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We slacked off on getting to this one, but at least it’s thematically appropriate for Daryl reviews The Irresponsible Captain Tylor, soon to be released on Blu-Ray in the US.
Introduction (0:00 – 50:05)
We have this unfortunate tendency to record/release episodes just before something major happens, but last month it was announced that after decades of legal conflicts, Macross anime produced after 1987 may now be released globally. The specificity of the year is noteworthy since that specifically excludes Macross: Do You Remember Love?, but we remain optimistic. Oddly enough, they’re now officially streaming Macross Flash Back 2012 for a limited time, which is easily the least accessible entry point to Macross since it’s meant to be viewed after having seen the original series and DYRL, but it was probably the least effort to post since it’s basically just an extended music video.
Say, you know who ELSE is on YouTube? Us! Finally! Well, almost. See, right now youtube.com/animeworldorder still goes to Daryl’s mostly abandoned YouTube page, but we can’t set the custom URLs until after the new channel has a minimum of 100 subscribers. After having posted one video and mentioning it on social media, we’re currently at 96. Here’s the current channel; once we get enough subscribers on it we’ll see about adjusting the custom URLs so that youtube.com/animeworldorder goes there instead. Hopefully it works (UPDATE: it does NOT work; custom URLs cannot be transferred to other channels once set. Our YouTube channel link will be https://www.youtube.com/c/AnimeWorldOrderPodcast). Note that all we’re putting up on YouTube are review segments, not the entire episode. They’re also going to be edited slightly to dodge the copyright bots. Although we will be adding occasional visual aids so that the whole thing isn’t just a still image, rest assured we are NOT “pivoting to video.” This audio podcast isn’t going anywhere. We’re just trying to put some sampler stuff on the platform everybody uses to maybe direct some of that audience here.
Ever wanted to donate to us but just wanted it to to be a one-time thing? Turns out for over a year, that Paypal donation button on the right hand sidebar of our site was busted. It’s fixed now. That said, once we get to 250 unique Patrons on our Patreon, that will force us to review Hand Shakers, so if you wish to hear us suffer and become quite irate, just $1 per episode will eventually get you there.
At around the 24:00 mark, we all start talking about what anime we’re currently watching. This is presumably the actual on-topic subject matter people tune in for!
Promos: Right Stuf Anime, SkullKast, Zac Bertschy Memorial Fund (50:05 – 58:43)
The preorders for the Blu-Ray set of the original two El Hazard: The Magnificent World OAVs are now open. We reviewed that back in Show 138 …man, six years ago. A few days ago, the announcement was made public that Berserk author Kentaro Miura passed away at age 54 two weeks ago on May 6th, 2021. The SkullKast, which is the affiliated podcast of the 20+ year-old Berserk fan community Skullknight.net, will be releasing their next episode on Sunday which will cover the community reactions to this. You can read eulogies by Chris Warner and Carl Horn of Dark Horse Comics over at the Dark Horse Comics blog. All seven of the hardcover deluxe editions of Berserk are currently out of stock everywhere, such that on Amazon they ranked within the top 25 list of books sold. That’s all books overall, not just manga. Due to Covid, reprints are likely to take much longer than usual, and so while this will no doubt come off as grimly opportunistic, the reality is that if you want to own the upcoming Volume 8 of those Berserk releases, you’d better preorder them. You can do so through Right Stuf here, should you wish to support us through our affiliate link while doing so.
Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of the death of Zac Bertschy of Anime News Network. In his memory, ANN has set up a team fundraiser in his name for the Trevor Project. Contrary to speculation, Zac did not commit suicide himself, but the Trevor Project is a cause he supported in life. The original goal of $5000 was quickly met, and now the stretch goal of $11,000 is 95% there. This makes Team Zac Bertschy the third highest ranked team over there, and if the goal is met they’ll be at number two. If you want to donate in Zac’s memory, now’s the time. It’d be a good look for the anime community to take the top spot, don’t you think?
Review: The Irresponsible Captain Tylor (58:43 – 2:07:33)
Back in Show 183 we interviewed Shawne Kleckner, co-founder of Right Stuf Anime, where he mentioned his favorite show of all time was 1993’s Irresponsible Captain Tylor, directed by Koichi Mashimo back when he was still awesome and produced by…oh hey, Tatsunoko Productions and Big West of Macross fame! We’ve also been fans of Tylor for some time, and even still have the T-shirts from when Tylor was released onto DVD through pre-Kickstarter era crowdfunding by Right Stuf’s anime label, Nozomi Entertainment:
With the release of the Irresponsible Captain Tylor Collector’s Ultra Edition + Artbook Blu-ray set mere weeks away (preorders currently closed, and we expect soon after for a regular edition to be announced), we decided to revisit the series. Comedy and the demographics of anime fandom have changed dramatically over the years, and this series is rapidly approaching that “Thirty Years Ago” status Daryl would frequently look back upon. Does this beloved series of our adolescence hold up to the rigors of what is considered acceptable in 2021? Full disclosure: Right Stuf is our sponsor, and they did send us preliminary “check discs” of the Blu-Rays for us to evaluate this new edition. While we don’t think this colors our evaluation of the series–in fact, we might even LOSE OUR SPONSORSHIP~! over this one–we just want to make sure everyone knows this stuff up front.
One of the perpetual mysteries I have about Japan, is why it does not have a media rescue organisation. Either organised informally like in Britain, as an part of the media apparatus as the US or as a government organisation as in Australia. Given the propensity of copyright material to fall through the cracks, if a country had pride in its artistic past , surely someone from within the country would be organising a way to to find and archive stuff that by law is difficult to reproduce but in reality is easy to destroy. It sound to me something the cool Japan funding would actually be useful for.
If I had the money, I would fund anyone willing to preserve the original 1999 HunterXHunter anime adaptation, it’s just too good to be swept under the rug because THERE IS A NEWER SHINIER WIDESCREEN HD VERSION from 2011.
On the note of Odd Taxi, I highly recommend it. It’s got excellent writing and a really chill mood. Minor spoiler in regards to the animal characters, just pay attention to how the MC refers to people as animals.
I enjoyed the chat about the composition of 90s anime fandom and how it grew out of STEM university groups. Lot to chew on there. I came into anime fandom in the 2000s, but I’m sorta curious about that IRC era that came before me.
Also, wait, so… You guys would *want* a Gunbuster sequel that would pick up directly after the OAV? Seems like that would end up neutering the effectiveness of that original ending. Not seen Diebuster but I think it was a lot smarter to leave a large enough gap so as not to negatively impact the power of that original finale.
I tried to watch Tylor maybe 10 years ago and really did enjoy the first part of the show, but the shift in focus away from the comedy and towards that stupid space princess irritated me so much I never finished it. Maybe I should go back and track down that VHS episode.
IDK maybe I just like that kind of thing but I object to Gerald’s assessment of 86, yeah it’s mostly dialog and the time jumping uses dates and not vaguer numbers, but you know what else is like this? Legend of the Galactic Heroes. [While I have not seen 86, Legend of the Galactic Heroes does NOT heavily use time jumping dates. It is told in linear fashion with the exception of very occasional flashbacks at the beginning (that are extremely obvious because there is a cloud border around the picture and the characters are shown as children or wearing completely different outfits), such that the date is told at the start of the episode and then repeated at the end of the episode; this date does not fluctuate much because each season tends to span one year’s time and there are not repeated jumps back and forth in time every episode. I am inclined to say the two are in no way comparable to what Gerald is stating 86 does.]
Not liking the characters or story? Yeah that’s cool, completely understandable.
But the use of a complete date to show when something is in time is a very common thing among sci fi stories that present themselves as war drama or alt history type things. It’s intended to make it evoke a documentary. Now, it is possible to go “the year is 20XX” and also have that say “2 months later” to make it more clear, but I don’t have much trouble personally keeping up with it.
Also, it has spider-tanks and spider-tanks will always be cool.
Glad to see you guys are getting into the “YouTube as Podcast Ad” game. Not gonna lie, I expected you to put something like thoughts on a season or a really fun con story up there, not a review, because of the copyright pain in the ass. Shorter clips tend to help sell something, versus the huge clips, although having a mix of them is probably better for you guys long term.
Pleasantly surprised to hear opinions about pretty much all the shows I’m watching. I’m kind of in Gerald’s camp on Eighty-Six. I think the show’s problem is that it’s adapting a super weak first light novel volume that’s about baby’s first attempt to tackle racism in fiction, plus a poorly fleshed out cast of people who we’re supposed to care for. I think it’s the clear romance focus on the two leads that’s the problem, especially when the female lead is such a slacktivist type. I have noticed the thing Gerald’s talking about with the dates, and it’s only really bothered me in a recent episode, where it flashes back to what I think is an event that takes place during/before the first episode, and the only way I know that is because some dead people show up. I hear that the show might cover the first 3 volumes and it’ll wind up being very action focused later, but I don’t know if that’s just people talking out of their ass.
Odd Taxi and Back Arrow are in the same boat for me. They’re both shows that’d probably be doing way better on Toonami, because they’re fairly accessible, interesting, and not too Japanese culture specific. Odd Taxi would probably run into Jason DeMarco’s “it’s not actiony enough” filtering criteria, but honestly, that block DESPERATELY needs a more diverse line up of shorter shows to make it more interesting. The problem is that due to the media conglomeration process we’re stuck in, Sony/Funimation sees whoever owns Adult Swim as competition, so they have no reason to cooperate and give them a good rate on the dub license.
One show you didn’t mention is Combatants Will Be Dispatched, which is very interesting in a few ways. It’s apparently the Konosuba author’s first work, it’s a non-standard kind of isekai, and you can tell the show didn’t get a great budget, probably because A) the protagonist has a dirtbag personality, B) it’s an isekai where people can go back and forth between the worlds (technically, anyway), and C) it’s got a science vs magic theme to it. I don’t think Kadokawa had all that much confidence in gaining sales in the Japanese market and didn’t invest too much into the anime, which is a shame, because the themes are things that have a certain amount of appeal to western audiences. And of course, sticking it behind the Funimation content wall doesn’t help it at all, especially when it’s definitely better than the light novel, based on what I remember reading. Then again, I hate 99% of light novels just due to their first person POV + generally sparse prose.
As for Irresponsible Captain Tyler/Tylor/whatever, kinda surprised that it didn’t wind up on Toonami or Adult Swim back in the day. Seems like the kind of thing they would’ve done, especially since they put Tenchi on there.
I’m kind of amazed that Combatants Will Be Dispatched isn’t huge considering how much people like Konosuba, but I guess it is a Funimation exclusive. It definitely makes sense that this was an earlier work because Konosuba is definitely an evolution of all the things this series does well. All in all though, it’s still pretty entertaining.
1. Eighty Six is not a spectacular show, but it’s far from bad also. I don’t know, to me the flashbacks don’t seem to be that many or that confusing. Unitl now, of course.
2. My suggestion from the actual season: Mashiro no Oto. For any music lovers. The performances are incredible, and there’s lots of attention to detail on the hands playing the shamisen. The most recent episode (8) had some cheap-ass melodrama shoved in. I hope it’s just a bump on the road.
3. As I watched Tylor, I felt it was shooting at all directions, mood and plotwise. And I can’t help to have a soft spot for the more serious episodes, because they seem to be purposely half-assed to emphasize the absurdity.
Oh, and I forgot another title I’m watching this season: Super Cub. Another iyashikei (sponsored by Honda maybe?), this time about a girl who buys a scooter. Good stuff for iyashikei addicts like me.
