Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:24:13 — 66.0MB)
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS
Daryl reviews the gekiga/manga titles The Push Man and Other Stories and also Abandon the Old in Tokyo by Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Clarissa reviews the recent anime series Black Lagoon, and Gerald reviews the second of the Robot Romance Trilogy, Voltes V. The comics contain lots of dead babies, they probably shoot babies in Black Lagoon, and women are repulsed enough by 70s super robot anime such as Voltes V that they miscarry.
Full show notes to be added soon, though in all honesty they’re not quite done on the last several shows because there’s links to be added.
Introduction (0:00 – 33:10)
Yes, it takes us the length of most entire podcast episodes just to say what we’re going to talk about. But we also have listener feedback to go through…sort of. Naka-Kon‘s in Kansas City–not Kansas–on the first weekend of March, where their guest will be none other than Stevie B, or as they used to say in the IRC days, STEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVVVVVVVVVVVVE BENNNNNNETTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT! “Stevie B” is shorter and more accurate. For the umpteenth time, we talk about the whole issue of people using “manga” to describe non-Japanese comics, but apparently there’s what we believe and what everyone else seems to believe. They laughed at Galileo, they laughed at Copernicus…and right now we’re not looking so good. And what is a TRUE cosplayer, anyway?
Let’s News! (33:10 – 54:08)
ADV has acquired the rights to release 009-1, a recent series which nobody bothered to fansub because nobody seems to ever fansub Shotaro Ishinomori-based properties. We haven’t seen the show ourselves, but it involves something ribald, no doubt. Funimation’s going to be remastering all of Dragon Ball in widescreen, except the show wasn’t originally in widescreen. We strongly suspect it to be a Project A-Ko job, since when you look at the comparison footage sections it is TOTALLY OBVIOUS THAT THE TOP AND BOTTOM OF THE PICTURE HAVE BEEN CUT OFF. Hopefully the Daizenshuu EX podcast knows the score, as their latest episode is all about Funimation’s “cover-ups” over the years with regards to releasing the series.
Actually, upon further investigation over at this forum thread on Daizenshuu EX, we were wrong. It looks as though not only the top and bottom of the picture are being cut off…BUT ALSO THE SIDES. No really, take a look at these comparison screenshots:
And Funimation’s spending HOW much money to do this? Oh, there’s also not going to be any next episode previews apparently…and the “CHA LA HEAD CHA LA” opening theme song won’t be the same version. How is THAT supposed to be a definitive release? You tell us. Oh well, other news:
Viz is going to be releasing digital downloads of Death Note, presumably in high-quality fansub format. We really hope this gets done properly (that is to say, not like how other paid anime digital downloads are), and more importantly, priced reasonably. In addition to Vertical Inc’s upcoming English-language release of the 1970s shojo manga “To Terra…”, there’s also going to be a new Towards the Terra television series. Finally, Sony really screwed the pooch on this BluRay thing. Wait a second, I thought this was supposed to be NEWS!
Promo: Weekly Anime Review (54:08 – 54:42)
Due to the grim nature of existence, Aaron hasn’t been able to do a new episode for the last month and a half, but he’s back with a review of Perfect Blue. Well, actually the review is by someone else because people record reviews and send them to him for him to play. Be sure to do that CHAM dance as you listen.
Review: The Push Man and Other Stories / Abandon the Old in Tokyo (manga) (54:42 – 1:25:17)
In reviewing these publications by Drawn and Quarterly, Daryl offers forth a brief primer on gekiga, before speaking at length about dead babies and film noir. But to be serious for a moment, while Yoshihiro Tatsumi never really got a whole lot of financial success or critical acclaim, his contributions to the development of Japanese comics shouldn’t go overlooked. That’s where we come in!
- Gekiga: The Flipside of Manga by Paul Gravett – not safe for work; no wonder the books he writes get banned from libraries!
- Interview with Yoshihiro Tatsumi in Publisher’s Weekly — this is how Daryl pretends to be knowledgeable; he reads things other people wrote and then regurgitates the information. What separates him from a scholar is that scholars can actually process and analyze this information. Also, they remember the things they read.
- Dave and Joel’s Forums – I bet more people would post there if they ever mentioned that these forums existed on their show! This is the thread Daryl was ripping off from.
Promo: Ninja Consultant (1:25:17 – 1:27:04)
Erin and Noah just got back from Japan! Be sure to leave comments in their Livejournal asking them what they thought of their contribution to our one year anniversary show, because they’ve been in Japan all this time and probably haven’t heard it yet!
