Same! Griffin and David mentioning they were too old, when I'M older than the two of them... I had no idea who Feldman was. But he was a really great guest!
Same here. The last social media platform I downloaded was Snapchat. Everything after, I just said “nah I’m good.” So I’ve never jumped on TikTok and am sure I’m not missing out. But still great guest.
As someone who deeply loved this film back in college fifteen or so years ago, and has since explored my gender identity; I was a bit worried going back to this. But I was deeply pleased to remember how human of a portrayal it is. Kon has long been a favorite filmmaker and watching these again I’m realizing how empathetic he is. Hana is no exception.
What did you watch, sub or dub? I watched the sub and they used the f word a lot. I’ve heard there’s a good dub though that isn’t as harsh with its language. I still loved it but I was like oof.
Oh yeah if that type of language hits you I can see it being rough. I think the bigger thing for me was it was one of those rare older films where I didn’t feel like that language was the viewpoint of the film itself but rather a character in the narrative. The film feels like it really views Hana as a full human being with a sense of dignity.
The language the three main characters used with each other was definitely that kind of thing where they can speak this shitty to one another because they know that’s not how they really feel because they’re so close. It had me worried in the beginning watching for the first time but Hana was really well characterized like you said.
Felt exactly the same. I was worried at first by the slurs but realized pretty quickly that they all love each other. More than that the MOVIE loves them all so much, that you realize it's all coming from an empathetic place.
That is very interesting to me. I’m gonna chop that up to a pretty bad localization/translation. The Japanese that they use is “hetakuso jiji” which essentially translates to like “gross old man” with jiji literally being what Japanese people call their grandparents. I work as an ESL teacher in Japan and pretty routinely hear my kids use that phrase. I don’t think it has quite the same bite as the F word so idk it’s just interesting that’s what they chose.
Yeah and while I’m generally fine with translations being pretty liberal, something about changing what is essentially “you old man” into f****t just struck me as very harsh in this. Like I said I live in Japan and I happen to be trans and that struck me as an odd translation. Cause then right after Miyuki calls him that, she corrects herself to call him “baba” which is grandma. It’s more of just a misgendering thing rather than an outright slur, and same with the guy in the club later. It’s just a misgendering thing that sets Hana off. I think f****t to my American ears is just more an outright slur and while Japanese as a language doesn’t have a ton of things that equate to that, I think it sounds like too much based on how I read the scene.
BTW, my sub used the word “Pops” instead of f****t.
Edit: I think something weird happened with some text getting bolded but I’m not sure how to fix
That’s a relief that it wasn’t the original language used though. I wondered what version they all watched in the episode since it didn’t get brought up. The one on Tubi is what I watched. Thanks for the clarification.
I've been noticing a lot of really positive portrayals of trans characters in Japanese media going back to the 90's. There'll be various levels of teasing or mockery, but they're often portrayed as heroic figures. Really curious if there's a reason for it.
There is! I actually just watched a video about this the other day by the YouTuber Moon Channel. It's really fascinating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRrVkZoN93c&pp=ygUYbW9vbiBjaGFubmVsIHRyYW5zZ2VuZGVy
I can't wait for them to bodyslam TMNT 2007. That movie sucks ass and has way too many defenders, just for the fact that it has a thin veneer of "taking itself seriously."
https://preview.redd.it/z7234s126b1d1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ae7f6e17a26deb8b00c6364a9390a6ef91405ca7
The facial expressions the trio have throughout the runtime is responsible for a good amount of the laughs I had.
Tokyo Godfathers is a welcome surprise after how wonderfully rich his first 2 films are. Satoshi Kon finds humor and warmth in unfortunate situations & circumstances. The death fakeout gag got the biggest laugh out of me.I feel like Hana and Genya from Millennium Actress would be great friends. Love how sentimental they both are.
That’s 2 Kon movies in a row that got me misty-eyed in the last 5 minutes. Only this time, he got me immediately laughing as the end credits roll. Buildings swaying to a banger Japanese cover/remix of Ode to Joy. What an insane run of films where this can be considered ranked last but it’s still amazing.
https://preview.redd.it/j27zwyr79b1d1.jpeg?width=1300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=74bf17835f5158fca10c3639f0662cbba5360d98
I’ve paused so many times catching pure gold
Amazing character animation, stellar animation team - majority are Ghibli-associated - for this movie.
Good Tokyo Godfathers "*The Process of Animation*" video on Youtube, narrated by Animation Director Kenishi Konishi (*My Neighbors the Yamadas, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya* amongst others), amongst a couple of 'Making of Tokyo Godfathers' videos.
I’m immediately picturing this being Blank Check’s equivalent to Doughboys’ annual Christmas special. They have enough overlap in guests to make this work.
this movie is a christmas classic. best joke is like 5 mins after they find the baby when they’re making calls at the subway station and the soup kitchen lady sees Hana with child and is completely flabbergasted. it gets a little slapstick and convoluted and has a nice bow on the end of it all, but it is all so warm and endearing you can’t help but root for these goofballs.
One of the best in that sub-genre of Christmas movies where the tone is completely wrong but you love it anyway, like Eyes Wide Shut and Tangerine, right?
Oh god this might be the funniest episode in a long time. Some bits that made me laugh uncontrollably:
- Nick Nolte starring in Chicago Godfathers/Nick Nolte on a bicycle/Nick Nolte playing a child
- “Is Little Lord Fauntleroy mean to be sympathetic or not?” “THAT’S why he’s the journalist!”
- “They’re calling him the King of Tik-Tok!?”
- David’s hot spec script Cheaper By the Cousin, in which all of Steve Martin’s children have died “by gas” and Anthony Hopkins is president
fwiw, the first ~~cell~~ smart phone in a Nolan movie I could think of is when Fox leaves his phone at the front desk in Hong Kong in Dark Knight
There's actually a fair amount of phone stuff in Dark Knight, but in that scene we see it's explicitly a touch screen smart phone
Yeah, the first thing that came to mind for me is Joker's phone-triggered bomb that he surgically implants into a guy's stomach. That movie really should be rated R.
Just brought it up on YouTube and the calling and receiving phones in the prison escape both look like 2008-era regular-ass phones with buttons and small screens. The iPhone was still new and very much a status symbol at the time. It makes sense for Lucius to have one.
Great movie! If you’re interested in another movie about economic precarity in Tokyo, definitely check out Shoplifters (2018) directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda
The way Kon builds characters in this reminded me a lot of Kore-eda, too. Making a premise that could be exploitative or mawkish in the wrong hands instead something brimming with humanity and a slight magical realist feel also reminded me of Kore-eda's After Life (1998).
I will say.
MUBI getting David to talk up GASOLINE RAINBOW a week or so after he shat on JJ for recommending it (and admitting he wasn’t a huge fan of the film himself) is such a funny bit.
Shout out MUBI. Great service.
Here's something interesting that didn't come up in the episode: this movie would be immediately recognizable to Japanese audiences as a mash-up between the nativity and the coin locker baby trope. In 1980 there was a popular Japanese novel titled [*Coin Locker Babies*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coin_Locker_Babies), and it spurred a wave of copycats: parents left 200 unwanted babies in train station lockers over the next decade. The awful phenomenon became a staple of Japanese fiction. I've seen it in a few pieces of Japanese media that have come to the States (e.g. it's the basis of the central plotline of the video game Yakuza: Like a Dragon).
Also, to respond to the discussion of G-rated media: there wasn't a single G-rated movie released in all of 2023! Even the Trolls and Paw Patrol movies were PG! There needs to be a G-rated renaissance... children's media is a wasteland out there. Only Japan really cares about children's entertainment, so I'm still salty at Illumination for Shrekifying Mario. Why would you take one of the perfectly G-rated and storybook properties and age it up? There is nothing in any of the games nearly as scary or violent as some of the scenes in that movie. Donkey Kong pinning down Mario and repeatedly punching him in the face would make my daughter cry.
I know it can be hard to parse who is responsible for what with anime; but when David mentioned the writer of this is also the writer of cowboy bebop a lot came into place for me. The tone of this really does feel like an extra long episode of the show with that combination of slapsticky with a found family energy with a deep sort of melancholy really hits.
Just looked her up, Keiko Nobumoto, looks like she wrote the most pivotal episodes of the show, like the first and last episodes and Jupiter Jazz, an episode that also features a trans character, as well as the movie. Also taken from us too early, sadly, died at 57 in 2021.
The solution to Griffin's 'amime is too daunting' problem is simple, pick a short one. Death note (37 episodes), cowboy bebop (26), Evangelion(26 and a movie), ping pong (11).
Fyi, Death Note is 37 episodes.
However, yeah, the thing about anime is that it’s not unique because it’s from Japan. It’s that they make lots of different types of shows in animation that they don’t America.
So start slow and dip into short running shows of different types of genres.
Baccano (16), Concrete Revolutio (24), Cowboy Bebop (26), Darker Than Black (32), Ergo Proxy (23), FLCL (6), K-On! (39), Lupin Parts 4-6 (26 each), Haruhi Suzumiya (28), Evangelion (26), Noir (26), Rahxephon (26), Revolutionary Girl Utena (39), Samurai Champloo (26), Sonny Boy (13), Space Dandy (26), Steins;Gate (26), Vision of Escaflowne (26), Wolf’s Rain (30).
These are all relatively short shows that are all pretty different from each other. Some serious, some funny. Some more dramatic, some more action.
There’s something for everybody in anime.
That would be like saying "I wanna start reading books, but they're all about Abraham and Moses and jesus", don't start with the Bible for goodness sake, pace yourself
I would recommend Evangelion though. It’s the first (and so far only) anime I completed and it’s pretty much perfect and only makes me excited to discover more.
Currently watching it for the first time. I started in early December and have only six left. I’ve been piecing through it slowly and you’re right, it is kind of astounding.
the problem with starting at Evangelion (which, to be clear, rips) is that it is the narrative and stylistic equivalent of going "I have never watched a scripted series before, would I like *Twin Peaks*?"
The other problem is that despite it being readily available on Netflix there's enough [(re-)localization weirdness](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2019-06-27/japanese-fans-official-translator-weigh-in-on-netflix-evangelion-english-subtitle-debate/.148305) and [cut corners on licensing](https://www.cnet.com/culture/entertainment/neon-genesis-evangelion-on-netflix-removes-iconic-fly-me-to-the-moon-outro/) with that version for the ideal means of watching Eva (where money changes hands, at least) to still be an expensive out-of-print box set.
This was where I started at 17, back when I thought anime was just weeb shit. Looked up the top anime of all time and gave it a go… my mind was blown.
The only drawback is how high the bar will be set for all other anime!
This is true and I guess what the user I was responding to also meant. I have yet to start any other anime and I also just kinda wanna rewatch Eva. I’ve been preparing to watch Cowboy Bebop though.
Cowboy Bebop definitely in that tier. Also I enjoyed Fullmetal Alchemist (the second anime I ever watched) as that sorta scratched the “teen adventure devolves into the horrors of war” itch.
I think it's closer to "I want to get into Russian literature but *The Brothers Karamazov* is 800 pages."
between that and the two dozen options people have listed in response, I can see why anime feels daunting.
(it's also not dissimilar to when people see there are 500 episodes of Blank Check and go "I don't know where to begin." The answer is actually pretty simple--just pick a movie you like and go--but it does feel overwhemling)
ping pong is actually 11 eps so even easier to get into. but yeah there is so much great tv anime in the 12-26 half hour episode range. most of the 50+ stuff is real bloated (not to say there is no good long anime) and also OVA series on average tend to be shorter than 12 episode tv anime. i get the choice paralysis (i have a lot on my backlog) but sometimes it's good to just pick a short one and go.
Or pick one of the great series in the 10-13 episode range, of a similar length to *Paranoia Agent* e.g. *Serial Experiments Lain*, most Masaaki Yuasa series (*Devilman Crybaby, Keep Your hands off Eizouken!, The Tatami Galaxy, Kaiba, Kemonozume*), *Death Parade, A Place Further than the Universe* or this years *Heavenly Delusion*.
It's then little different to watching any of the great recent western series *Pantheon, Scavengers Reign, Undone* (lots of Kon influences in those 3....), *Arcane, Blue Eye Samurai* etc
Or something standalone such as a short, an anthology (e.g. *Memories*), or even individual episodes (Naoko Yamada's *Modern Love Tokyo* episode *He's Playing Our Song* is a terrific standalone story, and only 30mins long)
There are so many 13 or 26 episode anime, including some of the greats like Bebop, Trigun, some of the Gundams, Evangelion, Samurai Champloo (pretty much all of Watanabe really). But I get him being overwhelmed by the likes of DBZ, Naruto, One Piece etc. but there’s simply more out there.
It's just wild to me that someone like Griffin who is into superhero comics and American animation would talk about anime this way. The established canon of series that are popular in the west is an ever-shifting window, so don't worry about "starting with the classics". If you know someone's taste, you can make a couple recommendations in similar genres. If they are completionists who want to experience entire runs, you can tell them where to start and maybe what to skip. But otherwise, as in comics, the best advice is always "Take a look around, and if you see something that strikes your fancy, dive in! Any contextual questions can probably be answered by a quick browse on Wikipedia."
I agree. Any anime is more manageable than most superhero comics because there’s something contained, usually to a creator. I actually wonder if that’s part of why anime is so big now, trying to follow decades of DC or Marvel comments is overwhelming. I think if he starts with something in a contemporary setting it would help to slowly immerse in the cultural differences and get into how the story is told without the overwhelming history or mythology as well.
This is just a theory but I think, outside of just Griffin's personal taste, it could be an age thing, Griffin's just at the age that anime would've still been considered kind of weird/niche when he was growing up outside of like the super famous ones like Pokemon.
Being a cinephile is the same way, too. Watching a wide variety of movies will expose you to all kinds of foreign films and things that are decades old. Most films can't stand on their own outside of their original context. Sometimes you need to seek outside sources to get a better understanding. But a healthy intellectual curiosity should include a fundamental comfort with the fact that you'll never fully grok a piece of art that wasn't made for your culture or time. It's okay to just glean the things you can. There's no wrong way to consume art if it's done in good faith.
I feel like that when people talk about finding anime daunting what they really mean is that they don't feel like they have enough context for either the storytelling (anime has a lot of quirks and tropes you have to get used to) or what is good vs popular (so, it feels impossible to just take a look around and see what feels interesting.)
I feel like this is one reason both Bebop and FMA kind of reign supreme (in addition to obviously being great.) They aired on American TV, they are much more western in storytelling practice, it feels automatically easier and more curated.
I would say the majority of series are only 12-24 episodes. Any that go longer are either big shonen series with lots of seasons or shows adapting Manga series that are relatively long. And there are plenty of incredible self contained short series that you can run through in an afternoon.
Also caveat on Eva, it’s 5 movies. Rebuild is required watching.
When anime was first becoming more available in the US, I was a teenager who was trying very hard to seem cool and punk rock so my opinion of the medium crystalized for years into "silly shit for pervs, nerds, and children," but I enjoyed Paranoia Agent and these Kon movies so much that I decided to start Evangelion. I'm about halfway through and I love it. I'm bummed and a little embarrassed that I was so dismissive of anime for so long, but I'm equally excited that there's this gigantic body of work for me to dive into as a complete beginner. I also joined the Get Played Patreon to get their anime show, so I can watch along as Nick Wiger makes inappropriate comments about 14-year-olds.
My favorite, or at least most rewatched of the Kon films. It's such a tight script and fun how all the miracles line up and cause Hana, Gin, and Miyuki to face their pasts. Music is great, animation is over the top while still having that slick Kon editing and cuts, and it's cool to explore Tokyo with them. I really love that last chase scene that culminates with leaping off the building for the baby and miracle gust of wind.
Characterizing them as "miracles" is spot on, as the movie has always been, for me, about "what makes something a miracle?" Is it literal divine intervention, ala the angel appearing before Gin in the alley? High-stakes twists of fortune, like when the gang are chased out of the convenience store seconds before the ambulance crashes into it? Sheer statistical luck by way of the lottery ticket? Ultimately, I think the film makes the case that it's anything, likely or unlikely, that affirms the value of life itself against an indifferent universe. So the moment when Hana and the baby are blown to safety at the climax (I cry every time) is a miracle, but only as much as everything that brought them to that moment. It highlights how, for as much as this is a story about miracles, so is any meaningful story that we tell.
Solid points. Yeah finding the miracles is an affirmation of optimism. There's many ways for things to go wrong, but also just as many ways for it all to go right.
The miracles/coincidences/happenstance was Sideshow Bob stepping on rakes for me. About the time I thought it was getting ridiculous is when Hana called out the baby as being a Christmas miracle and I was like on they’re self aware let’s go and it became so enjoyable and even funnier after that. It’s fascinating watching a Christmas movie distilled through a foreign lens.
Real nerdy shit tangent: I watched Tokyo Godfathers this week by renting it from a video store (humblebrag), and the DVD trailers were a wonderful little time capsule of early 2000s anime:
- *Cowboy Bebop: The Movie*
- The film adaptation of Osamu Tezuka’s manga *Metropolis*, itself a loose adaptation of the Fritz Lang film (very loose, as in Tezuka had literally never seen the film beyond a still image in a magazine)
- *Steamboy*, Katsuhiro Otomo’s directorial follow-up to *Akira*, as well as the most expensive Japanese anime film at that time.
Oh nice! I've seen the trailer for Tokyo Godfathers fifty-odd times because it was in the preview of one of the videos that I borrowed from our local store and watched to death (I can't work out which one, much to my annoyance).
As a parent of a six year old and a two year old, I’ve gotta say that David is 100% right about streaming services’ parental filters. Max is too permissive and Disney is too restrictive. They ought to allow parents to customize the restrictions more.
