Transcript
Speaker: I want to find a 25 foot two headed turtle in the Monongahela river.
Speaker: That would be a total bonanza.
Speaker: Would love that.
Speaker: No, right.
Speaker: But I have a question.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, it's not a giant 25 foot two headed turtle.
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixelit.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: Along with me, as always, is Phil.
Speaker: And today we have very special guest, Aaron Hess.
Speaker: From Oops!
Speaker: All Monsters, a fine podcast serving your weekly cryptid needs.
Speaker: How's it going, everybody?
Speaker: Hey, hello.
Speaker: Hey guys.
Speaker: It's, uh, it's interesting to be on this show that I, that I consume.
Speaker: It's fascinating.
Speaker: It feels like being in somebody else's, uh, living room and like eating out of their fridge or something.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: It's like, it's like that weird vibe when you sleep over somebody else's house and you wake up before anybody else wakes up.
Speaker: I'm not really sure.
Speaker: Can I make coffee or am I going to break a secret rule?
Speaker: Like, if I don't let Maria make coffee first, am I going to get slapped?
Speaker: What's going on?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Is this a thing?
Speaker: So today on the show, we are continuing our run through worlds of power by tackling Ninja Gaiden.
Speaker: Starring the man, the myth, the legend Ryu Hayabusa.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And created by FX9 as Mega Man 2 was.
Speaker: But this one was written by A.L.
Speaker: Singer.
Speaker: Not Al Singer.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: A.L.
Speaker: Singer.
Speaker: But yeah, we're talking Ninja Gaiden, which some of you may know from the more recent Ninja Gaiden series.
Speaker: It was on Xbox 360 and it was a, you know, balls hard action game.
Speaker: But before that, it was a balls hard Nintendo game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And right off the bat, the Mega Man 2 cover, as we discussed before, they removed his gun.
Speaker: Now in this cover, they remove his little, he has like a, I forget what they call it.
Speaker: The, the, the throwing knife.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: And it just looks like he's coming in for a fist pound.
Speaker: How is the shuriken too aggressive?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: He's got him and he's got a giant fucking Katana in his other hand.
Speaker: So yeah, we don't have a rash of shuriken attacks in high schools all over the US.
Speaker: Not anymore.
Speaker: Not since.
Speaker: I mean, that would be impressive.
Speaker: That actually would be.
Speaker: Basically the, the, the, the summary of the book they give you is journey with Ninja Ryu deep into the mysterious Amazon jungle, the battle deadly force of incredible power where he meets Blanka.
Speaker: No, the legendary demon is about to week away from a 700 year nap.
Speaker: You know, the Amazon, it's the Amazon ninjas.
Speaker: The Amazon.
Speaker: Like, not a specific part of the Amazon, just the Amazon.
Speaker: It's like Detroit's caveman problem.
Speaker: Just swarming with them.
Speaker: Cavemen and Robocops.
Speaker: Just two problems that Detroit can't shake.
Speaker: I'm just a simple caveman police officer.
Speaker: I can't understand the ways of your modern world.
Speaker: Your Robocop frightens and confuses me.
Speaker: No, that's a two percenter.
Speaker: We lost everybody.
Speaker: We have to have at least two moments per episode.
Speaker: So we're overachieving here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Usually it's when Phil gets into Warhammer 40k.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's what you mean when it starts for me.
Speaker: Did you, did you see that Henry Cavill
Speaker: is like a super hard 40 K nerd.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: Have you seen this?
Speaker: I saw him just recently explaining it.
Speaker: I know that cause I've seen him on Twitch painting managers and then I saw him on Graham Norton a month or so.
Speaker: That's where I, that's where I saw it.
Speaker: Graham Norton's like world of Warcraft and he's like Warhammer.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, I have to say, first of all, I love the Graham Norton show because Graham Norton is able to there.
Speaker: I don't think I mean, I don't watch, you know, giant Chinese panel shows, so I don't know.
Speaker: But in the English speaking world, Graham Norton is the Babe Ruth of getting people on his show and getting them to vibe.
Speaker: and actually like be people as opposed to doing like, Hey, Oh, like 1997, Johnny Carson, totally fake bullshit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the fact that he is able to have multiple shows and also get Henry Cavill to come on and talk about 40 K and you can kind of in real time, see Henry Cavill's sphincter Titan.
Speaker: And he's like, because as he does like the nerd, like no,
Speaker: Not World of Warcraft.
Speaker: Actually, actually Graham.
Speaker: You're like, dude, you are like the Superman of being both the Witcher and handsome.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And you are, I can see, I can see your solar plexus popping as you're like,
Speaker: you got my nerd thing wrong.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I'm like, he's one of us.
Speaker: The super handsome is one of us.
Speaker: Only nerds know the beginning of that nerd rage.
Speaker: Like, yeah, it's beautiful to observe.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's amazing.
Speaker: Because I'm not a Warhammer, you know, I'm not a Warhammer person.
Speaker: It's a little bit the Venn diagram as the phrase that I constantly get
Speaker: harassed by Gavin for overusing on our show is just of the various hobbies.
Speaker: It's not mine.
Speaker: I don't like, I don't like painting my miniatures maybe because I'm like a fine art painter.
Speaker: I like to just look at, I like them to be the sculpted majesty of the thing that they are.
Speaker: And I, I totally appreciate people that like doing it, but I don't like doing it.
Speaker: And I also don't love collecting them in order to amass my army.
Speaker: You'll get a kick out of this, because you guys actually did an episode where you talked about the Femir from HeroQuest, and I'm actually in the process of painting up my HeroQuest minis.
Speaker: This is their... Oh, but that's the wizard, right?
Speaker: No, this is the elf.
Speaker: This is their reinterpretation of the elf.
Speaker: Oh, this is the new elf.
Speaker: Yeah, the new elf.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: This is the last one I have to paint from the base box.
Speaker: And then we that's awesome.
Speaker: So did you do the like in-house Kickstarter or did you buy it?
Speaker: Yeah, I did.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: I did that.
Speaker: And here's the thing.
Speaker: The idea that Hasbro even has the fact that in-house is Kickstarter mechanism.
Speaker: Yeah, right.
Speaker: I forced down my bile and rage long enough to give them one hundred and seventy five dollars.
Speaker: Don't get me started.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Don't get me started on that.
Speaker: I just didn't want to miss it.
Speaker: I was like, that was genuinely one of those things that I was like, if, if this is the only chance for me to fucking get one of these, I really do not want to miss that.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Personal funding mechanisms, you know, for people that cannot afford to have their cancer treatments.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And has Hasbro.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Hey, you guys want hero quest?
Speaker: You got to pay us first.
Speaker: You have to pay us and then wait a year and a half.
Speaker: Good luck.
Speaker: So no, I'm yeah.
Speaker: Don't get me started, but I do love hero quest.
Speaker: I like, I mean, if you listen to the episode, there's no denying that I'm like, we were mega fans.
Speaker: It was like foundational for us in terms of like getting, giving us that proto layer before doing full, like, you know, book and book and binder and polyhedral dice role-playing.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Just maniacs.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And can we had a bunch of games in that that set actual in terms of like box games?
Speaker: There were other games of that format that came out in that like 91, 92 battle masters and dragon strike.
Speaker: And yeah, yeah, all of them.
Speaker: Yeah, we played all of them.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So let's read this fucking book.
Speaker: Chapter one, we get Ryu Hayabusa.
Speaker: He is he's in the midst of of it looks like he is he's in some sort of danger.
Speaker: He's got it.
Speaker: He's got a blindfold on and he's basically doing the daredevil thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like literally doing the daredevil thing.
Speaker: And this scene automatically was better than anything in Mega Man 2.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Which like the very specific descriptions of him being like, yeah, I'm using my other senses like a ninja to be able to fight these oncoming ne'er-do-wells.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was actual creative combat writing as opposed to he pointed his gun.
Speaker: Bam.
Speaker: Whoosh.
Speaker: The enemy was gone.
Speaker: Like it's.
Speaker: But yeah, we as we progress that we find out that he is being trained by Akira.
Speaker: Not that Akira.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he's he's gotten his his black belt in in ninja school.
Speaker: I think, I think the thing I love the most about this section here is they, they want to give you right off the bat.
Speaker: Like this is for the kids who love the ninja stuff, who many of them will probably grow up to be weeaboos and everything like that.
Speaker: And so they're like, you know, his, his, his tabi boot, his, you know, they're standing by a ginkgo tree.
Speaker: And then later he said, it felt like a flock of Japanese butterflies had just broken out of cocoons in his stomach.
Speaker: I was like, you could,
Speaker: They could probably just be butterflies, guys.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah, I had a I had a specific thing that I wrote down in during that section.
Speaker: I wrote down, I can't tell whether every individual thing in this book is 1990 Western Japano fetishism or just relevant details of world building.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because because of the format of the book, I was just like, I don't know.
Speaker: Is this is this appropriate or is just like
Speaker: this person's special, I don't know, like rope rope trick in bed at 1am.
Speaker: I can't tell.
Speaker: Because I was like, I wanted to do a control F for the word Japan or Japanese, but I was afraid.
Speaker: I was afraid.
Speaker: You know, a demon would come out of the PDF.
Speaker: They kind of, they, they top load it and kind of drop it pretty quick.
Speaker: Don't they?
Speaker: Like, yeah, it gets, it gets a little less, uh, Japan heavy in terms of using Japanese as a descriptor.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I think in chapter one, it's pretty much like he's Japanese.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Look at all this Japanese shit.
Speaker: And 13, by the way.
Speaker: And he's 13, by the way.
Speaker: We cannot be overstated how 13 he is.
Speaker: I, why is that the decision that they make?
Speaker: I'm guessing because it's, it's a kid's book and they want you to like, you know, they, it's, it's your age.
Speaker: It's the Bucky Barnes of vacation of, of the Ninja Gaiden.
Speaker: That's, that's my guess.
Speaker: That's the only thing.
Speaker: And it just gets really weird.
Speaker: The more the book goes on, that's all.
Speaker: But but yeah, when we jump into chat, by the way, I actually watched a playthrough of Ninja Gaiden this afternoon just so I could be kind of fresh up on like, all right, what's in the book versus what's in the game?
Speaker: Oh, good.
Speaker: So surprisingly enough, Ninja Gaiden actually is probably one of the more plot heavy games of that era.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: It had like it was it was it was just filled to the brim with cut scenes.
Speaker: Every level ended with a cut scene and some new new revelation about the plot.
Speaker: So like.
Speaker: But it starts with a duel between two ninjas, one of them dying, quote unquote.
Speaker: And then it cuts to Ryu reading a letter from his dad, which is what we get to in chapter two.
Speaker: So everything prior to the end of chapter two in this book is new plot.
Speaker: It's basically new context that the author created
Speaker: for this story as opposed to like Mega Man 2, which was this, the game.
Speaker: Yeah, no, they make something new, a whole cloth for the book and it's not the first time they'll do it.
Speaker: It's, it's kind of interesting.
Speaker: Uh, it, they actually put some thought into this.
Speaker: So right.
Speaker: Pretty cool stuff.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So chapter two, he's talking to his mom about how it's gone, gone well.
Speaker: And I saved this letter, this Gaiden letter.
Speaker: So and this is this is weird.
Speaker: So like a Gaiden is it's it's a side story.
Speaker: It's it's a story about characters that are.
Speaker: like that deviates from a main plot.
Speaker: It's a side quest.
Speaker: Often it's a side quest.
Speaker: A lot of times in Japanese games, they'll fix Gaiden to the end when it's like, oh, well, you know, this is not the main series of games.
Speaker: This is, you know, this is a separate thing.
Speaker: This is a Gaiden.
Speaker: So that it's, it's funny that in this, they, they define Gaiden as meaning a letter, which I'm not sure maybe there is.
Speaker: some definition out there that it's like it could be a letter but it's not pre-internet research had to be done for this so cut them a little side the best thing about it is that it's labeled for Ryu upon his passage to man 13 for Ryu upon his passage to manhood
Speaker: And by the way, his master Akira calls him the greatest ninja he has ever met, which is not something I would ever recommend saying to a 13 year old.
Speaker: Don't say that to 13 year olds.
Speaker: I was I will say I was comforted to know that my prejudice that there are only five Japanese names was confirmed.
Speaker: Oh, that really helped.
Speaker: I didn't have to know think of anybody that wasn't named like it wasn't named Akira or Ryu.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That was nice.
Speaker: That was good.
Speaker: I didn't get out of my cultural culture zone at all.
Speaker: No, you didn't have to stretch those legs.
Speaker: Yeah, these are Japanese names that you have heard before and are comforted by.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: In fact, his dad's name is Ken.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Ryu and Ken.
Speaker: How about that?
Speaker: Go figure.
Speaker: Go figure.
Speaker: So we get a we get a flashback now.
Speaker: Also fresh from this was not this is not in the game at all.
Speaker: Basically, the first level is go find Dr. Smith and then you're in the first level.
Speaker: Yeah, that's that's it.
Speaker: In this chapter, we get a... This is actually a relatively beefy chapter compared to all the rest of them.
Speaker: Basically, they're just traveling about and they run into a Komodo dragon.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: That's all that really happens.
Speaker: In the Amazon.
Speaker: We get some padding on what the demons, like the demon mythology and all that stuff, but yeah, they run into a commode dragon.
Speaker: They're out there getting their archaeology on, basically.
Speaker: They're looking for...
Speaker: the demon temple or something like that.
Speaker: So, and they found a Komodo dragon, which is, you know, basically the same thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And actually go ahead.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, you go ahead.
Speaker: Did you guys get any particular, because this is this chapter and the chapters in the Amazon, the early Amazon jungle flashback are kind of, it's really the meat that you get with the dad character.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, did you get a specific vibe?
Speaker: Because I will say that the specific vibe from the dad that I got was kind of the the two charming quality that like, I don't know, Jeffrey Dean Morgan at the beginning of Weeds had.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Where like he's just too cute to live like as he's all dimples and noogies and like, you know, framed photographs.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It just was too.
Speaker: It was too delightful.
Speaker: I was like, this guy's got to die.
Speaker: He's too nice.
Speaker: And they also had like it and his his partner, Wimple, which I'm assuming is one of the Japanese names that you mentioned as.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: Definitely is like on one hand, he'll say, you're one of the greatest ninjas that ever lived.
Speaker: And then he like calls him a goober.
Speaker: And he's like, you're such a you're a sappy, romantic, like whatever.
Speaker: And it's just like, who the fuck is this guy?
Speaker: We need to make up our minds.
Speaker: He's everything to everyone is.
Speaker: He is, is the most interesting ninja in the world.
Speaker: That's exactly.
Speaker: Dr. Hayabusa.
Speaker: He's, he's an archeologist ninja, right?
Speaker: Who, you know, one of those, you know, as you do, it's like, it's that much more than it really.
Speaker: No, I think it's a really underexplored, you know, sub genre.
Speaker: We, if we just step on the ninja archeologist researcher right now, I think we're on a gold mine.
Speaker: I think we got something here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think there's a move aside, Indiana Jones, we got Dr. Hayabusa and, and the first thing that we should do in my opinion is establish a series of contingency emergency plans labeled a through J.
Speaker: Good plan.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: That's, that's, that's a good idea.
Speaker: I love it, but no further.
Speaker: So as they, as basically they continue on through the, um, they find a, a tablet, which is basically the talks about the two MacGuffins that are crucial to this story, the light statue and the dark statue.
Speaker: Now, if in, in this, uh,
Speaker: book, what did you imagine them looking like after hearing about these statues?
Speaker: Did anything pop in your head?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I kind of had like black and white, almost like chess pieces in my mind.
Speaker: But they were very vague.
Speaker: I had like, you know, vaguely like Pazuzu style exorcists, you know, whatever statues.
Speaker: No, in the game, if you look at the statues, it looks like a fucking alien contra boss.
Speaker: Oh, sure.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a it's an interesting move.
Speaker: It's so they are they are crucial to the game as well, but they look like it's it looks like a contra boss.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: Which holds up in the end.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: And then they get tracked down by a half-Robot man who has a shield that says J on it.
Speaker: And he really fucks him up.
Speaker: I feel like this moment is like the perfect example of how, you know, 20 something year old white kids want to get a Japanese symbol tattooed on their arm or something.
Speaker: It means cool breeze, you know, or something like that.
Speaker: And it's like this is like basically them saying, see, this is how dumb you look.
Speaker: This guy's got a J on his shield.
Speaker: Can you imagine the fucking stupid that looks?
Speaker: It's dumb.
Speaker: Like, that's exactly how I interpret it.
Speaker: Yeah, it really rang as, it really just had a weird flavor to it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: As much as anything in this book did.
Speaker: Like, okay, that's arbitrary and out of sync.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The book is trying really hard to give a little extra...
Speaker: gravitas uh i don't know if that's the right word to the uh these villains the the jack yow's bosses um because this guy comes back at the end and this guy is this guy's one of the bosses uh just give a little more i guess something to remember them by something to remember them by um because this is referenced in
Speaker: And it's also referenced at the end of the game, but it's never seen in the game.
Speaker: It's yeah.
Speaker: And the thing is, in the game, you can't tell what the fucking guy, if the guy has a shield with Jay on it.
Speaker: He's just like a little 8-bit pixelated...
Speaker: Like army dudes with lightning.
Speaker: Right, yeah.
Speaker: We continue on.
Speaker: I mean, these chapters are a really... They are a chunky part of the book.
Speaker: But yeah, the chapters are... I mean, there's like, what, 27 chapters?
Speaker: Some like that.
Speaker: Randolph Wimple returns to the hotel that they are staying at.
Speaker: And we get a we get an absolute like.
Speaker: This scene, the scene I I couldn't figure out why would you make so much happen so quickly?
Speaker: Yes, I got the there.
Speaker: There are certain chapters of this book that seem like half of the chapter is played in fast forward.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, where it's kind of, you know, what's the
Speaker: It's just it's just going like, what is there's a soundtrack and a montage happening that I'm I'm not able to get from the book.
Speaker: We're like, OK, wow, so much happened so quickly.
Speaker: And most of it was pretty pointless.
Speaker: Also, it seemed like you could have done less and covered it at the same speed and it would have made sense maybe.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, because these two guys, he comes in, he's trying to make a phone call.
Speaker: He takes his backpack, which has the statues in them, wraps them around his ankles because it otherwise won't fit in the phone booth with him.
