Hello and welcome. Too hardweap there yet in exploration and education and anime. I am Patrick dugan, your anime idiot.

I'm dana hollander, an anime expert.

I'm brenda mccullough, your big love gorilla. Oh, wow. That is weird.

No, that's a good one.

That's all I know about this show. I know. It's like a romcom and there's just a big gorilla man.

Hey, so, yeah. Let's introduce what we're watching today. We are watching my love story.

Yay.

Guess who watched this already.

Yay.

I am very confused. I assume this is a romcom of sorts.

Yes. It's our first romantic comedy. I feel like it's our first feel good anime. Finally.

I don't know. I could see death knob being argued for a romantic comedy between two men. Anyway, between kira and Light and L all right now.

Kira and Light?

That is the hottest take I have ever heard.

I've seen those fanfics.

But, yeah, let's get into it because I don't know if I've ever seen a romantic comedy anime, because all my exposure has been like the most popular stuff that comes up are, like, fighting mech battles. I'm going to be the greatest blank in the world sort of stuff. So this is uncharted territory for me.

Sure. I'm very curious to I mean, I feel like the title is pretty much easy. You could tell what it's going to be about. But I still want to know from you, too, Brendan, because you've never seen it.

I've never seen it, but I've seen enough anime to know you never know what it's like. It can take a hard turn out of nowhere. Who knows? This could turn into a fighting anime.

Yeah.

My love story with an alien robot.

I've seen that one story. I have seen that one.

As a teenage robot.

If this turns into my life as a teenage robot, I will be so excited because that is the best it's a good show. I was going to say it's a mech show, but that's not what that's about. No one gets inside jenny Brad does.

Probably.

That nerdy boy wanted.

He couldn't see it, but I dabbed. Oh, yeah. sheldon looking up my love story on hulu. My life as a teenage robot came up.

Why do you have hulu?

Because I put in my L. Oh, okay.

Yeah, that'll do it.

Anyway, tell me.

Dana, this was your pick this week.

Hey.

What so how did you find this? What is your experience with this show?

I watched it as it was coming out, but I don't remember when I jumped in. But I was really interested in it because it was a romantic comedy with very, very good reviews and I love a good romantic comedy. So I was really excited to get into it. So, yeah, I've seen the whole thing because it came out a year or two ago, so maybe even longer. But I love it.

Pull up the airing dates.

April 9, 2015.

Oh, man.

I remember seeing pictures and clips when it first came out because the protagonist of it is just so unique looking compared to every other romcom. But that's about all I know. I really don't know much beyond it's just a romantic comedy sort of story. And both leads, both romantic leads, they seem to pay particular attention to their lips. The guys got communically huge lips. But then the girl, they seem to put more attention to her lips than any other female I've seen in the show, in the clip.

That's interesting.

I don't know if that's just me watching the show.

I didn't even notice that. But now that I think about it, yeah.

Well, let's watch the first three episodes, and I will pay attention to those kissable lips.

That makes me so happy.

So, yeah, let's get into it because this was delightful.

Let's tackle this rom.com. It was so refreshing. My hero. academia is very light and fun and encouraging and empowering. In the beginning, the episodes we watched were we didn't watch any dark episodes. But I feel like the other things we watched were very, like and this is very.

This is a great palette cleanser. After jojo, after fighting a dog's face.

Off, now they're just smooching each other's faces off.

Well, not yet.

Yeah, no smooching. We're three episodes in patience off.

We're a Christian girl. Oh, man. Yeah, so this is very soft camera lens, pink light burst. Just everywhere. Just everywhere. They don't take a second to not do it. One thing I really enjoyed, like the main character, Tokyo. Tokyo. Hakayo hakio. For half my notes, I just wrote Giant man.

That's fine.

I will say, I throughout watching this, I told myself, this is the reggie fisa mae origin story.

Oh, man.

I could not look at takayo and not see reggie fisa.

Oh, no.

I'm sorry if I ruined it for.

You, but whenever I see takayo, I think of Paul.

Ruined it for me.

No one I know.

I do like his character because it's typically the side character. And I watch a lot of fighting shows, so it's usually like, the Big goon character and a gang. That is the bruiser. And he's very much got all of the quirks and design of that Big dumb character, but he's the main character. But I very much enjoy seeing someone different as a protagonist versus his best friend, who is very traditional. brooding, love boy, soft boy everyone's in love with.

Right.

So I very much enjoyed that. And you get a ton of great reaction shots and just, like, freeze frames on takyo because his design is just so expressive right off the bat that it just lends itself to those reactions. But yeah. So, episode one, start off right off the bat. It's a middle school graduation ceremony. Like, they're moving to high school and just everyone's crying. Just hold on.

What about the cherry blossoms and the opening?

Yeah, you skipped over the introduction.

Boy.

Wait, demon boy?

Yeah.

In the beginning, it tells the story.

Of the red ogre.

My subtitle said demon, but right, I've already forgotten that. I'll say the opening enjoyable. Not a real banger, not something I'm going to hunt down and listen to over and over again.

But are you kidding?

That's just me.

I love this opening.

Yeah, it's really cute.

It's so cute. And the song is really nice. Like, it's just like it just makes you smile. And the part the part where takayo is King Kong and he's holding sooner instead of yamato, it's perfect.

I mean, I enjoyed it, but at least with songwise, I'm just like, it is pleasant.

It's definitely not lit.

Yeah. I'm not going to hunt it down on YouTube and just have it on a playlist. So yeah, it opens up and we get Tokyo as the sad red ogre. He was bullied because he's made fun of for being an ogre, and the villagers hate him. And then his friend, the blue ogre, who is so what's his name? soda pseudo.

At first, it's just kind of telling us the story of the humans and it's not necessarily relating them yet.

Yeah, but the first episode is called Red ogre.

I believe it's called my story.

Actually, I'm wrong. I think the next episode is called.

The third one is called My Blue Demon.

That's it?

Yeah.

So it comes around.

It comes around.

It's setting it up. It's setting up the story. Yeah. Basically, Tokyo is playing a character that was very similar to him. The people were scared of him and such and made fun of him. And then sona helps them out. And then we've go to the middle school ceremony. Right?

Yeah.

So yeah, everyone's crying. Just a lot of tears.

Yeah.

Not a dry eye in the room singing. Yeah.

Did anyone cry at their middle school graduation thing?

Did anyone have them have one?

Yeah, I had one, but no one cried because we all were going to see each other next year.

Yeah.

I don't know how exactly schools in Japan work if it's very individualized, but I assumed everyone would go to the same school because suna and Tokyo are in the same school.

Yeah. I'm not really sure how it works either. I know. Like, I mean, it seems like from middle school, people get pretty split up just based on what I've seen of other anime.

Yeah.

Other high school anime. Like, it seems like no one knows each other and everyone gets split up.

Yeah. I'm wondering if it's because Japan is smaller. So there's a lot, like, bigger population density. So you'll have a lot of schools districts overlaying one another. And then the parents get to decide which one you go to. Because at least in the Us. Where I was, it was just like you went to the school that was nearby and that's it.

Because it's yeah, it was separated by where you live.

Yeah. So unless you moved, you weren't going to any other schools.

Because all the Us high school shows, it's always well, the main character moves to town, so you now have to be introduced to everyone. Whereas I could see it being like, very small, individualized school districts. Especially since suna and takayo are like neighbors. They would definitely go to the same school.

But yeah. So quickly after the ceremony, we found out takayo, despite being a goliath, just a monster. He's taller than even the stores in the school. He's actually pretty well liked, at least with the guys, it seems they're all crying, saying they're going to miss them.

And like, hey, they're all very emotional.

Come to the club and we'll see you again. He doesn't seem like the outcast like you think in traditional trophy anime.

Yeah, I like that, though, right off the bat, boys aren't introduced as some emotionless cool boys. They're all very open about their emotions.

Yeah, because it seemed like they were all like sports friends, too, because it was, like, translated of like there was a phrase that is used in martial arts to symbolize, like, yeah, go get them, or get a full point or something like that as like an encouraging thing. So I guess they're all like sports friends because he's also very athletic. We see through the rest of the episodes.

This is something good to point out. Did you guys watch the Subs or dubs?

I watched the dub.

Dub?

Oh, I watched Sub. I didn't even know there was a dub.

That's why I was surprised by because I thought it was still pretty new and maybe not up on Translate yet. I watch dubs for episode one and three and Subs for two. I'm always going to try and switch whenever there's the option.

I thought the dub was good. I enjoyed it.

Yeah. One thing I noticed was takyo, who has a fairly unique voice because of his massive stature and stuff, was really similar between dub and Sub.

That's good.

Really not too noticeable. Everyone is actually pretty good. Later. The main female protagonist yamamoto yamato. yamato. I am. Terrible names. hers is probably the most noticeable difference between the characters, but even that wasn't too dramatic. So whoever did the dub, good job. It's pretty good.

Not funimation.

I can't get the character's name right. I'm not going to know the studios, so yeah. After the graduation, takio goes to confess to his crush that he likes her and would hopefully go out with him. And as he walks in, he sees his best friend, suna, and she's confessing to him that she likes him, and it destroys takyo. He just breaks his heart. And suna rejects her, saying he wants, he wants. None of that business.

No thank you.

And that's what we find out.

Too cool. Too cool for love.

I wrote Girls just love boys that don't show their emotions.

It seems like everyone loves tuna. This is when we find out their best friends and their neighbors, and they start walking home together and just everyone they pass by is just swooning over suna.

And you got to love that blank canvas.

I also love suna, but that's just because we get to see a different side of him.

Yeah, because as of now, it seems like he's setting up to be, like, the heartbreaker, I'm just too cool for love. But, yeah, we do see he actually has, like, a personality.

He just doesn't care to show it to people he doesn't care about.

Yeah, people just love this emotionally dead doll. People just love this pretty mannequin devoid of all life and personality. Like, they just love them. They can't get enough of them. Even people on the train love them.

Eat it up.

No, but when I saw him rejecting the girl, I thought she was the main protagonist at first, and she's like, oh, God, here comes the love triangle. Like, the common misconcept misunderstanding of Romcom. Romcom exists only on misunderstandings and, like, awkward moments. And it's like, Here we go.

Yeah, I know why I love this so much. Later. Because I don't want to jump too far ahead. But that's part of it for me. We'll talk about it later when we get to more whatever.

Anyway, I was very glad to find out later. The love triangle is very quickly dismissed. That's not trope. They carry over through the whole series because that's what I cannot stand, because it's just so petty and cheap.

Especially since it's established that not just this one girl he wanted to confess his love for right before graduating. But every girl takayo has ever had a crush on was super duper into suna.

Yeah. My favorite is when they're five and she says he likes her and he's like, I hate you.

It, like, progresses with each girl that confessed to him of, like, no, thank you. And it's like, I'd rather not. It's like, I'm busy that day. And then eventually just like, I hate you.

No. When he was five, in kindergarten, he said, I hate you.

At least okay in the dub is a later one, but he does get there.

Yeah.

He just does not hold back. And we later find out why. Yeah, well, that, too. We do see him with a personality, but it's still very mild compared to Tokyo, who's just exploding with passion about everything. One of the notes I wrote down is, like, does takio just scream about everything? Because I don't know if it's a voice register or if he's just always so loud. Like, he's just always screaming about stuff.

No, he is always screaming, always loud, always projecting.

Unless he's narrating the voice over narration where he's kind of intimate and quiet.

Any other moment, you have to know their inside thoughts, because everything he says externally is shouted to the heaven.

He's got those big boy lungs. He's got to project his voice. So, yeah, they're going home and on the train is this one sooner offers his seat up to the woman with a child? Or is that another?

Yeah, this is a really good scene to sum up their personalities because we're.

Both part where takayo was protecting children.

From pedophiles but skipped over at my apartment.

That was fun.

So there's apparently rumor around a creepy guy hanging around like a kid school, like an elementary school. And so to protect them because he's a superhero, I guess he's an amateur vigilante. Yeah.

Just the noblest middle schooler ever.

Well, now he's in high school.

Now.

He's 14 now.

So he just stood outside in a black judo robe, like, just giving hard, stern looks at any guy that walked by and just progressively got harder and sterner to the point where a cop actually shows up because someone called the cops on him for being the weirdo.

Yeah. Very good. And then we get to see suna laugh, which is very nice.

Yes.

I love suna's laugh. And then in the narration, takayo goes, girls, this is what it looks like when he laughs.

Here you go. This is what you wanted. Here's a money shot.

Yeah.

So yes. Back in the subway when they're going home.

Yeah. This is a nice, quick, short scene to sum up their personalities because it's a crowded train and they're both sitting down and a woman walks in and suna casually gets up and just crosses the train. And the woman sees the seat and sits. So it's like a subtle, quiet gesture.

And then offer it. He just walks away.

Yeah. And then a very shaky old person gets on the train and taqueo leaps up with a grand gesture and sort of, like, throws himself at the feet of this old man to be like, please take my seat. I am the hero of today. And the old man just keeps on walking.

I feel like potakeo doesn't really feel like that. I feel like he just wants to be nice. It just tends to come out that way.

Yeah. It never comes off as like, I'm here because I'm the best and I'm the greatest. It's very much just, please let me be the nicest human on Earth. The grand gestures are often ignored.

Yeah. It's usually just a kind gesture. But because he is so grand physically, everything becomes a grand gesture. Everything becomes much more emotive and expressive. Much like anime wide. They have giant eyes in every anime. It's like him being just a giant person. Everything seems to be more exaggerated.

He is just a giant walking exclamation point.

That's a good way of putting it.

And not to tangent too much, it's actually reminded me of a buddy I had in high school and we just called him Big Mike because, like, takyo, he was just a giant and looked 42 in high school, and we often have times where he's like, oh, that girl's pretty cute. I might ask her. I'm like, you can't do that. That's pedophilia. He's like, she's older than I am. I was like, oh, yeah, you're 16. I forgot. He was just so big. People actually thought he was a substitute teacher most of the time.

Oh, my God.

It was great. So this was very endearing to me because I'm like, I know this guy. I've met this guy.

I feel like everybody knows this guy. Like, in my mind, this is Paul, and in dugan's mind, it's reggie Fiesame.

Yeah, my good friend reggie. I definitely related because I've always been the bigger guy. I was a very early bloomer for, like, height and facial hair and all that fun stuff. So his current level of sideburns, takayo has. That's what I had in 7th grade, because I was like, I can do it. I need to show this off. And I got to, like, six foot at 8th grade. So that was the year, like, everyone started catching up to me, and I was like, oh, no, I'm not the Giant anymore.

Well, I mean, I was kind of that way, too, though. I've always been taller and I've always been bigger than other girls, and I've always kind of been the appointed mom and the one who protects everyone else. So it's relatable. Tokyo is very relatable.

Yeah, he's just a big softie on his Giant experience.

I like the scene on the train, though, because it also showcased their personalities and the way people treat them outside of romance and their friends and family and schoolmates. It showed just how the world treats them, kind of, and it wasn't an intentional thing against Tokyo. So, yeah, while they're standing for the train, after they gave up their seats, they noticed a Train molester capping, some girl's butt. And quick note, the Train molester shirt has 69 on it.

Yes. No, that's a trope we're finding because the gang member in Soul eater had a 69 shirt.

If they are a scumbag, they have a sweatshirt with 69.

That's the Japanese symbol number for bad. That's a bad man number.

That's all it means.

Nothing else.

Yeah, I want to find that there is, like, an interdimensional just creep store that all anime villains shop at.

And that section is nearly always sold out.

Yeah, it's always gone. I could probably find out on a boardwalk somewhere in Jersey. No worries. Just a bunch of the shitty shirts that no one should wear.

That's where a lot of scumbags shop is, on a boardwalk in New Jersey.

Yeah, you're not wrong.

I was near venice Beach today. I could go and find five stands with that sweatshirt.

Gross. So, yeah, takiya sees us and immediately grabs the guy's hand and pulls her away. And I'm amazed he doesn't just turn the guy's hand into dust because it just encompasses his entire hand, and he's just so massive.

He's getting off at the next station, which is so good.

What the hell do you think you're doing? And just taking no one's bullish. He's usually a pretty quiet character, and he just has no internal monologue for injustice. He's big and loud and kicking the indoors. So we see him get off at the next station with the girl that was being harassed, and it's actually the cop who was called on him when he was outside the elementary school, funny enough. And they could try and dispute the guy tries to dispute as saying he was attacked, it was not his fault, and then had to go and say she was asking for dressing like that. Just the standard dialogue. All creepy, horrible men say, and yamato.

Is there, and she's, like, trying to defend herself. This is yamato. Yes.

This is yamato.

This is our female lead.

Yes. And she's trying to defend himself and back up takio and justifying his action, which is justifiable he saved her. Yeah. And then when this sleazeball makes his comments about yamato, taki can't take it and just pops them in the face and just slams it through a desk.

Use your fist.

The power of love.

It is the answer. In this case, I believe violence is the answer.

Yeah.

No. Yeah. That cop seemed to super chill with it in the moment. He was like, all right.

I feel like he kind of like, we don't see it, but I feel like he just kind of, like, shrugged and kind of like, you can't do that, right? He wasn't mad about it, but he's like, I have to legally punish you in some way for assaulting another person. Agreed.

Uniform. How dare he say she's asking for it.

Yeah, especially because it's not addressed how old the creep is. But yeah, that is grabbing a school girl's butt. A freshman in high school.

Yeah. Luckily, it's over quickly.

Yes.

So we cut to seeing Taki have suspended for assaulting another person, and it seems like he's only suspended for a day, though it seems like they don't really say how much time has passed, but it seems like he's back to school pretty quickly.

I think they say it was a week he was suspended. At least that's what the dub said.

Okay, I might have missed that then. See, he's just lounging around in his robe. He's got nothing to do. His room is full of garbage and manga.

I mean, same.

Was this your room, Brendan?

Hey.

Wow. Okay.

Just going to call me out like this. First off, my room is really clean because I don't do anything in it, but I was surprised because it's literally just trash bags and comic books, and it immediately made me think, like, the trope of a lot of anime is just you want to have a very interesting not a very interesting background. You don't want to pull attention away from it. But anytime there's a background or child's room who's a student, there's a bookshelf or some sort of shelf that's just filled to the brim with books. And I'm sure they got more study guides and manuals and stuff in Japan, schooling and stuff, but there's always so many books. And I'm always amazed. I'm like, how is every Japanese student just the biggest book worm?

Takayo definitely must not be.

