Our sister podcast, the anime history and review show Japanimation Station, returns on March 15th, 2026 for its 6th season, and it’s one listeners have been demanding for a long time: our Tomino-thon! Throughout 2026, we’ll be peering into the delightfully deranged mind of Tomino Yoshiyuki, creator of Mobile Suit Gundam, which kicked off our entire anime podcasting journey with our ‘Weekly Suit Gundam’ series back in 2019. Now, we’ll be returning to the world of Tomino with deep dives into every TV series and film he’s ever directed. In this special preview episode, we outline the season’s first half, “The New Anime Era,” in which we’ll be analyzing each of Tomino’s shows from 1977’s Invincible Super Man Zambot 3 through 1984’s Heavy Metal L-Gaim. Season 6 Part 1 will run for 12 episodes uninterrupted through May. After a summer break, we’ll then return in the fall for a second half picking up with 1985’s Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. Will you be able to survive?

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://www.japanimation-station.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels!

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

The time has come, once again: Sean and Jonathan are here to count down the Top 10 Video Games of 2025. It was an undeniably weird year for the medium, with some exciting developments – like the launch of Nintendo’s Switch 2 and a strong first year of exclusive – marred by a lot of depressing industry upheaval, and the AAA space was largely pretty thin. We go quite a bit off the beaten path this year discussing our favorites, and while you’ve heard us talk about some of these before, there are a lot of surprises along the way. And this is the only Game of the Year podcast where you won’t hear anyone talk about Clair Obscur, because we simply didn’t play it. If nothing else, our lists are very unique.

TIME CHART:

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:15:27

#10: 0:15:27 – 0:32:00

#9: 0:32:00 – 0:48:23

#8: 0:48:23 – 1:03:48

#7: 1:03:48 – 1:20:06

#6: 1:20:06 – 1:44:22

#5: 1:44:22 – 2:07:28

#4: 2:07:28 – 2:21:02

#3: 2:21:02 – 2:39:17

#2: 2:39:17 – 3:06:48

#1 GOTY Picks: 3:06:48 – 3:39:40

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://www.japanimation-station.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels!

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

For our first show of 2026, we look back on the best movies of 2025, as Jonathan talks us through his list of the 20 best films to come out last year, from undisputed favorites like Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, to anime stunners like the Chainsaw Man and Kimetsu no Yaiba movies, to some weirder, smaller, and more personal picks. Then, Sean talks us through his busy winter vacation spent in the world of Digimon, reviewing the latest Digimon Story game, Time Stranger, alongside the 2021 Digimon anime Digimon Ghost Game and the first cours of the brand new Digimon Beatbreak. Finally, we round out the episode with a very depressing Monthly Ten where Sean is tasked with imagining ten ways we could sell our souls to become more popular podcasters.

Enjoy, and come back next week for our Top 10 Video Games of 2025 episode!

TIME CHART:

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:08:33

News: 0:08:33 – 0:40:16

Jonathan’s Favorite Films of 2025: 0:40:16 – 1:58:40

Sean’s Digimon Adventures: 1:58:40 – 2:58:38

The Monthly Ten: 2:58:38 – 3:27:20

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://www.japanimation-station.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels!

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman