Coming to you from Crunchyroll HQ, this is The Anime Effect. Each week, we bring you the latest news and views from the shows you love. It’s pop culture through an anime lens.
Today, we have a lot to discuss. We’ve got the 2024 Anime Awards coming up with more presenters and performers announced this week. And a really awesome anime movie is coming to theaters here pretty soon.
Oh, yeah, it is.
It’s a good time to be an anime fan, y’all. Welcome to the very first episode. We’ll be talking about all this and more to see just how powerful the effect of anime really is.
I’m your host, Nick Friedman.
It’s me, LeAlec Murray.
And I’m Leah President.
Welcome to the very first episode.
I feel like at some point we should be live from, like we should just do a whole live video from. We should just try it out.
But we’re not live.
An undisclosed location.
No, we’re not.
The show is not live. This is not happening right now.
We have time to make mistakes and you will never see that.
Our editors are very good. I mean, should we introduce everybody now? What’s the best way to break the ice here?
Why should I care?
Yeah.
I come from the world of journalism, where we ask questions, where we learn everything, do lots of research. Getting to do that in anime is really cool.
Uncle must do research.
A curious mind.
I just thought of a beautiful mind when you said that. That’s like picture of Russell Crowe in my head.
Of course.
That was Russell Crowe, right?
I believe so. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We’re getting confirmation.
No, no, I come from the world of journalism to join the anime industry and talk about amazing cartoons, which is really why we’re all here at the end of the day. What about y’all?
It’s a great segue because I also come from news, which is great. I come from broadcast news, whereas Nick comes from print.
Print and digital.
Yeah, we’ve got like a great mix of that, and I’m essentially living out my childhood dream of being able to work in anime and talk about anime and look at anime all the time, every day.
Look around though.
Um, so yeah. I’m also like, I’m gonna be the one which, let’s just get it out of the way because it’s gonna come up a ton. I’m basically the one who is going to find every reason whatsoever to bring up Attack on Titan.
They will.
I am obsessed with it, I’ve got a tattoo of it, my desk is covered in AOT figures. I interviewed Isayama.
Pause it, wait, we gotta pause at that last part. What was that?
I interviewed Isayama and I was so nervous.
Isayama, the creator of Attack on Titan.
And it was the highlight of my life and I’m still riding that wave, baby.
I think the only Attack on Titan thing I have on my desk is Peek, Kart Titan, best girl.
Yeah, best girl.
I’m not as high as Attack on Titan as you guys are, but we can discuss that at a later date.
All right, yeah.
I’ll indoctrinate you, eventually. But yeah, what about you?
Last, but certainly not least, I’m LeAlec. I do not come from the news world, but I come from the radio world. Do some DJing, work for some record labels, all to just circle back around and work in animation, which is something that I wanted to do probably since I was a kid.
Every videotape that I owned in my library as a kid was like the orange Nickelodeon tapes or like Transformers or like Power Rangers, stuff like that. And I would always carry it around with me because like if there was no animation on TV, I had a tape. You got a VCR.
Like I’d go to the babysitter’s house and we like, don’t even, we’re not watching game shows. I got it.
I brought my own stuff.
I got Rugrats on VHS. Baby Lealec with like a suitcase like. No, no, no, you’re no, like I literally had a box of VHS tapes that I carried around with me.
Those things were sturdy, man. As long as you didn’t touch the film.
Yeah, bro. Like you could, you could VHS forever.
I’m pretty sure I had a loose VHS copy of Digimon the movie in a box in my parents’ garage for 25 years. And it works perfectly.
I’m sure it does. If I remember correctly, my mom still has like half of my VHS collection. And I’m like, I bet you like every single tape in there works like right now, except for maybe like Lion King, because I like that one so much.
I guess that’s a good segue into like how much I obsess over physical media.
Oh dude, yeah.
I mean, Nintendo-
It’s only gotten worse as I’ve gotten older. Has that happened to you guys too?
Well, you know, you get older, like you’re like, wow, I have space to fill with shelves of stuff that I like to stare at.
And I’ve seen your shelves.
I mean, we’ve got Nintendo games, specifically Nintendo 3DS and DS. Long live the dual screen handheld.
Yeah. Bring back Nintendogs.
I’m gonna talk about DS games way more than I probably should on an anime podcast. Nintendogs should come back. It should.
This is exactly what it’s gonna be. We’re just gonna keep going off the rails talking about like random stuff that we love.
Speaking of the rails, you guys wanna get back on them?
Yeah, we should.
We are so happy you guys are all here. We’re so excited to have you listen to us say nonsense for an hour every week, but yeah.
We got some really cool stuff coming for you guys throughout the season too. So I’m happy to be here with you guys.
I’m happy to be here with you guys.
I’m happy for everybody to listen. It’s gonna be chaotic and I love it.
All right, when we get back, we’re gonna talk anime awards updates and get into the news of the week. We’ll see you there.
Welcome back, everybody. Now that you’ve gotten to know all of us and our various idiosyncrasies. Not yet.
Stares at me.
We’re not. Actually, you’re gonna find out more in a bit, but now what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna crack into some news. First, we’re gonna start with some anime awards updates.
Then we’re gonna get into some gaming news. The news we’re gonna do every week. It’s gonna be everything that is important to anime culture, pop culture, and anything that is adjacent to.
Yes, I’m gonna tell you all about the hopeful 4K re-release of Tron Legacy that happens.
I’m right there with you.
Oh wait, isn’t that anime podcast?
You have to let it go, Nick. You have to let it go. I can.
There was an interview a couple weeks ago where the director said it exists. But where’s the Tron anime though? Oh dude, Tron anime would go pretty hard.
Thank you.
All right, first big update of the week. The anime awards are in a couple weeks. So, we wanna check in at the beginning of every news segment to give you a little bit of update on what’s coming.
They’re live from Tokyo, Japan by the way. It’s gonna be amazing. They just announced some new performers and presenters joining the live show for March 2nd.
Any guesses on who might be showing up?
Actually no, man. I don’t have any, like.
Not one.
Not one? Not one.
Dallas Cowboy, Demarcus Lawrence will be there.
Ooh, represent. Representing TX.
Bressler, Mercedes Vernado.
Oh, man.
Sasha Banks.
Yeah, it’s Monet time, finally.
And the performances, I think this is one of the pieces I’m really excited about. We’ve got Hiroyuki Sawano and Kohta Yamamoto performing the Anime Awards theme song.
Yes.
We’ve got Yoasobi.
Yoasobi.
Ahead of their Coachella. Oh, man. And Shing02 doing battlecry from Samurai Champloo to celebrate the anniversary.
It’s gonna be a special night.
They also revealed how you can watch. It’s gonna be on YouTube. It’s gonna be on Twitch.
It’ll be streaming live starting at 6 p.m. Japan Standard Time. And yeah, it’s gonna be great.
I’m pretty excited. So stay tuned for more updates as we head toward the show and even more afterwards.
Yeah, we’ll talk about this later, but the award show is stacked this year. It’s so incredibly stacked this year.
It’s gonna be a fierce competition. And we were talking about this before, but I think for anime of the year, any of the noms could take it. I would believe any of them could take it.
None of it is clear cut, like at all. Like none of the categories, which is insane to me.
I’m super amped. I can’t wait.
Speaking of being amped, this is a horrible segue. We’re gonna do really bad segues. I’m gonna be like, speaking of Super Mario.
We’ll get better, you guys.
Nintendo just revealed the best-selling Mario video game of all time, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Mario Kart 8 first came out on the Wii U.
It’s been running for like a decade.
Then it came out again on the Switch as Deluxe. And then they added like three Mario Kart games worth of content to it on the Switch.
Which is crazy.
Yeah, there is no contest. Like the greatest Mario Kart game of all time is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
I mean, Double Dash is a very close second, but yeah, like it’s absolutely insane how they’ve been able to keep this game alive for so long.
And Nintendo has been like really hitting it out of the park with like million plus sellers on the Switch, which as someone who loves first party Nintendo games, it’s really exciting to see like series like Pikmin finally break a mainstream threshold. But specifically to Mario, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe dethrones the original Super Mario Brothers game from 1985.
That’s actually surprising. Essentially, whenever I play Mario Kart, I just vibe like, I don’t care if I lose. Everybody’s drifting, I still don’t know how to drift.
Like, let’s go.
No, we get super competitive about Mario Kart.
You got to kind of straddle the left and right buttons while you’re wiggling the stick. That’s kind of how you.
I’m here for vibes and friendship. So maybe you can show me how.
Yeah.
You’re not here for a blue cells ruining lives?
No, man. I feel bad. Like I’ll just withhold the shell because I’m like, my friends are firing me, bro.
Like I can’t.
No, there’s no friendship in Mario Kart.
That’s true. You check it all at the door. Check it all at the starting line.
Yep.
That’s going to end some friendships.
All right. Question for you all. What do you guys think is the least selling Mario game of all time?
And it’s not Mario teaches typing because I don’t think it.
Strikers maybe? I mean, I love Strikers.
That would be a shame because Strikers is a great game.
Strikers is amazing.
It’s not Strikers.
Really?
Yeah.
Interesting.
You’re close though.
Okay.
It’s also on the GameCube. It’s also a sports game.
I don’t know. What is it?
Mario Baseball, Mario Superstar Baseball, which is a, it’s a great game.
It’s a, no, it’s a phenomenal game. I wouldn’t have guessed that one. Well.
I mean, all these games are good on the, I mean, GameCube had a massive library.
Still need the Mario basketball.
So keeping it in the early nineties on the other side of the console war. Which I’ll see the trailer for Knuckles.
Oh, listen, listen. Good old Knuckles. Listen.
Hold on, hold on.
Listen. Knuckles is that dude.
