#128 Five years and two guests! | SWOT relook with Rem and Shaun from Anime out of Context

[00:00:12] Welcome to this episode of Shonen Flop where we talk about manga and Shonen Jump that didn't make it big. I'm David. I'm Jordan. Next week we'll be covering Dauntin Prism Solarcar, which I cannot believe is the actual name of a manga. That just sounds like something ChatGPG spit out. It's like a code word, like an anagram for something. Someone actually just got out there and was gonna go shoot JFK. They made an anagram for Prism Solarcar and they're like, fuck, Dauntin? Is that a word? Sure. If you'd like to read along with us, be sure to join the discussion in our Discord and submit your six word summary. You can find a link to the Discord in our episode description and on our website, shonenflop.com.

[00:00:42] But guess what, Jordan? It's been five fucking years and we have an extra special. We are joined by not one, not three, but two guests today. Who else could be our dynamic duo, but we have Sean and Rem or as I like to call them, Rem and Sean. They're gonna use the fusion earrings to become Shrem. Yeah, I think that's actually just honestly Dylan is their combined form. Yeah. Oh, man. But you guys, thank you so much for joining us today. I need to again say that we contractually had to cover SWOT today.

[00:01:11] It was not handpicked, but as Jordan likes to brag about saying, I would have made you suffer reading this if it was up to me anyway. Yeah, you deserve this manga. This is for you. This is for you. Real fans will get that. I'm going to note that on our podcast, Sean has punished you guys, but all I've ever done is be punished. Rem, you know what you fucking did. I at the warm up audience said, Rem, I know you're suffering. Is there any topic you would actually enjoy discussing for the next 15 minutes?

[00:01:39] And then you did not make use of your one safe haven in this recording. Well, you use the safe haven to like shit on Witch Watch, which David loves. Yeah, that's true. So that's what you did. So, I mean, you know. If Witch Watch was better than I wouldn't have needed to shit on it. God damn it. Damn! God, that's so mean. At least he's consistent. At least he's consistent. Anyway, Rem, Sean is stuck being a cat boy for some reason. Why don't you tell the audience, the six people listening that may not know about Anime Out of Context? Sure thing.

[00:02:09] Anime Out of Context is a weekly podcast where myself and my lovely friend Remington Chase pick an anime, watch the first couple episodes of it usually, and make goofs and gaffs about why it's good, why it's bad, and all the other things in between. Unfortunately, the big caveat there is that Remington here doesn't really like anime. Huh? Well, he likes some things, but not anything that usually shows up on the podcast. And that's where a lot of the humor and goofs come from.

[00:02:38] I, on the other hand, am speaking to you as a cat boy on the internet. You can't see the cat boy, but trust me, he's there. We are currently speaking to a VTuber version of Sean, which is in fact a cat boy. A very interesting decision to use a VTuber model in a fully audio medium. Oh, this is specifically for you guys because of what you put us through. You know what? That's fair. It's fair. It's brave. And dare I say it, like, worthy of rewards? Yeah.

[00:03:07] Patriotic is the word I was looking for. Yeah. Well, hey, if you want to see the VTuber model yourself, you can show up on our Twitch channel, Anime Out of Context on Twitch.tv, where I stream. Can I just have, like, a picture of Ravioli that's, like, a static image that just bounces like, you know, like an old DVD screen? I mean, if you send me a background list PNG of Ravioli, I can put him, like, in my lap. Uh, her, excuse me? Her, excuse me, excuse me. I actually have those.

[00:03:35] I made Rachel a pair of pajamas that have Ravioli's face on them. So I actually do have those available. That's great. And yes, I did look into getting Ravioli Rachel pajamas, but they are actually very hard to get made now due to the tariffs. Yeah, I feel like dogs don't respect pajamas all that well. See, this, this is the worst thing the tariffs have done. Yeah. Yes. VTubing? Yes. Yeah, VTubing. We need more VTubers.

[00:04:04] We won't dive into the fight about why I think Witchwatch is good and Rem is wrong. Because we're talking about something very different today. Yes, we all can agree that this is a very bad series, but we do need to actually talk a little bit about the making of this series. Let's get into the manga details. Jordan, take it away. So this is SWAT by Naoya Sugita. His other works include Zahn. 2006, two volumes covered in episode 53 of our show.

[00:04:32] Hey, guys, would you believe that SWAT is an improvement over Zahn? I was telling Rem that while we were waiting for you guys to try. I, I can't believe that. Zahn is worse than SWAT. Zahn may be honestly the worst drawn thing that's ever been in Shonen Jump. Yes. Like this is, the art is improved in SWAT. I swear to God. But this guy also made Majin Bone. This is what Zahn looks like. Uh, it looks the same, but worse. Yep. Exactly.

[00:05:01] That's a good description. It's the same as SWAT, but worse. Yep. And now you didn't even know worse was possible for this. Yeah. Majin Bone, which I guess means evil bone. Yeah. Matsuri Shinked, 2016, 2017, three volumes shown in Jump Plus. According to Maxi B, it is a series that truly takes advantage of the more lax standards of Jump Plus to tell the tale of a skinhead on cell. I guess in, is that? Yeah, probably in. Probably in cell.

[00:05:30] Who teaches girls in his school to be less uppity by blowing their clothes off with martial arts. It's because, now this is crazy. The women oppress the men. Oh, that's not so crazy. That's real white. Oh my God. It's an incel fantasy. Yeah. It didn't win over the ecchi crowd. Cause Sugita, you may be shocked to hear this, is not good at drawing boobs. That's the easiest crowd to win over. I know. No. They don't even have high boobs, boob drawing standards.

[00:06:00] I mean, in SWAT, I'll tell you right now, anytime there was fan service, it felt like I was getting slapped in the face. Yeah. So bad. We have to talk about this guy's other series, which is like clearly his most popular one. The one that he probably most known for. That is of course, Yu-Gi-Oh! Go Rush. 2022 to 2024. Four volumes in Psycho Jump. So it's like his biggest work is an adaptation of fucking Yu-Gi-Oh! And not even good Yu-Gi-Oh!

[00:06:29] No, it's not even like a Yu-Gi-Oh! That anybody watched. Like 5D's best Yu-Gi-Oh! Yes, 5D's is the best Yu-Gi-Oh! But it only went for four volumes. Yeah. Which is insane. I'll tell you right now, I did some auxiliary research after I finished reading this because I was like, he's got to have done something better by now, surely. Yeah, you'd think. If he's still working. And I looked into it. The fucking anime of Yu-Gi-Oh! Go Rush has over 150 episodes. Oops! So he's got four volumes!

[00:06:57] Do you know how bad you have to be to have your Yu-Gi-Oh! manga get cancelled? I've talked to Maxi B and I genuinely think the only explanation for this guy's career is his parents. He must be like the Jaden Smith of manga where his dad must be like a big hotshot in some industry and literally is like, we're not going to sign this deal unless you like give my kid like a manga slot and Shonen Jump or something, right? The only explanation is that he's a Nepo baby. It just doesn't make sense otherwise. Or he just gives amazing head.

[00:07:26] Anyway, we're getting into the publishing of SWAT which ran from July 5th, 2010 to November 22nd, 2010. It replaced Lock On by Kenta Tsuchida which is two volumes. That's a flop. Series that replaced it was Doe's Soul by Katsu Toshi Murase. Two volumes. That's a flop. Series has started at the same time as Omega Doki Zoo or Ozu.

[00:07:51] David calls it by Kohei Horikoshi who's famous for That's Right Barrage as well as he did something called My Hero Academia. Yeah. But Omega Doki Zoo went for five volumes. That's a minor flop. Episode 20 of our show. So flop, flop, flop. This was just a very floppy time for Shonen Jump. I don't know if we should call it. I know it's the name of your show and all but I feel like describing the whole time period is a little bit floppy. It was the best of times. It was the floppiest of times.

