Chatty AF 99: Summer 2019 Wrap-up (WITH TRANSCRIPT)

VRAI: Hello, listeners, and welcome to Chatty AF, the Anime Feminist podcast, and our season end wrap-up. I’m Vrai. I’m an editor and contributor at Anime Feminist. You can find me and the freelance work I do on Twitter @WriterVrai, or you can find the other podcast I cohost @trashpod. And with me today once again are Caitlin and Peter.

CAITLIN: Hi. I’m Caitlin. I am a writer and editor for Anime Feminist, and I write reviews for The Daily Dot.

PETER: And I’m Peter Fobian. I’m a producer at Crunchyroll and a contributor and editor at Anime Feminist.

VRAI: Cool, cool, cool, cool. All right, so, season end. Y’all know the drill at home, I think. We’ll be going from the bottom up through our initial watch list. I think folks got a little bit confused about this. Stuff may move up and down and gain additional flags that we try to let people know about, but when we’re actually just discussing the order to talk about things, we go from the list we made after our premiere reviews just so that it’s easy to cross-reference for people.

CAITLIN: [chuckles] And for ourselves.

VRAI: And also for us. With that in mind, Peter, you’re basically the only one watching any stuff down in the Red Flags category—

CAITLIN: As per usual.

VRAI: Yep! Is there anything new to add since the midseason to Cop Craft or Dumbbells?

PETER: Anything new… Dumbbell was dumbbell. 

Cop Craft… I can’t quite remember what I said the first time. I haven’t quite finished out the series, but they had a few extra episodes where it was just like, “Hey, let’s create some drama by having some dead women introduce this episode.” Or there’s this one bizarre episode where she makes friends with this one prostitute. She becomes friends with her, they spend the whole episode becoming friends, but one’s a cop and one’s a prostitute, and her partner keeps telling her not to associate with prostitutes, it’s not a good idea. At the end of the episode—

CAITLIN: Um, I think people prefer the term “sex worker” these days. I think “prostitute” is not really something that people like to be referred to.

PETER: Okay. True. So then, at the end of the episode, they’re talking and she just randomly gets shot in the neck and dies, and I guess that’s to show you that the world they live in is harsh and cops cannot in fact have friends for some reason.

VRAI: Thrilling.

PETER: Yeah. So, that was Cop Craft. Great opening.

VRAI: It is maybe the best opening sequence of the season. A shame about the rest of it.

CAITLIN: I should probably try watching that opening, because there are some really fire ones this season.

PETER: Yeah, great opening sequence.

VRAI: It’s beautifully animated. Let’s see. What about Abandoned Sacred Beasts? That’s the next one up that you’re watching.

PETER: All I have to say is I’m actually kind of disappointed it ended, because I read ahead in the manga and they get into this cool shit with some sort of devil mineral that was speaking into the brain of the person that created Incarnates, and they discover more of it. And I’m actually really interested in where the manga’s going now, but in the anime, they had to close it off, and they did it in a very bizarre way with the main character going Super Saiyan or something, but having no actual conclusion and “our battle continues,” and that was the end.

VRAI: I feel like this is one that’s run into repeatedly. Maybe there’s a good idea here, but just read the manga if you’re kind of interested, because the execution of the anime seems to be pretty subpar from the jump.

PETER: I feel like it was pretty close to it for the majority of the anime. I felt that skipping the cold open was a mistake, especially because it took a long time before you realized that Schaal does anything. She does get a cool moment in the end of the episode, again, so I feel like she was more of just a witness to Hank than anything else, but they did manage to cap off the episode with her doing something cool as well, to bookend. But yeah, the way they chose to open it and close it [was] very confusing for me. 

Oh, I also feel like they improved one of the subplots with… I can’t remember what the mythical beast is called. It’s like snake lower body and wings instead of arms, [a] lady, and she can sing to make people fall asleep. Her subplot is very brief in the manga, and they really expand it in the anime and included Schaal a lot more in that one, so I feel like they deserve some credit for that.

VRAI: All right. Golf claps all around.

PETER: Yeah. So, in effect, I think they did a poor job introducing Schaal, but I think they actually gave her more to do in the anime than she had in that portion of the manga.

VRAI: What about Isekai Cheat Magician?

PETER: Augh! I don’t know.

[Laughter]

PETER: I complained that they almost had a cool thing where his romantic interest says, “No, fuck you, I found a hot elf girlfriend of my own.” But they do a canon romance, and also now he has a harem.

CAITLIN: [dryly] Great.

VRAI: [groans]

PETER: They have to fight for a kingdom, and the female general wants to fight him, and then when he beats her, she wants to have his kids. That’s great.

CAITLIN: Of course.

VRAI: [crosstalk] How very Red Sonja of her.

CAITLIN: There’s nothing that a female anime villain loves more than being defeated. That is the biggest aphrodisiac for them apparently.

PETER: Well, no, she’s an ally, actually, so every time they’re about to go out into battle, she’s like, “After this, we’re getting married, and I want three kids.” And he doesn’t like that. But they did have a cool villain who was like that. She was kind of a blood knight. But she really just liked to fight, and I liked that character. And she was a real villain. So, they basically just copied it and made it more problematic later in the anime. Great stuff.

CAITLIN: [dryly] Cool.

VRAI: Whoo. Fun. All right, you were actually pulling for If It’s for My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord, at least the anime version. How did it close out? Did it do a Bunny Drop?

PETER: It didn’t. The last episode had this weird thing where his ex-girlfriend’s going on a mission with him and she’s staying in the inn for a week and picking on the little girl a lot. And you get a sense that there might be a rivalry with them because she doesn’t like that her dad was dating this woman who is attractive. I had a bad feeling about it I didn’t quite like.

CAITLIN: I read an interview with the director. It didn’t tell me too much. It didn’t make me want to watch the series or anything, but they were like, “What did you want to accomplish with this adaptation?” and he’s like, “I did not want it to be sexual.”

PETER: That’s funny. [chuckles] I like how he’d say that out loud.

CAITLIN: “I did not want people to get any whiff of any sexuality from this adaptation. I just wanted it to be cute.” Cute! Not sexy! Cute!

VRAI: That is the lowest bar, and yet I’m compelled to back-pat.

CAITLIN: To give him credit. Yeah, right?

PETER: Thanks for realizing that there were problems with this and trying to avoid them.

VRAI: Maybe I’m just shaken by the fact that I recently did a Wikipedia deep dive and realized that Mari Okada was the series composer for Kodomo no Jikan, so I’m rethinking everything in life.

CAITLIN: Wasn’t that also fairly early in her career, though?