Cut it there, cut it there.
Just that, just that. No, he is.
I have such an emotional attachment to Knuckles as a character. So like when I was growing up, my cousin and her younger brother used to babysit me and her brother had a Sega, the only game that I would play that you could get me to shut up for. For hours.
With Sonic and Knuckles. So Knuckles has been my guy forever. The fact that Edris Elba is the voice of Knuckles makes him double my guy forever.
So when they were like, we’re doing a Knuckles show, I was like, you say less. I don’t care how much money I got. I’m already paying for Paramount.
I guess I’ll go ahead and just slide you that extra five bucks so I can add show time. So I’ll just have everything. But no, man, I am super, super excited for this.
I was a little hesitant at first because it’s like, you know, everyone’s trying to do these like massive cinematic universes. But if you saw Sonic 2 with Knuckles in it, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the live action, it was so good, man. He kind of stole the show a little bit.
He did. Well, between, I would say between the Knuckles, like Knuckles showing up and then Tails also, like it was just so endearing to kind of have like all three parts of the main Sonic Heroes team kind of like.
Yeah, like let’s just keep it fun.
Honestly, it’s super fun and I appreciate it.
Yeah, and then, you know, Jim Carrey just basically being like, I’m at the end of my career. I’m just gonna be Eggman for the rest of it. Deal with it.
And we’re like, yeah, bro.
And he gives one of the like best like villainous comedic performances. Like that dude just heat shoes up the scene.
He is so good.
So Knuckles, which I think it’s just called Knuckles.
Yeah, it’s just Knuckles.
Is set between Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog 3 movie. With Shadow. And it hits April 26th on Paramount.
So, I mean, I’m definitely gonna be watching it. I think it’s like six episodes.
Yeah, it’s gonna be a mini. I think they said they’re gonna do another mini.
It’s an OVA.
It’s an OVA. It’s the Sonic OVA.
No, not that Sonic OVA. The other Sonic OVA. You guys like seeing anime on the big screen?
I love seeing anime on the big screen. Of course I do Nick.
So this week was like packed with news about anime coming to the big screen. We had the Demon Slayer World Tour kicked off. We had, you see Channing Tatum went to the New York.
I really wanna get him on the show.
I did not know that he was an anime, or I guess maybe his daughter is?
I think he is too though.
Wouldn’t he be wearing like a Tanjiro?
He was wearing like a Tanjiro.
I would believe it, yeah.
So the Demon Slayer World Tour kicked off, Tatsuki Fujimoto’s, who created Chainsaw Man, his manga Look Back, which is tonally, completely different than Chainsaw Man. It’s very good, it’s getting adapted into a movie, so that’s exciting. But Spy Family, Code White, which is an original story in the Spy Family world, where the forgers are going on a vacation on a train.
It’s gonna be adorable. It’s gonna be so cute.
I’m part of the contingent that loves when the mangaka’s come back and be like, okay, I wanna expand on the story, but I’m not gonna give you any physical material for it.
I love an original movie.
You’ll just have to go see it. I think it’s great, because just in general, the title is such an endearing title, and it’s so fun.
So for those who are listening or watching and don’t know Spy Family yet, first of all, get on it, but give me a quick breakdown of what to expect. What is Spy Family about?
It’s the best, funniest setup dynamic that I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a spy, an assassin, and a telepath who they’re all hiding their identities from each other, and each has an ulterior motive for why they’re a part of this family that they’ve kind of put together. Anya wants just to have a family.
Anya’s the telepath.
Yeah, Anya’s the telepath, the child, the daughter.
So cute.
She’s so adorable.
And she knows the secrets of both.
She knows everybody’s secrets.
Yeah, because she can read everyone’s minds. So it’s just so cute. The dynamic and the setup is, it’s adorable.
Everyone who I’ve ever shown it to instantly loves it. It’s, yeah, it’s a new classic.
I think it’s also funny that there’s Anya who’s the telepath, but then she has the dog Bond.
The dog is like, he has future sight.
Hopefully this isn’t a spoiler.
It’s pretty early in season one, I feel like. It’s been out for a while. Just watch it.
If you’re looking for something that’s comedic, but still has stakes and is also just super endearing.
It has heart.
And I’m really excited to see the forgers on the big screen. I will be seated. We should go see that together.
I’m sat.
I am sat.
So Dragon Ball Z, Reese’s Puffs.
Reese’s Puffs, Reese’s Puffs, peanut butter chocolate flavor.
I haven’t thought about that song in at least a decade. That’s amazing. Thank you.
Well, if you’re browsing the grocery aisle and get some Reese’s Puffs after hearing the beautiful rendition of the song.
It’s funny, I actually just did like the Reese’s Puffs.
Oh, okay.
Did you see?
Dragon Ball Z is collaborating with Reese’s Puffs.
I didn’t see the box though.
I’m kind of disappointed. If you flip it around, all of them, like if you collect all the boxes, they make like one big image.
They have all the like-
Just the wraparound cover.
