#124.5 Is this mascot manga absolute pandemonium? Pandamic first impressions

[00:00:00] Welcome to Shonen Flop Chibi, first impressions mini episode where we talk the first chapter of the series we'll be covering in depth next week with our guest Bob Vids. I'm Jordan and with me today as usual is my lovely co-host David. Say hi, David. Hi, David. It's just Bob Vids. I just mean Bob the Vilder, which isn't a word, but it could be. Bob the Vilder. Yeah, can we do it? Yes, we can. Bob can do anything. Yeah. Bob's vidgers. Whatever. Say hi, David. Hey, oh, I forgot to say hi, David. Hi, David. Yeah. Hi. What series are we covering this week, David? We were talking about Pandemic.

[00:00:30] David, like, uh, this is an interesting, uh, series I think, yeah. Oh my God, wait, what? I'm looking at the time and it looks like it's the Chainsaw Minute. What the fuck? What? What? Yeah, so we, uh, we recorded the final Chainsaw Minute a week before a lot of shit went down. Yeah, what a chapter. In Chainsaw Minute. Yeah, this is actually gonna be out in two weeks after that chapter. Oh, Jesus. Okay, so this is... Wow. We all got bamboozled. Yeah.

[00:00:59] Holy shit, dude. Just dude. Dude! Dude! Dude! Holy shit. All right, David, I'm looking at the clock and the Chainsaw Minute has passed. Okay. It was like literally a minute this time. Fucking hell. Oh my God. But yeah, can you tell us about this series? All right, so this is Pandemic or Pandomic or it's, it's Pandemic, but it's like a panda. Yeah. And this was written by Temote Nozomi and it ran from January 19th, 2015 to November 11th,

[00:01:29] 2015, 10 chapters and one volume. Yeah. So it's a short one. I love it when that happens sometimes. Yeah, it's, uh, it's pretty easy this way, you know. Jordan's plot summary is 10% of the series. Yes. Uh, well, why don't, why don't we get into that plot summary, you know? Sure. Minata is a kid who was bullied all his life for his name, which, uh, you know, I'm assuming that it makes sense why that happens in Japanese. Cause I, you know, it's like two Americans who don't speak Japanese. It's just like, okay, his name is Minata. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever.

[00:01:58] He also has no presence and doesn't really stand out at all. So he like bumps into a girl who doesn't notice him. Minata is on his way to his job at a sushi restaurant at the Koruakendome, which fun fact, David is where Baki takes place. Does it? It's all in the same universe. Yeah. What if Baki just shows up? That's how they win at the end. He saves the human race. Um, anyway, when, uh, Minata walks in, his boss has him train a new employee named Ishibashi.

[00:02:27] There is actually an event going on today featuring a mascot tournament being led by an idol named Nanaka Ushiyumi and their job is to cater it. While working the floor, Minata bumps into Nanaka, who turns out to be the girl from earlier. They have like a pleasant interaction. You know, she leaves. Popcorn David. When she walks away, don't you hear me say, Ishibishi- Oh God. Please! Oh baby! Don't go- anyway. Ishibashi reveals that he has a camera attached to his foot with his goal,

[00:02:55] taking secret pictures of Nanaka's panties and selling them on the internet. He thinks that Minata will be on his side, but it actually creeps him the fuck out, which is very good to see. Yeah, it's good to see that it's Minata and not Mineta, you know? Yeah. Soon the sponsor of the mascot tournament comes out to say some bullshit about working hard and grinding for money when a panda mascot comes out to give him a hug. He proceeds to hug him so hard his skeleton bursts out of the body and that's how I know Jordan would love this series. Thank God.

[00:03:21] Then a star-shaped mascot uses a sweeping laser beam to cut out a bunch of people in half, thankfully including Ishibashi. Everyone starts running away and Minata's boss tells him he should probably look for a new job as various giant screens across Japan show the heads. Of mascots announcing the human race is over, but Shonen Flop will continue. Yes, we are eternal. This show will never end. As long as there is a manga out there that is canceled. As long as there are still creeps in Shonen Jump, we will be there. We will be there, David.

[00:03:49] As always, we along with our sister series anime out of context pride ourselves of being the least perverted anime slash manga podcast out there, with our pride and joy being that we have no pornography channel in our discord, which apparently is a big deal. Yeah, you see, that's the thing. We didn't say that we're not perverted at all. It's just by comparison. Like, like that is the bar. It is not a particularly like high bar to clear. Yeah. Like Jesus. So Jordan, what were your first impressions? And, uh, yeah.

