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The Middle of Culture is what happens when two siblings with too many opinions and not enough chill dive headfirst into movies, music, video games, and whatever else is rotting our brains this week. It’s part pop culture podcast, part sibling rivalry, and fully unfiltered. Expect passionate arguments, niche references, unsolicited rankings, and the occasional moment of unexpected insight. If you’ve ever wanted to eavesdrop on the kind of argument you’d hear at the family dinner table—only with better audio—this is your show.
Eden
00:00
They never arrested a single person in four episodes of this ding dang show. Welcome back to the middle of culture. I am one of your hosts, Eden. And I am your other host, Peter. Peter, how are you doing today?
Peter
00:23
I'm doing pretty okay. I'm doing pretty okay. It was an interesting week, but uh it's been a it's been a decent weekend. We Aubrey flew out yesterday to Salt Lake for something that her best friend is doing. I I don't know all the details. All I know is it meant that we drove down yesterday morning, met up with uh with Aubrey and Jess. at Aubrey's favorite, oh, the parents are paying, then can we go to Rodizio Grill please and I can get them sweats? So so we met up with them, took them to uh took them to lunch, hung out for a little bit, then came home.
Eden
00:58
You know, I've only been to one of those Brazilian all-you-can-meet places once. It's not for me. I get why people like it. It's not for me.
Peter
01:09
Um, it is less for me the older I get. I fill up that's way faster than I used to.
Eden
01:18
Yeah, I you don't I don't feel like I get uh I don't I mean we don't have any buffets really around here. I don't know if it's like does like Chuckarama and Golden Corral still exist where you guys are?
Peter
01:29
Not in not here. We had a golden corral. It shut down, thank goodness, and never reopened during the pandemic. That was okay. But you know, when we're over to Boise, there is a Hampton Inn that we stay at regularly. Uh that is it is right next to a chukarama. There you go. So I mean they're still up chucking and and rama-in all the time. That's good I think the golden Oh, go ahead. I was just gonna say I think the golden corral, there's a golden corral in Twin that again when Gareth was younger, he used to want to go to when we were in Twin for uh for swim meets. Uh fortunately, he has matured to the point that he no longer finds those places appetizing. So I have not had to take anyone to a golden corral or a chukarama for many moons now. Well that's good. Do you have Asian buffets or things like that around you to either? So we used to have a Chinese buffet. Uh it closed again. I think it was a victim of the pandemic. Closed during the pandemic, reopened as an Indian buffet that was very not good. Oh, and then now has turned into a red rabbit grill. It's a red rabbit grill. You know, red rabbit grill is just basically it is think Applebee's, but just a little less ghetto. Oh, less? Less. So so you're like you're like, okay, at Applebee's, I'm 99% confident all the food just comes. frozen and they just basically heat it up and bring it out to you. Here, I would say maybe they make some of it there.
Eden
03:14
95% comes from Cisco instead of 99% from Cisco.
Peter
03:18
Exactly. I mean it's it's decent. It's a place I think I've been twice. And it's if somebody was like, hey, do you want to go to Red Rabbit Grill, I'd be like, sure. I would not argue with them. But if anybody ever said, where do you want to go? Red Rabbit Grill would not be named. Fair.
Eden
03:35
Yeah, we don't really have we don't really have buffets like like a an American style buffet around here. Closest Golden Corral is probably like over an hour away. And again, it's not like I want to go to Golden Corral anyway. Um we do have we have Pizza Ranch, the Pizza Buffet, which we've been to once. Uh and Cassie and I were like, it's not good.
Peter
03:56
I forgot we do have a yeah, we have a pizza pie cafe, same sort of thing.
Eden
04:01
Yeah. Pizza Ranch is apparently very famous for their fried chicken, but I tried a piece of the fried chicken and it didn't it was nothing special Okay. Also, it's called Pizza Ranch. I'm not going to Pizza Ranch for a fried chicken. Come on, guys. Right. Um and we have a couple Indian buffets downtown. But that's like it. I mean, I guess we have like hoo hot. That's all you can eat, I guess, technically. Yeah, we're. But it's a different creature, because you're like, you know, it's a Mongolian grill style place, so you're you know, mixing up your fixins and then they're cooking it on the big ol' big old grill.
Peter
04:36
Yeah. Yeah, we've got one or two. We have one place that's like that and then we have a new place that was a was it what was it called King Pot? It was kind of that you go and you pick your um oh like a hot pot place Yes, like that. You've got the the boiling pot of broth, you know, everybody's like there, and then there's like a grill in the middle.
Eden
04:59
You're ordering whatever you want to put in it.
Peter
05:02
Yeah, we went there once, very not impressed. Was like, would not go again.
Eden
05:10
I like, I like Hot pot as like a social experience of like spending a couple hours hanging out with frick folks you want to talk with and slowly working your way through various and sundry things you're putting in the in the boily boil. But as a food, it's like fine.
Peter
05:30
Yeah.
Eden
05:30
F it's fine. It's nothing special.
Peter
05:33
Yeah. Yeah.
Eden
05:35
Anyway, this was uh this was quite a field of uh where I expected our episode to start, but hey, that's okay. It's more fun that way.
Peter
05:42
It is.
Eden
05:43
So, uh, what you been up to lately, Peter?
Peter
05:46
Uh a few things I've been checking out worth mentioning. I did think that I would uh let people know that I have officially finished Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 8, A Parade of Horribles. And I'm glad. I'm glad I finished it. I am both glad I finished it and I'm glad I'm done with it. Um yeah, it's just, and I think some of this is on me. Some of this is on me. I pretty much mainlined The first seven Dungeon Crawler Carl books took a very short break while eight was coming out and then jumped right into eight. That's too much in a row That's too much in a row. Now, I understand there are people, I mean, I know people who are like, oh, just wait till you read them all again. It gets better. And I'm like, oh. That's not I'm not gonna be reading them all again when book nine comes out. I don't think I need to. I'm sure that I can find a Wikipedia or some type of the summary if I feel I need it that will get me up to speed. At the end of it, like here's what I'll say. It very much sets things up for the next book to be the last. So I am confident the next foot book is going to be the last. Really? Yes. They get through two floors in this book, the tenth and the eleventh floor, most of the times on the tenth. The eleventh is a very short literal parade where basically at the end of the parade Carl's float that they had to they had 90 minutes they have to put this float together and he basically to all of the people watching as well as the AI is just basically like There's not very many of us left, and we have nothing to lose, so our goal is to fuck you all. Just know we're coming for you all.
Eden
07:37
Okay. And so that sounds like a that sounds like a a a ramping up to a final Final battle.
Peter
07:44
Well, and it makes sense because the twelfth floor is this ascendancy battle where it's this whole thing where there's gods and then there are people outside who can basically pilot a god, a deity during this, and and it's a whole battle where the deities fight to see who will ascend. And it seems like a good place to take advantage of the chaos and everything that will happen because there's already chaos with deities uh in this book that that they're causing. And so I can see where that 12th floor, that ascendancy battle, seems like a good place for them to to take advantage of the mechanisms of that system to tear it all down. and go rampant. And again, Carl's motivation is not to just escape the dungeon and get out. No, his his motivation is to say All of you billions or maybe trillions, well, more likely trillions of sentient people who have been watching us die for entertainment. We are coming for vengeance. You are all culpable, and my goal is to kill you all.
Eden
08:51
Wow. That sounds like it's really taken a turn. That sounds fun.
Peter
08:56
It has taken a turn. And so I'm there for it. I'm here for it. I'm ready for that But I'm also ready for a break because this book in particular was real bleak. Uh, you know, at the end of this, I think the final number is 23. At the end of the eleventh floor, there are 23 crawlers still alive in the dungeon.
Eden
09:17
And how many were there when it started?
Peter
09:19
A couple million that made it into the dungeon.
Eden
09:21
Jesus!
Peter
09:22
Yeah. Jeez. So it has been whittled down. Now in the tenth floor, they managed to get a few hundred people out of the dungeon to other places via certain means and this, that, and the other, but at the end of it all, I think I think the number was 23 crawlers still alive inside the dungeon. So there's definitely more humans outside of the dungeon. who didn't go in. We don't have any idea how many died in the collapse at the very beginning. We know about, not quite two million went into the dungeon. Um, we know that there's a bunch of other people outside of the dungeon. But yeah, it's uh it's definitely hit a point where I am like, okay, like we said a couple weeks ago. I need something a little bit lighter, a little bit more light-hearted. So that'll be what I'll be moving on to next.
Eden
10:13
Very, very fair. So what do you do you have plans on what you're doing next, what you're moving to?
Peter
10:18
Well, so there is this one off book that I want to read called Angie Kills a King, A-N-J-I Kills a King. It's written by a name a guy named Evan uh Lycom or Lakame. I can't remember off the top of my head. Anyway, I stumbled across him on Instagram. He did a lot of fantasy book like reels and stuff. And I kinda liked his style. Um, don't know that I agreed with all of his recommendations, but you know, he seemed like I started following him because it was a, hey, here's somebody who I could get some book recommendations come from you know, good book recommendations from, which I always like. Sure. Uh, and then like a year ago, he uh announced that he'd gotten a publishing deal and he was going to be releasing his first book that he wrote himself. Uh and so since and I think he's working on a sequel, but right now that's the only one that's out, so I thought that'd be a nice little palette cleanser, one off. And then my plan is to pick uh a a a m subseries of Discworld. And I'm going to read. I'm going to read some uh some Discworld.
Eden
11:16
Get into some Pratchett.
Peter
11:18
Yeah, go with something that's a little different. So. Pretty fair. Couple other things worth mentioning. I still am playing Forza Horizon 6. I got my legendary gold wristband. So basically I've advanced all the way, unlocked everything. uh pretty much all of the events and now I'm to the point where there are a few big events left for me to do and Man, they're tough. They're tough. Yeah. Well, so I did manage to take the I I took first place in the the Titan, which is a cross-country race. And so that's one where it's like fields, dirt, roads, whatever. You're just driving. I mean, they have a course laid out for you, but that one, you know, usually a a cross country course is a a couple miles. The Titan was 14. 4 miles long, so it was definitely longer. And then I decided I would do the Colossus. The Colossus is a twenty three, twenty four mile loop on the all on the highway around the island So you're just on the highway. Now, the thing is, is that you know each race has a specific category of cars that are the required you gotta be in this category. The category of cars for the Goliath is um no the Colossus. Is uh S2 what is it, 900? S2 tier 900. So it's like almost the highest tier. There's R and then there's X. Those are the two highest tiers. But like S2 is real high tier. So I I got in this Konigsegg car and I'm cruising around and we're averaging about on the highway. I mean most of the time. I'm going around 250 to 275 miles an hour. Uh so it's real fast and it's it's it's it's very demanding because you're just like it's just balls out the whole way. Um I did not finish in first place on that one, so I'm gonna need to go back and and either tweak my car a little bit, hone my skills on that or or something so I can rank a little higher. And then I think three or four times now I have started the Goliath. Which is a a loop around the entire map. And it is, I think, 54 miles of of racing. I have started at a few different times and then I end up stopping because I'm like, I'm no, I don't have another 25 minutes to do this right now So uh but I am enjoying Forza Horizon 6. I I'll probably start taking a little bit of a break here, but I've definitely enjoyed it and gotten some good good mileage haha out of it. And then a couple music things I'm going to mention really fast. Evergray has a new album out, Architects of a New Weave. I love Evergray. I've loved Evergray for over two decades now. They're just You know, they kind of almost they they came out of Sweden as well at about the same time as, you know, the Gothenburg sound, dark tranquility, your inflames, your your all of that stuff. And I feel like in some ways Evergray was almost a conscious uh reaction to the Gothenburg sound. So Evergray is very much not death metal. Evergrade. No. If you know, if I had to, and I hate to say this, but they're almost like kind of a progressive power metal band, except here's the big caveat. They're never cheesy like most power metal is. And so I think I think that's in fact they're very melancholy. I I've said to before that I think Thomas Englund, the lead vocalist for Evergrey, could sing the hallelujah chorus and you'd still be like. Oh my gosh, this is so sad. There's just something about the quality of his voice that makes everything sound uh sound mournful and melancholy. Uh and I'm here for it. I'm here for it. So it's a it's a good album. I've only had a couple days to listen to it. Uh God Thrim British Doom Band, they released their third big LP Reflections Uh it's it's good, it's not as good as the previous two. But I like it. They're very much pulling from the vein of kind of like my dying bride. In fact, Aaron Stainthorpe, formerly of My Dying Bride, My Dying Bride does vo vocals on one of the tracks. And so they kind of have that feel for 'em. Uh but the album they want to talk the most about is the album Promise Me You'll Thrive by solo guitarist Uh he goes by the moniker I Built the Sky. He's from Australia. I've been listening to I Built the Sky for over a decade now. And it's always, you know, guitar-centric, instrumental. enjoyable stuff. But I don't know if it's the time he took to do Promise Me You'll Thrive or what, but this album is next level. It is good. It is like it is a joyful sounding album of guitar music that still has these beautiful moments and then just some real great moments where you're just like, oh, that is a heavy riff. It is just I mean, I haven't been able to stop listening to this in the nine days or something since it came out. Um, I did not expect to like it this much because again I always like uh an I Built the Sky album and but I don't love strictly guitar instrumental music the way I used to. And and so it really takes something special to click for me. And I'll tell you what, this one has really clicked for me. It is it is a great album that I look forward to listening to every time I go, what should I listen to? I go, oh, I'm gonna listen to the new I Built the Sky album because it makes me smile and it makes me just, it's got some great grooves. It's great.
Eden
17:15
I love it. Nice.
Peter
17:17
So that's me. What about you? What you been up to?
Eden
17:20
Um, I have uh been trying to keep myself busy. Uh number volume sixteen of the apothecary diaries came out, and I read that bad boy in like a day and a half because it's back. Very good. My Gremlin Mau Mau was back. And uh you know what's still good? Apothecary Diaries. You want some Here's the thing. You wanted something fun and simple and light and still intriguing. Apothecary Diaries is it.
Peter
17:45
Okay.
Eden
17:46
Um Cassie and I also finished volume six uh reading aloud together because we've been on a couple road trips recently. Um, first road trip, well, I should mention our road trips. First one, we went to Clinton, Iowa, which is about an hour and a half away. Um, there's this really famous uh Sculpture. I should look him up so I can give him give his name. Guy who makes troll sculpt Churz Clinton Iowa. So this is this guy from Dane from uh he's a Danish guy named Thomas Dombo. And he builds huge troll sculptures all over the world. And normally they're hidden places. Um, and like, you know, out in the woods or like in a field somewhere, things like that. But I guess he ha made an agreement with the city of Clinton to build three like in-prominent places in the city. So they're not hidden. They're in fact highlighted as things to go and visit in the city. Um, so Cassie and I decided to drive up there, make the pilgrimage, and uh see them. And then the fun thing is there's actually a fourth one hidden in a park. Because uh according to the interviews, if you read interviews with the guy, he was like, Oh, uh everyone was just so helpful and wanted to make things go so fast. That's not how we do things in Denmark. Uh so I had extra time, so I just made a fourth one. And like that's that's the best parts of Iowa to me. Like there's a lot of things I don't love about living in Iowa, but I do love that when the people in Clinton heard, hey, this artist is gonna be here doing this uh art installation, they were like, Well, how can we help? And they all rolled up, helped him out, and then it gave him extra time to make a fourth weird troll. hidden out into a park somewhere. But so we went up there. It was very fun. We also went and we had uh lunch in this uh brewery that was in an old church. Um and they had done minimal uh renovation. So, you know, the uh the dais was where the bar was. There was still like the big painted you know, mural behind it and it all had all the uh stained glass windows and pews had been turned into the tables. It was a very, very cool venue. And it was one of those things where it was like, oh, less was more here because the fact that this still looks so much like a church And we're just having some pizzas was pretty great. Um but yeah, so that means we've been driving around a lot. The other driving we did is we just got back from the sharpening of the pencil, which I talked about last year. We went again this year to the Lodi Pencil Sharpening, and it was fun. It's a fun time to go up to uh Minneapolis for a day. And uh here's the important part though, dear listeners. I have found a hotel bed that's not uncomfortable.
Peter
20:44
Ooh.
