She went to take a dump.

Hello and welcome to our week. There yet an 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 anime. Christopher Joseph Parks. You know, the early 2000s wrestler known as Abyss.

I've realized that I make the same sound every time you say one of these things. I just go, oh. And I'm trying to change that up by just giving you complete signup.

Oh, thank you. I appreciate that.

You're welcome. It's good podcasting.

It's either that or your anime. Lapel du vois. The call of avoided french.

That's lapel du veed.

I don't take French.

That's why I said it was French. I didn't say it was good French.

Short film called Lapel Duvade. So I know what it means.

It's why I picked a weird 2000s wrestler instead of French.

I would have gotten it.

I wouldn't have said it. Right.

Well, I got it. Some would say this opening is abysmal.

That's a good one. See, that's good. This is the content I'm looking for.

Some would say I want to die. This is the Call of the Void, or the Abyss, if you will, because we're watching Made an Abyss.

Yeah.

Wow.

We beat her on the moon.

Years later, we get there.

Yeah.

We dance around it. But it's in the title of this episode, so you know what it is.

We should just start not saying it.

If you don't know, we should just describing the anime. And it's like, man, this naruto is really weird. Oh, wait a minute. Oh, that's not this episode.

Every anime is now a naruto.

A naruto.

Wow. This naruto is really good. It's like how some places in the country just call every soda coke or.

Grandparents always call every game system a Nintendo.

Yeah.

Anyway, yeah, it's a record of naruto. Or are we watching a slice of life naruto today?

It's a slice of somebody's life, just not ours.

A little bit of a mech, kind of.

Yeah. It's a recommendation from me. screw the listener. This one's my episode. But it's made in Abyss. It's a very popular series that came out two years ago, maybe.

Yeah.

2017.

And it hit the ground running. It picked up momentum real fast, and.

It won crunchy rolls.

Best anime of 2017. understandably. I preferably would have picked something else, but that's just my preference. But it's a very solid one, and I look forward to hearing your reactions, particularly Duke Ins, because it's got some fun moments. Yeah.

So, yeah. What are your histories with this show? Have you watched it before?

Dana and Brendan after it won best Anime of 2017. Because I hadn't heard of it before. I watched, I think, the first four episodes, and I liked them, but I didn't keep watching it for some reason because I never do. Because I can never finish anything unless it's all in one sitting. And I just breeze through, got a real binge.

It's too much anime to watch. To watch anime.

So much anime, so little time.

That's actually why I prefer dubs most of the time. Because if it's not something super engrossing, I'll have it on a second monitor, like in the background while playing something else and listen to it. Like if it's a slice of life where you don't have to watch every second of it and not like a mystery rate. My anime set up and I watched it when it came out or a little briefly after it came out because there was so much hype around it. And I was like, this one seems different. And a buddy of mine recommended it as well. So it got a little personal recommendations. Better than just an anonymous Internet community of the Internet.

Because the Internet always has your best interest in heart.

I mean, some of my friends have.

Real shit failed me yet.

It's a gamble either way for me. So my friends religiously make fun of my favorite anime and I religiously make fun of theirs because it's sort of hard online and it's very bad.

That's bad.

That's real bad.

That's a bad favorite anime.

Yeah, it made me question their taste. But hey, they don't listen to this show.

Everyone that likes Sword Art online, that's.

Her different episode that will hate watching.

Hopefully not.

Sorry.

Hopefully not. So yeah, we're going to jump around in this one because I've already watched it all the first few episodes and.

It'S all about you, right?

I don't care if it makes sense to you guys, this is what I want to watch, says Brendan.

If you make good content for yourself, other people will enjoy it.

There's no narrative arc here. We're just watching my fave that makes.

Fun of ditch mod and the Christmas.

Episode, the beach episode. And also a character that you are introduced to dies.

Yeah. Did you already watch this? So the beginning of this, there's a lot of world building and stuff and establishing. So some of the earlier episodes we can just skip ahead and we're savvy it'll, be filled in with context clues so we don't need to watch every single episode. So we'll jump around to episodes one, three, and five. And that's really when the momentum of the show starts going and starts picking up. So I figured that'd be a good intro.

Yay.

All right, let's go down, down into the event.

We're back from the abyss.

The abyss. She calls me my sweet lady.

We're back. I brought you pringles, but they didn't.

Have sour cream and onions, so it's like the weird seasonal flavor. They're trying to do, like promotional shift for. I think this one's like nacho cheese and toothpaste. It's going to be we'll see how that why are you holding out?

Hope you couldn't even get me the pizza pringles.

Wow. We get pizza pringles all the time.

We wanted to mix it up. Also, we have pizza flavor blasted goldfish in the cupboard.

You're right.

And pizza rolls in the oven.

And pizza bagels also in the toaster oven.

And we're having those at any time.

Brought to you by Tatinos. Tatinos Pizza.

I love it.

Tattinos, the gushers of hot pizza. They explode in your mouth.

Anyway, hey, we're still in the abyss, apparently.

That's how I feel. The abyss? The anime abyss. Oh, why don't we call it that?

That'd be pretty good.

Rebranding.

Rebrand everything.

Scrap it. We're starting over.

Delete all the episodes.

Square one. Okay, so, yeah, we watched episodes one, three, and five. I watched all three dubbed.

I watch all three subbed.

What? ooh, shaking things up a bit.

That was all that was on Amazon Prime fair.

I watched it subbed initially, so I watched it dubbed this time, but I still watched episode three dubbed to see if there's any differences because sometimes they translate stuff weird. This one they didn't. They did a very good job with both the casting and the translation. I approved cool help.

And that's all they need, right?

Yeah, my recommendation, because that worked out.

So well most of the time. Katie?

Yeah. Did you mind?

I am being attacked right now and I do not appreciate it.

That's all this podcast is.

It feels like it sometimes. It certainly feels like it.

You know, we like you.

You also know you should be attacked.

I think that was more accurate.

You do it on purpose.

All right, episode one. We open up with our main character, rico, the blonde haired little girl, and like a spunking outfit with a hard hat and a big backpack and a pickaxe and all that stuff. And she's running around with a buddy of hers, nate. So brown haired little unassuming boy. Doesn't matter, he's going to be out of here in three episodes. And they're looking for relics. They're like Indiana Jones but with less nazis. And they're trying to find I mean, it's made in Abyss. There's an abyss and they're like the top surface that's pretty clear from the setting. And they're looking for relics from like 2000 years ago that just show up and like no one's really sure what the civilization is. And some of these relics are just like sort of magical. Like they're just so advanced. One of those like hyper advanced civilizations that died out. And rico is very optimistic about her findings because even though they're only on the first level and it's usually just kind of crap over there, you don't really get any of the good stuff. She thinks we're not going to find any quality relics, so we got to find a quantity of relics. So she's trying to find a bunch of them to make up for it. And she said she already found the star compass, but she's not supposed to have that, so don't tell anyone. And as keep it on the dm. Don't tell anyone. And she starts mining for relics in this, like, little cave area. And we get a little montage of her just digging out different stuff, finding stuff like, oh, that's one. Oh, that's another one. Oh, that's another one. And she finds a grave skeleton. You get all shook. Get a bony man in a little grave praying.

It's pronounced bonyver.

Thank you. And we find out. They find a few lead graves. She said she hasn't found one in a few months, I believe. And we see it in a later episode. nate finds one and he's like, yeah, every time we find a body, they're always in this praying position. And we don't know why, but we just cover them back up and continue on. So try not to disturb the body. Don't think about it. Don't think about this small child discovering bodies as grave robbers.

It definitely won't be relevant later in this anime series. No, says the character in the show.

So we see rico kind of heading on back and we see her struggling with her backpack because it's real full now. She's got a bunch of Alex. So she did what she set out to do and found a bunch of them. And on her way back, she sees like kind of wriggling above her goes, wormy. Son of a bitch.

And she says, oh, no, it's big, hairy and pink.

Yeah, yeah, actually it is. That actually discusses very well.

Thanks, spongebob.

She calls it a crimson splitchall. And it's this yeah, giant wormy. They call it snake sort of monster. She's like, oh, no, like that's they usually aren't up here on the first level. What's it doing up here? Like, they're pretty dangerous. And that's when she sees nate or nat on a cliffhange and he's bleeding out, like he was knocked unconscious and the crimson split jaws are coming in for him. He's just like, oh, shit, he's super dead. So rico just kind of panics and it's like, what do I do? And they all have these whistles with them and it's both marker of their status, but it's good for looking for teams and calling out for help and stuff. So her and nat are red whistles and she blows into the whistle and lets out this huge screech to draw its attention. As soon she does, it works and she just starts running. And now the big monster, she's after her and she's got no other plan. And as soon as it comes up to her just tail smacks her and just launches her, just hits her full force. She goes, like flying off a cliff edge and falls down. She's like, oh, God, my arm isn't broken. Oh, hey, it's not meat. And gets back up and starts running. And then she's like trying to evade.

It kids, man.

They're indestructible for now. And she's bobbing and weaving through this forested area and it's coming after her and it's getting real close. It's about to get her. And then just a huge light beam comes out of nowhere and just, like, scars half its face, and it goes running off. And then you see it flying in the distance. So it's also a big ass angry worm thing and can also fly. So awesome. This abyss is a nightmare.

All good stuff.

Yeah, fantastic. Evolution is a curse. And she notices that beam, like, burnt through all these, like, petrified trees that are they're petrified. So they're basically stone now. So she's like, that was powerful to, like, burn through and like, what the hell was that? And when she goes back looking, she finds a little robot boy, little Mr. Robot. She's like, oh, jeez.

Astro boy.

Basically, he kind of looks like he's got a big clunky feet and arms. He's got a little helmet. She's like, oh, God damn, you're like a crazy relic. You must have come up from the abyss, because she knew everyone that was going in on their trip. So she's like, oh, jeez, this is the mother load. And then we get hot diggity shit. And we get the title sequence.

But it's not really the title sequence.

No, not quite.

It's a fun prank.

It's one of those where the opening credits are playing, and then the story is still going on in the background while just music is playing. So we don't hear any of the dialogue, but the intro is playing. And we see rico Karen, this robot boy, back, and she finds nat, and he's awake now, still bloodied, and he helps her carry the robot back up. And we see them struggling because it's real heavy. And then they get back to the village, and we see, like, it's sunset now, so it took, like, all day for them to get back. They catch a ride by a passing farmer, and there's a chance for the opening to really establish the setting. And we get a lot of city shots, and we get a few glimpses of the abyss and stuff. It's very beautiful.

Yeah, it is.

This is when they get dropped off. All right, time for the hardest part. Here we go. And that's when they bumped into their buddy shiggy, which I don't know why the name shiggy tickles me. And shiggy's got glasses, so he's the Edo of the cartoon, and his personality is nerd. And as they're getting back up, they're going back to their orphanage where they all live. And they're late, so they got to sneak back in. But also they got this big crazy robot they don't want the headmistress to know about, so they got to sneak him in too. And that's when she gets an idea. He's like, oh, hold up. Wait here. And sneaks off to the side of the orphanage and sees a buddy there's, like a little wee baby, just like real tiny, it looks like, just straight up a baby. But it talks fine. It can interact with him.

So it's like, stop calling him an it.

I don't know. It's Kiwi. ki.

Yeah, kiwi.

Kiwi. And it seems smart for a toddler, so it seems educated. It's okay, Kiwi, we got to sneak back in. You're up there on the balcony reading the book. How about you throw your book down and start crying? And then the headmaster just comes and picks up the book and we can sneak in, but he doesn't say it. shiggy is like, doing all, like, hand signs and charades to convey this and can be just like, oh yeah, I get you, bro. I got you, and throws the book down and just starts crying. And the headmistress is out by the front gate, like runs over and just like goddamn it, how many times I tell you not to read on the balcony? If you read this one, drop this book one more time, I'm taking it away from you. And that's when they sneak the robot.

In, and that's how you know they've done it before.

Yeah, this is the first.

And the headmistress is dumb enough to.

Fall for every town.

Those crafty orphans.

Got to learn a lot when you don't have parents the next day.

Yeah, it's a hard knock life.

God dammit, I should have seen that coming. Next day they're in class and we see this, just a regular classroom, but we see all the desks are mounted up on the wall, and they're all vertical. And you have to use rope ladders to get up to your desk, which is just very odd, but very cool. Like a very interesting choice.

They got to know how to climb.

Yeah, I mean, it makes sense. There's probably not a lot of room. We see the islands, like really compact, very dense, so there's probably not a ton of room for buildings. And in class, teachers just going over usual stuff. And the headmistress is also there in class, and he's like, oh, yeah, by the way, the headmistress wants to give us a little speech real quick. And she's like, oh, class, just want to tell you to be careful. You're going out on expeditions now to the first layer. It's still dangerous, and if you find any relics, bring them back and give them to the orphanage because we sell those and then help fund the orphanage. And I swear to God, if any of you are hoarding any relics, I'm going to tie you up naked. And she's like, really eyeing up rico when she says that. It's kind of like, shit, she knows. And pembury doesn't say anything else. So rico is like, whoo, I got by, but definitely has a feeling she's being watched. And we find out. rico is like, the troublemaker. So it makes sense she's eyeing up her. And after class the teacher pulls her aside and it's kind of like, hey, what happened with you and nat? Like, with the expedition where he got hurt. What was going on. She's like, oh, this big crimson splitch. All came down, started attacking us. And then I got away because I found this. I got away. Nothing weird happened at all. Totally didn't find a robot.

No beams, no fire. It's all good, bud.

I was crafty. I use my arts and crafts to escape. And then we see rica says she wants to be like a white whistle, which is the highest rank of explorers and cave raiders. We see the teacher's like a purple whistle, so there's different levels. And she hopes to be a white whistle just like her mom was. And so she can go down and try and see what they see and what was so alluring that her mom kind of abandoned her at the orphanage for?

Yeah, because there's also, like a hierarchy of how deep you can go based on the color of your whistle.

Yeah, we get a little more into that in later episodes, but skill level correlates with abyss layer or a level. And she's like, super eager to just dive into the abyss. She's like, I want to explore and teach like you're. Twelve. chill. And after they talk, we see the gang, the the boys, nat, shiggy, Kiwi come running and they're eavesdropping. And then they run up to her room with her and they try to wake up the robot by just electrocuting the shit out of them. Which I mean, it's fair. It's a robot. I'd probably do the same.

Good plan, kids.

And it works. So he wakes up and joslyn's. Just like, god. Jesus Christ. Why? He's like, bone. He's aware now, but he's like, electric bone. He's like, oh my God, that hurt so bad. Why did you do this to me? And so he wakes up and they start talking to him, and he sees just a bunch of torture stuff, like up on the walls. He's like, Where am I? Why am I strapped to a chair? What is happening? And they're like, oh, this used to be an old torture room before this place was an orphanage. And Rica is the troublemaker. So they put her in here and it's like, cool. Why are they still full of torture devices?

Yeah, why would they keep her, the troublemaker in the room with all these torture instruments?

Yeah, I feel like that's asking for trouble. Especially from the troublemaker.

Let's give the dangerous kid all the things that are dangerous. Yeah, you know, as a deterrent.

And rico asked, like, who are you? What are you doing down there? Do you remember anything from this? And he's just like, nah, man, I don't remember nothing. Just like, you're a robot. How do you not remember anything? He's like, I'm a robot. What the fuck? He clearly doesn't even remember what he is, let alone who he is or why he was down there. So he's very caught off guard. And she comes running.

Do you have waking up with amnesia on our bingo list?

We have to or here we go. New kid in school. New kid in class. There we go. Transfer student from the abyss.

I was from robo Academy.

I majored in deep, poop. And shiggy comes running in, and he's like, oh, shit, guys. We blew a fuse. Like, all the electricity is out in the orphanage because we shocked them awake. And they're just like, oh, shit. He's going to know, and immediately sum it to us, which he does.

So like, because there is an electric chair in my room, of course we're going to believe.

Who else would it be? And they throw a blanket over the robot, and they're kind of like, shit, he's got to hide. And shiggy and the gang, like, sneak out the window of rica's room. And it's like, don't write us out. Don't tell anyone. And the teacher comes in and checks on her, and it's like, all right. what'd you do? She's like, why do you think it's me? It's always you. You're the main character. Who else would it be? He goes towards the COVID and she's like, freaking out. Like, oh, no, he's going to find it. He pulls the COVID off the electric chair, and it's empty. She's like, oh, where did he go?

Sick magic trick.

