AWTY 109 - JESUSJESUSJESUS (Ghost Stories)

Monsters only get evil people like Republicans.

Hello and welcome to are we there yet? Or should I say, are Halloween there yet? I'm your anime idiot, patrick dugan.

I'm your spooky anime expert, dana hollander.

And I'm brenna mccullough. Your anime poultry's terrible.

Oh, I like that.

Where several episodes into our Halloween spooky, So I'm very late on the game, but then I thought of it before this episode and I was like, oh fuck. We missed a very clear opportunity. Now we're just making up for lost time.

Well, you can do it one more time.

We got another shot at it. I realized after watching it and talking to dana Moore, I'm pretty sure Princess tutu counts as a Halloween like group because the character just self immolates and sets herself on fire and like that's horrifying, beautiful sacrifice.

As Ribbonquest on Twitter pointed out, apparently Duck does stay a duck at the end of the series. I thought that she gets a copy. A girl.

No, still no. But not a duck.

But not a duck.

Yeah, I said to all that the more I find out about that show, the more I like it and respect it. I'm still not watching.

Didn't he say that she ends up at the end with the night mean boy? How does that work if she's a duck?

I think he's going to like the implication is that he'll like rewrite her ending, I guess, which is why I thought that he would have already done that the end of the series.

Maybe they left it open for a season two and it just never got picked up again.

Could be.

Finally some justice in the universe. But anyway, we can talk about Princess tutu again.

We have another show to talk about being reductive.

So yeah, we are talking about Ghost Stories. This is a series recommended to us by Stephen Moore. When I pitched that this was an episode, I got a very scary reaction from the two of you of too much happiness. So I'm very scared.

Happy is an interesting word.

Sorry. diabolical laughter.

It's more applicable.

I'm excited because I've never watched this, but I know the lore same.

I've heard of it, but I've never sat down and watched myself because I got a lot of free time, but not that much free time. I got better stuff to do.

You value your free time.

That's also not true.

I know.

I like naps. naps are pretty in right now for me. They're pretty trendy. But yeah, ghost Stories is if you haven't seen it, you've definitely heard of it or seen clips of it or heard audio from it. I feel like you might have and just not aren't aware of it because it became very meme for a while. There's a lot of memes of it because yeah, we'll find out.

You're in for a delightful surprise.

We can scrap five minutes of audio. We can watch something else right start fresh.

Just pick something else in the last episode as well. So we're set.

We got to do it.

Once again, this is your pick, dugan. You can't blame anyone else this time.

I know. I I wish there was a system where I could run things by you just, like, casually to check first, just test you on it, and then be like, Just kidding. Now, we're watching this very actually good anime this week.

Where'S the fun in that?

That's a plain podcast, dude.

And suffering. That should be our subtitle.

It's a feature, not a bug. So shall we get it over with?

Let's go.

Let's boogie, ghost.

All right. We're watching the first three dubbed episodes. I don't know why we had to specify that. That's scary. Jesus. This was dubbed by YouTube 2005. YouTube.

This is a YouTube poop.

Yeah. It feels like it's a good comparison.

What a world we live in that this exists.

Yeah.

During the break, we had to just research, how did this do? How did this stuff happen? And it was mentioned that a lot of this was just adlibbed. And you can tell.

You've seen yukio Bridge, you've seen Free abridged, you've seen other shit abridged.

But nothing is quite like this.

Nothing as bad as an actual legitimate production.

Yeah. This exists on dvd.

Yes.

A professional producer reviewed this and was like, yes.

Good.

This is good.

Great. Got it.

They said, hey, boss, the dub's done. He said, Fine, and that's it. He didn't actually listen to any of it. All right, let's get into this shit. All right. Episode one starts off with an old man going into an old school. Clearly haunted. God, my notes are just full of typos. Clearly. I put as much effort into my notes as the Doving team put into.

No, you actually wrote stuff down, so you put more effort into this.

It's all spelled wrong, but it's still there.

Yeah.

So an old guy goes, clearly haunted school. He says, what's going on in here? And it gets attacked by a ghost. That's how it goes. He gets attacked by the opening. Wow. I literally just woke up and started watching this show, and it shows in my notes. Yeah. Opening happens real generic. Like, if you told me this is an 80s anime, I'd be like, yeah, that makes sense. That shows. This is the quality of the show.

Yeah. Did not match the tone of anything that happened.

Is there stock footage for animate it feels like stock footage. And then it comes back from the opening, gets a family in a big moving truck driving into town, and they drive past their school, and dad's like, hey, kids, that's where you're going to school tomorrow. We're going to a new school because we just got here. We're the protagonists. Check that off. The bingo car transfer student. And then yeah, like we talked about, it's a lot of ad lib. A lot of wacky zany lines, dumps. I didn't write any of them down because any of them that were funny aren't going to be funny repeated. Any of them weren't funny are definitely not going to be repeated. Yeah. So, yeah, during all of these recaps, just imagine wacky comments being thrown about by the characters.

