[Music]
Hello and welcome to an all new episode of Anime Brain Freeze. We are your racing robot hosts.
I am John. And I'm CC and when there's just too much cool anime to watch, we've got you covered.
Today we will solve murder mysteries in the future and burn rubber in the present,
because I will start us off with a look at the long-of-it-you anime adaptation of the manga Pluto,
Nauki Uru Sawa's dark reimagining of the Astro Boy Universe.
After that, John and I will take our seats at the racing track and review the sports drama overtake.
The news outing from the team that brought us one of our favorites from recent years, Re-creators.
Get ready to unleash your cluster arm cannon. Get your ass on that winners podium
and definitely don't pause the pod. We'll be right back.
[Music]
Gizist, an undroit police detective of Europault, has tasked with finding the murder of Maublaugh,
a retired war hero robot. Although it appears that only a robot could have committed this crime,
the murder of a renowned robot-right activist casts doubts on the criminal's identity.
Indeed, outside of an isolated and unexplained incident that occurred eight years ago,
robots are programmed to be unable to kill human beings.
However, the lack of human evidence on the crime scene and the similarity of Modus operandi lead Gizist
to suspect that the two murderers might be the same being, be they man or robot.
Shortly after Maublaugh's passing, another retired elite of war robot is mysteriously eliminated.
Gizist notices a pattern in the choice of murder victim.
Both that robot belong to a group of the seven most powerful war machines ever designed.
Determined to stop the murder from eliminating the five remaining veterans, Gizist seeks help from Atom,
a cutting-edge android who resembles a human boy.
Do almost now hunt down the rogue killer before the series of murders is carried on
lest the very fabric of society suffer irredeemable damage.
Thanks to my animalist for that summary. I didn't write any of that.
So Pluto is based on a manga by Naoki Orozawa as stated in the intro of the show.
That ran for eight volumes from 2003 to 2009.
The rare cases where we talk about an anime adaptation of a manga that is actually finished.
Naoki Orozawa is probably most well known for his hit manga 20 Century Boys and of course Monster.
Monster already received the hit anime adaptation.
Still waiting for one of 20 Century Boys.
But he also wrote other stuff like Master Keaton and Yawara, a fashionable judo girl,
which got an anime adaptation as well.
I feel like I should seek those out. I've never looked at it, but I heard at least really good things about Master Keaton.
So I guess I should seek those out.
Yeah, I mean, I've heard of all of these things, but never actually watched any, so.
Yeah, I mean, Yawara is a bit older, I think, but that exists. It has a lot of episodes.
So I don't know how easily they are attainable, but yeah, maybe I'll take a look.
At least the summary of Master Keaton's own is really interesting.
And he did a bunch of manga that haven't gotten an adaptation yet, like Billy Bad or Asadora.
He's a very prolific manga guy who has received a lot of awards for his work.
But it feels like his stuff is not as overexposed as that of other manga guy, and he is not as often mentioned,
maybe because his story so necessarily fit into the popular standard genre space.
Which brings us to Pluto, of which the anime adaptation got eight one hour long episodes on Netflix,
which were handled by Studio M2.
We haven't done much else yet, aside from two movies, one of them being a Garou movie.
I think the compilation movie of the second season. Entity V-Show only, hey, really.
That's kind of the whole Vita up to now, Pluto included.
But if you look at who founded that studio, you can immediately make some assumptions in regards to the talent behind this show,
because that is Maso Maruyama, who was the co-founder of Madhouse, as well as the founder of Mapa.
He handed the presidency of Mapa over to Manabou Otsuka in 2016 and established M2 in the same year, then specializing in planning and pre-production,
quoting from Wikipedia.
At the age of 75, Maruyama wanted to execute at least two more big projects,
so he established a studio to prepare for the execution of his projects, even if he was gone.
The upcoming movie M-Finder seems to be one of those big projects.
I don't know if Pluto was the other one. I mean, he absolutely produced Pluto together with Tao Maruyama and Yamano.
But yeah, I'm not sure if this is one of them, but M-Finder, the movie is definitely one of the things that he wanted to do, apparently.
But yeah, who directed Pluto? That would be Toshio Kawaguchi, and it looks like this is his first full-on directing gig, weirdly enough,
because he has been in the industry for a long time, mostly has a key animator on little projects like... maybe you thought of them?
Akira, Castlin the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoka, Royal Space Force, Ghost in the Shell to Venus Wars, General, Moba, Sud, Gundam, the Origin, the neon Genesis Evangelion, Death and Rebirth, and Ant-Affangalian movies.
He also was the animation director of an episode of that show, and he was the character designer and animation director on Porco Roso.
So, not... - And are those Ring of Bell?
No, not at all, never heard of them. So long story short, the guy has been in it.
And it looks like M2 pulled a bunch of other talent who worked on previous Ghibli, Ghibli, Mad House and Mapa stuff,
and some of the other Naoki Urosawa adaptations as well. And it shows, this is a God-Damn Gorgeous series, lavish backdrops with impressive futuristic cityscapes,
an impeccable translation of Urosawa's detailed and hyper-expressive character designs to the screen.
The show doesn't have that much action, since it's mostly a dialectic and murder mystery show, but when the action hits, it God-Damn hits trust me.
The music is also fantastic and handled by none other than Hugo Kano, who of course gave us the terrific soundtracks to Psychopaths,
and to just bizarre, venture part three, four, five, and six.
I don't know if this one eclipses those, other two, but if I listened to them back to back, it just might, because the music in Pluto is really fantastic.
Yeah, we got an old star crew here, but what is Pluto actually about? No, wait, before I get to the actual story and the characters, let me get the one thing out of the way that was the only real wrinkle on the positive impression of this show for me,
the one-hour format doesn't work well for this story, in my opinion.
But Pluto often changes the setting and character focus from chapter to chapter. If you read it weekly, this isn't very noticeable, but if you watch one hour worth of chapters at once, the change of focus seems more frequent and might on occasion feel somewhat confusing and abrupt, your 25-minute episodes would probably have been better for this.
Especially since the show has a very deliberate pace to begin with, maybe someone thought not enough would be happening during 25 minutes for several episodes, so they went for one hour instead, or they were like, hey, it's on Netflix, so people are gonna binge it anyway.
I don't know, either way, I don't think they made the entirely right decision here.
There were definitely some moments in the show where the story presented something that would have been a great end of episode cliffhanger, and yet it's somewhere in the middle of the episode, so something is definitely not light up quite right.
It probably doesn't matter if you, like I said, binge the episodes anyway, which is Netflix model, Netflix model, but it still shows that the one-hour episodes don't quite work for the adaptation of this story.
They did the same thing with Spriggan, it worked better there because the chapters were set up in a way that accommodated that format better, but it still wasn't great.
So up to now, I feel like I haven't seen an anime that really made use of the standard, I guess, US TV show, long-form, one-hour-thing format.
I think the, especially, anime that are adapted from manga, kinda are more suited to this 24-minute runtime, because the amount of chapters you can cram into that and how it works just works better, I guess, with that format.
I don't know, maybe we'll get more, especially on surfaces like Netflix and stuff like that, maybe get more shorts, shows that do the one-hour format, and some of those will work better.
But there was the only thing here in Pluto, I was like, "Hmm, I don't know, this probably would have worked better in another way."
