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Daryl keeps the manga reviews coming with a review of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Clarissa gets back her shojo mojo talking about Loveless, and Gerald celebrates its 20th anniversary by reviewing Dirty Pair: Project E.D.E.N.
I guess I can at least put some timecode stuff up soon. We’ve really been failing at the “additional information links” as of late, though. Still, we can’t possibly be becoming dumb, as this online quiz we found on Livejournal CLEARLY demonstrates:
Somehow we get the feeling that EVERYONE gets told that only 2% of the people who took the test are less stupid than they are, to make themselves feel better about themselves. Note to self: AWO Myspace/Livejournal/Facebook is probably a bad idea because of things like this.
Introduction (0:00 – 28:08)
In the emails, we get firsthand confirmation on Overfiend’s negative effects on anime fandom in the UK (BEHOLD! The Ultimate Anime Collection!), as well as firsthand confirmation that Princess Ai does, in fact, suck. Also, we clarify some finer points regarding Giant Robo and exactly what the difference between “shonen ai” and “yaoi” is. Because yes, there is a difference.
Let’s News! (28:08 – 36:39)
The DVD for Arcadia of My Youth is going out of print, Hiroyuki Hoshiyama is dead, and in celebration of their tenth anniversary, Tokyopop is revising their manga ratings system. How exactly is it going to help parents by saying that a comic contains “fanservice”? Like they’d really know what that term means. Also, Steven Foster truly doesn’t understand why the Internet is so mad at him.
Promo: Weekly Anime Review Podcast (36:39 – 37:12)
Aaron’s been missing in action for the last few well, months, but he is back in business! The show may be undergoing alterations to its name and release schedule, but with any luck he’ll still be around, fighting the good fight.
Review (manga): The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Volume 1 (37:12 – 59:04)
Daryl reviews yet another tricky-to-find Dark Horse manga that is basically “BIZARRO~! Genshiken.” You will be happy to know that a few weeks after this recording, Daryl did manage to locate Volume 2 of this. He has not, however, taken any steps to become an actuary.
Review: Loveless (59:04 – 1:20:36)
Nekomimi…Nekomimi Mode! Nekomimi…oh wait, different show. Clarissa hasn’t done a shojo review in a while, and something had to be done to rid herself of the Austin Powers-level chest hair she developed as a result of watching MAZINKAISER~! last week. Loveless is the answer. It is not to be confused with the Vertigo comicbook by Brian Azzarello that takes place in the Old West and has all kinds of people totally getting shot and killed. We can only wonder how many people there are out there who go into the comicbook shop asking for one and ending up with the other.
Review: Dirty Pair: Project E.D.E.N. (1:20:36 – 1:45:50)
The following details were considered TOO INTENSE for the broadcast, but readers of the show notes may know of it: this anime contains a space butler samurai with a laser sword. Spoilers, schmoilers: this movie is celebrating its 20 year anniversary. Suffice it to say that this anime is still awesome to the max. You know what else we forgot to mention? The reason that opening credits sequence is so rad is because it was done by KOJI FUCKIN’ MORIMOTO:
Closing (1:45:50 – 1:48:19)
Next time, in an attempt to delay releasing something named Show # 50 by just that much more, we decide to take it easy and do an episode where we do nothing but answer voicemails. You know how we keep telling people to call or use the Odeo MP3 link, but we don’t seem to actually PLAY them that much? Yeah, that’s our bad. We’re going to try and fix that, but first things first: we gotta clear out what we got.
I got the first post :D. However , i am still downloading it 😀
From nearly 2 and a half hours to around an hour and 50 min. Shorter? GO LONGER! Longer is better.
Downloading in expectation of awesome Loveless review. I keep seeing screengrabs of this and its something like £4 a disc from Amazon marketplace, but the very… er… odd choice of show ingredients has kept me away.
Greetings all. Long time listener from the UK here. Half an hour in and it’s as good as always.
Just to clarify a comment made by my fellow countryman, there was indeed a film prosecuted by the BBFC for blasphemy, but it was a 1989 porn film called Visions of Ecstasy, not La Blue Girl, which was simply refused a certificate.
The blasphemy thing is total Urban Legend.
I heard the same thing about Urotsukidoji Part 4 way back when on the uk.media.animation.anime newsgroup, but there was never any evidence given.
The Ultimate Anime Boxset is put out by ILC, a label who started out with releasing a bunch of “… of Darkness” porn titles. Well trying to, as I mentioned previously, sexual violence as entertainment is still a problem for the BBFC, and at least one was banned.
They then picked up a bunch of CPM/US Manga Corps licenses that Manga Video had let lapse. ILC aren’t the bottom rung of the video industry, but they’re down there. There the sort of label whose DVDs you only find in budget book shop chains.
