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 # 83 – The AWO Is Short of Money, Like the BBC

As a result of the hidden catches of web hosting, this podcast MAY VANISH FOREVER (or temporarily), but not before Gerald reviews Astro Fighter Sunred, Clarissa reviews Ristorante Paradiso, and Daryl reviews Sword of the Stranger!

Introduction (0:00 – 36:00)
For many, the last podcast returned Bandwidth Exceeded errors. That’s a misnomer, as what we’ve actually exceeded is our CPU/RAM usage on the server. As our existing AWO funds are insufficient, we’re gonna have to beg for money. But it’s just for a little bit, as we get back on the track we’re always at: belittling our very own listeners for watching terrible anime. In this case, Girls Bravo. Evan from Ani-Gamers asks about anime with notable mid-series staff changes. To which we say, Benjamin Ettinger: he’s Jerry Beck approved! We’re also asked questions regarding the almighty Patlabor 2 (which we reviewed a while back) and our thoughts on the X TV series.

Let’s News! (36:00 – 58:29)
Taro Aso steps down as Japan’s Prime Minister. As Daryl said on his Twitter way back in August, “you and your crew run a nation with an iron fist for 50 years. Then you say you like Rozen Maiden and it all falls apart. Instant justice.” ADV rose from the dead, the author of Crayon Shin-Chan fell to the dead, Kadokawa Pictures USA missed one life support call, and Astro Boy was DOA. Ouch. On the bright side, Prince Planet is now streaming on Hulu and Youtube, so go watch it because the current season of anime is almost entirely awful. And read Dave Merrill’s posts about it. And Clarissa’s favorite franchise, for which the latest installment is upon us all and for Internet cred purposes she pretends to hate, is having an art contest as judged by character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto and videogame crazy man Hideo Kojima.

Review: Astro Fighter Sunred (58:29 – 1:18:23)
It is like an Adult Swim show, back when Adult Swim was good. It is also the biographical story of Brian Smith, last heard on the AWA 2009 con report we posted prior to this.

Review: Ristorante Paradiso (1:18:23 – 1:40:39)
As best as we can tell, this is a show about DILFs serving food that is classy, and therefore does not have anything such as this in it:

A visual aid will probably be helpful for those of you wondering about Ono Natsume’s style. It’s definitely very distinctive from what you would expect. Some of her works, like Coppers, have even more heavily stylized artwork.

Here’s an example of the original manga artwork compared with how it translated into anime. It doesn’t translate over super well, but enough of the proportions are retained that it “feels” similar.


Review: Sword of the Stranger (1:40:39 – 2:10:09)
Yes, this was a review copy. But it is still the Greatest Movie EVER! PS: Paul Chapman’s podcast is currently gone because he’s beset by the exact same problem as us.

Closing (2:10:09 – 2:15:14)
The next episode is already recorded! Probably months ago, by this point. We just don’t quite have a place to upload it to! But our guest is none other than Jason Thompson, author of Manga: The Complete Guide, and thus it is only fitting that we do an all-manga episode. Clarissa’s falling into the spiral of Uzumaki, Daryl’s going out with a bang courtesy of Violence Hero Riki-Oh, and Gerald’s venturing into the holy land of Kazuo Koike and Ryoichi Ikegami with Crying Freeman. YOU TOTALLY WANT TO LISTEN TO THAT.