0:03

So instead of a food heist today, we're

0:06

gonna talk about a show that involves

0:08

a lot of heists. And to be clear,

0:10

I have dozens of food heists.

0:13

I'm just not gonna do one. You

0:16

had put away your tablet and you're like, ah. I'm

0:19

like, all right, we don't need to. The

0:22

wonderful listeners have sent so many

0:24

food heists and I have a ton of them. I

0:26

am trying to get them organized and I haven't

0:28

fully organized them yet.

0:30

So what a great excuse,

0:33

Dan. You're really good at that. Also,

0:35

I'm lazy. Not

0:38

so good anymore, but you're really killing

0:40

it. Yeah, it was a pretty good one, huh? We

0:43

have watched some of One Piece. Yeah,

0:46

live action. Live action One Piece.

0:49

Did you watch any of the anime? I've

0:51

never seen an episode of the anime. And I have

0:53

never read an issue of the comic. I

0:56

have never read the manga. I

0:58

did after watching the first

1:00

two live action episodes. I went and watched the

1:03

first two anime episodes. That's

1:05

cool. So that I could compare

1:07

them and whatever. I will be interested in

1:09

hearing some of those comparisons. So we'll tell

1:11

you when we get to spoilers. First, we'll just talk about

1:14

some of our history with anime. Because neither

1:16

of us are mega anime nerds. Not

1:19

really, no. But we know them. If

1:21

there is a cosplay at a con

1:24

that I don't know what it is, it's anime, every

1:26

single time.

1:27

You know, it almost always is. But there

1:30

are times where a video game hits,

1:33

right? And then I'll be like,

1:35

wait, what is that? Five Nights at Freddy's.

1:37

When it hits, I was just a little bit

1:39

behind the curve in knowing what that was. And I go to

1:42

a comic con, and I'd be like,

1:44

what's going on? A friend of mine did a cosplay

1:46

of, I can't remember which

1:48

character from Hades, the video game.

1:51

Yeah. And I totally didn't get

1:53

it. So. Yep, yep. Because

1:55

we are sometimes slow on these things. But

1:57

we did, you know, grow up watching

1:59

anime.

1:59

And when we were in college we

2:02

watched a ton of anime mostly because

2:04

of our friends who are big anime fans like we'll

2:06

talk about Ben Ben wouldn't

2:09

say loves anime, but he loves Evangelion

2:11

Yeah, he just that's one of his favorite

2:13

shows of all time and so yeah every

2:16

episode of Evangelion I've seen

2:18

was because of Ben. Yeah, and

2:20

I think that I have seen every episode of

2:22

Evangelion and one

2:24

of the movies hmm and And Fudlicoolie

2:27

we saw because of Ben. Yes, because it's

2:29

kind of and I love that one so much I

2:31

bought the super fancy deluxe

2:34

DVD set. Mm-hmm And

2:36

for me Giordo is just an enormous anime

2:38

fan. Yeah, and so pretty loon. We

2:40

were growing up I don't know if he does as much now and

2:43

so most anime I've seen is because

2:45

of Giordo I'm pretty sure it was Giordo

2:47

that got you and I watching Lodas war.

2:50

Yep, and I haven't seen all of that But

2:52

that was we tried to watch the whole thing.

2:54

Yeah, and it's just very long But

2:57

Giordo was the Kenshin fan. Mm-hmm

2:59

showed us some Kenshin We would do

3:02

like watch parties and things like this. So

3:04

yeah, so I would say that I am not an expert

3:07

in anime But I am fluent in anime.

3:10

Yes an outsider who has learned

3:12

the language if that makes sense. Mm-hmm. I Huge

3:16

fan of cowboy bebop. Obviously

3:18

Ben also showed me vampire

3:21

hunter d

3:22

then wrote

3:25

Didn't he a vampire hunter d

3:27

like I don't think it was Specifically.

3:30

Yeah, it was on purpose fanfic. It was

3:33

heavily inspired It was heavily

3:35

inspired by it the same way that my first book

3:37

started with the wind scene from the Wheel of Time

3:39

and Your first book made

3:42

use of some liberal borrowing from

3:44

Warhammer fantasy. Yeah. Yeah, so

3:46

the fanfiction At least the

3:48

way that we used it I do believe that

3:50

it is a very cool art form

3:53

unto itself, but I think it has to be conscious

3:55

You're calling this fanfiction and all

3:57

three of our cases. We were writing something that was super

3:59

derivative it, but wasn't like we

4:01

were using it as training wheels, which is not

4:04

what it has to be. But that's how

4:06

we used it was like, I don't really

4:08

know how to do a

4:10

story yet. I'm going to

4:12

just copy this other one that I love and

4:14

thereby learn kind of how it works. Yeah.

4:17

So basically, it's just to establish we're going

4:19

to get some things wrong. We aren't

4:21

cool enough to have

4:24

seen all of One Piece, though

4:26

it is one of the number one most recommended

4:28

things that my fans recommend me

4:31

to experience because they

4:34

give me the sense that the world building is very

4:36

like the way that I do world building, but

4:39

in a manga form. So the three I get recommended

4:41

is this Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood,

4:44

and of course Avatar Blast Air Vendor.

4:46

Yeah, which you know, is a giant

4:48

can of worms of whether you can call that anime or not.

4:50

It's American produced.

4:53

Yeah, like is there champagne that wasn't

4:55

made in the city of champagne? Is

4:58

Kobe beef only from Kobe, the

5:00

Kobe region of Japan? At some point,

5:03

originally, it was.

5:06

And then now what is the definition

5:08

move to Canada include, and I

5:10

think that anime question is

5:12

in flux. And it could fall on either

5:15

side. Yeah, falling like no, we

5:17

have a different definition for something that's made outside

5:19

of Japan using Japanese aesthetic. Yeah.

5:21

And there's a lot of those all

5:23

over Netflix, which are obviously

5:26

American, but trying so hard

5:28

to look like Japanese animation.

5:31

Yeah, same as you. I have

5:33

heard about One Piece for years. I have

5:36

never consumed a scrap

5:38

of One Piece media until my

5:41

kids said, Hey, let's watch the live

5:43

action. And let's be honest, like, we

5:46

probably would be best off going to the original

5:48

source and reading the manga. I understand that probably

5:50

right. But the manga is 2000

5:53

issues long, or as soon

5:55

to be or something like that in the anime

5:57

is like 1000 episodes. Yeah. And

6:00

I can't even convince myself to

6:02

watch a lot of shows that

6:04

have two seasons or three

6:07

seasons. So this

6:10

is all to say I sat down and watched

6:12

the first two episodes of the One Piece television

6:14

show. I told you and you're like, yeah, I'm going to go

6:16

watch that. So we can now speak about

6:20

being somewhat outsiders experiencing

6:22

One Piece for the first time. What did you

6:24

think without giving spoilers? Without giving spoilers?

6:28

Yeah. It became quickly obvious

6:30

to me that I just

6:33

don't get it. Oh, okay. And I

6:35

want to be clear about that. I am not saying

6:37

it's bad. I'm saying it's not for me.

6:39

It is one of the most beloved mangas,

6:42

one of the most beloved animes of all

6:44

time. Like top five probably.

6:48

And I just could not

6:50

understand the appeal of it. I

6:53

did like buggy.

6:55

I suppose that's a spoiler. I apologize. When

6:58

it veers toward horror, surprise, surprise,

7:01

Dan gets more excited about it. But

7:03

yeah, I spent most of my time watching

7:05

it thinking,

7:07

this? This is what everyone's been talking about

7:09

for years?

7:10

Yeah. So what were your

7:12

thoughts? I kind of loved it.

7:15

Okay. Well, like

7:17

I

7:18

kind of loved it for what it was, if

7:20

that makes sense. Like I

7:23

enjoyed every episode I watched. It

7:26

quickly signaled to me what kind of show

7:28

it was. And

7:32

the hypercritical parts

7:34

of me just

7:35

turned off. Because I'm like, okay,

7:37

there are certain criticisms that you can

7:39

justifiably apply to this. And I think

7:42

there are certain ones that just don't apply.

7:45

And I just turned that off and just

7:47

enjoyed it. I ended up really liking

7:50

it.

7:50

Okay.

7:51

Cool. So that's our spoiler free part.

7:54

We'll now go into spoiler zone for

7:56

the first two episodes. And I want

7:58

to be clear, I didn't hate it. Yeah,

8:00

I just have not felt compelled

8:03

to watch any more of it since. So

8:06

my guess is going to be the

8:09

reason for that. Maybe tell

8:11

me if I'm wrong. It is very

8:13

black and white morality, like

8:17

no pun intended comically. So like

8:19

every good guy saves

8:22

a child. And

8:24

every bad guy is trying to kill children

8:26

or rip them off or bully them in some

8:29

way. Right? Like that's kind of our morality.

8:31

Access is, are you a person who

8:34

will protect the child from bullies or will

8:36

you try to kill those children or maybe enslave

8:38

them or something like that? And,

8:40

you know, it wears

8:43

on its sleeve that this is a world

8:45

of very dastardly, mustache

8:48

twirling villains and very

8:51

good people, some of which pretend

8:53

to be bad, but have hearts of gold. And

8:56

it's very clear with that. Yeah. And

8:59

I don't think that that was what my problem

9:01

was. Okay. It's not that I'm demanding something

9:04

deep or metaphorical

9:07

or anything like that. A lot of it

9:09

just, well, and now I'm going

9:12

to say it was very shallow. A lot of the characterization

9:14

was very shallow. The anime I felt

9:17

did a little better job with that.

9:19

Okay. Like little nerd kid who

9:21

wants to be a Marine on the glasses.

9:24

Yeah. He is super obnoxious

9:26

in the cartoon. The anime is one of these

9:29

where like half the characters scream

9:32

all of their dialogue and he

9:34

was the worst offender for that. But you

9:36

get to know him better and you care

9:38

about him more despite him being

9:41

kind of obnoxious. Is it because it's slower? Maybe

9:45

it's slower. I guess that's what I'm asking. The anime

9:48

doesn't go into

9:50

the backstory. Uh-huh. So there's more

9:53

time to spend in the present with

9:55

the characters. So instead of cutting constantly

9:58

to Luffy's kind of Mentor

10:00

dude, whatever his name was. Mm-hmm. We

10:02

just kind of spend more time in

10:05

the present with the characters interacting

10:07

with each other and it also was

10:11

setting up some of the Other

10:14

main characters a little more slowly. Mm-hmm.

10:17

And so I think we just got to know them better

10:19

for that reason Interesting. Yeah,

10:21

I haven't seen that. I mean I would

10:24

say like For

10:27

me Zorro comes around

10:29

too quickly in the second episode being

10:31

like nah Yeah, I go save this kid and

10:33

things like that like that's the sort of thing I

10:36

want to have happen Halfway through a

10:38

season or near the end of the season where the

10:40

gruff killer with a heart of gold

10:42

has actually been won over By the optimistic

10:45

happen, but for me

10:47

the thing that really makes it is Luffy

10:49

and his actor He is fantastic

10:53

Mm-hmm. I really loved him. I just

10:55

want to watch him do his thing Like

10:58

he has the effect on me that he has

11:01

on the crew in the show in

11:03

turning you towards them making you like him Yep.

