Hunter x Hunter Screenshot Analysis AUDIO
Transcriber: AnAchilles, thedreadbiter (intro)
Choosing Screenshots [21:00] 17
Austin’s Screenshot [1:30:10] 72
The Final Screenshot [1:51:20] 90
Keith: Hi, everyone. My name is Keith Carberry, I’m very excited to be introducing this new feed to you. Some of you might know a little bit about this, some of you might not, so we’re gonna do a real quick explainer, and then I’m gonna go.
A few months ago we pitched the idea to our audience of doing a Hunter x Hunter rewatch podcast featuring me, Sylvi Bullet, Andrew Lee Swan, and Jack de Quidt, who is the one of the four of us who has zero experience with Hunter x Hunter, and very little, surprisingly little experience with anime in general. That was maybe gonna be a Patreon exclusive show, and then instead it sort of ballooned out into this idea where the Hunter x Hunter show was gonna be season one of a longer project where different casts are gonna be talking about different pieces of media as individual seasons, with the entirety of the 2011 Hunter x Hunter series as season one.
Now, this episode specifically is the audio version of a stream that we did as a teaser when we were first preparing to launch the show, where Jack de Quidt was shown a series of screencaps from Hunter x Hunter, and was made to analyze them in depth knowing absolutely nothing… Just a very long, very fun guessing game — they did a fantastic job, it was a ton of fun. If you haven’t watched, I highly recommend you take a listen to this. The screencaps are gonna be in the episode description, so that you can follow along with the images.
The actual first episode of this show is starting very soon, September 5th, and will be releasing every other Tuesday thereafter. So Episode 1 will be on the 5th, then the 19th, then October 3rd. While we were preparing everything on the back end, we’ve done a ton of episodes. It has been a blast so far. I have been loving doing this show. I think you are also going to love it.
This show is supported by the Friends at the Table Patreon, it wouldn’t exist without all of our backers over there at friendsatthetable.cash. If you wanna support the show, I highly recommend going to friendsatthetable.cash, checking it out, and if you wanna do something really amazing for us, you can go to Apple Podcasts and rate the show 5 stars. It is unfortunately a really major part of the podcasting game that I personally tend to ignore to my own detriment, so… This time I’m saying it. Go to Apple Podcasts, rate the show 5 stars, leave a review. We all really wanna do a good job with this show and that helps, so thank you.
If you’re living in the present of September 2023 like I am, you might be worried about the WGA and SAG strike that’s ongoing. Of course, Hunter x Hunter is a Japanese show made in Japan, they don’t work with American unions, obviously. But the show does have a dub. If you are worried about that, the dub was not a union production. Maybe in an ideal world the dub would have been a union production, and this would be struck work, but as it stands, it’s not.
Regardless, if you don’t wanna engage with the streaming platforms right now, there’s plenty of ways to watch Hunter x Hunter. You could even read along with the manga if you wanted to do that instead, get a little bit of a different flavor. And, of course, we talk a lot about the, you know, minute-to-minute realities of what’s going on on screen. You are totally free to not watch Hunter x Hunter at all; if you choose to just listen to this show, that’s totally fine.
Okay, before this gets even longer, here it is, Episode 0 of the Hunter x Hunter podcast, Episode 0 of Friends at the Table’s Media Club Plus. Here you go.
Sylvi: …Our Hunter x Hunter show by talking about Dragon Ball Z [laughing].
Keith: Well, that's a very, I mean, it's a very good way to start a thing about Hunter x Hunter — we've, sorry, everybody, we've been muted, talking about Dragon Ball Z, which is off-topic —
Sylvi: [laughing]
Keith: But it's actually extremely on-topic, because, and I haven't seen Punch-Drunk Love, but if I had to describe Hunter x Hunter in any way, which I will have to do for this episode, it would be like, uh, Dragon Ball Z Punch-Drunk Love.
Jack: Okay. Punch-Drunk Love is a film by Paul Thomas Anderson, not to be confused with the other, legendary, Paul WS Anderson, maker of the Resident Evil pictures.
Keith: Right. Yes.
Sylvi: Oh yeah, my king. I was genuinely confused —
Jack: Both excellent filmmakers.
Sylvi: About which one. [chuckles]
Jack: In their, [chuckling] in their own right.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: Uh, same thing happens with, uh, one of the Garfield movies, is directed by, I think some Cohen brothers, who are not the Coen brothers. Uh... which is also wild.
Keith: Yes, different, I think differently spelled, also.
Sylvi: That's very funny.
Jack: Uh...?
Sylvi: Is it Cohen with an H?
Keith: I think it, I think that it is, yeah.
Sylvi: That's great.
Jack: That's extremely funny.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: Now, when you say, Paul — [chuckling] I nearly did it — Paul Thomas Anderson —
Keith: Right.
Jack: Has made films in a variety of genres, you know?
Keith: Right.
Jack: Uh, from the sort of, like, his takes on romantic comedies, like Punch-Drunk Love, to big, bleak, uh, neonoir Westerns, like There Will Be Blood. When you say Hunter x Hunter is... [chuckling] like, Punch-Drunk Love —
Keith: Uh-huh.
Jack: What are you talking about?
Keith: Okay, I can — this is super easy to explain. Do you know Adam Sandler?
Jack: I do know Adam Sandler, yes.
Keith: Okay. So you know how Punch-Drunk Love is meant to be like, a spoof, like a realistic take on the very unrealistic character that Adam Sandler plays in his, you know, Adam sand — in his Happy Madison-verse?
Jack: In his, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Keith: And it's like, “what if we took that guy and forced a reality around him?”
Jack: Sort of like, dunked his head fully into the world of the real.
Keith: Right, and —
Sylvi: Yeah.
Keith: Hunter x Hunter is, in a lot of ways, what if you did that to Goku from Dragon Ball Z, or from Dragon Ball?
Sylvi: Goku is Happy Gilmore, and Gon is... I haven't seen Punch-Drunk Love.
Keith: Right. Gon is a Punch-Drunk Lovified Goku.
Jack: That's fascinating to me.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: I would like to briefly shout out a really great interview in which, it's at some Comic Con, or something, it's at some, you know, where they all sit in a line on a table, and people ask them questions that are sort of masked versions of their own theories about film. And someone stands up and says to Paul Thomas Anderson, you know, “what is it that drew you to Adam Sandler? Did you see something in him that you thought you might be able to make a really interesting movie about?” And Paul Thomas Anderson is just like, “he's fucking funny, dude. Makes me crack up all the time. I love this guy.”
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: “And I really love his movies.” And it's just so, the — this film bro audience – and I use film bro there, people of any gender can be a film bro. I'm using that very expansively.
Sylvi: I tend to be one, so like, you know.
Jack: Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [chuckling]
Keith: I, I have, I also have, I have very strong opinions on the film bro thing anyway, which we maybe —
Jack: Yes.
Keith: This will lead into that.
Jack: Uh, but just, there's this moment where they cannot figure out that the reason that Paul Thomas Anderson cast Adam Sandler is because he likes his work and thinks he's a good actor.
Keith: Right. And he is a good actor.
Jack: He is. I really liked, uh,... fuck, what's that stupid movie called? Uncut Gems. Uh...
Keith: Oh yeah, I haven't seen that, but I heard almost totally good things about it.
Jack: I watched, I heard all the hype, and I watched it, and I thought, “yeah, this movie's fun, it's fine.” And then like, almost immediately, it settled, it crystallized in my head as like, “yeah, I had a really good time with that movie, and I'd watch it again.”
Keith: Mm-hm. Mm-hm. Uh, I heard it was, I heard the, the sort of meme thing about it was how stressful it was to watch. I had a very hard time digesting that, trying to figure out what people meant...
Sylvi: I don't —
Keith: Seeing someone, like, sort of like —
Jack: Sylvi, I can feel Sylvi [laughing] just like developing an opinion here.
Keith: Yeah, what, what is it?
Jack: Self-professed film bro.
Sylvi: I mean, I — there's, it's just, like I guess it is stress — there's this whole thing going on right now where people react very strongly to things that were going on in film, like, a couple decades ago, or longer ago.
Keith: Okay.
Sylvi: Because they've been gone for so long, and I think that's kind of why Uncut Gems got the reputation for being this really tense thriller. Like, it's got a good —
Jack: Yeah.
Sylvi: Like, it is stressful, I'm not taking that away from it. Uh...
Jack: But, I mean, Collateral is also a stressful movie.
Sylvi: That's literally the comparison I was thinking of!
Jack: Oh, was it? [laughing]
Keith: Collateral.
Jack: Ugh, clasping your hands, Sylvi. Yeah, Collateral is a Michael Mann movie, I think, which has a super great premise, which is that a taxi driver takes on a client, who is a full murderer.
Keith: Oh, oh, this is Tom Cruise, and, uh... and —
Sylvi: Jamie Foxx, yeah.
Keith: And Jamie Foxx, yeah.
Jack: Yeah.
Keith: I have this movie, I just haven't seen it.
Jack: Oh, it's great. I love Collateral.
Keith: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jack: Does anyone have — should I watch Heat, Sylvi?
Sylvi: Uh, I like Heat. I contend that Heat is — we can't, I can't get into this, we'll never talk about what we're here to talk about today, but Heat is yaoi to me. Heat is boys' love —
Jack: Everything is yaoi to you!
Sylvi: No, that's not true. I have... hm.
Jack: [laughing]
Sylvi: I can't — I'm trying to think of an example right now, but there's a lot of things that aren't. A lot of things are yuri to me.
Keith: Uh... Romeo and Juliet.
Jack: Is it a 50/50 split, or is it —
Sylvi: No, sometimes things just don't have any sauce at all.
Keith: Every, everybody's — [laughs]
Jack: Oh...
Keith: Everybody's going to notice, I hope, that the audio just drastically changed. That's because I had a button press that makes the audio better for me, and worse for all of you on my stream. So I pressed that button —
Sylvi: Oh my god.
Keith: I pressed that button, and it made everything better.
Jack: Hello, everybody, we are Friends at the Table. We have been Friends at the Table for nearly the last decade, and we continue to be. My name is Jack. You can find me on Cohost at @JDQ, and on Twitter at @notquitereal. I am joined today by Sylvi.
Sylvi: Hello, I'm Sylvi. You can find me everywhere at @Sylvibullet.
Jack: Also with me here today — oop.
Sylvi: Also, we have Tiktok, @friends_table, and you're watching this on Twitch if you're watching this live, but, Twitch.tv/friendsatthetable. How you doing?
Jack: Hello, chat. Finally —
Keith: Finally.
Jack: Marshaling the controls of this stream —
Keith: I've got the buttons.
Jack: The man with the buttons. Who are you?
Keith: Keith Carberry, hi.
Sylvi: [cracking up]
Keith: My name's Keith Carberry. You can find me on Twitter at @Keithjcarberry. You can find the Let's Plays that I do at YouTube.com/runbutton.
Jack: What are we doing here today?
Keith: Uh, so, Jack, we are a mere thousand-and-change dollars away from our goal of doing a mini-watch podcast of the very long, very good, uh, uh, anime, Hunter x Hunter, which you have neither seen nor really heard almost anything about. I, I, I want to say this was off-air, and I know that it's not about Hunter x Hunter, but Jack's unfamiliarity with the genre extends as far as to not having recognized Bulma from Dragon Ball Z, even when it said —
Sylvi: Yeah.
Keith: Bulma, when they bought her from the Fortnite store.
Sylvi: I will say, I looked up the design, and it isn't one of the — it's the newest like, Dragon Ball Super design of Bulma —
Keith: It is, yes.
Sylvi: Which is definitely less iconic than the DBZ and Dragon Ball looks —
Keith: It's true, but it's really just a different hair —
Sylvi: I have strong Bulma opinions, surprising nobody.
Keith: It's really just a different haircut. And she has different hair cuts all the time —
Sylvi: True.
Keith: In Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z.
Jack: Right. What I will say is that while my unfamiliarity was such that I did not know Bulma, uh, my taste was good enough that I did purchase the character. Because I thought —
Sylvi: Yeah.
Jack: I want to run around the Fortnite island, looking like whoever this is.
Keith: And it was a good decision.
Jack: Yeah, it's fun. Although, I have the random thing on, on Fortnite, because part of the fun of it is — the random character selection, because part of it's like, “who am I going to be this time?”
Keith: Right.
Jack: Oh, I'm going to be that fucker from Dead Space, on the Fortnite island. [chuckles]
Keith: Which thing that Fortnite absorbed am I going to morph into?
Sylvi: Peter Griffin.
Jack: That is tremendously — I'm sorry? Peter Griffin — [chuckles]
Sylvi: Peter Griffin? Isn't he in it yet?
Keith: I don't think so. [laughing]
Jack: I don't think so, but I feel like —
Sylvi: That's fucked. That's fucked.
Jack: I feel like they should put him in it.
Keith: Justice for Peter Griffin!
Sylvi: That would get me to play Fortnite.
Jack: I think that the thing that Fortnite is, is a very particular kind of malicious, and a very [chuckling] kind of extractor —
Sylvi: Oh, it's pure evil.
Keith: Oh yeah, it is. Yeah.
Jack: But like Keith said, I take a kind of... cold joy, in what thing has Fortnite even, am I going to be when the game loads.
Keith: Yeah. Yeah. It is, it's a, it, you, it's a paint thinner, you put it in everything, it comes out as a goop, and then you put the goop into a mould, press it down, and then boom, you've got an everything-colored, Peter Griffin-shaped shooter.
Jack: Did you all ever see —
Keith: Man.
Jack: A short-running toy, which allowed you [chuckling] to... through the production of molten metal, die-cast your own Hot Wheels cars?
Keith: [chuckling] No, that sounds really good.
Sylvi: That rules.
Keith: It does, it rules.
Jack: Uh, make, you were, you were making — it was like a kiln, basically. They sold, like a kiln, to children. Kiln!
Sylvi: They were helping kids become smithies, yeah.
Keith: Yeah. And they should.
Sylvi: Mm-hm!
Jack: Become smithies?
Keith: We've lost, it's something we've lost.
Sylvi: You learn a trade when you're like —
Jack: Yes, that is something we've lost.
Keith: Bring, bring back the metal, the metal trades.
Sylvi: Bring back [laughing] — metallurgy's due for a comeback.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: Metallurgy is — exist — metallurgy still happens, but it is relegated to the realm of the corporation. Home metallurgy, now that is something that should return.
Sylvi: Yeah, this is what I mean.
Jack: Yes. Fayling01 in the chat says, “the children yearn for the forges.” It's true. Now, before we continue, I would like to make an ask, of the chat, which is — I know nothing about Hunter x Hunter.
Keith: Right.
Jack: Keith and Sylvi know a lot about Hunter x Hunter.
Sylvi: Mm-hm.
Jack: I am reading the chat during this stream, so that I can properly engage.
Keith: Sure.
Jack: So, I would like everybody to be extreme cautious, about not just spoilers, but also, coy, fun spoilers. I don't want to see any of this shit where it's like, “Jack doesn't know about the orb.” You know?
Sylvi: Is there an orb?
Keith: It's going to be so funny when we get to the orb.
Jack: [laughing] Uh... because I, I, I — so much of the fun of this is like, I genuinely don't know. Uh...
Keith: Oh, and no fake spoilers, like I did, that will make Jack think that you spoiled something, but you actually didn't.
Jack: [laughing] Orb chat will be banned on first sight. Classic orb. [chuckling] Okay, so, what I said... a very short time ago was, “oh, if we hit a certain subgoal on the Patreon, in order to, to move towards the Hunter x Hunter show, Keith and Sylvi will show me a Hunter x Hunter screenshot, and I will interpret it live, for you.” And we hit the goal very quickly. Uh... which was great. And I'm, I'm really excited by, uh, people's, people's interest in this show. Was it you who pitched this first, Sylvi, or was it Keith?
Sylvi: I think —
Keith: I thought you, I thought this was your idea.
Sylvi: This sort of came about because, uh, I think we just all kind of happened to be engaged — I think a big thing was, when it came to, they added it to the Shonen Jump app, and so a lot of people started talking about it again, and some people started watching it again. I know that Austin and I talked about the show, and like, Dre and I have talked about it too. And then I think we were just kicking around, like, things we could do. And it was either Austin or I threw it out there. And... here we are.
Jack: It very much had the vibe of like, a placeholder name that becomes, that you suddenly realize you're really invested in. When we were talking about, like, various other limited run shows we could do, either you or Austin was like, “like, for example a limited-run Hunter x Hunter show.”
Sylvi: I think that was Austin, yeah.
Jack: And then — we just kept talking about it, we were like, “oh, shit, that might actually be the show.”
Sylvi: Right.
Keith: Because Austin had recently watched it, Dre had recently watched it, every time they would talk about having seen something, me and Sylvi would both be like, “uh-huh, uh-huh.”
Sylvi: Well, then I started watching it again, too.
Keith: And I had just finished watching it again on my own, anyway.
