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This week we have a whole new set of audio problems as Clarissa sounds like a chipmunk that’s been chipmunked already (maybe we should do an entire show like this?). This week Daryl reviews the seminal Record of Lodoss War, Gerald reviews our first actual book without pictures in The Notenki Memoirs and Clarissa review the BL anthology J-Boy.
Also, just so you know what we were doing over at JACON:
Those Getbackers box sets were well earned.
Yes, blame the delays in episode releases on con panels, job interviews, finding a new condo, moving, and other things that betray the notion that we MAY have a semblance of a life. Media Blasters sent us Princess Princess, which I’m sure Clarissa will review one day…or maybe Daryl. Who knows? Also, we have worked out our issues with Right Stuf International and we’re no longer considered bootleggers to them, so please can stop sending them hate mail. Wow. We never said to boycott them, and it seems like that’s the natural step some of you took.
Introduction (0:00 – 19:58)
Our contest for the silver keychain is finally over! Yes, instead of doing something simple like T-shirts, we went straight to silver keychains. Up next, gold spinning hubcaps…maybe. Also, we completely corrupted one man’s life with–what else–KAZUO KOIKE!
Let’s News (19:59 – 51:27)
In what is probably the oldest and most irrelevant segment of news we’ve ever done (sorry folks, the next show will be marginally more up to date) we take a look at the stuff you’re all bored with talking about, like the Sakura-con Bandai Visual panel and how Bandai Visual’s pricing is insane. Also, Imaginasian TV is going to be releasing Orguss, Nobody’s Girl Remi, and Cat’s Eye in the US in an on demand DVDR format for roughly $10.00 a disk. TAKE THAT BANDAI VISUAL! We also reference this post on Patrick Macias’ blog. Clarissa seems to be unhappy with the release, but Gerald is looking forward to Orguss. Princess Prince of Tennis has been edited for the DVD release, but it’s just that opening and closing music was changed. Apparently this was a mistake on the part of the DVD producer. Funimation is going to be releasing One Piece uncut, but how many people are going to bother starting the show at episode 140 something? Probably not too many, which leads to a discussion about Funimation TV, Crayon Shin-chan, and Saint Seiya. Media Blasters has a bunch of new titles, and what makes this interesting is that all of it will be sub-only. Yes, including Kashimashi (CLARISSA’S FAVORITE SHOW). The Eisner award nominations came out, and Monster was nominated along with Ode to Kirihito, Project X: Cup Noodle, and Abandon the Old in Tokyo. Say, is the Avril Lavigne comic actually good? You tell us. FINALLY, we talk about the death of a man with no regrets. Eyebrows!
Lather’s Blather Podcast (51:28 – 52:33)
Jeff Tatarek’s own podcast has BEGUN! Now you have even LESS of a reason to listen to us, as if the incredibly long delays, irrelevant news, and reviews about shows from 17 years ago weren’t enough.
Review: Record of Lodoss War (52:34 – 1:40:34)
Daryl takes a look at what is probably one of the largest OAV projects in anime history. It’s the dream of every Dungeon & Dragons player come true [ELF CHICKS]. Actually, the whole story is based off of a Japanese D&D campaign from the 80s, so we’re talking 1st Edition, pre-Forgotten Realms. Listen to this barely-edited review that’s the length of most podcasts to find out why you should (or shouldn’t?) watch a show with a main character whose fighting style consists of running forward with his sword drawn to see if he hits something.
Elf chicks.
ELF CHICKS.
ELF CHICKS~!
Such fine and exquisite attention to detail!
Review: The Notenki Memoirs: Studio Gainax And The Men Who Created Evangelion (1:40:35 – 1:56:56)
Gerald does a book report on The Notenki Memoirs, which is probably the furthest we’ve ever gone from just anime and manga. Still, like Mechademia, at least it’s a book ABOUT anime and manga! He probably shouldn’t do book reviews since he tends to forget things and mix names up. Still, the book’s a good read if you’re interested in Gainax, and it’s cheap too!
