The winter 2023 season has finally ended. One for the record books, 30 plus shows. I think this is the most anime I've seen in a single season. I don't know how I'm gonna do this video. It's going to be gigantic. Welcome back to the manga geekdom. Yes, I talk about all the anime that I'm watching, specifically all the seasonal shows. I like doing that. That's how I consume most of the anime that I watch, all the new stuff and whatnot. And every season, I try and top my viewing. And for this one, I went all out and watched as much as humanly possible with my busy schedule outside of YouTube. It wasn't always pretty. I struggled halfway through, but I made it happen and watched, I think the final tally would be 36, almost 40 different shows. Holy moly. And before we get started, there are a couple of shows that we'll be missing from this. For example, things like the Nier Automata. The anime adaptation, I have never played the video game. I recently got the Switch version and I kind of wanted to experience that first and then come back and watch the anime version. So eventually, maybe I'll talk about it, who knows, but that's why it's not here. And other shows that had like season twos and I had not seen the first seasons. So obviously they're not gonna be reviewed here, but I think I covered the vast majority of this season, which had a lot of highs and a lot of surprising lows. I was really taken aback at how many shows I went in thinking I was going to love. And instead, it was just, all right. But without further ado, let's get this started. All righty, the first anime that we're gonna talk about is the second season for The Vampire Dies In No Time. First season aired back in 2021 and it was all right. I dug some of the humor, not all. I think it was just okay. I really liked the animation done by Madhouse, great character models, fantastic silly nonsense. And for this second season, honestly, it's a little bit more of the same. There's more plot elements thrown for the characters of Draluk and Ronaldo. Of course, John, the Armadillo and all the other crazy kooky cast. And trust me, this show has bizarre characters, but it's all done in a slapstick type of humor. And sometimes it works. There are like many stories within each episode, typically like three or four. And the problem was for me, I liked some of the stories, not the entirety of the episodes. But it was perfectly fine. If you enjoy the silly humor of the first one, I think you're gonna like a season two, probably even more. Ayakashi Triangle, the adaptation of Kentaro Yabuki's manga. I have heard many things about this series and I did not know what to expect.  I don't know. So I went in with an open mind because I like to see most shows that air, even if they're bad. And I was surprised in some areas by upset and others. First off, this is a series about Ayakashi, which are related to yokai monsters. There's an exorcist ninja force to counter this threat. And in it, we follow our main protagonist, Matsuri Kazamaki. He is friends with Zuzu. Hygienksensuu, when an Ayakashi cat named Shirogane shows up and our main protagonist ends up being transformed into a lady. And it's one of those genderbender romances with a lot of pervy humor and heavy on the fan service. Honestly, it's just an okay story. I know it has its fans and it has a lot of people that dislike it for the things I mentioned. I didn't really care about any of that stuff. I just wanted to see what all the fuzz was about. And I ended up actually liking the character Shirogane.  And the relationship with the two main characters is frustrating. And what's more frustrating is the fact that we only saw five, six episodes? It got hit hard by COVID and it was delayed, I think, a full month. Then it came back for an extra episode and now it got delayed again for July when they're gonna restart broadcast all six episodes. So we're probably gonna see this series late summer to early fall. That's insane. I was surprised when I heard malevolent spirits, Mononogatari was going to get an anime adaptation. We follow the character of Yoma who is suffering after the death of his siblings at the hands of a deadly Tsukumogami. Now you're probably wondering, what the heck is that? Well, it's a yokai, one of the key classic yokai of Japanese folklore. They are originally supposed to be tools or household items that after a really long time have gained a kami or spirit and are now living and breathing in this world and interacting with people. However, in the story for this show they are a little bit different. Some are filled with rage, others are more peaceful and they take human forms instead. They each have different abilities and are trying to survive in this world without getting transformed back into their original forms or sent back to the spirit realm or whatever. So the character of Yoma is dealing with that rage of having lost his siblings. So his clan sends him to live with Nagatsuki Botan. She has a powerful secret, but she also lives with a whole squad of Tsukumogami that live with her and take care of her. So I thought it was going to be this really nice story of confronting your rage and past and moving forward and accepting things and all that stuff. But it turned out to be more of an action series disguised with the whole gimmick of the Tsukumogami. Animations all right, I like the character models, but nothing really stood out to me. I guess I progressively got a little bit out of it as the episodes went on and I ended up just thinking it was all right. I didn't love it as much as I thought I was going to. We finally have the return of Vinland Saga in anime form and I am so happy about that. I loved the first season and I've been enjoying reading the manga and this second one is just fantastic. I was a little upset and I kind of knew the reception would be a little odd online simply because people want fast-paced action with little to no plot development these days and season two is adapting the farmland arc which is notorious and famous for its slow pace. It's more methodical and more interesting in that it further develops the character of Thorfinn while also introducing more characters and there's a maturity and an evolution that happens to the cast. And I was just so excited to see that. Mapa just knocked it out of the park. This looks great. They took this series from Wood Studios and they've been doing a stellar job in my opinion. Special shout out to that one episode in the middle of the arc. The story of Thorfinn having that vision slash dream where he ventures into the underworld essentially and beats some familiar faces. That is easily one of the highlights of the season so far. Expertly done, a beautiful story. I cannot recommend this enough. Ningen Fushin, adventurers who don't believe in humanity will save the world. This was actually the first show I watched this year because the new season started on a Tuesday. I was really excited for the concept of this series but in the end I am sad to report that this was one of my least liked shows of the season. We follow four adventurers that have had terrible luck and fate just throws them together and they decide, hey, we've got nothing left to lose so let's form a party together where we're all equal and we treat each other with respect and all that stuff and we venture forward and do our thing. Eventually some things happen and they are tasked with saving the population of certain bad guys and all that stuff. It's not as crazy as it sounds with the whole save the world aspect. It's a lot more self-contained at least in these first 12 episodes. What I liked was seeing the four main characters and how different their stories were but they all had a common element of pain, grief and suffering and how they all ended up relying on each other and grew from there. That was really cool. The rest of the anime, however, I was really underwhelmed by, especially with the bad artwork. The animation was clunky, just bad overall and some of the character designs were not really appealing whatsoever and there were some moments where I was just flat out bored and did not want to watch. I kept going to see how the story would progress and it hits the right story beats, I guess, but it's just the overall presentation that I thought was pretty lacking, unfortunately. Campfire cooking in another world with my absurd skill, this was actually one of my favorite shows so far this year. I absolutely loved it. It's a comedy slash cooking show but it's also an isekai. In it, we follow our main protagonist, Siyoshi Mukura, as he is summoned into another world. He was a salaryman in ours and now in this new parallel world, he is summoned by mistake. They intended to get a more of a hero type character but they got him instead. Realizing that hero life is not for him, Siyoshi decides to venture out on his own and he discovers that he has this ability called the online supermarket, if you will, an online grocery app where he is able to buy stuff from our world, ingredients, food items and all that stuff and ship it over there through magic, I presume and takes this opportunity to convince everyone that he is pretty much a useless protagonist so everybody just discards him and he takes that opportunity to leave the kingdom and explore and become something of himself outside of what was expected of him. During his travels, he meets a legendary beast known as Fenrir who demands Siyoshi feed him after tasting a meal that he made and that sort of in a nutshell is a majority of the plot and there are more characters introduced and a lot more fun concepts to be had. I think Mapa did an exceptional job with this. I like that they even had consultants for the food segments and everything looked nice and beautiful and delicious when the main character was preparing all the meals. This is the type of show where I can just sit back, unwind, relax and actually genuinely laugh out loud. I highly recommend this. If there's one show out of all these that I want you to check out, it's this one. It's a lot of fun and I guarantee you're gonna have a cool time with it. The Ice Guy and his cool female colleague. This was a surprise. I actually really enjoyed this. I thought it was quite wholesome. It's a workplace romance with two very unique characters. We have Himo Dokun who is a descendant of the Yuki Onas Snow Woman Yokai. He's a young, nice kid that unfortunately when he gets emotionally overwhelmed, he causes blizzards and snowmen to appear and icicles and all that stuff. So it's played in a slapstick manner for laughs and obviously convenient to the plot. A lot of hijinks happen when there is awkward moments with him and you see the reaction from the different characters and himself as he's flustered and embarrassed over his powers. So one day he's nervous to get started on his first day at work at an office and he meets the character of Fuyutsuki-san.  Obviously their personalities make them pretty unique characters which I thought was pretty cool and it's just a nice, wholesome series, easy to vibe with. I really like the artwork. I think it captured the essence of the manga pretty well and it was done by Zero G which I think are super underrated. Their character work is stellar in my opinion. Kubo won't let me be invisible. We follow the character of Junta Shiraiishi who has one goal and that's to experience his youth to the fullest. It just so happens that he is what they describe as socially invisible. People don't really pay attention to him. They don't even know that he's standing next to them. He's a shy, honest kid but that all changes when he meets the character of Saki Kubo. Kubo has always noticed him and is there to tease him. However, they form a sweet, wholesome friendship that could be something more down the line. It's one of those teasing girls type of shows similar to Uzaki-chan, Ms. Nagatouro, teasing Master Takagi-san, et cetera, et cetera. However, where this differs is that, yeah, Kubo is teasing our main protagonist here but there is a sincerity to it. There's a friendship that forms and it doesn't come off so mean-spirited like a lot of the other examples that I mentioned. I really enjoyed the art by Pine Jam Studios. I think they do a good job of bringing this to life. Unfortunately, this one also got hit hard with COVID and the whole production had to be postponed to, I think, May. So we're still waiting for that to finish airing. We only saw six episodes out of the 12 that are scheduled for season one. But I think you'll like it. It's fun and wholesome at times. Reminded me that all it takes is that one person to take notice of you and help you open up and become a better person as a result. The magical revolution of the reincarnated princess and the genius young lady. Long name aside, this is an isekai slash yuri magical romance series. And honestly, this was one of the highlights of the season. I really enjoyed it. It's a well thought out romance series. It has a lot of dramatic elements to it. We follow the character of Anisfia. I hope I said that right. She is the princess of this world's kingdom and there is an expectation for her to come into her own as queen of the kingdom. However, this is a world that relies on magic and she happens to be born without it. She does not use magic but has developed her own unique style which she calls magicology, a theory based on memories from her past life. On a particular day at the start of the series, she notices a brilliant noble woman called Euphelia as she is unjustly stripped of her title as the kingdom's next monarch. Anisfia then makes up this plan to kidnap her and make Euphelia her assistant in all things magic. Little do they know that fate has thrown them together and there's a romance brewing between the two. It's a really nice wholesome sweet show mixed with a lot of cool concepts. I love the idea that the whole isekai thing is it's more of an afterthought. The animation is solid. This was done by Diomedea Studios. I hope I pronounced that correctly. It doesn't dip in quality like with other series. The relationship that forms between the two main characters, that's the star highlight of these first 12 episodes. I assume we're gonna get more. Overall, it was a very pleasant series and I do like the main character and how she is a constant reminder as she somewhat said it herself in the series and I'm probably misquoting impossible things or something that you can make possible. And she has stood her ground and has been defiant of all the obstacles in her way and has pushed through. It's always refreshing and badass when you have a character like that. So this series is really good in that regard. The character work was stellar. Highly recommend checking it out. BoFuri, I don't want to get hurt so I'll max out my defense season two. It feels like forever since we had season one that aired back in early 2020. So it's been a minute and we finally have a season two. Unfortunately for me, it's similar to the vampire dies in no time season two where it's just more wholesome adventures with Maple as she's traversing new areas of the game with her friends. Maple gets new abilities and she's a super badass player. So it's just a lot of fun. If you enjoyed season one, you'll be right at home with season two. Tobochan is a girl. This romantic comedy took me by surprise. In my first impressions, I was really dismissive of it but watching more of it, I was hooked and this actually became one of my favorite shows of the season. Even though some of the plot elements are extremely predictable and you see them coming from a mile away, you can't help but smile and have fun with it. And that's because of the fun, great written characters throughout. Tomoha is a beast of a character with her insane strength, able to fight on par with men. She is best friends with June. However, he doesn't really see her as a girl hence the name of the series. So at first I thought, man, June is a horrible character and I was not going to like this series at all. However, throughout the course of 13 episodes, you see slow progressions but you do see them for the character and he recognizes his mistakes and actually does view Tomoha as a girl and forms a bond deeper than friendship. The animation by Le Duce, I hope I said that right, is great. There are really nice moments where I kept thinking, man, this is too good of an animation for what is essentially just a rob-gum but it goes there. From the opening animation to the fights to the crazy slapstick humor that happens to Tomoha's reactions to everything. Also, this is probably Rie Takahashi's best vocal performance of all time. She just crushed it and I love this series mostly because of her wonderful performance. So I highly recommended just for that it was such a treat and everybody else, they all acted the heck out of this series. Kaina of the Great Snowsie is an alternate earth where it is blanketed by an endless, ever-growing ocean of snow. What's left of humanity is living huddled together on the roots of enormous trees that go all the way up in the sky and spread across the planet's atmosphere. We follow the character of Liliha, the princess of a kingdom that is desperate to get more water and resources for its people and she is searching, along with soldiers and generals of this kingdom, a possible sage that lives atop of the canopy that might have solutions for this problem. However, when she goes up, she ends up meeting the character of Kaina, a young boy, and that sets off a chain of events that will change the fate of the world. This one is interesting. It's created by Tsutomo Nihei. Most of the characters are well-made and I guess I should address the elephant in the room and that is of course, the CG artwork. It's unexpected. I thought it was going to be 2D but nope, it's a 3D work here and it's not as fluid as I wanted it to be. It suffers a bit. It looks more like a JRPG, to be honest. That's not necessarily a bad thing seeing that the plot and characters do carry the show and you still have an enjoyable experience watching Kaina of the Great Snow Sea. The story has some predictable elements but what it exels at is the setting and the world that it's being presented here. Unfortunately, one of my grievances with this series is the character designs. Yeah, I get the art style is a little bit so shady but they gave everybody detailed shadowing on their noses and in some characters, it's not as distracting but if you look at Lilia, it reminds me of a pumpkin nose. I could not take that out of my head and it was a little bit off-putting to be honest but this was pretty interesting. I really enjoyed the concept, super unique in my opinion for a post-apocalypse series and there is a sequel movie coming out so I'm excited to see where the story's headed because it does end on a bit of a cliffhanger. It's a solid little series that deserves more attention in my honest opinion. Spy Classroom finally got adapted. This was a popular light novel that is still being released. I was somewhat excited for it. I mean, it's one of those cute girl doing cute things type of shows. In this case, we have a class of reject spies of troublemakers and now they're grouped together under the tutelage of this master spy and he is going to teach them to be the very best spies so they can do the impossible missions. This is a world where it's a bunch of different nations and they're all in conflict with each other and it's sort of like a perpetual cold war that's happening and information wars and spies and assassinations and all that stuff. The concept and the world around these characters is interesting, I liked it. However, I have to admit and I know I'm gonna upset someone so I do apologize in advance. I was pretty bored by most of what was happening in here. Some of the characters are nice, others I really did not care for. The art is serviceable to pretty good and the voice cast is excellent. That's one thing that the show excels. It has a ton of A-list say-us so I really enjoyed hearing the vocal performances. However, it was just a little bit too boring for me. Most of the episodes, you know, the girls are trying to outdo the master character here, Klaus, and it's more of the same and eventually they do get missions and it's sort of a rinse and repeat type scenario for me. But if you like espionage and you don't mind the cute girls doing cute things, trope, I think you're gonna be just fine with spy classroom. Once in a while, every few seasons you get stuff like this where you are questioning your sanity, you're questioning everything about yourself as a content creator, as an individual, as a human being.  Essentially, if Kafka's metamorphosis was turned into a manga and an anime but it was extremely perverse and horny, that's sort of what you would get here. The main character suddenly awakes one day to find out he's been turned into a dog and now lives every day under the care of his crush, Inukai-san. She's a bit of a freak when it comes to dogs and is obsessed with Pochita, the name of the dog and the less I talk about this, the better. There's nothing here worthwhile to check out. Move on to something else, please. And speaking of odd things off the internet, Onimai, I'm now your sister. Based on the manga of the same name, this is an anime about an erotic game-loving dude that wakes up one morning as a woman. Turns out his mad scientist little sister, super genius Mihati, tried out one of her new experience on him and well, he's now a lady. Let me be completely transparent with all of you. I was actually pretty excited to check this out. Not for the reason you're thinking of, which we'll talk about in a minute, but the visual key, it's so bright and colorful and I love how pinkish it looks that it called out to me, I am a huge fan, I'm a sucker for really bright, colorful things. And when you have stylized character designs like this, you immediately grab my attention. This one is by StudioBind and it's top tier animation, even though it's cartoony and simple to look at at first, once you go into the series, you'll notice the complexity and you'll notice the character movements and the stuff that they're doing is really top tier work. So yeah, I'm a sucker for that and like I said, I watch everything, man and I'll talk to you guys about it. If it's good, if it's bad, it doesn't matter. It all makes for interesting content at the end that I can express myself here on this channel on YouTube. So let's address the other element. You cannot deny the fact that a certain demographic of the fandom is going to be excited for this. And that put me off from watching this because I'm like, I didn't want to associate myself with certain crowds, if you will. But in the name of science and research, I watched the series and I have to say, even though the plot is extremely crazy bonkers and super weird, there are moments in this series that are genuinely heartfelt and wholesome, which is shocking. Obviously, Mihadi is missing that sibling relationship from the recluse brother. And now that she has turned Mahito into a girl, there's a lot more bonding and there are