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This week, our special guest is Steve Harrison, which is fitting because this week none of us have a clue what we’re talking about! Gerald rants about the state of the anime industry, Daryl does a braindump of MD Geist, and Clarissa reviews Shinesman! Informed viewpoints? What are those?!
Introduction (0:00 – 10:04)
Ten minutes only? Well, that’s because the one audio feedback we played was responded to over the course of about 90 minutes (edited down to 60), and it’s available as a separate download. Wait, it still takes us ten minutes just to say “hey, this is who we are and this is what we’re doing this week”?! Normally when we edit this show, we all edit our own segments, then Daryl pieces everything together and listens to the whole thing to make sure that everything sounds okay. This week, the “listens to the whole thing” part was skipped since there was so much to edit through. Whether or not this resulted in tragedy has yet to be conveyed to us by our listeners.
- Bonus one hour long response to the voicemail sent to us by GeekNights – we were going to start this off by all saying LET’S DO THIS in unison, but we couldn’t actually…say that in unison, so we gave up; actually this entire account is a fabrication for the sake of entertainment
- Anime News Network’s entry for John Swasey – he’s an ADV dub actor/director guy who worked on their Gamera releases; even got to put a full-on parody dub of Gamera on the actual official DVD
- Space Webzine Yamato – we linked to this before and we’re doing it again now that Steve’s on the show!
- Mur Lafferty – she’s a person who does podcasts and wrote a book about podcasting containing lots of advice we don’t follow yet due to lack of funds/stupidity
Promo: GeekNights (10:04 – 11:14)
Since most people who listen to podcasts are well, other podcasters, you probably know what we mean when we say that coming up with a promo that doesn’t sound totally awful and contrary to the nature of your show is really hard work, no matter how many actual podcasts you’ve got under your belt. It took us forever just to come up with our one AWO promo, and even that sounds kind of…fake. Rym and Scott agree, and even though they’ve recorded hundreds of podcasts, they never got around to doing any promos until now.
FANBOY RAGE RANT TIME: The Anime Industry’s Licensing Practices Are Stupid (11:14 – 51:50)
Gerald brings us back to our roots, since we haven’t done a full-on rant segment since Show # 2. There’s really not much structure to this, and truth be told it’s doubtful that any of what is said here is supported by the actual facts, but since when does THAT ever stop anyone on the Internet, huh?! Or the news. Or the current best-selling book in the US.
Promo: Anime Pulse (51:50 – 52:20)
This episode was so long that it was decided to just cut out all that music in the beginning since hey, everyone (except us) has heard that Bleach song a hundred times by now! Anyway, not only is Anime Pulse one of the most popular anime podcasts out there, but we won their Podcast Pickle contest and in so doing received the Tenchi Universe box set, a Death Note (like a notebook that looks like the Death Note), and signed yaoi fanart of Ichigo and Batou as drawn by Erin from the Ninja Consultant podcast. Clarissa called dibs on the Death Note, and since these things all look the same, Daryl went and wrote her name in it so that if it ever got lost, people would know it was her Death Note. Gerald said he hated Hiroshi Negishi during the Shadow Skill segment last week, so that meant he couldn’t have the Tenchi Universe boxed set since he directed that too, which means that Gerald gets the yaoi fanart and Daryl gets the DVD set. Hey, it’s what they asked for!
Not Really a Review of the Second Worst Anime Ever Made: MD Geist Director’s Cut (52:20 – 1:22:41)
We may never agree on what the worst anime ever made is, but after you hear Daryl’s summary description of MD Geist (as was requested of him!), we should all be able to reach the consensus that MD Geist is the second worst. Naturally, it has been CPM’s company spokesmecha since the inception of the company…even though MD Geist is not a mecha or a robot or anything like that. MD Geist is actually one of the best-selling anime titles OF ALL TIME, but listen to this so you never need actually watch it for yourself. Even though we know you’re all going to go see it now.
- ANN’s entry for MD Geist – there are two people we know that actually like this and they’re both anime con staffers
- ANN’s entry for MD Geist II: Death Force – this is even lamer than part 1, but it all counts as “MD Geist” okay?!
- Anime on DVD’s review of MD Geist – Chris Beveridge gives MD Geist a “D” for content, and it’s not like he’s using Anime Jump’s review system where the “F” rating was hilariously bad and the “D” rating is the real worst rating; also, he says that MD Geist II has “a good narrative and streamlined a lot of things”
Review: Shinesman (1:22:41 – 1:38:38)
Fulfilling another listener request, Clarissa reviews this beauty of an OAV, a parody sentai anime with one of the most entertaining (albeit not exactly accurate) dubs ever made. So when the heck is someone going to release the manga for this one, anyway?! Come on, Media Blasters!
Closing (1:38:38 – 1:45:43)
This episode nearly ruined all of our lives. Next week, Gerald’s going to review Goshogun: The Time Etranger, which is also known as Time Stranger. It is not to be confused with the Rintaro movie of the same name, but apparently it’s confusing enough that even the back of the DVD case calls the thing by two different names. Daryl’s bouncing over to the other end of the good/bad spectrum by reviewing Discotek Media’s latest classic anime release, Puss n’ Boots! Finally, who likes short shorts on little boys? That’s right, Michael Jackson and Clarissa. She’s going to be reviewing CLAMP Campus Detectives.
Just so everyone knows, we may have to take a short bit of time off soon. With Anime Festival Orlando coming up–which we’ve all got panels to prepare for–and then Otakon the week right after that, things are going to get pretty hectic for all of us near the end of this month and the time we’d spend on the podcast is going to have to be spent putting our presentations together. Maybe we can be superhuman and accomplish both tasks, but in case we can’t, we’re letting you know now and in the weeks to come.
Oh god, such a great episode. MD Geist sounds horrible, but, im still going to try to find it (like I did Odin, and Golgo 13). I cant wait for Gerald’s review on Time Stranger. I ordered PEDF off of ADV’s site thanks to their sale. Im still waiting for the must see anime list, but whatever. In the meantime im gonna go back to watching Air Master and Fist of the North Star. Which are both awesome.
Commenting this early is pretty silly, but I just want to destroy one of their arguments by pointing out that the 4chan panel didn’t really have a fight at Otakon. It was actually a prank.
PS – you should watch Gundoh Musashi, and then you’ll be glad for moe shows. Also, The melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya will obviously be the next big thing in America, if it isn’t just the biggest fad that ever happened.
(Steve)
The problem with a decent Must See list is too much stuff just isn’t available to the average person. It’s all R2 Japanese releases, or LDs, or even off air recordings from the ’80s.
At least my list would be.
To wit, my turning the gang on to Sakigake! Otokojuku. I can feel brains burning from here as they spin up Tim’s DVDs. burning with MANLY JUSTICE!
Gundoh Musashi has loads of value in and of itself, though. It’s failed so hard (and never had a chance, with the staff size they’re supposedly working with) that it’s come out the ass end of failure and walked unknowingly into the very height of success.
As for Haruhi; I just finished watching it and I don’t know whether I like or hate it. Not love or hate, like or hate. After the first two episodes it becomes pretty obvious that what the complicated sci-fi premise (the one they’ve spent all this time explaining!) exists for is to set up is the same old high school harem shit. The reason the episodes were aired out of order is that the climax is stupid, and the animators knew that.
But I can’t fault the show on execution. It’s really detailed, the material is handled more cleverly than it typically is, and it’s got an insane animation budget. It’s just that it uses this budget on the episode where Haruhi puts on her bunnygirl outfit and has a concert.
It’s true, it hasn’t won over some kinds of people (some people, like TheSwami posting on SA, seem to have gotten out as soon it displayed something that looked the slightest like moe), and probably wouldn’t Surat, but I meant mass appeal:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/ratings-anime.php
It’s also practically every top-seller on amazon.jp, and the first episode has half the BitTorrent downloads of any given Naruto episode, with only 14 weeks since anyone had ever heard of it.
(full disclosure: I loved almost every silly part that didn’t involve moe jokes and voted it Masterpiece on ANN myself)
And, of course, I’d never insult Musashi. But would you want to watch more than one of it? The really new anime Zaizen Joutarou also seems to be in the same very, very bad range, and it’s not even as funny.
Oh, I’m definitely not saying Haruhi won’t be big when it comes here. It can’t not be big. It’s big in Japan, it’s big in the fansub commmunity. On top of being very well-done they’ve done everything they can do to get as many different sorts of fans as possible. It’s very clever!
Haruhi isn’t going to be big in America. It doesn’t have any mainstream appeal. It works as a satire, and a comedy, and as something for people that have been watching anime for years.
