Episodes

Friday May 23, 2025
Frieren: Beyond Journey's End
Friday May 23, 2025
Friday May 23, 2025
[School of Everything Else 2025]
Neurodivergent elf seeks party for spell-gathering, demon-slaying and appreciating life a whole lot more...
Despite our longstanding NO ANIME rule (which nevertheless still allows us to occasionally do shows on the movies we love within that medium, and you folks have been good as gold insofar as overprescribing anime shows when you know it will overwhelm us with volume) this commissions season saw us so in need of emergency funds that we opened the door to not one but two beloved recent series'.
However, while we instantly found Delicious in Dungeon to be captivating, funny, charming, hilarious and nerdy in the most appealing easy-sell way possible, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End was much more of a slow-burn. And while we came out the other side appreciating many of the subtleties there were some glaring creative decisions which actively ruffled our feathers.
So, to ensure this would be talked about with passion and enthusiasm in a way that would help us see the best in it, we brought in a brace of guests who gave us the lowdown on both the show and the manga. Many thanks to our extremely patient backers for this episode; Tylor, Banzai and Painter47
Guests
Alejandra Vargas
Bradford Yurkiw

Friday May 09, 2025
Delicious in Dungeon
Friday May 09, 2025
Friday May 09, 2025
[School of Everything Else 2025]
This is a commissioned show for Chris Finik, The Jonin Monkey, Banzai Tree and Sixblazer. We recruited Willow as a guest, since they were immediately smitten with this 24-episode first season.
We heartily recommend you cast aside your worries and just delve into this podcast episode, regardless of having seen the show or not. While you will find out things that are going to happen, we can't spoil the show for you, only make it richer with more texture to get your teeth into.
The on-paper synopsis is a bunch of misfits searching an underground labyrinth for one of their number, lost to a dragon. The experience itself is a gourmet tour of eating the monsters that attack them. The longer term quest is a better balance of the delicate and deadly ecosystem that abounds in tabletop RPGs. So, grab your cooking knife and your shield reforged into a pot, light the magic circle and let's get to the nosh.

Friday Aug 23, 2024
Star Trek: Prodigy
Friday Aug 23, 2024
Friday Aug 23, 2024
[School of Everything Else 2024]
This was a commissioned show for Tylor and Chris Finik. It covers the first two seasons of this animated show which can be found on Netflix, Paramount+ and Nickelodeon. You can listen to the whole thing without fear of anything being made worse, and we keep a lot of secrets and surprises under wraps since statistically most of you won't have seen this.
On first inspection it might seem like Star Trek for Babies or Star Trek: Rebels, however, spend some time with it and you'll find a show that is not only a splendid introduction to this seminal mythology, but a fine new way of looking at The Federation from the outside, wrapped around some exceptional and emotionally-driven character-focused science fiction.
The short of it is, seven young misfits on the run in a stolen Federation starship prototype. There's a threat coming from the future and they have to get the warning to Earth in time. What they become is exemplary of what intergalactic peacekeeping could be, in the hands of those who have not yet been morally compromised. It's excellent and you will have fun hearing why.

Friday May 24, 2024
Hazbin Hotel (Season 1)
Friday May 24, 2024
Friday May 24, 2024
[School of Everything Else 2024]
This was a show that was recommended to us a few times, but then wound up an unexpected commissioned episode. Compounding this, Willow has been a lover of this crazy, twisted, queer-friendly HELL for years, since the pilot surfaced on YouTube. They had already seen all eight episodes of Amazon's 2024 first season, and considering a now maturing and emotionally complex Gen Z is the target audience for this, we got Willow on as our special guest.
For the majority of you that haven't delved into Hazbin Hotel (or its brother-series Helluva Boss), it is an animated musical about the ongoing conflict between Heaven and Hell, with the titular hotel being set up by the wildly optimistic Disney-Princess daughter of Lucifer; Charlie Morningstar. Charlie believes the denizens of damnation have it in them to be redeemed and ascend to Paradise, and the hotel is the site of their rehab. Unfortunately the officials of both afterlives are various degrees of incredulous about this plan.
We talk about the whole thing, but I don't consider this as spoiling the experience for newcomers. It can only help you enjoy the show all the more if you listen to this first, and the toe-tapping, frequently genuinely excellent songs will live in your head from now on. If you like The Good Place Good Omens, The Owl House or even Hades, you will find plenty of similar philosophical musing and humour in here.
![One Piece [Netflix Season 1]](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/ep-logo/pbblog828479/630_One_Piece_Netflix_Season_1_97ruo_300x300.jpg)
Friday Apr 19, 2024
One Piece [Netflix Season 1]
Friday Apr 19, 2024
Friday Apr 19, 2024
[School of Everything Else 2024]
When the Roman Empire looted the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, the amount of gold they found inside dropped the price of gold by 50% throughout the Empire. If something like that happened today, it would have caused the collapse of several First World countries overnight.
But that amount of loot pales in comparison to the value of the One Piece; both the fictional mysterious pirate treasure that has everyone in this wonderful waterworld taking to the high seas, but also the third best-selling comic of all time and the phenomenally popular anime, both of which have been running since the late 90s.
For those of us who need to catch up really fast without reading or watching over a thousand things, the new Netflix live action series is the best place to start. Just eight utterly compulsive episodes long, so far, this will give you a grounding in the major characters the same way it did for us in this commissioned episode. And we brought in both the sponsors and two more Straw Hats to fill out the map on this vast, rich and vibrant world. Guests
-
Self AKA Selfproclaimed
-
Teemu Helasharju AKA Banzai Tree
-
Bradford Yurkew AKA Lanodantheon and
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Austin Wilden AKA WC-Wit
[Check out Austin's writing on One Piece here...]
https://wits-writing.tumblr.com/post/690798073331515392/my-favorite-panel-in-one-piece-or-why-ill
[And on Transformers Earthspark here...]
https://wits-writing.tumblr.com/post/721584287457181696/a-wonderful-experience-why-transformers