[00:08:20] I would just also like to point out that the series that replaced SWAT and the series it replaced had fewer volumes than SWAT. So for some reason, the Shonen Jump editors determined that SWAT was slightly better than those series. I don't know why. Yikes. Again, his dad is the CEO of Sony. Yeah, his dad is the CEO of Sony. His dad is actually Akira Toriyama.

[00:08:49] What if it's like another Miyazaki situation where Miyazaki just talks about Mujie hates his son? And have you heard what his son said about Miyazaki? No. He said, great filmmaker, terrible father. I mean, that's the whole point of the bird, like the boy and the heron is how fucking much Miyazaki fought his son was a disappointment. That's the whole metaphor because it's all about I have no one to leave my legacy to. Wink, wink, son who made two really bad Ghibli movies.

[00:09:19] Oh, my God. Yeah. Just imagine watching that movie with your dad and he's just like nudging you. He's like, hey, that's you. What are you talking about? How much is that? Is a failure in the movie? Oh, God. There's a bird with teeth. How does that make you feel? What the hell? Oh, I was also thinking about this. Sean, how come you don't have teeth in the anime out of context picture? It's because Sean actually has no teeth in real life. Oh, OK. Yeah. I was looking at it while I was listening to your podcast, get my favorite show shitted on. But I was like, wait, where is Sean's teeth in this drawing?

[00:09:48] Well, they're they're on the floor because you went into the past and knocked him out for what he said about Witch Watch. No, Sean. Sean actually plays hockey. OK. Yeah. George on a hockey rink. He plays ice hockey in Utah anyway. Which is hilarious because the only major like we have a hockey team, like aside from basketball, that is the one thing that we have as a claim to fame. The Utah Jazz, right? Or whatever. That's the basketball team. OK. I don't really care. It's not good. All the jazz in Utah. You know, that's what Utah is famous for.

[00:10:18] Yeah, of course. The Lakers in L.A. Yeah, that's true. Anyway, we're not talking about basketball right now. We're talking about SWAT. And that is SWOT. It is not a SWAT team. So if you get SWATed, it's different. That's what we did to Shaman Run. Yeah, we SWATed them. As a special event. I mean, the amount of people that probably wish they could do something horrible like that to us, according to our emails, is higher than we would like. Yeah, yeah.

[00:10:47] We never get any really mad people, which I guess is because we only cover things that are canceled. So they don't have a large fan base. Like literally, we have had our cover art for sale for a long time, but like very few people buy it because who the fuck wants a like SWAT shirt? Nobody cares about the series that we make these shirts about. Yeah, but I do care about hearing about the rest of this, Jordan. Yeah. All right. Let's go to the plot.

[00:11:14] Rem, why don't you read that first paragraph that starts with that Japanese word I'm not going to try and say? His name. Manabazaki is an asshole nerd who wants to study all the time so he can get into the best college and build a UFO. To achieve this, he decides to transfer to a school with a high rate of acceptance to Todai University. Oh no, it was a trick and they actually have a high rate of delinquents. Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! Shockingly though, Manabazaki is really fucking strong, even if he's a selfish prick.

[00:11:44] He saves a weak kid named Ishiwara from some bullies, causing him to put on a hard hat and become Manabazaki's disciple. Then a girl with big weird boobs named Hasuno shows up to ask Manabazaki to help her study. She used to be a high ranking gang member, but decided to leave because she just wants to be a kindergarten teacher because she's a woman. And that's what they do. They just teach kindergarten classes. It's like, that is what girls these days do. Hey, don't worry. It's not the only job a woman is allowed.

[00:12:14] We'll get another job later. They just become kindergarten teachers, eat hot chip and lie. And yeah, that's a meme. And they can become nurses. They can also become nurses. True, true. Or teachers. Or teachers. Don't forget teachers. That's true. That's true. They can only become nurses if they wear the sexy Halloween costume for nurses. That was out of style when this manga was ran. Yes. Yes, it was. Rem, say popcorn, Sean. What the fuck do you call me? God damn it.

[00:12:43] Say popcorn, Sean. God damn it. Popcorn, Sean. Thank you. Sean, go. Read. Okay. Thank you. All right. I've never seen Jordan this match before. Manabazaki immediately falls in love with her, but doesn't know what love is because he's a nerd who only has eyes for aliens. I don't know. Manabazaki beats up some other dudes. Blah, blah, blah. Do I really have to do this?

[00:13:09] In order to save Hasuno, they fight the swastika gang whose leader is the Fuhrer of the swastika. Yes. It's important because he fails a test in order to save her because his glasses break. And Manabazaki fights Yamikura Kori, the fighting maniac who fights. Well, he's a maniac that fights. It's important to note. Yeah. It's a maniac that fights. Yes, of course. About halfway through, the author realizes that he forgot to put in a plot. So a tiny gang called Pandemonium shows up.

[00:13:36] They want to reach the Teppin, which is the king of the school, because they are promised their dead friend that they would. The gang consists of a big leader, Toto, a girl, Okiku, and a baseball guy. That is the whole gang. And let me just say, man, does this guy not understand how plot works? No, not at all. Now say Popcorn Jordan. Do it, you slut. Popcorn Jordan.

[00:14:01] Okiku confronts Hasano and, in a conversation that surprisingly passes the Bechdel test, says that she ruined her life by teaching her karate because now she has to fight all the time. Manabazaki then fights Toto, who reveals the power system of the manga. Resolve. His resolve gives him super punches, but oh shit, Manabazaki has reverse resolve, which is even better, I think. Manabazaki wins and Pandemonium becomes his followers.

[00:14:28] There is a subplot where both Okiku and Hasano are secretly in love with Manabazaki now, but of course things keep getting in the way of them confessing, oh, it's a comedy of errors. Then a random student buys some porn and tells them that he heard a guy named O.Y. say that reverse resolve is like fucking OP and rare as hell. It turns out that the guy who said that is O.Y. Oh my God. What? He tricked them. What the fuck? And he's the leader of the biggest gang of seniors in the school. I think he's the Teppan.

[00:14:56] I don't know if they actually say that, but I think that he is. They don't. Yeah. She's just at the Teppan festival wearing the Teppan crown and everyone bows to him. Yeah. But we still don't know for sure. We don't know for sure. You know, popcorn David. I'm just waiting for Rem to be like, these plot twists were way too obvious. What was it? Yeah. Could have seen that a mile away in this. I had almost the opposite problem. And I'm still like, even now, I felt so fucking stupid reading this because I was like, is there something I'm missing? Is there some like grander thing like it?

[00:15:26] Guess what, Rem? Whatever. It doesn't matter because a guy with an eye patch named Shirakki is having his gang inject resolve juice TM into people to turn them berserk TM and give them resolve powers that will kill them within hours. They got Ishida. Not my Ishiwata. I said it wrong the first time. I'm not going back. Manzibaki needs the antidote. So he fights the super eye patch guy who of course fights using eyeballs. He can also summon two big knives. Tutu jumps in and defeats him. But oh no, he injected himself with the resolve juice, which activates his banca ITM, which

[00:15:56] I think is more of the same, but stronger. Manzibaki activates reserve resolve and wins. Awai then uses what is apparently his very robust operation to mass produce the antidote and the day is saved. Then there's a final chapter where Manzibaki almost sees a UFO, but is stopped by the leader of a rival school. So they fight. Also, the principal goes to jail for some reason. Oh, you're right. Right. I totally forgot all the quote unquote plot like masterminded by the evil principal. Who just shows up in that chapter. Who just shows up twice in the whole manga. And it's like, who the fuck is this?

[00:16:25] There were so many times while reading where I was like, there has to be something I'm missing that makes it all like coherent. And I was like, surely, surely there's gotta be something. But there never was. Also, I just got a notification from my phone that a new Witchwatch chapter came out. Which is the one. And before we move on too far, I've got a question for you. Yeah. Hey, David, could you read that name that I just highlighted real quick for me? Keanu Reeves. No, that's not what you said.

[00:16:56] Toadoo. That's what I thought you said. Oh, wow. Sean, brand new territory shitting on David for mispronouncing something. That's the free space on Shonen Flop. Bingo, my guy. Hey, David, say the word adaptation. Adaptation. Wow. Okay. If you're saying it wrong, because it's adaption, bitch. There we go. There we go. Sean, why don't you tell us about Manabizaku, the glasses, main character. That guy with the glasses. That guy with the glasses. That's a good one.

[00:17:27] I mean, if you want me to talk about Doug Walker, I can, but I don't think that's. We did have somebody from Channel Awesome on last episode. We just had Mars Girl on. Yeah. So we had some Channel Awesome alumni on the show. Yes. But Manabizaku Kyo. OU is usually O, just as frame of reference. Take that, David. Which is why the Pokemon Raikou is. This is what I have to do with over on our podcast. All the fucking time. You know what's funny? I've been in Japan twice and I still don't give a shit. Yeah.

[00:17:57] Most people don't. But yeah, his character traits are as follows. Smart. He has glasses. Those are the qualifiers for being smart. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Well, he's literally like, I can't do well in school without my glasses. That is actually a plot point. Yeah. It's like I am obsessed with studying. I study too fucking much, but I'm also really fucking stupid and got tricked by a flyer that said like. Like it's crazy that in like they're introducing the character, right?

[00:18:26] They're like, oh, he's so smart. Also, one of the earliest things you learn about him is that he can't fucking read. Yeah. Here's the other thing. I don't know if you have a spot for it because I didn't see it in the notes. But SWAT? Who the fuck knows what a SWAT is? Anybody here? Have you heard the term before this manga? Do you know how many people in Japan I asked and none of them knew what a SWAT was because they didn't speak English? I googled it and it is a British term. It is a British slang term that the Brits don't even use.

[00:18:56] Maxie B is British and they did not leave a note about that. Yeah. It's an old British term for somebody who is obsessed with studying. And again, it's not a slang term that is used in the modern day. Yeah. I just love how his character development is learning that there's more to life than grades and he learns that chapter three and then just abandons all of his academics. Yeah. Like they try to establish his character. They do so poorly because he's the most stupidly written smart character I've ever seen.

[00:19:23] And then the like quote unquote character development is just abandoning the one dimensional character he had. Yeah. No, he realizes maybe I do actually care about Hasuno like immediately. Immediately. And then it's like, so what is this character? Well, I mean, the cancellation deadline was coming up apparently. Chapter three. Oh, yeah. That too. You know what? The writing was kind of on the wall. You don't even know how well your series is doing until chapter eight. Yeah.

[00:19:51] Look, man, I could tell you how bad the series was in chapter one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We all have to be Rem to think this is terrible. And chapter one is probably the best chapter. That is true. It does actually have a good joke. Anyway, Rem, would you tell us about Ishiwana? Look, I wish there was more to say. So Ishiwana is the plot device because there's no way to naturally or organically move the

[00:20:17] plot forward or have characters interact and engage with one another. So you just kind of have Ishiwana who's like, all right, time to push the plot forward, time for these people to interact. And it's not a subtle tool. It's not a good tool. But Ishiwana is the tool that they have. He has a hard hat and that is his defining character trait. And it looks like the guy from Mega Man. Yeah. Well, it's the hard hat that is also used for the Mets in Mega Man.

[00:20:45] But like, I think the story is that I haven't read the one shot because why the fuck would I intentionally inflict myself with more SWAT? But I think in the one shot, he doesn't have the hard hat. Yeah, that hard hat. Sean just put the hard hat on his cat boy VTuber, which all the listeners will appreciate. He just already had that ready. Yeah, he had that ready. I think in the one shot, he didn't have the hard hat. And the author was like, damn, he looks very generic. I'll just give him a hard hat.

[00:21:12] He basically becomes Manabazaki's follower because he's strong. And he has a sister who's hot with big boobs and is a nurse. I don't know if there's anything else to his character besides what we said. I don't even know. All right. And then I'll talk about Hasano Nene. She has big boobies. She's a woman. And the author really wants, you know, women are not useful in this series and should only be sexualized because they were like she is like she fights a lot. She's rough, just like the boys, and then instantly discards any of those traits after the

[00:21:42] first chapter. Yeah, it's weird that like the introduction sort of sets it up to be this intimidating force like, oh, oh, she's someone to be reckoned with. And then it's just like, yeah, they're like, she's fighting someone. No, she's too delicate and weak. Yeah, it's so strange. I think the first thing we see is that she beats up a group of people and then she never displays like any aptitude for fighting ever again. I mean, she gets her ass kicked by the one guy from Pandemonium. That was something. Yeah. She gets jobbed a lot.

[00:22:12] Yeah. Her boobs look very weird. As Maxie B noted, the author, though he enjoys drawing tits, is not good at drawing tits. Yeah, I would wager I could do a better job and I'm not an artist. They're like humming out of her stomach sometimes. Very strange understanding of anatomy this guy has. Which is unfortunate. Unfortunate when her tits are so poorly drawn, considering that is one of her main personality traits.

[00:22:41] So it's just one of those things where it's like, ah, man. It's true. I mean, that is one of the only things that distances her design from the other female characters. Yeah. They all look similar. Yeah. And it doesn't help that the size keeps changing from panel to panel. Oh, yeah. Just when she's in that uniform or she's in the maid outfit, it just gets ridiculous. And then they go to the hospital and the nurses all have bigger boobs than her.

[00:23:08] I actually want to throw back to the original cover art for our first visit of SWAT. I kept reading it and I kept telling her artist you have to make her breasts bigger because they kept getting bigger throughout the series. So she redrew it, I think, four times to be accurate of the end of series breast size that she had. Look, look, it's legitimately this is just how they are. OK, I'm sorry. Yeah. All right. And then, Jordan, why don't you tell us about Edgy McEdgelord?

[00:23:31] So Yamakura Kuri is, yeah, he's Edgy Mitch, Edgy McEdgerson, like Shadow the Hedgehog motherfucker. Hilariously edgy, like kind of accidentally the best character in the series. Yeah. He's like the one with like the most multifaceted stuff, kind of because he's like this edgy guy. His attack is literally called chaos. Yeah, that's it. I was like, where's the rest of the description of this? It's literally my attack. Like chaos control. Not even control.

[00:24:02] Yeah. But he also has a part time job at a like convenience store and enjoys cleaning. Yeah. Which end up making him sort of have a little bit of depth in comparison to the other characters. Legitimately, this is an accident. But the author actually keeps making him really funny because he has him have like all these traits that are really funny with how edgy he is otherwise. Yeah. How he like actually takes school very seriously. And they like run into him in the library, just studying like a normal person.

[00:24:31] Or when they're at the cafe and he's just like at the cafe eating a slice of cake, like as a completely normal person. But then like he's the fighting maniac. They call him. He who is obsessed with fighting. I call him long Sasuke. Yeah, he is definitely Sasuke. Yes. He looks exactly like Sasuke. He's got. Oh, he looks exactly like Sasuke though.

[00:24:55] How he is drawn in some of the scenes is strange. Really? Tell us more about this. Can you elaborate? I feel uncomfortable when I, when I see his, his shape and proportions. Which is also how I've described my good friend Sean Rollins. So. Our cat boy extraordinaire. Our cat boy extraordinaire. Look, man, if you weren't going to make the joke, I was. Oh my God.

[00:25:24] It's like in that movie where Willem Dafoe is naked and they had to like. Just give him a stunt dick. His body. So he had a smaller dick because he had a quote unquote confusingly large penis. I actually, I have a friend actually who had that where his work uniform, they had to break protocol and give him a larger pair of pants. Oh my God. Because someone said it was making them uncomfortable. Anyway, speaking of things that make me uncomfortable, I kind of feel like maybe we should do what it did well first.

[00:25:53] Yeah, we should reverse it. Yeah. Get it out of the way. So as a throwback when we used to do what we did well first, let's go do that. What did you enjoy about this room? I'm amazed that you guys have anything on the fucking list. It's a short list. I tried to like rack my brain to find any credit I could meaningfully give. I genuinely can't think of something that I would say like, oh yeah, that's something it objectively did well.

[00:26:18] I guess there are certain brief portions where I'm like, oh, that's not as bad. Or, oh, maybe if this was executed better, it might be kind of amusing, but that's not doing something well. That's just it being slightly less shit. I can't think of anything that it actually did well, that like it jumped into the territory of good. It just doesn't occur. I mean, here's the thing.

[00:26:45] If you read the notes that David has on what it did well, it's like, it's not as terrible as the author's previous manga. Yeah. It tries to make the side characters do something. And it does. Which is a crazy, that's crazy to compliment it on where it's like, it tries, but it doesn't really succeed at having characters do things. It's like trying to console a child, really. Yeah.

[00:27:09] And we kind of hate it less than we did last time, just because I don't know, it's not like a pedophile manga. Like that's the bar we're working with, guys. I worry for you boys. I worry that your frame of reference is so broken that you're like, ah, you know, at least this is an offensive. Look, it may not be offensive in the same way as a pedophile manga, but it is deeply offensive in just quality. It hurts me.

[00:27:38] We are contractually legally obligated to come up with some positives for this series. I don't know what we're supposed to do. Okay. We're trying. I'm trying, boss. Okay. You know what? For the sake of this, let me get the list and see. Um, in our official ranking list, we said there's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. There are 10 series we have read that we consider worse than this series. Oh my God.

[00:28:04] That is how you do not know how low the bottom of the barrel goes, my friend. Yeah. But this is also like, what episode are we on right now? Like 128. So like, that's still really bad. Yeah. I just miss when I was reading a manga about the sentient statue of David that I've missed that. Oh, that series is like fucking one piece compared to SWAT. Yeah. Or what we had Rem read. Hungry Marie was also way better than this. Oh, Hungry Marie is way better than SWAT.

[00:28:34] Come on. Like, look out of, out of the three that I've read on, uh, on your podcast, SWAT is the worst. Yeah. I would be shocked if it wasn't. Yeah. Because holy shit. Oh my God. We're still in the positives. God damn it. I'm going to go through some positives real quick and then we'll really dive into it. I had something. What was it? Oh, uh, I think there's at least one gag I thought was kind of funny when they go into the exam room and there's like a bin of weapons and it says no weapons around in the big, no weapons allowed in the exam room.

[00:29:03] That's an example of a joke that I, I like the idea of. Not the execution. And I'm going to be real honest. I completely missed that joke. The first time I read through it. Here's actually, I think the cleverest thing this series did. They actually subtly hint at that guy telling them about whatever the power system is like shitty, shitty Bankai, whatever that he is the boss because they know the boss is a third year and he's shown buying a porn mag, which means he has to be 18.

[00:29:30] I genuinely think that is the cleverest, most subtle world building this offer did in his entire 20 chapter run of this series was saying, I'm going to hit this guy's 18 years old because we're going to show him draw purchasing porn. Except this is a delinquent school. So no, he bought it. He bought it like a 7-Eleven where they ID'd him. This is truly damning with feigned praise. Yes, Rem. That's true. That's all we're doing. We admit that. I mean, also, I'll go further.

[00:29:58] This is one of the greatest unintentional parodies of manga I've ever had. Oh, yeah. Holy shit. The edginess is so fucking funny in this series. Oh my God. But I feel like I have to wait for the negatives to talk about it. Which how about, how about Jordan? We go do that right now. Let's do it right now. Catboy Sean, drop us some negatives, cat daddy. So you just want me to talk for the rest of the episode? Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. Try. Try. We have 27 minutes left of this recording.

[00:30:28] No. Okay. Well, oh man, like your bulleted list. Like you had to abridge some things I see. Yeah. Okay. So the art is one of the worst art I've ever seen in a manga. It's amazing that this. Yeah. Oh my God. But the fact that he got fully published in what is supposed to be like the manga magazine for Shonen is insane. But Sean, he didn't get published once. He got published twice in Weekly Shonen Jump.

[00:30:56] I'm not here to talk about past failures. I'm here to talk about current failures. We kind of already went over it. A SWAT doesn't make any fucking sense. It's a slang term that he probably Googled and thought, oh yeah, I'm going to try and turn this into a slur. And let's say the paneling is awful. The art is awful. The protagonist is kind of the worst. He has all the bad traits of a tsundere, all the bad traits of a shonen protagonist, all the bad traits of any aggressive character ever. But everyone worships him. Exactly.

[00:31:26] Yeah. Even though there's no reason to. Let's see. All the characters are paper thin. I mean, well, they are printed on manga, so that does make some sense. Oh, I'm sorry. That's true. Yeah. Yes. The first chapter really sucks. I mean, yeah, the plot makes no sense. Look, man, feel. Look, I'm just looking at this list and I'm like, man, it's just so universally bad. There are hard things to talk. It's hard to talk about things. Can I touch on why I feel like personally bullied by SWAT?

[00:31:56] Sure. Because you love studying. And you're a SWAT. Well, certainly. Yeah. You know, I wouldn't I wouldn't disagree with those things, but that's not why I feel personally bullied. I've touched on this podcast before when I've previously been a guest how I don't really know how to read manga. Right. Oh, no. I know how to. I know how. But like my brain doesn't want to. It doesn't work out because I don't know how to process the information as naturally. So I love it.

[00:32:24] It's like pictures and then the words or vice versa. Here's the thing, though. When it comes to trying to read SWAT, especially early on on those handful of early chapters, you have art that is so not just like low quality, but also so like crowded and at times unclear and at times like too cramped. And so it's not as easy to even understand at a glance what the fuck is going on.

[00:32:50] Then the text, it's so low quality and so often there's not a meaningful through line. The characters don't talk or interact like people. The plot is awful. So I'm trying to make sense of it all. And the translation is bad. And the translation is bad. So all of this is happening. I truly am just like, am I a fucking dumbass? What the fuck is going on? I've been on this podcast before. I've been a guest and I didn't have these struggles as bad with Hungry Marie.

[00:33:18] I didn't have these problems nearly as bad with Ichinose deadly family sins. I didn't have. But this, it was fucking decoding a goddamn riddle with each page where I just had to put a deliberate effort into interpreting what the fuck I was even seeing. The thing is, those two authors that you noted also have successful manga. They understand, at least on a fundamental level, how to tell a story in this kind of visual medium in some way.

[00:33:47] This author has no clue how to tell a story. He has yet to create any form of quality. Holy shit. You mentioned that it was cramped and the text was confusing. That's because there's so much text. Like half of this manga is bubbles. Word bubbles. Then the text isn't even, it's not like doing anything. Like the text, it's not doing anything meaningful or interesting. So it's like my eyes are starting to glaze over because it's just there. The text just exists to exist.

