What should you do when two different governments claim to have authority over your country? Tell everyone that a third government secretly has the real claim to power! Then, start taking people’s money so you can issue your own license plates and government ID cards. What could go wrong?
This week, we’re covering the rise of the Hirata school of kokugaku, or national studies, during the Edo Period. How…
A questionably written game gave rise to one of the most exuberant and creative fandoms in recent years. What was going on with the fandom that turned a barely-there character into a beloved fan favorite, filmed an entire feature-length movie, and wrote millions of words about playing with wires in a sexy way?
An attempt to get to the bottom of steroid abuse in Major League Baseball spun out so badly that one of the lawyers involved ended up in prison. But why is punishing people for the misuse of regulated drugs in sports left up to private organizations in the first place? And wouldn’t baseball be so much more fun if everyone was still injecting meth and goat testicle juice?
This week: the career and legacy of the most influential Japanese poet you’ve probably never heard of, Fujiwara no Teika.…
What happens when a writer tries to make oppressed robots stand in for tons of different kinds of real marginalized people in the same story? A confusing, frequently offensive, but occasionally interesting mess. Amanda Jean joins the podcast to tackle Detroit: Become Human, a game that tried to make its robots an allegory for everything at once.
This week, a current events episode on the leadup and immediate aftermath of the assassination of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo.…
The target: The British Museum of Natural History. The payload: A suitcase full of dead birds. The criminal: A flute player obsessed with the rare art of Victorian fly tying.
This week, we’re taking a look at the legacy of one of Japan’s most influential poets: Ki no Tsurayuki. His…
Cora and Demetria take a trip to a future that’s obsessed with the past. Is Westworld a typical 70s western, or is it a twisted nostalgia trip through 50s western tropes? Is it saying something about American masculinity, or is it just a story about scary amusement parks? And are these robots even sentient, or just glitchy?