Robot magic. And he's like, all right, this is clearly, like, chicago's work. He's the little nerd. Like, he'd be rigging up some weird electric chair or something, and he hits rico over the head and starts, like, lecturing her. He's like, what the hell are you guys doing? Like, you know, we don't have a ton of resources. Like, don't be draining the electricity and all this stuff. And while he's lecturing her, we see the robot kind of, like, repelling, I guess, ascending up into the ceiling from his extended robot arm that has, like, a wire coming out of it. And it's just like, oh, shit. He can do that. And he's like, clearly hiding. I'm like, oh, I get it now. I'm not supposed to be found. So he's he's not aware he's a robot, but he's quick on the uptake of like, oh, I got to be sneaky. And that's when the teacher goes out to find the rest of the gang to see what they were doing. And he takes rico out with her. And we see the robot boy jump, drop down and try and checking himself out in the mirror, trying to figure out who he is and what he is. And he's like, surprised. He's like, why would a robot need a belly button? So he's already aware of what a belly button for birth? And he's like, a robot wouldn't need that. It is I mean, it comes from it. What kind of are you kidding? What? Of course. Wait, it's a tale.

How dare you think I'm that stupid?

I'm sorry.

It came from a very conservative catholic Northeast.

That is fair.

They see some crazy shit there. So while the robot is like, looking over me like, why don't I have a belly bund if I'm a robot? And you see him pull open his pants, he's like, what do I got back? So he got that beanis. He's got that beanus. And rico runs back in. He's like she's like, hey, I got away. We got to get out of here, though. A teacher come after me. We got to get you the hell out of this building. And the robot just like, got you. Grab onto me and just extend our arms out the window and sucks them out. And we can hear the teacher run around the building, like, looking for rico still. And once they're outside, rico just like, all right, can't call you robot anymore. We need to give you a name. You're going to be reg. He's like, Why am I reg? She's like, that was my name with an old dog I had. He's like, cool, great. Thank you. I love being a dog's name. And rico takes reg up to the top of this hill, and she's like, out of breath. And he's just kind of, like, running up. And we see the sunrise, and we just get a huge panoramic shot of the city. And she's like, this is where we live. And this crazy music starts playing that is only used in this first episode. It's not like an intro or outro song or anything, but it's very thematic and, like, high energy and very atmospheric. And she's like, this is the town, and that's the abyss right in the center. And it's just like, 60% of what we see is just the abyss. And then the outer ring around it is all just a very dense town. And reg is just like, what the hell's the abyss? She's like, what do you mean? You came from it? He's like, I don't know. I'm a robot. Why would I know what the abyss is? She's like, fair. And she's thinking that he came from the bottom. He's powerful and a robot and sentient and better than any other relics they found. So she's like, you're a high class. You came from the bottom of the abyss. We got to figure out what's going on with you. And then we just get a few panning shots and the narrator voiceover coming in kind of explaining kind of the nature of the pit and the abyss, and that just one day it appeared on this island. And just no one really knows why or how. And there's just all these sorts of monsters inside and old relics from an old civilization. And that hunters from all around the world came to this island to explore it and try and get rich quick from these relics. And so many hunters came there. Eventually they just formed the village inside this massive crater on the island around the abyss. And that's where they are.

So that's episode we almost made it a full episode without unnecessary exposition, but right at the end, they got it.

It's tough to naturally explain this giant demonic hole in the grounds, but I.

Mean, like, call it unnecessary exposure.

I find it very necessary because it's a confusing premise.

But, like, everything they said. Yeah. They founded a city at the top of a void. We saw that. That's been established visually in the story. I wasn't confused up until this point.

Yeah, it but it might be weird if it's like, oh, yeah, there's cribs and splitchalls all over the world versus this, where it's like this hole just appear here and fucking no one knows what this is besides the Abyss. The rest of that planet could just be Earth, like, normal, but we wouldn't know that because we only see the one island.

Yeah, I didn't need it.

You wish. It was rather like in character versus just voice of God explaining it all.

Yeah, because a lot of it you can pick up through context clues. Since we only see a monster in the void, I assume they're only in the void. The real monster at the top of the void. I don't think we need to know that they made a city at the.

Top of a void. I enjoyed it. I like world building.

So episode three, this will be fairly quick since one thing happens.

It's just a lot of build up to it.

Yeah.

The great escape.

At some point in episode two, we find a note from rico's mom, who was a white whistle that descended into the depths. And the note basically reads, come meet me here. I'm waiting.

Little backstory. Just because we kind of skipped over it. That letter wasn't directed to her. They got a letter and, like, the council or whoever was reading it, and rico and Ray snuck in and stole the letter. So it wasn't explicitly addressed to her.

Got you.

She just thinks it is cool.

Yeah. Letter from mom saying, I'm waiting. I'm alive.

Saying you are.

Btrb, bring that robot. rico is now dead set on getting to the bottom of the Abyss, and all the friends are there. They're all chatting about it because that's a crazy plan, but they're more focused on tomorrow. Is reg's first cave raid with them?

Yeah, I think somewhere in episode two, they tried to hide him, and they're just like, fuck it, here it is. Here's this new kid. He's totally normal and part of our.

Gang and just ignore his medal.

Yeah, don't worry about that.

We read more notes from the mom sort of chronicling the deeper parts of the Abyss, all the different monsters, and talking about this figure that's watching. And there's a sketch that is this tall linky man silhouette that just stands.

By versus all these other monsters that it stands out because it's not a.

Monster, just a dude on. His way to the grocery store.

Just the Abyss Convenience Store. Got to pick up some talkies.

Got to go to Trader reco's. I'm sorry.

Okay.

Greg is out on the cave raid with Nat. They're chatting. They're finding these weird, like, egg things with his metal arms. Is super strong and can lift up, like the big heavy rocks that people haven't been able to lift. And they also find another skeleton in prayer. And they're just doing their orphans stuff.

You know how looking for pennies. Oh, there was the opening sequence in this episode, and I just wanted to point out I like it because the opening song is sung by the rico and regs Japanese voice actors.

I did not pick up on that or really noticed the opening out there. It was fun.

It's an opening.

Yeah, it wasn't amazing. But who lies?

So they're talking about The Abyss, and Nat gets mad at the concept of them leaving and storms off.

Before that. When Ray finds the skeleton, nat tries to scare him a little more by telling him, like a spooky rumor about kids in the Western District dying on their birthdays. And when they wake up, they look in a mirror and their necks all twisted, and it's kind of like a bad omen that they're going to die that day from whatever's killing off these kids spooky.

I was going to skip it because it doesn't really come into play.

It does in episode five.

Does it?

A little bit. We'll get there okay? We don't need to linger on it.

Did I miss it?

It's real quick. It's real quick. Or no later in this episode. Never mind. Keep going.

Yeah. Beach. You can.

It works.

Yeah.

Settle down.

This is my episode.

Settle down, class.

So reg catches up to Nat, who is feeling sick from The Curse of the Abyss, which I guess is something.

That they talk about in episode two, I guess. But it's like a disease.

It's like extreme altitude poisoning where you can go in and come out at certain levels, fine. But if you go too far in, you'll start getting different effects. So level one, you'll start feeling like sick. Level two, you get like, worse. And at a certain point you can come back up. If you go down to a certain level and come back up, you'll just straight die from it. So some levels is just pretty much suicide because you can never come back up.

Like the benz.

Yeah, exactly.

Except you now live on the bottom of the ocean now.

Exactly. congrats. You're a fish man.

This is my house now.

So they're back at the orphanage that night. They're getting their final plans together because they're deciding to descend into the Abyss tomorrow. So shiggy managed to swipe the most recent map of the Abyss for them, and we get a breakdown of the different layers of the level two is like an upside down forest that it's fine to go there, but it's just dangerous. The further you get down, the survival rate of everyone that goes down there is much lower and you need to be a much higher rank. I think there were like seven layers, and starting at layer six, that was sort of the point of no return, where the returning people you could count on one hand. So it's super duper duper dangerous.

Yeah. The danger escalates real fast.

So as they're sort of getting all their plans together, nat is like, you're all idiots. You really think your mom is just sitting in the bottom of a pit? She's dead. Just accept that she's dead. And that makes rico cry because yeah, why wouldn't it?

Logically.

So.

Rico kind of like runs out and reg is kind of sitting there, like with the rest of the gang, just kind of like, nah, think I'll go with her. I think I'll help her out.

Yeah.

Sorry, my notes are not good. Yeah, they're all starting to leave because they're all going to walk out and help rico and reg get to the abyss. But before they go, reg wants to go back in and try to find that because they may never see him again and don't want that bad moment to be their last memory of each other. So he sneaks into the main sleeping quarters. Yes, sleeping quarters. Bunk room.

I guess they got bunk beds. So being an orphan's not all bad.

Yeah.

I may not have parents, but at least I have a bunk bed.

He goes in to find ned, who's not there. He finds like a stuffed animal or pillow in his place in his bed.

But also finds Kiwi. And Greg says his goodbye is there and is like, oh, also, your birthday soon. Don't look in the mirror. Goodbye, good luck.

See, it's relevant. Well, Kiwi is also sick. Like, he's coughing.

Yeah, he coughs.

So important. We're going to get into the Kiwi chronicles after this. That's a whole spin off. No, about his birthday party.

Like, you joke, but like, what if.

He'D probably do that thing if he had a tissue, he'd probably do that thing where he coughs into it and pulls back next.

Yeah, probably something like that.

So sneaking back out of the bunk room, the adult finds him as like, hey, what are you doing, the fuck? Which is also confusing to me since we didn't see the part where he was established as being an orphan. So I was like, oh, the jig is up. They found this rubo boy and he was like, no, chill, just got a poop.

Don't mind me, just pooping my robot poop things.

And the adults like, hey, and also, where's rico? I checked in on her. Also pooping. So I got to get to it, chief.

We love to poop.

You know us orphans. Pooping is our favorite thing.

Oh my God.

So, yeah, they run away and they get out of the building. So they're all walking to the old wharf Quarter, which has like an unguarded path down into the abyss so they can sneak down the back road. And they're being led there by a surprise. It's Nat, because he is from this quarter and knows the secret ways where they won't get caught.

I like how he comes out covered with his face covered in a mask. And rica just immediately just like, Nat, what the fuck? It just calls him out instantly.

My dude, you are not sneeze.

You're as subtle as a truck.

So they get to the final dock and Nat apologizes, being like, hey, that wasn't cool. And the apology is accepted by rico. And they're going out on good terms. They talk about trying to keep in touch by sending up their signal balloons with mail. But the deeper they go, the less likely the balloon makes it to the top. So the plan is just going to be to spam a bunch of balloons up so odds are will make it. So as they're about to jump down, everyone's super emotional, everyone's super cry. Greg finds like a note in his bag that isn't addressed here and they jump on down. And that's basically the episode.

Yeah, I like this area because it's kind of like the slumsa area. And as nat's guiding him through, he's kind of explaining like, oh yeah, I was born here. And it's a bunch of people picking through trash and stuff. And they built the city further and further over the abyss. That way they have a better chance of going down like splunking and cave exploring. And that's why there's kind of the secret entrance way of getting in. And they said by building the buildings over top of the abyss, they're getting the air directly from it and it's making all these people sick. So that's why it's kind of like the slums and the poor dirty area because most people die and get diseases and stuff. So just being in proximity to the abyss or being above it is like killing people. They got that Stank Win, got that.

Deep Earth funk, got that pollution.

Got you. It's all captain planet anime.

It's all a metaphor for climate change. Anyway, episode five starts with them descending into the second layer. They're doing great. Here we go.

Coming up roses.

And they talk about how they were being pursued by someone or something, but they lost them. So they're like, oh, thank goodness there.

Were some raiders on the previous level.

Yeah, it was the teacher and some of the other adults trying to go after them because kids shouldn't be going down the best by themselves, but they got away.

I love that because I just thought they were like bad people. But no, no, there's people who want to help.

There's like a friendly uncle character who catches up with them and he's like, hey, don't go by yourself. I got it. He's like, okay, here's some extra supplies.

Nice.

Wait, if she has, like, an uncle character there, that's like an uncle figure for her. Why is okay.

He's like a shopkeeper. They're just friends. Like, they're not actually related.

Okay, I was about to say uncle. That's a shitty uncle. He's like, yeah, keep chilling in that orphanage. I know your mom's deep in that hole or dead or something, but.

I.

Don'T have the time to deal with I'm so busy.

I got to go back to my miniatures and my train sets, and I don't have time. No, he's just like a family friend. She's at his shop a lot and stuff. So yeah, got you.

But so they're in the second layer, and they're in this forest of, like, big leaf trees. And he's like, These are nice. And she's like, yeah. They're like these little leaves on their stems that point toward the opening of the abyss. So if you're ever lost, just look for these leaves.

Very knowledgeable about the abyss and all the wildlife.

Yeah. And reg says, like, wow, you seem so much smarter down here than up there. And she's like, thank you, I think.

Wow, rude boy.

She's pretty dumb, actually.

We see that she's the nerdy, obsessive type of character about the abyss. So when she's in the abyss and talking about the abyss, she's knowledgeable, but outside of that, in the city, she's just aloof.

Yeah. And then they hear someone calling for help. It sounds like an old man calling for help. And I right away was like, no one has a trap, right?

What could go wrong here?

We're all on board. This is a real human name.

Yeah, super legit.

So they follow the voice, and surprise, they get there, and it's a trash. It is a large bird type creature called a corpse weeper, and its call sounds like someone calling for help. So there's a guy on the ground, and before they say all that, they're like, oh, maybe it was him. But then the bird thing turns around, and it's, like, slurping up his intestines. And they're like, oh, never mind, he's dead.

There's a few title card like intros for some of the episodes, and it's its own language, so I believe in the sobs, they explain it, but we get a little intro card for the corpse sweeper. And it says, while eating through the prey stomach, it blows air through its windpipes and copies the last noises they made when they attacked. So that's why it's like eating through its stomach. It's like breathing air back through its mouth and like, copying the voice metal.

And so they're like, maybe we should go walk away. And then they're distracted, watching the one in front of them. And another one swoops in and snags rico.

Nothing personal, kid.

Just going to feed my little monster children.

And reg shoots his arm, but it gets smacked by another one. There's like a whole bunch there.

They lured him to the nest.

Yeah. And they're all blocking his way so he can't save her. She's flying further and further away, and then he sees her being lowered down to the babies.

Corpse birds.

Yeah. And he has a weird vision, and he goes all blurry. And then he's like, my body remembers how to shoot me. Laser. And then he holds up his hand and he shoots his laser laser malazer. And he saved her.

Just destroyed everything else in sight. Very powerful.

And he grabs her, and she's got, like, Boris on her because she's being affected by the cursed thing, but also probably just because she was freaked out.

We've all been there.

A monster flew her over a bottomless pit.

I'm taking a turn in the car too fast. Like, I get it. Yeah, we've all done this.

Sometimes you say things and I'm like, looking down at my nose, and then I just come back up after you're finished saying something most of the time. And then I realize what you said.

It's not as universal as you think.

It is.

But so Greg is looking over what he just did, and he's like, oh, I did a lot of damage. What if I hit rico? She would have been dead for sure. And he's, like, looking at his hand, and it's all twitchy, and he just has this moment where he's thinking about it, and he's like, I don't know what I am.

A monster.

Who am I about to say that a little bit later? And rico is waking up, and regga is, like, looking over her. He's like, oh, thank goodness she's not injured. And then he noticed she's waking up, and he like, gets all embarrassed. He's like, go heck frick frick. Because while she was unconscious, he undressed her. And she was like, oh. And he was like, you had barf on your clothes. And also I wanted to make sure you weren't injured. And he's like, all blushy and embarrassed, and she's like, It's fine, dude, I.

Could have used reagan College. This would have been real nice if someone took all my vomity clothes off of me when I passed out. Yeah, me either. I had shitty friends in college.

I haven't been to college. Anyway.

I was a shit. I had my roommate accidentally sliced his finger open trying to build a computer, and he just walks in the living room. He's like, hey, I'm walking to the hospital. I need stitches. And my roommates and I were like, Go see it. And then five minutes later, we just looked to each other and we're like, she should have gone with a mop. It just did not.

Dawn so casually went like, well, go to hospital.

Bye.

Have fun.

Love it. So she gets up and she sees all the damage he did. She's like, that's sick, bro. He's like, I don't know. I kind of feel like this is a curse.

It's a big deal.

And she's like, we got to name it. We got to give it a sick name. How about incinerator? He doesn't really object.

Murder. tron five theft.

That's your new. And she looks it over, and she says, you can probably control it. I'll train you.

I don't know what it is, but I'll train you.

That's nice. Yeah, I can do I'll figure it out. I'm so smart down here.

The curse makes me smarter.

And then reg gets all dizzy, and he blacks out, and he has this weird dream, or maybe it's a vision of a corpse weeper eating rico. And while she's being eaten, the sound that's coming out is her saying, it's gone. Over and over again. And then she, like, explodes.

It was the incinerator beam wiping out everything.

Sick. He wakes up. Yeah, and then he wakes up, and she is yelling, it's gone. And he's like, what happened? What happened? And she's like, oh, you're awake. What happened?

Hoops, hoops.

And she's upset because she lost her notebook. She's been taking notes in this little notebook about stuff, and she must have dropped it when the corpse weeper took her beans. And it's at this moment. It's at this moment. They also mentioned that she dropped the star compass, too, which is kind of.

Pointing them to the bottom, or so she thought.

Yeah.

Kind of important.

