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Caught up by Royalton Motors-level greed brought on by the war economy and the stardom promised by Irving K. Muscleman from Hollywoodland USA, this episode is all about the pursuit–and parting–of cash. Clarissa reviews the Black Jack TV series, Gerald opines on Tekkon Kinkreet, and Daryl gambles it all away on Kaiji.
Show notes to be posted later today. Note: even though it is exceedingly common knowledge everywhere else the show is discussed, anyone who spoils THE GAME in Kaiji is getting their comment deleted.
Introduction (0:00 – 40:16)
Remember last episode when we said how vulnerable we were to spending large sums of money when crazy sales happen? We start things off by talking about the financial peril we’ve placed ourselves in as a result of Right Stuf’s latest Geneon clearance and Deep Discount’s 20% off sale. Daryl’s still short one or two Dragon Dynasty Shaw Brothers releases, but to be honest he never cared that much for King Boxer/Five Fingers of Death anyway. The next Deep Discount sale is around November, but you may want to get your preorders in for GaoGaiGar Premium Box 2 before then since even though it’d be totally sweet to get that for under $19 they probably won’t print up very many. Being dedicated and serious journalists, we take this time to read an email from an associate of a known sexual tee-ranosaurus to SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT before giving our thoughts on JACON 2008, which was in a new hotel and location this year. As these pictures clearly demonstrate, the hotel wasn’t exactly the greatest.
Let’s News! (40:16 – 1:10:30)
Tomohiro Kato’s otaku expiration date came up five years early, and rather than just commit suicide like all true otaku, he opted to murder a bunch of people in Akihabara. Whether this will help accelerate the future world as seen in Chapter one of Ressentiment remains to be seen, but in true Hudsucker Proxy fashion, Tsutomu Miyazaki has made way for him to inherit the moniker of “otaku killer.” Funimation licensed Ookiku Furikabutte which will be released under the name Big Windup, which is kind of surprising given that sports anime has never really caught on in the US because fans just don’t realize that the sport being played doesn’t matter. In a truly shocking and completely unforeseeable development, PiQ magazine has gone under. The post we mentioned as being on their website has since been deleted, so here’s a mirror of it. We cannot possibly imagine what led to this turn of events, so don’t take our BIASED AND UNPROFESSIONAL word for it: read for yourself what the former writers of PiQ and Newtype USA are saying about it all (see here, here, and here for starters). Tokyopop (perhaps finally accepting that nobody is buying this stuff) is opting to release their so-called “OEL” properties as Web exclusives, and a third otaku’s expiration date clearly passed because following an earthquake in Japan, a corpse was found buried under massive toppled stacks of manga. PS: if you want a free Black Jack poster, please send in your erotic fanfiction about other podcasters besides us.
Promo: Anime Genesis and Anime Diet Radio (1:10:30 – 1:12:53)
Benu x Mike is a lazy choice for a submission considering the content of this promo. This weekend at Anime Expo they’ve got a live podcast panel on Friday at 7:00 PM in LP 4, so be sure to show up and let Benu know that Dave and Joel were doing anime podcasts before he was. Hmm, LP 4…why, that’s the theater in the LACC! It so happens that TV’s Patrick Macias also has a panel in the very same room Sunday at 1:30 PM, so be sure to chant “nerd girls aren’t the future” throughout the proceedings! Show up in your anime-themed club shirts and get a free issue of Otaku USA! Say, if anyone gets a spare copy of Issue 3 (the one with The Third on the cover), let us know so we can send it over to “Sweet n’ Sour” Larry Sweeney.
Review: Black Jack TV / Black Jack 21 / Black Jack: The Two Doctors of Darkness (1:12:53 – 1:36:10)
Voicemails remind us that The Serpent and the Panda (aka Panda and the Magic Serpent) can indeed be purchased from Wal-Mart for $1, but it’s dub-only and not restored. Art style aside, it’s commonly considered one of the first (if not the first) “modern” full-color theatrical anime films. Here, Clarissa expands upon her previous Black Jack review (which you should probably listen to first if you haven’t already) to talk about the newer Black Jack animations that have been released this decade. They’re much more faithful to the original manga, though how much more faithful won’t be fully known until we actually get a proper release of it in English. Which, thanks to Vertical Inc, will be happening soon enough. Expect a Black Jack manga review then. Black Jack is certainly a miracle worker, but wherever there’s a Black Jack there’s ALL-WAYS Pinoko / Wherever there’s fun there’s always Coca-ColAAAAAAAAAAARGH
Review: Tekkon Kinkreet (1:36:10 – 2:01:33)
In the voicemails, Emily understands the quickest way to our hearts is through being sycophantic, and talking about how and we’re so much more awesome than AnimeTV. It’s true. It’s true. Gerald reviews this theatrical film from Studio 4C that marks the very first time an American director has directed a Japanese animated film through the very same system that a Japanese director would. The results are…something, all right.
