Anime World Order Show # 19 – Yuri, Hentai, and SCIENCE~!

26 Replies to “Anime World Order Show # 19 – Yuri, Hentai, and SCIENCE~!”

1. You don’t know anything about Utena. Ikuhara sat outside the house of the Utena mangaka until she allowed him to make the anime. She complained a great deal that he turned her precious Utena into something crazy. Just be glad that she was allowed to supervise Ikuhara when he made the TV show, that was the main reason the TV show was so good. The Utena movie is the stuff that Ikuhara makes when he’s given free reign.

   Gasaraki is freakin’ awesome. Do you guys like serious political anime/manga? You should read Sanctuary and Eagle if you haven’t already.

   The Viz signature series is the replacement of the editor’s choice. When they stopped printing Phoenix the editor’s choice ended. If you notice, volume 6 of Phoenix is signature series. IMHO, Phoenix is the second greatest manga ever, only behind Akira. Surprisingly, I’ve never seen any Phoenix anime or live action, so I eagerly await your show which will explain these things to me.

   Also, you might like to know that Buddah is finally starting to come out in paperback in the US. It was worth holding out and not buying those expensive hardcovers.

   You’re all perverts for watching Hentai.

   -Scott from GeekNights

2. I don’t know, man. Chiho Saito’s manga work is pretty forgettable to me, and by that I mean this: other than Utena, I can’t immediately think of a single thing she’s done. It’s been my understanding that Ikuhara, despite being so absolutely full of himself, is generally considered the reason why anyone remembers Utena at all. Are the beneficial supervisory aspects that Saito offered to the TV show known? Like, are there any publicized instances of “Ikuhara wanted to do this stupid thing, she said no” or “she was the reason why this happened”? I mean, I’m totally with Alain on the “Juri is a far better character in the anime” thing, but I want to give credit where credit is due.

   Funny you should mention it, but Sanctuary and Eagle are some of my favorites, and I mentioned them by name when I met Rym at Katsucon! I love political anime and manga and try to read/watch as much of it that gets released. Many of my all-time favorites are rife with political schemings and intrigue, but Gasaraki just wasn’t doing it for me, and I expected so much more out of it considering who made it.

   Volume 6 of Phoenix does indeed bear the Signature Series label and not the Editor’s Choice one that the previous five had. Interestingly enough, the latest volumes of Tough (yes, I am a man of vast dichotomy) still have the Editor’s Choice label. The Viz website isn’t much help in informing people that Signature Series is the new Editor’s Choice. Phoenix is still listed there as an Editor’s Choice title, and the only Signature Series releases they’ve got on there are Golgo 13 and Monster.

   Good to see that Buddha is being released in paperback at a cheaper price point, though this still doesn’t mean that the general anime or manga consumers will buy it. 🙁 I’ve already got it all in hardcover, but I do however look forward to their release of Ode to Kirihito scheduled for December. An 800 page paperback that costs the same as one 400 page hardcover would? Sign me up!

   And I don’t watch hentai, Gerald and Clarissa do! I suppose we’re still all perverts though, but it could always be worse. I mean, we could be at the point where we do entire episodes about masturbation. 🙂

3. Hereby requesting an entire episode about masturbation.

4. That was actually a reference to this episode of GeekNights in which they do precisely that. 🙂 Actually, it’s more like half an episode rather than an entire one since they spend half the show warning people about how they’re ABOUT to say something offensive, Carlos Mencia style. I’m sorry I just compared GeekNights to Carlos Mencia.

   A pity that Mike Dent from R5 Central wasn’t among the screaming Anime World Order crowd at Anime Central, as he had an Ultraman panel to do which got started late on account of the Dark Horse panel running over time. Dude, Carl Horn (or at least I assume it was Carl running that) was trying to give you a SIGN, man!

   Oh, and just so I don’t get an MX missile delivered to my mailbox, all havoc and destruction brought about by Joey Snackpants has been recovered from and then some. 🙂

   This is me writing a note to myself saying “remember to add the picture of the non science-acquainted Ema Skye to the show notes.” I’m pretty sure that I shot her in the head with a Luger. One of Reinhardt Streiber’s, that is; after all, corpses can’t listen to this episode until after they meet Jeffrey Combs!

5. I just wanted to comment too in that while I was the most against Gasaraki, I’ve read about half of Eagle and loved it and have the rest sitting next to my bed. I love political dramas (another excellent one that comes to mind is Patlabor 2 which we will focus on in an episode I’m sure), but yeah, Gasaraki was a total disappointment. It’s a real shame since I went into the show with pretty high expectations since I was a big fan of VOTOMS, but the constant mindless news reports made it unwatchable and the twists they added towards the end are pretty bad and ruin the point of the show.

