[MUSIC] Hello and welcome to Morgan Headline, your weekly anime news podcast powered by audio technica made by Australians for global citizens. I'm your extremely humble host, Brendan White, aka The Salt and Pepper Senpai, and join me as his tradition, my trusted co-hosted rival, Courtney Smith, how the bloody hell are you? I'm great, that was very Australian of you, how the bloody hell are you? I thought I'd mix it up a little bit, keep things fresh and also a little hat-nog to those fantastic tourism ads of the early 2000s. Truly, the ones that were, I'm pretty sure, like, banned internationally. I think so, I don't know if it was just because of the Aussie slang was too much, or the suggestion is a girl of a girl in a bikini on the beach, I don't know. Either way. I have many questions. Yeah. How are you? I'm doing good. I'm doing good. It is a moderately warm/slightly cold Saturday evening, or the seventh episode of More Than Headlines, time be flying, Courtney, time be flying. We, honestly, I'll say I'm very proud of us because when I first thought of this and suggested it, I'd never, like, stuck with recording a podcast for so long and so consistently. So I am very proud of you, but especially me for being organised. Well, I guess I say thanks a little bit, but also, like, yeah, very, very proud of yourself as well. Like, this was something that was created very quickly, and yeah, you know, I think we're both very, very cruising, go with the flow types, but here we are, committed to this thing, nearly two months in, rockin' and roll, and it's great to see it growing. So thanks to everybody that has checked it out so far and the ones that are stumbling across us for the first time, first and foremost, what took you so bloody long, but also thank you for getting here because the best is hopefully yet to come, and if it's the worst, then just forget I said it. But Courtney, what do you reckon? Should we jump into what we're here for? Let's read the news. All right. You like some news? Ah, that drop will never get old, but probably be at the same time. But the first announcement that we wanted to bring to the table today, should you, Pyro, made an announcement this past week that they are producing a brand-new magical girl TV anime, the announcement was made in conjunction with Bandai Namco Films' works, and was revealed during the 40th anniversary broadcast of the final episode of Magical Angel Creamy Mummy. I am so glad that I got to hear you say the name of Magical Angel Creamy Mummy out loud because I don't think you hear many people say creamy and creamy Mummy. And there's probably a reason for that. That was amazing. You know what? I'm going to try and weave it into just general discussion from here on out, so it's going to become part of my usual dialogue, like when my mom calls next time, we're like, "It's up Creamy Mummy," you know, see what she says, our report back. Studio Hero has produced five different magical girl anime to date, with Creamy Mummy being the first, back in the 80s, followed by magical fairy Peja, magical star, magical Emmy, magical idol pastel Yumi, and fancy love. They just roll off the tongue. How many times can you say magical really, really fast? Probably once because my words aren't wording very well today, but I love that a thing like Creamy Mummy is a thing, and I respect the hell out of it for being the first of a very prestigious lineage there of those five. But I've got to be honest, this is a very you and unfamiliar world for me, Courtney. So I'd love to get your insight on the fantastic world of magical anime, especially in relation to Creamy Mummy, because it is my new favourite thing, and as I said, I'm going to beat that horse till it's dead. So yeah, can you enlighten me and the listeners and viewers about Creamy Mummy? Of course, so I love magical girl anime, anything where girls are fighting bad guys, that's right up my alley. When I was a girl, I wanted to be Sailor Moon so bad, I was like, if I don't be her when I am older, life isn't worth living. Like I need to be Usagi, or Serena, I guess, is how I knew her as a child. But I'm really looking forward to what Studio Peira is going to do with this, especially since all of their previous magical girl anime were made in the 80s and 90s, and they haven't done any more magical girl stuff since. So hopefully what we're going to see next will be more modern. I think it would be really good if they steered away from the dark themes of some more recent magical girl anime, like Madoka, and there was another one recently that was very, very similar to Madoka, except they just like outright, like, fought each other and beat each other up. So something more lighthearted, I hope is what we'll be getting. I hope so too, but I hope we get plenty of Creamy Mummy. That's all I want in life moving forward, it's just maximum Creamy Mummy all the time. You should go watch it. I'm going to after this, just to see what it's all about. It's cute, it's good. I like it. I love cute and good, and I love Creamy Mummy, so let's go. Speaking of Creamy Mummy, Megan Thee Stallion just dropped her new album, Megan, released on June 28. The album has a few references to Japanese culture, but none more than the song Otaku Hot Girl, which samples music from the Jujutsu Kaisen eye-catchers in Season 2, as well as a cameo from Yuji Itadori's English voice actor throughout the whole song, different anime, and characters are mentioned, and we even get to hear Megan speaking Japanese, which I love. Yeah, this song is a time. It's well known that Megan is a fan of Japanese culture and anime, with her hosting the Crunchyroll Anime Awards in Tokyo earlier this year. In addition, she's also cosplayed heaps of characters from popular series, such as My Hero Academia, Jujutsu Kaisen, Jujo's Bizarre Adventure, and one of these. I cannot tell you how much I love this. I have been a fan of Megan for years, and when she started posting anime screenshots at the end of her Instagram carousels, I was like, "Oh my god, she's one of us. We are winning. We are absolutely winning. She is an icon, and this song is everything." I actually haven't even listened to the whole album because I just keep listening to Otaku on repeat, because it's so good, Megan, if you're listening, I'd love to watch some anime with you. Let's be besties, please. Yeah. And can I come along for the ride, too, because, yeah, she is... No. Ah, god damn it. Well, I'm just going to live through you and just think about Megan. Yeah, this generation's creamy mommy, but yeah. This song is an absolute bop. I have been playing this on repeat since it first popped up in the docket. So, first and foremost, thank you for introducing me to this track. And it is a time, and I hope, hope, hope, hope, hope we get a film clip for this down the line because I can only imagine the awesomeness that would sort of combine with this fantastic beat because it is an absolute humper of a track. And there's this one line in there where, like, I think a lot of us anime fans can relate to and just like almost uses a bit of a battle cry out there on the internet these days where it says, "Incel Mad, I'm a weeb and a baddie." And I'm like, "Yes, girl. Yes, indeed." But, yeah. Ataku Hot Girl is all that more. And yeah, I might be a new super fan of Megan the Stallion after this because it is a time. She's just so iconic, and I actually want to bring up as well her speaking Japanese in that song is really, really cool, but she also has another song on the album called "Mamushi," which was, I think it was produced or at least features Yuki Chiba, who is a Japanese musician. And he actually taught her some Japanese phrases and hearing her just like speak Japanese just soothes my soul. It's so good. It was just a cool, grounded, powerful woman, and I love that where she's not shy to embrace and showcase her fandoms to the world. So, you know, Pat tipped to Megan the Stallion and, yeah, the number one creamy mummy for sure. But moving into the next bit of news, in international news, Courtney, McDonald's US has announced a new collaboration menu item with Jujutsu Kaisen. The menu item is a special grade garlic sauce, which is based on McDonald's, Japan's black garlic sauce. The sauce will come in with eight different lid designs featuring Yuki, Megumi, Nobura, Gojo, Nanami, Ghetto, Mahoto, and Sakuna. Unfortunately, for us Aussies, there's been no Australian announcement fingers crossed yet. Instead, we're getting a different winter menu, which sees the return of Makka's mozzarella sticks, which I had tonight, and they are as good as ever. And the UK's Steakhouse Stackburger, which I also tried and was actually pretty good, but there's no special grade garlic sauce, and I'm sad. We are severely lacking, and I respect that you are a woman of the people out there trying the mozzarella sticks and Steakhouse Stackburger to, like, give us opinions on the ground right then and there to know if it's worth copying. But I do love me a good mozzie stick, but I'm very sad that it's not going to be able to be accompanied by the special grade sauce because it just sounds like a time, like, I want to dip that sauce into sucking a nasty evil son of a bitch face and then just have a chew on that. So, yeah, that's a little bit aggressive, but this is that type of episode. We are off the rails six ways from Sunday at the moment, but I'm loving that we're seeing anime continue to make inroads into the mainstream more and more with things like this where we're seeing, you know, one of the largest brands in the universe in McDonald's partnering up with JJK, which is, you know, one of the largest IP in the anime manga fandom. And I'm hoping it's going to be, you know, certainly not the last time we see some co-labs, but I also loved as well that on the back of this is if you are getting this sauce with your McDonald's meal, you also get a cheeky little value out of a 30-day free crunchy roll trial with your purchase. So, there could be a bit of a gateway sauce-based drug here for potential new anime fans where they tried this sauce, they then tried some crunchy roll and then they're stuck and locked and loaded into the greatness of this anime moving forward. So, that's a very sneaky slash maybe subtly predatory way to try and pull fans through from McDonald's, but, you know, you've got to risk it for the biscuit. But I wanted to ask as well, because I was thinking about this as far as dream collaborations, and I thought, first and foremost, like, what can we tie into more food-related stuff? And I thought, "Code Geese and Pizza Hut are starved for another type of collaboration." There's so much Pizza Hut references within that fantastic anime and, shut out to CC, the, you know, the pizza tragic, maybe like a Dora Hidoro Gyoza co-lab. And the last one I thought of that could sort of blend not only food, but food porn and maybe porn in general is maybe some food wars-inspired sex toys. So, their hopes that I see coming to reality on the horizon. So, Courtney, I want to know, have you got in dream collaborations you'd like to see become reality? Sorry, you really just said food was inspired sex toys and then asked me a question without addressing that. Yes. You can unpack it if you like. Look, love honey, the sex toy shop, if you need any ideas, hit us up, because Brendan has loads apparently. Many, many. A peanut butter-centred tentacle dildo is definitely the first one that comes to mind. I actually think maybe less collaborations, because we have had some food collaborations here in Australia, like I know Gong Cha did a demon slayer one a few years back, and mostly bubble tea, honestly, bubble tea and anime go like hand in hand. I think it would be really cooler to see more pop-up cafes and things like that, or pop-up drink events and things. You could very, very easily do like a dungeon-meshy pop-up cafe, or even like a blue-lock one, and the meals that they eat in the show, you can be like, "Okay, whatever ticket number you get, you eat cold tofu." I love that. The dungeon-meshy one, especially, we've got establishments in Melbourne and Sydney that are perfect for it, like Fortress with that whole vibe, just tic-tic-tic, collaboration is waiting to happen, so yeah, I know you do some work with Fortress, so I'll put a word in and make it reality, please, Gwen. Yeah, I might have to hit them off and let them know. While I am sad that we're missing out in Australia on the Special Great Golic Source, I do remember when the BTS meal was going around overseas and it was going around for a few months and Australia is really sad about that, but then it came to Australia anyway, and not only that, but even after the promotional period ended, there were still just so many sources left over, and occasionally you would go and they would just have the BTS sources on the menu, and you're like, "Oh, I'll cop that," honestly, I think, hopefully, it comes here anyway. I hope so, but circling back to that super quick, did you stock up on BTS Source and you've just got a cupboard full? I actually didn't. Look, they were really, really good, I really liked them, but for me, I love the exclusivity of that kind of product, so I was like, "I'll enjoy it in the moment," you know? Yet, against it, you're a woman of the people. You don't want to sort of take it all and sort of stop all, you want to allow maximum BTS consumption around the country, so I respect that. Yes, everyone should enjoy a junk hook equally. This episode needs to have a mature rating at the start of it, sorry listeners and viewers. I'm not, I'm not unpacking that one. It's been 10 years since the original Tokyo Gore anime ad, Brendan, did you know? I did know that, Courtney. You might have known because of the countdown timer that appeared on the official website, and everyone was really excited because we're all sitting here thinking, "10 year anniversary, big countdown timer, surely we get a remake, especially since the original series was not as great as we'd heard." Yes, sadly, we were left feeling very defeated and cheated here because when the timer ended on the exact date of the 10 year anniversary, fans, including myself, were very, very disappointed upset to find out that the anime is the subject instead of an art exhibition that is going to be taking place in Tokyo and Osaka, celebrating the series. Can you imagine one of your favorite manga series has a big, big countdown for like days and like surely it's something huge and they're like, "Oh, we drew some pictures." It makes me so angry, it makes me so angry, Courtney. It's so brutal, so I haven't even watched the original series or read the manga, I just know a lot about the series generally through the internet and in my head, I was thinking of doing another spice and wolf act where I didn't watch it for 10 years and then they did the remake and I was like, "This is the perfect time to watch it." Because I was sitting there, I was like, "I'm ready. I'm ready to watch Tokyo Ghoul because they're going to do a remake," and then they didn't do a remake. Yeah, sadly, we rolled snake eyes on this one and it's so disappointing and I genuinely haven't felt this let down about this franchise since working my way through Tokyo Ghoul, Brute A and RE, which is