Scanline Talks

Mahjong is a niche favorite around these parts. It's hardly universal amongst our crew, but those of us that like it have some serious affection for the old hand-making tile game. But that's talking about riichi mahjong- the Japanese variant of the game. We have a hesitant, ignorant respect for Chinese mahjong, the original. But American mahjong? Yeah... not much respect for that. But surely a Hal...

Gundam is back in theaters, and so are we! The long-awaited sequel to Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway is here after five years. The Sorcery of Nymph Circe has no less the emphasis on tense conversations and politics than its predecessor, but how does it this time? I will say "not quite the same," but I'm gonna make you listen to the show if you want to hear if that's a good or bad thing.

Previously exclusive to the Scanline Media Patrons, our friend Boo ran into some financial issues and needs your help! Please check her on @boocanan.bsky.social for more information. In the mean time, enjoy a gargantuan deep dive into the Fate/stay Night Remaster! Click the link for the Patreon and a look at the host's character tier lists. Fate/stay night is one of the most significant visual nov...

Here we are- Game of the Year. The big finale. We've had quite enough preamble- let's get to it. The Nominees Are: Aotenjo: Infinite Hands of the Devil (Episodes I + II) Dragon Quest I + II HD-2D Remake Dynasty Warriors: Origins Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time Fields of Mistria The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment The Le...

With multiple anime and manga podcasts, it's clear we love this medium a lot. And in 2025 we saw so many cool things. In this penultimate category, we celebrate our favorite anime and manga of the year. The Nominees Are: Apocalypse Hotel The Apothecary Dairies City the Animation Daemons of the Shadow Realm Gosick Knight in One Frame Medalist Red Ranger Isekai Super Dragon Ball Heroes They Were Ele...

Time concerns (that proved a bit unnecessary) forced us to compress Minor Character and Major character into one pod, so Minor Character gets a little "one winner no runners up" before the main event! The Best Minor Character Nominees Are: Emma Rockford ( of the Devil ) Serra ( of the Devil ) Shiho Kubota ( Futari wa Pretty Cure ) Darumi Amemiya ( The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy ) Kyoshika...

In contrast to Emergent Moment, you don't have to do anything special to experience these. These scripted moments are part of the media below that everyone can see, but that doesn't make them any less special. These moments made us laugh, tear up, and reflect in 2025, and we want to share them with you. Note: Since some of our naming of the moments themselves could be considered a spoiler, listed...

The phrasing on this category was tricky. What is an Emergent Moment? Basically, it's to distinguish from a Narrative Moment- our category tomorrow. Rather than scripted, hand-tailored moments, these are moments that occur, or occurred , naturally as a result of the way things have been set up- either in a game or in the world. The Nominees Are: Baby's First Death Trap ( Android: Netrunner ) Tile...

We used to call this category "That's My Jam" which is a long forgotten in-joke from our personal Discord server, but unfortunately it was just a little out of step of the way we name these categories now. But rest assured, these songs are JAMS. We had lots of music to choose from this year and it was harder for some to narrow it down. The Nominees Are: "BIRDBRAIN" w/ OK Glass Feat Kasane Teto by...

There are bad surprises in this world. A lot of them. We are not celebrating those! They don't get their own category, at least this year. Let's talk GOOD surprises. The Nominees Are: Apocalypse Hotel of the Devil Donkey Kong Bananza High School Musical 2 Hollow Knight Silksong Kasane to Subaru Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha The Movie 2nd A's Mini Healer Reborn to Master the Blade: From Hero-King to...

We may have had to combine Best Action Toolkit and Best Fighting Toolkit this year out of time concerns, but that just means a staggering roster of characters that are fun and interesting to play. Behold! The Nominees Are: Donkey Kong ( Donkey Kong Bananza ) Largo ( Dota 2 ) Yammy Yugi ( Dragon Ball FighterZ ) Ziluan ( Dynasty Warriors: Origins ) Revenant ( Elden Ring Nightreign ) Meg ( Granblue F...

Systems are such a special part of games. Sets of rules and features that turn into engines to produce unique outcomes as they crash together. And the mechanics that make up these systems can stand out as truly remarkable. Here are our favorites from the last year. The Nominees Are: Weather ( Death Stranding 2: On the Beach ) Highroller ( of the Devil ) Media Literacy Quizzes ( of the Devil ) Smas...

