Anime World Order Show # 79a – Kittens Without Perception Are Spiritually Useless

Here’s the first half of Show 79, where we read some emails, play a voicemail, talk the news, and Gerald reviews Chi’s Sweet Home.

Introduction (0:00 – 31:00)
In a future exciting installment of Otaku USA, Daryl will be talking about Fist of the North Star as a result of the impending release of the remastered edition in the US. In celebration of this, he has pasted in assorted excerpts from the infamously inaccurate Streamline dub that did so much irreparable damage to the series in the eyes of US anime fans. This is not entirely inappropriate, since over in the emails, we’re asked our thoughts on the whole sub/dub thing. Rather than answering that at length since we’ve done so too many times, we opt instead to talk about some of our favorite English dub actors…nearly all of whom are in that Streamline Fist of the North Star dub. Except Mike Reynolds. We used Lily C.A.T. for that one.

We also weigh in on Hellsing Ultimate as well as the Hellsing manga, then shortly after start talking about the various anime adaptations of Bible stories: Superbook, Flying House, and In the Beginning. God is clearly at work here, since Dave Merrill just posted about Superbook over at the exceptional Let’s Anime web log, and Dan Baker just informed the world that Jack Chick is coming to an Anime Hell near you to save you from HAW HAW HAW HAW Hell. Somebody loves us.

Daryl, having recently spent much time replaying Thief: Gold, tried to impersonate Stephen Russell when reading an email asking our thoughts on Brigadoon and where otaku can meet similarly-minded folk. Unfortunately, much like the voice of Jason Statham, Stephen Russell’s Garrett voice cannot easily be replicated. Perhaps more unfortunately is the fact that several of the DVDs we reviewed years ago are now out of print, and even when they’re not it can be hard to ship them to MMM-MEXICO-OOO. We end with the ultimate in accidental dub poetry, courtesy of Michael McConnohie:

Hello Ken.
How nice to see you again!
How have you been?

Let’s News! (31:00 – 1:02:36)
After an 8 year run, Anime Insider ceased publication and we’re pretty sure the lack of Mike Dent had nothing to do with it this time like what happened to Newtype USA. Media Blasters and Bandai Entertainment are delaying or canceling the releases of some of their box sets, which is presumably due to the fact that there’s no more brick and mortar shelf space for much anime anymore. Toei (not to be confused with To-Y) has struck a deal with FUNimation’s to stream some of their anime on the FUNimation website, and much of it is pretty darn good stuff such as Air Master, Galaxy Express 999 TV, and the original Space Pirate Captain Harlock TV series. One of these titles is Fist of the North Star TV, but unlike GE999 and Harlock it doesn’t look like they’re releasing subtitled episodes past what were released subtitled by Manga Video forever ago.

As a shock to nobody, our “favorite” anime studio Gonzo ended up being de-listed from the Japanese stock exchange after all, and as the current season of anime demonstrates, they’re as terrible as always. On the pornographic doujinshi front, Linda Project–notorious for being especially protective of “their work”–will be putting English translated, uncensored digital editions of their doujinshi up for sale on Peter Payne Presents Peter Payne’s J-List: A Peter Payne Production. It took SUBSTANTIAL willpower to not make the obvious joke when Gerald said “it’s going to be interesting to see if anything comes out of this.” Yoshihiro Tatsumi will be a guest at PEN Fest in New York City next week, so go and see him because we guarantee you that nobody else will. Also, Rumiko Takahashi’s new manga, which starts…TODAY…is being officially released on the Web in English, for free, as it comes out in Japan. She can afford to do this because of her MASSIVE BREASTS. Also, being rich.

Review: Chi’s Sweet Home (1:02:36 – 1:20:06)
KITTY!

Daryl will be a guest on the April 27th edition of the OSMCast, in which the subject is Fallout. It saddens him to know how much less intelligent and reasoned he sounds without editing and the ability to drop in additional things in post, but it’ll have to tide you over for now because it’s hard to do podcast stuff when you’re recovering from surgery. Hopefully it will go well enough that we can post HILARIOUS pictures of blood-soaked gauze and Daryl having a bandaged, Jagi-esque face.

Oh yeah. We’re still selling the AWO T-shirts ($10) and hoodies ($20). Email us if you want one!

Anime World Order Show # 78b – It’s Totally Off-Topic, Except Not

Here’s the second half of Show 78. This was actually completed and ready to post some time ago.

Let’s News! (0:00 – 42:00)
Perhaps you’ve noticed that Best Buy has cut down their anime section rather drastically. There were some clearance sales that came and went, but there wasn’t much worth picking up anyway…because all the copies of Akira on Blu-Ray were long gone. Riyoko Ikeda, who at some point started getting that extra “i” in her name so she wouldn’t just be “Ryoko,” got great accolades from France for helping to popularize French culture amidst the Japanese. We think the award is fully deserved due to this car advertisement. If you haven’t really gotten into the whole “streaming anime” thing, perhaps you should give it another look because there’s a lot of titles coming out for which streaming just might be the only way you’ll see a translated English version officially available. There is probably not going to be an official translated English version of the Japanese porn comic with Barack Obama and John McCain. Sorry ladies, but it is not yaoi…YET. More bad news on that front: Sunshine Creation is canceled…again! Fortunately Figma is there to save the day in this time of need.

Review: Heaven Wars Shurato (42:00 – 1:26:22)
Clarissa concludes her reviews of all the “[pretty] boys in armor” anime series with this. Previously–and by that we mean about three years ago–she had reviewed Saint Seiya and Yoroiden Samurai Troopers. If you liked those, then you will probably like this! Probably.

This is a story about reincarnation and fighting godlike beings while wearing cool armor, but also about bros.
Well, until Lady Vishnu decides to show up, anyway.
Then it’s off to Tenkuukai, which to be fair is pretty gorgeous.
After that horrible things happen and Shurato is very sad, and kind of pissed off at Gai suddenly being evil. Hmm, I wonder how much of that Kamui and Fuuma nonsense in X derived from CLAMP’s love of Shurato…
This is pretty much the gang of major characters for Shurato, with a couple of exceptions. There’s something I find very pleasant and “human” about Okuda’s character designs that makes it stand out from Saint Seiya (with it’s crazily beautiful and exaggerated designs) and Samurai Troopers.
As we mentioned, these shows are largely about cool-looking armor. So here’s an idea of what they look like.
Here’s Reiga’s. Am I the only one who just doesn’t think the bird head works as well?

In addition to the show, I highly recommend any of the artbooks with Matsuri Okuda’s original illustrations. There are some really beautiful and melodramatic pieces, along with lots of silly stuff. Here’s some good samples. BTW, a lot of nice images including the ones here can be found at Arcadia’s Shulato Shrine.

Closing (1:26:22 – 1:31:22)
Next time, Gerald is a terrorist straight out of Hell because he’s reviewing Chi’s Sweet Home, and Clarissa lives a happy, peaceful, lighthearted existence within Detroit Metal City. For a moment we thought we might have those backwards, but no. Definitely not. Daryl’s reviewing Queen Millennia: The Movie.