Key Frames

Episode 92 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Ah, it's summer at last! Really, what are these scorching hot months if not the filler episodes of the show that is the four seasons? Thus inspired by (and tired from) the heat, Ben, Duncan, and Jeff delve into the time-honored practice of setting midseason episodes of anime at beach or a hot springs. Sorry, summer festivals need not apply! After that refreshing break, Duncan takes a look back at Spirited Away, Jeff breaks the unwritten rules of the new format by talking about two shows instead of one, and Ben rants about a sequel no one cares about to an anime no one watched. Something for everyone!

Episode 91 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Oh, who can't wait for it all to end and, after the ashes and smoke clear, to take up a new life as a humble fisherman on a far distant coast? Ben, Andy, Duncan, and Jeff are definitely looking forward to it, but in the meantime they talk about the idyllic pastoralism of post-apocalyptic anime in general and Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou in particular, before being drawn to the minisodes for Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid like moths to a flame...

Episode 90 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. For once, let's forget isekai and talk instead about the other micro-genres of anime that exist out there! Ben brings up "supernatural giant-robot realpolitik" when discussing Gasaraki; Andy wrestles with flirtatious bullies in shounen romance in general and with Don't Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro in particular; Jeff just finished The Way of the Househusband and has opinions about tough-guy slice-of-life anime; and Duncan's dipping his toes back into "period drama/thriller but there are vampires" by watching Mars Red. Hear about all of these and more in their first look at the spring 2021 anime season!

Episode 89 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. You are seated at a table in a restaurant. Confident that the quality of the establishment will ensure anything you order is delicious, you choose a dish you do not recognize. It's steak, after all. How strange can it really get? It's only when a round patty of cold meat arrives at your table that you realize the enormity of your error. Snatching at the sleeve of a passing server, you urgently whisper, "Excuse me? This steak tartare is cold." "Of course," he replies. "Were you expecting something more... mainstream?" Two tables over, feasting contentedly on bizarre French cuisine, Ben, Andy, Duncan, and Jeff discuss anime's relationship with media culture at large and why there aren't more breakouts like Studio Ghibli and Your Name.

Episode 88 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Would you believe that, when four people get together to talk about the fifteen shows that they've been watching over the past several months, the conversation takes a while? It was a surprise to us as well, especially given the dozens of minutes that were left on the cutting room floor. Anyway! Among so many other things, Ben, Andy, Duncan, and Jeff sum up the winter 2021 season of anime, with special attention paid to Horimiya, Jujutsu Kaisen, Re:Zero, and Wonder Egg Priority.

Episode 23 of Key Frames: Inbetweens, a mini-podcast about anime. We were going to call this episode "Two Guys, a Girl, and a Transforming Robot," but Duncan and Jeff prevailed upon Ben... somehow. Anyway! You've spent a year hearing the hosts of this podcast gush about Escaflowne, so now you get to hear it for another hundred-odd minutes. They go into the craft of the show's plot and characters, its historical and cultural context, and the mediocre feature-length remake that came out in 2000. Check it out!

Episode 87 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. You know how difficult it is to recommend anime to people? You think that you're handing them an examination of human perception and the corrupting effects of desire, but then they give it back complaining that every single scene had an upskirt shot. Did it? It's so hard to remember. Still, Ben, Andy, and Duncan try their best, before they move to talking about Wonder Egg Priority, the second season of That Time I Was Reincarnated as a Slime, and Horimiya—all of them shows with no problematic elements at all!

Episode 86 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. That's right, we've killed the author, and now we're free to give the most outrageous interpretations imaginable for our favorite anime. The Gnostic imagery of Neon Genesis Evangelion? Important to the plot. The dozens and dozens of filler episodes in Naruto? Really important to the plot. The final episode cut from Excel Saga? Also really important to the plot. And... that's it? Nah, listen to the episode to find out what Ben, Andy, Duncan, and Jeff are really talking about, then stick around for discussion of an underrated Studio Ghibli movie and a spinoff from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure!

Episode 85 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. If you've come to hear a discussion of comedy in anime, you've come to the right place! Who better than Ben, Andy, Duncan, and Jon, four people who spend most of every episode of this podcast laughing at their own jokes, to talk about the many forms and functions of humor in this medium? After you're done laughing with satisfaction at their keen insight, stick around to hear Jon's thoughts about this season of anime, as well as about Earwig and the Witch and flashbacks as a storytelling device. You won't regret it!

Episode 84 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Sometimes, when you're talking about a topic for a podcast, you forget a very obvious and useful term that would have both grounded and elevated the discussion. In this instance, for our episode on harem anime, it would have been really nice for one of us to remember the word "adhesion," which in the craft of writing romance novels refers to the forces preventing either character from walking away from a relationship. Anyway, Ben, Andy, Duncan, and Jeff muddle through somehow and are also experiencing a real sense of adhesion with some of the shows airing this seasons, like Dr. Stone: Stone Wars, Non Non Biyori Nonstop, and Wonder Egg Priority. Check it out!