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We’re picking another one from the Patreon request tier this time around, as Daryl reviews the 2009 series Basquash!, which despite being Satelight’s highly anticipated follow-up to Macross Frontier was not released in the US until a full decade later. LET’S SPECULATE WHY.
Introduction (0:00 – 41:35)
Now that the current season of anime is a month or so in, we weigh in on the surprising number of titles we’ve been keeping up with. But we’re also watching older titles, and–get this–REWATCHING things that we last reviewed 10-15 years ago. Do our reviews and assessments still hold up? What’s changed between now and then? We also talk about that Hollywood Reporter article on anime that is just beaming with joy at all the immense money which anime is bringing in, which segues nicely into the fact that the employees of Seven Seas Entertainment are attempting to unionize on account that all that money doesn’t seem to be translating to more reasonable hours, pay, benefits etc. That effort is currently being met by…spending what is likely far more money to fight the requests of the union than it would cost to simply recognize the union. Follow UW7S on Twitter for updates on that.
- The Hollywood Reporter’s dubious article about how anime is the “world’s most bankable genre” – remember, anime is not a “genre”
- Pure Tokyoscope Episode 1 – the new podcast from TV’s Patrick Macias and TV’s Matt Alt opens with them talking about this article
Promo: Right Stuf Anime (41:35 – 44:48)
SPY x FAMILY is all the rage right now, but it’s a split season and in just a few short weeks that first half will be over. In the meantime, you may want to read the manga, for which the print editions contain bonus chapters as well as concept sketches which are not in the (bi)weekly Shonen Jump digital editions. If that’s what you want to do, consider that all volumes are currently on sale! As are other Most Dangerous anime titles, many of which are from the mad lads over at Discotek Media. If you click on our affiliate links here to make your purchases, we’ll get a small commission which helps pay for our hosting bills.
Review: Basquash! (44:38 – 2:07:46)
By request of our $10 tier Patreon backers, Daryl reviews this 2009 anime from anime studio Satelight, aka the mailed fist of Visionary Director Shoji Kawamori. What starts off as “giant robots piloted by kids from the hood to play basketball in the hopes of getting healthcare” quickly mutates into “idol singers from the Moon piloting giant robots to play basketball” which mutates two more times and ends up being one of those things that sounds way, WAY more awesome when you describe it compared to what you actually get. We try to piece together what happened when.
- Stream Basquash! on HiDive – we bought the Maiden Japan Blu-Rays but note that either version is technically the edited down, less fanservice-heavy version (which is saying something since there’s a fair bit of fanservice) such that shots like this post’s featured image were only in the TV broadcast
- Thomas Romain’s Twitter – posts in French, Japanese, and English
- Thomas Romain interviewed by Anime News Network
- How Basketball Anime Be Like – this video from 2017 was made in response to seeing Kuroko’s Basketball but it is equally applicable here
A couple that didn’t get mentioned but Kaguya-sama and Dance Dance Danseur have been amazing. The rap chapter in Kaguya-sama got adapted in an amazing way, and the cultural festival arc has been long anticipated. Dance Dance Danseur has really gone under the radar despite some excellent ballet animation and some fantastic emotional moments.
Tiger & Bunny S2 sounds a lot like Valkyria Chronicles 4, where the creative staff seemed to not look at any competing products made in the time between the first installment and their new project, and wound up releasing a thing that would’ve been great if it’d been released closer to the original. I fully expect the Devil is a Part-Timer S2 to fall in the same camp, although that has the added fun of a terrible ending tainting whatever anticipation existed for the anime.
AMAIM is back from the split season break, and I think the head writer is doing a better job? There’s a conspiracy plot thread for the season that I’m not sure will be competently executed to the end, but the characters actually develop in ways that make sense. That’s a big step up for the Gundam Build Divers writer.
Digimon: Ghost Game is kinda wearing the monster of the week thing thin, especially since they keep dropping hints of a plot arc that really hasn’t started, but it goes in HARD on the horror sometimes.
Having disconnected from social media around the start of the pandemic, I hadn’t heard about the Crunchyroll and Seven Seas stuff. It’s a shame that American laws seem to be constructed in such a way that over a long enough time, both corporations and unions turn into equal but oppositely awful things, due to perverse incentives.
I totally missed out on Basquatch when it came out, but man, it sounds like one of those anime that unfortunately lived down to the negative stereotypes of the medium, and maybe stereotypes of what Kawamori is as a writer/producer. It seems like the kind of thing that might’ve done a lot better with a different starting director who had some level awareness of non-Japanese culture, basketball, and/or how to do a good sports anime. At the very least, it probably would’ve been a lot more coherent than what we got.
I do think it’s interesting that a lot of seeming black characters are supposed to be Ainu.
You just HAD to mention Oban, didn’t you? I backed them! For years I had my UK DVDs, and one episode has a glitch, but every single UK copy has it. The horrors of mass production. Well, now I will have all the episodes in a resolution that is EVEN GREATER THAN 576p. Which is nice. Plus, I got the digital download of OST V2 which was never released. Even more nice.
And speaking of crowdfunders, when that Unico reboot manga comes out and it’s good, do mention it.
Speaking of Wolf’s Rain, obligatory reminder that masters higher than 720×480 (NTSC non-square pixels) do not exist. So, the Blu-ray was a mistake, especially considering that the AI upscale was not the best. If you are reading this, go for the OG DVDs, or track down the BD/DVD combo box. And then cry that the OST V2 was never released outside Japan.
Is there a particular source of the broadcast version of Basquash! that you recommend for those of us who bought the domestic Blu-ray set?
There’s no legal source, but fansubs exist that use the broadcast 720p raws for the source. They used soft external subtitles, which was uncommon for 2009 but is generally the default now that “fansubbing” is something of a misnomer. Nowadays, groups just rip the official translation. Still, much like that first episode of Osomatsu-san, those rips are the only way the media was ever preserved.