Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:21:28 — 37.3MB)
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS
It’s catch-up week for all of us. Daryl’s going back and reviewing the remainder of To Terra and Gerald’s reviewing the rest of Hakugei and Vol 1 of Xenosaga. Clarissa’s belated AWA report was split into a separate bonus file that we uploaded prior to this.
Show notes in a bit. Actually putting in the pictures and links that we said we would? That will probably take longer.
Introduction (0:00 – 38:08)
The audio for this segment is probably a bit lower than usual, but oh well. In the emails, we follow up on what’s going on with Singapore and the Odex situation (of course, since we’re so out of date, matters have further developed still). We also receive admonishment that there’s a fine line between self-deprecation and self-loathing, and hear about what anime fandom in Scotland is like. A question regarding our thoughts on Buddha and Hellsing Ultimate leads into a discussion on attention spans and how the storytelling pace of longer anime series versus shorter ones is affecting fan opinions. The catching up begins as we weigh in on the Anime Bento theatrical anime showings from several months ago, and we wrap things up with a poem courtesy of Patrick from the Podcast Ping podcast entitled “What’s with the Moe?” On the subject of catching up, episode 8 of Lather’s Blather is out after months of waiting. Do be sure to listen to Jeff’s Robot Carnival review, since Daryl totally forgot to say a single thing about the still images in the end credits that sort of explain where the Robot Carnival came from.
The record will show that if we were all about monetizing AWO and growing it into a media juggernaut, this intro segment would have been an entire podcast episode on its own.
Promo: Just Push Play (38:08 – 38:37)
The professionally-produced promo should clue you in: Just Push Play is a podcast made by people who are professional radio folks that know more about radio and podcasting stuff than we ever will. It’s about all the things Daryl wastes his life involved with: videogames, anime, movies, comicbooks, conventions, TV shows, and even pro wrestling and MMA! We marvel at their masterful usage of magical Internet technology, what with their forums and chat rooms and Myspace/Facebook/Livejournal communities. When AWO first started, these were among the first folks we asked to listen to us and give us pointers.
The record will show that we acted upon none of their advice, even though all of it was excellent.
Review: To Terra Volumes 2 and 3 (38:37 – 59:52)
When this was recorded, Daryl had been awake for about five minutes prior. Nevertheless, he soldiered on bluely to cover all the things he wasn’t able to say back in Show 51. Could there really be any worthwhile content presented here that wasn’t already done? IT IS AN ENIGMA.
DOO DOO DOO DOO!
Review: Hakugei Legend of Moby Dick (59:52 – 1:16:51)
Gerald finally manages to finish watching this series which he started watching nearly two years ago for his review back in Show # 4. Having watched it all and had this much time to think matters over, he gives his final thoughts on this sci-fi retelling of Herman Melville’s book that, while boring, is still not as brutal as Billy Budd. And Billy Budd was only like, 75 pages long.
Cavemantom actually sent us that voice mail forever ago, and most of it was to complain about the one time we ran a fan-submitted review, so we trimmed out that stuff and just left in the sycophantic bits that we crave so much.
Closing (1:16:51 – 1:21:27)
For our penultimate bit of catching up, we offer up Gerald’s initial impressions of Xenosaga: The Animation based on Volume 1. It’s not a full-on review, but we’ve got to do something to justify all this stuff people keep sending us that we aren’t reviewing! As for next week? You want to know what’s coming up next week (provided it gets edited in time)? We’re not Nicolas Cage in Next, but if we’re anything, we’re Mr T circa Rocky III. And our prediction? PAIN. After nearly two years of restraint and sporadic outbursts, the Anime That Sucks floodgates have been opened! Daryl’s hitting you right between the eyes with Dog Soldier: Shadows of the Past, YOU DON’T DESERVE TO HEAR Gerald’s review of Machine Robo: Revenge of Chronos, and Clarissa has something so deadly that–much like MD Geist–it can’t actually BE reviewed, merely summarized. Fine, so Dog Soldier is also like that, but she’s delivering God’s message by means of the Crystal Triangle. Normally, any one of these titles would make for a crown jewel centerpiece to cap off an episode, but with so much power amassed in one place, we’ve enlisted the help of a special guest, Totally Lame Anime’s keymaster and gatekeeper Neil Nadelman.
