#41 Hard-Boiled Cop and Dolphin (Ft. Comic book creator Joey Weiser)

[Transcript by OzyRat]

David  0:00  

[Intro music] Welcome to this episode of Shonen Flop, where we talk about manga series in Shonen Jump that didn't make it big. I'm David. 

Jordan  0:17  

I'm Jordan. 

David  0:18  

And this week, we're talking about Hard-Boiled Cop and Dolphin and we are-- 

Jordan  0:22  

Cool! Frog and dolphin. I'm sorry, what? 

David  0:24  

There you go. Jordan finally made that reference. And yes, I did post it on Twitter like you asked for our chibi episode. 

Jordan  0:29  

Good. Good.

David  0:29  

And so [laughs] you know, what's almost as cool as a frog and dolphin? 

Jordan  0:32  

What? Uh, not much.

David  0:34  

Our guest today, Joey. Joey!

Joey  0:37  

Hey!

Jordan  0:38  

Oh my god. [Joey laughs]

David  0:39  

Joey, thank you so much for joining us on this wonderful manga adventure. I really appreciate you recommending this series to us. And do you mind telling the audience just a little bit about yourself?

Joey  0:47  

Yeah, thanks for having me. My name's Joey Weiser. Uh, I'm a cartoonist, author of the brand new graphic novel, Dragon Racer, as well as Ghost Hog and the Mermin graphic novel series. They're kind of all ages series that are comedy-adventure series. Kind of in the vein of Shonen Jump, but, ummm, not exactly like Shonen Jump, but I feel like if you like Shonen Jump, you might like my comics. [laughs]

David  1:08  

Oh, that's awesome.

Jordan  1:09  

Can I just say, Joey, I love the titles of your series.

Joey  1:13  

Oh, awesome. [everyone laughs]

David  1:14  

If you can send me a link to where, like, a list of your work 'cause I definitely want to check you out. We had Xander Cannon on the show. And I've been reading all his comics. So it's really awesome to just actually check out the work for a lot of-for our guests.

Joey  1:24  

Kaiju Max is so good.

Jordan  1:25  

It's so good, right?

Joey  1:26  

That's cool that you had him on there. Yeah. And I think all three of the cartoonists including myself, uh, that you've had on so far have been Oni Press authors. So yeah.

David  1:35  

That's cool. 

Joey  1:35  

All under the same publisher. Mmhmm.

Jordan  1:38  

We should work out some kind of sponsorship. [Joey laughs]

David  1:41  

Unironically, not a bad idea.

Jordan  1:43  

Yeah, right.

Joey  1:44  

I was excited to be invited on. Back when we were first talking about me coming on the series was still running, but [David laughs], like, it was pretty clear that it was wrapping up, and so, I definitely threw this out as a possibility with a few other titles,  so, glad that, uhh, we chose this one. 

David  2:00  

Oh, for sure. 

Jordan  2:01  

I'm glad we chose it too.

David  2:03  

You are also a friend of Stephen Paul's if I recall.

Joey  2:07  

That's how I first found out about this show is that, uhhh, I heard about him being on and he told me about it.

David  2:10  

Awwww. To reach into the-the-the warm-up audio, Stephen Paul is very based. [Jordan and Joey laugh] If I said that right. 

Jordan  2:13  

God, David.

Joey  2:10  

I assume that's good.

David  2:20  

Yes. [Joey laughs] I'm not gonna lie when you didn't mention the One Piece podcast or knowing Stephen Paul in your initial intro, I was, like, oh fuck, am I thinking of the wrong person? [Jordan and Joey laugh]

Joey  2:28  

No, yeah, no, I forget about that. Yeah, my main thing is-is drawing comics but I'm a podcaster, uh, on the side as well. I am frequently on the One Piece podcast. I'm a co-host of a Japanese film club podcast called Toho Yaro, that's, uh, on hiatus at the moment, but, uh--

David  2:42  

Awww.

Joey  2:42  

Folks can check that out. Yeah, we've just been really busy. I'm about to move and stuff. So hopefully starting back up again sometime next year.

David  2:49  

Ah, dude, that sounds sick. Uh, actually, for one of our first ever movie nights we watched. Was it Yojimbo?

Jordan  2:55  

Yeah, it was Yojimbo.

Joey  2:56  

Nice.

David  2:57  

Yeah, we started, uhh, black and white Japanese movies. So then we've, uh, slowly gotten a little bit more mainstream where we watched Diehard [Jordan and Joey laugh], most recently [laughs]. So...

Joey  3:05  

Yojimbo is the Diehard of-of samurai movies.

Jordan  3:08  

Yeah, [Joey laughs] I mean, it's not totally wrong. I feel like Yojimbo and diehard are, like, more similar than they are different in a lot of ways.

Joey  3:17  

Mmhmm.

David  3:17  

I also have to say, Yojimbo is definitely the samurai movie that most sounds like a Beastie Boys album. [Jordan and Joey laugh] 

Jordan  3:24  

Yo! Jimbo. 

David  3:26  

Alright, this is gonna be a fun one. And then if I didn't say enough to Stephen Paul, thank you so much for putting us in touch. You're also just a fantastic guest. And there's a new Yotsuba chapter that just dropped so I look forward to reading your work--

Joey  3:35  

Mmhm.

David  3:35  

--soon. But you know whose work though we're really excited to check out is... 

Jordan  3:39  

Ooh, who's is it?

David  3:40  

Hard-Boiled Cop and Dolphin.

Jordan  3:42  

Oh my god. Really? Holy shit. [Joey laughs] 

David  3:45  

Joey, why don't you mind-- would you mind telling us a bit about the series itself?

Joey  3:49  

Hard-Boiled Cop and Dolphin is by Ryuhei Tamura, who previously did the series Beelzebub, which was a very successful series. Unfortunately, the manga hasn't been licensed in English, so I haven't read it. But there's a anime adaptation that's very popular. I think in between that and this he did a series called Hungry Marie. Uh, that was--

David  4:09  

Hmmm.

Joey  4:09  

--another, uh, [laughs] candidate for Shonen Flop someday. [Everyone laughs] Did not run--

David  4:14  

Oh God.

Joey  4:14  

-- very long. But this series ran from June 27th, 2020 to June 21st, 2021. So about a year exactly with five volumes and forty-seven chapters.

David  4:25  

Yeah. And then, uh, we talked about it in the chibi. I think this is, what was it? The third longest series we've ever read for Shonen Flop?

Jordan  4:31  

It might be.

David  4:32  

[laughs] Definitely the best series that was over forty chapters we've read for Shonen Flop,

Joey  4:36  

That's good.

Jordan  4:37  

For the length that it went especially, I really enjoyed this series. Like that's a-- that's a spoiler.

Joey  4:44  

[laughs] That's a relief to hear. I haven't heard your chibi yet. So I was like, man, if they [Jordan laughs] don't like this one, the fact that I'm asking them to read almost fifty chapters. That's gonna be a little rough, uhh. [laughs]

David  4:54  

Joey, I trusted you. I also want to say, Joey, you know, I can tell that you're an experienced podcaster because without having to say anything when we introduced you, you started by saying 'thanks for having me'. 

Joey  5:04  

Mmmmm.

David  5:05  

Which is, like, one of those things where people have never been on podcasts they don't know that's, like, etiquette or [Joey laughs] that's, like, that can't where you're, like, 'oh thanks for having me on'. They're just, like, 'Yeah, I'm on your show. Yeah, blah blah blah'. So that's how I knew I was, like, this guy's been on podcasts before when [Jordan laughs] you said that.

Joey  5:12  

Yeah, I know [David laughs] what-- how much of a pain in the ass it is to schedule. [laughs]

David  5:21  

It's fine. I promise you one reschedule very far ahead of the time puts you still in the upper echelon [laughs] of [Joey laughs] guests that were easy to work with.

Jordan  5:29  

Oh my god,

David  5:30  

We almost had a guest where we just straight up recorded a backup episode because we just very strongly didn't think they were actually going to show up.

Joey  5:36  

Mmmmm.

Jordan  5:37  

Oh yeah, yeah.

Joey  5:37  

Yeah.

David  5:38  

So, no worries at all. We-- you're really giving your time to be on the show. So we absolutely want to be as flexible and that's why if you notice I had everything kind of just really clear, kind of organized because I have to flex that business degree I got.

Joey  5:50  

I appreciate it. [David and Jordan laugh]

David  5:53  

Alright, but enough of that, all of that I've gave up a really good reason-- way to transition into about the manga so we're gonna just pretend I said something clever here and get into it where Jordan has blessed us with a fantastic plot summary.

Jordan  6:05  

Okay, so first of all, I would like to set out a disclaimer that because this series is almost fifty chapters long, like there's a lot of shit that happens and that I wasn't able to get in the here-- in here--

Joey  6:15  

 Mmmm.

Jordan  6:15  

--but I tried to grab the overall structure of the plot. Officer Boyle Samejima is a hard-boiled Tokyo cop who doesn't play by the rules, which gets him transferred to the Ogasawara Islands as a punishment. There he meets the beautiful officer Umi Nanase and his new partner Orpheus, a huge dude with a dolphin head as well as Orpheus', little daughter Chako, a cute six year old girl who was rescued from a cult that was worshipping her as an Oracle. The cult mysteriously vanished out at sea and since then the island has been victimized by these weird fish human hybrids like kind of-- think of, uhh, the fishman from One Piece actually. 

Joey  6:16  

Mmhmm.

Jordan  6:52  

Kind of similar. Which are fought off by the duo of Samejima and Orpheus. It's really funny until suddenly the series stops being a gag [laughs] manga around chapter fourteen [David and Joey laugh] popcorn David. By the way, don't read the parentheses of where I say aka the fishman from One Piece because I forgot that I put that in there.

David  7:11  

Oh, that was my favorite part. I was actually thinking about it the whole time though. 

Jordan  7:13  

Yeah.

David  7:14  

 I was gonna probably freestyle that one. That's what we call when you don't literally read what Jordan wrote as this got me in trouble in the past. [Joey laughs]

Jordan  7:20  

Feel free to freestyle though.