Review: Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji – The Suffering Pariah – The Ultimate Survivor (2:01:33 – 2:30:21)
Daryl reviews Season One of a series that doesn’t seem like the sort of thing which would develop a following among American anime fans. Kaiji is a series with no pretty girls in it or pretty guys. The character designs are by most standards ugly. The budget is relatively low. The episodes are only about 20 minutes long. There are no robots, ninjas, magic spells, cute mascots, gun fights, or sword fights. So what does it have? It has gambling. High stakes gambling. And that’s all you really need. Since it was not explicitly stated during the review, please note that there IS going to be a Season Two of Kaiji, but since the series just wrapped up in April it’s probably still a year or two away. Worry not; the future is in our hands. You can read an awesome article by Ed Chavez excerpted from Otaku USA magazine which Daryl ripped off wholesale for this review over here.
Closing (2:30:21 – 2:32:16)
New issue of Otaku USA’s out this week, and while you’re at it, check out the newly redesigned website, featuring web-exclusive articles from both Clarissa (doujin events) and Daryl (Yoshiaki Kawajiri). You might want to bookmark that site now since we might have more articles show up here and there, though Safari users be warned: all that fancypants Java stuff probably isn’t going to play nice with your browser. Next time on AWO: Daryl might review Part 3 of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (but might not!), Clarissa will probably review the bad thing she was going to review this episode but didn’t have the willpower to sit through again, and Gerald is probably going to start digging into the depths of his latest Deep Discount purchase if he doesn’t review Nobody’s Boy Remi first.
Loved the discussion of game shows. Everyone’s definition of an easy question is so different
Oh man, I hope you unleashed the Pedophila special episode of brass eye.
Shit is awesomely bizarely wierd.
I couln’t comprehend the true form of that episode’s attack.
The show Gerald is thinking of from Detective Conan is “Masked Yaiba” which is a parody of the creator’s prior series, Yaiba, a favourite of Rob Fenelon’s.
I look forward to the first pachinko anime. For Daryl here’s a Fist of the North Star pachinko machine:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pachinko_machine_dsc04788.jpg
I’m not sure if I’d watch Kaiji but that situation of being a Freeter and not being able to find work and thus being in “limbo” is pretty much the situation in my life right now.
Also when you were talking about the main anime companies that are still here, why didn’t you mention Media Blasters? 90% of the shows I’m buying are from them now.
I wonder what you’re going to review Gerald? Maybe Demon Legend Ledeus or Del Power X? GUY DOUBLE TARGET?
Anyway, good show although I think the discussion on the conventions went a bit longer than it needed to be (I really don’t care to hear them unless it’s about new licenses being revealed).
What is this “Resentment” manga that was brought up at around 42:20? I tried doing a search on it on my usual manga sites but I couldn’t find anything.
I heard from Mr. Arias himself that he worked with CG on a film that happened to have a lot of Japanese staff and that’s how he got to work in Japan. He was at a panel at AX and I asked that. I wish I didn’t now because that just ruined the whole panel.
First of all, a request for Daryl: if you haven’t already decided to review Part 3 of Jojo’s yet, then please review it! I know I said this in a previous post, but I’ve been waiting for a review of that since whenever it was you reviewed Part 2.
I haven’t yet watched Blackjack or Kaiji yet; they’re both in my big folder of “things to download eventually”. Oh well, I’ll get to it someday.
I love discussion on anything Studio 4C related. Another request (sorry if I’m requesting so much): I would love to hear more reviews/discussions on any of Koji Morimoto’s work. That man is a genius, both as an animator and director.
And, I’m guessing this is the manga that the guys were talking about: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=6309. It’s actually called Ressentiment, not Resentment, but obviously, since I’m not Daryl Gerald or Clarissa, I can only speculate.