Review: Voltes V (1:27:04 – 1:50:14)
We are so totally jazzed over all the hits from the Philippines that’ll inevitably result from this…MAYBE. Marvel and be amazed as grown adults talk about a show for 8 year-olds. You know it’s for 8 year-olds because the toy commercials for Voltes V teach all the important life lessons you should be aware of before you’re grown up, namely that it’s better for the robot to take the beating than you:
American Otaku People Retsuden, here we come!
Review: Black Lagoon (1:50:14 – 2:17:16)
This is one of Clarissa’s favorite shows that have recently aired. It’s one great big homage to Hollywood action movies, and you either understand this from the start or you don’t. It’s pretty violent, but if you were an 8 year-old that watched it, the lesson you’d learn would be “if you shoot enough people, nobody will notice how crappy your tattoo is, or perhaps they will notice it but they won’t bring up how dumb it looks out of fear of being killed, just like how nobody makes fun of Dio or Zangetsu the Mid-day.” Daryl can’t stop talking about Jay Karnes, unless he’s talking about the Greatest GREATEST Movie EVER of course. He’d make a damn fine action hero, that Jay Karnes. And Kenneth Johnson should be cast as Max Payne, if that movie ever gets made.
Promo: GeekNights (2:17:16 – 2:18:15)
Rym and Scott are not really a fan of playing promos, since promos people record are never indicative of the nature of the actual show (we’re living proof). It’s far more productive promo-wise to just mention the name of another podcast and talk about it positively, sort of like how in AM talk radio they just suddenly start talking about riding the NordicTrack for 15 minutes. That said, we gotta have SOMETHING to give people a break from our terrifying voices.
Closing (2:18:15 – 2:24:13)
We’re all losing our minds. See that running time? Yeah, our sanity? It’s broken. And as proof of that, THE NEXT EPISODE OF AWO IS ENTIRELY ABOUT HENTAI. Gerald, the architect of this scheme, shall be reviewing Urotsukidoji aka Legend of the Overfiend. Clarissa’s reviewing a hentai manga entitled Pink Sniper by her favorite hentai artist, Yonekura Kengo. And Daryl’s mental state is at the point where he can watch Kanashimi no Belladonna and live to tell the tale.
Brace yourselves.
Yeah, I am gonna be able to listen to it tomorrow on my way to college 😀
I’m having trouble connecting to the show from the “click here to download” link–I’m getting a can’t-connect-to-host message. Which is bad, because AWO is my BGM for proofing manga printouts. The quality of MAIL Vol. 3 may suffer accordingly.
–Carl
BTW just letting everyone know that someone is actually subbing Future Police Urashiman…. check it out http://animesuki.com/series.php/948.html
i disagree with the drawing tips. here’s what you do. Take Physics 101. Don’t listen to the teacher. Audit a advanced Game Software Class.
Now combine.
A picture is a 3d life form in your head. So you take the vertices and you transform it into 2D.
that’s drawing. Let’s say you want to rotate a Cube around a point. You would just take the vectors of 8 points and rotate it around the origin. Rotating is just a combination of Dot Products and Cross.
Don’t keep drawing and drawing without studying your artwork for patterns. Even if you finally get a picture right, you won’t have the math to transform it.
Math = Art.
Carl: the link should be fine now.
I was supposed to record a statement in post regarding how Tim Eldred’s book Grease Monkey just won the Best Book for Young Adults award from the American Library Association. But I forgot. Maybe I’ll mention it in next week’s episode, when the maximum number of young adults will probably be listening.
HDTV DBZ: I think that the comment about “HDTV assholes” is pretty much exactly what this is about. See, HDTV (or at least the mainstream implementation of an actual standard format) is still pretty new. As a result, the equipment for it is still very expensive. Therefore, the users who buy it need to justify owning it. Being able to buy stuff with “HDTV” on the box in tremendous letters, and watch something that oh my god it uses the WHOLE SCREEN–these things justify the purchase. The fact that there are bits cut out of the picture is not important, because the HDTV owner does not actually care what he is watching! He just wants it to be in HD.
Voltes V: It’s funny, because I’ve never heard or seen the actual opening to this show, but I’ve listened to “Animetal” so many times that I could sing along to it.
As for cosplay: It’s funny, because I was driving to work, and I arrived in the middle of the segment. On the way up to my office, I was thinking “well, maybe the Japanese place as much emphasis on the acting as they do on the costume, which would mean that a store-bought costume wouldn’t be such a big deal.” And then Gerald said it anyway.
