Our Batman on Film series reaches the end of the Christopher Nolan era with 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises, the infuriatingly bad final chapter that amps the noxious politics, bad pacing, and frustrating characterization of the first two films up to 11. While Tom Hardy’s inspired performance as Bane is as entertaining as even, 9 years on it’s impossible to ignore the film’s terrible script, endlessly convoluted plotting, and elitist right-wing worldview complete with a strong dose of militaristic cop-aganda. This might be our most exasperated Batman discussion to date, but also one of the most engaging. And before all that, we’ve got an hour of stuff – like Jonathan’s adventures watching movies with Giant Robots – and news, including Nintendo’s OLED Switch announcement, the reveal of Assassin’s Creed Infinity, and the reveal of Genshin Impact’s big 2.0 update later this month. 

Time Chart:

Intro & Stuff: 0:00:00 – 0:18:36

News: 0:18:36 – 0:57:07

The Dark Knight Rises: 0:57:07 – 3:44:57 

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Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

After a little back-and-forth on the week’s stuff – including Jonathan finishing the outstanding Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer) manga – and checking in on a few quick pieces of news, including Ghost of Tsushima getting a PS5 re-release in August, we dive straight into our latest Weekly Suit Gundam extravaganza with Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway. Premiering worldwide on Netflix this week after its debut in Japanese theaters last month, Hathaway is the first film in a planned trilogy adapting original Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino’s trio of novels from 1989-1990, following the exploits of Hathaway Noa 12 years after the events of Char’s Counterattack. And it’s a terrific start to this new film series, offering some of the best animation, music, set pieces, and writing in the history of the franchise. From Tomino’s characteristically rich writing to the complex and nuanced vocal performances to how this story fits into the larger cycle of Tomino’s original Gundam saga, Hathaway’s Flash offers countless many rich avenues for discussion.

Time Chart:

Intro & Stuff: 0:00:00 – 0:26:26

News: 0:26:26 – 0:35:55

Gundam – Hathaway: 0:35:55 – 3:05:20

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Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

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Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

Our ongoing Batman on Film series reaches perhaps the single most iconic and influential film the Caped Crusader has yet starred in with 2008’s The Dark Knight. 13 years later, neither of us quite feel the way we do at the time, and find the movie ripe for reevaluation in a lot of ways. There are plenty of inarguably great elements on display here, from Heath Ledger’s epochal portrayal of the Joker to Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard’s incredible score, but there are also a lot of structural and narrative shortcomings, and the movie’s Bush-era apologia really doesn’t sit right with us as adults. It makes for a complicated and compelling discussion, and before all that, Jonathan talks about Mario Golf: Super Rush, Sean belatedly plays Nioh 2, and we both take a few minutes to discuss the joys of Mechagodzilla. 

Time Chart:

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:03:40

Stuff: 0:03:40 – 0:32:35

The Dark Knight: 0:32:35 – 3:22:52

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Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

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Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

Two years ago today, our sister series podcast project Weekly Suit Gundam was born, and what a wild ride it’s been! Just as we did on its first anniversary, we’re using the show’s birthday to take stock of everything we’ve reviewed up to now. With a particular focus on the “Year Two” shows – namely G Saviour, 0080: War in the Pocket, 0083: Stardust Memory, The 08th MS Team, Gundam SEED, Gundam SEED Destiny, Gundam 00, and MS IGLOO – we rank the best mobile suits and best songs from the series we reviewed this year, and adjust our master rankings for those topics from last year’s anniversary show. For the main event, we each rank all 21 Gundam shows and movies we’ve reviewed these past two years, and then come together to create our complete, unified, official Weekly Suit Gundam series rankings thus far. With listener feedback, lots of reflections on the show’s second year, and a roadmap for year 3, today’s episode is a really fun trip down memory lane and a great start to the next, climactic phase of the series, as we inch closer to Gundam’s present day. 

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Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

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Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

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Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

We’ve got two big topics this week, starting with a wrap-up of E3 2021, which we mostly covered in last week’s show, but wrapped up on Tuesday with Nintendo, by far the best showcase of the event. With big surprises like Metroid Dread, welcome new entries in the WarioWare and Mario Party series, our best look yet at Shin Megami Tensei V, and our first gameplay footage from the Breath of the Wild sequel, it was a great show that put everyone else at E3 to shame. After that, we dive deep with Insomniac’s incredible Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, an outstanding PS5 exclusive that offers great storytelling, nigh-perfect gameplay, and some of the most amazing technical accomplishments we’ve ever seen in a game. It gets our highest recommendation, and it’s a ton of fun to talk about.

Enjoy, and come back on Thursday for a second podcast this week, with our Weekly Suit Gundam2-Year Anniversary Celebration! 

TIME CHART:

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:05:46

Stuff, including Sean’s Beta Corner: 0:05:46 – 0:30:06 

E3 News & Nintendo: 0:30:06 – 1:22:01

Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart: 1:22:01 – 2:52:34 

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Follow Jonathan Lack on Twitter!

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Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

After being cancelled in 2020, E3 – the Electronic Entertainment Expo, aka “That Week With All the Video Game Trailers” – is back, sort of, for 2021, in entirely online form. And as we’ve done since the beginning, we’re covering all of it, with today’s episode going over the shows from Ubisoft, Microsoft/Bethesda, Square Enix, and the Summer Games Fest, with Sean’s traditionally exhaustive and/or obsessive notes as our guide! It’s not a particularly good E3 so far, but with looks at Elden Ring, Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, Forza Horizon 5, Babylon’s Fall, S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 and more, there’s still plenty of interesting stuff to talk about. And before we dive into the E3 news, we also break down some interesting news from the world of Gundam, and give first impressions of Insomniac’s PS5 exclusive Ratchet + Clank: Rift Apart, which is pretty wonderful so far. 

Enjoy, and come back next week for the rest of our E3 coverage, including Nintendo’s showcase!

TIME CHART:

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:07:43

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Impressions: 0:18:33 – 0:36:52

Jonathan’s Resident Evil Adventures: 0:36:52 – 0:46:35

Gundam News: 0:46:35 – 1:00:26

E3 2021 Analysis: 1:00:26 – 3:16:47

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Follow Jonathan Lack on Twitter!

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Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

Our BATMAN ON FILM series starts catching up to the modern age of superhero films this week with Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, the 2005 franchise reboot that marked a new degree of seriousness – not just in theme and tone, but also in production value, casting, and direction – for films about the Caped Crusader, and set the stage for Batman’s biggest moments of mainstream global popularity in the years to come. The movie was undoubtedly a refreshing, impressive change of pace at the time, but 16 years later, how does it hold up? Nolan asks us to take Batman seriously, not just as a character, but for the first time on film, in how he relates to something resembling the real world. That means this film’s ideas are worth taking seriously, and not all of them sit right with us today, nor do some of the structural and plotting choices that have always felt awkward. It’s an impressive movie in many ways, but does it really hold together as a good one? All this and more makes for another great Bat-Podcast. 

TIME CHART:

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:07:43

Batman Begins: 0:07:43 – 1:57:46

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Follow Jonathan Lack on Twitter!

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Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

After going through some big pre-E3 video game news – including events about Dragon Quest, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Horizon: Forbidden West – and some other odds and ends, we dive into Part 7 of our BATMAN ON FILM series, with the 2000 direct-to-video feature Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. Produced by the same team behind the classic Batman: The Animated Series (and earlier film reviewed in this series, Mask of the Phantasm), Batman Beyond broke bold new ground for the caped crusader on television, and this film is no exception. Originally edited for violent content in the wake of the Columbine school shootings before releasing an uncut version a few years later, Return of the Joker is one of the darkest and most brutal Batman outings, but also one of the richest and most rewarding, a story about the past, present, and future of Batman’s world that brings a surprising amount of closure to this incarnation of Batman and the Joker, and cements Will Friedle’s Terry McGinnis as a worthy successor to the cowl. 

TIME CHART:

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:04:09

Stuff: 0:04:09 – 0:16:51

News: 0:16:51 – 1:01:06

Batman Beyond: 1:01:06 – 2:10:52 

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Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

It’s another dive into the world of Mobile Suit Gundam this week with MS IGLOO, but before that, you’ll also hear some big personal news from Sean, more discussion of Jason Schreier’s fantastic new book Press Reset, and more Resident Evil talk, including Jonathan’s experience playing Resident Evil Zero for the first time. Then we’re off to one of the most obscure corners of Gundam animation, with the 6-episode CGI OVA MS IGLOO and its 3-episode sequel series MS IGLOO 2: Gravity Well. Originally produced for the Bandai museum in Japan, the first series suffers from repetitive storytelling, thin plotting, and some of the worst 3D CGI animation the early 2000s had to offer, and on its own, there’s not a ton worth saying about it. But the sequel series, produced in 2008, isn’t just a huge step forward in the quality of the CGI production – it’s also a wonderfully unique, compellingly told set of ground-level war stories that make for essential viewing for anyone interested in the One-Year War period of Universal Century Gundam, and is a lot of fun to talk about. 

TIME CHART:

Intro & Stuff: 0:00:00 – 0:36:00

MS Igloo Discussion: 0:36:00 – 2:00:51

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Follow Jonathan Lack on Twitter!

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Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

This week’s super-sized podcast offers two in-depth video game reviews for the price of one, as we break down this month’s outstanding Resident Evil Village and last year’s Yakuza: Like a Dragon – which we’ve both finally finished! – in long spoiler-filled discussions. A fantastic balance of the terrifying and the silly, Resident Evil Village hits the absolute perfect sweet spot for both of us when it comes to this series, and is a total joy to discuss in this format, given how many surprises are hiding around every corner of this extraordinary game. And while Yakuza: Like a Dragon is a very different game, it’s no less fun to talk about, with its rich narrative and wonderful characters, and makes for an especially fun conversation as we’re coming at the series from two different directions – Jonathan as a franchise newbie, and Sean a grizzled Yakuza veteran. Before the reviews, Sean also talks about reading the Kimetsu no Yaiba manga, while Jonathan reviews gaming journalist Jason Schreier’s new book Press Reset, before talking about his very belated playthrough of the excellent Titanfall 2 campaign. 

TIME CHART:

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:03:55

Stuff: 0:03:55 – 0:39:57

Resident Evil Village: 0:39:57 – 2:06:53

Yakuza: Like a Dragon: 2:06:53 – 3:25:50 

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel!

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Follow Jonathan Lack on Twitter!

Follow Sean Chapman on Twitter!

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman