Anime World Order

This week we depart from the standard show format to conduct an interview with Tim Eldred, who’s been an anime fan for about as long as we’ve been alive. Tim is a huge fan of Space Battleship Yamato (aka Star Blazers) as well as Armored Trooper VOTOMS and Fist of the North Star. In addition, he has written comicbooks and does work in Western animated works such as Teen Titans, MTV’s Spider-Man, and much more.

Full show notes below. Sorry for the delay in getting those up, but the post was made at 3:30 AM and I got about four hours of sleep since I stayed up finishing this to make up for last week’s episode coming out so late.

Part 1 (0:00 – 20:19)
The interview starts off and we talk about how Tim first became interested in Japanese animation back in the early 1980s. The only reason I call this Part 1 is because Tim’s phone–this entire interview was conducted while Tim was in his car, first while he was driving and then while he was parked in his driveway–lost its connection and we had to get him back, so we used that time to take a break. This would not be the only time that we lost the signal, but it is the only time we actually left it in the show.

Fansview’s Tim Eldred page showing what he looked like six years ago
Picture of the Sorter in Revolver (is it “the” Sorter or was Sorter his name?)
The Official Star Blazers website – Tim Eldred is the webmaster of this site
Space Webzine Yamato – an online version of sorts of the 1983 “Space Fanzine Yamato” fanzine by Jerry Fellows; Tim Eldred didn’t actually do THIS one to my recollection, but it’s a good example of the sort of stuff that was out there
The Wave Motion Webpage – another great Star Blazers resource; man, this all makes me want to start chanting DESSLOK, DESSLOK DESSLOK…DESSLOK, DESSLOK DESSLOK
Animania – the anime club which Tim founded decades ago in Michigan that still exists to this day
Hokuto Renkitouza – still the best Hokuto no Ken / Fist of the North Star website out there after all these years; Daryl’s entire ILOVEKENSHIRO Internet gimmick was based around simply reading information off of this site
Yahoo group Fist of the North Star Games – some of the most dedicated HnK fans around; join the group and tell them you heard about the group through Daryl Surat
The Armored Trooper VOTOMS rerelease (the first 3 items are the rerelease; Stage 4 is not yet listed)
Toonzone interview with Tim regarding the Armored Trooper VOTOMS rerelease

Promo: Weekly Anime Review (20:19 – 20:51)
We probably should have played more promos this episode given the fact that it’s all one giant segment, but we weren’t thinking. Anyway, true to the name, each week (or so) Aaron reviews a different anime title and reads user-submitted reviews as well. C’mon man, when are you going to follow our lead and review Odin like we did in Show #12?! And where’s your ad copy reading of you know what?

Part 2 (20:51 – 1:28:32)
There’s no additional breaks really in this interview since we edit this in teams and all the other technical mishaps were removed so as to provide the illusion of our competance. The interview resumes, discussing the difference between Gundam and VOTOMS, how Tim got into the comicbook and US animation industries, what led to his involvement with Voyager Entertainment (who owns Star Blazers) and Central Park Media (who owns VOTOMS), and what he’s up to now, such as the new Scooby Doo series on Kids’ WB. Does that involve the dreaded Scrappy Doo? Listen and find out!

