AWTY 194 - Mangva (Watamote)

Hello and welcome to our week. There yet in exploration and education, h. And in anime. I'm your anime idiot, Patrick dugan.

I'm an anime expert, d hollander.

And I'm brenda mccullough, your anime recluse that has lost touch with the audi and has undiagnosed self appointed protagonist syndrome.

Yeah. And what does that have to do with the podcast?

Sorry, this wasn't a practicing practice. I can't talk.

It's okay.

I was going to roast you. Everyone good? Give me a quick roast. I lost the opportunity. I lost my advantage. I lose a round of attack. Everyone gets to roast me. uninterrupted real estate.

Oh, I don't want to roast you again.

Fucking rhode Island. Get a real estate.

Got them.

Yeah. Tiny state motherfucker.

I'm at least glad I now know that that is the knee jerk will go to everything. I was like, let me open the doors. Let me do some market research and protect myself.

The horse thing I got a favorite show is BoJack horseman guy.

God, I'm BoJack horseman ass watching ass furry.

I don't know. Just say furry.

Furry.

That's you.

I know, but it's not a roast for me. I know it. I've accepted it.

Everything we've said so far as a roast have just been objective truths for all of them. And I think only mine is the saddest.

We just point and say, your eyes are beautiful.

You look lovely today. Fucking god.

You're from pennsylvania.

All right. That one's mean.

Sorry.

Take that back.

So sorry.

Yeah, states are off limits. Come on. Well, what do we have going on this week if not roasting? States of origin?

What thoughts do we have this week? None. Cool.

This week we're watching Watamote or no matter how I look at it, it's you guys'fault that I'm not popular. copied and pasted that one in the no.

You say that every week. I'm trying really hard.

We usually cut it out of the episode. I feel like you waited longer this week to actually say it on record.

Oh, yeah, sorry.

Yeah. Typically we try to get it out before we all hit record, so it's like, hey, real quick, you guys are dragging me down. Now we can start.

I'd be fucking famous if it wasn't for you guys.

I'm kidding.

We all know you're the theater of the chipmunks here. You're the star.

Would you say theodore? I'm theodore.

I don't know which one's which, actually.

I mean, alvin is obviously the star.

I heard theater, you're the most theatric of all the chip.

I thought you're going to say you're the theater kid. And I was like, well, it's mostly true.

But anyway, I went for my classic reference, no one needs.

This. Anime came out in the summer of 2013, and I did not watch it, but I saw a lot of it because that's like prime tumblr time. So it was around tumblr a lot.

Angst levels are high.

So have either of you heard of this one?

No, I'll just say it. My lag is too much today. I'm like, oh, I'll give a pause so someone can jump in. No one. It's my turn. Okay, I'll start and then I'm like, fuck no.

Yeah. I don't know why I expect any other answer from Duganoff. No, it's the premises entire show.

Sometimes I'm here to shock you, like, once every 10th.

I am a goldfish, and my memory resets every six weeks, so it's new to me every time.

Yes, the famous six week long memory of the goldfish.

Notorious. This one I haven't seen any of, but when I looked it up, I was like just to see what it is we're dealing with, because God knows we've been burnt a lot going in block nowadays. I looked it up, I was like, oh, I've seen this little gremlin girl. I don't know the show, but I've seen it in memes of various sorts. So I'm guessing it had some popularity of some kind.

Yeah, she's around, lurking in corners, hiding under stellwells. She looks like she would be.

Snakes in her hairs. No fingers like snakes, spider in your hair.

Apparently fall is only like six weeks away now, so that's cool and fun.

Too bad we live in La.

Where seasons don't exist, where summer ends in mid to late October and then.

Slightly lower summer begins.

But the vibes, at least.

My only track of time now is when I watch over the garden wall.

Exactly.

Yeah, for sure. It's like, it's September 1. Okay, it's time.

I got three months. Let's go.

Well, you know what else starts in September, at least in America and probably not in Japan, based on context is school start. Let's start this episode with sweaty transition.

Yay.

The heat wave. everything's a little sweaty. I thought magma is what you read when it's inside the store. Outside the store. It's mava.

Okay, here we go. We're going to talk about this show, episode one.

I'm so glad we now both know at any time, brendan's going to say something stupid during the break, and we can just pull the rug out from under them. And we know either one of us will be like, yeah, no, we're back in the episode now.

We sure are.

I'm glad we're both at that point.

Yeah. Okay. We open on a house and a girl. She is the gremlin girl, karoki. She's sitting at a computer in her bedroom, and there is a narrator who's not in any other episodes, but he says that she's unpopular. She's reading some stuff online that's in Japanese, and I didn't have text translation, so I couldn't read it. But I'm assuming she's reading the definition of unpopular.

Yeah, basically it was like the Urban dictionary definition of like, okay, yeah, if you're unpopular, you don't talk to boys, you've never kissed anyone, you've never had a boyfriend. So really just classifying like, hey, this character gets no bitches. Zero maiden.

Zero maiden. Maidenless behavior.

Truly.

So she's like, there's no way I'm unpopular, especially not with boys. Boys talked to me six times in my three years of middle school, and sometimes they would pick up my eraser when I dropped it, so no way.

Social butterfly.

Regular chad over.

Absolutely. So she's like, I'm so popular, and I'm going to do great in high school. It's going to be the best time of my life. And she knows that it's going to be great because of all of the dating sims she's played. High school is going to be a sexy breeze, baby.

There's going to be a bunch of pigeons there. It's going to be great.

Absolutely.

There's going to be a literature club that may or may not kill you. Oh, that's fun. So time flies by, and here she is in high school. It's been two months since she started, and no one has talked to her at all. It's been it's been and then we get the opening. It's like this intense rock song. It's not what I expected from an anime about a nerdy high school girl.

Very agra, SUKO energy with the opening.

Yeah.

Yeah. I I was like, oh, yes, fully. distill my middle school and do a song. Wonderful.

So we see her eating lunch at her window seat, and she's like, I have time. Like, boys are going to notice me eventually. She overhears people talking, doing high school things. She like, freaks out a little bit because she's like, all of these people are friends now, and I'm alone. But then to make herself feel better, she does this a lot. She's like, I'm not like other girls, though. Boys may like them, but those girls are dumb. I don't want to be friends with them anyway. I'm fine being all alone.

This is great for me. I'm growing and thriving.

Yes, I'm in my element.

Clearly.

Very healthy internally.

Yeah. No therapy needed here. After class, we find out a test is coming up, and if she does well, she thinks that'll get her some attention. She's grabbing her shoes from her shoe locker, and there are groups of students chatting near the exit, and she's just thinking about what could make high school more interesting. She's like, what if there was, like, a parasite that came and took over people's bodies? How cool would that be? And as she's walking out, the teacher tells her to be careful on her way home. And she gets so flustered she can't even respond. She realizes that's the first time anyone has spoken to her directly since she started high school.

What awful teachers you must have where no one has even, like, called attendance in two months to be like, hey, you're, like learning stuff, right? Cool. Okay. Just had to do that. Bare minimum of a check in. Apparently no one has done that.

She's facing the background.

Yeah. She's like, I'm going to do great in high school. It's like and it's May, so it's not the beginning of the school year. It's definitely been some time. Yeah. jeez.

So she gets home, flops on her bed. Her mom tells her that she's leaving for the store. karoki makes herself some coffee. She's like, I have no problem talking to my mom, but I've got to be able to talk to other people. We see her play a dating SIM on a ds. She makes the guy character come. Great job, karoki.

Good job.

Good for you.

Can that's fine.

She throws her ds across the room, and she puts on her uniform, puts her hair in pigtails, looks in the mirror, must, like, disassociate and just vomits.

You know Tuesday, right?

Yeah. I look in the mirror.

I look in the mirror and not vomit. Is that possible?

I don't vomit every time, but I never recognize myself.

Yeah, you just stare into the middle distance, even though you are looking at a reflection of yourself, but your brain just doesn't want you to associate with that image. I don't know what that is.

Like, we're really normal over here. Completely neurotypical.

We're doing great with body image.

Yes. So good.

I usually look in the mirror and then up in the corner, like this spider building web in the corner. The lazy eye goes all about the room. It's a fun time.

But then the spider has my face looking into the other corner of the room. It's a whole situation. anyways, we were watching anime, right? Yeah.

So she's like, I'm cute, right? Like, surely I should be getting attention from someone. No. You know what it is? It's just that I'm so hot, no one can take it.

Too hot to handle.

Yeah. So she puts on a pair of glasses, and they hide the dark circles under her eyes, and she's like, this is me and my ultimate power. Perfect. So she decides she needs some more info. So she goes to gaggle two a's, and she's having her Death Note moment of intense research. And someone gets home. We find out later that it's her brother. She goes downstairs in her glasses, and Pigtails, he looks at her and calls her a freak, which is fair.

Yeah. Like, she dresses up, looks in the mirror, and vomits at the sight of herself. And he goes, I'm hot as hell. It's like, we got to talk. What is your body experience? Because it's not what your brain did.

Clearly, someone is not speaking to the other person in your body somewhere. We got to figure this out.

So she decides she needs to focus on her personality, not so much her appearance. So she changes back into her pajamas, and she goes into her brother's room. He immediately tells her to leave. She tries to make small talk, but he just keeps telling her to leave. He gets fed up and says, like, oh, die. And that's her breaking point, she's like, I feel like I'm in a video game and it's on hard mode. And then college and work life will be a fucking nightmare mode. I can't do this. And he's like, okay, it's going to be fine. Why did you come into my room in the first place? And she says that she needs practice talking to people because it's been too long. And so they have to have a conversation for an hour every day. And he's like, no, don't you have friends you can talk to? And she's like, no, not even one. So are you going to you going.

To talk to me or I wouldn't be structuring conversation time with my brother daily if I had anyone to talk to.

It's true, though. He says, like, even freaks. Like, you have one friend, but she doesn't even have one in person. It's crazy. So he asks how long they'll have to talk. She says until she gets a boyfriend.

Which should only take a month.

Yeah, it'll be easy.

It's a weird level of self awareness with her where she's like, I know I have a lot of issues to deal with, but also I'm going to get this in the bag just real easy.

I do really appreciate that level of like, okay, this is very much an awkward high schooler of internally in their head, smoothest motherfucker alive. The most confidence. As long as I don't need to be perceived or opened my mouth the second I do. I mean, you've heard me talk on this podcast, so you understand.

So they're like, what should we talk about? She asks if she's cute. He says that she's like, I don't know, average. And she's like, well, what does that mean? And she goes on and on. And he's already exhausted back at school. The exam is done. The same group of kids that we saw before are talking about going to karaoke. And it's at this point I'm like, oh, no, she's an incel. Because she walks by them and calls them losers and bimbos. And that was really the moment that I was like, oh, shit.

Yeah. My notes were starting off like, oh, boy. ferrell, gremlin child energy. I'm in for this. I love these characters. And then at this point, I was like, is incel a gender neutral word? Does that apply here?

