Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins Pronatalist Propaganda in Anime: Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again
In this insightful video, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into the anime "Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again," exploring its pronatalist themes, cultural significance, and artistic merits. They discuss how the show effectively promotes traditional values, happy marriages, and intergenerational relationships while addressing Japan's demographic crisis. The couple analyzes the anime's emotional impact, its portrayal of older generations, and its unique approach to showcasing the beauty of long-lasting love. They also touch on broader themes in contemporary anime, the potential influence of government policies on media content, and how this show compares to other popular anime series. This video offers a thought-provoking look at the intersection of entertainment, cultural values, and demographic challenges in modern Japan.
Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] But now I want to talk about some of the pronatalist propaganda in it as well. And
Simone Collins: it's, it, I would say it's almost to the point where it takes you out. of the plot as a viewer.
Malcolm Collins: There is one scene. Where the old lady goes to an old store that she used to frequent in the train station. And the train station's completely deserted and the store owner marks that, they're probably going to be going out of business soon, but what can you do?
This is just the way it is with changing demographics. And the old person turns around and gets one of those, like black miasma, like anger things around them. And she goes but we need to resist this. Why are we not even fighting?
The show is meant to encourage you to not like normal anime, thirst after young women but make you thirst after a long and happy relationship. That is what the whole show is. It's a thirst trap for getting married and having a long happy relationship and being intergenerationally invested in your family.
Would you like to know more?
Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I am [00:01:00] excited to be here with you today and we are going to be doing something we haven't done in a while on this podcast, which is discuss anime because I am a big anime fan and you are a medium anime fan, but you're very like good to lean into the culture and everything like that.
Like you used to dress up for conventions and everything. I was
Simone Collins: president. and founder of my high school's anime club. I've been to numerous anime conventions across multiple countries. I love anime. I just don't watch it because I don't have time.
Malcolm Collins: What other country other than the US? The UK.
Simone Collins: I went to a, an anime convention in the UK.
It was fantastic.
Malcolm Collins: Where
Simone Collins: you
Malcolm Collins: were
Simone Collins: at
Malcolm Collins: Cambridge.
Simone Collins: No, actually. I was randomly traveling in the UK and I had a day free and there was an anime convention and I'm like screw it. I'm obviously not going to go to the British Museum. I'm going to go to an anime convention because that's how people spend their time.
Malcolm Collins: So this last year we were in the UK for ARC, which is like a conservative convention. When you were wearing one of your [00:02:00] traditional outfits which, you often wear similar to this and a bunch of anime goers, there was an anime convention at the same time. I was actually wearing
Simone Collins: my fascist outfit, not this one.
Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah, more fascist looking. They still
Simone Collins: thought I was cosplaying though. They
Malcolm Collins: thought you were cosplaying. They're like, oh, who are you cosplaying as? Like that. So great. But we are going to be talking about in this episode An anime that I think is really interesting for a number of reasons. Yeah.
So I'll break down the reasons why it's interesting to me. One is the pro natalist propaganda, which is put. throughout the anime and is very heavy handed and I think very effective because it paints the reality of Japan as it is today or rural Japan, which is depopulating right now in, in this very stark term.
So we'll get to that. Two, it is an anime that is incredibly simplistic in terms of the characters it presents and the roles it gives them. Yet, [00:03:00] despite being in a, in the plot structure more broadly. It's a slice of lifestyle anime. Very chill, very, you could say it's very cookie cutter in many respects.
And yet I think it is incredibly effective as a piece of art. Which is really worth highlighting about this show. As to why it's effective as a piece of art. I'll just quickly go into this because I think that this is useful to talk about and it can bring us into the plot of the show really quickly.
Despite being very generic in almost everything it lays out, and I'm like, okay, I'm judging art by arts quality, right? I'm judging it on three metrics, okay? The first metric is it able to invoke the emotional states that it is attempting to invoke in me. Art, Can be used to invoke emotional states.
This anime does that spectacularly well. Two, and this is a personal preference thing. Are those emotional states positive? I do not want to watch shows that just make me cringe or make me sad. [00:04:00] Or I find that really dark.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: I find that unpleasant in a show. And this is,
Simone Collins: I would not say that makes me feel good.
Malcolm Collins: What show? Code Geass. Code Geass? Oh no, I really like all the strategy in Code Geass, and Yeah, so you found it intellectually stimulating enough where all the dark sadness didn't get to you. Yeah, no, it's a power fantasy, and it's my kind of power fantasy because I identify with Lil Luke so much.
Come on, I get it. Rollo! Justice for Rollo. Hashtag justice for Rollo. Anyway, we have another episode where we talk about Code Geass, that people can go check out if they want. But anyway it very effectively makes me feel an emotional set. And you watched some of it too, you'd agree that it's a conveyor of emotional set.
Simone Collins: Nailed it.
Malcolm Collins: It's very wholesome. It does a very good job of conveying what, a good marriage is, what it feels like to be in a good marriage, why you would want that from an emotional perspective. [00:05:00] But I also think the feeling of real love, it conveys very well. As opposed to After this huge buildup, are you going to name the anime?
Yes, I'm going to name the anime and describe the plot. Okay. So the name of the anime is Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again. It sounds like a kid book title, right? It does. Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again. It looks like a kid's book as well, but the anime is incredibly this new way of titling anime titles whereas like a long title and it's just descriptive of the plot of the show.
It's become this recent thing in anime in like the past two to three years. I think it
Simone Collins: makes sense because when you do internet searches for streaming shows, you're often just searching by what you know of the plot, like what you've seen in AMVs, what you've heard. heard from people talking online. It's Oh, what's that anime where the grandpa and grandpa turn young again?
Malcolm Collins: And
Simone Collins: it's
Malcolm Collins: what's that anime where the character is a main character and overconfident? That's like the way anime is named these days. But anyway, what about that anime where they slay demons? No, that's not as good because [00:06:00] demon slayer actually sounds like it, but grandma and grandpa turned young again.
So the show is about an old loving couple in Japan. They eat a magical apple and become, they gain the ability to transform into their younger selves whenever they go to sleep. So basically they turn young again. And the, and actually the final thing that a show needs to do to be good art is it needs to make me thick.
It needs to make me have new ideas that I've never had before.
Simone Collins: Yes.
Malcolm Collins: The show is remarkably effective at that. Yeah. In other words, it
Simone Collins: needs to change you. You need to come out from watching that show a different person fundamentally than who you were coming into it. And that is valuable art for sure. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: And I would argue that. Anybody who watches this show, and it's an only one season show, and I don't think they're gonna, I haven't watched the last episode yet. I am on the last episode right now but it's pretty heavily foreshadowed that the couple's going to die in the last episode. So I, it's not like you're gonna get another season.
The last episode, by the way, I've since watched it is incredibly strong.
Malcolm Collins: It's a [00:07:00] short, tight, really high quality show that's going to make you have new ideas. But the thing is, how does it get people to have new ideas? How does it push a pronatalist agenda and how does it push like positive themes about relationships and stuff? So the first thing that it does just over and over throughout the show is it's made me realize by having the couple be young, attractive like anime protagonists looking but then doing things that you see old people do all the time.
Humanizes those actions. And I realized that I hadn't considered just how kind most old people are because I saw them as like this different class of human that has different expectations around them.
Simone Collins: Yeah, different
Malcolm Collins: standards.
Simone Collins: But also the brilliant thing is simultaneously, They are modeling and creating an attractive aspirational model for a functional, happy [00:08:00] relationship, which is beautiful because that's a big problem these days.
People don't have a good model for what a healthy marriage looks like. And so this, it's brilliant to take an old person relationship and subvert it into a young person, like hot young person relationship.
Malcolm Collins: And it does a great job of elevating the values of earlier generations by making them young and hot and in a modern context.
Simone Collins: Yes.
Malcolm Collins: But still living with those older values.
Simone Collins: Huh, having made sacrifices, having lived with austerity, having, yes, built each other up. And
Malcolm Collins: We should talk about some of the austerity that's constantly, so I'll go over a quote from the show right here to give you an idea of the type of values that they teach.