IMDB entry for Steve McQueen – go watch Bullitt and The Magnificent Seven if you haven’t already
ANN’s entry for Ryousuke Takahashi – other than Gasaraki, most of these are worth seeing
Wikipedia entry for Malibu Comics
Amazon.com’s listing for Lensman: Galactic Patrol
The Captain Harlock Archives – by Matt Murray, founder of Corn Pone Flicks; the man’s knowledge of Yamato and Harlock is downright terrifying, but for Pete’s sake, STOP ASKING HIM WHERE TO GET EPISODES OF CAPTAIN HARLOCK
American Manga: A History of Translation – article from the now-defunct Pulp mentioning Tim Eldred and Studio Go
Bruce Lewis’ website – Bruce MCs Anime Hell events at cons and draws a mean Heino
Encodes of every episode of Wing Commander Academy – courtesy of the Wing Commander CIC; still the best Wing Commander resource site around, it’s run by some of the Wing Commander superfans from the glory days of Usenet and IRC like Christopher Reid and Ben Lesnick among others
Wikipedia entry for Heavy Gear
PBS’s Dragon Tales webpage – how the heck did we completely forget to ask about the fact that Tim got nominated for an Emmy for his work on this? Sure it was a Daytime Emmy that was shared with several folks, but that’s still more Academy Awards than any of us have ever gotten remotely close to getting! Oh well, at least we got the story behind “Dragon Tales: Too Hot for TV”!
Official Xiaolin Showdown webpage
Toonzone’s Teen Titans section containing episode guides
A Geocities page for the MTV Spider-Man animated series
Space Battleship Yamato: The Making of an Anime Legend – fantastic documentary created by Tim Eldred
Star Blazers Rebirth webcomic
Official Grease Monkey website – you can read the first chapter for free
Tim’s tribute to the recently deceased Hiroshi Miyagawa, composer of the score for Space Battleship Yamato (and Odin, as discussed in Show # 12)

Next week we’ll just be answering listener email with our special guests, the host(s) of the Anime Pulse podcast. Lots of “what do you think about this anime” stuff, so don’t think we’re slacking off that much even though the reason we’re doing this episode is to catch up!

Slightly inaudible line that Tim said as we were referring to The Nish: “I think they [Yoshinobu Nishizaki and Barry Winston] met because they were in a yacht club together.” I think we just may have pinpointed whose howitzer shells those REALLY belonged to after all.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:33:47 — 43.0MB)

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WARNING: in addition to being released later than promised, the audio levels are not properly balanced. I think it’s because we mentioned Megatokyo, and the mere mention of its name must have caused us to inherit Fred’s laughably deficient work ethic. This week Daryl talks about the currently-running manga series Pluto, Clarissa talks about the really old but also currently-running manga series from Eroica With Love, and Gerald tells us all about the works of director Katsuhito Akiyama.

Introduction (0:00 – 29:10)
This time we answer a backlog of emails and respond to such things as the new TokyoPop format for Shonan Junai-gumi, modern fandom, and *gasp* a metahuman (Nightwing LOL) the horror of MegaTokyo. We also go into a gigantic number of older shows to check out (there were a TON more but we cut them out), reminisce about Arctic Animation and check out a really great old schooler who uploaded some episodes of a classic F1 racing anime for all of you to check out. Download them here
, but be kind and do not destroy his bandwidth. He also asked for some feedback on the show so be sure to email him your thoughts at mieko2_99 AT yahoo DOT co DOT jp

TokyoPop’s Shonan Junai-gumi page – this is the sequel to GTO and will be released in a new wide-ban format for TokyoPop.
Megatokyo – you know what the page is already
Otakon – one of the largest anime conventions in the world
Graviton City – Project A-Ko – everything you’d ever want to know about the action/comedy classic; the site is currently down
ANN’s entry on Iria: Zeiram the Animation
Galaxy Express 999 TV Fansite
ANN’s entry on Dirty Pair Flash
Bandai Channel’s Akira Site (Japanese) – do we really need to post a link about this? Well, have one that’s not in English. That’s helpful.
The Official Robotech Website – home to the absolute craziest fans in anime. Be careful of those forums, because the folks who post there are lunatics. Some of whom we know.
ANN’s entry on Patlabor 2 – really one of the very best political thrillers in anime or otherwise.
Arctic Animation – they were basically the AnimeJunkies of the VHS fansubbing era

Let’s News! (29:10 – 35:47)
Gerald reports on his experiences attending the Production IG lecture in which the main speaker didn’t actually show up. We were hoping to get an interview with him, but that obviously couldn’t happen, so the only news item is that IGPX has been faring really poorly in America. Wait, how is THAT news to anyone?!

Promo: Ninja Consultant (35:47 – 36:56)
Erin and Noah have come up with a new promo for their show, and we’re more than happy to play it since they’re officially a Better Podcast Than Us. Daryl made sure to put this promo directly after the news segment for maximum joke potential.