Promo: R5 Central (1:56:57 – 1:57:26)
Dave and Joel may not have been able to get Atomic Warrior Valiant Denim out in time for their 100th episode, but worry not, for Mike Dent does the equivalent in well, every episode of R5 Central. Something tells me this is the kind of thing that’s funny to do once or twice, but once it’s every episode, there’s no joke. Wait, what do you mean this is supposed to be serious?
Review: J-Boy Manga Anthology (1:57:27 – 2:10:05)
Clarissa takes a look at a new one shot BL anthology based on a Japanese anthology of the same name. We say “one shot” because this seems to be a testing of the BL waters to see if this is viable. Why is her segment and Gerald’s so short in comparison to Daryl’s? Because they did a better job on editing.
Promo: Greatest Movie EVER! (2:10:06 – 2:10:58)
Listen. You can’t do a 360 in a helicopter. You just can’t. It’s impossible. It simply can’t be done. Except Roy Scheider says otherwise.
Closing (2:10:59 – 2:15:29)
Next time…more delays! Daryl was going to review Sirius no Densetsu aka Sea Prince and the Fire Child aka That Other Movie Sanrio Released In the 80s That Wasn’t Ringing Bell, but instead he’s got an advance review of 009-1 to do. Gerald’s reviewing Black Lion, and if you haven’t heard of that, all you need to know is that it’s by Go Nagai and it contains ninjas. Really, that’s the entire review right there. Finally, Clarissa reviews the infamous Ai no Kusabi. It’s by Gerald’s favorite director!
Or so we claim. What’s probably going to happen is that we’ll release a fairly lengthy JACON report first, then to stall for time, we’ll release the segments that would ordinarily comprise a single show individually over the course of the next few weeks. Daryl is currently in an undisclosed bunker where the Internet connection isn’t exactly reliable, and with Otaku USA deadlines, real estate closings, and other things that involve money eating up time, this is probably the only way to release at least SOME content on a fairly regular basis until June or so.
Hooray! A new show!
Shitty day’s are almost always fixed by unexpected happiness. Thanks for the hard work as always.
Huzzah!
Quick note about the Prince of Tennis DVDs. It’s not that bad of a release with 13 episodes across three discs. The Opening/Ending being cut is because the geniuses putting it out decided to put the American opening and close out and include the Japanese opening and close as extras. It makes no sense, but whatever. The stupidity of Prince of Tennis has be buying the release.
Hooray for new jobs and moving up in the world!
I should buy the newer Lodoss DVD box and compare it to my older version. And I should rewatch it, because I have no recollection of seeing Deedlit’s tit for a second. I mean, what the hell! This is important stuff!
Also, to be a nitpicking bastard, Kazumi “shit-eating contest” Amano/Okada wasn’t 14 at the time. She was the same age as her boyfriend, 21. Perhaps you got her mixed up with Takeda’s wife Hiroe Suga, who was 14 when they met (but 17 or 18 during Daicon 3).
You guys are back, I am so happy I can cry, wait a second I am crying.
But I am man enough to accept it 😛
By the way Congratulations Daryl.
am I right?
Hey Guys
Just so you know, ILA did fansub Orguss… but by the time people saw the finish of their sub–it was licensed….
I liked the series… but I’m not sure if I’m going to buy DVD+Rs…
Squeaky Clarissa is the greatest thing. EVER.
“I didnt do anything…. maybe!”
More like “new AWO = dance all night!”
I was looking forward to a grim Sunday spent bashing the office computer, and instead I’ll have AWO! And Fast Karate! And Downloadable Content! YIPPEE!!
Some D&D Geekery –
You’re right about “Elf” as a class, but there were Drowe back then, Drowe having made their first appearance in the Against the Giants series for first edition 😉
I’ve never seen RoLW, but some 15 years ago I read an article in Anime UK magazine (god bless it) about it. The character I remembered? Pirotess.
Some more comments (typing as I listen):
I think I have the first episode of Lodoss *in that dub* – I’ll try to go through my old VHS in my folks house and see if I can pass it on.
