AWTY 172 - Hall Monitor Knife (Toilet Bound Hanako-kun)

That is total pulse nonsense. Hello and welcome to our We There Yet in exploration and education and anime. I'm your anime idiot, patrick dugan.

I am an anime expert, dee hollander.

And I'm brenda mccullough. Your anime strange hand in the toilet. Looking for some toilet paper. ala major's mask. Oh yeah. I was going to say the name of it, but the official name of that character is just three question marks. Thanks zelda.

That's how I felt when you said that. So it works.

I swear I can la I'm cosplaying my favorite character.

What?

Shrug.

I didn't know that existed. That's weird.

Nintendo you have to get it a deep to like a piece of property and it's like, thanks for the paper. And it gives you a heart piece. It's like, what did you do with that paper, Mr. Toilet Hand? You know what he did with that paper. Anyway, what does that have to do with anything? You might ask yourself. I asked.

Don't worry, we're not straying far from this topic we are trying to segue away from. Unfortunately, this is a recommendation from our friend abby who you can listen to on our bleach episode, which is a little bit scary when it comes to show recommendations if you're brendan it's feral.

Or at least the bleach episode was, show wreck wise. She's big brain. I'm too smooth brain for some of her wrecks, that's why.

But we are watching this week Toilet bound honeycoon.

Yeah, see toilets. I was on the mark. It's just a gross mark we got there, but yeah.

Is this a series either of you are familiar with?

Yeah, I mean I've heard of it and I've seen art from it and cosplayers, but I never watched it because of the title. I don't know about that one.

That is genuinely why it sat on our list for so long. I was like, the first word is toilet already. There cannot be gold here.

Yeah, but I've only heard good things about it and I also know that it's about Japanese urban legends and I think that sounds really neat, so I'm excited to watch it.

Yeah, I've heard stuff saying like, oh, it's not about toilet humor, it's really not about toilet. That's just where hanukkah is. And it's like, sure, but they're also basing like they're trying to pique your curiosity by putting toilet in the title. It could have just been like something Hanukkoku, it could have been something else. But yes, I know a decent amount about this show, mostly from abby just nerd vomiting it at me, like against my will. Our friendship is a mutual assured destruction of just one of us getting obsessed with something and then just bombarding the other with it no matter how much they don't care and we do it to each other. So it's a give and take.

But I know need me a friend like that.

You do. But you'll have to dig our theories. Yeah. Find a partner in your life that will tolerate you. What more, that's all you need. But yeah, I know. A decent amount. Not a ton, but yeah, mostly that it's about various urban legends and myths and folklore and stuff.

Yeah, just looking it up. It looks like this premiered January 2020. So relatively fresh.

It did. I could have sworn this came out in like 2018.

Yeah, I thought this was older too, but I was like, journalistic integrity, due diligence. Find out. No, it's much more recent than I thought.

Yeah, weird. I mean, that was two years ago, but still very new. I know, right?

I was like, yeah, 2018 was too. Wait, no, that's not right.

It's a time loop.

Okay. The manga came out 2014, so maybe that's maybe that got some attention. And that's where some people I know. That's where abby started reading it. I don't think she's watched it.

So she's just recommending the show to us without having watched it.

It wouldn't be the first time something like that's happened. We've got some live pics.

Hey, we cannot complain. That is our duty. We are here to watch the show so you don't have to if it sucks.

No, true.

Abby, stand back. Stand back, abby. We're going to watch the first three episodes.

Here we go.

We're back in it. I hate that. The intro is going to be don't cross the streams for both ghosts and toilets.

Better than anything I would have had.

Well, here we are. How do we toilet themed? Don't worry, it's less toilet themed than the titles.

That you're yeah, we're all good. Okay.

Yes. We made it through.

Okay. So for our first episode, we open up on the rumors being told about the school, all the urban legends, all the things to look out for. In particular, we're warned about one of the Seven Wonders. And in the third floor girl's bathroom, the last 7th stall, if you knock three times and call for hanukkah, a girl ghost will come out and grant your wish, but at a cost. You won't know until it's done.

So much better than our myths. Bloody Mary just kills you. Yeah.

Name?

Then you die.

Yeah.

What can I get for you?

And then you die.

But as this narration is happening, we see our main character. Yeshiro, she's going in and doing the actions as they're narrated and summons someone. The door opens by itself and we see a boy. Yeah. He appears behind her and startles her. She tries to push him away, but he's a ghost, so hands go right through. She, of course, is freaked out because she was expecting the rumor of this ghost is she has like a black bob haircut and like a red dress, but that does not match the description of the ghost that appeared. And he's like, yeah. The rumors over the years, they kind of strayed far from where they started, but by all accounts, this is the ghost she's looking for. And he asked, what is your wish? So the wish that she has is she wants her crush to like her back as much as she likes her. And this is referring to the most popular and nicest boy in school. He picked up my pencil case for me once, so I'm in love, of course, to make a deal with the spirit world.

Classic. I want to tie myself to this guy forever. How old am I? It doesn't matter.

Once again, they're dumb teenagers. It's like the premise for school. Why would you do they're dumb teenagers? That's all it is.

