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0In this episode, by popular request Daryl reviews the 1998 sci-fi Western Outlaw Star, which we all remember so little about it’s almost like we’re seeing it for the first time. The original Toonami Generation is now middle-aged, after all.
Introduction (0:00 – 1:03.22)
Anime Boston is just two weeks away; we’d better start working on all those panels we’re doing, huh? For now, it’s another new anime season, and another batch of titles to check out. We talk about what we’re watching, since there’s a fair bit of good stuff airing right now. But also, Gerald saw a movie that displeased him mightily. We spend about 45 minutes discussing this.
But then we also talk about the incredibly short print runs of both manga and anime these days, which means we have no choice but to bring up the fact that the recent policy decisions being undertaken by the government are now having tangible effects on our existences of watching cartoons, playing videogames, and going to fan conventions. This is less than 15 minutes worth of discussion, but we know this is all anyone will pretend we talked about. So look: we’d love to stick to just talking about anime and avoid politics anything, but politics thinks otherwise. If want to argue about this, we will just delete/hide your comments without responding or showing them to anyone.
Rough news all around, and while it’s affecting merchandise right now (model kits, toys, apparel), printed materials are supposed to be exempt from all this tariff junk as are goods from Canada and Mexico that are compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). That should theoretically include most authored anime Blu-Rays and UHDs…except since we recorded this they’re talking about levying tariffs on foreign-produced media. Can that actually happen? Realistically not, but we’ve been saying that about a lot of things lately that are happening in the dumbest possible way. As The Comics Journal succinctly put it, “they might fuck us up at any moment.”
Review: Outlaw Star (1:03:22 – 2:29:08)
Daryl reviews a series that has been highly requested over the years, presumably because Outlaw Star aired during what people now nostalgically refer to as the “golden age” of Toonami/Adult Swim: that time during their early inceptions where they were first showing anime nationwide, effectively creating a brand new wave of anime fandom that spanned wider than fansubs or retail store rentals/releases had ever done before. Outlaw Star’s hybrid of Eastern mysticism with science fiction and the tropes of the American Western made it reasonably accessible to audiences who did not have prior knowledge of Japan, but the fact that it aired concurrently with two other space Westerns, one of which was Cowboy Bebop, means it is forever destined to be thought of as lesser by comparison even 27 years later. Nevertheless, we’ll try to evaluate it separately from that, seeing as how it’s been 27 years and all.
