Dub Talk 215: RADIANT

0:00 disclaimer this episode of the dub talk podcast may contain language in situations that may not be appropriate for all audiences listening discretion is advised this episode also contains major spoilers for the first season of radiant as well as details from season 2 and beyond please be advised as you listen and as always the views and opinions expressed in this episode are those of the individual participants and do not necessarily reflect the dub talk podcast as a whole okay i i don't want to alarm anybody but i think a stray cat got into the building and yeah subs are better than dubs ah damn it it's a weeb cat get out weed

0:46 cat or i'll call the pound yeah star jojo's from parts wonder you're a scrub yeah we've cat no don't you have neighborhood dogs to harass with your tepid takes yeah it's pocono hero academia [Music] all right everybody enjoy the episode i i got a few phone calls i have to make you'll never be rid of me rootsy boy i'll get you to watch the cinematic masterpiece of ramo if it cost me one of my nine lives holy [ __ ] i got that done in one take [Music]

1:38 bonjour listeners and welcome to a brand new episode of dub talk a show where a bunch of nerds get together and talk about the latest and greatest in anime dubs and voice over uh today we are finally doing an episode that i have promised i would get done two years ago uh tonight we're going to be covering radiant the 42 episode shonen esque series based on a month raw month uh mod fra what word is this uh written by

2:24 written by french author tony valenti that's right folks we are talking about an anime made by a french creator today manfra isn't that that giant moth that fights godzilla all the time no that's mothra uh this is clearly this is clearly some sort of star wars prequel manga honestly monfrost sounds like the last name of like an 80s program drummer billy wait what's that what's the guy in magma's name is that his name no it's like xander or something never mind you're not wrong though yeah featuring avant-garde

3:10 drummer steve mothra oh steve's way too normal today we need something more weird gerald there we go gerald manfred francois monroe jean-pierre manfra the plot of it of radiant as described by anime news network uh seth is a boy who seeks to become a great magician and a group of witches who seek to travel to the radiant radium is a mythical land that spawns monsters known as nemesis which fall to the world from the sky while traveling they are also hunted by the inquisition that is not very descriptive a nnn

3:57 basically the show basically the show is what would happen if you took your typical magic shonen like fairy tale or black clover or or something like that based around wizards and sorcerers and basically turned it into the x-men yeah that's actually a good description comparison yeah yeah with lots of we try not to get political on this no no it's basically the same story politics and anime what are you talking about oh it's it's it's even worse these people hate acknowledging japanese politics french politics their heads

4:44 will explode yeah we'll try to keep it to a minimum just for everyone out there but i don't think we're gonna be able to avoid it entirely so yeah also and just as a disclaimer um since the three of us really don't want to be here all night um we will only be covering the first 21 episodes that comprise the first season uh this is a 42 episode show in total released um 2018 to 2019 and then 2019 to 2020 we're just going to be covering the 2018 to 2019 part for the sake of brevity right some of us have to be at work in

5:30 the morning right is that all of us yeah basically actually all three of them oh well look at me mr gets wednesdays off oh good for [Music] you we have fun here speaking of work the role of adr director is a very difficult job as well as that of the scriptwriter and not to mention narration can also be a bit of a chore um so we have a bunch of people who are doing that for the show of radiant uh for our adr directions staff we have

6:17 caitlin glass as the show's main director but monica real zack bolton and sean gann also provided assistance over the course of the series mostly with episode eight uh writing scripts for the series was aaron dismuke and playing the narrator was barry end down and yes i'm lumping the narrator into this because this isn't like a david wald mr tonight situation uh i kind of consider it more of a staffing thing i i know it's complicated but bear with me here uh so kaitlyn glasses directorial work um you would mainly know from stuff like garo the animation the 2019 root uh fruits basket reboot

7:05 and the free franchise basically from the movies into season three aaron this week's script writing you would know from such shows as fire force tokyo ghoul and non-bacca and barry and dell you would know as such roles as zaruba from the garu animation franchise yoki and fullmetal alchemist and fma brotherhood and mr tubon clay in one piece so who would like to go first i'm on you go first all right now some of my powers of memory because i finished watching this like eight months ago ten months ago last year last year jesus christ

7:50 wow this weird this year really has a number of my sense of time anyways um that uh i'm enjoying this dub i this i think this staff has done a very nice job on this um this is a fun show this is a little bit of an odd show in places uh but i think they've handled the adaptation really really well i think the writing feels very strong it feels very true to what the show is going for uh it's very funny in a lot of places i think they have a good handle on just kind of the balance of like action and humor and drama that the show has uh and even with having like a few directors in the mix uh not just me and caitlyn i think they consistently get like a good you know straight tone across uh what else

8:38 yeah this is this is just like really well put together uh there's a lot of things about this show that kind of obscure the fact that it's not technically adapted from a manga uh even though like i've read a little bit of radiant and it's it's not really it's you know it's it's it's leaning into that aspect of it pretty hard um a lot of this feel it feels very like true to like what you kind of feel like yes this feels like something that could maybe run and shone and jump or at least shown on sunday uh and i i love it when barry on ondell shows up in things he's not cast enough as far as i'm concerned uh he groots is right he doesn't have his quite as much of a he's not a showoffy narrator uh but he gives that nice little speech at the beginning of every episode it's a nice soothing voice to lead you into this world of uh weird shenanigans and things

9:24 blowing up and uh earth sets dragon ball characters or just watered sets dragon ball character maybe i haven't decided yet yeah this is it's just a nice strong dub uh this is one of these dubs for these shonen shows that i wish there were more outlets for anime on tv or at least like more like like broad stream like broad widely used streaming services i guess this feels like something that is both very fun and also like really accessible like i definitely like it this has been on like toonami when i was you know 12 15 whatever like i definitely would have watched this and thought like this is the this is great look at all this this is fun it's a little silly uh and the lady keeps trying to hit people this is great give me more of this uh i think it's

10:11 it's just it's a it's a nice fun show and i think it balances a lot of its many aspects very well as far as the depth goes it's good stuff awesome party yeah um one thing i really appreciated about this dub and the casting in particular is it sort of was the start of caitlyn starting to cast more people of color in in in her dubs and um right yeah even characters who technically look caucasian i think that it's great that she's giving them a chance to