There's stem cells, but they're different from incels.

Yeah, because, like, incel itself. Gender is not implied. Just no one wants to fuck you. That's how you know incels are fucked up in terms of gender of like, this genderless word. We need an extra one for the girls who do the same thing because it's different from us.

So as she walks past them, she's like, speculating on all this stuff that they do at karaoke. I was like, oh, no, she's crazy. And it was at this point I was like, okay. She's pretty unlikable chick. Yeah. So she works up the courage to say goodbye to her teacher, and she gets very happy about that. And she's like, I deserve some ice cream. So she goes to a convenience store and gets something for herself and her brother, and she notices the cashier is super cute, but she gets through it, and she's like, since I'm on a roll, I better go somewhere else also. So she decides to go to a bookstore, and as she's walking through, she's thinking about, like, jeez, don't these people have anything better to do? What losers. And they're, like, all gray background characters. And she sees a couple meet up for a date, and they exchange a cute little greeting, and then she also fades to gray and blends into the crowd. So she is also a loser. It was at this point I said she needs therapy or something for that superiority complex, because it would be one thing if she was just, like, delusionally confident, but it's another thing that she actively punches down on other people.

Yeah. The projecting of wanting to be them. Yeah, I can't so they got to be terrible and shooting them. She goes on Ford Channel a lot. You can tell.

Oh, yeah. So she leaves to go to Wcdonald's, which I really enjoyed, that there's a worker at the McDonald's who says, welcome to McDonald's, because I don't think we've ever heard someone say it.

Yeah, usually you don't hear it. It just shows.

Yeah. So she tries to order. Doesn't go super great, but she does order a hamburger for herself. Great job. She sits down to eat, and she freaking loves it. It's the best thing she's ever eaten. She's having a nice time by herself, but she thinks it might be more fun with someone else. But she'll get there. It'll be fine. Then the kids from school show up, the losers and bimbos, and they sit pretty far away from her, but she realizes that there's no way to leave without them seeing her. And if she stays where she is, one of them would have to pass her to go to the bathroom. So she herself goes into the bathroom and puts her hair in pigtails and puts on her glasses and leaves. She's disguised. One of the boys at the table sees her but doesn't recognize her. And then as she's about to go down the stairs, she runs into her brother and his friends, and he just acts like he doesn't know her. They brush past her, and one of his friends calls her ugly. And I was like, oh, that's no fun. I did appreciate her brother being like, oh, what? I didn't really notice anybody. Like, I don't know.

He didn't pile on.

Yeah.

So she ends up on a swing set at a park, and her brother comes and meets her there and asks if she wants to walk home with him. And then we get the ending. And I like the ending. It's more of what I expected. But I think the cell phone thing is cool. I like the way it's presented.

Yeah, it's real neat.

Yeah. So that's episode one.

And as her walking and like different phones being put in front of her for the different scenery and stuff. Yeah, I think I wrote down her last name. So I may be switching between names and I might just be calling her Girl.

Yeah, I just said girl Maine.

Yeah, that's fine. karoki, I think is their last name. I forget what her first name is.

Tomaco.

Okay, well then you fucking got it, man.

What are we even talking?

There's like two nameable characters. It's main girl and her brother.

Yeah.

So it's easy to track. But yeah, episode two starts off with her listening listening to her ipod. And she's listening to yonder Boys verbal abuse. I don't know what this is.

That's real. Yeah, yeah, I used to no, expose yourself.

Pull back to Karen.

Let's do it on YouTube. I had listened to English dubs of yonder Ray Girl audio dramas when I was much younger and I might have done one myself anyway.

And it got me it's fine. We're all talking cringe high school here.

And it got me a lot of attention on my YouTube channel.

Because it comes back in later in the episode. But it was like a song when it came back later. So I wasn't sure if it was an audio drama or if it was a band. And it was just like a weird, like, rock opera thing. I don't know. Okay, so this is like an audio drama of yeah, Yonderi Boys being verbally abused together. And she's really into it. Quite into it. This show is horny and it's weird. And then while she's listening to that, someone calls her. She freaks out and answers. It turns out it's her old middle school friends being like, hey, what are you doing on Saturday? It's like, oh. And looks at her entirely blank calendar. It's like no thing. And she's like, oh, we're my friend from middle school. She was very naive and oblivious. And we both watched anime together. So maybe I'll meet up with her and tell her about my exciting high school life and name drop that on her and press her with all the stuff I've been doing, which is nothing. And she's nervous about it. We see like the next morning she eats like extra serving of breakfast because she's like anxious. And she's like, you know what? From this point on, I'm going to make something of my high school life. I'm going to make it fulfilling. That way I have something to tell her on Saturday. So I got a week to make my life interesting. Yeah, that's what I'll do. Barf and we see her run into an alleyway and just start puking because she ate too much breakfast.

How come we watched two shows so close together that involved so much barf. What are the chances?

I mean, you and I were picking it so, like, decent, but I don't like barf. I mean, I'm not a fan of it either, but knowing who we are.

Wait, now I'm taking offense that I was excluded from the barf show. This isn't a hill I'm dying on, but I'm mad I was left out.

Did you pick sarah's on my you're covered. You did that one. I don't know. Did you?

I think you might have. Brendan. Anyway.