11:06

And yeah making me believe in

11:08

him and You know There

11:11

are some conversations about some of the shallowness

11:13

of the characters and I'm sure the depth comes later

11:15

on But I really like

11:18

when someone doesn't make a

11:20

hero like Luffy good at everything

11:23

and he's dense he just

11:25

yeah doesn't get it and He's

11:28

got all these things going for him But he's also got

11:30

that one thing that really humanizes

11:33

him to me And I

11:35

really like that like that sold me

11:37

on the whole thing was Luffy

11:40

being good-hearted, but also kind of dense and

11:44

And you know, yeah, so first

11:46

of all, I will agree with you. Mm-hmm Though

11:49

mine was a slightly different flavor instead

11:51

of like oh This Luffy

11:53

is great. Mm-hmm that makes

11:55

the show work. I thought this

11:58

guy playing Luffy is amazing I can't

12:00

wait to see what he does next. But

12:04

what was really interesting to me in the anime

12:07

is that, and again, we're talking about the first two episodes

12:09

only. And I don't doubt that much

12:12

more depth comes later on. In the anime,

12:14

he's not really good hearted. That felt

12:17

like it was added for the live action.

12:20

He's kind of a dick. Like

12:22

in the live action, when

12:25

he's talking to the nerd kid and I can't remember

12:27

his name, he slaps him, but he's

12:29

also, you can tell he cares

12:32

for him and that he says,

12:34

you know what, I'm gonna help you become a marine

12:36

because that's what you wanna do. And

12:38

in the anime, he just kind of makes

12:41

fun of him all the time, like you're a stupid coward

12:43

and you don't have good decisions.

12:46

And just much more aggressive

12:48

and abrasive of a character. Which

12:51

I assume just means that he has a longer

12:54

arc because there's 2,000 episodes

12:56

instead of 10 or whatever it is

12:58

in the first season of Netflix. But yeah,

13:00

it was really interesting that that kind of Captain

13:04

American-ness about him where

13:07

he's just a nice guy who's trying to do

13:09

what's right. The

13:11

anime Luffy didn't really have

13:13

that in the first two episodes. It was interesting. Like

13:16

I also kind of like, again, going with

13:18

his sort of denseness. One of the things that I enjoyed was

13:21

he really has no idea what a pirate is. But

13:24

the pirates he knew when he was a

13:26

kid were good people. So

13:29

therefore, that's what a pirate must be. And that's what I'm going to

13:31

be. I'm gonna go be like this guy who saves children.

13:33

And

13:35

that just

13:36

made me smile. I also liked

13:38

in the, I don't know if it was

13:41

the first or the second, the flashback episode

13:43

where bad guys come back to the bar.

13:45

There is a brief but

13:48

just incredible action sequence. It's

13:50

the one where one person grabs the gun off the

13:52

other one's belts and they're all shooting at the same time.

13:54

And it's like anime choreography in real

13:56

life. Where every motion

13:59

is... place and I really like that. It's

14:02

probably other than Luffy stuff my

14:04

favorite moment the whole thing was that brief action

14:06

sequence that made it feel like you

14:08

know a dance. That

14:10

was definitely the best fight scene out of

14:13

both episodes. In general

14:15

I thought that the fight scenes were pretty

14:18

boring especially the one in the

14:20

second episode where they kind of take down

14:23

Buggy. I don't know I watch

14:25

a lot of martial arts movies.

14:27

Yeah a lot of Hong Kong stuff and

14:30

this just all felt very slow paced

14:32

and very oh these are

14:34

not real fighters they're just actors pretending.

