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The sound quality on this is pretty bad. We did the best we could to amplify this sufficiently so that people could hear it, but the levels are all over the place and we apologize in advance. This week, Gerald reviews one of his all-time favorites Crusher Joe, Daryl reviews the Often Overlooked Prefectural Earth Defense Force, and Clarissa continues her “pretty boys in armor” overview by telling about Ronin Warriors aka Yoroiden Samurai Troopers.
This episode was ALMOST on time since we missed our self imposed deadline by a mere 22 hours or so!
Introduction (0:00 – 30:00)
Man, David Williams is one tough-sounding dude. He and Reggie Fils-Aime should duke it out some day. So, the war for rankings supremacy rages on over at Podcast Pickle, with Anime Pulse having unseated the Weekly Anime Review’s top spot. We’re thinking “now is the time to get nothing but anime podcasts in the Top 10.” Along with Vespaholic’s Anime101 podcast (which might actually be teaching people how to be the type of fans that Daryl hates), we’re pretty close to breaking into the Top 10. So register over at Podcast Pickle and adding us to your favorites list. We don’t have pocky or yaoi fanart to give away. We’re just trying to commit a grand Internet prank.
Oh yeah, we answer emails too! Here’s some relevant links. We’ve been forgetting to put relevant links for the intro segment where it’s most important, but it’s not like we’ve received complaints. We’re guessing that people just scratch their heads at what we’re talking about and stop listening.
- Our Podcast Pickle page
- Lawrence Eng’s Daicon III and IV page – yep, he’s not just a Lain expert; this guy’s so going to take us to the cleaners at Otakon
- Jan-Scott Frazier – go here and get hit over the head with the guitar of enlightenment regarding what it takes to work in the anime industry as a foreigner
- Anime News Network’s page on Makoto Shinkai
- AnimeCons.com – go here to find out when and where all the anime cons are happening
- AMV Hell – contains download links for all of them, hope you like Azumanga Daioh jokes and the only scene from My Sexual Harassment that anyone ever remembers it for
From this point on, the microphones start going haywire and the audio levels fluctuate A LOT. The audio will get really low in places, then jump up again. You have been warned.
Let’s News! (30:00 – 40:58)
Geneon has licensed Zipang, which we reviewed back in Show #11. This somehow leads to us whining about the cost and manner of release of Hajime no Ippo. Gainax is planning to release a compilation movie for both Gunbuster and its sequ…er…follow-up, Daibuster, and Tohru Furuya is going to be a guest at Anime Expo. If only we could get our Mobile Suit Gundam boxes autographed. HEY, MAYBE WE COULD ASK THESE PEOPLE TO DO IT FOR US!
- The Official Fighting Spirit/Hajime no Ippo Home Page
- ANN’s Page on Gunbuster
- ANN’s Page on the S-s-s-s-s-Spawn of Satan to Gunbuster
- Hitoshi Doi’s Page on Tohru Furuya
Promo: Brace For Impact (40:58 – 41:55)
Daryl is pretty sure that he’s discovered the secret appeal of Apocalypse Dowell and Mick Aloha, and that’s this thing which is what they publicize the most. It’s an audiobook, which means that it’s all written out in advance, THEN recorded. This does wonders for keeping things moving along. The villain is a heel wrestling promoter!
Review: Crusher Joe (41:55 – 59:59)
Gerald tells us all about this one, his all-time favorite sci-fi action space opera anime. Gerald would like to make it clear that Crusher Joe is nothing like The Chronicles of Riddick or The Transporter, regardless of what Daryl is saying or the fact that he’s trying to sabotage my segment. He also doesn’t seem to realize that no one reads the text on the feed aggregators and if they read anything they read the home page notes, and even if they did, the home page is what matters. And Daryl needs to stop messing around and leave Gerald’s section alone, and stop comparing an awesome movie like Crusher Joe to crap like Riddick or The Transporter.
