Anime Sickos

After hundreds of hours playing JRPGs, the video games where anime is spreadsheets, the Sickos compile the best parts of the genre that must be present in order to create the perfect JRPG that will stand atop the genre for 1000 years. Behold a masterclass in game design!

It's another batch of bite-sized goofs from the Sickos! Joe says goodbye to Hell Tower and hello to the cursed neighborhood of Little Shitaly, we read some of Tom McHenry's mind-melting job stories that we didn't get a chance to hear on his guest episode, we outline a skeleton-based anime series, and more! Check it out!

The Sickos expound upon Earthbound and Mother 3, uniquely quirky JRPGs that no one played. Turns out when you put jokes into a Dragon Quest clone, it's extremely good.

Sicko homie Tom McHenry finally goes guesto mode! Tom shares his truly nightmarish work stories on one of the greatest Cog Talks of all time, then we discuss why being a cartoonist is the life-ruiner, the goofy horror comics of Junji Ito, and more. Folks, this episode's one of the greats.

The Sickos set sail for One Piece, the pirate comic about a rubber boy that is longer than the Bible. We discuss how the comic's ingenious structure allows for incredibly effective long-term storytelling, how the uniquely silly art style adds an invaluable layer of humor to the whole thing, and why the series, in the end, is about smashing neoliberalism with your homies.

We thought it was gone forever, but Cog Talk makes its triumphant return! Joe and Tom both recently took time off work and were amazed at the immediate and enormous health benefits that come from not working, leading them to recognize that work is simply the Life Removal Machine. Then, we remember to do another round of the Fruit Annihilation Tournament.

It's come to this: the Horny episode. The Sickos discuss what Horny means, why they've never been Horny, how Horny makes your posts bad, and more Horny topics. Don't expect us to do any shit like this again

It's about time for a posting episode but there have been no interesting posts made for months now. Turns out we're forever stuck in an awful time loop as our brains stagnate into mush, and now it's infecting reality as our government and media spend all their time bickering about whether the awful poster Neera Tanden gets some crony job. It's all just endless yelling to no end, and folks, we don'...

The Sickos talk about that famous goop, "food." First we highlight Golden Kamuy and Delicious in Dungeon, two amazing manga that spend half their pages showing the characters making dinner. Then, the sickos share what we've been eating lately and ponder the role of cooking and food on pandemic mental health.

Casey Toney, cast member on and audio sicko for the Neoscum podcast (among others), goes guesto mode! We praise the ending of Chainsaw Man as the masterstroke it is, discuss how Casey's afflicted brain luckily allows him to become an audio engineering genius, and mourn the fact that we all love anime and manga, a medium that continually fails us despite being the fuckin best.

College is a big grift that is dumb as shit. The Sickos reflect on how deeply they were failed by their education, and propose a new pedagogy that would dramatically improve the college experience, along with pitching an entirely new major: Sicko Studies.

Curl up around the fire as the Sickos spoon you up a fresh batch of slop. First we review a ridiculous anime trivia book from 2000 generously donated by our lovely listeners. Then, we revisit the Fruit Annihilation Tournament to decide round two of the Rebels region, led by the tournament's most controversial combatant: coffee.

Your Sickos reflect on how a year of quarantine has changed how the four pillars of modern misery shape our lives (spoiler: they all just got worse). Then, we hoot about Yakuza: Like a Dragon, a game designed in a lab to make our ape brains achieve nirvana.

Southwest suburb homie Em Haverty goes guesto mode! We discuss her love/hate relationship with sketch comedy and the peculiar Chicago SW suburb rot that shaped both her and Joe as children. Plus, Tom tells the story of how Em introduced him to Robot in the Family, one of the most deranged films ever made. Check it out!

The Sickos finally give you a guided tour to the world of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, a daunting and inscrutable anime juggernaut that is less a show/comic and more a gallery of weird shit presented the way a child would show their parent a bug, curated by a clown man with the perfect brain.

Aaron J. Shelton and Vince White from the Kame House Party podcast go guesto mode! We discuss Aaron and Vince's cog woes, the fever dream of trying to play Cyberpunk 2077 on a PS4, and how they were able to do improv and actually be funny, something which living in Chicago leads one to believe is not possible. Check out the excellent Kame House Party podcast at kamehouseparty.com!

We discuss the endemic feeling of being a Dumb Baby Bitch, in which the world treats you as a contemptible idiot for trying to do literally any of the things you are supposed to and/or required to do. Then, we return to the Fruit Annihilation Tournament for Round 2 of the Classic Killers region, in which the four heavyweights who had byes in the first round finally step into the arena.

The Sickos have tricked you into providing content for us so we don't have to come up with it ourselves! We answer our listeners' burning questions with the charm and verve you've come to expect from "The Boys of Online"

The Sickos clean out their Trello with a collection of 11 extremely goofy segments too small to carry episodes on their own. Folks it's a grab bag of bite-size Sicko hits, chow down ya piggies!!!

It's an actual anime episode! The Sickos warm up by reading some shit from the Fate wiki before diving into Deca-Dence, one of the best anime series in recent memory, in which chubby little Lego men do cog work that is also gaming. Trust us, it makes sense.

The Sickos welcome cartoonist and internet hero KC Green! We discuss his childhood spent tormented by the promise of an animated episode of The Nanny, what it's like to make comics in a world designed to punish you for doing so, and why reboots and Funko Pops are pitiful symptoms of a diseased, nostalgia-addicted culture unless they're about the shit you like in which case gimme gimme.

imo the machine's gonna have blood.

This time we do a gaming episode and talk about Monster Train, Atomicrops, and Bloodborne. Turns out they all suck ass but we love to play them. Folks, sometimes we just have to do a gaming episode, that's just how it is!

We're all laughing at how Jeffrey Toobin got caught masturbating (or "Toobin' it") on Zoom, but soon we'll forget and he'll be back. The Sickos discuss this sick phenomenon where blue checks can bounce back from truly mind-exploding posts with no consequences because they know you'll forget. Then, we discuss an underdiscussed aspect of homiedom stolen by the pandemic.

Sicko homie Angela Quinton goes guesto mode! The Sickos interrogate why Angela enjoys the frankly insanely difficult hobby of ultra marathons and receive a startlingly affecting and convincing answer. Then, we discuss Angela's preferred sicko topic, werewolves, and why they kick ass despite almost no media portraying them in a way that doesn't suck. Check it out!!