Streaming Titles – Anime World Order Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:28:12 — 69.4MB)

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As the Summer 2026 season ends, we review a title from…Summer 2026, as Gerald reviews The Ghost in the Shell, which for the first time directly adapts the original manga by Masamune Shirow.

Introduction (0:00 – 1:06:34)
Patreon has officially informed us that we need to switch over to monthly billing next month, which will also mark the point where new $1 tier members will no longer be accepted. You can stay on the $1 tier if you are already on it, but you won’t be able to rejoin it if you leave. In its place will be a new $3 tier, which will also grant access to our AWOmake episodes. As for anime, we talk about our favorites from the Summer 2026 anime season, which had multiple standouts so this takes about 35 minutes. Note that in the time since we made this recording, a second season of Draw This, Then Die! has been confirmed.

Then, you know we had to do it, because lately Stu Levy has been sending numerous emails and doing various video webinars beseeching fans to invest in Tokyopop. We thought for sure nobody would do this, but upon checking he has about as many if not slightly more investors than we have Patreon backers. Clearly, the history of Tokyopop has either been forgotten or is otherwise not as widely known among 21st century anime fans, so we take the time to recap that history here before Daryl reads one of Stu’s emails out aloud in its entirety so you too can experience a master at work. It is currently undecided whether a generative AI was used to compose this email or whether what we’re observing is just a case of Terminal LinkedIn Poster Brain.

Don’t forget, Patrons: the Fall 2026 Trailer Watch Along is September 26th at 3 PM Eastern! Join us on the AWO Discord, since we have no means of recording or live streaming such an event.

Review: The Ghost in the Shell (1:06:34 – 2:28:12)
Gerald reviews The Ghost in the Shell, a 2026 Prime Video exclusive adaptation of Masamune Shirow’s signature work that ran for 10 episodes and concluded just a few weeks ago. We compare this version to the previous anime adaptations, but with a general focus on Shirow’s original manga. Because Gerald still has his Studio Proteus edition from 30 years ago and Daryl has both a digital edition of the 2017 release and a hardcover edition of the 2023 release (both of which are censored), we entirely forgot that just a few months ago, Kodansha released a $140 MSRP Legacy Edition set of the Ghost in the Shell manga that is specifically advertised as “uncensored” complete with an 18+ tag on it. If you do buy that, please use the affiliate link we just provided since it looks like we have yet another version to buy someday!

Streaming services don’t have any sort of standards and practices, so this stylization resembling the application of a digital signal corruption to “censor” headshot splatter (and middle fingers, Guardians of the Galaxy style) is presumably just a deliberate choice since otherwise we’d expect that Angel Cop level headshot gore detail.

Our hero, Major Motoko Kusanagi. Her boss, Aramaki, is in the background. He normally looks more simian.

Bow down before your bisexual anime queen. That style isn’t just for Spike Spiegel.

Amazon doesn’t typically sell their shows on Blu-Ray, but someone could make some money selling “uncensored” Blu-Rays. We’re just saying. Also, who’s cleaning all this oil off these expensive bedsheets?!

While not a comedy, The Ghost in the Shell retains Shirow’s penchant for characters having very cartoony reaction shots; a system shock for those who have only ever experienced Ghost in the Shell through anime.

It can get pretty extreme, but a childhood of having it deprived from me by Filmation makes me consider squash and stretch the most important principle of animation.

In contrast with the past 30 years of Ghost in the Shell anime, this series conveys Shirow’s original manga depiction of Kusanagi: cool, but also a gremlin menace.

Fuchikoma should never be left unsupervised. To think they’re representing the actual GOOD version of AI.

Hot Dance in Cherry Moon! At this point it’s been so long that I can’t even remember if a Japanese language English subtitled release of Dominion: Tank Police ever came out in the US or if we all just saw it fansubbed and had to settle for the Manga UK Tank Police with all the music changed. I adore you, till the end of time Annapuma and Unipuma.

At least one thing remains consistent across all adaptations of Ghost in the Shell: just as Steve Rogers possesses America’s Ass, Major Motoko Kusanagi always bears Japan’s Ass.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:35:20 — 44.1MB)

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Clarissa reviews the hottest anime of the year! The year 2016, that is. YURI!!! on ICE isn’t as rude as the hockey player dudes of today, but men’s figure skaters can have their own heated rivalry! Or maybe they’re an extended series of “Russian taunts.”

Introduction (0:00 – 43:07)
The Crunchyroll Anime Awards just concluded, and this year it’s not just us wondering what the deal is. Even the Japanese language edition of Wired (archived here should that be paywalled) is doing articles pontificating on how weird it is that an awards for anime with no Japanese judges and no Japanese users (because Crunchyroll is geoblocked from being accessed within Japan) elects to hold their awards show in Japan while not targeting Japanese audiences.

There were multiple theatrical anime showings at the movie theaters lately. We all missed out on seeing Visionary ~~Director~~ Creator Shoji Kawamori’s latest film, Labyrinth, since apparently it contains zero dance magic and is entirely about how you kids need to put down that cell phone. But Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway: The Sorcery of Nymph Circe has proven something of a litmus test within the Gundam fanbase overall, due to its lack of emphasis on mecha action in favor of a protagonist trying desperately not to be horny on main like the mind’s eye versions of his heroes. Hopefully we needn’t wait another five years before JUSTICE FOR CHAN IS SERVED. For now, the highlights of Bandai’s financial statements for the fiscal year is showing that Mobile Suit Gundam is bringing more money to them than Dragon Ball, Naruto, and One Piece. Sure, that’s just Bandai’s cut rather than the overall take, but anybody trying to tell you that GQuuuuuuX or Witch From Mercury were somehow financially unsuccessful should be blocked and unsubscribed for either lying like hell or being outlandishly wrong.

17:41: We continue to notice oddities with the Crunchyroll Store, and haven’t been the only ones. We read an email from a former Crunchyroll employee–we checked, it’s real–which more or less confirms everything we’ve been speculating and then some. Something tells us we ought to do an interview about this.

We wrap up things by talking up the revamped and expanding MediaOCD store before hating some more on the speculative market vultures who so far haven’t proven successful at doing to English-translated anime and manga what they did to used videogames, trading cards, and American comicbooks.

Review: YURI!!! on ICE (43:07 – 1:35:20)
Clarissa met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and tribal tattoo-trunked legs of stone
Stand in the blizzard. Near them, on the ice,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose grin,
And winked single eye, and sneer of pure hetero command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The finger-gunned hands that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the medal pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Jean-Jacques Leroy, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair! Yes, I was born to make history!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level zamboni’ed ice stretches far away.

In other words, we regret to inform everybody that it’s been a full decade now since this series from director Sayo Yamamoto took the globe by storm, igniting a fandom so large it broke containment from the usual anime otaku circles. The most unexpected of unexpected hits, it resulted in Sayo Yamamoto never directing a full anime series ever again; the formal announcement that the planned theatrical film sequel was canceled was only made last year. Although as of this writing it remains readily available via streaming, given all that’s going on you might want to consider buying the series on home video while it’s still readily available (the Limited Edition is long out of print).