No, it's established later on. He does not study at all, ever.

No.

I assume it's all just manga.

Yeah, I guess it's safe to assume it's either books to study or manga to not study.

I'm going with option two for takam.

Yeah.

I'm just always surprised. It's always full of books. It's always filled to the brim. There's never, like, an empty bookshelf in any anime. So yeah, sonia comes over and gives him his notes from class that he missed, and he says, you're probably not going to study him anyway, because why would you? And at that moment, we get Takyo's mom chimes in and says, like, oh, there's a girl here to see you.

Takayo's mom.

You'll see her for, like, two quick seconds, but she's a great character.

She's very good.

And in this time, takiya starts panicking, realizing there's a girl coming over and starts cleaning up his room with just an absolute trash sheep.

And being a giant exclamation point, just shouting, don't let her in. I have dirty underwear everywhere.

Can't not scream at all times. And as he's shoving his dirty clothes back into the closet, she comes in, and it's yamoto.

Yay.

She's here to thank him for defending her and pulling that creep off her. And she brings she brings a cheesecake.

Yeah.

Really good, because I love cheesecake.

It was in the dub. Before she comes in, I wrote down a quote because it just shows off what a sweetie he is, because he immediately falls in love, like love at first sight on the train. But he says, I was given the chance to help a nice girl, and that's something to be proud of, because he didn't think it would go further than that. And it's just so sweet.

That makes me want to cry. Everyone in this show is so legitimately good. Like, all of them are completely unproblematic, except for their friends, I guess. But the main three yeah.

Are just so good and kind, so pure, so nice. I want them all in my life.

Yeah.

As opposed to Death Network. Literally everyone's a piece of shit. Every character is irredeemable. So, yes, it's a very good palate cleanser for our pockets, so they all share cake. And Taki just manfish grabs it and just shoves it down again.

Screams about how amazing it is, apparently does. He never had cheesecake before.

He's never had it. We find out later. He's had very few pastries of any kind. Every time it's her first time having it.

Yeah. I wrote down. Has he ever had a dessert? Because everything she makes it's established here that she is a baker and loves to bake.

Yeah.

Now it's all protein for him. He's got to work out. He's got to gain those mass.

But still, he's a big old lad, and he's never had a dessert in his life.

Maybe that's not his mom's specialty.

Yeah, I guess his mom's bulking him up for the Olympics. She's getting a bodybuilder son. He's going to win wrestling. But yeah. So she comes over to thank him, and at one point, sonya is like, well, all right, that's it for me. I'm going to head home and start studying. She's like, what? You're going to leave? And this is a crux of a bit of a plot for at least a three episodes we've watched.

Yeah.

And it's this moment where takyo believes she doesn't want sonia to leave because she likes sonia over. takyo like every other girl in his life. So he gets all sad and just effectively gives up on ever winning her over. Like, this is a moment where he's just like, well, that's it. I guess I can only encourage them to be together because it'll never be for me. Yeah, it's a sad moment. And then I think we just jump cut to him back at school. No, he's in his room.

And yeah, she leaves her phone. Classic move.

The oldest trick in the book.

Now we got to talk again.

Oh, no, we need to meet up at least one more time.

Got to get my phone back.

Oops, clumsy me. I left my phone at your house. oops. Not that she's like that, but it is a good move.

Yeah, it works, at least in this case. And so she calls the phone saying, oh, hey, can we meet up again so I can get my phone back from you? And he's all flustered and nervous, and he's like, yeah, sure. And he tells or no, they're at school the next day. And then he pulls sonia aside, saying like, hey, you want to go to the park with me? He's like, what? No. He's like, just do it. Just do it right? No, do me this favor, man.

Also, I'd like to pause just for one moment because I think you're calling him sonya.

It's suna.

Suna. U-N-A-I would like to address that right now.

Sotomayor. He's that Supreme Court judge.

No, every time you say that, I'm thinking of sonia sotomayor, and I'm very confused.

Yeah, let's just agree right now you guys can call by their names. I'll give them the names I've called them, and we can just talk. It's just pretty boy and gorilla man.

If you want to call them Pretty Boy and Gorilla Man, that's fine.

I'm better at pronouncing those names than anything in Japanese.

No, that's totally fine. I just needed to address it because it was driving me insane.

I was like. 90% sure I was pronouncing it wrong, but I was like, let's see how long I can go.

I said it a couple of times, so I said quietly, because I was like.

No, this is the one show I'm confident in the pronunciation of the character's names. So I'm saying it loud and proud. Every other time I avoid saying it.

He'S just dance around it.

I'm like, the tall guy, the guy with a fun hair.

Gorilla man pulls aside pretty Boy He's like, hey, you're going to go with me? Because pretty girl wants to date pretty boy. Now I just sound like a caveman. And he's like, you're going to come with me, and I'm going to try. And without singing, he's like, I'm going to try and hook these two up. So when they meet again, she brings them more desserts. And this is when we find out she makes them all.

Yeah, she brought macarons.

Macarons this time.

That's hard. I was like, she wants the D real bad.

At this point.

She wants someone's D real bad. She's putting the word know who. takayo is really the only one who doesn't know who.

He's just so dense.

He's just so big and dense mentally and physically, the densest human being.

And so he starts eating the macaroons, and he's going nuts. He doesn't know what they are, but he loves them. He's absolutely in love with them.

They are delicious screaming, I freaking love macaroon.

At the top of his life, scaring away any children in the wildlife that might have been in that park previously. And I forget exactly what happens next, but there's some moments where he gets super flustered.

Suna offers to go get them drinks, I think at this point. And Yamato is kind of like, yeah, I'll go with you. And he's like, nah, man. Cool. And then takayo, I think that might.

Be a second episode. It's tough with this show because there's like three locations. It's like their apartment, park, school, and that's it. So it's always one of those in every episode.

Actually, no, I think it is at this point because takayo is still operating under the assumption that Yamado is into Suna. And he, like, goes to the bathroom to, like, wash his face because it seems like his crush is in love with his best friend for the 9,000,000th time.

Love triangle. Oh, he's staring at pretty girl. That's why she's washing deeply.

And he's like, Why? She's so flustered? Because she's in love.

Yeah, with Pretty Boy goes to the bathroom and cools himself off.

