Agitator

86 - How to Sell a Good Time with Survive Style 5+

Survive Style 5+ (2004)
dir. Gen Sekiguchi
 
Toilet training our kids, abandoning desire for privacy or quiet or rest, daily check lists to gamify your life, functioning and scheduling around chaos, non-stop teething, being a good dad, how old is too old to share a bed with your kids?, create-a-school shooter, how to spot genuine diversity vs box-checking, Nigerian comedian recall, the black Dilbert fan, Re-Up Latham's Chicken Chasin, lessening the Self until "there is no me," Vinnie Jones love fest, Tadanobu Asano: the trench coat king, G.D. Bowlin's Rock City and what it means to have a book put out on Broken River, the publishing scam, the Tim Burton Meow Wolf house, singing lyrics in a language you don't speak, Japanese commercials, guys finding out they're gay, accepting flaws and quirks in the people you love, selling a good time, translators with speech impediments, how to write visual gags, freedom to make whatever art you want whenever you want, Agitator marketing strategy, and the depth within the goofiness.
 
More episodes and exclusive serialized novels at patreon.com/agitator

85 - Nightmare Detective: Can Auteurs Make Films with Mass Appeal?

This week, we're pitting two Tsukamoto films against each other: Nightmare Detective and Nightmare Detective 2. What was the GOAT going for here, and did he pull it off? Which attempt was better and why? Can auteurs succeed in the mainstream, or do pop sensibilities not compute in the mind of the experimental artist? We tackle the first entry on the free episode, and follow up with Tsukamoto's redemption on Agitator Z: patreon.com/agitatorOn this episode: Apology tours, David Lynch presents Race Debates at Jiffy Lube, our new court show idea, how to properly raise rich kids, the meritocracy factor of cancellation, Ant Power supplements, Rare Candy, what goes wrong when an auteur attempts a mainstream project, adopting pop sensibilities, did Tsukamoto go color blind?, how to watch the best cut of Nightmare Detective, the beginning of late stage Tsukamoto, our rankings of Tsukamoto's films, why this is the no-guest season of the show, being ride or die, doing the show covered in vomit, major bag alert, and weathering the storm. 

84 - Versus / Stranglehold

Versus (2000) dir. Ryuhei Kitamura
 
Stranglehold (2007) dir. Brian Eddy
 
On this episode we talk DIY filmmaking in the woods, with a backing soundtrack of a Youtube playthrough of Stranglehold, the video game sequel to Hard Boiled.
 
Topics covered:
 
Ain’t It Cool News hype, the Blade 2 wave, Matrix homage, Midnight Meat Train, philosophy puts me to sleep, wolves turning into anuses, 666 portals, punched-through faces, who’s the bad guy in this movie?, censoring Ichi the Killer, the importance of good sound in movies, reading the Versus wiki, Japanese actors, not liking movies when you’re young, John Woo’s Stranglehold, how babies see the world, DMT apples, movies on a $10k budget, David’s storage unit gets destroyed by a tornado, Kelby’s Pepe LePew get rich quick scheme, male feminists, the importance of iconic posters, and a rant about people who don’t like our kids making noise.
For our Oscar recap and our own best and worst Agitator episodes of 2022, visit our http://www.patreon.com/agitator.

83 - Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl

Kelby and JDO talk Katsuhito Ishii's 1998 ensemble crime film SSMaPHG. This is a fashion episode.
Having a face for movies, proto-Kakihara, Takeo Kiuchi designer wear, becoming a 40-year-old hypebeast, defense of Shark Skin Man, Agitator boys cameo, not being able to kill people who are too cool, the cringeness of conscious rap, the texture of shark skin, a crew having fun on set, writing one book for you and one for “them,” artistic literacy, SWERY65, Michael Crichton, webnovels, writing shit that works for you, pacing your story, balancing self-indulgence, favorite characters, and seeing yourself in the third person.

82 - Ichi the Killer: Manga vs. Movie

Ichi the Killer by Hideo Yamamoto (1998-2001)
 
Ichi the Killer dir. Takashi Miike (2001)
 
We go into a deep dive on the Ichi manga, which was written around the same time that Miike was adapting it into his iconic film. What does the manga do differently from the film? Which is better? In the process of analyzing the work, we discover new insights about the relationship between creator and audience, and the power of creativity and the imagination.
 
On the free episode, we talk about:
Lost mail, editing promotion, working while parenting, looking for prolific author clients, natural gas bills, social media pink cloud, sacrificing birds, separate golem, no moderating, Ichi the Killer manga fan translation, the abomination of converting 16mm to 4K, the necessary layer of grime, estate sales, the history of hankos, Japanese surnames, the two Kakiharas, the prince albert punishment, Tetsuo’s discharge, describing Ichi the Killer with delicate language, sweetness perception, and becoming the TV.
On Agitator Z, we talk:
Burning the boats, owning a UPS store, Ichi the Killer manga recap, submissive sadism and aggressive masochism, the people who act like clowns are the actual psychopaths, Ichi as a representative of the political class, yakuza as dogs, torturing the audience, Gus the hype man, treating violence as sacred vs. comical, the place for edgelords, the narcissism of the artist, relationship to art is relationship to community, ass blood sprinkler, the lengthy middle of the Ichi manga, the Psycho Twins, everything is the period, trademark dreads, turning dicks into tuning forks, the differences of the endings, the only regular guy in the manga, Ichi the Killer as a metaphor for the artistic process, bean thieves, Yamamoto and Miike working together, playing Yakuza, serialized novel talk, Ichi the Killer 2, never winning the lottery and sigil work.
For a full recap/dissection of the manga vs. the film, visit the http://patreon.com/agitator.

81 - Dead Leaves / Redline

It’s heritage not hate round hurr. We’re stumbling over how to pronounce Japanese names to bring you Hiroyuki Imaishi’s 2004 crude and colorful manic anime Dead Leaves AND Takeshi Koike’s directorial debut in collaboration with Katsuhito Ishii, 2009’s Redline, perhaps the coolest movie ever made. On this episode: audiobook narration, Ren & Stimpy, stained glass animation, throat exercises, the value of fun, why ‘made by hand’ will forever trump the machines, censorship compromises that turned out for the worst, the Fast & Furious franchise, Fight Club, effective satire, and what’s going on at patreon.com/agitator

80 - Extra Terrestrials and the Secret to Hometown Success

Shin Ultraman (2022) dir. Shinji Higuchi
Cum Town homage, radioactive black superheroes, the motherfuckin ass, mechanic sounds, a whole year of your life on social media, indecent proposals, Hogwarts Legacy, moderation, conservatard Ls, escaping from Twitter, organic growth, emulating Z-Ro, reaching people in real life, our new logo idea, becoming regionally hot, Shin Ultraman, inventing techniques, the idea of progress in art, the reason people like YA, feeling the struggle behind the art, financial limitations, why does Japan have all those kaiju?, the meaning of “shin,” monster discussion, and peekaboo.

79 - Tsutomu Nihei Discovers Humanity (ft. Wren Collier)

We're talking Tsutomu Nihei's 15-volume manga Knights of Sidonia (2009-2015) with fan favorite returning guest star, Wren Collier. The three of us being heavily influenced by Nihei, we take a deep dive into the evolution of his storytelling and art styles and try to get inside the head of the man himself. What is Nihei horny for besides architecture? Where'd all the shadows go, Picasso? How do we keep from becoming NPCs? (maybe that one's on the bonus episode... speaking of, patreon.com/agitator). We're doing things a bit differently starting with this one. There's a ton of rich content about the artist and the art on the free show, talmbout a full episode's worth of the good shit. And then on Agitator Z, Wren joins us to dive even further into auteurs with normie influences, AI art, representing scale in world-running, Nihei's attempts at humor and character development, and how to save humanity (for real, this one gets heavy). Also: Halo.

78 - Steal Everything

2LDK (2003)
Aragami (2003)
On this episode, Kelby and I discuss The Duel Project, an interesting project from 2003, in which a drunken bet found two directors making two short films in which they utilized one location, two actors, all shot in one week.
Hearing your voice auto-transcribed, NAC for OCD, driving on ice, tornadoes, border security, being politically homeless, stealing ideas, it’s worthless to complain, withstanding mental pain, shouting out your influences, White Lotus season 2, adding humor to a book, aquiline noses, making movies with rules, 2LDK/Aragami, lying about your budget, anachronistic sound design, hearing characters’ thoughts, and duration as a fiction technique.

77 - GANTZ (ft. Ryan Jackson)

Today we have Ryan from the Mutual Aberration Society podcast (Patreon here) on to talk Hiroya Oku's GANTZ. We go from its beginning up through its legendary "mass shooting" arc.
We discuss:
Getting canceled by aliens, old-school homophobia, Oku’s love of boobs, Larry Clark making The Matrix, the rules of Gantz, black humor, lo-fi grainy nihilism, onion aliens, the interpretation of different mediums, including different IP in your story, gamifying storytelling, clearing out characters, the inspiration for Jigsaw, escalating tension, self-referential shit in manga, blackface mass shooting, G-Unit vs. velociraptors, fetishizing mass violence, art’s very real influence on tragedy, Pokemon Go(vid), Kelby’s demon time, Free 03, the unique structure of writing serialized work, bringing id back to art, the danger of apps, how Twitter has evolved, Gantz as an allegory for being online, the inevitable retcon of Marvel movies, asking why, and why America is a business.