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Oh, DUH. We forgot to record a closing and tell people what we were reviewing next time. In fact, we took so long that we lost the voicemail number. Let’s mourn its passing by actually answering some of them. Better late than never…
Too bad you guys will never be able to have phone voicemails anymore. Is it possible now that we may hear international mp3 voicemails now?
Anyways, I’m really sad that the rate of you guys producing normal episodes has now turned into a somewhat bi-annual occasion, from the looks of it. Even though I know you guys do have jobs and such, I’m still sad about the fact that there are less reviews now…..
It’s easy enough to record an MP3 of your voice and send it by e-mail. I’ve done that before for podcasts and the quality comes out better. It’s probably also a little easier to edit into the show.
It might be time to re-examine the format of the show. Maybe picking just one show to review per episode rather than three. And the news segment would probably be better if it was more about commenting on a few news items rather than trying to be informative. It seems most anime fans usually get their news from ANN now. [I’m pretty sure you’ve just described the news segment as it has always been: Gerald looks at ANN headlines, summarizes the ones he’s interested in mentioning, and then we comment on them. –Daryl]
That was true about how more FPS anime has been getting. Stuff that comes to my mind is K-On! and some episodes of Kannagi which was VERY fluidly animated at times.
I should get around to seeing the original AD Police OVA.
I would rather you guys consolidate these shows into one or two files per episode. I know that that means longer breaks between episodes, but I am willing to accept that. An episode that goes into part f is starting to
boarderborder on ridiculous. [This matter was put to a vote quite some time ago, and the overwhelming majority of listeners said they would rather have several shorter files released more frequently. The number of downloads for a full-length episode released after the individual segments had been long available were so low that we couldn’t justify the doubled bandwidth it would require to offer both. If anything, just download the individual segments and use the seamless playback option on your audio player. –Daryl]On a less critical note, I am really looking forward to Daryl’s insight into Gosenzo-sama Banbanzai! a show I honestly didn’t know existed untill he mentioned it right now. Let’s see if this is the Stray Dog Oshii or Patlabor Oshii. I’ve read the first chapter of Kingyo Used Books, and was impressed by the concept but not particularly struck by the execution. Finally, all I can say to Gerald is to ask him to shoot me in the head so I can fell the sensation of the bullet tearing through my skull and my brains being splattered…
You lost your voice mail number?! (Dies) That’s the worst news I’ve heard all month… I don’t know if AWO will be the same anymore… no more 666… That’s unfortunate, guys. I’ll hold a memorial service here in Fresno for it.
I find it hard to believe, but I guess people are actually buying Honneamise now, as I don’t see any copies on Right Stuf anymore. So I hope Bandai Visual sends your asses a “thank you” letter.
Saw your post on the ANN forums about Danny Choo’s interview (I posted under the ID of jenarwen). Just letting you guys know I love the show. I will probably send you a long ass email (something to look forward to?) in the future once I catch up. Love the show format, and no matter how ridiculously long the episodes are they are highly informative. Keep up with the show and uhhh post when you can =)
PS: I really wish there was a cartoon podcast like this. There’s The Animation Podcast, but I really wish there were cartoon reviews like this.
You guys were talking about Shinichiro Watanabe and how little work he does. Answer me this then, how popular were his shows domestically (in Japan)?
[If you go back and listen to what we said again you’ll notice that this question was not only preemptively answered before you asked it, but is also completely irrelevant to the matter at hand. –Daryl]
Listening to the show right now. I’ve got the RaijinOh disc and love the dub. It’s got a very 80’s/90’s feel to it which made it even better.
“Why didn’t they do Ninja Scroll II right away?”
Because Manga Ent. had changed hands at least once by the time everybody figured out it was big. Everybody forgets that Manga Ent. (backed by large money Island World/ Polygram) was a funding source and partial owner of some of those early releases they did.
Also, part of the reason why Newtype USA died (it seems the main one was the Japanese publisher was unhappy about something going on) has to be the sales numbers dropped at LEAST 50% when the Musicland Group went out of business in Jan ’06.
OK Daryl, stop rolling your eyes at me.
How could it not? Look at the math. TMG (Musicland Group, parent of Suncoast) was buying NTUSA as a non-returnable product from Retailvision, so they were paying 50% of cover price. 50% markup is a damn good margin in retail, the norm is between 30% and 45%, depending. (markup on candy? 200%. now you know why everone pushes candy) (yes, I handled invoices, I saw numbers)
TMG bought between 20 and 40 copies of NTUSA for EVERY STORE IN THE CHAIN, every single month. 2500 Stores.Let’s go with the small number, that’s 50,000 copies bought by TMG alone. Bought non-returnable. Which meant ADV got an assured $300,000 a month just from ONE retailer. Every Single Month.