14:37

Whereas that scene possibly because it was

14:39

guns instead of punches they

14:42

were able to do much more interesting

14:44

choreography with it and the actors could

14:46

pull it off. I can see some

14:48

of that. I can see that like definitely

14:51

Buggy's fight there

14:53

wasn't enough time for it. Like

14:55

I've seen some really great

14:58

anime fights where the fights in anime

15:01

which I assume in a lot of shonen that I've

15:03

experienced which again not an expert they're

15:05

puzzles right which is another reason why I think

15:07

people recommend this to me. My fight seems to

15:09

be puzzles. The puzzle is how do we

15:11

defeat the bad guy who has powers that

15:13

are obviously beyond what I

15:16

can naturally defeat. How do I find the

15:19

hole in this person's armor? Yeah

15:21

and it usually in the best things comes

15:24

down to sort of a philosophical difference or my

15:26

training versus your training lets me

15:28

exploit your hole when you can't exploit

15:31

mine or things like that. I

15:33

felt like the Buggy fight

15:35

was

15:36

probably in the comics one of those

15:38

and in the show there wasn't enough time

15:41

because you didn't see the connection

15:43

where it clicks for Luffy and they

15:45

try capturing one piece and they're like oh now

15:48

we can capture more and separate

15:50

him and things like that. Yeah we

15:52

don't get that sense of learning

15:55

the system and then figuring out how to game

15:57

it. Yeah. Instead they just hit

15:59

the point where suddenly all three of them in

16:01

perfect coordination are like, we're

16:04

going to do this now without talking

16:06

to each other without explaining what their plan is.

16:08

And it just works.

16:11

But going back on it, I love

16:13

the way Luffy moves in fight scenes. Like,

16:17

I was worried when I heard you had stretchy powers, I

16:19

was going to get Mr. Fantastic, which we've seen

16:22

multiple times, multiple adaptations of him.

16:24

And you know, a lot of girl and things like this.

16:27

And making Luffy rubber in a different

16:29

way is what I like to see in

16:31

magic. It takes the same idea and does

16:33

it differently. He is rubber in just

16:36

a completely different way than

16:38

Mr. Fantastic is rubber. And the way that

16:40

they've done that I really enjoy. It moves in an

16:42

interesting way. It's fun. Yeah,

16:45

I did love buggy. Speaking

16:48

of things that they did in an interesting way. When

16:50

we got to buggy and I was like the end

16:52

of the first episode, we're like, Oh, there's an evil clown.

16:55

Like how many evil clowns have we seen? And

16:58

then we find out they

17:01

just ramped up the creepiness for

17:04

him so effectively, where

17:06

it starts off with, wait a minute, that nose

17:08

is real. And then we

17:10

realized that he has enslaved

17:13

an entire town just so he has

17:15

an audience that is required to

17:17

laugh at his jokes. And

17:20

then we get to he can take himself apart

17:22

and cut his head in half and all these other creepy things.

17:25

There was a nice sense of mounting tension

17:27

with him. And in particular, the

17:29

I have enslaved an entire town for

17:32

stupid showmanship reasons was

17:35

really new for me. I

17:37

thought that was really nice. You

17:40

would pick the weird creepy

17:42

thing I know to enjoy, wouldn't

17:44

you? Yeah, sorry.

17:48

So are you going to watch more? Are

17:51

you basically done? If

17:53

you say, Hey, let's do another episode

17:55

about the next two or three, then

17:58

yeah, I'll watch them. I mean, there's lots of stuff. for

18:00

us that we can watch. Right. Without

18:02

outside influence, I've got

18:04

too many things I'm interested

18:06

in to watch something that didn't really do it

18:08

for me. Yeah. Because I actually

18:11

already with my wife watched the next two. Okay.

18:14

But maybe we will, maybe we won't. It'll

18:16

do more. But yeah, I watched those

18:19

two and so. Yeah.

18:21

I do feel like I need to talk

18:24

about other things I liked. Yeah. The

18:26

visual look of it, like when

18:28

the sea monsters show up in

18:31

one of the flashbacks, they're just really

18:33

cool looking sea monsters. The way he

18:35

moves, the way they do the rubber effects. You

18:38

know? Yeah. It looks

18:40

really neat. Here's why I can turn

18:42

off part of the critic because, so

18:45

I did a live stream of Wheel of Time

18:47

season two, episode eight recently. Right?

18:50

And I was super critical. Yeah. It

18:53

is not necessarily

18:56

worse than this. Right?

18:59

Yeah. Narratively. In

19:02

fact, Wheel of Time episode eight, which I felt in the scripts with the weakest was still

19:04

good. Right? Still an improvement

19:06

on the first season. Still a lot of great things about

19:08

it. But I was super critical. People

19:10

might be listening and being like, but why aren't you critical

19:13

of this? I think there's a distinction here. I

19:15

see in one piece. The

19:18

flaws that I notice, I think are probably

19:21

flaws in the original media.

