Gateway to Anime

Sam and Charlie convinced long time friend and frequent guest Gerald to watch two of their favorite shows in all of anime.    (One of) Sam's "undisputed kings of anime" the epic space opera Legend of the Galactic Heroes and Charlie's genre subverting "hard sell" Fruits Basket.    While these shows both have fervent and dedicated followings and are renowned in the community, they aren't necessarily...

We're back for our first podcast of the year and we're talking all things Winter 2023! This is a very busy season with some absolute gems at the top, a bunch of mid and some diamonds in the rough.   Graeme talks through the "feudal airtasker show" Revenger as well as the CGI Kaina of the Great Snow Sea. Charlie examines the controversy surrounding the Trigun Remake Stampede (hint, more CGI) as wel...

This is a special episode we recorded in Melbourne! We were down for Crunchyroll Expo and got to catch up with Sam's old friend Lachlan McAllister who owns Australia's first ever dedicated Esports bar, GGEZ (where this podcast was recorded). Sam and Lachlan started their anime journey together after Lachlan managed to track down a huge supply of VCD's containing the first 100+ episodes of Naruto b...

We happened to bump into another Sydney based anime podcast at Smash Con (Besto Friendo's Podcast) back in August and we figured we simply had to have a chat.  We talk about our anime backstories, as well as our gateway anime (of course). However we also get amongst the lifestyle aspect of the Besto Friendo podcast and talk about why we do what we do and how we came to be doing it.

The gang get together to talk through the STACKED Fall 2022 anime season. There are so many shows this season we can barely keep up. Sam talks about some returning old favorites, one of which is part of the original big three and man does it look good. Nostalgia firing on all cylinders. He also goes through Mob Psycho 100 S3 as well as the weird and original in Golden Kamuy S4 and To You Eternity...

The gang get together to talk about all things Horror in the anime/manga world. Sam gives a brief history of the Japanese horror genre. Graeme tackles one of the most revered horror mangakas of all time, the legendary Junji Ito. Charlie gets obscure with Ghost Hunt and Sam reveals his scaredy cat nature (not a horror fan) but talks through one of his favorites in Parasyte: The Maxim. 

Sammy interviews Ty Hanson, the creator of the Australian anime project Millennium Exile .   Sam and Ty talk about the origin of the project, his ambitions moving forward and some of the influences which inspired the project.   We of course talk about Ty's initial gateway to anime along with how he came to love the medium and Sam and Ty bond over their mutual love of JRPG's.   We have an interesti...

The gang gets historical, with Sammy on his crusade to prove "history is fun" to Charlie and Graeme.   Sammy starts by differentiating between what constitutes Historical Fiction as a genre as opposed to a period piece, which leads to the new game: "historical fiction or not!?" Graeme breaks down the legendary samurai manga Vagabond. Sam gets edgy with the under watched war story Golden Kamuy whil...

A bit of a delay in getting this one out, but, we are back for Season 5 with our Summer 2022 anime season round up!   Charlie talks about anime hair in her preview of Shine on! Bakumatsu Bad Boys! Amongst others. Graeme gets arty with Yurei Deco and Uncle from Another World, while Sam talks through two of the bigger sequels airing this season in Made in Abyss and The Devil is a Part Timer.

We were so lucky to catch Veronica Taylor for an interview while she was in the country for Supanova. Veronica is a classically trained theatre actor from the United States and has had an extensive career as a voice-over actor in anime, video games and audio books. Veronica is perhaps most famous for voicing Ash Ketchum in the original Pokemon series, movies and video games but she has had an incr...

We're back for a bonus episode in between seasons! The gang round-up all their favorite (and least favorite) shows of the spring 2022 anime season. Graeme talks about the cold war inspired mega hit of the season, Spy X Family and a Squid Game styled show where its all about the money. Sam talks about the second season of one of the bigger Isekai shows going around and fans out over a soccer anime....

For our final episode of season 4 we are joined again by Ross Chisari to talk through Magical Girl Anime. This is one of the most famous and iconic genres in all of animanga. Sam gives a brief history of the genre while Ross talks through Sailor Moon. Charlie and Ross both recount their love for another classic in Cardcaptor Sakura, then Sam brings it home with the genre subverting Puella Magi Mad...