Often Overlooked: Prefectural Earth Defense Force (1:00:00 – 1:15:39)
If you couldn’t tell from the theme song, this is science fiction. Daryl tells us about this 45 minute OAV that’s sure to appeal to the people who dig Mel Brooks movies…er, from back when Mel Brooks was still funny. And Zucker Brothers movies…er, before they started doing those Scary Movie sequels. It’s screwball comedy a la Excel Saga or most of Akitaro Daichi’s work. Make sure to have the Pause key ready because the gags are constant. Oh by the way, this is only available through online retailers. Oh, and also: how well this sells will determine whether ADV will license other obscure but good anime titles and sell them subtitled only and cheap. So buy it, ya pencil-necked geeks!
- ADV’s PEDF store link – originally the only place anywhere you could order it; note that it’s sold out as of the time of this writing
- DVD Pacific (where we got it), Amazon (sort of has it), Robert’s Anime Corner Store, and Right Stuf all stock it
- ANN’s PEDF page – notice how many times ADV got PEDF mentioned in the news thanks to the manufactured controversy
Review: Yoroiden Samurai Troopers aka Ronin Warriors ( 1:15:39 – 1:33:58)
At this point, the audio levels get unbearable and our heroes are pushed to the limit. QUAKE WITH FEAR! Clarissa’s microphone and PC is particularly haywire at this point, but she continues on the “armored hero” anime beat which started with her Saint Seiya review in Show #21 by talking about the show that people in America are the most likely to be familiar with since it aired relatively unedited on US television and has been available on DVD for some time.
- ANN entry for Ronin Warriors
- Ronin Warriors Wikipedia entry
- Fansite with summaries of Samurai Troopers audio dramas and listings/notes about the bajillion novels/manga released
- DVD Pacific here has the series for about $9 a disc
Promo: Otaku Generation (1:33:58 – 1:34:20)
Did you see how Daryl was the first to get the OG Clap in their recent one year anniversary episode? That’s right, you’d better recognize. Wait, they gave him the clap?! Those bastards! Wait, that joke’s been used every single time “the OG Clap” has been mentioned? Those BASTARDS!
Closing (1:34:20 – 1:38:24)
Note to selves: invest in a USB mixer and three USB preamps. But man, do we really want to spend $550 on audio equipment that we don’t actually know how to USE? Next week, it’s a special CATFIGHT! CATFIGHT! episode, as we talk about anime titles centered around girls beating each other up. Gerald’s going to talk about Project A-Ko, which got a lot of play on Sci-Fi Channel back in the day and is coming up on its 20th anniversary. Clarissa will be discussing Air Master, which was the number one anime show in Japan when it came out on account that it’s a show about people being KICKED RIGHT IN THE FREAKING FACE, but it never caught on here since people didn’t like the artwork and the R1 DVD release was utter trash. Finally, Daryl’s going to tell us all about the Shadow Skill OAVs, which is an anime devoted to girls who kick things and have pretty radical fights amidst a sort of Slayers-ish fantasy setting.
Will nobody at AWO give us a review of “Spriggan”? I really want to hear about this anime! IT SOUNDS AAAAAWESOOOOOMMMMMEEEE!!1!!1!!!!
PS the ‘crusher joe’ model kits are really neat.
Something about the “NO YOU CANNOT DO ANIME STOP DREAMING” thing: I think that it might have more to do with dissuading people from the idea that being in the Japanese animation industry is the only way to create anime. That is less true as time goes on; there’s no reason that, e.g., someone could not produce an “amateur animation” on the order of Daicon, using their home computer and an off-the-shelf 3D animation package.
(although I recognize that this is somewhat at odds with your attitude; viz. repeated statements to the effect that the only way to make anime is to be in Japan and to be creating for a Japanese audience.)
Well, I was going to review Spriggan, but then I realized that Dave Riley’s comments for Show #23 already encapsulated everything I would have said!
But other than your usage of the term “anime,” I agree with you. The current level of home technology is such that it’s easier than ever for people to produce spectacular fan animations (there’s some Flash animations out there that are amazing).
Yet it’s like we said in the show (probably subconsciously stolen from Carl): the Daicon animations are more of a symbol of potential than a standard for quality among artists. Of course, who can blame them, what with this modern age of copyright lawyers and intellectual property lawsuits being tossed about left and right?
