Anime World Order Show # 200 – Let’s ACTUALLY Interview Helen McCarthy Already

It’s our 200th episode! To celebrate, we interview the UK’s Most Dangerous anime scholar garderner/poet, Helen McCarthy! The one we did back in 2008 was technically a “bonus” and not an episode, back when we were trying to distinguish between such things!

Introduction (0:00 – 43:38)
After the obligatory shilling our stuff (Daryl was finally back on the Greatest Movie EVER! podcast to talk about Ninja in the Dragon’s Den), we get to talking some more about virtual conventions. Anime Expo’s is this weekend, and we hope it’s handled better than Fanimecon’s which just might be the single biggest debacle of all the virtual conventions we were aware of…which truth be told, is shockingly few since it’s hard to get the word out. In-person conventions are starting to come back–the wisdom of this is a bit shaky–but expect to see us at Otakon albeit with much less on our dockets. Anime Weekend Atlanta is still something of a toss up. We also talk a bit about what we’ve been watching/reading, along with what we’re looking forward to for the new Summer 2021 anime season. You know who doesn’t believe in doing less stuff during the pandemic? Tim Eldred, that’s who. Because having the single best resource in the world on Space Battleship Yamato just wasn’t enough work, July 1st looks to be the next big update to his personal website Artvalt, so head on over there for his next big compendium as it pertains to Fist of the North Star. There’s renewed interest in that now that the first volume of Viz’s Signature Edition is out (and selling out, from the looks of things). The first of multiple articles from Tim is now up: the Fist of the North Star Series Profile.

Promo: Right Stuf Anime (43:38 – 46:30)
As if there weren’t enough recent major sales, the big birthday sales are going on over at Right Stuf and that means big discounts across the board along with Mega Deals that change daily along with weekly giveaways. As a PSA: if you bought Dear Brother on Blu-Ray, and you probably want to do that since it’ll go out of print in under a year’s time, open it up and double check to make sure your discs were not physically cracked in the packaging. Discotek used a standard width case along with a spindle which is very hard to remove the discs from, and while Daryl’s discs were fine there are multiple reports on social media from those who weren’t so fortunate. So if you need to get an exchange, this is something to find out now rather than once there are no more copies available.

Interview: Helen McCarthy (46:30 – 3:26:55)
We meant to get to this sooner. We’re just stricken by laziness. The same cannot be said for Helen McCarthy, which will become quite evident once you listen to this because we didn’t manage to cover everything in three hours! This was done through an international half duplex Skype connection, so there may be some occasional cutouts during cross-talk, but we mitigated this by mostly keeping quiet and listening AS YOU SHOULD TOO. But here are a few links you’ll probably want in addition to her blog which is already on the sidebar.:

Feel free to suggest/request additional links in the comments below, or bug us via email or through social media.

Anime World Order Show # 199 – Come Together, Just Become The Joker

We slacked off on getting to this one, but at least it’s thematically appropriate for Daryl reviews The Irresponsible Captain Tylor, soon to be released on Blu-Ray in the US.

Introduction (0:00 – 50:05)
We have this unfortunate tendency to record/release episodes just before something major happens, but last month it was announced that after decades of legal conflicts, Macross anime produced after 1987 may now be released globally. The specificity of the year is noteworthy since that specifically excludes Macross: Do You Remember Love?, but we remain optimistic. Oddly enough, they’re now officially streaming Macross Flash Back 2012 for a limited time, which is easily the least accessible entry point to Macross since it’s meant to be viewed after having seen the original series and DYRL, but it was probably the least effort to post since it’s basically just an extended music video.

Say, you know who ELSE is on YouTube? Us! Finally! Well, almost. See, right now youtube.com/animeworldorder still goes to Daryl’s mostly abandoned YouTube page, but we can’t set the custom URLs until after the new channel has a minimum of 100 subscribers. After having posted one video and mentioning it on social media, we’re currently at 96. Here’s the current channel; once we get enough subscribers on it we’ll see about adjusting the custom URLs so that youtube.com/animeworldorder goes there instead. Hopefully it works (UPDATE: it does NOT work; custom URLs cannot be transferred to other channels once set. Our YouTube channel link will be https://www.youtube.com/c/AnimeWorldOrderPodcast). Note that all we’re putting up on YouTube are review segments, not the entire episode. They’re also going to be edited slightly to dodge the copyright bots. Although we will be adding occasional visual aids so that the whole thing isn’t just a still image, rest assured we are NOT “pivoting to video.” This audio podcast isn’t going anywhere. We’re just trying to put some sampler stuff on the platform everybody uses to maybe direct some of that audience here.

