Key Frames is a podcast where we talk about anime the way it should be talked about. Join us as we cast a critical eye on that animation out of Japan!
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Episode 38 of Key Frames: Inbetweens, a mini-podcast about anime. Check it, fam: Ben, Andy, and Duncan finna talk about the 1988 movie Akira and the manga it's based on, about a wannabe sigma who gets so shook from being mogged by his vro's aura that he crashes out and has a glow-down into a chud so chopped and cooked he almost unalives everyone. Not to vaguepost, but we all stan lowkirkenuinely. Katsuhiro Otomo understood the assignment, no cap. Give us a listen and tell us if we're right to be so geeked or if it's just brainrot from our flop era. Bet? The post Inbetween 38 - Colonelpilled an
Episode 155 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Here at Key Frames we're always pushing the boundaries of the possible and, even though we're making an effort to cut down on our runtime and to tighten up our topics, we're still hitting never-before-seen milestones like all the best internet creators. For instance, did you know that, not counting last episode and the solo one from December, this is our shortest non-Inbetween episode in half a decade? Did you know that it's also our shortest end-of-season discussion ever... probably? We can't be bothered to check that second claim but it's alm
Episode 154 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Another episode, another discussion about Western fantasy's many forms in anime and manga. This time, at least, we're not retreading our decade-old discussion of Record of Lodoss War (though maybe we should...) nor are we glazing contemporary faves like Frieren: Beyond Journey's End and Delicious in Dungeon. Instead, our conversation keeps returning to a relative obscurity, the Heroic Legend of Arslan OVAs from the early nineties. They're not particularly good, in an absolute sense, but they raise some excellent questions on the ever-fading lin
Episode 153 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Sunday rolled around and Ben was nowhere to be found, though it was almost time to record the episode on the end of the last season and beginning of the next. Andy messaged him, saying, "Don't you want to talk about Akane-banashi, the hot new anime about rakugo?" But Ben just said, "Sorry, I've got a cast," which was a strange thing to say, because he and Andy are on the same podcast. Duncan tried next, asking Ben, "Don't you want to hear my thoughts on Shiboyugi, an underrated psychological thriller?" But Ben just said, "Sorry, I've got a cast
Episode 37 of Key Frames: Inbetweens, a mini-podcast about anime. The bet between Andy and Duncan over what Ben's favorite anime is (currently) has been resolved, yet somehow the lattermost feels like the winner here, because now everyone has to watch Turn A Gundam. Well, "everyone" in this case means Duncan and Jeff, but Ben will take what he can get! Why does this anime appeal so much to someone who claims he's not a Mobile Suit Gundam fan or even really a mecha fan? How did Yoshiyuki Tomino and his writing team avoid the pitfalls typical to multi-cour giant robot shows? Why exactly does Tur
Episode 152 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. It's the winter anime season once again, so Ben, Duncan, and Jeff drink deeply of anime good and bad. There's the austere, mature palate of Scotch whiskey in the drama of Journal with Witch, but maybe Golden Kamuy's straightforward, crowd-pleasing breadiness, so much like a macro lager, is more your style. Careful about the latter, though: it might have a bitter finish. And don't confuse the bright zip of You and I Are Polar Opposite's gin-gin mule with the bubbly sweetness of Trigun Stargaze, another drink that might not leave you with a satis
Episode 151 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Isn't making lists fun? Ben, Andy, and Duncan make one for their favorite anime of 2025. Then Ben gives out some awards, Duncan aggregates his lists into an even bigger list, and Andy makes a list of favorite manga. We're on a roll! Here, I'm going to make a list of our best episode titles from 2025, just because I can: 1. "Is It Wrong to Pick Up Beavers in the Hundreds?" 2. "Gremlinergy" 3. "I Got That Sword in Me" 4. "Airplane Legs" 5."Ataru at the Hauge" Not bad, right? Check out the episode for more of our natural ranking ability (not ratin
Episode 150 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Doesn't it feel like we're in some kind of time warp? Like, I listened to the episodes we made before and after the holidays last year, and in them Ben's recovering from a bruiser of a cold, Duncan's having computer trouble, and Andy's in the thick of moving. Has anything changed, even a little? Is this thing on? Come to think of it, the coming season of anime is all sequels of shows that aired a year or two ago... Well, the only way out is through, so throughout this pod we discuss what we liked about, were inspired by, and wanted to be differ
