Author: Anime World Order

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Anime World Order Show # 3 – Mecha Anime aka Anime Everyone Else Hates

This one’s all about the robots. We talk about why most anime fans don’t really like robot shows, then Daryl reviews Gundam SEED Destiny: Final Plus and Gerald does a Creator Spotlight on Shoji Kawamori. Double ouch. Clarissa wraps things up by talking about The King of Braves GaoGaiGar.

We’ve decided to deviate from the usual course and do an episode devoted entirely to mecha and giant robots. We know, mecha is easily the least popular genre among anime fans in this day and age. So if this is your first time listening, please know that not all of our episodes are like this.

Introduction (0:00 – 9:24)

We open things up by talking about why mecha anime is unpopular even though a lot of people commonly associate anime with robots. Plus, since it was requested, we talk about Zambot 3! Did we mention none of us have SEEN Zambot 3?

Let’s News! (9:24 – 17:16)

Turner Classic Movies is showing Studio Ghibli movies every Thursday night for the month of January, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind is the top-selling anime DVD of 2005, and Kevin Lillard from Fansview suffers a heart attack at Ohayocon then proceeds to go to Ushicon right afterwards because he’s one hell of a trooper.

Review: Gundam SEED Destiny Final Plus (17:16 – 36:12)

Okay guys, here’s the thing. This was originally like, 30 minutes of Daryl describing the entire Gundam SEED / SEED Destiny ordeal in detail, and since neither Gerald nor Clarissa have any knowledge of SEED anything, it’s just Daryl talking for most of the time. Only tragedy can result from this. In an effort to not bore people, we have inserted a promo for Corn Pone Flicks that’s not so much a promo as it is the audio to their very first short.

Promo: Weekly Anime Review podcast

After subjecting everyone to a review like that, the least we could do is plug the podcast of a guy who specializes in doing anime reviews. We may not always agree with Aaron, but he’s exceptionally thorough. We’ll be sure to send him a promo to run on his show just as soon as we can actually get around to recording them.

Rotating Segment: Creator Spotlight — Shoji Kawamori (36:46 – 51:45)

In this new segment idea, Gerald tells us all about Shoji Kawamori’s career as both a mecha designer and a director while highlighting his strengths and weaknesses. Is this sort of thing interesting to people? Do Japanese language websites in the show notes help anyone out? I know I can’t read them. Let us know via your feedback.

Often Overlooked: King of Braves GaoGaiGar (51:45 – 1:11:04)

Clarissa opts to discuss GaoGaiGar as the overlooked anime for this week. Sure, GaoGaiGar is very well known among mecha fans, but non-mecha fans don’t know that they should give it a shot too. Too bad all of them got scared off once Daryl started going on about Gundam, huh?

Closing (1:11:04 – 1:13:05)

We’re really sorry that this episode is as long as it was. Currently we try to shoot for around an hour long running time. Next time, Daryl premieres a new segment in which he compares a classic anime title to its corresponding contemporary remake. He’s chosen Area 88 to be first with that. Gerald chooses a different kind of remake for his Often Overlooked pick in the Osamu Dezaki/Akio Sugino title Hakugei: The Legend of Moby Dick, and Clarissa’s review is going to contain the thing that we all knew this show would end up containing sooner or later, YAOI. She’ll be reviewing Sensitive Pornograph. We figure that’ll rebalance the fandom scale now that we’ve talked mecha for an episode.

Wait, talking about Gundam SEED Destiny doesn’t count for that?!

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Anime World Order Show # 2 – Two Episodes In and We’re Already Off-Schedule

Daryl talks about the Often Overlooked theatrical anime classic Hols (Horus?), Prince of the Sun. Gerald reviews the City Hunter sequel Angel Heart, and Clarissa picks up from part of the discussion in the last episode to talk about fansubs, scanlations, and their relevance in anime fandom today.

Faced with insurmountable obstacles such as Gerald being out of the country, Daryl declaring himself Mayor and assaulting his constituents with pies on the coldest night of the year (click here for pictures), and Clarissa being a girl, our second episode experienced many untimely delays in getting everyone together to record. But we’re back and better than ev…er, marginally improved!

Introduction (0:00 – 11:10)

We read excerpts from some of the listener feedback and respond. Be sure to send us email at animeworldorder@gmail.com with your name, where you’re from, and what you think of the show and we’ll take your advice under consideration! This week we’ve all decided to get headsets, record the show at 44100 Hz, and ensure that the left and right audio channels are the same volume for the whole show! Please let us know if you encounter any issues with the sound quality. Next time around, we’ll try recording everyone’s voices on separate tracks the way we should have been doing from the get-go.

Let’s News! (11:10 – 20:58)

We follow-up on last week’s new items by mentioning Bandai Visual USA’s homepage is now up, then after proclaiming the superiority of the Emotion logo with the vector Easter Island heads note that this webpage which Gerald misreads the URL for during the broadcast and nobody catches him on it contains side by side comparisons of the audio from the Japanese Macross, Robotech, and ADV’s English dub. We’ll go easy and not zero in on the “pudknocker” line. As for this week’s [outdated] news, the author of Slam Dunk has been accused of plagiarism, and we ponder anime’s future with this whole Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD thing since this was recorded around CES time.

  • Mainichi Daily News article regarding Slam Dunk plagiarism allegations
  • Site comparing NBA photos to Slam Dunk drawings side-by-side
  • Official Blu-Ray website
  • Official HD-DVD website
  • Engadget’s comparison between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD

Anime Hell Promo (20:58 – 2:31)

AnimeHell.org sent us the first in what will be a series of promos, but since everyone was off at Ohayocon doing Anime Hell there, the promo was actually just a trailer to Zardoz. Uh oh, better not tell Steve Harrison’s mom! You can get plenty of other silly movie trailers and much, much more by visiting the site! Anime Hell: it’s coming to a convention near you! If you’ve got promos, email us with them and we’ll intersperse a few of them throughout the show to break things up a bit.

Often Overlooked (22:31 – 35:45)

Daryl tells us all about Hols, Prince of the Sun, only he forgets to look at the notes he took while watching the film that would help assure him that what he was saying would have some basis in fact. For example, contrary to what is stated, Studio Ghibli does in fact consist of MORE than just two people!

  • Anime News Network’s Hols, Prince of the Sun page
  • Helen McCarthy’s book on Hayao Miyazaki

Rotating Segment – Fandom Stuff (35:45 – 48:42)

Clarissa leads off in a discussion about fansubs, scanlations (man, I hate that word), and their relevance/necessity in anime fandom. Eventually everyone chimes in and the conversation progresses like…well, the same way it always does.

  • ICv2 interview regarding The Anime Network

Review (48:42 – 1:02:21)

Gerald handles the review this week, which is for the first six episodes of Angel Heart, the new sequel to City Hunter. Note that this contains spoilers for those episodes and probably also City Hunter. Gerald wishes it to be known in this space that Tsukasa Hojo is the author of City Hunter, a fact he forgot to mention in the review. Actually, he kept saying the author was Tetsuo Hara. Clearly Daryl’s influence is spreading like a virus.

  • Official Angel Heart webpage (Japanese)
  • Official Tsukasa Hojo webpage (Japanese)

Closing (1:02:21 – 1:04:20)

We wrap things up by doing the obligatory begging people to rate and review us on sites like iTunes, Podcast Pickle, and so on and so forth before moving on to the next episode preview. Next time (which will be much sooner than the last delay between episodes), we’re spitting in the face of common sense and dedicating the entire show to mecha, which just might be the least popular genre of anime in this day and age. Look forward to Daryl’s review of Gundam SEED Destiny: Final Plus, Gerald’s creator spotlight on Shoji Kawamori, and Clarissa’s choice for Often Overlooked is King of Braves: GaoGaiGar! See? The Often Overlooked segment doesn’t HAVE to be about old stuff after all!