Topics discussed: Iok is a Jerid; Vidar, Gaelio, Ein, and the Norse god of vengeance; the myth of Ragnarök and its significance in Norse mythology; McGillis as a Loki; the patriarchal systems throughout the world of IBO; sacrifice; McGillis’s promise to pass on the colonial apparatus to Orga; an appraisal of Kudelia and the limits of her ability to progress; Atra and Kudelia’s ideas around the end of the conditions that produce child soldiers; Kudelia’s attempts to create the groundwork to support a different future; Tekkadan’s abandonment of Kudelia; McGillis as a groomer; a satisfying amount of Eva to trickle in; they don’t have wheelchairs???; the fumbles in how IBO handles disability; fears over the losing someone to the war; Orga, Atra, and Kudelia all fear losing Mikazuki; Mika moving away from Atra and Kudelia and toward Orga; Mikazuki avoiding grappling with his internal dilemma and unwillingness to give up the power of Barbatos; identification between the pilot and the mech; the contradiction st the heart of Gjallarhorn; the excavating of a past modernity; knights and dragons vs. the terrifying machine of modern war; Gjallarhorn’s role as creator of peace vs. Tekkadan’s threat of total violence and destruction; Hashmal’s destruction of the farm; IBO’s metatextual interest in the repetition of history; the Mobile Armor as humanity’s drive for self-destruction and the religiosity that surrounds that; fox treats for foxes; Gundam F91; Connor’s promised to finish Victory by April 7, 2023; router network configuration; a little more about McGillis as a groomer; content warnings for the next 6 episodes (starts at 3:53:55 — the time stamps for episode 44 are 9:30 to 12:46).

Write into our Question Bucket at [email protected] and follow us on Twitter!

The Show: @ghostdiverspod (twitter) or @ghostdivers (cohost)
Niamh: @FoxmomNia (twitter) or @foxmomnia (cohost)
Connor: @rabbleais (twitter) or @rabbleais (cohost)

Export Audio Network: exportaud.io
Ghost Divers: exportaud.io/ghostdivers
Pondering Pootan: exportaud.io/pootan
Ornate Stairwells: exportaud.io/ornatestairwells
Around the Long Fire: abnormalmapping.com/longfire

Check out our official schedule at exportaud.io/divingschedule!

Content Warnings for this Discussion

Violence, death, and gore
Death of enslaved child soldiers
Grooming, child abuse, and pedophilia (esp. 1:20:25–1:30:45 and 3:48:10–3:51:30)
Disability and loss of the use of limbs
Self-destruction
Food (post-ED section)

Find out more at https://ghost-divers.pinecast.co

Topics discussed: Niamh’s new way of doing synopses; Julieta is the weird girl to Ple’s silly girl, cyber new type vibes all around; Montag goes masked off and just becomes McGillis; the new yakuza motherfucker; the potential identity of the mysterious masked man; the new state of the world and the lack of significant improvements in the wake of Makanai’s election; Tekkadan’s move from an oppositional force to a part of the standing regime; Tekkadan banning the Alaya-Vijnana system; “I sure hope Tekkadan doesn’t repeat anything from Gjallarhorn”; Atra trying to assert a new space for Mika as a farmer if his role as a soldier is no longer needed; this week’s thematic keyword of “trust”; the link of faces, trust, and intention with the new mask and the new masked man; João’s DMs including the medieval and modernity as well as a quote from Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth; McGillis is a Char (redux); the difficulty in overthrowing or even destabilizing existing regimes; Mikazuki, disability, and his inability to hold back Atra’s bracelet; Mika, Orga, single vision, and monomania; the drive to move forward and the question of when they can stop; paralleling Julieta with Ein; Chad Chadan, that’s it just the name Chad Chadan; Aston keeps throwing up death flags and then dies; the homoromantic tension between Takaki and Aston; Takaki and Aston as a mirror of Orga and Mika; the potentiality for the manipulation of Tekkadan, as well as the terrifying possibility that Orga is himself a manipulator; Takaki as the first character other than Mikazuki to execute someone with a pistol; a taste test between Asahi and Kirin Ichiban; silly girl sweep; and content warnings for the next 6 episodes (starts at 3:10:43).

Write into our Question Bucket at [email protected] and follow us on Twitter!

The Show: @ghostdiverspod (twitter) or @ghostdivers (cohost)
Niamh: @FoxmomNia (twitter) or @foxmomnia (cohost)
Connor: @rabbleais (twitter) or @rabbleais (cohost)

Export Audio Network: exportaud.io
Ghost Divers: exportaud.io/ghostdivers
Pondering Pootan: exportaud.io/pootan
Ornate Stairwells: exportaud.io/ornatestairwells
Around the Long Fire: abnormalmapping.com/longfire

Check out our official schedule at exportaud.io/divingschedule!

