Hello, and welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics Friends. Today, We've
got some big news for you, and that's gonna be a big part of
what we talk about today. If you are a longtime listener to Star Wars
Generations podcast or just older episodes of this podcast, you've probably heard one of
my favorite guests, Riki Hayashi. Reeky has given us great insight on everything
from the Clone Wars and Rebels to Go Jura movies, to the Green lantern
and the Yellow lanterns and other things like that. And after having him on
so many times as a guest, I'm happy to announce that he is going
to be the new co host for us here on Superhero Ethics, and he
and I had a great conversation about bringing him on and some of the ways
we could kind of adjust where we've been going with this podcast and make some
changes to maybe get back get a little bit closer to what some of the
original ideas were and some of Reeky's great ideas. So, Reeky, let
me just for first start by saying thank you so much and introduce yourself.
Matthews, thank you so much. I mean, it is a great joy
to be joining you always anytime. I appreciate the insights you have and how
it challenges me, how we challenge each other in terms of understanding of our
fandom and media and of the topic of this podcast. Right, superhero ethics
moving perhaps a little bit away from superhero in general, but definitely like fandom
ethics, like in terms of our geek fandom. So I really appreciate the
opportunity to be a bigger part of this, and like you said, it's
maybe like a little refocus on ethical dilemmas and within fandom, within media.
For those of you who don't know, my name is Riki Hayashi. A
long time well, I'm not even that by default. I was about to
say I'm a long time judge. I'm not. I used to be a
judge Magic the Gathering judge. That's how Matthew and I met. And I've
moved on to some different games and fandoms and all that, but have always,
like at my root, been a geek, a nerd and Star Wars
especially as you may have heard on the other podcast. But I love just
everything you know. I've been a longtime comic book fan, like actual comic
books, anime, any kind of science fiction star Wars star Trek, of
course, so I'm just like I'm always excited to talk about them in general.
But I have always held a deep appreciation for this podcast in which you
tried to do with it, or what you have done with it to make
it a little more serious. Really, I really love that. And part
of why I think I thought you'd be the perfect co host is that you
and I have had a great many discussions over the years about these different questions
that we love and the stories we love and things like that. But we
never had a debate. It's always about here's my position, here's yours,
how do they differ, how are they the same? And right now,
I think so much of fandom is about debate. It's about It's not about
listening to other people and hearing their perspectives and having that inform yours. It's
about how do I win? How do I get the best singer, how
do I get the best you know? One ups on this and there's a
lot of fandom that I think is great and I love. I'm not using
this an attack on fandom, and I certainly don't want to act like we're
better and above it all by any means we're fans, we're part of fandom.
But I've really found that I think there is an audience, and to
all you out there listening, I'm really glad you're part of it too.
Who wants to go a little deeper on these questions that I think a lot
of times the creators really clearly want to. You know, the stuff we're
talking about is not invented things. There have been so many wonderful people who
have over the years use these mediums of I guess genre fiction or things geeks
love is the kind of terms I've used to encompass all of it, because
you're right, it is way off superheroes at this point. It's just sort
of all those things that you mentioned and more. And they've always been,
you know, ever since. You can go back to the first Captain America
episode, you can go back to Mary Shelley writing what is considered Frankenstein,
the first work of science fiction. You can go back, you know,
hundreds of years, you have thousands of years probably people use stories as ways
to raise questions or perhaps suggest answers to those questions. And that's what I
really want us to explore here more of and you know, is looking at
that, and so I'm just really excited that you're a partist and that we're
going to have that discussion together. Yeah. Another thing I come like my
background is as a sports fan, especially baseball, Like it's so laden with
statistics historically, and it's very fascinating to be in baseball fandom and have discussions,
whether it's like the current season, like who's the MVP or more historical
like who is the greatest of all time? Right, and you bring up
names like Babe Ruth versus Barry Bonds who played it, you know, almost
one hundred years apart and in very different eras under very different circumstances. But
because of the continuity of statistics, you can you can have discussions, but
no one is ever going to be right in those discussions because you can't be
there's no actual way to tell who was quote unquote better at baseball or who's
the greatest. But it's fun to have those discussions. And that's the kind
of thing I like to do, whether it's baseball or whether it's in fandom,
is that it's not even like agreed to disagree, but have fun disagreeing,
because that's like the discussion is where we can have fun. Yeah,
it doesn't necessarily have to be about changing minds, because I you know,
I don't need to change someone's mind about whether I love a certain piece of
media or fiction, right, Yeah, But if I express why I love
it, maybe you'll gain a different appreciation, and even if you don't love
it as much as I do, come to a certain understanding. Yeah.
I think it's such a great way to put it. And it's like as
often happens. There's like five different things I want to comment on, but
let me just start with the baseball comment you made. First of all,
today's the perfect day to say that, because it is opening day for Major
League Baseball. For most of Major League Baseball. Two teams started Major League
Baseball a week and a half ago. Things are a little weird. My
own New York Mets are starting tomorrow because of rain delay, the only reason
I'm available to record right now. But also I am also a huge baseball
fan. One thing I have found really interesting in baseball, As you said,
not only do we have these statistics over time, but over time,
the way in which we look at statistics has changed a lot. And part
of why it's hard to draw the comparisons that we do is that not only
was the context, you know, taking like your babe Ruth versus Barry Bond's
discussion, not only is the context which those two people played so different,
but the stats by which we evaluate them. Many of you have heard me
talk about money ball and how much you know the Billy Bean in the Oakland
A's and this whole idea of you know him coming to a team and saying,
baseball used to be measured by these statistics, but actually we should These
statistics are a better way of looking at it. We should use those rubrics
instead, and it meant reevaluating a lot of modern players and also reevaluating a
lot of older players. The reason I'm saying all of that is because I
think one of the things that we often do, and I really appreciate that
you you feel like we get the nuances of these conversations is not only do
we often analyze media right now, but we do look back on things from
ten, twenty thirty to fifty one hundred years ago, and sometimes the big
and interesting part of the conversation is to say, okay, well, let's
there's lenses of analysis that we have today that we can use to evaluate these
things, remembering that that's not the lens that people were writing through back then.
But you know, and I think it's very easy to just say,
oh, it was a different time, so they're completely forgiven, or it's
very easy to say that the time was so different that that that their time
was bad and wrong, so everything from that is bad and wrong. And
I think, you know, one of the things we like to do here
is to be able to say, yeah, we can acknowledge that the lenses
we look at media through are are not only different, but are evolving and
changing and different and will continue to be different. And I hold that all
that complexity in mind. We look at media not just today from a long
time ago. Yeah, especially right now. I mean, this is a
topic that I put in the suggestions nostalgia media. So we we'll probably in
a future episode get to it more in depth, but I just want to
touch on the fact that currently we are we have an ongoing series called X
Men ninety seven that is based on Slash, possibly a continuation of a cartoon
series from the nineties that ended in nineteen ninety seven, and a lot of
those stories are based on comic book stories that were written in the nineteen eighties,
so we have this like multi generational legacy and how like modern writers update
the stories or change those stories is very interesting to me. And evaluating what
those stories mean to us today versus what they may have meant to audiences at
the time that they were originally released. Like that's I find that very fascinating,
especially as like comic books, Star Wars, Star Trek, we are
getting into multi generational content creation where the people who are making the products now
weren't alive or maybe like we're kids when these products were originally released and they
grew up as fans, and now they are getting to contribute to the continuation
of that. Yeah, And I think that's such an important discussion to have
on two different levels, because one level is what is the nostalgia of the
creators and the society itself, but also what is the nostalgia of us as
viewers, you know, because Batman starts in the nineteen thirties as a comic
and so for many you know, I don't know, there's too many viewers
who were I don't know, there's too many listeners who were around long enough
to have read that. But so I certainly salute you, but certainly,
you know, some of our older viewers probably started reading comics in the fifties
or sixties or watched the Batman sixty six show. I know, for me,
my introduction to Batman was was that Batman sixty six show, but really
was Michael Keaton. And so for me personally, nostalgia of Batman starts in
the mid eighties with Michael Keaton. And for someone else it might start,
you know, like you said, with the X Men. For someone else,
uh, their nostalgia and the X Men might start with I'm wis say,
Patrick Swayzey, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, or might start with the
animated show, or it might start with the comic books or whatever it is.