The name of the manga is indeed Ressentiment. It is the best manga about otaku ever because unlike Genshiken or Welcome to the NHK (which unfortunately wussied out over time), Ressentiment is nothing but THE TRUTH. The stark, harsh realities revealed within are simply too awesome for otaku to bear, which is why despite being only four volumes long the scans have (to my knowledge) stopped for quite some time.
Oh man, I hope you unleashed the Pedophila special episode of brass eye.
Consider your hopes answered. Come AWA I won’t be able to use…almost all of those clips. But “The Pedo-Files” will most certainly make a comeback.
I think the discussion on the conventions went a bit longer than it needed to be (I really don’t care to hear them unless it’s about new licenses being revealed).
You’re probably never going to like any of our convention discussions, either past or future. It’s my opinion that anime conventions are more than just “here’s the people in costume, here’s what THE INDUSTRY said,” but you’d never know this from most of the coverage anime conventions have received over the years. There is more to anime conventions than cosplay and announcements that you can just read or view after the fact, and our congoing experiences reflect that.
And while many of my recent purchases have been courtesy of Media Blasters too, their main income is through sales of live-action stuff (and porno). Not counting Voltron, I’m willing to bet that more people bought Machine Girl than all their other anime releases this year combined.
That’s only because Machine Girl is all sorts of awesome. As I mentioned to others after seeing it at AnimeNEXT, there are three truisms in Japanese cinema:
1) The human body contains 5-10 gallons of blood
2) That blood is pumping at 100psi
3) The blood can flow even if the heart isn’t part of the body any longer due to a vacuum field surrounding the body
What’s your read on Media Blaster’s ability to get everyone worked up about Machine Girl compared with their inability to sell something like the Apocalypse Zero manga?
I know Tartan has recently gone under, so maybe the market is not terribly lucrative, but I’ve been trying to figure out why crazy, bloody manga can’t sell the way crazy, bloody movies do. Are genre fans disinterested in manga, or is it an awareness problem?
I liked Gerald’s review of Tekkon Kinkreet. I’d be curious to hear your(or anybodies) opinions on the Manga. I read it a couple of years ago after ‘Hanaotoko’ (which I really enjoyed) and I am pretty sure I’m in the minority in thinking it’s not so great either. But I’d also like to understand why people love it so much.
Essentially I’m looking for affirmation that I’m right and everyone else is wrong in the guise of wanting to ‘understand’ the views of others.
You’re forgetting another important element in Otaku USA this month. Namely: ME.
Daryl, your appreciation of Amitabh buys you at least another ten years on top of the 30 year cut-off before they send you to Sanctuary.
Oh man, I just got through that ANN topic about PiQ. Chris Johnston’s “WAAAAAAH OTAKU USA DOESN’T DESERVE TO BE SUCCESSFUL” bitch-fest was a spectacular public meltdown.
Hey Chris, I used to read your blog about you working at EGM in the mid-90s and had a great deal of respect for you. Way to piss that all away by behaving online like a spoiled child!
Tekkon Kinkreet looks more than a little similar to Noiseman Sound Insect.
Really happy to hear Kaiji get a review, as it was probably my favourite 07 show, after Baccano (which I’d also like to hear a spot on in a later episode). I bet Macross Frontier will get mentioned sooner though.
Well anyway, I’m surprised the planned adaption of [url=”http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-03-05/anime-greenlit-for-tanaka-titania-space-opera-novels”]Titania[/url] (from the writer of LoGH) never got a mention in the news segment, which is big BIG news to me. Maybe the less than stellar track record of Artland is leaving you guys not so enthusiastic though. Me? I can’t wait.
Anonymous: Both Tekkon and Noiseman are both done by 4C and both had involvement by animation genius Koji Morimoto, so their similar looks is by no means a coincidence.
Oi oi oi. How are /you/ the Jedi, Daryl? Clearly moe is on the side of good.
But I guess the Sith are cooler, so whatevs.
Funnily enough after talking about pachinko anime, it turns out that the second Gurren Lagann parallel works video involves giant robot-mediated pachinko. Not exactly what we were discussing, but interesting nonetheless.
Also, as to Tytania, we recorded the news segment a bit ago, and it may have been before we found out about that. I imagine we probably would have mentioned it otherwise, as I think we’re all pretty excited about it.
“spectacular public meltdown.”
Thank you for pointing me to this! Both the initial meltdown and the following circlejerk are quite impressive.
