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Freelance videogame journalist Heidi Kemps of Gaming.moe joins the battle to discuss the recently-concluded short comedy series Hi-sCoool! SeHa Girls.
Introduction (0:00 – 28:12)
The year isn’t exactly off to an auspicious start, as we’ve lost two friends: Psychommu Gaijin and Anime Hell contributor Mike Horne (there’s a GoFundMe for the funeral costs), as well as Bill Thomas of the Philadelphia Animation Society, previously featured in group interviews with the “Old Farts of Anime” that we did back in 2008 and 2009. Only MD Geist and/or Laser Fantastic can turn this around. Also, since it’s been a while since the topic was approached, Daryl weighs in on Battle Angel Alita: Last Order by Yukito Kishiro, which has recently concluded. Compare it to what he wrote in his review back in 2008 for Otaku USA. That website, incidentally, is also incidentally why there’s no need to ask for a review of the ninth Crayon Shin-chan movie, The Adult Empire Strikes Back, since that review was done four years ago.
Also, here’s video of Heidi’s bad videogames/kusoge panel at MAGfest:
Review: Hi-sCoool! SeHa Girls (28:12 – 1:26:23)
Heidi, Daryl, Clarissa: put down those exciting Sega products! Gerald reviews the recently-concluded simulcast (and recently announced for DVD) of perhaps the greatest of the “inanimate objects anthropomorphized as cute girls” anime: the one where you combine gdgd Fairies with Sega hardware consoles–wait, what? Oh, right. You see, kids, Sega used to have hardware consoles and…eh, forget it. Though the series primarily only focuses on three of the “Sega Hard[ware] Girls” there are quite a few more (there are some larger screenshots here). The system Daryl was forgetting the name of was Robo Pitcher, and as noted in the series it could switch between baseball and tennis.
HG101 has it’s own complex explanation for what constitutes “kusoge”, but the quickest way to explain is “interestingly terrible”. I have 2 kusoge articles on said site with one on the way, but only one is Japan-created (Muscle March). For a list of the kusoge articles so far, some covered in Heidi’s panel:
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/kusoge/kusoge.htm
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/catalog/theme-kusoge.htm
To tie into the show, the website’s editor printed a book about Sega games, volume 1 of however many might come out.
Mega Drive came out at a bad time in Japan compared to US. PC Engine came out years beforehand during the height of the Japanese market (1987), so it sapped away potential money for those moving from the aging Famicom before Super Famicom got released. PC-E also pushed the
shmup[This word is forbidden because it is a stupid word and I hate reading it or hearing people say it. “Shooter” or “shoot ’em up” are the way and the light. –Daryl] genre which was big at time, and was the first with a CD add-on. MD came a bit too-little too-late in between PC-E and SFC, with arcade ports that couldn’t quite cut the mustard. Sega was always known for pushing arcade hardware and experiences that couldn’t be replicated at home, hence the push for a strong console-centric series like Sonic.Meanwhile, Genesis came out at the right time for America to step up from the NES, while the TurboGrafx-16 came afterwards and floundered.
I kinda prefer watching SeHa to gdgd, but that might be the game player in me. I do like how SeHa Girls mentioned that Master System-tan was popular in Europe and Brazil, all for reasons too deep to discuss here. There’s potential for more SeHa Girls themselves, but it’d have to branch out to even more non-Japanese/non-Sega built ones (not counting Neptune, which has her own game series). Mega Jet, Nomad, CDX, Pico, etc.
“I do like how SeHa Girls mentioned that Master System-tan was popular in Europe and Brazil, all for reasons too deep to discuss here. There’s potential for more SeHa Girls themselves, but it’d have to branch out to even more non-Japanese/non-Sega built ones (not counting Neptune, which has her own game series). Mega Jet, Nomad, CDX, Pico, etc.”
Lord knows that would be a nice idea if they wanted to go there. I would suggest the third-party X’Eye from JVC, or the LaserActive expansion “PAC” as well, though I suppose those are extremely obscure.
On the topic of video game adaptations, it seems like there’s a lot these days that aren’t nearly as bad. Maybe the DLC money and lack of original cutscenes in mobile games helps, but MAPPA’s Shingeki no Bahamut last year and Sunrise’s huge Love Live and Aikatsu franchises are game adaptations that aren’t bad at all.
But I really have to recommend iDOLM@STER (2011), a show based on a real gameplay-having console game that’s actually touching and follows the theme of the game at the same time. It’s what all the good people from Gainax did in between quitting and opening Studio Trigger.
But there’ll still be plenty of bad stuff as long as #1 video game anime man, the worst director working in anime, Seiji Kishi, is still around. He seems to think you adapt things by tracing the original game frame-by-frame off your TV and leaving all the original movies and screens in.
I think you’re being a bit unfair to Kishi when you call him the worst director in today’s industry. Aside from his admittedly terrible video game anime, he’s done plenty of solid, well-received work with things like Humanity Has Declined, Aura: Koga Maryuin’s Last War (the best anime about chuunibyou so far) and Astro Fighter Sunred.
