AWTY 115 - Cat-Pitalism (High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even In Another World)

Bottom line, it's just not healthy for.

Any one business to monopolize the market.

Hello and welcome. Are we there yet? In exploration and education and anime? I'm your anime idiot, patrick dugan.

I'm an anime expert, dana hollander.

And I'm brenda mccullough. Your anime? Stewart minkus.

Minkus.

Minkus.

Sure.

That's boy meets world.

I didn't watch Boy Meets that was wrong.

I didn't even watch Boy Meets World. But I know Minckus.

Once you said it like that, I was like, okay, but when you have a full name, I was like, oh, what political figure is this?

This sounds like a political I like.

Watching the video of all of the cameos in Girl Meet swirls.

Remember this character from 30 years ago? No, you don't. You're a child. That's the reason you're watching this show.

You're seven, you're eating cereal and you're about to go to school.

It's fine.

Think about it too hard.

Why is the crowd cheering so loud?

Who's this old ass man?

Old man.

Oh, God. Boomsworth was actually centered around philly, which I feel like might be why it resonated so much with, like, people I knew growing up. Like, everyone loved Boyman's World. No, just honest.

My brother. Really? Ben really liked it.

It's a good show.

I think Paul really likes it, too.

Anyway, we're here to talk about Boy Meets World.

The anime?

Yes, the anime.

They rebooted it again and they made it real different.

It's real weird now. Oh, no.

I think it is so hot. Oh, God. Remember when she cut her hair? Oh, my God.

Anyway, wait, in the show, what happened?

Yeah, she, like, had super duper long hair, and then to prove a point, she, like, chopped a piece of it off and then she got a haircut. It was just, like, down to her shoulders. It was really good.

See, I thought you were setting something up for the anime version.

I was like, this is going somewhere.

This is a reference to something I'm not picking.

I was just thinking about how hot she was.

Tibanga becomes a magical girl. Maybe.

Speaking of magical girls, we have a show question mark. So, yeah, this is a listener recommendation. Hey. We always say at the end, but if you want to send in recommendations, you can email them to us. Our emails, are we there yet@gmail.com?

And you'll probably get a nice email back from one of us.

Not me. I can't get into the account. The security is a bitch.

Three people trying to share one account. It's like, no, you're being hacked every day. But, yeah, we're watching a show. I have to turn my head to look at my screen because it's mouthful. We're watching high school prodigies have it easy even in another world.

Wow, it's a long one.

It really tells you everything you need to know up front.

I don't know if this is a trend or I feel like I'm noticing it with newer shows. But I don't know if it is with older anime. But it's just a full plot summary within the title.

I think that kind of works because we're at the point of anime where it's like, yeah, let's get hyper specific about everything about this show. It's like, hey, we're in the dark end of the food court that you don't see that often, but we're having a fun time. The anime.

We work at the decrepit Burger King in the food court, in the mall.

Wait, hey, I like that's a good idea. I like this one. I would watch this.

Patrick delete this. We'll make this one just small rats.

Goofing off small rats.

That'Ll be our episode 200. But I mean, I guess that makes sense because then their shows like Fruits Basket be like, oh, I wonder what this is about? It's like, oh, it's about a harem that transforms into anime or into animals. What? That title didn't tell me anything about that. Shit. Yeah, it's hard to summarize that I've.

Only had a paragraph of a summary just in the title.

It would help me so much.

I haven't watched it, but I'm a fan of the title. Why the hell are you here, teacher?

I feel like that why that once.

I haven't watched it, but I've heard things. It's there's things I'm looking it off.

We'll get there. We have to recover after 2020. We'll dig into more trash like that.

Until that, we need to survive through the end of this year without quitting. You're taking a little break.

Oh, boy, I love to quit. I'm right. I love quitting. It's sold.

Give me any excuse.

That piglet's hot and ready. It's ready to go. Here we go.

Were we all considered gifted children? So now our capacity to learn is just fucked up.

No, I was dumb. I'm just lazy.

I was the test taking is easy. Just figure it out even if you didn't study at all. Because I started learning how to study in college because I didn't need to before and it was very bad. And then I refused to learn anything else.

Hey, this is actually relevant to the anime because it's high school prodigies. Yeah, but anyway, I did terribly in high school. I was good at school and then I got to high school and I was like, what the fuck? And then I got good at school again in college. Probably because I'm learning about things that I care about.

Wow, weird.

What's that like?

Weird how that works. It's pretty cool. I'm having a good time.

That was just straight meandering throughout wasn't great. I wasn't bad as I got the pity award. And I think middle school where it's like, would rather a hard seed than an easy A award. I was like, you're fucking out of your mind.

That's something they gave to you.

It was just like I think because I had honorable a lot and then I didn't get it one time, and they're just like, here's your pity award. I was like, fuck you. Give me that, eda. I'll take that every time. Out of your mind.

In our elementary school, there was just, like, the Student of the Month or whatever bullshit they called it. And I was so mad because I never got it. I was like, all of these idiots. I am a genius. I can do coloring the best.

Yeah, here's the fun. We had that in my high school as well. Like Student of the Month. And I got it one time. Here you go. Fun fact. I got it for Jim. I got it for gym class, and it's because my teacher, junior high school, I had him gym for two gym classes, and he was just, like, a nerd, and we would just hang out and talk about, like, Star Wars and superheroes and stuff, like during gym class when everyone else was running labs. And then I lent him a bunch of my video games to play with this kid, and he's like, hey, I like you. You're student of the month.

You bribed a teacher to win Student of the Month. I borrowed video games.

I didn't even want to do it. I didn't know it was a thing. And I'm just like, I'm not playing these games. Here you go. He's like, cool. You're getting a passing A for recipe or easy.

But hey, here's some sound advice that I got while I was in community college. If you listener are still in school and you're struggling and you're worried about your grades, take it this way. I heard this from a history teacher. He said, in our society, people strive so hard to get a's, and people act like that's the standard, when in reality, a C is average. So if you get a C, technically you're doing fine, so don't stress about it. If you get a B, that's great. And if you get an A, wow, you're doing amazing.

