LNT Anime ep 11

The wild part about pop culture right now is how fast it moves and how expensive it’s getting at the same time. We kick things off with World Cup energy, why the games feel more competitive than ever, and how much pride comes with seeing different regions show out on the global stage. From there, we slide straight into the kind of news that makes couch gamers pay attention: a Steam-style PC gaming console that promises the comfort of a console with the depth of PC gaming.

We break down what makes a “PC console” so tempting, from Steam’s huge library and dirt-cheap deals to the real superpower: mods. But we also draw a hard line on pricing and accessibility, because when consoles creep toward $1,000, trade-ins vanish, and upgrades feel impossible, it stops being fun and starts feeling like a money trap. That money conversation only gets louder when we talk GTA 6, ultimate editions, locked content fears, massive file sizes, and how battle passes and microtransactions changed what players expect to tolerate.

On the anime and comics side, we’re eating: Hunter x Hunter is back, Bleach is making theater noise, summer anime is stacked, and the line between games, manga, and animation keeps blurring with projects like Sekiro and Cyberpunk. We also geek out over DC Comics momentum, the Absolute Universe, and the classic animated shows that still hit like Batman Beyond and Static Shock.

Subscribe for more real talk on gaming, anime, and geek culture, share this with a friend who argues about paywalls, and leave a review if you want us to keep pushing. What’s the one thing you refuse to buy if it costs over $500?

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

World Cup Energy And Representation

SPEAKER_01 0:01

It's Late in LA Life and Times Anime Episode 117 Heaven being Carlos. What's up, bro? How you been? Bro, been good. Trapping, rapping, making it happen. World Cup's been going real well. Man, to all my football fans out there, World Cup has been fire. There's been a lot of goals. Very entertaining games. It's just there's the gap has never been smaller between the kind of well-known, the legacy, like big nations and the smaller nations or B tier nations, however you want to classify it. Africa's been performing very well. We've got some Caribbean representation. As y'all know, I'm Haitian. So, you know, I mean, Haitian presented themselves very well. Curso represent represented themselves very well. And shout out to Kate Verde, who have made it to the knockout round with their very first appearance in the World Cup in their history, man. It's a huge accomplishment for them. They're also there, they speak Portuguese, but they also speak Crayol as well. We got some Cray representation for Kate Verde. So to all my Kate Verdians out there, salute. Yeah, I'm just a black American, bro. FBA, baby. But yeah, but listen, they dropped this people off somewhere. Oh, yeah, no. I know how it go. I know how it goes. Yeah, yeah. You didn't want me to look for it, but I found it.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Exactly.

A PC Console For Lazy Builders

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Now, speaking of things, we're looking for and finding people have been looking for, and we have finally found a console for PC. So there's a PC gaming console, bro. And basically it's basically a Steam machine. It's basically an Xbox. You can have every game you own on that cons that console and play it like that. So basically, if you're lazy like me, and I'm never gonna put a PC together. I've had all the pieces, and I still haven't put a PC together. I'm just lazy with the shit. So this is for the console consumers and stuff like that. Now the ticket on it is kind of crazy. I'm never gonna spend a thousand plus on a fucking console. You can buy a car, you can you can do a lot of shit with a thousand a thousand dollars then buying a console, but I like where it's you know heading to. And if we can get it a little cheaper, like five to seven hundred dollar range, I'd be happy. I'll be honest, actually really excited for that Steam machine, the Steambox, whatever it's it's called. Because one, again, you know, in the gaming community, gamers, man, that PC gaming, everyone has always hammered on PC gaming is peak gaming, it's elite tier gaming. And it's like me personally, I just love the nostalgia of having a console. I've never not had a console. I had a Super Nintendo, I have a Nintendo 64, uh, I've had Mega Genesis, Dreamcast, GameCube, uh, PS1, PS2, Xbox 360, PS4, PS5. So the fact that I still get that console feel with an echelon of like PC gaming, because Steam has a way deeper catalog of games than PlayStation or Xbox. So it's like where you can feel a little bored of gaming on PS5 and Xbox, you could find like two dollar games on Steam and be having a blast with the guys. Bro, Steam is crazy. The ticket is pretty steep, yeah. Yeah, Steam is crazy. The ticket is pretty steep on the price. Because to be fair, I'm trying to jump in my mind, like, yo, that is kind of the price of like a gaming PC nowadays, but still. That's what I'm saying. Like inflation, chill, like golly. That's crazy. So, like, if I want to start up, I'm gonna have to spend that amount of money anyway. If I was gonna do it by my and now if I get a console, they did all the legwork by spending the same amount of money. That can't happen.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

