I wonder what connie's up to right now. how's.

Hello and welcome to our weeb there yet in exploration and education and anime. I'm your anime idiot, patrick dugan.

I'm an anime expert, dana hollander.

And I'm brenda mccullough, your little anime orphan. annie May. I was going to sing a song from annie, but then I'd never seen it.

The funnel come out.

Oh, that's right.

I was trying to think, how could we anime an any song?

I don't know. I'm not that creative. I can't think that fast on my feet.

I don't know nearly enough Japanese. By which I mean any. You think watching anime for 20 years would help?

That's the trick. No.

That'S my secret capt. I'm dumb all the time.

Japanese is hard. I got into learning Japanese on duolingo again and it's really hard. And I've already given up.

Oh, yeah, I tried on duolingo and once it got to like hey, actually say sentences. I was like, what doesn't teach you the grammatical rules?

It just teaches.

That's my biggest problem. This is now a call out.

Duolingo.

We're going to beat up the duolingo owl anime.

Why is your language so tough?

Hey, that's not the problem. duolingo is.

Duolingo. Be a better teacher. Teach me about sentence structure.

Take free app. Teach me better.

Be better. God, I'm not going to anyway, we.

Should stop talking about it before the duolingo owl comes and murders our families.

Be my ass. Yeah.

So what do we have going on this week, dana?

This week I have chosen to watch the promised Neverland, which is a newer ish anime.

Does it involve, like, the chat?

Yeah, let me I think it's new.

Yeah, no, it doesn't. Brendan.

It doesn't. Okay, we're safe then.

No.

I think it's this year, actually.

Google told me released December 2020, so that's not right.

Okay, that's maybe the second season. Yeah, that's the second season.

Yeah, probably. But yeah, manga came out 2016. Anime, January 2019. So wow. Little just about a year.

Just a fresh, fresh anime.

Babe, it's the anniversary. The anime versary.

Yeah, anime.

Look at that. I have only seen the first episode, but boy, am I excited for all of us to watch it. That's what I'll say.

Is this the Brendan? You're excited for us to watch, us to suffer?

Maybe a little bit, but I don't know.

I apologize for rave master. I didn't think it would be that bad.

You knew exactly what it was. Son of a bitch.

I noticed on our Google doc sheet you put floored, dana.

Well, because now we've gotten two shows that's floored each coast. Now we got to try and get all of us on the ground. We got to find one that just sent me on the ground reeling.

See, that's our problem. What do you pick to send someone who picks the movement before?

Good luck.

Well, maybe it'll be this. Who knows? Have either of you heard of it or know anything about it.

No, I am not familiar. I believe our artist camille, who did our album, Art, recommended it to us, but yeah, that's as much as I've heard of him.

Excellent.

Yeah. After she recommended it to us, and I just saw a lot of buzz about it online, I started reading the manga. So I'm well versed in the neverland of promises.

Very good.

Yes. I'm excited to see patrick's reaction. Oh, boy.

They're both scaring me now. So, yeah, we're going to watch the first three episodes.

Let's go. Let's do it. Keep that.

Oh, turns out leaving Neverland is more applicable than I thought.

Ew.

And also yeah, no, thank you.

But real question, which is the better neverland? The one where you get eaten by monsters or the one with Michael Jackson? I'm going monsters very bad.

I'm not going to talk about this.

Moving on.

Yeah, we'll leave it on. There's monsters in both anyways.

Yeah.

This took some turns. This took some twists. This left me in suspense.

Yeah, let's that first episode gets you get you by the gun.

Yes, it sure does. woof, boy.

Whoof.

All right, so episode one, we have some gated children. They've never been outside, but big same. They've been outside, like, in the sunlight, but they've never been outside the orphanage grounds, the property. Yeah. And they talk about I don't like in the English stuff, they call her mom. And I just feel like that's so weird. I like, mama. I think it, like, adds something. You know what I mean?

Mama.

But I'm going to call her mama.

Yeah, I like that more.

Yeah. isabella mama. She has told the kids not to go near the gate and the fence because it is dangerous. And the three of them there are three kids there's emma, Ray, and Norman. They're talking about what they would do if they were outside. And Emma says she wants to write a giraffe. Ray is kind of like, I don't know what I would do. And then Norman wonders what the gate and the fence are protecting them from. And Ray looks suspicious, just as he does the whole time.

Always.

He seems like he knows things.

He's a little sneak.

Yeah. And then we get the opening. The song is okay. Like, I don't really like the song a lot, but I like the opening. I think the visuals are really neat.

The song is a genuine pop up there for me.

Yeah, I was liking it.

Sure.

Yeah, I figured you guys would. Yeah, I just feel like all of the visuals of all of the kids are, like, really cool introductions to them. I don't know.

Yeah, it does. The standard anime opening works. Like, here's the bunch. Each kid gets their own kind of portrait, but it does it in a very stylized way that's not just generic, like sitting on a rooftop watching the sunset at high school.

Yeah.

It does well, yeah.

So after the opening, it's 06:00 in the morning and it's time to wake up. And Emma kind of wakes up first and she gets everybody else up. So she is one of the older kids, as are Norman and Ray, but she is really like the mom friend and the caretaker kid.

