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We were sent another batch of questions from the Anime82 Podcast, and since it took us 3 hours to answer them all, we figured we’d post our responses here across 3 installments. The questions were sent to several other podcasters as well, so head on over there to hear everybody else’s replies. Perhaps we should have sent our responses to Anime82 first before posting this ourselves, since our not having sent this audio is probably preventing them from posting in the first place? Details, details.
Daryl was on the Greatest Movie EVER! podcast, talking about the 1986 animated Fist of the North Star movie. He’s pretty sure the lyrics are in fact “ease my pain, ease my loneliness” but comprehension of Kodomo Band transcends mere mortals.
The Youtube channel with Gerald playing old stuff on emulator is here. It’s mostly being done just to figure out how all these tools work, so it’s still “work in progress.” Daryl keeps a rotating 2 hour playlist of Japanese and independent pro wrestling here, and will have you know that he made all of those GIFs himself.
Below are timecodes for the questions that were sent to us, but we tend to drift pretty far away from answering each of them to discuss what in our minds are “related topics”:
08:05 – Introduce yourselves
10:07 – What was the last fansubbed anime you watched?
16:19 – What’s the biggest difference between anime now from anime of the 80s or 90s?
24:36 – Do you think the anime industry has improved from ten years ago, or worsened?
32:43 – What are some current shows in anime you are impressed by?
40:15 – What is the anime you’ve gone back to rewatch the most?
50:14 – Which studio do you feel has really declined when compared to “the golden age”?
As much as I don’t like the chosen release model for Yamato 2199, I guess there won’t be many additional chances to pick up this show at non-import prices. It’s now or never. Just as a side note, I’m wondering if they’ll re-use the existing retail subs for the official StarBlazers-branded release after all. That would be the obvious choice, but you never know if they’ll tweak the terminology and so on.
Kill la Kill is an entertaining show that does represent a welcome throwback to Go Nagai’s style of work, which is distinctly different from a lot of modern anime. Having said this, that also means the fanservice isn’t exclusively comedic, despite being surprisingly less creepy than initially expected and lacking certain contemporary fetishes. Nevertheless, the presence of that dual purpose doesn’t bother me.
I’m waiting for the home release of Attack on Titan to fully get back on that. My first impressions were great and the buzz has remained mostly positive. I suppose the fact I ran into a bunch of manga spoilers is what makes me want to drag my feet until I can forget some of them.
Gargantia is fine. I’d say it has more in common with the likes of Blue Comet SPT Layzner than Orguss, but you can draw parallels to both. Even if I’m not sure about what else they can possibly do with a sequel, that should be interesting to check out.
Most rewatched shows? In my case it might be Gunbuster plus Revolutionary Girl Utena and Baccano!, among others, although I guess Saint Seiya might also count just because I went through that one like crazy when I was a kid…to the point of burning out on most of the shounen fighting genre, at least until very recently.
Curiously enough…I’ve never bought Bubblegum Crisis at all, but supporting the Kickstarter seemed a natural way to make up for that. Granted, I selfishly wish they had kept it as a BD/DVD release just for convenience’s sake.
Ah, poor Gainax. I have to agree that they’ve probably declined in the most visible way. The whole Madhouse/MAPPA situation is still a bit of a shame though, but Bones also seems to be mentioned as going through a round of bad luck lately, especially after the disappointing sequels to Darker than Black and Eureka 7. Granted, it’s fair to assume Space Dandy should improve their position, at least internationally.
Sunrise has always had its ups and downs but they were certainly one of the most influential studios back when mecha happened to be the single biggest genre, regardless of the quality of each specific show, yet they still manage to create a number of interesting and entertaining products without too much trouble. Of course, the fact I actually liked Code Geass helps (which I’d honestly compare to Jojo rather than DBZ on several levels, for the record, but I digress) and I’m also quite content with their other series briefly mentioned during the podcast, such as Tiger & Bunny or even the sporadic Gundam Unicorn OVAs.
Hey sound good to me guys, thanks for being on the show once again!
Send me your questions when you can.
The single most baffling thing about the Yamato/StarBlazers 2199 thing is that Funimation has the rights to the last animated Yamato movie. In a world where the Japanese IP owners used comprehensible logic, Funi would already have the rights and be working on a deal to get the show into Space Dandy’s slot as soon as it ended.
