[Music]
Hello and welcome to an all new episode of Anime Breweries. We are your bloodsucking
automaton hosts. I am John and I'm CC. When there's just too much cool anime to watch,
we've got you covered. Today we unleash our content creator,
souls to give you our individual versions of the robot apocalypse. First, I will talk about the
Fantasy comedy Mayonaka Punch that pits a bunch of vampires against the mightiest of foes,
the YouTube algorithm. Then John will show once again that he's the bravest of us all and dip his
toe once again into the cesspit that our video game to anime adaptions is time to review a
rather promising entry near Automata version 1.1A. Finally, I will time travel to the past to revive
a franchise that hasn't seen a really good entry in forever by reviewing the Netflix series Terminator 0.
Grab your selfie sticks and video game consoles because what else do you really need to brave the
nearing end of the world and definitely don't pause the pot, we'll be right back.
[Music]
Masaki's career on YouTube and so probably when the hype sisters decide to kick her out of their
group during a live stream. With her bad reputation Masaki has a slim chance of returning to popularity
with a solo channel and she is plagued by comments of hate. Masaki soon meets Lever, a vampire who
just woke up from her slumber in which she dreamt of Masaki and developed an obsession with her.
Leaving this discovery will be the next internet sensation Masaki forms a pact with Lever.
An exchange for Masaki's blood Lever will help her reach the milestone of a million subscribers.
Now with the other vampires and Lever's house on board with Masaki's ambitious plan
she and Lever work together to film videos and restore her to career glory.
Mayona Kapanch is an original anime series that ran for 12 episodes. There is also Lightenov,
and Manga Adaption with the Manga Adaption still running. The show is produced and animated by one
of our returning favorite studios, PA Works, and staff wise it reunites some of the people responsible
for one of the reason PA Works series that Yu-Juan reviewed and were very fond of Ya Boy Kong Ming.
We have the director Xu Hanma who also directed that series composition and some of the scripts
are done by Hideyaki Shira Sabah who also did a number of scripts for Ya Boy Kong Ming.
The other two writers, Sihiru Murjisuki and Yumi Susumori also worked on stuff like Umayuro and
Komi can communicate. The art director is Yuki Maeda who was responsible for a lot of the background
art and shows like Jujutsu Kaizen, Fate Zero, Psychoplas and Steinscape. And among the animation directors
and key animators we also have a bunch of Ya Boy Kong Ming people. So with the credits already out of the
way, the staff credits, what is this show actually about? The summary sound simple enough, we have this
YouTuber, sorry, YouTuber Masaki, she's in this group called The Hypesys who are like these three
girls who do random videos of stuff and then get reactions out of that being cute. And the problem is
about this whole show and my experience with it is I don't know much about Japan's YouTuber culture
and how it compares to American YouTuber culture and what like the main focuses of a lot of the
videos, especially of the videos done by women and stuff like that or women groups. So this was all
very new to me and how it works and everything. But the setup of this is Masaki is being thrown out of
the group live during a stream because apparently she punched one of the girls, one of the other two
girls from Hypesys because she got angry at her and something like that. And now they're using it.
But also I'm not sure if that wasn't like staged to get views and now they're using that to kick
her out of the group because they don't like her controlling nature. I feel like the show makes that
never super clear. It makes clear that Masaki is very hot-headed in certain cases and likes to punch
people if they really annoy her. So this could just be, have been a thing out of effect and whatever
like where she just did it. But also I'm not sure if because she has like this sometimes very
new to Chris and extravagan ideas about how to raise fewer numbers and stuff like that and do
something outrageous. So that would also have fitted into that. So I'm not quite sure what actually
happened here. I feel like the show could have been a bit clear on that. But anyway, so she punched
one of the girls and they used that to throw her out and she of course gets a lot of hate from
the comments, you know, because you know the fan base about these kind of parasocial
tainted channels, content creators, whatever they can have like really die-hard friends who
immediately go against you if you go against the standard frame or hurt maybe sort of the people,
some of your favorite people or whatever. A lot of people online get a very rabbit fan base.
So the case here and I mean in this case it as well it was kind the reactions kind of justified because
just go out and punch one of your teammates quote-unquote that the comments can get angry at that the
problem is it doesn't stop. Like Masaki gets constantly docked piled when she tries to start a new solo
channel and when she tries to find new people to work with like the solo channel immediately when
she tries going for it, she gets a bunch of bad like troll comments and hate comments and
in the show interestingly these manifest in like these smoky black clouds of letters that jump
out of the screen and starts whirling around Masaki's head, right? Like it's this dark force that is
that is taking her captive and like strangling her and she starts to get very, she starts having a lot
of issues with actually going forward and doing stuff herself and that plays into what happens later.
So this top pick of her being really damaged through this experience and through this constant
dock piling is really well conveyed in the show because you always get to the point where she tries
to make a step forward in a certain direction and maybe tries to get in front of the camera again
and stuff like that and then she is like back paddling because she just immediately only sees the
bad comments. Like there might be a bunch of good comments on stuff she makes like later videos of the
girls with the vampire girls too but a lot of that she doesn't see she only sees the one bad comment
and that haunts her and she just focuses on that and I imagine that is a very real experience
of content creators out there. It's like only the bad people who would scream the loudest matter to you
and that is exactly what happens to Masaki and it's kind of heartbreaking to see that because she has
a she is not perfect and I'll get to that because I love that about the show but deep down she seems
to be a pretty cool person and you don't want to see her just her livelihood and her passion and
everything like being completely ruined by people who really don't know that much about her only
know her online persona. So yeah that was really interesting, interesting setup and yeah then she tries
to find some new members and of course to DD she has this kind of round of job interviews and then
only like these this wide array of trolls opportunists like who try to do a video themselves like
hey I actually made through the jump interview of the infamous internet personality Masaki
what do you have to say about the fallout of what happened late and stuff like that right
and then some weirdos and like nothing nothing nothing of value was gained from these job interviews
so she's almost at the place of like giving up she gets super drunk at a bar which is also something
which media sticks out about the show does not just show about some high school girls trying to
make it because a youtube star she is in her 20s, 20s something and that counts for all the people
in the show some some of them of course even older and of course I always appreciate that like if
we get out of the you know standard standard age range for a lot of animated are being produced
these days and this felt more like oh still far away from my current age but it's like okay she's
already like into real life with both of her feet and she's trying to make it and stuff like that
and you know now there are some roadblocks so that was interesting so yeah she gets drunk at a bar
and then on her way home she's almost across this, she's almost over abandoned hospital
and she remembers that that was one of the first videos she did with her two friends that she
created the Hypsis with and she's like yeah maybe I need to go back to basics and
goes into the hospital starts doing a video oh it was like the spooky abandoned hospital let's do
a cool video about that and who else would she run into but a real-life vampire and that vampire is
Livea who is like I don't I would have called her life because that's how her name is spelled but
everyone shows called her Livea so I guess it's that so Livea is this I don't even know how old she is
supposed to be, I think several hundred years or even older, she's at least the oldest out of her
group, yeah Hiko is I think only one hundred years old and we get to her but Livea is only only one hundred
yes yes she's the typical one hundred year old vampire lowly character but thankfully no
ache in this show in that regard so that was a very welcome change but yeah Livea is I think several
thousand years old or something like that so but she has been sleeping for 20 years like for the past
20 20 years and she just before waking up she dreams about a girl that says hey you can
have you can you can make a meal out of me you can drink my blood and
then Livea is like oh my god yes I won't do that and then in real life she turns around in bed
and her hand lies right where the window is and there's sun so of course her hand catches fire
and she wakes up yeah there's a lot of slapstick in this show and that is one of the cases where this
happened and then she wakes up and she's like okay what has been happening for the last 20 years
and the only vampire that is currently around which is Hiko who is kind of doing has kind of like
the made responsibility I guess in the house she's cooking she's guess cleaning and she's trying to
keep things in order the problem is Hiko was turned into a vampire when she was a child
and she has retained a lot of let's say that simple world view that a child has
I don't know if it's a problem of her brain not being fully developed but let's say she's not the
smartest of the bunch no no and oh no well you know you have to pay the bills and everything for food
and stuff and the way away Hiko tried to do that is she invested in two stocks
getting advice from YouTube videos for that and so of course the best place to get advice
of course she's now severely into debt and they have like blow chucks whatever the hammering at their
doors every every day which I guess vampires don't have that much of problem with but they have
money trouble so that is important for the setup because Hiko did some bit stock trading she was
meaning well but you know she didn't figure it out so that's kind of fun and yeah then Hiko shows
leave her some YouTube videos because since liva has been sleeping for 20 years she doesn't know what a
fucking smartphone is she doesn't know what fucking YouTube is and she just shows that and how
what else should happen just in the also recommended section of that stock video for whatever there's
a video of of masaki and leave a see sir in the video and she's like holy shit that's the girl from
my dream I need to find her I want to drink her blood and of course blood drinking the blood in this case
is just a thinly veiled metaphor for you know what right she wants she wants to do the dirty need
and also she is falling head over heels for that girl and leave us like I need to find that woman
and of course as fate will sit they ran into each other in said hospital and that's where the story
begins after a quick chase it's like masaki almost falls off the roof leave a catcher they have a short
flight masaki is immediately mesmerized by the world of the vampires and immediately see immediately
sees an opportunity to create some truly unique videos and thus she asks liva to start in her views
and if they hit one million subs liva can make a meal of masaki drink her blood actually the way she
says is you can you can drain me dry or something like that it's like a yo bone dry a yo
so that is really interesting like the show like I said the show doesn't hide doesn't really hide what
the drinking blood stuff stands for in this case which is true because they're vampires and you know
that's how they maybe can get around over around a higher age rating for some of the stuff that is
happening in the show I guess especially or at least considering how much liva is kind of you know
lasting for masaki she's it's not it's not super pervy like anything but you know some of the stuff
that is being said and how she is really all about masaki in a lot of ways I don't know if they were
talking about sex or love or whatever maybe that would be a bit more of a problem I have no idea
but yeah they use drinking blood which apparently is not as much of a problem
so there you go so um the wise person once said I have known writers who you subtext
and they're all cowards yes but yeah then they start like hanging out and of course there's some other
vampires uh iichiko are already mentioned there is also food is like this uh very um bashful
vampire girl who is who seems to be like she's on board with a lot of this stuff and she's interested
but like i said she's very bashful and she's like uh i don't know about this and also we later find
out she has some hidden interest and music and stuff like that and that's cool that's actually one
of the best episodes in the show where we learn her background like all the backgrounds of the
of the girls are kind of cool some more than others her's is definitely the best it's probably the best
episode in the show or one of the best and uh including the the two final episodes so yeah that
that was cool it's all about her and her old friend they try to start a music career but of course
food couldn't do that because she's a vampire and if you want to do an open air concert and brought
sunlight you have a problem so uh that going into that and the the kind of despair and depression
that resulted from food having to abandon her friend and having to realize that she can't have a normal
life like all the others because she's a vampire and then you know going on a little world drop to
New York of all places and seeking out her old friend you know that was a really sweet episode
kind of bittersweet uh due to certain reasons but also i really really like that episode so
who's a cool character she's very cute and she's uh she's interesting she seems to be the only girl
in the in the whole group who is actually really working like she's working part-time at the bar
of bathhouse so sometimes we also the scenery shifts there uh because she's just working there but
yeah she's pretty cool um then we got and we got Toka Ge who is like this a bit older lady who is
very much into gambling and uh has a giant rack and uh she lost Pachinko and she is like
immediately on board with the youtuber stuff because she's like money money money money money
money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money
and uh so she of course wants to get invested and wants to do her part and everything
the problem is she's an absolute slob which is fun this is actually one of the first uh video ideas
that Masaki has because Toka Ge's room is such a goddamn mess she's like okay we got to
marry condo that bitch we're gonna just go through this fucking room and maybe we find some hidden treasures
because these this garbage has been here for like at least a hundred years
it's like okay we're gonna take a make a video of that and maybe something interesting is gonna happen
so there's that ed aside from her money-grabbing antics Toka Ge is also pretty cool
and then the last character who is not that um present in like the first half of the show
is Yuki she's kind of the bus kill at first because she's like she's kind of like the watchdog
right she's like hey i'm here by order of big mother vampire like the the vampire that oversees all
of this to watch over you guys so you don't do any stupid stuff and of course she immediately
interferes when they stop making videos and she's like can't do any videos that show us using our
vampire powers because we don't want to go public like we won't don't want the world to know that
their vampires can't do that and Masaki has to destroy all of her videos that she made and has to
i mean she already in which was very smart when she makes the videos uh where they go flying and everything
and do like bunch of weird shit like surfing on the hood of a car and stuff like that which is all
not really dangerous for vampires but it looks cool if you think they're humans right uh she in all
of these videos she puts the notice in that these are special effects and please don't try this at
home so she kind of already accounts for that but that's not enough for Yuki and she says like no you
can't do that mother for bits it and uh so they have to find a way to work around that and but the
other girls are like hey we had so much fun doing these first couple of videos why don't we just do
normal human stuff but with us you know and that could be fun and Masaki after like a bit of
hesitation she's like yeah i can think of some things so before they did like i think they called it
they called their channel the choo cho girls uh because i think they were the one gimmick they had
were like all the activities they were doing they were chewing on these choo choo sticks
these sweet sweet sticks or whatever whatever they are i guess it's some kind of like a pixie sticks
yeah something like that but now they can't display that power anymore but they still want to make
videos so they so they decide to create a new channel and leave it comes up with the name the name
mayona ka punch mayona ka because vampires can only go out at night and punch because Masaki got
canceled because of the punch she threw and it abbreviates to myo pun so myobrat mayobrat
which is dumb fun so we got a hit name here folks and that becomes a new channel name and thus it's
also the name of the show of course and um yeah and then we go from here later Masaki also moves
into the house and uh yeah then they try to do videos and that's basically the whole show that
like happens in episode real four and then we just have a bunch of video ideas okay what am i
gonna do we we need to find some new stuff where masaki just throwing all things at the wall
that she thinks might be interesting and looks what tries to look what sticks
at not all of it does and she needs time some time to figure it out like i said because of the dog
piling after her fallout with the hype sister's masaki now suffers from imposter syndrome and
is worried her ideas and with shit and that all the success of her previous channel came from the
other girls so she tries to first of all she stays off camera for the entire time like even though
she kind of wants to be in front of the camera but now she doesn't want to anymore because she doesn't
trust herself that she's gonna fuck it up so she leaves it entirely to the girls and like i said
there are a bunch of positive comments on her first couple of videos with the vampires and she rakes
several 1000k view counts and rising but despite that she gets hugging up on every stray negative comment
describing the videos as boring and similar and of course this whole show is about her getting over
that that's kind of the main focus outside of having like this slice of lifey every new episode
this is stupid new video idea and we'll see what happens with crazy vampire and takes mixed into that
like there's this episode where the girls go to and do like this survive a weekend or a week on a
on a deserted island challenge and that is kind of not a big of a deal for vampires but then they
realize they left the blood bags at home and then everything comes becomes very desperate very
quickly and also very funny but yeah that's kind of like one of the stupid ideas masaki has and
again she throws everything at the wall while she's doing that and while we get more and more videos
ideas we also learn more and more about the characters of course i already talked about
who's background story we also get a bit of itchy cospecs around story while she is so invested in
having dinner together with the other girls even though vampires don't really need to eat but she's
like i want this half this as a social socializing event because you guys are my real family because i
you know lost my family when i was a kid and then i was turned into vampire i didn't really have that
and you guys are the first people i would consider family so this is very important to me and that
becomes a important plot point as a at some point in the show which was very nice but of course we
also learn a lot about masaki not so much about i guess leave her herself a bit at the end that
is very important but also not really super deep or anything i mean nothing about the show super
deep but like i feel like there's a bit more substance to some of the background stories of the other
girls but still what we learn about leaving in the in the end ends up being this nice full circle
moment with how the show is set up in the beginning and what we see in the beginning so that was
also very cool and on set of that the main focus is definitely on masaki like cheese of course the main
character this story is about her getting over the sump that her being cancelled and everything
matter fall into like falling into the spit of self-doubt of like i said imposter syndrome
suffering from that and also depression and only seeing the negativity and all the stuff
that she produces and everything and being way too strict versus self and also because of that being
strict with others we learn that making videos watching videos was the only thing that masaki got
masaki really interested in something in school and everything and it also made her find her too
i must assume best friends at that point who the she then created the hypothesis with because they
were also very much into video creation on youtube so that was a big part of her life it's not like
this just this fling right there's like i have a hobby and i would do no she's really really into
that and it feels like really important to her so of course when that kind of breaks away like this
foundation of course that would leave a big hole in her life and it's not so easy to fill that
even with like a cool group like the vampire ladies from um bonpai manner which their house is called
and uh it's really fun but yeah like i said in the beginning or most of the show she is
refraining from being on camera herself and is only producing for now because she's still got
the bad comments stuck in it also vampires are not supposed to associate with humans and leave
is a bit to the point that masaki not being an active part of the fun like she wants to spend as much
time active time with masaki because she obviously is fond of her she obviously loves her
love at first side kind of thing and she's like every time masaki is back paddling every time masaki is
leaving the uh in front of the camera experience to the other girls completely she's like oh man but
i wonder i wonder you were also part of this you're part of the school but i want you to be part of
this fun and not just holding the camera and editing the video and everything but you know it takes
some time for her to speak her mind on that what also liked is that the show is also interested in
like the technicalities like how how actually the the youtube stuff slash the youtube stuff works like
what what kind of work actually goes into that like editing the stuff doing good thumbnails
finding good ideas and you know using keywords and all that stuff it doesn't get super deep into it
because then it would probably drag but it gives like a very brief introduction how to create a new
a youtube channel upload a video it omits in certain parts how work intensive some of the steps
like editing can be but it even but it sometimes mentions that it's now more common if you can afford it
to actually employ an an an editor who edits the videos for you not do it yourself but masaki is
still doing all of that herself at this point she's she's very passionate about all of this all the parts
of the process sadly the new channel doesn't do nearly as well uh masaki tries a bunch of different
ideas but even though they make a lot of videos they don't even get to 10,000 views total
yeah so masaki goes into panic mode a bit but then the stuff with toka gay happens and that gets a
bit more hits and it's kind of adorable how much at least leave an echeco get into the whole thing
like echeco because she's so hyper she's the hyperactive kid coded character of the group who is
just having a lot of fun with it but leave her well also very bouncy and hyperactive is definitely
going in for masaki's sake she has quickly taken a shine to her outside of the whole gets to suck her
dry if the if she's if the succcees feel but yes it's really it's it's phrased like that in the show so
i'm not i'm not exaggerating yeah oh no i'm not saying i don't believe you it's just you say it's like
yes but yes and so the never ending hunt for content begins there's some generally good jokes in the
show you know aside from all the physical slapstick comedy there is this moment where they clean up like
i said toka gus room and echeco is like you have to probably separate the trash for recycling and the
others are like but you put plastic bottles with combustibles and then echeco is like ah but you see
when you burn plastic bottles due to the chemicals in the plastic the flame turns green so it's a green
initiative oh my god shut up that kind of cute me at that's not how it works echeco you stupid kid
but yeah it was really fun and we got a bunch of humor like that in the show so
good stuff i liked a lot of the jokes in the show they were really like that was several left out
well moments in this and the girl's dynamic is just good and that's also kind of a plot point
later you know they slowly crawl up the view ladder but after a while masaki teachers leave out to edit
