw Man" is good. - "Chainsaw Man" is good. - Or are we just saying that like we used to say with "Mirai Nikki", guys? We all thought "Mirai Nikki" was a good show when it came out. - I've grown up for gay shows. - I know. I thought "Elf and Lee" was a bad show.

- It was a banger show when I first watched it. - I thought it was, I thought, oh my God, they had so much gore. Like, do you remember the phase where you're like, guys, adults, guys, anime actually for adults. And it would always be the first 10 minutes of Elfenlea to be like- - The thumbnail was always Elfenlea. - Yeah, the thumbnail was always Elfenlea to be like, yo, people got killed and it's bloody and it's violent. Yo, this shit slaps. - Oh my God.

- Let's hope it doesn't happen. - Let's hope it doesn't happen. - I'm praying. - Chainsaw Man is not in that same category because it is actually good. - It's actually a good show. - Chainsaw Man is fucking amazing. I just, yeah, like I said, I think we just think it's like a little too gory. - Yeah. - A little too edgy right now for it to crush mainstream. - Yeah, yeah. I hope it does though. I hope it does. - I fucking hope so too. - I haven't read further on the manga. Apparently it just gets better. - Oh my God. Second half is juicy. - I don't know if this is a controversial take.

- Don't fucking animate a new intro outro every time. Just give me fucking more episodes. I'm gonna be real. I would much prefer more episodes. - I kind of feel like they did that. - That was overkill. - Yeah, it was overkill. - It was awesome. But it was too much. - Okay, because here's the thing, right? Attack on Titan.

obviously gory, obviously edgy, right? But do you feel like that was successful because it just never kind of like tried to be a shonen or try to market itself as a young audience and it went here is a mature kind of like story right from the get go. - Yeah, maybe perhaps. It's hard to say 'cause "Attack on Titan" success is,

- It's a bit of an anomaly. - But I think no one would say isn't deserved. But I mean, yeah, even Japan, it's still huge. "Titan Titan" is fucking massive. And it's kind of in its own bubble in that right where like no other show is kind of like it or done as well as it in Japan.

It's just very weird. It's very odd. - I feel like that's just because that's, I mean, marketability aside, if you have a good story like Attack on Titan, then at the end of the day, you're gonna get fans and people are gonna try and find a way to sell it. - It's also like the Titans are pretty fucking iconic. Even if you don't know Attack on Titan, you've seen a Titan.

And you're like, well, not in real life, obviously. You might have seen one. You know what I mean? They're so easy to spread. And I don't know. I feel like it's, yeah, it's so bizarre. It's such an interesting...

- It has such like noticeable like imagery and like recognizable imagery that no other show looked like or will probably ever look like. So that definitely helps. Whereas like, you know, as vividly, as vivid like visually Chainsaw Man was like, you know,

it's not exactly the most like outlandish, like unique visuals when it comes to like character designs or anything like that. So I think maybe that might be another aspect where it's like, it's not as instantly recognizable. - I feel like maybe Chainsaw Man just hasn't had enough time.

- I feel like it needs to cook just a little bit longer. - Let them cook. - I'm fucking hoping that the next season when it comes out, whenever the fuck it comes out, that it really does fucking crush. - I'm just saying as someone who's read ahead, the second half of "Chainsaw Man" is fucking wild. - I just want them to be financially fucking gone. I want them to print money just so we get more.

- True. - All right, well that's all, you know, a monthly anime tour. No more now, no more. - No more for next couple of episodes. - Hey, look at these patrons, though. - Look at all those patrons. - Swag money. - Are you a Chainsaw Man fan? I bet you are.

- Yeah, do you think Chainsaw Man should be more popular? More marketable? - Let us know in the comments. - Do you think Jujutsu Kaisen is better than Chainsaw Man? Let's just start a war right now. - I will block you if you do say that. But hey, if you'd like to support the show, then go to our Patreon, patreon.com/trashdays. Also follow us on Twitter, send us some memes on the subreddit, and if you hate our face, listen to us on Spotify. And for those of you guys going to AX,

I mean, I won't see you there, but they'll see you there. - We'll see you there. - That's our booth. - All right. - So you have the charity auction as well. Make sure to watch that. - Yep, hell yeah. All right, see you next week. - Bye.