I don’t think you need to be an anime fan for 20 years or so to think the medium has gotten worse in terms of availability of scifi material. I got into anime during the first Toonami era because I was a scifi fan and I’ve noticed how sparse the selections are (most of the time it’s mecha anime). 2013 has been a great year for genre anime, but most years, it feels like I’m settling for whatever slim pickings are there and tolerating boring, overly formulaic stuff because I can’t get scifi ANYWHERE. It really doesn’t help that most anime writing seems to be utter crap, which is partly to blame on adaptations of bad LNs and manga, but even original stuff can be horribly bland and uninteresting.
Sunrise’s problem is that the executives don’t get WHY people like stuff and try to compensate by sticking to formulas and sticking as much stuff into shows as possible. It’s why Tiger and Bunny surprised them in terms of popularity when their planned “next big thing” bombed (Sacred Seven) and why US fans generally prefer Gundam 00 S1 over S2. If they get competent people to write/direct, Sunrise eventually screws them over; if they get hacks, Sunrise lets them do whatever as long as they fill out the checklist. It says a lot when Gundam Build Fighters seems like the best anime they’ve put out all year and that’s unabashedly a toy commercial.
Oh, and screw Sunrise and their stupid transmedia/media mix strategy of shoving vital information into magazines and manga.
I’ll just listen to your questions when Regan puts this all together on his podcast. But were talking like what… mid 2014 if that! But, I could always get impatient and listen before hand, I dunno.
We went ahead and submitted our stuff to him like a week ago or so, and I think with our questions we were at like 2 hours or something, and our (well really my personal ego) goal was to try and be as long as you guys, if not longer. But alas, I have failed this time. But I’m guesstimating that the total time of the Anime 82 episode is probably gonna be like 5 or 6 hours total, maybe.
Its not gonna take long man, just waiting on everyone to finish.
I will also break it up into 3 parts like the last question series.
The only reason I did the 8 hour episode was so I could destroy all hope and dreams of all innocent beings. Having an 8 hour episode on mecha just felt right…
I assure everyone I will have this up and going a soon as all the guest are ready steady go!
When Regan said in his intro, “Overworked and underpaid, staring at the floor…” I wondered, but when he got to “Slow and low, that is the tempo,” I knew we were dealing with some full-clout Beastie references. “Man, livin’ at home is such a drag/Now your mom threw away your best doujin mag.”
I’m only 43 minutes into the show, but I wanted to say that even though your regular shows that deal with specific titles and news events are great, I also feel that answering these broader questions gives you both the chance to make some interesting observations; it’s only too bad Clarissa wasn’t able to participate. I could recommend that someone new to anime listen to this show specifically.
The new Hajime no Ippo anime is a bit of a letdown. I feel like I’m missing out big time for not reading the manga, which didn’t happen in the previous seasons.
You can find Redline legally posted on YouTube so you can find that one for free, although not in HD
I think it’s ridiculous to define the good old times as the era of science fiction. Maybe in the US the perception is skewed since it is pretty well known that shojo anime and sports anime never made a splash back then. But the rest of the world got Nagai, and Nishizaki and Tomino. But we also had tons and tons of what would now a days be called slice of life anime, shojo anime and sports anime. And lets not forget the whole magical girls genre, the horror genere etc…
The big difference between then and now, is simply that today without any kind of filter we’re being subject to the best and the worst of anime. And picking the best is difficult if you don’t want to pass your days glued to your tv/computer screen watching streaming/fansubs anime.
As to Yamato 2199 thing. Japanese are stupid. Calling Yamato 2199 Starblazers has no purpose in 2014. Reading Argo in the subs while listening the characters utter the word Yamato even less. The people that are going to buy this set are those that weren’t crazy enough to spend japanese prices for the blu-rays. And therefore having an english sub that is not faithful to the japanese script is just preposterous. I was on the fence for buying a well priced version of 2199 after having enjoyed the ripped/fansubbed edition. Not anymore. Revisionism a la HG is dead. Doubly so in 2014.
This season I’m watching only one anime. Gundam Build Fighters and I’m enjoying it 1000%. It’s funny, it’s classy, it has great fights and superb animation, good music and lovable characters. And the series makes fun of itself and of its fans. For once Sunrise has hit the jackpot. And those that think Gundam=trajedy can go take a hike because they’re missing out on one of best robot shows of the last 2 decades.
I can see the value of using the Star Blazers name in 2014, because anything with WWII connotations causes controversy somewhere, whether it’s in Asia or the US. If The Wind Rises gets slammed as WWII apologism, you can imagine what people would say about a show that’s pretty heavy on WWII imagery and has a Japanese battleship save the world.
They announced there would be no name changes in the subtitles. Only the title of the show has changed.
No; It’s not ridiculous at all; Cold hard facts reinforce the fact that science fiction was the dominant genre throughout the 1980’s. Go through the ANIDB calendar, month by month, and compare sci-fi to any other genre.
For every “Mahou Shoujo Lalabel”, there were four or five science fiction shows premiering in the same month. Geo/US-centrism doesn’t enter into the equation at all.
Thus, “what makes a splash” in the US or anywhere is utterly irrelevant. In much of the English speaking world, there was *no* perception of what Anime was except for a very, very niche group of individuals.
I’ve gone through the ANIDB calendar and what you say is simply wrong. Unless you’re cherry picking select months in select years. I stand by what I say, this whole 1980’s decade of science fiction is a typical US-centric phenomenon. You only see science fiction as being the king of the eighties TV anime because you didn’t get all the comedies,
slice of lifesitcoms, adventures, shojo, sports, romantic comedies, and horror anime.Cobra look at the big shows and movies from the 80s anime, look how many of them are sci-fi…..
Cobra: I’m battling allergies that make it rather difficult to look down, but as I go through the middle third of the audio, we did indeed go into the points that you’re addressing in the next set of questions and answers to be posted in just a bit.
I hope for a future where I don’t have a crappy Internet connection at home and I can stream constantly. Having a terrible connection sucks. Oh well; I’m still gonna buy Kill la Kill at some point. As for Attack on Titan, it looks like the anime has covered all the good bits the series has to offer. Ever since covering those parts, the manga’s been pretty stale. I’d hold off on diving into a second season when it inevitably starts up.
I donated money to the Bubblegum Crisis Kickstarter and I’ve never seen it. I’ve just always wanted to see it and I’d like to own the best copy. I love 80s stuff. With all the praise I’ve seen for it, it sounds like it’s worth the money.
You know, after Aniplex screwing up their legal stream uploads for no real reason today, I’m glad that fansubs are still around. Say what you will about their legality or usefulness in this day and age, but it’s always good to have contingency options available.
Kill la Kill #12 was up this morning less than 24 hours after it would normally be up. I think you can be patient enough to wait that long. I save fansubs for things like JoJo’s that no one seems to want to license & stream. I’m almost to the point of buying the BDs from Japan once my wife gets steady employment.
I’m glad you guys mentioned the ridiculous pricing for Starblazers 2199. I brought it up on the Cosmo DNA facebook page. I basically was told by the admin that i was not a true fan and a true fan would understand why the price needs to be high (to fund the project). While i understand in Japan that was indeed the model (The DVD/merchadise sales funded the project), i don’t see how it applies to NA release since most of the work is done. Sure there’s subtitling/translation, marketing and distribution etc but the cost is in the animation/CGI work and voice actors. They are shooting themselves in the foot with the pricing. They never are going to get casual fans to pick this up. I’m a huuudge SB/Yamato fan and i won’t be buying these dvd/blue rays. It would be neglectful to my family and financial obligations.
Don’t think they care much for the so-called “casual” fan. They’re just getting an extra profit boost from cranking out NA DVDs & reshuffled BDs. The artwork is the same, the English subtitles are the same, although they’re adding Spanish subs. They’re doing as little possible to continue the “Star Blazers” brand here in NA, while maximizing profit. [Is that really “maximizing profit” or is it “minimizing overhead costs”? –Daryl]
When it comes to flaws in shows fans admit to, I don’t understand Gerald’s criticism of DBZ being ruined by “constant fighting.” If anything, the whole reason that show became so huge was because of little kids being taken in by big muscled aliens clobbering each other and blowing stuff up. If you want to criticize an inherent flaw of DBZ, I guess you would point to when they AREN’T fighting, and characters stare down each other, powering up or regurgitating dialogue just to pad for time.
I have a question: Why does this Regan guy sound like such a whispery creep? Is that the volume he speaks at? It’s been so long since the last Anime 82 round of questions that I don’t remember. [Canadians. –Daryl]