Bonus Podcast (with Transcript): 2022 May - Anime's Neighbors

Sure, the brand may be different, but the flavor tastes the same! Alex, Dee, and Mercedez discuss some of their current favorite anime-adjacent (or flat-out anime-inspired) media.

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DEE: Yeah, I used the phrase “streets ahead” in a group chat one time and my friend was like, “You have to stop trying to make that a thing. It’s not a thing.” I was like, “Excuse you, I have more Twitter followers than you do, so I’m pretty sure that that means my opinion matters more.”

ALEX: [Laughs]

DEE: And he was like, “Dammit.”

MERCEDEZ: [crosstalk] Sick burn!

DEE: Well, he goes, “Dammit, that’s right. You’re right. You’re streets ahead.” And my friend goes, “No, no. She’s tweets ahead.”

ALEX: [Laughs]

[Introductory theme song]

DEE: Okay, I’m just gonna start all these episodes with, like, a weird song, and we’ll find out which one our patrons like the most. So… [Imitating the Super Mario Bros. theme song] Bah-dah-bah, bah-dah-pod… cast! 

Hello, and welcome to Patronizing AF…

MERCEDEZ: [Laughs]

DEE: …the Anime Feminist bonus podcast for patrons. I’m Dee, one of the managing editors. I’m on Twitter @joseinextdoor, and I am joined again, this time around, by Alex and Mercedez. Would you like to introduce yourselves?

ALEX: Good day, everybody. I’m Alex. I’m a contributions editor here at AniFem and various other places. You can find me on Twitter @TheAfictionado.

MERCEDEZ: Hi, everyone, my name is Mercedez and I’m also an editor here at Anime Feminist. You can find me on Twitter @pixelatedlenses, where I’m probably just tweeting about light novels and... yeah, doing the dang thing.

ALEX: The dang thing.

DEE: [crosstalk] Doing the dang thang.

ALEX: That’s all we can do in these trying times: is the dang thing.

MERCEDEZ: [crosstalk] It’s all we can do. I’ve been trapped inside of my bedroom for months! Save me!

[Chuckling]

DEE: Hey, it’ll be summer soon. It’ll be warm…

MERCEDEZ: [crosstalk] I live in Washington!

DEE: Well, actually, by the time this recording drops, it will be summer, so… Well, it’ll be—

MERCEDEZ: [crosstalk] I live in Washington. Does it get warm in this state?

DEE: It doesn’t— It gets to a point where it’s no longer cold, so you can go outside. So you got that to look forward to.

MERCEDEZ: And it’ll be cherry season, and I like Rainier cherries, y’all.

DEE: Well, there you go then. So, something to look forward to. In fact, by the time this drops, those things will all have come to pass, and it’ll be great.

MERCEDEZ: I’ll be full of cherries.

DEE: So, yes, this is our bonus episode. Today we’re... You know, Alex (Peter might want to cut this from here), do you want to lead this conversation? Because this topic was your idea.

ALEX: Sure. So, today, folks, we’re going to be doing something a little bit different, doing something a little bit wacky. We’re going to be talking about non-Japanese but anime-adjacent media. So, we’re thinking perhaps English-language works that are obviously inspired by anime in terms of subject matter, genre, maybe art style, maybe general vibe. So, sort of a recommendation roundup of… you know, if you like anime, you may also like XYZ. So, let’s dive on into it, if that makes sense to both of y’all. [Chuckles]

MERCEDEZ: I’m ready.

DEE: No, let’s do it.

MERCEDEZ: I’m ready. I’m coming at y’all with two ideas, so I’m ready.

ALEX: Well, let’s do a nice round circle sharing time. Mercedez, you sound like you’re raring to go and full of cherries. So let’s start with you.

MERCEDEZ: I am. I am. Listener, have you ever wanted to be a fairy? Good if you have, because there’s a show for you. It’s called Winx Club! And yes, it’s anime adjacent! That’s right! That’s right! I’m coming in hot with Winx… Club.

DEE: I’m so excited. Sell me on it. Tell me all about it. I’ve heard of it. I don’t know that much about it because I wasn’t preteen when it came out, so...

