After being delayed by Jonathan’s trip to Japan and our Best of the Decade episodes, it’s finally time for our annual countdown of the very best Video Games of the year. And it’s better late than never, because 2019 was a really interesting year for games, and both of us wound up with eclectic, surprising Top 10 lists that don’t look quite like any countdown we’ve done in years past, allowing us to go deep with some games we’ve never talked about before, and revisit favorites that were recurring podcast topics throughout the year. It’s a great conversation, and before that, we also break down two weeks’ worth of news, including some Dragon Ball announcements, a Platinum Games Kickstarter, and more news about the PS5, while Jonathan gives a quick review of the surprisingly good Sonic the Hedgehog movie, a fun and heartfelt film that ensures we’re having a good time talking about video games from the beginning to the end of one of the longest podcasts we’ve ever recorded. 

Oh, and this is only Part 1. But you’ll have to listen through to the surprise cliffhanger at the very end to find out why. Enjoy! 

Time Chart: 

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:03:02

Sonic the Hedgehog and Stuff: 0:03:02 – 0:20:26

News: 0:20:26 – 0:50:00

The Top 10 Games of 2019: 0:50:00 - 4:26:33

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

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

In a very rare move for this podcast, this week’s show is all about American television, as we dive deep with three very different, very good genre shows from the end of 2019: Disney+’s outstanding Star Wars series The Mandalorian, HBO’s wildly ambitious Watchmen, and Netflix’s unexpectedly strong The Witcher. Every one of these shows was a pleasant surprise – some more so than others – and each wrangles a tricky property into serial television in really interesting ways. They’re all worthy of discussion, and it was a lot of fun to break each of them down. Before that, we also give some first impressions of the Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot video game, and talk about the news that Netflix is, inexplicably, developing a live-action One Piece TV series.

Enjoy! 

Time Chart: 

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:04:20

Stuff, including DBZ Kakarot: 0:04:20 – 0:24:40 

News: 0:24:40 – 0:46:05 

The Mandalorian: 0:46:05 – 1:08:00

Watchmen: 1:08:00 – 1:59:36

The Witcher: 1:59:36 – 2:55:20

Politics Chat: 2:55:20 – 3:12:03 

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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

Jonathan just spent three weeks in Japan over the winter break, and now it’s time to tell all the stories from his adventures in the land of the rising sun! From seeing the life-size Unicorn Gundam in Odaiba to visiting the Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka to visiting all sorts of famous temples like Zenkoji, Kinkakuji, and Matsumoto Castle, to meeting the infamous Snow Monkeys of Nagano – there were so many incredible experiences, and this podcast is bursting at the seams with great memories. You’ll also hear all about a wide assortment of Japanese books, magazines, candies, food dishes, and so much more – and even hear a few clips from Karaoke, various shop songs, and the incredible Japanese dub of The Lord of the Rings. 

And if you want the best experience possible, make sure to watch this episode of the podcast on our YouTube channel, where we have a special video version with thousands of pictures, dozens of videos, and so much more to accompany all the stories told throughout the episode. 

Enjoy! 

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The Weekly Stuff with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman is a weekly audio podcast, and if you subscribe in iTunes, episodes will be delivered automatically and for free as soon as they are released. If you visit www.jonathanlack.com, we also have streaming and downloadable versions of new and archival episodes for your listening pleasure.

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

Jonathan’s just returned from his three-week vacation in Japan, and while we’ll have lots about that trip on next week’s episode, today’s podcast is a quick catch-up, as Sean shares what he’s been up to the last few weeks, including a review of Netflix’s surprisingly good Witcher series. Then we cover some recent gaming news, including delays for major games like Cyberpunk 2077, Avengers, and Final Fantasy VII Remake, and this week’s Nintendo Direct unveiling Byleth in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. And finally, we mercilessly make fun of Sony’s Morbius trailer, the unholy real-life manifestation of a joke we made on the podcast way back in 2012. 

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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

Today is the third and final part of our three-part podcast series celebrating the best of the decade, as we look at the best and most significant Video Games of the 2010s. One of the primary subjects of our podcast throughout this decade, we’ve got a lot of thoughts on which games most shaped the past ten years, and we’ve divided our discussion into two segments: First, our respective lists of the Top 10 Video Games of the 2010s, with each host delivering their own thoughts on which games were subjectively the ‘best’ from the past 10 years. Second, we put our heads together to determine which were the most important and influential games from the 2010s – putting quality aside, which games had the greatest impact on the industry, the art form, and the shape of video games to come? We talk through, debate, and collectively create a list of the 10 most important games from the past 10 years, in one of the most enjoyable and intellectually engaging conversations we’ve ever had. 