In addition to the Dirty Pair movie thinpack, you can nab the OVA thinpack the same way. Go to Best Buy and order them from the in store kiosk. You need to use the in store kiosk to actually get that price due to some weird inventory/warehouse glitch.
On Loveless:
Manga, of course, is superior. First 11 episodes of the anime are very fateful to the manga, and then episode 12 is like WTF. And I don’t think it could have been any differently as there’s no conclusion to the series yet – otherwise there would have been no ending at all. And definitely read the manga first, after that the anime is just fan service – especially the spell battles have been adapted very well. Tokyopop has actually done a superb job on the manga, translation is really great – because words are so important (spell battles are controlled by words) they’ve paid extra attention to that, and some volumes have some original colour art in them too. Although their slow release schedule is killing me… I love Yun Koga’s art, it’s incredibly expressive and sensitive.
Having said that, the animation in the anime is totally dreamy and the soundtrack is haunting, the character design is beautiful and voice actors – especially touching Junko Minagawa who is the seiyuu for Ritsuka, I mean, my heart skips a beat when Ritsuka whispers “Soubi…” – they are just incredible.
Loveless is seriously fucked up, and it’s one of my favourite manga ever. (However I reserve the right to change my mind if it turns out being fucked up in a wrong way…) You see what truly breaks my heart is the desperate mismatch of Soubi and Ritsuka – they both want and need Seimei, and are looking for that from each other. For both of them Seimei was their world, and now they cling to each other because that’s all they have – Ritsuka is looking for a big brother and a protector, and Soubi is looking for a master and a commander and is completely incapable of thinking for himself. And those wishes and needs are completely incompatible – can Loveless and Beloved ever match?
I could write about this for pages… you can see I feel fairly passionately about it 😉 Suffice to say I think you should really check out the manga.
And I really commend Clarissa for calling it shoujo and not BL like so many people mistakenly do.
kolibri –
Thanks!
Yeah, Loveless seems at first like “oh, adorable catboys and boys snuggling, yay!” and then you watch it and it’s sort of one prolonged D: festival. But, I also think that they did a pretty good job with the fucked up. I really need to read the manga now, since from a few things I’ve heard/read about later events, it sounds like it’s only getting even more screwed up and bizarre.
I realized afterwards that I didn’t really talk about the animation and sound all that much, since the segment got seriously off track (that all got edited out, so I’m not sure if it still seems like it, but if it seems disjointed at the end that’s why) which sucks because yes, it looks and sounds great.
The spell battles look *beautiful* and they did such a good job of maintaining Kouga’s gorgeous artwork.
I was really happy with all the seiyuu as well. And I definitely had to go get the OP and ED songs after watching it.
For some reason it always bothers me when shoujo stuff like Loveless, Yami no Matsuei or whatever gets called BL or shonen ai or some such. I’m not sure why, but there you go.
RE: The comments I made about the blasphemy thing.
Ah OK now I get it. I did say it was a *rumour*. Wouldn’t surprise me such a rumour emerged given the problems with the UK here when it comes to anything that looks remotely offensive.
On Loveless soundtrack: the soundtrack CD – which is constantly on my iPod playlist – it’s got this great French flavour to it, with some bossa nova, angry rock and slow techno/ambient sounds, fantastic mixture. The only minus is that it’s only got the short versions of OP and ED, so for the full experience you need to get the single too.
You can have magical spell fights and catboys in the same show? Isn’t that some kind of genre overload?
Anyway, the new Giant Robo is being shown exclusively on Internet streaming. I don’t know if anyone has even watched it.
http://sg-tv.jp/items/series76
Actuary
One of the principle characters in the first volume of the Terry Pratchet Discworld series was also an actuary.
Another new episode to comment on!
Being reminded of almost wanting to submit something to one of TokyoPop’s OEL schemes some years back when they did those two volumes of multiple works. I think it’s rather lame to hear of the 3 volume rule they’re imposing on the noobs, namely since it goes against whatever integrity and creative juices they might not have the chops for. You would think doing a volume’s worth would be sufficient to submit with the possibility that one could continue from there depending on how long their storylines might go. Oh well (I think the comic strip industry is also that way too).
Being reminded of the days when TokyoPop was Mixx Entertainment, and they sold those stupid “Pocket Mixx” books for Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura in that flipped manner (let alone the singular issues and “Mixxine”). Back then, I hardly got into manga at all given the way they had been (usually $14.95 and over, flipped and other edifications). What Stu did with TokyoPop after 2001 was the only good thing he ever did. Hopefully none of their OEL’s has crept into the pages of my local paper’s Sunday funnies.
I do have a version of Macross DYRL in English I do think is uncut in my collection. It was released by Best Film & Video Corp. in around the mid 90’s. Prior to that they once had the rights to release some of Streamline Pictures properties like “Robot Carnival”, “Castle of Cagliostro”, “Zillon” and what-not.
