Key Frames

Episode 149 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. And then there was one! How much of his time teaching college classes is Ben still able to draw upon, after all these years? Sitting down at a mic alone, in front of an audience of indeterminate size and enthusiasm, certainly brings back memories. Still, this isn't a lecture at university, much as he tries to make it one. It's something rawer, less considered, more profane... closer to pirate radio than a discussion of communal arbitration practices in thirteenth-century Italy. But don't worry, there's still talk of ancient history, of course—the most recent show that gets brought up, Night Raid 1931, came out in 2010, and Slayers Try and Turn A Gundam aren't even from this century! Anyway, join us for this experiment in solo podcasting, and we'll see you next in 2026.

Episode 148 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. It's just Ben and Duncan holding down the fort this time, chatting on the ramparts as the horde of shows from the fall 2025 anime season approach. Just the two of us might not seem like enough for this fight, but fear not! Duncan has watched enough of them to count for ten podcast hosts, and Ben... Well, Ben's doing his Ben thing, as usual. Tune in to hear them discuss whether the third season of Spy x Family is bad or just disappointing, if a noblewoman rebelling against the constraints of high society is enough to make an isekai feel fresh, and how Duncan could fall off of Digimon Beatbreak within the space of a single episode!

Episode 147 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Ten years and one month isn't really an anniversary that people celebrate, so it's back to the grindstone for our intrepid hosts! After all, the summer 2025 anime season needs recounting. Would you be surprised to hear that Ben's opinion of several different series improved after seeing second seasons with stronger writing? Would it thrill you to witness Duncan and Jon in substantive agreement on the majority of shows they both watched? We've all been besieged by Major Life Events, hence the important PSA in the episode title, but nothing can keep us away from anime, especially not after such a flush season. Listen to get the full list of hits!

Episode 146 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Did you know it's been ten years, give or take, since we started this podcast? Ten years! So much has changed in anime, in our society, in ourselves... Anyway, we decided that the best way to celebrate (or at least reckon with it all) was to focus on one of the rarer joys of anime, which is watching with friends. Ben finally got Jon to sit through X/1999, perennial spotlight pitch and previous subject of a tween, while Andy and Duncan did a double feature of Princess Mononoke and Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era. Are these all movies we've talked to death already? Yes. Are they worth talking about even more with the spice of in-person viewing added? Yes! So settle in for a double feature of our podcast, and don't stop playback when Ben and Jon sign off, because we've got so much more to offer. Here's to ten more years!

Episode 145 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. You know how it is. You're resting on your day off, thinking vaguely about whether you should pop on a movie or call up a friend to grab a drink, but then a notification pings on your phone. It's the podcast, and they need you to talk about the summer 2025 anime season! Though you're completely alone in your dingy apartment, you nonetheless find yourself groaning audibly. Summer 2025? The new season, with all the sequels? Well, except for a few anime originals like Turkey! -Time to Strike- and Necronomico and the Cosmic Horror Show... Still, what exactly are you going to do, argue about CITY the Animation being overproduced with Ben and Jon? Defend the apparent sadism of Takopi's Original Sin like Andy and Duncan? It all just feels so pointless. Besides, you weren't even supposed to be here today!

Episode 144 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. The thing about podcasting is that you get very, very accustomed to listening to yourself speak in a way that I don't think the average individual ever does. For most people, hearing their own voice coming back to them elicits feelings of confusion and dislocation—think of the instant chaos that a feedback echo on a Zoom call causes—but for me, at this point, it has almost become a conversation with myself across time. I remember when I first started listening back to our earliest episodes, having forgotten most of what we talked about long ago, and found myself making the same observations, the same emendations, even the same jokes, usually milliseconds before the recorded me did the same. Do I just have that consistent of a sense of self? Or am I merely too boring to change, even after so many years and dozens more anime watched in that time? Anyway, Ben, Duncan, and Jon talk about spring 2025 anime and Jon makes a remarkably anatid noise while Duncan's dumping all over Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX. Enjoy!

Episode 143 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. You know, I think I'm tired of us being so timely with our episode topics. It was bad enough to be talking about the personal and postmodern apocalypses of Inio Asano immediately after the election, but now I have to come up with a lighthearted blurb about our discussion of anime's obsession with military hardware and the aesthetics of making war while watching the winner of that election send up what amounts to a trial balloon for the imposition of martial law. It's a bummer! But not the same kind of bummer as watching Strike Witches in 2025, I suppose. Anyway, tune in to hear Ben, Duncan, and Jon talk about all sorts of guns and tanks and planes and uniforms! Also, Ben finally finished Xam'd and Jon sticks up for Witch Watch.

Episode 142 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Watching Medalist this season and pondering the bluntness of its title made me realize that we don't give out enough recognition and awards for the accomplishments that make up our day-to-day life. Ben finally finished Mobile Suit Gundam: 08th MS Team? Bronze medal. Duncan found something philosophically moving in Orb: On the Movements of the Earth? Silver medal. Andy only saw the Hypnosis Mic -Division Rap Battle- movie in theaters once, instead of four times like his wife? Gold medal. Jon completes a hat trick of podcast appearances and keeping up with Fire Force? Platinum medal. Are those a thing? Video games taught me that platinum medals are a thing. Anyway, give the episode a listen and you can be a winner, too! We'll mail you a ribbon or something.

Episode 141 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. You know, sometimes I love to type out the shows we've discussed in an episode of our podcast and just wonder at how very... Key Frames all of it is. Hard sci-fi from the early 2000s? Minor Ghibli? Anime about non-mainstream sports? Multiple Makoto Shinkai movies? Some obscurity with no good disc release? We've got it all, as Ben, Duncan, and Jon explore anime's relationship with travel and faraway places. As you might be able to see from what I've listed above, we end up covering a lot of ground, but then that's quite fitting, no?

Episode 140 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. One, two, three, go! Today the Key Frames gang is headbanging to all the anime out there about bands, inspired by the example of Girls Band Cry and BanG Dream! It's MyGo!!!!! among many, many other shows. Will they talk about how K-On! walked so that Bocchi the Rock could run? Will Andy and Jon hold the line against Duncan's insistence that BanG Dream! Ave Mujica deserves to exist? Will Ben pass away on air from his third bout of illness in barely two months? The only way to know is to be truly punk and to listen to our scrappy, messy takes!