Otaku In Memoriam – Anime World Order Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:56:19 — 53.3MB)

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In a feeble attempt to delay the inevitable even if by just another month or so, Daryl elects to talk about what is only one of the most popular anime currently running, as he reviews SPY x FAMILY CODE: White, the standalone theatrical installment of the mega-hit Shonen Jump sitcom SPY x FAMILY, which is about as mainstream a title as anime gets in America.

Introduction (0:00 – 51:03)
We kick things off by talking about stuff we are thoroughly unqualified to discuss, since we haven’t been paying attention. Namely, what is the deal with those Macross releases we thought we’d be hearing something about in the nearly two years since the announcement was made that we’d be seeing them in the US? We also touch upon a few titles we’re watching in the current anime season…or not watching, as the case may be, and then Gerald follows up with an update regarding the digitization of the various old American anime fandom relics of decades past. Everybody should start checking out his Otaku Archive on archive.org, since if enough people do so then it can become an actual curated collection rather than just a topic. AND THAT’S WHEN WE IMPLEMENT ROBERT’S RULES OF ORDER.

Otaku In Memoriam: Jim Rosenbaum, Wayne Yin, Donald Tsang (51:03 – 59:22)
Walter Amos, previously a guest, is the one who proposed this project, and after several months finally sent in a submission. It was over 20 minutes long and listed off numerous notable individuals, so for the sake of brevity I’ve gone ahead and edited it down to 8 minutes focusing on three individuals who may not have been historically famous but nevertheless were influential on not just Walter, but American anime fandom nationwide to some extent even if their names weren’t known. Bonus points for invoking Antarctic Press’s Ben Dunn in a positive manner that is a far departure from the polemic material he’s known for doing nowadays.

Review: SPY x FAMILY CODE: White (59:22 – 1:56:19)
While there is typically no need to bother with covering what has for the past few years been among the most popular anime in the world, and one of the most cosplayed things at conventions, entropy unmakes all things and so Daryl has decided to take a snapshot of what may very well someday be a bygone forgotten relic of a time when theaters simply needed something new to put in their multiplexes while still reeling from the aftermaths of those strikes. In any case, SPY x FAMILY is meticulously crafted to be loved and adored as breezy popcorn fare, and so the people who’d say something like this sucks tend to be either edgelords attempting to be contrarian or perhaps people who receive payment from Shonen Jump’s competition. Typically, the Shonen Jump theatrical film that isn’t adapting source material and doesn’t advance anything is something derided, but since SPY x FAMILY is already a wacky sitcom we don’t particularly mind it the way we would for a action/adventure battle type series. Besides, it’s still a rarity to see anime in IMAX (that’s actually got a print formatted for it)!

There have been other anime released in US theaters, but Daryl can’t remember any ever getting the full nerd collectible treatment, not even Dragon Ball. Is this the first to get this treatment here?

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:48:51 — 49.9MB)

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In a last-ditch effort to not review Hand Shakers, we decide to make a bunch of anger-inducing statements about anime, mecha, and conventions before reviewing the latest–and perhaps actually final this time–Hayao Miyazaki film, the critically acclaimed The Boy and the Heron.

Introduction (0:00 – 39:51)
With only 3 or 4 Patrons remaining before we hit the 250 patrons mark, we’re playing our remaining “make people quit backing us so we don’t have to review Hand Shakers” cards. Gerald keeps saying Mash’s name from Mashle is “Mashle” and thinks Delicious in Dungeon sucks, Daryl uses the phrase “mecha anime is dead” in a sentence while talking about Bravern, and Clarissa calls out people who work in IT that subsidize the furry fandom through commissions while keeping her Discord notification sounds enabled so you’ll think YOU’RE getting Discord notifications as you’re listening. Gerald also did a panel at the recently-concluded Megacon, and while it was not that heavily attended, there’s a possibility more people came to see him than Gina Carano. It was about the practice of Western productions outsourcing their animation production to Japan, so expect lots of delightful statements about your Generation X/millennial childhood favorites. We also weigh in with our recent experiences using the Crunchyroll Store!

On a less rage-baiting note, Clarissa will be a guest on this month’s Anime Nostalgia Podcast, as she joins Dawn to talk about Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack, which is now celebrating its 50th anniversary.

Otaku In Memoriam: Derek Wakefield (39:51 – 48:30)

This year, we’d like to hear stories about noteworthy anime fans who are no longer around, ideally by people who knew or had interactions with them. If you knew someone and wish to share some memories of them, record something and email it to us so we can put them into later episodes. If you’d rather not vocalize it yourself, that’s fine too! Just write it up and we can read it on your behalf.

Dave Merrill is the first to take us up on the offer, as he sends in a memoriam of Derek Wakefield, founder of the Earth Defense Command, a Star Blazers club which became an anime club which set the foundation for Project A-Kon which is still going to this day. It would not be a stretch to credit Derek Wakefield as the founder of North Texas anime fandom. Derek’s willingness to help out new younger fans helped Dave embark on his anime fandom journey. The disappearance of web message boards across the Internet has resulted in the loss of quite a bit of early Internet anime fandom history, but for the moment the Internet Archive still exists where there is a snapshot of this May 2014 memoriam post for Derek posted a few days after Derek had passed away.

Review: The Boy and the Heron aka How Do You Live? (48:30 – 1:48:51)
The most revered of anime’s living grandmasters, Hayao Miyazaki, came out of retirement yet again to make another film, which for years we’ve been referring to as “BETTAR THAN YOUR NAME.” That’s “bettar” with an a, not “better”, because if Hayao Miyazaki is anything, he is–as the Gen Z’ers and Alphas don’t know–l33t liek JeffK. Once the Japanese title “How Do You Live?” was revealed the Zoolander associations commenced, no doubt being the catalyst for GKIDS selecting “The Boy and the Heron” as its international title for its theatrical release in late 2023. As of this episode, the film has won numerous awards, including the Golden Globe, and as such is a frontrunner to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. If so, it will mark the second time a Japanese animated work has won the award, with the previous instance being Miyazaki’s earlier work “Spirited Away” (which is also an international title that’s different from the Japanese one, but it’s just shorter). It has garnered considerable and near-universal critical acclaim as well.

But that’s not as important compared to what WE thought of it. We absolutely did not deliberately misrepresent the contents of the movie or of any books, documentaries, interviews, and should any discrepancies exist, they are purely accidental and are absolutely not an attempt to rile people up like how you know who does for the National Review.