It’s a much dreaded hentai-themed episode as Gerald talks about Gonad the Barbarian in what is technically the end of the Patrick Macias interview. Actually, we have nearly two more hours worth. We also talk about cyberpunk anime as well as follow up on Prefectural Earth Defense Force.
Introduction (0:00 – 23:20)
We answer emails and voicemails, talking about the Naruto dub cast, our thoughts on Trigun and Outlaw Star, and how Dog Soldier permanently alters lives. We then talk about cyberpunk anime, which is mostly us arguing about what cyberpunk is. 23 minutes answering emails? Well, with Daryl out at Katsucon this weekend, the editing for this show was left in the capable hands of Gerald. Even as long as this is, we still cut out entire sections about Cowboy Bebop and how steampunk fits into the cyberpunk equation.
Promo: JPop Blast (14:46 – 15:24)
Robbie Fargo is one man with a mission, and that mission for over half a year and counting is to teach people all about the finer details of Japanese pop music. And one of the ways he does this is by playing a bunch of it, so head on over.
Let’s News! (23:21 – 47:49)
Media Blasters is releasing Tekkaman Blade in both cut and uncut versions, Funimation licenses Crayon Shin-Chan in what will hopefully not be another Case Closed for them, and ADV has decided that Prefectural Earth Defense Force is only going to be available via their website instead of being available in stores everywhere. Take one guess as to what we spend most of the time talking about here.
Promo: Josh in Japan (47:49 – 48:35)
Josh in Japan is a pretty popular podcast out there compared to ours, and as the name suggests, it’s about a guy named Josh who lives in Japan. Check out his show if you want to know about things like the Japanese healthcare system, the Japanese public safety system, grocery shopping, and the Japanese criminal justice system. You mean to say it’s not like it is in Phoenix Wright?!
Interview: Patrick Macias, Honky Tonk Man lookalike in training (48:35 – 1:23:26)
With this installment, our Patrick Macias interview comes to a end…sort of. We’ve still got like, two more hours of discussion we could use! Anyway, this segment of the interview is devoted to HENTAI. Gerald’s decided to review a hentai title from the 80s called Gonad the Barbarian, which is absolutely terrible in all aspects. Which of course is why we’re talking about it. Includes sound effects!
- The Brothers Grime
- IMDB’s entry for Cleopatra, Queen of Sex
- IMDB’s entry for 1001 Nights
- Watching Anime, Reading Manga by Fred Patten
- Waita Uziga, Henmaru Machino, and Horihone Saizo (IF YOU WANT THESE SO BAD THEN SEARCH FOR IT YOURSELVES YOU SICKOS)
- Razor Ramon HG, now a worldwide sensation thanks to the Internet
- Futaro Yamada (made ninjas and Jubei Yagyu the icons they are today)
- Jin Yong (the most influential wuxia author, having written the Condor Heroes trilogy among other things)
- Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad
- Anime: From Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle by Susan Napier
Closing (1:23:26 – 1:25:16)
If you were actually able to sit down and listen to this whole episode, let us know! Next week Gerald will review the manga title Cannon God Exaxxion and Daryl is going to talk about the now-Often Overlooked film The Professional: Golgo 13. After having shown this movie–which Daryl described as “the film adaptation of the Walker, Texas Ranger lever from Conan O’Brien”–to Gerald and Clarissa (who themselves had never seen it), they were so thoroughly and deeply affected by the film that they will never be the same again.
Especially Clarissa.
As much as I liked Pizza Cats, having seen the fan base dwindle over the years, I just don’t think it’ll happen unless they can push it out on a cheap collection. I doubt we’d ever see a DVD of the Japanese version. And, more problematically, it has aged rather poorly. Environmental messages have fallen out of favor since the early ’90s, and I don’t think any kids these days would even know what Barbara Bush’s hairdo looked like. They might as well move on to Eto-Rangers, which seems to have been the sole inheritor of the Pizza Cats character designs.
In a weird update to the Prefectural Earth Defense Force story, Anime Corner Store has talked to ADV and gotten permission to sell it as a pass-through title at cost. I just… don’t get it. As for them pulling things out of brick and mortar stores, it’s supposedly a response to retailers culling the weak titles awfully quickly. There’ve been horror stories of floods of returned DVDs hitting anime companies even on decent shows. It doesn’t make much more sense to make it an ADV store-only title, since people don’t appear to go to ADV’s site except when they’re having their fire sales and ditching Dunbine for $4-7 a volume (and being inundated, then falling terribly behind).
Honestly, I don’t know if I care about ADV having my personal information any more than RightStuf, which means getting a catalog every 6-12 months unless I remember to check the nigh-invisible box on the back of the catalog and send it back.
Here’s my beef!
The “OEL” from TokyoPop that’s getting printed in the Sunday pages is a few titles. One called “PeachFuzz” or whatever is being printed in the Detroit News & Free Press (being that my local paper hasn’t yet done so, and I hope they don’t, they’d be having to take out Prince Valient if they must). I really don’t care for where they were going for with it, and here’s a JPEG of what one strip typically looks like….
http://www.tokyopop.com/mangaonline/images/pfuzz_news_big.jpg
More info here…
http://www.tokyopop.com/mangaonline/features.php?viewPage=feat_news.htm
Typically, I don’t like the formatting itself, and it’s more like lifting a page that would be in the book in this case, rather than being specially made for a sunday strip. I personally wish we’d have more like the French comics format for our sundays where you’d have nearly half-a-page of a strip, and that strip could be easily formatted as a page for a future graphic novel for a particular storyline or such.
In bringing up Crayon Shinchan being picked up by FUNimation. The manga had been released by the defunct ComicsONE (the same fools that brought out “Offered” you’ve mentioned in the last show). Not sure how many volumes were released, as I bought at least up to volume 5 on my end. I only wish those guys didn’t left town like they did, as I was rather pissed they never did finished Yoshihiro Takahashi’s “Ginga Densetsu Weed”, a sequel to “Ginga Nagareboshi Gin.” Kinda sucks given that an anime to that already showed up last year (with a fansub getting done by the same team that subbed the previous show out there). Would be nice to hear your take on other “Ginga Nagareboshi Gin” or “Weed” in the future!
Also, I had to go and do it, but I now have a copy of “Gonad the Barbarian”, though from some DVD (obviously illegit) I got from an Aussie DVD seller last night after listening to your show! Thanks again for the review!
As someone that is still a big fan of Serial Experiments Lain, I am totally devastated by the fact is wasn’t able to extend its popularity. I still think that Lain is one of the best anime to come out of Japan, but I feel that it suffered greatly by its length: thirteen episodes are too little to establish roots in the community, yet too many to simply reclassify it as an OAV series.
I unfortunately see this pattern with other anime out there; I am totally in love with Paranoia Agent, but was disheartened by its half-season length and the $10 price tag I found on it at Katsucon. However, series like Inuyasha, Dragonball, and Naruto will get Ranma-like popularity, due to its sheer length. In three years, we’ll wonder what happened to the likes of Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, Haibane Renmei (another good Yoshitoshi Abe title), and Saikano, all because they were half-length TV series caught in a flood of half-decent multi-season titles.
Thanks for the podcasts. I only started to listen because Patrick had mentioned them on his blog.
Two items:
1: The old Comics One manga by Koike are still available. When Dr Master bought Comics One they retained the old stock and the volumes can be ordered for a hefty discount at:
http://www.cubicmall.com/store/manga.html
I imagine they are selling of their old stock so order while you can.
2. Those new fans who think everything over a few weeks old is ‘Old School’. To folks like me old school is pre-1979. That’s when shows like Gundam started to redefine what could be done in anime became a moment that can be easily identified when the transition from kids shows to shows for adult viewers was established. Heck if we keep gaining fans soon the new ones will start calling Full Metal Alchemist ‘Old School’.
All right, Gilles Poitras listens to our show! That brings us one step closer to pulling in that “League of Anime Veterans” demographic from that one AWA panel from a while back! Maybe we can get Walter Amos listening by doing a Legend of the Galactic Heroes segment. The sliding definition among fans regarding what counts as “old school” is pretty entertaining, as the set of interviews I conducted at Katsucon will illustrate in the weeks to come. Years ago, we had a pin press which we used to make obnoxious pins for the sake of wearing at conventions. One of them read “It’s not oldschool if it’s in color.” The pin press met a quick demise after being left in a friend’s car that was subsequently torched in an act of vandalism. I think we’re all better off for that.
Great to hear that they’re still selling off the old ComicsOne stock somewhere. Before the buyout they had a site called DollarManga where you could buy most of the old ComicsOne reserves for $1-$3 each, and while CubicMall isn’t quite as cheap as that, it’s probably about as cheap as it gets. $20 for 8 volumes of Red Prowling Devil doesn’t seem so bad, though I suppose I could always read Gerald’s copies. Incidentally, we have gotten feedback from people who said they got Offered for like, $3 total via eBay or Amazon, and plan to buy Wounded Man in the future. They also now DEMAND that Dark Horse release AIUEO Boy/The Starving Man in English. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
On the other hand, people like Chris and such went and bought Gonad the Barbarian even though we said it was totally not worth it and didn’t provide the link to where to get it from (we actually found somewhere selling it for like $20 or so). MISSION FAILED.
Ordered Offered and Wounded Man on yesterday afternoon, they arrived today.
Good! I got bedtime reading.
Of course I live in Oakland and they are in Fremont just a short BART trip down the bay. But still that’s fast service.
And yes I will be listening to your podcasts regularly.
If anyone is near the Peet’s on Mission and 2nd in San Francisco on a weekday between 7:15 and 8 AM, you may see me in a window seat with my iPod on listening to the show.
Daryl Surat said…
All right, Gilles Poitras listens to our show! That brings us one step closer to pulling in that “League of Anime Veterans” demographic from that one AWA panel from a while back! Maybe we can get Walter Amos listening by doing a Legend of the Galactic Heroes segment. The sliding definition among fans regarding what counts as “old school” is pretty entertaining, as the set of interviews I conducted at Katsucon will illustrate in the weeks to come. Years ago, we had a pin press which we used to make obnoxious pins for the sake of wearing at conventions. One of them read “It’s not oldschool if it’s in color.” The pin press met a quick demise after being left in a friend’s car that was subsequently torched in an act of vandalism. I think we’re all better off for that.
Best that did happen! A friend of mine once been in an anime clup at the Univ. of Texas some years back and he felt like the only guy that stood out of the crowd due to his tastes in shows like Kiddo Senshi Gundam, Zeta Gundam and such, yet everyone in that club did not favor anything made past the last decade.
Great to hear that they’re still selling off the old ComicsOne stock somewhere. Before the buyout they had a site called DollarManga where you could buy most of the old ComicsOne reserves for $1-$3 each, and while CubicMall isn’t quite as cheap as that, it’s probably about as cheap as it gets. $20 for 8 volumes of Red Prowling Devil doesn’t seem so bad, though I suppose I could always read Gerald’s copies. Incidentally, we have gotten feedback from people who said they got Offered for like, $3 total via eBay or Amazon, and plan to buy Wounded Man in the future.
Usually don’t deal much online with buying manga unless I don’t see it in a store. if not, eBay tends to be my second stop.
On the other hand, people like Chris and such went and bought Gonad the Barbarian even though we said it was totally not worth it and didn’t provide the link to where to get it from (we actually found somewhere selling it for like $20 or so). MISSION FAILED.
Couldn’t tell if you were being sarcastic about it or not.
Still, I don’t mind getting a trashy vid and I didn’t have to pay over $20 for it either. Plus my buddy in Texas was also interested in this too, so it’s not a total loss.
Another good episode. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts on Golgo 13, a series that I hold near and dear to my heart for the nostalgic factor.
SpotAnime
While I don't usually like to update older posts with my inane anecdotes, I just wanted to get a word out about wanting a copy or looking for anyone who could spring me a copy of "Prefectual Earth Defense Force". Seems annoying I ask for this, but I do.