Little mama.

Little mama.

And we see a calendar with the date circled on it, and it's labeled connie. Wonder why. Maybe it's her birthday.

I was just about to say, yeah.

Maybe she'll get cake today. Let's see what happens.

Yeah, something special. A nice supplier.

Nothing but good stuff for connie today.

So, Emma, they're all just kind of, like going about their morning. They're just some kids at an orphanage having a fun and chill time.

Not as many songs as I was expecting.

Emma does have red hair.

True.

It's like, kind of curly. And this is when we learned that they're all eleven and they're the older kids. I already said that it doesn't matter. And mama is there. She tells Emma that she loves how deeply she cares for the family. And they do, like, a morning prayer once they're all sitting. And they just talk about how thankful they are for how safe they are under this roof and all the food that they can eat. And life's good in the orphanage.

They say grace at the grace field house.

I don't know what that is.

Yeah, that's what the house is called. Sorry. I've actually read the mangus. I know more.

I read the book. I know what I am now.

You?

I'm Brent.

I'm an anime orphan scholar.

A prodigy.

Oh, check.

They're all orphans, supposedly. So mama is, like, feeding connie, and she kind of chides her for being like, why are you acting like such a baby today, connie? Stop acting like a baby. But then connie, who in the English dub, is played by her good friend.

Jackie, friend of the show, Jackie.

Hey, listen to our sailor Moon episode.

She's like, well, that's okay, right, mama? Today is my special day.

I'm baby.

I'm baby. And then it's weird test time. All of the kids are this is the part that gets interesting because you see their environment and just like the way everything is, and you think that this would take place in a time that doesn't really have technology.

It could even be like a Victorian England orphanage. Like, nothing stands out, right?

But in this room, there are a bunch of digital desks that have screens on them, and they're all taking tests, and they're using this pen thing to scan barcodes. So, yeah, that's weird. And then after it's over, all of the kids are like, oh, I only got through half of them. And connie says that she didn't get.

Any of them right, you idiot.

Dumb six year old.

Wow, that's our friend orphan.

And then mama stands at the front of the room and she reads off their results. And Norman, Emma, and Ray all got the highest scores. They got them all right, just like they always do.

It's almost like they're the main characters or something.

Wow.

Seems like they're nerds that need to get beaten up.

And the other kids kind of talk about how smart they are, and they say, oh, there's never been three kids as smart as them in the house at the same time. And then this character, Don, I think his name is, yeah. He challenges Norman to tag. So they go outside to play, and all of the kids scatter. And then Ray times the game, and Norman runs out to find everybody while Ray sits under a tree and reads a book, because he's civilized.

He's too mature for these children games.

I'm a man of culture.

I'm eleven.

He's reading The Hunger Games. I said that without thinking.

That's good.

Momma just sees it. Oh, shit.

I'll just get in propaganda.

So Norman is very good at tag. He finds this, like, big group of kids easily. We see Don and connie and they kind of have, like, a special bond. And Don talks about how he'll always protect her and look out for her. And then Norman finds them too. And he kind of tells Don, he says, you don't think enough before you act. You just act too hastily, and that's why you're not good at things.

You're a big dummy.

And then Norman has found most of the kids, but Emma is still out there. And there's like a little chase scene where he kind of gains on her, but she loses him. And then she hides up in a tree. And then Norman approaches and he falls down, and Emma is like, oh, no, Norman. And she hops down and she's like, Are you okay? And then he's like, ha ha. And he tags her.

Too slow, kid.

Yeah.

Porch behind.

He says, your weakness is that you care too much. Stop it. And after that, Ray talks about norman's strength being his strategy. So he's really good at tag, because chess no tag is like chess, but with your whole body. And I feel like that's not true at all, but okay, maybe the way they play it, they kind of play it like a hide and seek tag hybrid.

Well, what is it? They got 38 kids. There's like, what, 40 pieces of a chess board?

You know how you play turn based tag? Yeah.

Everyone's got 6 seconds of ego chess.

But just everyone's moving at the same time. And you just have to try to counter things as you're going.

I go here. Oh, God. It's chaos.

And they talk about how while Norman is good at strategy, nobody outtaxed Mama. No one has ever beaten her at chess.

She's the best. She's also an adult.

And then Don kind of gets worked up again, and he's like, let's play tag again. But everybody else is it? And we're all trying to catch Norman, so they do that, and they're all wandering around looking for him. And Emma wanders out far enough that she finds the fence, and Norman is there, too, and she just goes up to him and puts her hand on his shoulder, and she's like, got.

You sound like non flashbacks.

Jeez.

The fence.

Yeah. They both kind of stare out into the into the beyond, and they talk about how dangerous the gate and the fence are, but they're also like, It's so low. How is this helping anybody?

Yeah, the fence is like, even for these kids, it's probably up to their hips.

Yeah, we could step over it.

I mean, even they could.

Yeah. And then Ray appears, and he says, they aren't dangerous. It's just something she says, which is suspicious. And then everybody else shows up at the fence, and they kind of stop talking about that. And they talk about the day that they'll leave the orphanage, and they bring up the fact that once you turn twelve, you just leave. They get sent out. And the girl with glasses, she remarks that no one who's left the orphanage ever sends letters. And Norman kind of tries to make an excuse for it, but Don is like, no, they should have written, like, we're all a family. Right. I don't know if it's Norman that says it, but someone says that maybe life outside is just so amazing that they forget about the orphanage and they just don't write.

