This week, we finally dive into the cultural behemoth that is K-Pop Demon Hunters—six months late and fully confused. We talk through how this extremely catchy, hyper-animated, wildly popular kids’ movie managed to conquer 2025, even though it’s… fine? We break down what works (the faces, the music, that glorious fat tiger), what doesn’t (the pacing, the unearned romance, the baffling reconciliation), and why we’re still not convinced it deserves the cultural chokehold it has. Plus, we catch up on everything we’ve been checking out lately—from doom metal to City Pop to WOJIA novels—and wonder how we went from Spider-Verse to this.

Episode Notes

• We kick things off with hard root beer, ingredient confusion, and the audacity of “beer, sugar, caramel color” as an ingredients list.
• Thanksgiving rant: we complain about Christmas invading everything earlier each year, praise gratitude as a practice, and call out the consumerist creep of “Black November.”
• Eden shares the saga of the family WhatsApp gratitude initiative and why performative gratefulness ain’t it.
• New Year’s resolutions? Terrible. A system designed to fail—except for gyms and planner companies.

What We’ve Been Up To

Eden

• Not much… exhaustion + scrolling + arguing with Reddit.
• Reading more Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady.
• Secretly going full Wuxia-pilled but not ready to talk yet.
• Deep in digital accessibility at work (contrast ratios forever).
• Listening almost exclusively to City Pop to summon 80s vibes.

Peter

• Heavy music roundup:
  • Shores of Null / Convocation split.
  • A Sun of the Dying – Throne of Ashes.
  • The Reticent – Please (mental-illness-theme concept album).
  • 1914 – Viribus Unitis, a blackened death metal concept album about WWI.
  • Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin – Stygian Bough Vol. 2, the lightest album of the three (which says something).
• Finished all seven Murderbot books and reflects on the genuinely human core beneath the action.
• Game updates:
  • PowerWash Simulator 2 — massive improvements, more forgiving completion, soap freedom.
  • Ball Pit (Ball×Pit) — breakout + roguelike + city builder; surprisingly great, Devolver-approved.

🎤 Main Event: K-Pop Demon Hunters

Initial Reaction

• We both expected very little.
• It was… more fun than expected, but nowhere near deserving the cultural omnipresence it has.
• Every song starts, and we both go: “Oh shit, that’s from this movie?!”

What We Liked

• The animation: hyper-expressive faces, Sony flair, Spider-Verse DNA.
• The music: genuinely catchy, culturally unavoidable.
• The creatures: the fat tiger + the crow with the tiny hat = peak cinema.
• The fights: lively weapon-specific choreography.
• Bright, colorful aesthetic in a world obsessed with desaturated grimdark.

What Didn’t Work

• Pacing is viciously fast (95 minutes, no room to breathe).
• The Rumi–Ginu romance is unearned.
• The group breakup & reconciliation happens with whiplash speed.
• Entire subplots (Celine, Rumi’s origin) feel missing — likely sequel fodder.
• The climax ultimately hinges on the boy saving the girl, which undercuts the “girl group as heroes” core.

Why Is It So Popular?

We genuinely don’t know, but we explore possibilities:

• The Frozen effect: young girls finally seeing themselves as the heroes.
• K-pop’s massive global footprint and built-in fandom infrastructure.
• Ubiquitous, TikTok-optimized songs.
• A kids’ movie that’s actually watchable for adults (a miracle compared to Shimmer & Shine).
• The novelty of a musical-action hybrid that doesn’t completely suck.

Final Thoughts

• We’re glad we watched it—mostly to understand why our nieces and the entire world dressed as Rumi for Halloween.
• It’s fun, cute, fast, and catchy.
• But it’s also feather-light and will evaporate from our brains shortly after recording.
• Definitely not staying on the Plex server.

This week on The Middle of Culture, we close out our dive into Transformers with Transformers One, last year’s animated prequel that tells the origin story of Optimus and Megatron. We rave about how shockingly good it is—beautiful animation, heartfelt storytelling, and voice performances that actually make you care about robots punching each other. Along the way, we talk about Sanderson’s declining prose, the “YA-ification” of modern fiction, the decline of mass-market paperbacks, and why we’ll always have a soft spot for dumb robot movies done well.

Episode Notes

Opening Banter

• Peter returns from travel (Boise and Napa), happy to be home.
• Eden vents about a rough week and hostile engineers during digital accessibility training, complete with an on-campus shooting alert mid-meeting.
• Peter describes an incredible dinner at Bistro Jeanty in Napa (truffle deviled eggs, beef bourguignon, and chocolate croissant bread pudding).

Books & Reading

• Peter finishes Murder Your Employer by Rupert Holmes (yes, the “Piña Colada Song” guy)—a darkly funny and satisfying story about the McMaster’s School of Homicide.
• Reads Artificial Condition, the second Murderbot novella, and starts Write Your Novel from the Middle.
• Discussion on how story structure midpoints define theme and cohesion.
• Critique of Brandon Sanderson’s Wind and Truth: great worldbuilding, but noticeably weaker prose since losing his longtime editor.
• Eden speculates that the issue might extend to the whole fantasy industry—less editing, more aesthetic consumerism, and the death of the mass-market paperback.
• Broader talk on the “dumbing down” of fiction and the rise of YA and “New Adult” markets catering to comfort rather than challenge.

Music & Games Corner

• Peter dives into rediscovering Psychotic Waltz, Psychonaut, and Oramet—bands that balance progressive creativity with restraint.
• New release highlight: PowerWash Simulator 2.
• Eden tests two disappointing gacha games (Duet Night Abyss and Resonance Solstice) and finally uninstalls all HoyoVerse titles.
• Back to Final Fantasy XIV, excited about the new patch allowing full cross-class glamours.

Main Feature – Transformers One (2024)

• Both agree: it’s the best Transformers movie ever made—heartfelt, gorgeously animated, and genuinely emotional.
• Plot rundown: Orion Pax (Optimus) and D16 (Megatron) rise from the oppressed underclass of “Cogless” robots, uncover Sentinel Prime’s corruption, and witness the birth of Autobot vs. Decepticon ideology.
• Core theme: friendship, betrayal, and revolution—the tragedy of two friends who believe in justice but choose different paths.
• Voice acting highlights:
  • Brian Tyree Henry’s nuanced Megatron is phenomenal.
  • John Hamm nails the duplicitous Sentinel Prime.
  • Scarlett Johansson and Chris Hemsworth have real chemistry, even if Hemsworth is the weakest link.
  • Laurence Fishburne brings gravitas as Alpha Trion.
  • Keegan-Michael Key’s Bumblebee is purposefully annoying but fits the tone.
• Praise for the movie’s subtle callbacks to the 1986 film (“You don’t have the touch or the power”), strong emotional beats, and sense of earned tragedy.
• Both lament how poorly it performed at the box office—“we are part of the problem”—and hope it gets a sequel.
• Brief detour comparing the animated film’s depth to the shallow chaos of the Michael Bay series.

Closing Thoughts

• Transformers One feels like the first time the franchise truly understood its own heart.
• Recommendation: watch it—it’s smart, emotional, and fun as hell.

In this week’s Middle of Culture, we dive deep into our usual blend of media obsession and existential humor — from the strange delights of villainess light novels and the chaos of gacha games to Tron Ares, which Eden declares “not a good movie… but maybe the best Tron movie.” Peter shares his thoughts on new music from Conjurer and Author & Punisher, reviews Wind and Truth with mixed feelings, and outlines a possible new nonfiction project exploring the moral dehumanization of healthcare. We close by revisiting the bizarre early UK Transformers comics — where Optimus is kind of a jerk, Starscream becomes the original “catty traitor,” and Brawn looks like he escaped a Dollar Tree toy aisle.

Episode Notes:

Opening Banter:

• Eden introduces themselves as “so eeppy,” prompting Peter to admit defeat against internet slang.
• The two reflect on “functional depression,” aging, and surviving the current “hellscape.

Eden’s Media Fixation:

• Revisits I’m in Love with the Villainess and praises it as one of the best isekai series ever.
• Explains Prison Life is Easy for a Villainess, a meta comedy about a villainess treating dungeon time as a spa retreat.
• Attends a PowerPoint Party and presents “Villainess as Protagonist: A Meta-Analysis of Current Media Trends.”

Gacha Game Roundup:

• Stella Sora: “What if Hades was slower and shittier?” Deleted after 45 minutes.
• Chaos Zero Nightmare: Required two launchers — instant nope.
• Duet Night Abyss: Promising Warframe-style action without predatory gacha.

Tron Ares Review:

• Eden: “Not a good movie… but maybe the best Tron movie.”
• Praises its Nine Inch Nails soundtrack and stunning action; mocks Jared Leto’s acting.
• Peter admits he’d watch all three Tron films once they’re streaming.

Peter’s Media Corner:

• Music: Revisits Testament’s Parabellum, discovers Author & Punisher, and praises Conjurer’s Unself.
• Reading: Finishes Wind and Truth, critiques Sanderson’s editing, starts Murder Your Employer by Rupert Holmes, and begins Work Won’t Love You Back by Sarah Jaffe.
• Discusses a new nonfiction concept: “Connecting to Purpose: The Moral Dehumanization of Healthcare in America.”

Ideological Detour:

• Eden: “If you’re not the owner, you’re being exploited.”
• Peter admits he’s “becoming radicalized.”

Transformers (UK Comics):

• Recap of the lost “Man of Iron” episode and this week’s The Enemy Within.
• Discovery: This is possibly where “catty, traitorous Starscream” was born.
• Braun’s design roasted as “the Dollar Tree Transformer.”
• Optimus Prime called “a dick” for sending Brawn and Starscream into gladiator combat.
• Praise for Ravage and nostalgia for our childhood toys.

Closing:

• Eden confesses to spending $100 on the new Missing Link R.C. figure — “worth every penny.”
• Episode ends with a reminder to subscribe, share, and leave a review.