Category: Robots

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Anime World Order Show # 45 – This Episode Contains More Dead Babies Than Usual

Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:24:13 — 66.0MB)

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Daryl reviews the gekiga/manga titles The Push Man and Other Stories and also Abandon the Old in Tokyo by Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Clarissa reviews the recent anime series Black Lagoon, and Gerald reviews the second of the Robot Romance Trilogy, Voltes V. The comics contain lots of dead babies, they probably shoot babies in Black Lagoon, and women are repulsed enough by 70s super robot anime such as Voltes V that they miscarry.

Full show notes to be added soon, though in all honesty they’re not quite done on the last several shows because there’s links to be added.

Introduction (0:00 – 33:10)
Yes, it takes us the length of most entire podcast episodes just to say what we’re going to talk about. But we also have listener feedback to go through…sort of. Naka-Kon‘s in Kansas City–not Kansas–on the first weekend of March, where their guest will be none other than Stevie B, or as they used to say in the IRC days, STEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVVVVVVVVVVVVE BENNNNNNETTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT! “Stevie B” is shorter and more accurate. For the umpteenth time, we talk about the whole issue of people using “manga” to describe non-Japanese comics, but apparently there’s what we believe and what everyone else seems to believe. They laughed at Galileo, they laughed at Copernicus…and right now we’re not looking so good. And what is a TRUE cosplayer, anyway?

Let’s News! (33:10 – 54:08)
ADV has acquired the rights to release 009-1, a recent series which nobody bothered to fansub because nobody seems to ever fansub Shotaro Ishinomori-based properties. We haven’t seen the show ourselves, but it involves something ribald, no doubt. Funimation’s going to be remastering all of Dragon Ball in widescreen, except the show wasn’t originally in widescreen. We strongly suspect it to be a Project A-Ko job, since when you look at the comparison footage sections it is TOTALLY OBVIOUS THAT THE TOP AND BOTTOM OF THE PICTURE HAVE BEEN CUT OFF. Hopefully the Daizenshuu EX podcast knows the score, as their latest episode is all about Funimation’s “cover-ups” over the years with regards to releasing the series.

Actually, upon further investigation over at this forum thread on Daizenshuu EX, we were wrong. It looks as though not only the top and bottom of the picture are being cut off…BUT ALSO THE SIDES. No really, take a look at these comparison screenshots:

And Funimation’s spending HOW much money to do this? Oh, there’s also not going to be any next episode previews apparently…and the “CHA LA HEAD CHA LA” opening theme song won’t be the same version. How is THAT supposed to be a definitive release? You tell us. Oh well, other news:

Viz is going to be releasing digital downloads of Death Note, presumably in high-quality fansub format. We really hope this gets done properly (that is to say, not like how other paid anime digital downloads are), and more importantly, priced reasonably. In addition to Vertical Inc’s upcoming English-language release of the 1970s shojo manga “To Terra…”, there’s also going to be a new Towards the Terra television series. Finally, Sony really screwed the pooch on this BluRay thing. Wait a second, I thought this was supposed to be NEWS!

Promo: Weekly Anime Review (54:08 – 54:42)
Due to the grim nature of existence, Aaron hasn’t been able to do a new episode for the last month and a half, but he’s back with a review of Perfect Blue. Well, actually the review is by someone else because people record reviews and send them to him for him to play. Be sure to do that CHAM dance as you listen.

Review: The Push Man and Other Stories / Abandon the Old in Tokyo (manga) (54:42 – 1:25:17)
In reviewing these publications by Drawn and Quarterly, Daryl offers forth a brief primer on gekiga, before speaking at length about dead babies and film noir. But to be serious for a moment, while Yoshihiro Tatsumi never really got a whole lot of financial success or critical acclaim, his contributions to the development of Japanese comics shouldn’t go overlooked. That’s where we come in!

  • Gekiga: The Flipside of Manga by Paul Gravett – not safe for work; no wonder the books he writes get banned from libraries!
  • Interview with Yoshihiro Tatsumi in Publisher’s Weekly — this is how Daryl pretends to be knowledgeable; he reads things other people wrote and then regurgitates the information. What separates him from a scholar is that scholars can actually process and analyze this information. Also, they remember the things they read.
  • Dave and Joel’s Forums – I bet more people would post there if they ever mentioned that these forums existed on their show! This is the thread Daryl was ripping off from.

