This week brought our first full-length Nintendo Direct since September 2019 (!), but was it any good? Do a few far-off announcements for 2022, a Mario Golf game, and a low-effort Zelda port make up for Nintendo’s months of erratic communication? We discuss all this and cover a few pieces of exciting Diablo news from BlizzCon, before diving into our main topic, another Weekly Suit Gundam discussion in which we tackle a curious oddity in the history of Gundam: Yoshiyuki Tomino’s Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: A New Translation film trilogy from 2005 and 2006, which saw the Gundam creator returning to the classic sequel series and compiling it into three feature films. There’s probably no Gundam series more difficult to condense in to three 90-minute movies than Zeta Gundam, with its enormous cast of characters, heady and challenging themes, and dense, complicated storytelling, but A New Translation is nothing if not a valiant effort, worth examining even if it never quite overcomes the sheer weight of factors working against it.

Enjoy!

TIME CHART:

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:10:05

Blizzard News & Nintendo Direct: 0:10:05 – 0:49:27

Zeta Gundam: 0:49:27 – 3:10:09 

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

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

This week brought one great new video game in Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury –a Nintendo Switch package including a Wii U classic and, in a wonderful surprise, a brand new 3D open-world Mario game – and two high-profile stories of bad behavior in Hollywood, with a number of accusations against Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon and Disney disinviting The Mandalorian co-star Gina Carano from future Star Wars productions after a series of anti-trans and anti-semitic posts. Today’s episode is primarily concerned with these dark news stories, and in the case of Carano, some of the terrible takes that have surfaced comparing, offensively, Carano’s firing to the dark days of the Hollywood blacklist. Sean also talks about finishing Yakuza 6 – and his entire journey with Kazuma Kiryu over the last three years – and we continue to talk incessantly about the wonders (and dangers?) of Genshin Impact. 

TIME CHART:

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:08:38

Stuff, including Bowser’s Fury: 0:08:38 – 0:32:30

News: 0:32:30 – 1:18:50

Stream The Weekly Stuff Podcast Episode #365

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

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

Our BATMAN ON FILM series continues with the film all you sadists in the audience have been waiting for us to suffer through: 1995’s BATMAN FOREVER, the third and, thus far, worst film incarnation of the Caped Crusader, marking a shark break from the dark and stylish Tim Burton films in favor of the garish colors, wild tonal inconsistency, and porn-quality cinematography of Joel Schumacher, terrible qualities only matched by the abysmal failures of Akiva Goldsman’s horrible writing. A hit in its day and nostalgic to some, Batman Forever has very little going for it, with a bland and confused lead performance by Val Kilmer, Chris O’Donnell as a very miscast Robin, a nearly unwatchable turn from the obnoxious Jim Carrey as The Riddler, and a deeply inexplicable left-field turn in the career of Tommy Lee Jones. It is a bad, bad movie, but at the very least it’s interesting to talk about. 

TIME CHART:

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:04:21

Stuff: 0:04:21 – 0:31:10

Batman Forever: 0:31:10 – 2:32:14

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

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

It’s a loose and laid-back week on the show as we catch up on life events, cover one weird and frustrating piece of news, and discuss a few really great games, including our first spoiler-free impressions of Hitman 3, the triumphant capper to IO Interactive’s outstanding ‘World of Assassination’ trilogy, which has been one of our favorite series to discuss on the show ever since this incarnation launched in 2016. We also gush over the many wonders of Genshin Impact, and Sean tells us about coming full-circle on Yakuza with Yakuza 6: The Song of Life. We also cover the stupid GameStop stock story, which is the first and hopefully only time we ever have an extended discussion about fiscal markets on this show. 

TIME CHART:

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:01:30

Stuff: 0:01:30 – 0:33:37

News: 0:33:37 – 0:46:47

Yakuza 6: 0:46:47 – 0:59:04

Hitman 3: 0:59:04 – 1:33:55

Genshin Impact: 1:33:55 – 1:52:54

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

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

Ranking at #2 and #5 on Sean and Jonathan’s respective Top 10 Games of 2020 lists, Vanillaware’s 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is undeniably one of the most singular gaming experiences of the last year – an incredibly compelling, blissfully confusing, wickedly intelligent mix of the visual novel, adventure game, and real-time strategy genres into one unique package that is absolutely unlike anything we’ve played before. A mecha and kaiju story with aspects of just about every anime genre under the sun – from high school shows to mystery dramas to magical girl series – 13 Sentinels is more than worthy of a deep dive discussion, especially considering it was a podcast listener who turned us onto the game in the first place! Consider this episode our thanks for the recommendation – and a strong encouragement for those who haven’t played it yet to take the plunge. 

TIME CHART:

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:06:50

13 Sentinels: 0:06:50 – 2:19:23

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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

Continuing our ongoing BATMAN ON FILM series, we arrive at the fourth theatrical Batman feature, the first animated one, and quite possibly the single best Batman film ever made: Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, a standalone feature based on the classic Animated Series, considered by many to be the definitive portrayal of The Dark Knight. Starring Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill as the Joker, with a new love interest and antagonist in the form of Dana Delaney’s Andrea Beaumont, Mask of the Phantasm is a dark, incisive portrayal of the tragedy that is Bruce Wayne, a film noir reimagining of his origin that cuts to the heart of the darkness lying beneath Batman’s iconography. It is a truly spectacular film, one that we’ve mentioned dozens of times before on this show without ever devoting an entire episode to, and it’s a real joy to finally rectify that. 

TIME CHART:

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:02:58

Stuff: 0:02:58 – 0:32:07

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm: 0:32:07 – 2:20:06

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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

Today’s episode is another Weekly Suit Gundam  extravaganza, this time on the controversial Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, but before that, we also discuss this week’s abhorrent Presidentially-ordered insurrection at the US capital, and – in a lighter topic – Jonathan becoming infatuated with Genshin Impact, Sean’s 2020 Game of the Year. Then it’s on to Gundam SEED Destiny, a show that tries to be two different, contradictory shows at once: a challenging sequel questioning the assumptions and characters from the original, a la Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, and a straight-up sequel to SEED – Gundam SEED: Here We Go Again – and in the shuffle, somehow makes us hate the entire returning cast even while it buries and repeatedly does dirty its interesting new characters. The result is one of the most inept sequel stories ever told – but undeniably one of the most compelling to talk about. 

TIME CHART: 

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:02:14

The Whole Coup Thing: 0:02:14 – 0:22:08

Genshin Impact: 0:22:08 – 0:43:12

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny: 0:43:12 – 4:10:48 

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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

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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

Our 10th year of podcasting kicks off with a look back at one of the very few things that was truly good in 2020: Video Games. While the world was falling apart, gaming, at least, delivered one of the best, broadest, and deepest years on records, with scores of titles we loved playing and reviewing throughout 2020, and today’s episode is our chance to look back on the best of the best, go deep with ones we haven’t discussed much before, and share memories of our favorite gaming moments from the past 12 months. It’s one of our longest episodes ever, but the games discussed here make it all worth it – and with 2021 shaping up to be a very exciting year for the medium, we’re already excited to do it all again next year.

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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

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

For part 3 of our Batman on Film series, we move into the 90s with Tim Burton and Michael Keaton’s second outing with the character, the amazingly bizarre, deeply silly, and profoundly psychosexual Batman Returns. It is one of the wildest, weirdest mainstream movies to ever come out of Hollywood, and also one of the best and boldest Batman films ever made – a gothic, expressionist, Freudian nightmare with one of the best sets of villains comic book movies have ever seen, in Danny DeVito’s Penguin, Christopher Walken’s Max Shrek, and especially Michelle Pfeiffer’s outstanding take on Catwoman. It is also, clearly and indisputably, a Christmas movie – if a particularly disturbing one – which makes it a perfect topic for our annual Christmas episode. 

This is also our last episode of 2020, so stick around to the end of the show for a message of thanks from Jonathan, and a countdown of his Top 10 Favorite Weekly Stuff and Weekly Suit Gundam episodes of the year! Enjoy, and we’ll see you in 2021! 

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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

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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

Disney+’s outstanding Star Wars series The Mandalorian brought its second season to a bold, surprising, and spectacularly satisfying conclusion this week, and we dive deep not only with this amazing episode, but also what it portends for the future of the series, where the saga of Din Djarin could go from here, and all the possibilities for Star Wars TV moving forward. Before that, though, we also talk about the games we’ve been playing – including 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, One Piece Pirate Warriors 4, and Spider-Man Remastered – before covering the latest developments in the sad, infuriating saga of Cyberpunk 2077, after Sony delisted the game from PlayStation Network in the midst of what almost amounts to a full-scale recall of this incredibly broken game.

Enjoy, and come back on Thursday for our special Christmas-themed retrospective of the festive(?) Batman Returns!

Time Chart: 

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:03:40

Stuff: 0:03:40 – 0:28:27

Cyberpunk News: 0:28:27 – 0:51:56

The Mandalorian: 0:51:56 – 1:50:23 

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