10:56 to show off their acting ability without the need of say a character being of a certain race they're judging them directly by their vocal abilities and that's one thing i really appreciated that because there are several characters in this show voiced by uh people of color who are not necessarily characters of color that's the thing i appreciated um but yeah i just i think there are some mishaps here and there as far as the acting goes but there's nothing offensive when it's good it's really good even when it's just okay it's still pretty good so i have no problems there on the on the um

11:42 on the acting or directing part um i didn't really pay i don't really pay much attention to the writing but uh one thing i do appreciate when we get to a certain character how they speak uh is almost entirely of cat puns and if you know me if you can pull off of like a a really really dumb pun really well it'll it's it's just chef's kiss for me so all in all yeah i mean this was def i agree with the i agree with amon is that i could definitely see this running in something like say on toonami or or not necessarily like a nick or or or anything like that but probably

12:29 like late night adult swim sort of thing it's it's it's got that saturday morning shonen jump sort of feel to it like you get from your narutos and your dragon balls and stuff like that but it's much more cohesive and doesn't try to stretch that it doesn't try to out war outlive it's welcome if that makes any sense yeah yeah yeah no i i really enjoyed both seasons of it um yeah but but that we'll get more on that on final thoughts oh i um i i put barry yandell in here in this segment as well oh right right sorry i've been told i do a

13:15 very rather good barry arndale impression so but yeah i know i think he's he's a lot of fun to listen to and he's he doesn't have to uh go into ham territory simply because he's the narrator but you hear him before every episode and i i really enjoy how he brings a sort of it's like listening to an old wizard as he tells you a story about things far back in the days of wizardry and weapons and magic and mysticism and dungeons and dragons and oh my and uh and lions and tigers and bears

14:01 but um [Laughter] [ __ ] what come out and say it say what you [ __ ] mean you're always like i i you know i [ __ ] what [ __ ] say it party you beautiful bastard but anyways yeah i always like barry ondell whenever he shows up so yeah it's he's it's not the biggest role he's just a narrator but he's it wouldn't be the same without him um i i do have to agree with hardy that casting a lot of actors of color not just to play the roles of color

14:48 but scattered throughout the course of the show i thought that was really refreshing uh there may have been one or two casting misfires in that respect in terms of the show but overall i think it was a good effort put in um i i do have to say probably the biggest winner of this show is aaron dismuke scripts now i know adaptive script writing is more is just as much sort of a free jam between the director and actor but at the same time like a base foundation is formed that they can basically riff off of but i thought the scripts were very

15:34 they were very punchy and very kinetic a lot of back and forth a lot of banter everything was very snappy everything was very it was very punchy um the joke the adapted jokes actually worked very well in their own regard and that is something that is something very hard to do in straight comedic anime so seeing something like that and basically uh a shonen ask series it's great i i absolutely love the scripts of the show to death and i love barry and dell

16:21 as the narrator as well uh it has a bit of a like it's not exactly a teddy ruxpin but i feel like you could have easily put barry andel's narration onto like an audio cassette and stuck it in like the back of a teddy ruxpin type doll and it would have been just absolutely soothing when i when i was a kid i had a little cassette tape that was like some old british dude reading like king arthur's stories and i feel like barry young dale has the same inflection that that dude did while he was like you know reciting these things uh there's something like it's not like like not like fairy tale per se but there's a very

17:06 like old-timey fantasy at narration aspect of what he's doing yeah i thought that was absolutely wonderful and basically on the technical side i think this was one of the most impeccable dubs produced in that calendar year of 2018. so starting off with our first batch of characters we have the denizens of the city of artemis artemis is basically a city of of wizards and mages it's meant to be a safe haven so that they're not persecuted um we have mr lord majesty who is

17:53 the ruler of artemis uh he's basically a little bipedal cat person and he makes cat puns all the time um we also have melba and pop melba runs a cafe in artemis and pop is obviously her father but the twist here is pop is also a hand puppet on melba's hand we don't raises a lot of questions we don't know it either yeah we don't know why either in radiant is the embodiment of in all caps i have questions someone tried to get a wizard to try and

18:40 explain it and all that happened was he pulled a little cassette tape and played it they might be giant song about puppets and explained absolutely nothing no in this case a wizard really did do it obviously yeah somehow we'll figure it out later maybe uh and then we also have yaga who is an ancient wizard who helps our main character seth begin to understand how to use and utilize magic or this and also discovers that um somebody uh implied to be his other teacher alma plays a whole crap ton of restrictions

19:25 on his power yeah we should add that in this uh in this show uh magic is known as fantasia right uh and basically it it kind of functions like the force in star wars where it's a magical power that exists within all life and yadda yadda not that medicorian [ __ ] no no no nobody's born from midichlorians here if you want if you want if you want if you want space jesus you have to go to a different property thank you uh so in terms of the actors playing

20:12 these roles master lord majesty is played by someone cho melba is played by sakuya ba uh pop is played by sonny straight and yaga by doug jackson now sun one show is probably more recognizable for his uh his vine videos from back in the day um i know the um the household of planes dating sim one was a personal favorite of mine um but he's also done a lot of voice acting two roles in particular that i pulled up were uh flack in borderlands three and hiyoto in the third season of rogretsko

21:00 uh sekiwa ba you would know as kitari in astrologe in space and kojaku in dr stone sunny street you would know as koro sensei in assassination classroom and maple and show by rock and doug jackson would be best known as kotetsu serizawa in starblazer's 2191 2199 god i feel like i'm blazing it right now that's a call back to another episode we were all on yes it is this time i got munchies i was trying to fly the ship but then i

21:45 got high guys guys oh i i think i lost the spaceship again i don't know where it is dude you're inside it oh that's why it's so big in here [Music] uh he was also nakanojo's father in nichijou all right so aman are you ready to provide opinion absolutely uh let's start with yaga uh i enjoyed doug jackson he is just a what a fine example of your

