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The Apex Podcast
A team of professional storytellers dedicated to highlighting how ordinary people can be capable of such extraordinary things. We are always on the lookout for unsung heroes and emerging leaders that are transforming the world around them each and every day. Our guests range from the world of sports and medicine to business and entrepreneurship. Each episode offers you insights into how these amazing humans have managed to conquer fear and persevere through seemingly insurmountable challenges. We dive into psychology, philosophy, marketing, entrepreneurship, and a bunch of other random topics with our guests, so each interview is truly unique. We don't care if you're organizing people to pick up trash in your neighborhood, or if you're running a global nonprofit...Your story matters and we want to tell it!In order to start chasing your Apex, you have to take the leap. Start listening today to change your tomorrow.
The Apex Podcast
Anime Insights and More: Dissecting One Piece, Manga Versus Anime, the Curiosities of Weather, and Diving into Simulated Reality
Ever wondered how One Piece's animation has evolved since the Timeskip, and how it stacks up against the buzzworthy Jujutsu Kaisen? We've got you covered. As we embark on our journey, we dissect the current arc, warlords, and Yonko in One Piece, and share our thoughts on navigating the nuanced differences between manga and anime. We also compare the animation styles of One Piece and Jujutsu Kaisen, and reflect on Oda's influence on the live-action adaptation of the series.
Changing gears, we share some personal anecdotes as we venture into an intriguing discussion about weather and our appreciation for cooler temperatures. We also spill the beans on an interesting fundraising event and the peculiarities of the quarter auction system.
Then we plunge into the profound concept of living in a simulated reality, considering the evidence for this unsettling yet fascinating theory. This episode promises a riveting discussion at the intersection of animation, weather, and simulated reality. Prepare to be intrigued, informed, and maybe just slightly unsettled.
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He's not even an admiral anymore. He's a Blackbeard pirate and in the current episode yeah, he's a black. He's a Blackbeard pirate. And then the current episode they just showed who replaced him and it's a guy who has like a plant. He can control plants. He beats the guy that plays keys room and that's an admiral. Yeah, as an admiral, he's general, general Green Bull, or admiral Green Bull, and he can control plants. He like sucks the life out of people with using the branches.
Speaker 1:Oh he just he went in and and won the two Queen and King from Um Wano.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I met them yet.
Speaker 1:They're, no, they're the current arc. They're. They're Kidos number one and number number two, henchmen and.
Speaker 2:I don't even think I know who Kido is.
Speaker 1:He's one of the the Yankos, do you're? You're like, you're like two decades behind. Yeah, the.
Speaker 2:Yankos.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you know about the warlords. You know about the warlords.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, yeah, so there's the one that I've, the only one that I've seen the most often right now is just Kuma. He's one of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but then you got Don Quixote Do Flamingo, and then you also have him. Yeah, but then above the warlords, there's the Yanko, and there's four of them Big mom, kido, whitebeard and shanks.
Speaker 2:So I'm assuming that this is all. This is all new world Like um after Timeskip, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:I haven't even gotten to the Timeskip yet. James told me that once I made it to the Timeskip I can officially call myself a one piece washer. But I'm like I'm on it, yeah, 100. That doesn't count. And he was like no, you got to make it past the Timeskip.
Speaker 1:Everything changes at the Timeskip. It gets pretty, pretty nutty.
Speaker 2:That's what Sam keeps telling me. He was like you think that this, this stuff, is crazy. He was like just wait until you get past the Timeskip. He was showing me some of the animation, updated, and they're so cool.
Speaker 1:Crazy. Yeah, someone finally realized that one piece needed a higher budget to do some of the manga justice. The crazy part is Is, speaking of budgets like that, the episode for Jiu Jitsu Kaisen. If you have, you watched any of that Sam's been bugging me to watch it.
Speaker 2:I think I saved it to my crunchy role, but I haven't started it yet.
Speaker 1:Dude. The animation in this week's episode has to be. It is. It is movie quality.
Speaker 2:They had to show me clips from even earlier on in the show and it looks like way more intense and more intense and more detailed than something like a one piece.
Speaker 1:Well, that that lends to the the serious of the manga and what they're, what they're doing, or newer age manga, but One piece has always had more of like a cartoony style to it. For sure, yeah, for sure. You know, just for people that are listening and don't understand, the difference between what we're talking about, between anime and manga.