Yeah. Imagine the average anime fan in 2005 and what they think is funny, especially off the top of their heads. No punch ups are, hey, is this cool if we say some homophobic shit? And they're like, yeah, no, just roll with it. So that's the quality of quote unquote jokes we're working with.

Yes. It's rough. While they're in a truck, the main girl, I'm just going to call her Braid, because I don't even pretend to give a shit about the names.

I call her girl.

Girl.

That works too, officially satski, just so we can say we have, like, journalistic integrity.

But yeah, girl, how dare you bring a proper name into the show? A shadow passes by and she's like, Ghost. They move into the house and they're like, yeah, is the old house where your wife grew up before she died? And I was like, all right, dead parent, check. They move in. Local kid sees up girls skirt, makes a comment. I was like, all right, local pervert check. Hitting all the tropes here.

If you miss this one, don't worry. There's going to be like 80 more panty related conversations throughout these three episodes.

Yeah.

Jasper, what a good time for you to start eating your hard, dry food?

The kid's in the opening, so he's going to be a bit main character. Unfortunately, Braid also has a little brother. I'm going to say 80% of the episodes we watched, he is just screaming incoherent gibberish. The weird thing is it doesn't actually hinder anything, which shows you how little he contributed to the plot or dialogue at all to begin with.

Honestly, I think that's the funniest thing about it because it's harmless.

Yeah.

It's just him making noises.

Yeah. There's no key elements that were like, misunderstanding. It's like, no, yeah, this might as well be what he's saying the whole time, because he's useless. So I did enjoy that in the first episode. By the third episode, I'm like, I'm done. I got it now. It's just noise and it's getting annoying. So she's got like, a little brother. They start the first day of school and the little brother brings their cat. They also have and they're like, why did you bring a cat? It's like, he's my only friend. Oh, the cat's gone. I guess he's not a friend. And they go chasing after the cat and he runs into an old school house, the haunted school house. Why that's still on the school property? I don't know. Might as well just keep it around for another 40 years and have people get weird injuries and tetanus from it.

Yeah, we have a bunch of elementary school kids let them roam freely through it because they do a lot, and I assume they're not the first kids to do so.

Yeah, and it's just mind boggling. We weren't allowed toad bags in my elementary school and not being supervised. So, yeah, they go into the old haunted school to chase after the cat. The doors blown open when they get there, so they're just like, Must be the wind. They run in to get the cat. When they do, they get scared by the neighbor kid and then his other kid, nerd Boy, Glasses. I don't care. Let's just call him Glasses. And the neighbor kid says, like, hey, you can't be trespassing in this gold school. That's our job. That's what we're doing. Despite accusing you of doing it. He doesn't say that. They're not that self aware. And then as they're talking, I just wrote down rich girl because she wears a school uniform, but no one else does.

I called her Jesus Girl because that's what they've done.

They had and as someone raised in catholicism, I love good Catholic jokes. This is one this is one joke forever.

Of a character saying the one joke of I like Jesus.

Yeah.

Cool. Okay, great.

That's it. Essentially, all the main tasks is here. And when they all show up, the door slams behind them, and we see the chain in front of the old haunted school, like, wrap itself back up around the door. So it locks them in. And then they're like, well, we're locked in. Might as well just start exploring this haunted school. And as they turn a corner, they scream because they see something, but it turns out it's just an old statue with a hat on. It turns out it was the Jesus girl's hat. That's why she came into here. And they're like, all right, well, it's just a statue. And they take the hat off. But when they take the hat off, the statue moves, and then they get freaked out and run around the corner again. And after they get away from it, bray Girl says that the cat. They have to find a cat because the cat's special to them because it showed up the same day their mom died. Cool.

Okay.

I find a lot of stray cats. I don't associate them with the reincarnation of a loved one, but it's just me.

They didn't say that explicitly.

After watching this, I do feel like the mom is up to some shit because she's involved in all of these ghost activities as well as a ghost. And it's like, Are you the bad guy, mom? Are you the one calling all this? That feels like it's too much of an actual storyline for this show.

Yeah, that's way too much thought to put in.

Well, we don't know what the original is like either.

Regardless of the dub, this still just feels real by the books. Just real generic so it's like, that.

Sounds generic to me.

Yeah. The mom ghost like them. This haunted house going into it. This is literally the set up for every quote unquote spooky story I would write for myself as like a six year old of like, there's a spooky house. You go in and oh, no, you get locked in and then you get chased by a bunch of ghosts. Yeah. I literally had these thoughts as someone the little brother's age.

Yeah, they go chasing as a cat. They say it's special. When they find the cat, it's hiding behind a chair and it's hissing at a dog. And it's like, oh, how'd that dog get in here? And the dog turns around to look at him and his face turns into a man's face and just screams at him. I was like, fucking wild. Fucking messed up. Reminded me a lot of what we do in the shadows. That parts are great in that movie. That's a funny movie. That's a funny entertainment. And then after it screams at the kids, it just vanishes into thin air. And then they keep falling after the cat. They end up in the girls bathroom and they hear a voice. And while the boys are backing up, they're like, oh, we can't be in here's. The girl's room. They bump into a ghost of a girl who falls down from the ceiling. And they're like, oh, no, ghost. And they back up into the hallway. And then a headless motorcycle ghost drives past them. And I love this because do RA that brought me back into it and drives through a wall. And then when they're looking at that, they're like, oh, man, there sure are a lot of ghosts in this clearly haunted school weird. They see another ghost flying at them with like scissors. And he's just running at them with scissors and scares them all the way back to the entrance of the school when they trip over a bucket and fall down and the ghost just flies over them. That's what like nerd out with the glasses is like, oh, yeah. When it's that type of ghost, you just have to lay on the ground and it'll fly over you. It's like, oh, convenient. Why didn't you tell us that earlier? And it's like, sure, that might be what the actual show said. It might not. I don't know.

I'm going to speculate and say about 10% of the show is actually the original Japanese, like, dialogue training script.

Yeah. And then since they're back at the entrance, the neighbor kid goes up to the door and he's like, oh, jeez, it's locked. It's like, yeah, it's yeah, why didn't you try that before? Then they start freaking out and they hear laughter. And when they're looking around to see who's laughing, it turns out it's this little red ghost, like a beard and kind of looks like an oni. I think he's got a horn or something. A little caveman loinclaw sort of thing. And it's a little red ghost. And he goes up to the braid girl and he's like, hey, why don't you be my friend? She's like, no, you're a ghost. No, why would I do that? And he's like, all right, cool. And disappears. And then the chandelier above them falls and shatters around them. And I think his voices said, like, you'd rather want me as a friend than an enemy?

I love the phantom of the Opera.

No, that's the third episode. We'll get there, all right?

And then after that happens, like a bookshelf falls over, and then the windows on the door explode off. And then he shows up again. But he's bigger now. He's like the size of a man now. And he asked, he's like, hey, how about we be friends again? And as she goes to walk towards them to talk to him and get closer, we see umbrellas by the door, like, shoot past her and stab into the wall right past her.

Reminiscent of another.

Guys, maybe. Horror animates bad. It's just bad.

We figured that out. Well, paranoia agent was good.

Paranoia. Yeah. And then after the umbrella stab into the wall, ghost gets bigger and says he's getting stronger based on how scared they are. So the more afraid he is of them, the more afraid of them they are of him. He'll get bigger and bigger. So now he's like hitting the ceiling and almost a giant size. And they start running from him. And they run into a room to hide from him. And it turns out the principal's office and the cats also there licking a photograph that fell on the floor. I don't know why I was looking the picture. It was weird.

You'd be surprised at what cats lick.

It's everything.

The only one currently on this podcast without a cat. I'll take your words for it. So it's just looking a picture. And they're like, oh, what's this picture of? Oh, it's our mom. It's the braid and the little kid's mom. Weird. Why is she here? It's like, well, our mom used to live here. I guess she used to be a principal at the school years ago. Odd, wasn't it?

Their grandma was the principal and that was her. But since she was young, it looked like their mom.

I think it was their mom.

I did not pay nearly enough because.

This was their mom's childhood school. And then she moved away. This was her hometown. And they say grandma was the principal. All right, I'm giving this show way too much credit. It does not fucking matter.

Does not matter. So they pick it up, and that's when Jesus girl is like, oh, yeah, I've seen her before. And it's some comments. I don't know. But that character apparently knows their mom or knows of her.

No, this is one of the things we do need to go into because number one, this makes no fucking sense. Just, like, logistically and truly shows the caliber of humor we're working with. Is this Jesus? Love and Girl met their mom at a gay conversion camp, and they say it several times, but don't elaborate. Don't give it any justification. Just, oh, yeah, I recognize that face because your mom was a lesbian that got diverted. Truly does not work in context. How does this upper classmen if it's upper classmen in grade school, she's, like, ten. So how was she, like, running this camp? So, like, this is the caliber of humor we're working with.

I mean, I think the joke was just tied to this character loves Jesus and is very Catholic, so she despises the gaze, and that's as much thought as they put it. It wasn't like she was a child.

