David and Jordan give their first thoughts on the Shonen Jump manga Bokke-san. Listen in as they give an overview of the first chapter, where they think it will go from there, and ultimately their “power word” to describe the series so far. They also dive into some listener questions.
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[Transcript by OzyRat]
Jordan 0:00
Welcome to Shonen Flop Chibi, a first impressions mini episode where we talk about the first chapter of the series we'll be covering in depth next week. I'm Jordan, and with me today as usual is my co-host, David. Say hi, David.
David 0:13
Hi David.
Jordan 0:13
What series we covering this week, David?
David 0:15
You gotta book'em all, we're covering Bokke-san.
Jordan 0:17
[laughs] Oh god. We certainly fucking are.
David 0:20
[laughing] Oh, man. [Jordan laughs] Yeah, this, uh, this one was, uh, it was shit. Yeah, it's not good. Power word? This sucked.
Jordan 0:28
Yeah, we're not even gonna hide it. It's-it's gonna be so blatant. Like, from the start, the quality of this series... clearly no point in even just, uh, dancing around it, you know?
David 0:38
Yeah, uh. [laughs] But to tell a little bit more about this series. It is created by, uh, Nishi Yoshi-uh, Yoshiyuki, and it was 18 chapters over two volumes. So, Jordan, at least mercifully, it is short. Imagine if we had to read, like, 30 chapters of this.
Jordan 0:53
Oh, I don't know, David, these chapters seem a little long. [laughs]
David 0:57
Oh, fuck, I thought this ran in Jump.
Jordan 0:59
Maybe it's because they're just impossible to follow? At least this first chapter just felt significantly longer than I was expecting.
David 1:07
Every series in Shonen Jump has like a triple chapter.
Jordan 1:09
Okay. Okay, that's true. All right.
David 1:11
Yeah.
Jordan 1:11
I'm really hoping that the length is not consistent throughout the whole thing, or else I will tear my god damn hair out. You want me to get into the goddamn plot summary?
David 1:21
Yeah, I really appreciate you messaging me [Jordan sighs] like, David, what the fuck happened in this? And I said, I have no goddamn idea either.
Jordan 1:26
OK, I'll just get into it. Here's the fucking plot summary, listener. Hinomiya Mitsura is a kid who doesn't know what he wants to do with his life until he saves a little girl whose mom was killed by a bokke-san which is a weird demon thing. And he does this by turning into a bokke-san cat demon. Then he decides that, oh, actually, I want to be a hero. Now kind of just imagine that but with a ton of completely incomprehensible bullshit. And then he also uses telekinesis to cheat it bowling, I think.
David 1:55
Yeah, that sounds about right. Weirdly, his teacher's, like, fully aware of his powers, but no one else is. And he's, like, casually using front of the people. So I'm not quite sure how this whole system works. Also I'm very confused. Is this sort of, like, a translation thing? And these are yokai? Or is this a completely separate thing? Because I Googled bokke-san and I couldn't find anything. So, hopefully Tucker will have some details of what the fuck bokke-san is.
Jordan 2:15
I have no idea but I can tell you that this series feels like it was translated very poorly.
David 2:20
Oh, yeah. This series is actually from, like, 2009 So this is actually, like, an elder. [laughs] Yeah, it's an elder millennial. It's an elder manga. [both laugh]
Jordan 2:28
Maybe that's why it really feels so much like B. Ichi.
David 2:31
Maybe actually yeah, yeah, so these-but B. Ichi was 10 years the [laughing] older than this.
Jordan 2:35
And had better art--
David 2:36
Yeah.
Jordan 2:37
--honestly. Oh my god. This is--
David 2:39
Yeah, this is-this is
Jordan 2:41
--not good. [laughs]
David 2:42
So, yeah, I go-I assume we're now officially in the first impressions, but--
Jordan 2:45
First impressions! Yeah.
David 2:47
Yeah, the art is rough. Backgrounds are half-drawn. Like, if you're not the explicit person in focus, you do not have your face drawn. So everyone looks like they don't have faces.
Jordan 2:55
The faces look like they were just doodled Like, freehand with a pen by a guy who's like, didn't really think about it too hard. These drawings are not solid.
David 3:05
Yeah.
Jordan 3:06
Ugh, like Beast Children looks better than this series, I would say.
David 3:09
Yeah, so this series though, I-it-it's really interesting cuz sometimes you see a series and you're like, this looks like if the art style of X series, if the artist was worse, and this reminds me a lot of Dungeon Meshi where it has, like, a very similar, like, facial proportion and style, but Dungeon Meshi is just drawn substantially more competently. Like, there's a cat boy/cat girl in that series that straight up looks like a character from this series, but just drawn way better.
Jordan 3:32
You know, I kind of, weirdly, got a Naruto fan comic vibe.
David 3:36
Yeah.
Jordan 3:37
The way that this guy tr-or at least attempted to draw faces and clothes where I was like, okay, I could see if a much better artist tried doing this. It would look a lot like Naruto's [David laughs] art style.