Yeah, you don't want to end up like me being so anxious that I've gotten one C in my whole academic career, and I still think about it all the time on what a failure it was, because in college joined, it was like First Amendment in the media. It was basically studying Supreme Court cases related to the First Amendment, because the film school media. But I missed the intro class where they were like, hey, here's how you read briefs of Supreme Court cases. So I had to try to figure it out, and it sucked, and it was the worst, and I did bad.

Yeah.

I only passed because the teacher kind of took pity on me, and I didn't get the grade I needed to in the final, but I just got enough to not fail, so I was like, okay, I will take it.

I got ds when I took chemistry in high school. So I learned that I was a failure early, even though I wasn't technically a failure. But anyway, we should talk about this anime, right?

None of us have any idea what's going on or what to expect, so we're talking about anything else this is relevant.

We're talking about school.

We're surprisingly on topic, which is a.

First sort of weird. Let's be a little bit more on topic and dive into our first three episodes, shall we?

Yeah, let's.

The world is beautiful.

The station at the base of Sazark has all the charm of an industrial seaport and the invasiveness of a busy market.

Life is a gift.

The belabored death of a joyful man is an ugly thing to witness with.

Kind and giving people.

If you push past an angry sailor in gloucester, it's a transgression worthy of.

A trip to the bridge adventures everywhere you look.

He knew I never strayed far from gloucester and would rather read about the next town over than visit myself and.

Fun around every corner.

If I followed my neck body mangled.

Among the beats, would they notice a passenger in there?

So go explore.

I bury my face in a pillow and cry silently asleep. The party continues beyond.

Make new friends.

She opened the door a crack just enough to be face to face but not to imply a welcome.

Remember, old one.

He was the only one welcoming in the starlight on its many mile journey.

And see the beauty the world has to offer.

I'm glad I could share with him this moment and return it to its rightful home.

Echoed Locations a traveler's Guide to a Solar punk World, a new audio fiction travel show premiering December 9. Subscribe now on your podcaster of choice. I'm just going to throw we're back in from break. We didn't want to come back, so I I'm throwing us for the fence. We're in. We're back in the back. So yeah, we just spent, like, ten minutes sharing touching childhood stories about school. Because.

It'S anime.

Yeah, it's anime incomprehensible to me. I had no idea what was going on.

For the majority, this is going to be a little bit of a shorter one because a lot of this is just Economics 101, so we'll get to it.

But I didn't write down any of it.

Yeah, there's just a lot of jargon on how to run a business and take down a big business.

It's going to be a lot of me waxing poetically about my microeconomic teacher in college, john Bimda boffi. He's a good guy.

That's a good name.

Yeah, he's the only one that isn't.

That that Korean food.

He's the only teacher I knew who still used chalk at that day and age. He'd get very excited and run around screaming and be very antibiotic economics and just had white powder all over his hands. I'm like, you're coked out of your mind, aren't you?

It's to hide the scene.

He's a great teacher. I actually really like them.

Shout out to you, sir.

Shout to you, Mr. binda. bofi.

Well, I'm just going to jump on in because I'm waiting for any opportunity to talk about other stuff, so I'll just get through this. So we see two elf girls walking in the woods. And what's that? A magical bird like thing called an airplane.

It was at this point I took my first note of, God damn it, it's an ethic high. And then you all promptly reminded me, yes, the fucking title that says it's an east guy. I was like, yes, darrell. Correct. I never actually read the full title.

Yeah. High school prodigy is yada. yada.

I got it.

So we get a montage. I'll just blaze through it because we don't really interact with a lot of these characters.

We mostly hear about two of them.

Yeah. So we're introduced there are seven Japanese students that are the greatest blanks in the world, and they're just collectively known as the High School Prodigies dongan ropa. Yeah. Basically, this is a perfect cast for dungeon ropa because they're all assholes.

We want to see them all if.

Any of them die.

So we have ringo the inventor.

We have names. Wow. Sorry. Yeah.

I will throw out the real name just for journalistic integrity.

Shinobu like that. We'll get there in a second.

Oh, my God. We have aoe, who's a swordsman. We have kene the doctor. masato is the entrepreneur prince akat. Fuckatsuki yeah. akatsuki is the magician. shinobu is the journalist. Remember my very good jokes. Sukasa is the politician.

I would like to put it out there. I would like to call Sword Girl, War Crime Girl.

She just murdered people. I'd also like to point out the journalist is also a ninja. But that's second hand. That's not as important as a journalist.

Yeah, it's all dumb.

They say all these things of like, yeah, these are their things. But in the montages we see they aren't just, like, good at the high school level in these things. These are the leaders in the fields that they're in the world.

Literally. The prime minister of Japan, Yes ucasa.

Is prime minister at, like, 16. So that's sort of the scale we're working with. The entrepreneur is landing in a helicopter, being like, what? They want to give me $20 million? That's okay to start.

Jeff bezos the anime.

Yeah, that's unfortunately, kind of where it goes.

So just a heads up, we got an inventor. It's like, fine robots. That's your check off smoking Gun or you're Mcguffing your magical bullshit of like, anything could be invented on Iron Man. They got a doctor. It's like, yeah, that's a good job. That's a fair. They got journalists. It's like fair ninja. We won't talk about entrepreneur. That's just generic businessman turned politician. Right. Then we got swordsman and magician, which feel a wheel a little odd to me.

Yeah. The magician makes the Statue of Liberty disappear. So, like doing some real David blaine bullshit. And yeah, the swordsman is just out there doing merck shit in the desert.

Avoiding bullets, reflecting bullets with her sword and cutting down Groanass men in War.

Yeah, perfect teen stuff.

Yeah.

Classic girly things.

So we got that montage out of the way. It's fine. We'll hear from several of these people. You see, Sukasa wakes up in a strange bed. He's all bandaged up, and a big titty elf girl is God leaning over him.

