Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:31:34 — 69.5MB)
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After vanishing–NINJA vanishing–for nearly a decade to start raising a family in NYC, we’re reunited with Erin and Noah of the long-defunct Ninja Consultant podcast (and Livejournal!) for the annual pre-Thanksgiving tradition that is THE TRIVIA EPISODE~!. Lots of new gimmicks this time around, be it game types or the fact that our Patreon supporters at the $5 and up tiers were able to watch this carnage unfold live on video courtesy of our Discord! Just take a gander at what you missed out on.
Introduction (0:00 – 9:51)
Just who are Erin and Noah, anyway? How do we know who they are? What made them fans? These answers would be known to those daring enough to have listened to the earliest episodes, but for the benefit of those of you with lives we ask them to recap matters as best as frazzled parents of two can. Why, they didn’t even mention how they got married on the Vomit Comet by Lord British! AND THANK GOD FOR THAT. Claims that certain cosplay incidents never happened are to be taken semi-spuriously.
Trivia: The Um…Trivianing (9:51 – 25:43)
The initial warm-up round is the usual AWO Trivia episode shenanigans and hijinks. You know the drill: there’s categories that very accurately describe the content of the questions to be answered, and then everybody gets asked stuff and objects the entire time.
Name That Tune: This Time, Actually Working Edition (25:43 – 1:25:00)
Last year, Gerald attempted this without testing everything correctly, but not to worry! THIS year, he’s got all the sound clips up and running. The catch is that unlike most Anime Name That Tune offerings you’d see at a convention, these are all instrumental tracks! Thrill and marvel as the gang doesn’t know the melody to the extremely popular for decades global hits you adore!
Anime Family Feud: Team AWO vs Team Ninja Consultant (1:25:00 – 2:31:34)
BUT THAT’S NOT ALL! 150 wackadoos were surveyed for a variety of thrilling anime-related responses, and it’s a race to see which of us can correctly guess what the heck you maniacs said…which was at times ridiculously off the mark and at other times ridiculously on POINT. While everybody else is of the Steve Harvey persuasion, Daryl grew up more of a Ray Combs guy, with a bit of Richard Dawson sprinkled in. The buzzer sound effect has been adjusted to suit. The survey SAYS…?
There are NOT a lot of sales in Crunchyroll store. I am gonna have 2 buy a region-free bluray and start buying at ebay
Boo you cut out our jokes about Carl Horn not being on Discord, I thought it was pretty good… [Gerald edited this one. I would never. —Daryl]
And Mushishi is not boring =p
Another great show. For those interested in Outlaws of the Marsh there is an excellent paperback boxed set in English. I describe the work as: outlaws, corrupt officials, loyalty, and more.
There is murder, mayhem, cities under siege, mass slaughter, cannibalism, AND those are the good guys.
Plus, a must for Giant Robo fans.
3 things I want to say after the 2 hours of trivia fun.
You complained about VLC at one point, and rightfully so. Many annoying problems with the player. However, VLC is really good for DVD playback. Everything else is done better by other players, including real time upscaling, and frame by frame searching. But VLC still does DVD best, while other players are maintained by developers who apparently believe DVDs do not exist because we live in a download-only world (or something). Those other players play DVDs, but not as well. Sometimes DVDs are pure interlaced, and VLC has both NTSC de-telecine (60i => 24p) and Yadif 2x (60i => 60p and 50i => 50p). Plus, VLC plays DVDs from every region. The ONLY downside with DVD through VLC is the program somehow screwing up the colours every time you take a screenshot. I do not know what happens under the hood, but I will guess a conversion from the colour format of whatever is playing, into Generic RGB, which means washed colours. A real shame.
Now, the other 2 things. Baccano! on Bluray is not very good. It is an upscale, and it is only okay. Just getting the old DVD sets is a better choice. Average and lackluster upscales should always be discarded over the original SD releases. I say just normalize SD on Bluray, that is better than a suboptimal upscale, always. Like Blue Sub No 6 on DVD will always look better than the vaseline upscale on the BD. Switching to Lain, I am surprised it is an upscale too. I always thought it was saved in high res or transferred to film during production, because the Lain Bluray is absolutely exquisite!
“So you have to rewind, wear out that part of the tape a lot, and then crank, it gets written into the firmware of the glans.”
It was great to hear Erin and Noah on the show, and, taking the quiz myself, I was surprised that I didn’t do half bad. I think there was one inaccuracy—the correct answer for Shiro Sagisu’s “Decisive Battle” was John Barry’s “007”.
I remember when the dub of Princess Mononoke came out, my thought on Billy Bob Thornton was that he acted the part well even if he seemed miscast, and that a good performance (which, after all, is a finished accomplishment) was more important than good casting in of itself (which is a starting point that may or may not lead to that accomplishment).
Of the many, many good things that impressed me about Macross Plus, one of my favorites was the scene where Sharon Apple’s limo arrives at the red carpet. In an odd way it relates back to the idea of casting vs. performance, because the fans here aren’t seeing the look of one of Sharon’s performances (i.e., her holographic avatars), they are seeing Sharon’s real body–a server, wearing a billowing gown. But they’re still going wild. I thought it was a very effective expression of the idea that one way to suggest a realistic future is to depict certain behavior that will seem baffling or alienating to one’s present audience, yet is presented as normal for the people being depicted.
Fyi someone mentioned ITV in the UK as an option for watching anime.
This is in reference to ITV’s (independent televsison) ITVX streaming service, available via digital television.
While we do have a lot of choice it’s not really up to date as far as series go (for example Cardcaptor Sakura, Cowboy Bebop, the first season of Emma, a Victorian Romance) and also we only have the dub track available for them.