MERCEDEZ: Winx— Dee, Winx is still available. It’s on Netflix. It’s got a spinoff! [Chuckles] It’s still here. But Winx is an Italian product. It was big enough that it has its own theme park in Italy.

ALEX: Wow.

MERCEDEZ: But it is a magical universe inhabited by fairies and witches and mythical creatures. And we follow our main character Bloom, who enrolls at Alfea College and enrolls because she’s a fairy but she doesn’t really know her background, which is mysterious, right?

But it has everything you want. It’s got magical girl transformations set to really banging soundtracks. These fairies fight villains. There’s a fairy of music, there’s a fairy of technology, there’s a fairy of the sun.

It’s just so good. It’s also one of those shows that, yes, every member of the cast is a different ethnicity because it’s of that time, but they’re all inspired by musicians, like one is inspired by J.Lo, one’s inspired by Beyonce, one’s inspired by Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears. It’s just really good. It’s a really good show.

It had a live action in 2021, I want to say. It had a live action that is… It exists. It exists.

But the base show is... It’s just really good. It’s following these older teenage—kind of into their adulthood and then it kind of does a reset—group of girls solving problems with their magic, getting better at controlling their powers. They get different power-ups. They start off with their base ones, and then they get Charmix and Bloomix and Enchantix. They all end in -ix. It’s just really good.

I’ll say if you like Totally Spies and you always wondered what it would be like if they had magic powers, this is the show for you.

DEE: It sounds very much like a magical girl show, where you’re discussing the power-ups and the transformations and everything. I mean, do you know much about the creator? Have they talked about influences at all?

MERCEDEZ: Yes. So, Iginio Straffi… And y’all, I do not speak Italian, so I probably just… But Iginio Straffi was really… A lot of the influence for Winx is like… It’s kind of like with Sailor Moon where it was heavily influenced by a lot of fashion in a lot of the character design.

DEE: Oh, okay.

MERCEDEZ: But if I’m correct, he really wanted to just create a big kind of franchise that was really enjoyable for girls. Because Winx is really wholly for girls. There’s hot boys, there’s cute animals, there’s magic. You know, the things that I think people think girls like. I mean, I’m not—

DEE: So, very targeted at a cis female preteen demographic, it sounds like, yeah.

MERCEDEZ: Yeah.

ALEX: And particularly of the early 2000s, I want to say.

MERCEDEZ: Yeah. And I should say, the last season of the revival series ended in 2019. So—

ALEX: Still going.

DEE: It’s still kicking, yeah!

MERCEDEZ: Yeah, it’s still kicking. And it’s just really enjoyable. It’s very, very fun, and I think, at its core, fun is a big part of it. Like, you get these transformations set to these banging soundtracks. It’s just good, it’s just good, and it really appeals to someone who wants a peek into global magical girl culture of the 2000s. It’s really, really good. Go watch it.

DEE: And would you…? Have you seen it recently?

MERCEDEZ: Yes. [Chuckles]

DEE: Excellent. No, that’s good because I was gonna ask how it holds up for a modern-day audience. Do you think it still holds up pretty well?

MERCEDEZ: The 2000s were a very sexist time, and they were a very gender essentialist time.

DEE: This is all true.

MERCEDEZ: And Winx… I will say, I mean, it is… You know what? The Black girl does not have fire powers. And that is revolutionary in 2022.

DEE: [Chuckles] She wasn’t the fiery character.

MERCEDEZ: Yeah. She’s a fairy of water.

DEE: Oh, that’s cool, yeah.

MERCEDEZ: Aisha. Oh, I’m sorry. She’s Aisha, Fairy of Waves. Let me get it correct.

ALEX: Ooh!

DEE: Ooh! That’s more kickass. I like it.

MERCEDEZ: Right? [Sighs] I think, going into it, you do have to recognize that it is a product of its time. And it is a show that is very much so, like, girls get the guys and being pretty counts. And I’m not here to say it’s revolutionary. I think it’s fun, and I would love to see a feminist reading of it. I would love to do one myself.

DEE: Hey-o!

MERCEDEZ: But it is not groundbreaking.

