Bonus Podcast (with Transcript) 2022 October: Spooky Season

Meru, Chiaki, and Caitlin return to discuss the titles that give them chills and thrills, from shoujo to game. 

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CHIAKI: [In a spooky, dramatic tone] Hello and welcome to a spoopy bonus episode—

CAITLIN: [Laughs]

MERU: [Imitating a jump scare] Bleh!

CHIAKI: [In a spooky, dramatic tone] Bleh! Hello, and welcome to a spoopy bonus episode of Chatty AF: The Anime Feminist Podcast. I’m Chiaki, one of the editors for AniFem, and you can find me @Chiaki747 or @AnimatedEmpress on Twitter! Coming to haunt y’all this week is Caitlin, Meru, and I.

MERU: [Howling] Ow-ow! [Attempting a Halloween voice] I’m your local werewolf editor, Meru! I don’t know what that was.

[Laughter]

MERU: I don’t really— Oh, God.

[Laughter]

MERU: Whew! I committed so hard, and then I think the— [Laughs]

CAITLIN: No! You commit! You gotta stick with it!

MERU: Yeah, no, I shoulda stayed with it. I really committed… Okay.

CAITLIN: If this were an improv class, you would have failed.

MERU: I really would have, because I committed and then I became very immediately aware of the sound that left my mouth. [Chuckles] I was like, “Oh!”

CAITLIN: It was great. It was beautiful.

MERU: Thank you. I love it.

CAITLIN: You’re beautiful.

MERU: Thank you. [Chuckles]

CHIAKI: Caitlin.

CAITLIN: All right. [Chuckles]

MERU: I was gonna say, Caitlin, come on.

CAITLIN: Oh. Oh, it’s my turn.

[Chuckling]

[A canned beverage snaps open]

CAITLIN: Wassup, brahs!

CHIAKI: [Laughs deliriously]

MERU: Wait. Wait. Was the sound of a La Croix can being opened what was supposed to frighten me?

CAITLIN: [crosstalk] Yes! Actually, yes! It’s tangerine flavor!

CHIAKI: Oh my God.

CAITLIN: [Laughs]

MERU: Yeah, I feel like I know it well enough. No can makes that surprisingly frightening noise like La Croix.

CHIAKI: That’s true. That’s true.

MERU: [crosstalk] It’s a very sharp pop.

CAITLIN: I’ll try not to… burp on mic.

[Chuckling]

CHIAKI: Okay. So, we’re here. We’re here to talk about scary anime and manga for…

CAITLIN: We’re here, we’re queer, we’re spooky!

CHIAKI: Yeah.

MERU: Bleh!

CHIAKI: Join the skeleton army.

CAITLIN: You know, there’s a skeleton inside you right now.

MERU: It is, itching to get out. Anyway…

CHIAKI: So yes…

[Laughter]

CHIAKI: So we’re here to talk about… [Chuckles]

MERU: That was less of a reaction statement, more of just a statement from my mind.

CHIAKI: [through laughter] More of a statement!

CAITLIN: Thank you. Ah, man! So this is the third bonus episode in a row that we’re recording…

MERU: You can really tell.

CHIAKI: [crosstalk] We’re still in August, folks, but technically this is supposed to be October.

CAITLIN: You know, we’re like the stores making orders for the seasonal catalogs. Gotta buy your swimsuits in March, because it’ll be too late in July.

MERU: Yeah. Won’t be any. That’s the true horror of it all.

CAITLIN: The terrifying, unforgiving passage of time is the true horror. Existentialism! [In a spooky voice] Ooh!

MERU: [Feigning fear] Ah!

CAITLIN: [Laughs]

CHIAKI: That’s not quite entertaining, Caitlin. What is entertainingly spoopy for you?

CAITLIN: Oh, I get to go first this time?

CHIAKI: Yeah, I figured. [Laughs]

CAITLIN: So, my spoopy series is Ceres: Celestial Legend, which is not strictly a ghost story or a horror series, but it’s also not not. It is the manga that Watase Yuu created after Fushigi Yugi about a teenage girl Aya, who, on her 16th birthday along with her twin brother Aki, gets called to the family’s main house for their supposed birthday celebration. And when they get there, they make her open a box, and the box has a creepy mummified hand inside!

MERU: [Feigning fear] Ah!

CAITLIN: And she transforms from Aya Mikage to— I’m sorry. I’m switching back and forth on the name order thing. I should just commit to one way or the other. But anyway, Aya becomes Ceres, a tennyo who has been reincarnated into her body. Well, not reincarnated. She is descended from Ceres. Because they are such close genetic matches, Ceres manifests very strongly in her, and Ceres wants her hagoromo back so that she can go back.

So it’s a similar sort of folk legend as… I mean, they have them all over the world. The thing that I can think of is selkies in Celtic mythology. And the same thing, where if you get their skin, their hagoromo, their sealskin, then you basically own them and they won’t be able to return.

And so, now Ceres is possessing the body of Aya at times and her twin brother Aki is basically being possessed by the man who took Ceres’s hagoromo, because both of them are their ancestors. And so, now Aya and some of her newfound allies are trying to find out how to get her hagoromo back. They’re trying to find out about other tennyo legends around Japan.

And it’s a very interesting series. It’s got horror elements to it, for sure. But also it is in that Watase way that I adore. It’s very messy and very raw and very angry. It’s angry in a way that Fushigi Yugi never was about the injustices that men visit upon women, about gender roles, and “What is gender, even?” and how feelings can become corrupted over time. There’s twincest if you’re into it, but also not really if you’re not, because they are the spirits of a couple that were married. You know, it’s messy! And yeah, if nothing else, it’s an interesting series!

I recommend the manga over the anime. The manga is a little bit harder to get. I’m not sure if it’s available digitally, and the—

MERU: I was gonna say, I’m not sure either.

CAITLIN: The volumes are super out of print because it was licensed back before they stopped flipping manga. You know, it was licensed in the early ‘00s.

CHIAKI: Was this a Viz title?

CAITLIN: It was. It is.

CHIAKI: Okay, yeah.

MERU: I was gonna say, it is, so it probably is available via digital.

CAITLIN: Yeah! They’ve actually been pretty good about making their out-of-print series available digitally. I appreciate that, even if I do prefer physical volumes.

The anime is streaming on Crunchyroll. The DVDs are from Discotek. I still have the old Viz DVDs. Now, the dub is terrible. Don’t watch the dub.

But yeah! Are either of you guys familiar with this series at all?

MERU: I am familiar with it insomuch that I’ve seen the cover of the first volume of manga, but I don’t think I really knew anything about it until I just listened to you tell about it, and it sounds good!

CHIAKI: I know it was one of the biggest shoujo manga of its time, right. And so a lot of people were talking about it. I know the anime was pretty popular at the time. But I, myself, was not… I missed the window of being into shoujo and also wanting to watch it during those years. So, yeah, I just know about it, not so much actually checked it out. Definitely sounds like something I would check out now.

CAITLIN: Yeah. Like I said, it’s messy and it’s very, very raw, in the same way that Fushigi Yugi is, where it seems like Watase is just kind of… And this was published years and years before Watase came out as X-gender, so the feelings about gender in it and gender roles are really interesting to look back on.

MERU: Ooh, yeah!

CAITLIN: I’m not sure how it holds up because I did read it first when I was a teenager. But I also recommend it if you like shoujo but you’re getting kind of bored of high school romances over and over and over, because that’s most of what is licensed these days because most English publishers have really boring tastes in shoujo manga. I really recommend checking it out. I really, really do. It’s a wild ride, whether you like it or not.

CHIAKI: I think I just remember the ending theme for the anime, which was actually kind of a bop.

CAITLIN: Yeah!

MERU: Oh, I’m definitely going to add this to my watch list because this sounds good.

CHIAKI: Yeah. I guess I’ll go next. So, horror for me is my weakest point. I don’t watch a lot of horror stuff. I don’t like being scared. I just like being comfortable and being coddled to. That’s why I like harem anime.

MERU: [Chuckles]

CHIAKI: Anyway…

CAITLIN: That’s the true horror: harem anime.

CHIAKI: [Laughs]

CAITLIN: The true horror is that you’re listening to recommendations from someone who likes harem anime.

CHIAKI: Yeah, that is true. But I was trying to think like, okay, what are some stories with some horror elements? Like, Phoenix is really good at telling ghost stories or sci-fi horror. But that’s been out of print for forever, so I’m not going to tell people to go read it, but if you do happen to have a chance to read The Phoenix [sic] by Tezuka Osamu, go read it.

And then I tried to tell Caitlin and Meru, like, “Does Tenchi Muyo count?” and they said, “No.”

CAITLIN: [crosstalk] Yeah, no…

CHIAKI: So, I’ve decided to go with Ito Junji’s Cat Diary.

[Laughter]

MERU: I love it. I love it.

CHIAKI: I mean, everyone knows Ito Junji as the guy who makes really fucked-up manga.

MERU: Excuse you. I know him as the guy who hit the Whip in a video talking about his manga.

CHIAKI: [Chuckles]

MERU: He hit the Whip and the Nae. That’s what I know Junji Ito for. King.

CHIAKI: [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: I love Junji Ito. He’s just the most normal-looking guy.

MERU: He looks like he would be afraid of his own manga.

CHIAKI: Yeah! He’s just a normal guy. And his art is just terrifying otherwise. And, I mean, I could have gone and talked about Spiral, some of his other shorts… Ah, what’s her name? Is it Makie?

CAITLIN: Tomie?

CHIAKI: Tomie. Tomie. Right. See, I’m not a huge fan of horror manga, right? So I can’t even say Tomie. But I do like cats. And I thought—

CAITLIN: We know.

CHIAKI: Yes. So I thought, “What about this cat diary? Because everyone loves Junji Ito. I should check him out. I should read his cat diary.” And dear God, it is drawn just like his horror manga!

[Chuckling]

MERU: Oh, God, I’m looking at a cover and I’m scared of cats now.

CHIAKI: [Laughs] And Junji Ito is basically the most normal man on Earth, looking at cats and realizing, “Wow, these fuckers are terrifying when you think about it!”

MERU: Oh my God.

CHIAKI: But also, he loves them.

CAITLIN: He loves them so much.

CHIAKI: He loves his cats. He loves his cats so much. It’s really sweet!

CAITLIN: I love his pictures of… Is it Yon? The spotty one?

CHIAKI: Uh-huh. Mm-hm. Just the pure terror of that cat?

CAITLIN: Fucked-up looking cat. He does have a skull on his back.

CHIAKI: The most Junji Ito cat to ever grace their home, yes. But it’s just a lovely, lovely story that if drawn by anyone else would have been a laid-back slice-of-life comedy about having a cat in your home. But instead it’s by Junji Ito, so everything is scary, terrifying, and messed up in a sense.

CAITLIN: Can I give you a fun fact about this book?

CHIAKI: What?

CAITLIN: He had to change how he drew his wife after the first chapter because she got really mad at him for drawing her like that!

[Laughter]

MERU: [amused] Oh, no!

CHIAKI: Yeah, no, his wife is drawn with dead eyes, like she’s a ghost! [Laughs]

MERU: Oh, no!

CHIAKI: It’s so good!

CAITLIN: He drew her without pupils, and apparently he got in trouble for that with her, so he had to change it!

MERU: That’s so funny.

CHIAKI: I mean, even after the first chapter she’s still drawn without pupils half the time!

MERU: That’s so funny.

