Kelly Knox’s Cozy Anime, “isekai” in the dictionary, the best Star Wars dad jokes | The Anime Effect

So if you were waiting for the worm to turn, the worm has backflipped, done a dive and turn. Yeah, dude. What is the worm? Have you never heard that? No. No, okay. Kelly hasn't heard it either. No, but I'm in. I like it. Cool. That took no time at all. Kinda rhymes. You know when I say something stupid, I don't hear the end of it for days. Coming to you from Crunchyroll HQ, this is the Anime Effect. Each week we bring you the latest news and views from the shows you love. It's pop culture with a

n anime lens. We are joined today by author and entertainment writer Kelly Knox. Welcome to the show Kelly. Hi, thanks for having me. Kelly's work is across sites like star wars, star trek, dc comics, marvel comics, IGN and crunchyroll news. Oh. Uh, you can find her books about all things marvel and star wars wherever books are sold. And we're going to talk about her latest book, which when we're recording this, I think it released today. Today's my book birthday. Is that right? Yep. Yay! Book B

irthday. I love it. Happy birthday! Um, called Star wars Dad Jokes. Listen, this book is phenomenal. We'll talk about the book more later, but it's phenomenal. Yes, but before all that, we are going to talk about the latest anime news of the week. And for our main story, Kelly's going to help guide us through the world of cozy anime. We do love a cozy anime. I'm your host, Nick Friedman. It's a me, LeAlec Murray. Do you, you can be part of this Me? I get to, hi, I'm Kelly Knox. And we're going t

o see just how powerful the effect of anime really is. It's kind of weird without the third voice. I know, uh, Leah could not join us this week. Shout out to Leah. Shout out to Leah. Always, always. Uh, but we're here. And we're going to kick things off by talking about what, what movie we saw last week. Uh, everybody prepare to take multiple shots because, uh, we're going to mention Godzilla, kaijus, any kind of monsters for at least the next, however long this goes. Before we talk our ears off

about Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Kelly, have you seen it? I have not, I saw minus one, but I have not seen the new concept. Okay. We're going to, we're going to keep, we'll keep it as brief as we possibly can. Okay. I don't mind spoiling. Um, no spoilers. Yeah. We can't, we're not spoiling. This is not a spoiler cast. Yeah, I'm not. Yeah, I don't want to spoil this for people because it's one of those like, I think you should go see it from the pure popcorn movie standpoint. Yes. Right. I

forgot who, Wrote the interview initially, or the review initially about this movie, and they said, if this is where the director is taking us for the rest of the monsterverse, um, because what's his name? Adam Wingard. So the review was like, if this is where he's taking us for the rest of the monster verse for as long as it exists, then sign me up. Yeah, and I totally agree with the sentiment because like I think he had some small involvement in the the Apple TV show as well To the monsterver

se show, you know, who else was involved in the TV show? Matt Fraction. He was yeah He's one of my favorite comic book writers. He's amazing. He's absolutely phenomenal but the Just the dynamic of, and we've talked about this before, like minus one and somebody made a really good comparison and I'm kind of upset. We didn't think of this, but the Toho Godzilla films in Japan are still very much like he is a monster. He is a force of nature, whereas legendary turned him into an action hero. And I'

m like, that is perfect. I couldn't have explained it any better. And I feel like it's so evident in this movie specifically, the personality of both Kong and Godzilla in this, like, Godzilla is like an adorable cat that- Yeah. If you, if you touch the cat anywhere, but petting him on its head freaks out, just like, right. Imma blast you. Right. So normal cat. Right. Yeah. So normal. Exactly. Exactly. Also weirdly sounds like my dog who I think has cat behaviors anyway. Um, but yeah, so we, uh,

me, Lee and, and Leah saw the film just like a day or two early last week in IMAX, uh, phenomenal, definitely recommend seeing it in IMAX as well.. It was great. And like the crowd, I mean, I think I hadn't had such a like emotive experience in a movie theater, probably since like end game and infinity war, where like people are clapping and screaming and you know, just when Godzilla pops up on screen, everyone's yelling. Like, yeah, that was a good experience. I think also what I love about jus

t Godzilla in general, especially like in the, the legendary verse, right. Cause it happens with the Toho films as well, too, because he's supposed to be like, you know, nature's supreme guardian. He's like. I just want to take a nap in my coliseum. Yes, but y'all keep making noise So I have to now get up. If I have to get up, things will get bad. And that's what this movie was, it's like, If I have to get out of this coliseum, you are not going to like my mood. And that's how it went. I have to

say, and then we'll move on, we'll get into the show. The scene where Kong picks up Baby Kong and starts beating on other giant apes with it. You may have seen that scene floating around. It's I, when I saw that, I was like, Oh, like I'm, I'm strapped in, I'm ready to go. Also, like for the, for the wrestling fans out there too, like, there's a lot of like nods to wrestling in here as well. There's at one point where there's a, like Godzilla, the Kong, like suplex, it's just so ridiculous. The

physics are just like, whatever, they're just like, whatever, giant lizard suplexing a monkey. Yeah, so it's no, it's, uh, definitely enjoyable if you guys have seen it, please let us know what you thought about the movie. Um, I'll talk Godzilla with everybody, like all day long. Doesn't matter. I feel like at some point we gotta do like a special drop where it's just talking about Godzilla. This way we're not subjecting all of our audiences to us talking about it. Um, and yeah, Kelly, let us kn

ow if you, uh, get a chance it. Yeah, y'all are convincing me. I got to see this now. Speaking of fun at the movie theater. Nice. Nice segue, buddy. Next up. We got the news of the week including a fan favorite anime making its theatrical debut. Oh, yeah, and it's pretty cozy I think so. I think so. Counts as a cozy one. Yeah, all that's coming up All right, this week's news a lot how I feel like I say this every week a lot happened in anime this week. But a lot happen All right. So our first s

tory for this week Spy × Family Code: White. Yeah movie is Officially making its U. S. debut on April 19th. I'm so excited. Tickets are now on sale. Need to go buy my tickets. I haven't done it yet. We mentioned a while back that, uh, Spy × Family was getting a movie, Code White. Crunchyroll's bringing it to theaters. You can finally buy tickets if you're looking for details. Crunchyroll News. That's just my, the first of many Crunchyroll News plugs in this episode. Right, right. Um, it'll be av

ailable subbed. English dubbed. And Lee, I know you already outed yourself as not having bought your tickets yet, but how about you, Kelly? Do you have your tickets yet? Yeah, we already have ours, we, uh, we're excited to see it. We love Spy × Family, so. And we were in, uh, Japan over the holidays where it had come out, like, it was just coming out in theaters and we didn't get to see it, but we saw all the, you know, the tie ins and the posters and they were blasting, like, the theme song ove

r speakers on the street, so we are ready to see it. The, the mission impossible, like tie in poster. Like, it's so good. I need society here to get to the point where we are blasting anime opening. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. In the streets. Just out in the open. Yeah, I saw a clip for it yesterday because I was, you know, binge watching YouTube videos as, you know, one does. And the preview was like the one where Anya is like at the fair. She's trying to shoot the targets. She was like, I couldn't

get them. They move too fast. And Loid was like, they weren't moving. I was like, yeah, yeah, that's me. I'm going to see it. I was actually going to bring up, like, we're going to talk about cozy anime here in a bit, but. I wanted to like, you know, just quickly go around and just be like, you know, what makes Spy × Family so cozy? I mean like it's a show that like theoretically has like an assassin and a spy and there's blood and there's action But like I feel like for me, it's Anya like Anya

pulls it together. It's yeah, I agree She's the like common link for like the entire family like even bond they all coexist because She's like My family has to exist by any means possible, and that's her motive, like, while, like, Loid and Yor, like, have, like, I'm a, I'm a mission from a government, I gotta, like, protect this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, she's like, no, I don't want to be an orphan again, so I'm going to keep my family together, and because of that, hijinx ensue, but It's

great because it almost gives me that kind of like family, like sitcom, like feel, you know, like, you know, in the nineties, watching like family matters. Yeah let's get a good reference up in here. Family matters or like watching, like, you know, hanging with Mr. Cooper or whatever. Like, it gives me like that vibe of like, Hey, you're actually just existing as this family exists. And I love that Loid and, and Yor, they're like, yeah, they're spy and assassin, but like they have the sweetest m

otives too. Like Loid doesn't want any kids to be, you know, sad like he was growing up and Yor's protecting her brother. So they both still have like the nicest, most wholesome motives, even though they're got the worst kind of jobs. right. Their jobs are absolutely horrible, but they have the best intentions. Yeah. All right, but we will be seated. We will go see that movie when it comes out. Solo leveling, which just wrapped up season one and we can call it season one now because officially t

hey announced season two. Let's go. I don't do it as good as Matt as Pat McAfee, but yeah, I'm super excited. I'm super excited for this. I know Kelly's caught up on solo leveling because she writes the recap articles for Crunchyroll News every week. Bless you, bless you. What did you, what did you think of this first season? Uh, I liked it a lot. It was in the end of the, at the end of the season, this last episode, they kind of backtracked like how far he had come. Jin Mu had come since the be

ginning. And I was like, Oh yeah, this guy really has done a lot in just the one first season. I really enjoyed it. I wasn't familiar with the, the story or anything at all. So it's been a, it was a nice surprise for the. For the fall? Winter. Fall winter season. Yeah, winter Yeah, I know. It's, I'm like, what, what season is it? Yeah, yeah. In Texas it's like 65 degrees. I was like, that's not winter. It'll be 30 tomorrow. . . No, I, uh, I've actually been catching up the last few days 'cause I

've, I've really just been watching one piece. Yeah. Like, that's, that's where I mostly spend my time. You know what, I've been catching up, like I've read deeper into the, the Manhwa than I did into like actually watching the show, but I watched up to I think like episode four or five, whenever he was in that first, like solo dungeon. Um, and very rarely do you see the source material and the visual material kind of like almost stack one to one. Yeah. And this show did. A great job of stacking

one to one. So I am like super duper impressed to see how they're going to execute going forward. Yeah. So the new season is officially called solo leveling season two arise from the shadow, which if you've read the webtoon, that will mean a lot to you. No spoilers. There's no firm release date just yet, but we can say it will stream on Crunchyroll when it arrives. Um, anyway, go, uh, go blast the OP cause that, uh, that song rips. I wanted to make sure this, this new story got in here because

this created a lot of discourse in the, uh, anime community last week. Oh I saw this. I saw this. Yeah yeah yeah. But, uh, the Oxford English dictionary has officially added a number of, uh, additional Japanese words, including isekai, fan service, and tokusatsu. Okay. So a bit of a quiz for our, for our listeners and viewers, but obviously, if you recognize these words and you're like, like, heck yeah, these should be in the dictionary, like Drop a comment. Let us know if you agree with it. The

big one was Isekai, right? That was the big one that the anime community was talking about. There was an article that came out from another publication that referenced shows like Frieren and Delicious and Dungeon as potentially fitting under Isekai in this new I can see by your face. We're on the same page But you know, we'll just say it so officially Webster's- this is so weird- Webster's Dictionary defines, uh, Webster's Dictionary defines isekai as a Japanese genre of science or fantasy fic

tion featuring a protagonist who is transported to or reincarnated in a different, strange, or unfamiliar world. Also in anime, manga, video game, etc. in this genre. So to me, that aligns pretty closely to what I already thought isekai was. Yeah yeah That kind of, that lines up with what isekai is. And even the stretches come down to like time travel. Right, right. Or fell into a wormhole and Right. Ended up in prehistoric times. Yeah. Yeah. Like Digimon, I would consider dig fitting, fitting i

nto that category. Yeah, for sure. Frieren is not, is not that the story is told in two different time periods, but it's not isekai, yeah, it's not an isekai. It's the same world. Same thing with delicious and dungeon. Like it is not an isekai. Like it is a fantasy story told from the, the view of playing like D and D. And that's kind of where I think the, it kind of gets kind of, I guess, the blurred lines, because a lot of. Isekai is told in a fantasy setting. Sure. So, I can see where that ge

ts kind of skewed because a lot of Isekai is done like, oh hey, I'm in the modern world and oh my god, I'm suddenly like a slime in a, you know, a fantasy setting. Like no, just because it's a fantasy setting doesn't make it an Isekai. Like some fantasy stories are meant to be exactly that. Kelly, what are your thoughts on the Isekai discourse right now? Um, you know, I definitely don't think those two are Isekai, although I heard there's a, uh, a rumor that maybe one of the characters in Friede

n is from another world, and like, secretly. But I don't know. I don't know about that, because I don't think they would play subtle. I mean, that would, that would greatly change my opinion of the show honestly. Now I've got to pick, now I've got to read the manga. Yeah. Now I've got up where the anime left off and read the manga. Now I have to go do my own research. I was like, if that's true, now I feel bad because, I guess, okay, I don't feel bad because But potentially, if that is true, it'

s an isekai for them, for that character. Right, right, right. It's not for everybody else, not for the greater, the greater whole. I will say, I can't believe it took this long for fanservice to get in the dictionary. I feel like that's been around forever. Yeah, I feel like that's a term that's been around since like, the early, like, at least the mid 80s to like, 90s when anime was like, creeping. I thought fanservice was always a thing. Yeah, and that's a, that's a good segue. Webster's defi

nes fanservice as- can we have a segment where you just say Webster says? Webster's dictionary defines fanservice. Fan services, um, material added to a work of fiction for the perceived or actual purpose of appealing to the audience used, especially of material that is risque or sexual in nature. Yeah, it tracks. Solid. Solid. It's interesting because like, to me, yeah, I like, cause reading comic books, fan service is kind of have a different. That's what I was gonna say. It's almost completel

y different, reading comic books. It's like when you're reading a guardians of the galaxy run. And Cosmo shows up. Yep. That's fanservice. Yeah, fanservice in comic books is more so like kind of in the same thing as is wrestling. Yeah, it's like playing to your audience. Like it's it's less like of the risque nature and more of the like, oh, hey, like What's batman doing in bloodhaven? Like it's it's less of that. Though to be fair You bringing up Bloodhaven reminds me of like, newer Nightwing r

uns where like, he's just got his shirt off. Yeah. Like, that's also fanservice. That's also fanservice, yeah. They, uh, God bless Tom Taylor. Uh, another one of my favorite comic book writers. Like, he's leaned all the way into like, yeah, society at large thinks, Dick Grayson is pretty hot. So I'm just gonna , we're just gonna lead all the way into this from the ab to the butt jokes, like we're gonna do all of it. Uh, but yeah. So just, just a few other words, uh, that were added to the dictio

nary: tokusatsu. Yep. Um, which, you know, if you know Lee, you know tokusatsu. That's it. That's it. . Mangaka, uh, Okonomiyaki. Yep. And Onigiri.. Which, you know, 25 years after the infamous jelly donuts before kids Pokemon, Onigiri has finally been added to the Webster's dictionary. We can finally cross out jelly donuts and be like, it's actually Onigiri. Wrapping up our new segment for this week, uh, as you know, the spring season is among us on Crunchyroll, um, I think shows kicked off thi

s past weekend. Yeah, yeah. Some shows started on the first. We've got a spring season update. Ooh. First up, Kaiju No. 8 is going to be the first anime on Crunchyroll to stream simultaneously live with the Japanese broadcast. You will be able to watch Kaiju No. 8 as it is airing in Japan on Crunchyroll with English subtitles. Insane. That's awesome. Insane. And not just English subtitles. Latam Spanish, Portuguese, German, and French subtitles. Insane. So that's going to start Saturday, April 1

3th at 7am Pacific. Those episodes will be streaming weekly, so you can watch them live like old school TV. That's so cool. Which is coming back. Basically, it's back. We're fully here. That's really cool. I never thought we would, from an old school, like, anime perspective, I never thought we would get to a point to where we're sharing the same broadcast, especially this title. It's almost very much like Arnold Schwarzenegger kicking the door open and being like, And then we're getting like, f

ull like, broadcast now. No, no. You want to take that again? No. I yard what I yard. I'm not trying to blow out Pat's ears over here, so. I do love the shared experience of it all. It's like, you know, our simulcasts are shortly after the Japanese broadcast anyway. And so, um, this feels like a culmination of that experience, which is really cool. Kelly. I'm curious your perspective. I mean, obviously you write, you know, a number of recaps for crunchy roll. So you are watching the shows as the

y air, but you also talk a lot about like Star Wars and Marvel on on your social and professionally. And, you know, part of that is watching new episodes of Star Wars shows as they come out weekly. So I'm curious your perspective on on this. So for, for my early days of anime watching, and I'm totally going to age myself here, but we had to buy a VHS tape, mail it to a fan subber, wait for them to copy it and send it back. Right. And you'd get four episodes. And that's how we watched, when I was

in college, that's how we watched Sailor Moon Sailor Stars. Oh so- was you were, you were anime tape trading. Old school. Oh man. the fact that Kaiju No. 8's gonna be at the same time, like, I almost can't physically process that. It's super hard to fathom. Yeah. And then you know, to see other anime, we had to go to the college anime club and watch screenings that they, and you could borrow tapes if you were lucky enough to get one. So yeah, like, fast forwarding to where we are now, it's just