So yeah, let's talk about what worked, which is everything else, really.
So yeah, the main character of this, or stansable main character, I guess, besides Adam, Adam is GZH, and who is like stated in the summary.
A detective with a cool transformable Mega Man gun arm, and he is tasked with finding out in the first episode who murdered one of the most beloved robots in the world, Momblo from Switzerland.
Some things in this murder, and the one of the human, of the robots' right activists line up, both bodies get draped with makeshift horns, so GZH immediately suspects the murders to be connected.
Like I said, before the particularly spicy part about all of this is there are no traces of human residue on the human murder scene, and no human could have taken out Momblo really, because it's one of the, you know, legendary war machines.
So the most likely conclusion, of course, is that a robot murdered both of them, or something else, I guess, but according to Article 13 of the International Robot Law, no robot is allowed, or should even be able to seriously hurt or kill a human being, one exception, when we get to that.
So GZH has quite a puzzle on his hand, he needs two piece together, and time is running out, because aside from dropping more human bodies, it becomes pretty clear, pretty quickly that the killer is going after the top most advanced robots in the world, with Momblo on that, there are seven left, and GZH is one of them.
So the show immediately constructs an engaging murder mystery, who is the killer, why is he gunning for the most advanced robots, and how is he able to kill them even?
Why, and how did he kill a human? All interesting questions, the show sets up at the very beginning and then starts cooking.
There is lots of world traveling, Japan, of course, but also Germany, Turkey, Scotland, Switzerland, and a couple of others.
And this is now Kiyoto Sawa's interpretation slash remake of the story, the greatest robot on Earth, from the original Astro Boy manga by Ozan Mutezuka, that ran in, shown magazine from June 1964 to January 1965, that story particularly.
Sawa takes different bits and pieces from all the previous versions of this character, and this story, because it has been adapted multiple times, there were also multiple anime adaptations of Astro Boy up to this point, and it was in at least two of them, but he takes all of these and constructs a much darker and complex thriller from it.
I think Watchman, when compared to your Justice League, and this is what Sawa basically does with this universe. The story feels very mature. I know that this is a buzzword that people like to throw around as soon as there is blood and tits thrown around, but that's not what I'm talking about.
This is a story that feels like it was written by an adult for adults, with a big focus on character development, an engaging mystery, politics, very little action, a very sober tone, and with precious little humor in it.
For some people that might sound like a boring slot, but that could be further from the truth in my opinion.
Then again, I am also a fan/ I mean, who done it and murder mysteries and you know procedural stuff is kind of totally up my alley, especially if it's an unusual setting, which is the case and this absolutely, and if it's an interesting universe with interesting special characters, and this show checks all of these boxes.
So it's like, yeah, this show was kind of made for me. I mean, I read the manga, so I knew what was coming, but still it's like, yeah, of course, of course I would like this, but yeah, I don't know about other people who might be more into the more action-driven shows, into more high-point emotional shows.
I mean, they're high emotions in this show, but maybe less than other shows. Like I said, the tone is usually most of the time more sober, and again, it's very dialogue-driven.
Gizicht, he was called Ghehart in the original Astro Boy manga, is a very interesting man character, unlike some of the other robots in the show, he's so advanced that he is barely indistinguishable from a human being.
You know, if you compare him to Mont Blanc, really looks like an old, I don't know, even like a bronze age gladiator or something robot, like really like old school.
And you know, there's some other characters that look more old-schoolish or absolutely more like robots. I guess the only other one that comes close to Gizicht in terms of being indistinguishable from being a human is Adam.
But yeah, Gizicht has a cool gun arm, incredibly sophisticated senses and a very sharp mind. All of these make it the probably most capable detective of Europa.
And then like a lot of other robots as well, he is able to dream. Weird dreams of chasing down a trail of blood.
It's cool how diverse the types of robots are in this show. Like I said, of course we have Gizicht who is as close to looking human as you can get, same for Adam.
But then we also have the most basic early sci-fi movie robots that you can think of like the wife of a police robot that gets killed in the first episode and who then helps Gizicht on his case by reviewing the memory chip of her late husband.
And then we have someone like Maublaugh who's right in the middle, but still very old schoolish like I said. So it's pretty cool for the story to rely on not just just one robot model but different generations and types of them.
Another intriguing character who looks more old school as well is Braw, who is the last or rather first I think robot who killed a human eight years ago.
He is kept as a prisoner in a high security facility and is kind of fulfilling the Hannibal Lecter role in this story. He's kind of like chained or rather paled to the wall. So that he just can't get out of there and there like a bunch of guns just aimed at him.
Like people are really afraid of him. He can't get out, but he can still talk. And Gizicht seeks him out to get a glimpse into the mind of a robot who has killed a human being.
Braw actually is responsible for the first title drop in the show as he likened the horns on the victims to those of the Roman god of the underworld Pluto.
And he is a creepy bastard, but also incredibly spellbinding.
So it's cool to them are not in many conversations between him and Gizicht in the show, but when when there are it's like you're really glued to the screen because there's just this this incredible atmosphere build up immediately.
Gizicht is Gizicht and braw is braw and you know it's like I said it's a science of the lamp situations like clary starling Hannibal Lecter and yeah that's really cool shit later we get other interesting characters from the aforementioned story like Brando and Hercules who are still doing what they can do best fighting.
But in the ring instead of the battlefield they are these long time rivals of each other but character wise pretty different Brando even has a family for example while Hercules is like the stern loner.
We get Absalon who was called Fautar in the old story I believe or there was just a stop name not sure who took in some war orphans and watches over them.
And of course we like to get pretty much the whole atom slash Astro boy cast atom of course his sister uran professor Ochanomizu professor tenma the latter to we talked about in our review of atom the beginning.
Although those were pretty different versions of those characters because that series highlighted their youth.
I don't even know if it's considered canon or anything but yeah we definitely talked about them then I got only got one season.
I think they didn't try to do anything else with that after the fact.
Yeah kind of an unfortunate I would like to see more of that.
Yeah it was a fun show so but yeah and of course we get some interesting antagonist which I don't really want to go into because of spoilers Pluto of course being one of them I can talk about because his name is on the show's title.
Pluto is terrifying you're almost only ever seen appear as a shadow in a tornado which is very effective to build them up as this uncanny threat until almost the very end you don't really see any of the fights.
You may see some of glimps of Pluto's eyes or his head or his arm or something but never his full face until the final two episodes I think.
This makes him like this unfathomable man as and is really effective paired with incredible music when he appears and everything so let's good shit.
But yeah Pluto definitely is a very dialogue driven show like I said with not really that much action in it which is a bit of a shame considering how good it looks.
But hey it's nice that they put that much effort into the visuals of a show that relies more on atmosphere and character interaction and development than anything else to pull you in.
But that also means that anyone who expects a certain amount of spectacle from the anime might be put off by the focus and pacing of the show like I said I love it.
It's a great slow burn sci-fi crime story but again the action is sparse in this of course the old version of the robots had more classic old school comic book designs which doesn't necessarily lend themselves to a serious crime drama.
And we're some of them are clever way around that by turning some of the more outlandish designs into enormous battle arm or the characters only where when they go into fights.