It's wicked.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

I'm not buying the PS6, I won't buy that shit until it's $500. I'm never buying a game console over $500, bro. It's just it's a matter of respect. That's what I'm saying. And what happened to trade-ins, man? I remember even if the patient model came in, because mind you, I did the same thing for my pro. I remember I traded in my PS4 for the PS4 Pro and just paid the difference, which was like $170 or something like that. Like under $200. So I was like, cool. And it's like, bro, it's like nowadays, it's so inaccessible to get the console. They don't even accept trade-ins. It's like you gotta write by it. And it's like, I'm not gonna be stuck with two consoles, bro. That's bro, I literally have an Xbox One, two PS4. I have a couple systems just sitting around my house, and it's like, you know what I mean? I'm only gonna use the Xbox One. So, like, what else am I gonna use it for? But like far as his console PC, if they drop the price down, they do have created games on PC and Steam, and with crossplay, it really doesn't matter. So if it gets to the right price, I'm going that way and I'm not buying anything else because you can get every game that's Xbox exclusive on everything, bro. Sooner or later it's gonna be there. So I think you should just wait for the price to drop. And what I like about this machine idea is that especially for my console gamers that want to get on PC, you also get that extensive freedom when it comes to mods and games. So it's like you're still gonna like say I was a huge, I remember the Star Wars Battlefront two days. I remember watching people on Twitch doing like Star Curry mods, Quagan Jin, Mace Windu, Ahsoka Tano, A Secure, all the characters that we wanted in the game, but never got because EA was trying to run our pockets, that people were able to mod the game and give the content that we always wanted, whether it be maps, character skins, or full-on characters or abilities. I'm excited to see how people start to mod the Steam Machine, but I definitely want to hear more about it. Yeah, the mods on Steam and the mods on PC period is crazy. The first time I ever played mods was Skyrim, and I played that shit for like 10 to 15 hours straight. It was just too much for me. But mods are insane. I'm excited for

Hunter X Hunter Returns And Shonen Nostalgia

SPEAKER_01 6:16

that. What I'm more excited about is that Hunter X Hunter is back. GO Sagashi is back, and chapter 411 is back. It's finally doing weekly showens. This is like we're finally back, bro. It's so crazy. We talked about this. Like, what is it gonna happen? I had to turn 29 for this shit to happen. Like, what the fuck? I just I had to unlock it, bro. It was crazy. And it's crazy because I think with that, with a lot of the legacy shounens coming. I feel like we're in the era of Isekai's, but I feel like where shonens are starting to bridge the gap is where that these legacy shounens are coming back. We got Bleach back, we're getting Hunter Hunter back, Fairy Tail is back. So it's like, ooh, they're getting a lot of those legacy fans, nostalgia fans. And it's like we've been saying this on pretty much every episode since we started. Like, we're just eating so when it comes to anime, bro. Like, it's actually insane. Hands are greasy, bro. I'm really excited for the content we have these days. With Hunter X Hunter back, I feel like I earned that. I'm glad I didn't have to be 39 to get this shit. I'm glad 29 was the trick. We got off-screen king Blackbeard. He's been doing a lot of shit on the off-screen. We gotta get older. We gotta sit this motherfucker down so we can get an actual power scaling of Blackbeard. Because I don't know how like it is he is Luffy just gonna get washed? Is it I mean, I don't have you been reading the comics? Not the comics, but the Ma guy. I've been curious about it. Like, are you spoiling? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm kidding about the spoilers because with the Sanji situation that's going on with Emu and all that person now. It's just crazy, bro. It's crazy. So the thing is I'm waiting for this to get animated. Because I know this is going to it's gonna blow up the students. You're gonna go crazy with this. For again, for anime only? Oh my gosh. Bro, they're gonna lose their mind. I hate to be that guy to be like, yo, y'all don't even know. No, it's really to the point where it's like, yo, don't even know. Just wait for what's to come. Bro, the next step, yeah they say make your next move your best move, bro. And they definitely did it. That shit is crazy. I'm excited for

