AWTY 217 - Heaven is a Big Garfield (Death Parade)

Hello and welcome to Rweaveria in exploration and network education and anime. I'm your anime idiot, patrick dugan.

I'm an anime expert. dee hollander gonzalez.

And I'm brenda mccully. Your anime Moses lack.

Okay.

It's very apt. It's very specific, and it's very apt.

You're going to flaming.

Mo is the bartender from The simpsons.

As if I would know his last name.

You don't know Mo? Good old Mo.

His own guy is dissing. Your fly girl got to hit him.

With one of these. So we were looking for ugly. Not ugly, ugly. We're looking for ugly. pug, fugly, mug, buggy. So many good bump heads.

Yeah.

Are you talking about Mo today?

Tell me what what's going on? What are what are we watching?

He's deep in my heart, I'm always thinking about Moscow. Now this week, we're watching a show I'm picking, and for once, I don't think it's bad.

Not promising.

I haven't watched it. I don't know anything beyond the opening, but I hear a lot of recommendations, so I figured it'd be a chance for me to knock it off my list and I'll drag you guys along for the ride. This week we're watching Death Parade.

Yay.

What a parade? When I was younger, someone had to do it. Yeah, I naturally know nothing about this. dee, are you familiar at all?

Yeah, I've heard the name. The opening, like Brendan said, is pretty iconic, and I had to look it up because so Free the swimming anime was made from a commercial, and I, for some reason, also thought Death Parade was made from a commercial. But I looked it up, and it was short for, like, a young animators competition that got made into an anime.

How neat.

Good for them. We love to see it.

We're selling hearses. That's where that ad came.

Parade, come on down to our funeral home. We'll free drink with every dead loved one. That's a fine business practice. Kill your family members and get a.

Free alcoholic beverage of like, hey, dead loved one startup, take up drinking. Here's a vice. Here's the cope with the loss.

Hey, if you, the listener need nalibi, come watch the first three episodes of the show with us where you definitely were and definitely we are too.

Yep, here we go.

Would you like to play a game?

Okay.

Has anyone made that joke about this show before? I'm sure we're the first because we're very on topic with us. We're on time.

Yeah. This is a brand new show, and we're making a brand new reference. Never been heard before. You're hearing it here first, folks.

Definitely wasn't expecting a trendy cabaret saw anime. When I picked the show, like I said, I really knew nothing about it, but it wasn't that was not prepared for that.

I love that description. If someone told me it was that, I would have watched it a lot sooner.

Yeah. If I knew that's what it was, I probably would have picked it up earlier. I thought it was just like a bunch of crazy kids hanging out at a bar with a bunch of neon lights, but goofy. More trouble.

If we know one thing about D, it's they love a death game.

You're absolutely fucking right.

So we start off with episode one. It opens two elevator doors opening side by side, dropping off a man and a woman. They say their names a few times. It does not matter. We don't really see them much after this. So man and woman. And we see them arriving, confused, not sure where they are, not sure why they're here. It's a very fancy hallway that kind of leads out into a Japanese garden, which is super common and definitely want where you want to be when you wake up from unconsciousness.

Yeah. Wouldn't you?

Honestly?

Yeah, the vibes are immaculate. I would visit if they made this bar in real life. I would go here so much show.

Like a pop up bar. So they walk on out, and as they walk towards the garden, they turn and see there's a bar on the side of it, and they see a very stoic white haired man, and he says, welcome to Quinn Decom. And then we get the opening. We got bra going, you've heard it before. You love it. It's a solid bob. And then when we cut back, the man introduces himself as Decom, the host of Quinn Deckham, which is so weird.

I named it myself.

There were recently five of me.

Welcome to the Five Brendan Podcast. I'm Brendan. It's weird. And he asks if they remember anything before arriving here. And they say, not really. We think we were on our honeymoon. And that's about all we really remember. And he goes, Fantastic. Let me get to the meat of the situation. Explain the five rules of this game. What? And he just starts rattling off, saying first rule, he can't provide them any more information about the location. Second rule, they will be playing a game today. Third rule, the game is determined by a roulette. Fourth rule, the stakes of the game are their lives. And fifth rule, they can't leave until the game is completed. All right, moving on.

No questions. Thank you.

Rule four. Really just sneaks in there like, hey, it's a death game. Good luck.

And we cannot stress enough that rule one is don't ask any questions after that.

Okay, but what about rule one? So the couple obviously gets mad and grabs about the collar and is like, what are you talking about? What are you're, insane? Well, no, they don't grab by the collar, but they're like, well, let's try and get out of here. And they go through hallways and opening up the doors, and they can't find their way out. We can't get out of this. Yeah, that's what I said.

I told you that.

