Garbage of the Five Rings Jude Vais and Amelia Antrim

Perhaps this has an audience; I just don’t see it

First of all, the good and the great:
· The hosts have great chemistry and their radio presence here is them at their best;
· The hosts have clearly done intensive research *about* anything L5R released in the past twenty years;
· The hosts’ attention to issues of representation in L5R media are laudable;
· There is certainly some nostalgia value in this endeavour.
However, there are deep, fundamental, structural flaws to this show that undermine and drown their best moments. Before continuing, I must admit by own bias and expectations: from the blurb I expected this to be a show to swing between examining the silliness of 90s published material, a poignant critic of the issues with L5R, and ultimately a way to learn what is worth saving of L5R and what need urgent attention and care for future players, GMs and authors; I can guarantee that my expectations coloured my rating, as I found it lacking in all those perceived goals.
After listening to the episode, I can’t help but wonder who is this for - a serious issue for any podcast. The show’s episode 0 and mission statements seems to establish this being for old L5R fans and “fans” – for an audience acquainted with the products line and its many issues.
However:
If you are familiar with L5R, the show does not offer much to you. As I mentioned before, the hosts researched the reading material extensively; however, they did not go beyond that, nor did they elaborate or context – something deeply needed when one is to do when the centre of a podcast is literary critic and cultural, classist feminist analysis. As a listener of many book club and literary critics with hosts both amateur and professional, I was really underwhelmed at how lacking this show was on that. For example, symbolic lyricisms of other cultures and seasonal themes – including a reference to works of Bashou - that were clumsily hammered into awkward, harsh, unflattering metaphors by Romanization by American writers ground the show to a sharp stop. The attempts of the hosts to engage with the writer’s ineptitude were underwhelming; and if you see their awkward back and forth through a farcical lens, the comedic timing was so poor that it undermined their excellent remarks about causal objectification present in the text. In sum, if you have read the L5R wiki or recall your painful readings of the text, the show has little to offer you; do not expect contextual or meta-contextual analysis.
If you are new to L5R, the show does a very bad job engaging with you. You would expect that at this length, the episode would establish some basic principles, setting context or at the very least a concise, easy-to-follow plot summary. It is certainly not an entry point for anyone, and it does not replace one’s reading of the primary sources or even the wiki. The show is not for people unfamiliar with L5R.
While I might be short-sightedness about the audience for show in its current forms, there are other systematic problems that hamper the enjoyment of the show. The show is too long, the editing and script a bit too confusing than what you might expect from their previous work; listening to it is demanding and more exhausting than I expected. While part of me understands that the primary sources can be clunky and confusing, I was not expecting that to not be a problem maintained by a show taking a critical analysis of it; after all, the hosts clearly know the text is difficult to read and know by their own experience than a simple, concise summary would spare their listeners a lot of suffering. A proper summary of the plot and context would be essential for an analysis nearly clocking at fifty minutes – even for a good, clear, well-polished text; the need only increases with these rough primary sources. The pacing of the episode is awkward, and there is difficulty in following what is direct text analysis or free thought association/back-and-forth by audio cues alone. That and lack of touchstones creates this weird impression that you stumbled into someone’s private joke – instead of being alongside for the ride, salvaging the rare jewel from the awful prose. An additional warning for non-native English speakers and those with auditory limitations that; the episode benefits from being listened alongside its script once it is released.
Unfortunately, the good bits I found are not enough for me to recommend this show to a general audience. Perhaps the hosts will polish later episodes, more accurate with their proposed goals; perhaps they will add much needed context; perhaps this will thrive as a niche show within an already niche audience. For now, I would say that only those that enjoy previous works of the hosts will get a good radio experience – if that is your case, I would stand by a 3-star rating, - for neophytes and veterans of L5R I alike, I stand by 1-star.