David 3:48
You just have it on your mind because of Totally Not Mark.
Jordan 3:50
I did not watch that video yet.
David 3:52
Really? I-I really wonder what he's gonna do because Naruto just gets way worse after the chunin exam.
Jordan 3:57
I mean, Naruto was a series of peaks and valleys. It's got its positives throughout there.
David 4:02
Mmmmm, sure.
Jordan 4:03
Someone did point out that, uh, Zabuza might have been, like, the peak of the series, and I don't know how much I disagree with that, to be honest.
David 4:12
I mean,if you say chunin exam, it's literally the next arc. So...
Jordan 4:15
Yeah.
David 4:16
The point is that Naruto was at its best in the first, like, 10 volumes.
Jordan 4:19
I mean, you know, again, I really like, uh, I-I like Jiraiya when Jiraiya shows up and shit. But yeah, this is not a Naruto podcast, but my God, it's tough to figure out what to fucking say abou--
David 4:30
Yeah.
Jordan 4:30
--Bokke-san because it's incomprehensible.
David 4:33
Yeah, I also just want to point out that Jiraiya showed up during the chunin exam arc.
Jordan 4:36
What? No, he--
David 4:37
Yeah, Naruto uses summoning when he fights, uh, what's his name?
Jordan 4:40
Orochimaru?
David 4:41
No, not Orochimaru. Who's the sand guy? Why is my-his na--
Jordan 4:43
Gaara.
David 4:44
Yeah, he uses summoning versus Gaara and he summons a toad. Where do [laughs] you think he learned how to summon a toad? He just didn't learn the rasengan yet, but he learned how-he learned summoning from Jiraiya during the chunin exam.
Jordan 4:53
Oh dude, I don't remember, like, anything about it.
David 4:55
Brah, it's o-it was only 15 years ago. How do you not remember this?
Jordan 4:58
Yeah, right? [David laughs] Was that 15 years [laughing] ago or was it 15 years ago since, like, Naruto ended? I don't even know when Naruto happened anymore. Who fucking cares?
David 5:09
Man, this would be the perfect series that we could have just, like, we made that joke for Phantom Seer, this would have been the series where we just talked about Chainsaw Man and, like, things we actually like for, like, 45 minutes instead.
Jordan 5:18
Yeah.
David 5:19
But, uh, [Jordan laughs] I, umm, I legitimately had to fight to think of positives. So I think that having a mute main character is an original idea. It's clearly not--
Jordan 5:29
Is he--
David 5:30
--handled w--
Jordan 5:30
--mute?
David 5:30
What?
Jordan 5:31
Is he mute?
David 5:32
Yeah, he explicitly said he doesn't talk.
Jordan 5:34
But then he does talk.
David 5:35
When does he talk? I thought it was all self-narration.
Jordan 5:37
Well, there's-there's a point where he does talk and then somebody's like, oh, wow, you said something.
David 5:41
Oh, fuck.
Jordan 5:43
See like, I-I don't--
David 5:44
Yeah.
Jordan 5:44
--I don't know. [laughs]
David 5:45
Alright, so then this series does absolutely nothing that I think is remotely good.
Jordan 5:48
So the only [laughing] thing is that sometimes in comparison to other drawings in the series, the drawings look pretty good, but only in comparison to the shittier drawings around it.
David 6:02
Mmhm.
Jordan 6:02
This right here is just, like, a sequence of, uh, dialogue from one of the panels. I just want to read it in order.
David 6:10
[laughs] Sure.
Jordan 6:11
Inspector Yano: please excuse us for being late. Bowling? No, um, yes. Why are they revealing that? And listener, you have exactly, uh, as much ability to figure out what the fuck they were talking about as I did when I read it.
David 6:24
I will say, though, that we do have a note from TWolfwood, our Oracle listener. Thank you for being a patron and being able to listen--
Jordan 6:30
Mmmm.
David 6:30
--to our recording. Pointing out, yeah, this series is just known for having a really shit translation and they said [laughing] actually the translation gets worse as it goes on.
Jordan 6:38
Nice! Oh, fuck yeah. Oh, is this gonna get into Pokemon Vietnamese Crystal territory?
David 6:44
It very well could. Oh man. What was the name of that, like, someone translated Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith into Chinese and then back and you [Jordan laughs] got, like, a lot of really great dialogue. Like, that's where do not want comes from. Because the scene where Darth Vader goes "No" [David and Jordan laugh] got translated into "Do not want".
Jordan 7:00
[laughing] It's really good. I know what you're talking about. It had a really funny name. I forget what it is. Hey, hey, TWolfwood, can you-can you find it for us? Nah, you don't have to.
David 7:08
[laughing] Just the duwang translation Part Four.
Jordan 7:10
Yeah, but that's exactly, like, what it is. Except the thing is, is that this dialogue is so confusing that even though it's probably a little bit more easy to understand in Japanese, I doubt it's good, you know? [laughing] Like...
David 7:23
I mean, that doesn't take away from the fact that the art doesn't make any sense. The paneling is atrocious, everything is so [Jordan groans] cramped, some characters, you can't even see their faces properly because then you're just trying to jam so many panels in, and, like, nothing happens. So I don't know why the author felt like he had to really force it. This isn't One Piece where you're tracking 15 characters. Like, Oda is allowed to literally cram as much content as he can in each chapter because he has so much to do. Each arc would be twice as long as he-if he didn't optimize the fuck out of every single arc, er, every single chapter.
Jordan 7:51
Yeah, I was gonna say Oda does not optimize the fuck out of every arc. But, uh, also Oda knows [laughing] how to make comics in, like, a coherent way. You know? Like, he's literally-he's a pro in, like, a way that few people match. But like, you don't have to be as good as Oda to do a better job than this.
David 8:09
Yeah.
Jordan 8:09
[still laughing] This is unbelievable. I mean, I pointed out to David there's character, like, there's-there's, like, this-this girl who has a crush on, and maybe not, maybe she's taking advantage of his psychic powers to cheat at bowling and hustle some people? I don't know. But, like, her face looks like Gomez's face.
David 8:29
Yeah.
Jordan 8:29
Cuz it's, like, serious. Like, it's not funny in the [laughing] way that Gomez's face is. It's just ugly.
David 8:36
Right?
Jordan 8:37
Oh my god. Like, there's so much shit that happens in here and yet nothing that happens in here.
David 8:42
Yeah. This isn't really going to compete with Swot, I feel, for the series with the most manga about nothing. So it's a shame we've already used the Seinfeld parody but we do have a pretty good idea of another well known series that was absolutely atrocious that we might be using, so. Points to anyone who guesses what I'm thinking is a potential cover art.
Jordan 9:00
Wow, did David just say that Seinfeld was like atrocious? That's, uh,--
David 9:03
Oh, fuck off.
Jordan 9:04
--whoa, that's a hot take. [laughs]
David 9:05
Shut up. I didn't-I know you know what--
Jordan 9:07
I know, I know you mean. I know what you mean.
David 9:08
--I'm talking about, you silly billy. Also just to get into it. One other thing that I fucking hate a lot is when the pilots have flashbacks. Like, what was the point? You could have just shown that and then flash forward to the modern day. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever to have a flashback in your first chapter.
Jordan 9:23
Especially just, like, you can explore the backstory a little bit later, too. Why don't you just focus on showing us some kind of compelling narrative in the here and now, you know? You got to focus on what's right in front of us, guys. Come on. Be in the moment.
David 9:38
Yeah.
Jordan 9:39
Ah, I do want to point out one of my favorite [laughing] moments in this.
David 9:43
Yeah?
Jordan 9:43
This little girl's mom is killed and she's cut in half brutally. And the cops are just like, ah, the victim's cause of death was, uh, being cut in half and blood loss.
David 9:56
I-I posted that [Jordan laughs] in the discord in the new [laughing] context manga panels because I was like, wow, that is absolutely just an [laughing] amazing piece of dialogue.
Jordan 10:06
God, I feel like there's a famous parody somewhere where it's ju-of, like, a mystery novel where it's just, like, there's a guy with a knife in his back and it's like, uh, cause of death knife in the back. Like, yeah, no shit. No shit. You see, [laughing] someone cutting that dude, you-author you don't have to tell us that she died from being cut in half.
David 10:23
It's [Jordan laughs] making me think of that scene from Scary Movie 3 or 4 where the guy, like, finds out his wife was, like, cut in half in a car accident. And then he's like, ah, but you know, can I like still, you know? He makes, like, a sex thing. And it di-that was just, like, a [laughing] really fucking weird scene, where he's like, can I-can I still fuck my dead wife? Which [Jordan laughs] actually, what the fuck was that [laughing] joke actually thinking about in hindsight [Jordan laughs]?
Jordan 10:46
Scary Movie 3.
David 10:47
[laughing] Okay, so I didn't imagine that scene being in Scary Movie.
Jordan 10:51
I haven't seen Scary Movie 3. I'm just assuming--
David 10:53
Oh.
Jordan 10:53
--because that does seem like a joke that would be in Scary Movie 3.
The most under-most underappreciated of the Scary Movies.
How do people feel versus Scary Movie 4?
David 11:01
Uhh, I think people think 4 is shit. My personal is 1, 3, 2, 4. But we will-we can make our Scary Movie tier list at some point.
Jordan 11:09
I've only seen 2.
David 11:11
This is actually the second podcast episode where we've talked about Scary Movie.
Jordan 11:13
Is it?
David 11:14
Yeah, cuz we talked about it because remember I was comparing different types of parody. When we--
Jordan 11:18
Right, yeah.
David 11:20
So. Maybe that's our, uh, new Gomez where we just talk about it every episode.
