Karmic Loop Ripper Cyclotron - Hunter x Hunter ep. 96+97: Media Club Plus S01E30

Welcome to Media Club Plus, a podcast about diving into the media that interests us and the stories that excite us.

As always, we are brought to you by friends at the table.

This season, we're watching 2011's Hunter Hunter based on the manga by Yoshihiro Tagashi.

My name is Keith Carberry.

You can find me on Twitter and Blue Sky at Keith J.

Carberry.

You can find the Let's Plays I do at youtube.com/slash run button where, God, I've just been uploading so many videos, all these videos going up.

Why don't you go there and subscribe to Run Button for the love of God?

With me, as always, is Jack DeGeet.

Hi, I'm Jack, and continuing Keith's weird vibe for this opening, I would like to say that I have heard an error in my music in the opening theme of this and every week I hear it and I'm not going to say what it is because then you'll hear it too, but it curses me every time I listen to it and it'll be too time-consuming to fix.

Are you sure can't just part of the tapestry of the show?

No,

no.

Let's us avoid copyright claims.

It's great.

Say that's why.

Yeah, that's why.

You can get the music at notquitereal.bandcamp.com.

And you've also heard the voice of Sylvia Bullet.

Hi, Sylvie.

Hello, I'm Sylvia.

You can find me everywhere at Sylvie Bullet.

You can check out the show's YouTube at youtube.com slash friends of the table, as well as twitch.tv slash friends of the table if you want to catch any of that stuff live.

Keith and I are currently doing a playthrough of Virtue's Last Reward, which at the time of recording, we've only done two parts of, but we're about to do the third.

Very exciting.

Look forward to it.

That's true.

Hey, those that game's weird.

That's a weird game.

Game's really weird.

Yeah.

Weird than the previous one.

It's so much weirder that I can't believe it.

I couldn't.

Oh, that's really exciting.

Agree.

I'm so excited.

Agreeing with how weird it is is Andrew Lee Swan.

Yeah, that's me.

Number one weird raider here.

And I'm willing to say that one's weirder.

We're going to need your

weird rating for these episodes.

Yeah, there sure are, buddy.

Wow, uh,

uh, so we talked at the end of the last episode.

I think I described these as a vacation, a little vacation, and uh, that we were only doing two.

And I think I made Jack nervous about what we were gonna see, you did, but it really was just a vacation.

We're we are not with our main crew, uh, we're actually not with any of our crews, at least not any recent kind of crew that we've had, uh, because these episodes take place following uh some of the Phantom Troop.

Let me ask you a question.

Finx, Bonalenov, Phaeton, Kaluto, what do these people have in common?

Members of the Phantom Troop, Keith.

Members of the Phantom Troop, that by the end of episode 97, we finally know what all of their powers are.

It's so funny.

And all of them make perfect sense given their designs.

All of them make perfect sense given their designs.

We've been promised by the show that the Chimera ant officers are going to spread out and become kings of their own, forming new ant kingdoms.

We even get a news story at the beginning where Hagia is on like a morning talk show.

That's insane.

She kills and eats the interviewer.

And as Shizuku points out, Meteor City is a lot like the NGL in East Gorteau, geopolitically isolated with little to no communication with the outside world.

And maybe that's why, or maybe it's just a coincidence, Zazan, the mostly naked Scorpion Woman ant, has established a massive web tower inside its borders, and worse, she's stabbing people with her tail and turning them into beastly thralls.

Basically,

we run through a handful of combat encounters with the ants while telling a little story about Kalato Zoldic, the newest member of the Phantom Troop.

It's really just a mini Phantom Troop arc.

Yes.

It's

I didn't realize he was going to do this, but it's one of those things that as soon as you see Tagashi do, you're like, oh, right, yes, this was absolutely coming, which is, let's just do two episodes of how are the Phantom Troop

responding to the Chimera Ants.

If you discovered the Phantom Troop in your own mind, how could you stay away?

Yeah, exactly.

You'd say to yourself, I'm in the middle of the Chimera Ant arc, something I'm tremendously excited about.

I gotta bring back, gotta bring back the Phantom Troop.

And what's fun about the troop is that they don't bring back all of them.

Like Keith said, we have Finx is sort of leading

mission along with Phaitan, and then Bonoleno.

And he's a leader in a really fun way.

And Bonolenov speaks in these episodes.

And there is...

Yeah.

It is so funny.

What is Bonolenov's power is clearly a sort of a mystery that Tagashi has been holding on to, and we get an answer to that.

But the way Bonolenov starts talking, it's as though he didn't even realize he forgot to give him lines before.

It's like he speaks completely normally.

He just has a sort of like a thin little voice, and he talks like all the other members of the Phantom Troop.

He has questions about what their plan is.

He bickers.

It's as though he was like, oh, shit, right.

Bonnellen Oscar.

This guy never said anything.

I wonder.

This would have to be something we'd check in with the manga correspondent.

But I wonder if he talks in the manga before this.

I don't know.

Oh, I should say, by the way, that

this is a longer in the manga.

Most episodes are like two to three chapters of manga material.

These two episodes comprise 10 chapters.

So this is like kind of compressed.

I think that this is paced really well, actually.

I think that

what we have here really is a sort of set-em-up, knock-em-down

ant troop encounter that is given an additional ironic sweetness, which is that the troop are clearly on full Meteor City defense mode.

We can talk a bit more about Meteor City as they arrive because it's really interesting.

But the troop is clearly animated here by the ants have, you know, come to our home and we need to nip this in the bud.

What?

Just said Sylvie posted a tweet in the Discord from Bonalenov fan.

Bonolenov fan 12 on Twitter.

I was excited to post about Bonolenov fan for forever.

Okay, so this tweet is from November 19th.

jack you cannot go to this account okay no no i absolutely will not be going to this account but i would love updates as it becomes that's why there's screenshots me i've sent quote bungee gum has the properties of rubber and gum hisaka i don't give a shit bonoledov and doggo

stick dinner my name is stick dinner bonoledov what the hell

I think about these tweets all the fucking time, and I can't explain why they're funny.

It's It's great, though.

They're really funny.

Well, I think just conceptually, Bonalenov fan is hilarious.

I mean, I'm one after these episodes, if I'm being honest.

Sure, but I mean, we fundamentally, this is a character that we get eight minutes of screen time

about.

But he makes use of every second.

He does make use of every second.

And there's like, you know, I'm not going to say that

Bonalenov's whole story that they give is like all great, but they get into that.

They really gotta do it.

They really go for like a full thing for him out of nowhere.

They go, like, oh, this guy, he was just a guy.

Let's give him a whole everything.

Well, you know,

they're trying to do that with Kaluto as well right now.

Kaluto did that pretty well.

Yeah, Kalito Zeldik has...

I am working under the safe assumption that

he is now a full member of the troop.

When we saw him in Greed Island, he was sort of like on probation, right?

Or am I misremembering?

Has he always just been a full member?

Yeah, that's a good question.

I actually sort of forgot about seeing him in Greed Island.

It's such a quick scene as the thing.

Yeah.

Because my memory was that the last thing that was happening was working parallel with Ilumi.

Oh, with the Ten Dons.

The Ten Dons, yeah.

No, he shows up, but there's

he mostly shows up in Greed Island as a really nice, you know.

Time is continuing to move, even when the camera is off the Phantom Troop.

They filled another seat, and it's with someone we already know.

Yeah, and they do a good job of it.

Like, they never talk about, like, why is Machi not here?

Why is Franklin not here?

Later, we get a call from Nobunaga, who's off doing some other job

in a really fun moment that we'll talk about.

But this is consistent with what we know about the troop, right?

They're very rarely all in the same place at the same time.

Yeah, totally.

But at the same time, have this

ability to coherently work as a unit, even when what they're doing is going through a sort of like death game rivalry with each other at all times.

Yeah.

Let's start the, unless you have any other broad thoughts.

Let's start these at the beginning with a news report of ants

committing acts of violence mostly against police officers.

So not a big deal.

I'm joining the war on ants on the side of the ants.

We get the non-goth

newscaster.

Yeah, the normal one.

What do you think her relationship is with the goth one?

Self-conscious.

Envy.

You think she's envy?

Or maybe they're wives and they go home at the end of the day.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they're like, how was your newscasting, dear?

You're also a goth horror, and I'm just a normal newscaster.

Yeah.

What if when they're not doing their job, they dress the other way around?

I think they're not the same.

She's only a goth during the news.

And she's only not a goth during the news.

Yes.

I think that that's true, and I think that they listen to a lot of the Laverne and Shirley theme song.

I don't know about Laverne Shirley.

I don't know anything about that.

It's fine.

This is where we get Hagia on the news.

Hagia is like, you know, massive, taking up a full couch.

like, I'm just here to tell my story.

We don't actually hear him, although we hear him speak a little, but the

newscaster sort of starts editorializing a bit, which I really love.

Actually, just before we get to Hagia's newscast, the way this little tiny scene with the newscaster is paced is so funny and so characteristic of Hunter-Hunter to me, where it begins with them saying, you know, sightings of ants have increased, and you have this like grainy first, you have photos, grainy photos of the ants, which is always always so lovely such that great like crit-inesque sense of like the the terror is spreading it's now being captured on on film or whatever then we have videos of the ants sort of standing near the bodies of some cops and then without missing a beat the newscaster is like and now one of them is giving us an interview it's it's so good and it's a great um expansion of um

uh Chi2 sort of bebopping down this the street and getting recorded on the phones and like being

not not only not shy of the camera but like into the camera yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

he loves the camera the camera loves him yeah it's a cat thing I guess

I guess yeah it is kind I I love this though because it is sort of like

everybody started seeing Sasquatches everywhere and also they're killing cops yeah like what a good idea at its core

and then the sequence that we get here I'm is such a fun way to like show it um It actually reminds me a bit of some of the closing scenes of

the film Us, the Jordan Peel film.

Okay, yeah.

I don't want to sort of get into how that film works, but what initially starts out as a sort of localized problem expands over the film to like a like a nationwide problem.

And it y the same thing happens that we saw with the ants, where, you know, the the beginning of the film is this really tense, creepy, you know, sort of like one-on-one horror.

And by the end, there's news reports and, you know, things are spilling out.

Sasquatches are everywhere and they're killing police officers.

And the newscaster says

she calls Hagia the Lion Man of Nabasca, which is great because they're characterizing them as cryptids.

Yeah,

literally, they're UMAs, which is the Japanese equivalent, basically.

Oh, right.

Yeah.

What do they call them?

Unidentified mysterious animals, I think.

Yeah, unidentified, mysterious animals.

I learned this from a Kotaru Uchikoshi game, so I might not, that might not be 100% clear.

God, Uchikoshi would love the Chimera ants.

Probably.

Yeah, most likely.

And yeah, she says, he is giving an underdeveloped theory of imperial rule, which is really funny because we sort of know that this is true.

The ant hallmark, especially among these kings, is sort of like an extremely rudimentary approach to imperial rule, except we're told time and again that's basically the same as as human kings.

You know, the Chimera Ant arc takes a very low view of kings, ant or human.

The only difference, it seems to say, is that human kings have been doing it for hundreds of years, so their political philosophy seems more

plausible, even though it's not.

And we're just seeing the ants try and invent it, you know, whole cloth.

I love the scene or the framing of this.

Basically, what happens is they pull out from the news story to reveal that the phantom troop that we're going to be following for these episodes was just standing in front of a TV all watching it together.

Yeah.

It's beautiful.

And it's such a nice...

This is not easy to do, to cut.

from one story to another, you know, and I think that the bridge that they have here through this news story, which we've seen Gonan Killiwa looking at news reports in the past,

it's so nice and easy because we think, all right, we're just watching the opening of the next sort of like little mini arc of the Chimera Ant with the news report.

And then we're like, oh, we come out and we're with the Phantom Troop watching it on television.

The Phantom Troop knows everything that we know.

Well, they don't know everything we know, but you know what I mean.

We can begin nice and straightforwardly.

And as soon as I saw the Phantom Troop arrive, all the characterization had been preloaded.

And I was, you know, ready to go with them.

What had not been preloaded was their nen powers.

Which it turns out, that is sort of what this mini arc is about.

It's about going, would you like another go at trying to figure out nen powers of the phantom troop?

Yeah, like we have to fill in everybody's power that you didn't get to see a lot of, with the exception, I guess, of uh

of uh Shizuku and kind of Shalnark as well.

And this is a stroke of genius because the main structure of these episodes, I don't want to jump the gun, we can we can go back to their arrival, but I sort of want to talk on the broad level so we can use that to inform how we continue to talk about them, is that this this is going to be a series of fights inside the meteor city ant headquarters the citadel 2 a sort of web citadel um and the stroke of genius here is that though we know the characters you know we're very familiar with the phantom troop with how they act with how they interrelate to each other we don't know their nen powers at all uh except shizuku and shamar right And both of them we get at least a new application, if not a new ability.

Yeah.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And we don't know the ants' powers that they are fighting.