DEE: Sure. Is the—I guess—reboot or sequel or the one that came out recently… Did you find that that was maybe a little bit more of its time, like would appeal to an audience of today? Or does it have some of the same issues?

MERCEDEZ: It has some of the same issues, I think, because of wanting to keep the franchise homogenous, right; because of wanting to keep that consistency.

What I will say is World of Winx, which is on Netflix, actually does a lot more to have the characters a little bit more dynamic. The issue is that in the design of what they’ve done with World of Winx some of the characters’ skin tones have been applied with a pastel effect.

DEE: I heard about this. Yes.

MERCEDEZ: And that means that the two brown girls—well, the two visibly brown girls, because three of the characters are ethnic: one being Black, one being Latina-coded, and one being Asian-coded. We’re never really sure where Musa’s from. I would say she’s that weird mishmash of 2000s Japanese and Chinese.

DEE: Well, and it’s fantasy fairies, right, so there’s technically no cultural one-to-one, but that is the coding that is built into the characters. I gotcha. Yeah.

MERCEDEZ: Yeah, though I would say because Bloom is from Earth, [Chuckles] that does broach at—

DEE: [crosstalk] Oh. Well, there you go.

MERCEDEZ: Yeah. So, the characters’ skin got lightened, and that was a huge amount of whiplash. I would say it’s good. I quite enjoyed it and I like the transformations. But I also think you have to go in knowing this show is not… Bloom is not going to look at the screen and be like, “Feminism.”

[Chuckling]

DEE: Oh, sure, sure.

MERCEDEZ: It’s not here to do that. But I think that there’s a lot of fun to be had with it.

DEE: So, a fun, lady-loving adventure show. Yeah, I think that’s great. And definitely more targeted at kind of a preteen, young teen audience, it sounds like, or am I missing that?

MERCEDEZ: Yeah, preteen and young teen and Mercedez.

DEE: And Mercedez.

[Laughter]

DEE: Hey, second episode in a row that I say this: I watch Pokémon, so no shade.

[Laughter]

ALEX: Absolutely.

MERCEDEZ: I love that.

ALEX: Dee, what do you have for your first example today?

DEE: Okay. Ooh, “first example.” Well, okay, Vrai would—

ALEX: Probably an example. Don’t worry too much about it. [Chuckles]

DEE: Vrai would punch through the microphone and slap me with a paper fan if I didn’t mention Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, who… Apologies to folks at home that I probably butchered that. Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. I think I said that right.

MERCEDEZ: Isn’t that MXTX?

DEE: Yes, MXTX, the danmei author sweeping the nation! Danmei is basically the Chinese equivalent of boys’ love or BL. I just started The Untamed, which is the live-action adaptation of The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, which is one of the more popular of her novels.

But all of her stories are set in this… I believe all of them are. This one definitely is, and one of the other ones I’m aware of is as well… this historical-fantasy China. And there’s a lot of cool supernatural fights and powerups, and then also there’s some boys who fall in love.

MERCEDEZ: Ooh!

DEE: And if you look at the art for it, it has the feel of manga-style art, so you can definitely see those influences. And I’m not going to pretend like China didn’t have danmei and BL-style stories before Japan did because that would be absurd. Obviously they did. But again, in some of the art style and some of the narrative structure, you can see that.

But you can also see how they’re pulling from wuxia and… is it xianxia, I think is what it’s called? It’s more of a Taoist fantastical storytelling. I’m new to this, so I’m not necessarily the person who should be pitching this 100%. But again, I know Vrai would be upset if I didn’t mention it.

But I started The Untamed, I’m super into it, I’m looking forward to learning more about these genres, and I would absolutely say that if you’re an anime fan—especially if you’re a fan of BL, but maybe BL that’s a little bit more fantastical; not necessarily like high school boys falling in love, like more taking on fighting demons together.

And then it’s a slow burn and one of them is the class clown and the other one is the stodgy A+ student… I wasn’t expecting The Untamed to be a magic high school series, but here we are. [Chuckles]

ALEX: I did not know that. That is fascinating. [Chuckles]

DEE: Well, that’s how it starts. I assume eventually there’s going to be a war. Because of the way they’ve done some time jump stuff, I know that eventually it will become a war story. But it kind of starts as a college/high school magic school romcom, which is delightful.