It’s like kind of the main Z fighters. So, Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo, Trunks, and then Selfreeza and Boo. And it’s just like, I said I love physical media.
Like I can imagine myself just having like a wall with just empty Reese’s Puffs boxes. I still have the Super Mario amiibo cereal from like eight years ago or whenever that happened.
Oh man, yeah, that was a quick flash.
Unopened though.
Yeah, no, absolutely not.
I mean, they’re probably fine. They’re already dried out.
They probably taste like stale cardboard, dog. Don’t do it. Please, don’t do it to me, bro.
It’s an amiibo, I have to have it. All right, what’s your favorite?
Cereal?
Oh, like dessert for breakfast. Which is what cereal is.
Is that a dessert I know?
What’s your favorite cereal?
Oh, you said dessert for breakfast.
That’s because that’s what cereal is.
Essentially, yeah.
Then ask that.
Let’s see, maybe like…
You look really serious right now.
This is a serious question.
Maybe.
This is a question for the ages. Like the music just going off is…
If you say tricks.
I wouldn’t say tricks. You know tricks are for kids. Grow up.
I think probably, I’m gonna have to say like a fruity pebble. Out of all cereal, that’s the one with the best cereal milk.
That’s a good point. What do you got?
Oh man. One A and one B for me is gonna be Cocoa Puffs or Reese’s Puffs. When you talk cereal milk, nothing beats Cocoa Puffs cereal milk.
Yeah, let’s go into the milk.
See, I will give you any like cocoa blank cereal. It’s like Cocoa Pebbles I will eat, but for me, if you go like one step deeper, to the Reese’s Puffs, to the Oreos, to the Zebra Cake cereal, I’m like, that’s not cereal anymore. You have made-
Hostess did like a whole like-
Yeah, but it’s like, once you cross that line, you have made gross dessert milk. For me, I gotta go with Alphabits.
Oh, man, that cereal doesn’t even exist anymore, dog. Alphabits.
You’re actually onto something.
That cereal’s been discontinued for like 20 years, dog. And you were just like, nah, I’m gonna dig this up.
The Alphabits are lying in their grave and I’m like, come on, we got work to do. But Dragon Ball Z Reese’s Puffs coming to the store shelves near you. If you’re like me, Dragon Ball was probably one of the first anime you’ve ever watched, which I’m sure I’m not alone in, but coming up on our main story, we’re gonna share our anime origin stories.
Some of mine are pretty universal in the monster collecting craze. But LeA, your introduction to anime was a little more intense. I can’t wait for everyone to hear about it.
We will be right back with that.
Let’s go.
And we are back, it’s time to reveal our anime origin stories. I mentioned before the break that my introduction to anime is a little universal. I don’t want to say I’m not unique.
I feel special sometimes. Thanks. I’m a Chase variant.
He’s the holographic that you hope is in the back of your card pack.
But I definitely came up during the time of the monster collecting craze. Obviously, Pokemon is the big one. Digimon, which I love the Digimon anime in a way that I don’t love any of the other monster collecting anime.
I watch the Digimon anime again every three years, the first three seasons, and they hold up.
Are you excited? It’s the 25th anniversary of Digimon.
I know. I’m trying not to think about the number because I don’t want to feel like I’m 175 years old.
Oh, dude, between that and Pokemon, we’re just old.
But also Monster Rancher.
Yeah, oh, man, trying to get the CDs to get the monsters.
Yep, yep. Hamtaro. Any Hamtaro fans?
Little hamster, big adventure. If we work together, it’s much better. Hamtaro, all your dreams will come true.
Bought a Hamtaro DVD not that long ago. Anyway, Cubix, Robots Forever.
I love Cubix, bro.
I always have to check to make sure Cubix is on my anime list, that it’s trackable because in my head, I’m like, no, this was some like-
Fever dream.
But it’s there.
Yeah, it’s around. Yeah, it’s there.
Medabots. You Medabots?
Yes, love Medabots, bro. It’s so good.
And then of course, Dragon Ball Z. It’s very important to my childhood. I drew a stupid amount of OCs that if you guys bully me enough, I may show on the show sometime.
And also, do you all remember when Shonen Jump print was publishing in English? Yes. It was monthly.
It was so good. Yeah. It was monthly Shonen Jump here.
But I remember actually going to the comic shop or the bookstore and actually getting monthly Shonen when it was here. It was so good.
I used to just save it and there were just big stacks up in my room and they were my treasures, bro. It’s what you can afford to get your anime hit when you’re a kid with… I didn’t even get an.
Allowance. I was doing chores and stuff. There was a very quickly defunct live stage production of Pokemon called Pokemon Live.
Did not last long at all.
It’s pretty aggressively upsetting to look back on.
It’s kind of like the Ninja Turtles stage play.
Yeah, but I love it. The soundtrack is incredible, by the way. If you get a chance to listen to it, I don’t know if there’s any official way to watch or listen to Pokemon Live.