And so I think that's the nostalgy thing is such an interesting thing to
look at. So, but putting it back on you for just a second,
because I want to want to get a little bit more about you.
What was kind of your first nerd, your nurse, what was kind of
your first fandom, What was the first thing that you really started to kind
of get into as a kid or whatever? Age Star Wars. Yeah,
because I I can't verify this, but I have been told by my parents
that they took me to Empire Strikes Back in theaters when I was I was
not really like a cognizant child, So I take that at face value that
that was the first movie I went to in theaters. Certainly Return of the
Jedi was the first movie. Like I really remember owning the video cassette,
the VHS of and just playing it over and over again. I also had
audio cassettes kind of like summaries of those movies, and I listened to those
all the time. They they basically like were like yeah, like short narratives
of it of the movies with some audio from the movies spliced in. I
believe, really weird product of time. I didn't listen to the Star Wars
ones, but I had one of Michael Jackson telling me et story, so
I know, act what you're talking about there, And yeah, I had
some of you know, like the action figures of toys. Obviously like none
preserved in the original packaging. I don't I don't think I even own any
of them anymore at this point, but that that was definitely like my original
fandom, and to this day is one of my favorites, and then I
would say that Japanese manga and anime really played a big part in my youth
to teenage years. Dragon Ball became really big when I was a kid,
and I still I have I own all of the original books of that,
and then through Dragon Ball, there were several other ones that I have followed
over the years, including one piece which is still going over a thousand episodes.
We'll we're talking a little bit about that in the bonus content at the
end of this episode when you give people some more context for that, because
I know you speak both English and Japanese quite well, if I can ask
which one did you kind of grow up speaking? And am I right that
you were born in Japan but then came to this country or yes, I
was. I'm a Japanese citizen and I grew up speaking both languages, basically
Japanese at home and English in public slash school. And I did also attend
a Saturday Japanese school up until about high school. I believe so culturally like
I am very US like western based, because that's how I grew up,
Like that's most of the media I consumed. But I had another like I
had grandparents in Japan who would send me things like video that they would record
on vhs, like episodes of manga that they knew I liked they sent me,
you know, like toys, video games and all that stuff. So
I have absorbed a lot of Japanese culture, but not not necessarily directly,
like as part of a Japanese audience, right, because you moved here when
you were fairly young. Yeah, and then seeing I would say, like,
what was it? Tsunami caused kind of like the first Golden Age of
anime in the United States when they aired episodes of Dragon Ball and other things,
and then right now I feel like we're in the Silver Age, like
with streaming on Netflix, Like I have caught up on so many anime that
I kind of only knew tangentially, and have gotten to watch them in Japanese
also as well, because like Tsunami would have been dubbed, right, So
the ability to watch a lot of these shows in the original Japanese to me
is very special and a fantastic opportunity for me to practice a little of my
language as well, which has got very rusty. Well, I think it
is something that's been so valuable to us on past episodes. I'll do the
anime, but also with things everything from like Goji Ra to some of the
other things we've seen, where you know, I think it's and I'm a
big believer in kind of the postmodern idea of like that wherever your social placement
is, your experience of the movie, there is not right or wrong.
It's you're different some someone else's. But being able to give more of that
background and history on things like the Rorory Kenchin movies that we've seen together,
or the Gojura movies, Godzilla movies and stuff like that has really been so
invaluable. Yeah, And the thing is like context, context matters, especially
for anime, in that you have to accept that certain tropes exist or certain
like characters exist. And I think I've mentioned this in the past. Japanese
media, especially anime, often has like the one character who is a bit
of a misogynistic pervert right right, and these days, like in a Western
media, you would never write a character like that. And we talked about
how the New Avatar, you know, Sokka's misogyny was very toned down,
and I think we are starting to see that again, Like I'll mention one
piece, the character Sanji is much more of a womanizer, I would say
in the original manga and anime, So we might be seeing a kind of
blending and maybe smoothing out of traits like that, but still like it exists
like to this day, Like a lot of anime I watched, there's that
one character where we're like, yep, that's that's the guy, like he's
kind of treating women poorly. Yeah, what I think, understanding those tropes
is so fundamental really to all of media. And this question I come to
from a particularly strange place, but I think it really fits. When I
was in seminary and we were talking about the Hebrew Bible, my professor,
you know, really wanted us to better understand the context in which certain parts
of the Bible were written. I'm actually the same with Christian scriptures, and
so one example he used, he asked us what war was the TV show
match about, and we all kind of wrote something down, and you know,
he you know, went the room, and the next day it said
like that he could pretty clearly tell what age someone was by how they answered
it. Because most of the younger viewers said that the the TV show matches
about the Korean War, because that's what it literally is about. But anybody
who actually watched it at the time it was coming out knew very well it
was. It was one hundred percent about the Vietnam War, you know,
it was. They used Korea as the metaphor. But if you understood it
in the context of its time, they're talking about that, you know,
in the same way that like, I don't think you can ever understand the
first Gojura movie without understanding that was made shortly after the American occupation of Japan,
left only a couple of years after the nuclear bomb. Things like that,
and that that's true for you know, the understanding the X Men and
how I think you know, stan Lee and Jack stan Lee and Jack Kirby
are writing in the sixties during civil rights and then christerrher Columbus. That's not
his name, is it, the author Chris Claremont, Chris Claremont, Christ
Club is very different obviously, christpher Claremont. You know, he's writing in
the eighties where I think, if you don't understand all the debates about homosexuality
and HIV, AIDS and all that, it's very hard to under you know,
you don't get the whole meaning, so, you know, and I
think that's something we're gonna really kind of look at, is how do we
both hold these shows in the context in which they're written, but also understand
them the context which we experience them today, because I think that is just
as valuable. But yeah, and one of the things that we talked about
with your blessing I hope to add to this podcast is like deeper research pieces
on history, like on the history of what might have been happening in the
real world, like when some older piece of media came out or was written.
Because I love that stuff. I'm a history I'm a student of history,
So like putting stuff into the context of what was happening or just like
a deep dive like story about something is right up my alley. Yeah,
no, I'm one hundred in here for that. And I think that's been
I think sometimes people, especially because we go into the longer conversations about it,
because I think it's very easy to say, you know, to pull
one fact out of history and say, oh, this is about that,
and so therefore this is commenting on that, and therefore this means this and
that kind of thing, and it's obviously much more complicated than that, and
so I think it's interesting actually here we are in the True Story family of
podcasts. When I was one of the co hosts of the Marvel Movie Minute,
that was very much something we did, and so when we went when
we did Thor, we did a lot of research on the Norse uh you
know god ideas that somewhat and the Norse mythology that so much with that was
based on, as well as the Shakespearean references that were so often being made
and the the all the other imagery and historical references that are being made by
you know, superhero movie. So, yeah, that is something I'm gonna
be really excited about. And just let's talk about you a little more.