I don’t blame the guy for getting his knickers in a twist about the look of the magazine, although they do say imitation is the highest form of flattery. But I had to laugh when he said when we have “no content”, especially considering NewType USA had never once published anything even remotely resembling actual film criticism.
I began a contribution as site for exclusive use of naruto. Please link to this site if I do not trouble you. I intend to publish a related story of naruto serially steadily from now on. Please cheer it.
Thanks for doing the Kaiji review, Daryl. You pretty much nailed ever aspect of the show and you even mentioned the narrator. Although ever since I figured out he was Fumihiko Tachiki I can’t stop myself from imagining that Gendo is going to show up and order Kaiji to get into a robot and play the world’s deadliest game of Go Fish. Or else the world will END.
It was too bad you guys couldn’t be at Anime Expo. You need to come out here and inflict Odin on us.
Re: Ressentiment and twist
I disagree, that part made the least amount of sense. In the original telling the creator was the sort of person who’d actually have the skill and capability to create a proper AI. The twist works as a deconstruction but a kind of false one. I mean how does the man revealed program a self-thinking piece of software?
I think sometime in “deconstructing the otaku” people WAAAAY over do it and Ressentiment for the most part had it about right. The eerie domestic violence or this is wrong and unhealthy meets “lovable Nice Guy” stuff was good. That twist part seemed going too far because of the stuff I mentioned. Makes me wonder if the special girlfriend is a trap this time.
It is a nice story but the scanlations seem stuck at volume 3 chapter twenty-five, and if that is the only flaw you just might want to check it out.
RE AWO #70
The whole show was okay. A little surprised how you guys joked about the massacre dude. The guy responsible for Kaiji teamed up with the guy who did Eagle to make a one volume manga called Confession which is okay. I mean it takes the idea of two men stranded in nature/isolation and watch as things go nuts. I am *almost* tempted to try Kaiji or Akiba if he can do simple character drama like that and Kaiji is this so bad its good sort of treat like lain out in the review.
Clarissa’s review felt a little shakier. Actually its something I noticed recently, especially listening to her guest-starring on Destroy All Podcast. I guess you are all friends but it seems that Clarissa has the weakest voice. That is Clarissa is often interrupted and though has strong thoughts and opinions it feels often I’m not receiving them. In the regular show I guess I just end up paying more attention to Daryl and Gerald (though I didn’t really note which was which for a while). Daryl is more out there and Gerald tends to drop more non-sequitors. Clarissa sort of ends up as chiming in, gets interrupted, or prompted even on her own segments. In the DAPDX episode she was in she also seemed sort of just “there” and needed prompting or was a unenthusiastic about the direction of the review or something.
I don’t know exactly why I’d say that precisely. But mainly it seems I associate Clarissa more with her reviews and even then it seems there are more asides and interruptions. I guess if there is anything I’d sum this up with its that I hope to hear more Clarissa, though I suppose its more important I pay attention to her more so I’m not distracted by whatever Gerald or Daryl are doing. Are there more guest spots she has done? Or does she keep a blog I could follow? I know Daryl more now because of how he gets around Greatest Movie Ever, Dave and Joel call him out alot, and so on; built himself up quite the internet celebrity status.
I am sorry, Gerald, but I disagree with getting a movie, even a purportedly pretty one that is worth it, on Blu-Ray. I mean if I get a PS3 I’ll get a Blu-Ray player, but right now I’m just happy with DVD. I saw the Tekkon kinkreet ad on my rented Paprika DVD. I also avoided Black & White before in the ViZ pulp line. Now I feel really REALLY dumb about that. I guess what creeped me out was all the relative amounts of nudity and poverty. The ad seemed beautiful but I’m unsure if its just a demo or a good story. Your review kind of just reinforces this about it. I think I will try to legitimately look over the manga again before I try the movie. I mean I like visually appealing movies but if I see anything praised for an artstyle I tend to give it an odd look and back away.
Hmm, I’m going to have to go for Otaku USA, aren’t I? Seems you guys do a lot of good work in that thing. I’m just not a magazine person, especially for anime. But if your articles are like your shows…
Thank you for the show.
Actually, I’m pretty sure Daryl and WAH are like the Hokuto Shinken and Nanto Seiken of anime otakudom. Isn’t it obvious? One is moe, the other is gar. One likes Golgo 13, John Rambo and “Sleepy” Estes, the other likes Kaede Fuyou, Mikuru Asahina and Nagi Sanzenin.