GTA 6 Hype And Pricing Fears

SPEAKER_01 8:36

it. GTA 6 is on the way as well, and we've waited so long for this shit, bro. This is crazy. Rockstar, they're gonna change the world with this game, though. It's an anticipated game of the decade. Bro, people are gonna really LARP in this game. It's going to be bad. I pred that GTA 6 is gonna change the culture around people and how they interact with each other because people are already doing these role plays and all this shit with GTA 5. With GTA 6, they're going to radio stations, they're gonna have all this new access. Are you paying for the extra ultimate edition, the $100 version of this shit? I'm not. Bro, I'm so torn because it's like this is clearly the most anticipated game of the decade. GTA 5 came out to put this into context. GTA 5 came out when I was a sophomore in high school, brother. Sophomore in high school, I'm about to be 30 in August, bro. That was 11 years ago, bro. No, no, no, 13 years ago, it came out 2013. 2013, GC5 came out, and it's like, bro, one, it's about to be 300, it's about to be 300 a launch, and you know there's gonna be more add-ons. So, first off, if you don't have an expanded hard drive for your PS5, yeah, go ahead and just delete. That's the only that's gonna be a hard drive if you don't have at least a terabyte going or more. First off, you're telling me if I don't pay for Ultima Edition, missions are locked off, parts of the map are locked off, and I don't even if you're a physical edition person, I I've been buying digital since college. So even if you buy the physical version, they're saying you don't even get a disc, you get a code to download the game. Bro, it's clearly a money grab because they know we're waiting for this, and it's like they're running our pockets before the game even actually here. It's ridiculous, man. We got boxing games that you can't even unlock fighters. You know how you play a Street Fighter game, any combat game where you play the game and you unlock characters. You gotta buy everything, everything's pay-to-play, bro. And this shit is crazy for us to have all this anticipation and now we gotta turn around and pay all this bread just to play the game. Just to play the ball. Honestly, bro, I blame Fortnite. Fortnite this whole season pass thing. So But Fortnite was geared towards kids, bro. Like Yeah, it's like it's kind of like the Netflix conundrum, right, with the whole subscription. Netflix was one of the pioneered monthly subscription thing when it came to streaming. Next thing you know, Fortnite was the pioneer for this season past of all these unlockables and blah blah. And then other game companies like, where? Alright, Snowmore. We buy, we about to we about to run this. They're running pockets, they're robbing people in Broad Day, just like it's GTA. I guess that's where they get it from.

