Category: Studio Ghibli

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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.

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Anime World Order Show # 41 – Dear Ireland: Manga Man Was Lying To You

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:55:00 — 52.7MB)

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This week, it’s titles that for one reason or another just aren’t for everyone. More so than usual, anyway. Daryl reviews the 2004 Gonzo anime series Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo, Gerald reviews the manga Voyeur and its followup Voyeurs Inc, and Clarissa reviews the Studio Ghibli film Omoide Poroporo, aka Only Yesterday.

In an attempt to combat the audio issues from the last episode, we tried recording this episode with us on separate channels then downmixing to mono during the final encode. The initial file we uploaded had all the parts with us speaking as rather soft, with the sound effects and music being louder. The current file, which is exactly the same filesize as the old file so hopefully the feed won’t flip out, should hopefully not exhibit that. Also, we might have messed up the sync at points. Please let us know if anything’s messed up.

This was supposed to be uploaded last week, but Clarissa had college finals/JET applications to finish up and Gerald had the GMAT to study for. We’ll get the show notes up later today.

Introduction (0:00 – 37:52)
Man, next year is our one year anniversary…and we probably won’t even have an episode. Somehow, that’s appropriate. These allegations from Ireland that our pronounciation of manga is almost D4 in its silliness–and for the record, we’d vastly prefer people send criticism to us directly so that we can actually respond to it–are false, we say! False! Clearly, Ireland has been duped by MANGA MAN:

Responding to your emails and voicemails, we reveal: what do we think about FLCL? Have we played Jump Ultimate Stars (which you can play wifi multiplayer against Japanese people), the only game with both Kenshiro and Kochikame fighting side by side? How much of all that oldschool stuff people like and defend is actually GOOD and how much of it is just stuff we like because we saw it way back when or had to make a big effort to get? Marc Handler wrote in to offer some corrections and additions to our interview with him in Show # 37, and here’s a correction to THIS episode: the second Voltron set is NOT out. Want to find out who’s REALLY responsible for casting dub voice actors? Marc tells us here. How come Gerald and Daryl haven’t taken up learning Japanese? And what do we REALLY think about Noir?

  • Definition of what D4 means since it’s not a term used by anyone in America – a “fake shallow gay accent which is put on to make them feel more important.” Essentially, we’re accused of talking all “no more buttered scones for me, Mater, I’m off to play the GRAHND PIAHNO. PAHRDON me while I FLHY my AEROPLANE” like. This is where we point out that the “main-ga” pronounciation is not how the Japanese say the word; no seriously, listen to them say it. See that? You saying they’re saying it wrong, huh? Yeah, so it’s not that we’ve got a fake pretentious pronounciation, it’s that Manga Entertainment can’t even say their own motherfucking name right.

Promo: The Anime/Videogame Podcast (37:52 – 39:32)
People often wonder why we play the same set of promos over and over. Well, it’s because other podcasts don’t send us their promos to play! Send us your promos, and we’ll play them. One of our listeners, Victor “Fake_Brasilian” Chaves, has started his own anime/videogame podcast, so we’re helping him out by playing his promo. See? That wasn’t hard! We do however feel compelled to point out that searching for “anime/videogame” under iTunes returns no results and “anime/video game” returns one result that we thought wasn’t theirs because it’s called “The Super Anime/Video Game Podcast.” But that is indeed it, so remember that it’s “video game” and not “videogame.” Oh, and by the way, guys: the US courts have ruled that it still counts as kiddy porn if it’s drawn.

Review: Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo (39:32 – 1:07:21)
Daryl takes on this 2004 reimagining of the Alexander Dumas novel, courtesy of Studio Gonzo. Is this show crappy like practically every other Gonzo show ever made? Or did Mahiro Maeda pull it off? This segment was incredibly long, so things like Gerald explaining how much he can’t stand to look at this show and Daryl’s in-depth analysis comparing the Count of Monte Cristo to the Monte Cristo sandwich at Bennigan’s has been removed. Believe it or not, it’s a spoiler to properly explain just how similar the two are. Suffice it to say that the manner in which one would defeat the Count, were such a thing possible, is exactly the same method one would use to defeat Daryl Surat.

This is the Count of Monte Cristo. Seriously, how can ANYONE not see him coming?
The Count of Monte Cristo is very much like this sandwich. The Monte Cristo. A vile concoction of ham, turkey, Swiss and American cheese that’s battered, deep fried beyond recognition and edibility, then coated in powdered sugar and raspberry preserves to give it an air of class. You won’t see THIS coming till it strikes either.A screencap from the fansubs. Yeah, that whole “stop distribution of the fansub once the show is licensed” thing? That’s bullshit. I got this off of BitTorrent no problem.The same shot, taken from the DVDs. Sure, you can see there’s more detail, but maybe the quality jump is more noticeable in the motion. Or perhaps the character outfits.Aristocratic fashion…IN THE YEAR 2000! This is the textile layering effect on the clothes and hair I was talking about. I can’t adequately illustrate this without showing multiple screenshots, but you can get a good idea from this.
This is Peppo. He looks and sounds just like a girl. Stop, stop, Hibari-kun.
Hmm, I don’t think these were originally in the book. The marketing makes it seem like this is a show with robots and action in it, but I think they only appear like, two or three times near the end. Guess that’s why Adult Swim didn’t pick it up. Jerks. If they can run Reign: The Conqueror…

Promo: StarShipSofa (1:07:21 – 1:08:49)
Tony Smith and Ciaran O’Carroll <— IRELAND ALERT are running this podcast dedicated to classic SF literature and such. Maybe you know about the authors they talk about, but they tend to talk about the more overlooked books. Mind you, these guys like Doctor Who, and Doctor Who fans are rightfully mocked by even the rest of sci-fi fandom PS: Clarissa is a Doctor Who fan.

Review (manga): Voyeur / Voyeurs Inc (1:08:49 – 1:26:40) Gerald reviews this manga by Hideo Yamamoto, author of Ichi the Killer as well as Homunculus which we reviewed in Show # 10. Only instead of being super violent and gory, this one’s all about super gross sex. And that’s Gerald’s speciality!

Review: Only Yesterday (1:26:40 – 1:49:17)
Clarissa bites the bullet and does a first for this podcast: a review of a Studio Ghibli film. We originally figured “well, everyone knows about Studio Ghibli already,” but this one’s by Ghibli’s other main creative talent Isao Takahata, who is somewhat glossed over by anime fans. Despite airing on TV in January, there is still no DVD of this film in America. We already had VHS fansubs (timed by Enrique Conty, RECOGNIZE), but the DVD of this was sent to us all the way from…

Promo: Eeepers Choice (1:49:17 – 1:50:10)
IRELAND ALERT! Yes, thanks go out to Eeeper once more, even though he’s seriously treading on Daryl’s dreams by saying Kimagure Orange Road is as good as Giant Robo. He’s watching DN Angel (which we can confirm is David Williams’ favorite show, having beaten out Dirty Pair) so we don’t have to.

Closing (1:50:10 – 1:55:00)
Our one-year anniversary is coming up next week, but we said we’d be taking a week off to…play videogames. Hmm. Perhaps we should upload SOMETHING next week. In any case, the next time a show is recorded, Daryl’s going to review the Special Edition of Fullmetal Alchemist The Movie (and he’ll have to spoil the TV series somewhat to do that), Clarissa’s got Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid, and Gerald is the luckiest man alive since he’ll be doing our very first moe show review, Moon Phase. Hey, he’s read through Voyeur and Voyeurs Inc and is BEGGING for more. Why, this shouldn’t even faze him! PS: this week there is a stinger.