Anime World Order Show # 35 – Cromartie, Lain, and THE TRUTH behind Metrocon 2006

No time for a final quality check listen, we’ve got to drive to Anime Weekend Atlanta! Gerald reviews Cromartie High School, Clarissa continues the ABe kick from last week with Serial Experiments Lain, and Daryl unveils a small portion of THE TRUTH he discovered at Metrocon 2006!

Introduction (0:00 – 41:25)
The Garbage Stanley captured in this recording is actually not the current Garbage Stanley. More on that later. In the ever-growing listener mailbox, we’re told that Baltimore isn’t as bad as we think it is, but we remain skeptical since we watched not only Homicide: Life on the Street, but also The Wire aka “a step by step tutorial on how to be a criminal and not get caught by the police.” Then, Paul S. writes in with some proposals about how to combat anime piracy, which means we end up yelling for 20 minutes. Finally, Alex requests recommendations on what anime he should show to people to get them interested in anime, and we each give our thoughts.

Promo: Ninja Consultant (41:25 – 43:10)
Erin and Noah shared a room with Gerald and Clarissa over the weekend, and according to Erin’s testimony, the amount of dirty group intercourse that took place was less than 1%. However, she fell quite ill during the weekend and had to get an emergency pierrotectomy, so perhaps her words cannot be trusted.

Review: Cromartie High School (43:10 – 1:02:56)
Finally, the time has come to answer the burning question! Which is the greater force: the comedy level of Cromartie or the Aryan humor deficiency which flows through the fiber of Gerald’s being? There’s only one way to find out!

Promo: Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast (1:02:56 – 1:03:42)
Multiple episodes of Paul Chapman’s podcast are what we listened to for a good portion of the drive up to Atlanta. Gerald and Clarissa would like to suggest that instead of using only the stock sound effects, he should also have audio clips from the movies thrown in too. Daryl thinks having his mom be on the podcast is a stroke of genius, but Gerald dismisses the opinions of all people who hold PhDs and Clarissa dismisses the opinions of anyone who would state that Halle Berry was the best Catwoman.

Review: Serial Experiments Lain (1:03:42 – 1:26:29)
Clarissa keeps the Yoshitoshi ABe ball rolling by talking about the show that pretty much put him on the map. Logic dictated that Gerald would have to then review Texhnolyze, but he refused so the ABe motif has officially died after a mere two weeks.

Promo: Fast Karate For the Gentleman (1:26:29 – 1:27:34)
In a city ruled by the mob, Dave and Joel have no choice but to fend for themselves, with only their toes and fingers at their disposal. But rather than use those fingers to form a fist, they use them instead to watch anime that is either awesome or awful. But mostly awful. This is why Daryl steals jokes from them constantly, and his next bad anime panel will feature dub clips from Megazone 23 Part 3.

THE TRUTH: Metrocon 2006 (1:27:34 – 1:46:03)
“That had to be the dumbest and most annoying segment I’ve ever listened to…in fact I didn’t listen to most of it.” — the most positive praise we’ve received thus far regarding this segment

With Amano’s World coming up in a few weeks, Daryl thought it wise to actually get the Metrocon segment out. Of course, seeing that this entire segment is a fabrication and doesn’t accurately portray much of what took place at Metrocon, the likelihood of his getting a press badge for that might be low, especially since they listen to this podcast! Whatever, it’s for the sake of jokes.

Pikabellechu, renowned costumer, fanartist, and CONJURER OF FRIGHTENING GHOSTS:

The Brain, wearing my La Parka mask during the Fantasy Masquerade:

The official Fantasy Masquerade concession stand:

Henry (blue helmet) and Spooky Electric (cosplaying as Monkey Punch):

Misha, the Life Master, got to be on Fox News because of this Bridget outfit; the local Fox News affiliate had a TRUTH search going on as well, you see:

A hotel room we’ll NEVER FORGET:

Al Pipes (RIP) and the Melonnaut (RIP):

A sample page from the Metrocon Anime Human Chess Match script, their top event of the weekend:

Stevie B, being a bee and not a puppy:

Click here to see an autograph/sketch made by Stevie B (not work safe)

The Beast of Nature is given a hand in the phat larpz by Ham Samael…

…but the moods of all turn to shock upon seeing that Henry has become the new Garbage Stanley, since the way you become Garbage Stanley is that you have to eat the previous Garbage Stanley:

Garbage Stanley later participated in a vampire LARP and survived.

Closing (1:46:03 – 1:48:39)
Next time on AWO, which really should have come out by now except Daryl spent the last two days not editing anything, Daryl will review the 2004 remake of Hi no Tori, Clarissa gives us another yaoi title review with Embracing Love, and Gerald reviews Manga Video’s re-release of Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro. Or, as the packaging reads “Lupin the III.” That’s like writing “$10 dollars,” people!

Anime World Order Show # 34 – Haibane Renmei, Captain Harlock, and Chun Li’s Tatas

Finally, a normal format episode again! Gerald lets us know all about the uncut version of Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, Clarissa kicks it old school with My Youth in Arcadia (aka Arcadia of My Youth), and Daryl offers his own unique insight on Haibane Renmei!