Eden
20:46
We stayed. We stayed in a moxie. hotel, which I guess is a Marriott sub brand. Okay. Um, the reason I chose it was because it was a half hour walk from the pencil Because last year we got stuck in traffic for an hour and a half trying to get away from it. And so I was like, if I park a half hour walk away and we just walk over there and back. No traffic. And sure enough, that is what happened. But that meant we stayed at this place called the Moxie. Have you ever stayed in a Moxie, Peter? Have you heard of Moxie even? I have never heard of a Moxie. I had never either. But it was a very weird vibe for a hotel. It's one of those like off-brand hotels that Marriott has. There's not a check-in counter. There's a bar and the bartenders will check you into your room and also serve you a drink and then there's just a bar.
Peter
21:40
Okay.
Eden
21:41
Which was interesting. It came with complimentary drinks, so we went and got drinks. Um and then we went up to our room, and in the room, again, first off, the only comfortable hotel bed that I have slept in in years. Maybe ever. That's impressive. Genuinely, every time we go on vacation, I am uncomfortable. And this was the first time I was like, oh. I fuck with this bed. This is a really nice bed. I need to look up and see what bed it is, so that I can try to figure out what other hotels use this bed.
Peter
22:09
There you go.
Eden
22:10
Uh but the other fun thing is they it like they're just trying to be like weird and mod. There was a guitar and amp in our room. So Cassie just like grabbed this squire stratocaster, you know, a knockoff fender And like played guitar while I was just like scrolling Twitter before we went and got dinner or whatever. Um you could call on the the like phone in the room And they would tell you a bedtime story. Like they had a bunch of pre-recorded bedtime stories you could listen to. It was a very, it was a very I, you know, I had a good time. I would absolutely stay in that hotel again. Uh it was very quirky. It was very fun. Cool. So that's worth mentioning. Um what else have I been up to? Oh, I have been uh I I have I was bitten with the urge. to power wash and power wash simulator two was on sale and I was like it's on sale I think it's time it's time to to give them money And play Power Washer Simul Power Wash Simulator 2. So I am about it looks like 40% of the way through Power Wash Simulator 2. I'm doing the barn right now. Uh-huh. So it's a very big barn. I just hit 71% before I closed it to uh hop into this uh call with you. Uh so I should have it done hopefully by the end of the evening. But you know, we're uh we're trudging away, picking away slowly but surely at the uh the power washing. It's still very cathartic. It's still a great way to Turn off one's brain and just chill out and hang out, which is fine. Um, let's see what else have we been up to. Oh, uh Cassie mostly watched The Batman with me. Um but she did fall asleep. Mostly. It was that was what we decided to do when we uh got back to the hotel room and we'd been running around all day. We went Uh we did the the most sensible thing you can do when you go to a new town, and that is go thrifting. We went to the thrift shops. Um there you go. Which is madness, I know. Um, because why do you need to go to other cities to see other people's trash? But here we are. Um, we did it anyway. It was fun. Um, but when it was all said and done. After we had eaten dinner, after we were chilling out, Cassie was like, well, let's watch something. So we pulled up the Batman on the HBO Go that the TV had. And I I still really like that movie. It is too long. Three hours is too long for a Batman movie.
Peter
24:44
I mean, that's why I still have not watched it.
Eden
24:47
Also, there's a whole fifth act that didn't need to be there. The moo you get to the end of the fourth act and it feels like everything's wrapping up, and then you look at the little timer on the bottom and you're like, 45 minutes left. What the fuck is left to be done? And then there's a whole fifth act. Uh so it is too long, but I do still think it's a very good uh version of Batman. If one wanted to watch a Batman movie. You'd be hard pressed to find one I think is much better than it. I had a very good time watching it again, even if it meant I didn't go to bed till 1 a. m. But the vet was comfortable, so that's what counts.
Peter
25:20
I mean that is a that is a big deal when it comes to hotel beds.
Eden
25:25
I think that's probably it. I think that's all I did. So I think that means we should move on to our main event. And this week, dear listeners, uh, I made Peter watch some anime again.
Peter
25:37
You did.
Eden
25:38
You keep doing this to me. I do keep doing this to you. And sometimes it's really worth it. Sometimes you're like, I don't know about this one, like Ghost in the Shell. Sometimes you're like, how dare you tear my heart out and then step on it with stiletto heels, like looked like look back.
Peter
25:52
Yeah.
Eden
25:53
And uh sometimes you watch the first four episodes, aka the OVA uh episodes of You're Under Arrest from 1994 to 1995. Peter, do you think?
Peter
26:06
Oh, go ahead. I just want to say my biggest disappointment Huh? Is the title.
Eden
26:12
They never arrested a single person. Nobody got arrested! They never arrested a single person in four episodes of this ding dang show. Anyway, sorry. I just the closest thing, the closest thing is when a motorcycle cop man gets the yellow driver out of his car, but you don't put him, they don't put him in handcuffs. Nope, they don't. Anyway, I don't know why it's named that, but it's named You're Under Arrest. And uh, so what did you think about this before I give a little bit of background on this, why I chose it? kind of get get situated in its milieu. What did you think of these four episodes of uh anime I made you watch?
Peter
26:51
Um they here's what I'll say. It was fun.
Eden
26:58
Yeah.
Peter
26:58
It was, they were cute. Yeah. And they absolutely reinforced all of my preconceptions about anime.
Eden
27:08
Uh speak on that.
Peter
27:10
Uh the the theme song is just something else. I love the theme song. Oh, I did not. I listened to it one. I made myself listen to it the first time. I was like, I will listen to this whole theme song. This first one. I think it's delightful. And then the next three I was like, click, click, click, click, click. Okay, good. I'm done. Skip credits. Skip credits. Skip credits. Um The the standard overreaction animation stuff at innocuous things. Sure. The silliness At times where I'm like, I feel like this would have hit a little harder if you weren't being so silly. Sure. And then just the sort of incomprehensible things where I'm like, I'm sorry, and I don't think you can say this is a factor of the time. I don't even think in 1994 the police chief would be saying to two cops You guys sexual tension is too much. You're going on a date and we are paying for it. That's how important it is that you go on this date.
Eden
28:14
No, it was very it was very funny though. Uh I had so I've never seen this before, but I'd wanted to see it for a long time Um because I really like this is a silly thing to be the reason why I wanted to watch it, but Kosuke Fujim Fujishima, the guy who wrote the manga upon which the show is based is also famous for his most famous work is Oh My Goddess, uh, which is kind of a funny harem comedy sort of thing. A boy accidentally gets a goddess to be his girlfriend. Anyway, uh the thing about Oh My Goddess is it's just okay in terms of the writing, but good god the designs are so good. Like, it looks incredible. The designs of the three main goddesses and oh my goddesses are so great. And I just really like his character design work, which is most of what he's done, other than like Two or three big manga. The vast majority of his work has been character design work. He designed the characters in most of the Tales games, like Tales from Vesperia, Tales from Bersuria. Very cool character design. Violet, the main character of Tales from Bersuria, is one of the coolest uh JRPG protagonists you'll ever see. She's cool. She's very, very cool. Um so he's got like a certain visual flair. Um and I had just heard that, you know, this OVA came out in the nineties. And is lavish and very light, very inconsequential, and just kind of fun to watch. So I kind of wanted to watch it. Are you familiar with what an OVA is, Peter?
Peter
29:51
I am I was not. I I did a little bit of a, you know, trying to uh educate myself. So I I did a little bit of looking into it, but it was definitely one of these things when you said you sent the text and said that I'm like, I don't know what some of these things you are saying to me mean.
Eden
30:08
Yeah, fair Um so an OVA, OVA stands for original video animation. So that means that it is a a an animated program of some ilk that was not first aired on broadcast television. It came out primarily and uh and uh uh uh predominantly on media. In the 90s it would have been on VHS. later on in the late nineties, early two thousands, you get to D V D and Blu-ray or whatever. But like that was where this that's how this came out. It was not a thing you watched on TV. It was a thing that you went to the store and you bought a VHS that had an episode of this show on it.
Peter
30:51
So when it comes to OVs, some of the stuff I could find, especially we think you think mid-90s, and you hear the phrase direct to video. You think it's gonna be shit. You think this is like again, this is this is the button single, the sequel sequel. This is the Little Mermaid. This is Return of Jafar. But what I underst what I came to understand, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but that this was the exact opposite.
Eden
31:21
This was like prestige stuff. Yeah. So it depends. When it comes to an OVA, you've got three options. You've got this is a cheap cash grab, uh, like Return of Jafar. You've got Oh, this is where the money goes. Because we know we're gonna get an ROI here because people are gonna buy this on VHS, and those VHSs cost $40 to $50 American for a single episode of television. So we know we're going to make a lot of money from this. So it is going to be lavish.
Peter
31:53
Yeah, I found some things that said it could be as much as in some, depending on some of them were $70 for a videotape with a single episode.
Eden
32:02
Yeah, for a 25-minute episode of anime. Or, and this is the one that this is this is number two. The one we watched, you're under arrest. This is a number two. This is lavish. The animation is incredible. It is all like really stunning to look at. The third one is pornography.
Peter
32:23
I was gonna say that's gotta be it's coming, it's coming.
Eden
32:27
Um and so those are the three ways that OVAs exist because one of the things you can do on an OVA is you don't have to follow broadcast standards anymore So obviously they could be more violent, they could be more bloody, and they can have a lot more nudity and sex in them than they can if they're program, if they're for uh broadcast television. Luckily, for our for our purposes, your under arrest does not have an any blood or sex in it really at all. It is extremely just like cute. and chaste and funny and doesn't even really have much fan service. Like, there's a little bit in that third episode where you see Natsumi in her underwear for like a second. Or when she goes to the locker room, but it's not leering in the way I would have expected a locker room scene to be, especially in an OVA. Would have expected there to be a lot more TNA than this had in it. I I was honestly shocked at how little TNA there was. Um, but I'm gonna give a quick uh overview of the idea of you're under arrest, and then we'll talk about uh particulars. So you're under arrest primarily follows two main characters. Who are Natsumi Sujimoto, who is the brand new police officer in this particular ward, Bokuto Station, in Tokyo's Sumita Ward. and her partner Miyuki Kobayakawa and these two are very young uh um Officers who get paired up together. Um, they meet comically when Natsumi is late for work and decides to break some traffic laws and Miyuki sees her. And then goes to cite her and then doesn't give her a citation because, oops, I'm actually your partner and I was coming to pick you up because you were late on your first day of work. Um, anyway. complications ensue. At first, Natsumi doesn't seem like she likes Miyuki, um, but they really come to care a lot about each other by the end of that first episode, and then they're just like partners through the rest of it. Um and again, there was really only four episodes that we watched for this.
Peter
34:30
The one where they meet and go on an adventure together that is planned by the ex-chief who is now a a Buddhist Like some monk dude that she had totally crashed through on her.
