Anime World Order Podcast

WARNING: in addition to being released later than promised, the audio levels are not properly balanced. I think it’s because we mentioned Megatokyo, and the mere mention of its name must have caused us to inherit Fred’s laughably deficient work ethic. This week Daryl talks about the currently-running manga series Pluto, Clarissa talks about the really old but also currently-running manga series from Eroica With Love, and Gerald tells us all about the works of director Katsuhito Akiyama.

Introduction (0:00 – 29:10)
This time we answer a backlog of emails and respond to such things as the new TokyoPop format for Shonan Junai-gumi, modern fandom, and *gasp* a metahuman (Nightwing LOL) the horror of MegaTokyo. We also go into a gigantic number of older shows to check out (there were a TON more but we cut them out), reminisce about Arctic Animation and check out a really great old schooler who uploaded some episodes of a classic F1 racing anime for all of you to check out. Download them here
, but be kind and do not destroy his bandwidth. He also asked for some feedback on the show so be sure to email him your thoughts at mieko2_99 AT yahoo DOT co DOT jp

• TokyoPop’s Shonan Junai-gumi page – this is the sequel to GTO and will be released in a new wide-ban format for TokyoPop.
• Megatokyo - you know what the page is already
• Otakon – one of the largest anime conventions in the world
• Graviton City – Project A-Ko – everything you’d ever want to know about the action/comedy classic; the site is currently down
• ANN’s entry on Iria: Zeiram the Animation
• Galaxy Express 999 TV Fansite
• ANN’s entry on Dirty Pair Flash
• Bandai Channel’s Akira Site (Japanese) – do we really need to post a link about this? Well, have one that’s not in English. That’s helpful.
• The Official Robotech Website – home to the absolute craziest fans in anime. Be careful of those forums, because the folks who post there are lunatics. Some of whom we know.
• ANN’s entry on Patlabor 2 – really one of the very best political thrillers in anime or otherwise.
• Arctic Animation – they were basically the AnimeJunkies of the VHS fansubbing era

Let’s News! (29:10 – 35:47)
Gerald reports on his experiences attending the Production IG lecture in which the main speaker didn’t actually show up. We were hoping to get an interview with him, but that obviously couldn’t happen, so the only news item is that IGPX has been faring really poorly in America. Wait, how is THAT news to anyone?!

Promo: Ninja Consultant (35:47 – 36:56)
Erin and Noah have come up with a new promo for their show, and we’re more than happy to play it since they’re officially a Better Podcast Than Us. Daryl made sure to put this promo directly after the news segment for maximum joke potential.

Review: Pluto (36:57 – 52:06)
In this review, Daryl talks about the manga Pluto by Naoki Urasawa, the same creator of Monster which Gerald and Clarissa reviewed last week. It’s a retelling of one of the more well-remembered Astro Boy stories, only done in a style very much like Monster. Contains some spoilers for the first 26 chapters, which is all that’s out so far, as well as for the original Astro Boy tale.

• Dark Horse’s Astro Boy Volume 3 – contains the “Greatest Robot On Earth” storyline from which Pluto is derived
• The Laws of Robotics from Isaac Asimov’s stories – these are utilized in Astro Boy and Pluto as well
• Wikipedia page on Alexander the Great – I should make a Reign the Conqueror joke here but I’m too tired
• “Urasawa’s Pluto and Tezuka’s Astro Boy” courtesy of Jog – The Blog
• Mangascreener’s website – notice that Pluto isn’t actually listed there, but they are doing it

Promo: Anime Genesis (52:07 – 52:44)
Before you ask: IT’S A JOKE, PEOPLE. The URL for the podcast has actually changed since this promo was done, so use the one we’ve linked to here instead of the one in the promo. In one of their latest episodes, they mention how “Anime World Order really likes Kazuo Koike.” It’s a pity that Benu voted wrong on the Frappr map.

Often Overlooked: From Eroica With Love (52:45 – 1:15:48)
Clarissa commits a cardinal sin when reviewing From Eroica With Love and uses the term “gay” as a noun, but Daryl and Gerald stay quiet as she recounts the series that’s basically Lupin for girls who like guys who like guys. Marvel at how we all alternate between pronounciations of “Lupin”!

• ANN’s entry for From Eroica With Love
• CMX page listing for Eroica Volume 1
• Eroica Fans – the biggest, long-standing English fansite for Eroica (has text summaries of many manga stories and lots of links)
• Japanese fan organization for Iron Klaus – around since 1978 (the story, as I’ve heard it, is that there is a whole group of women–surely middle aged by now–who never married, because their hearts were only for Klaus)
• Ranking of Best 50 mangas – according to Japanese votes, done by Comic Link in 1998 – Eroica comes in at #43
• A Takarazuka cosplay shoot with otokoyaku dressed as Klaus and Dorian – hey, it was too good to pass up
• Led Zeppelin site – if some of you sad, sad people don’t know them already (such as Daryl, who doesn’t listen to music at all)

Promo: Otaku Generation (1:15:49 – 1:16:08)
It’s a pretty clever promo centering around the tried-and-true bumper promo format. We would do something different, but we lack their immense technical expertise. If you thought our show runs long, they’ve been running two and a half hour episodes as of late!

Creator’s Spotlight: Katsuhito Akiyama (1:16:09 – 1:31:56)
Gerald takes a look at his favorite director, the very unknown Katsuhito Akiyama, director of such show as the original Bubble Gum Crisis, Gall Force (again, this is Gerald’s personal fansite so be careful), Sol Bianca, Magical Project S, and recently the new Guyver TV series. An unusual choice? Yes, but that’s what we’re about here at AWO, the unexpected.

Closing (1:31:57 – 1:33:47)
This week was a very strange one for us. We’re very late and on top of that, this episode sounds about as bad as our first one. We’d offer excuses, but nobody wants to hear those. I guess this is the glamorous world of anime podcasts for you. Next week’s episode will consist entirely of an interview with Tim Eldred, who in addition to being a huge fan of VOTOMS and Space Battleship Yamato (and Fist of the North Star!) is also a published comicbook artist and has done extensive work in Western animation such as Teen Titans, MTV’s Spider-Man series, and Wing Commander Academy (that one’s not listed in IMDB or Anime News Network or anything, but Daryl knows it off the top of his head since he was a Wing Commander nut once upon a time when that game franchise wasn’t dead). Tim was there when anime fandom first started in the US, and we’ll be talking at length about all of these things and then some. We’re not splitting this one up like the Patrick Macias interview, so be ready for it.

Our guest this week is Mike Toole from Anime Jump, who’s been putting the “dumb” in anime fandom since 1998! Gerald and Clarissa review the excellent series Monster, and Mike and Daryl review the Often Overlooked (and notoriously terrible) Odin: Photon Space Sailer Starlight. Yes, that’s spelled correctly.

Introduction (0:00 – 19:26)
Our guest for the episode, Mike Toole, joins us from the start and we immediately dive right into talking about our ideal anime convention. Wait, didn’t someone ask us this already? Whatever, Mike’s here this time! If you want to play Mario Kart DS with him, his Friend Code is 137506166547. Wait, weren’t you not supposed to give those out over the Internet or something?

• Greg Ayres (he’s coming to a con near you! But he’s not just a rave DJ guy or a “cool voice actor vicariously living out the dream for you,” so be sure to go to his panels about fansubber ethics)
• IMDB entry for The Three Amigos
• At some point Daryl tries to make a reference to this Monty Python episode but fails
• ANN entry for Maya Okamoto
• ANN entry for Norio Wakamoto (voice of Chiyo’s dad, Mechazawa, etc)
• ANN entry for Kaneto Shiozawa (Rest in peace; Paul von Oberstein is Daryl’s role model)
• Official fanclub for Akira Kamiya (voice of Kenshiro, Ryo Saeba, Roy Fokker, and much more)
• ANN entry for Kenichi Sonoda (creator of Riding Bean and Gunsmith Cats)
• An unofficial Go Nagai fan site (“father” of manga, not to be confused with Osamu Tezuka who is the “God” of manga)
• Wikipedia entry on Haim Saban (man who brought us Power Rangers and too much hacked up anime to count; his spirit lives on within 4Kids Entertainment)
• ANN entry on Haruki Kadokawa (Gerald considers him to be easily the craziest man to work in anime)
• IMDB entry for The Final Countdown
• AnimeHell.org (god damn it, what time does Midnight Madness start?)
• An English language page about Loudness (they’re touring the US!)
• Anime Weekend Atlanta (Daryl’s first convention and still his favorite)

Let’s News! (19:26 – 29:28)
Rather abrupt transition into the news this week. The 2005 profits for 4Kids Entertainment are down 60% from 2004 because the kids who grew up on Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh now realize that their little kid brothers or whatever are into the same thing and therefore it can’t possibly be cool. In other news, everything about Bleach is licensed worldwide by Viz Media. Expect people to continue fansubbing and scanning it anyway without even having the decency to say “yeah, we’re doing this because we’re thieves and want to watch/read this for free.” At least software and movie pirates own up to what they are.