I mean, it's not that hard to just find the bottom of a hole.

You don't know what the abyss is.

Like, jump. Why don't they just jump?

You'll hit the bomb, eventually catch something.

At the last minute.

Robot man. Yeah, and then reg we missed this too. I think this is an episode two where she's, like, taking notes about his body. So he's like, she wrote about my dip and that I hope it stays lost.

Burn the evidence.

Burn it. Burn it.

Burn the dip.

No, not the dick.

Just kidding. It doesn't and then they're like, let's eat some dinner. So they make up some meats. She grills some meats on a rock.

With some leaves she found. Kind of a pretty good coat for out in the wilderness.

Yeah. And he's like, this is pretty good. There's something weird about it. And she's like, yeah, it's the meat from a corpse weeper that you killed.

Oh.

And he's like, cool.

You mean the thing that gets all its energy and is built on eating human bodies? And you want to eat that, you mean?

Yeah, she's just completely uncomfortable.

The thing with corpse in its name. Cool.

And she's like, you're grossed out by that cute.

You're not even a human idiot. Also, why do you eat organic matter? You're a robot.

I mean, android.

Where does it go?

We powered you with electricity earlier. I don't see the through lot.

She doesn't have batteries to feed them.

Fair.

So then she explains that most of the meat that they eat at the orphanage is from creatures from higher layers of the abyss. And she's like, so most of them have probably eaten human. So then they become part of the flesh, and then they give us their strength. That's the circle of life. And I was like, if that's what sleeps at night, sleep at night, why not? Sure.

Whatever lie you have to tell yourself.

The Circle of Cannibalism.

It's cannibalism by proxy. They're one removed.

We're not watching that shit.

Damn cannibalism.

Oh, God. It's hannibal and ergo proxy mashed up nightmare.

Anyway, we would have half of an interesting setup.

Wow. And so they're going down even more. And we get like this little travel montage. And there's some very nice music playing. The music in the shows. Very nice.

Pretty, despite how disturbing the show is.

And they're going deeper and deeper. And then they're at the deepest part of the second layer, which is the inverted forest. And the waterfalls go up here.

The trees grew from the ceiling and there's the ceiling.

The snozberries taste like snozberries.

Acoustics isn't the call that's coming from inside the house.

Darth vader was luke's father one time.

So Greg tries to use his extendo arms, but it's too windy down there for him to get a grip on anything. Dang.

It all these dang stank winds. They keep blowing my arms all over the way.

And rico starts getting cold. And he's like, oh, you want to get out your cold clothes? And she's like, nah. Like, there's no room for us to spread out all my stuff, so I'll be okay. And then he's like, hold this. And he gives her his helmet that he always has on. And then he takes off his cape and lets her wear it. Yeah. Got your baby. And then I've got you, pal.

Mutual friend.

So he puts his helmet back on and there's this, like, weird rune that shows up in like the headlamp part of it. And she's like, whoa, what's that? And he's like, I have no idea.

I can't see it's on my head.

Can't see it. I don't even know who I am, baby. And then it goes away. So they don't really get a good look at it. And then something throws a rock at reg.

Good thing he's got that helmet.

Yeet. Yeah. And then they look over and it's these monkeys that are called in bios.

They're like crazy.

But they monkey.

They monkey.

They monkey. I'm baby. I'm monkey. Okay, sloppy. I don't know why he said they monkey. And I immediately was like, I'm baby. Greg gets the strength to use his arm while everybody all the monkeys are tossing stuff at them. And he uses it. But then the nbos throw them off course. And the wind, he crashed down on a tree. And then rico just, like gets up and starts going and he's like, you know where you're going? And she's like, yeah.

It'S not my first video.

And then we see a girl looking into a telescope thing, and she's like, oh, people are on the approach. Should I lower the gondola for the master? And she turns around and she's like, hello, master. And there's no response. And then they keep walking toward this place called the seeker Camp. And they remark about how things further from the center of the abyss seem more peaceful. And it was at this point in the show that they started saying a lot of things, and it gave me and I didn't write down any of it because I was like, what the fuck are you talking about? None of it made sense to me. I was reading the subtitles, and I was like, I don't know what you're talking to this point here.

Yeah, they start throwing out, like, force field and stuff. It's basically like the weird energy the abyss has. It comes from the center, so everything's drawn to it. This force field is able to pull in natural light from above. So despite how far down they are, natural light is still able to come down, which is able to give energy to the wildlife and stuff. And the closer things are to the center, the more dangerous it is. So the secret camp is kind of off to the side, like, away from everything.

Got you. So they approach the seeker Camp, and it looks like a tree. They disguised it as a big upside down tree. And rico says, usually when people approach, they'll lower the gondola, but they didn't do that for us. And then reg thinks, yeah, it's a red whistle and a rope. Two children, they're probably stuffed. And so she's like, can you use your arms? And he's like, I can sure as heck try. He tries and he makes it. Yeah, but then he looks at her, and he's like, someone grabbed my arm.

Oh, my God, something's licking me.

And then this is another part where I was just like, what's happening? So there's a woman up there, and she's like, that little breath still alive. And then the narrator was talking, but I thought it was still her. So I was like, what's happening?

I felt the same thing.

The narrator says something about her. Her name is ozen, the unmovable immovable. And the narrator says something about a glint in her eye. Maybe it'll give them hope. And I was like, she has dead eyes, and she definitely doesn't want them to be there. So what do you mean? This is narrator? That's probably rico's mom.

No, that's not dark. I don't know what you're talking about.

But anyway, I was deeply confused by the end of this episode, and now I'm here.

Hey, Brendan, where was that vital birthday disease thing in this episode?

I was misinformed and wrong. I can admit it. It was in episode three.

It was just the part in episode three where Kiwi cough.

Don't die. Yeah, that was it.

