Episode 73: Karl did not like D.Gray-man

Ever been in a pizza place and wondered about the secret sauce behind franchise compliance and kitchen management? Well, prepare to be regaled with stories from the Karlverse, where pepperoni meets protocol. Karl and I, Richard, kick off this week's banter with a slice of life from the front lines of pizza franchise oversight, sharing how I put the 'comply' in compliance – and let's just say, it's not always a piece of cake. We've got the inside scoop on evolving workplace dynamics, complete with laughs about my unexpected reputation as the 'intimidating' guy and a checklist that's more cryptic than a secret menu.

Buckle up, because we're taking you on a rollicking ride through Karl's character evolution from cook to field agent over a whopping 72 episodes. Our loyal listeners, whether in Delaware or Deutschland, have tuned in for the twists and Karl's infamous name misspellings. But it's not all dough and toil; we're mixing in a dash of academia. Picture the cap-and-gown crowd cutting corners on cutlery costs, and me, Richard, navigating the treacherous waters of the job market without spilling my spiced rum and ginger ale.

To cap things off, we're stirring the pot with a discussion on anime plotlines and how "D Gray Man" and "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure" play with tropes and inconsistencies. We'll raise our glasses – Karl's clinking an exotic concoction, by the way – to the peculiarities of pet perceptions, and aim the fanfare around 'the next big anime.' Finally, as an author, I touch on the trials and triumphs of writing, from "The Minuet of Sorcery" to the importance of keeping your noggin in the game with a good read. So, pour a drink, find a comfy chair, and let's toast to another episode where we celebrate the cosmic mash-up of pizza, anime, and life in the Karlverse on Deep Space and Dragons.

Transcript

Richard: 0:00

Karl present, deep Space and Dragons. I'm Richard.

Karl: 0:06

I'm Karl. I'm presenting Deep Space and Dragons with Richard. Good job.

Richard: 0:13

So, before we get into tonight's topic slash rant, what's new in the Karlverse? Oh, or is the Karlverse tied directly into the episode and we should switch it up?

Karl: 0:26

well, I mean, I'm not sure. Are we talking about Minecraft? Are we talking about how much we hate D Green man, or like we're hating on D Green man definitely hating.

Karl: 0:36

Minecraft is less of a rant but so that viewers or listeners to our podcast may know that my, the place that I work at, the pizza place I worked at, is trying to become more serious. Five years in and they're finally like, oh, maybe we should actually, like you know, standardize our franchise practices and and go and make sure people are being franchise compliant and and whatnot.

Richard: 1:11

Right, the company that the mascot on rubik's cubes.

Karl: 1:15

It's time for them to go serious well, I mean, um, the two, the two owners of the franchise as a whole. They are their own franchisees as well, and their stores that they own are the two most successful stores. It would be funny. It's like when I mean successful, I mean it's like they make more than a million dollars a year in sales.

Richard: 1:51

That is so many Skittles.

Karl: 1:56

But so like they're successful and the franchise has historically been very cheap and easy to get into.

Richard: 2:04

Yeah, because you need a convection oven and a low high school completion rate to run one. Yes.

Karl: 2:14

But now you know I had to do a franchise compliance check on a store that was it's the third most successful. I have no idea what their numbers actually are, but they're the third most successful TJs and they've been around for about 15 years.

Richard: 2:33

So I need to pause you for a moment. So if you're doing these compliance checks, is it possible you're soon going to be in a world where you can comp your work for a disguise, because they'll know what you look like after a while. So you're going to have to like wear fake glasses and a fake mustache over top of your regular mustache so you can like sneak in and then show up later Like does this turn undercover boss. Because I support this life path.

Karl: 2:58

No, no, it's not. It's not undercover boss. My boss got me to write up a compliance checklist and then we just like go to the stores, go through the checklist, but I've never. It's a weird position of like pseudo authority because it's like I say, this franchise, the one that we went to, has been around for 15 years. It's very successful. They didn't have any explicit like franchise non-compliance things on our on our checklist. But you know, there's a few comments here or there, um and uh it it kind of feels like they don't like take me seriously. They're like oh, who the heck are you? Well, I have more experience in pizza than you do. Like, what are you doing, coming here trying to tell me that I, how do I run my business? And then you do, like, what are you doing? Coming here trying to tell me how I should?

Richard: 3:46

run my business and then you do the full Walter White and it's like you know who I am. Say my name.

Karl: 3:54

Well, I mean, yeah, so it's just like on Monday my boss was like, yeah, come to my house in the morning and then we'll drive out to this other franchise and we'll do our checks. And so then the franchisee was talking to my boss, my boss and the other head boss and I was just going around doing my check and I don't know if they were intimidated by me or I've never done this kind of stuff before. I'm not really sure. A I'm not really sure how much authority I actually have. B I don't know how receptive business owners that have been in business for 10 plus years are going to be.

Richard: 4:42

Can I chime in with a side tangent about part of my what's new with me, but not really.

Karl: 4:47

Okay.

Richard: 4:47

So a acquaintance of mine told another acquaintance of mine that they thought I was scary. So I'm telling my good friend Cassie that someone on earth finds me scary and she laughed in my face for a solid minute. The very concept that I could scare somebody was like on the floors laughing, just not even a remote possibility of like. Well, maybe I'm scary, but it's like I don't want to be scary. But also I understand why you'd want to be scary. Like I'm not a scary person, except to this one individual, apparently. But the idea of being scary, having grown up as a nerd, would be interesting. But from the sound of my voice, how I sound like three octaves higher than a 30-redacted-year-old man should sound just makes me innately not scary.

Richard: 5:41

I look how I sound which is young for an English professor, old for a TA and just that exact look. I basically look like the angel in Good Omens.

Karl: 5:57

Oh wow, that's very self-flattering.