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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

For our first show of 2020, we’re continuing our three-part podcast series celebrating the best of the decade that was the 2010s. This week, it’s all anime (and all Sean) all the time, as Sean, our podcast’s resident prolific anime viewer, tells us about the 50 best animated shows from Japan he watched these past ten years. There’s a detailed Top 10 and then a slightly-less-detailed list of 40 honorable mentions, so if you’re looking for some anime recommendations, there’s a solid decade’s worth to keep you busy here! And before that, Jonathan counts down his list of the Top 10 Live Action shows from the past decade, giving us one last chance to talk about the Twin Peaks revival, Parks and Recreation, the Steven Moffat years of Doctor Who, and more. 

Enjoy, and come back next week as we count down the best Video Games of the 2010s!  

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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

For our final show of 2019, we’re kicking off a three-part podcast series celebrating the best of the decade, starting today with the Best Films of the 2010s. Jonathan’s been a working film critic and film academic for most of the past ten years, and while Sean’s been to the movies less frequently this decade, 10 years is still plenty of time to see some truly great films. So today, we’re counting down the best of the best – each host has a Top 10 list of the decade’s greatest films, and Jonathan also has an additional 40 (!) honorable mentions, bringing his list to a round 50. All told, we’re discussing dozens of great films today, from George Miller’s Mad Max Fury Road to Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life to the Persona 3 movie series we podcasted extensively about over the years, and sending both 2019 and the decade out with a real bang. 

Enjoy, and thanks for another great year – and a great decade! – of podcasting. See you on the other side. 

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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

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and welcome to our 2nd annual Weekly Stuff Christmas Special! After we gave a live-reaction to Pokémon Christmas Bash, the worst Christmas album of all time, on last year’s special, we’re upping the ante this year with a live performance of the worst adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol money can buy: A ‘Christian’ Carol, an Evangelist stage play that shifts the action of Dickens’ text from Victorian London to the American Old West, transforms the central theme from learning the value of kindness and generosity to accepting Jesus Christ as one’s lord and savior, and includes the phrase “mumbo jumbo churchy talk nonsense” a staggering nine times! With Sean in the lead role of Ebenezer Scrooge and Jonathan playing the surprisingly verbose narrator and the ‘Angels’ of Christmas past, present, and future, it’s an extremely silly good time as we read to you one of the few truly awful adaptations of the Charles Dickens classic. 

Enjoy, and come back next week for the start of our three-part ‘Best of the Decade’ series! 

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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

Disney’s Star Wars Sequel Trilogy came to a close this week with The Rise of Skywalker,Episode IX in the long-running saga and the final adventure for characters like Rey, Finn, Poe, and Kylo Ren. And it’s a pretty baffling finale too, built on a terrible script with nonsensical plotting, confusing character motivations, and a collection of the worst and stupidest twists Star Wars has ever seen. The cast is game, John Williams does his thing, and the visuals are occasionally nice, but this is bottom of the barrel for Star Wars – and, if we’re being perfectly honest, a pretty fun movie to rip into for three hours on this podcast. We discuss the film in excruciating detail, and finish out the show by chatting about episodes 6 and 7 of The Mandalorian,which were so spectacular they’re pretty much the exact qualitative polar opposite of Episode IX. 

Enjoy, and come back Wednesday for our 2nd annual Weekly Stuff Christmas Special – which will be a crazy amount of fun! 

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel!

Subscribe for free to 'The Weekly Stuff' in iTunes!

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

Our first year of Weekly Suit Gundam comes to a close as we reach the end of the Universal Century with 1993’s Mobile Suit Victory Gundam, the final full series set in the Universal Century and the last before creator Yoshiyuki Tomino took a break from the franchise and Sunrise branched out into Alternate Universe stories. Victory Gundam is famously one of the darkest installments in the series, with a large cast, a shockingly high mortality rate, and the youngest protagonist so far in 13-year-old Uso Ewin. It’s also one of Gundam’s most commonly underrated achievements, an imperfect but frequently brilliant series that contains some of the best moments, characters, action sequences, and episodes, and which lingers long after one finishes watching. We dive deep with the series, but also reflect on our first year of the Weekly Suit Gundam podcast, look towards the future, and discuss Fathom Events’ recent theatrical screening of Char’s Counterattack to celebrate Gundam’s 40th anniversary. 

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel!

Subscribe for free to 'The Weekly Stuff' in iTunes!

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