So you start out a Star Wars fan, again, very much where I
am. I'm I think a couple of years older than you, but basically
the same experience. Return of the Jedi is the first thing I remember seeing
in theaters. I was told I went to see Empire. I don't remember
a time where I hadn't watched a New Hope or Empire. But where where'd
it go from there? You talked about manga, you talked about some other
things. What was kind of the path for you. Yeah, I mean
at some point I got into Star Trek. I guess it would have been
Next Generation. I remember watching episodes of Star Trek, the original series in
syndication, but but it was just like another one of those shows I watched,
you know, like of that era. Night Rider is another one I
remember, which is does not hold up at all. I'm not speaking speaking
of like terribly misogynistic characters. Michael Knight. Yikes. I tried. I
tried to watch it recently. I was like, no, no thanks,
I'll just leave that in the nostalgia bin. But then, yeah, like
Star Trek, Next Generation, I would say for teenage me was the most
influential TV series of that time, of that era. As an adult fan,
now I have a deeper appreciation for Deep Space nine, but at the
time, it was definitely TNG that kind of caught my imagination and I watched
every week. I actually I bought books and I read about the production and
about all the little things. And so to this day, like I can
still probably name over fifty percent of Next Generation episodes just after like the first
five minute teaser p Recreants teaser. Yeah, so that's how deep of a
fan I am, Like, I am that like Trivia nerd when it comes
to TNG at least well, and I know that TNG all the Star Trek,
really, my mother pointed out, kind of going back all the way
to the original series has always been very explicit about not just you know,
crazy explosions and ship fights and fun aliens, but about really raising ethical questions
in the kind of way that science fiction does it its best. I think
Star Wars also has, but Star Trek's a lot more explicit. Do you
think at was there a certain age or was it from the beginning that those
particular questions like that you kind of enjoyed talking to your friends about, like,
oh, yeah, what do you think the should the captain have done
this or that or that kind of thing? Yeah, in terms of the
superhero ethics of it all, I don't recall that being the case. When
I was a kid. Of course, I recognized that Star Trek you know
what we would now call woke. Yeah, and but it I don't know,
Like, I think one of the beautiful things about what Star Trek does,
like right from the original series, is that it just normalizes things.
Yeah, I didn't even think too deeply about the fact, you know that
the bridge crew of the original Enterprise had an Asian man, a Japanese man,
Hikutusu played by George Taka or Uhura played by Michelle Nichols, Right,
like, even even growing up in the nineties, like I guess, it
was still a bit on the token is scale. But diversity existed in pass
especially of like science fiction shows. But it didn't It didn't really occur to
me at the time when I was watching as a kid that that that was
somehow revolutionary for the time and was like really ahead of its time. And
it wasn't until definitely later that I read about things, you know, like
Michelle nichols conversation with doctor Martin Luther King on how on why she she was
she wanted to quit the show after season one and he was the one who
convinced her to stay. Really how yeah, this is a very it's a
famous story. You should look it up, like retelling of it is very
beautiful. And she talked about how he was like, no, absolutely not,
like do you know how important you are to have a competent black woman
on a national television show? And he was the one who can misce her
to stay. And yeah, like I don't even she didn't realize like how
important that role was. And that's that's the kind of thing like now as
an adult, like you can look back and see things like that or see
the way that media mismanages or misuses, you know, minority characters or actors,
performers, And I think that that it is deeply important. Yeah,
because we are not We have certainly come a long way as a society,
and we have come a long way since the nineteen sixties, even the nineteen
nineties. You know, we're talking about Next Generation. I was just watching
a video about I believe the episode see Out. I think it's Code of
Honor, the famous Next Generation episode where they go to a planet of all
black people that the depiction of them but is very racist, right, And
yeah, I think it's the first episode after Farrest Gate for the second one.
It's really bad and so like even even in the nineties, that was
happening, and it's like either no one thought about it, or the people
who did thought about it were not in a in a strong enough position of
power to put a stop to it, and just kind of like, Okay,
I guess we're doing this and a lot of the people who participated in
that production, whether it's the writers, the actors, most of them have
you know, who speak about it, have come out and said that was
bad. Shouldn't have done that. And so that's the other perspective I bring
to myself, like as a human being and just to everything that that we're
going to be talking about, is that we're never done. We should never
be done growing, learning, getting better. Like even a show like Star
Trek has made mistakes. Yeah, and it is our ability to learn from
those mistakes and move forward and make the next thing we do better. And
there will still we'll still make mistakes, right Like now we are in an
era where television media is more comfortable telling stories about LGBTQ, the LGBTQ people,
and yet those there will be mistakes just because it's not enough representation in
the writer's room or whatever. Like people will make bad assumptions, et cetera.
And that doesn't mean like we should stop trying. It means we should
try try more. And I think that's such a great way of looking at
it, because you're right, it's easy to look back at some things and
say oh, it doesn't meet the standards of today, so therefore want to
watch it. And sometimes I think that is the right thing to do.
Like you know what you said about night Writer. I still love the movie
Ghostbusters because it still hits that nostalgic thing. But I wouldn't recommend it to
someone today because it is incredibly misogynistic and has a lot of other problems,
really homophobic and way of portraying kind of the main villains is very efeminate and
that kind of stuff. But at the same time, I think we can
also look at the So there's that category, but there's also ways we can
say, look, this was making steps intentionally to really improve on stuff that
you know had been done in the past, and here's some ways which were
succeeded, and here's some ways in which we today look at it and think,
you know, it's not great. And you know, recently our Flag
Means Death has been lauded as one of the best shows for queer representation out
there. It is a very good show, I think, and I'm sure
that in thirty or forty years, pople are going to look back out and
go, oh, this was wrong, and this was wrong, and this
was wrong and all these kinds of analysis analyzes that you and I would never
even dream of. And to me, that's where it really interesting. Where
that is where the really interesting conversations can lie is is how do we both
look at it through the eyes of today and also look at it through what
was trying to be said back then. Because I also think that's important is
that, Yeah, the original Star Trek puts a far more diverse crew on
screen than we've ever seen before. It still has the black woman is basically
the like, you know secretary, which you know commented a lot Michelle Nichols's
role was revolutionary for the time. Looking back on it today, it's still
a very like this is the best that they could do for a woman,
especially a woman of color. But we can look at it from both sides.
You know, Captain Kirk was very open handed and very you know,
had some great attitudes and ideas is that were pretty progressive and revolutionary for his
time. He's also not the greatest towards women in a lot of ways.
So yeah, I'm just really excited to have all these conversations. It's not
it's not just about bash. I think I think you can hear this and
think we're bashing on things. It's not that at all. It's much more
about understanding things in their context, talking about how we see things today,
and and figuring out how do we each our own meaning from that. Yeah,
I think the important thing is that things aging poorly is a sign of
progress. Yeah. Like, if we look back on stuff from our lens
today and say, like, this property has aged poorly, like these jokes
have aged poorly, this character is aged poorly, that means we've made progress
and come that much farther from where things were that day. And it would
be a very sad day for us if we look back on something from years
ago and said, this still holds up like aoka perfectly fine, Like everything
is fine. No, Like, I don't think there's any media that should
hold up fine after thirty years. I think a lot of them can hold
up better, either because they were ahead of their time, or maybe because
they don't touch upon as many things. You know that will change over time.