And 20 copies was an unusual low end. My checking around says at least 35 per store was average, with as high as 48 for a few month, and we almost always sold out.
That’s one account. Add on Barnes and Nobel, Borders, local book stores, comic shops, Tower Records, FYE. Yeah, it generated some income. But I really suspect, looking at the published legal data for copies sold (really really tiny type), TMG was at LEAST 50% of their over the counter sales. With that gone, it had to hurt.
Steve: Actually, I talked to Maruyama at Madhouse about Ninja Scroll 2, and he’s wondering what’s going on with it too. I think he was also implying that Kawajiri was out to lunch on it. And it makes more sense, given that they already funded Highlander, so NS2 should clearly be next on the agenda.
As for NewType, I doubt the Musicland thing really impacted the mag, ‘cus you could still get it at most newsstands. So I’m guessing the real problem was the death of print combined with the anime bubble in general popping. [I.E. less buyers across the board because they moved on to other shit.] Musicland might have paid a higher premium for the mags, but ADV still had to sell ’em, or ML would eventually refuse to stock ’em. And obviously, if NTUSA was really doing that well, then ML shouldn’t have imploded the way it did. So I’m guessing the mag did slightly better than average, at best, at worst, broke even. And whatever profits it did make ended up going back to the the editors and writers. So it really didn’t make sense to keep it going in an economy where the focus needed to be on products which sold well enough to keep the company going, too. In other words, they over-diversified, when they should’ve stuck to the bread-and-butter stuff, which is the problem with a lot of companies post-bubble. [*cough* Virgin Megastore and Borders *cough*]
I disagree strongly. You’re not understanding the mechanics of the magazine industry. The sale to TMG was non-returnable. That meant a sure paycheck every single month. All other accounts (except comic book stores) were returnable, which meant shipped copies weren’t always SOLD copies.
It can be thought that the guaranteed sale to TMG was the fuel that kept it going. around a half million a month guaranteed income is a significant factor.
The big factor that killed TMG was the investment firm that was running it losing faith because the damage done by Best Buy (imposing odd policies that quickly reduced caring employees with drones, stripping away the entire warehouse/distro network, etc) was traumatic. The ever-changing management made mistake after mistake, grasping for ‘magic bullet’ solutions that NEVER paid off, money that should have gone to paying bills. Blah blah blah.
I’m sure the TMG deal helped a bit, but you have to realize that $300,000 (and even $500,000) is a drop in the bucket in terms of the costs required to publish a magazine on a national scale. Plus, they probably gotta pay the Japanese publisher some of that dough for exclusives on its end. [Every single firsthand account out there suggests the licensing from Kadokawa fees was actually the key issue. –Daryl] That’s why NTUSA was ready to axe the sample DVDs even before Suncoast went down. And I doubt ADV would have kept NTUSA running even one more year if the TMG thing was that detrimental to their sales. Hell, look how fast Viz got out of the biz with Animerica, which had survived for over a decade! Print journalism is just not the same money-maker which it was before the Internet.
Daryl mentions the license fees being an issue. It’s quite likely that the assured income from TMG was a big part of that payment.
I stand by my statement.
As someone who works in publishing, I would hardly regard $300-500k monthly (or $3.6-6 million yearly) as a mere “drop in the bucket” towards a magazine’s expenses; even a magazine with the lavish production values of Newtype USA. If something happens to your distributors or retailers–especially something drastic–that is serious news for any publisher.
So Daryl has no problem with the FMA dub, but disdains the Death Note and Black Lagoon dubs? [I don’t disdain them, but at the same time I find all Ocean dubs to range from “okay” to…well, “mediocre.” The Black Lagoon dub at least has more swearing. –Daryl]
I thought they were better than the FMA dub. But to each their own, I guess.
I would have to disagree. The only character that didn’t have a decent voice actor was Brock. Did you listen to Dutch’s English voice actor? That guy completely destroyed the Japanese VA out of the water. I’m surprised Japan didn’t send that guy overseas for the Japanese track. If we had more black characters in anime, that guy would have more than one credit under his name.
Wow. I just realized it’s been a while since I was doing my frequent requests for reviews on talkbacks for older episodes (Ah, the glory days of pining for a Roots Search review from you guys), but Anime Bargain Bin brought to my attention a “film” (Really it was one of those compilations of a whole series squashed into an awkward narrative) called The Brave Frog. And if you thought Ringing Bell was bleak, well, just read this. There’s also the fact that the whole thing’s on Youtube, so none of you would have to seek out a tape, DVD or torrent. Seriously, this would make for an amazing review.
ABB’s synopsis is here, by the way: http://www.anime-games.co.uk/VHS/anime/brave-frog-kerokko-demetan.php
This is borderline off-topic, but I couldn’t help but shake my head as you guys complained about how being an adult sucks, and wished you were kids with the disposable income you have now. That’s probably the prevailing opinion among the more infantilized moe-crazed otaku out there, but come on! Has Nobuyuki Fukumoto taught you nothing? If you don’t like being an adult, then you’re doing it wrong!
I also couldn’t help laughing when Clarissa called you guys out about your video game habits… like most anime podcasters (and anime fans in general), I bet you easily spend more time any given week playing video games than watching anime. I’ve got a full time job and live independently, but I still have plenty of time for anime and manga.
On the topic of otaku magazines, I’d love to see a publication that focuses on manga. Not only could it offer an obligatory slew of more thorough manga reviews that you don’t get in Otaku USA, but it could also give some coverage to the manga niches that aren’t very much represented in either the world of licenses or scanlations. I suppose it would be difficult getting English writers who are intimately familiar with untranslated manga, as well as getting approval to include lots of artwork samples, as well as getting mainstream distribution… but maybe it could work if it started off in some sort of online format, built up an audience, and then moved to print.
Fukumoto’s narratives and protagonists have collectively taught me that life is nothing but endless misfortune and toil for the non-upperclass such that the only way out is to lie, cheat, and steal from other people. So you may as well lie, cheat, and steal from criminals because they’ve got it comin’. Except they’ll probably kill or maim you in some way for doing that since they’re criminals. It’s not like there AREN’T 4 casinos within 15-20 minutes of here. If I wanted to live like a Fukumoto hero then sure, the $100 blackjack tables are open where yes, I could win months/years worth of wages in mere moments. But the difference is that were I to lose, those years spent toiling in slavery to pay off those crushing debts wouldn’t pass in the time it takes to read a few chapters of a comicbook. I would have to live that out in real-time. The key to controlling any vice is knowing when to stop. Otaku have addictive personalities. Better to read about gambling than actually start.
You guess wrong that I spend more time on videogames than I do on anime. Because the entire goddamned point is that I don’t typically have time for EITHER. I just started playing a game that I bought on release from three years ago. It has sat untouched since, in a large stack of other such games spanning back multiple previous console/PC generations. If I had time, I would be playing things as they came out. If you have a full-time job, live by yourself, yet have plenty of time for anime and manga then chances are good there is something else you’re not doing to make up for the time. Granted, most of my spare time is spent doing nothing at all because years of near-complete isolation have stripped me of desire to even lift my arms high enough to reach a remote control and don’t know a single person willing to regularly come over here and go through any of these ever-accumulating stacks of media I possess. It’s a crippling weakness of mine, not being able to watch movies etc on my own. I find that the videogames I play (when I get to play them) tend to lend themselves more readily to solitary consumption than movies, TV shows, or cartoons on account that they’re single-player games.
Resources that focus on untranslated manga do exist, but most of them are such niche entities even online since most people hate reading about how great something is that they can’t then go read for themselves. “Boy, this manga’s great! Except it’s not available in English and you’ll never be able to read it unless you learn Japanese and can pass the JLPT like I did!” was the mantra of the MangaCast.
All I meant by the Fukumoto comment was that his protagonists find themselves despondent in the face of the normal and natural responsibilities of adulthood, with disastrous results. I was kind of joking that the same fate awaited anyone who felt the same way. Buraiden Gai is the only Fukumoto story I’ve followed to completion (as you know, Kaiji and Akagi aren’t even close to being “done”), but I bet you that if the Kaiji manga ever ends and is available to read in English, that character will find himself a changed and more agreeable man who would never do the sorts of things he’s doing in the beginning of the manga. But yeah, I find myself more empowered to generally have a good time now than I ever did when I was a kid. And this podcast weighs into that, so thank you AWO crew!
Not being able to watch anime alone sounds like it sucks. I often watch/read stuff alone during commutes, and sometimes in the late afternoon before I go to bed. Still, you could say I should be doing far more important things, like planning for my retirement or clipping coupons, but fuck it!
