Streaming Titles – Anime World Order Podcast

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In this episode, Gerald has this terrible feeling of…of déjà vu. Nevertheless, we’re getting this episode out just on the edge of tomorrow. Fitting, since we’re in a live, die, repeat sort of cycle this time around, as Gerald reviews the feature film anime adaptation of All You Need Is Kill, which is not quite the same as the original light novel, manga adaptation of same, or the Hollywood live-action film.

Hear me out. Each version has their own highly commendable merits, okay?

Introduction (0:00 – 58:03)
We somehow got emailed about potentially being a consultant by an alleged Japanese company that perhaps didn’t grasp that Anime World Order is not, in fact, a licensor or publisher of anime or manga in the US, but after the answers Daryl gave them to the sample questions provided, it’s not a surprise they never did set up that Zoom meeting.

We’ve debuted the first episode of AWOmake, a bonus podcast for our Patreon subscribers at the $5 and $10 tiers (and soon, the $3 tier when we add it, which will be once Patreon moves us off of per-creation billing and we have to begin the process of sunsetting the $1 tier). The plan for that is to be an irregularly produced freebie bonus where we talk about non-anime/manga topics. For episode 1 Gerald has thoughts on The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and we all weigh in on our feelings regarding the Fallout series of videogames. If you need to hear more of Daryl, The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast celebrates its 20th anniversary, and he was on to discuss Robocop and remember that time when Robocop shot that dude in the dick.

There’s an upcoming short film called Found in Translation that’s going to be all about the VHS “fansub” operation Arctic Animation. We were too slow in getting this out in time before their crowdfund campaign ended, but fortunately they met their goal successfully. We relay some of our own experiences and memories of Arctic Animation as well as their enduring legacy on subtitling efforts both fan and official which endure to this day, since one way or another, they are undeniably of historical significance.

What had better NOT become historically significant is the latest attempt to force a speculator-driven market upon Japanese comics and animation through blatant falsehoods and deception, as was recently previously successfully carried out upon the retro videogaming and Pokémon trading card hobbies by the exact same perpetrators. We have nothing but scorn for this, but this time the perpetrators are two of the most popular influencers in the world staging a disagreement in order to drum up interest for yet another worked contest. They’re correctly banking on the fact that anime and manga fans by and large aren’t paying attention to the fact that they both literally just collaborated on a storyline that culminated in a match at Wrestlemania that aired on ESPN. This is their next one. Any so-called news media which fails to point out the obvious grifting here–as they already have failed to do for the same grift done for retro videogames and trading cards–is in active dereliction of their duty.

Under no circumstances must this cancer spread. Yeah, the reason “only 1 higher graded” is because only one other person has been that stupid. Also, unlike trading cards there is no agreed-upon quality grading standard; it’s whatever the grading company–the only true guaranteed profiteer–decides.

Finally, we go over some initial early impressions of the current anime season, which as of the time we recorded this was only just beginning and so there remain several noteworthy titles that we just hadn’t quite gotten around to watching. This culminates in yet another airing of grievances, this time with regards to a collected group of terminally online hyper-puritans we refer to as “antis.” Perhaps you’ve encountered them at some point.

Review: All You Need Is Kill (58:03 – 1:49:26)
Gerald reviews this recently-released theatrical film from Studio 4°C, which is a rare instance of a 3DCG animated film that he is NOT thoroughly repulsed by! It’s an adaptation of the 2004 light novel by the same name, which was previously also adapted quite faithfully into a really great manga. But much like the Tom Cruise/Emily Blunt movie [Live Die Repeat] Edge of Tomorrow, the story here isn’t quite the same as the book/manga. Clocking in at around 80 minutes of story time compared to the 105 minutes of the Hollywood film or the 230 pages of the light novel/17 chapters of the manga, this is a much more streamlined take on the concept, but it also features a visual aesthetic that is extremely different from all of the other versions made to date. The film is currently only legally available to watch as a VOD on Amazon Prime, but since GKIDS handled the theatrical release a Shout! Factory home video will be coming out later this year at some point. You can preorder it here, bearing in mind the current release date is a placeholder value.

And repeat. The film’s character designs are not really conventional for anime, but then neither is most of what Studio 4°C does.

Three GPUs, Keiji? You doing sudoku for fake Internet Monopoly money? You generating AI slop? No wonder the aliens kill all humans on sight.

Speaking of the aliens, they’re pretty cool looking. Every adaptation’s design is quite distinct from one another’s.

A portent of the future? Maybe Daryl ought to get a diagnostic ultrasound…

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:40:38 — 46.9MB)

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It’s our 250th episode, except it’s actually closer to 332! No better time for Gerald to review 1983’s Prime Rose: A Time Slip of 10,000 Years by Osamu Tezuka, now officially released in English. Nudity! Eye gouging! Beheading! Slavery, and not even the B.S. “ethical” kind you see on a curiously elevated basis within contemporary isekai! All this and so much more in a movie meant for the entire family!

Introduction (0:00 – 43:40)
We certainly weren’t expecting to show me the way to you this year, but out of nowhere Sentai Filmworks has announced they will be releasing 1984’s Heavy Metal L-Gaim on Blu-Ray in one complete collection. It’s $65 to preorder it, and while there’s certainly a possibility that it could go on sale later in the year, you are rolling the dice on that since when it comes to these classic anime releases it’s just as likely to quickly go out of print. For now, Panzer World Galient and Queen Millennia remain readily available (and have gone on sale), but all of the previous 1980s Yoshiyuki Tomino mecha titles Sentai Filmworks released–Space Runaway Ideon, Blue Gale Xabungle, Aura Battler Dunbine–are now out of print. After going over some fan feedback to our previous episode, we talk about what current anime we’re watching and manga we’re currently reading. This segues us into discussions regarding the contemporary reticence for anime adaptations to deviate from their source material, and since everything we say is never QUITE up to date, in the time since this recording was made you can once again purchase the Discotek releases of Urusei Yatsura and soon Lady Oscar: The Rose of Versailles courtesy of MediaOCD’s Discotek Deep Dive section.

Because Apple hates everybody and their draconian rules dictate what everybody else must do, it seems that later this year Patreon will be forcing us to a monthly billing rather than a per-creation one. We therefore are throwing down the gauntlet. For if we get to 350 subscribers, we will review Scarlet by Mamoru Hosoda! Will it make us even more angry than Gundam Narrative? ONLY YOU CAN MAKE US ANSWER.

Review – Prime Rose: A Time Slip of 10,000 Years (43:40 – 1:40:38)
SkySet Entertainment is a newly-formed localization studio, and their first release comes courtesy of Tezuka Productions, whose unofficial slogan ever since the gold rush days of licensing Tezuka’s manga may as well have been “we’ll license out stuff to anybody!” 1983’s Prime Rose: A Time Slip of 10,000 Years is one of several made-for-TV movies created for Nippon Television Network’s annual 24-hour “Love Saves the Earth” charity fundraiser. Originally released in a print-on-demand Blu-Ray authored by SkySet themselves, a better version is now available courtesy of AnimEigo/MediaOCD. You can also stream Prime Rose on Retrocrush in Japanese as well as English dubbed. For those with Amazon Prime subscriptions, Prime Rose is also available on Prime Video.