the second and third season because the first season I really enjoyed and it had some really cool concepts and the premise was great and the potential was even greater and then it just turned to hell in a head basket, which kind of sucks. Yeah, it's so disappointing because, yeah, 10 years on, they hype it up like no one's business, everyone gets excited, the internet is going crazy and thinking, "Oh, here we go. We're finally going to get what we deserve." And then to be handed an art exhibition was very mid. And I feel this would have been far better to receive if they avoided the countdown and the build up and then just the self-generated hysteria that the internet likes to sort of get involved in anyway and just sort of cheekily sort of just drop this out and be like, "Oh, you know, it's been 10 years, how could we forget this?" But also anyone that wants to be in sort of Tokyo and Osaka, we've got some really great art exhibitions available to commemorate the greatness that is Tokyo Ghoul because, yeah, Ken and Toka, they deserve so, so, so much better and I'm going to be brooding on this for a while because, yeah, it's a really cool concept. The manga is, yeah, far superior than the anime and I hope we get it done right eventually. Maybe in our 10 years at the 20th anniversary, we might get a remake of Tokyo Ghoul. Who the hell knows? Maybe we'll get the announcement of some limited edition sources in 20 years time with Tokyo Ghoul collabian with McDonald's, but this ain't it, dog, this ain't it. Sad. Very sad. All right, moving on to the fifth and final headline of episode seven of MTH. This one is a lot less sad. This is actually great because anime Expo started this past week in Los Angeles on the 4th of July and with it, we're getting absolute bucket loads of announcements about new and upcoming anime. The day one announcements include a new trailer for Suicide Squad Isekai and plus size elf, a new poster and staff details for the panty and stocking remake and stills for the new Lord of the Rings anime. We also got a trailer and key visual for the Witch Hat and Alia, anime adaptation and the name of the trigon stampede sequel, trigon stargames. And we've just had day two as well. So adding to that, we have some more announcements, which include Ruby being acquired by Viz Media with new content in the works, solo leveling season two debuted a new trailer, beast as creator teased the anime's big final season, how many seasons of B stars is there? To be honest, I couldn't tell you like I'm not in on the B stars craze and fandom. So like I've seen it on the edge of my periphery and scroll past it on Netflix and stuff but like it does nothing for me, but I'm happy does lots for everybody else. Well, getting a final season, Blue Exorcist has revealed the season four trailer and the key visual. They have debuted a new trailer for Blue Lux season two and an official poster for Batman Ninja vs Yakuza League, which looks so insane. It really does. But like there's some cool announcements in there like outside of B stars, like I'm also pretty lukewarm on Ruby, like I've given the first season a go a couple of times and made it through maybe halfway both those times and it just hasn't grabbed me. I might circle back because I know the production quality gets better as the seasons progress and there's so many people that are rampant fans of Ruby. So maybe I need to give it another spin. But second season solo leveling, hell yeah, and some of the verbiage around it, it's saying like coming soon repeatedly, like it's emphasized. So I'm like, soon is in tomorrow, next month, next quarter, like it feels like we're going to get a 2024 drop here because they showed a lot of scenes in that trailer. And I know the chapters that those scenes canvas and it's sort of a fairly sort of big space. So I feel that we've got the almost the complete season there that they're ready to unleash on us, which I'm hyped as hell for. But another announcement that caught my eye this past week as well was in regards to a new movie titled grotesque, which is being worked on by Cloverworks in which studio and it's being directed by Atsushi Nishigori, a man who has been involved with titles such as Darling in the Franks, Killer Kill, Spy Family and even Shiyo Ghibli's Spirited Away. The announcement trailer is an absolute bop and is drawing comparisons to Mob Psycho 100 and Jujitsu Kaisen. So yeah, this one for me, trailer has everything that I look for in anime and it's a real toe tapper of a sort of musical accompaniment. And I'm curious about this and the fact that it's coming out in movie as opposed to a series, I'm like, okay, let's get it. I've actually been really enjoying anime movies lately. I don't know if it's just because we've had so many good ones in quick succession. But hearing that there's going to be a new anime movie to look forward to is just really getting me hyped, especially because I just watched the blue look Nagi movie, which was so good. You watched that as well, right? I did watch it. And yeah, listeners, viewers, Ataku's, anyone else checking this