Two sides of the same coin that best be in harmony, because needless destruction can only be the result of the two sides fighting each other.
Besides, Jedi and Sith are so overplayed.
Uh, hello, bad Ikkitosen review? Are we talking about the same podcast? That podcast that STARTED the “Japanese police think all grisly murders are actually suicides” joke AND contained a protracted dramatization of a grifter who specialized in selling talismans GUARANTEED to contain the souls of ancient Chinese warriors or your money back.
Bad episode? LIKE HELL!
I sent you guys an e-mail containing scans from the 1994 magazine that came and went FLUX that featured “Japanimation”. Assuming little thing I kept for years. Interesting to see the perception of anime from then to now.
The Tekkon Kinkreet manga is set in Osaka, not Tokyo. I think you’re talking about the film only when you say Tokyo, but I think Arias mentioned it’s not specific – it’s supposed to be a generic any-city. But in the manga there are nods to Osaka.
Also Anthony Weintraub worked in live action film a lot before Tekkon, it wasn’t his first professional film gig – although his prior jobs were not specifically screenwriting. I wonder if he’ll comment here.
erin… how dare you try to correct the gods…
VZ Said
“I wonder what you’re going to review Gerald? Maybe Demon Legend Ledeus or Del Power X? GUY DOUBLE TARGET?”
I got Guy Double Target confused with Digital Target. I thought it was gonna be hentai! All and all it was alright, but the ending was really fucking stupid! Seriously!
Yeah, Clarissa, you have to be more active. Don’t just lie there!
Thanks Clarissa for getting Oofuri licensed! I know it’s all you!
Does Otaku USA make more money through a subscription or through a newstand purchase? I love every issue and hopefully the Goku/Bleach/Naruto/FMA covers are bringing in the old Newtype people.
Anyway, another great show. I’d rather have a long wait between full episodes than have them all split up so this was a treat. I haven’t read the Black and White manga, but I wonder how much of what Tekkonkinkreet lacks is due to the manga rather than the director.
I bought Votoms recently because of your old Tim Eldrid interview and I’m really digging it. Thanks guys!
> Yeah, Clarissa, you have to be more active. Don’t just lie there!
I feel terrible for laughing at this as hard as I just did.
zerochan –
You should, you bitch. 😛
(I might have laughed too. A little.)
Patrick –
Why thank you! I only wish I could seriously take credit for that, but ah well.
Also, we discussed the magazine revenue thing and we think it’s probably more money from newsstand purchases because subscriptions are discounted, but subscription money is guaranteed there unlike newsstand purchases which fluctuate and aren’t available before/during production. So I’m not sure if it evens out or what.
Oh right, I forgot to respond. Otaku USA (and all magazines) benefit more if you subscribe versus if you buy it off the newsstand. So it’s win/win; you pay significantly less money for the magazine and they get more money for it, too.
The comments on the Otaku USA website actually do work now, so feel free to leave your thoughts on the articles we wrote over there.
martikhoras: I can’t tell if you speak English as a second language or not, but it is rather absurd to argue “I don’t have an HDTV or a Blu-Ray player” as a counterpoint to the statement “this movie looks really good on Blu-Ray and you should watch it that way if you have the setup and don’t pay full price.” We know full well that most people do not have HDTVs.
Louie: I will probably review Baccano! rather soon, though it’ll probably be for Otaku USA and we kind of try to cover separate material on the podcast from what we write about if possible. Except for when we don’t.
Anyway, between writing deadlines, multiple conventions, and the fact that the news segment ran about 90 minutes long, Show 71’s getting split up out of necessity. In the meantime, we might post some random interviews or something which may or may not involve any of us whatsoever.
Jog has a really good review of the Manga that helped me see the it in a better light. But there does seem to others that aren’t that crazy about it so maybe I’m not in the minority like I thought.
Also, here’s a short interview with Matsumoto for those who are interested.
Two things I’d like to discuss with the lovely people here:
?New Black Lagoon announced. Opinions? Are you excited? Do you care?
?WTF happened to AnimeOnDVD?
-Jaime/KB
New Black Lagoon announced.
I don’t believe you. Prove it. Note: if you link to Giapet I will stab you to death with Kaiji’s chin because as of three days ago there has been no announcement, only an anonymous post on Moon Phase. That may be good enough for her, her readership that’s too lazy to look beyond the headline and the screencap with its “witty” caption, and the rest of the 506th, but it is NOT GOOD ENOUGH for AWO Company!
WTF happened to AnimeOnDVD?
Chris Beveridge sold the site a while back around the time of its most recent anniversary.
Actually, I’m pretty sure Daryl and WAH are like the Hokuto Shinken and Nanto Seiken of anime otakudom. Isn’t it obvious?
If by that you mean solely the fact that there’s hundreds and hundreds of guys like him and only one of me, then yes. Otherwise, no.
But I guess the Sith are cooler, so whatevs.
The Sith will never ever be cooler than the Jedi. Their leader is Hayden Friggin’ Christensen. The Jedi were led by Samuel Motherfucking Jackson. Additionally, the Sith slaughtered all of the Jedi and brought the galaxy to ruin for decades due to their shittiness, which is pretty much spot-on as far as the moe lovers go. I bet Toshio Okada would agree.
“Chris Beveridge sold the site a while back around the time of its most recent anniversary.”
Yes, but you’d figure they didn’t need to change the entire site…which until recently was simple and efficient, as always.
It’s suddenly become so much less pleasing to the eye. Like the rest of Mania.com, with all due respect. I’m not talking content, just purely design.
Granted, Chris has fixed it up a little bit, I can live with it now, but still…
They could have just made Mania’s logo ridiculously prominent or something minor like that, keeping everything else the same. At least the forums are currently untouched though.
I do believe there is a decadence among today’s otaku, but it’s not so much a matter of their desires (the man-vs.-moe battle goes back to 1957’s title fight Tatsumi v. Tezuka), as their ambitions. For comparison, let’s look at the original otaku.
Gainax themselves haven’t always lived up to their artistic potential (and it’s easy for me to criticize, as I don’t have to make a living in their industry, whereas they do), but if you gave a bunch of today’s otaku the highest anime budget in history and creative freedom, I bet the last thing they would have come up with was ROYAL SPACE FORCE–one of the most anti-fan service anime ever made (even its rape scene is depressingly realistic, rather than Kawajiri-esque). EVANGELION was made by otaku; FLCL was made by otaku. And, let’s not forget, OTAKU NO VIDEO was made by otaku–two years after the Tsutomu Miyazaki murders, at a time when there was no cachet whatsoever to calling yourself otaku. It was not a “cute” portrait of them, but an exchange of blows between their youth and idealism (expressed in the form of anime) and how they actually lived and what they were like (expressed with live-action). Both sides were, of course, true.
Four quite different Gainax works, by four different Gainax directors, yet I don’t hesitate to call each of the four among the most significant anime ever made. That was why I called myself an otaku, because I thought an otaku shouldn’t just be someone who loved anime for what it is and was, but for what it could be as well.
If there are so many otaku now, and “otaku” is so bankable, then shouldn’t there be half-a-dozen new Gainaxes these days, each trying to start some shit the way Okada and his b-o-y-z from the h-double o-d, Osaka down with me, did in the eighties? Homages to Daicon IV are faint, pale praise; Gainax did that as a four-minute in-joke twenty-five years ago.
–C.
Black Lagoon new series confirmation here:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-07-16/third-black-lagoon-anime-project-confirmed
I sent an email awhile back summing up my thoughts on the three host’s style: Daryl’s the sarcastic goofball, Gerald’s more of a straight man, and Clarissa laughs a lot.
And Daryl, you probably know this by now, but Ressentiment is still being scanlated on One Manga.
Speaking of Okada, did you see that Vertical is releasing his “Sayonara, Mr. Fatty: A Diet Memoir” in November? Not “Otakuology,” but still seems pretty cool.
Okada is definitely a different man, but I could see that in the difference between how he was at AWA 2004, and his 1995-96 visits to Otakon and Anime America. In 1995, he seemed to still very much feel himself part of Gainax’s history, and during the interview spoke in some detail about his view of their creative process and where their work succeeded and failed.
But the emphasis was on “their work”–what they had accomplished artistically while being otaku, not just the state of being otaku itself. By contrast, in 2004, Okada was still full of industry gossip (all of it cynical), but gave no impression that he had any further artistic ambitions or interest in making better anime. Hiroyuki Kitakubo, who was traveling with Okada, was very different–in a long conversation, I got the impression of someone who was burning to make new movies.