Promo: Ninja Consultant (1:25:17 – 1:27:04)
Erin and Noah just got back from Japan! Be sure to leave comments in their Livejournal asking them what they thought of their contribution to our one year anniversary show, because they’ve been in Japan all this time and probably haven’t heard it yet!

Review: Voltes V (1:27:04 – 1:50:14)
We are so totally jazzed over all the hits from the Philippines that’ll inevitably result from this…MAYBE. Marvel and be amazed as grown adults talk about a show for 8 year-olds. You know it’s for 8 year-olds because the toy commercials for Voltes V teach all the important life lessons you should be aware of before you’re grown up, namely that it’s better for the robot to take the beating than you:

American Otaku People Retsuden, here we come!

Review: Black Lagoon (1:50:14 – 2:17:16)
This is one of Clarissa’s favorite shows that have recently aired. It’s one great big homage to Hollywood action movies, and you either understand this from the start or you don’t. It’s pretty violent, but if you were an 8 year-old that watched it, the lesson you’d learn would be “if you shoot enough people, nobody will notice how crappy your tattoo is, or perhaps they will notice it but they won’t bring up how dumb it looks out of fear of being killed, just like how nobody makes fun of Dio or Zangetsu the Mid-day.” Daryl can’t stop talking about Jay Karnes, unless he’s talking about the Greatest GREATEST Movie EVER of course. He’d make a damn fine action hero, that Jay Karnes. And Kenneth Johnson should be cast as Max Payne, if that movie ever gets made.

Promo: GeekNights (2:17:16 – 2:18:15)
Rym and Scott are not really a fan of playing promos, since promos people record are never indicative of the nature of the actual show (we’re living proof). It’s far more productive promo-wise to just mention the name of another podcast and talk about it positively, sort of like how in AM talk radio they just suddenly start talking about riding the NordicTrack for 15 minutes. That said, we gotta have SOMETHING to give people a break from our terrifying voices.

Closing (2:18:15 – 2:24:13)
We’re all losing our minds. See that running time? Yeah, our sanity? It’s broken. And as proof of that, THE NEXT EPISODE OF AWO IS ENTIRELY ABOUT HENTAI. Gerald, the architect of this scheme, shall be reviewing Urotsukidoji aka Legend of the Overfiend. Clarissa’s reviewing a hentai manga entitled Pink Sniper by her favorite hentai artist, Yonekura Kengo. And Daryl’s mental state is at the point where he can watch Kanashimi no Belladonna and live to tell the tale.

Brace yourselves.

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Anime World Order Show # 43 – Hey Sanrio, Release Ringing Bell on DVD Already

Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:05:22 — 57.4MB)

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Daryl reviews the obscure and INCREDIBLY DEPRESSING 1970s film Ringing Bell (from the people who brought you Hello Kitty!), Gerald is quite let down by Kishin Corps, and Clarissa saves the day with Part 2 of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. This is perhaps the last episode of 2006, what with Christmas and New Year’s coming.

Introduction (0:00 – 39:34)
We spend all this time talking about two things. First, Daryl lists off all the website changes and mentions that Podcast Pickle is resetting all the favorites counts to 0 again on December 29th, so you’ll have to add us again. We’ve been #2 for several months, so perhaps we can be #1 eventually! Also, we’re now listed on Digg Podcasts, which has a pretty good chance of eclipsing all the other podcast directories aside from maybe iTunes since its voting system is a lot more helpful. If you don’t know what Digg is, GeekNights will explain it for you. If you do know and you use it, go there and like, vote for us. More importantly, vote for the episodes of AWO you liked most of all and if you want, leave some comments there since we have no forums.

Second, Walter Amos left us a voicemail, and since it was ten minutes long, we opted to respond to it in pieces since all of it was interesting. Walter even does our legwork for us, being gracious enough to provide us with the following links:

Let’s News! (39:34 – 1:06:19)
ADV’s licensed Season 2 of Ah My Goddess! Wonder how well that’ll do for them? Guess we’ll never know since the reason they don’t publicize their sales figures is because…hey, look over there! Plus, that new Studio Ghibli movie that apparently isn’t all that good, Gedo Senki, is getting released in the UK (and possibly Japan) before it hits the US. And Masako Nozawa, the voice of Goku but NOT the voice of Doraemon as we stated (that’s Nobuyo Oyama, and she’s the Arkanoid friggin’ MASTER), thinks modern seiyuu are the pits.

Review: Ringing Bell (1:06:19 – 1:29:14)
This is the part where Daryl tries to impersonate Justin Sevakis, but comes up oh so short. This was a movie from the 1970s released by Sanrio–best known for Hello Kitty–under the name Chirin no Suzu. It was dubbed and released here in 1983, completely intact and with nothing done to hide that it was a Japanese cartoon. However, it’s been out of print for decades and there’s no DVD. Daryl’s invoking the statute of limitations on spoilers for this one, but suffice it to say that this might just be the most depressing children’s story ever. Click here to download a 700MB torrent of a VHS capture of this. This has been out of print for decades, so hopefully Sanrio’s lawyers will not have us thrown in jail for the crime of wanting people to see this.

Daryl has some nerve to say that he isn’t sure of where the story originated from considering it says so right in the opening credits.
Here’s Chirin at the start of the tale. Aww, he’s so cute that people the world over would spend millions of dollars on Chirin brand air conditioning units.
Until the Wolf King swoops in and fucks up his Christmas. Daryl wishes he could talk like the Wolf King, or at least find the mixer settings that would enable such a thing.
Chirin is quite distraught that JESUS FUCKING CHRIST GOD DAMN IT WHAT THE CRAP IS ELMER FUDD DOING HERE OUT OF NOWHERE
And that’s when things officially start to take a turn for the nightmarish…

Review: Alien Defender Geo-Armor aka Kishin Corps (1:29:14 – 1:48:30)
Gerald picked this one up at Otakon since he hadn’t seen it and it was something that’s been out in the US since the laserdisc days. People always compared it to Giant Robo. How bad could it possibly be? Well…

Review (manga): Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Part 2 (1:48:30 – 2:03:40)
We strongly recommend you listen to Clarissa’s review of Part 1 of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure before proceeding. Otherwise, this probably won’t make sense. But who are we kidding? Jojo’s probably wouldn’t make sense anyway. But who cares when there’s FIGHTING and GORE GORE GORE? And of course poison “wedding rings” with special antidotes.

This is Joseph Joestar, and he’s a dork. I don’t know why he’s wearing what appears to be three hats stacked on top of each other. I guess one hat just wasn’t enough for the Joestar majesty. Well, at least it’s not merged with his hair. (If you’re not familiar with the hair hat, then you haven’t read Part 3. Don’t worry, we’ll review that one too.)
Joseph tends to use his Hamon for overly elaborate ways of throwing things at people, like coke bottle lids, or tripping them. Of course it’s hard to keep thinking of him as a badass when he does this sort of thing.
This is Joseph with Caesar, his best friend and ally. They’re also both dorks, as evidenced by the fact that they do stupid things like have fights with pasta (and somehow also pigeons and girls) and have dumb moments like this.
This is LisaLisa, and she will totally mess you up. She’s also very mature and level headed, which is good when you’re working with a couple of tards like Joseph and Caesar.
Behold the ultimate asskicking life forms, Wham, AC/DC and Cars. Santana’s not there, but I assure you he was even more naked. Araki sort of rectified the lack of homoeroticism from Part 1 in one fell swoop with these guys.
This is something I think makes Jojo’s fights far more awesome than most shonen fighting show battles. CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS, BITCHES.
Of course, chariot races with vampire horses help too. What, did you think we were joking about that?
Come on, you know you want to be there for this.

Closing (2:03:40 – 2:05:22)
Next time, whenever that is, we’re going to do another “we answer emails” episode. We promise that we’ll actually manage to answer more emails than we got through when we had Dave Merrill on the show back in Show # 33, an episode which is one of our personal favorites.