Key Frames

Episode 33 of Key Frames: Inbetweens, a mini-podcast about anime. One does not care to acknowledge the mistakes in one's podcast, but know this: each host has their own sense of fandom inside of themselves, and they fight desperately to protect their credibility from naysayers! Even when you understand most of the references, even when you realize that it's just people quoting Char Aznable from Mo...

Episode 134 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. It's our first non-tween episode without Ben! Time to shame him by knocking out the end of the winter and the beginning of the spring anime seasons in a single go. Hear Jeff briefly FranXX it up about Metallic Rouge, while Duncan insists it's just the first anime written by AI! Wonder at Andy calling Train to the End of the World cringe but not Gus...

Episode 133 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Well, it finally came to pass: to mark the occasion of the wider release of The Boy and the Heron, our intrepid show is doing a retrospective on Studio Ghibli. Sometimes it can feel like there's not really anything new to be said about such well-loved movies, the only anime productions ever to reach such heights as the Academy Awards, but Ben, Andy...

Episode 132 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Why a beginning-of-the-season episode when we're most of the way towards the end of said season? Well, there's so much anime to watch these days that our schedule got away from us. Besides, time feels kind of awash right now, with hit fantasy manga adaptation Dungeon Meshi coming out while hit fantasy manga adaptation Sousou no Frieren is still in...

Episode 131 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. The flickering red light turns a steady yellow, and you reel at your good fortune. The time borehole is actually stable. And they said it couldn't be done! You swiftly dial an uplink into the first satellite that returns your ping and start leeching torrents. Torrents! They weren't as popular in 2024 as they were a decade or so previous, but the te...

Episode 130 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. As we gaze back at the receding wreckage of 2023, probably in our tank powered by a cat ghost or something so we don't have to worry about explaining where we get fuel, we're faced with many questions. How many rules have we broken? How many people have we wronged? How many grudges have we held, how many have we caused others to hold? As Ben, Andy,...

Episode 129 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. The works of Osamu Tezuka are often concerned with the human spirit in conditions of extremity, with what remains of a person when malevolent forces or just the vagaries of circumstance have stripped everything else away. Phoenix: Eden17 and Pluto, the anime discussed by Ben, Andy, Duncan, and Jeff in this episode of the podcast, even go so far as...

Episode 128 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. "Now they've really jumped the shark," you're thinking to yourself. "I could stand them talking about manga, since you can kind of flip through the pages quickly and pretend that it's animated, but live-action TV and movies?" Well, I'm here to tell you that every podcast runs out of ideas, so we need to start laying the groundwork for the hosts to...

Episode 127 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. I'm sure everyone's experienced it: some of your friends happen to throw a party or something while you're out of town, and when you get back you realize that they seem to have had so much fun without you that you can't help but... I don't know, question yourself? "Am I the problem?" you wonder. "Is my constant fixation on production pedigree and o...

Episode 126 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. How are you really supposed to decide which to watch first, though, in a duology where there is no canonical order? I feel like it's a personality test that never gives me the result, unless the result is my enjoyment. I guess that makes a kind of sense? Anyway, tune in to hear Ben, Andy, Duncan, and Jeff take the quiz that is To Every You I've Lov...

Episode 125 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Interpersonal politics are intense in the cloistered complex of the harem. Ben, the would-be intellectual, knows only disdain for the latest season of Rent-a-Girlfriend and, though Andy is his ally in that regard, there are darker paths that he walks alone. Yohane the Parhelion? Perish the thought. Meanwhile, Duncan has unearthed a piece of Fate/st...

Episode 124 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Sometimes, while writing the post for an episode, I have to remember to add a content warning when an anime dabbles in the medium's darker tendencies, like depictions of self-harm and sexual assault. This time, I get to do it for two different things in two different shows! Oh boy. Still, you should tune in to hear Ben, Andy, and Duncan talk about...

Episode 32 of Key Frames: Inbetweens, a mini-podcast about anime. It's time to rock out with Masaaki Yuasa's latest movie, Inu-Oh! Not to spoil, but everyone loves it. What all do they like? Is it the real-life talent behind this medieval Japanese rock opera? Is it the wonderful celebration of difference? Is it the opportunity to bring up Heike Monogatari as much as humanly possible? Listen and yo...

