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

I am an anime expert, dana hollander.

I'm Brendan. I don't get a title. I feel like experts too generous for me.

Scholar? Do you want to go scholar or something?

I'm your anime undergrad. I'm still working on that title.

That makes sense.

I get drunk and watch anime. Just like a college student.

And joining us this week, we have our first guest. Please introduce yourself.

Hi, I'm Paul. I'm dana's boyfriend. I'm the anime guest of the week.

You are the anime traveling professor.

The social suit.

The guest speaker.

Yes. This week we are watching Fooly couli flcl. I don't know which one's official. Hopefully someone will teach me that.

Also pooty cootie, foodie cootie.

Okay, so already I'm messing it up.

Which is pretty much just how Japanese people would pronounce it.

It's got a few names. Yeah, it's a mysterious entity with many names.

It is definitely strange.

So what is the reasoning for picking this? Oh, you actually picked this one this week. If you want to walk us through why this made the cut.

Well, hooley coolie is probably one of my favorite animes. I think it's weird. And I used to watch it in the middle of the night when I was like, twelve.

I think this has been a recurring theme for us.

Late night anime sessions.

Late night Anime I think the first episode I watched was the last episode. It didn't make any sense. So I watched the first episode and it didn't make any sense, so I kept watching. And it's been how old am I? It's been ten years after and I still watch it. I just really like it.

I feel like that's a common especially with this show, it's a common story of like, yeah, I found the random episode one night. I had no idea what's going on and just stuck with it because that's how a lot of my friends saw it.

Well, for me, it was like, I saw some of it. I watched all of it, I think, but I just didn't pay good attention. And then it's kind of more of like, yeah, I watched one episode and it didn't make sense. And then I walked the whole thing and it didn't make sense.

You were selling this so well to me, Ron.

I know, right? But I'm so curious to know what dudes thinks it's about.

Yeah. So this is another show I knew nothing about except the title and that it was coming back in some way as of now. But I'm going to say it is about based off the title. It's a sequel to the hit game ftl. It's flcl. So it's a top down, real time strategy anime where you fly a space ship.

God, I wish.

That'S not too far off.

All right, I'm on track.

Shout out to Justin Ma, creator of fcl make an anime. It could work. Yeah.

Call us up. We'll help you.

We can't do anything which doesn't dodgely. Go. Yes, quite all right.

So we will stop and watch the episodes, and we will be right back. I had to watch this twice because it was just undigestible to me on that first B one.

It's very much yeah, it's a lot.

It's a lot for a short series. It's like yeah, I think it's actually a miniseries. Yeah.

For the past couple episodes, I realize I've been kind of guiding us through the episodes and saying, this is where we are. This is what's going on. And this particular instance, it all happens so fast that I have trouble remembering exactly where we are at what point in time. So Paul kind of might have to help me.

Yeah. I was like, I sort of host. I need to pull my weight. I'll start saying what happens in the episodes, but I cannot help you this week. I cannot even begin to understand what's going on.

Yeah.

Fully cooley is our anime vision quest, and Paul is our spirit guide.

Follow me through the anime wilds.

The power within.

The power within.

We all took peyote.

I feel like it's odd.

Yeah. It's trippy as shit.

Starting towards the beginning, I want to point out that I was expecting an anime intro, and I did not get an anime intro.

Yeah. When we started watching it, I was like, oh, yeah, there isn't one.

Which is kind of interesting considering how I don't know if this shows necessarily music oriented, but how impactful the music is in the episodes. Because I know the bands, The pillows got a huge following after the show because it's just so like, all their music, I think, is The pillows. I think it's one band.

Yeah, it's all The pillows that does like they do every track. It's pretty cool. I really like their music. I think they're tight.

Yeah. I was really enjoying it. I was getting the strong Scott pilgrim vibes that came from this.

Yeah. So I guess we start off with now Time mimi hanging out, right?

Yeah.

So they're hanging out under the bridge where all the cool kids go, I guess.

Got to pay the troll toll. Something came out of that hole.

If it's where the cool kids hang out, they're the cool kids.

Oh, yeah. I immediately take that back then.

Yeah. recon.

They're just hanging out. My my first note is literally a quote. And it says, what are you talking about? And I put oh, me too. But now it's just complaining about how boring the town is.

Yeah. Nothing ever interesting happens, which feels like a quote in probably every anime ever. And then a dragon shows up or like, alien. Then something incredible happens. I mean, supremacy of every anime.

I suppose I was starting to think like, hey, is this going to be, like, my first slice of life anime. Then the next scene, they move up on top of the bridge where they are ambushed by a mysterious stranger on a moped.

He doesn't like sour drinks. And my favorite note that I wrote this whole time is when she gives him the sour drink. He says, this is half empty, and he throws it. So I wrote, this bitch is half empty.

I wasn't proud of it, but I felt the same thing.

Also very early on. This is my fifth note down the page I put, man, dubs have really gotten better over the years, no?

Yeah, this is rough.

Yeah. I think the voice I have the most trouble with is mami. I just feel like her voice is like it doesn't look good with her. It doesn't sound good with her.

I mean, I think she's a pretty reserved character. When she was talking, her mouth didn't move that much. Versus some of the other characters, like hakaru, whose mouth is just going crazy in a mile a minute. And all of heruka, I'm sure, both names, that's going to be a trend in this podcast. But yeah, her mouth is going like a mile a minute and just flying all over the place. Versus mami, who seems to be very reserved and yeah, I don't know about quiet, but a quiet personality. So she'll be talking, but her mouth won't even be moving that much. So it takes there's a few times where I was like, wait, is she just thinking this, or the main character? I kept writing his name down as Tacoon. I think it's a nickname formata. Yeah. A few times with him, he was talking or thinking and I couldn't naturally differentiate because it wasn't showing the mouth.