What was so traumatizing about it?
I mean, the costumes are weird, but the music was great and I was five, six years old. I remember I had one of those lightsabers you get at Disney World but it has a Pokeball at the top and it lights up.
Yeah. No, I feel you, man. That was a dark time.
What about you all? What are your anime origin stories?
Well, I guess I’ll go because I guess we have to save LeA’s traumatic anime stories.
I know. You really built it up. It’s not traumatic.
It’s just like we’re like, Pokemon, Digimon, Dragon Ball Z.
So just in general, my just animation journey, I felt was weird. You brought up numerous times that we talked. So when I was like, yeah, Dragon Ball, the original Dragon Ball was my first one.
It was pun intended, chasing the dragon. Because I found it on whatever channel it was on. I could never find it again.
And then a tsunami happens on Cartoon Network. And I’m immediately ingrained in the culture. And it’s crazy, because a lot of people won’t remember this.
When tsunami first started, it was Multar from Space Ghost that was running tsunami before Tom was created to run tsunami. And Tom has been running tsunami since then. But when tsunami first started, it was all the old Hanna-Barbera action cartoons, Galaxy Trio and Space Ghost and Birdman and Johnny Quest.
Transformers would come on off and on and Thundercats. So I was watching all of that in the interim of kind of tiptoeing into the anime thing. And then when tsunami as we know it in its current iteration happened, that’s when everything popped off, right?
Like racing home to watch Dragon Ball at 3.30. Cause you know, like on the dot, Tom was going to be like, now for Dragon Ball Z. And you’re like, oh my God.
The other side of this was, was a huge Power Rangers kid growing up. I still say was, still am. Just now a Power Rangers Tokusatsu adult.
But like just the fact of like, just a live Japanese production being remade for the American audience was something that was so intriguing to me.
It was so new at the time too.
It was so new. And then it just got worse as I got older because you’re like, wait, there’s more that we don’t have. So it just evolved into the chorus and tie series and then Common Rider and Godzilla and Ultraman.
And that’s when my superhero action kind of giant robots and monsters thing kind of formed on top of the fact of collecting comic books as a kid. Cause that’s how I learned how to read actually. Like I hated reading as a kid.
And my dad was like, look, as long as the kid is reading, it doesn’t matter. So he like, went and got me some comic books, which I still have to this day. One of the ones he got me was like one of the first original issues of Black Lightning from DC.
I’ve read that comic so much, just in the interim that I’ve like, the pages are worn, bro. Like the pages are dead.
They crumble to dust as they turn.
But that’s where just my love for physical media comes from that as well too. So it’s like, for the stuff that I really like, it’s like, okay, I have to have these. Which also kind of devolved into my action figure collection and my video game collection.
It’s like looking in a mirror, man.
I know, man. It’s weird. But yeah, that’s kind of where I started.
It just kind of like, I guess keeps evolving after that, because now like I’m working on a lot of like, Shoujo and like Slice of Life titles and I’m like, my world is changing. So I have like this whole other like set of genres that I’m into now.
Hey man, Slice of Life is where it’s at.
Yeah, don’t underestimate the Slice of Life.
Speaking of Slice of Life.
Oh, no.
You got to go now, there’s only so much I can talk.
So I can kind of relate to you guys. Like I was a Pokemon watcher, you know, I grew up with like staying up super late to watch Adult Swim because they used to put like a bunch of anime on Adult Swim. And I was like the only place I could get it.
Like my parents were a little stricter with like what they let me watch. And so I used to like sneak late at night to go watch it and it felt so good. I was like, oh.
Cause like I was always like so fascinated with it. Like there was just something where immediately when I bought my first volume of manga, like after saving up and saving up, I was like, I have to pick out one that my mom will let me get. So I’m going to pick a sports one.
And so I picked out a basketball one and it still plagues me to this day. And I was even looking for it this morning, but I cannot remember what it was.
So you don’t have the volume anymore?
No, like it got lost in the move.
So what sport is it you said?
Basketball.
So is it Kuroko’s?
It’s not Kuroko’s. It’s not Slam Dunk. And I can’t figure out what it is.
There is one more that I can’t put my finger on it.
There’s another one out there I can’t think of.
I looked through so many and I cannot find it. And I’ve been scouring the internet and maybe one day in 10 years, I’ll be in a used bookstore and I’ll see it. My life will be complete or something.
We’re gonna solve this now. Everybody watching and listening, please write into the show, help us out. LeAle will be eternally grateful.
The protagonist had black hair.
Early 2000s basketball manga, that isn’t Kuroko’s slam dunk.
It was still coming out when it was like early 1000s, like maybe 2000.
Well, yeah, no, you guys help us out with this because I’m sure we’re missing something. But seriously, this is your first official test from us. Do this, please.
Yeah, it’s like-
That’s right. The show’s interactive.