Of course, the reason Frazier’s site got mentioned is because we were looking to slap down the aspirations of all those 14 year-old [fat] girls whose dream in life is to move to Japan and be a Japanese-speaking voice actor for anime. And also those 26-27 year-old [fat] women with dreams of the same.
another thought: “Why don’t cons exclude non-anime people?” Well, it’s probably a Geek Fallacy thing: If you exclude, then you are an exclusionist, and you therefore have no right to protest when others exclude you. Conversely, if you do not exclude, then you can consider yourself morally superior to those who do (…exclude you.)
Hey! I’d like to see pictures of Clarissa dressed as Tetsujin 28!
Also, where did you get your “news” theme? Did you make it yourselves?
The problem with “Zipang”: Everyone who wanted to watch it…already has watched it. Because people will only watch (or buy) things that they’ve heard of, and the only way they’d have heard of Zipang is on the internet, and…bittorrent.
What they really ought to be doing is finding something like Zipang (if there is such a thing) and doing that, and saying “hey, if you liked Zipang, check this out.”
On the other hand, that would be basically admitting that fansubs kill sales, and We Don’t Want To Do That.
Okay, okay, I put “Crusher Joe” on my wish list, you can clean yourself off now.
The “Let’s News” bit is a Yoko Kanno composition, as taken from the Macross Plus soundtrack. The whole track is less than a minute, but I cut it down to about half that length since maybe then I can fool JVC into thinking it’s sampling when they send their litigation hounds after us. Of course, even though I’ve done this edit for 24 weeks straight, I always receive the news segment with either the song in its entirety or the opposite half as the lead-in. Always trying to sabotage my grand plans, that Gerald is!
And since when have we not admitted that fansubs kill sales? I don’t think that’s going to be the reason why Zipang doesn’t sell (once it comes out and doesn’t sell), since nobody was watching the fansubs either. It’d be like if someone were to start releasing the Black Jack TV series here. Despite being the most popular anime title in Japan–it is, after all, Inuyasha’s replacement–absolutely nobody in the US is downloading that show, to the point where the fansubbers have flat-out stated “we’re not going to sub episodes of this unless we’re REALLY bored since nobody watches it anyway.”
The reasons–the REAL reasons–per all those people who claim to watch anime because of its compelling storylines and characterizations but don’t really mean it? “It looks old.” “It’s not slick-looking enough.” “No pretty boys with giant swords or anything.” “It’s boring.”
In this case, “well, I already watched it on fansub” doesn’t even factor into the equation.
“PEDF”…I remember watching this, and realizing that it was much more fun to listen to my friend describe it than it was to actually watch it. Kind of like “Austin Powers”, which is more fun to crack each other up by quoting than it is to watch.
authentication word: “gzgygr”. It’s the Gao Gai Gar sequel!
PS: “It’ll never come out here!” Yeah…except then it will! And then nobody will buy it!
Ah shit, ADV wants us to vote with our dollars…
Ugh, don’t remind me about the lack of appreciation for Black Jack. *weeps* Heathens. It is only right and proper that all people love Black Jack.
But yeah, it’s correct. Most of these shows won’t sell decently, fansubs or no. Poor Zipang, doomed before you even begin. Unless they can manage some way to market it to people outside the anime community that are into the military intrigue…but that’s a shaky proposition at best.
Sadly, there are no actual pictures of me dressed as Tetsujin 28. Though that would be cool, I am far too poor to cosplay.
Okay, okay, I put “Crusher Joe” on my wish list, you can clean yourself off now.
Good I’ve done my job :). Although even then it came off as a bit of a hard sell, now I only wait for the people who are emailing only to be disappointed that it’s not Casablanca…in SPAAACE.
It is, in fact…
The Transporter!
IN SPAAAACE!
Hotshot cool dude with a bitchin’ ride is the best at what he does and operates outside the law. He’s given a package to transport! OH SNAP, it’s a girl! And…wait, what the heck?! I’VE BEEN SET UP! Now the cops AND the bad guys are after me! Aw, HELL naw! Time for some fools to get shot by SILENT INVISIBLE BULLETS!
