This is a big day for the Agitator boys. We have Jack from the Perfume Nationalist come through to talk about Miike's breakout hit, the 1999 romantic comedy/torture porn Audition. 

On this episode, we cover Kinji Fukasaku's five-film yakuza epic Battles Without Honor and Humanity. All of the films are available for free on Tubi. Our guest today is the author of She Rides Shotgun and the upcoming Everybody Knows, Jordan Harper.

Can you survive a nuclear explosion? / endless cycles of violence / despicable villains / lots of film talk

We discuss 1964's Onibaba, directed by Kaneto Shindo. In 1400s-era war-torn Japan, two women murder stray samurai in a field of reeds and strip their bodies for armor and weapons. When a deserter shows up with eyes for the younger woman, her mother-in-law begins to dress up as a demon to keep the man away. But putting on that hanya mask has frightening consequences.

We talk about the look of the film, how horror has changed, the difference between Japanese and Western film, and movies you only watch once.

Scott Adlerberg is the author of Graveyard Love and Jack Waters, in addition to hosting the Reel Talks film discussion series in Bryant Park. 

On this episode we have one of my favorite podcast guests, Marcus, who used to work with Kelby in the wood shop. We talk about 1993's Ninja Scroll, fight scenes, curing poison, getting profiled by the police, being a sociopath, and powerful anime chins.

On this episode, we invited Peter Dragovich on the show. He knows a lot of shit about crime fiction/film, so much so that he's called The Nerd of Noir. I like Peter a lot, and our conversation about Miike's 2002 Graveyard of Honor is full of info about the film and crime fiction in general. This one is good.

PS Kelby did everything he could to fix the audio on this one, but Zoom sucks my ass. It sounds fine.

On this episode, Kelby and I talk Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue (1999). Identity crises, the early internet, ambiguity, and mixtures of high and low art. At a certain point the film becomes a launchpad for our burgeoning manifesto, which places Japanese film at the center of inspiration for a way forward in our own fiction.

Buy David's new essay You Pray for Dry Weather at the Sight of the Sun in ebook or paperback here.

We have one of my very favorite people on the show today. Brendan is the host of Tales from the Mall, a podcast where he talks to people while walking around the Arizona Mills mall.

On this episode, we talk about 2008's Love Exposure, incels, novel-like films, the panty-peek ninja, love, perversion, first boners, spinning sonnenrads, finding religion, finding normalcy, and finding a friend group. This was a great episode, with lots of feelings of love and exposure.

This week we have Barrett from CONTAIN on to discuss 1991's 964 Pinocchio aka Screams of Blasphemy.

We talk memory wiped sex slaves, the relation between bodies and technologies, body horror, memory holing, unconscious machinic intelligence, the hubris of the archons, filming without permits, performance art, banishing rituals, relationships to objects, pure movement, Q Anon, the autobiography of genre fiction, absurdity, and making art. 

This week, we planned to talk to Elle Nash about Perfect Blue, but the space weather had other plans. Between her being in the UK now and Kelby driving in his car, Zoom could not handle it. So we rescheduled that, keep an eye out in the future!

However, the episode has to happen! There is a schedule. Kelby and I decided to do something a little different. It was a bit of a scramble, but he pulled it altogether. This episode begins with him and his fam in their car arguing with Siri. Then there's a clip of the reading I did last Saturday, opening up for the crazy ass Estonian performance art group Non Grata. I was reading from my new book about Death Stranding, You Pray for Dry Weather at the Sight of the Sun. Then we recorded a regular conversation about dad stuff, writing books, and podcasts. The clips from the actual NG performance are mixed into the whole thing.

A little different this time, but I think it's a solid episode!

Enjoy.

On this episode, we invite EIC of Apocalypse Confidential, Blauergeist, on the show to talk about Takashi Miike's first theatrical release, Shinjuku Triad Society. Blauer knows his shit, as one of the mics on the great Ellroy Boys podcast, so I figured he'd be good to talk to. He'd never seen a Miike flick before! What a way to start...at the beginning. Severed heads, toilets with threatening auras, architecture, we talk about all kinds of good shit on this one.