Richard: 6:00

Yeah, I'll take the compliment. I definitely look like a bookstore owner, and you know it.

Karl: 6:06

That's fair. Anyway, I mean there's not really much interesting to this story. I did my check, then I made some comments and they're like, and then I came back, I typed up the comments and sent them the sheet. I adjusted the sheet based on their feedback because it's literally just something I've. My boss handed me a page full of chicken scratch and I had to try and decipher it and make a semi-professional, intelligent looking compliance check.

Richard: 6:38

I really appreciate. So I have this mental picture there's a piece of paper and it's a stick figure holding a pizza with fire doodles on their hand and you're like, understood, wear gloves.

Karl: 6:54

In any event, I feel like the check was good and they were a little bit more receptive to the email because I made adjustments to the, to the checklist, based on their feedback and and. But I don't know, it's just kind of this, like like I'm still managing the store that I'm at, but then it's like sometimes all my days off. It's just sometimes I want to own a day off. I just like, yeah, let's go visit store and then you can get paid extra money from the licensing corporation, because our accountants don't like it when our store pays for licensing corporation duties.

Richard: 7:34

So it is good that you can siphon those duties for personal profit.

Karl: 7:41

I suppose. So Anyway, I'm not exactly like anxious or worried or anything, it's just like I like.

Richard: 7:51

Well, you're not good at being mean, that's just a fact.

Karl: 7:56

I'm just uncertain about like obviously I should be taken seriously because, like I'm doing a franchise compliance check. But then it's like, how seriously do I take the job? Because it's like one of the my boss told me to put a note on our checklist that the owner there needs to wear a beard net, wear a beard net, and so. So then I put it on there and then the the owners are reading through the uh, through the checklist and they get to that comment and he just like glares at me and gives me the finger and it's like I just put it on there because I was told to well, it's funny is that I've had a lot of managers over the years because I spent a short lifetime in kitchens and the ideal manager is the one who realizes that the culinary industry has no stakes whatsoever.

Richard: 8:50

They have the meats, but not tension, so the cliche, angry kitchen manager is pointless. So I find the chill kitchen manager is actually better at the job because, realistically, kitchen managing is more suggestions than ordering, because, yeah, they don't have a beer net and the hypothetical is that a hair gets in a pizza and you lose one customer for life, causing the restaurant to lose 0.0000000000.1% of its revenue, possibly.

Richard: 9:23

Because that's just one person's like, oh no, there's one hair ever. I will burn this place to the ground because even people in a restaurant who are ordering from that restaurant will walk in see the beard and they're not going to think, yeah, I'm never going to eat this pizza at two in the morning because this guy has a person, has a beard or it's three in the morning.

Richard: 9:42

You literally have a monopoly on it. I don't think a beard net's gonna make or break it, so it should be delivered with the candidates it deserves, which is you should be doing it this way. We acknowledge it, think about what you've done and then you walk away because the stakes are not actually more than a five dollar difference in revenue between doing and not doing this thing. But having rules to hold people accountable mostly exists, so if there's like repeated issues, you can cite the rule.

Richard: 10:12

So something like for example, if you have a beard rule, then if you notice someone is repeatedly causing beard problems, you can be like you should probably see a hair loss clinic, and then you can cite the beard rule. So that is my rant on this is you want a nice balance, but was that anything else in the world of Karl? Before we just talk about management etiquette for the next X amount of time that we have talk about management etiquette for the next X amount of time that we have left on our quota of time.

Karl: 10:48

No, no, like I said, not a particularly interesting one. That's pretty interesting, the thing is imagine someone.

Richard: 10:58

Take a moment and open your mind's eye for a minute. Someone has made through 72 episodes of Deep Space and Dragons for whatever minute. Someone has made through 72 episodes of Deep Space and Dragons for whatever reason, Possibly from Delaware, possibly from Germany, Most likely from Germany, and they've heard little bits of Karl's journey. They've watched you get promoted and go from cook to field agent over the course of the stream. So they're like I don't know how harsh I should be. It's like a full character arc at this point for our dedicated listeners. They're like Karl is trying to figure out if he's scary or not. That's like going in their dream journals.

Karl: 11:40

Yeah, I wonder if I should just like get an eyepatch to make myself look more intimidating.

Richard: 11:46

First off, yes Plus, then your eyesight will be as bad as mine.

Karl: 11:54

Oh, I do actually need glasses. That'll be what's new with me in the future, when I actually get glasses.

Richard: 11:59

But then you'll be the nerd, and we can't have two nerds on our nerd podcast. It would ruin the entire flow. I'm going to have to get LASIK now.

Karl: 12:07

Or I could be, you know, just appropriate for my age. I mean, like everybody knows that I was around when Tiddlywinks were popular, according to that one episode.

Richard: 12:17

How dare, how dare you try and carbon date us? We're supposed to be ethereal, ageless creatures?

Karl: 12:22

Well, I mean, now they know that I'm at least that old.

Richard: 12:26

I love the idea. It's like what is your age? It's like, well, we're younger than most running presidents.

Karl: 12:35

I don't know if there are any running presidents our age.

Richard: 12:40

It's like it's funny because I go through such age whiplash where there's days where I'm like I am very clearly older than my peers and other days where I'm like, well, I just air fried a hot dog and wrapped it in a tortilla and called it dinner.

Karl: 12:54

Well, OK. So what does it actually mean with you there, Richard, Aside from being scary to one person?

Richard: 13:00

So, other than being scary to an individual and starting up my summer semester, so a lot of it's cool stuff, like working on capstone projects, students commutes, nice weather, but an occurrence just happened which was what made me late for this live broadcast. As I was talking to my brother, who's known you for what. A decade.

Karl: 13:23

More. Quite a while yeah. Probably like not to date ourselves somewhere between 10 and 100 years, I mean pretty much as long as I've known you, because you guys lived together when we first met.

Richard: 13:36

Exactly. So imagine what I learned my unbridled joy that he doesn't know of his (K)Carl with a C or a K, and I refuse to tell him. But I did explain to him that it's very important and it matters.

Karl: 13:50

I didn't introduce myself. I shouldn't spoil the surprise. I mean, I think most people already know, based on the title to our podcast. And the fact it comes up at least once every four episodes, specifically, I mean, for a very long time I actually introduced myself as Karl with a k, which became problematic because that's like a hook for people to remember your name, like, oh, he's not just "Karl, he's carl with a k.

Richard: 14:18

Right, like I can introduce myself as that richard at the campus now and it works uh.

Karl: 14:24

but so then I uh, I have a problem where I'm really good with faces, but I'm not all that great with names, and so I'll recognize a face and the person will know my name because I introduced myself and I hooked it in their brain. See, that seems like a polite way to do it.

Richard: 14:40

Where I bluff, everyone on the earth is like oh yeah, this is Richard, good personal friend, and because of my like Pokemon style memory, I'll be like Karl, nerd type, likes using young link, and that's like my entire knowledge base of this person. So I'll be like classmate with glasses, likes poetry, activism. So they'll come up be like hi, richard, you remember me right. I'm like yes, I've read your piece on activism and I know you're putting together a poetry collection. Don't know their name, never learned it. Never learned their name Did not go in the database. Probably would know their favorite Digimon if it came up though.

Karl: 15:26

That would be pretty funny.

Richard: 15:27

That's pretty much what's new with me is it turns out being a student is very exciting to me specifically, but unless an actual event or workshop or something happens, I can't really talk too much about it. Also, I feel like going on my stream and publicly disparaging my education system when I'm like job hunting with this publicly available information may not be the best strategy, so I have to like keep the really spicy tea to like off the record comments right right because my post-secondary experience has been great, but also it's a post-secondary experience.

Karl: 16:05

Post-secondary experience, but I will call out Redacted College.

Richard: 16:08

I attend. The kitchen in Redacted College charges an extra 10 cents for cutlery with your meal. Not just if you want free cutlery because you brought your microwave food and forgot your cutlery, but you'll order a chicken wrap for $8 and they'll be like the cutlery will be be an extra 10 cents and not ask you while you're ordering it. So you have to like find your 10 cents and I'm like millions of dollars move through here, billions, maybe. I think you can. If someone's paying you Thousands of dollars to be here, I think it's okay to give them a spoon. I think it'll be okay, but apparently not.

Karl: 16:46

Well, I mean COVID has.

Richard: 16:55

It's still largely affecting Don't blame COVID for my college being cheap.

Karl: 17:02

All I'm saying is that, even as I say, our store is successful, but the store that I work at is successful, but they're still looking for cost-saving ways little cost-saving things, because it has never returned to the profitability that it was before COVID.

Richard: 17:22

Tender point, then someone at the very top should sell one of their cars and the problem's solved. See, that's the thing. You hear a lot of things like mass layoffs, corporate costs, and they explain well, you have to, and I'm like, not all businesses should be growing in profitability every year, because then the earth will die and you're a cancer. So if your business made profit, that's what people should look at. But people instead look at did it make record profit? And if you didn't make as much profit as last year, it's a problem. I don't feel bad when someone's statement is we weren't able to get as many investors to buy our stock, hypothetically because our growth didn't meet expectations, like but you still made enough money to live comfortably, like I. If you're operating a pizzeria at a loss, I don't know what to tell you. You did something horribly wrong if you didn't make as much profit as before. Kovat boo-hoo.

Richard: 18:20

It's not like people died or anything oh, that's fair so when you hear, yeah, we're looking for measures to cut, I'm like no, just accept you made less money and move on with your life. Don't impact your service of your product and don't charge 10 cents for forks. Just make less money, it's allowed. You can just make less money. When the economy doesn't have stimulus checks going around, guys, you're allowed to do that. I don't know.

Karl: 18:47

I just find like urging of your, of your, uh, food court out that you're no, no, like I want to disparage the heck out of it.

Richard: 18:55

I just kind of want to complain about how everything has to be record something these days Like my age, though, like literally every Marvel movie for an eight-year stretch was talking about how it was the best-selling one of all time. I'm like you know. That doesn't seem sustainable, right.

Karl: 19:11

Oh, definitely not sustainable, poor Marvel.

Richard: 19:14

Yeah, I feel as bad for them as I possibly can. I love the new x-men cartoons pretty good, but let's get into our topic at hand, because I've rambled long enough, so I mean yeah, you actually managed to ramble longer than me I'm allowed to do that once in a while. It's my show or your show. Actually, nothing would be funnier than if, like you, poorly photoshopped out the Richard on our title card, it just was blank and Karl Presents. And you just monologued for an hour.

Karl: 19:41

That would be pretty funny and I'm sure at some point.

Richard: 19:43

I'll actually commit to the joke where you look at it and there's a poorly sharpied C over the K and it's just for that one episode and that's the day I die.

Karl: 19:54

So D Grayman. I'm setting a timer.

Richard: 19:57

You have four minutes. Explain as much of the plot of D Grayman as possible whilst I cackle.

Karl: 20:02

Uh well, I mean, the plot of D Grayman is that, uh, an orphan kid goes and joins an order of exorcists who fight demons called Akuma using weapons called Innocence. So 90% of anime has been described, including Blue Exorcist. Yes, but then there's some pseudo-Christian iconography involved, which means that, in terms of the actual enemy, I'm going to pause you, so I'm going to play the Dragon Ball Z Freeza game.

Richard: 20:45

Whenever you describe something, I'm just going to say a number, and that number is how many times I've seen that happen in a different anime. So we'll re-roll it back. Start with Orphan Kid again.

Karl: 20:56

Orphan Kid joins an order of exorcists Twelve. Okay, he uses a mysterious sentient weapon known as Innocence.

