The Speakeasy Podcast - Drink #007: Official OUFC (Oxford United Football Club) Drink, Get into the game!
Sports manga and anime are some of the most popular staple series in Japan along side such institutions as shonen fighting and school romance. Almost any sport has at least one series centered around it with many sports like baseball, boxing, and soccer getting several every year. The classics of sports titles are influential on Japanese media and culture as seen by constant references, parodies, homages, and allusions. But why are sport series so well received in Japan but essentially ignored in the U.S.? What about the genre as a whole is so poorly perceived when it contains such a wide variety within? And we hopefully give people some good series to start watching/reading sports series! Download Now

The Speakeasy Podcast - Drink #006: The Black Russian and the White Russian
A majority of the anime produced is based on a preexisting work. A good deal of shows are adapted from manga but there is also anime based on light novels, video games, literature, and even some more unusual sources. But not all anime is adapted equally. Assuming that the source being adapted is solid what makes a good anime adaption and where can adaptation go wrong? We will be talking about the different philosophies used in adapting manga and the strengths and weaknesses that comes with any strategy. We will also try and discover why the adapting an anime into a manga seems to fail so often. Download Now

The Speakeasy Podcast - Drink #005: Summer Gin Punch
You are watching a movie and then you notice something. Maybe it’s a machine you use at work that you know does not work that way; maybe it is the incorrect presentation of the rules of a sport you play; or maybe just a piece of dialog that rings untrue. The second you realize something is off  you spend the rest of the movie picking it part. You have been taken out of the movie and cannot get back in. We use the movie Summer Wars as a spring-board to examine this phenomenon and how it shapes our perception of a work. Download This Episode

The Speakeasy - Drink #004: The Pink Lady, Invasion of the Beautiful Boys!
Various people start watching the latest show for manly men who live and fight for manly things. They notice the men in this show for guys are pretty handsome. Some of them are even gorgeous. Parts of audience cheers with delight,  most of them continue to watch without batting an eye, and the rest run to their computers to rant at the injustice perpetrated against them.

In this episode we begin to examine this phenomenon. Is there anything wrong with throwing some service to the females watching a show theoretically for guys? Also what makes the male fans go nuts over this phenomenon in the first place? This will surely only be part one in a ongoing dialog as we are sure everyone has more to say on this issue. Download This Episode