Yeah. It was kind of hard to follow. What was the inside thoughts.

Yeah.

Stylistic. So yeah, they're ambushed.

Well, one thing I noticed, my first note was very yellow. Like, this whole series has just got a big coating of a yellow and like a light orange across everything. It seems like.

Yeah.

Isn't bad, but definitely separates and gives it a specific style to it.

Pretty ethereal.

A lot of the afternoon vibes of like, post school between like three and five when you're supposed to be home.

Yeah.

And you just kind of like fuck around to do whatever.

It feels like a very September show of early school.

It also feels like if you think about it in a different tone, a little grimy, which I feel like is also pretty indicative of what the show is and what happens in it.

Yeah, that's a little nasty.

Yeah.

I wouldn't say it's a pretty show, but not as an insult. Like if they were intentionally going for that kind of rough around the edges. nothing's very clean. It's very jagged for a lot of the style, but it works.

Yeah. haruka rides in.

A new challenger appears.

Man, I love the direction they've gone with Smash ultimate.

Oh, my God.

Nothing'S off the table this time around.

She'd be great.

Actually, if we could get in before waluigi, I never trust Nintendo again. I'd be fine with it. But I wrote down she's kind of just this agent of chaos because before this, like Duke said, it kind of just seemed like a slice of life. It just seems like pretty chill. Two kids hanging out, talking, and everything seemed pretty tame. And then she comes, like, flying in, and they were rolling around on her moped, screaming super loud. Like, anytime she appears, it just becomes a crazy over the top anime. And it's, like, specifically centered around her whenever she's in a scene.

That's what happens when you hang out with people that are just too extra.

I love her. I think she's very funny and very pretty. I like her eyes.

The yellow eyes.

Yeah.

No, yeah. She is definitely my favorite character because she actually has stuff going on and has, like, a personality which isn't super pronounced in the other two.

Yeah.

I don't know. They have personality. They're just not good personality. They're just shitty people.

Oh, something we skipped over. Is that mami and nata kind of fool around?

Yeah, I remembered it from the series from when I first watched it, but I didn't realize it happened so early. Not even kind of address it, but allude to it so quickly. It's within the first five minutes. Yeah, it's three minutes, maybe.

And Paul actually put it in a really interesting way that I think we should probably get to in, like, a little bit. But, like yeah, he makes it make a lot of sense, and I think it's really cool and interesting. When he explained it to me, I was like, oh, yeah.

But anyway, insightful.

Yeah, because I got an idea. But like I said, I don't remember a ton, so I don't know how true it is. So I'd be interested to hear what Paul has to say because he knows more than all of us.

But Saharika smacks nauta with her bass.

Guitar, slapping the bass.

Ouch.

It just square in the head.

Yeah, he gets run over by the moped, gets hit in the head, and they think he's dead because he's, like, out cold.

Man, wasn't entertainment and cartoons much more fun before we understood what concussions were?

This series is tainted by the developments in football science.

Every main character of an anime I know wears a football helmet.

Got to protect the noodle.

Take that dome piece. It's coming from a person who's cracked his skull open three separate times.

Oh, yeah.

Wow, that's a lot.

It's close to home.

Yeah, it turns out super easy to do when you're a soft, squishy baby with a soft skull. I turned out.

Well. I mean, you never remember names.

That's not my fault. I don't understand Japanese. That's not true. I don't remember English American cartoons either. I just don't care about people. I'm dead inside.

And brendan's a sociopath. Anyway, moving on back to the new stuff.

Yeah. So he gets smacked in the head and we see he's got like a big super square lump, like an absurdly long square bruise coming out of his forehead. Yeah.

Not normal. Not necessarily normal, no.

But he's able to go back in when he just pushes on it. So he just puts a bandaid over top of it to keep it from exploding out of his face.

What happens right after that? He goes home.

Yeah, he goes home and then starts hiding the horn and then it cuts to him in school the next day with a big bandage on his head. Everyone's talking about the mysterious demon woman on a vespa that was seen last night.

Yeah. Made quite a name for herself real quick.

Yeah.

I love glasses. Boy. Oh, yeah, he has, in my opinion I wrote this later on, too, I think, in the second episode. But I feel like he has the best voice actor.

He seems to be the over to the top high energy friend out of that friend group. He seems quick to react to stuff.

Although in this show give me all the exposition because I have no idea.

Good point.

Things happen so fast, I forgot how, like, fast everything happens in this show.

Reminiscent of Death Note, but definitely.

Oh, God. Yeah. Even Soul Leader, we skipped, like, from episode one to, like, episode, I think, like seven to the 23 or so. Yeah. This just drags out for five episodes. We don't need any of this versus this show, which is only six episodes. Like, we got go, go quick look like.

So, yeah, when he's going on about her, I forget exactly what this is in reference to, but he says he she gives you something that shows you've been doing naughty things and it never goes away.

It's a sting. She leaves, like, a mark on you, like a bug stings you.

So I wrote I love abstinence. I mean, this is the first hint at what this show is really about, what it's trying to convey.