Right. I think there are properties you can watch and read that hold
up better just because they're a little more generic, and there's nothing wrong with
that. I think that that is a There can be a very good way
of writing things that way where they hold up over time. But like I
think about the discussions about Lord of the Rings, for example, and the
racism of Tolkien, I think for his time, like Tolkien does appear to
have been a very progressive person and progressive thinker, but even from that perspective,
looking back at it from our today, like his progressive vism was regressive
in some ways. Yeah, I think the total number of spoken lines by
women in those books is like three pages, four pages, something like that.
And I think that that's the other part of the conversation though is also
and again something being of its time doesn't excuse it, but I do think
there's a big difference between someone who was Like all three of these analysises matter
is how does it hold up compared to our current lens, How does it
hold up compared to our lens looking at the time, and how does it
hold up versus like the lens of that particular time, you know, because
there are some things that were written that were seen as very racist even at
the time they were written. Others that were pulling on tropes that were done
by everyone at that time. And again it tell let's me get to another
of the big themes that I think we're really gonna be kind of trying to
not that I think we've lost, but then I think you're gonna help us
refocus on a little bit. When I say these things, I don't mean
that we are going to be the declarative. Here's the answer. You know,
Superman meant this. Batman should have done that. This cause of rate
of media is problematic. That this is not. That's not the point at
all. Also in grad school, one of my favorite professor has made the
comment, and he's speaking here about religion, but I think it can be
applied to anything, which is that it does it. It does its best
when it raises hard questions. It does it. It does its worst when
it offers easy answers to those questions. And for me and your listeners,
I want you to really help hold us to this. I want our job
to be asking questions in new ways, get asking questions that can help people
think about things in new ways, or just acknowledging the questions that the creators
that we're talking about are raising uh through their works. And in times it'll
be we we each have our thoughts and what the answer should be, or
sometimes the creator, you know, Like, I think there are some times
where a Star Trek episode leaves it pretty open in terms of what you think
should or shouldn't happen. I think there are other times where, you know,
like with one of the my favorite episodes, Measure of a Man,
where they raise very interesting questions about androids, But I think the show comes
down pretty hard on the idea that data is, you know, data should
have rights over his own existence. And I think both of those can be
good. But the point is always, I think, more than anything,
I want people to walk away with more questions that they're thinking about, rather
than just saying, oh, well, Matthew and RICKI said this, so
that's the answer, or much more likely, Matthew and Ricky say this,
so the answer must be something else. Yeah. I think one of the
things I suggested is we try to have like an opening question yeah to our
discussions in the future, Like not just say we're going to talk about like
X Men ninety seven, but have like X Men ninety seven brings up this
question about whatever and then go from there and that can inform our discussion.
But I hope also invite listeners to write in with their answers or write in
with their follow up questions or other other questions that they thought up. Definitely,
because I agree, like it's it's really boring to just like listen to
something like a podcast and just have people tell you how it is and then
you're done. I prefer it when I listen to a podcast and I go,
well, okay, let me like do some of my own research now
and like try to figure out what I think about this. Like it's it's
always a good starting point, especially if it's like a little research piece,
like I said, I want to I want to try to do that more.
It's like put a little bit more research like into the history of things
because I love that. But then just like open more doors for listeners and
for us too. I you know, Matthew, you and I have a
history of just talking way too long about things, yep. So I'm sure
that will continue. But I look forward to that, and I look forward
to the Oh I just have like one more thought. It's like, well,
yeah, we don't have time for that now, but maybe like in
the future and we can like have two partners or something like that. Yeah,
I think we might start having regular feedback episodes. And and some of
the feedback episodes might just be like, oh, here's the one more thing
that each one of us thought about, Yeah, you know, feedback to
ourselves. Yeah, exactly exactly. And I will say we've gotten great listener
feedback. We've got some great ones during the Avatar Show. We've gotten some
more from that. We're gonna do that more, and we're gonna definitely be
reading your feedback in these episodes, both after it comes out, but also,
as Riki said, sometimes beforehand, where we'd like to say like,
hey, look, this piece of media is coming up and here or it
might be in the media from ten years ago, but here's an interesting question
we're gonna look at. And that was something we did a lot in the
earlier years of this podcast. It's funny. I was thinking that one of
the lenses of analysis I do sometimes look at media through and I was wonderful
to bring this up, and I think I should bring it up because I
think I've been guilty of it too. Obviously, this media costs an incredible
amount of money to produce, and there are definitely times when the struggle between
the creative team and the people who are paying for the creative team is a
struggle and there are compromises that have to be made, And like when you
brought up that episode, I wonder to what extentive that was part of that,
And I think that there have definitely been times when creative decisions are made
out of a fear or concern over what audiences will want to see or what
not to see. On the episode that actually came out just before this,
my guests were talking about how for the longest time, people thought you couldn't
put a black man as your main hero for a superhero movie on a poster,
and that's why Black Panther, you know, it took so long to
get it made, let alone that Blade had been made decades ago, but
still same with Seang Chi. And but I'd bring all that up to say
I think that that's a very real concern. I think it's over the idealistic
to say so everything should just be completely for creative, because these things do
cost money, and I understand that, but I wish that the creative was
driving it a lot more. But I'll also say I think part of why
this podcast started to focus more on covering media exactly when it came out and
therefore doing more of the kind of broad reach instead of a specific question is
because the week or that really the three days after a new piece of media
comes out is when the most people are searching for it, and so it's
the way to get our podcasts to get the most hits and get the most
listens and increase our audience. And I think that's was a big part of
what was driving me, and there's still gonna be some of that. I
do think it's great to be part of the conversation right when it's relevant.
But I do think we're gonna kind of take a step back from that a
little bit and really be able to look a little bit more at you know,
there are eight million people telling you how good or how bad the new
Ghostbusters movie is, and we haven't done coverage on that yet. I'm going
to do Ghostbusters episode at some point soon, but it's probably gonna be much
more looking at a specific question. Quite likely that might be the time to
talk about nostalgia. I haven't seen the movie yet, so I can't tay
for sure, but I think that's what we're going to try to be going
for a lot more, is how do we look at this through that little
bit deeper lens, not even deeper that sounds pejora to others, but just
how how can we look at through so much different lens than what a lot
of is out there. It's funny. I was going to bring up Ghostbusters
because I was I was looking at the box office numbers and basically that the
new one, Frozen Empire, has matched After Life in kind of like it's
opening weekend box office numbers, and then comparing that to the is it just
called Ghostbusters the all female cast? Right? Yeah, I think it's just
called Ghostbusters. I think that one actually made more money overall than Afterlife and
is on track to have made more money than Frozen Empire, like if the
trends hold up, But that one costs a lot more to make, and
if you watched it, you can tell like they went a little ham with
the special effects of all the ghosts, right, and so yeah, like
when it comes to these studios putting out media, money has to be a
concern, and the success of something you have to look at look at it
through the lens of both the money it brings in but also the cost,
right, And I think unfortunately from the studios perspective, that cost is measured
not only in the actual cost in terms of money was spent on the movie
itself, but also when the negative press it gets. And I think it's
something we've I'm not gonna I think at one point we were trying to get
into responding to a lot of the trolling arguments. We're probably not going to
do that much, but we'll definitely talk about it because I do think that
the there was a public perception that everybody hated that movie. Really they didn't.
It made a lot of money and a lot of people loved that movie,
but as often happens, the people who went online and talked about it
and who were most often you know, retweeted and resent around where the people
were saying, oh my god, get these girls out of my Ghostbusters.
This is so you know, silly and bad and all this kind of stuff.
