Anime World Order Show # 79b – Bruce Willis-chan, Why Have You Forsaken Us

Behold the final half, and by “half” we mean “105 minutes” of AWO Show 79 in which Clarissa goes to Detroit Metal City and Daryl largely glosses over the finer points of Queen Millennia.

Let’s News! (0:00 – 28:40)
More news on top of the previous news? Yeah, because stuff happened.

Review: Detroit Metal City (28:40 – 56:10)
[Clarissa starts stopwatch]
RAPERAPERAPERAPERAPERAPERAPERAPERAPERAPE
[stops stopwatch, checks time…still not quite 1 second or better 🙁 ]


The opening of DMC is awesome, though it only fully encapsulates the nature of the series when combined with Negishi’s terrible ending pop song. If you’re curious to compare the anime with the live action movie, there’s a PV of Satsugai here.

Behold, Negishi’s terrible songwriting. Luckily the manager is awesome enough to fix his lyrics and traumatize him in one fell swoop!

I had to add Krauser-tan. All shall love her and despair!

Review: Queen Millennia (56:10 – 1:43:51)
Daryl reviews what he declares to be the Leiji Matsumoto equivalent of a Michael Bay movie, though perhaps Roland Emmerich is a more apt fit. There’s a lot of lore and history behind all of this, but he generally ignores it for the sake of focusing on the IMPORTANT THINGS. All screencaps taken from the R2 remastered anamorphic DVD, patched to include the English fansub by BOX on the subtitle track. They oughta release a version that’s just a H264 encode from this.

This is Leiji Matsumoto and he is ON THE ATTACK. Steve Harrison sent this picture like, a year and a half ago. We are using it now.
Daryl wants to believe that this is Cartoon Leiji Matsumoto, whose presence in this cartoon thus explains why it was made.The ghost of Jackson Beck would like to inform you that GI Matsumoto is the code name for Dai Nippon’s daring, highly untrained special mission force. Its purpose: to defend human freedom against AMERIC…er, wait
Our lead characters. With the exception of “handsome male lead” this image neatly encapsulates Leiji Matusmoto’s character design preferences. Here, Yukino is in her “scientist” outfit as opposed to her “sexy teacher in nightgown” outfit.
Yukino in her titular role as Queen Millennia. We can only assume that nobody realizes Yukino is indeed Queen Millennia because they’re too busy staring at the fully exposed cleavage and heart-shaped midriff which doubles as a vagina indicator arrow to look up at her face.
This picture can best be described as “the REAL sentais” as it deftly conveys exactly why Matsumoto started giving his women such long hair in the first place.
Yukino’s sister, Selen. Aka Girl Captain Harlock. In the Maetel Legend OAVs, they used the other Girl Captain Harlock instead: Emeraldas. Suffice to say that even though Matsumoto and some fans want continuity between these works, there isn’t any because nothing fits the way it would need to. Therefore, Emeraldas and Maetel are only sisters in Maetel Legend, because they’re filling in for the roles of Yukino and Selen.
It might just be because it’s faithful to the manga which we never read, but nothing says “Matsumoto by the guy who directed most of the 70s Go Nagai Super Robot shows” better than Space Battleship Cleopatra. HASSHIN! Despite what’s stated in the segment, Cleopatra does have lines.

Closing (1:43:51 – 1:51:27)
EE “Doc” Finnegan is presumably too busy unleashing the Terror of MechaBridezilla to listen to this podcast, but we’ll still be her friend to the end, much like Chucky in the Child’s Play movies. In the next exciting installment of AWO, we’re trying something new because rather than having each person pick the title they wish to talk about, someone else will be choosing it for them! Daryl’s up first, so he’s decided to force-feed Gerald and Clarissa with Masaaki Yuasa because they won’t do it themselves. As such, Gerald shall be reviewing Kemonozume and Clarissa will be reviewing Kaiba while Daryl opts to NOT review Cat Soup and instead talk more about Yoshiaki Kawajiri. So Goku: Midnight Eye’s coming at’cha.

83 Replies to “Anime World Order Show # 79b – Bruce Willis-chan, Why Have You Forsaken Us”

  1. Great show! And thanks for reccomendind DMC, I started watching it today and I haven’t laughed so much in a long time:)

    My condolences to Gerald, loosing one’s parent is always hard..

  2. Why is it ok for you guys to endlessly bitch and moan about how “OEL AIN’T REAAAAAAL MANGA, MAAAN!”, but when people disagree about what genre DMC is, you have to get all butthurt about it?

  3. My condolences to Gerald about your loss.

    I’ve done Voltes V theme karaoke before (even better that the lyrics were in romaji!).