VRAI: Oh yeah.

CAITLIN: Just taking whatever work she can get.

VRAI: Mm-hm. Oh yeah, no, I don’t think she chose that project. I think it’s one of those that lured in a lot of talented people to work on this steaming trash fire. But it’s made me golf-clap for people who just want to elevate trash material because they’re trying to work.

PETER: You gotta put in your time before you get to make the good stuff.

VRAI: So, on the whole, outside of that bad scene, Peter, do you feel like the director accomplished that goal of “This isn’t horny; it’s just cute”?

PETER: I don’t know if I would say he accomplished “only cute,” because there was that middle portion where there was some real intense violence toward the girl, with her crazy teacher being racist. Nothing about that was cute, but I feel like that was dramatic and well developed so that it wasn’t just a purposeless scene of a little girl getting violenced, if you what I mean.

CAITLIN: Violenced! [laughs]

PETER: It wasn’t bad. And the end scene… I don’t know. It’s just something that’s so common, I’m not sure if he really thought about how you could take the competition between the daughter and the guy’s ex-girlfriend as being like a romantic rivalry. And I don’t think it was directed that way. It’s just an atmospheric issue, considering my own knowledge of the source material, maybe.

VRAI: Gotcha. All right, that’s a semi-pleasant surprise from what we were afraid of at the beginning of the season. And with that done, we can actually move on to something that someone besides Peter is watching.

PETER: Hell yeah.

VRAI: Speaking of problematic trash fires, Fire Force. How you feelin’?

CAITLIN: [sighs]

PETER: I don’t prefer it. I do not prefer it.

CAITLIN: So, I’m still watching it. I had a realization the other day, though.

VRAI: Go on.

CAITLIN: Because I really love the theme song. It really just hit me right there, you know what I mean?

PETER: Yeah.

VRAI: Mm-hm.

CAITLIN: And I love that sometimes Crunchyroll will subtitle lyrics now, because the lyrics also really speak to me. And I realized, what if I’m only enjoying it this much because the theme song is getting me so hype at the beginning?

PETER: Damn.

CAITLIN: And then once the theme song changes… Because I heard a clip of what they’re using for the theme song for next season, and it’s just shitty nu metal and I hate it. So, I’m curious to see if my enjoyment level drops.

PETER: And that’s how Caitlin drops Fire Force.

CAITLIN: That’s how Caitlin drops Fire Force! I was only watching it for that theme song.

PETER: Wow.

CAITLIN: It’s a really good theme song, though!

PETER: All right. Yeah, I agree. Man.

VRAI: No, fair, I’ve been in that position.

PETER: Be careful of Cop Craft, is all I can say.

[Laughter]

CAITLIN: But yeah, no, I have no excuse for it. I absolutely hate what they’ve done with Tamaki. Tamaki deserves better. Aoi Yuuki deserves better. Hibana just is like, oh, he punched her, and now she’s in love with him! It’s such a tired fucking trope. So sick of it. But her fire tree? Really cool! Super cool! I don’t know. 

The parts that frustrate me are starting to cancel out the parts that I really enjoy, especially during the middle of that really intense scene, they stopped—just stopped—and lost all momentum to have an extended awkward comedy fanservice scene, because Shinra accidentally lands in Tamaki’s boobs. Because “Oh no, that Lucky Lecher curse! Oh! Whoops!” 

So yeah, I don’t know how long it’s going to hold out. The parts that I enjoy, I still really enjoy. But I don’t know how much longer I can give it a pass.

PETER: My thought is, you know how Soul Eater had serious characters but then Death the Kid was just sort of a caricature?

VRAI: He sure did exist and continue to intrude on scenes.

PETER: He was just kind of funny and did the thing that he did, and that was his purpose. That is like Fire Force. It’s just Death the Kid.

VRAI: [chuckling] Damn. Oh!

PETER: Everybody has the stereotype that they represent, and they only do that thing. There’s the dumb knight guy who’s the dumb knight guy. There’s Tamaki, who—

CAITLIN: Okay, but he’s really entertainingly dumb.

PETER: Okay, well, I thought Death the Kid was funny, so I was entertained by Death the Kid. I’m not saying that it’s not funny.

CAITLIN: [crosstalk] Ah, fair.

PETER: It’s just if you want character development, I don’t see any. Just people fulfill their roles, some of which are fanservice, typically with the women being fanservice. So, it’s pretty frustrating to watch.

CAITLIN: No, I agree. And it is frustrating because the worldbuilding is so cool.

PETER: Yeah.

CAITLIN: The plot has the ability to be really interesting. The characters can be really entertaining, but yeah, they really do lack a lot of depth.

PETER: Yo, but then Promare…

CAITLIN: Oh my God, Promare! [laughs]

PETER: Imaishi’s like, “Get that shit outta here. I’m gonna make something both more hype and woke as hell.”

CAITLIN: Oh, I love Promare.

VRAI: Stop taunting me with the fact that there are no theaters showing Promare near me, both of you.

CAITLIN: Oh, Vrai!

PETER: My bad.

CAITLIN: But I really want someone to either cosplay or make a fanart of Hinawa, the lieutenant wearing a MeUndies hat, because I really enjoy that gimmick of his collection of just terrible baseball caps that he probably got for free.

PETER: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what that weirdly reminded me of? Remember Ashton Kutcher in Punk’d?

CAITLIN: No, I never watched it.

PETER: Oh, he wore a different trucker baseball hat in every episode, and I thought… [chuckles]

VRAI: He did plague us with the trucker hat trend for a long time.

PETER: Yeah. And that’s all I could think of whenever that character’s in a scene and he’s got a new hat on.

VRAI: Okay, but non-sarcastically, I do want to know if the opening changes your feelings on Fire Force going forward, if that tips the scales, Caitlin.

CAITLIN: All right, I’ll let you know. I’ll let you know. Jared’s probably gonna want to keep watching it for a while, so we’ll see.

VRAI: All right. Well, how about Dr. Stone? We are all watching that, although I have not had a chance to finish episode 13. I’m only about halfway through it. Caitlin, I think you were the most lukewarm on it last time, so how you feelin’?

CAITLIN: I’m really enjoying it. Honestly, it feels like everyone else around me is becoming more lukewarm, or maybe that’s just Jared.

VRAI: [chuckles]

CAITLIN: The female character designs are bad.

VRAI: Yes.

CAITLIN: There’s no excuse for it. Kohaku looks awful. Her eyes are too far apart, and her body’s all weird, and there are all these bizarre shots of her butt. She’s written fine. Suika… Love Suika.

PETER: Suika’s the best.

CAITLIN: The underlying plot stuff is less interesting to me, but I enjoy how they’re showing science as almost like this ridiculous Rube Goldberg machine. Because we’re trying to make sulfa drugs; to make sulfa drugs, we need this; and to get that, we need this; and then to get that, we need this. I’m not a STEM person, but it’s really fun to see how all of the pieces fit together.

VRAI: Yeah, I definitely had the revelation on Twitter the other day that “Oh, this anime is for kids in the ‘90s who were reading that survival YA boom, like Hatchet and My Side of the Mountain.” And then everything made a lot more sense.

PETER: But also, that but Bill Nye the Science Guy and Hatchet. Call it, like, Bunsen or something.

VRAI: I gotta say I’m not… I mean, I am enjoying it, but part of me is dreading when we inevitably snap over to what’s been going on at Tsukasa’s place.

CAITLIN: Yeah…

VRAI: Because that’s not gonna be fun and science-y. That’s just gonna be shounen bullshit.

PETER: What do you mean?

VRAI: I assume we will have a time where we figure out what Team Spy, undercover, has been doing. But a lot of what I’m enjoying right now is that “We can do it! We can come together with science!” And I love the fact that they set up a tournament arc, the worst thing of any shounen anime ever, and then immediately went to “And here’s how we’re gonna rig it.” That was charming. [chuckles] 

So, I guess I don’t know, but I’m kind of worried that when we have to switch over to the other camp, it’s going to be a lot more Serious Business, which I feel like is not a thing this show does as well, although I liked the sulfa pool episode. It got me in the feelings.

CAITLIN: Yeah, it was stressful. It was stressful.

PETER: Yeah. I think it’s pretty well executed in the manga. I’m curious what you’ll actually think when they start introducing Tsukasa stuff in more, because… yeah, I didn’t really have a problem with any of that.

VRAI: You did promise me Francois, and there has been no Francois, Peter.

PETER: Oh, Francois isn’t for a while. Francois is a more recent development.

VRAI: Eh.

PETER: But yeah, Francois’s coming. And Suika’s great in the meantime.

VRAI: She’s very, very good.

PETER: Yeah. I don’t really like the whole gorilla thing, but I do think that the anime kinda frames people doing that as them being assholes.

CAITLIN: Yeah, but you could say the same for Fire Force. I’m getting tired of that trope, just in general. I’m getting tired of girls being strong being made fun of for being gorillas. Even if they’re showing the person who does it as an asshole, I’m just tired of it. Just let girls be strong and be happy about being strong without giving them shit for it. You know?

VRAI: Yeah, there comes a point where positive normalization is the more effective thing. 

Watching this has definitely uncovered that thing that I’ve always kind of felt about shounen. I am enjoying watching this. It’s a pleasant show to watch every week. I definitely don’t miss it when I’m not watching it, so if I hadn’t gotten on the train when it left the station and somebody had come to me 25 episodes in like, “Ah, man, Dr. Stone’s really fun,” I’d look at the backlog and be like, “Yeah, but think of all the other anime I could be watching right now.” I feel like it’s that kind of show.

CAITLIN: Yeah.

PETER: Yeah. Well, it’s definitely popular. I’ll say that much.

VRAI: Yeah, no, I like it.

PETER: I also think the anime adaptation really did well with the important scenes, like the lightbulb and the glasses scenes in particular. Those are pretty big moments in the manga.

CAITLIN: [crosstalk] Oh, yeah, those were really nice.

PETER: If you watch the behind-the-scenes documentary by Crunchyroll…

CAITLIN: Which I did not.

VRAI: Which I haven’t yet, but I know you worked very hard on it.

PETER: Yeah, the director talks about how he would frame the scene in his mind and wanted to do it and how important that scene felt personally to him, so you get some cool insights. It’s cool that he recognized that he really needed to give that scene a special moment and how he built it so that it would be good and dramatic.

VRAI: There’s definitely a good sense of sincerity from the creative team with this. I feel like a lot of big shounen can be checking off boxes at a certain point because they’re guaranteed success, but there’s a sense that the crew is really excited about the material they’re adapting, even if Kohaku’s design is—you’re right, Caitlin—the worst, just the worst, just fugly.

CAITLIN: Yeah, it’s bad. It’s not even like “Oh, so fanservicey.” She looks bad.

VRAI: Mm-hm.

PETER: Boichi has… a style.

VRAI: But even compared to Yuzuriha, looks bad. Any final thoughts on that before we move forward? I will continue to watch it.

CAITLIN: Yep, I’m gonna keep watching it.

PETER: Good stuff.

VRAI: Hey. All right, Peter, how did Your Mom shake out?

PETER: Bad. It’s really bad.

CAITLIN: Aw, I can’t believe you said that about your mom.

VRAI: Love your mom, Peter. [chuckles]

PETER: It’s just…

CAITLIN: Why don’t you love your mom and her two-hit multi-attacks?

VRAI: [laughs]

PETER: I don’t know. Might be all the fanservice.

VRAI: Still bad, huh?

PETER: Yeah. Remember how in the first arc, they had that arc where they could’ve been saying something good about found families and stuff, but they did the exact opposite of that? They didn’t even present themselves with the opportunity to do good things anymore. 

The arc with Medhi, they do something where her mom’s very domineering and she secretly resents her mom but does everything she says. And she ends up turning into a dragon because of her anger, and then they have to defeat Medhi and not really her mom, which sucks, and I don’t feel like they really even open the door for them to maybe have a good message in that story arc. 

And then the last arc, there’s nothing about relationships between moms and their children, which is probably better because I feel like the only thing they were really doing with that is romanticizing the ideal of a mother in a very unhealthy way. 

Somebody wrote an article recently or had something to comment about the culture around motherhood, where you romanticize mothers but fail to recognize that mothers… like where do they come from? Women. [chuckles] And you don’t treat the women well or give them the leeway to decide to become a mother, and then you wonder why your populations are diminishing. It feels like that’s just a very concise description of Do You Love Your Mother? It’s like, “Do you love the idea of your mother?”

VRAI: Yeah, that’s a bummer when you have one good episode and then it doesn’t so much go off the tracks as jump the tracks and fall into a volcano and explode.

PETER: Yeah. It’s like, “Hey, we are aware of what we’re doing and have genre awareness but will not utilize that in any manner and continue to play into the genre that we are maybe doing a satire on. No, it’s actually very in your face. That’s what we’re doing.”

VRAI: “No, no, we pointed it out, and therefore it’s okay to just do the thing, because we said we’re doing the thing.”

PETER: Yeah, “We’re aware of the genre, so now we can do whatever the fuck we want, and it’s a deconstruction now.”

VRAI: All right. That’s depressing. 

The next one is kind of weird. Peter, you have finished Astra Lost in Space. I picked up the manga after the midseason and have been enjoying it a lot, but I’ve only read the first three volumes, which is up to about when the ship gets damaged. And Caitlin, you are watching the anime but also behind, and you’ve read all of the manga, yes?

CAITLIN: No. I have not read the manga.

VRAI: Okay.

CAITLIN: Yeah, I’m halfway through the anime. I’ve watched six episodes… [sighs] because… I blame Fire Emblem.

VRAI: [chuckles]

PETER: Fair.

VRAI: So, yeah, I can’t offer a complete rec on how it shook out. I will say that Luca is my son and I want to protect him. They’re all good children.

PETER: Well, that’s good.

VRAI: Yeah. And we did kind of touch on this last time and I couldn’t talk about it because I hadn’t started the manga—and obviously I’m still not an expert, because I’m trans; I’m not intersex. They’re overlapping but not the same thing. I thought it was definitely the most respectful portrayal I’ve seen. It’s certainly not After School Nightmares, which makes me want to light things on fire, or Requiem of the Rose King, which kind of throws intersex people under the bus in the name of exploring feelings about dysphoria. 

It felt like it was trying to be non-fetishy and respectful, even if it still kind of falls into that trap of “Well, I’ve got dual sex characteristics, so that makes me bisexual.” “Well, okay… sweetie. No.” But the manga did do a pretty good job of having him articulate gender fluidity, like “I feel like I’ve got male and female traits, and sometimes that changes between day to day, and right now I feel like this, but I might feel like that later.” 

So, that was nice, and I really want him and his dumb, tall crush, Ulgar, to have a nice date after all this is over, and all these children to have a nice time.

PETER: Mm… Well…

VRAI: Oh no.

PETER: Sorry about the date. [chuckles]

VRAI: Oh. Oh…

PETER: Yeah.

VRAI: Oh…

PETER: A couple people don’t get together, though, so I don’t know if I felt like Luca was singled out, necessarily. This series has very weird romances in it. I mean, I’m not opposed to them. The doctor and the super genius guy was a very weird couple that came together in a stupid way, but it was funny and I’m fine with it.

VRAI: Childhood friends, et cetera, et cetera.

PETER: Well, there’s a scene where she obviously really likes him and he’s so oblivious, though, she gets really frustrated and almost gives up on him entirely. And in a final act of desperation, she’s like, “Do you not realize that I like you?” And he’s like, “Well, we’re getting married.” And she goes, “What?”

VRAI: [crosstalk] Aw.

PETER: He’s like, “When we were kids you said, ‘Hey, you should marry me when we grow up,’ and I said yes.” She’s like, “We were six.” And he’s like, “Yeah, but I was serious.” [laughs]

VRAI: Oh no, that’s cute. Oh no!

PETER: So, they were actually a couple the whole time. She just didn’t know it because she didn’t remember that time when they were six when he agreed to marry her.

VRAI: I’m so surprised by how much I really, really like the entire cast.

PETER: Yeah, they do a good job.

VRAI: Although I’m kind of super glad that I was reading the manga for the beach episode, because then I could just get through that as quickly as possible and feel slightly less tired.

PETER: Yeah. I also think that the singing girl, her subplot… I don’t feel like they do much with her.

VRAI: I mean, I liked her initial… As a thing about verbal abuse, I thought that it was pretty potent, her initial arc. And then after that, it’s just, “She has boobs! She’s got boobs.” But I thought her initial arc was pretty touching.

PETER: Yeah, I thought her arc was nice. It’s just before and after she doesn’t do anything. If she’d become a more present character after the fact or they spent some time showing that it’s not easy to continue breaking out of your shell after something like that, even if you start making some steps, that would’ve been nice. Anything like that, basically. She just fades to the background once she stops getting in the way.

VRAI: There is a very cute 4-koma in the back of the manga about… they put the puppet on her and she wants to do dorky teenage gossip with Quitterie and Aries. I thought that was cute. But yeah, no, in the plot proper, it’s just, “Her arc is done. We’re gonna set her over to the side now.”

PETER: Mm-hm. So that’s probably my major complaint. The ending has these crazy-ass twists that I am still… In the manga, I was surprised I’m like, “I accept these twists, despite the fact that if I spend time to think about them, it’s probably pretty absurd but also maybe planned.” And in the anime, the twists feel really good, despite the fact that they are out there, super out there. So, I guess in that way the anime executed well on the manga. It was a good time.

VRAI: Yeah, we were talking about it on Slack and you called the anime perfectly fine for people who are never going to get around to the manga.

PETER: I just want to say there are some challenges obviously. It’s a sci-fi series. They have a very big spaceship, which is probably a pain in the ass even with 3D CG, so there’s definitely a lot of work to do in that kind of anime just to make everything look nice. And I think it looked nice, and at no point did I ever look at it and think, “Oh, the animation got really bad here,” or anything like that. 

So, I think they made everything look good. It’s just at no point did I ever feel that they did something really cool with a particular moment that you could only have done in anime and not the manga.

VRAI: Right. It’s just another vehicle for people who process things through different mediums, not “This elevated this” or “This was much worse than this.” Yeah, so I’m looking forward to finishing it as soon as the library coughs up volume 4 for me. And Caitlin, you’re going to finish the anime or pick up the manga or…?

CAITLIN: I plan to finish the anime. I predict having plenty of time to do that the next season.

VRAI: [chuckles] Yeah. Yeah, next season is looking rough. It’s looking real rough. But before that, we can talk about our top four now, which is exciting. It’s all things that mostly came out pretty good, I think. 

So, let’s start with maybe the messiest, because Mari Okada: O Maidens in Your Savage Season. Someone else talk besides me for a second.

CAITLIN: [laughs] I loved it. I loved O Maidens in Your Savage Season. Best title of the season. Best anime of the season? Maybe not, but still truly excellent. I really just enjoyed how everything shook out in the end. It felt like a really good conclusion. 

I only had one problem. And this is not a problem with the individual, but not so much a problem as a tendency, which is every show I watch where a high school character gets pregnant, she has the baby, every single time, and they always lionize her for it, like, “It may not be ideal circumstances, but she’s really thinking about what’s best for her baby,” which really frustrates me. Like, come on, guys. 

Media in general, of any medium, that really shows abortion as an acceptable decision is rare. The only show I can think of that showed a character choosing to get an abortion because that was the right choice for her was Workin’ Moms, which I have a whole slew of other issues with. But that was my one problem with O Maidens.