It's hard to write letters back to your whole family when you're on rollercoasters all day.

Wow.

Yeah. That's what they're doing.

Yeah. So girl with the glasses says that when she gets out, she wants to try on a lot of clothes. Another kid wants to eat all the good food. Don wants to date a cute girl. There's a little boy that says he wants to see a train. Norman says he wants to travel. And Ray, when it gets to him, he's like, well, I would need to learn how to survive first. And it's like, Come on, Buzz.

Buzz.

Play in this space.

Come on, play with me. And Emma says that she wants to stay in the orphanage forever because everybody is happy there. And she wants to be just like Mama. Yeah. And then connie says that she promises that she'll write letters even when she gets out. And she says that she wants to be just like Mama and be a good parent when she grows up. And then we see Mama, and she's looking at a wall of drawings the kids have done, and she takes one off. I think we are to assume that it is connie's.

Yeah. The little drawing. This is like me above it. She's holding a bunny because connie is carrying around a stuffed bunny.

Yeah. So it's time for connie to go, and it's in the middle of the night, which is a little weird already.

What's wrong with that? She's got a little outfit and, like, a little hat.

A little hat. And Don gets really emotional, and he's going to miss her. He starts crying. And then Mama leads connie off into the night while humming ominously. And then Emma, after they leave, goes into the cafeteria and sees that connie left her bunny.

Oh, boy.

And then Ray says, I don't think they've, like, left left yet. Maybe you and Norman should go take it to her. So Norman and Emma rush out to get it to her, and they approach the gate, which is open right now because they're doing the switch, getting adopted, I don't know.

Doing the hand off for the goods.

Yeah. And they kind of approach it. And Norman says, oh, we'll suffer the consequences later. Right now, let's just give connie her bunny. They go into the tunnel, and there's a truck there. Emma says she's never seen a truck before. They look around. There's no music. There's just the sound of this dripping water coming down from a pipe. And then Emma says, well, let's just leave the bunny in the truck bed, and she'll find it. But when she looks in the truck.

Bed, she finds something not cool.

She drops the bunny. And Norman comes around to see what's in the truck, and it's connie's body. She is very gray, very dead. And she has flowers, red flowers stabbed into her chest.

Oh, boy.

Whoa. A turn.

A twist.

She got a florist mat immediately.

Because she never would have made it.

What's your favorite flower? I don't really like flowers.

Hammond'S dead, and they hear some men's voices coming from a room nearby. And the door opens. So they hide under the truck, and they kind of peek out to see the guys, but they're not guys at all. They're demons.

Daily looking dudes.

Yeah. So this is what actually surprised me when I watched the first episode, the first time, because I kind of knew what was happening already, but what I didn't know was demons. So I was like, what? Oh, my God. Because I thought it was just like, meat farm.

Yeah.

But I didn't know it was didn't know it was that. So the demons talk about how badly they want to eat the kids, but they're not allowed to because the human flesh from this farm is the highest quality. Only the richest can afford it.

Chef kiss.

Delicious. And then another demon comes in, and he is kind of looking at a list, and he says, the kids have all been very average lately, and Mama is there. And this is when we learned that her name is isabella, because he addresses her as such, and he tells her to prepare the highest ranking kids for plucking. And that's when he smells something. Oh, no.

Smelly. Smell.

But when he looks under the truck, they're gone. They dashed back to the orphanage. And they stopped to catch their breath. And Emma has a panic attack, and she doesn't want to believe what they saw. She doesn't want to believe that this place where they all feel so safe is just a farm, that they're just food. But Norman just kind of the logical dude he is, is just like, no, it's happening. This is real. And Emma just starts sobbing. And when they go back into the building, Ray is there, and he's like, oh, do you guys make it? And they look really upset, like, visibly shaken, and Norman is just like, no, we didn't make it.

But they left the bunny behind.

They left the bunny. They don't have the bunny, but they say they didn't make it. And then Norman and Emma are talking, and he says that they should escape, the three of them, but Emma doesn't want to leave everybody behind. And I was really emotional here. I don't know why. I just got really sad. I was like, oh, man, these poor kids. ohana, no one gets left behind or forgotten. And Norman says that he'll use his superior strategy skills to make sure all the kids get out okay. And there's, like, this music playing, and it's kind of swelling, and then it stops dead. And we see a shot of Mama holding the bunny, and I was just like, oh, shit.

Oh, boy.

That was so cool. I loved that. But, yeah, that's episode one.

The show in series has a lot of great reactions and just, like, a lot of emotion in the character's faces.

Yeah.

I was noting to myself they have really beautiful animation, except for when they don't, because they strategically will like to build attention, start using, like, uglier, grittier looking animation. And I think that's a really nice touch.

That's interesting because they do that in Kakegoogui, too. But Kakegoo is just not as good.

Of a show since they're, like, using it. Well, they have some weird shot cuts that I think they're trying to use to build tension, but they just seem weird and disjointed. But yeah, I don't know what they're going for with it, but it's building the suspense. I'll give them that.

I think it's because they don't have, like, big flashy, neRudo one piece fight sequences and stuff. So they're just like, we got to really emphasize the scenes we do have. There's nothing too insane about this show besides the demons, which we only see in this small segment of episode one. So they're like, we really got to emphasize the emotion and just these kids, because it's all you got on the show.

Yeah, you need an elaborate tag sequence.

We also didn't mention all the kids wear white because the orphanage is, like their uniforms, and they got a tattoo on their neck of, like, a serial number. Yeah, that choice meat.

So episode two. We start, of course, with a dream of Emma seeing connie getting eaten. So she wakes up, freaks out. It's the next morning and Emma is just seeing like Mama interact with everyone as freaking out. And norman's like, hey, be cool, keep it together. You're going to pretend like it wasn't us because she doesn't know who left the bunny behind. So don't make her suspicious.

Don't be a snitch, be chill.

Yeah.

So they know that Mama knows something's up, so they're just trying to blend in at this point. So they break away and they start to figure out why people are getting selected. And they learned or they figure out that their age determines like the grade of the meat. So the older they are up to twelve, the better the meat is. And also the people who get higher test scores mean they get to age more sort of like they like to eat brains, maybe. So they want the smarter kids to get older so they're more developed and more delicious.

Yeah, this part was very info dumpy, and they assume a lot of things in it, but as an audience, you're like, well, that must be the truth. But also why they figure it out so quickly.

Yeah, our kids, this is definitely the writers being like, hey, this is what it is. They didn't just figure it out. This is us, the writers telling us what happened.

I mean, the best noodles are the smart noodles, good noodles. Also, teens have bad meat. Apparently tough things.

Don't want greasy.

Get those hormones out of here. So, yeah, they do the math and they figure out that basically every two months there's a shipment. So they have about two months to figure out an escape route. So they're out playing, quote unquote, in the woods as they start to plot. Basically, we get a big old info dump in this episode as they just coordinate their plan. So they talk about, okay, we need to figure out a day escape. Since everyone would be out in the yard. They go and recon the woods. They find a big giant cement wall that's too smooth to climb, but there are trees that they can jump to. So they figure out that if they need to get everyone out, to get all the younger kids out, they need a rope of some kind. They are called back. And we see one of the younger kids lost their partner out in the woods. And Mama's like, oh, that's fine, and pulls out a pocket watch and looks at it and we see it's a tracking device. Things get more complicated, so she uses that to find the kid. But Emma and Norman realize, oh, she is showing it off to everyone to show that she knows that she can track people. So she's saying, hey, you idiots, I know where you are. So it's sort of a little warning for whoever's plotting at something games. But they also figure out that she doesn't have tracking on where they are at any given time. It's only when she checks her pocket watch thing. So later on that night, Emma is being all sad thinking about connie in the hallway. And Mama catches her.

That was good. I liked this part.

No, this was so tense. So Mama catches her being sad in the hallway while Norman was about to turn the corner and is watching. But Emma acts her ass off and is like, I just miss connie. But I'll find her one day because everything's.

When she was like when they were hugging and Emma just goes I wonder what connie is doing right now. With that tone of voice. I feel like very obviously being like, I'm the one that saw that. I was like, Emma, why would you do that?

My God. Cooking in the bear.

Yeah. She was doing so well until that moment where she's like, what's connie doing? I hope she's happy and alive.

Yeah, I like that when Norman norman like, turns the corner. He's like, hey, Emma. And he just jumps back because he's very common. It's just like a very panic moment. I'm like, I fuck and he jumps back behind the corner.

Yeah.

So, yeah, another kid comes in to say, dinner served, and saves her. So she and Norman quickly, like, go down the stairs. And just as they're about to go out of sight, mom is like, oh, one more thing. Did you go to the gate last night? And they're like, who is? No, we're law abiding citizens. We'd never go through there.

That's against the rules.

What are you, a cop?

You leave. You have to tell me if you're a mom. So, yeah, they get down to the bottom of the stairs and they collapse because that was the tensest shit they've ever gone through. And Ray sees them have their freak out once they're out of sight. So that night, they sneak into a storage closet and they steal old table claws that they'll tie together to make a rope. They steal the table claws, but Ray follows and is on to them.

He knows what's up. He got perfect scores, too.

He's not dumb like all those other kids.

Fucking Mark. Dumb five year old mark. goddamn idiot.

Worthless dead weight. So, yeah, they go back out to the wall, and Ray follows them to confront and be like, hey, what's up? And we see Mama noticed that Ray is not sitting with his book under the tree. So she also knows something's up. So at this point, they start looping in Ray on all of the goings on. And Ray is like, okay, well, if we want to have a genuine escape, we need to cut the dead weight because we have a lot of little kids that are going to slow us down, give away our cover and all that.

Mark.

I didn't hear what you said.

I was just shitting.

Mark.

Fucking hate Mark. Here.

The characters we love. We love wholeheartedly. The characters we don't like, we despise. Even if they're six, that won't save you.

