Welcome back to Shoujo listeners. I'm your host, Sarah, and always joined by Joe here on the Shoujo podcast. We recap and discuss Shoujo anime series that I have seen and Joe hasn't. Rosa Versailles being the exception to that role. But yeah, and currently we are recapping Chihayafuru season two. And before we jump into that, we like to catch up a little, see what's been up with us. And yeah, so I know I've got a lot to say. How about you, Joe? I don't have. Well, mostly it's
like I finished watching some anime. That's what I mostly had to talk about. Well, we are an anime podcast, so I think that is a good thing to talk about. I watched Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex second gig season two. I finished watching that. So as a recap, I really liked season one because I thought it was fun and did a lot of fun things and did the Ghost in the Shell thing where it's like, oh, we're kind of thinking about
ideas and things like that. And also, do you want to see Bateau just a huge cyborg guy shoot a giant gun and it was cool and then season two was pretty bad because They just leaned all in on like this storyline. That was like kind of dumb because like the first season had more of a like kind of a scatter shot plotting to it were like some episodes related to like the main kind of season wide plot and then a lot of other just one off episodes just kind of existed that
were kind of fun. Season two had mostly episodes that are just related to the plot and the plot was just not good. They really try to convince you that the like the two antagonists were these really interesting guys and they were kind of like. not selling me on it. You know, it's that thing where everybody talks about how like, oh, this guy is so mysterious and powerful. How is this? How is this happening? What kind of guy
is he? And then you see him on screen and you're like, this guy is not does not impress me very much. So that was that was disappointment. Number one. OK, let's what's number two. I finished watching Sockamoto Days season one, which is a show about a ex. assassin who got married and now just owns a convenience store and a bunch of shenanigans happen and it's like a comedy about how other assassins because he has like
a bounty on him. And it's goofy. My problem is that it's not I don't think it's that funny. Unfortunately, I'm like not having as good of
a time with it as I wanted to. I want it to be a little more gag heavy and it's not quite as much it definitely feels like one of those things where like in comic form i think i'd probably like it but as an as an anime i'm not as interested in it um so that was kind of a bummer but it was okay it was it was it was fine so yeah those are the two things i finished i'm i'm almost done with gundam x i got four episodes left and then i can talk about that uh It's been a while
since we had a Gundam segment. Yeah, I've been really dragging my heels watching it, you know, but I'll get there. Yeah, I'll get there. OK. I don't think there's anything else that I watched. I already talked about how I watched all four John Wick movies last time, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't watch. I don't think I watched any movies. Oh, no. Last night I watched. I'm also watching all of the Disney theatrical. Oh, that's right. Animated release movies. And last
night... Does that mean the live action ones or just the ones that went to theater? If they have a significant animated part of it. So like Mary Poppins counts because they look like the penguins. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That one counts. Enchanted. Enchanted counts because there's like a significant portion. But like, you know, other ones wouldn't. And then so last night we watched
Make Mine Music, which is some... Like they released all of these movies in during like, I guess this is the world, the World War Two era when they couldn't really produce a lot of movies because a lot of the crew was involved in World War Two because they were drafted. So they just like made these different collections. But the two movies we watched last night were Make Mine Music, which is just like a bunch of shorts. that were
not that interesting. And then Song of the South, which is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. OK, so Song of the South, famously incredibly racist, right? Yes. Is that what's Blash Mountain was based off of? Yeah, yeah. So like the way it works is it's a movie about this boy that has to go stay on his grandmother's plantation. While his dad go and does some type of work in the city. I don't really understand what his dad was doing. They don't really get into that.
And then like he has to deal with all his life challenges and he meets a guy whose name is Uncle something. I don't remember what his name was Russ. I don't know. But like he makes friends with some of the black workers there and they're all incredibly stereotypical and. Uncle Remus, that's it. And Uncle Remus tells him stories about Briar Rabbit and the other ones, and that's what Splash Mountain was based on. But they changed that to being Princess and the Frog now, which
I think makes sense. But yeah, it was a really, so not only so. Famously, this is a very racist movie because it is both Basically, what happened is my understanding is that like they tried to make a movie about the South, but they didn't want to offend anybody. And so they ended up making something that was incredibly, that was mostly just racist because they didn't just imagine how bad it would have been if they weren't holding
back. You can't make a movie that's like going to be not racist, but also be OK for like Jim Crow South people. There's just no way to do it. So, yeah, it was. But not only was this movie racist, you know, like in the kind of ways you'd expect with the stereotypes and also it kind of seemed like all of the black workers were slaves, even those technically took place post slavery, but they just didn't put that on screen. So you'd have no way of knowing it. It's also
just really boring. Like the shorts are all kind of the same, like it's all, oh. Briar Fox and Briar Bear want to catch Briar Rabbit, but Briar Rabbit outsmarts them, but they do it like four times. It is basically the same every time. And then the actual movie about the kid is super boring, and I don't like that kid. They give that kid weird eyebrows. Oh, okay. We hate weird eyebrows. We hate weird eyebrows. Yeah, so that's what I watched. It's not good. Next up, we have
two more random, like, movie... Goodness. compilations. Are you going in like release date order? Yes. OK, so it's like a bumpy start. Yeah, so we have four more movies and then we get to Cinderella. OK, so you done. Yeah, you already did Snow White. We did Snow White. So yeah, we did like Snow White, Pinocchio and Dumbo and the other one Bambi and the Reluctant Dragon. Did you cry watching Bambi? No, Bambi is not that sad. Everybody talks about Bambi like it's super sad because like,
oh, the mom dies. But the mom dies like pretty late into it. And then she dies immediately. No, she does not die immediately. She dies late into the movie. Everybody thinks that like, oh, Bambi gets help from all his friends to how to live independently. That's not what happens. Bambi goes and hangs out with all the little baby critters. And then they then they see the
dad that's just posturing all the time. and then she gets shot, and then he goes and lives off with his dad, and then he comes back and gets married. That's what happens in Bambi. Everybody thinks it's about a different thing. I remember the dad. Okay. Maybe I'm just thinking of Land Before Time, where his mom dies right off the bat. Oh yeah, Land Before Time, his mom gets wrecked immediately. Bummer! That's right, yeah.