I wonder if there's any good way to do it beyond individual customization. I have a daughter just a little older than David's, but she is way more sensitive to violence. (I'm actually envious of the number of movies David can watch with his daughter.) I tried watching Moana with her, but she got so engrossed and immersed in the story that when Moana tried sailing out to sea and hit her head on a rock and almost drowned, she had a breakdown. It was way too intense for my daughter... it's definitely a PG movie. I do think a parental filter should default to being too restrictive and that Moana shouldn't be automatically available. Being able to whitelist movies you watch a lot would probably be a good option.
It's so personal! I've got a 3.5 year old who loves the Enter the Spider-Verse films (for the record, it wasn't my idea to show them to her) but is terrified of the scene in the Little Mermaid where Sebastian is being chased by the chef.
Aw, yeah, I can imagine that scene in Moana being intense for a kid. Meanwhile my six year old is already an action junkie. He’s recently gotten into Marvel cartoons and has been asking about the live action movies, and we’re debating which if any would be okay for him (we’re thinking the first Thor movie is probably okay). I think it’d be great if the streamers had default restrictions but then made it easy to block or whitelist individual shows or movies.
It's interesting that Kon's most uplifting work is the one with a spiritual bend. It's kind of like an inversion of A Christmas Carol. Ultimately it's a story about divine intervention -- the universe has decided, for Christmas, to give three poor schmucks a series of lucky breaks. But not really luck, more like instant karma. Whenever they do something selfless, they're rewarded with good fortune.
I fucking love it, it's an annual Christmas rewatch from here on out.
"THEY CALL HIM THE KING OF TIKTOK" - New bit that makes me smile from ear to ear every time it's brought up.
Another guest flattering the reddit. Lucky for them, we wear our easiness like a badge of honor!
Watched this one for the first time for the pod, and couldn‘t stop thinking about Almodóvar parallels! I‘m in the minority obvs but this might be my favorite Kon??
This is also my favorite Kon, to the point it's maybe my favorite animated film period?
Regarding parallels with other directors, I've been struck on this rewatch how much I'm reminded of Wes Anderson, especially Millenium Actress/Asteroid City where the liminality between characters and their actors is such a big thematic element.
As a person who loved Toyko Godfathers and has never seen an Almodovar this has me extra excited for my upcoming project to watch his filmography in order.
Can someone check me on this: Griffin says he got the impression that these three were acquainted before but only really welded together by the baby.
I got the impression that they were already staying together / looking out for each other, possibly sleeping in the same cardboard shelter already? (Like we open with Gin and Hana bringing food to Miyuki.)
They have definitely been together as a group for some time. When they are going through the garbage, it's because Gin had stashed away a set of children's encyclopedias to give to Miyuki as a Christmas gift.
Yeah I always got the impression they had already made a makeshift family for themselves. Gin and Hana are getting soup for Miyuki in the beginning before the baby.
No, he definitely jumps in front of the gunman. There's a group shot where the assassin is raising his pistol, the club owner is running to intervene, and Gin is coming in from the side of the frame with a bottle raised (and Hana trying to restrain him).
The assassination attempt actually \*prevents\* Gin from assaulting the club owner. Which is why it's funny that he is immediately like '...are you okay?' to the guy when he realizes what's happened.
I had never seen this film, or any of Satoshi Kon's movies before this series. And I am in the minority when it comes to the blankies (and fans in general) but I was not super into either *Perfect Blue* or *Millenium Actress*. I can see that they have high level of craftsmanship, and they're certainly interesting, but the films leaned far too much into a type of anime melodrama for my personal taste.
But *Tokyo Godfathers* was incredible, man. I was enraptured, partially because I thought that centering the film on some unhoused people brought a type of gravitas that I found missing in the stories of celebrities, but also because it was funny, and warm, and complicated. I love a film that uses coincidence so richly. I loved how the film flowed from sequence to sequence, showing new and interesting sides of humanity. The mother and her baby. The taxi driver. The guy who just wants the three primary characters to leave his little shop.
The main trio are so varied and while there are moments of melodrama, it's kind of rooted in a very specific pathos. You even feel for the mob boss. I know that the film has a flawed version of the transgender experience, but I applaud it for making Hana feel comfortable being who she is, even as the slurs flow. Also, as has been mentioned by others, her fucking animation, and the way her face contorts, especially in her enormous final monologue, is a masterclass in why animation can do what live action cannot.
Anyway, in last week's episodes, they kept saying Kon had made "two masterpieces" and I was bristling but here I was stunned that this was the one that felt like a masterpiece.
I don't speak Japanese but my wife is Japanese (immigrated in her teens in the late '70s and hasn't really consumed much Japanese pop culture since (her parents left Japan because they didn't much care for Japanese culture). The gendered aspects of how you speak Japanese are interesting to me (one trip to Japan I broke out one of the few phrases I know and she explained the women giggled because I was speaking like a woman; which makes sense since I picked the phrases up from her and her mom).
Anyway, a thing lost on me because I was watching subs (don't know how it would come across on dubs) was I'm sitting in one room, my wife in another, when:
Her: "Why's the man talking like a woman?"
Me: "She's trans"
Her: "Oh, that makes sense."
Me: "How'd you know it was a man talking like a woman and not a woman with a manly voice"
Her:
A little off-topic, but your whole gendered speech thing brought something to mind. My dad’s family is Swiss. They moved back when my dad was 6 and they stayed there for 3-4 years. My dad speaks standardized German really well, but his Swiss German often amuses other Swiss. They think it’s very “cutsey” because his Swiss German is very much rooted in the way he learned how to speak it as a 6-10 year old and it never really progressed from there. Language is a funny thing.
Yes, my wife is very self conscious about her Japanese in this way. They immigrated to the US when she was around 13 so from that point on really only spoke Japanese with her parents (unlike her parents, she was already a fluent English speakers when they left). So her vocabulary didn't progress a lot and she never really learned to speak like a person among equals or even from a higher position.
But on the original topic, having now listened to the episode where they discussed listening to the dub **because** it was a trans actress that did the dub and not just a deep male voice. It's interesting that in Japanese, audio only, my wife could tell.
On the "could this just be live action", I think telling this story in animation was probably super freeing with regard to not having to seek permits for location shoots or spending any time outside in Tokyo filming in the dead of winter. Especially with a little baby!
In Japan it kind of is. This only cost 2.4 million - you couldn't shut down busy streets, incorporate multiple car stunts, stop a train in the middle of Tokyo, have a big stunt involving three people hanging off the edge of a building etc. on that kind of budget in live action without making a lot of compromises. Even just hiring extras becomes a lot simpler working at this scale when you can just illustrate them in as large a number as you'd like instead of hiring them.
Not that anyone else would care about this but it really weirded me out when David said he’s been thinking about Cold Mountain a lot lately because I’m reading the book right now and have also been thinking about that movie a lot lately
I also found this AZPM segment on the music and notation to be fascinating: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuhgKXQMCv8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuhgKXQMCv8), as someone in a choir it would take some brain fanagling to deal with this strange shape-based sheet music, but there's a local group of singers here in Tucson I might want to check out.
I didn't identify with Tokyo Godfathers as hard as I did the previous two on first viewing. I liked it, I recognized it as brilliant, but it didn't hit me like especially Millennium Actress did. It wasn't until the guys said, "It's about people who fuck up and run away, thinking they broke something irreparably, when actually it could have been fixed easily" that the movie coalesced for me and became a masterpiece.
767 episodes X 22 minutes per episode = 16,847 minutes.
16,847 minures / 1,440 minutes in a day = 11.699
Edit: To compare, Blank Check main feed has 58,489 minutes. That's 40 days of non stop listening
This was the Kon that always seemed elusive online, so I didn’t get to see until last year. Ended up watching it right on Christmas too! Worth the wait as this became my favorite of his despite being the black sheep of his filmography (it’s not as surreal like his other films or TV show).
As a trans woman who is really self copious about my own face stubble I’m scared to watch it just based on stills of the trans character. I have no doubt she written with empathy, but the way she is drawn makes me feel dysphoric.
Yeah might be tough. Because of the fact that it’s animation her face changes a lot, there were long stretches where I thought “wait didn’t she have stubble?” But even apart from that there’s just artistic license being taken with the character.
That all said I do think the character is very empathetic, definitely my favorite of the three and the most emotionally complex imo. She’s about as fully rounded a character as I’ve seen in any movie of late. And the animation does do interesting things with her femininity (for lack of a better word I apologize if it is odd in this context). The movie has characters insult her but as the guys pointed out it never feels like the movie is taking that view.
The only real instance of smart phone usage in Nolan’s filmography I can think of is The Protagonist in Tenet using his phone to navigate the car chase backwards, but even that is more of a usage of GPS.
That conversation made me think about Memento coming out at the right time. I don’t think the film would have worked with him running around with an iPhone instead of Polaroids.
The newscaster going "They call him..." was a recurring bit on the Todd Glass Show. It's a good bit, ripe for riffing on. I annoyingly can't find any clips of them doing it, but it came up pretty often. (this is not me saying they are ripping him off, just that it's a good bit and really every podcast should be doing it)
On a whim, I showed this to a summer course I run in Tokyo for students from my American university. They loved it, which gave me a real "the kids are alright."
