Category: Manga

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Anime World Order Show # 84 – Four Year Anniversary With Jason Thompson

Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:21:58 — 65.0MB)

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It’s our fourth year anniversary! (Actually, it’s probably the third year anniversary. But we already HAD a third year anniversary LAST year!) Our special guest is Otaku USA’s Jason Thompson, author of Manga: The Complete Guide, so we’re doing an all-manga edition of AWO. Clarissa spirals into madness with Uzumaki, Gerald lets fly with Crying Freeman, and Daryl passes on to the next life courtesy of Violence Hero Riki-Oh! For this episode we offer the option of downloading the show per segment, should you prefer. Just click on the segment name and its running length.

Introduction (0:00 – 37:51)
Who is the mysterious Jason Thompson? Whatever could have inspired him to write Manga: The Complete Guide and King of RPGs ? How can one man give away so much manga for free every day for a year? How does he manage to write for not just Otaku USA but also Comixology? And how many websites can one dude have, anyway? His Twitter account just isn’t enough to answer all this. Though for the record, the short answer is “because he hit his Otaku Expiration Date.” Indeed, he just got engaged a few days ago! If our kung fu were as strong as Joe McCulloch’s, we would have remembered this first half of his writeup on the English language comics anthology “Manga” when we asked the question about it. But we forgot. Since the time of the recording, the second half of his writeup has been posted. Read those, retain their knowledge, and you shall be a Formidable Opponent (TM).

Review: Uzumaki (37:51 – 1:01:47)
Clarissa reviews this horror manga by Junji Ito. Like you even need to specify that it’s “horror” when it comes to this crazy cat. Why, if you buy from the links we provide, we get about ten cents…eventually! Here are links for Volume 1, Volume 2, and Volume 3.

Review: Crying Freeman (1:01:47 – 1:33:42)
Gerald reviews the most well-known collaboration between ultimate manga master Kazuo Koike and artist Ryoichi Ikegami among US readers. This was the first manga Paul Chapman ever saw when he was a young child. He opened it to a random page and saw a dude getting–as he phrases it–“a hummer.” Speaking of which, look for Daryl to make another guest appearance on the Greatest Movie EVER! podcast once Paul figures out that, rather than waiting until the end of the month, he can delete an old episode to free up space on his Libsyn account in order to post a new episode. Like what we just ended up doing to bring you this! [12/10 update: here you go! We talked about Crank, Crank 2: High Voltage, and Gamer. I kind of sucked here since this was on short notice and I didn’t actually rewatch the films prior to recording.] Here are AWO-supportive Amazon links to buy this: Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, and Volume 5.

Review: Violence Hero Riki-Oh (1:33:42 – 2:13:25)
There’s a good chance that you’ve seen the live-action movie, as its infamy and legend helped shape Media Blasters into the entity it is today. If you have NOT seen it, then your life is incomplete until you remedy the situation. But that is merely scratching the surface of what awaits you in this manga. Sadly, it cannot be purchased in the US, but there are full scanlations available. What is Riki-Oh about? What is going on in this comicbook? That…is the question.

Closing (2:13:25 – 2:21:58)
Next time, which to be honest will probably not be until next year at this rate, Clarissa will be reviewing Helen McCarthy’s new book, The Art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga. Gerald will be reviewing the somewhat experimental–and until recently, virtually impossible to find–anime Bobby’s Girl (aka Bobby’s In Deep!), and Daryl fulfills a promise that he’s put off for too many years by finally getting around to answering the question…GOD DAMMIT WHERE THE HELL IS JACK? (FUCKIN’ CHICKENSHIT. FUCKIN’, FUCKIN’, SHIT, FUCKIN’ SHIT!). For it shall be the second pillar of the Holy Manga Video Trinity of Suck, Violence Jack. The first pillar of course was the glorious Angel Cop, reviewed back in 2007. He was spacing them out so as not to run out, but this was probably too much spacing.

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Anime World Order Show # 76b – BAOH HAS A LASER CANNON!

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:53:59 — 52.2MB)

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OH NO, THE BANDANA’S COME OFF! Here now is the second half of Show 76 containing the reviews of Shootfighter Tekken, Baoh, and Part 4 of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Warning: this might melt your brain.

Review: Shootfighter Tekken (0:00 – 33:39)
Gerald reviews a fine masterpiece by Tetsuya Saruwatari, esteemed student of the mighty Kazuo Koike and creator of the grand masterpiece known as Violence Hero: Riki-Oh. A relatively short 3 part-OAV anime adapted from the very long-running manga series Koukou Tekken-den Tough that was partially released by Viz under the name Tough, Shootfighter Tekken was one of the last, if not THE last, new releases from Central Park Media. Nobody really seemed to care when it came out. Were they mistaken? Listen on and find out!

Promo: Ani-Gamers (33:39 – 34:33)
Evan assures us that this promo doesn’t have people who ultimately didn’t end up being on the podcast at all in it, which while beneficial isn’t always necessary. Heck, the reason our latest promo is so good is precisely because it has nothing to do with much of anything we said at all! Anyway, Ani-Gamers just released the second half of episode 11, so check them out. Just remember: UNCLE YO SEES ALL, except for the hentai clips that Gerald shows at anime conventions. He did the right thing and bolted out of there when those came on.

Review: Baoh (34:33 – 1:11:05)
Daryl gave strong consideration to just ripping the dub audio from Baoh–PERHAPS THE GREATEST SINGLE-LENGTH OAV EVER MADE–in its entirety and posting that as the review. Perhaps a future bonus installment of AWO could simply be entitled “Baoh: The Audio Drama” because aside from a few scenes, you actually don’t need to see what’s going on at any point whatsoever due to all the narration. Daryl always dreamed of just getting cosplayers to read the lines from Baoh, but this dream never came to fruition because if you think it’s hard to get a cosplayer you personally know to speak into a microphone, try getting them to say “there is! Such a power is contained WITHIN BAOH!” It’s not happening, folks.

Promo: Anime82 (1:11:05 – 1:11:49)
We suspect that Regan might have been impersonating the Macross II dub when recording this promo, but no matter: after a few months of hiatus he’s back with a new episode! Thanks to Regan and the rest of the guys at Box Fansubs for their work on Locke the Superman and Queen Millennia, the latter of which you can definitely expect Daryl to review in a future episode! Though it begs the question whether or not Queen Millennia should get priority over Violence Jack…

Review (manga): Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 4 (1:11:49 – 1:49:34)
Daryl and Clarissa may never read them and Gerald may have given up reading them in disgust, but Bass_kat from the Fast Karate for the Gentleman forums calls in to relate to us all the tale of how she saw Wicked City back when she was 8 years old. A bizarre tale as that can only be placed prior to Clarissa’s review of a bizarre manga. This one is sort of the “Death Note + Hot Fuzz” portion of Jojo’s, and marks a definitive turning point as far as content and art style is concerned.

Meet the Jojo’s Part 4 gang! Clockwise from top left there’s Okuyasu, Josuke, Jotaro, Koichi (whose face is being eaten by Araki’s name) and Rohan. Josuke, of course, is easy to spot thanks to his kickin’ pompadour. Sadly, people tend to make fun of it because rather than being a real tough guy style, now it’s pretty much just worn by Yoyogi Park rockabilly dudes.
Of course, Josuke has his Stand Crazy Diamond, which valiantly continues the heart motif Araki loves so much.
And I couldn’t not devote time to that amazing Araki/Tezuka/Go Nagai hybrid Rohan. I mentioned he’s crazy IN THE NAME OF GREAT MANGA right?
If you were wondering, this is what Rohan’s Stand does to people. It’s much better in visuals than in the description.
True, there’s no Dio anymore. But just take a fucking look at Kira and Killer Queen. Top tier Stand design? I think so. (Hey Medicos, when you’re done with this year’s Stardust Crusaders blitz, could we maybe get a poseable Killer Queen and Kira? With bonus amputated hand girlfriend of course.)
But don’t get too down. Psychotic murderers and high body counts aside, remember: it’s Jojo’s so they’re all dorks. Inviiiiisible baaaaby.

Closing (1:49:34 – 1:53:58)
Next time on AWO, it’s SHOW TIME because our special guest once again is Mike Toole! Last heard from about two years ago, Mike’s since capitalized on his knowledge that audio is for suckers to become a sporadic streaming video sensation, but he’s still keeping it real! Daryl will be reviewing his favorite series of 2007, Baccano! (warning: don’t read the Wikipedia page or the ANN encyclopedia entry or especially the ANN review of volume 1), Gerald is reviewing the former crown jewel of the anime laserdisc empire known as Five Star Stories, and Clarissa does what we should have done the first time we had Mike on: review freakin’ Big O! This entire episode was recorded about a month ago, and we still haven’t started editing it because…well…sowwwhy! We had done tol’ Craig and ‘dem that we was gon’ kick it wit’ ‘dem. Gotta go; see you when we see you!