Yeah, but but here's here's the point I I want to make is
that I agree that all that happened, and it's possible that it has had
a role in some opinions and decisions. But the cost, like the cost
of production is like I think it was like double of what Afterlife? Right,
And again, like if you watch both movies, you can tell based
on like how they use the special effects and the scenes that they set up,
like the the set piece towards the end of The Ghostbusters with the dance
number. I don't know if you recall that one is a really big scene,
like in terms of all the extras and the special effects, because like
ghosts are dancing as well, right, And I think from the studio perspective
like that that had to have been a concern. It's like the overall cost
and then like the little decisions that led to it costing so much. So
yeah, like do execs like red Reddit maybe, but overall I would think,
like the money issue was a bigger thing. Well, but what that
franchise has done, I think if that's true, Like I do think you're
right. The money is definitely a big part of it. But you know,
Kate mcay, Kate McKinnon, Christine wigg Leslie Jones, these he aren't,
you know, demanding huge, huge salaries, And I don't know why
you couldn't have just made a sequel in that universe with you know, a
much more reduced budget in terms of special effects and things like that. Like
I definitely hear you, and I think I think we I think a lot
of people, probably myselves included, overblow the effect of online trolling. But
you know, the Snyder cut was re released, the Snyder cut was or
no, sorry, the Snyder cut. What's the other? Yeah, the
Snaper cut, the Snyder cut was released, The Star Wars movies were changed.
I think we haven't on record in part because of a lot of the
fan pushback. So you're right, we're not in the boardrooms. We have
no way to know, and it's entirely possible that it is much more about
the money. But I do think that the trolling has more of an effect
than I think you're coming from. But you're probably also right. The money
is much more to Yeah, I mean we barring inside information, like we
don't know why certain people aren't brought back four things, but I think it's
notable. Like you're talking about the actresses in that Ghostbusters movie, but the
whole production team changed, right, Like that Ghosts movie was hemmed by like
Paul Faigue and they and for After Life, they brought in right men.
I can't remember his first name, but the son of the original director,
right son of Ivan Rightman. Yeah, well, but I'm just saying it's
not unheard of by any means to keep the same cast, keep the same
canon, but bring in a completely new set of you know, production.
That's a I don't know, that's like a big topic, like in terms
of franchises and stuff like. I pay attention like to a lot of horror
media and right now Scream has gone through a lot of drama. So it
Yeah, I don't have an answer. This would be a great topic for
us to research and dive into. Yeah. Well, and so with that,
what are some of the other topics that you want to either other questions
you want us to explore, or other forms of media that you want us
to dive into more, either you particular stories or medium. I mean,
I just brought it up, but horror, I think is something Have you
ever touched upon the horror franchises at all? Not too much? You know
over on Stranded Panda, the podcast network that I'm still very fond of.
Bill and Ashley's Terror of Theater does great coverage and that kind of stuff,
and we've had them on as guests once or twice. But I've always wanted
to explore that more, especially because from my understanding at least as far back
as the fifties, because horror was seen as so irrelevant. A lot of
the most like critical of the McCarthy era type stuff was happening in horror in
part because it was the one piece of media that the mccarthyites and the rest
of them weren't even looking at. So yeah, I think, and I
think I can go all the way to Jordan Peele today with everything thrown in
there. So yeah, horror is a genre I would definitely love to look
at further. Yeah, I think we should because I mean you said going
back to the fifties, I would say, like fifties era horror was mixed
in more with science fiction, right with like the monster era, like uh
is it them? The giant ants, like a lot of radioactive themed monsters,
not just you know, not just Godzilla, and more modern like it's
it's fascinating. I think modern slasher horror mm hmm. If you think about
it, it's just like blood and gore and like people killing people or supernatural
things killing people, Like it's so much deeper than that, like Texas and
Saw Massacre, the Hills have Eyes, like these franchises have so much going
on in terms of social commentary at the time, that is still very relevant,
and I think like exploring those questions is important because and it's not just
what the people are doing, but it's the people who are doing it.
If you look at not just actors who got their star in horror, but
directors, right, the actual people making movies who got their start in horror
these days, like James Gunn, Guillermo del Toro, I think maybe kind
of Robert Rodriguez, like these people have very deep roots in horror. So
it's also like this breeding ground of talent, I think, because like you
can kind of get into it on the cheap side, so to speak,
and practice in a in a setting that is, you know, like free
from a lot of prying eyes in terms of media criticism and all that,
and just like hone your talent there. I think that's true. And I
think that even just the lines of what is horror, what is science fiction
versus you know, like the Godzilla movies that we love to talk about,
like is that monster horror? I think some of them definitely are. A
lot of them aren't, but they should have a well some of the ones
are just kind of you know, fun people in rubber suits fighting each other,
but a lot of them have a ton of social commentary, and you
can even go much, much, much further. I mentioned Mary Shelley Frankenstein
is the first science fiction novel. I think you can also describe it as
one of, if not the first horror novels in the same kind of way.
Yeah, And to me, there's so much to talk about there,
both because often there's commentary that the directors are making. Also because a lot
of times there's commentary that they're not trying to make, or maybe they are,
but we can definitely see because certainly, I think if you watched the
slasherom movies I grew up on, you know, the Friday the thirteenth to
Nightmare on Elm Streets, one of the first moral lessons you learn is that
if you're a teenager who has sex, you deserve to die, because that's
what every one of those movies shows. And there's always that sort of you
know, sex nagati that like they play on the sexiness to get people there,
but also they always kill the people who have sex, and it's often
the whole last girl syndrome. So yeah, there's tons there. We could
talk about talk more about anime and mangos. I know that's another area that
you want us to explore some more. Yeah, well, I mentioned that
we are in what I would call like a silver age, like they don't
have names, right, but we apply these terms to them. But it
anime right now, Like the ability to watch anime has never been easier,
and I have enjoyed that a lot, and I know like a lot of
people out there have been enjoying it. And it's also weird that we're getting
into this era of adaptations which has been going on in Japan for quite some
time, and they're about is equally bad. It's most of the ones we
are getting in English. So what I want to say about that is that
I had lunch with a friend today and we like to talk about TV,
and I asked about Avatar, like, hey, have you seen Avatars?
Like, yeah, we watched the live action one and now we just started
season one of the animated Avatar series. I said, oh, that's good
because I think that one's better. So, you know, in the past,
on our Avatar cover, which we mentioned who is this for, right,
and one of the points was, well, it's for people who maybe
didn't necessarily watch the animated show, and it gives them away an entry point
into the fandom. So there was an example of that. You know,
my friend, because they watched the new live action one have now got into
the animated one. I hope, I hope he enjoys it. I hope
he likes it. But that's the thing. And then and so you know,
it comes back to what you said earlier about money. Yeah, if
it makes the studio money and kind of prolongs the franchise, I guess then
we'll continue to get things like this because that that's ultimately for the studios what
it's about, right, Like if you have a property that you know is
successful, Avatar the Last Airbender, you don't want it to just end like
nothing. That's the other thing about fandom now is that nothing ever ends.
