Part of the problem with doing a bi-weekly podcast is that you’re always a week late to the discussion, even if you made plans before everyone else. First, ANNCast did a Rumiko Takahashi retrospective last month when I’d already planned to do one this October to celebrate her 60th birthday, something I’ve had in mind for the past year. Then, Wave Motion Cannon, Manga Machinations, and Manga In Your Ears all put out an episode on My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness within a week of each other after we had just finished recording ours. And now, practically every anime and manga-related podcast is doing an episode complaining about Anime Strike!, including Colton who cucked me and went off on his own to record one with Buggy and Doctor even though he knew me and VLord wanted in. What am I supposed to add to the conversation now, huh? Why couldn’t we all be on the same page…well actually we all were on the same page...but why couldn’t we all done one big collaboration instead of all these fragmented discussions? Why does no one return my calls and e-mails? Why do all my friends ignore me? Why does it take so long to edit podcasts? Why does Audacity always freeze up and make editing on my crappy laptop so tedious? Why is the second half of the Pokemon Adventures retrospective not out yet? Why do I keep recording new episodes of Movie Mavericks Manga Mavericks @ Movies when I haven’t released one in months? Why do I even podcast?

Talking about My Lesbian Experience in Loneliness and My Brother’s Husband made me remember why. These manga are not just great stories for the LGBT community, but communicate universally relevant and relatable messages. Both are about very different things, but about equally important subjects, and are two of the finest manga to come out this year. They are the kind of manga that inspire me, the kind of manga which reminds me why I love manga. They are the kind of manga that you can’t help but want to talk about after reading, and the kind of manga that should provoke thoughtful, meaningful discussions from everyone in this community. Which is why I’m linking to other podcasts that discuss My Lesbian Experience in Loneliness in this post, to help spread the word and unite our voices in our love for these manga. While they’ve been getting plenty of attention and exposure, they deserve even more critical analysis and discussion, and I’m hoping these podcasts will help stimulate that conversation. But you should listen to ours first, of course.

This is one of the longest episodes of the show in a while, easily double the length of the last few, and for good reason. After all, Anime Expo happened. Yeah. We’ve got almost 40 minutes worth of pure licensing news from the con to go over, and another half an hour of happenings to talk about too. Not to mention there’s two new Jump Starts to tackle, one among the best in recent memory, and the other one of the worst. Luckily, our good friend Maxy Barnard joins us to help discuss these alongside My Brother’s Husband and My Lesbian Experience, making for some great and insightful conversations about what makes them so great (and so irredeemably awful, in a certain manga’s case). Considering how long this episode is, you better stop reading and start listening! You don’t want to be late to the party like we were, ha ha….ha ha…haaaaaa…

PODCAST BREAKDOWN:

Part 1: News 

0:22 - Introductions & Plans 
1:24 - Dr. Stone Gets 2nd Printing of Volume 1
6:04 - Fairy Tail Confirmed to End with Chapter #545 
7:24 - New Shonen Ashibe Manga About the Characters in High School 
10:57 - Akira Himekawa Are Creating a New Fantasy Manga Called Kamdo
12:43 - Cells at Work Gets Spinoff About Cells That Don’t Work
14:10 - Spinoff Novel of Your Name Gets Manga Adapataion in July
17:15 - Udon Publishes Daigo the Beast 
20:00 - Crunchyroll to Publish Final Fantasy: Lost Stranger, Knight's & Magic, & Restaurant to Another World Manga Simultaneously With Japan 
23:10 - Kodansha USA’s Newes