A Year of Amazing Interviews with Wonderful People!

Getting to hear Invader Zim in-person was an experience I will never get over.

2024 was a strange year for a lot of folks, and that trend held true with us both personally and professionally. It was the year we met a lot of barriers in production, went on hiatus, and eventually fully independent. It was also the year we were invited to FanimeCon, GalaxyCon, AnimeNYC, FandomCon, and (even though we couldn’t attend) AnimeImpulse Bay Area! But one of the greatest things to happen for us was that last year, we were afforded the opportunity to - however briefly - interview a lot of folks in the cosplay, voice acting, and production arenas!

We were able to talk to Monolith Cosplays about his cos-building process, taste in trash anime, and more! We talked with Moral Orel creator Dino Stamatopoulis about his experience producing the controversial show for Cartoon Network’s late-night mature programming block “Adult Swim”. We even got to talk to Invader Zim stars Richard Horvitz and Rikki Simons about their love of anime, which led to an interesting note from Simons about his involvement with the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization copying anime laserdisks and VHS tapes from overseas.

On a personal note: putting together this clip-show of an episode did a lot of good in re-contextualizing what the last year was like for the show. Looking past all of the regular frustrations that come with content creation, and the myriad problems that arise when attempting to coalesce a production company together out of the ether, 2024 served as a highlight year for the team. The year built out more good than bad in terms of opportunity, and we look forward to how 2025 treats us.

On another note, the Nakama Podcast Anime Awards are still open until January 31st, so make your vote heard ahead of the show!

And if you want to actually see all of the wonderful interviews in video format, watch the show through Spotify!