out right now, get to the cinema if you can and give it the full cinematic experience because it is so good. It's so fun. It's stunning. It's paced really well. And it just creates this perfect, like, hype moment to get you ready for season two that comes out in a couple of months as well. So yeah, I loved, loved seeing more of Nagi's world and seeing how he came to be. I guess you could say. You know what the best part about the blue look movie was? The Hot Boys. Well, yes, but specifically, specifically just the abs, so many abs. So many abs, like there was, I ran out of fingers and toes to count the amount of abs I was seeing on screen while I was watching this. And as the movie progressed, I was getting more and more insecure in myself by all these young Japanese chiseled abs, sons of bitches that just ooze talent and sex appeal. I'm here drinking sparkling water in an isolated four bedroom house right now. So blue look, you build me up just to knock me down. I do just want to mention that anime Expo is running for, I think one more day, it goes for so Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then currently it's Saturday in LA, I believe. So we've got one extra day or is it Friday, I don't know. What day is it? It is Saturday right now, yes, but I'm pretty sure the Expo itself runs through to American Sunday, Australian Monday, if you want to look at it that way. Yeah, and I don't know about you, but I always get so much foam about this convention, because it's like actually the world's biggest anime convention, right? But the fact that we get all of these announcements and we get to hear about them and report on them is so exciting and one day we'll go. I think we should like, wish it into the world right now and say it publicly that one day we will go to anime Expo, we'll be there, we'll be covering it in some form of official capacity and we'll have the best time, we'll give you all the updates right from the show floor. So get ready for that maybe in 2025 manifesting. Thinking about it. All right. So yeah, after that fantastic jaunter five headlines, we will jump into the segment that we like to call big game hunting, but we're going to update you on the latest developments regarding the biggest titles airing in the current anime season and I will lead us off. We only really have sort of the two big dogs still in the race seasonally at the moment. And that is my hero academia season seven episode one 48 will be airing overnight here. As I mentioned, we are recording on Saturday evening in Australia. So season seven episode one 48 don't have the episode title for that one just yet. And also one piece season 14 episode one one one one also drops overnight. So yeah, those straw hat pirates be eternally eating well there, but Courtney, what's happened in the new releases. So this week is actually a pretty big week because last week was the first week of the new season, but if you don't know a lot of the biggest stuff doesn't air until the second week of the season. So July seven, we've got fairytale 100 years quest. My dear friend, Nokotan plus size elf and tower of God season two. All of their episode ones will be dropping tomorrow. And then July eight, which is the Monday, we've got my own like a punch and Vtuber legend, which I'm excited for even I feel like it's going to be unhinged on the Tuesday. We've got no longer allowed in another world, which is the, that's the one about the author, right? About the real author. Yep. Getting transported. Yes. And the magical girl and the evil lieutenant used to be arch enemies. And then on the Wednesday, my brain, love is indivisible by twins. So we've got a huge week coming up with a bunch of cool stuff. I think the thing I'm most excited for there is plus size elf. I think it's probably the one B to the one A for me, which is my dear friend, Nokotan. Because it also just looks unhinged and insane. And it just looks like it's going to be a bag of fun. So yeah, we're well looked after this week as far as those episode one debuts. A couple other quick hitters. Another new episode of more than Hentai is dropping this week. And I am joined by a friend of the show, Nick Duff, to talk about the greatness that is rascal does not dream of bunny girl, senpai, which is one of my favorite anime of all time. My is just about the waifu to end all waifus for me. So it was nice to go back and revisit that. I also wanted to say that I managed to catch, not only episode one, but also episode two of suicide squad Isekai the last few days. It was fine. It did not set any worlds on fire for me at the moment. The English dub is certainly a million times weaker than the Japanese. I actually started on the English dub and then went, you know what? I'm not feeling this shifted across to the Japanese. And it was light years ahead better, but the world building seems to be fine. It's fine. It's zany. It's, you know, supervility goodness. But what I wanted to touch on over that is season two, episode one of Oshinoko dropped this week. And my godness is fan bloody tastic. I'm so happy it's back. The OP is an absolute