I think, also–and I realize that I’m veering into Japophilia, here–that cosplay in Japan is about more than just “let’s play dress-up”. It’s basically street theater–you don’t just wear a costume, but you are actually creating a piece of performance art. Something more mature than “TAKE A PICTURE OF ME TAKE A PICTURE OF ME TAKE A PICTURE OF MEEEEE!!!!!”
I noticed something of a minor trend from the last episode to this one, one that’s not even particularly obvious, so bear with for a minute.
Last episode, in talking about Mind Game, Daryl mentioned the Superflat concept and some of the influence/concept in action going on in that movie. This episode, Clarissa was explaining how she doesn’t have a view that’s down on American comics or artists and feels they should be placed on the same field as manga or mangaka, just with the knowledge that they might be doing something a bit different.
In the parlance of our times, a comparison between the fullback and the tight end might be in order.
Anyway, the point Clarissa was making is very similar to some of what Takashi Murakami wrote about in Little Boy, with connections to Superflat and his previous work and concepts made clear. I think that if you three haven’t done so already, it might be worth while to read up on Murakami’s ideas and maybe look for, at the least, a copy of Little Boy. There’s a great deal of discussion about the history and nature of otaku in there, as well.
I think that some people I’ve read with dismissive opinion’s of Murakami’s work have sort of missed the larger picture of the social implications driving it.
Actually, now that I think about it, I’ve listened to Animetal a lot. I remember one time where I was at work late, and I had my headphones on, and apparently I started singing along to the “Raideen” theme without knowing I was doing it. Someone else in the office came up and got my attention, and said “what the hell are you singing?” My explanation did not reassure them.
All your attempts to protect this site from Pr0n searching fanboys will be in failure, because the bottom of the page google ad I just saw will sabotage you…
It’s an ad for ‘gay friendly’ cars, pointing to a site called ‘gaywheels’..yes, the child of gay whales continues!
Gay friendly cars…WTF? Does that imply there are cars that are NOT gay friendly? I could probably do a good 15 minutes on stage with nonsense like that…
Earlier this morning I finished the 8 hours d/ling the latest ‘cast, so now I’m going to listen to it.
Hey Gerald, how about you mention that Voltes V has the BEST ENDING THEME EVER???
Also, no purveyor of HD in his right mind would want the widescreen you described, because it wouldn’t be anamorphic (stretchable to fit the resolution of the screen). Letterboxed widescreen looks like ass on HDTVs because it’s still 4:3 resolution instead of 16:9 AND it has the black boxes on the top and bottom.
Lol I can’t believe they cut out the top and bottom of the DBZ videos in order to make them widescreen. It’s like a 7 year old hearing about widescreen and trying to achieve that presentation.
Delta wrote:
BTW just letting everyone know that someone is actually subbing Future Police Urashiman…. check it out http://animesuki.com/series.php/948.html
That would be us. We hope you’re ready for a long, long ride. =)
Exedore, thank you. I really liked the job done on the first ep. Can’t wait to see more.
Hey guys,
I think I was the one who asked you guys about DAIMOS (unless there was another).
Is DAIMOS improved from VOLTES? Yes! The story is even better, although it’s a “Romeo and Juliet” romance (with the robot pilot and an alien Bahm princess) instead of a “sentai” show.
The heroes are the typical SR cast (hero, sidekick, scientist, girl with crush on hero, cute comic relief robot) , but almost all of the episodes either flesh the characters out or advance the plot – I remember few standalones and no lame standalones, unlike most of COMBATTLER and the first 10 episodes of VOLTES.
The villains are from the same mold as Combattler and Voltes – leader, pretty-boy commander, his girlfriend field commander, big brute field commander, and backstabbing new commander that comes in halfway through the series. (GUNDAM’s Zabi
family followed the same archetypes, but used them differently from RAIDEEN and the Robot Romancers.)
DAIMOS was dubbed by 3B Productions as the compilation movie STARBIRDS (3B[astards] are the same guys who did TRANZOR Z – I don’t have the US VOLTES dub so I don’t know if 3B did it).
STARBIRDS has been released by East West DVD, a Digiview fellow traveler which releases $1 public domain stuff including Joseph Lai Korean Klassics like SPACE THUNDER KIDS or PROTECTORS OF UNIVERSE.
Unfortunately, it can’t be ordered from them directly – I found mine last May in a Giant Food store in VA with no warning. Hopefully EW or Digiview will release VOLTES someday here – I THINK both a compilation movie and a few
episodes were released on vHS in the 80s.
I personally love the Filipino English dubs – the voice actors’ moxie definitely makes up for their lack of talent. Yeah, there’s only 4 heavily accented actors dubbing the thing, but they’re putting
their hearts into it, not just reciting a script for a paycheck or trying to “not take things seriously”. There are legal Filipino dub VCDs available for both VOLTES and DAIMOS, but I’ve heard bad things about the QC.