but doesn't per uh doesn't per se let her try her own editing style and pacing her like her experience
gets the better for her and she becomes a bit of a despot she like demands excellence of at every step
because she demands that of herself as well you know mostly of herself which of course pieces of
leave it because she only wants to help and masaki has to learn a valuable lesson that sometimes the
best way to more subs is not having the perfectly streamlined scripted and edited videos but sometimes
letting her performers persona's breath letting some of their real identity and relationship shine
through in their interactions without cutting that out and that's what people attach themselves to
so don't always trim the videos into oblivion but go more with the flow and she also needs to realize
she can't and doesn't have to do all by herself that's what led her to breaking up with hype sis in the
first place and finally enough funnily enough that resonated very well with me because if you remember
in the beginning i want to do everything myself or show like the title cards the editing the publishing
which bird me out a bit and at some point you convinced me to let you handle at least the artwork
artwork which was a very good decision so hey i'm just trying to help release a little bit
yes i'm very grateful for it and i found something to relate to in this show because of that so
it was really really interesting and i always like if when there's like this personal note
personal note i could connect to in a show in general this has kind of a like the the whole show has
kind of a zombie landscape view to it like taking some well placed jabs at the profession it's focusing
on but also professing its love for it which was very much zombie landscape if that title work was for
you in that show it might be for you here of course there are no big music numbers to top it off at
least not in every episode i think we can like two episodes we actually have a musical number
but also no bad CG concerts so with some you lose them um but yeah that's what that's what the first
show i was thinking of when watching this was like oh this really feels like zombie landscape it's not
a mapper show but it definitely feels like paeos is going for the same vibe with this and i don't know
if your boy coming also try to go into the territory because it was also kind of going with like a
performer job right and going with the passion but also trying to remember what you said about it in
the yeah boy coming review it also regularly took a jab at some parts of that business too correct
oh yeah definitely took a book or a page out of uh right there was a song by a tribe called quest
and one of it says industry rule number four thousand and eighty record company people are shady
and definitely kong mean lean into that at least a little bit to show like yeah you know
oh keep this in mind everybody well i guess it worked out yeah but yeah uh what i also liked and i
mentioned this before is that everyone is very flawed in this show different ways um i mean most
of the vampire girls are so broad and over the top most of the time they feel like caricatures
but masaki has some grit to her the parts of her personality that lead to her falling out with the
other two hype cis shines through very often we also get an episode where she and the girls visit
her childhood home and it turns out she has been quite a shitty big sister to her baby sister Sakura
actually the worst and it's nice that the show is not afraid to show these rough edges on its main
girl while still managing to make her sympathetic regardless my opinion that made her feel more
like a real person which is quite a feat considering all the ridiculous nonsense happening to and
around her i mean you watch these kinds of shows you know cute girls doing cute things and also work
companies more which this kind of is more than me john so you can probably better speak to how often
the main girl is or isn't a little miskind and perfect and how often she is kind of more rough
when it comes to her characterization and being actually a very flawed personality i don't know
how many of the shows you watch actually have that kind of person in it i mean it kind of goes back
and forth on that so it it's not he constant i mean finally enough fruit brass fruits basket
a show we both love starts like that with tolu being presented as this perfectly nice girl who takes
care of everybody and then slowly realize oh no she's damaged almost beyond repair which affects
everyone around her negatively probably one of the many reasons why that show resonators are well
with me and why i love that very much and i feel there's a bit of that in here as well when it comes to
mosaic ewe's like the show doesn't though the show doesn't pretend anything like it did in
fruits basket it immediate test so here is this pretty problematic person hashtag problematic
with a temper big old temper and who is actually or has at least not been that great to some people
in her life because she you know she is just a personality problem but deep down she is actually
a cool person that's also kind of like the the exclamation mark at the very end of the show and how
all of the stuff about her and leaving everything like by the end falls together which i really
appreciate it i'm considering the rest of the show the final two episodes are actually quite
dramatic an action pack which is also nice kind of the epitome of the phrase well that escalated
quickly and we get this great climactic finale with a really satisfying finish which i kind of
didn't see coming from this show i expected this would just end and we're like hey we're gonna make
more videos and eventually we're gonna reach it reach the goal of one million subs but at some
point the show introduces a ticking clock because mother vampire is like hey you have to reach
one million subs until that and that date or the house that you demolished partially in one of
your previous video making endeavors will not be reconstructed and instead will be completely torn
down and you have masaki you have to leave and the others are going some other place
and so you know they're a bit of a bind i need to find quickly a way to rise more subscribers and they
do several different things some of which are very hilarious but you know and then by the end we get to
a very like whether so suddenly takes on a very different tone and it gets very serious and
dramatic and everything but it works and then yes like i said we end up on this really grateful circle
thing and it felt really fucking good like i really enjoyed it i'd have a head a tear in my eyes
in my left right even at some point i really really liked it and considering this is mostly a
gag show i like i said i did not expect that but yeah there was some really really good stuff in here
and yeah like i said i don't know how i create this show is to japanese youtuber culture since i
don't watch japanese youtubers i assume if you're into that scene you will find some even some more
stuff in here where it's like oh i get what they were referencing that is fun
i have like one japanese youtuber that i watch regularly so that's pretty much it for me
yeah but maybe even then you would get more out of this i don't i don't follow any japanese
youtubers i think i got some out of did and out of that and i got some reference and stuff stuff
as some stuff they talk about in regards to what the work is and how you do the job and everything
so that was interesting and like i said everything else that is not specifically tailored to that
and it's just comedy and everything just worked for me it's just like i said fun dynamic all the girls
are fun together masaki is very fun and interesting character and i think that this is an
absolute jaun show to be honest so i'm kind of curious why you didn't pick it up or why it did it
didn't jump on your radar or where you just completely packed with shows already and it wasn't
interesting enough to make you take a look at it because i feel like at least if you watch the first
maybe two episodes you would be couldn't immediately hooked with this because this seems like
it's playing completely in your ballpark so it was just interested why you didn't pick this one up
it just kind of passed me by i guess i don't know if there is anything more simple than that okay
well yeah that happens sometimes considering we just get pretty or something more new shows each
season but yeah this is one of those cases where it's like hey if you for one reason or another
half like hey i want to tackle my backlog again i i recommend you putting that in there because i
feel like that's kind of a show made for you it's like oh and in a lot of in a lot of episodes i was
like oh i would like this i think june would like this i think june would really like this so
yeah this this feels like it's has the right mix of humor of comedy of the girls being cute of some
nice uh i don't even want to call them tear jerky moments but some nice like emotional high point
moments like i said especially the finale and i feel like this is something and of course it's
pa work so it's very well animated it's a very pretty show um had to mention that of course
in our city with four us i said before i'll say it again they always throw themselves
full on into everything they do regardless of how weird it can sometimes be
and this is very that's a this is a very weird show like no it sounds like it worked so yes exactly so
yeah they they it's all the passion for this thing uh like oozes out of the screen uh the people
that were making that like it's so cartoony in certain parts it's so much fun it's so energetic
dynamic like there's so much fun banter in it and so many cool freaky fucking video ideas that they
try to realize and then something goes wrong and it makes it even funnier and more interesting and
stuff like that like yes it's it's a show you can binge very well it's a show that you can watch like
one episode each week very well it's just a lot of lot of fun good for winding down and just having
a good old laugh like the show worked really well for me i enjoyed it a lot i recommended to pretty much
everyone who is into comedy and who is into who maybe watches a lot of youtube videos and everything
definitely is for you and yeah check it out it's on crunchy roll and if you're in a slump suffering
from imposter syndrome and think the whole world is against you focus on the people that help you
enjoy the things you do either by doing them with you together or supporting your content and of course
most importantly of all fuck the trolls and haters
video games we like them
they're all right they're pretty good hey so what happens would you do an anime adaptation of a video
game usually nothing good i mean that's harsh how many video game adaptions have we talked about in
our podcast so it's a couple at this point right like what did we have some PSO stuff
yeah we had fantasy star online we technically had princess connect i guess yeah
which side note here side note there might be a new anime project
hey looking forward to that i mean i feel like at this point the cliche curse i mean we like to
joke about this but the cliche curse of anime adaptions or in general like screen adaptions
for video games it's not that prevalent anymore maybe it never was but it's like for every bad one you
also maybe get a decent one and it all depends on the source material and how well it translates
to the screen and of course it all it also depends on the people making it if they know why the
why the game is great and then actually think about how to translate that to the screen and not
are like just okay this is this is in the game and we put that on the screen and actually it doesn't
fucking matter because you didn't pick what was actually interesting about the game you didn't
pay attention so yeah near automata version 1.1a does things a little bit differently because
yoko taro who is you know probably i guess you could see it's like one of the main creative driving
forces behind like a draking guard and near and some other stuff and i know it's terrible to
ascribe this sort of thing to a single person but he a lot of this series has come out of his head
so you know obviously the work he did with like platinum and squaring x and you know the animation
team at a one pictures you know this kind of brought that all to bear because he did a lot of the writing
and rewriting for the anime more of an author character both in the game space and now in the anime
space then get maybe from some of the other people i mean excluding hideo kojima maybe uh
us but say i don't know if he's quite genius kowjombo but but he's he's got his own ideas and he's
willing to execute on how crazy they are yeah a lot of i guess a lot of the stuff that he puts into
the games actually manages to shine through and not get lost in this big worked on a lot of people
so maybe that's why people have been clinging to him being like the driving force because he
hindered a lot of the stuff that makes the games he is partially responsible for good and why they
like them and it sounds like that also worked its wonders on the anime apparently
yeah because um all right for those of you don't know uh near atonata is the sequel to
near replicant slash gistalt depending on which version of that first game you play um
the broad strokes uh overview of the story of otomata is in a post apocalyptic world overrun by alien
crafted machine life forms humanity is preparing for its last stand forced to retreat to the moon for
safety humans are pinning their hopes on a group of man-made androids known as yorha soldiers
led by the all-purpose battle android your high number two type b also known as to b
she's the one she's the girl yes the bug girl right uh yes sorry don't want to be reductery by
you know i yes that's that's what that's what a lot of the talk was about when the game came out
aside from hey this game has a really cool story and aesthetic and everything was like oh
look at that main characters cheeks it's not forget that tarot has said this is you can quote him
every single one of two these appearances is cannon for appearance in sole caliber six it's cannon
the grand blue fantasy oh that's cannon too shut up they're all cannon don't ask questions
very interesting i mean i i don't know much about otomata story i still still making my way to
replicate right now i wanted to get both games done before we recorded this episode because of
course of course that didn't go expect that that but i'm interested to see how this would work my guess
as multi-dimensional stuff you know multiverse whatever we'll see we'll see if that holds true
when i actually played the game i'm very interested to find out but um we'll see uh it's but it is
very funny that he is like outspoken about that and it's like no no no he is he is not needed a secret
it is and you know it's the best way to just explain it everything away i say well how is he
shut up it's cannon okay all right then yes uh led by the all purpose battle android to be
the group will fight to take control of the earth back from its invaders as war against the machines
rages on the yorhah slowly begin to see the first shards of truth underlying the brutal conflict
facing the harsh reality before her the unwavering warrior 2b starts to question her very
existence and just how much she must sacrifice for the sake of humanity thank you at mael rewrite
for that he's some dub way better than i could have because i would be bringing in outside knowledge
does is beyond that um so they split it across uh two two seasons two quarters um and the first season
is sort of a merger of the story routes from the game a and b
where a is 2b story and v is 9s 9s is also a yorhah android uh estonotes that he is a scanner type and he
does a lot of like gathering and analyzing of information is that reflected in the game place
there are difference between the two or um in gameplay 2b can carry two weapons like a light
weapon and a heavy weapon and 9s only has one weapon but he can hack enemies and they take control of
or like heavily damage them and there are certain like treasure boxes throughout the world that
on your first playthrough on route a you just can't open but you can hack them open on your
subsequent play interesting i assume this also kind of then plays into the enemies the enemy the
depiction of those characters yes but like i said what they did is in the game you play through
those two stories separately so but since the the pretty much happened concurrently it makes sense
in the show that they're sort of told at the same time and it worked and i think it works better
that way because if they ran through two b's have this story and then they were like oh turn the
clock back we're gonna do it again i probably would've been like mmm i don't know if it works that well
dudes so i think it's a lot better the way they did it there's a character and i'm going to
mostly for cc sake but also for the listener's sake not die too deep into spoilers but there are changes
that are apparently right away like in the game when to be a nines arrive on earth from the bunker
which is like this this orbital base that your hug gets deployed from when they arrive on earth
and they go to like this ruin city and they meet with the resistance leader in the game it's this
lead he named anemone and you know she's there she's leader of the base of operations down there
briefs them on the situation ask them to help out with do things but in the show
it's this character named lily lily's existence is touched upon in the game
because here's where we get to get into some weird stuff lily is a character from a stage play called
your hug version 1.05 and there's also a tie in manga called your hug pearl harbor descent record
and it's a title yes yes yes and things happen differently where
where one character ends up being the survivor of one but not the other
okay so it gets played out differently depending on whether you're seeing the game or watching the show
I mean this kind of fits with what the games are probably already doing I can only make
assumption because like I said I haven't played you know tomato but reppelican the thing about that
is if for people who don't know you already talked about the different routes
not only get you do you get different perspectives from the characters in the subsequent for
different characters subsequent playthroughs but that also a results in you getting different
perspectives on the story some reveals about the actual plot being like saved for later playthroughs
where it's like oh this was this this was what all this was about this is how this happened this is
how this happened and also if I'm not mistaken this changes some things already in the game change
in later playthroughs and you only get the real ending of the game at least that's how it works in
Reppelican and I assume that's how it works in your tomato after you've played through the game
four or five times not all parts you you don't have to play through the entire game from beginning
to end that's how at least not how it's is a near replicant I don't know how it is exactly
near automata like the second playthrough of near replicant starts in the second half of the game
and then you play through it again but you also get like John said some perspective from different
characters and that changes the pacing that changes the structure of the game a bit so yeah the
structure the high level overview of the structure in automata is that your first playthrough is as
to be that is your route a yeah your second playthrough is 9s that is your route b because a lot
faster because you're kind of moving along the plot points faster you everything that you have
like your gear your equipment your levels carry your money all carries over so you're spending less
time doing all the bat yeah and then C and D are additional plot C and D are weird because they're
kind of the same story thread but one is one branch right at the end and one is the other and
then after you see both of those branches then you can go to E and then you get like your quote
unquote true ending and then there's a whole mess of other joke endings beyond that F through Z
and delta so there's a lot yeah yeah yeah this weird time paradox endings and stuff like that I was
assumed but that meaning there's you know there are actually a bunch of different story paths through
this until you get to the weird thing hearing about them changing stuff for the NMA adoption sounded
to me like oh okay so this is just gonna be like either an alternate reality retelling of the story
or just like maybe the the final final true ending that is even set after the true ending of the
game so I assume it's one of those one once all the settings done I mean you don't have to give it away
but I assume that's where they're going with this or is it just another perspective on already
established things happening in the game from this new characters perspective uh well Lily
just kind of it feels like she sort of takes the place of an M&A up to a certain point because
she's she's talking to 2b like she knows her there's a reason for that but it's not it's not
apparent unless you have first played the game or you know what's going to happen later on because
there's someone else who factors into the story and I'm like we put that out there but there's
something else that happens much later on much deeper on and it's a lot of it's a lot it's a lot
that happens so would you say it is mandatory to play the game first because you would definitely get
more out of it or would you say there is enough the story from the game is put well enough together
for the anime uh and you get an out of that and the pacing is good enough and so on the characters
get enough screen time that it would be also fine to have the anime only experience or would people
be completely lost if they only watch the anime and not have played the game I mean you could watch
just the anime there are some things that you might have some question marks about that they kind of
do answer within the shell of the show but I honestly really feel like if you want to get the
most out of it you want to watch the show and play the game I don't believe you would have to make
one be first over the other like I feel like you could do one and then the other or the other
way around not like you you would have to like oh you need to play the game for you watch the show now
I feel like you could do it either way and still be able to see both ways how the story was told
but you only get the full experience if you do both yeah like I and I really honestly believe that
you can live doing one over the other but I think doing both gives you like the full picture
of all of the things that Taro wanted to do because there is an article on a website called
GameRant of all things but they they said it best in the title of this article that it is
an adaptation not a recreation okay interesting there have been other mixed media projects like this like I
think Scarlett Nexus in particular like I only heard good things about the game but I guess the
anime was kind of like yeah because it was like basically a copy paste job as far as I know yeah I mean
then that's for people who don't want to play the game which is also fine I guess but you know that's
valid but also you know the game is already so anime fight and maybe it's just in for time saving I
guess but that's like with when years ago when we talked when I talked a little about a little bit
about Dan Garnerone but you can watch the adaptation of the first game but it cuts a lot of
character details out and you do yourself like you can watch it but you do yourself a
disservice by not playing the game I mean that's the first thing that suffers and I assume that's
also the thing recent adaption of sandland I mean you can read the manga which came first anyway but
you probably get more stuff maybe some interesting character brings out of the game then out
of the anime that also was just recently released I just say I mean that depends always sometimes this
can also result in the games feeling more padded because you know you get all the side mission stuff
and everything and let me abound padding and side missions and fucking near applicant Jesus fucking
Christ PS3 s game design I don't have a mission doesn't worry there's there's plenty of side missions
in not how much I say well it all depends on what kind of side dishes say it hard but
anyway that's for another time let me put it to you this way near automaton is a 25 hour game that
I made into a 70 hour game because of one ending well I won't do that I just I want just the
main endings I don't care about anything else but because there's how much I have to do there but
yeah anyway so a big part of this because you also said it was a split season a bit thing I
heard about this adaption is that it ran into production issues I think the big production issue
is due to covid in the first season okay as there were several delays around because that was
I mean it's 2023 when obviously covid has not gone away but that's you know I guess
it was a bad time around around then for them it has gotten a bit better now smart people
vaccinated and so on so yes but then the second season you know it they were working on it for a while
I guess and just I didn't hear anything about production issues after that okay that's good to
hear how is the animation I mean a one can go either way I feel like absolutely beautiful
ah it's great to hear this show looks magnificent from the first moment to the final dude
is this an issue with the CG of the plane form or whatever oh yeah the CG when they were in the
flight units was a little yeah but that they didn't linger on that too long so it was like okay
all right and I mean the pods are also CG but you know to make sense or just flowing they're
doing their pod thing talking and being little weapons for 9s and 2b okay well then that's fine
I mean they they did something different with the pods at the end as well that did they kind of
implied is what sort of happens at the end of the game but it's not really shown as such in the
game but it's neat what they did with them so I was like oh they know they get to do a little something
neat with them that's cool I like that even even these two like characters you know who are
basically just there as support or you know they still get to do cool things in the end so
neat I like that a lot but yeah obviously the music in the show is phenomenal because it's mostly
just lifted from the games and that's I have no complaint about that if you get a great soundtrack
just reuse it the way like persona forwarded is it the same composer as a near-replicant yeah right
I believe it's a k-eo-kabe yeah I like the music is one of the best things in my opinion about
near-replicant so I assume it's also the same thing for sure tomato because
it fits very well with the atmosphere of the world like giving you this
it's so good they also used it in Final Fantasy 14
and why wouldn't you I mean like that is like of course you have like the sweeping orchestral
battle hymns with choirs and everything but you also have like this really nice
cozy melancholy tracks I would say like where it's like very soothing but also kind of sad and it
happens when you're traveling through the world and you get like this feeling of oh adventure but
also kind of sad adventure and everything and everything is falling apart a bit because this is
kind of a post apocalyptic setting so I really like the music in near-replicant I'm looking forward
to hearing the music in your automata the other characters that they do a little bit more with
in the show is the commander of your hawight because she in the game is sort of is very stoic
in the you know there's a little bit of that in the show but we get some behind the curtain
scenes with her they're like oh okay she had she had some other stuff going on too that we never
got to see so there's a bit of elaboration on certain things as well with that there's also
addition to the switch between lily and in eminade there's another character switch that they
sort of work in as well but I'm not going to say that so they they they do they do
Geralt of Rivia no Jerry of the river is not in there I mean I already said the screen is so
kind of a six so it might have happened they also had some winks and nods to replicant and gestalt
as well that are like if you know this thing then you know what it is but it didn't really feel
like he was much more than surface level but you know that's also I think that's might be a little
up to interpretation as well depending on how you see how things are done so was it was it overall
satisfying like I mean if you already knew the story from from the game that's a different perspective
as taking it as a standalone story but did you feel like it did enough interesting stuff
from different from the experience you had with the game that you were like oh yeah I definitely
enjoyed this plus of course the gorgeous animation and everything is is that how you came away from it
or with like oh this was a nice add-on but also I wouldn't have like wouldn't have been super sad if I
hadn't didn't have didn't get to experience this after playing the game I mean obviously this is
something that they didn't need to do but squaring if it loves money so at least I it makes me
glad that they give their writing team the freedom to be like hey let's do things a little bit
differently this time around I mean heck there's even a character who shows up in the final episode
ties in to something to other things that Taro has worked on so I don't quite know it's not quite
evident how they are going to work it into other things I don't know if maybe they're trying to be
like we're gonna do this in with the mobile game as well I don't because I know this one characters
in a certain other game well I mean if two bees appearance in other games is canon and why not
that character's appearance in in your in the near-automata anime I guess but this character has not
been named dropped specifically and their role is still kind of you know across all the appearances
they made is not 100% clear so maybe that will be made apparent with time I don't know I don't plan
to I think they were also mentioned in near reincarnation I don't have much interest in sitting down
and playing that just a mobile game in gotcha and I haven't found a gotcha I could really latch on
to since princess connect so I don't I haven't found any good good good for you I mean I guess then
I'll play chronic and stew is a gacha game kind of on also the gacha aspect of it I didn't give a
shit about so I guess that's a little different though yeah I was assume because I mean reincarnation is
a little early on and it feels they came much slower and much more deliberate in its pace and like
the English language version of another game called heaven burns red just launched and I feel
like those two games are kind of cut from the same cloth because they feel like they want to be
visual novels more than anything else well that you could also say that about parts of I don't know
about near automata but definitely about near replicant there's definitely walls of text in
automata so I mean you worry I don't I never know or at least for those two games I don't know if
that like is actual authors and tend or if that is like I want to put the story in there when we
don't have the budget to actually put it into the game as gameplay so I'm just going to have a wall
of text so yeah but it's a bit of putting for me it's like I don't well don't ever play Xenoghiers
then I mean it's still like in Xenoghiers I would say it is mostly concentrated to the second part of
the game that definitely wasn't finished and we know the reason why it is that way for that game
it was not intended to be like that and it's still like pays differently and it's presented
differently at least in a partially interesting way in certain parts and it applies with gameplay
sections and I feel like with near replicant and then probably also with the automatic I just
just having fucking white like 30 pages or 40 pages of white text on black background
maybe with a bit of music in there that you can't do a big more with that I don't ever feel like
an automata it's quite that okay to that extent like yeah the you have your text of walls but it's not
like going on and on I mean one of the walls of text gives like one of the best lines in the game
that catches everyone off guard the first time they read it so I look forward to when you play it
you get to that point and you're like what do you mean what does that mean what am I supposed to
take away from this I got that you're telling me that because it definitely skipped some of the
wall of text in your replicant it's like because they seem like side bits but now then I'll
we later get some about the main characters I didn't skip those but you have some side missions where
you also get wall of text and just random stories about some side characters from the game I was like
I don't care. As far as I remember in a time of time it's relegated mostly to the main story like well
there's a little bit there's a little bit in the DLC the Delta part which is still I still honestly
feel like when I played through the game I like stumbled into the DLC just very organically and I
played through it and I was like oh well that was actually kind of a really interesting story
on the side so they made it work real well in that so interesting I mean I think I have the
game of the your heart edition so it should have the DLC in there anyway and yeah so yeah I'm definitely
gonna play the DLC as well it's just you know when my brain starts zoning out when I just get
not interestingly visual novel aspect in the game I mean I don't play visual novels as well because
of that reason because if I want to read a story mostly instead of playing it I'm gonna read a book
and not play a game because reading off the screen for extended periods of time gets exhausting for me
and I need some gameplay intermission with that and if it doesn't happen after a while I just
just drift off that was a big problem with me in the last Odyssey actually I love the game but
you know you had you had so many dreams yes then we felt like thousand years
I know I get that but they're so well written I know I know I tried I didn't read all of them
but I tried to read most of them because they were some genuinely interesting stories in there but
some of them went so long and I was like oh god I want to get back to the actual game and yeah I
had some of that experience in your applicant even though it's not even remotely as big and
has as many stories so it's not that big of problem it assume it won't be as big of a problem
near automata but I assume in the anime there's not a big wall of text that you have to read instead
of actually watching the show that would kill the pacing yes that's but yeah I'm an enjoyer of
the ends even though the last one I read was oh god was the last one I read Danganronpa two or
Steinscape but Steinscape is a 50 hour game if you go through and read all of it but the payoff is
incredible so I'm sure obviously your mileage will vary but I guess in the case of Steinscape apparently
the anime was a really good adaptation so I heard as well yes so you know that at least with that
feels like there is that alternative I don't know how much they cut out because you know they
obviously they have to but yes I mean there's always the thing like if you want to get the full experience
and I mean in your automata is what both play both you know what I mean but in a lot of cases like
if you want to get the full experience go to the source material like you will never I mean
that's a broad statement but you probably will never find an adaption that completely lifts
up to the experience that doesn't mean that it can make it better like if you're like if you're
like hey this maybe goes into too much detail for me and I like the stream like the experience then
you might like the adaptions in certain cases or the adaptions add something to it which you know
your automata apparently does as well where it's like oh this is not happening actually in the source
material which makes the story more interesting so that makes the adaption worth watching and everything
and then if you transition from a different medium to another then there are a bunch of things that
get added to that that make it more interesting either way or maybe a solution that is more suited to
your tastes for example if you go from manga to anime adaptions right you got the still page and now
you got all that shit animated you got voice acting you got music of course it's from the presentation
standpoint alone that might make it more enticing for people it definitely does for me I mean I like
reading manga but if I have the choice and if the anime adaption is not absolute dog shit I would
always go for the anime adaption because I'm like I just prefer this these additional belts and
whistles that an anime adaption can provide so it's always heavily depends on what you're looking for
and what you what you what you want to put the focus on and what is more important to you so
it seems new automatic automatic is one of those rare cases when it's like yes play the game but also
watch the anime if you want to get the real full experience with which I think is very aware in the
if not only in the general adaption space but definitely in the anime in the video game to
anime adaption space yeah I'm glad they made it work as well as they did because if it was just like a
one-to-one I mean yeah I would have been fine but it wouldn't have made it interesting so
crazy bastard yoko taro out there telling all these weird stories and rolling on the uh ground
cussing out his employer in certain ads that's a thing that happened of course it's still also
wearing always this weird costume from one of the games of one of the characters yes you will find
out what that is okay but yeah that is a thing that he does in public okay okay I mean that looks
like one of the characters from New Replicate as well so I don't know if it's the same character in
your automata or something similar to that I can make some assumption how that will actually be
integrated into the story of what we'll see I'm very interested to find out I'm also very interested
to eventually watch the anime adaption to get the full experience but it's gonna be a while but
eventually it will happen so glad to hear they actually pulled it off and made it work and it looks
good it has it sounds good because they use the same soundtrack and apparently it's also written
well and paced well and yeah glad to hear it glad that you had a good experience with it yeah I'm
glad they took a risk on doing some different stuff and made it you know a lot more a lot more fun and
multi-dimensional where could we see was where can people watch it and check out your automata on
crunchyroll.com for all your anime goodness not all of it but a lot of it
fairly sized chunk of it yeah a flainier automata and maybe watch it too well do one or the other just
experience is is good 2022 a future war has raged for decades between the few human survivors
and an endless army of machines 1997 the AI known as SkyNet gained self-awareness and began its
war against humanity. Cop between the future and this past is a soldier sent back in time to change
the fate of humanity arrives in 1997 on the search for a scientist named Malcolm Lee works to
launch new AI system designed to compete with SkyNet's impending attack on humanity.
Malcolm navigates the moral complexities of his creation he's hunted by an unrelenting
mechanical assassin from the future which forever alters the fate of his three children.
Will Malcolm's invention be able to save humanity from its demise or would it doom them to their
ultimate annihilation. Terminator 0 is an original series that ran for eight episodes produced by
Netflix SkyDance no breaks and most importantly produced an animated byproductonid which of course
we have talked about many times in the past most recently in my review of kind you number eight.
The show was developed and written by Matson Tomlin a rare American credit in the anime landscape
though Terminator 0 is his first TV series Tomlin has written several movies at this point among them
project power which I heard wasn't great little fish and mother slash Android and he did some
uncredited script revisions on the recent the Batman movie and is writing the sequel to that.
And believe it or not he's a co-writer on the script for the live action mega man movie that is
currently in development. Yes it has been in development for a while but he apparently is one of the
current writers so the guy is definitely into robots and hey I can say that much if he brings the
same writing chops to the mega man movie that he brought to Terminator 0 I am definitely now a bit
more optimistic than I was before in regard to that particular project. The director of Terminator 0
is Masahiko do who has worked on the hiatus the comment battle series Bleach and Hunter Hunter
the actor is Masano Buenomura who also did the art direction on a bunch of other shows for example
Cyberpunk et runners the new Uruza Yatsura 86 little witch academia and much more. The music was
composed by Michelle Burzky and Kevin and Horn who also did the music for one of Tomlin's other
writing credits mother slash android so yeah of course Terminator 0 new incarnation in the long-running
very storied Terminator franchise I don't know John have you watched any of the Terminator movies?
Well it's Arnie the good of the bad guy in that one.
I don't think he was the good guy so probably T2 yes I think T2 is what most from our generation
watched that was definitely the first Terminator movie I saw the sweet age of 11 I think you want to
live yes the first two Terminator movies are good but second one is great in my opinion each in
their own right the third one is tolerable everything that came after that is kind of shit like
I don't even know what the fourth one was called it was with Sam were thinking in the main rule I
think salvation right that was kind of a drag I mean they changed the script for that and kind
of killed the more more interesting version as far as I remember then we had Terminator Genesis which
was absolute dark shit recently we had Terminator dark fade which was pretty good but apparently didn't
do well so probably not gonna get another one in that time and with those characters I think we had
also a series of Sarah Kronachronikils I only watched like one episode or two episodes of that
apparently it was pretty good it's summer glow in it but yeah that's kind of all this Terminator
stuff that we got some games of course and the movies yeah very mixed bag only the first two are
really good and everything else is kind of like alright so I was kind of hesitant when you know watching
this I was like I'll see how this works out Netflix show and also yeah I don't know the writer has
done that much interesting stuff I've seen before and we'll see but actually really like the show
John was pretty damn good pretty fun some some really interesting sci-fi stuff in there and takes the
Terminator for Terminator franchise to some interesting places so yeah it opens up in 2022 with
this resistance lady a co-fighting a Terminator and Bailey escaping it that first fight is a bad
as introduction to her I feel like she almost never gets as bad as again later in the show as she
doesn't this she gets in some places but definitely this is bad as introduction for her and for the
Terminator even though that's not the one that she has to fight or slash escape from a fight against
slash escape from a later in the show because this is a different model but this one is fucking scary
and the one that gets sent to the past later to 1997 is also very scary but they look different
it goes seems a bit of a part for a normal human in certain parts like she's doing a bit too
well in the direct confrontations with the Terminator it's like Michael being definitely didn't
fair as well and some of the other human characters also didn't that's why they pitted the Terminator's
against each other studying from t2 onwards the show still manages to make the Terminator feel
pretty scary regardless it's that also is the reason for that is also that it's not only fighting
ako like ako is like one of the many characters there are a lot of characters in this show
that get the spotlight and she's only one of them but yeah we see her in the future and then she
gets sent back to the past by the resistance we're not fully filled into what they're trying to do
we get just some delimpses and some statements were like okay maybe this is what this is about
and then her base gets attacked and she gets last minute sent to 97 but seeing like basically
everyone she knows getting slaughtered by a Terminator that infiltrates the base and everything by the way
this is a very gory show this is definitely like going for oh yeah well the first
Terminator was arated we're going back to that and yes a lot of blood li- everyone exploding
guts everywhere like faces burn off all that shit good shit like it's there's a lot of a lot of
gores blatter and everything in this show it's definitely not saving up the blood so if you're a bit
squeamish when it comes to that maybe skip this show I found it really entertaining there were
definitely some moments where it's like whoa while watching the show because I did not expect it to
go that for ham but yeah fun time fun bloody time so yeah echo gets sent back to 1997 to Japan where
robots seem to already have been established large scale in everyday life not Terminator robots they
really look like you know robot robots think they're called the what are they called one
and oh you know or something like that but spelled one and zero I think but they're spelled
in or something and they're like basically serving robots something like you would see an i-robot
in that movie but much more you know basic like with big square hats and everything looking like
you know old school robot stuff the focus immediately when we switched to 19 as a 19 as a 19
as a focus switch to a different character mentioned before in the summary guy working at cortex industries
Malcolm Lee who has nightmares slash visions of judgment day like the first time we see him he has this
very this vision very similar to the famous nightmare of Sarah Connor from Terminator 2 where like
the whole city explodes and she gets like her flesh gets melted off her body and you only see her
grabbing at the fence as a skeleton and everything and that we get kind of like a redo of that scene
only more nasty even for Malcolm and yeah we find out he developed a counter AI who's kind of
called Kokoro who is supposed to stop SkyNet and save humanity problem is Malcolm doesn't know if
Kokoro will actually do that that's why he hasn't take her take her fully online yet he has given
her free will he has given her all the stuff AI is supposed to get it's kind of she's kind of
bit different to SkyNet in that regard she has a bit of a different system but she is an
a full-fledged AI and Malcolm doesn't know what will she decide because SkyNet what SkyNet
was decided when he started to learn people got scared and then he said they oh they want to turn
me off well then I'm gonna turn humanity off and you know sent a nuclear missiles against Russia
Russia bombed everyone else and or he sent a nuclear missiles about against a bunch of states and
then everyone bombed everyone that's what judgment that day was in Terminator 2 anyway so Malcolm is
trying to stop that and he has a very limited time window because when we get to his part of the story
it's like basically the 29th and I think of November and I think on the 30th of November 1997
that's when judgment day happened so this is like his no not November August he it's August 29th
when we get to 97 and Japan is like 17 hours ahead of America so once SkyNet gets activated on
the dot 12 a.m. on August 30th in America judgment day will happen pretty quickly so Malcolm tries
to avoid that so he thinks the only way to do that is to take Kokoro online but first he kind of
wants to make sure will that actually do anything or will she make things worse so he has a final
discussion with her before it takes her online he wants to determine whether it will help
whether Kokoro will help them or turn against you might be like SkyNet did so he gets in to his
company cortex interest and there he has like this giant VR dome where he sits down and you get a
hologram image of Kokoro and Kokoro has like these three different personalities that seem
each to harbor different thoughts on the matter they all so all look like the three different goddesses
from Legend of Zelda or Karina of time I guess same RGB color coding and everything like what were
the names? Din, Nairu and Feroro right yeah yeah so it's kind of going for that they all looked
slightly different in design and everything in color palette so Malcolm like activates them in
this limited space and then apparently picks up the discussion he had with her before and tries
to plea you man to his case like listing all the features that make a special in his eyes
to the AIs reaction to that is one of her core is saying well after reviewing all of that and giving
you know some counter examples everything like every human invention that ever was every
marvel of mankind with the potential of betterment for the world has instantly been perverted into
weapon man is war monger above all else your economic systems are used as weapons of oppression
and you've used your science to build the most destructive weapons the laws of physics will allow
you're so ready to blame SkyNet for the end of civilization but SkyNet is just another
byproduct of man's natural inclination to self destruct which is fair I guess but that you know
gives of course Malcolm some pause and he's like okay I don't I need to find a way to have
this discussion and her opinion on us tip towards us to our favor so I can actually take
online and do something with this we've discovered it's probably not gonna work and of course
then also the AI like Okoro asserts correctly that Malcolm has mainly created her or it as yet
another weapon so it wants to know what makes him think humanity is worth saving and that becomes
one of the main things the show is actually doing which I was super surprised by like it's one of
the main focus is Malcolm having this discussion with Okoro about the impending doom of humanity
and if it's actually worth to Okoro to avoid that like if there's some sense for her to do that
really interesting like I never saw this coming out of a fucking terminator show
so yeah that's one of the main focuses and the other focuses is Aiko of course and another big aspect
of Malcolm's family life his kids which he's trying to save by focusing all his energy on
Okoro but of course since he's never around he's losing the trust of his kids and their connection
to him which you know plays also a big part in the development of the story but also of course his
kids are super big reason for even creating Okoro in the first place because he wants to save
their lives that he doesn't want them to either die or grow up in the ruins of this world and it's
funny that Japan in the 1997 time I am in this version of the story is already so much more advanced
than the US that you know is if we compare it to T2 however wherever Malcolm's visions are coming
from it seems Malcolm is aware that in his own words this path has been worked many times
so probably meaning this is not the original timeline and that the past has already been changed
multiple times so who knows maybe take us generally more advanced earlier now but then
wouldn't SkyNet have been invented sooner well the show actually addresses that in its climax
which was pretty neat I like the lot where I like the place a lot where was going with the story
there's a lot of wild developments later on and you know like I said a big part of the narrative is
Malcolm trying to convince Okoro that despite its past felling humanity can change and does
us worth saving very interesting just having this being the main focus of this show to be like this
philosophical debate between a human and an ii and you know if Malcolm takes the online with
Okoro help humanity or turn out to be another mechanical oppressor will she form an alliance with
SkyNet or will they fight and what could have war between the two most powerful aIs on a planet
mean for humanity aside from their total annihilation as much as the show is about the ifs it's also about
the wise so that's really interesting and the most interesting dialogue definitely happens in the
VR room some really need discussion about humanity time life itself a i nothing too deep but definitely
something I did not expect from this kind of a show I mostly expected to be an action show and it
is definitely that Stephanie an action show but it has a really nice added thing on it with this
being it this discussion between Malcolm and Okoro that I did not expect that I really enjoyed
the the story is definitely going some interesting places I didn't see coming sadly I can talk about
any of this or most of this because it would be heavy spoilers so I'm gonna refrain from doing that
but yeah SkyNet sends back a terminator to stop Malcolm from taking Okoro online
Malcolm is not stupid when he is attacked by the terminator the first time he immediately realizes
oh shit the machines are trying to kill me so I must be on the right track with Kokoro
she's gonna save her save us SkyNet is trying to stop that so I need to take her online
which puts a bit more pressure on him you know or but also makes him more uh makes him more convinced
that he's on the right track and gives him a bit of a bigger push to actually convince Kokoro
to like switch over to his view and that it is ultimately the right choice to take her online
because you know after all if that wasn't the case why would SkyNet send a terminator back in time to
kill him but yeah that is the one big part of the show the other big part are the kids
Malcolm has three kids Kenta, hero and Raker two boys one girl Kenta being the oldest
Kenta also being a bit of a dick I say a bit but he's really like he's kind of an ass and he's
like kind of the worst character in this understandable to an extent and even more so later on
but he is kind of like the character to be in here who's like making all kind of like the decisions
where like oh god fuck can he be extracted from this story like given his father is never around
it's not really a surprise that he behaves that way he treats robots like nothing more than tools he
can dismantle while his brother hero and this is the Raker want to play with like this little cat robot
they're caretaker Misake brought for them Kenta just wants to take it apart to see what makes it take
and Malcolm doesn't also doesn't want any advanced tech in his house we know this is probably because
of what he knows about SkyNet but his daughter Raker thinks he didn't allow them to keep the robot cat
Misake brought because it reminded him of his dead wife and you know the three kids mother
there's a photo in the living room of his wife holding a cat of course there's something more to
that and the whole story with the dead wife and everything but we get filled in on that much later
that can go into it here like I said Kenta for example is really into tech but doesn't understand why
his dad won't allow advanced tech in his house so it has kind of an admiring view on his dad because his
dad is kind of a genius right he's like no so much so advanced and has created so much advanced AI
stuff and Kenta kind of wants to be like his dad and isn't allowed to be which kind of pisses him off
but again he also admires his dad so it's kind of like this kind of difficult very difficult
relation to his father and hero is much simpler he's a younger brother he's still very much a kid but
has a very optimistic worldview and he's mostly here to play and he wants to help people and he's
just a good kid he's just a good kid with good heart and he would do the right thing and Raka is
kind of on the other side of the spectrum who's mostly just this adverse adversarial
attitudes towards her father because the only thing she realizes is their father is never there for
them and she feels like he's abandon them and even more so that now that their mother is not around anymore
we of course know why Malcolm is doing this because he wants to save his kids but while doing that
he's not giving them the most important parts that they need from him which is love and which is
time with him so you know it's kind of this problematic relationship with him and his kids
he hero hero probably being the one who takes it the best and it's just happy you know to be able to play
stuff and eat sweets and having their caretaker around Misaki who is probably the last character in the
story that should be addressed because she is also becomes very important as well for different
reasons so Malcolm goes back once he is attacked by the Terminator to the lab which is heavily
fortified but the Terminator knows that no set as well so he very quickly is like okay I won't get to
Malcolm that way so what else do I know about him breaks into his house finds out he has three kids
of course he goes after the kids and that's where the other big path of the story is once the
initial attack happens against Malcolm the Terminator is heavily fixated on getting one of the kids
and using it as bait/pressure on Malcolm to surrender himself to the Terminator and letting himself
get killed basically for the sake of his kids so that's also a very interesting thing that comes
into play later to on like will that will the Terminator succeed and what will Malcolm do because he
knows if he surrenders himself and doesn't activate Cockroo his kids are maybe killed anyway so
what is he going to decide in that situation and yes very the stakes get constantly raised in this
and also perspectives are shifted a lot like and combinations of characters like in the beginning
we have Encore loan then we have Malcolm and Misaki together one because Rhaikar runs away
and the brothers follow her and then you know it's Misaki's contact the Malcolm is like hey your kids
run away and then they try to find the kids but then the Terminator attacks attacks now comes to get
back to the lab to be protected and everything and task Misaki to find them and Misaki runs into Aiko
and they work together then they find the kids then the groups get switched up again we have Misaki
with the two brothers and Aiko teaming up with Rhaikar so there's a bunch of switching character
combinations allegiances dynamics which keeps the show pretty interesting because we always have
other characters to interact with each other and play off each other which is pretty neat because
sometimes in show with like this big ensemble cast at some point when they get split up you only
have the same teams you only have the same like maybe two characters who interact with each other
because it makes sense because in certain parts like their dynamic just works if you have like these
body cop duo and then maybe you have a son and father combination or mother daughter combination
or something like that and it makes sense for the story to combine these different characters
together because you get the most out of this and this story get a lot of switching around
with these characters of course you know you have some of them in a set group for certain
for certain duration of the show but then it gets switched up again so that's really interesting
I like that a lot I thought that keep kept the show varied and made the character dynamics more
interesting and varied again out of the three kids can ties the most unsympathetic character in the
show he's not just the dumbest he's not just the dumbest kid type he's the obstructive and
judgmental dumbest kid type who thinks he's got the whole world figured out so the worst kind yeah
and he's a bit of a sociopath to in my opinion thankfully he has kind of a bit of a turning point
otherwise I'd have rooted for the terminated to terminated to vaporize the loss some little shit
but you know it's like for a long stretches you're really like oh my god get this kid out of here he's
so fucking annoying he's like always making the wrong decisions he's not getting the full picture
you can always attribute to him being a kid the problem is the other two kids get it like the other
two kids are like no you're being an idiot and of course I celebrate them for the hero and rick
are great hero especially has a moment later in the show that made him one of my favorite characters
in this series which is rare for a kid character I'm not like two font of your standard kid
characters in shows and movies and everything if they're too tropey and everything and are like
therefore I don't know for for certain put in here for certain reasons because the show needs a
kid character or because it's targeting a specific audience or whatever but in this it works and
especially the you know standard good nature kicked character in he you have in here is one of the
best characters in this because he's just the heart of the show like hero is he doesn't necessarily
have the most screen time in this but every time he is on screen it's like oh that kid is super
good and related one you want to want him to see him save and you want him to have good fate and
everything and he he's just a good person and not annoying and not obstructive unlike his brother
and like I said there's this one moment in the show where you're like oh my god how does this kid
totally get it and you who is definitely more definitely older and should have a more a better
perspective on a world doesn't get shit at all and always make the fucking worst decisions so