I thought that also was a hint at tycoons and mami's fooling around from earlier. I thought that was kind of a hint towards that as well. So that's kind of an indication that's, like yeah, it's not just a tickle fight. I was going to say subtlety. wink, wink. nudge, nudge. Little too much nudging. Yeah. So his classmates see, he's got like a little red sting mark on his neck and immediately starts screaming that he's a pervert. Which as you do, as you do, you call your friends on there. You king shame them in public right away. If you can't king shame your friends, who can you?

Yeah. And Mamimi preferably. At which point they say it bluntly in the second episode, but he is in elementary school and mami is in high school.

Yeah.

They never make it clear specifically what grade. He just says, like, grade school. I'm hoping it's, like, more upper middle school, if they're trying to go with that. And it's not like a fifth grader in a high schooler together.

Yeah, I looked it up because especially with different countries, it's always tricky with schools and grades because, like, high school, freshman, junior, sophomore, senior, they don't have that, I think, in any other country. And then, like, England, they have primary school, which is like first grade to fifth or something. So it's always confusing. So I looked it up, but tycoon's twelve and Lemimi is 17, so I don't know about grade wise, but that's their actual ages.

Okay. Yeah. That's still not great.

Not good. It's better than, like, a third grader, but still not great. Still not great. So this immediately when I realized this, and when I heard this, I immediately was thinking, like, mumi is not a good person. She seems like a good, entertaining character for a show and a story. But I'm like, she's not someone I feel like the audience is supposed to have sympathy for.

Yeah, she gets a little nuts, especially.

Since it's also framed as well. When we get to the next few scenes comes up again. But they say that she is, like, his older brother's girlfriend crush something bone buddy.

Which kind of ties into paul's explanation for me about why nata and mami kind of fool around.

Because they both kind of, like, lose this. They both lose him, basically, because you find out he goes to America to play baseball.

Baseball.

And this is kind of how they deal with it, I guess, in a very fucked up way.

Yeah. It seems like they're bonding over their loss of a person they both love or care for, but it's still unsettling them. He is taking her feelings both, I guess, emotional. We see a bit of emphysical for his brother and putting him on him, who is much younger. And it's like, that's not good.

No. Yeah. It's really fucked up. I guess it's probably similar to what his brother did to her because she's, I guess, younger in high school than him, obviously, because he's already gone out of high school.

Yeah, that makes sense.

So it's just a cycle.

Yeah.

Like continuing the chain of weird, abusive age relations.

This is the weirdest episode of Law and router svu I've ever seen.

Done.

So they kind of meet up after school, and now it goes home and surprise, haruka is his new housekeeper.

Yeah. And the introduction of this is it just cuts to pages of manga for the rest of the scene. Which is not excellent because this is also how they introduce the dad and grandpa character in black and white. 2d. Well, it's all 2d, but just the pages of manga animated. And it's very weird. And this is mostly why I had to rewatch was they introduced a lot of things in this drastic and sudden style change.

Yeah, it's not really a tonal change, but it's the style I change. And knowing it was weird going into it, I was fully prepared for something like this and loved it. It was so different and really well done. But if this is your first time going in, like, dudes, I can completely understand where it's like, I heard none of this. I didn't hear any dialogue. I was still recoiling from the dramatic change. So I can fully understand why you had to rewatch this scene in particular.

No, I definitely enjoyed it. It was a cool shift. But if you're going to introduce that much vital information, as in, here are two central characters that are the dad and grandpa that you see many times after this, maybe you don't do it in a completely new style.

Maybe this would have worked better when noita and his friends characters were already.

Familiar with or even past episode one, or even the second scene with the dad and grandpa.

Yeah, I think it really set a good point, though, for his family. His dad and grandfather are just fully on board with this wandering stranger being their housekeeper and the grandfather's caretaker and are just absolutely insane. Like, the dad's out of his mind and at one point actually says, Fooly Cooley.

Yeah, the title of the show.

In the show, they said the thing and then now it just says, what's fooly Cooley? And it's just like, oh, same.

Yeah, I'm still wondering from what I.

Get, I think he was just trying to ask, like, Noelta and Hukaro already know each other and he's like, now you're going to live with each other? How are you already familiar? How do you already have this relationship with each other? Are you going to be fooling around? Are you going to be cool and fooling around? Fully coolly and kind of just dizzling each other. So that's what I thought it was.

I mean, he talks in circles for a while and it is just a bunch of nonsense, but that's what it is. Like, Fooly cooley is just fooling around.

Yeah, I remember one, I didn't write it down, but he was like, saying something about cupcakes, like, finally cupcakes or something. And I was like, all right, he's talking in circles, but his method is still the same thing. It's just an incoherent mess.

There's a lot of going on and tweaking motions and a bunch of weird stuff I would never talk to my grandpa about.

I might talk to my grandpa about. It definitely not my maybe not my parents. I don't know. Maybe I'm more open about that than I should be.

Were you just kind of cool, Grandpa?

Give a shit now?

Grandpa is kind of gross.

Yeah, he's pretty gross. Real quick, it's in the next episode, but it's not really crucial. But he asks someone to go out and pick him up on Anna Nicole centerfold, which is very dated and time, like, very telling of the time because she's dead.

Way to make that choice. funimation.

But, I mean, I understand why they picked her because she is kind of like I mean, we don't really have idols as much in America, but she would have been, like, a beauty idol at the time that this was being written and stuff, but yeah, it's very like, oh, wow. How old is this? It's like yeah, it was dubbed in English, I think, in 2002 or three.

Yeah.

So around then. But yeah. The grandpa you see where all the crazy comes from? It's genetic.

Yeah. This family has a lot going on.

You understand why the brother left.

So haruka is going to be living in nauta's room.

Not on the top bunk, though. No, that's for the brother. Got to preserve it. And I think that's kind of it for the first episode.

TV man arrives.

Yeah, that's it for the first episode. Nothing else happens. Nothing cool. Yes. I entirely forget about that.

Yeah. And I forget what they talk about, but I feel like harika and now to have a pretty cool conversation in his room where he yells at her about something.

Oh, basically, he's starting to get mad at her for some reason, and then he ends it with, if you like my dad so much, you came here with him, you should go stay with him, pretty much. And then she's like, Well, I'm here for you. Kind of that's kind of weird now.

That I say it back, because she is 20 ish.

Well, there's a scene in particular, I think she says she's 19, and then I think she's immediately called out about lying about her age.

Yeah.

So I think she is 20, but lies about it.

Yeah. She can't be that much older.

Yeah. So I think she was kind of, like, hinting at, like, I'm here for you. You're important. And that like a young boy. You get very flustered, and he turns very red and leaves.

Yeah. You run outside.

Yeah. And then that's when he bumps into his dad, who was sent yeah. mami came by and gave him some of the pictures she took earlier because she snapped pictures all the time. She's a shutter bug. And she gave some pictures of noota.

Getting hit by heart because moped that's right.

For insurance purposes, he got injured statistic. Yeah. But so his dad gave mami a bunch of day old bread. I guess they're some sort of bakery or something. Is that very clear?

They make bread?

Yeah.

They run a shop.

Yeah. So he gave her a bunch of the leftover bread from that day, and he's asking noah if she's pretty blunt with it. He's asking if she's poor, like, if she needs free food because they can't afford it. At which point, no to just immediately takes off and runs after her. Guess he had some things he wanted to discuss.

Yeah. So they meet up again on the bridge where they were earlier, and bammi is eating the bread, just hanging on the bridge. Has a cigarette.

Cigarette. She's a she's a tough tier. She smokes.

Yeah.

They start talking about how hard it is to have the brother out of the country for both of them.

Yeah.

And that's kind of when I started piecing together, like, oh, she's substituting. noota, like, her feelings for his brother and just putting them on him.

Yeah.

I was like, mimi seems cool, but.

She'S not her story. Her stuff with nauta's brother is, like, really upsetting and sad, and that's kind of what leads her to do stuff with nauta. As a viewer, you have mixed feelings about her because you feel bad for her for what happened with nauta's brother, but also you feel kind of gross about her because she's messing around with a maybe eleven or twelve year old.

The preposter boy. Yeah. It seems like she's in a pretty bad situation. Like, 17 year old is not smoking just for the hell of it, just for the cake. It seems like she's using it as a stress reliever or something. And yeah, she was taking the free bread. And some of the other school kids have talked about how she's kind of weird or gets picked on a bullied. So it seems like she's clearly in a bad situation, but that doesn't excuse bad things she does herself.

Yeah.

It'S unfortunate, but that's good character writing. It's good where you empathize with the character, but you're also not sympathizing with them, you're not approving of what they do. Yeah, it's a tough situation.

And then while they're talking, there's some weird, like, frequency that they hear, which triggers some pretty interesting reactions in both mami and nawata. Yeah.

Mamimi says she has to fool around. Momotoral, she overflows.

Yeah.

At this time, she starts holding her head, saying that she's about to overflow, whatever that means.

Blink.

And what that means, naturally, is a giant robot out of the giant horn that was there from being hit. And this giant robot starts fighting another robotic thing that sort of flies in.

Yeah, it looks like it's. Another robotic arm gets pulled out of his head, but then it gets cut off before the rest of the body does. But the arm is still, like, centine. It's still moving around and alive. So the whole robot is fighting the one robot arm.

Man, this show has everything.

Yeah. This is where I was like, oh, yeah. Not slice of life.

Cool. This is the weird stuff. If it wasn't already right.

They fight, robot fight, robot fight, robot fight.

And then haruka.

You said it right.

I'm reading it the entire time. It's up on my other monitor, and I still can't get her into it. Just now, she hears something. Oh, no. She's got like, a bracelet with, like, a link on it, like, sort of chain link. And it starts, like, flailing around, and she looks over at where noota is and starts riding over to it. And that's when she gets there and sees the big old robot fight.

She smacks them with the base, jumps.

In, slams them down when she hits.

The full robot, and it goes from red to blue. And then does she do the killing blow on the robot arm or does the robot do it?

I think she does it because then that leads into now it's looking up at her and saying, in that moment, I probably shouldn't have said it, but she looks like my brother.

That's right. So it's very reminiscent of baseball and beating the shit out of people with a bass guitar. The same thing feels like a comparison of a sincity.

So now they have a robot man yeah.

No one really addresses it. It just cuts, like, the next scene and the robot's making dough. Okay, everyone's cool with this?

Okay. I love this boy. Also, toward the end, I forget it happens earlier, too, when they just say Japanese words toward the end. One of them just goes on it instead of saying, like, what? In English. And earlier, too, when haruka's shaking. nawata, he says something in Japanese. But I didn't write down what it was. But I just love that they do.

That I didn't even know because it.

Really just contributes to the absolute nonsense and inability to understand what's going on.

But, yeah, that was it for the first episode.

Yeah.

So, still super confused going into episode.

Two, we didn't even talk about the big factory that's in town. That's just a giant iron. Like, it just blows steam out steam at the time.

Yeah.

Everyone's okay with that?

It supposedly makes, like, medical machinery.

