Category: Classics

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:21:43 — 37.4MB)

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For Show 118, Daryl and Gerald recount their experiences attending Otakon 2013 and Gerald reviews a title he saw for the first time at Otakon: Midori – Shoujo Tsubaki, also known as Mr. Arashi’s Freak Show.

Introduction (0:00 – 15:53)
We answer a question about the Dirty Pair, which we reviewed…actually, instead of linking it here we’ll say CLICK THAT REVIEW INDEX UP TOP, TOUGH GUY! HOOOOOOOOOOOO! That doesn’t take too long, so we spend most of this time discussing why the heck anime often features such extensive narration in dialogue. We’ve talked about it before, but if we can’t remember which episode we don’t expect YOU to.

Incidentally, the place where Daryl puts up pro wrestling videos (mostly Japanese and independent stuff) is here. Two hours a week, new stuff goes up every Wednesday at 8 PM Eastern. That said, there’s not very much overlap between anime fans and pro wrestling fans anyway. Most fans of “pro wrestling” are actually not fans of “pro wrestling” so much as they’re fans of “WWE.” For a similar geek related analogy, think of how most people into “US comics” really only consider “comics” as “Marvel or DC.” Or how many people into “manga” don’t bother with josei, seinen, and the like.

Con Report: Otakon 2013 (15:53 – 57:47)
Daryl and Gerald go over what will probably be remembered as one of the better Otakons in history…line management issues aside. The list of what was shown at Daryl’s panels is here. Much like the con itself, it feels like we spent a good bit of time on the topic without managing to cover it all. Unlike the con, we were able to partially remedy that situation as Daryl and Gerald were also guests on the STILL NOT RELEASED YET OSMCast! talking about the convention in some more blow-by-blow detail. We’ll post a link to that.

ONCE IT’S RELEASED. (Edit: It’s released…NOW.)

Review: Midori – Shojo Tsubaki aka Mr. Arashi’s Freak Show (57:47 – 1:21:43)
There is no conversation more tedious than “is anime…art?” but deep down, the need to discuss WHAT. IS. ART? burns deeply within Gerald’s art gallery exhibit viewin’ bad self. With that in mind he is reviewing one of the titles featured at Anime’s Craziest Deaths. This animated adaption of Suehiro Maruo’s manga (that got printed in English!) is probably the one that made the most people leave. Dave and Joel allege that people also left due to objection that he dared to play 60 seconds of live-action footage during the panel to set up the Black Lagoon joke. But Daryl tells himself they left due to schedule overlap rather than admit they hated Nicolas Cage. You know what’s art? NICOLAS CAGE.

Oh, and this Hiroshi Harada guy who made the thing we’re reviewing may or may not also count. Sit back and marvel at how we tell you not to watch this anime, and also tell you to watch this anime. Be awestruck at how we say to judge works on their own, independently of external influence, while we also say that because this is a noncommercial endeavor it warrants different evaluation criteria. It’s all twisted and deformed up in this piece, like we dared to tell the funny-lookin’ dwarf magician that he’s a funny-lookin’ dwarf and are paying the price. Oh boy howdy, are we paying the price. FOR YOU.

You get no links for this one. You want to find it, it’s easily found now. But YOU have to do it. YOURSELF. In this way, we’re completely not responsible.