[At first, I was going to correct the grammar and spacing of this post, until I realized this is actually emblematic of how longtime Internet fans would post. Tylor otaku precede the Internet adoption of modern fonts–“modern” being the last 20+ years–and so many still double-space after sentences. Also, this is mostly just adding additional spoilers in detail rather than the intentional generalizations we verbalized, so keep that in mind if you are a new viewer. –Daryl]
First off, I would call myself a Tylor superfan(pre-ordered the deluxe blu-ray set with book). It is my favorite anime up to and including the first two-part OVA An Exceptional Episode. I first saw it when I was in high school, when I bought it on VHS(in alternating Sub and Dub formats) at my local anime shop. And the series had a major effect on my life, especially the philosophy of Tylor. “If you keep on living good things may happen to you.” kept me going through a dark time. But, anyway, I just want to point out a few things:
1: You make it sound like every female [Redditor/80s-90s STEM alert –Daryl] falls in love with Tylor pretty much immediately, which is not the case. The only two who love him or at least like and admire him from the beginning are the twins Emi and Yumi. Everyone else dislikes him or couldn’t really care less about him until he proves himself in some way. The very last person to realize he’s more than he seems and realizes she loves him is, Yuriko(which took almost the entire series).
2: Captain Dom doesn’t outright consider Tylor to be a genius or has a brilliant tactical mind. He does, however, at one point consider whether or not something Tylor does was by intention or chance. If it was intentional, he thinks, then Tylor must have a great tactical mind but, if it was chance, then Tylor is blessed with incredible luck. He also happens to believe that Luck is the most powerful thing to have on your side on the battlefield. He does realize one thing about Tylor, though. In episode 23 he realizes that Tylor is totally unpredictable. I have also heard that the connection between Dom and Tylor to Legend of the Galactic Heroes’ Reinhard and Yang is actually intentional.
3: The Irresponsible Galaxy Tylor is a complete slap in the face for fans like me. I can’t believe the people who made it had any idea why we love Tylor so much if they could produce that series, which had no heart or subtlety or depth and a really un-Tylor-like sense of humor.
Anyway, I’m glad you gave Tylor some of your time. This contribution is late because it seems like every time I let my guard down(I search for podcasts covering this series pretty frequently) is exactly when someone discusses The Irresponsible Captain Tylor. Also, there’s a time skip between episodes 1 and 2 and Tylor COULD have gone through Basic in that time.
I made the assumption that people unfamiliar with the series wouldn’t be reading these comments, I didn’t really think the main interest for others would lie in the rest of the episode. That’s on me. If you would prefer to allow me to make edits to remove specifics and repost before others see it, I’d be happy to do so. This was the first subject I’m passionate enough about to actually post about on the site after listening to an episode.
I’m so glad that I’m not the only one who strongly dislikes 86. I had heard somewhere that the light novel was really popular, so I’ve been watching it every week hoping they finally do something interesting. The very obvious ideas of racism and oppression are just that but the show feels the need to shove the fact that nobody cares about the 86 and everyone is a racist every episode. The main girl is a little bitch, as soon as she is exposed to what a war sounds like she starts screaming and crying like a little baby even though she’s a high ranking officer. The flashbacks for characters are so jarring and confusing time wise and their contents are garbage. I don’t know if you even got this far but at one point the group of soldiers go to a field with sakura trees to fight some robots and they have a flashback of a festival they had there when they were younger or something. And then bam, two people die and it’s supposed to be really sad because they both participated in a festival there once. It’s the most surface level bullshit ever and I’m mad at myself now that I forced myself to watch it as far as I did.
Because time is a perfect circle, the TV show is actually up on YouTube right now on NozomiEnt’s channel. Not even split into 3 parts. You get the whole episode in each video.
Also, I really enjoyed the part where you dumped on the Christmas episode for 10 solid minutes, because nothing made me want to punch Tylor in the face like him fucking around for 5 hours while Yuriko waits for him in the snow. Of note to me is the number of people who walk up to her while she’s waiting and are like “girl, why?” We are all asking “girl, why?”