We begin season 4 with a third host joining for the next few months and some surprising new announcements as we begin to cover the adaptations of classic novel Berlin Alexanderplatz, starting with a movie made only two years after the book was released. After that we get into our usuals, including tons of manga talk this episode! Please enjoy!

Things discussed: Ornate Stairwells corrections, A new Abnormal Mapping podcast, segment 1s, our hopes for the Fassbinder adaptation of Berlin Alexanderplatz, spoiler talk, Letterbox reviews, Social Media Etiquette, Clampquest, Angelic Layer, Colleen's Manga Recs, Manga Suggestions, ParaKiss, William Gibson, Green Yuri

The opening theme this season is “Das lila Lied” sung by Ute Lemper

See the show schedule here! This’ll tell you which versions of books and which sections of those books we’re reading each week.

Niamh podcasts on Export Audio with Ghost Divers and Ornate Stairwells. Fae posts on twitter @foxmomnia and on bluesky at foxmomnia.exportaud.io

Em hosts Abnormal Mapping and Repertory Screenings on abnormalmapping.com and also is the Pokemon Master of Ceremonies on The Great Gundam Project. They post on twitter @em_being and on bluesky at polarbearsummer.online

Autumn podcasts on on Export Audio with Coffee & Comic Books and Ornate Stairwells. They’re on bluesky at autumnalcoffee.exportaud.io

Next episode: Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) part 1, "Die Strafe beginnt"

Egil’s Saga ends quiet and melancholy as we wrap up our season with a shorter episode due to illness. We did rank all the sagas, however, and talk about that, and also there’s a short manga segment to round things out. Sorry for the short one, hopefully things will be back at full energy next week!

Things discussed: the ranking of sagas, Magic Knight Rayearth

See the show schedule here! This’ll tell you which versions of books and which sections of those books we’re reading each week.

Niamh podcasts on Export Audio with Ghost Divers, Ornate Stairwells, and Pondering Pootan. Fae posts on twitter @foxmomnia and on bluesky at foxmomnia.bsky.social

Em hosts Abnormal Mapping and Repertory Screenings on abnormalmapping.com and also is the Pokemon Master of Ceremonies on The Great Gundam Project. They post on twitter @em_being and on bluesky at polarbearsummer.online

Next episode: Berlin Alexanderplatz (1931)

We continue to enjoy Egil’s Saga even though he does the grossest possible thing this week. Then, we have a big chat about rereading Paradise Kiss (we’re only through chapter 14 or so), a little talk about the state of the world, and then the Metaphor game club returns as we both tackle an enormous new dungeon!

Things discussed: The Pondering Pootan Existential Crisis, Name Change Update, Sick Kid, Paradise Kiss, Yazawa Ai at large, NANA, Eureka Seven, early thoughts about the upcoming Chobits season of Ghost Divers, Saint Seiya and yaoi anime culture, Alt Pub Omaha Zine Fair, a little bit of current events chat, Metaphor: ReFantazio segment returns!, somehow we finish by talking about Gundam again, Niamh’s timeline crimes watching Gundam, talking about taking anime podcast notes

See the show schedule here! This’ll tell you which versions of books and which sections of those books we’re reading each week.

Niamh podcasts on Export Audio with Ghost Divers, Ornate Stairwells, and Pondering Pootan. Fae posts on twitter @foxmomnia and on bluesky at foxmomnia.bsky.social

Em hosts Abnormal Mapping and Repertory Screenings on abnormalmapping.com and also is the Pokemon Master of Ceremonies on The Great Gundam Project. They post on twitter @em_being and on bluesky at polarbearsummer.online

Next episode: Egils saga, ch. 79-90

A shorter saga paradoxically means a longer saga chat as we cut our reading and increase our happiness. We spend the middle portion of this podcast mostly talking about each other’s podcasts, in the most self-indulgent fashion, but the last third of the podcast covers Em finishing the Evangelion manga and they had a lot of thoughts about it, their own feelings about The Soup, and much else besides. Please enjoy!

Things discussed: Miyamoto Musashi (briefly), Galloping Ghost, Pondering Pootan check-in, name change talk, podcast navel gazing (as usual), ALF season four expectations, GGP chat (different than podcast navel gazing), the Evangelion manga (full spoilers for all of Evangelion within)

See the show schedule here! This’ll tell you which versions of books and which sections of those books we’re reading each week.

Niamh podcasts on Export Audio with Ghost Divers, Ornate Stairwells, and Pondering Pootan. Fae posts on twitter @foxmomnia and on bluesky at foxmomnia.bsky.social

Em hosts Abnormal Mapping and Repertory Screenings on abnormalmapping.com and also is the Pokemon Master of Ceremonies on The Great Gundam Project. They post on twitter @em_being and on bluesky at polarbearsummer.online

Next episode: Egils saga, ch. 65-78

Em’s back from vacation, but we’re both too tired for sagas this week so instead we mostly talk about some movies we watched. The main event, of course, is Adolescence of Utena, but on either side of that is a lot of other fun stuff I hope people enjoy!

Things discussed: FWMC new outfits, Em in Chicago!, Bluebeard's Castle, Evangelion manga, Pondering Pootan debrief, Nerissa's new outfit and vtuber fans at large, Adolescence of Utena (goes from 01:06:30 to 01:36:57), a bit about learning tarot cards at the end

See the show schedule here! This’ll tell you which versions of books and which sections of those books we’re reading each week.

Niamh podcasts on Export Audio with Ghost Divers, Ornate Stairwells, and Pondering Pootan. Fae posts on twitter @foxmomnia and on bluesky at foxmomnia.bsky.social

Em hosts Abnormal Mapping and Repertory Screenings on abnormalmapping.com and also is the Pokemon Master of Ceremonies on The Great Gundam Project. They post on twitter @em_being and on bluesky at polarbearsummer.online

Next episode: Egils saga, ch. 57-64

We’re tired and busy so this one is not us at our best and brightest, but we try to have a good pod anyway. Next week we’re actually taking off reading the saga, ignore what we say in this episode, we’ll mostly just talk about some movies we watched probably.

Things discussed: legal name changes, How Do We Relationship (through to chapter 127), scheduling, Evangelion manga, Eyes Wide Shut (spoilers for the ending, it's right at the end of the pod)

See the show schedule here! This’ll tell you which versions of books and which sections of those books we’re reading each week.

Niamh podcasts on Export Audio with Ghost Divers, Ornate Stairwells, and Pondering Pootan. Fae posts on twitter @foxmomnia and on bluesky at foxmomnia.bsky.social

Em hosts Abnormal Mapping and Repertory Screenings on abnormalmapping.com and also is the Pokemon Master of Ceremonies on The Great Gundam Project. They post on twitter @em_being and on bluesky at polarbearsummer.online

Next episode: The Adolescence of Utena, probably, mostly. No sagas.

We start our final saga of the season and whew it’s a long one! Egil doesn’t even show up in this reading! But we cover all the goings on leading up to his birth, the fickleness of kings, and then spend our time catching up on what we did over the holidays.

Things discussed: holidays, what we've been up to, Tokyo Godfathers, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Sonic 3 (the movie), Hack/Slash Back to School, Honey and Clover, Tombs of Atuan, ereaders, Cruising Utopia, Metaphor game club returns!

Utena discussion starts at 50:30 and goes until (1:05:04)!

See the show schedule here! This’ll tell you which versions of books and which sections of those books we’re reading each week.

Niamh podcasts on Export Audio with Ghost Divers, Ornate Stairwells, and Pondering Pootan. Fae posts on twitter @foxmomnia and on bluesky at foxmomnia.bsky.social

Em hosts Abnormal Mapping and Repertory Screenings on abnormalmapping.com and also is the Pokemon Master of Ceremonies on The Great Gundam Project. They post on twitter @em_being and on bluesky at polarbearsummer.online

Next episode: Egils saga, ch. 29-56, trans. Bernard Scudder, published in The Sagas of Icelanders (Penguin Classics)

We’re back for the end of this wild ass saga about elk men, bear men, bad men, and dead men! We had a great time with this one, to the point we finally suggest doing what I never thought we would: ranking the sagas, at the end of the season! Then, Em talks about their favorite episode of Utena so far watching it, and some of the things it brought up for them that they don’t feel other people would probably speak to.

This is our final episode for the year, as we’re taking next week off, so I hope you enjoy! There will be more oversharing in 2025, god willing.

Content warning: during the Utena and Persona 3 section, there's some not explicit but open talk about grooming and sexualization of minors. If you'd like to skip that, the rest of the podcast continues at 1:30:15.

Things discussed: what we've been up to, Revolutionary Girl Utena (spoilers up through episode 18), Persona 3 Portable, Pondering Pootan, the podcasting year

See the show schedule here! This’ll tell you which versions of books and which sections of those books we’re reading each week.

Niamh podcasts on Export Audio with Ghost Divers, Ornate Stairwells, and Pondering Pootan. Fae posts on twitter @foxmomnia and on bluesky at foxmomnia.bsky.social

Em hosts Abnormal Mapping and Repertory Screenings on abnormalmapping.com and also is the Pokemon Master of Ceremonies on The Great Gundam Project. They post on twitter @em_being and on bluesky at polarbearsummer.online

Next episode (in two weeks!): Egils saga, ch. 1-28, trans. Bernard Scudder, published in The Sagas of Icelanders (Penguin Classics)

We read the first half of the first new-to-Niamh saga this week, and have a great time with awful men, questionable gender politics, and high drama. Also, some violence is done to a bearman, don’t really like that but so it goes sometimes. Our chat about everything else continues as usual, as Niamh overtakes Em in Metaphor, we watch and read some stuff, and a conversation started last week gets finished as Em finally gets to their point about some stuff.

Things This Episode: The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All, Even Though We're Adults, Infinity Nikki, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, gender and queerness talk, Metaphor: ReFantazio

Note: we meant to circle around to the discussion of Lapland and the Sami people but didn’t actually remember to do that. We’ll try to bring it up when it recurs next time but note that the region referred to in Sweden as Lapland is home to an indigenous people called the Sami people, and “Lapp” while common in the sagas is considered an offensive term to refer to these peoples. in my (Em) research, even Lapland itself seems like a disputed term depending on who you ask. That’s the short version of it, highly recommend people do research on their own!

See the show schedule here! This’ll tell you which versions of books and which sections of those books we’re reading each week.

Niamh podcasts on Export Audio with Ghost Divers, Ornate Stairwells, and Pondering Pootan. Fae posts on twitter @foxmomnia and on bluesky at foxmomnia.bsky.social

Em hosts Abnormal Mapping and Repertory Screenings on abnormalmapping.com and also is the Pokemon Master of Ceremonies on The Great Gundam Project. They post on twitter @em_being and on bluesky at polarbearsummer.online

Next episode: Hrólfs saga kraka, ch. 21-34; from The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, trans. Jesse L. Byock (Penguin Classics)

We’re both a little run down and we just read the intro to a book, so very short saga this week as we just kind of have a small chat and take it easy. Some days are just harder than others. Hope you enjoy nonetheless. Things discussed this episode: Thanksgiving, Trivia Games, being a student, Look Back (the film), Multiple Maniacs, Even Though We're Adults, Nana, Ranma 1/2, Ravencroft news, Ceres Fauna graduating

See the show schedule here! This’ll tell you which versions of books and which sections of those books we’re reading each week.

Niamh podcasts on Export Audio with Ghost Divers, Ornate Stairwells, and Pondering Pootan. Fae posts on twitter @foxmomnia and on bluesky at foxmomnia.bsky.social

Em hosts Abnormal Mapping and Repertory Screenings on abnormalmapping.com and also is the Pokemon Master of Ceremonies on The Great Gundam Project. They post on twitter @em_being and on bluesky at polarbearsummer.online

Next episode: Hrólfs saga kraka, ch. 1-20; from The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, trans. Jesse L. Byock (Penguin Classics)