Yeah. And this is I wrote down this quote because it just made me so sad. He said, it's useless for me to fall in love with her because it'll just trouble her. And I was like, no, big friend.

He doesn't want to inconvenience people with his love. We fall up in there. Maybe it hurts. It's too real. So he starts hosing himself down in the sink to quite literally cool his head. And when he comes back, they're like, oh, why are you so wet? Like, what the hell happened to you?

And Yamato is like, hopping up and trying to dry him off everywhere. It's so cute.

And pretty boys pulling out tissues to also dry him off. He's like, you could also dry yourself off. Like, he's like, I'll help you out, but just realize you could also be doing this. And when a pretty girl throws a towel on him, on his chest, it curves around his collar of his school jacket and forms a heart. I don't know if everyone caught that.

I did not.

I didn't see that.

It's very red and very clearly fold in the way to shape a heart right on his chest.

Huge.

So that's a big old hint right there if anyone besides Takyo isn't catching the flirts. And around this time, I noticed there's a lot of huffing and puffing and a lot of extraneous mouth noises coming from everyone in the show. A lot of, like, just giggles, everyone smirks.

And.

These are weird sounds.

Everyone is super flustered at all points in this show.

Yes.

It's almost like there always has to be some sort of mouth noise at any given time, even if there's no.

Dialogue, not a moment of silence.

Yeah. And we really get that when Suna and takayo start to walk away, leaving Yamado, and she comes running up after them because I didn't want to know.

What that sounded like in the dub.

Just the most huffing and puffin.

Before she runs back, suna mentions that he thinks she's nice. Yeah, that makes Takayob he's never said that about any girl before.

He must be in one good that's the most emotion he's ever shown towards another girl.

Yeah. And then she runs all the way back just to get his email address.

So she can tell him when she bakes the next dessert for.

Yeah. Come on, takao. She didn't ask for sunas.

Yeah. Suna at this point is like, dude, just text.

I always thought that was weird. I never realized how big email is outside of business, outside of work. And then I'll watch an animator where they're emailing back and forth, and it's like, oh, yeah, I guess you could email friends.

It's like long form texting, I guess.

And yeah, so they share their emails, and I believe that's the end of the first episode.

Yeah. takayo kind of just resolves to the fact that they're in love and he's just going to root for them because he likes them both very much. And the ending is very nice. I like the ending song. And also the animation is really smooth in the ending, and I think it's really cool.

Yeah, this is another one like the opening where I'm like, oh, this is very pleasant. It was fine, but yeah, once again, I'm not going to run down to find out what the song is in the Artist and all that.

I think it's nice.

I mean, I enjoyed it. It's just not my favorite opening or ending so far.

Sure.

So, yeah, we get to episode two where first thing, Yamado texts takayo. Good morning.

How do you none of someone's into you when they do that? Come on.

Yeah. And it sort of goes from there into it sort of starts to focus on sunna's relationship with the world because there's a montage of their day where Suna is just being gawked at by every girl on earth, while takayo is just staring him down, trying to get any read on any type of girl that he would like. And it cuts to later on in the day, he's in his room, he's like, huh? I guess we've been friends for, what, over a decade now, and Suna has never talked about girls with me. And I was begging, Please be gay.

I had canon that Suna is either gay or, like, pan, because I don't he says he likes girls in this episode, but, like, I just I just want him to be gay. Like, I feel like that should be.

Perfect or just like, asexual it's fine. Not for me.

Yeah, no hurry.

But yeah. So Tokyo is on a mission to figure out what type of girl Suna is into, so he can use that angle to set him up with his dream girl.

Not in the dub, the sub. He asks him if he likes the singing lady or the exercise lady. I don't know how that goes in the dub, but I think that's very funny.

Yeah. This was another thing I wanted to mention with this show because there's a lot of writing over the character's head of what they're thinking or just sly little comments that aren't necessary internal. Yeah. And also, this turned into with the dub, at least it had, like, explanations of different things. Like one of the types of cakes that Yamado makes, this is an austrian cake with berries. And at this point, when he's going through all the different things, it's like, whatever he says, it's like, this is a girl group of idols in Japan. So he's trying to figure out, like, okay, this girl group, which type do you like? Because they all have their specific roles.

Yeah.

So he's like, okay, this is a simple way. Do you like the shy one, the cute one?

I figured it'd be something like that. They didn't establish that in the sub.

This is the episode I watched up, so yeah, I was confused as well.

Yeah. So he's listing off a bunch of different do, like this pop star he lists of these two gundam characters and just trying to who is your celebrity crush?

Trying to giant robot takao, obviously. I want to get in the giant robot evangelion joke. I've never watched Evangelion. All right.

Straight over my head. But yeah, so at the end of this conversation, he's sort of sort of like, I guess, fit girls just like, exercising strong people.

In the in the subs, he says, I guess the exercise lady yeah.

In the scene is also one of my favorite jokes in this of takayo burst into suna's room and he's like, hey, you're, you're studying? There's not a test coming up soon as like, yeah, you know you have to study every day, right?

You're always supposed to be studying. It's also in that scene where he said he kicks in the door. He's like, I'm coming in. You're supposed to say that before you already kicked in the door. It doesn't matter anymore.

Yeah. And that becomes a recurring theme of tokyo's giant exclamation point life. So yeah. They then go to the butt tree.

Yeah.

So they go to a tree that looks like a dude's butt.

I love that. Looks like a butt.

Oh, no, that's a butt.

It's a dude's butt. This is a dumb extraneous dialogue I crave in shows of just being like, these are just two friends being dumb together. Not everything's about the plot. It's like, this is what I want.

Yeah. They're not always pining over girls or just being too cool for school. They also talk about tree butts and all that fun stuff. So, yeah, they are like an actual friend group.

Two teenagers.

But yeah. So here takayo loses his cool surprise, surprise, and is like, okay, we've never talked about girls, but why do you not date all of these women who throw themselves at you? And soon as, like, dating is just too hard and difficult and it's too much effort for not enough reward tiresome. Which threw my ace theory into overdrive.

Yeah, that's pretty nice.

And then Yamado has a new cake that he wants that she wants to share with the two boys. Well, with takayo, but takao insists on bringing Suna because he's hardcore playing matchmaker.

And, I mean, she asks him if they can do first names, which is a big deal Japanese culture.

Yeah, especially for someone you've met twice and texted, like, once.

You go, takayo, please.

This is also around the time I started realizing, man, texting must suck hard for Tokyo because he's got those big old monkey malls.

I know they always emphasize how small his cell phone is in his.

Giant.

Meaty claws, typing out one letter at a time, real slow and careful.

So, yeah, they meet up and have some cakes. This is sort of where it ties back into the ogre story. He's trying to talk up Suna to her, and he's sort of emphasizing, oh, when we were kindergarten, we first met doing this play of the red and blue ogre. I played the big monster, and he was the nice guy, and everyone thought he was such a great performer. And everyone was like, oh, that kid's big and weird for his age. And he keeps telling these embarrassing stories of, well, I talk Suna up.

He has to make, like, all of the stories he's telling make him look really stupid.

Yeah. So he's like, oh, I peed myself in first grade. And then Suna, being such a great guy, you should date. Poured water over the both of us so no one could tell.

Yeah. This is when tsuna was going to get them drinks.

Yeah.

So they were alone together for a moment.

So, yeah. Then while eating these cakes, he crunches into something hard, and turns out Yamado put a single chestnut in one of his cakes and called it yeah. Getting the prize, which Wink seemed wink wink. It was a big old sign that takao keeps on just plowing through.

But he also ate them all, so he was bound to find it eventually.

That's what I'm always surprised by, when a pretty boy says, like, oh, yeah, she's good at baking. I'm like, has he ever had it? Any of it? I think takya has eaten all of them.

Like, every time he had cheesecake on his plate and you see him chewing okay.

He has, like, the ratio of what takayo eats and Suna eats is, like, ten to one.

Yeah.

So this is the point where takayo is like, oh, well, sooner you should give the number to Yamato, you should get together.

And Yamato is kind of just like, yeah, sure, cool.

I guess we talked out twice, so I'll take it. But as they're saying goodbye, she specifically says, Goodbye, Taqueo.

And to no one else.

Yes. Not the person she's supposed to fall in love with. And he just swoons and gets flustered and shouts, goodbye. See you later. Hope you get home soon. The most aggressive farewell I have ever seen in my life. And as she's walking away, we see, finally some action that I'm used to in anime. A giant steel girder is being lifted on a crane over her. And the cable snaps and it starts to fall. And she is in peril. And the two boys leap to action. Suna goes to make sure that she's okay, and takayo catches the girder.

His stand comes out and catches the steel beam that's falling from the sky.

Yeah. This is where we find out he's a mech that can lift, like, a one ton girder.

Yeah.

Piloted by tinier takis guerrilla men. God damn. Fuck the names.

So, yeah, this was also a nice moment, because as he's, like, holding the beam, he says that, oh, that's my problem. I went for the beam. I didn't go for the girl. Like, soon I did. That's why I'll never find love.

She'd literally be dead.

You both would be crushed.

And then Pretty Boy and we find out Pretty Boy and Pretty Girl are both holding the beam up behind him because it's slowly crushing him because he gets so demoralized.

She's like, I'm actually pretty strong.

It just barely took anything.

They lift the girder off of themselves, and takayo gets a small cut on his cheek. So Yamato has to get a Band Aid out of her bag and gently place it on his cheek and caress his face. And it's so cute.

So cute.

How do you get scratched, though? What hit him?

It's so funny because she's just like, you're bleeding. And he's like, not really.

No.

He's like, I'm fine. Yeah. Any excuse to touch a face, I guess.

Touch the big man.

I mean, I get it.

Yeah.

So they go their separate ways, and that night, this is where Yamado texts takayo and says, oh, I would like to see you again without Suna.

Yeah. Maybe alone this time. My favorite part, though, is when they're walking home and Tokyo is just in a manhole. He's just stuck in a manhole because.

He yeah, he's just walking into the walls, and he falls down a manhole. And then pretty boy just starts insulting him to try and get his attention in any way. And he doesn't respond until he says, yamoto.

He's just like and the only thing he hears is, like, him being like, she's pretty good at baking. And he's like, sunil loves her.

It's working.

So clearly they're in love.

Absolutely.

But, yeah, that's where we end up with episode two.

Yeah. So then in episode three, takayo goes to meet Yamato at the park by himself. And I have a note that, again, emphasizes how much in my mind, takayo is like Paul, because Paul would wear that exact outfit somewhere. Just some sneakers and gym shorts and a white T shirt. And Yamato is a beautiful angel in pink, and she's brought more baked goods for literally saving her life. And again, takayo just keeps talking about how great Suna is and how considerate he is and oh, he complimented you, by the way. Hint, hint, hint, hint. I also have the note. He's so cute, but he is also a whole ass idiot. A lot of my notes are just being mean to takayo because it's like, Come on, she likes you.

No. Yeah. In this scene I wrote, yamato is going to think that he is in Tusuna based on how much he talks about him.

I thought that.

I need some gay characters, apparently, because that's all I've been wanting in my notes.

Yeah, same. So he's kind of just super talking up sooner and drifts off, and he's saying, I think it's inner monologue, but he says, I just want the people who I like to be smiling and to be happy. And again, I have the note. It's rare to come across anyone as genuinely kind as takao, because he just wants both of them to be happy, because he loves both of them so much that he's just like, if she doesn't love me, like, I'd rather have her love him, I guess, because he's my best friend.

Yeah. No, in this scene. I also wrote down the quote. He says I'm the Red Ogre. I can't be anything else. And it's like, no, I love you for you.

And then he finally comes back into it and looks down at her, and she's crying. And he's like, What I do? And she's like, I got to go. And she runs.

And in the animation, he literally turns to stone once she starts crying.

Yeah. So he immediately runs to sunas, which is very funny because sun is just sitting in his room with headphones in, and you just hear heavy footsteps running from the distance. And then he comes in and he's like, you made her cry. What did you do? And he's like, I literally don't know what you're talking about.

Takayo been here the entire time?

Yeah, I've been studying like I'm supposed.

To as a student. As we should be doing you should be doing takayo.

Yeah. And takayo is just like, she loves you. Can't you tell? And soon is like, oh, God.

This again.

And he's like, she likes you. And he's like, what?

No, you're handsome.

And he gets, like, really huffy about how handsome tuna is. Which is a very me thing, because when anybody talks about, like, if anybody thinks they're not cute or not beautiful, I get very mad. And I'm like, what are you talking about?

