Soul Mates! - The Art and Design of Gacha Game Characters! – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode, a drift compatible one, we zoom in on our second Saki colab character, the one eye closed two girlfriend on lock Mihoko Fukuji, who you need to really, REALLY be careful with if you bring her to cosplay kareoke, and ash challenges Ivy with a bold question: Will you not admit that this is the best image, possibly in the entire world?

Follow along: 
https://mahjongsoul.club/character/MihokoFukuji

Support the show: 
https://ko-fi.com/ivyfoxart

Follow the show on Tumblr: 
https://soul-mates-podcast.tumblr.com/

Follow the show on YouTube: 
https://www.youtube.com/@Soul-Mates-Podcast

Listen to Together We'll Shine: An Utena Rewatch Podcast: 
https://bunnygirlbrainwave.substack.com/archive

Art by Ryegarden: 
https://www.instagram.com/ryegarden

Music by Sueños Electrónicos: 
https://suenoselectronicos.bandcamp.com/

Follow and support ash: 
https://ko-fi.com/asherlark

In a world where yuri nap rooms are too bright, where your ghost girlfriend might push you down the stairs at any moment, where your parents dying turns you into a scary doll with too many particle effects, and even catgirls can find redemption... Two podcasters embark on a frantic paced journey to uncover a terrifying secret: Saki in real life. Will they get their Yakuman, or will it all go bust?

Watch along with us: 
I believe in you dawg you can find it if you look

Support the show: 
https://ko-fi.com/ivyfoxart

Follow the show on Tumblr: 
https://soul-mates-podcast.tumblr.com/

Follow the show on YouTube: 
https://www.youtube.com/@Soul-Mates-Podcast

Listen to Together We'll Shine: An Utena Rewatch Podcast: 
https://bunnygirlbrainwave.substack.com/archive

Art by Ryegarden: 
https://www.instagram.com/ryegarden

Music by Sueños Electrónicos: 
https://suenoselectronicos.bandcamp.com/

Follow and support ash: 
https://ko-fi.com/asherlark

In this episode, a platonically ideal one, we zoom in on the mystifyingly mischevious mammal-manipulating magician Ryan, a teenage boy who is also an adult woman who is also an object summoned from a hyperdimentional realm but OMG he has cute bunnies, ahem, and ask a question to Marketing: Sorry, who exactly is this for? What huh huh what what huh?

Please reach out to us via the YouTube or Tumblr with questions for our Second Anniversay Q&A Special!

Follow along: 
https://mahjongsoul.club/character/ryan

Support the show: 
https://ko-fi.com/ivyfoxart

Follow the show on Tumblr: 
https://soul-mates-podcast.tumblr.com/

Follow the show on YouTube: 
https://www.youtube.com/@Soul-Mates-Podcast

Listen to Together We'll Shine: An Utena Rewatch Podcast: 
https://bunnygirlbrainwave.substack.com/archive

Art by Ryegarden: 
https://www.instagram.com/ryegarden

Music by Sueños Electrónicos: 
https://suenoselectronicos.bandcamp.com/

Follow and support ash: 
https://ko-fi.com/asherlark

In this episode... yaaawn, a sleepy one, we zoom in on another Blue Archive colab character, the lazing laxidasical loligagger Hoshino, who's old man schtick is done ABSOLUTELY no justice whatsoever, and ask an adaptive question: If you're gonna pull in characters from other games, why change their art style for literally no reason? Just to make them look worse?

Support us streaming for Extralife 2025, raising money for children's hospitals, at the links below!

Extralife links for Nov 8-10 and Nov 14-16 respectively: 
https://www.extra-life.org/participants/SteelSoul4TheKids, 
https://www.extra-life.org/participants/bing-bong-4-kids

Follow along: 
https://mahjongsoul.club/character/hoshino

Support the show: 
https://ko-fi.com/ivyfoxart

Follow the show on Tumblr: 
https://soul-mates-podcast.tumblr.com/

Follow the show on YouTube: 
https://www.youtube.com/@Soul-Mates-Podcast

Listen to Together We'll Shine: An Utena Rewatch Podcast: 
https://bunnygirlbrainwave.substack.com/archive

Art by Ryegarden: 
https://www.instagram.com/ryegarden

Music by Sueños Electrónicos: 
https://suenoselectronicos.bandcamp.com/

Follow and support ash: 
https://ko-fi.com/asherlark

In this episode, alternatively titled "The New Player [CENSORED] Experience", we zoom in on our featured Food and Operator, the magnificiently mousey mediterranian Cheese, who is specifically greek despite cheese's complex origin, and the sultry sarkaz se...er, host Midnight, who one can't help but be prejudiced against, and Ivy asks a question of Google: Show me dark electronic music? Show me dark electronic music cyberpunk popular? Then, a gender journey with Morgan, Hot Dog, and Korn, finally asking: Hey, hang on a second, are you telling me that gender and sexuality might actually be constructs? This whole time?

Follow along: 
https://food-fantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Cheese, 
https://arknights.wiki.gg/wiki/Midnight, 
https://arknights.wiki.gg/wiki/Morgan, 
https://food-fantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Hotdog,
https://food-fantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Korn

Support the show: 
https://ko-fi.com/ivyfoxart

Follow the show on Tumblr: 
https://soul-mates-podcast.tumblr.com/

Follow the show on YouTube: 
https://www.youtube.com/@Soul-Mates-Podcast

Listen to Together We'll Shine: An Utena Rewatch Podcast: 
https://bunnygirlbrainwave.substack.com/archive

Art by Ryegarden: 
https://www.instagram.com/ryegarden

Music by Sueños Electrónicos: 
https://suenoselectronicos.bandcamp.com/

Follow and support ash: 
https://ko-fi.com/asherlark

In this episode, a juicy one, we zoom in on our first look at the Noctchill—er, rather, the THE IDOLM@STER SHINY COLORS colab charaters, the "happy" Hinana Ichikawa, a being who appears to subsist entirely on liquid drawn in through her funnel-shaped mouth, and as a measured question: Exactly how much juice does she actually have? I'm talking mililetres here.

Follow along: 
https://mahjongsoul.club/character/HinanaIchikawa

Support the show: 
https://ko-fi.com/ivyfoxart

Follow the show on Tumblr: 
https://soul-mates-podcast.tumblr.com/

Follow the show on YouTube: 
https://www.youtube.com/@Soul-Mates-Podcast

Listen to Together We'll Shine: An Utena Rewatch Podcast: 
https://bunnygirlbrainwave.substack.com/archive

Art by Ryegarden: 
https://www.instagram.com/ryegarden

Music by Sueños Electrónicos: 
https://suenoselectronicos.bandcamp.com/

Follow and support ash: 
https://ko-fi.com/asherlark

In this episode, the filial impiety finale of our Sancho September, we zoom in on the second half of Don Quixote, including the boldly blasphemous, bodaciously blood-drenched, bad-hair-day blonde big sister Manager of La Manchaland Don Quixote, who is somehow sad despite having a very cool lance, and ask a question that's a matter of degrees: Why isn't she straight? No I don't mean in her personal preferences, I mean like, you know, orthagonally?

Follow along: 
https://limbuscompany.wiki.gg/wiki/Don_Quixote

Support the show: 
https://ko-fi.com/ivyfoxart

Follow the show on Tumblr: 
https://soul-mates-podcast.tumblr.com/

Follow the show on YouTube: 
https://www.youtube.com/@Soul-Mates-Podcast

Listen to Together We'll Shine: An Utena Rewatch Podcast: 
https://bunnygirlbrainwave.substack.com/archive

Art by Ryegarden: 
https://www.instagram.com/ryegarden

Music by Sueños Electrónicos: 
https://suenoselectronicos.bandcamp.com/

Follow and support ash: 
https://ko-fi.com/asherlark

In this episode, the midpoint of droll Sancho September, we zoom in on the dashing, the daring, the deftly puntable, the daft and drollest of them all THE DON QUIXOTE (or at least, look at the first half of her art, with the rest coming next episode) and ask a question fitting of her, on occasion, somewhat unsettling countenance: Hey, is this guy actually a bit messed up, or...?

Follow along: 
https://limbuscompany.wiki.gg/wiki/Don_Quixote

Support the show: 
https://ko-fi.com/ivyfoxart

Follow the show on Tumblr: 
https://soul-mates-podcast.tumblr.com/

Follow the show on YouTube: 
https://www.youtube.com/@Soul-Mates-Podcast

Listen to Together We'll Shine: An Utena Rewatch Podcast: 
https://bunnygirlbrainwave.substack.com/archive

Art by Ryegarden: 
https://www.instagram.com/ryegarden

Music by Sueños Electrónicos: 
https://suenoselectronicos.bandcamp.com/

Follow and support ash: 
https://ko-fi.com/asherlark

Idle listener: thou mayest believe me without any oath that I would this podcast, as it is the child of our brain, were the fairest, gayest, and cleverest that could be imagined. But I could not counteract Nature's law that everything shall beget its like; and what, then, could this sterile, illtilled wit of ours beget but the study of a dry, shrivelled, whimsical man, in arts beset by drunken dads and sickly pale horses, by guitar playing ladies and miniature squires, by star wars heads and amalgamate uma musume. My wish would be simply to present it to thee plain and unadorned, without any embellishment of preface or uncountable muster of customary sonnets, epigrams, and questions, such as are commonly put in the episode description; I have given thee condensed all the squirely drolleries that are scattered through the swarm of these vain images of Don Quixote. And so—may God give thee health, and not forget us. Vale.

Follow along: 
https://soul-mates-podcast.tumblr.com/post/794722326630514688/soul-mates-s2e7-bonus-images

Support the show: 
https://ko-fi.com/ivyfoxart

Follow the show on Tumblr: 
https://soul-mates-podcast.tumblr.com/

Follow the show on YouTube: 
https://www.youtube.com/@Soul-Mates-Podcast

Listen to Together We'll Shine: An Utena Rewatch Podcast: 
https://bunnygirlbrainwave.substack.com/archive

Art by Ryegarden: 
https://www.instagram.com/ryegarden

Music by Sueños Electrónicos: 
https://suenoselectronicos.bandcamp.com/

Follow and support ash: 
https://ko-fi.com/asherlark

In this episode, one for the moms, we zoom in on the Mature, Intelligent, Lovely, and Friendly Sawako Kitami, a mother you'd like to meet at the grocery store, a mother you'd like to hangout with at an evening party, a mother you'd like to rob a casino with, a mother you'd like to...so on and so forth, and we ask a question and then ask it 98 more times: Do you love mommy? Well, then why do you never call her?

...If it isn't clear, there's a lot of Deltarune chapter 3 references in this episode. That's still the current hotness, right? It hasn't been eclipsed by some other, newer big indie game?

Follow along: 
https://mahjongsoul.club/character/SawakoKitami

Support the show: 
https://ko-fi.com/ivyfoxart

Follow the show on Tumblr: 
https://soul-mates-podcast.tumblr.com/

Follow the show on YouTube: 
https://www.youtube.com/@Soul-Mates-Podcast

Listen to Together We'll Shine: An Utena Rewatch Podcast: 
https://bunnygirlbrainwave.substack.com/archive

Art by Ryegarden: 
https://www.instagram.com/ryegarden

Music by Sueños Electrónicos: 
https://suenoselectronicos.bandcamp.com/

Follow and support ash: 
https://ko-fi.com/asherlark