I went over this where you're not listening. There's only five rules, and he recommends playing the game. He says, you don't have to play the game, but it's going to be much worse if you don't. So as he says that, the bar behind them starts opening up a bit, like segmented panels. And we see a bunch of bodies hanging from hooks behind them, which is, again, really shocking because I didn't know what the show was besides, like, bradio funk. So that took a hard turn for me. And he offers again, he's like, do you want to play the game? And the husband's like, yeah, this guy's totally unstable. Let's humor him a bit and just see if we can get out of here. So they start the roulette, and it lands on darts. And once again, we see the bar start transforming, and we see two pillars down the hallway just shoot down from the sky containing dartboards. So they'll be playing against each other. And dekham explains the rules of darts info dump sheck. And we see when the dartboard lights up. Each panel is tied to a body part, so he got a bunch of different segments, like eyes, heart, legs, shoulders, ass. Eleven points for ass.

That's a rough one.

I thought it'd be higher. And he says the higher the score, the higher pain they'll feel when it's tied to it. So again, darts can hit the big spot, and at one point, you hit the smaller spots, and it's double the points. So it'll be more pain for double the points. And the couple doesn't believe them because that's some crazy voodoo magic bullshit. Why would they believe him?

I'm a doctor. I think I know how medicine works.

You can tell he's a doctor because he's forced to say it immediately upon it meeting him. So the couple don't believe him. The man's like, we'll figure out a way out of this. Don't worry. So the man so they start playing the game, and the man picks up a dart and throws at the board and hits the shoulder right on the key of the woman, like, grabs her shoulder, and it's like, ah, that hurt. He's like, oh, very basic. No, it's probably just like a nervous, like, tick or something or a muscle spasm or something. It's fine. It's like, let me give it a shot. And the woman throws her dart and hits hits, like, the chest area. I don't know exactly what it was. And the guy just grabs his chest. Oh, I think they said it was his lung. And he's like, wheezing. It's like, oh, that's much worse. So the man runs up and grabs deckham, asking like, what the hell's going on? how's he doing this? I'm a doctor. There's no seams.

Again, I'm a doctor. I know what it looks like to get stabbed.

There were no signs of surgery on me.

And decham repeats himself, saying that they could stop, but their lives are on the line, so it's not recommended. And they can throw the game if they want. So they already threw some darts. They already got a different point score. So if they really wanted to, they can just throw all the darts and miss on purpose. But since she got a higher point, she'd be living. She'd be the winner of the game. And he would so the man goes back to his wife and says, like, hey, we can just throw the game and stop hurting each other so we don't have to keep throwing darts at the board. And the woman points out, like, hey, if we do that, though, I will win. He's like, don't worry about that. We we won't worry about that. Right now we have six more darts. What what could go wrong?

And we're both decent people at this point, right? It's fine.

This isn't some weird purgatory where we're being judged for our actions. No, of course not. And in his head, he says he doesn't worry about the game as long as he's with her and then remembers the bodies being strung up behind the bar and kind of panics for a second. And we see them just throwing darts. And they're throwing they're throwing them at the ground on purpose. And we see him at his second to last dart and he hits the board, causing her to, like, spit up some blood. And he's like, oh, sorry, I didn't mean to do that.

My hand slipped.

In his moment of panicky, he hit the board and nailed it perfectly.

Oh, no, I could have thrown it anywhere in this fucking room. But I guess I had to throw it at the dartboard. The one place I don't want to throw it.

They could have just dropped them. They didn't have to throw, like, or threw behind them. It's super easy to not hit the anyway, she throws her second to last start and nails them right in the eye. But she scores double the points, so she got both eyes ouch, grabbing them and screaming. And she says it wasn't on purpose. It was an accident. She apologizes, and we see, like, deckham cleaning up the table that he knocked over when he was rolling around in agony. She says it was an accident, but if he needs to hit the board again to pay her back, try not to hit her stomach as she, like, rubs her belly. And he kind of hits, like, oh, you're pregnant. I say pregnant the same way I say ghost. What does that tell you about me? She's ten weeks pregnant and she wants to surprise him on the honeymoon. She hasn't told anyone yet. And we get little flashbacks of, like, her sleeping in and, like, declining drinks at the bar and stuff and kind of like hits. He could have seen the signs. So he hugs her, saying he's happy, and he think that he thinks he's going to be a father and so he stands back up and goes to throw the dart. And as soon as he does, he hits her right in the stomach for double the points. He's not that happy.

Wow. Really goofed. That one man fucked out the one.

Place where it shouldn't have gone.

Holy slide for double the points too. It's honestly impressive. He could say it with a straight face and then do that. So she only she still has one dart left, and she's mad at him for doing exactly what she asked him not to. And he says he can't believe he almost forgot all about that. And his tone really changes. So we get a flashback of what he's referring to on their wedding day. He's walking down the hall and he overtears some of her friends. The bathroom getting ready, and they're talking about how Machi talking about how Machi always wins when she tries to play something. She always wins. And they can't believe she got a rich husband doctor and a hot boyfriend. Like so impressive. And he found it out. Yeah, no less on their wedding. And the whole time he pretended like he didn't hear it. They got married. They went through with the ceremony. They're on their honeymoon now. But the whole time he knew.

He knew I chimed in with a wife.