Jordan 11:24
[laughs] Our new Eyeshield 21.
David 11:25
Tought we did actually talk about Gomez in this episode already.
Jordan 11:28
We al-we already did. Already did.
David 11:30
Also the-the-its got a teenager with giant boobs.
Jordan 11:32
Yep, it absolutely does. Which is, uhh, 2000s manga. Like, it-it really is just like, what the fuck else do you even say about this fucking thing? It's just, like, it's so hard to get a grasp on. I feel like I'm watching, like, an even more incomprehensible, uh, Xavier: Renegade Angel.
David 11:50
Oh, god. Yeah, I feel someone can make something that's bad but ironically. But this was just played straight. This could have been some, like, [Jordan sighs] avant garde manga or outsider art.
Jordan 11:59
What it felt like was, like, umm, like one of David Lynch's particularly weird and out there, uh, movies, but, like, without any redeemable artistic value.
David 12:11
Yeah.
Jordan 12:11
I feel like I'm watching Inland Empire but there isn't even anything cool happening--
David 12:15
Mmhm.
Jordan 12:16
--at all. Like, unbelievable. Just I-I-I can't even. Oh, I did want to say you mentioned Scary Movie 3. But the movie that, uh, her getting cut in half reminded me of was, umm, I halved myself, Dewey. [laughs]
I have no idea what you're referencing.
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story?
David 12:33
[laughs] That's a [Jordan laughs] great movie.
Jordan 12:34
[laughing] So good.
David 12:36
That's a good candidate for movie night actually.
Jordan 12:37
I was just gonna say that. Yeah, I've been meaning to watch that movie again. But yeah, it's hi-her mom halves herself because I think her mom got possessed by the Bokke-san or something. Maybe? I don't know.
David 12:48
[laughing] I don't know. But you know, what I didn't know is I don't wanna really talk about the series [laughing] anymore. So why don't we-can we move on to the next section, please?
Jordan 12:56
Yeah, because regardless of one-I don't know if I physically CAN [laughing] talk about this series-about this chapter, at least anymore. So let's move on to the next part. So, [laughs] David, what do you think is going to happen next?
David 13:08
Alright, so here are my three guesses: a friend is introduced to be a damsel-in-distress and gains powers, an evil human character that works for the monsters and isn't well explained. The female main character gains some powers, but is never as effective as the main male character.
Jordan 13:19
Were all of those, uh, Phantom Seer {David laughs] guesses too?
David 13:23
[David and Jordan laugh] Yes, it was. I did-I really wanted to see if you would know it.
Jordan 13:28
[laughing] All those really work.
David 13:29
[David and Jordan laughing] Yeah, this is literally verbatim what my guesses for Phantom Seer were. And I was like, yeah, fuck it. Yeah. Yeah, it's actually-these all work as well serious.
Jordan 13:38
Well, yeah. Because I was even wondering how you got three guesses. Because it was, like, uh, uh, I feel like I needed to understand this chapter more to make guesses the, like, the only guess that I really had, an-and it was solid on this, this is going to be a really, really annoying and stupid racism metaphor.
David 13:56
Oh my god. So I was watching-spoilers, um, for No Time to Die, but, uh, I'll just be vague. So there's a scene where they're, like, trying to rescue an-a scientist. And then the scientist and the agent is, um, black. And this-this [laughing] scientist says something racist as she drops him off a platform so he dies. [Jordan laughs]
Jordan 14:14
Well, that's practice, baby.
David 14:16
She was, like, really hated him. And then he said something racist, so [Jordan laughs] she just kills [laughing] him.
Jordan 14:20
All I can really [laughing] do for my next guesses are it's going to end with a-with a time skip and it's going to be a [laughing] certified flop.
David 14:29
Wow, Hot Take Central.
Jordan 14:30
[sings] Hot Take--[stops singing] hey, man. I don't know. I don't [laughing] know for sure. W-I-I-I can barely parse what the fuck is happening in this series, man.
David 14:39
Yeah, so [laughing] it'll be fun. [indecipherable] know would you read 10 more chapters?
Jordan 14:43
No! Go-oh, god. No, this was painful to get through. This was-this is just bewildering. So how about you, [laughing] David, though? Would you read ten chapters?
David 14:52
Jordan and David laugh] I'm- how 'bout you fuck off? Because I would not... [Jordan laughs]
Jordan 14:55
Really? What a shock...
David 14:57
Absolutely.
Jordan 14:58
Oh, what's your power [laughing] word?
David 15:00
What?
Jordan 15:00
[takes a deep breath] What's your power-no, I get it. Yeah.
David 15:03
I feel like you wouldn't agree if we had done that loop maybe two or three times.
Jordan 15:05
Oh, what's your power word?
David 15:07
What?
Jordan 15:08
What's your [laughing] power word?
David 15:09
What?
Jordan 15:10
Exactly. My power word --
David 15:13
Is who.
