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Finally, an actual episode again! Clarissa reviews Suzuka, and Daryl not only recounts his experience at Florida Supercon, but also reviews Barefoot Gen, which is a very important work indeed. Gerald’s Otakon report has been split off into a separate file.
We would like to thank everyone who inquired to ask whether the podcast was no more following PT Chapman’s vicious attack upon Daryl’s throat. Some wondered if perhaps he would need a voicebox to talk like Junjo from Return of the Street Fighter, but fear not: Daryl retaliated using a secret unblockable technique that does triple damage:
Introduction (0:00 – 33:25)
Clarissa clearly does not believe in the concept of stating your name at the start of each episode, but we may as well abide by SOME of the podcasting do’s, right? No emails this week, since Daryl’s got his much-overdue report of the most recent Florida Supercon, a sci-fi convention in South Florida whose attendees largely consist of people who don’t go to any other conventions throughout the state and don’t seem to have any sort of presence on the Internet whatsoever. There is an entire hidden underworld of anime fandom that is mostly invisible save for events such as this.
- Risingsun.net is one of the largest cosplay picture sites around, and due to it being centered in Florida, we know a great deal of the featured people on this site. In fact, the cosplayer with the most pictures of all is Gerald’s neighbor. The “Boner Robin” pictures of Troy that Snacks mentioned originated from here, and there’s even pictures of us looking dumbfounded for those willing to investigate.
- On the opposite site of the eternal Blood War, here’s the homepage for AssimilationCon, which is the week after AWA. Decide for yourselves which side is the Tanar’ri and which side is the Baatezu (we get to be the Yugoloths). Just to review: the day after AWA, Daryl has jury duty. The day after that, Halo 3 comes out. Then this convention happens. I bet we have Otaku USA deadlines around then too. Good thing we didn’t get conscripted to do panels at Assimilation, oh wait
Promo: Ninja Consultants (33:25 – 35:21)
Following a courtesy bump voicemail and an explanation that this is where Gerald’s Otakon report was originally, Daryl has created a special promo for Erin and Noah that’s all sunshine and rainbows as proof that he is not entirely negative despite being the Hunter Zolomon of podcasting.
As for the Otakon report, here’s a slideshow of the pictures you should totally look at while listening to Gerald’s Otakon report:
You might want to just click this link to view the full gallery at once. Captions by Gerald; no writing in to say “that’s Dr McNinja, dude!” since we already told him.
Here’s the doujin cover Gerald was talking about:
Review: Suzuka (35:21 – 54:45)
Following her highly demoralizing review of everyone’s favorite government crime investigation agent, Zaizen Jotaro, Clarissa really needed something to pick her out of that haze. That’s when Daryl told her to review Suzuka. Funimation has sent us three discs worth of this show. Clearly they hate us. Perhaps Clarissa can elaborate upon our feelings on this show in an upcoming issue of Otaku USA!
- One look at the cover to this thing should tell you all you need to know
Promo: Otaku USA Magazine (54:45 – 56:11)
Did you see that freaking segue we just did? Daryl finally saw Issue 2 last week and was quite glad to see that clown pistols not only got mentioned in print, but the picture appeared as well. Journalistic aspirations: COMPLETED.
Review: Barefoot Gen (56:11 – 1:28:28)
Daryl may claim to be a serious anime fan who discusses serious subjects, but it was his decision to put in the Gap Band song, the sound effect for which made him laugh hysterically as a toddler…and also now. It’s too bad that it was used in GTA San Andreas. Regardless, this is an important work that everyone should at least see once, and it’s kind of annoying Grave of the Fireflies gets all the mainstream Roger Ebert-level praise while this story remains relatively unrecognized.
- Buy Barefoot Gen: The Movies 1 & 2 (or anything else on the site), and I think we get a percentage if you do so by clicking that link!
- Last Gasp Publishing, whose press releases seem to suggest that their editions of Barefoot Gen have sold out multiple printings of several thousand copies each. If that’s the case, then where’s the next six volumes? I think the recent volumes of Phoenix sold fewer than 100 copies (really, I’m not exaggerating), but those still come out eventually.
- Here’s a link to Barefoot Gen Volume One: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima, which is the first volume of the manga; volumes two, three, and four are all that’s out so far in the US, and it’s been a few years since the last one came out
Closing (1:28:28 – 1:38:14)
People are actually THANKING us for tricking them into watching MD Geist. Must be some crazy variant of Stockholm Syndrome. The current contest is over, since we have entirely too many entries, but there’ll certainly be more contests to come. Next er…time, Daryl is going to talk about Robot Carnival like he was originally going to do this time around. In the weeks to come, he’ll be burning through a bunch of the stuff that Vertical Inc. has released over the last few months. Gerald managed to find one of the few things DMP publishes that isn’t gay porn, Project X: Cup Noodle, which has nothing to do with training chimps to be astronauts. Clarissa, after having been Zaizen’ed and Suzuka’ed, is feeling like murdering children, so it’s only fitting that she review When They Cry: Higurashi, which is one that’s been repeatedly requested of us. Hey, one of us has to review anime, right?
I think Suzuka’s the breaking point: from this point on we’ll try sticking to our original principles of reviewing series in their entirety whenever possible, so when we’ve got just Volume 1 of something, which is happening more and more, we’ll try and do mini-reviews that last something like 5 minutes instead. There’s no other way we’ll get through all of this stuff!