22:30 slightly annoying pint-sized mentor figure who has his heart in the right place but you're probably going to want to punt him into the sun occasionally because you he's so know and stubby don't you just want to pick up and think about him strangling when he's being an ass it's like lucy in the football it's it's he's he's the perfect size who is the same alba did not put a put a put a whammy on him to make him so very very puntable uh but i like doug's performance as it a lot i think he he he captures that like authoritative but also kind of irritating vibe that i i you know this this sort of character rides on uh i think he's very he's g he's good at being entertaining uh but you know

23:17 radiant is not a series without its dramatic moments and i think when those moments do come he is able to pull out like the pathos of the character uh and just sort of his you know feelings and concerns about where it's what seth is doing with his life and what he's trying to accomplish exactly and whether or not these are good ideas to begin with i enjoyed it a lot uh melbourne pops i find these two very entertaining it's so weird it it makes no sense and i'm kind of hoping they don't this is not a plot point anyone feels the need to resolve it's just like yeah our dad's a hand puppet why because i don't know it's the writer thought it was funny and he's been running with it ever since

24:02 um and this is this is definitely helped by uh uh sakuya and uh sunny's performance i think she is uh sakuya is just delightfully just bubbly and cheery and the right level of naive and just uh so so very so very excited about everything and you know she wants to encourage doc with whatever it is he's up to no matter how shady it is uh and pop sonny's just very good at being you know this very stern father figure who was he turned into a puppet did pelva have some sort of psychotic break in his ventriloquizing this hand puppet we don't know we probably never will um but he's it's just it i find the image of this cute anime girl like you know side voicing sunny straights voice out of

24:49 this hand puppet very amusing in of itself uh you know it's sunny straight like he's he's he's great in most things i've seen him in frankly just delightful but now we need to talk about the important person in this set uh i am always happy when song won show shows up and stuff i think he's very talented and it's sort of delightful to see a guy who just started out posting weird videos of him being goofy singing let it go or you know evanescence or whatever and has made a career out of that like god bless him doing the good work uh and he's great here i've got his life goals right there absolutely just like yeah man this is great uh he's paid to [ __ ] post i know right

25:39 songwong show the only the only good youtuber especially because he's not really a youtuber just vines dead that's the most convenient place to post videos these days anyways uh he is he's delightful as this awful little tyrant of a cat king so a regular cat uh uh at a point uh he is just he just is a perfectly cartoony voice for this character it is the exact voice that i would want to see come out of this weird little bipedal cat who's also the ruler of this magic town and is also clearly out to fleece everybody and everybody that he possibly can uh and just speaks in just

26:25 so many cat puns so many cat jokes all of the cat puns if if i had more time i would go through and see if he ever actually has a line that does not have at least one cat pun in it because they are they're very dedicated to that joke uh and i laugh every single time and uh just he just i think he just really nails it like he gives the exact performance i would want out of a character like this uh just and he also just he manages to rattle off these puns very smoothly it sounds it all sounds very intentional uh and not like you know not to like calculate or anything he makes it sound like actual dialogue which i feel like with with that kind of gag that it can be hard to like make it sound like something a person a bipedal cat would actually say uh so

27:11 i'm just impressed all around uh i'm my only my only complaint is that he war majesty is like in three episodes i think uh and i could definitely stick yeah like three or four yeah i could definitely stand for more of him being around even if it's just to pop up and remind somebody that they owe him an astonishing amount of money and they better pay up soon or else um just me my girlfriend having a conversation about how uh when you get down to it royalty and the mob aren't really that different and uh master our majesty a prime example sure he's king but he's basically also the local mob boss for the city and you don't want to cross them either way well i mean there's a reason why mob

27:57 boss daughters are called princesses this is true uh but yes i i enjoyed all these performances they were good stuff good side characters uh excellent work thumbs up nice party yeah uh i'll start off with uh doug jackson as yaga as well um this is one of the characters i actually had to go back because i watched it as it was streaming week to week so this was over this was two years ago so i had to go walk back and and remind myself of some of the smaller characters who i didn't really remember as much and uh yaga's not in there for a whole lot i think he really only gets two maybe three episodes to himself

28:47 and um but he sounds like the perfectly acceptable uh old curmudgeon of a of a uh of a mentor like the yoda of the of the series and uh he sounds perfectly fine um he definitely sounds like a grumpy old man grumpy little old man for sure uh regarding melba and pops here's a thing could that be one of their or both of their curses like that is my assumption yeah like we don't know if pops if they somehow melded together or or what they practice i don't i think melba mentions that she

29:32 doesn't really practice a whole lot of magic but she knows a few things do i recall yeah i i think you're right yeah so anyways um melva is just this bright little ball of sunshine always positive this sort of pollyanna-like optimism um wants to support everything uh that seth and doc and melee um are set out to accomplish and um always positive always bright and she just sounds very sweet and cute um as opposed to her and puppet of a father who is just sort of controlling like get

30:18 your hands off of my daughter that sort of kind of dad voice that we've all had to listen to at least once or twice in our lives he's just he's very overprotective and he's very very close to his daughter literally so boy this midori days remake got weird [Laughter] it's like instead of having tits on your head you have dr robotnik on your hand so he looks like a little dr eggman hand puppet i mean i'm not wrong you're not wrong it doesn't mean i'm going to approve that statement but it is correct yes just because it's right doesn't mean i should say it that's true

31:06 but yeah i have to agree with aman that the real highlight here is definitely sung one cho as master lord majesty because of if you'd it just goes to show how vast his vocal range is because in the most recent games he's been played he's been cast as sort of the big muscly character like vassaraya in bassaraga in grand blue fantasy versus the big huge scything muscled up masked guy who looks crazy who looks scary but is actually really really nice he plays that guy and then to hear him come back and play someone like master lord majesty it's just like huge difference in vocal it's like a vocal

31:52 whiplash almost and so yeah he's just he doesn't pop up enough i think he shows up a little no he doesn't really show up much in the in the second season either but uh every time he's around it's a treat nice oh sorry did you have a little more no i'm done okay um so i think i'll start with yoga as well um he is just doug jackson plays this beautiful chromagen of a character like he is just he wakes up every morning and he drinks his grumpy juice

