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In the mid ’90s, Nintendo created the Virtual Boy and it’s going to sound like I’m making it up if you haven’t heard of it. It was mounted on a little tripod at the height least likely to line up with a human face, which is what you put into it to play. It could only display two colors, and one of them is not one you would think. Also, it hurt. And like with all new video game technology, someone had the obvious and awesome idea– oh shit, with this we could take Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! to a whole new level.
And like it happens every time, this “whole new level” ended up being “worse, only also insane.” Let’s talk about Teleroboxer for the Nintendo Virtual Boy.

That cover is a 10/10. It’s a game about punching robots and the artist painted that so hard he didn’t leave enough room for the title. “Maybe the robot could be punching the logo right into the viewer’s fucking eye?” said a genius who gave perfect notes. But this does not represent the tone of the game. This robot looks like something Frank Miller’s Batman would build to punch-torture information out of Aquaman. But the actual game is more like Japanese producers adapting Frank Miller’s Pornhub searches into a kid’s show. I’ll explain, but first let’s adjust our Nintendo Virtual Boy Face Console IPD Game System.

At least the first three pages of every Virtual Boy game manual were delicate instructions on how to adjust the knobs and sliders to minimize headaches or seizures. That’s not important to this article, except to remind you Teleroboxer would have been played semi-nauseously as your brain and eyes disagreed on blurry shapes. If you’ve ever had an insect crawl into your ear while you realized you’ve failed again at making homemade binoculars, that’s Virtual Boy.

You may have already come up with this take on your own, but the name “Teleroboxer” fucking sucks. It’s no way to refer to a robot punching game. Teleroboxer is something Jeff Bezos would develop to replace your hometown’s factory workers. It’s at least two too many attempts at cute like calling Robocop “Robofficer CompuAndroidetective.” And I think they know, because the stupid word “teleroboxer” makes up at least 20% of all text in the manual. It’s as if they thought saying it over and over would make it work. It never does. “Teleroboxer” is a home office solution for your shipping needs. It’s an Esperanto word for underwear you found in a kitchen. It’s anything other than a first person mech kumite built out of blood-colored pixels.
The first enemy you face is a British man named Johnny who pilots a … let me see if I can describe his boxing robot. It has fish lips and a skull pried open to expose its brain. It has large entry holes on the nipples and handles on the sides of its head in case it needs to pull its own face off during a fight. Here, I’ll show you what it looks like through the Virtual Boy console:

This looks like something Vincent D’onofrio would pilot in a video game version of The Cell. It’s a robot CyberSatan would build to torment unfaithful fishwives. I don’t understand the tone of this game at all. Let’s look this up in the manual and see if we can find out more.

The man in that pain fetish suit is a punk rock baseball player? From a team called “Cookies?” And hold on, it says “he doesn’t like to dress like a punk rocker” right next to a drawing of him dressed like that. I imagine everyone has a different idea of what “dress like a punk rocker” means, but if someone was shirtless and holding their camouflage pants up with spike suspenders, you wouldn’t assume they were in a ska band. I don’t think Engrish and bad creative decisions can explain this madness. Maybe Virtual Boy manuals were how Japanese intelligence officers sent coded messages?
Anyway, I beat Johnny and found out these people aren’t inside the 12-foot-tall robots. They’re a few steps behind them, driving the teleroboxers with VR headsets. Which seems way less cool for almost the exact same amount of danger. Johnny, if you’re going to leave baseball to die in robot combat, do it from the center of a robot explosion, not accidentally stepped on after the future world champion invents “robot shoving.”

The next enemy in the game is a balding man with white hair named Rick, who might be lying about his age (32). And maybe the Teleroboxer developers knew the last robot was a little weird, so they made Rick’s pretty standard. He just pilots a very pregnant skeleton with spiked combat titties. You know, seeing me type this makes me realize I have some questions. Let’s see what the manual says about Rick.

Oh, (Big) Rick’s robot is SPOKONG, so that’s probably a gorilla tummy, not a post-term pregnancy. And look at the back story thrown together for Rick. He drove his twin brother away at age 15 and then became a teleroboxer to track him down? This sounds like a story an elderly man would tell you to explain how he got trapped in a robot. “I’m thirty two! Have you seen a mech pilot? Looks just like me? Hates me? Maybe we could look for him together in my gorilla, ladies?”
Wait a minute. I think I saw something strange when I punched (Big) Rick. Let’s look closer. Virtual Boy, ENHANCE.

I-is that a face? Smiling from inside his ape? Rick, I think I found your twin brother! He was with you all along! And I was kind of right about this ape being pregnant!
Unfortunately, a teleroboxer match doesn’t end until you punch your opponent to pieces, so if Rick’s twin brother was in there, he didn’t make it. He found him after all these years and he spent his last moments showing Rick precisely what he would look like if he was soup.

When I beat Johnny, he ran away in humiliation. Rick didn’t handle the loss quite as well. He went full gorilla, beating his chest at me until he caved in his own chest. I don’t think I’m misinterpreting the text to say he died right at me. His portrait changed to a picture of him with his eyes rolled back in his head and red foam pouring from his mouth. And it stays like this. For the rest of the game, I will be haunted by the corpse of the opponent who hated me so much he beat himself to death to ruin my post-fight interview.

Our next opponent is a… okay, I guess if I was describing this to a police sketch artist I’d say it’s a “combat medic ninja in a propeller helmet piloting a triangle-hatted catfish bot?” And they describe themselves as “SEX: ? AGE: 4“. I have a lot of questions, but this character isn’t in the manual. Fuck this thing. This looks like a Turkish Transmorpher. Did they include the last-place entry of a “design your own video game robot” contest as a joke? It looks like a buttplug and a tractor shared the same teleportation accident. Again, fuck this thing.

Next up is BOMKUN, who is finally something comprehensible. He’s a clown bomb piloted by a plum farmer in pajamas named PICKY from ?. I don’t have any followup questions, which is lucky because they’re not in the manual either. All we know is they’re 527 years old, that human face they’re wearing probably isn’t theirs, and that’s plenty.

PICKY and this sad face continue the game’s tradition of doing everything they can to make you feel bad for winning, but I think things are about to turn around because my next opponent is PRIN, a horny sex gremlin. There’s no way Teleroboxer is going to screw this up.

Oh no. The pilot is sixteen? Teleroboxer, you want me to punch apart a teenage girl’s sex robot? This has to be some kind of mistake. Let’s see if this thing is in the manual.

So Cheri wanted to be a fashion model, but before she left high school she decided a career in mech fighting made more sense because of her “tomboy looks and style.” And the artist chose to demonstrate this masculine style by giving her a twenty inch waist, the haircut toddlers draw to indicate “woman,” and a bra and miniskirt. And what’s this backstory? There’s a rumor going around that she pilots a stolen sexmech? Are you telling me in the near future there will be enough 12-foot sex robots that a child can steal one and no one will noti– ha ha listen to me. That’s the most believable part of Teleroboxer so far. There will definitely be a stage of human civilization where kids drive hand-me-down sex robots to their gig economy jobs as death arena fighters.

As I mentioned, Teleroboxer really wants you to feel uncomfortable when you win, and they will do so at any cost. So after you beat Cheri’s butterfacebot, the young pilot steps into the spotlight and starts sexily taking off her clothes. The enemies in this game are fucking nuts, but until now they’ve been made of disconnected hallucinations and incomprehensible choices. So it’s suspicious that the one female teleroboxer’s whole deal is “beautiful fashion girl, but a cool one, driving a pleasure bot who can’t wait to get nude.” If you asked the Teleroboxer staff to name a non-sex thing about women they wouldn’t understand the question, and we’re truly lucky one of them had enough sense to cut away from this kid’s strip tease before she took off more than her goggles.
Teleroboxer Developer #1: “It’s the ’90s, so the reward for beating the girl character is obvious. She submits herself to you and slowly removes her–”
Teleroboxer Developer #2: “Headset! Slowly removes her VR headset! Jesus, that was clo–“
Teleroboxer Developer #1: “… paaaanties.“

Back to Teleroboxer‘s idea of “normal,” your next opponent is Kevin, an Australian boy who dropped out of 4th grade to kill men with a kangaroo robot. I can’t wait to see how they make this weirder in the manual.