things that she is now experiencing for the first time. And that was pretty fricking wholesome, I have to admit. The voice cast is great. Everybody is exceptionally cute. And the animation, like I just mentioned is top tier in my opinion. I read somewhere on a forum that this is a nice anime, a wholesome one with a questionable exterior. And I have to agree with that. Revenger, another original anime. This one is done by Ajado or Ajado Studios. This is a samurai epic. And boy, oh boy, did this have potential. It doesn't quite stick the landing 100%, but what we get in the end is a very dramatic, poetic samurai series. The story of Revengers follows two specific people. First is Usui Yuan, who is a master assassin and investigating a conspiracy with the opioid trade in Japan. And we also follow the character of Raizo. He is a samurai. And unfortunately, he thinks his father-in-law is responsible for some of this trade that's going on and has to take him out. He soon finds out that's not the case and he's been set up. And the real culprits are targeting Raizo and try to assassinate him. Raizo's beloved is heartbroken over this and sadly takes her own life. As a result, a grief-struck Raizo is wandering aimlessly and is living under a bridge until a fateful day when he meets Usui. Turns out the master assassin has a team called the Revengers that exact revenge on behalf of the deceased or the ones that solicited help and bit gold coins as a sort of payment. The idea and the plot is there for Revenger. It's a solid, slow-burning conspiracy slash samurai tale. The action is intense. The kills on this are so creative and macabre at times. There are a lot of sadistic characters that are shown throughout and it's honestly really badass. However, certain aspects and the pacing and the structure of the story are not necessarily the best. Sometimes they might feel a little bit rushed or too convoluted for its own good. Aside from the main character of Raizo, a lot of the characters in this series have underdeveloped backstories and they're not as fleshed out as they could be. It's not as interesting. I never found myself wanting to know everything about these characters or caring for what was going to happen to them. The art is beautiful. I love it. The animation's solid all throughout. There are moments where, of course, some far-fetched thing happens with ultimate abilities and all that stuff, but you can ignore all of that, especially with one of the series' strongest points and that is its ending. It is a work of art. Really well done, and it comes full circle to everything that you watched throughout the 12 episodes, and it's a solid, unexpected way to end the show. Ultimately, this is a story that has a solid foundation and story element, but the execution and character work isn't necessarily the strongest element of it. Urusei Yatsura, the 2022 remake or reboot, it ended in 2023, the first full season, 23 episodes in total, and I am so excited that it did so well that it's getting another season next year. I am so excited. This was a lot of fun. It captures the essence and spirit of the original manga, definitely captures the essence of Rumi Gotakahashi's art style. You could see it really well on the character designs for this reboot, and it's just fun, man. It really does a good job of reintroducing these characters, presenting all these stories that we read back in the, gosh, the 80s for Urusei Yatsura, and presenting it to a brand new crowd, and I think it didn't lose its charm. Obviously, with the new animation by David Production, it can reach more audiences. This thing looks beautiful, 100% of the time. Maybe some of the harem-type elements aren't going to be to everyone's standards in this day and age, but Ataru is not necessarily the best protagonist, and that's sort of the point. He's heavily flawed, but you can't help but like the relationship that forms between him and Lum. And Lum is fantastic in the series as she's always been. Super crazy and wacky. I love the episodes that deal with her childhood in space with the other girls and all that stuff. Those were probably some of my favorite episodes and all the adventures that she went on. Pokemon aim to be a Pokemon master. This is the epilogue farewell miniseries to Ash's adventures on the main Pokemon anime. This was extremely nostalgic. It made me tear up. It was a nice wholesome send-off to one of the goats of the anime world, if you will. I mean, who didn't grow up watching the Pokemon anime series? This was probably my second ever anime that I ever watched. I remember back in the late 90s when we first got that initial three, the initial big three, if you will, of the anime world, which was, of course, Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon and Sailor Moon. I remember when they were being broadcast on WB and I would watch at least one of those three series during the morning before heading off to school. The rest, I think, would air in the afternoon and my folks would record it on VHS so that when I got back from school at three or 4 p.m., I would have a new episode of Pokemon to watch and I would pop in the VHS and enjoy that. So it's definitely hitting me in the feels and the nostalgia. I actually had to stop recording this for a minute because I got a little bit emotional. This was a really nice send-off to a character that has been in people's lives for 26 years. I saw the inception of this series and now I'm seeing the character of Ash and Pikachu say goodbye to everybody on the screen. A lot of people were upset, however, that it wasn't as big as it could have been or whatever, but I think most fans seem to have forgotten that this is an epilogue to the main series. We had the finale, if you will, with Ash finally winning one of the championships and this is sort of a extra epilogue fawn farewell before it's all over and I think it succeeded at doing that. It brought back all of his Pokemon and we saw the return of other beloved characters and it was just a really nice, simple series. It didn't need to do anything.  I think he's proven himself and didn't need a full 12-episode story arc or whatever.  Before going off into the next chapter, obviously the next series with new protagonist in the Paldaea region. So yeah, I am a huge lifelong Pokemon fan. This is my favorite gaming franchise. So I was super ecstatic about this, loved it, and I do recommend it if you're a fan of Pokemon and want to catch up or maybe say goodbye to these wonderful characters. This is a nice way to do that as you get ready for the new series in the Pokemon franchise. Farming life in another world. In this isekai, we follow the character of Hidaku Machio. He is dying in our world and a god-like figure has blessed him and gives him a chance to live again in another world. He arrives on this new parallel world earth with one wish and that is to be healthy so he can live a peaceful life and he lands on this forest with only a god-like tool in his hands, like a super-powered farming tool. So he decides to spend his days farming and planting crops and making a house and interacting with the creatures in that forest and all that stuff. Eventually, characters find out about him and they find out that he's not only a really sweet, wholesome guy, he's also pretty overpowered with that farming tool of his and that sort of just spins into creating a village, but the main character becoming the mayor of the village and of course the other characters wanting to be a part of it. This was another fantastic, wholesome isekai series. The only fan-servicing bit, I would say, is the fact that the rest of the villagers, like 97% are female and they all have pretty voluptuous character designs. Let's just say that. Like the story doesn't go into weird sexual subplots or anything, it's literally them having a fun time farming and creating an inclusive, wholesome town filled with all types of creatures and farming and foods and all that stuff. So if you want a relaxing, cool little series with cozy vibes, great artwork, fun characters, I do recommend farming life in another world. It's like watching an animal crossing anime, but for adults, if that makes sense. Sugar Apple Fairy Tale is an anime that I didn't think I was going to love as much as I did and it follows the character of Anne Halford. She recently had a tragedy in her life as her mother passed away and she was a sugar baker. If I'm using the proper term here, these bakers use this silver sugar confection to create these works of art and it's in a world where fairies are real and they're bought, unfortunately, and sold as slaves to the highest bidders. We also meet the character of Shao, who is this warrior fairy that has lived for a very long time and due to plot hijinks, the two characters end up being together in this series and traveling and is now his new master and he is, of course, escorting her through dangerous areas in the kingdom and wants to cook to honor her late mother as a send-off for her to move on to the next life. In a nutshell, that's the basis of it, but it keeps going in very splendid ways. I really enjoyed Anne Halford as a character. She never gave up. She's a feisty competitor and wants to honor her mother and wants to be the top sugar master, if you will. Shao, he starts out a little bit douchey and kind of a prick, but you come to like him as well and the relationship that forms between the two is very wholesome and sweet. I really enjoyed that. There are a lot of adversities, obviously, in this world, similar to our own, there's a lot of discrimination. A lot of people aren't fans of Anne. That she is a woman trying to compete in this sugar confection business, if you will, for the kingdom. So they will try to sabotage her work so she has to deal with that. There's also the complex relationship between the fairies and the humans and how some of them don't get along, but yet you have this character, Anne, that she was kind of forced to have Shao under her wing, if you will, and doesn't really want that. She wants a friendship to form between the two and not a master and slave relationship. The art is by JC Staff and I think this is one of their best works, honestly. I looked for and read a couple of chapters of the original manga adaptation and I have to admit it wasn't exactly to my liking and I don't know if it's blasphemy or not, but I kind of prefer the art in the anime a little bit more. So I think it's a solid series for you to check out if you're interested. Buddy, Daddy's from Progressive Animation Works, one of my favorite animation studios. This is an original piece, so very quickly the story of Buddy, Daddy's takes place in a world where assassins, Kazuki and Rei, are tasked with taking out a particular bad guy. It just so happens that he is the father of a young girl named Meaty who is looking for her and on a Christmas day, everything sort of just collides together and unfortunately the two buddies end up taking this guy out because that was their assignment. Meaty doesn't know any better and assumes that Kazuki and Rei are her parents. So what follows is a really hard warming comedy slash action series about this dysfunctional family that is now being formed. And I just loved every single minute of this. I think this is one of Progressive Animation's best works. It's solid all throughout. It has realistic or somewhat realistic characters and a somewhat realistic plot. It doesn't go too over the top. I mean, yeah, there's some high-flying moves here and there when it comes to the fighting and shooting, but that's such a minimum factor in what makes this a stellar show. I found all the main characters to be extremely likeable, Kazuki, Rei, Meaty, and even the secondary characters. The animation is beautiful all throughout and it really does have a sense of realism of parents raising kids. And in this case, the dynamic, even though it's dysfunctional, is pretty wholesome and beautiful to see these two characters now have a new outlook on life and maybe they don't wanna do what they've been doing in the past and wanna change. Meaty, the young kid, is obviously the one that is forcing that to happen. And speaking of that girl, the actress, Hina Kino, who voiced Meaty, did a phenomenal job. It was, I think, one of the most realistic depictions of a toddler in animation. From her dialogue to her expressions, the way she's drawn and her body movements and all that, it easily could be something that would happen in real life. I mean, if you take out the whole assassin thing or whatever, you could see this as a live-action film and it works wonderfully. I really recommend this. It's awesome and I fear that this is going to, even though it got pretty popular, I would say, I fear that it's going to go under a lot of people's radar in favor of that other spy manga slash anime, but really do give this a shot. Even though we know where some of the elements are gonna go, it's so much fun going through that story and the relationship between the two fathers and this young girl is the heart and soul of Buddy Daddies. And I recommended purely on that. Giant Beast of Ours is another original anime. This one is done by Asahi Productions.  The world of this series is plagued with giant monsters. They have a history with humanity. They're upset with humans and are trying to eradicate them. Humans are obviously fighting back and now in present time for this series, we follow two specific characters. We have Jito who is a man that retired from being a warrior slash soldier, if you will, and Kumi, this young girl who has a mysterious past that is tied with the kingdom. As she has recently escaped and is on the run, she doesn't really know about the world and when she collides with Jito and other characters, they form a party together and we spend a majority of the time with these heroes and unfortunately ignore the rest of the world. This is the type of show that was oozing personality and you wanted to have this epic world-building on a grand scale of politics and monsters and ancient artifacts, but it falls back into the dynamic of the main characters escaping. They're on the run, so we spend most of the time with them. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but when the main plot comes back up, it crashes with the main party and suddenly everything's a little bit rushed and the resolution, not necessarily to my liking. Welcome to Demon School Irumakun Season 3. It finally ended. I talked about it on the previous seasonal review and I was satisfied with the later half of this season. I thought it was really good. The only thing I didn't like about Season 3 is the fact that the Harvest Festival Arc runs for so long and I get it, you want to highlight the adventures of the individual classmates, but it sort of stretches itself out a little bit too thin, in my opinion and I kind of wanted them to reel it back in to following Irumakun most of the time. But I get it, it's just a minor nitpick on my end. It was nice to have different stories for the other characters and their trial in the middle of the festival arc. That was a lot of fun. The ending, however, sets up a really nice fourth season so I'm looking forward to that. Some big reveals finally happen towards the end that I'm excited to check out. But overall, just another solid season. Every season I think has been better than the previous one so I'm eagerly anticipating more from Welcome to Demon School Irumakun. The Fire Hunter is another anime original. This one is done by SignalMD and I do think this is easily one of the most underrated shows so far in the year. I really enjoyed it. It brought me back to an era that I thought was gone the early 2000s when we had shows like Witch Hunter Robin, Ergo Proxy, that type of dark, gritty, mature type storytelling. I think Fire Hunter excels at setting up a fantastic world and this one society is very different. It's in the distant future and after a calamity occurred, human physiology has changed and people will instantly combust in the presence of fire. As a result, civilization has collapsed until they discover an alternative fuel source derived from the blood of demonic fire fiends. There are now fire hunters whose sole purpose is hunting down these fiends and harvesting their blood, fueling a new industrial revolution. And you also have the main character, Toko, a young girl who lives in a remote village.  Unfortunately, he dies in the process and she feels obligated to deliver his weaponry and his companion dog to his family, which is out in the city. She meets a lot of characters. They all come from different walks of life and as you experience things from Toko's perspective, your worldview opens up on this place. It does get just a tiny bit confusing with so many names and terminologies thrown at you for the first time, but I think it's a worthwhile watch, man. I really enjoyed this. I love how rugged the art style is. They had some issues with it, but they make the most of it by being creative and doing panel displays for scene transitions. Sometimes they'll show different frames to highlight certain things that are gonna happen. Like it's a comic book, for example. Really creative use of presenting your story. This is based off of a light novel, if memory serves me right. This already got announced for a second season and I'm eagerly anticipating that to see where the story is headed. If you want something original, a little bit grimy, dark, and mysterious, but also fun and action packed at times, go check out The Fire Hunter. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Just keep an open mind about the animation. Finally, we have the return of Trigon. A lot of people were excited when it got announced. A lot of people were skeptical when we learned it was Orange Studio that was handling the adaptation. There's gonna be CG people don't like that stuff, but Orange has proven themselves, I think, by creating a more dynamic anime-looking CG. I mean, you can do CG characters and they'll behave accordingly, but they sometimes miss that element from the 2D side of things that makes the medium of anime so endearing for a lot of people. But with Orange Studios, they're known for things like Beastars, which I think is highly expressive, really fluid in its animation, and that served great training for them for Trigon's Stampede. Certain scenes in this new anime look great, in my opinion. A lot of people are iffy about it. You'll find certain areas of the fandom split right in the middle. Some hate it, others love it, others just, they're just okay with it. I happen to like a good majority of this show, and it's sort of a reimagining, if you will. It takes stuff from the manga. It takes stuff that we've seen before from the anime. It mixes it up and it creates its own timeline sequence of events and narratives. Do not consider this a prequel, sequel, or anything else. This is a separate adaptation of Trigon and Trigon Maximum. Some people were upset about the cast of characters. Some are missing, others are included way early. Again, it's its own thing, and I dug it. I think it's a really neat reinterpretation of the character and I like the CG art style. I like the color palette that they used. It's very bright and colorful and really highlights the harshness of that desert planet. And of course, the action scenes were pretty phenomenal in my opinion.  The first one was a lot of fun. I was pleasantly surprised. It's more of the teasing genre, if that's even a thing. You have the girl teasing the guy and it's a rom-com with ecchi jokes and pervy humor and all that. This second season has more of that. Thankfully, there are certain episodes where the progression of this main couple of Nagatodo and Naoto moves forward a little bit, even if it's just a tiny bit. And that's usually something I don't like about these type of shows where, yeah, you get a lot of humor and funny episodes and sequences or whatever, but the story beats are so slow and it's usually until the end of the season where something significant happens that pushes the plot forward. I think in this second season, we get a couple moments like that sprinkled throughout and obviously towards the end, we get developments for both characters, which I dug. There's an introduction of new characters as well, which I found really funny and enjoyed that. And overall, it's more of the same. If you enjoyed season one, I think you're gonna like season two even more. Blue Lock also finished airing all 24 episodes. This is such a melodramatic series. The fact that they are making this Battle Royale scenario with no deaths, by the way, which bummed me out. I thought this was gonna be Squid Games, but with soccer and they're trying to get the best players to make Japan a powerhouse in the soccer world. It's crazy, it's wild, but I enjoyed how cringy and dramatic at times this series is. How they're all just talking about chemical reactions and egos and they are doing impossible feats and talking full conversations in a split second. Well, they're trying to get the ball from one point to the end. I just thought it was insane, but in the best of ways. I enjoy Isagi's journey throughout this competition. I think we're, what, two stages in or something and we get that cool reveal at the end that they're going to take on a certain team and all that to prove to the investors that the idea of Blue Lock is solid, it's all insanity. But if you like sports, if you like soccer and if you like that whole drama of sports anime I think you'll be right at home with Blue Lock. The Angel Next Door spoils me rotten. This is based off a light novel and manga of the same name and it tells the story of two young high schoolers. One is Mahirushina and the other is Amane Fujimia. Amane lives alone in an apartment and the most beautiful girl in school lives next door. They've never really spoken until the day that he sees her in distress on a rainy day and helps her out. To return the favor, she offers help around the house and slowly but surely a relationship starts to blossom. This is a rom-com slash cute girls doing cute things and for the most part, I thought it was pretty cute. I like that compared to something like the Nagatouro series at least with this one, there is progress throughout each episode and it all leads to an emotionally packed finale. The relationship is cute. The interactions between the two characters is nice. It was cool to see both coming out of their respective shells and coming together. Although I gotta say, it's weird to have two kids living in apartment buildings alone and now she's coming over to his apartment. Nobody's raising any flags about this. I thought that was just odd. I do think the art was the series weakest point to the point where I thought it brought the whole thing down. I was not a fan. I liked the character designs but once you start watching the show, it's really low budget and it shouldn't be because this isn't a complicated thing to adapt. It's not like Blue Lock that I just talked about where you're doing soccer moves left and right. This is just characters sitting in a table, eating and