Moving on. She peeks her lunch up before school, gets to school, and she's hungry again because she peaked her lunch up earlier or breakfast. And while she's in class, she envisions herself, like, going back to her cubby and grabbing her lunch box and eating it during class. And she would fall into that trope of moa, cute girl who's hungry all the time. And I was thinking, like, that's not really a trope. And I immediately thought of, like, five different characters. We've watched that. That's a trope. And people would be praising her like, oh, it's adorable. She's got rice on her cheek. She can't help but eat in class. And then when break comes around after class, she grabs her lunch and eats some of it and looks around, and no one seems to be paying attention to her. And her fantasy is dead once again. And next period in class, she's sitting behind two boys. We're talking to each other. One of them is like, do you smell that? Yeah, it smells like food. Wait, it's only second period. Who's eating already? Like, how are you already hungry? And again, her fantasy is shot dead in the ground. In between classes, some of the kids are talking about, like, oh, yeah, the second years are going on that class trip. Oh, yeah, that should be fun for them. I'm excited to go on that when I'm a second year and the mediate goes into a million different situations of, like, class trip. He's traveling, boys and girls, going into a hotel room, spending the night in a place, doing this, doing that, doing that, and she starts freaking out. She is prone to do and she's a first year. She doesn't even have to worry about that for another year, but she's already starting to freak out.

Hey, I get it.

Hyper vigilance and anxiety about high school. I don't know.

Again, there's a problem with a lot of high school anime is like, you make dumb original decisions. That's just being a teenager. That's just the shitty side of hormones. Like, you can't really explain it. It just happens. It sucks. But the next period is an art class, and the art teacher says, all right, you're doing portraitures. Partner up with somebody and do a portrait of them. And she's freaking out about the class trip, and she's freaking out about, like, I got to find a partner. We got to team up. I'm not going to talk to people. I'm sick. My belly hurts. I'm going to the nurse. That old chestnut. We've all done. And nurse is like, all right, just lie down. You can get up and go back to class when you feel better. So she lies down in a cot and rolls over and looks over and sees there's a boy in the bed next to her divided by a curtain. But she's like, in the middle of the school day sleeping with a boy.

Scandalous.

That's exactly what that means. I'm certain of it. I'm so confident.

Sleeping with someone is literally just laying in a bed 5ft apart. Right?

Right? Here's the thing we already know from all the dating sims. She knows what sex is.

That's true.

We actually know from the next scene. After she gets out of the nurse's office, she's walking around the outside of the school, and a ball comes by her. She picks it up, and baseball team manager comes over. She's like, oh, hey, that's ours. Can we get it back? Thanks. bye. And the manager runs back to the team, and she sees the girl running back. The manager running back to team. And she's like, I bet she's hooking up with all the baseball team. She's polishing their bats down there and just like, damn, this girl sucks.

She really does. She says some fat shamy stuff. She says a lot of slut shamy stuff.

Just a real unlikable person.

Yeah.

And yeah, she's like the manager is probably banging everyone on the baseball team. Was like, damn, girl, you got a foot. Touch grass. Go outside.

Touch grace.

And after school, she's walking back home, and they're going up over a bridge, over an overpass, and she's stuck behind a couple that are on the stairwell. They talk and being like, oh, maybe we should come back to my place. Your parents are there. It's like, yeah, don't worry about it. And she's doing the uncomfortable thing. We've all been we're trying to just get around to people as they keep diving back in front of you and she can't get around them. And eventually they start walking up the stairs, and she just resigns herself to walk behind them. And then as the couple are still talking, named girl picks up the girl's skirt for some fucking reason. Not great, don't know why. And she pulls snaps out of it. She's like, I wasn't looking up her skirt. I just want to see what type of underwear a girl who's in a relationship where it's like it's not excuse that's nothing.

Who are you talking to?

And convince yourself, yeah, you aren't interested in that.

That's fine. So when she snaps out of it, the couple is already on the other side of the street, already long gone, not paying attention to her. And she gets up to the top of the bridge, and it's like looking over at the sunset over the city, thinking to herself, like a lot's happened these last few days, but I'll never forget the type of underwear I saw her wearing. I'm like, again, why is this a thing? Why do we seem to be lingering on this part? And just was really weird to me. And then we cut ahead to a few days and now it's Friday and she thinks about like, I wrote down a bunch of stuff in my journal. I got a bunch of stuff to tell my friend tomorrow. I hope it's so exciting to show off the exciting life I've lived. God, low bar. And she hears some of the classmates talking about it's the same group we've been seeing, like ongoing on and off again at the McDonald's. And one of them is saying, like, odds dane someone. I'm so mad. It's like, God, I'm envious of his happiness. I wish that was me. Is that why you wrote on Twitter you wish all happy people would die? Yeah, that was hilarious. A lot of wishing other people just die just because they're happy in this show. It really just cements the incel mentality.

It's high school. Just kidding. If you feel that way, you should.

Get talk to somebody for a group is like, oh man, I wish that guy would die because he's happy. And then our main girl's off in her head going, I would shed years of my life. God, if you could just kill these kids right down next to me. It's like, again, it's not better. It's the same thing. It's just shitty kids. So while she's sitting in her corner, she just starts daydreaming. And the daydream gets sexual so fucking fast, just out of nowhere. And while she's fantasizing about this, I really couldn't understand what happened here. I think a guy bumps into her desk and then hits her with it. Like it stabs her in the stomach.

Yeah, like it seemed like the corner of the desk got pushed into her stomach.

That's what it looked like. I replayed the scene a few times. I still can't really understand what happened. But so she gets essentially hit in the stomach and the guy like bending down, like picking something up from him is like, oop, sorry about that. And he runs off them. He made up with his friends. And in her head she's thinking, oh God, this hurts. I can use this pain in my sexual fantasy for the defloring sequence. And then she thinks, if this is what losing your virginity feels like, I'm going to be pure forever. And at this point, I thought, this girl's got a lot of problems.

I would like to take this opportunity to say, psa. If you have a vagina and you have not yet had sex for the first time, it's never supposed to hurt. Don't let anyone tell you that it's normal for it to hurt. That's it. Thank you.

It's a red flag. And when she's in school, an announcement comes. On the PA saying, like, her, and if you another guy, please report to the faculty room. They go there, and she sees the guy from the nurse's office when she was there, and the cr teacher saying, like, hey, we did portraiture assignments. You both missed it. You got to make it up after class. That's all. And the one guy is like, oh, I got club activities. He's like, all right, cool. Then you both just fail. Fine. So they have to walk off and do their portrait assignment with each other because they both missed it. And she follows him back to the classroom. Oh, when they leave the faculty room, she's just mindlessly following him because she's, like, so wrapped up in her own head. And he's like, your class is the other way. Why are you following me? I don't know. All right, whatever weirdo. And she's already in her fantasy land. She goes back to class angry, insulting me in her head, calling off, you know, fat slob and all this stuff. Once again, just a real peach of a character. And then she starts fantasizing about running away with him, of him showing up on a motorbike. And they drive off into the sunset, just real swinging the whole spectrum here of fantasies. And after school, they're in the art room. They're doing the portraitures, and they're facing each other. He just looks over at her real quick and then just speed draws. All right, I'm done. See it? It slaps the portraiture on the desk. And she's like, oh, he probably just did, like, a stick figure or something, badges to get out of here as fast as possible. He didn't put any effort into it. Fine. I'll do the same. And she does kind of a crude drawing of him. It's not really good. But also, it might have been her honestly trying her best. I don't know. And she draws him as best as she can from memory because he already left. And she hands in her drawing on the desk as well, and sees his. So she picks it up, and she's aghast. She is offstroked by his drawing. So she takes both of them and hands them into the art teacher in the faculty lounge. And as she's sending him in, she's like, hey, can I get a copy of his? Because it was so good. She goes back thinking, you know what? He wasn't that rude. He was just shy. He had trouble communicating because he's shy.

He just had a huge, fat crush on me.

Yeah, no one could have drawn me so beautifully if they weren't in love with me. And she is fantasizing about him again with her drawing now. And on Saturday, she goes to meet it with her friends, and she brings the drawing along, keeping it in her bag, being like, I'm going to whip this out and show off. I got a boyfriend. I got someone who's in love with me. And her meek, oblivious friend from middle school shows up. And she's all preppy and dresses well now. Later says she has, like, contacts and stuff. And a girl, she's like, oh, it's not who I expected. We don't just all stay the same forever. What's character growth and not at all what she expected. But so they go to a cafe to talk for a bit. And while her friends ordering drinks made girls, like, freaking out again, just making it real pervy because she lives in Dating sims. And then her friend talks about how the kids at her new school, she goes to a different high school now, and she had to wear contacts to fit in and dresses like this to fit in and had to change a lot about herself. And then she asked if her main girl is still into anime. If you still watch those animes and you still play those games, she's like, yeah, I still do. She's like, oh, that's great. I don't have anyone to talk about it at my new school with. Oh, right, you're still a nerd like I was back in middle school. We can talk about that.

A nice moment of just because her outside changed doesn't mean her personality is different, which is her interest. Yeah, it's a nice moment for once every ten minutes in the show.

Literally anything. We'll take any wins we get. But yeah. So they start talking about anime, catching up on stuff. See, like, a little time passed. And her friend is like, I wish we could have stayed at the same schools. Stayed how we were in middle school. High school hasn't been all it's cracked up to be. And she's like, well, they can still have fun like this. Like they used to. Like, you know what? Let's do what we used to do. Let's go to an arcade or something. So they do, and they see, like, one game. They're like, oh, hey, are you still a pro at this game like you used to be in middle school? And the main girl is like, oh, yeah, I got this. Check this shit out. And does a perfect score on the game. Like, it's a perfect double S plus plus or whatever. And she is exhausted, like slap buttons, and she just goes hardcore on it.

I love the coughing afterwards. She's like, I could go again. That was so easy.

Easy peasy. And her friend says, like, again, just reiterating, like, I wish we could just stay friends and gone to the same school and would have been a lot better for both of us because this is such a great time. Yeah, we could see each other more. And it's hanging out in, like, a swing set as the sun setting. Well, what do you want to do now? Her friend's like, oh, well, I better be heading home. But it's great hanging out with you, and we should hang outs again sometime. It's like, yeah, that'd be great. A friend, someone to not be a shitty little incel gremlin with for once. And as she was running off, our girl yells out, she's like, hey, I thought my life would be more fun in high school. It isn't. It kind of sucks ass. But I'm still trying. I'm still making an effort to be better, and you should too. So don't worry about whatever's got you down. And her friend yells back like, oh, yeah, that's great advice. Thanks. I'll do my best too. You know what? I was feeling a little upset earlier, but now I think it's kind of dumb that I was upset about a dumb little fight I got with my boyfriend. But I'll take that as like a character growth. But me and my boyfriend could probably look back on that fight and laugh about it. And as soon as she says boyfriend, main girl just shuts down. Just goes like black and white, throws on the headphones and starts walking away. Immediately listening to her yonder, boys. Verbal abuse again and just completely shuts down. Back sliding. All the progress we've made today. hooray.

Anticaracter growth.

