Anime World Order Show # 160 – Why Must You Be So Cruel to Brain

It’s a Christmas miracle, everybody! We’re joined once again by Mike Toole, hot off the release of the 2017 Crunchyroll Holiday Special, as we fulfill the promise made a long time ago, back in…uh…actually it was four episodes ago when we last had him on to discuss The Wings of Rean. Anyway, we’re talking about 1998’s Brain Powerd, directed by–who else?–Yoshiyuki Tomino. Why did any of us think this would be a good idea?!

Note: this episode contains Mike Toole singing and therefore the alternate title is “BETTAR THAN CRUNCHYROLL HOLIDAY SPECIAL.”

Introduction (0:00 – 17:15)
First things first, we’ve got to catch up with what Mike’s been up to since his last appearance on the show. Namely, his professional anime dub voice acting debut! While he could not confirm nor deny plans to start his own anime podcast, thus permitting us to fade away and classify ourselves as obsolete (OBSOLETE!), or disclose the existence of the Crunchyroll Holiday Special that just came out today, we know what’s really up…maybe. In the emails, vitally needed light is shed on the original Wings of Rean source material and why the various anime adaptations of the Byston Well saga end up the way they do. Aside from the obvious, that is.

Promo: Right Stuf Anime (17:15 – 20:22)
Last time, Daryl was unavailable to record the promo so he got the help of some famous pop culture personalities. This time, with Christmas upon us, he sought the aid of the person most relevant to the world in late December 2017. Yes, none other than SANTA CLAUS himself! At least, we think it’s Santa Claus. He said he was, anyway. It’s definitely not a shoddily scripted, poorly filtered attempt to disguise our own voice in falsetto. We’re not R5 Central (RIP) here. We would never embarrass ourselves or our listening audience that way.

Review: Brain Powerd (20:22 – 2:10:25)
Oh dear God. Just look at that timestamp. There’s no way we could fill that much time with content. This makes something we have in common with Yoshiyuki Tomino, I suppose.