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Is time and space broken, or have the cartoons driven us crazy? Daryl’s reviewing the historic anime anthology Robot Carnival, Gerald talks about the historical business manga Project X: Cup Noodle, and Clarissa makes AWO history by talking about When They Cry: Higurashi.
Longest podcast blog post ever? Possibly. This episode ran long, so we split it in two.
Intro and News:
Reviews:
Timecodes for Part 1 are as follows:
Introduction (0:00 – 38:22)
In a bit of a departure from our typical scope, Gerald was sent a copy of the live-action independent film Big Dreams, Little Tokyo to check out. Somehow we ended up talking a lot about Lost in Translation instead, though Daryl was far more inclined to turn the discourse towards Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, despite the fact that Ghost Dog was in fact hiding under the SINK, not the toilet as he stated. This is the price we pay for not owning our own copies of Branded to Kill. Is there a quotable sound bite that can be salvaged from this and put up in their Reviews and Links page? PERHAPS.
13:45 – Daryl relates his experience with attending Dragon*Con, its podcasting track, and the Parsec Awards. Considering that the sample nomination Daryl submitted consisted primarily of his scene for scene description of MD Geist, actually winning this award was not really the stated objective of attending this convention. What was? Contrary to what that song from Cheers said, sometimes you want to go where NOBODY knows your name. After being in the vicinity of the gods of podcasting–who are all quite normal, down-to-earth folks despite their penchant for filking–it’s probably safe to say that we won’t be making any waves in the “podcastosphere” anytime soon since “nobody in their right mind would listen to a podcast that’s several hours long and released every week/every other week.” Fortunately for us, otaku are the opposite of people in their right mind!
18:47 – Oh yeah, reading emails and playing voicemails! Remember that? We talk about the Trials and Tribulation / Heartache and Frustration involved in becoming an anime translator, then Erin from the Ninja Consultant podcast calls in to talk about the finer points of theatrical film distribution, which prompts a mention of the Anime Bento Festival‘s one day theatrical showings of anime. Want to see more anime released in movie theaters? Having these succeed would be a good start. In the “what do we think about…” category of emails which constitutes a good deal of the emails we get, we’re asked our thoughts on Ninja Nonsense aka 2×2 Shinobuden.
We wrap things up by stating that we’re going to move away from doing full reviews of titles which we haven’t seen in their entirety, so from now on when we get Volume 1 of something, we’ll just talk about it briefly for a few minutes either at the beginning or ending of the show. Otherwise, we’ll never get through all this stuff! Also, in case you haven’t heard, the iTunes Music Store has put up for sale a variety of series by Tezuka Productions, such as the 1980s Astro Boy, the 1990s Black Jack OAVs, and the 2004 Phoenix TV series that is set to be released by Media Blasters soon. Best of all, they’re really cheap!
Let’s News! (38:22 – 1:23:03)
Some more details and clarifications have surfaced since we recorded this, but the main news is that ADV is taking over all of Geneon’s sales, marketing, and distribution. A lot of what we said in the show isn’t entirely spot-on since the original ICv2 article as well as ANN were down at the time of recording, but it’s still true that a substantial amount of Geneon has ceased to be. They’re presumably still going to be around as far as licensing and production goes, but this feels a lot like when EA acquired Origin Systems. To this day, Daryl continues to bear a grudge towards them (and the entire MMO genre) for the cancellation of Privateer 3 and the two Wing Commander titles that should’ve come out after Wing Commander: Prophecy. In another cost-cutting measure, even English dubbing is being outsourced/relocated to China and there’s only one anime series remaining that is still using cel animation. Can all of these acquisitions and cost-cutting measures really be good in the long run? We’re skeptical. Also, Odex has been trying to extract money from people who download anime in Singapore; here is a short summary. Here is a posting about a guy who can’t even import Region 2 DVDs to Singapore without them being confiscated by MDA. To see the exact letter that’s being sent along with the rest of the links, click here. That thread may not be viewable to the public due to being archived or whatever soon, though.
Promo: Soccergirl, Inc (1:23:03 – 1:23:50)
Daryl found out about this show because Ichigo from Anime-Pulse is a fan of it, but he never could make sense out of it. After meeting her at DragonCon at 2:00 AM on Saturday and getting a Kim Jong-Il bumper sticker, he can only conclude that the widespread success of this program is that it is, in fact, a high-concept cult of personality. Also, filking. The possibility of shooting her with a clown pistol was considered, but the comedy of that is completely invalidated if you shoot a total stranger. That would just get you beaten up by large, imposing filking machines, the Browncoats, and an army of Beta Clones. Did we mention she won the Joe Murphy Memorial Award? As otaku we’re fated to die young as Joe did, only there won’t be anyone to mourn our deaths since being a self-proclaimed Expert of Anime is a lot like being an Expert of Justice.
…wait, they wanted us to put those Parsec badge images they sent us on our website? Daryl thought you were supposed to print it out and put it on his physical DragonCon badge. Oops!
Timecodes for Part 2:
Review: Robot Carnival (4:04 – 49:30)
This was the very first thing Justin Sevakis wrote about for his Buried Treasure column at ANN, so Daryl was outclassed from the start, not even bothering to state the original Japanese titles. This movie has largely been discussed to death over the last twenty years and we have little that is original or insightful to add (here’s a fanzine article from 1991), but all Daryl ever does is steal other people’s ideas and present them as his own anyway.
Promo: Anime Pacific (49:30 – 50:30)
See how this promo is just an excerpt from their show of them talking about something silly (although in this case, unrelated to what the show itself is about)? That’s the kind of promos we need. Lots of. Except we’re too lazy to ever actually listen to our own show. That’s where YOU come in!
Review: Project X: Nissin Cup Noodle (50:30 – 1:04:03)
Not to be confused with Cup Nude (probably not work safe), this is a true story of personal prevalance and triumph…except when it comes to people in America actually BUYING this thing. Gerald reviews one of the few business manga to be released in English (along with the manga about the history of 7-11 and the one about the Datsun Fairlady Z), but for whatever reason, the average US manga reader is simply not interested in manga about how to shift consumer habits. This one’s a historical biography of Momofuku Andou released by DMP. Daryl really, really wants the manga DMP released where ASTRO BOY IS IN THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK, but he has never been able to physically see it. Fortunately, Amazon has it. Also, Astro Boy tells the biography of Helen Keller. And Beethoven. And Einstein, which is not on Amazon. Someday when we have money again, these are all getting bought.
Promo: Dave and Joel’s Fast Karate For the Gentleman (1:04:03 – 1:05:07)
See these guys? Their listeners love these guys. Make them promos all the time. And fanart and stuff. Probably because unlike us, the people they personally know listen to their podcast. And that picture of Gerald up above? Yeah, they made that too and never sent it to us until recently. We should get more of this stuff (and remember to actually post it), unless the secret to engaging such levels of fan interaction requires having forums.
Review: When They Cry: Higurashi (1:05:07 – 1:23:50)
Clarissa submits to repeated listener requests to review this series. It’s moe horror, which is generally a redundant term only this one has graphic violence. Nothing makes otaku want to protect the cute girls (and buy the full set of dakimakura) more than seeing them make crazy, deranged, contorted faces and murder each other over and over again. BAD END after BAD END results, though not all of them involve angrily severing your penis with a pair of scissors. We lost that picture but don’t really feel like asking for it in /r/ since it would require monitoring 4chan for an extended period of time. That place moves too fast to keep up.
You have nothing to fear about this podcast becoming overrun by the immortal enemy that is moe just because we talked about Higurashi…OR DO YOU?
Oh snap! Time to restore the balance, Gerald style!
Closing (1:23:50 – 1:29:05)
For our next trick and the coveted Show 60 milestone, we’re talking entirely about Osamu Tezuka. DEAL WITH IT. Daryl will be talking about (can’t even really call it a review) Astro Boy, specifically the three anime incarnations of the “Birth of Astro Boy” storyline as taken from the 60s version of Astro Boy, the 80s version, and the 2003 one. Gerald will review Vertical Inc’s latest Tezuka offering Apollo’s Song, and–prompted by the iTunes Music Store releases–Clarissa faces her fears and reviews the Black Jack OAVs/movie from the 1990s that Osamu Dezaki and Akio Sugino worked on.
We’ve already recorded Show 60. You thought THIS episode ran long…
A grizzly event? Like with a huge bear biting and mauling people? Sounds rather grisly…
Gotcha!
I have so many questions about the Astroboy 2003 series, I hope you all can answer them on the next podcast.
Also I can’t wait for all your reviews for the OSamu Tezuka special episode 60.
I don’t know if this is already known, but if you search Tezuka on itunes music store several or all of his short films are on there.
Once again, fantastic show. Only thing I have to say is that it seems the voicemails are spliced into the show after without anyone commenting on them. Is it because you only really get voicemails which don’t require responses? Just wondering!
Tim, if you threw in some mercury contamination, you’ll get Frankenheimer’s Prophecy.
There’s WAY too much for me to talk about for this episode! (just to let people know)
– Have to get myself a new HDTV set soon (only a year and a half before they’ll bother to switch off the old analog channels in order to ruin my TV enjoyment of the past few decades!
– Big Dreams, Little Tokyo sounds interesting a film, and I had seen Lost in Translation at a cinema once and wasn’t sure what to make of it, but I can agree with Gerald on it being about social disconnection with the main character in the film. This film might be something I want to share with my friend I’ve brought up now teaching English over in Kofu, Japan. Not sure if it’s out in the indie circuit or not.
– Having checked up on that “Anime Bento Festival” thingy being done, it looks as if the closest theater that will play Cagliostro near me is 51 miles up in Livonia, MI, second closest is 70 miles south in Lima, OH (a city I don’t expect this sort of thing to happen in). My town sucks (damn you National Amusements)!
Having checked up on “Tezuka Productions” over at the iTunes store, here’s the shorts available for $1.99 each…
– Tale of a Street Corner (1962)
– Mermaid (1964)
– Drop (1965)
– Pictures at an Exhibition (1966)
– Jumping (1984)
– Broken Down Film (1985)
– Legend of the Forest (1987)
– Muramasa (1987)
I would probably suggest getting Street Corner, Pictures at an Exhibition and Legend of the Forest personally for their longer lengths to view over the number of YouTube versions of the other shorts currently available (never realized how many Jumping’s there are now, I felt like I was the only one who ever knew of this 12 years ago when I came across it on a public library’s VHS tape).
Still, this is just what I wanted to have happen to many indie animated short films I used to see often thrown on as ‘filler’ on Showtime in the 80’s, since they hardly find a place to release them on DVD lately, iTunes is a nice alternative route to explore (also Video On Demand through cable systems).
– Funny hearing about New Generation Pictures wanting to get their dubs done in China nowadays. That’s more ludicrous than the outsourcing seen in the animation industry for decades that still continues to happen despite the ease of digital technology (of which I’ll talk about in the next paragraph).
– When I think about what I miss from the use of cels in animation, it would have to be that need to get your hands dirty by working in that medium. Editing film by hand was something I learned about in a high school film making class, from a teacher whom stressed the approaching use of computers that would forever takeover all aspects of film making we seen today. Only a shame I didn’t take it too seriously then.
In some way, I miss seeing the usual flaws attribute to cel animation, such as the dirt, scratches, painting errors or other such things you don’t see anymore in digital work today. One such thing often noticeable for me was to notice shadows often created by the cels not properly flatten when they’re photographed, often showing a faint shadow behind the character on the right and left that might only noticeable in close-ups and all. Shows like South Park and recent seasons of The Simpsons have tried to emulate that look, but it doesn’t have the feel of the real thing to me. Of course there’s also the improper painting of cels that might show too much transparency of a color in some shots. Often this was due to the paints not being applied on thick enough, but I often notice this with the red color a lot personally, not as much opaque quality as to the others perhaps.
The proper term for the use of hand-drawn 2D digital animation would be “digital ink & paint”, or as one Canadian animator I know would call it, the “DIP” process. 🙂
Sazae-san’s pretty boring indeed. I’ve seen some episodes of this, and it’s pretty much what is said about it. Still funny they had been using cels for this long when the use of a 2D program like Retas! Pro would suffice, they just be giving dozens of cel painters the pink slip.
As an avid cel collector, I do kinda wonder if it was the fault of those studios for selling cels on their own for having the tax brought upon them in the process? The closest we’ve ever came to such a concept of a studio selling cels affordable in a convenient way would be the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cels that Toys R Us sold a decade ago. Regularly, the main studios might only release these works at established galleries or auctions for whatever bloated price tag they’re asking, and aside from eBay, that’s the best most of us can go with. At least I don’t think the US government imposed a tax on their usage of cels, though the Japanese studios could’ve just washed their cels and reused them instead (thus, the cel collecting deal would’ve dried up)!
While getting the drawings themselves is OK, I often think getting the original roughs are far superior as opposed to the clean-up/finished drawings they would use for xeroxing/scanning that most would get with their cels.
Wonder how possible it could be for an animator’s union of sorts to be formed in Japan in order to give the workers the treatment they deserve by these studios? Probably wouldn’t fly at all (be kinda like Hollywood’s “Animation Guild” if it might mean less creative control in the process).
And now…
ROBOT CARNIVAL!
It was produced by A.P.P.P. Co., Ltd. (an abbreviation for “Another Push Pin Planning), though the main producer of the production is Kazufumi Nomura and was released as an OVA in ’87, and theatrically released in early ’91 by Streamline Pictures in the US (English dub of course).
While I don’t remember WTBS showing this or the few other Streamline titles mention, I did see them on Cartoon Network around ’94 when they had a little thing going on that year (not sure if in the summertime or not) called “Saturday Japanime”. That was my first exposure to Robot Carnival and was rather enthralled over the whole thing. I remember SciFi Channel’s usage of RC’s footage as ‘filler’ after some films in the days when they bothered to stick in animated shorts in a manner that evoked memories of HBO and Showtime’s usage of animated short subjects in the 80’s. While the entire Robot Carnival was shown on SciFi, for it’s filler use, they would show the opening, possibly “Deprive” came next, and then the end of the film itself with the end credits, just so they had that 10-15 minutes before the next show came up.
I usually consider “Robot Carnival” a primer for anyone getting into understanding and viewing Japanese animation to get a taste of the different styles and stories it could tell.
In the case of how it was arranged, the original OVA release was how Daryl has described it. For Streamline’s home video release, which might have been seen in the theaters as well, the segemnts were in this order…
1. Opening
2. Starlight Angel
3. Cloud
4. Deprive
5. Franken’s Gears
6. Presence
7. Tale of Two Robots
8. Nightmare
9. Ending
I personally like the Monty Pythonesque quality of the Opening/Ending’s “ROBOT CARNIVAL” menace! Never thought about it being terrible due to it’s beautiful nature.
I did create an MKV file of this film I put together myself with Japanese, English and French audio tracks (don’t ask), plus English subtitles as accurate to those two segments as I could find. I think my copy is far more definite to most others for the moment.
Deprive is one of those I wasn’t too big into due to his premise and Totally 80’s type action that was a breeze to sit through in this, so I don’t have much to say here about it.
Not knowing about Umetsu’s later work, “Presence” on it’s own was one of my fav segments in this whole thing, but I can see how the pattern was. Guy marries working gal, guy gets no satisfaction in marriage, guy builds robot feminine women, robot girl gets a mind of her own, guy gives her the smackdown. Also used to bug me seeing this guy eventually going through decades of guilt for not having the nerve to be with that robot doll before it was too late (of course today they would go the otaku/moe crap and stick in a sex scene if this short was done today).
Starlight Angel’s usage as the first segment in Streamline’s release might be seen as an appetizer to this film, much like Fantasia’s “Toccata en Fugue”. Of course Kitazune also did the character designs in Megazone 23 THE THIRD. Don’t want to spoil the end of this one with the robot employee itself (needless to say I didn’t expect nothing more or less out of that). 🙂
Cloud is the most “out of left field” in this compilation. It reminded me more of what to expect to see in a standard film festival’s offering of different films of different genres and formats. I don’t really have much to say for it, but it is quite arty and slow. As someone already pointed out, Mao Lamdao apparently has had other work to do besides this. Just too bad there isn’t a proper webpage out there for him.
Incidentally, the original title for “Tale of Two Robots” translates to “Strange Tale of Meiji Machines: Episode of the Red-Haired Man’s Invasion”. I personally wasn’t too nutty with the Japanese voice for Volkerson that was done by James R. Bowers (probably some gaijin they got off the street for that). I personally enjoyed the Streamline voice acting here for trying to play off the audience expectations of the Japanese despite the obvious. Being reminded one thing that I didn’t figure out for a long time was a book Volkerson had near him when he piloted his robot was a book that had the usual illegible scribbles on it, but subtitled in the Japanese version was the title “The Travels of Marco Polo”. Just thought I’d bring that up. 🙂
“Nightmare”‘s original title translates to “Chicken Man and Red Neck”. Pretty much this film is a combination of Fantasia’s “Night on Bald Mountain” and the “Legend of Sleepy Hallow” story from “The Adventures if Ichabod and Mr. Toad”.