talking or in a sofa or at school. It's very limited in scope so I don't know why the cheap animation was plaguing the whole adaptation. Saving 80,000 gold in another world for my retirement. This is also an Isekai manga. This was adapted by Felix Film and I really enjoy the premise of this but it's really bogged down by the average animation. I was really disappointed by that. We follow Mitsuha. She's a smart 18 year old girl. My God, she has the worst luck imaginable. I feel so bad for her. Her parents died as well as her brother. Now she's all alone grieving and doesn't know what to do when she fails her university entrance exams due to what's happened and also has people coming for her insurance money. However, one day she discovers that she has the ability and they do explain it later a little bit on the whole nature of it but she gains the ability of world jumping which is essentially traveling to another world and then coming back to our world and she goes into this medieval looking place with kingdoms and castles and all that stuff and she has sort of an epiphany that she wants to live there but is going to do trading, buying and selling and stuff from our world over there and vice versa and raise enough money, 80,000 gold to successfully retire in that other world and live comfortably for the rest of her life. That's really fun and the animation did not match my excitement for it. I love the art style for Mitsuha and her character design. It's simple yet cute and effective. And the fact that the beckoning cat is all over the motifs of this series is awesome. I'm a huge fan of beckoning cats and I think where the series excels is when she's able to finally start selling things to the royals and the people of the kingdom and they're all marveled by our foods technology and small trinkets. That part I think was really fun and I wish we could have gotten more of that. Obviously the plot goes in different areas but it's still fun. Chilling in my 30s after getting fired from the demon king's army. I wasn't going to check this out initially. However, when I skipped the near anime I picked something else to fill the void and that was farming life in another world and this one, chilling in my 30s. I thought it was pretty fun. You have Darryl, he is a member of the demon realm but he doesn't know, he finds out early on that he's a human and he's lost his job at the demon king's army for his lack of magic. On his exile he finds a human village and lives there and befriends the people there and a lot of normal mundane things happen to him but it's also relaxing to see. Eventually trouble comes brewing from the demon realm. He has to protect the town and all that stuff and it was just a nice wholesome little series. It's nothing too grandiose but it's just chill enough where you can just watch it on a Saturday night and just relax and have fun with it. The animation's nothing to write home about and it has a nice cast of characters and a pretty cozy wholesome story. Tokyo Revenger season two finally happened. I loved season one and became a huge fan of the franchise. I started getting the manga as a result and now here we are with season two adapting the Christmas arc where Takamichi is back and he's trying to prevent all the crazy stuff in the future and he's trying to save the life of Hagai Shiba and in the process Yuzuhara as well trying to stop the Black Dragons and their leader the formidable Taiju Shiba.  So if you like season one of Tokyo Revengers it's honestly more of the same. There's time travel hijinks and the whole thing with Takamichi trying to right his wrongs to reshape the future if you will or the timeline. The art is just as good as season one so if you're not a fan you're probably not gonna like season two but I still recommend it it's awesome and at 13 episodes it's nice and concise. I'm excited to see where the story is headed after this season. Digimon Ghost Game I think I only talked about this once. It's kind of sad to me that it ended.  It's been with you for a long time you know what I mean? Like that happened previously with Dragon Quest Adventures of Dali. I still have to make a video about that because that one really meant a whole lot to me and with this I sort of felt the same in a way and to see it end just like that with 67 episodes is pretty wild but we finally got the conclusion. Unfortunately Ghost Game I like the characters a whole lot and there are certain episodes that are genuinely well done and creepy. This Digimon series leans more into horror and folklore, urban legends, even yokai. Other episodes are just okay. Very formulaic and monster of the week. You have a long running story that doesn't really play out until the very end. A good chunk of these 67 episodes are just random scary spooky stories and that's it. The ending is a little bit rushed but you get what happened. It just, it happened too fast. It's a satisfying conclusion and there could be more in the future I hope there is but if it's not, I'm okay with it. It was a really unique take on this franchise. To your eternity, season two adapting the best arc of the manga. I was really excited but skeptical. They changed studios. At first it was Brain Space, now is Drive Studios and they tried imitating the art style for season one. They mostly got it but it's, I don't know, it felt very soulless at times and certain areas were a slog to get through which is a shame because I really, really enjoy the manga. It's one of my favorite ongoing titles right now. I thought it was just a subpar animation or subpar adaptation, I should say. The end result is great because the story, the original story is fantastic so I can't fault it for that. It's just on a visual level. I was not clicking with this. I'm looking forward to season three. It's gonna adapt the modern arc and already got announced. So yeah, more to your eternity. Handyman's Saito in another world easily. Another of the best shows of 2023 so far. I loved it. It was so freaking good. I know the manga is still coming out and I hope at some point we get more from this world because it was such a delight. I had no idea going in that I was gonna love it so much. The story is essentially a handyman from our world gets isekai'd into another fantasy world and he's part of a group that consists of Rilesa, a really badass warrior, LaFanpan, a really sassy fairy and the kooky old man Morlock wizard. He's awesome and slightly perverted and that's part of the humor and charm of the series. And once that starts, what we get is like vignettes or short stories within each episodes of many things that happened to them. And when I made my first impressions take on it, I remember saying, oh, I think that's probably one of the things I don't like about the show where I don't think it's going to provide a long narrative for me to care about things because it's all like short bursts of comedic scenarios and all that stuff. I'm happy to report that I was dead wrong because there are some emotional scenes that happen in this, some story arcs that happen across three or four episodes that are genuinely heartbreaking, really well done. The emotional pay-off is there. The relationship that forms between this party is so nice. I enjoyed that so much. The world is explored in a really fun way by having short stories with other side characters, but they're all integral to the plot and eventually all the stories sort of intertwine and they give us a really nice resolution. A lot of heavy subject matter is explored throughout as well. I can't recommend this enough. This is a must watch for me to you watching this video. Go check out Handyman Saito in another world. Inspector season two.  Apparently it did really well and I'm super excited because this is one of my favorites. I love the manga. This is essentially a detective crime show but with supernatural aspects. Kotoko Iwanaga, she is sort of the princess deity for the yokai and is taking care of them and solving all these crimes. And in this second season, what I loved is that they adapted a bunch of arcs from the manga. Whereas the first one mostly focused on one singular story, the big one with Nanase, which was fine, but I think for the style and the quick-witted nature of it and the heavy dialogue worked against it in my opinion. Whereas with this second season, it really shines and gives you the ideal flavor for what the series is and can be. If I had to recommend this series to someone, I would recommend season two before season one. You get the introduction to all the different yokai and all these wild cases that appear, typically involving murder. The fact that we got the Bakoneko and the Yuki-Ona and stuff like that was really cool to see, giving you different flavors for the story. Ipon, again, this is based off the manga of the same name. It's a sports judo anime. It also has elements of slice of life and comedy elements. It follows the story of Michi Sonoda. She has decided to quit the judo sports team at her school because of her last tournament, which she suffered an embarrassing defeat. And with entrance exams and part of growing up and all that stuff, she decides that she's a little bit burned out by it and wants to move on and do other things in life. But it's not until her friends get reinvigorated in the sport that she finds new passions again for the sport of judo and wants to re-establish the club with more members and you get that whole arc of building it and training again and participating in new tournaments with different schools and all that stuff. It's a really simple story, but highly effective. I really enjoy the art on this. The character designs are pretty unique and well crafted and designed. It's a very realistic take on high school girls. If I am being honest. And the fact that it touches on things like burnouts, I could relate to that because many a times I've thought about just quitting everything online and not doing anything, but I keep at it because it's something that I'm very passionate about. It's my main hobby. I like creating content. So in that regard, even though we're totally different, we're not doing any sports. I felt a little connection with Ipon again. It's a nice, fast paced sports series. It's not heavy on the melodrama whatsoever. Great characters throughout. Highly recommended if you're in for something different when it comes to sports in anime and manga. Phew, there we go. Ladies and gentlemen, the winter 2023 seasonal review. It's in the can. Now we're moving on to spring and a whole bunch of other shows. I don't know if I'm gonna top myself and watch even more anime, but I'm gonna try my hardest and bring you my thoughts on this. And if you're missing the first impressions, those typically don't do as well on the channel, so I decided to incorporate that to my monthly discussion live streams that I do. I call them the monthly hangout and you can also find me on Twitter, just type Geo or a week in Geekdom. You can find me there and I usually share my thoughts on all the anime that I'm watching. So that's it. Thank you everybody for tuning in to this video. It really does mean a lot. It's a long one and I don't know if the algorithm will be pleased because of that, but I tried my hardest to keep it concise as to what I thought on these shows. If you want me to maybe review a specific series, let me know in the comment section down below. And if you watched any of these shows and liked them, let me know as well. That's it. Thank you everybody. God bless, stay safe out there. I will catch all of you on our next video.