Sylvi: It's good, it's good. And so, if you want to help us, if you want to help me watch Hunter x Hunter for I think the fourth time, go to friendsatthetable.cash.
Jack: What is the specific goal that we're aiming for, and how close are we to it? I know Keith said just shy of 1,000 dollars, or something.
Keith: Just, just shy of 1,300 dollars.
Jack: That's a lucky —
Sylvi: Do you have the exact number? Because when I go to look, it will be in Canadian dollars.
Keith: Oh, I can do —
Jack: The same thing happens to me with Great British Pounds, despite the fact that I live in Los Angeles.
Sylvi: That's weird.
Jack: [chuckles]
Sylvi: I wonder if it's in your head.
Keith: So it is, the number is 30,000, and the number we're looking for is, uh, 1,284 more dollars.
Jack: That's incredible. And you can get to that by going to friendsatthetable.cash. Uh, you know, I want to say how much people's support has meant since we revamped the Patreon. It's a lot of work to make those changes, kind of spearheaded by, by Art. And, it was kind of scary, to make those changes, to be like, “how is this going to go down, and how are folks going to feel about it?” But we are so grateful, and so heartened by the response that those changes have got.
Keith: Yeah, it went really great. It was definitely nerve-wracking for everybody, especially since we'd been kicking around these changes, wanted to make them for... like, literally years.
Sylvi: Years? [chuckling]
Jack: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was very sweet, our old Patreon was like, “we've made over 250 episodes.” It's like... we've made so many episodes of Friends at the Table, now. And I think we've just fully removed that number. But, if you are interested in a number, the number to hit is at the 30k mark, we will make this limited run Hunter x Hunter show.
Keith: And we don't know how many episodes that means. It's not, you know, this isn't like a multi-year long thing, where we're going to do, you know, 3 episodes and watch —
Sylvi: Oh yeah.
Keith: This is like, uh, I don't know. I don't want to put a number on it. We had to like, look at the — because all the seasons are, I would say, the difference in length between seasons is comical. So...
Sylvi: Yeah. I think... arcs instead of seasons is a sort of thing we should be looking at. We can talk about it later, but even then there's like arc —
Keith: I didn't, I meant arcs, yeah. I mean, we're talking about —
Sylvi: Yeah, okay. Yeah. Because, like, we can't. I can't. I'm going to slip and say something. We've got to be careful here.
Keith: Take it and do it. Right. So, we're going to have to go through and look at the episodes and be like, how many does this deserve, how many does this deserve. And that'll take actual time to figure out. But we will do it, and the episodes will come out, presuming that we get to that 30,000 number. Do we want —
Jack: Now, how many screenshots have you got for me today?
Keith: Well... okay, do you want me to be honest, or do you want me to tell you the number you're expecting to hear?
Jack: I would like you to be honest — I think it's important that we are honest.
Sylvi: This... [laughing] this is a test that Gon would have. This is something someone would say to — do you want to guess or do you want to — like, that's an answer someone would give him, in my mind, you know?
Jack: [whispering] I’m learning there’s someone called Gon.
Keith: So, the answer that you were expecting me to say is 3.
Jack: Mmm.
Keith: The answer that I actually have is 6.
Jack: What?
Sylvi: What?
Keith: Well, I'm not saying that I'm going to give you all of them. I'm just saying that that's what I have.
Sylvi: Oh. Damn, you did — oh my god.
Keith: So I have my —
Sylvi: Leorio here or something.
Keith: Mine, I have Sylvi's, I have Austin's.
Jack: Austin has submitted one. [chuckles]
Sylvi: Yeah.
Keith: And then I have — oh, sorry. It's not 6, I accidentally included the logo here, as one of them. So I have 5. So I have 2 —
Sylvi: Okay.
Keith: I have two that I, that I couldn't not at least put on here, and we'll see if we, uh, have a minute to, to donate to that.
Jack: Okay, cool. I would also like to say that last night, I dreamt that we had this conversation.
Keith: Yes.
Sylvi: Ooh.
Jack: And as part of that, I dreamt a screenshot that was shown to me. So...
Keith: I'm so excited for that.
Sylvi: Can we — yeah, we need to start with this.
Jack: Oh, we start with the dream?
Keith: Oh, I was thinking that maybe we —
Sylvi: Oh, should — no, those, actually, wait, we should close with the dream.
Keith: Okay, I was going to say that we do it third out of four.
Sylvi: Then maybe you can sort of, okay. I was thinking you could use the information you glean from our screenshots to sort of interpret your —
Jack: Oh, to interpret...
Sylvi: Like, see if anything that you've sussed out... I don't know.
Keith: Okay.
Sylvi: So we can, we can... yeah, I don't know. I mean, yeah, I'm a big believer in this sort of thing, astral projection and manga writing in your brain, et cetera.
Jack: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Uh, the chat is asking if I could interpret the logo real quick. Uh, obviously I've seen the Hunter x Hunter logo before, but I don't think I've seen it in this vertical treatment. I think I've just seen, like, uh, the, them next to each other with the green, with the very striking green X in the middle.
Keith: Well I like, I like this one because, this one is a little bit thematic to me.
Jack: Mmm, yes. Well —
Sylvi: [laughing]
Jack: Well, so, you know. Hunter x Hunter is a mirrored title, you know, even spoken, with this X in the middle, it sort of gives the impression of two things being mirrored, and that's really being shown here.
Keith: Yeah, yeah.
Jack: Uh, I like that an H looks the same mirrored as it does, uh, the other way around, except here we've got this tall, tall ascender on the left-hand upper H. Maybe this Hunter is the boss.
Keith: [laughing]
Sylvi: [laughing]
Keith: Yeah, maybe that Hunter's the boss.
Sylvi: Maybe!
Jack: That's taller.
Keith: Or, yeah, or maybe just is taller.
Jack: And this raises a really interesting question that I wonder if we're going to get to with the screenshots, which is — okay, so firstly, is this show about Hunters?
Keith: Yes.
Jack: What is the word Hunter doing in the title of the show? I had assumed it was about hunters, because it's called Hunter x Hunter.
Keith: Right.
Jack: And if so, are there two hunters, or is it like, uh, like a reflection of the self?
Sylvi: Oh!
Keith: Ooh.
Jack: You, you know, is it two different — did you say no?
Keith: Yep, nope. You're wrong. [laughing]
Sylvi: Zero introspection on this show.
Keith: [still laughing]
Jack: [laughs]
Keith: I'm sorry, that was a joke.
Jack: Uh, something I do like is that the U is slightly, uh, overlapping the other U, which doesn't happen in any of the other letters. I don't think that that has any deep meaning, but I think [chuckling] it's a nice logo treatment. Hm, that's all I have here, really.
Keith: Hm, does it have any — yeah, I think I'm going to say, no, that it has deep meaning.
Jack: Yeah.
Keith: But I did have to think about it.
Jack: Sylvi?
Sylvi: Uh, wait, the U? Whether the U has deep meaning?
Keith: Well, the fact that it, that it overlaps the other U —
Jack: The way the U is slightly occluding —
Keith: In a way that none of the other letters do.
Sylvi: Oh, I can see the interpretation there. I could see it. I could see — yeah.
Jack: Yeah. When was this show made?
Keith: That's a very interesting question, Jack.
Sylvi: Uh, I believe...
Keith: Because it was made twice.
Jack: [laughing] What? Oh, Hunter x Hunter! I see!
Keith: They made... it was made, that's exactly what it is. The first time, they made the first Hunter.
Sylvi: God damn it.
Keith: Then they made the second Hunter. Uh, no. So the, the, the manga’s, has been being written since the 90s and is still being written.
Jack: Huh.
Keith: The original anime came out in 1999, and then they basically redid it, and it came out in 2011.
Sylvi: Yes. Uh...
Jack: Huh.
Keith: And I believe that they both cover the exact same period of events.
Sylvi: I think that the new one is, goes further, because —
Keith: Oh, okay.
Sylvi: Because there was more material, I believe.
Keith: Yeah, I wasn't sure how much had been done, post-1999. Oh, actually, 2011 has a little extra. Oh, no, no, that —
Sylvi: Yeah, no, no, yeah, 2011's the one that has more, 2011 has like —
Keith: I just saw the words 2011 and I was like, “that's forever ago, surely that's the older show,” even though I just gave —
Sylvi: Yeah, no, you did say 199, like 8, I believe? Or 99?
Keith: 99. Yeah.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Keith: Original show. Uh, how much more, for the chat? How much more does the 2011 have? Unless, Sylvi, you know.
Sylvi: Uh, hold on, let me look. Oh, shoot, I only have the, uh... I only have the episode list for the... 2011 —
Jack: But they did really set out to, to try and make the show again?
Keith: Yes. Yeah.
Jack: Uh, and I... you know, if we, if we get to make this show, I'm sure that we will, we will end up talking about the, the kind of double-adaptive move, right, of first making an anime from a manga, and then making that anime again? Uh, and, you know, discussing how intentions might have changed, or how the thing they were trying to make might have changed in the remaking. But it, but it sounds like their initial goal really was not to do anything more complicated than, “let's make the show again.”
Keith: Let's make the show again.
Sylvi: Yeah. Looking at the show —
Keith: I have the answer, it stops right before the ants.
Sylvi: Yeah, pretty — well, a little bit. More — it depends. So, the show — there was an OVA, this is where I'm getting into my anime club shit. There was an OVA that like sort of gets appended on to the original one, so like, the TV episodes, there's like 62 TV episodes of original Hunter x Hunter, but then these like, later-released things, add up to like an extra 30 episodes.
Jack: Interesting.
Sylvi: Yeah, which does leave us right before ant time. The infamous ants.
Jack: The infamous ants — the ants is really the only thing I know, and I'll, I'll say this off the top. And here's what I know about Hunter x Hunter —
Keith: You really don't know anything about them. You know about that they — you know the words.
Jack: Well, well, yeah. I know... here's what I know about Hunter x Hunter. I can have a hazy image of one of the characters in my head. He wears orange, I think he wears a headband.
Sylvi: Hm?
Jack: That's the first thing I know. The second thing I know —
Sylvi: [wheezes]
Jack: Is that there is a beloved, uh, uh, renowned arc, called the chimera ant arc, that makes people very excited. [chuckling] And that's, that's it.
Keith: Jack, are you colorblind?
Sylvi: Jack, you did describe Naruto. [chuckling]
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: [laughing]
Keith: Oh, yes, yes, you described Naruto.
Sylvi: [chuckling] Those are two of Naruto's defining traits, wears orange, has a head band. [laughing]
Jack: [laughing]
Keith: Right.
Jack: I, I — [chuckling] Naruto.
Keith: I'm glad that you caught that it was Naruto, and not what I assumed, which was that maybe Jack was colorblind and sees green as orange.
Jack: [laughing] No, that was Naruto. Okay. All right.
Keith: So this is the third show that you don't know anything about.
Jack: Okay, so I know one thing. Uh, yes. Well, no. I know what Naruto looks like.
Keith: Well, now you do. [laughs]
Jack: Now I do! Previously, if you'd asked me if I knew anything about Naruto, I'd say, “I don't know shit. I don't know what that guy looks like...” [chuckling]
Keith: Mm-hm.
Jack: Austin in the chat says, “what if Jack watched all of this and was like, “so that's Naruto.””
Keith: [laughing]
Sylvi: [laughing]
Keith: There's so much Hunter talk in Naruto.
Jack: That's all I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All I know is that there is, you know, a very, uh, well-regarded arc. Lengthy arc, called the chimera ant arc.
Sylvi: Mm-hm.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: That's it!
Keith: That's it. And I really believe that that's it.
Jack: Yeah.
Sylvi: And we're going to make sure that stays it. For now. Like, you're going to learn eventually when we get to —
Keith: Right, and we have these, we have the screenshots, obviously.
Sylvi: I'm just reminding the chat, because if people joined late — don't spoil anything. Be nice.
Jack: Yeah. Yeah.
Keith: Do we want to go to the first —
Sylvi: I think we should.
Keith: Okay.
Jack: So whose is this?
Keith: Uh, by the way, I, I, I declined to screen share with you, because I just, it was too much of a headache.
Jack: That's fine. Yeah, no, no, no.
Keith: I figured that you'd get it enough from the Twitch thing, and it would update fast enough.
Jack: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not worried.
Keith: Okay.
Sylvi: I sent you mine.
Jack: Oh, whoa!
Sylvi: There you go.
Jack: Whoa, okay, whose screenshot is this?
Keith: This is Sylvi's.
Sylvi: This is my one.
Jack: Wow! Sylvi!
Sylvi: [laughing]
Jack: Now, how quickly did you know that this was the screenshot that you would like to choose?
Sylvi: I knew that this was the general, that within the sort of like, 5 or 10 episode stretch of where I was going to find a screenshot, and then I just sort of scrubbed through a couple, until I got to the scenes I was looking for.
Jack: Incredible. We are looking at a sport court. Now, I would describe this, initially, as either a basketball court —
Sylvi: [chuckling]
Jack: But the orb that the character is holding is not a basketball. I would also describe it as potentially a volleyball court, but there is a net missing, but there is no net.
Sylvi: Mm-hm.
Jack: Or a dodgeball court. It could be dodgeball, that might be the ball that our characters are — our character, in the left-hand, his back to us, he's holding, he's got big, hairy arms, he's got a ring on his index finger. He's holding up what looks like a, a black and yellow dodgeball, probably. Uh, in his left hand. He is wearing a sleeveless, maroon sweater with a logo on the back. And the logo is dark maroon, plus black, and it is a... how would I describe this? It looks a little bit like the M of Millennium Break. It's like a —
Sylvi: [laughing]
Jack: It's like a, sort of a weird, four-pointed star that has been squished, that has been squashed. Chat is pointing out —
Keith: Uh, if you were putting — sorry, you continue.
Jack: The chat is pointing out that these might be the shadows of his shoulderblades.
Sylvi: Yeah. [laughing]
Jack: Yeah. This is something that might be clearer in motion, obviously, as the symbol would appear or disappear.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: But this could just be a very strong man, very well-defined shoulderblades. He has spiky —
Keith: Well, the chat is wrong. It is a logo. And if you're putting on your sort of marketer cap, what sort of company do you think this logo might be used for?
Jack: Who's the fast food joint that has the star as its logo?
Keith: That sounds like Carl's Jr.
Sylvi: It has two names. Hardee's or Carl's Jr.
Keith: Okay, I was right, okay.
Jack: That's my answer. Hardee's or Carl's Jr.
Keith: So this is, if you were to redesign Carl's Jr. slash Hardee's, maybe a sort of Millennium Break M that gets kind of wonky in the middle.
Jack: [chuckling] I suppose, yes.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: This man is threatening to throw the dodgeball at —
Keith: At?
Jack: At...
Sylvi: [inhales]
Jack: A child. Or, a very small adult. This is —
Sylvi: [laughing]
Jack: A slight figure. Uh, who is also wearing a white, sleeveless shirt, gray shorts, some, some cute little shoes. These do not look like suitable shoes. These look like, [chuckling] I don't know, I don't know what these look like.
Keith: This is, this is Sasuke, by the way.
Jack: This character's name is Sasuke.
Sylvi: [laughing]
Jack: Uh, this person has —
Keith: That's another Naruto joke, Jack, I'm sorry.
Jack: Oh, I wouldn't have got that. I thought that this person was Sasuke.
Keith: It was for everyone in the world besides you.
Jack: No fear on this person's face. In, in fact, probably no fear, because behind this individual, what pronouns should I be using for this slight person?
Sylvi: He/him.
Jack: Okay. Behind this person, is a... [laughing]
Sylvi: [laughing]
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: Is, a... gorilla. With a human head. Sort of.
Sylvi: [laughing]
Jack: And a... very well-defined six-pack. An eight-pack, if we're counting his pecs.
Sylvi: An ape-pack.
Jack: An ape-pack. This figure is leaning forward on his knuckles, like a gorilla stands. And, and really, you know, by the coloration, this, this fellow's eight-pack is, is pale, is tan-colored, to match the color of his chiseled, humanesque face. Uh...
Keith: What's he doing there?
Jack: Looks like... what is he doing there? Great fucking question, Keith.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Jack: He is protecting this boy, this slight individual. I think that he —
Sylvi: He's a boy. I think we can say, he's a boy. I think that's not a spoiler.
Keith: That's not a spoiler.
Sylvi: Just to save you some time.
Jack: I feel like this boy is not afraid, of the dodgeball wearing, shoulder-bladed spiky-haired fellow in the foreground.
Keith: Is there anyone else here?
Jack: Yes. There is the character from the background of a Sailor Moon episode.
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: In the far distance, behind —
Keith: It's a cam, it's a cameo from the author's, uh, wife's show.
Jack: Oh. Whoa, did she write Sailor Moon?
Keith: Yeah, yep.
Sylvi: She sure did.
Jack: Wait, the Hunter x Hunter author's wife —
Sylvi: Yeah.
Jack: Is the creator of Sailor Moon?
Keith: Sure was.
Jack: This fucking rules. [chuckling]
Sylvi: They, they met after each — I think she had already made Sailor Moon when they met, and he was making Yu Yu Hakusho at the time?
Keith: Uh, I think that's right.
Jack: That's incredible.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: That's really cool.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Jack: Is there a... well, this is a... I mean, this is a whole question, right? Where it's like, watching the two shows together... is there some sort of visible overlap?
Sylvi: Uh...?
Jack: Or is it generally just two creators who are interested in their own things doing their own thing?
Sylvi: I think, I think it's more the latter. Like, I would —
Keith: Yeah, I wouldn't say they're not interested in each other's things, but there's not — it's impossible, it's impossible to deny that the character you've noticed in the back does extremely look like a Magical Girl.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Jack: Yes. Uh, uh, but I mean... yes. So this character in the background is wearing a sort of lolita dress, it's a pink dress with a petticoat or frills. She's also wearing inappropriate shoes for, what I have to assume is, is dodgeball. She has really cool hair. She has like a magical girl high ponytail, that, that descends into a little spiral. She's got a pink collar, possibly buttons down her shirt. This is the dodgeball team of slight boy, sort of gorilla, and magical girl. Kind of magical girl. She's not even rendered like I, like I associate a magical girl being rendered. She's rendered like a character from a magical girl, like a non-main character from a magical girl show, you know?
Sylvi: [chuckling]
Jack: You know? This isn't, for example —
Sylvi: Mm-hm?
Jack: You know, Aria Joie. This is someone at an Aria Joie show. Uh, not in terms of the direct aesthetics, but in terms of like the role of these characters. In the background, there are two men with four — wait, let me zoom in. Okay, this got more complicated. One of the men is wearing white. He's standing on the sidelines, and he looks like an umpire, and he has a number 4 on his shirt.
Sylvi: Mm-hm.
Jack: [sighs] He's wearing a fucked-up hat. It looks like he's wearing a saucepan on his head. Oh, now that I look at it — [chuckling]
Sylvi: Oh...
Jack: The saucepan or something also has a 4 written on it. I'm going to call this fellow... Four.
Sylvi: Okay.
Keith: There.
Jack: To his left, we are joined by — [chuckling]
Sylvi: [laughs]
Jack: This one's great. Another fellow in a large, blue coverall, wearing a hood, almost like an executioner's hood, that falls down over his shoulders in the same blue. He's got maybe a metal or white plate on his forehead. I don't think it's a mask. I think it's something on his forehead, and his actual eyes are below. And he is wearing white gloves. I don't know if these two men are part of the game as players, or are part of the game as sort of rules apparatus. Is there anything else I am missing here in the description before we can sort of move on to talking about the image beyond what is on the screen?
Keith: I don't think so. Very thorough.
Sylvi: I think you sort of got the key players, and, yeah.
Jack: Yeah. Shoulderblades fellow, slight boy, sort of gorilla, magical girl, NPC 4, and the, the, the suited executioner.
Sylvi: Mm-hm. [chuckling] Hold on, we've got to — the suited executioner, can we like, put that in something?
Jack: Uh, yeah, the suited executioner is, uh, actually probably Palisade. I think that somewhere in the Paint Shop —
Sylvi: Yeah.
Jack: There is a suited executioner. [chuckles] Uh, okay. So this is a game. There's some sort of a game being played here. And, this is not what I expected to see, which I think is partly why it makes for a good opening screenshot.
Sylvi: Mm-hm.
Jack: I was expecting to see some folks out, I would say, in the wilderness, in a forest, you know? By a campfire.
Sylvi: I mean —
Keith: And can you say why you expected to see that?
Jack: …no. I thought, well, so firstly, I thought that Naruto was in this show.
Sylvi: [chuckling]
Jack: So anything I say is already... you know.
Keith: This makes sense, because Naruto is always in the wilderness.
Jack: I thought that the, that the... I have so little to go on. I know there are ants, and I know that the show is called Hunter x Hunter. So I sort of assumed —
Keith: You know the genre of this show?
Jack: I think that this show is a sort of... cities exist, and it's probably modern, but I was picturing a sort of, like, there are, there are entities called hunters who go out and sort of do witching, do witcher business, in a modern fantasyish world.
Sylvi: Mm-hm.
Keith: That is not crazy to say.
Jack: You know? So it's like, for example, oh, here's our boy, prob — maybe, maybe this slightly fellow, who is, who is entering into a world to become a sort of hunter of dangers, within the — you know, sort of if Sailor Moon, instead of just blundering spectacularly into one or another threat to Tokyo, was like, actually being taken care of by the outer planet Senshi from the start, and was like, “listen, there are bad things in the world, and we're going to train you to hunt them down.” I was expecting to see some outdoors, sort of hunter business. I am not terribly surprised to see a game, though. Because, you know, I feel like, I've seen enough anime to know that there are whole sort of, not necessarily arcs, but series of episodes in which our characters engage in a tournament, or [chuckling] a game of some kind, you know? It's like, oh, this is the tennis arc, where we all play tennis. Or... this is the Olympics arc, or like, swimming races, or something, you know? So I'm not terribly surprised to see the dodgeball. I'm more surprised by the sort of breakdown of characters.
Keith: Who here do you think is a main character?
Sylvi: That's a great question.
Jack: Slight fellow. The slight fellow.
Keith: Okay.
Jack: The white-haired boy.
Sylvi: Mm-hm.
Jack: Actually, maybe, this is a fantastic question. Because, if we can establish who the main characters are... put it this way. If this sort of gorilla was a main character, that would almost be more plausible than this being a world in which you show up to dodgeball practice...
Keith: [chuckling]
Jack: And this sort of gorilla is like, “hi, I'm your teammate,” you know? Do you see what I mean?
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: Like, what are normal people in the world, is a really interesting question, and it's kind of similar to, adjacent to, who do we think are the main characters.
Keith: Well, because you're —
Jack: I'm confident —
Keith: You have 6 figures on the screen.
Jack: I don't think Four or the hooded executioner are main characters.
Keith: Okay.
Sylvi: Mm-hm.
Keith: But of, of the 6 people on the screen, you would be hard-pressed to describe the makeup of this world. Is this the world where 1 out of ever 6 people is a gorilla man?
Jack: Yes, that is a —
Sylvi: [sputters]
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: Great question. That is, is that so?
Sylvi: That's, that's the — did you know that 1 in every 5 people are gay?
Keith: [still laughing]
Sylvi: Did you know that every 1 in every 5 people are a gorilla? Like...
Keith: Ugh.
Jack: I, so, okay. It's the, it's the, it's the, the shoulderblades dodgeball person with the ring is training. He is the one who is like, we are, I'm going to help you, to I guess be good at this. But, I don't know. I don't think that this dodgeball is actually very important. And that the —
Keith: In the, in the scene, in the episode, or in the show at large?
Jack: In the show, in the show at large.
Keith: Okay.
Jack: This slight fellow with the hair —
Keith: Right.
Jack: Is, I think, very important.
Keith: What makes you say that?
Jack: Because he's framed like a protagonist, you know.
Keith: Okay.
Jack: He's, he's, —
Sylvi: Mmm.
Jack: Who we're looking at here. I mean, this could just be the shot choice. You know, like, this could just be like a POV shot, and we could switch back and see, see the fellow with the dodgeball and we're like, “well, he looks like the protagonist.” But right now, you know, our focus is on the slight fellow and the gorilla man. And then, behind him — world's best dodgeball team — the Sailor Moon NPC.
Keith: Right.
Jack: I think, also, he looks like the person that a show would be made about, you know?
Keith: Right.
Jack: Here's this character who we're going to mold and who's going to become our hero.
Keith: Okay. [pause] Do you have, do you have any lingering thoughts, Sylvi, do you have any more questions you want to pose to Jack?
Sylvi: I'm trying to — I feel —
[46:15]
Keith: Jack, do you have any questions for us, you want us to answer?
Sylvi: Yeah, I, because I feel like Jack's done a very good job at sort of, wringing what they can out of this.
Keith: Yes.
Sylvi: Uh, so, maybe we — do we want to do a thing where we will like, just like answer yes or no to like, one thing for each screenshot that Jack's curious about, or do we want to like, not do like, that sort of gamification here?
Jack: That's a fantastic question.
Keith: I think it's great.
Jack: Let's do one yes or no, and one, you're allowed to answer with a single sentence. Because I trust you not to spoil things.
Sylvi: Okay.
Keith: Okay.
Jack: For me, you know?
Sylvi: Mm-hm.
Keith: How do we, how do we find out on the yes or no, if Sylvi and I agree? Or is that not important? We can both answer independently?
Sylvi: We can both answer, I think.
Jack: Both answer independently, yeah. Yes.
Keith: Okay.
Jack: Uh... well, I have to know, I have to know.
Keith: The funny thing is —
Jack: This — yeah.
Keith: The funny, before you say, I'm sorry for interrupting — it's funny because, uh... I would say that the, the character in here that is a main character, usually so much looks like a main character, and just right now, to me, doesn't.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Keith: And it's funny, what — it's funny your reading on this, whether you're right or wrong, because of how uniquely, uh, styled the character is, currently, right here.
Jack: Mmm.
Keith: That's all I wanted to say.
Jack: This is fascinating. Okay. Here's my question: is this gorilla dude a main character?
Sylvi: The gorilla — you, by gorilla dude, you mean the guy standing behind the white-haired boy.
Jack: I do, yes.
Keith: Yep.
Sylvi: The answer to that question, this is your yes/no question?
Jack: Yes.
Sylvi: No.
Keith: No.
Jack: What?! [chuckling]
Sylvi: Not at all.
Keith: No, not even close.
Jack: [chuckling] You're saying not even close. Wait, does this, does this fellow have a name in the story? Or is he just the guy who's here with dodgeball? [chuckling]
Sylvi: Uh... I don't know if we can answer —
Keith: I don't know if we can tell you.
Sylvi: I don't know if we are able to explain anymore, given our rules.
Jack: Fair enough. That could be my sentence question, but that's not.
Sylvi: Yeah, do you want that to be your sentence question? Because it does have a good answer.
Jack: No, no. No. No.
Sylvi: Okay.
Jack: Here's my sentence question. Why is the hooded executioner dressed like that?
Keith: Huh, okay. That's an easy question to answer —
Sylvi: Uh...
Keith: But I don't know how, exactly how much to give. Uh, I'm comfortable, but I'm comfortable giving the whole thing.
Sylvi: I have a, Keith, I'm going to message you like a quick, like a very simple sentence, and you can, if you want to add more to it, that's —
Keith: Okay.
Sylvi: But this was my knee-jerk answer, I don't want to step on it.
Keith: Okay. I... I think that because Jack is curious, we should give them a little more. But I will use that as the basis.
Sylvi: Okay.
Keith: Uh... there is a character in this episode, that can create sort of puppet figures.
Jack: [laughing]
Sylvi: Yeah, yeah, that is much better than what I just, what I had. [chuckling]
Jack: Oh, that's it? That's all you're saying?
Keith: Yes.
Sylvi: It's one sentence.
Keith: That answers who, who the executioner is.
Sylvi: It does, yeah. I think so.
Jack: That is such a good, that is such a good — okay. So, I mean, here's... you've just done a really good proof-of-concept for how these questions can work for the future screens.
Sylvi: Mm-hm.
Jack: Which is like, that question only invites more questions, which is...
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: [chuckling] Which is wonderful. So, so what we've learned from here is that the sort of gorilla fellow is not even close to a main character.
Sylvi: [laughing]
Keith: Correct. Yeah.
Jack: Just, just sort of, “that's Robert, and he's here today.”
Keith: It —
Sylvi: [laughing]
Keith: Maybe [unintelligible]
Jack: And then the hooded —
Keith: I'll tell you, Jack, I couldn't tell — I couldn't tell you this gorilla's name, if he had a name.
Jack: Wow. Okay. Okay.
Keith: I genuinely don't know.
Jack: Remarkable. And the hooded executioner... the only information I have about what's that guy's deal is, in this episode there is someone who makes puppets. Wonderful. Don't answer these questions — is that a puppet? Or is this some way he can, or they can protect themselves against the person who makes puppets?
Sylvi: Oh.
Jack: Or are they the person who makes these constructs, and to do so they have to wear a boiler suit and an executioner's mask? Wonderful.
Keith: [laughing]
Sylvi: Wonderful. Should we, should we get to the next one?
Keith: Uh, yeah, I think we should. So, I guess —
Sylvi: The fun of this is, I don't know what — because you had an idea for what you were doing, but you didn't —
Keith: Yep.
Sylvi: Weren't settled when I saw it, so I have no clue either.
Keith: And that, that is here, but I have, I have decided to save that one for a potential final thing. Uh... because —
Jack: Before you move on —
Keith: Jack, specifically, I had been agonizing — okay, go ahead.
Jack: I would like to say, at the conclusion of this first screenshot, would you like to see us make a show about this?
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: [chuckling] If the answer is yes, then take yourselves over to friendsatthetable.cash to support us on Patreon. Your support will allow us, if we meet our goal, at 30k, to produce a limited-run show, in which — and it won't necessarily just be the three of us, uh, watch —
Keith: No. I expect it to not be the three of us.
Jack: Hunter x Hunter and talk about it. Yeah. Well, we'll probably be there. It might even be rotating at some point. We'll talk about that stuff, but... okay. Please continue, Keith. Sorry, I just wanted to do the ad break.
Keith: No, no, that's okay.
Jack: Between —
Keith: Uh... so, uh, right. So the back story to this is that I had, I had a, a screenshot that I thought was so good, but, like, was maybe just an ounce too spoiler-y.
Jack: Wow.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Keith: And I really, for — from the day that I picked my screenshot, over a week ago, until today, was like, I really, really want to send this one, but I don't know if I, if I can or should. I have a lot of reasons why I think it's okay to do it. But, I still was like, maybe I shouldn't send that one.
Jack: Mmm. Interesting.
Keith: I, I have it here, invisible. And if we decide we want to do one more at the end, and Jack, you're like, “I don't think this will spoil me, I trust Keith when he says it's not that spoiler-y,” we can do it. If not, I have two others that I'm deciding. One is a fun one, without a ton going on visually. There's stuff going on visually, but it doesn't have as much as the other one, which is, uh, less fun of a scene, but has a lot to chew on.
Jack: Interesting. Interesting.
Sylvi: It — I feel like it's a big spoiler. But maybe I'm wrong.
Jack: Well then let's, let's not do it. I, I think we should trust — because I can't really arbitrate this. But I think we should err on the side of caution, right?
Keith: I think it has all of the — I think it appears as if it were a big spoiler.
Sylvi: I'm going to — it, uh, mmm, I don't know. Is it the one you sent me?
Keith: Uh, last week? Yes.
Sylvi: Wait, the one, no, the one you sent me today.
Keith: Oh, wait, no, I sent it to Austin last week. I sent it to you today.
Sylvi: Did Austin think it was too spoiler-y? Because if Austin, I will, I will defer to if I'm outruled 2 to 1 here.
Keith: You, you both were on the opposite side, sorry — ate food. At a bad time.
Sylvi: [laughing]
Keith: Uh, you, no, you both thought it was, it was too spoiler-y. But neither of you were that definitive about it. And I'm pretty sure that it's not.
Sylvi: I... I'll type my, my reasoning. Uh...
Keith: But it's not, but it's, it's, it's at the end anyways. So we don't have to worry about it now. I want, I want the —
Sylvi: Okay. Okay. Okay. Sorry, I thought we were deciding whether to do it now.
Keith: No, no, no, no. I, I, I that is like my second extra one that I have.
Jack: Okay. Let's, let's, let's, let's, let's percolate.
Keith: So your choices are, Jack: fun scene, not as much stuff going on, not as much visually to chew on. Much more to chew on, but less visually fun scene.
Jack: Neither, neither spoiler-y. Okay.
Keith: Neither spoiler-y at all.
Jack: Let's go, more to chew on.
Keith: More to chew on, okay. I can do that.
Sylvi: Mmm, delicious. I’m so excited.
Jack: Woah.
Sylvi: Oh, this is great. Oh, I'm so happy!
Jack: Oh, wow. Wow! Sylvi, are you able to, to describe, in a way that isn't a spoiler, why you had this reaction to this shot?
Sylvi: I really like, uh, a character in this image.
Keith: Just one?
Jack: And you're excited to see them show up.
Sylvi: You know…! I like a few characters in this image, but I'm a freak for one character in this image.
Keith: I wonder, I mean, I have a good idea which one.
Jack: This is —
Sylvi: We could, I can reveal it, once Jack goes through them, you know?
Jack: A strikingly different feel to the last screenshot.
Keith: It is, yes. It's a much different vibe. [chuckling]
Jack: This is, I mean, dark, not necessarily in, I wouldn't describe this as particularly dark, tonally, but definitely dark in terms of the image composition. Uh, we have, a group of... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 figures facing us, arranged in a sort of loose semi-circle, looking at —
Keith: We, you, you did undercount by 1, but you can barely see the last one.