Jordan 15:14
--is-Shut up. [David laughs] My power word is clutter. Because, my god, the thing about this series-one of the things that makes it so hard to figure out is that there's just stuff going on in every panel, like, every bit of space. And it is all hard to figure out. There's a ton of dialog boxes that don't make any sense next to each other. It's just, like, impossible to follow. You need to cut out, like, over half the drawings in this manga, just to make it readable.
David 15:43
And that's the crazy thing, is that he could have drawn less and it would have been better, so then he could have put more effort into what he drew anyway.
Jordan 15:50
Less is more and it's really hard to do that when you're starting out.
David 15:53
Yeah, more or less.
Jordan 15:54
Exactly. More or less.
David 15:57
Bigly.
Jordan 15:57
Anyway! You want to move into Q&A? Because I haven't got anything [laughing] else to say about this shit.
David 16:02
Yeah, but we do have some fans that have quite a few things to say. So--
Jordan 16:05
Hell yeah.
David 16:06
--let's start with, uh, Xylon who says which flop series would have made the best gotcha game if it had succeeded?
Jordan 16:12
Golem Hearts.
David 16:13
Golem Hearts. Why?
Jordan 16:14
Remember the-the way that that series works is that there's a bunch of different little golems--
David 16:18
Yeah.
Jordan 16:18
--but we on-we only got a couple of them because the series didn't last long. But I feel like if it had kept going, there would have been, like, a bunch of little dudes that you'd probably could have gotten in a gotcha game.
You know, that makes sense. I actually think, um, Candy Flurry would have been good because literally there's--
Mmmm.
David 16:33
--already, like, one that's pretty much Candy Flurry as a gotcha game. So they could of just reskinned it. Which we talked about in the show. I forget the name of it, but um, Chip was talking about it. How, like, Level-5 has a game that has a pretty similar concept to the series anyway.
Jordan 16:45
Right. Yeah, no, I could definitely see that. I mean, you could get, like, different candy weapons and--
David 16:50
Mmhm.
Jordan 16:51
--stuff like that. Ooh, you could even have, like, an edible component. That'd be cool.
David 16:55
[laughs] Fucking weeb. Oh man. TWolfwood says [Jordan laughs] Moriking.
Jordan 16:58
Yeah, that's what I want.
David 16:59
TWolfwood says Moriking. By the way, that's a good pick.
Jordan 17:01
That's not a bad one. I-I also like the idea of physical, like, uh, gotcha machine-- [David laughs]
David 17:07
[Jordan laughs] To find bugs and scan for them.
Jordan 17:10
Exactly!
David 17:12
That's actually a cool idea if they partnered up with, like, zoos. [laughs]
Jordan 17:14
Yeah, Hey, kids. Here's some bugs.
David 17:17
Yeah. [laughs] Oh man. Next question is, speaking of TWolfwood, here is your [laughs] contractually required that we answer one of your questions every episode. [Jordan laughs] Because he is a level three patron. Notably, the only level three patron who submits his questions, so keep up the good work.
Jordan 17:31
Oh yeah.
David 17:32
What series are you currently keeping up with? And I assume just by the nature of that question, let's just limit it to, I guess, Weekly Shonen Jump because otherwise I'll be here all day telling you what I follow right now.
Jordan 17:40
I'm very easy because I don't really, uh, I don't read manga. What the fuck is manga? No, I-funnily enough, the most recent series that I've been keeping [laughing] up with is PPPPPP.
David 17:50
Oh, fuck off. Even Reddit's like, this series fucking sucks.
Jordan 17:53
It does! It sucks but it's like-like-I like it for the same reason that I like, like, Birdemic or something. Like, it is a bad series. But I'm kind of just fascinated to see the bizarre ways in which it's bad.
David 18:06
So how would you say this series is, like, not fun to read ironically while that was?
Jordan 18:11
Are-are you asking me why PPPPPP is more fun than this?
David 18:14
Yes.
Jordan 18:15
Or, yeah, well, first of all, you can follow PPPPPP. You can follow it pretty, like, decently. It's not, like, super confusing. It's just stupid in, like, really weird ways. Whereas this one, I don't even know what the fuck I'm reading. I can barely tell you what happened in this chapter that we just read. Whereas I can at least tell you what happened in-I'm going to just-going to call it pianissimo, whatever the fuck. Uh, what about you, David? What-what series are you following? Besides One Piece because that's fucking obvious.
David 18:43
So let's see. We got High School Family--
Jordan 18:46
Of course.
David 18:46
--Dr. Stone, Jujutsu Kaisen--
Jordan 18:48
Mmhm.
David 18:48
--Nagu-chan, Mashel, My Hero Academia, Sakamoto Days, Hunters Guild Red Hood. And, of course, One Piece.
Jordan 18:55
I am, like, overall-I am following, uh, Sakamoto Days and Red Hood and One Piece, but the thing is, I read in bursts.
David 19:02
Mmm.
