Category: Discipline Readings

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Anime World Order Show # 38 – Rape is Hilarious, But Only As a Theoretical Concept

Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:00:41 — 55.3MB)

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In perhaps the manliest (and longest) episode to date, Gerald reviews the Kazuo Koike jigoku manga masterpiece Lady Snowblood, Daryl opines on the new Fist of the North Star movie Raoh Gaiden, and Clarissa weighs in with her thoughts on the first season of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.

Introduction (0:00 – 19:07)
The good news is that we’re finally starting to use the new audio equipment. The bad news is that both Daryl and Gerald have colds! To compensate, we play what is perhaps the ultimate Discipline reading. We also issue a retraction regarding the Manga Video Astro Boy box set’s episode count, and delude ourselves into thinking we’re affecting people’s lives for the better as we read an email from someone who started watching Blackjack because of us. Oh yeah, remember the AWO fanart/doujinshi that we requested? Well, here’s what we got:

The Almighty…er, Mysterious person who drew the Daryl Surat vs Dave Riley picture appears to be at it again, this time drawing what we’d previously mentioned about Masamune Shirow:

Devoted AWO listener Erwin Rosales drew us this four page masterpiece, which is actually a very accurate depiction of what goes on here at the Anime World Order:

MasterPete over at Pete Universe informs us that the following edition of his new webcomic was directly inspired by us, except for the whole moe part aka “the punchline”:

The strip which follows this makes mention of Odin. Man. That’s rough.

Let’s News! (19:07 – 37:28)
“News” is probably not the right word, given how late we are to the ball, but Gedo Senki probably won’t come out in the US until 2009 because of the Sci-Fi Channel, the website for the new Giant Robo series is in English, legitimate copies of Monster (reviewed in Show # 12) are available on R3 DVD, the Osamu Tezuka Ode to Kirihito manga is out in English and everyone should buy it because it’s 832 pages and costs $15, they’re making a new Dancougar series (we didn’t know about the new Reideen at the time), Bandai Visual’s upcoming Region 1 DVD of Gunbuster won’t be cheap, Seven Seas has launched a yuri line consisting of a bunch of lame stuff, and we offer up some speculation regarding why The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (reviewed in Show # 29) hasn’t been licensed for release in the US yet. This segment features the AWO debut of the DeCoster Scream. The Dark Lord Cromdor/Kramdar has some competition now.

Review: Lady Snowblood (manga) (37:28 – 57:52)
Gerald reviews this 4-volume revenge epic released in English courtesy of Dark Horse Comics, for which the film adaptation was a primary inspiration for Kill Bill. Of course, since it’s by Kazuo Koike, the plot is absolutely ludicrous and there’s tons of fighting and fucking for no good reason. Here is the long awaited image that best sums up Lady Snowblood.
Also, here is a scan of the writer from the manga version:
And the very slight differences he went through in the movie version, notice the haircut is in no way anachronistic because Yasuaki Kurata is ETERNAL:


Review: Hokuto no Ken: Raoh Gaiden (57:52 – 1:29:06)
Yeah, so Fist of the North Star. Best. Anime. Ever. After nearly a year of threats, Daryl breaks down and talks about the series that started the whole shonen fighting genre. He would have talked more about the new movie, but it still has not been fansubbed. It is now time for…pictures! [Update: As of 1/27/07, Heart of Madness has fansubbed the “Director’s Cut” of this movie]

This is Kenshiro, the successor to Hokuto Shinken. Do not fuck with this man.
See these guys? These are generic Hokuto no Ken thugs who always fuck with Kenshiro. Remember what I said about not doing that? They are what make this the best anime ever.
Kenshiro’s adopted brothers, Raoh and Toki. Toki is the one who looks like Jesus. Nobody fucks with the Jesus.
Daryl’s dead-on impersonation of Raoh, the King of Fists.
Reina is a character created for this movie and is Raoh’s second-in-command, but she spends most of the movie like this. THANKS, JAPAN!
Shuu, the Star of Benevolence, may be blind, but he sees…WITH HIS HEART. Listen, Fist of the North Star is MANLY melodrama. Haters better vacate, especially if they thought it was cool when Usui from Rurouni Kenshin totally ripped off Shuu’s gimmick.
The Holy Emperor Souther has the finest hybrid throne/motorcycle child slave labor can construct.
Blood of the Emperor, the immortal body! I never retreat! I never beg! I never quit!
Yet despite this being a theatrical film, the animators still forgot to draw the rest of Souther’s vest in this quick shot. [Update: This error was fixed on the Director’s Cut DVD, along with another one earlier in the film that I didn’t put up a picture for since it would have spoiled things]. They probably got confused for a second and thought he was from Part 5 of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Still, when your kung fu is strong enough, you can dress HOWEVER YOU DAMN WELL PLEASE.
What, you think Dragon Ball Z invented that whole characters hair turning blonde as they power up? WRONG. MUSO TENSEI, BITCHES. Okay fine, so this isn’t Muso Tensei and the hair color doesn’t change in the anime, and the manga’s black and white so who can really tell…

Perhaps this entire podcast and blog should be rededicated to nothing but Fist of the North Star screencaps and captions.

  • Heart of Madness – a fansub label reserved solely for Fist of the North Star titles, so expect them to be the ones who sub this movie [Update: they have done so]
  • Hokuto Renkitouza – it’s a Geocities site (that place still exists?), but it’s still the best Hokuto no Ken resource out there
  • Fist of the North Star Games – a Yahoo group that was pretty busy once upon a time, the folks on here are probably the most dedicated HnK fans around

Review: Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (1:29:06 – 1:54:02)
Wait, what? Why the heck didn’t we just end the episode there? Because there hasn’t been enough Clarissa on this show for the last few weeks, that’s why! Since everyone already knows about Ghost in the Shell, show notes aren’t really necessary. So, click here for that picture of Kusanagi’s butt.

Closing (1:54:02 – 2:00:40)
Next week’s episode will be shorter. Really. By popular demand, we’re going to give our con report on Anime Weekend Atlanta 12, only we WON’T spend the entire show doing it like the other con reports. Also, by listener request we’re going to talk about the shows from the current anime season that we’re watching. See? Your requests don’t fall on deaf ears after all! Finally, Daryl’s going to review The Twelve Kingdoms like he was supposed to do this week.

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Anime World Order Show # 17 – The Search for THE TRUTH Returns

We skipped a week because of Jacon, but we’re still lazy! As compensation for this relatively segment-light episode, we present to you the long-awaited next part of Daryl’s search for THE TRUTH. This time, at Megacon.

Introduction That’s Actually The Majority of the Show
We offer the lame excuse of having to devote all our free time to preparing for finals and anime convention panels, thus leaving us without time to put together proper segments. Fortunately, responding to listener feedback requires no preparation at all! We’ll just try and mask the lack of preparation by listing each email topic:

  • Keith from Teleport City writes us to defend the honor of Odin: Photon Space Sailer Starlight. He ain’t joking around, folks. (5:10 – 9:40)
  • Jenna from the UK writes us to ask our opinions on CLAMP, Fruits Basket, and what she should watch next given that she likes both. We completely forget to answer that last one. Whoops! (9:40 – 22:20)
  • Shane, a self-described World War 2 buff, writes approvingly about Zipang and enlightens us on the relationship between Japan and the Nazis! Somehow we end up mentioning Gunslinger Girl. (22:20 – 25:30)
  • Daniel opens up a can of worms by asking us what our favorite anime songs are. SEARCHING FOR ODIN, MY LOVE! (25:30 – 38:00)
  • “Spanish Discipline Guy” Alfonso asks us about the feasibility of showing Crayon Shin-Chan on US TV, and requests that everyone go to Youtube and do a Crayon Shin-Chan search to see the clips he’s talking about. (38:00 – 41:15)
  • Jason wonders how much hentai dub actors get paid and what we think about “slice of life” shows, offering Piano and Koi Kaze as examples. This leads to us trying to figure out whether “slice of life” is really just a sugarcoated term for “nothing happens to advance anything.” (41:15 – 48:50)
  • Kori insists that she is not a girl. Wait, I just said “she.” He wants to know what we think about A.I. Love You, so we tell him what we think about Ken Akamatsu and harem anime in general after reading the Wikipedia entry for A.I. Love You. Somehow hentai discussion gets thrown into the mix. (48:50 – 56:55)

Let’s News! (56:55 – 1:13:39)
King of Braves GaoGaiGar, which we talked about in Show # 3, has been licensed by Media Blasters. Trinity Blood is getting released in theaters by Funimation, but Trinity Blood fails at being entertaining and if you like it you’re dumb, so don’t bother watching it. 4Kids has created new brands allowing them to butcher even more shows, and Super Robot Taisen Original Generations is announced for the PS2 in Japan. If the English versions of the GBA games sell well, then there’s a good chance of this being released in America. Plus, for all you fans of dudes being rude, Animate has apparently acquired all of the Biblos catalog.

The Search for THE TRUTH: Megacon 2006 (1:13:39 – 1:27:28)
It’s late by about three months, but Daryl’s COMPLETELY NOT FILLED WITH LIES AND DECEIT journey to bridge the gap between himself and modern anime fans continues, bringing him to the science fiction convention known as Megacon, an event highly attended because it always happens at the same time as a national cheerleader conference located down the hall. But now isn’t the time to get interviews with the guy dressed as Darth Vader posing with the Spirit Squad, since conventions are SERIOUS BUSINESS. Will THE TRUTH be discovered once and for all?

Closing (1:27:28 – 1:33:10)
Next week is our Jacon report episode. All three of us were there with press credentials and there is something like 13 hours worth of recorded material and 2 gigs of photos and video to parse through. We will probably end up using very little of it, but better to have too much than too little. Will we be joined by staffers from the con? It is a mystery! We close things off with the help of Jeff “Rich Lather” Tatarek and his time machine, which he used to travel back to the 1980s so that Look Around You’s very own Synthesizer Patel could do a Discipline reading for us. The Maharaja Mack Daddy ain’t got jack on the S to the P, son.