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It’s been a while since Gerald “pulled a Gerald”: reviewed something that you can’t easily go see. But he’s back at it, reviewing the 1992 3-part OAV series Genesis Surviver Gaiarth.
Introduction (0:00 – 27:26)
After putting it off for ages, we now have a Discord server! Posting privileges are available to anybody who backs us on Patreon at any tier. We also talk about the shows we are currently watching, which in about a week or two is set to skyrocket. It’s only happened a few times, but the number one movie in America for a weekend was a Japanese animated one in Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. Somehow, only Daryl saw that one. Since Gerald lives in a GKids town, he got to see Inu-Oh and Goodbye Don Glees and stuff instead. This brings up the question: what anime are appropriate to show in American middle school? It’s a tougher question than it appears, since while there’s plenty of anime made for and consumed by middle schoolers, few of them are to the content standards of the US educational system. If you have any suggestions, let’s hear ’em!
Promo: Right Stuf Anime (27:26 – 30:11)
Now that it’s been a month since the Crunchyroll buyout, we can safely say that–for now, anyway–there isn’t any seismic shift in the service Right Stuf presents. Prices still good, sales are still what we’re used to seeing. We’re told they don’t anticipate any changes to this, but in this day and age of buyouts and mergers, nobody can truly anticipate anything it seems. While there was a launch that then quickly un-launched due presumably to credit card payment processor headaches, it appears that the 18+ site BuyAnime is now up and running and looks pretty much exactly like how Right Stuf proper looks.
Review: Genesis Surviver Gaiarth (30:11 – 1:17:06)
In the wake of Daryl’s Thirty Years Ago: Anime in 1992 panel, Gerald reviews this 1992 3-part OAV series which was only ever legally released in the US on VHS. Yep, there was never a DVD release here (only in Japan), and it’s never been released in HD or streaming anywhere. Is that an egregious oversight, or is that because it’s not worth remembering? Regardless of where you stand on this matter, one thing remains clear: it’s from the bygone era where Shinji Aramaki wasn’t doing stuff on the computer! And yes, it’s spelled “Surviver” in the title and not the usual “Survivor” though you’ll often see it listed under the latter.
To answer your question about Kitazune: he’s mostly spent the last couple of decades making Gundam manga. He also embraced digital art earlier than a lot of mangaka, but that itself has been a double-edged sword because there is a noticeable decline in the quality of his art. The coloring in particular is very flat and plasticine.
The most notable manga of his is Char’s Deleted Affair, which ran in Gundam Ace throughout the 2000s. It is meant to explain what Char was up to between the events of First Gundam and Zeta. This series is notorious in some corners of Gundam fandom for his take on certain characters and for tying a lot of Char’s motivation to a dead babymama who only exists in this series.
These days he’s been working on Zeta Define, which is both a sequel to CDA and basically his Origin-style take on Zeta Gundam. From what I can gather, the reception for this is mixed as Kitazune’s changes are fairly slight and the pacing leaves something to be desired, and the art style remains devisive.
Thank you everyone, and of course particularly Gerald, for the latest episode! The middle school teacher who inquired about appropriate titles for their anime viewing group—I would assume that’s like a club, or extracurricular activity where the teacher is the sponsor…? I’d be curious to know if it has a study approach, i.e., “let’s watch this and discuss it.” Presumably it’s not just for entertainment, since, as you said, the students could readily do that on their own. Although I got into anime in junior high myself (through seeing it at con video rooms), my family didn’t have a VCR until I started high school. You’ll recall that schools used to possess those A/V carts with a monitor strapped to the top and a VHS below—at lunchtime in high school we’d watch anime in whatever classroom happened to have a cart left in it, but it wasn’t a formal club or anything. Often the cart would be in my journalism classroom, where the teacher (one of the two best teachers I had in high school) would make the occasional remark about the degenerate moral level of these cartoons. She did, however, say she liked the line in the Mystery of Mamo: “I must compliment you on your rational thinking. But it also limits your mind. There are many things in the universe beyond your comprehension.”