   As a side note, on the VOTOMS DVDs Takahashi went into how he came up with ideas for stories. He usually walks to work and reads about 4 newspapers looking for ideas. That’s how he apparently came up with idea for VOTOMS, but it seems very clear that’s how Gasaraki became so politically convoluted.

   Ikuhara is also quite a mixed bag. I mean he’s not directed anything since the Utena movie and hasn’t involved himself in much anime apart from say his storyboarding bit on the utter disaster of a Gunbuster sequel. It seems like he’s spending his time doing manga or something else called The World of S&M (how appropriate it seems).

   And hey, the hentai thing, Daryl is so totally into hentai, I mean the guy’s got wall scrolls over his entire room of nothing but shitting guro dick loli furry, so watch out for that guy!

6. Yeah another impeccable show from AWO. Love it, guys, though I’m probably one of Gasaraki’s few fans. I haven’t seen the end, though, so my views may be suspect. Conversely, your opinions of Nadesico are spot on. LOLIPORN, LOL!!! and no real brains. Why you gonna do that to Gai Daigoji? Why?

   As for Cradle 2 the Grave, Daryl, you were of course right. But I think you’ve gotten us confused. Our specialty lies in the -other- DMX + kung-fu movie, Exit Wounds staring Steven Segal, a man beyond reproach. As for Mark Dacascos… some things better left unsaid.

   As for Karas, waiting on baited breath. For that matter, I wanna hear some solid Apocalypse Zero ranting from you people. You’re wasting too much time on stuff you like! And that’s not funny anymore!

   …unless you like Apocalypse Zero. If so… goddamn.

7. I have to admit to buying ANGEL COP as one of my first anime dvds. I couldn’t help it. It’s just so chock full of cheesy goodness. Plus, any show featuring a Gene Simmons circa Lick It Up lookalike can’t be all bad.

8. You’re such a bad, bad man Daryl Surat.

   I admit I suck at natural science related trivia. The badge was mostly to identify the character and sort of an injoke. I don’t think Miss Critical Moment did much to help though… it kinda leaves me with a gross feeling. o_o

   And I want to note that my ‘hurr’ expression in that picture is entirely because Daryl didn’t even ask for a picture! He was on the phone with someone else and I was talking at the time, unsure of when he was going to take the picture. That’s my excuse for looking like a moron.

   Might as well say: if you don’t know who Ema Skye is, you should immediately go out and not come home until you have a copy of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney in your hands. It is one of the best games on the Nintendo DS. I would personally place it behind Resident Evil 4 as one of the best games of last year.

   I mean it, go buy this game!

9. I NEED that Patalabor Movie 1 box set as It doesn’t look like it is going to be released in Australia due to licensing. It was my Gateway anime and I only have a 4th Gen VHS of it. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. I’ll pay postage!!!!! I’ll do anything! (No slave collars though

10. One of the big ironies surrounding Ikegami is that he was one of the first manga artists brought over by VIZ (back when they were teamed with comics publisher Eclipse) for US consumption in a big, dedicated way, and I believe that was because a style like Ikegami’s could provide an initial view of ‘manga’ that wasn’t all that different from what the majority of US readers were used to at the time. Ikegami’s an admirer of talents like 70’s US superhero art icon Neal Adams, so it makes sense that he’d pop up early, especially in a book like Mai the Psychic Girl, which wasn’t terribly far removed from, say, a teen mutant superhero comic in its core concept. These days, certain market forces would like people to believe that ‘manga’ is something very different from Ikegami, something that can be boiled down to eyes and sweat drops and things… but back in the day, he was what ‘manga’ needed to look like, at least in part.

    Man, Mai the Psychic Girl was a neat series… it really holds up well today…

    Apropos of nothing… it’s a terrible, shitty cliche to use, but watching Karas really was like staring at someone else playing a video game… a video game with really long, bland cut-scenes, which the player refused to hit ‘start’ to skip. Now Angel Cop – there was some anime! Sure, it all went downhill after Yasuomi Umetsu jumped ship from the animation director seat… or maybe he was canned, I don’t know. He probably spent half the production time getting every last bit of brains wiggling juuuuuust right during the headshot scene…

11. I’ll let Rym talk about Utena, he is the Utena nut.

    Who is Carlos Mencia?