So, I’m enjoying it. And I would definitely say that if you are a fan of anime, especially more fantasy/action type stuff, I think you could absolutely get into these.

I do know, just based on what other folks have told me, there is some issues—which, I hate this—how often this comes up—there’s some issues with consent in the romances. My understanding is because The Untamed ran on TV, all the romance is very implicit. So, on the bright side of that, you don’t necessarily have to deal with potentially uncomfortable sex scenes, but you also don’t get as much explicit romance in them. I think Heaven’s Official Blessing is the one that is the most consent-positive of the trio.

So, there’s some problematic elements in them, is my understanding. But I had to at least throw that out there so that Vrai would not cry somewhere.

[Chuckling]

DEE: And someday Vrai will get an episode where they get to tell us a lot more about this genre that they have fallen headfirst into and like very much at this point. But I had to make a nod to that, at least.

That’s not my official rec, but, Alex, go ahead to yours, and then maybe we can move on from there.

ALEX: For sure. Well, that’s actually a nice segue because my recommendation today is also a queer genre work. So, I don’t want to call this a trend yet, but there’s more than one of these that exist, so I’m going to just dive ahead and say it’s an emerging trend. I want to talk about queer young adult mecha novels.

DEE: Mm! Fun!

ALEX: Which, again, if I had a nickel for every one of these new series that came out, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s exciting that it’s happened more than once.

DEE: That’s a start!

ALEX: So, the first one I want to talk about is the Gearbreakers duology by Zoe Hana Mikuta. This is published in the US by, I believe, a Korean American author, who is ridiculously young and still in college but has written this amazing, well-written book, so, wahey, I’m jealous along the way.

But basically, this is… yeah, it’s a mech novel and it’s got giant robots, it has got cyborgs, it has dystopian governments, it’s the whole fun shebang. And also, two main girls who fall in love with each other.

Although it’s also a little bit fun because it’s a bit of a twist on what you might expect in that the giant robots are super super cool but they’re not a force for good. They are the main tool through which this futuristic, fantastical, dystopian government maintains their military might.

So, our two main characters are a girl called Eris, who is a rebel and a crack shot mechanic who is very good at getting inside these giant robots and sort of pulling them apart, because hey, giant robot, still made of nuts and bolts… She’s the best in the biz when it comes to taking them down. Our second main character is a girl called Sona, who is actually a cybernetically modified giant robot pilot.

DEE: Hell yeah. Hell yeah.

ALEX: So, they are on opposing sides and they bash heads at first. But of course, the twist here being that Sona has also been very negatively affected by this dystopian government, and actually, she’s kind of infiltrated them. She’s snuck into this military academy, she’s had the whole cyborg mech pilot thing done, but she’s intending to bring the system down from within. So, when these two meet, sparks begin to fly, of the romantic kind and of the mechanical kind.

So this is… It’s a lot of fun. It is high-octane. It is very violent, as an important content warning. You got these big robot fights happening, and you have more tooth-and-nail human-to-human fights as well. Doesn’t shy away from describing people getting fairly gnarly injuries. There is a couple of scenes, which don’t go too heavy-handed with it to my personal opinion, but still be aware there are a couple of scenes people get tortured.

And it generally captures, I think, the sort of dread and trauma of just trying to exist when you live in a world that has forced you to grow up from a child into a soldier, effectively, so very quickly. And it does that very well, I think. The imagery in the descriptive writing allows for the very visual genre of mech to translate really well, surprisingly well, to written prose. There’s no illustrations or anything.

DEE: Yeah, I was wondering about that. Yeah.

ALEX: Yeah, so I found I was able to keep track of the action and picture everything quite vividly. And yeah, it also captures these really quiet little human moments in between all this high-octane action that make it really effective.

So of course, the important thing with this is… So, Gearbreakers is part one in a duology. And it ends on a hell of a cliffhanger, so keep that in mind. But part 2 is coming out June 28, I believe, so if you hear this now and if you have interest in it, then it’s the perfect time.

MERCEDEZ: [crosstalk] Nice!

ALEX: So I don’t know how the series is going to end, how it’s all going to come together. It’s going to go out with a bang, I can only assume, consistently with the first book. But yes, I can’t prewarn about any of the gnarly stuff that may be in book 2.

But I certainly say if you want, yeah, these female-led, action-packed, very… You know, it’s wearing its anime inspiration on its sleeve. So I want to say, yeah, if you like a good old-fashioned big robot fight, if you like a sci-fi government being turned on its head, if you like a rebellion, if you like a plucky cast of rebels, you may well enjoy this one.

And in fact, the two main characters are… they’re very strong, as well as… I want to mention, because I find this so impressive: as well as the robot imagery being very well written, the characters really are, as well. It’s in a dual, switching point-of-view back and forth between the two main girls, and their narrative voices are very distinct from each other, and it really tells you who they are as a person based on how they describe things and how they react to things and how their prose is constructed, which I love.

So, yeah, you want some gay girls and giant robots? Heck yeah, go for this one.

DEE: That sounds cool. And fingers crossed, it doesn’t end in tragedy, since it wasn’t completed yet.

MERCEDEZ: [crosstalk] I was gonna say, please, please don’t end sad.

DEE: Cross all the fingers and don’t end sad.

ALEX: Yes, I’m getting the sense from the book that it’s very much like “We are going to drag these characters through the absolute… to hell and back, but we are going to come back.” I’m going to say it’s going to have a big, cathartic ending of “Maybe we’ve lost some people along the way, maybe we’ve broken and rebuilt our bodies, but we’ve come through in the end.”

DEE: “Listen, we’re gonna have a lot of PTSD, but we’re gonna get through it together! And that’s the important part.”

ALEX: Yeah, that’s definitely the vibe that I got from their conversations about living in this war-torn land and stuff. There's a great heartbreaking line where these two girls are sitting together and they’re like, “We’re supposed to be children.” And the other one just laughs bitterly because… pfft…

DEE: [crosstalk] Aw. Yeah.

MERCEDEZ: [Groaning] Aw.

DEE: Not in Dystopia Land. Yeah.

ALEX: Some people have a criticism of some fantasy or sci-fi YA that it’s just like “These characters functionally act as adults and it’s not really… Why is it YA, then?” I don’t know. This one I feel is like… Yeah, it makes a very sensible case for why these characters… Maybe they feel a bit older than 17 because they have been forced to grow up very quickly.

DEE: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

ALEX: So you get that element.

MERCEDEZ: Gosh, inject that into my veins!

DEE: Yeah, that sounds really interesting.

MERCEDEZ: I love that. I actually have… I have the e-book, for sure, and I started it, and I need to pick it up again.

ALEX: Excellent. Give that a go, for sure. And now, I haven’t read this one yet, but the other one I just want to mention fleetingly on the way out the door, which our viewers may have heard of, is Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao.

MERCEDEZ: [crosstalk] [Issuing a long call] Oh!

ALEX: Yes. Which, again…

MERCEDEZ: So good!

ALEX: Mech, but this is much more— You’ve read this one, Mercedez?

MERCEDEZ: Yes! [Chuckles] Twice!

DEE: This one’s on my wish list. Yeah, it’s on my wish list, so…

MERCEDEZ: It’s got poly! [Chuckles]

ALEX: Yeah! And this one… you go to the acknowledgments and there is explicitly a note in there where the author thanks the creators of Darling in the Franxx for showing them that they could explore gender and gender inequality through the mecha genre, which feels so… like: “You did this badly and I wrote this book out of spite.” I don’t know if that’s [audio cuts out] inspiration for the book, but those words are in there, they’re printed on the page, and that is fascinating.

DEE: That’s an incredibly polite fuck-you. I love it. That makes me want to read it even more. Like, it was already on my wish list, but hell yeah!

MERCEDEZ: [crosstalk] Yeah. It’s so good.

DEE: Hell yeah.

MERCEDEZ: It’s so good.

