Ranking Schumy Vanna Kaviyangal Season 4 Episodes
Vanakkam makkale!
With the 4th season of Schumy Vanna Kaviyangal coming to a close, I wanted to create a ranking of the episodes this season and my comments on them. I have split them into tiers sorted in descending order here: S, A, B, C, D. (S is the highest tier of episodes and D is the lowest tier).
D-tier: Quite slow and boring content.
17) "S04E10: Tamil Pesum Hollywood Assistant Director Udan Oru Urayadal ft.kakashi hatake, Vihgnesh Subramaniam." - This episode had a very interesting premise in bringing a Tamil assistant director to chat with the SVK team about the differences between Hollywood and Kollywood's film making and his experiences on the set of Marco Polo. However, the interview itself was very slow and dragged on, not very entertaining on the whole and it sounded like Vihgnesh was just praising how clean and great Hollywood was compared to Kollywood (something more original or insightful would have been nice). By far the weakest episode and very forgettable this season.
16) "S04E09: Tamil Remake Movies ft.Kakashi Hatake" - Lots of recycled content from their older episodes in describing Tamil remake movies. Also going through the list of movies that were remade and giving short descriptions on them felt very mechanical and missed the usual spark and wit that the team brings to these movie discussions. Some bright spots but not very memorable either.
15) "S04E08: Mobile Phone Oru Alasal ft.tobirama Senju, Kakashi Hatake, Kisame&Just Monkey (Aadhan)" - This episode sounded a lot more like a rant about why MI's cheaper price was more accessible and that iPhones were elitist because the average consumer cannot buy it. On the surface this is true, but there wasn't anymore depth to Hashirama's arguments here. Kisame had some great points on comparing the phones, however, as a whole this felt much longer than it needed to be for a topic on phones. You may have noticed that D-tier has three episodes in a row, I think this might have been a period where the team was trying to figure out their next meaty content so these may have been filler episodes. They certainly felt like it. Really appreciate team SVK's work, don't mean to tear you guys down with this criticism, just my honest thoughts and I hope you can use the feedback to improve that!
C-tier: Amusing one-time listens
14) "S04E14: Piracy ft.Gaara, Kisame & Space Moneky(s)" - Really appreciated this episode for elevating the Discord server team and hearing a diverse range of voices, also bonus for elevating their female team member's voice, I think SVK would be well served by having a female co-host as well! Fun hearing about everyone's experience with piracy and the solid defense of the open web and knowledge sharing. Particularly impressed at the tie-in to academic research and how publications slow down knowledge sharing. Very informative episode and a must-listen, however it was also quite long owing to bringing on the entire Discord team and probably could have been kept more concise. I would suggest splitting up the Discord team in the future so we can hear more from them each episode, it felt a little bit crammed.
13) "S04E07: Taxes ft. Tobirama Senju, Kakashi Hatake, Kisame" - Very informative and well-researched episode, loved the debate between Kakashi and Hashirama on whether the government effectively serves its citizens with taxpayer money. Definitely learned a lot about the tax system in India and Tamil Nadu and it was quite entertaining. My main criticism here is that you could have researched the solutions a little bit more with a more rigorous economic approach, it generally makes sense that lowering the tax rate would increase the tax revenue, but it would be nice to show some examples of developing countries that successfully did this.
12) "S04E12: Makkal Paaratum Arasu Eppadi Iruka Vendum? Oru Suggestive Approach & Alasal ft.Kakashi Hatake, Kisame" - Again a very informative and well-researched episode covering most of the TN government departments and how they work, how they could be improved on. Really appreciated especially how much thought you guys put into the solutions and suggestions for each department, my only criticism is that it could have also been more concise and just as informative/entertaining, some of the tangential discussions veered off topic!
B-tier: Very entertaining, good narration, and informative.
11) "S04E04: TN Election Special 2021 ft. Tobirama Senju, kakashi Hatake and Kisame" - Excellent overview of the election process in TN and an overview of the parties contesting, hilarious takes on the events leading up to the election. This episode was perfect for the moment, it was both entertaining and informative to get listeners to go out and vote.
10) "S04E015: Irumbu Penmani Oru alasal ft.Tobirama Senju, Kisame" - A much awaited episode, unmasked Jayalalitha's public persona of a loving motherly figure with detailed explanations of her authoritarianism, cruelty and areas of incompetence. Also Tobi was in good form this episode, his sarcasm was perfect for going after this type of cult of personality. Small criticism is that it felt a little bit like a partisan takedown at parts, not saying she wasn't all that you said, but counter-arguments and responses to them in good faith would have been nice! For example, her scheme to save female babies from infanticide. All-in-all great episode!
