Anime World Order Show # 59 – This is Why All the Robots Cry

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:23:50 — 38.4MB)

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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…