Best Seat on the Couch

Alex, Iris, Marcus, and Michael
  • 5.0 (5)
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A podcast where 4 close friends discuss their favorite animated movies and TV shows together. Come for the intelligent discourse, stay for the lighthearted humor, and follow for the hottest takes.

  1. FEB 3

    210 | ONE PIECE (Part 6)

    ONE PIECE fans around the world can finally close the book on Eiichiro Oda's 1155-episode first season, with the Elbaph arc kicking off season 2 in April 2026! Okay, people who actually watch this anime know we're on season 21, but it's a funny meme. Alex once again assembles panelists Ayana, Katy, Lony, and Owen to discuss the episodes that aired in 2025 and bounce ideas around some reasonably important stuff like the Knights of God, Scopper Gaban, Imu using the Domi Reversi, and more. We love to see Luffy succeed via the power of friendship, we must deconstruct the God Valley flashback, and we can't finish a ONE PIECE episode on the couch without a couple of theories to cap off the session. Perhaps Iris, Marcus, and Michael might finally have their chance to join in on the fun with the upcoming The One Piece Remake coming to Netflix at the end of this year. Content warning: SPOILERS, strong language.

    1h 42m

  2. JAN 20

    209 | The Princess and the Frog

    The film that heralded the end of Disney's 2D-animated era, 2009's The Princess and the Frog came as a last hurrah after Disney's foray into Chicken Little, then was followed immediately by Tangled...so where does it stand amongst the Disney greats? Its animation and soulful soundtrack certainly elevate it to that illustrious Disney standard, and Marcus can't get through this episode without gassing up Keith David, not to mention that we get a lovely picture of 1920s New Orleans life and culture...which in turn starts to get a little problematic once you remember the kind of social structure that was around in 1920s New Orleans. Indeed, in addition to some minor pacing issues and the weird look for frog Naveen and frog Tiana, it feels like Disney's hard attempt at being colorblind and refusal to address the social rift between Tiana and Lottie actually makes the film's narrative worse, especially for Tiana's character arc through the film. It's another week with another pseudo-Writer's Desk panel in the back half of the episode, so you know it's another certified banger. Content warning: SPOILERS, strong language.

    1h 9m

  3. JAN 13

    208 | Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury

    Alex is thoroughly out-weebed on this week's episode of Best Seat on the Couch, as Marcus, hot on the heels of Love, Death & Robots and Transformers One, arises with a multi-month saga planned around the universe of Mobile Suit Gundam, beginning with 2022's The Witch from Mercury. Longtime Gundam fans may find this choice of a beginner's series questionable, but the show is simultaneously a good primer for some of Gundam's most important thematic tenets while also being a fresh take on the formula (a female protagonist!) wrapped up in all of the bells and whistles of high-quality animation, a great soundtrack, and some sick sound design. Join us as we talk about our favorite characters, character arcs, confusing government bodies, and depressing moments, and stick with us as Marcus takes the gang on a genuinely painful Trivia Corner not at all created in retaliation against Alex's Digimon Trivia Corner. Content warning: SPOILERS, strong language.

    1h 51m

  4. JAN 6

    207 | Lightyear

    Happy New Year and welcome back to Best Seat on 2026's Couch! Our first episode of the new year calls back to our 99th episode on Toy Story, as Lightyear takes the mythos of Toy Story's Buzz Lightyear character and creates a whole narrative and backstory to him that, apparently, in-universe inspires Andy to buy the Buzz Lightyear toy — fancy that. The film itself stars Chris Evans as a much more Captain America-esque Buzz Lightyear, plenty of time travel, legitimately gorgeous animation and cinematography, and one (two?) particularly funny cat robots, and yet perhaps the most question asked in this episode is: what are the actual implications of this film existing within the Toy Story universe? Join us as we discuss the nice little character moments Buzz has during his hero's journey, Marcus's favorite character and moment 1 hour into the episode, and the film's THREE mid-/after-credit scenes. Content warning: SPOILERS, strong language.

    1h 17m

  5. 12/16/2025

    206 | A Place Further than the Universe

    After a brief holiday hiatus, the gang is back to the recording studio with another anime about high school girls doing...things! Like our episodes on Yuru Camp and Bocchi the Rock! in years past, this slice-of-life series released in 2017 appears often on top anime lists and provides a genuinely sweet and enjoyable story hidden behind its unassuming appearance. We get travel montages! Antarctica! Penguins! Inter-friend-group squabbling! The friends we made along the way! And a pretty baller emotional catharsis scene in the penultimate episode to cap it all off. Plus, stick around for another Trivia Corner hosted by dual-threat weeb and biology aficionado Alex, and learn more about the continent that almost nobody knows anything about. Content warning: SPOILERS, strong language.

    1h 25m

  6. 10/28/2025

    205 | Moana 2

    'Tis the season for sequel films here on the Couch, and coming off of our discussion of Moana not too long ago, we've got the perfect perspective on its totally-not-planned-to-be-a-TV-series-originally-but-was-then-haphazardly-converted-into-a-feature-film sequel, 2024's Moana 2. It's a tall ask to follow up a film like Moana and while the gang agrees that the story and narrative feel pretty fresh as far as sequels go, there are a few...other issues...with this film that do elicit feelings of "soulless cash grab" in certain moments. A great metric on judging a film's writing quality is how many mini-Writer's Desk segments we can cram into the episode to see just how much more this film could have been compared to what we got. Content warning: SPOILERS, strong language.

    1h 9m

  7. 10/14/2025

    204 | Transformers One

    Within the Transformers sphere, the last couple of decades have been owned by Michael Bay's live-action series of Transformers films which are certainly...films. But we don't talk about live-action films on this podcast! Instead, we're talking about 2024's Transformers One, a film that harks back to the G1 days from the 80's and soft reboots the franchise on the silver screen. It's got a star-studded voice cast led by Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry, absolutely gorgeous animation, some fun sequences that make you go "damn that was cool!", and a genuinely interesting take on the relationship between the bots that eventually become Optimus Prime and Megatron. It is pretty clearly a kids' movie, and there probably is such a thing as too much Keegan-Michael Key, but as far as the emotional notes and story beats go, we think this movie does a pretty bang-up job. Content warning: SPOILERS, strong language.

    1h 13m

  8. 10/07/2025

    203 | Incredibles 2

    You'd have to go aaaalllll the way back to Episode 8 of Best Seat on the Couch to catch our thoughts on Disney/Pixar's animated 2004 blockbuster The Incredibles, and after 14 long years of development, the sequel ended up being a commercial and critical success...but did it impress the four of us? Incredibles 2 ends up still being a pretty excellent and entertaining watch, but there are aspects of its story and its villain that feel recycled a bit, and for a film that rides on the success of its predecessor, it fails to iterate much on that success to put out a sequel that's worth the Incredibles name. Tune in to our discussion on The Screenslaver, Evelyn Deavor (heh), Bob being a stay-at-home-dad, and just how crazy the animated hair is in this film. Content warning: SPOILERS, strong language.

    1h 15m
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
5 Ratings

About

A podcast where 4 close friends discuss their favorite animated movies and TV shows together. Come for the intelligent discourse, stay for the lighthearted humor, and follow for the hottest takes.

Information

  • Creator
    Alex, Iris, Marcus, and Michael
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    213
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Alex, Iris, Marcus, and Michael
  • Show Website
    Best Seat on the Couch