David  7:22  

Alright [attempts beatboxing] 

Jordan  7:22  

Popcorn David.

David  7:24  

[laughs] The cult reappears led by its guru Yosuke Kamuro. Kamuro has recruited the undersea mafia to reclaim the Five Limbs of Poseidon known as the Pise-- Poseidracone. 

Jordan  7:34  

Got it.

David  7:35  

 Yep, [sniffs] thanks but-- which will allow them to drown the world of man recreating the setting of-- of, uh, Windwaker. [Jordan laughs]

Joey  7:42  

Oh, yeah.

Jordan  7:43  

 Ay yeah, actually. [laughs]

David  7:44  

Oh, that would actually have been a really good par-- cover parody too but I like what we went with it, the hard-boiled. 

Jordan  8:15  

Yeah, 

David  7:49  

The right arm of which is currently attached to Orpheus. Orpheus and Samejima are met by the Marine Investigation Unit made up of powerful warriors trained to fight and even breathe underwater. Their leader is a powerful woman named Tome Jinguji who has a history with Orpheus. Chako is then kidnapped by occultists and taken to their underwater palace, where she briefly becomes possessed by the spirit of Poseidon and is kidnapped by Kamuro. It was kind of weird that she still wore the same clothes and she became twelve but had like--

Jordan  8:15  

Yeah.

David  8:16  

-- that later-- 

Jordan  8:16  

Mmmmm.

David  8:16  

--that drawing of her was a bit strange when she matured, but not enough that it wasn't weird [Joey groans] how mature she was, because they were like 'I think I'm 10 years old'. I'm like 'You look like you're about 15'.

Joey  8:26  

Yeah, manga ages are confusing thing.[David and Joey laugh] 

David  8:29  

Yeah.

Joey  8:30  

Kids look like adults and adults look like kids. [laughs]

David  8:33  

I'm actually a seven million year old sea God. [Joey laughs]

Jordan  8:37  

Exactly. Yeah. [David laughs] 

David  8:39  

But anyway, please take us home, Joey.

Joey  8:42  

Orpheus, Samejima, and the MIU follow them where it's revealed that Kamuro and Orpheus were partners in the police who were sent to infiltrate the cult. Orpheus wound up imprisoned and Kamuro abandoned the mission ascending to the head of the cult. Kamuro it turns out is Chako's biological father and, uh, Kamuro then bonds with the left hand. Oh, here we go. Okay, I'm going to try to do this. 

Jordan  9:04  

You can do this. You got this.

David  9:05  

I believe in-- I believe in you. 

Joey  9:06  

I'm going to just say it first before I say the line. So pos-- pos-say-dricone, poseidricone Okay. [David laughs]Kamuro then bonds with his left hand posydri-- blah, poseidricone and kills Orpheus but Samejima fuses with Orpheus' his right hand poseidricone and defeats Kamuro before he can drown all of the Earth.

Jordan  9:26  

And he fights him when he's surfing on a giant tsunami, by the way, it's kind of sick.

Joey  9:31  

It's super rad. [Jordan laughs] You know, just the drawing of the tsunami on its own was super rad. And then you put a guy surfing on top of it. Very good.

David  9:38  

We'll definitely get into the art when we, uh [Joey laughs], shift to the positives after this section. 

Jordan  9:49  

Oh, we will. Yeah.

Joey  9:43  

And so, finally, we get a little bit of a time skip. Classic [laughs]--

Jordan  9:58  

Of course.

Joey  9:47  

--manga ending here. Ten years pass and Chako is now a sixteen year-old girl and Samejima is still a hard-boiled cop who raised her as her third father with a really excellent fakeout where you think that he's a shark man for a moment.

Jordan  10:00  

[laughs] It was so good. Oh my god. [Joey laughs]  Yeah. Oh, there's a character that I didn't mention in the, uhh, in the plot summary, I think Hamara. 

David  10:07  

Yeah.

Jordan  10:07  

She's showing this, uhh, rookie cop around and you see this big shark dude and it's sort of implied 'oh my god Samejima turned into a shark man'. No, nope. Samejima is just [David laughs] about to punch him in the face. Great. 

Joey  10:20  

He's just fighting a shark man that's dressed like him. [laughs]

Jordan  10:23  

Yeah, [laughs] dressed exactly like [laughs] him. [still laughing] Sunglasses.

David  10:28  

I'm surprised it wasn't, like, a side chapter they added to a volume about the shark man stealing his clothes. [Joey laughs] And that's why they're fighting.

Jordan  10:33  

Like, one of the best fake outs I've seen in manga. [laughs]

David  10:37  

It's like you like this series, Jordan. 

Jordan  10:39  

It's like, uhh, I like this series. What the fuck? 

David  10:41  

While we're talking about the main character. Jordan, do you want to tell us a bit about the MC himself?

Jordan  10:45  

Oh, yes. His name is Officer Boyle Samejima and yeah, he kind of rules. He's this very stoic dude. He doesn't talk too much. But, like, he's very strong, very principled. But, you know, he-he breaks the rules, does what he has to.

Joey  11:03  

Mmhmm.

David  11:03  

He's a hard-boiled cop.

Joey  11:05  

He's a loose cannon. [David laughs]

David  11:08  

What was it Bojack Horseman where they, like, had, like, a chart of figuring out which cop it was and they spent like hours trying to figure out if he was, like, a hard-boiled cop a loose cannon or, like, a reckless [Joey laughs] renegade.

They're all the same.

And, like, just remember one of the-one of the cast was voiced by Keith David and it just made the scene really great. [Jordan and Joey laugh] 

Jordan  11:24  

Aw, man.

David  11:25  

I love Keith David. I just wanted to add an update that people are correct. That was not Keith David that was Cedric Yarbrough that voiced Officer Meow Meow Fuzzyface. My sincerest apologies, Cedric, I greatly appreciate your work.

Jordan  11:37  

But, yeah, he's great. He, uhh, was a Tokyo cop and then he punches the dude in the face and gets sent to this Japanese island. Apparently, no crime really happens on except joke's on him because it's just all underwater mafia. [Joey laughs] His name apparently means shark.

Joey  11:54  

Mmhm. Same-

Jordan  11:55  

So like everybody kind of calls him shark especially Chako. 

David  11:58  

Yeah. 

Jordan  11:58  

That's why that fakeout works so well at the end, because, uhh, apparently the hand is what turned Orpheus into a dolphin. And now he's got the hand. So you're like 'Oh my God, he's gonna turn into a shark' and no. [Joey laughs]

David  12:11  

I thought the little girl turned him into a, like-she, like, wished for him to be a dolphin. That's how but maybe I mis-- misunderstood that scene.

Joey  12:17  

It's a little confusing. We'll get into that. [laughs]

David  12:20  

The series actually kind of had very confusing lore, relatively speaking.

Joey  12:24  

Mmhmm.

Jordan  12:24  

I feel like the series had to go through a couple rec.

David  12:27  

Yeah, I-I'll go into it in the appropriate section. Because we're trying to be good. We're-so Joey, we have a bad habit where we talk about pretty much 70% of the podcast occurs in this section, because it's just so [Joey laughs] easy to start talking about it. We were really good for Red Hood, where we only like talked about it for like 40% instead. So I could tell Jordan's like restraining himself. And I think, me too, it's hard not to just dive into these topics. But let's get through the characters. And then we can start talking about why I like the series so much, and yada, yada, yada. And if he was a boob or an ass guy, because that was really the big debate of this series. 

Jordan  12:56  

[laughs] It's the true debate. 

David  12:57  

Speaking of actually do you guys want to get into Umi. [Joey laughs] So Joe-- Joey would you like the pleasure of talking about her?

Joey  13:03  

Oh, this is the one I get, huh? Okay, sure. [Everyone laughs]

David  13:06  

You can give me Chako if [Joey laughs] you want.

Joey  13:09  

Umi Nanase is an officer in, uh, Anegashima police and one of her very distinctive features is that she's very well endowed, as someone would say.

Jordan  13:19  

Oh, yes. 

Joey  13:20  

And, you know, this catches the attention of, uhh, Samejima who makes an ass of himself, staring at her all the time. But I think that a cool thing about her is that she is, I don't know, she's a little bit more than just kind of a boob joke character. She-she seems like a real person. [laughs] You know? 

David  13:39  

Yeah. 

Joey  13:39  

She has more of a personality. And by the end of the series, she becomes the police chief, which is cool. So yeah, I liked her character a lot, actually. 

Jordan  13:48  

Yeah, I do also want to say it is so refreshing to read a manga with a character with large breasts, and she's an adult. 

Joey  13:56  

Yeah. [laughs] 

Jordan  13:58  

There was one chapter shortly before the whole series decided to stop being a gag manga where it was just, like, a bunch of guys put themselves in danger because they wanted to--

David  14:07  

Yeah.

Jordan  14:07  

--touch her breasts or something. That was probably the low point of the series. [laughs] 

Joey  14:12  

Yeah, I [Jordan laughs] honestly like kind of reflecting back on the series. I remembered the joke where her shirt comes undone in the first chapter and been like, eh well, at least from then that's like the only time it's a joke, but there's lots of those--

Jordan  14:23  

Nooo.

Joey  14:23  

-- jokes. I just kind of had forgotten about them because by the kind of, like, I don't know, halfway point they fade away and it becomes a lot more story focused.

David  14:31  

I, personally, have realized that my favorite way to say someone has large boobs comes from Resident Evil 4, where they say the president's daughter is equipped with ballistics.

Jordan  14:41  

[laughs] I know. I see the President has equipped his daughter with ballistics. [David and Joey laugh]

David  14:49  

Okay, so anyway. I'll talk about Chako. Where she can talk to dolphins, she's a princess raised by dolphins, the Oracle in a cult. We find out that the main bad guy is her father. Spoilers.

Jordan  15:00  

Her biological father, you know, because her father's Orpheus.

David  15:05  

Yeah, she has three dads which is very progressive [Jordan laughs] by Shonen Jump standards [Jordan and Joey laughs], given their history of LGBT. What they just straight up said 'I have three Dads'.

Jordan  15:13  

It's great. Yeah.

David  15:13  

She gets possessed by Poseidon, she doesn't do a ton and then only happens once, which obviously the series had a premature end. But definitely there would have been a lot of potential and it is nice that there's, like, a prologue where you see her actually grow up and really kind of become an adult now that she's-- what?-- 16 or 17 during the prologue.

Jordan  15:31  

She is an adult, as far as mangaka are typically [laughs] concerned at least.

Joey  15:35  

Yeah, but it's nice to see her as someone with maybe a little more agency than just kind of a wild toddler. [laughs] When she's not possessed by a [laughs] sea god or whatever. [laughs] Yeah.

Jordan  15:46  

Yeah. [laughs]

David  15:46  

And then she and Yotsuba would definitely be friends.

Jordan  15:49  

Yes, she is adorable, like, uhh, Chako is just so cute. There's one chapter where, umm, she lies about breaking Orpheus' cup, and he just immediately knows that she's lying. Like it's-- 

David  16:02  

Yeah. 

Jordan  16:02  

-- obvious. So he's just, like, well, you know what a cup breaking gets you, uh, twenty-five years in jail. [Joey laughs] And she legitimately has a panic attack and, like, runs out to find, uh, Samejima. It's just really cute.

Joey  16:16  

That's my favorite chapter. That-that chapter she, like, makes up this lie about, like, [Jordan laughs] this cartoon character on the TV is the one that stole it and he's, like, 'Oh, really', and then she starts kind of, like, kind of tumbling down more and more into this lie saying, like, she speaks English but she only says 'wuzzup'. [Jordan laughs] And because of her powers, this ends up, like, manifesting and, like, destroying the whole apartment. There's a giant cartoon girl screaming 'wuzzup' and it's amazing. [laughs]

Jordan  16:43  

I think there's a line where Orpheus was, like, 'Chako, I was trying to find you to tell you that you weren't lying, apparently'. [Jordan and Joey laugh] It's really good.

David  16:52  

Oh God, all right. I'm gonna balance things out. Joey would you like to talk about Orpheus since I [laughs] gave you the [indecipherable] Umi, which it sounds like wasn't your cup of tea to talk about. [Joey laughs]

Joey  17:01  

Yeah, so next up, we have Lieutenant Orpheus F. Lipper, which what a name so good.

Jordan  17:06  

I love that name. [sighs]

Joey  17:07  

A million chef kisses. [Jordan laughs] He has a dolphin head, uh, and, uh, you know, uh, what was that the dorsal fin and stuff on his back? 

David  17:15  

Yup. 

Super tough good with kids used to be a human but was cursed to become this dolphin and has on top of all of that a badass cursed right hand that he keeps under a glove.

Jordan  17:27  

Are you familiar with Savage Dragon?

Joey  17:29  

Vaguely I've read some of it. I haven't, like, kept up with it. 

Jordan  17:32  

For those who aren't familiar this is-- this was, like, uh, a comic that got turned into, like, animated TV show when I was a kid and it starred a big tough cop who got turned into, like, some weird aquatic fish creature with a giant fin on his head and everybody called him Finhead. So they kept calling Orpheus Finhead in this and the whole time I'm just, like, is this fucking Savage Dragon? [Joey laughs]What is going on here? [laughs]

Joey  17:57  

That's so funny. Yeah. All I really remember distinctly is I had the first issue when I was a kid. And there's a part where, like, someone's hassling him at a bar and he's, like, 'Hey, do you breathe fire, Mr. Dragon' and then he, like, takes a sip of alcohol and then lights a lighter and spits it at the guy and it, like, lights up in his face and stuff. [Jordan laughs] I definitely thought that was the coolest thing I'd ever seen when I was [David laughs] 14 in the 90s or whatever. [David laughs]

Jordan  18:19  

I still think it's pretty cool. [Jordan and Joey laugh]

David  18:23  

Speaking of his fin, I love the scene where he's, like, lying in the bed. And he's, like, this is actually extremely painful for me to be [Jordan and Joey laugh] sitting like this [laughs] This is really funny. 

Jordan  18:34  

Yeah, I really like Orpheus a lot.

Joey  18:36  

Yeah, that combination of being a super tough guy, but also, like very, very sweet to Chako just, like... perfect, great balance.

David  18:45  

Exactly. Jordan, would you like the privilege of talking about his girlfriend?

Jordan  18:48  

I mean, his ex-girlfriend, David. 

David  18:50  

Sorry, his ex-girlfriend. I know he's married to the sea. 

Jordan  18:53  

Well, that would be Tome Jinguji, who is the head of the MIU--

David  18:59  

Mmhmm.

Jordan  19:00  

Investigation Unit. I believe. Her thing is that she has learned the style of kung fu that allows you to breathe underwater. So, like, there's a big reveal where it's just, like, she's fighting these fishmen. And then she just takes out her, uh, regulator and stuff and then just starts talking to them and breathing underwater. Like wait, what the fuck?

David  19:19  

And they reveal that there's, like, two water breathing techniques. 

Jordan  19:23  

Oh, yeah, there's two different ones. [laughs]

David  19:25  

 Yeah.

Joey  19:25  

Yeah.

David  19:25  

One of them it's, like, you have to eat a fishman. 

Jordan  19:28  

Yeah. [Joey laughs]

David  19:29  

And they're, like, that's kind of got some weird implications. So we'll just say it's unrelated. 

Jordan  19:32  

Yeah, exactly. 

David  19:34  

I appreciate that, by the way that they added that element so it wasn't just literally every fight underwater is, like oh, let's take away the respirator. And then they just lose.

Joey  19:40  

Yeah, and it's a cool, like, way to do, like, a kind of mini training arc with the semi demon. Get him to level up somewhat. 

David  19:49  

Yeah.

Jordan  19:49  

They include enough of, uh, like, bullshit science technobabble things where they-- they-- it's like you know what, I'll let you get away with it. Whatever. Fine. 

Joey  19:59  

Mmhmm.

Jordan  20:00  

So this is Hard-Boiled Cop and Dolphin.

David  20:03  

The next character I'll take that duty on is Seira who is the ocean Princess looking for a man. She shows up and then she kind of disappears for, like, thirty chapters. I actually deleted her name from the character section and then had to add it back. She is a double agent, but actually she is a triple agent. Whoa, where she's-- 

Jordan  20:19  

Yeah.

David  20:19  

-- kind of evil but not-- the author kinda was running out of time. So here's, like, yeah, fuck it. 

Jordan  20:23  

She is very clearly a character that the author when he wrote her did not intend for her to be, like, [laughs] to be in this situation. [laughs] She was a one-off joke.

David  20:35  

It definitely has the end-of-manga syndrome where he needed to fit a character in for a role because he never introduced it. 

Jordan  20:41  

Yeah.

Joey  20:41  

There was, like, all this stuff with her, like, passed down in the, like, undersea Kingdom or something. And it's, like, starting to, like, hint at this bigger world that they never really got to.

David  20:52  

There's an entire city that they show but then they never go to. 

Joey  20:55  

Mmhmm.

Jordan  20:55  

Yeah, like, her dad was, uh, is, like, one of the most powerful mafia guys in the ocean apparently.

David  21:03  

Yeah. 

Jordan  21:03  

And he was, like, dying, but he was, like, 'Oh, he's a criminal with a heart of gold'. But, oh, man, this, uh, the next character in our list comes over is, like, 'I'm a doctor'. I could save her but he winds up-he's the cult leader guy. Yeah, anyway, yeah. [Jordan and Joey laugh]

David  21:18  

That's really all there is to say about her. 

Jordan  21:20  

Yeah, she doesn't do much. 

David  21:21  

But you know who does too much? Is the big bad. So Joey, why don't you wrap up this character section talking about him.

Joey  21:26  

Okay, that is a Yosuke Kamuro. And this guy is-- yeah, like you said, the big bad. He's the leader of the cult. We find out that he's Chako's dad and he used to be Orpheus' partner back when Orpheus was a human. [laughs] He's a sex pest.

Jordan  21:41  

[laughs] He's such a sex pest.

Joey  21:42  

He surrounds himself with beautiful women and has that sort of cult leader thing where, you know, he likes to have the power. 

Jordan  21:49  

He's just there talking with one of his underlings, I suppose named Opia or something, and they're just having a conversation. And he's just groping her ass. 

David  21:59  

Yeah. 

Jordan  21:59  

To be fair, the next panel is her putting him in like a wrestling move for doing that. And they're still just having a casual conversation.

Joey  22:06  

I think that's sort of a wrestling move that perhaps she thinks that he would appreciate.

Jordan  22:12  

Oh, yeah. You mean where she put her ass on his head? [Joey laughs] 

Joey  22:16  

Yeah, exactly. 

Jordan  22:16  

Yeah I notice that. I absolutely noticed. [laughs] 

Joey  22:18  

Yeah, so you know, this is not a good dude. He's an awful dude. He-we find out you know that he beats his wife and kids and everything. It's-it's pretty rough. So, like, any thought that it might be, like, 'Oh, this beautiful anime man might actually be sympathetic by the end'. No, he's a bad guy. For sure.

David  22:34  

Yeah. Do you think they planned for him to be like this? 

Joey  22:36  

We'll talk about it later. I think that maybe the road to getting there was pretty, like, accelerated but I think all of that stuff with his past, with Orpheus and stuff, I think read to me like something the author had from the beginning.

David  22:49  

Mmhmm.

Jordan  22:49  

It never felt super jarring. There's a moment where it seems like his-his brain was kind of broken when he found out that the former guru of the cult developed breathing underwater by cannibalizing fishmen.

David  23:03  

Mmhmm. 

Jordan  23:04  

And that just really fucked him up. And so he decided instead to band with the Fishmen.

Joey  23:10  

I don't know if it's Japanese myth, or if it's just from Rumiko Takahashi's comics, but like, there's this idea that if you eat a mermaid, you would get eternal life. I kind of wondered if that came from that sort of ideas, what the author was playing with, with the eating Fishman thing.

David  23:25  

That makes sense. And now that we've really gotten into the characters, why don't we migrate over into why it failed? So Joey, what would you really say is something that stuck out to you that the series really didn't do so well?

Joey  23:35  

The thing I always think about what this series is that first chapter, it's pretty rough. 

David  23:40  

Yeah.

Joey  23:40  

Especially bad just due to timing. And this might be more of an issue with American readers. I couldn't say for sure. But, like, this chapter debuted right at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests and all the issues around that. And then, there's this first chapter, like, trivializes this issue and almost, like, glorifies police for, like, acting outside of the law and using firearms against these darn kids and their camera phones, you know, and I don't think that Tamura was necessarily referencing that specific incident, because these chapters are written well ahead of time. 

David  24:14  

Mmhmm.

Joey  24:14  

It really didn't sit right with a lot of readers that I knew, like, I remember when this came out at the time, a lot of people saying, like, 'I'm not gonna read any more of this', it's, you know, copaganda or whatever.

David  24:24  

Yeah. 

Joey  24:24  

And I could not blame it. 

Jordan  24:25  

No, I mean... 

Joey  24:26  

The premise was fun enough, and there were enough little inklings that it was, like, still worth reading that I pushed forward with it and ended up really loving it, but--

David  24:34  

Mmhmm.

Joey  24:34  

-- boy, that first chapter, woof. [laughs]

David  24:36  

Yeah, that copaganda is not great even, like, well done copaganda is still copaganda, like, as we talked about Diehard total copaganda, even if it's a really fun movie, and yeah, that first chapter, he must have gotten notes because he toned those elements down. Superduper hard.

Joey  24:52  

Mmhmm.

Jordan  24:53  

I was very worried after that first chapter and I'm really grateful.

David  24:57  

Yeah, I think guns are only used maybe two or three times in the entire series after that first chapter. 

Jordan  25:03  

Yeah. 

Joey  25:03  

Yeah.

David  25:04  

One thing I really noticed about the series was to get to, like, the first chapters, it doesn't really set up anything. And it starts off as a slice of life. And then just--

Mmhmm.

--by chapter fifteen, he's, like, ' just go full plot', let's make things interesting, where I think we've really noticed is that these gag mangas, when they start having, like, a really strong plot, that's really when the series starts to get in trouble, like Mitama Security when it stopped being so gangways and try having a plot where you're just, like, if I wanted to read, like, a really strong plot with deep lore, that's not why I'm reading this. And that's why I like High School Family so much is yeah, it's got kind of plots, but they're all gag plots. And it's, like, I'm not really worried about finding out that Gomez is, you know, like the [Joey laughs] reincarnation of an ancient cat [Jordan laughs] god. He's just a fucking cat that goes to high school. And that's how he's been for the last 50 chapters. 

Jordan  25:10  

And that's all he needs to be until he graduates. 

David  25:10  

I do think he should run for high school president. 

Jordan  25:14  

Well, yeah. [Joey laughs] 

David  25:53  

Sorry. But Joey, you were saying.

Joey  25:55  

I recall feeling that way with Mitama where, like, they do like a baseball arc or something. And I'd be kind of--

David  25:59  

Yeah. [laughs]

Joey  25:59  

-- like, alright, I'm going to just sit this through. And eventually, we're going to get back to the good, like, one-off chapters. Because yeah, they just kind of-it seems like the jokes kind of go by the wayside. And some gag authors don't write very strongly without all those gags, you know, and this one's kind of a little bit different. But I really like the sort of lackadaisical first several chapters. I like the mood a lot in it. Umm I know that's not what we're talking about right now. But, like, I can see why it wouldn't necessarily hook a lot of people.

Jordan  26:28  

I think that the editor came up to this author and said,' Look, man, you got to do something' [Joey laughs] which is what I-I think happens in a lot of these gag mangas, like, I mean, I think that's why it happened in Mashle, too, I- Mashle suddenly switched. Like High School Family I think is strong enough as a gag manga.

David  26:46  

I've heard that there's, like a rule for gag manga, where you're not technically a gag manga in the purest sense if you're over fifteen pages consistently. Like, if you notice that High School Family is actually about fifteen pages every single chapter, and I guess that's, like, the rule of it. Well, this series from the getgo was doing standard chapter length.

Joey  27:02  

Yeah, these days Jump has a lot more gag manga in it at, uh, a time. It used to be that there was just, like, one or two and they would be, like, strictly right in the back of the magazine. It was kind of its own little world. And now they kind of, like, cohabitate with the rest of the series a lot more. The, uh, line between what is a gag manga and what's an action manga and what's romance manga, and what's a sports manga is all, like, kind of, like, meshing together. [laughs] Which I think is cool.

David  27:27  

Because really, in terms of pure, pure gag manga, High School Family is 100% gag and then Roboko, right? 

Joey  27:35  

Yeah.

David  27:33  

Or is-is there other ones that are-you would say are just...

Joey  27:36  

Magu Chan, I would say is--

David  27:36  

Oh right.

-- a gag manga.

Magu Chan. Yeah, but Magu Chan is going through the same thing where now they have, like, a big plot. It's-it's not as fun. 

Jordan  27:37  

Oh, man.

David  27:43  

There's some fun jokes in it. But this is definitely not peak Magu Chan. Like--

Joey  27:47  

Yeah.

David  27:47  

-- I want them to go back to building you know, a fucking treehouse. That was--

Joey  27:50  

Yeah.

David  27:50  

great. 

Joey  27:51  

Yeah, definitely. [David laughs]

Jordan  27:52  

It's really tough to make that transition because you are basically taking this huge jump into, like, a very different style or approach to writing. It's really tough to pull off.

David  28:04  

Yeah, I also feel, like, in terms of the writing, sometimes the jokes can be lazy, like, I know, it's, like, a cornerstone of Japanese and, like, even One Piece does it, but that whole the joke is a character reacting to someone doing something stupid is just such a lazy joke that you-I know you can get mileage out of it. But, like, I just saw, like, every single chapter that was, like, the punch line to at least one joke.

Jordan  28:22  

Yeah, it's like--

Joey  28:23  

Is-- is somebody screaming out, like, why did you do that thing or whatever? That kind of thing?

David  28:26  

You're like, that doesn't make any sense. Or, like, that's not how you wear a hat. [Jordan laughs] It's different jokes with the same punch line.

Jordan  28:32  

It's not even different jokes, it's explaining the previous joke that you just saw. 

David  28:36  

Yeah.

Joey  28:37  

Yeah, it's an interesting, that's a Japanese style of comedy that sometimes works for me. And sometimes it's too stiff. I don't know. It just depends.

David  28:44  

Yeah.

Joey  28:44  

Like, it often would work for me here, but I could totally see what you mean. 

Jordan  28:48  

It reminds me of the Austin Powers, uhh, joke where it's, like, you have this guy with a thick Irish accent and he's like 'I got me Lucky Charms here' and then you just have, like, Dr. Evil's girlfriend just being like, [laughs] 'it's like the cereal guy'. He's, like, 'what's the cereal guy'? Oh, you know this is Lucky Charms cereal. And I'm just, like, 'dude, I get it. I know the joke here'. 

Joey  29:09  

Yeah, Mike Myers was a fan of that sort of over explaining the joke. [laughs] 

David  29:13  

Yeah, yeah. 

Joey  29:14  

One thing that I think doesn't super work well for this series is that I think Chako's powers are kind of confusing. 

Jordan  29:20  

Yeah.

Joey  29:20  

They say that she creates these creatures, but then there are also fishmen hybrids that I think exist independently of that. 

David  29:28  

Yeah. 

Joey  29:29  

But they're also kind of, like, they say that they're drawn to her and it's like, okay, so is she making them is, she not making them, is she attracting them? It's kind of both and you know, I think this kind of mysterious nature is not necessarily bad as a rule, but it does make it hard to, like, latch on to and very easily, like, give one-- somebody, like, you know, an elevator pitch of, like, this is this girl and these are her powers, you know.

Jordan  29:51  

It really did at least seem initially like 'oh, this was just a normal world'. And then Chako showed up but now we have these weird hybrids and stuff and then it just built out this whole history. 

David  30:00  

Yeah.

Jordan  30:00  

Like, at first when Orpheus was talking about the mafia, the underwater mafia, I thought he was talking about, like, real fish just, like, getting [Joey laughs] in, like, uh, these mafia situations [Joey laughs] where-- so it's like you would just see this dolphin going around pushing these sea urchins around. And that was an example of policing. Then I found out, oh no, he's literally talking about fishman mafia. Okay. 

David  30:22  

Yeah, [laughs] that sounds like a fuckin' Ska band.

Jordan  30:25  

Fishman mafia. [Jordan and Joey laugh]

David  30:27  

Yeah.

Joey  30:27  

Yeah.

David  30:28  

Do you guys have any more negatives that you really want to make sure we talk about?

Joey  30:31  

Yeah, this is not, eh, necessarily an issue that I have with the manga personally, I think it's actually cool. But I wouldn't be sur-surprised if a reason why it didn't catch on with the intended audience, you know, teens is--

David  30:42  

Mmhmm.

Joey  30:42  

-- that they might not have much interest in a story about two adult men taking care of a toddler.

David  30:47  

That is true as well. And it's not even that much of a focal point. It's kind of, like, an excuse plot for why they have hijinks. 

Joey  30:52  

Hmm, yeah.

Jordan  30:53  

To be honest, I was not expecting what this series turned into from the title. I was not expecting what the series turned into from the promotional material. 

David  31:03  

Mmhmm.

Jordan  31:03  

So if I'm looking at the Shonen Jump app, and I'm looking for what kind of series do I want to read next? Hard-Boiled Cop and Dolphin that looks dumb. I don't want to check that out. It just doesn't do the series any favors.

David  31:14  

Yeah. The last thing I want to say is I also feel like there's really no agency to the female characters like-- 

Yeah. 

--there's not really any character depth or growth, like, Umi is completely pointless besides gags because she doesn't really have a purpose in the post gag manga series.

Joey  31:28  

There's a lot of side characters. Like there's that guy with the eyepatch. That is I'm always kind of, like, when is he going to do something? And then it never really... [laughs] 

David  31:35  

Yeah.

Jordan  31:36  

We haven't even mentioned Chako's mom at all. And she's, like, a huge part of, like, towards the end, but she doesn't really do anything? Like, personally she is-- she's a victim to the point where I was actually very confused in the last chapter as to whether or not she was dead or whether or not she--

Joey  31:54  

Yeah.

Jordan  31:54  

-was a character like, uh, like there's a character that was talking to Samejima at the very end, and it seemed to imply that no, that is Chako's mom. She just has a different hairstyle. But I couldn't tell because Chako's talking about him. Yeah, I talked to my mom and I'm just like, wait. Where is she? Did I like- like miss something here?

David  32:11  

That's a story for another day, reader. [Joey laughs] Hard-Boiled, uh, shark and frog and Dolphin Casey Green production, [Jordan laughs] though, you know, Casey Green, also very based. 

Jordan  32:23  

Yes, yes. 

David  32:24  

[laughs] All right. I'm really showing my age. But speaking of things that are based, why don't we get into the positives where fellow based person, Joey, is going to tell us some of the reasons why he wanted us to cover this series for this episode.

Joey  32:37  

Well, first of all, I just love the setting. Like, I think the tropical remote island has just a lot of, like, great vibes. And it's nice to have a series [Jordan laughs] set in Japan but not the usual Tokyo or Kyoto locations.

David  32:50  

If anything, this series has a very creative idea. I mean, there's one series in Shonen Jump that I likewise would compare it to and I'll talk about that in the Miscellaneous Thoughts. We're deciding what series I would most want to do a crossover with the series but yeah, like, it's just fun. I-I-it's got some cool science facts too. Kind of abandons it later on. But at least at the start, I was learning a little bit and then they get, like, he kind of gives up and he just makes fake science which is a little disappointing but still science all the same. I enjoy Dr. Stone if you can't tell.

Jordan  33:16  

I mean, David, there has to be a point where when you're talking about a guy with a dolphin's head, like, there's no real science way to explain [Joey laughs] that is what I'm  trying to just get to.

Joey  33:25  

You just have to have a very, like, light sprinkling of science that, like, passes a sniff test. Don't research this but does it sound okay?  [David and Joey laugh]

Jordan  33:35  

Just say words where I'm like, 'Well, I'm not smart enough to understand that anyway. So sure, whatever. Yeah, that probably works'. I really liked this series way more than I thought I was going to.

David  33:46  

Oh, oh, yeah, I had a great time reading it.

Jordan  33:48  

The art was really good, like, it-it was more subtle than a lot of other work, like, uh, fantasy or people always talk about how great fantasy as art is. Blah, fucking okay, no, I don't care. Like they didn't have these huge gross, like, grotesque monsters. They're just, like, incredible composition, like, amazing layouts. There's one panel where, um, Kamuro is trying to help another character and that character, like, gets her leg cut off and stuff, and just the panel that that was-was, like, composed like a classical painting. It was just so well done. It was very-told a whole story with, like, emotions and stuff just in, like, this one image. I was really blown.

Joey  34:29  

Yeah, yeah. Tamura has a real, like, mastery of comics, that's for sure. Like, the pacing and the art and everything is, like, kind of pitch perfect. It feels like the art-the thing that struck me about it, I haven't read Beelzebub and I had only read-I think Viz only published, like, the first three chapters of Hungry Marie and so I'm not really familiar with him, but it, like, felt kind of old, like, it felt kind of like an ‘80s or ‘90s series or something. 

Jordan  34:29  

Yeah.

Joey  34:30  

But that's, like, appealing to me. And it's just so, like, refined but like he said subtle. Like, he doesn't really--

David  34:50  

Mmhm.

Joey  34:50  

--hit you over the head with that, but when you really look at it. You're just like, 'damn, that's some [laughs] really amazing work right there, you know'?

David  35:04  

That's some fucking art! [Joey laughs]

Jordan  35:07  

You know what it is? He has restraint.

Joey  35:09  

Mmhmm.

David  35:09  

Yes, I think it's because, also, the time budget kind of works in his favor where he has kind of an-a-like a style where, you know, he does, like, two or three pages where it's really, really well drawn and detailed, and then has a piece out where it's much lighter. And I think it really works for the difference in tones as well. 

Jordan  35:24  

Yeah. 

David  35:25  

I also want to say I really like the use of, like, when he does that really intense black shading. 

Jordan  35:30  

It's so good. Yeah.

David  35:31  

That's such a great tou-taste or touch. And it really does add a cinematic element, I kind of actually do wish sometimes that the art really felt like it was more cinematic or, like, shot like a movie, which, you know, like, is supposed to be a reference, at least in the title, but I guess it's the English title. So it's not fair to compare. But that would have been cool if he had done more kind of cinematic style,um, making it feel like it's a movie.

Joey  35:51  

Mmhmm. 

Jordan  35:51  

You mentioned that black shading. There's, like, one panel where, like, all these dolphins are just, like, uh, jumping through the air. And they're all drawn, like, pitch black. And it's, like,--

David  36:02  

Yeah. 

Jordan  36:02  

--really intense. And, like, really cool looking, like, I was--

David  36:05  

Mmhm.

Jordan  36:06  

--just absolutely blown away by some of the stuff in this.

Joey  36:08  

And there's a really great use of screen tones as well, like.

Jordan  36:12  

Amazing. 

Joey  36:13  

I got really obsessed with the way that anytime he would sort of depict, like, palm trees, like, the shadows of-of the palm trees and stuff that-that he just did with screen tone alone just was really awesome looking. And, uh, yeah, there's, like, a really great panel of, uh, Orpheus, like, rolling down his window while he's in the car. And, like--

Jordan  36:31  

Yeah.

Joey  36:31  

--there's different [Jordan laughs] screen tones, like, where the windows rolled down versus where the window overlaps him. And it's-oh, man, it's so good.

Jordan  36:39  

He just really knows how these tools work. 

Joey  36:42  

Mmhmm.

David  36:43  

I mean, this is a guy who already had a big success and you can tell he really knows. He's not like Build King where he just kinda was coasting on his success. This guy put just as much effort into this series as I assumed he would-he put in his first series that made it big.

Joey  36:55  

Yeah, you know, and along those lines, like, I think that really feeds into a thought that I have when I read this about the ending being so good? Like, the ending is really good and it feels like as natural as it can--

David  37:07  

Mmhm.

Joey  37:07  

--due to time constraints. And you know, I can tell that kind of came in to the story earlier than he had intended but it still pretty much works and I think that's because of one of two possibilities being at play here is that either Tamura having had a hit series in the past had a little bit more wiggle room with editorial and maybe they gave him an earlier heads up that his series was eventually going to be cancelled or even kind of, like, told him 'Hey, you've only got you know so much time'--

Jordan  37:08  

Mmhm.

Joey  37:11  

--or just you know, him being a veteran author at this point he was able to see the writing on the wall at some point and he could track his own sales and his own position in the magazine just as well as anybody else, you know, on Twitter is doing and was probably able to be, like, 'okay, this is not gonna be forever', you know, and was able to start really seeding this ending a lot faster than you know that kind of, like, fan speculation that authors have about three chapters left after they're told that they're canceled? Who knows how, eh, correct that is but, like, that is around the time that you start seeing authors really scrambling to wrap things up. And here he just kind of, like, really smoothly like just slides on into the ending.

Jordan  38:14  

It's amazing how satisfying, like, the, uh, final confrontation between Samejima and Kamuro is where punches him with the fucking Orpheus' severed arm while [Joey laughs]--

David  38:26  

Yeah.

Jordan  38:26  

--he's surfing on a tidal wave. Like, that kicks ass. [David laughs] And it-it thematically works but the thing that I'm just so blown away by with this series is that it had that sudden crazy genre shift, which is something I haven't seen in a while, like, the sudden just tonal complete change. But it-it stuck the landing somehow.

Joey  38:45  

Yeah. [laughs]

Jordan  38:46  

It wound up becoming better. I was absolutely [David and Joey laugh] I couldn't believe it. Like, I'm kind of in awe of this series, just what he somehow pulled off. There's very clearly stuff he did where he ha-he had to retcon, he had to do things where it's, like, well, he wasn't planning that when he introduced that character. But I think he pulls it off, like, shockingly well.

Joey  39:05  

I agree.

David  39:06  

I feel like he must have had, like, at least, like, 10 plus chapters where he knew. Because there's a lot of things he did that he could not have done if he had only three chapters to finish the series. 

Joey  39:15  

Yeah, I think authors like him and Kishimoto get a little bit more, uhh, time to kind of fail in the magazine, [laughs] I guess is a good way to put it where they're, like--

Yeah.

--you know, 'we're not gonna cancel you immediately'. But just so you know, this has to wrap up.

David  39:28  

Yeah, Samurai went, like, maybe, twenty chapters [laughs] longer than it [Jordan laughs] would have under normal circumstances. 

Joey  39:34  

Yeah. 

David  39:34  

Oh, one thing that we haven't discussed is this arc. This series actually has post-arc-like cooldown scenes, which I think, Jordan, we talked about one of the best things Chainsaw Man does is where they just are hanging out, being friends, and they have an idea where, yes, the series gets very intense and it isn't really the direction I want it to go by he goes back to his roots in between those big arcs and I really appreciate that you just are seeing him be like a really low-stakes adventure or him just hanging out with our cops and being buddies and that really added a lot of depth which these characters definitely needed as we talked about the why it failed. It's actually because these characters don't have a lot of depth unless they're the focus of the story.

Jordan  40:05  

Yeah, as a result of that, you get some, like, really great moments between just, uh, like, Chako and Orpheus or Orpheus and Samejima or Samejima and Chako, like, you just get like these really great moments of them just kind of hanging out and having this dynamic. 

Joey  40:20  

Yeah, it really endears you to the characters and I feel like it was very telling when you get to the last chapter and the chapter title page is just, like, kind of a big panel of them all, like, all the characters basically hanging out together and smiling. 

Jordan  40:33  

Yeah. 

Joey  40:33  

And I just like felt like, aww, this is nice. There they all are, you know, and a lot of times you see those kinds of drawings, and you're just kind of, like, 'okay, yeah, there's everybody'. But, uh, this one hit me a little bit more.

David  40:44  

Aww, and it reminds me of the end of Mitama. 

Jordan  40:46  

Yeah. 

David  40:47  

So speaking of, uh, Mitama, where that series also had a lot of potential and unfortunately was taken away from us too soon. Why don't we shift gears and really talk about where we really would have hoped the series could have gone.

Joey  40:57  

As far as where it could have gone, I think it basically ended the way that he intended but I think that we--

David  41:02  

Mmhm.

Joey  41:01  

--would have had more adventures with various sea creature people, villains and things like that before we got to that final arc, you know, really build up those undersea-that undersea world like we'd mentioned, we wanted to see that kingdom or city or whatever that the--

David  41:02  

Mmhm.

Joey  41:03  

--that's [laughs]rife with fish Yakuza or whatever. [Jordan and Joey laugh] Umm yeah, I'd love to see more of those characters 'cause even the ones that we started to get, like, uh, that guy that's, like, what was he like a swordfish or something. And--

David  41:26  

Yeah.

Joey  41:27  

--and hammerhead shark guy tho-those guys were really cool. And I was really looking forward to seeing more characters like that.

Jordan  41:32  

I completely forgot about the hammerhead shark guy. I love the hammerhead [David and Joey laugh] shark guy with-- 

David  41:36  

Yeah, he came back for, like, two panels and then got his arm [laughs] cut off.

Joey  41:39  

Yeah. [laughs]

Jordan  41:40  

He's a hammerhead shark. But no, his head is literally a hammer. Like, it's not a hammerhead shark. Like, he just has a hammer in his hair. It's great. 

Joey  41:48  

It's so good. [David and Joey] Yeah, so I just think-I think that-and then regarding the ending, like, I think a lot of the characters and ideas and maybe even parts of that flashback that were introduced in the final arc would have been sprinkled throughout several arcs rather than all crammed together in one.

Jordan  42:03  

Yeah. 

David  42:04  

And then how 'bout you, Jordan?

Jordan  42:05  

I definitely would have liked to have seen more of the underwater mafia. I think if it had kept going, like, uh, we probably would have gotten maybe a little bit more with, uh, the MIU, the, uh, Marine Investigations Unit, find out a little bit more about them and their backstory. They could have been, like, one of the billions of factions that are in Bleach, you know?

Joey  42:26  

Mmhmm. [David laughs] Yeah, he does that thing where he introduces, like, this big double page spread where he's, like, here, you know, eight or nine new characters, and then basically only one of them ever participates in the story.

David  42:38  

Story of our lives. [Joey laughs] 

Jordan  42:39  

Yeah. [laughs]

David  42:40  

Oh, speaking of someone that I wish would participate in the story, I really [laughs]-I really was hoping they were gonna make a Jotaro reference, because, you know, he [Joey laughs] became a marine biologist, he studied dolphins, so I really really was hoping that they would have a JoJo parody.

Joey  42:53  

It's true. 

Jordan  42:54  

Wait, was it this series where it was like, a-this little kid was like, I have a turtle I named it Pomaref.

David  43:01  

That's great. But I just wanted [laughs] to imagine if you just showed up and did, like, a timestop, [Jordan laughs] and save the day and just disappeared again. It was like dolphins are [Jordan laughs] so interested but more realistically, I really would have liked to have seen the daughter play at the more possession-by-Poseidon thing where especially if they had her age up more or fighting this and fo-forging her own identity and dealing with the fact that she's kind of, like, a soft reincarnation of a god but she's her own person kinda, you know, like how Avatar: Last Airbender does that where you know it's like a soft reincarnation where, yes, technically he is reincarnated. But he still, definitely, is his own person.

Jordan  43:29  

Yeah, I-I mean, and I also definitely would like to see, uh, the mom play a larger part in the story because I'm still very confused as to,, like everything ar-around her--

David  43:40  

Yeah.

Jordan  43:40  

--what she does, who is she? Is she dead? Is she like secretly in the--

David  43:41  

Yeah.

Jordan  43:41  

--police? It's-it's a little confusing the way that they end that all up. 

Jordan  43:48  

Yeah, you'll have to read that in, uh, Hard-Boiled, err, Cop and Dolphin. The sequel. [Jordan laughs]

Jordan  43:54  

He just does the thing that, like, uh, the Build King author does or it's, like, 'Ohoh, get the Build King volumes.' So you can read the actual end of this series. I wasn't [Joey laughs] cancelled. What the fuck are you talking about, man? [laughs]

Joey  44:06  

Hey, man, if this guy wanted to put out some volume exclusive stories, I would totally get that. [laughs]

Jordan  44:11  

Oh, yeah. 

David  44:12  

I mean, I look forward to the next series. But yeah, and then are you guys cool to go to Miscellaneous Thoughts? 

Joey  44:16  

Yeah. 

David  44:17  

So though, I think now that we've really talked about where it could have gone which actually is shorter than usual because really, the series really did a fantastic job of living up to a lot of its potential. Let's talk about some miscellaneous thoughts and maybe some cool science facts. I know, Joey, you have a degree in marine biology, much like Jotaro so I'd really love to hear about kind of how accurate the series was. And I'm not just totally putting him on the spot. I'm sure he's frantically looking up cool dolphin facts right now at Google. [Jordan laughs]

Joey  44:40  

Through my research, I have learned that dolphins do in fact live in the sea.

David  44:44  

Damn that's what we come-that's why people listen to Shonen Flop.

Jordan  44:47  

Whoa! 

David  44:47  

Yes, science bitch. [Joey laughs] So though I'll kick things off. There are so many crossovers that I think this series could have had. Do you guys have any one series if you were, like, if they could have done, like, a one chapter crossover, you know, like, have TVs and One Piece had one, what would you guys pick? 

Jordan  44:47  

Well, Savage Dragon. [Joey laughs] 

David  45:03  

Yeah, f-for a manga, you silly goose.

Jordan  45:05  

Oh, uh, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles manga.

David  45:07  

I hate you. Anyway. [Jordan laughs] Okay, Shonen Jump manga. 

Jordan  45:11  

Uh. [laughs] 

David  45:14  

I can think of two really strong candidates.

Jordan  45:16  

Mitama Security: Spirit Busters, I guess. 

David  45:19  

Oh, that wasn't on my list how about you, Joey?

Joey  45:21  

 KochiKame, the policeman who works on a certain block or whatever. That was the guy with the big thick eyebrows that was kind of Jump's mascot for so many years.

David  45:30  

Didn't it run for like 50 years or something? [laughs]

Joey  45:32  

200 volumes. 

David  45:34  

Niiiice. 

Joey  45:35  

Yeah, I think it's not quite as long as Golgo 13, maybe?

David  45:38  

That's the assassin one right? 

Joey  45:40  

Yeah, but it's definitely the longest running series Jump even excluding Jojo's which is like arguably multiple series.

David  45:48  

But yeah, so my pick is-I would have gone with Moriking or I Tell C, and I was surprised you didn't mention I Tell C. 

Jordan  45:55  

Oh, yeah, I Tell C. Yeah, no, I-I totally agree. Yeah.

David  45:58  

They would have gotten along like super well. Joey, are you familiar with I Tell C?

Joey  46:01  

I read the first couple chapters of that one. [laughs] 

Jordan  46:04  

I really like it. David really doesn't. 

Joey  46:06  

Yeah, I'm more with David on that one. [laughs]

David  46:09  

Most people agree with me. 

Jordan  46:10  

Well, you know, they're wrong. It's okay. 

David  46:12  

This series literally has the same energy as Moriking during the first fourteen chapters.

Jordan  46:15  

A little bit more horny than Moriking. 

David  46:17  

True. 

Jordan  46:17  

This is a miscellaneous thought: the author is such an assman. Oh my God. [Joey laughs]

David  46:21  

Oh, yeah. He tries his show boobs, but we knew like he definitely put more effort in the ass shots.

Jordan  46:22  

Got a lot of focus there, especially with, uh, the head of the MIU. Like for like the second half of the series, she's just in a wetsuit, and constantly you just see her from like, a low angle from the back. [laughs]

Joey  46:43  

Yeah, there's also that woman that works at the aquarium too, right? The umm...mmhmm.

Jordan  46:46  

Oh, yeah. Plenty of time he's got a woman in a wetsuit, you're gonna see--

Joey  46:47  

Yeah.

Jordan  46:47  

--that ass. [Joey laughs}

David  46:51  

Hey, but at least they're all over 18.

Jordan  46:53  

Yes, absolutely. [David laughs] There's, like, one-[laughs] like one, uh, page or one, umm, one chapter cover, one title page, where it's a Nanase and Chako just chilling out floating in the pool you know? [Joey laughs] Chako's stomach is like floating over the water. But just Nanase's boobs [laughs] are just, like... 

Joey  47:17  

Right. [laughs]

Jordan  47:27  

The water... like... [laughs]

David  47:18  

[laughs] Speaking of boobs, this-I feel like this is the series that the Build King guy wishes he had made where, you know, it has, like, it's pretty much I think the style of humor Build King was trying to do and plot and just not shitting itself at every single possible opportunity. 

Joey  47:36  

Hmm.

Jordan  47:37  

I know there's a lot of series that I would have rather had been written instead of Build King. 

David  47:42  

That's true. Yeah. [Joey laughs] We could have had a good manga published in the spot that the, like, twenty-five pages-twenty-five chapters, that the series took up. 

Jordan  47:48  

I could have read something different. Yeah.

David  47:50  

Yeah, we wer-were making our, like, panel art where it's, like, me and Jordan was surrounded by Shonen Jump stuff and then, like, should we ever reference the Build King? I was,  like, I-no,

Jordan  47:58  

No.

Joey  47:59  

Yeah, that's fine. We can just, uh, not put that in the spotlight anymore. [laughs]

David  48:04  

Out of sight, out of mind. I'm glad that she's adding the rugby jpg from [laughs] Beast Children. 

Jordan  48:08  

[laughs] Good. Thank God, Joey for context. Uh, one of the first series we read, uh, Beast Children is like something that's-it's like a hilariously bad, uh, rugby manga. And--

Joey  48:19  

Mmm.

Jordan  48:19  

--every time they have a-the rugby ball, it is the same JPEG of a rugby ball [Joey laughs] just sized up and turned in order to fit whatever [laughs] angle they're at. It's so bad. It looks awful. It looks so bad. It's great.

Joey  48:35  

Yeah, if you google image search something once, why do it again? 

Jordan  48:38  

Exactly. [Joey laughs]

David  48:39  

Why draw many things when one draw do good? 

Jordan  48:42  

Yeah, [Joey laughs] exactly. 

David  48:44  

All right. Uh. [laughs] Any other miscellaneous thoughts?

Joey  48:47  

Oh, yeah, I have a few. Ummm.

David  48:49  

Oh! Go for it, Joey.

Joey  48:49  

Yeah, this comic, especially the color pages really gave me some--

David  48:53  

Mmhm.

Joey  48:53  

--huge city pop vibes. 

Jordan  48:55  

Yeah. 

David  48:56  

Mmmm.

Joey  48:56  

And I'd say perfect, uh, to listen to or to read while listening to Tatsuro Yamashita. Those kind of beachy vibes.

Jordan  49:03  

[laughs] Not B. Ichi vibes, beachy. 

Joey  49:05  

Uh, no. One of the reasons I think that this might have appealed to me is that Chako reminds me a lot of Arale from Dr. Slump. 

Jordan  49:13  

I can see that. Yeah.

Joey  49:14  

One of my favorite characters is she's-Chako's kind of carrying on this legacy of cheery faced agents of chaos in... [Jordan and Joey laugh] 

David  49:21  

Yeah.

Joey  49:22  

And you know, something that I really wish that the series had done a little bit differently. I guess this could have gotten in that section, but I wish that when we saw Haebaru, the-the dolphin, uh, you know, umm... 

Jordan  49:33  

Orpheus' real--

Joey  49:33  

Orpheus' human form that he was like a big guy like Orpheus says. 

Jordan  49:35  

He was just a cute anime guy. 

Joey  49:39  

Yeah, that was kind of disappointing to me. I don't know.

David  49:42  

I think the series would have been a huge pain in the ass to animate because they would have had to animate like all that water because they can't just be lazy because it's the focus of the series.

Joey  49:49  

Oh yeah. Hello computer generated beaches. Speaking of anime, like, definitely been thinking about looking up the, um, Beelzebub anime because, like, I'd love to see this guy's, like, big hit series you know?

David  50:03  

Now that we're talking about some successes when talking about Beelzebub, why don't we get into our Final Verdict? Let's start things off as always with some of the awesome fan-submitted six word summaries. We actually have quite a few listeners from the discord listening in so they're going to hear me talk about it. Their six word summary in real time [Jordan laughs] so that's pretty exciting. 

Jordan  50:20  

Fun yeah. 

David  50:21  

First of all, we got Chemychems: not cop drama just ocean fighting. And then we got GenericMan who belongs to my school of cheating the six word count with: h2o just add combat. [Joey laughs] T Wolfwood, hi T Wolfwood says: poorly timed comedy has hard-boiled dolphin. He did hyphenate it so if you're counting, yes, that counts as six words. 

Joey  50:40  

Nice. 

David  50:42  

Agpuh says jurisdiction 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. T Root says yakuza like a dolphin on PS5. OzyRat says Waterworld buddy cop bromance for the ages. I actually haven't seen Waterworld I need to.

Jordan  50:55  

Do you need to? 

Joey  50:56  

I almost mentioned that when you were talking about the Zelda game. [David and Jordan laugh]

Jordan  51:00  

Chako does look like the little girl in that. That really might have been an influence [laughs] on this manga actually.

David  51:05  

Oh, for sure.

Jordan  51:05  

[laughing] The more I think about it, yeah.

Joey  51:06  

Interesting. [laughs]

David  51:09  

Meowth says dolphin was cute, cop was sexy.

Jordan  51:11  

Meowth would think that the cop was sexy. Yeah.

David  51:14  

The question is when is Meowth not in horny jail to be honest. 

Jordan  51:17  

Yeah.

Joey  51:17  

Mmmm. [Jordan laughs] Yeah.

David  51:18  

Victor says the cops are gonna be busted. And apparently this is like an obscure reference to a children's show I actually watched called Funky Cops, but I just want to explain it because yeah, umm, Victor is definitely working on a level I was not when he wrote it.

Jordan  51:32  

First off, I just have to say Tucker. Holy shit, man. You're a fucking machine. You just-- fucking killing it. David. Read Tucker's [laughs] six word summary.

David  51:42  

I know. Tucker said what if God was one porpoise?

Joey  51:45  

Very good.

David  51:46  

We're gonna have the best six word summary from Tucker because it's just not going to be fair when we do the Shonen Flop Awards. All right. So Joey, what was yours?

Joey  51:56  

I have a couple here. 

David  51:57  

Oh, go for it. 

Joey  51:57  

First of all, a hard-boiled cop and a dolphin. The title says it all. [David laughs]

David  52:03  

I've never seen someone say the title of the series as a six word summary.

Jordan  52:07  

It's a pretty good summary. Honestly agree.

David  52:09  

That's [Jordan laughs] pretty great. That's pretty great.

Joey  52:11  

You know, contrary to what we were saying earlier, the title does give you at least an idea of what you're getting into. 

David  52:16  

Yeah. 

And then that final chapter where she's talking about her three dads. You know, this one's for the Tom Selleck fans or the Guttenbergers out there. Three Men and a little lady.

David  52:26  

Aww, that's nice. How about you, Jordan?

Jordan  52:28  

 Like Hot Fuzz at SeaWorld.

David  52:30  

[David and Joey laugh] I like it. Alright. I also had two so tell me which one of-you guys like it more. My first one was goofs, gags and tig ol' biddies. The second one was The Life Aquatic with John Woo.

Jordan  52:39  

Second one's better.

David  52:40  

Yeah, that's [Jordan laughs] definitely better. I just want to say tig ol' biddies on this show. [laughs]

Jordan  52:44  

I know you did. It was...[laughs]

Joey  52:47  

Well, you're the one who assigned Umi to me. That was your big chance. But... 

David  52:51  

I [Joey laughs] wanted to give you the privilege. The big privilege.

Jordan  52:55  

The two big privileges. 

David  52:56  

All right. I think we're all pretty in alignment. So the-Joey, was this a flop or not?

Joey  53:01  

No.

David  53:02  

 How 'bout you, Jordan?

Jordan  53:03  

Oh, not at all. No. Holy shit. No.

David  53:06  

No, not with me. Joey, I don't-have you read Chainsaw Man? 

Joey  53:09  

Yeah. 

David  53:10  

All right. Well, I-I think you might be the first guest that's read Chainsaw Man, if memory serves. So would you say this is better or worse than chainsaw man? 

Joey  53:17  

No, you know, Chainsaw Man just feels so personal, you know--

David  53:21  

Mmhm.

Joey  53:21  

--to that artist, whereas this feels very specific to this artist. I know. That's like-kind of-like a fine differentiation. But, like, I really felt that the author of Chainsaw Man pouring himself into it in a way that this maybe feels a little more distanced from the author. 

Jordan  53:36  

I get that. 

Joey  53:36  

So I'd say in that way Chainsaw Man, uh, you know, takes the lead. [laughs]

David  53:41  

Oh, yeah. How about you, Jordan? 

Jordan  53:43  

Chainsaw Man is still better. 

David  53:45  

N-no doubt. Kind of asked that question as a joke, but the real question is, Jordan, is this the best one we've ever read?

Jordan  53:50  

Fuck this is tough. It might be. It-I don't know if it-it's-it's fucking up there, man. Like... [laughs]

David  53:57  

Is this better than Moriking? 

Joey  53:59  

Moriking's your number one? 

David  54:00  

Well, it's just Moriking-Moriking is the same like... 

Jordan  54:03  

Moriking or --

David  54:03  

Is the same genre.

Jordan  54:04  

--Time Paradox Ghostwriter, uhhh.

Joey  54:05  

Right. 

Jordan  54:06  

This might be though, it's tough. I might put this above Moriking and I might even put it above Time Paradox Ghostwriter. It's been a long time since I've read that. 

Joey  54:15  

Oh.

David  54:16  

Jordan's, like, gonna go for a walk. [Joey laughs] 

Jordan  54:18  

Yeah,

Joey  54:19  

I know this is not for me. But I-I liked Time Paradox Ghostwriter, but I would put this above it personally.

David  54:26  

We're-we're just not used to the guests having like, read the other canceled series we have. Sorry--

Joey  54:29  

I'm so sorry. 

David  54:30  

That's why I didn't ask you. No, no, I love it. I love that. Uh, when guests actually have read some of the series that we've covered. 

Jordan  54:34  

Yeah.

David  54:35  

I think the problem with me is that I really wouldn't change anything about Time Parents Ghostwriter, like similarly, like, he saw the writing on the wall so fast that he really made a very comprehensive story. This series has a lot of dead weight and a lot of things that just didn't work. And it's not like if you read it, you're gonna say it's great for what it was. While Time Paradox Ghostwriter is just like a very good series and it being--

Joey  54:55  

Mmm.

David  54:55  

--canceled didn't change any of the quality of the series. Like Jordan, we talked about- you couldn't have made Time Paradox Ghostwriter longer than it was. 

Jordan  55:03  

Yeah. 

David  55:03  

And that's why I think it's better.

Jordan  55:05  

Now I'm gonna have to think about it more, but like right now it's ver-it's up there. 

David  55:08  

All right, well, how about this versus Moriking? I'd say this is better than Moriking. 

Jordan  55:12  

I think so too. Yeah. 

David  55:13  

Listeners, at some point, Jordan's gonna have to circle back and make his decision. [Joey laughs] That was actually how we found out about Stephen Paul. I think I DM'ed him about it. And we're like, we read the series in your translator or so-and he was, like, telling us facts about the series, which was really cool. And that's how we started talking to him.

Joey  55:25  

Yeah, I remember when he was translating that. And I remember [laughs] messaging with him about, like, how crazy it was and how fast everything was moving. And he [Jordan laughs] really wouldn't say much back to me because he couldn't, you know-- 

David  55:36  

Yeah.

Joey  55:36  

In his mind he was just like, 'yeah, that's because it's ending'. [laughs]

David  55:39  

Yeah, I, um-[Jordan laughs] Yeah, so with this series you can really, really tell when they're about to end.

Joey  55:45  

Yeah, but that one was moving at that speed from chapter one. So like...

David  55:48  

That's the thing. That's what [Joey laughs] I'm saying. Like, that's like, there was nothing I would have changed. I don't-Time Paradox Ghostwriter could not have lasted 50 chapters.

Jordan  55:55  

Like it-it doesn't feel like somebody told him you have three chapters to wrap it up. 

David  56:00  

Yeah.

Jordan  56:00  

It feels like he had this goal in mind of ending it at this chapter.

David  56:06  

Jordan, now that you've had a little bit of time. Yes or no, you gotta snap judgment. You gotta make your call now. You can always retcon it later when we have the big talk in May. But for now, where's it stand?

Jordan  56:14  

It's better than Time Paradox Ghostwriter.

Joey  56:16  

Boom. [laughs]

David  56:19  

Aw, man. Next time we read something good we're gonna have a complicated conversation. We've never been split on this before. Oh, man, you are here to see it, Joey. Man, history in the making. 

Joey  56:28  

I feel honored. [laughs]

David  56:30  

It's been thirty-uh, what? thirty episodes since we-err-fift-twenty episodes since we've seriously had a contender for best series we've ever read. See? Not even mad. You made us read something really long. 

Joey  56:39  

Yes.

David  56:39  

Because it was-- 

Jordan  56:40  

Very tough. Yeah. 

Joey  56:40  

Nice. What a relief. [laughs]

Jordan  56:41  

Not at all. [laughs] If this was a fucking B. Ichi scenario, I would have been really pissed.

David  56:46  

I was actually thinking of B. Ichi cuz there's some instances where the dude just-he just didn't draw the faces very well. And they kind of look like B. Ichi characters. [Jordan laughs] I have that in my notes. Uh, but [laughs] anyway, now we're talking about other things. Why don't we migrate to Shout Outs? Props to Jordan for making the opening/ending theme and being a great co-host and helping with editing. Props to Mer Liel for awesome cover art. You can find her online at liel_mer and Nigel for being a generous art benefactor. Thanks to Tucker for assistance with pronunciation, translation, other miscellaneous research and fucking just flexing so hard with the six word summaries. I swear to God, I don't understand how you're so good at them. [Jordan and Joey laugh] You really should work in ad copy. Thanks to Nicole for helping with social media. And thanks to Luke for being our community producer. He does a lot of really awesome stuff. He helps arrange game nights, he runs our book club where we're having a really exciting book club where we're actually crossing over off on our Discord. I'm going to be in Italy, so I'm going to have to get up at 2am for that, because I-fffff-didn't realize when we scheduled it, and it was too late to change it. So that will be really fun to hear delirious David at 2am in, uh, Milan. And now, on that note of speaking of great people, I want to give a big shout out to Dylan and Shawn from Anime Out of Context, a little known podcast. They just have about, mmm, 40 times the listeners we do [Jordan laughs], but they don't let the thing get to their head. Dylan absolute rockstar. Really helpful. He's actually helping me figure out better, uh, editing strategies for the audio. Likewise, if you feel like you know a thing or two about audio editing, please send me a message, uh, on Gmail or Twitter or on Discord. I really love improving my task. I have it all in an audio guide. So I love to share the knowledge as well. And Shaun, also just being an awesome dude to talk to and he was a super big help along with the community in picking series that we should reference in our upcoming chibi art. Shannon is still working on it. There's just a big labor of love. We wanted her to do it as her magnum opus, we have like 30 different references, we'll put it up. It's gonna be a lot of fun just figuring [Jordan laughs] them all out. Some series, you know, some you don't. Umm, some I wasn't aware of and Shannon said can I put it in and I said sure. Why not. So I actually don't know every reference and [Jordan and Joey laugh] that's part of the fun.

Jordan  58:37  

Yeah. David, I would like to thank you for being such a based editor.

David  58:43  

Thank you, my acid co-host because that's opposite of a base is--

Jordan  58:48  

[groans]

David  58:48  

--an acid.

Jordan  58:49  

[still groaning] Whatever. [David laughs] 

Joey  58:53  

That science.

David  58:54  

Yeah, science, bitch. I've said that so many times. Good thing I could swear on my podcast. Speaking of, uh, things I'm allowed to do, you should be sure to join the Shonen Flop discord. Come hang out with us and talk about anime, games or whatever else is on your mind. We also have a book club as I've talked about, that's run by the lovely Luke and do regular movie nights. Up next, we are going to be watching Dredd the 2012 one. Super awesome. It was a real close poll. We put it up against Hard Boiled and Blade Runner. So, awesome movies. It's always a lot of fun, and, uh, you can find a link to it in our show notes. And if you've been enjoying the podcast and want to help us keep going, consider subscribing to our Patreon. We have a ton of awesome perks ranging from exclusive mini episodes, deleted scenes, and you can even help us pick what series we're going to cover next. Find out at patreon.com/shonenflop. On that note, I want to give a shout out to Pterodactyl Ghost from being a Chainsaw Man patron and Twolfwood, Marty, Gabe, Mark, Overrated Apples, Matt, Albie, some of whom are listening right now, for being King of the Forest, speaking of Moriking, and if you're not ready for a regular commitment consider buying some merch. We have a ton of awesome designs including the art for this episode. And the Gomez Moon and Mashle punching Harry Potter shirts, and a portion of the proceeds go back to the original artist. And no worries though, if you can't help the show off financially, if you could just tell a friend about our show, really it would mean to the bottom of my heart You know, organic reach is so important. And we're-we're so excited about the amount of growth we've seen in the year and a half. And it's just awesome to have people be like, Oh yeah, I-uh-I actually met someone who heard about my show from a different friend of mine. And that was just really crazy. So it really does make my day when someone shares our show, but you know who else I'm extremely thankful for is, of course, someone who is extremely based, Joey. Joey, just thank you so much for taking the time to come on our show. Where can they find all the awesome things that you are doing in your world?

Joey  1:00:27  

Thanks again for having me on. You can find me @joeyweiser on Twitter or joeyweisercomics on Instagram.

David  1:00:34  

Mmhm.

Joey  1:00:34  

The Instagram's a little bit more focused on just my art, uh, and work. I'm a cartoonist. Whereas my Twitter's a bit more all over the place about, like, uhh, comics I'm reading, movies I'm watching, things like--

David  1:00:45  

Mmhm.

Joey  1:00:45  

--that. Please check out my graphic novels. Uh, like I mentioned, um, my newest book is called Dragon Racer. And, uhh, the book before that was called Ghost Hog. And I also did a five volume series called Mermin that are available digitally as well as in print.

Jordan  1:00:58  

Love these titles. Is thi-is that about Ethel?

Joey  1:01:00  

[laughs] No, it's about a fishman actually, uh, officially. [Jordan exclaims and David laughs] I didn't even get into that. But that might be a reason why this appealed to me, uh, that I drew my own undersea, uh, adventure. 

David  1:01:13  

Aww.

Joey  1:01:13  

Yeah, yeah, fish-fishpeople are cool. What else? Oh, and Toho Yaro the podcast that I co-host with Alex Kazanas from the One Piece podcast and our friend V. That's a Japanese film club podcast. As I mentioned earlier, uh, it's on hiatus at the moment, but there's a big backlog to listen to. I wouldn't recommend listening to any episodes before the Message from Space episode to start off, that's like episode 30 something because we switch up the format at that point and really tighten things up. And I think the show--

David  1:01:42  

Mmhm.

Joey  1:01:42  

 --really improves kind of in the 30s and beyond.

Jordan  1:01:45  

I always get kind of annoyed when people are like, oh, yeah, I'll listen to your podcast. We'll start at episode one. Don't start at episode one. That's when we suck. That's when we have no clue what the fuck we're doing.

Joey  1:01:55  

Yeah, we really shot ourselves in the foot by, like, covering some big ones, like the original Godzilla and Lady Snowblood, and all the ones that people actually want to listen to [Jordan laughs]--

David  1:02:03  

Aww.

Joey  1:02:03  

--are those ones where we didn't know what we were doing. But we're a little bit more tighter now. And-and, uh, I think my advice would for that show is to either pick a movie that you've seen or a movie that you don't mind just hearing some spoilers about and listen to us talk about it. I think that's it.

Jordan  1:02:17  

Thanks so much again for coming on to the show.

David  1:02:21  

Mmhm.

Jordan  1:02:21  

 Thank you for introducing me to Hard-Boiled Cop and Dolphin.

David  1:02:25  

Oh, [Joey laughs] yes, for sure. 

Joey  1:02:26  

Awesome. 

David  1:02:26  

This is definitely a series I had a ton of fun and you could see by the panels I posted in the out-of-context-panel chat, and also thanks for just hanging out, chillin' with us in the discord. I really appreciate you just being a member of the community too.

Joey  1:02:37  

Oh, yeah, I'm on the discord all the time. So pop in there and say hey, and I'll talk about Shonen Jump stuff or whatever. [laughs]

Jordan  1:02:45  

Hell yeah, that's the right place to do it. [David laughs]

David  1:02:47  

Yeah, well, we'll have to talk about, uh, One Piece. Maybe while we're waiting for the files to upload. I think all that's left is for us to go to shout outs. [ending music begins]  Thank you so much for joining us. This has been David. 

Jordan  1:02:57  

This has been Jordan. 

Joey  1:02:58  

This has been Joey.

David  1:02:59  

And you've been listening to Shonen Flop. 

Jordan  1:03:01  

Keep on flopping floppers.

David  1:03:03  

Yeah.

Jordan  1:03:03  

Yeah!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai