Robots – Anime World Order Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:46:14 — 48.7MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS

Now that it’s been a year since the untimely passing of Akira Toriyama, Clarissa reviews his greatest work released in the US…namely, the first five Dr. Slump movies! These were released on DVD from Discotek, but are now long out of print. Gerald approves of this manuever.

Introduction (0:00 – 47:05)
Despite expiring 15 years ago, Daryl is hip; he’s cool; he’s 45. After 10 minutes of videogame discussion–mostly Gerald not liking Pacific Drive or Fallout: London–we start talking about some recent anime we’ve watched. Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master was a critical darling from last year which wasn’t necessarily the most popular thing, Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket has a rather 1970s style approach to characterization despite being made in 1989, and the first three episodes of Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX–an Amazon Prime exclusive–show promise even though it’s not initially clear whether the “what if” premise adds anything or not.

We’re going to be guests at Anime Boston 2025! Was the last time we went really 2011? Daryl hasn’t done anime con panels in years, so hopefully he can shake the years of accumulated rust off and get to not being terrible. Terrible con panelists and the reasons for their being so is the subject of our listener email we discuss; yes, we’ve finally remembered to read and discuss an email question sent in! We should probably just designate a Q&A channel on that Discord of ours, huh. Another topic of discussion is optimal ways to recommend classic anime to people, which we generally agree is less about telling people “this is important” and more about telling people “this is an awesome thing you can watch which you may not have seen already.” And on that note…

Review: Dr. Slump Movies 1-5 (47:05 – 1:46:14)

Dr. Slump is an awesome thing you can watch which you may not have seen already…especially if you’re a fan in the United States, where the massive adoration for Akira Toriyama by and large begins and ends with Dragon Ball Z/Super. Viz has released all of the Dr. Slump manga which you can read with your Shonen Jump subscription that you probably already have, albeit with very slight edits for occasional scenes of cigarette smoking. Alas, none of the Dr. Slump anime is officially available to be viewed in the USA. Discotek released this DVD collection of the first five movies in 2014, and it didn’t do well enough for them to consider releasing all 11 of them. Similarly, the very long TV series from the 1980s has never officially been released, and while the 1990s series was briefly available in its entirety on Tubi of all places, you can’t get that officially now either. Of course, since this is a massively popular series around the world and there are many highly dedicated fans of Akira Toriyama, you can watch a considerable amount of Dr. Slump anime unofficially via fansubs. ACTUAL fansubs, not just rips of an official stream! As of this writing, they’re currently on episode 167.

These five movies offer a solid snapshot into what Dr. Slump is, who the characters are, and how the series changed over time to focus primarily on the almighty Arale-chan. Even if you don’t always find it funny, you’re highly unlikely to ever be bored since there’s always something entertaining going on.

Down on the ground! It’s a walking bird! It’s a grounded plane! It’s SUPPAMAN! “Super” sounds like “suppa,” which means “sour.”

No need for a bold Zack Snyder reimagining here.

Parodying Star Wars is old hat at this point, but Dr. Slump was doing it before Return of the Jedi came out (and Toriyama himself was at it before Empire Strikes Back)

Toyoo Ashida directed Fist of the North Star and couldn’t help parodying it when given the chance in Dr. Slump. In 2025, Me and Roboco keeps the tradition alive.

I saw My Lucky Stars long before I’d seen or heard of Dr. Slump, so I didn’t get this sequence at the time where Jackie dressed as Arale and murdered some samurai in a theme park funhouse. Okay, maybe I still don’t get it now that I’ve written that sentence out.

Photo of Akira Toriyama with Jackie Chan circa 1989.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:51:47 — 51.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS

This time around, Clarissa “pulls a Gerald” by reviewing something that we thought was still readily available via streaming and home video but is in fact totally out of print: 1993’s four-part OVA, 8 Man After. This gives us a good excuse to talk about the original 8 Man from the 1960s, its American localization, and of course Streamline Pictures and “Uncle” Carl Macek.

Introduction (0:00 – 46:49)
The new anime season has just begun, and if it feels like we say that every few episodes, that’s because of the way time works. We weigh in on our initial impressions of a selection of the current season, much of which only had maybe one or two episodes out at the time of recording. Gerald was a guest on the Anime Addicts Anonymous podcast, and since the last time any of us were on that was 2013 he didn’t realize that they’d pivoted to video long, long ago! The result is a Nixon/Kennedy debate-esque review of Wicked City in which shabbily-lit Gerald is the only one who likes it contrasted with the slick YouTubers who uh, did not like it at all. Watch and wonder why only Clarissa is smart enough to have set up a VTuber rig!

Promo: Places That Were Anime To Me (46:49 – 48:52)
Listener Anders Häger Jönson has written and directed a film which he describes as “an extremely subjective depiction of the history of Japanese animation filtered through Swedish teenage years at the turn of the millennium” and it’s going to be premiering at Otakon 2024, Saturday August 3rd at 6:00 PM. That’s a particularly rough spot to place something like this, since that means it’s opposite both the AnimEigo and Discotek Media panels, but if you don’t feel the need to be in the room for the announcement since the social media posts get made in real time anyway, then head on over to Video 2 since this is something you likely won’t be able to readily see afterwards unless you plan on attending conventions in Europe. Visit Anders’ website or his YouTube channel to learn more. In Swedish with English subtitles.

Promo: Anime Brain Freeze Podcast (48:52 – 49:52)
Remember: if you’re an anime podcast and have released more than 10 episodes without burning out on the whole thing, send us your promos and we’ll play them! Anime Brain Freeze is a podcast about anime of (recent) seasons past going back to 2016. Unlike us, they do a Best of the Season where they each pick one and only one title among the 40+ that have been coming out every season. Some of their picks include Odd Taxi, Appare-Ranman!, Re:Creators–wait, Re:Creators? RE:CREATORS?! Maybe us reviewing THAT is the next Patreon subscriber goal…

Review: 8 Man After (49:52 – 1:51:46)

Despite the cheery slogan (used in a phone ad), this is generally the last thing you kind of sort of see before getting your robot prosthetic ripped from your body.

Clarissa reviews a superhero title that 90s kids will likely remember as being part of the Sci-Fi Channel’s Saturday Anime rotation, or possibly a thing available from Blockbuster Video. Maybe some saw it unedited on pay cable, and others still actually bought the tape through mail order or direct market comicbook shops since it was originally released in the US courtesy of Streamline Pictures, then decades later was re-released by Discotek Media (since out of print/gone from streaming). 1993’s 8 Man After was one of those gritty, bloody sequels/reimaginings of Jiro Kuwata’s (“the Bat-Manga guy”) kid-friendly superhero series, though at the time Daryl mainly only knew it as a Neo Geo game since he never saw the live-action film (apparently also dubbed by Streamline, but it appears to have only ever been released on VHS and we can’t find a digital capture). The original 8 Man may have preceded Robocop, but 8 Man After definitely takes cues from it.