Friday Mar 08, 2024
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Season 1)
Friday Mar 08, 2024
Friday Mar 08, 2024
[School of Everything Else 2024]
This is one of two commissioned podcasts on the first two seasons of the best Star Trek shows in decades. Refreshingly lacking in cynicism and tapping into the Kennedy-era energy of exploration and endeavour with a tight focus on character development, this one really is worth your time. We spend two and a half hours of spoilerific, textured discussion time really delving into these first ten episodes.
Kaoru's recommended episodes of the original 1966 series to watch for additional context...
S1-11 & S1-12: The Menagerie
S1-13: The Conscience of the King
S1-14: Balance of Terror
S1-19: Arena
S2-01: Amok Time
Guests:
From Sequentially Yours Kaoru Negisa @Moonpanther22
and Debbie Morse @bastet8300
Jesse Ferguson of Recorded Tomorrow @TheDapperDM
Chris Finik @finmonster09

Friday Feb 23, 2024
X-Men: Evolution
Friday Feb 23, 2024
Friday Feb 23, 2024
[School of Everything Else 2024]
This was originally going to be an After School Club episode, but a combination of the community discourse regarding the X-Men, and an extremely well-timed trailer drop for the '97 reboot, AND a horrendous cold that has ravaged Sharon and I, along with our timetable, we're making this a Main Event.
If you're a little younger than us, you may well have been the exact right age and state of mind for this early-2000s animated series, which in many ways surpasses the much-vaunted '92 show. It is gratifyingly forward-facing, accepting that the Claremont era was thoroughly X-plored by its predecessor. And while its release clearly coincides with the early Fox movies, it holds to a high school relationship drama in a world initially unaware of mutants, and in distancing itself from the big screen, manages to be better, and more focused.
That said, there are some annoyances and character-handling that ground our claws, but it's in amongst some of the most relatable incarnations of these long-beloved weirdos. We absolutely urge you to track it down and devour the whole thing.

Saturday Feb 17, 2024
X-Men '92
Saturday Feb 17, 2024
Saturday Feb 17, 2024
[School of Everything Else 2024]
The infamous animated series with a theme tune you can hear just by looking at stills of it, finally gets a well-deserved podcast. We actually recorded this several years back, to coincide with the launch of the new X-Men '97 animated show on D+, and we're finally seeing images from that now. Whether it's good or bad, THIS ONE is worth watching, at least some choice episodes of.
While often held up with the likes of Batman TAS, this one's strengths lie less in the flawless execution of those DCEU shows, and more in the goofy heart, wild Claremont-era stories and memorably crystallised colourful characters. In many ways, this is the evolution* of several decades of comic book storytelling, coming out to the world at large, at the opening of their most successful and popular decade. Planting a flag in the ground with a big old X on it, to mark the spot.
We elected to focus only on Season 1 here, as after recording we went on to watch all of it, and that show would be five hours long and quite repetitive. But we nailed the salient points and I hope, managed to outline why this cartoon and its crew of kinda-silly characters meant so much, and could mean even more if Marvel play their cards right in future.
*Oh, and if you were born a little while after us and grew up with the second generation show, X-Men: Evolution, then you're going to love next week's podcast.

Friday Feb 09, 2024
Star Trek: Discovery
Friday Feb 09, 2024
Friday Feb 09, 2024
[School of Everything Else 2024]
We initially started watching this 2017 Paramount TV series just for some back-story context on a pair of commissioned podcasts we have upcoming on the first two seasons of the sister show about the crew of the Enterprise; 'Strange New Worlds'. As it turns out, after a rocky start, Discovery is really excellent in its own right and we wolfed down the first four seasons.
So, this is a largely spoiler-free round-table discussion on those seasons, to give you folks who haven't yet watched it incentive to maybe give it a go, along with details and character development to keep an eye on. And if you have watched it you will almost certainly love hearing our take, because, as it turns out, we are now in the middle of an unexpected Golden Age of Trek.
Guests:
From Sequentially Yours Kaoru Negisa @Moonpanther22
and Debbie Morse @bastet8300
Chris Finik @finmonster09

Friday Jan 12, 2024
Gravity Falls (Show 6: Episodes 37-40)
Friday Jan 12, 2024
Friday Jan 12, 2024
[School of Everything Else 2024]
Part 6 of 6
We come to it at last. The final episodes of one of the greatest animated shows ever gifted to TV. And we pulled out all the stops this time, because it's bittersweet to say goodbye again.
Originally I planned to get this whole season discussed in one sit-down session, considering how much ground we had covered back in Season 1 with two sessions. But in the end a second was essential. What we have here is that unplanned final session with Kaoru & Debbie (joyfully back after a long absence while they brought a small person into the world) blended with segments held over from that first recording to close us out with fireworks. Many thanks to everyone involved in this challenging and rewarding project. You made it special, like it deserved to be.
Episodes Covered: Dipper and Mabel vs. The Future / Xpcveaoqfoxso / Escape from Reality / Take Back the Falls I / Take Back the Falls II
Guests:
From Sequentially Yours Kaoru Negisa @Moonpanther22
and Debbie Morse @bastet8300
Toby Jungius @TJungius of Through the Wind Door
Hollywoo Actress Maya Souris @Mayasantandrea
Victoria Luna B. Grieve: @VixenVVitch
Theo Leigh of The New Century Multiverse