They really emphasize the titties.

So basically, they all crash landed in a strange new world and they slowly reveal that fact over this episode.

It's Lost. You've all seen lost.

Yeah, you got it. So he's the first one to wake up and this elf woman the rule.

My rule.

Yeah, whatever it was.

Wow, that's closer to anything I've even thought of.

Big titty elf girl.

There we go.

Big titty elf girl.

Yeah. So she's like, oh, I have soup for you. Regain your strength. And there's chunks in it. He's like, oh, I can't eat this. I'm not strong enough. And she goes, oh, yeah. So you can just drink the broth. That's the logical thing.

Yeah, of course. That's what she does.

Or I can set them in a smaller pieces or something.

Yeah. Oh, no, sorry, I misread my notes. She chews it up and baby birds, chunks of meat to this stranger.

I just can't believe that this has happened.

This is our introduction to this world. Like, that doesn't really get addressed at all after that.

Yeah. The craziest thing is that nothing else like this happens for the next two episodes.

And here's the thing. If she just drops it in, babe, like it's full on makeout, we see the drill spittle as they part. And also, this is in the opening sequence, every episode, like this specific scene. So it's like this is impactful, I guess.

It's not even listed as an etchy. Nothing else happens that we've seen. Like just so weird.

Very uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable for her, too, because another woman walks in and she immediately goes, oh, stop. Oh, fuck, no. So clearly this is not something that you just do in this world. This is not a tradition of real Purve to some strangers, some injured strangers.

She was also about to do it again. She was going to do it a second time. So she's like, fine with doing this.

She's he was just like, yeah, I'm.

Okay with being a baby bird. Yeah. And it's just like, good God.

So, yeah, we see a furry fox girl walk in.

Okay. I love this bitch. I'll be honest.

Furry mill.

I love this furry mill.

Can we take a sound clip and just play it over like, a tombstone on the grave? Because I want that on dana's grave.

Oh, no.

Tattoos. Where you tattoo a sound wave and.

You can use oh, that's it. We found it.

That's why our bond will live forever.

Our shame.

So this is winona, this woman, she's sort of like the town leader, I guess. I don't know. But she walks in, and Sukasa finally starts to realize that this is a different world. All right, so yeah, they're in the land called freya Guard. These furry people are called buma Shirt, and they haven't heard of Japan. So he's like, oh, something's up. So he has them take him to see the wreckage of the plane, which is just completely destroyed. It would not be survivable. So he's like, oh, something fishy is going on here.

I just want to say real quick, the furry people are called puma. And then anyone else without these trays are code huma. I was like, human the huma.

Huma.

What's, the elf girls? We won't talk about that. She's hyrulean.

Yeah, don't get zelda.

Huge titties tig ol pitty zelda.

I mean, basically, yeah. So we get a time jump. It's a month later, everyone's all healed up and convenient. Yeah. So the magician, of course, is the only one still freaking the fuck out about all of this world transporting stuff. So, yeah, we get introductions of buma and humas. The humans can sometimes do magic on occasion. And Sukasa introduces them all to the miracle of mayonnaise. Great. The very first thing. Yeah, because they are like, hey, here's some baked potatoes. Can we liven it up? He's like, yes. Just mayonnaise. That's all you add to it?

Well, because they're by, like a fire, and the mayonnaise is kind of like yellowy. So I saw it. I was like, ah, melted sheet butter. Fuck yeah. Or butter.

I was like, you put on a baked potato.

I was like, let me get in on some of that. And they're like, it's mayonnaise. I was like, oh, why? Why is that the first thing you make?

Yeah, they're having a big party to celebrate everyone's fully recovered. And winona tells them there was an old folk's story about a group of seven people that come from a different world and defeat an evil dragon and save the world. And they're like, oh, weird and convenient. anyways, anyway, back to this mayo. So Sukasa calls a meeting with all of the seven, and he's like, okay, so some shit is screwy around here. So we got to focus on the big three things we need to learn about this place. We need to find a way to get back home, and we also need to rebuild this village to repay the kindness of all these people because they just eat all their food for the month. And winona's son, who's the treasurer of the village, is pissed off. Yeah, we're getting real technical with our ranks and stuff.

I love his name because it's just El C H. And every time I saw it in the subtitles, I just thought.

Yeah. I was just like, elk okay. He's just a dear man.

Yeah, I watched the dove, so yeah, I thought it was just elk.

Yeah, so he's all pissed off because he ate all their food and they don't have enough. Socasa is like, okay, we have to pay them back. That's the least we can do. So conveniently, the engineers like, oh, I used my screwdriver and made our phones work in this different world.

Cool.

Great. Perfect.

How convenient.

Also, she has a mini nuclear reactor. Just had it on the plane, got it through tsa. Fine. It's all good. So they have unlimited power and they landed next to a box site reserve. So she can make aluminum anything. Very convenient.

Yeah.

Weird. We can just do whatever you want. Perfect. We then see some soldiers arrive to get a protection tax from the villagers. Tries to feel up winona, but Sukasa is like, hey, get out of here, soldier. And then the soldier is going to beat him up. But, oh, we got a ninja and a swordsman.

She's a journalist.

Excuse me.

The power of the print.

Not a ninja.

Don't tell people. Yeah.

She just really hammered home some uncomfortable points that their PR team did not anticipate. They all pass out. So they scare away the soldiers, and then the magician follows them out and does some magic floats and makes his head float around. And he's like, I'll kill you if you tell anyone about this. They're like, oh, fuck a magician. No, we're good.

This child terrifying.

And it's not just like he does like, a sleight of hand trick. Like he's flying in the sky and severs his head and floats his severe head around. Like, that's not a magician, that's legit.

Sorcery, yeah, especially when he didn't rehearse. He didn't have this ready. He didn't see soldiers were coming. He was like, oh, yeah, let me just spend 20 minutes running down the road and then I'll think of something.

Well, because they say even when they arrive, they're like, ah, you have magic in this world too. It's a little different than the magic in our world. I was like, Because we don't have magic in our world. It's all tricks and illusions. It's not real. This is ridiculous.

They scare away the soldiers, and then they're like, hey, let's use our insane talents for good.

And it took us a month to figure that out. We also get, like, when he says, let's use all of our individual talents. We get, like, quick cuts to all of their unique signature things. We get the inventor, she's got her, like, the little robot get the swordsman girl, and she's got her katana and stuff. And then the magicians got his hat and cape and stuff. And then the dodge girl, we get a nice shot of her thighs and some lacy thigh hype stockies. And it's like, she's a doctor. She has other things.

She's got so much to offer.

She had a golden opportunity to put a stethoscope in some big cities.

You chose the thigh high.

She keeps her Stethoscope at a thigh holster.

And that's not the only time that happens where it's just like, you got this character, this character and thighs. I'm just like I don't know her name. She's never spoken yet. I just know she's got lacy thigh highs.

How like unique, though, that they went for her thighs instead of her butter titties. I'm a thigh man. I love that.

You can't show off the lace over pants. You got to get in there. That's fine, perfect.

Just blow them on. Also, we get the standard. Like the opening is now the ending for the first episode. And the politician boy just has a gun.

Gun?

Where does that come from?

Speak softly and carry a glock.

Like, I'm sure we got a freaking robot and a nuclear reactor. I'm sure they can make a gun, but why does the politician have it anyway? Episode two, we open up. We got finance boy. I refuse to learn any of their names. We got Finance Boy negotiating with the treasurer boy, and they're at the only trading company in town. Apparently, this trading company runs a monopoly on the town. So they choose what sinks or swims, who gets money and who doesn't, because they run everything. They suck in order to defeat them. We're also going to suck a little.

That's capitalism, baby.

That's capitalism. He's the demon lord of the finance market, or whatever his nickname is. It's like, cool. So we're establishing he sucks. Like he's a demon. Like, okay. So they leave the trading company, and he's like, don't worry. I got a plan. I'm going to get a permit to sell, and we're going to destroy this trading company that's been a monopoly for decades now in your town. And we're going to take him out in one week. Because I'm so thrifty, and it's like.

I'm so good at money.

Jeff Bezos heard me talking shit about capitalists and sent the plane to fund me down. So excuse that noise.

Drown them out.

Drown them out. The propaganda. So, yeah, they leave the training company, and he's like, don't worry. I got a plan to take him out in a week. And he's like, if there's one thing I hate, it's getting fucked over in finance. And if there's one thing I love, it's fucking people over in finance. It's like, oh, great, cool. You admit you're doing the shitty thing. You don't like what people do to you. So he's lecturing the treasurer boy, and the whole time we see this poor little animal girl watching them. The whole time she's getting all excited when they're talking about money. She's poor, so she likes money. And Finance Boy says he'll get a deal going to cuts too. We see the magician boy doing tricks for the kids. And he's like, my fingers separated. dumb shit like that. And all the kids are impressed, and they're like, wow, ladies sure are good. He's like, I'm a boy. And they're like, Fuck you. You're a girl. It's like, all right, this is a weird, aggressive stance these kids are taking. And I was kind of disappointed.

Turf.

Oh, no. This world sucks more than we realized.

We have to leave now. It's the evil dimension.

But I was kind of disappointed because we saw the magician boy freaking out, like, can't come into terms with the magic in the world he's in right now. And I was like, I get that because all of his magic is a lie. It's all a trick. So when he comes to terms with the real magic, he's having trouble with it. And I was like, that's a cool angle. It's immediately forgotten and discarded. I was like, yeah. Oh, he's just okay with it now. Cool. I thought we'd have some development with that.

The writing in this show isn't very good.

I just needed to scare some soldiers, and that set my mind straight.

That was so fun. I love it here now.

Once I ruined my head off, I could go free and just go buck wild. And then we see everyone else in the Village helping out, doing all their chores and stuff, helping where they can, and politician boys just going at that mayonnaise. He's just making that mayo. Everyone loves that mayonnaise so goddamn much.

I will say that Japanese mayonnaise is different than American mayonnaise. It's, like, sweeter. And I think it's used more as, like a dipping kind of thing and stuff like that.

Yeah.

So it seems weird to us.

I've been watching a lot of Korean street food vendors on YouTube because it eases my soul and a lot of mayo in that way more than anything else. So I'm like, it's got to be better than what we got here.

Different.

My thinking was, yeah, they just happen to have a lot of eggs. I think mostly because they want to set up, like, hey, we're making mayo later. But out of every human cuisine on Earth, the first thing you go to is like, yes, mayo. You have to really stretch out these eggs. Should I teach them about omelets and stuff?

No mayo.

Let's just turn all of these fine to eat things on their own into a condiment that requires other food.

Put that shit on everything.

The basic foundation of every civilization. Mayonnaise. Next we're going to get relished, and we're going to knock this shit up into the Iron Age.

Tartar sauce, chicken salad with that mayo and relish.

So while they're making mayonnaise, him and busy zelda are talking about the finance boy, and furry mom comes in saying, I'm not interrupting anything between you two? You're not trying to fuck while you're making mayo, are you? Just very obvious on the nose.

I played Starduke I don't want to go to.

I've played stardu Valley. I know a way to a woman's hardest man. And furry Mom starts explaining all the troubles they've had with the training company in the village, how they're like a monopoly, and they cut us off, and that fucked us over, and we're struggling. So we cut back to finance boy. Outside of the training company gates, we only drew one background, so it's this one. And he's like, I got a permit to sell in town. And treasury boy is like, whoa, how did you get that? He's like, it's easy. I blackmailed the mayor. And it's like, oh, yeah, I got my ninja journalist friend to dig up some dirt on him that I guess is pretty easy to find. And I'm blackmailing him into giving me a permit to sell here. It's like a shady business right off the bat. Great.