32:40 and it is just he doesn't want to be there he doesn't want to do anything least of all get into danger with some kid he met that some person he is absolutely mortified of told him to train like it's his interactions with seth are absolutely fun i also kind of like doug jackson's voice and i like to hear him in things um he sort of has that that sort of upper end of middle age grit to his voice like and that's i feel like that's

33:26 something you don't like that particular age range is something you don't get too too much in anime voice acting so i like it and i like the performance it is very comedic when it needs to be serious when it needs to be it's just fun which i can also say about sikiwaba and sunny straight as melbourne pop they are an absolutely great comedic duo together uh melba is just an absolute ray of sunshine and just she wants to shower her friends with support that is that is a character and it is so pure and you want to protect it just like pop uh

34:13 who is just this in a different sense in yoga he is also that sort of middle-aged disgruntled but instead of being like the disgruntled teacher who has to show some kid the ropes he he's a disgruntled dad trying to protect his daughter he's the shotgun dad like i i once had a friend and in the middle of a long a long car trip home he talked about oh yeah so when i get older i want to be the kind of dad who invites

34:59 who invites the um the guy my daughter's into over and he's just like so you want to date my daughter as i'm loading a shotgun that that is how i see that is how i envision pop and sunny straight is just perfect for that [Music] um my favorite moment with him is um it's after the arc in rumbletown sort of the um sort of the palette cleanser arc after everything has ended it's like four episodes at the end of the series um the character doc has been turned into a child

35:46 and needs a diaper change at first he thinks melva's gonna do it and he's happy but he then pops just like yeah i have years of exteri experience with this stand back i'm gonna rub that clean like i cringed but at the same time that was an absolutely hilarious delivery um and now i guess this brings me to uh someone show as master lord majesty which i have to say it is it feels like a very beautiful tribute to maddie blaustein's performance as meowth in the original pokemon dump

36:32 oh now now let's think about it you're right you're not wrong that's i i didn't notice that either that's astute like it doesn't sound exactly like it but there are little nuances that i kind of picked up on um i mean also the vast vast amount of cat puns master lord majesty lets out in any given minute uh that's not a part of meow's performance in either dub but it is a part of this character that is just absolutely i just want more of it i just if someone cho wanted to devote an entire video

37:18 to just making random cat puns in the middle of conversations just to see if people would notice like that i i would love that so much just sort of do the super troopers thing he's just like oh yeah what do you want to do right now like that that would be fun um and yeah like hardy was saying um someone chose range is insane um he's playing master lord majesty which is sort of a higher higher pitch voice but then he's also characters like flack and borderlands 3 which is

38:04 uh similar to the character hardy was describing just a big bulky character um i think they're a robot if i recall correctly but i i could be wrong but yeah um all four of these were great and i can't wait to get started with season two because i decided to put off watching season two entirely until i could manage to get this episode out um just so i can make sure that everything i talk about is strictly regarding season one but yeah good stuff i i hope to hear more of all four of them

38:51 okay uh so next oh i'm sorry okay ah okay uh so next up we have members of the inquisition sort of a an anti-sorcerer force that deals not only with the nemesis but sort of magic users who have gone wrong sometimes also magic users who haven't gone wrong but better safe than sorry right they're they're x-men's equivalent to like the sentinels only they're not giant robots yeah except they have powers that kind of function like giant robots

39:38 yeah which is awesome yes no the inquisition instead of use having magic themselves they use magical items right and i think they call them in the course of the over the course of the show miracles as well right uh so first first off for these characters we have dragonov um he is basically an iconoclast within the inquisitors his men absolutely adore him and he is absolutely one of the best bosses within the organization um his main arc

40:26 is in rumbletown where he is sent to investigate allegations of basically letting a a nemesis run amok and you also have torque who is the leader of the inquisition um he's got a very cool sword that can make it so that you can't use fantasia ever again in a in a limit cuts and piodon a mysterious hooded character who likes seth has a pair of horns as as his curse because he's also a sorcerer um the show is kind of ambiguous as to whether or not that's kept a secret

41:12 um oh yeah he says brother as well as you learn at the end of the story arc uh so dragon off is played by ivan husso torque by ray chase and piodon by rico fajardo uh ivan hasso hasn't done a lot of work for funimation um i think he and kaitlyn glass work together in theater more than anything um he plays bernardo dion in gar of the animation kiyosuke kuga and princess straight alternative

41:58 and gene all king wow that is a very complicated name um let me try that again gene all kinnicks in alderaan on the sky uh torque is played by ray chase who you would know as keith flick in be the beginning bruno bucarati in jojo is a bizarre adventure golden wind and the king of simps himself m in sword art online alternative gun gale online uh pio don is played by rico fajardo you would know him as leon louise in guar the animation taichu oki and dr stone and daisuke

42:43 shima in star blazers 21.99 all right i'm on floor is yours oh let's see uh bless you i'm gonna start with piadan uh i i'll i'll confess up front uh i my my review episodes that have a lot of pio don in it uh before i do remember like who played him rico uh ricoblaido you did a good job he had a very kind of trickstery quality almost about him which i liked uh vietnam is very clear a character who knows a lot more than he's going to let on or tell anyone because why should he and also maybe it's a good idea to keep some of this under his hat

43:28 for the time being um i did like but i did enjoy his performance and i do think uh a weird thing i've come to appreciate in dubs is when you have siblings and you cast actors who plausibly sound like they could be related uh and i do think they they did a they did enough of that here i feel it's a little it makes a little more sense if they don't if they don't sound like immediate relatives here just because you know yes they're related but seth doesn't know that um that i thought i enjoyed his performance i thought it was it was well done uh i get the impression piadan's going to show up more often in the future so i'm definitely going to see to get to see more of rico perform this character and i'm looking forward to it uh that was it was a lot of fun uh ray chase's torque uh this is funny

44:16 to me because for like the past two months me and my girlfriend have been playing through final fantasy 15 where ray chase plays the bleed character uh who is like a 22 year old prince who's in way over his head and it is funny to me that ray chase can voice boy that man has range on him doesn't he oh uh i like him a lot as torque he has that great like baritone rumble uh that a a character like this should definitely have he just he never even before you see him he just sounds imposing it's like a brick wall got up and started walking towards you explaining how he is going to punish you because you're you're a bad sorcerer and look what you've been doing here disc disk uh it's just

45:03 there's so much weight behind his voice which i think really works well for how the character uh like just how he is and especially like how his actions play out especially once you hit the rumbletown arc um it's a lot of fun maybe fun's not the right word but it's really well done and i enjoyed it but i want to say my praises for uh i want to say my phrases for this section for ivan uh draganov's great and i love his performance i am i am sad to learn that this is one of these actors who's like been in a lot just a lot of things i haven't watched uh because he absolutely should be in more things uh he is so good at play it's like the first episode where uh i

45:49 think um what is it i think doc's like begging with him it's like please let us go and he's just sitting there drinking and he's like no i will not drinking his wine through a straw exactly which is which is such which is such a a specific form of trashy that i cannot help but appreciate it uh he he plays his character so very well it's like you you listen to his performance and it's like i completely understand why draganov despite being such a like weird iconoclast among his peers is like i completely understand why his crew is so loyal to him uh he is so just distinctive and he just bleeds cool the whole time it's like yeah this is the guy

46:35 yeah i understand why people want to follow you you're a cool guy [Music] it's also just fun to uh later on uh he he encounters the the guy in charge of rumbletown uh who we'll talk about in a little bit uh and it's just fun to see him just sit there and just be intimidating just be like you know yeah you know some people are gonna be coming by i'd be ashamed that they found something wouldn't it anyways have a nice day bye uh he just he i think ivan just really nails that well like he feels he is he is some of the best casting i think of this show he absolutely nails this character uh and you know if he is in fact a stage actor i know you know depending on their schedule uh sometimes they don't go as much into the voice acting stuff just because

47:21 they're busy being a stage actor uh but he has the time i hope he shows up in more funimation stuff in the future he is a delight uh and he i feel like as far as some of the lesser known actors in the show go he feels like kind of the you know mvp of that group just like yeah this is great i love this um hardy yeah uh i did not realize we were going to be discussing pio dan neither did i actually it was kind of a last second edition so yeah i did watch the episodes in which he and seth uh sort of have their their little chat together and um because he i can't really i didn't really form an opinion because i didn't know we were going to be talking about him

48:07 but as far as a rico performance rico rico fajardo performance goes um yeah it's fine he doesn't really stand out but it works um probably we'll be seeing a lot more of him in the future if a season three ever shows up because not only do you have seth and pioden you in second season two you have the third brother as well so there's another one yeah god this is the x-men it's a [ __ ] summer's brother's all over is their dad gonna come back from [ __ ] space is there devin a space pirate the whole time yeah and the third brother believe it or not the third brother is voiced by johnny on

48:52 bosch i see somebody somebody's having fun here i see yeah but that makes too much sense it really does anyways yeah i don't really have much to say about rico as peod um but it was fine ray chases torque elmo you brought up that you find it hard that he's able to voice like a 22 year old uh like narcissistic prince like noctis right i find it strange that i'm technically four years older than him and he's able to make it some a

49:38 character sound like they're in their late 40s or so early 60s it's unreal his like again i've been incredibly impressed with ray chase's range ever since we heard in fairy tale as the villain which was that's some voice acting black magic if you if you've ever heard if you haven't watched fairy tale dragon cry yet um but yeah i know like torque is no no exception to just how impressive his range is because he makes him sound like a 10 ton semi staring down at you with its headlights on full blast if that makes any sense no it does there it's like hey what if optimus

50:25 prime wasn't evil but maybe a little more of a hard ass right if yeah if optimus prime was a drill instructor exactly yeah there we go right but yeah i know i just i think he does he does great and i'm glad that caitlyn was able to cast him in this considering he's more of an la actor not as much of a as much of a dallas actor but at this point it doesn't really matter because they're all recording from home anyways so there is no reason for anyone not to be in any dove outside of union issues so go crazy directors go go nuts but again i think that the of this group the standout has definitely ivan hasso as uh as draganov because

51:12 he's because evon is uh he is um hispanic he's got this very distinct uh accent to his voice and it always shows up and adds this extra little touch to it that sort of makes drag enough sort of sound i don't want to say anything it makes him sound like he's got this extra little bit of of uh well i don't want to say whimsy but i mean just elegance to everything he says and the fact that he's so laid back and that he takes care of his men he cooks for them he treats them all right and and he sips his wine through a straw

52:00 and and he takes none of conrad's [ __ ] and he's just he's just a delight to listen to um and i i do like i do like how his his accent is so distinct that in season two ivan had to skip a few episodes and ian sinclair um recorded for him and in ian's performance he brought out that exact he tried to replicate that exact accent because it was so integral to the character so i don't think he would have sounded i don't think i would have liked this character as much if he didn't have the evon hasso voice it was just phenomenal

52:48 that's it um so i think like oman and hardy i'll start with uh rico as piodan um you know not a lot to it yet um it from my understanding piodon plays a little bit of a bigger role in season two and then if it goes beyond he plays a big role in the arc that's going on right now um i do like sort of the playful nature that he had in trying to get seth to recall some of his past memories that have apparently been held from him

53:38 i also sort of like the moral ambiguity he gives because it's not exactly clear why he's helping seth why he's motivating him to figure out what he wants out of life and i i have to really hand it to him to for making piodon such the such a mysterious presence throughout the back quarter of the show oh and ray chase's torque he's just a brick wall uh built solid can actually absolutely wreck a dude

54:23 uh and his subordinates are also really cool though we're not really talking about them tonight um they are really intimidating very powerful uh good stuff we do at least have to mention the old guy voiced by kit williams who controls like a giant like laser version of himself yeah it's like a giant laser kaiju and it's absolutely badass but it looks like him like he's a giant version of him i love this show giant laser kaiju um but ivan hasso as dragon off is probably one of the standouts of the entire series uh he does have a very whimsical

55:09 sense to himself um and i like that he does get quite a bit of benefit from the script writing in that he gets to do a lot of word play um like there i'm i'm trying to recall the exact line but in one of the early episodes he's doing laundry and his coat gets caught by the wind and he has to catch it and then he makes some sort of really clever pun and i'm just like that is cool and then hit just about all of his interactions with conrad where he is just he's just a smug

55:56 bastard holding all the cards it's great because he knows shit's about to go down he wants to tell conrad shit's about to go down and he's about to go down but he holds back and it's just it's just great word play um yvonne does such a great job with dragon of um like i said it's it's one of the standout performances of this show i i actually really really like it um so in terms of the inquisitors thumbs up all around so next up we have the major players in the rumbletown story

56:42 arc in the back half of the show um himalayan is hamelin is a sorceress uh she along with a couple of others were captured as children and used as an experiment to create nemesis hunters by the inquisition um she ends up escaping alongside them from the prison in which they are kept but it turns out to be a trap and they are all killed except for her uh so she returns to rumbletown many years later and tries to enact revenge by knocking the entire city

57:29 out of the sky she also has control of nemesis yeah she also has control of a bunch of mice like nemesis fitting that her name is hamelin it's in a direct reference to the pied piper uh because it should also be mentioned that her weapon of choice is a fluke a spear flute that happens oh yeah there's there's also a knife in the flute and it comes out of the area where the where the air comes out it's weird james bond and she keeps on gadget and she also keeps all the all the mice nemesis in the scroll it's really badass

58:18 um taj is okay so to properly explain taj i have to sort of explain the rumbletown arc let's do it um you have conrad who is an inquisitor who is in charge of the city um he doesn't like immigrants and he doesn't like sorcerers so he uses elaborate plots to try and not just drive them out of rumbletown but kill them all he's very genocidal this is where the politics show up people just you know right

59:04 yeah the show has a very hard-line stance that uh people who are not a fan of immigration generally not good people just to put this into perspective conrad's nickname for himself is literally the wall yeah little bit on the nose there yeah you think subtlety am i politics am i anime i think not uh so how does this relate to taj um taj is a child of immigrants who encountered the one of the nemesis

59:51 that hamilin had under her control he ends up getting curse uh his curse comes in the form of purple snot that comes out of his nose uh not clear if he has magic yet but by the end of the rumbletown arc he does express interest in coming to uh to artemis to learn to see if he has magic so that now brings us to conrad whom like i said is in charge of the city trying to kill basically all the immigrants uh has a plan that basically wipes out a whole bun had it gone right it would have wiped out a whole bunch of people along with them and they it seth hop makes him basically

1:00:38 it's oh no i'm sorry hamilian is the one who hot mikes him it's it's a strange art but it has lots of punching stuff too oh absolutely all the punchy stuff oh the fights are wonderful fights are the major highlight of this show yeah seth's entire entire approach is just punch the [ __ ] out of it right uh so in any case hamelin is played by trainer nishimura uh taj is played by danny chambers and conrad is played by patrick seitz uh trina nishimura you would know as mikasa ackerman in an attack on titan uh mori illustrious mean

1:01:26 mari illustrious mikonami in rebuild of evangelion uh basically 2.0 and 3.0 uh kyoku jiro in my hero academia uh danny chambers has played shisei hattori and the ancient magus bride fifi and endro and babylon in infinite dendrogram uh patrick seitz has played sort of appropriate for the character he plays in the show ira gama gory and killa kill he's also played jp in redline and because oman would never forgive me if i didn't mention it he plays wolfgang grimmer in monster yes you may expect you have you may have

1:02:13 expected a different voice actor but it was i patrick oh yeah he also played dio kind of important there he's he he's very good at playing just real nice swell guys and also just the worst uh case in point do you want to start yeah why don't you go ahead i'll in fact leave patrick for last but um let's see down light uh daddy chambers i enjoyed his tad dash like you know tash is mostly it's a little kid roll um but i i thought she got some good pathos out of him like this this whole arc is kind of weird to see just cuz uh not that you know there's plenty of

1:03:00 political manga but i feel like i don't usually see shonen type stuff that's this like aggressively blunt about its political stance especially when it's not like hey uh maybe anti-immigration rhetoric is explicitly bad and we should stop that maybe maybe that's a bad thing to do uh and it's right it's interesting i don't back when we thought we were gonna record this earlier i had done some kind of research on like how france deals with immigrants uh which i don't remember very well but um these are some opinions mr mr tony has here with regards to how france deals with its own immigration issues but uh i i did like how taj was written as kind of like this uh just like they're very like they're

1:03:46 very relatable they have this you know you know they're cursed but it's very like they're purple snot the most just the most innocuous thing in the world they're literally a snot-nosed kid uh i just like danny's performance of them as somebody who seemed very normal but had to deal with just this external pressure that they did not ask for and don't really know what to do with and then there's sort of turn of like you know if you know i i don't want to just sit on my hands while this is happening i want to stop what's going on and not just be passive uh i really liked her performance as a consequence i thought she she played this character really well during this like what ends up being just like this really like intense kind of status quo shifting like plot arc uh

1:04:34 yeah kudos to the show i think it made a wise decision to look at this and it's like okay if we're not ending the season on this this should still be like the last big arc we focus on before you know the last episode um and i i enjoyed it i enjoyed what she brought to the character a lot uh trina's have a line is great hemline's a lot uh she would you know before she first contributed she's more you know sort of mysterious maniacal villain and i just really enjoyed her performance there she has so much just spite and venom in her and i think trina just does a really good job of bringing that out and focusing it uh like you know initially she starts out as a very much a mystery but i think even a few episodes after um she's

1:05:20 introduced you get a much better sense of like oh i see what's driving this person i see i see why they are so angry at the world uh and then later when she gets into like her more one-on-one conflict with seth i thought she like she i thought she just really brought that that aspect of the character out well as well uh just just sort of like the pathos and the pain and kind of her like you know her complicated feelings about meeting seth who has also experienced this exact same kind of prejudice but has come out of it very differently due to like him having support while he was going through this as opposed to hamelin who had basically hamlin who basically had to like deal with it on her own and it's left her in a maybe a worse off state