19:24

Right? Like, I think that some of

19:26

these things that I'm saying, like this

19:29

is, I know it's a series that has run, you know,

19:32

the 2000 issues is what we're looking at

19:34

for One Piece. I know that Love

19:37

for It is built over a long time. I know

19:39

that the creator really likes

19:42

the show. And it's one of these manga

19:44

guys who are super, super

19:47

detailed, artist and critical of any

19:49

sort of thing. And I know that the

19:51

fans of One Piece legitimately

19:54

love the show in general and

19:56

feel like it's a very faithful adaptation

19:58

as well as can be done. into live

20:01

action. And those things all together

20:04

propel me to just be like, I'm giving

20:06

this the benefit of the doubt, and I'm just going to watch it and enjoy

20:08

what it is. I have a different interaction

20:11

with Wheel of Time, where I

20:13

am hyper protective of,

20:16

you know, Robert Jordan, and

20:18

Harriet and things, because I'm

20:21

the one who gets to be the advocate for them, because

20:24

Robert Jordan isn't here to give a voice. And

20:26

Harriet's age interrupts her ability

20:29

to be super involved with

20:31

the production. And so I

20:34

have to be the voice for

20:36

that. And beyond that, I get

20:39

to see the things that I

20:41

think should be changed. And

20:43

then, you know, not be

20:46

able to change those because it's not my show,

20:48

which is totally fine. Like, I

20:50

think rape does a great job. I've

20:52

said that multiple times, even in this live stream, where

20:54

people are like, Brandon is really critical to the Wheel of Time.

20:57

I'm very praiseworthy of the things

20:59

that are good. But I think

21:01

there is something about this

21:03

that, you know, makes me think One

21:06

Piece has flaws, but it's a better

21:08

adaptation of the soul

21:11

of the creator's work, then

21:13

Wheel of Time is, whereas Wheel of

21:15

Time may be a better show. Like, One

21:18

Piece, it's harder to recommend, because

21:20

you have to kind of be okay with some of

21:23

these anime things that are a little, you

21:25

know, they're part of the genre, but to an

21:27

outsider, like, yeah, might

21:29

be. Yeah. Whereas Wheel of Time is trying,

21:31

I think harder to be appealing

21:34

to a mass audience and is leaving

21:36

behind some of those things about Wheel of Time that I sincerely

21:38

love, but that, you know, might

21:41

not work for a general audience.

21:43

So we end up with this thing that Wheel

21:46

of Time might be better

21:49

at its core. I don't know if I could say that. It

21:51

might be, but it doesn't

21:54

feel as good an adaptation to me. Yeah, I

21:56

think that's absolutely fair. And

21:58

that is reason why

22:01

my wife and I really enjoy

22:03

Wheel of Time. Yeah. I've only watched

22:06

a couple of episodes of the new season. We

22:08

are long past the point where it's

22:10

part of the books that I've read. Yeah. And

22:13

so it's all new and so I have no idea whether

22:15

it's faithful or not. And on

22:17

its own, in a vacuum,

22:20

it's interesting and I'm enjoying it. Yeah.

22:23

And don't get me wrong. Again, I fully

22:25

intend that we'll do many episodes on Season 2

22:27

of Wheel of Time. Wheel of

22:29

Time does some great things. It's just

22:32

there's part of me that's like, I could

22:35

have fixed this. We could have had both.

22:37

Yeah. And I think that One Piece

22:39

is really worthy of praise for that because they

22:42

managed to make a show

22:44

that is appealing

22:46

to a mass audience while also satisfying

22:49

the creator and the hardcore fans. And I

22:51

do. That's impressive. I mean, One Piece, if

22:53

you look at the ratings, is doing really well.