ALEX: Well, I don’t mean to spoil folks on Iron Widow, but, again, there have been the last couple of years multiple of these queer lady-led, mecha young adult novels. So I’m like, “Okay. Okay. Is this a new thing? Heck yeah, let’s do it!” [Chuckles]

DEE: I’m here for this new subgenre. Let’s get into it.

ALEX: Let’s get amongst it.

MERCEDEZ: [crosstalk] I love it. I love it.

ALEX: Cool! So, Mercedez, you got a second one for our last little chunk of the time slot?

MERCEDEZ: I do have a second one. So, this one is multimedia. It’s a comic and it’s an animation and it’s Italian again! The comic is actually out by Yen Press as a graphic novel series of omnibus collections.

ALEX: [crosstalk] I think I know what this is going to be. I’m getting really excited.

MERCEDEZ: So, this series is called W.I.T.C.H.

ALEX: Yes!

MERCEDEZ: The animation is French American, and it’s based on the Italian comic. And W.I.T.C.H. stands for Will, Hay Lin, Irma, Cornelia, and Taranee because, y’all, the 2000s were about an ensemble cast where everyone was a different ethnicity.

DEE: I remember this one!

MERCEDEZ: W.I.T.C.H. is my shit! This is my ride-or-die. Unfortunately, the Black girl has a fire power. We can’t get everything.

DEE: [Laughs]

ALEX: [Audio cuts out] with Aisha of the Waves in the other one, and you have… I-don’t-know here?

MERCEDEZ: Taranee is the fire power one and she’s Black and Asian. She’s Blasian.

So, this follows the Guardians of the Veil, Wilhelmina “Will” Vandom, Irma Lair, Taranee Cook, Cornelia Hale, and Hay Lin, who must save Earth from Meridian, which is under the rule of the evil Prince Phobos and Lord Cedric, a hot snake man, who are on the search for Prince Phobos’s long-lost sister who… yeah, that’s right, she’s on Earth and she got powers too. And it’s so good.

Now, it is a product of its time because definitely in the comics, one of the characters is like, “I need to print my paper,” and it’s on a floppy disk.

ALEX: [Laughs]

DEE: Excellent.

MERCEDEZ: I really like this series. It is actually a Disney product, which is interesting because that definitely influenced its longevity in the States versus in Italy, where it still is hyped up.

It’s just really good. It’s a really good story about young women having this immense power. They have control of one of the elements. So, Irma is water, Taranee is fire, Cornelia, who is actually quite pretty and kind of your classic beauty, is over Earth, and Hay Lin is over air, and Will is over the element of quintessence. And it’s just so good.

There’s transformations. Y’all, they’re like “Guardians unite!” and they transform and it’s good, and they have coordinated outfits, which are very cosplayable. And it’s just a really good fantasy story about girls being the heroes.

And it does lean a little hard at some points into, like, “Let’s talk about boys and going on dates,” and I’m like, “No, no, no, you all have wings! That’s what I’m interested in.” And because they’re all teenage girls—they’re 12, 13… So it does lean into that kind of preteen, teen “Boys are cool and boy bands are great!” But when it’s on, it’s on.

And like I said, the graphic novels are available through… They’re through Yen Press’s junior pub, which I think is like JY or JP Press. It’s something like that, but it’s through their junior pub. And they’re pretty well updated. So, this actually came out in the ‘90s and 2000s in America. But they were released as part graphic novel, part novelization. I used to have some, but they’re nigh impossible to find now.

Now, we have an updated translation combined into these really nice omnibus volumes. And I really just love this series, and even though it’s a product of its time, it still has stayed with me. I have been steadily reading my way through the series as it comes out, and it’s just really enjoyable. It’s just really good.

ALEX: That makes me really happy. Can I…? You said the magical girl outfits are highly cosplayable. I did in fact— I’m trying to remember how old I was. It would have been maybe like grade 5 or 6. I did go as Will to a [obscured by crosstalk].

MERCEDEZ: [crosstalk] Yes! Wilhelmina fandom! I love that for you.