How dare you think out of the wives.

Yeah. And then Suna is kind of like, no, she really likes you, and you're handsome, too. And then suna's mom comes in, and she's like, Yamato is here.

This big, dumb idiot.

He hides under sue's bed, which lifts the bed about a foot off the ground.

Oh, yeah. And leading up into this scene, he sort of reveals why he has been rejecting all the girls and why he hasn't been making a move on Yamado. Because, first off, all of the girls that Tokyo has previously had a crush on have been talking shit behind his back because he's such a big exclamation point.

Yeah. They all call him ugly and annoying and noisy. And he says no one wants to be someone that badmouths their friends.

Yeah.

Which is so sweet.

This is where a pretty boy becomes a good boy. He's a good boy.

Soon is a very good boy. And he also talks about how Yamato does nothing but says nice things about him when he's not around. And before Yamato gets there, takao is like, I don't believe you. I still can't believe that she loves me.

Because in the first episode, when takao goes to wash his face, suna and Yamato are alone, and she straight up says, oh, I have such a big crush on takayo.

Yeah. She's like, does he have a girlfriend? And he's like, nah. And she's like, what? How? He's so handsome?

I think that's so and takao, still being super dense, says after a beat, she means you.

You mean you, right? Yeah.

Not me. This is also where he says, you totally have balls. Yes, I do.

Yes, I do.

He's just very composed and just like, yes, I can confirm. I have testicles.

Yeah, thank you for noticing. In that scene, too, when she's asking about if Tokyo has a girlfriend. And he's like, no, he doesn't. She's like, oh, good. Because I was really hoping I could fall in love with him. And I was just like, oh, of course you can. It doesn't matter if he has a girlfriend.

Don't let anything hold you back. The sky is pulling it.

It is revealed to us that Suna is a very good boy and is a true friend. And fuck all those mean girls that say mean things about his best friend because he's his best friend.

Chatty little bitches.

Yeah. And then that's when Yamato gets there and he hides under the bed, and she comes in, and she's like, all he ever does is talk about you. I think he wants me to date you. Why? And she gets upset because she cried in front of him. And again, very relatable. I hate crying in front of people.

Heart safe.

Yeah. Like I said, she's upset because all takayo talks about is Suna, and she thinks he probably doesn't like her because all he talks about is him and how she should get with his best friend. Are you going to give up then? And then she's like, no, hell no. Hell no. And he's like, okay, then say it. And she's like, huh? He's like, Say you're in love with him. And then she says it over and over again because tuna keeps saying again, louder. Keep saying it.

I wrote down it seems like in a cop like, sting operation of like, I need you to say the exact phrase of confessing so I can catch it on the wire. Speak clearly into my mic. Please say, I love him. You love who? I love Tokyo.

Loves Tokyo. Love, Takyo and cocaine. There, I said it.

I put cocaine.

Please sign this legally binding document and says you love him. I have a notary public on the way.

My mom is a notary public.

Action coacher, can you come out here? Thank you very much.

And then Suna is, like, slowly sauntering over to his bed, and he crouches down. He's like, okay, it's your turn now. And then takao, I wrote down, is this attack on titan, because the way takao gets out from under the bed.

This scene is one of my favorites.

It's so good. He literally flips the bed up against the wall.

And Yamato is like, you in kinder words. She's like you asshole. You made me confess in front of him. And then they both just say, I've loved you since the moment I've seen you. And they're just having a cute little happy moment in soon as room while he keeps studying.

No.

Yeah. I wrote down he checks the fuck out. Because as soon as Taqueo stands up, his headphones are back on. He has his book back up. He's like, okay, finally I can have some peace and quiet.

I'll be honest. I related to that for good. I get them.

Everyone's relatable. And then the next day, we guess Yamato has made Suna a little cake that says, like, thanks. We're so happy, lil.

He's like, A big old cake.

Yeah. And he's like, Why? What's this for? And they're like, we're just happy we're together, and you brought us together. And then Yamato is like, I have a really good friend. She's really cute and really nice. And he's like, I'm not lonely. I just wanted you guys to be happy.

It's very quick to shut her down.

Yeah, it's really sweet. And that is annoying, though. My friends have never specifically been like, oh, I have another friend that'd be really good for you. But it is kind of that. Again, it's a relatable thing where your friends are in a relationship and you're not. And they're kind of like, oh, we just want you to be happy. Maybe you should go meet someone.

Yeah. We found love, so we want you to find love, too. And as soon as I know, I've made it abundantly clear my entire life, I don't want that.

I'm good. Thank you. I'm glad you're happy. That's all I wanted.

I've never had friends try to set me up with one of their friends because they know my true personality and how terrible it is.

They wouldn't burden on someone else. They never unleash that evil.

So it is at this point that Tokyo is like, you really are like the blue demon ogre. And Yamato is like, what does that mean? Yeah. And then Takyo tells the full story, which I will tell very shortly. In a brief version, red ogre wants to be friends with the humans of the village. The humans of the village are afraid of the red ogre. The blue ogre offers to terrorize the village and make it seem like he's a big bad guy so the red demon can come fix it. Red ogre, whatever. I keep switching because I saw demon and you guys are saying ogre, so that happens. And then the red ogre is friends with all the people from the village. And then he realizes he hasn't seen the blue ogre in a while, so he goes to visit him. And the blue ogre has left because he doesn't want to keep seeing the red ogre because then the town's people might get suspicious. So he essentially gave up his life.

For his friend, which is what takii thought he was doing.

Yeah.

Pretty boy.

Yeah. It's not exactly the same, but it is a similar scenario. Suna is very much that's why this episode is called My Blue Demon. Because suna is takayo's blue demon.

Yeah. And it ties in with sunna being like, no, you wanted a relationship, I don't want it. And sort of avoiding being set up with a friend is sort of him going away saying, oh, you wanted to be friends with the villagers. I couldn't give a shit, so let me do this for you and set you up and then I'll go off and live my life happily. And it's a very nice book end, especially since we just watched these three episodes of opening with that story and then sort of ending on it as well.

And they're kind of, like, praising him. They're like, oh, you're so amazing for doing this for us. And he's like, Isn't that normal to see your friends happy?

That's what a good person does.