So what Tagashi and the adaptation team have managed to do is sort of set up a standard battle anime, like it's it's me,

it's the hero versus the enemy, uh, except where usually the trick is either we know the enemy's power, but we're waiting to see what cool new power the hero pulls out of the bag, or we know the hero's power, but we want to see how they counter the enemy's unknown power.

He has set it up so that we're having these really consequential, exciting fights where we don't know what anybody is going to do.

But we do know their characters and we know kind of like the framework that they move in.

And it makes for a really enjoyable mini,

you know, it's four or five fights back to back.

It's really, really good.

So they set it up that

one of the reasons why the Phantom Troop is here.

First of all, they can't fight the ants, the Meteor City people.

They've been deploying suicide bombers is what they describe that are not having any effect, which is like, wow, that's very grim.

Sounds very Meteor City to me, which we get our first kind of

live shot of.

We've had like flashbacks of Meteor City, and yep, it still looks like a wasteland.

It really looks like a dump.

The literal, it looks like they are standing at it.

It doesn't even think say something like, ah, still the same.

Same as we last seen or something like that.

This place hasn't changed.

Yeah, that's it.

There we go.

There's that.

Yeah, and Shalnark smiles and kind of yawns and is like, it's good to be home or whatever.

It's worth saying that everybody in Meteor City is masked,

presumably because of like

radiation or gases or things.

A lot of people,

sort of the high-ranking people are wearing gas masks and goggles, and the lower-ranked people are sort of wearing simple hoods.

But the troop is unmasked here.

I didn't read that as being because I read it.

I thought that was to do with what was happening with the ants,

why they were masked up

being like oh they're turning into ants and we don't know why so we have to wear like hazmat suits that was my interpretation yours is just like oh so you're thinking

everyone is like there is some weird thing going on in the air that's turning people

Well, then there's also the other people that we see, because there's like, they're like using a church as a place to store bodies, I assumed were also part of like clergy, as opposed to being like lower ranked officials or just like commoners or whatever.

Yeah, a lot of this stuff is left kind of vague.

It is like we don't get, we just get images of a lot of this.

Like we learn of there's some council of leadership and that they're squabbling.

The assembly.

Yeah, the assembly and the troop doesn't have a very high opinion of them.

They can't figure out how to define death.

I also right because they're they appear dead and some of them have been mutated and maybe they can be changed back or the people who are being attacked by the ants.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And

I do like that we get more characterization of what's been implied already is that the Phantom Trooper are fundamentally meteor city patriots, yeah, and you get a lot of that in these episodes.

Like, they have pride in their home and of being from Meteor City and are actively trying to help it and defend it.

But I love it, but that they're such freaks that their version of help is doing stuff like this and not like cleaning the dump.

You know?

Look at the world.

If only someone had an infinite vacuum,

it's great.

Yeah.

And, you know, they are clearly,

they are not quite like going 100% vigilante military coup on Meteor City.

You know, they show up and they're like, we're prepared to talk with the high-ranking clergy of Meteor City or the assembly or whatever.

They're prepared to help them in that way.

but they're also especially finks it's just like these guys fucking suck yeah um and i think that that's a really uh interesting sensation you know i keep coming back to uh and i'm sure it's deliberate the sort of like the robin hood um sheriff of nottingham thing going on with the phantom troop and meteor city you know a criminal organization rising out of a city that had been so or a system that had so badly served the people that live inside it but what we've kind of got here is like what if robin hood wins uh and he keeps going back to the bits of Nottingham, wherever he was in the past, and like, wow, the guys here, they could be doing a lot better, but I'm prepared to help where I can, etc.

And also, he was a murderer.

I mean, maybe Robin Hood was a murder.

He mostly, like the ants, mostly was murdering cops.

Well, they're cops in Robin Hood.

Well, they're like

the sheriffs.

The sheriff's men.

Yeah.

The sheriffs.

It's true.

Definitely are stabbing people and leaving them to bleed out in the forest.

The trip's methodology, as usual, is

straight, very, very straightforward.

They show up, they say, what's the deal?

And the people in Meteor City say, okay, so there are ants here that are turning people into these sort of like twisted abominations.

This is really interesting because we have not seen ants do this before.

And there was a bit of me that was like...

Is this something absolutely new or is this just a nen power?

It's just a nen power.

And these people are sort of catatonic and some of them actually turn over and go and work for the ants, but it's kept pretty vague at this point as to whether they are enthralled or whether they are willingly defecting or stuff like that.

The troops say,

all right,

ants are over there, huh?

And point at the big citadel and the people are like, yep.

And the troops say, all right, let's go kill the queen.

And off they go.

I also like, you know, Tagashi seizing the opportunity to make

the troop seem impressive again.

They are able to deduce, you know, it's all stuff that we already know, so it's easy to have them deduce it, but it's meaningful that they show up and they're like,

yeah, we, you know, we know what's going on.

They probably combine with humans, and that's why they're so strong.

And we also traced their origins.

They're probably from the Balsa Islands.

And it's like, oh, yeah, that's all that.

We also learned that.

That's all true.

Good job, Shizuku.

Wait, Shizuru.

Who is Shizuku?

You're good.

You had it.

Yeah,

knowledge and deduction is not just the privilege of the protagonist, says Tagashi.

You know, everybody out here can be figuring this stuff out if they're informed or clever or ready to put the work in.

And that's really fun.

I really do like that sensation of, oh, yeah, the troop are also on board here.

They know what's going on.

And it's a really nice setting up for if we ever need later to get the troop working with Gonan Kilua against the Chimera Ants.

You know, I don't know that it's going to happen.

I think that this was the troop in the Chimera Ant arc, at least for a while.

Or if we come back to them, they're going to be doing their own thing, a sort of like a B story.

But at the very least, we've gotten to a point where an ant story, then a B story?

Where they can just be like, all right, yeah, we've got the information.

Okay.

So Zazan has taken up res.

This is where we reveal that Zazan is the queen here.

the you know the the new queen and she gives a little speech about how she's better than her mother because, uh, actually, she gives the same speech twice.

The first time, this time, it's because she can make new ants without having to lay eggs.

And we get a scene, they drag a

presumably a meteor city, a meteor city resident up to her, and she stabs him in the neck with her queen shot, sexy stinger of rebirth.

Crazy,

and then she, um, so he turns, he like mutates into into a weird demon dog, and then she makes him kiss her foot, which is a great sort of explicit, sexualized image mirroring Colt and the king.

It's like the same thing where that was sort of implicitly sexual.

This is explicitly sexual.

Yeah, these are kind of horny episodes.

Yeah, they really are.

Horny in the costume design.

Later, Shizuku is going to lose all her clothes.

We have Zazan

in in a brand new, even sexier outfit.

We have Pike, and Pike's anus gets lots of mention.

Get a lot of Pike.

You have confirmed anus, by the way.

Originally you mentioned that it was just a Sphincter.

We have confirmation that it's his butt.

Pike is the guy with the anus.

I would not necessarily call Shizuku an expert on Chimera anti-electric.

He calls it his butt, but he doesn't specifically refer to the Sphincter as a butt.

Anyway,

we might be able to sort of like figure out what is going on here as we talk about it.

My initial guess is that these episodes are moving in a really sort of like heightened fantastical register, even for Hunter Hunter.

We are on like a train of watching the Phantom Troops cool nen powers, watching the ants cool nen powers.

Our faves, the superpowered phantom troop, have returned.

They have immediately deduced a lot of stuff.

I wonder if we are playing a sort of like

lurid playing of the hits going on here and that informs some of why this is like additionally titillating beyond the sort of regular deployment of of these characters maybe there is a feeling in writing the last uh handful of chapters that um

that there was a lot of downtime And just being like, let's spice things up.

Let's go crazy for 10 chapters.

I mean, mean, this is kind of what happens, right?

Because it really is two episodes of the Phantom Troop kicking the shit out of some ants.

Yeah.

And when I say it's the Phantom Troop fighting the Ants, you might be thinking the troop is, you know, put in serious trouble.

We've seen nen users go up against the ants before and get their shit absolutely wrecked.

You know, we saw how it worked with Pockle and Ponzu.

And there are some early moments in each of these fights where the troop are like, this isn't going the way we planned.

But by and large, they succeed here.

Episode 97 is six.

The first one is six.

The second is seven.

97 is called like Carnage and Devastation.

Yeah.

And by the time the title card of Carnage and Devastation at the beginning of 97 popped up, I was like, oh, right.

The troop are the ones going to be causing the carnage and devastation.

And I was right.

And hey,

who wins?

Spiders or ants?

It's

spiders every time.

Yoshihiro Tagashi, a man who never turns down the opportunity to make a clunky, obvious visual metaphor when he can, and doesn't touch spiders versus ants at any point here, does he?

They do in the soundtrack a little bit, but that's not Tagashi, obviously.

The soundtrack didn't exist until the anime, but

there is a what I think it's the we'll talk about it later.

There's a song title that either references Kaluto feeling like not a real spider or references the

the ants as being like pretender spiders.

It's called copies of spiders.

Oh, oh, I know what that's a reference to.

Oh, okay.

That's a reference to a Kalita thing, I think.

So when it plays, it's during a Phox's fight with the crab ape.

We're getting ahead of ourselves.

Yep, we are.

I got briefly stuck on why is this hoardier than usual.

All right.

Let's see.

Kaluto is surprised that the troop is splitting up to take out the ants.

Like, they get in.

Everybody knows the score except Kaluto.

This is where Phaeton reveals, of course we're splitting up.

We're racing to see who can kill the queen first.

This is unsaid.

Everyone but Kaluto just understands innately that this is how the spiders operate.

And Kaluto, I think, is used to the exact opposite.

Is used to like Kilua being reserved, playing it safe learning about the enemies sticking together playing to your strengths the spiders are almost

they willfully don't play to their strengths like for fun um

and then uh finks is like besides you we don't want you to see our abilities yet and you probably don't want to see our abilities or sorry you probably don't want us to see your abilities yet uh because knowing what you're

knowing what someone else's ability is in a world like this is very meaningful and then adds in by the way if you kill the queen we'll make you interim boss, which sort of lights a fire under him to be like, okay, this is, I could be, I could rocket ship my way to Numero Uno on the troop if I do this right.

This is such nice writing because this tiny line, you know, you don't want to show us your power yet.

We don't want to show you the power yet, keeps coming back to all the stuff we've been working through over the last few episodes of

hidden nen powers, not knowing what people's abilities are.

You know, we have been wondering that since the start of the show, but more and more the show is making this text things that the characters are saying, I'm thinking.

And this stuff is all seated in the original arc with the Phantom Troop where Hisuka not knowing or knowing certain troop members' powers is like plot critical.

Like this is the first time we get a hint of like, oh, there are advantages and disadvantages to knowing and not knowing other people's powers

and that they might not want to show them to you.

And it is like,

it kind of floats on the line between text and subtext in there.

But it's been text for the Chimera and Arc.

And when

we meet Kaluto after Killiwa's sort of triumphant last few episodes,

you know, one of the...

First things I'm wondering is, is Kaluto also, you know, enthralled to the power of the Zaldic family, you know?

Yeah.

Whenever we meet,

you know, having seen what Kilua has gone through, and we meet Kaluto, and we're like, all right, it's another kid.

Are you also trapped in this same, you know, prison?

Do you have a guess?

Do you have a guess?

And do you think that we know?

I don't think that he is.

Or rather, I think that he is trapped in a sort of zeldic prison i don't think that he has a yes i don't think that he has a hypnotic needle implanted in his head yeah uh and i also think you don't know i think that ilumi's control of the doted upon like favored son killua is such an important part of killua and you know illumi and maybe silver's character and i don't think that that can just be transposed one-to-one to kaluto i saw

and i'm sorry for what I'm about to say,

but I saw a fan theory

about this that I found really compelling.

Oh, okay.

And here's why.

Kaluto, who is

younger than Kilua,

seems to be, seems to have mastered his Nen ability.

Seems to have known about Nen for longer than Kilua possibly could have.

And I saw a fan theory that basically says that

Kilua has known Nen for X amount of time, and that part of what that needle did was suppress his own knowledge of Nen and reclose his Nen pores.

Huh.

That is plausible.

I mean, that's, I could, I could see that being

that is thematically consistent with something that we say about like nen geniuses and nen being an expression of your true self.

Everyone has nen.

You know, we saw um oh, what was the art forge's name?

Zepile.

Zepile.

We saw zepile sort of be like, you have nen in a different way than we do.

And I think it would be thematically consistent that Ilumi was kind of like clawing at Kiliwa's nen in that way.

I guess the only pushback I would have on that is that like, isn't the setup, one of the setups of Kilua and Lumi's relationship is that Kilua's the favorite of like

dad and granddad.

They wouldn't notice that stuff, right?

I think the idea that this is something that I've always believed is that

that Silva is aware of the needle.

Oh, yeah.

I feel the same way.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, sure.

And I've, I've, in the Peto Brooks chat, I've given you a second part of this.

Oh.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a fairly compelling.

And then, so, and I'll say this part out loud because it doesn't contain any spoilers on its own.

It would be like, hey, we have like all of this stuff that we need to take care of.

Illumi, can you handle it?

Can you handle doing this and sort of packaging up into something that we can like, you know,

help control our son?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's interesting.

I don't know.

I think Kaluto

is developed in a really, really fun ways in these episodes.

Zazan

sort of starts squaring off with the members of the troop who are starting to invade her.

You know,

you know how this goes if you've ever seen.

any media.

Zazan's hench people go out and start squaring off one-to-one against members of the troop.

Zazan herself says, my mother's biggest failing was that she never experienced the joy of combat, which is so cool because that was never the Chimera ant queen's goal or interest at any point.

And also not something that we know is true, even.

Yeah,

we know that one.

We've seen her hunting.

We saw her hunting, but that was, she was injured, and she was like, I got to fucking give birth to the kid.

We don't, we basically, everything that happened between her birth and the start of the chimera ant arc, we have no idea what she was doing.

Yeah, it's great.

It's really good.

You know, put the camera on the Chimera Ants as much as possible, almost ad nauseum, but keep so much of the queen mysterious and inaccessible to us.

Do you remember when the camera was fixed behind Gone Freaks' back and we just never ever left him for 30 episodes?

40 episodes?

The good old days, I believe, is how we refer to that.

It's wild.

But by now, you know, when we first started performing this Switch with the Phantom Troop, I was like, oh, wow, how shocking that we're moving with the Phantom Troop.

And that was natural.

It's natural.

Show me with the Phantom Troop.

Yeah.

All right.

The ant that shot Ponzu to death.

Remember him?

He was sort of like a...

No.

No.

Pike is the creepy spider.

Yeah.

Oh, sorry.

The ant that shot to you.

Ponzu.

Oh, sorry.

The gun-toting ant.

I was

Ponzu's boyfriend, whose name I'm forgetting.

Pockle.

Pockle.

Yes, Pockle.

His name's engraved on the memorial.

The other thing is there is a Pike scene in between what we were talking about and the gun-toting ant showing up, where Pike is like, well, I'll go do what Demistress wants me to do.

And then does a comedy run away to go fight Shizuku.

Yeah, reproducing.

Classic ant squadron leader slash officer business here, right?

Where like the squadron leader, now queen in Dazan is like, all right, fucking get out of my hair.

Yeah, you know, okay, Jack, go do your own.

Oh, God.

All right, the gun-toting ant, he who sort of looks like a

sort of a weird crab, humanoid crab, teal-colored, big-eyed.

Sort of an echidna, sort of echidna-y.

Oh, he is sort of echidna-y.

He pops up and starts fighting Bonolenov, immediately shredding his bandages.

I thought when he took off the bandages.

Oh, really?

I thought he kind of like launched himself forward and like bit off all the bandages.

Because after the first strike without the bandages on,

Bonalenov like re-wraps himself magically with the bandages.

So I think that removing and replacing the bandages is like part of his deal.

I was...

Okay.

What were you going to say, Sylvie?

I was on, I interpreted the same as you, Jack.

Oh,

I could be wrong.

Yeah, but he does take the bandages back briefly.

I think part of what makes this stuff fun is that it is kind of vague.

It is kind of like...

Yeah.

We are Kalato later on looking at things, being like, whoa, how many was that?

How did they do that?

How did this work?

And it's also, it's a show that teaches you to wonder how things work.

And so when it doesn't tell you, it's like this weird, cool thing of like, look, all I can do is interpret visually what's happening.

I can't see them through the TV like they can.

Unless they choose to show me it.

Any coinness about what's under the bandages removed instantly.

There's no build-up to this, or rather, there is build-up, and it was the entire fucking Phantom Troop arc of us going, what's this guy's deal?

What is going on?

Underneath the bandages, Bonolenov is a slim,

dark, grey-skinned man with big round eyes, pointed teeth, missing ears, and a pattern of holes.

all over his body.

When I say holes, I don't mean like wounds.

He is perforated.

He has a big hole in his chest.

He has holes in his fingers through which you can kind of see through them.

And as he moves, wind blows through them and they kind of like whistle and scream.

Yeah, like a bomb.

And as he does a lot of complex boxing moves, the narrator appears.

Yes.

Who says?

I have the whole quote of the.

Oh, you have the whole quote.

Okay.

No, no, no, I don't have the whole quote.

Bonalenov is descended from the Kwidondon people, a small tribe that was chased into obliteration by industrialization of their land.

When the Udondon males reach the age of three, needles are used to puncture holes in their bodies by performing different movements.

An assortment of sounds can be made using the holes of various sizes.

Before fighting rival tribes or wild animals, they would play a battle song using their own bodies as instruments.

They are known as the Bapu, dancing warriors.

They believe the more beautiful the sound, the more powerful spirits are believed to be summoned.

This is fruit.

It is.

Yeah, it sure is.

It starts nicely, and I think it goes downhill fast.

It, you know, it is so explicitly this kind of like exoticization of

tribal culture and magic in the way that we see over and over in, you know, imperial countries showing up, making one blanket observation about how a culture works, and then going through a series of

sort of like reductive processes to say, well, okay, so they are vowed as seen as gods here, and they behave in this way, and they do that.

It is pretty grotesque,

especially when

he casts his spell, Battle Cantabele prologue, and is immediately shown in a sort of nonspecific, quote-unquote, tribal mask and kind of of like

fur, skirt, and hair piece.

We say non-specific, but though to be a little more specific, all of this stuff is very much based on different like African cultures specifically.

Which is, you know, it's not done well.

I'm not giving it credit for that.

I just want people to know what we're talking about specifically.

Yeah, and it's weird because it is drawing on

a huge history of this.

And so often the way that Tagashi does, right?

We see this all over.

But we're drawing on like a lot of different

tribal cultural practices of magic, of combat, of music and dance.

You know, like, I think I've spoken in the past about capoeira dancers

in Brazil and in South America who, you know,

hid fighting in a form of dancing.

And all of this sort of stuff is getting...

Keith calls Fortnite the paint thinner

in the way that, you know, you just slop everything into the paint thinner, put in Rick and Morty, Morty, put in the alien from Alien, put in Dragon Ball Z.

Put in Dragon Ball Z.

And there is a kind of perverse delight that I get sometimes when I watch the paint thinner in Fortnite.

But this is absolutely the colonial process of putting in the paint thinner, right?

It's just like, you know, it doesn't matter how these things

counter each other or work against each other, whether there is coherency or incoherency here.

It can just be reduced to something as simple as put it in the bucket, stir it around, output the way of magic.

There is something interesting.

It front loads it, though, with an admission that these are people that were chased into obliteration by industrialization, which is like more of a clue into what's happening than you would normally get from something like this.

It's trying to have its cake and eat it too, in a way, as Kevin.

It is trying to have its cake and eat it too.

Regardless of intent, I think it might be well-intentioned, especially the

backstory stuff about them.

But

every way it's depicted is playing off

really, really rough caricature tropes.

Some of the most racist horror films that I can think of.

We've brought up Cannibal Holocaust before on this show, I believe.

Within them,

this sort of like liberal subject idea of these poor people are being oppressed in one way or another.

And then still, often through a sort of like revenge tactic, like

the oppressed people are taking revenge, just go tumbling straight into.

I'm thinking, yeah, of Diotata's Cannibal Holocaust and then the excurable

Green Inferno by Eli Roth,

which is

one of the most racist films that have been.

From one of the worst guys.

From one of the worst guys.

The only thing...

No, I haven't really liked anything Eli Roth has ever ever done.

No, I haven't.

I think we've had this exact conversation and been like, oh, he was okay and inglorious bastards.

Yes, that is what that is.

True and what was said last time.

Yeah.

All this is to say that, I mean, I'm with you, Keith, in that there is at least some attempt to sort of trouble the waters of this narrative by beginning with, you know,

chased into obliteration by the exploitation of their land.

But I've seen some really racist shit that has that as its

cornerstone.

You know, and I think everything that has that Jack and Sylvia said is true and that, you know,

and how

exactly this mirrors some of the most racist stuff you can see.

The other thing that happens in this is that Bon Lenov is like the good guy and being cool, and they don't do anything racist besides showing the character and explaining it, giving it a racist platform to stand on.

It is like painted, it's got a racist coat of paint on it, which is kind of how it feels in a lot of ways.

And then there's the underlying like exoticism and like

that stuff is bad all the way through.

But there's the

racist coat of paint and then like working in working with racist tropes for essentially no end and no payoff and appearing, appearing like sharing a lot of

aesthetic similarities with stuff that is way more racist.

And then Bon Lenov is sick and does the coolest thing in the world that I've ever seen.

I'll just add on to that too.

I think an additional aspect of it.

Yeah.

An initial aspect of that for me is that

the English dub is

it is it to me it sounded like that vaguely like ooh they're like wise and mystic exotic kind of like accent to

it's not like super duper distinct but it the vibe's kind of there the idea of of making cursed music through the movement of your body is fantastic um

and the sound design on bonolanov is great it's really good yeah whenever he moves there are these sort of like um two-toned like atonal whistling um although there's another sound cue that becomes associated with bonolanov that we will talk about in a second.

I know Keith and I are both excited to talk about it.

Let me see if there's anything else I want to talk about with

Bonalenov.

It's fun, right?

Because like, this is the first

moment in these episodes that a previously hidden troop power is revealed and is,

how do I put this?

High concept Nen?

I feel like during a lot of the

troop arc, we were still being warmed up to what Nen could really do.

And Krolos was maybe the most high concept Nen we had seen.

But I do love that, you know, Bonolanov has a high concept Nen ability that was sort of like, let's wait until they're more comfortable with Nen and then show them this.

And I thought to myself, all right, is this the only one I'm going to get?

Or are we actually going to work through all these new Nen powers?

Answer the latter.

As Barnolanov fights a very distinctive

bass

cello cue starts playing.

I don't know what part of this song to play because every part of it is unbelievable.

So, could you just start with the like just the rumbling low bass cello?

I can, yes.

That's what you're talking about?

Yeah,

so

there is some stuff going on here.

This is an interpolation.

Like, it's like a more than

a sample.

It is, you know, like a rewriting and a reinterpretation and an adaptation of a piece by Gustav Holst.

It is called, by the way, Rhapsody on the Theme of Holst.

Yes.

And we've actually talked about Holst a couple of times before.

There have been several moments where the soundtrack has been evoking specific pieces of classical music, and I couldn't call to mind exactly what was being evoked, but I said, this sounds like Gustav Holst.

Holst was a classical composer writing in.

God, when did he write The Planets?

I think

just like context-wise, most people I feel like will probably know Mars from his Planet Suites.

That one is used in a lot of things.

Yes.

And he

died in 34.

Oh,

he came up with...

I love this sentence.

Holst conceived the idea of the planets in 1913.

He started in 1914.

14 to 17.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's this, it's like like a song cycle, an orchestral cycle where each of the planets is characterized with various different styles.

And what is happening here is that Jupiter, which is kind of the centerpiece, is being interpolated pretty directly.

That cello cue.

Yes, yes, yes, visibly later,

is the main cue.

Where it gets more interesting to me is the sort of additional metaphorical stuff that's going on here.

The planet suite is almost always performed together.

You know,

they are heard in context with the other planets.

And I think that there is something great about Hulst's planets being played over the troop fighting, where, you know, you have a bunch of different

allies all fighting together with various styles, techniques, and goals.

It feels like the...

the planets is a good pick for that.

And then the main theme of Jupiter is actually from a piece that Holst wrote earlier, which is often had words set to it.

So he wrote this melody, then it had words set to it, and then he reused it later for Jupiter.

And now Hirano is

interpolating Jupiter in Hunter-Hunter.

And the original piece

is often...

sung as a hymn with the lyrics, I vow to thee, my country.

It's like a very classic, patriotic

song.

Music by Gustav Holst, poem by Sir Cecil Spring Rice.

And it is just this classic, like patriotic song about your homeland.

We just give you, I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above, entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love.

The love that asks no questions, the love that stands the test, that lays upon the altar the dearest and the best.

The love that never falters, the love that pays the price, the love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.

And then it moves into into its second verse.

And in the classic tradition of British hymns, first you talk about patriotism for your country, and then you've got to talk about God.

And there's another country I've heard of long ago, most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know.

We may not count her armies, we may not see her king.

Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering.

And soul by soul and silently, her shining bounds increase, and her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace.

And I think there is some really wonderful stuff going on here that that is the tune chosen first as Bonolenov speaks about his tribe and, you know,

vowing to defeat the ants on behalf of his tribe, and then is spun out further as the troop themselves go up against the ants in their hometown.

Specifically gets reused during the Phaeton fight.

Yeah, it's great.

This is their own hometown.

And then also the conversations of like kings and queens,

you know, the hymn is talking about heaven, but, you know, a strange place far away that is different from ours and it's kind of growing day by day.

It's some really good music supervising.

Yeah.

I will say that I actually don't care much for the

arrangement.

I think it is a little heavy-handed.

I think that Holst's

Jupiter kind of melody, that core melody, is so distinctive and is so

striking

that I feel like Hirano is sort of putting a hat on a hat with the many ways that he reinterprets it over this.

But, you know, I don't know.

It's hard to stand out in the middle of an anime.

You got to stand out.

It is one of the most famous pieces of classical music of all time.

So, you know.

But I like the idea way more than I like the execution, and I like the idea a lot.

This is it for this fight for now, right?

Yeah, yeah, right?

Where am I?

I lost myself.

Yeah, this is like the little moment where where it sort of looks like it's going bad for the troop, as it seems like the ant has not really been bothered by Bon Olenov's.

Yeah, we're back to wrestling pacing.

The bad guy's got to, you know, make you believe the troupe is wrestling pacing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think I've been the Shalmark defender here

in

Media Club Plus in general.

And I'm happy to see that in these episodes, I think Shalmark really shines.

He's

so great in these episodes.

Everything about him that rings as sort of like sociopathic and creepy in these episodes rings as sociopathic and cute.

Yes.

He's really sweet.

He's adorable.

It's Chalnark's turn to fight.

He's up against a big bug, and he's like, it's fine.

In one-on-one fights, all I have to do is stick my opponent with a needle, and then I win.

The trouble is that this thing has a big carapace, and he's like, how do I get it in there?

And he immediately is like, oh, the joints.

I can probably get there if I get hit, you know, a time or two.

And he basically does that.

He gets the needle in.

You know, there's no, you don't have to belabor this.

It's pretty fast.

He gets the needle in, lets his guard down, and then the big thing grabs him.

And he's like, ah, what the hell?

It's very funny the way that this thing is grabbing him.

It looks very ridiculous.

And then a little ant guy pops out from a corner.

He looks like Ultraman.

Ultraman, but if Ultraman was a two-foot-tall ant,

and he's got a basically, he's got a fight

pad.

He's got like a fighting game, fighting stick.

And he reveals, I've actually been controlling it.

This guy's name is Bokey.

Pell is the big guy.

Shallnark looks at him and goes, you're a manipulator too?

It's so good.

It's fantastic.

There's a little bit of gone in him these episodes.

Oh, yeah.

I'm going to hold on.

This is how I've written it in my notes here because this is exactly how it comes across.

Keep those posted.

You're a manipulator too, and then the classic just like sideways smiley of a colon and a right bracket

uh it's fun uh and it turns out that this little guy i don't really understand what the ant's game is here but it's just to set up this fun punchline right the the the ant is controlling pal and he says you know it's first come first serve around here when manipulators are involved yeah um because you can't manipulate the only reason that you can't manipulate someone is if they're already being manipulated now but why is he manipulating this ant?

I don't know.

This may be a shell ant.

This ant may not exist other than to be controlled, or maybe this is a deal that Bokey and Pell have.

Who knows?

You know,

we've seen some evidence, and we'll talk about it later, that

being manipulated can give you more nen.

So it might be this thing of like, this guy's Pel is

Pel might not be strong enough to do anything on his own, but if Bokey controls him, then, you know, he becomes stronger.

I don't know.

That's a guess.

Finx.

What's the fucking.

I forgot if it's fine.

You sure?

Yeah, yeah.

Like, it's not parasitic.

It's like the Ben and

Symbiotic.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

It was about Sphinx or about Finx.

Oh, Finx.

Yeah, did we just no-sell Finx's new outfit that was debuted at the beginning of this episode?

That wasn't new.

Is it not?

That wasn't new?

No, we saw him dressing.

I swear to God he's been wearing it before.

We saw him dressed like this in York New.

Remember, we were like trying to

do it.

I think we saw him with the hat in York New, to be fair.

I don't know if we saw his full fit, which also has like a little

few more Egyptian flares.

We saw him in

the full getup, but it was inverted.

It was mostly green with a little white.

And this is mostly with a little green.

So it's just like a similar but different outfit.

But yeah, it is new.

It is new.

Dear viewer, you may remember that I've been referring to Finx as the racing car driver because I view his

normal outfit as a

as looking like the racing car driver.

And because I didn't put together the Finx Sphinx pun for way too long,

there was a time when Finx was just a race car driver who occasionally got really ancient Egyptian for some reason.

Now we tried really hard to drag Finx Sphinx out of you.

And it didn't work.

So now having seen Bonolanov's power, I'm thinking to myself, right, I've got this.

It's going to be an ancient Egypt power.

Yeah, of course.

Do you want to describe what it is?

Yeah, do you want to tell me about Karmic Loop Ripper Cyclotron?

Just fucking name

easy fights.

We have the classic Chimera ants sort of toying with their prey.

The ant says i'll he'll give finks one punch you want to describe what this ant looks like yeah this

uh help me outre i don't know oh it's donkey kong it's donkey kong with the bottom half of him is a crab yeah oh crabby kong yeah crabby kong yeah i should say real quick i we i don't think we said that uh uh that uh bunalenov's uh uh power is called battle cantabalae transform this melody into strength to fight prologue it's fucking great

yeah Yeah, and then they're playing Holst.

You know, it's like,

I don't know what happened here.

Because the Holst thing is probably.

No, because he uses Jupiter later.

I don't know the order of operations here that got us to interpolating Holst.

Because Bonolenov is using music.

It's the Jupiter.

It's the he's throwing.

Do you think Tagashi intended that?

Do you think Tagashi was like, his power is music-based and he throws Jupiter?

And then the adaptation team were like, yes, I know the music Jupiter.

I know the music, Jupiter.

All right,

that feels so specific.

I mean, I guess we don't know, but yeah, we gotta.

I'll hold it.

If you have any insight,

sorry, I'll put the that.

I'll just put that over the Jupiter.

Yes, we know you don't need to do that anymore.

You just do it for fun.

He's bleeping me out, right?

Wow, Jack, Censored.

The fucking wokemob.

Okay, Fink says, all right, I'll do it in a single punch.

And he starts winding up his arm.

Like an uncle.

15 will do it.

Yeah, exactly.

Like an uncle.

And I'm like, ancient Egypt.

Oh, man.

Like a big sarcophagus is going to come out.

Nope.

This power is called karmic loop.

Every time I wind my arm, my punch gets stronger.

He winds winds it 15 times and obliterates the ant.

He says,

it's so good.

Wow.

Just half of that would have been enough by the looks of it.

I never know how much power to use.

King.

It's so funny.

It's maybe the stupidest.

Oh, they call it a Pharaoh in his culture.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm going to punch you.

It's so funny.

Are you going to Karmic Loop Ripper Salt?

Salotron, right?

I'm winding my arm up right now.

It's 15 on a new concept.

Nen.

This is super low concept nen.

Yes, this is so good.

This is Jajan Ken.

Yeah, it's super.

You actually even get the exact golden glow that

Goan gets.

And it's funny.

It's the same.

It's almost, you know, a mirror image of when Goan does Jajan Ken and the opponent who's like given him a free shot, which has happened multiple times.

This is exactly the gorilla gives

Finx a free shot.

Yeah, or moral.

And then goes like, ah, I made a mistake.

Wait, no, too late.

Gorilla's gone.

It's so funny.

It's like

even dumber than just being strong.

Gorillas don't last on this show.

No,

whenever Goan does this, though, there's all this like bellyaching and agonizing about like, should I show my true power?

What if I accidentally kill?

This is Sphinx of the Phantom Troop.

The most characteristic thing that I think I've ever seen the Phantom Troop do is make like they're going to try and bid for a game of Greed Island at an auction and then just kill the guy who has it.

Yeah.

Kill the guy who has 15 of them.

And

kill 15.

I was talking with KB about the Phantom Troop because I said, oh, KB, remember the Phantom Troop?

They're back.

And KB said, oh, right.

Did they sort of make the Phantom Troop goodies at the end of the last arc?

And I said, no, not really.

No, they just make them protagonists, not goodies.

We just like them, yeah.

And we, including Tagashi, yeah,

oh, for sure.

He loves

if I could draw the Phantom Troop, I would be drawing them all the time, yeah.

Yeah, like I'm already obsessed, and I didn't come up with them, you know.

Yeah, they're so fascinating, they're just a bunch of weird guys who they do their killing, and then they skip along the way holding hands.

Yeah, you could theoretically ship a of Theseus the entire Phantom troop, and they would still be coming.

Oh, yeah, Sylvie did that, remember?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I made a whole chart.

Yeah, whole chart.

I don't know why you call me the shit.

The ship of Theseus is when you draw a net of ships, right?

Right, right, right.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, let's see.

So, Finks just obliterated that guy.

Oh, and we get the spider coin.

Remember when spiders can't make a decision?

They flip a coin.

We get the spider coin.

Finx is really

on this, too, I think.

Like, he's the one who does it most of the time, right?

Yeah.

In these episodes, which I really like.

Yeah, and this, and then in the last one, it was like people using the coin on him to stop him from fighting with everybody.

He's matured.

He's matured.

Yeah.

Although they still don't let him talk on the phone.

They don't have to scream.

They shouldn't.

Shallnock.

He's currently trapped by Pell and is extremely chill about it.

He's like, I wonder what's going to happen next.

I have the audio of this because I found it so incredibly good.

Yeah, hit it.

Okay, so what's going to happen to me now?

You'll become a slave.

You'll work for the queen until the day you die.

Not much different from your current life, really.

There's some truth to that.

It seems the only real difference would be in whom I'm working for.

But if my choices are die or listen to you, then I'm going to go with death.

Bald word for someone who can't move anything but his mouth.

No, I can move both hands, and my lifelike two.

That's it.

It's so cute.

These two are like co-workers from the rival gangs meeting each other.

I love it.

And his animation is so wonderful.

He just has this like wide-eyed.

And I mean, we know it's because he's a psychopath.

Yeah.

But he's like, he's just like, you know, I'm just figuring it out.

I think that it's nice for Shalnark

to have

accepted

that

he leads a life where he does a lot of killing people

and that he's able to just be a normal guy who kills a lot of people instead of having to be Phaeton, a guy that I don't think could like

go to a fast food restaurant and order a burger without burning the place down.

I think Shalmark could lead essentially a normal life and then go to work and kill and then go home.

And that's good and good for him.

Well, let's see.

There's a lot of them, so we can't do the whole thing.

Yeah.

Most normal Phantom Troop member.

Thinks.

It's Finx.

It might be Crolo.

We've seen Crolo in

Machi.

Machi's a really good contender.

This is like...

Who's the most normal clown?

To me, Shalnark is

like Crolo, but so normal that it comes off as eerie.

Crowlo, because we saw him like at the same time as he was planning a slaughter, he was also on a date with Neon

and being basically fine.

Yeah, he's still him up after the fight with the Zaldix, just doing like very normal brokering with Silver and Zeno.

Yeah, yeah.

Shall Mark is a little more Dexter-y.

Oh, he air is.

Yes.

I haven't seen a lot of the damage.

His dark passenger is his Nen ability.

His what?

His Dark Passenger is his Nen nen ability.

Dark passenger.

That's what Dexter calls his murder, his murder impulses.

I watched too much Dexter.

Yeah.

This is some Sylvie lore.

I watched way too much Dexter.

Hey, Sylvie, I know Dexter isn't good, but is Dexter good?

No.

There's one good season of Dexter.

Is it the first season that's fully nostalgic?

No, it's the John Lithgow season.

Oh, I love John Lithgow.

Okay.

Yeah, John Lithgow's really good in that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Lithgow season is really good.

Or at least John Lithgow's stuff is really good.

But hey, that's fully off memory.

I don't know if it's actually good.

Here's the thing.

They

Dexter.

So there's a lot of stuff I don't like about Dexter.

Dexter has a sister who's a cop, and she can't stop swearing.

And it is the worst writing of any character in the history of television.

You have no idea.

It's really nice.

This does give me in the sequel to Young Jigsaw, I get a post Young Dexter, which I also enjoy.

What is that?

What is that tweet?

The like

Tommy Needy Drinky.

What is the

sister is written.

Yes, very much so.

Oh, just fucking die.

Crazy.

It's crazy.

Terrible.

Least normal member of the Phantom Troop?

Phaeton.

Yeah.

Bonolenov is normal, but looks not normal because of being a mummy.

I think same thing for Franklin.

Franklin

is more normal, but just is one of the least normal looking.

I think that you can get used to Franklin being just huge.

I guess he does look a lot like Frankenstein.

Franklinstein.

Nobunaga

is fairly normal, actually.

He would fit in in some places.

Shizuku looks normal, is not.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's why she's so relatable.

I'm trying to think.

it's

and then hisaka

who is no longer really a member but is at the bottom of the hisaker could never be normal no

it isn't trying to be no

similar to phaeton

shao reveals that he has a second antenna he always takes a second antenna with him on a mission every time i see this scene and this is the fourth time i've i've seen this i think I go, why only two?

Why not six?

Maybe they're very, very expensive.

Yeah, he did say that the phone was expensive.

He's never commented on the antenna, but I can imagine that it's a set.

He hasn't made them, right?

Like, my read on Shalnark's character and the kind of troop in general is that he's not actually a technologist.

He knows how to use computer games, but he doesn't know how to.

He's a gamer.

He has bought them from some other black market.

Yeah.

You know.

He stabs himself with it and

the

Super Phone.

Yeah, he goes Super Saiyan.

He literally looks just like Trunks.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He burns in a phenomenally bright aura and obliterates both the ants.

You will notice that we are now.

Every ant who has gone up against the Phantom Troop has had their bodies ripped apart.

This trend will continue.

He bursts free.

It kind of looks like nuclear devastation is happening.

Weirdly, this is not the only sort of evocation of nuclear devastation that we're going to get this episode.

The troop are on one, and I want to talk more about that.

Why the troop are so phenomenally violent but now's not the time we need to talk about that later with bonolenov shalnark doesn't like doing this by the way for two reasons one it makes him tired and sore all over and two he doesn't even remember the killing so what's the point

it is so funny how desperate tagashi is to just like dispense with the question

why doesn't he do this all the time you can tell Tagashi really wanted this cool image and kind of get Shalnark out of this bind.

And then he's like, but people are going to fucking say, why doesn't he do this all the time?

So the moment Shalnark has his faculties again, he explicitly says, I don't do this all the time because I hate it and it makes me feel bad.

I have not been able to move a muscle the day I have.

A practical and an emotional reason to not do this.

Makes me sore.

Never question this.

Can't remember.

As he leaves, we notice a little shard of something on his back.

It looks a bit like a piece of glass, but it's not a piece of glass.

It's a little bit of paper.

And we see this again as Shizuku is continuing to fight Pike.

She has a little shard on her, as does Feitan, who has met Zazan and is now confronting her.

Kaluto, it turns out, has cut beautiful little paper dolls of the Phantom Troop and is using that to hear what's going on, to sort of like

police scanner the Phantom Troop.

This is such a good image, Kaluto with the string of paper dolls.

Yeah.

I want to make these paper dolls.

They're very cute.

They are really cute.

And I like that

he has correctly deduced

the game.

Well, he's been told the game, but he's deduced how important the game is, but he's not deduced why it's important, which is that it's important to have fun when you're killing.

And instead has taken it too, much too seriously.

And it's like, well, instead of helping, I'm going to like focus my energy on winning the game, which is against the spirit of the game.

And he is karmically punished for this mistake.

Just working over the same theme again and again and again.

This idea of like, you've, you've identified that it's a game, but you're playing the game wrong.

And in doing so, you are going to sort of, you know, you and the universe are out of step.

This is something that we've seen all the time in Greed Island.

This is something that the kind of hunter game logic keeps bringing up over and over and over again.

Yeah, and it's also something.

Am I in the game?

Oh, I thought you said, Am I in the game wrong?

No, just repeat what you said.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, playing the game wrong.

And then

not trying to have fun like the game wants you to have.

And then this is Bisky and Killua and the Zaldix, you know, treating everything so ultimately seriously.

It's good.

It's good stuff.

We also, by the way, we get a little bit of Family of Assassins here.

We also got Requiem Aranea at the beginning of the episode.

Just really hear these songs here.

It's so nice.

How good is that?

It's one of the best.

It's a banger.

When I heard, when the episode started and they were playing Requiem Aranea, which I didn't play because I'm going to play two songs back to back in a little bit,

it's really good.

Did I miss my spot?

Oh, I...

I did miss my spot.

Okay, so I'm actually going to do it now.

We were talking so much about Ripper Psych, Karmic Loop, Ripper Cyclotron, which I, I'm, every time I say it, I go, oh my God, that's a tongue twister.

I can barely say that.

Karmic Loop, Ripper, Cyclotron.

Okay.

They play

Finx is Fighting the Crab, and they play

the Copied Spiders.

The Copied Spiders, which is like a rerun.

I called it in my notes.

I called it

Requiem Aranea Heroic Theme.

Which it's so good.

Here we go.

So funny to me.

They're heroes.

Yeah, they are.

They're just heroes.

They're just playing heroic music.

This is just for reference.

This is the original.

This is what that song is referencing.

It's almost like a comedic joke.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's so funny.

I love that so much.

That's great.

So when I heard it in the background, I was like, oh, it's Dream Aranea.

And I'm like, wait, no, it's not.

It's hap.

It's like heroic.

It's like that, but what if they were heroes?

It's Requiem Aranea, except it's the stupid thing at the end of Star Wars where they all get medals.

And it is John Williams-y.

It is John Williamsy.

And it's also, there's a little bit of,

who was the composer for The Lord of the Rings?

Howard.

John Howard.

There's a little bit of Howard in there, too.

Howard Shaw?

John Howard Shaw.

What was that?

Leslie Shaw.

I said John Williams.

Maybe that's where you got the John from.

Yes, almost certainly.

Howard Shaw is still with us.

He's an older fellow than I thought he was, though.

He's right here.

Yep, he's still here.

He's been here, actually, still with us, meaning he's been sitting here every recording.

And we never asked his name

or his opinions on.

Kaluto is confronted by an ant.

You know how this goes.

It's wrestling pacing.

First, he scatters sort of tiny paper shards, confetti, and then blows it towards the ant with a fan.

We say wrestling pacing, but these episodes are notable, I think, for one thing specifically, which is the spiders cleaning up these ants so fast.

The ants barely have enough time to be like, haha, that's all you've got?

Oh, they get squashed.

They get absolutely squashed.

Yeah, the, yeah, we'll talk about getting squashed later.

Uh-huh.

At one point, the ants kind of like whips a rope towards Kaluto, and Kaluto cuts it up, and we get our first, probably not last, banger Kaluto line.

The ant says, This rope is made from steel, and Kaluto says, and my fan is made from paper, which I thought was really, really good.

By the way, this guy's name is Small Beetle.

Oh, any relation to Small Bear?

I think they're brothers.

Yeah, yeah, I guess they would be.

They're half brothers.

Or you like, might be a nephew situation if this was one that Zazan man could be right.

Yeah, it could be.

Is Small Bad dead?

Did Small Bad make it out?

Oh, yeah, Small Bear.

Actually, Small Bear didn't make it out.

Small Bear is still living in the original

place with like Beehorn.

Oh, he's still alive, right?

Didn't get decapitated.

But correct.

Yeah.

This movie's called Snake Dance,

and he methodically cuts the limbs off this ant.

Later, when we meet him,

he says,

He's basically like, oh, that took too long.

I was playing with my prey.

Like a cat.

There's a real.

This whole bit reminded me a little bit of Hiseka fighting

What was his name?

The Yamcha who duplicated himself from Heaven's Arena.

Oh, Castro.

Castro.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's just like that bit where it's like, I'm going to get this limb next, and like just some of Kaluto's

mannerisms.

I also just really like that Kaluto isn't as like

fully emotionless as Ilumi is.

I like Kalito.

I do too.

I think Kalato is really fun in these episodes.

There's like an ambition that he has that comes through that's like really fun.

Yeah.

And I think it's really great to see

how

off the leash other members of the Zoldix are allowed to be.

We've seen Ilumi, but Ilumi is like much older than Kilua.

And, you know, Maluki's, you know, doing, you know, is kind of a homebody.

But Kyloto is just like, yeah, join the troop.

They didn't even want want Kilua getting a hunter's license.

And they're like, Kyloto, join the troop.

Yeah, whatever.

Okay.

There is a line, though, that makes this seem like it might be on orders from the parents later on.

Maybe, yeah, yeah.

We'll see.

Yeah.

It's really good.

Feytan, fighting Zazan, draws a little umbrella

and sort of like pops the umbrella open to have a sort of like death's head moth symbol on the back of it.

I think the same symbol on the back of his stupid little cloak.

I love it.

Feytan.

Captain Harlock fucking Skull of the Spanish.

Yeah, he is the most edgelordy of the troop.

Yeah.

And yet, he is very charming.

Not literally.

He's about as charmless as possible.

But I like seeing Faitan do stuff.

He is a fun character.

By the end of these two episodes, we get some wild Fayetan shit.

Yeah, yeah.

Really, really fucking good Phaeton stuff.

He comes off really good.

He just reveals that he has a sword in his umbrella and kind of lunges forward.

Yeah.

And it's also sometimes using the umbrella still.

Can use both, kind of.

I love it when people have nen powers that do not seem aesthetically coherent with the rest of them.

The death set, I can understand, but the umbrella, I understand that it's supposed to be like a sword cane.

It's like a hidden

hidden sword.

But Vaitan is a torturer with a skull on his back.

Like, he is not really a hidden sword type.

I don't know what's going on.

He's kind of assassiny, hidden sword.

He's not an assassin.

He's a torturer.

They're called assassins sometimes.

He's both.

He's a jack of all trades killer.

Yeah, I suppose.

It is creepy.

No, actually.

Actually, here's my real thing.

We see his power, his nen power, and it's pretty intense.

And

this is not his nen power.

This is a sword that he has.

Right.

Yeah.

And I think that there's something of like, you know, I have to have my tools so that I can avoid having to use my power

for, for, I think, practical reasons of like,

it's pretty over the top.

I can't always be using my nen power.

And also the way his nen power gets explained by Finks, you know, maybe can't always use it.

And so being like, well, sometimes you need a sword.

Don't you think we're being a little shit?

listener, not telling you what Feytan's Nen power is?

If you haven't seen these episodes, you're like, why don't they just tell me?

You have to keep

it.

This is all part of his secret plan to make you watch the episodes.

To make you watch Hudson Hudson someday, please.

We've got to read a really nice review on iTunes about somebody who started watching.

Oh, that's great.

By the way,

maybe you'll read that.

You were Bonalenov.

And

I was running away from you.

How much

effort and force do you think would be reasonable to expend in catching the fleeing ant?

Well, effort schmeffert.

I wouldn't be worried because of no ant is faster than the speed of sound.

So you're just going to shoot the speed of sound at, you know, we know you can do those whistles, so you're probably just going to shoot a little shockwave at him and get him with the shockwave.

Sound travels quite quickly.

Um,

bigger than that?

Okay, all right.

Still a shockwave.

Still a shockwave.

Just how Finks never knows how much force to use?

Right, right.

I'm a little bit more.

I'm like that, as Bonnie.

Okay, do you think that you would maybe drop the planet Mars onto them?

The entire planet Mars.

You know, you're getting closer.

I don't know if that's going to be.

You know, I don't know if you're going to get full coverage from dropping the planet Mars.

Is there a bigger planet?

A bigger planet giant, maybe?

Yeah, remind me.

Is there a bigger planet than Mars?

Is there a planet with a sort of hexagonal

north and south poles and a giant storm that roves around?

A failed sun.

Do you have

what an astrologist might call a failed sun?

The ants.

Don't talk about Kiloa like that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Barnolanov drops Jupiter on him.

This is really, really funny.

Drops of Jupiter would be way better if it was about this.

Sorry, drops a train on her?

Is that what you said?

No, drops Jupiter on it, but I just, my brain went, drops of Jupiter.

The best stars by the band train.

Oh,

I see.

This is really funny because it is clear that he is not dropping actual Jupiter

on him because that would destroy everything.

But the thing that he does drop on him is so phenomenally destructive and does actually look like the planet Jupiter.

Yeah.

Like a gigantic marble.

This thing is the size of, you know.

It's immense.

It's the size of a space station.

It blows a visible hole in

the web kingdom.

Yeah, this web kingdom gets fucked up.

The like effects on this are crazy.

The camera is shaking.

There's fire everywhere.

You see explosions from the outside.

And yeah,

it's Jupiter.

It is the planet Jupiter tumbles on this ant, leaving an immense crater and a squashed ant at the bottom.

It's brilliant.

And then as the narrator says, you know, the phantom troop has traveled to Meteor City to protect their home from the Chimera ants.

We get the ongoing montage.

It's really fun the way that

sometimes they will end

like

episodes midway through a fight at like cliffhanger moments where it seems like the characters are going to be beaten.

Not really.

The troop are just kicking the shit out of these ants.

There's essentially

for a max of like 30 seconds to maybe 90 seconds of doubt in any of these episodes about whether the Phantom Troop are going to be not just are they going to lose, are they even going to get hurt?

And they keep telling us how powerful the ants are.

I mean, I know that the Royal Guards are a different kind of powerful, but it was only an episode ago where they told Notero that he wouldn't even be able to get close to the king.

You know, I don't think that the troop are more powerful than Notero.

I'm power scaling again, but you won't catch me.

Too fast.

Too fast.

But, you know, when we first met the ants, squadron leaders were difficult to take out.

And then Nov and Morel were taking out squad leaders fairly regularly.

And now we have the

Phantom Troop launching like a special ops assault on an entire Ant Citadel and basically being fine.

They, they

essentially every ant is one hit KO'd.

Yeah, they just kind of every every single Phantom Troop member just kind of uses their ultimate abilities.

Yes.

And

kill them.

Hooded figures in Meteor City look up at

the Ant citadel as they see the explosion from Jupiter.

I think this is exactly what you were talking about, Keith, where like the Phantom Troop are exactly the kind of freaks who were like, shall we clean up the city?

No.

We have another plan.

Yeah.

And the troop mostly meets up.

Everybody who has beaten their ant arrives.

Zazan is still fighting with Phaetan, parrying her awful tail with his sword.

Phaetan is struggling to fight...

Oh, sorry.

Shizuku is struggling to fight Pike, who keeps saying that he hates that stupid vacuum.

He's very, like, taken by the fact that the vacuum can appear from nowhere, but as the fight continues, he's like, oh, this is awful.

Yeah.

And figures it out, figures it out in real time.

Yeah.

Doesn't help.

No, it does not help at all.

Yeah.

No.

It was at this.

It was at this point when episode, this is the very end, basically, of episode 96.

And I was like, almost nothing in that whole episode made me horny.

I wonder if episode 97 is going to change that.

Oh, yeah.

Did it?

How does this fight go?

In the next episode?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It goes.

It's a very cool fight.

It's also funny.

Yeah, sure.

As long as you ignore Pike saying, I hate it because it hurts my butt when I do my special moves.

That is funny.

I don't have to ignore that.

That is really funny.

Sorry.

And

also

the

in my subs, it says it's a literal pain in my butt, which is even funnier, actually.

That's funnier.

That's funny.

Yeah, everyone's defeated now except for Phaeton.

Everyone has defeated their opponents, except for Phaeton and Suzuku.

Pike is learning about the vacuum and it appearing and disappearing.

And then he uses that move that he doesn't like, Radiating Love, Love Shower.

I just fucking hate that it's called that.

My solid,

it had de mour deluge.

Like, it was in French.

It's white, but all his power is white.

I know what you're getting at.

Oh, no.

It's Kayampu.

Wait, no.

I remember when it first shoots out, it's like yellow-colored, and then it turns white.

Oh, it's everything.

It's glowing with men is what it is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is a net.

Disgusting.

He's shooting a net, a web, he's shooting a web net at Shizuku,

who can't break out.

Pike is like, even Beehorn couldn't break out, and he was the strongest one of us, which I don't think is true.

I mean, maybe it was the strongest of the people that would let.

Pike is not very clever.

No, Pike is a stupid person.

And by the way, keeps this becomes, you know,

there's a one-liner that this becomes important for.

Keeps insulting Shizuku, calling her stupid,

which they

do imply in York New City, but then we never see her have anything but good ideas.

She's the one who traces the ants to Balsa, or at least is the one that says that out loud.

She's scatterbraining.

She's scatterbrained.

She's not stupid,

She's scatterbrained in a really scary way.

She rubbed it.

She will forget things and, in forgetting them, insist that they, you know, you know, she's constructing a new version of truth, and even scarier, the troop goes along with it all the time because they're like, I understand that it's normal for girls.

Speaking of what's normal for girls, how would a normal girl get out of a

web net

that they can't break out of?

You take off all your clothes.

Take off all your clothes.

Yeah.

Why?

Shizuku, like, known for wearing thick, heavy, bulky clothing that would stop her from going places.

The way that he explains that is like.

He doesn't explain it well.

Doesn't explain it well.

It doesn't make any sense at all.

And I

try, though.

Oh, yeah.

I believe that it.

Okay.

I don't want to give too much credit.

Okay.

It comes across like a joke about fan service.

Yeah, a little bit.

Here's his theory, Sylvie.

So here's how what he says is

the way that we get like a little like chibi

Shizuku in his mind acting this out.

It's like what she did was she used the vacuum blinky to like open the netting enough, like the webbing, and then used her.

The way he describes it is used her clothing to shield herself from the

material of the web.

And then...

And then like wriggled out.

And then, yeah, while wriggling out and then uh left the left blinky in there to keep the gap open and then when she got out made blinky disappear and then reappear with which is why it was important to learn about a disappearing reappearing vacuum yeah uh so so the idea is that the clothes would be stuck to the web but she can wriggle out of the clothes through the clothes instead of against the net uh yeah i guess because it really feels like if the hole is wide enough the clothes can stay on you which is why it feels like a joke about fan service to me, because

it's such a tortured explanation for why a character suddenly is naked.

You're not wrong.

It's funny.

It's funny.

It's tortured.

It's bizarre.

It's super tortured.

It's really weird because Hunter Hunter doesn't really do this very often.

No.

But when it does, it like really leans in.

Yeah.

Like I'm thinking back to like the Hunter exam arc when Menchi.

Metro was caught

staring at Minchi's

staring at her Minchis.

Stupid.

Yeah,

that's great.

Yeah, I, which is why I think maybe this is, you know,

a lot of the fan service, not a lot of fan service in general is joke-based, but like,

you know, the Vetero stuff, like, you know, oh, it's a horny old man.

Get it.

Get it from every other mentor kind of guy.

Remember Master Roshi?

He's like that.

And then this is like.

In the way that I was talking earlier about these being like really lurid, sort of like the Phantom Troop on a path of revenge.

It's so funny seeing the Phantom Troop do revenge or protection after their entire arc is about Karapaka doing revenge there.

We get ourselves straight into that

oldest,

most tiresome but also genre underpinning image, a hot naked lady exacting bloody violence on somebody else as she reveals that she has made 29 entry wounds on Pike and Blinky exanguinates him to his death.

One of the most gruesome ways someone's died on this show.

Honestly.

Yeah, and I'm going to be real.

Deserved it.

Deserved it.

Deserved it.

This was great.

I thought this was...

This was like

so of a piece with the really strange feeling that this two-episode vacation that we're on was doing was, you know,

Pike with 29 streams of awful blue ant blood coming out of him and Shizuku in her underwear with Blinky kind of like triumphant.

Blinky breaths again.

I love the burping blinky.

Yeah.

We don't often see Hunter-Hunter in this mode.

I thought it was fun.

I thought it was good.

Pike deserved it.

Too much awful fluid shooting from Pike for most of this show.

So it was good to see awful fluid shooting from Pike to his demise.

It's nice to see a gooner get what he deserves, you know?

Moving on.

Yep.

Oh, wait.

This is the end of her one-liner.

Oh, yeah.

So there's a great gag here.

She goes, it looks like, she's running away.

She goes, like, oh, wait.

And it looks like she's going to go back to get her clothes, but actually, she goes back to Pike's dead body to explain, hey, you have like sticky web, right?

You could have used that to patch up all your bleeding wounds.

I guess we're both pretty stupid, huh?

And then she grabs her clothes off screen, but they're all fucked up

in case you still wanted to see her bra.

Yeah.

I don't know how to put this.

And

I might be wrong here, but I found Pike more likable when he looked like an exsanguinated Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail guy than when he was the spider.

Yeah, no, you're right.

Because he couldn't do anything.

Yeah, I was about to say, is it more likable because he's dead and can't talk?

He's safe.

Yeah.

I thought Pike was fun.

What a good ant.

I mean, I hate him every time he was on screen, but he was a really good ant.

His like love to hate him.

Desperately trying to pat out all of his bleeding wounds is very funny.

That was pretty good.

That was pretty fun.

He had some really funny.

Really funny, honestly.

Her being like, your butthole twitches twice before you fire.

Really funny.

Sorry to say, it's crude humor, but it's really fucking funny.

Yeah, I don't know.

It's a good fight.

You know, it's like that

roll out the barrel.

We'll have a barrel of fun because the gang's all here, drinking song type vibe for these whole two episodes, except the gang being here is the phantom troop and they are fighting a bunch of ants.

Extreme vibe.

Roll out the barrel.

We'll have a barrel of fun.

No drinking idea.

No drinking.

You're forgetting which country you're from.

We don't know about that.

It's a song in Britain.

It's like from the 50s or something.

Yeah, I'll hold.

You can sing the whole thing.

Go ahead.

Okay, it goes like this.

Roll out the barrel.

We'll have a barrel of fun.

Roll out the barrel.

We've got the blues on the run.

Sing, boom, tarara.

We'll have a time of good cheer.

Now it's time to roll out the barrel, because the gang's all here.

I don't even know if that's real, but I love it.

Who are the blues?

Yeah, I was going to ask, is that like a person, or is that like a, we're chasing, We're make sure you don't have the blues anymore.

Or is it the blues where British?

I believe it's going to say France.

I think it might actually be anti-Nazi.

Oh, okay.

That's fine.

Hell yeah.

It could have been anyone.

I don't know.

It could.

It could.

And sometimes Britain is anti-people and they're right, but most of the time Britain is anti-people and they're wrong.

Most of the time they're very wrong, yeah.

Roll out the barrel.

Beer barrel polka, popular song

during World War II.

Okay.

Lyrics were added in 1934, subsequently gaining worldwide popularity during World War II as a drinking song.

Okay.

Well,

uh,

no, apparently everybody sung it.

The Nazis sung it, the British sung it, the Basque, the Catalan, the Chinese, the Croatians, the Czech, the Danish, the Dutch, the Finnish, the French, the Greek, the Germans, the Hungarians, the Italians, the Japanese, the Latvians, the Norwegians, the Polish, the Portuguese, the Russians, the Spanish, the Swedish, and the Ukrainians.

Well, this was the original We Are the World.

I guess.

We are the

drinking song?

We are the world drinking song, Dre?

I hope so.

Well, that's how you've been using it.

Yeah.

What did you say, Sylvie?

I asked if We Are the World is a drinking song.

Oh, okay.

That's what Dre compared it.

Oh, yeah, me too.

Yeah, that's also how I do it.

In 1939, Will Glahy recorded an instrumental version that was a big hit in the United States.

Glenn Mitch.

So, okay.

Anyway, that's what I'm saying.

It's sort of like the trooper here, and they're fucking everyone up.

Hence,

you know, we've got

torrents of blood.

We've got Pike being a weird.

His butthole twitches twice.

We're, you know,

we're in like loud watch the troop kick the shit out of some ants mode.

Kaoato gets a taste of reality when he shows up to the fight with Zazan.

where everybody but Shizuku is already waiting.

Phaeton is moving so fast that he cannot follow his movements.

Of course, we all know this is the universal sign of a side character.

Uh, the rest of the rest of them are all sitting there being like, wow, Phaeton's fighting like shit.

What a slow-ass loser today!

Yeah, it's so damn good.

Somebody lost a step

is um, Killiwa watching the fights in Heaven's Arena.

Um, remember when Killiwa was in Heaven's Arena watching Castro and he took a fight and was like, holy shit, these people are using Nen in an unbelievable way.

Um, and it's also the troop watching Uvo, um, sitting down and watching Uvo fight the Mafiosos and playing GoFish.

Phaeton shoots a secret bullet from the tip of his umbrella and hits Zazan in the face.

She freaks out.

Transfer an answer.

Rips her tail off and turns into the alligator monster from Batman.

Yep.

He is a crocodile to be.

His name is Killer Croc.

Killer Croc

is an alligator as far as I'm concerned.

Fair enough.

This is some real gonzo shit.

I'm having a good time pulling the tail off, turning into a massive monster.

All the blood pouring out.

This is some DBZ shit.

Yes.

Like, this is Zarbon.

We didn't see Zarbon, but this is Zarbon to me.

Oh, yeah.

Zarbon.

But, like, also, kind of Frieza.

Like, getting

big and jacked and freaky.

I guess we didn't see those episodes yet, actually.

My bad.

I think we did reference it on that episode, though.

Okay, cool.

Yeah.

This isn't going well, and Kaluta, Faitan is getting the shit kicked out of him by this monster, Zazan.

Something to be said,

you know, I don't think we need to belabor the point of the way that the show has on several occasions treated femininity as sort of like a mask that gets pulled off to reveal a monstrous monstrous muscled figure.

I don't know.

You know, we'll

speak for itself.

Yeah, exactly.

It won't be the last time we see this

in the world.

Unfortunately.

But Kalito is like, why don't you help him?

The troop is like, what the fuck?

What's who's up next if he loses?

And they are just doing classic Phantom Troop bickering about this.

They flip the coin.

They have like a brief physical fight.

I love that the troop are forbidden from fighting each other, but it doesn't stop them from like doing the opening to a fight that would get two siblings told off by their parents.

You know, one of them will like swing at the other, and then everyone else will be like, all right, all right, calm down.

Yeah, yeah.

It's funny how civil they are with each other.

Like, even the worst case scenario with the Phantom Troop, it is essentially like bickering.

Like 12-year-old, like, bickering.

Yes.

And Kaluto, just like Goan, says, I think maybe the exact words, what is wrong with these people?

Yes, which is exactly what Goan

says.

I don't get it.

What is wrong with these people?

I was naive.

I thought I could rise to number two in no time, but I'm utterly outclassed.

It's hopeless, but I won't give up.

I'm used to toughing it out.

I'll get my brother back no matter how long it takes.

Like a family photo.

Yeah, we do get a family photo.

Oh, actually, I want to talk about what's wrong with these people a little more briefly.

I love that Goan is like, what's wrong with these people?

There is a sort of like moral vacancy here.

You know, why aren't you looking after your friends, etc.?

But Kaluto has a bit of that, but it does also seem to be like, this makes them so unbelievably dangerous, this trait, that there's no way I can rise to the top right now.

I had thought that by the end of the York New City arc, the Phantom Troop had realized how much they meant to each other.

And so I was surprised to see them hanging Phaetan out to dry and bickering about who was going to fight next.

Well, Phaeton gets his arm broken and Finx offers to have him tag out.

He does.

I think what is happening here is that they actually don't mean it.

The Phantom Troop would never let Phaetan.

Maybe.

There is a very quick frame, though, that I'll share later about.

Yeah, we'll wait later and I'll share it.

And it is Finx again.

So I think Finx means it.

Finx has always been.

Finx is on a real journey about looking after the members of the Phantom Troop.

But my suspicion is that they are much more bark than bite about looking after their own.

And at least by the end of your...

You know, look at the lengths that they're going to to rescue the boss.

Maybe it's different if it's the boss.

I think that the

issue is that this is fundamentally low stakes for them.

Yeah.

Would they let Phaytan die?

I do not believe that they would.

I don't think so.

I think maybe.

It depends on if they felt like Phaytan deserved it or not, I think.

Interesting.

Do you know?

No, I mean that like in a genuine way of like, oh, did Phaytan like fuck up and make a mistake so bad that that's why he got killed?

Yeah, there is definitely sort of like a like a nobility of combat thing.

Yeah.

But they're so protective.

If it was like he was about to die because of like a dirty underhanded trick.

Yeah, maybe even then.

I don't know.

They're so protective of their own, though.

I think that they would let someone.

I think that they would let him almost die.

Yeah, that's probably true, and then step in, you lose, and then torment him about being a short, weak little that's true, yeah.

Because if they let him die, they can't make fun of him for it.

Yes, they would have to be important

about who got to rescue Faton, yeah, you know, yeah.

If they have a weakness as a group, I think what it would be is to not see mortal danger before it happens because they've overestimated each other, not themselves, but each other, and so they don't step in soon enough, even if they would have wanted to.

That's you know, totally

a wonderful demonstration of like what would a weakness exploited look like when the phantom troop are, you know, the subject.

Yeah, figuring out that hostage situation and using that as a lever by which to manipulate the phantom troop was really wonderful.

York News great.

York New is so good.

I'm so excited to re-watch York New one day.

I'm now thinking about what it's going to be like to re-watch Hunter Hunter, but I'm not done with this stupid project yet.

They got you.

They got you.

They got me.

Oh, by the way, happy New Hunter Hunter.

Have we recorded since New Hunter Hunter has been released?

We brought it up briefly last week.

We brought it up briefly.

Oh, yeah.

We get a family portrait of the Zaldics when they were much younger.

Ilumi and Miluki are kind of standing big, the big brothers, in the back.

Kaluto is hanging on to his mom's skirt, and Kikyo is turning away from him and doting on white-haired Killiwa.

And those are the only children in the picture, right?

yeah

who the fuck is that who is who there's another zoldic

i've never heard of any other zoldic well yeah no we'd have we'd have heard by now the same thing about silva is silva in there there's another child turning it looks like maybe killua's age there is another child turning and walking away

No mention is made of this in the show.

That is not what we're interested in right now.

I'm interested in that.

Who the fuck is that?

We're interested in when the fuck did Alumi have this weird haircut?

No, Keith, we have a bonus Kilua aged Zaldic.

Why do you say Kilua aged?

Because he looks about the same height as Kilua in this

photo.

I don't think I agree.

Can you post it?

Really?

I did, yeah.

Let's see.

Who the fuck is this?

Yeah, maybe, maybe, um maybe uh kaluto aged

the youngest as far as we know yeah okay

yeah i love

i don't think i don't know if they've said this or where i know this from um i believe that kaluto is one year younger than kilua okay

This is such beautiful.

I have to imagine that they've just taken this straight from Tagashi's illustration.

This is such a great image.

We have Ilumi in the back.

He's got his arms folded.

He is, you know, the solid older brother.

Maluki is just standing there with his arms by his sides.

He doesn't want to be there.

Both kind of vacant stares.

Both kind of vacant stares because they are, you know, further along in the business.

They have had the awful work of the Zelda.

You know, I'll say this: actually, Maluki is grumbling.

Maluki is the teen who doesn't want to be in the picture.

Ilumi is vacant.

Maluki is grumbling.

Kilua looks sad

and is being shot.

He's the only white head of them, and he is being doted on by Kikyo, who is like crouched down next to him.

She's got one hand in his hair.

To her left, Kaluto has got like a hand.

He's like pulling at her skirt to be like, pay attention to me.

Or he's touching her for like comfort.

Yeah.

And he's chewing on his finger.

And then in the background, we have this other kid, long black hair, turning and facing away.

You got the impression was there for the picture, but then went wandering off.

And then we get a really weird line from Kaluto, who says,

Still, I can't give up.

I'm used to waiting it out.

I'll get my brother back no matter how long it takes.

And as someone who doesn't know what's going on here, this is great, because the first thing you think is, oh, they're talking about Killiwa.

Get Kilua back to the family.

We know that this is something that the Zaldics are focusing really hard on right now.

But why does that that involve joining the Phantom troop and rising to the top of the Phantom Troop?

Also, we have just been shown a bonus Zeldic for the first time.

So my immediate thought is, is Kaluto on a mission to get back

another Zaldic?

And then we cut to Phaetan fighting.

Zazan as the Zaldic theme plays.

So I have no idea what's going on here.

Is Phaytan...

there though?

Hold on.

Yeah.

Wait, you were about to say it.

Sorry.

Feytan is a Zaldic that has gone off pieced.

That has.

Because, okay, right.

Here's the thing.

I've only seen the information that has been showed to me, right?

And so we have Kaluto saying, I'm going to get my brother back.

We know Kaluto wants to rise to the top of the Phantom Troop for one reason or another.

We're immediately shown a family portrait with an extra child, and then we cut back to a black-haired

soldier fighting as Kaluto looks on with admiration and horror.

I would love to say something that I'm not 100%

sure I can say yet.

Because I believe

the council.

The council of Peto Bricks.

I'm so excited to get to this chat eventually.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know, Keith.

I actually, I don't know about that either.

Okay.

Okay, no, it is not.

It is, I googled, it is, it is something from chapter 377 in the monk.

Oh, okay.

So then I then I won't.

I was gonna, what I was gonna say was,

yeah, I guess I still won't say it.

Okay.

So have fun with your beliefs.

I'm always saying that to people.

Have fun with your beliefs.

Okay, so I believe that this is where

Phaeton starts getting a little upset.

His arm gets broken by Zazan, and he says, piece of crap, backwards, and Finks and the rest of the Phantom Troop react with horror.

Yeah, piece of crap, know your place.

In the anime, in the voice acting, these lines are played backwards.

Actually, in the dub, they're said in Japanese and then played backwards.

So it's japanese no matter what i think uh

the in the

there's also a bunch of characters on screen like translating what uh he's saying and i think that the implement what in the manga at least i think what's happening and you can correct me if you know better and are wrong that they this is like a fake constructed non-literal chinese that is being drawn here by tagashi

there is something really scary about the fact that the things he is speaking backwards are not an incantation or a spell or

like a summoning.

He is instead just continuing his regular dialogue.

It's as though he doesn't even notice that he has started speaking backwards.

Yeah, he says,

he says, piece of crap, know your place.

And then I think he says another line of money.

Your coming back is coming back in style.

It's as though

it's just starting to happen to him.

The troop turns and starts to run.

This was amazing.

Sink comes to Kaluto and says, if you get caught in this, you're dead.

As his aura starts to burn, teal and red and skulls start coming out of it.

He says, when Phaetan snaps, he lashes out at everything around him.

This ability is activated by rage.

This one would obliterate you.

And Kaluto says, this one?

There's more than one.

I want to see.

I love the little bit of curiosity about um that um kaloto has because i think that's like a fun little thing to have the zoldic kids be is still curious about the world even though they're like so sad super sheltered from it yeah it is uh there's a huge burst of aura from phaeton

menacing aura not as big or golden as uh

shall marks but it is like menacing and sort of defined in its shape and size.

And then, not for the first time, a character is suddenly wearing a new kind of clothes.

Well,

I just want to say briefly, it is wild to see the Phantom Troop turn and start running away from something.

Yes.

And it's one of their own, almost predictably.

It's so good.

Yeah, he looks like a...

God, what do you think?

He looks like he's from Silent Hill.

He does.

He looks like a Silent Hill cultist.

It looks like he's wearing a furnace suit to me.

It was like a like it's supposed to be, or not a furnace suit, but like it's like something like the

like when firefighters go right into the

right into the fire.

Yeah, no, that's what they do.

They go in there and they fight it.

It like reminds me of sort of like a welder's mask or like other types of things that you like other facial protection you wear and around extreme heat and light, which I like.

It's red and white.

It's really striking seeing him no, he's wearing some ears.

You don't think

that looks like he's fucking

Pyramid Head's cousin?

Oh, a little bit.

He also kind of looks like he's in corn.

He looks like a knight to me, like a medieval knight.

Well, combine all of these ideas, and that's what he looks like.

He looks like a knight that's wearing a boiler suit that belongs in Silent Hill.

You know what it reminds me of?

It reminds me of when you get all the Power Stones and Powerstone, and then your character transforms.

Yeah, yeah, that too.

There's a little bit of

Berserker armor from Berserk, too.

You know, in the first act of every Assassin's Creed game, when you see the big armor that's hidden in the vault and you have to collect 41 amulets or whatever to open the vault?

Yeah.

None of the good Assassin's Creeds, which are the ones that I've played, have that.

Which are the good Assassin's Creed games?

Assassin's Creed 1, 2, and 2 Brotherhood.

They absolutely have that.

What?

I don't remember that at all.

It's because you didn't collect all 41 amulets, Keith.

Jeez.

Sorry.

He says,

I'll pay back the pain.

The implication is that this attack that he's about to do is charged from the pain that was done to him.

First, he casts Pain Packer, a ball of white light, and Suzanne looks up.

This happens again and again, and I think it's a Shonen hallmark.

Is when someone knows that they're beaten, they kind of look at the oncoming attack with a sort of awe and wonder as it bears down on them.

And then he casts Rising Sun.

This is in the same way that Jupiter fell on that bug.

This seems to be the actual sun.

Painpacker, unforgiven, burnt by the sun.

It obliterates Zazan.

No, it doesn't actually.

It starts burning Zazan, and then the whole tower starts coming down.

The troop run and have to like dive into a hole as fire comes pouring past them.

At this point, I'm like,

why didn't they do any of this shit in Yorknu?

In York New, they were avenging Uvo.

My first reading was like,

this is what they do when Meteor City is at stake.

You know, this is the troop spending their ultimates, like Sylvie said, all in one go.

But they were like,

famously, like, wrapped up in violent grief throughout the back half of Yorknew.

I think it's that Karapika Karapika had gotten, had forced a stalemate, forced a non-aggression situation.

But the Requiem, the Requiem itself, the orgy of destruction that they did that night.

That's true.

I think it's two things.

I think that there's like a...

Okay, so one of the things about, I mean, we saw Dragon Ball Z.

We saw

Goku turn into a Super Saiyan.

I think there's a...

a moment flash of rage thing that is uh you know canonically

um

key to most people transforming into super saiyan for the first time this is the inherent malice that comes with being a super saiyan that prevents you from doing things like using the spirit bomb or riding the flying nimbus when you're a super saiyan uh because

it clouds your heart uh

and i think that this is sort of like that where it's like he needs to have a rage trigger

during a during fighting and i just think there's something more calmly methodical about a normal a normal kind of requiem slaughter like when they were avenging Uvo

yeah the other possibility is that they did all this and we didn't see it and Phaeton and no one no one could have been around because Phaeton would have killed all the other spiders by mistake

yes yes um

this is just a nightmare at this point.

Zizan is burning to death and Phaitan is kind of standing over her.

He says,

if only you dealt me more damage, you'd have had a quicker death.

You only had yourself to blame.

And then he taunts her like, oh, you can't breathe because the air is scorching your lungs.

He's like laughing maniacally as, you know,

the magic sort of begins to fade and his outfit.

Oh, Feytan got his shirt ripped off earlier and was...

Buff.

Everyone's getting their clothes ripped off.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is the clothes ripped off episode.

Yes.

He says, is it too hot?

A throat too scorched to even breathe?

You could try to run, assuming you can even move.

What's wrong?

Make use of that tough body you're so proud of.

All of this is being played in the, in what in the anime is like that, this backwards speech.

And he's like giggling.

Yes, yeah.

He's like,

he's gone crazy.

He's gone crazy.

This guy's gone crazy.

The entire troop has now made it out.

They leave.

It went very well for them.

They got a little beaten up, but this is an absolute W.

And as they leave, they notice that the people that have been transformed have not switched back.

The one that we saw transform earlier comes lumbering out of the shadows.

Scooby-Doo?

Oh, he does kind of look like Scooby-Doo.

There's one last note.

He does.

He does.

They're just not quite out of the blast yet.

Finx picks Kaluto up and saves him from the blast.

Yes.

That's very cute.

Yes.

I like Finx.

Finx is great.

I'm Pro Finx.

Pro Finx.

Deep in the exploitation territory of this all again, this sort of awful horse dog creation manages to rasp out, kill me.

And realizing that this is on the table, all the other transformed people reveal that they weren't catatonic so much as

depressed and stand up and beg for death.

And of course, the the troop, you know, willingly give this, right?

No.

Sort of.

Well, what Fink says is, I don't do mercy killings.

He doesn't do mercy killings.

They should have some pride as residents of Meteor City and go out with a bang, is what he says.

Yeah, definitely shouldn't like find a way to live and like be happy and keep going.

Nope.

But if you try to punch me, I'll punch you real quick.

It's hard to be in Meteor City, even as not a demon dog.

True, fair.

Yes, we see him winding up his stupid op.

Yeah.

You're right.

I've watched Full Metal Alchemist.

This is I was gonna say.

Yeah, yeah.

This is straight out of Full Metal Alchemist, Brotherhood, or maybe the manga.

I don't know if it's in the manga.

I don't know the difference.

Full Metal Alchemist, good.

I really enjoyed Brotherhood.

I haven't seen

what is Brotherhood.

Brotherhood is the redo of Full Metal Alchemist to make it, I have heard, more aligned with the manga.

Yes.

It's

kind of like the 2011 Hunter Hunter.

Yeah,

it's like a remake ish

it's not like kai where they're they're no cutting the bridging they're trying to make the full thing right the thing with full metal alchemist the original anime is that it eventually diverges wildly from the source material um there are like seven i don't think this is major spoilers there's like seven characters themed after the seven deadly sins and their identities are like completely different and that's interesting in the original like first run anime as opposed to Brotherhood and the manga.

Here's what I'll say.

I think that a lot of people that watch the 2011 Hunter Hunter

and

especially who haven't watched a lot of anime,

you finish it and you're like, well, now what do I do?

I like anime now, but

now what do I do?

And the sad answer is like, nothing really hits like Hunter Hunter does.

And one of the two things you can do is go back and watch Yu Yuhaka Show, a worse show that is in a lot of ways

really, really phenomenal in its own right, but that isn't quite the same show.

And I think a lot of other people go on to watch Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, a show that I think is like a lot more similar in the way it's constructed to Hunter Hunter, but is like, to me, worse in every way.

But it's really good.

Yeah, like it's good.

It's just hard to be as good as this, you know?

Right.

Interesting.

Yeah.

I would recommend it.

I think you could get a

No one should take what I say as an attack on Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, a show that I like and think is really good, just not as good as Hunter Hunter.

Also, no one should assume that we are, by talking about this, going to make a Media Club Plus season of Full Metal Alchemist following this.

We are explicitly not doing anime next.

As I understand it, Full Metal Alchemist is about like...

Two guys who do a spell and it goes wrong.

Yep.

Sure.

Basically.

Yeah, you kind of nailed it in one.

Yeah.

Good.

Got it.

We're really just tidying up now at the end.

Finx notices now Meteor City is arguing about whether or not to retaliate against the real queen.

I love that they don't really know that she's dead.

No.

They've got the right idea that there is somebody to retaliate against.

Well, actually, I mean, is there?

Now the ants are just fractured completely.

This wasn't anything to do with Merio M.

No, not at all.

It would just be war against ants, which does seem to be, you know.

I think Merio would have found this attempt disdainful.

Oh, Marowan would have effortlessly killed Zazan.

Yeah.

Yeah, Zazan wouldn't have made it.

Yeah.

There's, I can't remember if it's Finx or Phaeton who says now they're arguing about things that they can't accomplish anyway.

Like, they couldn't have,

they couldn't even deal with Zazan.

What are they going to do against the real queen?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um,

the phone rings, and Finx goes, Is it the boss?

Yeah, immediately, immediately,

so so cute.

Uh, it's not the boss, it's Nobunaga who's inviting them to help him on his thing, and then Finx is like, ah, fucking no, why would I ever do that?

Uh, and then Chellmark says, You're being, you, you're acting like a girl with a crush, and Phaeton calls him very feminine.

He does not like this, but I do like the sort of uh on-screenification of the fact that everyone is in love with Krolo.

All of the

every single one of them is like that about him.

Phaeton's face during the scene.

Oh, it's so funny.

It's so funny.

I love him.

Because he's exhausted as well.

He usually has this sort of like lank, greasy hair that flops down.

But after his ridiculous maneuver, it's like all spiked up.

Well, that's just for this one joke.

Because before it is just for this shot, this is right before it.

He's like this.

And then when he's like making fun of

Finx, it spikes up like that.

That's really, really good.

Shalak, sorry, shizuku is wearing phinxes robe

oh yeah

i didn't notice that that's so cute

but i didn't hate the phantom troop they're the best

they're the they're besties and they're wonderful evil besties

they're simply evil besties it's yeah it's like okay here's what it here's why they're so great as characters to me you know there's a lot of reasons but there's this insistence that they're constantly out there committing the worst crimes imaginable.

And then 95% of the time when they're on screen, they're just being like normal, silly weirdos.

And then now we get like the biggest fighting that they've ever done, and it's against the same guys that the heroes are fighting.

And it doesn't, you know, there's almost a refusal to treat them in the way that they've been characterized.

Yes.

Yes.

It's, and I think that that is part of the joke.

Yes.

I think I've, I've, I can't remember if I've mentally done this or just or said it, but every time I'm watch, like, whenever they have these moments of like bickering friendship, it reminds me of like those moments in Tarantino movies or whatever, or in, you know, maybe like in the scenes in Goodfellas when they're all like hanging out at the restaurant before Joe Pesci loses his mind, where they're just like hanging out, having a good time.

Like the whole point of being evil is so that we can just hang out and chill i've seen the sopranos i haven't yeah i know

but i have and i'm just saying

there's

love to see

what happens when it's time to pay the piper as far as that is concerned i think tagashi is capable of writing that i think at least at this point he is disinterested you know i think as far as he's concerned this is the thing about the phantom troop that they are ostensibly evil but mostly just and not just evil very, very, very evil, but mostly just hang.

But if Tagashi ever gets a bee in his bonnet

to,

you know, the hens are going to come underway

in terms of like,

I need to make you feel the way you are, quote unquote, supposed to feel about the Phantom Troop.

I think that is fascinating.

Yeah.

It's a challenge, I think, not in

not difficulty-wise.

I mean, like, it's not a high difficulty challenge, but I think that what the show is asking you to do is to, like, always have the two realities of these people in mind.

Yes, although I think that in general, Tagashi is more interesting.

I mean,

we and everybody loves the Phantom Troop, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That great.

Right.

But people love stormtroopers too, and they don't even have a fun personality.

Also, that kind of wrong.

I mean, they're a great design.

Right, sure.

That's yeah.

But I think that's part of

like, if, if, if the Phantom Troop were

13 Phinxes, we wouldn't love them.

No, you're right.

Um, and then the narrator, the showbarners go, oh, Gon and Kellua, right.

As a we're reminded that Goan and Kellua are like hiding in the grass, uh, preparing to, like, swim across a river to infiltrate.

the East Corteau.

This really was just a little vacation with the Phantom Troop.

It really was.

There's actually a bunch of really nice stills that show up in this.

And, like, hey, by the way, remember that this is a vacation.

I love this still of them crossing the river with their stuff tied on their heads.

Yeah, and then I love this still of the king on his throne.

Yeah.

Just absolutely stolen the throne of, you know.

The king thinks that what he has done is

like assumed the rightful place of true kings.

You know, they built all this infrastructure, but they were unworthy.

And I have, it has fallen into the hands of, but he really is just someone who is very violent and very powerful, who has just stolen all the previously existing infrastructure of, you know, no interest in statecraft, only interest in being the person at the top wielding the axe.

No interest in statecraft.

We shall see.

What are we watching next time?

Oh, God, fuck.

Well, you get that.

I can read Apple reviews.

No, sorry.

It is.

Oh, you forgot that.

I'm not sure if I'm changing things all up.

Yeah, it's

so I'm going to make a split decision here.

So next time we are watching episodes

98, 99, and 100

breaking off a hundo here with infiltration and selection, combination and evolution, and tracking and pursuit.

These are some classic hunter-hunter episode things.

Yeah.

Before we.

Oh, yes.

Oh, just nothing to worry about.

I'm just

right down the middle.

Keith, I think I have the review that you mentioned earlier, and I'm going to read it

while y'all decide on what name you're going to invoke next, because we need to do that.

I want to remind people

that we got.

Yeah, we last time we recorded, it hadn't been long enough from putting the episode out to hear from the Blakes.

And we still, the episode of a couple.

Oh, what was the next name?

Do we remember the next name?

Oh, I don't remember.

Well, that episode hasn't even gone up yet.

Oh, does that have a name in it?

Okay, I wasn't sure if we were waiting.

It does have a name.

Allie picked a name, and I don't remember what the name was.

Okay, so we'll.

That's a fun surprise for us.

That'll be a really fun surprise.

We'll start getting

April's, right?

Yes, April's is next, yeah.

Yeah, and some other name.

Anyway, um,

this is a March review.

This is from someone who was born in March.

I'm sorry to the Blakes, but I'm reading a March.

This is a long one.

I think this is the one you mentioned earlier.

March reporting for duty.

I've literally never touched Apple Podcasts before in my life, but I must heed the sacred call.

My girlfriend and I started listening to Media Club Plus together, and we made it maybe five episodes in before I decided I need to watch Hunter Hunter for myself.

I've now watched the entire series and caught up with the manga, and it has completely changed my personality.

That's all I think about.

Oh, my friend group has a Discord server.

Me and the friends who have seen the show were talking about it so much that we were banished to a separate Hunter Hunter channel.

I've decided to convince them to get matching spider tattoos.

I'm unwell.

Media Club Plus deserves five stars for introducing me to my new favorite show.

However, it would be an injustice to say that was the only reason Media Club Plus deserves five stars.

I agree, thank you.

This podcast is a joy to listen to.

I agree, thank you.

The host's brilliant analysis of this show helps me to see it in new, exciting ways.

I'm equally thrilled to hear them say something I've thought before

as I am to hear a completely new take that hadn't occurred to me.

The deep dives in the soundtrack are especially fun and enlightening as someone who knows nothing about music or scoring, and yet despite all of the serious media analysis, MC, I think a plus might be missing here, never fails to be uproariously funny.

I go in at every new episode and I'm going to knowing I'm going to have a good time.

Do yourself a favor and listen to this podcast.

You will absolutely not regret it.

Thank you so much.

That's very sweet.

Thank you, Alley37.

Yeah, thanks.

Do we have a new name?

Don't we need to wait until the old one is activated, Keith?

No.

Why?

Oh, my God.

No, because it's going to pass in time.

It's going to pass in time, right?

I guess.

It's never going to catch it.

Linearly.

You're just making this harder for me, though, when we're recording like

further down the line and they're still doing like April names when we're like, okay, so December.

I have faith.

I have faith that you'll figure it out.

Thank you.

I don't.

I think I'm going to get really stressed, and it's going to make me explode on the air.

I'll do that.

April?

It's

May.

May.

Are you born in May?

Today is the month.

Today is the month.

Today is our day, baby.

Today is the month.

Welcome to Today's May.

Dre, do you have a name that you want to summon?

Invoke?

I like summon.

I like summon too.

The first thing that comes to mind is Patrick.

Have we done Patrick?

We sure have.

We have not done Patrick.

Patrick.

It is.

Patrick.

Or if you were born in the month of May, the merry month of May.

Yeah.

Today's your May.

Today's your May.

Today is the month.

Tomay is your day.

Anything else we want to say?

If you had said, I'm glad that you don't tell me what is going to happen in the episodes because it does kind of ruin the show.

But if during the last recording with like Meriwen killing everybody, you had said, Jack, are you ready to see the Phantom Troop kill people for two episodes?

I would just have been so excited.

I'm glad you got spoiled that much experience.

Yeah.

Because you would have known if you had watched the next time on,

which I don't.

Which you don't.

And I think that that's for virtue reasons.

Yeah, I think that that's the right

choice.

Quickly mention

the next time on, though, for episode 97, because it is a fun little thing to go off on.

Yeah.

It is just the voiceover is all I need to mention.

It's just Kiliwa and Gon both going Meleorion the chameleon over and over again if it's a tongue twister.

And that was really good.

Wait, are they doing?

I didn't know that they were doing little chibi next time ons.

It's not chibi, it's just the voiceover

while the

same vibe.

While the clips play.

They just have like, they need some audio to put over it, and they have literally never taken that seriously.

It's always Gone and Killiwa doing bits.

Do you remember Hunt Encyclopedia?

Let's bring that back.

I do.

Yeah.

Bring back Hunt Encyclopedia.

Ant Cyclopedia.

The sub calls it Huncyclopedia.

Oh.

Hunterpedia is much better.

Wait, say it again?

Hunterpedia is much better.

Hunterpedia is better in English.

When you hear them say it in the Japanese, it sounds good, Huncyclopedia.

I think it's funny because it's clunky said in English with an English accent.

So I like to say it because I I think it's goofy.

But it does, it does fit when they say it in their show.

Okay, that's it.

Bye.