AWTY 87 - My Christian Server (BOFURI: I Don't Want to Get Hurt So I'll Max Out My Defense with Jess Morse)

Wait, does that mean if I raise my defense enough, I won't take damage? That's my jam. Sign me up.

Hello, and welcome to our weave. There yet an exploration and education and anime. I'm your anime idiot, patrick dugan.

I am an anime expert, dana hollander.

And I'm brenda mccullough. Your anime power leveling grinder with a high agro and a low dps. I'm useless.

Oh, no. You just threw word salad at me. I don't know.

I'm reliving all my mmo glories all those years I put in the City Heroes and it did nothing good. Yeah.

Wow.

I mean, knowing you, you wouldn't have utilized that time in a productive way otherwise, so I'm I'm fine with that.

It's fair. But I think it might have fucked up my social skills a little bit. Thus, podcasting.

Really?

Yeah, I can see that.

Sorry.

That was meanwhile, well, let's have someone.

Help us be more social this week. We have a guest joining us. Returning guest, one of the authors of bad fan fiction and the social media manager for skybound Games, jess Morris.

It's me. Hello.

Welcome back to me.

Welcome back. Thank you for not running away last time.

No problem.

So, yeah, you brought us another show this week. This one you chose. So what's our show and what is your history with it?

All right, so today we're talking about bofuri. I don't want to get hurt, so I'll max up my defense. This is a show that hulu recommended to me because hulu knows that I like anime after the only anime I've watched on hulu being oren High School Host Club again and the new Fruits basket. Oh, hell yeah. If you haven't done the new fruits basket yet, put me on there because I love it better than the old fruits basket, even though it's almost exactly the same.

We have seen neither.

Yeah, their hair is a lot more shiny in the second one, but that's not the show we're watching. We are watching what I already said. It's a very long title, but I just discovered it a few weeks ago on hulu. I watched it all twelve episodes and I just found it so delightful. And I don't know anyone else who has watched it outside of my house. So I want to talk about it with you and everyone, all of our wonderful listeners today.

Lovely.

Yeah. This is extremely fresh. This is one of the first series I've seen with the 2020 dates posted on it.

Yeah.

So yeah, less than three months old. The three month run of this series so far.

Yeah, better than my track record within this decade. Yeah.

Something for middle school. Let me rummage through my closet.

What are you talking about? Middle school is like middle school is only like three years ago. Oh, no.

Oh, God.

Age.

I'm a junior in high school now. Right?

Yeah. Yeah, that's it.

Whenever we pull out like a 2010, I'm always like, that's not that's pretty fresh. And then I'm like, Wait a minute. Oh, no, that was dead whole years ago. Oh, dear.

So, yeah, this being so fresh. Have either of you heard of this series?

No.

No. This is all new to me.

All right. You have some fresh babies watching this show.

Agaga.

We decided to give it a try.

Yeah, we're going to watch the first three episodes. Everyone shields up.

I'm not ready for combat.

All this grinding just makes me want to keep playing Animal Crossing.

Off of that.

I feel that.

That's true.

I don't have animal makes me wish I no, go ahead.

No, I don't have Animal Crossing myself, but I'm watching my boyfriend play it on his switch light and my roommate play it on the TV and it's really just grinding the game. So that's all it is.

Yeah, that's life.

But it's cute. It is cute and I appreciate it. Cute.

And you got cute animals. Yeah. I was going to say this kind of made me wish I ever got into any kind of game like this because it seemed like fun.

This is very good marketing for hey, do you want to throw your life away to an mmo?

Yeah.

This one specifically, though, where you can just be cute. It's like, what if I was just cute? And also there were little bunnies and then I ate a dragon. That's all.

That's all it takes.

Yeah.

Has anyone else played mmo for any extended periods of time?

No.

Extended? No.

The only one I could kind of say is Destiny, which doesn't really count because it's not this level to it.

Yeah. Like I said in the opening, I played City of Heroes, which, as the name tells you, it's a superhero. I'm mmo and I played that for four years, I think.

Wow.

Yeah. I skipped middle school one day because I had to attend a virtual wedding in it. Stop it.

No, you didn't.

How old were the branding groom, or sorry, how old were the participants?

I have no idea. They were virtual, so they could just be 40 year old perverts. For all I know.

They're like real people. It wasn't like an npc wedding.

It was two players, like, marrying each other, who I only knew through my group.

Oh, my God.

But I don't know who they were in real life. Like, I didn't know anything about their real life identities.

That's incredible.

A dream. So if people were to ask you, like, yeah, how many weddings have you gone to? Do you count this? Does this make the list?

Technically, I would give a gift, just spend money on one of my alternate costumes to turn it into a suit because it was formal.

I wish you would have been like, hey, I'm sorry, I got a big test in Modern civilization class today. I'm sorry.

And then they're like, oh, God, I don't know anything about the people we hang out with.

No. What happened? I was probably about the age. Yeah, no, my mom woke up to go to work at like 05:00 a.m. And she saw me still on the computer. I said, hey, mom, I'm going to be calling out sick today. She's like, okay, let me do it.

That's amazing.

I was a good student. She knew I was. I didn't do it a lot, so she let me do it one time.

Well, of course he has a good reasoning.

A virtual wedding with a bunch of perverts online.

Very important. So let's talk anyway about this one.

Yeah.

So in episode one, we open with a cute girl on her phone with her friend. And her friend is they're like discussing they're excited to try a new game that just came out and they were going to play together. But the friend, her name is risa, she can't play because she has to study. And then her mom calls her away and she says goodbye. And our main character, she reveals I can't remember if she said that she hasn't played a game ever or just in a long time.

It's like pretty much never, I think is the idea. Yeah, she played with like she like went outside and stuff.

Wild.

She's a functional member of society, you know, it's wild.

I used to do that when I was a child. I played with barbie dolls and went outside. I don't know where the switch happened, but that ain't me now.

Thanks, Quarantine.

But so she says she only bought it because Theresa told her to. And she just can't resist when she gets that energy.

I'm already like, sparkly eyes.

Yeah, I'm already like, great, you're gay. Okay, we're gay.

I'll do anything for this girl in my class.

Curious. So she sets it up and the game is called New World Online and it has a VR helmet and gloves. So she gets logged in and we see the opening. And let me tell you what I find promising just about this opening.

Right.

I think my problem with most isekai type anime is that the main characters are unlikable boys. But in this one, there seems to be none of those, at least in the first three we watched.