But yeah, so essentially like anime and manga to me was something like that was sort of out of reach, but whenever I came in contact with it, I knew that it was just something I loved. And eventually I was able to like start collecting some volumes. I was like reading like Kimi ni Todoke and like really like slice of life-y fun things, but I also read like Rosario Vampire.
And the funniest thing is like what I love about anime and manga is really the community that comes from it because when I got into middle school, I was kind of like an outcast kid, kind of friends with everybody, you know, but kind of a weird theater kid, you know. I don’t know if you can sense it.
You know what, I feel like it’s a huge part of all of our origin stories.
But the coolest thing was I somehow was able to find people at my school who were also super interested in manga. And the crazy thing about it is they were from like every walk of life. Like there was like in this friend group, we had theater kids, we had jocks, we had like outcasts, like we had like the breakfast anime club.
And we kind of formed our little unofficial like Genshiken. And each person would be like, hey, I bought this at Undisclosed Bookstore. And we would like just have a book club and pass them around and talk about them.
And I think that was like super formative for me because like it didn’t matter how different we were. We had this shared interest that we all really loved. And it brought together this like really genuine, cool friendship that is hard to come across.
I was going to say like, one, I wish we were friends in school because I feel like my journey with anime growing up was really singular. Like it was like I didn’t have like a club at school or my friends weren’t really into it. So it was kind of an experience I had by myself.
And so like getting older and joining the anime industry obviously has made me realize like how incredible that community is and how much I wish that I had that more when I was younger.
Yeah, and the sad part is, and it’s so bittersweet, but like eventually that group kind of faded apart. And I don’t know, I feel like I kind of got bullied out of anime and manga for a little bit. And then I kind of decided at a point where I’m just gonna like love what I love.
Like I’m gonna be the weird kid that just wants to talk about anime and manga all the time. And I think that was like a cool lesson that I had to learn.
I think I had a mixture of you guys’ two experiences because like for me, like it felt very singular, like as I was, you know, growing up. But then like when I got to my latter middle school years, my friend Dom, who I still, we still talk like now, we would, when I say racing home, like to go watch Dragon Ball at 3.30, so the bus stop was right in front of his house. So he would be like, bro, I’m gonna go drop my stuff in the house, I’m gonna run to your house and I’ll be there before the OP ends, like clockwork.
I turn on the TV, five seconds later, he rings the doorbell, he’s like, I’m here. And this was an everyday thing. And then when I got to high school, I don’t know how it happened, it just kind of happened organically.
Everybody would just be crowding around my locker, like all of the underground, like anime kids, like the jocks, the nerds, the outsiders, whoever, because we all kind of had our lockers next to each other. And we were just like, oh, y’all see Dragon Ball Z, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then we just break.
And then you would like, throughout the school day, you’d be like, I don’t know who that is.
Like we’re all friends because we all like, we have a shared interest. It’s so weird.
We were so close back then to all being happy.
To world peace.
And then the Fire Nation attacked.
Well, thanks for sharing everybody. That was great. I think it’s really cool to just learn how you got here.
And as anime is becoming more and more a thing that people like, it’s awesome to continue having that community with people. And I think that we’re a testament to that. We come from all different walks of life, but we love this thing and it brings us together and we’re all living our dreams out.
It’s a lot easier now. I feel like now it’s a lot easier to kind of be in the conversation and be a part of it.
Well, to be who you want to be without having to like apologize for it ever, because that community piece you’re talking about, like even with social media, you find those people immediately. You don’t have to go looking. That makes sense.
You can just start talking about the things you love and that crowd, you know, they care who you are now. It’s cool. Yeah, it’s unlike anything else.
Well, thanks guys. For those of you listening or watching, if you want to share your anime origin stories with us, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts.
And if you can think of that basketball anime, please, or manga, please. It may have an anime now. I don’t know.
No, but seriously, we’re working on getting kind of a setup for you guys to like write in and ask questions and stuff. But if you want to let us know your origins in the meantime, you can type them into those reviews as well. And we will, I mean, I’ll read every single one of them.
Next up, we are sharing our current anime and gaming recommendations that we think you will like. You, specifically you.
Right there, in this camera over here.
Which camera?
This camera, this camera, this camera. All of them.
Every week, we’re gonna give you some recommendations. They might be anime. There’ll probably be some anime thrown in there.
But games, music, movies, TV.
Whatever.
Comic books.
Whatever.
Brands of vacuum cleaners. Now, probably not unless someone pays us for it. What’s the Venn diagram between people who listen to this show and people who are in the market to purchase a new vacuum?
I’m in the market to purchase a new vacuum.
Those that love anime that are cleaning their house and listen to podcasts, this is a big circle. All right, this week, I brought two.
Okay.
I started and finished a game in the last week called Grand Blue Fantasy Relink.
Oh dude, how is it? I just played the demo before I went out of town. I’m so amped to pick it up.
It was great. I really didn’t know much at all about the Grand Blue Universe because there was like a mobile game that came out in Japan only.
My boy Mike has been trying to get me to play it for years.
Really?