Gerald, it was a good discussion, but you should have picked a more encompassing topic that you could better support. You prefaced yourself by stating that you didn’t have a lot of hard data to back up your arguments, which should have been a warning when you began to compose it. But you did the best you could with what you chose, and I think you did a good job.
I’d just like to back up alexander strange’s comment about the fight at the 4chan panel being a prank. It was between two friends that had planned the thing beforehand. If I remember correctly it involved something along the lines of person 1 asking why 4chan hates furries and the guy in the 4chan shirt right next to him jumping up and beating him to the ground, to comic effect. (although the humor was understandably lost on the Otakon staffers.)
To be honest, I’m surprised at how calmly you were able to answer that voicemail (I was half-expecting Clarissa to have some sort of massive brain hemmorage by the end)… towards the end of the thing, I was thinking that it might have just been a elaborate troll to get you to devote an hour to some other people that run some other podcast.
Oh, and just to bug you all again, just in case you didn’t see my last comment, even more topical since it just got licenced: Have any of you guys seen PaniPoni Dash? What’s your opinion, funny gag/parody anime or disgusting pedo shit?
My problem with the next generation of makers coming from fans is do fans really know what makes the things that they like work or why they’re so good?
When makers give fandom exactly what they want, it doesn’t turn out very well. For example: “Advent Children.” That was giving the fans about everything they’d complained wasn’t in “Spirits Within”: Materia, summoning, all that stuff. However, it’s NOT A GOOD MOVIE! A lot of fans like it anyway, but nobody on the side of the people who liked it have convinced me of its positive qualities other it being “fanboy eyecandy.”
If that’s the kind of thinking that drives a generation, there will be serious problems. Of course, like what was said, having people who don’t give a shit about the source material doesn’t really work either. It is what it always is: People who have a good story to tell stepping up and using the method of storytelling as well as they can (Of course, that statement is REALLY simplistic, but you get the idea). Sometimes they stumble into it, and sometimes it’s a lifelong obsession. There’s not a formula, and even if there is, the people who wind up following it aren’t very good most of the time.
As for Sci-Fi fans, I think it’s too much of a blanket statement to say their interests are too “anti-social.” Of course, there’s hardcore stuff like Phillip K. Dick fandom where they aren’t naturally going to get together, kick back some brewskis, and share the love. But I know a few “Firefly” fans who would get together all the time and watch episodes. It’s not SO much different than anything else. And even anime runs on similar tracks. I can have a good time with friends watching “Full Metal panic: FUMOFFU,” but “Texhnolyze”…. not so much. I don’t endorse people dressing up in non-anime/manga stuff at anime cons nor do I despise it (I actually have a picture of someone in a badass Ghostbusters outfit from last year’s “Otakon”). It’s just a question of, “Why are you here?” And if you say, “Because I have nowhere else to go,” I call bullshit. I’m from Nebraska. You have no idea what “nowhere to go” REALLY is.
Since Haruhi finished, in about a month im guessing that it will almost be completely forgotten (but it shouldent be).
These losers have really become parodies of themselves. “On this weeks’s episode we’re keeping the 80s in-joke b-grade schlock to a minimum and we’ll be reviewing excting new shows from the early 90s. Our sentai converage remains uneffected.”
You know, I should send in an MP3 and deliver the most massive pwning these self-refrencing in-joke posers have ever recieved in their brief casual-anime 80s VHS “industry” lives.
Gerald, it was a good discussion, but you should have picked a more encompassing topic that you could better support. You prefaced yourself by stating that you didn’t have a lot of hard data to back up your arguments, which should have been a warning when you began to compose it. But you did the best you could with what you chose, and I think you did a good job.
Well, it’s not like I pulled all the information in that out of my ass. I can pretty much verify all facts in that as most of them came from interviews or presentations by industry folks (the Evangelion movie thing came from Matt Greenfield several times, the $70,000 per half hour came from O’Donnell, the dubbing costs came from an ANN article and audio trade publication, etc..), however to cover myself I did say that the hard evidence is hard to find since there aren’t many “trade” publications for the anime industry that are not readily available.
Okay, real fan speaking.
Why the hell do we CARE if this crap “industry” can turn a buck importing stuff? We have REAL fans subbing this stuff over with NO recompense save for the joy and ego-fullfilment from the scene. Why do we have to pay attention to US distribution when we already get this over the internet? LOOK at the download statistics at any major torrent site, and tell me there aren’t anime fans — I’ve been in the scene for a long time and fandom is MUCH MUCH MUCH larger than what it was during the early 90s, and very few of them BUY anime. Why in hell should they if they can get it for free? We’re here to enjoy anime (and in AWO’s case an equal sharing of sentai but whatever) and that’s all that matters.
$70,000 is a humongus sum of money for a half hour, plus the dubbing cost. If it cost that much then i would wonder how anime companys stay in business. Oh well. I am about 9 eps into Combattler V and am loving every moment of it.
anonymous says:
“blah blah blah, I’m a true fan because I download stuff”
A -true- fan, if there could be such a thing that wasn’t just a self-aggrandizing title, would probably be concerned with making sure money gets back to the creators of the works in the first place. If you’re not going to be all altruistic and help someone “continue their art”, then at least do it for the totally selfish reason of you paying money for this stuff suggests to its creators (and its financial backers) that more of the SAME stuff should be made.
I’m with Dave on this one. If you don’t participate with your wallet, you aren’t a fan. You’re a parasite.
I wasn’t too sure if I should respond to that since the statement seemed a bit too ludicrous to have been said by someone who understood how things work.
Yeah, stuff must be paid for in some way for more of it to be made, so if no one paid for anything, there’d be no anime made, end of story.
I listened to your “bonus hour” and I have to correct something; among a lot of industry, aside from the highest level of con administration, con staff are no different from regular fans. Unless you’re Mike Tatsugawa or Vowles… odds are you’re going to have a tough time keeping any industry or guest attention.
Also: are you jerkfaces stealing my “RANT RANT RANT” title?
I suggested Gun Musashi because of the amazingly comedic ADTRW thread about it, but I don’t think either Gerald or Clarissa have any interest in watching that trainwreck. I might have to venture down that road myself. I have not seen PaniPoni Dash, but it seems a lot like Excel Saga, which while funny and clever is not something I can stand to watch more than one episode at a time.
Given that there are two anonymous posts mentioning our allegedly significant coverage of sentai when we have in fact done ZERO sentai reviews EVER (R5 Central and Rangercast are the only tokusatsu/sentai-oriented podcasts I know of), I will assume those two messages are both from the same person. Perhaps this person meant to say “hentai,” but even if we assume that, I don’t think it’s especially fair to say that we spend a predominantly large amount of time discussing porn outside of a few segments from Gerald and Clarissa here and there.
Okay, real fan speaking.
Why the hell do we CARE if this crap “industry” can turn a buck importing stuff? We have REAL fans subbing this stuff over with NO recompense save for the joy and ego-fullfilment from the scene. Why do we have to pay attention to US distribution when we already get this over the internet?
We care about US distribution since the anime industry is now largely dependent upon what people actually BUY here in America. That directly influences the next sets of titles that get made. If thousands of people download say, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (since that’s what people have been mentioning in the earlier comments), but then nobody buys it when it comes out on DVD here because of some arbitrary reason, then you’re not likely to see more of that (or things LIKE that) get made, period. If you don’t like Haruhi Suzumiya or haven’t seen it, substitute it for a title you do enjoy and the logic will still hold.
What you’ve stated is actually a very common viewpoint held by anime fans, and it wouldn’t be quite so bad as long as the people putting this forth would admit that they’re thieves and that they’re stealing. But this almost never happens.
It’s when people throw in the “I’m a real fan BECAUSE I steal things instead of buying them” or some sort of other high ground justification (eg “it’s not actually stealing” etc) that I have to object on the grounds that Dave et al already mentioned during the time it took me to type the rest of this up. That line of thinking betrays an unjustified sense of entitlement. Japanese cartoons are not a right.
The Answerman column on Anime News Network consists almost entirely of people of similar mindsets as you writing in with questions and arguments that are effectively what you’ve put forth. He has been responding to this line of questioning for years now, so if you’re truly interested in a point/counterpoint discussion and are not just trying to elicit an angry response from us (if that was the objective, it was not successful), please read his columns over the last few months.
And…oh hey there, Answerman! No, we didn’t steal your RANT RANT RANT title on purpose. It just happened to be something our guest Steve started chanting right before the segment started. I’ll change it to just UNINFORMED RANT or something instead.
I await the MP3 feedback containing this massive logical deconstruction of all of our core beliefs and viewpoints. It shouldn’t be hard to do, given that I am, after all, a self-referencing in-joke poser. But at least I’m honest about it!
Actually, I should clarify something; it’s not that ONLY people like Tatsugawa get any attention from industry or guests; high-level translators and staff with friends in the industry are all over the place.
But the guys doing crowd control and checking for badges at the entrance to the dealer’s room? Probably not showing up at industry after-hours parties. That’s a little closer to what my point actually was.
Hmm. I thought we mentioned those exact points during the “bonus hour” bit: that you have to be rather high-level staff at an anime convention to get that industry/guest-level access. That was precisely the counterpoint Rym had brought up in rebuttal to what we had said, which confused me because he was apparently refuting our point by making the same point we’d put forth. Our point of contention was precisely that, hence my confusion. Perhaps we just didn’t make ourselves clear on that, only since we all knew what we were meaning to say, we didn’t clarify it amongst ourselves before releasing it.
With that in mind, as a brief bit of additional clarification: I do understand that we just talked about Shinesman this episode. But Shinesman is not super sentai proper because super sentai refers to live-action works. Shinesman is a parody. I am therefore technically in the right with my claim of us having discussed zero sentai titles even though the full title of Shinesman is Tokuma Sentai Shinesman.
The closest we’ve come to actual super sentai discussion on this podcast is that I mentioned Chojin Sentai Jetman once or twice. Probably during my staggeringly high-level comedy review of Karas.
Okay, I’ll sign it this time.
REAL FANS don’t shill for the US “industry”. Real fans get into the art and the culture, and talk about it with other fans. Why should we give the slightest damn if the “industry” can make money off the latest pathetic butcher they foist off on the market? I understand that without them your podcast would be light of 80s and early 90s schlock to review, but still. The US anime market sucks compared to Japan’s — to be expected, as anime (and related otaku commodities which you’ve repeatedly derided) is made by Japanese for Japanese. The Japanese anime market is booming out of control right now, and that’s mostly a Japanese phenomena, the US has nothing or almost nothing to do with it. Just as it should be.
Man, the monkeys came out of the woodwork to comment on this show, didn’t they? No sense in debating, since gutb has his mind made up and won’t be dissuaded no matter what counter arguments are put forth. I’m just a bit stunned that anyone still thinks Japan makes anime only for the Japanese anymore. And how healthy is the Japanese anime industry? As healthy as the Hong Kong film industry in the 80s and early 90s? Right before everyone decided to only buy pirated VCDs or do downloads, thus causing the entire industry to collapse (and it still hasn’t recovered), resulting in…what? Oh, that’s right, a drastic reduction in the quality and quantity of movies being made.
But of course that could never happen to anime.
What I’m more interested in: MD Geist or Crystal Triangle: great anime…or THE GREATEST anime?
I don’t really want to get into the argument that gutb makes about what makes a “REAL fan” in anime, since even though I do buy a lot of anime from US distributors, I know a lot of people who don’t, and I don’t consider them to be any more or less of a fan than I am. But, to believe that the international market has no effect on what the Japanese choose to produce is moronic. The fact that more copies of Advent Children have been sold in the US than in Japan should be proof enough of that. Additionally, I look at all the recent works coming out of the GITS franchise (which includes SAC and Innocence), and I think it’s safe to say that none of it would’ve come about had the original movie not done as well outside of Japan as it did.
I also want to speak a bit about The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, which I just happened to finish watching yesterday. I personally loved it, it’s the first show I’ve really been able to get into ever since FMA finished, and I’m actually very surprised that it hasn’t been licensed yet. I also think it’s safe to say that with the amount of material available on Suzumiya (at least eight novels thus far), there will be more seasons to come. And if you even question its eventual success in the US, just hop on over to ANN sometime and look at their top 10 list.
ooh, anonymous was gutb? looks like you guys got a serial troll on your hands. guess this means you guys hit the big time!
(Steve)
Knoxinator, I know you mean well, but I think you’re making a fundimental mistake. A few hundred web geeks voting on ANN has very little bearing on how successful a show will be in the retail marketplace. sure, it’s data, but it’s not MEANINGFUL data.
As to the success of the original GitS, you must recall context. It sold because Andy Frain at Manga Ent. pushed it to non-video retailers (Record shops, comic shops), it was one of like a dozen or so anime tapes out there, and it was dirt cheap compared to the other contemporary anime releases. It was also dub only and promised tits and violence to the Akira crowd.
Cripes, you don’t really believe they sold thousands of tapes due to the deep philsophical messages and meanings of what is life, do you? đŸ™‚
A year ago I watched both of the MD Geist Movies, one after another without a break.
I thought it was okay. But then again my parents beat me just because I looked silly too, so I don’t know what pain is.
I’m not going to deny that I’m a fairly new player to the anime game, seeing as how I only really got into it about four years ago, so you can correct me if I’m wrong.
I didn’t mean for the voters at ANN to be an end all for determining how a show will do at market, as there are lots of factors that go into it, such as who licenses/distributes it and the amount of promotion it gets. And since Haruhi is a relatively new show, I would expect it’s overall average to fluctuate as time goes on, but I would like to believe that it’s a good sign as to how it will eventually do when it comes over here. At the very least, it does have a lot of steam behind it and the word is spreading very quickly among fans, whether they download fansubs or not. Biggest thing to hit America when it comes out? Probably not. But no one could convince me that it won’t do well.
And as for GITS, no, I don’t believe it sold merely on its philosophical ramblings and plotline (though that’s the reason I like it). I was more going for the point that it was much more popular in the US than it was in Japan during its early years, probably for that very reason that there were few other shows/movies like it at the time in the US. But, if it weren’t for its international popularity, what other reason is there for amount of content in the last four years, taking into account that the first season of SAC came seven years after the original movie, and five years after the second manga (to which it has virtually no ties)?
knoxinator: Large portions of the second TV series were lifted wholesale from the manga. (Both GITS series, and some Appleseed stuff too.)
Bet if I had seen “M. D. Geist” after Akira, I’d probably lose interest in anime myself!
But yes, titles like “M. D. Geist” and others that came out 15 years back sort of hyped out the whole ultra-violent, hardcore sex romp craptastic that was feeding to that special small group of people who probably thought nothing could top “Heavy Metal”. A friend of mine had to discover anime while talking to some of his school pals back in ’93 about how he had saw “Heavy Metal”, and got the usual “Hey, I know a guy with some cool Japanese cartoons that are like Heavy Metal, but even better!”
Used to be so odd trying to get into it myself back when as I was still in high school and didn’t have the kind of money needed to buy those tapes since hardly any store sold them besides one or two titles for a bloated price.
Now that I know about “M. D. Geist”, now I won’t have to see it! A friend of mine though is interested in picking it up for it’s badness though, he just loves watching bad anime.
chris: I remember paying thirty dollars for two episodes of Evangelion, subbed. I also remember how Bandai basically used this price as a justification for their own pricing; anime fans were willing to pay that much, so clearly it’s the correct price! And then they act all surprised when nobody buys the stuff. (Their repeated screwups in distribution didn’t help matters either–did they have a single release that was correct from end to end?)
SCREW MD Geist.
AND Giant Robo.
You know what, THANK you Dyral. Until listening to AWO, I would never would have thought to say anything negative about this, essentially, good-natured pap from the 80s that is Giant Robo. This cheesy, chinsy, simple little b-anime that you escavated from the bottom of the bargain bin is a cute little insider refrence to seperate yourself from great bulk of anime fans who’re into much better shows, but please realize that’s ALL it is.
And while you are trying to promote this strange reverse-elitism by identifying your fanism with 80s schlock, you do so at the expense of commenting on the REAL giants of the 70s and 80s, the REAL industry-defining shows, the true movers of early TV anime — like Masterpeice Theatre (SHAME ON YOU), Kimagure Orange Road and Maison Ikkoku, anime so overpowering junk like Giant Robo in * EVERY * respect as to be RIDICULOUS. Yet you’ve not commented on these greats, even ONCE.
Is it because MI and KOR are basically the precursors to the harem/slapstick shows of modern times that you think makes you cool by deriding?
You DID diss Tenchi Muyo — a show that has had real reaching impact in the art itself as to render all the 80s potato chip junk completely irrelevent.
You losers turn your noses up at Naruto, Bleach, One Peice, etc, but guess what? THESE ARE GREAT SHOWS, which is WHY they are so popular. You people must LOATHE Ranma 1/2 with a burning passion.
Japan’s eroga phenomena is pumping out lots of shows, many of them actually worthwhile. Many eroga are actually quite good — have you tried any made in the last 5 years? Whoops, sorry, real fans only territory. Why don’t you jokes talk about NEW stuff that the VAST MAJORITY of fans are watching now instead of spending HOURS upon HOURS whining about insignificant, worthless, irrelevent crap like who goes to cons?