So yeah. Emma is uncompromising in that everyone needs to go with them because they're not going to just leave their friends behind to be food. And Norman realizes that she was crying before, not because she was freaked out and scared, but she's just so dedicated to her family at the orphanage that she's going to keep fighting for them no matter what. So it's a passionate plea rather than just naive. We all have to be friends. So Ray finally agrees that everyone needs to come along and they get called back to the house and they find one new sibling, a little kid, and one new mama assistant, Sister crona, who's going to be adding a little extra supervision.

Got new muscle.

She is very big.

She's a big lady. Yeah.

Big. Tough, fierce, rough.

Tough, tough. Kids get the stuff. Ray also confronts Emma, saying like, hey, we're being shipped out for our meat to a bunch of demons. That means there's other demons outside. That means we have to assume everything outside is demon society. And even if we escape, we're not safe. They will have to survive out there with the demons. So kind of arguing his case, more of like, these little kids are going to help us. And Emma is still just like, yeah, tough shit. Yeah.

I'm not going to leave them here where we're guaranteed to get eaten.

Yeah. You always got to take the chance. You always got to have hope that we get to episode three and we see that Sister crone, her new room is on the same floor with all the kids. I don't think we actually get to see mama's room, so I'm not sure where it is. But we see Sister crone is like in the same hallway with the kids so she can be around them and hear them and keep a closer eye on them. Which means security is tight them. Yeah.

Right at the top of the stairs so they can't sneak out at night.

Yeah. And after we see this, it cuts away to the trio in a room. And Ray says, we got a new younger sister who's a year old and we got a new nanny. So that's two sources of new information. Two sources of new information saying kids are still coming in from somewhere they're not born here, and that there are adults outside of the house and people can live outside of this house. It's not just all demons tearing people apart and stuff. So he's trying to deduce whatever information they can from any new information. So he said if there's other nannies outside of this house, maybe there's other farms like ours and maybe there's more of these. And he's just trying to piece together stuff. There's a lot of jumping to insane conclusions off of any little tidbit of information. Arguably it's because these kids are. So smart or because it's a very isolated setting and plot, and they have to progress in any way they can. You decide.

Yeah.

So Ray says they also have the trackers in them that Mama was looking at in her pocket watch. So he said to have the trackers in them where even the kids don't know about them, they have to probably be small. They don't get recharged, so they're probably battery operated. And if she's able to track it without having it tethered into anything, it's probably, like, radio waves or something. And he says, like, that technology doesn't exist in 2015, so it's like, oh, what a specific year? So, yeah, I'm guessing it's 15.

Yeah.

Weird.

There we see, like, the calendar they keep updating us on the progress of time, and they say the year is 2045.

Yeah, it's not really spoiler, but yeah, but the year they think it is isn't the year it actually is in the outside world. Got you. So that's why I kind of tease out at the beginning, and they'll get to it later, where, like, once they find out what's going on, they're like, oh, we're being fed information. Like, all the information they have in the house. Like, all these books were tailored specifically for them and stuff and then raised like or it could just be demon Technologies, in which case we're fucked. It's like oh, cool. Okay.

It's magic.

What a downer's been a downer.

Raise me. It's like, you're not wrong, but you're still being wait, who's who?

If you're Ray and there's Emma and Norman. I guess I'm Emma.

I feel like you're probably the most optimistic out of the three of us.

Yeah. That leaves Norman for dukes.

Oh, boy.

New cosplays. cosplay.

Cosplay. I mean, you could be don cosplay.

Is an eleven year old.

Kids, I'd have to shave. No, thank you.

I'm Norman, but with a beard. Get over it.

I'm Adult mormon.

I want to be Phil. Phil is by far the best boy. Like, he's just, like the little kid that kind of tan with big blue eyes, and he kind of got, like, the amethyst, like, cat mouth. He really doesn't do much, at least in the three episodes we watch, but I fucking love Phil. Anyway, back on track. So Norman says we just got this new kid in the house. She's a year old, so she's still really young and needs to be taken care of. That would give us a chance to kind of check her out and see if they embedded a tracker into her as a baby. It might still have, like, a seam or a mark or something of where they put the tracker in her. So we should kind of check her out to see if we can find out where the trackers are.

Let's interrogate this baby.

Where is he? Where are they?

It's like that comic where it's like, okay, Jeff, where's Mama?

All right, where is that okay, Jeffrey? Where's osama bin laden? So then we get a scene of sister crone talking to mama, and she's thanking her like, oh, thank you for letting come him out here and help you with your farm and stuff. And mama's real quick to shut that shit down and like, nah, your assistant, your security for me. I didn't request to you. I just need another body. You're nothing to me. Just kind of really like setting the tone of like, mama, your sister learn your place. Oh, shit. But we find from sister crone talking about her, like, mama is like the youngest mama, and she has the highest grade, like kids and stuff and all this other stuff. So she's like, she's the best mama. So it's an honor to be working at this farm. And then mama says, like, oh, some kids found out the secret. Crown is like, oh, shit, we got to wrangle them up and send them away right away. It's like, no, we're breaking protocol. I got a plan. I got a good idea who it is, and I got an idea of how to cater to them. And Crown is like, okay, I see what you're doing. And it cuts away to her in her room later, talking to this weird, like, frankenstein monster baby doll thing she has.

It was unsettling.

She's crazy.

