Backlog Dialogues

It's time to talk about one of the biggest anime hits ever, Neon Genesis Evangelion! Would you believe John hadn't watched the original series in full until recording for this podcast? We dive in to the characters, themes, and (third?) impact of the original series, and the fandom and culture that surrounds it. Does Shinji need to pilot the Eva? Does the religious symbolism mean anything? Is Gendo a wifeguy? The answers may be more surprising than you think!

It's time for an out-of-character after party! The cast discuss what happened in the story, and WE discuss the anime and manga adaptations of Onikakushi! What will happen next now that Keiichi, Rena, and Mion are all dead? Heck, what CAN happen next?
(For those who have seen all there is to see in When They Cry, there is an additional after party after the credits. If you are unbound from time, join your fellow monsters, won't you?)

Keiichi's story comes to a bloody and abrupt end. All around him are friends he can no longer see as friends. The hidden secrets of the village are coming for him, even as he gropes blindly for the truth. In the fight to protect himself, he pushes away everyone who he cared for, and picks up a bat. The stage is set. The tragedy is real. The truth is hidden. It will all end... when the higurashi cry. 

Things start to get creepy in Hinamizawa. Keiichi finds himself being interrogated by shady cops and his friends start acting... strangely. Are the legends about demoning away real? Is Keiichi next? Also, will he ever get out of one of the most severe cases of denial you'll ever see?

It's time for more club activity shenanigans! The Five Demon Fire Fight will soon take place at the annual summer festival in Hinamizawa! Keiichi gets to show off his skills and succumbs to hubris almost immediately! After that, he learns more dark secrets about this quaint mountain village, but will he regret learning them? Do you really need to ask?
Also, John makes a very fun (annoying?) discovery: the podcast recording platform the team uses has a soundboard! 

The story begins! We meet Keiichi and his classmates, Rena, Mion, Satoko, and Rika, and get familiar with their totally normal lives in a mountain village where nothing bad ever happens. Except, you know, the grisly murder at the dam construction site a few years ago. But that doesn't matter, what matters is BOARD GAMES!

We're finally back with a new Backlog Buster! We break down why we're so excited to talk about When They Cry for the foreseeable future, and hope to get you excited for it too!

This is it, the final minilog of the Kingdom Hearts era of Backlog Dialogues. Though looking at the file length, it's more of a megalog. In what could best be described as the weight of our sins and pinnacle of our hubris, we go deep in discussing Final Fantasy XIV for a second time, this time focusing on Shadowbringers and Endwalker, the two best stories in all of Final Fantasy. We dig in to the themes of anti-utopianism and hope that run deep through Natsuko Ishikawa's stories, and examine some of the most interesting characters and settings the Final Fantasy franchise has come up with, and even sort of answer the question - why did we do all this? What's the meaning to our struggle in creating a podcast?
We do it for their own sake, and no other reason.
Is that not so, Adventurer?

This is it! The final Kingdom Hearts episode! We made it! And since it's a recappy music game with only the tiniest sliver of story to hint at what's to come, we turn it in to a little postmortem on the series before getting a chance to call Nomura and the Fairy Godmother on their bullshit. It's been fun, so let's kick back and remember it!

We've finally made it to the end of Kingdom Hearts 3 - the kino packed extravaganza that is the Remind DLC! First we go over the secret reports, which contain hints of things to come in the series, and then we follow Future Sora as he revisits the events of Keyblademania to try to bring back Kairi. Getting to play as other characters, some extremely amazing cinematic battles, and even a few weird puzzles and minigames await. Then, it's time for optional bosses with Limitcut Episode and Secret Episode, as Riku plays a version of Data Sora to fight Data Real Organization XIII and Sora fights the extremely confusing Noctis expy Yozora in the Final World.