As I said before, this was released on VHS in the 90’s from Streamline (though a cheap ED-recorded copy was made available from Best Film & Video too). For those that might be able to get it, there’s the US LaserDisc release from Lumivision which does contain the Japanese audio for Presence and Tale of Two Robots on the digital channel. A copy is currently being sold on eBay as we speak…
http://cgi.ebay.com/ROBOT-CARNIVAL-Laserdisc-LD-ANIME-VERY-GOOD-AND-RARE_W0QQitemZ200152583094QQihZ010QQcategoryZ381QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Aside from that 1999 DVD release in Japan, an R3 was said to have been released in Korea in 2004. I think this version is one that is often getting released around the black market and on the internet as it contains Korean subs along with the English dubtitles. And yes, a new Blu-Ray release for Robot Carnival would be great if that ever happens.
Incidentally, someone over at Stage6 did stick the entire thing up anyway so I don’t have to say anymore than stick in this link to it!
http://stage6.divx.com/Radom-Anime/video/1425888/Robot-Carnival-(1987)
(go on, you know you wanna!)
END
P.S. Oh, and I need to pick up the Project X: Cup Noodle and Seven Eleven manga soon, those titles intrigue me to “read more about it!” (a faint reference to CBS if anyone remembers that)
The 16-year-old me used to shit up the internets with endless rants about how fansubbing was going to rape the industry to death someday. It pisses me off to see that little punk get something right (even if by accident.)
I think we’re seeing a perfect storm right now: a weak US dollar, increasing ghettoization of genre (Sevakis put it well: fewer Triguns and more fringe titles mean fewer buyers,) the overnight collapse of the video retailer and the explosion in illegal digital distribution. This is a Sonny Liston-sized right hand headed direct for the jaw of our favorite little medium.
I’ll keep my chin up and see if this just royally fucks up Hellsing Ultimate production. God, wouldn’t that be grand?
Almost makes me wish I was 16 again, so I could get all worked up over it.
On the shift to digital from hand painted cells. I have never heard the tax explaination. After all cll sales were taxable from the beginning.
The major reason was that in the later 1990s the Japanese film industry stopped making animation cells. The companies then had to import them from the US at a much higher price. This had a further expense in that both the companies and the subcontractors, who often handled the actual painting, had to invest in computers and train staff to use them.
As for Project X the TV show was on innovators not just on business. The episodes on the construction of Tokyo Tower, the struggle to establish a market for soy sauce in the US and the development of the magnetic strip card for transit systems were interesting to watch. I saw them on Ch 26 here in the San Francisco Bay Area during the Saturday night susbtitled Japanese show slot.
By the way the 7-11 book is on 7-11 Japan not the company as a whole.
Does anyone know if the 25$ were collected?
The plot thickens…
The ADV/Geneon distribution deal has apparently been cancelled. I wonder what this means for the future of Geneon…
I’m hoping their library gets cannibalized, so that we can get cheaper dvds. I have a feeling that won’t happen with Patlabor WXIII, though, so get it before BV makes it even more expensive.
According to Daryl’s ‘away’ message, the $25 was indeed obtained. I expect comedy.
Just like the whole ADV/Geneon thing.
So Yakuza 2 is out in the U.S. next year, and I’m a happy camper.
Even $55 is a whole lot of money for one barebones release of a movie. Bandai Visual sure talks a big game about “Japanese quality releases in America,” but I can’t help but notice that the Japanese release has extra (useless) stuff that we didn’t get.
What are you talking about? I have both the Japanese R2 Release Blu-Ray and the American R1 Release Blu-Ray it’s the exact same thing. Heck, the R2 even came with english subtitles.
great review on robot carnival, got interested in watching it. and i just wanted to say that i bought Giant Robo at best buy for less than $20 bucks and its amazing and whant to thank you for that and i also got tetsujin 28 wich is also really good and thank you so much for turning me on to this
THANK YOU
The bad news: I was not able to go to the nerd prom and get videos of me dancing with the Ouran crew. I have an excuse: they were all an hour late, and by that time I got a phone call saying to go to dinner with Noboru Ishiguro. As a result, I get to interview him in 45 minutes. This will get posted.
So I’m sorry there’s no immense nerd prom jokes involving me. I can refund the money to people should they ask.
A 45 minute interview with Noboru Ishiguro!? Daryl, you’re my hero! This is lightyears better than any nerd prom jokes
“I have both the Japanese R2 Release Blu-Ray and the American R1 Release Blu-Ray it’s the exact same thing. Heck, the R2 even came with english subtitles.”
So maybe that commentary was an LD- exclusive which got placed on the original import dvd to sell more copies? The Japanese do occasionally get screwed on R2 releases, too. I remember a Geneon rep telling me they couldn’t get a certain song on the home video release of Akazukin Cha Cha.
