Culture Cretins

Comic books can feel like a locked room: 80 years of history, thousands of issues, constant reboots, and price tags that add up fast. We’re two longtime superhero fans who got into comics the hard way, and we’re sharing the shortcuts that finally made reading fun instead of stressful. We start with the real beginner problem: where do you even begin with characters like Batman or Spider-Man? We tal...

People are genuinely mad about a Mario movie, and we can’t stop talking about it. We sit down with our first-ever guest, Chandler, to review the Super Mario Galaxy movie and unpack the strangest part of its reception: how a bright, funny, family-friendly video game movie can be massively successful and still attract intense online rage. We get into what actually makes this sequel work, including t...

A simple question derails fast: who are our favorite DC Comics characters? We start with “let’s be fair” rules across comics, cartoons, movies, and games, then immediately run into the truth every DC fan knows, Gotham has an unfair amount of the best characters. What follows is a rapid-fire tour through the parts of DC we keep coming back to, with plenty of strong opinions on writing, character gr...

Pokémon Champions looks like the clean, modern home for Pokémon battling, and for a minute it feels that way. We jump in with real first impressions and quickly hit the weird contradiction: the game hands you a gym leader premise and a “champion-level” setup, then gives you almost nothing to do besides online battles. If you love competitive Pokémon, ranked ladders, quick matches, and tweaking tea...

If you’ve ever heard “Bulbasaur is the best Kanto starter” and thought… are we sure, this one is for you. We get unserious fast with a full Chikorita hate bit, but it turns into a surprisingly detailed episode about Pokemon taste, game design, and why some opinions stick for life.  We walk through our biggest Pokemon hot take: Bulbasaur is arguably the worst starter pick for Pokemon Red and Blue a...

A Batman comic that moves like an action movie, reads like a mystery, and still makes us laugh is rare, so we had to talk about Batman Universe by Brian Michael Bendis and Nick Derington. We’re not doing a formal review, but we do dig into why this six-issue, self-contained DC Comics story hits so hard: Batman chasing the Riddler, a stolen Fabergé egg that scrambles minds, and a reality-warping pu...

War starts fast in the Universal Century, and Gundam I doesn’t let you look away for long. We finally sit down with the first Mobile Suit Gundam 0079 compilation film, starting at Side 7 and racing into the White Base escape, the RX-78-2 Gundam reveal, and a conflict that’s already eaten half the population. One of us watched a cleaner dub, the other suffered through a rougher one, so you’ll hear...

Some shows don’t just entertain us, they wire in our sense of humor, heroism, and what “good storytelling” feels like. We’re tracing the formative TV shows that built our brains, starting with the animated heavy hitters that never talked down to their audience. We dig into the DC Animated Universe and why Batman: The Animated Series, Justice League, and Justice League Unlimited still set the bar f...

We had a plan, the audio had other ideas, so we do the only fair thing: rebuild the tier list and make the hot takes even louder. We’re back for episode five of Culture Cretins, and we start by redoing our starter Pokemon rankings, from the lines we’d protect with our lives to the evolutions we’d rather never see again. If you care about starter Pokemon, middle-stage glow-ups, and the “please don’...

A new region, a brighter palette, and water that finally feels like water—Wind and Waves dropped a trailer that actually moves the needle. We break down why the color choices and layered environments matter, how a safari-leaning tone hints at exploration-first design, and where this could restore that old-school “see it, reach it, engage with it” rhythm. We also talk mechanics that respect both sp...

A tangerine tangent turns into a lightspeed jump: we go from blue milk lore and green ketchup memories to the sharp edges of Jedi ethics, asking why a “wise” master bets on a child’s life and leaves his mother behind. That single choice opens a bigger question—what actually makes Star Wars feel like Star Wars? We dig into Qui-Gon’s gray areas, the Council’s secrecy, Dooku’s slide in Tales of the J...

A new dinosaur drops, a grenade erases our first Fortnite win, and somewhere on a mountain fortress a legend named “Meat Hook Steve” keeps charging our scope. We open the vault on the gaming memories that made us: the chaos, the comedy, and the quiet moments that turned pixels into friendships. We trace the wild early days of Fortnite—deliberate build battles, storms that punished hesitation, and...

A city still healing. A legend trying to atone. And a battle system that dares to change the rules. We dive deep into Pokémon Legends ZA—why Lumiose feels alive, how mega evolutions shape every decision, and where the game soars or stumbles along the way. We start with first impressions on visuals, performance, and the choice to confine the adventure to a single metropolis, then trace the story’s...

Most Pokémon games struggle with consistency—some look stunning but are plagued by bugs, while others feel unfinished. But what if the future holds a bold new direction that balances innovation with polish? If you're a Pokémon fan craving thoughtful evolution rather than gimmicks, this episode is your must-listen. Join us as we dissect the latest Pokémon titles, from Scarlet and Violet’s intr...