In honor of the 25th Anniversary of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask , we have a real treat. Originally for the $5 Patrons, we have unlocked one of our longest and most in depth episodes of Novel Not New, and it's available just in time for the spooky season. We hope you enjoy. Ahhh, Majora's Mask. A real odd duck in the Zelda series. There are weirder ones, sure: that Tingle DS game is pretty s...

EPISODES COVERED: Futari wa Pretty Cure 5-6, Tokosou Sentai Dekaranger 5-6, Kamen Rider Blade 5-6 Pretty Cure has a new villain for us. Dekaranger has things to say about capitalism's hunger for oil. Blade has decided to just acknowledge what's going on, and not insult our intelligence. All-in-all, a solid week here on Sunday Henshin Time, where three lineups of transforming heroes face the proble...

EPISODES COVERED: Futari wa Pretty Cure 3-4, Tokosou Sentai Dekaranger 3-4, Kamen Rider Blade 3-4 Big explosive openings are out of the way, now is time to settle into some grooves. Futari wa is out here building the train while it's already on the tracks, but that's where they like to be. Dekaranger is trying to expand it's characters and setting, and Blade is diving right into some impressively...

EPISODES COVERED: Futari wa Pretty Cure 1-2, Tokosou Sentai Dekaranger 1-2, Kamen Rider Blade 1-2 Here comes a new story. Or three, to be more precise. With our Journey to the Worst in the bag, Kyrie and I leave Dragon Ball behind for the moment, and head to new territory. But what could we possibly cover where we'd have that same magic combination of undercovered work that we can act as experts a...

Here we are, folks. Game of the Year- the capper to the Gimmick Awards. We've said a lot over the course of this month, so no big preamble: I'll let the conversation speak for itself. The Nominees Are: 1000xRESIST Chants of Sennaar Children of the Sun Crow Country Dragon Quest III HD-2D Dragon's Dogma 2 Dungeons of Hinterberg Emio - The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club Granblue Fantasy Versus:...

Games. Turns out, you tend to play them. In years past, we have often tried to talk about the elegance of particular systems and mechanics before, but we never had a category exclusive to that. Debuting this year, we wanted to award our favorite mechanics from 2024. The Nominees Are: Mind Chess ( Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit ) Learning Languages ( Chants of Sennaar ) Bullet G...

Sometimes, a singular moment shines through and is so bright, you can't help but take notice. This may be the last year this category takes the form it does, so let's send it off with some of our favorite moments from games and anime. Please note, this podcast will spoil many moments from all the games and anime we list, so if you wanna go in without knowing, you may wanna steer clear of this pod....

You know, despite our ambitions of being a gaming coverage site, we talk about a lot of anime. Our most frequent and consistent shows are about anime and manga, so of course we had to dedicate a category to it. In one of our more prestigious awards, we discuss our favorite anime and manga of the year from 2024. The Nominees Are: BanG Dream: It's MyGO!!!!!! (Anime) Delicious in Dungeon (Anime) Drag...

...And here are the Instrumental songs, which is to say, the ones that aren't lyrically focused- the human voice is still allowed as an instrument! The Nominees Are: Objection! 2011 (Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit) Pit of Peril (Astro Bot) Maybe Everything Will Be Ok… (Crow Country) Go Home, Little Stamp aka Bow Wow Wow (Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth) Pride [Beatrix's Theme] - Granbl...

Music is a weird category for us, or rather pair of categories thanks to it being split in twain. We aren't music crits, and we don't cover the music industry or its releases. Instead, we discuss music via its presence in other things we cover- games and anime. Anime openings and closings, themes in games, that sort of thing. We'll leave the record industry to the experts. The Nominees Are: Haruhi...

2024 was full of surprises. Not all of them good! 2024 was a rough year, y'all. But sometimes surprises can be wonderful, and in this category we explore the things that caught us off guard in a good way. All sorts of things can be involved in this category, be it patches, games, DLC, or in one case, an entire restructuring of games distribution. These are the Best Surprises of 2024. The Nominees...

From Best Character, two phantoms were born. The spotlight-haver and the supporting act shouldn't be fighting with each other. It's not right. But I'll let the supporting acts brawl amongst themselves, that's just entertainment. The Nominees Are: Eustace Winner (Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosector's Gambit) Larry Butz (Ace Attorney Movie) The Para Para Brothers (Dragon Ball GT) Genba (The Elu...

This was a category separation we felt very good about when it occurred to us: why are we having leading characters going up against background characters? Why don't we separate this into Best Major Character and Best Side Character, so it's not "this character is cool but they aren't very important to the plot so they're cut?" I like this much better, and I hope y'all do too. The Nominees Are: Ba...