Content Warnings for this Discussion

Violence, death, and gore
Death of enslaved child soldiers
Disability and loss of the use of limbs
Alcohol (post-ED section)

Find out more at https://ghost-divers.pinecast.co

Topics discussed: Trying to imagine the position of being completely unmoved by anything except Biscuit; spending over a half hour to synopsize three episodes; Connor figured out why he was trudging through Victory; Victory and disgust at the Earth and the ocean; abjection around the Alaya-Vijnana system and cybernetics in general; IBO’s belief in the transformative power of the truth and electoral politics; the tension with Kudelia and the danger that her revolutionary politics can easily be subsumed into the web of capital; McGillis’s ability to manipulate the political systems around him; the desire to find a place of peace amidst war vs. the necessity for continued violent resistance; Yukinojo’s resignation in contrast to Merribit’s active objections against Tekkadan’s drive for violence; the limited choices presented to Tekkadan; Carta Issue thinks she is a master tactician because she read Sun Tsu’s Art of War; Niamh loves Carta Issue because she’s kitsune-themed; Gjallarhorn was doomed from the start; the nuances and complications of the conversation between Mika and Orga; Mika tops from the bottom; the conflation of liberation and violence; the potential necessity of Orga to direct Mika’s violent propulsion towards good ends; Moby Dick and monomania; more synopsizing; the theme of betting and its relation to yakuza; Atra, Kudelia, and the anime trope of the bento box; Graze Ein as a Psycho Gundam; Graze Ein as a warning of a possible future for Mikazuki; Ein’s sadism and derangement; the reduction of Ein to an instrumentalized weapon built out of the contradictions of his character; McGillis’s character and his plans to overturn the regime of Gjallarhorn as a deconstructivist; McGillis’s lack of values in general; McGillis as individual vs Tekkadan as communal; McGillis as a foil to Orga and Kudelia; a satisfying pop; accidentally going to the St. Paddy’s Day parade and getting called the f-slur; Connor’s Ghost Diver’s mug; Niamh teases the fact that fae had a very major thing spoiled about IBO from the beginning, which we still haven’t gotten to. Note: We didn’t do a discreet content warning at the end of this episode solely because it’s just more of the same with regards to violence, death, and gore.

Write into our Question Bucket at [email protected] and follow us on Twitter!

The Show: @ghostdiverspod (twitter) or @ghostdivers (cohost)
Niamh: @FoxmomNia (twitter) or @foxmomnia (cohost)
Connor: @rabbleais (twitter) or @rabbleais (cohost)

Export Audio Network: exportaud.io
Ghost Divers: exportaud.io/ghostdivers
Pondering Pootan: exportaud.io/pootan
Ornate Stairwells: exportaud.io/ornatestairwells
Around the Long Fire: abnormalmapping.com/longfire

Check out our official schedule at exportaud.io/divingschedule!

Content Warnings for this Discussion

Violence, death, and gore
Death of enslaved child soldiers
Character death
Suicide and suicide missions
Body modification and potential body horror

Find out more at https://ghost-divers.pinecast.co

Topics discussed: An aside for a correction email; the show being cheeky with McGillis’s obvious disguise; Tekkadan’s lack of understanding of their own revolutionary impulses; the show’s nuances in presenting the difficulties of Marxist politics; the narrowness of Kudelia’s default idea of revolution; Tekkadan as revolution as action without a conceptual framework, Kudelia as revolution as a concept without concrete practice, and the need of the two to come together to achieve more; Savarin’s failure to see oppression broadly as its own form of violence; Atra’s heroism and revolution is situated in the interpersonal; the medieval theming of the show’s mechanics; the Dark History; the Earth as a symbol in Gundam; Chocolate Man vs. Prune Boy; the masked man is obviously Char; Carta Issue is a ZZ character; deferring on McGillis again because he’s still too much of a mystery to talk about at this point in the show without Niamh having to just grit faer teeth and remain quiet while Connor speculates; how Atra’s approach to relationships provides a space for mutual support and emotional comfort rather than romantic competition; the themes of faith, trust, and responsibility and their link to ideology; Connor and Niamh write fanfic where we keep teasing a character survived, but only to reveal episodes later that they didn’t; the relation of colonialism, imperialism, and human bodies; Ein as a class traitor; Ein’s sublimation and rage over his oppression into revenge against Crank’s killers; foils for the main characters; the Earth entry scene as a broader Gundam trope and the danger of the Earth’s pull; just a little bit about Mikazuki; Niamh and Connor try to remember what movie Shree Klime is from; explaining what’s happening in SEED Destiny and realizing that everything sounds like it should be great; Connor and Niamh could take ideas from SEED Destiny and create an incredible show; Connor has become bogged down in Victory; G Gundam; there are only six kinds of foxes; what even is a highball; diet sodas and nutrition; a weird argument Niamh got into in high school and still remembers; Niamh takes a break to text Em about Chrono Cross; content warnings for the next batch of episodes (starts at 3:30:00).