, first of all, just the simulcasting and in general, will always be amazed by it. But for Uh, binging versus the weekly I do, like, the weekly. Uh, the only thing I don't like is when the episode comes out at, like, 3 a. m. Fair. Fair. And so some people will, like, stay up and catch you know, Mandalorian or whatever at 3 a. m. by the time you wake up, it's like, people have already seen it. I'm like, wait a minute. Yeah, people are already talking about it, I'm old. I need to sleep. Give me s

ome, give me some time here. Yeah, yeah, So I know what you're thinking. You might be like, Oh, Kaiju is the big news for this week. We're going into the main story. No. Two more shows. Spring season. Crunchyroll. Okay. Shows that are returning. Okay. That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 3. Yes! Okay, Rimuru is back. Right. And his whole kingdom are back, the slime lord, the slime Lord has returned. Thank you. Thank you. Slime Lord. And it is an isekai. It is. So everyone hits the isek

ai button. I've mentioned an isekai. Um, for those that don't know that time I got reincarnated as a slime. It's about a man who, as you may guess, dies and is then reincarnated as a slime monster in another world, but it definitely doesn't go how you would expect. No, not at all. He becomes an all powerful being. Watch the, yeah, watch the first episode and you'll know, you'll know. So season three actually kicked off the recap episode on March 30th and then, uh, the first episode of the actual

new content will kick off on April 5th. So check that out. I'm so excited. So, you know what, you know, what's next, what's next, my hero academia, season seven, um, big, big, my hero fans in this room for sure. Yeah dude. Yes. Um, it's going to kick off with memories, which is a recap of the events of the series so far, there'll be a few episodes kind of just getting everyone up to speed. I'm excited to get a refresher. Cause there's a lot that happens, like even like if you're reading the man

ga and you have to like, in Horikoshi sensei makes a reference to something, I'm like, Wait, where was that from? And you're like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, uh, yeah. Um, and then that's going to tee up season seven, which will officially kick off on May 4th. Picking up where season six left off, y'all, like. If you were big into my hero and you maybe fell off because you're like, oh, there's so many seasons. This is where you pick back up. Get back. I mean, get back on with season six

at least because the events of that season really, like that's some of the best the show's ever been. Yeah. For people that have been waiting for, I guess, the turning point for my hero, because my hero happens in phases and I don't want to like kind of spoil it for people that aren't reading. But there is a very like. Happy go lucky. I'm happy to be here. Superhero story that quickly turns into like, oh, we're now dealing with some real mess. Yeah. Which will escalate after that. Yeah. So if y

ou were waiting for the worm to turn, the worm has back flipped. Done a dive. The worm to turn. Yeah. Dude. What is the worm? Have you never heard that, that term? No. No, no. Okay. Kelly hasn't heard it either. No, but I'm in. I like it. cool. That took no time at all. Kinda rhymes. You know, when I say something stupid. Yeah? I don't hear the end of it for days. My parents call me and they're like, Hey, remember when you said that really stupid thing six weeks ago? I think that's, I think pare

nts just do that. I think they're just randomly calling me like, Hey, do you remember the thing? No, I don't want to remember the thing that I did when I was six. Like, what are you doing? I am a 30 plus year old man. Like why? I love that. I'm a 30 plus year old man. Are you a my hero fan Kelly? Yes. Yes. Yes. It's been a little while though. I should, and we watched it weekly, so it's probably been, I don't know how long since we've seen it. I should catch back up. But yeah, All Might's my guy

. Oh, yeah. Okay. Up next we get to talk about only the best of the best cozy anime out there and there's a lot to choose from but we have the cozy anime expert to help us out with that because not sure if you know this. I mean, I know this. I mean, yeah, I know this. But Kelly, right? Well, yeah, of course. But Kelly writes the cozy anime corner for Crunchyroll every month. Not to be confused with Nick's rom com corner, but they both coexist in the same universe. You cannot tell me any differen

t. So, you won't want to miss her recommendations. That next. Webster's Dictionary. Uh, it is time to dim the lights, maybe light a fire. Lighting a fire is like, when I see light a fire, I'm like, run, uh, maybe Put on a book light a gameboy color light. That's what I was going to say. Can I bring my worm light from the gameboy color and plug it up somewhere? Get the fireplace all good and ready and safe. Yeah. Safe. Get your robe, your bear slippers. Safely start a fire. Safely. Remember, stop

, drop, and roll. Get comfy, get cozy. Because we're talking all things cozy anime. How's that ASMR voice? Is that good? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, let's keep it. Thanks. Our main story this week, cozy anime. How do we define it? How does it affect us? What is it? What qualifies? Let's start with the beginning. I, I, I figured we could come up with like two or three like words that define cozy anime. You can't say cozy because it's right there in the name. Right. It's the lowest of hanging fruit. So I fi

gure each of us can come up with one. So, Kelly. Low stakes is what I would say to start. Well, that is the words. No saving the world. No big fights. Cause for me, that kind of stresses me out a little bit. So, not cozy. Low stakes. Low stakes. Low stakes. I like that. Lee. Ooh. Uh, satisfying I think I'm gonna go with because it's like, even if you watch, even if you just watch one episode, you're like, yeah, yeah, I'm good. And you don't have to like watch anymore unless you really want to. Y

eah. I'm gonna go with No pressure. Smooth. Oh, yeah. So we could be talking about the art style, the colors, the direction, the voice acting, the music, the premise. Smooth. I'm thinking about do it yourself. Yeah, I know. I was like, he's gonna say do it yourself. I know he is. Okay. So, um, You know, I have a story for this part. I'm sure you guys both do too, but how does cozy anime affect you? How does it make you feel? Yeah, and When do you typically turn to it? Mmm, I think for me it's be

cause I watch so much like Shonen or Shonen adjacent when it comes to anime or if I'm like watching TV shows, they're very action heavy you're like There's a lot of like high value drama happening. Usually I'm like, I need to go watch something that is not going to just like spike my anxiety, my adrenaline, my blood pressure, my blood pressure, or like cause my synapses to just go absolutely insane. So that's usually when I go and watch something that's very like low barrier of entry, like, and

it's usually something I've probably watched before because of that. And I usually like turn to that same one. That's actually a good thing you bring up like. I'm sorry to go on a tangent here, but like, can a stressful show that was stressful the first time you watched it, like I think about something like Dragon Ball Z, right? Like has a lot of action, but there's a nostalgia built into it, right? Does that become a cozy anime after a certain period of time because it's comfortable for you? Ye

ah, it can. Yeah, absolutely. I think like, you know, and Kelly, I definitely, you know, want to make sure we have your perspective on this too. But I think a show like, even if it's like for Leah, right? Like they love Attack on Titan. Yeah, that could very much be cozy sector, which is wild. Yeah, which is crazy, but I totally see what you mean. But it but it could be right For me, like, you know, one that I'll call out is I'm gonna talk about Kuroko's basketball again And probably because I'm

such a fan of the sport and because like you understanding the sport and understanding the anime It's like I don't have to I don't have to like feel like I have to immerse myself To like, relearn the rules of a world or whatever. You just like roll right into it. Yeah, just roll right into it. It's like, oh, he's doing this or this is happening, right? So I think that's, you know, to your point with Dragon Ball. It's like, I know Raditz and Goku is happening. Or I know, you know, Goku and Picco

lo is happening. Like, I know, like, I know what's coming. So I can easily settle myself in. And lowers the stakes in a certain way, at least for you personally, which I think fits that definition. How about you, Kelly? Uh, for me, it's, it's pretty similar to what you're saying. I always think of it as a palate cleanser. So, you know, we'll watch Jujutsu Kaisen or Attack on Titan or something that's very, like, stressful. And then, you know, I'll turn on, uh, I think we were, I was following up

Jujutsu Kaisen with like, My New Boss is Goofy every week, which is like two entirely different shows but -Oh, Yeah. kind of would like always end on the coziest, nicest feeling to kind of like calm myself down and reset a little I agree. But yeah, I see what you guys are saying about like comfort versus cozy, like Rogue one. I know we're gonna talk about Star Wars in a little bit. Rogue One is Very stressful the first time you see it and very, very sad, but now that's my comfort movie. I put

it on when fly because I just like to have it on in the, in the background. So yeah, I think there's a, I think they overlap, but they don't have to be, your comfort show doesn't have to be your cozy show, which I think is nice. I think a show that was one for me, like the season, like both like a comfort and a cozy show. Like, 'cause Kelly, you brought up Juujitsu Kaizen. Don't say Juujitsu kaizen Season two . It was so stressful. But after that I'm like, you know, fluffy Paradise was like, if

you're want to talk about a new show that is like super cozy vibes, like is it an, is it an isekai?? Yeah, but Hit the button. Hit the button. Um, but. The way that the world functions and the, the stuff that happens, it's just like, Oh, it's just like, she just wants to like go pet animals and just like be in this world and make sure people aren't like fighting each other. Like, that's, that's it. Like, I'm all about this. Like, let's go pet a big God tiger for like 30 minutes. That's fine. It'

s not dangerous at all. It's not dangerous at all. I think about like the times when I turn to cozy anime, I feel like when the real world gets really stressful. Yeah. Um, I, I will usually turn. I mean, obviously rom coms fit into that category. We don't need to go into the corner for it. We're not in the corner. We're in a different corner right now. Yeah, rom coms fit that pretty squarely. I put a show like ranking of Kings in there for me, which does have stakes, but like, yeah. That y'all k

now if you if you know me at all, you know, I love ranking of Kings I literally want to get a Bogie tattoo. Bogie supremacy. Just seeing that show seeing a frame from that show like it gives you the cozies. Cools my anxiety Yeah, like think- it lowers my heart rate. I think it's because of like And I think cozy anime can also depend on like how much of the character's point of view you kind of share or like how, how you're seeing the world in relation to that character. And I think Ranking of K

ings did that very well, where you were, you were living the world through the eyes of this boy, eyes of Boji. And because of that, you were sharing in a lot of the emotions that he was feeling, but when he was at the cooler moments, even when he was like in the midst of battle or whatever, and he's kind of learning who he is, it's like, okay, cool. Like you kind of you see him de stressing, which means disarming. Also distressing. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, that's a good one. When I think ab

out classic stuff, I think about like early one piece is very comfy. Digimon Adventure is very comfy. It's just very like, And I would probably even say like, you know, you said early Digimon, I think early Pokemon is kind of the same way, right? Because you're like, some of those episodes are scary man. Some of those episodes are Island giant Pokemon. Yeah, everything with Sabrina. The, the giant Tentacruel, like what was happening? Kind of scary. The shipwreck? Yeah, dude, what, what? But I th

ink, you know, but when I say that is because a lot of us when we were watching the anime, we were also playing the games at the same time and we were having this feeling of like, For a lot of us, and I know for me specifically, like it opened up my love for like RPGs because it's, you know, in its structure. It is. Yeah. And because of that, it's like, Oh, I'm also enjoying the show, but Sabrina is also very creepy. And I don't think, I don't think they're coming out of this one alive. Oh my go

sh. Um, so Kelly, I'm curious. So obviously you write about cozy anime on a monthly basis, but you're also, you know, you watch a ton of stuff. You watch a lot of new stuff. I'm curious what trends are you seeing in kind of this cozy anime space? Like, are there certain storylines or characters or themes that you feel like are common across newer cozy shows? I think in Japan, they're kind of called more instead of cozy shows are called healing anime. And I feel like that's kind of been a little

more prevalent with anime. Like my new boss is goofy. The whole show is about, you know, getting over a horrible boss and a horrible company, which you might sound familiar if you've seen Zom 100. So I think in Japan in particular, that's a more common theme, I think, is healing from putting up with harassment at work or, you know, a horrible boss and things like that. So I think there's, um, A lot of that more recently. There's also so much food in most of these food and cooking. There's campfi

re cooking in another world, which is kind of like, uh, delicious and dungeon, but it's, uh, it's also, it's actually an isekai where he goes to another world. And instead of trying to like save the world or defeat a bad guy. Hit the button. he's yeah, he's just, he's just cooking monsters, which just, if you delicious and dungeon. Try campfire cooking in another world. So there's that laid back camp, which I think is the peak cozy anime. I think Nick talked about this the other week or two on o

n here. It's just like if you want to know what cozy anime is, cozy healing anime, it's it's laid back camp. so yeah, I think that I think a lot more. I just got chills again. I think there's a lot of great options. Um, but yeah, I think a lot, a lot more like reaffirming your faith and humanity type shows are, are really kind of getting there and getting popular. Yeah. Oh, that brings to mind. I don't remember the name of the show and I feel so bad. Why do I feel like you're thinking about Supe

r Cub? No, no, no. Okay. It was the show. That is on my list Monday. With the tree gaurdian... thats... Oh, Somali and the Forest Spirit? Yes. Yes. That's a good one. That one was it was sad. It was. Um, but I had the best like time watching it because of that. Not only was it like a cozy healing anime, but then he was also kind of on this journey to like heal just in general. And I felt like that was like, it was peak for me. And I'm like, man, like I saw it the other day, like in my recommenda

tions. I'm like, I already read this or I already watched this, but I'm like, maybe you're telling me I should watch it again. Ooh, that's like another layer. Um, well, I, I want to know what. The viewers and listeners at home think are like the, the best cozy anime out there. What is the epitome for you? I mean, we talked about laid back camp. That's, that's also mine. That's I think that is like the number one greatest cozy anime. But yeah, let us know if you drop a review on Apple podcast. Fi

ve stars only, um, like subscribe, comment, let us know your cozy anime. You can, yeah. If you drop it in the comments, we'll see it. Or if you're watching on YouTube or Crunchyroll, you can leave a comment. But I'm curious. I would love to. Circle back to this next week. Yeah, for sure. I'm always curious to see what you guys are watching or reading that is, uh, that is, that is a cozy time for you. Okay. So shifting gears. I want to make sure we have time to talk about something else I find in

credibly cozy: dad jokes. Nice. not a father. Neither am I, but I have a father. Yeah, same, but I appreciate a good dad, I appreciate a good dad joke and Kelly, this book is full of phenomenal, phenomenal, phenomenal dad jokes. I sent a couple of these to my best friend, Joe. And not only what he was like, I don't know whether to like laugh hysterically or hate you right now, and I'm like, I'm sorry, bro. Like Like I'm reading this and it's like one that I and I'm glad I flipped to this page 26

if you guys read this Please, buy a copy. Read along. Why do warriors of Mandelore leave their helmets on? I don't know, why? It's mandetor-ian. My favorite is, uh, any of the ones that call out like some of the more, like the lesser known characters to like mainstream, so like the Dr. Afra one, I was like, this one's just for me. I just passed that one. Have you met the rogue archaeologist, Dr. Afra? Her career is in ruins. This is good. This is really good. This is great. So even if you like,

even if you're like, why are you guys talking about a joke about Star Wars dad books? Like they're dad jokes. Like it's just just roll with it. Get the book. You'll have a time. So, first, where did the idea from this book come from? And where did the jokes come from? Sort of a wild story. So I guess I'll start back when my daughter was in elementary school. I used to put a dad joke in her lunchbox every day to read to her friends at the lunch table. I wasn't writing the jokes. I was just grabb

ing them off, you know, the internet and then handwriting it and throwing it in there. So I'd already had like, A brain full of these because I did that for like most of elementary school and so fast forward to lockdown during covid I was on Twitter like we all were and everything was doom and gloom and we were all doom scrolling and I thought, you know, I'm tired of seeing horrible things on my timeline. I'm going Tweet something stupid and so being a Star Wars quote unquote expert I turned a r

egular classic dad joke into a Star Wars dad joke and so it wasn't like a hit or viral or anything like that But it was just enough distraction to where I thought I'll just do this every day for as long as I can We'll see how it goes so I told Star Wars dad jokes for like a year and a half every day Um, and people kept saying, Oh, this would be a funny, I love it. This would be funny book. And so I'd actually been saving all the jokes in a spreadsheet because I didn't want to double up because I

'm a huge nerd. Yeah. And, uh, I ended up sending the spreadsheet to, uh, an editor. Because he had heard from Lucasfilm that, that it might be an interesting book. And so with the spreadsheet in hand, that was kind of my pitch. And then it went from there. So kind of a wild story. Wow. That's awesome. That's, that's actually really cool. I love the fact that you were, you were on this crusade to tell a star wars dad joke for a year and a half and it just turned into a book that is phenomenal. T

here will definitely be multiple copies of this bought and given to people as gifts. Yes. Um, especially my, my friends that are dads. And if you, if you do not already follow Kelly on Twitter, um, you, you, you have to, it's, it's a ride. It's good stuff. Good stuff. Peak content. Congratulations on the book launch. Yeah. No, congratulations. And I do want to give a shout out to the illustrator, Johnny Sampson. I swear, the pictures in this book are The funniest thing, like, I cracked up so man

y times when I saw them for the first time. Yes. the art in is phenomenal. Yes. Phenomenal. All right. You know what time it is? It's recommendations time. Oh, it's recommendations time, baby. Since we've already recommended a bunch of cozy anime, let's share our favorite cozy video games. First though, we have a bunch of fan recommendations that we want to share. Yes. So quick shout out to everyone who wrote us on Apple podcasts, on Twitter, on Crunchyroll. Yeah. I love reading you guys' commen

ts. It's, it's awesome. So this one is @booklens on YouTube. Um, I listened to this episode on Spotify, but I had to come over here. And comment that I'm watching the final season of attack on Titan, uh, episode 82 at the moment, and every single episode has me screaming into a pillow. I'm going to text Leah like right after this and be like, look! This one's for you! The attack on Titan agenda! It continues. And then, what is it, uh, @robzabawa3604 on YouTube? Old school shoutout, been watching

Gintama, that's a great one. Um, and Tommy Heavenly 6 Pray still slaps. There you go. We've got Villiam2951 on Crunchyroll who said I'm currently watching The Unwanted Undead Adventurer and loving it. Thumbs up emoji. That's one of my favorite ones for the season for the winter season too. Oh really? I haven't checked it out. It's pretty good. Is it isekai? No, it's a fantasy story. Do not hit the isekai button. Do not hit the button. QueenBean17 on Crunchyroll has said I'm watching The Danger

s in My Heart. Which, I, it's on my list because I know it's a rom com. Uh, Inuyasha, classic, a sign of affection, 10 out of 10 no notes show. Yup. Gotta watch that. Yeah, 10 just watch. Undead Unluck, and uh, Blue Eyed Samurai, which I know isn't anime, but it's supposed to be really good. Yeah. I haven't checked it out yet. Anime adjacent. Oh, this is a good one. Smallville124510 on Crunchyroll. Um, I'm watching solo leveling Sasaki and peeps, the demon prince of Momochi house. The wrong way

to use healing magic. Uh, what is that snack? Basu. Is it basu or Basue, basue? I don't know. Basu. Um, the weakest tamer began to journey to pick up the trash, the unwanted undead adventurer. The Witch and the Beast, Brave Bang Bravern, Delusional Monthly Magazine, Metallic Ruse, and Shingoku Yoku. I ran out of fingers. What is your schedule? Listen, this is me at the beginning of every season where I'm like, on like, Oh yeah, I got 18 shows I'm watching, and then by the end I'm like, I'm watc

hing two. Any list, it's like six episodes behind, eight episodes behind, nine episodes behind. Yeah. And then our last one for this week, uh, is from @SlibTheSlime on Twitter. I've been watching Nichijou: My Ordinary Life! let's go. Great show. First comes rock. What, what's it going to be? Rock, paper, scissors, and a one, two, three. So good. So good. Another 10/10 show. 10/10.. Um, again, if you want to, uh, have your recommendations read on the show, uh, you can write in on Twitter, Crunch

yroll, YouTube, uh, or our favorite, an exclusively five star review on Apple podcasts, exclusively, exclusively, um, all right, cozy gaming, video games. Let's do it. So. Uh, Kelly, what have you brought for us this week? Oh, I love indie cozy games, so these are probably some you haven't heard of. Uh, I am playing Minami Lane. It's like a little town sim management type thing, but it's like management lite, so it's fun. It's five dollars on Steam. It's five missions. It's like a couple hours.

You just build a little cute town and You know tell people to go buy ramen and boba tea and go to the onsen. It's great um and venba, which is a cooking game. It's on game pass. That's a really fun one Uh, yeah, but i'm also playing things like dragon's dogma 2 and you know Very cozy. Of infinite wealth. Yeah arisen! There's a cooking simulator over here! Super cozy. My arisen doesn't play cozy games. Look, ladder. A ladder! I wonder if we can climb it. Well spotted. A chair. Can we sit in it? I

haven't played Dragon's Dogma 2 yet, but i, uh, But one has enough jokes to carry. That's true. That's true. Young Nicholas, what have you brought us this evening? I went, I actually, we talked about this before the show. I kind of had trouble coming up with this, which is crazy because like, I consider myself a bad gamer or like I play most games on easy. I like to experience the story. So I went with a safe answer, which is, Any of the mainline Pokemon games, particularly when we're looking a

t like the DS era, it's just a very like heart gold, soul silver, black and white, like those games, just the music alone. Like I could turn the game on and just like tape a rubber band to the stick on the 3DS and just listen to the music change as it goes. I'm sure there's an easier way to listen to the soundtrack. There probably is. Especially now, I'm sure. But I've been playing stuff that I consider cozy that other people may consider very stressful. So I'm playing a new game called pepper g

rinder on the switch. It's great. Okay. It's basically drill dozer. If you remember drill dozer from game freak meets Celeste. Oh, okay. So it's very like purpose built platforming. Okay. So it's, but you're, you're weaving in and out of like. Rock and stone with your drill and chaining stuff. And very fun. I think it's like 15 bucks. Um, great Indy. Um, and then Balotro, which is the poker deck building roguelike game. Oh, you were telling me about this one, which I actually, yeah, I, I stand b

y it. It is, it is a cozy game. Some of the jokers can kind of stress you out. So the whole deal is like, you have a normal deck of cards and the element that changes things is there are like buffs and debuffs for cards on each round. Uh huh. As well as joker cards, and the joker cards add new layers of gameplay. So it might be like Every card that ends, you know, that's even gets timestamp multiplier, like something like that um, but yeah, I'll stop talking about the, uh, my poker deck building

road. Like Lee, what did you get for this week? Um, I'm gonna echo you on the Pokemon thing, probably because I have such an attachment to it since I was like a kid, like the first. Console one of the first consoles I owned was a Game Boy and when Pokemon, like, like when the Pokemon craze first started coming over, like I had to be in immediately and my parents obliged and, you know, 30 some odd years later, here we are, uh, still playing Pokemon and enjoying it. I love that you're not being s

pecific. You did 30 plus, you did 30 some odd years. Yeah, I like that for you. I think ultimate cozy for me is probably the Kirby series. Um, I love platformers and especially like a platformer that is like low barrier of entry, super low stress. I mean, depending on the Kirby game you're playing, Yeah, I was like triple deluxe and robo bot get kind of crazy. Um, But, like, there's something to be said about, like, just a game character that, like, all you know about him is that he's a pink puf

f, he likes to eat food, he loves his friends, and if you mess with any of those, he is on it, he is on you, and he will chase you. He loves his enemies, too. Yeah, it's true, man. He loves a lot of these, bro. He hangs out with Meta. Meta knight will try and kill him, and he'll be like, hey, what if I- You cool if they play as you for this one? Yeah, he's like, I guess you guess I have cake. Okay, I Guess I'll do it. But like it's I there's something just innately comforting about like a charac

ter like that, right? He's basically just like Nintendo John wick if you think about it. I was gonna say he's the only mega level mutant in the Nintendo catalog. He really is and he's just like You stole my cake. I'm gonna chase you down. And then he's like, Oh, okay. You know what? or, we just share. And it's like, dudes, you were going kill me five seconds ago. I do have the power to throw you into a black hole inside my stomach. However, let's just share the cake. Right. Let's just share the

cake. And we'll all be happy. It's just really cool and really comforting to see that, like, The games can still be made in a major genre. Um, but still satisfy the itch of like, Hey, I want to play this, but I don't want to be stressed out. Like I am when I play Mario. So it's a good pick. What time is it? It's mailbag time. We still don't have a mail carrier yet, so we'll, we'll figure that out, but got a couple of questions on the docket today. Let's see what you guys brought us and we'll ans

wer accordingly. Maybe. I think we will. And this question comes from @Villiam295 on Twitter. Welcome back, VIlliam. Welcome back. Thank you for your recommendations. What anime would you like to see turned into a video game? And what genre of video game would it be? Me, campfire cooking in another world as a cooking RPG game. That is a very good choice. Great. That is a very good choice. Wow. All right. Let's think. Let's think. I know mine, but it's kind of, it's kind of a twist on it though.

Oh, yeah. No, go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Okay. What I really want is a tabletop game based on the wrong way to use healing magic. I don't know if you guys seen. That would be fantastic. But I really like how the healers in that, in that show use their magic. So that's, that's immediately what I would want. Okay. I haven't seen the show. Is it like, do they use it for like offense too? Is that part of it? They like push them or they're, they push themselves really hard and constantly heal t

hemselves so they can like fight and it's awesome. jump off a cliff, buff yourself. Yeah, exactly. No fall damage. Yep. Okay. I'm going to go weird with this one. There's, there's a million answers for this question. Right. Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to go an Aggretsuko. Platformer. Okay. That has an anger based mechanic. Oh, that sounds To where, like if you miss jumps or like an enemy hits you. Yeah, you like aggro and you get angry and then the music changes and the screaming starts and you

start like barely think of it like the superstar in Mario. Yeah, we start. Yeah, cool. I think I said this when I had delicious and dungeon as my recommendation, but I would love to have like A delicious and dungeon kind of like RPG cooking game like they were saying with this one second question from @CasualOtakuRoy from Twitter, which anime character has the strongest superpower? Good guy or bad guy? Oh, gosh. Oh, that is loaded. It's like with the power scaling of anime. That is a loaded loa

ded loaded question. Uh, by technicality, Kirby. I was gonna say, if we're following the same technicality, it would also be RimiRu, so it's just the puffball and the slime boy. I mean, like, you know, part of you wants to say, like, Goku or Saitama, but like, I feel like they're contextually the most powerful Goku definitely has more of a, of a play there because we see him get stronger than the universe's most powerful beings throughout the series. I don't know. What do you think, Kelly? I don

't know. Maybe. 'cause we were talking about my hero. My thoughts went back to Mirio and how everybody underestimated him, but I don't know if he's. the most powerful. I don't know. that's a tough one. He definitely uses his, his cork in a very like unusual way that makes him like super strong. Yeah, I was going to say like having the strongest superpower doesn't mean they're the most resilient. So like overhaul. Yeah. My hero. Yeah. He was scary. Sugar Rocky. Sugar. Yeah. Sugar. Rocky. Yeah. I

feel like Gojo is an easy answer. Oh yeah. Gojo's a lay up. Oh yeah. Um, yeah. Agreed. Well, cool. Um, yeah, uh, you guys let us know which anime character is the strongest superpower. Good guy or bad guy. Let us know what anime you'd love to see turned into a game. Let us know your cozy recs. Yes. All, all of the above. I want to see what people's answers are for this, this week. And if you want to ask a question on the show, you can drop it in the comments wherever you're watching or respond t

o the social posts that comes out on Crunchyroll's Twitter every week. But I think, uh, that about does us for this week. I think that's it, man. Kelly. Thank you so much for joining us on what I hope is your first appearance on the anime effect. Please, please come back. Everybody. Star Wars dad jokes. In stores now. Go buy it. It's fantastic. Kelly, anything else, uh, you want to plug or say? I have another book at the end of two other books at the end of the month. There's a Marvel Studios ch

aracter encyclopedia and Return of the Jedi visual archive. Those are both, um, say less. I'm there. I'm there. those are both out. Uh, April 23rd. So keep an eye out for those. Awesome. Heck yeah. Yeah. Awesome. And of course, you can read, uh, Kelly's Cozy Anime Corner column on Crunchyroll News. Lots of alliteration there. Yeah. Every month on Crunchyroll News. Yep. So check it out. Thanks, Kelly. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks for joining us for another episode of The Anime Effect b

rought to you by Crunchyroll and the folks over at Sony Music Entertainment. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Crunchyroll Presents The Anime Effect is hosted by me, Nick Friedman, LeAlec Murray. And Leah President. We are executive produced by Jonathan Hirsch, Shara Morris, Alex Lawless, and Nick Friedman. Ooh. Yeah. Our lead producer is Kyla Carneiro, and our associate producer is Zoe Kuhlkin. Patrick Emille edited and mixed this episode's audio, and Tyler Lucas filmed and edi

ted the video. Our head of production is Sammi Allison. Special thanks, as always, to Tameeka Balance Kolasny. We will be back next week with more anime, of course, and there's nothing you can do about it. We'll catch you on the next train stop. You know, we'll stop for you. Just make sure you have your ticket. We'll see you then. Later, days. Bye!