Purely Academic with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman

The second season of our anime podcast, Japanimation Station,  is coming to a close tomorrow night with a jam-packed season finale, and we’re bringing you a big chunk of that episode today with our deep dive discussion of Witch on the Holy Night  (aka Mahoutsukai no Yoru),  the visual novel based on Kinoko Nasu’s first unpublished novel, originally released in Japan in 2012 and released worldwide...

After a few weeks off, we’re back with a jam-packed smorgasbord of stuff to discuss, including (deep breath): first impressions of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor;  reactions to WB’s idiotic and immoral decision to remake Harry Potter  for Max; thoughts on the Microsoft/Activision merger drama; Jonathan’s thoughts on the incredible Spirited Away: Live on Stage  that played in theaters this month; Sean’s...

Last year, we recorded an episode entirely devoted to the original Resident Evil 4, easily one of the greatest video games ever made, and this week, we’ve got an episode entirely devoted to the recent Resident Evil 4  remake – which also happens to be one of the greatest video games ever made. Flawlessly expanding upon the foundations of its classic predecessor with fleshed out combat, heightened...

‘4’ is our lucky number this week as we have the pleasure of not only reviewing the outstanding action masterpiece that is John Wick: Chapter 4,  but also giving first impressions on Capcom’s Resident Evil 4  remake, which is, through what we’ve played so far, an incredible experience that’s much better than either of us expected when this project was announced. We give spoiler-free thoughts on th...

Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us  is one of the oldest topics on this podcast – we reviewed the original PS3 game, when it was brand new, 10 years and over 400 episodes ago, and have followed the series ever since – so it’s probably inevitable we’d cover HBO’s 9-episode TV adaptation starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. What’s not inevitable is what a wonderful show this turned out to be, respectin...

Illumination Entertainment’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie  is opening in theaters next month, and is looking like a surprisingly faithful, entertaining adaptation of the beloved video game characters. But it’s not the first time Hollywood has tried this – thirty years ago, there was Super Mario Bros.,  a live-action adaptation starring Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, and Dennis Hopper that wound up ha...

After a two week break to finish production on Japanimation Station Season 2 – shameless plug! – we are back with a jam-packed episode featuring a smorgasbord of stuff! First up, Jonathan talks about seeing Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – To the Swordsmith Village,  the special theatrical event featuring the hit anime’s upcoming season premiere, and gives his thoughts on Michael B. Jordan’s excel...

Nintendo didn’t just drop a surprise Nintendo Direct on us this week, but delivered an event chock-full of surprises and a huge number of immediate releases – most notably the long-rumored, much-anticipated Metroid Prime Remastered,  a terrific release that is pretty much the platonic ideal of a video game remaster. But we also got GameBoy and GameBoy Advance games on Switch for the first time via...

We’re already one month into 2023, but with eleven months still to go, we thought now would be a good time to look ahead to what’s shaping up to be a surprisingly busy year in video games. While there are plenty of titles that will likely get delayed into 2024 or beyond, even the first half of 2023 is full of titles Sean and Jonathan are both extremely excited for, from the Resident Evil 4  remake...

Hosts Sean Chapman and Jonathan Lack give you a special look at Season 2 of Japanimation Station, premiering Valentine's Day 2023. This season is called UFOTABLE/MOON WORKS, and we'll be reviewing all of anime studio extraordinaire Ufotable's adaptations of Type-Moon stories, including Fate/Stay Night and The Garden of Sinners (and in this preview, we tell you where you can watch everything we're...

It’s coming a little later than usual, but it’s finally here! Our countdown of the Top 10 Video Games of 2022, an annual tradition here at the Weekly Stuff Podcast, where Sean and Jonathan both rank their favorite games of the past calendar year. Our #1 for 2022 is probably pretty obvious – we spent several months gushing about it this Spring – but there are lots of surprises along the way, from a...

The Weekly Stuff Podcast returns for its 12th season and a big 2023 with a long-awaited Weekly Suit Gundam topic, as Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury  has wrapped up its fantastic 12-episode 1st season. We’re here to dive deep on every facet of this so-far wonderful show: from our first female Gundam protagonist in Suletta Mercury, to the complex and seemingly sinister motivations of her...

It’s our final podcast of 2022 before we take a little hiatus to work on other projects, and it’s a supersized episode featuring three video game reviews for the price of one! First up is Sonic Frontiers,  Sega’s new 3D Sonic game combining open-world exploration, collect-a-thon objectives, and linear platform levels, a weird but compelling package that may well be the best 3D game the blue hedgeh...

