Anime World Order Show # 228 – The Gang Attempts to Lose Patreon Backers

In a last-ditch effort to not review Hand Shakers, we decide to make a bunch of anger-inducing statements about anime, mecha, and conventions before reviewing the latest–and perhaps actually final this time–Hayao Miyazaki film, the critically acclaimed The Boy and the Heron.

Introduction (0:00 – 39:51)
With only 3 or 4 Patrons remaining before we hit the 250 patrons mark, we’re playing our remaining “make people quit backing us so we don’t have to review Hand Shakers” cards. Gerald keeps saying Mash’s name from Mashle is “Mashle” and thinks Delicious in Dungeon sucks, Daryl uses the phrase “mecha anime is dead” in a sentence while talking about Bravern, and Clarissa calls out people who work in IT that subsidize the furry fandom through commissions while keeping her Discord notification sounds enabled so you’ll think YOU’RE getting Discord notifications as you’re listening. Gerald also did a panel at the recently-concluded Megacon, and while it was not that heavily attended, there’s a possibility more people came to see him than Gina Carano. It was about the practice of Western productions outsourcing their animation production to Japan, so expect lots of delightful statements about your Generation X/millennial childhood favorites. We also weigh in with our recent experiences using the Crunchyroll Store!

You know, from Mobile Suit Gundam.

On a less rage-baiting note, Clarissa will be a guest on this month’s Anime Nostalgia Podcast, as she joins Dawn to talk about Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack, which is now celebrating its 50th anniversary.

Otaku In Memoriam: Derek Wakefield (39:51 – 48:30)

This year, we’d like to hear stories about noteworthy anime fans who are no longer around, ideally by people who knew or had interactions with them. If you knew someone and wish to share some memories of them, record something and email it to us so we can put them into later episodes. If you’d rather not vocalize it yourself, that’s fine too! Just write it up and we can read it on your behalf.

Dave Merrill is the first to take us up on the offer, as he sends in a memoriam of Derek Wakefield, founder of the Earth Defense Command, a Star Blazers club which became an anime club which set the foundation for Project A-Kon which is still going to this day. It would not be a stretch to credit Derek Wakefield as the founder of North Texas anime fandom. Derek’s willingness to help out new younger fans helped Dave embark on his anime fandom journey. The disappearance of web message boards across the Internet has resulted in the loss of quite a bit of early Internet anime fandom history, but for the moment the Internet Archive still exists where there is a snapshot of this May 2014 memoriam post for Derek posted a few days after Derek had passed away.

Review: The Boy and the Heron aka How Do You Live? (48:30 – 1:48:51)
The most revered of anime’s living grandmasters, Hayao Miyazaki, came out of retirement yet again to make another film, which for years we’ve been referring to as “BETTAR THAN YOUR NAME.” That’s “bettar” with an a, not “better”, because if Hayao Miyazaki is anything, he is–as the Gen Z’ers and Alphas don’t know–l33t liek JeffK. Once the Japanese title “How Do You Live?” was revealed the Zoolander associations commenced, no doubt being the catalyst for GKIDS selecting “The Boy and the Heron” as its international title for its theatrical release in late 2023. As of this episode, the film has won numerous awards, including the Golden Globe, and as such is a frontrunner to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. If so, it will mark the second time a Japanese animated work has won the award, with the previous instance being Miyazaki’s earlier work “Spirited Away” (which is also an international title that’s different from the Japanese one, but it’s just shorter). It has garnered considerable and near-universal critical acclaim as well.

But that’s not as important compared to what WE thought of it. We absolutely did not deliberately misrepresent the contents of the movie or of any books, documentaries, interviews, and should any discrepancies exist, they are purely accidental and are absolutely not an attempt to rile people up like how you know who does for the National Review.

Anime World Order Show # 215 – Anime Was Whamageddon Even Before The Song Existed

We can copy this part of the otaku ideal. Just not the part where she can masquerade as a normal person.

So begins a new year of podcasting for us! We’re trying something new out by not necessarily reviewing one thing, but talking about a selection of Christmas-themed episodes of anime arranged from “least Christmas-y” to “most Christmas-y.”

This was not particularly Christmas-y.
This was not particularly Christmas-y.

Introduction (0:00 – 47:50)
We had the trivia episode last month, and so it’s only now that we’re able to get around to the fact that Daryl and Gerald both went to Anime Weekend Atlanta back in October. We report on the convention, some noteworthy aspects of programming we attended, ruminate on the convention’s future, and Gerald shares with us his first experience with going to Buc-ee’s.

Oh, here’s the video Gerald was referring to:

Promo: Right Stuf Anime (47:50 – 51:30)
It’s the end of an era, as a few weeks ago Shawne Kleckner announced his departure from the company we founded. We interviewed Shawne back in Show 183, and that sure doesn’t feel like it was back in 2019. But the Holiday Sale is on same as always, and there’s a lot of great deals to be had. Heck, even Aniplex Blu-Ray sets got a discount!

JUST TAKIN’ OUT THE TRASH

The Holiday Roundup (51:30 – 2:13:10)
There are plenty of anime with Christmas-themed episodes, or ones that take place around Christmas, but several have little to do with it. We watched an assortment of Christmas episodes and present them to you here, in the order of “least Christmas-y” to “most Christmas-y.” There are lots and lots and LOTS of Christmas themed anime stories, some of which are even good insofar as resembling stuff people might do around Christmas, and since we only talked about a handful here it’s almost a guarantee that we didn’t talk about your favorite. So let’s hear about it in the comments! There’s always next year, right?

Santa Company currently has THREE Kickstarters active for English language localizations. Santa Company: Secret of Christmas is the full-length version of what we were talking about.
Midsummer Merry Christmas is the newer entry released last year. There are also full-color comic books to translate. The goals are shockingly low, so with any luck these succeed. It’s tough, now that you don’t see many anime Kickstarter projects.

BIG CHRISTMAS, er HEAVEN’S DAY!
We imagine every anime club in the 90s showing Christmas theme stuff must have run Ranma 1/2’s.