Yeah. So she's kind of just like talking to it and gloating of like, oh, if mama messed up, I can rat her out. And then if she's gone, I'll take over the farm and then I'll be the new mama. And I always wanted to be a mama, but then if I'm a mama, I have a bunch of more kids, but then I'm not going to have any more time for you, but I'll still take care of you. Like talking to the doll as if it's a child, it's like, okay, she unhinged. She's got some yeah, she's got them crazy eyes. So now we got mama's trying to catch the trio. The trio is trying to escape without a learning mama. And now crone is trying to, like, get both of them. So what was once mama sabotage mama. Yeah. The third party now. Oh, my doorbell just run.

Hello?

Hang down.

Hello? Oh, shit. Mama found out.

Oh, God. Rock here for you.

So then after cron is saying all this, we cut away to norman and Ray are washing dishes, like after dinner. And they're kind of planning while they were, like, whispering to each other quietly. Then we see crone in the background, like, lifting all the kids up and playing with them. And they're like, oh, man. It's going to be really tough to, like, get everyone to turn against Sister Crown and Mama since they both seem to love him so much. He's just kind of like watching the dishes, and he has like a knife or a fork, I think. And he's like, well, we don't want the adults to find out we're escaping, and we don't want them to alert the demons before we escape, so we'll take care of them to jesus, Ray, it's like fucking murder so quick. I mean, yeah, they're being sent off to be eaten by demon, so, like, fair, truly fair.

Killer be killed. Yeah, I'll allow it.

I'll allow it this time. But watch yourself. canceling. Just a very stabby eleven year old. And then as they're talking, sister Crown, like, leaned in her head in between two of them. It's like, oh, hey, guys, what's you talking about? You got whispers. I like whispers.

I like a whisper, too.

Yeah, just being really not subtle. Like, I heard you talking, and I want to know what you're talking about. Like, okay. Crown really not subtle, but she just kind of does that to see what they're talking about and kind of give them a scare of, like, I got my eye on you. And then we cut away to Emma. She's taking care of the new baby, carolyn. Sure.

Carol.

Baby Carol. So she's just, like, taking care of her, changing her diapers. Yeah, it's still a baby, so it looks like the girls will take care of the babies when Mama can't. So we see Emma and gilda, like, changing diapers, and while Emma is doing it, she's looking over the baby. They're trying to find out any scar or seam or any injection point or something where the tracker would be. And gild is like, hey, Emma, what are you emma like, he's trying to talk to her, and it's like, you're really deep in this baby. Like, you're really investigating this.

I want you to take back that sentence right now.

Sorry about that.

Didn't really like that at all. Take it again.

Take it again. He's trying to talk to Emma. Emma. It's like Emma is just, like, super obsessed with trying to find this tracker and doesn't even pay attention to gilda when she's talking. And we see gilda kind of is starting to notice stuff and be like, what's Emma so worked up about? She seems to be acting different, and that's what Emma is thinking. And she goes back to when Mama confronted her and touched her ear when she was talking to her. She's like, oh. And she checks the baby's ear. It's sure enough it looks like a mosquito bite or something. Like a bump on the back of your ear. She's like that's it. That's where the trackers are. They put them in her ears, but by the time they're older, it heals over, so they don't even notice. I was like, oh, yeah, that's when they took blood from us when we were young to study us and stuff.

All that precious ear blood.

Yeah, all that good. Good ear blood.

The best place to take blood from.

Yeah. I'm surprised they didn't think of, like, oh, they have tractors in us. Be like, hey, remember when they took blood from us when we were children? It's probably there. These kids are so damn smart. So then we come back to mama is checking in. She's got like, big headphones on, and it's talking to a microphone, like a radio transmitter. And she's talking with grandma.

Not grandma.

Not grandma. And so grandma is asking like, those three special shipments are still on schedule. Their time is coming up. And mom is like, yeah, we're still good. grandma's like, good because the other plants are fucking up and we can't afford to miss your shipment. Your shipment is special, like high grade quality meat. That good. Sheet they become kids. And mom is like, yeah, we're still on track. And then we cut away to a council of demons who don't have mustaches but might as well be twirling them like laughing maniacally. And they're just like, the special grade meat. We're going to offer it up to the one week nutshack on the menu. Boy clearly, it's not just like, hey, this is some good shit. They're like, oh, this is like a special sacrificial plate to some higher up in the demon society. So they really can't afford to lose at least the three main kids. So they come back to the trio talking, and they're sharing information. They gathered up, and they come up with plans to break the trackers. Emma shares it's in their ears. And Ray says there's clearly no proximity alerts from trackers when they get close to the fence for the gate, since they were all able to do it. And palma didn't find out, at least not because of the trackers. And then he said they probably can't specify the individual either. She was able to find out what kid was missing because it was the only kid that was missing out of that group that one time. So the trackers are still good technology, but it's not super advanced. And Mama can only see it when she's looking at the pocket watch, not at all times. But he said if there's any notification or any system in place for the trackers, it'll probably go off when they're broken. So if they bring the trackers right away, Mama will know. So they agree that we can't break these until we're as we're leaving at the very last second. And then Ray says, don't worry about bringing the trackers. I got some ideas. I'm the tech guy. I am the tech wheeze. So I'll figure out a plan to break those. And they also talk about they'll have to convince that all the other kids that Mama the person that's going to take care of them, that everyone loves, is evil. So yeah, that's going to be much rougher to do. And also trying to escape all these kids is going to be tough because they're all weak little babies. So we got to figure out a way to strengthen their core, make them tough. Emma comes up with training.

