Emotional Damage: The Anime Podcast

This week on Emotional Damage!

Armed with listener analytics, Zach and Ron waste zero time diving into their blood-soaked Halloween Double Feature!

Zach dives headfirst into the looping nightmare of Higurashi: When They Cry (2006), surviving thirteen episodes of brutal throat-clawing, janky animation, and fried dubbing to construct a master theory. Meanwhile, Ron takes a scalpel to Another. Will the somber, trope-free dread of Class 3-3 and freak umbrella accidents finally earn a high score, or will the mystery collapse under its own gloom?

Plus:

Next on Emotional Damage!

Ron hands Zach the reins to Studio Trigger’s explosive cult classic, Kill la Kill. But when talking sailor suits, a totalitarian high-school caste system, and weaponized shame collide with 1970s ecchi slapstick, will Zach buy into Trigger’s chaotic satirical vision—or will the relentless sensory overload push his patience to the brink?

Meanwhile, Zach tests Ron with the paranormal frenzy of Dandadan. Armed with his infamous, ruthless "Ten-Minute Rule," Ron dives into the pilot demanding narrative foreplay, proper character build-up, and romantic nuance. Can Science SARU’s wild collision of alien...

This week on Emotional Damage!

Shinji refuses to get in the robot! Zach arrives armed with a manifesto of notes to unravel the metaphysical dread of the Third Impact. Meanwhile, "smart anime" scholar Ron goes looking for cancer cures in Kaguya-sama—only to get completely broken by Chika Fujiwara.

Can humanity survive dissolving into a giant bowl of orange soup? What is the dark anatomical truth behind the anime nosebleed? And will Ron survive an eight-hour, piss-soaked bus ride across the Gulf of Chingadera just to catch a metal concert?!

Grab a cold be...

What starts as an innocent check-in on defrosted snake dinners and neighborhood cat territory disputes quickly spirals into full anime chaos. Zach is seven episodes deep into Neon Genesis Evangelion, discovering the legendary 90s Texas dub where Misato speaks fluent Tex-Mex street slang and giant geometric shapes scream Japan into a blackout. Meanwhile, Ron issues a harsh "DNF out of 10" to Toradora!, sparking a debate over high-school yearning, zoning laws, and whether driving an EVA is just a metaphor for therapy. Plus: supermarket smoking breaks, Witch Hat Atelier, and assigning Kaguya-sama: Love is War for next week's homework. Stay...

This week, we trade homework assignments, question the train scheduling efficiency of fictional Japan, and try to understand how a 40-year-old salaryman can't recognize a pair of glasses.

The Damage Report: We put our emotional stability on the line across three wildly different titles this week. First up is Makoto Shinkai’s 5 Centimeters per Second, where we debate whether tragic romantic longing is high art or if someone simply forgot that cell phones exist. We also discuss the opening four episodes of Code Geass and the pure tonal whiplash of high-stakes military rebellion colliding with roller-skating mechs an...

We're back after years of silence, to catch up, complain about failing joints, and accidentally start an anime podcast.

In this pilot episode, Zach confesses he gets emotionally wrecked by high school rom-coms just to feel something, Ron dodges construction workers and tracks down a runaway cat in Nicaragua, and we both try to understand why anime student councils possess the sovereign authority to overthrow governments.

Plus: ghost kitchen delivery economics, Sir Hiss-a-lot the ball python, why werewolves make terrible tenants, and naming the show in real time. This week's homework: Code Geass, 5 Centimeters per...