Richard: 21:07

Zero Innocence, two Innocence, specifically Right right, mysterious sentient weapon. Can't even hit every character in Bleach.

Karl: 21:17

Okay, they fight. Well, the original description of the Akuma are machines powered by souls bound to that machine by grief.

Richard: 21:31

Two.

Karl: 21:33

Two, two.

Richard: 21:36

Technically, one of those was Fullmetal Alchemist, Ah yeah.

Karl: 21:40

Barry the Chopper.

Richard: 21:41

I'm not counting Al, I'm counting Barry the Chopper, specifically.

Karl: 21:47

But it turns out their actual enemy is a clan of people known as the Clan of Noah. What so? I haven't actually completed the series, but my speculation is that they migrated to the D Grayman universe from another universe after the world ended Using an interdimensional ship called the Ark.

Richard: 22:15

Nope, it's Noah from the Bible.

Karl: 22:19

Literally Noah from the Bible.

Richard: 22:20

Yep, okay, just to hurt you a bit.

Karl: 22:27

Why.

Richard: 22:27

I don't know. However, some of the best things I've heard, like the Noah's Ark was a spaceship I've seen a few times, including in a Yu-Gi-Oh season, huh, but also in Mega man X9, I think it was, they had a location called Noah's Park. Okay, yeah, because they decided to put a bunch of the cliche anime Christian references they love to put in things that are like they're like, referenced.

Karl: 22:55

I feel like the same thing would happen if I tried to put Shinto in one of my works where it'd be like you clearly heard these words from cartoons and you just threw them in at random, that's how you get jacob's elevator in noah's park that's funny, um, but so then, uh, it turns out that the strange orphan kid has his destiny, is intertwined with the main villain, and he's slowly being taken over by the personality of a Noah.

Richard: 23:29

Twelve, probably twelve.

Karl: 23:33

Twelve, twelve people getting taken over by alternate personalities. We got some.

Richard: 23:38

Yuji going on in here. We got some Boruto going on in here.

Karl: 23:42

We got.

Richard: 23:44

Oh, what was that? I think Heartgear a little bit Might have did that.

Karl: 23:50

And I didn't get that far, but it's interesting.

Richard: 23:53

I'm not going to count Zamatsu. It has to be like the slow inner voice taking you over. It doesn't really count. Technically Bleach again Twice. It's interesting, I'm not going to count Zamatsu. It has to be like the slow inner voice taking you over, it doesn't really count. Technically Bleach again Twice. Both Yuha and Holo Ichigo.

Karl: 24:04

Yeah, yeah, um and uh, right now. Uh, okay, so the Shonen Jump app um, I caved and I decided to actually resubscribe because it's still cheap. And just because I can't go directly through PayPal doesn't mean it isn't worth having. And so I read all of the Vault chapters that they have for Degree man and it only goes up to 245, which is right in the middle of the flashback of Alan's origin story as an orphan. He doesn't even remember his own name.

Richard: 24:44

Technically, Attack on Titan did that too. So there's a total of 248 chapters, Really.

Karl: 24:54

Yeah, there's two, so I'm like three chapters from the end.

Richard: 24:59

I think so Huh.

Karl: 25:05

And I feel like there's no.

Richard: 25:07

I remember the ending being deeply unsatisfying. So the thing about D Gray man is I read it after I played the character on Jump Ultimate Star. So, like I don't know, several lunar cycles ago, maybe a few solar, I don't know several lunar cycles ago, maybe a few solar. I don't know why I decided this episode to be needlessly vague about my age, but I will.

Karl: 25:25

I mean it's fine.

Richard: 25:26

It's so many things I've seen better that I honestly can't remember what happened in it. Like evil clown villain I've seen like four or five times. Just because clowns be scary, Done best in Cowboy Bebop.

Karl: 25:43

Done most concerning in Hunter x Hunter. Oh yeah.

Richard: 25:51

My problem with Hisaka and this could easily be a 30-minute rant is don't make your pedophile character cool, because that's a problem, that's a big problem. So, like, if you're like I'm gonna give this character badass moments and make them really cool, don't frame them in a presidential manner, just don't yeah, I mean begrudgingly.

Karl: 26:09

I have to admit that hisaka is a cool character and generally seems way cooler than the Millennium Earl, because I don't even know, oh the Millennium Earl, which is twins but not which.

Richard: 26:27

I don't know how many times I've seen that trope of like. Yeah, we split the villain into two characters, one good, one evil, but it wasn't Jackie Chan and Andrews. Oh, did we count Shadoo taking over Dude Guy's body in Season 2?

Karl: 26:43

Oh, you see, I just shouted a random number and now I'm trying to find 10.

Richard: 26:50

But I feel like that happened for all intents and purposes of Jackie Chan Adventures.

Karl: 26:55

The yin and yang of the villain and the hero. They're two sides of the same coin.

Richard: 27:00

Or just Jackie, literally using a yin-yang talisman to turn into two Jackie Chans, and one was slightly sassier than the other. Which? Is a classic storytelling trope. So what's funny is D Gray man? I don't actually. I think it came out before Bleach, but I'm not sure.

Karl: 27:22

Well see, that's the thing. Like you say, there's so many things that I feel like I've seen done better. It really makes me wonder what it was running against contemporaneously, actually. So.

Richard: 27:38

So I'm doing a little research. So it came out first chapter in 2004. May 31st 2004.

Karl: 27:49

Really, really. I mean, that's not recent, but it's more recent than I thought it might be.

Richard: 27:57

And then the Bleach anime came out in 2004. So Bleach does predate it by a little bit, If I'm getting these numbers right. But like I don't know, Like I've seen a lot of shows, do the weird Victorian England evil church motif? I would probably do it myself, to be honest, because I don't hate that trope. But nothing about this really struck me. Also, his hand cannon got nerfed for no reason. It like upgraded to no longer have a cannon function.

Karl: 28:35

I don't know, like I say I personally don't know, like I say I, I personally don't, really I don't understand why uh authors put the random uh religious references in in this story, like christian religious references. Um, it's not like it bothers me because I'm not. I'm not religious. You can be religious if you want, that's fine.

Richard: 28:59

In this economy. Be religious in this economy, yeah right.

Karl: 29:06

All I'm saying is that I don't care how you live your life If being religious and going to services improves your sense of community.

Richard: 29:14

And going to Exorcism Academy services and going to Exorcism Academy.

Karl: 29:18

It improves your sense of community and self-worth and helps you be a better person. Power to you. But I don't know. There's just something about the religious references in here. It's just like so. At first it kind of looks like it's just for the iconography, so they can have like crosses all over the place and they can feel like a church and kind of like how in neagesis evangelion things fire literally cross-shaped hadokens at each other, although they were going somewhere with that, to be fair um, but so then then they uh, they reference the clan of no and it's like, okay, okay, why?

Karl: 30:00

So it feels like.

Richard: 30:01

This is a weird take, but it's almost like a chat GPT. You asked it to put in religious themes and that's what it came up with. They don't feel like they're woven in particularly well.

Karl: 30:12

Yeah, because then suddenly it's like it's the 13 apostles. Oh, but wait, there's a 14th apostle who for some reason is the pianist, plays the piano, Sure.

Richard: 30:23

Did a piano exist? It doesn't matter.

Karl: 30:29

See, there was a point in the series. All of the main characters are on the Ark, all of the main characters are on the arc and the arc is some sort of digital subspace that was being downloaded to a new arc.

Richard: 30:45

And if you're in a room that gets downloaded to the new arc, you die. I feel like it was being set up for the whole spaceship thing and they just didn't get to it in the three chapters they had left.

Karl: 30:55

But so then most of the characters end up dying. Alan makes it to the top of the tower and then suddenly his mentor appears out of nowhere and says hey, go to this mysterious room and play this piano. And it's like that would have been so easy to foreshadow in any way. But then somehow him playing bullshit, playing this piano because he has other alternative, alter egos or something brings back the dead that got crushed to death by being deleted in subspace.

Karl: 31:36

So it's like I was so mad I almost stopped reading at that point. That was, I think that was somewhere around like 100 chapter 130 ish, which puts it right in line, uh, with my theory that most series that go more than 100 to 150 chapters just lose their focus around that mark.

Richard: 32:01

So what's kind of funny about that 150 chapters point is, I think part of it too is story structuring. So when we look at stuff like Fullmetal Alchemist, it was very clearly structured and written to be a cohesive story. When we look at something like one piece, it was designed to be shorter, more punchy arcs and weirdly enough.

Richard: 32:22

The shorter, more punchy arcs tend to like age better than when you're trying to do one overweaving story. So d gray man, bleach and a couple other ones are like okay, you built your story up around one really cool villain and, weirdly enough, they pointed this out in Bakuman, like they meta-pointed this out. If you have a hero and a villain and build it up, you get a very compelling early game and mid game.

Richard: 32:48

But, you've run out of chapter count because you can only keep two people fighting each other so long before you need new characters or new action. So Bleach when it's like this is Aizen and this is the Aizen show, like okay. I can keep a chance at that, and then they're like alright Aizen's, sealed now do. The Thousand Year Blood War Didn't work as well as One Piece having its billion plot arcs, because you made us really care about this one conflict and this next conflict has nothing to do with it.

Richard: 33:17

And then the animation is just kind of saving the day by being super pretty. But it's.

Karl: 33:21

I mean, the next plot arc has so little impact that you even forgot about the Fullbringers.

Richard: 33:27

I just chose to that rant. Will use another half hour, man. I don't have the time to explain why Fullbringer makes me angry, but like when we look at the design and we've reviewed a fair number of anime, tv shows, mangas and things on this beautiful podcast is that the biggest problem with D Greyman was it was built around the millennial mural, the only like. There's a few animes where you can Build it around one core villain and it works.

Karl: 33:58

But those are rarer.

Richard: 33:59

We all agree Death Note and I say all like the entire internet. When L died, death Note should have just ended Because it was no longer engaging, or they could have moved to his tragic ending, but they shouldn't have put new pieces on the board.

Richard: 34:14

Attack on Titan's time skip Oof, big oof, can't even like just oof and I think the issue is that when you look at like old superhero comics and things, they did those lengthy serializations and they had villains come and go and they didn't often pull characters off the board. They would just get rid of them for a while and let them come back. If you're releasing a weekly comic strip, you don't actually want one overarching villain. So one piece really did it. They like showed like five elders eventually, or they mentioned their seven warlords and just didn't really use them and then one p and then naruto part didn't have overarching villains, it was ninjas go on missions.

Richard: 34:59

Oh Snake Guy's a creep. Oh Sasuke's brother's a creep. But they weren't villains, right, like it wasn't. Naruto didn't have a villain until you get to like act three, when it starts falling to pieces. Right, because your villain then is required to do a lot of heavy lifting. And Madara was not an interesting villain. Obito was, madara was not. So D Greyman, their villain was not strong enough to carry past 150 pages, so they changed him completely.

Karl: 35:37

But then one of my other big complaints about the manga that I have found, and now knowing that it's written after Bleach, at the very least Around the same time, it would have been in the same magazine. So Bleach wouldn't have gotten very far so.

Karl: 35:56

Bleach wouldn't have got to very far. I've found that the best way to put this is that the fight scenes in D Grayman don't seem choreographed, which might sound like a compliment, and in some cases it would be, but in this case it means that I don't think the author had a clear idea of how the fight was going to go. Um, it just just who was going to win so what's?

