PODCAST · leisure
Otaku Hourly
by Otaku Hourly
Anime – a niche medium, a global phenomenon, and a personal passion for many. Anime connects people, and from our studio room to the convention floor, our crew engages with industry pros and fellow fans alike to keep you informed and entertained. Everyone is invited to kick back and relax with us every week at Otaku Hourly, your backdoor anime hangout.
Episodes
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Anime Expo 2026 & The LA Anime Experience
The Fourth of July weekend was jam packed with several anime events and pop ups and your backdoor anime hangout decided to explore what LA had to offer both in and outside of the titular AX in order to explore the breadth and expansion of anime culture, industry, and community. This includes…
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Jinsei - Movie Review
Anime can get pretty campy with its tropes. How many more isekais will we need to get the point across that this life can be more? How many more rom-coms will continue to dangle the “relationship” in a form of sideways glances or hand holding? How many more shounens must be made using the same...
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Hypnosis Mic Division Rap Battle Interactive Movie Revview: Your Vote Drives the Plot
The Hypnosis Mic franchise has seen its fair share of media diversification - anime, manga, even a live theater stage production - yet nothing like this: an interactive movie theater experience where audience members vote in real time to determine the outcome and narrative. Having watched the...
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Takopi's Original Sin: Analysis
DISCLAIMER: Discussion on sensitive topics include: child abuse, suicide, trauma, and self-harm. Listeners discretion is advised. One of the most compelling series of the summer season, and 2025 as a whole, is also the shortest and toughest to watch. By no means is this a bad series, far from it...
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Scarlet Movie Review: Wishful Thinking or Inspiring Hope?
Your backdoor anime hangout had the press media opportunity to watch Mamoru Hosoda’s latest film, Scarlet, at the Animation is Film Festival. The plot goes: After witnessing her father’s wrongful execution, Scarlet is hellbent on revenge towards her uncle and father’s murder, Claudius. However…
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Little Amelie or the Character of Rain - Review
Hands down the best animated film of the year. Watching this at Animation is Film Festival was truly magical - a good majority of us were tearing up at its sheer beauty and nuanced storytelling. Your show host, Jonathan Joestar Beltran, goes into what makes this film exceptional as well as an...
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Animation Is Film 2025 - Must Watch Films: Little Amelie, Nobody, Playing God, Retirement Plan
Your backdoor anime hangout got invited to cover the Animation is Film Festival this past weekend and wanted to share with you some of the best films from the lineup! Little Amelie - (Feature Length Film) Nobody - (Feature Length Film) Playing God - (Short) Retirement Plan - (Short) Many thanks…
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Chainsaw Man - The Movie:Reze Arc Review
Your backdoor anime hangout had the opportunity to watch the upcoming Chainsaw Man - The Movie: Reze Arc. It is ballistic in its presentation and retains the violent nihilistic charm of its source material. May this episode whet your appetite for what's to come and perhaps leave you thinking on…
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Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Infinity Castle Review
You are thrown into battle and for the next 2.5 hours you will be a witness to what is arguably the flashiest and most-cutting edge action shounen of the modern era. Your backdoor anime hangout had the opportunity to see Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Infinity Castle; the first part of a trilogy....
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The Last Blossom (HOUSENKA) - Film Sneak Peek & Details
Are second chances possible? When is it too late? The latest film by the creators of Odd Taxi explore these questions through a new film about a dying mid-level yakuza member serving a life sentence in solitary confinement and engaging with a talking balsam flower about whether or not he turn his...
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How The Pros Make Anime & Manga - Sharing What We Learned From a Panel
Amuse Creative Studio hosted a panel at Anime Expo about the ins-and-outs of creating anime and manga featuring: Shinobu Seguchi - mangaka (Prisoner Riku; Oedo Fire Slayer) Rei Hebiguchi - manga editor (Weekly Shonen Champion) Kazuhiro Nishikawa - CEO of DandeLion Animation Studios (The First…
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Anime Expo 2025 #BringBackLineCon (joking)
Anime Expo 2025 has been a surprisingly great year with efficient lines, entrances, and spaces that it all feel seamless...yet the vibe felt different from previous years. Your backdoor anime hangout answers two questions: what are our highlights? how has Anime Expo changed over the years? From...
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Witch Watch: Lighthearted Magical Shenanigans - Ep 1 -3 Impressions
Lighthearted shows are not easy to find these days, and your backdoor anime hangout had a ball in the movie theaters watching the first three episodes of the upcoming romcom series - Witch Watch. Two childhood friends reunite - one an ogre named Morihito who wants to live a peaceful life, and the...
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Lazarus: When John Wick & Anime Collide - Shinichiro Watanabe Interview
Shinichiro Watanabe is a legend amongst anime fans and an auteur who pushes the boundaries of what the anime medium has to offer. Titles such as Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, and Space Dandy are Adult Swim staples that have defined a generation. Now he’s back with an upcoming action series...
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Our Time at Anime Los Angeles 20 (2025)
From seeing Shinichiro Watanabe (director of Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo) and ribbon collecting we have a lot of stories to share at your backdoor anime hangout! We talk about our ALA 20 highlights, fun con stories, and the potential growth of this personally beloved convention! Topics include...
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2024 WrapUp
Your backdoor anime hangout looks back at the year from seasonal anime to major events in the industry and community. Topics including (and not limited to): Convention Coverage (e.g. Anime Los Angeles, Anime Expo) Seasonal Anime (Winter - Fall 2024; e.g. Frieren, Jellyfish Can't Swim At Night,...
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Fate 20th Anniversary Showcase - An Intimate Celebration with a Worldwide Premiere
An intimate venue celebrating twenty years of a beloved Japanese franchise in Hollywood, California; Go USA! From having the three of the original voice actresses of the titular three characters - Saber, Rin Tohsaka, and Sakura Matou - to hosting the world premiere, this was an event for only the...
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Manga Mentions - Our Aimless Nights & Hotta-Sensei
High school rom-coms are a tried and true formula and these titles demonstrate in different ways: Koumori's adolescent rom-com Our Aimless Nights is a boy-meets-girl scenario where the two secretly flirt with one another after school and figure out where both of each other lie in each other's...
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Manga Mentions - If I Could Die Tomorrow & Gannibal (Volume 1)
Two grim titles with one common motif - the unknown. Sumako Kari in her award-winning title, Since I Could Die Tomorrow, explores the malaise of being in your forties as told in two characters: one a film promoter who experiences menopause for the time and a mother who works part time amidst co...
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Programmed for Feelings? "Make a Girl" World Premiere
When a robot is designed to have human-like traits and emotions, are these feelings necessarily sentient or programmed? Independent 3DCG animator Gensho Yasuda makes his directorial debut with Make a Girl about a young inventor named Akira who - out of a cheeky suggestion to 'get a girlfriend' -...
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Color & Light as Storytelling - The Colors Within Review
Director Naoko Yamada (A Silent Voice; K-On) has released a new film - an original story about a girl who can see and feel a person's color joining a band with a dropout and an aspiring medical student in preparation for an upcoming school festival. The Colors Within is an exploration of both the...
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Yoko Kuno (Director & Rotoscoping Artist) Interview - Animation is Film 2024
Join us as we interview Yoko Kuno, director of Ghost Cat Anzu. Ghost Cat Anzu will be released to theatres on November 15 according to the GKIDS official website. Follor @GKIDSFilms for more information!
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Naoko Yamada (Director) Interview - Animation is Film 2024
Join us as we interview Naoko Yamada, director of The Colors Within. The Colors Within will be in theatres on January 24th, follow @GKIDSFilms for more updates!
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Anime NYC 2023: First Time For Everything (ft. Hyunicat)
Join imagEn with special guest hyunicat on their first impressions attending Anime NYC 2023!
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Love Like The Falling Petals - Book/Film Review
This is a story of boy meets girl, and it is not a love story.* Keisuke Uyama's popular novel follows a young couple who fall in love yet are separated due to a fatal illness that causes someone to age rapidly. Death looms over the couple's time and intimacy together, yet what if miscommunication...
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Anime Los Angeles 19 & Anime Impulse Los Angeles 2024 - First of the Year
Hitting the year running, we're starting off with our experiences at Anime Los Angeles 19 (2024) and Anime Impulse Los Angeles 2024. Two VERY DIFFERENT conventions that occur right next to each other. Members on the Show: - Jonathan "Joestar" Beltran - Matt "imagEn" Aquino - Jon "No Jons" Sloan -...
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ALA 2023 Highlight - Interview with Mamoru Yokota & Kenji Yokoyama
Anime Los Angeles 2023 Highlight. Interview with: Mamoru Yokota - Animation Director of One Piece Film Red Kenji Yokoyama - Animation Director & Key Animator of One Piece Film Red
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Behind the Scenes - Randy and Rachel
Recorded originally in late September/early October, Jojo and imagEn have a lengthy hangout with Randy and Rachel; two prominent members of the Anime Impulse staff that have been around since almost the beginning. We talk about their origin, Anime Impulse's origin, their decisions behind the...
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Tokyo Godfathers - The Three Wisemen Delivering Baby Jesus
Many in the anime community consider this to be their Christmas movie - starts on Christmas with the Nativity scene and becomes a string of miraculous misadventures of three homeless people simply trying to find the parents of a baby they found in a dumpster. Directed by the late Satoshi Kon...
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The Boy and the Heron (SPOILERS MIDWAY) - AIF 2023
Our thoughts on the US release of The Boy and the Heron, the latest film released by Studio Ghibli and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Jojo really went hard on this one. First half of the session is spoiler-free until 28:22. Members on this episode: Jonathan "Joestar" Beltran Matthew "imagEn" Aquino
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Witnessing a Swift Rise - ANIME Impulse OC 2023
ANIME Impulse OC (along with K Play and Sneaker Expo) makes its debut in the legendary and expansive Anaheim Convention Center; the event space for D23 and VidCon to name a few). Considering its beginnings as an outdoor venue, your backdoor anime hangout talks about its transition into an...
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Anime Expo 2023 - BringBackTheBubbleZone
This time was a chill time, weather was pretty tolerable for a change and was "the best time to go to AX," according to one of our crew members. As to why - we'll get into that along with: First Year without a premier badge - thoughts? Common Cosplays Notable Premieres including the The First…
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A Story Unspoken, Not Forgotten - Dragonfly with Julia Morizawa
We know Hiroshima and Nagasaki, yet have you ever heard of the Tokyo Firebombing of 9-10 March 1945? This event left Tokyo's Shitamachi District in cinders and corpses, leaving 100,000 dead and a million homeless; a toll exceeding Hiroshima. Julia Morizawa's independent animated short film,...
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Suzume Review
Makoto Shinkai is a prolific anime director for making deeply beautiful and metaphorical films whether it be his blockbuster smash Your Name or his cult classic 5 Centimeters Per Second. Your backdoor anime hangout got invited to see his latest film Suzume at the Academy Museum of Motion Picture...
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Should Companies Do This? Implications of the Theatrical Release of Demon Slayer: Swordsmith Village Arc
The controversy here is whether or not this movie should have been released. Not so much for anything pertaining the story or canon, rather its format: a two episode recap of its previous season followed by the first episode of the upcoming season. It begs the question - why does a film like this...
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What Are You Grateful For As An Anime Fan - Thanksgiving 2022
It's the season of gratitude, and what better way to celebrate it than with your backdoor anime hangout! Jojo, Cliff, and imagEn come together to express thanks to those that have impacted our lives as anime fans - the power of friendship, dark humor, and a radio station to name a few. Regardless...
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Coming to Know War, Demons, and Ghosts at the 5th AIF (Unicorn Wars, Oni: Thunder God's Tale, and Summer Ghost)
Your backdoor anime hangout got invited to attend and interview at the 5th Los Angeles Animation Is Film Festival. Amidst the selection, we chose and recommend three: Unicorn Wars, Oni, and Summer Ghost; even getting a chance to interview the directors of the latter two - Dice Tsutsumi (Oni) and...
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Halloween Anime!
Your backdoor anime hangout recommends some titles for Halloween whether it involves ghouls, monsters, and aliens or more thematic elements like dread, mental health, and self-esteem. The criteria may be broad, yet that just means we have more to tell you! Anime on the Docket: Urusei Yatsura…
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No Goku & Vegeta - Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero Review
You read that right, there is no Goku nor Vegeta in this film primarily AND that is NOT a typo - Akira Toriyama (the creator of the Dragon Ball franchise) overlooked that in development. This one focuses on Piccolo and Gohan this time as well as a familiar foe, the Red Ribbon Army. It is a movie...
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QUICKIE - The House of the Lost on the Cape
When all seems lost, where do you turn to? The upcoming film The House of the Lost on the Cape answers that with a combination of community and the supernatural. How does it deliver?
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Anime and Black Culture featuring DataFist
Anime Expo holds a variety of different panels and this is one of them - Anime and Black Culture. Jeffrey of DataFist hosted, organized, and lead a panel - or more appropriately "a show-" of what it means to be black anime fan and how that has shaped the fandom and media we have today. The Cliff...
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Anime's Glam Rock Opera: Inu-OH
Music can start a revolution and Masaaki Yuasa's Inu-OH shows that with a glam-rock flare in 14th century Japan - a time of shogun authority in the midst of political upheaval and unification. Through two entertainers - Inu-Oh, a cursed and disfigured performer, and Tomona, a blind biwa priest…
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Anime Expo 2022 - How's It Like Coming Back?
Anime Expo, one of the most popular and renown convention in the North American continent, comes back as an in-person event after two years of going virtual due to the pandemic. Your backdoor anime hangout talks about their experience as attendees, including one volunteer, and see if it was...
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Miyazaki Exhibit - Walking Through Our Cinematic Nostalgia
The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures installed an exhibit of legendary director, Hayao Miyazaki - celebrating his impact on animation and cinema. A walk through the museum reveals the painstaking and breathtaking work that has lead to the movies we know and love; Spirited Away, Nausicaa Valley…
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Pompo the Cinephile - A Shot of Espresso to the Creative Soul
"The thing I like most is that it is 90 minutes long." We all live with imposter syndrome, never feeling we are good enough to do what we set out to do. This movie is a response to that. Nyallywood is where the blockbusters are made and Gene, a behind-the-scenes assistant, is given the task to...
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Digimon Movie - A Tale of Two Movies - Hosoda Series
Digimon was a part of our childhood back in the early 90's and 2000's along with the wave of Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Beyblade, and more (if you know what we're talking about, welcome to the old people's club). Revisiting it as an older anime fan reveals so much more than what meets the eye - executive...
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Belle Review - Adapting Beauty and the Beast to Social Media - Hosoda Series
Social media has become a cultural and lifestyle mainstay for the 21st century. Virtual reality is an ever growing space with users from all over the world. And with both platforms comes a duality - online and IRL. Some like to integrate, others keep it separate. Director Mamoru Hosoda looks into...
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Mirai - Present Days of Future/Past - Hosoda Series
Early childhood is a distant memory colored in rose-tinted glasses: simpler times of eating, playing, and sleeping. Yet take those glasses off and you realize its complications - pure, unprocessed emotions that is much too difficult to handle for both the child and parent/guardian. Mamoru…
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Mainstream Anime
There's an anime that set the foundations of your weebdom. The Otaku Hourly crew talks about the anime that almost everyone can have a conversation about (Dragon Ball Z and One Piece just to name a couple) as well as the elitism/gatekeeping to being a fan. Originally broadcasted back in 2016.
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Anime To Enjoy While Drinking
At the time of this recording is St. Patrick's Day so we asked ourselves - what're some good titles to enjoy while under the influence?
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Anime – a niche medium, a global phenomenon, and a personal passion for many. Anime connects people, and from our studio room to the convention floor, our crew engages with industry pros and fellow fans alike to keep you informed and entertained. Everyone is invited to kick back and relax with us every week at Otaku Hourly, your backdoor anime hangout.
HOSTED BY
Otaku Hourly
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Otaku Hourly have?
Otaku Hourly currently has 56 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Otaku Hourly about?
Anime – a niche medium, a global phenomenon, and a personal passion for many. Anime connects people, and from our studio room to the convention floor, our crew engages with industry pros and fellow fans alike to keep you informed and entertained. Everyone is invited to kick back and relax with us...
How often does Otaku Hourly release new episodes?
Otaku Hourly has 56 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Otaku Hourly?
You can listen to Otaku Hourly on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Otaku Hourly?
Otaku Hourly is created and hosted by Otaku Hourly.
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