There has been some revisionist controversy in recent years over how much exactly Okada actually did contribute to Gainax’s early works; for example, Hiroyuki Yamaga has asserted that he, not Okada, wrote the final screenplays for both GUNBUSTER and OTAKU NO VIDEO. Because of the circumstances under which Okada left Gainax, one probably just has to accept this as different stories. It is worth noting, however, that Gainax’s four-year hiatus from making anime following OTAKU NO VIDEO coincided with Okada’s departure, which can certainly be interpreted to suggest he played an important role in production.
It’s one thing to focus on the superficial when all you’ve got to offer the world is a surface. But just like the world is full of otaku, it’s full of fat people–and I would have rather had the Okada at 117 kilos who was on fire to make anime than the one at 67 who ain’t doin’ nothin’ for the brothers. As you may know, one of the big social issues in Japan these days is “metabo”–metabolic syndrome; Yoshiyuki Sadamoto even made a joke about it in Vol. 11 of the Evangelion manga. So a book like Okada’s is definitely in on the trend. But again, my interest in Sadamoto has no more to do with him losing ten kilos than the fact Okada’s lost fifty. It’s what are they doing, or not doing, for the medium?
–C.
Admittedly, I only have a thumbnail view of Okada’s perspective, so this is likely to be terribly reductive. His diminished desire or ability to produce seems in some way tied to his growing ambivalence towards the consumptive and obsessive tendencies of otaku. I wonder if you can create a work like Wings of Honneamise or Gunbuster without taking those otaku inclinations to an unhealthy degree. Do guys like this ruin themselves when they try to clean up and become well adjusted?
>>If by that you mean solely the fact that there's hundreds and hundreds of guys like him and only one of me, then yes. Otherwise, no.
Now now Daryl, don't write me off like that. Along with enjoying moe anime, I watch a lot of the types of things you guys talk about on here. In fact, I just finished Megazone 23 the other day (along with Part III, oh god)
And no Daryl, if these comment sections are proof of anything, there is way more than one "guy like you" :V
>>The Sith will never ever be cooler than the Jedi. Their leader is Hayden Friggin' Christensen. The Jedi were led by Samuel Motherfucking Jackson. Additionally, the Sith slaughtered all of the Jedi and brought the galaxy to ruin for decades due to their shittiness, which is pretty much spot-on as far as the moe lovers go.
You're forgetting that the Sith also have James Earl Jones, and he cancels out everything.
Now now Daryl, don’t write me off like that. Along with enjoying moe anime, I watch a lot of the types of things you guys talk about on here.
Oh, I know that all too well. I never said that the moe/fujoshi horde didn’t know anything or cared solely for what’s new. It’s not a matter of poor taste so much as no taste. You can’t fool me, because I know all your moves! Why, I bet you got equal entertainment value from Megazone 23 Part 1 as you did from Strike Witches! But at the end of the day, when the chips are down, it ain’t Garland figures you’re buying!
You’re forgetting that the Sith also have James Earl Jones, and he cancels out everything.
Oh*, I didn’t forget. Rather, I remembered all too well. Does NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ring any bells? Still doesn’t compare to the real deal though.
*I would have said “oh ho ho ho” here, but you haven’t watched enough Slayers. Lucky for you this is not a punishable offense.
>>Oh, I know that all too well. I never said that the moe/fujoshi horde didn't know anything or cared solely for what's new. It's not a matter of poor taste so much as no taste. You can't fool me, because I know all your moves! Why, I bet you got equal entertainment value from Megazone 23 Part 1 as you did from Strike Witches! But at the end of the day, when the chips are down, it ain't Garland figures you're buying!
Maybe it's less "no taste" and more "having an open mind"? I'll enjoy anything so long as it's good.
And actually, I derive more entertainment from Strike Witches than I did from Megazone 23 Part I. Whoops :V
YOU SHOULD WATCH IT DARYL, IT'S GOOD.
>>Oh*, I didn't forget. Rather, I remembered all too well. Does NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ring any bells? Still doesn't compare to the real deal though.
Actually, I've totally wiped every trace of the prequels from my memory… so yeah, I forgot about NOOOOO. You win this round, Surat.
Also, "militant lolicon"? Am I that militant? I never fancied myself much of a militant anything.