Richard: 36:25

interesting so I read the wikipedia page on this earlier before this episode and the quote on the wikipedia page under critical reception which really gets at what you're saying is where can I find it? It's like certain plot points came out of nowhere, Story was kept from its full potential, being generic, but also I'm trying to find the exact word it was something like the battles were practically unintelligible, but like the rest of the artwork, the battles were practically unintelligible, but like the rest of the artwork, Well, yeah, like I have such a hard time considering all of the series that have come before it, like Dragon Ball, Naruto, Bleach.

Karl: 37:10

I had a whole list in my head. One piece, One piece. It's like the. There is a very like Claymore is another great example that has.

Richard: 37:20

Maybe not.

Karl: 37:20

JoJo's. The first three seasons of even the most current season of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure does a way better job of like something unexpected happens, but you can tell who was doing it and they do a decent job of explaining what happened.

Richard: 37:38

Although the JoJo's effect is interesting because there's, like you know, that effect in anime where there's always someone watching the fight so they can yell out what's happening.

Karl: 37:47

Mm.

Richard: 37:48

And then Jujutsu Kaisen's the funniest because the narrator just cheats. They're like, yeah, I can't be bothered, so I'll just literally write it in box text. Bother, so I'll just literally write it in box text and I'm like I don't know, it's tackier, honestly, just writing on the page. He's using his malevolent kitchen, which has cutting and fire powers. That's why his fire powers, because he's a chef who eats people I mean, yeah it's.

Karl: 38:09

I mean, on the one hand it's like, obviously their story is like your powers are too ridiculous and absurd uh, if you have to use a narrator to explain what's going on. But on the other hand, at least it shows that he took time and effort to choreograph the fight in his head on how it was going to go. Not just they start here and they.

Richard: 38:33

So you know what's a really fun anime trope the number of tropes that specifically break into their power system. If you explain what you did, it works better.

Karl: 38:42

So like Hunter x.

Richard: 38:42

Hunter, if you literally explain your power, it strengthens the power Bleach does the same thing where, like, yeah, I explain my power because it makes the power stronger. And then Edward Ellick was just an insufferable know-it-all and just could not wait to tell you that he made Carbon his arm into diamonds to punch you. No one made him explain to the villains what he was doing, he just enjoyed doing it, because that's how we trash talk. He'd be like hey, guess what? Stole your, disassemble scar, neener, neener, neener.

Karl: 39:11

Yeah.

Richard: 39:15

But the 14th. I just found the idea that they went with Noah's and I'm just. So here's a little grip, and it's a very petty grip If you're going to choose a setting like England, france, germany, space-earth, whatever have you and this came up in one of my workshop groups with one of my friends at class. Actually, if you use the correct term, it makes people assume that there's some sort of history and facts going on, right, right. So what I really really hated in the series and it's the most petty thing to hate is if you're going to go with exorcists and Noah's for some reason and Noah's Ark, don't call the villains Akuma. They should be demons, because in the context, why would they be called that?

Karl: 40:11

Well, actually another gripe about the random inserting of religious iconography.

Richard: 40:15

It's like when Bleach would randomly decide that all Quincy's use German words and all Espada used Mexican. It's Spanish, However he was consistent. Decide that all Quincy's used German words and all Espada used Mexican and Spanish. However, he was consistent with it. It was out of nowhere and made no sense, but at least he had the decency to be consistent about it.

Karl: 40:34

But so it's like they're they're exorcists and they're fighting the Noahs. And then there was kind of a I feel like it's not going to go anywhere knowing that there's only three chapters I haven't read. There was a bit where they were the seven deadly sins. You one person had a wrath like they're doing?

Richard: 40:57

oh that one, probably 50, probably 50 anime. I've had seven villains that are seven deadly sins. They even tried to explain one time that all the Espada was a different method of death and they just kind of worked that in at freaking nowhere Like no, it wasn't. You numbered them based on combat ability. They didn't have theming. I call bullshit on this whole premise.

Karl: 41:14

Well, and then, like I said, then they ditched that because now they're apostles.

Richard: 41:28

And then suddenly there's a 14th apostle and it's like you're using all of these religious terms and but you're just not being consistent and the religious terms don't really seem to have serve any greater purpose in your narrative unless your ultimate goal is to disparage religion, which is also fair but like but it's super tropey and, to fall on the trope a bit, a better version of this manga called blue exorcist is pretty consistent about their terminology and like they literally a group. That's like where you could be a swordsman, a gunner, an orator and like, yeah, no, like you read bibles, that thing, shoot them with silver bullets and cut them with swords. I'm like you're very consistent. Like your villains are named after different things. You call it the Genna Gate. Like you were consistent-ish.

Richard: 42:09

I say ish because it would be weird to steal Satan from the Bible in a katana Right. But you do you right, like it's like. By that logic, if you'd want to scream cultural appropriation at people, then I'm not allowed samurais, which is unfortunate.

Karl: 42:26

Aww, no more samurais for you.

Richard: 42:28

Because they're cool. But like, definitely they didn't take my college level research for writing class before writing D Gray man. Ah well, yeah. Also, the show Seven Deadly Sins really didn't act. Actually, seven Deadly Sins was pretty good about taking just enough British well Britannia mythology. It was weirdly consistent for how dumb that show was.

Richard: 42:53

Literally, they do their Bordeaux ending at the end of it for their Knights of the Apocalypse and it's like, yeah, no, this is Meliodas' and Elizabeth's son, tristan, I think it was. And it's like, yeah, no, this is Meliodas' and Elizabeth's son, tristan, I think it was. I'm like, wait, is that accurate? From the Canterbury Tales, huh, oh, yeah, no, there's a demon, meliodas, right here. Oh, you literally took the Canterbury Tales and did a story for their parents. I don't know why you decide to name them after the Seven Sins. That doesn't match this at all, but at the very least you called the place Britannia and blew up Avalon Like this is fair. King Arthur would have been there when, like 12. You opened a book and when your lore is losing to Seven Deadly Sins, you got a problem.