It’s true I think he’s done some good episodic comedies, like Humanity has Declined which was great. But even in the non-video game anime he’s worked on, it feels like there’s never any “direction” or anyone trying to keep the episodes in continuity. The individual episodes of Angel Beats or Yuuki Yuuna didn’t feel like they were going somewhere, you know?
That it took less than a month for a new episode to post deserves nothing but praise. As someone who has only experienced Sega consoles through articles on the Internet, I can definitely say no, this show had zero relevance to me.
You were talking about “that angry Sonic kid” I assume you were taking about Sammyclassicsonicfan. He’s……not a kid. He was 14 when that video was made (has some sort of autism spectrum disorder) He’s mellowed out a bit.
Since I was the ever ardent Sega fan (both Game Gear and Genesis) I feel obliged to watch this show that you reviewed.
P.S. I hate that particular word too. II just say shooter or space ship shooter.
Well at least “Chris Chan” didn’t get brought up during this whole thing, so I’ll give AWO compliments on not going there!
Regarding Battle Angel, I think the thing that is missing in Last Order is Alita’s character development. The thing that makes the original manga so great was that it is as much about Alita growing and maturing throughout the story as it is about the cool action sequences and weird sci-fi gibberish. She starts out as Ido’s doll and through her experience and relationships develops her identity beyond the one locked away in her untapped memories. And that all culminates in the conclusion of the original story when she uses all that she’s learned to pass judgement on Tiphares.
Last Order by comparison is less about Alita finding herself than it is about her chasing after the McGuffin that is Lou’s brain. The original manga may stray in many different directions, but it is all tied to Alita’s personal development. In Last Order, that consistent theme is missing so it is hard to tell where it is going or why we should care.
Because I listen to each show via a direct mp3 download through my Windows Media Player, I have seen every little embedded image for each show, and have been positively baffled on more than one occasion. Particularly the flying scrotum man, who I learned about in said show.
Also: I fail to see the problem with Shirow drawing porn. He’s an older gent and if it’s what he loves to do, more power to him. Better than seeing him offer up half hearted retreads of similar themes, or worse, burn out and fade away completely. [Enter a valid email address already. Nobody ever sees it, and if you enter obviously fake addresses it goes to the spam folder, like this did, which I normally just empty without even glancing at what’s in it. –Daryl]
I do believe I’ll simply refrain from commenting in the future. Or listening, for that matter. That will at least spare you the difficulty of checking your spam folder. [This is an exceedingly drastic measure, but suit yourself. –Daryl]
For anyone planning on “having relations” with their Dreamcast, this is the song for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzAGWXLAg-8
It’s interesting that you guys mostly agree that this is a good show, when some of my co-host couldn’t seem to stand but more than a couple of episodes. This would be up my path since I got into collecting Sega systems and games starting back in 2006 when I got my Sega Saturn w/ NiGHTS from a local game store, and the collection has continued since then. I am in my late 20’s so when it comes to the console wars of the 90’s, this does have an affect on me (also, I went with the winning side of Nintendo, but now they mean nothing to me these days). I will check this show out despite some of the opinions of my podcast co-host might say, and I may do my own review of it.
Also Daryl, I think the most important song of Daytona USA would be… well the main one. DAAAAAAAAAAYTOOOOOOOONNNAAAAAAAAA LETS GO AWAAAAYYY!!
For Gerald, a very important song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glTnjGmjTcQ
Hearing of the Sega work song kinda reminded me of a Donald Duck cartoon where he had to agonizingly listen through such a song at his job working at a department store. I sorta wish they still did this around here.
https://youtu.be/puvXgHVj1a0?t=1m
Another cartoon with a similar joke was UPA’s Pete Hothead…
https://youtu.be/GVZYFURQJW0?t=1m41s
Feel free to read this in your classical “nerd” voice.
There was a rechargeable battery for the Game Gear. My family carted it around on road trips with our official Sega brand carrying case which had a space specifically for the battery (and the magnifier attachment). The battery was half the size of the system, and was good for several hours to spare us the use of a 32 pack of AA every trip.
Fun episode. Its nice when all three of you have seen the show.
Nerd pride.
I have that same one, only it has zero charge to it. It’s just now this accessory that sits in my Game Gear bag, only to say I have it.
Reminded Game Gear also had that fancy TV Tuner, but only certain models could use it I believe (mine was a late model that didn’t advertise it).
It’s “Nicomini”! Nico-mini! I don’t care, but I don’t want people thinking I put “Nekomimi” on my business cards or anything. Thanks for answering my questions! Sorry about the whole “missing you reviewed Shin Chan for Otaku USA.” I hadn’t listened to that episode yet when I sent the email, but I am all caught up now.
Having listen to Paul Chapman’s podcast before this (because I don’t catch up very often with AWO lately, sorry), they seem to be of the opinion this was more a cultural different than simply Sega getting cold feet when it came to putting Sonic in this show. They suggested Japan may not have the same ironic attachment to Sonic as the West does, and that could be an interesting fact though I’m sure there are some in Japan who might think otherwise.