Otakon for me is more or less the one time of the year that I get to hang out with many of my friends and, with the advent of pre-mailed badges, my roommates and I sometimes find ourselves at loose ends on Thursday evening. After my “success” at showing them Thunderbolt Fantasy during this pre-con Thursday in 2016 (“success” because the hotel wifi crapped out after only a minute and a half but they were totally game for more!) I decided I wanted to make this a tradition and started thinking of the best show to introduce them too. I hit up Vatican Miracle Examiners, henceforth referred to as “Vatican Bros,” since it was a ridiculous show and while there was no way I would spend my own free time watching it I was sure it would go over great as a group-watch.
I was a little afraid that I hyped up the show too much but Vatican Bros was everything I wanted for a group watch and beyond. Like the title suggests, the story focuses on two dudes from the Vatican who are sent all over the world to verify the authenticity of miracles and clearly the original light novel author (because OF COURSE this is based on a series of LNs) had a very loose understanding of Catholicism, geography, history, and frankly reality itself. Normally during these group watches I am the member of the group going “wait, what?!” while my friends respond with “you’re not drinking enough/just don’t question it!” so it was delightful that for once I was the most nonplussed member of the room (also I don’t drink these days lol).
I do think that Vatican Bros played its hand too early by starting off with its most insane arc* so if anyone else watches the first four episodes and thinks “there is no way the show can top itself now” YOU ARE CORRECT! My friends and I could only get through the first three episodes at Otakon before it just became too much for us but one friend and I continued our group watch remotely after the show was done and frankly it doesn’t make any sense later on. I will say that it was hilarious just how many times one of us (usually me) would make some insane quip based off of the circumstances on screen (“okay so that dust in the air is totally drugs”) only to have the show confirm it later (“WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT WAS ACTUALLY COCAINE?” “also cocaine mixed with beer totally wouldn’t give you that kind of reaction”). With that in mind I think it should be considered “canon” that our two priests are indeed fucking because that answer makes the same kind of hilarious “sense” that the rest of our outlandish guesses did (“sense” because yes, real-world Catholicism prescribes strict celibacy for members of the clergy but again, I’m not sure the original author of this series was even aware that there are rules in Catholicism to start with).
Having finished Vatican Bros there might be a small hole in our lives now but never fear, we’re merely onto the next shit-watch! Neo Yokio might not provide nearly the same kind of humor but hey, at least I’m not having to screen-share my twice-paywalled Anime strike stream over skype and wrecking my bandwidth in the process!
*spoilers: this remote church has been impregnating women with Hitler’s frozen sperm in some sort of ritual related to the two-headed Roman god Janus except it keeps going wrong and they end up with like, two-headed babies and people with “split-personalities.” There are also a lot of murders involved and I think there was a drug smuggling ring as well????
Also, HELL YEAH, I CAN DO SNARKY FOOTNOTES AGAIN
Also, HELL YEAH, I CAN DO SNARKY FOOTNOTES AGAIN
