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For our last show of the year, we interview Right Stuf co-founder Shawne Kleckner and tick off another year of the 2010s Decade in Review. That’s our way of saying this show is over three hours long. What better way to celebrate the winter solstice?
Introduction (0:00 – 27:30)
We are now listed on Spotify, so you may want to download every single episode of the podcast in the event that our hosting gets canceled for some copyright violation strike since uh, none of us actually have the episodes downloaded. The Explicit tag generally means we don’t talk too much about anime titles for very young children, so when we’re put on the spot to recommend suitable titles that are both in print and have an English dub option available that isn’t terrible, we find ourselves in a minor bind. If you have any noteworthy suggestions, let’s hear them in the comments!
Promo: Right Stuf Anime (27:30 – 30:17)
The Holiday sale continues on, so be sure to check out the new Mega Deals each day. Plus, Right Stuf is now starting to sell vinyl record anime soundtracks, for those of you willing to risk being eaten by the monster in Patlabor WXIII. Pre-orders are 25% off, and so we feel obligated to mention that, just in time for our Decade in Review segment, the complete box set for Kill la Kill is being reissued. It’s still pretty expensive, though not as much as it was when the series was being released.
Interview: Shawne Kleckner (30:17 – 1:24:24)
This is TECHNICALLY not part of the Right Stuf promo above, but if you want to accuse us of doing an informercial you are welcome to do so. Still, as co-founder of Right Stuf Anime from during a time before anime was commercially sold in the US, Shawne regales us with tales of film reel trading, snail mail letter writing, long distance phone calls, and other exciting analog innovations in the quest to get anime in days before home computers even had modems at all. There’s also a fair bit of talk about how the anime industry and licensing process works now, in 2019.
The Decade in Review: 2013 (1:24:24 – 3:11:34)
Daryl was a guest on the longest episode of ANNCast to date, in which the Top 10 Anime of the 2010s was discussed. As you might surmise, we’ve been bringing up on average about 30 shows of note for each year. That means there are something like 300 really great shows of the decade, so to pick just 10 means you’re guaranteed to omit something like 90%-95% of absolutely viable candidates. Therefore, don’t consider any of those lists ironclad. Still, it took over four hours for everyone to talk about their ten picks, so in our estimates the fact that we take two hours to cover more than that many per year means we’re being TIME EFFICIENT~! as we start to see the emergence of 57th Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe‘s plans to solve the declining birthright through the power of soft culture.
Good! Maybe today I will finally learn how Right Stuf makes a profit with all those sales and discounts.
You’ll all be glad to know that Hiroko Utsumi is still very much alive, having left KyoAni some time ago. That precludes her from directing any more Free! of course, but KyoAni was done with Free! even before the arson. Eisaku Kawanami picked up where she left off at KyoAni quite competently for the concluding few movies.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who fervently checked to make sure they remembered this correctly.
Been watching Ai Mai Mi on your guys’ recommendation, and it’s been a good time. Although it actually has three seasons, which is a big plus.
2013 will always be the year of Kill La Kill for me, but it was great to hear a mention of Patema Inverted, an overlooked but very worthwhile SF effort. Generic villain aside, the central conceit of inverted gravity is irresistible and leads to vertigo-inducing moments as characters try not to fall up. In 2014 I saw it at the Melbourne Film Festival on a huge screen where the shifting perspectives of looking ‘down’ at the sky were pretty overwhelming. Writer-director Yasuhiro Yoshiura was there in person to introduce it and all I remember him saying is how good it was to have his film be shown in such a massive theatre. Definitely recommend people check it out. A good standalone anime movie.
Aww thanks for answering my email! You guys rock. Lots of great suggestions 🙂 I cant wait to start checking them out. Thanks again!!
Man, I forgot Kill La Kill and Gargantia came out in the same year. Gargantia may not have been written in its entirety by Gen Urobuchi, but it shared his habit of not thinking things through, because it completely ignored the fact that its “normal tool using humans can coexist with their weird transhuman animalistic cousins” thing literally doesn’t work when those transhumans DESTROY STARS. Also, besides being essentially a Star Trek “character gets stranded on a primitive planet” episode stretched out into 13 episodes, I primarily remember it for Chamber being a great AI character and that awful scene where they shove 14 year old girls in provocative clothing for a terribly animated dance.
Somehow, Gargantia got a novel sequel after its planned animated sequel fell through, and for some reason, the sequel focused on teen characters that looked like they’d be the kids of the main character of the show and his love interest… but they were totally unrelated.
It’s so weird that we’ve gotten new Kill La Kill stuff in the last year or two, but I think that’s because the horrifically fast cycle time of anime makes anything that doesn’t have an ongoing sequel/multi-season run completely irrelevant.
Also, Daryl, your take on why the follow ups to Gundam Build Fighters aren’t as good is super weird, because Try (once you get past the first 13 episodes) and the Build Divers shows have LESS references to Gundam and Gunpla than the original. Like, 99% of the references in Build Divers are stuff in the background, with La Vie en Crab being the only one that was actually part of the narrative – and that was one of the best episodes. The problem with Try, Build Divers, and Re:Rise is that they shoved their heads up their own asses with overly serious storylines when they should lean into being dumb bullshit; had weaker direction, fight choreography, and music; and the characters not really being endearing Gundam/Gunpla/video game nerds.
Remember: Sengoku Basara is a video game adaptation, and it’s gotta be one of the top ones.
Good show. Any chance you could publish your lists on the site? Listening is fine, but sometimes things get talked about that I’m unsure of the title or forget later on as listen while driving.
Being able to quickly look up the lists later would be cool.
Regarding the title of Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet. While verdurous means green and the planet is covered in water so blue would be a more logical choice.
Thing is the Japanese word for blue is aoi and aoi also means green. Context determines what the word means in Japanese.