The biggest story of the week was undoubtedly Nintendo’s full unveiling of their new Nintendo Switch console, which is arriving under two months from now. Sean and Jonathan break down everything from the event, including everything we know about the hardware, all the announced games, the overall presentation, and more, giving our (fairly different) thoughts on how Nintendo’s showing did or did not excite us for the upcoming launch. We also talk a little bit about some recent gaming experiences and Jonathan reviews Netflix’s outstanding adaptation of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, which debuted its first season this Friday.

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 episode of the new year – our sixth year of the podcast – we begin with a grab bag of topics, from Sean’s adventures with Dynasty Warriors 8 and a centuries-old Chinese novel, to Jonathan’s return journey to Inaba replaying Persona 4. We discuss the tragic deaths of Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, as well as more frivolous news including new details on Mass Effect Andromeda and Showtime’s Twin Peaks revival. And for our main topics, we give spoiler-filled reviews of the wonderful Doctor Who Christmas Special, “The Return of Doctor Mysterio,” and the absolutely dreadful Sherlock season premiere, “The Six Thatchers.”

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 episode of 2016, we’ve devoted an entire extra-length show to counting down our Top 10 Video Games of 2016. In all the time we’ve been covering gaming, we have never seen a year like this, a year with such depth and such breadth that both Sean and I struggled mightily whittling our respective lists down to just 10 titles – and only had four game total crossing over between our lists. We talk about every game on our countdowns in detail, offer some ‘honorable mention’ awards to those that didn’t make the cut, and designate some superlatives to the best music, graphics, performances, and characters of the year in gaming. 2016 may have been a horrible year in many ways, but when it game to video games, there was greatness as far as the eye could see – so it seems wholly appropriate to devote our last show of the year to putting all those creative achievements in perspective.

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

In our penultimate episode of 2016, Sean and Jonathan talk about several new and recent games in depth, including The Last Guardian, Thumper, and most importantly Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, for which we devote a full spoiler discussion. It makes for a surprisingly nice complement with our main topic this week, which is breaking down Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, a movie that does many good and interesting things, but also falls flat in ways Infinite Warfare, which tells a similar story, instead manages to soar. Forza Horizon 3 DLC and some other December game updates round out another busy week.

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, we talk about a few random topics – Jonathan complains about the packaging for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and extols the wonders of Terrence Malick’s Voyage of Time – and cover some recent pieces of film and gaming news – including the trailer for Spider-Man Homecoming and recent reports about the Nintendo Switch – before diving into our final, full review and analysis of Final Fantasy XV. We talked in spoiler-free terms last week, largely about the open-world portion of the game, but now it’s time to go in depth with the story, characters, and controversial second half. Jonathan loves it, but Sean has reservations – even though he can’t stop playing it either. Spoilers abound, so if you plan on playing the game and don’t want story revelations revealed, stick to last week’s episode for now.

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

On this week’s show, we dive into a slew of trailers and announcements from two major gaming events of the past week – the Game Awards and the PlayStation Experience – breaking down everything from The Last of Us Part II announcement to the joyous insanity of Hideo Kojima’s latest Death Stranding tease. And after the news, we give our spoiler-free first impressions of one of the year’s biggest releases, Final Fantasy XV. It’s been a long road to finally be playing this game – it was announced, as Final Fantasy Versus XIII, when Sean and I were in middle-school – and now that it’s here, it’s safe to say this is one of the most singular and unique games we have ever played. This chat is spoiler-free, and we’ll be back next week to go more in-depth with the story, so feel free to listen if you haven’t yet picked up the game.

Enjoy!

TIME CHART:

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:10:03

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

We’re back from the Thanksgiving break with an absolutely packed, absurdly long episode in which we review no less than eight – count ‘em, eight – new video games from the past two months. Going back and forth, Sean reviews Call of Duty Infinite Warfare, Dishonored 2, XCOM 2, and Titanfall 2, while Jonathan reviews Pokemon Sun and Moon, Dragon Ball Fusions, and gives more thoughts on Skyrim Special Edition, while both Jonathan and Sean tell more stories from the wonderful world of Hitman. Throw in some quick movie discussions – Arrival and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – and a slew of movie trailers to discuss and make fun of, and you have one of our longest episodes ever, clearing the deck for the busy final weeks of 2016.

Enjoy!

TIME CHART:

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:03:00

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

We get back into our regular routine with something of a catch-up episode, as Sean talks about finishing the Japanese release of Persona 5, Jonathan offers his thoughts on the recently released Skyrim Special Edition, and we both work our way through a few interesting news items. We review Marvel’s latest film, Doctor Strange, which is, to put it simply, a hell of a thing, and a lot of fun to talk about. And finally, we give our impressions of the sixth and final episode of Hitman Season One, along with some brief thoughts on this wonderful experiment in episodic assassination, now that’s come, for now, to a close.

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

Well, here is an episode we never expected to record.

But then again, we never expected our country to elect a racist, misogynist, fascist reality TV star as President. The world has been deeply shaken by what happened this week, and while this is not a political or current events podcast – and will not transform into one – Sean and I felt we could not ignore what just happened on our first episode back.

So on this week’s episode, we talk about it. We talk about the election, how it makes us feel, why we are scared, and what we are doing to cope. We talk through it all because we needed to get it off our chests – and at the end, we try to find some hope by discussing things we’re thankful for and things we’re looking forward to, both big and small.

We will be back again on Monday to our normal schedule, with another episode (already recorded) in which we discuss Doctor Strange, Hitman Episode 6, and much more. But for now, in this special episode, we need to talk about America.

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

What seemed like it would be a slow week seven days ago turned out to be rather crazy, as Rockstar announced Red Dead Redemption 2, tons of intriguing movie trailers and gaming news dropped, and most importantly, Nintendo suddenly unveiled their long-awaited new console, the Nintendo Switch. We spend a lot of time analyzing all of these developments, especially the Switch, easily one of the most intriguing project Nintendo has undertaken in over a decade. What excites us about the new console, and what questions do we still want answered? All this and more makes for a busy, analysis-filled episode.

Enjoy!

TIME CHART:

Intro & Jonathan talks Hamilton: 0:00:00 – 0:11:54

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