[00:34:16] I had a note where I was like, it feels like there's like, I'm reading so much text, but there actually isn't that much print on each page because it's so fucking pointless. You could sum up so much of it. It's the control alt delete of manga where you could just simplify everything into like bubbles. But instead we're going to stretch it out so that I swear to God, the majority of this manga is word bubbles of nonsense. It may as well just be lorem ipsum for most of it.

[00:34:44] Like on a fundamental storytelling level, SWAT is a fucking failure. Yeah. It also doesn't help that even if we, the protagonist was somewhat likable, I can't respect his goal at all. I don't think we mentioned it, but his goal is to build a working UFO so he can see the aliens. So UFO, it's not a spaceship, right? He doesn't have a spaceship. If you make a UFO, you have identified the UFO.

[00:35:11] So it's a flying object that you know about. No, he just gets a concussion and forgets that he built it because he's constantly fighting. Yeah. Like maybe he wants to build a flying saucer, which I kind of like, why? Or maybe he wants to build an alien craft, which doesn't make any sense. But UFO, why? Why the word UFO? His personality does not betray his intelligence at all. Because like, you would think somebody like him would be pedantic or use, I don't know, the correct words when talking about something he cares about.

[00:35:40] But like, no, he's a fucking idiot. He's the most stupidly written, intelligent character where we're always told how smart he is, right? We're always told how intelligent he is. But anything he does, anything he does is so dumb. It always makes me think of the room where they talk about how Johnny's a nice guy and then Johnny's a fucking asshole to everybody. Yeah. Or in Star Wars, was it Attack of the Clones where they talk about how they're friends in an elevator? Where they're just like, we're such good friends. Oh my God. You and me, Anakin.

[00:36:11] The art is bad. The paneling also has a lot of continuity issues. Like you'll see characters sitting down and then randomly standing in an art panel or like in the first chapter, they have like this weird time skip where like she just like, fuck, I don't even know how to describe it. It just doesn't make any fucking sense. But the series has no like thesis to it. Like he's trying to beat up everyone so he can study. But then he's like, I don't care about studying anymore. So why does he need to fight everyone in the school anymore? Yeah. Yeah. There's not like a meaningful through line.

[00:36:36] It feels like it keeps changing its mind on what it is or wants to be. Which is very common in bad manga series. And then there's just the most generic random power system suddenly. Can someone please explain to me? Because it's like, I understand on the most basic level, but I'm like, what the fuck are we talking about? What is the power system? Is it just... Let me tell you, Rem. Have you ever, have you ever seen Dragon Ball, Rem? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you know how they can fire energy blasts and they get really strong by charging up? Yep.

[00:37:06] Yep. Because they're charging their ki or their chi, you know, the power of willpower. So he essentially took the most generic baseline power source and was just like, yeah, there's ki in this manga now, even though they were already doing things that felt like ki. Does it really just boil down to, because this is my understanding, we have special energy and can do stuff with special energy and that's, that's it. Yeah. But also, also one of the characters powers is to just summon two big knives. Yeah.

[00:37:38] Which actually, Jordan, it's pretty similar to the Nen system in Hunter x Hunter when you think about it. Yeah. Don't compare the two. Do not compare a wonderful system. I thought this was we have hockey at home, but this is definitely we have Nen at home. This show doesn't have like a clear specific vision. It just wants to borrow generic bullshit from other stuff and it doesn't know how to use those well. So it'll just toss them in.

[00:38:02] I really need to mention the most hilarious edgy moment in this entire series. I did not, I don't think I even noticed it happened the first time I read it because I can't believe I would have forgotten it. But the main bad guy who has like an eye patch, it appears randomly in the last section of the manga. Yeah. He, to show how edgy he is, takes a big knife and smears blood on the bread.

[00:38:29] And then he said, you gotta get your protein brother. I'm so edgy. I use blood as my jelly. What the fuck? Blutter. I'm going to be honest. It looks more like jelly than it does blood. Yeah. Like, cause genuinely, like it's, it's stringy. It looks viscous and thick, which blood can get viscous and thick, but it takes time. God, it's old blood. Oh. Yeah.

[00:38:58] What if that's his power is he makes, turns blood into jelly. And I also love how the guy with the eye patch fights by using eyeballs. Like he just throws disembodied eyeballs at the main character. Which are perfectly circular. They're like billiard balls. Yeah. Yeah. Like, why do you have so many eyeballs? What the fuck? I don't know. I, I mean, considering he's a character who is lacking one in his head, like you'd think problem would be solved. Yeah. No, no, no, no. Oh my God. The composition in this series is fucking dreadful.

[00:39:28] The proportions are insane. Like we, we get like yaoi proportions sometimes. You're like, it's. A ton of yaoi hands. The hands are the worst drawn hands I have ever seen. Like, holy shit. There's sometimes like missing part of the bone. There's, there's at least one where I'm looking at it and the hand looks like an optical illusion. It's so bad. It's like, like AI level hands. This dude would have loved AI if it existed in 2010. Holy shit. Yeah.

[00:39:57] I mean, this series is literally just a explanation of what happens when you skip learning the fundamentals before you start making a manga. Which is insane. Cause like when we talk about manga with bad art, but great story, we look at one. His art is very, you know, it would be considered poor quality compared to a lot of great mangaka. And yet everything he does is way clearer, way better proportioned, way better framed and way better paneled. And here's the thing. You could have like some really like shitty art and whatever. Right.

[00:40:25] And it could still be acceptable if perhaps you had a particularly original story that is told in a unique way. Right. And then you'd be like, well, it's ugly, but it's, it's so different. It's so original that this is not that. This is not that at all. I would argue that one, it's not that he's a bad artist. His, his drawing is very rudimentary, but he has like great composition. And he's very good at like setting up a shot so you can like understand what's happening and communicate things.

[00:40:54] You know, this guy doesn't even understand that you can even do that. That's a fundamental thing. I struggled so much on, because there were multiple panels where I was like, wait, what the fuck is going on here? What the fuck is this? Yeah, it's off or doesn't know either. Also the fights and so abruptly, it's always like they have a back and forth and then it's like one attack and the guy just falls over and dies. I don't think you can really call them fights is the thing. Slap and tickle. Even the effects work is the effects work is fucking insane.

[00:41:22] Sometimes I don't think this guy knows what an impact frame looks like. No, no. Well, all the frames are squares, like our main character. God, some of the lines in this series are hilarious. I'm going to turn this school into a hell of blood. Amazing. Toto's ultimate attack is ultimate hell's punch. Like a lot of hell. I like how the first guy to have resolve. It's literally just makes him stronger. So it doesn't. It's probably the most boring possible application of the power. So yeah, my punches get strong.

[00:41:50] It's not just the lack of quality, though. Boy, oh boy, there's a lack of quality. There's a lack of imagination or creativity. This is the most hilariously generic manga ever made. This is like, you know what this manga is? This is what it would be like in a gag comedy manga. If we were looking at like an excerpt from a manga from a Chunibyo character who is writing their own manga. That's the thing. That's what Jordan said. This is a great unintentional parody of shitty manga. This is a fake manga. Yeah.

[00:42:19] This manga isn't real. It's fake. Like this. It's a joke. Yeah. But like more so even. Like you would see a manga of this level or even slightly better on DeviantArt in like 2008. But here's the thing. I wish that it was like, oh, and it's so bad. It's good. And it has like brief moments, like you mentioned, that like almost work as that. But at the end of the day, unfortunately, it doesn't reach the heights of, for example, the room. For the most part, it's just so bad.

[00:42:48] It's really, really, really fucking bad. Well, because it's painful to read. Yes. It's not even so bad. It's good, which we have definitely read before. This is just bad. It's not fun to read this. No, it is difficult to get through. Oh, my God. This series reminded me most of. Have you guys ever seen the old Newgrounds Flash series Shin? Oh, you brought this up at the last time we talked about this series. Yeah, of course I did, because it reminds me of it so much.

[00:43:13] It's a really shitty Flash series that was very impressive for the time, considering I think it was made by a 14-year-old or something. Probably. It's just about a bunch of kids fighting in a school. Fighting in a high school. It's like kind of the exact same plot as SWAT, except actually better told. I was literally going to say in this episode, if SWAT was written by like a 12-year-old, right? Then I'd be like, look, this is absolute trash, but you put the effort in, kid, so maybe you can learn from it.

[00:43:43] Which it sounds like that's just Shin. Yeah, pretty much. Instead, this is like, oh, it's shit and you should know better and you are not learning or improving and you're still somehow being allowed to create more. You're still bad. Yeah, we talked about this when we covered Zahn as well. We legitimately were like, this would not have been bad if a high schooler had made it. But on the topic of creativity, why don't we get into where it could have gone? Yeah. Jordan, what are some things you would have... Actually, you know what? Sorry. I want to bring Rem back. Get out of here, Rem. What would you have done?

[00:44:12] What would you have done to have made this series salvageable? So one thing that I love doing on Animat of Context, I will often script Doctor and come up with ideas on like what could have been done better. So this section, it's like, oh, perfect for me. Here's one of the issues I came. I have an idea on like where it could have gone. But one of the difficulties I had with this was it lacks a clear direction all the time. It keeps changing its mind. It doesn't commit to anything.

[00:44:38] And so it's like, okay, so what do we want to take and emphasize then? Because it could be a million different things that it abandons. Ultimately, I think the point we take, we talked briefly about how like Yamikura is the most developed character, even though it's still lacking. Creating on a massive curve. And so here's what I'm thinking. All right. First of all, this whole SWAT thing, you just kind of get rid of that. Instead, you have this delinquent school. All right.

[00:45:06] And what I'm imagining is we take Yamikura and you have guys seen Tangled? Yeah. You guys, you guys know when all of the brutes and the thugs start singing about their hobbies and passions and what they actually care about. Right. That's the direction I would take with this, where it's like, oh, look at all these delinquents and stuff that are going on. And you just have a character come in that helps them find their true passions and what they really care about.

[00:45:33] And it's like, oh, I actually love baking until you become great at that. All right. Are you, it's, wait, are you, are you thinking of like high school musical, but like, but like Yamikura is like the main character of high school musical. Oh God. That's actually awesome. Because there's no material in, uh, in SWAT that I really want to keep, but I'm like, I don't know if we just isolate Yamikura as one character and then just build it off from

[00:46:02] there, I guess, then maybe it is at least salvageable. He just wants to be a baker. He just wants to be a hostess. I love the idea of like a really edgy character who's trying to like grow past his edge and like kind of find out who he is. Like once he, he like chills out, but like can't because he's just like, he's got chaos inside of him. And like lean into, lean into the melodramatic edge of it all.

[00:46:31] Even while they're like finding their passions and hobbies, like they still have those habits they need to break out. Yeah. Right. Just like, no, I shall not decapitate this person this time. Like some shit like that. Like, no, I, I must not do chaos control. It is not the time. I must continue baking this bread. Yeah. Somebody insults his bread or is like, it's just okay. And like, he gets ready to kill them. But then the main character is like, no.

[00:46:55] No, I'm just imagining he's using his fucking powers to summon his knife to cut the bread. No. Okay. Here's the thing. Completely remove the power system, but half people still like have special moves. And at first they're edgy fighting special moves, but then they become whatever, like they're passionate about. So in this case, it'd be like a bread making special move. You just want Reagan Arataka's special move series, the anime, Rem. Sure. Yeah. Sounds great. Because I want to see what you guys think.

[00:47:24] Like, oh, where could it have gone? Because truly, I think any direction that you're like, here's how to improve SWAT. It starts by removing most of the whole thing. Amputation is required to save this patient. Step one, simplify all the texts. Like the way I would fix this is to get it from being so bad. It's bad to so bad. It's good. Because I don't see how you would make it good, but I can see how you can make it so bad. It's good. Like I was with Rem though, where I fought a shift. What if it's about the school admins dealing with the state of this school?

[00:47:54] Like who the fuck is paying for these walls that they're destroying, right? Yeah. It might've made sense if they bring in this SWAT character in order to try and be like, oh, he's a study guy. He'll, he'll make people study more, but that's not even remotely what happens. So it's like, why did you bring him in? I had that too, where it was like stand and deliver for fighting. Oh man. Like, I guess the actual good version of this manga is Cromartie High. Yes. I think that was my recommendation last time.

[00:48:23] It was one of our recommendations last time. Yeah. Have you guys covered that? Uh, we have not. We have not. Uh, the only reason we haven't is because the show Rem hates Freddie Mercury. Freddie Mercury is a character in Cromartie High. Yeah. What the hell? It's a full gag manga. And the only reason we haven't covered it is because it's a little hard to discuss gag shows on the podcast. So I have to do them infrequently, but it's been on my list for years.

[00:48:51] It's a very silly, stupid show that could be fun to talk about. There you go. The next time you need to have Rem destroy something, I love you. Cromartie High. All right. Sean, though, I think you haven't had much of a chance to talk. What are some changes you would like to have made? God, man. What has been said hasn't already been said. What could we have done here? If we wanted to keep the core premise of a smart guy accidentally joining a delinquent high school and having to deal with it, like the first thing they could have done is not

[00:49:19] made him a perfect fighter to start with. Or like justify it. Like I thought they were going to be like, oh, he's good at fighting because he's smart and like studied all these fighting techniques really intensely because he studies everything. No, they have. There's no justification. There's no explanation. Genuinely, what they could have done is, first of all, make him not great at fighting and actually have him use his intellect to try and get out of fighting situations. Yeah. Also, while he's stuck in the situation, he's going to have to learn how to fight because

[00:49:47] otherwise he might fucking die. I'm going to build on that. Right. I'm going to yes and that. But let's not even have him specifically learn how to fight. Rather, when he meets what was the girl's name? What's the? Hasuno. Oh, man. She was so memorable. Yeah. Hasuno, he meets Hasuno, right? He's smart and doesn't know how to fight, but he understands fighting on like an intellectual level. Hasuno maybe make her like she's plucky and stubborn, but her technique is lacking.

[00:50:14] And so he can like coach her on like how to become a better fighter, what the other techniques are. And she like defends him because he can't defend himself. I really like that. Yeah. Oh, my God. You've turned him into a Pokemon trainer. Yeah. I love it. You have like an interesting dynamic. And so he's like, hey, this is where your fighting style is lacking here. Your weakness is. I've noticed this about their fighting style. Here's what you need to do. And like then, first of all, you'd have a better dynamic between them. That's something at least.

[00:50:41] And then two, you don't have as much of a generic main character. It's still not great, but it's better. He's less of a Mary Sue. Yes. Yeah. I also love there was a scene where he's like fighting people, a giant protractor. And what if that was his resolve? He can summon a giant protractor. He can empower school, like actual study material. Like he beats a guy with a book. And what if that was his power? At one time, he throws like a hundred pencils at somebody. And it doesn't do anything. And then he blocks him out the next page.

