Author: thebackloggers

Log Time Podcast | Welcome to the NHK! — A(n) (Absolute Nightmare) Masterpiece!

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Looking back on the rotation of shows we have on the docket for this podcast, it might not have been the best idea to watch Welcome to the N.H.K., a show about a hikikomori who can hardly leave his home due to crippling anxiety and depression, during a time where we can all hardly leave our homes, which is leading us to crippling anxiety and depression. Life comes at you fast, huh?

Despite the fact that the premise of Welcome to the N.H.K. is for sure a huge bummer, it’s a genuinely beautiful series that’s able to balance out its crushing moments of despair with some excellently punctuated comedy, and realistic, no-bs moments of genuine, heartwarming hope. There’s many reasons that people consider the show to be a masterpiece and a classic, and by the end of our discussion, we 100% agree. You might not want to watch it while we’re all quarantined and a little more on edge than normal, but then again, maybe this is the perfect time to watch it. Regardless of when, all we ask of you is that you absolutely do watch Welcome to the N.H.K. (And also listen to our podcast about it. You’re already here!)

Audio Links: iTunes | SoundCloud

Intro/Outro Music: The Elephant by A Shell in the Pit

This podcast was recorded August 6th, 2020.

Log Time Seasonal Podcast | Beginning of Summer 2020 — The God of Summer Anime

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Okay, so it’s time for some good news, bad news. The bad news is that, due to obvious circumstances, the Summer 2020 season of anime is a bit shorter on shows than it would normally be. The good news is that there is still a ton of great stuff to watch, despite the delays in production, etc.

We do get to talk about a bit of a mixed bag of shows for the season: we mercifully get all of the laughably bad horny shows out of the way first, we all take a collective trip to the suffering zone, sponsored by Re:Zero and OreGairu, and we bask in the glory of beautiful shows like The God of High School and hilariously dumb shows like The Misfit of Demon King Academy. Don’t do yourself the disservice of skipping out on this season – hop on in, get some recommendations, and enjoy the season!

Audio Links: iTunes | SoundCloud

Intro/Outro Music: The Elephant by A Shell in the Pit

This podcast was recorded July 16th, 2020.

Log Time Seasonal Podcast | End of Spring 2020 — S(pr)ing “Anime” For Me

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It’s hard to believe that the Spring 2020 anime season, which never really felt like it got to truly start due to the whole pandemic business, is finally over. Despite all that, it really ended with a bang, because MAN, it still had a ton of great shows to offer.

Unsurprisingly, good shows bring out great talking points in this episode: we get to exorcise our strong feelings about Sing “Yesterday” For Me, Zack makes the bold claim that Brand New Animal is “a show done by Studio Trigger”, and Matt forcefully takes the discussion into his own hands to say that DADDY! DADDY! DO! is, to quote, “pretty good”. Strap yourselves in, because we’ve got a lot coming your way!

Audio Links: iTunes | SoundCloud

Intro/Outro Music: The Elephant by A Shell in the Pit

This podcast was recorded June 26th, 2020.

Log Time Podcast | Death March Discussion — “I Really Didn’t Mean to Call Him Kirito!”

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Remember how it feels like we just talked about shows in digital worlds, or with an isekai plot, or some combination of those ideas? We just watched another one. It was an awful decision.

Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody is a pretty decidedly “meh” fantasy MMO isekai harem series, and we had to watch all of it. It’s not all bad, of course – we get some pretty good discussion out of some of the show’s clever use of UI elements (until it starts to suck), for instance, or how the protagonist definitely isn’t the same guy as the protagonist in the other fantasy MMO isekai harem series. That being said, what you really want is the complete and utter beatdown that we give the show, and by god, do we give it to it. In a loving, constructive criticism sort of way, of course. Don’t watch the show, but do listen to us tell you why not to watch it.

Audio Links: iTunes | SoundCloud

Intro/Outro Music: The Elephant by A Shell in the Pit

This podcast was recorded June 4th, 2020.

Log Time Podcast | Dennou Coil Discussion — If Google Glass Was Good, But Also Sometimes Cursed

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Collectively as a group, we’ve watched a fair number of anime about digital and physical spaces, like .hack//Sign, Log Horizon, Serial Experiments Lain, and something about swords making art on the internet. But it’s pretty safe to say that we have yet to watch anything quite like Dennou Coil – a story about kids with really powerful augmented reality glasses tech that blurs the line between the physical and digital worlds.