CHIAKI: God, you can tell that they love each other. [Laughs]

CAITLIN: Yeah. It’s very sweet. There are so many moments in it that are just so real, like where one of the cats is sleeping with her, and she’s just like, “Guess he just loves me more! Huh!”

[Chuckling]

MERU: That’s so funny.

CAITLIN: It’s really fun.

CHIAKI: Try to catch a cat that’s hidden away itself in a hard-to-reach spot.

CAITLIN: But I mean, Chiaki, if you were going to recommend horrifying cat anime, you could have just recommended Nekopara.

CHIAKI: See, they got into NFTs—

CAITLIN: Because I was deeply horrified the entire time I watched it.

CHIAKI: See, they got into NFTs so I don’t even want to mention them.

CAITLIN: [Taken aback] Ooh…

CHIAKI: [Laughs]

MERU: [crosstalk] Oh, no, the true horror! The true horror of relationship capitalism!

CAITLIN: [Obscured by crosstalk] with Nekopara!

MERU: Not capitalism!

CHIAKI: [crosstalk] Yeah, I know, right?

MERU: The most frightening thing to ever exist.

CAITLIN: All right. Meru, what are you recommending?

[Laughter]

CAITLIN: You seem like the only one of us who actually likes horror.

MERU: I have two. So, here’s the thing about me is: I don’t like horror. I like psychological thrillers, but they all end up being horror.

CAITLIN: Yeah, kind of similar, coming from similar places.

MERU: So, I’ve got two but I’m gonna hit you with my first one, which is my strongest candidate, which is Another. And so, Another was… So, it started off as a novel in 2009. And I believe in English we have all of the Another series novels with Another 2001 forthcoming in October, so, real spooky. And Another… Have either of you two seen Another?

CAITLIN: No.

CHIAKI: Can’t say I have.

CAITLIN: So that’s another anime I’ve never watched!

MERU: So, basically, it follows the third-year Class 3 at Yomiyama North Middle School. And way back when, in the ‘70s, a student died very suddenly throughout the school year. And the class just couldn’t cope with it, so they kept on just talking like the student was there and alive and kind of accidentally tethered them to our reality. Whoops! They couldn’t pass on.

And so now, there is this curse on the classroom that kind of acts like a supernatural natural disaster. And basically, this anime follows the class of 1998 as they try to figure out how to avoid this death curse that comes as part of the class before recognizing the student that had died.

And it’s really interesting, because… And I do think the book does some things better, and I will say I’m a big fan of the book. But it just kind of follows what a supernatural curse that acted much more like a force of nature would be like.

And it’s just a pretty good, solid 12-episode 2012 anime that follows the main character, Koichi, who is… He has moved to this middle school because his father is doing research in India and he has family there. And so he comes in the midst of this curse that gets enacted and kind of has to solve it. And it’s this really big buildup to what is causing this curse for this year. And it’s pretty good stuff.

I really, really like it. It does kind of, at the end, lose a little bit of steam as I think 12-episode anime sometimes can. But it’s a really satisfying watch.

CAITLIN: All right. Now you said you had another one?

MERU: Yes, I do. And my other one is… it’s a personal favorite of mine. And that is Danganronpa.

CAITLIN: Ah, yes! I didn’t even think of that!

MERU: Yeah! Y’all…!

CHIAKI: That counts! That counts!

MERU: Yeah, “Dadgum Ron Paul,” as some of the kids call it.

CHIAKI: [Cackles]

MERU: Danganronpa—

CAITLIN: “Rootie Tootie Point-and-Shooty!”

MERU: I mean, “Shooty Refutees” is a great series for…

[Laughter]

MERU: … for horror, right?

CHIAKI: [crosstalk, amused] Jesus Christ.

MERU: It is one of my favorites. It got me through grad school, because that is when I got my Vita and first played the visual novels. But the anime is a pretty solid adaptation of the source material itself.

