This is it, our star. It will never disappear because it's the star of Christmas.

Hello and welcome to are we there yet? In education and exploration and anime. I am your anime idiot, patrick dugan.

I'm an anime expert, dana hollander.

And I'm brenda mccullough. Your anime heat miser.

Ooh, he's all prickly this time of year because he wants it to be hot.

Heat miser.

I missed the sun.

Love it.

Good callback. Seasonal. The best anime of all. A year without a Santa claus.

Ranking and bass. They don't make anime like that anymore.

That's a good old days.

So, yeah, we are snack dab in the middle of our Christmas spree of episodes. I'll just preface this. This was like the only straight up Santa based anime I could find. Hopefully if we get to this point next year, we can find something specific because already we were finding the bottom.

Of the barrel, scraping the barrel, grasping anything we can because, yeah, a lot of shows have a Christmas episode. Not a lot of shows are about Christmas.

Kind of rough.

Kind of rough.

For this week, we have the two episode series of my Santa.

It suitatentante, it dotte.

I pretend like I know Japanese and that I say things right, but I definitely don't.

You know better than we do.

You know the pronunciation, not the meaning.

There you go.

Yeah, actually, I think it means always. Not off the top of my head. Like, when I looked it up, I think it said always.

Oh, yeah, here it is. Always my Santa.

Always my Santa.

That doesn't make any more sense.

Secrets abound.

I assume neither of you have seen this.

No.

Cool.

Neither have I. We are all going and blind.

Never mind.

So what do you think is going on here? What are your guesses for what we're about to get into?

I like the idea of people having personal santas. I think that sounds really cute. So that's what I'm going to hope for.

Yeah, I never thought of it that way.

I do like that as a hey, it's not one person who caters to the entire world. You get to know your Santa. You get to have a relationship and a familial tie to this Santa figure.

Yeah.

If that's the case, my Santa has been shirking his responsibilities for years.

Maybe you're just a bad kid.

I mean, I'm not getting coal either, so I don't know. I'm not getting nothing.

You're beyond coal.

You get nothing.

Good day. I think this is just looking at the COVID Love harem and all these Santa e lady looking folk are all over this one guy. I see. Because it's just like five women and a dude. I see.

I'd be down for that. I love a harem.

I looked it up. The author of the manga also wrote love hena, which is a love harem. So guessing that's what it's about. I'm guessing that's that dude's wheelhouse for fingers crossed. I've watched Love ena. It's not great, especially in hindsight.

Great.

So as the anime idiot loves harem as a genre, what does that entail?

Lots of girls that want one boy.

They want that dick. And you get all of the trophy versions of Love Interest. You get, like, the jock girl, the nerdy girl, the maternal girl, the business focus girl.

There's always one ideal, though, that the guy always wants.

Got you. So it's just love triangle City.

Yeah.

Classic. Like, hexagon.

Yeah.

And that's where a lot of people get, like, shipping involved because you can ship the main character with any of them. And everyone has their preference, their one true pair, their waifu. And it's a mess.

Don't bashu.

I have a waifu. She's the best.

We all have waifu. No one's denying that.

Princess princess peach is my waifu. And if anybody talks shit about Princess peach, I am going for blood.

I guess that makes sense. Yeah. She is Japanese. I never really thought of it that way.

There's nothing wrong with Princess peach.

Anyway, this podcast is trying to find dugan's wife, who is the bachelor butt with wife.

We should have, like, a special oh, man. All right.

This was sprung on me.

I'm taking notes.

Here we go.

Here we go. We'll flush this out next year.

That'Ll be such a good idea.

That'Ll be the bachelor of both wife. Great.

Oh, God, what a terrible thing to lay my hat on.

Yeah.

I have a show where friends just try to get me an anime wife.

I mean, let's not pretend like this is any better.

That's true. Yeah. Why am I having standards now?

We're way past that, honestly.

All right. So shall we see if Santa is my first wife?

Hell yeah.

Got to make the first one special.

All right, we are watching the only two episodes that exist, and we will see you in just a second.

Oh, boy.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

If this is Christmas, I'm converting. I'm out.

Oh, my God.

I'm getting out of this one.

Yeah, right out of the gate.

Oh, boy.

Yeah, I've passed on a couple of shows on this program of ours. This is just hard to watch.

But you finished it because there's only two important thing.

Yeah.

You finished the whole anime.

But what at what cost, Data?

At what cost?

Humanity is lost. I actually looked this up because I was kind of thrown off by the only two episodes. And they're saying, like, oh, these were ova's, like, original, like, video animation. I think that's what it means. So they didn't intend this to be like, a full series, like a 13 or 20 some episode. But especially after at the end of the last episode, they're like, oh, here's a sneak peek of the next episode. And they planned a third episode, and it just wasn't made. They just whoop make it. So there's like a there's like a little wikipedia page about it and it's like however, the video was recalled when it was discovered that due to a misprint, the dvd was labeled tvpg when it was intended to be tvma.

Oh, no.

Funimation announced that they had planned to re release for the 2008 holiday season when it was never materialized. So it just got forgotten about. Like, it just never got rereleased in the Us. And I don't know, we couldn't find a third episode anywhere. So I guess it didn't happen in Japan either.

That's not the worst fate for this to just be forgotten about. Yeah.

I'm not surprised.

It makes sense.

I wouldn't say I'm surprised, but I am disappointed. It just had so much potential.

It really didn't, though. Let's get into it and see why.