But don’t get TOO excited. We didn’t make a single joke about the posse. “Neil’s posse is so big they walk in twos; they’re gettin’ dirty looks from those other sucker crews” –Carl “Rollin’ with Nadelman” Horn.
BTW, you did make clear that Dog Soldiers is not a remake of Dog Soldier, right? ^_-
The NES Golgo 13 sound byte should be played every time Golgo 13 is mentioned.
Pretty ridiculous, but no joke, at one point, I thought the anime “Dog Soldier” referred to Hakkenden.
http://neilnadelmanhasaposse.com/
That is all.
Yeah, Machine Robo! I really like that series even though fuck you CPM for not releasing the rest of it because I would have been willing to buy the whole series. Im guessing they only had the license to release only a portion of it. Also it might be that CPM was the type of company that would release short OVA’s and movis and rarely full TV series.
Haha yes, Dog Soldier and Crystal Triangle, now I can finally know why these two are considered awful.
Oh Gerald when you review Machine Robo, please talk about the beautiful 80’s era artwork in the series. So shiny!
The Golgo game won “best dialogue” @ http://www.seanbaby.com/nes/dialogue.htm
a while ago.
My bad. Was nominated. But it should’ve won. ;-;
Thanks for the play of my poem. I’ve added a reading of Beowulf to my regular Podcast Ping episodes, all 42 parts (41 plus prologue).
Also if you haven’t noticed, Podcast Pickle is gathering voices for it’s Christmas Skit. The thread is at: http://www.podcastpickle.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=14267&st=0
I have a particluar interest this year because they will be doing a poem I wrote.
We went to see Cagliostro with Erin from them Ninja Consultants. There were seven people in the theater (including the four of us). The air conditioning was broken so it was ungodly hot. Ten minutes into the movie the sound cut out they started playing movie trailers OVER the actual movie. Some pompous fellow with a ponytail very generously offered to complain (THIS WAS HIS CHANCE TO BE A SUPAA HERO!) and we ended up getting movie vouchers.
Fantastic.
Go AWO!! I felt like I was in a withdrawal from drugs waiting to listen to your show after school.
dave: I’ve seen the original Streamline sub of Cagliostro twice. In that version, Lupin’s called “Wolf”, and Goemon’s referred to as “The Samurai”. Plus if you love grindhouse quality projection, you’ll get it from that print in spades.
Towards the Terra–the movie is lurking out there on bittorrent… but I would agree with you to recommend the anime series or manga.. the movie was too compressed to be enjoyable
Jeff: That website was amazing.
Anyways…
Very good reviews. I was thinking about checking out Hakugei, because I am a Dezaki/Sugino fan, but after hearing the review, I dunno. I’m considering spending my money elsewhere, like the Phoenix anime.
You guys kept saying your older shows were no good. I disagree!! I actually quite like your older shows, even if they were different in their reviewing style than the current ones.
Dezaki seems to be on this weird “make movies based on Key porn games” kick right now. First he makes Air, now Clannad, what’s next, Kanon?? No, Dezaki is a much better human being than that!
The next episode sounds absolutely terrifying. But the fact that Neil Nadelman is going to be a guest makes up for some of the terribleness, I guess.
OK, that’s enough random comments for now. Bye bye.
I stopped watching Xenosaga an episode or two before the end because it was so painfully bad. The character design (and awesome music) couldn’t make up for the villain’s awful writing.
The next episode should be very interesting. Everything I’ve seen on Crystal Triangle has been absolutely scathing; it’s one of the legends of crap.
A recommendation for future all-bad episodes: Out of morbid curiosity (As well as the unintentional humor MD Geist provided), I watched all of Genocyber. Holy shit. Awful show, but it may literally be the single goriest thing I’ve ever seen. Koichi Ohata is a disturbed man.