And zero sentai content? What is your promotion of TVNihon then? Not that I’m dissing sentai in general (I will admit to have been taken by GoGo Boukenrangers) but please realize that this is not connected to anime.
Is the RIT Anime Club really one of the biggest, if not the biggest out there? Wow. I was the President of that club for the duration of my academic career there, from ’94 to ’97 (saved the cost of one year due to a ton of AP credits). We had a lot of fun with that crew. I lost touch with the club over time, naturally, but I’ve actually run into some of them recently. They seemed to be good people.
Anyway, the thing I’d noticed was the comment that guests are really accessible if you’re a ‘senior level’ convention staffer. That’s absolutely true. I’m a ‘senior level’ convention staffer and I’ve been told on several occasions that our guests would have really liked to get a better opportunity to meet people like me, the ones that plan what’s basically a big party. That said, I would love to be available, but I’m just too busy at the convention to actually spend the time with them I’d like to. What it’s basically amounted to is that I’ve got a great opportunity to meet some really great people that I need to pass on in order to keep the party going. It’s not all a bed of roses.
On top of all that, regarding the 18+ convention idea is that there are a lot of other issues involved in working with places like hotels and convention centers. Going 18+ would really eliminate a large number of those issues. It absolutely wouldn’t turn an event into pornocon (or be one from the start) unless the organizers wanted it to go that way.
Optimism isn’t necessarily bad, but you always need to keep things in perspective.
HaloJonesFan said…
chris: I remember paying thirty dollars for two episodes of Evangelion, subbed. I also remember how Bandai basically used this price as a justification for their own pricing; anime fans were willing to pay that much, so clearly it’s the correct price! And then they act all surprised when nobody buys the stuff. (Their repeated screwups in distribution didn’t help matters either–did they have a single release that was correct from end to end?)
It just seemed difficult for me during my high school years to get into it outside of buying a copy of something that was dubbed, renting it at a store, or having to see it on Sci-Fi Channel. During my time in college I discovered tape trading and buying pirated copies via the internet. Needless to say I got sucked into it and never looked back!
Yet again, we see why blogger’s comment system SUCKS A BIG FAT DONKEY DICK.
(Steve)
I dunno, I think it’s refreshing and interesting to see the uneducated rant and spew.
Giant Robo: the Animation- The Day the Earth Stood Still was a creation of the ’90s retro-revival boom, and thank God for it.
Me, I don’t hold much truck for either MI or Ranma 1/2 mostly because of the overbearing pressure of Cali Fandom to tell the rest of us that in the wake of Urusei Yatsura everything that Rumiko Takahashi did was the SINGLE MOST GREATEST THING EVAH! while ignoring the basic problem of all Rumiko Takahashi stuff, nothing much really happens over and over and over…and then it’s done.
Then of course there’s all those fanboys beating off to naked pictures of girl Ranma…if I have to spell out the various complex psychological issues that entails then I haven’t done my job properly.
Why don’t you jokes talk about NEW stuff that the VAST MAJORITY of fans are watching now instead of spending HOURS upon HOURS whining about insignificant, worthless, irrelevent crap like who goes to cons?
Because the VAST MAJORITY of fans – both in the west and in Japan – are obnoxious, antisocial retards who wouldn’t know quality if it beat them over the head with a 2×4.
Many anime cons, 5 trips to Comiket, and multiple excursions to Akiba have easily proven this to me.
(Though I must admit, I’m really interested in playing Utawarerumono eventually.)
I am of course obliged to remind Steve and Zero-Chan that “gutb” is a somewhat outdated Internet abbreviation for “guy under the bridge,” which is of course a synonym for the more commonly used “troll.” As such, it’s not as though I’m about to fault someone for being honest. đŸ™‚
Other than Haloscan, the advantage of which I’m not quite sure of, I don’t think there exists any other method of keeping track of comments from within Blogger. What features are lacking from the Blogger comment system that are present in other [free] blogs? I actually set up a WordPress blog in case we’d ever consider moving our website over to there (and change the http://www.animeworldorder.com domain to a redirect), but having the new URL propagate throughout iTunes and the like is somewhat of a hassle, especially when you’re not running things off of your own hosting.
On an entirely different topic…
You guys said I should watch Genshiken. I did. It made me happy. It will not be coming back. That makes me sad.
And whatever happened to the trend in anime of guys who punch other guys so hard it makes their eyeballs pop out or their heads explode?
[quote]
And whatever happened to the trend in anime of guys who punch other guys so hard it makes their eyeballs pop out or their heads explode?
[/quote]
Refer to the TRUTH-enthused definition of moe from a few episodes back for your answer. I, for one, love Kenshiro and his head-explodey goodness, and I miss that sort of thing.
I watch Fist of the North Star to watch Kenshiro make heads expolode (as every one else watches it for). Hes a freakin badass. But anyway, Welcome to the NHK has had the first episode fansubbed by Studio ADTRW, and you can get it on http://www.animesuki.com , or you can go to http://animesuki.com/group.php/256.html and have a much easier time finding it. Also, does anyone have the theme song lyrics to Combattler V? I love that song, but i cant find it anywhere.
Daryl: “What features are lacking from the Blogger comment system that are present in other [free] blogs?”
Well, the ability to ban people from posting comments would be useful. I’ve seen any number of blogspot comment sections closed down due to rampant trolling. Seriously, people, I think that the evolution of discourse on the internet has proven that if you open a public pool then someone will pee in it.
(Steve)
Well, it’s probably not what was wanted, but here’s Ardith’s Anison site and her romanizing of the lyrics to the Combattler V OP
http://www.anisoncentral.com/aa/combattlervnotheme.html
I suspect over time she’ll add translations just for the fun of it, but she’s got HUGE backlog of stuff she wanted to put up so we just have to wait.
Everybody SING! V V V! Victory!
(Steve)
Well, that turned out like crap. Just go to the Anison main page and hit the lyrics page
http://www.anisoncentral.com
Boy I suck at this Interweb crap.
YES YOU ARE THE MAN!! I love this song. All thats left is find the full version of the OP and ED, and the ED lyrics.
Quote:
What features are lacking from the Blogger comment system that are present in other [free] blogs?
–End quote–
I frequent slashdot.org and osnews.com (computer news sites) quite regularly, and people over there get quite emotional when talking about their favourite OS, application, hardware, etc.
One feature which I find quite useful at those sites is the comment rating/modding system: comments are given a score between 1 and 5 (5 for good insightful comments; 1 for flamebait, trolls or just uninteresting/unrelated comments). So, when one is scrolling through a list of comments one can easily tell which comments may be interesting and which are completely silly or irrelevent without having to read them.
To some extent, I also think the comment scoring system encourages people to post good comments, as it gives people bragging rights or a bit of an ego in some sense. But then again, those are computer geeks… Anime geeks IMO are a completely different species… =)
Nothing to do with anything about this episode, but the first episode of the “Welcome to the NHK” anime has been released. I have a feeling the opening song is going to give you a huge “Oh my God….” reaction from you. It’s by Round Table feat. Nino, who, to jog your memory, did that painfully snappy opening song to Chobits. Maybe it’s juxtaposition, but the whole first episode was rather…. “sunny” in comparison with your description of the manga. I have read it myself, but reading manga on a computer screen is… painful for me. I don’t hold Gonzo with nearly as much disdain as you do (Though Burst Angel IS one of the worst things I have ever seen. However, if you’re going to constantly hammer on someone, BEE TRAIN, people), but I wouldn’t doubt it if they were to underplay the darker tones to make it more palatable for viewers.
(Steve)
Well, that turned out like crap. Just go to the Anison main page and hit the lyrics page
http://www.anisoncentral.com
Boy I suck at this Interweb crap.
This man is amazing
http://www.anisoncentral.com/ak/bd2006.html
A 175 anime song karaoke marathon, this man is NO MAN, he is a MACHINE!
(Steve)
Um..Gerald…Ardith is a lady.
But she is a machine. A SINGING MACHINE!
Ah, the times in our wayward youth we blasted down the road, singing Gatchaman and Getta Robo and Yamato..OK, we didn’t do it too often but those were the days..
Boy I hope she didn’t blow her vocal chords out this year, it sounded like a real stretch. I’d love to attend one of those live events but I would NEVER get on stage to sing…ack..
Um..Gerald…Ardith is a lady.
But she is a machine. A SINGING MACHINE!
A WOMEN who watches giant robot shows? Now I’ve heard eveything đŸ˜› (quiet Clarissa).
Seriously, I jumped to conclusions there and the more I look at that site the more I’m impressed, especially by such events as the
24-HOUR ANISON 1,000-SONG NONSTOP MEDLEY. That’s pretty amazing.