Montana, let's get down to business. Down to business to escape the mom.

So Emma comes up with an idea of like, oh, we can play tag. And we can use that as training. But under the skies of like, oh, we're just playing. Don't worry about us. Mom. But we'll actually be training them. And Emma, out of the three, Emma is the most fit physically. So she's like, I'll be running around to keep attracting everyone. norman's the smartest, so he'll come up with all the strategies and help him with that. And Ray never plays tag. So it would be weird to fall in a sudden. He is so he'll stay back at this tree reading books. And then anyone who's caught he'll teach them like little tricks and tips of, like, make fake footprints and then cover up your real ones and like, oh, run down wind so they can't smell you or something. All these little tricks of escaping.

Yeah, he'll give the like, oh, here's where you went wrong since he's in the time out portion.

Yeah, he's in, like, the loser corner. So he's like, you got caught first because you're bad at this. Let me teach you how to be better. And meanwhile, all this is going on. crone is watching all that playing. And she's like, oh, tag. eh, this seems fun. Let me get in on this shit. Let me play your little kid. I'm a giant woman. Let me beat your ass at tag.

Mind if I fuck around and hunt you?

And so they all agree. They're like, all right. Crowd can play tag. But she's it. So all the kids are going to hide. And then she's going to chase after them. And raisin in this one as well. So she's like, all right, cool, cool. Let's play some tag. She counts to 20 or whatever, and then it goes running off. She's like, oh, I'm so excited. I get to see what these kids can really do.

And also, she sets like a 20 minutes time limit to give herself a handicap.

Yeah, the tag can only go for so long. And as she starts running, she notices, like, oh, fake footprints. Pretty sneaky, sis. It's like, I got to set my game up. I got to be legit now. I got to come after these kids a full force. So she starts tearing through the woods. And we see. She makes, like, little designs, like stars, hearts, clovers, horseshoes, blue moons in the leaves around the forest.

About red balloons.

That's it. Red balloons. Too spooky, too scary.

No, I'm talking about Lucky charms.

Yeah, they all float over the wall. I see.

They all float up. There a lot of references this episode. So crow just carves like little she cuts little patterns and leaves. And it just leaves them throughout the woods. And all the younger kids get distracted. And they all gather up and like, oh, I got a star. Or I got a heart. And crone comes out of nowhere. It's like, I got all of you. You fell for my ruse. You dumped kid.

You boarded my ruse crews, you idiot.

Children got a one way trip to the beet factory. And this is when the tree is start noticing, like, oh, shit. The little kids are getting distracted. They're falling for her tricks, so they're trying to help them more aggressively during the game. And we see Chrome running up, about to get two kids, and Emma just flies out of nowhere and picks them both up. It's Phil and, like, another subgirl, I think. And she's carrying a while she's running totally show. She's, like, the most fit out of all these kids because that's hard to do. And crowd is just on top of her the whole time and was able to jump down this little rock path and break out sight. And when she does, she hides behind some rocks with the kids. And this is when Crown starts walking around like gloating, trying to egg her out, like egg her on and try and get her to come out of hiding of like, oh, well, you know, Emma, if you saw the Harvest the other day, I can help you out with that. I could be on your side and help you against malama and kind of just plague your hand very openly in front of these two kids that don't know anything.

Yeah, that was weird.

Yeah. crohn isn't the brightest. She's, like, gloating and trying to get her out. And while she's saying that, emma's kind of freaking out, it doesn't realize crone found her. It's like, right on top of, like, got you. It tags them. So she gets Emma and the two kids. So crohn's keeps running around, and the only ones that are left are Ray and Norman, and she just cannot catch them. They're not faster than her, but they keep out, manoeuvriger. And she gets, like, this really like like what's the right word? Gets, like, ominous look down of, like, Norman from, like, a top of rocks, like, staring down her like two slope bitch.

Oh, yeah.

And then, like, Ray just comes up and slaps her of like, time's up. We win.

Norman got a 20 on that intimidation check.

Yeah, he's going in hard. So Ray and Norman were able to escape her the whole time and win. And Crown was like, all right, I think I knew who figured out what's going on with the secret at the gate. It's like, yeah, it's clearly the oldest and smartest of the kids in the house.

Like, duh, the three talented ones. Yeah.

But while she's thinking about the kids, she also looks at gilda for a little too long. It's like and her glasses are all not fogged up, but it's like the anime thing where the glasses are tilted at a weird angle, so it's just a solid color and not like, clear. And then we get a shot in the trio talking in private in, like, another closet or something. And norma suspects that Mama is making moves now that they're focusing on crone, sister crone. So much so, she's like, well, we're not paying attention to Mama. She's doing stuff behind the scenes we're not sure about, so we're at a disadvantage with that. And they start suspecting her. Like, well, if Mama is making moves behind the scenes, that means she has to have some eyes out here to watch us to know what we're still up to. It's like, there's no cameras, and we saw Sister crone the whole time, so it's not her. Like, what if there's a traitor amongst the kids? We got a rat, got a liar. And they suspect that there might be a kid who's an informant for Mama giving her insider scoop. And then we got to dinner. Everyone's getting ready for dinner, and anna's kind of having another panic attack, freaking out. Like, not only is my mom trying to kill me, but now I got someone within my family of siblings that I'm trying to save is also betraying us. Like, what the fuck? Because family is so important to her. And that's where we leave off with episode three.