Just like The Transporter, and that’s a shoot, brahs! And OAV 1, you KNOW in your heart that it’s tapping into the same creative flairs as the Christian Smith-endorsed CLASSIC, The Chronicles of Riddick! Crazy ass dictator dude fuckin’ up your Christmas! Prison planet of harsh unforgiving nastiness, but you gotta go there anyway! No damn character exposition whatsoever since you already know the score!
Then OAV 2, well day-um son that’s just like…PITCH BLACK! Doo de doo, routine transportation run, HOLY CRAP we crash-landed on some weird ass planet! The military dudes are being jerks, and WHAT THE CHRIST IT’S A BUNCH OF FLYING THINGS THAT EAT YOUR SKULL and the only way to get off this rock is to be supercool like Beretta! Good thing we got this ultimate weapon that can destroy an entire planet within minutes! In Crusher Joe it was a briefcase, in Pitch Black it was Vin Diesel! Pitch Black is more believable since Vin Diesel actually fulfills this purpose in real life as well.
And since it was deleted from the segment–for time constraints, no doubt!–the Crusher Joe squad = a Rob Liefeld superhero team! You got the badass leader, the big huge dude, the girl, and uh…some annoying person!
Dude. Reviewing stuff is EASY. Too bad Dave already said all there was to say about Spriggan, or else I’d be ALL OVER THAT.
And since it was deleted from the segment–for time constraints, no doubt!–the Crusher Joe squad = a Rob Liefeld superhero team! You got the badass leader, the big huge dude, the girl, and uh…some annoying person!
But do they all have ridiculous numbers of pouches all over their outfits?
Dude. Reviewing stuff is EASY.
Try reviewing “Space Thunder Kids.”
Man, I watch movies with flying Filipino midget spies and an evil chain-smoking Spider-Man ramming chicks’ faces into outboard motors until Santo and Captain America show up to stop him, and Space Thunder Kids is still making me cough up my skull. It’s not just that they’re ripping off famous anime — it’s when they start trotting out badly animated rip-offs of the dudes from TRON that things just go insane…
So yeah, technically it’s Korean, but come on. Close enough for hand grenades.
(Steve)
They don’t seem to be pouches, those seem to be all grenades of various types and kind.
Which….ya know…I’m not so sure that’s smart…..
I loves me some Crusher Joe. Pity Sunrise never figured out how to do more with it.
Well, you said you wanted some feedback about that Prefectural Earth Defense thing. I bought it tonight after hearing you guys say it was at DVD Pacific, so I guess I’ll let you know what I thought of it when I get around to watching it.
Screw you Gerald, the Riddick trillogy was awesome. For that, im not even gonna look up Crusher Joe and see if its worth buying.
“But do they all have ridiculous numbers of pouches all over their outfits?”
And you never see their feet.
Oh: Since you guys said so much about PEDF, are you going to discuss Shinesman or Exploding Campus?
I’m going to the next anime convention dressed as Mansquito.
Shinesman and Bakuen Campus are both really fun OAVs that totally deserve segments. I’m sure we’ll cover those, I will if nobody else does.
“And since when have we not admitted that fansubs kill sales?”
I didn’t really write that post very well; I kind of dashed it off on my way to doing something else.
What I meant to say was that the domestic anime industry exists in a symbiotic relationship with fansubbers, even now that anime is probably about as mainstream as it’s going to get.(*) Without fansubbers and the unofficial news/advertising channel they create, stuff that didn’t get shown on TV would basically have no presence in the market; the only companies that would exist would be sub-units of the megaconglomerates, and the only things they’d release would be the stuff that’s on TV. But the legal situation is such that these smaller companies are unable to discuss fansubbers as anything but copyright violators (not that the fansubbers make it easy for them…) So. Here we are, as I used to say back when I was a prostitute.
(*) Here, I’m defining “anime” here as something distinct from “animation created in Japan”; “Macross” as opposed to “Robotech”, for example. There is an anime fan movement which is only tangentially related to the actual cartoons on TV; it’s very much like the Star Trek fan-base.
Shinesman and Bakuen Campus are both really fun OAVs that totally deserve segments. I’m sure we’ll cover those, I will if nobody else does.
Shinesman the anime would be extremely interesting if only for the very good dub that Coastal Carolina did that punched up an already pretty funny show.
There’s nothing wrong with gray. It’s a very manly, heroic color.
(I always thought that they should have done a sequel, featuring the introduction of Shinesman Teal.)
Shame on you, Daryl, for comparing Crusher Joe to Chronicles of Riddick, even in a facetious manner. That’s not cool; people view you as an authority, and they’ll take you at your word, and an entire generation of budding anime fans will miss out on the Takachiho / Sunrise goodness because they’ll associate it with the Twohy ego-masturbation fest that was the sequel to Pitch Black.
Remember what Uncle Ben said: Great power, great responsibility! Don’t poison their opinions before they have chance to see Crusher Joe!
BTW, the first Transporter movie was ludicrous, but I marked out for the oil-puddle fight in the bus-station.
I’ve noticed, Gerald, that you tend to recommend some older dubs as being “good” for the exact same reasons I detract them for being bad. Consider your praise for the dubs of both Shinesman and Project A-ko. Is adding humorous dialogue and jokes where no jokes existed really that important for an English language adaptation? Is it a matter of accessibility?
gooberzilla: For my part, I really don’t care what people do for the dub, because A: they typically need to match the lip-flaps, B: the dub is intended for a different audience than the sub, C: people aren’t going to listen to the original audio at the same time as the dub, and D: I don’t listen to the dub anyway.
I generally look at a dub and see if they did a good job with the material that they were given. Works like Project Ako and Shinesmen are comedies to begin with. I’m in the crowd that believes that a joke has to be absolutly literal since humor is very diverse and these dubs get the spirit of the original humor across very well.
A good example is the old Samurai Pizza Cats dub, which may be an extreme example as basically nothing was left of the original script once they went through with it, but the result is arguably better than what they started with since the show was a screwball comedy and still retained that in the end. Another example on a lesser scale is the Streamline dub of Project Eden as compared to the ADV dub of Project Eden. The Streamline dub decided to throw out much of the literal-ness of the original script, but what retains is something that doesn’t sound as clunky, bland, and slavish to the script as the ADV dub does, yet manages to be as good (if not better) than the original Japanese dub.
Now if they wanted to add jokes to something like, say, Wings of Honneamise, or Grave of the Fireflies, that’s a different story since those aren’t meant to be comedies in the first place.
It’s a bit tough since I do not advocate throwing out the storyline ala Orphen and Steven Foster or totally changing the characterization ala Saiyuki and Steven Foster (according to Clarissa), but I am in favor of an interesting dub that retains the spirit of the original work and characterization.
I actually know several people who like Gunbuster as well as Diebuster.
I even know a few who like the new one, but not the old one (they are, of course, crazy).
I’m trying my best to like it, since it has “Aim for the Top” in the name, but it’s doing its best to let me down. At least the sole scene that was a direct homage to the original’s Gunbuster launching scene was well done.
There isn’t a combined compilation movie; instead they’re making 90 minute movies of each and showing them as a double bill. It’s certainly possible, but whether or not the result will be mostly from the 90 minutes of footage of Noriko crying or from the 90 minutes of footage of Noriko shooting aliens with the Homing Laser is a mystery.
Dude. Reviewing stuff is EASY. Too bad Dave already said all there was to say about Spriggan, or else I’d be ALL OVER THAT.
No Daryl! There’s plenty of stuff let to talk about in the Spriggan universe, and there’s plenty of things that you can apply the CAPS LOCK BUTTON(!!) and EXTREME AMOUNTS OF EXCLAMATION POINTS(!!!!) to.
ex: BLUE HEADED ALIEN BOY THAT LOOKS YOUNG BUT IS REALLY OLD FROM AKIRA!!!!
and…
Okay, well I guess that’s the only one I left out.
Oh wait, no!
AMERICANS ARE REALLY BAD TOO, GUYS!! THEY SUCK! AND SOME OF THEM ARE FAT!!!
And that’s everything about Spriggan (also FISH ROCK!)
To be the sole voice of dissent, I am one of the astronomically few people who haven’t seen Zippang on fansub, but will definitely be checking it out on DVD.