ALEX: She was my fave. Yeah, it’s really, I don’t know, kind of fascinating that there was this particular wave of magical girl properties out of Italy in particular. I would love to speak to someone or get a pitch from someone who’s more wired into that sort of cultural context about what was going on there. Sounds good.

MERCEDEZ: Let me tell you, the Italians and the French Canadians knew what was up in the 2000s!

[Chuckling]

MERCEDEZ: Because French Canadians gave us Totally Spies. Italians gave us Winx and W.I.T.C.H. And, like, yes! I thank you for the food! I love it! It’s great. But it is interesting, because those are kind of the two countries that really put out a lot of these series, and I would like to see someone who’s much more in the know about it tell me why.

ALEX: Mm, just like, yeah, this colorful history, yeah, of European magical girls. Just like, huh.

DEE: Yeah, the background history of that. I mean, I know Lupin was super popular in Italy, which doesn’t necessarily have any connection to magic girls, but it’s extremely possible that magical girl series also took off there. So, I don’t know, it would be cool to hear from somebody who has that cultural background or knowledge to fill us in on where that came from. Neat.

ALEX: Because yeah, you started describing W.I.T.C.H. I was like, oh! I could— Again, my baby self… Honestly, interestingly, when I was really young, I was quite averse to anything that was obviously made for girls. I was like, “No, I’m not there.”

So, interestingly, by pure chance I came across W.I.T.C.H. Got serialized in a magazine called Disney Girl or something that one of my friends, and I got hooked on it! And it was honestly one of the first… it was kind of one of my first magical girl series. And from there I went backwards and kind of rediscovered the Sailor Moons and everything.

DEE: Yeah. You were hooked from there.

ALEX: So, it’s very much girl power of its time, but, hey, it worked on me. It got me into female-orientated media in an era where I had been kind of averse to it. So, hey.

DEE: Gateway manga. I love it.

ALEX: Yeah! And now, here I am. [Chuckles]

MERCEDEZ: [crosstalk] Good stuff. Good stuff.

DEE: [Chuckles] And the rest is history.

ALEX: And the rest is history. So, we are coming up to that good old half-hour. Do we have a little lightning round about the series or properties you kind of want to mention before we wrap it on up?

DEE: Oh, yeah, I mean, my actual pick was professional wrestling.

ALEX: Ah! Yes.

MERCEDEZ: Oh, yeah!

ALEX: Really? What do you mean? [Laughs]

DEE: Professional wrestling is anime, and anime is professional wrestling. They’re the same thing! I discovered this.

I was never into it. I had a friend who was. And then during the pandemic, when things were not great, he suggested maybe we watch an event just for funsies over the internets. And as we’re watching this big event—and it’s called the Royal Rumble, so folks at home may have heard of this… Basically, 30 people duke it out like one at a time, everybody enters the ring, and you have a big scrum, and it’s a good time to highlight some new talent or showcase some faves.

But as people are entering, he is explaining to us the storylines behind all of these characters. (And we do not have time in a couple minutes here to get into the fascinating realm of professional wrestling and what is fiction versus what is nonfiction and how they play with the line between reality and fantasy. It’s fascinating. I’m sure smarter people than me have written multiple essays about it at this point, because it’s not like pro wrestling is a new thing.)

But no, so he’s explaining to me about, like, the guy who turned on his partner and then started pairing up with the evil faction; and the lady who got kidnapped and turned evil, but then she turned on the guy who made her evil and now she’s unhinged and she’s going after other people…

[Laughter]

DEE: …and the guy who used to be a villain but then he redeemed himself and now he’s fighting with the good guys and they’re teaming up to defeat his old evil partners. And I’m like, “Oh! This is anime. You could have gotten me into wrestling years ago if you’d just told me it was anime!”

MERCEDEZ: Wrestling really is like Boku My WWE. It’s like really just My Hero WrestleMania. And I love that. I love that.

DEE: And one thing I do enjoy about this… and it’s tougher to get a hold of, but I mean, I do enjoy the WWE stuff. Obviously, there’s a lot of creative control from some people who like money but who are kind of conservative dickbags, which is not the wrestlers’ fault.

There are some terrific people on the roster, some of whom are giant nerds. So, these guys are on AEW now, but Kenny Omega’s finishing move is called the One-Winged Angel.