No one ever dies, no character ever dies, nothing ever ends, and
the soaka must always have to be continued in you know, Captain America will
appear You're next in this movie, right, as we always get at the
end of the MCU movie, right, because that is the perpetual money maker
is once you hit upon a formula or a set of characters or a world
that people like I say, you like, they gotta keep milking that,
which if we like these worlds good, I think for the most part,
sometimes it's disappointing. And we'll certainly talk about that about like the balance of
being excited that there's another Star Wars series versus disappointment that maybe that Star Wars
series isn't as good as we as past ones. I think it's really true,
but we're getting more Star Wars. Like you and I have both lived
through eras where it was like decades between a movie I really thought I was
doing with Star Wars after the Drinkles, and we've read the books, like,
yeah, I've read so many of those books because I just wanted more
stories with lu Khan, Lea Lando, et cetera. Yeah, And I
will say, just going back to what you're saying more about anime, you
know, one of the reasons why it's not easier to watch, especially here
in the United States for in other countries is that there is a lot more
of its streaming and a lot of people can watch doubt, which is great,
and what I'm about to say may well be heresy, But I think
also another way that it's easier for some of us, those of us with
ADHD or things like that to watch is that studios are now putting a lot
more money and hiring much better translators and writers and actors for dubs. Because
I am someone for whom with my ADHD and other neurodivergence, sitting and staring
at a screen so that I can read everything is very difficult for me.
I'm able to do it, and definitely is a lot of things that make
it worthwhile, but especially for a show, it's really hard for me to
sustain and something I want to keep getting better at. And I'm teaching myself
to get better and better at watching stuff that isn't dubbed and just reading the
subtitles. But there's a lot of great pieces that I you know, Full
Metal Alchemist, which I really want to talk to you about when you get
a chance to watch some of it. I watched that because of the it
was dubbed into English, and the English actors and translated. The writing was
fantastic in a way that so often it isn't. So it's just one more
part, and I'm sure that's the conversation will have. Is because I am
absolutely sure that there are elements of the original that I'm completely missing. And
even with what was the first movie, I think it was on a Kinsin
movie, the first Kinchin movie we brought on where you talked about how the
translation that Paul and I had gotten was wrong because it's you know, it
was the word not to not cut versus to not kill. But I also
think that like when you can make things eighty percent accessible to a group who
are never gonna be able to experience it as one hundred percent accessible, that's
still step forward. Yeah. I mean, in general, when people get
on their high horses about sub versus dub I think it's it's there's no right
answer to it. I obviously I prefer watching in or listening in Japanese,
and I often have it with the English subtitles because that's just how the television
works. But also like if Sarah is there with me, my wife,
and I notice because I'm like listening and reading and I notice when the translations
are I'll just say, like, wonky, I don't know. This is
something I've been thinking about a lot with translation, is that you can't just
do like a word for word transliteration, because you know, dialogue and conversation
is often about feeling. I was watching a show you U Hawk show,
the live action one, which is I highly do not recommend. I'm a
huge fan of the original manga and I was thinking about catching up and watching
the anime version, but this live action one takes like three separate storylines,
like three separate arcs, and condenses it into four episodes of a TV show.
I was like, what have you done? But my point was there
was an interesting scene in it where two characters are in a hospital with one
of the character's mother and she's she starts coughing because she's in the hospital because
she's sick, and the sun character says, oh coscissan, which is just
mother. He says mother twice, but the subtitle says like are you okay,
right, instead of just mother, because like the context is that he's
concerned for his mother, and I think that comes through in the acting the
way that the character intonates saying oh cossan. But if you don't know what
he's saying, then it doesn't matter like how he's saying it, so you
have to translate that into like what he means, right and yeah, And
so that's why I like I'm okay. I'm coming around of being okay with
like, however you want to consume it? And I don't know, like
sub versus, I think sometimes like sub and dove actually uses different translations,
even maybe because maybe a dub of that scene, the character in English would
just say mother like, mother like, and you would maybe get what he
means through the way he's saying it right, that you wouldn't get if you're
creating the written word. Yeah, And I think that's so true. And
I it's interesting you went there, because I often think it becomes the most
important is with the idioms, you know, whether a phrase that like,
you know, we say like, oh yeah, that really takes the cake
if you translate that into some other language. People brought you no idea,
but there's probably other I imagine most languages have a similar idiom that means something
similar or at least a similar phrase, you know. And I will say
that's one other thing. I wish the strike had been settled far sooner.
I wish that. I'm glad the Union got a lot of things they wanted.
I wish they'd gotten even more. But I will say that one silver
lining, at least from me and I think I heard this from a lot
of you fans and creators, is that during the strike, a lot of
us were given a good push to look outside the traditional American media system in
the big Hollywood studios. And I definitely wanted to do a lot more things
that are not created in the United States, and a lot of that will
be Japan, both because I think that Japanese media is probably the like the
second most influential to English speaking geeks after you know, American or British,
but also you know, and but also because of your skills and knowledge and
experience. But there's also great stuff being made all around the world, and
I'm looking forward to seeing, you know, like there you know, stuff
from Italy, France, China, Africa, you know that we can talk
about and look into and and and they're due for their research. And also
I think it'll be very important that Reeky is my co host. But just
as happened when Paul is the co host or Jacob's the co host, we're
often probably gonna have a third person. It's a lot easier to have a
co host than try and recruit a guest for every week. But I'm hoping
at least one or two episodes a month. We'll probably have a third person
in here, often just because it's a great person who has other great opinions,
but also because sometimes it'll be someone who represents a different perspective than either
of the two of us. Can Reeky and I are very different, but
we're both mask and presenting. We're both, you know, geeks of a
certain generation. You know, there's some ways in which they're there. There's
never a way we can get every voice onto the podcast, and certainly I
don't want any person to feel like they're Okay, you're here to be my
black guest or my gay guest or whatever it is. But I just think
that there's there's a lot of perspectives you and I have They're gonna be great.
But also having more guests is just always gonna add to the conversation.
Yeah, I always appreciate you when you have me on to talk about something
like anime based or japan based and I and I know, like, you're
not doing it just because I'm Japanese like it. It's because we always have
good conversations. But I am happy to provide what uh lived experiences or like
research I've done because I can like do research in both languages and try to
find out stuff about things. And I think that's I think it's important to
consider all perspectives on things. And it doesn't mean that people are there just
because they like it's complicated, like they're not just there because of who they
are like that, you know, that's what they bring. But you have
to you have to listen. You have to listen to other people, right,
so at some point you have to have them on. I think I
think the key difference is you you shouldn't just have people on on those episodes.
Yeah, right, Like I have been on to talk about you know,
like we say Green Lantern Sinestro, which has nothing to do with being
Japanese. That was the first thing I remember, that was the first thing
I think we brought you on fore, So that I think that's the important
thing of like not tokenizing people is don't don't just engage with them on the
topic of like whatever their identities. I just use like big air quote parentheses
for listeners. I think it's very true. And I'll also say for listeners,
if you have ideas of other people, you should have as definitely please
let us know either yourself or I'm sure everyone out there has great opinions.
I would like someone who, like you know, has some content out there
already that I can listen to, or as you know, some some background
or something like that. But if you think you'd make a good guest,
or if you think that you know another creator and you want to send me
their Twitter account or their TikTok or their podcast or anything like that, let
me know, because yeah, I think part of Riki why you know you
are someone who I know could reach out to because you and I had formed
a connection in other ways. And there are people who I have now you
know, built contacts with. Jessica Plumber, someone who have become very good
friends with. I've had her on for a whole range of topics, and
when there is something about feminism in the superhero world, she's the first person
I look to. But I know there's also there's others, and I'm always
trying to expand that pool. The pool is still a lot more narrow than
I would want it to be right now, And so listeners, you've got
thoughts and ideas, definitely please let us know. Well, Reeky has been
a great conversation. There's a lot more we can say, and we're gonna
have a special bonus episode for the members on give you just a little taste
of our opinions on the one piece live action. We will do about that
later, but we have a lot of things to say already, And of
course if you aren't don't have access to that, you can become a member
from the five dollars a month fifty five dollars a year. With Wreeky now
on board as a co host, I'm gonna start making bonus full episodes what
you do on the Star Wars podcast just for members. As a member,
you're a member of the Ethical Panda, which is both of these podcasts.