You want to see awful anime, watch Battle Can Can. Lord that was terrible. Imagine a pornographic version of Cat’s Eye only in space and three out of the five main female characters get killed in the worse ways possible. AWO needs to review THAT.
Even if I acknowledge its problems, I still enjoy the original M.D. Geist OVA. I even own the OST.
Chun Xi here. Thanks for reading out my loong email, guys. I’ll try a voice mail next time to tell you what i think about your pronounciation of my name… *grin*
The only thing I remember about Genocyber was the evil scientist guy finger-banging some chick, and it could be seen as such because of some fluoroscope effect in the scientist’s lab.
Good times!
Crystal Triangle…FINALLY!!!
I don’t know. I’m definitely one of those, “The world has to make sense” fantasy type people, but I like Captian Harlock (or at least what I’ve seen of it.) And I’d really actually like to see 999. But then again, I thought it was fairly internally consistent, even if it isn’t consistent among series (or movies) I’ve always thought he just got tired of writing one story and decided to change all the rules and history and write another one.
A thought on the manga thing – I think part of it too is that manga is perceptually cheaper. Even if your pretty much paying ten bucks for an hour’s worth of entertainment.
But anyways, it was a good show. A bit short, but a good show.
And for as much as it counts (which isn’t a lot), I second everything Daryl has said about Twelve Kingdoms. It is in my opinion the best true fantasy anime series out there.
Thanks for reading my message out on the show (I was the guy who talked about scottish anime fandom)
I’ve noticed Gerald seems to hate England. But there are nice places in England like… Uh…. Nah, I got nothing…
I love the banter between the three of you.
I also eagerly await your Gurren Lagann review.
I didn’t go to the Anime Bento in New York City because I found out too late. I already had other plans. They barely advertised it. I only heard about it from friends.
If you are only going to have a one night only showing, you need to advertise that son of a bitch. They need to give people some advanced notice.
So I finally got the first volume of the Phoenix anime, and got a crap encoding which forced me to play this on my separate player. I know it’s crap, because out of all the CPM Patlabor dvds, I only had one like it which would have a blackened menu. Other than that, I’ve only saw the first episode, which reflects the Dawn arc, and I’m kind of annoyed that they wimped out, by not making the foreign doctor a bastard. That, and a lot of the cg and foreground rendering looks a little too much like some of the leftovers from Genma Wars…Still, if you’re looking for gay swordsman fix after Beowulf and 300, I guess you can’t go wrong with it…
Anyway, shouldn’t the rights that awful kiddie company had to 2772 have expired by now? I’m hoping so, so we can finally catch it subbed. Until then, I’ll have to settle for the Queen AMV…
Jeff Tatarek said…
The only thing I remember about Genocyber was the evil scientist guy finger-banging some chick, and it could be seen as such because of some fluoroscope effect in the scientist’s lab.
Good times!
No, no. Jeff. The best things about Genocyber are that nutty scientist in the final part going Clive Barker on everyone and the doctor being rescued at the end.
“Don’t leave me, Laura! I’m in Hell!!!”
🙂
BTW: The chick getting finger-banged was his daughter. Just thought I’d traumatise you some more! ^_-
I miss how those mid 80’s-early 90’s OVA’s were over the top violent and having high production values. Other than the reduced market for the OVA format, is there any other reason why they don’t make stuff like that anymore?
BTW I’m curious as to what people think about an early 90’s movie called Big Wars? It’s something I’ve always wanted to see and I found it that it has Kow Yokoyama mecha designs but the consensus of it was that it wasn’t very good.
I’m guessing the reason anime’s not as gory as it was in the past is that the fanfic market took over, and unless the wannabes can draw characters having all kinds of sex, they’re not gonna buy it.
Hey gang.
As you’ve known previously, I’m also one of the Dezaki / Sugino faithful. Hoping you get to review the Nobody’s Boy Remi discs coming from ImaginAsian some time. I saw some of Moby Dick and even as a fan of these guys, I just couldn’t get into it. Might try again though but hearing your remarks is giving me pause about it. Anyways, just wanted to check in and say hey and such. Oh, as to Dezaki, Im currently grabbing his version of Snow Queeen, which also is apparently based on older material like Gankutsuou. I’d not heard about it before but will have fun learning its origins and such. Anyways, have fun take care, yadda yadda yadda… 🙂
I’m hoping Dezaki gets his third Golgo anime he’s been mentioning in the Queen Bee UV dvd before he retires.
So Hairy Knuckles continued to jerk off for another corporate sponsor today, this time by shilling the Speed Racer trailer. http://www.aintitcool.com/node/34951
Will there be any AWO presence at NY Anime Festival? TV’s Patrick Macias will be there, and Otaku USA has a booth, at least.
Apparently, Golgo is into laptops.
For the record, I find that AICN Speed Racer trailer post lazy and vile.
This one’s for Daryl.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-12-04/drawn-and-quarterly-publishes-more-tatsumi-works
So when will the next episode be out? Before the NY anime festival?
I’m going to see if I can bother Media Blasters once more about the status of the second half of Gaogaigar.
I REALLY hope they don’t fuck over the people that actually paid money the show and not do the rest.
How is Orochimaru a bad villain and why?(recent Narutard convert)
Personally whether formulaic or some breakout hit I just like GaoGaigar because like my other fave, Avatar, it may not do anything new but it does stuff done before *WELL* and entertainingly.
It is kinda disorientating how the parents sleep in seperate beds despite, at least in the dub, sounding all loveydovey. I mean this is an anime and they have the parents sleeping in seperate beds and their kid is adopted. I mean I know its for kids but your parents in full PJs in bed hardly sounds risque and the two beds thing just seems like something for american cartoons decades back.
Man I miss Guyver that was one of my first and still my favorite though the sheen is definitely off for me nowadays.
I don’t know if Otaku USA has a booth at NY Anime Fest, but they are doing a panel in the Manga Panel Room.
Here are the details:
OTAKU USA PANEL
6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Saturday, Dec 8
Manga Panel Room
Otaku USA’s booth number is 233, according to http://www.nyanimefestival.com/en-us/exhibitionhall.cfm
So, according to the Ninja Consultants, Daryl will be at NY Anime Festival? What, is he going incognito, because this is the first I’ve heard of it. I was going to pass on this con, but a chance to meet the Hero of Millions is worth my 55 bucks.
the world needs more Daryl Surat.
Oh right. Yes, in a fit of insanity, I am flying out to the New York Anime Festival today after work. I will be part of the Art of Reviewing Anime panel as well as the Otaku USA panel. I don’t believe I’ll be on the gekiga panel, but I’ll certainly be present at it. Same thing goes for the Match Game, though I don’t actually think I’m funny enough to be on the Match Game.
I really wanted to get Show # 63 released last night, but Crystal Triangle has robbed us alll of the will to live, so that recording (which alone is about 45 minutes) remains undone. I guess I could release what we’ve got so far (about 80 minutes) then release Crystal Triangle and some other stuff as a separate piece. Still, it’d be safer for mankind if all this terror was concentrated into one spot so that the badness of it all is diluted, creating a numbing effect.
Orochimaru is a bad villain because 1. he’s not actually all that powerful compared to the other bad guys, 2. he’s largely evil purely for the sake of being evil, and so he’s not nearly as interesting as some of the other villains.
I was slightly misleading when I wrote in Otaku USA that Rock Lee was the best character in Naruto. In fact, Lee is the best protagonist. Kabuto is the best character.
Also: if Beowulf can manage to be far gorier than Apocalypto and still be rated PG-13, then anime can step it back up to OAV-level violence, damn it!
So it looks like the Wachowskis got the set designers for that Mario Bros. movie to work on Speed Racer. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2007-12-05-speed-racer_N.htm
(Swiped this off Dark Horizons.)
Though I know I’m pretty late in responding to this episode, I guess I should feel glad for not having gone to that Anime Bento deal. If I had to put up with watching a streaming Win98 thing on the big screen, I know I would’ve went all postal then and there!
Of course we’ll never expect Manga Video or whomever to ask TMS for the use of having actual 35mm prints struck and shown instead of the digital projection.