Anime World Order Show # 85a – Don’t Shorten the Show, Just Split It Up

As we kick off 2010 we’ve decided to try experimenting with releasing episodes in both per-segment as well as contiguous versions. Last time we posted the segments just on the website and the full show on the RSS feed. This time we’re doing the opposite: posting the segments to the RSS feed and the full show contained in one file just on the website. The remaining parts will be posted to the RSS feed once a week over the next month, but since you’ve come to the website, we’ll give you the option of downloading the entire show right now. Daryl reviews the anime adaptation of Violence Jack by Go Nagai, Gerald reviews Bobby’s Girl, and Clarissa reviews the book The Art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga by Helen McCarthy.

IN THE EVENT THAT YOU HAVE NEVER SAVED AN MP3 IN YOUR LIFE VIA A WEB BROWSER (which based on emails, is pretty common!): BEFORE you send us an email saying “these download links don’t work!” try right-clicking the link and selecting Save As. What is happening to you is that you have Quicktime installed (usually because of iTunes) and its default browser plugin behavior is to try and play MP3 files in browser, without giving you an option to save. You can turn this off in Firefox by going to Tools->Options, selecting Applications, scrolling down to MP3 and changing the setting to “Always Ask.”

The entire show (3+ hours!):

Part 1 Emails and News (“only” ~72 minutes!):

Part 2 Review: Violence Jack (60 minutes):

No more Pickle Player since WordPress has its own built-in Flash player. Let us know if you encounter any annoyances with the new site or if things aren’t working. There are bound to be some issues.

Introduction (0:00 – 31:20)
None of us really felt like leveling out the audio or editing out the various “y’knows,” “um’s” and the like because there are far too many good videogames we have bought but not yet played. We elaborate on the nature of seinen manga/anime and give some examples of titles we like. We also hear of yet another person tricked into watching Odin: Photon Space Sailer Starlight as a result of this review we did. Finally, someone asks about the Daicon animations (now on Youtube: watch high-quality copies here and here!) as well as female anime directors.

Let’s News! (31:20 – 1:08:05)
Daisuke Gori is dead. Nobody buys sports anime in America. The Allure of Japan’s Pop Culture is straight-up good ol’ fashioned government propaganda that continues to push the “Cool Japan” BS narrative only espoused in the US by people with books to sell. The people who spend the most time pushing the “weird Japan” narrative (that rename their articles after the fact) should probably not decry the mentality that directly results from their very own actions first and foremost. We check out actual Japanese manga circulation numbers. And Tim Eldred informs us that Space Battleship Yamato: Rebirth is not the worst thing ever made, thus surpassing ALL expectations.

Review: Violence Jack (1:08:05 – 2:02:04)
It took several years to get to the second in the trinity of the Holy Manga Video Trinity of Suck (the first being Angel Cop and the third being Mad Bull 34 by Kazuo Koike). But that’s because Violence Jack is the least clip-worthy of the three, cut or uncut. After roughly two years of putting it off, Daryl finally reviews this behemoth, the shonen work that established modern-era post-apocalyptic fiction as we know it.

Promo: Anime82 (2:02:04 – 2:02:58)
The preceding review was made possible by Regan Strongblood, who provided us with copies of uncut Violence Jack long before such a thing was available. Of course, since we put it off for two years, you can now simply download torrents of uncut Violence Jack. He asks that you all grow some mecha balls, and by that he means ones like Devastator’s in Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen aka “the 4th most important movie of 2009.”

Review: Bobby’s Girl (2:02:58 – 2:31:50)
On the subject of things that a few years ago were impossible to find but can now be easily acquired via BitTorrent, Gerald reviews this 1980s classic. Fairly light on dialogue and somewhat experimental in its overall approach, it encapsulates a great number of different animation styles within its fairly short running time.

Review: The Art of Osamu Tezuka (2:31:50 – 3:07:00)
Clarissa wraps things up by reviewing the hardcover edition (with DVD) of this new coffee table style book by Helen McCarthy. Filled with a variety of never-before-seen pictures from the life and times of Japan’s “God of Manga,” this book is totally worth buying via this Amazon.com link so that we can make like forty cents commission. Remember: it’ll stop a bullet! Disclaimer: the AWO makes no guarantees as to the the size or caliber of the bullet that this book can stop.

Closing (3:07:00 – 3:14:59)
Following the shocking revelation that this podcast does NOT cure insomnia (also of note: Peacock King is FREAKING INSANE), we would like to note that both Daryl and Clarissa will indeed be doing panels at Anime Boston 2010. In the next episode, we’re turning the difficulty on this all the way up to Bitter as Gerald reviews the movie that put Gainax on the map aka Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise, Clarissa reviews 5cm Per Second by Makoto Shinkai, and Daryl reviews Swallowing the Earth by Osamu Tezuka. In the meantime, we will probably post up a bonus episode with our 2000-2009 anime in review retrospective.

65 Replies to “Anime World Order Show # 85a – Don’t Shorten the Show, Just Split It Up”

  1. Talking about CrunchyRoll, it is really unfortunate that they don’t facilitate international Anime fans like myself.

    Whatever the case, I would like to ask your opinions about the quality of the subtitles on CrunchyRoll. Not being a fan of liberal subtitles and over-localizations, I was kinda saddened to see many inaccuracies and blatant mistakes in their subtitles.

    In an episode of Sora no Otoshimono, a joke was completely changed as the CrunchyRoll subbers probably didn’t feel like explaining the joke, which was a play on Japanese words. Other instances include the translations of Onii-san as ‘cute boy’ in Nogizaka Haruka Season 2… and I do have screencaptures on the full article I wrote on my blog. (http://actar.wordpress.com/2010/02/01/liberal-versus-literal-subtitles/)

    What are your opinions on the whole liberal versus literal sub debate?

  2. I like the option to download the full epp or parts. I downloaded the whole thing and listened to it on my mp3 player, but didn’t hear the ending, so that night, I listened to the last part from the website. Just my two cents!

  3. Mad props for the idea of splitting up the show! Previously, when the show had been released a bit at a time, I’d gotten frustrated because I couldn’t have a concentrated dose of AWO, but was forced instead to wait for it to come out bit at a time (and it’s not as if you guys have always been perfectly on schedule with your releases or anything). I much prefer this alternative. I think it works best to do both, because both camps are satisfied. Keep it up!

  4. Just finished listening to the last portion of the show and I really liked this new format, this way I won’t have to wait so long between listening the podcast.

    I’ll have to check out that book.

    Great show guys!

  5. Daryl, you said that Azumanga Daioh and Yotsuba&! are seinen manga, but if my cursory Wikipedia research is correct [it’s not — Daryl], Dengeki Daioh, which ran/runs both series, is a shonen publication. Do you guys know something Wikipedia doesn’t [Yes.], or was it just an honest mistake? [If you let your cursory Wikipedia research extend to simply clicking the History tab you’ll see it’s one person on a one-man crusade to try and paint it as “both shonen AND seinen!” but simply looking at the titles run and the actual covers, contents, and advertisements of the thing would tell you otherwise]

  6. Hey Guys,

    I was just wondering if you have read this book?

    God Of Comics: Osamu Tezuka and the Creation of Post-World War II Manga

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1604732210?ie=UTF8&tag=aniworord-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1604732210

    If so, how does it compare to “The Art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga” Does it have generally the same information or are they different? I read through this book this weekend (my library had it) and it was a great book. Word heavy and not many pictures like the Helen McCarthy book has.

    Also, I was wondering if you have seen this dvd on Tezuka?

    The Astonishing Work of Tezuka Osamu

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1604732210?ie=UTF8&tag=jrtvre-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1604732210

    I am currently downloading the 13 experimental films, but was wondering if you have seen the interview with him which is about 18 minutes long.

    Just curious.

    Thanks again for all of your awesome shows.

    GW

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