But for those who don’t know about Danganronpa because they love themselves, Danganronpa follows a group of students who are known as elite high school students. They’re called these Ultimate students, and they have a specific talent and they are the most talented of the most talented. And it follows their time in this school that they wake up in and that they’re trapped in. And it’s basically a death game. It’s really great.

CAITLIN: It very much is a death game.

MERU: It’s just a death game, a death game with fabulous characters, some that you wanna hate, some that you love to hate, and some that are cosplay goals. And it’s a really good visual novel, but I do like the anime. The soundtrack is great. It’s wonderful. It is not without its flaws.

CAITLIN: Major, some major flaws. And I say that as someone who loves the games with all my heart.

MERU: I think transphobia is definitely one that you gotta go into Danganronpa… It is not kind to trans people at all. I mean, it is ostensibly a series about teenagers doing murders to each other, often for very vapid reasons.

I think what makes it quite compelling is the unease and the “Most Dangerous Game” aspect of it wherein desperation can cause some of the most horrific things to happen. And this is a show that jazzes that up with a really good soundtrack and kind of makes these characters that are maybe not always the best really intriguing to sit with, and I love them. Shoutout to my girl Tokugawa. Uh, what is her name? No, Fukawa, Fukawa, the glasses girl. Oh, God!

CAITLIN: Oh, yeah. Aw, God.

MERU: [crosstalk] Oh, God, yeah. Toko Fukawa (queen!) is great. All the characters—

CAITLIN: Ah, she’s terrible. [Chuckles]

MERU: She’s so bad. And I’ll say, she is one of the characters that’s kind of also transphobic. She’s not super great. But we stan a messy character. But we also call out their flaws. And so—

CAITLIN: I mean, my favorite is Kirigiri.

MERU: Oh my god, I feel like I can’t say who my actual favorite is because I do feel like it’s a spoiler. But am I really spoiling something? All I’m gonna say is—

CAITLIN: No, it’s a good twist. It’s a good twist.

MERU: Yeah, all I’m gonna say is “Queen!” Love her! She didn’t do anything wrong. No crimes!

CHIAKI: [Chuckles, then groans]

MERU: Which is not true because everyone in this game is a little bit messy. But there’s multiple anime, there’s multiple video games. It’s just a multimedia…

CAITLIN: I recommend the games over the anime.

MERU: Games are definitely better.

CAITLIN: Very strongly recommend them over the anime.

MERU: [crosstalk, singing] And you can get it on Nintendo Switch. [Chuckles] [Returns to normal voice] If you’re like me, you got—

CAITLIN: You get them on anything now. They’re on Steam. They’re on Switch. They’re on PlayStation. They’re easy to get.

MERU: They’re like the Doom of visual novels—on all platforms!

CHIAKI: Oh my God. Can I play Danganronpa on my calculator?

MERU: Probably.

CHIAKI: Okay.

CAITLIN: Depends on how fancy your calculator is, though.

CHIAKI: I mean, my calculator can run Doom!

[Chuckling]

CAITLIN: Yeah, no, I love Danganronpa. Avoid the fandom.

MERU: Ooh, yeah.

CAITLIN: Please, God, avoid the fandom.

CHIAKI: [crosstalk] Fair. Oh, God, yeah.

MERU: That will bring you real despair.

CAITLIN: It is all teenagers. It’s terrible. But I love Danganronpa. I think there are some really interesting reads of it. One of my dream articles that I’ve just been talking about writing for forever (you know, original idea, do not steal) is looking at it as an allegory for late-stage capitalism and what late-stage capitalism does to youth.

MERU: Ooh!

CHIAKI: [intrigued] Hm.

MERU: Yes.

CAITLIN: Some of the characters are just awful, but the ones that are good are so good and I love them so much. It’s got A+ het ships.

MERU: [Hums furiously in agreement]

CAITLIN: Honestly, A+ het ships. Actually unusually sex positive for the kind of game it is.

MERU: It’s incredibly sex positive!

CAITLIN: It’s not super overt about it. But some of the characters are having sex! It’s not openly stated, but you can read between the lines. There’s a bunch of teenagers locked up who don’t know when they’re gonna survive to the next day. Some of them are gonna fuck, you know.

MERU: It’s a good game.

CAITLIN: In Danganronpa 2, Gundham Tanaka? Love that boy!

MERU: Oh, my God!

CAITLIN: That’s my boy! Yeah, I adore Danganronpa. Don’t let the terrible fans put you off.

MERU: No, no, don’t, don’t, don’t. Though, stan Komaeda. That’s all you need to know. That’s all you need to know, y’all. He’s great. He’s great. My boy.

CAITLIN: [crosstalk] Ugh, man, I could never… No. I’m not a Komaeda stan.

MERU: I love messy, bad characters. And maybe I’ll write about it one day in regards to Danganronpa, but that’s part of the joy, is these messy characters that are not good. I just recently watched Chicago for the first time, and that also had messy, bad characters, and I think that’s a lot of Danganronpa.

CAITLIN: [crosstalk] Oh, I love Chicago.

MERU: Yeah. It’s good.

CAITLIN: Oh, can I give one of my bonus recommendations?

MERU: Yeah!

CHIAKI: Before that, just before that, before we close out Danganronpa, I do want to mention one thing, and it’s that everyone thinks that my name is based off of Chiaki Nanami.

MERU: Oh, no!

CAITLIN: How? I could see why they would think that.

CHIAKI: Because I am a gamer. Yeah. Yeah, no, everyone, whenever I’m gaming online, like back when I was playing Overwatch or Counter Strike, everyone was like, “Are you from the Danganronpa series?” And I’m like…

MERU: Chiaki, do they not know that you’re Japanese?

CHIAKI: No.

[Laughter]

MERU: Oh, no! Oh, no.

CAITLIN: Where did…? Did you get Chiaki from something specific, or is it just a name that you like?

CHIAKI: That’s literally my name, but I do joke that… whenever someone says, “Are you from Danganronpa?” I say I’m from Minami-ke instead. But that’s a joke. That’s a joke.

CAITLIN: Okay. Anyway, I want to give a bonus shoutout to a series that I don’t know if I can really fully recommend. But I’ve been watching it. It is so much! Visual Prison, which is…

CHIAKI: Mm.

CAITLIN: [Chuckles] Okay, so, you know how a lot of idol anime series are really just over the top and goofy and they treat—

MERU: [quietly] Slander.

CAITLIN: —idol competitions like they’re life or death and they have absolutely no connection to reality?

MERU: [quietly] Slander.

CAITLIN: Cough cough. [Chuckles] Ensemble Stars, I’m looking at you!

[Chuckling]

CAITLIN: Well, Visual Prison is a lot like that, only they’re vampires…

MERU: Yes!

CHIAKI: Okay!

CAITLIN: …singing visual kei.

MERU: So good!

CAITLIN: So, the ridiculous over-the-top-ness and the insane lines they spout actually make a lot more sense for them to say because they’re vampires! Vampires are just ridiculous and over the top. And it’s just got this wild goth vibe.

Visual kei has had its time and the time ended, but the aesthetic is just… It’s so much. It’s all black and red and thick makeup and crazy hair and crosses and singing about, like, pain and… [Chuckles]

MERU: It’s so good.

CHIAKI: Is this an older series?

CAITLIN: No, it’s new!

CHIAKI: Wow, okay.

MERU: [crosstalk] It came out in 2021.

CHIAKI: Damn! Okay.

MERU: Because I did the premiere review, and y’all, this slaps! It goes hard. It goes hard. When those boys are like, [singing with Japanese pronunciation] “Guilty cross!” [Returns to speaking voice] you’re like, “Aw, yes!”

CHIAKI: [Laughs]

MERU: It’s so good! Oh! Oh!