Yeah. And on her way home, we get, like, the credit sequence playing over her walking home. She seems like a straight cat. And while she's, like, bending down the petit, we see the drawing fall out of her bag. And it's the drawing that the boy made in our class earlier, and we finally get to see it. And he drew her as like, a cute anime girl, which she is, so I guess just cute. I don't know.

I lost it at this reveal.

Yeah, I'm glad I stuck. So she's like, oh, it's this beautiful drawing of me, of him seeing into my soul, seeing into the true beauty I could be. And then after the credits, we see that guy in our class joining over this after school club. And it looks like he's in, like, a manga club where he's drawing manga for the school. And the editor that is there is like, hey, we noticed that all of your background characters all have the same exact face. Like, why is that? He's like, oh, that's just the face I can draw the fastest and easiest. And it's the face he gave her for her portrait. God did it so fast.

So funny.

It's like, fantastic. That would a great reveal. Yeah, that's episode two.

So we start out episode three. It's down pouring, and people are getting to school. We see a bunch of girls are talking about how the rain is messing with their hair and the humidity, and it's going to be such a problem throughout the day, all that stuff. And then we pan over to the main girl, and her hair is even worse. And she's like, people care about your hair.

What are they talking about?

What are they talking about? Yeah.

So she gets into class and realizes oh, no, I forgot my textbook at home. And she's like, I guess that means I have to either talk to someone in this class and borrow their book not possible. Too hard. What if I find, like, a different class where I have a friend that has already failed logic already? So she's like, okay, I'm going to be invisible. And the teacher won't notice I'm here because, as always, I'm invisible. Great. Let me just continue being invisible like I am in all aspects of my life. And then the teacher beelines over to her and is like, hey, where's your book? You didn't even borrow it from anyone in the class. How could you be so careless? And immediately calls her out, and she's so nervous in her head. She's like, oh, no, I'm like a spy. I'm a chameleon. I'm just blending into the background. And as soon as he walks over, she's like, sorry, my friend also didn't have her book. And the neighbor boy offers to share books. Kind. But she's all mad at the old people. They're just so old and bitter. Not like me. I'm not bitter at all. I am healthy. So she goes out to the lockers. She's about to leave school at the end of the day, and she gets to the umbrella stand, and she doesn't see her umbrella. Oh, my God. How could this happen to me? What kind of inconsiderate, evil, just downright rude person would do that? Just abandon someone? Just leave them to walk out and get soaked? What if they had plans to see friends after school? Not me. This is a hypothetical, but what if and, oh, I was looking at the wrong umbrella stand. Mine was over here.

I'd criticize her if I haven't done the exact same thing before.

So she's walking home. She's crossing a bridge, and she's like, oh, wow. Because the rain is so, such a downpour. This river is flooding. It looks really cool. And she's just standing for a minute on the bridge looking at it. And then another old guy comes out of nowhere and just, like, yanks her off the bridge and is like, you idiot. What are you doing? Are you standing over a flooded waterway? Do you just want to be washed away? Well, you should be so glad I was here. I just saved your life. Blah, blah. And just goes into how dumb she is, and she's like, oh, my God, this is the second old guy who just gave me shit and was like, no, I'm the expert here. God, what arrogance. Come on. You don't know what I'm going through. Blah, blah, blah. All this fun stuff.

Hey, I get that, though. If two old men yelled at me in one day jeez.

Yeah, absolutely.

Even if he did safer or like, it was dangerous. The dude's a real dick. Like, the way he was talking to herself, like, man, fuck this guy.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Totally. unjustified. You could be like, hey, that's a dangerous spot to stand. Maybe watch it from the side. But he's like, I saved your life. I plucked you out of the river. He did not. Yeah, he just came in way too strong. But as she's upset about that, she's like, whatever. The wind strips her umbrella and just makes it useless. So she ends up in a park where there's an overhang so she can get some cover. And what do you know? These two guys have the same problem. Their umbrella blew away, so they also need cover. What a relatable thing for them both to go through common connections, right? Immediately in her head, she's like, oh, fuck. I was here first. This is my territory. Come on. I guess they need me to talk to them now. And they just look over. Just two guys are like, oh, yeah, our umbrella blew away. And she just can't say, like, Me, same here. Me, same boat, same hat. But she just can't get the words out. And she's like, okay, let me go through the rolodex of my brain. I'm going to find a perfect response. This represents me, okay? I'm going to actually express my personality to a stranger. Cool. And she just very meekly. Goes like, I'm covered in sweat. What is this sports anime? And they're like, Sorry, it's raining really hard. I can't hear you. What? And immediately she's like, oh, no. My perfect line. It didn't work. Say it louder and slower. So I'm sweaty. Like a sports anime, right? They're like, sure. It's been four minutes. We've been waiting for you to get this sentence out. So it's not quite as snappy, but we understand where you're coming from. And she's like, oh, fuck, no. I heard. What, did I have such a hostile audience now? Okay, I'm going to go into that bathroom. Could take a huge shit. Am I right? What? I'm sorry. And she just runs to the bathroom. She's like, oh, no. Of course I made a shit joke. Of course. And now the longer I hide in this bathroom, they don't think it's a shit joke. They'll think I'm actually shitting.

Fuck.

I got to be quick for the bit, for the good goof.

Levity is being quick. That's saying great. So she's super dejected. She's like, all right, I'm going to go back out. I'm going to face the music. Hey, awkward start. We got off on the wrong foot. Let's start there. But she goes out, and the two guys are gone. She was so weird that she scared them away.

Shucks fair.