I realize I’m basically in a minority all by myself. I share your commitment to old school anime, with a mantra of something like ‘if it’s made after 1995 it’s not worth it’, which also works for John Carpenter movies! My problem is I don’t share in the other part of the equation that makes you guys so great, which is the ability to expend extreme amounts of effort to get what I want.
For example, Gerald’s review of Crusher Joe made it sound much more appealing than the lame-o cover I’ve been seeing in anime catalogs for like the past ten years, but will I get it? Only if some hobo shows up on my door with a copy and asks me for $10. Anything else would be too much work!
For fans like me, the DVD release of Zippang is just blockbuster, but I’m probably like the only one of me out there. I realize that most of the people who already watched it aren’t gonna buy it and anime sales are gonna go down and we’ll NEVER GET LILY C.A.T. RELEASED ON DVD EVER.
And I would be all like –> 🙁
In closing: I hate fansubs, because they kill the US anime market (for Lily C.A.T.)
(Except if they’re Eyeshield 21)
Great show again. I was almost crying at work listening to the bickering about Riddick/Crusher Joe. Two such passionate forces coming together to argue their respective viewpoints? That’s what podcasting’s all about!
Seriously, I was trying so hard not to laugh I thought I was gonna throw up.
So, uh… congratulations? I now enter the worst part of my week. 7 (or more!) days without AWO.
alexander strange: No, the HOOOOMEEEENGUUH LAAAYSSAAAAA is in “Nadia”. “Gunbuster” has the BAASTAAAAAA BEEEEEEEEEEEMU!
The Homing Laser is absolutely in Gunbuster. Episode 5, the same episode as the Super Inazuma Kick and of course, the Buster Shield. Man, Gunbuster is one of those things that upon rewatching it, I don’t like it nearly as much. I mean, I never liked the pointless Noriko crying/girls in bathtub stuff, but I really thought there was well, more of the actual Gunbuster in it. The second to last episode is the only one I seem to really still enjoy since that’s the one with the Gunbuster actually IN it for most of the episode. The ending totally blindsided me when I first saw it, but now that I rewatch it, I’m like “well, god damn if that isn’t lame!”
Something inside me’s died, and I’m worse off for it. 🙁
Dave: Hey now, we don’t believe “it’s crap if it’s made after 1995” or any other year. Let’s pretend that say, of everything that comes out in a given year, only two things are awesome and the rest suck. The total amount of shows that were awesome in recent years would be fewer than the total amount of things that were awesome over the last few decades, just because of it being a larger timeframe. The reality of the situation is similar.
Also, I’m really glad people enjoyed the Riddick/Crusher Joe stuff. Gerald hated all that so much that it all got deleted, but then I edited it all back in afterwards before releasing the show. He was not at all amused by this and has demanded I never do it again. Oh well, good thing Clarissa doesn’t usually listen to the show, otherwise my jig would be completely up!
Still, I actually never fully understood why the hatred for Chronicles of Riddick is as severe as it is across the board, having only seen the director’s cut. Painfully bad acting from Thandie Newton aside, I know Gerald and Clarissa’s main dislike of the film was the haphazard editing of the fights, so when I finally watched it I looked out for that because I hate that. But I didn’t really notice it in the version I watched. The commentary track mentioned how “we had to cut a lot out of this to keep it PG-13, but now it’s all back and isn’t quite so disorienting,” so maybe that’s it right there.
Now you want to talk about a movie with fight scenes so overedited to the point of being unwatchable, done out of ineptitude as opposed to “well actually, this rapper/100 pound girl can’t fight”? The Bourne Supremacy is the worst at that I have EVER seen. Same problem as Advent Children! Exceptional fight choreography that you CAN’T SEE because the director’s being a putz, only it’s even more severe than AC. Pity too, since I really liked the fights in The Bourne Identity. But I’ll buy Advent Children once I can get it cheap, whereas The Bourne Supremacy was like, something I’m content to have watched only once.
Well, it’s been determined that if I loved Giant Robo Daryl would hate it based on the fact that I love it :). I still watch Gunbuster and love it to death and it’s still my favorite OAV and still has the greatest ending in anime, and as far as I’ve seen, it holds up very well even after years of watching it. I’m assuming that Daryl just starts to die a bit more every year and starts to take good things down with him :).