Perfect.

And he talks about how they'll be rich, and then the poor orphan cat girl hears them. He runs up, and it's like, I want to be rich too. I love money. And it's like, great. You're part of the team, stranger. We just met, and I'm going to count her as the animal sidekick.

I mean, fair, I'll take it.

Yeah.

And then the three of them go.

To she is a capitalist pig.

She's a cat to list. Didn't work.

Capitalist cat.

Capitalist cat. The three of them go to a tavern later, and they're just eating some food, and they're talking to some sellers in town, these three guys that just got barriers. And they're talking about like, yeah, we got a permit to sell into town. You guys don't have permits, so you want to team up with us to sell in our place, and then we'll cut you in on a deal so you can sell at a prime location in town, and you'll give us 20% of the profits. And there's like, I don't know what's a percent? I don't understand basic math because I am a medieval villain peasant. I don't they don't understand these high finance terms and truly only one company.

So we bring our stuff to them and go, all right, that's fair. Whatever.

Yeah, I won't question it. And he goes, how about this? Instead of 20%, I'll give you 10%, or you'll just pay me 10%. But then you'll also run our shops there too. And it's like, okay, you had us at 20%, but okay, we're sold.

You had us at you will buy our shit.

We're very poor. We'll take anything. So he recruits more people, and the finance boy goes into some big lecture about how they're going to overthrow the monopoly in town. And it's just like, yeah, okay, this is like the third time you've done this. So we get it cut to the next day selling in town, and they just got a little store set up. And the treasury boy goes like, wow, we haven't had customers all day. And the finance boy goes, just you wait. And then all of a sudden, the entire town is at their stall buying everything. It's like, why didn't you say that earlier if that's all that triggered?

Just open and go, oh, no one was waiting for it.

And then he calls like the ninja girl journalist. And apparently she was scouting out the town and found the best location for the best foot traffic. And that's where they set up. I guess I'll be really kind of tuned up for this conversation.

In this and the start of the next episode, we just get into the weeds on hey, here's how you fuck over a monopoly. Well, kind of gloss through it because it's just truly this negotiation and talking with these people. And we got these vendors on our side, so it's like not fun.

Yeah, they basically just made a union with all the people the monopoly fucked over. And it's like, then we beat the monopoly. Cool, great. So they sell the stuff for the first day. They get a ton of money. They send back all the money. Or they buy a bunch of supplies with the money and then send that back to the village. So everyone the village is like, wow, they're contributing finally. Meanwhile, the three of them stay in town to keep running the stall and stuff. Meanwhile, the politicians back in the village, I guess, running stuff there and just making mayonnaise. Next day they start selling mayonnaise at the market and everyone loses their goddamn mind over this shit. We get a shot of the little cat girl just eating a bunch of mayonnaise and just being really bloated and round. I'm like, this just feels weird and wrong.

Yeah, that felt fetish.

She yeah, I didn't like that part.

She had mayonnaise on her face.

There's just enough that you forget that there's some horny shit in the show. You just see it and then go, oh, yeah, that's right. This is kind of fucked. And then 20 minutes go by it before the next one. You're like, oh, I lulled into a false sense of security.

We left the village. So we're like, we're outside of that horny woods. And I was like, all right, here we are. Here's this weird specific horny. Anyway, a very handsome man comes up and he's like, I'd like some mayo, please. I'm a fleet captain. He's like, all right, sure. We've never heard of you before. In a second, so I guess you're important. They end up negotiating a deal and it's a merchant fleet of ships. So they end up striking a deal with this big merchant fleet. And that's going to get them to sell all their wares, other places and breaking the money. Monopoly guys like, they're just country pumpkins. Who gives a shit about them? And meanwhile, when they're striking the deal with the captain, now the monopoly guy, once they strike a deal with the captain, monopoly guys start noticing like, oh, shit, monopoly guy. The monopoly guy like from the board.

Yeah, I want you, the listener, to imagine that because that might as well it's fine, you enjoy yourself.

Imagine the Monopoly guy, but fuse him with Francis from peewee's big Adventure. Who steals peewee's Bike. That's him. So once the monopoly guy finds out that the fleet captain has switched sides, he's like, oh shit, I got to take him seriously now. Set up shop tomorrow. We'll destroy them. And at the same time the treasury boys worried about the monopoly guy. And they're like in their hotel or they're inn or wherever they're staying at. The ninja girl just shows up and crawls through the window like, why don't you use a door? She's like, where's the fun of that nin? Because that's her catchphrase.

And remember, she's primarily a journalist.

She's primarily a journalist. God. She's Peter Parker, isn't she? Goddamn.

Oh no, don't bring him into this.

Jesus christ's name. So she comes in and gives them the dirt of like, hey, here's what the monopoly guy is doing. Is like cool, great. And finance boy says, don't worry, they're going to set up shop tomorrow in the same market square as us. And they're going to lowball us on all the prices because they can afford to take a hit on profits as long as it screws us over. Because if we lose one day we'll go under basically. And the treasury boy is like, oh boy, how are we going to compete with that? And the finance boy is like, don't worry, I got a plan. And he opens up the window to they're in outside onto the street and it's all of the traders they've recruited to work with them and sell their shop. And they're all just standing outside his window staring angrily at his window and it's like, how long have you been there? Why are you outside?

Just we're mad because we've been waiting for you for 2 hours. You told us to meet here at five and it's seven.

Hey, that's on me. That's fair. I forgot your route here. It's very quiet and stoic with a furrowed brow and yeah, that's episode two.

Okay, wow. I'm just going to say things that happened. So Tech Girl made shovels because she already made aluminum. She thought they could help the village. yay. Prime Minister Boy praises her and she says she's grateful for rich boy's help because he got her the resources she needed. And then she's like, I'm so tired. And Prime Minister Boy is like, you should get some rest. You've been working hard. And she's like, because she has a crush on Prime Minister Boy.

Yeah. No way.

