Gateway to Anime

The gang get together to round-up their hits and misses from the anime winter season and then predict their future hit and misses of the now airing summer season.

The season just gone became a bit of a surprise hit with everyone and the next season has big shoes to fill.

It's a season of huge sequels (Bleach, Jujutsu Kaisen, Mushoku Tensei) with some hidden gems to accompany them (Zom 100, Reincarnated As a Vending Machine, Alone I Wonder The Dungeon). 

This week the gang get together to talk about the "Dark Trio" of shonen anime; Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man and Hell's paradise. 

We speak about the similarities (or lack thereof) between the "Dark Trio" and the original "Big Three" of animanga, break down what these shows are all about, which are our individual favorites and how anime and shonen are evolving. 

We're back to check-in with how the Spring 2023 anime season is tracking. 

What are the heroes and what are the howlers? 

Sam regrets misreading a synopsis of a show in the hype-up episode that ended up being terrible. 

The big hitters are still hitting and the Rom-coms are at an all time high (much to Charlie's happiness). 

There's also a highly controversial and popular show which stokes a very interesting discussion amongst the group in Oshi no Ko. 

Listen to our mid season check-in now! 

We preview the Spring 2023 anime season and talk about the shows we're excited about and what the community at large is talking about.

These are all very early impressions of the spring season shows, some of which only had their first episodes air at the time of recording and some hadn't even aired at all.

At the end of the season we'll be back with our verdicts on these shows.

Sam previews a reverse isekai entitled: Dead Mount Death Play, as well as Heavenly Delusion and the Ranking of Kings OVA.

Greame talks about Hell's Paradise (the final of the "Dark Trio" to get an adaptation) as well as the ludicrous Harry Potter meets Physical 100 Mashle and the returning isekai Konosuba.

Charlie gets hyped about a litany of Romcoms like My Love Story with Yamada-Kun at Lv 999 as well as a "Breaking Bad meets Ozark" style show in My Home Hero.

Demon Slayer Season 3 is the heavy hitter as well as the 2nd cour of Vinland Saga with Dr Stone S3 the other (lesser) returning popular show.

Here is our latest episode: Winter 2023 season verdict.

This is our verdict on the winter 2023 season that has just finished and we'll be following this up with our hype-up for the currently airing Spring season. That will be an early preview of the hyped upcoming shows for the season and our first impressions of the few shows that have aired an episode or 2 at the time of recording.

This will be followed up by our verdict episode at the end of the season and we will continue in this manner moving forward.

Tune in for our verdicts on Vinland Saga, Bluelock, Tomo-Chan is a Girl, Stampede, Revenger, The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague, Nier; Automata and The Legend of Heroes: Trials of Cold Steel. 

Everyone is a fan of something. But can a fanbase actually influence the thing they love? We explore what it means to be an anime fan and the fascinating nature of fandom. Brett rejoins us to discuss his first impressions of the anime community while Charlie and Sam talk about how anime fandom has changed over the years. 

This is a special episode we recorded in Melbourne!

We were down for Crunchyroll Expo and got to catch up with Sam's old friend Lachlan McAllister who owns Australia's first ever dedicated Esports bar, GGEZ (where this podcast was recorded).

Sam and Lachlan started their anime journey together after Lachlan managed to track down a huge supply of VCD's containing the first 100+ episodes of Naruto back in high school (which Charlie also watched). However they started out playing JRPG's together in primary school. This episode is all about the deep connection between JRPG's and anime, how much crossover there is between the fandoms and how much they influenced our lives. 

We talk through the Suikoden series, Final Fantasy 7 (and Final Fantasy in general), the Persona series, Dragon Quest and many, many more.

We happened to bump into another Sydney based anime podcast at Smash Con (Besto Friendo's Podcast) back in August and we figured we simply had to have a chat. 

We talk about our anime backstories, as well as our gateway anime (of course). However we also get amongst the lifestyle aspect of the Besto Friendo podcast and talk about why we do what we do and how we came to be doing it.