Children.

Got it. Children.

Hanukkah offers his help and he goes back into a stall. He's like, come here, you'll get your wish. And he pulls out a love self help book.

Very good. I did laugh. I was like, oh, of course.

Yeah.

So she's like, hey, I thought I was signing a deal with the devil. I'm willing to pay any cost. What is this? He's like, yeah. So this is asking for someone to love you, like manipulating someone else's heart. The cost on you is going to be way too high. I don't want to put that on you. Let's try like, romance first. She's like, no, I don't want to do that. I want the quick and easy option. Just make him fall in love with me. He's like, cool, I guess you called my bluff, because I can't do that. So I guess back to the book.

It is jokes on you. We don't have another option.

This is all I can offer. So they looked through the book and he's like, all right, the first thing, know your own strengths and gifts that you can offer. What can you show off in front of your crush? So she's like, well, for my last crush, I wanted to be the ultimate girly girl and learn how to, like, garden and cook and sew and all that stuff. So I'm a member of the gardening club, so I can garden. Good. How is that marketable? Well, that is a good question.

That garden is so beautiful, though. Yeah, I love the colors in this show. They're very warm and autumnal. I'm very into it.

Yeah, I'll say about the style of it's, definitely. I don't want to say unique because that kind of sounds passive grossage. It's not too mind blowing, but it's very well done. It has thick outlines and stuff in.

The other yeah, the line weight is very interesting.

Yeah, it does work.

It has that slightly cheebe aesthetic that made me think it was older because it has very 2000 style animation. But it is very updated and modern looking and nice. Yeah. She mentions she joined all these clubs. She wants to be the ultimate girly girl for her last crush, who when she confessed her love, he called her dicom legs.

Poor thing.

Seeing her feet heather kind of like just straight lines down to the palm. It really reminded me of my life as a teenage robot show where it was like, no foot, just leg to the ground.

No, it's all one piece.

I don't want to call feet. fuck it. I get that.

But they do it. I love that it is just her legs. That's not like, a character design. It's not a general character design. It is just her.

It's specifically her. Yeah.

So, like, hearing the backstory about the old crush, the ghost is like, okay, cool. So do you actually have a crush on this new guy, or are you just falling in love with the next available person? And that's who it happened to be? And she's like, no, I love this man. I want to marry him. We have talked once, so can you help me? He's like, okay, so based on the gardening, you're doing great. What I'll do here's a little, like, gift card. You're going to write a little sweet message. You're going to wrap it around what you grew. I assume it's flowers, that this wouldn't really work any other way, but you'll leave flowers on his desk and you'll give him a present. Cool. But what she grew was tomatoes and cucumbers or zucchini. So she just leaves an extremely vague note that says, like, thanks for helping. Just leave some vegetables on his desk. And everyone's like, did you help? Like, a vegan who just left this here?

To be fair, I'd rather do the vegetables than flowers.

Useful, much more practical. But yeah, walking away, it doesn't work. So she's like, yelling at the ghost. His plan didn't work. People in the hallway are like, why is that girl yelling at the ceiling? So, yeah, we get a quick montage of a couple of other plans. He has a button missing on his jacket, so she wants to offer to sew it up, but everyone else wants to help. She tries making him a boxed lunch, but it's like a monster theme, so he's like, not romantic at all. This is not a romantic gift for me. Someone must have left it here. Tries to, like, accidentally neat, cute, bump, turning a corner. But her timing is off, and she knocks someone else down the stairs and just like, bones are broken. It's the shouting of like, oh, my God, the block.

Yeah, the off camera yelling was excessive, but why wouldn't you just go for it? If you're recording it, just scream. Make it seem worse than it is because you never see it.

Yeah, so, yeah, they try all these things. They aren't working, and they're like, okay, new plan. Have you talked to him? Can you tell him? Can you communicate with the person you want to love forever?

Weird, never heard of it.

I think hanukkah even asked him, what's his first name? She's like, that's a tough one.

But yeah, so he reveals, like, yeah, I'm really scraping the bottom of the barrel here. To be honest, no one actually fully summons me. There's just a rumor. You're, like, the first person in a while to do this, so I am very out of practice. So he's like, oh, here's like a cursed little doll thing you can give him. And she freaks out and throws it out the window. And while he's looking out the window, he drops something, a little baggy. So she picks it up and is like, what's this? And he's like, oh, that's just for matchmaking. anyways, give it back to me. She's like, what? Holding out on me? So she puts it in her mouth to play keepaway. And she's like, all right, you're going to tell me what this is right now and why you haven't given it to me already? He's like, oh, well, slow down. Okay, so what you have are cursed mermaid scales. So if you swallow that, you'll get the mermaid's curse. And before he can even finish the thought of elaborating, she swallows it.

The dumbest choice I've seen. aquamarine. I want to be a mermaid.

She doesn't even know the matchmaking element.

No.

Yeah, she just heard the word curse and was like, I should not spit this out immediately. I should continue having it in my mouth until I accidentally swallow it.

Hell yeah. gulp.

You'll be linked together with someone forever. Don already sold it. That could mean so much when talking to a ghost.

Yes. So she swallows it and she's like, I don't care. I said, I will accept any price. I need this boy to love me. And she's like, you're wasting my time, so I will take it into my own hands. So she runs and goes to find minato and sees another girl as asking him out. Oh, no. Flu. But his response is, oh, sorry, I'm in love with someone else. The hope, it's gone. It's shattered. All that swallowing for nothing. So as she's seeing that, she's like, oh, no. And her vision starts to get weird. She looks down, she's growing scales, grows, and then she passes out and gets sucked into the Nightmare realm. I guess she's just having a little dreamscape moment, but she's just floating. And she's like, oh, it's all my fault. I didn't talk to him at all. I didn't do any of the actions that would indicate I A, know him or B, like him. So she's like, oh, yeah, this was real dumb. But finally she starts coming too. She's in a weird environment. She doesn't understand it's a fish bowl because she turned into a fish shucks. Oh, man. Happens every time I had a nickel.

I get cursed by a mermaid yearly.

So hanukkah saved her, put her in water so she could live, and he's like, yeah, you idiot. You could have listened to me. The curse of the mermaid is you become the mermaid's fish slave, and if you give the other scale to someone else. You are bonded together, both being fish slaves. So you're like, all right, I guess we're in this together, you and me. We're in love, right? Love is very second place. What those scales actually do.

Yeah, they're bonded together forever, but not through love, through usual trauma. Like when we watch cats together, digging.

Love a good trauma bond. But yeah, of course, she is freaking out. She's like, oh, no, my mistakes. This was a bad choice. Turn me back. But that's when the mermaid comes to claim her new slave. So a big ghostly fish appears in this empty classroom. Naturally, they're in an empty classroom right in the middle of the day. It's fine, no one else. So she goes to collect her, but hanukkah is like, I'm not done. I still have wishes to serve this might territory. Get out. But she doesn't back off. So he has to fight her off. So, yeah, quick little anime fight, nothing special. But he manages to send her away for now, but warns she'll be back. hanukkah offers yoshiro, hey, are you sure you still care about that love thing? I can give you a different wish, make you human, but whatever the cost is, you're going to have it. And she's like, I don't care. I already told you. God, why do I have to say this so many times? I don't care about responsibilities or what I owe other people. Just do things for me. So he's like, all right. And he swallows the other scale of the mermaid.

Oh, my goodness.

They're bonded.

Oh.

So she turns back and he's like, all right, do you want to know what the cost was? I'm going to need your body or manual labor, Mr. It. So in accepting the other half of the mermaid's curse, she gets her human body back, albeit she can't get wet. You know, standard land bound mermaid rules. Can't get wet or you'll reveal it.

Yeah, we've all seen the 13th year on Disney Channel.

Yeah, exactly. But she is now going to be spending lots of time with him because she is his servant now. haha. Much better than serving a mermaid. Got to serve a toilet. Ghost episode one.

Well, yeah. Wait a minute. See what the mermaid was doing? Like, it might have been cool.

At least she's not a fish.

Yeah.

So in episode two, we open with yoshiro explaining what we just saw. Her and hanukkah have a bond now, and she's his assistant, whatever that means. A week goes by, and she's cleaning the bathroom that he lives in. And she's like, I have to go. I have something to do. And he's like, well, after you're done cleaning the bathroom, I need you to do this thing so you can't go to but she's like, I have a date with this really cool guy. A different guy.

Yeah, this show is kind of monster of the weekboy of the week. Yeah, every episode has a new hot guy.

So she says that she's like, I have a date. And then she explains that they're meeting to organize some student council paperwork and also that he has somewhere to be. So he's leaving right after she gets there. And hanukkah is like, so it's not a date.

It's not a date at all.

And he tells her not to go because he can show her a better time than that guy can. wink. And she says, I'd rather sort paperwork by myself than clean a bathroom with you.

Wink, wink.

Hey, baby, let me show you a good time. You love polish and porcelain. That is not a euphomony, hayo.

But if she doesn't do what he says, she's going to be a fish. So she has to. And then later on, she's in class thinking about, like because hanukkah says all that guy's just using you to do his work. And she's like, if anybody's using me, it's hanukkah. And then we see a spooky blob under the desk behind her. The teacher calls on her to read, and then she stands up, looks down, and her notebooks and textbook are gone. And so is this, like, little skullbroach that she wears. What happened? We'll find out.

We'll find out next week.

And then after class, her friend owie tells her that she might know where her things went. So she explains, apparition, I suppose, named yose, and that even if you're looking after something, you make sure it's not going to go anywhere. yose will steal it from you. And if you look directly at it, it'll take your life just living in the school.

That creepy murderer. And none of us can see he's around.

Yeah, he's a fun guy. Yeah, but it's just a rumor, right?

Right.

But it turns out other people in the classroom have been losing things, too. And then they go out in the hall and see that all of the locker doors are gone, too.

That was the wildest one for me. Yeah, I misplaced my lunch. It's like, yeah, that happens. Like, the doors were ripped off the hinges.

Like, okay, yeah, that's more noticeable. Yeah, I should have seen something.

Yeah, that can only be supernatural.

Yeah, I was like, before, it could have just been a pickpocket or something. Now it's like, hey, wait a minute.

Hold on a second.

Also, all the basketballs are floating in the gym.

Oh, this green slime oozing out of the wall now.

They always do that. And then just then, something bumps into owi. She's holding a watering can, and she splashes yashiro with the water, and her scales show. So she runs away really fast, and she says out loud, like, oh, I was so worried, I ran to the old building, whatever that means. But it's a spooky school, and the old building is probably the spookiest of them all.

Is there this many Japanese schools that just have abandoned buildings or like yeah, we have this full building. We just don't use it anymore.

I don't know.

Terrible. Yeah.

I was about to say no property. We really need a new school. Can we build it across town? Sorry, you can't. We already have the school zone. So I guess just build around the current building.

What about 5ft to your left? Okay.

Yeah, we'll go stand at the door of the old building and for a rock. And that's where you can build a new building. So she notices that one of hanukkah, he's, like, always surrounded by these two orbs. And, like, one of them is following her. She needs something to dry herself off. She looks down and luckily finds a towel. Hey. Yeah. She keeps walking and finding stuff that people lost. She finds her books and her brooch, and she follows the trail of things to a dark room, where she sees yose, a big, spooky, blob monster with a bunch of eyes. This reminds me a little bit of, like, witch zones in madica magica. A little bit. The monster characters are very, like, modica magica.

Yeah. It's still in the same style. It's not like monica magica, where it's like papercraft now all of a sudden. But the style definitely becomes a lot more like jarring with the apparitions.

Yeah. So it, like, launches out a bunch of hands to grab at her. But hanukkah is there to save her, thank goodness. And he just explodes it real fast, just like the fight with the mermaid. It's just nothing.

Easy peasy. Good being ancient warrior and also a toilet monitor.

Yes. And he's like, what, did you forget you could die? And she feels bad that he had to save her again. And then this little pink, like, bunny looking thing falls on her, and it turns out yose is just a bunch of these little guys called moke.

Just these little guys, they go marshmallow peep.

Yeah. So they shapeshift so they can cluster up like that into that big blob. And hanukkah says they don't usually attack humans. And the little moke guys say that they didn't want to do it, but the rumors do things that they don't want to do. So hanukkah explains that if urban legends don't adhere to the folklore that humans make, they fade away and stop existing, which is a very interesting story element to throw in.

I didn't realize it until Dubai was recapping his episode, but yet hanukkah doesn't look like his rumor or doesn't do all the stuff that his rumor says. So that makes me question about his situation.

Maybe the appearance doesn't matter or something.

Yeah, it's probably a ghost loophole.

Yeah, he's a wonder. It doesn't count for him.

No, he's got special treatment.

Yeah, I was about to say he's squatting on the toilet, but then I realized that that's actually a thing.

So they're eating candy. The mocha is eating candy. And one of them was like, do you want one? Which is very cute.

The virtual.

Yeah. And hanukkah asks Yashiro if she'll change the rumors about the moke. And he explains that as a wonder of the school, it is his job to take care of the apparitions and maintain a good relationship between them and humans, whatever it takes. So he can't spread new rumors because he's a ghost, but yoshiro can. So the mokey apologized. They're like, we just want to keep living here. And she says that she'll do what she can because the moke remind her of her old hamster. They're really cute.

White inferno.

White inferno.

The hamster metal as hell.

Yeah. She says, oh, I owe you one anyway. You saved my life twice, so I'm happy to help. And she's like, oh, is this the thing that you needed me to do after I cleaned the bathroom? And he's like, yeah. And she's like, Do I still have to clean the bathroom? And he's like, of course you do. And he says he looks forward to having her around after school. It's like having a friend. And he misses having friends. So she reaches out to him and she says, hey, what if I give you a nickname? Like a real friend would? She also says she has an idea of how to fix the rumors. And she goes around telling people that when yose takes things from you, it's just because it wants to play. And she tells people that if they keep candy in their pockets, they'll be safe from yose. And we see the moke walking down the hallway when they run into someone who's looking for hanukkah. And they like run off. And he says he's going to exercise hanukkah. So here comes trouble in the form of this red headed young man. Later we see hanukkah and yoshiro hanging out, looking at a magazine at like an ad for a movie. She says, oh, I wish a handsome boy would fall from the sky for me. And hanukkah is like, Are you for real? And she's like, no, but it's fun to imagine things.

I'm talking to a ghost right now. where's your sense of wonder?

Yeah, sorry.

I know I said the word wish, but it's just a fun little fantasy. I know ghosts don't get it.

Yeah, I'm not serious. Don't grant this one. So they're just talking and teasing each other. And then the guy from before shows up from the sky and yashiro for a second is like, wait a minute.

Hold on a second.

Did I do this? I don't remember doing this.