VRAI: That was it, huh?

CAITLIN: Well, okay, that was my one major problem.

VRAI: [crosstalk] Fair. I’m mostly teasing. [chuckles]

CAITLIN: [crosstalk] As we talk, more will surface. More will surface. I have really mixed feelings about Milo-sensei.

VRAI: Oh, I just wanted him to be fired.

CAITLIN: And that was what he was trying to avoid, right? So, I’ve come around that he probably wasn’t enjoying the whole thing with Hongo. But he did bad. He made a lot of bad decisions there. I can sort of understand him being like, “Oh no, what do I do?” He did a bad job.

VRAI: Yeah, I feel like Hongo’s whole arc is one of those things where in its broadest strokes, “High schooler has crush on teacher, feels feelings about it, eventually gets over it…” Because I really liked that little shot in the epilogue. I thought that was sweet. But I feel like she Okada’d at it too hard and the end spent way too much time on it that frankly should have been going to Momoko. 

It’s not that I think having an arc about a student crushing on a teacher is necessarily the worst thing, but I think it spent so much time on it that it ended up feeling really lurid and like it wanted to have its cake and eat it, as far as sexualizing this and not just dealing with her frustrations and her feelings. And so, it ended up being this really uncomfortable thing in a way that did not feel deliberate, like Niina’s stuff with her horrible teacher.

CAITLIN: Right. I think in the end it became clear that it was deliberate, just because the love hotel scene was so horrendously uncomfortable.

VRAI: Mm-hm. Right, but then you have the scene of her being like, “Ah man, I don’t care that I’m being really pathetic. I just like that I got attention.” And then the next thing you hear from her is her having gotten over it, which is good, but there’s such a disconnect there of “Aw shit! We ran out of time.”

PETER: The part that… Well, I didn’t like any of it, but the whole reason that that even started happening was because she was frustrated with the fact that she couldn’t write good sex scenes, right? And I feel like the anime, on episode 4, forgot that she was a writer entirely, and after that it was just her pursuing this guy and there was no more objective anymore. 

I don’t know whether she was fooling herself and she actually liked the teacher the whole time, but I’m like, “What happened to her being an aspiring author?” That seemed like an important part of her character until it fulfilled its purpose for her chasing after her teacher.

VRAI: Yeah, I buy her going from putting a name on it to thinking “Ah, no, I really do just have a crush.” But the fact that the story itself forgets that she has these writing ambitions does kind of suck.

PETER: What if she just had a casual hookup with somebody her age via that site and then started writing sex scenes and none of that teacher bullshit happened?

VRAI: Magical. 

I’m also extremely torn on the Momoko subplot.

PETER: Oh yeah. I hated that resolution. I’m with you.

VRAI: On the one hand—and I may or may not end up writing about this, I don’t know—on the one hand, if we presume that this is an anime made for a presumed heterosexual audience, it’s a step up from basically all shounen and a lot of shoujo, where Niina’s reaction is not to be grossed out; or to call Momoko horrible names; or to push her, even; or any of those things that are like ha-ha permissible, “Isn’t it creepy that your best friend has a crush on you?” Her whole thing is “I want to try and figure this out because your friendship is really important to me.” 

And so, in the long tradition of how anime deals with queer secondary characters in friend groups, I feel like it’s trying really hard. And it is real for baby gays to develop crushes on their friends and their friends don’t like them back and they get over it and life goes on. And Niina doesn’t end up with Izumi either, so it’s not like Momoko is the only one who doesn’t get with her crush. 

But at the same time, I wanted so much more for her, because she has it so rough and she doesn’t have any little moments of joy that the other characters get at any point.

CAITLIN: It’s all just constant blows.

VRAI: The scene where she’s on the phone is so rough.

CAITLIN: [whines sympathetically]

VRAI: Please protect this baby. I very much want to see the epilogue that’s being packaged with the last volume of the manga when it comes out as a tankobon, because I assume that’s not what we saw during the credits of the anime. 

And that’s been the experience with the whole anime, is that I felt like its highs were really high. I liked that Niina finally got to punch what’s-his-fuck in the face, and I’m like—

CAITLIN: Oh, that was so good!

VRAI: Uh-huh!

CAITLIN: Second-most satisfying anime face punch.

VRAI: The fucking forest of nose hairs! God! That scene is so much. And I like Kazusa and Izumi. I think they’re sweet, as a first relationship that’s probably not going to make it to college, but they’re nice. And I like Sonezaki and her boyfriend, and they’re cute. I am a little disappointed, honestly, that her friend who got pregnant just is so transparently a plot device.

CAITLIN: Yeah. She’s a sweet girl.

VRAI: It’s sweet that Sonezaki got over her not-like-other-girls-ness, but then she got expelled and we’re not worried about her anymore. ‘Kay, bye!

CAITLIN: Yeah, no, that was a bummer, especially since when she introduced her boyfriend, it was a very different guy from, I think, [who] anyone was expecting: just a very normal guy who this girl is super in love with. And part of their relationship is being sexually active, and there’s nothing wrong with that because that’s just how it is in most relationships.

PETER: Yeah. It’s like they were making an attempt to humanize her for a while, and then she served her purpose and disappeared.

CAITLIN: Yeah. Big plot device.

VRAI: Mm-hm. And that conversation opened a door to the show trying to talk about the split model of attraction, which was interesting, and then it just kind of gave up on it.

CAITLIN: Yeah.

VRAI: But I don’t know. In the view of “Mari Okada things are Mari Okada things,” I feel like the positives I got out of this were more than the things that frustrated me, which is kind of all I ask of her at this point.

CAITLIN: Yeah.

PETER: Wow, that feels like a low bar.

VRAI: She’s not an auteur, because she’s really good at working in teams, but it’s the same kind of expectations I bring to watching a David Cronenberg movie, like, “You’re sure doing your weird things that you’re obsessed with again, but I guess I liked it.” Or Kojima. Same feel. 

Which I think is a fairly rare approach for women in the creative fields. People tend to give them a very cutthroat, all-or-nothing approach. So I’m trying to cut her leeway where I can, you know?

PETER: Yeah, for sure.

VRAI: Caitlin, any final thoughts on this one?

CAITLIN: I love it. It’s a messy work about a messy subject, and it’s definitely one of the best shows of the season.

VRAI: It’s really quite striking. If you’re up for the ride and the not-always-well-handled subject matter, I think it’s a ride worth taking. Also, best ending theme? Best ending theme.

PETER: I’m trying to remember what the ending theme is. [chuckles]

VRAI: It’s just plinky-plonky J-pop, but I just found it really cute, and the lyrics are very apropos for the show in a very affirming way, and I don’t know, I liked it a lot. 

Yeah, so Vinland Saga, that’s not finished. That’s going to be ongoing, yes?

CAITLIN: Yeah.

VRAI: How’s it going?

CAITLIN: I’m not as enthused about it as I was at the start.

PETER: Oh no.

VRAI: Oh, that’s too bad.

CAITLIN: It’s not that it’s doing anything wrong. It’s just that the balance has shifted fairly dramatically and it’s become these quiet, thoughtful scenes in between all of the moments of Vikings murdering each other. That has felt like what the show is more interested in right now. I have vague spoilers, and I’m really waiting to move on from this arc, because it is less interesting to me watching Vikings kill each other.

PETER: Have you read the manga?

CAITLIN: No.

PETER: Okay. So, are you sure that this is an arc and not just the manga?

CAITLIN: I don’t know. I don’t know.

PETER: All right. Well, I’m behind, personally, on this one. Even though I’m pretty down for Vinland Saga, for some reason I felt the need to keep up with some other non-CR anime when I was finished with my obligations. So, that’s why I finished O Maidens.

VRAI: [chuckling] That’s such a… It’s not wrong, but God, you’re just out in the anime trenches every season.

PETER: I am. I’m battling. I’m a warrior. But yeah, I think I was more curious about how the conclusions to O Maidens and Astra Lost in Space would be executed than making sure I was up to date on Vinland Saga, since it is a very long manga and I assume a lot of it is Viking combat. And it sounds like it was at least more of the same and nothing very mind-blowing has happened since. So, I plan to watch it.

VRAI: Yeah, and we’ll have time to touch on it again in future season-end podcasts, I’m sure, because if it’s that long, it’ll be going for a while.

PETER: Yeah.

VRAI: So, Peter, this next one is your anime of the season, yes? You’ve been talking about it a lot.

PETER: Um… Yeah, I was having trouble determining if I even have an anime of the season. I had a bunch of anime that I would consider pretty lateral for different reasons. I think Granbelm was the one I was interested in the most, week to week, like “I wonder what’ll happen next,” and also the one I felt obliged to champion since it didn’t seem like many people on my TL were watching. And it’s one of those gaps between quality and viewership that blow my mind sometimes.

VRAI: Yeah. Yeah, legit. It’s definitely not my favorite. I am glad that I watched it, and it was neat watching an anime like this unfold, week to week. It’s the kind of show that I usually come to after the fact. 

I feel like it wasn’t always successful at balancing when it wanted to be grand drama, which it was only kind of mediocre at, and balancing those really quiet character moments, which I feel like it did super well. But one thing I’ll say about it is that this is probably the dark magical girl anime that comes closest to balancing despair, tragedy porn, and a hopeful overall message and thematic content since Madoka back in 2013.

PETER: Yeah. Yeah, it feels like they’re suffering but there’s a purpose behind their suffering, and they’re actually also accomplishing things sometimes, so it’s like the suffering might be worth it for some characters who will maybe achieve something.

VRAI: And as much as I really did not like how Anna’s arc ended and I hated the Kuon and Suisho stuff because, damn, they piled so many predatory lesbian tropes on Suisho all at once! It was kind of impressive. But I still wasn’t numb. It didn’t pile on so thick that I thought, “Why do I care about this anymore?” so that when they had… I think it was episode 10 with Mangetsu, where you had that scene with the fireworks, it was genuinely pretty bittersweet and touching, and I thought it really worked.

PETER: Oh, yeah. I was like, “How is there two episodes left? It seems like they’re about to go into the final conflict?” And then they had an episode where everybody camped, and it was really good. [chuckles]

VRAI: Yeah! The camping episode was real, real good! And so necessary.

PETER: Oh, no, it was three episodes, even. Because the episode after that, they fight. And then this last episode was more fighting/conclusion. Yeah, what a good camping episode. Damn. Camping is really good.

VRAI: How’d you feel about the denouement, the credits scene?

PETER: I felt like it was pretty interesting. I saw your tweet about it being brave, and I kind of agree. I felt like her dialogue got a little confusing, so I didn’t quite… Did Mangetsu wrap around to existing again or something? 

And then that exchange student thing, I don’t know if they had a real intention behind that, like who it’s supposed to be, or they figured they’d drop a mystery on you just before the credits roll. I was like, “Is that supposed to be Mangetsu?” I literally don’t know who that’s supposed to be or why it’s important.

VRAI: I have to assume it’s meant to be Mangetsu.

PETER: Yeah. And that’s weird. I don’t really feel like it’s necessary. I don’t know. It’s kind of weird she’s locked in nonexistence forever, but what she wanted to do was something that absolutely would require sacrifice, and I felt like that was appropriate, but they made it bittersweet rather than just this horrific fate that she would suffer forever.

VRAI: It’s definitely an ending that leaves a lot of ambiguity, but in a way that didn’t feel cheap or frustrating to me. The fact that there are forget-me-nots in the courtyard, and they bloom: does that mean that the magic is not all gone? 

And is it because she changed her wish? Or is it just because magic will never really go away? Because Mangetsu has that line way earlier in the series about how none of this is ever really forgotten, and what does that mean? But it doesn’t feel like it’s poor writing on the show’s part. It feels kind of elegant in a way I appreciate.

PETER: Yeah. And I think it was very good that they showed how all of the people who had devoted so much to this really arcane, awful ritual that had been being repeated for like a thousand years were freed from the magic, which functionally should be able to let you do a lot of things that you couldn’t otherwise but instead was forcing them into this system where they would just suffer. And all of them had good-to-bittersweet endings, so you can see how Shingetsu actually improved all their lives and ended up saving people from having to have magic—the blessing-curse of magic.

VRAI: I do expect at least a dozen fanfics and/or comics about how “that was totally Mangetsu and she can still see Shingetsu and they tenderly hold hands” on my desk by Monday.

PETER: [chuckles] All right, I get it.

VRAI: [chuckles]

PETER: Yeah, it’s like—oh, what the hell would it be?—Natsume’s Book of Friends after that or something, an SoL with your imaginary friend.

VRAI: Yes. Good. Yeah, so, honestly, I think you’re right: a lot of people slept on this one. And even if it won’t be to everybody’s taste, I think it deserves a look.

PETER: Yeah. It was really interesting and came out of nowhere. It was, I think, Sumitomo putting together this original project. 

I feel like I need to emphasize how good the production was. The music was amazing. The production was extremely good. The background art, especially when it got into the weird psychedelic magic realms, was amazing. The framing and direction were amazing. It was a really, really, really good production.

VRAI: Yeah, I was kinda hard on the robot combat in the first couple episodes, but I feel like by that final big, climactic finale, it looked really impressive and dynamic.

PETER: [crosstalk] Yeah, that finishing blow, too.

VRAI: Mm-hm.

PETER: Yeah. [chuckles]

VRAI: All right, that brings us to the last one on our list, because done gave Ensemble Stars the boot. I’m sorry. So, our finale is given, which is good and full of feelings.

CAITLIN: Well, finale before we talk about the shows that finished this season.

VRAI: Oh, that’s true. I always forget about sequels and carryovers. Last original anime of the season, given, a.k.a. anime of the season.

CAITLIN: [crosstalk] Ah, so good!

VRAI: They love! They went on a date, and it was nice, and they played the song.

CAITLIN: Oh my God! Oh, it was so sweet! I really expected Mafuyu’s song to be the song from the ending theme song, so it totally blew me away. And just the raw power of it was just absolutely incredible.

VRAI: Yeah. I feel like that song got a lot of hype, so people were wondering, “Eh, is it really—?” Yes, it’s really that good.

CAITLIN: It’s really that good. Yeah, I fell behind with it because Fire Emblem. Everything is Fire Emblem’s fault. [chuckles] And yeah, it completely blew me away when I watched it. Just so much raw pathos in it.

VRAI: That’s Shogo Yano who’s his voice actor, so eight billion hats off to him. Like, fuck!

CAITLIN: Yeah, I’m getting quiet because I’m remembering it and I’m remembering the experience of watching it, and it was just so incredibly powerful.

VRAI: It’s a sweet love story, but it also ended up being this really beautiful little restrained character drama about dealing with grief and loss and survivor’s guilt and a lot of really heavy subjects, without feeling like a tacky melodrama.

CAITLIN: Yeah, it really handled all of that so well.

VRAI: And there’s a movie coming, supposedly. And I can see why the manga’s still going, because you can have shenanigans with the fact that they can’t let anybody know they’re dating. And Aki and Haru—

CAITLIN: Haruki. Akihiko and Haruki.

VRAI: Akihiko and Haruhi haven’t gotten together yet, and it’s not that I don’t— It’s kinda that I don’t care about them. I like them individually, but—

CAITLIN: Aw!

VRAI: I don’t care about them getting together. Honestly, I feel like Haruhi would be better off if he dated the nice undercut man. Maybe it’s just because I’ve heard those kinda disappointing manga spoilers.

CAITLIN: Yeah. You don’t wanna get invested.

VRAI: Yeah.

CAITLIN: And Akihiko’s already got someone he’s sleeping with.

VRAI: His shitty sociopath boyfriend who gives me Vampire Chronicles flashbacks? Yes.

CAITLIN: [chuckles] But don’t you like Vampire Chronicles flashbacks?

VRAI: I do. He does remind me of Lestat’s shitty violinist nihilist boyfriend. [chuckles] But is he gonna die? I don’t think he’s gonna die in this one.

CAITLIN: If there’s one thing I know about Vrai, it’s that Vrai will take any opportunity to talk about Vampire Chronicles.

VRAI: That’s true.

CAITLIN: [chuckles]

VRAI: Exhibit A. [chuckles] Even though there are those ongoing threads, I feel like this 11 episodes is pretty effectively self-contained.

CAITLIN: Yeah, no, I think it definitely told a really solid story. I’m gonna read the manga. I’m gonna read the fuck out of the manga, once— I’ve got the first volume preordered already.

VRAI: Well of course they licensed it, but I guess I just missed the announcement.

CAITLIN: Yeah, no, I’ve got it preordered on the Rightstuf. It’s gonna be good times.

VRAI: Nice.

CAITLIN: I like how after the first drama, the drama of getting the song, it really lightened up a bit. [chuckles] Like the scene in Ritsuka’s head.

VRAI: “It’s mutual!” God, that’s so peak Everything for that age.

CAITLIN: The farewell party for Virgin Ritsuka.

VRAI: [laughs]

CAITLIN: It was all just very good. It just made me smile inside. 

Okay, I have a question. Does Mafuyu read as autistic to anyone else?

VRAI: Yeah. Yeah.

CAITLIN: Yeah. Okay.

VRAI: Actually, we have a piece somebody is writing for the site about that right now. 

Oh damn, we are getting up to the hour mark! We should probably talk about sequels really fast. Peter, Demon Slayer. Yes/no?

PETER: Yes/no, huh? Yes? I don’t know.

VRAI: [chuckles]

PETER: It’s all right. I think it’s a pretty good story with a very good adaptation. I think it’s got some major problems and ended on probably the poorest note it could’ve, because it was all about a lot of Zenitsu around women, and that is not a good recipe, Zenitsu plus any women at all.

CAITLIN: I wanted to watch Demon Slayer, but I ended up falling behind and then it being not worth it. But it seems like it’s not good to its female characters.

PETER: Well, there’s very few of them. I think Bug Girl is interesting. But then… I don’t even know what the other girl’s deal is. She’s one of the Hashira, so she’s one of the elite… eight? Six? I don’t remember how many. But she’s got a pretty big boob window and is very ditzy. And that seems to be her character concept.

CAITLIN: I’m sure I’ve said all of these things on the podcast before, but the sister character whose name I can’t even remember right now.

PETER: Nezuko.

CAITLIN: Nezuko, yeah.

PETER: Future “Best Girl” at the Anime Awards.

VRAI: Because she doesn’t say anything?

CAITLIN: [crosstalk] You mean, yeah, the silent object who stays out of sight whenever she’s not needed?

PETER: Look, I’m just prognosticating the future, okay? I’m not saying…

VRAI: I didn’t say you were wrong.

PETER: Yeah, so the series kind of ended on a low point because it’s just Zenitsu being a piece of shit, interspersed with some other stuff. And apparently, they’re making a movie out of the next arc, which was literally my least favorite part of the manga. 

Which is very curious to me, because they’re trying to do their big moment where shit gets real, but there’s absolutely no prior development, so it just fell flat for me. And now they are divorcing it from any other content that could possibly aid in building it up, so I feel like it will just expound on the problems of the manga. Very, very odd choice, but maybe they’ll do it. It’s basically the most popular anime right now, so there’s obviously something it’s doing right.

VRAI: Well, maybe putting it in a movie will at the very least make it easy to snip off from the rest of everything else, if it’s your least favorite arc.

PETER: Oh, it’s… No. It’s like the big turning point, so…

VRAI: Ah. Unfortunate, then.

