Otaku Ryōhō

S3E10: Time skips! Love them or hate them, we all experience a time skip or two in our lives. With every ending comes a new beginning, and with new beginnings come new opportunities for growth and reflection. As Josué and Rae prepare for their own time skip as season 3 comes to a close (hopefully NOT another 5 year time skip!), they examine the concept of time skips, discuss their favorite and lea...

S3E9: STRONG FEMALE CHARACTERS! Because it's bullshit that only the boys get to do cool things. Rae talks about how representation of strong female characters is important and powerful for women and girls; for her specifically, seeing female fighters, tomboys, and women with masculine skills/interests has been crucial for her identity as a queer woman. Josué & Rae explore several examples of p...

S3E8: This week, Josué & Rae talk about inspiration and perseverance gained from anime! Josué has been noticing a trend on his socials' where people are talking about how anime characters inspired them to keep going, to keep fighting, to never give up during hard times. This is by far, most often seen in Shonen series, and Josué & Rae examine classic Shonen tropes such as "leveling up", th...

S3E7: This week, Josué and Rae are talking about Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, a beautiful high fantasy story that begins at the adventure's ending. They explore how Frieren (series and character) models a different way to grieve, one that centers on curiosity, reflection, gratitude, and celebration. They both share personal anecdotes about grief- Josué celebrating and recontextualizing his perce...

S3E6: [SPOILERS FOR END OF WANO ARC IN ONE PIECE] Josué comes out swinging with an open discussion about the trait of openness and novelty-seeking, and how anime largely dominates the market for truly unique concepts and interesting new spins on genre or well-known tropes. They shift into a discussion about positive and negative bias and potential harm from negative media or anime bias in a clinic...

S3E5: COME ABOARD AND BRING ALONG ALL YOUR HOPES AND DREAMS!! It's time to talk about One Piece! Rae and Josué discuss the overall themes of One Piece and how it's important to not judge this manga by it's cover, per se. They discuss the setting and worldbuilding, examine the factions that make up this world, explore the values of various pirate crews/captains, and explore the nuance and role of n...

S3E4: Josué's time to shine has arrived in this episode of Otaku Ryoho. Josué and Rae discuss the first series, Mobile Suit Gundam from 1979, the most recent series at time of recording, Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX from 2025, and many, many other series and adaptations in between that fall under the vast Gundam franchise umbrella. They talk about how Mobile Suit Gundam, as well as most of the fra...

S3E3: Ah, Toonami. The after-school programming block that shaped a generation and had no business being that cool. American millennials especially love to wax nostalgic about Toonami; If you've ever found yourself outside that conversation for whatever reason (too young or old, not from the US, weren't interested at the time, didn't have that channel, etc.) and wanted a quick guide for understand...

** THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FOR THE FINAL SEASON OF MHA!** S3E2: It's post-TAGGS week and Josué & Rae are TIRED. This episode, Josué & Rae say goodbye to My Hero Academia and reflect on the journey of the characters and story- as well as events and growth in their own lives- during the manga's 10 year and the anime's 9 year respective runs. Josué talks about how he's rarely experienced the e...

S3E1: SURPRISE! Otaku Ryoho is BACK! After a 5 year hiatus, Geek Therapy's anime podcast is back and rebooted with a shiny new coat of paint, a new (cuter and very funny) co-host, and 5 years of fresh wisdom (and existential dread). Josué introduces Rae to the audience and interviews her about her favorite anime (which she mostly answers). They discuss favorite anime, what they're currently watchi...

Gian cannot contain himself any longer and he chooses to start a discussion about the value of Slice of Life anime. He invites special guest Marc Cuiriz ( Here Comes a Thought Podcast and The Codex Podcast ) to talk about what about the genre inspires us. They all give examples of their favorite slice of life animes and why they are so meaningful.  They also discuss how we define Slice of Life and...

Josué starts a discussion about the tendency of shōnen anime to escalate the stakes of the story to astronomical levels and beyond. What can we learn from these stories? They talk about the value of having characters that constantly face increasingly difficult challenges with unwavering optimism and confidence in one’s own capacity for skill acquisition. Talking Points: Hopelessness, Resilience, O...

