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For Show 118, Daryl and Gerald recount their experiences attending Otakon 2013 and Gerald reviews a title he saw for the first time at Otakon: Midori – Shoujo Tsubaki, also known as Mr. Arashi’s Freak Show.
Introduction (0:00 – 15:53)
We answer a question about the Dirty Pair, which we reviewed…actually, instead of linking it here we’ll say CLICK THAT REVIEW INDEX UP TOP, TOUGH GUY! HOOOOOOOOOOOO! That doesn’t take too long, so we spend most of this time discussing why the heck anime often features such extensive narration in dialogue. We’ve talked about it before, but if we can’t remember which episode we don’t expect YOU to.
Incidentally, the place where Daryl puts up pro wrestling videos (mostly Japanese and independent stuff) is here. Two hours a week, new stuff goes up every Wednesday at 8 PM Eastern. That said, there’s not very much overlap between anime fans and pro wrestling fans anyway. Most fans of “pro wrestling” are actually not fans of “pro wrestling” so much as they’re fans of “WWE.” For a similar geek related analogy, think of how most people into “US comics” really only consider “comics” as “Marvel or DC.” Or how many people into “manga” don’t bother with josei, seinen, and the like.
Con Report: Otakon 2013 (15:53 – 57:47)
Daryl and Gerald go over what will probably be remembered as one of the better Otakons in history…line management issues aside. The list of what was shown at Daryl’s panels is here. Much like the con itself, it feels like we spent a good bit of time on the topic without managing to cover it all. Unlike the con, we were able to partially remedy that situation as Daryl and Gerald were also guests on the STILL NOT RELEASED YET OSMCast! talking about the convention in some more blow-by-blow detail. We’ll post a link to that.
ONCE IT’S RELEASED. (Edit: It’s released…NOW.)
Review: Midori – Shojo Tsubaki aka Mr. Arashi’s Freak Show (57:47 – 1:21:43)
There is no conversation more tedious than “is anime…art?” but deep down, the need to discuss WHAT. IS. ART? burns deeply within Gerald’s art gallery exhibit viewin’ bad self. With that in mind he is reviewing one of the titles featured at Anime’s Craziest Deaths. This animated adaption of Suehiro Maruo’s manga (that got printed in English!) is probably the one that made the most people leave. Dave and Joel allege that people also left due to objection that he dared to play 60 seconds of live-action footage during the panel to set up the Black Lagoon joke. But Daryl tells himself they left due to schedule overlap rather than admit they hated Nicolas Cage. You know what’s art? NICOLAS CAGE.
Oh, and this Hiroshi Harada guy who made the thing we’re reviewing may or may not also count. Sit back and marvel at how we tell you not to watch this anime, and also tell you to watch this anime. Be awestruck at how we say to judge works on their own, independently of external influence, while we also say that because this is a noncommercial endeavor it warrants different evaluation criteria. It’s all twisted and deformed up in this piece, like we dared to tell the funny-lookin’ dwarf magician that he’s a funny-lookin’ dwarf and are paying the price. Oh boy howdy, are we paying the price. FOR YOU.
You get no links for this one. You want to find it, it’s easily found now. But YOU have to do it. YOURSELF. In this way, we’re completely not responsible.
I think that the first sight most Westerners got of Suehiro Maruo’s work was the artwork of the Naked City album by John Zorn (subsequent albums by him and the group were released under the band name Naked City), released in 1989.
http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=295844
Great to hear another episode, but man, it felt so short. I guess I’m just starved for quality podcasting at this point.
I had heard of Midori Shoujo Tsubaki before listening to this, but I wasn’t aware that it was available commercially. Which is just as well, because I don’t think I’m about to track this one down, art or no art. I’m almost tempted to test myself, but I imagine those images will haunt my nightmares for years to come if I decide to do so.
Hearing of this, I had to remind myself this isn’t anything like the “Grindhouse” mentality of films I’m familiar with given it’s “Art” status, but it almost feels like it would have a home on this label.
(NSFW) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j47Z7SVwuw
Well it’s great you guys like space dandy. My two friends were confused and are bias against men in pompadours since kamen rider forze came out.
I think you can repeat stuff for the panels because there always have new fans to show stuff to.
From what I know from another panel group. I’m under the impression where they reject you if you have done a lot of panels in the past. Or if you make bad jokes about taking off your pants at the panel you want to do.
Someone who didn’t like the art style in Fujiko? Wow have to look him up. [I believe what we said was that Ben didn’t take kindly to the relative lack of movement and animation in the series compared to past Lupin television shows. –Daryl]
Daryl, I’ve tuned into some of your wrestling when I’m fortunate enough to have time to see it. As someone who doesn’t regularly watch it, you sure pull up some interesting stuff.
Ahh, Suehiro Maruo. One of his more tame works, The Strange Tale of Panorama Island, came out a few weeks ago from a publisher called Last Gasp. After I read it I went on and checked out some of his other works, including Midori: Shoujo Tsubaki – Mr. Arashi’s Amazing Freak Show and its animation. And boy, that animation sure is fucked. I knew that Suehiro Maruo did art shows for his stuff, but I had no idea he’d do it so.. creatively by making it feel like a circus freak show setting. That’s interesting. [To clarify: it was Hiroshi Harada who made the film adaptation of Maruo’s work, and it was Harada that did the showings in that manner. –Daryl]
You guys are spoiling me for releasing at least 1 episode a month.
#AnimeWorldOrder4lyfe make more t-shirts.
Maruo seemed to be kinda famous (or infamous) on the Spanish manga scene on the early 2000’s (specifically of Spain… redundance ahoy!), as they got the manga of Midori published by Glenat there before the anime even got released. If it was a big seller or not I do not know, as not being from Spain I got my info about that manga mostly second hand at that time given the low availability of Spanish manga at that time in Mexico (and even less if it wasn’t a huge commercial work).
The magazines that made Maruo’s a running gag when talking about brutality are long gone, and the manga scene has shifted already into something else like everywhere else. If the new generations have space for Maruo, it is still unknown for me.
I have not watched Midori at all, but this being the Internet, I’ll comment anyway.
About two months ago, there was an ANNcast episode which mentioned that some fans thought that Oreimo was, despite the premise, a lot deeper than it seemed and wasn’t just pandering to people with sister fetishes. They were, then, shocked at the ending, where the main character ends up with his sister. Turns out, yes, they were pandering after all, but if you’re not someone who likes that fetish, you won’t even realize how pandering it really is.
It seems to me that an ero guro anime could very well be another case of this. Especially when you guys [Hey, leave ME out of this! –Daryl] couldn’t figure out exactly what the artistic intent is. Could it be that the anime is just a weird fetish anime, there’s not as much artistry as you think (beyond “I want to draw this weird fetishy stuff according to my own vision”) and you guys are giving it too much credit the same way people gave too much credit to Oreimo?
My favourite Maruo story might be the one about the abandoned boy in the sewers who sneaks up on ladies taking a poop and cleans their butts in undescribable ways.
So nice to hear a regular episode guys, for folks like me without much anime fan support in the live action you help inspire to keep my ANIMELOVE alive. Now that Space Cobra is coming out on dvd AWO you gotta review it!!!
Do you see what my problem is with Streetpass? You guys were always giving me looks when I was doing this nonsense with Streetpass and now you know!
Thanks for covering Suehiro Maruo if you review his adaptation of The Strange Tale of Panorama Island I suggest you also review the original novel which also came out in English this year.
http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-8758-9780824837037.aspx
There are some interesting differences between the two which I think Edogawa Ranpo would have approved of.