banger. The animation is stunning. I love this world. I love this characters and I'm excited to see what these 12 episodes take us. I tweeted about it, but I'll say it again because I genuinely think the opening for season two is better than the opening for season one. I will die on this hill. It's so good. I'm not there yet, but maybe I need to go back and rewatch slash re listen to it a few times because that opening from season one from your sobi is so good. But maybe the actual episode itself, I was I was watching it on the train home from work and I was like, like on my phone, I was like, Oh my god, this is crazy. It's so fun. The concept there, they're sort of throwing out a straight off the bat as far as seeing where Aqua is up to in his acting prowess and whatnot and being part of this cool like Japanese samurai period piece play. It's just great. And I was just eating the entire thing up that first episode was really strong. Um, I also watched episode one of Alia sometimes has her feelings in Russian. And can I just say I have not seen a panty shot so clean. I just so well done. I killed him like seriously, though. In all my years watching anime, it's been a long time since I've seen like a classy panty shot. That was a classy one. Okay. Okay. See, when you said clean, I went like is in like they've just been in the wash. They're like super clean and the details like super high in your face, but it's it's like a tasteful panty shot. It's it's a full on like full screen panty shot, but it's just like pure white, like the scene itself is so like, you know, it's coming and it's just actually beautifully done. I don't know if it's safe for me to comment further on that right now, but I'm I it is on my watch list tonight to check out because yeah, and only I just ran out of time this week with work and whatnot to to give it a look, but I'm excited overall, like outside of the cleanest panty shot the world has ever seen, was it a good first episode? It was really good. It's really cute and wholesome and makes me want to land Russian. Okay. That's good. I'm excited to check it out and definitely just for the cute and wholesome, it's not the clean panty shots because we're not about that life. Fair. I have a random fact of the week for you. Give it to me, please. Did you know that China bans loads of popular anime? It doesn't surprise me because apart from the Chinese food, most of the things that China does as a whole is pretty shitty. So I assume that this was the case. I actually had no idea. Like I knew there was a lot of like games and things that were banned in China for like their use of zombies and skeletons and things like that, but I didn't know I guess I didn't think about anime, but a lot of the popular ones they've been include, and for very obvious reasons, high school DXD. Yes. Oh. Oh. Oh. Yep. High school of the dead. Mm hmm. Attack on Titan. Yep. Parasite and Death Note. Interesting. Yeah. There is some commonalities between those five that you just mentioned. I know they also like do a lot of editing in the anime that do get accepted onto the screens over there. Like I've seen a lot of the photos regarding some of the changes with Demon Slayer going from say what we see and what the people in China see as well. And yeah, censorship is very real over in China. Yeah. So usually if it's too violent or lewd, then they'll ban it if they don't change it at least. So. Yeah. Glad I live in Australia. Me too. One fact for you related, but I related to this, I'm actually one sixteenth Chinese. So there you go. Wow. Good to know. Yeah. I don't know if we'll do many good in any aspect of life, but it was nice to have like a counterfact that tied into what you were just talking to here. But this episode has been a journey, Miss Smith. This episode has been a journey. Have you got anything else you wanted to mention or shout out before we turn the studio lights off for another week? I think it's just best to turn the lights off for the week or at least have the mood lighting on because yeah, it's been a time. But listeners, viewers, otaku's and everyone else and everything else in between. Thank you so much for stopping on by. If you can, please be sure to rate, view, subscribe this podcast on the podcast hosting platform of your choice. And if you're an Apple podcast, feel free to give us a cheeky review while you're there. Keep us tracking, keep us trending, keep us relevant. If you're watching us on TikTok or YouTube, chuck a like, just chuck a comment our way as well because that'll help us stay in big, evil algorithms. But also head on over to more than hentai.life to get your hands on the tastiest merchandise in the land. And while you're there, you can join the soy squad from the low, low price of $1 per month to get yourself exclusive access to perks and content. You will not find anywhere else on planet Earth, but whether your anime be subbed or still yet to come, enjoy yourself and much love to all the gods of wifers, husbandos and premy mummies out there. Goodbye. Bye bye. 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