And yes I was not amused with Daryl editing back in audio that I specifically edited out and I hope that I don’t have to go through that again since you’d think a friend wouldn’t splice in a segment that another friend absolutly hated, but that’s just jokes to Daryl. I would be interested to know if they fixed that awful fight scenes for the director’s cut since there’s no way in hell you could think the fight scenes from the theatrical cut were anything but haphazard keneticism without any sort of definition or spacial quality. It was entirely “Closeup/punch/medium shot/shot of arm punching/medium shot with no reaction/first person reaction shot/closeup/etc…” like the editor fell asleep on his AVID and just went with what came out.
“The Bourne Supremacy is the worst at that I have EVER seen. Same problem as Advent Children! Exceptional fight choreography that you CAN’T SEE because the director’s being a putz, only it’s even more severe than AC. Pity too, since I really liked the fights in The Bourne Identity.”
Well, the thing is that the ‘Bourne Supremacy’ was like that all the time–it was intended to depict Bourne’s state of disoriented confusion.
The problem is that it wasn’t enjoyable to watch that.
As for “Gunbuster”: It really, really wanted to be a Go Nagai show. Robots that are tremendously gigantic for no apparent reason? The entire planet of Jupiter is turned into a bomb? The battle to save humanity takes place so far away that, even if you win, everyone you know will be dead before you return? FUCKING BLACK AND WHITE? This is right where Nagai lives!
Ugh. Bourne Supremacy. What made that worse was that it was an otherwise good movie completely ruined by a horrible director.
And a note to people who are having a hard time finding things like Cruhser Joe once they go out of print — not to be a shill for a company or anything, but Netflix really is your friend.
And it’s funny that Dave never watched Crusher Joe because the cover looked lame. For years, I did the same thing.
Dave: Hey now, we don’t believe “it’s crap if it’s made after 1995” or any other year.
I hyperbolize. What I MEANT to say is “it’s crap if it’s made after 1995 unless it’s Azumanga Daioh or Paranoia Agent… or Big O… or Cromartie…”
Oh, just shut up. 🙁
So I guess Animeigo’s having some big ole sale at the moment? Got Crusher Joe for the modest sum of $9! Talk about timing!
Or are you guys just a big shill for Animeigo? Does ole Woody have you in his XXL pockets?
You know, it’s amazing if you’re too close to something you lose perspective entirely.
halojonesfans said: “…B: the dub is intended for a different audience than the sub, C: people aren’t going to listen to the original audio at the same time as the dub, and D: I don’t listen to the dub anyway.”
And he’s absolutely right. I don’t listen to dubs. I’m not the audience that the dub is aiming to please…why on Earth should I care? Here I was getting my knickers in a twist over something that doesn’t effect my enjoyment of the film in the least…geez.
Dave, Daryl, thanks for reminding me. Riddick and Ghosts of Mars are both going on the Greatest Movie EVER podcast at some point in the future, only Riddick will be under the Worst category and Ghosts will be under the Greatest.
I have to agree with halojonesfan again with his critique of Gunbuster. I think Gunbuster is another one of those shows that gets a disproportionate amount of positive criticism compared to the actual quality of the content of the show. It’s a pretty disjointed fanservicey-romp-turns-deadly-serious-toward-the-end production, a pattern that can be found in most of Gainax’s other shows, with the possible exception of FLCL.
WE MUST SHILL FOR ANIMEIGO. ANIMEIGO IS OUR FRIEND. ANIMEIGO GUARDS US WHILE WE SLEEP AT NIGHT. THE POWER OF ANIMEIGO COMPELS US.
Woot, you guys (AWO) are #8 from what i see on podcast pickle!
(Steve)
OMG someone else who groks the empty nature of Gunbuster!
No, really, seriously. I came to believe LONG LONG ago that everything you need to understand Gainax and their concepts and thinking can be found by watching the Daicon III and Daicon IV short films. All the good, all the bad, all the excess and beauty and shame are right there, right there, just watch them and contrast the *meanings* behind each.
Which of course is why they keep those on the ‘downlow’ nowadays, to be referred with reverence but not *examined*.
And Bandai Visal US is going to release Gunbuster. It seems so obvious.