MERCEDEZ: Nice!

DEE: Keith Lee’s finishing move is called the Spirit Bomb.

MERCEDEZ: Oh my God.

DEE: We’ve had multiple wrestlers cosplay. Just this past year in the Round [sic] Rumble, Sasha Banks showed up in a Sailor Moon cosplay, and I, like, fell on the floor and just bowed to her greatness. We’ve had folks… The New Day have cosplayed as DBZ characters; Jade Cargill showed up as Mirko from My Hero Academia one time.

So, there is… Anime is wrestling and wrestling is anime! Shockingly, the people who like to participate in high drama with a lot of punchy fights also enjoy watching media with high drama and a lot of punchy fights!

ALEX: [Chuckles]

MERCEDEZ: Makes sense to me.

DEE: Yeah. It’s delightful. But there’s also… you can also get into… There’s independent programs. There’s a new kind of major program called AEW that’s… I should say relatively new. And within those and within the indie programs, you get a lot of openly queer wrestlers, you get a lot—

There’s some just terrific comedy matches. There’s a match where two invisible people fight each other, and the entire match— Guys, this is high art. The entire match is the referee Bryce… I forget his last name. Bryce. Basically, what he does shows you what’s happening in the ring, and then the audience just plays along with it and gets into what is supposedly happening based on what the referee is doing. It’s brilliant.

There’s a Japanese wrestler… I’m forgetting his name. I’m so sorry, folks at home. [Editor's Note: it's Kota Ibushi] He fights a blow-up doll. It is intense!

MERCEDEZ: I love how intense this actually is.

DEE: If you can imagine it, it’s probably happened in professional wrestling. There’s a joke… There was an episode of… We’re not supposed to— I’m committing the cardinal sin of citing another podcast. There’s an episode of My Brother, My Brother and Me where they talk about “Why not a wizard wrestler?” and Griffin goes, “Guys, there was one.”

ALEX: [Laughs]

MERCEDEZ: Oh my God, what?

DEE: And that is wrestling. If you can imagine it, that wild storyline has happened somewhere.

And again, I enjoy a lot of stuff coming out of WWE and AEW. There is a decent amount of diversity on the roster. There’s a couple of trans wrestlers, openly trans wrestlers, at AEW, which is terrific. Nyla Rose! Shoutout to Nyla Rose. She is incredible. Just always good promos, always bringing the heat online. She’s terrific.

If you’re interested in this, you won’t necessarily get— Obviously, you could honestly just jump in one week with an episode of SmackDown or NXT or something and kind of dig into the stories that way. 

But if you’re looking for just kind of a one-shot, this past year NWA did an event called EmPowerrr, with three Rs, that was an all-women wrestling event. Nice, diverse cast. Included some trans women wrestlers as well. It was terrific. It’s sort of an indie show, so the production quality is a little iffy at places, but overall, it looks really good and it’s a really nice showcase of some women just kicking ass and taking names, and it was really, really fun.

I’ve also watched… and I’m blanking on the name on this, and I apologize. There was a queer event down in the past year that was one-part wrestle show, one-part drag show. [Editor's Note: the event is called "Paris is Bumping"] So that was fun.

ALEX: Wow.

DEE: And really, the indie world of wrestling is fascinating. Yeah, there’s a wrestler named Trish Adora. She’s now wrestling on AEW, which is great. Her finishing move is called the Lariat Tubman, which is so good.

ALEX: [Chuckles]

DEE: She is a Black wrestler. I should probably clarify, in case that wasn’t obvious.

So, yeah, professional wrestling is anime. Go forth and enjoy. And I think, overall, it treats its female characters slightly better than anime does.

ALEX: [Laughs]

DEE: So, it’s got that going for it as well.

ALEX: Thank you, Dee. That is awesome. Wonderful.

So, thank you for both your recommendations. Thank you so much for listening, patrons and folks at home. You’re already in our house by being on Patreon, so you know where to find us if you want more of this content.

And we will see you next month for another fun bonus round of Chatty AF.

DEE: Thanks for your support!