Jordan 19:03
So like, I will just not read any manga for, like, weeks and then read a bunch in, like, one week, you know? So like, I'll catch up to all those series after a bit. I promise, David, I promise, don't ca-don't cancel me.
David 19:14
Also, I'm not sure why it didn't update in my list today. But I also read Mission: Family, which, like, that series is really weird. So I'm just kind of reading it just to see what they'll do because I've never seen the series more blatant that the author is making it up as he goes, [Jordan laughs] but he's trying to make, like, this complex spy, and, like, without any pre-planning it just doesn't make a lot of sense a lot of the time but it's still just very weird. It's just a fun read to see how he's trying to pretend like he planned it.
Jordan 19:37
Kind of like DBZ.
David 19:38
Yeah, exactly. [both laugh] Aww, man. Alright, so next question is from Yaji_Black. Any flopped series you think may have been successful if they had started out as an anime instead? I, likewise, actually know what my answer is because we kind of said it in the episode itself.
Jordan 19:54
I don't think this was what we were talking about. But I kind of think Samurai 8 could have worked out if it had started out as an anime.
David 20:00
That's an interesting one. Why do you think so?
Jordan 20:02
Well it looks really cool and I think that if it was in motion a lot of the, uh, because one of the big issues is that the visuals just got kind of confusing. I-but if there-if there was color and things were moving around it would be a lot easier to follow and I think that, like, a lot of the art design would stand out a lot more.
David 20:18
That makes sense. Mine, actually, is kind of in a similar space. Where I thought that Candy Flurry because we talked about that series--
Jordan 20:24
Yeah.
David 20:24
--if that series was full color it would have been really, really fun to read. So, I mean, making an anime is actually probably the easiest way you could have made a full--because I don't think, and, uh, maybe someone on the Shonen Flop [indecipherable] can tell me, but I don't think there's any thing that prints full color manga like they do with American comics.
Jordan 20:39
Yeah, I-I really don't know enough about the different publications in Japan so I-I can't really say but I definitely can see that. I would love a Candy Flurry OVA. I really want to see the [laughing] gigantor fight.
David 20:53
[laughs] Yeah.
Jordan 20:54
It's so good. So good!
David 20:55
It starts, we'll actually make the Shonen Flop the anime opening. We'll [laughing] commission an episode of Candy Flurry. [Jordan laughs]
Jordan 21:01
Oh man, Shonen Flop anime opening, the [laughing] $1,000 a month goal.
David 21:04
[laughs] Yes. Uh, next one comes from Hassan. If you had to swap authors to fix a flop, who would you swap? And why? This is an interesting question actually, that I'm not really sure off the top of my head what I would say. Do you have a thought?
Jordan 21:17
I do. And I thought about this for a bit. I'm pretty satisfied with my answer. I would have the author of Moriking write time [indecipherable] but write, uh, Teenage Renaissance! David.
David 21:29
Oh, okay. I thought you were gonna say Time Paradox where I was like, yeah, let's trade authors from the best [laughing] series we ever read.
Jordan 21:34
I mean, that might be kind of interesting. But no, that isn't-that isn't what I'm saying. Because the thing about Teenage Renaissance! David is that one thing I really would have liked was if the author delved more into the Renaissance art aspect. Like, there are a lot of jokes about it. But--
David 21:49
Yeah.
Jordan 21:49
--what if, like, i-instead of piss, there were, like, more in-depth art historical references? Maybe it could teach you some things about art history in the same way that Moriking teaches you weird things about bugs.
David 22:02
I like it. I'm gonna go with a really, really weird choice. You ready for this?
Jordan 22:07
I'm bracing myself.
David 22:08
I think the creator of Golem Hearts would have done a really good job with Hell Warden.
Jordan 22:13
Hmmm.
David 22:13
Because I think that, like, introspective thinking about redemption, just having strong characterization were all things that went well with Golem Hearts and Golem Hearts was really limited moreso by just the art. And I think that he was perfectly competent. So if he did the writing and the Hell Warden artists just kept doing the art. I think that actually could have been a very solid series.
Jordan 22:30
Oh, that's an interesting way to turn it around. Where you just have, um, where instead of swapping, you just have like, hey, you guys, you're now part of the team.
David 22:38
Yeah
Jordan 22:38
So you do that. Yeah. No, I can see that. I definitely see where-where you're going with that. Because, yeah, the issue with those series is that there was just, like, they definitely weren't trash. It was just they were missing some key levels of polish that really dragged them down.
David 22:52
Yeah, there are definitely a lot of instances of writer-of artists where the art... they just couldn't do both.
Jordan 22:58
Yeah. And hey, I-I get it. It's tough.
David 23:01
It's really tough.
Jordan 23:01
It's really fucking tough. Especially with the-with the massive, like, uh, crunch that-that, uh, Shonen Jump just has you under each month. Like, it's brutal. But yeah, I mean, I'm kind of shocked that more artists and writers don't team up. Like, they do it-they do that in American comics. It's way more common, you know?
