For the October installment of Purely Academic, Jonathan and Sean embrace the spooky season by talking Halloween – specifically, the recent Halloween reboot/sequel trilogy directed by David Gordon Green and starring Jamie Lee Curtis, with the hosts debating whether these films are muddled messes or interesting revisionist takes on the slasher genre. We break down some recent News, including Sony’s controversial unveiling of the PS5 Pro, several new game announcements including Ghost of Yōtei and Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, and news of Kyoto Animation making an exciting new film and TV series in 2025. In our ‘Show ‘n Tell’ segment, we discuss what we’ve been playing and watching recently, with Jonathan talking about the terrible new Joker movie, his experiences at the Denver Silent Film Festival, and finally finishing Tsukihime: A Piece of Blue Glass Moon, while Sean shares his thoughts on the 5.0 update of Genshin Impact, and we both discuss the outstanding new PS5 game Astro Bot. And finally, in the ‘Monthly Ten’ segment, Sean is challenged by Jonathan to rank the Top 10 Anime That Aren’t About the Power of Friendship.

Enjoy, and we’ll be back next month for an exciting episode reviewing the Heisei-era Gamera trilogy, a series of classic Kaiju films we’ve been promising to discuss for years now. What kinds of things do you think we’re going to learn next time?

Time Chart:

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:13:20

News: 0:13:20 – 1:03:07

Show n’ Tell: 1:03:07 – 2:22:27

Topic (Halloween!): 2:22:27 – 3:56:06

The Monthly Ten: 3:56:06 – 4:14:20

Outro: 4:14:20 – 4:16:56

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels!

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

For the first episode of this new incarnation of the podcast, Jonathan and Sean introduce (or reintroduce) themselves to listeners by interviewing each other, with a mix of questions equal parts insightful and ridiculous. Then for our first ‘Show ‘n Tell’ segment, we discuss what we’ve been playing and watching recently, with Sean discussing HoYoverse’s Zenless Zone Zero and his ongoing adventures with Ultraman, while Jonathan shares his thoughts on the recently localized Tsukihime remake and what it was like seeing a LiSA concert film in an American theater. And finally, for the debut of our new ‘Monthly Ten’ segment, Jonathan ranks the 10 best episodes of our previous podcast, The Weekly Stuff, and challenges Sean to make a very strange top 10 list for next month.

Enjoy, and we’ll be back Friday, October 4th for an exciting episode reviewing the recent David Gordon Green Halloween trilogy. What kinds of things do you think we’re going to learn next time?

Time Chart:

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:07:15

Topic – (re)Introducing Ourselves: 0:07:15 – 1:58:33

Show n’ Tell – Zenless Zone Zero, Tsukihime, Ultraman 80 & More: 1:58:33 – 2:40:45

The Monthly Ten: 2:40:45 – 3:02:14

Outro: 3:02:14 – 3:04:54

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels!

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

The Weekly Stuff Podcast may be dead, but that doesn't mean we are! Sean and Jonathan are here for a quick update to remind you that we're working on the next incarnation of the show behind the scenes, and announcing its premiere in September! Jonathan also tells you all about the new subscriptions at his site, www.JonathanLack.com, where you can get weekly classic film reviews and more! There is a lot of exciting stuff coming from us in the final months of 2024, including the end of Japanimation Station Season 4, and in this short check-in, we tell you what to expect and when.

Read all of Jonathan's past and future writing at Fade to Lack https://www.jonathanlack.com

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Read the book 200 Reviews by Jonathan R. Lack in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our sister series about the wide, wacky world of anime: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels!

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman