Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:12:14 — 60.5MB)
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS
[Dear people coming from the SL guy’s Livejournal; the excerpt he posted is from a not-really anonymous comment left on our blog that does not reflect our opinions or anything we ourselves said.]
Show 81 concludes with Daryl’s review of Kekko Kamen and Clarissa’s review of Butt Attack Punisher Girl Gautaman. Along with the post-Anime Expo news, can you really call it the second half of a podcast when it’s over 2 hours long? WE CAN!
Let’s News! (0:00 – 53:41)
Notes forthcoming, much like last week’s episode which is still listed as “notes forthcoming.” If only one of us had some sort of online repository full of links and subject material for this segment that could be easily pasted into these spaces…
Review: Kekko Kamen (53:41 – 1:26:41)
Go Nagai? Restraining himself? H…holding back?! GODDAMMIT WHERE THE HELL IS JACK?! Reports suggest his knife is made of Super Alloy Z, but this is contradicted by the fact that it breaks all the time and he just summons forth a new one via the power of VIOLENCE~!. In any case, Kekko Kamen is a textbook example of how far we’ve come [fallen…?] over the last 30 years. Can there even truly BE screenshots of this, either of Kekko Kamen herself or the villains? Maybe we’ll just post the English translated lyrics to the theme song.
Review: Butt Attack Punisher Girl Gautaman (1:26:41 – 1:57:08)
Everything you need to know about this cartoon is succinctly encapsulated within its title. But maybe we should post some pictures of it anyway.
Buddha wants to make one lucky woman a superhero!
Sadly, this mostly involves wearing a really unfortunate outfit. And lots of butts. Buichi Terasawa and Sir Mix-a-Lot would both be proud.
Butt-related persecution, even!
It also involves stupidly ripped pretty boys.
Lesbian subtext.
And lots of blatant copyright infringement.Promo: Anime Hell (1:57:08 – 1:58:06)
The Sounds of Hell involve Isaac Hayes and Yaphet Kotto. Including a promo for the Greatest Movie EVER! podcast to promote Daryl’s guest appearance to discuss Ninja III: The Domination was considered, but ninja don’t MAKE sound.
Closing (1:58:06 – 2:12:13)
Next time, all that remains on the “one person recommends titles for everyone else” train is Clarissa. She has opted to do unto others as was done unto her. It’s a gamble. A very risky gamble. But also a manly gamble. Manly enough to the point that it’s probably really gay. But if you can get past the fact that the gamble is so gay they have their pants zipped down a lot, you’d see it was awesome. What we’re trying to say here is that Clarissa’s reviewing One Outs next time. As for Daryl and Gerald? THAT IS CLASSIFIED (for the next few hours). Be on the lookout: there’s a deadly stinger at the end of all this.
poppers: Which Cagliostro? The original version from Manga's got the regular intro, but the "re-mastered" one had that part turned into stills, presumably to deter reverse importation.
good day
It's george. i contacted you before about exchanging banner. I haven't heard from you yet. I'm wondering would you still be interested in it. drop me an email if you are okay with it.
Cheers!
The reason I didn't respond is quite simple. Look at this website. Go on, look at it.
Do you…SEE…any site banners?
I can't do a banner exchange with you because we don't have any banners to exchange, and the fact that you emailed me to ask this suggested that you never even bothered to look at the site prior to asking. Twice.
George is spam, but I know you know that. Exact same post has hit several places linked to here, Subbie's blog for one.
Gotta be by hand, with all the 'type this to post' roadblocks.
I'd toss titles into the challenge but you know what? I'm just not watching too much lately.
Hey guys,
So in the news Clarissa said something about the future of distribution being all digital. I started to wonder whether or not you guys thought this idea could work with anime; Voluntary Collective Licensing.
http://www.eff.org/wp/better-way-forward-voluntary-collective-licensing-music-file-sharing
The above link is a whitepaper by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on the subject. The paper is really about digital distribution of music, but perhaps it could be applied elsewhere.
See you all.
Takuya Kimura is about the most popular actor in Japan. It's hard to give a good approximation of his popularity, but George Clooney or Johnny Depp would be the comparisons I'd use. I get that he's part of the Japanese New Kids, but the Japanese New Kids are pretty fucking mainstream. His appearance in a drama is about the only relatively certain shot a producer has at getting ratings above 20 percent. Also Kimura can act. He's stuck pretty firmly to protagonist roles, but he's convincingly played ranges of heroes from sweetly sensitive to tough and manly. Casting him is pitching to more than just kids who never saw the original and won't want to because it's old.
The actual problem with Kimura is too old for the part. He's more of an age to play Desslar, though I don't know that I'd want to see him play that part either.
eliz: I think I've seen some of his shorts online. He's not bad; he's at about Chris Evans' level, I'd say. [And I don't consider that an insult, btw.] I just think he and his crew wouldn't work for Ninja Scroll, because you need some MMA-bred mofos to make it look believable.
Milo said…
OEL manga has the same problem as a lot of the scanlated manwha you'll see: it follows the form of Japanese manga, but not the function.