David 23:18
I think, maybe, I wonder if it's, like, a pride thing. Because you have to just be like, oh, I'm just not good at writing, you know?
Jordan 23:22
I-it might be a pride thing. Or it might just be an issue where, uh, maybe a lot of artists are kind of, uh, socially anxious and not really excited to be on teams. I don't know what I know about that. That's such a weird--
David 23:36
Yeah.
Jordan 23:36
--thing for me to suggest of all people, you know.
David 23:38
Yeah. [Jordan laughs] This reminds me, we still got to, at some point, do an episode about the comic we were working on before we decided to do Shonen Flop instead. And maybe we'll make a pilot for that.
Jordan 23:48
Yeah, I guess. I guess. We-we didn't get very far on that.
David 23:51
That could be one of our stretch goals.
Jordan 23:52
Maybe. Or maybe we'll take that secret to our-to our grave. No, we should just do an episode on Pizza Boy. Why don't we just make a Pizza Boy manga?
David 24:00
Dude, that was the best idea. So for context, listeners--
Jordan 24:03
It was the best idea!
David 24:03
--I had the idea about a platformer where you were a pizza boy delivering pizza to the gods of Olympus. The really-the main Opus was that your health bar was a pizza.
Jordan 24:11
Yeah.
David 24:11
And so as you took more damage, you're, like, the pizza would be eaten. So that was a pretty fucking rad idea we came up with, like, maybe-what at this point 10 years ago? 15 years ago actually?
Jordan 24:19
Definitely more than 10 years ago. [laughs] Yeah, like, 15 is more like it, yeah.
David 24:22
I keep forgetting I wasn't in high school 10 years ago.
Jordan 24:26
Right?
David 24:27
Fuck.
Jordan 24:28
How fucking weird is that? No, I-I had a lot of fun drawing that. Like-like, the designs for that series just came very quickly. Like, we had, um, what was that-we had Loki whose [gets shushed by David] Oh, shit, you're right.
David 24:40
Cancel I knew anything about the Pegasus.
Jordan 24:42
Yeah, can't tell anybody--
David 24:43
Yeah.
Jordan 24:43
--but--
David 24:43
we had some really fucking good ideas. All right. Yeah, yeah. How about if we get another five patrons by the end of November, we'll do a mini episode talking about perhaps the best project Jordan and I ever worked on together?
Jordan 24:52
Yes.
David 24:53
Ask your friends. I know we gained three patrons this month, which was really awesome. But yeah, if we could gain five patrons a month then I would be super happy about that. It lets us make more content.
Jordan 25:01
Totally. That'll be a lot of fun.
David 25:02
Yeah, so though, big shout out to everyone that was a patron. I love you all. So next question, actually speaking of a patron, ooh, that was good. This comes from THEBBKINGBBTHE who says why?
Jordan 25:14
Who, what, when and where?
David 25:16
Yeah, 'why' is actually the funniest word in the world where if you answer, like, any statement with the word 'why', it's usually funny.
Jordan 25:23
One of the things I always like to remember is, uh, there's a rule of thumb that if you ask anybody, uh, why five times you will make them cry. Like, about, like, anything.
David 25:32
I think that's actually one of, like, Toyota's, like, business strategies is just to do. That's, like, the five why's.
Jordan 25:37
Have you ever seen-there's an episode of, uh, The Adventures of Pete and Pete that I always remember. Where they keep getting substitute teachers and then one of the girls in the class just keeps asking them why when they say stuff, and--
David 25:50
Mmhm.
Jordan 25:50
--it just pisses them off so much that they keep leaving to the point that, like, nobody wants to teach the class.
David 25:56
That makes sense.
Jordan 25:57
That was a good show.
David 25:58
[laughs] It was. Final question. I think that you've also from a patron, bs. What do you think about Cool Shock BT sequel's one shot announcement?
Jordan 26:05
That's cool as fuck.
David 26:07
It's [Jordan laughs] cool shock as fuck. Come on, Jordan. That was just pathetic.
Jordan 26:11
It's cool. And it's pretty shocking.
David 26:13
Try better.
Jordan 26:14
BT.
David 26:15
Yeah, it [Jordan laughs] was really fun to read. Shout out to Tucker who put this on our radar. We never would have, like, covered that series if he hadn't mentioned it. And it was such a unique, where it's still-by what? 20 years, the oldest series we've ever read?
Jordan 26:26
Yeah. It's very difficult to find canceled series before, uh, a certain date. Like, honestly, it's tough before 2010, even. Like, it's--
David 26:35
As we said--
Jordan 26:36
--as we see. Like, look how poorly this shit's translated, you know? Like... [laughs]
David 26:40
Yeah.
Jordan 26:40
And this one's lucky to even get a translation but, um, I don't even know why they bothered.
David 26:45
Cool Shock BT? Because it's by Araki.