Anyway, what have you been up to? Uh, as I mentioned to you, Um, I just like to like hinder myself by, uh, taking care of animals. I probably shouldn't. So right now I am fostering a little four month old puppy that the shelter calls fruit loop. Um, she's, she's really cute. Uh, she's like a Chihuahua schnauzer mix maybe. And yeah, I mean, I puppies are kind of the worst. They just show on everything and pee everywhere and cry when you leave them. And yeah, yeah. So just.
Getting over the shell shock of all those things, but they're babies. I get so unsympathetic to their plight of being helpless. Let's see. Uh, I... No, I feel like I did things. I feel like I've done things. Oh my God, Joe. Love Island USA is... Last night's episode was so good. And tonight's episode that I'll watch after this,
I get to watch the fallout. But basically there's like this one couple that's super toxic, um, where like the chick is super like kind of controlling of him and... like perceives slights to her when she shouldn't. But then he's all like super fine with it. And it's like, dude, everyone, everyone's telling you. This is kind of rocky. So last night's episode was like the first chance for like viewers watching to like have an impact on it. So that sent the message to her that like, you know,
not all as well. So now we get to see her like freak out in this episode. So good stuff. Good stuff. Kind of maybe the least likable. I'm trying to think. There's like people I liked and now I don't like them as much. Normally it's the other way around where they suck and then they grow on you. They got worse. But yeah, it's like this one chick. I don't know. It's like it's tough because it's like, OK, these people are like 10 years younger than me. You know, they've
grown up in a different way. Yeah, there's maturity. Yeah, so. The sweat shake is like, so passive. I guess they're teenage years, so maybe, yeah. Yeah. Super, super on the socials during COVID. They don't know how to box trot or whatever. No, do you? They never come to a local dance. I don't know how to. I've been the passive partner in dancing where I don't have to really do anything, but. Uh, they don't know. Yeah. So it's just like freaking the swan chicks like I didn't know
that's what that meant or this or that. It's very obvious things that she should know as like a 23 year old. And I'm just like, oh my good. What did she say? She said like, I didn't know ponies were real. I thought you were going to say. What do you think? Ponies? She's like, oh, those are real. She didn't like she wasn't like, oh, I thought they were just baby horses. I didn't think they were like a different thing. No, she she thought they were like mythological, like
unicorns. That's incredible. I mean, I guess that's really funny. Maybe she just have. has only watched My Little Pony, so she just thinks they're little cartoon characters. I mean, unless she only watched the newest... Like, the older ones look like actual ponies, though. Like, what ponies look like in real life. Well, if she doesn't think they're real pony... Well, if she hasn't seen a real pony in real... I don't know. I can't
explain it. I guess at some point I did learn that narwhals were real, but I can't interact with a narwhal in real life, you know? Uh -huh. Because they're in the ocean. I've seen a pony before. I've seen them. She lives in New York, but is from Florida. She never went to a petting zoo. I don't know. Maybe those are like, well, maybe. Yeah, maybe it's a good thing, because that means animals aren't being used as entertainment
for people as much as they used to be. I'm not that worried about ponies, though, for that. They're mean. They're domesticated. It's like, but like they didn't even do, you know how like you go to the zoo and they have like the farm animal side and you're like, well, that's dumb. I can see farm animals or whatever, but then it's a petting zoo and you're like, never mind. I get to pet a goat. This rules. Yeah. Uh huh. I really like petting goats and no other barn
animal. I don't know. As a kid, they'd try to eat my hair. I don't know. There's this cool company that I like almost worked at, I think right out of college called Tiny Tales to You. And it's like a traveling petting zoo, but it's all like small animals like turtles and rabbits and hedgehogs and stuff. And like bearded dragons, which I was like, that's awesome. I kind of want a birthday party for me as an adult to have that come. Yeah. Hang out with little critters. But
yeah, let's see. What else? What else? I got my dress in for my sister's wedding. It looks pretty good. So I'm excited for that. That's fun. I got I got my hair trim. Let's see if it's probably super not interesting to anyone listening. I'm like, what did I do now? What did I do with my life? This is what I feel like. Oh, I know. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. No, I was just saying, I also feel the same way where I'm like, I do a million things and then someone's like, what
did you do? Like, how was your weekend? I'm like, I literally don't remember anything that happened. OK, I remember now I've been playing Rune Factory, Guardians of Osama. OK, so I've like put on hold my fantasy life playthrough and I'm playing this now and I'm enjoying it. You haven't played any
RuneFactory games, have you? Nope. The fourth one is really good, and I don't know if they'll make another one that good, but, um, I am liking, we're having, like, I'm having fun playing it, but I'm like, forever fearful now, like, this is the same thing that - Happen with dragon hvl
gargoyle. It's like okay. I'm playing cuz I like and Anticipating all these awesome things are gonna happen Later in the game that are gonna pay off and then they don't and now I'm worried that that's gonna be the case in this game cuz this game has like very much had like a dating sim element to it and I'm kind of worried that like the interactions aren't very interesting or Meaningful, whereas room factory for never if you have portraits Character portraits never
get rid of them. I love character portrait so much better. Yeah, sorry. I saw a big write up on what happened with Dragon Age Veil. Yeah, yeah. It's a whole thing right now. I haven't read it. Tell me about it. I didn't read all of it because I'm like, I don't even know what the backstory is with this, but I just got like kind of the bullet summaries of like what people were talking about having read it. I haven't read the whole thing yet, but yeah. Troubled
production. Yeah. Well, now it's like, oh, buyers coming to an end. Yeah. I haven't finished like there's so much stuff. I'm like, oh, I've done all this stuff, but like I can't I can't I'm not done with any of it yet. So like, I can't talk about it. Like I have like an hour and a half thousand times resist. I won't talk about it until the end, because what might happen in the end is going to matter what I think about
it. So. Nail space. If I keep this puppy, I've been agonizing over names and she's kind of like crazy sometimes. She needs like a villain name. Oh. That's like a good lady villain name, Joe. Like historical? Just anything. From like a fictional thing or like something else? It can be fictional. Cricket, be nice to this puppy. Rita Repulsa. from Scooby -Doo in the cool school. Do you know that just off the top of your head? What's the one for Power Rangers? Yeah, I was just trying
to pull something. Oh, what's her name? I did not super watch Power Rangers. She also had a goofy name. That's like an alliteration thing. Yeah. So sorry, listeners, if there are any like animal sounds in the background, because I've got a puppy and a dog who like for the most part doesn't want nothing to do with her. But they did play together. like two days ago, so I'm like, there's hope. But Cricket's like me, she's like, ew, babies. Oh no, read Repulses from Power
Rangers. What the hell was it from Scooby -Doo and the Ghoul School? I don't, what is the Ghoul School? What's your favorite Scooby -Doo movie? We're, okay, we're, we gotta get into that. What's your favorite Scooby -Doo movie? Out of all the animated ones or like, I mean, I like the live action one pretty good too. Really? Okay. I really like Cyber Chase. I think that was my favorite. Cyber Chase. That one's pretty good. I like The
Witch's Ghost. The one with, uh, the one where they go and visit Stephen King, but it's not Stephen King. That's the one with, I think, uh, that's the one with, uh, the Hex Girls are in that one. Oh, I don't know that I've seen that one, but I've seen the Hex Girls. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, okay. Revolta is, is, is the one in Scooby -Doo and the school school. That makes more sense. I was like, that's too good of a name to be like an, like a Scooby -Doo TV thing. Rita Repulsa
is... Power Rangers. That's probably enough about a bunch of random stuff. Anyway, I guess we'll talk about Jihai Furu. The other fine anime you watched. The other fine anime I watched this week. No, I keep watching it. I keep being like, oh, I just want to keep watching. So really just binge, binge it and then come listen to us. Yeah. And then listen to like 10 hours of us talking about it very slowly and being like, do you think this is going to happen next episode? All right.
Yeah, it's something. Here we go. Chihayafuru episode 10 is called Rain Takes Longer to Dry. I will say there were better episode titles this week. We open on the next match in the team tournament at Nationals for high schoolers. They're up against a school called Yamaguchi Miyoka, which is like some magnet school, I guess, that gets you into I think Tokyo University is like the top one.
But basically it just means that all of their opponents are nerds that wear glasses because that's what we're doing this week We're fighting the nerds Elsewhere the officials discuss what they should do about errata Playing for another team is an unprecedented offense So they don't have like a playbook and they don't know what to do One of the officials is like we should just ban him from playing in the individuals But then the another guy there says that they
can't do that because errata might be like the next best player After the master and maybe he can beat the master and we can stop having this guy We all hate as being the master because everybody hates him I don't understand why everybody hates him, but it's very funny how much nobody likes this guy Well, I think he like is kind of like well, right? He's like never graduating from college and that's like a shameful thing and they're like we don't want this bozo Wrap -in
card to the world. Also. I have a sad announcement What this poppy just chewed through the cable of my my stream deck? Oh, no. Damn it. Oh, jeez. Can a cable be replaced if it's, like, not pluggable into the device? I mean, you could, like, solder it. Or you just, like, melt it together. Yeah, you could, like, reconnect the wires. That's not real. I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. You could open it up and try to replace the wire. Oh, boy. OK. I don't know. Yeah, so that's all.
Darn it. Well, I just... God dang it. I just got home, so it's like I can't put her back in the crate yet. So, OK, we'll see how this recording goes. Continue. All right. As I get mauled. Suddenly, Arata's fake team members burst in and try to explain what happened, but Arata drags him out and says that he must accept his punishment because he likes to give up. The Mizuzama coach and the Yamaguchi Miyoko coach talk to each other, but the Yamaguchi coach clearly is just using card
as a studying tool. He's like, this game's great because I can get all my guys to study using it. Which like I don't think they really need help with that man, but whatever anyway play starts and the yamaguchi team is like Has placed all of their cards in a really weird configuration and also like every time They do like a card gets read or like a card gets flicked or whatever They shuffle them around. So like this is their strategy is like what if I just redid the entire
board? every round This is very effective against Chihaya and her opponent recognizes that Chihaya relies on the placing of cards more or less in the same spots because I guess it's like pretty typical for people to do the same kind of layout. Also, he does quiz bowl a lot, and so these are all quiz bowl guys, and so they always relate everything to quiz bowl. This happens throughout the episode. The Yamaguchi Miyoka coach gives a long and boring explanation about quiz bowl.
The short version is that you buzz in and answer a question, but you have to know when to buzz in, so there's like some strategy to it, I guess. It's not, it doesn't need to be in here. Chihaya takes a card just by slapping a bunch and then runs to pick it up when suddenly lightning strikes. And we see a what looks like a disappointed and soaked Shinobu looking in from the inside as she tries to find the entrance of the building. She sulks off and everyone was like, who the
hell was that? And she has like, oh, my God, it's Shinobu and she's lost weight. This part was great. I like it when Shinobu just shows up. You're back. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Sorry. I like. Oh, God. And now she's barking. I put her in the crate. Okay, she'll settle down eventually. It just sucks when you're in an apartment with babies. Chaotic life right now, but yes, I was listening. Uh -huh. Yeah, it's again with the like, backstories of characters that we'll never
see again. Yeah, at least these guys had like a distinct style. But Shinobu shows up and I love that. Shinobu's here and she's being weird. Hey, sopping wet Shinobu! enters from the front because she found the front door finally and sees Arada. He's like, oh, hey, how was the birdman rally? But she just cries instead of responding
because obviously it got rained out. Then Arada tells her that he won't be allowed to that he might not be allowed to play in the individual tournament tomorrow because he broke a rule.
She doesn't say anything and grabs his hand and drags him over to the one of the officials and tells him that if Arata isn't gonna play then she's gonna forfeit and this guy's like hold on wait the Queen can't drop out of the tournament you're like the whole reason you're like the big draw and Arata also protests but Shinobu grabs his head and forces it down into a bow and says that he should be begging them to play so they both ask If he can play Rada's like why
are you doing this and shinobu says that the that first the birdman rally got rained out And now I can't even play you because you're gonna be disqualified I can't be disappointed anymore this weekend and they both bow and ask for a rada to be reinstated Uh, this was fun. I like shinobu throwing her weight around a little bit That's good. Elsewhere, Sumire is stuck in a side building because she doesn't want to run
out into the rain. Satomu shows up with an umbrella and she debriefs him on a group that she was supposed to watch, where she took detailed notes on what each player is wearing and not much else. He's like, that's great. And Sumire is like, oh, ha ha ha, thanks. I like scouting more than I like playing, so it's all good with me. And Satomu is like, cool, I'm gonna go combine all of our notes and he leaves. And Sumire wonders
if Satomu likes watching. More than playing to just like her because she doesn't really like playing all that much back in the match We learned that she highest opponent Sig really likes cardam more than quiz bull. Oh, what a shock Meanwhile she higher is like inhaling and exhaling a lot to reground herself and her opponent thinks she's hot because okay This doesn't come up again.
I just noted that this happens then he scans the field to find out that his team is losing three out of five matches currently so like the strategy of moving around all the cards is kind of only really working on chiaya turns out that shuffling the cards means nothing to nashita who plays defensively meaning he doesn't really care what his opponent's side of the board looks like he's just trying to make sure they don't take any cards from him so as long as he takes
a couple he's gonna win Meanwhile, Kana has memorized the cards by authors and not their positions on the field, so moving them also doesn't really affect her all that much. I don't really understand how this happens practically, but this is what she does. And then there's Taichi, who just re -memorizes the entire field every single time they move the cards around, and he's also just faster than his opponent. Yeah, I'm like, girl,
just because you're... You're remembering them for a different reason, but that doesn't mean you're not remembering the position of the cards. Yeah, you still have to know where they are, but you know, okay, whatever. But we don't even we don't even comment on Tsukuba, who I assume is just getting wrecked. Yes, always. Chihaya realizes that there's no way for her to remember the cards and that she's just gonna have to do
her best. Her game is close and she's but she's a much better player and does a lot better when there's like a fewer number of cards. So she starts making up the gap. Her opponent keeps comparing her to stars. I'm not about to add that to this recap, but the star he finally settles on is the Amazon star, Bellatrix, and the constellation Orion. I felt the need to say this in case it comes up again, but who knows? No, it won't. It's great. Too much. This guy's a simp. Yeah.
Anyway, Chihaya's team wins 4 -1. The other team's coach is like, well, that sucks, but we always have a Quiz Bowl. But Chihaya's opponent is real sad about losing Karda because he secretly likes Karda more than Quiz Bowl, and they all have a group hug. So Chomu and Sumire meet up with the team. Sumire tries to give Tai Chi cookies, but he says no again. And then Sumire tells them that the queen showed up, but she was soaking
wet. She's like, yeah, she like walked in and then some guy like... who, like, helped some guy get undisqualified from the tournament, and Shihei is like, that's a rata, it has to be. But Taichi tells him or tells her that they don't have time to deal with that. They need to prep for the next match because I can't deal with my love rival being here right now. We got to
think about Karda. Tsukuba is tired and has to be subbed out, but Nishida says that they should keep their lineup without Tsutomu as we cut to credits. That's the stinger for next episode. Yes. Why is he being all... Boo. Nobody calls him by his name, man. He can't get upset about him doing stuff if you're not even going to call him by his name. Anyway, this episode was fine, actually. I like I thought it was totally fine.
Like the kind of episode of the week. It's like, well, it's like a monster of the week format, but they're just playing different opponents. This one's fine because it had enough like individual personality of like our thing is we're going to mix up the cards each time. That's at least kind of like gimmicky and novel. More so than some of the other ones that are just like, what if I just played in a weird way, like the chick who was guessing, but also trying to do premonitions.
I didn't really understand what she was doing or what her strategy was. Yes, this is a bit more understandable. Yep. Otherwise, not that much happens. Nah. Shinobu's here. That's great. Arata's here. He's not disqualified. Are we supposed to interpret Shinobu as being like a, well, but they're not romantic in any way. So this can only be misinterpreted. Uh, yes. Well. I mean, it's tough because like if these are normal people,
that's what she would be considered. But she won't even like bother to think about her feelings. So she may like internally feel the like sensation of being slightly jealous, but she can't articulate that that's what it is. So she won't like, you know, understand why she feels like it'll be the whole like, oh, why does my chest feel like this? Why am I feeling so hot all of a sudden? Yeah, stuff like that. Oh my God, because we don't understand ourselves ever in adolescence.
All right, let's just move on to the next one. I don't have anything else. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. Episode 11 is called I feel as I'm sorry, verse 11. These are verses verse 11. I feel as though my body is on fire with Ibuki Mugwood. We open on where we closed before everyone's like what
do you mean? We shouldn't sub Satomu in but surprisingly Satomu agrees And it's like you shouldn't sub me in and then he points out that he needs to do more scouting on their next opponent But Nishida interrupts him saying that he was I was baiting you, bro You can't let me take like you can just let some newbie take your spot If you lose your drive, you're gonna lose your edge, he says. And then he starts getting real emotional and starts heading off alone, leaving the rest of
the team in a daze. Because he's projecting? I don't really understand what was happening here, because we get a flashback of him in tennis. Yeah, it doesn't set anything up in advance for why he's all upset. It's very odd. Yes. But, yeah, I feel like they've handled... Because, right, this is like an episode focusing on the two of them. But, I don't know, maybe it's mashing them together is making it so they aren't getting enough time either way, so. Yeah, I feel like
we don't know what to do with Nishida. Because I feel like what we're doing with Satomu is pretty clear here this episode, but with Nishida, I am just kind of confused. Yeah, I mean, I guess it's like, oh, he's the guy who taught him Karda, so he, like, wants him to want to play and blah, blah, blah. But we just don't get... internal dialogue to explain that's what's happening. We just have to like put that together ourselves.
Yeah. So that was weird. Anyway, Tai Chi is like, well, shit, what am I supposed to do with our lining startup now? Because he has to make the stop the lineup. Chihaya takes the notebook and tries to look over it while the coach gives everyone snacks. Chihaya decides that they'll have Satomu sit out this round and use the same lineup as before. We jump to Nishida stress -eating. He's embarrassed that he said all that stuff right before a game, but he doesn't want Satomu to
fall behind. Also, he sees his sister in the cafeteria and is like, holy shit, is that my sister in the cafeteria? That was funny. Yeah, yeah, that was funny. Chihaya goes to get him and tells him that they're using the same lineup as before, so he's got to play. Nishida passes to Satomu, who tries to give him some advice about how his opponent just guesses a lot, but
Nishida kind of ignores it. Their next opponent is some team from Kyoto called Shouyo, and their shirts have a pun on it, and everybody's impressed. Outside... Love a pun! Yeah, it's pretty good. Outside, Satomu, Sumire, and the coach get lunch. The game starts, and Nishida's opponent takes a card immediately, and Nishida's like, uh -oh,
this might be a hard match for me. Outside, Satomu has fallen asleep, and their coach goes to watch the match, and remembers that Chihaya... said that after picking the lineup, she's like, oh, it's more exhausting to watch and analyze matches as it is to play. So Satomi was probably more exhausted than anyone else, which is confirmed by him falling asleep. Nishida remembers what Satomi said about his opponent and wonders if they're really just guessing this whole time.
His opponent faults and Nishida realizes that he really is just gambling with each swipe, kind of thinks about notes. Yeah, just yeah, just the power of thinking about something is enough to You know, like nothing has to have happened between the two of them. You know, I don't know. Like he just decides to remember that that's what he said, even though he wasn't paying attention. Yeah. We heard him, you know, kind of thinks
about the notes against her opponent. Her guy likes to stand up a lot, so she tries to guilt him into not standing by trying to be cute. There's a lot of like, like baiting horny guys into doing stuff in this show. At least they didn't talk about her boobs this time. That's true, they did not talk about her boobs this time. It's a miracle, yes. Tsukuba's opponent likes to contest cards so she can take breaks, so he just has to not entertain that and she can't take a break.
And she hi his opponent smacks the mat a lot which is intimidating, but it's also bad technique So it just play normal. We don't learn anything about tight. She's opponent I don't think we get a flashback to Satomi asking the team that lost again show you to help him out He begs them after saying that he wants to help his team and they presumably help him because they're like, okay Yeah, that's like a good enough reason because before they were like man. I don't want to help
you out. I don't know you Back at back to the present Tsutomu wakes up and Sumire tells him that she thinks it's great that he is so good at gathering info Nishida bursts out of the room and tells him that they won and then tells Tsutomu or he asks Tsutomu if he's gonna play in the next match and he rushes over to them and we get a montage of Tsutomu playing Carta from last season because remember Tsutomu actually does like playing Carta He's just doing this for the
team. He's taking one for the team Everybody's moved by this display of camaraderie Oh, there's more to this. Oh, there's so much more to this episode. Elsewhere, Arana's punishment has been reduced to writing an essay, which is extremely funny. He also has to loan his clothes and phone to Shinobu because, like, she's totally wet. So he's wearing the, uh, Fukui West uniform still, so like the fake team he was on. But his fake team is like, oh, you can keep those clothes.
It's cool, dude. In a flashback, we get a scene where they tell him that his punishment is that he has to write an apology and that he can't cheer for his friends. Specifically, they don't let him cheer for his friends, which just seems really mean -spirited. But like, whatever. Adults just suck, I guess. Yeah. It's the thing, right? He baited him into revealing what he was there for so that he could take it away from him as
punishment. It's just like that's such a mean thing to take away from somebody like, oh, you can't cheer on your friends. Yeah, yeah, he'll see him tomorrow. Whatever. It's very unimportant. Back at the tournament, their next opponent is the team with the weird chick in it. Chi Hai is excited to play against her. Samiri notes
that most of the rest of the team. are just like, no, I'm sorry, her notes just comment on what everybody's wearing, but don't worry, because Satomu has reverse engineered the notes to find out that the rest of the team are just like relatively normal players. It's just that one weird chick who's really good, which I don't really understand how they got this far, if that's the case, because like, you have to win three out of five matches, but whatever. I guess they had to be good enough
to train with her. I guess so, but they really made it seem like, oh, it's her and her like posse of four... friends who would just do whatever. Also, so far, they've been using the same lineup. So Chihaya, like, is like, oh, I guess I shouldn't play against their ace so we can just win three games easily. I guess I won't go up against the weird chick. But Tai Chi, who's about to fill out the lineup, you know, decides like maybe
we shouldn't do that. And then he gets a scene with Retro who tells him that they need to win because the Retro's team is also in the we're at like the semifinals now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. The playoffs. Yeah, we're in the playoffs. Chihaya thinks about how the playoffs room is the room where she played Shinobu last year. Taichi decides to put Chihaya in the third position so she'd
be matched up against the weird chick. Satobu and Taichi think to themselves that this plan's only gonna work if the other team uses the normal lineup, which they probably only did in the early stages, and maybe they'll switch it up if they think there's a stronger team, but then the matchups are red and it's all according to the regular lineup, which means they don't consider Chihaya's team to be all that strong. As we cut the credits. So get wrecked. That's right. Oh, man. Well,
right. Here we are. Yeah. Constant. The. No break. This is fine. Yes. He was your favorite character last season. But this is fine. I think this is an OK way to go with it, being like he still likes to play, but he also likes to help his team and he is easily earning MVP. Yeah. Now not even playing for sure. I know he's like going above and beyond. I feel like no one else has a team who's like questioning the losers right
after they lost. Yeah. Well, he basically just like gives them the way he just tells them how to beat their opponents. It's like you're given like a walkthrough on how to beat this level. Yeah, that'd be handy. Yep. I mean, yeah. Especially a game that's very presented to us as a lot of passions, which means emotions that can be read and counteracted and stuff. I don't know. I've never done sports where I had someone scout the other people for me. That's pretty intense. I
don't know. They're probably, I don't know, I feel like in movies it's like, oh that girl has a bad ankle, kick it! Accidentally. Well some of these have such like distinct tells that you can definitely see like, oh how talking to like the previous opponent would be like, oh yeah, this person just like kept contesting cards and
was really annoying. And you'd be like, oh yeah, like in retrospect it's a thing you might notice, like while it's happening it may not be that obvious, but you're like, oh yeah, that happened like six or seven times. Yeah, that's what the strategy of the chick do. lost against Shinobu in the Queen match. That was her thing for a long time. But she stopped doing it, right? Because it wasn't becoming of a Queen. So she had like stopped doing it and then blah, blah, blah. Yeah,
yeah. Went back to it. So I've seen that before. I've seen that before. Yep, that's fine. The Arada stuff is funny. It's mostly just fun. Like it mostly just feels like a plot device to keep him away from Chihaya and Taichi till the end of this. Yeah, they can just see him at the individuals match, which I think is pretty funny. Yeah, he loans Shinobu his clothes. Oh, see. And then it's in a normal show. Joe's friggin Chihaya would run into her and be like, is that part
of the shirt? Why is she wearing his shirt? Oh, how close are they? Blah, blah, blah. That's not going to happen. Doesn't even happen. So not much there. And then we got to play a weird girl. OK, Tai Chi is still class B. Yep. So he's gonna, we're gonna, whenever he gets the singles, it's gonna be him having a whole, like, oh, I can't even face off against Araya. He's not even gonna see anybody else in the cast. It's gonna be him in retro. Oh, yeah, because they're always
in Class B together. His, I guess, Satomu lost against Kana, so he's still D and she's Class C. No, they both got, because you don't need to win to get to Class C. Oh, right, so they're both Class C. Yeah, they're both Class C. I think so, yeah. So they could possibly face off against each other again. That's true. And then, yeah, I guess there'll be a retro and fight scene. Hopefully freaking he wins finally. That'd be nice. Chihaya will probably lose because she
always does. It's too early for her to win. It's my season two. I guess so, yes. And I doubt she'll play against Arda, either, because that's too soon for that, too. Yeah, I just need to know who the match... Because, like, they can't all play each other, right, because it's single elimination, which means she either plays Shinobu or she plays Arata, or Arata plays Shinobu. I mean, we still got whatever happens with this match and if they win another one. So it's a long time before we
get to it. Will we make it in season two? I don't like that. Sorry, I was going to say one more thing. I don't like that. They keep showing us too high and matches because she matches are always the most boring shows that other people's matches. They're not that good. I need to know what we watch any. Well, I guess we watch Tai Chi's match where he was just really high and
unlucky. And that was funny. But. I don't get to see her like Tai Chi be cool or like I want to see Tai Chi have a win, you know, that feels like a win because that just feels more like he didn't screw up. I feel like I want him to feel like it's a dub. You know what I mean? Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Anyway, Chihayafuru verse 12 is called the only sign of summer. We open on the weird girl whose name is Megumu sitting against
the wrong opponent. She like sits down against the wrong team and her teammate has to go and get her and everybody thinks that disney's is
cute. We get an extended joke where her weird fan club where we learn that they're a creepy photography club from the all boys school because the other team is an all girls school and everybody at the all girls school hated them because they were taking creeper pics of everybody except for magumu who wanted them to take pictures of their Carta Expedition like exhibition, but at the end she deletes all the photos and it became a weird fetish thing or something I don't know.
I didn't think this was funny. We get multiple guys I'm just gonna ignore it. Oh the whole backstory Unnecessary we don't like it back stories about this chick and both of them mean nothing to me The crowd in back in the present is jazz to watch Megumu the possible future queen play her opponent is Chihaya As a recap, she lost against What's Her Face, who went on to face Shinobu and lost. So she's like the third best woman at Karuta, I guess, at the moment. Play starts and Magumu
is very fast. Everyone in the crowd decides that their game is a foregone conclusion and they should watch Retro Team's game, which is against, I think, the team that won the team tournament last time, right? That's who Retro's team is playing? Yes. They're like the big, bad school of Carta right now. Yeah, they're like the hot shot team. Fujisaki. Mm -hmm. With the weird guy. And a hot coach. And the hot coach, that's
right. The ref who told Arata that he can't watch his friends is assuming that he's here for Retro's team because he just said that he was here for the Tokyo team, but there was two Tokyo teams. Also, Sudo is here, which is annoying, but at least he's watching Chihaya's game and he doesn't really say anything. Magumu keeps sending it. Chihaya won syllable cards, meaning Chihaya will have to be more defensive. Tsukuba is tired and thinks that Kana... Who's not playing? He's not
playing. But he also thinks that Kana is tired because she's played and lost all three matches today, even though I don't think that's true. Did he just say that? She lose all three? Just two out of three. I don't think she lost all of them. Yeah, she didn't lose last time. She won one at least. Yeah. She's lost several matches today. But he's just like, oh, she's so tiny that if I can't do it, she can't do it kind of thing. Women can't do stuff because Tsukuba sucks.
Chihaya tries to take a card, but Magumu is still faster. The opponent's team coach. thinks about how he's had to convince the girls on his team to join, and it was only because of Magumu that they joined. We get a long backstory about Magumu losing last year in the Queen Semifinals. This motivated the rest of the team to work hard and support each other. Chihaya has lost the first
four cards, but manages to take the fifth. Kana places a phantom hand on Chihaya's shoulder, and quotes one of the cards, and Chihaya looks at the sunset outside and thinks about the poem that... kind of just quoted and takes one point of inspiration. So Cooper sees that Connie is actually winning her game by three cards, and she is able to take another card off of her opponent again as we cut to credits. This was a weird episode. Yeah. Too much time dedicated to the
camera. That was a long sequence. It was a really long sequence to say this dumb joke about how she's like. She wants them to take pictures of her and then she deletes them because they're in like some kind of weird, submissive dominance thing. I don't know what's happening. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then there was the second flashback, which is just like, I try to convince the girls at this school to play card, but they didn't want to. And then they saw that their friend
was really into it. So then they got it really into it. And now we're here. And I'm like, that's not a very interesting story, my guy. Well, hopefully that means we don't learn anything about any of them except for Magomu. Now we can ignore them. At least, uh, I'm forgetting our main character girl, our protagonist girl. No, our real protagonist. Shinobu? No! Sumire? Sumire, yeah, I like that she's like, what? We're going to the flashback right now? Oh, yeah. Oh, my God, I'm her. She
is me. She's like side eyeing the camera guys. How could you not guess her immediately? I'm like, yeah. That's our real protagonist. Because she doesn't get to do anything ever. That's because she's the one there for love, but there's no time for love in this show. She's the one there for the show that I wanted and said, we get the
show that we have. I'm so sad she didn't piece together that Arata, like she doesn't know that Arata and Shihaya have a thing, because if she saw Arata and Shinobi together, then she would she would be stirring that pot. You know, because that's her chance to get Tai Chi. She should have noticed that Tai Chi got all weird. when she mentioned that, and he was all, like, stern with Chihaya. She should have been like, oh, he's not normally so critical or... She needs
to know. She needs to be in on the weird love triangle thing. Otherwise, it's not fun. All we're getting is teases. All of these episodes are just teases about, like, ooh, Arata's here, ooh, but he can't see them. We only have 13 episodes left. Oh, boy. What episodes were these? Oh. Through 12? Okay. And through 12. Oh, goodness. Yeah, I know. And then there's season three at some point, which I'm like, hopefully that's...
Can't remember that one hardly at all. If they're not tongue -kissing in season three, I'm out. You know what I mean? If we're not getting there, if we're not, like... Oh, my God, Joe, we're not gonna do that! If we're not, like... This is... This was the mistake that, uh, KimiNiToDoK season three made, okay? They didn't have that in there. If they did, it would have been good.
