Ringer-Verse Recommends: February 2026 (Featuring ‘Frieren’ and a Massive Month for Anime)

The Ringer-Verse

The Ringer

Tv & Film

4.5 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 28 February 2026

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Short month, long episode! First, Ben Lindbergh and Charles Holmes extoll the virtues of one of their favorite fantasy stories, the anime series ‘Frieren: Beyond Journey's End,’ touching on its themes, influences, and characters, as well as why it makes a great gateway show for non-anime fans. They also discuss some other highlights of a peak period for anime (including ‘Journal With Witch’ and ‘Jujutsu Kaisen’), preview a few coming attractions, and take a detour with discussion of ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu.’ After that, other Ringer-Verse hosts, friends, and listeners salute unsung releases to top off another monthly roundup of fandom favorites from TV, anime, movies, video games, books, comics, and beyond that were released recently, but not yet covered in depth on a full-length episode. Intro (00:00) ‘Frieren’ (03:04) ‘Journal With Witch’ (25:34) ‘Jujutsu Kaisen’ (37:15) Van's recommendation (50:15) Steve's recommendation (51:55) Miles's recommendation (54:37) Daniel's recommendation (56:21) Devon's recommendation (58:30) Arjuna's recommendation (59:32) Matt's recommendation (61:29) Listener nomination (69:03) Recap of picks (71:13) Host: Ben Lindbergh Guests: Van Lathan, Charles Holmes, Devon Renaldo, Daniel Chin, Miles Surry, Arjuna Ramgopowell, Matt James, Steve Ahlman Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Well, hello and welcome into the Ringerverse, your nexus feed for all things fandom.
0:13.0	I am Ben Lindberg, senior editor for the Ringer, buttonmash host, and also your host here at
0:17.6	Ringerverse recommends. Rejoined this month by Grumkin the Great,
0:21.9	my companion and co-host, who was absent for last month's edition. I was in the office. Now I'm
0:27.1	back home, and so is Grumkin, and we are bringing you the February 2026 edition of Ringerverse
0:33.7	Recommends. As is often the case with February this month seems to be over before I
0:39.4	knew it. And we had plenty of nerd culture content to discuss on our various feeds. But as always,
0:46.1	some excellent releases slipped through the cracks. And that's where Ringerverse Recommends comes
0:51.1	in to pick up the slack. So today I will be talking to your friend
0:56.1	and mine, Charles Holmes, one of the midnight boys, one of the midnight men. And as we all know,
1:01.1	he is the anime master. I am but the learner. But today he will be schooling me. And actually,
1:07.1	he has already changed my life by introducing me to the show that we will be
1:10.9	featuring on this month's edition, Freerun Beyond Journey's End, which I am head over heels
1:16.6	in love with is one of my favorite fantasy stories ever. It's an anime adapted from a manga.
1:23.2	You can see the first two seasons on Crunchyroll. The second season is airing now. The first season is also on Netflix.
1:29.8	And if you're not a huge anime head, that's okay.
1:33.0	I wouldn't describe myself as one either.
1:35.7	But Freeran is perfect for you in that case.
1:38.7	And it could even be a gateway to more.
1:40.9	So Charles and I will talk about why we love Freeran, how it relates to other
1:45.3	fantasy stories you might be more familiar with, and we'll also recap some other highlights of
1:50.9	what has been an absolutely fantastic time for anime. The past couple months have been incredible.
	...

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