This show is all about the early 2000s emo scene. So they start arguing back and forth about her infidelity and how he knew. And she's claiming she was faithful the whole time and she never cheated on him. And she doesn't know what he's talking about, but he knows he heard the friend. God forbid there's any thought of maybe I misunderstood the scenario. So the man takes the last dart off of her table and says the rules never specified they had to use their own darts. And gets decked to agree. He's like, yeah, darts just have to hit the board. It doesn't matter which one, as long as it's your board. Like that you get the points on. So he takes her dart and gets ready to throw it so he can earn back some points to win. And he says they've always been pitted against each other with this game. Why? Why act like their team now? So he says he says he'll give old play to win Machi machi a taste of her own medicine. She says, who the hell is Machi? You. That's your nickname. No, that you don't remember. Old high school friend of mine that we lost touch with. I invited her to the wedding. She didn't like her, you know, birth name. So her nickname was Machi. It's similar to hers. And we haven't seen her in a long time.

I love storytelling where you can just pull out any fucking fact you want and it just is the story.

Now, you don't remember my age old high school friend Brendan, also named Brendan, actually. True. I do have a very good friend named also Brendan.

That example.

All right, I see the flaw. But yeah, she says, like, that wasn't me. She also married a doctor and has been faithful and has a boyfriend, and she, like, working through that stuff, but it wasn't me. We just have similar sounding names or, you know, nicknames, I guess. And the man realizes that his wife wasn't lying, and he admits that he was wrong to turn on her so fast. And she pushes him away, taking the dart, taking his chances away, and saying, I'll show you. And we get a bunch of flashbacks of their life together, like Mary dating those and that. First meet all the yada yada yada montage. And at the very end of the montage, we see them in the car on their honeymoon as they go sailing off a cliff, just presumably how they died. And it seems like she trips or, like, fumbles with the dart when she's throwing it, but she still nails a bull's eye and gets them right in the heart.

That's talent, baby.

Making delicious. That's drama.

And sure enough, he clutches his heart and falls over, starts coughing up blood and dekham, starts clapping thing. We got a winner. The lady wins. She gets a very large garfield. Now, I wish.

Can you imagine being sent off to heaven with a big garfield?

What else?

Heaven is a big garfield.

He scrambles to try and pull some of the darts off the board, saying he can throw them again to get more points. And she says there's no point. She asks. And that's when she asked the bartender, like, we're already dead, aren't we? And Doug and grimmer, he's like, yeah, you died at the same time, so you arrived here at the same time. And we're determining who goes to heaven and who goes to hell with the game. And then we get more flashbacks, and we see the man kind of just being kind of controlling and just a real dick. And we see the whole time that it's. After they got married, he still thinks she's cheating on him, so he's very resentful towards her. And while they were driving the car on the honeymoon, her phone rings. He's like, oh, are you going to answer that? She's like, now? Get it later. He's like, no, just answer it now, thinking it was her lover. And when he rustles the phone from her, that's when they go sailing off the cliff. So doubt in your marriage calls you to die.

Let that be a lesson for all of you.

Trust blindly, even if you have proof of infidelity.

And so he begs her. He starts having, like, a kind of a breakdown, and he's begging her to admit that the child isn't his because he's realizing, like, oh, it was his fault. All their memories are coming back to them now. And he's realizing, like, I was the jerk. I messed up, and I killed us. Both and our onboard child. So he's like, Please just tell me it's not my child. I guess relieve him of some level of guilt. And while the woman's walking away, she says he was right for once. She never loved him. Who would ever marry someone like she was only in it for the money and starts laughing maniacally.

I do like similar to how ugly they get when their personalities get ugly. Yeah, I think that's a good and nice choice. It's cool.

Yeah. You can see the budget was really on these moments, as opposed to them, like walking out the elevator, we got to make them gnarled and twisted and have a lot more movement reveals. And she said it was obvious, wasn't it? She only wanted his money. And of course, that isn't her kid or his kid. She was lying the whole time. And believe it or not, doesn't go over well with the guy. So he runs over to the board, grabs two darts, and goes to staffer. And as he runs over, Deckham throws with his hand and releases a bunch of very thin, translucent looking, clear strings that wrap around the man and string them up, preventing him from attacking, saying that the game is over, the decision was made, and when they have a winner, so he has to abide by the rules. And we see the man kind of gets, like, knocked out by the strings, and Deckham picks up the man and carries them off back to the elevator. And we see the man gets in his elevator, and the woman gets in her elevator that it came down in, and the man is, like, strung up like a marionette puppet, like, on all the thread still. And we see the mask above the elevators that they arrived in. I believe the man arrived in the elevator, had an ony mask on it, and the woman arrived in the mask, had a no e mask on it. And as they're leaving, the mask are switched, but they're getting into the same elevators, and the door shut, and they go off on the elevators. And then we get the ending, which is just a montage of the couple, like, photos of them going on dates and stuff and their wedding and stuff. So it's just a reflection on their life. And then we get a post credit scene of two women popping out and a complimenting decom on how he did good work out there. Kid really pulled it off. And we see. He asked it's a taller woman and very short woman, and he asked the taller woman about it. He's like, oh, what did you think? She goes, oh, if I'm being honest, I thought it was awful. I thought it was terrible, people just turning on each other like that.