The MangaCast approach of reviewing titles that aren’t available in English one at a time defenitely wouldn’t work. Maybe if the theoretical articles I was talking about were written in more of a encyclopediec or historical sort of way… The closest example I can think of is Manga Zombie, which does nothing but describe shit we’ll never be able to read, but still has an overarching point outside of that and plenty of sample pages.
I haven’t listened to the show yet, so maybe you talked about your format, but I would love to try making it through one of your unedited shows in one go instead of multiple parts (I listen to Dave and Joel every week anyway), and I think it would be an interesting experiment if you put an unedited episode as an alternative to the parts. I also think smaller shows could help. Just talk about one show like you’ve been doing, but also put a little news segment or email answering in the front. Obviously I don’t know what it’s like with your schedules, and I know you have lives to attend to, but I would love if you would experiment with the format some more if at all possible.
[The show has never been recorded all at once. Right now, we are in fact posting them as they are being recorded without substantial editing. As such, we’re actually currently doing most of what you seem to be asking we should do. The only snag is that there is no such thing as a “small” news or email segment; talking about just one item generally takes 10 minutes. –Daryl]
I’m gonna sound like a troll here [as you always do], but why do you always bring up what the mainstream American audience watches? To me, it sounds hypocritical to want anime to be popular but then hear Gerald complain when stuff like Afro Samurai, fully CGI movies (FF Advent Children) and Manga Ent.’s stuff sells the most. [You really think “the mainstream American audience” watches even Advent Children? No, Goofus, we’re talking about the mainstream ANIME-VIEWING American audience. –Daryl]
Is it some validation that you need to have others share the same hobby to enjoy it?
“Granted, most of my spare time is spent doing nothing at all because years of near-complete isolation have stripped me of desire to even lift my arms high enough to reach a remote control and don’t know a single person willing to regularly come over here and go through any of these ever-accumulating stacks of media I possess. It’s a crippling weakness of mine, not being able to watch movies etc on my own.”
I kinda understand as I too have some DVDs and encodes unwatched yet. Still, when your hobby becomes a chore it’s time to scale back your consumption. Glad I gave up modern videogames a decade ago.
One English dub that I thought was impressive was for Macross Plus. I may be accused of being biased, as it’s my favorite anime ever, but I argue that the English dub is one of the reasons why it became my favorite anime. [Macross Plus has a great dub–Richard Epcar’s in that one too, go figure–and Bryan Cranston has since become famous for Malcolm in the Middle and now Breaking Bad. However, Macross Plus is a 90s dub and therefore beyond the scope of what was asked. –Daryl]
Clarissa said the Monster dub was good? HELL NO! Worst dub ever. Tenma, a quiet serious doctor, being dubbed by Liam O’Brien, sounded gay and flirty. Worst casting job ever(and I love O’Brien). Clarissa… dead wrong on this one, you are usually the smart one.
Some good dubs… Death Note, Gantz, Legend of Arislan, Kai Doh Maru, Ichi The Killer, Black Jack, Super Gals, and of course Texhnolyze.
[Actually, she didn’t say that at all. This entire comment is therefore disagreeing over a position nobody here adheres to because you couldn’t be bothered to actually listen to what we were saying, as usual. And don’t throw around “worst [X] ever” like the Comic Shop Guy; I read your entire autism-fueled 671 entry ranked anime list that you just emailed–which is rife with spelling errors and includes several non-anime entries such as “Mass Effect,” “Ghostbusters,” and “Silent Hill”–and trust me when I say you don’t know what truly bad dubs are. –Daryl]
[For future reference, it is somewhat counterproductive to a discussion if you refuse to give your name for the sake of maintaining the 4chan spirit. The reason for this is that it’s very difficult for other people to have a discussion with a specific person without anything to identify you as “you,” so usually these posts don’t get approved. Nobody else can see the fake email address you provided, but providing non-garbage information there is more for the sake of having your messages not get marked as spam. You may want to reconsider. –Daryl]
Completely agree about anime sloping in a downward spiral of moe-crazed mundanity. There’s too much of it, and it needs to stop.
There’s no way in hell shows about cute girls (or rather creepy in my point of view) being cute has as much mainstream appeal like say Cowboy Bebop, or Full Metal Alchemist.
I just saw on Anime News Network that Discotek has licenced the Galaxy Express 999 movies which makes me excited. I have never seen them in their original Japanese and I think that they would make a great review for the podcast (hint hint).