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It’s our one year anniversary! Funimation sent us DVDs to review, so Clarissa reviews Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid, Gerald has the unenviable task of reviewing Moon Phase, and Daryl pitches in with his viewpoint on the Limited Edition of Fullmetal Alchemist The Movie: The Conqueror of Shambala (contains spoilers for FMA TV). Be sure to listen to the end for a SPECIAL ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY SURPRISE!
Introduction (0:00 – 23:54)
In an attempt to get more people to leave us audio feedback, we decide we should maybe PLAY some, all of which we got several months ago. What do we think about introducing people to anime using Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo? Why don’t we ever review some CLASSIC anime for a change? And does Phoenix which we reviewed in Show # 36 bear any similarity to Rumiko Takahashi’s Mermaid saga? Somehow the Air Bud movies get brought up.
Here now is a picture of Clarissa, as people from the Internet envision her to look like. Call the number:
The person who keeps drawing these and sending them to us really needs to let us know who they are so that we may give them the credit they deserve.
Let’s News! (23:54 – 42:33)
4Kids won’t be releasing any more ONE PIECE MOTHERFUCKING ONE PIECE, but don’t think that means we’re going to start getting uncut releases of it. The Naruto filler arc’s finally ending and they’re changing the name of the series to denote that because the “Naruto” name is mud now. Plus, Frank Agrama is being investigated by the Feds! WARNING: This news segment contains audio that is only suitable to people who love missile explosions. And no, we CAN’T believe those silly-nillies would send a fat kid against us.
- theOtaku.com’s anime art contest – they’re giving away 2 PS3s and 6 Wiis as prizes!
Promo: Otaku Generation (42:33 – 43:14)
If you listen to one episode of Otaku Generation, make it Show # 79. This week Space Adventurer Patrick Macias is their guest for three hours of stark, harsh, cerveza-fueled revelations about Japan. If you want more Patrick, remember that we interviewed him back in Show # 5. And 6. And 7. And 8. Jokes about how the 5, 6, 7, 8’s totally sold out after Kill Bill, maaaaan are strictly forbidden!
Review: Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid (43:14 – 1:07:14)
God damn you Firefox, stop crashing and making me lose everything I wrote. Clarissa is more than happy to talk about this series, which is one of her recent favorites. Unfortunately for her, it’s also the series that gave us Tessa, otherwise known as Ruri Hoshino 2.0. You’ll be sure to find out how this anime stacks up with its predecessors by listening to this, but it will remain a mystery as to why there aren’t decent Arm Slave plastic model kits.
- Wiki entry for Full Metal Panic – this entry is for the series overall, but there are pages for the individual seasons as well
- Boku-Tachi scanlations is translating the FMP novels. The Second Raid adapts the novel “End of Day By Day.”
Promo: Anime Pulse (1:07:14 – 1:08:02)
We’d like to thank Ichigo for his contributions to the SPECIAL ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY SURPRISE at the end of this episode. Alas, we didn’t use what he sent us because it was too well-done, but the AP influence on this episode is still notable, for you see it was they who gave us the inspiration to review…
Review: Moon Phase (1:08:02 – 1:28:24)
Yes, it’s our very first moe review! We nominated Gerald for this task. No no, don’t skip ahead. If you do, you’ll miss Mike Toole’s special rendition of the opening theme song! The Anime Jump page hasn’t been updated in some time due to some sort of bizarre PostNuke failure. Perhaps someone can help him out, but in the meantime you should check out his new blog!
- KYAAAHHHHH!!! ~~~ I LUV IT SOO MUCH!! SHE REMINDS ME OF MY ROLEPLAY CHARACTER TSUKI!! she has blue hair, blue eyes, kitten luvr, fangs, very seductive, and! SHES A VAMPIRE!! VLAH VLAH!! okay.. so RPC isnt a vampire but shes a ninja! XD well KAWAII THANKS FOR THE UPLOAD!! – doesn’t seem like the type of show you’d try and market to the action-horror crowd with opening credits like that, does it?
- Funimation’s trailer for Moon Phase – misleading advertising, anyone? This is like that recut Office Space trailer, ONLY REAL. Also, every single shot is from the first episode.
Promo: Ninja Consultant (1:28:24 – 1:29:24)
Erin and Noah are of course going to Japan tomorrow, so it’s not like there’ll be new episodes of their podcast for the next month or so, but that’s par for the course anyway! Fortunately both of them were in our SPECIAL ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY SURPRISE that Gerald was the idea man for. What, you thought it might have been Daryl’s idea? Daryl can’t come up with ideas or viewpoints on his own, he merely takes ideas that are on the table and run off with them. In so doing, he also accelerates the entropic potential of them. Consider it an equivalent exchange.
Review: Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: The Conqueror of Shambala, Limited Edition (1:29:24 – 1:52:33)
Daryl recorded this one by himself, since the film is basically impossible to properly review without well, spoiling several elements of the Fullmetal Alchemist TV series. Of course, without anyone around to keep him grounded in reality, this review probably spirals out of control, the result of spending far too much time on the Jump to Conclusions mat. This movie is pretty divisive among fans, and we get the feeling that this review might be as well. There will be no supplemental notes provided for Fullmetal Alchemist.
Closing (1:52:33 – 2:14:35)
Daryl saw fit to insert some sappy, maudlin thank you to all you folks listening to us and stroking our egos over the past year. Next week, Daryl shall review the most tragic, disturbing, children’s movie of all time, Ringing Bell. It’s from Sanrio, the makers of Hello Kitty! Gerald’s going to cover Kishin Corps aka “World War II with steam-powered mecha and space aliens.” With a premise like that, it should have been another Giant Robo, but…well, you’ll see. And Clarissa gave you a break for a little while, but prepare yourselves for her review of Part 2 of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. We close things off with our SPECIAL ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY SURPRISE!
Lucky for us, Erin and Noah won’t be back for a month!
Happy One Year Anniversary Guys
YAY! AWO HAS BEEN HERE FOR A YEAR! But did Clarissa forget how to use a mic, or is it all the editor’s fault?
I really missed the Champloo scratch cut once it disappeared after episode one.
In fact I found the series a bit of a let down in terms of following it’s stated artistic intention after that. The human beatbox and graf episodes kind of made up for it, but overall it felt individual episode directors had noticably different affinities for integrating hip hop elements into the show’s visual language.
I like to say first, Happy Anniversary Guys! I hope you guys continue for another year; there has to be another informative and funny podcast other than TWIT 🙂
[possible spoiler below]
(on the FMA movie review–I took the alt. universe thing to heart, it didn’t matter if they died in the world of alchemy; they’re totally different characters in my mind >.>)
–David
Bon Anniversaire!
Eric from New York is right–you guys really should review Galaxy Express 1999! If memory serves, that’s the one where the moon gets blasted out of Earth orbit by a nuclear accident and returns centuries later as the Planet La Metal.
Agree with Clarissa about FMP 2nd raid. I liked series 1, but found the comedy distracting. Series 2 is much more focused and a great callback to my favorite 80s TV anime. In fact, there are direct connections to two of my favorite Ryosuke Takahashi shows.
First, the character of Sousuke was consciously modeled on Chirico Cuvie in Votoms–brought up in war and almost helpless in normal social situations. Second, the Japanese voice actor for Mr. Gates had his first “breakout” role as Gosterro, the psycho-cyborg in SPT Layzner. I gather that he became quite well-known for that role and the character of Mr. Gates was probably written specifically to capitalize on that. (I don’t know if this actor and Shigeru Chiba ever did a show together, but as a team they could pretty much scream the foam right off the sound booth walls.)
If there is anything in the support materials that confirms or denies these points, I’d love to hear about it.