Eden
34:42
Yeah, he's like he's like the shrine he's the shrine elder who used to be the chief and he is basically doing like a fun hazing for them so that they could become partners Um, the second episode is about a typhoon and there's this like guy who's driving uh uh un unsafely through this typhoon and causing all sorts of trouble. So uh the motorcycle cop who I mentioned earlier, uh his name is Ken uh Nakajima. And Miyuki has a huge crush on him, and he has a huge crush on her, but we'll get to that in a second. She, oh, Miyuki also an incredible mechanic. So she soups up uh Ken's uh motorcycle so that he can pursue this yellow car that is driving so unsafely.
Peter
35:33
Well that's I mean that's the thing is that car it is a straight up rally car. So it is a it is a tuned rally car. And I love that we get this like hint that this guy only like shows up and comes out to drive his rally car occasionally. He's like And it's always during typhoons. Yeah, I'm watching this and I'm like, he's like, he's like Ken's white whale.
Eden
35:54
Yeah. Um And then, of course, uh our Natsumi and Miyuki are doing something extremely important and extremely pressing for the police to be doing, and that is getting a pregnant cat to the veterinary hospital because it's going to have a breach birth.
Peter
36:09
Yep.
Eden
36:10
That's episode two. Episode three. You gotta get the cat. You gotta save the cat. And they save the cat.
Peter
36:17
I think it's the same cat.
Eden
36:18
It's the same cat's the same cat she saves on the first episode. Yep. Episode three, Miyuki and Ken are totally into each other and they keep not making it happen. Miyuki goes to her high school reunion. And Natsumi's like, she's gonna find love there if you're not careful. So they drive to the wrong town to try to bust in so he can make a love declaration in her uh uh high school reunion. Um, so now everyone thinks that they've been up to no good because they stayed out together all night because they drove to this other city together. And got super drunk. And then got super drunk. All these uh gossips, uh gossiping and and rumors are going around, and so as you said, the chief orders them to go on a date together, and so they do. It's very everyone is following them. Everyone is on a stakeout. Following them, making sure that they're going on the date. Like there's this guy speaking into a hidden thing. He's like, they're on their way. And then uh Natsumi and the girl with the glasses, whose name I can't think of right now.
Peter
37:27
They got like a parabolic microphone in the park pointed at them.
Eden
37:30
Yoriko. Yeah, Yoriko and Natsume are are like listening in. And then they get a call. And so the girls run off together. And as they leave, she whispers in Ken's ear, We gotta do this again, but next time you need to just ask, bro.
Peter
37:44
Uh-huh.
Eden
37:45
And then the last episode, uh, Natsumi gets the invitation to be the first female bike trooper in the Tokyo Metro Police Department. And she loves to ride her bike. It's gonna be like a great opportunity for her. But she has trouble telling Miyuki that that is what she's gonna do. She finds out Miyuki already knew about the transfer and gives her an alarm clock. Miyuki's very depressed because she's not with Natsumi anymore. Natsumi is kind of sad as well. Um there's a marathon and Natsmi is one of the escort the escorts for the marathon. And uh during the marathon, uh this guy opens his gas tank on his bike while his vehicle is running. So it of course and then drops some sh drops drops some of the gas from it.
Peter
38:40
And then he opens it and then it spills more and then of course it catches on fire and of course he's he's right behind a a truck that looks like it has magazines and newspapers in the back. So we've got plenty of plenty of uh of tinder to to go up.
Eden
38:57
Yeah, so they uh a fire starts. All of the other cops are trying to get to the fire, they're trying to get the cars away from it, all this sort of stuff. Um uh uh a semi-trailer, a a a gas truck. Looks I was gonna say it looks like a fuel tank. Fuel tank starts rolling down a hill towards it, um, and then Natsumi appears on her bike as she heard over the radio that, you know, shenanigans were ensuing, and Miyuki Ken, and Natsumi are able to stop it right at the very last second. Um, and Natsumi decides to go back to uh Bokuto so she can work with Miyuki some more, which is apparently where the television series picks up, and then there are like 70 more episodes of this stuff.
Peter
39:42
Anyway.
Eden
39:42
Yeah.
Peter
39:43
So we watched these three four. What did you think? So again, I I'll and I'll go more into my thoughts, but As this was something that you wanted to watch, I was very curious to hear what your conclusion was.
Eden
39:56
First off it looks fucking incredible, dog. The animation looks really so good. It looks so good. Um it is a lot more slight than I expected it to be It was a lot lighter. It almost felt like a slice of life, but about cops in a lot of ways. Um, and in that way, it was sort of reminiscent of Brooklyn 99 to me in some ways. Not as pointed, maybe not as as like thinking about social issues as Brooklyn 99 often is. But some of my favorite episodes of Brooklyn 99 are the episodes that are about nothing. And that there's no actual police work that happens. It is just these characters who happen to be cops in a funny situation. Um, and that is kind of how I felt about you're under arrest as well. Where it was these characters who I I ended up liking quite a bit by the end of the show just kind of being goofy and it was a kind of a workplace slice-of-life comedy that just happened to have traffic cops.
Peter
40:56
Yeah, I would definitely agree with that point because I think if the episode four is the one that has the most copying happening. Yeah, it does. And and I would still say that I never cared about the fire. No. In that all you care about is you're like, well what's gonna I mean th the whole thing, all of the police work only serves to get Natsumi and Miyuki back together as partners again. And that's what you care about. That's what you're looking for.
Eden
41:28
Well, and I I think that it's interesting that because and I think it is because they're specifically traffic cops. They are not Detectives, they're not beat cops. Sure. They're not, you know, special victims unit. They are traffic cops So I think that's part of why you didn't see any arrests, but again, why has it called you under arrest then? Um, but it does like speak to the the quotidian nature of a lot of the work that they do. And then in a lot of ways, they're more first responder than police officer in most of their interactions and the things that they're doing uh as the as the show goes along.
Peter
42:07
Yeah, yeah.
Eden
42:09
What else? Um, yeah, I really liked the characters. I thought Natsumi and Miyuki were very fun. Um the Will They Want They with Ken was very entertaining. Apparently, eventually there's a love interest for Nots Me as well as the uh show goes along, because of course there has to be Um, you gotta have you gotta have drama. You gotta have the drama. Um, I do love there's a scene in the third episode Where um Yoriko uh has made a mistake and told everybody that Miyuki is going to see a matchmaker. And everyone gives her a dirty look. And Yoriko makes this face where she like sticks out her tongue and holds her hands on her head like this. And it's one of the most famous images from anime I've ever seen. I've been seeing it for 20 years on the internet. Whenever you're a silly goose, that's the picture you put to show that you're a silly goose. I did not catch that. I did not know it was from this show until I was watching it and I was like, yo, that's the image you put up when you're a silly goose.
Peter
43:12
It's like the Leonardo DiCaprio meme pointing at the TV.
Eden
43:15
It's like the Leo pointing at the Yeah, that's how I felt. I felt like Leo pointing at the TV, and I was like, oh my God, it's that meme I've been seeing for 20 years
Peter
43:24
That's awesome.
Eden
43:25
I don't know. I had a I had a fun time with it. It was very light. I don't know that I would bother watching much more of it. Okay. Um especially because I if I if there was a dub, I probably would. But I having to Pay close attention to a thing this slight makes me less apt to watch more of it, I think.
Peter
43:45
Oh, and see, um I will say that the versions that I watched We're also dubbed. I had the choice. Oh. The first thing I did was flip it over to the English. That's fair.
Eden
44:01
I watched it in Japanese. I I think it has an English dub on the rip that I have, because I think we have the same rip. Um, I mean I think we both bought the same Blu-rays, definitely got them imported from Japan. Yeah, we definitely bought those Blu-rays and had them imported over from Japan and definitely have region free Blu-ray players that we ordered um online and they're not that's how we watch these for sure. Um but uh yeah I watched it in Japanese because I wanted to well you know see what the feel was like I would absolutely watch more of it if it was dubbed. Because it was fun. It was it was great background stuff. I would watch it while I was buy building model kits if I had a dub for it.
Peter
44:41
So and and and it may be worth, I don't know, and it would depend on your level of enjoyment. I don't know if I would say you should go back and watch the dub. Mm-hmm. But I almost want to say you should go back and watch the dub because here's what I will say. The English subs are so much worse than actually the dialogue and stuff in the dubs.
Eden
45:06
They're often so much more uh they're spare and they're literal, whereas I thought the and I am usually a watch it in the language, read the subtitles kind of person.
Peter
45:19
Sure. But I actually think that the voice work for this was very good and very fun and fit the characters well. And so I thought that actually the English dubs were were pretty dang good. And it made it more enjoyable. Because I started watching, reading the subtitles, and again I was like, ah, I wonder. And then I popped open VLC I mean excuse me the the menu on on on my region free DVD player and I saw oh look there's an English audio track and I clicked over to that And it it was it was good. Like it I thought it was actually a really good uh dub that made it a For me, I definitely enjoyed it more watching the dub than if I'd have been trying to focus on reading the subtitles. For sure. For sure. And again, the subtitles, the the dialogue in the dub was a lot better than what was in the subtitles. Subtitles.
Eden
46:14
I find that happens sometimes. Like there are some shows where there's not a huge discrepancy there, but I feel like especially with animate, there's a fairly large discrepancy there. And it feels like when they do a dub they're a little looser with the translation, but with an eye towards making it a more entertaining experience rather than just trying to be as literal as possible.
Peter
46:35
Yeah, I could see that. It was, yeah, I was pleased at how the dubs were because I didn't I was watching them this morning uh and I was a little tired and I was like, man. Whew, I'm gonna really struggle if I'm sitting here trying to read this this all. So I switched it over and then had uh I had a fun time. I had fun. Good to know. Good to know. Um, you know, I would say, like I said, It did kind of reinforce a lot of my preconceptions about anime and some of the reasons why I I don't want to say Here's what I'll say. You have got me to a point where I would no longer say I don't like anime. Okay. I am now to a point where I would say. I struggle with anime and I can like some of it, but I am willing to give it a shot.
Eden
47:27
Fair.
Peter
47:27
And this is one where I enjoyed the four episodes. I don't have any plans to watch them again, and I don't have any plans to watch more, but the art was very good. It was it just the visual spectacle of watching them was very pleasant to watch. And and they were fun. And the characters, I was impressed at how quickly at the end of that first episode. Uh so before they go on the whole mission to chase down uh the man in the mini, uh the the guy in the red mini who's cruising around. who's the retired chief slash monk. Um you know, uh Natsumi is like, uh, I don't know if we sh if we're if this is gonna work. I don't know if we should be partners. And Miyuki's like, okay, well let's look, we'll flip a coin. Heads, we stay partners, tails, we call it quits. We're good. She flips, slaps it on her hand, and starts to uncover it when all of a sudden, oh, they've got to go chase down the dude in the red mini. And so they go and they go on this whole thing. And it's, I mean, it's maybe what, 15 minutes, 10 minutes? Yeah. It's not long. And at the end of that all, um Miyuki's like, oh, we didn't see what it was. And she pulls out the coin and Natsumi's like, oh, I'll flip it. And then she throws it in the ocean because they're or the water, because they're gonna be friends, they're gonna be partners now, they're friends. And I bought it actually. Yeah. Like I bought it. At that point, I'm like, yeah, cool. Like, just gonna work. You guys are gonna be good. So I I thought they did a good job. With it still being like you said, it's fairly m fairly minimal, uh kind of spare stories, but enough there that you buy that these two are not only partners who work well together, but that they are good friends.
Eden
49:19
Yeah. And like they even start they are living together by episode three. They uh Natsumi lives far away from the station, so she moves in with Miyuki, but that's all just kind of like like she says, Oh, you know, if you want to live closer, and then by the next episode, they are living in the same place.
Peter
49:38
Because she's like it'll be a lot easier for you to be on time if you don't live so far away.
Eden
49:43
She's still not very good at it, but it is what it is.
Peter
49:46
Yeah. Like I say, it was it was fun. They were they were fun. Nothing.
Eden
49:53
I really like the vehicles. Um that little tiny police car that they have, the Toyota Every. Or extra? It's one of those two. It's a terrible name for a vehicle. It's tiny. It seems like there's not a whole lot there. Um, the fact that they often, in order to stop, have Natsumi stick her feet out of the vehicle to try to get it to slow down.
Peter
50:18
Not once, but like twice. And and the fact that in the fourth episode, Muki gets in a wreck because now she's Yoriko Yoriko can't do that. And she she makes a turn just expecting that Natsumi's gonna be there to pop open the door and stick her feet out and and do the Flintstone breaking is I don't know what they call they literally She literally, Natsumi literally refers to it as flowing. Puts her feet on the ground. No, but in the dub, it she refers to it as Flintstone Breaking. And I love it.
Eden
50:51
Oh, that's funny. That's very good. It was great. That's very good. Um I loved also her little motocompo, which is a very, very tiny uh Motorcycle that folds up into a box, basically. Uh-huh. And the fact that is designed to sit in the back of the car
Peter
51:11
But but Miyuki has souped up both their Toyota. I mean, at one point, she's like flipping the NAS switch. She's got some nitris in her.
Eden
51:18
Yeah, they put NAS into it. It's very funny.
Peter
51:21
And and the great thing is like As she's telling, as Muki's telling Natsumi about, oh well, you know, we'll be okay because we got this and I got this and I've done this and I've done this, and then she's like, oh, and I've got nitrous in there. And Natsumi's like, you've got nitris in here. And then boom, she hits the button and they take off. Like that was a fun little sequence. That part was fun. It's very funny. Yeah.
Eden
51:44
Yeah, I had I had a very fun time. Uh I I liked it as much as I'd hoped that I would. Uh and it was a good excuse to finally get to a thing I've been meaning to watch ever since the uh Blu-ray came out Because, you know, it I w I knew the animation was going to look good and I wanted to see it in HD instead of in, you know, 480p. Yeah, no, it's a nice, it's a nice As I as I mentioned to you, dear listeners, if you want to relive ye olden days of getting OVAs, uh there's a 320p rip of this on archive. org that you could go find. It's real rough, but it makes you feel like you're watching a VHS tape. I'll tell you that much.
Peter
52:25
No, they did a nice job. In fact, this was actually something that Because I haven't watched anything of this era in a long time, you know what I forgot? I forgot that iPads are four by three. And so when I fired it up on my 13 inch iPad Pro with a dual tandem OLED display, which is, quite honestly, the best display, at least in my possession, I have no no screen on which to watch anything that is better than that iPad. It filled that whole thing. And it filled the whole thing. No black bars, top, bottom sides anywhere. It was just boom. Full color OLED right there taking up that whole screen. I was actually, I was like, you know, I wouldn't often say that a 13-inch screen is the best way to watch something, but I think this might have been the best way to watch this.
Eden
53:16
Yeah, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense.
Peter
53:19
That was fun.
Eden
53:20
The last the last thing we'll do before we close. Um so They had the four-episode OVA, and then it had two seasons of a show, and then it got a revival series in the 2010s. I want to send you the OP to the revival series so you can start it up and you can see my how the mighty have fallen. This is what 2017 you're under arrest looks like, Peter.
Peter
53:43
Alright. Do we send it in the chat here? I see it. Okay, I'm popping it open.
Eden
53:49
First off, the music is much worse. I know you didn't like that OP. The music for the second OP is much worse. It already is so much uglier. It's uh The animation is so much cheaper looking. It's all digit paint and you can tell. Um and then It gets along and it's just like a whole lot of leering, hey, look at these girls in their bikinis playing volleyball on the beach.
Peter
54:18
I was just gonna say it didn't take very long for us to get the uh gratuitous uh bikini shots on the beach in that one.
Eden
54:24
And this is the OP to the show, so it's gonna be in every episode.
Peter
54:28
Yeah, no.
Eden
54:29
Is this a sports anime or is this A cop anime. Why are they spending two-thirds of the opening playing beach volleyball? Huge downgrade. Huge downgrade. Huge downgrade. So really the 80s and we've talked about it before. The 80s and 90s are to me peak anime. This is one example of that because boy does that sh look better than this newer stuff does.
Peter
54:57
I mean, yeah, very much so. Very much so. Well cool.
Eden
55:01
Cool. Well, I think we're gonna wrap it there. Thank you all for listening. Um we'll be back in two weeks with another episode. Um leave us some reviews, leave us some stars, you know the business. Um and until then, we'll see you later. Bye.