[00:51:11] It's like there are brief moments where it's like implied the author wanted him to be able to throw like school stuff. Like his main weapon is a book, but it's barely used. I'm just, he's wielding a fucking stapler, opens it up in like nunchucks. Yeah. Oh God. Oh, we're going off top. Let's get into miscellaneous spots. How about that boys? Yeah. So Jordan, have you, is there anything you feel like you haven't a chance to bring up yet? They do go to a maid cafe. They do. They leave the school. That's impressive. They leave the school and they go to a fucking maid cafe.

[00:51:41] And oh my God, would you believe that both of the female characters that we've met work there? No way. Oh my God. Holy shit. And of course the two female main characters are in love with the main character. Like, of course. Well, that's the only reason they exist. You see? Yeah. That's the only reason they're there. Every time I see a maid cafe, all it makes me do is one of my favorite scenes from Dawn to Dawn is when Momo works at a maid cafe and says, what do you want? You sack of shit.

[00:52:13] That's how you do a maid cafe, Joe. Yeah. It's true. You don't do this. Yeah. This is just an excuse to sexualize the characters in a very poorly thought out way. Like, how did they approve uniforms like this for 16 year olds? Look, we're going to get into why maid cafes even exist. That's a whole other complex. Yeah, I had to explain that to Rachel while we were in Japan. I can't wait to take Remington to Japan and make him go to a maid cafe. It's going to be fantastic. Oh, and the maids are all men. Oh, you should take rent to the Muscle Girl Cafe. I was just about to bring that one up. Yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah. I didn't have a chance to go.

[00:52:42] It's like Hooters, kind of. Like, is how I would describe it. The closest American analog. But yeah, anyway, of course, it's like the two female characters work there. And of course, the one with the huge boobs is there so we can have the wonderfully drawn boobs. Yeah. That don't. The orbs that are slapped onto the torso. That are about six inches too low on her chest. They come out of her solar plexus. Yeah. What is that? A Dragon Ball Z attack? Yeah.

[00:53:12] Solar plexus. Okay. But Rem, did you have any other mislead spots? I know. It's just astonishing how SWAT is a show that does literally everything wrong in the least interesting ways. It's baffling. And it would be impressive if it wasn't also so mind numbing. I know. Also, this made me think about something we talked about earlier. So where was his middle school academic advisor that should have blocked him from enrolling in the wrong high school if he had such good grades?

[00:53:41] He transferred. So he was already in high school and then he transferred. Shouldn't someone have talked to him about this? Well, it's crazy how uninterested the manga was in its own premise. Yes. Yeah. From the get go. It's like, oh, how is he in this scenario? I don't know. This stupid bullshit. And this is the premise of the show. Ah, never mind. What about we do this instead? And it's like, oh, oh, so how was this ever sold? How was this marketed?

[00:54:06] Because you immediately abandoned the origins and the premise and just none of it matters. Nothing matters. I think I remember we had Audrey on our original covering of this. And I think she said that like people were like excited for this at first for some reason. Like what? Like the people liked the one shot for some reason. That's the only reason I can imagine this getting serialized is that the one shot was interesting enough to intrigue people that they were excited for the series.

[00:54:35] That's the only way I can see this actually panning out. And unfortunately, they just didn't have the foresight to see how truly awful the series was going to be. And I didn't read the one shot and I don't think I'm going to. Yeah. But I'm going to give the one shot the benefit of the doubt. If it's at all comparable, though, it's like it does not take long to feel how bad it is. Genuinely, within the first couple pages, I was already kind of losing my mind.

[00:55:01] I think there's something that happens sometimes where people project what they hope the series is going to be onto a series when that is not the series. Like they they read this and they're like, oh, the idea of like a battle manga with a character who's obsessed with studying that could theoretically be interesting. That's not what the series is about. Not only is it not what it's about, but also like, is that premise even that interesting? Is it even like that good? No. Reb's idea was much more interesting.

[00:55:31] Yeah, no, I don't think that's interesting either. But some people could. I don't know. Why is there a Duolingo owl coming out of Sean's mouth right now? You're sleeping. OK. He was sleeping. Sean very passive and aggressively saying he's not talking enough during this recording. That's just what happens when I lose tracking. I lose my little cat voice. Oh, there we go. He's bad. So Sean. So what's on your mind, sleepy boy? Well, I just fell asleep again. I did that on purpose. What is on my mind? God.

[00:55:59] So I just I just pulled up the one shot, even though I said I wasn't going to. And let me tell you, just skimming through it. There's no difference. I was reading the one shot. You must have been like at the release. This art is atrocious. Yeah, I I don't understand. It looks like he's putting in a little more effort for the one shot. Like he took a little more time. But aside from. Oh, what the fuck is that? What? Hold the fuck. What is happening?

[00:56:30] Yeah. Hold on. I'll put this. I'll put this in the chat. You'll see. Mostly it's the top left panel that gets me. But like the whole page is a mess. Oh, I don't. What the hell? I can't. I don't know if that's any kind of anatomy. I miss the smell of blood. I can't hold myself back. Again, the hands are hilariously bad. Holy shit. Like I'm not even exact. Like, look, drawing hands. Hands are hard. Hands are hard. A lot of people struggle with hands. I've struggled with hands.

[00:56:58] These are the worst hands I've ever seen. And one more full page panel just for flavor, because there is no God on this green earth. Yeah, no, I don't. There's no excuse for why this got serialized, because look at this. That's pretty bad. And the cops are coming for me. Holy shit. That is a massive book and tiny hands. But also how he's holding the book. Yeah, he's got his fingers between the pages, kind of like. That's just paper cut city. Only his fingertip. Yeah.

[00:57:28] Anyway, I also want to say they never actually resolved that they have to repair the wall in three day plot. It just got canceled before that. What did they resolve? What the fuck did they resolve? That's true. They used resolve a lot. Yes. Rem. And then they reverse resolved it. Anyway, I do also want to resolve some of Maxi B's notes where they said, you get the idea that Jump Editorial really wanted SWAT gone because they didn't have a replacement ready when they canceled it. That's so good. Yeah.

[00:57:56] And then they also want to know how terrible the offer's handwriting is in the bonus material. Yeah. And the offer has admitted he's not good at drawing women. Like, huh? Who would have thought? Oh, but he's good at drawing men. So. It's real stellar at that. Respectfully disagree. No. What if this is Rob Liefeld? Rob Liefeld is better than this. He is actually. All right. Anyway, let's get into the final verdict. Let's get some six word summaries from the community. Maxi B. Oi. He's a SWAT. What what? OTR of the Flame Flamer. A. SWAT the fucking L night. Robert Queen.

[00:58:26] Building UFOs surely revolves identifying it. There you guys go. Diego says red hair weaponizes autism. Somehow robot laser beam returned. Oh, God. Hey, you guys know what robot laser beams about, right? Is it about a robot laser beam? No, it's about golf. Oh, of course. It's about weaponized autism playing golf. It's about an autistic guy being good at golf. Yeah. But he's good at golf because of his autism. Because he can shoot things in a straight line that's like a laser beam. Yeah. And he's a robot because he's autistic.

[00:58:54] Isn't that just a great message from the author? Reading Kill Blue, which is by the same offer and it's way better. Anyway, Dude Rock said just go watch Windbreaker instead. Jersey Luck said intelligible fighting oddity makes poor choices. Lord Anubis swatted away in no time flat. Spubby strength, opportunities, threats, none, weakness, everything. The Laughing Fool. Is this a thing people say? No, it's not. And T-Wolf would say he should have stopped with Zahn. And then Rem, drop it for us, my guy. What was your six word summary? My six word summary. It is just six different screams of increasing desperation. Oh, good. Let's hear it.

