 Welcome back everyone. Today we have a very special interview. Today I'm interviewing Parker Simmons. He is the voice of Pancras in Dragon Quest Your Story. He's also a cartoon creator. He is the executive producer of Mao Mao, Heroes of Pure Heart on Cartoon Network. I'm lucky enough to talk to him today. Thank you for taking the time to speak to me today. Hey thanks man. Yeah, I'm happy to be here. Happy, happy, happy to be here. Mm-hmm. So let's obviously you're a big gaming fan. I want to tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, I mean it's interesting because you know gaming and being a gamer has become such a like weird label and meme these days. You know just just the phrase like you know just starting any you know phrase with gamers. We're very sorry or whatever. I don't know. It's supremely funny to me to classify anyone as a gamer when I'm like do we call people who read books? Bookers? Yeah. Like everyone reads books. That's how I feel about it. Everyone reads books. Everyone watches movies. Everyone plays games. So I don't really like to think of it as something special that only I do but I would say I came about it the same way anyone else does. I was a kid. We had a Nintendo. I played it. I loved it. I never stopped. There you go. I feel like that's that's been the journey like it really you know playing video games really clicked with me as an imaginative and fun way to you know eliminate boredom and it still is and to this day like the time that I spend with games is you know it's precious to me. I love them and now that I'm older and I'm a creative person myself. I appreciate them on a whole different level and that's half the fun of playing a game now is saying like oh I wonder what they were thinking here oh they probably rushed through this or oh I can't believe they took the time to program that in. That's really amazing and you know having this hobby become you know more and more intertwined with you know what I do for a living has again like I said given me a whole new appreciation so that's sort of my super abbreviated history of gaming. I tried it. I liked it. Yep that's great. So what was your first console like how did you get into gaming? So you know growing up I've got eight siblings and I'm the youngest of nine so we had an Nintendo Entertainment System and unfortunately I am the one that destroyed it. As the story goes I put a race car inside the cartridge slot and I guess I thought that would make it play a racing game. It didn't. It destroyed it and it never came back but thankfully that was because at that point in 91 when I was like maybe five years old we got a super Nintendo and I still remember my older brother blasting through Mario World in a single day. Wouldn't come up. All of this is so very vivid and visual to me like we're downstairs we're being called upstairs but he wasn't finished he's like I'll be there in a moment. He's fighting Bowser. He had the fire power up as Mario which I thought was very odd since most people have the cape but I remember that very specifically and yeah that was our first sort of like memory with the super Nintendo and that is where things took off for me. So while we had an NES and that was pretty little when we had it so the super Nintendo was my system and oh man just the games on that to this day I'm like those are the games that for me I can play forever and that sort of changed everything and then you know of course when I got a little older than the N64 came out that was the system that was given directly to me like you were the keeper of super Nintendo was for everyone it was really more for my older brother but the N64 was like all right this is for you but looking back I'm like no I preferred the super Nintendo yeah maybe it's because you always want whatever whatever you know your older sibling has but yeah the super Nintendo was my my first real introduction. Yeah I agree this is the super Nintendo is probably one I think it's more has a stronger library than the N64 if you would ask me but uh yeah like more RPGs and everything um so uh look what are your favorites there's not yeah 64 yeah there's no RPGs on N64 the PlayStation pretty much took over the RPG world at that point um yeah what are your favorite games and RPGs uh well I'll tell you my um it's tough because uh you know you like different games for different reasons you come to different games at different times in your life but I'll tell you the games that I find myself consistently replaying when I just want to have fun uh so near the near the top of my list if not the very tip top are Zelda a link to the past and Link's Awakening Link's Awakening is what I just call my anxiety game I'm like man if I feel if I'm really at my lowest and I just need something to get by I'll blast through Link's Awakening I think when they that remake finally came out uh I think last year or the year before I think I feel like it was last year um oh man I played it three times in a row like I couldn't stop I was like yes good yes comforting game uh just because you know it's so fast paced and fun uh and then I love you know near Mount Rushmore on the Mount Rushmore of games for me as well as Mario Brothers 3 and then Chrono Trigger is probably the best RPG ever made nothing has ever topped that for me and that's a weird thing to say I think it's like the best JRPG ever made because people come to RPGs to role play and you don't really role play in Chrono Trigger but you get what I'm saying like turn-based combat epic score overworld in that sense for me the best JRPG ever made because it's just firing on every single cylinder the characters you've got Yuji Hori and Sakaguchi San coming together Final Fantasy Dragon Quest Akira Toriyama Yasunori Mitsuda everything comes together to create uh Yasunori Kitase writing uh you know the script it's never been duplicated and I know you know you can say uh Chrono Cross no Chrono Trigger yeah no and and you know great soundtrack sure great game on its own but get at it I feel like that Simpsons scene where it's like oh the cat walks out get that cat out of here or the sheep yeah oh that one too yeah I think I feel like I'm thinking of two different episodes but you give what I'm saying like right yeah Chrono Trigger is just so precious to me and then of course obviously Dragon Quest uh I was just talking about this yesterday on a stream I did um that one's it's so difficult as a series to say like this is the best one because they're all so different and special for different reasons but you know four five three and eight are sort of my you know top of the heap I love them all for different reasons and they all mean uh something special to me uh on their own merits uh so I really love those and of course uh while we're talking about RPGs Final Fantasy 6 Final Fantasy 9 those are my top two in that series and I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff but like that's a load asking me what my favorite games and RPGs are we'll be here all day man yeah but I've given you I've given you I think a good taste of those but you're like um I'm I'm sure your viewers are well familiar with what's special about the Dragon Quest games that I listed especially like four five and eight uh but as far as Final Fantasy 6 and nine goes you know if you guys are new to that series or if you haven't played those particular ones before please do they're very very special especially nine I feel like nine does not get as much attention as it should for for everything that I feel it's accomplished on uh on artistic level so yeah that's just a smattering of some of my absolute favorites yeah I agree those those are pretty good I like Final Fantasy 6 as well it's a very well made game for each time even even though it still holds up yeah they were going they I feel like they thought they weren't going to make another game I feel like and that's you know they moved on to 3d and doing amazing stuff after that but I mean Umatsu specifically is like this is it this is my last video game score so I'm going to make sure it has everything we're gonna have an opera we're gonna have an insane four-part Final Boss fight that transcends time and space to be one of the greatest pieces of video game music ever dancing mad is nuts and then they're like no we're making another one and I think he just kind of went like oh okay all right fine but yeah he still did incredible work well after that but I feel like he pushed himself to the limit there so yeah six it's a triumph of the super what the super nintendo can do yep and you said your favorite dragon plus games are four five three and eight yes yes all all tied because they're all so very different from one another there yeah it feels it feels weird to to say one is better than another when I play them all for different reasons yeah yeah f5 is my personal favorite but uh you know great choice yeah it's a really great story and uh speaking of uh well uh some people asked what was your favorite dragon quest monster in the series that's a question that popped up a couple times yeah uh I think for me it's a slime night it's class a slime night is classic I've got a figure of it over on my shelf over there somewhere but slime nights are amazing man I don't know there's just something about their design the way they move I love how they move in dragon quest 11 where they're just sort of walking alongside their steed I saw that for the first time and I was like oh my god they're not just some doll that rests on top of the slime that there's just so much to unravel about who's in charge is it the slime or the night I thought this was just a puppet and the slime is sort of no no it's real he's walking along and he jumps on this thing there's just so much to unpack there and then of course in dragon quest five you can recruit uh I wasn't in six I feel like it's a five-year recruit uh goo Wayne or whatever who's this uh you know slime night and uh they speak with this very chivalric manner uh I don't know I just love them yeah they're great there's a lot to unpack they have a great design and of course I've got a little saber cub figure sitting here so saber cats are come on who doesn't love a saber cat they keep that you know they're they're top of the heap yeah um yeah I don't know I again that's it's so hard to like say this is the top but for for me you know I I have uh you know fond memories of good old slime night near the top if not the top so um I guess we can uh we can uh divert a little bit talk about your role in the movie and then maybe we can just get back to general dragon quest talk after that um so you played pancra as the main character's father in the beginning of the dragon quest your story movie um how did how did this happen how did you get the role so um uh you know I when the trailer first came out for that movie you know at the time I'm working on my show and voice acting as well I you know I've done a bunch of stuff before you know I got into sag and did some stuff on okay KO and then of course for my own show um and uh you know doing that you know you make some connections and the dragon quest trailer just come out and I losing my mind I think I tweeted that very day I'm like I will be in this dub I don't care I will find some way to be in this you mark my words and that could have amounted to nothing because like who knows but I did end up knowing uh um a couple people who were going to work on the dub I don't know how much I could say about how how it was done uh because you know I think it was for Netflix and you know they have their own way they do stuff but I knew a couple people who were working on it and I begged them for an audition uh so I didn't just get it because I knew someone that's not how this stuff works uh like you've got to you've got to also be the right uh person for it and so I begged them for an audition uh they had to move pretty quickly uh to get things uh done so I needed to turn it around immediately I went to I had a booth on hand and I got my friend uh Doug to record for me and I auditioned for every day you know when you do an audition you do sides for every character that you can so I auditioned for Harry uh and I auditioned for I think they already had Luca cast I auditioned for The Guard I auditioned auditioned for um uh The Dawn from Monster Ferrato you know Nara's father um and and and Lodja and uh you know spoiler character at the end like I auditioned for I did reads for everyone and um I even when I sent them in I'm like I don't know I'm like I you know I told uh Michael Ciner Nicholas who I reached out to um who was familiar who had sent past along the auditions as uh he had sort of got me in touch with the director of the dub uh Mike Schneider and said like you know I sent him my stuff and I'm like uh you know I I did my best to go I feel like I'm probably a the best fit for me is like The Guard and Pancras and I said I you know I'm sure you've got some great people for that but man I just never expected that to happen honestly I was like no I'm like yeah they probably got somebody you know already lined up uh because I'm like it's too good to be true to play you know The Warrior Dad that everyone loves from Dragon Quest 5 which is not too dissimilar from a role that I play on my show you know sort of fatherly mentor warrior character so uh I guess it well I guess it wasn't too much of a stretch but um yeah you know uh it was great you know just because they had to move really fast you know they got their auditions in from everyone and a couple days later I had the role and they're like you need to get down here now we're going to be recording this immediately and oh my god it took so much to like not scream to the world I get to be a part of this it was so so exciting for me it still is like I forget about it every once in a while and someone will remind me like oh yeah you were in a Dragon Quest movie I'm like that's right whoa so I'm still like thrilled about it I'm still thrilled I got to be a part of that um but that's how I got it like I you know I had the right network to be able to beg somebody for an audition and then um was lucky enough that you know I did my very best of course and that my audition was good and they liked me for the part uh and I got it so sometimes it's you know there's a lot of luck involved like because it could have very well gone to a dub house with nobody that I knew but I'm I've been in animation long enough that like you know it is a pretty um everybody's gonna know somebody somewhere along the line it's like you know six degrees of separation you know the sort of Kevin Bacon methodology of like you may not know the person or you're gonna know somebody who knows somebody who knows the person and that's when you can reach out and say hey can I have a shot and they gave me a shot and I got very very lucky uh but now to sell myself short I think you know if I was fortunate that I was right for the part as well um and yeah it was a thrill of a lifetime I'm not gonna imagine like being a fan and then getting in the movie that's just I would never stop talking about that yeah yeah no it's it's true uh I yeah again I only forget because it seems like it seems impossible so when I'm reminded I'm like oh yeah I did that crazy uh but it was just to speak a little more about that experience uh it was fascinating because you know you go in and you know when you dub a project it's a lot different from originating the role you want to match the intent of the animators and the original actor to an extent like you want to make sure you're being true to the character first and foremost but um you know first you know I've got the sides which are the lines and we just sort of watched the movie because I showed up a little early to talk with them about it and you know they needed to turn this around and uh you know there's all this sort of pronunciation stuff because that game had not been voice acted and there's all these like punnies sort of names so I think the one of the examples I gave was you know up to 10 towers right is what they named I think in Japanese it's Lanua Castle or whatever a Renoir castle which would be more accurate um uh but in the localization it's up to 10 towers and I'm like uh they were like oh how do you pronounce they had like a sheet of things they needed to say and they're like please help us we they kind of gave us a little bit of a guide but there's a lot that we'd still like is it up Titan and I'm like no no no no no up to 10 towers the floors go up to 10 up to 10 towers it's a pun I'm like good rule of thumb everything is a pun Zenithia the zenith the highest point Nadiria Nadir not Nadiria Nadiria the Nadir the lowest point heaven hell zenith Nadir so we're like oh zenithian I'm like zenithian or zenithian no no zenithian zenith not zenith so there was all the sort of conversation about how do we pronounce this and that and again I think there were guides and sort of we came to I think even Dr. Agon was a point of contention where it's like well should it be Dr. Agon do we want to give it away and I'm like no no watch the you know we're watching it all together and I'm like it's it's a joke like they make a joke out of it later on they're like who'd have thought that Dr. Agon would be the dragon and you know the doctor he looks you know he looks at the screen like these idiots like I go so it should be Dr. Agon like you he's giving it away and I'm trying to think of a couple of the I think Ladya was tough because you know is it Ladya and I'm like no no there's sort of a Russian quality to his dialogue in the game so it should be Ladya and I think I'm not I'm not sure why but there was I think they didn't want to do accents and I believe that I don't know who that directive came from but I think it was probably just to make sure that you know the dialogue was clear and made sense for international markets and whatnot again I don't know how we're why that decision was made but that was a decision so it's like when you have a character named Ladya who all of his dialogue in the game is very Russian forward and the same is true with like the Don of Monster Verato like he's very Italian and Sancho is very Spanish he's you know they're trying to make it like Don Quixote Sancho Panza so there are all these little dialects and all that kind of had to be simplified and sort of avoided and I felt it all still I mean there was something you know they were worried about that too they're like oh well that matters should we do this should we do that and I'm like ultimately you know the original games in Japanese doesn't really do that stuff and though that's an affectation of you know the localization for the West and it's part of what makes the series so charming and so special but it's also not necessary so there was this whole conversation and again I had no power to make any decision over that and I'm not even sure that the dub house did that's a decision that came it might have even come from Square I don't know but that was the directive and ultimately I think people didn't care that was my view too as I'm watching it I'm like I go that'll be a conversation for a minute and then people will watch the movie and like it's not going to matter and I don't really think it did fortunately but that was something that was part of you know how do you even pronounce some of these names because a lot of these names are being localized to fit it you know whatever dialect they had matched with certain characters like monster ferrocco is very Italian because that's what they decided to sort of make that area and and those characters talk like so and it was interesting to unravel all that and to even be a part of that process and to as a fan have some input I'm like oh no it should be pronounced this way because my experience with the game is you know hours and dozens of hours upon dozens of hours so it was you know immensely gratifying to have my you know input considered in that way purely just as somebody who had played the games more than just a performer to say like yeah it should be this or it should be that I think we say it this way or maybe we'll put the emphasis here and hopefully I mean I haven't heard anything about it so I'm guessing that means it all that all went well and who knows maybe more fans just watch the original language anyway in which case more power to you but please watch the dub we tried really hard to make it you know good I'm sure yeah so if you weren't there who knows what happened they might have gotten things wrong right at least you were there to fact check them and everything I think you know I'm sure they would have gotten it right because I will say even the director of the dub was a big fan so but it was just there's you're always having conversations but I'm just saying I was lucky to be a part of that conversation and so I think I think even if I wasn't there they would have they would have gotten it right but I'm very happy that I was there to have some input and say like no no let's it should be this or oh it it should be that um and I think there was also a conversation about spells and stuff too that was hilarious to me to have a serious conversation about is it ka frizzle or ka frizzle I'm like ka frizzle bang boom kaboom not ka boom kaboom so frizzle sizzle ka frizzle not ka frizzle and there's part of me that's like oh I wish I got to be involved in some dubbing for Final Fantasy stuff too because I would put the kibosh on blizzaga right away it's blizzaga not blizzaga what are you doing Final Fantasy sundaga no no sundaga that's a spell uh yeah it's it you know it's one of those things that's just uh it's a weird there's idiosyncrasies that come with written word being translated then localized and then you've got to say it out loud and I gotta say it do just doing that for a day uh you know really gave me as a fan new appreciation for all that you know dragon quest in the west does uh with their characters when you know they write they localize the dialogue and then when they record it in something like dragon quest heroes where Elena and Kirill have these very heavy dialects and even something that you know simpler like Bianca who's got this sort of like northern working class uh you know england uh english accent very appreciative of all the work that goes into that the performers and the writers do it's incredible because this is tough even without all that so big big ups to uh you know the people who dub the actual games in dragon quest they're amazing uh so uh did you watch the movie or did you have like an opinion on the movie I did uh so I got I got to watch the movie before we uh dubbed it just to sort of familiarize myself with what was happening and I've seen so I think I watched your review I think I watched movie Bob's review it's interesting but I'll tell you I can tell you my first reaction on just watching the movie by itself uh it's an interesting movie and I personally I loved it uh for what it was which is you know and I was familiar with I think the twist before I saw it so I'm like there's no part of me that's you know gonna be confused but knowing that going in I was able to appreciate that all the more where you have these sort of moments that are actually calling it out where it's like oh you know uh there are some robots over here robots that seems a little random are like oh that's just how it is this time this time there's all these sort of little hints about what's going on and the game is not exactly going right along with the story but that actually ends up being a story point the characters don't look like Toriyama but that's also technically a story point they don't look like Toriyama because they look like this world's in world design of human beings because it's a VR thing etc etc like I was able to appreciate that on that level too but I will say my just got reaction to the movie was uh a few fold one I just really enjoyed seeing the world of that game come to life which is sort of superficial but as a fan again I'm like I that's good enough I love seeing that I loved how they fleshed out certain character interactions and just to see the the way you know again as an animation person seeing how they made these characters move around and how expressive you know how normally rigid video game characters could be so I enjoyed that I loved the sequence with Nara and Bianca and sort of choosing who he was going to marry boy I loved that sequence and I love how much they were able to bring a new dimension to Nara that she's never had before she's always been kind of a you know a simple character and the game really urges you not to be with her and the movie put this beautiful spin on it where she's actually sort of heartbroken and helping you fall in love with you know who you should be with I don't know I enjoyed that sort of spin on it of course I loved all the action and the battle stuff and then you know there's all these sort of crazy twists and turns but as for the ending I thought you know movie Bob's review and your review both of you had different opinions of it but I thought you're you're right on like you're exactly right with interpreting what it was I think there are some some fans who saw it and were like you know what the hell this is not how the game goes and it's like well yeah dude play the game go play the game is over there go play that this is called dragon quest your story it's a narrative experience that's about something else so there's that and and I understand that but I think that's sort of a superficial complaint but I thought you and movie Bob kind of put you both had differing opinions on it but what you you called it for what it was accurately because that's how I felt watching it as a fan which is to say that it was to use my own words I felt that the ending was a love letter to fans and I've heard some people also you know say well you could say it's a love letter you could say it's pandering however you want to see it I can only tell you from my experience seeing that in the moment I teared up a little man I felt it was beautiful to have a developer of a game that I have loved tell me I love you too that touched my heart dude I couldn't believe and yes you could say like ah get out of here make a better story it's pandering to me I you know I can only speak for myself I enjoyed the pandering like it made me happy because I can't tell you how many you know playing a game is an interactive experience it is not the same as watching a movie playing a game is you going through interacting with someone else's work of art and you now have the agency to decide what it is and what it means to you and for the first time the artist was staring back at me and saying no I'm interacting with you I'm telling you what you mean to me I love you and that was special for me as a fan of the series and I think you know you either have that experience with it or you don't and I can't fault you if you don't but that was the experience I had and I was like I feel bad for people who didn't like that like that's your right to not like it as always art is you know subjective and uh you know I'm as an artist and a creator and someone in animation directly myself like I understand when something doesn't connect with people or when it does and you know criticism is something you just have to take but uh so it is what it is but in watching it it moved me man is it going to move me every time probably not I've seen the movie now but like that first time I was like oh I can't believe it they love me oh I thought this was a one-way street so uh I genuinely enjoyed that I I looked past the sort of um surface level of oh no this is about like you know fans this game is real to us because it's these memories but that's not how I took it I took it you are real to us because you make our games real uh the moment you play them they're real for you and they're real in your heart and you give us that power and you give us that trust we love you for that we hope you've enjoyed this we want you to know uh that yeah you are the hero to us because you play these games and you make what we do worthwhile and so yeah you know it's it's it's no different than going to comic con and it's like of course we've got to thank the fans and you're like okay just answer my questions Hugh Jackman you know it's a little bit of that but uh I genuinely did enjoy uh that ending and I did watch it again recently to prepare for this and yeah it's you can view it as corny you can view it as this or that but like I still enjoyed it and I thought about the alternative right I'm like all right what if this was just a movie of the story of the game yeah I I don't want that I agree with I think it was Movie Bob's review where he's like why do that play the game he's like they tried something weird does it work I don't know he's like but they tried it and it was really weird and I respect that and I thought I feel the same way I'm glad that they went out on a limb to do something different and that they chose the right game to do it with because that game is so personal to a lot of people compared to the rest of the sort of Dragon Quest series that one really is about your experience coming to to to grow into an adult in the game and then they're using that to create this parallel arc for this real world character who has grown into an adult and it's looking back fondly I appreciate the poetic nature of that and it's like sometimes as an artist you're going to swing for the fences are you always going to hit a home run I don't know but I appreciate the hell out of them for swinging and I'm like yeah thank you for trying that so yeah that's my sort of nuanced view of it I appreciated it for what it was and I actually enjoyed you know the message I got from it if they make another movie and they want to make a straightforward narrative I think that's fine but I don't think that you should take a straight up Dragon Quest game story and turn that into a series or a movie games or games movies or movies you need to do something different to elevate the material so what I think would be great is taking a single character story from Dragon Quest and extrapolating that into a series or a movie that would be great that is a new experience that is oh I'm going to get to know Yangus better Young Yangus coming to Showtime boom I'd watch that easily if you're like we're going to retail Dragon Quest 8 I'm like I'll just play Dragon Quest 8 I don't want to watch your playthrough where you do it wrong I want to play my playthrough so that's also my view of it as a creative person and that's also my pitch for Young Yangus on Showtime please fingers crossed for Young Yangus the series you know I actually agree a lot with what you said about video game movies and how they're always trying to you know just completely adapt the game and they don't always it always falls a little bit flat because you can't do that you can't replicate because it's an interactive medium you can't replicate that I'm just struggling to think of a single video I mean people really liked the Sonic movie but again what they did though was completely different from the games so it's like yeah but that doesn't always work either sometimes you make a Mario Brothers the movie and it's like okay this is a really long music video I don't like it as far as video game movies go though this is probably one of the better ones out there I'd say oh absolutely because it at the very least it does what as a level on a fan you want it to do I call it like the Godzilla 2014 syndrome it's just at least you can at the very very least what you can't get from a lot of other video game movies you can get here which is just protracted beautifully animated sequences of stuff from the game coming to life the battle with Bjorn is amazing the montage of the hero sort of leveling up is you know action packed it's funny it's got all these sort of memes from the games in it even the final battle is nuts in just these little moments sort of coming to life that are pulling at your heart strings like you're at least gonna get that whereas you may watch like a Resident Evil movie and you're gonna be out of luck it's not what you want yeah yeah it's totally totally different so um yeah it's a good movie overall I'm glad to hear that you had a great experience with it I actually spoke to um Zanty Huynh who's who played Nira I interviewed her recently oh yeah yeah yeah I'm still working on editing that video but uh she she seemed to have fun with it also she played like the old lady uh also as well that's right yeah yeah um but she's obviously not as into this series as you are I I'm glad to hear your opinion on the movie and uh oh yeah yeah yeah like and and again I mean I you know I don't know what your viewers know but I'm no uh I'm no mild dragon quest fan like I just finished a playthrough of three last night at one in the morning in my you know for the fun of it that's where I'm at on this uh so this is you can take it from uh if you hear it from me uh I'm not uh I don't even think anyone could be a casual fan of dragon quest is that possible not in the west you're either a hardcore fan of it or you're not that's what I got as well most most dragon quest fans in the west are very obsessed with the series that's what I uh you have to be if you want to keep seeing those games here you've got to be dedicated you gotta be so how did you discover dragon quest like how did you find out about it like what was the first 20 play so I was talking about this on the uh uh twitch stream recently but um uh so I hesitate to think exactly what time but I'll I'll start from the very beginning my first the first time I'd ever crossed paths with dragon warrior was in like a blockbuster looking at games see dragon warrior seven I don't even think I had a ps1 but I just was drawn to the cover art because I see toriyama and I'm like what dragon warrior that's not a dragon ball what is this I pick it up I look on the back I'm like oh it's some RPG never heard of this and I'm like ah they're probably just using toriyama's art to sucker me in no and I put it aside and again I'm like I was super nintendo generation so there's no dragon warrior or dragon quest on super nintendo super famicom yes not on a super nintendo so I wasn't familiar with dragon warrior one through four not at all knew nothing about them this is a strictly final fantasy house so that was the first time I had ever even rushed against it as a franchise and I was like nope completely looked the other way uh and then it wasn't until final fantasy 13 had come out uh that you know sort of fate would steer me in this direction and I had played that and I played like six hours of it and I was just heartbroken I'm like oh this I don't know where this franchise is going but it's not where I thought and I don't want this to put it nicely because there are people for whom final fantasy 13 is probably their favorite and I'm glad you know that's the beauty of a long running franchise like that and even dragon quest or even Mario or Zelda like they're also different from each other but it wasn't for me and I just sort of felt heartbroken because final fantasy always was for me and I was like all right well I just couldn't get the taste out of my mouth really I don't know how else to put it I'm like I I want to play something else and I genuinely can't remember what steered me toward dragon quest eight I don't know if maybe I'd played nine first maybe that's what did it and I was I was drawn in by nine I can't remember if it was nine or eight but I know I start around the same time no I'm pretty sure it was eight I'm pretty sure I did start with dragon quest eight and maybe it was even before final fantasy 13 and I just had my hands on it in a collection of ps2 but it's hard to remember the exact time period but what happened is you know I started playing eight and within the first hour I was like I knew this is what I was looking for like sweeping orchestral score walking through the countryside all of Toriyama's designs are so charming these characters are speaking in these very specific dialects I'm getting to know them and I was just sucked in and I swear to you that same week I went on like ebay or Amazon or whatever else and I bought every single game that I could I snapped up four and five on the DS I think five and maybe just come out that port I snapped up one two and three on the Game Boy Color every game I could get my hands on I did and I tore through them and it was what I needed at the time it was that sort of classic RPG that you know feeling that Final Fantasy was not giving me anymore and then uh yeah from there I moved on to nine and then I just have played them all multiple times and I've been a massive massive fan ever since if there's a spinoff that comes out here I play it dragon quest monsters you got it dragon quest builders one and two absolutely hundreds of hours like it just clicked in a way for me that was like there was a piece of my soul missing and dragon quest slotted right in uh and it was one of those things where I just felt stupid for not having like I look back on that moment of picking up Dragon Warrior 7 and being like nah and being like idiot should have picked it up then again I've played dragon quest seven cents and it's and maybe it wouldn't have taken off if I played that one first because that's a very long and hard game to play but um yeah that's sort of my history of how I came to uh know the franchise and and love it and uh yeah it's been a whirlwind romance ever since I can imagine yeah that's it's it's a lot of it introduced a lot of people to the series that one and introduced me to the series but again I bounced I bounced back and forth between eight four and five simultaneously and I don't know that maybe that's just a problem with how my brain works but I like didn't complete them all at once or you know I'd just say I'd be like great okay I get 10 hours in a Dragon Quest 8 moving on Dragon Quest 4 oh my god oh that's where that song comes from amazing and of course this was originated here oh like all the history was just like coming at me at once it was like some insane it's all just sort of Dragon Quest just sort of downloaded all at once uh into my soul and I'm so glad uh because I think I would be a shell of a person without it yeah same here it's uh it's a really big impact on my life as well you know I love the franchise of the people behind it as well you know Yuji Hori is a big influence on me oh yeah and uh it's just they're just so addicting and it's like there's so much to them like it's like you said earlier um there's like a surface level to Dragon Quest and then when you dive deeper deeper into there's more to each game yeah that surface level is uh you know hopefully it's what draws people in but I don't it's it sometimes can't be enough because people might see ah traditional RPG ah Toriyama art that's nice I don't know but it's like it's the same way that I had to uh which is why I still keep faith the Dragon Quest will take off in the west someday but like it's the same thing I had to do when Animal Crossing was new where you know I'd introduce it to you know my sister or you know uh best friend or you know girlfriend or whatever like I'm like play this and they go what you're picking apples and doing a chore for your what what's wrong with you and I'm like sit down and play it for an hour they'd be 15 minutes and I go no shut up play it for an hour and as soon as the hour is over they're still playing and then it's four hours later and I want them to give the controller back and they won't and I'm like told you I told you this would happen so that's the same I don't know what it is but I feel it's the same way with Dragon Quest where it's like you need to just let it take root let yourself become immersed let the music the environment the characters all of that to sort of wash over you as you become immersed and suddenly you're 15 hours in and you're like you know I don't know what I'm gonna do you know Angelo's rough house and in a bar Yangus is fighting too maybe Jessica can break this up and it's like you've been here for three days you know you need to just let the game and you know everything about it just give it time to unfold and when it does there is so much more to it and it's unlike anything else it's unlike anything else and I can see why Japan in particular is obsessed with it on this kind of comfort food level for me it stands up there with Mario and Zelda as like pillars of you know classic and neoclassic gaming if that's even a thing like they there is no video games without Dragon Quest and I feel that to this day I'm not like oh you know Dragon Quest influence I'm like no it's continuing to influence it's continuing to drive the genre and the medium the genre of JRPGs that style and the medium of games it's continuing to drive them forward and I hesitate to think of any character or story I I care about as much as something like even Sovando's Ark and Dragon Quest 11 beautiful it's on the again it's got that surface level of like that's kind of a comical character but the the deeper you dive you're like I love this character so much you're like guys dude's a clown you dive a little deeper and it's like he's the only one who seems to be driving us forward to do anything we just stopped in this town and he is immediately concerned with the well-being of this child who lost his mommy why does he care so much what is with this guy you dive deeper oh he's he's very chivalrous oh he knows all about chivalry oh his dad is this guy oh what they're not getting and it just keeps going deeper and deeper until you know you're immersed in this beautiful story of like reconciliation and acceptance it's good stuff man like I could go on for hours and hours just about one character's arc that's just a slice of that game but the care that's put into it to make it so charming and but still iconic you know what I mean it isn't doing with like a telltale game or like a triple-a action game it's going to do with the best actors and the best mo cap and this and that but it's just it's very the only word I can use is poetic dragon quest is focused on the poetry of it all and letting this stuff go you know allowing things to be you know so deep beneath the surface that you just need to play the game get to know these characters appreciate them on that level and let them reveal themselves to you over time as if there's someone that you truly are getting to know uh and there's yeah I don't know hey there's nothing quite like dragon quest that does that on the same on the same series of levels yeah I agree it just dragon quest writing just kind of ruined other games for me if that makes sense like nothing has like does what dragon quest does if in a way you know one of a kind all right so um and you've been doing a lot of your own kind of work to promote dragon quests in your on your own twitter you know as a fan uh you make these animations these really great looking animations of monsters characters you know running around like it just looks so good uh you want to tell us a little bit about that yeah I think uh a couple years ago I I got this um gosh I don't know if it's over there but it's just uh let me grab it real quick and grab this book it's a mentor dragon quest shirt today but it's Kirby and his robot so that's close enough he's almost like a slime all right so this book uh this is a dragon quest monsters art book and field guide it's got this cute little slip clever I think it's supposed to go the other way actually uh so there's two books to it this is entirely just a uh a guide that just has all the stats and information you could possibly want about every monster in the series up into a point uh that's you know helpful but not as amazing as this book if you can get your hands on it do yourself a favor it is all of the monsters in their original toriyama concept drawings with like markers and ink uh they have their correct scale weight class all that information and I just was flipping through this and enamored with the raw quality of just these little marker drawings and I'm like this is just it I know it's it's silly because you're just looking at these very simple kind of doodles almost initially but I look at them and I see a master at the top of his craft and design uh effortlessly creating iconic design after iconic design as if it means nothing to him and that's hugely inspiring for me and so I was just like man look at these cycles and something that toriyama does that I don't think enough people talk about is uh his drawings are very kinetic whenever he draws anything the character is always halfway through emotion about to complete an action almost always uh perfect example this guy he's not standing still his head is turned to the side he looks like he is leaping jumping up in the air this guy's mid-flight this dude is walking at you you know one foot to the side I believe I've animated this one if you can find that on twitter one foot's back one foot's forward head to the side he's coming at you he's menacing there's a cloud coming out of like this guy is spinning this guy's got noxious gas coming out of him like the characters are always in motion they are designed to move and uh you know looking at some of them I'm like you know what I've never seen this monster animated in a classic 2d style uh or if I have it's in the art piazza um uh ports of the dragon quest years which are amazing and I so I'm inspired by those as well so one day I just took a picture straight out of the art book instead of just finding a google ref which is way easier I scanned it myself so I could get the raw quality of it and match the palette and I just started animating it and I'm like how simply could you animate this little character there's probably a slime or a king slime or some other thing I've done a ton of them since then uh but it was just for the fun of it and just for the pure joy and inspiration of looking at an artist at the top of their game and saying ah that's a great drawing I really want to make it move it's as simple as that and you know when you have the skill set to do it it's like well why not just do it I can tell like nothing is stopping me from from seeing what I want if I want to see that drawing move I can make it move and so I did and it just became addicting because I'm like ah these you know again the drawings are so full of life as a still I want to make them move around and it became a fun challenge too so like bubble slime has all these bubbles popping out of him and I think I played a game where like he'd move around and the bubbles were just suspended in midair and I'm like that I don't think that was the intent of that drawing and so of course I animated bubble slime and the bubbles are popping out of him and rising into the air and that in and of itself becomes this fun puzzle to solve where you're like well what is this character doing what is this supposed to represent I think I animated a funky ferret or whatever skunkers or whatever you want to call it the other day and he's got a little fart cloud coming out of him I'm like well what is he doing is that just coming out of him and of course I have lean back lean forward tail goes up fart comes out but all that thought goes into trying to interpret a still drawing and it just is this sort of therapeutic thing that I do if I'm just like this will be fun take a little toriyama drawing from Dragon Quest throw it up in adobe anime break it down into its pieces draw animate make it move that looks nice throw up a little gif and it's just this I don't know it's kind of a satisfying little magic trick and it also helps you know promote Dragon Quest which is a beautiful sort of side effect and if I'm not doing that then I'm also doing some kind of fan art or talking about it or posting a clip and while it's not something that like is all that I do on social media it's actually I'd say there is like a good 20 30 percent of the people who follow me have no idea what I do for a living have no idea that like I'm a show creator or a voice actor or any of that they just know that I do Dragon Quest stuff and there's a part of me that's like I appreciate that I'm like good that's fine I'm glad that I've got enough of a foothold in you know the Dragon Quest fandom which is so odd for me to say because I am kind of I hesitate to say it but like anti-fandom I like to enjoy things on my own terms I don't like a group of people to dictate to me what is the best or what I should enjoy so while I'm very vocal about what I like I don't seek out forums I don't want to have like a discord with a group of friends who talk about I'm like no no no I know I'm like because it's inevitable that you and I are going to get in a disagreement and you're going to be very mad when I systematically destroy your stance point by point it's like you don't want that let me enjoy this on my own but Dragon Quest has a bit had the opposite effect I think that weirdly that's largely in part to Dragon Quest 9 which was released at sort of a special moment in time where you had to have a community that played these games locally and was trading maps and stuff to sort of get where you wanted to get to form a party and do these late game dungeons like you had to be friends with people who play Dragon Quest and so it's one of the maybe only fandoms that I would consider myself a part of but I also think it's because like Dragon Quest you know if we want to see more of these games we need to have kind of a concerted effort to say it's worth releasing them in the west we love them we cherish them and I'm happy more than happy to be a part of that because I'm a massive massive fan and it's I can say it's only had you know an extremely positive impact on my life and it's still very inspiring every day Dragon Quest inspires me in some way that's great to hear yeah so and you do have quite a quite a you know presence in the community a lot of people always talk about your animations personally I knew about you before your show even came out because when in 2018 when I was trying to get into the DQ community on Twitter I was always seeing your you know animations and that's kind of how I was introduced to your content so Dragon Quest first you know thanks man yeah yeah Dragon Quest that's my that's my campaign slogan Dragon Quest first big sign yeah I wonder how far I'd get I don't know maybe maybe not far but yeah no I appreciate that like again there's I'm maybe some people would find it odd but I I'm like no I I'm happy because that means I've made some impact for the better in terms of introducing this series to people even if people have already played it hopefully I'm inspiring them to play more or to you know buy an art book or a figure or talk to their friends about it or you know whatever it is it's one of those things that like I said I love the series so much so if I can get anyone else to care about it for a second and to see what I see in it maybe you know my my thought isn't necessarily like oh I really need to validate how I feel about it I don't I don't care I've made that clear like I love what I love that's fine it's it's for me the feeling is more like again like I said earlier I definitely had this hole in my heart where Dragon Quest was supposed to go and if people I know have that same shaped hole in their heart let's fix that like here it is you've needed this all these years you had no way you were chasing you went this way you were playing the tales of games it didn't work you tried trails in the sky it just wasn't quite right you gave Final Fantasy a shot let you down a couple times this is what you're looking for you didn't even know it it's right here it's Dragon Quest welcome there's 11 games you can only play 10 of them here in the west but that'll do yeah a lot of people you know that's the mission same story you know by finding it and how it just kind of clicked they were kind of looking for something like this and they didn't know it existed you know so that's good um so I got a few questions about your your animation career as well um some some of people in my discord want to hear a little bit about this so um you are you are a big animator obviously because you do these animations on twitter but you also do it as a job uh you start off on new grounds that's correct um just how did uh how did you yeah yeah like new grounds and youtube around the same time yeah how did you get into uh sorry go ahead i'm just asking how you just got into into animation like how to start sure uh hopefully you can hear me i think it's getting a little choppy on your end but i'll i'll answer you let me know if uh we're good i can hear you can you hear me yes okay okay cool okay i'll go yeah i can answer your question so um you know after i got out of high school you know i you know i wasn't sure what i was going to do and you know i had good grades and stuff and i thought no no maybe i'll go into engineering or science or something i don't know but obviously all i did was draw all day and one of my sisters uh was like hey uh go to art school and i'm like you can do that there's a school for art she's like yeah you have to leave here to do that i'm like oh i didn't know you could i had no idea so i went to the art institute in san diego now closed due to fraud amazing uh but i i went to school out there for you know three years and sort of uh built my skills and then i applied to every job i could find i think i saw a metal apocalypse one day on adult swim and i'm like i could do that that's doable i know what however they're animating it i know i can do that and so i applied to tipmouse and that was in the end of 2008 and i had worked there since 2009 uh and i've worked on you name it metal apocalypse super jail venture brothers china illinois um the pilot for black dynamite a storyboarder this and animated a huge chunk of this uh sequence for it uh motor city was sort of a big fan favorite that i was an animator on did some animation direction on turbo fast i directed this super friends thing and then i went over to kartu network and boarded and rode on ok ko and then we sold malmo heroes of pure hearts to um kartu this is super truncated history but like this is over the course of 10 years from 2009 i've till now um that's uh sort of what i did so i just worked and worked and worked and bounced around as many projects and as many different types of jobs as i could uh meanwhile still focusing on you know my own personal work with shorts like uh i think that one of the first things i did was that dr mario with lyrics short for brendel floss people see that to this day they're like that was you and i'm like yeah that was me they're just like we thought it was just dropped onto the internet and i'm like no somebody made it and it was me am i proud of it kind of i'm like i not not so much anymore i'm like but you know it just from an animation standpoint because no one likes looking back on something old but they did but uh that was sort of the first big internet thing i did and then i made a short called the guards and then i did this weird thing called shamrock shake and rick man on new grounds all these sort of little personal projects because you know i wanted to find my own fulfillment and then malma was sort of another piece of that puzzle where i'm like i you know one day sound like an email from some development executive and they're like hey we saw a short that you did maybe think about pitching a show and i'm like i could do that maybe i could do same thing as like go to art school i'm like i should i could do that that i try making a show i could do that maybe i should try doing that and turns out i could do that but it took years of uh effort malma didn't just kind of appear out of nowhere like i had to you know draw and draw and come up with ideas and talk to friends and co-workers about it and it was over a span of like two or three years making a shorter to and uh developing the show in the world and then finally pitching it and we had you know some success pitching it over at cards and networks so we got very lucky to be right place right time with the right thing and uh that's kind of how i got here but uh yeah it's it's a lot of hard work it's a lot of um you know working with other people and uh meeting the right people and uh hopefully also just like you know being a friend as well because no one wants to work with you know someone they don't like so when you get out there in animation like connect with other people and share your passion with them and uh you know pursue your own creative goals for your own fulfillment and you know work hard for it you're gonna need that little bit of luck but it won't come without you know the sort of effort so that's really truncated we'd be here for hours and hours if i went over worked on but that's super truncated version of my animation career it's been 10 years i could definitely call it a career i think yeah yeah i i think so as well i've seen a lot of the shows that you worked on uh i think it's safe to call it a career i always wonder i'm like is this it um i was sorry you're cutting out i couldn't oh sorry i was just asking you so you work at titmouse and that's the studio that you're kind of attached to right now or okay yeah i've been there for a long time and then i think for a couple years i went over to car to network and then when we sold momma went right back to titmouse so that's sort of uh you know it's not that i am legally obligated to work there but that's you know where a lot of the artists i like to work with are and uh it's a place that i'm you know very familiar with and of course we're all remote now uh but yeah titmouse is sort of i'm i wouldn't i wouldn't hesitate to call myself like a titmouse that's what i am that's where i'm from that's where i work that's great so um so with momma i'm just i wonder uh so what inspired you to make the show in the character i watched some episodes i've seen it every now and then so i'm not familiar with it uh where did you get a lot of your inspiration from the dragon quest inspired at all or anything like that or i think i think that's safe to say i think largely i've cited chrono trigger for being an even bigger inspiration but that's you still Yuji Hori and Akira Toriyama they're very much inspired by Toriyama's works and uh i think someone long ago described the show as uh if adventure time is a tabletop rpg then mama was a jrpg and i said that is exactly right that is exactly right we're not randomly sort of coming up with scenarios this is a carefully planned and crafted scenario that is going to a specific place based on these very you know character-driven stories but as for i think i've answered the questions a few times over the past couple years but as for where mama came from you know a bunch of different places um i one day i sat down i opened a file and i was thinking about that question like could i make a show and i'm like well why don't i just draw what i like to draw and i drew a little cat warrior with a sword and it really was that simple i drew him some friends i drew some bad guys i drew some side characters and i didn't question it i was like that is what came out of my hand when i asked myself what i wanted to draw don't question it stick with it and i kept drawing them and refining them and thinking about them and thinking what i thought was funny what i thought was fun i like really cool vehicles i like really cool monsters i like really cute things i like really funny things i like foppish sort of dandies i make the king i like a really cute little mascot character i make a door about i like the sort of lazy tech bro best friend who's really sassy make badger clubs who is originally bear clubs and of course i have strong feelings about like the main character shouldn't be a little positive dope he should be a really frustrated man with daddy issues who's probably 30 that's what i like and so you know i create based around this question and i think if you are going to make something whether it's a game a short story a comic book whatever it is that you want to make stay true to that stay true to that question what do i like don't worry about what it is that other people want you need a hope to god that other people want it but i don't think you should create for others you need to create from your own heart and for lack of a better word what do you like and so that's the best answer that question i can give i sat down i asked myself what i liked and i drew it and then i kept drawing it until it made and working on it until it also made sense and wasn't just you know like here's a bunch of stuff i spewed out now give me money like it doesn't work that way you're gonna have to work on it but um yeah it you know chrono trigger was a big inspiration and so just by connection of the same creator so his dragon quest and then there's a you know a sprinkling of like you know batman and there's a little bit of like rocko's modern life and uh all the other sort of things that just uh hadn't informed you know uh why i got into animation the first place and what i love about it i could see the influence the kind of it it does feel like a jrpg a lot of it you know you know especially um well let's see uh you also voice now right you're the voice actor from then the emmy nominated voice yes i was gonna get to that i was gonna really didn't win it would be a lot more impressive if i could say i am the emmy winning voice mama but i'll take the nomination yeah yeah um that's also something that uh you know in my time and animation you know i've been passionate about doing you know voices silly series or otherwise and i do a lot of voice for other people's shorts or i do scratch dialogue and it sort of picked up roles are there and it wasn't until i worked on ok ko that i'd done a couple of board pitches and ian and toby or you know run of the show or like you should just do a voice in the show and i'm like oh thank god finally and they helped me you know break into sag and from there you know pitching mama i'm like yeah there is no other voice for that character this is what he sounds like and i think i was a voice you know the king and rattering and a few other characters just because i'm like yeah you know they should sound like this as well but in my mind there was never anyone else who could do it i'm like this is such a personal character and so for me you know where he's comes from and where he's going is very very personal and uh it comes from my heart and so to have his voice come from someone else's head no that was never going to happen and i think even for a second someone to consider that look maybe we could and i'm like no you can't i am mama no one else is so that was sort of a very hard line for me and i'm glad that we did it because eventually i feel like i was validated in that choice that having that award nomination was immense validation to say to anyone who was like well maybe we should it's like look at that we don't get there unless i do it because the words that come out of this character's mouth have to come from that person but even when it's just something silly i'm like it always informed by you know the past it always and so all these little choices uh that the characters may the character makes needs to come from that personal place even again even if it's just him going oh no no no no like just something as stupid as that i'm like nope that's 30 years of trauma like that all has to come from that place it has to be informed it can't be a shortcut or it's going to be ironically a cartoon but you know what i mean like you want a performance to have depth and nuance and you want it to come from a very real place even doing you know to bring it back to dragon quest even doing pancraze i am a father and so when i think about you know when i thought about even something as short as just saying these very simple expository lines i'm trying to think about my relationship with my own you know kid and bring that to it and make it real so who knows who knows if someone else could have voiced uh mao mao but i i tell you from my own personal point of view i know and the answer is no nobody could had to had to have been me and i think the same is true for adorabat and badger clops who are my real life you know friends uh leaka liang and uh griff kimmons griff kimmons my actual best friend to voice mao mao's best friend i like it just i'm like no they these they speak the way that we speak to each other it has to be that exact same chemistry in order for the the comedy and the heart and everything to be true and for audiences to connect to it they're gonna know whether or not it's like oh it's just this sort of abboton pastello stick fine whatever but you want to connect to characters and know that they're real and and that they're you in a way that you can relate to them uh and so yeah casting not just myself but also you know my you know friends who are also amazing performers to me is a large part of what makes our show not only just like funny and enjoyable but uh special and unique it isn't the same you know same thing you've heard a million times it's different well i'm glad you're having a lot of success with your show and uh it's uh seems quite popular it is popular right right now i think so i i genuinely don't know i feel like there's no real true metric uh because uh the landscape of entertainment is evolving so quickly these days so like it used to be you know in the 80s you know there's only a few channels in the 90s all right you still pretty much know nearly 2000s it's like all right something's happening here soon as youtube and netflix and everything the proliferation of streaming and then the democratization of uh entertainment which is the the only thing i can call it like audience decide audiences deciding what they want to watch reality tv podcasts youtube or streamers whatever like everyone at every point in the world can decide at any time what they want to watch so i don't know i hope i can only hope but i can i can tell you that i know we have a very large and dedicated um fan base and that i think means as much as as any sort of metric could the fact that i can know uh people personally who will tell me this show has changed my life or this show is special to me because i see myself in it and these characters ring true and this moment rings true or this touched me or this made me cry or this made me laugh so hard that's enough ma'am as an artist that's enough because it's like that's the job that is the job that you know that these characters are real and that uh that they mean that frankly there are some people who scare me a little bit but i mean like that i'm also take a step back and i'm like well that's good i'm like that's good that these characters mean so much to them and you don't get there unless you did your job right people don't obsess about characters who are meaningless i take that back they totally do that's entirely where Boba Fett came from it was just a costume and now he's everything but but even that costume was iconography it's art it's you know hundreds of man hours and experience poured into this single image so i don't know but i you know i can always say that i feel fulfilled and i feel validated from you know the response that we've had from viewers and fans and even just today you know my wife was looking at uh she you know will peruse lost and found animals and try to help people in the neighborhood uh some kid lost their cat cat was named ma'am that's enough that's enough for me like that's great i think she slightly messaged this person you know because it's on some point she's like oh you're kid a big fan of the show is that what they named the cat after and i think the person said uh well she says no but she has been watching that show a lot lately and i'm like ah gotcha oh my gotcha i'm like you watch the show a lot but you didn't name your cat after don't lie but um yeah you know it's those little moments and i think i've had friends send me a picture of you know a kid's birthday and they've got ma'am on their cake or whatever like that's enough man that's immensely satisfying because it means someone somewhere like really connected to something you know that i and my crew worked really hard to make uh unique and to make funny and and sincere and special and uh that's all that you want to achieve because you want to pay forward the same experiences that you had when you were a kid you know you're like i had this thing that was so special to me and so unique so i want to pay that for and hopefully Mao Mao for an entire generation uh maybe it's only maybe it's hundreds of kids maybe it's thousands maybe it's 15 i don't know but hopefully for them it is that special moment in time and uh they're able to look back on it years from now fondly that's that for me is the goal to create a lasting and genuine impact uh with someone who feels that they are seen when they watch the show well i'm glad to hear that that's uh it must be very cool to have such an impact on people's lives you know yeah cool and also like i said kind of scary sometimes because it's like well hold on i'm here like that was that was just a gag we came up with don't let's not it's like no that when Mao Mao almost puked looking at a puppet that changed my life and i'm like oh that you know it also makes you look at their responsibility you have doing this sort of stuff too which you know you can't really take too lightly but yeah there's a sort of delicate balance of all right well this is just a cartoon but it also means everything to a few people so let's make sure you know uh you know you take your work it's a cartoon it sounds so insane to say but yeah take your work seriously because a lot of other people do whether you do or not um and that's my point of you not everyone has to share that like there's some people who are like nope do whatever i want at all times and yeah i don't know there's this sort of like uh there's a million different approaches to making something i'm just happy that we made something and i think it turned out good even that is enough i'm like whew even that that alone is a challenge in and of itself just to be satisfied with the work that you have done on a personal level all right so um maybe we can talk about dragon quest a little more have you ever like you know your animations your animations are really cool and like you mentioned you do things that the games don't do like like the bubbles popping and stuff you ever thought about maybe working on a game like has ever crossed your mind yeah i have i mean it's just such the thing goes as such an undertaking and i've got some ideas that i'd love to make but i'm just waiting for the right time and the right team and the right opportunity uh i don't know how to put it like hey you know if you're a game developer and you want to work with me hit me up let's chat let's talk about it uh let's get lawyers involved let's make some money i don't know like it's one of those things where it's like it's one thing to say like yes i'd love to make a game but it's an undertaking and it's for some people it's years of their life and uh you know if i ever did it i'd want to do it right and i'd want to work with the right people uh the one thing i have no doubt about is you know leading with or being a part of a team it's what i've done my entire career but it's just about finding that right team you know i am not a game designer i enjoy games i appreciate game design but i have not done that so for me to lead a team doing that would be ridiculous but i don't want to find the right team lead you know find the right story people the right design people and help steer a great idea into something that everyone can enjoy that sounds like a super fun thing to do i'd love to do that but i'm i'm also just i know that it's a lot of work as i'm like i know i know that's the case so it isn't something that you know as much as i'm like yeah i know that it's not something that i can just do tomorrow and i kind of am waiting for the right moment and the right team to uh you know either i approach them or they approach me and you know hopefully that'll happen one day and lightning will strike and we can get to work so that's yeah one day i'd love absolutely love to make a game but just it's got to kind of happen organically it's got to be the right time place and people yeah i see it's definitely a lot of thought has to go into making a game because uh yeah i i just wonder because i heard some people like on um you know on your twitter and saying oh you should make a game your your animation is just so great and i was even a little bit curious about that if you were interested but i'm glad to hear that you are yeah i would love to do uh something like that but but by myself no way i don't have that i don't have that i mean there were some amazing like one person development teams and uh yeah i i'm multi-talented but i'm not that i am not that i can't do that like yeah i can play a little piano i'll do a little voice acting for you i draw a little cartoon but the people who do this who like are one person game creators that's so much different than make a one person cartoon creator like you are coding you are bug testing you're doing the music you're doing the art animation design like there's just uh i celebrate them even if i'm like uh even even if that game isn't for me if you're a one if you are one person and you made a game you're a hero that's i don't care what the game is like your bottom line you achieved that and i think you should be very proud so when i do it i'm gonna need a team i i know better at least it's out there now anybody watching can uh can contact you if they're making a game i guess that'd be a hit yeah um you should um so is there anything else you want to talk about any any topics you want to touch upon or anything like that or hey you know all i'll say is uh you know watch my show watch mama here's a pure heart it's available on hbomax uh you can also buy it i think it's on most streaming platforms uh we're like itunes or amazon or whatever not streaming but uh you know whatever you want call those google play uh youtube um check it out i think it's a good show you can also watch clips of it um please do we work very hard on it um and it's good uh also play dragon quest play more dragon quest there's never enough play four five eight and three play three on the gameboy color that's my message to you yep and uh and uh you want plug your twitter also people need to see your animations of course sure yeah you could see all sorts of dragon quest fan art animations at uh uh at parker r summons there's an extra r in there it's for my middle name so at parker r summons hit me up on twitter hey i'm streaming uh dragon quest five uh who knows if i'll still be doing it by the time this comes out but i've started streaming on uh twitch the username is sheriff mao sheriff mao on twitch.tv check it out i stream sometimes now so that's it that's all i've got all right everyone make sure you follow parker on all of his social medias and i want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me it's always great talking to another you know fellow dragon quest uh fan yeah yeah i really appreciate it and i was happy we were able to dive deep in in some of this stuff and uh yeah the the feeling is mutual like even when dragon quest fans agree disagree whatever it doesn't matter they're like the fact that we love it at all is so special in and of itself that like there's already uh you know an unspoken bond between anyone who's like dragon quest dragon quest you know that's that's it so yeah it's been great talking to you man yep i appreciate it so thanks for everyone watching i hope you all enjoyed the interview and we'll see you next time bye everybody