Yeah, supposedly. You're suspicious of it? dugan oh, yeah.

The giant, mysterious factory in town that.

Has no windows and no doors.

Super normal. I'm sure nothing bad will happen there.

It's like the wonka factory. That's normal, right?

Yeah. I think, again, this episode kind of starts like it seems like stuff is a little normal, except there's a robot.

Because I do, like, at the end, after the robot fight, nauta's. Like, yeah, nothing happens in this town while a robot is just needing some bread and helping with the store. And I was like, okay, yeah, I'm into this. Just, like, normal life with my robot friend.

I have a lot fewer notes for this episode, I think just because I was watching it.

Maybe I've had a few problems like that, too. With other shows we've already done where I'm like, I have to not watch it, not be sucked into it. As, like, a viewer, you have to actively pay attention and write stuff down.

And with this one, it's tough because as a viewer, you're trying to understand what's going on and. It's hard to be like, oh, that's significant. Or like, that's an interesting thing that happened because you're just watching it.

Yeah. Progression just really ramps up in this episode of story stuff.

It's a good episode. I really like this episode.

This is probably one of my favorite episodes, honestly. It's kind of a little darker than the first one. I think. It just feels a lot different.

Yeah, there is some dark stuff going on. They announced that there is potentially an arsonist in town that is right around when they show mami playing an arson video game.

Yeah. Where you light stuff on fire for Lord Conti.

Yeah.

It sort of seemed like they were going for a reveal at the end. Is she the arsonist? But, like, the first shot, she's playing an arson video game and it's like, okay.

And she also refers to TV Robot Man as Conti saying, pretty obvious.

Yeah. It's not their best kept secret.

I think after watching the full episode and seeing the Anti, it's like, oh, yeah, it's so obvious now. But early on it was kind of like because I don't know, maybe it was just me. I didn't really realize what the game she was playing was at first.

Paul asked me, like, straight up after we were done watching it, he was like, so you could tell mami was the arsonist, right? And I was like, yes, but I guess for some people it's not obvious.

I kind of got the idea of it, but the game wasn't the big giveaway for me because, I don't know, maybe I was distracted to thinking about something else. But it wasn't super obvious that the game was about burning buildings down.

Well, it's sort of in another stylistic change later on in the episode. It sort of cuts to now to giving the rule manual for the game of, like, you have to burn down all these buildings for your god and then your god will release you from this world. And then a lot of very deep stuff for what seemed like an arcade game on early cellphone Tomagotchi.

Yeah, that was pretty much the giveaway moment, where it's like, yeah, here's all the pieces. And while he's explained the rules of the game, they're also overlapping earlier scenes from the last two episodes. And all of them sitting around. My mimi and the school her and noah's brother went to burnt down when they were younger. And noah's brother saved her from the burning school and, like, a bunch of other stuff. So it's kind of like laying it on pretty heavy, of like if you didn't catch it yet. Here you go.

Also, she sits in a circle of candles with lighters on her head. So, I mean oh, no, they weren't candles.

They were cigarettes. The one she was smoking, they had, like, texts written on the side of them. They had, like, words written. I forget it's.

Never knows best. I think they're written on like, most of her cigarettes have that written on them.

Yeah, I think it does introduce it when she's smoking on the bridge at the end of the previous episode.

Yeah.

I will say at the beginning of this episode, my first note was just seizure warning because God damn last drove right off the bat. They do X rays on noah's head. Chicken out. If he's got at the end of the first one, he gets a second horn. Yeah.

When it opens up, he has more horns after being like, oh, that's all resolved.

Yeah. I forgot about Nurse haruka. I love that.

He's got, like, a traditional spike horn out of the front, and he's got a really big, like, I don't know, flat horn out of the back of his head now. And they're doing X rays on him with the Mr. TV Robot Man, who can do X rays because why not?

His dad refers to him as TV Boy. He's TV boy to me.

TV Boy.

I think he can do X rays because he's possibly made by Medical mechanica, the medical place.

I believe he's said to be, like, a broken medical robot.

That's right.

And he can't really do anything else.

Except for fighting giant robots.

Yeah, he does that pretty well.

What's the part where he I wrote down there were quotes that made me laugh in this episode, and one of them was this referring to now it says, dad, someone said he wrote a whole book on eva.

Yeah, because he starts kind of monologuing about because noah has given him shit of like, hey, don't have the robot load up your car full of stuff because our neighbors will see a crazy robot and start asking questions, which is a reasonable response. And noah's dad just starts monologuing about, I guess, free will and what it is to be human and a robot. And yeah, that's my note that says, oh, yeah, he wrote a book about eva, which is evangelion.

And it's a good joke because the same company made evangelion.

Okay.

I thought that's what they're referencing, but I wasn't 100% sure. But that's good.

Yeah.

I think even gellion is on our list because I haven't watched it, and apparently I am a terrible weebly.

Paul got the bluray, and he brought it here to watch fooly. cooley. And there was a trailer for evangelion, and we were watching the trailer, and we were like, how come neither of us have watched this?

This looks sick. Yeah, I know it seems like a big mix show, but there's a lot of philosophical what is life questions in it. So I'm guessing that's what the joke in this episode was.

Yeah, it just seems wild, but yeah, I think Harica tries to break in.

To Medical mechanica, that place.

Wait, she drives her moped through the glass windows because there's no doors, right?

Yeah, just the lobby area. Real quick, though, noota's hat it's like a headband with ear flaps. It's not really a hat. It's dumb.

I think he looks cute.

Ah, just annoying me. It looked like, you know, a hat you'd have in like, winter with the ear flaps that you could like, tie up, but it looked like someone just ripped the top off of it. So it's just like a headband. I don't know, that just kind of, like, bothered me.

The whole web puffy vest for your head. You're only slightly cold. Just put it on your ears.

My ears are cold in my forehead, but not the top. Not my scalp.

Not the part where most heat leaves your body.

But yeah, so they break into medical machine. I forget the name already.

Medical mechanica.

There it is.

And there's a gross man that looks like a parka skirt, which is fun.

It's a very sinful, disgusting man. Get that big old hairy mole on.

His face, as most men are. But this is where another quote that I thought was very funny comes in. When nata gets there and they're like, why are you here? And he's like, I have custody. I don't know.

Yeah, this twelve year old boy has custody of this 20 year old, which he's not wrong. Like, he pretty much does have to take care of her.

Doesn't she call him her guardian?

Yeah.

So there's a lot of weird power dynamics going on.

The power move, she flies in and breaks her moped. So he comes with tools to fix it, but the tool he gives her is a gundam figure. And when she puts it on the vespa, it just morphs into like a nut and screws into place.

Sure.

I was so thrown off by that.

Well, even the gross security guy was like, looking at it. And I guess he has some knowledge of mopez or something because he's saying, like, oh, I've never seen parts like this, or like, what kind of vehicle is this? And he seemed very interested in it. And then that's when he's also looking up her skirt like a dirty old perv.

Yuck.

By notice of one skirt guard was voiced by Steve bloom, very early Steve bloom.

Wow.

And then yeah, after that they leave and do things which forget when's the.

Weird part where they're waiting for conti to come back from the store and it's like all weird looking. Does that happen after this?

That's later on. Next is nata meets mami under the bridge and where she found the cat. Is that right?

Yeah.

And before that, it's no to walking across another bridge with his friends from school. And they see mami from a distance, and she's ringing out the water from her skirt like she fell into the river unexpectedly. And that's when we found out more from the other kids that she gets bullied a lot from other kids in her high school.

They make note that she doesn't act her age and is very childish and.

Kind of a hint of another reason why she's hanging around. No. It's so much yeah. And then after that no. It goes up to her and meets her, and she's playing the fire starter game. That's when Tacoon meets other Tacoon, the cat.

Yay.

Because that won't get confusing at all.

No.

Who grew up with their best friend, also named Brendan. It's never confusing. It's never a problem.

So she has a cat now, and.

The cats are spas. Like the cat's just freaking the fuck out in every scene it's in, like, just darting around and jumping around. It doesn't seem like it interacts. It's almost like they don't see it, but it's just like flying all over the place.

Have you met a kitten?

Yeah, I guess you're not wrong.

Yeah.

Just like no one reacts to it, though, which is funny.

Is this when she tells him about when she saw Conti?

Yes.

Yeah. So she kind of goes off about how she saw Conti, and that kind of starts to give us more of a hint that she's been doing the arson. Because at this point, we know the rules for the video game. And she's like, I saw him. I swear I did.

Yeah. Because now I'm not sure if they I might have missed it, but now TV boys got a little halo and wings tied to him. I'm not sure who tied him onto him, but that definitely gave the illusion of, like, he's a god for her.

So mommy's going a little crazy.

Yeah. And then that's when she follows him. And the TV boy goes back to the burnt down school that supposedly she might have burnt down and that noah's brother saved her from. That's where the robot flies for the first time. So I don't know why a medical machine would need to fly, but I.

Guess he can go to do that rapid emergency response stuff.

Yeah.

It's so obvious now. The next thing I've written down is Anna Nicole centerfold, so I don't really know what else happens.

Yeah, that's when that's the weird scene.

Okay. That's when he comes back.

Yeah. If this was rough around the edges of Ford, like, this one's, like dirty looking.

Gross, nasty, squiggly lines.

Get those wiggles. Yeah. So they just sent the robot off to the store. So if noah was concerned before about his neighbor seeing it's kind of out the window now. The robot is just part of the town.

Yay, your friendly neighborhood robot.

Oh, hi.

TV Boy Hello, TV I do for your dirty mags again.

Well, haruka even said she saw him looking at hustlers at the 711. So she clearly passed by at some point of the day and saw him out about town.

Just hangs out.

I do. Like when he's loading up the car when noah to his dad just rambling on. You see every few seconds a neighbor coming by and staring and, like, a little kid running around, like, super pumped. Yeah. Robot man. It's like, yeah, well, little kid wouldn't be.

Yeah.

So I did like seeing that and everyone actually reacting to it. Not like this is totally normal.

Yeah. Just immediately accepting it.

Yeah.

Is that when they go back to the burned out school where mami is? The narrative of these episodes is so hard to follow. I watched this twice and I could not tell you the plot progression between scenes. It's just mumble core at its fine mumblecore anime.

And it's also just like so much is happening. Every scene, you're still processing stuff from the last scene and they're like, oh, we're already, like, four scenes after that.

In my notes, I have stuff written down, but I don't remember when or why. Like, I just wrote down zoink scub and I don't remember why.

That helps no one.

I also don't remember when this happens, but haruka calls the stuff at Medical mechanica enemy Robots. So I said, Is she trying to fight big business? And Paul kind of, like, gave me a sideways glance and I was like, oh, what is this show about?

She's fighting capitalism? Yeah. There's a few scenes where Heroka is talking to someone and it's not very.

Bad.

But she's clearly responding like someone's asking questions back. And in one of those conversations, she says, like, oh, I converted an enemy of robot, which we're guessing is Robot Boy. And that's why he was red when we first see him. After she hits him with the bass guitar, he turns blue. Or like a teal. Yeah, it's kind of plying, like, oh, are there more of these? Is this one, like, gone rogue now? And it's kind of like the single good doing robot. I know words. I got words. I actually brought up the episode now, and I'm watching it because so much happens. I was after one of these scenes with haruka talking to someone. The cat just goes fucking starts attacking her. But not mommy's cat, the fat cat at no oates's house that at this point hasn't done anything yet, and just starts crawling at her for some reason. I don't know if that was actually like a plot relevant scene or if that was just like a goofy slapstick.

Because in the weird cuts where she's talking to the mysterious someone, it kind of looks like she was talking to the cat.

Yeah, the cat was sitting on the desk and she was facing it while she was talking. So it's not sure if she's talking to the ether, like space, or to.

The cat itself, or to there's a transmission station inside the cat.

You know what? There's a robot in this boy's head. And don't doubt it at this point.

Yeah.

And it was about this time when, yeah, mami's out by the old burnt down school doing her weird witchcraft circle.

I don't think she burnt down the school originally. I think it just burnt down when they were kids. And she's there because she wants to get rid of it. She wants to get rid of this memory. So she's trying to burn down the ruins of it.

Well, she says even later, after that scene, that she hated that school. She didn't like that place. I think she did burn it down, but I don't know if she necessarily burnt it down intentionally. She might have wanted to get rid of it, but she didn't mean to burn it down and anyone to get potentially hurt in it. But even after it burnt down, she said it's not actually really gone. There's still ashes and debris and stuff. It's still there. It's not cleansed from the earth that she wanted.

Yeah. This is a moment that kind of makes you feel something.

This is the scene where I started thinking, like, oh, I think whatever trauma mamimi has gone through either started or tied to that school somehow. And that's why she wanted to get rid of it. And that's why she's kind of a bit broken inside. And that's when his brother both physically saved her from the fire and might have spiritually saved I don't know. It makes him sound like a priest saved her, like, emotionally. Like, she tied into saving him from her, from the building building emotionally with him. And then that's maybe when they started going out or seeing each other more often. And that's why she's so tied to his older brother.

So, surprise, another robot shows up while they're gathered at this burned down school, and they start fighting again. TV Boy and this new, bigger robot.

Call him Internet Streaming Service Boy because he's made up TV. He's killing the old industry.

Wow. And I do have something written down, and I do know what this is in response to. I wrote oh, fuck by nata because TV boy eats him.

Yeah, this is a weird Mac show now.

So he eats him in a weird silhouette. We see that TV Boy has a bunch of eyes and a lot of big, sharp teeth and then chomps down on him. And he sort of combines with TV Boy.

Their souls become one.

Yes. They drift or whatever. The Pacific Drift Compatible.

It was a dumb movie. I enjoyed it. A lot of that's dummy.

Yeah. So the robot turns red again and then turns into a big old gun that shoots the other robot.

I noticed that the hand of this new robot looks very similar to the hand that they fought in the last episode.

It seems to be the same type of mech or robot or whatever this weird forehead monstrosity is.

Yeah, it seems like it's coming from the same place. So it's definitely like it seems like that's the enemy that Heroco was talking about before. Oh, but when noah's in TV Boy, he's getting, like a big, like, crazy technicolored red and green screw or pipe or something being shoved into the back of his head.

Oh, yeah.

That's when they fuse control and get, like, full Super Saiyany. Yeah.

It turns into a light bulb that goes off as the robot transforms. Yeah, there's a lot going on.

And that's also when her bracelet chain thing starts flailing about again. So clearly, whenever there's crazy big brain activity going on, it's something tied to her that increases the mystery.

She runs to the scene where the robots are fighting. They blast that new robot with the now canonized TV Boy.

He's bashing him now.

Yeah. This is very Iron Giant of you're. Not a gun. You don't have to be a gun.

You know, weapon. You stay, I go. One thing that they call me a card is the bullet they shot goes back into Tea people. He comes back, I was like, oh, I don't know. I don't like that.

Hey, it's preserving energy.

I mean, like, I get it. Just seeing the bully go back into a gun in reverse.

We are all about recycling here.

That's what the show is about.

Captain Planet.

There we go.

Voiced by Tom Cruise. Oh, speaking of being uncomfortable after the big fight and they're done with the superpower move, TV boy just straight up shits out.

I was not a fan of that.

Yeah, that was not great. Little toilet paper on his face, and then the note comes out, all brown and slimy in a coil.

Like straight up a turd.

Yeah.

That was weird. And he's got a new lump.

Another one?

Yeah. He should see a real doctor.

Yeah, the one who's giving him the lumps.

The one who caused all of this.

What are you talking about? It's fine.

Everything'S great.

It's like a coca cola. Is your dentist keep happening? I don't know. Keep drinking the soda. I don't know.

I've just been washing your teeth with premium coca cola.

I've seen it. Clean a toilet. I can do that with you, pearly. What?

Drink this mountain dew It can dissolve a rat's body. It can dissolve anything ailing you inside.

So, yeah, that's sort of where we end off. As confused as when we started.

Not a lot of answers.

Both episodes kind of have the same cadence, like, when you think about it, because it's just like to go back to what we said before. It's just mumble corps, mumble core. Mumble core, robot fight.

The whole episode, pretty much. Oh, but the endings, like the ending credits.

Oh, yeah, I love the ending credits. They were great.

I knew you would.

It was just such peppy, like, indie rock intercut with, like, stop motion moped footage.

And then there's heroku, though, messing around on the moped, too. Driving it and then fooling around on it and then falling off, chasing after and just all the dumb stuff she has to deal with, with the moped. So it's clearly not like she's not a master of it. It's like a brokerageing relationship.

I don't know if you guys watched the coming up next time on fooly cooly Things, but it's pretty much just haruka. Just, like, rambling about nothing relevant, which is fun.

I expect nothing less from her.

I watched it for the first one, and then I was like, okay, I got nothing helpful out of that. I didn't really process it as much as I should have.

Yeah, but I mean, that's what we watched.

That's a third of the series and we have no idea what's happening.

Yeah. That was an adventure. I enjoyed several parts of it.

I wrote this in my notes that I think knowing what it's about and knowing the message that they're trying to tell or the story they're trying to tell, whatever, it really helps, I think, now, like, watching it now, knowing what it's about, I enjoyed it a lot more.

Yeah.

I hope to get to that point. I did definitely on my second watch through Go. Oh, okay. I can see a lot more lines being drawn between things and things starting to make more sense, but I'm still sure I'm grasping about 30% of what I should have.

Yeah.

Paul, was there anything that you think we might have missed or, like, any little Easter egg that went by too quickly that we didn't talk about?

I don't think we mentioned that harika is an alien. Yeah, I think we forgot to mention.

That because you're never really sure. She mentions it twice, but it's sort of introduced as a joke because nata is immediately like, yeah, right. And moves on. So it's never, like, solidly established that, yes, she is an alien.

Treat the audience with giving the critical plot relevant information to the comedic joker character. So you don't believe them.

Yeah, but she is one.

Yeah, it's true. So dugan.

Yeah.

How'D you like it? Would you continue watching it?

I think knowing that it's only six episodes well, at least for, like, this first original run, I think I will finish it as I need to know what is going on because I am so confused.

And even when you watch it, you're going to come back to us and be like, what is it about? And then we'll tell you and then you'll love it.

Yeah, I'm going to finish it. And then I'm going to go to you for the Cliff Notes of everything I missed.

It's like the masons will lower your body temperature so you're just on the cusp of dying, whisper the secret and then bring it back to life. It makes all the sense.

See, this is like, the only enjoyable part of non narrative avantgarde type stuff, is the puzzle piecing of trying to put stuff back together after.

I think it's good with it being so short. If this is, like, a 23 episode series and it was all like this, I think people would get burnt out real quick because it's only six. It's like, oh, yeah, it's a nice bite size, enjoyable meal.

Yeah, I think any more and then they would also try to bite off more than they could chew and add 50 more nonsensicals. They would need to tie in. So I think six episodes, especially if they're going this, like, nonlinear and yeah, mumble corey. It needs to be short.

Yeah. But yeah, we did another one.

We won. dugan likes the weird ones. He doesn't like the straightforward Death Note narrative.

A Death Note? Is it not straightforward?

Yeah, I'll fight you on that one.

Compared to this and Soul eater, it seems at least more grounded in reality. A little better. At least what we saw.

Yeah, I am liking the little bit more grounded stuff and not the I'm the prince of a dark kingdom and I need to devour all these monsters.

Well, I guess we're not watching kirby.

But that's my favorite.

Kirby, right back at you. That's only on fox kids.

Good job, Paul.

Thank you.

Yeah, that was an interesting pick.

Definitely a good one, though. I think I'll probably end up rewatching it all too, just because yeah, like you said, it's only four more episodes ago.

Yeah, I definitely want to watch the rest.

Just understand better. And the other one is it's a sequel series, so I'm not sure exactly what's tied into it, but it's like new characters, new location, all that. And it was done last year.

Yeah, I think harika is still in it.

Yeah, hercule might be still in it.

There's actually going to be it's technically two more seasons. There's fully coolly, progressive and then I think it's alternative. Yeah. And I think they're both six episodes, so it brings it out to 18 total.

Yeah, all doable.

Yeah.

And since they're telling different stories, it keeps it interesting.

It's also been so long. It's not like they pumped all these episodes out in one session for one season.

But yeah, good show.

Yeah.

I believe you have what we are watching next week.

Yes. I prepped a little ahead of it because I got real excited and figured we did a few weird ones. Let's do a pretty standard one that's super crazy popular right now for good reason. And the next show we're going to watch is my hero academia boca new hero.

Paul also really likes Boko. No, hero academia.

It's like a good old fashioned narito.

I love people calling it just the main character majoria. Everyone just calls Green naruto because pretty much he's a similar character, but better and less annoying.

Don't spoil it ahead.

It's part of the shonen Jump, which are naruto bleach one piece, like those.

Big dragons, big action, even I would have heard of.

Yeah. Huge cast, like 30 characters are like the supporting cast, like every episode. And it's just crazy stupid popular right now.

Oh, yeah.

So we're like, hey, let's get into this. For good reason. I'm up to date with the show and the manga I read and watch. Both me too. It just does it well. It's just good. So I look forward to it. And I'm a sucker for any hero superhero trophy stuff because I grew up with it.

Yeah.

So, yeah. We're going to watch episodes two, four and seven.

Thank you for listening to are we there yet? Please follow us on Twitter and Instagram at are we there yet? For both thank you to Louis zong for our theme song stories off of his album Beats. You can find all of louie's music at Louisong bandcamp.com and we hope you will join us next week as we.

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