As for Arm Slaves, there is a gashopon set available from Hobbylink Japan, but a quick buzz through the Yahoo.jp auctions shows some larger action figures as well. Might be available from other sources. Just so ya know.
Thanks to Daryl for clarifying stuff in the FMA movie (I’ve only seen the HK boot with its not-quite-there subs) and bravo to Gerald for toughing it out to bring us that moe review. Life can only improve for you now, G.
-Tim
First off, I want to say congrats for a full year of giving me a reason to live! Really, I was there at the start of this from day one, and it has kept me somewhat up-to-date to what has been going on in the fandom as of late, while informing me of titles I might’ve missed, or to revisit classic I’ve seen before.
Anyway, here’s some thoughts on this show…
Still, aside from the FUNimation properties of which I felt you guys did a good job on, hardly any of ’em seem too interesting for me to get apart from perhaps catching perhaps either shows that have have to start with “Full Metal” (yes, I’m being too naiive here). I’ll get to those in a bit.
My view of Cowboy Bebop has been OK, but not of some interest personally, but I can see how it can be an entrance drug to the new guys thanks to the AS showings. When I got the first volume DVD years before the AS showing, I wasn’t too impressed to go onward from the episode contained. I guess it was everything Daryl and Gerald has said about it that turned me off from it (western/episodic), though I thought the music was cool. But I could still see how those guys who wouldn’t get into anime at all would prefer something a bit different in terms of design and concept as Bebop offered. Haven’t Samurai Champloo yet either.
In some ways, I’m reminded of how I first got into anime due to the few things that came on SciFi during their “Saturday Anime” thing a decade ago. Funny I didn’t realize Macek worked on “Bleach”. Wonder if the new crowd will detest to Unca Carl in the same manner the Robotech crew did, or is it irrelevant today?
I wish more people would check back and the past 41 shows to see what you guys did cover in terms of the anime reviewed (can’t believe that guy mistaken the number for “Galaxy Express” but I don’t feel like correcting him anyway). I do have some titles I don’t mind asking you to review one day, but I’ll probably throw that in an e-mail someday.
I still enjoy the reviews you have done of those from before the 90’s and 80’s I enjoy listening to. Being reminded though I had to marathon much of Future Boy Conan to see that classic, and current working my way through “Candy Candy” someone bothered to stick up on BitTorrent in an English subbed MKV’s. A review of the Space Battelship Yamato TV series would be great even though the series/movies have been discussed from time to time before.
Surprised someone remembered Air Bud and it’s crummy sequels (one of Canada’s less-than-steller exports). Speaking of which, a stink in the fanboy community involves Disney’s latest attempt in adapting a cartoon to live-action with Underdog. God that is s__tty. With the money they blew on that, I’d rather they used it on doing REAL animation for a change.
Nice to hear of 4Kids dropping the bomb on the One Piece dub. Having read up a bit on this, it sounds like the so-called fans will have to wait a good 3 years or so given that 4Kids still has some control over the show until then so knowone else can just stomp in and pick it up that easily, and since 4Kids doesn’t care about doing subtitle releases as they tried doing with a few shows before, fans are just going to have to go back to rely on on the Black Market as usual, or bother picking up on Japanese and watch the show in the raw if it helps them to further rot their brains on that crap! Still, funny I hadn’t followed up on One Piece to have heard about this at all, so consider myself lucky for not caring!
At least it didn’t stop the DBZ crowd in those pre-P2P days of course, but that was a different story.
I wouldn’t mind picking up Tekkaman Blade and Go Lion personally, if only for variety sake and to see something in a different way (plus I didn’t care for Teknoman). Haven’t gotten into that crowd that would just be into Voltron/Robotech and would rather go with that.
Of course I blame the net for making fansubs more accessible over VHS tapes of yesteryear.
Don’t even care much to discuss “filler” anyway, since I’m creating it as I go along. 🙂
Thanks for that Goldwing theme song! Being reminded of some of those pilots I heard they made but never came to past like Dr. Slump.