Episode 149 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. And then there was one! How much of his time teaching college classes is Ben still able to draw upon, after all these years? Sitting down at a mic alone, in front of an audience of indeterminate size and enthusiasm, certainly brings back memories. Still, this isn't a lecture at university, much as he tries to make it one. It's something rawer, less considered, more profane... closer to pirate radio than a discussion of communal arbitration practices in thirteenth-century Italy. But don't worry, there's still talk of ancient history, of course—t
Episode 148 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. It's just Ben and Duncan holding down the fort this time, chatting on the ramparts as the horde of shows from the fall 2025 anime season approach. Just the two of us might not seem like enough for this fight, but fear not! Duncan has watched enough of them to count for ten podcast hosts, and Ben... Well, Ben's doing his Ben thing, as usual. Tune in to hear them discuss whether the third season of Spy x Family is bad or just disappointing, if a noblewoman rebelling against the constraints of high society is enough to make an isekai feel fresh, a
Episode 147 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Ten years and one month isn't really an anniversary that people celebrate, so it's back to the grindstone for our intrepid hosts! After all, the summer 2025 anime season needs recounting. Would you be surprised to hear that Ben's opinion of several different series improved after seeing second seasons with stronger writing? Would it thrill you to witness Duncan and Jon in substantive agreement on the majority of shows they both watched? We've all been besieged by Major Life Events, hence the important PSA in the episode title, but nothing can k
Episode 146 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Did you know it's been ten years, give or take, since we started this podcast? Ten years! So much has changed in anime, in our society, in ourselves... Anyway, we decided that the best way to celebrate (or at least reckon with it all) was to focus on one of the rarer joys of anime, which is watching with friends. Ben finally got Jon to sit through X/1999, perennial spotlight pitch and previous subject of a tween, while Andy and Duncan did a double feature of Princess Mononoke and Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era. Are these all m
Episode 145 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. You know how it is. You're resting on your day off, thinking vaguely about whether you should pop on a movie or call up a friend to grab a drink, but then a notification pings on your phone. It's the podcast, and they need you to talk about the summer 2025 anime season! Though you're completely alone in your dingy apartment, you nonetheless find yourself groaning audibly. Summer 2025? The new season, with all the sequels? Well, except for a few anime originals like Turkey! -Time to Strike- and Necronomico and the Cosmic Horror Show... Still, wh
Episode 144 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. The thing about podcasting is that you get very, very accustomed to listening to yourself speak in a way that I don't think the average individual ever does. For most people, hearing their own voice coming back to them elicits feelings of confusion and dislocation—think of the instant chaos that a feedback echo on a Zoom call causes—but for me, at this point, it has almost become a conversation with myself across time. I remember when I first started listening back to our earliest episodes, having forgotten most of what we talked about long ago
Episode 143 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. You know, I think I'm tired of us being so timely with our episode topics. It was bad enough to be talking about the personal and postmodern apocalypses of Inio Asano immediately after the election, but now I have to come up with a lighthearted blurb about our discussion of anime's obsession with military hardware and the aesthetics of making war while watching the winner of that election send up what amounts to a trial balloon for the imposition of martial law. It's a bummer! But not the same kind of bummer as watching Strike Witches in 2025,
Episode 142 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Watching Medalist this season and pondering the bluntness of its title made me realize that we don't give out enough recognition and awards for the accomplishments that make up our day-to-day life. Ben finally finished Mobile Suit Gundam: 08th MS Team? Bronze medal. Duncan found something philosophically moving in Orb: On the Movements of the Earth? Silver medal. Andy only saw the Hypnosis Mic -Division Rap Battle- movie in theaters once, instead of four times like his wife? Gold medal. Jon completes a hat trick of podcast appearances and keepi
Episode 141 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. You know, sometimes I love to type out the shows we've discussed in an episode of our podcast and just wonder at how very... Key Frames all of it is. Hard sci-fi from the early 2000s? Minor Ghibli? Anime about non-mainstream sports? Multiple Makoto Shinkai movies? Some obscurity with no good disc release? We've got it all, as Ben, Duncan, and Jon explore anime's relationship with travel and faraway places. As you might be able to see from what I've listed above, we end up covering a lot of ground, but then that's quite fitting, no? The post 141
Episode 140 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. One, two, three, go! Today the Key Frames gang is headbanging to all the anime out there about bands, inspired by the example of Girls Band Cry and BanG Dream! It's MyGo!!!!! among many, many other shows. Will they talk about how K-On! walked so that Bocchi the Rock could run? Will Andy and Jon hold the line against Duncan's insistence that BanG Dream! Ave Mujica deserves to exist? Will Ben pass away on air from his third bout of illness in barely two months? The only way to know is to be truly punk and to listen to our scrappy, messy takes! Th
Episode 139 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. I admit, what we called this episode isn't exactly parsable if you aren't a fan of slapstick comedy Hundreds of Beavers and absurdly long titles in the fashion of light novels and light novel-derived adaptations, but trust us! It's funny enough that we had to cut more than a few bouts of gasping, tear-soaked laughter from the edit. Anyway, in the moments when Ben and Duncan aren't being genius of transmedia humor, they bid farewell to the anime of fall 2024 and welcome those of winter 2025. You'll never guess what they pick for the shows they'r
Episode 36 of Key Frames: Inbetweens, a mini-podcast about anime. Koyomi Araragi must just be the most insufferable person to have at your college, right? Like, you're sitting in Philosophy 101, going over different perspectives on theory of mind, and here's this dude who looks like he hasn't gotten a haircut in years wasting the professor's time with a rambling story about the time he became a vampire, a supernatural being living eternally in the moment, and how his perception of reality was forever and fundamentally altered by the experience. "Oh well," you think as you head to math next, "P
Episode 138 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Remember back in the 2010s, when anime only ever aired for a single cour, so there wasn't any of this nonsense about shows holding the top spots year after year? Well, at Key Frames, we're fully back on our bullshit, with many returning 2023 favorites topping our list of best anime of 2024, so you really need to listen in to know what's new out there. Don't worry, we cover some manga too, and Ben talks about Texhnolyze again. The post 138 - Our Nightmare Continues first appeared on Key Frames.
Episode 35 of Key Frames: Inbetweens, a mini-podcast about anime. Have you felt like something strange and terrible has been hanging over your head for four years, maybe more? Does today seem like it could be the moment when it all comes crashing down? Does it seem at the same time like it could stay up there forever, a sword of Damocles under which you'll be forced to live your life just out of the universal indignity of being born? Will today be the day you make a change, something proactive for once, and avert the disaster that you can't help but see in your future? Will you listen to us ta
Episode 137 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Isn't it kind of amazing to think about how many foods are the result of essentially being left to spoil or mold? Yeast gives us bread and beer, other types of alcohol use fermented cultures of microorganisms, cheese is coagulated and curdled with enzymes from bacteria (or, more incredibly, mammal stomachs), and you can pickle all sorts of things. What sort of superior being could have the thought in the first place to eat food or drink gone bad, though? He'd have to be a genius straight out of a shounen anime: a person with exceptional strengt
Episode 34 of Key Frames: Inbetweens, a mini-podcast about anime. What do you do when your podcast spotlights something that no one particularly liked? Well, maybe you should listen to this episode and find out! In honor of a second season being announced, after an interval of a decade and a half, Ben, Andy, and Duncan all watched Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, an anime that aspires to the transgressive heights of turn-of-the-millennium Western cartoons by the likes of Genndy Tartakovsky and Craig McCracken. Is it a successful pastiche of all things American? Well, things are said, some of
Episode 136 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Is Crayon Shin-chan the most popular and successful franchise in anime that has little to no foothold with Western audiences? Maybe it's Sazae-san or Doraemon... Anyway, Ben, Andy, and Duncan all decided to watch the best-reviewed of Crayon Shin-chan's thirty-one feature films (soon to be thirty-two, literally this coming Friday) and talk about it! Does it hold up, almost a quarter of a century later? Is it easy to relate to and cheer for its cast of characters if someone hasn't seen all 1,320 episodes of the anime or read all fifty volumes of
