Manga, Anime & Barbara’s Cartoon Crush

In this episode, Barbara and Teja dive into the colorful, action-packed, and occasionally absurd world of anime and manga. Barbara confesses her deep affection for Spy x Family and reveals that her first-ever crush wasn’t human. (But he had expressive eyes, a cape, and a bird-shaped helmet.) Meanwhile, Teja shares what it was like growing up with anime and manga in Japan, where it was less “niche obsession” and more “part of life.”

From psychic kids and secret agents to awkward middle school feelings, we explore what makes anime and manga so special—and why these stories stick with us long after the final panel.

Subbed, dubbed, or wildly emotional—we’re here for all of it.

Find us on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok: @loidunk

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Spy family. And you gotta do the Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

What is Spy? Oh, Spy Family the manga?

SPEAKER_01 0:12

The manga! Yes. Spy family the manga.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

I don't know Spy Family, the the manga.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

And then there's Spy Family. The anime. Which I haven't watched because you won't let me watch anime.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

What? What? What? What? What? In what world can do I not allow you to do something?

SPEAKER_01 0:36

No, it's just you you prefer not to watch anime when we sit down to watch things in the evening.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

It's not that I don't allow you to.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

That sounds so very with our negotiation, but there's also a lot of good shows on. But I love the I love the manga.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

You know, I it's not that I don't like watching anime or reading manga, but I grew up in Japan where manga and anime were an everyday thing that was not considered in any way, you know, different or cool. It was just what it was.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

And it is. And it is. It's manga.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

But also an anime. The the anime and manga today don't resemble what I grew up with. So it's it's it's like it's like if there was a new sitcom and it was all about, you know, people in their 20s and their lives in their 20s, I really wouldn't have an interest in just a show about people in their 20s.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

How does this have to do with mommy, though? Because like this is a full-on adult. Spy family.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

I see. Oh, I see. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

There's lots of age groups represented.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

It has to do with the style though, too. Like things do change.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

What?

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Things change.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Yeah, things actually change. Yeah. Like I change my clothes every day. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

But well okay, so just tell me about Spy Family.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

All right.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Because I haven't seen it.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Spy Family has these two, um, these two, like, I don't know if they're countries or city states. They don't really make it very clear. But it's um, what is it, like West, what, West Dallas and Austania.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

And they are, they all have they they like to spy on each other and they need to know what each other is up to because they have to maintain the peace. And so we have this spy um named Twilight, who is assigned to spy on this big like leader guy of Ostania. And the only way he can do that, or the way that they figure that they can do that, is to have the Twilight like have a family and enroll the child in the same private school as this guy has his son in. And so then they can be like just parents, you know, doing the parent thing, oh, just being parents together. Unfortunately, he didn't have a family.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

The child or the no, the spy didn't have a family. I see. So then he had to obtain a family.

unknown 4:02

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Like, where do you find just a family?

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Well, so the answer having this woman who is gonna pretend to be his wife. Turns out, though, that she's an assassin, but he doesn't know that she's an assassin. He and she he doesn't know that she's an assassin, she doesn't know that he's a spy. Oh, all she knows is that the own is that this this guy needed to get his daughter into this private school, but the only way that they would accept them is if they were a family and you know, the big family picture. So she agrees to go along with this.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Ah, of course. Of course. Why? What what what's her what what are her needs?

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Well, you know, she doesn't necessarily want everybody to know she's an assassin. If I was an assassin, cover story everyone knowing that I'm an assassin, it wouldn't make any sense.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

So there's that except for tax time, you know, then you gotta be honest about what your job is. But so she's an assassin.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

What do you yeah, yeah. So he's complicated attacks. He doesn't know.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Uh oh, oh right, okay. He doesn't know. Okay, he doesn't know.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

All right.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Um, and then the the the kid is how old? Um I don't know exactly how old, actually. I'm thinking like nine or ten.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

But uh he adopts this little girl, actually, maybe younger than that. She looks younger than that. Here, here's a picture.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

And does she grow between each season or does she stay the same?