Join us as we talk about some really, really bad computer viruses, tech from the show and world-building elements that we’d love to see more of in other series, and sentient facial hair (it’s actually related to the show, I swear).

Audio Links: iTunes | SoundCloud

Intro/Outro Music: The Elephant by A Shell in the Pit

This podcast was recorded May 14th, 2020.

Log Time Seasonal Podcast | Beginning of Spring 2020 — Spring Anime: (Mostly) UNLIMITED

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The Winter 2020 season ended on quite a lot of strong notes! There were a lot of contenders for what we would talk about on this wrap-up cast, but for the sake of not having this take three hours, we had to narrow it down to some of the season’s best of the best. It’s not like we were doing much else during a global pandemic, but hey.

Although there have been a lot of delays due to obvious reasons, the Spring 2020 anime season is still coming out strong. We encounter a few minor confusions about what shows are what, but it’s all part of the trademark Backloggers charm, tee hee! Not to toot our own horn, but we’ve got some good stuff this episode: we get to explore the absolute trainwreck that is Tamayomi, we find out that Matt thought Wave, Listen to Me! and Sing “Yesterday” for Me were the same show, and, somewhat inevitably, we find out mid-recording that some shows we recommended to each other had been delayed.

Oh, and we talk about some absolute bangers from this season that haven’t been delayed (yet), like Kakushigoto and Tower of God. In short, it’s exactly the kind of anime content we need right now as the world continues to burn to the ground.

Audio Links: iTunes | SoundCloud

Intro/Outro Music: The Elephant by A Shell in the Pit

This podcast was recorded April 24th, 2020.

Log Time Seasonal Podcast | End of Winter 2020 — My Favorite Anime Made It to the End of the Season!

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The Winter 2020 season ended on quite a lot of strong notes! There were a lot of contenders for what we would talk about on this wrap-up cast, but for the sake of not having this take three hours, we had to narrow it down to some of the season’s best of the best. It’s not like we were doing much else during a global pandemic, but hey.

We’ve got a whole smorgasbord of stuff for you in this one: we dive headfirst and get all the Backloggers memes in that we can, talk about how hilariously good Darwin’s Game is in the death game genre, completely geek out about Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun, and, honestly, do a lot of that for almost every show we talk about. It’s such a good crop of shows from this season, so if you’ve got nothing better to do right now, this would be a great chance to hop into some of our recommendations here. Hop on in!

Audio Links: iTunes | SoundCloud

Intro/Outro Music: The Elephant by A Shell in the Pit

This podcast was recorded March 27th, 2020.

Log Time Podcast | Sagrada Reset Discussion — Backloggers, Reset

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Having watched the first few episodes when this started airing a while back and feeling decidedly like “it was a show” and nothing else, Sagrada Reset is not something any of us would have decided to watch on our own.

Thankfully, our merciless, unstoppable backlog selected it for us, and we’re here to report that it’s…actually pretty good? Join us as we talk about some weird superpowers, a cast of characters that almost always feel like robots, and how Kit Kats save lives…? Watch it through to the end, and then reset, if you want!

Audio Links: iTunes | SoundCloud

Intro/Outro Music: The Elephant by A Shell in the Pit

This podcast was recorded March 27th, 2020.

Log Time Podcast | Konosuba S1 Discussion — The Goddess is a Curse on this Wonderful World!

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Konosuba is a great show about folks in an isekai who are absolute disasters. Given that we had this as a possible show to watch since, oh, close to when we started this podcast, this video has been a long time coming, and man, is it worth it.

Join us as we talk about some bombastic subverting of genre tropes, a cadre of useless morons with some decent character arc, and how Aqua is absolutely garbage-tier. Fight us.

Audio Links: iTunes | SoundCloud

Intro/Outro Music: The Elephant by A Shell in the Pit

This podcast was recorded February 27th, 2020.

Log Time Podcast | Planet With Discussion — "Do You Think He Ever Found the Bathroom?"

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Planet With is a trip – alien animals that eat people to become mechs, a maid princess, dragons, super sentai warriors, and all sorts of other wild stuff that ends up meshing together surprisingly nicely. Join us as we talk about some of the show’s finer points, like the evolution of love, the show’s consistent emphasis of kindness over violence, and how the show manages to make a bunch of seemingly different details all work beautifully together.

Audio Links: iTunes | SoundCloud

Intro/Outro Music: The Elephant by A Shell in the Pit

This podcast was recorded February 6th, 2020.