[00:04:19] So this art's interesting. I feel like people have like differing views on it. When I was Googling around, I found people who were like, how am I supposed to care about the characters when they're this ugly? And I'm like, I don't think that's fair. I think the art's actually pretty cool. I think it's interesting. Yeah. I was reading this. I was like, I bet Jordan's really gonna like this art style. I can see it's an acquired taste. It kind of reminds me of I am a hero. I don't know that. I think you would like that series. It's like a weird zombie. I kind of bounce off it, but it's kind of got a lot of vibe to this. Listeners can respond if they agree with me or if I'm crazy.

[00:04:48] Here's the thing. This is not traditional manga art. Yeah. You know, I'm looking at this more as a comic than a manga. I think it's cool. Like, um, you know, the main character has big weird lips and there are aspects of the art that make me feel like it's like what if Fujimoto could draw shoes? Yeah. This is a manga you cannot make like a well, I guess Fujimoto proved it wrong, but most of the time you can't make a Shonen manga with this art style. Yeah. I mean, I feel like this is not really I don't know.

[00:05:17] It's definitely not like a traditional Shonen Jump manga the way that this is set up. This is like a horror manga. I'm getting. Oh, it's it's literally a horror manga. Yeah. Along with that. This also I don't know why this makes me think of good night pun pun. I don't know. Or DDD girls demon destroy whatever that is where they're both by the same offer. It's just got like this weird melancholy writing style where just everything just feels weird and every character feels kind of off and then there's weird sexual elements to it. Like I will get into the guesses, but I feel something about the energy of this series just makes you think there's gonna be weird sex shit in it.

[00:05:47] Because it reminds you of Fujimoto. No, maybe. Hmm. He did have the first lesbian orgy in Shonen Jump. I hope that when people ask Fujimoto what he's most proud of. I hope that that's like his answer. It's a lesbian orgy. Because he should be proud of that. He should be. No, it's probably that Domino's deal he found. Still the greatest thing ever. I feel like we've mentioned it way too many times on the show. Fucking love. I should just have that printed out and framed in my house. You should. It's amazing. Yeah.

[00:06:14] I do think though this needed another 20 pages. This feels like I could see a lot of people not really being drawn by this first chapter because it's very slow at the start. Ramps everything up, but then you don't really get anything that makes you say like it just doesn't give you quite enough, you know? I think the issue is it doesn't feel like a pilot. Yeah, this is only 30 pages, which is very short for a pilot. Are we sure this isn't a mini series?

[00:06:36] Because this feels like the kind of chapter you would make when you are 100% sure you're going to get as many chapters as you need, you know, like because it's not really like almost meant to draw you in. It's just like, no, this is chapter one. I don't know for sure. Maxi B, I guess can give us more information and we can talk to them about it. Yeah. When was the last time we've covered like a legit horror manga? There was ghost stories. I guess that was a horror manga. We did cut touch Junji Ito's work. We covered Gyo. In Patreon.

[00:07:05] Yeah, fuck. Ghost detective of not really horror. Not really. I guess actually fabricate 100. I guess. Let me look at the schedule and see. I guess horror manga doesn't really get into Shonen Jump as much. It's just hard to do horror, right? At least in Shonen Jump. Yeah. Jangshi X had some horror elements to it. I mean, it had like zombies, but I don't think that was necessarily horror. Yeah. You know, like, I don't know. There was nano hazard. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right.

[00:07:35] I'll give you that. The fabric 100 was after nano hazard. I will tell you this series did give me like nano hazard vibes. Yeah. Everyone's probably going to die at the end of the series. That'll be one of my guesses. That is basically one of my guess. Yeah, there you go. But yeah, it's just opening half of the last five pages. Like, yo, what the fuck? And I was like, yeah, where's the rest of it? I hope so. And I, Jordan, would you keep reading? Yes. Me too. I'm kind of interested. This is off the beaten path. This is not what we usually read.

[00:08:02] This went pretty quickly, you know, like, yeah, the pacing was like solid. It kept me engaged the whole way. I'm interested, you know? Yeah. I was just like, should I just finish this? But I was like, ah, alas. Yeah. I'm not allowed to until we were finished recording this episode. It's illegal. It's against the law. And then Jordan, what do you think will happen next as you already alluded to? So first, I think that the mascots are aliens. Yeah. I think that the main character has to team up with the idol girl in order to fight them.