Write into our Question Bucket at [email protected] and follow us on Twitter!

The Show: @ghostdiverspod (twitter) or @ghostdivers (cohost)
Niamh: @FoxmomNia (twitter) or @foxmomnia (cohost)
Connor: @rabbleais (twitter) or @rabbleais (cohost)

Export Audio Network: exportaud.io
Ghost Divers: exportaud.io/ghostdivers
Pondering Pootan: exportaud.io/pootan
Ornate Stairwells: exportaud.io/ornatestairwells
Around the Long Fire: abnormalmapping.com/longfire

Check out our official schedule at exportaud.io/divingschedule!

Content Warnings for this Discussion

Violence and death
Massacre
Sacrifice, both willing and unwilling
Alcohol, food, and nutrition (post-ED)

Find out more at https://ghost-divers.pinecast.co

Topics discussed: Is there anything going on with Moby Dick references?; the introduction of the Turbines to further explore gender and sexuality on the show; the introduction of the various meanings of family; the harem anime providing a potential framework for Atra to reapproach the romantic tension triangle between, Mika, and Kudelia in a way that allows her to reach out to and support Kudelia; the appeal of Mikazuki as a romantic interest for Atra and Kudelia; the glimpses into characterization around Fumitan; Kudelia Aina coming to terms with her own sexuality under the influences of all the other pressures on her; Atra’s navigation of sexuality and the sexualization of bodies; the framework of the family as an facilitating factor for understandings of relationships and sexuality; McGillis is a Char; the kanji meaning of some of the characters’ names; the mobile suit designs in IBO; Evangelion spoilers about what the Evas and Angels are (1:45:18 to 1:46:45); the various tensions between Orga and Merribit; the meaning of food in the series, Atra’s relationship with food, and possible stunted growth in Atra and Mikazuki due to childhood starvation and malnutrition; Orga’s responsibility to take care of the sexual needs of Tekkadan; reincarnation, rebirth, religion, and tensions between the social classification of characters in the show as “human debris”; the spiritual means of processing their emotions and its limits as it encounters the pressures of gender roles and their socioeconomic classification and oppression as lesser human or inhuman; Mika’s reflections on his sadism and its narrative link with his expression of romantic interest in Kudelia; the subdued characterization of Mika throughout the show so far; putting Almiria and McGillis on the back burner until we get a clearer sense of McGillis as a character, aside from how it’s already relating to the utilization of bodies to maintain social orders and political power; cleanliness and dirtiness in the delineation of class in IBO; the Norse mythology references in some of the names from Gjallarhorn; the Five Guardians of the Universe; alienating people with Connor’s bits; content warnings for the next batch of episodes (starts at 3:44:20).

Write into our Question Bucket at [email protected] and follow us on Twitter!

The Show: @ghostdiverspod (twitter) or @ghostdivers (cohost)
Niamh: @FoxmomNia (twitter) or @foxmomnia (cohost)
Connor: @rabbleais (twitter) or @rabbleais (cohost)

Export Audio Network: exportaud.io
Ghost Divers: exportaud.io/ghostdivers
Pondering Pootan: exportaud.io/pootan
Ornate Stairwells: exportaud.io/ornatestairwells
Around the Long Fire: abnormalmapping.com/longfire

Check out our official schedule at exportaud.io/divingschedule!

Content Warnings for this Discussion

Sex, sexuality, and the sexualization of women’s bodies
Sex work
Harem anime tropes
Alcohol and drinking until sick
Child abuse, violence
Childhood starvation and malnutrition
Blood, violence, field medical work, and death
Racism, slavery
Arranged marriage with a 9-year-old girl, potential pedophilia
The classification of bodies as clean vs. dirty, pure vs. deformed, etc.

Find out more at https://ghost-divers.pinecast.co

Topics discussed: Mikazuki is the main guy from Battles Without Honor or Humanity 2; Kudelia Bluth; the very first scene and the symbols of Iron, Blood, and Orphans; why people say this is the Gundam about child soldiers; how IBO engages in the language of Tomino Gundam shows but tries to translate it for a wider audience; our view of Mars; bodies in IBO; the humanness of the design of Gundam Barbatos; body modifications and the beliefs and opinions about them in the society of IBO; abjection (see our Evangelion season): Lü Bubatos; the space rats with whiskers and the Alaya-Vijnana vs. the tropes around newtypes; the two Ainas and Kudelia as a character in the show; race in IBO; our first impressions of McGillis; Barbatos as the Devil’s Machine; and the contradictions of Orga, Mika, Kudelia, and Barbatos and the creation of new potentials.

Write into our Question Bucket at [email protected] and follow us on Twitter!

The Show: @ghostdiverspod (twitter) or @ghostdivers (cohost)
Niamh: @FoxmomNia (twitter) or @foxmomnia (cohost)
Connor: @rabbleais (twitter) or @rabbleais (cohost)

Export Audio Network: exportaud.io
Ghost Divers: exportaud.io/ghostdivers
Pondering Pootan: exportaud.io/pootan
Ornate Stairwells: exportaud.io/ornatestairwells
Around the Long Fire: abnormalmapping.com/longfire

Check out our official schedule at exportaud.io/divingschedule!

Content Warnings for this Discussion

Blood, violence, death and some gore, both in mech combat and between humans
Bodies, implants and body modification, ideas around “pure” vs “mutilated” or “grotesque” bodies

Find out more at https://ghost-divers.pinecast.co

Dive into Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans!

The Show: @ghostdiverspod (twitter) or @ghostdivers (cohost)
Niamh: @FoxmomNia (twitter) or @foxmomnia (cohost)
Connor: @rabbleais (twitter) or @rabbleais (cohost)

Export Audio Network: exportaud.io
Ghost Divers: exportaud.io/ghostdivers
Pondering Pootan: exportaud.io/pootan
Ornate Stairwells: exportaud.io/ornatestairwells
Around the Long Fire: abnormalmapping.com/longfire

Check out our official schedule at exportaud.io/divingschedule!

Release Schedule

[S12E1] Intro to Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans: February 3, 2023
[S12E2] Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, eps. 1–6: February 17, 2023
[S12E3] Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, eps. 7–13: March 3, 2023
[S12E4] Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, eps. 14–19: March 17, 2023
[S12E5] Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, eps. 20–25: March 31, 2023
[S12E6] Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, eps. 26–32: April 14, 2023
[S12E7] Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, eps. 33–38: April 28, 2023
[S12E8] Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, eps. 39–44: May 12, 2023
[S12E9] Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, eps. 45–50: May 26, 2023
[S12E10] Question Bucket: June 9, 2023

Content Warnings for the Anime

Blood, violence, death and some gore, both in mech combat and between humans
Bodies, implants and body modification, ideas around “pure” vs “mutilated” or “grotesque” bodies
Sex and sexuality, including rape, arranged marriage with a young girl, child abuse, and pedophilia
Also sex work and harem anime tropes

For the episodes 1–6 of the show, we will only get into the first two (blood, violence, etc. and bodies, implants, etc.)

Find out more at https://ghost-divers.pinecast.co

Topics discussed: The two Kino’s Journey movies; the Land of Foxes, the Normal Country*, and the Boring Country of Thematically Significant Travelers and Their Nuanced Relationship with Travel as an Institution; the many advantages of a small orange; developing a script for the poker episode of Kino’s Journey; the superpower of Google Maps; Beast Wars; Riku’s unlimited superpowers; the Land of Airports; devising a country with the express purpose of trapping Kino; Kino at 40 a.k.a. Batou; the worst images of Batou we all have ever seen; Kino’s distaste for the bean and adventures in rural Virginia; Connor disagrees with Niamh and kb about the appeal of blood orgies; the Country of Blood; other travel literature like Don Quixote, Otherside Picnic, and Lone Wolf & Cub; yelling at your Gundam son to cut his bangs; spicy cream of ranch soup; and finding the perfect level to fill your creationism mug.

You can write into future Question Buckets at [email protected] and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter!

The Show: @ghostdiverspod (twitter) or @ghostdivers (cohost)
Niamh: @FoxmomNia (twitter) or @foxmomnia (cohost)
Niamh’s mediamh pile: @mediamh_pile
Connor: @rabbleais (twitter) or @rabbleais (cohost)

Export Audio Network: exportaud.io
Ghost Divers: exportaud.io/ghostdivers
Pondering Pootan: exportaud.io/pootan
Ornate Stairwells: exportaud.io/ornatestairwells
Around the Long Fire: abnormalmapping.com/longfire
Unjust Depths: unjustdepths.com

Check out our official schedule at exportaud.io/divingschedule!

Content Warnings for this Discussion

Food
Violence and death
Blood, lots of blood, blood orgies

Find out more at https://ghost-divers.pinecast.co

Topics discussed: The Individual vs. Society; Kino’s increasing meddling or involvement in the countries they visit; the optimism or pessimism in the ending of episode 8; pushing against social mores vs. outright violent resistance; the bourgeois consumption of the novel and the cutting off of the revolutionary potential of literature and criticism; solipsism; the problems of the family in liberal society; work and mechanized labor; gender roles and labor; aimlessness, purpose, and purposeful aimlessness; the only appearance of the Master in the entire show; the system of state violence and the personal relationship to violence; the faltering of the handling of the violence of Tatatans; the critique of 21st century warfare and American militarism; gender norms and motherhood in the construction of state violence; the saddest fucking episode of Kino’s Journey; the pain of seeing what your childhood would’ve looked like if it was healthy and normal when you are queer person with childhood trauma; the ambiguous pang of yearning; utopia as fleeting and potentially unsustainable; modeling the process of utopian creation as a shared social goal; the depersonalization of the philosophical mode throughout the series in contrast to Kino’s willingness to give into the personal in the final episode; the positioning of the final episode chronologically early in Kino’s journey but at the end of the show Kino’s Journey; and the most nothing episode of Kino’s Journey that’s like fine, it’s kinda funny.

Also, don't forget that we will be recording the Question Bucket soon. The deadline to write into our Question Bucket for this series is Friday, January 13, 2023. (Note: We're still hoping to record Saturday like usual, but it might get moved to Friday so that's the date if you want to play it safe.) You can write into ghostdiverspod@gmail and follow us on Twitter!

The Show: @ghostdiverspod (twitter) or @ghostdivers (cohost)
Niamh: @FoxmomNia (twitter) or @foxmomnia (cohost)
Niamh’s mediamh pile: @mediamh_pile
Connor: @rabbleais (twitter) or @rabbleais (cohost)

Export Audio Network: exportaud.io
Ghost Divers: exportaud.io/ghostdivers
Pondering Pootan: exportaud.io/pootan
Ornate Stairwells: exportaud.io/ornatestairwells
Around the Long Fire: abnormalmapping.com/longfire
Unjust Depths: unjustdepths.com

Check out our official schedule at exportaud.io/divingschedule!

Content Warnings for this Discussion

Unreality / questioning reality
Violence and warfare
Suicide
Massacre and genocide
Transphobia and queerphobia
Childhood trauma
Death
Pandemic and illness
Food

Find out more at https://ghost-divers.pinecast.co

Happy New Year! We've made it another full year of the show!

As with last year's special, we start with a self-indulgent look back at the past year of the podcast and rank everything we've watched. We also run tournaments for the OPs and EDs!

We then have our special discussion for the year. That's right, Niamh conned Connor into reading the entirety of NANA! We start talking about the manga at around 1:25:11 and do our best to provide a thorough synopsis before digging into the story's themes and ideas about love embodied by the cast's many different relationships. Also Niamh might con Connor into something else in the process...

As a note, this section is really spoiler heavy. I think even with all the big twists and plot points spoiled for you, the manga is still a fantastic and moving read (I in fact know this is true, because I knew many of the manga's biggest spoilers before I actually read through it in earnest myself). That said, I know many people really balk at spoilers, and so if that's you, please please please do yourself the service of reading NANA sooner rather than later and then coming back to this episode at the end.

If you have any emails to send us about NANA or any of the anime we've covered or will cover, you can write into future Question Buckets at [email protected]. And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Cohost!

The Show: @ghostdiverspod (twitter) or @ghostdivers (cohost)
Niamh: @FoxmomNia (twitter) or @foxmomnia (cohost)
Niamh’s mediamh pile: @mediamh_pile
Connor: @rabbleais (twitter) or @rabbleais (cohost)

Export Audio Network: exportaud.io
Ghost Divers: exportaud.io/ghostdivers
Pondering Pootan: exportaud.io/pootan
Ornate Stairwells: exportaud.io/ornatestairwells
Around the Long Fire: abnormalmapping.com/longfire

Free promo for Ina’s podcast, It’s All Stover: @stovercast (twitter)

Check out our official schedule at exportaud.io/divingschedule!

Content Warnings for this Discussion

Rape
Grooming, child abuse, and pedophilia
Emotional abuse and abusive relationships
Descriptions of trauma responses and panic attacks
Internalize homophobia and compulsory heterosexuality
Sexism and misogyny
Cheating
Self-harm
Alcohol use
Drug abuse and addiction
Car accident and death

Find out more at https://ghost-divers.pinecast.co