1:06:05 in some ways um but i i really and i thought treat i thought trinity just gave a really strong performance in that regard um you know this character doesn't you know she's there she's a pretty big character for like that arc um and i thought she just covered the character really well while she was on screen and now patrick as conrad what a piece of [ __ ] jesus christ like to to circle back around to the writing stack because it occurred to me at the time it is especially because like especially in the years since this came out it is sort of wild to see them just take like you know you know rhetoric i have a hundred percent heard like fox news anchors say and just put into the mouth of

1:06:51 like this guy in his lackeys it's like yeah this is this is this is very explicit what's going and patrick to his credit like he he brings it like he knows exactly how to make this guy sound you know commanding because of his position but also just loathsome like he is you know he has that like you know he has that strong you know baritone that patrick sites is so good at bringing to his villains but this isn't like dio or even when he does shitty things he's still kind of cool conrad's just awful and i think i think patrick really knows how to thread that needle of making him you know see impressive in a nominal sense because of you know he's a big tough guy he can do all this cool stuff in theory uh but he's just such an awful human being and you never feel

1:07:37 he never see he never comes off as like you know fun or cool or like you gotta revel in his badness he's just the worst uh and i think and i think patrick like really knows how to you know we've seen my hero patrick clearly knows how to deal with a just a real piece of work of a dude but um here i think he just he does it again it's just like yeah just like i i hated this guy he's so awful if i if i could pick uh segway into conrad i think that's what makes ivanov or dragonoff even cooler oh absolutely because they're back and forth and and and how they go back and forth and how dragonoff just sort of just

1:08:23 makes him look like this like this blatant idiot and um because you're right he is this big scary dude who could do all these all these things but at the end of all oh he's just a bigot an idiot bigot you expect him to wear a red maga cap sometimes yeah i mean if the hat fits yeah needs to cover up his bald spot anyway but if i could segue into it do you have any more thoughts no no i like i i like i enjoy these performances and conrad is the worst by all means go ahead yeah

1:09:09 no i think the fact that that patrick has played so many you know muscle bound douchebags in the past he's he just slips into this roll just like a glove and the only time you never think conrad is cool the only time you laugh when he's on screen is at his expense because he has no redeemable qualities and so when it during his arguments with dragon off just seeing him get demeaned and talked down to and just come across as this racist piece of crap um it's enjoyable because it just there you you have no feelings of regret of seeing of conrad just get dragged and

1:09:55 even when he's bit his big fight with seth uh he when seth rips his uh his uh mustache off and he's been reduced and where's it yeah he's been reduced he's he starts out at this big bulky dude this huge suit of armor eventually he's reduced to shirtless hairless and mustacheless and he's just like he he's a giant baby i just realized that he is a giant muscle-bound baby and then up until his final moments when seth smashes him and he's like i am the wall this can't be happening to me yeah and uh yeah patrick just just steals the

1:10:41 show uh playing such a piece of garbage so um as far as taj is concerned i think this is one of it wasn't it definitely wasn't danny chambers first role that was that was uh ancient magus bride i think this is one of her first robes playing a young child character a young boy and i think she does a very good job she's got she adds that extra little bit of rasp to it that sort of prepubescent um accent that uh that the little boys tend to have and and she just she makes taj just this well-meaning but kind of irritable little character

1:11:27 he's like i don't i'm not cursed i don't have a cold while he's spewing out purple snot so uh she was fine she was great um i don't really have much to say that taj is a character though uh as far as hamelin is concerned this isn't the first time i've heard trina nishimura go full crazy but she's really good at going full crazy and uh and yeah uh it's i think she's a master at her art at these sort of these loud shouting angry you know furious at the world you don't know what i've had to go through you know how dare you i will make them pay if you're not with me you're against me

1:12:13 sort of characters we've seen them all the time in anime but uh and she has done quite a few and i think she's very very good at her craft so yeah that's all i really have to say nice okay um so i actually think i'm gonna start with uh trina and hamelin i guess it it's right there on the name um trina absolutely hams it up i had to go there um i i loved it um

1:12:59 just because when you're first introduced to hamelin um she is this absolutely calm collected the the mice nemesis in rumbletown are basically like family to her because that was basically all the family she had after everything went down um and then as you get to the ark through the ark in the big reveal that she is in fact orchestrating everything including conrad's eventual downfall uh and she just goes absolute she takes it up to 11 and it's it is absolutely great especially when she fights seth and she's

1:13:47 her personal philosophies and his collide head-to-head and it's like it was absolutely bone chilling uh and then she later turned around to sacrifice herself to save seth and um and her nemesis family uh it actually did bring a tear to my eye right before the you know the alternate ending sequence with the flute that just is scientifically designed to rip your heart out and stomp on it in front of you i also like danny chambers taj and that's interesting because

1:14:35 i might be wrong here but it is the first time i've heard danny chambers play a boy like an actual little boy um it's something that given past performances i knew she could do but it didn't seem like she got the opportunity to do so until radiant and i thought she did a great job with it um taj is a little gremlin at first um he's very grumpy he doesn't want to actually get involved with seth and you know help them figure out what's going on with the mystery of the nemesis in rumbletown but is reluctantly

1:15:21 thrust into the into the job and then later on during the fight with uh with seth and conrad he's enlisted into action to open a gate that would let everybody run to safety i think danny chambers did a great job with all of the uh all the little nuances and all those moments with him [Music] from you know his first encounter to actually being brave enough to run through seth and conrad's fight in order to release a gate like i i thought that was good and you know patrick sites is conrad there is one thing i'm really glad

1:16:08 caitlyn glass didn't do with this performance um it would have been very easy to play off conrad as like a donald trump passing it would have been absolutely simple to do and i'm glad she that was that whether it was her or it was patrick sites or whether the conversation of even doing it even came up but i'm glad there was restraint to not do that kind of thing that would have been awful oh um conrad in and of himself sounded like a pasty of like a fox news anchor as um as you put it on