So in a normal lives and during conversations they can look like normal humans and in some of the fights they get to be there there are more old school versions which is neat like it's some of old school astro by fans might look at these characters in the breath of said yeah I remember those.
And then they just you know they just take out their heads out of these these armors and put them on a normal human ish body and that's that and then it can be normal life.
So that makes the story seem a lot more grounded than it probably would have been if they just would have walked around in their in their old bodies and all designs.
Not all robots are of course treated as equals in this world yet mom blog gets a memorial and is mourned by thousands of people but the random police robot just gets thrown into the dumpster after he's been shot and scavenging these kind of dead robots for parts doesn't seem to be frowned upon really.
There's a natural segregation in certain buildings between walkways for humans and walkways for robots a lot of robots are still treated as property and there are for fanatical organizations that want to keep it that way or rather want all robots to be returned to being slaves.
So yeah there's every some political tendencies in here and this is this is I mean this is one of the most blatant one there's even more there's some even more ridiculous obvious ones like.
This is a subtext only coward you subtext absolutely yeah.
No, it's not much for subtext I guess but it's fun like I think one of the the brother of one of those fanatics who then goes is you know joining the fanniquet party because he wants to avenge his brother and is like all robots are as for his name is Adolf is like alright she's it's come on yes okay that is not a name we use in Germany anymore just say I mean some.
I mean some people might but they're they're very problematic so I think I've met anyone is named that so that was as a fun bit in this show is like yeah oh alright.
And yeah like I already established this is now queer servers love letter to some of Tesoca's astro boy universe but there are also some other small references to and cameos of other tesaka stuff in there.
If you love all of tesaka's work or some of it you should definitely check it out and also check it out because it's just a terrific story of course but you know if you know your way around tesaka's stuff you're like oh wait a minute.
I know that character I know what who they are talking about so I bet John can guess what I'm referring to.
So robots mimic humans to become more human themselves item is of course the closest to being a behaving like an actual human like he feels generally joy when eating ice cream or seeing another kid play with a toy and gizist like I said can dream which is not usual for robots.
So that is an interesting aspect of that especially in regards to AI and everything and the whole topic of that and that kind of also plays into the whole kind of plot catalyst of this story which is Pluto whatever it is goes after the top seven robots that have potential to be weapons of mass destruction because they're so powerful.
Constructed by different nations and so on at first you think okay is this related to an arms race thing or something or someone trying to eliminate the competition or whatever but it becomes very there's something else I play here and it all has its roots in this conflict called the 39th Central Asian war.
Which is just a very thinly veiled analogy for the Iraq war and an important part of the story is learning how the different robots were involved in the war and the mental baggage that came with that.
So this is basically about a bunch of shell shot war veterans that are taken out by someone with a grudge and all the robots that are being attacked so far have served in the 39th Central Asian war where they killed a lot of their own kind.
North the robot taking the spotlight in the second half of the first episode has constant nightmares you know also one of the rare robots that can dream but he has nightmares about his experience on the battlefield.
He doesn't want to return there anymore and takes on the role of a butler for a grumpy old composer and that man Sir Duncan is a very angry person mostly because he feels like this like his talents might be waning.
But he also has a chip on his shoulder because his mom left him when he was a child and he went blind early and he doesn't want a robot talking to him about music something a machine can possibly understand.
He's a grumpy old crow but seeing those two get closer and north slowly turning the bitter frown on the old guy's face into a little smile is one of the best separate mini stories in this show.
It's really hard felt not only in regards to Duncan's story but also to north and is his experience and memories of the war that still haunt him is really good stuff and it should continue to do that like introducing all the you know robots who served in that war and how they're living their lives now I think the most endearing ones are probably brand of stories.
Brand of story with his family and everything. Absolon with the orphans and you know of course Adam and yeah you see of course as well so that's really cool stuff you know little characters stories inside of this big murder mystery makes it very enticing also makes the character of characters of course feel more real and it works very well.
The story is spinning a lot of interesting intersecting threats the main mystery of the murders because it's nightmares the truth behind the war one or possibly multiple conspiracies it's all very intriguing.
It can seem at times like the show is jumping between separate character stories and plot stages a lot but ultimately they all fit neatly into us hours meticulously constructed web off into woven story beats.
He already did that with monster like throwing a lot of different character constellations and set pieces at the view to ultimately let them flow together but it's even more impressive here my opinion like I mean monster is the bigger longer manga slash show with the bigger cast but you know here it's kinda like it feels more like.
I don't know like he had this probably planned out but when you watch it it doesn't feel like it it feels natural like the way going from A to B and how it all eventually comes together but again it's been a while on the other hand it's been a while since I've watched monster so maybe maybe that did it just as well or better I don't know I have to rewatch that but.
I'll rebate from remembering I feel like closer to the bit better but hey monster just got a release a blue ray release over here so I might check that out eventually again because it also finally got a German dub that seems to be pretty good and it's set in Germany so that I always wanted to watch that show with a German dub because that made sense to me.
A good German dub? Yes apparently wow rare occurrence these days so I mean the only problem is the blue race are have like a Japan prices so it's gonna be a while I get that get one of those I guess but yeah if you take the time to get pulled into the mystery of Pluto and the characters I think you will be rewarded with a very adult feeling cypher thriller that is very unique in the anime landscape especially in regards to how grounded and
subdued it feels especially considering its subject matter of course the show also goes heavily into the topic of AI which today is much more relevant to our daily lives than in 2003 when the manga came out like questions ponate are what happens when robots get so good at mimicking humans that they might learn how to love how to hate how to lie what would that mean for them but would that mean for what would that mean for us the serious tickets that idea from several different angles and all of them
are interesting so yeah that's kind of all I want to say about the show because it is a murder mystery and I feel like
if all the things like everything that I say in regards to where the characters go what's the like where we go from plot
to plot plate is too much because it takes away from the mystery that you're trying to figure out so yeah Pluto is an incredible show which didn't get the attention it deserves
because Netflix didn't properly advertise it and burn it in their release calendar whatever shock yeah what a surprise
regardless you can watch it there and I release it all at once or yeah yeah they release it to be pinched and like like I said it was on a I don't even know if it was on the main page
like maybe for one day or for one week or something but they probably not I would imagine yeah aside for releasing one trailer there was not really any
fuss about it I saw it on several best of the year lists of people and was happy about that but I feel like it didn't get the the attention and hype and you know promotion that it
deserves considering for what kind of prolific project it is like it's it's an adaption of an interpretation of a really established French is like a very famous manga like of Osama Tessaca right so and of a guy who has received several rewards
for his awards for his work already not no cure is so and has some some high profile stuff like monster a lot of people no monster so I feel like this should have been bigger than it was
yeah but also your average Netflix users and probably looking to find something quite this niche yeah yeah that's a problem like I said this is it is the crime mystery thing
it is very slow and methodical in a way never boring never boring don't get me wrong but it I would say it all depends on what kind of it it what kind of sensibilities you have and what you look for when you
watch a show and maybe I don't know maybe also the key was Netflix use or whatever were not the right thing and it put people off I don't know but the people who checked it out at least the ones I heard about most of
them like lofted and we're like holy shit it is really good stuff and yeah that's why I encourage everyone to seek it out because it's one of those miracle shows that don't happen that often like an
adaption people have been asking for four ages me being one of them that actually lives up to its hype and then some like a thrilling sci-fi murder mystery fantastic
characters incredible production values an interesting interpretation of an established iconic franchise thoughtful discussions about
engaging themes it kind of has it all it's a complete package like if you can deal with the somewhat methodical pacing and it's very
dialect of nature then when compared to your standard action driven anime you will probably like or love this I definitely do and I hope we get
another stellar adaptation of one of us hours other works maybe 20 century boys but yeah if we got that in the not too distant future I would love that very much
[Music]
all right so next up is a little bit of race car driving
which the last one we talked about this was a part of Iran man yes and that was like it was a racing show in the loses set of two of the term I guess of the words it had
racing in it had racing in it it had a bunch of other things in it that were great all great upper runman was a fantastic show hey
this is not a paréron no this is overtake yes it's a very a different show very grounded yes that is definitely the best way to
word or describe it so I like you have taken the brief overview from the very nice writers that M.A.L. re-write and the summary is as follows
ever since he published a picture that sparked a wave of online harassment free lance fatag for koya madoka is lost everything his wife sciaco yuki heda his confidence and his courage to photograph people
however years later a job offer introduces him to introduces him to the exhilarating world of formula for racing a single fierce battle between the amateur drivers in a junior category of
open wheel car racing becomes enough to make madoka unable to put his camera down when comahki motors haruka asahina burst into tears on the track madoka manages to capture this vulnerable moment this photo eventually leads madoka to an impulsive decision he will help sponsor both the comahki team and haruka himself
but the unreasonable costs of the sport quickly cause madoka to reassess his ambitions and he seeks different ways to support severely underfunded f14 despite the uphill battle madoka's determination for haruka to succeed
maybe the trigger that can propel the young driver straight to the top overtake was produced by troika who we have
mention before you said chief the recreator to the you know they've done some other stuff that we have talked about as well i think recreator is prior favorite of the lot though and yeah i think it's a some chess and mostly common because it's also got the same director and or writer as i would take
the aoki is the director as he was of recreators i don't i am going to check real quick if it was the same writer i don't believe it was so overtake was written by a yummy seki nay doesn't look like they had much involvement with recreators
but a aoki aside from recreators also directed fate zero right directly i believe yes we're researching real time friends and he had he also you also worked on black lagoon
yes yes okay so these are all shows i like very much so it's like hey okay this is a new stuff this new stuff from this team so got to check it out
you know i think the only one that the only show of tracers that i watched they didn't really like anything same for you as a proud Noah zero
yes not because of the production values or anything but that show was just badly written yeah the first three episodes were okay because they were handed by uh uh uh uh what do i think yeah
you could tell where the drop was yeah it was so apparent yes so hmm say a yummy seki nay also wrote some most i like did a little bit about those zero
but uh did some of fate apocrypha uh it's i like more than you yeah i mean i would i wish i liked apocrypha more
but i i respect the production values except for a couple of the fights which were a little bit weird to me
yeah i don't know i got called out by a friend of ours on that then got called out again on the same thing to make sure my taste was consistent
with you two kai sara remember but uh they they they've been around a bit did you know a couple of fates uh do a little bit of pokemon sun in moon uh so yeah
music was done by kana utatane who not really familiar with much of their other work like i i feel like the only other show they've worked on who's
name i've actually seen with have not watched is campfire cooking in another world with my absurd skill we need to get a light novel title in here somewhere
we need to fulfill that quota but yeah so the crux of the show is i was see around koi as we were talking about before he um is
he was the he called it my animal is called him him modic by by his last name in the summary so that's koi is his first name and yeah so uh so that everyone is in the same page sorry
yes sorry about name order i feel like we're kind of a little loose you see on that anywhere
you know i would go with the first names on this as well so it's like yeah i just want to make that sure that people who were talking about but he's the photograph a guy right
yeah he he's the photographer and uh what does he get called it was swaff and i forget camera man
camera man yeah yeah i'm not taking videos i'm taking pictures people i'm not a camera man with photography
yeah so he is on his way to the subvenu with his ex-wife to take pictures of super GT cars
but he kind of serves dumbbells into the f4 like pits i guess or whatever they call these these tents where they do the you know the checking before the actual race and everything
um yeah he gets called over by uh i think he's a colleague of his noit sune and he gets introduced to
some f4 drivers who are part of this big team called belserizo
yeah no he he worked for the the boss of the company that owns belserino before like enna
and that's who calls them over it's like hey we haven't seen each other in a while it's like hey i have a racing team here here it is here these are my racers and everything
that's a heck of an operation yes it's the the dev you immediately can see hey these are the this is the top tier team because it kind of look like Ferrari
so all right and yeah and you know all the all the good gear like before before he actually runs into the basic brief encounter with the characters he will actually drift to after that
with them like uh shoving their or rolling their car to their tent or whatever and uh one of them like humming the melody of the the godfather for some reason which leads to this funny funny joke when he
really gets you know re equated with them and then says the don corleona family that was good stuff so yeah but first yeah he gets introduced to this world of a for by by
his former acquaintances like hey it's my team and then he sends one of his drivers to to guide um koya around and yeah then they stumble into the team of kumaki mortars
just the small family business like it's kind of it's a it's a workshop like it's a garage but the owner also has like purchased a used a racing car a for racing car and yeah
have his son is the mechanic and uh his other kind of son is the driver and sort of adopted adopted son kind of really that's the question so kota is his real son was like this very energetic very
out kind of boy very enthusiastic yes very enthusiastic yes uh and until she is kind of he's kind of lead back he's like you know we bought this car we want to you know have a small race seem small this
because it's one driver one mechanic yes for totes he's like this this stereotypical good slightly fed old guy who is like haha I'm just in it for the fun guys right
it's always saying stuff about like oh well you know back in my day I have to be able to love and it's in it's in it's an exaggeration every time of course it is yes and the driver is haru and haru yeah he comes across in the beginning as a like a bit stand office
you know a bit colds or or you know I don't know somber I don't know what is what is better isolated yes exactly like koea conferences like I'm good I don't know anything about this stuff but I'm going to cheer for you for you and haru is like I don't need anyone to cheer for me I can race on my own or I want to race on my own
and you're made like what's up with that guy I'm by way we could we quickly learn why why he is the way he is so and and then koea gets to see him race and that kind of like you said or like we can learn from the from the summering from my anemones is like what
what for I mean koea gets very quickly engaged with with the thrill of the race the action everything like he he kind of loses his shit when when haru you know suddenly gets gets pulled off the race I think because of a flat tire or something I don't remember
yeah he's about to take a third place in this pot tire goes yeah he's got a he's got to pull out yeah because you know they only have limited funds so they have to use their reuse their tires a lot and we get to that
but he's like what happened it shakes for torches but yeah like you said after that he just he follows haru on a whim after the race and and sees haru take off his you know his helmet and everything and then just cry but
tears because he lost the race he couldn't get on the podium and just out of instinct like really not think about it he takes a picture of him crying and that is very significant for multiple reasons
especially for koea because we immediately see that he's more surprised by this than anyone like he's like I took a picture what you're like wait what you were a photo photographer is that your job and but you know it's like
we we and the the summary kind of already gave that a way so I think we can talk about it about it in more detail but we often see in the beginning like these scenes of imposing dark waves when koea is caught in his own head
and you like okay what does that have to do anything like every time he tries to take a picture of a person or person looks at him we see him frees and we see like these dark waves in his mind
what is this about is this like I don't know is this a visual visualization of his office depression because he lost a passion for his job or something right so what is going on but no that's not it and yeah that gets revealed later on
and yeah that doesn't happen when he in that moment he looks at haru and he just takes the picture and it's like what what how how did that happen so from there on he kinda gets invested and wants to be part of koea mootos and that's where like kinda kinda how we start the story and where we go from there
and then it's about him becoming part of that kind of family and you know him especially him and haru becoming friends and helping each other in several ways
and that is very interesting this is more of a sports drama than anything else this is like or just a character drama really
like the racing is the setup and the setting but it's more about these two characters overcoming their past regret this short story I've been called over comments that I'll overtake yeah yeah I mean I get it but yeah this really about these two characters who help each other
overcoming their past regrets and their trauma so yeah that's really cool and we have a bunch of cool characters like koea and his editor cycle were married before and then she dumped him for several I mean mostly for a reason that we later get into where it's like oh okay he didn't tell everything to just left her for a while and we don't know why and he seems flaky and unreliable
and he doesn't appreciate the stuff she's sending out to him like the jobs you think it's because he doesn't have passion for his art anymore but it's definitely something else and that gets slowly revealed more and more over the show
and we get the rivals in Bel- Bel-Sorizo with the driver first driver Satsuki who is the rock star and you know always has his groupies around him and then Toshiki who is the guy who let who guided koea around on the paddock or whatever
and who he's like this driven blunt matter of fact guy who also seems to bully the guys from Koumakimotors a lot you seems to bully everyone around him because he just wants to show they he can do it he can be the best
yeah but it's also like you later learned that there's more to it and that like yeah but you know initially yeah initially he's like he considers for example how or nothing but an obstacle
like he's in his way literally and the reason for that is also because he kind of bumped into into Haru in a qualifying race or in a race where he got judged by
Bel- Bel-Sorizo and he because he had that crash he wasn't picked as first driver but as second so that's kind of chip on his shoulder and he first for like the first half of the show
I guess he holds Haru responsible for that and vents on him all the time but then who you know the longer show goes and especially by the anti like his journey is realizing that he is his own biggest obstacle right
he's like he is the guy who can deal with pressure and let's everyone feel that and he is not just he just has to learn how to to deal with the stuff that some races throw at him that he can deal with yet
and doesn't have to like unload his his problems on other people and stuff like that so but also you know really honest teammates and everything
so it's like a just classic thing with like a stand office rival asshole guy at the beginning but you know it has a good heart deep down and we have to see him become less of an asshole
which is a good which is always a good journey the less assholes at the end of the show we have the better so I guess is that
yes wouldn't be just great if the show ended with as many jerk faces as possible hey not everything can be Naruto just kidding but yeah so this is definitely one of the interesting characters in the show
we have multiple ones like I guess the focus is definitely on Haru and Koya but you know there's one for for Toshiki like I said for Toshiki
yeah guess let's talk about how first because he's one of our main characters I guess like his parents died and T would want to become a race driver like his dad
he delivers newspaper to support his team like his dad was actually a driver in Futoshis old team first his wife died of anime mom disease
and then you're not wrong but it's not specifies like hey she got in a hospital and we took care at that time of of Haru and then you know when is that that too like you know his dad died during a race crashed bird alive not nice and Haru has been hanging with the Koma keys from his early childhood
because really like his brother in Futoshis is a sort of a dad I mean they might have actually adopted him I don't know if that's just implied or actually spelled out in the show
I don't remember if they explicitly say yeah I mean either but there's several moments in this show where it's like no Futoshis is his dad
is his brother there's no talking around that like Alice is this kind of sister I guess who is like this childhood friend of Kota but they also don't seem dead have that much of a connection really like Kota and Alice have but Alice and Haru not really I feel like they don't have that much interactions
and she's absolutely literally drooling over Satsuki all the time so literally like there's a seat in the way she said in the window looking into a conference room where he is Satsuki sitting and she has drool on her lower lip
it's like it's a fleek that they miss a thing let's find a warrior about it and there's several locations I love these attentions to detail so I have to mention this
there's like a moment in the show where she where Satsuki is in a hospital and she brings him like this nice fruit basket or whatever and she catches him with all of his fangus and the character design is show half like these little shadows on the noses of characters
and in that moment when she catches him catches him he's not doing anything in proper or something but she hoped she would like find him alone right so she can give him the present
and then she sees it with all his fangus and this little shadow on her nose is suddenly shaped like a broken heart it was amazing and I don't think I missed that entire place
it's a blink and you miss it moment absolutely I don't know why I spotted that but then I looked out for that and in one of the last scenes where after she gave some very important information
or let's say insights to how she sees Satsuki's thing especially when it comes to obsession with the race driver James Hunt and Nikki Lauda when he thanks her for that basically not directly to her face but you know basically repeating what she said to him
and then you see look at her face and it's a complete heart because she's so happy like what the hell is the smallest thing but it's a super cute idea and I love that I thought I meant
that is that is attention to detail you didn't have to do that show but it's really cute so yeah but the first thing we learn is in the show
that the other sports are super expensive it's funny how 11 million yen is rightfully considered big bucks by a small team like Komaki Motors but in our from Bell so re so it's like that sheep for Motorsports
we spent more if we were allowed to but F4 has very strict conditions and budgets are capped so that it can be only that can be an equal opportunity leak
and instead so they put extra money into developing talent to drive because there's no cap on the cost for that and like it shows this huge gap between the way of thinking and resources of some of these teams
and that of course also offers one of the main problems in the beginning of the show where Koya wants to become a sponsor for the team but of course doesn't have enough dough
I mean do you have 70 thousand dollars laying around no there you go yeah so he tries to recruit company sponsors but the bigger companies don't jump for it
and he apologizes for it to Haru for putting him on the spot and says he's always going off like a roller coaster once he gets invested in something
that apparently also drove his wife mad I can totally see that like Koya is a good guy but he is sometimes just doesn't think he goes a mile a minute and he doesn't consider the consequences
yeah he's sometimes also in considerate and he's not thoughtful enough and we get there's another instance of that that leads to the has kind of like this chain reaction thing going on
and because he just didn't didn't pay attention to what he was doing so but yeah he says here it's he was slowed down and really understand the team and sport and not barging anymore like a total amateur
which has wrapped Haru very obviously the wrong way considering their interactions until that point and then he can immediately goes back on that promise once he realizes that it's like oh wait we can ask local shop owners
for maybe a little sponsorship funds at revenue whatever so he's a bit of a yeah a bit of a I don't know wavy person I don't know what the right word is
was she was she yeah a bit of that I'm not going to do that thing I'm going to do that thing yes and I mean you know that one gift of Tyler the creator going well that was a lie
yeah but you know it's fine because they still could use more money regardless so what do a does he and Haru do or what do they have to do they go around the neighborhood and try to procure
at support from local stores and I mean it was like oh this is just gonna come back later and it kind of does so that's cool
like he also gets a race man hero sticker from a kid who is interested in because he's a racer a racer after that kid asks how if he has ever finished first boundaries that is a very personal question but yeah
yeah the show has a lot of heart and you know that sticker is the first one that actually goes on their plane wide racing car so that was a cute thing
and just like Koya who gets very much pulled into this racing world by Haru's driving Haru also gets slowly enthralled by Koya's enthusiasm he finds out that it's very nice
aside from your family of course having people that see the best in you and believe in you especially when you're doubting yourself which Haru definitely does for several reasons
and it's cool like you immediately see oh okay that's one of the things that Haru needed in this life like this this random person who suddenly is like I love what you're doing and I believe in you and I think you can do it
and so on and yeah so that kind of changes this attitude towards Koya towards you know the whole thing basically and I guess racing and everything else
but yeah first day you know have some obstacles to overcome still like this is nice but also darkly funny moment where what I was talking about earlier Koya accidentally
he didn't want to do that but he just didn't pay attention when he sent his editor his ex-wife the material he shot that day on the track so he censored by accident the picture he took off Haru when he cried
and Haru wasn't all was already not happy with a picture of him crying being taken but now I see this and it's like this this fun darkly funny moment of her seeing the picture of crying Haru and like just brightening up
who were just you know because of course she immediately recognizes Koya's old passion and talent returning in this picture but it's also incredibly funny that her reaction to a guy crying bitter tears of sorrow is getting the habit
Haru is getting the happiest smile like that's a weird reaction to have like just out of context and it gets even worse because of that picture so I get somewhat interested in shooting a commercial with Haru
and that picture actually makes it in a commercial and yeah Haru is really mad at Koya for that for quite a while so that's funny like the show has also a lot of humor in it
and I enjoyed it a lot like there are really a lot of funny bits I think most of those kind of related to the interaction between Kota and Haru or Kota and his dad and everything like he's the fun the comedic relief character from multiple reasons
so that's interesting but we also learn an interesting tip bit during the the interview apparently wanted to become a racer like his dad is only half of Haru's motivation
the other half as we later learn is that he has only been on the podium together with this dad and he wants to make it on his own like he wants to see the same view but like do it by himself without the help of basically you know of course your pit crew and everything but you know he wants to drive basically there to the podium himself
and when see if he likes the view and he wants to become pro and everything let's just do it just you know with his own capabilities and everything
of course and the other half is of course he admires his dad but yeah meanwhile the bell so serious so guys are just like I want to win and I'm just following orders but there's also they're also bring kids to that
and yeah we talked about to she before like we had this collision with with Haru and what made him become second driver next to Satsuki and not first even though he's faster
and that you know the attitude of him standing in his own way and getting very very angry and impatient and everything and thought had it is also what loses him in his position to Haru in the first big race of the show
you know the first one that we see in the first episode is nice but it's very short and everything and it's kind of like only this introduction to this world to us there's also a lot of expository dialogue that explains the mechanics of a four racing to us
who people might not be familiar with that particularly your brand of motorsports or motorsports in general so you know you can't really focus that much on the race but then we get this first big race
what episode is it for five I'm not sure a pre-church five yeah yeah and that race is exhilarating to watch like the CG cars look good good although a bit too much like they're running on tracks but whatever
you know that's sort of a hard balance just right with that but I thought the the race and the find so yeah absolutely and we have a great active camera like lots of zoom in and out Cooper perspective shifts cool tracking shots
they're really doing a lot to make the most of the CG cars and CG environments and to make the race you feel the most dynamic it can look it definitely looks more dynamic than
you know when you look alive from your one race or something like that because the camera can there can only do so much so I I mean I think I think some racers will have like a cockpit camera but you don't see that too often I mean most of them do these days I think and depending on where you watch it you can actually decide which camera you want to see the race from
but you know I feel like having a really scripted kind of camera shift in this where it's like really focusing on you know where the action is and everything is still something entirely different
like it's it's directed right live race is not really directed I mean to an extent because you still have you know camera man making sensible decision and stuff like that camera people
so it's like all right yeah this can definitely be interesting dynamic dynamic camera camera perspective in there but I feel like in a show like in a fictional show and everything and especially in anime where you have even more freedom when it comes to camera movement and everything
that still makes the scene seems to be more dynamic like you have really the camera turning around like the angle turning around sometimes going on its head and everything so
yeah it really they really make the most use of that to make the races feel really cool there actually not that many actual races in the show surprisingly
like I said the focus is more on the character development and drama and in the comedy I guess but the races are kind of like you know we have a bunch of qualifying and then you know some flashbacks and so on and you know the whole setting is the racing world
the actual racing it's not like something like high q where it's all building up to a game every other episode or something it's not really the case here like there are a lot of episodes that don't have any racing and then really
or not much like maybe two minutes or something so yeah I mean I think it also kind of helps to show that there's a lot more prep work in motor sports then you know
like for like you said hi q you could just jump on the court and play a game here you have to gather all of the pit crew that's that the other thing you have to do your repairs between races so it gives the show the ability to have these really strong character driven moments in between
yes and it shows you that there like you said there's more to this than just the races lots goes into preparation lot goes into strategy like that what's a nice spotlight on that as well how much does this sport is
or aligned on the right strategy which driver from your team should be in front when do you make your play a passing someone risk versus reward in a later race in the rain it's all about which tires to use is pretty engaging when to
refuel doesn't seem to play a part in here but also maybe the four races just don't run long enough for that to factor into it I know that's that I'm not sure about I
in if one it definitely is right like do you do you still go one more round without because you lighter when you the cars lighter when you when you don't have as much fuel in the tank so maybe you make use it to your advantage or should you maybe
fuel now is now so that's also a big big part of the tactics in that sport so we don't see that here but we don't be going to the other stuff with the tires and everything and you know positioning and all that stuff so that's cool as
absolutely absolutely cool the show does a good job of introducing you to the world like spending enough time in there and showing you all the different aspects of it so making this sport look attractive which I
pretty sure it was partially funded by Japan for leak or something well you can see all the real world brands and stuff throughout different episodes I was like yeah they got their
sponsorship so yeah there's this moment I talked about before where like Haru gets really mad for for his photo being used kind of without his permission the commercial especially you know
the moment that is he maybe is not too proud of but I feel like people should empathize more with him for being mad which not of them not a lot of them really kind of do yeah which I put that yeah it was a very personal moment that
could I took a picture of without asking for his first if that would be okay and then he sent us boss the photo without intending to but it doesn't make necessarily make it
better like pay attention dummy yes that's a good things of course because they got the sponsorship for what was called music army or something the you know the water company or what it was that puts their brand on the on their car for what
but it's also very rude because you keep that shit yeah and to be fair kuiya apologizes a lot for it but it doesn't help that he and satiq wrap in the fact that how we
cried because he lost so much like every every time he hears you lost it's like a like an arrow to his heart and and I can understand that and it's like hey maybe pay attention to that and we later
learn something of course about kuiya or it's like okay we we understand why he feels especially sorry for that but also maybe because he had that past
experience maybe he should have paid more attention to what he was doing when he sent the photos out and stuff like that so one of the most
intergal key plot points of the show is like that kuiya doesn't take pictures of humans anymore because of an assignment a while ago where he was sent to an earthquake zone and something happened there he took a picture
and that picture kind of led to an outrage and we are meant to believe that that is the thing like that outrage was what like let him fall into depression or whatever he was stopped him from taking pictures of humans of people
and there is kind of like this disconnection in terms of being afraid of certain things to harrow here as well like harrow says that he is still afraid that he is the one pushing his dad too much by cheering him on all the time
and thus being apart in his father's accident you know he also thinks people cheer more for themselves because it gives him good feel to be there for someone
you know harrow chews his dad because he wanted to stand on the podium with his dad again but that is not necessarily a bad thing
also you were just a little kid dude cut yourself some slack yeah the fit I feel bad for you harrow but come on yeah that wasn't on you
yeah exactly I mean he like it realizes that but it's one of the things that is one of his hold I've said like his chip on his shoulder like that
that constantly is in the back of his head and the same is with koja something about what he experienced in that earthquake zone
is always in the back of his mind and is stopping him from you know going forward with the stuff he likes and or returning to the stuff he likes and doing what he really likes
which is you know taking good pictures of people I guess so harrow says that in terms of people cheer for each other and everything he says koja is a bit different for him
like he he doesn't go into details but he seems to either feel a genuine desire to support him from koja or just a connection between them in regards to their past experiences and regrets
so that's nice they form like this kind of deep connection this is great emotional moment when they visit harrow's family grave and he tells his dad that he will be on the podium one day and koja will take his picture when he gets there
so koja actually made harrow believe in himself says like hey I'm gonna be on this podium so harrow does the same for koja here
like kind of a belief in the one who believes in you situation is like I believe you will be the one who take who will take the picture when I'll be on the podium by myself for the first time
like achieving it on my own so it was a very nice moment we we get like this this small intersection story that doesn't really have to do with anything
is that we get a bit of character development between our like three rival satsuki and to shish and and harrow where it's like this 10 kilometer run
uh which is like the nice way to have the characters interact in for them unusual situation like outside of the racing world
and I also totally empathize with koja here I hate running these knees were not made for it
and it's so boring not in the show though like we get some nice interaction between koja and alas where we learn more about her dedication to being a grid girl
although when it comes to her diet she's just as you know unreliable as koja is with his stuff
uh uh but yeah we learned some interesting stuff about satsuki like he's always so cheerful because he thinks that attracts good luck
which he deems one of the most important factors in winning a race and we learned that in apparently was you know the the team owner of bolserisa
uh the team owner of bolserisa was on the same team back in the day with futoshi and with haru's dad so there's a connection there as well
we know that there were friends before or acquaintances but we didn't know that that kind of history
so it was interesting um and there's this nice moment as the end of the race where when haru gets hugged by futoshi for winning him a bit of eel
not sticking the rest and koja takes a picture which feels like this is the turning point feels like oh now he can
he can actually take pictures of people again but you know that then is kind of um a bit put a stop to in the next race
which takes in the which takes place in the rain and this there's a crash one of the characters is getting hurt
and uh yeah so that kind of puts a dampener on and makes koja pull back again a bit
and you know haru then seeking him out and trying to find what is going on and damn having like this
this little this little interaction uh or multiple interaction in different locations and uh doing some stuff in another town
you know the kumaki also loses the sponsors sponsorship because the company wants to distance themselves from koja
after getting complaints about his past a photograph a scandal and whatever
and all of that figures into kind of like the the pre climax of the show where koja and uh haru like do a bit of soul searching
I guess mostly koja in the town where that earthquake happened and where you know whatever koja experience which we learned
like the whole backstory of what actually happened and uh him finally coming to grip with that and uh having a resolution to that
and him overcoming his curse so to speak so that's that's probably the most from character uh uh aspect
uh character perspective one of the most important moments in the show
and one of the most emotional ones too like there's this this kind of like uh end point to this where he gets re-equainted with uh with with someone he met that day
and uh after not seeing him for a long time and it's very tear filled and i got i watered my eyes as well in that moment and uh it was really good
i assume you felt the same about about these moments yeah it was it was a really good moment
i i kind of like that the show doesn't give us a definitive answer if it was a good or bad thing that koja took
uh the picture he took that led to the outrage um during you know the uh the earthquake situation there
uh it's like we we they're people who are definitely on his side who's like kota who when he learns the truth he's definitely like
no koja didn't do anything wrong right fuck all the other people who uh who tried to to gaslight him or whatever
right but but you know there's also some characters that's like yeah well it's not that easy uh it's a bit more complicated than that
i feel like the show never completely absolves him but it definitely shows us why he did what he did
and i feel like his reasoning for what why he did what he did was very understandable and a lot of that in my opinion
a lot of the outrage is related to people literally not seeing the whole picture not knowing why he did took the picture
why he did what he did and then making their own assumptions and he not acknowledges that he's like hey
a picture can only take what that particular moment in time it can only depict that and everything
that happened before and after that you don't know uh we might not know like this this real life context
is like you refers to another famous photograph of famous photographer that like uh sparked anti-war
protests all around the world and it's less like there was more context to that picture that people didn't
know about and it's the same for his picture on on the face of it is it seems like a really bad situation
and you weren't like holy shit that that seems not you probably shouldn't have done this and then
you learn the truth about this and you learn why how that came to be and why he decided to publish it
which is the other part of that even after you know okay I now get why the picture was taken and that
seemed that okay it's fine and I get but why did he publish it right like that there's another part
of the story that seems to be more more more morally objectable so but but then we also know why he
did that and you're like oh okay no I also see your point there you wanted people not to forget about
that specific moment and time especially not the people who were there especially one specific person
who also wanted to people not forget about that and he kind of did it for that person and for
himself because he thought hey if I put that picture out there it might help me overcome the grief
I felt since then and the depression and the fear and uh it kind of did the opposite which is
the tragedy of it all right it made it worse but you understand why he actually felt like he had to
put a picture out there because he wanted to fear to share that grief to share that regret to share
that that horror with the people because he couldn't bear it on it on his own and uh yeah people
didn't want to share it they they took it the wrong way and you feel sorry for him that that is the
way but you totally understand why when they get to it when they finally put a bow on that you
understand why he did what he did and at that point I was like okay I see why you did it I totally
understand the strong emotion that that picture elicit it and I also understand your attitude towards
it and I feel like the show doesn't necessarily say hey this was this morally correct decision this
was the morally wrong decision but it gives us enough information about the situation that I feel
like I as a viewer from my own could say like yeah I'm okay with him having taken that picture I see
why he did that uh how did you feel about the whole thing I mean I I mean I agree with you on that
like because I think trying to take a story like this kind of like uh when Koei was telling Haruka
about that famous photo where you know I think he says basically the camera only shows so much yeah
that in this you know this situation that's pushed on us with uh Koei's photo it's like it doesn't
make sense to tell the viewer this is how you should feel about it I think the way they presented it
was the sensible way to be like okay this was the situation this is what he did you you make your own
decision on it and it's and I feel like it's way stronger for it yes it's it it puts the decision
in your hands it doesn't say oh well no no I think that would it would have been really heavy
handed today yes and I mean some people might disagree with that because it's leading towards the
absorbments parts and the end there right but he's he only gets absorbed by the person that matters
to him right the other people around him still are like fuck you right in in that room they're like they
want him out of there absolute destiny but the only people he kind of cares about in that situation is
that one person from back in the day and Haru who are with him there and they are like they are okay
with it and it's like no please keep doing your job we understand do great photographs like of people
and that's all that matters kind of like to him he's like okay I I can bear the ill will of the other
people who are not okay with this I still think I made the right decision here right for me and
for the people that I care about so that's okay it doesn't like I said the show doesn't
necessarily say that that is the right decision and that's up to you like maybe if you watch this and
you get the reveal like no I still think he did a shitty thing and that's totally valid as well in
my opinion it's like hey if you think that was that was bad on his part and the show definitely
sets him up in a way way way you can be like no that is also kind of his character because he's he
is a bit irresponsible he is a bit very impulsive yes he's very impulsive a lot of what he does is
is like rooted in pure impulse and that can lead to bad things so if you say like no I totally
don't agree with that I think he was a bad person for publishing that picture can totally see it
so that's interesting that's really good that we kind of have a show where you don't have these
black and white stances it's like no this is this kind of a gray area thing and I think the same thing
they do in a smaller version with the picture of he takes a faru right that leads kind of he didn't
pay attention he was irresponsible and the picture got used in a commercial without Haru's
agreement but it led to them having you know for a while a good sponsor and for Haru to being able to do
what he loves better and that's also a good thing that part anyway the other part you know him
his photo getting used without permission is a bad part so that's also kind of like it's not
good or bad necessarily it's somewhere in the middle and depending on how you look at it you might
say okay it's more going towards the bad part or more going towards the good part but they're good
and bad aspects to both of these situations and that's really nice I like that the show like doesn't
make it that easy on you and like dictates you to you what what you should feel about that
and it does to win love characters I mean it's also easy to disagree with a show's message that
wants to tell you one thing versus another but again I think this way the way it was done here
or actually works yeah yeah absolutely yeah and that's kind of the big like I said character
development thing and so I mean we still have some leftover stuff you know there's still one big
race to be driven and something and you know the the rival chip between Satsuki Haru and Toshi has to
come to a to a great climax and so on and of course we get some more character development there I guess
especially for Toshi like he has his main art completion in the very final race I guess where he
basically he he he doesn't stand in his own way anymore that's pretty good and you know of course
Haru does does this thing to go there I mean there's not that much thing happening to him after he
has like the scene I mean in terms of character development and overcoming his own regrets after the
scene at the grave I guess there's still a bit here and there was like especially when it comes to
his his relationship to Koya and you know apologizing to to Koya and being harsh to him and everything
and you know he still grows as a person but at a certain point it's mostly like hey how do we get
that kid on the podium right so that's the rest of his arc for for this show so yeah that's cool I
think I liked all of these a bunch of sympathetic characters even the guys who in the beginning
feel a bit like dipshit you know from the rival team even Satsuki is like he's one of those guys who
is always chipper and you know doesn't really pay attention to if he's hurting other people what
he's saying what he's just like fronting all the time trying to be a super cheerful so because he
believes in luck being a main factor in a race and he thinks if he is always cheerful and good
nature then he will do better in a race and stuff like that and that doesn't necessarily work out
as good say he seems to sort of be aware of his own attitude but then when it sort of doesn't
work out for him I'm not certain he really changes that much well he does in in a way like he
he is kind of he at some point he is kind of in this slump where he feels like oh wait what
my beliefs that I had before they didn't work out from here I guess I wasn't lucky enough or whatever
so maybe I should just give up or you know stuff like that so but then like I said there's this
pivotal moment between him and Alice and that turns him around and everything of course doesn't
characterize he still stays the same shipper guy but there's something different to how he
approaches his craft and he's racing and everything now then there was before so you know he puts
the work in at that moment at from that point on and that is a bit of a different attitude than he
had before so yeah different team dynamic as well with him and Toshi and that's all pretty neat
and you know at the end like we have this kind of super-fueled episode like good vibes all around like
there's there's so much good vibes in the final episode like uh I don't even want to go
into take that away from from people who view this who watch this but yeah it's a bunch of
awe moments in the final episode like to be enjoyable I think the only thing that I felt like was a
bit sad but it's always the case with shows with with mailed sports focused anime is that
I don't know the development of the Femek characters is kind of a bit slim like yeah I mean Alice is
there yes I mean her part in the show is not about her own story and development at all she's
just a companion piece to Sasaki really I'm kind of used to this by now like I said with mailed
sports focused anime but it's still kind of a shame that the show doesn't give her more to do then
support for the development of one of the main side a male side characters saying can be said for
psycho who of course is there to you know give us some background on koja and then you know him
finding back to his old self and her reacting to that but it's it never feels like she has in
super integral part to play aside from getting him the job or whatever right and then you know giving
us a bit of exposition on what happened with in certain stages of his life or whatever so she's
they're both cool characters they're fun they're sympathetic but I feel like I wish they had maybe
as much of a big part in some of this as you know some of the other characters like toji do
right so but that's just it could be worse it could be Captain Tsubasa where like the female
characters are basically only there to swoon over Tsubasa and I guess Alice is that for Sasaki but
you know size at least psycho is a bit of a different beast here so we don't have something
like that in Captain Tsubasa I guess as a sciaco is at least there to keep koja on track as it were
yes and it's two it's two kind of prominently featured female characters in this show they're in a lot
of the scenes so at least the show isn't a complete sausage fest so that's nice that's that's good
so I enjoyed that but it was like this one of this more the sprinkles where I was like eh maybe
could have done a bit more with these two but also again this shows only 12 episodes so get only
so much time for these characters and these two are not racing so of course you have to give the
main focus even though the racing I guess is not that much in it but if you want to focus on that as well
you have to also give enough screen time to the rival characters and not make them feel too flat and
be like this one note haha I'm just gonna beat the main character at racing people so which they are
not absolutely not there is definitely depth to these two characters and to the whole team and
everything both teams but yeah great little series I would say John yeah for sure I definitely enjoyed
it yeah a bunch of sympathetic and better written characters good music especially like the
acoustic rendition of the OP that we hear like the the main theme the light motif I don't know
that we hear through the a lot of the emotional moments in the show great visuals riveting racing
action emotional and engaging character drama and development which you don't necessarily get from
all sports anime but from definitely from the good ones and this is one of those it's just a super
fun package and it's easily digestible like I said there's only 12 episodes you're like in and out
it's quick it's a nice self-contained story and it's an anime original right it's not based on a manga
I think yeah so yeah it's just there if you are into this kind of stuff like if you are into sports anime
or if you are into car racing cars or if you are into good develop well-written characters good character
drama definitely check this out where can people check it out John you know before I say so I was
never really super all about racing I kind of got a little more invested in it because at my previous
job one of the guys I worked with did some racing I think it may have actually been for I don't remember
but every swathen he would just say take a weekend or a few days off and you would fly off and
go do some racing and one of the races is actually broadcast online to watch which was pretty cool
but yeah so this was a really great story and if you want to check it out it's on crunchy roll
and as far as I can tell it's pretty much the place to watch it so definitely get this
get this a shot like cc says it's a quick watch and it's just really generally enjoyable all around
and that is a wrap on the 150 second episode of anime brain freeze all the music in this podcast is
from the double dragon neon soundtrack by the amazing tech government. Let's go to vrt.bentcamp.com
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Next time on anime brain freeze. The zombie apocalypse is pretty bad but it could be worse
it could be work and a would be vacation on a cruise liner is fraught with spies assassins and danger.
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