This week we interviewed Adi Shankar! Adi is an Indian-American producer, director, writer, YouTube personality and actor. He is best known for: Castlevania, Dredd, The Grey and his YouTube "Bootleg Universe" series of pop culture satire shorts including: Power/Rangers, The Punisher: Dirty Laundry and Pokemon: The end of Pokemon. We chatted to Adi about a broad range of topics but primarily his ne...

Brett is back to talk through some of the most influential anime movies of all time.   Brett speaks about his first 'gateway to anime' in the legendary Akira, while Graeme breaks down the genre defining Ghost In The Shell. Charlotte gets a bit more modern with the sci-fi/slice of life film Your Name, while Sam gets psychological with Satoshi Kon's seminal Perfect Blue.

Sam, Graeme and Charlie get together to discuss all things to do with the 2022 anime winter season. The undisputed king (AoT) has returned with a challenger for the throne. Some interesting new shows are present but it's mostly the season of the 2nd cours and sequels. There is, of course, a customary serving of bizarre stuff this season, which is probably best avoided. However the heavy hitters ar...

Sam and Charlie are joined by Australian actor and Voice over artist Alex Williams for this week's show. Alex has starred in numerous Australian film and TV roles such as: Julian Assange in "Underground: The Julian Assange Story", Kirk Pengilly in "Never Tear Us Apart" and as John 'Slug' Harvey in "Brock". Alex talks about a 2015 Japanese live-action adaptation of one of the biggest anime in the w...

Sam, Charlie and Graeme get back together to talk about western animated shows that are similar to anime. Graeme talks about one of his all time favorites. Charlie breaks down a Netflix Japanese video game adaptation and Sam extols the virtues of another Netflix video game adaptation, while railing against his favorite game's lack of comparable content. 

Sam and Charlie are joined by first time guest Luis as they talk through Samurai/Ninja Anime. Though the influence of both these cultural cornerstones are felt throughout so much anime and manga, the gang are surprised to find that there aren't as many shows based in the strict historical sense of the genre as one may think. Sam gives a brief history of Samurai and Ninja, and the differences betwe...

Sam and Charlotte welcome Gerald back to the show to talk about Dark Fantasy anime. This genre is usually pretty heavily entrenched in Isekai but we manage to sidestep those to talk about two classics of the genre and a.... less classic. Sam actually gives one of his favorite ever shows to Gerald to break down (unheard of), while he speaks about another dark fantasy anime favorite. Meanwhile Charl...

The gang get together to talk about all things Death Match/Battle Royale anime. After the phenomenal success of Squid Game all over the world we figured we should provide some recommendations that are similar in the anime world. We dive into the history of the genre and talk through some older influences like: Lord of the Flies, The Cube and a Japanese novel/manga/movie that basically started this...

It's crossovers all round! Sam and Charlie reveal their lack of Star Wars knowledge as they speak to Tom Pigott, from the Pixels and Pints Podcast, about the crossover Star Wars/Anime anthology series on Disney+.  Thankfully Graeme saves the Gateway crew some credibility as he reveals his Star Wars knowledge.            

Did someone say Vampire Eurovision? Apparently they did. Sam, Charlie and Graeme are finally reunited back in the studio as they talk through the good, the bad and the downright outrageous of the Fall 2021 season of anime.    

Sam, Charlotte and Graeme explore the phenomenon that is Mecha anime. Sam, once again, gets his research on, Graeme goes back to the future to explore the Gundam franchise, Charlotte gets to talk about one of her all time favorite shows (plus outs herself as an unashamed Tom Cruise fan) and Sam has fun with Gurren lagann.

Sam and Charlotte talk through the shows of the 2021 anime summer season. Charlotte is a little down on the season but finally accepts her steampunk origins and new found favorite 'villainess' genre. Sam is buoyed by an anime original which could be something special.... Or it could fall apart. Time will tell.

Graeme is in his element as he is able to wax lyrical to Sam and Charlotte  about one of his favorite subjects. Charlotte revisits one of her first gateway shows and Sam takes on the 'final boss' of anime.