Our Viewers FORCED Us To Play This | Trash Taste #227
02:07:19 Share

This is the sound of your ride home with dad after he caught you vaping. Awkward, isn't it? Most vapes contain seriously addictive levels of nicotine and disappointment. Know the real cost of vapes. Brought to you by the FDA.

This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online, and more personal info in places that could expose you to identity theft. That's why LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second. If your identity is stolen, their U.S.-based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with LifeLock. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast. Terms apply.

- Welcome back to another episode of the Trash Taste Podcast. I'm Connor, once again joined by the boys, Joey and Garnt. And today, facing off ears. - Connor's on muffin mode today. - No, I'm not on muffin mode. - The muffin hasn't hit yet. - The succulent muffin hasn't hit yet. - So obviously, what we thought was one of our best episodes in a long time. And you guys seemed to also really love the idea. - It's also our longest episode. - Yeah, one of our longest episodes. - We took...

well, that one we suggest the stuff for each other to watch and play. This time we thought, well, we'll give you guys some of the power. So we actually go over on Patreon. What is the one thing you want us to just play, watch, read, whatever it be. - Experience. - Yes, experience. And it could be like a movie, a book, a visual novel, an album. It could be anything. - So we picked out the top three most requested for each one of the members of the Trash Taste. - Last time we had four, but it was a little long.

- Yeah, so we're doing three this time. - We're doing three this time. And we basically have to consume whatever you asked us to for at least an hour. And we recorded our full reaction to everything, which you can head over to our Patreon. You will see our full reaction to everything you requested that we are about to talk about. If you want to see that for yourself, go to patreon.com/trashtaste. And some of these were requests for,

multiple people to watch or play. And some of them were just for a single person. - So I think Garnt and I shared one. - I shared one with Connor as well. - Oh, okay. - Yeah. - Did I share one with you? I don't think so. - I don't think so. - Yeah. - So do we all wanna say which three things we had to watch? - Sure. So I had to play "Elden Ring." - Okay. - I had to watch "SpongeBob" for the first time. - Oh yeah, you never watched "SpongeBob," fuck. - And I had to read "Oyasmi Punpun."

- Right. - What about you, J? - I had to also play "Elden Ring." - Yes. - I had to watch the remaining, I guess, two episodes of "Arcane" 'cause I only watched the first episode. - Yes, you had to watch basically the first arc. - Yeah, I did the first, I did the three episode test for "Arcane" and I also did the three episode test for "Juice of Kai" in season two. - Oh, okay. - What about you, Colin? - I had "Oyasumi Punpun," "I Can't," I had "Fire Punch," and I also had "Persona 5."

- That just sounds like a great weekend. - That's an amazing weekend. - Well, I have my thoughts, but let's start with Elden Ring. I think Elden Ring would be good. - You wanna start with Elden Ring? - I wanna start with Elden Ring, 'cause I wanna know, off rip,

- How long did you play for? - Okay, so first off I got a confession. So I didn't actually record my reaction to it because the week of I had promised my chat that I would stream it for like ages. And I finally streamed Elden Ring for the first time. Then I got to the weekend where we were meant to watch and play all this stuff. I looked at the list, I was like,

Whoopsie. Whoopsie daisy. - You definitely played over an hour though. You streamed for a long time. - The first time I streamed, I played for seven hours and I don't think I experienced a lot of it. Okay. So what was your experience Joey? - I played,

I think it was just under an hour. So mine is split up into two parts here because I had it on my PS5 for the longest time. But I guess there's a part of the game you can't access until the full game gets downloaded.

And for some reason, my PS5 just shit itself trying to download this game. So I did like the tutorial part, which by the way, I'm just gonna say right off the rip, okay? - Yeah. - I think this game deserves all the praise and flowers it gets, right? - Yeah. - It looks sick as fuck. The world is so fucking cool, but here's one massive problem. - Yeah. - I am not a gamer.

- If you guys go on the Patreon, it is one hour of man struggles to play video games. 'Cause I just couldn't play this game. I'm just not, it's like playing this game has made me realize I am not built for games like this at all. I do not know how to play this game. - What do you mean? - Wait, wait, wait, Jojo. - Like I was struggling to play this game. - So did you die during the tutorial boss?

- See, what even is the tutorial boss? - Okay, so go back. - Is it a big motherfucker? - No, no, so if you go back to the, did you drop down the hall at the beginning that takes you to the- - Yeah, I did. That's in part one, right? - Yeah, that's in part one. - And this guy? - So did you beat the first boss of the game? - I just saw him fight him. - The guy with the big sword and shield guy? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Oh yeah, I beat him. - Did you die at all? - I died once. - Okay. - This guy, right? - Yeah, I think I died once or twice maybe.

- All right, all right. - Yeah. But yeah, so I beat this guy. - Yeah. - But then once I actually got into the actual game, I've just, I don't know. I just struggled to play the game. I died so many times. It wasn't even funny. - That's the point, Joe. - I know. - That's the point of the game. - But like,

So I was like, okay, am I just an idiot? - I get so pissed off though whenever I play a JRPG and I never lose a fight. I'm like, why have you designed it that maybe Google Gaga can do this? - Right. - Like I should be having to stop, rethink my team and like plan around. But with this one- - Okay, but I think here's the biggest thing, right? I hate games that stress me out. - Okay, and it stresses you out? - And this stressed me the fuck out.

- Just because like, I wish, I'm actually so disappointed. Like playing this disappointed me, not because the game is disappointing. I was disappointed at myself. - In yourself. - At how fucking terrible I was at this game. I wish I was good at this game. - But that's the whole point of the game. You start off terrible, Joey. - Right. - Everyone starts off trash. - But here's the thing.

I play games to relax, not to stress out. - For me that is relaxing. - It is the complete opposite for me. - So let me say my, have you ever played any like Soulsborne or Souls like games before? - Yeah, so here's the other thing, right? That's fucking weird. I've beaten Bloodborne before. - You've beaten Bloodborne and you had a hard time with this? - I know, so I thought like, oh, okay. It can't be that much harder, right?

- Apparently it is. Or either that or since Bloodborne came out to now, my gamer skills have just fucking deteriorated. - How old were you when you played Bloodborne? - When did Bloodborne come out? - I don't know. - I played it when it came out. - Okay, because I've heard from many veterans that Bloodborne is actually a much harder game than Dark Souls. - Really? I've heard it's an easier game. - Really? - Yeah.

Normally when a Souls veteran talks about Bloodborne, it's a much more faster paced game. - Yeah, but that's the thing I've heard like it's easier than a lot of Souls games because with a lot of Souls games, you have to be patient with the combat. Whereas with Bloodborne, it almost encourages you to just go for it.

- Yeah. - A lot more than a Souls game. - That is one thing I noticed about Elden Ring. - Yeah. - Because my only experience with Souls-like games is I played a bit of Dark Souls 3. - Yeah. - Ages ago, didn't complete it. I only played like, you know. - Yeah, I played a bit of 1 and 3, never finished it. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just played a bit. So I knew like the basic mechanics

which a lot of newbies might miss out on, which is like, oh, you got to roll with like, you have iframes when you roll and then you block and then you can like circle around the enemy and so on. So I came into this thinking,

I played Dark Souls 3 before. I know the kind of the basics, right? - Right. - And I fell for the fucking baits. I fell for the baits because did you fight that massive golden fucking horse, like guy on a horse right as you go out of the main first area? - No, I saw that guy and I was like,

Nah. But instead what I did was I listened to the first NPC that you meet once you go out and it's like, follow the grace's light. And I was like, oh, okay. It's going towards this gate looking thing. I'll go to the gate. I go to the gate and I was like, oh, there's like six or seven dudes here. I'll take them out one by one. And then before I know it, giant golem dude just shows up. And I was just like,

Nevermind, I'm not going anywhere near here. - Now you can always beat everything. - Yeah, I know. But here's the thing Connor, I'm not a gamer. I get too stressed out. - It breaks my heart. - It breaks my heart. Dude, I wanted to enjoy this game so fucking bad and I just, I cannot. But in saying that, I fucking love everything about this game.

- It's just a me problem. - I think on you, you put. - You played. - So my experience with Elden Ring is I streamed it for the first time, played it for seven hours. Five of those hours was on one fucking enemy. - Oh really? - I spent five hours on the tree Sentinel. - Me too. - Did you actually? - I spent four hours on the tree Sentinel. - See, I didn't even get there. - It's,

- It's a rite of passage. - I feel like it is because I was like, I could run away 'cause I knew that everything about the game was screaming to me, "Run past this guy. "You are not meant to fight this guy right now." But just something in me just kept, and this might be my downfall with "Elden Ring," something in me just kept going, "I ain't a bitch."

- That's the best part of Elden Ring, in my opinion, is fighting those bosses you're not equipped to and trying to like out-skill them. - Yeah, so I actually have like two varying opinions of Elden Ring because I think it is a fantastic game and I've now put about 30 hours into it. - Nice, how? - I've played a bit in one week.

- God damn. - I got a bit addicted guys, not gonna lie. I got a bit addicted. So what happened is I did two streams of it and most of the first stream was beating the first stream

The second stream was basically beating the first boss and getting to the area of the second major boss. 'Cause there's a lot of bosses in Elden Ring, but there are a few bosses that are like, you need to get past. - Yeah, mandatory. - That are mandatory. - God's slime. - Yeah, yeah.

And you can see like the exact moment when I was like, oh, I'm in this, I'm in this. 'Cause how long did it take you to beat the first major boss in the game, Margaret? - I would have to check the VOD. I wanna say it was less than the Tree Sentinel. I think it was like two. - Oh, it was definitely less than the Tree Sentinel for me. - Two, maybe an hour and a half. - What was your strat going into it?

- I don't know, my head, 'cause you see those videos of like dudes with like level one characters that beat the hardest boss in the game. And you're like, everything's a skill issue. It's never an armor issue. Like it's always a skill issue. And I always try to think about that when I was in it. I was like, it's not that I,

don't have the tools is that I just didn't have the skill. - Yeah, I just didn't have the skill. - And I need to get better. So I would always, maybe a lot of the time I was running suboptimal. 'Cause like for like 80% of the game, I ran a strength build with the gut sword and it was just hard.

And then I swapped to like the blood build and started fucking killing bosses so fucking quick. It was ridiculous. I was like, man, this kind of actually sucks. 'Cause I feel like the bosses are just not fun now. - Yeah, 'cause I had a similar experience to that where I fucking struggled beating obviously the tree Sentinel and the first major boss because I basically just like speed ran it. Didn't do any exploring and I just like speed ran the entire thing. - Exploring is so fun though.

- Yeah, I spent most of my time exploring 'cause I was just like, if I go into combat, I'm gonna die. - See, I kind of realized playing Elden Ring, I think I just want a boss rush game because what happened is I beat the first boss and I had this like awakening in me because I, you know, the general strap was to basically, you know, whenever you,

whenever an enemy attacks, you'd learn their attack patterns. Then you time the dodges and you have like punish windows to get some of your own attacks in. And I'm like, I feel like I can bury this. I feel like,

I feel like, I don't know. I feel like I can do this with parrying. And like my first like hour or two of like beating this, of like attempting this boss, even though I had like the samurai build, which was apparently not even like a parry build or whatever. I just like banged my head against the wall and I was like, no, no, you don't understand. You don't understand.

I'm gonna have that fucking Naruto moment where I figure out parrying and that's gonna be the run. And that's gonna be the fucking run. And then the exact moment- - It's like when you learn to perfect guard in Smash Bros. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's just like, "Ooh, okay, there it is." And then I just, after about like an hour or so or like an hour and a half of just banging my head against the wall, I just felt something click. Can you type up?

- I need to show you guys this. Can you type up my Twitch channel? 'Cause I haven't uploaded the VOD yet. - Yeah, see, that's the thing, right? It's like, I feel like with a little bit more time and dedication, I might've gotten to that point. But for me, after an hour, I just didn't get to that point. - No, no, the two hour one, the one next to it. That one, that one. - Let me. - I think it was around, yeah, no. - 206 an hour in. - God damn.

- Yeah, yeah, most of these are on the Tree Sentinel. - So this is the guy? - No, that's Margaret. - Yeah, that's Margaret. - See, I didn't even get this one. - So it's just like a couple hours. This is like six, seven hours. - Oh, okay. - Yeah, yeah. So I had this moment where I think it's around here. - Right. - Where you just like kind of enter the flow state. And I remember the feeling, here we go.

I parry him once and I'm just like, and you get the crit down and you are on a high. - The sparkle in his eyes. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're on high, wait, wait, wait, wait. It was literally that Naruto moment where I do it again. - Oh my God. - I do it again. And then I do it again. - Oh my God. - Oh my God. - Oh, he's so locked in, dude. - And then the fucking rush that that gave me was like, - It was like cocaine.

- Unbelievable. - You're also like dodging into him, which is like a hard thing to learn.

- Yeah. - Yeah. - You always dodge away. It takes a long time to teach yourself, dodge into stuff. - Yeah, you're definitely more gamer than I am. - That was fucking gamer, bro. - Yeah, that was gamer shit. - Did you do that intentionally? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Wow. - Because, okay, you don't understand. I had been trying this. - Fighting this guy for a while. - Yeah, this was like 43 minutes into the stream and this is like the second stream. So I was just banging my head against the wall going like, "No chat, you don't understand. I can do it. I can parry him. I can parry him." And this was the run where I managed to beat him as well. - Nice.

Like that awoke something in me. I've gone for a parry build now, which is like the fucking- - That's like the hardest way to fight a game. - That is the hardest way. I'm saying it right now. It is by far the builder has gone me like the most deaths.

- I just want the guts spilled. - You want the guts spilled? - Every time I got an option, I was like, all right, strength. - But here's something that I found, I wouldn't say like a problem, but I definitely made some parts of it like less fun. So I got to the second boss, right? I stopped the stream 'cause I was like, okay, we'll do the next boss on the next run. But like, I was like addicted to the game. So I was like, I'll do a bit of a- - Exploring. - I'll do a bit of exploring off stream. And I ended up doing a lot of exploring off stream.

And so what happens is after doing all this exploring of stream, I think I would just ended up being over fucking leveled for the second boss. - Yeah, it can happen. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this was me not trying to- - You unintentionally grinded. - Yeah, I unintentionally grinded by just exploring and exploring the world and unintentionally like just leveling up. And then I was like, fuck it, I'll just try doing the second boss anyway. And I did it on the first try.

And it just didn't give me that same satisfaction as that moment gave me. Because by exploring, I'd unintentionally made the game easier for myself. And the exploring was fun, but not as fun as that for me. And then that's when I realized, I think instead of like the exploring, like I like...

- The thing I liked about the bosses or the boss rush games is that there's mostly just like one difficulty. You don't have an opportunity to make the game easier for yourself. It's just, this is the difficulty level and you have to find a way to beat that difficulty level, right? And with "Elden Ring,"

It's great because there's so many different builds, so many different ways to make the game easier. There's different spells, different abilities. And then at that point, you are essentially...

imposing difficulty on yourself. You're like, okay, this time I'm not gonna do a summon run. Okay, I'm gonna do a strength build for this. - Yeah, you put it on yourself. - Yeah, so you put it on yourself. And that for me, that aspect of Elden Ring is actually less appealing to me 'cause I would rather like,

- I think, you know, thinking about it, I'd probably enjoy "Sekiro" more, I think, now that I think about it. - Yeah, it's literally a game about parrying. - Yeah, yeah, so one, it's literally a game about parrying. Two- - That's weeb shit. - I've heard there's like less broken builds in like "Sekiro" than there is- - I think so. I've done the first two hours of "Sekiro" like five times. - Right. - And just haven't, I need to just finish it. - Yeah. - I gotta finish that game.

Also, I- I- I- I- You know, to defend my boy Joey as well. Hey boys, it's me, Joey. Here to let you know very quickly, before we move on, about today's sponsor. The good folks over at Sakurako. You guys should know by now who these lovely people are, but if you don't, let me catch you up to speed.

Sakurako is a monthly Japanese artisan snack box that supports local Japanese snack makers each box coming with 20 traditional authentic and artisan Japanese snacks including Japanese teas and a special Japanese tableware. The great thing about Sakurako is that these aren't just snacks that you find every day at your local Konbini These are specially hand-picked and this month we have the wonderful beautiful

hearts of Ishikawa box. For those of you who don't know earlier in 2024 the Ishikawa prefecture witnessed a massive earthquake that threatened the region's traditions and the livelihoods of many. So for this month Sakurako has teamed up with the Ishikawa prefecture to give you guys a curated collection of traditional artisan Ishikawa snacks to bring awareness to the Ishikawa prefecture and the ongoing recovery efforts of the

area. For example, we have this Kanazawa Earl Grey Kanaruche, a nice little bread snack here from the Kanagawa prefecture. Oh wow, that's very Earl Grey. Oh my god, it's so good. And you can pair all of that with this month's tea pairing, the Ishikawa Bocha Tea, as well as this month's tableware, a beautiful pair of Wasaka chopsticks. Each box of course comes with its own cultural booklet that gives you all sorts of information about the snacks inside, as well as other important stuff like allergen information.

All of that and a whole lot more is waiting for you guys with Sakurako. So what are you waiting for? Hit the link down in the description below and use our coupon code on screen right now to get yourself a little bit of a discount at checkout. Head to Sakurako, that's S-A-K-U-R-A dot C-O and use code TRASHTASTE at checkout to get $5 off of your first Sakurako order. Back to the episode. I don't know if I enjoy exploring the open world as much as other games.

'Cause Joey's right, it's stressful. - It is stressful. - It is stressful. - Yeah, I mean, I look back at my time, 'cause I don't know how many hours I put in total, but it was definitely like 60 plus. And I definitely loved every hour of it, I'm near certain, 'cause I would play for like 15 hours straight. And I would like not look away. I'd be like, "Fuck it." But like, I think 'cause,

the exploration, especially maybe after the first couple of hours or so, almost every corner you turn there's something cool. Something interesting happens. You're like, huh? You're like, oh, what if I just open this, like, I go in this room and just check this barrel and you shut the barrel and fucking Gandalf the fucking great appears behind you and you're like, that's fucking sick. I never would have found that. And you just get your ass handed to you and you're like, all right, I'm gonna go back and kill his ass. - Yeah, and I think that's the best part of like Elden Ring and like the kind of like exploration and,

the magic of discovering something. - Yeah, also the world is just so fucking cool. - The world is fucking sick and cool. - I really enjoyed the exploration part because again, it was like, I was like, I just want to see more of this world. Like I could be, I could sit here and try and kill this one thing for like an hour straight. But I was like, nah, I just want to see more of the world. - Yeah. - Yeah. The thing that,

I, the thing that I personally don't, you know, gel with in that aspect is the idea that basically anything can kill you at any time. Even if it's just like a NPC guy, you know? - Yep. - Because when I'm exploring the open world, I always feel like I have this anxiety within me. You know what I mean? Especially- - It'll go the more you fly. - Sorry? - It'll go the more you fly. - Okay, because I have not been able to play this game more than like,

aside from like, if I'm doing a boss more than like four hours because exploring the world is like mentally taxing for me. - So stressful. - 'Cause like with a boss, I'm like, okay, I'm doing the same thing over and over. I just need to do one activity. I am locked in. But with exploring the open world, it's almost like I'm playing a horror game.

It kind of is. - No, I totally get that. 'Cause I had that moment where I'm like, all right, you know what? Fuck this like giant golem thing. I'm just gonna go explore what's around this area. And I find this like little cave and I'm like, oh sick, haven't gone in here, let's go in. I wanna see what's in here. You know, there might be something cool. Immediately get mauled by three wolves.

And I'm just like, oh cool. - I mean, it's just a skill diff. - It is a skill diff. - It is, it is. - I mean, I feel like, I feel pretty comfortable 'cause the bonfires are pretty regular. - Yeah. - Right. - So you kind of get a very comfortable way of mapping out the world. - Yeah. I know, it's the, okay, I wouldn't mind, I wouldn't have so much anxiety if I just, I don't know if it's something in me, but the whole mechanic where you lose the souls

or the runes that you have once you die. That gives me so much fucking anxiety. 'Cause I'm just like, what if I go somewhere that's really hard to get the runes back? And even if it's just like a thousand runes or something, once that number starts building up, the anxiety starts building up. And I do not like that feeling. I don't like that feeling. - But I guess that's like a mechanic, right? - Yeah, that's a mechanic. - Normally it scales decently well with the area. So you will normally, you know,

not have to worry about it too often. - Right. - Yeah. - I can't recall me ever worrying about it. So I'm guessing it wasn't that big of a deal when I played. - Yeah. - I don't know for sure though. - Oh no, that's my like number one anxiety when playing this game. - You'll get plenty, you'll get plenty. - I'm like, what if I lose all these rooms? - And then like later on, you'll find areas where you're like, I can get a fuck ton by going here. - Okay, okay, okay.

- But yeah, I mean, aside from that, I fucking, this was obviously I'm like addicted to the game. - I still haven't done the DLC. I've been meaning to. I've been putting it off 'cause I wanna find like three days straight to do it. And it's just hard to find three days in a row now where it's available. - Yeah, exactly. Because I think I'm gonna,

- I'll stream this when I feel like it, but I definitely don't think I want to stream this like every moment of the game just because- - Immerse yourself. - Yeah, yeah. I feel like I lose a lot when I'm on stream, especially when I'm exploring the open worlds. But when I'm just like banging my head against the boss, I fucking love that. It's just, I don't know why- - It's fun.

- Yeah, yeah. - 'Cause you can see the improvements. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. - Every time you get his health bar a little lower than last time, you're like, "I'm getting better. "I'm getting my anime power up." - Yeah, because I don't know what strat that you used to kill the tree sentinel, but on my final run, I went,

full regression mode and I was like, I know exactly what I'm going to do for the next, I was calling it out. All right, chat, here's what he's gonna do. I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this. And I was doing a live playthrough of it. And I was like, this is weird. This is weird, but I could actually tell the flow state that I was in. - Right, right. You're locked in.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - I think for most out in ring players as well, like people watching new people get into it, that is the most fun they'll have watching a new player get into it. Except maybe one at the fight, but that's probably the, when people go for the true sense, a lot of people love watching it. It's just fun, 'cause you're watching someone from zero have to really learn quickly. - Yeah, there's one part that I regret not streaming for, 'cause exploring the world, there are obviously like different bosses and like holy shit moments.

And I guess this is like a slight spoiler. If you want to go to Elden Ring completely blind, Joey, I'm sure you don't mind. - I'm all right. - Some of the traps where they send you like half, they send you on the opposite side of the map. - Oh yeah. - I had this moment where they sent me to like the end game area by accident. And I was like, holy shit.

- Where the fuck am I? - I love that, 'cause you feel so out of your depth. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Hello guys. - 'Cause I got sent to the capital city, the holy city or whatever it's called.

Yeah, I got a sense of that. And just seeing like the tree up close, I was like, I should not be here right now. And then just go into like the map and just zooming out and just fucking humbling yourself on just how massive this game map is. I was like, oh my God, that is a fucking magical. - There's some,

- Fucking stunning areas in that game as well. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I mean, it is a mashed piece of a game without a doubt. It's a lot to get into. - It is a lot and I'm scared for my free time.

- It's okay, only like maybe 50 more hours of your life will be consumed by it. - Oh, that's a short JLPG, you'll be all right. - Yeah, that's fine. Did you use summons at all, by the way? - Okay, so that was one fight where I used summons, I think. One fight. You'll know which fight when you get to it. I couldn't do it. - Was it too hard? - Yeah, I'd put like 12 hours into it.

- In one fight? - One fight. - Oh shit. - See that just doesn't sound like fun. - Was it the very last fight? - It's not the very last fight. - Okay. - The fight you're thinking about, but that's not the last one. - Okay, okay. - It's actually an optional fight. - Oh shit, okay. So,

- Joey, which, okay, is this like the, so you played Bloodborne and I'm surprised you completed that compared to Elden Ring. - He's not a gamer anymore, he's lost it. - I think I've just lost it. - Did you enjoy Bloodborne? - 30, he changed. - I did enjoy Bloodborne because like before I played Bloodborne, I played Dark Souls 1. - In your 20s, right? - Yeah, in my 20s, in my youth.

- And the one thing, like, I think the one problem I had with the gameplay of Dark Souls that I didn't really have with Bloodborne is again, like, it's this idea of you have to be patient in fights. - I mean, yeah. - And like, I've always very much been the kind of person where I'm like, I just want to go in.

And just like, if I get hit, then I get hit, but I can like, you know, grit my teeth and get through it. As long as I'm, you know, just kind of constantly dealing damage. I am suck so much at the waiting fights. - I do hate that a lot. Like I won't, I will admit there are some fights in Elden Ring and I think apparently the DLC is quite bad for this apparently, where you have to wait so long, like sometimes like 30, 40 seconds for a window to do any damage. - Yeah, I suck at fights like that. - And I'm like, that is just not fun. Like I understand you're trying to make it difficult, but that to me is,

- Yeah. - Like I wanna get in. - It's a good thing you didn't get to the first boss 'cause the first boss, the first major boss of the game, I swear to some of his attacks, the hard thing about that boss is that his timing is so weird 'cause his attacks are so slow. - Sometimes he'll like slice you really fast and the next attack will go. - Yeah. - And then like- - Some attacks are like instant and some attacks take five business days to like complete.

- See that just sounds stressful. I don't wanna do that. - But I don't know what it is for games like this. Like that level of stress is where I derive the enjoyment. Like the part where I have to be like, if I'm in a game and I'm like this, the moment I have to go like this, I'm like, okay, that's when I'm like, that's when the game is good for me. - Yeah, I just don't like games like that. - Whereas like, but it has to be like fair. Like, so it's like a fighting game, for example, I'll be like, what the fuck? I couldn't do anything at all against this like silver player

- Well, yeah, that's why I don't like fighting games. - And I'm like, that's not fun. 'Cause there was, I don't even know. - That's also a skill issue. - Yeah, absolutely. But like, there's no, at least with like, you know, other games like Elden Ring, I think there are paths that are very viable for you to go back. - No, look, I will be- - Fighting games, I feel like there are a lot, especially if you play online, you get fucking crushed. No one is helping you and you have to like,

- You're like, I bought analysis. All right, I got a block low block here. - Frame by frame analysis, yeah. - I think you have to like, there's a lot more, it's a lot more involved. - No, I am, I- - It's not intuitive. - Yeah, yeah. - I will fully admit on camera, I just do not have the skill to play this game. I wish I did.

- Shit. - Which is why I'm fucking disappointed in myself. 'Cause I love everything that's about the game. - Yeah, I mean, I think my- - But I just don't derive enjoyment out of playing games like this. - I think my enjoyment from Elden Ring is just going to be doing the main story quest. - So it's cool. - Huh? - People hated the ending I got, so. - Oh really? - Don't do what I did. - Yeah, because like in terms of like open worlds,

that I've really like got sucked into. I don't see "Elden Ring" being more magical to me than "Breath of the Wild" or something like that. - I don't know. - Like I said, it's just too stressful for me to it. - Maybe there'll be some areas where you're like, "Fuck me, this is cake."

- There's some really stunning areas. - Okay. - I think you might come around. - I'm sure. - I think right now you're only like 10%, not even. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, probably. And I'm still like fearing every fucking death. - You are, you gotta leave, that'll leave. - Fearing every corner. - Yeah, like I said, like I said, the boss fights, I'm just like, this is magical gaming. The exploration, I'm like, this is also amazing, but I feel like playing a horror game. - Yeah.

anxiety through the roof. I don't want, I'm like, I wanna see, but also I don't wanna see as well. It's stressful, oh my God. - So game of the year, game of the nothing. - Yeah, I mean, I'm- - Just not for me. - I'm going to continue. Did you choose the samurai build as well? - I was close to, but I was like, nah, Garnt's probably gonna pick this.

- I fucking, so the first one. - The first one, the default one? - The default one. - Okay. - Just the human. - Yeah. - Just the human one. - The Vanguard or whatever the fuck it was called, yeah. - Yeah. - I call myself Geek though 'cause I thought it'd be funny. - Who did you start off as Connor? - Samurai. - Samurai? - Yeah. - Okay. - I was tempted. - Fucking weird bro. - Yeah. - I was tempted. I was like, that would be kind of high. - And then I realized the bleed is pretty OP. - Yeah, the bleed actually got me through the first Sentinel flight. - Yeah, the bleed is,

- Very, very impactful. But then the moment I got the gut sword, I used that for like so much of the game until I found one quite a lot later on. - What would you say is the most fun you've had with the game in terms of like build?

- Dude, I loved, even though it wasn't ideal for a lot of bosses, the strength build was my favorite. Because you got to see like the bosses buckle when you slam, like, 'cause there's like a jump attack you could spam. And when the boss would like buckle down, it just made you feel so fucking powerful.

- Made you feel like guts. - 'Cause you're tiny and then you fucking slam this thing's leg and it goes like . And then you're like, all right, if I slam him a couple more times, I'll get the chance to like do the animation thing where I fucking stab him. - The critical. - And then when you get that, it just feels like God-like. - Yeah, for sure. - Parrying was out of the wind. You could not parry with that build. 'Cause you would go like, he's like, "Ice coming."

- You've already been hit like 19 times. - Yeah. - So you have to roll and then hopefully you can get a hit in. - I think I'm going to just commit to parrying. - That's cool, I'm parrying Gigatrad. - I think that's my thing, but my death counter is like crying. - Yeah, I tried to parry a couple of times. I'm just like, nah, this ain't it. - Yeah, I mean, obviously there's like,

some bosses that are definitely harder than others. I think that's a beautiful thing about the game is that like, if you go a mage build certain bosses, ones that are good at closing distance will really give you a lot of trouble. Yes. But maybe if you're doing a strength build, uh,

maybe bosses that constantly fucking run around the stage are gonna be like, "God damn it. "I need you to stand still for 15 seconds "for me to get a swing in." So there's different aspects to it. And I think it gives it a lot of replayability in that aspect. 'Cause you could approach that fight and it's like a totally different fight. - Yeah, 'cause I'm like every boss I fight, I'm like, "Please be humanoid character. "Please be humanoid character." 'Cause every time I come up against like a giant creature or something,

- There's a couple of bosses you just, I don't even think there are parries. - No, no, no. It's like, I researched this a little bit. So if it's like a creature, then probably not parryable. If it's a two handed weapon, probably not parryable either. I'm just like, just give me a guy with a sword and shield. - Hey, but some of the most important fights are humanoids. - Yeah, yeah. - But speaking of video games. - Yeah.

- Persona 5. - Dude, you had an hour to play Persona 5? - Yeah, so I didn't even- - You didn't even get past the tutorial. - I don't think so. I'll tell you exactly where I got up to. I got up to the first like, it was the school had been turned into a castle and the teacher- - Kamoshita? - Yeah, Kamoshita was like in his underwear going, "Meh." - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. - And then he just got like- - Oh, you did get past the tutorial then. - Oh, is it the tutorial? Oh, I don't know. - Yeah, yeah. - He just got like, "I just got my persona."

- Oh yeah, yeah. So you're at the beginning of level one. - Yeah. - So you just got past the tutorial. - That is the persona experience in a nutshell. - I will say, I touched the controller like three times in that hour. I wanna be honest.

- The game for the first hour, I won't lie, 'cause I was sitting there and I was like, there's gotta be a better way to like introduce this game than to just basically have a movie. Like annoying text. - Well, here's a lot of the texts I was like, oh my God, come on.

- Well, here's the secret of Persona. It's actually secretly just a visual novel. - Yeah, I realized this. - It's a visual novel. - And then, so okay, so the first hour of the game, you have the cut scene where you're being chased and you get caught, taken to the interrogation room, a very attractive woman interrogates us. And then it's like, you're probably wondering how I got here. And then it recalls what happens. And then we go to the next room

pushed a guy over who was harassing a woman. We go to jail or not jail. - You get interrogated. - And then we have to move to another school and everyone's a dick to us. And then there's this weird app on our phone that's like, whoa. And the whole time, I will say the parts when I got most frustrated was when it was like, go to the house in the first hour. And I was like, why?

you've given me 19 cut scenes up until this point, why are you making me walk around to someone's door? Just do it. Just do it. You know you wanna do it. - Well, because they have to give you a game to play. - It was like literally go straight then turn right. And it was like, all right, now cut scene. I'm like, that's crazy. Just fucking cut scene the shit. And then when I can actually play the game, wake me up, you know?

- This is the exact reaction I was hoping for. - And then like, by far the most egregious part of this game, and I don't know if it gets worse than this, and this is the part where I was like, no.

Oh, you have to be kidding me. They were like, go to school. I was like, okay, sure. So I go to the train station and then I get on the train. I'm like, cool. So then I get in and it's like, change train station. I was like, what? - Oh, you went to Shibuya? - No, no, no. It was like, I had a train, not Shibuya, somewhere else. It was like change to the Ginza line. - No, it's Shibuya. - Oh, okay. - It's Shibuya.

- It's a one-to-one recreation of Shibuya Station. - Is it Shibuya or Shinjuku? - It's Shibuya. - Shibuya, okay. - And I was like, what? I was like, you want me to change train? - Yep. - And I was like, okay, well, I guess I know how to do that. I live in Japan. And I was like following the signs of the Ginza thing. And then it randomly just stopped. And I was like, what the fuck? And then I tried to go where it said go to the Ginza lines and it was like closed for construction. I was like, what the fuck is this? It's like, find another way around. I was like, what?

And so I spent like five minutes trying to find the other way around. And I was like, who is this for? - That's the persona experience.

- And I realized this is for people who just like, this is like a soft pilling people on wanting to move to Japan. - Oh yeah. - It totally works. - I remember. - That's all it is I feel like. - Yeah. - I was sitting there and I was like, you would only think- - 1 million percent. - There's no way you would think this is cool that you have to change trains and do all this dumb shit unless you were like dreamed about your life in Japan. - 100%. - Bro, yeah. And you know what? It totally fucking works.

- Because I remember the first time I went to Japan on holiday, I just walked around town, put on the persona music and I was like, this is the greatest experience I've ever- - Okay, the music, fucking phenomenal. - Oh, so good. - Yeah. - Phenomenal. - Yeah. - Phenomenal. That shit runs so good on PC.

- Also it's the most beautiful UI you've ever seen. - Yeah, and it looks phenomenal on PC. I think, I don't know how it looks on PS5, but I imagine it just runs better on PC, right? Like it just looks fucking amazing. Sounds great, like not much to hate on, but I just couldn't believe they made me change the trains. - Also you getting lost in Studio Station is the most pivotal persona moment.

Everyone goes through this. - It's crazy that I literally know where the Ginza line is. - You think you do. - It doesn't look like that now, 'cause they changed it. - Yeah, that's the old Ginza. - Yeah, yeah. 'Cause when we first visited, I think, no, sorry, when we visited in 2017. - That's what it looked like.

which is what it looked like. And that was when Garnt had just finished playing. 'Cause I know that, 'cause on that trip, it was like us three and Garnt kept bringing up like, "I've been playing persona going around." - I know exactly where the Ginza line is. - I know where to go guys, don't worry about it. - And obviously like, yeah, they updated the Ginza line for the Olympics. - Yeah. - It's way different and I think much easier to get to now. - Oh, much easier. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they have that big outside area where you can just get to it really easily. But yeah, I was like, this is why? I was like, why have you done this? Like, this is weird. Yeah, you could do that, but what purpose does it serve? - Immersion. - No, I understand that. - Yeah, it's immersion. - But it was not fun. I don't like doing that in real life.

- That's 'cause you have to do it in real life. - Yeah. - That's because you've already been Japan-pilled, so you already, you already- - It's crazy though, like how they have like this cool combat system and they constantly just wouldn't let me do it. 'Cause they were like, "No, you have to go and talk to the old man." And I was like, "Okay, fine, I don't mind doing that." You know, and he's a cool character. - Yeah, because a persona is half RPG, half visual. - No, it's more visual novel. - Well, you didn't get to the RPG section. - Well, you didn't get to the RPG section, yeah. - But like,

- It did feel like, when I was playing it, I was like, "Hmm." I was like, "Yeah, you would only..." Like, this is like a... I was trying to think like who this was for. 'Cause I was like, "This is such a weird mix of stuff." - Yeah. - Yeah. But it's very, very popular and loved. And I was like, "Man, I just feel like this is hard to get into." - Yeah. It's for people who love visual novels and love JRPGs. - Yeah. - And if you don't love either one, then I feel like games like that are really difficult to play.

- I like RPGs. - Yeah. - And I like the talking hatch pets. - But you don't like visual novels. - But the visual novels I really don't enjoy. - So I think that's why you found this frustrating. - It was tough. - I feel like,

- Okay, so. - I mean, it was expected to be honest. - Yeah, yeah. Because I feel like to truly get into like the gameplay loop, you need to play "Persona" for at least like three hours, I think is like the magic number. - I said that on the recording. I said like, look, I would never play a "Final Fantasy" game for one hour. I feel like that's the kind of the same treatment where like, if you give "Final Fantasy" one hour, you will be bored. 'Cause the first hour of "Final Fantasy" is setting the stage. It's not good. And I said that like, look, with an hour,

of "Persona 5." I think it's honestly the worst way to play it. Because not only do I now have a bad impression of "Persona" that has been cemented, 'cause I think it was boring for an hour. But I would think that about any "Final Fantasy" game, including the three I've played and loved. So if I'd had five hours, it might've been a different story. - I feel like if you had at least finished "Kamushita's Castle," then I think that is as much of a "Persona" package that you can get where you can make an actual discernible decision. - 'Cause like the...

- This episode is sponsored by Shopify. Boys, I run a clothing brand. We sell internationally and that's the vision I always had for the clothing brand. But when we started off, I was like, damn man, how do you do e-commerce? How does people ship internationally? Thankfully, Shopify was there to help me out. - Nobody does selling better than Shopify. Home of the number one checkout on the planet. And they're not so secret secret with ShopPay that boost conversions up to

- 50%, that's why Joey has a successful business. - That means way less carts going abandoned and way more sales going up. So if you're into growing your business, your commerce platform better be ready to sell wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling on the web, in your store, in their feed and everywhere in between. Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify. - So what are you waiting for? Upgrade your business and get the same checkout that Nonsense uses.

Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com/trash or lowercase. Go to shopify.com/trash to upgrade your selling today. That's go to shopify.com/trash. Back to the episode. What was I gonna say? I forgot now already. I also, a lot of the dialogue initially I felt like was inconsequential, the dialogue trees. Like I felt like it didn't fucking matter what I picked. - Yeah, some of them are just there. Some of them are just there. - Some are just some memes. - And I'm like, just play the dialogue.

- Don't give me, I hate fake choices in video games. 'Cause I feel like you're not adding anything. - But here's the thing that with persona, if you play it for long enough, some of them do have actual remarkable decisions, but you just don't know it. So it's conditioning you to be like, every choice is important. - I don't know if I'm crazy, but spending one hour Joker, Joker's boring as fuck.

- He is boring. - He is so boring. - Yeah, he's boring. - I would rather have them just like- - Actually, you can say that about most, if not all persona protagonists. - I can't think of them because they're just meant to be like a blank. - Yeah. - But I would rather them just

- I was like, "Can you just give some character?" 'Cause it was the most jarring part was that everyone else was voice acting, but my character. - Yeah, that's every person I get. - Yeah, I know. And I was like, "This is just jarring." 'Cause it's like, I'm having a one-way conversation with a fucking wall. - Well, it's because you're supposed to move. - And also, I don't know if I'm crazy. I played with the Japanese voice on. Some of the voices I just thought were not good. - Which one? - For some of the characters. Like the fucking goblin dude sounded like ass. - Goblin dude? - The one when you go to the dream world, the goblins talking to you.

- Oh, the goblin, Igor. - Igor, Igor. - Oh, Igor. - His voice changed though over the years. - I don't think his voice fits him at all. - The super deep voice, right? - Yeah, it doesn't sound even one inch of how he looks. - Because in "Persona 3" he was like, like he was very like, yeah. - When I saw him I was like, oh, that's how he was sounding. Then he just goes like, yes, I'm the goblin man.

I will eat you in dreams. - The goblin man. - And you're like, what the fuck? There was a lot of voices that I thought, huh, surprisingly, I don't like the Japanese one here. But the old coffee shop man, I loved his voice. He was great. - Oh yeah. - He was a great character. - He's the goat. - He was my favorite character in the first hour of the thing. - Yeah, he's the goat. - I mean, I will say he also had a, Igor also had a deep voice in the English dub as well. - But did he sound more goblin-like? 'Cause he looks like a goblin. I want a little bit of .

- Nah, he definitely sounded like a smooth gentleman. But I would say there is a reason for that, which you're never gonna get to, but- - Oh yeah. - Yeah, I don't know. Also like the, I don't know man. A lot of the stuff was weird in the game, but I enjoyed-

- When I got to play it, I liked it. Which is about five minutes tops. - It's like the moment that you, the real persona experience starts is when you have to decide what you're going to do for a day. When something isn't just like mandatory, just like you on rails. - Yeah, 'cause I felt like the days didn't mean anything.

- Yeah, yeah, exactly. There will reach a moment where you wake up and you're like, what do I wanna do today? - Yeah, and it's also like, you have to finish this castle within this many days and you can choose to tackle the days in different ways. - Oh, it's time management. - It's time management, the video game. - I didn't really feel like, I know that you can like schmooze characters and romance them, but that kind of stuff doesn't really interest me.

there's no gameplay benefit to schmoozing. - Actually there is. - There is? - Yeah. - Oh, that's cool then. - So basically by schmoozing characters and you could just be like schmoozing to be friends. - Yeah. - When you've reached like- - But not all the characters are playable, right? - Not all characters are playable, but like every character brings you a certain benefits. - Oh, that's cool then. - Like in terms of like the gameplay mode. - Oh, okay, okay. - So sometimes- - It's kind of like in Pokemon,

Like, you know how there's like different types. So in persona, there's also different types of personas that you can have. And each character levels up a certain type of persona.

So if you like certain types of personas to play with, then you best be schmoozing a certain character that levels up. - But also some characters, even if they aren't playable in the game, every character persona gives you, that maybe sometimes they unlock a new gameplay mechanic that makes fights like a little bit easier. And some other people make it easier for you to buy stuff. I can't remember what every character does, but. - I just, yeah, I can't.

I would love to. And I said this a bunch in my thing. I was like, man, I'd love to get into this game, but I just can't play a hundred plus hour game.

- Yeah, that's fair. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - That's just like, I just can't. - That's totally fair. - Yeah, and I wish I could 'cause I'm sure if there was a 10 hour version of Persona that felt like the full experience, I'd love it, but I can't justify how bad it is. - It's hard, it's hard. - 'Cause I remember watching a streamer one time who played it and I remember every day for like a month he was playing it and I was like, bro, I can't imagine just a month of my time being like, 'cause when I play games, 'cause it's almost like,

- That was me with Dragon Quest. - Yeah, my thought process and my thought space is almost taken up by what game I'm playing. - Yeah. - 'Cause like right now I'm playing "Satisfactory" a bunch. - Yeah. - And I'm just always thinking about that game 'cause that's what I'm playing right now and I'm not done with it. - Right. - And so I just, I know I would get burnt out with "Persona" 'cause I can't, I'm not the kind of guy who can put 30 hours into a game, leave it for a month and then come back. I just can't do that. - You can't do that with a "Persona" game either.

- Really? Okay. - Yeah, 'cause there's too much story involved. - That's also like, that's crazy that it's like, you are married to this game. You have to play it. - If you start a Persona game, you need to be dedicated enough to finish it. - What year did it come out? - 27, no, yeah, 2017, right? The original P5?

- Yeah, I like 2016. - That sounds about right. - Something like that. - Yeah. - I loved all the menus. - 2017. - I loved all the menus, I loved all the animated cut scenes, I loved all the border animations and the- - Yeah, visually it's- - Yeah, yeah. - Visually it's pretty cool. It's interesting 'cause you think of, I almost think of "Percentage" as a new game, but then when you see the 3D world, you're like, "Oh yeah, it does feel 2015." - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Like it looks 2015 in a way, like a lot of the act like way. But it was fun.

- I just wish that I could have had four hours in one hour. - Yeah. - In a way. - And also if it wasn't like a hundred hours, did you play Royal or did you play the- - Royal. - Royal. - Okay. - I think that's the PC version. - Right. - And that's the longer version as well. - That's the longer one as well. - So what do they add in Royal that makes it longer? - There's two extra levels at the end and the storyline is different.

- Oh, okay. - Yeah. - Yeah. - 'Cause they introduce a pivotal character at the very beginning that completely changes the story. - Yeah, so did you get to the, is it cheerleading character? - No. - Okay. - No, okay. No, that's after Kamishida. - Oh, okay. - Pretty sure. - Yeah. - I haven't played Royal, so I wouldn't know. - I think it's after, yeah, the first dungeon you meet. Oh, it's like in between that or something? - Yeah. - So which is like the game?

- Royal is probably the more- - Like the director's vision. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's like the director's cut. - Yeah, I would say so as well. The reason I haven't played Royal either is because the same reason, just like so much time. And it's not a stream friendly game either. It's not something that- - 'Cause no one's gonna like, if someone comes in an hour 80 of Elden Ring, they can understand what's going on. They don't need a lot of prior knowledge. They just see you fighting one of the bosses, they're like, "Oh, I'm a strapping, this is gonna be fun."

with persona will be like, I don't know who's romance. I don't know what Rudy's going down. I don't know what he's done. - And if you've never seen the game either, you'd be like, can you fill me in on 50 out of the last 50 hours of gameplay? - 'Cause I remember watching, like I said, I watched him play it and I remember thinking like, I don't know what the fuck is going on at any point in this game. But I really, like as an anime fan, like I almost felt like it was my job to like persona.

- Especially when it came out. 'Cause it was kind of almost everything I wanted. It was weeb shit, it was a long game, it was cool, and it had so much Japan life. - Yeah, but here's the thing Connor, before you get to that stage, you got a complete level zero, which is liking and respecting visual levels. - When people play Persona, how many of those people do you think are like,

like percentage wise that are like, just love Japan and like wanna like love Japan. I guess like Japanese. - I'd say a majority, like most of them. - I mean, overseas players, I would say. - Yeah, I mean, I would say that persona is basically just very, it's like playing an anime.

Basically you are playing at the same time, a high school romance, a slice of life. - A shonen. - And also a shonen action. It's like all of those things combined into one with the same tropes that you probably

you know, made you an anime fan in the first place. And you just basically get to- - But this time you get to write the story. - Yeah, you get to write the story. - Well, yeah, I mean, overall didn't have that much fun with it, but I think that's more of a- - That's more of a time investment thing. - It's a time thing. - Even as a Persona fan, I know that I will need at least three, four hours to actually get

into this game because when I played "Persona 3 Reload" I was like, okay, I need at least a three, four hour time period where I'm free before I can start playing this game. Otherwise I'm just not gonna get into it. - Well, two days from now they're bringing out a brand new one. - What? - Yeah, well, it's not a "Persona" game but it's made by the same guy who made "Persona." - Oh, okay. - But it's a completely new game. Metaphor re-fantasia.

I'm playing the fuck out of that game. - I'd say the worst part of "Persona 5" is best girl is not romanceable. - Oh, the Hifumi? - Huh? - Hifumi, the shogi girl? - No, she is romanceable. - Oh, wait, which one are you talking about? - I'm talking about- - The teacher? - Not the teacher, the teacher's romanceable as well. - The lawyer. - The lawyer. - Oh, the lawyer. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I wanted to romance her. - Yeah, I was like, the entire time I was like waiting in my first playthrough. - Wait, did you see "The Doctor"?

- The doctor? - Oh, he hasn't seen the doctor yet. - I would have remembered if I saw the doctor, based on what you're saying. - Yeah. - He hasn't seen the teacher either. - You haven't seen the teacher. - If you were to- - Oh, the teacher I did meet. - The teacher you did meet? - No, no, but you haven't seen the teacher. - You haven't seen the real teacher. - You haven't seen the real teacher. - The real one. - Show me the real teacher. - No, the real teacher. - You haven't seen Becky. - You haven't seen Becky, yeah. - God.

- That's when you would get hurt. - So the fans know what's up. - So TL;DR would have loved to gotten into it. Sadly, didn't really enjoy the first hour episode. - Yeah. - It was basically a- - I mean, look, I think Garnt and I and everyone watching this video knew that that's what your thoughts were gonna be, but that's fine. It's all. - It's flawed, but you know, chat, like, chat, fuck viewers.

We only have X amount of time that we can spend. You gotta deal with a lot of things. And I would love for it to have been a five hour sesh, get into it. But at that point you wouldn't hear from me 'cause I would not have stopped by. - Fair enough. - What else? - I watched SpongeBob for the first time. - That's wild. - You've never watched SpongeBob? - I have seen clips, but I have never sat down and watched a full episode of SpongeBob. - To be fair though,

- I also watched SpongeBob for the first time during the pandemic. - That's crazy. - So I get it. - Okay. - I didn't grow up with Nickelodeon. - Yeah, nor did I. - How did you choose what episodes to watch? - So first off I chose the first two episodes and then I went online and I was just like, what are some of the most or best iconic episodes of SpongeBob? Then I just started watching like random episodes. - Right, right. - So how many episodes did you end up watching?

- So I- - Each episode is like two episodes, right? - Yeah. - So it's split into two episodes. - Did they keep that throughout the whole show? - I don't know. - Yeah, I think so. Everyone I watched, I was just, you know, every 20 minute episode was split into like two mini, two 10 minute episodes by themselves. - It's been so long since I watched it. - Yeah. - But I mean, that was my childhood.

- So- - I'm jealous. - It was fun. - So here's my experience watching SpongeBob. Every fucking five minutes I'm like, "Oh, oh, I've seen that before. Oh my God." I did not realize like,

I'm gonna use an analogy, watching these first few episodes of SpongeBob kind of like to me felt like my equivalent of someone going back and watching the first few seasons of the Simpsons where you do not realize how much prevalence it has in popular culture where how much like,

even like beyond the memes, right? Even beyond just the screenshots that you see on Twitter, just like sayings or like fucking impressions or characters. - SpongeBob truly is like every frame is a painting. Like literally you could pause it at any moment of any episode and you'd be like, that could be a meme. - Yeah, right. - Or like I could use that. - I did not realize that. - It's crazy. - Like so in the first episode I was,

- In the first episode, in the second half of the episode, I saw the episode where SpongeBob goes to meet that like squirrel girl. - Sandy. - Sandy. But she's obviously living in like her own glass. - I love that episode. - The Pinky! The Pinky! - Is that the one where he like goes in and he's like, "I need it." - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - "I need it!"

I didn't actually realize that was from SpongeBob. I was like when he said, "I need it." I was like, "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don't need it." - "I don need it." - "I don need it." - "I don need it." - "I don need it." - "I don need it." - "I don need it." -I don need it." -I don't need it

4K RTX on render that is just like so fucking memeable. And I don't know what it is, but yeah, it just, I could basically see why this became so big in like popular culture and why this became a lot of people's childhood. - It has aged tremendously well. - It has. - It's crazy. - I was genuinely surprised how funny it was. - Oh yeah. - It's really funny. - I thought I was gonna watch like a kid's show. You know what I mean?

like a kids kids show. But I was surprised that like how a lot of these stories not only had like a good lesson at the end, like you want kids,

like you want kids to have as well, but it was also generally funny with good chemistry between the cast. - See everybody, it's that like whole meme of like everybody who grows up watching SpongeBob relates to like the fun and jovial side of SpongeBob and Patrick and like characters like that. So you think it's like a kid's show, but then when you actually grow up as an adult and watch SpongeBob, you relate to Squidward at a fucking molecular level.

- Like you're just like, holy shit, I get it now. - I mean, Squidward's just chilling, man. - Every main cast character is very good in that show. - Yes. - They kind of like knocked it out of the park. - Because I feel like if I was Squidward living next to like SpongeBob and Patrick, I'd be like, fuck. - I'd be depressed too. - Fuck this shit, man. Fuck this shit.

because I saw that episode. I saw the one where they blow a bubble or something like that. Where he makes a stand where it's like 25 cents to blow a bubble. And it was like, that's fucking stupid.

- Oh yeah. That's the one where like, that episode is my favorite scene where like, that's the one where like SpongeBob does like a 20 step move to like blow the bubble. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. - And then he like blows an elephant and this is the scene, it's so dragged out. He like blows this elephant, this giant elephant that goes flying away and just fucking, Patrick just goes, "Oh, it's a giraffe!"

- And he just laughs for like 40 seconds and it's just so funny. I don't understand why. - I was just watching that and I was like, I've heard so many people like redo this laugh, but I didn't realize that this came from SpongeBob. - It's so funny. - It's a giraffe. It's just so dumb.

- I love it. - I remember I was genuinely laughing watching that episode as well. Partly because I was like, oh, this is where the iconic laugh comes from. But also it is also genuinely funny as well.

- What other episodes do you watch? - Watch an episode where they deliver pizza or something like that. There's this fucking wild episode where they have to fucking, they deliver this pizza and then they get lost, right? - Yeah. - Or they go to the bikini, the bottom of Bikini Bottom, is that? - It's like the valley, right? - It's like the valley, right? 'Cause Spongebob is like, "We need to follow the moss to get back." - Bottom's deep or something? - Yeah, something like that.

Like we need to get back to the, we need to follow the mosque to get back to the town. And then they just ended up getting fucking lost and it's just SpongeBob and Squidward. And then it ends with just like SpongeBob being like, "I can drive this rock."

- Do you remember that? - I do remember that. - And then Squidward was like, "What the fuck are you talking about? You can't drive a rock." And then he just drives his rock. And then I'm just like, "What the fuck am I watching right now?" - Is that the one as well, right at the end where they finally deliver the pizza to the guy and they forget his drink

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And it just goes insane. - Yeah, and then he just goes full fucking Karen. And I'm just like, and Squidward actually fucking stands up for SpongeBob. Which is why I say that was a good like short. That was a good short story. - God, every episode, man. - What else did you watch? What other episodes? - I watched an episode where SpongeBob like,

he's out by the lake or something. And I don't know what the science is behind having a lake underwater, but it's the one where he goes up and there's this like buff lobster dude. - Oh yeah, Larry the lobster. - Larry the lobster. And it's the origin of the meme like,

- I was literally about to say, I hope you watched the episode where he rips his pants. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - That's like, I don't know why that's memories. Like episodes burned in my memory. - And then they go into like a fucking musical number at the end of that. Do you remember this? - No, I don't remember that. - They go into a full musical number at the end where he just makes a song about ripping his pants the entire time. And I'm just like,

I'm too sober to watch this right now. This is like, this is peak. I'm in college and me and the boys have just done a fucking joint or something. - SpongeBob is peak blunt rotation. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's the perfect show for it. - It's either that or you're an actual kid. There are two people that will appreciate SpongeBob. Five-year-olds,

- And stoners. - Five year old that see SpongeBob is just ripped his pants and stoners who are just looking at like the weirdest shit of all time. - Oh my God. Dude, you know what you need to do now? Now that you've like,

dip your toes into SpongeBob, you gotta watch the movies. - Oh, the movie's good. - The SpongeBob movie. - The first one's pretty good. - The first one is really, really funny. It's the fucking, it's the one that David Hasselhoff. - I remember watching that in the cinema. - Yeah. - Oh, really? - Yeah, I remember I went to the six. I really loved SpongeBob growing up and I begged my mom. I was like, "Please, can we go watch the SpongeBob movie?" - I think I watched that in like,

middle school, maybe high school. It was like a lot later. - I was a snot nose kid when I watched that movie. - Oh really? - So I remember being like, who the fuck is David Hasselhoff to my mom? 'Cause I had no idea who the fuck David, obviously, you know, back in my mom's day, he was very famous, but I had no idea. I was like, what is this reference? - Yeah, they do like a Baywatch reference. - Oh, okay. That's really old for the kids. - Yeah, I know. - Jesus Christ. Also, I just got a question. What is SpongeBob? - He's a sea sponge. - Oh.

Travel is all about choosing your own adventure. With your Chase Sapphire Reserve Card, sometimes that means a ski trip at a luxury lodge in the Swiss Alps.

This episode is sponsored by ShipStation. Hey, I've been wondering, Joey. You've got those nice shirts that I keep wearing. How do you...

- How do you ship them to me? - Well, see at first we were trying to figure that out as well Connor, 'cause we have customers all over the world now. - I mean. - Like you for instance, and you for instance. - And me too. - And maybe some of you watching this video right now. When we started, I was like, how are we gonna ship all of these clothes everywhere? - It's so complicated. - It's so complicated and convoluted, scary. Luckily though, ShipStation was there for us. - Guys, I don't know if you know, but I'm dead.

- Every device just keeps getting smarter. Like smartwatches, wifi enabled LED bulbs. I just want my e-commerce business to do the same. Whether you're looking for incredible efficiency or your business has outgrown its old shipping solutions, ShipStation helps you take it to the next step. ShipStation helps you achieve exceptional shipping efficiency with a robust all-in-one fulfillment system that integrates with over 180 of the most popular e-commerce platforms, marketplaces,

carriers it's the fastest most affordable way to ship products to your customers with discounts up to 89% off upsdhl express and usps rates and you can seamlessly integrate with services and selling channels that you already use and manage orders on one easy dashboard you can also effortlessly scale your business with smart features and automations that boost efficiency while bringing costs down but don't forget that you can also deliver a better customer experience with industry-leading features that help you find the best carrier rates print labels and make customers over

- And with over 130,000 companies that have grown their e-commerce business with ShipStation, 98% of those companies that stick with ShipStation for a year become customers for life. - So what are you waiting for? Lead your e-commerce business into a smarter future with the shipping software that delivers. Switch to ShipStation today. Go to ShipStation.com and use code TRASH to sign up for your free 60 day trial. That's ShipStation.com, code TRASH. - Back to the episode. - I said it first.

- So the guy who created SpongeBob- - Is sea sponges alive? Are they animals? - Yeah, they're animals. - They're alive. - So the guy who created SpongeBob, he was a marine biologist. - Right. - So a lot of the actual like characteristics of each of the characters. So the reason why Patrick is so dumb is because starfish don't have brains.

- Oh. - So that's the whole concept behind Patrick Star as a character because yeah, the dude was a marine biologist. So he was like very, very knowledgeable about like sea creatures and it's like very accurate. - Oh, okay. - I also played the fuck out of the games on PS2. - Oh really? - There was one that they had a Mario Party, SpongeBob. - What? - That was actually very good. - Mario Party SpongeBob? - Yeah, it was called, it's called SpongeBob Mario Party. It was called like lights, camera, burgers or something.

- I was really good and all of my friends fucking loved it. - I think I played the one where it was like, it was based off the movie where like Plankton takes over Bikini Bottom. - Oh, that's it, but down below, you just, no, no. - SpongeBob Party. - SpongeBob Party. - Lights, camera, pants, okay. - Dude, this game was actually fire.

- What was it on? - PC. - Oh, PS2. - PS2, and it was, they had the sponsor of the movie, the game, which I played a fuck ton of. - Yeah, I think that was the one I played. - It was hard. - Yeah. - When I was a kid at least. - Damn, okay. - Oh my God, look at these graphics, bro.

- Wow. - It was like legit. Like it was good. - Damn. - Yeah. - We'd play it so fucking much 'cause none of us owned a Nintendo 64 to play it. - Yeah. - Yeah, yeah. - Oh gee. But it was very fun. But SpongeBob, I mean, it's timeless. Like I feel like it's just so good. At least the earlier seasons. - I feel like watching it, I was like, this is such an indicator of like culture

at that time, right? - Somewhat to today as well. - I mean, to today, but I would say it's today because the generation that grew up with SpongeBob has grown up and they still reference it the same way that, you know, me watching all these seasons of the Simpsons. In the 90s, it was all about like Simpsons sayings and iconic scenes from the Simpsons and the Simpsons is still iconic. It got my thinking,

Is that like a modern cartoon that you think is going to dictate the next generation of like popular culture? 'Cause I was trying to think, 'cause I think like this, "SpongeBob" was like last generation where kids still like, I guess, watch stuff on TV and all watching the same thing. - "Bluey" maybe? - "Bluey"? - "Bluey"? - Maybe, yeah. I don't know. - "Bluey" is like,

- It's insanely popular now. - Is the whole culture of like Saturday morning cartoons like as prevalent as was when we were kids though? - Not necessarily Saturday morning, but even in the UK, I don't know about Australia, we didn't really have Saturday morning cartoons. - We had Sunday morning cartoons. - There was just cartoons that were available. - Shout out to Toast TV. - I mean, Saturday morning cartoons were definitely a thing in the UK. - Really? 'Cause we had...

- We had CITV. - Oh, we had cable. So there's always cartoons. - Okay, I didn't have cable. - Okay, sorry. - It's actually my privilege. - Yeah, goddamn. - Well, you know why? I think my dad was willing to like forego everything except cable 'cause he wanted to watch every Premier League football game.

- He's like, "I refuse not to be able to like-" - That's the British experience you would see. - Yeah, yeah. If your dad was a football head, he had cable. - Yeah. - That's fair, that's fair. - My dad would just go to the pub to watch it 'cause we couldn't afford it back in the day. But yeah, so all of my cartoons were basically on Saturday mornings. So I do get it. - Oh, okay.

- Okay. - That's how I discovered Pokemon. - Yeah, I had cards in there work. - Yeah, I mean, this is why I never watched SpongeBob, 'cause SpongeBob was on Nickelodeon and that was like cable or satellite only. - Watching Pokemon was so fun, but then also very frustrating. 'Cause even as like a 10 year old kid, I could tell I was watching this out of order. - Oh yeah. - And like, I would know that I'm like, damn it, I already see the part that happened after this. Why, who was the TV exec back in the day?

who would play episode like 30 and then immediately after it play episode 52. Who was this asshole? - I had that so many times where I'm like, you would watch the episode where like Ash- - You just assumed that they would play the next one. - Yeah, you'd watch the episode where like Ash meets Charmander for the first time and saves him from the rain. And then the next episode it's like, wait, why is he suddenly Charizard?

- What the fuck? - What the fuck is going on? Who are these TV execs that are bastards who wanna fuck with kids that are like, "Nah, none of them are gonna get into Pokemon. "Fuck 'em. "I'm gonna put it all out of order. "Joke's on you, I was fucking addicted." - That's how they get you addicted. - SpongeBob and stuff like this

- It didn't matter. - Yeah, I mean, back in the day it was better to be episodic because you could tune in at any time and still, you know. - It's fun though 'cause like, I remember I used to watch "Simpsons" every day after school. - Yeah, same. - Right when I get back, they used to play four episodes of "Simpsons." - Yeah. - I'd watch a full two hours. - Yeah. - 'Cause we loved "The Simpsons." - For us it was "Simpsons" and then back to back "Futurama." - Yeah, sometimes they would do "Futurama." - Yeah, hell yeah. - And then you'd rewatch the same episodes over and over again 'cause you're a kid and you're dumb. But then occasionally when you saw an episode that you hadn't seen, you were like, "Whoa."

- Whoa. - I don't recognize this one immediately. - I haven't seen this one. What the heck? - I can't quote this one word for word.

- I'm glad you enjoyed SpongeBob though. - Yeah, I really enjoyed it. I think I would have enjoyed it more with some enhancers. - Some herbal essence. - Some herbal essences. I feel like that's, you know, just go, like I said, going back to the college days. It was very, very reminiscent and I can definitely see why this became popular. I think it's a good show. - Oh yeah. - And I think a lot of people think, oh, they see cartoons, they see iconic kids show

of like kids' cartoons or kids' shows. I think to be a good kids' show, you kind of in some way need to appeal to more than just kids as well. You need to have- - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah. - I think that's why like "Bluey" is like crushing right now. - Yeah. - 'Cause adults don't mind watching it with their kids. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. - And it's, you know, when a show is pretty high quality,

in terms of for kids media, especially, I think it does really well. 'Cause often a lot of kids TV shows are like, "That's for kids." But SpongeBob was one of those things that felt like, damn, they really cared a lot about making the show good. - Yeah, exactly. - So yeah, I'm glad you enjoyed SpongeBob. - No worries, no worries. I'm glad I could see the origin of like 10% of the memes out of like 5% even, man. - All right, Joey, what else? Anything you wanna talk about? - What do I have next?

- I guess if we're talking TV shows that- - Oh, you watched "Arkane"? - I watched the remaining two, not the remaining two, I guess, but I watched up to episode three. - Up to episode three. - So last time I only watched one episode. - And everyone was very angry. - And everyone was very angry. Even though nobody told me anything, I was like, okay, I'll watch one episode. And they were like, no, you have to watch till episode three. - I mean, can you see why people wanted you

- Yeah, I get it now. - I get it now. Episode three was when shit actually happened. So I was like, all right, cool. - It's like a full closing of like one arc of the story. - It's literally "Cyberpunk Gage Runners" episode six. It's like where all the shit happened. So yeah, it was good.

- I really enjoyed it. Like shit actually happened. - Oh shit. - Are you gonna continue watching it in your own free time? - Probably. - Hell yeah. - Oh shit. - One thing I was really afraid of, especially after I finished episode one, I was like, God, I really hope this show isn't hype just because the animation is hype.

I was so worried about that. - The animation is stunning. - The animation is fucking fantastic. - The animation is great. - So good. Such good directing, like all the fucking like 300 ass like slow-mo scenes that cut in every now and then look sick as fuck. But so I was really worried after episode one where, you know, 'cause I gave my thoughts on episode one where I'm like, I get it, I guess, but nothing's really happened. I'm not really invested in the characters yet. So I'm really glad after I watched episode two and three, I was like, oh, okay.

stuff's actually happening now. And there's like, it's actually hype. And you know, there's like a character death that happens, which I wasn't expecting. And that really like pushed the story in like an actually interesting direction. So I get why people were upset. Yeah, it was good. I enjoyed it.

- Oh, I thought you were gonna say you hated it. - I can't, no, I'm not that contrarian. Come on. - So you actually like Arcane now? - I thought after my honest thoughts after episode three, I was like, that was great. - Has Aki watched it? - No. - No, I thought she liked League. - Oh, she's a reformed League player. - Okay, okay, okay. So do you wanna explain like kind of what happens

in the next two episodes. - Do I give spoilers? - Yeah, you can spoil it. - Yeah, you can spoil it. - If you haven't watched it, go watch it. If you wanna skip ahead to where the spoilers end, go to here. - Go to the timestamps right here. So I guess like, man, I watched it like over a week ago, so I'm trying to remember what happened exactly. - So there's the underground world above the- - So we left off from last podcast being like, you like, "Oh, this is just Final Fantasy VII again." - Yeah, this is literally Midgar.

- Yeah, it's just Midgar. - Yeah, it's just Midgar reskinned. So yeah, you have all the main characters, Vi and Powder? - Powder, yeah. - Was the name right? - Yeah, Powder was the name. - I don't know why I keep thinking your name is Snow. It's Powder. So Vi and Powder, and then like the two like guy friends, forgot their names.

- It doesn't matter. - It doesn't matter. - They die in episode three. It doesn't matter. - I forgot they die. - Yeah, they straight up die in episode three. So I guess there's like some kind of like,

that is trying to bring magic to the world. And the two guys that discover, or the guy that discovers it gets in prison and trialed. But then one of the other professors is like, nah, I'm gonna help you bring this to a reality 'cause I believe that magic in a technology filled world isn't gonna cause chaos if it can be controlled.

And I was like, okay, that's a cool concept. So they try and figure all of that out. Meanwhile, Vi and Powder and the two guys after they stole some of the scientific magic stuff,

They are fugitives, the guys from up top are trying to like, I guess find them and bring them, bring it back and all that kind of stuff. But they're like, nah, we're gonna use this like greater power and try and fight the upper people. Like we're no longer like vermin scum anymore. We're gonna fight back. We're gonna show what- - Gamers rise up. - Yeah, we're gonna show what the underground people really have. And I guess like the,

What's the name of the guy who's like the leader of the underground thing again?

- What's his name? The big dude. - I forgot the name of the big dude. - The guy who dies in episode three. - Yeah, I forgot his name. - I forgot his name as well. - And then the other guy's called Silco. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Silco's the bad guy, right? - Well, that's your ass. - Well, yeah. He's the brother. - He is the brother. - He's the brother, yeah. So the supposed evil brother has created this like serum that turns people like berserker mode or something. And he's trying to use that to like, I guess fight,

for the underground in his own way. But his brother who is, I guess like the caretaker for Vi and Powder is just like, no, we can't do that. We don't wanna, we did that last time. - And he also is kind of like the unofficial leader. - Yeah, he's like the unofficial leader. So that creates like a split between the underground community.

and then I guess, uh, Silco is like, yeah, I've had enough of your shit, bro. Um, I'm going to capture you and do things my own way because we have more, uh, I guess pride than that.

We're not gonna be pushed around anymore. I have this new serum that's gonna help us get out of here. And the bigger brother's like, nah dog, that sounds whack. We're not gonna do that. So he's like, all right, I'm gonna kidnap your ass and torture you so that I can bring these other kids out and try and get them to come on my side. And Vi's like, we gotta go save our dad.

Powder, you fucking suck though. So you stay. And then Powder gets her feelings hurt. And then I guess- - Fucking kids. - Yeah, it's like, fuck them kids, you're staying here. Your weapons suck, you can't do anything. And Powder's like, I'll fucking show them. So she takes one of those like,

- Glowy blue things that she stole from the up above Piltover, I think is the name. - Piltover. - Yeah. - So she takes one of them and is like, I'm gonna create a grenade out of this and like try and bust them out and help them. But unfortunately the impact is too strong and she just ends up fucking everything up.

kills the two friends. Vi is like, "You're dead to me. You killed our dad." And then I guess Silco finds Powder and was like, "You're my daughter now." - Come here, child. - Come here, child.

And then I guess that's where we start to see like a slight shift in like, I guess now powder is gonna become almost like an antagonist section. I don't know. 'Cause that's where I stopped watching it. But,

what I really appreciated, especially about episode three was the fact that it finally started to actually, like it wasn't until like, I'd say about halfway through episode three where I finally started to see like, okay, now I actually know where the story is going. - Yeah. - Yeah. - 'Cause I feel like, especially episode one and a lot of episode two,

was just a lot of info dumping. - They had to start the world, right? And I think it's kind of tough, but you know, I think they made it as engaging as they could. - I think they did too. - The part of the world that really got me invested was, as you mentioned this whole idea of like magic being turned to like technology, what tool was being used because there are so many aspects of the world of League that will have to like come together. And I thought that was a really interesting take

and what the scientists were trying to do. - And even though it was top and bottom, there was multiple sides to Piltover and Zorn. Each had like their rivaling factions that I think all made sense within the story. There was no clear correct answer to any of them. And I think that's what made it really compelling 'cause there's like five different groups of people that all want totally different things. - That all have a point as well. - And there's not necessarily

a clear person who's the problem. Yeah. People who seem more evil, but it's not always so clear cut. And I think it's really impressive. Like you said, they managed to kind of present that on based off this really complicated game law, which for the record, but League of Legends law is really weird because about,

at eight years after the game came out, they were like, "No, actually ignore all the lore that you've learned up to now. It's none of it. We're redoing all of it and it's all shit." So they had like a hundred characters that were made with lore. - Right. - Yeah. - And so now they were like, "No, we're gonna-" - It was a joke. It was a joke for a long time in the League community. - It was a joke. It was all really stupidly complicated. They'd be like, "This is Aatrox. He's the god and he was made in fire." And then like, it was just kind of like, it was all very like, "This is my OC. This is how he fits into my world." - Very tacky. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, and so they were kind of like,

ignore all the law, but obviously you can't really get rid of a lot of these characters or really remove all of that law entirely without like, so it's kind of a mess of a law game. And so they smartly decided, look, let's have a bunch of characters that aren't in the game kind of be like the pillars of the story that allow us to then bring characters that are relevant into survive as a playable character. And then like her inclusion makes a lot of sense. They didn't try and shoehorn characters in, which I think they could have done.