9) "S04E02: Manipulation of People by BJP Through the internet and it's Influences ft.Tobirama Senju, Kakashi Hatake, Kisame" - This episode is very memorable to me because this was my introduction to SVK, it was also a brilliant takedown of the BJP's scummy tactics and it felt very validating to hear this because I've heard similar stories from people that know workers in the BJP IT cell. Plus, it was disappointing that the media wasn't covering BJP's twitter bots, big kudos to the team for covering this in a succinct and entertaining manner.
8) "S04E05: Quarantine Urayadal ft.Tobirama Senju" - Very entertaining episode that covered a variety of topics like NTK thambis, miscellaneous election stories, and BJP sanghis like Kishore k swamy. Tobirama and Hashirama had great chemistry in this episode and it was a nice break from the scripted episodes, more Tobirama/Hashirama duo episodes please!
A-tier: Laugh riots and very informative episodes
7) "S04E17: Jaadhi Sangam ft. Kakashi Hatake, Tobirama & Kisame" - Laugh riot mocking all the aandais and how their caste outfits scam their own caste members. Well done nitpicking the hypocrisy in these sangams. Although I loved hearing about the entertaining anecdotes and takedowns, I think it would have been helpful to do some research on radicalization psychology and connect this to examples like Islamic extremism, white nationalism and the underlying psychology.
6) "S04E11: Anniyan Oru Alasal ft.Kakashi Hatake, Kisame" - Funny and original takes on Anniyan and the underlying Brahminical ideology that Shankar brings to his films. Highlighting how stereotypes were portrayed, the misnomer of "corruption" as the root cause of all evil was applaudable. Loved Hashirama's imitation of the theme and Kisame's Lali la lo, the "Lali la lo" scene is something I've been mocking for a while with friends&family so I felt heard hahaha.
5) "S04E03: Nadigarum Arasiyalum - Oru Alasal ft. U2 brutus, kakashi hatake" - Fun and original episode exposing how different actors used cinema to launch themselves into politics. MGR's segment was quite informative and funny, also helped break a lot of the mythos around Kamal and his MNM party. U2 Brutus was a good collab, would like to see him in future episodes. Also felt quite concise given the topic.
4) "S04E06: Cringe Family Tales ft.Kakashi Hatake, Gaara" - Laugh riot hands down, this was a tough one and almost made it to my S-tier, loved the concept of competing for funny story telling. They're both excellent story tellers that build colorful characters out of their family members, huge fan of Hashirama's cringe machan. Was shocked when Kakashi casually mentioned that his cousin killed a patti ahaha, also their tales were quite relatable as my family is also from the rural Tirunelveli district. Would love to see more content like this!
S-tier: Iconic episodes
3) "S04E01: Romanticizing Agriculture in Tamil Movies and Pop Culture ft. Tobirama Senju, Kakashi Hatake, Kisame" - This was one of those episodes where I audibly caught myself laughing in public at multiple moments, truly delightful episode that is structured so well and pokes fun at all the agriculture tropes in movies. Loved the MGR roast, tobi has a good MGR impression! Also appreciated the Bhoomi roast, good tie in with the previous season's agriculture episode and a nice rebuttal of primitivists who think that the past was more glorious than the present progress(read:NTK thambis/Sanghis). Also one of my first SVK episodes so this one will be memorable.
2) "S04E16: Dystopian Genre Special Podcast Seeman Aatchiyil SVK Bodcast" - Excellent improv and satire in this episode, I think this is the SVK team at their best. They're rolling jokes off their tongues, jibing from each other's jokes and building an entirely satirical world exposing Seeman and the hypocrisy of the NTK ideology. Loved the detail they went into with the movies in this universe, the jatti, and Sweatu maranthu LMAO. Kudos to the team for this bold attempt, I think it really struck a chord and I'd love to see more episodes like this one!
1) "S04E13: Child Sexual Abuse Awareness - A detailed discussion" - This episode had me tearing up, angry, laughing, and curious at various points, I think it really spoke to the maturity of the entire team to take up such a sensitive topic especially in Tamil culture and to discuss it with a scientific literacy and an excellent guest who was very informative and accessible to audiences that may have never heard about this. It was really sad to hear the team's childhood stories and I applaud the courage to share it on this platform, really brought to light how common CSA is and brought awareness on how to educate both children and adults regarding this issue. The description of the POSCO law was nuanced and detailed, it actually came in handy to a friend of mine that was being threatened with having their nudes leaked. My respect for the team definitely went up a lot after this episode, I think this is very important social work and even a great starting point for people who have no background on this. Love you SVK team!
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I'd love to hear the community's thoughts on the rankings and my comments, I think that the SVK team have been trailblazers not only in the Tamil podcast community but also podcasting in general, I listen to a variety of podcasts here in America but none have been as sharp and entertaining as SVK in covering heavy/serious topics. Keep up the excellent work, I'm sure you'll reach even greater heights :)