Gian tries his best to explain his favorite genre of Horror, the cosmic type. He uses Attack on Titan (Season 3) as an illustration of what happens when we are faced with threats or ideas that feel beyond our comprehension. He talks about H.P. Lovecraft’s beliefs about race and mental illness and how communities have utilized the framework of his work to talk about overwhelming experiences and fea...

Welcome to Season 2 of Otaku Ryoho! Josue starts the season by talking about how difficult 2020 has been for him, but also for so many of us. In these times, it is likely to many of us have felt overwhelmed not only by our own struggles but by vicariously witnessing the struggles of others in our communities. Josue frames the discussion around the way he experiences compassion fatigue as he watche...

As they end Season 1, Gian and Josué talk about the Ryoho Experience. Josué talks about the benefit he gained from using anime as illustration to illustrate discussions on life and more complicated/fascinating matters. Gian talks about how viewing anime through the lens of another can change your world view and goes at length to talk about how Food Wars changed his life. They then talk about possi...

Josue brings the topic of Anime Remakes and how frequent series are remade into rebooted series, spinoffs, and movies. They talk about how this changes the way we consume these stories. They also talk about the way these stories are rewritten and reflect the context of newer generations and how much they love to see old stories be adapted, rewritten, and reimagined.  Contact Us: Contact us in the...

Gian starts a discussion about the diverse representation of gender identities in anime. Special Guest Link Keller joins us to talk about the good, the bad and the ugly about the way anime has represented gender through the ages. We discuss Gender Nonconformance, Transgender, Non-binary identity and much more. Anime has featured characters of diverse gender identities years before western animatio...

Josue brings up the topic of humor and how it is a mature defense mechanism that helps us cope with difficult times or ideas. Gian and Josue attempt to bring up anime that illustrates the use of humor in order to deal with difficult topics. Gian brings up Honey and Clover and how it illustrates the struggles of youth and young love in art school. He mentions Aggretsuko and the way this anime illus...

Gian chooses to talk about a difficult topic near and dear to his heart, the timeless conflict between biology and behavior. Josue and Gian both dissect Beastars in an attempt to see how the series could be used to talk about race, gender and drug addiction. Gian talks about naturalistic bias when talking about male behavior in the context of the gender binary and dissects the idea that what is na...

Josue starts a conversation about Fan Service. We give our personal definitions of what the term “fan service” entails and give examples of our favorite types of fan service. We also talk about the specific form of fanservice that involves sexual gratification and our discomfort and experience with this ever-present concept in the overall world of anime. Gian talks about formative anime that on re...

Gian starts the conversation talking about his academic development from childhood and how media nurtured his love for academia growing up. They begin by raving about Cells at Work and the effective ways it mixes Medical Theory with the energy and explosiveness of a shonen anime. Then we talk about how Anime contributed to our religious education as children raised in Catholic households. Josue th...

Talking Points: History, Who writes history?, Speculative Historical fiction, Historians and historical accounts, The inherent fiction of history, bias. Anime Mentioned:  Rurouni Kenshin, Grave of the Fireflies, The Wind Rises, Hyoge Mono, Vinland Saga, Rose of Versailles, Samurai Champloo. Non-Anime Mentions: Bill Wurtz’s “history of japan” youtube video, “5 Most Historically Accurate Anime Of Al...

Gian starts this round wanting to talk about how pain is represented conceptually in anime. He draws inspiration from Kiznaiver, an anime in which kids are forcibly connected by physical and emotional pain. Josue presents Bofuri an anime about a girl who makes herself impervious to pain in a virtual reality massively multiplayer online game. They talk about how Bofuri serves as a good reference po...

Josué brings up the topic of Science Fiction and Gian discovers how much he loves science fiction. Each of them takes turns talking about their favorite science fiction animes and why they love the concepts that they present. Gian begins with a mention of his favorite Slice-of-Life Sci-Fi anime and Josue talks about his love for anime that deals in the interface between humans and technology and t...

Gian brought the topic of Judgment using the anime “Death Parade” to illustrate how difficult it is to impose judgments on others. The conversation moves across various anime in which the concept of judgment as punishment is applied as well as anime in which the concept of judgment as an assessment is applied. Josué and Gian disagree on the definitions of Judgement that they employed throughout th...