God I think I LOVE that song! Here’s more on Harmony Gold for the uninitated…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmony_Gold_USA
And to show my appreciation to crappy Korean knock-offs, I went and uploaded the entire “Diatron-5” dub from the one tape that took me a long while tracking down on eBay!
(other parts are available too)
Hearing about Moon Phase sounds REALLY creepy to me too! It’s the kind of show I have to be REALLY depserate to ever watch (or about to commit suicide).
Love Mike O’Toole’s “manly” interperatation of the show’s opening theme!
The FMA movie sounds more like something very goofy I wouldn’t mind watching one day if there wasn’t anything else to do. I think more people must die for the good of the series!
Great to see a review of a Sanrio classic will come up next time. I saw Ringing Bell some time ago, and it impressed the hell out of me! I have a LOT to say about this, and reasons why I wish Sanrio would bother re-releaseing it on DVD right now, practically I want to do a letter-writing campaign to the main offices in Tokyo if it comes to that.
Love the Kazuo Koike tribute with the podcasters! That was so clever and worth the time and effort for the anniversary!
Again, thanks for a great year of podcasting. Merry Christmas to all and to the Jews out there, Happy Hanukkah!
I don’t think that there’s a single episode of this show that I haven’t enjoyed listening to.
I just remembered that I was in the mall last month and I passed by Hot Topic. As I was walking by I looked in to take a peak at all the freaks and I noticed a crap load of Bleach merchandise. I was supprised since at the time it had only been out for a month, maybe even less. Just thought you would want to know if you didnt know already.
First up, you should know that this beta version of Blogger locks up Netscape. Thank goodness Safari is much, much more clever and robust.
Second. MOON PHASE! AARRGGH! KILL ME!
Third. Black Cat. Um…huh. So this is what people are watching nowadays in Japan? It’s so….tepid and derivitive and…I honestly can’t even IMAGINE people 20 years from now rushing stores to be the first to buy the Black Cat holocube code for downloading onto their Apple iSystem…
Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid. I really like this, and I liked the previous two series as well. I honestly don’t understand why. I shouldn’t. I should run screaming from it, but there’s something there.
I am really, really, really pissed that Tekkman Blade (set one) has been postponed. I have a sick gut feeling that come a week before the March ’07 street date Mediablasters will pull it and put it on the ‘to be released at some future date to be decided’ list. Why do I say that? Because I have no faith in them. You’ve all see the article stating how nowadays anime is like only 20% of Mediablasters sales (and I would bet dinner at Fuddruckers that they class Voltron as ‘not anime’), they don’t CARE now…
Sure, I’m happy as can be they’re releasing Latitude Zero on DVD, but I want my Tekkaman Blade too…and GoLion….
Arrggh.
The suprise at the end makes up for everything I’ve suffered directly related to this podcast.
Happy 1-year anniversary AWO!
I heard Heart of Madness fansubbed the 1st ep of Souten no Ken.
Speaking of Air Bud, I saw an ad for another sequel, Air Buddies, about his(her’s?) puppies.
Wow, just when I thought I was “Maceked” out.
Happy Anniversary! I hope you guys are still doing this 1000 episodes later, letalone 50.
Well Macross/Robotech’s dub wasn’t that bad, minus Minmei’s wailing.
As long as he doesn’t produce it. I can’t forget the “chopsticks” editing of Robotech.
Steve Harrison said…
First up, you should know that this beta version of Blogger locks up Netscape. Thank goodness Safari is much, much more clever and robust.
Havne’t had any problems personally with Firefox.
Second. MOON PHASE! AARRGGH! KILL ME!
Ditto!
Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid. I really like this, and I liked the previous two series as well. I honestly don’t understand why. I shouldn’t. I should run screaming from it, but there’s something there.
At last you found someone of the new set you can gleem some interest out of.
I am really, really, really pissed that Tekkman Blade (set one) has been postponed. I have a sick gut feeling that come a week before the March ’07 street date Mediablasters will pull it and put it on the ‘to be released at some future date to be decided’ list. Why do I say that? Because I have no faith in them. You’ve all see the article stating how nowadays anime is like only 20% of Mediablasters sales (and I would bet dinner at Fuddruckers that they class Voltron as ‘not anime’), they don’t CARE now…
Shame really.
Sure, I’m happy as can be they’re releasing Latitude Zero on DVD, but I want my Tekkaman Blade too…and GoLion….
Arrggh.
We’ve waited so long for this day to come up and we’re STILL waiting!
I just wanted to say that the Moonphase/Yamato fusion theme was one of the greatest things I’ve ever heard.
Congrats, AWO! I hope the AWO podcast continues to grow and devour other small celestial bodies to fuel its hunger.
On another note…
Carl Macek has successfully reinfected the world like the monkey from Outbreak, and another generation of angry anime fans are going to chase him with plastic Gundam Beam Sabers.
Eventually, he will be forced to hibernate in his homemade stasis pod. After 20 years, Carl will reemerge to infect another generation of anime fans.
Therefore, your next interview podcast should be with Carl Macek. The man, the mystery, the work!?! However, you should only address him as Rick Hunter.
Steve –
I think the thing with Full Metal Panic is that it’s nothing you haven’t seen before, but it’s done well. The tsundere girl who beats up on the guy, the robots, the love triangle, etc. But I think that it’s written just well enough that all the effectiveness of these cliches come through without feeling too dull or forced.
For example, I feel like I should be totally bored by the relationship between Chidori and Sousuke. Tsundere girl, retarded guy, yawn. But the two of them have enough chemistry together (I think the seiyuu have a lot to do with that) and then the show gives me amazing scenes like the hair-cutting scene in Second Raid which completely resells me on the pair.
I love Robotech and have up to vol. 9 on dvd (I dont know if there is more than that).
I think what makes Full Metal Panic work for me is the comedy is fairly natural, as long as you buy the concept that Sosuke could do the things he does and not be arrested. But there’s really no ‘flash animation wiggly arms’ stuff, facefaults are not too over the top…..I would liken it to a decent sitcom that knows you don’t need a laughtrack when the show is funny, people will laugh when it fits.
But of course there ARE things that bother me at one level or another, such as the rather fetish-tastic girl’s school uniforms, this whole ‘Whispered’ business, and…Tessa.
Oh god. I was fine with her as ‘unusual 16 year old girl in charge of super sub and reaction force’…seriously, I was going along…but when she suddenly started crushing on Sosuke I smelled “HAREM!” starting up (and next Mao would decide that she needed to ‘teach’ Sosuke…and then other girls in the school would cluster and vie for his attention…) but thank goodness it never went that far.
I’m a little worried that The Second Raid is going to be rushed and things will slip thru the cracks, being a 13 episode show. I do get tired of the ‘unstoppable foe’ concept. I find Chidori’s character design to be unreasonably attractive. I think it’s her eyes. There’s something about her eyes. And her seiyuu really sells it, really getting that ‘hard/soft’ emotion going.
Hey, does anyone else hear a ‘studder’ during Funi’s DVDs during the alt angle OP credits? On my Apex it does’t like Funi discs at all, my Magnavox plays with the studder…
If I had broadband I’d send you guys the Moon Phase song done with Getta Robo Karaoke.
Stevie went..
If I had broadband I’d send you guys the Moon Phase song done with Getta Robo Karaoke.
Damn, I’d love to hear that. Shame you don’t have cable like me.
I must have the devils luck or something because I decided to pay the money for the Armored Trooper Votoms collection and it was on sale on RightStuf for $60 bucks. Woot! Oh and I also picked up Patlabor Movie 3 Special Edition for $15. Dang, I love you Christmas sale! Now all I have to do is hold out until I can find all of the Patlabor Tv series for that cheap. I will be praying…
Steve:
No problems with Second Raid on my Philips DVP642. The stuttering on your Apex is probably the result of the AA sequence going over the standard bitrate limits (I want to say that the spec gives an extra 1MBit for the multiple stream runtime but everything has to be split evenly).
This reminds me of the early days of DVD when APEX was thought to mean “Anime Products EXcluded”.
———-
I had to sit through a large chunk of Moon Phase at club a year or two ago. What an awful piece of shit…I brought my notebook in and watched Monster on my own after episode two or three instead.
Fumoffu was what really turned me off of the FMP franchise.
I can’t see how people find Fumoffu funny. I just don’t get it. 90% of the humor involves some implication of sexual assault, and yet people lap it up.
It’s like: “Ha ha ha, those girls are about to get raped by yakuza! That’s SOOOOO funny.” :-/
This makes Magma Jesus cry.
Oh man, Fumoffu was awesome. I hated the original so I thought I wouldent like it but I watched it and I laughed my butt off. Being I was 15 or 16 might have had something to do with it, but I dont know since I havent watched it in a while.
Congradulations guys.
Stay around.
Your my favorite podcast around other than Fast Karate and Anime Pulse.
I know you guys like to say that your podcast sucks & why would anyone want to listen to it, but I think you do a great podcast. A lot of anime podcasts come across as kind of juvenile, but I never feel that way about AWO. Also, I am a huge Cowboy Bebop fan & I do think it’s a good “entry” show for anime newbies. I was all ready an anime fan before I saw it, but only casually. After I saw CB, I started watching a lot more anime than I had in the past.
Your my favorite podcast around other than Fast Karate and Anime Pulse.
Winnar.
Congrats on one year, AWO! I came over to you guys from Ninja Consultants after Erin said you were hardcore otaku. And over the last year’s worth of shows I’ve discovered that you guys care about anime and manga because it’s anime and manga. So what if people say you review too much old school stuff. The amount of listeners you’ve been getting is probably putting paid to fears that nobody would listen to you. You show is a rarity. Illudium Phosdex rare.
One or two points about this week’s show:
One:I CAN’T GET THE GOLD WING THEME MUSIC OUTTA MY HEAD! MAKE IT STOP, FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST MAKE IT STOP!
Two: I was initially pissed off that you didn’t ask me to help with with the Kazuo Koike piece at the end but as the performances got better and the dialogue got more absurd and crap and the more I laughed, I didn’t feel so bad! Man Kazuo Koike seems to be a fine, fine author!
Again thanks for AWO so far and here’s hoping for more to come!
Excellent show, as always, folks. I truly weep for the suffering Gerald experienced, and Clarissa’s TSR raid has renewed my interest in the series; I watched a few episodes when it was first coming out, but didn’t stick with it. Since this podcast and Fast Karate tend to have roughly a 90% synchronicity with my own tastes in anime, I’ll give it a second look.
I have to respond to Daryl’s FMA review, however. I should preface by saying that I fully agree with just about everything he said about the movie; that’s not what I’m here to talk about. I was just surprised to learn that a show quite possibly on my Top 5 list (if I made such a list) had recieved AWO grades of “hate it,” “didn’t bother finishing it,” and “above average but nothing too special.”
I think in my opinion, it’s the many little things that FMA did well that all added up, perhaps like the student who did a mediocre job on his final exam but worked his butt off all semester on homework assignments and extra credit. Here’s a list of all the small ways in which I thought FMA really raised the bar for shounen action, beyond the other qualities Daryl listed for it.
1. Consistently high animation quality. The show looks thoroughly polished throughout its entire 51-episode run, which is particularly impressive in light of
2. No recycled-footage recap episodes; in fact, there’s almost no recycled footage ever. And on those rare occasions when a character has a flashback, 9 times out of 10 the flashback shows you something new.
3. Barely any filler episodes. I can count on my fingers the number of filler episodes this show has, and virtually all of those are over and done within the first quarter of the show. On the rare occasions in which the show does take a “filler” detour, it still keeps the character and plot development moving forward; the episode Daryl mentioned about finding a date for Lt. Havoc still takes time to give you a glimpse of how Winry and Hughes’ family are reacting to recent events, and peers a bit behind the curtain at the machinations of the heads of the military.
4. Plot flow. Having tried to keep up with the manga, I can say that this is one area in which I think the anime does a much better job; the anime presents you with all sorts of unresolved mysteries, and then starts resolving them as it introduces more. It dodges the Lost problem of throwing question after question at the audience without ever giving them something to hold onto.
5. A minimum of gratuitous, pointless fanservice. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, just that it’s rare compared to many shows in the genre.
6. No damned power creep. I can’t tell you how sick I am of the common trend in shounen anime to take the Inigo Montoya/Man in Black fight scene and extend it to seventy-plus episodes… “I’m not left-handed either!” (fight gets more intense) ad infinitum. The Princess Bride is the greatest movie in all of space and time partially because it knows when to stop.
That’s all I can think of at the moment, what with the impending doom of a final exam tomorrow. I’ll grant that the show has flaws – the constant reiteration of short jokes being one of them – but I guess I’m just surprised that the many aspects that made the show strong for me didn’t seem to weigh as highly in its favor for the AWO crew.
Oh, well. A 90% match rate means there’s still going to be that niggling %10… at least we can all hate on moe together, right?
– NthDegree256
This is a little late seeing as how the latest episode has come out, but I didn’t get a chance to listen until now, so here’s my two cents.
I’m going to avoid Moon Phase all together, so no comments on that.
I liked the FMA movie to a degree since it did follow up on the end of the series, but it didn’t really go in a direction that I felt it should’ve gone. Maybe it’s because the villain was much more typical for an anime than the homunculus from the show were. There was definitely also a greater amount of moments where you feel like things came together too easy, almost like deus ex machina moments, which were also not as common in the show. Whatever, it’s still an entertaining film, and I’ll probably pick it up eventually along with the rest of the series.
I’ve also seen all three of the Full Metal Panic series, and I have to say that The Second Raid is my favorite thus far (assuming more series will come, which I think they might). The original series did a good job showing you who the character are, and mixed both comedy with action fairly well, though certainly, it could’ve been much better. Fumoffu was purely comedy, and it succeeded at it, though it’s not for everyone. The Second Raid is basically the purely action one of the three, and that makes it a strong series. When I watched it (which was it was coming out in Japan), I got hooked. There is a certain level of drama and seriousness in the show that I definitely didn’t expect and I felt it was done extremely well. Very few shows have made me feel that way about it. So, yes, I really liked it and hope to pick it up soon as well.
Anyway, happy anniversary guys and I look forward to another year of awesome. Your podcast, in addition to Fast Karate and The Greatest Movie EVER, are the only anime/film casts I look forward to each week. Keep ’em coming!
Woooh, yes. Gosterro is THE most evil SOB in the history of anime. I mean, what can you say about a man (er, cyborg) who gets set on fire and gives bear hugs to soldiers to put out the flames! You’d say he was one mean SOB. I still have nightmares about clocks thanks to Gosterro.
So my hat is off to any show that would have to the stones to cast the same actor. Yes. He is that insane. Thank God he doesn’t live next door.
PS: thanks a pantload for making me seek out the Moonphase OP. It’s OK. I can spend the rest of my life blind.
Just finished listening to this episode (so I’m a few months late, whatev). Great reviews, as per always. I may have to check out Second Raid now.
Daryl, I think we all wish we could be Shou Tucker. Don’t sweat it, you’re creepy enough as it is…
And can I get a cast list for that Koike special? I recognized Erin, the GeekNights guys, Lord K, and Dave Riley, but who were the others?