Speaker: He feels a pain at his ankles and looks down and the backpack is gone.
Speaker: And he has to chase down a couple of criminals.
Speaker: He falls over.
Speaker: They fall over.
Speaker: It's it's Laurel and Hardy.
Speaker: It's it's he knocks over a guy on a ladder who's changing a light bulb in the hotel lobby.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Light bulb smashes.
Speaker: on the ground, gives the impression of a gunshot right to the criminals.
Speaker: But then the action carries on as normal.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: GD sacks starts playing for some reason on a radio nearby.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's where I was really getting.
Speaker: I was like, why is this a Benny Hill sketch?
Speaker: That's exactly what it is without, without the charm or breasts.
Speaker: Yeah, it's like, I wanted this to turn into a full on, like, I'd buy that for a dollar.
Speaker: I wanted like a sex worker to come out and light his cigarette and splash water on his face or something.
Speaker: Like, keep it going.
Speaker: Like, just ratchet it up, man.
Speaker: Make this the Wimple Hour.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: That would be a way better book.
Speaker: In fact, I just want to follow Wimple for the rest of the time.
Speaker: I don't need to get back to Ryu.
Speaker: Yeah, he goes back to Galesburg and starts a burger stand.
Speaker: Who the hell?
Speaker: There's your spin-off.
Speaker: And it'd be a good video game, too.
Speaker: Let's face facts.
Speaker: Ninja Gaiden, the Wimple years.
Speaker: The Wimple years.
Speaker: Wimple's Burger Time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he's, he's, he deals with that.
Speaker: And then he loses one of the statues, but keeps the other.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, uh, and that's pretty much the flashback, is it not?
Speaker: Or that's the end of the flashback.
Speaker: And we cut back to, um, basically in, in a normal narrative, uh, we wouldn't also need to now read the letter because, yeah,
Speaker: The flashback would have been communicated by the letter itself.
Speaker: But we didn't the we don't need it to also see a read a narration from the letter of like, oh, you're you're you're my baby boy.
Speaker: It's a really long baby boy.
Speaker: He says, I hope that I'm just being sentimental and I hope that I'm going to crumple this letter up one day and you're not going to have to read it.
Speaker: But if you are reading it, I'm probably dead.
Speaker: But anyway, I love you.
Speaker: And it's like, he's just like what they did to my son, my sweet baby boy.
Speaker: He's throwing a lot at him all at once.
Speaker: One of the things about Japanese ninjas I know is that they love contingent clauses.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And if not, then that or plan J or whatever, perhaps that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So go find Dr. Wimple.
Speaker: Uh, he'll be going by Dr. Smith because we enacted plan F. If I am dead.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I can't help, but feel that maybe Wimple was born with the name Wimple and all of the contingency plans, no matter how minor involvement going, and I'll change my name.
Speaker: because just Smith.
Speaker: Smith would be fine.
Speaker: Smith's fine.
Speaker: Plan A, we're successful.
Speaker: I changed my name.
Speaker: There's like a Mr. Miyagi scene over the Saki.
Speaker: That's like them discussing of all of their six contingency plans.
Speaker: And it's like, and he's always inserting into the everyone.
Speaker: And I changed my name.
Speaker: It's like this one, this one isn't even about you.
Speaker: You don't have to do anything in plan C. It's like, I'll do it anyway.
Speaker: Just in case, just in case.
Speaker: He's either changing his name for the safety of the team or as a reward for himself.
Speaker: You know, I did a good job.
Speaker: I deserve a name change.
Speaker: I get to change my name.
Speaker: And I will enjoy some kosher dill pickles.
Speaker: Yeah, that'll be great.
Speaker: And this is I love this scene so much more than about anything else that happens in this book.
Speaker: Because we have a 13 year old who is armed to the teeth.
Speaker: He has the dragon sword, a great big katana on his back.
Speaker: And and ends up in this little college town where everyone hates his sword in rapid succession, New Mexico.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, that's right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he is mocked by two separate groups of people for the way he is for his sword.
Speaker: Basically, he gets a couple of like campus police who I'm going to be honest.
Speaker: I think that's probably fine that they kind of shake down a kid who's walking around with a giant sword on his back.
Speaker: I'm okay with that.
Speaker: In 1990, honestly, a 13 year old, I wouldn't have thought twice about it.
Speaker: Well, yeah, that's true.
Speaker: 1990.
Speaker: I'm like, whatever.
Speaker: What's he going to do?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just solve some crimes.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Let him solve some crimes.
Speaker: He's going on adventures.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they give him the shakedown and he decides to go into a bar named Jay's looking for the professor.
Speaker: And he basically gets Biff Tannen right off the bat.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Who challenges him to a duel.