I don't know what you're talking about. As I stare at the entire isaki genre.

That's what makes me excited about this. We see a boy, a man, whatever, but he's obviously not going to be a main, main character. So it's exciting. Change.

I love intros like that. Usually I can tell if I'm going to like an anime from the intro alone. I mean, that's kind of the point of Eddie intro for Eddie show. But it's just like, okay, so I know the show is about she's playing a video game and then I watch the intro, I'm like, oh, she's playing a video game and she's going to make a lot of cute friends and they're going to work together. Sounds great.

It's as much about the friendships as just beating shit up. Cool.

So she has to put her name in, and she thinks, oh, should I do my real name? No, I'll do what my name means in English, and it means Maple. So this is maple. That's what we're going to call her. And then she has to pick a weapon, and she's like, well, I don't want to get hurt, so I better pick something where I can avoid getting hit. She's like, Maybe I'll be a wizard. And then she sees a big shield and a short sword, I think. So she picks those, and then she is given stats to distribute among the different abilities, and she just puts all of them in defense, or vitality is what they keep calling it, which is a choice.

Just max out, that one.

Yeah. But, you know, as we know, this is her first time playing a game, and she does not have her friend to guide her. And she's taken into the game. She's in like a starting plaza area, like a little marketplace. There are a bunch of folks scattered around. The music is really nice. And it made me really sad that the Renaissance Fair got canceled.

This.

Because this felt very Renaissance Fair esque. And I was like, oh, man.

A virtual renaissance fair.

I would attend it's, just buying a bunch of bullshit. I'd love to be there, just build.

A backdrop and have a zoom conference.

Who wants to be my boyfriend?

Thanks for coming.

You're right. So she starts walking, but she's very, very slow. And then she looks at her stats again, and she realized is that because she put everything in Vitality, everything else is going to be awful. So, like, agility is like speed, I guess. And she's just not moving, which is weird. I feel like the normal moving what's the word? Operation. And like, a video game isn't really reliant on your stat.

Yes, there's some stuff because so much of this show is clicked. The people who made it know a lot about video games, and they know easily for the show and then other stuff. It's like, wait, how does this work? It's like a VR game. Is she walking around in her room? How could she not go fast?

Yeah.

I've only seen it in either you're carrying a big gun and that's like, oh, I can't move as fast because I got a big gun. Or like Dark souls, where it's like you're carrying a mammoth skull on your head. Of course you're not going fast.

Yeah, I guess it would have made a little more sense in my mind because she is carrying a giant shield. Like, if she said, like, oh, man, I'm slow because I'm a shield, but whatever, nitpicking. She says she's stuck in turtle mode. She thinks about what to do, and she's like, well, I better just go fight some monsters then, and she wants to find some, and she stops someone named frederica, and she points her in the right direction. frederica. And then a guy.

Permanent cat face.

Yeah. Three smile.

Yeah, that's the one I picked in Animal Crossing.

Yup, same.

It's apparently the gay face.

Oh, no.

Oh, dear. How dare well, I'm only mad because they're right. And then a guy goes up to frederica, and he says, Hi. She says, Hi, Drag. And then they say, that another dude who I forgot the name of was this pain?

Pain, yeah.

Okay, so he's ready. They're ready to go somewhere they're about to go. That's all we see from them.

Okay. So, Pat, you rightfully declined my offer to talk about Fire aluminum three houses on your podcast. Talking about it right now because I'm ready. Very clearly looks like dimitri.

Yeah, very much.

And it takes, like, eight or nine episodes until you finally see his face, and you're just like so the whole time, you're like, well, times give. dimitri's in the show.

Yeah, that's exactly what I thought.

Only just one of several parallels to Fire emblem three houses that we will get into later as we watch more.

I can't wait.

Yeah.

So his name is payne or dimitri or mikey, if whatever you want your favorite name for dimitri, let me look.

At I've heard the name, but I've never seen him. Oh, yeah. Look at that. Wow.

Got blonde hair, blue armor, a spear, and a whole lot of angst.

Yeah.

Wacky.

It's like two.

I just want you to brood at me.

It's true.

So Maple is slowly walking toward the forest, and then she just finds a clearing, and she stands in it. And then a small, cute bunny looking monster comes out and charges at her, but it doesn't hurt her because her defense is so high, and it just keeps launching itself at her stomach, and she's just like, come on, you can do it. Hit me. Hurt me. What are you doing?

I'm ruining it for you too.

An hour later. And then an hour later of presumably just her standing there and getting blasted by this bunny. She got a level up in vitality, and then eventually it takes, like, one last go at her, and then it just dies, and it fades away, and she levels up to level two without.

Screeching to the heavens, lamenting the death of her bunny friend.

Yeah, her bunny friend.

Yes. She was very upset because she gets.

Like, distracted by something else and turned slightly, and that's when the bunny hits the shield and kills itself. And I was amazed that she was able to she was just playing with the rabbit at that point. She's like, this is fun. I'm okay with just doing this forever. Because she did it for an hour.

Yeah, because if you were in the game, wouldn't you do that?

Yeah. Her attitude is just so good. Here because she's like, all right, I'm playing for a friend, and she's not online. Just tell me what to do. All right, I guess I'll have some fun. It's just that reserve just very naturalistic, I guess. I'm playing a video game right now.

She's the person that plays runescape and be like, man, this cooking simulator is great. No, there's, like, other stuff. It's. Like what's now?

It's like we were talking about yesterday. You see your villagers naruto running in the plaza. You naruto run with them.

Yeah.

And animal crossing.

That's all you say.

All right, this is my next 45 minutes.

Hold my calls.

But so with the level up, she gets five more points to distribute among her stats, and she puts them all in defense.

Why not?

And then she's walking along and yeah, why not? And another monster comes to fight her, and it's a bug this time, and it has poison spray, so now she's actually getting hurt, but as she's getting hit with it, it also boosts her poison resistance. So she just lets it attack her, and it dives down to get her, but she pulls out her sword, and she stabs it in the head. hooray.

Hospital.

Yay.

And it good for her. And it dropped a ring, and she levels all the way up to level eight, and she gets a bunch of cool power ups, and the ring that the bug dropped gives her another boost to vitality, and she also puts all of the points she gained into vitality.

Yeah, I love what the little multiplication comes up above her head. Oh, like, man, nothing I love in the show more than, like, cute monsters, video games and math. These are, like, my three favorite kids.

Because that's one of the biggest things of these games, is, like, I just need to see that number get bigger. And this show still gives you that satisfaction of, I'm not doing anything. I'm just watching this girl have some fun. But, yeah, I'm still getting that same satisfaction and watching numbers go up, scratching.

That itch.

Yeah. So she gets tired, and she just falls asleep where she is, and a bunch of monsters come out and just start bugging her. They're not really attacking her. They're just kind of on her. And when she wakes up, she has gained an ability called meditation. And it says something about it only working while she's being attacked, and she's, like, attacked. And then she looks down, and she sees all of the monsters on her, and then she fights them off. And then at this point, she decided she should probably log off. And then she takes the helmet off, and she sees how late it got. Oh, no, it's realistic. And then it's the next day, she's back in the game.

No one was like, hey, did you eat dinner? Did you work? Did you brush your teeth? I don't know, because she never says. I mean, they talk about like, oh, make sure you don't get in trouble with your parents. Her parents have no idea what she's.

Been doing, clearly, because especially as a.

Non gate range, she's not known for just being like, oh, I'm locking myself in my room for 6 hours. I got a raid. She's been reading a book for 8 hours now. What is happening?

I would make a comment, but I just confessed earlier to playing an mmo until four in the morning so I have no room to talk.

And also attending a wedding instead on a weekday.

Why are they getting married?

Good question.

It's so inconvenient for everyone's school schedule.

Yeah, maybe they're in a different time zone. Maybe it's just like Wednesday afternoon for them. And it was like four in the morning for me.

She's still just exploring on her own because risa is still busy. And she decides that she wants to get a cool outfit and shield. And she sees a big dude wearing red armor and he has a big red shield. And she's like, hey, where'd you get your stuff? And he's like, oh, my crafter friend made it for him for me. You want to come meet her? And Maple is like, yes please, of course. And he takes her. The crafter's name is Is and his name is Karomu. They go into the shop and Is says that Maple is cute and that she shouldn't follow strangers around.

It's good advice.

Yeah. And they just have some playful banter. And then she formally introduces herself to Maple and they just talk shop. She says that she can hook Maple up with some great vitality gear, but it also costs a lot of in game money. And Maple doesn't have any, so she just has to keep at it.

I love and then Is, because she's just like a person who like got this game and got a store.

Like she got a job, she's like.

She plays, she just like, makes stuff for people. At first I thought she was an npc, which I was like, oh, that would be clever. But I was like, oh no, she just is really into having people get collect stuff. And then she like, I don't know, I guess it's like Animal Crossing where you can make the little custom designs for the clothes. She's just like, yeah, I just have a real estate in this game. In this little village.

Yeah.

At the Weapon Select, she picked cash register and that solidified that she has.

The open for business expansion.

Her main weapon capitalism.

I get that impulse because when like Fallout 76 was coming out, they're like, there's no human. So people are like, yeah, I'll just be a general store. That's fine. I can fulfill that role.

I would have loved to do that.

We've joked about it before already, but in Runescape, I knew plenty of people who had the highest smithing level in the area. So people would run to them, give them the supplies, and then the people would charge a certain amount of money and then give them back like adamant armor or something. Like really high level armor. So it did happen in some games.

Nice.

Yeah.

But so Is points her in the direction of the poison dragons labyrinth. And she says that there's a lot of cool treasure in here, in there. But they also tell Maple to be careful because there's a lot of monsters too. And then Is offers to add Maple as a friend so they can talk whenever. And karomo adds her too, and he's like, oh, I could give you some potions. One great shield wielder to another. And I was just like, oh, this is so sweet.

I love it.

Yeah, it's so nice.

Because sort out online. I didn't watch most of that, but it's like, oh, it's a video game. And things go bad halfway through the first episode. It's like it's a video game and everything's great.

Everything's pretty chill.

That's what I was afraid of. Like when you brought this show, I was like, oh, no, I don't like Sort Out online one bit. But I love this.

This is it.

See, this is what I want from every online game. And I never get it. It's always just someone screaming at me. And it's like, I can't do this if we're not doing this.

Let's chill.

Let's have fun.

She's just on like the polite server. Like all the apples are somewhere else.

No cussing, good Christian swearing on my Christian server. So after this, Maple heads off and Is is like, oh, do you think she's going to go to the dungeon on her own? And corona is like, I don't think that she would do something like that, but that's exactly what she's doing. And she goes in and some slimes charge at her right away. And she tries to slice at them with her sword, but that doesn't go very well. So she charges them with her shield and she kills them. And she continues through. And she finds the boss room and a three headed dragon comes out. And the fight begins. It spits poison at her and she loses her sword and shield. And she just decides that she's just going to keep using the health potions that Karomu gave her and just keep repeating that. Like it takes her health away. She just takes potion. So she keeps doing that and her poison resistance keeps going up until eventually she gets poison immunity so this dragon cannot hurt her.

Such a beautiful argument in favor of spamming. I love a third act that heavily features potion spanning. It's just.

Excellent.

Finally relatable content.

The only way I could win is skyrim. So obviously it's the only way she can win this boss battle.

It's a big part of Monster Hunter, that's for damn sure.

But so it's time to fight it. And she still doesn't have any weapons. And it scoops her up and she struggles, and it roars at her. And then she roars back and she starts biting. And then she just fucking eats this dragon of vibe.

Is that a standard mechanic in some games where you can just consume the enemy? Is it just curvy?

It is very curvy. She's just like, well, I got teeth.

Don'T I can't beat them. I eat them.

When she karate chops it and that does nothing. Her hands and her muscles don't register as doing damage, but her tiny little anime teeth do.

Nibble is zero two damage.

So she kills it and it fades away, and she levels all the way up to 18. And she gets an ability that lets her use the dragon's powers. And of course, she puts all of her gained points into vitality. And I enjoy like, I never pause to take the time to read it, but I enjoy that it tells us what she's getting. Like, there's a little screen that always explains her power ups. Yeah, I like that. We can keep track of that if we want to. And she's excited to finally have an attack skill. She can use poison now. And she opens the treasure chest that was there when the dragon faded away. And it has some cool armor. Cool armor and a shield in it. And she looks great. She's got some sick black and white armor.

The shadow. The hedgehog. Color red.

Black and red, not white.

She also got a gun.

Yeah, like hover shoes. And has to save the president.

And then after that, it's in the evening, and she's talking to risa. And reese is not allowed to play until they have their tests. And risa reminds Maple to study also. And that's episode one.

Yeah, she's hooked.

Now. Oh, no.

The poultry is a gamer.

Welcome to the second class of society.

Next episode, we see her buying one of those drink hats, and she just gets two two liters of Mountain dew. Code Red.

So we pick up in episode two. She has she's just grinding. She's found her rhythm. She's out in the woods already, super powerful, and she decides to eat exploding bugs for, like, explosion immunity. And she's like, these are like Pop Rocks. These are kind of cool. I love it. And she's already a pro at this point. She's got it all figured out. Let me just eat everything. absorb their power.

She's curvy.

Truly poyo.

Yeah, it's like they put the devs put that in, but like, only one person is eating the bugs.

It's like, no one in their right mind would try it, but it does work.

They thought they were going to save that for, like, an ama later. Like, what's the craziest skill? No one's ever found yet, but it's like she found it on day one.

Shit. Our vor class, it didn't work.

There's just one weird developer who just slipped it in and no one knew about it.

Derek, you always put this in. Last time, you put it into a racing game, and it didn't even make sense.

No sense.

Outside of the game. She's walking to school, and she's thinking about her speed. She's in full on gamer mode, spending outside game time to figure out how to make inside game time better. And she's walking to school, and risa meets up with her, and she's starting to fill her in on all of the advancements that she's having and all the fun she's having while reese is still grounded dealing with the test stuff. So she announces that there's going to be a new event that day in the game, a big battle royale, and she's super invested, super into it. And risa warns that she can sometimes get carried away with things like this and just to be careful and how she can't wait to join and start to guide her tomorrow after the test. So we jump into the big battle royale event. It's a big three hour free for all fight just everyone, kill everyone. And we get introduced to the game's mascot, Donegal, which is a little red dragon with squiggly eyes.

Very cute, very good.

I don't know what they say in Japanese, but they say raw in English, which is.

Japanese. So they start the event. They're transported to a new map. Everyone's separated, and Maple is like, oh, thank God. I thought they were just going to throw us into a pit. Oh, cool. I could chill here for a bit. So she just hangs out in this abandoned castle. She's drawn a big dragon portrait on the ground when finally someone walks in to challenge her. This is the great faux Christmas rose. He's going to challenge her, and he already got ate by the shield.

From fire him. He's a Lawrence. But in the show.

Lost On Me.

The only one I know really well is hilda. I'm sorry.

Hilda and claude. Well, hilda and claude are at top two. You got to know him.

Yeah.

Let me tell you something. hilda is Paul, my boyfriend. jess. hilda is paul's favorite. And I took a quiz to find out which character I was, and I really didn't want to be hilda. And the comedic timing of it, I finished the quiz, and I was just like, if I get hilda, I got hilda just right away. And it sucks because the description, I was just like, damn, that really read me for filth.

But it's very correct calling me out.

In the worst way possible.

Please, I don't need to know this about myself.

Hilda dice. She calls people sweetheart.

She manipulates them into getting them to do her work for her.

Yeah. So it was claude. Well, anyway, back to the show, right?

So, yeah, the shield immediately devours this dude, and there's three other people waiting in the hallway watching. And where the trio of three?

Our.

Guild is so undefeated and immediately they're all paralyzed. And it's just an uncontested defense that she's not taking any damage. nothing's registering. Her poison powers from the Dragon are just knocking everyone out. So everyone outside of the event, there's, like, cameras and everyone's watching and everyone's fixated on her because she is just destroying without taking a single hit and just everyone's swarming her. She's taking on, like, armies at a time, and she's taking them all out. She throws her big dragon power at them and a big Hydra eats them all and explodes and fun stuff.

I think she got, like, the knife or, like, the dagger from the Hydra, from that blue chest. And she can paralyze everyone in, like, an aoe attack. And then she just unleashes all of the poison gas from the Hydra, which is a very insidious combo. I'm like, no, I don't actually have to attack. I just stun you so you can't move in and just fill the area with poison.

Yeah, that's like the go to pokemon like mystery dungeon strategy because you can stun and poison as opposed to in regular pokemon games, you can't. So it's like, clearly she played that game, the one game she played, and then she had a long dead patch and now she's back in.

She's back in.

She learned the one skill set she has finally coming back into play. So we get an update that there's only an hour left in the event and she is in the top three. She's number three, so she's a higher threat. So to balance it out, for the last hour, everyone can see her and the other two pinpointed on their maps. So now they're big targets and everyone's swarming them, but it doesn't matter because she still destroys everyone and finishes the event in third.

It's kind of ridiculous because I guess Pain and dread, who did one and two, they are clearly supposed to be, like, veteran players, but we watched her kill, like, hundreds of people at once. What were they doing with their swords and their daggers without their poison bread?

Yeah, because it sounds like it's a new game that everyone's jumping into. So everyone's sort of at the same place, but there are people who are skipped.

They fuck at the clock.

But, yeah, I assume everyone's about the same level because they talk about, like later on, they talk about getting into the second level of the game and all that stuff. So I assume everyone's about the same place, but there's still veteran players who know how to attack and stuff and should know what they're doing more than someone who's like, all right, let me just be a brick wall.

It seems like kind of like an rng maybe, loot system because she got really good gear early on from the Hydra dungeon. So maybe something like that. Where dread and Pain also have super powerful stuff like the relics and fire emblem because I know in skyrim, really early on in skyrim, in a random dungeon, I found a book to summon a deirdre Lord, which is the highest level summon you can do. So I just waxed out my summoning skill and by level like ten, I could summon two deirdre lords and they would just clean shop every dungeon I went into. It might be something like that where she just got super lucky.

But yeah, she finishes third. She gets interviewed in front of the crowds and she's all embarrassed and stumbly because she's just a little baby that doesn't know any better. So outside the game, she's telling risa about her win, tells her as she's describing it, and telling her how she's just a big brick wall troll. reese is like, oh, you're like a boss character now. She's like, oh yeah, I guess I am just a themed boss. So risa decides to start building her character and in order to still have fun but not also be a big tank, she picks being a swashbuckler, which is evasive with speed. So they're both just unhittable just for different reasons. So she finally joins the game. They're finally playing together. Lisa is going by Sally in the game because of course we cannot have an anime where everyone does not have less than two or three established names. So Sally is in the world, and she has like a heavy agility build. We see her sort of her strategy of like, I'm going to hang on to a bunch of points until I figure out what I actually want my skills to be. So she's the experienced one who's like, let me see what's up with this world first, a good idea. Maple wants to commission a new shield. So she goes to a blacksmith and she gets a quest to go to an underground lake and get a bunch of fish scales so she can get like a nice white shield that matches her aesthetic. So they go to this lake. This really just pushed me back into Animal Crossing because they just fish for 2 hours straight.

They just chill.

And that is literally what I was doing before this. So it was a personal attack, calling.

You out, called the police. They're on their way.

Yeah.

So as they're fishing, Sally is so much better because her agility is faster and she's better at getting all the fish. So she's getting them all, but she's giving them to Maple. So they're sharing, they're working together, they're good friends.

It's like, hey, what if we were good friends?

What if we shared everything together in like a partnership?

What a novel concept.

What if we were just like a couple of gals being pals?

That's on the bingo card. Why didn't check that out?

Okay, I didn't you because I'm dumb. So yeah, they're sharing everything and sally's like, okay, I will fish for a little longer, but let me I also want to play this game. Let me just free swim around for a little bit. Let me stretch my legs. So she jumps in the water. She's exploring under the water surface, and she sees a big, locked, chained up door. And she's like, boss zone. Got it. Cool. Let me stash that in my brain. So she comes back up, and they have enough shells or scales to build the shield. And she says, hey, I found a boss door. Let's come here every day and just grind out my swimming skill so we can explore that. And Maple is like, yeah, you basically gave me everything I need to build my new shield. Yes, I will grind with you here underwater.

Sally also says that your athletic ability in real life can factor into the game because she's a good swimmer in real life. And she's like, oh, if you're good at climbing trees, that can be, like, upward mobility and climbing in the game. And I feel like that's very inherently against video games.

Yeah, I would be really bad at this if that's the case.

Nerds are not known. nerds are being athletic.

If you got good brain, you can do puzzle. That's true.

I was going to say I could be a bard and just perform at people.

There is a character later on you meet who's just like, meet them, and they're like, oh, are you strong? Like, no, I don't do any fighting. I just really like the puzzles. If you guys find any puzzle, I'll do them for you.

Great.

Please.

I crave them. I need it.

I must puzzle or I will die.

That's one thing I liked about the game Alan Dark, which is like a horror game that was basically like steeping King, the video game.

Alan Wake.

Alan Wake. Sorry. Yeah. Alan wake. Because the main character is a writer, and anytime he has to, like, run from the monsters, his stamina depletes immediately. Because he's a writer, he doesn't exercise a lot. And I was like, this makes sense, versus, like, uncharted, where the guy's sprinting at, you know, mach three for 5 hours straight.

It's like, I need this to be believable. You're throwing shadow monsters at me. But, oh, he can't run in these in these sketches, there's a slight incline.

For about half a mile, and he's winded as hell, which I can relate to.

So, yeah, we get a training montage of them just coming back every day and just swimming and building that swimming skill and just being able to breathe underwater for extended periods of time until finally she's ready to go. Maple cannot go in because she's a rock, and she'll just sink and not be able to do anything. So she's like, okay, I will message you in 20 minutes. So you know, that's when your air's out. And she's a good little warning system for this battle. So Sally goes in. She swims in to this big cave. There's a big squid monster there that she has to fight. At first there's water up top, so she's like, oh, I can pop up for air if I need to. That's fine. But as the fight goes on, the water level keeps rising. And she's losing that air. And it's getting down to the wire. She finally defeats it as she's passing out. And she just made it. She didn't quite die before it died, so she wins.

I'm thinking we don't really see how them passing out works in real life. Can you imagine how horrifying it would be to be playing a video game like this? And then when you drown, you drown. You just pass out in real life.

Air out of your lungs.

Oh, no. Why did I agree to put on this waterboarding mechanic?

I knew I should have filled my VR helmet with two quarts of water before I started.

I thought that was a strange choice. Does it need hydraulics or something?

She's a method gamer.

Oh, boy.

Be the worst thing in the world.

I'm sure they exist.

I guess that is. Yeah, there we go.

But yeah, she gets new armor, so she's catching up. She's out of her starting close, so she's ready to go. As they leave, they announced that the game company is unlocking the second level soon. So everyone has to go through an event to unlock it. So they're unlocking the new content. They're getting ready for the next part of the game to open up. And that's where we end episode two.

Yeah. So episode three opens up with Sally kind of researching, doing like a FaceTime call with Maple, figuring out what skills work best for them. And with the new level coming after the game, there's also an update to the game overall. So some of the defensive skills Maple has are getting nerfed because I guess the developers saw her and we're just like, hey, that's super broken. We're going to have to fix that.

Fuck this bitch.

We fucked up.

Oh, no.

We put in too many impossibly powerful skills and then also in the same vicinity of just this one girl who got them all and no one else did.

Yeah, no one else is using this except for her.

I also thought someone should have gotten there first.

We see sally's pro gamer set up with her ergonomic mouse and her chair, as opposed to Maple, who's just been lying on her bed because she doesn't have a desk.

Yeah, she just has her phone. And then yes, sally's got like multiple monitors and a big keyboard and stuff. But Sally is saying it sucks that you'll actually start taking damage now. You won't just be like invincible, but the benefit is now you'll start taking damage effects, which can be like boosts and stuff. So it's like different skills defensive wise, where it's like, if you take so much damage, you can do this now or you have this aoe buffer, other stuff. So Sally is basically saying, you're not invincible anymore, but now you have a whole new set of skills that you can get because you take damage now. So it balances out in some ways. And then we see Sally and Maple log in, log into the game, discussing what they're going to do with for level two. And they're like, hey, you know what? There's still plenty of stuff in level one. Let's go exploring a bit before we hop right into level two and see some of the older stuff before we see all the shiny new stuff. And we get a little shopping montage. And I'm going around different stores and Maple finds a new skill called, I think, like cover or like cover up. And she can defend a teammate. So with her high level defense, she can use that for other people and defend them as well, just making her invincible for everyone. So like we said, she's bouncing out that insane defense. And while they're shopping, they see two new players. newish players looks like their sisters window shopping, saying like, oh, we should buy some new weapons. In the once this was like, no, we got to save the money for like good gear and stuff. She's like, oh, but what if we bought this and we could make more money with it? She's like, I'd rather save it for like potions and stuff. So you got one player trying to get all the new shiny stuff right away and the other player who's like, hoarding all their resources for the next big thing. There's always going to be the next big boss. And god, I'm both of those here. Both of those players.

Yeah, I was going to say I.

Feel like I'm a little bit of.

Both because I'm always afraid to use my shit. Like, I'm always afraid to spend it. But then I'm like, well, that's the point of it. Yeah. I was like, it wouldn't be there if I wasn't supposed to use it.

And then you beat the game with 40,000 health potions you never use because you thought I might need these one day.

Yeah, I am absolutely a video game, like hoarder in Game. I have 80,000 gold in my current run through of Fire Emblem. And I'm only like halfway through. And I was like, I don't know what to buy. I shouldn't get a silver axe. I'll just use my iron axe. I don't know.

You do what I do. You buy a bunch of sunflowers and give them to shamir because she's the best.

Ash is the best and he likes violence. So no thanks.

I thought you were a gamer, Brendan.

You know that I haven't done the Blue line play through. I haven't talked to Ash a lot.

Neither have I. I just recruited him for the two times I did Red in a row.

Anyway, continuing anyway, that's our Fire Emblem podcast sleeping in. Good yeah, I used to play divinity Original Sin with a buddy of mine. And for anyone doesn't know that's basically like dnd, the video game, it's really well done. But he refused to play with me anymore because I would spend so much time organizing my inventory. He's like, no, just grab it and go. I was like, yeah, no. But I got to put Potions over here, spells over here. He's like, I don't. And it paused the whole game. When I did that, he was infuriated. So then after they see those girls, they go to like, a little cafe to get some food. And when they walk in, a few people recognize Maple from a big event. She got Kim third in. So Sally makes a little joke like, oh, I'm dining with a celebrity now. Because she's gotten a lot of recognition from that.

There's a weird shot of sally's butt. There's like a strange amount a strange amount of butt in this episode alone. And I didn't notice it the first time. Their butts show up many times, like, close. But it's still like, why is the shot of their butt anyway?

I was scared when it first started in the first episode, when she's in her room setting up the game, there's a lot of butt shots. And I was like, oh, no. Right at the beginning. Oh, no.

So which butt is a sin, please?

So when they're in the cafe, they're eating and discussing what they're going to do, what they're going to explore before they get a level two. And at the bar nearby, we see dread and Drag. dread is a green robe guy who's covering up half his mouth like a secret ninja guy. Got to have one in every anime.

It's very crazy.

He came in second in the big event and then Drag, who apparently came in fifth, and his friends with the girl from the first episode that helped out Maple. So they're talking, being like, oh, yeah, if you guys want to explore level one. So there's a few places. And they give him recommendations. And they say, oh, if you want, you can go to the forest up in the north, go there at night and get a special quest to unlock this super speed skill if you want it. So dread recommends that, but he's like, oh, by the way, it's going to be a little tough for girls. And it's like, what excess there's there's a lot of connotations with that. I'm like, what's? What do you mean? In what sense? So oh, and they also talk about pain for a bit. dimitri saying like, oh, yeah, he already got to level two before anyone else. And I came in second in the tournament. But he's like insane. Like, there's a huge power level gap between, you know, first place and second place. So he's he's hot shit.

Hell yeah.

So when they get so Sally and Maple decide to go to the forest. And when they get there, we find there's just it's just filled with ghosts. And we see, like, a bunch of flaming skulls flying around. We see, like, a plague doctor ghost fly by. And Sally saying, like, oh, this is why it's hard for girls, because ghosts are scary, and I'm scared of ghosts. And maybe it's just there like, what? No. What? I'm a girl. This isn't scary.

She's like, oh, look at all the little flames. Oh, there's a green one.

Yeah, look how cute they are. What are you talking about?

They're pretty colors. It's fine. It's Halloween, baby.

I mean, that'd be me if I was an immortal god like Maple. I probably wouldn't be scared of a lot of things too, in the game. You know what? It's a ghost. Big deal. So as they're walking through the forest, they see a cabin, and Sally pulls them into that, trying to hide from all the ghosts. She's kind of cowering on the table, scared. And while they're there, Sally hears, like, some moaning and groaning. She freaks out, runs away from the table. And when Maple goes over, she flips the table over and sees a trap door under there. So they go down into the basement, and there's just, like, an empty cavern lit by a bunch of candles. And a dude is sitting in a chair tied up with a bandana over his eyes, just screaming at it. Very weird set.

That's what my basement and Animal Crossing looks like.

What is this game rated? Is it, like, T for teen? Because the ghosts are cute, but this is pretty freaky.

This had a weird Silent Hill vibe to me where I'm just like, what's happening? If I saw that, I'd be like, all right, I'm good, and just keep walking. I wouldn't even engage with this. You know, it's some weird stuff. But so they go up to him, and Maple gives him, like he's screaming and saying it hurts over and over again. So Maple is like, oh, he's hurt. Let me give him a health potion. And it doesn't really seem to do anything, so, like, oh, Sally, try using your white magic, your healing magic on him. Maybe they'll work. And while she's healing him, it seems to be doing good. But as soon as she stops, he starts screaming again. It's like, all right, well, let's just spam heal. Let's just keep hitting him with that healing spell. So Sally uses up, like, all of her magic to heal him. And when she finally does, he takes off the blindfold and gets up from the chair, and he's a ghost, but definitely not the cartoonish flaming skulls we saw earlier. And he's just like, oh, thanks. And then floats away. And they're like, oh, I guess that's the quest giver. And they find the scroll for this super speed scroll. They're like, oh, cool. I guess that's it. I was like, great. That's a really easy quest for a really high level.

You solved my murder puzzle.

You solved my boo boo. A riddle. I had a boo boo.

You healed it with all of your magic.

Thank you.

But I'm a ghost, so boo boo.

All right, see you next time. Yeah. They get the scroll and they're like, cool. We got this super speed spell anyway. And they just keep moving on. And as they head back, sally's talking about like, oh, yeah, there's this one place I want to go to before he hit level two. They're like, all right, cool. So they come to this big hollow dot log, and Sally just shoots like a fireball in there, maybe just kind of like, whoa, what's happening? And when she opens her eyes, they're no longer in a haunted forest. They're in this, like, SUNFIELD area where she's full of sunflowers and a perpetual sunset on, like, a beach. It's like, oh, shit. This is beautiful.

It's lovely.

Yeah. And while they're sitting on the beach, they find these little red gems. And I didn't get the exact name. It's mmo, nonsense name, but it was like a red pearl something. And they're like, oh, wow. This is, like, pretty rare. And like, yeah, you could probably sell these for a lot people's like, yeah, I think I'll just keep mine, though. I just like it. And matches her red and black aesthetic design.

Keeps the work for their date.

It's definitely a date.

They'll make their engagement rings out.

I do like that there's just a part. I mean, how is that developed? Here's a place you can just look at this background art that we painted.

Just a chilled no enemy zone where you could just like I've seen some games where they're just like, yeah, here's a Final Fantasy game. Here's the chocobo forest. There's just friendly chocobos and a lot of stuff you can, like, gather resources from. No enemies.

Look at it.

Thank God, the safe haven.

I'll tell you what, it'd be a lovely venue for an in game wedding.

Just got to wait till four in the morning.

That's when it's never booked out. You got a sweet spot right there. You got the giant monster attacking in the distance. It's beautiful, but it can't come in. Oh, God, I wasted so much time in that fucking anyway, so after they get those, they head back and Maple asks Sally, she's like, oh, so what's that place he wanted to see? I don't tell. I'll keep it a surprise. And this confused me because I super thought it was the sunset area is where she wanted to go. So I don't know what she's talking about because after they say this, they go to level two. So I'm like, wait, you didn't go anywhere? What? That just really confused me. But to get to level two, they go into this, like, archway, so they have to kind of fight to get to level two. It's not just like a staircase. So when they get into this new dungeon, they merely just get charged by pigs, like wild boar looking creatures. And Maple just runs up tanks up with the shield. As they run into the shield, she uses the devour skill and devours the pigs. They're like, oh, easy as pie. She's like, yeah, but I only got so many of those, so we got to be careful not to burn through them all. And as she says, a giant bear appears. All right, here we go and read. She's about to defend them. Sally cast a mirage spell on Maple, and it makes her shield go invisible, which then makes the bear like aggro to her because the bear thinks maples like defenses now and runs the attack. She swings her arm and hits him with the shield and devours him as well because it's still there. It's just an illusion.

Surprise.

Take that, bear. They program the bear to be able to see visibility, not just like the bear knows you have a shield.

Coming from a game standpoint. I think it's a spell that makes the players cast on aggro all the enemies. And for flavor text, it's like, oh, it makes your weapons invisible so you look defenseless.

That's all that went.

That's what I tell myself to sleep at night. So after defeat the bear, they go into the bossroom and they just see this, like, giant all these roots shoot up from the ground and all swirl together and form this giant tree deer. And they're just like, oh, rad. This is going to be rough, though. And as soon as Maple castor giant, like, poison hydra to attack it, it whips out this, like, stained glass shield in front of it and breaks her spell. So all right, definitely a boss battle shield brother. He knows my true weakness. So Maple starts tanking all the attacks. And Sally runs around trying to find a weak point. And they notice because he's like a tree deer, he's got big antlers with, like, apples hanging from him that the shield doesn't cover up. So they target the apples and whittle away his health for a bit. And as maples trying to finish up the deer, deer breaks through her hydro spell again and stuns her. So she's not like, out of health, but she's like incapacitated. So she's just pushed to the side. So Sally just has to finish them off by herself and whips out all of her attacks and takes out all the big guns and finish them off right as Maple wakes up. So she's like, you slip through the whole battle, you bum.

I got to drag your ass everywhere.

Despite you helping me power level earlier in this episode. And they go on to level two, and they meet up with Is, and Maple introduces his and Sally. And that's when Is gives her to the new shield she was able to finish and was going to give it to her next time they saw her. Sally sally says, like, we're at level two now. Let's celebrate a little bit. You got your new shield, so we can celebrate that too. And they just teleport or transport to just, like, the stump that's underneath, like, the entire sky, like, skyline, like, just beautiful stars out so space. And it's yeah, it's just there's a table with, like, a candelabra in there and just like, two plates and two drinks. And it's like, it's just a very cute date. All right. I don't know where this isn't a.

Game, but I like, how can you read this any other way?

And as they sit down, they activate the dinner or whatever, like, press the button and their wine glasses just float up and are just filled with the space cosmos in the wine glass. And it's just, like, stunning. And they look at their plates and there are just three glowing orbs sitting on their plates that say a small piece of the sky. And it's just like, oh, weird.

That's definitely fairy Kingdom heart.

Yeah, it's like a blue, red and green one. And what is it? Maple eats part of the sky. That's a weird sentence.

She already a dragon. What do you expect?

That's true. She is curvy Sally drinks, like, the space wine, and sally's hair starts sparklingly. He's got a bunch of stars in it. And maple's eyes start, like, changing colors, almost like it's a little red and blue in there and stuff. Oh, wow. So it's like cosmetic upgrades. And Maple is like, oh, I hope this doesn't last forever. It's like, why not as rad as hell.

Yeah. Let people know you had a cool.

Date, space date about it. And then we come back to the town center where they first arrived when they got to Level Two, and everyone is there waiting for the next big event. So no one's really sure what it is, but it's to celebrate opening up of level two. They're holding another event, and they run into karumi Karumu, the shield guy, Carolu karamu. And he's there. So they're talking to him a bit, and they hear this lady. They overheard this lady yelling to a big group of people, and he's like, oh, yeah, that's me. It's not me, that's her. But like, her name is Me.

Like, me, like from the we o, me.

There you go. M I. And she is the leader of her, like, group or guild of, like, the Fire Emperor.

The Flame emperor flame premiers from once.

Again trembled three houses exactly.

From Intelligent Systems. A Nintendo entertainment available nintendo Switch.

We lied. jess is from Nintendo. This is all just a brand deal.

I win.

It's a sponsorship.

When we talk about skyben and tabletop games, I won't.

So, yeah, this character is just yelling to her whole group of like, we're going to win this event.

We're going to take it all.

I just kind of rally her group to get them hype for it. He's like, oh, yeah, she came in fourth, so she wasn't in the top three. So not as much attention, but she's legit. And then we hear that the little Dragon mascot comes back down and say, all right, this next event is a treasure hunts. You got to find a bunch of gold coins, and to get a gold coin, you have to get, like, ten silver coins. And all the I think it was like the top three or top ten placers in the last event already have coins before this treasure hunt begins. So it's already putting a target on their back like the last time. So they're saying, like, if you get enough silver coins, you get a gold coin. Get enough gold coins, you get good gear at the end of it. Good luck. And that's kind of the cliffhanger for episode four.

Very cool.

One thing about me, I don't know if they say it in this episode or a later one, but they say she has a lot of followers in her guild, and they say it's because she has high charisma. If you have a high charisma, you say shit, and it makes the human act for players listen to you.

Yeah. Maybe if it's like npcs, she can recruit them easier. Or if it's like a bard and like dnd or something where she can buff other players because of her high charisma, that would be allure yeah. That's very silly, but yeah, that's all three episodes.

Yeah. How did you I'm not going to.

Say the title show with the long title.

With the long title. It's a long title.

There's not enough time.

How does everyone like it since I'm the only one who had seen it before?

I liked it because it it's fun. It knows what it's doing, and it's like, all right, we're going to just let you watch them level up. It's going to hit those video gamey triggers in your brain that give you a good feeling. We're just going to touch on those and just have a cute, fun time.

Yeah.

And I feel like similarly to Natsima's Book of Friends, which we watched last week, it kind of subverts the expectations for an anime like this because you expect these kinds of video games to be that thing where it's like, oh, we're stuck in the video game. Everyone's killing each other, but it's just a video game. And we see them talking about it in real life, like real people do.

Or there's immediately a nemesis that starts griefing them, and then it's like, I'll level up just to spite you. Middle schooler.

It's accurate, though.

Yeah.

It was very refreshing to see in the first episode when she's like, all right, I'm done playing, and she takes off the helmet. I was like, whoo? Okay, good.

Yeah.

Thank you. I watch a lot of sword art and I can't go through that again. But it is refreshing that it's kind of like, yeah, it's just a game. I'm having fun with my friend. We get a few montages. And it's not just this super intense of like, oh, no, we have to do this, like, super powerful thing. Or like, it's not intense and that's refreshing for once, especially in anime.

It's very much because it's originally a light novel series and then it adapted to a manga and then adapted to the anime. It's kind of funny as you watch each episode. It's like there's not really like plot or like, acts one, two, and three. It's sort of like she's playing the game. Like, she did one thing and then she did another thing and then she did another thing. So it's funny when you watch it, it's hard to tell. Like, you can usually tell if you're watching another show, like, oh, I'm in. Like, it's almost done. Like, we're wrapping up the end of the story. I have no idea. Are they going to do five more dungeons or are we both done here?

Did they say it was a weekend and they're just marathoning it?

Yeah, it's very referential and you can tell how much the creators like, how that they actually play video games. And they thought about, like, what would a video game like this be? Like? There's parts. I swear to God, I don't know if they used it in these three. I don't think they did. But they use, like the pokeball sound effect. However it is, I swear they use that because I'll hear it and I'll just like, what?

There's like somewhere deep and dark and my brain just lit up.

They basically get their own pokemon, which is, like, very cute. And they just amass more friends. And one of them likes doing magic. One of them likes using a hammer. This guy's just like a nice man and he's played with all these girls.

And it's not creepy. Everyone has their own specialty in class. And then here's Tom. He's just nice. He's just a cool guy.

He's a nice guy.

Honestly, I think the gimmick that is the biggest thing I'm connecting with is this is the ideal fantasy of just playing an online game. Just everyone's super nice. You have a lot of friends. You don't get stuck on a dumb bug that makes you flip out and angry. It's just like, hey, let's all just take one shot at a boss. Beat it. Because we're at the appropriate level and we're just going to keep moving on.

No one's spamming their twitch channel in Chat on Global Chat, so everyone has to hear it.

Someone says an offhandedly, like, sexist statement, it's not overt or targeted.

That doesn't really come up ever again.

Yeah, okay, I got my eye on you, but you're being friendly.

One more statement like that and you're out.

But for now for now, hold on.

You've reached your quota, and.

That'S the limit. One microaggression per day.

That's why he hides his face, so you never know who it really is.

Well, thank you for bringing this show. I'm now just going to go back into Animal Crossing with a new life.

Go back to fish.

Just gently settle back down into what you've been doing. I'm going to go back to my Fire emblem Three Houses fan art. So look at that.

Fantastic.

Yeah. Where can people find you online? What do you have to talk about? What's out there to promote so many things?

Meaning? Just my Twitter. Follow me on Twitter. It's at Hesseca. That's H-E-S-S-I-C-A-A-I got a semi viral tweet one month ago about Fire emblem. Three houses.

Oh, boy.

Go give that a lick. Go give it a little lick. And a writ. If you enjoyed this semi fire alone Three Houses discussion, you will enjoy my time that I tried to shoehorn into this podcast about television.

I, for one, welcome it, but I'm also the only one that played it on here beside you.

Anyway. Play fire in three houses. Buy my book. It's called bad faith fiction. It's the same status as it was at last year when we were on the pod. But the second edition is out with a forward by Patrick dugan, none other. And dana got the book last time, so now maybe one other person will.

Yes, I did. And I really love the one about dragon tail. That one is very good.

I think that's my sister's favorite.

It's so fun.

As written by Melissa. The full title from memory, I believe, is Max and evie's Older Sister from Dragon Tales, who doesn't live with them because their parents are divorced.

Yes. Wow.

Yeah. So that's what the things are.

And if there's a show you would like us to watch, if there's a video game you want us to play, we have plenty of free time and we've talked about streaming but haven't done anything yet, so maybe we'll see.

We'll see. No problem.

If anyone out there would watch me stream Fire emblem Three Houses Edelgard only run because my sister said, you can do it and I don't think you can. Let me know. Hit up the pod in the dm and I'll have Pat forward it to me.

Oh, yeah.

Good night.

We're the middleman.

Don't tell me about it. Tell them.

Yeah. I don't want to hear it.

Send your hot tips to. Are we there yet@gmail.com? Or reach out to us on Twitter and Instagram. Are we there yet? On both. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Mr. Patrick dugan.

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

Art.

You can find me on Twitter at abts. Brendan. It stands for all about that shmer. Because I'm just going to be retweeting shamir fire emblem. She is my wife.

Oh, I thought you meant shmer. Like cream.

Just me and Shamir eating bagels all day. Great. So many carbs.

Love it where my chai boy is at.

Get that. Everything bagel.

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

So long.