You get access to both of those, but if you just want superher ethics,
you can just listen to those. That's just fine too. So,
uh Reeky, do you have any last questions or thoughts or piece of media
or something like that you wanted to raise that you're looking forward to exploring.
I think I just want to reiterate like, horror is amazing, and especially
when you're talking about like the internation media. I like the number of horror
things that I watch from other countries, whether it's like these days, there's
a lot of great Korean horror, a lot of Spanish language stuff. I've
been watching Italian as well, obviously, like Italian Suspiria is one of the
all time classics that I think is a genre that really go. It is
deeply international, and because of the way horror is structured, like the things
that scare people is different, right, like culturally, like the folk tales
and the legends people tell, And that to me is what makes horror so
deep. Is like seeing another culture's boogieyman, so to speak. Yeah,
is very fascinating to me, and I think that becomes really interesting both looking
like internationally but also looking chronologically. There's a great thing I read a while
ago that was basically about how I think this lined up to around generationtion CK's
millennial, but the years they were looking at might have been a little bit
off from that, but it was basically saying how at one point the cultural
obsession was with vampires, and then it became the cultural obsession was with zombies,
and like what was that about and what was a cultural reasoning for that?
And I think that that's that, you know, they made some really
good points about that, and Professor Matthew. Professor Matthew Cappelle also has some
great theories about that in terms of uh, vampires more being elitist and zombies
being much more populist. And where does those different fears come from and things
like that, you know, the fear of the elites versus the fear of
you know, the the unthinking mass uh. And I think, you know,
that's another great analysis to look at. So yeah, it's and I
think that's more of the kind of thing we can look at. It is
like, read some of these articles, do more of that research to go
to go a lot deeper clowns, Like I'd read a research piece basically that
says our obsession was like scary clowns is rooted in the real life serial killer
John Wayne Gacy. You can he often dressed up as a clown, I
believe to lure victims or something like that, or that was his day job.
I don't remember that part of it, but like that's what he is
famous for. And that's like when clowns in media started to get scary,
like it's Stephen King's, it's you may well be onto something. I will
say, until this moment, I didn't know that John Wayne Gacy dressed up
as a clown. I do know that a clown shot water in my face
when I was five years old at the circus and I've hated him ever since.
But you know, it may well be so who knows, Danny Clown's
out there in the audience. I apologize, it just happened to me.
Who knows, But yeah, I'm moving forward to these conversations. We have
a great, great time. We're bringing this episode under seventy minutes, which
is going to be my goal for our main episodes, and try to be
one hour and a half for the total episode of bonus content, hopefully lower.
When Paul gets on here, all bets are off because the three of
us are by far, with Jessica Plumber coming and forth the most phone.
We did speakers on this podcast, but hopefully we'll have a lot to say.
So Reggie, thank you so much to our listeners. Thank you so
much to our members. You're awesome. You're what's helping make all this happen.
You're why I can people can see me on the video again. Because
I have a new computer. I still have a lot of it to take
care of, but more membership is great. But to those more members,
thank you so much. Your modus content is coming in just a moment.
For everybody else, thank you so much. We have spoken. Yep,
no, I don't know. I need to sign on. There you go,
all right? For our members, welcome back. Thank you so much.
As always, so, Reggie, before you even touch the live action,
talk to me about your first experiences of One Piece, because if I
understand correctly, you got into it not with the anime but with the manga.
Correct, Yeah, I mean, but what is manga for those are
Audians who don't know that term. Well, manga is just comics, comic
books in Japan, right, that's just I think it's just a word for
like drawn characters or something like that. But in Japan, so in the
United States, comic books come out once a month, is that right?
Yeah? Yeah, and so you get twelve issues a year. In Japan,
a lot of this media comes out weekly. So like One Piece or
Dragonball, you would get fifty two episodes a year, and then those are
condensed into the novels like the books, and those have I don't know how
many of them have maybe like ten episodes in each book or something like that.
So usually like every year you get one or two of the books as
well. Mm hmm, basically like the equivalent of our graphic novels here.
And one piece in particular was publish is published in a franchise called Shonen Jump,
which just is like Shonen is the Japanese word for young boy, young
man, and then the Jump is just the brand. So it's like clearly
like it's for young boys, but people of all generations and you know,
all gender do read read the Shonen Jump, but it's primary primary audience is
young young boys, right, And this was the this was the magazine that,
like Dragonball was published in as well, so I was very familiar with
it. And just one week it was actually like before the series started,
there was like a preview or a like a one shot. They often they
would often have like one shots from new authors, kind of like testing out
the market or test out their art style and whatnot. So I remember it
was I think it was called Romance Dawn, which I believe is also the
name of the first episode of the actual manga run. And it was just
like a one shot of this goofy pirate kid who has gummy abilities because the
aid of magical fruit, and it's kind of a quirky pre industrial, right,
like pre industrial fantasy world. Like it's clearly not Earth, but it
has like a lot of Earth, like seventeen hundred's ish technology and like the
pirate era of our real history. It's just a fun, fun universe.
Yeah, And it was from the beginning and now is I think it's like
the second longest ongoing franchise in history, maybe the first at this point,
but it has obviously become like the worldwide phenomenon and now like I think the
live action adaptation is the best live action adaptation of an anime I've ever watched,
and it was phenomenon. I'm looking for more of it, and it's
just I don't know. Since Dragon Ball, it is definitely the manga series
that I collected the most books of. I mean, I actually probably have
more books because it's gone on longer, but it was the one that I
tried to keep up with and I stopped because it just kept going and going.
But I have, like, I don't know, like forty of the
books. I think, yeah, no, that's great, and I I
think one of the reason why the People was so interesting to talk about one
piece is because I the exact tops experience. I went into it knowing almost
nothing about it. The only thing really that I knew was that a lot
of people there's some anime I've really enjoyed, but for the most part,
it's not really a genre that I have no critique of it. I think
it's fantastic, it's not really one that speaks to me, and a lot
of people say, look, if you ever really wanted to watch an anime,
that that is the closest you can get in English language live action show
to the spirit of this particular kind of anime, This is it, and
I think it's awesome. They were really able to capture that so well.
Yeah, I was thinking about this the other day because there was a terrible
dragon Ball live action movie called dragon Ball Evolution, and first off, like
they completely changed pretty much everything about it, which was weird, but also
dragon like, you can't make dragon Ball live action, like we were talking
in the main episode about costs, and there's just like no point in spending
the CGI budget to do what they do in dragon Ball if you can just
do it in animation, because it'll be much cheaper and it'll be much cleaner,
like the speed of the characters and the combat and dragon Ball doesn't translate
to live action at all because it just it looks goofy. I think of
like Lego Loss doing the old font surfing in Return of the King, Like
it's like the CGI was not there yet. But it's also like the action
looks goofy, like for a quote unquote real person to be doing that.
I mean, I think if you want to watch a lot of the earlier
comic book movies, even after like the you know, I think almost all
the twentieth century, translating that stuff to live action was really hard to do
and a lot of time the fight scenes look ridiculous. Yeah, and even
now, like that's probably one of the weaker aspects of one piece because like
when he uses his gom gom ability, it it looks goofy. I think
the CGI is more believable than it has been in the past, and so
it's okay, like it passes like the smell test of like it doesn't necessarily
look like CGI, but it's also a little goofy that you were having like
a real life person like punch someone in this way, So that that is
a thing that I have to concede is like not translating the greatest, but
I also think it's actually the least important thing about one piece. I mean,
I have to say. And this is again probably where you know,
I like, I think it was a very interesting show and real interesting questions.
