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Even though TimeHealsAllWoundsButWeSTILLAskWHYYYY, through a combination of its thirty year anniversary as well as upcoming new announcements, Daryl is reviewing the Patient Zero of fighting game anime that is the original Fatal Fury anime trilogy: the OVAs and the 1994 motion picture. In an age of scientific wonders, the human body is still the world’s most dangerous machine. Especially when it can fire ki bullets. Unless the scientific wonder in question is Mai Shiranui because she’s cutting diamond and putting out eyes with those things.
Intro (0:00 – 40:32)
Gerald and Clarissa have been doing a lot of work adding to their Otaku Archive collection, a catalog of American anime fandom’s past consisting of newsletters, zines, catalogs, con guides, interviews, and other print relics that have largely been lost to time thanks to the advent of the digital age. If you have materials or wish to otherwise contribute to the Otaku Archive cataloging efforts, the fastest way to reach them and get a response is through Bluesky: Gerald is @geraldawo.bsky.social and Clarissa is @clarissag.bsky.social. With Anime Festival Orlando happening right now, Gerald is presenting a panel related to the preservation of American anime fandom’s history, and since Otakon rejected that one he’ll perhaps be doing a virtual panel presentation of it over on the Anime World Order Discord, which you can post to if you back us on Patreon at any tier (but is free to just lurk and read, and we’ll probably let anyone watch the panel as well).
The preorders for Macross Plus on Blu-Ray are now open, and as we hinted at last episode, it is not cheap: $190 (though you can save 10-15% depending on your Crunchyroll membership level). This will be sold exclusively on the Crunchyroll Store and is limited to 5000 units (which is a whole lot of copies such that we’re not in any way concerned that it’ll sell out quickly, and that’s before you consider the expense). Disclosure: that’s an affiliate link where we’ll get a small commission if you choose to make the purchase from that link. If you want to bookmark the CR Store with our affiliate link, it’s https://crunchyrollstore.sjv.io/animeworldorder (which is also on the sidebar). Though, as the recent Discotek Media sale has demonstrated, we have quite a few issues with the CR Store, especially as it compared to Right Stuf which it replaced by way of a Sony buyout.
We also go over some news items. Gainax is officially no more, GoHands is still going strong, Sony has bought the Alamo Drafthouse (in a move that once upon a time, long before any of us were born, would have been prevented by federal laws and oversight agencies), and Toru Furuya has been dropped from his current roles after all.
Review: Fatal Fury: The OVAs and Motion Picture (40:32 – 2:05:04)
The announcement that Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui will be coming to Street Fighter 6 along with the release of a new Fatal Fury videogame, City of the Wolves, means that awareness of the series is the highest it’s been in years. As 2024 marks the 30 year anniversary of the Masami Obari-est anime to have ever been, 1994’s Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture, Daryl has elected to talk about the original two TV specials/OVAs as well as the film here. Join us for a reminiscence of what SNK and the Neo Geo even was–don’t think we forgot how you Smash Brothers people reacted to the addition of Terry Bogard to Ultimate back in 2020!–as well as an overview of the anime titles in question, which you can now purchase on Blu-Ray high definition courtesy of Discotek Media. Don’t worry, if you use the Pause feature here you stand no risk of wearing out your VCR heads!
(You see, in nearly every shot that consists of the fighting ladies in the motion picture making a quick movement, their breasts, buttocks, and possibly labia pop out either for extended periods or single frames such that you would frame by frame advance through these sequences to see them. Many of these shots made it through not only to the VHS previews, but also the Sci-Fi Channel television broadcasts. Like this one! Note the picture is flipped 180 degrees and audio playback rate is slightly sped up to fool the DRM bots.)
And so when the 5000 units of Macross Plus doesn’t sell out in a week, this will be ‘proof’ that there is no interest in Macross.
Mind, limited edition single source is a powerful trigger to the scalper mentality. Seen any copies of ADV’s Prefectual Earth Defence Force lately?
Finished the episode, and have 2 things to say.
First, AI upscale. Surprised you were so negative towards it. Sure, at first it was called “Vaseline upscale” for a good reason. It was awful, and a way for companies to skip spending money on a remaster, and just release a fake one that looks worse than SD. But now? Now it can do wonders. When a system (pattern recognition and reproducing system is what our “AI” is at the end of the day) is trained on similar art and frames from the show, while the settings are just right…a good AI upscale can sometimes beat “SD on Bluray” quality. One of the best AI upscales ever done is the Galaxy Express TV show release by Discotek. It’s just great, AND a lot of grain is preserved as a bonus. Another great example is something far less official, the fan AI upscale of Hunter x Hunter 1999 (still the best version of the story). That’s how I watched it, and I don’t think it is possible to have better picture, unless the rights holder allows a remaster of the “old and ugly 4:3 version”, when the “superior and HD version” exists. But I’m sure fans of the 2011 adaptation will do everything in their power to stop it. I mean, not only was the old version 4:3 (literally unwatchable as they say), but it DARED to have a little filler! (though said filler was directly or indirectly written by Togashi himself).
I will agree that AI upscale is NOT for live action footage, but for cartoons it is really great (in the right hands).
And the second thing, relating to your reply to me some time ago. “People want physical releases of old TV kids’ shows, as long as it’s the version they remember.” Well, there is one glorious exception, and that is Digimon Adventures. Not only did we get an official subbed Bluray, but ALSO a dubbed version. And the dub release is not just uncut, but (partially?) redubbed as well, to remove parts that steer too far from the Japanese script. Basically, Digimon got a perfect Western release, a dual release, both subbed and dubbed, and uncut! Oh, and as a bonus, Discotek (those guys again) used AI to upscale the SD source VERY well, to the point of beating the Japanese earlier release. Maybe grown adults really do want only to relieve their memories, and thus we will never get nice things (old TV kids’ anime subbed and uncut), but Digimon is clearly an exception to except them all. Sometimes we do get nice things. Here’s hoping more similar shows get this much love. [What does Discotek say regarding the sales of said subtitled version? –Daryl]