Oh – Silly prices – Around 1991 I used to buy the Animego UK VHS releases of Bubblegum Crisis – 1, 30 minute episode for TWENTY TWO *POUNDS* or (~XE Dot Com~) 44 dollars.
This episode is summed up as follows “Didly Dee Potatoes!”
High Fantasy:
Record of Lodoss War was entertaining, but you are right, there are very few shows that are straight up fantasy shows; often there are mix-ins of sci-fi/mecha.
One VERY good fantasy show that is coming out right now is Seirei no Moribito. It is well worth checking out for fans of the genre.
You want to know which version of Lodoss War? You get the only one available at Blockbuster, thank god it’s the Red (New) version. That’s how most people I know learned about about this series.
As fellow lovers of NHK, you may be happy to know that the manga ends in Japan with the next published chapter, Chapter 40.
Also, you probably already know that Tokyopop has liscenced the original novel for translation and release into the US.
More NHK = dance all night.
Congrats on the new job, by the way.
Bandai pricing: Well, see, they’re pulled this kind of shit before. I don’t know if anyone here remembers AnimeVillage? That was Bandai’s first entry into the American anime market. It was gonna be great! We were finally gonna get Gundam (legitemately!) We were gonna get Blue Sub #6, and Outlaw Star, and all this other cool stuff!
…with three episodes on a tape! And twenty-seven-fifty per tape! And that’s the dub–the sub is thirty-five dollars!
I went on the message board they’d set up, and posted (paraphrased) “You fucking what?“
They replied “Well, those are the market prices, so obviously that’s what people are willing to pay!”
Uh, so the fact that you OWN THE PROPERTY doesn’t enter into things?
Oh, and the company rep did indeed trot out the line about how these tapes would be fifty dollars if I bought them in Japan. Indeed, they said, I should be happy that they’re selling them to me for as little as thirty-five bucks!
On Halo Jones’fan comment re:Bandai Visual
See? At lease SOMEONE understands the importance of history and context when considering these things. Of COURSE Bandai is going to the old playbook! It’s what they do, it’s what they ALWAYS do.
They pulled the plug on Animevillage.com because it didn’t meet desired results, i.e. projections way out of wack for what the market would actually support. And recall they responded to ‘knowing fan wants’ by producing a dub of the first Gundam movie that was straight out of the ’80s. Then it was “well, we have to get a show on TV, THAT will be successful” and Cartoon Network bit on Gundam Wing. The excitment created by that got Saban interested in subcontracting to bring Escaflowne to Fox, and Bandai thought they had died and gone to heaven. The Big Time! MAJOR AMERICAN TV BROADCAST! The Holy Grail of the industry!
And it crapped out really quick because Fox had no interest in unswearving support when the Saban mangled transliteration failed to generate numbers akin to Gundam Wing.
Ahh, crap. Same old thing.
Say…Notenki memories..since the guy was head of the retail arm of GP, does it discuss the trip General Products made to the 1984 World Con in L. A.? How about their abortive attempt to start an American branch?
which failed in many similar ways to the way Bandai is doing things….
I breathed a little nostalgic sigh remembering the epic failure of Escaflowne on Fox. Nobody had any idea what the hell they were doing in that situation: Bandai had no idea what kind of show Fox would want to air (so they offered them the prettiest thing they had) and Fox apparently had no idea what kind of show they had bought, leading them to hilariously excise the two thirds shoujo that the show was actually composed of. It was like parking two cars directly across from one another, blindfolding both drivers and telling them to step on it.
That “fictional presentation of a report from a game” shows up in a lot of Techno-Thriller novels, as well. Tom Clancy’s “Red Storm Rising” is a particularly egregious example (basically, he and Larry Bond played a bunch of ‘Harpoon!’ games, and then wrote up the results)
Say…Notenki memories..since the guy was head of the retail arm of GP, does it discuss the trip General Products made to the 1984 World Con in L. A.? How about their abortive attempt to start an American branch?
“The year before DAICON 3, we all travelled to the U.S. to check out Worldcon in Boston. […]” (Pg. 45; that was 1980. The book does not mention Worldcon in 1984.)
“Both GAINAX and General Products looked like they were on the rebound, and it was decided we would try and expand into the American market. […]” (Pg. 146-147.)
Somehow, in almost 20 years of watching anime, I have never seen Lodoss War. Too many elves for me. I think I’ll check it out now. After Golgo 13: Queen Bee, of course.
What, Daryl gets to babble for an hour about an average old anime, while Clarissa gets 20 minutes right in the end? Boo!
I’ve been kind of avoiding J-Boy because I’m not really into cute and cuddly man sex and especially lack of it. I know what you mean about the phases though, although my “cute” phases seem to be quite short 😉 Because let’s be honest – steamy sex is a big part of why I read BL, and if the story doesn’t have it needs to stand on it’s own as a story, like Yoshinaga’s works do for example (and boo! for not mentioning that she’s also up for an Eisner). So Clarissa, do (most of) those stories in J-Boy work as stories? Do they have interesting characters, interesting plots? And how many stories are there altogether, it’s quite a hefty book isn’t it?
But Ai no Kusabi… My favourite BL anime, maybe my all time favourite BL work of all time. You’ll do it proud Clarissa.
kolibri –
Gah, yeah, we forgot Yoshinaga. I’m ashamed of myself.
Anyway, J-Boy. Like with everything, the quality of the stories as stories varies.
There are 19 stories total in J-Boy, though the last one is basically a collection of 4koma strips.
A lot of the characters and stories are pretty generic, honestly. Of course, that applies to most manga, BL included, so…
As far as character and story, the best definitely has to be “The Summer and Nostalgia,” Yukimura’s story. But I also thought “We Have a Hero in Our Hearts” (childhood friends and tokusatsu, awww), “Neko Samurai” and “Loving Boys Boarding School” (which work pretty well as light parody pieces, I think) were pretty good just as short stories.
But we’re still not talking anything super deep, and Yukimura’s is the only one that came anywhere within leagues of something as emotionally touching as Yoshinaga’s work. Though I suppose that’s kind of an unfair comparison to make, because Yoshinaga rocks the house and has mastered ripping your heart into tiny pieces then taping it back together.
More BL anthologies would be nice, but yeah, I hope the next one has a better assortment of artists and some more explicit scenes.
Ai no Kusabi is a terrifying thing to tackle, but I love it lots. I’ll try to be smart and talk about background stuff and all, not just how incredibly hot Kaneto Shiozawa was as Iason, I promise.
I can’t wait for the novel release here, but I hope DMP pays more attention to it than they have the Konohara Narise novels. Those have gotten better with each one, but I still notice a pretty infuriating number of typos in those, and they still feel kind of stiff (though maybe that’s Konohara’s writing, my Japanese sucks too much to read her books). I think DMP’s editors need to ride closer herd on the novels, they just don’t seem quite up to par with their manga releases.
Hey, they could hire me to edit them!
Hahaha, if only.
hey guys, im new to anime world order, but i wanted to say that you guys freakin rock!!! i think you should go over some anime like mythical detective loki ragnarok, because i listened to your podcast about odin, and i thought it would be kind of funny for you to try something that kind of relates to it in the stupidest way possible. anyway, just sayin hi. later=)
Ai no Kusabi is a terrifying thing to tackle, but I love it lots. I’ll try to be smart and talk about background stuff and all, not just how incredibly hot Kaneto Shiozawa was as Iason, I promise.
As long as a suitably long time is still dedicated to that incredibly important topic 🙂
I can’t wait for the novel release here, but I hope DMP pays more attention to it than they have the Konohara Narise novels.
I tell you, I’ll be queuing for those books wherever they sell them first. I simply cannot wait.
hahaha, the opening outtake is hilarious. also, seeing ” * = dance all night” in my downloads makes me giggle, so i’ve gotten two laughs before i’ve even finished the theme song. kudos.