CAITLIN: The singing competition where they sing to the red moon, that only vampires can see, and the moon chooses a winner, is called Visual Prison. That’s what the series is named for. It’s so ridiculous!

CHIAKI: I love it.

CAITLIN: And if that’s what you want, it’s super-duper fun. It’s not something that… I don’t think I would watch on my own. I am watching it as a series for review. But I mean, yeah, it’s just…

MERU: It’s so good.

CAITLIN: It’s wild. It’s buckwild. And yeah, no…

CHIAKI: Damn.

CAITLIN: And then my other bonus recommendation is a very, very popular series—popular enough that you will find shirts at Hot Topic very easily—Toilet-Bound Hanako!

CHIAKI: [As if remembering] Oh, yeah!

MERU: [crosstalk] Yeah!

CAITLIN: I didn’t go with it for my main pick because even though it would probably be the more appropriate pick, I was like, I really want to talk about shoujo as much as I can and put forth shoujo titles because people need to read more shoujo and licensers need to license more shoujo.

But Toilet-Bound Hanako is really, really good. It’s spooky, but it’s got this undercurrent of sweetness. It’s about trauma in a lot of ways. It’s about learning to love yourself and accept yourself and not look just for that love from others. It’s got an incredible visual aesthetic.

The anime version is directed by… Oh, why can’t I think of his name? Ando! Ando. It’s the same guy who directed Scum’s Wish and Hakumei and Mikochi. He’s got a really—

MERU: Ooh!

CAITLIN: He’s got a really distinct visual style with a lot of frames within frames and really effective use of limited animation. And it’s just… It’s so good. It’s so good. And it’s one of those rare series that’s really popular but it’s popular for a reason. The manga has gotten hard to get, but the anime is easy to get. I heartily recommend it.

CHIAKI: Yeah, no, I really enjoyed that show. That was actually going to be one of my potential recommendations, but I couldn’t speak to it very well, as you did, Caitlin. So, thank you for stepping in and doing it for me.

By the way, as I was thinking throughout this podcast, while we were recording I remembered one other thing I want to pitch in real quick, and it’s Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.

MERU: Ooh! Yeah.

CHIAKI: Which is licensed by Dark Horse. It’s a real solid series that’s really a critique on Japanese modern culture and history. It’s written by Eiji Otsuka and illustrated by Housui Yamazaki, but Otsuka is just known to just be far-flung left wing and will not shut up about it and it’s beautiful. [Chuckles]

MERU: I love that. I have some cursed information that’s also going to make this extra spoopy: a U.S. live action film based on the Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service in development.

CAITLIN: [crosstalk] Nope. Nope, nope.

CHIAKI: Mm-mm-mm, nope, nope. Mm-mm.

MERU: Happy Halloween, everyone.

CHIAKI: [Laughs]

CAITLIN: Nope! Now that’s the real scary thing.

CHIAKI: Yeah. But yeah, it’s kind of like Ghostbusters. Well, not really Ghostbusters. It’s about a bunch of guys and gals who deliver corpses to their final destination. And it’s a bunch of ghost stories, you know, zombies, monsters trying to take revenge on people who have wronged them, mostly because capitalism or past ills of Japanese history. Yeah, pretty fun.

Okay, so, I guess we should close this out, as we are running a little bit over.

CAITLIN: Last bonus recommendation: Blood Blockade Battlefront!

CHIAKI: Ah! That’s good, too.

CAITLIN: Let Rie Matsumoto out of anime jail. That’s all.

CHIAKI: Okay. Anything from you, Meru, before I close it out?

MERU: I think we can shut it down!

CHIAKI: Okay! [In a spooky, dramatic tone]  Well, thank you for supporting us!

[Laughter]

CHIAKI: [In a spooky, dramatic tone] Your contribution on Patreon really matters so that we can come together and scare you like this! We’ll see you next month on Chatty AF.

MERU: [Dracula voice] Bleh!

CHIAKI: Blah!