And hanukkah knows who he is, even though they've never met. And he's from the mina moto clan, people who exercise yokai, or what used to be called yokai. And he's been carrying around this umbrella. He smacks hanukkah with it and it electrocutes him. Oh, no. The umbrella has a staff in it that converts the user's spiritual energy into electricity of course it does. Yeah. He moves to attack again, but Yashiro steps in the way, and the boy steps off. Kind of like it seems like he might think she's cute. And Yashiro explains that they're friends and that he saved her. And he's like, this guy hanukkah, he's like one of the most evil apparitions out there. My grandma tried to seal him away, and haven't you noticed that he carries a chef's knife around it's because he murdered someone. You can't trust him. And Joshua is just kind of like, what?

I was wondering about his knife. I'm glad they did address it.

Yeah. And hanukkah gets up saying that it was rude to tell her that because he wasn't ready to tell her that, but it is true. And he asked God for forgiveness, and God said, okay, but you got to do some stuff for me first.

He got to pay me back.

Yeah. So because he owes God, he can't die today. And then another little fight ensues. hanukkah grabs the staff, but it doesn't work on him this time. And he's like, if you give me the staff, I won't fight you. And this kid is like, no. And he's like, yeah, okay. So hanukkah knocks him down, and it seems like he might stab him, but then he just leans forward and flicks his nose, and he puts a seal on the staff, causing it to stop working. And he, like, pulls up the kid's hands, and he's like, I knew it. And we see that he was hurting himself, he was electrocuting himself, because he doesn't actually know how to use the staff. And he says, I don't care if I'm protecting people. I don't care if I get hurt. And hanukkah tells him, don't rush. You'll be a great exorcist one day. And the kid is surprised that he's encouraging him, but then hanukkah punches him in the gut, and Yashiro is like, Is he okay? And hanukkah is like, yeah, he will be. And then she suggests that they hide the staff, and hanukkah is like, oh, you care about me. You don't want me to get exercised even though I murdered somebody. That's pretty wild. And Yashiro just doesn't say anything. She doesn't know how to respond to that right now, which is fair.

There's a lot to take in.

Yeah. And he reassures her that even if he had the staff, this kid wouldn't be able to exercise him anyway because he's not skilled enough. But yeah, now she knows he's a murderer, and she thinks, oh, I don't actually know much about him at all. And then we get, like, a spooky radio broadcast of this girl explaining a staircase that can teleport people to another world. And that's kind of how they do the previews for the next episodes, which is cute. I like it.

Yeah, there's a neat take on it.

Yeah, I like that.

And that's the end of episode two.

Yeah. What do. We got going. Oh, I was confused by minimoto because that's also the love interest in episode one. And it also looks exactly like him. And then this new minimoto, the exorcism one is Co. And he's he said he's from like a middle school and he calls Ishiro sempai. So he's like a grade blower related.

I didn't pay attention to that. I didn't remember the name of the first crush, I guess.

Yeah, the first crush was minato. So I think minimoto was just very confusing. Similar names.

Yeah, I wrote down his name because you see minimoto in the opening. So I'm like, oh, that character is going to be prominent in this series. Let me write down his name and different guy. They just look very similar and have a similar name. Okay, that makes more sense now.

Generic hot man.

Yeah, we've seen hotter.

The thing about this show that I do kind of appreciate is that we don't know how old they are, but they do look like kids. And I like that because they are kids.

I think Yesura says she's a first year in high school.

Yeah.

So she's like 14, something like that. For Japan. Yeah, it's definitely got a childish shevy style to it. Like we talked about before. They definitely look younger. Episode three opens. Oh, we haven't talked about it. Opening goes pretty fucking hard. Like Tokyo ghoul level hard, where I was like, oh, damn, I wasn't expecting this. But it opens with yoshiro replaying the scene in her head of her talking to Hanukkah, confessing that he was for murder. And she's like, I probably got to talk to him about that. And then her friend allie pops up like, hey, what are you doing? You're daydreaming while watering the flowers in class? She's like, oh, yeah, kind of. What's up? She's like, ooh, I heard a new creepy rumor. gossipy little she's like, what? You like the creeper? Yeah, okay. Laid on me. And she talks about the second of the seven Wonders, which I think is also a trope or a common occurrence in anime for schools to have seven wonders at least heard a few times. But the second wonder of the school is the misaki stairs, where if you step on the fourth stair, you're transported to the world of the dead and no one notices you. When you go missing, no one remembers you. And at twilight, you can see the blood of the victims dripping on the stairs. And Yeshiro kind of gets freaked out. Less so because of the rumor itself, but more so. She's like, shit, the last rumor she told me came true and roped me in it. So I'm probably going to get roped into this one. I was like, that's a very reasonable expectation.

Yeah.

Especially if you know a ghost.

Yeah. And just being like, oh, shit. These are like actually real. So now I know that that's probably real.

Boy here we go. Again. And her friend apologizes, being like, oh, sorry. I didn't mean to freak you out. You just seemed stressed. I wanted to make you smile again. I was like, yeah, question. We'll see. We don't need to rush it. And then we see a teacher leaning in the doorway, and he goes, how are you? You can't be my students because my students won't be late like you're supposed to be. And, like, dangling. I don't know about this guy. He gave me a real creepy vibe. Not like the pervy teacher, but like, hey, I'm the cool teacher that all the girls have crushed. It's like, yeah, just get out.

I don't like the teacher from erased.

