Anime World Order Show # 224 – The Crime Is Drinking Budweiser After Showering, The Sentence is Death

Mike Toole returns to the show for this MONSTER CHILLER HORROR edition of AWO released on Halloween, in which Gerald reviews the polar opposite of The Poe Clan: Go Nagai’s Shuten Doji! Now that we’ve done this, the YouTubers can follow in our wake and make this one a meme darling.

Introduction (0:00 – 38:58)
We check in with Mike and what he’s been up to, Discotek Media and otherwise. It’s been a few years since Mike was last on, and we didn’t even get to see him this year at all since none of us went to Otakon this year. Plus, we finally play and respond to a listener voicemail after months of having it downloaded and sitting on the desktop waiting to be played. Look, eventually those shortcuts just blend into the background. This then makes us talk about the usual for 39 minutes: things currently airing this season, stuff that just came out on on Netflix which we haven’t had a chance to binge through prior to recording, the state of physical media anime publishing, memeing on Yoshikazu Yasuhiko and Rintaro, and so on.

Review: Shuten Doji (38:58 – 1:45:41)
As part of his revenge against the world, Gerald unearths another generally forgotten (at the time of this recording) OAV that embodies everything the words “Go Nagai” emblazoned on the VHS box cover entails. Shuten Doji is exactly the sort of thing that gave “anime” its negative stigma in the US which never fully went away even after Pokémon came out. It’s violent, sexually crass, ill-paced in narrative, prone to extreme bouts of logic-stretching convenience, and it has got one terrible English dub. In the altered words of the late Menahem Golan, now zeees eeeez a AD VISION! In other words, it’s exactly the sort of thing we crave–well, except for Clarissa because she has sense–the way people nowadays crave being reincarnated in a world governed by generic RPG rules. Never before has there been an anime with a more cogent moral lesson to teach its viewers, which is “don’t adopt children.” Any similarities to the classic creature of Japanese myth are um, tenuous at best.

The plot to Superman? The future plot to GaoGaiGar? I suppose he did become the light…
A rare moment in which the leading lady Miyuki is clothed. That is remedied moments later.
As the closing theme to Gattiger the Super Car famously asked, why is there the shadow of my mother over my despicable enemy!
AD Vision made merchandise for Shuten Doji, such as this T-shirt. If you have an original one of these, people will buy them off you for hundreds of dollars because they have trust funds.

Anime World Order Show # 192 – My Gundam Is a Bird; Your Argument is Invalid

You asked for this. Literally. Thanks to Patreon support, we have brought The Internet’s Mike Toole on to discuss the theatrical film Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative, whose US Blu-Ray release is now but mere days away. Oh boy. It’s one of THOSE episodes.

Introduction (0:00 – 25:22)
We catch up with what Mike’s been up to since his last appearance, such as putting on his Otakon Online panel as well as running Discotek Media’s recent virtual panel that was rife with new announcements, while also discussing what titles each of us have been watching over the past two months. Or not watching, as the case may be. This invariably gets us talking about Mamoru Oshii as well as Jungle de Ikou. And, of course, COLUMBO~!

Promo: Right Stuf Anime (25:22 – 28:20)
This episode is about Gundam Narrative, and so it’s only fitting that we point out that you have mere DAYS to get your preorder in for Gundam NT: Special Edition on Blu-Ray, the features of which we break down in the course of the review. PSA: Daryl did not actually take Xanax, which he has never taken. It was Tylenol PM that Daryl took. He had gotten his flu shot and about 5 fillings done, and did the recording around 1:00 AM. SO IT’S NOT DRUG MISUSE, OKAY?

Review: Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative (28:20 – 2:16:52)
The runtime of the film is just under 90 minutes, so it’s only fair that we spend more time talking about it than it takes to just watch for yourselves. As a sequel to Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn which we previously reviewed, we strongly recommend watching that first before watching Narrative because it kind of has to give away Unicorn’s conclusion. If you’re unfamiliar with the traditional “Universal Century” Gundam setting, we gave a brief explanation of it prior to discussing the alternate universe series Gundam 00.

We um, have issues with this production and its potential implications on not just future Gundam installments, but past ones. But don’t worry. We will discuss them in a calm, rational, mature manner. This episode definitely did not result in four people screaming over one another, which was definitely not resolved through editing to make it seem like one person was talking at a time.