On my first trip to Japan, Animage’s cover story that month was on Lupin III: The Fuma Conspiracy, which, as a Lupin fan, naturally pleased me to see (they were also re-running the 1977-80 TV series at the time, and I took it as another omen that it was playing on a monitor in the Narita arrivals lounge). Somebody might correct me on this score, but I believe it was the sixth and last time Lupin III was the cover image of Animage. This might simply reflect a gradual cultural drift away from the reader base (Clarisse was still so popular that she got the cover in June 1985, despite Cagliostro having come out five and a half years earlier!), and the fact that by 1987, Lupin was arguably no longer either the presence or the force it had been. And if so, that was understandable, considering the preceding decade had seen an OVA, three anime films, and most significantly, 205 TV episodes, a number that seems astounding in these days when anime is doled out in miserly cours.
In other words, it was getting really difficult to do something fresh with Lupin at that point, when already so much of it had been made. I do feel Oshii and Amano’s lost film project was a regrettable turning point for Lupin—it had the potential to keep the movies and the franchise associated with the hottest talent. Yuji Moriyama, Hiroyuki Kitakubo, and Hideaki Anno among others were all slated to work on it, which makes me wonder if the fact the potential project didn’t materialize freed up time in their schedules that later influenced the creation of projects such as Pop Chaser, Project A-Ko, and of course, Royal Space Force. I imagine it would have been as distinct a film from Cagliostro as Cagliostro was from Mamo (and both Cagliostro and Mamo are great Lupin films). The Fuma Conspiracy was still in production in the summer of 1987, and when I visited Yasuo Otsuka at TMS, I recalled him saying that the idea behind the OVA was an attempt to refresh Lupin III from a different angle, by centering it on Goemon instead; if Fuma were to be a hit, the idea was to then try a spinoff TV series starring Goemon. Evidently it wasn’t as successful as hoped, but arguably this idea of centering the story around a different character eventually did work 25 years later, with The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, leading to the Lupin III revival of the last decade. Maybe that passage of years and a new generation of creators was required to bring a truly different approach. I remember at one time drawing up a list of all the plot similarities between Fuma and Cagliostro, down to “the heroine is held at blade point in a standoff, and attempts to save the hero by throwing herself and the villain off a building.”
About Hiroyuki Kitazume—when I was 17, I knew an otaku who already had a decent job and was making enough money to afford to move out on his own, more or less—in this case he was renting a room, Maison Ikkoku style, in a house in Los Altos, which is just south of Palo Alto in Silicon Valley (“Hypothetically, time is equal to 400 total jerks at a two-dick rate”). When I say room, it was a fairly large space, like a living room–I seem to recall tatami mats and a futon. This was well before the dot-com boom, and I wonder what such a rental would go for today, when the average house in Los Altos can sell for four million dollars. I remember seeing My Neighbor Totoro for the first time at his place, and thinking “Man, where’s the autogyros? The ornithopters? I don’t wanna watch no movie about some kids and their magical woodland friends.” I wasn’t ready yet for Miyazaki’s new direction as a filmmaker—I wanted stuff like Lupin and Holmes, Nausicaa and Laputa. But anyway, Hiroyuki Kitazume—this guy had Kitazume’s famous nude portrait of Four Murasame, done as a poster for the December 1986 issue of Newtype, given a place of honor upon the wall. Of course, at that age you’re impressed anyway by people who have their own place, but seeing the poster displayed so boldly really brought home the possibilities.
—C.
P.S. Are hoverbikes still to be found in anime? They of course were emblematic of ‘80s SF titles, but, like opening sequences where the main cast all runs together along a dramatic landscape, the motif may perhaps have had its day. I blame health and safety regulations.
You are not ebil gubmint, and I trust you enough to reveal my secrets. I download the MP3s from this very site, and listen locally. I don’t listen to podcasts on YT, unless there is no choice. Perhaps most people are like me, or download from iTunes or whatnot. That will explain you not getting video views.
And regarding Amazon’s amazing LOTR show? It claims to be a prequel to the story set in a fantasy world created by Tolkien. What makes fantasy fantasy is rules defined by the author, the creator. You cannot break said rules when making your own sequel or prequel. Go tell fantasy fans that world rules do not matter, and see what happens. They will unsheathe their swords and start casting magic missiles. And of course, the Amazin’ show is boring as a bonus.
I’m thoroughly enjoying The Rings of Power, myself.
Decided to pause this one, as I wouldn’t mind another crack at watching Gaiarth first (started it, never finished, first impression ‘looks good, kind of medium story’), but I do have a weird affection towards it. I always liked the Scramble Wars OVA, and I remember the two main characters with their mechanical bird being one of the main teams for the race.