How I've been feeling for years now. Nobody wants to tell the very interesting story when they just want to ape the design conventions and try working a story around that. In the long run, I can see why the ideas have ran dry there if all it takes it trying to make the best art in the end despite the outcome.
I think it would be fantastic if some American comics became more like manga in the following ways: a focus on low prices and frequent installments, quality line art rather than bad coloring, weekly anthologies, a decompressed pace, more varied audience-pandering, and mainstream presence for experimental creators.
What they should've done for some time now, if only to save what little remains of the industry to date. I wouldn't mind paying $4.95 for a massive 300-page weekly (let alone if it's in B&W or not) if it meant giving these artiits a shot as long as there are capable people that are behind the finish product as what was mentioned in the podcast.
Notice I didn't say "triangle faces", "nosebleeds", or "green hair".
Or the big eyes, never forget that!
Sure, there's a place for stories drawn by Americans that pander to english-speaking otaku by mimicry, but that's far less interesting to me than if an American comic book company took efforts to make comics part of the mass-media, rather than an influence on it.
I'd rather see that too. American companies like Marvel could benefited from such a concept if it meant consolidating many of their titles into a complied book that everyone could buy instead of dozens of individual issues to buy separately. You'd be picking up on your favorite titles but also get others to check out if you want.
Anonymous said…
poppers: Which Cagliostro? The original version from Manga's got the regular intro, but the "re-mastered" one had that part turned into stills, presumably to deter reverse importation.
Oh TMS, why do you mock us? 🙂
I dunno. Europeans can do interesting shit with comics without having to rip off the Japanese. So why can't American writers stop limiting themselves to superheroes, Frank Miller-type shoot-outs, and indie comics where the main characters whine about everything wrong with their lives? That's the real problem here.
I think a lot of things come back to the fact that America has simply had a *very* different history in terms of comics than Japan, and presumably most European countries as well. We did have other kinds of stories. The Comics Code Authority and years of indoctrination that comics are for kids (and particularly for boys) made sure that they died off.
Now of course we no longer have the Comics Code, but the industry is built as it is – change takes time, and would require people in the industry who have both the desire and the influence to change it. But as I see it, there's basically these things happening:
1. A lot of people working in mainstream comic houses are the folks who already like the kind of comics being made and have no real desire to change that. It's what they signed up for. That often comes with a lack of understanding about what makes these other things or readers tick – witness the awful Marvel Mangaverse effort or that dumbass Emma Frost comic that was supposed to be for girls. They also have to juggle trying to expand into a new audience that is unreliable with alienating their current buyers (as few as they are). New people who might change things don't even bother trying to work there due to lack of interest or outright disdain for mainstream US comics – this of course results in the things they find lacking or dislike not changing.
2. Indie comics have in many ways become a "scene" rather than a general publishing avenue. So you get a lot of similar people naturally creating similar types of works. Plus the indie creators are just as subject to cultural ideas about comics or art as anyone else, and sometimes try too hard to avoid being like icky superhero comics or that weird manga stuff.
3. That lingering audience segmentation results in a lot of stupid cross-resentment among the crowds. Manga fans wouldn't be caught dead reading US or European comics – some are weeaboos; some have a lot of built in (and not wholly unearned) biases against them like the generalizations Anonymous just posted; most Americans are ignorant about European anything, especially comics. US superhero comic fans resent manga fans for taking over the comics space while not giving the time of day to anything other than manga (also there are a lot of icky girls, this is occasionally a factor). Indie comics folks don't really seem to pay much attention to anyone outside their circle, or if they do think US superhero comics and manga are both vapid and silly, but I'm an outsider to that scene so I could be wrong. So how the hell do you market outside your existing niche to those other people when they seem determined to ignore or despise you? Should you even bother?
I think America might have been starting to develop a strong base for comics, but it got mauled very early on and the damage was prolonged for years by the continuation of the Comics Code. By the time things could start moving in the opposite direction the community of creators was overly narrow, sapped and fragmented, and the audience got largely lost to imports. At this point, I'm not really sure how the hell you go about fixing the situation because it always seems to fail somewhere in the chain due to the above reasons (and several more to boot).
It also doesn't help that Marvel and DC seem to be in a running contest for who can hire the most awful Editor in Chief imaginable. Seriously, what the fuck.
Holy crap! Someone in the anime industry owns a non-Sony console. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/convention/2009/san-diego-comic-con-international/halo-legends
Thinking back now, I should clarify that while I mentioned a trend toward similarity in the indie scene, I think it's quite unfair to say that it's all about people whining about their lives.
But because indie is small and it does tend towards a specific scene, it can be difficult for folks who aren't already in to know what the hell is going on. That's part of why my knowledge of the US indie scene is so small. So other things exist, but people tend not to hear about them except for rare cases like Maus or Jhonen Vasquez' stuff (through Invader Zim).
Plus I think there's some cultural idea we have that in order to be "literary" or "important" you have to be a biographical story about overcoming some obstacle. Look at most of the books getting literary accolades, or the consistent Oscar noms/wins. So the indie comics that often *do* make it into the mainstream or get praised are similar sorts of (auto)biographies or everyday stories – because those are more "real" and therefore meaningful. Hence lots of people dealing with normal problems, and often whining about how their life sucks.
I basically agree with everything you said, Clarissa. Innovation simply isn't going to come from Marvel or DC. Besides being dwarfed by thir lucrative film industries, most of their fans buy their books out of habit, not merit.
For example, it's not at all uncommon to find a 35 year-old fan that has been buying every Spider-Man book and tie-in issue since he was 14. He really hates the stories being told now, and he hates the constant reboots and reinventions, but he keeps buying the books anyway, and putting them in longboxes. This is the main reason that so many mainstream comic books are pure crap. It's also the main reason that American comic book fans are one of the most obnoxious and vitriolic fanbases online. They blame the comic book industry for their own compulsive buying of crap, and fail to let their money do the talking.
I really like Image Comics' business model, even though I don't read much of their stuff. It would be nice if they took more risks more often, though.
Regarding American independent comics, those creators have already arrived at a point where they create high quality works that tackle a variety of styles of subject matters.
Anon asked "why can't American writers stop limiting themselves to superheroes"
the answer is that American writers already did that. I can name a dozen comic writers that escape the cliches of writing about super heroes or an auto-bio piece about how life sucks. There are more independent comics each year and these new comics continue to bring a new point of view in comics.
For those that cry out how American comics are juvenile spandex wearing fantasies, I suggest you go out and find some good independent comics. In my mind they have met the challenge set by the Japanese in sophistication in drama, comedy, storytelling and art.
http://derangedcomics.deviantart.com/art/l33t-skills-122151186
"And if I want to really be a dick about it, the Sexy Losers guy, which is why he's resorted to Kevin Smith-style humour to cover up his weakness in character development"
Actually, one of the explicitly stated rules of that comic is that characters don't develop, which is based on the general observation that people in real life don't develop like we expect them to in media. So it's not a weakness, it's a "feature".
I'd buy that argument, if the guy didn't shift from characters who at least had some depth to Ms. Bukkake Girl. Then at least, if they didn't develop, they had the potential to do so; otoh, in her case, you just know she's there to be the butt of cheap jokes. It's sort of like when they turned Gilligan's Island into a reality show. It just treads the same ground without actually focusing on the motivations and the quirks of the characters. And that's the problem afflicting the strip. Rather than give me fleshed-out comedy, I have to settle for shit scribbled on a napkin for a dirty comedy act.
Clarissa said…
I think a lot of things come back to the fact that America has simply had a *very* different history in terms of comics than Japan, and presumably most European countries as well. We did have other kinds of stories. The Comics Code Authority and years of indoctrination that comics are for kids (and particularly for boys) made sure that they died off.
All cringe-worthy things!
Now of course we no longer have the Comics Code,
Thank God!
but the industry is built as it is – change takes time, and would require people in the industry who have both the desire and the influence to change it. But as I see it, there's basically these things happening:
Bothering to skip 1 and 2 since that is self-explanatory (the indie scene alone is too stuck-up to begin with)!
3. That lingering audience segmentation results in a lot of stupid cross-resentment among the crowds. Manga fans wouldn't be caught dead reading US or European comics – some are weeaboos;
The term itself I still don't have an idea of what it means, but I think I know percisely what they are!
some have a lot of built in (and not wholly unearned) biases against them like the generalizations Anonymous just posted; most Americans are ignorant about European anything, especially comics.
To them I say f__k off!
US superhero comic fans resent manga fans for taking over the comics space while not giving the time of day to anything other than manga (also there are a lot of icky girls, this is occasionally a factor). Indie comics folks don't really seem to pay much attention to anyone outside their circle, or if they do think US superhero comics and manga are both vapid and silly, but I'm an outsider to that scene so I could be wrong. So how the hell do you market outside your existing niche to those other people when they seem determined to ignore or despise you? Should you even bother?
I tried to fit into that indie group and just couldn't feel it! You realize these people are just going to stay in the basement for now.
I think America might have been starting to develop a strong base for comics, but it got mauled very early on and the damage was prolonged for years by the continuation of the Comics Code. By the time things could start moving in the opposite direction the community of creators was overly narrow, sapped and fragmented, and the audience got largely lost to imports. At this point, I'm not really sure how the hell you go about fixing the situation because it always seems to fail somewhere in the chain due to the above reasons (and several more to boot).
In other words, we've failed to see the error of those half-century of restraint.
It also doesn't help that Marvel and DC seem to be in a running contest for who can hire the most awful Editor in Chief imaginable. Seriously, what the fuck.
Sad, truly sad. 🙁
Chris: You know what annoys me? That solanin probably lost the Eisner because it looks like an indie comic, even though it's nothing like them. I'm happy for Dororo winning, because Tezuka and Vertical need it more, but I'd have to defer to Solanin as the best translated manga on that list.
Anyway, going back to that OP catch-up, I seriously hope this doesn't end up proving Toren right. I like my manga published at a reasonable rate, but there's no way people can handle that many volumes a month. And I seriously hope this doesn't screw up the release schedules of the manga I do read from Viz.
Daryl: http://www.archive.org/details/ViolenceJackdubisLOL