And finally, an opinion I agree with.

You get rocks off it's seeing these two people who love each other turn on each other so quickly and the shorter woman actually think, don't worry, you don't get used to it, which is really setting the tone for the show. And the taller woman asks what happened to them, like, when they went off the elevator. And the shorter woman says, the man will be reincarnated and sent back into life. The woman will be sent into the void, which is akin to the mass that were on their respective elevators. So interesting reveal there.

Boy. Well, got to be honest, I wasn't a fan of that first episode. I'm looking forward to moving into new territory with the second one.

Something new.

Yeah. So we see the taller woman. Does she ever get a name?

I don't think so.

Who cares?

Dark haired woman, that's what I'm calling her.

Yeah. The black haired woman wakes up on a little tree bed, which I loved. I want that in, like, the terrarium area. And the shorter woman, nona, is standing there and is like, hey, what's your name? And the woman's like, I don't know. And nona's like, yeah, I'm fucking with you. I know you don't know. Come on, let's go. We got to go to the 15th floor.

Nona's kind of like, what is that character from cyberpunk Runners?

Rebecca.

Yeah. She has Rebecca vibes, but not as much energy.

Yeah, from the opening. I was expecting her to be like the blocky little sister who's always getting into schemes, but she's like the boss here, or she has the energy of it. Yeah.

So they take a trolley up, I guess, and then go to an elevator, and they meet clavis, the elevator man.

Good name. Good name for an elevator man.

He's in the opening. I assume he comes back later, but.

Currently he only exists in this elevator. His soul is bound to it.

Rodinger's clavus.

So they go into the bar area, the jellyfish zone, because there are aquariums, and then the chandelier is a big jellyfish yay. And they meet dekham, the bartender, and they tell her that they're going to be judging some recently deceased people. And the woman's like, recently deceased? Fuck, does that mean me too? And they're like, yeah, probably. So don't worry about it too much. And we get downloads on people's memories, and we have to judge them because we can't just judge them based on their memories. We also have to take in the quality of how they were in this death game when we trick them and you're here as an assistant. So they go into the upside down dummy room because they have to remind you it's there. And they're like, oh, yeah, dekham, he loves dummies. Don't think about it too hard.

I like that. nona says that it's his hobby, that mannequins are his hobby, which is akin to when it's always sunny in Philadelphia. Charlie says his hobby is magnets.

Yes.

Not specifically.

Yeah. I just love when dummies hang upside down. Okay, how is that an activity? Do you dress? I want them busy.

That's a hobby, right?

When you're the curb reaper, you got to do something to entertain yourselves. Sometimes you get a lot of mannequins and just play life size house.

So they sit down and they're like, shush, be quiet. Because we get to watch the game. The people are here and they're sitting in the dummy room, and they're watching the game through a one way mirror. One way mirror. I never remember how to say that.

I also never remember how to say it.

Two way mirror.

But yeah, two way mirror. I'm like, one way mirror? Is that just a mirror?

Yeah. Well, it's a mirror. One person can see through it. It becomes two way when they turn off the mirror and you can see both sides like a pain in glass.

It's one you mean like a window?

Yeah.

And it's just a window.

That's a two way mirror anyway.

Yeah. So they explain the pretty baseline psychology of intimidation of ooh. We need them to think these are life or death stakes. They are. So we have to trick them into thinking they're going to die. They're already dead.

And.

We need to put the players into mental stress because this is a big judge of how we judge them.

Is this what dungeon romp is about?

No, I wouldn't say that.

All right, never mind. Ignore me.

I cannot play with you in this bit, Brent.

This isn't a fit. I only watch three episodes of that show. I never played the game.

We can move on dong andropa is definitely not like a judgment thing for the teenagers. It's more of like among this crazy bear gets off on watching everybody kill each other, which is different.

They're in those situations. No.

So they tell the players heaven and hell is real because that's just an easy way to express it. But the reality is the good folks are reincarnated and the bad folks are lost to the void. They just shoot their souls out into space with a T shirt cannon and that's it. And so we watch the first episode again from a slightly different perspective. I was going insane because I hated that first episode. Yeah. So they go through the whole thing again, just with a sides of, oh, wow, cheating. Does that really hurt. Literally the same conversations had by the players because it's still, again, this person learning how this world works like we did in the first episode. And so we see all that, and then she's like, oh, but maybe she lied about being pregnant. So we go to where we see the after credits scene from episode one where she's like, yeah, hey, that sucked. So what were the results of that? Can you say? And they're like, yeah, the guy is going to be reincarnated because he was so good. And the woman sucked. So she's going into the Void. And the girl's like, hey, is that what you got from that? Me also am asking the other people, is that what you got from that? Because after he tried, like, stabbing her and was like, hey, unravel me. I got to get a couple more hits in on that bitch of a wife.

I feel as though if she was telling the truth, that they both should have been voided. T shirt cannon into space.

