You can start the Anime Sickos podcast wherever. But if you want a starting point tailored to your interests, we’ve put together a nice little menu for you.
- If you actually like anime (why?), try
- Episode 5: Anime X Sickos, where we discuss one of our favorite shows, Hunter X Hunter
- Episode 10: Road House Is Anime, where we explain how the 1989 film Road House is actually anime.
- Episode 24: Tournaments, where we prove that tournaments are the ultimate narrative structure and use the excellent Kengan Ashura as a case study.
- Episode 61: The Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Episode, where we discuss the unique appeal of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, a series written by a man who doesn't know what a story is
- Episode 64: The Sickos Present: An Enjoyable Slop Experience, where we go nuts reading an anime trivia book from the year 2000
- Episode 81: The Sickos Manga Roundup, where we discuss some of our favorite comics (a type of paper-based anime)
- Episode 108: The 86 and Ranking of Kings Episode, where we discuss the comically bleak anime 86, a story of teen slaves fighting a forever war in shitty mechas made from Home Depot parts, and look like absolute fools as we rave over the as-yet-incomplete first season of Ranking of Kings and say the end can't possibly be bad (it's bad)
- Episode 156: Guy Sword: Senior Operations Manager, where we pitch our shonen manga series Guy Sword: Senior Operations Manager, about a middle manager with a passion for efficiency and mentorship who keeps having his work day interrupted by the fact that he is the chosen warrior and only man capable of saving humanity from an imminent demon invasion
- If you might like anime but have never watched any, try
- Episode 28: Anime 101, where we recommend good anime series that are not disgusting shit for perverts.
- If you hate anime but love gaming, try
- Episode 30: Sickos Reminisce Over Games (S.R.O.G.), where we both wax rhapsodic about foundational games from our youths that forged our gamer philosophies.
- Episode 41: The Sickos Go Analog, where we talk about how board games are the most fun thing that is actually secretly impossible to do.
- Episode 63: The Sickos Hoot Over Yakuza 7, where we go nutso about how good Yakuza: Like a Dragon is. It's a JRPG where you play as four guys from the dump.
- Episode 75: The Sickos Design the Perfect RPG, where the Sickos lay out a list of crucial features any JRPG must have in order to be good (for example: status effect spells that never work, stats that actually don't do anything, etc).
- Episode 97: The Sickos Get Bootleg Chinese Gameboys, where the Sickos purchase the Anbernic RG351V, a Chinese Gameboy with a jillion ROMs and emulators on it and rediscover joy for the first time in years.
- Episode 151: The DS is a Public Good, where the Sickos identify a fundamental failing of today's gaming industry: there ain't no DS! Two screens kick ass! We need a console where a team of 6 guys can take a kooky idea and bang out a shippable product in eight months! The government needs to issue you a DS for free otherwise this is a failed state
- If you hate anime and gaming but love people who post insane shit on the internet, try
- Episode 4: The Wife Pentacle, where we define a “wife guy” and “wife posts” using five ur-examples of the genre.
- Episode 21: Posting 101, where we explain the seven rules a post must follow to transcend the mortal realm and become a capital-P Post.
- Episode 40: Posting/Reloaded: Wife Post Revolutions, where we share more wife posts and lose our minds over a truly inscrutable gimmick account that old people fucking love.
- Episode 45: Poster's Ear, where we diagnose Poster's Ear, a malady that affects people who are online too much, where you begin to see how the same discourses and same trends pop up every two months, causing you to become unstuck in time and lose touch with reality
- Episode 89: Great Moments in Posting History, where we just read a bunch of wild posts and go "hahaha"
- Episode 91: The Sickos Fight in the Battle Arena, where the Sickos realize that to post online is to willingly fight in a deadly battle arena where the goal is to win a shiny coin called "attention." This sucks ass because if you make creative work you have to get into the arena, and also if you win and get attention your life is ruined
- Episode 104: The Sickos Read a Bunch of Posts, where we just read a bunch of wild posts and go "hahaha"
- Episode 154: There's Blood in the Toilet Now, where we mourn how now the top replies on Twitter are all blue check people, who are invariably the most inhuman Nazi freaks you have ever imagined. Thus: the toilet has been tainted with blood and now the toilet water tastes bad.
- Episode 158: Great Moments in Posting History - Listener Edition, where our listeners fill in our posting blind spots as we read and react to incredible posts we had never seen before
- If you hate anime, gaming, and posting, but want to hear someone affirm your suspicions that the people in charge of your life are cruel apes with a howling void where their soul should be, try
- Episode 22: Media Brain, where we diagnose “Media Brain,” a brain disease that afflicts literally all big journalists and renders them dumber than a baby
- Episode 17: Comedy Sucks Now, where we explain how no comedian in the Trump era is capable of being funny
- Episode 8: The Sickos Bring Their Whole Selves to Work, where we bemoan the inhuman cruelty inherent in America’s disgusting labor system.
- Episode 29: Kevin Johnson Goes Guesto Mode, where Tom and guest Kevin Johnson tell the story of insane jobs they had together at a fake company that did no work.
- Episode 54: The Machine Will Have Blood, where we summarize all of modern life by explaining how there is a big machine everyone is obsessed with feeding blood to. To be clear the machine does nothing and does not need blood. However if you bet on the machine getting blood you'll be right every time.
- Episode 65: The Sickos Fix College, where the Sickos diagnose the endemic problems with higher education (a type of proto-job) and propose a new Sicko pedagogy to better prepare students for the world.
- Episode 76: The Suffering-Suffering Fruit, where the Sickos describe the real-life Devil Fruit "Suffering-Suffering Fruit," which makes its users believe that to suffer is an inherent good and to go through it cleanses you of sin, and therefore to cause people to suffer is a generous and noble thing to do. Every Democrat has eaten this fruit.
- Episode 103: The Sickos Listen to Homework Podcasts for Business Freaks, where the Sickos read a viral thread unveiling the results of a "Best Podcast Episodes of All Time" poll. They are all business success mindset podcasts for little demon Hitlers and to listen to them is to invite evil into your soul. All of them have one million more downloads than us.
- Episode 105: Complaining Kicks Ass, where the Sickos praise complaining, one of the best and most fun things you can do. The world is trying to crush you and make you accept its bullshit with silent acceptance. Fuck that!! Let's whine and moan and cry!!!
- Episode 119: Corpse Brain, where we define "Corpse Brain," a mental disease that causes your brain to die while your body still lives, rendering you unable to accept new information or think in a different way. Every politician and media professional has this, and also your mom.
- If you like all those things but hate us, try some lovely guest episodes:
- Episode 27: Isa Goes Guesto Mode, where Tom’s teen niece Isa roasts us and informs us that we couldn’t be more wrong about teen slang.
- Episode 42: Devon Price Goes Guesto Mode, where Dr. Devon Price, a genius, explains how laziness is a fake idea and also it’s cool and fun to steal.
- Episode 12: The Sickos Waste a Scientist's Time, where real scientist John Hasier proves that anime is real using actual math.
- Episode 55: KC Green Goes Guesto Mode, where cartoonist and internet hero KC Green joins us to discuss what it's like to be a full-time artist in a world that wants to murder you for trying to do that.
- Episode 72: Tom McHenry Goes Guesto Mode, where cartoonist and general delight Tom McHenry regales us with eye-popping stories about his decade working in the most unhinged office of all time (for a while every single person talked exclusively in baby talk while at work).
- Episode 92: Rayne Klar Goes Guesto Mode, where artist, printer, and witch Rayne Klar teaches us how to cast Firaga and also describes a type of arcane glue they use in their printing job which works in an impossible way that cannot be described by science
- Episode 121: Taylor Moore Goes Guesto Mode, where podcast dynamo Taylor Moore becomes apoplectic at how poorly we promote this show, and explains how he helped spearhead the unionization effort at Kickstarter
- Episode 134: MinovskyArticle Goes Guesto Mode, where modern-day philosopher king MinovskyArticle explains how to live a serene and beautiful life where you read manga all day, post online but don't become furious, and look at rad bugs.
- Episode 150: Branson Reese Goes Guesto Mode, where Branson Reese (Swan Boy, Rude Tales of Magic, etc) explains his innate desire to do shit that makes people yell at him, why having a guy be stupid is a can't-miss comedy move, and more.
- If you hate chat-based podcasts no matter the topic but like audio dramas, try
- Our audio fiction catalogue! We inexplicably have produced numerous hours of meticulously produced audio dramas. I guess my creative writing degree wasn't totally useless.