Clearly, but they try to like, oh, it links up to the narrative. That's how she recognizes her. It's. Like what? No, it doesn't need to make sense.

Does it, though? It could have been, hey, she used to live in this town. That's it.

Yeah.

Where was I? Then, as they're leaning at the picture, the big ghost shows up, and he's like, breaking through. I was like, man, he looks like an old interpretation of ganondorf from, like, zelda. He's got this big red beard and big hair. I don't know.

No, I saw ganondorf too.

I was like, what about a cooler story? lazella? And as they're trying to escape from them, they step on the picture frame, and the picture frame cracks open, and they see a journal in the back of the picture. Must be a thick picture frame to fit a book behind a picture. And when the journal opens up, they see a drawing of that ghost that is chasing them, and they look into it. They're like, oh, the ghost name is this. And here's how we defeat him. We got to make a magic circle and put a flame in it and then chant a spell. And they're like, oh, let's go to the old science room. They got buns and burners still. And then when they get to the science room, it's just a candle. Like, it's just, like an oil candle, and it's just like I don't know. I said buns and burners. I guess the magic circle was in the journal because they just draw the magic circle that seems at least somewhat complicated, and they never address it. So I guess it's just in the book as well. And yeah, they draw the circle like the candle in the center start chanting it. The ghost appears, starts attacking them. But right as he goes to attack him, the ghost stops and starts dissolving, and he's like, oh, no, it worked, you damn kids, and you're meddling cat. And once they're safe, Braid looks at the book again and finds out that her mom's name is on it. So it's like, Our mom helped us. Our mom saved us from beyond the grave, and they escaped the old school house. And as they're leaving, they hear the school bell, and you look at the clock, and it's like, 530 or something, and it's like, oh, shit. We missed all school days, but we were only in that school for, like, a few minutes, like, not even an hour. How did we miss the whole school day? It's like, ghost time. Weird shit. And once they're outside of the school, they look up at the mountain behind the school, and we're like, oh, yeah, it said in that book that when we stopped the ghost, his spirit would have been sent back to the tree. The old tree up on the mountaintop. I hope that tree is still up there. And the neighbor kid is like, oh, wait, no. Didn't they cut that down a while ago? Yeah, they're, like, demolishing that whole mountainside to turn it into apartment complexes and stuff. It's like, oh, I hope that tree is still up there. Otherwise, where did the ghost spirit go? And right as they say that, they hear an angry voice yelling at them, say, fucking kid. I got to get revenge on you. All this shit. It's like, wait a minute. That's the host. Surprise. It's in the cat now. Now we got an animal sidekick. Check that off.

Talking cat.

Yeah, though it is a pissed off talking cats. Like I'll help you out, sailor Moon. It's like, hey, fuck you, kids. Hey, fuck you. There's at least a different change of pace. So I guess the rival or bad guy is the cat who will grow to adore to these kids and be their friend and help them stop other ghosts. Or maybe it's just an asshole the whole time. We'll see I feel it's. That probably that one. And, yeah, we see the cat sitting on the schoolyard, and we see the sun setting, and the shadow behind the cat is like, the big ghost shadow, and he says he'll make their whole family pay because their mom stopped him before, and now her kids are stopping them. So it's a whole generational thing. That's it. That's all I got.

Great. Yeah. About this point is where I realized I made a grave error in that I accidentally took notes on episode one when I was supposed to take notes on episode two. So just as I was like, oh, fuck, I don't need to analyze the show anymore, I was like, oh, no, I have to do it all again.

You got to pay attention for another 23 and 42 seconds. I know the exact second.

Yes, I was counting down the minutes. Okay, so episode two, I'll blaze through it because it doesn't deserve my respect. So you see a construction crew on the development site on the mountain, cutting down the trees, all that stuff, and one of the construction workers really got to take a shit. So he runs into porta potty. And we hear a voice from the toilet go, do you want red paper or blue paper? And sucks them in.

This is just the second episode of Panty and stalking.

Yeah.

God damn it.

I was thinking that it's only slightly better.

Wait, do we complimented the show only.

In comparison to Panty and stocking.

I truly repress all of them.

Would you rather get stabbed or look at an ugly bug? Yeah, I'd like to look at an ugly bug because getting stabbed would fucking suck. I definitely don't want that one.

Painting is stalking is worse because it's the same humor, but it was made later.

Yeah, panty Is stalking is worse because it looks great. The visual art style is great, and everything else about it's repulsive and it.

Brainwashed everyone into thinking it was a good show.

Anyway, a friend reached out to me. We hadn't talked in a little while. He was an old college buddy, and he was like, hey, how are you doing? blah, blah, blah. anyways, I saw that you hated Penny and stalking. This show fucking rules. And I was like, no, the curse, it fully doesn't. I'm still in the twilight Zone. I thought I was freed by this point.

You remembered why you haven't spoken to him in a long time. Yeah, went back on that band list.

Thing to do to someone.

Hey, let me defend the show. I haven't talked to you in 70. I will say I do like the boss beforehand. There's like, a construction worker like, oh, God, I wonder if we should be tearing up this beautiful mountainside. And the boss is like, hey, Fill. The whole filler. I was like, I'm going to use that to work.

Filler.

Send the email. sender just no thought. Just a dumb, like, zero thought info.

See, I think that was another slightly homophobic joke. So that was my take.

Was it?

I assume Whole filler referred to something else.

He's literally filling a hole, though, for construction.

I know, but don't give this show any credit. anyways, moving on. This guy gets sucked into a toilet, but who cares? Fuck him. We move on. So we see a demon cat getting used to life in the house. He's trying to eat the breakfast on the table, but the girl's like, fuck you. You're a cat. Eat your cat food. And he's refusing. He's like, I'm way too dignified to be treated like a pet. I'm the devourer of worlds, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, odd couple. Ha. So saini, they go to school. The cat follows them. He's like, I truly have nothing else going on since you trap me in a cat's body, so I'm going to torment you instead. He realizes he still has some ghost powers, so he like, moves a soda can on the street to trip the girl. Of course, this excuse to flash her panties to the boys who arrive at this point, and she punches them in the face for being pervy.

I will say, though, I do like, when she starts tripping, you hear a deep man's voice being like, no, like darth vader. And then there's, like, a very quick thought of her just going just like, that got me. And then the media scene after it was upsetting.

Yeah. So they start their actual first day of school. She's in a class with purpose, and they look into their mom's notebook to see if there's any answers for getting the demon out of the cat. And basically, it boils down to sense all the trees that their mom trapped all these spirits in, they're getting cut down. So these spirits are escaping again. So basically, in order to free their cat, they have to capture all the other ghosts first. Okay.

It makes perfect sense.

We have a plot, sort of loosely. So the boys are in the bathroom talking about sex. They're in elementary school, but yeah. purve boy goes to take a shit, but the toilets all express.

I just had the thought. I feel like the guy who played hajime, the perv boy, he probably recorded his lines first. And then the guy, Greg Morris, who played Leo, he was probably working off him because he was like he literally has a line where he's like, she's in elementary school.

Yeah.

In a meta. Like, why are you making these jokes?

Yeah, he says she needs to get sex or sexed up or something.

She's under sex.

Under sex. And yeah, and they got the glasses. It's like, Jesus Christ. Calm down.

We are literal children. We are all prepubescent. Of course no one is fucking.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if you were right, dana, if one guy recorded first and then the other guy played off of that.

Yeah, but yeah. All the toilets in the school explode, so they're like, okay, I guess if you want to use the bathroom, go use it in the old school house, which definitely isn't haunted, so don't even worry about it.

What a fucking insane idea.

Yeah, because this abandoned building, of course, has working plumbing for the entire school of children.

That was my first thought. Why would the bathrooms there still be functioning?

So one of the teachers goes to the old school to use the bathroom. They all just you know how we all go to the bathroom and naturally you have to explain to yourself out of nowhere the exact reason why you need to use the bathroom in that.

Particular oh, boy, so much coffee.

Coffee.

I ate some Mexican food. Say that out loud.

Like, literally every time anyone goes to the bathroom in this episode, they're like, here's the exact reason. I calculated it to the second, and this is the reason I have to shit. But goes to the bathroom, and we get the same demon in the toilet saying, do you want red paper or blue paper? And eats him. I guess. So the principal goes into the classroom where all the students are freaking out because their teacher went into the old school and disappeared. So they're like, yep, you got eaten by a toilet ghost. Which they're right.

Yeah, that's what happens.

So the satski is like, all right, this is bullshit. I have to end this. Let's go. So they go to the old school. It's just Perv boy and girl. And they go in again, just see random ghosts and run away to fill time. Truly does not matter at all to the plot. So they go into the girl's bathroom, and they see momoko. Jesus girl is in there. Okay.

Her name is momoko.

Yeah.

All right.

My brain shorted out when you just said that. I was like, wait, what were those words? Who hoops?

Yeah, I wrote them in my notes, but yeah, who cares? Jesus girl. fucker. Anyway, they're like, okay, last episode. They say, last episode, we dealt with this toilet ghost. So we'll just talk to her. She seemed mostly chill for a ghost. Let's see if we can fix it. So they call that ghost, and she's like, It's not me. Something else is fucking up. So they hear the demon in the stall and asks about red paper. Blue paper pulls Perfboy into the toilet. So they look through the book, and they're like, oh, this is hanukkah, the bathroom ghost or whatever. And it's asking, if you say you want red paper, it will drown you in blood. Or if you say you want blue paper, you'll turn blue because it will strangle you to death.

It's a win win.

Yeah, great. So pervoy is like, I'll outsmart it. I want yellow paper. And the cat is like, you fucking idiot. If you say you want a different color, it makes it even worse. So the demon tries to pull him into a spirit portal into hell. Okay.

So red. I die. Blue I die. Any other color, I die. How is one worse than the other?

Yeah.

You just die. Either way, you're already fine.

Yeah, I got nothing for you. You're right.

You just have to know the convoluted way of stopping it, and then it's fine.

Yeah. They go into the book, and they find that you got to fill a jar with water, write some spirit stuff on it, and then say the catchphrase. But they got a jar. But they don't cut no water.

Despite them being in a bathroom with the school that apparently was running water in this old school.

Yeah, can't wash your hands.

Don't have sinks. That's not a thing.

Just pooping in an empty hole.

Despite them getting the glass bottle from above the sink, that's where it was.

So just as the demon grabs perv boy, a girl sheds a single tear for her lost enemy, and it lands in the jar. And they're like, oh, we have water. Okay, the spell works now. Goodbye. But yeah. So after school, they fix all the toilets because the demon's gone. And saski tells the cat, we can't free you until you help us get all the other ghosts, so you better help. And he's like, Fuck you. Okay. And that's the episode.

So in episode three, we see purview boy and some other kid. They're talking about the cultural festival or, like, the Fine Arts Festival or something. And the other kid that we haven't seen before is nervous because the character he's playing in the play gets cursed and dies. And he heard that someone else who played the character actually got cursed and died. He doesn't want to die.

I will say this new character just has a jacket that just says boys on it.

That's a good jacket.

And it reminded me of the main character's dad, who just came in for breakfast and the lessons of it. And his sweater just said Sunday on it. I'm just like, I love the old animals. Like, well, we can't use brand names. Just put words, I guess. Just animals.

That's a thing. Like in Japan, they just put English words on stuff that they think look aesthetically nice.

I mean, people get tattoos of Japanese characters here, so it makes sense.

Exactly.

I always love seeing him only get jacket just like Sunday. It's like, yeah, okay, it's a Sunday sweater.

I agree.

It's a good look.

Yeah.

And so the kid is like, I don't want to die. What if you do it, hajime? And he's like, no, the girl playing the lead is ugly. I don't want it. And then the boy says he wishes that the gym would burn down so that they wouldn't be able to perform. Kid and then lightning strikes the gym. What? And then everyone is in the gym looking at the damage and glasses. Kid Leo, he really wants to play this part. And he's like, oh, I sewed my own costume and everything. And then there's an antisemitic joke. And then the principal take a while.

To guess who that's from.

Catholic.

It's the only joke they got.

Is she actually Catholic or just I think she's just a random Catholic joke.

It's a Catholic it's a joke that catholics are bigoted towards everyone besides them. So that's just all they lean into with her.

Well, all right.

I mean, it's not simply a false.

Joke, but it's not that from the.

Truth, you know, then maybe don't base a character around that.

There's a lot of other things you can make fun of catholics for. It's insane.

So the principal I thought this was funny. He said they can't cancel the Fine Arts Festival because it pays for the football team. So he's like, oh, we'll do it in the old school house. Perfect. And then the actor boy is like, I don't want to do it in the old school house. It's haunted. What if something happens to be and then he goes to rehearsal anyway. And then he is rehearsing his part and he does a good job. And then a basketball hoop falls on him. And then Leo is like, I'm the understudy. Great.

Real quick, I did like when the basketball hoop falls on him because anytime the character's mouth isn't shown, that's just when the ad libbing goes nuts because you don't have to do the lip syncs. So after the basketball hoop falls on the kid, it's like a big one and it hits the kid and you can hear him like muffled underneath. Like, what the hell are you guys doing? He's not going to help me. You just got to stand around. I was like, that is a valid point. Like they are just staring at the kid.

The harmless inoffensive jokes are funny.

There are some jokes. Yeah, there are some.

They're just outweighed by the bad ones.

A lot of bad ones.

It's mostly bad ones. I think it's just more refreshing of like they didn't use a slur in this word in this sentence.

So pervy Boy is convinced that the stairs are cursed because that actor boy talked about the fire and then the fire happened and he also talked about getting injured. So they test it by praying to the stairs. And then it's the next day and they just say that that kid died. And they just like gloss over it.

Leo, sorry.

Yeah.

I just think it was an ad lib because that kid never gets shown again. And it's like, he might as well have been dead. It doesn't matter.

And then Leo is excited because he got the lead, but no one else's prayer came true. So what's going on? And then aside from Leo, the other three go back to the stairs and hajime is like, oh, I wonder if only stuff involving the play will come true. And then the demon cat is like, excited at the prospect of watching a child die in a play. So at this point they're like, oh, the play is cursed. Anything involving the play is cursed. So Jesus Girl says to the stairs, leo's family will have sukiyaki for dinner to test the potency of the magic of the stairs. So they go to Leo's place and they see that his family is having sukiyaki for dinner. Oh, no. And then they're rehearsing. And Leo is like attached to a rope and they lift him up and he falls. And Leo is like, you guys are just doing that stuff to scare me. And then lightning strikes a tree outside. It's an omen. The play is cursed.

No.

Oh, jeez. And the demon cat is just fucking.

Loving it out there's. A burnt tree and just a cat going like, smiley whiplashes dog.

And then Leo thinks like, the cat is doing it and he storms off. And then it's the day of the festival and they put the demon cat in a carrier and Girl gives it to her little brother and, like, don't let it out, no matter what it says to you. And then they go off to their, like, stage hands in the performance and it starts. And then the demon cat is like, hey, let me out, child. Another ghost is here to mess things up and I have to stop him.

Fair enough.

Yes. And earlier in the rehearsal, we saw the boy there's, like, a bit where he has, like, fake blood coming out of his fingertips. And then Leo does that part, but he doesn't have the prop, so he's just bleeding out of his fingertips.

High school. Am I right?

And then Girl pulls out the book and they're like, we should show it to the cat. The cat probably knows which ghost it is. And then we see him call the little brother a pussy. And then that's when the little brother lets it go.

I'll prove you the wrong cat.

Yes. And then they're mad at him for letting it go. And then Jesus Girl says something, but her voice is different because she's possessed. And then the show is still going on, and Girl finds the page with the right ghost on it, and she finds out that it's like, the fourth step of the staircase that makes the curse work. So they run to get the ghost, but the whole staircase is gone. It was a staircase outside, like, leading up to a shrine, and now it's just gone.

The fastest working construction crew on the planet yeah. Take down a whole cement staircase in one day.

So I find out the teacher had it removed, why it's cursed, but the statue they need is still there. And the demon cat shows up and Girl is like, hey, where's the ghost? Or, I'll send you to a shelter and have you put down. And he seems to know, like, whoever's possessing the Jesus girl. They talk to each other and we find out the lines in the play come true, and there's like, a part about all of the ghosts dying. So the demon cat freaks out and he tells them to use the steps that are on the stage in the show. And then Jesus Girl like, faints and is not possessed anymore. And little brother is like, hey, you sounded like our mom. And then they go do the play and they do their chant thing to capture the ghost, and it works. And Leo lives after falling from a great height, he thinks the curse was lifted from his exceptional acting and he's just, like, got a huge ego now. And I liked this gag where they said he makes Greg ayres look humble because Greg ayers is the person that plays Leo.

Yeah, goof.

That's a fine gag. Okay, I know you're tired of the little boy saying just incoherent mumbling, but I thought this was funny.

This one was because he gets the.

Cat'S attention and says a sentence and then goes and the cat's like, what the fuck is wrong with you?

When they broke it, when it was a break from the incoherent, that's where reset the joke.

So yeah, but that was also, like the first time he went from speaking.

Coherently to just that just slipping back into it.

And I thought that was funny. But yeah, that's that's the episode.

Some ghost tales.

That's the one.

Books no, here's what I have no, listen up there.

Yeah, here's what I have to say about this. It was dubbed in 2005, so tearing it apart is useless. Yeah, because it's lame to say. It was a different time because obviously none of this shit aged well. It's not funny now. And I'm sure the people who are in it know that and are not happy. I don't know. They're probably not super ecstatic to yeah, they probably don't. People know that they were in it.

They're not going to comic conventions because of this. Oh, you know, some ghost stories. Let me sign your dvd.

Right? So I think it's just like, yeah, it's dumb and stupid and the jokes are terrible.

It wouldn't have gotten anywhere near as much recognition, at least on the Internet, if it wasn't all the ad living. That's what people came that's what caught people's attention. If this was just a run of the mill anime dubbed as the actual translated script, no one would give a shit. You would never have heard of this.

Yeah. And it's like we mentioned earlier, you have to think about the things that gross, terrible anime fans were laughing at in 2005. And it was this shit.

I think in episode two, like, when they're in the bathroom, point the purview, he says like, giggity, giggity. And I was like, what? And I looked it up and Family Guy came out fucking 99. Which blows my mind. But I was like, oh, they made a Family Guy reference.