PETER: Yeah. That also feels weird. If they do another season, they’ll have to say, “Okay, watch these 26 episodes, then watch the movie, then watch the next 26 episodes.” Not quite sure what Ufotable’s planning or if they’re just going to leave it off there. 

I mean, the anime probably got as much buzz as some other major Shonen JUMP titles that got adaptations. It’s gorgeous. Demon Slayer won the lottery. I don’t know what’s going on. But the story has its positive points. I like Inosuke and Tanjiro a lot. I feel like Nezuko’s a big missed opportunity, though. And Zenitsu shouldn’t exist, just like Mineta.

VRAI: Duly noted. Caitlin, I cannot in good conscience not let you talk about Fruits Basket. How’s the adaptation going? You and Peter can fight it out now.

CAITLIN: We need to have a whole episode about Fruits Basket, honestly. There’s so much there to dig into. I love it. I love it, love it, love it. I have loved it for over a decade, and this new adaptation is incredible. It’s so good.

VRAI: Good.

CAITLIN: It hits all of the emotional beats very well. The adaptation covers a little bit past where the old one did. Instead of it ending with Kyo’s true form, that’s the penultimate episode, so it can deal with a little bit of the emotional fallout from that and not be like, “Well, everything’s healed now because Tohru accepted Kyo and everyone’s okay.” There’s still a lot of stuff. But yeah, no, it’s gorgeous and I’m really loving it, and I know Peter doesn’t agree.

VRAI: Yeah, honestly, I do think that we should get you and Dee and Peter to just do an episode on this first season of Fruits Basket. It feels unfair to try and stick all of that into the very end of the season end podcast.

CAITLIN: Yeah. There’s a lot happening there.

VRAI: I hereby, by saying it, bring it into life. Y’all do that now.

CAITLIN: [laughs]

PETER: Okay. I will say that people I know who watched the original series all seem to say this one’s better. And there’s some definite stuff I like, but I’m not the intended audience anyway, so maybe my opinion doesn’t have much value. No, I think definitely it doesn’t. Happy to talk about it in another podcast, though.

VRAI: Yeah, no, I am 0% joking. That is a thing that I think our listeners would enjoy. Which leaves “Waver Velvet Does a Thing,” Lord El-Melloi II’s Case Files, which you are both watching, the Fate spinoff.

PETER: I’m like two episodes behind, and—

CAITLIN: I haven’t watched the last episode. But I’m not loving it as much as a lot of people seem to.

PETER: Same.

CAITLIN: Here’s the thing. This Week in Anime on Anime News Network has a tendency to say exactly what I’m thinking about a show. Probably not totally a coincidence because I am friends with everyone who works on that. I enjoyed the first half more when it was just Waver being a complete disaster with mysteries interspersed throughout, but mostly it was just Waver being a trash, garbage man pretending to be cool. 

But the second half, which is the full story arc, the Rail Zeppelin that the series is named for, it has way less of Waver trying to hide that he’s a complete dork, too much of Waver actually almost looking cool. I don’t care about Gray, except that her incantation is really dumb. It just looks like somebody took a rhyming dictionary, because she’s like, “Wave… crave… rave… bave.” I don’t know. It’s just like, “Okay, guys, this does not sound cool in English at all.” 

There are some characters I enjoy. The highlight of the series for me was still the time when Waver was upset because his favorite sandwich shop closed.

VRAI: That sounds amazing.

CAITLIN: He slipped out of that gruff voice into the same whine that he had in Fate/Zero because he was just so upset and he was mad at one of his students. But yeah, no, it’s fine. It’s fine. A lot of other people seem to like it. It’s just not totally working for me.

PETER: Yeah. I think it was better when it was isolated mysteries because its greatest weakness was, rather than being fun, ridiculous magic mystery, it got into convoluted 70 paragraphs of metaphysics that really don’t work if you try to pick it apart at all and that has been—

CAITLIN: Yeah, they’ll spend ten minutes talking about something, like, “Oh, well, this works because this this this,” and it’s all word salad.

PETER: Yeah, and that is way more prevalent in the later half with the Rail Zeppelin, and I’m just like, “Wow, it’s hard for me to feel strongly about any of this when all of it requires at least five minutes of explaining what the hell the thing even is that gave you the revelation that helped you solve the mystery.” It’s word salad.

CAITLIN: [crosstalk] The name Doctor Heartless is incredible. [chuckles]

PETER: It’s so close, right? It’s so close to being an over-the-top, cool magical mystery, but yeah, it keeps fucking up.

CAITLIN: And they made Hephaestion a girl, which is not fantastic.

PETER: Because she’s obsessed with what’s-his-face. I can’t remember his name.

CAITLIN: Well, you know who Hephaestion was historically.

PETER: No. I don’t know that one.

CAITLIN: He was Alexander the Great’s lover.

PETER: Oh, okay. Oh yeah, that sucks.

VRAI: [crosstalk] It was kind of a big deal.

CAITLIN: Yeah.

VRAI: I don’t love that, and I don’t even go here.

PETER: That feels bad. Cool.

CAITLIN: I mean, she’s hot! But…

VRAI: I can only fix so many wounds.

PETER: Yeah.

CAITLIN: Yeah.

VRAI: Well, that’s kind of a bummer note to end on, but I feel like we enjoyed a lot of things this season, and it’s gonna be so much worse this fall.

CAITLIN: [crosstalk] It was a good season. I keep seeing people being like, “Oh, this was a weak season. I only watched four shows.” I’m like, “First of all, four is a solid season for me. Second of all, what are you even talking about?” And then the four shows are like “I’m only watching Fire Force, Dr. Stone, and…”

PETER: Demon Slayer.

CAITLIN: “Demon Slayer.”

VRAI: So you did it wrong. [chuckles]

CAITLIN: It’s like, “Oh, you’re basic.”

PETER: Damn.

VRAI: All right, well, I’d better wrap us up. Thank you so much for joining us on this podcast, listeners. We love you even if you’re basic.

[Chuckling]

VRAI: If you liked this podcast, you can find more of our podcasts by going to Soundcloud and looking up Chatty AF or going on to our website at animefeminist.com. If you really liked this, you can consider going to our Patreon maybe at www.patreon.com/AnimeFeminist. Even a dollar a month really helps us to continue to create content on the page and in your earbuds. 

If you want to talk to us, you can always find us on social media. We’re on Facebook at AnimeFem, we are on Tumblr at animefeminist, and we are on Twitter @AnimeFeminist. 

Thanks so much for joining us, and we’ll see you in the fall.