Next week is Anime Weekend Atlanta! We’ll all be in attendance; be sure to attend Daryl’s Panel OF DOOM Saturday night, and if you REALLY love punishment, stop by at the Anime Podcasting panel on Sunday morning at 11 AM. Don’t worry, the Waverly offers late checkout.

Introduction (0:00 – 24:02)
We don’t mind that Chris Sabat is the voice of like, every other character in Funimation’s dubs since face it, he’s one of the best actors they got there anyway. We answer more emails here than we got through in the entire last episode, and it seems that a few people are actually watching the shows we discuss! First off, relatively new anime fan Milla writes in to tell us her thoughts on They Were Eleven (reviewed in Show # 5) and Genshiken (Show # 22). As a public service announcement, Daryl reminds everyone that the Television Without Pity forums and website is 90% female, 100% stupidity. Dedicated listener Erwin writes in to tell us about how much he’s enjoying Monster after hearing our review, and the Ninja Consultants need to watch Voltes V. Alex writes in to let Daryl know that he watched Fist of the North Star per his recommendations, not knowing that it’s an anime where people’s heads explode. Clearly Daryl has failed on his mission, so it’s up to Tim Eldred to school us all by talking about how there’s a Roman Album for the first Fist of the North Star movie in what will be a trilogy (plus two).

Let’s News! (24:02 – 35:02)
They’re making four more Evangelion movies. That’s what the modern-day Gainax does best: coast along on the glory and reputation of their previous successes. Works like a charm, seeing as we spent 11 minutes talking about just this. But who knows? Maybe they’ll surprise us and shut down the fanservice aspect of Evangelion once and for all! And then go bankrupt. Again.

Promo: Weekly Anime Review (35:02 – 35:36)
After a lengthy summer hiatus, Aaron is back and he’s hitting on all cylinders with reviews of Angel’s Egg, Castle of Cagliostro, and…uh, Speed Grapher. Fine, so someone else mailed him the Angel’s Egg review, but it’s not like WE’VE done a review of that, now have we?! Why the heck is that? What is it we’re talking about that’s so much more important than Angel’s Egg, huh?!

Review: Street Fighter II the Animated Movie (uncut) (35:36 – 56:55)
Oh. Man, if this keeps up, we won’t be able to keep pretending to have the anime intellectual high ground when the other anime podcasts are continually beating us to discussing Wings of Honneamise, Tezuka’s experimental short films, Angel’s Egg, and so on! And without that, we’re nothing, you hear me? NOTHING! Be that as it may, Street Fighter II is probably the best of the “fighting game to anime” adaptations. Not like that’s exactly hard, but hey.

Review: My Youth in Arcadia [Arcadia of My Youth] (56:55 – 1:21:36)
Clarissa struggled hard with this one, knowing full well that Captain Harlock is one of the most iconic characters in all of anime and that she’d better do him justice. Of course, despite being one of the most iconic anime characters, we guarantee you that if you showed most anime fans a picture of Harlock and said “who is this guy,” they would not know, so now you know the reason why this segment had to happen. This ran pretty long, so all the bits about Daryl talking about how Leiji Matsumoto is still really mad about World War 2 have been excised because they were irrelevant. In its place is even more audio from the Ziv International dub. A vast improvement if ever there was one.

Promo: Blood, Crack, and Anime (1:21:36 – 1:22:39)
Wait, did he say “in a world fermented by jaded oldschoolers”? It’s a bit hard to hear him over “Invoke.” Wow, how many anime podcasts have been started thanks to the Anime Pulse podcast’s forums anyway? Anyway, “One Sin” and “Saito-chan” (real names unknown) have released two episodes (plus one Gundam SEED karaoke) so far, so let them know what you think! We actually haven’t written them back yet ourselves, but GAAAAAAH OH CRAP ANIME WEEKEND ATLANTA IS IN SEVEN DAYS

Review: (1:22:39 – 1:40:52)
Daryl reviews one of the most beloved “slice of life” anime series of the last five years. A lot of people are super-duper fans of this show, and lots of them listen to this podcast. This will go well.

  • Reki’s Imco lighter – I believe the model pictured is the Imco 6700 Super: you can use Zippo lighter fluid with this and even disassemble and reassemble it while having it remain lit

Closing (1:40:52 – 1:43:45)
Next time, in an effort to imbue humor to a man who has none (due to his heritage, you see), Gerald will be reviewing Cromartie High School. Is Cromartie funnier than Gerald is dull? TIME WILL TELL! Clarissa continues on the ABe route–the two capital letters in the name is assuredly a pornstar name gimmick waiting to happen–by reviewing the much-requested Serial Experiments Lain, and Daryl realizes that he’d better justify that press badge by telling everyone THE TRUTH about Metrocon 2006 before Metrocon: Amano’s World happens later this year. Oh, who are we kidding? THE TRUTH doesn’t justify anything.