Joe, I think you know a deep down, but the answer is no. Of course, of course, I don't think I don't think I'm I'm not convinced we'll get to the end of the show and anybody will be even consider being in a relationship. I think this is the rest of Tai Chi's life. I think is the rest of his life is being second place in a race that he refuses to get out of. No, Tai Chi, not I feel like he's not on anyone's radar is like a good Jojo dude character. Oh, I'm on the show
just subreddit. Yeah. People just don't know. He's so pretty and like has like a nice little, I was a little shit as a kid, but grew up well. And yeah, isn't that nice? What a thought. What a notion. We need to have a dude like mature. We need a we need a like a Chihaya Furu like sequel series with everyone's kid. I know. Except it's just it's just Tai Chi by himself. No. Because he's alone. Or Chihaya got some other guy and he's like. the uncle to the kid or something.
Oh, yeah. Mm hmm. He's like, how's your how's your mom doing? He's like, what? And he's like, never mind. Don't know. I didn't say anything. Now, don't do that to Tai Chi. No, he deserves better. It's going to be like the thing. I don't think you'll ever get better. He's like a successful business man they have and like those those stories. But then he comes back. But then he's like reverted back into being kind of the loser he was before. I just watched It Chapter 2. This is just what
happens in It Chapter 2. No, it would be where he's like this big wig and all the girls in the office are like, why is he single? He's such a cat, blah, blah, blah. And then like, I don't know, it's like a weird... And then they bust out the card deck and he gets like a thousand yard stare. Oh, man. They should let us make that. Tai Chi! They should let us make that if
the show ends like that. I know, right? Like, Kimi needs to know, okay, I haven't finished it, but I know there's a sequel series about our girl Karumi. Karumi! I'm like, where's the Tai Chi sequel? Yeah, eventually we'll get on the boat of reading the manga. I know that one, this is that one. I'm still reading The Rose
of Versailles. I'm reading the Rose of Versailles and I'm like not quite through the end of the first volume, but it basically does the first half of the show, but there's four more volumes. So what are they doing in the other four of those? So I'm going to be fascinated. Yeah, we should cover some of the manga's bonus episodes at some point. Yeah, yeah. For sure. We also need to do our next Jurassic World. Oh, yeah, Jurassic
World. We got to do that. Which you need to do the script because listening back, I'm like, oh, my God, Joe tried to tell me like three different times to speed it up. I truly do not ever. I can't do the script anymore. Yeah, I can. I'm just retelling the movie scene by scene. How hard could Jurassic World be? We made another park. Chris Pratt's here. Oh, no, the dinosaurs are out. Oh, but the velociraptors are cool now. We got out. We did it. Yeah, there you go. I
feel like I watched it. You know, we're actually going to have to watch it. Oh, God. Yes, we are, because I got to. Yeah, we got some bonus episode down the pipe. Good. Now it's cricket barking. All right. We can wrap this up, then. Oh, OK. Yeah, let's do that. I got. Chaos. Chaos over here. While I watch Love Island. If you like this show, please rate us five stars on your podcast platform of choice. Tell your friends about it. Talk about us on social media or something.
Tell people to listen to it. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, we're happy to see we have some new followers. Yeah. We hope you guys continue to spread the word. Yeah. That was what to cover, even though we got the next year and a half planned out already. What did we learn this episode? Oh boy. We got to stop doing this, man. It's just like we're not learning anything. We're just like, how horrible would it be if this happened? Don't do that.
You should just remember things by their authors because then you don't need to know the position. If you just learn the authors, it doesn't matter what order the cards are in. You'll just know it intuitively, I guess, because you're Kana and you just know this stuff. That doesn't feel like a good enough one. I'm sure you just said a bunch of funny stuff with my internet spells. Oh, okay. That's why you didn't react to my extremely funny joke. Yeah. I'll just have to discover
that. A joke? What did we learn? A takeaway? Freaking... Don't eat, like, seven plates of curry before you have a sense. Semi -athletic mashup, that's like a big deal. He just shrugged it off. It was incredible. The sheet is a tank, dude. What happens if someone throws up on the whole deck of cards? Is that like a technical foul? Like how many cards is that worth? I don't, yeah, what happens there? Good question, that's a good question. Oh man. What do you think Arata
wrote in his essay? I don't know. I feel like sorry I helped my friends and was trying to help people out and being cool, but I guess I can't go cheer on my other friends because I violated a rule. I guess you could have like zoomed in at least some of the little words he said and see what those said. This is when I this is this is an acceptable use case of using Chad GPT. I'm pretty against generative AI, but I think if you have to write a bullshit apology letter,
you can use you can use Chad GPT for that. That's fine. Yeah, he has to write it. I gotta read that anyway. Gotta write it. There's no Chad G. Oh, that's true. I know, right? He could say some wild stuff in there. Or just don't let him watch the haku, you know, match some stuff. The one they think, oh, if only they were in separate rooms, they could go watch the other one. Whatever. OK. All right. Thank you, everyone, for listening. Catch you next week on JoJo. JoJo. I'm trying
to do like a dramatic like, like, like. What well like you know like at the end of Pokemon, and it's like what'll happen when oh? Yeah Tune in next week Same bat time saying back channel or whatever That's literally how the Batman ones end from the 60s Dude I need to watch the rest of I only got through season two oh god Okay, all right, hey attempt number two trying to end this Let's keep going. Do you learn anything else? No? No, I gotta watch love Island man is gonna be crazy. Okay. Bye