Yeah, because the whole thing is this woman's like, yeah. So you took her at face value for saying it was someone else's baby. Right. But he had so much guilt for killing them, she probably lied to make him feel a little better. And Decked is like, huh? I didn't consider that. But again, this guy was just so insistent on inflicting pain and winning this game and just about if they weren't.

Already, he was about to murder his own wife with two darts, which it takes a while to do. So he's real.

Yes.

It wouldn't be an anime without a quadruple. Maybe a quintuple red herring.

It is truly insane that presumably Deckham has been doing this for a long time. I would think he's immortal. And he presumably messed up. This one we saw, so who knows what else he's messed up?

It was at this point I really couldn't understand I'm enjoying the show. I can't understand the point of this. If they get all the memories of the people coming to them and still have to make this arbitrary choice and then can also fuck it up and in hindsight realized that they fucked it up, it's like, what's magical about this? This just feels like people I mean.

To be first, kind of the part of The Good Place, which is not to say that this is as good as The Good Place. The Good Place is prime television viewing, and if you haven't watched it, you should. But it is a very similar concept.

Yeah, I think I am ruined by a show that thought about how an afterlife could theoretically work. Because, yeah, it doesn't make any sense. Because they're like, he's sad about killing the child, which he did because he was insanely jealous and tried to physically attack his wife for not answering a phone call because he half overheard something and jumped to conclusions when nothing actually was wrong at all. And she just happened to have a name of someone else that he overheard gossip about. And so that caused her death. And they're like, she sucks.

Essentially saying why this system is bad and wouldn't work.

I mean, maybe this show does, too, or only three episodes in, but it's true. Second episode in, it did make me really go, hey, wait a minute.

Hey, hold on.

Because even with the unborn child being a large factor in this decision, she admits that it's someone else's child lying to him so he won't feel bad when he's reincarnated. But she essentially takes that unborn. Child hostage and into the void with her. And they're like, yep, you're both gone. It's like, wait, wait.

I mean, it's dead anyway.

Yeah, that's like that thing for me. Is he's freaking out about this child? He only learned about after he was dead. He at no point in his life knew that she was pregnant. So he is feeling bad after the fact that he killed his unborn child that he didn't know existed. And again, he's such a good guy, we need to reincarnate him. Did not feel any concern about killing his wife and is only concerned about his hypothetical child. But they're like Bush, she told a lie and fuck somebody. So I guess we got to destroy your soul.

We don't care for horrors. This is a puritanical Christian anime.

Decom is like, I didn't consider that. It's like, then what are we doing.

Here.

If you're just going to go off of their memories? Don't set up this whole elaborate thing if you're going to take bad lessons from it anyway.

Yeah, I assume that they got the memories. We know how they live their lives. Even if their memories are biased. We have two of them who compare the memories against so judge them just on that. Then why have the whole point of the death game? Listen, I enjoy the set up, but it is inherently flawed.

But yeah, so they question Deckham's decision and nona is like, yeah, hey, dekham, you've been doing this a long time. She just started. Get your fucking act together, my dude. Go make us drinks. idiot. Stupid, stupid, stupid, idiot. So he does go make them drinks. nona leaves and is like, well, you've seen it. Do it.

You know how the game works.

Yeah, that's what being trained in retail is like.

I was truly having that thought of like, hey, why deckham? You just did such a bad job. Who trained you anyway? New kid? I hope you'll figure it out. Goodbye.

Learn from his mistake.

So, yeah, they're going to be doing this together going forward. And nona goes up the elevator and says, that girl actually has to watch out. Something spooky this way comes. That's the end of episode two.

Real quick. No no says like, that girl has some talent. And corbin holler, the elevator man, I forget his name. You never compliment anyone. And no, no, rethinks what the assistant said because, again, we never get her name. And realizes that the man was never going to trust anybody because he was like because he knew his wife was cheating on him and he held it against her and was, like, so adamant on, like, trying to catch her in the act and so vindictive about it. So she's like, no, wait a minute. On second thought, that guy sucked too. Which I think goes back to the beginning point of they both should have been voided. And she's like, no, that girl still has a lot to learn. And I'm just like, again, what's the point?

See, I'm just having so much difficulties not having no one else be like, yeah, this guy sucks. We can see that, right? Because this realization is like after they discussed, yeah, he sucks. She probably wasn't actually cheating on him or wasn't pregnant with someone else's child. And now she has her relevation of maybe he was pad it's. Like, why does it have to sink in so hard right now?

We've already reincarnated them to be another alcohol in a new life.

Oh, well, you win some, you lose some. Episode three, we open on some kids saying goodbye to each other in a park. Little flashback moment. Then we get decim waking somebody up. It's a dude in a beanie. They're in the bar and dekham tells him to sit at the bar where a girl is already seated and it seems like they don't know each other. She's like, hey, how's it going? He's like, okay.

Hey.

Decham welcomes them and asks them if they remember anything from before coming here. And he says the last thing he remembers is riding a bus home from college. And the girl says she doesn't remember anything. So deckham and a dark haired girl explain the rules of the bar. They're the same as before, telling them their lives are on the line and they can't leave. And just like the other couple, they try the elevator, but it doesn't work. The girl says she really doesn't remember anything at all, not even her name. But the guy in the beanie says he remembers a few things and that his name is shigeru. So she's pretty nervous and scared. They go back to the bar and decom says if it makes you feel any better, the game will help you remember your name. And she says, if it helps me remember things, then I'll do it. And she garu agrees to play with her. And the game they get is bowling.

Bowling.

So the dark haired girl says the game is the same as regular bowling, but their bowling balls have representations of each of their hearts inside and they're playing with each other's heart. Wonder what that is. So they start playing. shigeru goes to grab the ball and the heart beats and he's like and then dekham is like, yeah. They're like linked to your actual hearts and they're the same temperature as your bodies. And I was thinking about how weird it would be to pick up a bowling ball and have it be like.

Hot, warm and not hot, but perfectly you temperature.

Yeah, but there's no pain involved in this one. So the girl asks if they really have to use these bowling balls and decan says yes. shigeru takes the ball and he wonders if girl is nervous. And he thinks about how warm the ball feels and he gets all blushy. So he throws and he gets eight pins. His turn is over. Time for girls turn. She freaks out at the ball too, and he tries to calm down, but the heart is beating fast so she knows that he's nervous. She throws and I thought she has pretty good form. And then he tells her that she has good form. And I was like, oh. She knocks down five pins. And when he compliments her, she like tosses her hair and he is like entranced by her.

She gary gets up and bowling the dream.

The sexiest sport.

Truly life or death bowling. It was a high octane anime we've been hoping for.

There's lots of wood involved.

If there was a whole show that was life or death bowling and it was just crazy, I would watch that.

There's a new one called Blue Lock, which is death game soccer. So give it two years, we'll get it.

Hell yeah.

Hey, make the death game show you want to see in the world.

Death game. wii Sports.

Nice. So shigera gets up to take his next turn and he has a memory of a little girl he used to play with. The the one from the no, we don't see it yet. He just remembers it. And he's like, could it be? So so far it seems like it's going well. They're just like having a friendly game. The dark haired girl comments on it and deckham says, like, oh, it seems like you're getting used to the whole process. Bowling continues. They're like cheering each other on and stuff. And they both say that they're having a nice time, but the girl is a little sad that she still can't remember who she is. He's like, hey, I'm going to make a side bet with you. If I win, you have to go on a date with me. And then dark haired girl feels bad for them because they're dead and all.

Dark haired girl is like, oh, that automatically sends you to the void. Oh, sorry.

Shit. No flirting in the bar. And then Girl wonders why the song feels familiar and like good. And as she throws the next ball, she has a memory of working in a bowling alley and seeing shigera with his friends. So she's met him, not man, she's seen him before. And that's all she gets.

Until finally something made me think of bowling.

It took me this long until she.

My place was candlepin bowling, so it was a little different. It took me a second to catch on.

She has the memory from the beginning of the episode and it was them. And he hears she hears him say the name chisato in the memory. So she turns around. She's like, that's me. I'm chisato. We're friends. We used to play together, me, you, and My. So they start chatting and catching up and decim tells the dark haired girl that it's the beginning of the end. And she's like, what the fuck does that mean? And then he leans over and whispers something in her ear so we don't hear it.

It's the final frame that's usually typically.

Don'T you first know is the bowling. You idiot.

Come on. I thought you were supposed to be the sports expert here.

When you get three strikes in a row, it's called a turkey in 1975.

Who do you think you are? I am.

Who do you think you are? I am. Wow. Bowling reference.

The one I know.

Okay. Dark haired girl reacts negatively to whatever he said. And he covers her mouth with his hand and he's like, so those two might not have the happy ending you're hoping for.

I like that. She turns them and does care to explain? He goes no.

Shut up.

And then she like throttles them and makes them explain.

So chicato tells shigeru that she'll throw a gutter ball on the next turn so she'll lose and have to go on a date with him. And then as he throws his next turn, he has the same memory of the bowling alley. And he's with his friends and he points her out to them being like, oh, she's so cute. And they're like, oh, you don't know her. She did this and this, but we don't hear what she did. And then he remembers being on a bus and seeing her and he goes up to her and says something and then the bus crashes.

What?

They were dead the whole time.

What? So shigeru gets a strike, but he's freaked out, like laying on the ground. And she sato's like, oh, what's wrong? But he recovers and says he's fine. And she goes to grab her ball and notices that his heart is beating fast. So she throws and she remembers the bust crash too. And she remembers that she's not chico, she's my because the memory was from her perspective, but she thought she was like watching it like a movie and that she was Chicado, but no. So shigeru asks decim if they're dead, and he's like, yep. And he starts explaining everything, but shigeru is like, no, that's okay.

That's shut up, I've seen him.

I don't care.

