Cathedral of Shadows, in addition sharing its name with a Shin Megami Tensei mainstay, is a podcast that deals with the SMT series at large. The first episode went live on YouTube on August 27, 2013 after a spur of the moment conversation between its two founders. It's hosted by Rasen and Katsu, the latter sometimes filled in for by Sparky. Beforehand, Rasen had created the SMT Beginner's Guide with a few videos already dealing with the goings-on in the community while Katsu was an admin for Mayonaka Forums.
Typically, an episode will start off with personal updates as to the status of CoS, then on to news about Shin Megami Tensei, and finally viewer mail. There are also a handful of fan-participation episodes or ".5" designated episodes, and even ones guest-starring prolific members of the SMT community like Let's Players or bloggers. The videos themselves run anywhere from an hour to two and a half and in addition, they've got a wiki and a whole host of social media CoS can be contacted through.
Season Two began on April 6th, 2014 after a 41-video Season One of 25 official episodes. All of them and more can be viewed at the Cathedral of Shadows
.
Examples:
- Darker and Edgier: The episodes where they read fanfiction. They dumpster dive to get to the bottom of the barrel, showing that the imaginations of some fans of a series where gods routinely abuse their power can be quite disturbing.
- Episode 31, which dealt with drama concerning the admin of a fan site (lightened somewhat by Katsu's occasional comments).
- Don't Explain the Joke: Whenever it comes up, they'll take time to outline where SMT memes come from. One of their favorites is "Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series".
- Fandom Rivalry: Intended Audience Reaction. They waste no time stoking the flames between Cathedral of Shadows and S.Link FM, styling the title card splashes as fighting game crossover parodies.
- Logo Joke: Pretty often. A lot of the video thumbnails feature character or fan art sharing the spotlight with the title card.
- Once an Episode: Several catchphrases, the introduction and the music snippets.
- Running Gag:
- Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series.
- Talks on demons or personae usually leads to Mara.
- Sitcom Archnemesis: The S.Link FM podcast.
