Anime World Order Show # 50 – Watch Everything We Talk About This Week, Okay?

It’s our glorious 50th episode! Gerald reviews Megazone 23 Part 1, Clarissa’s got Princess Tutu, and Daryl rambles about Macross: Do You Remember Love? for nearly an hour. Judge for yourselves whether we condone bootlegging/are as bad as Coultergeist.

The loudness levels might be a little weird this episode, but hopefully the clipping is minimal. With any luck, everything is still intelligible.

Introduction/News/Contest Announcement (0:00 – 41:03)
Reintroductions are in order, even though we aren’t exactly in order ourselves. In the emails, the emails, what what, the emails: we get more speculation regarding why anime companies don’t publicize much in the way of numbers, respond to allegations of spreading hate speech, reveal the truth about THE TRUTH, and try to find out whether we have any favorite anime genres or not. We don’t have any news really, but Patrick Macias (as seen on television) aka MD Patrick has been named Editor-in-Chief of the upcoming print magazine Otaku USA. The first issue comes out in June, but we have a SHOCKING REVELATION about the content of this publication that you can find out by listening right now!

On the subject of conventions, we were asked to mention this before April 1st, and because we doubt that the next episode will be out before then, so we’ll mention it here. On Sunday April 1st from 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM, Zenkaikon is holding a nerd prom! Yep, it’s their Spring Formal and it’ll be held at the Valley Forge Scanticon in King of Prussia, PA (that’s where the Otaku Generation podcast guys are based out of). Actually, it’s semi-formal, but there is going to be a King and Queen voted on and chosen by attendees, and nothing says King Of Nerd Prom better than winning Best Buy gift cards. Like all nerd proms, it does cost money to attend, and while registration closes in five days, there’s special pricing for AWO listeners. And by “listeners” I mean “readers”: $23.00 flat for the formal (even if they’re not attending the convention itself in October). $33.00 to combine the formal and registration. Mention us by name and get $1.00 off admission! Think of it this way: you’ll be getting access to a full Asian buffet including dessert!

Oh yeah. If you’ve got a con or event or something you want us to promote on the air (like how we didn’t just do), let us know and we’ll work something out. Also, if you’re reading this and you buy things from Right Stuf, write in “Anime World Order Podcast” in the “how did you hear about this site” field since they seem to think we actively encourage bootlegging. If enough people do that, it’ll be a good joke. Still, it gives us a contest idea. Listen to the show and find out what it is!

MIKE TOOLE’S SEXY MAN-VOICE (41:03 – 42:40)
We’re probably too lazy to give timecodes for the voicemails, but since Mike Toole’s sexy voice out-sexies them all, we figured you’d want to know about it. If you couldn’t get enough after hearing his rendition of the Moon Phase theme song, he’s got more vocal stylings in store for you here.

Review: Megazone 23 Part 1 (42:40 – 1:02:22)
Yes, it’s pronounced “two three” and not “twenty three.” Just ask someone who legally changed their name to Megazone that I think listens to this show even though he’s never written in. This is a really important feature-length OAV as far as American anime fandom is concerned, as it served as a “gateway anime” for many people even though you don’t usually hear it mentioned much anymore. Gerald invokes the statute of limitations regarding spoilers on this one, but this one was always more about the SUPER DUPER 1980s-ness of everything than the plot itself so don’t let that stop you from listening.

Promo: The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast (1:02:22 – 1:02:53)
Paul Chapman is a resentful shell of a man on the grounds that his movie ideas are completely wrong roughly 1/3 to 2/3 of the time and he does not have a sexy voice. Also, his mom gets all the fan mail. But just so everyone listening knows, that was his weak arm.

Review: Princess Tutu (1:02:53 – 1:25:35)
Aaron from WARP calls in to mention how much better Clarissa sounds now with the new microphone, but perhaps the fact that Daryl not only uses the Levelator but also the Audacity beta Leveler tool on top of that since he forgets that he used the Levelator invalidates any such improvements. This one’s a semi-recent magical girl that’s an awful lot like Revolutionary Girl Utena in many aspects, but unlike Utena this totally didn’t catch on in the US despite positive reviews, and that’s a shame. We speculate as to why that might have been the case, though perhaps the split reactions among us with regards to this show sums it all up.

Nothing Remotely Resembling a Coherent Review: Superdimensional Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love? (1:25:35 – 2:09:22)
Megazone 23 Part 1 may best encompass the 80s look, but this movie, which incidentally featured much of the same staff, best encompasses the 80s anime spirit. Daryl knew full well that he could never put together a proper review of this, since the Egan Loos of the world that know the exact missile capacities of the fighters would have his head, so he opts not to have done any research or taken any notes before speaking. The result is a segment that by itself is the length of most typical podcasts. Normally we don’t bother with this approach, but this is Show # 50 and, more importantly, this is DYRL we’re talking about here. Since this movie will not be seeing a US release any time soon, here is a BitTorrent link.

Otaku may not necessarily remember love, but at least we can remember that once upon a time, we weren’t all dead inside. Listen and perhaps you’ll find out why.

Closing (2:09:22 – 2:16:01)
Next time, Daryl’s going to try and do some more things he’s weeks/months late in doing by discussing Megacon 2007 and also reviewing To Terra Volume 1, released by Vertical Inc. In addition to that, Clarissa’s reviewing Animation Runner Kuromi and Gerald’s reviewing The Venus Wars. Our sidebar has all those podcast directories as well as our contact information in the event you’re interested in that stuff.

Anime World Order Show # 49 – Actuaries Are Not That Cool In Real Life

Daryl keeps the manga reviews coming with a review of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Clarissa gets back her shojo mojo talking about Loveless, and Gerald celebrates its 20th anniversary by reviewing Dirty Pair: Project E.D.E.N.

I guess I can at least put some timecode stuff up soon. We’ve really been failing at the “additional information links” as of late, though. Still, we can’t possibly be becoming dumb, as this online quiz we found on Livejournal CLEARLY demonstrates:

StupidTester.com says I'm 2% Stupid! How stupid are you? Click Here!

Somehow we get the feeling that EVERYONE gets told that only 2% of the people who took the test are less stupid than they are, to make themselves feel better about themselves. Note to self: AWO Myspace/Livejournal/Facebook is probably a bad idea because of things like this.

Introduction (0:00 – 28:08)
In the emails, we get firsthand confirmation on Overfiend’s negative effects on anime fandom in the UK (BEHOLD! The Ultimate Anime Collection!), as well as firsthand confirmation that Princess Ai does, in fact, suck. Also, we clarify some finer points regarding Giant Robo and exactly what the difference between “shonen ai” and “yaoi” is. Because yes, there is a difference.

Let’s News! (28:08 – 36:39)
The DVD for Arcadia of My Youth is going out of print, Hiroyuki Hoshiyama is dead, and in celebration of their tenth anniversary, Tokyopop is revising their manga ratings system. How exactly is it going to help parents by saying that a comic contains “fanservice”? Like they’d really know what that term means. Also, Steven Foster truly doesn’t understand why the Internet is so mad at him.

Promo: Weekly Anime Review Podcast (36:39 – 37:12)
Aaron’s been missing in action for the last few well, months, but he is back in business! The show may be undergoing alterations to its name and release schedule, but with any luck he’ll still be around, fighting the good fight.

Review (manga): The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Volume 1 (37:12 – 59:04)
Daryl reviews yet another tricky-to-find Dark Horse manga that is basically “BIZARRO~! Genshiken.” You will be happy to know that a few weeks after this recording, Daryl did manage to locate Volume 2 of this. He has not, however, taken any steps to become an actuary.

Review: Loveless (59:04 – 1:20:36)
Nekomimi…Nekomimi Mode! Nekomimi…oh wait, different show. Clarissa hasn’t done a shojo review in a while, and something had to be done to rid herself of the Austin Powers-level chest hair she developed as a result of watching MAZINKAISER~! last week. Loveless is the answer. It is not to be confused with the Vertigo comicbook by Brian Azzarello that takes place in the Old West and has all kinds of people totally getting shot and killed. We can only wonder how many people there are out there who go into the comicbook shop asking for one and ending up with the other.

Review: Dirty Pair: Project E.D.E.N. (1:20:36 – 1:45:50)
The following details were considered TOO INTENSE for the broadcast, but readers of the show notes may know of it: this anime contains a space butler samurai with a laser sword. Spoilers, schmoilers: this movie is celebrating its 20 year anniversary. Suffice it to say that this anime is still awesome to the max. You know what else we forgot to mention? The reason that opening credits sequence is so rad is because it was done by KOJI FUCKIN’ MORIMOTO:

Closing (1:45:50 – 1:48:19)
Next time, in an attempt to delay releasing something named Show # 50 by just that much more, we decide to take it easy and do an episode where we do nothing but answer voicemails. You know how we keep telling people to call or use the Odeo MP3 link, but we don’t seem to actually PLAY them that much? Yeah, that’s our bad. We’re going to try and fix that, but first things first: we gotta clear out what we got.