This is covering the spread part of the Fandall podcast network Interesting week in the NFL where a lot of the hot starts in 2023 are being put to the test in week number six The Buccaneers taking on the Lions. We have got the Colts without their top quarterback facing the Jags So it's put up or shut up week in the NFL We're to break down those games with Dr. Ed Feng getting his read on them based on what his model is saying to get you ready For week number six. This is covering the spread right here on the Fandall podcast network and Fandall research My name is Jim Sonnis I am a managing editor of digital media for Fandall research joined here as mentioned by Dr. Ed Feng You can find his work at the power bank comm and check him out on Twitter at the power bank ed Week number six looking pretty interesting because there's a lot of weather impacting this slate some weird mismatches and match ups How you doing today? I'm doing great. Looking forward to another NFL NFL weekend I think there are a lot of interesting games and we'll continue to see if you know teams like Jacksonville can Continue to win and succeed. I also think it's interesting that like it We're into week six and the Lions are involved in a game where we're saying is this team legit But we're not asking that question about the Lions. We're asking about that opponent and like exactly especially for you And in Michigan that's got to be a weird shift to have them be like the more Guaranteed asset right now it certainly is a weird shift everyone around here is Already kind of anticipating the downfall of this team. It may happen. It may not. I Yeah, we'll get to it. I mean I think Yeah, everyone's anticipating the worst But then you know you kind of forget the you know the last two out of three years They made the playoffs under Caldwell, right? So it's the NFL, right? There's regression to the mean and Right now, I think they're both of me I think they're doing really well they got pfs number one great a quarterback right now So what could possibly go wrong? My boy Jared goff finally Getting the hype that he deserves we're gonna break down that game later on and break down other key games Across week six here in just one second a first-day reminder to make sure you're subscribed to covering the spread Wherever you get your podcast right now on this feed You can find a breakdown of Thursday night football between the cheese and the Broncos via Tom Vecchio That is up in the covering the spread podcast feed talking player props for Thursday night scheme that is also up on fan dual TV plus Tom is also in breakdowns of Sunday night football Those who up on Saturday morning here the podcast feed so go search for a covering the spread wherever you get your podcast Anything like what you hear leave us a five-star rating on Apple podcast or on Spotify Snap into action this NFL season with fan dual America's number one sportsbook right now new customers Get two hundred dollars in bonus bets guaranteed when he plays a five dollar bet That's two hundred dollars in bonus beds win or lose if you've been thinking about joining a fan dual There is no better time to get in on the action. 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We'll dig into the big games across week number six here in just one second the first ed The Vikings week put Justin Jefferson on IR and he's not a quarterback But obviously he's a player who's going to impact the the spread in the betting market So I wanted to ask you how do you go about making adjustments for teams missing impactful players who are not quarterbacks in the given week? Yeah, I mean it's hard for me. I mean I still Do this somewhat subjectively like I don't actually have a number for Justin Jefferson If you told me he was worth two points. I wouldn't disagree with you I think it's also match-up based Chicago secondary is in tatters right now and And um, you know that that's not are you you know this There's there's just got a lot of guys hurt, right? So if any game is gonna match, you know, if any game Minnesota wouldn't get deducted maybe forever not having Justin Jefferson. It might be this game I actually have this right on the market. I have Minnesota by 2.9 and um You know could it could should there be an adjustment? I'm not yes. I think there should be some adjustments. I'm not sure based on this particular matchup whether it changes um What I have in terms of the number Justin Jefferson is clearly important 2.87 yours for outrun. That's pretty amazing Pretty amazing mark. I mean there's no real replacing him. So it could be one of these things where like, you know, the market has it on, you know Maybe maybe you're okay betting Minnesota this week because of match against Chicago secondary And then you're fading them massively the next week Because it is a completely different ballgame I've been 3.9 right now in favor of the vikings. Um, so Not enough of a value where I'd want to take it personally Especially because there's a lot of ambiguity there with regards to like what it would look like in their first week post Jefferson Ben Fox of um, I think he's that he wrote this before the win I used to work for visa and used to work for uh, espn. He wrote a piece. He asked bookmakers To rank the 25 most valuable NFL players who are not quarterbacks as far as they're valued at the spread and they kind of gave him numbers So he pulled bookmakers what they do and I feel like that's kind of a good baseline like if you don't have your own numbers as far as like, um Deducting for certain players you can kind of look at that as like kind of a guideline of like, okay Maybe the player you're thinking about wasn't discussed in that piece But like you can say like, okay impactful wide receiver How much do they matter for their team for jefferson is 1.67 points according to that piece? So I think you can lean on like all right. Yeah, I think you can lean on that kind of stuff and Use that as your guide because he's asking the people who would know if anyone's gonna know it's bookmakers So like I think leaning on that kind of data is helpful in these situations So he they had jefferson at 1.67. I think that makes a lot of sense. I can't push back on that personally. I think that kind of just Using that as a guideline saying okay, how much should I deduct based on this can be a short cut to this kind of question Yeah, not completely agree Okay, let's talk about some gains here for week number six starting off with the colts and the jaguars So the colts have actually been pretty good so far this year But they're facing the jags jags are 4 and a half point favorites total in this game Down to 44 and a half This is one of the games that is impacted by wind at least a bit of around 10 miles per hour for this game And you pinpointed the jags as the team the market was too low on entering last week And they went out and beat a very good bills team So is the market now properly valuing the jaguars in putting this spread at four and a half? No Jackson was a three and a half point favorite at indianapolis the opening week of the season So I mean, I personally don't understand like this this might be a decent number of trevor laurence's hurt But you know personally it kind of makes no sense to me at all I mean there there are definitely a lot of factors going on. I think I talked a lot about jackson bull last year We're looking at a team with a top 10 pass all fence league average defense that that's good, especially in that division indy is a team that was probably underrated in the bottom five at the beginning of the season You know from what a lot of what I've seen Mark's markets were making too much of a difference between anthony richson and gardener menshew. I think that's about right Richardson obviously has higher upside and and I think I saw he's on ir now, right? So he's he's on the shelf for A while which is kind of what you expect when he crumples on the ground and starts pointing at his throwing shoulder, right? Right, so I don't know. I mean, I I don't think I I think we have to respect indianapolis I think we the market had them underrated a little bit But this this simply this number simply does not make sense to me My my numbers see a lot of value in in betting on the jags here at home I mean, maybe it's a travel thing they're coming back From london after being there two weeks, but it's the easy way to travel Right and you're going home so I don't know. Maybe there's something i'm missing. I like the jags a lot here Yeah, I just I don't disagree with you at all. I think that like Um I agree at the market that there's not a huge difference between minchew and Richardson they get there different routes to get there like Obviously the the rushing efficiency for the the colts goes down But the passing efficiency might be better not because Richardson is not like a good quarterback But because like he's a rookie whereas minchew is a guy who's been in the league for a very long time Um, I think that those things do benefit The short term projected passing efficiency and that matters more for my model than rushing efficiency does So like it's kind of a wash at the end of the day minchew over short spurts can be a very capable backup. So I agree making it kind of baseline but like baseline Based on the way the jags have played at times this year probably shouldn't be four and a half Um, so I think that I agree with you here where the jags If they're going to make them three and a half point favorites And I believe they covered in that game in week one as well. I'm trying to think back It was tight It was one by 10. I think at the end, but it was tight throughout I think they scored a touchdown late to Right Make it 10 And like the colts are three and two But like one of those wins against the the ravens where the ravens had all these like weird fluky mistakes in that game Which is a very ravens thing to do That was an insane game and that was the ze flowers pass interference and overtime that didn't get called. Yep Like yeah records are still fluky I know it's not as fluky as we see in college football because the discrepancy of strength of schedule is not as big but to me I do still feel like we're seeing the impact of that in Making the spread only before now. I think it should be a little bit a little bit juicer Yeah, I agree. I think there's a lot of value on on jacksonville and you know like Came on the show last week talked about the future, but for whatever reason the market I mean, I think there's more edge here than there was on the future last week, honestly Yeah, and now with Richardson being out and the the texan's dropping a game the coldstrap or the titan's dropping a game That jack's future looks even better the one that you pinpointed last week to win the asc south Let's talk now about those lions because they are on the road taking on the tampa bay buccaneers total of this game Is 42 and a half the lions are three point favorites down in tampa bay and the lion's success is not a huge shock At least to me, but the bucks is They may not have mike evans as we can attest that as hamstring on friday But can the buccaneers give the lions a run for their money in this game? Uh, I mean, maybe they're at home. It's the nfl spreads only three. I'm not convinced about this tampa bay team. I mean they certainly, um I guess i'm not just convinced about baker. I I don't speak as a quarterback that is Legitimately going to lead a team into the playoffs The three and one probably should not have beaten minnesota week one And I I would I would probably put them more in fraud territory And a lot of that is is on baker. He's been fine, but uh, he was uh He was a quarterback that I I just love like like betting him to throw a pick That was fun and then the market adjusted and so that went away very quickly unfortunately, but I don't know. I just I I'm not yeah, I would lean towards fraud with with tampa bay In contrast, you know with detroit, uh I'm eating some crow on Doubting their past offense coming into the season. I did not understand the hype over a offensive coordinator ben johnson I thought it was very likely that the second half of last season was a little bit of noise And so far i'm wrong The past offense has been great their fifth and my adjusted passing to cester eight Uh, and they they look pretty good and uh on defense, uh, my defensive numbers have them at 21st so far And you know, I was actually more high on this side of the ball because they actually made some free agent signings to To bolster secondary that's been near the bottom of the league for the last two years The 21st and my adjusted passing success rate. That's not good But it's good compared to where this unit's been over the last couple years Yeah, I think I think the detroit's pretty legit, you know, I have this at I basically have this detroit by three So not showing a ton of value here. Obviously when you're only three point dog, uh, you can certainly win at home when you're at home but I I I don't necessarily like it. I I don't like this stamp. I'm not convinced of this Tampa Bay team Yeah, I have a 2.9 So right in there a right in that range with the lions favorite in this game So no action from me going back to Tampa Bay I think that if you were looking for a reason to say Tampa Bay has been a fluke You could point to their early down efficiency because in early downs, they've been honestly below average, especially once you Adjust for opponents and but they've been like feasting on late downs Like Baker may feel on third down has been unconscious this year And do you expect that to persist personally? Probably not like I love Baker, uh, but like I don't expect him based on the track record He has given us to be a guy Who torches the league on third down just kind of the way it is, you know, he's never been great under pressure and stuff like that so I think that's the first thing you turn to if you want to say Tampa Bay is due for regression it's based on that third down stuff and that's something I believe in that's why I have this Spreadsheet that I have is like looking at their early down efficiency versus late down success rate like That to me says a lot of their offensive success May not be sustainable unless you think they are suddenly the best third down team in all football Yeah, they're they're probably not I would guess not at least Let's finish up here by talking about Monday night football We got the Dallas Cowboys taking on the los angeles chargers and right now the cowboys Two and a half point favorites at fangirls sportsbook total in this game is 50 and a half and Obviously this is a spot where the crowd will favor Dallas Despite the fact it's in Los Angeles because the chargers can't attract fans and the cowboys travel well But the chargers coming off a buy and should get us a necklace back this week no no travel for them either So how do you see this game playing out? Right. I mean this this Spread also really confuses me. I think when I look at the chargers whether I'm looking at my preseason prior whether I'm looking at Data from the current year They all have the chargers ahead of the Cowboys Cowboys have been really up and down they have some, you know, huge wins and then completely You know got destroyed by san francisco Which I think is an interesting combination of signal and noise I do think there is some signal in there, but I I certainly don't think that the Niners are that good I just don't think they're that good I think they're good and probably should be the Super Bowl favorites at this point, but they're they're not that good right and You know the chargers are coming off a week's rest So you got a little bit of an edge there They are at home and even if they don't have any fans at least they're not traveling Like dallas is so you're not you're not going to in any way convince me that dallas has some edge Just because a couple more fans might be there at sofi so, yeah, you know, I mean um What else? So michael Williams is hurt But I feel like that has to go into your preseason prior for the los angeles chargers because he's always hurt Right. Like I feel like that's baked into the numbers already um, so Yeah, I don't know. I feel like this is this is off I feel like it's very strange that dallas is this this much of a favorite on the road after getting destroyed last week It doesn't really make sense to me. Uh, like the chargers here I actually have the chargers favored by 2.3 points. So like I am What I have Right Exactly. Uh, let's see. What is what is my number actually said? I think it's it might be two point it is Yeah, 2.8 so it doesn't I don't care about the crowd that much honestly like Look the crowd matters and if i'm over estimating what The home field for the chargers is like i'm willing to accept that But you can't say that you're going to give dallas two points No, like traveling to los angeles, right? And they were I believe the game was at san francisco last week, right? Yeah, so it's like their second week. I don't know if they stayed in california, but Uh, I mean you can't give dallas an edge there Right, and then you add in the buy for the chargers too and like that matters as well So like it's a combination of I think these teams are pretty similar in terms of like power rating I think they're very similar you give the chargers a buy week and you give them zero travel I think that adds up to like the chargers should be favored in this game You know, maybe I am over estimating that at 2.3, but like I think making them the favorites is the right way to go regardless of what number you want to make that Right, I did some work with uh Uh buy, uh, sorry what you should add for a team that's coming off of a buy Yeah, and if I remember right like in college it would actually mattered. It was like a point Yeah, and I think it was less than the nfl. I want to think I want to say it's like a half point I think it's less than six. Yeah, well that that's probably um It's probably a good number. I think that's what I think that's roughly what I have as well So it's not as big as as people might think but I do think it matters a little bit and just another reason why This is this is a weird number for me in the market. Yeah, I experimented this off season like with uh looking at overall like net days of rest looking at um Like if a team is plays on a Thursday, then is facing a team that that played the previous sunday like I couldn't get any edge uh based on doing that but for a bi-week I got to point six so That's the number I used um and like that's enough in a game where there are two and a half point dogs Like that means without the buy it'd be Dallas buy like three and like that just seems really really hefty so I can't get to this number in any way Right, maybe maybe it's the effect of Mike Carthy Mike McCarthy not letting his coaching staff go home to their families after The devastating loss, right? It's a kellinmore revenge game Or is it a Mike McCarthy revenge game against kellinmore? Who can say uh, but like, you know I feel like that's got to be worth half point two, right kellinmore against his old team. Come on. It's right All right, he's gonna throw right at where trade on digs would be right, you know That's right. That's right And he's gonna throw it every play just to show Mike McCarthy that it can in fact work to be A pass heavy team in 2023 That's all we got here for it today on the nfl version of covering the spread But ed I'm glad that we are aligned on that chargers one because I'm always concerned when I'm super far off And that's the one I'm by far most often mark it on for this week So reassuring to me that we're on the same page with that one people want to find your numbers or find any Anything else you're working on where can they find that? I'm everywhere jim Had a great episode of the football analytic show podcast yesterday had rapazola on and we ended up talking for about 15 20 minutes just on process and It's always interesting for me to hear what he's doing different every year And he's dealing with different data sets and he talked a lot about it, which I thought was pretty cool we also actually had a pretty extended conversation about nfl props and what to bet and You know kind of what the future is so my podcast is the football analytic show If you're looking for something else to listen to just check that out It is up right now And then um, yeah, check out my newsletter at the power rank com every saturday I come out with five no good saturday, which is my curated list of the sports betting tips and And analytics and humor so check that out at the power rank dot com I'd already finished on my weekly podcast this week So now I have something to listen to a walking the dog later on By going to the football analytic show love listen to the rapazola So i'm looking forward to that for sure find ed on twitter at the power rank I am on twitter at gymsonus. Don't forget prime time tom for thursday night football is up And he'll be up for a sunday night as well on the feed on saturday morning tomorrow We're talking to jj. Zacharyson the player props week six and also rob freedman to preview the alcs between the rangers and the astros Maybe the nlcs too depending on what happens tonight between the fillies and the braze That'll be up in your podcast tomorrow and on fendal tv plus and the fendal youtube page We'll talk to all of you then enjoy thursday night football. We'll talk to you all again tomorrow This has been covering the spread right here on the fan duel podcast network


The biggest problem with the Western Left is that it doesn't exist. The biggest problem with the Western Left is that it doesn't exist. To look at leftist discourse, you'd think the left's biggest problem is that some leftists have the wrong beliefs about this or that issue, or that the left pays too much or not enough attention to identity politics, or places too much or not enough emphasis on electoral politics, or is too sympathetic toward enemies of the U.S. Empire or not sympathetic enough, or that this or that faction gets it all wrong. But it's not. The biggest problem is that there aren't anywhere remotely close to enough leftists to get anything done in the West today. And by leftists I of course don't mean Democrats or progressives, or anyone who just wants a few adjustments to be made to the capitalist empire so that they can afford medicine or a college degree or whatever. I mean real socialists, communists and anarchists who oppose capitalism and imperialism and seek the drastic revolutionary changes this civilization urgently needs. Those who understand that the system is not broken and in need of repair, but is working exactly as intended and in need of complete dismantling. This latter category has barely any meaningful existence in the Western world. The Western Left in modern times is either controlled opposition or what amounts to a glorified online message board. That's not our fault. The empire has poured vast amounts of wealth and effort into making that happen. But we do need to be real about it, and we do need to fix it. And it's just so strange to me that this doesn't dominate all leftist discourse all the time. The fact that the Western Left is a tiny politically impotent minority with nowhere near the numbers needed to accomplish its goals is the single most significant thing about the Western Left, by a long, long way. I mean, if you were a general who was setting off to war and you only had a handful of soldiers to fight against an entire enemy nation, that would be the single most glaring fact in your attention. You wouldn't be spending your time arguing about military strategies or the history of equestrian combat, and you certainly wouldn't be wasting your energy fighting against those who are on your side. Front and center of your attention would be the fact that you don't have enough troops to fight this war, and how can you get more? If you're an architect who's been hired to construct a skyscraper and your workforce shows up and it's just one guy with a plastic toy hammer, that's going to be the focus of your attention. You're not going to be pouring over your blueprints and books on architectural theory and musing about the finer points of foundational integrity. You're going to be trying to figure out how to get more workers to build this damn thing. So you'd think that would be the case with the Western Left as well, because we find ourselves in more or less the same kind of situation, but it isn't. To look at the writings of a lot of Western Leftists, you'd think the best way to enact your ideology in the world is to spend your time arguing with other Leftists about obscure esoteric points that nobody outside your tiny echo chamber knows about or cares about, or to sit back smugly knowing better than everyone else while waiting for the contradictions inherent in capitalism to bring about its demise. If you look at organizing and demonstrating, it's not much better. You've got sparsely attended meetings with increasingly atomized sects, anti-war protests with a handful of people in one banner, and some Larpards dressed in black punching racists and transphobes here and there to make believe they're fighting a real revolution against real power, which is the same as nothing. The first and foremost goal of the Western Left should be to create more Western Leftists. You don't do that by having all the correct opinions and reading all the correct books, and you don't do it by waiting for Western material conditions to deteriorate like a bunch of fundamentalists awaiting the rapture. You do it by reaching out to people, winning hearts and minds, showing them that everything they've been taught about their nation and their world is a lie, and showing them that things can be better. I don't claim to have all the answers on how to address this problem. I'm just highlighting a massive glaring dilemma that doesn't get the tiniest fraction of the attention that it should get. I address this problem the best I know how with my own work, but I'm just one person with one mind. I hope to see many more minds pointed at this issue in the future so that we can all come up with solutions and fix this thing.