Yeah.

Trust no one. Not even your exhausting.

Not even Phil. You can trust Phil. phil's good.

You can't trust Mark, though.

Not Mark. Yeah.

Fucking Mark kid.

God damn fucking five year old.

No way he's the trader. Just because he sucks so bad, just.

Because he's so I just want to get rid of him. Say he's the trader. Ship him off in the next ship. Hey, we're here to pick up that high grade quality meat. Here's Mark. Here's mark instead.

And even the demons are like, oh, fucking mark's.

Like the slim chip of kids.

The taco Bell meat of kids.

So that's cool. It's neverland yeah.

How are you feeling? How are you feeling, guys? Are we there yet?

I was loving this.

Good to hear.

Yeah, the narrative definitely got me because I forgot to mention it this whole episode. This is Chicken run. It's chicken run.

It's just chicken run, but we stand Chicken run. Yeah.

So, yeah, I was really liking it. The building of suspense was good. I was liking the world that they had. There were little bits of, like there's some the weird shot stuff and all that, like info dumpy things. I was like, okay, you're getting a little lazy with this, but overall, yeah.

They also only have twelve episodes to do it all in, so it's kind of fair that they're just like, here they are figuring things out.

Yeah. You also got to give them the caveat of, like, these kids are smart. Like, super, super duper smart. And that's how they figure everything out, because otherwise yeah, I wouldn't have figured that out as a twelve year old. It's like, yeah, but these are like.

Super smart, but these kids are better.

Than you, so it's fine in every way. These kids will kick your ass.

Yeah, that's real life.

I really enjoyed it too. Yeah, like I said before, I've seen the first episode but nothing beyond that. But that hooked me before. I just never found the time to watch it and then really hooked me in today and honestly, I have nothing else to do, so I might just finish it because it is only twelve episodes and I just feel like I don't know, I feel like I just want to know what's going to happen.

Yeah, there is another season coming out and it is definitely one of the bigger attention anime of the last season. It definitely got a lot of attention and a lot of hype. Even the manga is pretty new and got a lot of attention really quick for just a different premise than all the other anime we've seen recently. So it got a big following real fast and it's just blown up. And as someone who follows the manga, I think it keeps the quality. I don't think it's really dipped in any certain spot. It's good.

Is the manga ongoing or is it over?

It's ongoing. It seems like a story that might have a finite ending plans. It doesn't seem like a one piece that will just go on forever until the sun collapse in on itself. So I am curious if they actually plan on ending it soon, but personally, I prefer stories that actually just wrap up at a certain point and they know when to call it quits.

Me too.

Yeah.

But there is still plenty, like we said, twelve episodes in the first season. I'm pretty sure I know what episode twelve is, so there's still plenty of content to go after that. There's still plenty of story to cover and like I said, I enjoyed them keeping up. It's probably one of the shows I'm better with all the names of the characters with A, because they're americanized, because I'm a dumb, ignorant American, and B, because I actually read the maggots, so I'm actually able to keep track of all the names. So, yeah, it's good.

Yeah. hooray weebar.

There, we did it.

We did it. We really did that.

We love children being murdered. Is that not what we're taking away from the show?

I'm taking away from it, bud.

Okay. We love powerful mamas.

That is true.

Well, speaking of powerful characters, we got some of them phone going on next week. What if you had the power of a country boiled down into cute anime boys? Well, then I think you got italia.

My brain is fogged over with memories of freshman year of high school.

Getting flashbacks. Yeah.

I won't get too into it in this episode, but this is one of the few shows I actually am familiar with and have seen a fair bit of. So yeah, we'll get into Italian next week.

Oh, I know. Relatively nothing. I'll be the dugout of that episode.

Hell, yeah.

Wow. Yeah, I was obsessed. So we'll see what happens to me.

I better start growing my beard.

And if there's a show you would like us to watch, you can reach out to us. Our email is arweebet@gmail.com. Or you can reach out to us on Twitter and Instagram. Are we there yet? You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at mrpatrick. dugan.

You can find me on Instagram at queen. Period. Weebu and on Twitter at Queen. Underscore wihu and queen underscore weebu art.

You can find me on Twitter at aBTS brendan. And if you like this podcast and you feel enough Gulf shift to start your own, check out podcast. So it's a service we use, and it's one I helped create.

Well, entrepreneurial shit.

Yeah.

I get no money from it.

Thank you to camille ruley for our artwork and this week's recommendation. Yes, and thank you to Louis zong for our theme song stories off the album Beats. You can find all of louie's music at Louisong bandcamp.com. Thank you, and we hope you'll join us next week as we learn to live with anime.

Never trust Mark.

Mark is Fighter Mark.