Yeah. What a missed opportunity. So she ends up just, like, falling asleep in this little park area. And we see the two guys come back, and they didn't walk away because they were so scared. They got her an umbrella. They went to the store, and they bought one. And they're like so they're like, oh, she's asleep. She seems to be having a rough time. Let's not wake her up. We'll just leave the umbrella next to her. She'll she'll get it. So naturally, she wakes up, sees they're not there, and an umbrella there. And she's like, oh, no. A moral quandary. Do I steal this umbrella? Some stranger left their umbrella here. Now I'm the thief. I was the umbrella thief all along.

Oh, no.

So she finally gets home. She goes in the bathroom and dries off. Her brother gets home a couple of minutes later, but she like walks him out of the bathroom so he can't get dry. And then the next morning, she wakes up and is like, if only I was sick from all that rain, I wouldn't have to go to school. And then she sees her brother who's sick from all the rain. And now he doesn't have to go to school.

God damn it.

Lucky she's jealous.

So she goes to school, goes to gym class. They're like, all right, group up. Groups of five, everyone. She's like, I'm just going to disassociate until gym class is over. Maybe chameleon mode will work this time and no one will notice me. But she sort of gloms onto a group of girls. And we're doing a psych test. It's just one of those very magazine like. If you choose option A, blah, blah, blah about this nondescript situation. So it's like you're walking in the forest. Do you go in the field or cross the bridge or go back? And so everyone picks their selections and they're like, okay, if you picked option one, you fuck. If you picked option two, you're a virgin. And if you pick option three, your celebrate.

Confirmed.

Confirmed. But yeah. So naturally, which one do you think she picked?

No.

Yeah, she fucked. But as we zoom in, as the color fades, as she starts to spiral, I just love in the background, you can hear the girl say, yeah, it's just like a quiz. It doesn't matter.

Anything.

But inside her head, she's like, fuck. They know I'm celibate. I'm destined to never fuck in my entire life.

Said her answer out loud anyway.

Yeah, but as she is freaking out, she's like, all right. I'm just going to further go into my fantasies of anime and just she has a couple of different anime parody things going on in this. So here she just goes into a fullon Ghost Michelle parody where she's like, no, I'm a robot woman. I kill people. That's my life. That's all I'm destined to be. And then she gets hit in the head with a basketball and just snaps her back to reality.

Relatable my glasses four times in dodgeball.

Oh, dear.

Yeah.

Got tennis ball. Broke my glasses playing wall ball. I feel you.

Yeah.

So she goes home. She's like, aha, the perfect opportunity. Once I got hit in the head with the basketball, everyone thought I was knocked out so I could go home. But little did they know I was knocked out, so I get to go home. So she's like, okay, that sucked. I don't want to go back to school ever. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to hang out with my brother and catch his sickness. It's Thursday. I can miss Friday. And then I'll just coast into a three day weekend.

Baby, get down with the sickness.

He, of course is sick and is like, go away. Leave me alone. And she's like, no, I'm getting sick too. And just like, plays ds on the floor. He falls asleep. Their mom comes in and it's like, oh, you're taking care of him? Great. Here's some snacks in case he wakes up. You can give him a fresh, like, washcloth for his head. She keeps just dunking the washed cloth, not ringing it out, just like slapping the wet fabric on his forehead and just eats his snacks while he's asleep. So eventually the doorbell rings and she has to go answer it. And it's classmates of her brother. They're bringing him classwork that he missed because he was sick. She's super shy. She doesn't know how to react. And she's like, I wish there were classmates that cared about me. No one cares. I'm so alone in this world. And then the doorbell rings again, and the mom calls out for her, and she's like, what? For me?

Who could it be?

It's the mailman. She doesn't have any visitors, of course. So next day she wakes up not feeling sick, and she's like, oh, my God, I wasted that whole day. Come on. Why would I spend time with my brother if I was like, am I lonely or something? I don't know. That can't be it. But he's feeling fine, so she's mad. And he's like, oh, yeah. You know how sickness works. It takes a day to kick in. You'll probably be sick tomorrow. And then she ends up being sick on the weekend and ruined her time.

Gosh dang it.

But while she was home, we saw her text her friend that psych quiz that the girls in gym class were talking about. And she sees her friend answer, and she chose the answer where you fuck. They're so radically different. Oh, my God. And that's where we end episode three.

There is a moment when she gets home from school being like, oh, are you okay? Yeah, I got knocked down in the gym class, so I'm going to go lay down for a bit. I'm like, that's the opposite of what you should do.

Get knocked out.

I'll do that.

Not be sleeping.

I have a head injury. Just going to lay down.

Sleeping off her unattended.

It'll be green.

I mean, if she never wants to go to school again, then I mean.

Dying yeah, that's good. Dying is a way to avoid school, that's for sure.

So here we are.

We made it.

Are we there yet?

So I might surprise you all. I think this was one of my favorite representations of an anime incel we've seen before.

Well, that's not a good thing.

I love it.

I won't argue with that.

But I had fun with the show because and the show knows this, which most animes don't know about their incel protagonist. The incel protagonist is wrong. And the show knows this.

Yeah.