In the struggle for liberty, the symbols that we choose matter a lot. It matters how people perceive us. It matters what those symbols really mean. And that's why I'm here today to talk about how libertarians should think about the Civil War and particularly how they should think about the Confederacy. One of the most common claims that you'll hear about the Civil War is that it was about states' rights. And frankly, the historical record just does not bear this out. The South did not leave for the sake of states' rights. They left to protect slavery. We know this because they said so. As Alexander Stevens, the vice president of the Confederacy, said, our new government is founded upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man. That slavery, the subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition. Obviously this isn't libertarian. I mean, it doesn't take any great genius to point this out. It doesn't take any particular courage to point this out. It does, however, take some amount of courage to point out that when people use the Confederacy or use the Confederate flag as a symbol for states' rights, they're at least to some degree either missing the point or being a little bit disingenuous with you. Confederates weren't your friends. We have more than just one speech to prove this. We also have the reasons for secession, as given by four separate Confederate states, given by Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas. These were the only four states that bothered to give anything other than just a legal ordinance of secession. They listed their reasons. They were very clear about them. This is what they had to say. South Carolina, a geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the states north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. That's the reason they left, because they lost an election. Or Texas. In all the non-slaveholding states, people have formed themselves into a great sectional party proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color. They also added, in our government, however, all white men are of right and ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights, and the servitude of the African race as existing in some states is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the common experience of mankind and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator. The South was dominated by slaveholders politically, and they loved federal power when it worked to their advantage. So in 1850, they asked for and received one of the toughest fugitive slave laws that had yet been seen. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act put federal power in the service of capturing accused escaped slaves in the north. Federal marshals were paid bounties when they apprehended accused slaves. They were paid $5 if the individual walked free, and they were paid $10 if the individual ended up getting sent back to slavery. The result, as you can probably imagine, was a lot of free blacks from the north being sent back south as slaves. This was, by Northern accounts, a tremendous imposition on their states' rights. The Northern states often held to the common law doctrine, which held that the presence of someone on their soil was enough to set them free. That slavery was fundamentally incompatible with the common law, and that as a result you had become emancipated by living in a state such as, for example, New York. Now, this was not something that the South ever wanted to have anything to do with, and instead they asked for federal power to protect the institution of slavery. They did much the same when they broke away and formed their own constitution. The Confederate Constitution mentioned slavery by name. It forbids states from entering the Confederacy as free states, and I believe, by my reading at least, it forbids any of the states in the Confederacy from ever abolishing slavery. It guarantees the right to property in Negro slaves in so many words. So what to make of the claim that the South protected states' rights? Well, only when those states' rights were about owning slaves. A lot of people will agree with me up to this point and then say, well, yes, but let's take a look at the union. And I'll agree. Let's take a look at the union. What did Lincoln do? What did the Northern States do? And to be honest, I can't say that they were heroes either. Lincoln's primary purpose was to save the union. The outset, it was not to free the slaves. Lincoln said that if he could save the union by freeing all the slaves, by freeing none of the slaves, or by freeing some of the slaves, he would do it. He would do whatever it took to save the union. This isn't something that I would say most libertarians could sign on to. We tend to believe that if you wish to exit a political republic, you ought to have the right to do that. The North was to be blamed for other things as well. It was not a clean war. It was a very, very dirty war. Lincoln was no saint when it came to civil liberties. He censored the press. He established the censorship of the males. He suspended habeas corpus. He instituted an income tax, which later proved to be illegal. He instituted a wide variety of other taxes. If you're a stamp collector, the Civil War is actually a great time for revenue tax stamps. You can get stamps for powers of attorney, for bills of sale, for bills of lading, for inland exchange. I'm not exactly sure what that entailed, but there's a wide variety of new taxes that Lincoln instituted. Then on top of all that, he also instituted the paper money, known as the greenback, which proved to be very inflationary. The Union made all kinds of mistakes, including in its war conduct. Union atrocities were real. Sherman's March to the Sea was one of them. How might we run the war differently? Well, that's a question that historians ask themselves a lot. And unfortunately, we don't get a do-over in history. We can, however, use incidents like this as a springboard to think about proper political conduct today. We can also use them as a way of illustrating principles, if only by their violation. What might I have done if I were the one invading the South? I tend to favor something that Murray Rothbard explained very clearly, I think, in The Ethics of Liberty. He wrote on the question of slavery as follows. There was only one possible moral solution for the slave question. Immediate and unconditional abolition with no compensation to the slave masters. Indeed, any compensation should have been the other way to repay the oppressed slaves for their lifetime of slavery. This is not to say that the Confederacy was so much better on any of these points. In fact, on every one of the things that I've just mentioned, the Confederacy was as bad or, in some cases, even worse. They were the first ones to have a conscription, for example. And the inflation of the Confederate money ranged from around 10% to 40% per quarter during the Civil War. So, there aren't any heroes in this struggle. There really aren't. The impulse to try to find a hero is understandable, but it's going to be frustrated here. Now, I would also add that whatever libertarian principle you're looking for in the Civil War, whatever libertarian principle you'd like to make an example of, you can find a better example somewhere else. If you want to talk about secession, do it. That's important. I think our Constitution would be much improved if states or regions were allowed a mechanism of succeeding peacefully without anyone else's say so. But secession, as Jefferson put it, should not be for light or transient reasons. And still less should it be for reasons like the ones that we began this talk with, that is to say reasons that are opposed to individual liberty. The mere fact that a secession is legally permitted or allowed doesn't make it morally justified. It doesn't mean that we have to necessarily pass a favorable judgment on it. But some secessions, of course, we can say are very, very good. Our country itself began as a secessionist movement. The 13 colonies broke away from Great Britain. We can also point to other secessionist movements that were either peaceful or, at the very least, were morally justified. The secession of Slovakia from the former Republic of Czechoslovakia is a good modern example of that. And a good historical example, one that has happened hundreds of times all across the world, is that of Maroon societies. These were former slaves in places as diverse as Jamaica, Virginia, even places such as India or the Far East, where slaves simply seceded from the political authority that held them in bondage and formed their own independent communities. These are secessions for a clearly libertarian reason. Now, why does all this matter for us? Why is this important? It's important because there has been a lot of talk about the importance of secession as a libertarian principle. And it has been very often mentioned, and I think correctly, that smaller, more local governments are often more protective of liberty than distant governments that have to oversee very many people and they get lost in the shuffle or they get treated with contempt. And I think those are reasonable claims, but as principles, they're not inviolable. They are general rules. And at times, local governments can be quite oppressive of individual liberty. If we pick the wrong examples, we end up distorting our own message. We end up confusing our listeners and we end up bringing contempt on libertarianism. That's something we ought to avoid. Could the Confederate flag work as a symbol of rebellion, maybe just by itself, doesn't have to mean anything more than just that? Well, probably not, I would say. Wearing this emblem, waving this flag, is a lot like the campus leftists that we all like to make fun of when they wear their Che Guevara t-shirts. That too is a symbol of rebellion. And if you ask someone, well, do you really support the Cuban Revolution? Do you support the firing squads? Do you support this guy who is ready to drop nuclear weapons on America during the Cuban Missile Crisis? They'll probably tell you no. But if that's the case, then they're making a pretty bad mistake in their tactics. I think that this mistake is similar. I think that flying the Confederate flag is a very similar act. If you don't look into the implications of your political symbols, someone else will, and you probably won't like the results.


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