Hold on bro.
And then there was the fighting game, Grand Blue Fantasy Versus.
Which they’re re-releasing or got re-released.
Yeah. It’s great. The animation that always looked great, but I checked out the demo for this RPG.
It’s got former Final Fantasy staff. They got Uematsu who did music for Final Fantasy. I thought it was great.
It’s like a really tight like 15 hour action RPG.
Oh wow, I expected it to be a lot longer probably because I’m still in the middle of playing the Last Hales game.
Oh yeah, that’s like 385 hours, which is great if that’s what you’re looking for, but for me, my gaming time can be limited. So yeah, definitely recommend that. Check it out.
And then my anime rec for the week is, I don’t know if y’all are watching this, but Metallic Rouge.
Yes, dude.
It’s essentially a tokusatsu show. Yes, I’m watching it.
I knew you were gonna say that because you loved cyberpunk.
Yeah, it’s just the vibes are really solid. It’s got such a really great atmosphere to it. It’s also Bones, the studio, who brought you Mob Psycho, My Hero, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood.
This is their 25th anniversary project, which if you haven’t heard, Crunchyroll, I think, dropped the first part of a documentary series about the 25 years of Bones.
So when you guys listen to this, you’ll be able to watch that first episode.
But Metallic Rouge feels like such a celebration of what they’re so skilled at.
It really is, it really is.
So if you like Mecha, if you like Tokusatsu, like you said, if you like anything that Bones has done in the past, which you probably do.
You probably like at least one’s Bones title in your life.
Then definitely, definitely check out Metallic Rouge.
Yeah, for sure.
It reminds me a lot of that game Dex. Did you ever play that game Dex? It’s kind of like a futuristic, like who heard the main character?
It was on PlayStation, right?
Yeah, but I played it on Switch recently. I flipped it. Did you guys used to say that?
I flipped it like when you finish a game? Like a console game? You didn’t say flipped it?
If you said flipped it, go ahead and leave a five star review on the Apple Podcast and say if you flipped it or not. But my recommendations, I am currently, and I have been for a little bit, playing through the entirety of Ace Attorney, like every single game.
Which one are you on? I guess the newer ones too?
Well, the thing is, I think I’m on the third game right now because the-
Of the original trilogy.
Yes. So because the arc with the, when they went to the like medium village, it took forever. That arc took forever.
So that’s always gonna be in the background. I’m gonna be playing it for the next couple of weeks.
There’s like 80 games.
Yeah, there’s a ton. But as far as anime, Nick stole mine. I was gonna say Metallic Rouge.
I think it’s so cool. Like that first battle.
The very first one.
Yeah.
Now, let me tell you, cause this will probably just be my anime rec too, and I don’t even have the one this week. The music in this show is absolutely incredible. So my two for this week, so video game wise, the last month or so, like I’ve been so locked in on Marvel Snap, and I have no idea why.
This season, this current season is The Black Order, and it’s like one of my favorite contingent of Marvel villains. It’s like Thanos and all of his cronies, and they’re all equally crazy.
If you’ve seen Infinity War and Endgame, it’s his cabal.
Yeah, and it’s crazy, cause like Thanos, even though he is like the big bad, like all the rest of them are equally as big bad as their own, right?
They’re all equally scary.
Like Proxima Midnight, like, oh, scary.
But it’s been so fun. And then my other rec for the week, super old school, and I always go back and watch the show. And I’m like, man, I don’t really have anything to watch.
I’m gonna go back and watch it. The Disney animated show Gargoyles is one of my absolute favorite pieces of animated anything on this planet. It’s an absolute like-
You just unlocked something in my brain.
You want some Shakespeare, you got it. Are you a fan of Star Trek Next Generation? We got some of that in there for you too, because half of that cast from Next Generation is in Gargoyles.
But then it tells a really good story about revenge and redemption and forgiveness. As a kid, you’re watching this, and it’s like, oh man, these are just guys that fly around and beat up people. But then you grow up and you watch it, and the perspective is so different from just the main character, Goliath, just the Shakespearean trauma that he goes through.
Being joint out of his time period and being put in to modern New York City at the time. Basically, yeah. Basically, it is an Isekai.
Do we have an Isekai button?
But yeah, that show is definitely worth a watch.
Well, I’ve never seen all of it, so I’m gonna go back and watch it. Thanks for the recs this week, guys. If you’re at home, check out one of our recs.
Let us know what you think.
Please, I wanna, seriously, if you guys have never seen Gargoyles and you start watching it, I really wanna know what you guys think, seriously.
All right.
Tune in next week for the Gargoyles episode.
Once we all go home and watch it, we’re always gonna do that Gargoyles effect. No, but seriously, if you guys like some of the stuff that we’re saying and you wanna hear more of it, just let us know. We’d love to hear from you.
And we did actually get some fan questions this week.
Is this our first fan questions?
On Instagram. Let’s get into those now. You wanna head over to the mail bag, y’all.