And that is what made it enjoyable for me of just the show is how can she do the mental gymnastics of everyone else is wrong? I mean, everyone else is right, I'm wrong. I mean, everyone else is the worst and I'm the best. I mean, I'm the best and everyone's the worst. And just like every situation where they change the configuration of, okay, you're going to be a pissy little shit no matter what happens. You're just going to flip the justification in your brain and knowing what's going on inside your head and seeing the reality outside of it as the audience can go, oh, you're a piece of shit. Okay, cool. As long as we're having fun. The show seems to know about it. There are not great elements because again, this is an in cell, but it really shows the internal workings, especially of like a high school loaner of everyone's out to get me. Even though they're being friendly in this moment. That's a fluke, really. They think I fucking suck. They're all conspiring against me. Everyone hated me. Of course I think this is a good representation. I think if this was a dude, I might not feel the same. I think it is refreshing that it isn't. Yes, I'm the alpha male and because that continues well past high school, unfortunately for a lot of kids. So seeing it in a character who seems to have opportunities and moments of like, okay, there is a person in there, you just are severely fucked up and got to do a lot of work. But it felt honest and real, but also entertaining because they were like, hey, look at this fucking idiot.

Yeah, I feel the exact same way because there were moments in it that just, like, genuinely had me laughing. Like the fucking portrait reveal because they really build up to it and there is just like those nice little snippets of like when she's hanging out with her friend. It is very sweet until her friend reveals that she has a boyfriend and she goes back into herself and even her relationship with her brother is like nice. It's obvious to keep trying to be sick. She sleeps on the floor of his room and she gets up in the middle of the night and again, just fucking soaks the washcloth and plops it back on his forehead. But at least is like showing that she's still keeping up with taking care of him. And I don't know, they're just like sweet little things like that.

It's entertaining. Just those clear examples of, like, you're trying so hard that you don't see you're having a normal maybe not normal. You're having a fairly regular sibling interaction with your brother. Just, like, extrapolate on that treat other people like people. But you're so in your head that you're not seeing, oh, I'm functioning pretty well currently. I'm getting a sentence out without stuttering.

Yeah, I guess I'm in the minority here. I didn't love it, mostly because, I mean, it's the beginning, so you got to get the wheels moving a bit. But we don't see a ton of character growth. Like the refreshing moments with her friend, we're good. But those one in three episodes, and there was a small moment of that, at least for me. If it is about her growing as a person and not being this shitty little incel goblin, great. I would have liked to have seen more of that in the first quarter of the show because it is only twelve episodes. We did see a quarter of it, and we see a bit of it, but even that, it's like, she's so shitty in so many different ways that the little moments that could be misconstrued, possibly, as being helpful to people was not enough for her to be redeemed.

I'm not saying that I find her redeemable whatsoever. I'm just saying it's nice that the show has those moments of, like, respite before to break. Okay, keep pointing and laughing.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

And the moments where the show is like, yeah, she's a little shitty goblin with a bad personality. Don't feel bad for like, it wasn't bad enough for me, because it's just like she's just living her life. But if she's trying to be punished for being a shitty person, it's I don't know. There there wasn't a lot happening for this or in the show for me. So just I don't know. I guess that's my main complaint, is just there wasn't a lot happening. It was kind of a slice of life, but a shitty life for an incel, like, forum poster. And it's like, all right. I don't know. The same problem I had with last week with how you go where there's just nothing happening. I don't know.

Yeah, that is fair. Like, hayuko is a situation where it's like, you're an incel, but not self aware. No. I am so superior. The door locked from the inside. If you need an hour to process that little girl, come back to me afterwards when your brain is done exploding.

I'll say, at least with that one, he had no personality. As opposed to this girl who had a shitty personality.

See, I kind of like this because most of this, she kept it inside. I appreciated seeing the shitty, terrible people that we all are on the inside, as you said, with My umbrella was stolen. I hope that thief fucking dies, you piece of shit. How could you inconvenience me like that? And, oh, it's there. anyways, I'm moving on with my day. Like, I just love those snippets of like, no, I am irrationally mad on the inside. I'm not like, I'm not a different anime protagonist who would make this everyone else's problem. Just like, I'm so unique, I need to go on a justice rant. It's like, no, these are inside thoughts, and she's kind enough to keep them that way. So she's the weird girl, not the fucking shit head.

I don't know if it's a conscious choice of hers to keep them inside, and rather she just can't talk out loud.

I've had this level of anger and discomfort and hyper vigilance, so I relate to it. But I do get that this is a very unappealing character. I liked that we just finally got actual satire of an Incel, and not I'm an Incel in name only, but also I'm solving the case, so I'm the hero.

Yeah, we do get a lot of that in animate. Yeah. I'm not saying, like, oh, you can never have a bad thought in your head like this. No, but it's like, for entertainment. I'm like, this wasn't entertaining for me. I've been on Fort Chan enough. I've been around those people. I don't need this.

Yeah, that's fair. Well, I don't want to connect our email to fortn, so I can't make.

That you're an Incel.

No email help at psychic Psychology today.

Our email is betterhelp.com.

There you go.

If you're an Incel, dial nine eight eight, and you will be connected with someone who can help you. But if you.

Took option three and you fuck, yeah.

If you walked into the clearing and you fuck, you can email us, Are we there yet@gmail.com? Or if you're a virgin, you can reach out to us on Twitter or Instagram at Are We There Yet? On both.

Oh, boy.

There's a weird level of gatekeeping I wasn't ready for.

You could find me on Instagram and TikTok at honey. Period d or on Twitter at Honey d Eight and Honey d art and Honey is spelled H-U-N-N-I-E. You can find.

Me on Twitter at abts. Brendan and stands for Almost Better Than Silence, which is another incel podcast.

Thank you to camille ruley for our artwork, and thank you to Louisiana for a theme song stories. You can find all of Louis music at Louisong bandcamp.com. Thank you, and we hope you'll join us next week as we learn to live with anime.

Goodbye.

Some McDonald's french fries.