It is very much not what I enjoy. To me, the goofiness
wasn't the punch, wasn't the animation of the punch. It's him saying like
whatever really Dick's catchphrase he says with every punch. That just made me go,
like, this kid's just annoying. And again that's just me, But
like I wonder that, like I'm trying to better understand this because it it
feels like the whole rest of the show is so intentionally goofy that wouldn't you
want the fight scenes to look just as goofy as the rest of the show
is. Or is it just that I see as goofy when it really isn't.
Well you, I mean you're talking about him calling out his moves,
right, yeah, Like it's his primary move as I believe, go pistol,
right, gum gum pistol. When he just like throws his gummy arm
like way back and then punches it forward and again like that that's just anime.
Like yeah, when they make that joke about like all great fighters call
out their moves, that is like a that was a very tongue in cheek
meta joke in the story, but also about the whole industry. Like in
Dragon Ball, the most famous move is Kamehameha, which is Goku's like big
energy blast and you have to have that, Like Bleach is another where they
all like they have these giant swords and they all have moves that they call
out when they when they do their maneuvers. And the reason is because you
want it to you want audiences to recognize, right, right, Like it's
I don't do you watch professional wrestling like WWE and all that. I've seen
a little bit of the monitor. I surely grew up watching it on the
WWF era, but yeah, I've seen some of it. I know,
Yeah, they all have signature moves and right, and the wrestlers themselves aren't
gonna call them out because they're not miked up, like you, you can't
hear them. But that's what the commentators are for, right, Like the
commentator is there to narrate the action for one and like bring some drama and
excitement, but also to like explain things and then in that key moment to
say, like the rock's going for the rock bottom or the people's elbow,
and to name the move so that the fans know what it is and can
get excited about it. And I think that that, to me is like
the same idea is that you know, when Lufi does the gome Gong pistol,
like that's a big thing at least early on, like that's his big
move, and you know, like he's going for like this, this is
his finisher right now, and he's going to knock out the opponent. And
then in like that gives you context of in a future fight if he does
the gome Gong pistol and it doesn't work or it doesn't knock out the opponent,
you're like, Okay, now we have moved up a step in the
battle where this opponent is stronger, so he needs a different move, so
he'll do something else, He'll he'll develop a new technique, and like the
same thing pretty much happens in all this combat anime is that there there's like
these level of moments, and I think that's part of the reason you have
to name the moves, is that the audience has to recognized A that the
move is special, that it's worth naming beyond, just like punching real hard,
and b like when the signature and move of the past doesn't work anymore,
then now you know it's time for the training montage or just like an
in fight level up moment where he comes up with a new technique. M
Yeah, that makes sense. I don't know it's because I didn't grow up
doing it, or because it's not a big fan of fight scenes. It
everything you say makes perfectly logical sense if you start from the first principle,
which is what I just can't kind of afford with. But you know,
well you said, but I think let me just say, I think that's
one of the things about this podcast I want to really acknowledge, is it's
okay if not every piece of media is for everyone. And and there's a
lot of anime that surprised me, and you know, I want to I
think one piece raised some great questions that I'm really looking forward to talking to
you about. And I think that we can do that even with stuff that
isn't her on Personal Taste of Entertainment, which I don't know if you like
you said it intentionally, but I'm pretty sure you just said that you didn't
grow up doing this rather than like watching, and that that is like a
key to me, is that I grew up like I said, with dragon
Ball, and if you are a kid of a certain era, or maybe
even like an adult of a certain era, if you didn't like in the
playground, just like go to your friend and go cal me, ha me,
like throw your energy ball at you know, your fake energy ball at
them. Like that's that we all did. Thatskid, And that's what I
think too, is like we talked about the audience, is that this is
shownand jump because it's like young boy jump and like that thing of playing like
I don't know, like for I think wrestling is the closer analogy because like
super superhero like DC and Marvel superheroes don't do anything right. I don't think
they often have taken sure moves, but the often have like lines like yeah,
like you know, Ben Grimm, you know in Fantastic four it's clobber
in time there you okay? And yeah, I think kids definitely on the
playground definitely ran around saying those things. I was in a corner reading a
book because you know, I was autistic as hell. So yeah, maybe
it's just like I didn't do those things growing up, So that's what.
Yeah, Like it's clamber and time is a good one, like Hulk smash.
Yeah it was another good one, right, So that I mean,
I think it's the calling out of the move like is kind of a melding
of that, like the catchphrase and the wrestling signature moves, right, I
mean, it's surely the point you made about how easily you can show that
this enemy is much worse than the others by having the signature move not do
expected to do. I mean I immediately thought of a similar moment in Marvel,
which is when or throws his hammer hammer and Hella catches it and crushes
it, because we have seen that hammer destroy every enemy, you know,
along the way, and Thorne doesn't have a single catchphrase, but he almost
always says something ridiculous while he throws his hammer, and it always works.
And it's because it always worked that. Yeah, when we saw her crush
it, we knew everything that that scene meant, you know, that had
been built up by these years and years of seeing him do this thing with
a hammer. So yeah, no, I totally get it. It's just
the goofy line itself. But that's the thing. There's more that we'll get
in as we talk about one piece itself, because I think I just there
are elements so that that character represents a genre of the like super exuberant,
super hopeful. I'm living in a bit of a fantasy world, but I'm
just gonna drag everybody else into it instead of acknowledging the reality of the world
everyone else lives in. And I mean that like metaphorically, not in terms
of, like, you know, an actual different world. That's never been
my favorite kind of character. And that's fine, that's totally okay. I'm
laughing because the thing that is currently, like right now March twenty twenty four,
what the character Lufy is doing, I believe is like literally rewriting reality.
Like that's that's that's where that property has finally reached, like in terms
of power level. So it's funny that you said it that way. Yeah,
the metaphorical become literal. I like it. Yeah, But it's also
like if you can believe it, like this is what the writer was looking
at all along, because I agree what you said about the character, like
he is very much an anime trope of a super optimistic protagonist character. But
I think what has all is made One Piece special is is that optimism is
like far beyond any other similar characters, any other similar protagonist. And if
if we can believe that he meant this all along, that he can literally
rewrite reality because of his sheer sunny disposition, like it all tracks, it
all makes sense. It's goofy as all heck, But we live in an
era where, like you know, Marvel characters are changing history literally and like
rewriting things to their own whims. So it's I agree it is. It
is like a very different storytelling. Yeah, but to me, the fact
that it appears like that he actually had a plan is kind of amazing in
the era of like jj Abrams is my favorite punching back in terms of like
didn't have a plan, like created an amazing mystery box and then like didn't
know what to do when he opened it, Like it it seems like oda
sense in the beginning of One Piece, like had a certain vision, or
at least like had started to like coalesce into a vision early on enough that
it's all fitting together, and that's kind of like one of the most mind
blowing things about a property that's gone on. This law. Yeah, no,
I think it sounds fascinating, and I'm you know, in the same
kind of way that I think understanding that the Vietnam War helps you to better
understand mash I'm sure that better understanding the world of anime and the world of
manga and the world in which one piece sits, not like the world that's
created in the show, but just like culturally the world of creation helps you
understand that a lot more. So we'll make that episode when that comes up
soon, whereas a lot of other good episodes we're doing soon. To our
members, as always, thank you all so much. You have been fantastic.
We have spoken and wrote