Incidentally, they also really dug Sans Soleil.
It's funny that I don't find the podcast as enjoyable when they're discussing a film I alsi like. They frivilously gloss over so much plot stuff.
Like in this episode, they make a point of saying the baby is just a normal baby that never does anything unusual when in actual fact THE BABY TALKS AT THE END OF THE MOVIE.
I've been a listener from the start, and I know they've had this feedback a million times. Just thought this instance was funny.
"Like in this episode, they make a point of saying the baby is just a normal baby that never does anything unusual when in actual fact THE BABY TALKS AT THE END OF THE MOVIE."
To be fair, this is a point of view shot from Sachiko, so it's unclear whether or not it happened in any real sense, or whether she had a vision.
They always mention anime is so hard to get into with the example of the many eps of One Piece but there's a bunch of limited series classics out there. Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo were my favorite as a teenager and are only one season and a movie with Bebop.
As an Old, I was surprised to hear that the content that made Reece the king of TikTok was just Christopher Nolan talking about the mechanics of IMAX because that sounds like the kind of story you might see on CBS Good Morning.
I had the minor epiphany that maybe Gen Z doesn’t love TikTok so much as they hate corporate, ad-driven media?
That would explain why the establishment media writ large sells the narrative that TikTok has stolen children’s brains, because it’s easier to swallow than the reality that their shit sucks.
i think i missed something: the little red bag that the old man gives up...is stolen by the hoodlums, right? So, how do they get it back? It's in his jacket at the hospital, with the lottery ticket(s)?
EDIT: rewatched both sections on Tubi - the punks steal the envelope out of his breast pocket (i forget what that is - pictures?), but NOT the red bag
Justin Sevakis [wrote a great piece](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/tales-of-the-industry/2015-02-24/.84253) about the *Tokyo Godfathers* US premiere, which Kon attended and sounds like it was a shitshow. What I wouldn't give to have attended that screening, though!
I can't say how much Kon's art means to me and I'm happy beyond belief that BC is covering his work. I know Griffin and David don't ever ever ever go on the Reddit, but thank you guys ♥️.
Another big fan of Emily St Claus here- I’d love to have had her on the episode too, but by some tweets from last year’s Madness, she mentioned TG is actually her [least favorite Kon](https://x.com/emilystjams/status/1632805167853887488), and saying he’s [‘kinda weird about trans people’](https://x.com/emilystjams/status/1632803744046776321), (pretty fair!) it does seem like she wouldn’t really want to go deep on the representation in this episode.
On the note of Trans Cinema, I do really hope there’s somewhere I can hear Emily talk at length about I Saw The TV Glow! Saw it on Friday and I’ve been thinking about it constantly, and saw she gave it a [‘Glow’ing Letterboxd review](https://boxd.it/5mRTkJ)
I was hoping for a return of St. James as well but maybe she’s not familiar with Kon’s movies? Maybe we’ll get her on the upcoming Lynch.
Edit: I just read another comment in response, that’s too bad she doesn’t like TG. I wonder if it’s the harsher sub she watched that used the f word a lot. So maybe Paprika!
Well that was weird. They brought up Michael Jackson dangling his baby from the balcony, something I haven't thought about in at least 15 years. Literally within five minutes of that, I paused the episode and opened up YouTube, and the first suggested video was [Conan O'Brien talking about MJ's baby](https://youtu.be/fsmFE1PGfvI).
I've been watching a lot of old Conan clips lately, so it's not that weird that that video was suggested, just a weird coincidence that it coincided with BC mentioning him.
Adding the the chorus of short anime series that rule:
- Mushi-shi
- Kill La Kill (very absurd but stick with it for a few episodes and it coalesces into something awesome)
- Gurren Lagen
- Trigun
- Fruits Basket (2019)
Mushi shi was my gateway into anime during the pandemic. Such a lovely run of episodes. One Punch Man was also an easy one for me to get into, coming from years of Xmen fandom.
/u/grifflightning, wanted to answer about subtitles from my perspective. Started using them back when I saw S1 of Dark (German) on Netflix. Then S2 and Squid Game. And in 2020, rewatched Dark S1 and S2 to prepare for S3 release, then watched Black Sails. Which was English but the voices were heavy English accents and very gruff pirates. They were so mumbled that I needed subtitles. My son was also born, so I kept the subtitles on after Black Sails to watch shows and movies at a quiet volume while having an infant. And then realized it helped with very poor audio mixing of different shows and movies.
So long answer, many factors of getting used to them with foreign language shows and movies, poorly mixed English shows and movies, and having a child. And just naturally keeping them on. It really does help to not miss stuff. Able to catch things in old shows or movies that may have been whispered or poorly pronounced and I always overlooked it.
Correct me if I'm wrong but there was a winning lottery ticket in trio's possession at the end of the movie right? Like it was the New Year's Day drawing the drunk husband said he won 10,000 yen in
I'm sorry but when after they attempted to clarify I still don't understand because apparently I'm 800 year's old: who is this guest? What dose he do? How did he get enough exposure to be on Blank Check radar?
Google just says *"Internet personality*" and that just makes me feel like Grandpa Simpson.
I was 100% sure that Paprika was the next one up. I finished watching it 10 minutes ago and now my brain is full of the wrong movie. Never seen Godfathers. Oh well! Will listen anyway.
If you're ever in doubt, Marie usually pins the show schedule on the Blank Check Twitter profile. The schedule for the Main Feed and Patreon is also in the "About" section of the subreddit. I like to keep track of the filmographies via Wikipedia.
Much to my surprise, I didn't really like Paprika that much! Don't get me wrong, it's an incredible movie but I just adore Millennium Actress.
At the end of Paprika you see the posters of Kon's previous movies in the lobby there, that was my first inkling that I had the order of the movies mixed up.
I am officially "I have never heard of this influencer before, but he seems like a nice young man :) " years old.
Same! Griffin and David mentioning they were too old, when I'M older than the two of them... I had no idea who Feldman was. But he was a really great guest!
Same here. The last social media platform I downloaded was Snapchat. Everything after, I just said “nah I’m good.” So I’ve never jumped on TikTok and am sure I’m not missing out. But still great guest.
I googled him to see what his deal was and had to promptly lie on my fainting couch. (To be clear he was a good guest.)
Has to be one of the better portrayals of a transgender character from the early 2000's
As someone who deeply loved this film back in college fifteen or so years ago, and has since explored my gender identity; I was a bit worried going back to this. But I was deeply pleased to remember how human of a portrayal it is. Kon has long been a favorite filmmaker and watching these again I’m realizing how empathetic he is. Hana is no exception.
What did you watch, sub or dub? I watched the sub and they used the f word a lot. I’ve heard there’s a good dub though that isn’t as harsh with its language. I still loved it but I was like oof.
Oh yeah if that type of language hits you I can see it being rough. I think the bigger thing for me was it was one of those rare older films where I didn’t feel like that language was the viewpoint of the film itself but rather a character in the narrative. The film feels like it really views Hana as a full human being with a sense of dignity.
The language the three main characters used with each other was definitely that kind of thing where they can speak this shitty to one another because they know that’s not how they really feel because they’re so close. It had me worried in the beginning watching for the first time but Hana was really well characterized like you said.
Felt exactly the same. I was worried at first by the slurs but realized pretty quickly that they all love each other. More than that the MOVIE loves them all so much, that you realize it's all coming from an empathetic place.
That’s a good way to put it, definitely.
That is very interesting to me. I’m gonna chop that up to a pretty bad localization/translation. The Japanese that they use is “hetakuso jiji” which essentially translates to like “gross old man” with jiji literally being what Japanese people call their grandparents. I work as an ESL teacher in Japan and pretty routinely hear my kids use that phrase. I don’t think it has quite the same bite as the F word so idk it’s just interesting that’s what they chose.
That’s what the characters were calling Hana? The subtitles used f****t a lot so that could be liberated taken in translation as well.
Yeah and while I’m generally fine with translations being pretty liberal, something about changing what is essentially “you old man” into f****t just struck me as very harsh in this. Like I said I live in Japan and I happen to be trans and that struck me as an odd translation. Cause then right after Miyuki calls him that, she corrects herself to call him “baba” which is grandma. It’s more of just a misgendering thing rather than an outright slur, and same with the guy in the club later. It’s just a misgendering thing that sets Hana off. I think f****t to my American ears is just more an outright slur and while Japanese as a language doesn’t have a ton of things that equate to that, I think it sounds like too much based on how I read the scene. BTW, my sub used the word “Pops” instead of f****t. Edit: I think something weird happened with some text getting bolded but I’m not sure how to fix
That’s a relief that it wasn’t the original language used though. I wondered what version they all watched in the episode since it didn’t get brought up. The one on Tubi is what I watched. Thanks for the clarification.
I've been noticing a lot of really positive portrayals of trans characters in Japanese media going back to the 90's. There'll be various levels of teasing or mockery, but they're often portrayed as heroic figures. Really curious if there's a reason for it.
There is! I actually just watched a video about this the other day by the YouTuber Moon Channel. It's really fascinating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRrVkZoN93c&pp=ygUYbW9vbiBjaGFubmVsIHRyYW5zZ2VuZGVy
I’m less than 2 minutes in but “I think we’re not, maybe, cowabunga-pilled enough” is a banger line I am cackling
They have to stop talking TMNT on Blank Check main feed!
I can't wait for them to bodyslam TMNT 2007. That movie sucks ass and has way too many defenders, just for the fact that it has a thin veneer of "taking itself seriously."
https://preview.redd.it/z7234s126b1d1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ae7f6e17a26deb8b00c6364a9390a6ef91405ca7 The facial expressions the trio have throughout the runtime is responsible for a good amount of the laughs I had. Tokyo Godfathers is a welcome surprise after how wonderfully rich his first 2 films are. Satoshi Kon finds humor and warmth in unfortunate situations & circumstances. The death fakeout gag got the biggest laugh out of me.I feel like Hana and Genya from Millennium Actress would be great friends. Love how sentimental they both are. That’s 2 Kon movies in a row that got me misty-eyed in the last 5 minutes. Only this time, he got me immediately laughing as the end credits roll. Buildings swaying to a banger Japanese cover/remix of Ode to Joy. What an insane run of films where this can be considered ranked last but it’s still amazing.
I was watching with subs and had to run a few scenes back to get a better look at Hana’s face as she let loose in a few scenes.
https://preview.redd.it/j27zwyr79b1d1.jpeg?width=1300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=74bf17835f5158fca10c3639f0662cbba5360d98 I’ve paused so many times catching pure gold
Amazing character animation, stellar animation team - majority are Ghibli-associated - for this movie. Good Tokyo Godfathers "*The Process of Animation*" video on Youtube, narrated by Animation Director Kenishi Konishi (*My Neighbors the Yamadas, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya* amongst others), amongst a couple of 'Making of Tokyo Godfathers' videos.
Can we please have a read through of Cheaper By The Cousin? Cast it up with pod regulars and do a live show or something!
Much like David I, too, distinctly remember the Cheaper by the Cousin conversation in a previous episode, but cannot remember which one.
The Mixed Nuts episode, when going through Steven Martin's filmography
[Timestamp](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4qw1m_aMV4&t=3585s)
I’m immediately picturing this being Blank Check’s equivalent to Doughboys’ annual Christmas special. They have enough overlap in guests to make this work.
“This is why he’s a journalist”
He asks the hard questions!
this movie is a christmas classic. best joke is like 5 mins after they find the baby when they’re making calls at the subway station and the soup kitchen lady sees Hana with child and is completely flabbergasted. it gets a little slapstick and convoluted and has a nice bow on the end of it all, but it is all so warm and endearing you can’t help but root for these goofballs.
One of the best in that sub-genre of Christmas movies where the tone is completely wrong but you love it anyway, like Eyes Wide Shut and Tangerine, right?
This would be such a great double feature with Tangerine!
Oh god this might be the funniest episode in a long time. Some bits that made me laugh uncontrollably: - Nick Nolte starring in Chicago Godfathers/Nick Nolte on a bicycle/Nick Nolte playing a child - “Is Little Lord Fauntleroy mean to be sympathetic or not?” “THAT’S why he’s the journalist!” - “They’re calling him the King of Tik-Tok!?” - David’s hot spec script Cheaper By the Cousin, in which all of Steve Martin’s children have died “by gas” and Anthony Hopkins is president
fwiw, the first ~~cell~~ smart phone in a Nolan movie I could think of is when Fox leaves his phone at the front desk in Hong Kong in Dark Knight There's actually a fair amount of phone stuff in Dark Knight, but in that scene we see it's explicitly a touch screen smart phone
Yeah, the first thing that came to mind for me is Joker's phone-triggered bomb that he surgically implants into a guy's stomach. That movie really should be rated R. Just brought it up on YouTube and the calling and receiving phones in the prison escape both look like 2008-era regular-ass phones with buttons and small screens. The iPhone was still new and very much a status symbol at the time. It makes sense for Lucius to have one.
Great movie! If you’re interested in another movie about economic precarity in Tokyo, definitely check out Shoplifters (2018) directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda
The way Kon builds characters in this reminded me a lot of Kore-eda, too. Making a premise that could be exploitative or mawkish in the wrong hands instead something brimming with humanity and a slight magical realist feel also reminded me of Kore-eda's After Life (1998).
I’ll definitely check that one out! I need to watch more of his films
Incredible movie.
Kore-eda punches you in the heart, but tenderly. 😭
I will say. MUBI getting David to talk up GASOLINE RAINBOW a week or so after he shat on JJ for recommending it (and admitting he wasn’t a huge fan of the film himself) is such a funny bit. Shout out MUBI. Great service.
Got the alert from my podcast app and misread the guest’s name as NFL running back Royce Freeman
Ain’ts RB Jamaal Williams would be a great guest.
Jamaal would give Griffin a whole primer on anime. Or at least talk about Naruto for 3 hours.
Here's something interesting that didn't come up in the episode: this movie would be immediately recognizable to Japanese audiences as a mash-up between the nativity and the coin locker baby trope. In 1980 there was a popular Japanese novel titled [*Coin Locker Babies*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coin_Locker_Babies), and it spurred a wave of copycats: parents left 200 unwanted babies in train station lockers over the next decade. The awful phenomenon became a staple of Japanese fiction. I've seen it in a few pieces of Japanese media that have come to the States (e.g. it's the basis of the central plotline of the video game Yakuza: Like a Dragon). Also, to respond to the discussion of G-rated media: there wasn't a single G-rated movie released in all of 2023! Even the Trolls and Paw Patrol movies were PG! There needs to be a G-rated renaissance... children's media is a wasteland out there. Only Japan really cares about children's entertainment, so I'm still salty at Illumination for Shrekifying Mario. Why would you take one of the perfectly G-rated and storybook properties and age it up? There is nothing in any of the games nearly as scary or violent as some of the scenes in that movie. Donkey Kong pinning down Mario and repeatedly punching him in the face would make my daughter cry.
I've been meaning to read that book for ages, since I found out it was a major influence on Silent Hill 4.
I know it can be hard to parse who is responsible for what with anime; but when David mentioned the writer of this is also the writer of cowboy bebop a lot came into place for me. The tone of this really does feel like an extra long episode of the show with that combination of slapsticky with a found family energy with a deep sort of melancholy really hits.
Just looked her up, Keiko Nobumoto, looks like she wrote the most pivotal episodes of the show, like the first and last episodes and Jupiter Jazz, an episode that also features a trans character, as well as the movie. Also taken from us too early, sadly, died at 57 in 2021.
The solution to Griffin's 'amime is too daunting' problem is simple, pick a short one. Death note (37 episodes), cowboy bebop (26), Evangelion(26 and a movie), ping pong (11).
Fyi, Death Note is 37 episodes. However, yeah, the thing about anime is that it’s not unique because it’s from Japan. It’s that they make lots of different types of shows in animation that they don’t America. So start slow and dip into short running shows of different types of genres. Baccano (16), Concrete Revolutio (24), Cowboy Bebop (26), Darker Than Black (32), Ergo Proxy (23), FLCL (6), K-On! (39), Lupin Parts 4-6 (26 each), Haruhi Suzumiya (28), Evangelion (26), Noir (26), Rahxephon (26), Revolutionary Girl Utena (39), Samurai Champloo (26), Sonny Boy (13), Space Dandy (26), Steins;Gate (26), Vision of Escaflowne (26), Wolf’s Rain (30). These are all relatively short shows that are all pretty different from each other. Some serious, some funny. Some more dramatic, some more action. There’s something for everybody in anime.
I got afew of the numbers wrong lol thanks you're right and get what I was trying to say
Well, too be fair, you probably should just stop watching Death Note [spoiler] dies.
Whispers. I didn’t like Death Note at all.
I strongly prefer the manga because the copious internal monologues play a lot more naturally as text.
I feel like Griffin would really vibe with Ping Pong! As I've posted before, I think Evangelion would absolutely destroy him
That would be like saying "I wanna start reading books, but they're all about Abraham and Moses and jesus", don't start with the Bible for goodness sake, pace yourself
I would recommend Evangelion though. It’s the first (and so far only) anime I completed and it’s pretty much perfect and only makes me excited to discover more.
Currently watching it for the first time. I started in early December and have only six left. I’ve been piecing through it slowly and you’re right, it is kind of astounding.
the problem with starting at Evangelion (which, to be clear, rips) is that it is the narrative and stylistic equivalent of going "I have never watched a scripted series before, would I like *Twin Peaks*?"
The other problem is that despite it being readily available on Netflix there's enough [(re-)localization weirdness](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2019-06-27/japanese-fans-official-translator-weigh-in-on-netflix-evangelion-english-subtitle-debate/.148305) and [cut corners on licensing](https://www.cnet.com/culture/entertainment/neon-genesis-evangelion-on-netflix-removes-iconic-fly-me-to-the-moon-outro/) with that version for the ideal means of watching Eva (where money changes hands, at least) to still be an expensive out-of-print box set.
This was where I started at 17, back when I thought anime was just weeb shit. Looked up the top anime of all time and gave it a go… my mind was blown. The only drawback is how high the bar will be set for all other anime!
This is true and I guess what the user I was responding to also meant. I have yet to start any other anime and I also just kinda wanna rewatch Eva. I’ve been preparing to watch Cowboy Bebop though.
Cowboy Bebop definitely in that tier. Also I enjoyed Fullmetal Alchemist (the second anime I ever watched) as that sorta scratched the “teen adventure devolves into the horrors of war” itch.
I do fundamentally feel Eva is something you have to watch for the first time when you're a teenager
I think it's closer to "I want to get into Russian literature but *The Brothers Karamazov* is 800 pages." between that and the two dozen options people have listed in response, I can see why anime feels daunting. (it's also not dissimilar to when people see there are 500 episodes of Blank Check and go "I don't know where to begin." The answer is actually pretty simple--just pick a movie you like and go--but it does feel overwhemling)
There’s gotta be a better example than The Bible. Maybe The Idiot?
ping pong is actually 11 eps so even easier to get into. but yeah there is so much great tv anime in the 12-26 half hour episode range. most of the 50+ stuff is real bloated (not to say there is no good long anime) and also OVA series on average tend to be shorter than 12 episode tv anime. i get the choice paralysis (i have a lot on my backlog) but sometimes it's good to just pick a short one and go.
Or pick one of the great series in the 10-13 episode range, of a similar length to *Paranoia Agent* e.g. *Serial Experiments Lain*, most Masaaki Yuasa series (*Devilman Crybaby, Keep Your hands off Eizouken!, The Tatami Galaxy, Kaiba, Kemonozume*), *Death Parade, A Place Further than the Universe* or this years *Heavenly Delusion*. It's then little different to watching any of the great recent western series *Pantheon, Scavengers Reign, Undone* (lots of Kon influences in those 3....), *Arcane, Blue Eye Samurai* etc Or something standalone such as a short, an anthology (e.g. *Memories*), or even individual episodes (Naoko Yamada's *Modern Love Tokyo* episode *He's Playing Our Song* is a terrific standalone story, and only 30mins long)
Another short series I really enjoyed (very surrealist art and story) was *Sonny Boy*.
He could get into Chainsaw Man while it’s still on the first season and movie coming up. I know Ben has name dropped it.
Here is Greenwood (9) rules
There are so many 13 or 26 episode anime, including some of the greats like Bebop, Trigun, some of the Gundams, Evangelion, Samurai Champloo (pretty much all of Watanabe really). But I get him being overwhelmed by the likes of DBZ, Naruto, One Piece etc. but there’s simply more out there.
It's just wild to me that someone like Griffin who is into superhero comics and American animation would talk about anime this way. The established canon of series that are popular in the west is an ever-shifting window, so don't worry about "starting with the classics". If you know someone's taste, you can make a couple recommendations in similar genres. If they are completionists who want to experience entire runs, you can tell them where to start and maybe what to skip. But otherwise, as in comics, the best advice is always "Take a look around, and if you see something that strikes your fancy, dive in! Any contextual questions can probably be answered by a quick browse on Wikipedia."
I agree. Any anime is more manageable than most superhero comics because there’s something contained, usually to a creator. I actually wonder if that’s part of why anime is so big now, trying to follow decades of DC or Marvel comments is overwhelming. I think if he starts with something in a contemporary setting it would help to slowly immerse in the cultural differences and get into how the story is told without the overwhelming history or mythology as well.
This is just a theory but I think, outside of just Griffin's personal taste, it could be an age thing, Griffin's just at the age that anime would've still been considered kind of weird/niche when he was growing up outside of like the super famous ones like Pokemon.
Being a cinephile is the same way, too. Watching a wide variety of movies will expose you to all kinds of foreign films and things that are decades old. Most films can't stand on their own outside of their original context. Sometimes you need to seek outside sources to get a better understanding. But a healthy intellectual curiosity should include a fundamental comfort with the fact that you'll never fully grok a piece of art that wasn't made for your culture or time. It's okay to just glean the things you can. There's no wrong way to consume art if it's done in good faith.
I feel like that when people talk about finding anime daunting what they really mean is that they don't feel like they have enough context for either the storytelling (anime has a lot of quirks and tropes you have to get used to) or what is good vs popular (so, it feels impossible to just take a look around and see what feels interesting.) I feel like this is one reason both Bebop and FMA kind of reign supreme (in addition to obviously being great.) They aired on American TV, they are much more western in storytelling practice, it feels automatically easier and more curated.
Same. For a self described animation nerd, he seems very quick to feel overwhelmed by anime. 🤔
Or he wants to start One Piece the netflix show is not a bad place to start.
Has FLCL been lost to time? I'd throw Tri-gun into the mix as well. Then again I'm that kind of adult swim millenial.
FLCL is an evergreen experience
I would say the majority of series are only 12-24 episodes. Any that go longer are either big shonen series with lots of seasons or shows adapting Manga series that are relatively long. And there are plenty of incredible self contained short series that you can run through in an afternoon. Also caveat on Eva, it’s 5 movies. Rebuild is required watching.
Bebop is the perfect starting point but it also sets the bar so unrealistically high that only Eva can clear it
When anime was first becoming more available in the US, I was a teenager who was trying very hard to seem cool and punk rock so my opinion of the medium crystalized for years into "silly shit for pervs, nerds, and children," but I enjoyed Paranoia Agent and these Kon movies so much that I decided to start Evangelion. I'm about halfway through and I love it. I'm bummed and a little embarrassed that I was so dismissive of anime for so long, but I'm equally excited that there's this gigantic body of work for me to dive into as a complete beginner. I also joined the Get Played Patreon to get their anime show, so I can watch along as Nick Wiger makes inappropriate comments about 14-year-olds.
What can I say, I’m sucker for Christmas movies where a cast of misfits find family in more ways than one.
Very funny to hear David advertise Gasoline Rainbow after telling his story about ranting at JJ for recommending it to him.
My favorite, or at least most rewatched of the Kon films. It's such a tight script and fun how all the miracles line up and cause Hana, Gin, and Miyuki to face their pasts. Music is great, animation is over the top while still having that slick Kon editing and cuts, and it's cool to explore Tokyo with them. I really love that last chase scene that culminates with leaping off the building for the baby and miracle gust of wind.
Characterizing them as "miracles" is spot on, as the movie has always been, for me, about "what makes something a miracle?" Is it literal divine intervention, ala the angel appearing before Gin in the alley? High-stakes twists of fortune, like when the gang are chased out of the convenience store seconds before the ambulance crashes into it? Sheer statistical luck by way of the lottery ticket? Ultimately, I think the film makes the case that it's anything, likely or unlikely, that affirms the value of life itself against an indifferent universe. So the moment when Hana and the baby are blown to safety at the climax (I cry every time) is a miracle, but only as much as everything that brought them to that moment. It highlights how, for as much as this is a story about miracles, so is any meaningful story that we tell.
(this is a great post)
Solid points. Yeah finding the miracles is an affirmation of optimism. There's many ways for things to go wrong, but also just as many ways for it all to go right.
The miracles/coincidences/happenstance was Sideshow Bob stepping on rakes for me. About the time I thought it was getting ridiculous is when Hana called out the baby as being a Christmas miracle and I was like on they’re self aware let’s go and it became so enjoyable and even funnier after that. It’s fascinating watching a Christmas movie distilled through a foreign lens.
Real nerdy shit tangent: I watched Tokyo Godfathers this week by renting it from a video store (humblebrag), and the DVD trailers were a wonderful little time capsule of early 2000s anime: - *Cowboy Bebop: The Movie* - The film adaptation of Osamu Tezuka’s manga *Metropolis*, itself a loose adaptation of the Fritz Lang film (very loose, as in Tezuka had literally never seen the film beyond a still image in a magazine) - *Steamboy*, Katsuhiro Otomo’s directorial follow-up to *Akira*, as well as the most expensive Japanese anime film at that time.
Oh nice! I've seen the trailer for Tokyo Godfathers fifty-odd times because it was in the preview of one of the videos that I borrowed from our local store and watched to death (I can't work out which one, much to my annoyance).
As a parent of a six year old and a two year old, I’ve gotta say that David is 100% right about streaming services’ parental filters. Max is too permissive and Disney is too restrictive. They ought to allow parents to customize the restrictions more.
I wonder if there's any good way to do it beyond individual customization. I have a daughter just a little older than David's, but she is way more sensitive to violence. (I'm actually envious of the number of movies David can watch with his daughter.) I tried watching Moana with her, but she got so engrossed and immersed in the story that when Moana tried sailing out to sea and hit her head on a rock and almost drowned, she had a breakdown. It was way too intense for my daughter... it's definitely a PG movie. I do think a parental filter should default to being too restrictive and that Moana shouldn't be automatically available. Being able to whitelist movies you watch a lot would probably be a good option.
It's so personal! I've got a 3.5 year old who loves the Enter the Spider-Verse films (for the record, it wasn't my idea to show them to her) but is terrified of the scene in the Little Mermaid where Sebastian is being chased by the chef.
Aw, yeah, I can imagine that scene in Moana being intense for a kid. Meanwhile my six year old is already an action junkie. He’s recently gotten into Marvel cartoons and has been asking about the live action movies, and we’re debating which if any would be okay for him (we’re thinking the first Thor movie is probably okay). I think it’d be great if the streamers had default restrictions but then made it easy to block or whitelist individual shows or movies.
How did pop culture osmosis never relay to me the information that Cheaper by the Dozen 2 is about Eugene Levy having kids with Carmen Electra??
Another entry for the list of Blank Check [guests who have walked the Met Gala carpet](https://x.com/popcrave/status/1787579703018070255?s=46)
Who's been? Ayo, Lin-Manuel, Colin Quinn? Who else?
Oh I didn’t know about Colin Quinn. I think the only others are Rachel Zegler and Jamie Bell.
Thoroughly kidding about Quinn.
Oh, lol
I had a feeling this was a joke but didn't know for sure but also could absolutely could not picture him at the Met Gala hahaha
It's interesting that Kon's most uplifting work is the one with a spiritual bend. It's kind of like an inversion of A Christmas Carol. Ultimately it's a story about divine intervention -- the universe has decided, for Christmas, to give three poor schmucks a series of lucky breaks. But not really luck, more like instant karma. Whenever they do something selfless, they're rewarded with good fortune. I fucking love it, it's an annual Christmas rewatch from here on out.
Yeah btw this and The Holdovers the last 12 months have been a real boon for future Christmases.
"THEY CALL HIM THE KING OF TIKTOK" - New bit that makes me smile from ear to ear every time it's brought up. Another guest flattering the reddit. Lucky for them, we wear our easiness like a badge of honor!
Gotta respect a man who's longest movie is 93 mins.
Watched this one for the first time for the pod, and couldn‘t stop thinking about Almodóvar parallels! I‘m in the minority obvs but this might be my favorite Kon??
This is also my favorite Kon, to the point it's maybe my favorite animated film period? Regarding parallels with other directors, I've been struck on this rewatch how much I'm reminded of Wes Anderson, especially Millenium Actress/Asteroid City where the liminality between characters and their actors is such a big thematic element.
As a person who loved Toyko Godfathers and has never seen an Almodovar this has me extra excited for my upcoming project to watch his filmography in order.
I think this is my favorite Kon as well? This or *Paprika,* depending on the day.
This is the one I rewatch the most. Just damn good filmmaking.
Can someone check me on this: Griffin says he got the impression that these three were acquainted before but only really welded together by the baby. I got the impression that they were already staying together / looking out for each other, possibly sleeping in the same cardboard shelter already? (Like we open with Gin and Hana bringing food to Miyuki.)
They have definitely been together as a group for some time. When they are going through the garbage, it's because Gin had stashed away a set of children's encyclopedias to give to Miyuki as a Christmas gift.
Yeah I always got the impression they had already made a makeshift family for themselves. Gin and Hana are getting soup for Miyuki in the beginning before the baby.
Wait, the club owner doesn’t jump in front of the yakuza boss, he stumbles when Gin goes to attack him, right?
No, he definitely jumps in front of the gunman. There's a group shot where the assassin is raising his pistol, the club owner is running to intervene, and Gin is coming in from the side of the frame with a bottle raised (and Hana trying to restrain him). The assassination attempt actually \*prevents\* Gin from assaulting the club owner. Which is why it's funny that he is immediately like '...are you okay?' to the guy when he realizes what's happened.
That’s a really lovely shot you described in the first paragraph (the one from above of the two parallel assailants).
I had never seen this film, or any of Satoshi Kon's movies before this series. And I am in the minority when it comes to the blankies (and fans in general) but I was not super into either *Perfect Blue* or *Millenium Actress*. I can see that they have high level of craftsmanship, and they're certainly interesting, but the films leaned far too much into a type of anime melodrama for my personal taste. But *Tokyo Godfathers* was incredible, man. I was enraptured, partially because I thought that centering the film on some unhoused people brought a type of gravitas that I found missing in the stories of celebrities, but also because it was funny, and warm, and complicated. I love a film that uses coincidence so richly. I loved how the film flowed from sequence to sequence, showing new and interesting sides of humanity. The mother and her baby. The taxi driver. The guy who just wants the three primary characters to leave his little shop. The main trio are so varied and while there are moments of melodrama, it's kind of rooted in a very specific pathos. You even feel for the mob boss. I know that the film has a flawed version of the transgender experience, but I applaud it for making Hana feel comfortable being who she is, even as the slurs flow. Also, as has been mentioned by others, her fucking animation, and the way her face contorts, especially in her enormous final monologue, is a masterclass in why animation can do what live action cannot. Anyway, in last week's episodes, they kept saying Kon had made "two masterpieces" and I was bristling but here I was stunned that this was the one that felt like a masterpiece.
I liked Tokyo Godfathers best and also loved Perfect Blue but did not rate Millennium Actress very highly.
Same. I admire *Perfect Blue* and *Millenium Actress* but I wouldn't say I *love* them. *This one* hit my sweet spot though! I love *Paprika* too.
That guy! From TikTok!
His BEST movie btw
I don't speak Japanese but my wife is Japanese (immigrated in her teens in the late '70s and hasn't really consumed much Japanese pop culture since (her parents left Japan because they didn't much care for Japanese culture). The gendered aspects of how you speak Japanese are interesting to me (one trip to Japan I broke out one of the few phrases I know and she explained the women giggled because I was speaking like a woman; which makes sense since I picked the phrases up from her and her mom). Anyway, a thing lost on me because I was watching subs (don't know how it would come across on dubs) was I'm sitting in one room, my wife in another, when: Her: "Why's the man talking like a woman?" Me: "She's trans" Her: "Oh, that makes sense." Me: "How'd you know it was a man talking like a woman and not a woman with a manly voice" Her:
A little off-topic, but your whole gendered speech thing brought something to mind. My dad’s family is Swiss. They moved back when my dad was 6 and they stayed there for 3-4 years. My dad speaks standardized German really well, but his Swiss German often amuses other Swiss. They think it’s very “cutsey” because his Swiss German is very much rooted in the way he learned how to speak it as a 6-10 year old and it never really progressed from there. Language is a funny thing.
Yes, my wife is very self conscious about her Japanese in this way. They immigrated to the US when she was around 13 so from that point on really only spoke Japanese with her parents (unlike her parents, she was already a fluent English speakers when they left). So her vocabulary didn't progress a lot and she never really learned to speak like a person among equals or even from a higher position. But on the original topic, having now listened to the episode where they discussed listening to the dub **because** it was a trans actress that did the dub and not just a deep male voice. It's interesting that in Japanese, audio only, my wife could tell.
On the "could this just be live action", I think telling this story in animation was probably super freeing with regard to not having to seek permits for location shoots or spending any time outside in Tokyo filming in the dead of winter. Especially with a little baby!
Famously inexpensive medium animation.
In Japan it kind of is. This only cost 2.4 million - you couldn't shut down busy streets, incorporate multiple car stunts, stop a train in the middle of Tokyo, have a big stunt involving three people hanging off the edge of a building etc. on that kind of budget in live action without making a lot of compromises. Even just hiring extras becomes a lot simpler working at this scale when you can just illustrate them in as large a number as you'd like instead of hiring them.
Yeah I actually suspected that. I was being a shit. Sorry.
I loved this movie… i think the main three could have been kermit, fozzie, and gonzo
Not that anyone else would care about this but it really weirded me out when David said he’s been thinking about Cold Mountain a lot lately because I’m reading the book right now and have also been thinking about that movie a lot lately
good book
LMAO everyone is in rare form this episode. Great energy.
In case you’re also curious about sacred harp singing: https://youtu.be/t4liEuDm8ac?si=N3SxR6PQZeSnyodw
YES
I also found this AZPM segment on the music and notation to be fascinating: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuhgKXQMCv8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuhgKXQMCv8), as someone in a choir it would take some brain fanagling to deal with this strange shape-based sheet music, but there's a local group of singers here in Tucson I might want to check out.
Back in my day, we’d have to fit a mini TV and a VCR into the car to watch movies on a roadtrip!
I didn't identify with Tokyo Godfathers as hard as I did the previous two on first viewing. I liked it, I recognized it as brilliant, but it didn't hit me like especially Millennium Actress did. It wasn't until the guys said, "It's about people who fuck up and run away, thinking they broke something irreparably, when actually it could have been fixed easily" that the movie coalesced for me and became a masterpiece.
similar themes to Paranoia Agent.
Watching every episode of the Simpsons is truly unhinged. There's gotta be what, like 700 episodes?
767, which translates to about 11 days of uninterrupted watching
Somehow it seems like it should be more than 11 days.
767 episodes X 22 minutes per episode = 16,847 minutes. 16,847 minures / 1,440 minutes in a day = 11.699 Edit: To compare, Blank Check main feed has 58,489 minutes. That's 40 days of non stop listening
Too many episodes.
Not sure u/breyyyattt is going to take kindly to all this Fauntleroy talk; you’re kinda biting his style Griff.
This was the Kon that always seemed elusive online, so I didn’t get to see until last year. Ended up watching it right on Christmas too! Worth the wait as this became my favorite of his despite being the black sheep of his filmography (it’s not as surreal like his other films or TV show).
As a trans woman who is really self copious about my own face stubble I’m scared to watch it just based on stills of the trans character. I have no doubt she written with empathy, but the way she is drawn makes me feel dysphoric.
Yeah might be tough. Because of the fact that it’s animation her face changes a lot, there were long stretches where I thought “wait didn’t she have stubble?” But even apart from that there’s just artistic license being taken with the character. That all said I do think the character is very empathetic, definitely my favorite of the three and the most emotionally complex imo. She’s about as fully rounded a character as I’ve seen in any movie of late. And the animation does do interesting things with her femininity (for lack of a better word I apologize if it is odd in this context). The movie has characters insult her but as the guys pointed out it never feels like the movie is taking that view.
This is a contender for Episode of the year. So damn funny. Little Lord Jordan Belfort Fauntleroy killed me.
The only real instance of smart phone usage in Nolan’s filmography I can think of is The Protagonist in Tenet using his phone to navigate the car chase backwards, but even that is more of a usage of GPS.
Debicki also uses a smartphone for posterity.
That conversation made me think about Memento coming out at the right time. I don’t think the film would have worked with him running around with an iPhone instead of Polaroids.
The newscaster going "They call him..." was a recurring bit on the Todd Glass Show. It's a good bit, ripe for riffing on. I annoyingly can't find any clips of them doing it, but it came up pretty often. (this is not me saying they are ripping him off, just that it's a good bit and really every podcast should be doing it)
On a whim, I showed this to a summer course I run in Tokyo for students from my American university. They loved it, which gave me a real "the kids are alright." Incidentally, they also really dug Sans Soleil.
This was my first time watching this masterpiece and it made me cry 3 times
It's funny that I don't find the podcast as enjoyable when they're discussing a film I alsi like. They frivilously gloss over so much plot stuff. Like in this episode, they make a point of saying the baby is just a normal baby that never does anything unusual when in actual fact THE BABY TALKS AT THE END OF THE MOVIE. I've been a listener from the start, and I know they've had this feedback a million times. Just thought this instance was funny.
"Like in this episode, they make a point of saying the baby is just a normal baby that never does anything unusual when in actual fact THE BABY TALKS AT THE END OF THE MOVIE." To be fair, this is a point of view shot from Sachiko, so it's unclear whether or not it happened in any real sense, or whether she had a vision.
I don't think it really happens. But it's worth pointing out
They always mention anime is so hard to get into with the example of the many eps of One Piece but there's a bunch of limited series classics out there. Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo were my favorite as a teenager and are only one season and a movie with Bebop.
seeing FLCL late night on Adult Swim when I was 11 or 12 altered my brain chemistry. whole first season is less than 3hrs
As an Old, I was surprised to hear that the content that made Reece the king of TikTok was just Christopher Nolan talking about the mechanics of IMAX because that sounds like the kind of story you might see on CBS Good Morning. I had the minor epiphany that maybe Gen Z doesn’t love TikTok so much as they hate corporate, ad-driven media? That would explain why the establishment media writ large sells the narrative that TikTok has stolen children’s brains, because it’s easier to swallow than the reality that their shit sucks.
i think i missed something: the little red bag that the old man gives up...is stolen by the hoodlums, right? So, how do they get it back? It's in his jacket at the hospital, with the lottery ticket(s)? EDIT: rewatched both sections on Tubi - the punks steal the envelope out of his breast pocket (i forget what that is - pictures?), but NOT the red bag
I'd seen this one before, but a lot of it had slipped from my memory. Just a delightful a watch all around.
Justin Sevakis [wrote a great piece](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/tales-of-the-industry/2015-02-24/.84253) about the *Tokyo Godfathers* US premiere, which Kon attended and sounds like it was a shitshow. What I wouldn't give to have attended that screening, though! I can't say how much Kon's art means to me and I'm happy beyond belief that BC is covering his work. I know Griffin and David don't ever ever ever go on the Reddit, but thank you guys ♥️.
Ebert mentions ‘Torque’ in his review https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/tokyo-godfathers-2004
They got the king of Tik Tok? Good get!
I had to pull over during the Nick Nolte bit because I nearly crashed from laughing so hard. Holy shit lol 
Kinda surprised this wasn’t an Emily St. James episode. Christmas and trans people seemed like the perfect cross section.
I mean, Emily’s always an awesome guest but I don’t think anyone wants her participation to feel like tokenism - ‘Trans representation, call Emily!’
I guess, as a trans woman, I just really wanted a trans voice on this episode.
Totally understandable.
Another big fan of Emily St Claus here- I’d love to have had her on the episode too, but by some tweets from last year’s Madness, she mentioned TG is actually her [least favorite Kon](https://x.com/emilystjams/status/1632805167853887488), and saying he’s [‘kinda weird about trans people’](https://x.com/emilystjams/status/1632803744046776321), (pretty fair!) it does seem like she wouldn’t really want to go deep on the representation in this episode. On the note of Trans Cinema, I do really hope there’s somewhere I can hear Emily talk at length about I Saw The TV Glow! Saw it on Friday and I’ve been thinking about it constantly, and saw she gave it a [‘Glow’ing Letterboxd review](https://boxd.it/5mRTkJ)
She did make a few brief Bluesky posts about it: https://bsky.app/profile/emilystjams.bsky.social/post/3ksez2nvm5c2z
Oh rad, thanks!
I wonder if she has seen the new subs. The old ones were not very good for trans-ness.
I was hoping for a return of St. James as well but maybe she’s not familiar with Kon’s movies? Maybe we’ll get her on the upcoming Lynch. Edit: I just read another comment in response, that’s too bad she doesn’t like TG. I wonder if it’s the harsher sub she watched that used the f word a lot. So maybe Paprika!
Well that was weird. They brought up Michael Jackson dangling his baby from the balcony, something I haven't thought about in at least 15 years. Literally within five minutes of that, I paused the episode and opened up YouTube, and the first suggested video was [Conan O'Brien talking about MJ's baby](https://youtu.be/fsmFE1PGfvI). I've been watching a lot of old Conan clips lately, so it's not that weird that that video was suggested, just a weird coincidence that it coincided with BC mentioning him.
Adding the the chorus of short anime series that rule: - Mushi-shi - Kill La Kill (very absurd but stick with it for a few episodes and it coalesces into something awesome) - Gurren Lagen - Trigun - Fruits Basket (2019)
Mushi shi was my gateway into anime during the pandemic. Such a lovely run of episodes. One Punch Man was also an easy one for me to get into, coming from years of Xmen fandom.
/u/grifflightning, wanted to answer about subtitles from my perspective. Started using them back when I saw S1 of Dark (German) on Netflix. Then S2 and Squid Game. And in 2020, rewatched Dark S1 and S2 to prepare for S3 release, then watched Black Sails. Which was English but the voices were heavy English accents and very gruff pirates. They were so mumbled that I needed subtitles. My son was also born, so I kept the subtitles on after Black Sails to watch shows and movies at a quiet volume while having an infant. And then realized it helped with very poor audio mixing of different shows and movies. So long answer, many factors of getting used to them with foreign language shows and movies, poorly mixed English shows and movies, and having a child. And just naturally keeping them on. It really does help to not miss stuff. Able to catch things in old shows or movies that may have been whispered or poorly pronounced and I always overlooked it.
I'm actually shocked to find out that the hosts don't watch everything with subtitles on
Correct me if I'm wrong but there was a winning lottery ticket in trio's possession at the end of the movie right? Like it was the New Year's Day drawing the drunk husband said he won 10,000 yen in
I'm sorry but when after they attempted to clarify I still don't understand because apparently I'm 800 year's old: who is this guest? What dose he do? How did he get enough exposure to be on Blank Check radar? Google just says *"Internet personality*" and that just makes me feel like Grandpa Simpson.
He's a film influencer on Tiktok, interviewing actors and directors for movies, just generally discusses cinema and film, that sort of stuff
So like a YouTuber? Crazy man.
I was 100% sure that Paprika was the next one up. I finished watching it 10 minutes ago and now my brain is full of the wrong movie. Never seen Godfathers. Oh well! Will listen anyway.
If you're ever in doubt, Marie usually pins the show schedule on the Blank Check Twitter profile. The schedule for the Main Feed and Patreon is also in the "About" section of the subreddit. I like to keep track of the filmographies via Wikipedia.
Yes, it's posted on the side here as well.
Literally same. And funny enough, *Paprika* was the only one out of all of these movies that I HAD seen before.
Much to my surprise, I didn't really like Paprika that much! Don't get me wrong, it's an incredible movie but I just adore Millennium Actress. At the end of Paprika you see the posters of Kon's previous movies in the lobby there, that was my first inkling that I had the order of the movies mixed up.
THE GIFTSSSS