[00:59:32] I think he finished. Yeah. He definitely finished with that last one. That's going to be Sean's new ringtone. You guys can sell us an mp3 for your patrons. Sean, how about you on that? Uh, I would rather admire David's statue. Thank you. All right. Jordan, how about you? I have a couple. Probably should have studied making manga. Ooh. Yep. Blood, blood, blood. Bits of sick. I love it. Which is, of course, a Garth Marenghi reference.

[01:00:01] God, I love that show. Yeah. Mine are the Q and SWAT stands for quality. Very good. Very good. And as interesting as a SWAT analysis, which do you guys know what those are? I mean, yeah, they came up when I tried to Google what the fuck a SWAT was. Yeah, okay. That's a thing from business school, which I've never have found useful in my entire life. What does this stand for, David? Like, I... The T is threats, opportunities. I was going to say the W is weapons, which is definitely not right. Weaknesses. It's, uh... Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Shown in business school. Yeah. Swords. Swords, weapons.

[01:00:33] Offense tactics. Oni-chan. Oni-chan tactics. Oni-chan tactics. I love it. The less popular Final Fantasy sequel. Oni-oni-chan, Oni-chan tactics is like a dating sim, like, SRPG. Like... I love it. I'd play it. Jordan, can you please read to Sean and Rub what my note says about if this is a flop or not? Uh, David just wrote, oh, Mal. Or... All right. So this is definitely a certified flop. This is like the certified flop, kind of, you know?

[01:01:03] Obviously, yeah. I still... Reading this has re-verified for me. This is still not the worst thing we've ever read. It's... It's because, like, we can't even figure out what the content is to tell if it's offensive or not, almost. Like, it's just... It's such a fucking mess that, like... I don't know. So, Jordan, why should someone check out instead of this? Garth Marenghi's Dark Place. Love it. How about you, Rem? Anything else. No, you've got to give us something, big guy. It doesn't even have to be related. It doesn't have to be anything. Just something.

[01:01:31] You know, watch the great works of Mike Flanagan. Any of his movies. Any of his series. There you go. Completely unrelated, but it's all so much better. I'm looking this up so I can watch your favorite and say I don't like it. Good luck. You're going to watch it and be like, fuck, this is really good. It's really good. That's essentially what happened to me on our episode of it. Oh, my God. Oh, he made Hush. I fucking hate that movie. It's a great movie. What the fuck are you talking about? Oh, Doctor Sleep. That movie was so boring. Anyway, I'm just kidding.

[01:02:00] I thought Doctor Sleep was great. Sean, what's up? On the subject of art, that's not the best. Just read Mob Psycho 100. There you go. It does everything so perfectly and wonderful. And it's my favorite anime of all time. It's amazing. Sean, have you been reading Bug Ego? I've not. It's amazing. Oh, God. It's by one as well. It's super good. He has like another really talented art. I will need to jump on it. This boy finds a notebook that has real life life hacks in it. And it's just him and his friend going on like adventures and shit.

[01:02:27] Like the one I always like is it's like if you go to the store and then your your receipt in yen is your height in centimeters plus one and you put it on your shoe and sleep overnight, you grow a centimeter in height. It's just like crazy shit like that. OK, so full slice of life comedy one stuff. I'm here for it. Exquisite. Yeah, I always describe it as teenagers doing real life speed running tricks. Yeah, pretty much. And the artist is amazing.

[01:02:54] Because if this series, what the offer is trying to do with the series, if it was done well, I am actually going to say go read Kagura Bachi because that's pretty much what this offer was trying to do. Every morning I wake up with fresh hatred. So it's the most Kino manga. Actually, Kagura Bachi is fixed on but close enough. It's look, reading Kagura Bachi is vastly preferable to reading either Zon or SWAT. Yeah. Like not even remotely close because it's at least kind of good.

[01:03:24] Like, and you know, it's preferable to reading either of those as well. What? Wrapping up this podcast. Let's get into that section. Sean Rem, thank you so much for joining us on this five year journey. This is our first main episode to guests. And goodbye. God, we're never going to do it again. This was awful. Oh, gee, thanks. No, I'm just kidding. You guys hit the bar way too high until I'm sure he's not going to be happy with me about the editing that this is going to take. But it was worth it. So would you guys mind telling us where they can get more of your greatness? Absolutely. Once again, we are the hosts of Anime Out of Context, the show where we attempt to explain

[01:03:53] sometimes weird, sometimes wonderful, but always hilarious world of anime. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts, whether it's YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever we're there. We're happy to have you listen to us and yell at us like everybody else does. And if you want us more frequently live, well, at least I'm on Twitch pretty regularly. Oh, I love it. Is there any episodes you think so much to check out you've done recently? Oh, wow. Perhaps with some guests on it, maybe? Yeah, exactly. Or openly insulting of someone on this show throughout the recording.

[01:04:23] Hey, it's not openly insulting. It is lovingly slapping you in the face every once in a while. I mean, I believe there are two episodes where we spent where at least half the episode is attacking David specifically. If you like the Flop Boys, we recently did an episode on Don to Don. Or you can check out the first episode we did with them, which was My Dress Up Darling. And that is a lovely experience that definitely didn't get some heckles raised. But if you want just more of me and Rem having a bit of a laugh, having a bit of a banter,

[01:04:51] just pick your favorite anime that you love dearly. Oh, fuck. And tune into that episode if we have one of it. And you will immediately find out if you're able to handle what we can put out. You'll quickly, you'll have strong feelings one way or another. Like Sword Art Online fans, you'll have a great time. Especially if your favorite anime is Attack on Titan. Yeah, yeah. God, I don't know how to handle that. Oh, but that is awesome. No, but for real, I greatly enjoy getting to talk to you guys.

[01:05:20] It's definitely been one of the highlights of podcasting. Thank you so much for being on. And I'm going to say props to Jordan, of course, for making the opening editing thing, being a great host, and hopefully with the editing. Thank you, David, for all the work you do on the show. No problem. Props to Merlisle for the awesome cover art. Find her Alina, Lyle, Mer, and Nigel for being our generous art benefactor. Thank you, Dylan, for assistance with editing. You can find his podcast, which was just said, Anime Out of Context. Thanks to Tucker and Maxi B for assistance with pronunciation. Where can they find you, David? Wherever goods are sold. Or animeoutofcontext.com. Not AOC. That is a politician.

[01:05:47] Thanks to Tucker and Maxi B for assistance with pronunciation, translation, and other miscellaneous research. Tucker, I hope you had a great time in Japan. You can find us on BlueSky.com. Slash X at ShonenFlop. Tumblr, Shonen-Flop. And our website, ShonenFlop.com. Or on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, wherever else you get your podcasts. And come join the ShonenFlop Discord. It's open to everyone. Hang out with us. Talk about anime games or whatever else is on your mind. We even have a manga book club and movie nights. Finally, too. In the Shonen Store on our site, ShonenFlop.com. Jordan, now's your chance to plug whatever you want. Thank you to my lovely girlfriend, Steph. And check out Mission Ignition on my other podcast that may update at one point.

[01:06:17] Who knows? Maybe never, probably. And check out my Instagram where I'm oil painting again. Jordan Forbes Art. I love it. And then I also want to give a wonderful shout out to my beautiful wife, Rachel, who is out right now with my wonderful dog, Ravioli. Enjoying shout out to the wolf. Ravioli is just a silly goober. And so let's get into the sign off. Thank you so much for joining us. Tune in next Monday as we give our full thoughts on Doton Prism Solar Car. This has been David. This has been Jordan. This has been Sean. This has been Remington. And you've been listening to ShonenFlop. Keep on flopping, floppers. Yeah. Bye.

[01:06:48] Bye.