Yeah.

To do a nice thing.

And that's something I love about this show, too, is that this could be reaching. But my love story doesn't need to just mean, like, romantic love. It's also about platonic love with Suna and takao. And it's so important to show those relationships in media, especially with two boys, like, how much they love each other. Because a lot of boys are afraid to express feelings toward their friend no matter how much they love their friends. Like, they're too afraid to do anything about it or express it.

Most anime has two boys expressing their feelings through fists and punches.

Yeah. Especially the archetypes of the cool kid that everyone loves and the big, tough, athletic kid. Those are the most repressed characters or the most repressed people that you usually meet. And seeing them being so open and honest with their feelings and emotions even with Suna being so reserved, it's just really refreshing and very good.

And another thing, too, is that a lot of this is another reason why I love the show as a whole so much. And when you were talking about triangles earlier, I was like, I'll talk about it later. Is that the will they, won't they part is such a big thing in romantic comedy. I hate it and it's so annoying. So it's nice that all of that is condensed in the first three episodes because the whole show now just gets to be about their relationship.

Yeah.

Some of my two favorite characters in, like, fiction and media are zoe and Wash from firefly. And it's because they're already married, they already love each other. That's established they don't need to do the Ross and Rachel will they, won't they? It's just like, no, they love each other.

I hate Ross.

They'll bust each other's chops. But at the end of the day, they still love each other. So it was just so refreshing to see characters already in love as opposed to, like, trying to get there.

Yeah. It's sort of the Spider Man reboot problem of we need to tell the origin story every time.

How many times do we have to see Uncle Ben die?

Yeah. It's like, we know where this is going.

We know.

It's going to end with him being spiderman. We know that he's going to be powering his figuring stuff out.

Such good reviews.

Yeah. Because we know that it's going to go well for them. We know that they're going to get together. Let's knock it out and actually explore uncharted territory that most romcoms don't get to of. Okay. They're actually together. Now let's see what their early dating life is like. Let's see them actually have struggles and conflicts. Yes, exactly. Yeah.

And then we get a fun aftercredit scene of Tokyo getting too close to people's faces.

My favorite was him ringing the doorbell and they couldn't tell who it was because his face was just smushed against the camera.

Yeah. I loved it because it was also a good show of character for Pretty Boy. His sister is kind of like, oh, your friend's so annoying. It's like, nah, he's great. I love him. And it's like, that's the friendship you don't see too often.

He's quiet and reserved, but he stands by him even if he hadn't closed doors.

A dang point we forgot to make in this all three episodes is that Tokyo says over and over again, we're friends and no one's really sure why. And then at the end, he's kind of like, oh, we've been best friends this whole time, kind of. And he allows himself to be like, we're friends because we get along and we want happiness for each other.

Yeah. We're not very similar, but we still care for each other.

It's beautiful and it's a very good show. And that's the first three episodes.

Yeah.

Getting all three together, it tells, like, if I'll jump ahead, I would like to continue this.

We are there.

We are there.

I kept watching it after I finished watching the third episode, I was like, all right, I guess I'm watching this again.

Yeah. I'll admit I keep saying, yeah, I like shows. I haven't followed through with any of them yet.

I realize that with this podcast because we do it every week, so you have to watch a new show every week. So there's never time to get into the one that you do watched.

I said I would watch more, jojo, and I haven't yet, but I still want to.

Sorry for the false promises, everyone. It's so easy.

We can forgive you this one time.

Thank you. I will not fail you again. Yeah. Especially with this show, because I would definitely like to see more because it's so cute and pure. And since I see jokes in anime, but I don't see comedy anime a whole lot. So actually seeing stuff, not like the one liner as they punch the villain into space, but actually seeing like comedic situations, sitcom, if you will, a rumcom. Yeah, I haven't seen that in anime before. And I'm a big fan so far.

Good. yay. Would you keep watching it, Brendan?

Yeah, I'll probably keep watching it. See how far it goes.

I won. I'm the winner.

You did it.

I did it.

You conquered anime.

I've won all of anime. I found the chestnut and the cake. I'm the winner.

The prize.

The prize. But yeah, I'm terrified because this already defied like, current romcom status. So my body in every media part of my brain is saying they're going to break up then get back together like eight times in the series. So I'm terrified of that. But I still want to continue.

I feel like this one will also kind of throw off your expectations because I don't know much about it, but I hear it's good because it kind of breaks marms. Like we said, they already got the well, they won't they thing out of the way in episode three. So I think it's going to set a weird expectation if you try to watch anything else that's kind of like romance heavy because a lot of other anime that focus on romance, it's very tropy and falls into all of those typical writing traps that gets tired very quickly. So it might be weird of like starting with the best and then going downhill from here.

At least I get a very good taste in my mouth rather than being turned off of all romance animes.

That's true.

So, yeah. I greatly enjoyed this and thank you so much for sharing this day.

You're welcome. If you ever have a bad day, now you can come home and watch an episode of My Love Story.

Yeah. Just nice purity in my life. All right, thank you all for joining us this week. What are we going to watch next time?

Next week we're watching gurn Login, which is like classic, everyone loves everyone. I don't want to hear otherwise. It's just very widely accepted as one of the best. A lot of people love it.

Can't argue with that.

Yeah, it's one of the earlier ones. Maybe not earlier. It's like I want to say like, 2000s. So it's not too recent. But it's a mech show. We haven't done MECs yet, so I figured this will be a good one and we'll be jumping around a tad. We'll watch episodes one, two and eight. And anyone who has watched the show, you know what episode that is. Oh, no, I won't say anything else.

I'm scared. Yeah, I'll leave it at that.

Yeah.

All right. Well, thank you for joining us. This has been. Are we there yet? This is probably going to be one of the first episodes that comes out after we're dumping the first few episodes.

The enemy dump.

Don'T like the phrasing.

We're going to blow our enemy line, hopefully.

You don't think it's a dump listener. So yeah, please join us. We would love suggestions of shows we should be watching. You can find us at. Are we there yet? On both Twitter and Instagram. We would like to thank camille ruley for the beautiful artwork that we are using and we would like to thank Louis zong for the song Stories off of Beats. You can find all of Louis music at Louisong bandcamp.com. Thank you. We hope you'll join us next time as we learn to live with anime.

Bye soon.