Big Mom from One Piece is on a rampage in Japan, and the only thing that can quell her fury is a very specific Japanese Christmas Cake. In this episode of Systematic Geekology's "Geeks on a Roll" series, our host Joshua Noel takes the reins as GM while Christian Ashley is joined by a special return guest, Mark Flower, to team up and tackle this outrageous mission together. Their eclectic squad, featuring Batman, Sanji from One Piece, Aqua from Kingdom Hearts, Rivet from Ratchet and Clank, and the Shinto goddess Amaterasu, dives into a culinary quest that’s as chaotic as it is whimsical. With the fate of Japan hanging in the balance, they must navigate through a series of hilarious mishaps, uncover the recipe's hidden secrets, and ultimately serve up a cake that could either save the day or send Big Mom into a full-blown frenzy. Tune in for a delightful mix of role-playing and thoughtful reflections on the power of food, community, and a sprinkle of geeky humor along the way!

A delightful clash of cultures and fandoms unfolds in this episode of Systematic Geekology's 'Geeks on a Roll' series. The team finds themselves in a quirky scenario where Japan is under siege by Big Mom from One Piece, who’s on a rampage in search of a specific Japanese Christmas Cake. To pacify her, a ragtag team of heroes including Batman, Sanji, Aqua, Rivet, and Amaterasu must embark on a culinary quest to uncover the cake's elusive recipe. What ensues is a chaotic blend of humor, teamwork, and clever twists as they navigate through challenges, revealing deeper themes of loss, community, and the power of food to bring people together. Amidst the laughter and light-hearted banter, the players explore how culinary traditions can hold emotional significance, echoing the sentiments of those who have passed. With clever detective work, the team's collaboration shines, leaving listeners both entertained and pondering the importance of food in their own lives. Listeners are treated to a splendid adventure as the crew tackles a looming threat in a whimsical, food-centric narrative.

With Big Mom on a rampage, the superheroes must work together to find the perfect Christmas cake recipe that can calm her down. The team, featuring iconic characters like Batman and Sanji, engages in witty banter and clever problem-solving as they navigate through various challenges and clues. The episode cleverly intertwines humor with significant themes, such as how food can encapsulate memories of loss and joy. As they delve into the story behind the cake, the players reflect on their own connections to food and the stories it tells. The light-hearted approach, combined with deeper philosophical discussions about companionship and community, creates an enriching experience that resonates with both fans of the respective franchises and those who appreciate good storytelling. This episode promises laughter, adventure, and a thoughtful exploration of culinary traditions.

Takeaways:

1. In this episode, Joshua, Christian, and Mark craft a whimsical narrative where Big Mom from One Piece wreaks havoc in Japan, necessitating a culinary quest to create the perfect Japanese Christmas Cake to calm her down.
2. The players utilize a diverse team featuring iconic characters like Batman, Sanji, Aqua, Rivet, and the Shinto goddess Amaterasu, each bringing unique skills to the table in their madcap adventure.
3. The podcast explores the deeper connections between food and emotion, illustrating how the act of cooking can serve as a form of storytelling and cultural expression, emphasizing the importance of context in recipes.
4. Through clever banter, the team discusses the significance of teamwork and cooperation in both gaming and life, reminding listeners that collaboration can lead to unexpected and delightful outcomes.
5. The episode highlights the blend of humor and heartfelt moments as the characters navigate absurd challenges, showcasing their growth through shared experiences and personal connections to the mission at hand.
6. Ultimately, the players succeed in their culinary quest, presenting a cake that not only satisfies Big Mom but also weaves in themes of loss, love, and the power of food to heal and bring people together.

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Be sure to check out our merch, find extra content, and become an official member of Systematic Geekology on our website:

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Check out our entire 'Geeks on a Roll' series:

https://player.captivate.fm/collection/ce33764f-91e5-4e06-9b52-15f678b02006

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Listen to some of our other One Piece episodes:

https://player.captivate.fm/collection/a4274c3e-c3d9-4961-9615-11a46c1aee84

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Hear more of our DC episodes:

https://player.captivate.fm/collection/8c9da262-e657-44a7-b14a-9649933f5347

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Check out other episodes with Joshua:

https://player.captivate.fm/collection/642da9db-496a-40f5-b212-7013d1e211e0

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Don't miss any of Christian's episodes:

https://player.captivate.fm/collection/ebf4b064-0672-47dd-b5a3-0fff5f11b54c

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Listen to other episodes with great guests like Mark Flower:

https://player.captivate.fm/collection/0d46051e-3772-49ec-9e2c-8739c9b74cde

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Listen to "Grub & Grace" with Mark, wherever you get your podcasts!

https://grubandgrace.com/

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There is a Japanese proverb that states, it is the man who drinks the first bottle of sake, then the second bottle drinks the first, and finally, it is the sake that drinks the man.

Well, today, guys, we're gonna be playing another game of Geeks on a Roll because we had some issues with how we did it last time, and we thought we could tweak it a little bit and make this game a little bit better. So if you've been listening, you know, the first time was like a.

Like a trial run for this series where we're doing a little bit of roleplay on systematic e. Theology has played. So we're gonna be doing it again. We're gonna try take two with a different story and different players, different characters, the whole jazz.

I can't wait to get into another episode. You know, this is where we do, like, omniverse stories. It's gonna be a lot of fun.

Last time, Christian, TJ and Will tied for the record that Christian did before this was an official series. And now Christian is back to see if him and Mark can actually take back his title from himself. So the high score right now, 27 points.

You get 10 points per category of. Let me read them off. Mission status, teamwork, sustainability, strength, and fun. Plus, there's a potential for 10 bonus points.

So when we get into the game, that's what we're doing. But for now, I'm Joshua Noel. Usually I'm Joshua Noel. Sometimes I'm someone else. Don't worry about it.

And I am here with two esteemed, esteemed players. The one and only Christian Ashley, record setter, and Breaker. How's it going? All right.

Ready to see if I can do it again?

Yeah. And one of our favorite returning guests, good friend, awesome podcast host.

If you ever hear Grubbing Grace, you'll know the one and only Mark Flower is here with us today. How's it going, Mark?

Let me join you guys today.

Oh, yeah, can't wait. Can't wait. Before we do anything else, though, we got to shout out what we've been geeking out on, and mine's been a weird trip.

Weird in the sense that, like, there's a lot of normal, but then a lot of, like, why did my brain do this? So I decided. I decided I couldn't.

I was trying to wait a month to get back into Kingdom Hearts because I was like, I'll get the one month without it because, you know, distance, heart, grow fonder, whatever. I didn't make it a month. I made it 23 days and then I've already beat Kingdom Hearts 2. It's been three days.

And the reason I did too is like I was going to play through them all. I was going to roll the dice and see what number came up, like a 10. It dies. I like, that's the Kingdom Hearts that I'll play.

And then I think I went with like 4 was Kingdom Hearts 2? Because I was trying to do them like chronologically or something. Anyway, then I played Kingdom Hearts.

I was like, you know, actually I just played Jakka Daxter last year and JAK2 might have been the best Jak game.

So I replaying it and then I'm gonna replay Ratchet and Clank 2 and then I'm gonna play the second Sly Cooper game and I'm just gonna go through all the twos of like the PlayStation 2 years. So the twos of PlayStation 2, that's what I'm geeking out on. Because my brain is weird. Christian, what have you been geeking out on, man?

What saddens me is I can see your logic.

Yeah. Yeah, it's weird. Yeah.

So I'm actually going to shout out something that Mark brought to my attention. I haven't finished it yet. I'm still only five chapters in. It releases monthly.

But Bug Ego is a new manga that's coming out every now and then, once again monthly. And it's all about the different ways that you may be able to hack the world, make these specific things happen.

Some are really mundane, some are really terrible. Some are kind of cool. So I'm interested to more because that could even be a potential episode.

Mark and I do later on probably TJ too, because he reads everything.

That would be. That'd be cool. Mark. Is that what you're geeking out on? Or you got something else you want to share?

I was actually gonna say Bug Ego. It takes forever for them to get episodes out. So I have been caught up for quite a while now. But of course, like dun dun dun.

Always a classic one to go to. Like Ichi the Witch has been really fun lately. It's gotten absolutely insane. I don't. It's like I don't even know what's going on.

Some of the chapters that have been coming out recently, so sometimes it's just like one big fight, bloody mess scene that's just like. You don't even really know what's going on in each panel. So that one's been kind of fun and interesting. So.

But mostly it's been more nonfiction books for me. I've Actually not been too much like the geek side of things lately. So a book called you'd Contamination.

If you went to theology beer camp, you may have met the authors of the book, but that's kind of what I've been geeking out lately.

Nice. Nice. Yeah, yeah. Will always likes to remind us that everybody geeks out on something.

So it might not be like your typical pop culture stuff because he talked about. He had a guy at his church once do a whole speech on stoplights because he was just super into stoplights. So everybody has something, man.

And I think that's a good thing to geek out on. We all need to be educated and maybe we'll bring up some of those books on our reading count sometime. Have you on one of those?

Do something a little bit non conventional for cismic ecology. I think it'd be fun. But for now, what is conventional?

As I go through the intro stuff, I tell you guys that we really appreciate people who rate and review our show wherever they get their podcasts.

It takes very little time and it does a lot to make our show recognized in the algorithm so that they're like, wait a minute, this is a show that other people like. And then we'll make other people see. The show helps us grow. It's free. It takes just moments. And we really appreciate.

We also appreciate all of our financial supporters. And we have to shout out, ethan, Overcast. Ethan, you rock.

Part of why I chose Ethan too is like, I got to somewhat be a part of a DND session that he did at Geek Camp last year that we're going to be a part of again this year at Lutheran. So if you guys want to go to Geek Camp, email us for some more details and we'll get that to you. And Ethan will probably be there.

So if you want to know who I'm shouting out, you can meet him. You can meet an official sponsor of Systematic Geekology and also maybe the host.

But the sponsors you can meet also, if you guys want your own shout out, you can become an official member of Systematic Geekology on our website. That's in the show's description down below. Wherever you're getting this, you can also get some free content. You can buy merch.

You can leave a one time financial gift. There's a lot of stuff you could do without becoming a member.

So if you don't want to be like subscribed, there's still a lot of stuff over there that's totally worth your time. So be sure to go over to the website and check stuff out.

Of course, if you want more of the Geeks on a Roll episode, the first one we did and the prequels to the series that we didn't know were prequels are going to be in a playlist with a link. Also, show's description There's a lot of stuff in the show's description.

If you're not reading the show notes, you're missing out on a lot, actually. But all that out of the way for now. We're gonna go ahead and jump in to today's episode. So starting off, we developed a catchphrase.

And by we, I think I mostly mean me while I was making a T shirt because I thought it looked cool.

And I remembered someone saying this at Theology Beer Camp once that it's important that we think of theology as play, because sometimes just playing and doing stuff and having fun is an act of embodied theology.

And I don't remember all the smart people words that were in that speech, but I remember that I really liked that phrase and that it felt right to me. So we're going to lean into it. We're going to lean into it.

As we were doing play, we're doing some role playing, some game, walking through a story together. So first, the one who's least likely to agree with things said at Theology Beer Camp, I'm going to throw it to Christian.

Why do you think that playing and teamwork might be such an important thing beyond just the enjoyment that we partake in doing so?

Christianity, it teaches us how to work together with other people. Well, I mean, you're on the playground and one kid wants to play one game, another one plays the other game. It can teach you compromise.

It can teach you how to adapt to something you're not big on.

There were times when I was on a playground in elementary school and I didn't know what the heck they were talking about because I hadn't watched a show at the time. It's like some kids wanted to play Digimon, other people wanted to play Dragon Ball Z.

And the shows that I did watch then it's like, yeah, I can play Dragon Ball Z. I haven't watched Digimon, so I can't do that. But what I can do is participate with you because I do like you. And maybe I'm not going to get into the show quite yet.

It'll be later on in college, but I can appreciate you love it. So let's work out there. Let's compromise. Let's actually have fun together. Even if I don't fully Understand what's going on.

Yeah, I felt that way many a time. And usually if I'm trying to do D and D, I felt that way for some reason. Champions, I understood a lot better.

And that was a way that our youth group, back when I was a good evangelical Pentecostal guy and I was a youth leader, and then when I was in youth, we actually did a lot of playing champions and would just get everybody together and we're developing a story together.

And it was like seeing the ecclesiology in action, not because, like, we were doing something deep Bible study, because, like, the church at its core is embodiment. It's being a body together in community. So I think that was always cool to me.

Mark, when you hear the phrase theology is play, what feelings does that invoke in you? What does that make you think of?

Yeah, I mean, if you're.

If you're looking at like role playing and stuff like that kind of like what Christian, you know, mentioned, that kind of removes you from real, real world, like circumstances and allows you to kind of see yourself as a third person, kind of like the ego, in a way, and allows you to navigate difficult, like circumstances or ideas or stuff like that, or in ways that you don't see as personal. So like Christian was saying, like, you. You can kind of remove your emot of it.

You can, you can see yourself subjectively and allow that to navigate the world and to interact with people in ways that you might not be able to interact with them in the real world.

As according to working with one another, like co op gameplay, it allows that kind of creativity to come forward where in real world circumstances you might not be able to have that creativity. And you can bring your experiences and this kind of creative theology and whatnot into the real world by experiencing it outside of the real world.

So, yeah, I think it's important to do this kind of stuff. Yeah.

Yeah. Actually, I had a couple other thoughts that might just be me being a crazy person. So take with grain of salt.

These are just what's on my head right now. You know, they might be like an hour later. I'm like, oh, that's why what I said was wrong. We'll see.

I think of, like a couple things, and I know we said not other than just the enjoyment we get, but I think that is part of the point. If we're thinking about theology, we think about who God is. You know, I think of like the phrase joy boy, you know, I think of like Jesus smiling.

Joy is the fruit of the Spirit. Like, I think you can't detach theology from joy, from pleasure. And that also makes me think, C.S.

lewis, he has the book Surprised by Joy and his testimonies. Like, he just had these moments where he felt something deeper and what he meant by joy and what we mean by like happy and fun, two different things.

But like, he felt those moments of deepness and that's what really called him to God in the long run. And I think when we play, we see that in each other. You're invoking a sense of joy in me. Like, we'll have a special moment while we're playing.

And I'm like, wait a minute. Not only is Mark just like a cool guy, but like, actually there's just more to him than just, oh, he's fun to be around, you know?

And I think we have some real moments when you do some of these kind of games. You're like, oh, wow, I would have never thought of that. Oh, I would have.

Like seeing this made up world through Christians eyes, I might be like, oh, wow. And develop a deeper appreciation for I think the parts of God in him, because, you know, we're all made in God's image kind of thing.

That's part of where I go then also part of my brain is like, I think for a long time part of what it means to be human is like we would go hunting together, we would do these warrior things together.

And like, society has kind of evolved past that, but I think we still have some need as humans to do some of this, like, teamwork, going out on mission stuff. And I think game a lot of time is really the best way that we can fulfill that innate human desire.

Because obviously it doesn't make sense for me to be like, hey guys, let's go hunt our dinner. And Christian's gonna be like, josh, I'm going to Publix. You know, like, what are you talking about?

But if I'm like, hey, let's play a game where we're gonna hunt chickens. He'll be like, that sounds like a weird game, but sure, yes, I'll.

So I just think that it fulfills a part of what it means to be human that's a little more difficult to figure out in our modern context, I think. But yeah. Do y' all think I'm crazy for that? Y' all think I'm crazy for that specifically.

Now you have to narrow it down. No, I don't think you're immensely crazy for that specifically.

Oh, okay. All right. So I think Christian, read ahead on the Outline. So I got to ask if he's read the story.

But we're going to be diving in with this story into some food detective work. We're going to borrow a lot of today's story from the Restaurant of Lost Recipes by Hisashi Kashiwa. I might be saying that incorrectly.

Does that sound like a correct pronunciation? Thing is, like, I read, and I'm just like, that's the word, and I don't pronounce it in my head.

And then I have to say it out loud when I talk to people like, huh? Anyway, Christian, it seems like you looked at the outline ahead of time. Have you read the story? Did you cheat?

No, I have never read the story before. I only read the parts I was supposed to read.

Perfect. Okay. So we're getting into some one piece, some omniverse craziness, characters from various fandoms. It's going to be a lot of fun.

So our annual theme this year is all about people like the faces behind us, the people that motivate the main characters in our favorite fandoms on Smack Ecology. So that's what our annual theme has been. This episode.

We're probably not going to get into a ton of that, but I think we're going to see how food can sometimes bring us all together, how it can be an inspiration for people, how sometimes the face behind someone's actually whoever prepared this meal that actually was meaningful, that brought people together, that did the stuff.

So now I think it's important that we take the time not just to appreciate the role that food has in theology, but also the role that our chefs and cooks out there play and bringing people together. So that's, you know, shout out to all the cooks out there. So I told you guys, this is the team.

I told you to pick one Shinto spirit, one detective, one chef from any of our favorite fandoms or cook.

And I also gave you a choice of another character that could either be Lara Craft, Helena Shaw, Ellen Ripley, Aqua from Kingdom Hearts, or Rivet from Ratchet and Clank.

We actually ended up going with two because I think TJ helped pick one, and then TJ left this episode, and then we got Mark, so we let Mark pick another one. So we have a team for you.

You want me to take over TJ's? Because I just took whatever was left.

Oh, no, no. You're all playing as a team, so it's fine. Yeah, yeah.

And the reason that I gave you all the choice of those five wasn't really anything deep with the story. It was. I wanted a female lead, and I wanted to make sure it was someone that I knew well enough that I could talk about. So.

Cool. Well, I know nothing about my characters.

Perfect. I took the challenge perfect.

So you guys have a team of five total, and we're gonna go through and let you guys tell us some about the characters that were chosen, what you think about them, why they were chosen. I know Mark wasn't a part of a lot of that process, but he can guess why you guys did that. That would be fun. Just guess.

So first up, I want y' all to tell me about the cook, chef you chose and the detective you chose for this team.

Yeah.

So not knowing there would be any one piece shenanigans here, when TJ and I were trying to figure out who we want as our chef, well, I was trying to think.

So Happy.

I had sent him a list of a couple characters, and he was like, I like that one. I don't like that one. But we both kind of agreed, like, oh, San Sanji's pretty well rounded. He's very adaptable to surroundings.

You know, you put him in and, you know, he'd be a little better if we. You know, Benjamin Sisko is a great chef, but is he what we need for this? You know, do we need Somoyukihiro Charity Carpenter from the Dresden Files?

No. Sanji's kind of our guy.

Yeah.

I was kind of hoping you guys would either pick Sanji from One Piece or Shinchi from Delicious and Dungeon or someone from the Bear, just because I think that would be interesting. Just something completely different out there. Yeah. Mark, do you watch One Piece? Are you familiar with Sanji?

Yeah, Yeah, I like Sanji. Sanji's good character.

You want to add anything about Sanji's role?

You think Christian guy, loves food, loves women. That's not his character.

And who can blame him? All right, for the detective, we got Batman on this team. Tell me something about Batman. I've never heard of this guy.

Public domain character no one's ever heard about. Yeah, same thing. We were deciding, like, okay, for the detective, I mean, do we just want to do the best of the best?

We want the world's greatest detective. So we threw out L from Death Note. We threw Naoto Shiragane from Persona 4, Sherlock Holmes, of course. But you know what they don't have?

They're not Batman. Everyone falls short compared to Batman. So we decided, you know what? We'll make our detective Batman.

I like it. I like it. There's so many options. I would have loved. I do love Batman. I also would have loved Sherlock Holmes.

There's a few others I think would have been cool. They interesting if you would have done like a paranormal one. Just would have been curious. You know, there's a lot of paranormal detectives.

Okay, so we got our cook, we got our detective. Let's go through. When I gave you, like, the random choices of female characters.

Christian, you and TJ chose Aqua from Kingdom Hearts, and then Mark chose Rivet from Magic Link that he knows nothing about. So I want to hear our thought process.

I googled Rivet, by the way.

Nice.

That's all you need? Honestly, that's all you need.

I don't know anything about her either, so this is going to be very interesting.

I'm so excited. For those who don't know, Ratchet, Clanking, Kingdom Arts are my all time favorite games.

So just really funny that Rivet's here and you have no idea why. And then there's Aqua. So, Christian, tell me why y' all chose Aqua.

Yeah, when TJ and I were making that list too, he wanted either Ellen Ripley or Aqua. You know, both awesome ladies for different reasons.

But I figured at the end of the day, wouldn't it be better not knowing what we were getting into to have, like, someone who had experienced a lot more things and was once again, adaptability is something I appreciate a lot in the team.

And having a lot of people like, you know, Keyblade Master who lived for 10 years in the realm of darkness and suffered through a lot there, and yet, you know, hasn't lost completely her way and now has come back into where she can look after Kyrie and stuff like that. You have a solid friend.

I have a solid teacher, very capable, the most versatile out of, you know, your three characters in Birth by Sleep, so why not choose Aqua? Yeah.

Also, there's that unfair advantage of, like, knowing you're chosen. One of my favorite characters from my favorite franchises.

And I'm not like, a good writer like Christian who's like, I admit my characters have weaknesses. I'm the kind of writer that's like, it's Aqua. What? You said that she. She flexed her finger and everyone died. Okay, yeah, that worked.

But a little bit of cheating. I shouldn't have let that be an option, but it's fine. Okay, last up.

I don't know why I made you guys choose a Shinto spirit knowing that, like, I'm terrible at pronouncing things and this whole story is gonna be in Japan and I'm terrible at pronouncing things.

There's a group of white guys trying to pronounce Japanese chops.

Yeah, it's a. Have you guys heard the song from Lonely Island? That's Japan. And the whole song, literally, it's just three cool white guys in Japan.

That's us right now. Oh, man. Yeah. Tell us about the spirit you chose.

So I didn't understand initially what you meant by spirit, whether you meant, like, more of a yokai or a guardian spirit of sorts. So going through and researching, I knew kami is a multifaceted term in Japan. It can mean, like, kami sama, as in the God.

It can be a kami as in a God or a kami that's just like, this wood spirit or what have you. And TJ and I were like, well, let's throw the heavy hitters out there, and let's see what happens.

So I proposed Amaterasu, Fujin, Hachiman, Namazu, and Raijin. He did Susanoo, Ryujin, and Tsukiyomi. And I think it came down to either Susanoo or Amaterasu.

And we ultimately chose Amaterasu, who, you know, he knows more than I on the backstory here on the mythology. Like, I appreciate Jasmine's Vasali, but it's not like I don't know it as well as, like, Greek or Norse or what have you there.

So she is one of the top goddesses in some forms of Shintoism, where she and her brother and get into a lot of shenanigans, shall we say?

Yeah. I gotta be honest. I think what happened was I didn't put a lot of thought into who I was asking to choose this.

And my brain was like, what I know about Shinto is that it's, like, a way of being, and that they have this whole belief that there's a spirit in everything. So I was thinking you guys were gonna come at me with, like, spirit of the woods or spirit of office desks.

You know, something not something really super specific with a lot of power. And then I was like, wait a minute. I asked TJ and Christian. I should have known this is what was gonna happen.

I almost felt for the sake of not having a named person to do Namazu, which is, like, this giant catfish that lives under Japan and causes earthquakes. We didn't think that would be very controllable within a story.

That's fair. That's fair.

You're, like, having wild magic.

Yeah, exactly. Could go off at any time.

So let me preemptively.

I want to let on some of the theological, deeper themes that I think we might be able to explore by playing this together that we are going to talk about later. But I want to like preemptively get us all thinking while we play about some stuff. The power of food to calm, inspire and bring people together.

I think we could touch on spiritual realities, maybe spiritual warfare, depending on how things go. If peace is a possible goal or if it's just something that we're constantly attaining for that'll never be achieved.

And then how we choose to cooperate with the local communities, whether in evangelism, missiology, just in life, you know, etc. So those are the things I think we could come up on with, like themes that we might want to discuss later.

But we'll discuss it after we play and we'll see what we all played out with. Our beliefs or feelings and our personalities all playing a role in this. The rules here are the new rules for the game.

So to craft a story together, the GM and players are going to both. We're going to try to trust and respect each other and say yes.

And rather than no, you can't as much as we can when we have disagreements, we can roll, but there will only be seven rolls and two coin flips because we got to keep this short. The gm, myself, I'm allowed to choose when two of the rolls take place. If I'm like, I'm not sure about that one, let's roll and see.

And I get the two coin flips are my call and they'll be just a 50, 50 if it worked or not. You guys can choose when to use the other five roles.

If you're like, ah, I think Josh is full of it on this, we'll roll and I get to decide what the roles mean or when it's mine. And I'll let you guys decide what the roles mean when it's yours.

And we'll try to take into account, you know, who you have on your team, what, you know, advantages you may have or not have to the roles. We'll consider that as we go through.

There's always going to be some sort of theological, philosophical puzzle, theology kind of play that we're going to be doing. And this is going to be food. And I think of eating coming together as a type of theology.

I just, I put a little, I put a really high value on sharing a meal personally.

And there's going to be at the end, again, I mentioned before, there's going to be a slide for the potential bonus points so you guys don't know what these side objectives are. But at the end, if you happen to have done these things, you could get up to 10 extra points when we get your score.

Now, before we play, I want to know what role each of your team members are playing.

If you think like this person's going to be the lead, this person's going to be more backup, and then what do you think the team would call themselves? So we got a team of five here. Mark, do you want to take a stab at any of these? Since I know Chris and I have just done so much talking.

I mean, my. My initial say would be Batman. Just because he's taken a leader role. Like Justice League own respective world and comics.

I don't know too much about the Kingdom Hearts Woman and the Japanese spirit. I wouldn't assume there would be a leadership role, but more supportive maybe, but I don't know. That would be my guess. Batman.

Christian, what do you think?

Yeah, I was kind of imagining this be a co leadership of Batman and Aqua Batman minutes within meeting these people. I mean, he's Batman. He can scan anyone better than Sherlock Holmes. And he's figured out, does it get Sanji to do anything?

Sanji will probably do something, but if he has a woman telling him something to do. Game, set, match.

That's right. Sanji's fawning over Aqua the whole time.

That would actually be.

Oh, that's so funny. I didn't even think about. That's wonderful. Chef's kiss.

So I'm thinking, thinking co leadership between those two. Let's see. I don't know rivet that well, but I imagine based on what little I do know of Ratchet and Clank, she seems mechanically minded.

Yeah. So yeah, she's gonna be more mechanic, more your firepower. The biggest difference between her and Ratchet.

So she's like an alternate dimension version of Ratchet in the Ratchet and Clank games. I think the biggest difference is she's come from a world where dictatorship has won, where fascism is the rule of the land.

So she's the same as Ratchet, but she comes from that world, which has actually softened her in a lot of ways. So whereas Ratchet, just like all going straightforward all the time, she's a little bit more cautious. Not.

Not that I would say she's a cautious person, but she's definitely more cautious than Ratchet. She's still like fun loving. She'd probably still be the life of the party here, but she's. You can just tell more dramatically Yeah.

A lot more tempered. Yeah.

She'd have that empathy. Not that toxic empathy.

Yeah.

And this is why I wish TJ was here. Because I remember very little of Amaterasu's story.

I don't know of.

It's been quite some time. I know her and Susanoo go on adventures together. I know there's something about the underworld eventually.

And she is used to being worshiped as a goddess, so I don't think she goes for the leadership role. But I think she knows I have a part to play here, so I'll support.

Yeah. Yeah.

And if that's entirely wrong, I get the mythology wrong. You come at me.

Yeah. Guys, feel free to leave the comments.

Down below about how I'm wrong. I'll take it.

And I'm not even going to attempt to say her name. I'm just going to say Sun Goddess. I apologize in advance. I just think it'll be more disrespectful me to mispronounce it the whole time.

So that's what I'm going with here. So with that in mind, I'm going to be using your goddess character at the beginning. And I apologize, but let me see if I can pull this up.

We're just going to do away with pretense here. I'm not going to come up with a reason why all these characters are in the same universe. They are. Okay.

The people of Japan are under attack from Big mom from One Piece. She is wanting a Japanese Christmas cake. And everyone they've thrown at her has just been the wrong cake. And she's just getting angry.

She's stomping on things. She's just devouring places. The people prayed to the spirits. They were praying to the spirits of Japan, and the spirits gave them Harrison Ford.

And he's like, I don't. What. What am I doing here? He prays and he comes in contact with Sun Goddess.

If someone wants to say your name, they can, but I'm just gonna roll with the rasu. There we go. And she then informs him that she has a team. So she gets with your leaders, Aqua and Batman. They come together.

They're answering the call. What Harrison Ford and the people of Japan have decided together in cooperation. There is an island off the coast.

They have told Big mom that that is where the Christmas cake is. They have the cake. It's over there. So she has been diverted to go that way. So she's distracted temporarily.

I don't remember my reason for this, but they're afraid she's. Oh. Because the first time she had the cake was in Kyoto. That's what it was. So she's going to go to Kyoto. She's right outside of Japan at the time.

They're diverting her to an island. But she thinks she knows that the first place she had that cake was in Kyoto. So that's where she was going to go. That's what's going on here.

They've diverted her.

What they want to do is give her the cake, something to calm her rather than having a giant war in the middle of Japan and there being a lot of collateral damage. So they're trying to find a way to just calmer. That's all they want to do. And they can't figure this cake out. That's where we're at.

Harrison Ford has asked you with the world's greatest detective. Can you please figure out what this cake is so we can get her the correct cake?

Yeah, yeah.

Not even responsibility.

Not even Indiana Jones. Not Han Solo. Harrison Ford.

This just reminds me of that one Robot Chicken sketch where he sent off an asteroid's about to hit Earth. It's like you were in that one movie, right? You can, you can lead this mission. Guys, I'm a 60 year old actor. I can't do this. You know what? He's fine.

They're probably paying him. So Mark, what are you thinking here? How are we going to approach this?

I left out a detail. I do apologize. Harrison Ford has been informed.

He doesn't know how much truth to it is or anything, but he said the only clue he asked for you is that apparently there is a family in Kyoto who swears that they have had this cake before. That is the only hint they have at what the hell Big Mom's talking about with this Japanese Christmas cake.

Because like they made the traditional one and it's just not it. That's not what she wants. Sorry. Now, sorry. I apologize that I missed that detail.

Probably important thinking specifically of it being in Japan. We probably have to look at specific Japanese ingredients. So probably have to make our way to probably some chefs and bakers.

Maybe even call out some like, you know, Michelin star chefs and whatnot. Sanji might be a good way to test certain ingredients.

But as far as trying to locate and find ingredients now, Joshua, do we have to like, do we have to try to slow down, slow down her like assault on Japan? Is she like causing havoc or anything?

Well, right now the diversion seems to be working. She's heading to this island. But they don't actually have the cake on this island. So that's not going to end well.

Okay, so there's a couple things I want to bring up real quick. One, not known by many people.

Batman isn't really a wee, but he knows enough because there's one specific comic where they're going to Japan, and he gives Martian Manhunter the alias of Rei Hino, AKA Sailor Mars. You know, Martian Manhunter, Sailor Mars. So he's got enough knowledge there.

He also has, you know, the other Bat family who's a little younger, so they may be in the One Piece. That could be an advantage here.

We also have Sanju, who's literally from One Piece, so depending on where in Sanji's journey we have here, he could have relevant information about her. Especially, you know, since, you know, he was supposed to be married off to her family. Once again, this depends on when we have Sanji.

You were just going to say current Sanji.

I'm not caught up, but I'm going to say sure, and know that that's risky. Yes. And hooray.

So I think I'm trying to think other characters involved with this. I don't remember if Amaterasu ever had, like, visions or anything like that or anything that would be applicable to this scenario.

Aqua is an outsider here. Her whole role is to try and fit into wherever she's at. Rivet would definitely not know anything about Big mom or anything there.

No.

Am I forgetting someone?

Did you mention Aqua?

I said Aqua. Yeah, I said everyone.

So.

Yes. So what Sanji knows is that they can make two separate plans here.

They can make the one plan where they try and make this cake by going to this place in Kyoto. Batman can figure out where they are because he's Batman. And two.

Oh, you know where they are.

Okay, good. Two, he can let the JSDF know that Devil Fruit users can't swim. So if they can connive a way for her to be unable to swim, they could drown her.

So that's the backup plan. Yeah, I think we're focusing more on harmony and all that first.

So that'll be like, if everything else fails, you know, just send a missile or whatever and knock whatever ship she's on and make sure she falls into the depths. But, you know, because we're promoting peace and whatnot, because we're good people, I guess. Let's start with the first option.

She seems to be riding it, if.

You'Re fine with that.

She seems to be riding a cloud. So you starting with the first option, or are you splitting up into splitting the Team up. What are we?

Like, what do you think, Marshall? They all stay together and, like, tell, like, the Japanese Defense Force that this is a possibility, that a way they could take her out if all goes.

Wrong, I don't have a problem with them splitting up. I think we should be strategic about splitting them up. I don't think it should be everyone in every single direction.

I think we should split them up into groups of maybe, like, two, three or two to one or something like that.

I think for right now, let's just let them know the relevant information that they know about Devil Fruit users. And we can all go to Kyoto. If something goes wrong there, then maybe discuss splitting up if that might help even the odds elsewhere.

So they go to Kyoto.

Everybody. Everybody's going to Kyoto.

Yeah.

All right, cool. So you're in Kyoto. I assume you're gonna start with a family or. Yeah.

Batman will interview the family. Coming out of the shadows in the middle of a bright day somehow.

Yeah. Okay. So this family owns their own restaurant. They remember this cake because their son loved this cake, who has passed away.

And unfortunately, they have also been in search for the same Japanese Christmas cake because they saw Big mom there once, and they all enjoyed the cake. They know what cake she's talking about because they ate at the same place she did. It was a restaurant known as St. Nuts that no longer exist.

It has been shut down. The owners have passed away, but that is where the cake was made.

They remember it vividly, and they have never been able to recreate it, but they do give you a few hints. There was a strong aroma to it. Very fruity. The cream itself was real fruity.

It was a French style, which was kind of weird for a Japanese Christmas cake. But, you know, Saint Nut was a French name for the restaurant, which means a hundred nights. The cake was fluffy, but it had a crunch somehow.

It was like, a slight crunch to it, which is weird. Most Japanese Christmas cakes don't have that. It's usually all soft, so that's what we got. So fruity, crunchy, Strong aroma.

Strong aroma.

Fluffy and crunchy. Yeah. French style. French style, too.

Pretty French. So it's evil.

French is evil.

Yes.

What? Oh, I don't want to use one of my dice here. I'm just gonna decide. Yeah, well, Aqua senses. Because they're all together, right? It's not just Batman.

Okay. Aqua also senses there is a great.

There's a spirit of, like, darkness, of, like, loss that seems to be associated not just with the family, but especially when they talk about the cake. So there's something about loss, sadness that is involved here.

It seems that even when they describe it, that maybe sadness itself was part of the recipe. She's thinking. She obviously can't tell. She knows there's something there. She also has experience loss, so she resonates with that. In keyblade stuff.

Why not?

So it's not that she's sensing a presence. She's sensing something that might be involved in the process of making the cake.

Yeah, she senses that about the cake itself.

So there's no, like, Specter or anything nearby?

No, no. She just can tell. Something about the cake itself seems to also involve loss.

Okay.

Aqua Census said.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. How long ago did they die?

The owners or their. The families?

The previous restaurant where this cake was.

Made, at about seven years.

Seven years. Okay. So we're still in the digital age. That's good. Mark, do you have something you want to say?

I'm wondering if Amaratsu or Amaratirasu, the sun goddess. I'll just say that I wonder if she has any intuition about this. Being a sun God is kind of like a spirit.

If she has any connection with the spiritual, if she were to get close to the business, walk around or, you know, kind of float around. I don't know how it floats or walks. But is she able to sense anything on her end as well around the.

Family'S business, or are you trying to find the place that the other business was shut down at?

As far as, like, loss, any. I mean, you said there weren't any, like, spirits around, but remnants of. Of emotion and whatnot.

But which business is she trying to sense?

Oh, I thought we were still at the business where the family's business.

Oh, no, you haven't been to that business yet. Oh, you're at the family's business. You're at the family's restaurant who had the son that died seven years ago.

So, I mean, obviously she's gonna sense his loss, but I assume you probably would rather go to where the other business used to be.

I was trying to remember. Amaterasu herself isn't associated with the underworld, but Susanoo, for a time was in there, her brother. So I'm not going to go that way.

I was just for my own use.

I think our best bet is to use Batman's technological prowess here and have him, even if he needs to use Japanese Wayback Finder Archive machine to see if that place had its own restaurant. Excuse me. Menu. And then narrow down what this could potentially be based on. The menu Items.

So are we not doing the thing where the spirits trying to fill out the other spirits?

No, I actually like what Christian's progress here is. I think his idea is a good way to move forward with this. So I think using technology like you said, use Wayback Machine.

Trying to use technology to find out old menus and that sort of thing.

Okay. He finds the. The menu. There is no Japanese Christmas cake on this menu. Makes no sense at all.

But, you know, all over the digital menu, there are still images of the Buddha, Siddhartha and Fukakusa, which I don't know if Batman would know who that was, but I assume he's able to computers. And he's like, okay, wait a minute. There's a story about this guy. He probably can figure that out, right?

What is in, like, the emperor go Fukakusa.

I don't know. That I don't know. I only know this one particular story that he's in.

Okay, fair enough. Would it be a history check to see if he'd know any relevance there?

Yeah. Do you wanna. You wanna do a roll check?

Sure. I'm good with it.

All right. We're using one of our five rolls. This is for Batman specifically. He's smart, but he hasn't spent a ton of time in Japan. He spent some time.

Not a ton, but he's smart. He studied as a ninja with his advantage. I think if you get 12 or over, I think we're gonna say he's got it. Okay. Does that sound fair?

That's fair.

He got a three.

Okay.

That's unfortunate.

So super specific time in Japanese history, so guess not.

Wait, though. I think the spirit probably would know Amaterasu.

Yeah, I mean, she's lived her whole life there.

She's not Buddhist, but she knows about the spiritual world. She knows about stories, so she's going to recall. Fukakasu is famous for a story called A Hundred Nights, which is st.

Nuts is the French word for 100 nights. So it makes sense. So this is the story that the restaurant was named after. And it involved kind of love.

Like, sort of like a love triangle from my understanding, but involved again. Guys, I don't know how to pronounce names, but Komachi and Sosho, who were saved by the Buddha.

And I'm gonna call him Fuk because I'm just not gonna try to pronounce his whole name. Fook basically ends up in a situation where Komachi tells him if he is willing to visit her 100 nights, that she's Going to marry him.

So naturally, he goes night after night till the hundred and ninth, and that's kind of how it goes. He had to visit her 100 nights, and there's a bunch of little mini stories in between. But that's what the story is about.

It's a love story where this man was told that if he visits every night for 100 nights, that she would marry him.

Do we know the name of their son? The original, the first owners we go to?

No, and I don't want to make up a Japanese name because I'm afraid to do that.

Okay. That tells me not as relevant.

Okay, yeah, his name was Mark Flower. Yeah.

They were huge Westaboos.

No, it's fine. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right. So he's probably not tied with this, given the dismissive nature of that, because I'm the world's greatest detective now.

Batman is now Investigating me, the GM.

Yeah.

Is there anything within the 100 night story that would pertain to any dessert of any kind?

Not that I am aware of.

Okay.

But I will just, you know, break the third wall and say it is extremely relevant to figuring out the mystery, though.

All right, well, guess who's studying 100 nights. The glory and Batman.

Do we have the time for that? Do we? Are we not afraid of Big mom making it back in time before we solve this?

Then no one gave us a countdown, did they?

No. We don't know how long it's gonna take her.

I mean, Batman is Batman. You don't think he can speed read this sucker within an hour or two?

Come on. You can just use a little AI.

Or you can even use all of his gadgets to read it for him.

I'm gonna roll. I'm using one of my rolls for this. To see if he has enough time again, because he is Batman. Huge advantage.

I think as long as you get 5 or higher, I'm gonna say he's able to do it. It's Batman. You know, you got five incredible. All right. He barely does it. All right, so time won't be a factor for now. Yeah. So he's reading through.

He discovers he read through the story. Now, I'm gonna have to use a coin flip, as he knows the story really well. But is he able to figure out the other twist here? I.

By the way, I just want to let everybody know, if you're watching, you'll see this. I'm using the pirate medallion as my coin. Yeah, yeah, that just. I'm that geek. So. Heads. He's gonna learn some Other alternative information.

Tails, he won't be able to figure this out. Here we go.

Okay.

Heads. Awesome. But when he was looking it up, trying to read it, he realized there was multiple versions of the story.

And Batman, being Batman, was like, I want to know specifically what is the version that they tell in Kyoto? Because obviously, it being a Buddha story, there's Chinese version. There's a bunch of different versions.

In the Kyoto version, Fook does not get the girl. He dies on the 99th day. It's a tragic story in the telling of Kyoto. And in doing so, I'm using my second flip here, using both, right? For this.

Heads, he's gonna learn Tails, he's not gonna learn Tails. All right, so all he knows is that that is the version in Kyoto, unfortunately, did not Google enough to stumble upon the other thing. Poor Batman.

It's okay. He's doing pretty well for himself.

So with all this in mind, telling Sanji this information, does anything spark within him of, like, maybe a previous recipe he might have heard about or something thinks he could whip up if need be?

Sanji is distraught that the man never got the girl. He wants to know what's happening to the girl. He is just obsessed with this story. And he's like, food is always story. He knows that.

Like, that's what food is, I think Sanji. I'm not even gonna roll for it. Sanji is just so in tune with everything here. He's like, there's no way this is how it ends.

What about that restaurant? Did they have a child? They do. Batman's Batman. They do, yes. And that child has a restaurant that they opened that.

Guess what it's called the French version of 99 nights instead of a hundred nights. Because, you know, that's the version that Kyoto knows. So Sanji figures this that part out basically just because he's so attached to the story.

That's what I'm gonna go with. And he knows Japanese Christmas cakes. It's a beautiful thing.

It's inspired from France delicacies, but the Japan has made it its own, and there shouldn't be a crunch. That's the thing that's bothering Sanji the most about this. Why was there a crunch? That doesn't make any sense.

So in a normal recipe, that crunch wouldn't be in there.

Oh, no. He is baffled on why that's a thing.

So he knows what the is, but does he know what the actual French cake is for the original recipe without the crunch?

Yeah. He knows how to make a Japanese Christmas cake.

He doesn't know why this one's special, but he did figure out what restaurant the original owner's child opened up through the story. And he knows that the weirdest thing about it, to him that just shouldn't be part of this is the cake having a crunch. Yeah.

Okay, so we have every part of the recipe except for that part and the sadness. How you could transfer sadness into a meal.

The spirit knows about the sadness. She sensed it as you were here. Yeah, she is gonna sense it because I liked that idea.

Okay.

The sadness comes from the story. The story is part of the food, part of the recipe. If you don't have the story, you don't have the food. And the tragic loss that 99 days.

He made it, but he couldn't make it that 100th time.

So it comes from the knowledge of the story itself and the way you can pour yourself into making the dish itself. Otherwise, if someone else tried to replicate it, it wouldn't be the same.

Yes. Yeah, exactly. It needs to be made by someone who deeply connects with and feels the story. If you know anyone.

We do have one now, but we're missing the crunch, though.

Yes, yes.

So do you think we should track down that daughter in that restaurant, Mark?

Yeah, I think we should track them down right now with this whole, like, shift from the 100 to the 99. Honestly. Reminds me of Matthew 18, the parable of the lost sheep. I wonder if that has anything to do with it. Bringing a little theology with it.

But I know Christianity is still a thing in Japan, and I don't know if that has anything to do with this recipe at all. I'm probably way off target with this.

I don't want to discount that because I like that idea, but Japan's population of Christians is less than 2% of the total population, so it's not an impossibility.

My counter is. Do you think your GM is smart enough that he knew about that? I think your GM might be stupid.

I'm sorry that I think highly enough of you to where you could have put this in there, but I have to be lowering my expectations.

It's just my warning. Lowering your expectations a lot. I'm not that smart.

I guess we can. We can cross that one off the list.

It's up to you.

Yeah, let's go visit. Let's go visit this other location here.

Okay.

All right. Because I forgot to write down the French. We're just going to call it the 99 nights. We all speak English. It's fine.

The owner granddaughter actually of the Hundred Nights restaurant. She does recall something unique about this recipe.

She isn't sure if this has anything to do with the crunch, but she does know that her grandparents recipe for the traditional Japanese Christmas cake they ate every year was different. She kind of remembers a crisp layer to the bottom part of the cake.

And she remembers her grandparents telling them a story of American troops being stationed outside of Kyoto and how most of them were cruel, not very kind. But there was a few that were really kind to them and their family who would visit the restaurant and even sometimes would help cook on a busy day.

And the grandpa told them about how they would make an American cake and he heard that and he actually incorporated that into how he prepared the bottom. It's a two layer cake, the bottom layer of the cake.

So that might be the crunch, but she knows that was he her grandfather described as crispy though not crunchy. But she does recall that.

Okay, well, Sanji obviously doesn't know our world's nationalities and their dishes. So what do you think if Batman could research potentially what this might be?

Batman goes to chef mode.

I mean the man for many years before he became Batman, he had to learn cooking along the way. That's it. That's literally one of his skills too. He is a great chef.

All right. Okay. I am using my last roll. So I've used both of my flips. One of my roles. This will be my last roll. You only used 1 of 5 of yalls roll.

You must have mostly agreed with me this episode to see if Batman has enough time to figure this out. Oh, a 12. I was only making him do a five or higher still. I didn't say that, but so he definitely has enough time still.

So you still are okay on the time somehow maybe. The silo is far away. The Batman figures out how the American especially the military used to be make their cakes. They found a cheaper way to make it.

They would use a biscuit style cake. So he's thinking, doing the research, it's possible and in fact Batman smart.

He's going to ask Sanji, would it make a difference of crisp and crunch if the cake wasn't just prepared differently but was actually a different style? Batman's looking into it. The granddaughter's still there.

I'm assuming you're talking to the restaurant because I want this to move along and granddaughter's gonna chime in with a oh, that's right. I remember when my parents used to make it. It was a little different than when my grandparents did.

Her parents also made it they just weren't the grandparents that owned the restaurant. She does remember it being a little different. She didn't like it as much. That might be the crunch.

Also, she went ahead and told you the other stuff earlier. I didn't tell you all this, but it was pizza juice that caused the aroma. Batman's a detective. He asked all the questions. We already did this.

I just forgot to tell you guys the information. Peach juice in the icing is what caused the different aroma. Usually it's all strawberries. There's not usually peach involved.

But Kyoto with Japan, with Batman's great Japanese knowledge. Kyoto used to be really famous for having peaches in that particular area a long time ago. They haven't had it in a while.

So peach juice was actually involved in the icing. It's what made it smell fruitier than a normal Japanese Christmas cake. So that accounted for the aroma.

And.

We already have the biscuit base for the bottom. Do we already come for everything? You got the sadness. We got the French style. You got the crunch. You got the fruity cream and the arona. Okay. Yeah.

So you figured out all of the pieces to make this cake. Now you just need someone who is deeply connected to the story to be able to make it with the correct spirit in the food.

Sanji feeling the immense loss of a woman who didn't get to have her man.

I think maybe, if you're okay with it, maybe even Batman while he's making it, is like leaning over Sanji retelling the story just to drive him crazy.

Oh, absolutely.

And on the 99th night, he died. He never got to be with his love.

And I don't know. We haven't let Rivet do anything. She like the sous chef or something? Is she competent at doing that?

Yeah, she's pretty good. She got the mechanical arm, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I think a woman being there would motivate Sanji even more.

There we go. Perfect. Well, you have the cake ready. You're getting it all stationed up. Big Mom's already on her way back.

She's discovered the cake wasn't on the island. She's rageful. She's coming back to Kyoto pissed off. But you're ready with the cake.

You're ready to soothe her with this cake, when all of a sudden, on the other side of Japan.

So she is coming from the west, from the east comes none other than Godzilla, who sensed something was wrong with Spirits of Japan, and he's come to make it right. So now you have Godzilla coming from one Side, Big mom coming from the other, you have the cake.

But now it seems that these two are destined to collide. Right over Kyoto, the very place you're trying to keep from having too much collateral damage. That's why you made the whole cake in the first place.

Harrison Ford is very aggravated at Godzilla right now.

For Big mom, it's got to be a big cake.

Do we have enough time to make a second cake?

I mean, I don't have any rolls or flips yet, so if you think you have enough time. I mean, I, I, I want to say yes. Let's just say yes.

Yeah, I mean, Batman's got his tools, gadgets. We got, we got.

Rivet's got a whole arsenal. She's got a. We have a little shotgun with rockets in it. Yeah.

Aqua is always good at defining foes bigger than herself. So we could use them as a stalling measure at the very least, because I don't know if there's.

Unless Batman could create a way to talk to Godzilla off the fly, which I highly doubt. We may be able to use them as diversion, but that leaves Sanji by himself. Do we trust Sanji by himself with Big Mom? Actually, you know what?

I'm going to say I do. Because he's heard the story, he's prepared it well. His cooking, that's everything about who he is.

And for him to screw this up would be very out of character for him. He wants her to have the meal.

Or just giving up and just letting things fly. Like, if he can do it, he'll do it. So.

Yeah, I agree. I agree. All right. I. Who it being? Godzilla. But you have the Sun Goddess, so I think, I think collectively, you probably could hold him off.

Do you guys want to roll and see? You haven't used all five roles. I'm trying to see. What are you trying to do? Are you just trying to slow him down or are you trying to.

The goal is diversion. Slow down. If, if possible, incapacitate, but highly unlikely for that one. So I'm just saying. What do you say? Just diversionary, Mark.

Yeah, diversionary works.

Same thing with the group you have being so awesome. What if we say three or higher? The diversion works. Is that cool?

That works for me.

I mean, y'. All. Second roll somehow. Only two. Thirteen. You, you super slow on lucky number 13. Let's roll again for Sanji. Since we haven't rolled enough 2.

He gets to roll again? Yeah, he's fine. You got a 20 the second time it averages out, guys. There you go. Sanji. Trips on his way. That was the two.

But so Big mom makes it to Japan, but she doesn't make it to Kyoto. And of course he stops her. He says, please, I've made it. It's this perfect cake. He even tells her the stories.

Like, this is why it means so much, because Sanji has to tell a story. He has to get the food to her. He's feeling it passionately. And of course it sues Big Mom. Big mom is now calmed all the way down.

You still have Godzilla. He's being detained, but probably not forever. But that's where we're at.

But wasn't the whole thing is he was upset because other the spirits were upset that Big mom was about to attack.

He was upset because he could tell the spirits were disturbed. So I think.

Okay, well, now that she's.

Yeah, she's calmed down, she's been soothed. You have a sun goddess. So I think the sun goddess could probably explain to him too. Calm him down. Yeah. All right. So I think it calms him down. Are we.

Are we doing anything else? We're letting Big mom go now that she's calmed. Are we gonna try and confront or anything?

But.

Well, they're probably gonna ask what her intentions are from now on. Also how she got here.

She's gonna. She's gonna build the ultimate pirate empire and rule this world.

Okay, okay. Well, that's a dime a dozen for Batman. Kind of with oxygen.

Already had her cake and eaten.

Oh, yeah, she's calmed down now.

At this point.

Right now, she's calmed down. Godzilla went away. The immediate danger. And everything's already been settled. Rivet doesn't see any need for us to care anymore, probably.

So I'm trying to think of something here, Mark of a way to reveal they know about her weakness without, like, pissing her off as a way of like, saying, hey, we know how to take you down. But, like, we want to live once again, for the purposes of this video, in harmony with one another. Can we avoid this happening?

Citizens of Japan as well?

Yeah, it's like, hey, something like, you know, we can continue to help satisfy, you know, your culinary needs. Just stay here. Don't worry about that fanciful stuff. You know, the world, the more they learn about you, the more scared they're going to be.

They could even figure out that. How to take you out. We don't want that.

Do you think you were able to convince her pretty, pretty handily to just kind of calm down and maybe live a peaceful life outside of Kyoto?

Honestly, this Is literally like a 50. 50.

Yeah, give her some land. I mean, we could even suggest the Japanese hot springs where those monkeys are 10 or higher.

Yeah, let's go with that's 50. 50, right? Ah, five. She's not buying it.

Okay, well, negotiations have failed, so I guess Batman will step in and say, okay, you can create your new empire, your new pirate empire. But, like, just give us a couple months.

So he's. He's gonna do his planning thing, come up with a plan to detain her once she's on a ship, or maybe even booby trap the ship or something like that.

Yeah, well, not to take her out, because Batman doesn't kill, but, you know, to incapacitate and imprison.

Got it. Well, he's Batman. I can't force any more roles. So if you think it's successful on the basis that he's Batman, I'm willing to accept that.

She got trapped forever on a ship after she tried to launch her pirate empire.

Batman is used to working with crazy people he's fighting against, so I think this gives him an edge.

Yeah. Yeah.

If you're fine with that, Mark works for me.

Okay, so you calmed Godzilla. The spirits were eased. You had the Sun Goddess there, and you got her the cake. So she calmed down.

You planned ahead, let her try to build a pirate empire, and imprisoned her on her own ship. Bravo. Applause. Well done. Well done. Let's take a look. Let's take a look at our bonus points.

See how many you guys got before we do the rest of the rating here. Here. At one point, if you never left Kyoto to discover the recipe, I don't think you did, did you? We stayed there. All right, so that's one.

Two.

If you calmed both Big mom and Godzilla, with minimal damage to the cities. I don't think there was any damage to the cities.

Nice.

We're at three. If you permanently detain Big mom, you get another three points. So we're at six. Almost five.

You were able to get Godzilla to help restrain train Big Mom. So we didn't get number five, but that's fine. That's fine. Yeah. Six is still pretty darn good for bonus points. I feel like.

So we're gonna get a plus six. And now you guys have to just roll with my judgments. Okay, Mission status. I don't. I can't think of a way not to make it a 10 like you.

You did all the things, you know, like, you got the cake. Big mom didn't destroy literally anything. Harrison Ford even smiled at the end of this. I don't like giving 10 out. I don't like giving 10 out of 10.

But, like, I can't think of any reason you don't get it on this teamwork. I like, I really. I can't think of any, like, real conflict here because, like, Batman's not going to hit on any of the ladies.

None of the ladies are going to be offended that Sanji wants to hit on them. Aqua is so too sensible to really, like, butt heads with Batman. I, like, I feel like, personality wise, they're. They're pretty different.

So it's not like they're all going to leave the best of friends.

No.

But, like, they're. They're working well together. I'm going to give it a nine. This is.

I don't know. I think we kind of left Rivet out, though. I mean, we did have her help out make the cake a little bit, but he probably felt a little bit left out.

No, I don't think we give a perfect score.

I don't think that was our fault.

I'm gonna give it an eight. I'm gonna give it an eight because that's true. She was. She was left out. She was a little sad.

Sustainability, as far as, like, them staying together long term, the. The biggest downer on that is really just Batman doesn't. He's too much of an isolationist. You know, he likes himself, but teams all the time.

He works with teams all the time.

Biggest family in the world, so he.

Works with teams all the time. So it's not, like a huge thing. But, like, I feel like eventually Batman's gonna have some reason to be down and Batman. I'm alone. I have to be alone.

I can never be happy. Something, you know, I don't know.

But other than that, like, Rivet might not stick around just because, like, the kind of stuff this group is gonna be doing probably isn't super relevant to her. Again, that's probably not your fault.

But she's always about fighting the authoritarian dictator, not making cakes.

Yeah. And then as long as you got a lady around, Sanji sticking around.

And Aqua just desperately wants to find a blonde family, and I think she would find it here. All right, I'm gonna give that another eight. This is y'. All. Y' all made actually a pretty good team. All that, like, all things considered, strength.

You have a sun goddess, like, as far as strength goes, then Rivet with all the firepower, literally all of the firepower. You can imagine Aqua being probably the most powerful keyblade wielder or one of them. Yeah. Strength's pretty high.

I don't think it's perfect just because, like, Batman as, like, good planar and stuff as he is, I feel like he's a little bit of a weak point and just like a straight up fight. Like, he's not taking down Godzilla without a lot.

That's why he wasn't punching Godzilla.

Yeah, yeah. But, you know, I'm trying to think. Like, I don't think it's perfect on strength. That's all I'm saying. Like, it's still.

Like, you still have a sun goddess and Rivet and Aqua and Sanji. I might have to get that one. I'm gonna give it an eight, too. I'll give it another eight. Man, it's crazy when Batman is bringing something out fun.

Batman also is probably going to bring down the fun fact. He doesn't like to have fun sometimes. I think it depends on who's writing, but, like, all together, there's just a lot of trauma on this team.

Like, I think Rivet would bring some fun, but she has, you know, that Aqua is going to be kind of a downer. I don't know about the Sun Goddess. I can't say too much about that.

Like, I don't think they're having a bad time, but I don't think it's gonna be like, all giggles and stuff when they're just hanging out, you know? So I'm gonna give that one a six. Then we give fun a six. Is that the last one? It's the last one. All right.

Last one.

The problem is I'm a really generous grader. I feel like. So I feel like when Christian's GM, no one's possibly getting his highest scores. 16, 26, 34, 42 plus 6. 48. 48.

You destroyed Christian's last record of 37. And gonna have to update this outline so people know 48 is the new high score, destroying 37 that was set by Christian, TJ and will last time.

Phenomenal teamwork here. Before we wrap this up. It's a long one. These are always gonna be a little bit longer because it's a game that we're playing together.

I want to see what you guys thought about some of the themes that I had in mind. If you can see how they played out or think we might have learned something about each other in this.

Anything as far as food, the importance of food, spiritual realities, whether peace is possible, and then working with the local communities in mission kind of stuff. Did you guys see Any of that.

Is there anything you think that's worth comedy and that you're like, oh, Josh probably thinks this way, and he's stupid for that?

Yeah. Food soothes the hangry soul.

True.

I will say personally, for the result of peace, I didn't go with option B because I saw what you were doing with this.

And even though that would have been the more expedient thing for them to do, I think it was more loving to understand where this story was coming from first and where Big mom was coming from to actually pursue that goal, even though it would have been once again, easier to just neutralize her based on her weakness.

Well, my plan was, if you went that route, was Godzilla's coming from the other side, and now your guys are all the way on this side of the island, and you probably get there, but Godzilla's at least doing some damage to Kyoto first. That's kind of my thought process. I also am not sure that peace is always a possibility.

Like, I think it's always something to attain to, but, like, I don't think that came out as much as I thought it would. Food definitely did. Especially even, like, spiritual reality behind a meal. I think that really came to light.

And just the way that y' all did the detective work and then having Aqua there, who I think was able to sense a lot of loss, I think kind of really helped highlight that point of the story maybe a little bit. Mark, you have any thoughts around some of these themes or anything before we wrap this up?

I think you can extract from any of these food. Obviously, we're making food in an effort to try to reduce the emotion of someone. Spiritual realities.

Sensing the spirits of lost souls and people we've lost in the past. Peace. Trying to find a thing that will stop calamity and harm and whatnot. And then more of a religious kind of standpoint. I don't know.

I brought up that 99 sheep, the lost.

Yeah, that was cool. I wish I would have known about that and used that.

Yeah. Which Shintoism and stuff like that. We've bringing in the sun goddess and everything like that.

There's a lot of spirituality in Japan of various religions, so I'm sure you could find something with all that.

Yeah.

Thinking about the peace thing, too, I think I realized I might be a little too pessimistic, because this is something like, wasn't part land part of the game was after you calmed down Big Mom? Because I really just thought that y' all were gonna end up attacking and it was gonna be A big fight.

But having her actually calmed down, I didn't know what was gonna happen next. It turns out, put on the spot. My thought isn't, oh, yeah, she's gonna live peacefully now.

My immediate reaction was, oh, no, she still wants to have an empire. She still wants to do something heinous out in the world. So I think maybe I learned that.

Makes sense for her.

My low view of humanity or that just that character.

It's the character she's used to getting her way. She's going to trample over anyone who gets in the way. And any piece that was achieved would have been temporary.

So that's why the backup of neutralizing her was what they were going to do, because they recognized the threat.

So less a comment on me and more a comment on Big mom and people like Big mom who just have to have what they want when they want. Yeah.

Well, I think you also have to look at the players, too. If you look at, like, Rivet and Aqua, they both have a lot of empathy.

And looking at the mission of we got to make this cake so we calm her down so it's more of a mission as opposed to, let's just take her on and just fight her. So looking at through the character, I think we superimpose ourselves on, too.

And, Christian, I don't know about you, but me going into this, I'm like. Like, I want to complete that mission. I want to make the cake and make her happy. So.

I love Mark and people like Mark. I want to make her happy. Yeah. Yeah. And then I do. I also really appreciate how you guys highlighted that.

Sanji was like, he took the time to make this cake for someone. He's going to make sure that they get to have the cake. And I'm like, yeah, that is the honor code.

You know, I wasn't planning to talk about honor in this episode, but you brought that up. And I'm like, yeah, that's absolutely going to play a role in who his character is and what's happening in the story. And I don't know.

I think that really kind of shed a light on things that I didn't think about when I was thinking how the story might go. So it was kind of cool. All right, any other final words before we start to bring this to a close here?

It was super fun.

Yeah. Well, our bonus question. We always have a bonus question.

So once this episode ends, I want you guys to let me know after the mission, if this group were to share another meal together before returning their own worlds or Whatever happens next, what do you think they might choose to eat together if they were to choose a meal to have together? So that's what we're gonna be asking after. After this episode ends. But for now, we gotta do some recommendations as we bring this to a close.

And there was just so much. I just had so much fun with all this here. I think it was really a good time.

And I don't want to just recommend you guys go play, you know, go do some role playing, anything like that. So I'm trying to think of, like, one of the things.

Read a Batman comic where he's actually doing the tech, the detective stuff, not just he's beating the bad guy. Not just like, oh, what's going on in the family drama, or why is he sad this week?

But, like, the detective comics of Batman I think are really worthwhile to read. And seeing that side of Batman in the story was really cool. So that's gonna be my recommendation. Go check out a detective comic with Batman.

Christian, you have a recommendation for everybody?

Yeah, like the one that came before. I still have some issues with it overall, but 28 years later, the Bone Temple came out pretty soon, not too long ago.

And it was better than the last one. Not great, but better.

I remember walking out of that and you just being so negative. And I just still wasn't sure what I thought about it. And I think for a while I was like, maybe it was good. And then I backtracked and I'm still.

I think I'm still processing the first one. So I gotta wait to watch. Maybe I need to watch it again before I watch Bone Temple. Okay, Mark. Mark, any recommendations for those list?

I recently finished the Culinary Class War. Culinary Class wars on Netflix.

It's a Korean kind of chef competition show, and they bring in all these Michelin star chefs and really accomplished chefs. Like 100 chefs against each other. So they all compete and then they get the best chef sort of thing.

There's some aspects that feel very scripted, but. But overall, it's a lot of fun to see the different recipes that they make.

Awesome. That does sound super cool and super relevant to today's thing. That's awesome. Well, guys, thank you all so much for your time listening to this.

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