Like, that tells you that's exactly who they're going for.

Yeah.

I don't hold it against the people who made it. It's like, okay, maybe I'd prefer if you didn't. But as a person in the anime community in 2005, this is what you felt you had to do. So okay. My biggest thing is the people who will still stand by it. This is also kind of talking about panty and stalking and being like, yeah, yeah, it was an old show, and I still think it's funny. And this the year of the Lord 2020. Yeah. Okay.

It's like old lunaticunes cartoons. Where do they have the disclaimer in front of like, hey, this cartoon is going to be super racist. We acknowledge that it's super racist. We are not defending it. But if we got rid of it, we would be ignoring that. Back in that time, it was super racist. Like, we would be ignoring that. We lived in a very overtly racist period of time. So it's like, we don't want to just get rid of our history because we don't like it. But it is like they are not defending it. Like if you said someone like, oh, man, I love that Donald Duck cartoon where he's building bombs for hitler. It's like, hey, hold up. Wait a minute. Why do you like that?

Yeah, we've talked about it. It's ad lib. So it really is just like when you would watch a movie with your friends and you turn down the volume and say stupid shit. That's all this is. And it has no artistic merit. And it happened in the past and it was funny in the past. And I think some people like, in the clips that I've seen, I never heard any of these jokes.

Yeah.

So I think people are just like, hey, these things were pretty funny.

Here are the funny ones. We're going to leave out all the bigoted ones. Yeah.

Don'T waste your time. We certainly did.

I hoped it was going to be very funny. I laughed at a song. Harmless and offensive things. Yeah, like the child just screaming.

Like I mentioned before, we recorded when I first started, it was so wild. I truly took it as, hey, we're getting underpaid to do this dub. Let's just say whatever. Because it starts out and there's some, like, wild shit. And just like, very clearly this was a bad take. But they didn't care. They just had to keep moving. I was like, okay, we're going to have some fun with it. And then Jesus girl came in and every joke was, Jesus, Jesus, homophobia convert the gaze. And it's like, okay, this sucks. And then we get the AR slur thrown around a couple of times in The Last Step a few times. And it's like, can we stop? Okay, I thought we were just having a fun little like, yeah, we don't care about the stub. Let's just have some fun. And then it's like, no, here's some reddit humor. I'm like, oh, God. Okay. So it was just a very quick turn of this is going to be a lot of fun, into can we stop now?

Yeah.

What Dan said reminds me makes me wonder if the Jesus girl, maybe she recorded her lines by herself because the two boys kind of interact with their dialogue. So it seems like the actors at least heard each other's takes, or at least one did. The Jesus girl seems to be just in her own world entirely, even in the show, even in the dub. So I wouldn't be surprised if she just recorded all of her shit by herself and never recorded with anyone else or never heard anyone else's lines. Because yeah, all of it is just like, yeah, I got a running joke. Let me just keep going with this running joke forever. And it's like that joke got stale real fast, but no one was around.

There's truly, maybe like two sentences where she does not say the word Jesus.

Yeah, but there's a reason the memes you've seen of this show are usually from the first episode, because that's usually as far as anyone ever gets watching it. Yeah, I've had other shows like this before where I'm like, oh, these memes are great. Let me find the source material. I was like, ooh, I should have just stuck to the memes. I shouldn't have this wasn't worth digging.

Through someone else distilled the best parts for me. I should have taken their warning.

Yeah, exactly. It's such a notorious, infamous series. Like, we were going to get to it eventually, but.

We had another year before I wish I chose a different spooky show.

Yeah.

I was going to say thank you to Stephen Moore, but you knew what? You were signing us up.

You knew this wasn't going to be a good one.

Yeah. So I'm watching you get my arm.

Watch yourself. But yeah.

What do we have going on next week?

Next week is our official Halloween episode. So I picked a show that recently got rebooted, but there are not enough episodes of the reboot out for us to watch the reboot. So we're gonna watch the old one. We're gonna watch watch higarashi.

Ah, yes, that yes. One.

Yep. And we're gonna watch episodes 1719 and 20.

Oh, boy, here we go.

Getting specific. If there's a show you the listener would like us to watch, you can send us your recommendations. Our email is Are we there yet@gmail.com? Or you can reach out to us on Twitter or 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 wihaboo art.

You can find me on Twitter at abts. Brendan. It stands for Almost Better Than Silence, which is a video game podcast.

I also do thank you to camille ruley for our artwork, and thank you to louie zong for our theme song stories. You can find all of louie's music at Louisong bandcamp.com. Thank you, and we hope you'll join us next week as we learn to live with anime.