- And be like, whoa, it's that guy I know. Like every character that's included makes a lot of sense. - Like it wasn't a fan service show. - No, not at all. - Yeah, but I think like as well, like, you know, I think that's like one thing after watching episode one only where I didn't have a lot of faith in it because it was setting itself off to just be like-

the good guys versus the bad guys kind of story that's just been so overdone. And like now after episode three, now it's like, oh, you don't know who the good guys are. You don't quite know who the bad guys are. I much prefer storytelling like that. And I was so glad at the end being like, oh, thank God it's not just like a fucking another good guys versus bad guys story. - I think you'll be very happy then. - Yeah. What are some characters that you enjoyed then?

- Cause I think you can get a good gauge of some of the characters now. - I liked the guy who died. - I liked him a lot too. - I liked him so much. - Everyone liked him a lot. - It was like the kids, I'm like, whatever, whatever. When the dad died, I was like, no way they killed him off, what? - And he died in like the worst way as well. I was just like, man, he just wanted to protect his kids. - A lot of people wanted them to be after that where they were like, please make him a playable character. And then they haven't. - Oh right, yeah.

- Silco was not a playable character and he got to be a TFT thing. - Oh really? - Yeah. - Silco, I think, yeah, as of right now, I don't quite have a grasp of what his character is like, but I have a feeling I'm going to like him by the end of the show. - He's pretty good. He's pretty well written. - He's, in my opinion, like the most interesting character in this entire series. You seeing his journey from like,

where he is now to where he is right at the end. I think he has one of the most interesting character arcs.

out of everyone and he's not even a playable character. - Yeah. - Which I think like says a lot about how much league- - They're confident. - Invested in just like, we are invested in not making this a league trailer. You know what I mean? We are just trying to make a good product. - And now is the best time to watch it 'cause season two is around the corner. - Right. - Season two is around the corner. - Next month? - Yeah. - When is our KC season two? - November. - Yeah, next month, right? - Next month. - Next month, yeah. - I hope they keep the same intro song.

- Oh, I don't. - I love the song. - I was gonna say if there was any like negative things I would have said. - No. - That Imagine Dragons song is one of the most fucking annoying songs I've ever heard in my life. - No. - It is so bad. - It is so fucking bad.

- It is terrible. - It's so good. - It is terrible. - What? - It is so fucking, every time, I'm so glad Netflix has the skip intro button. I mash that shit. - I never once skipped it. - You are so close to a WT, Joey. - I'm sorry, it's crazy. This is like shitting the bed at the last minute.

- I'll give Arcane all of its flower praises. Change the fucking opening song. No one wants to hear Imagine Dragons, they're shit. - I love the intro song. - It's so annoying. - It's so good. - It is one of the most annoying choruses I've ever heard. - That's great.

- It's so wack. - Yo, just wait for Linkin Park to be in season two. - I'm not excited for that either. - Is it actually Linkin Park? - No, no, no. - I hope they keep it. - I hope they keep it as well. - If it's another Imagine Dragons song, I'm skipping that shit too. - Just keep the same opening song. - Imagine Dragons has been in life support because of League. They've literally every popular Imagine Dragons song. - Yeah, why are we keeping them alive? - I guess 'cause they're probably cheap. - Pull the plug. - Pretty cheap to hire. - Pull the fucking plug on them, guys. Please. - Right, you're better than this.

- Yeah. I'm wondering, did you get to see any of like the other male characters? - 'Cause- - I think you do meet- - You meet Jace and Victor? - Yeah, yeah. Those are the guys who tried to do the science thing, right? - Yeah, yeah. - And what the fuck's the tiny professor guy? Professor Heimerdinger? - Heimerdinger!

- I was like, all right, you're kind of cute. - Oh, I'm a dinger. How they made such a likable character out of like one of the most hated champions. - No one likes playing against him. - No, really? - Yeah, 'cause he puts down his little fucking annoying turrets and he just runs away. He's so annoying to play against. - Yeah, when he's talking to Jason in the cell and he's just like, "I'm 300 years old." And I'm like, "I love you." - He's great, he's great. - It's like your little shit.

- I'm glad you like it. - I'm glad, I'm fucking glad we did it. We did it guys, we won. - It's the only time I'm giving League a W. - I know you can go home and watch the rest. - Yeah, I guess so. - Alrighty. I also read, I think about 25 chapters of Fire Punch. - Fuck yeah. - 25 chapters. - So about what? - Two or three volumes. - A third, yeah, about two or three volumes. - Okay, so about a third of it. - A third of it. - Yeah. - What'd you think?

- Yeah, good, obviously. I mean, it's good. It's good. What's his name again? The guy who- - Tatsuki Fujimoto. - Tatsuki Fujimoto. The one thing that's very apparent about this man is he is obsessed with movies. - Oh yeah. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - 'Cause like you're reading this thing. Okay, so "Fire Punch." There are gonna be a lot of spoilers now, obviously. - Yeah. - For the first at least 25.

'Cause I do wanna finish this. You have this like really almost traditional animation revenge story with this guy and it's all, the premise is so cool. - Oh, it's one of the coolest premise. - A guy who is in a cold world that has been frozen for some reason, we're not revealed to yet why.

and he gets burnt to a crisp by this guy with like immortal flame that can't be put out but he can't stop regenerating yeah um and he killed his his sister and now he's seeking revenge and he's good about revenge and and everything's pretty normal um obviously there's some edge to it like they they find people who are gifted or have abilities and they kind of use them as like slaves yeah in some capacities like if

One character has electrical abilities and they like chop off their legs and arms and turn them into like a human battery. - Yeah. - Yeah. - And it's like horrific and cool and like really edgy, like super edgy. Like it's cool. - Yeah. - And then there's just like one moment that something happens and I'm like, what? Where you're kind of watching it and there's some thing going on and then this woman turns up, she's like, I'm gonna be the director. You're like, what?

And then it suddenly just turns into the rest of the thing after this is literally just about her filming him. - Oh yeah. - Oh yeah. - And you're like, what the fuck is this now about? 'Cause it suddenly turns into a revenge arc, which is still kind of is about, but everything shifts 'cause for the next like 15 chapters, it's literally just her being like, I will now direct you to get revenge. And it kind of gets all really goofy.

- It's really weird. It kind of becomes super goofy. - That's the Fujimoto trap is that he sets you up with a really serious premise and then just does a bunch of goofy shit. - Yeah, he was kind of, I won't lie like, cause with, what was the other one that I read?

- Goodbye, Eri. - Goodbye, yeah, goodbye, Eri, which I loved and I finished. And I feel like it worked there. This time, I don't know if, I haven't finished it, so I don't know if it worked, but I definitely thought it was a lot more jarring this time around. - Oh, Fire Punch is definitely way weirder. It gets even weirder. - And I imagine it does, and maybe that's the charm, that's probably the charm of it. I was like, "Damn, this is such a cool premise, why?"

- So I think Fire Punch is his first like published work. Might be wrong, but it's definitely, I think his first serialized work that went on for a while. And you can definitely see that Fire Punch has so many raw and cool ideas. And then he will just throw you a curve ball and it just,

- Like about the halfway point, it all continues to get weirder and weirder and weirder to the point where I'm like, this is just shown in Evangelion. I don't get this ending. - Can I ask you a question? - Yeah. - What would you give it out of 10? 'Cause you guys both finished it, right? Just so I'm curious.

- So I can get a feel for how you guys feel about the show. - Like seven and a half. - I'd give it 7.5 as well. - So the ideas are cooler than the execution. - Some of the execution is very weird. - That's the vibe I was getting a lot. Like I was like,

- I won't lie, at least for the 15 chapters that this girl was with us, I did not like her. I was like, God, she's so annoying. - It's been a while since I've read it, but all I remember is that the last volume, almost every single page, I was like,

- So it's a what the fuck? - Wait, you didn't get that from the first 15 chapters or so? - No, it was pretty normal. - Oh yeah, like, did you get to, it starts off with the fucking sister being like, yo. - Yeah, that was okay. That was a moment where I was like,

- I like how you were just like, I'm just gonna ignore that. - Say less. - Say less. Incest? - I am an anime viewer. I am used to just shoehorned incest. I don't bat an eye. Actually, I think I did react actually. - Oh, did you? - Yeah, I need to see it. - I think we're like 15 minutes in probably. - No, it's really on. - It's chapter one. It's like chapter one. - Really? - Right before she like dies. Yeah, this part, this part. - Actually this part?

- I heard you go back. I was like, wait, what? - I didn't know about an eye. - He was locked in. - Yeah, I was like very, when I was recording this, I was like very focused on like just reading. I was like, you know what? I'll react when there's some moments to talk about. And that was, I was like, what? But I love the idea of like, okay. - Incest.

- No, no you got. I like the idea that they were like, okay, this world's so frigid and cold, like there's no food, people who can regenerate, we're literally cannibalizing them. I thought that was like such a cool, like a lot of the ideas are already out there and like you said, you don't really see a lot of this stuff often. And I really liked how everyone in this fucking weird city was fucked up and deranged because why wouldn't they be? They've had to survive. And like a lot of the ideas are really, really cool. And it was just weird.

It's just weird. - So weird. - It just gets weirder and weirder. - There are two moments that hit me early on like the fucking warning signs on like, sometimes Fujimoto just throws in weird shit. One thing was like, obviously the, you know, they just hit you on the head with just like, oh, incest right away. - Yeah, that was weird. That was so weird. - That was weird. Then there's a guy who was like, please fuck my dog. - Yes, I was also confused by that. - Oh my God, yeah, I remember that. - Wow, I erased that from my memory. - I was glad it didn't happen.

- I was very glad as well, but it was just so weird the way he was presented. He was just like, 'cause I knew he was going somewhere 'cause clearly the guy was like deranged in some way. So you're like, ah, okay. I know this guy is not mentally well, but I don't know where this is gonna go. Maybe he's gonna be like, you know,

to do something bad to the children or maybe he's gonna go torture them or something. What I wasn't expecting was please fuck my dog. And I believe he was like, let me film it or something or let me watch or something like that. - Yeah, it was something, the justification obviously was not very scientific. The other thing that I actually thought was

well done and I thought was really cool was that obviously you know this character that is the director is kind of a third party in all of this yeah and they were like yeah well you know they're like I don't really fucking agree with anything that anyone's doing and there's people that are following her and then they're like oh why are you following her they're like well we're gay we're not allowed in the like the capital city yeah area and I was like you know what I'll give credit where credit's due it's so rare that I feel that in an anime or manga there's any kind of

tasteful use of gay characters in a way that I feel like is a fair representation of struggles. 'Cause in the anime it's either fucking yaoi or they don't exist. - I would actually say that continues with,

- With other people as well, where there's, I'm not gonna spoil, but there's a character who reveals something about themselves. I'm like, wow, I've never actually seen this in manga done before. - Yeah, 'cause I feel like it takes a lot of confidence and a lot of like,

of, you know, I was just looking at Japan. - Yeah. - How to navigate around that. And I thought it was really well done. And I was like, damn, that's fucking, that's cool. - Yeah. - 'Cause I don't know. I just, it's so rare you ever see anything like that. - It just treats it like it's a, I don't know, it just feels normal, you know, which is how it should be. - Yeah, they don't make it weird. - They don't make it weird. - And I'm even trying to praise it without making it sound like wow.

- Good job, you included gay people in the story. 'Cause it's like, it's so like, I shouldn't have to do that, you know? But I was like, in anime and manga, it is so rare. And I do like it when it's done as any other character would be written. - Yeah, exactly. - Which is rare, you know? - Yeah. - Not trying to be like,

- Are you telling me that fire punches woke? Are you telling me that fire punches woke on a- - In my manga? - I just wish people would get over themselves and start pretending like gay people don't exist. It's insane. I can't believe people are like, "No, gay people don't exist in Japan."

- Bro, come to Japan, please. - Yeah, they definitely exist. - Flamboyant and openly camped countries. It doesn't really know how to handle openly talking about gay topics. It's really cool when we get into a fucking manga that is like, "Hey, I fucking know how to talk about it." - Yeah. - Yeah.

- But it was cool. It was cool. Just so weird. I have to finish it. - It is one of the more weird among I've read. - Yeah, 'cause actually the premise alone was what got like, I read this in about two days 'cause I was like addicted. 'Cause I was like, the premise is so fucking cool. - Agreed. - And just, I love the fights in this as well. The fights in this are metal as fuck. I don't know if you, what, did you get to see any fights or anything like that? - He just kind of stomped everyone so far. - Yeah.

The director also, the director of the movie, I don't know her name. I feel bad. She just stomped everyone as well as she comes across. And I was like, oh, okay. It's like popping out spines. Oh, okay. But there's some really smart uses as well that I really appreciated that, okay, if he's going down this, we're making a movie route. There are parts where he was like, the director's like, okay, cut. And,

and then you wouldn't see what happened. It would actually cut to the next time. I was like, oh, that's really interesting. - There's a one cut where they say cut and then you cut to like,

- Everyone being like, "All the dead bodies." I'm like, "Yo." - I was like, "That's really cool." I was like, "Is he implying that the entire thing is like a movie or what's going on here? It's a metaphor." But then again, with him, I feel like he's never implying anything. There's like 90 different ideas and things that he wants to express and he doesn't know which one to go for. What's funny is that reading this, you're like, "Wow, they really fucking tamed this guy down for chainsaw man."