Jordan 26:46
Oh, I'm not talking about Cool Shock BT. I'm talking about fucking Bokke-san.
David 26:50
Yeah, I have no idea how this got translated. I would have dropped it. But I would've-have made sure that's fully translated.
Jordan 26:55
Yeah.
David 26:55
Now I always check to make sure chapter 15. Because we've had some where the first, like, eight chapters are translated and they drop it because it's shit. So now I always have to make sure at [Jordan laughs] least the first 15 chapters because if you're gonna do that you're just gonna do the whole thing.
Jordan 27:03
Exactly, exactly.
David 27:05
Yeah, I used to check chapter 20. And then some of these series didn't have a [laughing] 20th Chapter. Sorry. I had to start [Jordan kaughs] rolling that back.
Jordan 27:10
All right. Well, I think we got through all the questions.
David 27:13
Yeah, I'm good.
Jordan 27:14
All right, let's move on to shoutouts.
David 27:15
Well, Jordan, first of all, I want to thank you for editing this chibi episode and being just, you know, one of the top 10 best co-hosts I've ever had on this podcast.
Jordan 27:22
Oh, you're so sweet. Who's number nine?
David 27:24
Thanks, Tucker, for assistance with pronounciation, translation, and other miscellaneous research. I feel like he's gonna have a lot of fun with this one because he's gonna have to--
Jordan 27:30
Oh yeah.
David 27:30
--really push his Japanese to the test to figure out what the fuck's going on.
Jordan 27:33
We're counting on you.
David 27:34
Be sure to join the Shonen Flop discord as we talked about. We have a great community. We're doing stuff like movie nights, we got a monthly comic book that we have a lot of, like, we did, like, a mini game show, we did movie night where we watch Black Dynamite and we had, like, 12 people who planning another one with the Anime Out of Context crew. Super awesome like I said. Uh, I can't speak highly enough. Just three really terrific guys. Uh, and also as we talked about, we would really appreciate it if you join our Patreon. It really helps us continue to be able to make this show and support us financially. We do spend a lot of time and money so it would be great if you can give a little bit back. And I also want to give a shout out to some of our patrons, first of all, Pterodactyl Ghost for being a Chainsaw Man level patron. Super cool patron, they are, like, just doing it because they love the show. Uh, so they're like, yeah, you can cover the series I want just whenever you get a chance so keep an eye out for that. I also want to give a thanks to Gabe, Mark, Marty, and TWolfwood for being King of the Forest. I also want to just give a special shout out to our Galactic Ball Federation because I love you guys too. Or I love you folks--
Jordan 28:24
Mmhm.
David 28:25
--too, even if we don't talk about you as much who are Alexander Zorak, BS, Dylan Krider, Megan Allen, Mike Carpenter, Sarah Hydra.
Jordan 28:26
Hey, Sarah.
David 28:33
Yes, Sarah was actually on the show so that-I'm just that good at convincing people to join her Patreon. [both laugh] Um, ShingoSekimoto, Silly Rookie, THEBBKINGBBTHE, Trevor, um, Schechter, Ya-and Yaji_Black. So those are actually some names of people who ask questions. So, not only are they contributing to Patreon, they're also asking us questions, and being an active part of the discord which is super awesome as well.
Jordan 28:54
Also, uhhh-
David 28:55
Yeah
Jordan 28:55
--BBKINGBBTHE, you're a great guitarist. Anyway.
David 28:58
[laughs] If you're not ready to make a regular commitment, we have merch. We-as we talked about, we have a super awesome Gomez shirt, we have a really great Mashel Punching Harry Potter shirt that is also loved, and we usually are able to make the cover art for each episode up. We had some issues with the last one due to Pokemon copyright issues, but it was still--
Jordan 29:16
[laughs] Fucking [David laughs] Nintendo, man.
David 29:18
Fucking Nintendo was like, take that shit down. So, uh, unfortunately not for that one. But for the future ones, uh, hopefully. And though, no worries if you can't help our show out financially, if you can like, rate, review, or share. Just even telling one friend or writing a review on iTunes really means a lot and helps us be placed better in things like the iTunes store where we can get more organic listeners.
Jordan 29:37
I would like to thank you, David, for not just, uh, editing the main episode, but you know, keeping this whole ship running, keeping it all afloat. Thank you, m-thank you very much, man.
David 29:46
That's alright. I'm used to doing all the work so it's fine. I went to [Jordan laughs] college. I went to college.
Jordan 29:50
Oh, you went to college for the stuff that I hate doing. So--
David 29:53
You're welcome.
Jordan 29:54
I'm glad to have you so you can do it and I don't have to worry about it.
David 29:57
[laughs] Yeah. [Jordan laughs]
Jordan 29:59
Uh, well, anyway there's nothing else here, I guess. Uh, hey, David?
David 30:04
Keep on flopping, floppers.
Jordan 30:05
Bye!
David 30:06
Bye!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai