Purely Academic with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman

Purely Academic #39 - Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, Star Wars: Zero Company, Onimusha, Gaming News, and more!

For our October episode, we’ve got a giant News section, including more awful news from the world of video games, despair over the Paramount/Warner Bros. merger, and some

Purely Academic #38 - Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Modern Warfare 4 Beta, GTA VI Reveal, and More!

It’s a jam packed video game-focused episode for September, as we review Capcom’s third straight home run of the year in Onimusha: Way of the Sword, give thoughts on the

Purely Academic #37 - Movie News, Genshin Impact, Halo, Street Fighter, and Variant Video Game Futures

We’re back for a loose, fun ‘Monthly Stuff’ episode diving deep into what we’ve been up to over the summer break. Sean talks about the latest Ultraman series he’s been wa

Purely Academic #36 - The ODYSSEY Episode: Homer via Christopher Nolan, Emily Wilson, and more!

Christopher Nolan is dominating theaters once again with his adaptation of The Odyssey starring Matt Damon, so we’re taking the opportunity to not just talk about the new

Purely Academic #35 - The Video Game Apocalypse: Sony Abandons Discs, Xbox Lays Off Everyone, and more

It’s been perhaps the darkest few weeks for video games in either of our lifetimes, so we’re back to discuss the ongoing Video Game Apocalypse, from Xbox executing thousa

Purely Academic #34 - ULTRAMAN 60th Anniversary Special! The Jissōji Akio Collection

This month marks the 60th anniversary of the premiere of Japan’s most iconic tokusatsu franchise: ULTRAMAN! Created by the legendary special effects wizards at Tsuburaya

Purely Academic #33 - Not-E3 2026! All the Gaming News from Sony, Xbox & More!

The most wonderful and/or tedious time of the year has come once more: It’s Not-E3 2026, when all of the video game giants share their biggest announcements for the year.

Purely Academic #32 - One Piece, Resident Evil, Nintendo News & Bad Xbox Marketing Ideas

We’re back for a fun, variety-filled Monthly Stuff episode filled with our own personal obsessions. After going over some Nintendo and Xbox news, including the announceme

Purely Academic #31 - DLSS 5, Pokémon Pokopia, Resident Evil, and Silly Texas Acronyms

The news just won’t stop coming, so we once again have an overstuffed Monthly Stuff episode to break it all down, from the reveal of Nvidia’s horrific slop-fueled DLSS 5,

Purely Academic #30 - RESIDENT EVIL REQUIEM Review & Discussion

There’s very little we enjoy talking about more than Resident Evil here at Purely Academic, as the series has been on one of the most amazing hot streaks in the history o

Purely Academic #29 - The Decimation of Gaming, the Destruction of Hollywood, and the Dawn of Ditto

It’s been a big – and depressing – few weeks of news in the entertainment industry, so we’re back for the March ‘Monthly Stuff’ episode to break it all down. First up we

Purely Academic #28 - Sony State of Play News, Classic Dragon Quest Games, and Resident Evil Spin-off Ideas

In a very video game-centric episode of the podcast, we talk all the news out of this month’s Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase and Sony State of Play, including the annou

Preview - Japanimation Station Returns for our TOMINO-THON on March 15th, 2026

Our sister podcast, the anime history and review show Japanimation Station, returns on March 15th, 2026 for its 6th season, and it’s one listeners have been demanding for

Purely Academic #27 - The Top 10 Video Games of 2025

The time has come, once again: Sean and Jonathan are here to count down the Top 10 Video Games of 2025. It was an undeniably weird year for the medium, with some exciting

Purely Academic #26 - The Best Films of 2025 & Sean’s Digimon Adventures

For our first show of 2026, we look back on the best movies of 2025, as Jonathan talks us through his list of the 20 best films to come out last year, from undisputed fav

Purely Academic #25 - Metroid Prime 4, Super Robot Wars, Netflix/WB Merger, and Improving Christmas

Fair warning: this month’s episode starts out as a major bummer, what with news of the Netflix/WB merger and the pricing madness around RAM spelling doom for both Hollywo

Purely Academic #24 - The FRANKENSTEIN Episode: The Original Novel, The 1931 Film, and the 2025 Film

For our November topic – coming just in time for the start of December – we celebrate the release of Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein with a three-part retrospective on

Purely Academic #23 - School Stories, Pokémon Legends Z-A, Ghost of Yōtei & Taylor Swift x Shakespeare Collabs

In one of our most absolutely jam-packed Monthly Stuff installments to date, we live up to our moniker with a long discussion of teaching stories and curriculum planning

Purely Academic #22 - Reviewing Kyoto Animation’s CITY: THE ANIMATION

We spent a full year chronicling the history of Kyoto Animation on our anime podcast, Japanimation Station, back in 2024, which means we are very excited to talk about CI

Purely Academic #21 - Hades II, Ghost of Yōtei, Xbox Pricing Madness, and more!

We’re back for the month of October with an exciting episode covering both the highs and lows of the video game industry in 2025. In terms of ‘low,’ we’ve got more Xbox P