Speaker 2:You want to differentiate those two.
Speaker 1:So manga is the usually the source material. So it's like there's tons of magazines in Japan that range from weekly releases to monthly or quarterly releases and they are constantly have new series that come out and push through them. But for the last like 30 years, one piece has been kind of at the top and then you have a lot of new series that come out and push through them. You have other series that have come up and like garnered a lot, a lot of hype over the last five to 10 years, that being like Naruto and then Bleach, and then even even earlier than or even more relevant now would be like my hero, academia Jujutsu, kaisen Chainsaw man, hell's Paradise, demon Slayer I mean, demon Slayer is like the night. I believe the number, the movie that they put out between seasons is the number one animated movie of all time globally.
Speaker 1:I believe, yeah, so, and then most of the anime that they create is based off the manga that gets published weekly, monthly, whatever it may be. Biweekly Very rarely. I mean, there are some now series can't think of one off the top of my head because it is pretty rare that are the manga writers, separate from the studios then, so they're kind of their own very.
Speaker 2:They all kind of collaborating now.
Speaker 1:It depends. So there's been cases of both. So one instance of that would, I believe, be a series called Blue Exorcist, where it was like super popular and they rushed an anime out and then the anime actually caught up to the manga for whatever. Well, I don't remember the reasons why, but the studio they basically pulled a fucking Game of Thrones where the studio continued the series past where the source material was at and just botched everything.
Speaker 1:And now actually I think at the beginning of the year they're actually going back and redoing part of that series and continuing with the actual story that came out in the manga. But if anyone is listening to this and it was a big deal that Oda, the writer of One Piece, had his hands and basically gave all approval for everything that went on and was was filmed in the One Piece live action, which doesn't exactly happen all the time I think. I think it's more standard that the anime adaptations are. Basically they're just given the manuscript in the form of the manga and they're free to kind of take it however they want. Very rarely do I, like that is kind of reserved for like big, big series that have done very well.
Speaker 1:Like Akira Toriyama if that Name rings a bell to you, yon or anybody that was listening but he's the author of Dragon Ball, dragon Ball Z, dragon Ball, everything except GT, which is the failed series that took place after Z, and he didn't really have his hands in that.
Speaker 1:He came back and had his hands in super, in the movies and everything that's going on or that has gone on in on in the past in the anime. Same thing with bleach. Bleach was on hiatus for like a long time the writer came back and finished, finished the series. It didn't get animated and then, like two, three years ago, they're like hey, we're animating the last arc, tight day. Kubo actually has his hands on in on. You know how the story goes and what he wants to show, because they've added stuff that wasn't in the manga, that he wrote in the manga but is now in the anime. That, like the last episode of the current season that just came out, had an entire episode that was not was off-screen in the manga but ended up being one of the coolest fight scenes in the entire show this season.
Speaker 1:Hmm and that's because he came back and was like I'd like to give a little bit more exposition to these characters. And you know what I just kind of wrote off, because I think the studio at the time, or his publisher at the time, was this like hey, you got like 38 chapters to finish this, make it quick, hmm so it seriously though you'll see it a lot of the time, like me and a buddy, we're just talking about a series that we an ongoing series.
Speaker 1:That's like happening right now, and both of us looked at each other after last week's episode was like, does it feel like a little Like it's going a little too fast? And usually that's a clear cut sign that it's not doing the sales in the magazine that's shown in jump wants it to, and they, they've basically gone to him and said hey, you got, you got seven chapters or whatever. It is to five chapters, whatever it is to wrap this up, and then we're canceling your series. And they do it all of the time.
Speaker 2:That's kind of ridiculous actually.
Speaker 1:It's like sense monetarily, but like well, I think the like the average is somewhere between like 16 and 29 chapters is like in the last few years. New ones get the chopping block some time between that and if they get the chopping block before 15 or 16 chapters it's real bad hmm, so for series like Naruto, that went like that went on. For you know, however many chapters bleach, 600, some chapters one piece, almost 1,100 chapters at this point, like it's a true testament because Shonen jump does, does and not.
Speaker 2:Oh no, they, they, they are cutting you.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, they are never not sharpening their axe Like they're dude, they're red, they're ready, and there's been quite a few that I was like dude. If they had just given it a little bit more time, I think it could have been real good, like a lot of lot of new up-and-coming series have been. You know, I Think I think put down.
Speaker 2:Behind the shed and put down. Yes, yeah, taking these animes and old Yeller in their asses before they even get the chance. Oh wait, I guess also Yeller wasn't, he was old.
Speaker 1:I do want to bring this up because it makes me a so mad. And I used to do, I used to do a podcast with Xavier, mixed a. Yeah, I am almost prop, I am almost positive, and I've done no research or wouldn't even know really where to look, but it is just anime. What I am pretty sure anime is the plural oh.
Speaker 2:Oh, really.
Speaker 1:I yeah, so when I hear people say I'm watching all the animes, like I was like stop, stop it. I'm look at all those beers. Yeah, exactly, dude, I, for whatever reason it gets under my skin every time. And I hear so many people, even like prominent people that I watch on YouTube, that they're like entire career is it just doesn't sound right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that definitely doesn't. I Didn't know. I wouldn't have noticed that, though I think I just in the side.
Speaker 1:I'm not calling anybody out directly young, but I'm pretty sure it is just anime.
Speaker 2:Shots fired early in the morning on a Monday, I'll take it. Oh man, dude, I am so ready For, like this, cold temperatures to stay around.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know I'm saying that now. Jenny sent me like a Timeline video of her in theater. It was like 80, some degrees yesterday, a year ago, because her, in her in theater were like out sunbathing in in the driveway and it's a video of theater trying to like Crawl through the foldable chair to get up in her lap like from the side. Yeah, she's like this was exactly the same day a year ago and it was 80 degrees.
Speaker 2:Holy cow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's like what?
Speaker 2:40 something this morning.
Speaker 1:Today's high was only like 51. I'm trying to go play pickleball. Sorry, we'll edit that out.
Speaker 2:Because we means me and I'm Going back to damn it. Oh yeah, it is only like a 50, but it's looking like 70 something this week. Yeah, tuesday 71, thursday 72.
Speaker 1:Friday 74.
Speaker 2:Oh, for those of you that don't know we're we live in Ohio, so the weather can be very temperamental this time of year. It varies quite a bit tends to get starts to go towards the cooler side, but it looks like we're not even gonna get our first. Oh, we might have gotten our first frost today.
Speaker 2:Oh really but it looks like our, the real, like low temperature below freezing is on Wednesday next week. I know it's been. It was weird like I went out a day or two ago we were still picking tomatoes. Oh, oh, really like that. Yeah, here all the way at the end of October.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm all for cold weather, but If it just stays relatively cool through the most winter and we don't get a lot of snow, like we did last year. I'll be happy with that.
Speaker 2:I'm good with that too. Yeah, I just, I just, I Thrive somewhere between like 50 and 70. That's like my, my go-to when it starts to get like 75 plus 80 plus.
Speaker 1:Little toasty for me dog. A little toasty yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, so I do you have, I do have a story that I would find pretty interest. I think that you would find pretty interesting. Okay, but I won't say names, so I'll just type them to you, okay, so when you know, so you know when, when I'm, when I'm, who I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:And this will be super secret. All right, none of the listeners will know. I'll just know. Are you gonna use code names? Oh okay, All right. Yeah, let it rock.
Speaker 1:And then, okay, so I went to a fundraising event yesterday. Okay, it was pretty nice, pretty lame actually. So it's like Bunch of people get stuff to like it's for a sporting event, for for a school, and so there it's a, it's a fundraiser, but I thought it was just like a real auction or whatnot, but it's a, it's a quarter auction. Oh, what like? So you go in and you, you give them money, you give them money for them to give you quarters, and then basically, you go sit at your table and they go through the auction and they say, oh, it's a, it's a basket from terry's tire town for a new set of tires and, you know, for car washes or you know whatever, whatever it may be, and they're like you can start your bidding. Now the We've marked this thing down as four quarters. It was basically like a quarter equated to 25 dollars.
Speaker 1:And then then you throw your quarter in so that then you're Allowed to then hold up your card with your number on it, and then it's just a random draw.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you put it how they. So there's like hundreds of people there and you put quarters in to like I get why it is because it's like fundraiser type. Yeah, it's a fundraiser, but I'm like you're paying for RNG. I didn't, personally, I didn't. I didn't like that. Just let me be. If there was something I really wanted up there, I'll bid for it, right Straight up cash, not quarters for someone to for them to hopefully tumble dollar bill.
Speaker 1:Yeah, tumble my money. You know what I mean. Yeah that doesn't make a lot of sense. Yeah, it's just. It's just like a real low barrier of entry to gambling and I didn't like it.
Speaker 2:I mean, maybe it's good for that it made. It's probably a good system. I bet you they pulled in a bunch of cash.
Speaker 1:Oh they did. They came around and kept emptying the quarter things like every like five minutes and it was just a shit ton yeah.
Speaker 2:So, and each one of them equated to 25 bucks.
Speaker 1:Well, no, so like, if you like, let's say we put a basket together, we would tell them what we think the price of the basket was, and then they would tell us what they saw the basket as. And if it was $200 worth of stuff in there it would be for the crowd to be able to bid on it They'd have to put eight quarters in. Hmm, does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. But Jenny put a basket basket together for McBrady.
Speaker 2:OK.
Speaker 1:And it was just like a free appointment and adjustment and like treatment and stuff in the back and they priced it at 100 bucks and I was just like an appointment alone there with him is like $300. I was like you had the most expensive basket up there and they low balled you.
Speaker 2:Oh, gee, yeah, I would. I would definitely put at least half a quarter on something like that.
Speaker 1:True that.
Speaker 2:I mean dude, I've been ever since I got back from Europe. I think the plane rides kind of messed me up a little bit. Getting stuck on the seats. All right, yeah. So I got a crink in the neck.
Speaker 1:So, long story short. I go through the whole, the whole auction and we go back to the cart and we're driving out. In guess who comes stumbling out of the building?
Speaker 2:Stumbling out of the building. Yes, I'm going to. I'm going to guess.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I'm like, holy shit, like I knew what this event was for. But I'm thinking to myself. I'm like I never considered that they would be there. What?
Speaker 2:was it.
Speaker 1:Who was it sponsored by? Again, it was for, it was for a hold on. I'll message you. Sorry listeners, but but, but, but. But not a coach, nope, nope, kids in there, no family that does it. So it never even crossed my mind that they would be there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you just be an alumni, right? But why go?
Speaker 1:Don't you have better things to do, like Jenny's? Jenny's one niece was there. That's why we went. That's why we had a table in Jenny and well, me, brady, had a basket. Well, her sister, like it was up to the families of, of the, of the athletes, that was to like put together to come. Well, no, to put together the baskets.
Speaker 2:So Jenny's sister asked.
Speaker 1:Jenny was just, and I think Jenny donated a basket last year too, but then their family put something together like they own, like a put put course or something. So they like put together a basket of you know stuff for people to go to the put put next summer or whatever when it opens back up.
Speaker 2:And it was. It was all. There was a lot of really good baskets.
Speaker 1:There was 141 baskets, holy crap. Yeah, it was a lot.
Speaker 2:Wait, that's all just for yeah.
Speaker 1:And you think there was a room of like 500 people bidding with all quarters on there and one of the like, one of the things was just like they have a great truck there. Dude, it was, it was a lot, it was a lot.
Speaker 2:How many pounds of quarters do you think they ended up?
Speaker 1:with oh dude, they had a fucking chest Like a goddamn pirates.
Speaker 2:They found one piece.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. So I was just like OK, that kind of makes sense, that's a little Right Like a plausible. I'll take it, even though Haven't seen either of them in like over three years out in the wild. So I'm like whatever. But this is where it gets weird, jenny and I. We go, we go eat, we have dinner, we go over Rockneys it was very good. We leave Rockneys. And I was somehow baited to going to the three hour movie of Taylor Swift's concert.
Speaker 2:Oh my lord, you watch the heiress tour.
Speaker 1:Dude, it was pretty good, I'm not going to lie she's, she's quite the performer. But Jenny and I Well, jenny told me, or Jane, just straight up, lied to me it's one or one of the other. She's like yeah, it's like a documentary about the. I was like OK, so there's going to be some songs in there. Nope, it's just the whole show. I was like so when's the documentary part start where they talk about like a little?
Speaker 2:bit no, but it was it was.
Speaker 1:It was four to six songs from all ten of her albums, so 60 songs, I don't fucking know. No, but it was pretty good. Her bait and swap, yeah, but her stage presence was pretty, like, pretty neat and I suggest, if you do like Taylor Swift and you didn't have concert, weren't able to get concert tickets because they were a gazillion dollars, this was so much better than getting nosebleed seats and trying to see her from a mile and a half away. The cameras, the cameras that they used and the shots that they got and them showing her show or whatever. In that light, it was very, very cool, very cool way to experience a concert if you weren't able to go in person.
Speaker 1:For one one thousandth of the price. It would cause that close in person.
Speaker 2:We're actually doing some analytics work for the company that sells all of the air.
Speaker 1:I saw they had a glitter cup there. Yep, yep, it was pretty neat. Okay, so, to add on to this weird story, we're like, randomly, like two hours an hour and a half to two and a half hours into the movie. I'm like I got to go to the bathroom, I'm going to go get something to drink, so I just get up and I walk, I walk out and I turn the corner and I'm looking at people coming through the door as I'm walking to the bathroom and guess who comes walking into the door?
Speaker 2:Insert. Oh, I hear the keyboard clicking what?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm like no shot. No way, no fucking way. They're direct sibling who I haven't seen, and probably even longer, because I assume that they I mean they moved away. So give me, give me the over under on running into all four of them in different times randomly on the same day, when I haven't seen either of them in almost four years. Dude, I would that's not coincidence, that's weird.
Speaker 2:They're following you, but now I'm not really. But that's dude. Dude talk about ghosts. I don't know, man.
Speaker 1:I don't. I don't the. You sit there and you watch Joe Rogan talk to Elon Musk about living in a simulation. That's the shit that makes me believe it. It's we live in close proximity. It's not like I don't leave my house. I'm a pretty social guy. You and you're telling me that I don't see any of them in three and a half to four years, but I then run into all of them at separate times on the same day. How yeah, the the that doesn't freak out a little bit.
Speaker 2:It was not in your favor.
Speaker 1:No, but that like that's, that's a fun.
Speaker 2:That was like my day at the barber Not too long ago. Oh, that's true, that's a good point Getting the inside scoop on you know people that we didn't necessarily have a positive relationship with, and then running into. I'm not going to bring out that part of the story.
Speaker 1:Man this entire episode.
Speaker 2:The listeners are just be like.
Speaker 1:RJ. Yeah, and you got all over. Yeah, we're not talking about a lot of stuff we're not allowed to speak on, or we should speak on, because we're good guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because yes, exactly Exactly. We speak about it to ourselves. We're not gossipers.
Speaker 1:I mean I gossip for sure, but not, not now.
Speaker 2:Not as much as your sister does.
Speaker 1:She's like Alex, yeah, oh no, no, she just petty.
Speaker 2:She's just petty, yes her and her and Xavier both.
Speaker 1:What are we gonna do? Are we gonna do fiddle?
Speaker 2:Friday in October.
Speaker 1:You guys want to do this Friday.
Speaker 2:Let me see what my schedule looks like Should be able to do for people that don't know what fiddle Friday is. There's a pool hall near where me and RJ live called fiddle sticks. Actually, you know what? What if we did November? What if we did the third? Because that's first Friday again, and so fiddle sticks should be pretty, not packed. Yeah, we could do that. That works, we'll just ask. We'll ask the guys in team me today. I'm good either to either day the 27th or the third.
Speaker 1:So we'll see, yeah, we'll figure it out.
Speaker 2:All right, Well sweet.
Speaker 1:Sorry about the vague vague information episode, but I just thought it was weird If anybody has any weird stories and stuff like that where it makes you think that you live in a simulation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you live in a simulation and the computer is working against you. Let me know, because I'm sitting there during the Ares tour in my head thinking what are the fucking numerical chances that that happens? Because I have to, I have to pee at the right time, they have to walk in at the right time, and it's like, yeah, it's literally. If it had been minutes, they would have been able to come in and get their ticket and had gone to their theater. None, and I would have never seen them. But it was we. They walked in and I turned the corner at the exact perfect time. Impossible, yeah, I mean obviously possible. It's possible because it happened, but it should not be possible, if you ask me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what are? I wonder what everybody else's stories are about living in this simulation.
Speaker 1:I'd love to hear that, because random shit like that freaking me out, dude.
Speaker 2:Cool, all right. Well, I'm not going back and editing out that, bert, it's gonna stay in there and we will catch you guys next week and with a little bit more structure. This today was just a catch all over the place. Yeah, so it happens when we wake up late. Yeah, all right, everybody. Catch you soon. See you guys.