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Anime World Order Show # 254 – This Island Didn’t Have Any Problems Until You White People Came

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:59:01 — 55.0MB)

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It’s been a few years, but our special guest is Mike Toole, whom we have summoned forth so that we may review the 5-part OVA Macross Zero from 2002, now available in the US after over twenty years.

Introduction (0:00 – 35:09)
We catch up with Mike and what he’s been up to lately as far as movies and anime series he’s been watching. Quite a few of them have been both, which leads to us talking about our general experiences with watching anime in movie theaters over the decades. We wrap things up by following up on our previous episode’s discussion regarding the then-planned changes to the Crunchyroll Store which are apparently now starting to happen.

Promo: Summer 2026 Trailer Watch-Along and Icons of Anime: The Western Awakening (35:09 – 39:52)
The Summer 2026 Anime Season Trailer Watch-Along is set for this coming Saturday, June 27th, at 3:00 PM Eastern time over on the Anime World Order Discord. Join us live, since there’s no where on the Internet where hosting a VOD of such a thing is permitted.

Tim Eldred is writing and directing a new documentary, Icons of Anime: The Western Awakening, for CreatorVC, an organization that has done several lengthy, high-quality documentaries focusing on pop culture in the past.  This is still in the early planning stages, so we need everybody to go fill out this survey before August 3rd so that they can accurately gauge interest level and determine what people to interview and what topics to focus on (or not focus on). If you’ve ever seen other CreatorVC documentaries, then you know this is going to be far more than a typical YouTube video essay because the plan is to talk to as many of the people who were there at the time and were doing it as possible. Perhaps one of those people is even you! If so, send us an email and we’ll pass your contact information on to Tim.

Review: Macross Zero (39:52 – 1:59:00)
In the early 2000s, Visionary Creator Shoji Kawamori was definitely going through a phase. This highly-anticipated OVA series from the relatively new studio at the time, Satelight, was advertised and promoted as “the prequel to  1982’s Superdimensional Fortress Macross” and was released in celebration of the 20th anniversary of that in 2002. But in reality, it’s more of a followup to  Kawamori’s previous work, Earth Girl Arjuna. What we’re trying to say is: if you have an account on the MacrossWorld forums, you probably shouldn’t listen to us talk about this one, since while we had the AllTheAnime Collector’s Edition Blu-Ray release, only Mike was responsible enough to rewatch with the commentary tracks on. The stellar supplemental materials–Creative Sphere knocks it out of the park yet again–are what make that set worthwhile, but they’re exclusive to the physical media version so us peons watching the streaming version (which is on Hulu here in the US, not Disney Plus like we said in the show) wouldn’t know about what’s on there.

HEY, MAYBE INSTEAD OF SCARLET WE SHOULD REVIEW EARTH GIRL ARJUNA IF WE GET TO ENOUGH PATREON SUBSCRIBERS!

When we first saw Macross Zero, this was the best possible video quality. The 2002-era CG was poor in detail, janky in animation, and the interlaced video didn’t match the framerate of the VFX. Rough as this image is, it was even rougher in motion, and the story didn’t help matters either.
But this is the upscaled version as you’d see it today on Disney+ or AllTheAnime’s Blu-Ray release. It’s a lot less visually jarring; you can actually READ the text, for instance. We can’t say less headache-inducing, because there’s still the rest of the show to consider.
The final episode was a convoluted letdown, but it did give us this absolute unit of a Destroid. Kazutaka Miyatake, Hidetaka Tenjin, and Ichiro Itano did their part, at least. How Mao wasn’t vaporized by being near this thing as it fired is but one of many questions we have.

 

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Anime World Order Show # 253 – I Look In the Mirror, Pork Cutlet Looks Back At Me

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:35:20 — 44.1MB)

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Clarissa reviews the hottest anime of the year! The year 2016, that is. YURI!!! on ICE isn’t as rude as the hockey player dudes of today, but men’s figure skaters can have their own heated rivalry! Or maybe they’re an extended series of “Russian taunts.”

Introduction (0:00 – 43:07)
The Crunchyroll Anime Awards just concluded, and this year it’s not just us wondering what the deal is. Even the Japanese language edition of Wired (archived here should that be paywalled) is doing articles pontificating on how weird it is that an awards for anime with no Japanese judges and no Japanese users (because Crunchyroll is geoblocked from being accessed within Japan) elects to hold their awards show in Japan while not targeting Japanese audiences.

There were multiple theatrical anime showings at the movie theaters lately. We all missed out on seeing Visionary Director Creator Shoji Kawamori’s latest film, Labyrinth, since apparently it contains zero dance magic and is entirely about how you kids need to put down that cell phone. But Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway: The Sorcery of Nymph Circe has proven something of a litmus test within the Gundam fanbase overall, due to its lack of emphasis on mecha action in favor of a protagonist trying desperately not to be horny on main like the mind’s eye versions of his heroes. Hopefully we needn’t wait another five years before JUSTICE FOR CHAN IS SERVED. For now, the highlights of Bandai’s financial statements for the fiscal year is showing that Mobile Suit Gundam is bringing more money to them than Dragon Ball, Naruto, and One Piece. Sure, that’s just Bandai’s cut rather than the overall take, but anybody trying to tell you that GQuuuuuuX or Witch From Mercury were somehow financially unsuccessful should be blocked and unsubscribed for either lying like hell or being outlandishly wrong.

17:41: We continue to notice oddities with the Crunchyroll Store, and haven’t been the only ones. We read an email from a former Crunchyroll employee–we checked, it’s real–which more or less confirms everything we’ve been speculating and then some. Something tells us we ought to do an interview about this.

We wrap up things by talking up the revamped and expanding MediaOCD store before hating some more on the speculative market vultures who so far haven’t proven successful at doing to English-translated anime and manga what they did to used videogames, trading cards, and American comicbooks.

Review: YURI!!! on ICE (43:07 – 1:35:20)
Clarissa met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and tribal tattoo-trunked legs of stone
Stand in the blizzard. Near them, on the ice,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose grin,
And winked single eye, and sneer of pure hetero command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The finger-gunned hands that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the medal pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Jean-Jacques Leroy, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair! Yes, I was born to make history!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level zamboni’ed ice stretches far away.

In other words, we regret to inform everybody that it’s been a full decade now since this series from director Sayo Yamamoto took the globe by storm, igniting a fandom so large it broke containment from the usual anime otaku circles. The most unexpected of unexpected hits, it resulted in Sayo Yamamoto never directing a full anime series ever again; the formal announcement that the planned theatrical film sequel was canceled was only made last year. Although as of this writing it remains readily available via streaming, given all that’s going on you might want to consider buying the series on home video while it’s still readily available (the Limited Edition is long out of print).

[extremely Stormer from Jem and the Holograms voice] But Yuri, you’re still among the absolute best in the world!
But Yuri’s got a point. Even at the elite final level, nobody remembers the guy who came in 6th place out of 6.
Claims that the title is misleading due to a lack of lesbians are absurd! But look! See? There’s Yuri and he’s on the ice.
Yuri Plisetsky is another, more different, Yuri. Victor randomly decides to call him “Yurio” to distinguish him from pig katsudon Yuri.
[extremely Fight Club narrator voice] This is my HOUSE. What are you DOING in my HOUSE?! Victor and Marla may have something in common, I suppose…