This 9-year-old’s bio is off to a weird start already because that’s a drawing of a full-grown man punching himself in the crotch. And it says Kevin only pursued boxing to prove himself to his father who already gave up on his acting career? This is tragic. I don’t want to be a part of Kevin’s cycle of abuse. Why are they trying to make me feel so guilty for beating these people? Next you’re going to tell me that after I win I’m going to thumb Kevin’s tiny eyes out.

Oh my god. I’m doing it. I’m thumbing Kevin’s tiny eyes out.
Okay, but that’s the end of the strangeness, right? Kevin’s not going to escape on a rocket of farts or anything?

God damn it, Teleroboxer.

Destroying Kevin’s life and taking his eyes was the last step in reaching the final boss. MAMORU isn’t in the manual or described in any cutscenes, so all I know about him is that he’s a ninja in a ninja bot, which is almost sarcastically normal compared with the rest of the game. He’s the kind of idea that begins with “I don’t know” and ends with “fuck you.” Sorry, everyone. After all this lunacy we’re going to end on a totally ordina– wait, what’s this?

We are not the true champion?

There’s a secret “LEGENDARY CHAMP!?” And their name, sex, age, and country are all “?” This is going to be the least coherent thing anyone has ever laid eyes upon. The Teleroboxer Legendary Champ promises to be nothing but dislogic and guilt taken form! A vision of irrationality from which I will never recov–

Oh, it’s a cat.

Being piloted by a cat.

And it has the name Milky. Maybe this is a reference to how all the robots have weird nipples? Unless this is… no. No, there’s no way a game developer was self-indulgent enough to make their stupid pet cat the final boss of their video game, is there? Impossible. If that was the case, they would have dedicated precious time and resources to an elaborate credit sequence where you punch photos of the lead designers. Which would be insa–

Oh, they did that. Your reward for beating this sci-fi boxing game about childhood trauma is traveling through the stars with people responsible, and hitting them. When you think about it, it’s the only way… the perfect way for Teleroboxer to end– using your mighty hands of steel to beat programmer Yuzuru Ogawa until he turns into a woman, and then punching him eight more times.

…
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Mark, who is naught but a raccoon piloting a manmech.

It’s Wednesday, a day for hot dogs to use their voices, not their keyboards. But this Wednesday, they also use… their hearts. Their fucking restless ones.

Zak Koonce, our dear friend and theme song performer from Auralnauts, returns for a passionate battle of pop culture where he, Brockway, and Seanbaby bring three songs from movies about the movies they’re in and let them clash.
Max your hype here or wherever you max your hype!

Of course, no competition would have meaning without rules. Competitors must have restless hearts, are disqualified on lonely nights, and the penalty for not knowing these are lyrics from the Running Man song is execution by Game Zone.
Also, by order of Game Zone, we also have some new regulations. Expository theme songs are now judged by the following three turgid criteria:
1. WRONG UNIVERSE:
If you stepped into another universe and performed this song, what would those people do? Lose their minds? Kill you? Declare you Music President? A low score would be anything less than all of the above.
2. WRONG MOVIE:
You finished your song right before the studio came in with big notes. The film now has an unrecognizably new plot, theme, and genre. How fucked is your song?
3. WRONG PERFORMER:
Your song is given to Paula Abdul, Weird Al, and Van Halen who are all told to produce and perform it. What have you done? What have you done.

Okay, you’re ready! Go listen! Like and review! Stop reading now if you want to be surprised by our picks! Keep reading if you want links to the music videos!