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Anya forger.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Anya forger. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Right. She's very cute, and she's telepathic. And of course, Twilight has no idea that she's telepathic. And Yor, who's the mother, doesn't know that that she's telepathic. So Anya, poor Anya, is the only one who knows everything. Like she knows what, so Lloyd Forger is the name that twice. Lloyd Forger. Lloyd Forger. And then Anya knows what Lloyd Forger is thinking, and Anya knows what your Forger is thinking, and none of them know that she's telepathic. It's really something.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

If you were telepathic, would you let people know?

SPEAKER_01 6:39

No.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Right?

SPEAKER_01 6:41

No, why would you do that? Because it causes poor Anya stress.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

How is so you've been reading this series?

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

How many books?

SPEAKER_01 7:00

I'm only about I'm on book five.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

And how many books are there?

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Like 15.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Okay. And is there any movement here?

SPEAKER_01 7:10

As any well, they keep having different. No, no spoilers, but they keep having different adventures, and then you know, how they try to so like Anya, the only way she can do well in school, unfortunately, she's not all that bright.

unknown 7:27

What?

SPEAKER_01 7:28

And but she's just she can do well in school.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Well, there's some because she's telepathic. I'd be distracted.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

So the only way she can do well on tests is if she reads the minds of the good students who that's a cheater, right? So that's one of my favorites right now.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Okay. That's a pretty cool story. I mean, it's a you know, it's the kind of characters that you generally find in Japanese manga or anime. Um and you you and and both our daughters read a lot of manga.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Well, I read a lot of a lot of.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

That's true. You do read a lot, a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

Yeah, many different things.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Yeah. Uh when I was when I was a kid, this is the late 1960s, when I started watching uh anime. And I didn't yet read. But I mean, I was learning how to read.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Period.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

But the the manga that I ended up reading most when I was in junior high school, late late elementary school, junior high school, where um Shonen manga is like young, young person, young, young boys, young men. Um and uh in Japan, the manga are a compilation of stories that are continuous every week or continue every week.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Oh, right, like it's a big book of it and has multiple series within the same. Correct, right.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

So it's about this thick.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

And is it still that way though?

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

And um, you'll see salary, what we call salary men, salary man, salary men and and women and uh kids reading their manga, which you pick up at the bookstore, the train station, and every week it's it's the it's the continuation as the next episode, episode, uh, installment of the story. And in each book, and there are many different publishers, in each book, they have many stories. So you read your favorite stories within the compilation. You may skip over the others because you may not be interested, and then the week later you continue with each of the stories.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

That's a lot of paper. They've got to be going digital by now.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

I'm sure they yeah, of course they are, but you still can buy them.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

And there's it's kind of nostalgic.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Uh Japanese, I think it's 98.8% literacy rate. So there's just 98.7 or something like that. No, 99.7, something like that. So there's everyone's always reading. And yeah, of course, they're all on their phones now, too. But just growing up, that's what I used to read. And my favorite story, which then became its own book series, was Saikuri Yaro. Uh Yaro means like um guy or like dude. And he was a bicyclist, and my brother and I were avid bicyclists.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

And the series I read was um Saikura Yaru uh Saikuru. Saikuri Yaro.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Well, and it was So Saikuru meaning cycling.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

From the words cycling. And then it was uh Nihon Ishu, which means around Japan. And the story was this guy who was bicycling all around Japan. I don't remember the reason because I think he was in high school or he just graduated high school and he didn't get into college or something like that. So he decided to take off big deal there.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Yeah, and then do his um um Ronin year, his his uh off school year going around Japan, but he gets gets caught up and meets all these people, and he kind of forms a group of people guys who also traveled with and they become influencers, and then they start making money that way, and then he says TikTok dances management, doesn't go, and then his parents are really disappointed.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Oh, I'm sorry, Am I but I love the story because it was all over Japan, and my brother and I ended up doing a lot of cycling all over Japan.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Did you like follow his maps?

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Um I think we followed a portion of it in northern Japan and Hokkaido. Hokkaido is the northernmost island of Japan. The route that he took, I think I remember, but he had one route, he was also taking like part-time jobs. Oh he was taking part-time job uh uh uh jobs all over and uh meeting people and all that, and it was a sort of a coming-of-age story, and I love that story, and I just literally just found it. Oh uh, and I might even buy the series because it called um I mean in English. Uh cycle guy, maybe. Oh, I don't know. Oh, it doesn't say. I don't know. Oh um I thought you looked like Cycle Guy? I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Oh um I thought you said you just found it. Oh, I see. You found the picture of it.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Kintaro.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Oh. And he's wearing a hat, yeah like an Indiana Jones kind of hat.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

And my brother had a hat like that, and he had the panniers which hold the the bags just like that. That's how we used to um carry our bags. But it was just a great, great adventure story about going all over Japan and all the trials and tribulations that he had. Um was it a long-running series or I don't remember how many books there were, but there were many books.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

And I've I just I I treasured the that story. And then I told my, I think I might have been a sophomore in high school, I told my father that I was going to do this the same journey, and my father said, you know, something like, I really think you should go to college first before you do something like this.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Yes, but then you never did that.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

I never did this, no. I don't think at this point I could.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Yeah. You know, I I know it's a little, yeah. I'm feeling a little ricky.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

I don't even want to mow the lawn.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

I think well, right exactly.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

But anyway, that that that was what I loved. And because that's that's those are the kind of stories that I liked. Uh-huh. One of the reasons why it's hard for me to get into new series because they're written differently and they have a different kind of story from the ones that I used to like when I was a kid.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Actually, you'd probably like Natsume's Book of Friends. Okay, I sound like that one. Natsume is a boy who can see yokai.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

Oh, he can see yokai, okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

And it comes from his grandmother had this book. He like inherits this book that has a bunch of yokai's names in it, and somehow his grandmother could also see yokai, and she got them to give her their names, so she kind of like trapped them or something to her will or something, and now that Natsume has that book, he's actually working on giving their names back, but there's a lot to do with just like yokai stories and how he navigates having this special power while trying to be a regular high school student. All right. Um and then also some of the stories of the yokai themselves, like how they got to be yokai or their like their pains and their problems. I think you'd like it.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Okay. I agree.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Not Sumei's Book of Friends. I have it.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

You have it upstairs? Okay. Alright. Yeah, I you know, I'm I'm open. I'm open. Um he's not gonna read it. Probably it would take me a while. Yes, it would take me a while, only because I'm I don't never find enough time to read, but it sounds like something I might enjoy.

unknown 16:42

Yeah, I think you would.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

Yeah. My favorite anime was Lubin Sansei. Ruban Sansei was a very, very popular Japanese uh animated series that was just magnificent. And it had all of the you know uh humor and intrigue and and it was about oh, uh so Lupin is a he's a criminal.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

And he his uh Scooby Gang is uh uh uh a samurai. He he looks like samurai, but he's carries a sword and he wears, you know, uh he is dressed like that. And then another guy who he uh who works with him uh uses guns, which is not what Lupan likes to do or Lupin. Um and there's uh another criminal who always um is is his weakness. Her name is Fujiko, and Fujiko has large breasts and she's very sexy, but of course, but she's also a criminal. Oh, okay. They often like, you know, he'll lose out to her because he gets weak in the knees when she's nearby. And then, of course, there's the detective who is always looking for them, and he's always thwarted somehow. Of course, always kind of like Roadrunner, uh, what's it the coyote in the Roadrunner?

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Glenville. Yeah, but so you have this beautiful dynamic between a funny, fun-loving, and likable criminal. He's not like a killer, but he steals things, you know. He's uh and then the the the guys who work with him, Fujiko and of course the detective, and every week, you know, something happens and they have to run away, and then they don't get away, and then they do get away. But that is originally a French series.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

In Japan, it was made popular as an anime, and then it's now it's a movie uh TV series here in the US.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

Oh, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

American? It might be British. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Anyway, cool.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

You know, my first crush was an anime character.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Was that your stomach?

SPEAKER_01 19:15

That was my stomach.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Your first wow, your first crush, and then your stomach went. Yeah. Oh, you you got thir you're hungry and thirsty.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

I guess. Yeah, it was G Force.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

G Force? Oh, G Force.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Yes, and and they had like this eagle costume, like the helmet with the bird and the wings, the the the capes that were like wings. And we just we just determined a few years ago that this was a gachaman.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Um, yeah, so in Japan it's called gachaman.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

But the problem is that there apparently were many different versions of it. So I don't know which version I watched because they they chopped it all up for the US market. This was before they had a big market for anime in in the US, and they were like, oh, you know, the Americans aren't gonna like this, and so they like chopped it all up and did something different, and then there were like different versions of it, and we bought Gachamon, and then I was like, I don't quite remember this though. So I think like there's a different version.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Um, I don't remember. I do remember watching a lot of Gachima, uh, the the Science Ninja team. Uh, and of course, I didn't had no idea that it was even how would I know it's playing in America or eventually would play in America. And then when I came to the United States and someone was telling me about G Force, I had no idea what they're talking about, and they showed it to me and I'm like, that's not that's not G Force.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

That's G Force. Well, no, that I told you about G Force.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

This was only a few years ago. I was like, because I had gone to anime Boston, I was going to anime Boston, and I was thinking to myself, what is what is this really? I'd always wanted to see it again because I have I literally haven't seen it since I was like 12 or 13 years old.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

And then I found Gachamon.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

But that was your first crush?

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Yeah. It's you know, a hero.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Yeah, what true, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

With a beak. Yeah, well.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

It's also green giant. Oh.

unknown 21:40

Oh!

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

If you could write a manga, what would the story be?

SPEAKER_01 21:55

I don't know. I don't know. Like, I don't, I guess, um, that's hard for me to think of writing a story that modularly.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

I see. Yeah. You know. I mean, some of the characters are really fascinating, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 22:11

They are. They really are. And, you know, it always has an unusual take on things. It's always very interesting when they bring in religious iconography that's completely out of context.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

You know, they just kind of like mash it all together and just like stir it up.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

And they they always have the Vatican in there somewhere. Because why not?

SPEAKER_00 22:37

It's just so bizarre.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

You know, it's just so bizarre. You know, pull references and use them for what they want. So that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Uh yeah, sometimes the storytelling is very straightforward. And sometimes it's really very fascinatingly metaphoric, symbolic, esoteric, artistic.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

And you never know which one you're gonna get.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Yeah. It could be anything.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Be something, and then all of a sudden it like flips on you, right? Like, oh, this is intellectual.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

What I really love, and it's been pretty consistent, is the changing of voices depending on the depending on the feeling or the emotion. You know, because at one point it's like and then you go, ah! You know, you've got the whole range of it.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Well, they do that with the faces too.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

You know, like the the eyes will just be like like at one moment at one moment they've got the sword pulling out and this blood pulling down it, and it's like it gets and the eye kind of goes like that, and it's like it's zooms.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

Or when they get upset, like the eyes suddenly get like this big, and all the hair just goes like this, and they're only thinking it. And that's the thing, is that you realize when you're reading it, yep, this is only what they are thinking.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

It's it's like fun. It's like um uh said. He'll be like thinking deeply about you know his next move, and then Fujiko appears and he's like, and then like he starts to drool, and his eyes bug out, okay, you know, and then she just kind of saunters up and he's like and he melts into the ground. Yeah, I love that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

That's funny, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh well.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

So well, so much for that. I'll see if I can you know, maybe at some point, someday, way down the line. I'll see if I can spend a few minutes looking through, and then I'll probably You don't have to.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

I'm just saying I think you'd really like it.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

That's all I really love, I really love some time to read my old manga.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

But you don't even have your old manga.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

I can buy it, I can find it on eBay. I'll I'll I'll look for it, I'll find it.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Or when I go home next time, I'll uh Oh yeah, that's a good idea. Go to the bookstore.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Oh, but it's really old stuff, they won't have necessarily the old, old, old issues.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

They have they have places where you can get old, you can get old records, old manga, you can get, you know, old Yakisoba.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

Old Twinkies.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

In Japan.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

It's right next to the old Yakisoba.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Right next to it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Yakisoba? Twinkies from 1979.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

And they're both like they'll still look the same. Yeah. Because Yakisoba, instant Yakisoba is not good for you.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

Yeah. It's not real food. Yeah. So would you like a you know, 50-year-old Twinkie?

SPEAKER_00 26:04

I would not.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

Okay. Just thought I'd ask.