22:56

Wheel of Time's doing well too, but One Piece is getting

22:58

about double the ratings. And

23:01

I assume you can't do that if people

23:03

aren't tuning in to see what the buzz about

23:05

it is and enjoying it despite not

23:08

knowing. So maybe I'm wrong in saying it's

23:10

less mass appeal. I don't know. So

23:12

now that we're comparing these two, something

23:15

that occurs to me, and I'm interested

23:17

to know what you think about this, where

23:21

Wheel of Time tends to fall down for

23:23

me is in plot. I

23:26

like the characters and they feel

23:28

like real people, but they

23:30

often do completely inexplicable

23:33

things because the plot requires them to.

23:36

Whereas One Piece, these

23:38

are, at least in the first two episodes,

23:41

incredibly shallow characters.

23:44

Luffy wants to be a pirate because he wants to be

23:46

a pirate. Like that's all the development

23:48

we really kind of get through. Come on. He

23:51

wants to be a pirate because he was taken care of by a pirate

23:53

when he was an orphan and this pirate showed valor

23:56

and humanism in his actions.

23:58

A little bit short. Not

24:00

a little bit. That's the whole point of the first two

24:02

episodes. I know but it's Still

24:06

a very shallow character. I'd say straightforward

24:10

Whereas I have not connected

24:12

emotionally to any of the characters. Okay, they

24:15

do things without Mm-hmm

24:18

motivation without explanation. I'm

24:21

sure that we will eventually understand

24:23

who they are as Presented

24:25

here. I don't get Whereas

24:28

the things that they do the

24:31

stories they get involved in the

24:33

things that are happening Make a little

24:35

more sense possibly because the plot is much

24:38

more simple and straightforward And so there

24:40

aren't as many holes in it things like that Yeah

24:43

again We'll talk about wheel of time

24:45

more as I sit down and watch the episodes

24:47

and we kind of do actual reviews rather than just

24:50

Off-the-cuff sort of things but I feel

24:52

like where wheel of time does drama

24:54

fantastically But arcs

24:57

poorly in the TV show and I

24:59

think we saw that in season one and I feel like I

25:02

you know seeing the end of those arcs in episode 8

25:04

like the Arcs and things

25:07

don't fit together But the scenes and

25:09

the interaction the characters leading up are really

25:11

good because the acting is fantastic.

25:13

The casting is fantastic so I

25:15

feel like wheel of times really good at filming

25:17

scenes and and Not

25:20

working for me as an epic large-scale

25:23

Plot narrative on the same way

25:26

like the best episode of season one is

25:28

still the one that doesn't have anything really to do With

25:30

the main plot of the show and yeah,

25:33

you know not having watched it But having

25:35

read them some of the best episodes of season

25:37

two are the same way the best parts are things

25:39

that aren't even really having to do with

25:41

the main plot because They're

25:44

good actors that the writing is really solid for

25:46

those scenes the drama. They're very good

25:48

at drama Yeah, but how

25:51

these pieces all fit together is what makes

25:53

an epic fantasy an epic fantasy to me And

25:55

so I think I'm maybe more critical of that and

25:58

that might be you know unfair to it because

26:01

with One Piece, the episodes are mostly

26:03

self-contained, right? Really the first two

26:05

episodes, just like, here's this story

26:07

with this thing, here's the villainous pirate, and here's

26:09

how we face the villainous pirate. And

26:12

so I'm not looking for the pieces to build together

26:14

in the same way I'm expecting Wheel

26:17

of Time or Rings of Power to do. Yeah.

26:20

And I liked what you said about, you know,

26:22

that all anime has some level of just

26:24

weirdness to it. A famous tweet

26:27

that gets reposted all the time that says it's

26:29

hard to recommend anime to people because

26:32

all anime, even the awesome stuff,

26:35

has some level of anime nonsense

26:38

to it and you never know where

26:40

somebody's threshold for anime nonsense

26:42

is, right? Yeah. Remember

26:45

watching like Trigun when

26:47

we were like, God, maybe I showed an episode to

26:49

Emily and I was out too far away.

26:52

Like all the super deformed faces

26:54

and chibi expressions and hammer space

26:57

and all that stuff really broke

26:59

the narrative for me. I couldn't enjoy

27:01

the narrative because the wackiness,

27:05

which is just expected

27:07

paradigms, right? And a lot of

27:09

US storytelling, we don't do

27:11

that as much. We don't undermine scenes

27:14

as much with this really bizarre,

27:17

like, like I said, the super deformed, the person's jaw

27:19

dropping to the ground. But in a lot

27:21

of anime, the drama

27:23

and the cues to us that

27:25

are like Looney Tunes-esque go together.

27:28

Yeah. And that's just cultural expectations. There's

27:30

nothing natural about, you know, a draw

27:32

dropping the ground saying, though, that has to be silly. That

27:34

has to be any. Yeah. But by

27:36

then I was too far removed and a show that I had enjoyed come

27:39

back to 10 years later and I can't even take one episode.

27:42

So I think that may

27:44

be what you're referring to as quote unquote anime nonsense.

27:47

I don't want to get yelled at too much for

27:49

that. But well, and first of

27:51

all, nonsense is not the word that they originally

27:53

used in the tweet. Yes. But

27:56

also, you know, there's anime that I absolutely

27:59

adore. And then there's anime

28:01

that doesn't work for me at all. And that's

28:04

true, I think, of every type of media,

28:06

of every origin, and every format. So

28:09

it's a platform

28:11

for telling stories that's going to be quite

28:14

varied. And uses tools

28:16

to tell stories that, if you don't watch a

28:18

ton of anime, are often unfamiliar. Like,

28:21

you know, the kids screaming

28:23

all the way through the anime of One Piece. Which

28:26

just, I don't understand. Well, yell

28:28

at us in the comments about Dan's bad taste

28:31

about One Piece, and about my criticism

28:33

of the show that I'm a producer on. People

28:36

already think that my opinions are

28:38

useless. Like, if I like

28:40

Rings of Power, and then didn't really like

28:42

One Piece. You gave Rings of Power an 8! I

28:45

did! You gave Rings of Power an 8! Because I loved

28:47

it! It wasn't good, but

28:50

I loved it. One Piece

28:52

is good, and I don't care about

28:54

it. So what is One Piece? If Rings

28:57

of Power is an 8, I'm going to put you on the spot. Oh

28:59

boy. Well, am I grading its quality,

29:01

or how much I care about it? However you want.

29:05

I am going to put it at a very

29:07

neutral 5. Oh, that's higher

29:09

than I thought you would have. It is neither good

29:12

nor bad. It is there, and

29:14

I am delighted that people love it. I

29:16

am genuinely very happy that

29:18

we got a really solid

29:21

live-action adaptation of an anime. I'm

29:24

a huge Cowboy Bebop fan, and despite

29:27

how much I want to like

29:29

the live-action Cowboy Bebop, it

29:31

was not very good. There were bits of it I liked,

29:33

the actors were incredible, it

29:36

was not a good show. I liked that they tried

29:38

new things with it. I liked a lot about

29:40

it. I loved Faye. She

29:42

was amazing. I loved Jet.

29:45

He was phenomenal. I

29:47

really liked the guy, Wes's bike from...

29:50

John Cho? Yeah, John Cho. I

29:52

thought he did a very good spike. Yep. So

29:55

yeah, there's lots of other problems with

29:57

it that I don't see in...

30:00

One Piece. One Piece managed to do a

30:02

very good adaptation. It's actually the same people making

30:05

it. Oh really? Yeah. So.

30:07

Well, I gotta give them credit.

30:10

They are amazing at casting.

30:13

I think they did a great job with Luffy, they

30:15

did a great job with all these other things, all

30:18

the Bebop characters. But

30:20

you know, then you get to a sword

30:23

fight where the guy puts a sword in his teeth

30:25

and somehow can fight effectively with it and

30:27

I'm like, this is

30:29

clearly made for someone who isn't

30:32

me. Like

30:34

Ben.