He's alone and he's thinking about how everyone is so tired and then he starts snowing and he sees some ladies doing laundry and he's like, hot water.

I just did it.

The Monopoly guy is mad about the marketplace and he tells his cronies to go buy everything. But I'm like, that's not that doesn't seem like that will solve your problem. But they go and then there's nothing to buy because everybody's already bought everything. And then Rich Boy reveals that the merchants who have been selling there are the ones that Monopoly Man laid off unions. I literally wrote, I don't want to take notes about this too long. Didn't read he made a company with these people.

Yeah, it's a long scene.

Yeah, he put them under contract. And then the merchants chew out the Monopoly Man for being a bad boss or whatever because he lowered their prices. And he's like, no, come back to me. And they're like, I don't trust you.

Now of good business relationships built on trust. We got to trust each other. Remember?

Rich Boy has this whole spiel about how a business is about trust, not just money. That there's no room for business without trust. trus t trust.

I have a tattooed on my chest right here. Look, I'm sure this will be to bite me later.

But then he has a tramp stamp of two little fingers.

Blushing face like, aren't I naughty? Holy shit. I would love just the sheer arrogance.

And then he also talks about how no one business should own everything. And I was just like, whoa.

What crazy.

He says, we're going to keep you in business, Monopoly Man, but we're also going to take advantage of what we have right now and fuck you over.

That doesn't seem yeah, he tells him, like, I'll negotiate with you later. I'm not going to completely fuck you over. Which was weird because wasn't that the goal? And then him, they're on the dock. And the only thing I care about is the Rich Boy is doing like a coin magic trick for ru. It's the cutest thing. He has it in his hands. And he's like talking over his shoulder to er. And she like, picks one of his hands and he opens it and it's gone. And she's just like, what?

Devil man?

I love that because it's so casual that it's like a background thing. I love shit like that.

It's more character development than anytime he's talked.

Yeah. And then Fox Boy is like, why didn't you destroy the company? I thought you were going to destroy the company. And then Rich Boy is like, actually, there are a lot more drawbacks if I did get rid of the company. And honestly, I can't even afford to keep those merchants on. I was always going to give them back to the Monopoly Man.

I was lying.

And then he's like, yeah, those contracts I had them under were just like empty promises. And then eh is like, are you a bad person? And he's just like, yes, of course. I love money.

That's business, baby, you're catching on.

I wrote a capitalist with a heart of gold. And then the scene happened. I was like, oh, never mind. Just a capitalist.

Yeah, because he talks such a big game about what a company should rule. It's about the union of the workers. And it's like, yes, marks. And it's all exploiting them so I can make more money.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Just as I was starting to trust this guy. I mean, that's this whole deal, right?

He's a finance boy. He's a piece of shit.

And then there are some dudes that come over on the dock, and they're like, hey, give us that little girl back. She's a slave. And it's just like, oh, dear.

Here we go.

And the rich boy is like, I'm going to save you. And then he asks her, he's like, do you want me to save you?

Earn your freedom?

I want you to not let me go back into slavery. What are you talking about?

No, you got to sell me on it. Give me the pitch.

What's your pitch?

Come on. And that's what she does.

What more can you offer?

She bites the guy that grabbed her, and she's like, determined. She's like, I want to be a merchant so I can make enough money to buy my parents out of the slave trade. And then I'll give all the rest.

Of my money to you, rich boy, my new master.

Awesome. Yeah. And then she's just like, will you buy me? And he's like, yes. And then he tosses them a huge bag of coins because we got to.

Keep that slave trade going. Keep it funded.

Don't worry, child. I promoted you to indentured servitude hooray.

And then he's like, you are so brave, and you're worth way more than the money I just paid. And then she starts crying because apparently.

That'S touchable that's sweet to her.

And then he apologizes to ask for spending the money, but he's like, fine with it. He's like, you've already done so much for the town. It's fine. And he's like, what can I say? I love making money. And then Prime Minister Kid is on his cell phone with the ninja girl, and she's in town to get some info about magic. And boy, do we learn some stuff right now. And she explains that there's magic that goes with each element, and the people that use it are rare, and they all live in Findolf. And he wonders if the magic users could maybe send them home. But for now, they just need to be learning about the magic in this world in general. And then she also mentions the seven heroes and that they're out of luck. And she talks about a religion called the Seven Light Faith and how they were destroyed forever ago. A bunch of religions were destroyed forever ago by the government or something. And they say, no gods above the empire. And I thought that was pretty raw. If that was in any other media, I'd be like, hell yeah.

At this point, I was starting to worry because they're like, hey, capitalism, it fucking rules. And hey, doesn't it suck when the government says you can't practice your religion? I'm like, I don't like the American rights. Everyone in this kingdom deserves the sword.

Now they want to take away our swords.

Hey, we got shovels though.

Yeah. So he still wants to research the seven heroes and the magic. But she explains that they need a permit to leave the territory, but the guy who gives them out is a bastard.

Will blackmail him too.

And then sword girl tells prime minister guy that something is finished. And he says that he's been working on public facilities, meaning that he made a bathhouse with hot water. So now we get the opportunity to see all the girls with big titties in bikinis, leaf bikinis.

Just like, good God.

Yeah. So it's them. I don't even know who's there. And then Prime Minister Boy is also there. And then lirual comes what I was.

Going to say, it was like sore girl, doctor girl, milk mom. And then like the adventure one who.

Still has big really insecure about her small tiddy.

Still has big titties, but compared to anime standards that are smaller.

I'm sorry I said it like that.

You don't have to be here. She's like, no, I want to be here with everyone else. It's like, this just feels weird.

Don't be insecure.

This just feels weird.

Yeah. So Rule shows up and she's like, sorry I'm late. I was getting some oil to help with penchester boys hands. You're working your pretty soft hands too hard.

Let me loop them up for you.

Yeah, so this is not as bad as when she baby birds suit to him.

It's still hornier than it should be.

Yeah. She rubs the oil on his hands and it's intimate. And then the magic boy runs in and he's like, there's some trouble with some hunters. So they all go and there's a big like, bear monster attacking. I think they say it's the chief of the forest.

Yeah, he's in the opening.

Okay. And sword girl comes to the rescue. And then they're like they get all the people out and they're like, is everybody okay? And then they're like, the mayor. And we see the mayor just covered in blood. And I'm like, rip to the hottest guy in this show. God damn it.

He's the real bear.

Yeah, he's very handsome. It was at this point I was.

A bear fight out in the woods and I wanted to enter. I was so wrong.

That was very misunderstood.

Why did you teach me about gay.

Soap cultures in your world? The first thing you learned.

And it was at this point I was like, oh shit, I forgot about Surgeon Girl. Is she really about to bring him back to life? Because he's dead.

Full on dead, they say, like he's not breathing and his heart stopped.

There's no in his body.

We found him.

He's been cold for 3 hours. Let's find out what he can do. Hold on.

Pause. I need to text Paul something.

Look up Bear Man from bad anime.

To send pay per view bear wrestling mad next year's.

Halloween costume. winky face, heart emoji.

Okay, so Sword Girl is fighting the chief of the forest, which honestly feels like, to me, something you shouldn't be fighting.

Just walk away.

If it's the chief of the forest, it sounds like it would be bad if it died.

Yeah, it seems like it has a presence in the forest that cannot be matched.

Yeah, but yeah, doctor Girl assesses the mare, and she's like, yeah, I can save him easy.

Well, also, when they go like, can anyone help? Cut to thighs. I mean, Doctor, maybe another thigh shot. It's just like why? Why?

Yeah. So there's more fighting. Sword Girl gets the final blow. Chief of the forest is dead. Doctor Girl is doing surgery with what? Did she have all of this stuff just on her?

I assume the inventor made it for her.

Okay, yeah, she's just there to just hand wave away any questions you have of, like, where did you get the inventor? With the mini nuclear reactor. Okay, sure.

And a fully sentient AI.

And then Doctor Girl is just here to reverse any death.

But that blood back in there's.

Never any issues, no consequences.

She just has this man's chest open in a dusty forest while a fight is going on in the background, and she massages his heart, and he starts breathing again. So she closes him up, and I'm just like, this has got to be unsanitary. Did she wash her hands?

Your heart was too tense. Let me rub it with this oil.

That's essential.

But yeah, he's alive again, so thank God.

He looks like a zombie, though. He stitched up the holy hell.

Yeah, that's the other thing. The stitches already look like they're healed. Like, they did look like fresh stitches. And then a bunch of soldiers show up to the town with their captain. They call themselves the Guardian Knights. And I thought it was like, the whole town he was trying to arrest the whole town, but it was just the people involved with the marketplace thing. He's there to arrest them for illegitimate business or something, man.

Government regulating the market the worst, am I right?

And then Rich Boy is like, nah, man, I had a permit. And then the captain is like, no, you have touched the dragon Seal of the state on our money, and I consider that a crime equal to treason.

Yeah, I forgot about the quote he said before, because I just fully checked out this episode. But when they said, like, no God above the empire. And then the captain comes and saying, like, we put God on our money, so if you touch it, it's blasphemy because you're poor. It's like that's. Yeah, that's just a trapman, man. That's bullshit.

So he says it's all in order from the Lord himself, but not God, the other Lord. Like the Lord of the state. And they're all going to be burned at the stake. So he sets the building on fire. Yeah, but Prime Minister guy, everyone outside is like, oh, God. But then Prime Minister Guy is like, don't worry, we have Magic Boy on our side. And then Magic Boy snaps his fingers and they're all out of the building. What the fuck is the point in.

A puff of smoke? Just we're all here.

We literally teleported, like, every single one of them.

It's not just the Doctor and the tech girl. Every single one of them is just a conflict turner offer.

Nightcrawler couldn't teleport that many people in this little fancy lad.

Yeah. And then the rich boy is like, oh, my God, we've got trouble. We're in trouble with the Lord of the Land. And then Prime Minister Boy looks around and he's like, where's Big Titties? Up there? And then the episode is over.

Where's the girl with all that thick plot?

Where's the girl that fed me through her own mouth and rubbed my hands?

Just listen for her dummy thick butt.

I haven't heard those cheeks in a day.

Where she's out of hearing rape journalist. You can find her.

You can hear her for far because I'm thick.

She so that was this show.

I love it. New fave.

Yeah. paige, if you've recommended this because you like it, we're very sorry.

You should have knew this.

I love you. You're great.

You knew this was a possibility. You knew this was a risk when you recommend to us.

But, yeah, it's not good.

Can't say we love it. We got Titties, we got beach, we got Bathhouse Episode, we got Info Dump, we got tangled on incest, which we might have to take that one off eventually if we kept watching it. Yeah. Animal sidekicks. Insane expectations of a literal child. rooftops with Ninja girl. I'm going to check off.

Yeah.

Wow.

I'm gonna check off overpowered student council because it's just the seven of these and they're literally the best at everything in the world.

Their student council is literally the government of Japan.

Yeah. And transfer students because they're from a different world.

Yeah. This this one's got it all.

It's got a lot everything.

Which makes it a good anime. Yeah.

This is a hard way to phrase it because it is technically a very good anime. If you're looking for anime, this is capital.

This is anime.

Good one. If you want weird government issues and magic and big titties and, like, a little bit of sexy, this one's really like it's got everything.

But if you're looking for, like, a story with narrative and logical reasons, things happen. I'm sorry, this isn't going to be the show for you.

Sorry.

Yeah.

We recommend you are almost, though.

Yeah. Can we watch that?

That's a good time to fill some.

Of the time because this is a little bit of a shorter one. I have a game. We're staying in the realm of anime money and markets. Playing some prices right stuff. And we're playing are we before yet of anime figure edition. So yeah. I have a list of some of the most expensive anime figures. I'm sorry, because recently you all were telling me about the insane prices of anime figures. I've heard some get very expensive. I didn't realize most baseline are way too fucking expensive.

