Anime That Sucks – Anime World Order Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:12:14 — 60.6MB)

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2025 is off to a terrible start, not just in terms of current world events but because in this episode Daryl follows up on his previous review of the 1997 Berserk TV series with this review of the decades-anticipated Berserk sequel TV series from 2016. Oh boy.

Introduction (0:00 – 56:51)
It’s finally happened, after years of waiting! All of Macross (almost) is now streaming in the United States…with closed caption-y style subtitles because it’s Hulu and some edits to content because um…Disney? It’s still a major step forward. In addition, the one that isn’t streaming–Macross: Do You Remember Love?–is also now out on 4K UHD and finally with official English subtitles after decades of waiting…and it’s an AI upscale, like how they did Macross Zero. The Summer 2025 issue of Otaku USA Magazine is now out, and we’ve got reviews in there for some highly anticipated titles such as the They Were Eleven manga; no longer must you pay hundreds of dollars for used copies of Viz’s Four Shojo Stories! Discotek Media annnounced a new set of licenses, so we recap their anime announcements. This time around, they were focusing more on live-action and US animation than anime, but there’s still some solid Japanese animation picks worth considering. We then talk about what we’ve checked out in this current anime season that’s just started, as one has to do every few months lest you fall too out of touch. Contrary to popular belief, the AWO is watching current anime regularly. We’re just mostly writing about it rather than doing podcast episodes, because we like to wait for things to be completed before reviewing them just in case the quality of the show varies relative to how it started.

Review: Berserk 2016 (56:51 – 2:12:14)
Now that we reviewed the original 1997 television series, it’s only fitting that Daryl follow up and review the Duke Nukem Forever of anime: the 2016 sequel that is a hybrid of 3D CG with some traditional 2D digital animation. Perhaps comparing it to Duke Nukem Forever is unwarranted. After all, even Duke Nukem Forever at least had Dr. Proton. Let’s not think too hard about the fact that Duke Nukem Forever is now such a long time gone that it’s been out for pretty much as long as people were waiting for it to come out in the wake of Duke Nukem 3D. Anyway, this Berserk 2016 TV show remains a meme, and it’s been almost a decade. Daryl elected to show Gerald and Clarissa–who’d never actually seen it before–the retail Blu-Ray version (which he owns!), since that’s the “fixed” and “cleaned up” version rather than the broadcast version everybody else gets their animated GIFs and screen grabs from since that was a massively anticipated simulcast once upon a time. There is probably nothing about this we can say or insight we can provide that hasn’t extensively been said before by others who know Berserk in far more granular detail than we do.

We imagine everyone who worked on this that wasn’t one of the 8 credited producers asked this daily.

Nine credited production companies brought this to you. None of them could successfully blend what they were doing with what the others were doing.

That was how we felt too, Farnese. But this was episode 2 of 24.

Every time they showed Sonia’s face in the credits, all I could think about was Osaka from Azumanga Daioh because of her agape mouth.

The end credits of the final episode are in a totally different, mostly 2D style. We feel like this is the studio saying “we would’ve wanted the whole show to be done this way, but we were too small to handle the production ourselves.” We have no evidence to support this aside from the scene existing as it does, where it does.

Podcast: Download (61.9MB)

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It’s finally time. As a result of us reaching over 250 Patrons, we’re reviewing what you’ve voted “the worst anime of all time”: Hand Shakers from 2017. But maybe it’s NOT actually the worst, since we can name at least one show that was much worse than it…

Introduction (0:00 – 29:44)
Follow-ups from last episode: as an update to the Macross situation in North America, preorders for Macross Plus Blu-Rays will open up next week, as a Crunchyroll Store exclusive. It…won’t be cheap, from the looks of things. Gerald saw the French animated film Mars Express, which we alluded to seeing the trailer of last episode. He highly recommends it, and you should be able to see it for yourself in a few days since the theatrical run was extremely limited and short. Also, thanks to your support, our Otaku Archive is now an official collection on Archive.org! Thanks so very much!

That’s about it for the good news. We then talk about the whole Toru Furuya situation, which is…extremely awful, but hey. Can’t NOT talk about it.

Review: Hand Shakers (29:44 – 1:24:28)
It’s notorious online. It made the name “GoHands” instantly infamous. But just how bad is 2017’s Hand Shakers? Does it still have that same impact? Have things gotten worse since then? Do we not live in an era where some of the most beloved anime titles utilize comparable animation techniques and story beats?

Have you ever wanted to get God’s attention so bad that you use your sub big hooter girlfriend to power your CG chains? I’m Todd McFarlane, creator of Spawn:

This is not nearly as cool as a bunch of producers looking at a piece of concept art in a boardroom thought it would be, but dangit they’re going to try and convince you it is.

This is the sort of GoHands camerawork and direction now synonymous with their name. Unlike their subsequent shows, Hand Shakers keeps this up for its duration. Everyone who said it didn’t HAS LIED TO YOU.

Review: W’z (1:24:28 – 2:12:19)
We’re going the extra mile and reviewing the far less popular STEALTH SEQUEL to Hand Shakers from 2019. We’re pretty sure the people who made this heard of the term “DJ” and maybe saw a picture or short clip of one in action without actually knowing what it is they DO.