I enjoy both Gunbuster and Diebuster. Does that make me empty? :'(
~Kamon
As I’ve said before, I don’t have any great problems with today’s anime cons. I became an otaku at a convention when I was eleven, so I’m certainly in no position to decry what AMERIKKA’S MOST WANTED refers to as “the kids, man, the fuckin’ kids.”
—Carl
I still remember having the concept of the T-160 tape explained to me by a friend, when I despaired of being able to copy CRUSHER JOE. I remember going to an electronics store in Berkeley, and the great suspicion with which I viewed it: this tape, which claimed to be able to hold 160 minutes of material at 2-hour speed.
Gerald: There’s a guy I work with who has an accent very similar to yours. I couldn’t figure out where he was from. Finally I asked, and it turned out that he was born and raised in Tanzania.
You know, I really wonder why Gunbuster was considered “undubbable” way back when. I know I didn’t invent that idea, although it may be some sort of elaborate rumor.
On that, I actually thought that the live action Sailor Moon movie that was reported back in the mid 90’s was a rumor, but it appears to have been the real deal here.
Although for all I know, that could be the extend of its elaborateness.
I’m also a bit surprised that people still detect an accent, but that very much depends on who’s listening since anyone from outside of the US says I sound pretty much like an American.
I enjoy both Gunbuster and Diebuster. Does that make me empty? :'(
Well, statistically there has to be someone who likes both, but the stark difference in styles and generations of fans often drives a stake between the two.
“I’m also a bit surprised that people still detect an accent, but that very much depends on who’s listening since anyone from outside of the US says I sound pretty much like an American.”
It isn’t a strong accent–I’m trying to think of what it is, and I think it’s just a question of where you put the emphases and how you use tones.
Woot, AWO is number 7 on podcast pickle
Though it should be of some note the Daicon III and IV films were filmed with a Fujica model “single-8mm” (not Super-8, as this used a different format camera, not 35mm as Daryl stated.
Still you do bring up some good points on the Gainax crew and for what they had been able to do for their time. Hardly had time to listen to your podcasts in a while, but so far listend to this ten minutes in and just had to stated this.
By the way Gerald, though I’ve only saw the Crusher Joe “Ash” OVA once (still have the AnimEigo subbed LD edition), I thought it kicked ass too!
Keith said…
Dude. Reviewing stuff is EASY.
Try reviewing “Space Thunder Kids.”
Man, I watch movies with flying Filipino midget spies and an evil chain-smoking Spider-Man ramming chicks’ faces into outboard motors until Santo and Captain America show up to stop him, and Space Thunder Kids is still making me cough up my skull.
They even rip off the theme from the Crusher Joe movie too!
It’s not just that they’re ripping off famous anime — it’s when they start trotting out badly animated rip-offs of the dudes from TRON that things just go insane…
I need to look for “Savior of the Earth” that has the full Tron footage in.
http://www.ifdfilms.com/VIDEO/s01_trailer_wmv8.asf
So yeah, technically it’s Korean, but come on. Close enough for hand grenades.
True too!
samurai trooper video animation
You guys are lucky, to be able to buy anime for so cheap!
Here's an example PEDF for you cost $8.95 but in Europe that same DVD costs: $78.77 (47.74 pounds)
As can seen here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Prefectural+Earth+Defense+Force&x=0&y=0
and that's excluding the sending costs and the conversion for currency because for some stupid reason they only want pounds and aren't happy with Euro's, yeah I can't even buy it in my own country, I have to import it through another European country, double import, that'll get the price up.
All in all if I recall correctly I paid for that DVD about $82,- and it's not even for my region code so I can only view it with my hacked DVD-player.
Let's not talk about the Limited Edition Patlabor movie, that was like half my monthly salary back then.
So Americans, stop whining about the costs for your anime or manga fix, over here in Europe we are paying at least twice and sometimes triple or more of the price you are paying.
But I also feel for you guys, I really do, how about this idea, we switch prices, I can buy them for the prices you have and you can have European prices, that way you can whine about the prices all you want and I can buy mine for such a sweet price range, it's a very solid deal don't you think?
Great show, keep it up.