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Anime World Order Show # 251 – Let’s All Love Lain!

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:37:05 — 45.3MB)

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In this episode, Daryl doesn’t seem to understand that we already reviewed Serial Experiments Lain 20 years ago! A shame, he seemed an…incredibly dishonest man, but still! How close/far to the mark was this speculation fiction on the Internet from 28 years ago?

Genuflect before the unofficial mascot of the Internet!

Introduction (0:00 – 32:32)
Daryl just celebrated his 46th birthday, and that means it’s Millennial Midlife Crisis gifts as he fawns over his LEGO Game Boy and Transformers G1 Masterpiece Starscream (knockoff). But a new anime season is upon us, which means that it’s time for another trailer watch-along this weekend (for those of you not attending Anime Boston, anyway!) over on our Discord. Back us on Patreon to get chat permissions! We ruminate on some of our favorites from the previous season, which because we’re elderly means the top shows were clearly the continuing adventures of Baki as well as the end (for now) of Tojima Wants to Be a Kamen Rider.
We also touch upon the convoluted situation regarding the Netflix broadcast schedule or apparent lack thereof of the much-anticipated Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run, and make mention of the upcoming Science Saru series The Ghost in the Shell, which no matter how cool it looks is unlikely to be prominently featured on Prime Video unless they get with the program already. Incidentally, the show Gerald was trying to remember the name of is Citadel, and it’s merely the SECOND most expensive TV show ever because of the Marvel Studios-esque level of reshoots performed. No expense can be spared in yet another attempt to make the name Priyanka Chopra mean something to Americans other than “the lady who married the one Jonas Brother.”
It’s not as though Hulu fares much better, which is a shame since we talk about Medalist and pontificate on why it remains an obscurity despite the elevated profile of figure skating due to the Winter Olympics (and America winning the gold). There was no fervor over Medalist the way there was for Yuri!!! on Ice a decade ago. Wait, a DECADE ago? Yep, it’s already been ten years.
We wrap things up by noting that the Chainsaw Man manga has concluded, and without going into spoiler territory talk about why it’s an ending which has polarized readers.

Review: Serial Experiments Lain (32:32 – 1:37:05)
Both Gerald and Clarissa–as well as seemingly all of our Discord Patrons–had completely forgotten that we actually reviewed this series roughly 20 years ago back in Show 35. Nevertheless, inspired last episode by the suggestion that we revisit certain titles, Daryl elects to weigh in on one of the most beloved anime titles of the late 1990s/early 2000s. Lain has inspired no shortage of scholarly analysis, and to this day retains recognition on modern fandom platforms such as TikTok and YouTube. There even continue to be (mostly terrible) indie games made, and preorders for the Lain in bear pajamas Nenderoid are open right now at the time of this post’s writing. Has our thoughts on it changed since the days we first saw it, 26 to 28 years ago? Spoilers: no, not really. But we may as well reminisce about the past which happened to also be the present day…present time.

It is no longer possible to “log off” –Admin
Digital Addicts: An ABC Afterschool Special
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Anime World Order Show # 250 – Everything Happens So Much When Swords Are the Only Gun Known to Man

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.

Some might find the narrative of this film to be most illogical. (This episode incidentally is posted on the 11 year anniversary of Leonard Nimoy’s death.)
The sword is good. The protocol droid for Human-Cyborg Relations is evil, like the penis.
Prime Rose’s hair is in fact purple, not red as Daryl said. She may not have been a commonly used member of Tezuka’s Star System, but she still made it into that Astro Boy GBA game.
Beware, future charioteers riding horse-bulls: the fire breathed from the butthole dragon causes instant petrification!
Most of Tezuka’s traditional “stars” do not appear in Prime Rose outside of brief background appearances. This coliseum crowd shot is the only appearance of all these guys. Can YOU name them all?
Listen. Just go with it.