Karl: 43:36

You sure do.

Richard: 43:38

Like throwing shade at Seven Deadly Sins is fun because it's like it's not great, but it's a good measuring stick. It is very much an anime and a manga and as good as it should be as good as it should be kind of like when you watch baki. You're not expecting to be blown away by the writing well, yeah.

Karl: 44:00

So I mean, I was just a little bit disappointed with the writing in d gray man specifically, um, because, uh, it was like it showed up in the jump ultimate stars and it is a fairly long-running series. There's some people who think it's really great and it's like, oh man, like I, maybe this is actually worth reading. And then I'm reading through it and it's like the battles are unintelligible. There's annoying references to christianity that no one didn't have apostles, exactly also why are they so?

Richard: 44:37

afraid like, like. This is gonna be a controversial statement gets internet canceled. But if you're gonna go to the length of having noah's ark, a spaceship and 12 apostles, just actually put jesus in your series as a character, just stop being a coward and go for it, because, like they'll be like, well, I'll definitely put methuselah as a character. I'm like come on, if you're gonna do the thing commit, like, if you're gonna put Noah from the Bible in your character, he better just shoot a flood at somebody.

Karl: 45:08

Okay, okay, I would like some spoilers. I don't know if anybody in our audience would like some spoilers, but what do you mean? Noah from the Bible. How does that even fit, Does it Sorry? Which character was Noah from the Bible? Was it his mentor?

Richard: 45:33

Something like that. I don't remember. I'm gonna be real. I just remember there wasn't some satisfying revelation to the Noahs. They were just called that because there was an ark, I guess, and they didn't explain it at any point when I was reading it. So I guess they're just implying that the Noah's transportation device, known as the Noah's Ark, is just the same one from the Bible, I guess, because they never actually went anywhere with it.

Karl: 46:07

Right, because there's only three chapters left and like there's no way they can give any sort of satisfying conclusion at this point.

Richard: 46:15

Unlike the final.

Karl: 46:15

Evangelion movie that somehow wrapped it up. Seriously, only 248 chapters.

Richard: 46:21

I think so. I'm double checking now Manga Double checking. This is my double checking song.

Karl: 46:33

It's a good song 245. Well, no, that's how many chapters are in the vault on, and then the ones that aren't currently been released in format is 246 to 250 ah, so there's five more chapters. Still not enough time to go from chapter 245 to an actual ending.

Richard: 47:00

I mean I'm sure they could Rocks fall. Everyone dies Boom solved Well.

Karl: 47:07

I mean, that would be an actual ending, but it would be almost as bad as the everything was a dream ending.

Richard: 47:13

I haven't actually seen someone pull that card in a while.

Karl: 47:17

Well, that's because it's so classically bad.

Richard: 47:20

So I was playing through Honkai Star Rail Mobile game Not a sponsor, surprisingly good, even though it was trying to get me to spin a vending machine, but like they did the, it was all a dream all along thing Kind of, but they did it really well. And I'm like oh dang game, you got me Like I killed a boss. Everyone gave their happy dialogue. And I'm like, oh dang game, you got me Like I killed a boss. Everyone gave their happy dialogue. And my character starts getting suspicious Because, like the greedy corporate people are like I guess we can send some money to rebuild. And the nerdy scientist people are like, yeah, I guess we should research this.

Richard: 47:50

And my protag is, like these people are greedy and selfish, wait a minute. So like they wrapped it up like cliche happy endings for everybody. And my protagonist is like that's not right. And then gets stabbed into going up a level of dream to realize that the dream enemy threw them in a deeper dream. And you're like, hey, wait a minute, everyone's happy. This isn't right, unless everyone got emotionally mature in the last five minutes. Something is off here.

Richard: 48:17

So like it subverted it more than I was expecting for a mobile game, because this mobile game has weirdly good writing, which is the only thing keeping me for it. But with that, I think we're going to move into our random questions. So we recently got a new feature on our podcast host, where there's now a link at the top of the episode description on all apps to then send a random question directly to our podcast site. Oh, okay, okay, making it easier than ever for me to lose your questions.

Karl: 48:48

Nice.

Richard: 48:49

Well, usually I'm monologuing and ramping for time when I try and find where on my computer I put it which is not next to the folders labeled Job Hunt question mark or Career exclamation point or Draft. But this time I mean it for realsies.

Karl: 49:04

Okay, okay, then, while you're trying to find the real round of questions, Found it.

Richard: 49:11

What is your favorite cocktail?

Karl: 49:15

My favorite cocktail yeah.

Richard: 49:17

I don't know if you used this one, but your answer might just have changed over the last forever.

Karl: 49:22

Well, no, no, I mean technically spiced rum, and ginger ale is a cocktail.

Richard: 49:27

It is. No one used a cocktail shaker or a little lime spiral or nothing.

Karl: 49:33

Ryan Coke, also technically a cocktail Bikini martinis. Bikini martinis are pretty good, but I don't know what the deal is with peach schnapps. You put it in things and it makes things taste like Skittles. It's great.

Richard: 49:50

So very fair.

Karl: 49:51

There's so many very fruity drinks.

Richard: 49:56

Very fair.

Karl: 49:56

What's your favorite?

Richard: 49:57

cocktail. So I'm whimsical so I'll just order something that looks tasty. The most recent thing I had was like it was a soju pomegranate thing and it was really good and I act inaccurately describing it. But I think the last cocktail cocktail I had like that someone had to mix was we went for brunch and I had a classic pina colada and put it in like no, it was a blue raspberry pina colada, that was it.

Richard: 50:25

And they put it in like the pineapple-shaped glass with like the herbs on top, making the little like ruffly top, and it was delightful and blue. The best cocktails are blue. Heard it here first, folks.