[00:08:29] And my last guess is, as I alluded to, I think that humanity is defeated. Those are all very good guesses. Yes. How about you? I think the main character will harness how forgettable he is to fight the mascots because they just seemingly ignore him much like that guy from I Shall 21. I think I've talked about it before. The best character in I Shall 21. As I talked about before, there's going to be some sort of really weird sex scene that happens. My thought is an awkward hand job feels like kind of the vibe for this, right? The sex scene or sexual sexual scene. Yeah.

[00:08:57] There will be something like some sort of very sexual. Like I can imagine the idol just jerking him off really awkwardly like that kind of shit, right? Like it's not fan service. It's just like a weird sex scene. Man, this does have Fujimoto energy if that happens. That's true. And the main character is obsessed with saving the idol girl and she doesn't really care about him, which I know is in contrast by me saying she'll give him a hand job. Well, I mean, you know, that doesn't necessarily mean that she cares about him. That's true. I remember one of my favorite posts in r slash roast me was someone said if unenthusiastic hand job had a face.

[00:09:28] It's like, fuck, that's really good. So it reminds me of the death grip song. Have a sad cum. Talk about death grip. Hey, have a sad cum, baby. All right. And Jordan, what's your power? Because you took mine. Pandemonium. Goddamn. Yeah. Steph actually said that she would get really upset with me if I didn't say the word pandemonium at some point in this episode. So there you go. Thanks, Steph. Yeah. Thank you, Steph. How about yours? All right. And then my power was star. Because that was the other one.

[00:09:56] Because star kills everyone else. Yeah. All right. But speaking of stars, though, Jordan, let's get into Q&A. I want to give a big shout out to everyone who writes their question on the show and flop discord. And just a note, you get priority to those who haven't asked a question before, had a question answered and haven't had a question answered in a long time or are patrons starting with did you see the evil sleepy A.I. I still from that picture on reading all those years ago. You can expand your vision in one direction. Do you choose infrared or ultraviolet? So here's the thing. Infrared would absolutely, in my mind, be more useful because the thing about ultraviolet

[00:10:26] light is like it would kind of alter everything like because the sun gives out UV rays and stuff. I feel like most of the things that give off ultraviolet light also give off normal light. Yeah. Whereas infrared, you could do like cool Mission Impossible stuff with like, you know, like the laser alarm systems and shit. Sure. Sounds good to me. How about you? I would have to agree. I don't really know what the impact is. And I just realized both of those sound like Pokemon versions. Are you going to get infrared or ultraviolet?

[00:10:56] That actually really sounds like unironically sounds like Pokemon games. Yeah, it does. Which of those two would you pick then if they were Pokemon games? Oh, if they were Pokemon games, I'd probably get ultraviolet. Yeah, I would still get infrared. That's all right. Next up. I just realized EC Digital has two questions because they changed their names and I forgot to update it. If you two didn't anime abridged series, what anime would you abridged? I feel like we do Chainsaw Man the abridged series, but I don't know really how you can make fun of Chainsaw Man. No, no, no, David. Bucky? No. What is it? G Gundam. Fuck. I don't know what there is to do with that. G Gundam.

[00:11:25] The thing is, cause I was thinking Jojo, you can't make fun of Jojo. It's impossible. It's impossible. It just is. G Gundam takes itself so fucking seriously though. It does. Or G Gundam or maybe Code Geass. I mean, there's already a really famous one. Yeah. That's the soup store one. The soup store one, which is a masterpiece. Hmm. Maybe. I feel like Apothecary Diaries, the abridged series could be fun. Free Ren. What about Free Ren? It's just, I bet there's already a ton of free-run in the abridged series, but it's

[00:11:55] not like Apothecary Diaries is subtle. So I guess. I mean, I feel like there's a lot of stuff in free-run that you can do. I'll do Manga Dai of the abridged series. Oh God. Yeah. We'll make a parody of a comedy, you know? God. I fucking, I can't believe that crossover. What? I love that meme where someone said, the silliest goose of today versus the silliest goose in history. Wait, wait. What crossover? Osaka showed up in Yotsuba. Oh. She was a school teacher. They just have a- Yotsuba just has a stare down at her. Or she's like, is she a friend or a foe?

[00:12:22] And someone changed the text panels to say, the silliest goose in history versus the silliest goose of today. Which one came first? I don't know. Well, seeing as how Osaka is now a school teacher and Yotsuba is four years old. Okay. I was just thinking the ages of the manga, which I don't know. Yotsuba is still running. Oh, I didn't know that. All right. There you go. Yeah. That's why they just had a crossover. Oh, I didn't realize it just happened. It happened like a month ago. It was really exciting to see. I had explained to Rachel why that was a big deal. And she was like, okay. Okay. That's kind of my response too. Okay. From Maxi B.