    I don’t really care what label Viz throws on there. All I know is that if it’s Editor’s Choice or Signature Series that means it is the good manga that I like.

    And thanks a lot. I never even heard of Ode to Kirihito, but now I’m going to buy it.

    Masturbating is no different than peeing, pooping, sneezing, coughing or any other bodily function. Looking at some normal porn is just fine as well. But watching porn movies, scary porn, hentai, harem anime, etc. Those are all things which cross the line. If you watch the hentai, you are the hentai.

12. Are the fields of Manga and Anime so devoid of anything worthwhile that we really need reviews of Hentai?

    Do we really need “Hentaifests” at anime conventions?

    Any justification will be considered.
    -d!

13. Not to get too off-topic here, but since someone wants to know: Carlos Mencia is a hack comic whose routine is “LOL ETHNIC GROUP”. He was the guy who benefitted the most from Dave Chappelle’s quitting; he was on the same network, so basically anybody who couldn’t tell the difference between Chapelle’s good racial comedy and Mencia’s shitty racial comedy had something to watch.

14. The hentai review really just comes from the fact that this is something that’s really high profile and rather hilarious that someone would spend six years on making what is essentially pornography that’s set in the Civil War era America. And not only that, it’s pornography that rivals, in art, other extremely expensive movies and OAVs. And hey, animated character having sex can be hilarious sometimes.

    As for the con stuff, as someone who’s run a few panels on the stuff, I would agree the the need for anything larger than a panel or two is unnecessary. And certainly not “hentaifests”. However, as it is, it is nice to go to an event that it is guaranteed there will be no kids present. While these events are not really any more mature than the events that have the kids there, having something for the adults that doesn’t involve alcohol is sometimes a nice change. However, what does worry me is these increasingly larger blocks of the stuff. At a convention that the three of us recently attended, they had something ridiculous like six hours of programming in total, (probably closer to 12 hours if you count the gay stuff) that’s way too much and more than an hour or two should be enough if that. In fact, I support the cons that choose to have none of that stuff, although there was another con in the area that called itself a family con which then went ahead and had a yaoi panel in the middle of the day. I don’t care how “non-explicit” they want to make it, you can’t call yourself a family friendly con if you have a yaoi panel in the middle of the day.

15. Sorry to put you on the spot.

16. Scott –

    This has been sort of touched on already by Daryl and Gerald, but I think they didn’t really answer it completely so I’m adding to it.

    Your stance is interesting, since the anime and manga were made at about the same time, and Be-Papas–who is credited for the Utena story *even in the manga version*–is a collaborative effort between Chiho Saito and Ikuhara, among others. Saito even has an author’s note in the manga stating that she feels part of Utena’s strangeness is due to the collaborative writing efforts between the Be-Papas members.

    So sorry, but no. Saito didn’t create the wonderful Utena concept all by her lonesome and then “let” Ikuhara adapt it. They both worked as part of Be-Papas to write the story for all versions of Utena.

    I think what seperates the anime in terms of quality really just comes down to length. It had 39 episodes to develop the characters and hone the symbolism, whereas the manga had what, 5 books, with a pretty slow start?

17. From what I can tell the World of S&M is a dead property. I remember hearing it was supposed to be Be-Papas next big thing but then Asuka Magazine seemed to have it ended the story right in the middle of story picking up in the second book. So as far as I can tell it was canceled and any plans to make an anime around are over. If anyone else has any information on it please let me know.
    BTW Tokyopop has released the World of S&M as The World Exists in the US. I read the first book and flipped through the second and it seemed up to the same level as the Utena manga. It was an extremely mediocre manga. Not that great but nothing horrible. I liked the premise but the execution was sort of weak. I thought that it could have been transformed into something cool like Utena but it seems that was not meant to be.

    As for Hentai reviews, I say keep them coming. Hentai is almost never fine art or high culture (who am I kidding it’s NEVER even close) but I still enjoy the reviews just the same. Hentai is still part of the “art form” that is anime so I’m as interested in it as I am any other part of the genre. I would not want to listen to a whole pod cast on the subject but once a month would be fine.

18. I don’t know if anybody is still reading this comment thread, but I suppose I’ll post a new note about the Utena thing anyway.

    Apparently the whole mess with who did what and when is very confusing. After discussing things and doing a web search, the three of us have collectively read interviews and writeups that say basically completely different things about when Saito and Ikuhara got together and whether they created Utena together or Saito did it herself.

19. However, what does worry me is these increasingly larger blocks of the stuff. At a convention that the three of us recently attended, they had something ridiculous like six hours of programming in total, (probably closer to 12 hours if you count the gay stuff) that’s way too much and more than an hour or two should be enough if that.

    As someone who’s written the schedule for a hentai room at a con, I have to say that there’s no way you can schedule “an hour or two” and have a workable block. The philosophy behind scheduling hentai should be the same as the rest of the video rooms–you should have a reasonable cross-sample of a variety of styles, to appeal to a variety of con attendees (assuming it’s a general rather than special-interest convention). (This is especially true with hentai, where tastes are often much more specific.)

    Even the shortest hentai are half an hour per episode, and the better ones are often longer; if you’re only showing an hour or two, you’re not providing programming, you’re teasing with a brief taste of one or two shows, and there’s no way you can present a fair cross-section of genres. If it’s going to be on the schedule at all, it should be done properly, not thrown in as a token gesture.

20. Interesting episode.

    The loli elements in Nadesico dounjinshi is on the spot. Hell where are the Yurika, Inez, Megumi threesome dounjinshi!?

    How about reviewing some titles that were out on VHS but never made it to DVD. Suggestions: Wild 7 and Goku Midnight Eye, some of the best trash ever to come out in the US.

21. Heh, yes; the amount of lolli Ruri hentai freaking drove me mad. Okay, sure she’s cute, but GOD! She’s not even really a character in the anime what so ever! I fail to see any character development from her, yet when people think of the show, they always think of that one midget flat grey-haired girl who constantly says “baka” and it’s just so freaking annoying.
    Besides, none of the girls in Nadesico were that likeable.

    And yes, you’re all horrible people for not liking Gasaraki. I personally have not seen all of it, since I’m currently on a quest to find the DVD’s( Which is actually much harder than a person would think, since they were some of the much earlier releases by ADV). But so far, I’m just interested by it and I personally like the T.A’s.

    Personally, I like the hentai reviews that you all do. No one else really does hentai reviews… I’m not going to count Happy House of Hentai, because they…don’t really review anything.

    Yeah…Gekiganger 3 was a bad ass. Have you seen the Gekiganger 3 OVA/Movie?

22. Yeah…Gekiganger 3 was a bad ass. Have you seen the Gekiganger 3 OVA/Movie?

    I actually have this somewhere on tape. Might have to go watch this now that you mentioned it! 🙂

    Want to say thanks for another good episode! I’m already quite interested in the anime/manga covered, and had downloaded “Ippatsu Kikimusume” as well. Would be neat if someone did license this.

    Speaking of which, I wonder who might be able to otbain the licenses to the material Manga Video has just lost (besides the possibilities that Bandai Visual USA will pick some up)?

    Anyway, thanks for another exciting episode!

23. I’ll indulge myself in a late hit: As I work back through the podcasts, I am listening in a somewhat haphazard order, so I listened to the “Karas”-review podcast right before this one.

    And then you put on that listener-mp3, and I was like, “holy shit, the voice actor for that guy in ‘Karas’ called into the show!”

24. Although I pride myself on deliberate spreading of lies and misinformation, I’ve received repeated pressure to clear up this one matter, so I’ll do it.

    Only I’ll do it in the “anime rep on the Internet” way: I’ll just post a comment clarifying it instead of actually making mention of it in the podcast/main part of the website. The difference is that instead of being buried in some subforum on Anime on DVD, it’s buried in the comments section of a show from a month ago.

    But uh…all those sound clips I played during the Karas episode? Not a single one of those sound clips is actually from the anime. It has nothing to do with the Karas anime whatsoever. They’re all sound clips of the villain from Thief 2: The Metal Age, whose name is “Karras.” The entire show notes for that episode are littered with assorted Thief 2 quotations, and even the title refers to it.

    So there, now I can say that “a clarification was posted on the Internet” and be telling the truth! Just like when anime reps talk about things like exchange programs or other such things that the average person could never possibly know about! Boy, THAT isn’t annoying whatsoever. If that Zeta Gundam DVD exchange ever happens, I’ll have to rely on someone telling me about it to find out that it exists.

25. I love the hentai reviews that you all write. No one else on the Internet really does hentai reviews… Those who seem to provide reviews actually don’t really review anything.

26. You were correct Gerald, I found myself quoting Dustin Hoffman from Lemony Snicket “I didn’t know their production values were so high”. It’s is truly comical how well made this was, not comical enough to keep on my computer, but still, enjoyable in that sense. The story was painful, utterly painful.

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