Karl: 50:37

Oh, that's good, because Bikini Martini is another blue cocktail.

Richard: 50:40

so you can tell something's tasty if it's the color of antifreeze. Disclaimer do not drink antifreeze.

Karl: 50:47

Well, I mean, there is one caveat to that. If you need to figure out whether or not it's oil or antifreeze, you are supposed to taste it. No, and antifreeze will be sweet, where oil will taste like horribly disgusting oil no, don't, no, there's oil, no, don't, no. There's other ways to tell. Apparently there isn't. That's, that's what the mechanic told me. They're like oh, you see a spot under your thing. It could be oil, it could be antifreeze. You gotta taste it and the antifreeze will be sweet and the oil will just taste awful go to a different mechanic who's not drinking the antifreeze you don't drink it, you just like dab your finger in it like lick it.

Richard: 51:19

That's a poison?

Karl: 51:22

Well, not that poisonous, apparently.

Richard: 51:24

No, no To those listening at home. Don't lick antifreeze, and if you must, I was against it. Please send all lawsuits to Carl at Deep Space Dragons.

Karl: 51:38

Well, I mean hopefully by now they know that everything we say is just an opinion, Possibly a joke. Possibly, I mean, the best jokes are rooted in some amount of truth. Anyways.

Richard: 51:48

That is fair, and we have one last question to wrap it up.

Karl: 51:52

Okay, okay.

Richard: 51:53

So if your pet could speak, what would it say about you?

Karl: 51:57

If my pet could speak, mm-hmm, if my pet could speak. Problematically, I don't actually have a pet of my own.

Richard: 52:12

Well, I mean, you do have a cat. You used to yeet For rude things. You did not expect me to bring up today, so I'm in Smokey.

Karl: 52:23

Smokey the cat was was a jerk who would lie on top of you and then get mad at you when you moved. So I mean I feel like Smokey the Cat would be like. That guy's an asshole, but his belly is warm.

Richard: 52:34

And then Mr Miko. If he could speak and was talking about me, he'd be like he's sometimes aight, but when Big Human goes to bed, little human is supposed to give me second dinner and sometimes he doesn't. It's not okay. Because I like second dinner, I need crunchies to be full and I need the soft food because I need that balance. Like what is this? The surface in this hotel is just not what it used to be Like. My cat is such a spampered princess he'll be like I don't get it. Housekeeping did not clean up my vomit fast enough. Like three stars.

Karl: 53:12

I have to clean it up myself.

Richard: 53:15

Yep, which he will do, like he'll just like drag towels over things. Like they didn't even thank me Like I cleaned up that spill I made from that subpar food he gave me that I ate too much of because he gave me too much.

Karl: 53:29

But I hope.

Richard: 53:29

Miko would say that he loved me, but that is not what would happen.

Karl: 53:34

No, no, definitely not.

Richard: 53:39

And with that I think we wrap up this episode. So key takeaways D Gray man a worse blue exorcist is my official stance.

Karl: 53:49

And I don't even know if I rate blue exorcists that highly. My official stance is overrated. I mean, I don't know if there's anyone who really, really likes it, but I'm sorry, I think it's overrated.

Richard: 54:04

And to loop back around, remember how I started this episode with a rant that everything feels the need to be the best. You know how many times I've been told blank anime or manga or series is the new king. And it's just not. Like I had someone look me dead in the eye and tell me solo leveling is the best series. It's not, I promise you. It's just not like I had someone look me dead in the eye and tell me solo leveling is the best series. It's not, I promise you, it's not. So D Greyman was meh, but if you must read on a bus, there are worse things you can do to yourself.

Richard: 54:35

It's okay that it's not the best it's a background character you have to google while playing Jump Ultimate Stars. I'm pretty sure there's only one.

Karl: 54:42

It's a background character you have to Google while playing Jump Ultimate Stars. Well, I'm pretty sure there's only one series in Jump Ultimate Stars that I don't know what its name is, and it's the one with the police officer guy Kochi Kami, I think. Yeah, I mean, I don't even know if I can read that on Shonen Jump or how I would go about reading it, but I'm pretty sure that's the only one that I couldn't name and or haven't read.

Richard: 55:05

True, because it's no bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo, an actual work of high-quality literary fiction. So I think our actual takeaway is you could. You could read D Gray man, or you could read bo-boo Bobo, bobo, bobo.

Karl: 55:21

I just if you have the Shonen Jump app, d Grayman probably should be like on the bottom of your list. You're scraping the bottom of the barrel to find content if you're reading D Grayman on the Shonen Jump app, because there is a ton of better content.

Richard: 55:34

Wow, we're so mean. Like watch one of our like active in-chat listeners right now be the artist being like. I tried so hard for that For the record. I'm not certain I could write something better, but I could fight. I'd be able to put up a good fight and, on that note, you should buy my book the Waltz of Blades on Amazon or the Minuet of.

Karl: 55:55

Sorcery which is better Smooth.

Richard: 55:58

Hey, my second book is just better than my first book. It is a harsh truth of this world. It's like I got better as a writer, or just got so sick of reading my own books the first time that the second one's fresher in my brain maybe who knows? But with that I don't know read. Reading is good. I think we can agree. Reading is good, like fundamentally I have.

Karl: 56:19

Reading is fundamentally good, even if it's comics. It's better than reading nothing at all. Keep your brain sharp, you know indeed.

Richard: 56:27

Oh man, is this where we just start posting like entire 15 page chapters on Instagram so people can flip through it and they'll accidentally realize they've read entire series? But have a lovely night, something, something, sign off, good job, team bye. But have a lovely night, something, something, sign off, good job, team Bye. Bye, t Craig. That was so mid and it's only mid because I've read actually bad things that if I told people to read they would take spiritual damage and go to jail somewhere.