Yeah. Hop on in. So we start with the it's your standard early set up for a Christmas movie of no one believes in Santa because it's all a sham. Hi, I'm your bitter main character, and I don't like Christmas.

My parents didn't care, so I don't like Christmas.

And it just goes like a mile a minute with the information in this one. It just like boom, boom, boom. And it really just feels like they have a 50 chapter of manga and just condense it down to the two episodes. We go fast. There's a lot going on.

No? Yeah. If it feels like we're glossing over stuff, that's just us jumping straight into it because there's no introduction of new concepts or people or places or things that happen. It's just this scene ends and immediately you are right in the middle of the action of the next scene. Basically, as soon as we get that opening introduction of this guy just monologuing, immediately he is being harassed by a woman in a shopping mall who says she is Santa.

Yeah.

This show is as disjointed as our notes are. So if you didn't watch it, you'll feel like you did.

Unfortunately, before we get too far, I watched the dub.

Yeah, I did, too. I don't think it matters.

I don't think it's going to be great either way. The dub was very bad.

Yeah.

I would say that even though the writing and the show itself was really bad, I thought the main guy was, like, pretty good. I thought he did his best. His opening monologue was just very like I think he didn't care either. So his opening monologue was very just like, yeah, this is my shit. And I was just like, I'm into it.

My whole thing. Let me explain it in this tone.

At the very end of the second one, they do, like, the next episode, and the girl character is like, wait, we're doing a third one? And I couldn't tell if that was actually written or if that was like a blooper they left in because the actors are just like, what is this garbage? Like, I can't believe we're doing a third one.

I hope it was real.

Also this kid, every Christmas his parents aren't around and he just got dropped off with his grandma at a young age. His parents are just hassles and just seek it and just never talk to him or around and that's why he hates Christmas. They call but it's not a great call either. You get one of them.

It also seems like occasionally they'll call.

Yeah, it doesn't seem every year the main guy's in the shopping center gets started getting harassed by this random woman.

Yeah, she's just shouting, hey, I'm Santa, I need to make you have a good night. Let me spend the night with you, stranger. And then just shouting that of course everyone around is like, what scandalous thing does that mean? And then she is like, you pervert and slaps him even though she's shouting stuff. And he's just like, who the fuck are you?

And then he gets arrested because the cops come up and they're like, hey, you can't just slap people and make a scene and drag her away. But then she's back, then she's back.

Somehow just slips away from the cops, something.

She's Santa.

She explained.

Yes, she has magic.

Sure.

Okay, so yeah, the guy is walking away, he's like, okay, I don't know this crazy woman, let me leave. And then she's like, why do you hate Christmas, stranger? I just met, I know your whole deal now. And it is revealed that this is our main character. He was born on December 24 and therefore he was named Santa. That is why he hates Christmas, because it's his birthday and also his parents love Christmas so much to name him Santa but spend zero time with him.

On any I think his parents just hate him.

Yeah, I don't think it has to.

Do with their love for Christmas.

Yeah, I mean they just drop off at their grandma's place and just like it's fucking your problem now.

Later.

Yeah. And now we know his whole deal and she's insisting on giving him the best Christmas ever for whatever reason.

And when he tells her that his name is Santa, she starts laughing, like on the ground, rolling around laughing despite just telling him that she is also Santa.

She is also Santa.

Everyone is Santa.

Yeah.

Are there any other santas I should know about?

There will be.

It was at this point that I wrote my favorite note that I think I've ever written for anything ever, which is honestly what the fuck is going on.

I have that just throughout all my notes. What the fuck?

Yeah, I don't think it's mentioned until very later on, but this girl's name is My.

Yeah.

So it is my and Santa.

My Santa.

My Santa.

The name is a pun.

I just stuck to calling him boy.

Yeah, I just wrote boy and girl.

You better believe Santa and My.

Well, which one did you mean?

Well, I called her My, so I.

Knew was it established this early? Because I did not notice her getting named My.

It's after she takes a shower.

Yeah, got you.

And after she fights the gang leader.

Yeah. So as she's walking away in the small, she's like, see, let me show you. I have Santa powers and can only summon things that have san in the name for Santa san. So she summons a bunch of just like Japanese puns that didn't really translate.

But they would translate some of the words to stuff that could be translated. They did, but then stuff that was too hard and the pun wouldn't work. They kept it in Japanese. So it just made it more confusing because I didn't know what half the stuff she was summoning was.

Yeah, so she summons a bunch of fish and then there's a bunch of garbage. Throws garbage at him, pretty much. And as he's trying to flee from this Santa just throwing garbage at him, he bumps into this gang leader and knocks a cake out of his hands.

This show is so bad.

It's not good. It's really not good.

Yeah. Apparently there's this gang leader and then about 30 million people behind him that are his gang, and they were all going to share this one small cake.

This is Eddie vinny cake.

So naturally he's ready to fight because their holiday is ruined.

And it's not just any cake. It took like three weeks to call ahead.

You got to order this cake three months in advance.

You couldn't just get a new one right away. It's so special and tiny and can feed 1000 people, apparently.

Yeah. Also, you can tell this show is bad because none of them had a 69 sweater on.

Come on.

These are her gangs.

This is an established trope, but we all know this.

Please play by the rules at least once. My fanta, this gang leader tries to fight him, and then My starts wailing on him using Santa powers.

And pedro, her tiny deer that appears.

Why was it named pedro?

She has a small stuffed reindeer that she uses for hours.

Anyway, I'll beat you up with pedro and the mobsters like pedro. And he says some name in it. I guess it's like a big boxer or wrestler or a boxer or something. I guess that's a reference to something. And it's like no, it's this tiny deer.

This came out in like 2001, 2002, something like that. Some reference about Ben.

Yeah, but no, she summons another sand thing, but it's like a giant nunchuck, like a three piece nunchuck thing. I've seen it before. And tries to fight them off and they can't. And then just summons more fish, like just a lot of fish, and crushes the whole gang in that. And it's weird. And then yeah, then we come back. Then he takes Boy, takes her back to his place, apparently, and she's in the shower. And he's just sitting right outside of the door while she's showering.

We got to see a titty. A whole titty.

I was not expecting to see a butt and titty in this Santa show.

I was so excited when it said it wasn't, etchy. I was ready for them to imply to bang. I never got that bang. And Santa spoiler alert, they never bang.

They don't bang.

A baby. No.

Wow. Because as that was happening, I was thinking like, why did the website ask me? Because it asked me if I was 17, which was weird. Why did it ask me that? And like, as soon as I thought that, the titty was on screen, and I was like, oh, scandal.

There item b. Yeah. So we see santa's titty is an ass.

She is not Santa.

But she is. She said she's Santa, but the boy is also Santa.

Also her grandpa is Santa.

And literally everyone. Oh, god, it's so confusing. And yeah, this is where we find out her name is May. And she's like, don't look. My whatever, Santa. I hate the show. So she says, don't look. And then he goes to grab pedro for some reason I forget. And she's like, no, don't grab pedro. He bites and throws up in the door, which then exposes her. And then she's like, don't look at me, you pervert. And starts just throwing shit at him. But she is the one that jumped out. So okay. And then it just smash cuts them into the living room. And she comes walking and drying her hair and just like a collared business shirt. And that's it. So not leaving much.

But for someone so concerned with, oh, don't look at me.

Don't look at me.

I'm going to just now wear a shirt. And that's all. And also have you sit outside the shower. This sort of stuff really makes me mad of like, you could be so clever. You could write any excuse for it to be a genuine, like, you pervert slap. But just like setting yourself up to be exposed and then slapping them and being like, you monster. I threw my many titty at you. That and him just being like, this crazy lady. She's so crazy.

Come back to department.

Yeah. He says crazy about 18 million times in this.

This is before this is before the sources were invented. They didn't know what seven in thems were.

Yeah.

So it's it's a rough go. And just so yeah, then they're in the living room and boy just starts monologuing. They love to just monologue for just stretches at a time because it's so short.

They have to get in all of the information.

And they also got to just draw those big ass empty rooms with just very little in it because that's more to draw. And they're on a fucking budget. And it shows.

How does he live there by himself?

He's got a couch, a TV and a shower. That's all I know.

We don't even know.

Yeah, he talks about being a senior, so high school, I guess.

But he talks about the other girl saying she's the only senior in my class. What does that mean?

What happened to the grandma that raised him?

I have so many questions.

The single paternal figure in his life.

The single character you set up is grandma at the very beginning. And then you never see her.

She's only in flashback. So I can only presume she's dead and possibly reincarnated as Santa. This is a mess. So we get his whole fucking backstory in history and we get a flashback of like his grandma holding him over a table over a cake and then also holding the phone to his head to talk to his parents. And he just looks like drunk off his ass like as a kid. He's just so out of it.

He's just dead faced.

And his mom is talking to him like, hey, sorry we couldn't be there for your birthday and Christmas.

Tough shit.

Like she doesn't say why. She doesn't say where they are. They just say they're working. It's like, oh, well. And we don't know anything about them. And all we know is they just abandoned them as soon as possible. And then we see like they sent him a picture and his parents with like eight kids or something.

Like bunch of children.

They're super happy and they're just rub it in. Fuck yeah. Wish you weren't here.

And he establishes this is the only Christmas birthday present I have ever gotten. And it's like, Jesus Christ. The grandma couldn't be like, hey, let me get you a pack of gum.

Just something fresh toy from one of those quarter vending machines. At this point, it was the first time I wrote on the notes, what the fuck is this show? This might be eight minutes into the first episode. So much has already happened.

I think it's also important to note that my mentions that this isn't her real body.

Oh, yeah. Because he constantly teases her about being like flat chested and small. So she's like, oh, no, I have a much more voluptuous true body, but I'm out of magic. So I'm in this tinier form because that happens.

These are magic.

I mean they are, but.

No, you're right.

Who am I? So then my ladges onto boy while he's monologuing. And she's like, we're going to throw you a big ass party and make you less lonely and sad and depressing.

Because she also asks him, she's like, do you have any friends? And he's like, yeah, but they suck.

Yeah, okay. It's so frustrating.

She specifically says they're the type of friends who would ask you to take a picture but would never take a picture of you or be in that picture with you.

No, that's right.

This is what blew my mind.

What's this exact line.

It's very good. They would ask you to take a picture of them but not look at the pictures you've taken. And I was like, what?

It's so awkwardly worded. There's so much easier ways to express that thought than in that phrase, because that's very wrong.

It should be like, they ask you to take a picture of them, but not to be in the picture. That makes a lot more sense.

But I just want to establish right now, before we get further into the episode, that he's like, my friends suck, and they're all very they'll take advantage of you.

Yeah, okay.

That's established. Okay, now we can continue.