Promo: Ninja Consultant (29:28 – 31:14)
Erin from Ninja Consultant is probably our #1 fan among other podcasters, but Noah thinks Daryl is a stupid head for saying that Hols, Prince of the Sun was merely “good” instead of “the best thing ever made.” This type of criticism is normally levied towards Daryl by American comicbook fans who just can’t fathom the concept of someone not liking Watchmen / Sandman / Transmetropolitan / Preacher / insert decent-but-not-incredible thing written by someone from the British Isles here. The absolute worst is when those comics people say “oh, well CLEARLY you didn’t understand it! Read it again!” Anyway, listen to the Ninja Consultant podcast, even though this promo is like, twice as long as most promos.

Synopsis/Review: Monster [CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST FOUR EPISODES OR SO] (31:14 – 48:34)
Clarissa and Gerald both wanted to do a segment about Naoki Urasawa’s long-running manga series turned anime, but hadn’t done so until now since they were still watching the show. Not that it matters, since you can’t really talk about anything that happens without giving the series away. This segment is essentially a plot synopsis of the first few episodes (so that’s basically the first volume of the manga), but it’s not like they’re ruining the series for you or even giving away much of anything. Still, we’re putting the warning there. Buy this you geeks.

• ANN’s Entry on Monster (For a quick overview of the show)
• Official Monster Site (Japanese)
• Viz’ Official Monster Site (Buy the damn manga, it’s just that good)

Promo: Corn Pone Flicks (48:34 – 49:37)
Leader Desslok has a plan to stick it to the man in this 1999 short which can be viewed on the CPF website or on Google Video. A “Cocaine Howitzer” production? Why, whatever is it that Matt Murray could have been referring to with that joke? Perhaps the next segment will shed some light on the matter!
PS: read Matt’s movie reviews. He just did a really good one on V for Vendetta. Incidentally, the comicbook to that is also “just okay” and not “the greatest thing ever committed to the printed medium by the greatest author to ever live” no matter what comicbook fans say.

Often Overlooked: Odin: Photon Space Sailer Starlight (49:37 – 1:27:03)
When Daryl ran into Mike at Katsucon 12, it was only for a brief moment since Mike was on staff and had matters to attend to. But he insisted that he be on the show when we did our review of Odin, so we waited until this fateful day. Look people, when you start talking about “worst anime ever made,” you are not qualified to speak on the subject unless you’ve seen Odin, okay? This is one of the single biggest disasters in anime history, and Mike and Daryl will tell you all about exactly why that is with the help of quite a few audio clips. Listen on and be forever enlightened.

• ANN’s Entry on Odin
• Central Park Media’s Official Odin Site (Be careful, that release is edited, what you’re really looking for is this release. Wait, you’re not looking for this, so IGNORE THAT LINK!)
• Picture of the elevator moment that’s forever burned into Daryl’s head for no good reason

Closing (1:27:03 – 1:34:25)
Sorry this episode was even later than usual, but Daryl had gotten word that his grandmother had died right before we recorded this episode, and was attending the funeral during the days he would normally spend editing the show (fortunately Gerald and Clarissa did most of the work in his absence). We close things up by playing what is easily the greatest Discipline ad copy reading we’ve received to date, courtesy of our friend Max, aka the “Lensman…THE DUB” guy from a few episodes back. Next week–and that’s next week for you, later today for us–Gerald brings back the Creator Spotlight segment by talking about his favorite director, Katsuhito Akiyama. Clarissa will review the long-running yet Often Overlooked manga series From Eroica With Love by Yasuko Aoike, and Daryl will review a currently-running manga by Naoki Urasawa entitled Pluto.