Today, November 28th, marks…well, it marks nothing, but October 8th marked the 30th birthday of our very own Jonathan Lack, and to celebrate, Sean agreed to let Jonathan surprise him with any podcast topic, which Sean would then have to see through to the end! But we had some scheduling difficulties with our special guest, Jonathan’s brother Thomas, who needed to be on this episode to make Jonatha...

Today, November 23rd, marks the 30th birthday of our very own Sean Chapman, and to celebrate, Jonathan agreed to let Sean surprise him with any podcast topic, which Jonathan would then have to see through to the end! In this case, that meant an entire month of work and additional recordings, as Sean decided to jump Jonathan into a very weird corner of the internet and make him stay there for sever...

This week saw one of the highest-profile video game releases of the year with Sony’s God of War: Ragnarok  for PS4 and PS5, a direct sequel to the outstanding 2018 God of War  reboot. We give spoiler-free first impressions on the opening hours of this extremely ambitious game, from the jaw-dropping graphics and presentation to a story that’s immediately rich in character and world-building. Before...

It’s a very special Halloween episode of The Weekly Stuff Podcast, as we’re here on this very spooky day for a deep-dive retrospective review of one of the greatest films ever made: HALLOWEEN,  the original John Carpenter classic from 1978 that introduced the world to The Shape, to Jamie Lee Curtis, to one of the most iconic film music themes of all time, and to a hilariously unwieldy franchise th...

After giving initial impressions of the campaign for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II – Here We Go Again!  and Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope,  we give a live reaction to the latest regeneration on Doctor Who  and discuss the series’ exciting future now that Chris Chibnall has returned to the chasm from whence he came. Then it’s time to finish our series of Fullmetal Alchemist  reviews by rounding...

It’s a Very Special Episode this week as Sean & Jonathan answer a series of questions all about our day job: Teaching! Sean is a high-school English teacher and Jonathan teaches at the college level as PhD student, and while we’ve touched upon all this before, we haven’t yet done a deep dive on the profession, our thoughts – positive and negative – about it, how our two teaching roles differ, and...

Our journey through Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood  comes to an end with the second half of the second anime, now in fully uncharted territory as it adapts the final stretch of Hiromu Arakawa’s original manga. Diving deep into the Briggs and Promised Day story arcs that conclude the series, we discuss all the many ups and occasional downs of this last run. The manga is probably at its most uneve...

We were planning on a very elaborate podcast for Jonathan’s 30th birthday this week, but some unforeseen travel problems led to us breaking glass in case of emergency on a topic we’ve been keeping in our back pocket for over a decade now: ranking the Top 10 Video Game Controllers of all time! From the NES to the PS5, we go through several generations of gaming consoles to pick out the best control...

After a trip to Sean’s Beta Corner to review the recent betas for Team Ninja’s Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty  and Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II – Here We Go Again!,  Sean and Jonathan hop over to Pandora (the planet, not the music app) for a deep dive on Avatar  (the James Cameron movie, not the Nickelodeon show). It’s been 13 years since the film took the entire world by storm, becoming...

With the Tokyo Game Show going down this week in, well, Tokyo, there was an avalanche of gaming news and gaming events, with Nintendo, Sony, and many others showing off new games for 2023 and beyond, and we break it all down on today’s episode! Starting with Ubisoft’s event last week to show off the appropriately convoluted future of Assassin’s Creed,  and continuing on to this week’s Nintendo Dir...

It’s another packed episode as Jonathan gives first impressions of Splatoon 3  on the Nintendo Switch, reviews the Star Trek: The Motion Picture – Director’s Edition  on 4K UHD Blu-ray, and we commiserate over the ever-growing avalanche of Disney/Marvel news from the weekend, before jumping into the next phase of our Fullmetal Alchemist  review series! This time, we’re talking Brotherhood,  the 20...

It’s a ridiculously packed podcast today filled to the brim with great topics, starting with Jonathan’s thoughts on the year’s two biggest American TV premieres – HBO’s Game of Thrones  spin-off House of the Dragon  and Amazon’s Lord of the Rings  series, The Rings of Power –  before he and Sean devote a very silly segment to pitching several different Lord of the Rings  spin-offs to Amazon. Then...