Anime World Order

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[Once again we are betrayed by this new version of Audacity, which exported the episode in joint stereo rather than mono. If you’re hearing audio in only the left channel or right depending on who’s speaking, redownload the episode. It is corrected now.] It’s been a long time since we answered emails and even longer since we did a convention report, so let’s do both!

Introduction (0:00 – 1:09:34)
If you haven’t already done so, please leave us a 5-star review on either/both Apple Podcasts and Spotify, since we’ve recently been downvoted by a number of people over the previous episode’s news discussion, which knocked us out of the search result listings threshold for those searching for anime podcasts. We dive into the mailbag and answer a variety of questions, many from listeners who have been listening to us since the first episode nearly 20 years ago. Whether you’ve been listening that long yourself or not, we’d love to receive thoughtful email correspondence from you! You can email us at the link on the sidebar, message us on BlueSky, or chat with us on the AWO Discord available to Patreon backers.

We also talk about some anime news items. Anime Herald is celebrating its 15th anniversary by launching a print magazine, which is due for release this coming October. In addition to reprinting eight noteworthy articles from the website’s archives, it will also feature brand-new articles by several noteworthy contributors: Samantha Ferreira (Anime Herald’s founder and Editor-in-Chief), Lynzee Loveridge (Anime News Network), Chiaki Mitama (Anime Feminist), Erica Friedman (Okazu), Red Bard (@RedBardIsCool on YouTube), Borealis Capps (Anime Herald, Yatta-Tachi, Anime Feminist), Lucas DeReuyter (Anime News Network). Also, Daryl is writing an article once he can figure out a catchy title and find some suitable images. The current plan is to release one issue a year, but if there are enough orders they could expand to two issues or even four!

It was a topic of discussion among every anime podcast already, but the 2025 Crunchyroll Anime Awards winners were announced, and the results struck everybody as somewhat puzzling, since the majority of categories were (rather surprisingly) won by the title which happens to be the most publicized title on the entire Crunchyroll website: the fantasy series Solo Leveling, which Crunchyroll reports as the single most watched anime series in all of Crunchyroll’s history, surpassing such titles as Dragon Ball, Naruto, One Piece, and so on. The fanbase for this series, however, does not appear to be as prominently visible as those other ones, though Miles from Anime By the Numbers did note in his analysis The State of Isekai Anime that this is because the viewership for such fare does not actively engage in anime fandom. They do however, appear to know enough about anime fandom to not only be aware of the existence of Crunchyroll, but to pay for a subscription whereupon they rate episodes aired and vote in fan awards. Is the result valid? Is the issue the fact that the Anime Awards differ from traditional awards in that fan voting is weighted on an even 50% with the judges, who number over one hundred (disclaimer: we have been Crunchyroll Anime Awards judges in the past, albeit not this year)?

Con Report: Anime Boston 2025 (1:09:34 – 2:19:08)
It’s been about 14 or 15 years since we last went to Anime Boston, but we returned as guest panelists this year! We go over what we did, who we saw, our impressions of the venue, the dealer’s room, artist’s alley, and so on. Based on this coverage of the Thirty Years Ago: Anime in 1995 panel, Daryl probably did better at his panels than he’s letting on. Keep your eyes posted to our BlueSky accounts as well as the AWO Discord, since we might do extended virtual versions of these panels soon for the benefit of those curious.

The view from Main Events can be daunting, but we were only there for Opening Ceremonies.

This is more representative of the vantage point we had for most of our panels.

Graphic design actually IS Carl Horn’s passion.

We definitely need another season or two of Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! so we can see the anime club members…but it’s already been five years…

If you see the Otaku Joe’s sign at a convention, be prepared to consider spending a lot of money.

Artist’s Alley booths are vastly more elaborate than ever before. Everyone in there is effectively a small business/LLC.

This is Gerald’s default state at any given anime convention: showing Agent Aika to a crowd of people. Sometimes it’s Najica instead.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:29:09 — 68.7MB)

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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.”

This is a unique time in history, and not in a good way.

Never in our lives have we been unable to preorder otaku goods because of who’s running the government. These are not things that can (or should) ever be shifted to domestic production.

There was no plan of action or implementation period because nobody making these decisions thought them through first.

One day, someone is going to pretend all of this was no big deal and that it was all blown out of proportion. So we’ll take the screenshots now, because who knows if there’ll even still be an Internet Archive of web snapshots in the future.

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 (the TV series of which wasn’t technically made by Bones like we said on account of the studio not existing until a few months after Cowboy Bebop TV was made, such that Bebop TV is also by Sunrise albeit by a different team, but the founders of Bones were the same people who made 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.