Hello old-school SA reference.
P0N0S IN EAR = DANCE ALL NIGHT
ding.,
I think you missed something about the ImaginAsian releases. The first DVD will come with a keepsake case that will hold all of the discs. Each DVD from volume 2 on will come in a sleeve.
Good show. I hope you do many more book reviews.
On the Daicon Film movies they are almost impossible to get. You have to buy them directly from Gainax and they do not ship overseas.
I scored the Revenge of Yamata Orochi a few years ago at Fanime when they had a table in the dealers room. A year later I lucked out and was given a copy of The Return of Ultraman by Yasuhiro Takeda at the after con party. I sent him some Daniel Pinkwater novels as a thank you. I wonder if he ever got them.
Hi! Justin Sevakis is a fucking tool. His recent review of Tekkon Kinkreet at ANN typifies the absolute lack of standards and professionalism over there. That’s fine if he didn’t like the movie, but calling the staff “noobs” makes Justin look less like someone qualified to work in the industry, and more like a jealous little fanboy.
Fuck, guys, I was JUST WATCHING Rickroll.
“Jeff Tatarek’s own podcast, so now you have even LESS of a reason to listen to us, like the incredibly long delays, irrelevant news and reviews about shows from 17 years ago wasn’t enough.”
But…I had all of that in MY podcast. Hell, my review was for a film over 30 years old!
Oh, and Squeaky Clarissa just adds more proof to my assertion that she’s being held in a bathysphere. She was obviously breathing a helium mix because of the great depth.
Great episode, all! Thanks loads for the Lodoss coverage. I’ve only read the manga, so maybe I should check out the OAVs.
I actually just bought J-Boy, and was going to email you and suggest it to Clarissa, but she beat me to the punch. Was I the only one who found those catboy 4-koma at the end there kinda disturbing…?
I eagerly await the next episode: Go Nagai, 009, and Ai no Kusabi? YES.
Um, WTF? Why is there no love for the dark-skinned chicks? Pirotess is not alone – what about Urd? Rally Vincent? Come on, Japan!
Don’t forget Nadia and Anthy.
Oh, and you’re wrong; there is too Urd porno. The old “IF” doujinshi series had plenty of it (and, as I recall, not really all that much Skuld stuff.) Of course, this was from the early Nineties, so there you are. GOD I AM OLD
(also one of the series had Urd turn into a dickgirl and pork Belldandy.)
I scored the Revenge of Yamata Orochi a few years ago at Fanime when they had a table in the dealers room.
Is this the one on the Daicon Animation LD? If it is, my sole recollection of it are C Sue Shambaugh and her husband explaining how the film is so “enthralling” that they’ve never been able to sit through the whole thing.
exedore said…
Is this the one on the Daicon Animation LD?
Gilles replies:
Probably is, after all Daicon Films did not do very many titles. The DVD has a large set of photos documenting the film, the model city had some amazing details.
How can anyone review J-Boy and then fail to mention the spiritual names? And I was soo looking forward to finding out the spiritual names of Daryl and Gerald.
And if editing the segments makes them so much more shorter than I think you don’t need to edit them so much. That way I can get more content in less the waiting time.
Diddly Dee Potatoes.
Say…Notenki memories..since the guy was head of the retail arm of GP, does it discuss the trip General Products made to the 1984 World Con in L. A.? How about their abortive attempt to start an American branch?
which failed in many similar ways to the way Bandai is doing things….
I felt the same way Steve! I was thinking about that a while ago as well at how hard it was for Lea Hernandez & Co. to keep that subsidiary afloat. Pretty much the fan interests over-sighted what the company had in mind from the start. Of course that was over 15 years ago, but those who don’t look to the past are doomed to repeat it anyway.
Here’s some of my thoughts over the latest podcast installment….
Love your news segments anyway, since I barely pay much attention to what goes on beyond the newsgroups.
