Queering the Guillotine

This week we're fulfilling a Patreon request for an episode all about everyone's favorite Sanrio-brand oppressed office worker: Aggretsuko! In this super long episode we share our queerpinions on Sanrio in general, layers and layers of capitalism, Aggretsuko's various characters and their emotional arcs, and where the series succeeds and where it flops. We also cite the following articles:

– How Sanrio Makes Anti-Capitalism Adorable, and Profitable by Amanda Hess in The New York Times– "Afraid to Grow Up”: Gendered rage in Aggretsuko by Megan Navarro Conley on Anime Feminist– Striking that work-life-death metal balance in Aggretsuko by Alexis Harper on Anime Feminist– In Defense of Resasuke: Autism-coding and ableism in Aggretsuko by Marina Garrow on Anime Feminist

You can find us and subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Podcast Addict!

Content warning: We’re a fairly NSFW podcast that includes use of reclaimed homophobic slurs. Our discussion this episode is full of spoilers for all three seasons of Aggretsuko as well as the holiday special. Content-wise we touch on sexism, abuse and harassment in the workplace, general evils of capitalism, physical assault, and psychological trauma.

It's our last episode before Halloween, so naturally we're discussing Junji Ito. Specifically, his story collection Shiver. It contains ten short manga in which he goes utterly buck-wild, delivering some of his best and most nauseating work. We share our queerpinions on:

– Shiver: Junji Ito Collected Stories– Ito just taking a bizarre or gross image and running with it– Ito's tendency to throw in everything including the kitchen sink– Effective horror pacing and panel transitions

You can find the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Podcast Addict! You can also find all our past Junji Ito episodes compiled here.

Content warning: We’re a fairly NSFW podcast that includes use of reclaimed homophobic slurs. Our discussion this episode is full of spoilers for all the stories in the collection. Content-wise they include body horror, blood, murder, suicide, gore, violence against women, and trypophobia.

It's spooky season again, and just like last year we're leading up to Halloween with discussions of Junji Ito manga. This week we discuss the new collection Venus in the Blind Spot, which is at times both unusually grounded for Ito and also high camp. We share our queerpinions on:

– Venus in the Blind Spot– The sheer horror potential of a man hiding in a chair– Heterosexuality as theme in Ito's work– Recurring themes throughout and in comparison to Tomie– The Enigma of Amigara Fault as a classic in the queer lit canon– Ito's style and influence from Kazuo Umezu

You can find the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Podcast Addict! You can also find all our past Junji Ito episodes compiled here.

Content warning: We’re a fairly NSFW podcast that includes use of reclaimed homophobic slurs. Our discussion this episode is full of spoilers for all the stories in the collection. Content-wise they include body horror, blood, necrophilia, sexism and violence against women, murder, suicide, and gore.

We're back from our impromptu hiatus and we're going back to our roots with more Naruto talk. This time around we're discussing the Gokage summit and the battles immediately afterward. Plus, Madara declares it, so we've officially reached the Fourth Great Shinobi War! We share our queerpinions on:

- Naruto chapters 451-483- Seeing Gaara again- Naruto's gay pining and anxiety- More underwhelming portrayals of female characters- Deception by ocular jutsu- Kishimoto's entrenchment of the phrase "No homo" into canon

You can also find the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Podcast Addict! To catch up on our Naruto coverage thus far, check out episodes one, six, eight, nine, thirteen, nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-nine, thirty-four, and forty.

Content warning: We’re a fairly NSFW podcast that includes use of reclaimed homophobic slurs. Our discussion this episode is full of Naruto spoilers up through chapter 483. Content-wise these chapters and our discussions of them touch on topics of death, violence, war, body horror, and sidelining and sexualization of female characters.

It's the epic of our time, a saga in scope and size unparalleled by any other comic out there right now. And, after years of going "That's too long, no way" we've actually dived into One Piece. We share our queerpinions on:

• Oda's art in terms of body horror, action, and depictions of women's bodies• Our thoughts on the series' villains thus far (TLDR: they suck)• Some very poor handling of themes in the Skypiea arc• The series' sense of joy, whimsy, and creativity• Roronoa Zora being a flaming f****t

You can find the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Podcast Addict!

Content warning: We’re a fairly NSFW podcast that includes use of reclaimed homophobic slurs. Our discussion this week contains spoilers up through One Piece chapter 302 and the end of the Skypiea arc. Content-wise we touch on the series' hypersexualized renderings of women and girls, monstrous depictions of fat people, racial caricatures, imperialism, and poor handlings of plot points involving indigenous people and their conflicts with colonizers. We also briefly discuss Oda's relationship with Nobuhiro Watsuki and the charges against Watsuki regarding child pornography.

We're queer millennials, and for better and for worse that means we've followed and lived through the impact of RuPaul's Drag Race. Join us as we try to make sense of reality TV commodification of queerness, sponsored by the fracking industry. We share our queerpinions on:

• What the show meant to our younger selves vs. us now• The show's consistent track record of treating trans people as props at best• How the franchise's international editions manage to outshine the American original• The non-revolutionary nature of plopping rainbows on machines of wealth accumulation• Some performances and queens that we got to know and love via their time on RuPaul's Fracking Ranch

You can find the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Podcast Addict!

Content warning: We’re a fairly NSFW podcast that includes use of reclaimed homophobic slurs. Our discussion this week contains spoilers for various Drag Race seasons (who wins, who goes home, etc.) and discussion of the franchise and its fandom's issues with racism, transphobia, and the general evils of rainbow capitalism.

This week we're bringing you part ten of our Naruto reread, and we're covering a lot of chapters. The time has come to understand each other's pain, as well as our thoughts on Pain. We share our queerpinions on:

Naruto chapters 404-450

The state of the series' women in this arc

Deaths and their dramatic implications

Sage Mode and frog mountain scenery

Hoo boy, that ending

You can also find the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Podcast Addict! To catch up on our Naruto coverage thus far, check out episodes one, six, eight, nine, thirteen, nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-nine, and thirty-four.

Content warning: We’re a fairly NSFW podcast that includes use of reclaimed homophobic slurs. Our discussion this episode is full of Naruto spoilers up through chapter 450. Content-wise these chapters and our discussions of them touch on topics of death, violence, war, racism/racial stereotypes, and sexism/sidelining and sexualization of female characters.

The time has come for us to spotlight the work of one our favorite mangaka: Akiko Higashimura! In the first part of our read through her works, we discuss her painfully relatable memoirs and also some ridiculously sassy bar snack foods. We share our queerpinions on:

Tokyo Tarareba Girls Vol. 1-9

Humanizing portrayals of doomed relationships

Attitudes toward marriage, friendships, and balancing the two

Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist's Journey Vol. 1-5

Artistic endeavors, work ethics, and the pressure to practice every single day

You can find all our episodes on Spotify, Podcast Addict, and Apple Podcasts!

Spoiler and content warning: We’re a fairly NSFW-podcast that uses reclaimed homophobic slurs. Our discussion this week includes spoilers for the entirety of both Blank Canvas and Tokyo Tarareba Girls. Content-wise, these manga touch on death, grief, aging, and societal expectations for women and relationships. We also briefly mention the recent sexual assault charges made against Act-Age writer Tatsuya Matsuki.

Yiff me, yiff you, this week everyone's furry and yiffing. Or clopping. Or suggestively shaking a tail feather. The topic is Beastars, one of our favorite ongoing manga as well as one of the messiest. We share our queerpinions on:

Paru Itagaki's Beastars Vol. 1

The trio of protagonists

Messy metaphors and their implications

Itagaki's art style and its containment of multitudes

Mapping ourselves onto furry fictional theatre gays

You can find all our episodes on Spotify, Podcast Addict, and Apple Podcasts!

Spoiler and content warning: We’re a fairly NSFW-podcast that uses reclaimed homophobic slurs. Our discussion this week includes spoilers for Beastars Vol. 1 and discussion of literal murder and violence, as well as messy metaphors for sexual assault and racism.

One might expect a month with fewer new Weekly Sexist Jump chapters than usual to result in a decreased amount of disgusting misogyny. One would be wrong. We share our queerpinions on:

Act-Age chapters 119-121

Chainsaw Man chapters 76-78

Moriking chapters 11-13

My Hero Academia chapters 277-278

Spy x Family chapters 29.1 & 30

Time Paradox Ghostwriter chapters 8-10

Ghost Reaper Girl and Me & Roboco

You can find all our episodes on Spotify, Podcast Addict, and Apple Podcasts!

Spoiler and content warning: We’re a fairly NSFW-podcast that uses reclaimed homophobic slurs. Our discussion this week includes spoilers for all of the series mentioned above, as well as discussion of blood, gore, death, misogyny and both violence against and sexual objectification of women and girls.