- Oh yeah. - No, they did. - They made him lock in. - Yeah. - Be more cohesive. - Chainsaw Man is like normal compared to Fire Punch. - And it's almost why I feel like reading it, I was like, man, this would, if Chainsaw Man was hard to adapt and didn't like get the praise or the sales that it needed, I was like Fire Punch. - Yeah. - I just don't think it would, it would be hard to find an audience. - Fire Punch, you can just see how raw, like I feel like how raw his talent was, but just because you just get the feeling that Tatsuki Fujimoto just,

- He's experimental. - He's very experimental and just like, he was like, "Chainsaw Man" is what I feel where you get that raw, weird energy and you- - Focus it. - You focus it. You focus it in a direction where it's still weird,

but yeah, "Fire Punch" was just like, you'll reach the halfway point and you're like, I do not know where this story is going right now. This is weird. - Outside of Evangelion, it doesn't normally bode well for shows that have that. - There's just something about the way Fujimoto manages to compile all of those scatterbrained ideas together in such a way where it's like,

you'll never be able to guess that it ends in a particular, like the ending of Fire Punch. - I mean, I couldn't fucking see any of the twists. - Yeah, there is not a single person on planet earth who could probably predict what happens at the end of Fire Punch. 'Cause it's just like, what, what?

- I imagine when you're writing a show, he probably thinks what is the five next natural conclusions and then bans himself from using them. That's what I feel like. It's the only way you could explain why he writes this way. - Yeah.

- It's fascinating. - I always think he's just a weird guy. - He's a very weird guy. - You have to be. - If you hear about any of the interviews he's done, it's just- - Like the premise of how he came up with Chainsaw Man? - Yeah, it's just like weird, but also you could see why he's a genius because only geniuses think like this.

- A genius is an insane person with an audience. - Yeah, I liked it. - Japan is willing to give the reins to people who write bizarre things. And I feel like obviously in the West right now, it's very hard 'cause everything's very expensive to make. So I often feel we don't really get some of these more experimental stuff. - Oh yeah. - And so that's why it's almost really more fun reading and watching what's going on in Japan just 'cause

I feel like there's so much more willing to experiment on weird shit. - Oh, totally. - And you know, it was good. It was good. I just, it was jarring at times. It was very jarring. - That's a normal reaction. - It's like, it's really cool. Just ignore the incest and ignore the dog fucking thing. - Yeah, like what is up with the incest? Like, is that like a passion of his? - I don't know. - Like, 'cause I feel like I have to know. Like I have to know why he put that in there because there was literally,

- No need for that in that scene. - Do you think it might be like post ironic? - It could be. - It could be. Knowing Fujimoto, he's probably like, I'm gonna make fun of all the other mangaka's that love what he insists in. - I think that's the hope. - That's the hope. - But I don't think it is. - In my head cannon,

That's why he did it. - I'm gonna keep my mouth shut because just finish it because- - Just Twitter, Twitter will get angry. - Yeah, just not Twitter. You know what? Just read the rest of it and then we can discuss. - Okay, okay, okay. - I thought of it as well like using

- I think 'cause the problem is we've also been so exposed to incest in anime that you can only look at it as this kind of like degenerate gross thing, which it is, which it is. But I do think in a world like and the setting that it is in, I could see why it could have been used for a very powerful story piece. 'Cause they're in it, he's literally, they are relying on each other. No, no, no, no, no, no.

I do not like incest, right? I'm not a guy who gets pumped about it. Let me finish, let me finish, okay? - This is taking your tone. - How is this corner incest? - No, no, no, no, no, no. Because after it happened, I was like, what the fuck? I was like, that's fucking weird as fuck. But at the same time, I guess if these two characters are the only fucking young people around and they are literally around each other their entire fucking life, they might not understand why this is bad.

or why they shouldn't do this. - This is what Fujimoto does to people, man. - No, but like I think- - I'm glad this is coming up. - Look, look, look. It's like we unfortunately live in a world where incest happens a lot. And a lot of people have different motivations for why they do it. And you know, whether it be preserving a royal bloodline

or there is just no one else around. I think there is a way that it can be used for storytelling. I think it shouldn't be used in the sense of, wow, my half sister is so fucking cute. I wanna fuck her. - What you're saying is in this particular setting where it's more of an apocalyptic setting. - It could be explained. - It could be explained. - It could be used as a powerful story tool. However, I don't think just turning around and going like, hey, have a baby with me, brother, which is also the wording.

It's not that like, I love you. I want to be embraced by you, whatever. It's like, I want a baby with you, brother. - Yeah, that's why I'm thinking it's like post ironic. - Maybe, who knows? - Because it didn't lead to anything. - I hope for the best, expect for the worst. - Well, I did not have Connor defends incest in fire punch. - I did not defend it. - That was not on my bingo card. - I did not defend it. I just think there could have been a story to it. - This is what Fujimoto does to me. - I'm not defending it. Not defending it.

Connor's come over to the dark side. - No, no, no! Not defending it! - That's crazy, bro. God damn. - All right, well, on that bombshell. - What do you have next? - I have "Juice of Kaiosan" season two. - You like it? - "Juice of Kaiosan" season two? - It's all right. - The first "Juice of Kaiosan" season two. - No, no, no. What I'm saying is it's better than season one, 100%, but I just,

- Okay, okay. What episodes did you watch? - The first three. - The first three? So did you see the Gojo arc? - Yes, the Gojo arc. - So it was the Gojo arc. - I don't think I saw the end of it though, 'cause I think that's episode four. - Did he fly in the sky?

- No, he got killed. - Oh, you missed the best part. - That was an awesome fight though. - That was an awesome fight to be fair. I will say the one thing I really appreciated about season two at least is that the cinematography is way better. - Oh my God, it's phenomenal. - Way better than season one. - The cinematography, especially in that first arc is fucking,

- Actually, absolutely. - Yeah, and it's not even like just the fight scenes. It's like even the standard scenes where it's just like two characters talking or like transitioning to a next scene is so much more interestingly done than season one. - The use of music as well, I think was insane. - Whoever decided free jazz for the soundtrack. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly right. - Beautiful. - So how is it just ite then if you love the choreography? - Because I just don't care about the world.

- I really don't. It's just another show on the internet. - I mean, I would say- - The fight scenes were insane, I love that. - Yeah. - That's most of season two. - Yeah. - You'll probably like season two. - I might like season two then. - There's like 12 episodes back to back that are different fights. - Oh, okay. - I think the big difference between the Shibby arc and the Gojo flashback arc is that I think,

- In what I've seen of Jujutsu Kaisen so far, I think the Gojo flashback arc is the best example of like good characters, interesting characters and good storytelling within the arc, within Jujutsu Kaisen. - Oh, I much prefer Gojo as a character than Itadori. - Yeah. - I think Itadori is kind of boring, to be honest.

- Yeah. - Protagonist syndrome. - As a protagonist, he's kind of boring. - Yeah. - And I think that's why I wasn't huge into season one. 'Cause I was just like, I don't give a fuck about Itadori. - I mean, you have to have- - I know I need to care because he's the protagonist, but- - But like, no, but I mean, I agree in senses that I think that like,

- You have to be extremely confident, I think, as a storyteller to write a protagonist that's a little bit different. - Yeah. - Like even like writing someone like Joseph Joestar would be really hard to do, I think. - Oh, of course. - 'Cause it's like, how do you make an asshole likable? - Yeah. - I don't know. - It's kind of tough, I think. - I think Denji in terms of like a Shonen protagonist is like one of the most interesting Shonen protagonists out there.

which from Chainsaw Man. - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, because you can tell that he just doesn't care. - Yeah, I like Denji. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's to me, like really, really interesting as a Shonen protagonist. Haven't gone so deep into Dandadan yet, so I'm not sure about that. - Oh, Dandadan's the same, yeah. - But I think that's because this is like a lot more of the new waves of,

of protagonist characters that we're getting. - Yeah. - A lot of them are a lot more, have more defining personality traits. - Yeah. - And I think that's the problem where it's like, Itadori just kind of fits that old formula for a show name protagonist.

becomes a little bit more different as the show goes on. But obviously a lot of the times the personality is lacking in the first season or two. - Yeah, I mean, some things happened to him in the second season and the problem was, my big problem with the second season is that I didn't really care about Itadori before the second season. So when shocking things were happening,

still didn't care, but it was like not even shocking. - Which is why already just from the little I've seen of season two and just from looking at the Gojo flashback arc, I was like, oh, I get now why people love Gojo.

- Yeah. - 'Cause like, yeah. - 'Cause he's so much more interesting as a character. - He is a very, very interesting character. - He's just more enjoyable to watch. You know, it's just like, why? This man should have been the protagonist. - Also, it's just because you could just be like, "Ryokutenki." - Yeah, when he does "Ryokutenki," I'm just like, "Say less, King." I'm sad. - It's just so fun. - So yeah, yeah. So in terms of like, just like,

Overall enjoyability of the first three episodes, definitely preferred it over season one. - Yeah. - And I understand why a lot of people were hyped more for season two than season one, but yeah.

- I'm surprised you didn't watch episode four. 'Cause it was like after, I think episode three. - How can you stop on three? - Well, something shocking happens at the end, I believe, right? And that kind of like hit me out of nowhere. - I just didn't have the time. Sorry. - I gave it the three episode rule though. - You're gonna get to the meme frame with Gojo like,

- Yeah, you're so close. - You're so close to the- - Gojo was like that. - I love that. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - But yeah, like- - Toji is one of the coolest characters as well. Sorry to interrupt. - Toji is cool. - Toji is cool. - cinematography is phenomenal. - Yeah. - Yeah, I think like seeing that first fight between Toji and Gojo and just seeing Gojo being humbled for the first ever time, you're like, holy shit, this guy,

- This guy is a chat. - This guy is a chat. - He's got no powers? - God, that fucking moment where you just like, you see how much buildup he has for this, like just to ambush,

one fucking overpowered person. And then you see Gojo just like, his mind wanders for like a split second. And then Goji, Toji appears in frame. I was like, holy shit, I'm hard. I am hard right now. - It's like unequivocally high. Regardless if you even give a fuck about the story, the fight scenes are just fucking high. - The fight scenes were phenomenal.

That was actually one of my favorite fights in all of season two. Just seeing that unfold and seeing just him being like five steps ahead of Gojo. Even though Gojo is so fucking overpowered even in his like, I'd say base form. - His base form. - His base form. - His base form Gojo. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - He's not quite Super Saint Gojo yet. - He's not quite, yeah. He's not quite, yeah. He's not quite awakened yet. Still, that was such a hype moment. - Yeah. - Are you gonna continue watching?

- That's a no. All that translates for you guys. - Yeah, I'm good. - Well, guys, we tried. We got arcane. We got arcane this time. - We gotta win. - We'll take the W. - Take the W, all right? - We'll take the W. - Gons playing Elden Ring, two wins.

- Connor's in a fire punch. - Yeah, I will try to finish it at some point, but I've been meaning to finish Slam Dunk for the longest time. - Yeah. - Slam Dunk. - What else is left? Oh yeah, you guys read OSU Puppet Man. - So why do the patrons want us to read OSU Puppet Man so badly? - I don't know. - That's so crazy. - It's something that me and Connor haven't read and it's an iconic manga.

- It's one of my favorite manga. - The only downside of this format of this, I guess this type of show. - There's not enough time. - Not enough time. And I thought "I Asked Me a Problem" was a short manga. I was wrong. It's like 147 chapters. - 13 volumes. - 13 volumes. - So quite a long time.

And I was going into it like, obviously you've heard like, "It's the saddest fucking manga of all time. You will try not to cry challenge impossible difficulty." I was like, "Okay." And I talked about this in the thing where I remember you explaining

- Why he is Pun Pun? - Yeah. - But I totally forgot why it was. So I don't know why he's Pun Pun. What do you mean? - Oh, as in like why he's a bird and everyone else is a human? - Yeah. - Is that just an artistic choice? - There's this, okay, before you tell me anything, is it ever explained in the thing? - No. - Okay. So it's just fan theories, why? - It's just fan theories, but essentially there is a hint right near the end. - Okay.

where there's like this one frame where one of the characters draws a picture of Punpun and he's a human. - Oh, okay. - So the theory is that

- That's just how he sees the world? - Everyone in the world sees Punpun as a human. - Oh yeah, that's what I figured. - But you as the reader sees him as this bird. - Yeah, that's what I figured too. - Yeah, and there's multiple theories as to why that may be the case. - Yeah, I mean, I assumed it was like an odd taxi kind of like deal. - Yeah, so yeah, I think the most accepted theory is the fact that he purposefully made this character very non-human like so that...

I just realized we should probably explain roughly the first. - Oh yeah. - Before we get into that. - Yeah, before we get to it, let me know your thoughts first. - Okay, so well, how about Garnt, 'cause I'm not a good explainer. You explain the rough start.

the rough starts of Pun Pun. I can't remember everything that happened because a lot of this was just built up with the characters. So you get introduced to Pun Pun and he's kind of just a kid. And I think the first two volumes I read were very, very indicative of just- - Being a kid. - Being a kid. The anxieties you have as a kid, the biggest struggles that Pun Pun deals with aside from we'll get into like his family stuff is,

Liking girls. Getting bitches, basically. It's just puberty. It's puberty.

It's going through puberty, being confused with all these hormones that he obviously has right now and just trying to swoon the girl that he likes at the moment and also just deal with school life and kids being weird and mean sometimes. And also he doesn't have the greatest family life either because-

I think the first chapter ends with his dad. Just, I'm not sure if he goes to jail or gets arrested, but he basically decks his mom in the head. - Pretty much. - Fucking decks him in the fucking head. - Wapa, wapa. - Gives him a little something something. - Give him a little one too. - His mom goes to the hospital. Am I wrong?

- I was thinking of which word you were gonna use and Dec was not on the line. I was like domestic abuse, violent towards. - No, he fucking Dex him. - He fucking Dex him. - He puts her ass on the floor. - I had no idea what you were gonna go for. - It's heavily implied that he was abusive. - It was domestic abuse. - Yes, heavily implied. - And then he does the thing where he's like,

but then he tries to be like a good dad. Where he's like, "Hey, here's a telescope I brought you, son." And he seems like a good dad and then his uncle's like, "Hey, he's just, he means well." - Yeah. - He's just an abuse. - And also he has this weird kind of like ritual that I think is going to prevail during this entire manga where he can call God at any time. - Seeing that image of God, I was like,

- I've seen this fucking face. - This is where the face comes from. - Can you show the face? 'Cause it's fine. So if you haven't read it- - Just like a Pun Pun God. - There is this very out of place face that pops up all the time. And you've probably seen this face a couple of times if you're an anime fan, 'cause a lot of people have this as a profile picture. They have this fucking smiling face as a profile picture.

And God appears after he does a chant sometimes. And I feel like it's his kind of like coping mechanism a lot of the times. And so like,

- Other things happen. - Oh, you can close it now. - Yeah. Other things happen. Like he confesses to the girl that he likes. - Aiko. - Aiko. Turns out Aiko also likes him as well. And he gets a fucking, he wins in chapter three. He gets a fucking kiss, baby. - Yes, sir. - Already ahead of every other romance. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Already ahead of every other protagonist. - Everyone doesn't wait till day three. - Yeah, yeah. - He goes in day two. - Exactly.

- And then you kind of just follow his life as a kid. I'm not gonna spoil everything because there's like 27 chapters. - Yeah, a lot happens. - A lot happens in 27 chapters. But I would say the biggest thing that I liked about it was the character writing was just top tier. - Yeah.

- Reading this very much brought me back to all the insecurities I had as a kid. And even though not all the same things happen, it happened in my life as what happened in Pun Pun's life because there's this whole side arc where they go to a mochi factory because they're trying to find a dead body. - Or treasure as they call it. - A treasure, a dead body.

from some rumor they heard from this videotape. Like a lot of weird shit happens, but I would say that it totally encapsulates the feeling of just your hormones

in puberty are hitting, you're confused. You don't know what the world is like and you're just trying to be a kid and you're just fucking confused. - 'Cause like the thing is, is that like, you know, puberty, exploring puberty and like growing up is such a common theme that's used in a lot of manga and anime, but I think Oyasumi Punpun does it the best, like hands down. - I would say the biggest warning lights for me out of like,

when I think I've realized why people were so invested in this and why this is going to be a sad, really sad manga is just how much I related to the feelings of that stage of his life. - Yes. - Right?

And every time I turned the page, I was like, I hope something bad doesn't happen. I hope something bad doesn't happen. And I know something bad is gonna happen. - I almost had the opposite. I was like, I want something bad just to happen, just to get it out of the way. 'Cause you just knew it was cooking. - Yeah, you knew. - And I was like, just get it out of there. Just rip off the bandaid. And I was kind of hoping for that, or not hoping, I was waiting for that big moment. And it like never came. And I realized, oh no, it's just like a death by a thousand cuts situation. - I think it is. I think it is. - And I was like, oh.

- It just gets progressively slightly worse and worse and worse. - And also I couldn't, I didn't experience a lot of the stuff that Pun Pun experienced. There's a few things where I was like, yeah, it feels real. Where the girl you liked, you see her with another guy, you're like, fuck, man. - We had something, I thought we had something. - There were two moments that really fucking hit me in this one.

- The first moment, the first moment, and it's like you said, the death by a thousand cuts, where the first moment was kind of like the buildup to like the domestic abuse part, where you see the mom getting hit and Pun Puns, and you see Pun Puns in a monologue being like, "Pun Pun never really loved his mother." I'm like, "What the fuck, Pun Pun? "Bro, what the fuck?" And then there's this moment later where obviously his parents are having an argument and his mom says something that a mother should never say

in anger at all and Pun Pun hears it and I'm like, holy shit, this is getting a little bit too real right now. And then there's a small moment where his mom and Pun Pun go, you know, his mom takes Pun Pun out and then,

they're in a taxi and his mom's like, "Take us to the sea please, take us to the ocean." - Oh yeah. - And the taxi driver makes a joke and then the mom's like, "Actually it's okay, just take us back." And I'm like, "Oh my God, no fucking way." - That was like fucked. I was like, "That's crazy. You're gonna take Pom Pom with you?" - Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, "That's fucked. That's actually fucked." - Yeah, and I guess that's why like,

I thought it was really well written 'cause obviously that, and I think in a textbook situation like this where the dad is abusive, you would immediately think like, poor mother. - Poor mother. - And like you do, you do think that, but like they also wrote this abusive dad in a very like sympathetic way in the sense that like he really tried to be a dad for Pun Pun whilst being completely unprepared and knowing how to deal with a marriage and a marriage that wasn't healthy.

So like they were both two people who maybe at some point were good people who this marriage has ruined both of them. And they're both terrible people in their own way, but obviously the dad was much more terrible. But they put extra emphasis on trying to redeem the dad to make you feel like, ah, it's not so black and white. And Pompon really likes his dad. And you're like, God, but you shouldn't 'cause he's the reason why your mama is even like this is because of him. And like, it's a very like fucked up situation. And it really like,

made you constantly try to get rid of your black and white view into the situation. - You could tell, even in this early age, Pun Pun is just a broken fucking kid. - Oh yeah. - Which, you know, he wears the scars of the household that he grew up in. - I was like, you can't even deal with like simple, like everyday life, emotional situations that he should be prepared to deal with. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. My favorite character so far is probably the uncle character. - Yeah, uncle's the dope.

- I'm not gonna look at Joey. Uncle is just like- - I'm sure he's got some skeletons in his closet. - Yeah, yeah, everyone does. - He's putting the work. - But I just felt like everything that happened with the uncle, I'm just like, you know what? He's the logical one. - I think he's a great guy. - I think he is as well. - I'm sure there's nothing bad about the uncle.

- Nah, nothing at all. Don't worry guys. - I'm gonna continue looking at the camera. I'm like the uncle, he gets it. - I'm sure he's great. - He's the one. - He probably takes more vacations. - Out of all of like, out of all of Punpun's like immediate family. Out of all Punpun's immediate family, you could tell he was the one that tried to like

be a good role model for Pun Pun the most. He was out of everyone. He was like his best role model so far. He was his best role model. - I don't know this is chapter 27. - Yes, best role model so far and you know,

He was the one who gave Pun Pun this little chant to call on God whenever you need him, whenever you're going through something bad. And you could tell that Pun Pun very much respects his uncle and internalized that. And you could tell that his uncle very much knows the effect that he had on Pun Pun. I think the line that really hit me was when his uncle was talking to his uncle

Pun Pun's mom, also his sister, where he's like, "Man, I see the kids and I just wanna sort my life out. Just because whenever I see Pun Pun, I just wanna be a better person." I'm like, "Fuck me, man, I respect that." And the scene that kind of like broke my heart a little bit was the scene where there's these two religious fanatics that are obviously part of a cult and the uncle is trying to be

- Trying to be very patient with them. - Give me the fucking love. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Trying to say, I respect your beliefs, but I do not believe the same thing. Please leave me alone. And this old cult lady just would not, you know, will not give it up to the point where it builds up and builds up and it boils to this uncle being like, I don't even fucking believe in God. There is no God. And Pun Pun just like- - And Pun Pun standing right there. - Pun Pun stands right there. And I'm like,

- Oh man, I feel so bad for Pun Pun. My heart sank for Pun Pun right there 'cause every kid needs hope. - Does the manga eventually cover him as an adult? - Oh yeah. - Oh fuck. - So you guys have experienced, so as Pun Pun gets older, his visual slightly changes as well. - Right. - And everyone is ugly as well. Everyone is drawn kind of like a little,

- What's the valley thing called creepy? - Uncanny Valley. - Uncanny Valley. - Slightly creepy looking. - So I think that was a purposeful artistic choice. So like one of the reasons why, this is my interpretation of it, but one of the reasons why Asano Inio decided to draw Punpun and his immediate family as these bird creatures is one, so that you could,

put yourself in his shoes without having to like look past any kind of like human like facade. - That makes sense, yeah. 'Cause if you saw like a black head woman and you have a blonde mom. - Yeah, then you'd be like, oh, that's not. - I don't relate. - Yeah, I can't relate. But like by making them not human, it's a lot easier to put yourself into it. Number two, it's to also,

it's using this cute aesthetic to get you to emphasize with these cutesy characters to make the human characters look more hideous. - Yeah, which they definitely do. - Which they definitely do, but at the same time, it makes the shocking scenes more shocking. Because you're not expecting these cutesy characters to do and say and act in these very human and very like filthy human ways. Which is unfortunately for a lot of people, a reality.

- Even if nothing bad further is like happens to Pun Pun, I think he's so unable to deal with his emotions currently that he just wouldn't, his adult life would be miserable regardless. - Yeah. - Yeah, I mean, I think- - So even if nothing else bad happens, which I'm sure will happen. - Yeah. - Oh, it does. - 'Cause that's how life works. - Yeah. - I'm glad you guys are talking about this much about the manga already in his child phase because I think

I'm just gonna let you know now, there is not a single good character in this manga. - Which is also kind of, I mean, when we have depressing stories like this and there's like, the takeaway is everyone is bad. It's like, well, not everyone. - It's not that simple though. It's not that simple. - I don't see the case of like everyone is bad. I just see the case that everyone is broken and sometimes broken people surround themselves with other broken people. - Is everyone in the real world broken?

- Maybe, maybe, maybe. - I don't know man. - I mean that's- - Makes you think. - Yeah, I mean it really- - Sound like Chew on. - Like even though nothing truly- - We live in a society. - We do. - Even though nothing truly sad or like heartbreaking happens, there was this air of just melancholy that just like, that's just encapsulated the entire first few volumes that I've read. And there was one thing that genuinely did surprise me about "Pun Pun" that I wasn't expecting.

- Sometimes funny. - Oh yeah. - I wasn't expecting that. - The group Jack off session. - Yeah. - What is up with that?

- I won't be remiss, you know, when you're a kid, you think porn is like the coolest thing ever. And that, you know, you maybe you wanna, you know, you and the boys wanna get together and watch it. - What's that lining in that Poon Poon says where he's like, "My brains just came out of my penis." - Yeah, he was like, "My brain has liquefied and come out my penis." And then he asked his uncle, and this is why I was like, uncle's a real G. Because like, if I was the uncle, I wouldn't, I don't know if I could like stop myself from being,

- Oh yeah, that's two minutes off your life, Pun Pun. A part of your brain is just liquefied, that's it. There's nothing you can do about it, you can't jack off. And the uncle was just like straight up with him. He's a better man than me. - Oh yeah. I would've been laughing my ass off. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - The only issue I have with it is I don't know when I would be in the mood to finish reading it. - That's it, that's it. - It's just such a, like for as interesting and as well written as it is, it kind of was a slog.

- Oh yeah, it's a slow burner. - You're like, okay, okay. Okay, Pumpin is not okay. 'Cause it's pretty much like, Pumpin's family doesn't think bad, but when emotionally can't deal with something, Pumpin gets anxious. And that's kind of like the circle that you're in for like the first 30 chapters. You're like, come on, okay, okay. - I don't know.

it's a slow burn, but I just like, I was still like super absorbed reading the first few volumes because I didn't know what was gonna happen. And I feel like, I feel like,

I fucking love that with a story where you know something is gonna happen, but you don't know what, you don't know when. And just seeing Punpun's whole life story unfold was not exactly a wild ride, but it was something that always kept me on my toes.

I'm just assuming it doesn't have a good ending 'cause no one talks about this as being like a good thing. So that's why I'm kind of sad about knowing that I'm just watching the downfall. - Here's the thing, I can't even call the ending

- Yeah. - Because it's so, he does this brilliant thing. Well, I'm not gonna give it away obviously, but he ends it on this double page spread that is so open for interpretation. Where it's like, you can perceive it. I can see how people can perceive it in a good way, but you can also perceive it in a, oh God kind of way.

- If I ever get there, I'll let you know. - If you get there, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. And people have read it and know exactly what I'm talking about, but like it's that ending blew me away where I was like, wow, after all of that, you're not even gonna give us the satisfaction of a conclusive ending. - Yeah. - And that broke my heart.

but it's brilliant. - Okay. - Yeah. - Okay. - You got to read it. - Yeah, I mean, I- - Just, you got to build up the courage to like keep going. - It's a long time to be sad for. - It is. - It is. - What is it, like an eight hour read? Like it's just gonna be eight hours of- - Yeah. - It's like 120 something chapters. - Just depression for like a whole fucking- - Yeah, I mean, I, while reading the first two volumes, I know I'm gonna love this, love.

- Yeah, it's hard to even say love. - I recognize I love it, but I just don't wanna be sad. - Yeah, same here. - I get it, I get it. - Sometimes, even just reading the first two volumes, I'm like, I don't think I'm ready for this. I think I'm ready for this. - I'm not emotionally ready for this. - Already some minor things happening and I'm like, God damn, this is fucked up. - Oh yeah. - So yeah.

It just teases you by like showing you a tiny glimpse of hope every now and then. And then Inio Asano is like, "Mm-mm-mm." - Yeah. - "No, no, no, no, no." - Gone in my head, am I playing persona or am I reading the rest of "Yosemite Pun Pun?" - I don't know. - Which one do you do? - I think I would probably read "Yosemite Pun Pun." - Yeah. - Persona's just too long. - I get it. - It's just too long.

- I think I would probably be more interested in finishing Yossi Pimpin than Fire Punch. - Really? - Yeah, yeah. - I think so. - Yeah. - I mean, Yossi Pimpin. - I mean, they're both great. - Yeah, they're both great. For me, well, I'm already continuing to play Elden Ring. That wasn't really a question. - You just gotta find the time to read Pimpin. - I just, it's not even time. I can make time, I know. I just need to find. - You gotta find the emotional capability. - You just need to find the courage, man. - You got it. - All right. - And I will finish Arcane.

- Hell yeah. - Hell yeah. - That's a success. - Yeah, that is a success. - Well, thank you so much for watching, dear viewers. Have a fun time watching us go face our fears once more. - Yes. - Thank you guys for your suggestions. - Let us know if we should do this again. - Yeah. - Yeah. I think next time we should maybe open it up to the public, the YouTube comments, right? We've done ourselves, we're on Patreon.

in the YouTube comments have any idea of what we want, what we should watch, play, read, listen to, whatever media you want us to consume. If you have any suggestions, please put it down in the comment section below. And we might do this next time.

and record our reaction. - In the meantime though, you can join the Patreon like all of these lovely members on screen are right now. Again, thank you very much patrons for your continuous support. And if you join the Patreon right now, you'll be able to watch all

all of our reactions to everything we talked about in this episode, they will all be available for you guys on the Patreon right now, as well as weekly exclusive Patreon episodes as well that happen every single week. But if you wanna check that out and support the show in the process, then head on over to patreon.com/trashtaste. Also follow us on Twitter, send us memes on the subreddit. And if you're ahead of us, listen to us on Spotify. And yeah. - We will see you guys next week. - Bye.

When it's PCS time, you know the drill. Pack, research to new base, get the kids in school. Because family supports family. At American Public University, we support military families with flexible, affordable online education that moves with you. As a military spouse, your tuition rate is the same as your partner's. Just $2.50 per credit hour. American Public University. Education that moves with you.

Learn more at apu.apus.edu/military