Baki Chaos And Summer Anime Watchlist

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Baki season two, part two has come out, him versus Muashi, the samurai. That shit's crazy. Baki's the funniest shit I ever watched, bro. It's like such a relax your brain. This uh yeah, they're welding out. They're really just crashing out over the simplest shit. They're arguing, they're having fights, they're having fights mentally and acting like everything is real. Like everything they're thinking is real. Like the shit is fucking ridiculous, bro. The fucking source. Here's the thing. I haven't even I haven't even I haven't even dipped my fingers into Baki. Yeah, this set the second season is wild as hell. Even the way Baki beats, bro, at the end of this season, it's fucking Looney Tooth. It wasn't a tech, it was some wild shit. Like it was never regular shit with these guys, bro. And then like people who beat him, he's like, oh, I would have beat you with my swords. Like, you just start talking shit like right after. It's crazy, bro. So I don't really fuck with Baki. Baki's one of my favorite martial arts anime. I recommend it to anybody who likes that type of stuff. It's exaggerated comedy. It kind of reminds me of Phil's Bizarre Adventure, as far as how it's how it's a little jokey. Now, it is summertime. We do have a bunch of summer anime on the way, bro. Black Torch, Jadagar, A Witch in Mongolia, Kaiju Girl, Carmelise, and more seasonal releases across June, July, and August. So, like, where are you in, bro? Where are you getting? I think Black Clover is also supposed to come back, too. Black Clover. See, I'm not even, I gotta get into Black Clover, bro. It's so hard for me to get into Black Clover. You know what's crazy? I watched the first episode of Black Clover, bro, and if you started doing push-ups and shit, I was like, not really close. You see it through. I get it. 100% get it. Because I felt the same way. But I pushed through it, bro, and I was like, oh. This is to say no more. I'm telling you, you you push through it, you won't regret it. You wouldn't. All right. I'll tap him. I still need you to watch That Spire 2. That's still going on as well as one of the summer animes that I recommend to everybody. It's high level as far as the power system, the power scaling, the writing. The writing and the power scale, and the power system itself is like big for me. Like it has to like make sense. And if it doesn't make sense, I'm like, it's not for me. Now, I hear it. Bleach is in theaters. As we speak, the first three episodes of the new season. I haven't seen any of it, but it's in theaters for a reason. This is box office. This is big three. This is Ichigo on the block. He don't give a fuck, bro. He a Quincy. He a uh Hollow. He a Soul Reaper. He can heal. He can do everything, bro. Anything you need him to do, he can do, bro. I fuck with Ichigo. He's so funny, Doc. Ichigo. He's one of those, he's one of those characters that's just like, even out of anime, just for pop culture itself, dog, he's iconic, bro. Bro no, just the fits. Like the first couple seasons of bleach, the fashion was like crazy. Yeah, it was wild. And it's crazy that bleach movie kind of like skipped, kind of like went past me. Because of the World Cup, bro, it's like tunnel complete tunnel vision. So it's like the fact that that news went over my head. I'm listening, I'm like, oh, bleach movie drop. I'm like, damn. Bro, and it is good though. It's good because I obviously I can't stay on top of every anime, bro. Bro, I've been watching these Apple TV shows, bro. They like an hour, bro. It's so much all at once. Because I remember when I was in a trap, I'm like, bro, I remember I couldn't find anything to watch. And now it's literally everything to watch. It's like, yo, you can't take a wrong guess. You start watching one show where anime that nobody's talking about, and then you're like, hold on. For like, I haven't even heard about this one. And the next thing you know, you're you're you're two seasons deep. Do you watch Vox Machina? I've heard yeah. It's on my watch list. This is hard, bro. I've heard. I like the dungeon type stories. I probably would have played Dungeons and Dragons if I was in the environment to do so. Yeah, I'm getting to know what it's like. I can't get into it now. You know? A lot of these Dungeons and Dragon animates, they're giving me RuneScape vibes from when I was a kid. When I was into RuneScape. Yeah, yeah. That was the close RuneScape, but I never seen that shit. And I I've recently just seen it too. So this I know what you're talking about. But yeah, Dungeons and Dragon, Runescape. I kind of, it's like a part of growing up blacklist. Like, if you grow up in the wrong area, that shit is just bad. Don't do it. Like I remember I remember ninth grade, right? From elementary school to middle school, I was a top-tier duelist. I was a top-tier Beyblader. Like I was one of those guys.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Beyblade Yu-Gi-Oh!

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Yeah, the Beyblade Yu-Gi-Oh! days, bro. I came into ninth grade. I had my my deck, you know, I had my cards with me. I was ready. I peeked the scene. I was like, oh, do those drones right in the chairs. Bro, so like it wasn't the heart of the cars that day. But let's get into the physical versus digital purchases.

Physical Vs Digital Ownership Reality

SPEAKER_01 16:57

We talked about it with Grand Theft Auto, but this is an industry issue and a culture issue. It is not just video games, it's movies, it's books, it's being targeted and eliminated. So like now we're gonna have to have a hard drive to keep all our data. And if that's destroyed, you will never have it again. And people say, oh, because that's what count a way to counter, oh, you don't have any access to getting or keeping your physical media, right? People say, Oh, I bought this, how can I keep the value? I'm like, you're gonna have to put it on a hard drive, bro. That's the only way. So I'm somewhere in like a gray area because it's like I love the accessibility of being like, no matter what device I'm on, I can access it. But also to the people that are collectors of the media, they have those collectors edition things that come with extra figures or a booklet, gives you an extra piece of lore to whatever it is, diminishes that art of collecting. You'll always have your collectors because you know there's always people that like those niche activities and stuff like that. But it definitely puts it in like a weird area. I know me, I haven't when bringing it back to video games. I remember when you used to pre-order video games, you used to get like a little figurine, a little booklet to drop a little piece of lore, and you get a little some a little something extra on top of that when DLC actually meant something, and DLC wasn't just like you know what I mean. So nowadays there's no point in ordering a video game, bro. Just wait till it comes out because it's like, oh, it'll be like day, two day early access, one day early access, and it's like, okay, like I get a day or two early, that doesn't really mean anything because it's like regardless, it's not like you're gonna run out of digital copies, you're still gonna be able to play this regardless. Yeah, there's no urgency for the consumer. Yeah, I think consumers have to be a little bit smarter, adapt to the market in a serious way. Because like you can't just have a complaint, like, all right, physical media is being uninvested in by these companies. What are you gonna do? So you gotta keep your digital hard drive, so you're gonna have to keep your own shit. And honestly, the best bet is Steam with a PC you bought yourself, and you don't have to deal with none of these companies. You only buy the games you want to buy.

Kagurabachi And Games Becoming Anime

SPEAKER_01 19:11

We gotta do big three, big three alert, bocce, April 27th. No, April 2027, bro. It's gonna be crazy, bro. Time for the aura farming 100%. We got another aura farmer. Kagura Bocchi gives me a darker mercenary-ish Ronnie Kenshin vibes. Yep. So, dude, there's like a samurai mercenary kind kind of type beat going on. One of my friends put me onto the manga not too long ago. The manga is pretty steep. It's one of those 30 to 50 pages per chapter. So it's like you get some thick content per chapter. It's a good read. The fact that it's getting an anime adaptation, I'm like, oh yeah. The trailer I already saw for it be a crunchy roll on YouTube. Oh, this is gonna be very well animated. Like, they're gonna take their time with this. So that's one that I'm very excited for. Bro, I'm gassed for it. The swordsman is always gonna be fire in anime. It's classic. We need that every generation. This feels like it lands better than Samurai 8. You know, it's a lot better, more, more real. I'm excited, bro. And you know, I love that like games, comics, it's all started to merge. It's all becoming one place because here we are. Sekiro is getting its own anime, bro. I heard, bro. And I'm like, I fuck with that, bro. There's so many games that could have been the animes, bro. Like Devil May Cry. I was like, thank you. Like, this is fleshed out. This is everything we needed. I'm gasped for this. And Cyberpunk is coming out. Another game that turned into an anime. Bro, if you haven't watched the first Cyberpunk, I'm telling you, go watch the first Cyberpunk. This is one of my favorite animes of my life. Like, I had to add it. The shit was too good, bro. It was not like a like you don't leave that shit happy at all. You know what I'm saying? Like, the real ride, bro. It's crazy. And like you think it's gonna get good. It get good for like a little bit, bro. Maybe like 10 minutes. This was shit happened, bro. It's crazy. It was well done, sir. I discovered it randomly I discovered randomly. Bro, I didn't even know that Cyberpunk was getting its own anime out of vision. And to all the Dark Souls people out there, bro, that Sekiro, that Seki Row anime, I'm gonna need that. I'm gonna need that. That was one of the hardest games I've definitely played for sure, though. Because I'm not huge on Dark Souls types games. But that Seki Ro Shadows Die Twice game. Quality play dude. I didn't play that. I played Elder Ring. I like open war RPGs, so if I'm gonna play something like that, like it's just the hands, but I saw the story of it. I know it's good. I also saw the animated anthology series. On Amazon called Level Up, and they had a short about Secreto, and it was like a whole story about it. And I was like, oh wow, this is good. And now we got the anime coming out. Yeah, so like actually, I think that short probably was like, oh, y'all like this? Green light. Yeah, yeah. Here's another green light, bro.

DC Absolute Universe And Cartoon Classics

SPEAKER_01 22:18

I don't know if you're keeping up with the comics, but DC comics is fire right now. Especially fire. The absolute universe. This one absolute is tough. I don't know why somebody's not walking up on the street and talking to me about this shit. It's nuts. I remember. Absolute Batman is getting an animated show. I first heard about it through Instagram reels because a lot of DC comic YouTubers that I followed were talking about it. They were talking about like absolute joker and absolute Batman, and their character designs were insane. And they were dropping the lore of like why this universe. It gave me the vibes of kind of like the ultimate universe for Marvel. But this absolute universe, this absolute universe. I was like, this is dark. Marvel needs to sit down and change something. I like their comics. DC is killing them in the comic area. And DC will always eat because of that. Marvel's like a fucking, it's like a theme park right now. Right? It's a lot of big shows. But when we actually give a fuck about it, like we used to in the comics, I don't know. I think the live action has overtaken the comics. As far as the like the quality. But like, yeah, go back into the absolute universe. This is the universe in which Dark Side controls all the heroes' fates, right? It gives them the worst possible outcome possible. And they're fucking upgraded like shit. People that are in fan fiction that want to know what that universe would look like if the villains win. This is the vibe that I get from the absolute universe. If the villains win are outrighters, this is what the universe would look like. Have you seen Absolute Wonder Woman? Have you seen Absolute Superman? Like, have you seen what's going on in their comics? No, I haven't. I've only seen Absolute Joker and Batman. Oh, absolute Flash is fire. Absolute Green Lantern is fire. This is how, you know, a rest of peace to a comic story in. But like I used to go on YouTube and that's how I would keep up. And I've been watching a lot of the absolute universe, man. That's one of the things I was very excited to see that is getting animated, bro. That's fire. Variant variant. Shout out Variant Comics, bro. Variant Comics is only. Yeah. But yeah, comics is crazy. And you know, it gets I had me in this bag of like goaded animated comic shows like Justice League. X-Men 97 is coming out with a second season shortly in a couple of weeks. I need that. Batman Beyond, Young Justice. Batman Beyond, bro. Batman Beyond is. Yes. I can watch that anytime in life. And it holds up till this day. No matter how far we're going, how much we get, Batman Beyond holds up. And it's I love, bro. That's one series I hold near to my heart, bro. I love the character of Terry McGuinness. I love his character development. I just love that whole universe, bro. That's one of my favorite shows of all time, bro. Bro, that and Static Shock, bro. Like Static Shock was a culture almost too much. It's too crucial to the culture. His the way he was, his parenting, everything, like the lessons, his homies, the things he fought against, the things he had to deal with. Like Young Justice is still have yet, like there hasn't been a DC show since Static Shock that's addressed things as well as Static Shock did. Besides Teen Titans, I say Teen Titans. Teen Titans is hard. I can watch Teen Titans all day. But what's your last thoughts,

What We’re Watching Next

SPEAKER_01 26:00

man? I feel like we're in a crazy era of entertainment, but we're also in a crazy era of innovation and creation. There's gonna be animes that we're gonna be watching for the next five to ten years that are coming out this summer, bro. I'm excited for it. Yeah, man. It's there's still so many. There's ones that I'm very much waiting comeback. Like solo leveling is one of the biggest ones. Oh, yeah, solo leveling. I forgot that solo leveling is still the way. Oh man, I'm so ready for that. Bro, there's just a wild. What have I been watching recently? Oh, like Jack of all trades, witch hat Altier, I think it's called Wistoria Wand and the Sword, bro. That's been fire. Sentence. Is that good? I watched it through. It's fire. It's fire. Wistoria One and the Sword is super fire, bro. It's fire. Okay. Very fire. Alright, but I I always try to watch at least one thing, you know? Yeah, man. There's just there's so many. And it's like, one, I can't wait. We brought this up in past episodes. RD World, how they're working on their own series, like anime series. I'm excited to see what they do because again, we talk about crucial to the culture, especially to how it's making streaming, like a collective of creatives, like streaming. Yeah, they're the biggest thing. The most important and the most organic, right? They didn't do any weird shit. They wasn't talking down on women. You know what I'm saying? Like, there's so many ways that dudes get to the bag in this space, and they chose to do the most organic and positive way ever. Like just being themselves. So thank you for pulling up, bro. And thank you, everybody, tapping in. It's episode 11 in the book. Life of Times. Let's go. It's playing LA.