Episode 123 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. What follows is a list of podcast HR violations in this episode, as reported by a certain B. Halliburton: Andy talked about the new iDOLM@STER show for over five minutes; Duncan brought up Trigun Stampede unprompted, for the purpose of causing emotional distress; Andy refused to concede that the new KonoSuba spinoff is unfunny; Andy willfully misin...

Episode 122 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Yes, Ben got way too mad about Trigun Stampede, but he also has such nice things to say about the second seasons of Tsurune and Vinland Saga. Yes, Duncan's watched some skeevy shows, but he's dropped most of them and is willing to hold Andy to account (or maybe vice versa) on Onimai, at least? Yes, it was a lean season, leaner than most, but there'...

Episode 31 of Key Frames: Inbetweens, a mini-podcast about anime. It is we who plowed the prairies, built the cities where they trade / Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid / Now we stand outcast and starving midst the wonders we have made / But the union makes us strong! Come listen to Ben, Andy, and Duncan express their solidarity with a red panda and a hyena as...

Episode 121 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. You know, someday we're going to find a way to get through the beginnings and ends of anime seasons in an efficient manner. We've tried pre-prep, agendas, a timekeeper, hand signals, a rota system, and plan ol' talking over each other. Nothing works! You get deep in the weeds talking about the wonky pacing of Urusei Yatsura remake or the dramatic s...

Episode 120 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. There's always something left over at the end of the year, isn't there? Andy has some awards to hand out, many of them to manga and live-action films. Duncan wanted one more look back on the changing face of the anime industry, and Ben has eight shows (maybe more) that he hasn't gotten to talk about yet. Jeff just needs to finish Akiba Maid War! As...

Episode 30 of Key Frames: Inbetweens, a mini-podcast about anime. Revue Starlight is a story of podcast hosts guided by the sureness of their opinions. They agree and disagree. They make good points even as they miss the overall picture. However, eventually the episode ends, never to be revisited again. It is a somber experience... but the story of those nine girls hopelessly captivates Ben and Du...

Episode 119 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. A slice-of-life show about building and repairing things by yourself? Too much work. A high-budget reboot of a storied anime from the eighties? Maybe your grandpa cares. A new installment of Gundam? I ought to check out the original series first. A thrilling action-comedy about mid-century spies? I'm not bothering with it if the source manga doesn'...

Episode 118 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Apologies are in order for this episode. Apologies that it's taken us four years since our episode on The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl to talk about the anime that started it all, The Tatami Galaxy. Apologies that two of the shows we discuss in our end-of-season wrap-up, Overlord IV and Call of the Night, weren't even done airing when we recorded t...

Episode 117 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Well, now that Ben has watched Vision of Escaflowne and Magic Knight Rayearth, he's decided that he likes isekai anime, so in this episode he joins Duncan to dive into the development of the genre. What nuggets of wisdom will they unearth from the distant eighties and nineties? Will Ben discover that he is actually able to appreciate The Twelve Kin...

Episode 116 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Nine out of ten doctors agree, it's best to get one's excitement or disappointment over new anime out at the very beginning of the season. Accordingly, in the interests of good health, Ben declares war on the latest season of Rent-a-Girlfriend, shocking absolutely no one, while Jeff has nothing but hope for yet another girls-with-guns show. Andy, b...

Episode 115 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. That's right, it's another discussion of everyone's favorite cyberpunk franchise! It's been barely a month since Ben and Duncan cautiously praised the first few episodes of the second season of Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045, but now they're back to say that the caution was warranted and that the series represents a nadir for Kenji Kamiyama's otherwi...

Episode 114 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. What's the biggest surprise in this episode? Is it that Jeff managed to watch eight love comedies, in whole or in part, and found none of them to be particularly great? Is it that Ben expressed disappointment about two of the spring anime season's biggest hits after claiming repeatedly to be jaded about all of them? Is it that Duncan's favorite sho...