Jack: Wait, wait... one, two, three —
Sylvi: Oh, gosh, I got jump scared.
Jack: Five, six, seven, eight, nine.
Keith: Are you not counting the one that's facing away from us?
Jack: No, no, they, they are looking towards —
Keith: Oh, okay, I'm sorry.
Sylvi: On the very far right, there's one cut off, and on the very far left, there's one cut off.
Jack: Yeah, this is, I'm — this is, this is a — [chef's kiss noise] beautiful. They are looking at... presumably, in some sort of meeting or conversation with a figure, facing away from us, sitting on something out of focus in the foreground. My gut was that this person is sitting on rubble, or is sitting on rocks or something. But the composition of this shot suggests that... this meeting is consequential, and, and, uh, the person might as easily be sitting on a ruined something that has been destroyed, or a body covered in a cloth, or, you know, this isn't — this is not an, an easy, straightforward meet and chitchat that is happening here.
Let's start with the figure facing — oh, they're, they're in, uh, uh, it's nighttime, or they are in an alley with very tall buildings, so the light has not come down very clearly. There's, there's, uh, they could be, actually, inside a building, uh, a ruined building. There's a large gray wall in the back with two windows. Yes, I think they are inside, uh, a ruined church or something, you know. You can see that big, open space of the nave of a church, or a meeting hall. The figure facing away from us is thin, is very angular. Uh, and I'm zooming in to look at it, at first I thought this person had a big — two possible options here. Either this person has a big shock of white hair, and they are, they are bending down, they have their head tilted downwards, so their hair is kind of coming up, [pshew-pshew], behind them. Or, and then this is, this is maybe my other guess, this person has a sort of spiky, white fur collar. Almost.
Sylvi: [exhales]
Jack: Like an ermine collar, that you can sort of see the dark shape of their head coming up behind. They have narrow shoulders, uh, they, they are wearing black. If I zoom in, I can see that they have something, they, they look quite relaxed, actually. They're sitting quite calmly, with their hands in their lap. They have something in their lap, I can't make out what it is. It looks like a piece of fabric and a piece of metal to the right of them. I'm not sure. So that is, in many respects, our most straightforward figure, this sort of ominous entity facing away from us. Can I go left to right? Because it's going to begin pretty strong, I think.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Jack: On the left-hand side of the image is a embalmed person.
Sylvi: [laughing]
Jack: Uh... she is sitting calmly, uh, she is, she is not the focus of this scene, which is so fun. Between the sort of gorilla fellow, uh, uh, in the first image, you know, it turns out not being a main character whatsoever, and this person kind of just framed sideways, you know, in the very edge of the frame. I really like this. Uh, this person has been wrapped, head to toe, in bandages, it looks like. Uh, alternatively, they could be chitinous. They could be, this could be plates, almost like a, like a. Uh, a woodlouse, or a beetle, or an armadillo, or pangolin — [chuckling] the plated animals. But I do think that this is an embalmed person. Uh, she is wearing lace-up, red boots. She is a fashionable embalmed person. And, what looks like possibly sunglasses, something on her face, some sort of, something on her face. She's got a sort of Brendan Frasier Invisible Man type thing — oh, shit, maybe she's invisible. Classic way of revealing an invisible person, is wrapping yourself up in bandages. So that's a possibility.
Sylvi: [giggling]
Jack: Could also just be an embalmed body. Can't tell if she's wearing boxing gloves. Do you see that?
Sylvi: Mm-hm.
Jack: She's got a sort of boxing glove-like thing. That could be a motorcycle helmet. I don't know. Next to her is a ronin. A —
Sylvi: [laughing]
Jack: A skinny, angular ronin with a tall, uh, sort of top-knot or ponytail. A very sharp face, wearing, uh, a pale pink, sorry, sort of dusky pink robes. He's got his hand on a katana as though he's getting ready to draw. Next to them is a fellow in a racing [unintelligible] outfit.
Sylvi: [laughs]
Jack: Green racing driver's outfit, uh, uh, white shoulders on his jacket, red stripes, green sort of track jacket, almost. Now, next to this person, this is interesting. This is a character I have seen before. I, I don't know anything about —
Keith: Oh, that's interesting.
Jack: But I feel like I have seen a screenshot of this fellow. This guy's built like a brick shithouse. He is wide, wide, wide, uh, strong. Uh, big muscles around his neck. He, uh... how am I going to describe this. He looks like his earlobes are attached to the [chuckling] front of his, his vest.
Sylvi: [cracking up]
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: He's wearing, like, a, a, a... dungarees, almost. Like a... like, overalls. But...
Keith: Mmm.
Jack: Keeping those overalls up... wild. Is his earlobes. [chuckles]
Sylvi: [giggling]
Jack: Moving on.
Keith: Yep.
Jack: Uh, partly hidden behind —
Sylvi: Yeah, yeah.
Jack: Wait, shit, oh, wow! I just noticed a detail! This fellow with the white shock facing us has an upside-down cross on his back.
Sylvi: Mm-hm.
Keith: Oh, I was going to mention that you didn't mention that, and then —
Jack: No, that was just the balance of my screen, light. That's really cool. I don't want to dwell on it, because we've got a lot of characters to see, but this person is wearing some sort of uniform. And the upside-down cross imagery is interesting, we'll get to that. Behind him is a tough little soldier boy.
Sylvi: [giggling]
Jack: This person looks like a town guard in a Dragon Quest game, wearing a —
Keith: [cracking up]
Jack: [chuckles] Pink doublet, just sort of, regular person's hair. Looks like, “I'm tough, I'm here to save the kingdom.” Now, here we go —
Keith: I’ll help people in the chat who are agreeing that it's kind of hard to see.
Jack: Yeah, this person —
Keith: There you go, maybe that'll help a little bit.
Jack: Focuses the image. We have a very short [chuckling] person, possibly a child, wearing... it looks like the, the most natural sort of pair between this, uh, —
Keith: Sorry, what did you, sorry, I, I didn't hear you start describing this next person.
Jack: A very small person, possibly a child.
Keith: Okay. Okay.
Jack: And there's a kind of natural pair going on between this person and the person with the cross on their back, you know? Their, their, their eye lines are matching, they are looking at each other —
Sylvi: [giggling]
Jack: These two characters. Uh, I think that this is our interlocutor, you know, here. This person has got their hands behind their back. What pronouns should I be using for this small person?
Sylvi: Uh, I believe —
Keith: I believe he/him.
Sylvi: That it's he/him, but I'm going to double-check.
Jack: Okay.
Keith: I'm like, 95 percent sure.
Sylvi: Yeah, yeah. He/him.
Jack: Dressed in black. He's wearing almost like a black dress, with a, with a, a really cool neckline, like a sort of V-shaped neckline with a paler, gray fabric underneath, to make a collar, that rises way up. Like a little bowl for his head to sit in, to just below his nose, so his whole, you know, the bottom part of his face and his jaw is covered. On this collar, there is what looks like a skull, pretty, pretty spooky. Uh, and this person has black hair, that kind of falls down partly over their face. They've got their hands behind their back. They seem pretty, pretty calm. Next to them is, uh, a JRPG character.
Sylvi: [laughing]
Jack: She's, she's, uh, she's got —
Sylvi: It's Sheena from Tales of Symphonia.
Jack: The [chuckling] truly. She's got spiky red hair, tied up in a ponytail. She's wearing a white shirt and a, a wide belt. Short black shorts, uh, I think probably the bow from her hair is hanging back behind her in two red things. She's got these incredible pale pink leg warmers going on. She looks great. Uh, CrowTRM in the chat says, “standard issue ninja lady.” Yeah, absolutely.
Uh, and then to her right is another small figure, possibly a child. This person is, uh, wearing a, a single-colored, longsleeved, very longsleeved green, uh, dressing with two pleats at the bottom. You can see their feet poking out. This person has, long, uh, blonde hair that falls forward over their, over their face, such that only a little tiny sliver of their eye is visible. Uh, and then, person on the right, uh, I can see, uh, hair, uh, one tit, uh, green —
Sylvi: [cracking up]
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: Uh, uh, red —
Sylvi and Keith: [cracking up]
Jack: Skirt, uh, and leg. Uh, hard to say much about this person. Uh, sort of just like, uh, like a lady, here. Half a lady. A sort of a lady.
Sylvi: Mm-hm.
Jack: And that's all the people.
Keith: That is all the people.
Jack: Anything I've sort of missed?
Keith: Uh, I, I don't think so. I think you hit everything. What's the vibe of this place? Oh, you, you sort of touched on it when you said that they were standing, standing over a dead body.
Sylvi: Where do you think they are?
Keith: But what —
Jack: Sinister. I think they are in a ruined church. I think that they are, they are having a meeting, they are having a parlay. Maybe this fellow with his back to us is like, “oh, I'll, I'll talk to you. We can meet. Come to the ruined church at midnight.” And the person, and he's like, “come alone.” And our folks are like, “you know we don't come alone, I'll bring my” [chuckling] “nine super-weird friends.”And this person —
Keith: What do you mean by, “our folks?”
Jack: Our folks are the people facing us.
Keith: Oh, okay, [chuckling] got it.
Sylvi: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jack: Uh, but then —
Keith: So this is all, this is one, whole group, facing off against the single individual here.
Jack: Yes, who I don't know is a villain but is definitely like a sinister entity. There's a vibe going on here that is concerning.
Sylvi: [chuckles]
Jack: And they say, “we can't come alone, you know? You're getting nine of us or you're getting nobody.” And the person says, “huh. Alone or all nine of you, it doesn't matter. Be at the church.” Uh, that's the vibe that I think is going on here. This is very dark, this is very... very sinister.
Keith: I got a little bit of that last person's face that I realized was cut off.
Sylvi: Oh, Austin has a good, uh, a good thing in the chat here, which is, Jack should get to ask for the name of one person in this photo.
Keith: Oh, okay. We will add that to our trio of things.
Jack: Yes, I agree. I agree, that's —
Sylvi: You, we can — you did ask if the gorilla had a name, so I guess that counts for the first one.
Keith: Okay, yeah, sure.
Jack: The answer to that is, “we don't know,” presumably.
Keith: We don't know or care. [chuckling]
Sylvi: I checked. No.
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: [chuckling] No?
Keith: No.
Jack: [laughs]
Sylvi: No.
Keith: Okay, great. I'm glad to have an answer for that.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Jack: Uh, yeah. I should say that the, the woman who, uh, previously was obscured on the right-hand side of the image, we can now see she has a kind of an angular face, a sort of a sharp nose, she's looking a little sour.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: Uh...
Keith: And how many tits, total?
Jack: Huh?
Keith: How many tits total? [chuckling]
Jack: Both of them.
Keith: Both of them?
Sylvi: [sputtering] Both — both of — all? Full set?
Keith: All. Full set. Yeah.
Jack: Well, yeah. Full, full set, uh, on earth, for most people.
Keith: Because, it, before, it was, it was 50/50 shot, maybe it is just one, maybe it's just the picture.
Jack: I don't know how the world works. You know?
Keith: Right.
Sylvi: True. True.
Keith: Uh...
Jack: Okay.
Keith: Wait, before — question. Let's see. Questions to Jack about this.
Sylvi: Oh...
Jack: Yes, yes. Before we move on to the, to the final questions, you know?
Keith: I'd like you to imagine what they're talking about.
Sylvi: I feel like we got a little of that, but...
Jack: It's a parlay, right? It's —
Keith: It's a parlay, but I, I would like, I would like a totally hypothetical, specific —
Jack: Oh, that's a great question. Yeah. Okay. I mean, and, and it's worth saying that there's no way I can extrapolate that from this image.
Keith: No.
Jack: No amount of reading this image —
Keith: Absolutely not. No, no, no.
Jack: So just fully in a possibility space —
Keith: You're not going to be able to answer my next question, either.
Jack: [chuckles] Okay, great. Uh, so these, so... what has happened is that... the, the, the nine people who are facing us are sort of like, a crew that has been assembled by our heroes. Maybe for the purposes of this arc, maybe for the purposes of this episode, you know? And something has gone down in a big way, with this person with the upside-down cross on their back, and our crew thinks that they are involved in some, you know, uh, scheme, some, some sort of evil, deed. Uh, maybe they've been involved in an evil deed in the past, but they need to get to the bottom of it. So they arrange this very tense meeting. You know, it's like, oh, finally, we can get a face-to-face with this person who's been a thorn in our side for so long. And it's kind of climactic, because... you know. Uh, this is like, oh, oh, right, it's, uh... well, why don't we go and talk to the demon, you know? Not because demons, you can't talk to them very often, but because it's a very — stuff has to be very bad, or very tense, or very interesting. Maybe they're trying to recruit this person to their cause, is the other thing.
Keith: Okay.
Sylvi: Okay.
Keith: Interesting. Uh, Sylvi, did you, did you have anything?
Sylvi: Uh... no, because I feel like the answer, I was going to ask like, who, what, like, side do you think people — like, who do you think is the good guys here, but that was pretty much answered, so.
Jack: This is a fucking incredible question. I, I have another answer here, right? Which is, none of these people are the good guys, and what we've got going on here is like the scene where the anime villain is like, “now, my witches five...” you know?
Sylvi: [giggling]
Jack: I need you to go out and hunt down, like, the protagonist, [chuckling] who, who I still cannot picture.
Keith: Right, as — at least we know is not a gorilla. Or, not that gorilla.
Jack: Right, right, right. Not that gorilla. Right.
Sylvi: [cackling]
Jack: You know? Like, like, that's, that's one version of this scene, right? Where it's like, “my crew —“ I don't know why I'm giving this person this voice.
Sylvi: I... you know, it's an interesting decision.
Keith: Yeah. Yeah.
Sylvi: But I'm here for it.
Keith: Okay.
Jack: “We need to hunt — we need to hunt the hunter. I've assembled you all, embalmed person, ninja racing driver, weird earlobe man, guard from Dragon Quest game, short child, ninja girl —“
Sylvi: [laughing]
Jack: “Small grim person with yellow hair, and [chuckling] tall, sexy lady.”
Sylvi: [gasping laughing]
Keith: I, I do love how —
Sylvi: Love it. I love it.
Jack: “Welcome.”
Keith: I do love how much it's affecting things that Jack has no idea, uh, how many hunters there are or aren't, really what they do...
Jack: [laughing]
Sylvi: It's great.
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: Yeah, I mean, so does, does this — I've been listening to Homestuck made this world from Ranged Touch, which on the one hand is a pretty good touchstone, because it's a limited-run podcast about a specific media property, but on the other hand, you know, what Cameron and Michael do is really, uh, skilled, and complicated, and I don't want to sell us by saying like, “we can do a Ranged Touch kind of thing with Hunter x Hunter.” Because that relies on like, years of critical experience, is not necessarily a bar I, I know we can hit. But uh, there was a really, there's a really interesting bit where, uh, you know, Homestuck, in the early stages of it, is doing this moment where it's like, “you thought we were doing one thing, psyche! We're actually doing another thing.”
Cameron has this whole bit where he says, “these psyche-outs don't work on me, because the, the comic has already established, there is no objective reality that I can rely on, no one event is, you know, stranger or less strange than any other event.” So for the comic to be like, “psyche!” It's sort of like, I guess I'm being psyched? Yeah, a meteor hit the planet at the end of the first, you know — nothing here is surprising to me. So, given that my first encounter was this sort of gorilla fellow, I — any of these people could be the protagonist, you know? The — even the earlobe man! Even the mummy!
Keith: They, they, they sure dress like protagonists.
Jack: But this is something that like, I, I, a lot of animes that I like also do constantly, which is bit characters or side characters have the fucking coolest costumes that you've ever seen, and appear for 45 minutes and then disappear.
Keith: Mm-hm. Uh, I have a question. This is for, this is a question, this is a, this is a fun one. This one's for the fans. Who here would be the best boyfriend?
Sylvi: [laughing]
Jack: [laughing] Is, is, is there a clear answer here?
Keith: No.
Jack: No, okay. And I would like to hear your answers, but you can only describe —
Keith: Well, okay, it's a thousand different versions of yes, half of them say one thing and half of them say all the other things.
Sylvi: Yeah. It...
Jack: Okay.
Sylvi: I can answer after, but —
Jack: Yeah, but you can't say the character's name, you have to describe them —
Sylvi: No, I will not. I will use the, I will use the descriptions that you have provided.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: Yeah. Earlobe man.
Keith: Mmm.
Sylvi: … okay.
Jack: I think earlobe man is, he's that character trope of like, kind of menacing-looking, kind of scary, what's going on with his earlobes. I, I cannot parse this image as anything other than his earlobes, and I'm not going to waste a question on that. I, I will come to that solution in its own time.
Sylvi: [chuckling]
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: But I think he's got a tender heart.
Keith: Mmm.
Sylvi: I think, I think, I like your answer. Uh... I have, my reasoning for this one is that just in general, for the general populace, the title of best boyfriend in this image goes to the ronin.
Jack: Okay, okay. Interesting.
Sylvi: I have, when we do the show, I can explain my reasoning. Uh... this can also be where I reveal who my favorite character in this image is, which —
Jack: Who is it?
Sylvi: Is the guy with the cross jacket, and he — I would like him to be my boyfriend. [chuckling]
Keith: Well, I think —
Jack: Oh...
Sylvi: You know. Why not?
Keith: Sylvi, you provided, I think the two sort of canonical fan answers, which is... uh, samurai and upside-down cross.
Sylvi: [chuckling] I love everyone in the chat, chat just being like, “oh yeah. Duh. Duh. [laughing]
Jack: Yeah, I mean, I mean —
Keith: Not surprising.
Jack: This would have been my pick, Sylvi, and I saw this for you, and I saw this image, you know, eight minutes ago for the first time.
Sylvi: Yeah. Yeah. I'm nothing if not consistent.
Keith: Do you — oh, sorry, go ahead.
Jack: No, but that — that tells me something about the image, right? [chuckling] I can get information about this character —
Sylvi: It does.
Keith: Yeah. Do you, do you now have a more or less positive opinion of this character? [chuckles]
Jack: What do you mean more or less?
Sylvi: Wow.
Jack: I like the character more because Sylvi likes them.
Keith: Okay, there you go.
Jack: Uh, and I think Sylvi has good taste in interesting characters.
Sylvi: Aw!
Jack: But, but, I don't, I can't quantitatively say whether this person is like, has more or less virtue, you know?
Sylvi: [laughing]
Jack: That's quite difficult to do. I, I think this person is a villain, but I think this person is a kind of antihero character who's going to kind of come up, again and again, you know?
Keith: Come up meaning — uh, disappear and reappear from the show?
Jack: Appear in the show. Appear in the show. Yeah. And, and, and I think will probably, because these shows go on for so long, we'll have portions where we are working with them, or working against them, or working parallel to them, you know?
Keith: Uh, do you want to — one name?
Jack: Yeah, totally. Give me the upside-down cross fellow's name.
Keith: Sylvi, do you want to say it?
Sylvi: Oh yeah. I'll say it, and then I'll send you how it's spelled, uh, canonically in the manga. Uh, so his name is Chrollo Lucilfer, uh, and, oh, where is it, I just had it —
Jack: [laughing] Chrollo Lucilfer!
Sylvi: Uh, yeah, uh, and then in — this is from Volume 34 in the official databook. Uh, just pop this in the chat. That's how that's spelled, if you want to just take a peek.
Jack: Wait, Austin says, “Jack, guess how it's spelled.” Chrollo Lucilfer.
Sylvi: Oh, sorry, don't look yet.
Jack: No, I, I haven't seen it. It's spelled CHROLO, space, LUCILFER. Chrolo Lucilfer.
Keith: That is almost 100 percent. You missed an L.
Sylvi: That is —
Keith: That's full marks, as far as I'm concerned.
Sylvi: Yeah, that is how it is typically spelled by people.
Jack: You're kidding me. What? You're joking.
Sylvi: Now, if you're looking —
Keith: Oh, is this — am I learning, am I the one that learned something? Is not spelled that way?
Sylvi: In the manga, in like, in like, extra, like there's a few like extra things, uh... the, I'm kind of just like going off the wiki here, because I'm behind on the manga. I haven't reached volume, the volume 34 extras yet. But it is spelled, uh, QUWROFWRLC — sorry. After, QUWROF, space, WRLCCYWRLFH. It's like Welsh or something, it's fine.
Jack: Oh, so this is sort of a Cat Sidhe type thing.
Sylvi: Yeah, definitely. I, I truly don't know, but I, I do love that it's spelled that way. It is sometimes spelled with an R at the end, instead of an H. Uh, —
Jack: That's incredible, wow. That is, in itself, telling.
Sylvi: Typically — typically, it is spelled Chrollo, CHROLLO, Lucilfer, the way you said it.
Jack: And what is, what is he called in the show? Chrollo.
Sylvi: Chro — Chro — Chrollo. Yeah.
Jack: Wow...
Sylvi: Pronounced crow. Chrollo Lucilfer is the the pronunciation.
Jack: That is fascinating, because this is a vibe. This is a whole vibe. Having a character called Chrollo Lucilfer that is, you know — shows of all kinds give their characters fucking incredible weird names. The fact that it's doing this, this sort of like, kind of Welsh spelling, I, I do not believe it's Welsh. But it's kind of trying to do a, a weird thing with its spelling.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Jack: Makes me think that there is something, sort of like, uh, folk magic, or, or, or dark magic, or, you know, folkloric about this character, which is really interesting.
[1:20:30]
Sylvi: Ooh.
Jack: Lovely.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Jack: Okay, time for my questions.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: Time for your questions.
Jack: I get one yes or no question, and I get one —
Sylvi: Single sentence answer... question.
Jack: Ooh, ooh-hoo-hoo. I'm spoiled for choice. There's ten fucking weirdos in this. I've already got my Chrollo Lucilfer, uh, I, I can't focus on him, because, uh, you want to get as much information from the image as possible.
Keith: You're going wide, not deep.
Jack: You know? You're going wide, not deep. Although, I might go deep on future images, you know?
Keith: Right.
Jack: Let's think. And I'm not asking about the earlobes, so... and it's a yes/no question. So I want something that... hm. Is protagonist, or a protagonist, in this image?
Keith: No.
Sylvi: No.
Jack: No?!
Sylvi: No.
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: Do this show have a protagonist — I'm not asking this, this could actually be a —
Keith: [cracking up]
Jack: That, that, that would be, god — imagine if the show fully didn't have a protagonist? And it was just —
Sylvi: [laughing]
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: 151 episodes of weirdos. We were doing the fucking Angela Carter's, “The Bloody Chamber,” here, but with — [laughing] ugh, that would be great, god.
Keith: You will, you will be getting new opinions on who you've seen is or isn't a protagonist, with the next image.
Jack: Interesting, interesting.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: All right, now it's time for my... [sighs] okay. I want to say, top marks from the sentence question last time. Perfect answer to the perfect question. Not necessarily the perfect question. The question was fine. Answer —
Keith: Perfect, perfect question, Jack. Full marks for question-asking.
Jack: Perfect question. [chuckling] Thanks, Keith. What is the relationship between Chrollo Lucilfer and the short person in black?
Sylvi: Uh... I think I, I can take this one.
Keith: Okay.
Sylvi: Uh... Chrollo is the leader of the group that that character is a member of. Keith, do you think I could add any more detail, or is that good?
Keith: I think, if, if there's a little detail you're itching to add, then I think go for it.
Sylvi: I don't specifically have one, I just wanted to, like, I felt like I went too vague when I was thinking of the first, when I was going to do this last time, and I want to make sure — people are saying no more.
Jack: Mmm...
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: So these two are aligned. I was right, with the very unsubtle costuming similarities between these two.
Sylvi: [giggling]
Jack: Yeah, these are members — what was your wording? Did you say that, that Chrollo was this guy's boss, or did you just say it was —
Sylvi: Chrollo is the leader of —
Jack: The leader.
Sylvi: Chrollo's the leader of the group, yeah.
Jack: Ah. Right. So this is his subordinate. Oh, fascinating. So this makes me think that this person, this short person here with the skull on its — on their, sort of collar-piece, really cool costume, is like —
Sylvi: Mm-hm?
Jack: “I have assembled these people to do... the plan.” [chuckling]
Keith: [laughing]
Sylvi: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. To do the plan, the big plan, when they're going to hunt the hunter.
Jack: Maybe. Maybe.
Keith: Maybe.
Sylvi: Maybe.
Jack: Maybe. I don't know. I'm... I'm less and less confident about what hunting is happening in this show. But that's fine.
Sylvi: [exhales]
Keith: [chuckling]
Jack: Anything else here, or do we want to hit the next image?
Sylvi: I think, I think we're clear.
Keith: I think we're ready to hit the next one.
Jack: This one was lovely. I had a great time with this one.
Sylvi: It's, uh, are we doing Austin's one next?
Keith: We are doing Austin's one next.
Jack: But before we do —
Sylvi: Before that.
Jack: Would you like to hear us make a show like this? [chuckling]
Sylvi: Don't forget.
Keith: Yes, I would. I want to hear this.
Sylvi: I, if there's — I... like, I, it is actually one of the things I want to do most right now is make this show. I cannot... please let us show Jack Hunter x Hunter, please.
Jack: [chuckling]
Sylvi: Because now Jack can't see it until we do this show.
Jack: Right, right, yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Keith: And you're going to, you're going to... you know, you're going to have to get watching. Because there's a lot of episodes in this —
Sylvi: Yeah.
Jack: Yeah, that bit I'm less worried about. But, you know, it's, it's, uh, not less worried about. That bit I'm less stoked about.
Keith: Right.
Jack: The actual time, but, uh, it'll be fun.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Jack: You know, it'll be time spent doing something fun.
Keith: What, so, you —
Sylvi: Go to, go to friendsatthetable.cash if you'd like to help us with that.
Keith: Jack, before I turn over this page here, you have been, you have demonstrated your lack of knowledge of, uh, Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, and Hunter x Hunter today.
Jack: I have, yes.
Keith: Uh, is there... a shonen that you are familiar with?
Jack: Uh... let's see. List of shonen shows.
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: Uh...
Sylvi: Yeah, did you ever watch the Pokemon anime, like when you were younger?
Jack: No.
Sylvi: Okay.
Jack: No, I've seen a bit — oh, oh, I've seen like 3 seasons of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, and I liked it a lot.
Sylvi: That is a — JoJo's — yeah, JoJo's definitely, in that wheelhouse.
Jack: Yeah, the, the... so the... while I would definitely not say that I, as I demonstrated, by talking about Naruto, I am not, uh, I don't have any degree of fluency in this genre. But I have seen enough of it that I am, that I have a passing familiarity with the genre conventions, and with the kind of flow and feel of these kinds of shows. Uh, I had a really good time with JoJo, and I, I only stopped because of like, time. You know, there was nothing about the show that made me go, “oh, I would like to stop watching.” I, I didn't have time to keep watching it. Uh, so I sort of fell off there. Let me see, what else? I've read... uh... I really keep meaning to get into Chainsaw Man. Oh, I've seen some My Hero Academia, but not a lot.
Keith: Now that is a very good —
Sylvi: My Hero Academia is, is a very by-the-book, uh —
Keith: That is a good one for this, because...
Sylvi: Yeah.
Keith: The thing about... we referenced this at the beginning with the Punch-Drunk Love analogy. But the thing that is so interesting to me about, uh, uh, Togashi's work, who did this and also Yu Yu Hakusho, is how much fun he has with conventions of the genre, and...
Jack: Huh.
Keith: Not, not just like, uh, subverting them, but also playing into them, and then like, taking very seriously what happens as a result of taking them seriously. And I'm interested —
Jack: Right.
Keith: In what, because I'm assuming that you're not going to watch 500 episodes of shonen in preparation of watching Hunter x Hunter.
Jack: No!
Keith: So I'm interested in what's going to happen when you watch this show that is like, knees-deep in convention, in all the different ways that it is knee-deep in convention.
Jack: Yeah.
Keith: In mostly good ways, in some, uh, less interesting ways. But, uh, uh, someone who's less familiar, with, with the sort of material that it's playing with.
Jack: Yeah. I'm, I, I think that's fascinating. And I think that we are operating on, right now in this stream we are operating in a very [chuckling] particular, in a sort of, uh, very flawed analytical mode, where we are — you two are trying not to say things to me, you know? We are operating on a level where people are holding cards close to their chest, in terms of what's going on analytically. And I think that when we make the show, uh, if we're lucky enough to be able to make it, it is going to be really interesting to be able to talk, you know, obviously, we, we'll try not to spoil things from the end of the show at the beginning, but to be able to talk more openly about like, all right, what is going on here and how does this play for you, versus how it might be playing for me, or, you know —
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: What, what to do with the way our own kind of interactions with this media, how is that affecting the way we're working? All this is to say, you know, what you're listening to now is obviously going to have some similarities with the show as we make it, but we are going to try and be a lot more, uh, open and honest about the thing we're watching and, you know, how we're feeling about it.
Keith: Yeah, for sure.
Sylvi: Mmm.
Keith: All right, I'm ready to change...
Sylvi: I think it's time. Oh.
Jack: This is an Austin Walker special.
Keith: Oh, what?
Sylvi: Nothing. I'm handling it.
Keith: Okay.
Sylvi: It's a good thing, good thing.
Keith: Okay. Good thing.
Jack: Huh.
Sylvi: Here we go.
Jack: Hello.
Keith: Hi. Do you recognize anyone here?
Jack: …no. I don't —
Keith: Okay.
Jack: Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Is this person on the left here the slight white-haired fellow?
Sylvi: [chuckling]
[muffled background noise]
Keith: That is the slight fellow.
Jack: From [unintelligible]
Austin: [very muffled] The slight fellow. That's his name.
Jack: Telephoning in—
Sylvi: We have a guest!
Austin: Hi.
Keith: Hi Austin, how are you?
Austin: Hello. I'm on the streets. I'm calling in from the streets. The streets is watching. And also listening, and calling in.
Jack: What can you, what can you see, Austin?
Austin: I see a sign that says, “everyone, everyone, everyone welcome.” And it's, it's like a rainbow and trans, like, rights flag color.
Sylvi: Okay.
Austin: And that's like, uh, a bar, I want to say. And then I see another different bar that says, “Cocktail Lab: 7 days.” And I see like a picture of a, sort of cartoon dog.
Jack: Incredible.
Austin: And then I see a thing that says, “retail medical space for lease.” And then I see a bridge. And the sun.
Sylvi: We should just describe things we look at.
Austin: Yeah. This is our new show, everybody.
Sylvi: We're really good at it.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: This is the next stretch goal for the Patreon, is describe some things around us from the wild. So.
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: I, we — we do this, you know, now that we have, now that we've been making the show for a long time and have certain, uh, expectations re: audio quality, I feel like we do this less.
Austin: Yeah. Yeah.
Jack: But years ago, we used to do this much more frequently, and it is always a joy.
Austin: Oh, all the time.
Jack: It's just —
Austin: It's a — yeah.
Jack: Someone literally telephoning in. [chuckling]
Austin: What are you, talk to me about this picture, Jack. It's important to me.
Jack: So what, what I'm, what I'm looking at is the picture you have sent, Austin. And this is a very, this is very interesting, in that, that, you know, we've, we've got close-ups on characters for the first time. The last, the last two were sort of wide shots. Uh... this is a Dutch angle, these three, these three characters are kind of canted slightly. On the left, we can see, uh, uh, uh, how would I describe this color? It's like a very, very pale lilac-haired person, who I referred to as the slight fellow, from the dodgeball game, uh, who is now rendered, you know, in a lot more detail. He has these beautiful, uh, blue eyes. He's wearing a sleeveless hoodie. Uh, because he's strong, he's working hard, he's training. And, uh, uh, green turtleneck underneath. His black hoodie has the letters TT on it, in yellow.
Sylvi: [chuckling]
Jack: Which is interesting. These could be Japanese characters, also, or they could just be symbols. In the middle, the focus of this shot, we have... a fellow looking very surprised. He's wearing a green jacket, which double collars, sorry, double, uh, cuffs and a high collar, red piping around the jacket. He, he, he has black hair, that has sort of green coloration, coming off it. And it's, big spikes, his eyebrows are raised, he's looking shocked. And he is holding his hands out like he's, like he's doing telekinesis on a... drinking tumbler, on a, on a glass that is lifting into the air. This boy is levitating this glass. Uh, and he looks very shocked this he's able to do this. In the bottom part of the frame is a boy with short, uh, brown hair, spiky brown — very short, spiky brown hair. Big eyebrows. He's also got his mouth open. He looks like a character from Pokemon, almost, and he's going —
Sylvi: [laughing]
Jack: Huh? Huh?
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: And what's striking about this is that, the, the, the, the green-jacketed boy, doing the actual spell, I suppose, the levitating, looks very shocked, and the small Pokemon boy, uh, also looks shocked. But the slight fellow, wearing the jacket, wearing the sleeveless hoodie, looks calm and confident, you know?
Austin: Yeah. I appreciate that you've identified, uh, they're doing a spell in this image, is what, is what I understood.
Keith: But, there is something that you've missed about what the spell might be.
Austin: Oh, no, I'm not — sorry, sorry, sorry. I was not saying that the spell was happening. I was saying that's what Jack said was happening.
Jack: Yes, yes.
Austin: I appreciate that you've given us your interpretation.
Jack: Now that I look closer, I can see that the stem of the wineglass is, you see the stem was kind of blending into the, the, the piping of his jacket.
Keith: Right.
Jack: That wineglass, I thought it was like a drinking tumbler, but that wineglass is connected to the... table? To the [laughing]
Keith: It's a table, yeah.
Jack: Which means that this is not levitating.
Keith: Right, so what do you think they're —
Jack: But they're clearly —
Keith: So in awe of?
Jack: That's a good fucking question, Keith.
Austin: [laughing]
Sylvi: That is a good question, Keith. That is a fantastic question.
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: What are they so in awe of? Okay, let's quickly run down some, some, some options.
Austin: Are there any other details in the photo that you're looking at?
Jack: Well... there... wait. Well, so there's a light in the background, there's a ceiling lamp, you know, like a, like —
Austin: [laughing] I'm sorry to have sent you on a pixel hunt, apologies.
Jack: It is a — [chuckling] yeah. This background is really weird. It's a brown background, with again, this canted angle, this black line right through the middle of it. So I don't quite — it's like they're in a room with a brown wall, and a brown table.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: What else is in the image? Is there something I'm missing here, Austin?
Austin: Is that one of your questions, or...?
Jack: No, no, it is not [chuckling] one of my questions.
Austin: [chuckling]
Jack: Is there anything in the glass? No, there is slight disturbance on the top of the glass, you know? Which suggests, so one of my options was, they have filled this glass with something magical. They've filled it with a liquid, or they're, they're in the process. Or, alternatively, they've emptied the glass of something, magically. Third magical option, they have made the glass. [chuckling]
Keith: [laughing]
Sylvi: [laughing] Ugh.
Jack: There was previously, previously nothing there, and then this spiky, spiky-haired chap who's surprised — boing! Made the glass.
Austin: Right, right. Now, can I ask you —
Jack: Chat is pointing out that he is glowing. But —
Austin: Yep.
Jack: I, I barely, I barely — that was barely worth mentioning to me, because that, for me, was part of the visual language of doing a spell, you know?
Austin: Right, right, right. Sure.
Keith: Sure.
Austin: Can I ask you, if you think this has anything to do with hunters or hunting, or is this an unconnected, unrelated thing?
Jack: Great question. [pause] This guy in green is a hunter, and he is learning that he has an ability that will help him hunt, whatever that is. So it's like, they're at school, all three of the boys are at, at hunter school, right, [chuckling] where they play dodgeball, presumably, with the executioner and the —
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: [chuckling] The semi-gorilla.
Austin: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Jack: And, you know, the slight fellow here with the lilac hair knew this was going to happen. He's like, “I believe in you. You know, you can do this new thing. You can make something appear in this wineglass, if you just believe.” [chuckling] I suppose. And so they all gather round on the table, and he puts his hands around the wineglass, and, uh, uh, does the magic. And he's like, “I can do it! This is going to be really useful to me!” As a hunter. Tall Pokemon dude, also shocked. Lilac-haired fellow is like, “I knew it. I believed in you.”
Austin: What do you think is useful about the spell? [chuckling]
Sylvi: [laughing]
Jack: [laughing] Well, I mean, what are, what are we, by what criteria are we classifying utility?
Austin: Yours.
Jack: [laughing] Okay.
Austin: Oh, I have a new thing to add that I'm seeing. I'm seeing a sort of, like a tram, like a ski-lift style tram, lifting up above the city.
Keith: Woah.
Jack: Wow, where do, where do you think it goes?
Austin: That's a mystery. No one, no one knows.
Keith: It goes to the top of the hill, to ski down.
Austin: Yes.
Jack: Oh, right.
Sylvi: It sounds right.
Jack: I do not know what city Austin's in right now.
Sylvi: Sorry.
Jack: Uh, ugh. This — what is the utility of this? Why, why... is making a thing in a wineglass useful to being a hunter?
Sylvi: [laughing]
Keith: Have, is that where you've settled, that something's being made in the wineglass?
Jack: Yes, absolutely. [whiff] Like that sound.
Keith: Okay.
Jack: [Droi-oi-oi-oi-oing] You know.
Sylvi: Ooh.
Jack: He puts his hands out —
Sylvi: Didgeridoo-ish.
Jack: Yeah, sort of. Yeah, I don't have a thing near me to make the sound —
Sylvi: The, the noise you made just gave me, it was giving didgeridoo.
Jack: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He makes it in the wineglass. How is this useful to being a hunter? You know, I don't think — I think he needs to think broader than the wineglass. He's like, “let's start small, let's make the thing in a wineglass.” Let's say, for example, that he is able to make, sort of, uh, airbender or waterbender style, currents of, of air, or, or, or water, or, you know, stuff out in the wilds while he's hunting. That's very useful.
Austin: I like that answer. That's a fun answer.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Keith: That is a fun answer. Uh... is there, is there anything else that you have to say about this scene? Who — who is the Pokemon boy?
Jack: What kind of a question is that?
Sylvi: I have, I have a question that's similar but maybe a little broader that could tie in, which is like, how, like — do you, how do you, how do you think this crew's rolling together? Like, what's brought these boys together?
Jack: They're all, they're all sort of like, you know, when I say studying to be hunters, I don't think that there's necessarily like a hunter school. I think that these boys have sort of been taken in by this organization one way or another, maybe. But these are like, classmates. They're like, you know?
Sylvi: Mmm. Mm-hm. Mm-hm.
Keith: Okay.
Sylvi: Mm-hm.
Jack: They're like, linked by, you know, maybe they're all old friends. But...
Austin: They have like chemistry class together, basically.
Jack: Well, yeah, sort of. But again, I don't think think this is like a real school type situation. I think that they are sort of like loosely affiliated in learning to be hunters.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: I see, I see.
Jack: But they all grew up on the same block, may — you know, that kind of a vibe, right? I do like that each of these characters is being drawn kind of differently, which is interesting. Uh, and I don't know anything about small Pokemon boy's outfit, but the three, well, the two outfits that I can see are very differently, too.
Keith: Mmm.
Sylvi: That is true.
Keith: Massive spoiler here, uh, Pokemon boy is also wearing something different.
Jack: Oh, really?
Keith: Yep.
Jack: Like, strikingly different? Are these people from other worlds?
Sylvi: Yeah, I would say so.
Keith: Yeah, I would say all three of them have very different clothes on.
Jack: No, no. I thought about it, I suggested, I entertained the idea that these might all have come from different worlds. But I don't think that that's true, you know? Like, uh...
Austin: Like in a literal sense, like in a —
Jack: Like in a literal sense.
Sylvi: Like in Isekai.
Jack: Like in an Isekai. Yeah. Yeah. But no.
Austin: That's fun.
Jack: No, yeah, I don't think that's true, though, I don't think that's real. Uh, anything else that you want to hit here, or shall we move on to questions?
Sylvi: I think —
Austin: Let's do questions, because I'm going to evaporate in like 5 minutes, so...
Jack: Okay. Yeah, I really appreciate you coming in to help guide through some image —
Austin: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Keith: Did you say you were going to evaporate?
Sylvi: I'm so happy.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: Mm-hm. I'm waiting in the, the evaporation queue, I'm waiting to be evaporated.
Jack: Are you, is the...
Sylvi: Austin's being boiled right now.
Jack: Are you in the —
Austin: Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jack: Wineglass, Austin?
Austin: I'm in the wineglass, I —
Keith: Yeah, they made Austin.
Austin: The spell is — yeah, mm-hm.
Sylvi: If you zoom in really close, you can see Austin.
Austin: [chuckling] Yeah. If you keep the image up long enough, you'll see me appear, actually.
Jack: Wow.
Keith: The disturbance at the top of the wineglass that you briefly noted, that's Austin being made. Uh...
Sylvi: [laughing]
Keith: We're going to have a tournament arc to see who's the next host of, uh, Friends at the Table.
Jack: Will you have all your memories, Austin? Or will it be a kind of rebirth into a new kind of existence?
Austin: Is this your question?
Jack: [chuckling] No. No. My —
Austin: Okay, well then I can't tell you.
[1:43:20]
Jack: Okay. My yes/no question is... okay. Yes/no question. Is magic happening in this image?
Sylvi: Mmm... uh, hm.
Austin: Yes.
Keith: Yes.
Sylvi: Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, right? Like, let's be —
Jack: [chuckling] 15 second pause, and then unanimous yes.
Austin: Like, let's be honest, yes.
Sylvi: Like, yeah. When we, we get down do the fucking facts of it, yeah.
Jack: Right, right, right. Well, you've given me really good information there, right, which is that, like, yes magic exists, but it is being presented in some, either semantic context, or like, actual context, that caused you all to pause for that long, you know? Uh, whether it's a, “oh, we don't call it magic in this world,” or it's something like, this is actual pseudomechanical stuff that we can manipulate, or whatever. You know, there's something going on about the magic that meant you paused, and then concluded, you know?
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: Very useful question.
Austin: I'm evaporating right now. Have a good [unintelligible]
Sylvi: Bye!
Austin: Bye.
Keith: Bye forever.
Jack: [chuckling] See you, Austin.
Keith: Wow. And he's gone.
Jack: There he goes.
Sylvi: There he goes.
Keith: Yep. Wow.
Jack: Wow. Who are you rooting for the new GM? Personally, I'm rooting for, uh, Ben Schwarz.
Keith: Oh, I thought we were going to have a big, uh, big contest, and it was just going to be one of us.
Jack: Yeah, but we're all going to pick our fighter.
Keith: [unintelligible] from the rest of us.
Jack: And I'm going to pick — no, I'm not going to pick Ben Schwarz. I'm going to pick, uh, the deceased, uh, art critic, John Berger.
Sylvi: Is this like a physical fight?
Keith: Oh, I'm going to also pick John Berger.
Sylvi: Uh, because, yeah, John, John Berger was my pick, too, and so this is kind of uncomfortable.
Jack: Oh, this is very awkward. And, frankly, if we can pick deceased people. Well, no, it's not that Austin is deceased, it's just that he's been transmuted to the world of Hunter x Hunter.
Sylvi: You know what? —
Keith: And will then shortly be deceased.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Jack: Uh, bonus question, free question, free question. Would Austin have a good time in the world of Hunter x Hunter? [chuckles]
Sylvi: Uh, you know? I feel like Austin would be able to, to find a lane in the world of Hunter x Hunter.
Keith: I think yes, I think that Austin could find —
Sylvi: Study some cool shit, yeah.
Keith: This isn't like when people say that they want to go to the Star Wars universe, and then you have to go, “well, just think about that for a second, it would be a nightmare.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Keith: Uh...
Jack: [chuckling] Just think about that. It truly would be a nightmare.
Keith: [laughing] You'd love your whole life, uh, on the outer rim, being sort of, uh, totally ignored by the, uh, the terrible galactic power. But the only authority in the galaxy, uh, and then you'd never see a Jedi your whole life, then you'd die.
Jack: Yeah, and maybe not even the Gold Age.
Sylvi: That's how I wish I was, the last shit, all.
Jack: You'd never see a Jedi in real-life and then –
Keith: Well, right, you die in a raid of some sort.
Sylvi: Yeah, ideal.
Jack: Ugh. I like the Jedi so much as nightmare entities. I think that what they do to any story they step into is fascinating, but I do hate, uh...
Keith: Yeah. That's the, that's the right answer.
Jack: Okay. Time for my question that you can answer with a sentence. [pause] Oh, this is a good question.
Sylvi: [giggling]
Jack: Not, not a good question, again, a good opportunity for a question. This is lots of questions you could ask about this image. And the question I'm going to ask is... [pause] Where are these boys, at the time of this event?
Sylvi: That is a fantastic question. That is a fantastic question. Uh...
Keith: Are they where I think they are?
Sylvi: Uh, you... you might want to double-check with — message me where you think they are.
Keith: Okay.
Sylvi: [pause] Building tension. Yes, yes, you are correct.
Keith: Okay. Okay. I think that we should be very specific about this thing.
Sylvi: I think we can use the... the proper noun name of the place they are at, yeah.
Keith: Uh...
Sylvi: Do you want to go for it, or should I?
Keith: Uh, you can go for it.
Jack: Wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait.
Keith: Uh, they — hm?
Jack: You should say it simultaneously. I'll say, the boys are in, and then you say it together.
Sylvi: Okay.
Keith: Okay. That'll be, that'll be even more confusing for you, then.
Sylvi: Yep.
Jack: [laughing]
Sylvi: Okay, are we, is that — are we doing this?
Jack: Okay.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: The boys are in —
Sylvi: The hotel portion of Heaven’s —
Keith: Oh, okay. Hold on, wait — hold on! [laughing]
Jack: What?
Sylvi: Keith. Keith!
Jack: [laughing] I thought that we were going to say the two-word answer.
Sylvi: No, I was going to say the —
Keith: Not the whole sentence.
Sylvi: I thought we were doing the full sentence.
Jack: Okay, Sylvi, Sylvi, Sylvi, Sylvi, you just give it — Sylvi, just give it to me, I'm sorry.
Sylvi: The boys are, okay. I'm going to start with your framing, though, of, “the boys are in.” The boys are in a hotel room, uh, in the — in Heaven's Arena.
Jack: Whoa. Whoa!
Sylvi: In, in — uh, yeah. The hotel portion of Heaven's Arena.
Jack: The hotel —
Keith: See, I was prepared to just say, “Heaven's Arena.”
Sylvi: That's also — yeah.
Jack: The hotel portion of Heaven's Arena.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: Now, this is really interesting. Because... and, you know, we spoke about how I don't have any kind of fluency with shonen anime, but I have some understanding of the conventions, having, you know, seen little bits of it. This is a genre, right, and you know, I don't know if you feel the same way, where a place can be named Heaven's Arena, and it could be an arena. Just a regular person's normal arena. This is also a genre where a place could be named Heaven's Arena, and it is an arena in heaven. And this puts me in a really, you know, [chuckling] a real bind, as it were, in terms of interpreting your answer. Very interesting. What is the small Pokemon fellow's name?
Sylvi: Oh, uh, his name is Zushi.
Jack: Excellent. Great. Cool.
Sylvi: Spelled exactly how you think.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: So they — right, not a cool surname — not a cool spelling. There kind of is magic, they're in the hotel portion of Heaven's Arena, and that little dude is Zushi.
Keith: Yep.
Sylvi: Mm-hm.
Jack: [pause] Interesting.
Keith: I think so.
Sylvi: I think — yeah.
Keith: I'm, I'm now very excited to, to, for you to see what goes on with this thing that they're doing here.
Sylvi: Yeah, me too.
Jack: Yeah. Because to me, they're just magic. They're just doing magic in a wineglass.
Keith: Right.
Jack: He's, he's, he's, he's... he's utilizing his magic, [laughing] in some respect.
Keith: Would you like to do a quick one?
Jack: Yeah, totally.
Keith: Okay. Are we ready to move on, do we have anything else about this one?
Sylvi: Uh...
Jack: I don't think so.
Keith: Okay.
Sylvi: Nope. Just that, if you want to have us do a full show about Hunter x Hunter, you should go to friendsatthetable.cash, Patreon.com/friends_ table will also take you there. And, uh, help us reach our, our goal.
Sylvi: This is a fucking incredible one. Was this you, Keith?
Keith: [chuckling]
Jack: Oh, this —
Sylvi: This one's incredible. I'm so —
Jack: It's wonderful.
Sylvi: Happy. I'm so happy.
Jack: This is great. God, what a great image.
Keith: [chuckling]
Jack: This is why, this is why people invented animation —
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: [chuckling] To be able to make images like this. Okay... we're going to start broad here. The whole room is lit, in, in, in, in a sort of pink color, or a pale lilac color. This, this, this, this pink color has appeared in almost every, uh, shot. This really cool, I say this because the whole thing has this kind of like, vaguely dreamlike vibe going on, which is a really fun contrast to what else is happening in the image.
In the middle of the frame, sitting on stools, at what I can only describe as the platonic ideal of a wooden table, is a, an extreme buff person wearing a sleeveless shirt — are sleeveless shirts a big part of this show? You can say yes to this, this doesn't feel like a spoiler.
Sylvi: People wear them frequently.
Jack: I feel like I've seen so many sleeveless shirts.
Keith: Uh, yeah.
Sylvi: They're not an uncommon aspect of the contemporary design. I would say, they don't stand out more than any other type of shirt, but...
Keith: There's definitely a much higher percentage of them in Hunter x Hunter than in the real world —
Jack: [chuckling] Okay.
Keith: But they are not thematically important.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Jack: Right, right, right. Right right. Sure. Uh, the person's buff, buff as hell, uh, wears a big, bronze, uh, sort of bracelet, and has just lost, uh, arm wrestling, to a thin little squirt with, uh, pointy black hair, spiky [pshew] black hair. Very possibly the person who was doing magic in the previous image. I think, actually we have two characters from the previous image here, but that's fine.
Sylvi: [chuckling]
Jack: This person is, is very slim, is wearing, uh, nice little boots with a nice cuff on the boots. Also wearing a sleeveless shirt, and has beaten the buff fellow at arm wrestling. Uh, seems like, put some exertion in. You know, head down, you know, not, not looking utterly calm, but ditto. In the background of the image is a deeply-surprised businessman, wearing —
Sylvi: [laughing]
Jack: Tiny, perfect glasses.
Keith: [laughing]
Sylvi: [cracking up]
Jack: This businessman has seen the... you know, maybe was betting on the fight, you know? Maybe was —
Sylvi: [chuckling]
Jack: Like, like — you know, “oh, I'll pick the buff, buff man to win.” And he's, he's lost. And he's, he's got that great, you know, cartoon pose of like — “what? Shock! Ugh!” Uh, he has very cool-looking glasses, he's wearing a suit and a tie, uh, uh, a green tie. Uh, you can see the whites of his cuffs, his shirt cuffs under his suit. Behind him are... is another, wait. Is... two other men in suits. We can see their legs, two pairs of legs, behind. I guess these are people who are watching. And in the foreground, we have the, the, uh, pink-haired, the slight fellow from the very first image who we saw in the last image.
Keith: The famously slight fellow.
Jack: [mishearing Keith] [chuckling] Whose name is the Slight Fellow. Who is looking direct — well, not quite — but sort of peering at the camera, and smirking, the, the biggest sort of shit-eating grin on his face.
Sylvi: [giggling]
Jack: He knew that the pointy-haired one was going to, you know, uh, uh, win this arm-wrestling fight, no problem. Uh, and I, I don't think he's, I don't know how this shot is situated with other shots around it, but I wonder if he's turning to talk to another character and be like, “yeah, you know. I knew it. I knew that would happen.” Uh, he is dressed like a little fancy lad.
Sylvi: [giggling]
Keith: [chuckling]
Jack: He looks great. He's wearing a white shirt, with a big, uh, wide collar, popped, sort of popped collar, almost. He is, uh, wearing a very snazzy pink V-neck, uh, uh, with a little tiny white, uh, sort of pinstriped banding around the V. And, this is very interesting, he is wearing a necklace, or pendant, which is golden, with an X in the middle. Notable because of the, you know, the X in the show's logo and a lot of its marketing. This, I think, is probably a hunter's mark, that's what I'm going to call it.
Sylvi: Ooh!
Keith: Ooh, Hunter's Mark.
Jack: And this is something hunters — yeah. This is something hunters —
Sylvi: Seek the pale blood.
Jack: Seek — [laughing]
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: Seek, seek —, “seek the pale blood, hunter.” Yeah. He gets this mark —
Sylvi: [laughing]
Jack: And when we wears it, he has been sort of like — does this word mean what I think it means? No, it doesn't. So I won't use it. He has been sort of, uh, brought into the hunter's organization. And gets to wear this little, this little mark. But really what's going on here is the slight, uh, uh, the skinny boy with the spiky hair has beaten a buff dude at arm wrestling, a businessman is shocked, and the slight fellow is turning to the camera and smirking like, “I knew that would happen.” Anything I'm missing here?
Sylvi: Uh...
Keith: Uh, uh, there is actually a third businessman between the two legs that you can see.
Sylvi: Oh.
Jack: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Keith: There's one additional. So there's, that's a small detail. Perhaps a bigger crowd is here.
Jack: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well I think that that, that's consistent. This is like an arm-wrestling display, and maybe betting, so I think there's a little crowd kind of going on, you know?
Keith: Uh, now you said that —
Sylvi: Okay!
Keith: You said that, uh, this is the slight fellow. Uh, you said that the spiky-haired boy is maybe the spiky-haired boy from the last picture.
Jack: Yeah.
Keith: Uh, do you want to decide one way or the other on that?
Jack: Yes, he is. He is the spiky-haired boy. And here we have two protagonists.
Keith: Okay.
Jack: The slight fellow —
Sylvi: Ooh.
Jack: And the spiky-haired boy.
Keith: Now, that's a great question. How many people in this scene do you think are protagonists?
Jack: Two.
Keith: Okay.
Sylvi: Okay.
Jack: [laughing] Two is my answer. Uh, what's going on here, sort of on a broader level? Uh, well, you know, the, the spiky-haired boy is very strong, despite looking very weak, probably because of his magic, you know. So we're being told that there's like a sort of, like a subversion of expectations here, for, for the two characters on the left of the image, you know, “oh, I can do the arm-wrestling, but I'm actually, I'm actually really strong.” I just watched, uh, Twilight: Breaking Dawn part 2 yesterday —
Sylvi: Oh, let's go!
Jack: That has a very, a very similar — I, uh, god, I — this was my first time watching —
Keith: Sorry, what did you watch yesterday?
Jack: Twilight: Breaking Dawn part 2. It was my first time watching the Twilight movies. I thought, I had such a good time. I thought that they were so, [chuckling] such a weird, such a weird series to watch.
Sylvi: Very bizarre.
Keith: I had, I had a really phenomenal time —
Jack: And like —
Keith: With the only one of them that I saw, which was the last one, in theaters, one of my all-time favorite theater experiences.
Jack: Yeah, yeah. They are, they go beyond... [sighs]
Keith: They go beyond.
Sylvi: They do go beyond.
Jack: They — they do go beyond. They go beyond like, iconic appreciation of a bad movie, which is, you know, it is what it is. I feel like people have been, uh, me included, doing that kind of watching of movies forever. You know, it is what it is. The goals and execution of the five Twilight movies, across the, their run, is a fucking thing to behold, uh, in terms of what those movies set out to do and the ways they fall short, uh, uh, in them. The ways they kind of get occasionally very interested in a thing that is interesting, and just botch it spectacularly. I... I cannot recommend enough, the sensation of sitting down to watch the [chuckling] five Twilight movies, with someone you like talking about media with. It's, it was, it was really, really a good time.
Keith: It's the, this is the Sonic 06 problem to me, which is that a lot of times, people watch bad movies, uh, a lot of the famously bad movies that people like to watch to make fun of, uh, to me, are, are, are too boring to be fun, even in how bad they are.
Sylvi: Mm-hm.
Jack: Right.
Keith: Sonic 06 is so bad, but it also is really interesting and funny. Uh, which makes it fun to play through.
Jack: Yeah.
Keith: Uh, and I feel the same way about the Twilight movie that I watched, is that, all of the ways that it was bad, some — sometimes included, sometimes aside — it was really an interesting watch, uh, and a ton of fun, uh, where something like, uh, what's that, what is that famous bird, bird movie?
Jack: That's a movie that [unintelligible]
Keith: That, that people, that's —
Jack: Uh, that's animated, or it's —
Keith: No, no, it's live action.
Sylvi: Oh, birdemic?
Keith: Birdemic, right, the, that —
Jack: Oh, sure.
Sylvi: Yeah, but it's not even interesting trash.
Keith: Yes, it's, it is trash to such a degree that it's not an enjoyable watch, versus, uh... uh, ah, shit. That, that, the Uwe Boll movie, uh, House of the Dead. House of the Dead is, is a phenomenal watch. I recommend to anybody to watch House of the Dead, an outrageously fun, terrible, terrible, terrible movie.
Jack: Yeah. Yeah.
Sylvi: I mean, we talked about the Resident Evil movies earlier. I think those are very funny and interesting —
Jack: Yeah, totally.
Sylvi: Schlocky films.
Jack: Those are great. I, I think also, and we talked about this a bit when we made the Batman podcast. I really like Kristin Stewart and Robert Pattinson, and I think that they have both gone on to become, like, genuinely very skilled actors. And over the course of these five movies, it is so much fun watching them, kind of, like, figure out what and how acting is, and how acting with each other kind of works. It's, it's really, really fun. It's also —
Keith: Have neither of you seen House of the Dead?
Jack: No.
Sylvi: I have not seen House of the Dead. Someone mentioned Jupiter Ascending in chat, and I fucking love Jupiter Ascending, don't get me started on Jupiter Ascending.
Jack: Yeah. I think that the stuff that the Wachowskis make is, I have never had a bad time watching a Wachowski movie.
Sylvi: Same, but I've never seen Cloud Atlas, so...
Keith: Uh, I had a bad time watching Cloud Atlas.
Jack: [laughing]
Keith: Uh, I think, I think, I think that I could find some stuff, there's, I, I — it wasn't totally, it's not totally their fault that I had a bad time watching it. Uh, someone tell Tom Hanks that he doesn't have to do an accent in every fucking movie. He, he can talk like himself. People want to see Tom Hanks.
Jack: I quite like Tom Hanks.
Sylvi: The thing is, I don't want to see Tom Hanks.
Jack: Oh, sorry, Sylvi, Sylvi — we cancel each other out.
Sylvi: Yeah, we do, we — I have strong feelings that I shouldn't get into, it's controversial.
Jack: Oh. I mean, fair play to you, you know.
Keith: So you're saying Tom Hanks keeps making movies where you're doing a goofy, bad, accent, that makes the movie worse?
Sylvi: I think he should keep it up, because it's at least given him — it's something you know?
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: Uh, someone in chat said, “is Jack reading surprise on the businessman because they're mistaking the mouth for a mustache?” No, I know that's a mustache — oh, sorry, wait —
Keith: [laughing]
Sylvi: Mmm?
Jack: [laughing] I know that's a, I know that's a mouth. I'm reading that as like, what? How is he doing that, that face? You know?
Keith: Mmm.
Jack: Uh... but yeah. So that's, that's — that's where we're at. Uh, should we do questions here?
Keith: Uh...
Sylvi: Yeah.
Keith: Sure, yeah. Do you, do you — from before, before you ask your questions, is the, is the, uh, the, the, uh... is the arm wrestle victim anyone? And is the businessman anyone? Do you think.
Jack: I mean, the, the fact that you're asking this makes me think that they are. You know, I described what I thought was a perfectly normal businessman, and everybody thought that that was great. So, presumably —
Sylvi: [chuckling]
Keith: I, I hope that you'll believe me. I'm going to tell you this. I would ask, no matter what, just for you to read into something that's nothing, for fun.
Jack: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. [pause] My, my gut says I don't think either of these people are... the, the businessman or the, uh, strong failure.
Keith: Mm-hm.
Jack: Are main characters. Out of —
Keith: Strong failure. Good name.
Jack: But — [chuckling] but, I think it's a very interesting show... ugh. I could plausibly see the strong failure being a main character, right? You know, it's like, I'll, uh, uh, uh, characters are all squaring off against each other, et cetera.
Keith: Right.
Jack: If this businessman is the main character, that's really interesting. Because this dude has a character design that we have not seen before. And in every image I've seen a new, fucked-up character design. This is just a guy in a suit.
Keith: Right.
Jack: And like two screenshots ago, I was looking at, like an actual mummy, you know?
Keith: And three ago you were looking at an actual monkey.
Jack: That is — [laughing] an actual monkey. So that's interesting, but, uh, yeah. Out of, out of main character protagonist — not necessarily protagonists, out of main character sort of, most to least likely, I would say slight fellow, spiky-haired fellow, strong failure, businessman.
Keith: Okay.
Sylvi: Okay.
[2:05:20]
Keith: All right. Questions?
Jack: Okay. So I get one yes/no question, I get a name, and I get a question with a sentence.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: I can't guarantee that the slight fellow is going to be in any of the other screenshots. So I'm going to ask what his name is.
Keith: Uh, his name is Killua.
Jack: [pronouncing] Kill-you-uh?
Sylvi: Killua Zoldyck.
Jack: Kill — Killua.
Keith: Killua.
Jack: Killua Zoldyk.
Sylvi: Killua. Yeah.
Jack: Great name.
Sylvi: Good names in Hunter x Hunter.
Jack: Great name.
Keith: Oh yeah. A lot of good names.
Jack: So far, we have Chrollo Lucilfer, Zeusis? What was that guy's game?
Sylvi: Zushi.
Keith: Zushi.
Jack: Zush — [chuckling] Zushi, and Killua Zoldyck. Great. Excellent. Yes/no question. [pause]
Sylvi: Yeah, as pointed out by jau_twitch, I think that’s Jau, it could just be J-A-U, _twitch in the chat, we also know the gorilla does not have a name.
Keith: Correct, right.
Jack: Yes, the gorilla does not, the gorilla does not have a name. Okay. Is the strong failure friends with Killua and the spiky-haired person?
Keith: No.
Sylvi: That was your yes/no?
Jack: Yep.
Sylvi: Okay. Yeah.
Jack: Okay. Okay.
Sylvi: No.
Jack: … Why is Killua dressed so fan — fancily?
Keith: Uh, can I take this one?
Sylvi: Yeah, go right ahead.
Keith: Uh, Killua's family has a lot of money, and he is always wearing fancy new clothes.
Jack: [chuckling] Oh-ho-ho. Wow. I would —
Sylvi: That is, I love — yeah.
Jack: Not have picked that.
Sylvi: No, as pointed out in the chat, Killua's drippy.
Jack: Wow. Wow. He's a little rich boy.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: Mm-hm.
Keith: I will say that I, I do think that the pink shirt, I think this is my favorite Killua outfit. But he's constantly changing outfits.
Sylvi: Oh, really?
Jack: He has a lot of outfits?
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: Wow. Wow.
Keith: I think like, probably like 20 or something. [chuckling] Like it's crazy.
Jack: Well, this is something that I love about Sailor Moon, is that, like, uh, everybody in Sailor Moon wears a different outfit every episode. Occasionally, multiple outfits every episode.
Sylvi: Mm-hm.
Jack: And it is, the, the amount of labor to do that is wild. And, you can see where they've made specific production decisions to allow for [chuckling], you know, like, “oh, we're going to turn the detail down on certain shots, just so that we can make sure that, you know Sailor Venus has a cool new sweater in this scene that she's going to appear in, you know, for 10 seconds.” Uh, it's one of my favorite things about that show, is that the wardrobes just keep changing.
Keith: There's a lot of attention paid to, uh, outfits in the show. And I think —
Jack: [chuckling] Somniens in the chat says, “it's almost like the two authors are similarly-minded.”
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: “Married minds, even.” [chuckling] Ugh. Really cool. Uh... yeah, okay. I think I'm ready for the, do we have another one, or is it, are we just fully into spoiler territory now?
Keith: That's — no, we've, we've decided to, I, I think we decided to not do the potentially spoiler-y one.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Keith: I think —
Jack: Okay.
Keith: And I think the more we talk about it maybe being a spoiler, the more spoiler-y it becomes.
Sylvi: That's, I think the problem, is we've broached the topic of it.
Keith: If no one had ever said anything about this maybe being a spoiler —
Jack: [chuckling]
Keith: I think it would have been fine. But, since, since we've, uh...
Sylvi: I guess.
Jack: Right.
Sylvi: I feel like it would have, you would remember it in the process of watching the show, and that would be the spoiler, you know?
Jack: Oh, that's true. Whereas, these images are going to be so fun, because we're going to hit them —
Sylvi: Yeah.
Jack: In the process of watching the show, and I'm going to go, “oh, huh.”
Keith: Yeah, yeah. I don't think anything here —
Jack: Uh...
Keith: Has, uh, has spoiled anything even kind of.
Jack: Dream time?
Keith: Dream time.
Jack: Okay. So, last night, I dreamt that we had this conversation. Uh, I don't do this very often. I don't dream about work very often, which is quite nice. Uh, instead, I dream about failing a history exam, you know, from a decade ago, or something.
Keith: Oof.
Jack: Uh, in this dream —
Keith: Well, actually I think that — oop. In our case, work is more fun than a history exam. It's not always the case, but I think I would rather dream at [chuckling] Friends at the Table than history class.
Jack: Yeah. I, what I tend to actually dream about is doing things with my friends from Friends at the Table. Like, oh, we're — we, are like, oh, we're exploring a city or something, and y'all are there. Rather than it being like, oh, I have to get this done for Friends at the Table or whatever, which is nice. But this was, we were, we were recording this. And, in it, you showed me, I don't know which of it was — I think you had both selected a screenshot together, you know, uh, unanimously. And the screenshot that you selected shows — let me pull up my notes so I make sure I get this right. Okay.
It was a mid-shot of someone traveling through the water on a kind of chariot engine. So there was like a — it was almost like a speeder bike from Star Wars, but it was, it was in the water, it was surfing on top of the water. Uh, it was like a large, yellow engine, that looked almost like the tanks from, uh, like the scream tanks from Monsters, Inc., you know? That kind of yellow.
Sylvi: [chuckling] Okay.
Jack: All stacked together to make the engine. And coming off it was like a, a, a seat, and two sort of long, almost like, uh, uh, uh, like reins for a horse, you know, like whiplike, uh, uh, leather ropes, almost, the character sitting in was controlling this, this, uh, sort of water chariot with these two leather ropes. Sitting in the chair was what I can only describe as a professor. Uh, he had a big, white coat, you know, he had big glasses, he had sort of wild professor hair, he had like a little pocket protector with pens in. Uh, and his white coat and hair were sort of like, billowing out behind him, as he was driving this sort of water chariot at speed, uh, across the water. He was laughing, he was, he was excited, he was happy.
I think, this is like a shot from, you know, from, you know, he's going like, “whee, ha-ha-ha!” You know, this guy's driving around in this, in this chariot thing. The water, the waves were kind of coming up around the chariot. It was blue water, a sunny day outside, uh, it seemed pretty cool. He was on a, in a sort of like science fiction fantasy cross between a, like a water ski device [chuckling] and a chariot.
Sylvi: [laughing]
Jack: Uh... right. Now, you get to interpret that, I suppose.
Keith: Well, we get one name.
Jack: Vis-a-vis Hunter x Hunter. [laughing] Yeah, you —
Keith: What is the name of the professor?
Jack: Uh, uh... Uh... this, this professor's name is Gilroy.
Keith: Gilroy. Hm. He seems like, maybe not a good guy, but he seems like... definitely a protagonist. How big is this, is the vehicle?
Jack: About the size of a small car.
Keith: Oh... [laughing] Memeshart in the chat says, “now Keith, guess how you spell it.” [laughing]
Jack: [laughing]
Sylvi: It's QYLL —
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: [chuckling] Yeah.
Sylvi: HFOUGH.
Jack: Got it in one.
Keith: You said, uh, you, you said it's about the size of an elephant?
Jack: No, no, it's about the size of a small car!
Keith: Small car?
Jack: I said —
Keith: Clearly, I misheard. [chuckles]
Jack: [laughs]
Keith: [laughing] It also —
Jack: Is this the kind of thing —
Keith: It's also the size of a small elephant.
Jack: A very small elephant, yeah. Elephants are fucking huge, aren't they?
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: What vehicle, human vehicle, do you think is most comparable to the size of an elephant? A truck, probably.
Keith: Uh, like a, probably like a —
Sylvi: A Hummer?
Keith: Hummer, right?
Jack: A Hummer?
Keith: Or, or —
Jack: No, smaller, right?
Keith: I could go, I could swerve but I could say, a double decker bus.
Sylvi: Oh...
Jack: That's too big, I think, right?
Keith: Well, but the Hummer is too small.
Jack: Yeah.
Sylvi: There is no, there's no car that is the size of an elephant, and that's how they're going to get us.
Jack: Wow.
Keith: Well, luckily, we vastly outnumber them, carwise.
Sylvi: I don't know.
Jack: Yeah.
Keith: And thank, thank god for that.
Jack: And thank god for that. I, I suppose my question is this. Is this image of Gilroy... consistent in any way with what I can expect to see in Hunter x Hunter?
Keith: Uh...?
Sylvi: Uh...
Keith: I'm struggling to think of many vehicles that we see.
Sylvi: Yeah...
Keith: Hunter x Hunter doesn't have a ton of — they have like, transports, we see an air —
Sylvi: I mean, there will be like, there is definitely moments where it's like, “oh yeah, that's just a, that is a bus, that is a bus people get on at the bus stop.”
Keith: Right.
Sylvi: But it's not really a thing the characters engage with outside of like —
Keith: People in the chat are saying, yes, there are cars. Uh, we see different, like, bigger transports, like Sylvi said, buses, and we see there's ships and stuff like that. But I, I don't think we see a lot of — because this, this vehicle to me spells, or reads as like, a sort of like Sci-Fi vehicle, or, I know this isn't really a touchstone for you, Jack, but it sounds like we were talking, right before we started, sounds like a Capsule Corp vehicle, honestly, is what it sounds like.
Jack: [chuckles]
Sylvi: Yeah.
Keith: This sounds like Bulma's dad [chuckling] on an, on a vehicle, to me. Uh... and there's not a lot of that kind of sort of like, modern fantasy personal vehicles. But, uh, uh, you know, a weird scientist — what's the scientist doing, is he wearing like a — or no, not a scientist, professor. Is he wearing like a coat? What is he —
Jack: Yeah, he's wearing like a white coat. Uh, [unintelligible] in the chat says, “this feels more like Nausicaä.” Yeah, definitely, like —
Sylvi: That's what I was about to say.
Jack: It feels like, it feels like a very Ghibli image. Uh, whether it's Nausicaä or Ponyo or something, you know, I definitely picture the water as having that kind of Ponyo quality of like, all these beautiful, different shades in it.
Sylvi: I was picturing sort of like, forest —
Jack: It's fascinating that —
Sylvi: Situation, in, uh, Nausicaä that's sort of like, tranquil, but weirdly empty vibe, that they get kind of —
Jack: Oh.
Keith: Mmm.
Jack: God — is that the one where there’s the…
Sylvi: Like it's a lot, like there's like, like there's like little dust flecks and like light flecks in the air, and it's like — I can try and find an image of like, the specific... Nausicaä stuff.
Jack: Is Nausicaä the one with that fucking incredible old pirate granny? Or is that Castle in the Sky?
Sylvi: Uh, wait, yeah, I think — oh, shit. Uh... I don't remember. She might be? Uh...
Keith: I, I don't remember. I've seen Nausicaä and that doesn't —
Sylvi: It's been a while.
Jack: That's Castle in the Sky, apparently.
Keith: Okay.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Jack: That's such a good character. There’s a train chase in it…
Sylvi: Because there are like, there is an airship thing in Nausicaä, but I don't think, I don't know if they have a fun leader.
Jack: Oh, Naussica is the one with the bugs, the cool bugs.
Sylvi: Yeah. Yeah, there's big bugs.
Jack: Those massive — wow. Yeah. Wow. Does this about wrap it up for us today, do you think, or is there anything else that we want to hear?
Keith: Uh, we still that our sentence question.
Jack: Oh, about the dream, yes, you're right.
Keith: Yeah. Uh, uh, I have sort of a question, unless, Sylvi, you have a —
Sylvi: No, I, I — please. I, I, uh, I'm happy to defer.
Keith: What is the professor going to do once he gets across the water?
Jack: Wow. Great question. Let's see. He, well, so, what he's done, actually, is he has built this device, and he didn't know if it was going to work. So what he's doing is, he's taking it out onto the water as like a, what he's having is he's having like a eureka moment, you know? Like an, “ah-ha-ha, it did — it does it! The device works!”
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: You know. So I think what he's going to do is, he's going to do doughnuts in the water [chuckling] and then he's going to bring it back to his lab.
Keith: [chuckles]
Jack: Because he's, because he's delighted.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: You know, they didn't think he could build it.
Keith: But could.
Jack: But he did.
Keith: He did.
Jack: But he could, and he did. Yeah. Yeah.
Keith: Uh, all right. I think that, I think that wraps us up.
Jack: Deeroana in the chat says — maybe Deero Ana, in the chat says, “they never explained whether Jack was right or not? Is that going to happen at a later date? Or do they just live with the uncertainty?”
Sylvi: Oh.
Jack: Well, do I have a pitch for you. If you would like to hear whether I was right or not, you can do so in the limited run Hunter x Hunter podcast that we will produce, with, uh, uh, you know, a rotating cast of characters, a full watch of Hunter x Hunter, uh... by, uh, contributing to our Patreon, at friendsatthetable.cash. I believe the goal, Patreon has removed goals, which [chuckling] fucking sucks, or is in the process of removing goals. But if the Patreon hits 30,000, we will produce this series. Uh, we're calling it Media Club Plus: Hunter x Hunter. Uh, I'm so excited to do it. I'm so excited to see it. Uh, and talk about it. Uh, and I'm, I'm really hopeful that folks will, will contribute, and we'll get to the goal.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Keith: Uh, yeah. And in addition to that, if you were here last month, when we were doing a lot of streaming, and we told everybody about the prime subs, and hey, if you've got a prime sub that you want to throw our way, we'd be really appreciative of that. Uh, the thing that he learned is that prime subs don't roll over. You've got to redo that every month. So if you are someone who threw your prime sub towards us last month, and you'd like to do that again, you can do that again, here, on Twitch. Uh, and if this is the first time you've heard anything about that, it's still something that you can do. Uh, but of course, our priority is, uh, Patreon.com/friends_table, or friendsatthetable.cash, to hit that 30,000 mark. A mere 1238 dollars from now.
Jack: Oh, wow, so it's not even — so, this, yeah, it's worth saying, this is not a Patreon goal that is so distantly outside of the realms of possibility. This is something that we, we are genuinely, you know, close to being able to make.
Keith: Right. This is something that could hit... uh, this — this month. It could hit next month. It could hit the month after that. That's sort of what I'm expecting, personally. I'm expecting it to be somewhere in the ballpark of 1 and 2 months. And of course, if, if it being that close gets you excited to go to friendsatthetable.cash and donate, all the closer.
Jack: All the closer. Qu4resm4 [Quaresma] in the chat says, “any plans to finish that Wildermyth campaign?” Absolutely. Uh, that's something we're really excited to do. It's just a case of, uh, making sure that our schedules kind of align, along with the ongoing production of Palisade.
Keith: Yeah, one of the things is that starting the new season recently, like, all of the time that we had that could have maybe been scheduled for that had to go to Palisade stuff. So like, a couple of things with more people, uh, were sitting, waiting to be done. Uh, but yeah. I want to do that soon.
Jack: Also. I had a, I have a thought that I would love to discuss with the two of you, who, who have actually seen Hunter x Hunter. I need to think about music for this show, if we make it. Like a theme.
Sylvi: Oh. Oh, that — hm.
Keith: Hm.
Sylvi: I would like to send you music from the show, but...
Jack: My initial thought was, what happens if I try and write the Hunter x Hunter theme, having only heard it once?
Sylvi: Oh my god.
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: But that, I, I don't know what the theme is like, you know? For example, there are themes that I could probably get a handle on after hearing them once, and there are themes that I would just have no chance whatsoever. Is that something that is [chuckling] viable and entertaining? Or... yeah. Is that just, would be extremely difficult? Oh, justanotherOtto says, “just describe the music and make Jack write it based on that.”
Keith: [laughing]
Sylvi: I'll hum it.
Keith: It, yeah. It is, uh, genre-wise, it's kind of, uh... it's kind of like a pop ballad, I guess? It's a fun theme. I really like it. Uh... it —
Sylvi: Yeah. And it's the theme for the entire run of the show, which is not usually the case with anime that's this long.
Keith: Right, yeah. Uh...
Sylvi: Like the song stays the same, even when the animation changes.
Keith: Yu Yu Hakusho also — Yu Yu Hakusho does the same thing, which is funny that that, both of his shows have the same opener. Yu Yu Hakusho famously —
Sylvi: I mean, they got it right the first time.
Keith: Best opening theme song in anime of all time.
Sylvi: Yeah. Smile bomb, right?
Keith: Yep. Yep.
Sylvi: Yep.
Keith: Oh, it's so good.
Sylvi: [laughing]
Keith: Uh...
Jack: We should think about it. There'll be music, and I want to do something fun with it. I've always loved the idea of trying to interpret a piece of music that you only have very vague understanding of, you know, of like hearing music through a wall, [chuckling] producing a version of it, you know. Uh, but it might be impossible. I don't, I don't know. I could probably do it in two listens, but at that point, it might not be as fun.
Keith: I think that you, I think that you should do it — it's got lyrics, it's very lyrical.
Jack: I can't do that. I couldn't do that.
Keith: Uh, but you could just —
Jack: But I could —
Keith: Interpret the lyrics as, as an instrumental melody. Uh, I think that you should do this. I think that you should listen to it one time. And then, then do your take on that. I think that's a good idea.
Jack: Would you like to watch this show? Well, do we have the link for you. Go to —
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: Friendsatthetable.cash, and support us on Patreon.
Keith: Uh, of course, if for some reason you only know of us from the Twitch, you can also go to your podcast app and download the Friends at the Table podcast. You should do that.
Jack: It's extremely good.
Keith: It's very good.
Sylvi: Doing some, uh, some, some incredible shit right now, honestly.
Keith: Uh, but don't listen to that. Go back and listen to... Partizan.
Sylvi: Oh yeah. Listen to Partizan first, but...
Keith: I mean, you don't — you know, listen to your heart.
Sylvi: Listen to Partizan. Listen to your heart, listen to Partizan. That's our new tagline.
Keith: [laughing]
Sylvi: I just turned into Peggy from Mad Men.
Jack: What's, what is — does Peggy pitch advertising taglines? I haven't seen Mad Men. Media Club Plus: Mad Men.
Sylvi: Yeah, it's, it's — oh, that would be a good one. I'd, I'd do that. I like that show. We're just going to do shows that I like, have hyperfocused on. Uh...
Jack: Media Club Plus plus: the Twilight movies.
Sylvi: We'll do that, we'll do Hannibal, uh...
Keith: I didn't realize you were a big Mad Men fan.
Sylvi: Yeah, I watched all of it, uh, a couple months back, and really, really fell in love with it. Uh...
Jack: Huh. That's good.
Sylvi: I like media about terrible people.
Jack: Yeah.
Sylvi: So...
Jack: Have you seen The Terror?
Sylvi: Oh my god. Uh, this was [chuckling] recommended to me on a date.
Jack: Oh, wow. That's a — that's a vibe. I haven't seen it, but I really want to.
Sylvi: I've heard it's good.
Jack: Yeah.
Keith: I don't know what it is, it looks scary.
Jack: The Terror is —
Sylvi: It's like about, uh, — here, you go ahead. You're probably a little more familiar.
Jack: It is, a, fictionalized story of a real disastrous arctic expedition, in the late nineteenth century, I believe. I believe the time is right, I know that it's —
Keith: From executive producer Ridley Scott.
Jack: Yeah.
Sylvi: And it stars Jared Harris, who is in... Mad Men. Brought it back around.
Jack: Wait, wait. Jared Harris was in Mad Men?
Sylvi: Yeah. Jared Harris is in Mad Men for a few seasons.
Jack: I love Jared Harris.
Sylvi: Yeah, he's great in Mad Men.
Jack: I will watch anything Jared Harris is in, except Chernobyl, because that seems utterly miserable.
Sylvi: Yeah, how many seasons of Mad Men is he in? He was on it for like 3 years. 26 episodes. And he directed an episode, too.
Jack: He's really good in, uh, The Expanse, too.
Keith: Good for Gerald Harris. [sic]
Sylvi: I think it’s good. Hm?
Jack: Yeah.
Keith: Good for... Jared... Harold.
Sylvi: Yep. Jared Herrel.
Jack: Gerald Harold.
Keith: Jerry Harry.
Sylvi: Gerald Harold. Thank you... for joining us, everybody.
Jack: Thank you very much.
Sylvi: For, uh, for Harold x Harold [laughing]
Keith: [laughing]
Sylvi: Harrel x Jared.
Keith: And, uh, thank you Jack for — Thank you, Jack, for giving it your best shot with those, uh, screenshots.
Jack: Oh, thank you so much to you both, uh, —
Keith: You really did, uh, put your mouth where your mouth was, when you said that you would —
Jack: [chuckling]
Keith: Actually analyze them.
Jack: Actually try and read the images. [laughing]
Keith: [laughing]
Sylvi: Yeah, I — really, I'm so glad we dove so deep on these.
Jack: Yeah. This was so much fun.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Jack: Uh, we'll see you soon.
Keith: Ooh, one final question.
Jack: Yes.
Keith: Here's, here, we'll close it out. Is there something that you saw today that you're most interested in, uh, learning more about or seeing more of?
Jack: Absolutely. I think that those nine fucking weirdos talking to —
Sylvi: [laughing]
Keith: [laughing]
Jack: Chrollo Lucilfer were so much fun.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: And I would love to get to know them better.
Keith: Okay, great answer.
Sylvi: Fantastic answer.
Jack: Is there something you saw today that you are excited for me to encounter?
Sylvi: So, that would have been my answer.
Jack: Oh, good. [chuckles]
Sylvi: But, I think, uh, outside of that, it is, uh… I want, I'm excited for you to learn about the magic. I think the magic in this show is pretty good.
Keith: Ooh, I think that's true. I'm excited for you to learn about the ants.
Jack: Yeah, I'm very excited about the ants.
Sylvi: Oh, well of course.
Keith: Yeah. I have the wrong —
Jack: Wait, shit? Did I see any ant stuff today?
Keith: Who knows?
Sylvi: We'll never tell. You didn't ask.
Jack: Just yes or no. Whoa...
Keith: Yeah. You could have, you could have used —
Jack: Wow.
Keith: I was actually...
Sylvi: Should we have — we should have made that a question, actually, is — is there an ant in this image?
Keith: I, I was so, I was so sure, uh, Jack, that you were going to ask if everything was an ant. I was like, positive that you were going to be like, “is that an ant? Is that an ant?”
Jack: But I didn't.
Keith: But you didn't.
Jack: Wow.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: And I think you —
Jack: We'll never know.
Sylvi: You, you, you, you ended up learning more, because you didn't. People fall into — it's an ant trap, and not in the way that those are usually referred to.
Keith: Right, right.
Jack: [laughing]
Keith: It's where you go looking for ants, and then you get trapped.
Jack: Right, yes, yes. Absolutely. Well... have a good night, everybody.
Keith: Yeah. Bye.
Sylvi: Thanks for watching. Bye!
Jack: Bye!
Keith: Didn’t you like that? Don’t you want to go to friendsatthetable.cash to support the show and go to Apple Podcasts and rate and review it? I know you do. I know you’re looking for ways to support the show. Those are the two ways! Go for it!