So shigeru goes up to mine and she starts talking about to explain herself, but he's like, I still have a date to claim. We can still chat and spend time together. And she says she would like that, but she has to tell him something. And he's like, you don't need to. I already know. That's pretty sweet. And so they ask for a little time for a date and decim offers five minutes. And the dark haired girl freaks out on him. But he's like, I'm kidding, you crazy kids. Enjoy yourself.

You're not getting any better.

We got all the time in the world before you get shot off into space. So after their date, they're holding hands in front of the elevator saying they had a good time and they part ways and we hear what decim told the dark haired girl earlier? Just that she's not chico and that she doesn't remember her operation. So the elevator door is closed and then we see all the memories and what the operation was. And she had had plastic surgery because she was insecure about her looks. She wanted to stand out more, but yeah. So we see that they are both going to be reincarnated. Right. And I thought it was nice that it had a positive outcome because I was like, this is probably all going to be like shitty people.

Yeah.

And we see terrible people doing terrible things, but this one's just some sweet kids who liked each other very much.

Yeah.

Especially when they're getting into like, hidden identity stuff at the end and it's like, yeah, it doesn't matter.

Yeah. So, okay, the the nsync sequence has picks picks from their little date after the credits. Dark haired girl asks if My actually looked like Chicado and Deckham's. Like, I don't know. People in life are a mystery and and everybody's connected in one way or another. Isn't that beautiful? And then the dark haired girl balls a strike. So sick cool. That's episode three.

I wasn't sure what the deal because he's at the bowling alley with his friends, and his friends were like, didn't you hear she had plastic surgery? And I'm like, yeah, okay, did she kill people? And she's a serial killer and she disguised her face to hide what is the scam with that? Because it didn't seem like anything to me.

I, too had to look at the description on the very legal website I was watching to see what they were trying to get at. So apparently what was the name? Chicado was the chisato. Thank you. Chicado was a childhood friend that was there and then moved away. And then May took on chisato's face because Boy liked her more. So she was like, oh, but what if I could be chisato? And that's what she did surgery wise. So it's like, no, you weren't dating the one friend. You were actually dating the other friend in disguise. And then they were like, yeah, no one cares.

Yeah.

So it's like, okay, then why have the stakes of like, this is supposed to be like a salacious thing. And they're like, no, she looks like my crush, so I'm going to date her even if she's not my crush, my childhood crush.

But she's not your crush. Yeah, the crush is gone, so that's a good alternative. Okay. But like, plastic surgery good for her. Okay, thank you for explaining because I really didn't understand the big deal.

I just thought I didn't think about it that hard. I just kind of accepted it for what it was because especially that young, I feel like to say someone got plastic surgery is pretty like there's a stigma. I thought that was the thing of like, oh, she got her face done. Isn't that weird, man? I thought that's what it was.

Yeah. I think with the tone set by episode one, I was expecting something just much more depraved and absurd.

Yeah.

I thought it was also going to be like a trans allegory of like, she was a boy. And I'm like, that would have been sweet as hell because they both had a very cute date. That would have been very nice.

But no, they had to go with the confusing non ending.

She got rid of her freckles. That's the only thing I saw different. I was like, I don't know.

She got an eye lift.

Yeah, okay. Something.

I don't know.

Just one wanted to be higher than the other.

Oh, how did I not know that? She's got this? Whopping.

Double H. She got veneers. So yeah.

Are we there yet? I feel like with the middle episode recap, probably.

I mean, here's the thing. I kind of liked episode three. I wish we started with that storyline and not the one and two. We're married, but we're dead. But you cheated. But I'm pregnant. But you killed the baby. That feels like just such what's? Drama. I've watched a movie.

I watched a future diary, and I think I get it. Yeah, that's what they said.

Yeah.

So, like, episode one just going to the extremes because I, too, love a death game. I like the concepts of them doing it, and then they just let me trip and throw a bullseye at his heart and, wait, that actually didn't do anything. He just went, ow for a second. But that was like our big dramatic stakes.

Yeah, it's not like they died on the spot.

So the tone and stuff, like I'm into, but the storytelling is not good. And clearly just needing to be like, wait, so we need what happened as much as we have is not good. But yeah, I too, love the good place. This sort of concept of yeah, afterlife judgment stuff, I am very on board with. But I feel like this is not great storytelling.

I feel like maybe I've talked about this before on the podcast. I wasn't that confused, personally. Like, I feel like I pretty much understood everything that was happening. The first one was just bad in that it was like so back and forth of like, but she lied. She did actually love him and wasn't cheating on him, and she regretted the one time she cheated on him. It just felt like it was too much. Like they just kept building on shit.

Yes.

That didn't need to be built on. It could have just been them both being bad people, and that would have been interesting enough. I think another thing in the first episode is that they make it seem like every game is one person will go to heaven and one person will go to hell. So in the second one, where you see that they're both good people, they're both going to heaven. I was like, so they both could have gone to hell. Because they were both like, based on decom's judgment, even though he was wrong about the woman, they both could have gone to hell. You know what I'm saying? So like, those stakes are nothing, actually, which kind of feels dumb to like, make it seem like it's such a big deal in the first one.