Plus I don’t think I deserve to try winning that keychain anyway, since I can never narrow down to one anime I wanted to write about to tell you guys of personally. Made it a think to not single-out anything as I find it a hard choice anyway (much like why I haven’t voted for elections since the late 90’s). I hope Sam has sent you his address for the prize to be sent to.
I’m only glad someone had the balls to say that in front of the Bandai Visual’s Prez’s face. I hope more of this will continue as well.
In the case of ImaginAsian getting the rights to the three TMS properties, I’m all for them doing so, but it would’ve been nice to have pressed discs as opposed to something I expect to see done by movie studios to critics as “Oscar Consideration” (I have a couple of those discs that were done in that fashion).
As someone said here earlier, ILA had fansubbed Orguss up to when it was licensed, and another group had been slowly subbing Cats Eye as well, but know one had tackled “Remi” at all. It should be noticed that TMS’s “Remi” is not the same as Nippon Animation’s “Remi” that was released in ’97 (and the last in the World Masterpiece Theater series).
It would be nice if this would lead to other TMS properties getting released in the future like Takarajima (Treasure Island), Rose of Versailies (or “Lady Oscar” as TMS likes using too), or Space Adventure Cobra.
Speaking of 4Kids, I had to see this horrible thing!
I remember having seen a tape of “Record of Lodoss War” being sold at a comic/rpg shop near my house a decade ago, but never got around to buying/watching it as I wasn’t sure if I was into that sort of fantasy/D&D stuff (having an older brother who was into D&D back in the day and I wasn’t). After hearing your review of the OAV, I might have to check it out. It sounds like it tends to mock a lot of the conventions often found in D&D given what is said about it.
And yeah, it was probably a little picky to critique the cheapness of the animation because of a gaffe in the cel layering (of course I’ve seen far worse in my lifetime back on Saturday morning).
Interesting to hear how they got all those vinyl sheets to use for the Daicon III & IV films (though I wonder how many times they had to wash those sheets once the IV film was made if they didn’t make as many, rather they had already used professional equipment by that point). I still favor the first film myself with it’s story as opposed to Daicon IV’s music video elements.
Do wonder what type of pain they had to use for the vinyl sheets though (not sure if the water-based acrylics could work). Of course regular tempera/poster paint on cels can crack/flake off easily over time.
Speaking of which, I’m now the owner of nearly 1,300 unused animation cels, and they’re all UNPUNCHED! I don’t know how unlucky I can be, and those ACME hole punchers are $700 new!
Shame too since it would give me an excuse to use my Kransogorsk K-3 16mm camera to film something with it (there’s still a good number of amateurs that do use 16mm to this day). I can always go digital anyway and not use ’em.
I actaully enjoyed “The Triplets of Bellevue” (thankfully a theater near me had it when it was out) and can name a few other French animated movies of interest…
“Le Roi et l’Oiseau” (a classic)
“Johnny the Giant Killer” (from the “Walt Disney of France” Jean Image, though often found in the Public Dormain)
“Fantastic Planet” (albeit animated in the former Czechoslovakia)
“The Twelve Tasks of Asterix” (a childhood fav)
By the way, here’s a couple of Daicon Film’s work on Google/YouTube…
“Patriotic Task Force Dai-Nippon”
“Return of Ultraman”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2232750013734831521
I tried looking for Notenki Memoirs sometime ago while I was at Borders, but couldn’t seem to find it where I thought it would be (Graphic Novels). Might have to get it online like always.
Anyway, that’s all for now, sayonara!
Oh man, the spiritual names story was really fucking good too. I should have talked about that one as well, you’re right. I actually can’t think of why I didn’t. Huh.
Perhaps we can reveal our spiritual names in an upcoming episode. Of course, that’s probably almost as difficult as asking the really awesome question we got about what our Stands would be. Which, you’ll note, we have yet to answer.
The thing with editing making the episodes shorter is that what gets cut out is stuff that really sucks and makes no sense, or 20 extra minutes of us saying the same exact thing over and over.
So it’s not really like you’d get more or better content if we edited less, the episodes would just be pretty much unlistenable.
So it’s not really like you’d get more or better content if we edited less, the episodes would just be pretty much unlistenable.
She ain’t kiddin’ folks. I still have no idea why there are podcasts out there that seem to be so proud of not editing anything and then end up sucking so much. There’s been talk that we might do a live show at a convention at some point, and for that we’d have to actually practice a bit or our secret of how horrible we really are would be found out!
Yeah, Nontenki Memoirs did go into much more detail about how they tried to expand into America and how that was essentially a failure although they seemed to blame it more on the laziness of the Japanese employees in America. Like I said, doing book reports is sort of tough for me since there’s far more information in that book than in a TV series and if I talked about everything I guess, aside from it being like three hours long, no one would have a reason to pick it up. Although I didn’t mention at the end of the book how there’s an interview with the principals of Gainax not including the author and how they essentially contradict much of what Takeda says, very entertaining.
I remember watching other French animation long with Fantastic Planet, although many of those fall into the “we’re so artsy so we’re going to abuse the audience, however I do really like some of the stuff that comes out of France and Eastern Europe like this short which is one of the creepiest animated shorts I’ve seen, good stuff. I remember watching some of these other strange shorts on Brave years ago (when they actually showed artsy stuff before Bravo turned into the Butt Pirates of the Caribbean Network) which stayed with me today. I remember this one was done entirely in a blue haze so it constantly looked like dusk and featured a farmer feeding raw eggs to a pig, and he cracked an egg open to examine it, pulled the yolk back in and continued to feed it to the pig, this was followed by a naked man who walked up to a cliff, and dived off of it and then stepped on a piece of grass which, for about a full minute was shown curling up from being stepped on, very strange, but I had to get that out :).
I guess Nontenki Memoirs did a lot to disillusion me to the idea that three or four guys could put together an amazing piece of animation like Daicon 4 over a summer since none of that actually happened and basically everything they did, they did in a semi-professional means.
As someone who discovered the raw, 10″ uncut anime at an AD&D convention, I was very impressed by the way Daryl and Clarissa slang the refs., although I would remind you–in a high-pitched, annoying voice–that the Drow were introduced as early as module G3, “Hall of the Fire Giant King.”
I think the difference in resources between Daicon III and IV was a point that had been brought out in earlier ANIMERICA interviews with Toshio Okada and Hiroyuki Yamaga. Speaking of that magazine, I was also there at the time U.S. Manga Corps announced their license of LODOSS, and in retrospect, it might have been something of a turning point in the early history of the U.S. anime home video industry. I don’t know for certain that this is true, but the word at the time was that AnimEigo had LODOSS sewn up, and then snatched away by USMC at the last moment. These things, of course, happen in the licensing game, and to whose benefit depends on which party in the game you are. But it was possibly this loss that cut short AnimEigo’s momentum when it came to the U.S. anime industry, whereas they had very much been a player all through the early ’90s.
Another LODOSS memory: it was Anime Expo ’94 at a room party–one of Seishun Shitemasu’s, I think–and Mr. Yuuki came in, and he had been drinking. He showed us that very promotional dub, of which you seem to have played one of the better-sounding excerpts. Anyway, the important thing is that he sat directly down onto a certain paper plate on which Rich Anderson had drawn the face of Taffeta, a meganekko character of his. I didn’t quite have the courage to insist upon tracing the outline of Yuuki-sensei’s ass ere he arose, but needless to say, the plate has become an honored relic on my shelf.
–Carl
P.S. The “paizuri-licious” remark about Pirotess was not only worth the entire show, it was worth all patent royalties issued for .mp3 technologies to date.
Oh man, I still remember how disappointed I was by the Lodoss TV series. It was some time in the late 90’s when I saw it. I really enjoyed the OVAs, so when I saw a box-set of the TV series at a great sale price, I snapped it right up. The amazing OP had me really pumped…but it didn’t take long for me to realize that it was actually a pretty crappy show. Quite a shame.
As a side note, another role modern anime fans may know Yoshiko Sakakibara for is the Prime Minister in GITS:SAC 2nd Gig.
~Kamon
By the way, here’s something I’m glad I won’t have to pay nearly a hundred on getting!
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=20010881315
Gerald last time said something to the extend of…
I remember watching other French animation long with Fantastic Planet, although many of those fall into the “we’re so artsy so we’re going to abuse the audience, however I do really like some of the stuff that comes out of France and Eastern Europe like this short which is one of the creepiest animated shorts I’ve seen, good stuff.
I’ve probabaly seen far worse. I highly recommend tracking down the works of Walerian Borowczyk (not his porno stuff) and perhaps Raoul Servais.
I think I grew up on that arty stuff at an early age due to PBS once having a show on late night called “Alive from Off Center”. That show was really amusing and nearly gave me nightmares during bedtime.
I remember watching some of these other strange shorts on Brave years ago (when they actually showed artsy stuff before Bravo turned into the Butt Pirates of the Caribbean Network) which stayed with me today.
Heh, I missed out because my cable company added Bravo too late, so I missed out on it’s glory days before it got diluted. 20, 30 years earlier, channels like Showtime and HBO never shied away from showing these things inbetween movie breaks at the odd hours of the day. I tried to never miss those moments when it was common to watch an NFB film or other indie/foreign shorts get seen on these premium channels in the 80’s.
In the mid 90’s, I rediscovered the times I spent watching these on cable at the public library, as their A/V department had a lot of them on 16mm or VHS I constnatly borrowed and tried making copies for myself just so I had them (since these tapes were terribly expensive to obtain on their own). Nowadays because of places like YouTube or such, you can surely find a lot of cool things to watch as long as you do it quickly before it might get taken down.
Here’s some of my favs to check out!
“Do-it-Yourself Cartoon Kit” (Bob Godfrey/Biographic Films, 1961)
http://stage6.divx.com/off-the-wall/video/1206902/do-it-yourself-cartoon-kit
“Technological Threat” (Bill Kroyer, 1988)
“The Killing of an Egg” (Paul Driessen, 1977)
“Moonbird” (John & Faith Hubley, 1959)
“Sing Beast Sing” (Marv Newland, 1980)
“Neighbours” (Norman McLaren/NFBC, 1952)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2976945051371832639
“The Critic” (Ernest Pintoff/Mel Brooks, 1963)
“CLosed Mondays” (Will Vinton/Bob Gardiner, 1974)
“Incubus” (Guido Manuli, 1985)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8448863190101956127
“Balance” (Wolfgang and Christoph Laurenstein, 1989)
“Surogat/Ersatz” (Dusan Vukotic/Zagreb Film, 1962)
“Munro” (Gene Deitch/Rembrandt Films, 1960)
“The Fly” (Ferenc Rofusz/Pannonia Filmstudio, 1980)
“Sisyphus” (Marcell Jankovics/Pannonia Filmstudio, 1974)
OK, that’s enough homework for one night!
I guess Nontenki Memoirs did a lot to disillusion me to the idea that three or four guys could put together an amazing piece of animation like Daicon 4 over a summer since none of that actually happened and basically everything they did, they did in a semi-professional means.
True, even I had that thought it was done like that too before I’ve heard about it now. Of course given the semi-pro involvement, it’s still kinda amusing they couldn’t get past the vinyl sheets and Fujica model 8mm movie camera used for those films. of course since they had a convention to operate, it was the best they could do.
Incidentally, your DYRL torrent has quite a range of nationalities.
All the way back in the first volume of Hellsing, Hirano, being an alpha-otaku, lists his intended voice actors for a theoretical Hellsing anime. Yoshiko was listed there, of course, and Hirano’s notes elsewhere expound on his deep, unsettling love for Haman Karn, a major Sakakibara role from Zeta Gundam. I don’t know if the TV series was in the works all the way back at the release of the first voluime (it could have been, considering what the TV series covers), but when it rolled around, Hirano got most of or all of his voice actors. Basically what I’m saying is that the love of Yoshiko Sakakibara is very, very strong.