Yeah, kind of where he's like, something about this guy just threw me over. I'm like, I know what you mean. But he basically says, like, allie has a career counseling, and she's late for it. And she's like beans. All right, I got to go. And runs off to the career counseling room, which is by the art room, which is where the misaki stairs are. We'll have to get that shoot and saying, like, did I say that right? yasha wrote yashiro. yashiro saying she's excited to see how the flowers are doing tomorrow because she's been taking care of them for a while. So she cut two. Next day, she comes into class and see the flowers, and they're gone. What? She has the teachers like, what about the flowers? Like, oh, you mean like the one hibiscus plant we have? Yeah, that guy is taking care of it. And there's a guy, like, absently watering it, doing a shitty job. She's like, what? That's not the right flowers. Let me ask Ali. It's like who? It's like, Ali my friend's. Like, no, we don't have anyone by the name. She's like, whoa. It goes running off. And she knows that ali's desk is also missing. So when she goes running off, as she's running, she goes to call ali's phone. No answer. The phone line is dead. She calls out ali's house, and her mom picks up. She's like, hey, where's Ali? She's not in school today. It's like who? What are you talking about? I don't have a daughter.

And it's like, no, this one's pretty spooky, honestly.

Yeah, it showed that the apparitions and ghosts go beyond the school. Like when she called the mom, I was kind of like, oh, damn, that's powerful. And as she's running down the hallway stairs, still she's running towards the stairs, she bumps into dreamboat number three. Don't get this one's name. Which is great because I wouldn't have remembered it. Anyway. She gets knocked over, and he helps her up. And as he's helping her up, she's like, oh, God, he's hot. He's running like a necklace. I guess. I don't know. He looks the same as everyone else to me.

He's in the opening, so he's going to do something.

Yeah, he helps her up and they both go their own separate ways. And as she's running off, we see a paper crane that was like, sitting on her head fly off and then fold up and go into her pocket. And as it does that, it cuts back to the hot guy, who turns back and kind of scoffs like, got it. He seems like something's going on. It's the last that we see of that guy in this episode, so I definitely hope there's a pay off later.

I slipped a business card with my sound cloud link on it.

Now I will blow tape it's an aspiring rapper.

The cloud will be mine.

And sherry runs to the bathroom and tells Hanukkah about ali's disappearance. And suddenly we see Co kicking door, goes and starts grabbing hanukkah being like, yeah, where'd you take my friends? My friends are also missing. What the fuck is going on? And it's like, cool, subtle. You don't even go to this school. What? And Hanukkah says, like, yes, that's one of the seven wonders of the school. All of the wonders are portals to the spirit world. And they're not direct portals. They're more of like the boundaries between the spirit worlds. So they got to go to these boundary worlds that are connecting everything. Lost souls go there, as well as things with items with strong emotional attachments that people abandon. So stuff just kind of ends up there in Hanukkah. So it's like, it's easy. We'll just go and bring him back. He's kind of like a hall monitor between the spirit world and the fiscal world. Keeps everyone in check. Also has a knife, like all hall monitors do.

Standard issue.

Yeah. And Co says, all right, I'm going with you, if nothing else, to protect your shiro. He's like, cool. She doesn't need it. We're bonded. She's already protected. If you go, you're not going to be protected. So have fun dying in their champ. Once again, he's like, I'm twelve. If I die for the greater good, then I'll gladly do it. It's like, you'll just die.

Come on, kid.

It won't be for anything. And sure enough to go to the stairs. And as you have to have it, it's twilight, and they're all bloody. You got blood dripping down on them. And the blood was dripping from the ceiling down onto the stair. It wasn't just oozing out of the stair, which I feel like if anyone saw me, like, hey, what the fuck? It was a lot more obvious than just like a subtle leakage of blood. But yeah, sure enough, they go up the stairs, they step on the fourth step, and they're transported to this different realm. And it's all starscape behind them in the sky. And this realm is full of stairs and red Tory gates. Very stylish. And they're walking around noticing all the random trinkets that people lost over the years. And castro finds like a little puddle. Oh, a puddle. And touches it and immediately starts scaling out. I don't know as she did that. She knows better. Come on. It didn't do anything. He was just like, oh, right, I have to hide my scales from Co. And then hanako says, students of the school don't appreciate when apparitions do stuff for them or help them out. They usually blame it on, like, good luck or the universe helping them out. But whenever something bad happens or scary, they always go to blame the apparitions first.

That's a good point.

Yeah. I mean, especially if, you know, apparitions and ghosts are real, it's definitely like, maybe I should rethink of how we think about them rather than just spooky ghost stories. And then the phone rings. Turns out there's a phone near them in this room. Andy shiro picks it up, and it's misaki the stairs themselves on the other side of the phone, saying, we also find out she's like the dare raider at the end of the episode that was doing, like, that radio voice. I'm like, oh, that's an Italian.

I don't think she is.

No. All right. I'm an idiot.

I think that's the girl with green hair from the opening.

That's what I thought. I wasn't sure. Yeah, she is in the opening is.

The same, so it is easy to mix them up, because I also thought.