But yeah, that's episode five.

Oh, and then we get like the little outro, at least in this episode.

Yeah, the outro.

Yeah, it's like almost like paper cutouts, kind of like little figures. And it's rico and reich going down the abyss and their adventures so far. And once again, the song is sung by the two Japanese voice actors.

Yeah, it's cute. It's fun.

Yeah, I really liked it. Yeah, but enough about me. No one cares about my opinion. That's why they don't listen to the other podcast. Are we there yet?

I had a lot of fun with it. I thought it was going to be like darker and more menacing than it was. It was just some kids going on the adventure. I liked it.

It's early.

Yeah. I'm interested only because every time it's mentioned someone, well, lady fools, you know, nothing. Yeah. So it's just like, well, what the fuck happens? And I'll be honest, after watching these three episodes, I was like, maybe I'll just look up what happens. But I didn't do that because I kind of it's only twelve episodes short. 1313.

How dare you?

Still short enough that you could easily watch it in one weekend or at least a week.

Yeah.

The biggest thing that worked for me was it reminded me of a book series I read growing up. It was the underworld chronicles. The first book. It's the suzanne Collins who wrote Hunger Games wrote gregor the overlander, which is about like, a boy falling into an underground kingdom and needing to do some stuff, but there's like super real death and monsters and stuff and it doesn't do that kiddy shit of shying away from it. They're like, oh no, your friends are dead, my dude.

Oh no, I got attacked by a warp bandits. I got a few scraps, but I'm okay. I'll just have a broken arm for a bit. nah, man, they're dead. They're like super dead.

I'm the hero and a beam of light saved me at the last second. No, none of that.

The beam of light and this one's evil.

But yeah, I just really liked the very colorful, creative monsters that seemed fun and weren't just like dark, edgy, necrotic beings of death. And it was a nice juxtaposition of having like the real consequences of the world, but seeing it through young kid eyes.

Yeah, we see more animals throughout the show, which I really love because I love all the weird animals. But yeah, they're not just like all corpse sweepers. They're not all just like predatorial monsters. We saw like this weird lizard later upstairs. You see like this weird little like, pig thing and they go into like the etymology of that and they're just kind of like, oh yeah, it does this and then this happens and it's like, oh, this is really neat. It's this whole unique world. And it's not just like I mean, I love avatar, but it's not like it's a bear and a platypus. How crazy is that? They're actual interesting ideas.

No, this just says, what bear?

No, it's like a bear wolf.

Just a bear.

But yeah, I love how fleshed out and how it's its own world and like ecosystem and stuff. And not just yeah, like the shadow demons live on level three and it's.

The yeah, I mean, this is just hell.

True.

It's got the seven layers or just.

Like a really bad dip.

That can be hell. Am I right?

You get to the bottom of that container. It's just how the hero peppers spice.

I mean, anyway.

It was intriguing. I didn't finish it the first time, but I might.

Hear one episode further than you were.

I think this is definitely, like I was saying, the crest of the tone of the show, like, all right, here we go. Here's the momentum. And without all the prologue exposition stuff of like, here's the world, here's where we live. Now we're into the meat of the adventure with episode five.

Well, I think also my problem is that because I know some shit happens in the second last episode, I now have to sit through seven other episodes while I'm just thinking, like, I just want to know what happens. It's not even like, oh, maybe I can infer what's going to happen. I just want to know what happens. So I'm afraid that I'll just get bored and then just skip or look up what happens or something.

I mean, I'll say it's an interesting ride from here on out. Like I said, the earlier parts, I think are the most boring. So I think you will at least be entertained if you watch it. But clearly from this podcast, we have varying degrees from all three hosts. So I don't know how invested it'll keep you. I'll be absolutely flabbergasted if dugan keeps watching it. He likes it.

This would be something I would put on in the background as I did something else.

Yeah. And it's a lot better now that there is a dub like we were talking about. You can do something else while listening to the English audio now and then. There's nothing like it's not a hard detective mystery where you have to try and find out the clues before the characters do. You know what's happening? But yeah, I'm surprised.

Yeah.

Wasn't sure how this was going to go.

So what do we have going on next week?

Next week we're watching a show that I've only recently heard about called Kids on the slope. I've heard it's very good, so I'm excited to give it a go. It's a we're gonna watch episodes one, two, and three.

It's a slice of life about kids in New York living in Park slope.

It is a slice of life about.

Kids in a jazz well, shit.

Yeah, you might be close.

I assumed skiing, indoor snowboarding.

No, it's. Not a sports anime. Jazz.

Jazz is watching johnny tsunami jazz.

I love that movie.

Jazz is a sport anyway, that's what's happening.

All right, cool. Well, if there's a show you would like us to watch, you can send us suggestions. You can reach out at are we there yet? On Twitter and Instagram. Or you can email us at arweevariat@gmail.com. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at mrpatrickdugin.

You can find me on Instagram at queen. Period weebu and on Twitter at queen underscore weebu and queen underscore weebu art. And you can find me at anime Expo on July 5. I'm only going the one day I'm cos playing Loop from the Adventure zone. And if you see me, come say hi. Talk to me about anime.

You can find me on Twitter at abts. Brendan. I don't do a lot of stuff, so don't find me. Leave me alone. Give me my space.

Hey, he's a sleepy man. Let him rest.

I got a lot of stuff to sleep on.

Let him rest.

My couch, my floor, my bed, the bathtub. That's my favorite one.

Nice and cold in the bathtub.

Don't have to worry about ruley.

Helps realign the back. Thank you to camille ruley for her artwork. And thank you to Louisong for our theme music stories off the album Beats. You can find all of louie's music at Louisong bandcamp.com.

Thank you, and we hope you will.

Join us next time as we learn to live within.

Don't get strung up, naked and beaten by the headmasters.

Video you.