But there's a line here where they go, extravagance is the enemy, wanting things is wrong, the mentality of restraint that was drummed into us during the show on era. And it also shows a lot because, there's occasional flashbacks to their early relationship, what it was like dating during World War II and [00:09:00] the environment that created for them.
But it also recontextualizes it as a point of marriage. Here's like an action that was recontextualized for me in the show, is in the show, they're constantly trying to hook up their grandkids with other kids so that they can have great grandkids, right? That's The goal, right? And it is, as a young person, when you see this action, it feels like somebody is being intrusive into your life, right?
That is the way that people contextualize parents hooking them up and stuff like that. Yeah. It's
Simone Collins: seen negatively these days, like meddling.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, and in the show you realize, oh god, it's not meddling at all. It's that families are intergenerational units, and this is the way that old people relate to each other.
Two new relationships is something I often think about myself. What kind of people are my kids going to date? What kind of people are my kids going to marry? How can I help them? Yeah,
Simone Collins: honestly, most of the friendships that we established now are established in an [00:10:00] effort to build a friendship and dating and professional network for our children.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but it made me recontextualize it. Oh, they're not doing that to metal. They're doing that because they want to help.
Simone Collins: And it cannot be overstated just how much of a role parents and extended family used to play in matchmaking and how much of the this absence of this matchmaking contributes to current relationship market failures because no one really talked about that role.
And even back in the past, I think younger people used to Complain about it or whinge about it when really it played an invaluable role and parents put a ton of effort into this and people who watch Bridgerton can totally see this while Bridgerton is not very accurate in its costuming or plot or anything like that It is still pretty accurate in the involvement of parents in the matchmaking of their children and the huge amount of effort they put historically Yeah,
Malcolm Collins: and there's and it also takes a pretty hard anti life [00:11:00] extension of stance, which I find very interesting and obviously, aligns with our value set.
There's a few very sweet scenes around that. For example, in one scene And this also shows like the way it gives you better models for relating to your parents and other people in your life. So there's one scene where the son who has become a doctor so that he could care for his mom you know, because she had a chronic disease and that's what motivated him to become a doctor.
And she's just proud that he's a doctor. Like she's just excited to be a doctor and he feels like he's been a failure because he hasn't been able to cure her disease and it shows this misaligned exclusion. can sometimes get, which is what does the grandmother, what does the mom want from her son?
It's to be successful and to have a family of his own. But what does he want for her? He wants to cure her, right? And he is unaware [00:12:00] that he has already fulfilled all of the expectations she may have had of him and done the kindest thing he can for her, Through achieving his own success and stability, he doesn't need to solve her problems to, to have served what she wants of him.
And there's also a great scene there that the, you'll probably tear up when you see it where the father turns old again because they don't realize that they can control this early on. But she's still in her young body. And the Dr. Sun is crying over this because he's okay, so this is a temporary thing, and now she's gonna turn old again, and she's gonna die and in the other room, she is also crying and very distraught, but it is because She now believes that she's going to outlive her husband and maybe even outlive her own children.
And she's I just really and I think that this shows this contrasting that he sees the horror as her dying and yet she was totally okay [00:13:00] with dying. That is something that is made clear throughout the show. Yeah, death is
Simone Collins: not a failure scenario once you have kids.
Malcolm Collins: Great life there are a few times, there's another scenario where she begins to become worried that they might live forever and she is consoled when the husband points out that, no, the the, it's a metaphor in the show, hourglass, it doesn't matter, but he, it seems that the sand's coming out of the hourglass and eventually they are going to die and that they only have maybe a year or two of this so there's that, and then there's the other part of the thing there where he finds out, this is after the part where you were watching that she only has a couple days left to live but he has over a year left to live.
And so he secretly, without her knowing, of course, makes a deal with a a shrine. Yeah, to trade his lifespan so that they can die at the same time. I
Simone Collins: would man, if only we could die at the same time.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, I feel so much better if I could do that. Like that to [00:14:00] me, like when that happens in the show.
He keeps it secret from her because he doesn't want her to know about this. But like you as a person You would
Simone Collins: tell me and I'd be thrilled.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Me as a person watching this, you would understand and I would understand. I would want, if I knew I could just trade a portion of my life to extend your life and then we both die at the exact same time.
That's like a win across the board. As long as that's happening
Simone Collins: after our kids are sorted and taken care of. Yeah, that would be the
Malcolm Collins: one caveat. We both
Simone Collins: agree that if it comes down to Both of us would die before we could get our kids in order. Then we just have one of us survive long enough to get them in order.
I was actually really surprised by her lucidity on this point. , and so I went to ask her, you know, to elaborate on her position on this later, And she was just like, you know, knowing both of us the way she does it, both of our quality of life would be so low without the other one. That it would only make sense for one of us to trade part of our lifespan for the other person. And when I heard that, I was like, yeah, that, that shows real, you know, empathy and understanding of my [00:15:00] perspective.
, and it really made me appreciate her.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But I thought that was really interesting in terms of contextualization because usually when people do. this life exchange trope in a show, you feel like they are giving up something. Oh, yeah. Like
Simone Collins: it's so tragic, et cetera, et cetera.
Malcolm Collins: But when I saw it in this show, it was, it's not played like that.
It's played as Obviously this is what you would do. Like, why would you do anything other than this? This is just such the obvious choice when you are in a happy relationship and you like being with someone. So it does a very good job at and showing the purpose of these people's lives is their family, is the intergenerational part.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: But now I want to talk about some of the pronatalist propaganda in it as well. And
Simone Collins: it's, it, I would say it's almost to the point where it takes you out. of the plot as a viewer. You're like, Oh, wait, okay, we've got to the point where there's [00:16:00] propaganda.
Malcolm Collins: I liked it because it was a major theme of the show.
And it was a theme of the show that the show is meant to encourage you to not like normal anime, thirst after young women but make you thirst after a long and happy relationship. That is what the whole show is. It's a thirst trap for getting married and having a long happy relationship and being intergenerationally invested in your family.
But , to give you an idea of like how dystopian it's framed as so two of the young people in the show who end up getting together and deciding to take over the family businesses. The young girl, actually from the beginning, Simone, she ends up deciding that she wants to take over the family's apple orchard.
And she is obviously slated to, you can see they like each other, become married and have kids with a young boy whose family also has an apple orchard not an apple orchard, a different type of farm in the area. And one, the show paints this, is this enormous sacrifice that these kids are doing this for their families.
Yeah. Because all of the old people just [00:17:00] expected to shut down all the farms. That is the expectation in these communities these days. And when the two young people were talking, because they plant a tree together and they're go, can I come back to this in 50 years? And, she's of course, and then they're imagining what that area of the country is going to be like in 50 years, and they comment that they might be the only people left living in the area and it's made very clear in the show that they probably will be the only people left in the area.
There is a run. One of the first episodes is on a sporting competition. And the conflict was between two
Simone Collins: little villages in the countryside.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And between two little villages in the countryside is their village no longer has any young men to attend. And the other village has this it's seen as this super advantage, like the, almost the mean kids trope they play it as except nobody's mean in this show.
The advantage they have is two young brothers and none of the other villages have that. Yeah. And so We have children, we have youth. Yeah, we have youth! And it's one of those brothers who ends [00:18:00] up dating the girl. So it's one of these everyone's nice in this, everyone's sweet, everyone gets, happy endings in this.
You really don't need to worry about any negative emotions from this show. But That's like what they're showing is they're imagining a completely depopulated region. Whenever there's a side plot, like the Suns company is failing and doing layoffs and they say they're failing because of changing demographics.
And because the people are disappearing. There is one scene. We're like, this is one of the really took me out of it for a second. Where the old lady goes to an old store that she used to frequent in the train station. And the train station's completely deserted and the store owner marks that, they're probably going to be going out of business soon, but what can you do?
This is just the way it is with changing demographics. And the old person turns around and gets one of those, like black miasma, like anger things around them. And she goes but we need to resist this. Why are we not even fighting?. And it's it's like a sign of, and it's what this show [00:19:00] is, which is to look starkly at the reality of demographic collapse and then say, but you can fight this and you fight this with love and happiness and wholesomeness. And stop with the degeneracy.
Okay. You just be happy and wholesome and understand that happy and wholesomeness includes degeneracy sometimes, but that's not like a focus of the show, right?
Here. I need to note that in the first episode of the show, there are two or three jokes that are rather lewd about the. , grandchildren thinking that the grandparents younger forms are attractive. This is not a theme that goes throughout the show. It's just in the first episode.
, and I guess they did it just to try to catch them horny young people who are into more normal animated comedy and in an attempt to trick them into watching a wholesome show.
Malcolm Collins: [00:20:00] Which I really like as well. So yeah, did you have thoughts on the show that you wanted to elevate?
Simone Collins: I'm just thrilled that. Old people are getting some air time.
I feel like old people don't get enough of it. And it's nice also that Japan is, I think, trying to humanize this population that is going to be in a very delicate and precarious situation. And it's an element of the pronatalist conversation and demographic collapse conversation that actually isn't being had as much.
Originally, when people talked about demographic collapse, they talked about who's going to take care of the old people? And I haven't really heard that in any of the current discussions. It's more what are people of childbearing age going to be doing about this? Instead of, what about people who are retired and who need help and who need attention and love from an increasingly dwindling younger person population.
And so I appreciate [00:21:00] the extent to which this also elevates the experiences and worth and humanity of people who are more advanced in years, as it were.
Malcolm Collins: I think more than older people, it does a very good job of showcasing why a good marriage is desirable. And I think that if you ever struggled, like, why would I get married?
Why would I compromise for somebody else? And this show, both of the people heavily compromised for each other. It's actually made it pretty clear that when they got married, they were both They're into each other, but also had many reservations about the marriage. , in one of the flashbacks, she's asking could this farm boy really melt my heart?
And then in the present time, she's Oh yes, he completely melted it. Or completely or something like that. She says in response to what's happening in the flashback, but it's made clear that wasn't something that happened like on their marriage day or something like [00:22:00] that, it was something that happened after a lifetime of dedication to each other.
And also what the point is in marriage. And I think that this is one of the things why some people can't have good marriages. When they've been too steeped in the urban monoculture is a line from the show where she's younger and she's before they get married, she goes, I bring you so many unhappinesses, it causes you so many problems to be with me.
And he goes just making you happy, just doing things that make you happy brings me so much happiness that all of the other emotions that I'm being barraged with become meaningless in the face of that. And I think that's the way. Most, happy married couples feel about the way they interact with each other.
Simone Collins: Yeah, I agree. I agree I'm curious to see one. I feel like there might be some legislation in Japan that is encouraging a certain amount of pronatalist propaganda or demographic collapse [00:23:00] propaganda more widely because this feels
Malcolm Collins: You think it seems subsidized. I think it's doing well. Other people I know have said that this is an amazing show.
I think this is No, it is
Simone Collins: an amazing show. I just feel like this is not the only anime that's throwing in laying It's spreading it on thick, as it were. And I just wonder if And I think this is one of the most effective forms. of intervention that a government can support. So that's another reason why I'm thinking Japan's doing it, because all the subsidies, all this, like the payouts and the, in some cases, nations curtailing reproductive rights, I don't think those are effective interventions.
I do think that shows like this and I would love to see more of that. I'd love to see it in the United States. I'd love to see more great anime coming out that has lots of families. Spy family is fantastic. You already talked about what's that other one that's super printed the list. Darling was Frank's.
Yes,
Malcolm Collins: Franks. Yeah, Franks is heavy pronatalist propaganda. Guru Mangan though, even in the older days, was Another thing I've noticed in anime, and I was [00:24:00] actually telling her this, is there's a lot more kids in anime than I remember historically. People are put in dad roles. For example, I was just watching Re Monster, which is not a show where I'd expect him to take on this dad role, and yet he does, and he has little kids, and it's seen as his dad role is like this really elevated thing for him.
It's something that all men should desire. And three kids he has so also above repopulation rate. And I think it might be government programs that are causing this. And I'll do some research before this goes live and add, have I been able to find any of these?
After some research , it seems pretty clear that the Japanese government did not sponsor this and has not sponsored any of the recent more per natalist anime. , this seems to be a totally grassroots movement. And, , it makes sense. I will say that they have sponsored some anime before, but it's mostly been for military purposes. , to try to get people to sign up for the military or to try to make them look good to other countries.
, there is no evidence that they've supported any pro natalist animate. And given that they do make it public when they are sponsoring enemy for military [00:25:00] purposes. , there's a reason they would keep it quiet if they were doing it for pro natalist purposes, which is even less controversial.
Malcolm Collins: But I suspect it's more just that it's gotten to the point where your average Japanese person realizes that this has become an existential threat to their culture and way of life.
And that it's to everyone, whatever your job is to be fighting this from the position that you have in the same way that like progressives try to insert the quote unquote message into everything they're in a society where that message hasn't caused as much damage yet.
And so there's, saying to an extent and able to be like, Hey, fertility rate is an issue. And like, why aren't we even fighting? I love that sentiment. Been fighting. This was all about intergenerationally passing on this responsibility. And that's something that's also talked a lot about in the show is the idea of the sort of intergenerational duty we have to those who came before us and sacrificed for the things we [00:26:00] have in the life we've been able to have.
Because I think that's often a really easy thing to forget in the show really brings it home for me.. Yeah.
So I watch a lot of like Fundy, snark videos and stuff like that, where progressive women are sneering at conservative, or really just any form of diverse lifestyle. And they, I love. Sorry, side note here that progressive has like diverse TM, which includes like three different pre-approved lifestyles, Like gay. Polyamorous. Or living alone with cats. but any actually religiously diverse lifestyle is seen as like axiomatically bad. , but anyway, one of the things that they always complain about is this idea that you would have any sort of duty to sacrifice for your ancestors or your culture or your family.
And, you know, you can go watch our review of Starship troopers to get an idea of what I mean by that.
You know, you have this idea where presumably it's perfect [00:27:00] from a progressive perspective, you know, you have totally quality, total gender equality. Everyone uses the same restroom, but they view it as an inhumanly, evil and fascist society, just because it's a society that expects some sacrifices to achieve.
Not, not. Not even have everyone not even forced to everyone, but just to be able to exercise political power and violence over other people because political power is always violence. , and they're just like, no, we can't have that. We need a world where nobody has any responsibilities expected of them.
That that is the ultimate thing they're fighting for. So. You know, to see this value system turned on its head and somebody saying, well, actually, no, you do. Oh, something to the people who have made sacrifices so that you can exist, which are your ancestors and which are your cultural group. And that's a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with.
And I am quite excited for this really toxic view that you owe nothing to anyone.
, dying out, which it is fortunately due to [00:28:00] fertility rates.
Malcolm Collins: And I also would say another thing, the show does really well and it's able to do this because it has these older characters, is show that you can have an evolving culture that is still true to the spirit of the cultures that came before it.
So as much as there's this push and the anime for pushing society I mean for keeping, connection to the ancestral traditions and everything like that. There's also a big push for things like gender equality throughout it And that like we do need to evolve the way that we're interacting with each other in some ways and that scene is like a great thing.
In the couple and for example in one arc the woman loses her memory. And so she's around the husband and gets to basically judge him from the perspective of her before she met him and she notices that he's doing all sorts of chores that she thought of as woman's chores like cleaning the dishes and stuff like that and doing them without expectation of her wanting something from [00:29:00] him.
And she's like, Oh this is great. Also in that arc, I do think they feel, do a very good job of showing the type of love that you build in a marriage. Doesn't feel like Oh,
Simone Collins: passionate romantic love. As is typically depicted among young couples.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, she's trying to wait for this feeling of the young person being around her partner and she doesn't realize the way that she feels for him until he's gone for a day.
And she's and that's when she was like I don't love him yet. And I don't have any attraction to him, but I just feel incredibly anxious when he's not around, like not really complete when he's not around. And I think that people who have been married. and have good marriages, absolutely know this feeling of being away from your partner feels really off. Final thoughts here, Simone?
Simone Collins: Recommend the anime, love a good wholesome slice of life anime, and I'm glad that you, who is not typically a slice of life [00:30:00] kind of guy on the anime front, found one you like.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no I definitely think this is going to be in my top probably four or five anime I've ever seen in terms of quality.
Simone Collins: Okay, number one is Food Wars. Number two, no, okay, number one is Gurren Lagann. Number two is Food Wars.
Malcolm Collins: No, Food Wars is actually above Gurren Lagann for me in terms of entertainment value. It's really good. Yeah, probably Food Wars Gurren Lagann. Code Geass, and then this one? Actually, no, it might be this one next.
Then Code Geass. And Thermaroma, the original Thermaroma. Oh, yeah,
Simone Collins: Thermaroma, yeah, the original, yeah,
Malcolm Collins: not the new nonsense. God, I'm trying to think if there are some other that I just like absolutely love that I'm freaking hearing. I'm sure, afterwards
The one in my top five here that I absolutely forgot here that easily replaced there may Romi. Is B got an H Kia.
Simone Collins: Maybe the Goblin
Malcolm Collins: Slayer.
Oh, yeah, Goblin Slayer. Goblin Slayer, I'd slot above this one. I think Goblin Slayer is slightly better than this. Too dark for me.
Simone Collins: Too dark. I [00:31:00] don't, see, again, I don't know how you could handle that. I couldn't. There was too much. Infanticide and .
Malcolm Collins: But that's what the first episode is known for people going into it.
It is gritty. They come in
Simone Collins: strong. They come in
Malcolm Collins: just right. So was Goblin Slayer the thing that really does for me? I think it models very good cultural values. Yeah. And it models
Simone Collins: objective function extremely well.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. It models the concept of objective function, which the pragmatist guide to life is all about the first book we wrote.
So I really like it from that perspective. And it is moderately in food wars, like Ernest's talks about just entirely for entertainment purposes. I also think that the main character, it models relationships really well. I think Food Wars does that. It models tenacity.
Simone Collins: It models vitalism, extreme vitalism.
Malcolm Collins: Yes. A very good modeling of vitalism. And I learned a lot
Simone Collins: about food science, food culture and food history. Yeah. It's educational.
Malcolm Collins: Education. You've got to watch it.
Simone Collins: It's
Malcolm Collins: for learning. So if you like some of these other shows that I've been listing and I'm [00:32:00] like this show is among them in terms of quality definitely go check it out.
It is top tier.
Simone Collins: I love you, Malcolm.
Malcolm Collins: And I see you like in the show, I just see our relationship modeled so well and it does such a good job, even as somebody who's in a happy marriage reminding me what I have in terms of a relationship with you, getting me think about if this was me having turned young as an 80 year old with you, what would I be doing with our life today?
If I transformed into a young person with kids again, taking them out on the river, which I'll do again this weekend, that's one thing I'd probably be doing, making sure we pick berries together making sure I plant some trees so yeah, there's a lot of things I do, and I
Simone Collins: Also
Malcolm Collins: though, we're going to
Simone Collins: make a, if we're lucky enough to live to an old age, we're going to make a pretty cute old couple, let's not die too early,
Malcolm Collins: yeah, so I what I guess is the feeling that the show gives me is the same feeling that you give me. [00:33:00] And it's something that these ultra progressives, I think, just totally lack in their life. Because even when they're married, they don't really live as a unit in the way that you should when you're, like, in a happy marriage.
They live As
Simone Collins: atomized roommates.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, the atomized roommates who exist to be each other's friend who they have sex with, instead of be a huge chunk of their identity, a half of their identity in terms of how they relate to reality. And because of that they're never gonna experience there's so much that they're missing, and this show Served you on a platter, I think so what they are missing.
What did you get a blowout?
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: All right. In between episodes, I'll let you take her to get changed. Okay.
Simone Collins: And thanks Malcolm. You're amazing.
Malcolm Collins: Poor Indy.
Simone Collins: I love you, Malcolm.
Malcolm Collins: Love you too.
Simone Collins: Will make a link for [00:34:00] the Scott Alexander one, but I got to handle this first. Go for it. Okay.
One final note, I'd make about the show here that I thought was actually pretty interesting is it is shown that this phenomenon is not unique to them that occasionally in this world, they live in golden apples. Present themselves to old couples shortly before they die. That have lived long, happy, and healthy marriages, dedicated to their partner and their community and their, , defendants.
And it's a really sweet concept.
It'd be quite cool. If that was real.
Malcolm Collins: Oh, I'm so excited
Simone Collins: for today.
Malcolm Collins: I like these talks. You are amazing. I love them too. So I will get started.
Simone Collins: Did you Listen to that podcast, by the way, where Jenny was
Malcolm Collins: most of it. I stopped listening to the part where she had gotten to like the smack.
Just because I had other, I had to run into the side scrollers episode. Does it get bad after [00:35:00] that? It sounded like she was beginning to get pretty critical.
Simone Collins: She was critical and she defended her
Malcolm Collins: points.
Simone Collins: It's a
Malcolm Collins: piece of media made about us that we're referring to that they were doing an interview.
Would you know what a podcast it was on?
Simone Collins: Yes. I can tell you,
Malcolm Collins: Probably in one of my tabs right now. I know
Simone Collins: I've written it down. It was on the front burner podcast where they interviewed Jenny. I think what really came out was just like a difference in culture for the most part. Like she. She came to our house and the house was cold and, Torsten was on his own upstairs for a long time and, you practiced corporal punishment in front of her and she asked you some questions about the population size of pronatalists and then she just came to this conclusion that like one, We don't love our kids and to, or we say we're data driven, [00:36:00] but we're not actually doing data driven stuff.
Malcolm Collins: It's because all of the ways that she would have us change the way we're parenting our kids would be incredibly high. Like you, you've got to be around your kid 24 seven. It's you can't have a lot of kids.
Simone Collins: Also Torsten wouldn't like, like our autistic children really want alone time and we give it to them when they want it.
And we check in on them quite frequently, but that doesn't change the fact that sometimes they get overstimulated and they just want to be by themselves, especially when we have visitors.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But I think it just showed what, so there was that, the, Oh my God, they sometimes have screens and then the corporal punishment, both of which were just things that become a norm whenever you get a family above a certain size.
Simone Collins: Also though, I think she's mostly playing up the sensationalized element of it, the more monstrous we look, the better the story is. So using terms like they had tied the screens around their children's necks. One, I don't even know. Those straps broke [00:37:00] off right away.
Malcolm Collins: And I just one of these actually had a strap that day.
Simone Collins: One of them, one of the must have, you wouldn't have made it up, but like it, it, there's a big difference between A kid putting carrying a satchel of an iPad with a strap that's used for
Malcolm Collins: Especially if you don't find one. There's none down here. There's none down there.
Simone Collins: Versus having a parent that tied it to their neck. It sounds like those horse feedbacks. I'm actually
Malcolm Collins: more offended and this is the core to me, offense of the article and lie of the article is they are not iPads. I would never get my kid an iPad. That is way too expensive.
They are 100 mini tablets.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah they're Samsung galaxy. Tabs the A1 variety, which is they're very cheap variety that you can get for 120 bucks, I think and then if you get them used, you can get them under a hundred dollars and then there's these 10, like large rubber casings you can get for them.
That we use for our kids.
Simone Collins: Yeah, that includes straps so you can hang them from the back of an airplane [00:38:00] seat or something. But I'm always
Malcolm Collins: fascinated when people are publicly talking about us like this. Like just genuinely interested in how much of weirdos we are. Anyway Let's do it. Are we ready to get started?
All right.
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