Gateway to Anime

The gang get together to talk through the STACKED Fall 2022 anime season. There are so many shows this season we can barely keep up.

Sam talks about some returning old favorites, one of which is part of the original big three and man does it look good. Nostalgia firing on all cylinders. He also goes through Mob Psycho 100 S3 as well as the weird and original in Golden Kamuy S4 and To You Eternity S2.

Graeme talks about two of the big original shows to be airing, Chainsaw Man and Blue Lock as well as a fresh take on the Gundam series.

Charlie talks through some more returning favorites in Spy X Family and My Hero Academia S6 and she also talks briefly with the gang about the unexpected surprise Netflix hit Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.

The gang get together to talk about all things Horror in the anime/manga world.

Sam gives a brief history of the Japanese horror genre. Graeme tackles one of the most revered horror mangakas of all time, the legendary Junji Ito. Charlie gets obscure with Ghost Hunt and Sam reveals his scaredy cat nature (not a horror fan) but talks through one of his favorites in Parasyte: The Maxim. 

Sammy interviews Ty Hanson, the creator of the Australian anime project Millennium Exile.

Sam and Ty talk about the origin of the project, his ambitions moving forward and some of the influences which inspired the project.

We of course talk about Ty's initial gateway to anime along with how he came to love the medium and Sam and Ty bond over their mutual love of JRPG's.

We have an interesting conversation about what the term anime means in a modern context, the continual progression of cross cultural collaboration and why the future of the animation industry is so bright.

The gang gets historical, with Sammy on his crusade to prove "history is fun" to Charlie and Graeme.  

Sammy starts by differentiating between what constitutes Historical Fiction as a genre as opposed to a period piece, which leads to the new game: "historical fiction or not!?"

Graeme breaks down the legendary samurai manga Vagabond. Sam gets edgy with the under watched war story Golden Kamuy while Charlie talks through the much revered Viking epic Vinland Saga. 

A bit of a delay in getting this one out, but, we are back for Season 5 with our Summer 2022 anime season round up!

Charlie talks about anime hair in her preview of Shine on! Bakumatsu Bad Boys! Amongst others.

Graeme gets arty with Yurei Deco and Uncle from Another World, while Sam talks through two of the bigger sequels airing this season in Made in Abyss and The Devil is a Part Timer.

We were so lucky to catch Veronica Taylor for an interview while she was in the country for Supanova.

Veronica is a classically trained theatre actor from the United States and has had an extensive career as a voice-over actor in anime, video games and audio books.

Veronica is perhaps most famous for voicing Ash Ketchum in the original Pokemon series, movies and video games but she has had an incredibly rich and diverse career, which we speak about in depth in this episode.

We had such a great time talking to Veronica and we hope you enjoy the episode.

We're back for a bonus episode in between seasons! The gang round-up all their favorite (and least favorite) shows of the spring 2022 anime season.

We're going to be taking a little break before we return with season 5. Thanks for joining us on the journey so far. 

For our final episode of season 4 we are joined again by Ross Chisari to talk through Magical Girl Anime. This is one of the most famous and iconic genres in all of animanga. Sam gives a brief history of the genre while Ross talks through Sailor Moon. Charlie and Ross both recount their love for another classic in Cardcaptor Sakura, then Sam brings it home with the genre subverting Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

This week we interviewed Adi Shankar!

Adi is an Indian-American producer, director, writer, YouTube personality and actor. He is best known for: Castlevania, Dredd, The Grey and his YouTube "Bootleg Universe" series of pop culture satire shorts including: Power/Rangers, The Punisher: Dirty Laundry and Pokemon: The end of Pokemon.

We chatted to Adi about a broad range of topics but primarily his new show The Guardians of Justice, which has recently come out on Netflix.

Brett is back to talk through some of the most influential anime movies of all time.

Brett speaks about his first 'gateway to anime' in the legendary Akira, while Graeme breaks down the genre defining Ghost In The Shell. Charlotte gets a bit more modern with the sci-fi/slice of life film Your Name, while Sam gets psychological with Satoshi Kon's seminal Perfect Blue.