That yeah, I think there's, like, an effect on the phone, and that's not that similar to the effect on the radio. Okay, so, yeah, it's misaki is on the phone, and she's upstairs. She's the second wonder, and she said she used to be a teacher here at the school, but she died here, and her body was dismembered. So if they want to get through her world, her realm, they have to find her right arm and deliver it to the shrine before class starts. And she hangs up. And when she hangs up, we see the little gate to the shrine open up where they have to make the offering. And we see a big hourglass tip over as the timer starts. And hanako says, like, well, it's her realm. She's unbeatable here. Like, we can't just kill her in her own realm. So Bezbet is probably just play along and see how far we can go. Yeshira starts looking for the arm hanako chases to go around with the dirty magazine he finds randomly, and while he's chasing him around, yesterday fantasizes, like, is that what boys want? They just want tig bitty women. What if I had some tig old biddies that starts fantasizing about that for a while and waves that daydream away? It's like, no, I got to stay focused, I guess. Keep looking. I find co found a wooden, big, muscular arm that's, like, flexing. And hanako found, like, a robot arm. What are you doing? Why are you wasting her time here for? You found these. You think this would be her arm now, you're dumb. Because in the meantime, you sure? Yeah. There it is. I'm losing it. yashiro yoshiro found a mannequin arm. And she's like, what are you doing? Why do you think these would be the right arm? You two are idiots. And they're just looking at her like, yeah, we're the dumb ones. Pepper zooms out and you see Yeshira's wearing an ultra padded bra, just like, double D bra, just stacked. It's like, what happened to you while you were searching for that arm? She's like, I don't know what you're talking about. What do you mean? nothing's different. And then we see the bra fall out from underneath her shirt, and everyone's like and she grabs it and throws it into the abyss. Look at that weird bird that just flew by. Crazy. I can't believe that just happened here. What? And just tries to play it off real quick.

I do love the sincerity of Hanukkah being like, you're beautiful as you are. It was very sweet. I like their friendship very much.

Yeah. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop just because we've been hurt by anime before, but so far, being a ghost and forming an eternal bond or something, he's chill. Like he's teasing Co, but Co trying to exercise. But for yeah. shiro, he genuinely seems like a nice person.

I mean, if he does genuinely, like, have a crush on yashiro, and if she ends up liking him, I'm for it. I think that would be very sweet. Ghost Boyfriend.

My toilet boyfriend. That's my autobiography title, but that's because I have stomach issues. Here a bunch of giggling coming from around them, and there's a bunch of the dolls they saw earlier that were creeping them out. They're saying, like, oh, class is about to begin. You're going to be late. You better hurry up. And then a giant pair of scissors comes out of nowhere and starts chasing after them, trying to cut them in half.

That's the scariest enemy I can imagine. Giant sentient scissors.

How do you hurt this?

Just metal. And the dolls start chasing after him, and they're, like, clinging to your shirt, like, pulling her down. You're late for class. And as she's being slowed down by them, the scissors come flying in to cut her in half. And hanako comes in and breaks the scissors with his knife. But then the sisters just, like, reform and keep going. So he's like, I can't stop it. We're just kind of, like, biting our time here because it's misaki's room. So the stuff just, like, repairs themselves anytime they break it. And then they end up running to the shrine, and they throw in I think they throw in the big muscular arm, the big wooden arm into the shrine, and the gates shut. And then we see the big Tory gates open up, like, ah, you found you found the arm. I don't know if it was the right arm or just any arm, but they got through the trial. And we see the gates open up, and once they walk through, they see more stairs and more dolls. We go again, and sure enough, there's another phone there. This one rings. hanako picks it up, and masaki says, like, I need my left arm this time. Before class. Every day, I'd go to a shrine and pray and slap together with both my hands, so I need both of my arms. He's like, ha. Cool. Anyway, this is but this is hanako. Remember me? I'm one of the seven wonders. Like, you. How are you doing? How long has it been?

How'S it popping?

And massacre just hangs up on the other side. But we see some, like, hesitation of, like, something there, and you hurt. Lose it again, girl. You know each other? Yeah. There's only seven of us, and we're all in the same school. So we bump into each other. nico ask if there's a way to take her down, and tanaka says, there's a yorashiro is the supply of the Wonders power. It's kind of like their battery source. So if they find that and get rid of it, they can weaken her and potentially stop her. Cool. Let's just go find that. Yeah. It's in the deepest part of the realm, though, which is probably super safeguarded by, I'd say, thousands of stairs and doors and gates. So we got to do this anyway. It's like all right, cool. So they end up continually doing all these trials, finding different body parts and going through it. Luckily, they kind of skip over this and just do a little montage of it, and it shows them at the last gate opening up, and they're like, oh, we did see that as the doors open for last gate yesterday, wonders like, hey, wait a minute. If we're finding all these body parts for Misaki, how is she able to make phone calls? She needs a body to do that. And we see the gates open on a lady, and they come out, and it's like, who's that, then? And that's where episode three ends. Spooky the setup for the big, bad maybe she is also in the opening, and she seems to be with, like, a sharp tooth, grinned man. So assuming they're the antagonist or at least the reluctant allies, that kind of the neutral third parties that will help the bad guy, but they didn't help the protagonist win.