Review: Pluto (36:57 – 52:06)
In this review, Daryl talks about the manga Pluto by Naoki Urasawa, the same creator of Monster which Gerald and Clarissa reviewed last week. It’s a retelling of one of the more well-remembered Astro Boy stories, only done in a style very much like Monster. Contains some spoilers for the first 26 chapters, which is all that’s out so far, as well as for the original Astro Boy tale.

Dark Horse’s Astro Boy Volume 3 – contains the “Greatest Robot On Earth” storyline from which Pluto is derived
The Laws of Robotics from Isaac Asimov’s stories – these are utilized in Astro Boy and Pluto as well
Wikipedia page on Alexander the Great – I should make a Reign the Conqueror joke here but I’m too tired
“Urasawa’s Pluto and Tezuka’s Astro Boy” courtesy of Jog – The Blog
Mangascreener’s website – notice that Pluto isn’t actually listed there, but they are doing it

Promo: Anime Genesis (52:07 – 52:44)
Before you ask: IT’S A JOKE, PEOPLE. The URL for the podcast has actually changed since this promo was done, so use the one we’ve linked to here instead of the one in the promo. In one of their latest episodes, they mention how “Anime World Order really likes Kazuo Koike.” It’s a pity that Benu voted wrong on the Frappr map.

Often Overlooked: From Eroica With Love (52:45 – 1:15:48)
Clarissa commits a cardinal sin when reviewing From Eroica With Love and uses the term “gay” as a noun, but Daryl and Gerald stay quiet as she recounts the series that’s basically Lupin for girls who like guys who like guys. Marvel at how we all alternate between pronounciations of “Lupin”!

ANN’s entry for From Eroica With Love
CMX page listing for Eroica Volume 1
Eroica Fans – the biggest, long-standing English fansite for Eroica (has text summaries of many manga stories and lots of links)
Japanese fan organization for Iron Klaus – around since 1978 (the story, as I’ve heard it, is that there is a whole group of women–surely middle aged by now–who never married, because their hearts were only for Klaus)
Ranking of Best 50 mangas – according to Japanese votes, done by Comic Link in 1998 – Eroica comes in at #43
A Takarazuka cosplay shoot with otokoyaku dressed as Klaus and Dorian – hey, it was too good to pass up
Led Zeppelin site – if some of you sad, sad people don’t know them already (such as Daryl, who doesn’t listen to music at all)

Promo: Otaku Generation (1:15:49 – 1:16:08)
It’s a pretty clever promo centering around the tried-and-true bumper promo format. We would do something different, but we lack their immense technical expertise. If you thought our show runs long, they’ve been running two and a half hour episodes as of late!

Creator’s Spotlight: Katsuhito Akiyama (1:16:09 – 1:31:56)
Gerald takes a look at his favorite director, the very unknown Katsuhito Akiyama, director of such show as the original Bubble Gum Crisis, Gall Force (again, this is Gerald’s personal fansite so be careful), Sol Bianca, Magical Project S, and recently the new Guyver TV series. An unusual choice? Yes, but that’s what we’re about here at AWO, the unexpected.

Closing (1:31:57 – 1:33:47)
This week was a very strange one for us. We’re very late and on top of that, this episode sounds about as bad as our first one. We’d offer excuses, but nobody wants to hear those. I guess this is the glamorous world of anime podcasts for you. Next week’s episode will consist entirely of an interview with Tim Eldred, who in addition to being a huge fan of VOTOMS and Space Battleship Yamato (and Fist of the North Star!) is also a published comicbook artist and has done extensive work in Western animation such as Teen Titans, MTV’s Spider-Man series, and Wing Commander Academy (that one’s not listed in IMDB or Anime News Network or anything, but Daryl knows it off the top of his head since he was a Wing Commander nut once upon a time when that game franchise wasn’t dead). Tim was there when anime fandom first started in the US, and we’ll be talking at length about all of these things and then some. We’re not splitting this one up like the Patrick Macias interview, so be ready for it.