1:16:56 um it it didn't need that extra bit and i'm i'm glad they didn't go for it um that being said uh patrick seitz plays the big burly brick wall very very well he has done it so often in the past as as i happened to mention with uh gum agory and it's great that as intimidating as he is he is basically rendered second banana to torque when he finally shows up um also his interactions with draganov are just chef kiss um all that wordplay and banter absolutely beautiful um

1:17:42 so obviously very solid thumbs up all around on these three all right and next up we have sus traveling party uh melee is a young girl whose seth encounters on his way to artemis uh she's captured by the inquisition and he sort of helps her escape and she ends up joining him uh her curse is a little shall we say unique um while melee is ordinarily a very kind and gentle young girl um her cruise developed a split

1:18:28 personality within her she's basically radiance launch from dragon ball yeah pretty much i mean you're not wrong um first personality as i mentioned is very kind very gentle uh the curses alternate personality is this very brash abrasive sort of gung-ho personality um and while the the kind and sweet personality uses binding magic um the cursed personality is basically just all destruction all the time guaranteed [Music]

1:19:16 now doc on the other hand um he is cursed but is unable to use magic uh so instead he focuses on his attention on basically being a mechanical engineer um he is very averse to collecting debt especially toward master lord majesty um he is very he very much has a huge crush on melba um and can't get through the iron wall of pop and um when his curse activates um his his body shrivels up and dies

1:20:03 and he basically pops out of the stomach as a baby being doc is suffering isn't it yes you for you're forgetting one thing that you have very much in common with him uh roots oh yes yes the man loves his coffee oh boy yep um he also developed a taste for coffee to uh to get closer to melba um even though melba is notoriously horrible at making coffee no her coffee is good she's notoriously bad at making herbal tea there we go okay

1:20:50 um and now the final entry in seth's party um he joins at the end of the end of the first season uh grimm grim is a very enigmatic presence within the rumbletown arc at first it's assumed that he is this malicious being who is capturing people and you know doing horrible stuff to them with this coffin that you know hands pop out of and drag people in um turns out he was just trying to protect those people uh he happened to know that rumbletown was there was a plot to collapse rumbletown he's just trying to evacuate people he's actually kind of a nice guy also

1:21:36 refers to himself in the third person it's weird he's wrapped in bandages and those bandages form teeth it's weird i don't know what to do with this guy he's kind of cool though he's apparently got a if you get into season two he's apparently got an even big deep dark secret why oh cause you gotta have those i am shocked and apparently he has a frankenstein as a butler wait hold up what i'm i spoil you nothing else oh he was already my favorite character because he was a mummy person i love him even more now why do you drop this on us now we gotta go back and watch

1:22:22 god damn i do i was just promoting i wasn't gonna have time to watch these two anytime soon now it's gonna torture me [Laughter] forget doc being me is suffering clearly in any case um melee is played by caitlyn glass uh duck is played by sean gann and grimm by eric vale um kaitlyn glass not only serves as director on the show uh she has played how maya in fire force um got basically a small role in season one and a big role in season two uh she's miho amikata in the free

1:23:07 franchise and winry rock bell in full metal alchemist also andrew's favorite pink alien waifu uh mina ashido in my hero academia yes uh now sean gann i had a little bit of trouble finding um named roles for him but um he was now yanita in hakata tonkatsu ramens takasaki and nichijou and toscuseno in prince of stride alternative grimm is played by eric vale now eric vale you would know as sanji in one piece

1:23:54 i'm gonna have a lot of trouble with this name uh tamaki suninaga in dead man wonderland and arthur boyle in fire force um also not to mention um he may or may not eat children as um oh there it bathery farid there we go thank you yes i i had to make that joke at some point during the show this episode um so i'm on what do you feel about seth's little band of adventurers they're swell i'm sorry i had not realized eric bale's character's name

1:24:40 bathory okay i see something i see someone else also read a book called cereal killers in middle school all right oh yeah his boss's name is last name is tepesh that show anyways back to the topic on hand um let us start with grim as people who follow me on the earth no i love skeletons they're great griff is not a skeleton person he is a mummy person but good enough he's weird and spooky and he looks like he stepped out of soul leader all good things in my book uh eric's delightful i think he he does a good job of being just sort of enigmatic and a little cool and mysterious and he

1:25:25 always refers to grimm in the third person because he's one of those guys and thankfully it does not get tedious because uh eric eric's good at doling that out in a way that uh it feels you know eccentric and not irritating uh he is a lot of fun i am delighted i i assumed we would see more of him in season two i have now i have all sorts of delighted now when i finally get around to watching that i'm rubbing my hands together with glee right my face hurts i'm smiling so much oh uh eric eric's just delightful he he plays this grandma is just a he's an odd little character with an odd little arc and i think eric does a wonderful job of playing him as you know he's a little sinister

1:26:11 and he's mysterious and what is he up to and it turns out oh he's a nice guy he just doesn't bother to explain anything and also he looks like a monster so you know our assumptions were understandable who are we to think of what you're doing with your weird coffin you keep stuffing people into um delightful uh caitlyn as millie uh i think she is she does a wonderful job here i think you know when millie isn't kind of her normal personality she is just what a sweetheart so bright-eyed and optimistic and she wants to help people and just you know an absolute sweetie and caitlyn you know she's good at playing characters like that just you know upbeat and energetic

1:26:56 uh and she is she is just so nice and then she changes personality and caitlyn might be better as like angry melies she just she just puts that she puts that right level of just like you know drops her voice just a little bit she puts a little more toughness into it and it comes across so well uh she just does a really good job of making those feel like two sides of the same person uh and she also is just really good at [ __ ] talking people when she's angry just it's like oh oh you've made her mad oh you're stupid well i'm gonna go hide uh so when the explosion comes i will not die sorry uh i'm also a big fan of how her little bird friend just incessantly moves over her whenever

1:27:42 she turns into like angry melee that's very funny to me oh yes we we have to bring up mr boobery who's voiced by derek snow yeah um like i wanted to include him in this group but it's it's just like animal noises but yeah derek snow is a little dragon named mr boobery and he's adorable and derek snowden there's there's there's some choice animal noises i'm a fan i'm a 37 year old man

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