Ever wanted to donate to us but just wanted it to to be a one-time thing? Turns out for over a year, that Paypal donation button on the right hand sidebar of our site was busted. It’s fixed now. That said, once we get to 250 unique Patrons on our Patreon, that will force us to review Hand Shakers, so if you wish to hear us suffer and become quite irate, just $1 per episode will eventually get you there.

At around the 24:00 mark, we all start talking about what anime we’re currently watching. This is presumably the actual on-topic subject matter people tune in for!

Promos: Right Stuf Anime, SkullKast, Zac Bertschy Memorial Fund (50:05 – 58:43)
The preorders for the Blu-Ray set of the original two El Hazard: The Magnificent World OAVs are now open. We reviewed that back in Show 138 …man, six years ago. A few days ago, the announcement was made public that Berserk author Kentaro Miura passed away at age 54 two weeks ago on May 6th, 2021. The SkullKast, which is the affiliated podcast of the 20+ year-old Berserk fan community Skullknight.net, will be releasing their next episode on Sunday which will cover the community reactions to this. You can read eulogies by Chris Warner and Carl Horn of Dark Horse Comics over at the Dark Horse Comics blog. All seven of the hardcover deluxe editions of Berserk are currently out of stock everywhere, such that on Amazon they ranked within the top 25 list of books sold. That’s all books overall, not just manga. Due to Covid, reprints are likely to take much longer than usual, and so while this will no doubt come off as grimly opportunistic, the reality is that if you want to own the upcoming Volume 8 of those Berserk releases, you’d better preorder them. You can do so through Right Stuf here, should you wish to support us through our affiliate link while doing so.

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of the death of Zac Bertschy of Anime News Network. In his memory, ANN has set up a team fundraiser in his name for the Trevor Project. Contrary to speculation, Zac did not commit suicide himself, but the Trevor Project is a cause he supported in life. The original goal of $5000 was quickly met, and now the stretch goal of $11,000 is 95% there. This makes Team Zac Bertschy the third highest ranked team over there, and if the goal is met they’ll be at number two. If you want to donate in Zac’s memory, now’s the time. It’d be a good look for the anime community to take the top spot, don’t you think?

Review: The Irresponsible Captain Tylor (58:43 – 2:07:33)
Back in Show 183 we interviewed Shawne Kleckner, co-founder of Right Stuf Anime, where he mentioned his favorite show of all time was 1993’s Irresponsible Captain Tylor, directed by Koichi Mashimo back when he was still awesome and produced by…oh hey, Tatsunoko Productions and Big West of Macross fame! We’ve also been fans of Tylor for some time, and even still have the T-shirts from when Tylor was released onto DVD through pre-Kickstarter era crowdfunding by Right Stuf’s anime label, Nozomi Entertainment:

With the release of the Irresponsible Captain Tylor Collector’s Ultra Edition + Artbook Blu-ray set mere weeks away (preorders currently closed, and we expect soon after for a regular edition to be announced), we decided to revisit the series. Comedy and the demographics of anime fandom have changed dramatically over the years, and this series is rapidly approaching that “Thirty Years Ago” status Daryl would frequently look back upon. Does this beloved series of our adolescence hold up to the rigors of what is considered acceptable in 2021? Full disclosure: Right Stuf is our sponsor, and they did send us preliminary “check discs” of the Blu-Rays for us to evaluate this new edition. While we don’t think this colors our evaluation of the series–in fact, we might even LOSE OUR SPONSORSHIP~! over this one–we just want to make sure everyone knows this stuff up front.

This is technically not actually taken from the Nozomi Entertainment release.