    Great DMC review! Detroit Moe City was definately one of the best segments. I also hope they do animate more, I haven’t checked the manga out yet, will probably do so once the Viz editions starts coming out.

  4. So sorry about Gerald’s dad. Thanks for sharing his awesomeness with us.

    (Felt this a reason good enough to make an exception to my unofficial “never get around to comment” policy since I thought it such an appropriate cause for an exception in your “no dedicating the episodes” policy.)

    I also think the idea of one picking the titles for the others a cool idea and am enthusiastically looking forward to hearing the reviews.

  5. Can't wait to hear what you have to say about Midnight Eye. That was one of my earliest anime purchases, which turned out to be one of my favorites. A strange tape from a dealer at a comic con marked simply "Midnight Eye OVAs 1&2". I have yet to see them subbed. Hopefully you review the one with the naked peacock lady that makes people commit suicide.

  6. Corey: I saw the Midnight Eye Goku subs, and thankfully, the Comics One manga. I’d like to see Cobra subbed one day, though. BTW, if you got the cash and player, Goku’s currently on R2.

  7. The newly-released R2 Goku: Midnight Eye DVD with the English subtitle script patched in is how I watched it. Perhaps an encode of this will materialize around the time the review is released, since nobody has the rights to this thing in the US anymore. I wish that DVD included THE DUB, even though nearly all the music got changed for it.

    SO that means when Gerald or Clarissa start picking shows, Daryl MUST be subjugated to MOETAN!!!Just for the record: if either Gerald or Clarissa do opt to “hilariously” have me review something like this, all my review will consist of is factual data followed by some statement regarding how nothing really happens and I can’t bring myself to care. It’ll be like, two minutes long. It’s not like the act of watching these shows fills me with seething “angry Internet reviewer” sentiment. It’s more like the “I just watched Revolver / Michael Bay Transformers” feeling.

    Re: Matsumoto’s diagnosis – Mothercon, not Shota.Even though it should have been obvious, I had to look up “mothercon” to see what you were talking about. It doesn’t strike me as something totally different so much as a subset.

    In the context of ‘Maetel Legend,’ Yukino becomes the mother of Maetel and Emeraldas.

    Selen, therefore, would be their aunt. Which could explain why she looks like Emeraldas, but they are not and never were the same character.I don’t think I was ever saying that Selen and Emeraldas were the same character. Rather, I was saying that the people who put forth the “this person and that person are the same character” notions out of a desire to have everything connect are wasting their time. That Selen in Queen Millennia is so similar to Emeraldas in Maetel Legend is therefore not because of some character relation as much as everyone’s favorite Zero Loyal Retainer swapping out “actors” while retelling a similar story.

    The reason I generally don’t consider Matsumoto to be using a “star system” like Tezuka is that unlike Tezuka, Matsumoto is often [zero loyal] retaining very similar plot elements as well. That said, “John Wayne is always John Wayne just as Harlock is always Harlock” is a good way of putting it from a “character actor” perspective.

    Say, I know! Maybe they should dub Captain Harlock to SOUND LIKE John Wayne. John Wayne plus Captain Harlock equals…CAPTAIN WARLOCK!

  8. Oh, I know you think you’re taking a swipe at me, Daryl, but you don’t seem to know the truth of which you speak!

    Which is that the seiyuu for Harlock all those years also was the Japanese dub voice for John Wayne in Japan!

    Is your mind BLOWN? 🙂

  9. I was interested to discover that one of the tracks from Kitaro’s Queen Millenia score (“Seiun”) showed up in Michael Mann’s Manhunter (a good movie, BTW) a few years later.

  10. A lot of the inconsistencies in the Leiji-verse probably just stem from the fact that while the old duffer made his own manga, a legion of scenario writers, producers, and so on actually produced the anime. Admittedly, you can’t connect the dots all the way through the comics either, but all those potatoheads in the kitchen probably haven’t helped matters much. Also, everyone Japanese male has an acute case of mothercon. The urban dictionary gets it wrong by trying to associate it with doujuin, loli and other otaku crap

  11. When Clarissa and Daryl were talking about Saki and how Gonzo would find a way to fuck it up. Well, they did. They changed the awesomely adorable ED theme to a decent if generic ED. Why do they have to change OP and ED themes so fast now? I know the real reason is because it sells CD’s but still.

  12. I think your father is very proud of you Gerald, may he rest in peace!

    Milo: The Baki OVA’s good if you want something quick. You’d be better off looking for older English translations of the manga in old dustbins holding back-issues of Raijin, though. Plus, you get an unauthorized “cameo” of Macho Man Randy Savage in the latter version.If only I bothered keeping those issues!

    By the way, i discovered that one of the character designers on Maple Town (One of my Favorite Animes Ever) Was the character designers
    for FUCKING MD Geist. I am not fucking making this up!
    SEE–It comes back to haunt you! Now you’ll never escape it!

    That bad anime dubbing clip was a laugh riot, wonder if they ever did the Harmony Gold dub of Dragon ball!I wish I heard it, apart from it’s snappy theme song!

    “Action! Daring!
    Deadly! Dragon!
    ZERO IS OUR HEEEEERRROOOOO!!!”

    I swear The Bullets were involved on that one!

    “don’t pull that Robotech B.S. on us! WE want a full 65 of Harlock!”You know those TV stations as their demands! Too bad most of ’em are FOX, CW and MyNetwork TV affliates nowadays (or found Jesus too)!

    Just be thankful the 65 episode weeday thing is dead now (let alone first-run animated syndication itself).

    Originally, Macek said they sold the show based on having Endless Road SSX as well but oops, no, they didn’t, so the frantic search for something that looked somewhat similar. Not sure I believe that.Noticed someone stuck this up on YouTube for the world to check out!

    I guess I should be thankful I never saw that show in my area, but I can see some my age having saw that and probably thought it was a kickass show despite it’s utter flaws (and too many anime dubbing of the 80’s was known for this, yet most don’t even care).

    Truly, this is the greatest country.And why can’t we all be there? 🙂

    Matsumoto has a group of ‘actors’ he likes using, and so you’ll get the same ‘people’ playing similar ‘characters’ over and over in all the different productions.I’ll probably do that someday too in my works!

    My condolences to Gerald, loosing one’s parent is always hard..Think of where I was two years ago when I lost my mom. I just didn’t know how to express it at all.

  13. I have to say that Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei doesn’t seem to be living up to the hype for me. I thought it’d be a dark comedy, but it’s basically Negima meets Bobobo. I dunno, I guess I expected more than just the guy doing the Japanese equivalent of David Letterman’s top 10 lists, I guess…

  14. I have to applaud Del Rey for taking a chance on it, though, but it’s a helluva risk from their usual stuff.

  15. “I have to say that Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei doesn’t seem to be living up to the hype for me. I thought it’d be a dark comedy, but it’s basically Negima meets Bobobo. I dunno, I guess I expected more than just the guy doing the Japanese equivalent of David Letterman’s top 10 lists, I guess…”

    I haven’t seen the show but I say watch Hidamari Sketch instead if you want to see the best show made by SHAFT.

    P.S. HARUHI RETURNS!!! ALL HAIL HARUHI!!

  16. I hate to ruin people’s man-childhoods, but the May 24 update at http://www.animevice.com/profile/shizuki/blog/ indicates that Gainax co-founder Hiroyuki Yamaga is a fan of Full House. OTOH, considering Saget actually has his own variation of that Aristocrats joke, maybe the “sitcom” isn’t that incompatible with anime/manga fandom.

  17. Thanks for another great episode, guys. My condolences to Gerald – it sounds like he and his dad had a great relationship. And Daryl, I’m glad you are recovering – we need you around for a long time, otherwise moe will take over, and that’s the last thing we want.

  18. Funny I wasn’t thinking of that one in a long while.

    In other news, it looks as if we’re getting that Tatsunoko vs. Capcom Wii game after all. Good news to those who thought that would never happen!

  19. Thanks for that (this is why learning a foreign language is important)!

    Watch it before it gets taken down, I guess.It was up for almost two years, let’s see how long it’ll last. 🙂

  20. Ok, so this isn’t related to anime/manga, other than the love triangle thing, but Archie Andrews is such an easy lay.‘Kay, now we’re in hell, it’s finally happened! 🙂

    I guess all that’s left or Betty is Mr. King of Hamburgers himself!

    And wasn’t it obvious who Archie would’ve went with anyway? I wasn’t guessing!

  21. Clarissa, great recommendation of DMC. I love metalacolypse and this anime is now my favorite and the awesomeness is just too much to contain at times. Good luck on the 10 rapes per sec.lol

  22. Man, if all 4Kids dubs could be as entertaining as the one for Kinnikuman Nisei/Ultimate Muscle, they might still be in business today.

  23. Anyway, it's a good thing I saw Miyazaki for Spirited Away a few years ago, because it's surprisingly annoying to get from L.A. to Berkeley just to catch him at the Q+A.

  24. Kawajiri only directed X the TV series which was by all accounts fine. The horrible, horrible movie was directed by Rintaro. Birdy the mighty would be an interesting review because it was Kawajiri’s first attempt at doing light hearted 7 years after he made Cyber City Oedo. I was wondering why he never brought up Birdy the Mighty burignt he Commentary Track for Cyber City Oedo. Interview with Kawajiri needs to be done!

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