All right, welcome to this week’s Mailbag. Every week on the show, we will take a couple, a handful of fan questions and answer them on the show. Our first question comes from Queen Phoenix on Instagram.
Their question is. Their question is, how many anime genres can you name off the top of your head?
Shoujo, Shounen. I guess horror would be one, with like, Ito.
Slice of Life. Mecha.
Mecha, yeah.
Etchi.
Cut the cameras.
Cut it, just we’re done.
Cut the cameras.
We’re done. I’m gonna say Tokusatsu, cause I’m that guy. Cause it is a genre, yeah.
Sports. Sports.
Sports. How can we forget sports?
And we just had this whole like.
I know.
Romance.
Romance.
Comedy.
Romcom. Yeah, there’s pretty much the same genres that you can find in like any anime. You’ll find some, if you like some weird niche thing, it probably exists.
It definitely exists. And music is another genre. It’s another genre.
And gaming.
Music make you lose control.
No, LeAlec, I think you bring up a good point. Not that point about music making you lose control. It does, it definitely does.
But yeah, there’s a genre for everyone when it comes to anime. So thanks for the question, Queen Phoenix. Queen.
And this next question comes from Jazz S1994, who says, what makes the perfect first episode to bring in people who have no knowledge of a series?
This is hard because I’m of the school of three episodes. You need to get a three episode rule. So, however, I like one that doesn’t, that ends the first episode with a little bit of mystery.
Yeah, like a promised Neverland moment. Where it’s like, oh my God. Like, it doesn’t have to be quite so Shyamalan, but something that leaves you like wanting to, you can’t wait to click the next episode.
Which they’re not hard to come by. We’ve had a lot in the past couple of seasons for sure.
I feel like for me, it comes down to, I don’t want to use the word vibe again, because I feel like I’ve said vibe like a hundred times, but it’s really atmosphere of a show. So like one of the genres that I really like is kind of slice of life and just like ways that anime makes you feel nostalgic about real life. So shows like Laid Back Camp, which has that like very like childhood feeling of like hanging out with your friends and going on an adventure, but it’s just super chill.
Do It Yourself, which is about a group of kids who are in like a do it yourself club at school and their goal is to build a tree house, but that first episode is so like just like slice of life. Just like, I remember what it was like to be a kid in school, but even shows like Insomniacs After School or Call of the Night, which both of those shows, their atmosphere from episode one has this like kickoff. It’s 4 a.m.
you’re 14 years old, somehow you’re still awake because you’ve been playing Halo 3 all night.
Yeah, and you’re too jazzed around.
But you’re just like, you’re thinking about your crush and like just that feeling of nighttime in the middle of the night as a kid. And so yeah, atmosphere and vibe is probably the thing that will really draw me in on a first episode.
I’m just gonna say the first episode of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. Like I feel, because it doesn’t pull any punches, it just drives you right in. And they’re chasing this fugitive and you’re like, you have no idea what’s happening.
Like just stuff is just popping off and you’re like, oh, it’s alchemy. And then-
But it doesn’t stop the need to explain it. It’s like this confidence.
Yeah, exactly. It doesn’t sit, it doesn’t stop to babysit you and be like, oh, hey, by the way, this is what this is.
And then- And shout out female writers.
When you see Edward and Alphonse for the first time, you automatically know that they’re those dudes.
Shows that are so confident in what they’re doing to your point without having to hold your hand. But what do you think makes the perfect episode one? Let us know.
For sure. Guys, I think that’s the end of our first episode.
Is that it? That’s all.
Did we do it?
Is that a wrap?
Did we do it?
Thank you everyone for joining us for the first episode. Everybody grab your poppers and your champagne bottles.
Did you have fun?
Whatever else you gotta do. Yeah.
Did you have fun? Did you have fun?
Yeah, seriously, no. I’m super stoked. I know I said this before, but I’m super stoked to be sitting here with you guys every week to be doing this because we’re gonna talk about some really cool stuff.
Yeah, we got some really awesome guests coming up.
Cool, I’m so excited.
There’s a lot in store.
I’m so excited. Thank you everyone for joining us for the first episode of The Anime Effect brought to you by Crunchyroll and the folks over at Sony Music. Please be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode.
Smash that like button.
Crunchyroll Presents The Anime Effect is hosted by me, Nick Friedman, LeAlec Murray and Leah President. We are executive produced by Jonathan Hirsch, Shara Morris and also me. Our lead producer is Kyla Carnero, Patrick Amiel edited and mixed this episode’s audio and Tyler Lucas filmed and edited the video.
Our head of production is Sammy Allison. Special thanks to Tamika Balance-Kalasny and Lauren Moore.
We’ll be back next week with even more anime. Can you believe it?
There’s nothing you can do about it.
There’s nothing you can do about it.
We’re still here. We’re an unstoppable train. We’re the Moogah train.
See you next week, guys.
Later, guys.
Let’s see how powerful the effect on it.
Whoa!
You were this close!