I think that it was intentional in the first one. That way. It is more of a surprise in episode three when it's like, oh, because like we said, we thought one of them was going to hell. Yeah, it's like, oh, no, they both could have it's like, oh, that's nice. But yeah, it does they do set up a lot of rules and stuff in episode one that seems to be counteracted immediately.

Yeah, because why did the game matter at all in episode three? Just to have them have a little bait.

Yeah, they just want them.

Truly, the game had no bearing on their judgment. There was nothing to it compared to the first one, which is like, will you hurt your loved one?

I also think the specificity of, like, not everybody if you die alone, not with somebody you love, you don't do this because it's specifically people who have died at the same time and have some kind of connection with each other, at least that we've seen so far. And I think that's weird that there's like that specific rule. What does everybody else do?

Straight to the void.

Yeah. No questions asked.

This is the only chance of being reincarnated near someone.

So I think there's a lot of it that's like, again, it is just kind of like bad writing. But I did enjoy it while I watched it. And I was like, yeah, this is fine.

Yeah. With episode three, I thought it was going to be more dependent on like, the bowling ball is your heart and it beats when yours does. And it was going to be more of that death game betrayal like Prisoner dilemma, because she was like, oh, I'm going to throw a gutter ball, and then get some of her memory back and then accidentally throws a gutter ball. But it seemed like she messed up and was going to try and do a strike normally. And I thought it was going to be like mind games of like, oh, I'm going to do a gutter ball wink. And when the other person picked up their ball, their heart was speeding a lot faster, proving that the other person was lying. So then there was like the mind games element. None of that episode three.

See, that would be a good plot for a death game show that this death game show did not do because they just wanted to have them go on a predate before sending them on their real date.

I agree with that. I'm going to be real, though. I liked episode three better than the others. I'm like, yeah, let them have a cute date, like in purgatory. Yeah, I got to agree with you guys. I like the vibes. I like the characters that are at least in the opening that seem to be the regulars. They seem fun, and I like the design. Music great, but yeah, like, the world building and, like, role establishment just seems real counterintuitive when ultimately it's like we have one person judging you that is flawed and not an omnipresent deity, so they can make mistakes. It's like, cool. Why? Because we are not human.

That's the thing, too. You can't have this be a thing when the people doing the judging are really bad at their job. deckham should have been fired in emotions.

Like, yeah, he's not good at reading people. It's like, I guess that's why he has an assistant now, but it's just.

Like, yeah, it's the thing where you have to train your replacement.

Hey, deckham, come in here real quick. Yeah. I see in the reports you revived three serial killers last week.

They were game.

Yeah, they're they're really good at ping pong. What do you want me to say?

It feels like the game is irrelevant. Or like their lives previously were irrelevant, and this is just one last chance at possibly being reincarnated if they impress the judges here. But then that also makes all the memories that the arbiters get irrelevant, because if none the history matters, the memories just seem to be further stuff used to manipulate them and to stress them out more. But it just feels weird and unnecessarily confusing, which is usually my bag of chips. I usually love them, but yeah, I agree. It's episode one and two kind of weird choices. Episode three. Fantastic. More of that, please.

But yeah, like you said with the quadruple red herrings, my favorite storytelling is like, okay, they have amnesia, so we're just going to give you a backstory. So you have to take at face value because we don't know anything about them. Right. Cool. You, the audience, accept this as truth. Cool. Yeah. Just kidding. That was a lie. Okay, now that we said it's a lie wait, no. He had a misunderstanding. We got you again. We got you again. We're so good at twist.

The more plots whist there are, the better the story, right?

It reminds me of late Seasons of Heroes where skylar, a serial killer who could shape shift into people, had his memories erased and had memories of someone else implanted into his brain. So he thought he was that other person and then shapeshifted into that other person for, like, a whole season.

What?

No. He was actually someone else. We just mentally gasoline him into shape shifting to someone else and taking on their identity. It's like, hey, I knew the writer Strike killed this show. It was going to die anyway.

Let's if this was your big idea. It was going downhill anyway.

It's like that levels of, like, plot twist and pivoting. I'm like, nah, man.

Well, if there's a show that hopefully you send in this recommendation before it needs to die, please send it. Don't wait that long. Send in those recommendations now. You can email us at rweebetheryet@gmail.com or reach out to us on TikTok or tumblr at rweebariat.

Yeah, you can find me on TikTok and Instagram at honeyperiod or on Tumblr at just honeyd. All one word, and honey is spelled H-U-N-N-I-E. You can find me in the.

Pharmaceutical idol of your local walgreens looking for lactate pills. I got tummy issues. The walgreens cryptid, specifically your local walgreens.

Yeah. You listening in, duluth.

Oh, fuck.

Calling you out, Tim in duluth. This is for you. Thank you to camille, really, for our work. Thank you to Louisiana for the and song stories. You can find all Louis music@louisongvancamp.com. Thank you, and we hope you'll join us next week as we learn to live with anime.

Bye, Tim from duluth.

Bye, Tim. See you tomorrow.