Anime World Order

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:51:47 — 51.2MB)

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This time around, Clarissa “pulls a Gerald” by reviewing something that we thought was still readily available via streaming and home video but is in fact totally out of print: 1993’s four-part OVA, 8 Man After. This gives us a good excuse to talk about the original 8 Man from the 1960s, its American localization, and of course Streamline Pictures and “Uncle” Carl Macek.

Introduction (0:00 – 46:49)
The new anime season has just begun, and if it feels like we say that every few episodes, that’s because of the way time works. We weigh in on our initial impressions of a selection of the current season, much of which only had maybe one or two episodes out at the time of recording. Gerald was a guest on the Anime Addicts Anonymous podcast, and since the last time any of us were on that was 2013 he didn’t realize that they’d pivoted to video long, long ago! The result is a Nixon/Kennedy debate-esque review of Wicked City in which shabbily-lit Gerald is the only one who likes it contrasted with the slick YouTubers who uh, did not like it at all. Watch and wonder why only Clarissa is smart enough to have set up a VTuber rig!

Promo: Places That Were Anime To Me (46:49 – 48:52)
Listener Anders Häger Jönson has written and directed a film which he describes as “an extremely subjective depiction of the history of Japanese animation filtered through Swedish teenage years at the turn of the millennium” and it’s going to be premiering at Otakon 2024, Saturday August 3rd at 6:00 PM. That’s a particularly rough spot to place something like this, since that means it’s opposite both the AnimEigo and Discotek Media panels, but if you don’t feel the need to be in the room for the announcement since the social media posts get made in real time anyway, then head on over to Video 2 since this is something you likely won’t be able to readily see afterwards unless you plan on attending conventions in Europe. Visit Anders’ website or his YouTube channel to learn more. In Swedish with English subtitles.

Promo: Anime Brain Freeze Podcast (48:52 – 49:52)
Remember: if you’re an anime podcast and have released more than 10 episodes without burning out on the whole thing, send us your promos and we’ll play them! Anime Brain Freeze is a podcast about anime of (recent) seasons past going back to 2016. Unlike us, they do a Best of the Season where they each pick one and only one title among the 40+ that have been coming out every season. Some of their picks include Odd Taxi, Appare-Ranman!, Re:Creators–wait, Re:Creators? RE:CREATORS?! Maybe us reviewing THAT is the next Patreon subscriber goal…

Review: 8 Man After (49:52 – 1:51:46)

Despite the cheery slogan (used in a phone ad), this is generally the last thing you kind of sort of see before getting your robot prosthetic ripped from your body.

Clarissa reviews a superhero title that 90s kids will likely remember as being part of the Sci-Fi Channel’s Saturday Anime rotation, or possibly a thing available from Blockbuster Video. Maybe some saw it unedited on pay cable, and others still actually bought the tape through mail order or direct market comicbook shops since it was originally released in the US courtesy of Streamline Pictures, then decades later was re-released by Discotek Media (since out of print/gone from streaming). 1993’s 8 Man After was one of those gritty, bloody sequels/reimaginings of Jiro Kuwata’s (“the Bat-Manga guy”) kid-friendly superhero series, though at the time Daryl mainly only knew it as a Neo Geo game since he never saw the live-action film (apparently also dubbed by Streamline, but it appears to have only ever been released on VHS and we can’t find a digital capture). The original 8 Man may have preceded Robocop, but 8 Man After definitely takes cues from it.

8 Man precedes the tokusatsu/henshin hero tradition, so he’s more of a Western style superhero. He’s still got sick poses though.

Part 1 of the fantastic Streamline Pictures historical retrospective by the late Fred Patten, over at Jerry Beck’s Cartoon Research site
Carl Macek on ANNCast – he died very shortly after this interview was done
Star Fruit Books will be releasing the reboot series 8 Man Infinity next year

Thus far, this picture has not inspired anyone to do a “My Adventures With 8 Man” retelling.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:05:04 — 57.3MB)

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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.

As of Summer 2024, the Crunchyroll Store packaging is officially not on the level of what Right Stuf’s was.

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.)