We were deeply saddened to hear the news about the passing of Ben Potter aka Comicstorian. Our thoughts are with his family and those closest to him. In his memory we wanted to rerun our episode on Yoakemono featuring him.
We'll be back tomorrow with our next new episode.
[00:00:00] We here at Shonen Flop were deeply saddened to hear about the passing of Ben Potter, aka Comic Storian. Our thoughts are with his family and those closest to him. In his memory, we wanted to rerun our episode on Yoko Mano featuring him.
[00:00:11] We'll be back tomorrow with our next new episode. Shonen Flop Intro This episode is brought to you ad-free thanks to all of our wonderful patrons. You can get tons of exclusive content and help us keep the show going by joining at patreon.com slash shonen flop.
[00:00:33] Welcome to this episode of Shonen Flop where we're talking about manga and shonen jump that didn't make it big. I'm David. I'm Jordan. Next week, we'll be covering Full Drive. If you'd like to read along with us, be sure to join the discussion in our Discord.
[00:00:44] We don't half drive around here. We go all the way. Full Torque? No, wait. Yeah. That's something else. God. Florent! Oh, anyway, we are this week talking about Yoko Mano and we are joined by our guest, the wonderful Comic Storian.
[00:00:58] Comic Storian, thank you so much for joining us. Do you mind telling the audience a little bit about yourself? I'm Benny. I'm the Comic Storian. That's mostly what people will know me as, but I also do manga storian where I like to talk about manga,
[00:01:10] which is I'm assuming how I got on the show. Yes. I think that that's a pretty good assumption to make. The best response would have been you guys going, wait, you have a second chan- I just stole your bit. You've heard of manga? Nobody's heard of that.
[00:01:28] No, it's such a niche, tiny thing, you know? Yeah. If you like manga, let me tell you about the world of anime. Never heard of it. No, it's amazing. I recently just found this really obscure anime the other day called Dragon Ball Z.
[00:01:43] Nobody's ever heard of this before. Yeah, no, it's a little indie thing. I hear that it's lightly based on Journey to the West. Oh! But with big monkeys. So if you like big monkeys- Well, I'm very familiar with Journey to the West. Big monkey. Big monkey.
[00:01:58] I had this phase on Shonen Flop like a year or two ago where I was just like, every single manga we read is just Journey to the West. Everything is Journey to the West. This is all Journey to the West.
[00:02:08] Well, we did read the last Saikyuu, which literally is Journey to the West. Yeah, but One Piece is Journey to the West. Dragon Ball's Journey to the West. Every other manga's Journey to the West. You don't need me to list them all.
[00:02:20] So it's really instead of, is this an isekai? It's now, is this Journey to the West? Is the barometer of all series. Yeah. Are you just anything where they go to the west is a Journey to the West for you? Is that the plan at this point?
[00:02:32] If they talk about directions at any point. They have a main character who is strong, stupid, and eats a lot. So that's Shonen Jump. Exactly. That's my point. But that's me, Jordan. That's so Shonen Flop, Journey to the West because I'm all of those things. Yes, pretty much.
[00:02:49] I also want to say, you know who isn't stupid is Portal Man. So Portal Man, big thank you for recommending Comic Story as a guest on the show. Yes, thank you so much. Thank you, Portal Man. I was actually going to ask how you guys even found me.
[00:03:02] Yeah. Yeah. We have a channel on our Discord where people suggest guests on the show and we always try and reach out to them. So no one else was available? Is that basically how this came about? Manga Story wasn't free. So we had to... Oh, right.
[00:03:14] The internet historian turned us down. Oh, well, he's a little complicated after that H-Bomber video. I wouldn't want him on the show anyway. Yeah, I had the completionist on my two message list and I just sure deleted him from the
[00:03:28] list of people I was going to reach out to. I hear he's available now. Anyway, let's get into the manga details. So this is Yoakemono and it is a portmanteau of yoake, which means daybreak, and kimono, which means beasts or beasts.
[00:03:44] And that is kimono, K-E-M-O-N-O and not kimono like the Japanese clothing. You know what I mean? It was written by Yusaku Shibata. Not all the people they were an assistant for was this guy, another little indie comic
[00:03:58] writer named Eiichiro Oda of like this obscure manga called One Piece. He was also an assistant for Kohei Hirakoshi, again, indie comic, My Hero Academia. His big hit, though, was Barrage, also known as Bulge of the Warring Planets, which we covered and...
[00:04:16] This really is the name of the series, Bulge. That is literally the name of the series. It was Bulge. And then when they translated it to English, they were like, no, we can't call it that. It's Barrage now. And then he also did Omegidoki Zoo.
[00:04:30] That's not on here anymore, probably because David can't pronounce it. I mean, don't worry. I can't pronounce anything. So I just call people by what they look like. So we're good to go if that's the case. Is that why you call me handsome?
[00:04:42] Yes, that was where that came from. I call him thicc. But next he worked for Kazuo Kato of Blue Exorcist, which is something I've heard of but never read. Yoshikazu Anami of Chin Piece, which is apparently an official One Piece spin-off about a guy
[00:04:57] who can stretch his dick. But that is also One Piece because as we all know, Luffy can canonically stretch his dick. I was going to say, like, Luffy could also do that. So what happens when the two of them are fighting?
[00:05:07] I think the other guy is at a severe disadvantage because all he can do is stretch his dick. Oda has established they're redundant fruits, like the Kilo Kilo and the Tan Tan Fruit. So you've got the one that turns only your penis into rubber.
[00:05:20] Look, it's been going for 20 plus years. There's going to be some repeats. I don't know. Can you just imagine discovering that? Because when they eat the fruit and they're not fully sure what it does, you go into the
[00:05:33] bathroom and he whips around real quick because somebody surprised him and it just reaches out. How do you discover that? Oh my God. I would talk more about it, but it's a little X-rated for us.
[00:05:48] He also worked with Yuya Kawada of Smokey BB, which I think was our last episode, David. It was, yeah. It was the thing we just covered. That's the episode I just listened to and discovered what I agreed to be on. Hopefully, it left a good impression.
[00:06:03] Well, I still showed up, didn't I? That's true. Next was Yuta Tsukada of Tenmaku Cinema and Food Wars. Tenmaku Cinema is also an episode. Check that out. Masahiro Harikata and to be clear, check out the episode not Tenmaku Cinema. Masahiro Hirakata, working with policewoman Kiriko.
[00:06:24] Again, check the episode out not rookie policewoman Kiriko. Not only will this guy had as an assistant was Daichiro Nanoe of, as we mentioned earlier, The Last Seiyuki. Ipe Goto of Hi-Fi Cluster, one of the worst things we've ever fucking read on this show. Wow.
[00:06:38] Oh my God, that sucked. I should read that? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Kentaro Hidano of Super Smartphone, also a really shitty thing we read on this podcast. That one's hilariously bad though in a really funny way. Listen to this manga premise, Benny, and tell me how cool this is.
[00:06:57] This guy gets a really amazing smartphone. Are you done with the premise? Yeah, that's it. That's it. Oh yeah, that sounds amazing. It's so good. What you guys are making me realize is whenever I do comic books, everyone likes to argue that all manga is better than comics.
[00:07:14] And I'm like, guys, you don't read some of this stuff. No. And you're listening to things I've never heard of. So... Oh, the ones you've heard of are the better ones. That's what I try to explain. If you've heard of it, it succeeded. Yes.
[00:07:29] You're not reading the shitty ones because the shitty ones don't get translated. Survivorship bias. You've never heard of them because they never came over to America because they sucked so bad. But there's a lot of them. Yeah, there are.
[00:07:43] This guy's other works include Sahara of the Flower Samurai, ran for one volume in Jump Giga back in 2016. Zip Man, which was actually our first episode ever. So yeah, that was a flop by definition. That was 2019 to 2020. According to this, it was your first episode and you're 27.
[00:08:02] We did a relook. Yes. Yeah. So every year we do on our anniversary, we increment one. We do a review of the oldest series we haven't reviewed before, except for Robot Laserbeam because it was too long and racist. So we didn't want to reread it. Benny, Benny, Benny.
[00:08:16] What is wrong? We don't have time to fucking go over. What do you think Robot Laserbeam is about? I have to. We can cut it out, but I have to. What do I think Robot Laserbeam is? Yeah, I would assume a robot with a laser beam. It's wrong.
[00:08:28] It's about golf. Yeah. Okay. I feel like it's like, have you guys seen that meme where it's like the kid in his veins and stuff are popping? And it's like Jordan when he's gone five minutes without asking someone what Robot Laserbeam stands for. It's so funny.
[00:08:41] I fucking love doing that because everyone's wrong. You would never guess it. It's always wrong. When I clicked your episode for Smokey BB, I wasn't expecting baseball, but... Neither were we! Like barbecue maybe, but yeah. That's the sequel, Smokey BBQ.
[00:08:58] Sky also did some manga about Dragon Quest, whatever. But we're just talking about that. We're talking about Yoakamono. Ran from July 19th, 2014 to November 10th, 2014. It replaced Stealth Symphony, another episode. One of the manga with like the craziest endings we've ever read.
[00:09:14] And the series that replaced it was School Judgment, aka the pedophile manga. Yeah. Oh! Yeah, our guests refused to finish reading it. Yeah, okay. We were not expecting how gross it got. It's by the artist of Death Note who could have made literally anything he wanted, but
[00:09:30] instead he wanted to draw biologically accurate breast development of teenage girls. Yes. Whoa, what? He says that. Yes. He says, I tracked their aging in real time to develop their breast size. Oh. Yeah, it's really bad.
[00:09:44] That sounds like in comics we had Power Girl where her boobs just kept getting bigger and bigger until people assumed it, but she started at age 30. Yeah. So... This girl was like 14. That was kind of a joke, right?
[00:09:55] That was the artist was like, I'm just going to do this till people notice. Yeah, exactly. And they did. They kept doing it until someone noticed. Yeah. But yeah, this started at the same time as My Hero Academia and Mitsubuki Condor.
[00:10:06] I haven't heard of the second one, but I'd have to explain My Hero Academia to you. Come on. What is that one about? It's X-Men. All right. And this ran for 16 chapters, two volumes. But enough about that. Let's get to the fucking plot summary. Hell yeah.
[00:10:22] It's 1800s Japan during that civil war that you have seen in anime. Jinro and Gin Akatsuki are two kids that like killing samurai. Jinro has two swords and Gin has one long sword like Sephiroth. They both have cool tattoos over their eyes that signify them as criminals.
[00:10:40] Gin drags Jinro to Kyoto to try out for the Shinsengumi, who you've seen in roughly 10% of all anime. Jinro doesn't really give a shit about it until Gin runs out and finds him saying that tryouts were canceled because some guy killed two Shinsengumi, stole something, ran away.
[00:10:57] The two run into the guy in question and they fight, but Gin is killed. Before he dies, he gives Jinro his sword, which got broken in the fight, and Jinro manages to cut off the bad guy's hands, but oh no, they magically regenerate using the power
[00:11:10] of the newt. They turn me into a newt. Ha ha ha. But he got better. He got better and he fatally stabs Jinro. Just then, Hijikata Toshizo, vice commander of the Shinsengumi and a real historical figure
[00:11:23] shows up and again, just like real life, uses his magic wolf powers to kill the newt guy. He then uses a magic sword called the Jujin to bring Jinro back from the brink of death and give him magic powers too. Popcorn David.
[00:11:37] The next day, Jinro wakes up in the Shinsengumi compound and wants a tryout for them, so he's tasked with getting one hit on a guy named Okita. He does, but apparently it didn't count because Okita knocks him out and he wakes up to discover
[00:11:49] no one passed the tryouts. Was I crazy about that? Like, he literally said if you get one hit in and then he got a hit in and it was like, nah, you didn't pass. Yeah, it was bullshit. I do applaud them for their exam arc being four pages.
[00:12:02] Yeah. Thankfully, though, a criminal shows up chased by Okita and takes the girl hostage. But Jinro helps bring him down. Okita tells him that he wants to get stronger. He should cut firewood a thousand times.
[00:12:12] Seven days later, the Shinsengumi discover that a huge swath of the forest has been cut down by Jinro, whose new wolf powers enable him to stay out for seven days straight. And he's caused unspeakable environmental damage to that forest. Next time it rains, they're real fucked.
[00:12:26] His new powers give him the ability of a lot of monster energy, basically. Oh, jeez, that would have been a good cover art. He fights Okita again to a draw so as accepted into the Shinsengumi.
[00:12:39] His first mission is to invade a brothel and capture an important member of the rebellious Choshu faction. But when he gets there, they discover an evil guy with the magic beast powers of a cassowary named Yoshida, which I guess is a bird I never heard of.
[00:12:51] I don't know. Have you two ever heard of that bird before? Yes, but I'm not familiar with what it was. Bro, why didn't they just say ostrich? I wanted to know why we chose a new bird as our first two like villains. Like, why are they scary?
[00:13:04] They're not right. Oh, God. And the guy's name is Yoshida Toshimaru, who was killed, I guess, or eaten three of the women they fight in. Jinro is able to team up with Okita to bring him down. Jinro then meets Tetsunosuke, who becomes his sensei.
[00:13:27] His sensei slash rival slash friend and probably lover in some fan fiction. Yeah. And they go on their next mission to capture Choshu, protected by Hitakori Izo, who, say it with me, also existed and had magic snake powers just like in real life. Yeah. Popcorn. Bing. Oh, okay.
[00:13:43] Tetsu... Tetsunosuke. Tetsunosuke has the ability to lower his body temperature, which seems extremely situational, but he uses it to somehow sneak past everyone, and the two manage to defeat Izo. Did they have heat sensing radar back then? Why was that significant? It was like...
[00:14:01] What you don't know is that the Kasawaris actually can only see things by heat. Oh, it's true. I didn't know that. Yeah, it's not true, so you wouldn't have known it anyway. Ah, motherfucker.
[00:14:12] They learn the Choshu have the red zhuzhen, which is supposed to be extra special, and are planning on burning the whole city down. The shinagume... Shinagume? Shinsengumi. Shinsengume. Close enough. Then assault a compound where they fight a bunch of dudes before encountering Sakamoto,
[00:14:27] who's like the big bad behind it all. He stabs a guy with the red zhuzhen and reveals that it is the power of the black rat. Again, super intimidating, right? Yes. Which will cause him to explode and spread the black leg. What the fuck?
[00:14:41] Sakamoto then leads them to a tower where various shinagume members pair off to fight various other picturalized historical figures before Jinro and Captain Hijikata square off against Sakamoto, who has the beast power of every beast. Every single one. Everyone! He has the true beast mode. Yeah.
[00:14:59] They defeat him and burn the black rat dude to death and they win. Although Sakamoto says that he'll get them next time, gadget. Okay, Dr. Claw. All I remember about that is someone had a dragon power, which means I got a point on the chibi guessing score.
[00:15:13] It's true, you did, you did. Oh man. Alright, let's get through these characters real quick. So, Benny, would you mind telling us about the main character? Okay, sure. He's every shonen protagonist in existence. Yep. Yes.
[00:15:27] Like I was reading through this and this is what I was confused by because when I first read your invitation to this, I thought it was the golden, like the hidden gems that got canceled. Oh no, no, no. So I'm reading- We don't do that. Sometimes that happens.
[00:15:40] It's very rare. It's happened like six times. Yeah, over like three plus years. So I'm reading through this. I'm trying to find things that are positive about it to put in my notes and I'm like, oh my god.
[00:15:51] That's why I listened more to the episode and I'm like, oh no, they're picking bad ones. Yeah. Because reading this in that character, I was thinking in my head, he's just the amalgamation of every shonen character to ever exist. That's who he is. So Benny, here's the thing.
[00:16:05] We don't pick bad ones. We picked canceled ones and 90% of the time if it got canceled, it's because it was bad. Right. So it's just incidental that it sucks. I think we read three things last year we would honestly say were considered worth reading.
[00:16:21] Yeah, this is not one of them. I feel like when it comes to the series of the creator of Black Clover, it's like, god, you got to turn the shonen-ness down just a little bit. Yeah. It was, it's literally everything.
[00:16:31] Like your notes on him in here is two swords, hotheaded protagonist and wolf powers. That's it. I don't even remember him talking that much other than he was yelling at everyone when they would tell him what to do.
[00:16:43] Yeah, I was really annoyed when he got wolf powers because we already saw a dude with wolf powers. Yeah, that was so weird. It's like, that's so lame, dude. Like everyone else has different powers. Why that?
[00:16:57] Well, I think that's one of the problems though, because it feels like he planned this to be like a thousand chapter manga because he's like, well, I got to start small.
[00:17:04] We got to do a new rat bird no one's heard of, you know, like, and then the wolf and the wolf is the only cool power that came out until we hit the finale. Well, then someone does the one that can't.
[00:17:13] I had a tiger or a snow leopard and that's, that's a decent, but he was another protagonist. He could lower his temperature. Just taking that scene from the office. Like I can lower and raise my body temperature at will.
[00:17:24] Why would you lower it so I can raise it? All right, let's get into the next, the next guy. I'll talk about Okita. He's kind of a badass. He leads an elite squad. I don't remember any real personality traits. His face looked like it confused me at first.
[00:17:39] It was like, is this grown up from bleach for bleach? Yeah, not from one piece. No, but he looked like he just like the face just looked like him. And I was like, oh, did he, we just aging up now? What's happened?
[00:17:49] I'm talking about the friend character at the beginning. Like I was like, no tattoo anymore. Cool. Got it. So he's like your happy go lucky fighting guy, I guess. Who's just like unflappable, I guess. And like breaks the rules, breaks the rules. He's super cool.
[00:18:04] I forget what power he has, but yeah, I don't know. A lot of these characters are just kind of like whatever. They're all generic shonen characters. Okita was also a real guy. Did not look like this. Would you be shocked?
[00:18:18] Next, you're going to tell me you didn't have animal powers. No, that's true, actually. Oh, it's well documented, right? Yeah. Let me tell you about Abraham Lincoln's. It's the same history school's dynasty work. Yeah. All right. Well, join along with that.
[00:18:31] Once you tell us about the main character's best friend. Well, his second best friend, David. You're right. Well, Darwin's dead, so he's not his best friend anymore. The other one is dead. So by default, Ichimura Tetsunosuke, as soon as he shows up, the narrator's like,
[00:18:44] and little did he know that he was about to be his best friend. And apparently that happened after the manga ended because he was not his best friend in the manga. They were like borderline ready to fight at all times. Yeah, it kind of got going.
[00:18:56] They were kind of rivals in that they were doing something in the bathhouse. That's not what I wanted from a beach scene. I did not know what they were doing there, like where they tried to just stay in the hot stay in the hot water. It's super.
[00:19:12] Yeah, for 100 seconds, because no one stays in the hot spring for a minute and a half. Yeah, only to have the giant guy come over and sit in the hot spring. Yeah, so stupid. But yeah, he's the snow leopard guy we were talking about.
[00:19:27] And David, you know, they can actually relate to each other because they both suffered tragedy. Yeah, I always love when it's like, wow, you're a soldier, too, and you've suffered tragedy. Whoa, in the middle of a civil war.
[00:19:42] The way it played out just reminded me of how one piece like throws tragedy after meeting the characters because it's just the way it was handled where everyone had a tragic backstory. Everyone. Well, you don't become a pirate unless your life sucks, I guess. That is true.
[00:19:56] Or a beast wielding samurai killing student thing. Yeah. Oh, speaking of things that suck, let's get to why it failed. So Benny, what comes to top of mind for you when you would draw some much, much deserved criticism about the series?
[00:20:11] I mean, I said it earlier, but it basically was it feels like every show in an adventure crammed into one, but only the parts that are supposed to make it popular. I never got a vibe of any real character development on the main character.
[00:20:23] It always felt like that's coming later. Any of the side characters just kept getting thrown on. No real serious character development in any of them. Just overall, it just came across to me. Honestly, I first thought I was reading an early version of Demon Slayer because it was
[00:20:35] the same kind of concept. Because it was so mid. Yeah. Hey, Demon Slayer does well with the battle. This did not. That's fair. I see in your notes here you had the characters all looking similar.
[00:20:45] I already have an issue with that when a manga, any manga throws in a lot of cast members all at once because knowing how manga plays out, half those cast members aren't going to be around.
[00:20:54] So for me, when I'm reading it, especially when I'm trying to read something more in a bit of a hurry, as opposed to like really just engulfing myself in it, when they throw
[00:21:01] a whole bunch of cast members at it, my brain just checks out and I just see who's going to survive later. And this one did that, especially when they were speed running to the end. Like so many characters. I'm like, who is this supposed to be?
[00:21:10] Who is that guy? What is going on here? Yeah, they just introduced a shitload of characters in that bath scene. Yeah, like the bath scenes like, here's a bunch of guys and apparently they're evil. Oh, okay. It's kind of like, why is the cast of Veronique Henschen here?
[00:21:25] Hide your little kids. Because the creator is a pedophile. It's extremely generic. And yeah, you know, they introduced these characters and like, I don't know, maybe the author was thinking, oh, you know this guy from reading history books. You don't need me to explain it.
[00:21:41] And it's like, well, I do. Yeah, this is definitely a cultural transition where they just assume, you know, these people are. But also if you're going to have them as characters, you still have to develop them, dude.
[00:21:52] I'm just imagining a Western version of this where it's like the presidents and they because they don't have to explain, you know, who Abraham Lincoln is. And there's like a Japanese version of this. That's where they're like, no one explained who the fuck Thomas Jefferson was in this
[00:22:05] manga. I was so confused. Thomas Jefferson with beast powers. Oh God, you can turn into a tiger. It's weird that they did that because I kind of got that vibe as well. Or I'm like, okay, we're kind of speed running through a lot of these characters.
[00:22:18] There's like no world building. There's no character development. And then I wrote down the chapter because it just blew me. Chapter four is like a double exposition drop. They're just like, okay, we got to explain everything we haven't explained. And it just dumps it all on you.
[00:22:29] I didn't write exactly what they did, but I think it was like what plans are and then how the powers. And that was just the chapter again. It's like, all right, look here. Here's what this section of Japanese history is like.
[00:22:39] And then even the main character is like, whoa, that was a lot. Yeah. I didn't pick up on any of that. I don't think that main character would have. He felt like Luffy, but like only a third of the intelligence because he was just pretty impressive. Yeah.
[00:22:53] It's also the series. Nothing really happens besides boss fights, which I get is really exciting and kind of also how Demon Slayer works. But I'm like, God, are you guys going to do anything except for just be dropped in missions and then fight like the strongest dude?
[00:23:05] And that's the entire arc. That's true. I feel like Demon Slayer read this and went, oh, I can make better. Yeah, I mean, he did, I guess. This manga also commits like one of the most common sins where like it has the bad guy
[00:23:20] at the end and he's like talking about how it's like, don't you want to live in like a system without like a caste system where like we're free and equal? And the author's like, wait, shit, that makes too much sense. Uh, uh.
[00:23:33] And then he's like, I know, by the way, I'm going to kill a ton of innocent people. Yeah, we live in a society. Yeah. Oh, by the way, speaking of like the fight, so, you know, it seems like the only metric of power was who was faster.
[00:23:45] That was the only thing. So if you were faster than your opponent, you were going to instantly win the fight. Yeah, that makes sense. I didn't think about that, but yeah, that's what they were doing. Where was the cheetah dude?
[00:23:55] They constantly said how power is all that matters. More power is important. If you have more power, you win. But you're right. Every fight was won by who's fast. Yeah, which I guess you get sliced by a sword. It doesn't really matter.
[00:24:07] Like except they all have regenerative abilities. Well, that's true. Remember, like one of them gets impaled and it's like, it's OK, I'll regenerate. But he had like he was like his animal had no regenerative abilities. He they just all have baseline super regeneration. Oh, God.
[00:24:22] You remember, like the end, the end part where it was like it was almost like one of like a Bruce Lee game of death thing where like they went up some random like pagoda building and just ran into like different bad guys on each floor. Yeah.
[00:24:38] And then they were like, hey, we have this huge cast of characters and you don't know who any of them are. Hey, random guy, you take out this guy. I got it. They go to the next one. It's like, oh, I know a guy who can handle this.
[00:24:48] How about you? And they go to the next guy and they're like, whoa, you're going to take him out. Yeah. Whoa. I wasn't expecting you to take them out. And the whole time reader, you're like, the fuck is this guy? And then they kiss the fucker.
[00:24:59] Any of these people? And then are there any issues that we haven't brought up that stand out to you? Oh, what did I write over here? No, just I really feel like it was just every trope. Like I'm just reading a collection of tropes.
[00:25:13] That was my biggest complaint with it. It didn't go anywhere because it ended. I mean, yeah, one of the issues with it with being so generic is sometimes it's not even there's not even much to talk about how it failed other than it's just like it sure is
[00:25:25] a thing that exists. Yeah, there's no world building. Like, why are they going on these missions? And like, we got to stop the Choshu. Come on. Did you miss that page? I guess. Yeah.
[00:25:37] I also love how there's like this weird filler where they'll talk because they only do boss fights. So there's always like a cut scene where I saw in one of the chapters they talked with the dude for five pages about nothing and then finally battled him.
[00:25:48] Oh, God, because the offer couldn't fit the fight into 15 to 19 pages. He really just wanted to fight. That's all he wanted. Yeah, God, they had that one dude with like a lance who could spin it really fast and it would catch on fire.
[00:26:02] I guess they made a point. Like, what sort is that? Yeah, it's a European sword. I guess that's what European swords look like. Just they call everything a sort of guy takes out a bow. What kind of sword is that? Crazy sword. It's a sword that throws sword.
[00:26:16] Whoa, that's a good idea. Much like why don't we talk about what this series did well? Okay, so Jordan, what stood out to you as a positives? I mean, this manga was a pretty quick read.
[00:26:27] Like we've read manga, Benny, that have been about this length but have just felt like 40 fucking chapters. I will agree with you. I got the chapter 13 and I'm like, they're just going to fight to the ending. And I just started kind of quickly skimming.
[00:26:40] I didn't feel like I missed anything. No, you didn't miss anything. It's like, okay, that's nice. Nothing really mattered. But at the same time, I felt like the manga didn't waste my time sort of. It knew what it was the whole time.
[00:26:53] It knew what it was and then had nothing else. I will give a props. There wasn't an insanely large amount of exposition by me. Part of that was leaning on the fact that we knew the setting.
[00:27:02] Well, like I said, all the exposition was in chapter four and that was it. Yeah, this is all you need. We're going to fight shit now. You know, he's like, yeah, we don't have to figure out who this main character is. Fuck it. Who cares?
[00:27:12] Ah, this is the positive section. I thought it was pretty interesting to bring up the black fucking plague. Also, didn't the black plague come from China? Kind of like. I actually researched it and they said there's not 100% consensus of where the origin point of the disease is.
[00:27:29] But didn't it also affect China? Like, I think it influenced like Turkey around that area. I don't know if it made it to Asia. My point is, I feel like they should know about the black plague because they were all like, what the fuck's the black plague?
[00:27:42] And he's like, I'm a rat. Fear me. The black plague was during isolation in Japan, right? That that's fair. You know what, listener? I'm not a Japan historian. I don't know. Anyway, I did.
[00:27:54] I did kind of think it was pretty cool that they were just like, yeah, it's the black plague and they were like, yeah, that sucks. Let's stop it. And then the guy, the guy just turned into a giant inflatable rat. You are right, though.
[00:28:05] They do think it or originated around China. So good point. I will say by their speaking of death, I think it was really cool how they gave the snake guy a giant sword, but they kept making it kind of have like the silhouette of a scythe. Yeah.
[00:28:18] If you notice how there's a lot of usage of tonage in the way he swings it. So I mean, the visual imagery when the author really cares looks really cool. There's a lot of really gruesome art that is pretty intense for Shonen Jump.
[00:28:28] But like besides the characters looking really similar, the art is actually pretty solid. Did I make this up? Do they do the thing in this manga where they're like his arm has a billion joints in it? I don't think they did that.
[00:28:38] I think it was just a sword was super long. Yeah, long weaponry and then a broken sword and two swords. Ah. And then, Benny, were there any positives that you feel we haven't touched on yet? No, no, I think you guys got you got them. It's good.
[00:28:52] I do think also another thing I like is actually the bathhouse scene was kind of cool where we think like all of these bad guys are showing up and they're like, oh, no, we're the good guys.
[00:28:59] And I get it's pretty shit that he had to have that scene. But I do think that he at least introduced the entire cast in a fun way by making the guy think, oh, shit, we got to square up and be like, oh, no, we're on your side.
[00:29:08] We just look evil. I also liked the Wikipedia rabbit holes that this manga sent me down. That was fun. Jordan's going to make an eight hour video essay about his research on this. About the Shinsengumi. Yeah. Also, the exam arc was short. So points. Yeah.
[00:29:26] When we got to that, that's when I was like, this really is just Demon Slayer to the point where I googled when did Demon Slayer start? I was like, you need to after before this. It's impressive, right? Yeah.
[00:29:37] This is not the first time we've read a manga where it plagiarized the series that came out after it, which makes me be like, oh, man, I thought Demon Slayer was cooler. No. What? You thought Demon Slayer was original? Well, yeah. Oh, I mean, demons and swords. Yeah.
[00:29:54] And a demon girl. Oh, yeah. No, you're right. You know, when you say it, when I say it like that. He's doing one of those bamboozles, Jordan. Whoa. It is weird how on Encounter series that seem to plagiarize, but they came out first.
[00:30:08] It's like we read a series Black Torch, which is about a guy who has a pet demon buddy who gets fatally wounded and the demon becomes his heart. And that came out like two years before Chainsaw Man. But did it have chainsaws? No, it didn't. Oh, no.
[00:30:21] Then Chainsaw Man's original. It does have a author who spent 10,000 hours mastering how to draw women's asses. Where is that master class? And how do I get into like literally if you read it, he just forces an ass shot. But we're like, we're not even mad.
[00:30:36] This dude knows how to draw women's asses. That was Black Torch. Yeah. If you want to see some of the most beautifully drawn women's asses. Check that out or check out Hunter's Guild Red Hood. Yeah, that's if you like them thick.
[00:30:50] But I also like talking about where it could have gone. So let's dive into that. Ah, you know, it's a good sign when we just start talking about other manga in the pot in the episode. That's a good sign for the quality of the manga.
[00:31:02] There's not a lot of meat on these bones. But really, it's not. But Benny, how would you revise this series? Uh, well, I would have immediately completely changed that main character around, make him stand out a little bit more.
[00:31:13] And I think that which we still could have easily done. You start the series out as you put it on in. Was it all gas? Yeah. You know, just all gas. You come out, you show the boss fights.
[00:31:22] I would not have started with a new rat, a newt and, you know, the bird like the snake was cool and the wolf are cool. I would have come out of the gate with some crazy animals like so that we could have
[00:31:33] gone into bigger animals like what if you started going into more mythical animals, like really just diving into the whole thing? I really thought that was the end game was I mean, I have to respect multiple animals also make sense.
[00:31:44] But I really felt like a phoenix dude was going to show up or something. Yeah. That's where I thought we were going with this when he started with the nukes. I'm like, okay, well, we got, we got to get huge.
[00:31:52] Like we're going to start super low and go crazy. So I really feel like the characters need a lot more development. I think that would have been a great direction to take it really focus on that instead of
[00:32:00] focusing on just having boss fights every other chapter, which is where we boiled down to and more animals. Like really the animal concept, I don't think was terrible. I really just think it was really underutilized. Yeah.
[00:32:10] No, I felt like it was like, like it should have been flashier. It should have been like bigger. Yeah. Like I'm still not 100% sure what like the captain's wolf power does. I'm not really sure how the wolf power helps the main character that much.
[00:32:24] Yeah, he can chop wood. I'm not really sure how the snow leopard power helps that guy. It did a bad job of explaining what the point of the powers were. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:32:34] I also think the first chapter alludes that he's like a beast person who turns into a human, which I think would have been a really cool direction where this like just has like these
[00:32:42] beast animals and like they are able to survive by hiding and working for the Japanese government. So that would have been cool where it's like these beast samurai hiding, fighting other beast monsters to like keep the public like, you know, like hiding it from the public and
[00:32:55] shit like that. I wanted to ask about that because it does. It shows him with claws and the buddy, you know, he's showing up and he's helping him get through it and all that stuff. And then none of that comes back. He just gets a wolf power. Yeah.
[00:33:06] It just only is in the first chapter. Like the guy's like, oh, you're a monster. Where we got to hide you. Hey, that's it. Oh, you know, this is where it could have gone. But I'm just remembering things about this manga. The more we talk about it.
[00:33:16] I remember I got really annoyed when like I think Okita is talking to Jiro and Jiro's like I've been in a ton of fights and he's like, you've never been in a fight with somebody who's stronger than you.
[00:33:26] And it's like, dude, this little kid has killed like a ton of adult samurai. Like how are the like? It's like you've never been in a fight of life and death. And I'm like, yes, he has. What are you talking about constantly? Isn't that all the series opens?
[00:33:41] He's in a fight of life and death. And that's why his buddy dies. Yeah. And he very much handles himself during the new fight. They kill so many people. They have killed so many fucking samurai before they ever get into town. I don't know why they did it.
[00:33:58] It seemed like for fun. Yeah, this series completely pretends its first chapter is not canon to the rest of the series. Maybe the first chapter came out. The first chapter came out and then he's like, oh, I should do something else.
[00:34:09] And then with that way, because we've seen series drastically revised based on their pilot, but they make a new pilot. This just ditched a bunch of continuity from the first chapter and kept going. It set up some Chekhov's guns and then just threw the guns away.
[00:34:22] I also want to say that I think the bathhouse scene would have been cool if they were actually the bad guys. And that was like neutral territory. And you see the protagonist actually interacting with the bad guys in like a way where they
[00:34:32] can only talk, which would have been really great because the only way people interact in the series is fighting. Oh, my God, David, you mean tension? Yeah. Tension in this fucking manga. You want the dude from Dragon Ball Z to show up? Oh, my God, David.
[00:34:46] That reminds me near like the very end, the bad guy Sakamoto shows up and he starts talking to Hijikata like about how like they have this history and they never tell us what the history is. They were in love. Like, I don't know how they know each other.
[00:35:00] Why do I care about this? We ran out of pages. They definitely did. Those last two chapters just felt like we just sped run to the end. Yeah, well, if we didn't explain it, we never will. There we go. Let's get out.
[00:35:12] Would you believe that this is very common in the manga that we cover, Benny? I'm seeing that trend now where it's just like three chapters from the end. They learn, oh, shit, I'm getting canceled. Fuck, fuck.
[00:35:24] I got to hurry this shit up so I at least have an ending. Well, at least they end it. That's true. Yeah. Unlike some manga demons plan. Yeah. I also have one last point.
[00:35:33] I think it actually would have been cool if they'd only use Japan animals, at least at the start. And then you really could have had some like cool deep cut references to animals because they talk about wolves are extinct.
[00:35:42] But then the fucking gorilla shows up, you know, since like they clearly aren't really caring about these animals interact with Japanese culture. Right? Yeah. I just looked at the castle where it says maybe that's a Japanese animal. No, it's not. It's from New Guinea and Australia.
[00:35:56] So I don't I don't I don't know. I don't know. But I do. Let's just get a miscellaneous thoughts where we've been wanting to hang out for quite a while during this recording. Yeah.
[00:36:04] Did you notice they show a lot of people having five toes despite most of these animals having like two claws and stuff? I just thought it was so weird to see a fully articulated foot that has the same proportions as a human foot. I did not notice that.
[00:36:18] Yeah, there's a lot of times where they show five toed animal feet. So when you go in tangents, how often do you go into feet tangents? I mean, keep in mind as a manga, like as a drawing, that meant that this guy spent like
[00:36:31] a long time just on the feet, lovingly crafting those feet. Yeah, it's like his nemesis, the black torch guy with the asses. Yeah. A thousand hours on feet. Yeah. Oh, God. All right. Does anyone have any miscellaneous thoughts or should I read all the wonderful notes Max
[00:36:48] EBS provided us? I think I mentioned it earlier. When you look up these historical figures, you have some pictures of them and they look absolutely nothing like the like the drawings in this manga. Not even remotely.
[00:37:01] Like you couldn't even look at them and be like, I see why they emphasize this. No. So stupid. Oh, my God. Oh, God. And actually speaking on that, Max EBS provided us some insights. So it turns out that apparently the author's sister handled the calligraphy for the series.
[00:37:16] She's an accomplished mangaka in her own right and has worked in assistance to Princess Jellyfish's author. But she always has time to help her brother. She helped on this and also on Zipman. That's nice. And a brief guide on the two notable black ships of Japanese history.
[00:37:29] First is Portuguese ships literally black from their pitch coating, which came in 1543, bringing almost 100 years of trade before an insidious infection of Christianity drove Japan into self-isolation. It's more complicated than that, but those are all Max EBS words, by the way. Just say, yeah, yeah.
[00:37:47] OK, it's Max EBS. Yeah, they turn into a beep. They're also a manga historian. That's true. Second are the ships not black this time, but speed black clouds of smoke that Americans arrived in 1853 to forcibly break Japan out of its hundreds of years of isolation.
[00:38:03] Could the impact of Commodore Matthew Perry and Matthew Perry's fleet be any more notable? Anyway, those are the ones that Yokomono references. I see that that definitely worked out really well for America like 80 years later. Eventually, I think it did. Yeah, Japan is like actually three Cold War.
[00:38:22] Japan was like really our only unambiguous ally in Asia for pretty much the majority of the Cold War. OK, OK. Yeah, you know, Yamazaki's mask features a variation of the ever present writing based children's doodle long Japanese word you can read. Hello, hello, Moheji. Sure.
[00:38:40] So name because it features are made out of hiragana characters that he no mo and G through this version breaks tradition by combining the final he and G to make a giant smirk. The final story. I have seen that drawing before. Now I know.
[00:38:53] Oh, yeah, it's very popular. Yeah. The final storyline from the capture and torture of Furutaka to the Shinsegumi attacking an in Chosu inside is a direct reference to the Ikedai incident, a historical event of some debate involving a good bit of bloodshed and a possible arson attempt.
[00:39:09] An interesting read for history buffs and Guy Fawkes types. One sec opening that in a separate tab. OK, the rabbit hole continues. Yes, it does. And finally, they say it's quite a bold move to make Sakamoto the villain.
[00:39:25] Like, yes, he is an enemy of the Shinsegumi in that he hunted him a lot and were ultimately deemed responsible for his assassination. And Kondo Asami was executed as a result. But he dreamt of democracy, of removing the caste system and ending feudalism and is largely
[00:39:37] romanticized as an absolute. So this is like literally turning Abraham Lincoln into a bad guy. That's what I was saying, though. Yeah, you're so yes. So Maxie agrees with it's like this all the time.
[00:39:49] I mean, you know, Magneto is the famous example where this guy shows up and he starts talking about oppression and he's making a lot of sense. And it's like, oh, shit, the reader's going to get on this guy's side.
[00:39:59] So then the guy's like, I'm going to kill a ton of innocent people now. Let me just murder a billion people. Oof, that's all I had for miscellaneous thoughts. Shall we get into final verdict? Yeah.
[00:40:07] So let's get started with some six short summaries from the community, starting with Tucker. Stop introducing new characters. They're nothing burgers. Maxie B, furry Shinsegumi should have been fanfic fodder. Or Paladin, didn't we already do Beast Children? Benny, what's Beast Children about?
[00:40:24] Children who turned into beasts or wrong rugby. God, man. Diego says, ah, yes, finally, the Beast Children. Yeah, dude rocks decent art, fun battles, boring story or should have been around longer. Probably. Grey Potter's is buried under a boatload of characters or alternatively history will not
[00:40:42] remember this well. Captain Clueless said, who let the flop out? Who? Lord Anubis said, insert furry joke number 69 420 here. They also said Oda had high hopes for you. Portalman, the furry community denies your existence and Usagi Yojimbo is disappointed in you. Ah, Usagi Yojimbo is pretty cool, though.
[00:41:01] Yeah, Yojimbo is definitely the Japanese. Who? Who directed? Why can I never remember? Akira Kurosawa. Yeah, it's definitely that Akira Kurosawa that most sounds like a Beastie Boys album. Well, Usagi Yojimbo is a different thing, David. I know, but Yojimbo. That's true. We did watch Yojimbo.
[00:41:17] It's a good fucking movie. We did. We did. I just remember the really giant guy is still alive and he's like 98 years old. Oh, yeah. Real said rewriting history so everyone is werewolves. Spubby said Japan's don't fantasize police challenge. Impossible. Yeah. America fails that challenge to a lot.
[00:41:35] OK, it's not just the Japanese problem. Spike says inside two wolves, Beastars and Axe. Watchtower says take two takes too long for furry zero hour to 10 and reject furry embrace bowls of mayo. And finally, T Wolfwood says zone devil fruits are more creative. So there we go.
[00:41:53] I was trying not to say the word zone devil fruit because I didn't want to take away from T Wolfwood. Nice. I don't even think of that. Yes, they are better. Yeah, I didn't either. And then, Benny, what was your six word summary?
[00:42:05] Since I thought about it right now, every show to jump manga ever words all at once. I needed another word. So that's actually what Black Clover is. Every show to jump all at once.
[00:42:16] We actually did an episode on and it is definitely the most manga of all time. But it's better than we thought it would be. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's a pretty good manga, actually. And then Jordan, what's yours? Well, this was definitely a manga. Yeah. All right.
[00:42:30] And then mine was holy shit. Fifty motherfucking wolves. God damn. Why were there two people with wolf powers? Why? And they really did their attacks. Oh, my God. There was one moment where like Giro uses an attack and he's like ten wolves.
[00:42:46] And then the bad guy is like ten wolves, 50 wolves. God damn. Actually, that would've been cool if the main character's power was he wasn't a wolf. He was a werewolf. I'm just because they had mythical animals. Yeah, yeah. Hey, that would have been something. Where would have gone?
[00:43:01] We would have gone to mythical. Yeah, but they did. There was a dragon guy. But he got thrown into the ending, which is why I think that's where we were going. He did. All right. So anyway, I think we all think this is a flop.
[00:43:12] The question is, is this a certified flop? So, Benny, would you use the word terrible to describe this series? Not even hesitating. Calling it a certified flop. What should someone check out instead of reading this? It could be anything, not just a manga like anything. Watch Demon Slayer.
[00:43:29] Brave choice. How about you, Jordan? So, Benny, here's the thing. We've read so much trash that. This is not a certified flop on our system. There is so much worse, Benny. You don't know how deep the barrel goes here. All right. OK.
[00:43:45] This is bottom of the barrel, but it is not through the bottom of the barrel. I can name at least probably 10 manga that are substantially worse than this. But isn't that like the theme of your show? Yeah, exactly. No, I'm not blaming you for not doing that.
[00:43:59] I'm just saying I have experience trash. So this is just a flop for me, and I would suggest watching Yojimbo. Yeah, that's a good one. I also think this is a flop.
[00:44:09] I would say if you want, just read Black Clover if you want a better version or actually read Dragon and Chameleon, which has nothing to do with people of animal powers, but it has a lot of really cool animal imagery. And it's very good.
[00:44:20] And more people should be reading it. You know, you could do since they did some directional travel in this. It's probably Journey to the West. So just go watch Dragon Ball. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, this actually ties in because the person who made Dragon Chameleon was also
[00:44:32] an assistant for Oda. Are you familiar with Dragon and Chameleon, Benny? No. So it is by an author who created a series that flopped, and it is a set about an assistant and a famous mangaka who swap bodies. Oh, that's the manga you were talking about. What?
[00:44:49] Did we cover the manga he did that flopped? Yeah, it was by the guy who made Amalgam of Distortion. Oh, OK. The sheer increase in quality is astounding. Look, when you write a manga or a piece of media about something that you're very familiar
[00:45:01] with and you know, sometimes it's better. I would say, honestly, the quality gap is bigger than Hungry Joker and Black Clover. Oh, wow. And ironically, Dragon Chameleon is one of the best things I'm reading right now. Oh, fuck yeah. So, yeah, if you guys I definitely check.
[00:45:14] It's only like 12 chapters, so it's really easy to catch up. It's just very, very good. Cool. I'll check it out. Yeah. All right. But this series is made not best or worst, definitely not as good as Chainsaw Man. So fucking made.
[00:45:24] We have a joke where like if we say that this manga is not a flop, by the way, we then ask, was this better or worse than Chainsaw Man? It's a joke that most people haven't heard because it's very rare that we don't read a flop on here.
[00:45:40] All right, but let's get into a wrap up. Benny, I want to say thank you so much for joining us, especially you are, I know, in recovery period from your time in Florida. Where can people find all of the wonderful things you do?
[00:45:51] The two biggest things that relate to what you guys do is Comicstorian. I do audio narrations of comic books and rant and rave about comic books and what's wrong with all of them. And then Mangastorian where I'm basically playing catch up on series I just kind of
[00:46:03] weirdly avoided, such as One Piece. I never read it until this year. Oh, wow. Yeah. How far are you in One Piece right now? I've gotten to chapter 830 in a year. Oh, nice. I love it. I'm almost caught up and that's making me sad.
[00:46:15] But that's the hardest part about catching up to One Piece. Yeah, exactly. I have so much of a journey. You say you're almost caught up. You still have over 200 chapters. He has over 300 chapters. Yeah, but I do like 30 to 40 in a week normally. Jeez. Okay.
[00:46:29] Yeah, so I'm almost caught up. But I do Mangastorian which is basically just reactions to old manga and current stuff going on in the world of Anime and Manga. What's your favorite thing that you've reacted to? Do not say One Piece. You can't say that.
[00:46:41] Channel's basically become like a One Piece channel because of how much I have to... When you're trying to do weekly One Piece videos, there's a lot of One Piece on there. Yeah.
[00:46:48] A weird one that I found that I enjoyed that I picked up just on a whim is Yakuza reincarnation. Interesting. I've not heard of it. It's not in Shonen Jump. That's why you would never have heard of it.
[00:46:59] But it's basically an old Yakuza guy dies and get isekai'd into a world but in the body of a young princess who died at the exact same moment. Oh. But he has all the knowledge of being this old Yakuza guy and he somehow gets magical
[00:47:12] powers at the same time. Well, that sounds interesting. Sounds spicy. There's a weird amount of not fan service in it. You would assume that it would just be all fan service. It's not. Well, that's good. You know, that's nice. I can respect that. Oh my god.
[00:47:29] I can also respect you, Jordan. Thank you for all of your hard work on the show and being such a great co-host. Oh, thank you, David, so much for being a friend. I just want to note, I like that you guys have a note to thank each other.
[00:47:42] Oh, that used to be a problem, right, Jordan? Not for me, but for Jordan. It's all right. Dead silence! Jordan figured it out on his own, though, so I was very proud of him. I want to say props to Merlyle for the awesome cover.
[00:47:54] Find her online at lylemur and Nigel for being our generous art benefactor. Thanks to Dylan for assistance with editing. You can find his podcast, Anime Out of Context, at animeoutofcontext.com, and I hope your move went well. Thanks to Tucker and Maxie B for assistance with pronunciation,
[00:48:07] translation, other miscellaneous research. Tucker gave us so many pronunciation guides. We very much appreciate it. Find us on Twitter at ShonenFlopCast, Tumblr, Shonen-Flop, our website, shonenflop.com. We're also on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, or wherever else you get your podcasts. And come join the ShonenFlop Discord.
[00:48:21] It's open to everyone, patron or not. Hang out with us and talk about any games or whatever else is on your mind. Find a link to it in the show notes or on our site. And if you've been enjoying the podcast and want to help us keep going,
[00:48:31] consider subscribing to our Patreon. We wouldn't be able to keep the show running without their support. We got a ton of awesome perks. Jordan, what is the exclusive piece of content we are going to be dropping in February? Well, David, we're going to be reading Ichinose Family Sins.
[00:48:44] Oh yeah. And we are joined by the wonderful Rem from Anime Context or Anime Out of Context. Anime Context, my favorite podcast. You could even be sitting in listening to our recordings. Find it at Patreon.com slash ShonenFlop.
[00:49:01] And I want to read off some of our wonderful patrons. Starting with our Dolphin Dads, we have Glorinac, Rachel, my wonderful fiance. She just sent me a piece of cake I'm going to eat. She's not your fiance, David. My wonderful ex-fiance.
[00:49:13] She sent me a piece of cake to eat to celebrate my first day of work. And Sean makes me so thirsty. I need to put him in my mouth and swallow to rehydrate. Oh Jesus. We're still doing that.
[00:49:23] Moving on down to the Ravioli tier where you get weekly pictures of my little goblin dog. She ate her pizza toy. She was very upset. So we got her a bunch of new toys to make up for it.
[00:49:31] We have Chris, Eva, Karate Chopsticks, Lady T, our newest patron. Thank you so much. Matt, T, and Trevor Schechner. And moving on down to the King of the Forest, we have 090Z, Bandit Stoof. That's my girlfriend.
[00:49:43] Chad Mason, Jacob Andrew Galloway, Kirby Mont, Marty, Max Baker, Sarah Hydra, Sean, you, me, when are we going to make this happen? Wink wink. T Wolfwood and Tommy Boy. Thank you all along with our Galactic Ball Federation officers and our Beast Children. Oh boy.
[00:49:57] That's that's all it for me, Jordan. Anything you want to toss in? Yeah, check out Mission Ignition. We're actually going to record. We're actually at least planning to record the next episode this Saturday. I love it. Benny, have you ever heard of Vampires? That is V-A-N-P-I-R-E-S. No.
[00:50:13] Yeah, I'm not shocked. Not surprised to hear you say that. It is a show that I feel like only I watched in the 90s and Gary Oldman's in it. Well, now I got to look this up. I got to look this up.
[00:50:24] All right, let's get into the sign off. Thanks so much for joining us. Tune in next Monday as we give our full thoughts on Full Drive. This has been David. This has been Benny. And you've been listening to Shone and Flop. Yeah. All right, bye.