All-foot beefnotes:
Zak’s Songs: Weird Science , The Last Dragon , Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol
Brockway’s Songs: Fight to Survive, Deepest Bluest , Are You Ready for Freddy?
Seanbaby’s Songs: On Our Own , Human Tornado, Restless Heart, Restless Heart, Restless Heart, Restless Heart, Restless Heart, Restless Heart, Restless Heart, Restless Heart, Restless Heart, Restless Heart, Restless Heart, Restless Heart, Restless Heart

Nobody really likes pickup artists. They reduce women to a cranky wad of holes waiting to be tricked into penetration, but what if I told you there’s a less likeable version of that? What if I told you I found a book by horny sociopaths who also love Japanese cartoons? What if it’s worse than that sounds?

How to Pick Up Girls at a Con was written by three future murderers called “The Night Kid$” and I think their process was jotting down some broad advice for helpless virgins and then giving it to a child who was told at gunpoint to “make it sound nerdier.” Picture two people giving you advice at the same time. One says, “Bro, you need to shave your unibrow if you want to get your dick wet!” The other says, “Um, you may find evolving that Pikachu into a Raichu to be quite, um, troublesome without a thunder stone lol.” This book is those two voices combining into one, but again, less likeable than that sounds.

The Night Kid$ speak Nerd like a Kansas librarian speaks Rap. This introduction is something a cop would say to arouse suspicion in a Channing Tatum comedy called Undercover Incel. If you call casual sex “a co-op game,” you shouldn’t be trying to do it. You should be asking your younger brother to put on a bra so you can practice honking boobies and having him explain to you why you’re a goddamn loser. And this isn’t a joke, but the line “picking up a 3-D girl can feel virtually impossible,” is a fucking disgrace. These sex pests have the writing sensibilities of a cute pillow, probably because they each watched a grandmother stop struggling under one.

Here’s a look at the table of contents, if you want to establish some expectations. It takes you on your girl hunt from preparation to recon to manipulation to CONGRATULATIONS, which is Murderer for “murder.” Let’s start with what the Night Kid$ consider “being well equipped.”

They start off by suggesting you keep as much feces and disease off your body as possible. It’s not bad advice, but it gives you a good idea of who they think their audience is. How to Pick Up Girls at a Con is for things that walked out of a swamp with a boner.

Now that you’ve gotten at least some of the poop off yourself, you’re ready to learn the basics of social etiquette, such as the kind you’ve seen outside. Don’t be a creep, and refer to a stranger’s tits as “her power level.” Now stare at your fading hands as the paradox of the last sentence erases you.

It’s not a great sign when the first three pieces of advice in your chick hounding book are:
1. Here’s how you take a bath.
2. Use all the social skills you’ve spent your life cultivating.
3. You remembered to be fit, right?
If you asked a random 7th grader to write this book, the only difference would be that the gamer language would sound more genuine. This shit sounds like Mitt Romney trying to understand his son Cham who actually prefers to be called Akira-chan.

Obviously, if you’re looking to score babes, it’s important to brush up on your anime knowledge. Let’s stop here for a second because this one sort of gives away the game. Most old pickup artist books are about smearing the world with horniness and hoping to catch a woman at her most vulnerable moment. Modern pickup artist books are about crowd-sourced techniques to fake a personality long enough to seem interesting. This book is absolutely neither. These motherfuckers are already floundering in Chapter One. How to Pick Up Girls at a Con has no usable tips and was clearly written by guys who were sort of fuckable and found a community where that was a cheat code.
So let’s talk about these possible hunks, who I looked up on social media. One of them shares an instagram with his wife and I’d describe him as both “pretty” and “definitely a danger to that wife I mentioned.” The other two are a cute emo boy and a dead-eyed fitness enthusiast who takes the same emotionless mirror selfie every few days. The point is, and I say this as a handsome person, we don’t get laid because of our keen ability to navigate the human experience. If you ask a hot guy what their secret is he might go, “Um, be born symmetrical? D- deodorant. Oh, and pretend to like cartoons since nerd girls are used to suitors covered in poop!”
I’m not saying the Night Kid$ are for everyone. They look like point guards in an all-hairdresser basketball league. If they see this and get mad at me, they’d have to seduce 8 more boys their size before they could plausibly threaten to beat me up. But sure, if you dress them up like moon creature ranchers and throw them into a convention center they’d be in the upper 40th percentile. Enjoy, ladies. Anyway, let’s review their introductory poontang tips:

To be fair to the soft and smooth Night Kid$, they do cover some entry-level pickup advice like the importance of “breaking the touch barrier” and “bringing a wingman.” The wingman is there to both prove you’re capable of having a friend and to distract anyone you’re not trying to fuck. None of it is actionable or useful. It’s like writing a book on auto racing and telling the reader to make sure there are tires and to always know when to go fast. And I fucking dare you to find worse sex advice than “Obtain anime knowledge.” You could dedicate the rest of your life to it and you will die cursing me for being right. “Eat from diapers and change your name to Diaper Eater” is better sex advice than “Obtain anime knowledge.”
Chapter one had a dark tone, but hopefully they’ll get a little less predatory as they go. Let’s move on to Chapter 2: CHOOSE YOUR HUNTI– oh my god.

You know when you need loot drops from quest monsters and they only spawn in one spot? That’s what it’s like establishing intimate relationships with human women. And of course, here’s an unrelated quote from the character select screen of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite. It’s possible I’ve read more books like this than anyone, and this is the new bar I have for “worst anyone has ever been with women.” These three guys all agreed girls are like Monster Hunter and still decided they were experts. I don’t have an analogy for it. It will be the analogy the next time an unqualified monster decides to be an author. If Michael Jackson’s doctor writes a book on sleep remedies I’ll say, “That’s like a nerd writing a sex manual using the knowledge he got from Monster Hunter.”

Let’s skip past the admittedly sound advice to “be fun and popular” and talk about the real dilemma. It’s the decision every man-about-town has to face at an anime convention– crushing ass or the variety of panels and events? It’s what we in the anime fuck community call The Unlimited Pussy or Meet the Voice of Rainbow Dash Gambit.

To their credit, these three authors are starting to figure out they might not have scored their seven combined sexual encounters, eight if you count hand stuff, by way of their masterful seduction techniques. They’re out of ideas and they know it. Their confidence is so shaken they open Chapter 3: SCOUT THE POTENTIAL WAIFU by trying to lower the reader’s expectations. They consider the hypothetical reader of How to Pick Up Girls at a Con and tell them to take a look at themself and consider their options. It’s a book purely about fantasy within a world of fictional wonder and they want you to be a little more realistic. Are you really a “human girl” kind of guy? After all, you just learned how to wipe your ass twenty seven pages ago.

Okay, now that you know your worth, let’s see if we can figure out who you should go for.

What you’re looking for are “Wall Stragglers” and “The Loners.” And as for the second page of your potential targets, you shouldn’t be too surprised to find it’s entirely blank except for this drawing of a girl whose panties you can see. So to recap: ambush women when they’re tired and alone, hoping they “perhaps secretly” want to talk to you, and if that doesn’t work, this young cartoon girl’s mostly exposed crotch. Let’s be real. You had to expect exactly this, unlikely readers of How to Pick Up Girls at a Con. Now let’s move on to some of the things you’ll need to watch out for.

Holy shit, if I’m understanding this correctly, the first potential danger they list is “accidentally fucking a dude.” When was this written? This is some old timey Crocodile Dundee transph– 2021!? They published this misogynist relic this year!?
Okay, fine, let’s assume the Night Kid$ were too busy hiding from paternity tests to keep up with the latest trends in gay jokes. The other thing they tell you to look out for is people exactly like yourself, who came to the convention for action, but had no idea how to get it. Which means the biggest impediments to getting an anime girl are feminine boys and losers, and hey wait, isn’t that why we’re infiltrating this community? Aren’t all these feminine boys and losers the things we’re counting on to seem fuckable by comparison? At least, and see if you can tell this is setting up a stunning reveal, they’re not making casual jokes about sex with underage girls…

Here’s a proverb for you, Night Kid$: If your advice about sleeping with children adorably rhymes, you’re definitely one unattended kid away from sex crimes.

S-sprite? I don’t know, this is obviously a low effort endeavor by two lonely psychopaths and one terrible husband, but the Night Kid$ sometimes offer practical reminders like how everyone can see you. You can’t just run up to every cosplayer and see if she’s doing it for the unsolicited cock offers. You’ll get a reputation as a thir– oh, the Sprite can clipart represents thirst! Aw, that’s kind of cute, pussy hunter boys.

Immediately after telling you to take it easy and pick your targets to avoid a reputation as a creep, the authors hit you with the desperate pep talk every pickup artist eventually gives: we don’t know how any of this works– you need to show your dick to everyone you see and hope one of them recently lost a bet and the conditions were having sex with the very next penis they saw.

Things are probably going great. You’ve learned not to wear poop, not to waste time searching men for vaginas, and to obtain anime knowledge. But these tips aren’t fool-proof. The Night Kid$ include some DEATH FLAGS to help detect ladies immune to deodorant and anime knowledge. Watch out for these! Has a boyfriend. Ignores you. Keeps turning away. Face doesn’t look like flashcards your childhood therapist showed you for “happy.”

Seventy pages into the book and the Night Kid$ finally give the reader some actionable advice. They list five real questions you could ask a girl! Four of them are the most common things said out loud at a convention and the fifth is aggressive sexual harassment, but at least they’re not telling the reader they should try being hot next to a drawing of a dripping wet school girl. I honestly think childlike begging for oral sex is a step in the right direction for these authors.

Ladies, I know most of you know this, but according to U.S. Chapter 7 Code ยง 2260, if your partner tells you to “prepare to Cubone,” you are legally complicit in a federal crime if you don’t chemically dissolve their genitals within one half hour of hearing it.
Hmm… My mother gave me such chlamydia. Here’s a sack of Nazi diarrhea! Sorry, you must be confused. I’m trying to come up with a six word phrase more destructive to a person’s love life than saying “a whole gang of anime bitches.” I strangle sexy dogs to death? I.. I don’t think you can do it.

In the WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? section, the authors continue describing all the ways this quest could end with each one getting sadder and sadder. Your potential victory goes from true love to sex rampage to convincing a woman to settle on you to a platonic cartoon buddy to a bloody butcher knife to a drawing you can masturbate to. Self-aware or not, it is, without question, the most perfect way to end this indoor kid’s guide to beginner humaning. A stunning artistic achievement. They imagined an entire world of overweight, unwashed anime nerds where they could be sexual mentors, and even in that fantasy, their students died alone, dumped into the ocean with a clumsy Pokemon reference. It was worth all 90 pages of their pathetic horniness and cool dad l33t speak for this amazing, immaculate ending.
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This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Sarcophski, who started off a total Nerdoran but evolved into a real Chadizard using the ultimate Psychic-type attack: Respect for women.

It’s time for the 9000 best parts of Wednesday: the Dogg Zzone 9000! This week we’re revisiting my ultimate quiz game show gaming showdown of knowledge, opinions, and persuasion: No Right Answers, with special guest Hana Michels!
Listen here or wherever you do podcasts, unless you’re Hollywood star Taylor Kitsch because I think we’re going to hurt your feelings.

If you missed episode one, the rules of the game are simple: The Answermaster gives the Answerblaster a “question” and they give their “best” answer. If it matches the Answermaster’s Correct Answer, that makes it the Right Answer and they win. If it doesn’t, their opponent, the Arbiter, judges which one is closest to the Right Answer. But look out! The Arbiter can steal! And betray! It’s chaos! Because of the game itself and because it turns out Hana’s instincts are more unpredictable than the box office returns on a Taylor Kitsch film!

Enjoy! And you can help the show by subscribing and reviewing. Not doing that is like hiring Taylor Kitsch for your movie– we lose $180 million every single time.

SPITE EDIT:
Brockway just listened to this week’s My Brother, My Brother and Me posted on Monday, 11/8, which covers the same WikiHow page used in his bonus game. He would like it on the record that our bonus episode was recorded on October 27th and uploaded on 11/7. We told him it’s not a big deal, and that nobody cares. He got real quiet and disappeared for a few minutes, then came back with the following image and went in the backyard to eat an entire loaf of bread (he is not supposed to have bread).