[00:12:51] Do you find crying cathartic or distressing? Cathartic. You know? I find it distressing. I'm not one to cry. I do remember I have a friend of mine where one of the first things I ever heard him say was he was on the phone and said, why are you crying? And that was just a fun core memory of Austin. And here's the thing. It's like, it is kind of both. I mean, cause I was thinking of myself crying. Oh, someone else crying is definitely distressing. Yes. Somebody else crying is absolutely distressing. But like with me, it's like when I do cry, I usually feel better, you know?

[00:13:21] Yeah, that's fair. All right. Next up from Spubby asking for anime adaptions. And so last year, what manga would you like to see a Broadway interpretation of? You go first. Well, of course, Candy Flurry. We never talked about an adapted Candy Flurry. Jesus fucking Christ. I guess the question is, what would you adapt as a musical and what would you adapt as a non-musical? I feel like JoJo part one specifically would be a really good musical. I think that would be really good.

[00:13:47] I feel, I feel like that series would work better as a musical than as a manga. Like that part, you know? Yeah. You got Dio and vampires and fucking Victorian England, you know? Yeah. Boy, Super Smartphone the musical. I feel a really fun musical could be made out of Spy Family. Yeah, that's fair. You know, that would be like a fun like kids musical. In terms of like, if we wanted to do a play, hmm. Look Back would be devastating. Actually, that would be great. That's a great call out. Or Goodbye, Eerie.

[00:14:17] Let's see. I'm trying to think what would make for like a play that wouldn't be a musical. I feel Yuu Hakka show I feel could make an interesting play. Or Hunter Hunter. I guess the thing is, it's like... It could be like a stunt show. Okay. I mean, I could see that being fun. Like if you, if you got, if you did like a Spider-Man turn off the dark type thing where everybody died. Yeah, actually, you know, Full Bell Alchemist I feel could make an interesting play. Okay. I don't know. I don't know. Listeners, you write what you think. Dave is not a play guy. No, I'm not. And next up from Blue Sky Manager, what's your favorite episode of Anime Out of Context?

[00:14:47] Uh, definitely the most recent one that we were on. That's right. The episode where we covered 100 girlfriends that really, really, really, really love you. Yeah, I'm more of a fan of the 100 girlfriends that just kind of like you. Yeah. I also remember liking the episode about Shield Hero. Yeah. I also always love, I love their King of the Hill episode. I forgot they did that. Yeah. But our episode, so shout out to Anime Out of Context where you can listen to us talk about 100 girlfriends. Yo! Yeah. And not done to done like everyone thought we were gonna.

[00:15:17] And then finally, actually though, because we had two questions from ZZ Digital. I mean, I've tossed one in Jordan and say, when you were flying, do you prefer window, middle, or aisle? I mean, it's window. Window, really? I mean, I guess aisle, you can get up and go to the bathroom more, but like, I like, I like the window. I prefer aisle. Uh, for that reason, I do go to the bathroom quite a lot to the degree that Rachel's very worried about me. Nobody likes the middle. No, nobody likes to be in the middle, unless you're Polly and then you get to hold both their hands. So. That's very true.

[00:15:44] Shout out to the Polly guy in Undead Unlocked, where I did not think I would see a polygamy in a Shonen Jump manga, but it happened. Uh, David, you ever hear of Quan Chi? Yeah, I have. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Anyway, that's all the time we have for questions today. Thank you everyone who submitted. Let's get into shout outs where support the show and get the best price of manga at mangamart.com slash shown and flop. Mangamart's a family owned store offering 20% off manga with free shipping over $100. Jordan, thank you so much for all your hard work on the show. Thank you, David, for all the work that you do on the show.

[00:16:14] Also, David, unless they're married, it is polyamory. Polygamy is only when it is one husband and many wives. Yes, that did happen in Undead Unlocked. Oh, okay. Never mind. Yes. Yes, apparently polygamy is legal in that universe. I did not get to that part of Undead Unlocked. Yeah. Uh, good manga. And so anything else you want to say, Jordan? Um, check out Mission Ignition. No, not that. If you wanted to thank me. Oh, I already said thank you. Oh, I missed it then. Oh, I'm out of it, Jordan. I've been. It's okay.

[00:16:44] I just came back from Vegas and boy, my arm's tired. It's okay. Thank you to Dylan for assistance with editing. You can find his podcast, Anime Out of Context at animeoutofcontext.com. Thanks to Tucker and Max and B for assistance with pronunciation, translation, and other miscellaneous research. Thank you for Kalal for being our social media manager one last time. Find us on bluesky slash x at ShonenFlop, Tumblr Shonen-Flop, and our website ShonenFlop.com. We're also on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, wherever else you find our podcast. Join the ShonenFlop Discord. It's open to everyone, patron or not. Come hang out with us and talk about anime games, whatever else is on your mind. We even have a manga book club and movie nights.

[00:17:13] Find a link to it in our show notes or on our site, ShonenFlop.com. If you've been joining the podcast and want to help us keep going, subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com slash ShonenFlop. Along with that warm and fuzzy feeling of helping us out, you will also get access to monthly bonus episodes, including the Shonen Drop, where Jordan and I look back at the previous month's episodes and open the mystery box. Jordan, what was our bonus content and what was in the mystery box for the month of April? Well, David, the month of April, we covered Gun Dragon Sigma with the legend himself. Fucking Casey. Hell yeah. Goddamn motherfucking green. This is fine.

[00:17:43] This is fine and dick butt. Anime club. In anime club. Anime club. Horribleville. Gun show. The legend. And we also in the mystery box covered the 10 Shonen Flop commandments. We'll see if any of them overlap between us. And if that's not enough, other perks include picking a manga for us to cover on a main episode. Episodes up to a week in advance and behind the scenes content like warmup audio or recording notes. I also want to read out some of our wonderful patrons. Starting with the Dolphin Dad, we have Rachel, my wonderful wife, even if she applied my toothpaste as sunscreen accidentally. Wow.

[00:18:13] Moving on down to the ravioli tier where she is just a small baked potato and she was so excited to see me. She had the best day ever. She we came home from a trip and she got a professional dog walk because the dog walker was late. So they showed up after we had already arrived from the airport. So that was great. We have Chris, Eva, Jeanette Davis, Justin, Matt, Scarlett, T, Tiffany and Trevor. Moving on down to the king of the forest. We have 090Z, Bandit Stoof, my girlfriend, Brad, follow AOC and Blue Sky, Ivan, Kirby Munn, Marty, Riley and Sarah Hydra. Moving on down to the Galactic Ball Federation officers.

[00:18:40] We have a deep sexy, a deep sexy voice as Relax, Midsize to Dan, Ages, Andrew, Andy, Angel, Aurora, Biza, Blah, Moo, Moo, Brandon, M, Cole, David, David, Dennis, Dingo, Don't Dox Me, Drago, Drew, Nigel, Fax, Flashcarbon, Funky Green, Ian, Jacob, Jason, Keanu, King Salamander, Keno, Leigh, Liam, Maddie, Manly P. Hall, my dad, Matt, Maxie, Mecca Scott, Mike, obscure reference, anything for you, Jordan? Man, you know, I got this Squire Strat, but like, you know, the, you know, the, the pickups, like the, the bridge pickup on the Squire Strat is like way too shrill.

[00:19:09] I'm thinking about putting in like some kind of like, I don't know, Seymour Duncan hot rails, maybe like a DiMarzio super distortion, you know, some kind of like humbucker. It's, it's crazy. You plug it in and it's just like this hum is nuts. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? Right, David? I've played Guitar Hero. Exactly. I was actually listening to the Guitar Hero 2 soundtrack today at the gym. Oh, do you know about the Metallica thing with the guitar here or with Rock Band? Which one? The Rock Band version of Metallica's Death Magnetic is mixed better. Oh, I did hear about this. Than the official album. Yeah, it is. It's the best way to listen to Death Magnetic.

[00:19:39] I did hear about that. Yeah. And then we have Resident Warhammer Nerd, Savia, Sean, I need you to floss my, okay, nope. Sybil, Silly Rookie, Simping for Senpai Ash, Sleepy, Staghorn, Taper Clip, Tucker, Vera T, Wright, Anzis, The Digital, and A Pig Finky to our Beast Children as well. Thank you. I love you all very much. All right, and Jordan, anything you want to toss in? Check out Mission Ignition, which is a podcast. Yes, it's a podcast online. Thank you so much for listening to you next Monday for our full thoughts on pandemic with Bob Vids. Yeah, this has been Jordan. This has been David. You've been listening to Shun and Flop, David. Say it. Keep on flop, floppers.

[00:20:09] Bye. Bye.