I’m kinda tempted to get that Megazone collection announced at AOD, even though I’m not a big fan. I just wanna finish it, I guess. I’d rather someone just release a domestic CD of the music, though, cus that’s mostly what I liked.
Some anonymous bugger wrote: What are you talking about? I have both the Japanese R2 Release Blu-Ray and the American R1 Release Blu-Ray it’s the exact same thing. Heck, the R2 even came with english subtitles.
So you paid $80+ twice for identical discs and did so voluntarily? You, sir, have far too much money, and should consider subsidizing my master’s degree.
>>The major reason was that in the later 1990s the Japanese film industry stopped making animation cells.
I’ve heard that, too, but I’ve also never heard the business reasons behind that. Cels are fairly simple to make after all (more simple than, say, photographic film, which is still made in Japan) and I assume clear acetate can still be found in other Japanese products. And it can’t have been due to a lack of customer demand, what with the post-Evangelion surge in anime production.
Anyone wanna write a petition to free John McTiernan?
Daryl Surat said…
The bad news: I was not able to go to the nerd prom and get videos of me dancing with the Ouran crew. I have an excuse: they were all an hour late, and by that time I got a phone call saying to go to dinner with Noboru Ishiguro. As a result, I get to interview him in 45 minutes. This will get posted.
I am proud of you! Banzai!
Carl Horn said…
I’ve heard that, too, but I’ve also never heard the business reasons behind that. Cels are fairly simple to make after all (more simple than, say, photographic film, which is still made in Japan) and I assume clear acetate can still be found in other Japanese products. And it can’t have been due to a lack of customer demand, what with the post-Evangelion surge in anime production.
True, you would think they would still be able to manufacture a product if there was still an interest or an after-market for such an item. It’s not like what happened when Sanford discontinued the “Blackwing 602” pencils here on account of the inability to produce eraser clips for the ferrules, making all the pissy animators spend hundreds to thousands of dollars for any old stock they could get their hands on via eBay to still hold on to that decades old tradition they love. (again, I ramble on for nothing)
But again, there wouldn’t be anything to stop some Japanese manufacturer from not producing cellulose acetate sheets if there was still a studio demand for it, even if only for non-production related items like limited-edition work (which I hardly see much of in anime).
But again, there wouldn’t be anything to stop some Japanese manufacturer from not producing cellulose acetate sheets if there was still a studio demand for it, even if only for non-production related items like limited-edition work (which I hardly see much of in anime).
I’d always heard it was the business reasons that made it not viable. But from what I remember reading in The Nontenki Memoirs, it seemed that clear cellulose acetate sheets could be bought from your local industrial manufacturer (actually the guys in the book got the wrong type of plasic which didn’t allow paint to stick, but that’s not the purpose here). It seems like if a studio now has to pay more money for a show in taxes whether they produce it one way or another would affect their decision, but our interview with Noboru Ishiguro confirmed our thoughts on the whole cel thing in that it’s largely used, not to achieve special effects and greater detail, but to cut budgets.
Speaking of which, man, I’m pretty sure I could have talked to Ishiguro for, easily, six hours and not gotten everything out of the man I wanted to. The guy is an encyclopedia of knowledge and anecdotes.
FYI, I have put up the introductory bio for Ishiguro shown at opening ceremonies on my youtube page, if anyone wishes to check it out.
gerald: Did you ask him if he saw Stealth yet, or if he had heard any news on the Starblazers movie from Disney? He really seemed shocked about the latter when I told him, although he tried to play it off as adding a different perspective to an old concept.
…or if he had heard any news on the Starblazers movie from Disney?
Is that the same movie I heard rumored in 1994? The same one that said there was a scale model of the Yamato/Argos in the Arizona desert? If it is, then I thought that was very old news.
If there ever is a Star Blazers movie (which is unlikely) it almost certainly won’t be done by Disney since they sat on their script until the 10-year development deal expired. Now it’s available to other studios again. Will one of them bite? Never know.
Mr. Ishiguro very generously participated in an all-Yamato panel at AWA that I’m starting to write up for Otaku USA, and his AWO interview taught us all a lot. There are well-known people in anime who do sporadic projects, and then there are lesser-known people upon whom the entire industry relies. Ishiguro is in the latter category.
Stay tuned for some fascinating info…
So, are you guys going to discuss what the disappearance of Geneon will mean for the anime community?
gerald: It’s old news, but it got mentioned again a while back, so I guess it’s still happening. And it was gonna be the U.S.S. Arizona in the American version.
plaid: Cheaper discs, hopefully.
Gerald said…
I’d always heard it was the business reasons that made it not viable. But from what I remember reading in The Nontenki Memoirs, it seemed that clear cellulose acetate sheets could be bought from your local industrial manufacturer (actually the guys in the book got the wrong type of plasic which didn’t allow paint to stick, but that’s not the purpose here). It seems like if a studio now has to pay more money for a show in taxes whether they produce it one way or another would affect their decision, but our interview with Noboru Ishiguro confirmed our thoughts on the whole cel thing in that it’s largely used, not to achieve special effects and greater detail, but to cut budgets.
Of course, so obvious!
~ Speaking of which, man, I’m pretty sure I could have talked to Ishiguro for, easily, six hours and not gotten everything out of the man I wanted to. The guy is an encyclopedia of knowledge and anecdotes.
You should’ve!
Vis has officially announced that Death Note will premiere on Adult Swim on October 20th in the midnight time slot.
Sorry but, if the episode is already recorded then WHERE THE HELL is it? I know you all have a busy schedule, but… I’m kind of dying, here. And I think am I going insane to boot. (I had a dream last night that I was listening to one of your shows on my iPod. Come on, guys. Please.)
BTW, the Imaginasian stuff is finally for sale at Rightstuf. I recommend Orguss myself…
I hope they are ok, hopefully they will release the episode by thrusday the next week 😛
http://www.narutotrek.com/
That’s why the show’s late, just experience the page.
They’re fine. I just saw Clarissa and Gerald this past Wednesday and IIRC, they said they hadn’t started editing episode 60 yet. So yeah, nothing happened to them, they’ve just been busy.
Calm down people, you will get your aWo fix soon. 😛
-Jaime
I swear I remember hearing that the Disney Star Blazers film was an elaborate practical joke done by Bruce Lewis on the USENET crowd. I’ll have to ask him the next time I see him, but I swear it was at least a joke.
I’m beginning to wonder if that Battle Angel movie ain’t a joke! My theory is that Jimmy is really just holding the anime hostage, because he wants people to give Dark Angel a second chance. He doesn’t want to be remembered as a guy who wasn’t really that great a filmmaker, unless he was able to work with a big celebrity, or a recognized franchise. [I mean, seriously, Abyss was fucking boring!] It most likely stems from his bitterness in having to compensate Harlan Ellison for plagiarism.
Another head-slapping moment from Emile Hirsh and http://www.aintitcool.com/node/34246 : Mathew Fox and a live chimpanzee in half of the scenes. It’s colorful. It’s comedic. It’s crazy and very, very close to the spirit of the cartoon, but people inevitably are going to expect something like THE MATRIX, because that’s really what they know the Wachowskis for, other than BOUND, but they’re going to be so shocked when they just see this totally, totally different world and the cars are dope, dude. I mean, the cars are crazy and they’re all different, like different designs and different art on them. There’s one car that’s got a Japanese, like, Yakuza tattoo across the car. It’s crazy.
Omg that narutotrek thing totally blew my mind.
Wait, is that convention for real?
You guys should talk more about Dragonball. Have you ever heard of it? Shit is awesome! It’s about these dudes named Gozer and Vegetable who have to collect these magic eggs that will make them better fighters. I can’t believe you haven’t heard of it. You people don’t know anything about TRUE ANIME.
PS – Afro Samurai is also awesome.
Is there any chance of a fan sub version of Satsuma. I would be willing to buy the imported volumes if there was a translation that I could print up. And I am not talking about a “Scanlation” just a translation that I would match up with the bubbles myself like it used to be (so we could still buy the books and support the artist/publisher).
It wasn’t the Star Blazers movie that Bruce spoofed up, it was Babylon 5 the Anime series.
He did up this whole thing and really got a bunch of B5 fandom all in an uproar…I thought it was pretty well done and better than the last half of the 4th season and all of the fifth, but then again I’m a cranky old SF fan 🙂
(and you B5 fans, don’t get your panties in an uproar. I don’t blame JMS for falling down so much as I do Warner Bros for their dicking around)
Sadly, most everything you’ve ever heard about the Star Blazers live movie is true. It would have been a horrible, horrible trainwreck. I think we’re lucky, very lucky that the project never got traction.
Manabu Oohashi, credited as Mao Lamdo in Robot Carnival, is in fact a well respected veteran animator. He has had a very long career, from Cyborg 009 to Metropolis, covering four decades. He’s responsible for the excellent opening and ending of “Treasure Island”, but is probably best known for doing a memorable and critical acclaimed Gekiga-style episode of “Tensai Bakabon.
BTW, the Blade Runner: Final Cut’s playing in limited release this weekend.
Speaking of half-assed anime adaptations… Found http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=news&id=12002
off Dark Horizons…
“Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins” — from the makers of the fantasy film “12 Animals.” Made in 1989, starring a cast of nobodies except for Don Wong Dao, who wa sa pretty cool kungfu film star in the 70s and 80s. And man is the movie awful. badmovies.org managed to get through to the end, which is more than I ever did:
http://www.badmovies.org/movies/dragonball/
Just some stuff about Geneon. I’ve always known it would come to something like this with them. The way they did things, I wondered how they made money. It’s not just one thing, but more a combination of everything. They didn’t really have a blockbuster title for a long stretch of time, and when something like Hellsing Ultimate came along, it was too late. Haibane-Renmei and Last Exile were probably some of their better sellers, but they weren’t a, say, Naruto or Bleach. However, it wasn’t just they didn’t have a blockbuster, but they licensed or their company made titles that couldn’t have been cheap and probably sold next to nothing. The Melody of Oblivion, for example. Something like 4 companies were behind that thing including Gainax, so it was probably EXPENSIVE just to license the thing. Now raise your hand if you bought this series. Did they even try to make it look like an APPEALING series to pick up? I know the only reason I saw the whole thing was I got TWO free copies given to me. I guess random people posing on the cover doesn’t really sell titles. I like it well enough when I actually watched it despite its creepy/retarded aspects, but that’s beside the point. Geneon’s catalog is littered with titles like these. And titles like Texhnolyze and Ergo Proxy which they had a hand in making had to cost a pretty penny considering the talent they had and how good they look, but probably didn’t sell NEARLY enough to cover.
But the Melody of Oblivion thing brings me to another point. They didn’t SELL their titles. Very few of their ads made their titles look appealing. They’re very basic, gave simple images of their series, maybe gave an idea of what genre it was in, and perhaps a pull quote from a magazine/Internet site. In comparison, Bandai Ent. gives very visual ads that make even a piece of shit like Avenger look good, ADV has good ads that make the series sound cool and uses gimmicks that tend to work. The only things that sold for Geneon were things that sold themselves through either previous popularity or word of mouth like Hellsing Ultimate. And did even R.O.D. the TV do that well?
The same thing goes for their music branch. They have some great CDs in their catalog. I own a lot of them. But they also have the second OST to soundtracks where maybe two people bought the first OST. And random things like the soundtrack to Doki Doki School Hour (On both DVD and CD) don’t help. Plus, considering they couldn’t even keep their web site updated, I’m sure very few people know about what they really had. Did you know they have a domestic release of a Yoko Kanno CD in their collection? The soundtrack to Arjuna. Now the series isn’t exactly a household name even to anime geeks, but I’m sure even if you slapped, “THIS IS A YOKO KANNO CD, BITCHES!” somewhere, ANYWHERE, SOMEONE would get the message. That’s not to mention all the Maaya Sakamoto Single Collections they sell have all the music done by Kanno with little mention of it.
There are other factors, like piracy and their penchant for overpricing things without having cheap boxsets, but really, if you don’t have titles that sell, can’t sell them through marketing, and have a bunch of them that cost a bit of money, the question has to be asked: HOW ARE THEY MAKING THEIR MONEY? I’m a person who only had to take a single math class for college requirements and absolutely NO business classes and even I can see this. Perhaps there were packaged deals and stuff behind the scenes to lower the cost, but this was coming eventually.
I don’t mean to be so hard on Geneon. Every time I’ve talked to them, they’ve been more than cordial and personable. At big cons, they’ve brought guests that made the cons better and enhanced the atmosphere immensely. They love what they do, and it cannot be stated enough that there are very few industries that are run with so much love than the American anime industry. I can even tell when they brought over things just because they liked them and wanted to share it with America. Sometimes love isn’t enough, though. Sad. The ADV deal made sense. If you can’t sell your titles, have someone who can help you. This isn’t a sign of complete collapse. Sometimes, there are simply harsh doses of reality that have to be taken. Unfortunately, this time, it was the company that backed yoshitoshi ABe’s projects, and have given me some of the best things I have ever watched. Shame.
And random things like the soundtrack to Doki Doki School Hour (On both DVD and CD) don’t help.
To clarify, I meant they had the SERIES on DVD, not the soundtrack. I suck at proofreading.