But it's my wife who and she's pretty.

So I will give you the heads up. I have the top ten. I'm going to go through a couple of them. These are all going to go in ascending order. So if we name a price, it's only going to get more expensive next round. So just heads up. I'm not going to try to trick you. And something cheaper towards the end. So let's start with our first one. This is a figure of gigantor. This is from tetsujin. Tetsujuan 28, I think. So it is just a big black robot figure. Let's start here. It doesn't look too impressive, not too shiny. It's older.

Yeah. 50s manga.

I will give you. This is a five digit. I'm going to give you this because it's going to stay in that realm for a little bit. So just five digits. What's the price of this toy?

Including decimal point digit cents. Good God. Wow.

I'm going to go with I'm going to start reasonable. We're already out of that role with $13,000.

Say that for me one more time.

$13,000.

Okay.

I'm going to be a little shit and say 13,001 bob. No.

Yeah.

We will keep it at prices are right. Rules of closest without going over.

Got you.

Okay.

Yeah. Knowing this is an older series and those go for a lot like weirdly. They get really collectory.

I will add if it helps you. This is made of ten, so keep that in mind when you get that class five digit number.

And that means it's from the 50s. So it's even more rare. I'm going to say 2600. No, 1000. God. 26,000.

All right, dana, you got it. On the nose. It is thousand dollars.

Wow. Yeah. Damn.

On the I figured I would probably go over, but wow. On the nose. Good job.

I'm I'm going to be good at this.

You've looked at more anime figures than any of us.

All right. So moving on. I'm not going to do all ten because some of these just are the same prices.

Yeah.

So this is a figure cyan and crow. This is from the anime show by Rock. It is cool person with a sick guitar. It's just cool looking figure. A little bit more modern. Yeah. What is the price of this figure show by Rock?

I see her. That can't that's really more expensive than $13,000.

Yes.

Oh, my God. Is it still five digits?

Yes.

Okay, I'm going to go with oh, wow. $29,000.

All right, $29,000.

I am flabbergasted to show. I mean, I know literally nothing about it, but it's just like the fact that I know nothing about it, it surprises me. A figure of it would be this much. You see. $29,000. I'm going to say 18,000. I don't think it's that much more.

All right. This one goes to Brendan closest without going over. This is $23,000.

How can that be that expensive? It's just a girl with a guitar.

Yeah, some of these are like these are ultravintage rare, made of rare materials. And this is a pretty neat looking figure.

It's pretty lady.

All right.

People love it.

We are tied up. I'm going to just jump. Let's jump to number one.

Shall we just go home?

Yes. The tie breaker.

Yeah. Here we go.

Big or go home. This is a solid gold figure of Monkey D luffy released for the One Piece gold movie.

Oh, boy. One piece is like a king and figurines because they're just so outlandish.

Is it still five digits or how.

We'Ve gone to six.

We are in the six digit territory for a solid gold figure of a cartoon character.

Goddamn.

Okay.

Of just Plastic Man, but in an anime.

I just love this quote. This is the most expensive figure. It's not exactly the greatest work of.

Art, solid gold, which is pretty, but it's gold.

Sure, you can buy something of quality for cheaper, but no. God, that's like, this much money. Let's throw it at anime bullshit.

That's like the most I'm too expensive hot dogs in the world, where it's just like it's there's some bullshit on here. There's some truffles on there, and it just shaves some gold on there. And now it's worth $1,000 like everything else.

But it's still a hot dog.

It's still a hot dog. And there's nothing special about it. But there is gold flakes on there that you can eat and poop out. And that'll cost you $900. Why?

Why do you want that when a delicious costco hot dog is how much is it? 151. 50.

And it will stay that way or you'll be murdered by the seat of costco.

I love that. Anyway. Sorry, monkey d loopy.

Okay. I'm really afraid to go, like, too high. I don't know if we can. I'm going to say $156,000.

All right, $156,000 going to go with 500.

And if it's signed by oda, it could be that much.

Like, God knows that would double the price, I'm assuming.

You never know. I'll say $117,000.

All right, $117,000. By going lower, you lost Brendan. This goes to nina beings without going over. This is a $200,000 anime figure. Would you like a house or would you like a small boy with his arms raised triumphantly?

Would you like to be reasonably set for life or a little gold statue of a shitty little protagonist? I like one. Piece. I genuinely enjoy the series. It's flaws and all. You're out of your fucking mind if you even consider that.

Like, you need help.

That's insane.

And I just add this at the end. This is tied with the second and third most expensive two separate gundam figures, also made of solid gold.

Good. Are they functioning mechs? Like, can I get inside and pilot it? Because then that makes sense.

You'd think you would not get that kind of money, but no, you just get something shiny on your mantle that you didn't earn, like an award or.

Something you worked hard for and established a goal. No, you just bezos stop being a pussy. Buy me loofie. Buy me a gold loofie.

If Jeff Bezos gave one solid gold.

Loopy to each of his workers, he.

Still had as much money as before the vanda.

Body.

Well, this was fun all around.

This is a trip.

Capitalism. Great. Good for business, good for everyone. We love it. Thank you for joining us this week. If you want to tip us off to some primo deals on anime figures or shows we can watch.

Don'T throw me any anime figures. It hurts. It hurts to look at.

But those anime recommendations you can send to us. Our email is arwibariat@gmail.com, or you can reach out to us on Twitter or Instagram. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Mr. Patrick dugan.

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

You can find me on Twitter at aBTS brendan. It stands for Almost Better Than Silence, which is a video game podcast I have where I lament about the digimine video game not being great.

I mean, I assume you would have figured out, damn. Being a digimon fian.

Damn, you come to my house and spit on my figurines.

I do, every night. You haven't caught me yet. Thank you to camille ruley for her artwork, and thank you to louie zong for her 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.