Speaker: Yes, Biff challenges him to a duel, and he basically calls him, it's the Marty McFly chicken syndrome.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Ryu has to face off against him, and he does, and instead of facing off against him, he gets shot.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Can we talk about that?
Speaker: This is another one of those cases where I'm like, wait a second.
Speaker: You were, I thought you were building up to a dramatic scene and then you deflated all of the tension with it from a completely off screen fucking surprise.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That, that, that,
Speaker: that completely eliminated any direction we thought we were going.
Speaker: You know, we thought we had something with these muscle bound college, tough douchebags, because they even went to the point of the leader of them going, get him boys.
Speaker: And I thought, man, if you went to the point, the whole trouble of having a get him boys in there, this is going to be something, right?
Speaker: Yeah, we're expecting a karate kid, you know, crane kick, sweet, the leg Johnny kind of moment.
Speaker: And instead he gets flash banged.
Speaker: Yeah, it did.
Speaker: It did cause me to put saying get him boys to a group of henchmen in order to defeat a bully on my bucket list.
Speaker: You got to, you know, yeah, you got to have goals.
Speaker: So the and you know, what's great is that chapter, that entire chapter was basically the first level of Ninja Gaiden.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Summed up.
Speaker: So because in the first level, you're going through this town and you end up in a bar.
Speaker: And there's a boss fight at the end.
Speaker: And then you get shot by the mysterious redheaded woman in the game.
Speaker: Did she get named?
Speaker: At the very, very end.
Speaker: Very end.
Speaker: And it's really stupid.
Speaker: Because the mysterious redhead woman redheaded the mysterious redheaded woman that works for the CIA, it felt like when they say it, because they keep referring to her as the redheaded girl from the CIA.
Speaker: And to me, it felt like a terrible like Charlie Brown as Jackie Jack Ryan, Tom Clancy slash fiction.
Speaker: And it took my head in this very bizarre direction.
Speaker: I'm like, no, don't make me think about, you know, like the rapid cuts of Charlie Brown smashing through all of these villains.
Speaker: It was just it was weird.
Speaker: I'm like, you could just give her a fucking name rather than calling her the redheaded CIA girl.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: And once again, probably a better, probably a better book.
Speaker: If we're being completely honest here.
Speaker: I wouldn't mind Charlie Brown as written by Tom Clancy.
Speaker: That would be...
Speaker: Yeah, I I'm I'm I'm stunned and afraid of my imagination in that case.
Speaker: I don't want to think about it.
Speaker: I am delighted and terrified.
Speaker: Only the finest fan fictions.
Speaker: Because the problem is, you see, I don't normally masturbate.
Speaker: I don't normally masturbate to Charlie Brown as as an assassin porn.
Speaker: But when I do, I am high as hell.
Speaker: And the problem is you can't decide in your mind whether he's a two-dimensional cartoon or whether he's a physical man with a giant volleyball head.
Speaker: And as soon as you do, the implications are miserable.
Speaker: I don't know how I'm going to get through this, but this cocktail is made of Jack Daniels and glue.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Now you're on to it.
Speaker: So, and if you, if you're, if your listeners were not aware of it, my plan was to come onto the show and make Phil look like a sober priest.
Speaker: It's working out strap in everybody.
Speaker: My, my, uh, my reputation is being rebuilt brick by brick.
Speaker: We're going out.
Speaker: It's going out beautifully.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You're George too.
Speaker: And I'm Donald Trump in this situation.
Speaker: I'm going to require that you cut that out of the show.
Speaker: Remember when I was the worst one?
Speaker: Oh God.
Speaker: These are the good days.
Speaker: We're living them people.
Speaker: We're living them.
Speaker: Bring Phil back.
Speaker: I'm locking my doors at night now.
Speaker: Phil, what are you drinking tonight, by the way?
Speaker: What do you got?
Speaker: What do you got going on there?
Speaker: Who me?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, I'm stone cold sober, man.
Speaker: I got no drinks today on me.
Speaker: I'm trying to, I'm trying to cut down on the sugar when it isn't weekends.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cause I'm, cause I'm turning 40 in nine months and it ain't, it ain't pretty.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: My abdomen turned 40 in May and it's it's been complaining ever since.
Speaker: It's it's it's a real bitch.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You start to fall off of you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Don't recommend.
Speaker: I feel like a robot jock.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Stay, stay in the thirties.
Speaker: If you can, thirties are pretty good.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Definitely better.
Speaker: So this guy, so Ryu wakes up and he has been, he's been planted with a statue.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That happens.
Speaker: And he wakes up and it's kind of like he's getting a do over under better circumstances because he basically goes back out on the campus and the same like campus cops who are giving him shit earlier are like, hey, you're actually a pretty cool guy.
Speaker: Dr. Smith said we should look out for you.
Speaker: We're your friends now for no apparent reason.
Speaker: And let us help you find Dr. Smith.
Speaker: We don't know that he was a wimple.
Speaker: That's not that's not a thing that we know.
Speaker: That's not a thing that we know.
Speaker: No, not at all.
Speaker: So he basically makes his way.
Speaker: He gets to meet Dr. Smith, who kind of immediately pulls the old, it was me all along.
Speaker: I'm actually Dr. Wimple.
Speaker: I know your dad.
Speaker: And gives him, you know, a little bit of information on this prophecy, this shinobi demon temple prophecy.
Speaker: And while they're...
Speaker: I love this scene while they're while they're discussing all of this, a postal worker walks in and and like kind of pulls a fast one, starts going, hey, I got to get a sign here.
Speaker: Oh, let me move over here real quick for you.
Speaker: And then he and then he leaves.
Speaker: And when he leaves, the.
Speaker: Yeah, he leaves and he's stolen the dark statue, which Ryu had had placed upon him.
Speaker: And this is what happens when you don't fund the postal services.
Speaker: This is what you get when you have to deal with FedEx.
Speaker: And the same thing happened to me.
Speaker: And I think it's... This is really a... When you put a capitalist postmaster general in charge of...
Speaker: of the postal service and he just cuts funding, you know, your, your guys are going to, and ladies are going to have to find a way to, to, you know, pad pad their income.
Speaker: And that's going to be stealing.
Speaker: Archeological piracy.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Archeological piracy.
Speaker: I mean, it worked for the British.
Speaker: You can't blame them in a way.
Speaker: It's really not their fault.
Speaker: Now they got museums full of brown people's shit from all over the world.
Speaker: There's actually a podcast stuff called podcast called stuff.
Speaker: The British stole.
Speaker: Oh, that's that is about that.
Speaker: That's a great title because they sure as hell did.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Which episode is about my heart.
Speaker: Kate fucking Winslet.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: We get another random like kind of dopey chase scene here from
Speaker: Which dopey?
Speaker: You're going to have to narrow it down.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, yeah, he's he's hold on.
Speaker: Let me find this thing here.
Speaker: Cause I hope we don't gloss over the Shuriken into the sports car tire bit.
Speaker: Cause that was, that was something.
Speaker: I, the thing, the thing is they unravel how quickly that there, these are the bad guys.
Speaker: Oh, I'm actually a good guy.
Speaker: These are actually the CIA who you thought were the bad guys are actually the CIA.
Speaker: Here's this girl again.
Speaker: Thing is like whiplash speed.
Speaker: What is going on?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So chapter nine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They basically run through the hallways and then there was a squeal of tires, a black Lamborghini pulled away from a hidden spot behind a gate because that is what all thieves drive is Lambos.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If they're driving a Lamborghini, why do they need to resort to like taking this job of stealing a statue?
Speaker: Yeah, well, you got to show all those small town New Mexicans who the fuck's in charge.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: By the way, I figured out that Galesburg is supposed to be a stand in for Albuquerque.
Speaker: Oh, that was not clear.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: based on because they named the mountain range that it's in the foothills of.
Speaker: And I looked up the mountain range like, oh, the city that's there is Albuquerque.
Speaker: Yeah, there it is.
Speaker: That's that's the thing.
Speaker: Why we scan Albuquerque?
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: Yeah, I don't get it.
Speaker: Like, if you're not worried about the Nintendo company coming after you, why are you worried about ABQ?
Speaker: It makes no sense whatsoever.
Speaker: Dangerous people, man.
Speaker: You could have had Ninja Gaiden and Breaking Bad set in ABQ, and it would have been...
Speaker: It would have been good.
Speaker: Good stuff.
Speaker: But then he destroys the tires of Lamborghini.
Speaker: And I bet the tires for a Lamborghini are probably pretty expensive.
Speaker: They have to be.
Speaker: See, that's why they keep with the piracy, to pay for more tires.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're peeling out like that.
Speaker: It's irresponsible.
Speaker: He throws a shuriken, whistled as it sliced through the air.
Speaker: It disappeared into the dust cloud and embedded itself in the left rear tire of the getaway car.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then the thief is like, ah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They basically like first person shooter roll out of this and go for cover behind some low like walls.
Speaker: Like it's they give up on that car real quick.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They can just get another one later down the line.
Speaker: They just grant that thought of this bitch.
Speaker: So Ryu gets the relic back and he goes back and Dr. Smith has been beaten.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: beaten to shreds and he's just like pointing at the safe and he says, Saf.
Speaker: Saf.
Speaker: Saf.
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: It has a real put the candle back.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then the gunmen show up.
Speaker: And wouldn't you know it in chapter 10, it's the CIA.
Speaker: It's the CIA, who we can always trust.
Speaker: We can always trust.
Speaker: They're always the good guys, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it's this.
Speaker: Yeah, he gives them the lowdown on the demon temple.
Speaker: And I love how shocked Ryu is, by the way, when he finds out the statue has been planted on him.
Speaker: He's like, what?
Speaker: You put a statue on me.
Speaker: He's like, well, yeah, after she shot you.
Speaker: Like, I feel like after you got shot, anything's in the air.
Speaker: Like it could have been anything's up for grabs at that point.
Speaker: You were shooting a shot by an American government worker.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And a woman at that, like you, you're you should be extremely offended on many levels.
Speaker: Yeah, you can you can tell.
Speaker: And we get to like the second moment of what so far at this point I'd counted like two of them where he pulls like he's like, even a ninja, he said, he's got to be careful here because even a ninja can't survive being shot in the fucking throat or whatever it is.
Speaker: And just I want to see more of these.
Speaker: Like, I think it's like just like even a ninja can get canceled on Twitter.
Speaker: If you're like the be a man guy on Instagram, except even a ninja.
Speaker: Yeah, right.
Speaker: We'll be a ninja.
Speaker: Even a ninja can step on a Lego and really, really hurt his foot.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Even a ninja gets seasonal affective disorder and orders too much tea.
Speaker: I feel like that one's especially likely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Even a ninja gets addicted to Uber Eats and Viking.
Speaker: Even a ninja clicks on too many Russian posts and votes for the wrong presidential candidate.
Speaker: Oh God.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: So he gets low down from the CIA.
Speaker: CIA is like, you're going to do this for us and you can't say no.
Speaker: And they kind of talk about the Jack Yo, the Jack Yo.
Speaker: Yeah, I never said it out loud.
Speaker: I never said it out loud.
Speaker: And now it's like, oh.
Speaker: When I was seeing it on the page and my mind read was always like,
Speaker: Jack-yo, but it didn't go like, oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, no, it didn't go to like, oh, it's just Jack-yo when you actually think it.
Speaker: That's not, that doesn't feel good.
Speaker: Now I'm thinking like House of Yes and screaming at a theater.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: Listeners, the name is J-A-Q-U-I-O.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which, yeah, in my head I was hearing is Jack-yo.
Speaker: But Jackie O actually makes way more sense.
Speaker: Jackie O!
Speaker: Jackie O, lady!
Speaker: But it's... But, yeah, Jackie O... I just... There's no good canonical way to say whatever that is.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: It's either pillbox hats or it's drunk as a skunk.
Speaker: It just doesn't... Either way is marbles in the mouth.
Speaker: It's bad.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's not even his real name.
Speaker: They, they, they mentioned that he has like another name and then they start calling him the Jakao.
Speaker: Is it just spoon fed shit to rationalize the J for some reason?
Speaker: Cause I think that is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cause the whole, the J theme runs then on through all the bosses.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like the W in Mega Man two for Wiley.
Speaker: It's just the same thing.
Speaker: These villains love a first initial.
Speaker: Like they just, they love it.
Speaker: A strong first initial will really make your villainy hit that peak level.
Speaker: Big time.
Speaker: Big time.
Speaker: So, uh, Fohammer drops Ryu off at a, uh, uh, a landing zone in, uh, in, I guess, Brazil or.
Speaker: It's Peru.
Speaker: At one point they say the Peru.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Peru, one of the parts of the Amazon.
Speaker: And this is why the CIA has a unmitigated line of success after success.
Speaker: They're the kind of agency that will strap an entire plan onto a 13-year-old ninja.
Speaker: Yeah, a 13-year-old with a sword.
Speaker: And drop him into the middle of the fucking Amazon rainforest like a bunch of goddamn champions.
Speaker: If only we had him in the 60s, the Bay of Pigs.
Speaker: We are using a 13-year-old Bay of Pigs.
Speaker: Fuck it.
Speaker: Done.
Speaker: Done.
Speaker: We are using a 13 year old Japanese national.
Speaker: Castro done.
Speaker: That we extraordinary renditioned right into Peru to stop a demon from raising from the dead.
Speaker: What could go wrong?
Speaker: We're the CIA.
Speaker: We think these things through.
Speaker: We're the CIA.
Speaker: We have it covered.
Speaker: We got it covered.
Speaker: Us and our 13 year old ninja team.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He's a team of one.
Speaker: Team one.
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Tune in next week for the thrilling part two of our talk with Hess from Oops All Monsters about Ninja Gaiden.
Speaker: In the meantime, if you could rate us five stars, share us on Twitter, and all that fun stuff, we would greatly appreciate it.
Speaker: Have a good night, everybody.