They throw a party for him, which is just my making a bunch of food, apparently, and just blowing party poppers. And as is anime tradition, she's terrible at cooking because everyone in anime is apparently and they freak out when they bite into it. And he tricks her into eating and she freaks out. And then they run off onto the balcony and then just start throwing out exposition like crazy.

It's some weird fake deep yeah.

Before they run out onto the balcony, she's like, you probably like a girl. Who do you like? He's like, oh, I don't know. And she reaches into his shirt and yanks out a picture, which I guess he just keeps a picture of the crush he has.

I think it was his phone.

Yeah, it was on his phone. She stole his phone and apparently he had a picture of her.

Okay, that makes more sense. Still creepy.

Open on his phone.

Easy to find him like, oh, here's one girl on his phone. That must be her. And this is when we find out his crush as the senior in his class or whatever. It doesn't matter.

Yeah, there's a weirdly inspirational speech of like, hey, just picture of like, everyone is celebrating right now, so you should be celebrating too. And also, it took a little bit of a religious turn because they were like, yeah, I'm celebrating Jesus. So they're giving honor to him. And it's like, okay. It got a touch religious for no reason.

It was so weird. Because you say inspirational, I say just weirdly Christian.

Yeah, well, like, trying to be everyone.

Is talking about Jesus Christ today and.

How he helped us.

Just so you know.

I like how after we watched the show with literal Jesus, this is the weird one.

Yeah. Because this one to get Jesus seat.

True.

Yeah. This one was more preachy than the Jesus anime we watched.

Yeah. Jesus Christ in st. Young men liked capitalist Christmas.

He didn't care. He loves Santa, not the other way around. Santa is like him.

Christ. I'm having an aneurysm. I can't believe this is real.

All right, so keep going. She decides that he just needs the happiness power that she has, and she kisses him to transfer this happiness her energy.

Oh, she also says they're celebrating jesus's birthday, but they're also celebrating yours. Even if you don't know it, they're celebrating specifically you Santa. And then kisses them and transfers her power.

And then immediately his phone rings and it's the Crush saying, like, hey, want to come to a Christmas party? And he's like, yeah, heck yeah. I'll be right there. And then maya gets all mad because she says, oh, no, that's not real. That's a set up. That's part of the happiness power that's just happening to make you happy. And he's like, I don't care. I just got invited to a party. I'm going to go do the thing you wanted me to do, go out and enjoy myself on my birthday. And she's like, no, I wanted you to spend the night with me. And then she runs away because she.

Loves I wrote down the direct quote.

Oh, thank you, David.

Thank you.

I'm going to act. I usually just read them, but I'm going to act this time so people know that I did ten years of voiceover like stuff. So here we go. You're all I've thought about since I met you. I fell for you. I fell in love with you. And then she runs away.

When did she meet him?

2 hours ago.

We saw this and she's like, obsessed with him right out of the gate. And it just, what the fuck is this show?

What the fuck?

But then she says, like, no, that's my magic making, like, the girl call you. It's not real. So that means her magic is just lying to him. So isn't that worse than the happiness? Like, oh, here's fake happiness just to give you, like, a little boost here's, like happiness steroids. It's not real. And the backlash is going to be a bitch.

Yeah, let me set up a scenario and then immediately take it away from you so you could know the time you could be having, but you won't because you're going to be spending with me the person you hate. And you keep calling the crazy girl.

Well, I thought she was lying and that she was just jealous. But then he does go to his crushes house and she's like, I didn't call you.

Yeah. So this is what super fucked me up. Yes, because everything's been fine up until this point.

This is a weird one.

He goes uninvited to this party, goes to The Crush, and she's like, I didn't call you. You've never come to the last few parties. But if you want to say, you can. All of your friends are here. We're having a Christmas birthday party for you that you were not invited to, but everyone you know and love is here, and they've all been waiting for you to show up.

No, she invited him. She said you've never come to him before, even though I've invited you, or something along those lines. Like, she said, like, I've invited you before. You just never come. And we assume she just stopped inviting.

Him, but they still celebrate it. This is very much like, have you guys seen Meet the robinsons?

No?

Okay, well, there's a part where a character is walking down a hallway, and all of the kids are like, hey, you want to come to my house today? Hey, I like your binder. And then he's like, they all hated me.

Yes.

I think that's the thing, though, because it's also like, right around this time we get a flashback of when they're kids. So I think they invited him when they were really young and all in, like, kindergarten together or whatever. And then as they got older, he stopped coming or stopped wanting to hang out with them, so they stopped inviting him. But they kept doing it.

But still, it wasn't like they were like, oh, this guy doesn't show up. Whatever. We'll still have a Christmas party. They're still like, yeah, let's celebrate his birthday. It's his party. He wasn't invited this year. But now that he's here, fucking great. These shitty fake friends, as he call it, throw him a party and just, like, idolize him every year. And then once he actually does show up, they're like, yeah, you are so welcome here. And then he's like, I got to go find Santa and runs away.

And in the flashback, they're like, remember that time your grandma made that cake for your birthday, and it was great, and we all hung out, and they're like, singing and all this stuff. So they clearly thought themselves as friends. They just like, oh, he prefers to be alone. And to make him happy, we'll let him be alone. And then when he runs off to find May 1 of the friends yells out, like, oh, don't worry. We'll be here waiting for you. Like, anytime you want to come back, you're welcome here anytime. Really selling it. Really selling this party to him on his way.

I just love him so much.

He's so great. Everyone Loves Santa. Oh, my God, he's a show.

She runs and finds my back at the place where they met. And then he's like, what's a girl like you doing alone on Christmas Eve? And then he kisses her.

First.

She says, what are you doing here? I set that party up so you could go there instead of be with me. Directly conflicting the thing she shouted as she was leaving, previously saying, I wanted you to spend the night with me and not go to this party.

What the fuck?

Why do I lie?

There's still, like, a third of the episode left.

I'm going to try flip flopping. Everyone's intentions for no reason, and it doesn't make any sense.

I can't breathe.

I want you to spend time with me. There's a party. You should go, but you want to spend time with me. You went to the party and left, but I wanted you to go to. The party. Now that you're here. I'm in love with you.

This is an abusive relationship.

This is gaslighting to the gas lighting. My god, I feel like we're being gaslit. I feel like we're the ones being correct.

That's what it is.

Gas lit by Santa.

Again, this manga author is like a fucking brilliant tactician just fucking with us.

He gives her a very good just deep smooch, gets in there and then she just gets her powers back. I guess from that one. Deep smooch.

Well, he gave her his hat full titties.

Again.

Magical girl transformation scenes where immediately she strips down nude and then gets into Christmas garb and her hair turns blonde.

Yeah, because that's sexy.

We all know Santa is a blonde.

She's like, do you believe me now? And he's like, you really are Santa and not flat chested. Things do come true.

Oh my god. I got just what I wanted for Christmas. Some big old double ds, some big old Dennis. I wrote down, this ain't your daddy Santa. This Santa is a Santa you can fuck. This is a fuckable Santa. Just so sexualizens. Yeah, she is magical.

Why couldn't you fuck actual Santa? Are you saying actual Santa is not fuckable?

No, I've seen a lot of pictures. He's definitely fuckable. I'm just saying this is a high school Japanese boy's fuckable Santa.

Oh, sure.

This is a playboy bunny Santa.

Yeah, earlier he did say my type is supermodels.

You dumb dumb child, you idiot.

As hard as it is now, obviously it's midnight on Christmas. So this now powered up Santa decides to take boy Santa and go deliver presents because it's Santa time. santa's on the clock Santa time.

God. And they're just dropping presents off to kids while they're sleeping and giving them weirdly, like, sagely advice. Like when kids don't eat so much candy, eat more vegetables.

Because I like, no, I thought it was like sweet that she, like, knew them all and was saying, like, specific things about each one. But then also this show is just terrible. I was like, this is sweet. But also I hate this because she's.

Just showing up in the kids'rooms and being like, hey, this boy got bullied because he still believes in Santa. I'm going to leave a little present for him so he knows he's right and give him a kiss on the forehead.

Yeah, the kiss was weird. The kiss was unsettling for me. Don't kiss random kids.

We then go to like an orphanage place. Yeah, I guess we see a bunch of kids sleeping on the floor. And then one girl in particular, maya, is saying like, oh, she wants to be a doctor. But right now she's working, so she likely won't be a doctor.

Yeah, they kind of say she hates it when people around her are sick. She wants to make them better. But she probably won't be a doctor because she's poor.

She's so poor. But you dumb idiot.

She specifically said all of these kids are working. So are they visiting, like, a sweatshop like child?

She changes everything.

Because she didn't say worse.

Because his parents are there.

Yeah, because this is supposed to be like, hey, all these poor kids. Oh, your parents were actually out, like, helping these poor kids so they can learn and have a role model. And that's why they weren't here for Christmas. But they're contributing to this labor camp.

But she says they're like news photographers, so I guess that her parents plays it. Why does that matter? They're raising an orphanage. Why does it matter if they're news photographers? And why would they be if this is their job?

They show his parents calling him, and it's just the same voice clip as before of his mom saying the whole thing again, just the exact same way.

Got to save that money. We can't afford to rerecord that line.

Yeah.

And it's him answering his phone and apologizing. I understand all the good work you're doing. I'm sorry for wanting to spend time with you. And he's apologizing, actually. Like, he was a bad kid, but his parents just abandon him and call him, like, whenever they feel like it and just send him a picture with them and a bunch of other kids. They never explain what they're doing. They never told him how many years that they're like, hey, we're off helping orphans. Like, sorry, here's a little teddy bear or something. No, they get nothing.

And here's the very good reason we are not with you, son. This is the classic no one communicates, and it drives me insane. You can be like, hey, by the way, do you want to know what we do for your living, son? Would that be helpful to settle you into your life, knowing that we are out helping people in the world?

I choose ignorance.

No, Mom, I hate you.

Sorry, son. We can't be around too raise you. We're too busy raising other kids whose parents don't want to raise them, which is exactly what we're doing to you. Hope grandma is not dead. See you.

I love it.

20Ft behind them. He answers the phone call, and he's right outside the house. He could just go and talk to them.

And that's sort of our resolution for this episode, because he's like, yeah, okay, I was a little uptight. My parents are out doing good things. They're good people. All right, let's go. And so they fly off into the night. They say, like, hey, this has been a magical night. Thank you so much. They see other santas going around. So, yeah, they are doing a regional one Santa per region thing.

We see another sexy Santa.

Yeah, sexy Santa. Santa, yeah. And they fly up and they say, like, hey, this is our Christmas star. This is our star to represent our night.

It is the fucking moon.

That's the moon.

I don't understand.

Hey, Mike, do you know what a star is? Because that sure shit ain't one.

Oh, my God. That's basically it for this episode. No, there's one more thing. I need to point n credit scene. Yes, there's an end credit scene. But one more thing. In this there's a license plate on this slay. It says it had C. Then later it shows swc D two. So for whatever fucking reason, they threw in a Star Wars reference to C three, po and R. It's like, why in this final shot did you just need this little tag?

Why is this happening?

The DA vinci Code. You got to watch Star Wars during Christmas and you'll find the secret Santa location. I don't know. God.

There'S the credit scene.

Yeah.

Credits roll. Whatever. Who cares about the song? And we get just end credits. It's like 10 seconds of, oh, no, I used all my power bringing you around, and I can't get back to Santa land. So I guess I live with you now.

What a twist.

I for sure didn't watch that. And in the second episode, I just accepted whatever was going on.

Yeah, no, it was strange because when I was watching it, we hit credits at, like, 24 minutes or whatever, and then there was lots of credits and then just a very short clip at the end. So I don't know why they buried it after the credits.

Got to got to keep them sitting around to watch all the credits to show everyone who put in so much good work on this fucking trash fire.

I really don't know how there's a second episode because how can we top perfection?

Honestly, they got it in one. They should have just stopped there. But yeah, let's dive into episode two notes on this, because I almost turned this off three times in this episode.

I just got to say, I'm so glad that there are only two episodes and that one of the episodes is a beach episode.

I was going to say there's only two episodes, but we squeezed it in. And not only beach episode, we also squeeze in a hot spring scene and a bathhouse scene, and we get all the etchy tropes in. Oh, my God. All right.

And they still don't bang.

They still don't bang.

Episode four of this series continued.

If Santa bang Santa. Is that masturbatory?

Oh, God.

They're both Santa. Anyway, we can briefly a second episode real quick because a lot of our notes and a lot of the show are the same, so it's quicker. And I usually watch Subs and dubs. I had to watch dub for this one both times because so much is going on. I couldn't stop to read it all, so I just, fuck it. It just went through. Oh, God. So, yeah, episode two right away, beach episode. They're at the beach now. Deal with it. Accept it. Six months later, it starts off exactly the same way with a sexual misunderstanding that maya is yelling about. And then she gets arrested, and then she appears back out of nowhere, and she goes like, I'm not that kind of Santa, and slaps them and then exact, like, beat for beat. And in some shows, I would see this as, like, a joke and kind of like an homage or like a reference to another episode or a reoccurring joke. In this one, I feel like it's just like, hey, we already animated this. Let's just change their clothes and background, because it's the exact same.

For sure.

That is exactly it.

I also wrote down this weirdly, deep thing that she says in the very beginning, and her beginning monologue of meeting someone is just a prologue to a long farewell. And I was like, what do you mean?

If you meet someone, you'll have to say goodbye eventually. Thanks. bye. Thank you.

Yeah, we'll talk about long farewells later on. Continue with this beach.

So, like, this pink girl appears. I don't know her. Hey, this is my mi it's my sister. Okay, let's just go with it. Well, don't worry about it.

My part too. The sequel.

Yeah. Electric boogaloo. And she just keeps saying, she's coming, she's coming, she's coming. And that's all she's saying. Really? What's happening up there's, pigtail Santa? From the end of the first episode, turns out her name is sherry. So she's here because she got assigned to be Santa for this area because my fucked up and used up all of her powers. Oh, God, I'm going hoarse from screaming about this. My throat's got acting up. So she's like, hey, I'm the new Santa for this area. And mine is like, oh, don't worry. I got it covered. And sherry, she's like, no, you're an idiot, and you're not doing a good job. So they assigned me, and I would love to not be here right now, but you messed up, so now I'm here. And then they just challenge each other to a duel because two santas can be in the same place. So they're like, whoever wins will be Santa of this area.

This town ain't big enough for two santas.

I'm sure the fifth episode of the cowboy themed episode, I'm sure it would have happened good. And then they tell the boy's whole life story again to sherry, and she laughs at them exactly the same way mine did the last episode. Because you got to squeeze those scenes out. You got to reuse what you can. recycle. Reuse. God.

Use reuse.

Recycle.

There it is. Thank you. My brain is short circuiting. So then they dole with magic, but Mike can only summon stuff with sand in the title. And then I guess sherry just says gorgeous and just takes whatever my summit and just makes it bigger because she's not summoning anything herself. So I guess it's just kind of like you summoning some of them.

Have very useful powers.

No, it's just kind of like you summon something and then I make it big and then one of us will be the winner. Okay, that doesn't make sense.

Yeah. So eventually, sherry is, like, trapped in this big vase that is summoned and it breaks, and then it's considered like a draw.

Yeah, sure. Got it.

Whatever.

Without reading watermelon.

Yeah, they eat watermelon and basically they establish that these two are, like, next door neighbors. And they grew up together, they went to school together. They set up this, like, Santa academy where there's everyone's training to be a Santa, and sherry is the top of the class and My is the bottom of the class and just is a dumb idiot.

Classic rivalry. I hated this whole so during, like, this whole scene, this whole explanation, my mind is just eating watermelon and they're still playing the sound effect of her eating watermelon, but she's not on camera, and it is just a vile sound.

Yeah, the crunch.

And it seems like a three frame animation of, like, hold watermelon, take one bite, throw away.

Yeah. And it just keeps going and going to the infinite watermelons and just it's wow. Just really pinching every penny here.

That was my favorite Marvel storyline. No, that's DC. Fuck, I fucked up my own jokes. I was going to say crisis on infinite watermelons. Damn it.

I appreciate it.

Anyway, so let's just cut to the chase with this because in this 30 minutes episode, there's about two minutes of plot that's relevant.

That's new.

Yeah, that's true.

So we'll just say, I did genuinely love this. maya is being called back to the Academy because she's such a fuck up. She's such a bad student that they're like, hey, you have to go back to Santa. I would rather watch Bad Santa than this.

I would rather hang out with Billy Bob thornton for a week to watch this.

Yeah, she's such a bad Santa that she has to go back to Santa school, and she has until midnight on December 24 to say her goodbyes and to leave.

Who told her? This is Miss noelle, who was, for some reason working at a vending thing at the beach. And Mike just didn't question that.

Yeah, she's got a summer job. Yeah.

She's somehow a teacher or master or whatever. So My is like, oh, no, I have to say goodbye to Santa because I have to go back. And she says this on the beach. So naturally you assume it's summer.

Yeah. At this point when they're saying you have to go back to Santa school and stuff, is this a fucking magical girl anime?

Is this like.

Down to one meme? And it is. My, why weren't you at elf practice?

It really is.

It's just I was so mad at myself. I actually thought of that toward the end of the episode, and I was like, why the fuck didn't I think of this before.

Come on.

Come on, dana.

You're better than this.

This show isn't.

So basically the rest of this episode is My being like, oh, I have to say the perfect goodbye to Santa. I need to find the perfect way to tell my love this person who I've known for an episode and a half, that six months, forgive me that I love him so much and I can't live without him. And so naturally, she does that by not telling him until the night she.

Leaves for another six months.

Yeah.

Time flies by.

Yeah. We basically smash cut from that beach to them saying, oh, I have to say goodbye. And now it's December 24, pretty much.

God, and I just love there's, like, a few phone calls in this episode and it's all just one sided dialogue because God forbid we hire another actor.

The one sided phone call the police.

That's who you are pretty much on that level. And it's completely unironic and terrible.

Yeah. As subtle as that.

Yeah. And then we get sherry trying to spend the whole time to get rid of my mind so that May and Santa can talk about their feelings and express what they love about each other to themselves. And at this point, sherry is just monologue to my mind. And My walks in and here's this whole plan. It's like, oh, that's what you've been doing these six months, I guess, at failure.

Why does sherry care so much?

Yeah, they were rivals about two minutes ago.

Wait. She hated my but wait, we get.

Flashbacks and we find out that May and sherry are actually best friends and always have been and always will be contradictory to what they said earlier. And we get a flashback where sherry.

Like sisters, they just fight. But at the end of the day, they love each other so much in front of me, throw giant monsters at each other.

But in the flashback, we see that sherry is also burnett. So this is when I said, are they fucking Super saiyans? Because when they get powered up, they go blonde. So it's sailor Moon and Dragon Ball. Z and love hena and Santa. That's what this show is, and it's terrible. So at the Santa Academy, they separated them because they're too good of friends, I guess. I don't know. And throughout the whole episode, sherry keeps reiterating, like, you can't pause time. You can't stop time to tell people you love them. Just really emphasizing, like, time is unmovable. I keep going with it, really hitting that home. Like they're setting it up for some payoff later in the episode and weird. And then cut to like they're in front of the same exact tree in the same background because budget. And sherry comes down and he's like, Great. I was able to tell you guys everything and now we're able to set up this whole date I had planned for you for tonight. And you'll be able to get to it. What's that? The clock. It's 1157. We don't have any time. But wait. And she summons all of her Santa power and transforms. And we get another transformation sequence because, you know, it's an ass. And she freezes time. She just straight up freezes time and does exactly what she said she could never do. And she does it because fuck continuity. And this gives them time to go out on a date and do all the fun stuff and express their feelings for each other before maya has to leave someone else take over.

Yeah.

Exhausted.

No, that's basically the rest of this episode. I'm ready.

They go on their date, they have dinner. It's beautiful. It's amazing. They go back to the tree after their date. It was fine. Good. And then maya is acting like she's fucking dying.

The void beam of light is rapturing her up to say weird, we also get a moonshot again. Got to get that moonshot. It's very expensive.

That's their special Christmas star. Get it right.

They cherish that. Don't you diminish it for that?

And so she's like, floating away, and she's talking about like, what if I die before I see him again? What if we never get to see each other again? And I was like, isn't Santa, like, immortal? Wouldn't you be immortal?

No. And this scene takes about 15 minutes. I need to find the exact time, but it is just repeating I will always love you. I will always be here for you. But what if I never see you again? That's ridiculous. I'll always love you, and I'll always be here for you. But what if you don't remember me for next Christmas? It's fine. I'll always love you. I'll always remember you. But what if I die? But I'll always love you.

It's rarely as that depth of it's.

It's so bad, I can't.

So My goes back to elf practice after we get another transformation scene, seeing her whole titties and whole ass. And then it's over.

Wait.

I for sure did not watch the credits again.

Wait. But when she flies off, I like, that boy specifically says, I will always treasure our friendship. What's this whole fucking thing about your love for each other?

Just professing your love undying to each.

Other, even that whole back and forth for like ten minutes. I don't even know if they ever say the words love. They specifically say friendship over and over and over again. Like, specifically treasure your friendship.

This is the extremist instance of will. They won't. They in the entire world.

But they already said they love each other in the last episode a year ago.

Yeah, but they won't. Because every 5 seconds they change it from they will to they won't. They will. They won't. Hey, audience. They won't. Don't root for them.

But you can root for so much, my good friend.

Oh, God. And then yeah. So credits happen, and she sort of, thank Christ it's over. Wait, no, there's more. It's another post credit scene. Turns out Mine didn't have to go back to Santa school because she's a dumb fuck up, even though she is. Turns out they were actually after My. My. And Miss newell is there in, like, dominatrix gear saying, like, sherry, you dumb bitch, if you actually read the letter, you wouldn't know who we were talking about. Despite talking to May or May at the beach saying, you got to go back. Ms. newell told me she had to go back. No. And they're just like, my mom's got to go back. They're like, okay. And that's it.

I also did not watch this scene because I assumed it was over. What the fuck?

She directly told me that she has to go back. But it's my I'm this close to ripping my face off.

She holds up the letter. She holds up the letter like, sherry, why did you read this? And on it, it just says My. It doesn't say my It just says my doesn't make sense. And then we get the next time on episode three. It's just a fucking neck battle. It's a giant reindeer neck battle. And it's in my mind's, back fucking panic attack.

This is so stupid.

Oh, my God.

What a way to end this person.

We're anime experts and why we pick the anime.

This is why we don't let Duke and pick them. Oh, my God. You know what? This is why we don't do another seasonal one next year. We're not doing Christmas next year. Fuck it. It's canceled.

It's proven.

It for every year. Christmas is christmas is canceled because we're doing more Halloween episodes.

I need to do, like, some deep breathing.

I need a drink. I got to erase this from my memories.

Are we gay?

Fuck you.

I feel exhausted.

We just talked for an hour about this absolutely shit television show.

After watching it, I was like, this is either going to be our shortest episode or our longest, because we just there's so much to just unpack. And it's I mean, we talked about.

The first episode for, like, 45 minutes.

Because first episode, there was, like, substance. There was stuff to break down. The second 190 percent of it is bullshit. I did not take notes because I was not interested. I was not invested. There's nothing. I was like, oh, let's explore this further. I was like, this is all garbage bullshit. We got the story we needed from the first episode. If it was a standalone single episode, it would have been just a bad Christmas special. But then they went and made it a beach adventure, and it's like, okay, we're done here. You took my trust. You took my love of this genre, and you just threw it in the garbage.

Oh, boy.

I just had a few sips of water. I'm trying to calm down.

I actually have a headache from this.

Let's all collectively we're going to stop ranting. We're all going to take three deep breaths. Ready?

Here we go. Yeah.

And they wanted to do a third episode in more episodes. School put me at the mouth.

All right.

Anyway. merry Christmas, everyone.

Merry Christmas, everyone. I earnestly had no idea what the series was, and I was like, hey, it's two episodes. This is going to be our Christmas miracle. This is going to be the first anime series that I finished. And what has I wrought on myself?

I finished it.

But you probably took, like, ten years off of your life.

Yes.

This is the truth.

This show is cursed.

This is now the shame I need to carry and the motivation to actually see something, because the only anime series I have seen in completion is my Santa, and I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life.

This show is the ring of anime. We're all going to die in seven days.

Please, though, anything to get this out of my mind. Did this just knock, like, every show you said no to before? Just straight into the yes column, like, instantly better?

Yeah. I disliked some things, but I didn't load anything.

Yeah. This is hate.

This is going to write I hate this despise. It's going right into the Death Note. Kill off anyone involved with this. Bury it. cleanse it from this earth. purge the history books. It's done.

All right, well, thank you. Thank you for joining us this week. Next up yeah, next week we have an actual good thing.

I have such good news for you guys next week. For our New Year's Eve episode, I have chosen the movie Your Name, which is one of my favorite movies of all time.

I'm not trying to be sarcastic. I actually enjoy that movie. But I'm just so defeated right now.

I know next week will be better. I promise.

It can't be worse.

Thank you for joining us. We can be found online at are we there yet? On Twitter and Instagram. If you want to reach out and talk to us and see if we're real human beings or not, you can reach us at are We There Yet@gmail.com? You can give us your anime suggestions. You can send a series that you want to see us watch. We would love that feedback.

Yeah.

Maybe telling them that we now have an email account on this episode isn't the best idea. The one is by far the worst.

Why did you make a good episode? This is a fun episode.

This is a good episode.

I mean, show anime.

Yeah. The worst anime we've watched. Why did you make us watch this? How dare you?

He didn't know. You can personally attack me for my choices at Mr. Patrick dugan on Twitter and Instagram.

You can tell me that I was always right at Queen Weebu on Instagram and Queen underscore weeaboo on Twitter.

You can find me on Twitter, drinking myself into an early grave at abts Brendan. And instead of my other podcast, I'm going to shout out Ghost Abrije on Twitter. It's A-L-E-B-R-I-J-E. They're an artist I commissioned to draw my D and T character recently, and I really liked it. So I want to give them a shout out on here.

Hell, yeah.

We appreciate good art, which is why we also thank camille ruley for our artwork. And we thank I know, that was great.

The best outro we've ever done.

Let's keep commenting on it and really just amplify it.

I know, just extend it as long as we can.

And thank you to Louisong for the use of our theme song stories off the album beats. I almost mixed it up again. You can find all of Louis music at Louisong bandcamp.com. Thank you. merry Christmas, happy holidays, and we hope you will join us next time as we learn to live with it.

Happy holidays, you filthy animals.

I'm so excited.

Thank you.