I believe Jetman’s English dub is from Malaysia, not the Phillipines – I’ve never heard it, but the Malaysian dub of CYBERCOP I heard wasn’t that great. There are legal Filipino dub VCDs available for both VOLTES and DAIMOS, but I’ve heard bad things about the QC.
PS – I am not Filipino, have never been to the Phillipines, and first fell in love with V and D at 20. 🙂
—-Joe / Leopardon
D’oh! Forgot to edit this from the second to last paragraph:
“There are legal Filipino dub VCDs available for both VOLTES and DAIMOS, but I’ve heard bad things about the QC.”
YAY! Voltes V at last, can’t wait to listen to it….
Re: Black Lagoon
I enjoyed this series. Calling it an homage to Hollywood action is a good call, to me, the torpedo scene is an example, although the show goes beyond that to be an homage to many action traditions.
I wanted to comment on a remark by Clarissa that the violence was really messed up (especially in the 2nd season). One of the things that impressed me about the show in the very first season was precisely how the violence is portrayed as being messed up. Revy, in particular is presented as not just an expert gun-handler, but kind of a blood-thirsty psychopath.
I particularly mention this because you guys seemed to dislike the same episode that really impressed me. This was the fight with the faux-nazis. True it was not the most impressive fight from the perspective of action scenes. The nazi-wannabees keep getting killed by Revy, and they are completely incapable of touching her. I think there was a deeper message here though. The faux-nazis were wannabe monsters. Revy is shown to be an actual monster.
This takes the show out of the comfortable realm of “action” (boat chases and scuba scenes) into a contemplation about the consequences of violence.
I hope they make a third season. It seemed they were developing a storyline for the nun.
Great show as always. Thanks for playing my old and lame promo. I really need to make another. Hell, I need to make more podcasts for crying out loud.
Anyway, now I’ll have yet another robot show to download. Since you guys are the robot masters, do you guys ever plan to do a Zambot 3 review? I’ve been considering picking up the HKs since I’ve never seen any fansubs or legit discs. I’m really curious about Zambot as it’s a pre-Gundam Tomino robot show. How does it compare to Ideon?
Aaron
Sony_ceo said…
Lol I can’t believe they cut out the top and bottom of the DBZ videos in order to make them widescreen. It’s like a 7 year old hearing about widescreen and trying to achieve that presentation.
Sadly, there’s precedent. In the early days of widescreen movies, re-releases of Academy ratio movies were cropped to match the widescreen ratio.
Actually, forget the “early days” bit–Disney was doing it up until, I believe, the 1990 re-release of Fantasia.
On a similar tack (“Attack! Attack! A Tack! A Tack!”), I’ve never liked the term “full screen.” First off, it’s kind of a BS term that implies there’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing (kind of like referring to a dub as “English Version”). Second, it’s non-specific–both Academy ratio and pan-&-scan are “full screen,” but one is unaltered and the other is altered. Finally, with more and more people buying widescreen TV’s, 4:3 no longer fills the screen.
HaloJonesFan said…
…The fact that there are bits cut out of the picture is not important, because the HDTV owner does not actually care what he is watching! He just wants it to be in HD.
I have an HD wide screen TV (and 5.1 Surround). Know what the first thing I watched on it was? A movie serial from 1943. Academy ratio, monochrome, monaural.
Then again, I never claimed to be typical…
E. Bernhard Warg
Otakon Classic Track
Anime’s Frank
PS: Maybe it also helps that the TV was a display model with a tiny imperceptable scratch on the screen, so it only cost about $130….
Remember that bit where the blog got locked because of someone leaving spam comments?
The same guy just posted FOUR MORE TIMES. Hey, asshole: I know you’re a human being reading this because you have to go through the word verification to leave your spam comments.
CUT IT OUT. Every single comment you make will be deleted.
Hey did my earlier post get deleted? I thought it was posted and now I find it isn’t there…
And Daryl, isn’t there some way to ban a particular user? Of course they could come back using different identies. But then there is IP tracking…
Probably a Moe fan, gettin’ back a da HATAZ.
(Seriously, I can’t think of any other reason why this would be happening…the guy’s gotta know that is isn’t going to work…)
Ban users? Naw, Google can’t be arsed to code a feature like that! Easier to just write something that scans comments and locks a blog if it sees spam. After all, people with blogs are all coders who spend sixteen hours a day on-line and able to monitor their blog, right?
Hey Clarissa, check this out: Death Note done in the style of Matt Groening!
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/46279988/?qo=5&q=by%3Aspacecoyote&qh=sort%3Atime+-in%3Ascraps
(links to Deviant Art “*spacecoyote”)
I just watched that new Giant Robo trailer thing, and it looks like it is gonna suck very hard. I wish it was a direct sequal to the OAV.
Might have to throw this in since I’ve been WAY behind on a few things..
Leopardon said…
DAIMOS was dubbed by 3B Productions as the compilation movie STARBIRDS (3B[astards] are the same guys who did TRANZOR Z – I don’t have the US VOLTES dub so I don’t know if 3B did it).
I have that dub, and yes, 3B was involved, though what I have is some sort of compilation feature based on a few episodes spliced together. Unlike 3B’s handling of other Toei properties they had, they bothered to keep the original BGM track alone for the Voltes V dub.
STARBIRDS has been released by East West DVD, a Digiview fellow traveler which releases $1 public domain stuff including Joseph Lai Korean Klassics like SPACE THUNDER KIDS or PROTECTORS OF UNIVERSE.
Unfortunately, it can’t be ordered from them directly – I found mine last May in a Giant Food store in VA with no warning. Hopefully EW or Digiview will release VOLTES someday here – I THINK both a compilation movie and a few
episodes were released on vHS in the 80s.
Wonder if “Shadow World” is out of the question. That was the dub of Diapolon 3B did as well (I have both that and Starbirds on VHS anyway). Not sure though if I can trust EastWest DVD, since they’ve also bothered pirated copies of the old Expanded Entertainment library I had to pay over $30 a tape to get a decade ago. I’d rather just give people free copies than expect them to go search for them in shady venues like that. It’s just more a case of releaseing it if it’s out-of-print and unheard of. Look at their cover to an Italian animated feature from the late 60’s made by Bruno Bozzetto!
http://www.eastwestdvd.com/TitImages/l/vipmybrorsuperman.jpg
(really, it’s about as lame as any PD cartoon covers out there that tend to go off-model on the characters and make them gut-wrenching ugly)
I personally love the Filipino English dubs – the voice actors’ moxie definitely makes up for their lack of talent. Yeah, there’s only 4 heavily accented actors dubbing the thing, but they’re putting
their hearts into it, not just reciting a script for a paycheck or trying to “not take things seriously”. There are legal Filipino dub VCDs available for both VOLTES and DAIMOS, but I’ve heard bad things about the QC.
Best I did was found someone who sent me the VCDs anwyay, and I’m already preparing to do something about it very soon!
I believe Jetman’s English dub is from Malaysia, not the Phillipines – I’ve never heard it, but the Malaysian dub of CYBERCOP I heard wasn’t that great. There are legal Filipino dub VCDs available for both VOLTES and DAIMOS, but I’ve heard bad things about the QC.
At least there are some Asian countries that bother with the English language as it is.
PS – I am not Filipino, have never been to the Phillipines, and first fell in love with V and D at 20. 🙂
—-Joe / Leopardon
Anime in the Philippines has had a rather terrible history as it used to be banned during the 1980’s as some president had a personal fear of some sort of backlash with hsi people over what was seen in the cartoons (namely these giant robot types).
I have that dub, and yes, 3B was involved, though what I have is some sort of compilation feature based on a few episodes spliced together.
A friend of mine supposedly had 1-2 or something with a US dub as well as the compilation.
Might have been the same deal as FORCE FIVE (which had dubbed episodes and compilation features with slightly different dubs – I’ve got their GRANDIZER compilation on VHS), but they stopped dubbing the show itself very early.
I don’t recall EVER hearing of a US dub of individual DAIMOS episodes, but maybe they were out there…
Wonder if “Shadow World” is out of the question. That was the dub of Diapolon 3B did as well (I have both that and Starbirds on VHS anyway).
Considering East West, probably not. Who knows how they decide what to release; not like they pay for the rights or anything.
I have a VHS copy of 70’s KIKU-subbed DIAPOLON #1, which I didn’t care for. Maybe the compilation’s more enjoyable. I’m a MAGNOS man, myself.
I’d rather just give people free copies than expect them to go search for them in shady venues
like that.
You make it sound like people will get murdered while trying to find the thing! 🙂
Seriously, I’d upload a copy to a torrent or Youtube if I had the equipment, high-speed connection, or know-how.
It’s just more a case of releaseing it if it’s out-of-print and unheard of.
Yep. Not that I’m complaining – I’d LIKE a legal copy, but this is a case of “shady copy” or “nothing”. (Not the case with all of EW’s catalog – see below…)
Look at their cover to an Italian animated feature
from the late 60’s made by Bruno Bozzetto!
http://www.eastwestdvd.com/TitImages/l/vipmybrorsuperman.jpg
(really, it’s about as lame as any PD cartoon covers out there that tend to go off-model on the characters and make them gut-wrenching ugly)
You think that’s bad? Look at Defenders of Space…
http://www.thebestcartoons.com/dvd/eastwest/defendersofspace.jpg
This is a dub of PHOENIX KING, aka “The One With Inferno/Fire Engine Robo In It”. Way to feature the main robot, guys. (The robot on the cover is one of the enemy mecha).
Oh dear god, they’re selling Harlock…
http://www.thebestcartoons.com/dvd/eastwest/captainharlock.jpg
Animego’s legal department must be busy these days. I recall back in 2004 they (justifiably) jumped on people selling HK MACROSS boxes pretty quickly.
For the record, the STARBIRDS cover looks OK:
http://www.eastwestdvd.com/home.aspx?action=getprepck&value=VOL-1006C&ewtitid=304
Best I did was found someone who sent me the VCDs anwyay, and I’m already preparing to do something about it very soon!
I got copies of the latter half of the series from the VCDs. (I’ve got the first half on VHS). However, the friend who made the VCD copies for me had his legal copy of DAIMOS 43-44 crack in the player, which makes me nervous about paying $60 each for the sets.
Anime in the Philippines has had a rather terrible history as it used to be banned during the 1980’s as some president had a personal fear of some sort of backlash with hsi people over what was seen in the cartoons (namely these giant robot types).
I’ve heard varying reports of why Marcos banned these things (I thought some kid hurt himself imitating STAR RANGERS* or something). Anyone know for sure?
* – Filipino dub of GORANGER.
Based by looking at the violence factor in black lagoon, would you say that it is able to be aired on Tv(adult swim maybe) without a lot of editing?
eh nvm. Just listened to more of the show. Got sidetracked yesterday when listening. I wonder if anime network would do it. They don’t edit any cursing, etc.
I have the ZAMBOT 3 HK box. The subs are OK – not perfect, but above average for a HK bootleg.
The only big errors I remember offhand are calling the Jin Family the “Kami Family” and calling the
enemy-of-the-week Mecha Boosts “Mecha Beasts”.
The show isn’t comparable to GUNDAM or IDEON, or even VOLTES – it’s a standard Super Robot show, although with some unique touches that put it a cut above most other shows.
The Jin Family and Zambot 3 are blamed for bringing the danger of the Gaizok villains to Earth, particularly by Jin Kappei’s rival Shingo Kozuki. I recall that this lasts until episode 10, when delegates from Earth are used by the villains as target practice. The
very dark “human bomb” plot starts in 17.
I personally love the mecha – Zambot 3 is probably my favorite anime robot of all time.
The villain Gaizok are…weird. Silly, but oddly dark (in one episode the enemy leader Killer the Butcher dresses up as Elvis and sings about how much he loves killing humans). The name “Gaizok” is used as a joke, since it sounds similar to “kaizoku” (pirate). A common comment is “The Gaizok are coming!” “Huh? But there
aren’t any pirates anymore!”
Here’s an Italian page on the show with lots of pictures:
http://www.encirobot.com/zamb/zamb-ind.asp
—Joe/”Leopardon”
halojonesfan –
That Death Note pic is awesome. I heard that girl got a job working with Matt Groening for some other pictures she did with anime influenced reworkings of Simpsons and Futurama. Interesting testimony to the power of the internet!
bob savage –
I think one of the great things about Black Lagoon is that, as you said, they don’t simply portray these guys as oh so awesome, and it’s all exciting gun fights and outlaw freedom; they’re messed up people, a collection of monsters jostling for position and survial who are nonetheless still human (well, at least in the best cases).
I liked some of the stuff from the Nazi episodes, but mostly the conversations between Revy and Rock. Though I think you have a good point about what they showed through that storyline. I think they’ve done a pretty good job of keeping that balance overall.
It also feeds into something I really like about Revy as opposed to a lot of other tough girls in anime/manga: she’s not just a cliched fanservice tsundere character or emotionless doll or whatever. She’s written with a bit better shifting in her personality, and while the show certainly makes her hot, it’s also willing to have her be truly unpleasant and screwed up in ways that aren’t just about increasing the fanservice.
I’m also really hoping for a third season. Dutch and Benny need more screen time, and there’s some side characters I’d love to see more of. I call for more Shenhua, Eda, Mr. Chang and Sawyer the Cleaner.
Here’s a pic from that same girl.
It’s of the simpsons. I think looks pretty neat.
http://noisetu.be/img/sis/thesimpsonsanimestylezu6.jpg
Here’s her profile on deviant art.
http://spacecoyote.deviantart.com/
Well since it seems my last post disappeared into the aether, I’ll try this again.
As per the discussion under episode 43, I posted a re-edit I did of the Fortress Iserlohn docking sequence from the first Galactic Heroes movie with the these “Gathering the Fleet” from the Space Battleship Yamato OST. (Back in the day I always called this piece the “Gamilon March”. I syncs up remarkably well I think.
rheinhard: marry me
I also like the video you “responded” to, although the happy-poppy sound of the Macross theme combined with the unrelenting seriousness of LoGH was a bit jarring…
Leopardon said…
Considering East West, probably not. Who knows how they decide what to release; not like they pay for the rights or anything.
Perhaps. My copy of “Shadow World” is Macrovisioned, but I can worm out of that anyway.
I have a VHS copy of 70’s KIKU-subbed DIAPOLON #1, which I didn’t care for. Maybe the compilation’s more enjoyable. I’m a MAGNOS man, myself.
I only WISH I lived in Hawaii and watched KIKU all the time. Really, I’d be one of the few that could boast having seen these at the right time and place. 🙁
Nowadays I hear they suck (having to show the FUNimation Channel’s lineup and all).
You make it sound like people will get murdered while trying to find the thing! 🙂
Nah!
Seriously, I’d upload a copy to a torrent or Youtube if I had the equipment, high-speed connection, or know-how.
The minimal requirements I do meet. Of course I don’t have a TV capture card on my PC, but I can rip stuff off DVD rewritables and make AVI’s out of ’em anyway, so it works well on my end in a poor man’s capture technique.
Yep. Not that I’m complaining – I’d LIKE a legal copy, but this is a case of “shady copy” or “nothing”. (Not the case with all of EW’s catalog – see below…)
I STILL haven’t found any of their DVDs in town!
You think that’s bad? Look at Defenders of Space…
http://www.thebestcartoons.com/dvd/eastwest/defendersofspace.jpg
This is a dub of PHOENIX KING, aka “The One With Inferno/Fire Engine Robo In It”. Way to feature the main robot, guys. (The robot on the cover is one of the enemy mecha).
Ha, I had to get the DigiView vesion from Wal-Mart last year.
Oh dear god, they’re selling Harlock…
http://www.thebestcartoons.com/dvd/eastwest/captainharlock.jpg
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHA!
Really, I was hoping for the “Malibu Graphis” tape to had been used for this slop!
By the way, I might stick that up on YouTube just to annoy people as to what the die-hard Harlock fans had to put up.
Animego’s legal department must be busy these days. I recall back in 2004 they (justifiably) jumped on people selling HK MACROSS boxes pretty quickly.
Heh, I’d like to tell ’em about this too (bet this is also the edited version as opposed to the Best Film & Video release that was uncut I think).
For the record, the STARBIRDS cover looks OK:
http://www.eastwestdvd.com/home.aspx?action=getprepck&value=VOL-1006C&ewtitid=304
Yeah, that looks l lot better over the Hi-Topps VHS release from the 80’s.
I got copies of the latter half of the series from the VCDs. (I’ve got the first half on VHS). However, the friend who made the VCD copies for me had his legal copy of DAIMOS 43-44 crack in the player, which makes me nervous about paying $60 each for the sets.
Well, I just stuck up the first 18 episodes over at Demonoid. I’ll follow it with the remainder of the series and perhaps also stick in the “Starbirds” dub for kicks!
I’ve heard varying reports of why Marcos banned these things (I thought some kid hurt himself imitating STAR RANGERS* or something). Anyone know for sure?
* – Filipino dub of GORANGER.
it just seems so silly to me!
Rheinhard said…
Well since it seems my last post disappeared into the aether, I’ll try this again.
As per the discussion under episode 43, I posted a re-edit I did of the Fortress Iserlohn docking sequence from the first Galactic Heroes movie with the these “Gathering the Fleet” from the Space Battleship Yamato OST. (Back in the day I always called this piece the “Gamilon March”. I syncs up remarkably well I think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuekWDj4P6
Well this was just brilliant!
Sorely disappointed that there was no reference to Predator when a muscular character named ‘Dutch’ is part of a show that’s worthy of references to John Matrix.
GET TO DA CHOPPA
All right, I’m ready when you cats are. If Gerald is willing to talk about Overfiend, then so am I. So I’ll match you with my upcoming review, subtitled: “Overfiend: Slightly Less Creepy than a Harem show.” I’m going to write it while listen to nothing but Kylie Minogue and consuming nothing but cheap hobo whiskey — because that’s what The Nish would do.
I heart Voltes V! Love that show. I saw the 3B Productions compilation on CBN way back in the Reagan Years. When I did the “40 Years Of Anime” panel at Anime North last year I ran clips from a ton of robot shows, but didn’t get to Voltes V, and sure enough somebody in the audience was like, “Hey, what about Voltes V?”
This year I plan to make up for the omission.
Heh, glad you liked it. I won’t marry you, but I will take donations of fat sacks of cash.
While I was posting on a few forums where I thought people might be interested in this (since the LoGH mailing list seems long-defunct), I found my way over to the Central Anime forums (the good people subtitling both LoGH and Yamato). In a thread on their LoGH forum I came across this, which I also favorited on my youtube account:
Reinhard von Momotaro!
“Hai, Reinhard-sama!” ^______^
Hee! At first I’m like “what the fuck“, but then I realized that I did know what “momotaro” means.
Haha, I love those commercials. “THE PRICE OF JUSTICE IS 8700 YEN.”
Why didn’t Voltes show up on American TV? It could have easily been another Voltron. (You’ve even got ‘Volt’ in the name!)
HaloJonesFan said…
Haha, I love those commercials. “THE PRICE OF JUSTICE IS 8700 YEN.”
Why didn’t Voltes show up on American TV? It could have easily been another Voltron. (You’ve even got ‘Volt’ in the name!)
Anime in those days was just hard to sell/get on TV here in the states. Voltron was lucky for having been sold to individual TV stations via syndication.
OMG, guys, OM freaking G.
How the living breathing HELL did you get through reviewing both Combattler V and Voltus V and not mention they’ve both produced by Nippon Sunrise under contract to Toei?!
It was these two shows that proved they had the chops to go solo, and thus Zambot 3 was created, a show much more in the ‘romantic’ spirit of Combattler and Voltus than Daimos.
Altho it’s not at all a stretch were one to ‘Robotech’ Combattler, Voltus and Daimos, to make them all a single ‘epic’ series.
Also, if memory serves, the mecha establishment was done by Submarine, the company that eventually split and mutated and became Studio Nue, which then again split and mutated into Artland.
Combattler and Voltus came out at a time when Toei was seemingly attempting to ween themselves from Go Nagai/Dynamic Pro.
The show Gerald was trying to remember was Daltanius, a really goofy show that takes all the conventions established by Combattler/Voltus and utterly turns them on their head and spanks them. The main thing I recall is that the robot team gets stuck working on fixing up the damage to the city after they defeat each monster.
Clarissa:
>> Revy … she’s not just a cliched fanservice tsundere character or emotionless doll or whatever.
Yeah, although there is some sexual tension between her and Roc, and she looks out for him more than she would another person, she doesn’t change her personality just to fit the formula.
>> Dutch and Benny need more screen time, and there’s some side characters I’d love to see more of. I call for more Shenhua, Eda, Mr. Chang and Sawyer the Cleaner.
Yeah, I was really glad to see them hint at a back story for Eda. I disagree about Benny, though. I have a hard time with “hacker” characters in general. I haven’t seen a single one that is portrayed in a believable way. Benny even looks suspiciously like Michael from Witch Hunter Robin. 😛
I like to refer to Daimos as ‘The Fightin’ General’ and did so before Steven Colbert’s ‘Better Know a District’ bit. True story.
http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=99504
In short, Del Rey ventures into “original English-language manga” with Avril Lavigne as their creative savior.
We’re losing the war, aren’t we?
reinhard –
Your LoGH/Yamato mashup (and wow, writing it in that format sends my brain to straange places) is super sexy. It really does work perfectly!
Also, after watching Reinhard von Momotaro I think I briefly died from cute. Kircheis’ ever-dutiful and adorable “Hai, Reinhard-sama” only makes it even better…er, worse…whatever.
bob savage –
Yeah, Revy and Rock’s sexual tension works as part and extension of their characters, not something jammed in awkwardly because “we need fanservice” or “let’s have a romance subplot to get some other audience demographic” or whatever.
As for Benny, well, personally I’m a big fan of the computer nerds, hackers included. Lack of realism wouldn’t bother me too much in a show like Black Lagoon, given all the other crap that goes on. 🙂
Okay, so I may possibly be known to enjoy ridiculous movies like Hackers. Er.
Benny does look a bit like Michael, but thankfully with less mullet. Oh Japan, why do you think the mullet is cool?