It should be noted that “Just for Kids” and “Best Film & Video” are two different companies with different demographics/markets they cater to. Obviously “Just for Kids” would rather keep their material safe and sane, and would obviously cut out material as with DYRL, but BF&V’s edition of “Locke the Superman” features nude scenes and all. The one drawback with both companies was in their often uses of duplicating their tapes in EP over SP. Being reminded BF&V once released “Kentucky Fried Movie” in a crappy EP copy that doesn’t do the film justice.
Wonder if the “Fanservice” mentioning in the ratings Tokyopop uses is meant to be a joke?
Now that I only have Borders and Barnes & Noble left in my town, that’s what I do see usually in the aisle the manga’s down in. I usually don’t mind them being the way they are, but it’s rather impossible for my wide frame to fit through those cramped skinny aisle with them just sitting down on the floor.
Thinknig about how the guy in Loveless would take pictures to remember those places, it reminds me of a similar thing I once did when I got my digital camera, and kept on clicking around town as I know I’ll never see those things again years later. One thing I know I miss already are phone booths. I took a pic of the last one in my area before it was eventually dismantled. Nowadays, payphones themselves are getting less and less seen due to the proliferation of cell phones. I should get one, but I’d rather be a luddite than to bother with them!
Hearing about the way the anime for Loveless had to end the way it did, it brought back MTV’s “The Maxx” to my mind in how the comic book was still being written during the show’s run, and the cartoon had to come up with an ending to tie up the loose ends that I thought was OK, though I might want to read the rest of the comic to see what else goes on!
The cat ear/tail thing bugs me too if not doing effectively. Seems kinda weird hearing how it’s used in this series with the guys losing ’em to indicate them having finally done it.
I often think “Dirty Pair” would be the perfect anime for my pop, as I could picture him being glued to the set watching them chicks! It’s sort of the Charlie’s Angels of anime perhaps (unless I’m proven wrong).
Also, why was it I guess TOO easily the Streamline dub over ADV’s. ADV’s is rather very dry and lame I felt, plus I sorta digged Streamline’s use of that reverb in theirs. I can understand why Gerald would say it’s the best over the Japanese.
That opening credit sequence kicked ass. I wish they did more of it nowadays. Sad to hear how barebones the DVD is, but perhaps I’ll also get the old Streamline Pictures tape just so I could have the audio from it too (at least the Streamline guys have had more experience in acting than the ADV guys).
Being reminded someone on YouTube did a dub comparison of the Lupin III film “Mystery of Mamo”, as that film has the distinction of having been dubbed into English four times (JAL-1978, Streamline-1995, Manga Video UK-1996, Pioneer-2003). Unfortunatly he couldn’t get the British Manga Video audio to use, but it’s a rather interesting sequence to view multiple times to compare those voices in each one (the JAL dub is often said to be the best)…
Safari Eyes is pretty much the best song ever.
Haven’t listened to the show yet, but now very excited to.
Dirty Pair the Movie is an awesome film, the unique colour pallete seen in the first few minutes always captiviates me.
Does anyone else also have a fondness for Dirty Pair: Affair of Nolandia? Most fans hate the OVA from 1985 yet i absolutly love it.
I really enjoyed the more serious edge to the story and characters designs. I also loved it’s unconventional pacing which made it unpredictable and gave it an almost artsy feel to it (it almost had an Twilight Zone feel to it).
Here’s hoping we get the tv series one of these days.
I liked the Don King reference, but I wish at the apocryphal story of the U.K. anime fan getting “gaoled” for blasphemy, you’d played that sample from AKIRA: “That’s BLASPHEMY, you old goat!”
According to one unauthorized biography, Courtney Love claimed to have been recruited out of a homeless kids’ encapment in Salem, Oregon (supposedly the same one which inspired Gus Van Sant’s MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO) at age 14 by yakuza to dance in clubs in Japan. Now THAT sounds like a manga. Specifically, a Kenichi Sonoda manga.
–Carl
Clarissa: For some reason it always bothers me when shoujo stuff like Loveless, Yami no Matsuei or whatever gets called BL or shonen ai or some such. I’m not sure why, but there you go.
Because it’s bollocks? 🙂
I think it’s done by people who don’t a) know the series they are talking about or b) don’t know the genres they are talking about or c) both. BL is about romance/sex between central characters, the fact that a story has boys occasionally kissing doesn’t mean that it’s BL. With Loveless miscategorizing it annoys me especially because the next point they always bring up is the age difference between Ritsuka and Soubi (my hubby was totally freaked out by it) – which is much less of an issue once you figure out it’s not about sex. Sure, there are sexual elements in the story, both homosexual (both male and female) and heterosexual. And sure, it’s still about misuse of power and love which makes it so fucked up. But it’s not about pedophilia or incest or rape.
Safari Eyes is pretty much the best song ever.
Oh HO! Now what would Mad Machine say if it heard you cheating on it!
Does anyone else also have a fondness for Dirty Pair: Affair of Nolandia? Most fans hate the OVA from 1985 yet i absolutly love it.
Which one is the one where Yuri dies, Kei gets heartbroken, and Yuri comes back five seconds later to kill the bartender? I hate that one, but I think that’s Flight 006 Conspiracy.
Now that I think about it, though, I’m pretty sure I hate them both.
Oh HO! Now what would Mad Machine say if it heard you cheating on it!
Please don’t tell! You wouldn’t ruin a guy’s marriage, would you??
kolibri –
Well, I suppose some people might argue that it’s pointless semantics, or that those distinctions don’t apply due to differences in US publishing versus Japanese publishing. But I think I’m still going to agree that it’s crap.
I think, in addition to what you’ve pointed out, that another reason it bothers me is because taking something that’s a shoujo work with occasional boy smooching or mention of gayness and lumping it in with BL manga necessarily limits the audience. The only people who are going to read BL are presumably people who get hot for guys making out and having sex. Whereas with a shoujo series like Antique Bakery or Yami no Matsuei, or even Loveless, I think people who aren’t really turned on by the boysex can still get something out of the shoujo plot and character work that isn’t about dudes getting rude at all.
On shoujo vs BL:
Audience point is a good one. The aforementioned husband who freaked out on Loveless also absolutely loves Antique Bakery. Which I would have classified as josei, but difference between josei and shoujo isn’t as important – I know it won Kodansha Manga Award for best shoujo but they don’t have a category for josei, do they? Anyway, did you ever see that godawful j-drama Antique Bakery series? I tried to watch it but couldn’t get further than episode 5 or so, that and I had to keep going to my local bakery to buy more cakes. In it Ono is not gay, Chikage is smart and Eiji is the main character – luckily at least Tachibana’s character was still pretty faithful to the original.
Another point about the audience is that it’s misleading the audience the other way too – I was given Yami no Matsuei as BL, and was I disappointed to find out that the most one gets out of it on that arena is the occasional longing gaze. Had it been given to me as shoujo my expectations would have been completely different and so would have the experience – this way the main impression I got from it was annoyance. I’ll probably try reading it again, this time with the right expectations.
If Loveless doesn’t qualify as BL or shounenai or what-have-you, then the folks at MediaBlasters really need to reconsider the way they market that show. All the emphasis on cat-boys and battle-slaves and head-mounted hymens really killed any interest I may have ever had in the property, which I admit was limited to begin with. Everything I’ve seen related to it makes it appear to be a mantastic dudes-bein’-rude fest.
I also admit that the main-character-has-amnesia and the oh-crap-we-caught-up-with-the-manga-THEEND! conclusion don’t really do anything to win me over, either.
Hrm, that Streamline dub was so much better than the ADV one. Talking about night and day. So why do I want to get the ADV version?
Talking about Dirty Pair there. I liked the comparison by the way.
Hrm, that Streamline dub was so much better than the ADV one. Talking about night and day. So why do I want to get the ADV version?
Well, the Streamline version is probably an over 10 year old VHS tape, if you can find it and the ADV DVD is a nice DVD release, just with a bland, boring, nothing dub. Such a shame, I really wish they’d kept that dub on there as some sort of strange extra, like CPM did with the Gall Force: Eternal Story DVD or the Giant Robo DVD.
Glad to know at least a few people got my point of comparing the two dubs :). I’m afraid of the many masses who’ll hear the two versions and not tell the difference in quality between them.
kolibri –
Oh god, I downloaded that Antique Bakery J-Drama, but I think it had really godawful English subs or something, plus I didn’t have much time to watch it, so luckily I was spared most of it.
I mean, I’d be marginally okay with Eiji being the main character since I like him too, though it’s still kind of iffy. But making Ono not gay and Chikage smart? That’s just wrong.
As to Yami no Matsuei, yeah, I can understand that. It’s definitely not going to satisfy the man love itch, unless you’re only into the vaguest hints anyway or you’re supplementing it with doujins and fanfics. Sociopathic rapist doctors and bizarre snake demon pseudo-tentacle rape scene aside, which I’m still not sure how she managed to get Hana to Yume to print.
gooberzilla –
Well, the transition of genres and publishing classifications between Japan and the US has been pretty well fucked in general, and especially in the area of BL and shoujo.
There’s a lot of things that go into the division between BL and shoujo with m/m flavor, much of which is the fact that BL is a niche interest. The majority of female readers (in Japan, and presumably here as well) don’t like BL or yaoi doujinshi, but they might be okay with vague lingering looks, heavy touching, or even some male/male relationships–but when it’s secondary to some other comedy/mystery/slice of life/etc plot, not the sole focus and possibly very sexual the way BL is.
The way these things break down is kind of strange at first sometimes, in terms of what will do as shoujo and what gets put down as BL. Loveless certainly has catboys with “head mounted hymens” and battle slaves, but that’s sort of general girl fanservice and not specifically a fujoshi type of thing. It does have a lot of same-sex touching and same-sex romance–including a very nice storyline about a lesbian fighting couple–but 1) the touching is often used in the context of the fights, that the two strengthen their bond and one another through touch, so it’s not necessarily sexual; 2) many non-BL or yaoi fans still enjoy male characters being physically and emotionally close and open, while not viewing it as sexual (this is the most common enjoyment level for sexy guys male bonding in shonen anime, as opposed to the fujoshi “let’s make them have sex” approach); and 3) the same-sex romances are not the sole focus of the plot, nor are they meant primarily to follow the “two guys meet, overcome obstacles and have a happy ending, and also there’s sexing” pattern of most BL.
Actually, there’s kind of a lot of weird manga politics around these distinctions, like the new TL/Teen Love genre, and a plagiarization kerfluffle involving BL artist Takashima Kazusa and a shoujo artist, not to mention things like Zaou Taishi doing shoujo work under the name Mikiyo Tsuda while using the Zaou Taishi name to do BL manga so that her family wouldn’t find out about it (which I think they eventually did).
However, over here we don’t really have the established anthology and imprint lines for things like shoujo vs ladies vs BL. Plus, with BL being a hot new thing that publishers here have only fairly recently latched on to and can profit from, they’re very quick to label anything they think they can as that in order to get the attention and profits. Combine with an audience who largely doesn’t know how Japanese audience divisions work to begin with, not to mention the somewhat muddled usage of Japanese terminology for things like this over here, and it’s very easy for Media Blasters or whoever to simply slap ‘shonen-ai’ or ‘yaoi’ onto anything with even a decently strong subplot or hint of guys getting it on.
Regardless of it being BL or not, Loveless is still not going to be a title for everybody, if only because the same sorts of aesthetics or emotional tropes don’t really work for everybody. Of course, it’s also got flaws, the anime version especially, as you mentioned the rushed ending once they ran out of manga.
So some folks, most likely you included, aren’t really going to get anything out of it. But it’s not really the same thing as picking up a book from BeBeautiful or lots of DramaQueen’s output, so I try to tell people not to avoid it for that reason alone.
Well said Clarissa, I couldn’t have put it better myself.
Yeah, the genres tend to get really muddled over here – partly because their emphasis on categorization is much more demography orientated than ours (that’s were the mags and anthologies come in – and lack of them over here). But especially with BL bigger publishers are starting to go that way – for example Loveless is published by Tokyopop, not their BL label BLU. CPM has a separate imprint A18 for hentai and BeBeautiful for BL. With DMP they have even made a difference between soft-core (June) and hard-core (801 Media) BL.
Also another genre confusion that really creeps me out (and you guys have talked about this before) is classifying fan-service/moe type seinen as shoujo. In fact the whole seinen demographic genre is surprisingly little understood over here, especially considering that most popular series over here tend to be seinen.
I see Loveless as an animated supplement to the manga. Aside from the animation, it really couldn’t stand on its own.
Gerald, you’ve made me realize how spoiled I was in the 90’s with the Streamline dubs. Did they also do Tank Police Dominion? Project Eden had a nice flow that reminded me of Tank Police.
My thoughts…
*I remember waay back when Viz was doing the Evangelion manga, and took the astoundingly radical step of publishing it unflipped. (They also had a flipped version in case your tiny gaijin brain just couldn’t handle the right-to-left idea.) I saw a Toren Smith letter column where he derided the idea of unflipped manga, saying that they’d lose more sales than they gained.
*CRUSH THEM, CATSY! I think that the reason some people might insist that they saw the “Giant Robo Sequel” is because of some fan-creation called “ONI-con 1998”, which had a “synopsis” of Giant Robo “Episode 8”. http://www.therossman.com/onicon/gr8.html
*When discussing how GR episode 2 had “lots of recap”, it’s important to point out that there was, what, a year? Two years? Between GR ep 1 and GR ep 2. And it wasn’t super-famous yet, so it’s possible that nobody would have remembered what this “Giant Robo” thing was supposed to be about.
*BN: I often think that the “B” stands for “Babysitters”. And I’ve had kids tell me that BN is great, because you can just go there and read all the books you want and you don’t have to pay for anything. I guess they make their money back on coffee and snacks.
HaloJonesFan said…
*I remember waay back when Viz was doing the Evangelion manga, and took the astoundingly radical step of publishing it unflipped. (They also had a flipped version in case your tiny gaijin brain just couldn’t handle the right-to-left idea.) I saw a Toren Smith letter column where he derided the idea of unflipped manga, saying that they’d lose more sales than they gained.
I remember seeing those books and getting confused at how nearly the same they looked except for which one bothered to say “special edition” or whatever on the cover.
*When discussing how GR episode 2 had “lots of recap”, it’s important to point out that there was, what, a year? Two years? Between GR ep 1 and GR ep 2. And it wasn’t super-famous yet, so it’s possible that nobody would have remembered what this “Giant Robo” thing was supposed to be about.
Yeah, we have to remember how it was for the Japanese at the time they had to wait between episodes.
*BN: I often think that the “B” stands for “Babysitters”. And I’ve had kids tell me that BN is great, because you can just go there and read all the books you want and you don’t have to pay for anything. I guess they make their money back on coffee and snacks.
Probably. If only they didn’t have their chairs and tables elsewhere outside the Starbucks section, it might not’ve been the new kiddie hangout it became. Having grown up in the early 80’s, my idea of a hangout was a video arcade, Toys R Us and perhaps the electronics section of a JCPenny/Hudson’s/Macy’s/whatever.
Gerald said:
Oh HO! Now what would Mad Machine say if it heard you cheating on it!
Invite Safari Eyes and Konya Wa Hurricane over for a foursome?
You guys can have your cheap big-hair Eighties songs. I’ll take “Dreams” home tonight.
Glad to know at least a few people got my point of comparing the two dubs :). I’m afraid of the many masses who’ll hear the two versions and not tell the difference in quality between them.
If I recall correctly, the same actresses were on Flight 005 Conspiracy, and were WORSE there. I remember thinking they were pretty passable in Project Eden. I still own the VHS tape because of the Streamline dub, and I’ll keep it until I can get a DVD with the Streamline version on it (i.e.: never), but I thought they did “good enough” with it.
Jeff: You just described my wildest sexual fantasy. Please remove yourself from my psyche.
I was impressed by Gerald’s comparison, despite the fact I come out of the B.A.D. era (although when Corn Pone Flicks thought a Streamline dub was good, they would say so). The Streamline dub seems not only to show more of a sense of character, it gives the impression of more naturalistic sound in what’s supposed to be an indooor pool setting.
These kind of things do happen–the most famous example is perhaps the original dub of the first LUPIN III movie being regarded as superior to later adaptations. Very recently, however, I felt that the new dub of PATLABOR 2 left me preferring the original interpretations of Goto and Arakawa in the Manga U.K. dub. This is interesting, because the new Arakawa is arguably closer in sound to the original Japanese performance, yet I would say that sound somehow makes for a less convincing character overall in *English.*
I have the theory about dubbing that good acting is ultimately more important than good casting; that is, an actor who doesn’t initially “sound like the character should” can, at the end, convince you they are the character through their performance. Conversely, a person in the studio who is only “cast,” and fails to put full work into the acting can give you the feeling at the end they were merely doing an impression of the character, if you take my meaning. You can sometimes see this idea at work in live-action as well–take Daniel Craig, who looked like nobody’s idea of James Bond but was praised for being what Dave Merrill would call “an actor…somebody who ACTS…?”
–Carl
The thing is with B&N is that people stay there despite the lack of chairs and such in the manga section. It’s sort of an unspoken rule that you don’t treat the place like a library, and sure, ADULTS get that, but kids don’t, you know, give a shit. Hell, if they’re going to keep tolerating it, the stores might be better off with chairs; it would at least keep a few of the kids off the aisle.
I just wanted to let you know, Darryl that I dug up my old copy of Kurosagi volume 1, and read it, and enjoyed it. I wasn’t that interested in it when I got it, but your review intrigued me, and I’ll probably end up getting the whole series. Unless DH cancels it. *weeps for his beloved Museum of Terror. And probably Reiko the Zombie Shop*
I dunno; when I was a kid I read books and magazines sitting down in front of the rack at Safeway, and thought nothing of it–even though, looking back, I’m sure I was in adults’ way. So I can’t come down on kids for doing that now, expecially because, you never know, they might buy something.
Carl Horn made this point…
I was impressed by Gerald’s comparison, despite the fact I come out of the B.A.D. era (although when Corn Pone Flicks thought a Streamline dub was good, they would say so). The Streamline dub seems not only to show more of a sense of character, it gives the impression of more naturalistic sound in what’s supposed to be an indooor pool setting.
That was what I found impressive over listening to that clip. It sounded more like what I felt a swimming pool would be like, the ADV dub felt like they were in a bathroom instead.
Carl Horn said…
I dunno; when I was a kid I read books and magazines sitting down in front of the rack at Safeway, and thought nothing of it–even though, looking back, I’m sure I was in adults’ way. So I can’t come down on kids for doing that now, expecially because, you never know, they might buy something.
I might’ve pulled the same stunt at the local Sam’s Drugs or In & Out Mart in my parts (Ma & Pa establishments that are slowly fading away). But yeah, I often have to think of what I would’ve done 20 years ago in their place.
Hello, well all I have to say the about this is when I was just discovering the joy of reading printed material I would naturally gravitate to a chair. So I can’t say for certain why people clog the ales. All though I can say for a fact that it is not just the poky crazed teens and pre-teens that do this. My best friend who is 21 still does this and it annoys me to no end. I rag on him constantly about it but he just shrugs and keeps doing it. So I don’t think it’s just a lack of social grace. I think these people don’t give a heck if they inconvenience another person, just as long as there satisfied. At least I am pretty shear that is the case with my friend. I will try to get him to post on hear later to day so he can be interrogated by true Inquisitors of The Truth!. For if there is a herald of The Truth! it is him.
I wouldn’t limit reading in book store to just American kids.
When I was in the Book Off (a used Japanese book store chain) in New York City, the Japanese people, old and young, also read manga in the aisles. They were all standing while reading so they didn’t block the aisle as much. They were still reading them.
I’ve also seen older people relaxing at the cafes in B&N and Borders with a book that they haven’t purchased or even worse a magazine.
Well at lest for me if they are sitting down in a chair then I have no problem with it. The store puts the chair there or they have the café attached to the store so it is there decision to have people read there products with out paying for them first, but when people are in the aisle reading, not browsing the book selection but actually reading the darn things! That burns my bacon a bit. Because there are chairs right there for peat sake and if there aren’t any chairs in the store then I think the massage is clear. The owner does not wont you reading the products without paying for it first! Logic would dictate this but as we all now when it comes to fans and logic the words become mutually exclusive the vast preponderance of the time
Question: Do any of you go to your local library any more? I fined that the libraries in Michigan where my old forest strong hold was where excellent. Thank you Mr. Carnegie! Even going so far as to have a large Mango section and free wireless internet available to any one with a wireless card and a lop top. But when I relocated to my current mountain strong hold in the wilds of West Virginia the libraries became really small and have a pitiful selection of books and none existent Mango selection and very slow dial up inter nets
On the value of actuaries in real life: I gently suggest that you consult John Hodgman’s The Areas of My Expertise to learn more about the fascinating and complex world of real life actuaries. This book is also rife with useful charts and graphs.
On the boys’ love labeling business: I too get irritated by the urge to label anything that has male/male interaction as being about searing, throbbing, sweaty mansex. It’s so rare to find works that contain gay characters without turning them into something exotic and titillating. I mean there’s stuff that so sleazy and aims so squarely at the lowest common demoninator that you can’t help but be charmed, but most gays for girls type works are so blandly repetitive that I guess they need some sort of label to indicate that ceratin “this is utterly transgressive and dangerous and certainly guaranteed to freak out your cheerleader roommate and get you grounded by your square parents” quality that really moves the the downloads and ideally moves the books as well. It’s fine if people want to read Antique and only focus on Ono, or if people want to read Loveless as a relationship guide. When a publisher chooses to advertise works in ways which disguise actual quality and limit a potential general audience, I hope the fan audience it’s catering to is numerous enough to make the decision pay off. If good work continues to get published, that’s good. I’ll generously forgive them for the assaults on my dignity when I purchase their products.
Gravitation still gets on my nerves. Ick.
Also, in defense of Antique the drama, I watched the drama before I read the comic and enjoyed it. I rented it, but what I’ve seen of the English subtitle is indeed godawful. At any rate, separate from the manga, the drama is sweetly entertaining and subtlely works around its apparent “which customer’s problems will be solved with cake and unexpected insight this week?” premise. Certainly, though, it’s not as good as the comic. I thought Ono was gay in the drama, but my Japanese is far from perfect. In the end, I’ll forgive the drama all sorts of sins because I love Hiroshi Abe and Kippei Shiina so darn much. Abe is really excellent as Chikage, utterly hilarious in his silent, befuddled dignity.
Elizabeth
p.s. I very, very, very gently recommend that you read John Hodgman’s The Areas of My Expertise.
The only title I’ve worked on with a strong shonen ai element was BANANA FISH, and it’s also one of the titles I really regret not being able to continue with (as I was simply too busy). I took “shonen ai” simply to mean a story where gay relationships, attraction, or love is a theme present. Shonen ai just notes it’s male-male, as yuri does female-female. It doesn’t mean it’s explicit, portrayed, or even requited, just as love and attraction may or may not be in a “straight” story. BANANA FISH is ironically kind of the opposite of yaoi–a tiny amount of sex in a vast landscape of plot.
I was tempted to do a yaoi doujinshi about Noah and Yamaoka from EAGLE, as a desperate attempt to promote sales.
In the event that I were actually able to read, I would certainly read this book that is written by the “I’m a PC” guy from those Apple commercials, but as it stands I will try and track down the audiobook since he read it himself. Certainly, while John Hodgman is not himself an actuary, he IS a resident expert on them (The Daily Show would never mislead me on such matters) and I surmise that actuaries in real life are not as cool as he is.
“That’s BLASPHEMY, you old goat!”
It’s dawned on me that I myself do not own a copy of the old Streamline dub of Akira. Someone with that tape ought to capture the audio and post it to assure that “I’m in charge now. Men, we’re going to the Olympics!” is preserved for all time. Super bonus points if it can somehow be synced up with the DVD video, since I still prefer Cam Clarke’s “so you’re the KING of the MOUNTAIN, Tetsuo, but it’s all GARBAGE!” Kaneda to Johnny Yong Bosch’s stylings, despite the latter’s Mecha nomination for Best Actor in a Comedy.
most popular series over here tend to be seinen.
The word seinen has been hijacked by the overwhelming presence of bad people on the Internet such that by default it corresponds to “moe-seinen.” The distinction must be made between this vile refuse and the epic tales of Golgo 13 storming into suburbia and getting it on with a desperate housewife before ditching her without a word so’s he can shoot the chief of police’s new earring.
I was tempted to do a yaoi doujinshi about Noah and Yamaoka from EAGLE, as a desperate attempt to promote sales.
I’m afraid that you’d have had to go a step further and make it Yamaoka/Jo if you wanted to draw in “that” crowd, as even the stupendous joke that had the punchline of the Yuda-approved “crushing broken mirror shards in your hand” manuever wasn’t quite enough to satisfy their erm, shall we say, appetites.
Elizabeth –
If you think that I’m seperating Loveless from BL because I think BL is bad or icky, you’re sorely mistaken and obviously don’t listen to this podcast very much.
I took “shonen ai” simply to mean a story where gay relationships, attraction, or love is a theme present.
That was my impression, too. But then again, my experience with the genre is pretty limited. I used to be under the impression that shounenai as a whole was more along the lines of tasteful, artistic stuff like The Song of the Wind and the Trees and possibly Zetsu-ai. But I find now that those particular productions are the exceptions, not the rule. The bulk of it is just exploitive stuff, not very different from your average Harlequin romance novel, only with hawt man-sechsLOLZOMG111!
Frankly, I’m somewhat interested in enlightening, artistic representations of gay relationships and the troubles and tribulations that they cause. But I’m not interested in nubile young catboys fighting magical wizard-duels. That’s not my cup of tea. So I doubt very much that Loveless has anything to offer me.
What do you mean?!?!?
It has catboys schnuggling.
What more do you need!
No, no, no. That wasn’t my meaning at all. While you are clearly appalled and disgusted on every level by man on man action and only review out of a rigourous desire to report on every aspect of anime and manga, I meant to indicate that you recognize that Loveless comments on the broken nature of its characters and their relationships in a way that most BL works don’t. Often BL (and increasingly straight shoujo stuff) contains strong themes of inequality and dominance. I have no problem with this if a work has no pretensions to seriousness (or awesomely ridiculous pretensions to seriousness) or actually examines the full dimensions of such situations the way Loveless does. What I failed in convey in my previous message was how tired I am of BL stories where the presence of deeply unhealthy relationship dynamics is signifier of depth. Unless a work is transcendently stupid, there’s no pleasure in watching some poor kid get manipulated and worked over physically and emotionally. The stuff that’s worth reading either breaks free of genre cliches or takes a good hard look at what they really mean.
I wouldn’t call Loveless BL for the reasons you and Kolibri outlined earlier in this discussion, but I associate a lot of the relationship dynamics Loveless illustrates intelligently with those poor quality BL titles illustrate as deep and romantic. You see the same crap in Mayu Shinjo comics and Shoujo Cheese titles, so this definitely isn’t a weakness exclusive to yaoi. I just encountered it first and most fully in yaoi and in tittering fans who read Bronze as a deeply romantic tale of devotion and not an awesome camp masterpiece.
I’m so deeply addicted to sarcasm that even in a message intended to clarify my position, I can’t abandon it. I’m also overfond of complex sentences.
In closing, I’ve never actually listened to any of your podcasts. I deeply respect your opinions and those of Mr. Tarrant, but Mr. Surat’s deep velvetly tones combined with his inane prattle transport me so violently my doctor has advised my against exposure to any recordings of his voice. All I can do is vainly grasp at the threads of discussion here in the comments.
Elizabeth
The Streamline AKIRA is sometimes said to be one of the few anime films to break a million dollars at the U.S. box office. That at least sounds plausible to me; I recall it was around for at least a year and at times was showing in 40 theaters across the country. About $25-30 of that was mine; I saw it five times in four different cities.
I’ve got the LD of it around here somewhere…I think. No actual LD player, of course; I just enjoy it spiritually. I still think AKIRA has anime’s greatest original soundtrack, one where you really feel the composer was trying to get into what Otomo was doing instead of “this piece is for sad scenes, and this piece is for happy scenes.”