Anime World Order Show # 85a – Don’t Shorten the Show, Just Split It Up

As we kick off 2010 we’ve decided to try experimenting with releasing episodes in both per-segment as well as contiguous versions. Last time we posted the segments just on the website and the full show on the RSS feed. This time we’re doing the opposite: posting the segments to the RSS feed and the full show contained in one file just on the website. The remaining parts will be posted to the RSS feed once a week over the next month, but since you’ve come to the website, we’ll give you the option of downloading the entire show right now. Daryl reviews the anime adaptation of Violence Jack by Go Nagai, Gerald reviews Bobby’s Girl, and Clarissa reviews the book The Art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga by Helen McCarthy.

IN THE EVENT THAT YOU HAVE NEVER SAVED AN MP3 IN YOUR LIFE VIA A WEB BROWSER (which based on emails, is pretty common!): BEFORE you send us an email saying “these download links don’t work!” try right-clicking the link and selecting Save As. What is happening to you is that you have Quicktime installed (usually because of iTunes) and its default browser plugin behavior is to try and play MP3 files in browser, without giving you an option to save. You can turn this off in Firefox by going to Tools->Options, selecting Applications, scrolling down to MP3 and changing the setting to “Always Ask.”

The entire show (3+ hours!):

Part 1 Emails and News (“only” ~72 minutes!):

Part 2 Review: Violence Jack (60 minutes):

No more Pickle Player since WordPress has its own built-in Flash player. Let us know if you encounter any annoyances with the new site or if things aren’t working. There are bound to be some issues.

Introduction (0:00 – 31:20)
None of us really felt like leveling out the audio or editing out the various “y’knows,” “um’s” and the like because there are far too many good videogames we have bought but not yet played. We elaborate on the nature of seinen manga/anime and give some examples of titles we like. We also hear of yet another person tricked into watching Odin: Photon Space Sailer Starlight as a result of this review we did. Finally, someone asks about the Daicon animations (now on Youtube: watch high-quality copies here and here!) as well as female anime directors.

Let’s News! (31:20 – 1:08:05)
Daisuke Gori is dead. Nobody buys sports anime in America. The Allure of Japan’s Pop Culture is straight-up good ol’ fashioned government propaganda that continues to push the “Cool Japan” BS narrative only espoused in the US by people with books to sell. The people who spend the most time pushing the “weird Japan” narrative (that rename their articles after the fact) should probably not decry the mentality that directly results from their very own actions first and foremost. We check out actual Japanese manga circulation numbers. And Tim Eldred informs us that Space Battleship Yamato: Rebirth is not the worst thing ever made, thus surpassing ALL expectations.

Review: Violence Jack (1:08:05 – 2:02:04)
It took several years to get to the second in the trinity of the Holy Manga Video Trinity of Suck (the first being Angel Cop and the third being Mad Bull 34 by Kazuo Koike). But that’s because Violence Jack is the least clip-worthy of the three, cut or uncut. After roughly two years of putting it off, Daryl finally reviews this behemoth, the shonen work that established modern-era post-apocalyptic fiction as we know it.

Promo: Anime82 (2:02:04 – 2:02:58)
The preceding review was made possible by Regan Strongblood, who provided us with copies of uncut Violence Jack long before such a thing was available. Of course, since we put it off for two years, you can now simply download torrents of uncut Violence Jack. He asks that you all grow some mecha balls, and by that he means ones like Devastator’s in Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen aka “the 4th most important movie of 2009.”

Review: Bobby’s Girl (2:02:58 – 2:31:50)
On the subject of things that a few years ago were impossible to find but can now be easily acquired via BitTorrent, Gerald reviews this 1980s classic. Fairly light on dialogue and somewhat experimental in its overall approach, it encapsulates a great number of different animation styles within its fairly short running time.

Review: The Art of Osamu Tezuka (2:31:50 – 3:07:00)
Clarissa wraps things up by reviewing the hardcover edition (with DVD) of this new coffee table style book by Helen McCarthy. Filled with a variety of never-before-seen pictures from the life and times of Japan’s “God of Manga,” this book is totally worth buying via this Amazon.com link so that we can make like forty cents commission. Remember: it’ll stop a bullet! Disclaimer: the AWO makes no guarantees as to the the size or caliber of the bullet that this book can stop.

Closing (3:07:00 – 3:14:59)
Following the shocking revelation that this podcast does NOT cure insomnia (also of note: Peacock King is FREAKING INSANE), we would like to note that both Daryl and Clarissa will indeed be doing panels at Anime Boston 2010. In the next episode, we’re turning the difficulty on this all the way up to Bitter as Gerald reviews the movie that put Gainax on the map aka Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise, Clarissa reviews 5cm Per Second by Makoto Shinkai, and Daryl reviews Swallowing the Earth by Osamu Tezuka. In the meantime, we will probably post up a bonus episode with our 2000-2009 anime in review retrospective.

Anime World Order Show # 81b – Tickle Me Pink Elmo Would’ve Prevented Cannibalism

[Dear people coming from the SL guy’s Livejournal; the excerpt he posted is from a not-really anonymous comment left on our blog that does not reflect our opinions or anything we ourselves said.]

Show 81 concludes with Daryl’s review of Kekko Kamen and Clarissa’s review of Butt Attack Punisher Girl Gautaman. Along with the post-Anime Expo news, can you really call it the second half of a podcast when it’s over 2 hours long? WE CAN!

Let’s News! (0:00 – 53:41)
Notes forthcoming, much like last week’s episode which is still listed as “notes forthcoming.” If only one of us had some sort of online repository full of links and subject material for this segment that could be easily pasted into these spaces…

Review: Kekko Kamen (53:41 – 1:26:41)
Go Nagai? Restraining himself? H…holding back?! GODDAMMIT WHERE THE HELL IS JACK?! Reports suggest his knife is made of Super Alloy Z, but this is contradicted by the fact that it breaks all the time and he just summons forth a new one via the power of VIOLENCE~!. In any case, Kekko Kamen is a textbook example of how far we’ve come [fallen…?] over the last 30 years. Can there even truly BE screenshots of this, either of Kekko Kamen herself or the villains? Maybe we’ll just post the English translated lyrics to the theme song.

Review: Butt Attack Punisher Girl Gautaman (1:26:41 – 1:57:08)
Everything you need to know about this cartoon is succinctly encapsulated within its title. But maybe we should post some pictures of it anyway.

Buddha wants to make one lucky woman a superhero!
Sadly, this mostly involves wearing a really unfortunate outfit. And lots of butts. Buichi Terasawa and Sir Mix-a-Lot would both be proud.
Butt-related persecution, even!
It also involves stupidly ripped pretty boys.
Lesbian subtext.
And lots of blatant copyright infringement.

Promo: Anime Hell (1:57:08 – 1:58:06)
The Sounds of Hell involve Isaac Hayes and Yaphet Kotto. Including a promo for the Greatest Movie EVER! podcast to promote Daryl’s guest appearance to discuss Ninja III: The Domination was considered, but ninja don’t MAKE sound.

Closing (1:58:06 – 2:12:13)
Next time, all that remains on the “one person recommends titles for everyone else” train is Clarissa. She has opted to do unto others as was done unto her. It’s a gamble. A very risky gamble. But also a manly gamble. Manly enough to the point that it’s probably really gay. But if you can get past the fact that the gamble is so gay they have their pants zipped down a lot, you’d see it was awesome. What we’re trying to say here is that Clarissa’s reviewing One Outs next time. As for Daryl and Gerald? THAT IS CLASSIFIED (for the next few hours). Be on the lookout: there’s a deadly stinger at the end of all this.