Tropes.

Yeah, tropes anime. So, are we there yet?

Yeah. I am so glad the toilet didn't need its reputation for how bad it would be. I definitely had fun. It's for sure not my type of show, but it does definitely have elements that I was enjoying. As we mentioned, there are, like, genuine jokes that we liked and subverting the expectations. So, yeah, I probably won't keep watching, but I had fun.

Yeah. I've already talked about how much I like the aesthetic and Hanukkah and yashiro's relationship. So, as you can assume I hate it.

Never again.

I really enjoyed it, and I think it's a cool way to learn about Japanese urban myths. So if it continues this way and I wonder if, like, what's it called? Misaki stairs? I wonder if that is like, a common thing, or if they just kind of made that one up for this school specifically. But still, I think it's cool. And the weird radio broadcast like, that girl is in the opening, so I'm interested in seeing how she plays into it. But, yeah, I thought it was really cute. I liked it a lot.

Yeah, I think the woman on the radio is probably another one of the wonders. Like, you turned the radio on at midnight, and if you hear a name, you're dead, sort. Yeah, that could be, because a lot of the myths and folklore are kids making it to scare other kids. So a lot of it ends up being like, you'll have your eyes ripped out or you'll just die. So I do like that they're kind of like twisting it a little bit, though. There are a lot of them are just like, you just die. But yeah, I've definitely heard the trope of the Seven Wonders of the school in various series before. There was like a pokemon short about it where a girl goes into the spirit world, kind of, but it's like pokemon, so she becomes a gang guard. It's precious as hell, either. I'm watching it, but I've definitely seen in some other stuff, so I wonder how common it is. And yet if they are the same similar tropes. Like hanaka, we've seen in other stuff. The stairs I've seen in another series where you walk up these stairs, you look out the window at this time and you'll see into the spirit world if you see yourself die. I've heard that before. So I do wonder if they're all vaguely similar or if they vary wildly as much as the schools do themselves, because it's kids in the school making it up. But yeah, I did enjoy the style was definitely captivating. It was definitely unique enough to hold my attention, but without being, like, off putting. We've watched some shows where it's like, the story is good, but God, it's hard to look at. And yeah, I enjoyed the genuine relationship between the two main characters. Co is the third one, introducing the trio. That's the standard anime formula. He seems dumb as hell. I don't care for him, but if I watch it, he'd probably become my favorite. But yeah, it was definitely subverting stuff where Yeshira wasn't as stupid or just ditzy as we've seen with some protagonist where it's like, oh, no, my friend went missing. I guess she's just sick. It's like, no, you know there are a ghost. Like, she just told you yesterday that this is a ghost. And she immediately starts following up on it. So, yeah, I enjoyed it. There's only twelve episodes. I'll probably keep going with it, but there wasn't any hard look. I'm going to catch help from abby for this. There wasn't a hard look that broke me in.

Well, if she hasn't watched it, then who knows?

She might not have watched it. Yeah, who knows? But yeah, just doing the bingo card with this, I was pretty surprised. For an anime set in a high school, it really didn't hit many of them. Arguably info dump, but the info dumps were never that big with the show.

And they're entertaining because we're learning about things.

Yeah, I only checked it off in the recap with the monkey, the little private monkey where I'm like, that's a bit of an info, but really not much. Like, I was kind of reluctant to check that off. Delicious cartoon food with the monster vegetables. Maybe the rooftop. Yeah, that's where the fight was with Cow. And I reluctantly checked off Titties just because there was a joke. That one scene, it was like a joke. It wasn't like a character with quadruple G titties just floating around. So any ones I've checked off on the bingo card for this were kind of like iffy you could make a case for or against them.

It technically brushes up on tropes, but isn't actually a lazy trope itself.

Yeah, it acknowledges the tropes but doesn't fall into them. Yeah, it's well done.

Very nice. What are we going to be hopefully having a very nice time with next week?

Oh, boy. It's a good oh, boy. Yeah. We've talked about girls doing nothing shows, and I think some would say that this next show we're watching is the seminal Girls Do Nothing show. We are going to watch Lucky Star, and I did pick specific episodes to make sure we would be entertained.

Oh, my gosh.

So we're watching episodes one, one, two and 16. Yeah.

If there's a show you the listener would like us to watch, you can send your recommendations to us. Our email is areweatheret@gmail.com or you can reach out to us on Twitter or Instagram at are we there yet? On both?

You can find me on Instagram at honeyperiod or on Twitter at honey. D eight and honey dart. And honey is spelled H-U-N-N-I-E. You can.

Find me on Twitter at abts. But it's not interesting. Don't recommend it or you'd be a good driver and get your oil change in your car. I promise you that. You forgot about it last time you got checked.

New segment, dad. reminders.

I just did it myself. Then again, I really haven't driven much since the incident.

Thank you to camille Ruling for her artwork. And thank you to louisian for theme song stories. You can find all of louie's music at Louisong dot bandcamp.com. Thank you and we hope you'll join us next week as we learn to live with anime.

Careful of that ghost right behind you.

I got to go visit the nako for, like, an hour.

Oh, God.

Thank you.