Anime World Order Show # 200 – Let’s ACTUALLY Interview Helen McCarthy Already

It’s our 200th episode! To celebrate, we interview the UK’s Most Dangerous anime scholar garderner/poet, Helen McCarthy! The one we did back in 2008 was technically a “bonus” and not an episode, back when we were trying to distinguish between such things!

Introduction (0:00 – 43:38)
After the obligatory shilling our stuff (Daryl was finally back on the Greatest Movie EVER! podcast to talk about Ninja in the Dragon’s Den), we get to talking some more about virtual conventions. Anime Expo’s is this weekend, and we hope it’s handled better than Fanimecon’s which just might be the single biggest debacle of all the virtual conventions we were aware of…which truth be told, is shockingly few since it’s hard to get the word out. In-person conventions are starting to come back–the wisdom of this is a bit shaky–but expect to see us at Otakon albeit with much less on our dockets. Anime Weekend Atlanta is still something of a toss up. We also talk a bit about what we’ve been watching/reading, along with what we’re looking forward to for the new Summer 2021 anime season. You know who doesn’t believe in doing less stuff during the pandemic? Tim Eldred, that’s who. Because having the single best resource in the world on Space Battleship Yamato just wasn’t enough work, July 1st looks to be the next big update to his personal website Artvalt, so head on over there for his next big compendium as it pertains to Fist of the North Star. There’s renewed interest in that now that the first volume of Viz’s Signature Edition is out (and selling out, from the looks of things). The first of multiple articles from Tim is now up: the Fist of the North Star Series Profile.

Promo: Right Stuf Anime (43:38 – 46:30)
As if there weren’t enough recent major sales, the big birthday sales are going on over at Right Stuf and that means big discounts across the board along with Mega Deals that change daily along with weekly giveaways. As a PSA: if you bought Dear Brother on Blu-Ray, and you probably want to do that since it’ll go out of print in under a year’s time, open it up and double check to make sure your discs were not physically cracked in the packaging. Discotek used a standard width case along with a spindle which is very hard to remove the discs from, and while Daryl’s discs were fine there are multiple reports on social media from those who weren’t so fortunate. So if you need to get an exchange, this is something to find out now rather than once there are no more copies available.

Interview: Helen McCarthy (46:30 – 3:26:55)
We meant to get to this sooner. We’re just stricken by laziness. The same cannot be said for Helen McCarthy, which will become quite evident once you listen to this because we didn’t manage to cover everything in three hours! This was done through an international half duplex Skype connection, so there may be some occasional cutouts during cross-talk, but we mitigated this by mostly keeping quiet and listening AS YOU SHOULD TOO. But here are a few links you’ll probably want in addition to her blog which is already on the sidebar.:

Feel free to suggest/request additional links in the comments below, or bug us via email or through social media.

Anime World Order Show # 161 – No Kentucky Fried Movie or Shigeru Mizuki References

It’s been quite a while since we had him for the highly-beloved Sword for Truth review, but we’re finally joined once more by Evan Minto from Ani-Gamers to talk about Sunao Katabuchi’s finally-completed film, In This Corner of the World.

Introduction (0:00 – 43:06)
We catch up with what Evan’s been up to for the this past erm…half decade…since he was last on the show. Turns out it’s been quite a bit. We also talk MORE~! about Brain Powerd which we reviewed last episode, and in a feeble attempt to combat the neverending flood of ignorance and misinformation that we spew every single episode (including this one, no doubt), we call everyone’s attention to this thread by “Most Dangerous” Rachel Matt Thorn on the need to re-evaluate the legacy of Osamu Tezuka.

Promo: Right Stuf Anime (43:06 – 45:00)
We are proof positive that you don’t have to know MLG pro strats to blatantly steal the gimmick of (relatively more) popular Youtubers, but if Pop Team Epic is to your liking, you should know that Popuko and Pipimi preorders are still being accepted for another few weeks, unlike at Good Smile where their always close the preorder windows entirely too early. Whatever, shipping from Japan is really expensive.

Review: In This Corner of the World (45:00 – 2:07:28)
This is a more or less spoiler-free review of the other major theatrical anime release of 2016 besides Your Name: Sunao Katabuchi’s film adaptation of Fumiyo Kouno’s manga, which you can purchase both digitally as well as in print. It’ll run you about $15 for the Blu-Ray/DVD/digital combo package via Amazon, and it’s inexpensive enough (and good enough) that you probably do want to pick this version up now in addition to whatever potential extended edition gets made (should that see a domestic release). We hear tell that there was a third major theatrical anime release from that year, but such reports are unable to be confirmed at this time. Perhaps a future episode will investigate such allegations to see if they have any merit.