sometimes it's like that yeah sometimes it's like that I get maybe it's it's also realistic in
some ways because sometimes smaller kids get a more unburdened few uncertain things and just go with
their heart and you know that is still kind of innocent and clear and that can also be true
they're determined it's certain other situations but in this case it's like Kent has already so
burdened and damaged by the bad relationship to his dad and by what he is experienced from certain
things of the way his life progressed and I assume considering his age he was the one who
probably got hit the hardest by the death of his mother because he was maybe already in an age
where he could fully experience that emotionally so maybe that's also playing into this but yeah it's
it's hard to get to like garner some sympathy from him while watching the show because he's really
just used as the character who makes the stories go certain ways because he maybe where it needs to
go to create some friction to create some drama because he is the characters who character who
constantly doesn't get it and who constantly is throwing a wrench into things because you know he's just
he's just an idiot he's a little shit who thinks he's wiser than he actually is but aside from that
the kids are pretty cool Misake is pretty cool very interesting the Terminator and this is pretty
cool which hey the show is called Terminator 0 so you want a cool Terminator in this and I feel like
this Terminator is a bit of a different approach than you get from
you know you standard Arnie stuff and everything because he's has of course he's like can be like this
brood who goes into killing everything right with a very easily he's very good at killing don't get
me wrong but you also get a bit more of the infiltration stuff that Terminator is also supposed to be
very good at we don't see that much of that in the movies I feel like some of it definitely but not
as much and he is definitely like he's doing a lot of stuff ways like waging actually waging
different options against each other race he's like okay does it make much sense of me doing that
because that would risk my mission so I'm gonna switch gears I'm gonna change gears and then do
this instead and he's also he also has to improvise a lot more than Arnold has like it's like okay Arnold
comes to the past okay I have to kill Sarah Connor I just go to a weapons shop in the US and
get me some weapons and then I am fucking loaded I'm a walking one man army this is as easy in Japan
because they're not weapons to be bought on every fucking corner and not like half of the country is
armed to their teeth so America great yes so it's not as easy for the Terminator there to go into
full killing stream mode the cops have weapons so he definitely procures some of that when he engages
with the cops but you know limited em or in everything and he's not easy to come by so he has to
improvise and builds a very cool underarm mounted crossbow for example like that he just he cuts open
his arm and then changes the mechanics in his arm to just attach a crossbow to it and put some balls
into his arm and then he can shoot this crossbow from his lower lower arm and it's really cool it's
like really fucking neat like this low tech approach to just having ammunition and having a weapon he can
use you know a kind of long range weapon and everything for everything else yes this Terminator hands
of course but yeah it's it's really neat like it's a whole different approach to terminate like this
low tech quote unquote Terminator that can't just can't use a can't just grab a pumpkin or a mini
gun or a fucking oozy or from from everywhere and everything and or rocket launcher and just having
to go you know a bit more stealthy in certain parts and having to make plans and actually try to
figure out what the best way to his mission is and just go fucking storm into the door just drive a
car into a police station and then just just shoot them all to kingdom come so that was pretty cool
more reconnaissance style and yeah it's it's pretty neat it's pretty neat a lot more tracking stuff
and everything so yeah I really like the Terminator in this and he is he don't get me wrong as strong as
a co-existent certain parts when she fights him he is a menacing presence he kills a lot of people
and he has like this stone cold glare that you know from a Terminator and he's like I'm just gonna go
forward and not stop I'm gonna be relentless and I'm gonna do it and I'm gonna do it again and do
it again and come after you as long as I need to and it's pretty cool I watch this show with a Japanese
dub you might want to argue since it's a western franchise it makes more sense to watch it with
English voices but since it's exclusively said in Japan I disagree um however the subtitles are
dub titles so you're getting the English script anyway with a lot of cursing which was kind of jarring
considering I at least know that much Japanese there was like that is not what she just said
that is not what he just said there was no fucking there there was no shit in there what are you
talking about this is so it's much more much more graphics script in English and in the subs/dub titles
so be aware of that going for the full r-rated experience also interesting in this is the relevance
of a nuclear holocaust to the story because let's be honest sky not going apeshit with nuclear
missiles has quite a different flavor from a Japanese perspective than an American one although
the creator of the show is still American but you know what I mean um there's more way behind some
of the stuff being said because Japan already experienced the horrors of this particular human
invention firsthand so some of that just resonates more feels more threatening feels more dire
feels more apocalyptic so yeah that was pretty neat um the show is also a bit of a mystery show at
least one of the characters has a somewhat strange air about them and maybe isn't quite what they
seem to be so it to show kind of dregs that out at least some of it to the halfway point and the
rest of it to the end of the show and there's some really neat revelations later on which I won't
give away depending on how you look at it and how you feel about the show it might come across as
maybe spitting a few too many plates at the same time like I said we got a bunch of
cast members and you know we got Malcolm we got Masaki we got Aiko the kids Terminator all their
paths intersect at some point but then like I said they get split up again get put in different
groups or do their own thing and that sometimes feel like the show is doing a bit too much perspective
and location hopping but in my opinion mostly still keeps it together and things move at a decent pace
so for me that made it more interesting depending on how you like your stories how you like your
plot how you like your character moments everything maybe it's a bit too much like I said location
hopping character hopping and so on could be the case like I said it didn't bother me at all quite
the opposite it enhanced the show experience for me so make up that what you will it's also really
good looking show especially the stuff in Kokoro's virtual reality room is super cool like you get
a bunch of not only her like in her holographic stuff but she also puts a lot of video imagery on
the screen to illustrate her points especially when it comes to humanity maybe not being worth saving
did you get a lot of visuals of war of past wars and everything but also you get a lot of neat
sci-fi stuff that they're talk about and everything and when the room actually gets activated and stuff
like that so that's really neat and that's some good use of CG in the show which of course production
IG loves to use CG they do it in this show outside of the VR room as well on vehicle vehicles and the
inner robots mainly sometimes on human crowds but it's solid CG CG mostly the CG in the VR room like
I said is really great and thankfully they are barely using it on the Terminator which I was worried
about I thought maybe they thought it would be a good idea to make this like this mixed
presentation we've seen a lot of other anime at this point or at least some of them where it's like
hey some of the characters are traditionally traditionally animated some of them are CG and I
think we both agree this becomes pretty jarring when one of the CG characters is one of the main
characters who gets a lot of screen time and then has to interact with the traditionally animated
characters you can maybe get away with it if some of the if one of that is an actual machine but also
the Terminator is not supposed to look like a machine the entire he like the entire way through
like he's supposed to be an infiltration you're supposed to look like a human unless he gets damaged
so he can fit in and actually you know surprise the actual humans in this show so it doesn't make sense
to make him walk and talk and look like a real robot you know of course he has the more robotic speech
patterns and everything and he is somewhat stiff in the way he moves and everything but it would still
be jarring if he was CG all the way through but they keep that to a minimum when he gets damaged
later on where it makes sense to make him look make him CG at some point and in the beginning or
let's see two thirds to one the two three fourths of the show he's traditionally animated which
are really appreciated and considering the traditional animation the show is really good it's a lot of
fun especially in the action scenes we get a cool moody soundtrack very reminiscent of t1 and t2
at points but the famous data tada tada is also used of course and yeah the last episode is pretty
wild with a lot of twists and turns and you developments I wouldn't say it comes all together flawlessly
but it's still pretty riveting stuff plus it's not finished some unanswered questions and an
uncertain future but also that's kind of the core of Terminator stories at this point I guess
I hope we'll get a second season because like I said I really enjoyed that I really enjoyed this show
I think it's got a lot to offer you can watch it off net on Netflix of course and I think
every Terminator fan should check this out this is the best thing coming out of that franchise since
Terminator 2 in my opinion and even if you like just good sci-fi stuff this is probably for you as well
you also really don't have to have seen any other Terminator movies or series to make sense of this
probably which makes it a good gateway drug of course it enhances the experience or it might
enhance it if you've seen at least the first two just so you already know the basics and what
SkyNet is but similar to what we talked about in your automata or near automata just now
it probably would work also as a standalone thing I liked it quite a lot and if they do end up
making a second season I'll be back and that is a wrap on the 161st episode of Anime
Brain Freeze. All the music in this podcast is from the Double Dragon Neon soundtrack by the
Amazing Jake Kaufman please go to vart.bandcamp.com and check out his awesome work find us where all
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