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Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:20:06 — 36.7MB)

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Here’s the first half of Show 79, where we read some emails, play a voicemail, talk the news, and Gerald reviews Chi’s Sweet Home.

Introduction (0:00 – 31:00)
In a future exciting installment of Otaku USA, Daryl will be talking about Fist of the North Star as a result of the impending release of the remastered edition in the US. In celebration of this, he has pasted in assorted excerpts from the infamously inaccurate Streamline dub that did so much irreparable damage to the series in the eyes of US anime fans. This is not entirely inappropriate, since over in the emails, we’re asked our thoughts on the whole sub/dub thing. Rather than answering that at length since we’ve done so too many times, we opt instead to talk about some of our favorite English dub actors…nearly all of whom are in that Streamline Fist of the North Star dub. Except Mike Reynolds. We used Lily C.A.T. for that one.

We also weigh in on Hellsing Ultimate as well as the Hellsing manga, then shortly after start talking about the various anime adaptations of Bible stories: Superbook, Flying House, and In the Beginning. God is clearly at work here, since Dave Merrill just posted about Superbook over at the exceptional Let’s Anime web log, and Dan Baker just informed the world that Jack Chick is coming to an Anime Hell near you to save you from HAW HAW HAW HAW Hell. Somebody loves us.

Daryl, having recently spent much time replaying Thief: Gold, tried to impersonate Stephen Russell when reading an email asking our thoughts on Brigadoon and where otaku can meet similarly-minded folk. Unfortunately, much like the voice of Jason Statham, Stephen Russell’s Garrett voice cannot easily be replicated. Perhaps more unfortunately is the fact that several of the DVDs we reviewed years ago are now out of print, and even when they’re not it can be hard to ship them to MMM-MEXICO-OOO. We end with the ultimate in accidental dub poetry, courtesy of Michael McConnohie:

Hello Ken.
How nice to see you again!
How have you been?

Let’s News! (31:00 – 1:02:36)
After an 8 year run, Anime Insider ceased publication and we’re pretty sure the lack of Mike Dent had nothing to do with it this time like what happened to Newtype USA. Media Blasters and Bandai Entertainment are delaying or canceling the releases of some of their box sets, which is presumably due to the fact that there’s no more brick and mortar shelf space for much anime anymore. Toei (not to be confused with To-Y) has struck a deal with FUNimation’s to stream some of their anime on the FUNimation website, and much of it is pretty darn good stuff such as Air Master, Galaxy Express 999 TV, and the original Space Pirate Captain Harlock TV series. One of these titles is Fist of the North Star TV, but unlike GE999 and Harlock it doesn’t look like they’re releasing subtitled episodes past what were released subtitled by Manga Video forever ago.

As a shock to nobody, our “favorite” anime studio Gonzo ended up being de-listed from the Japanese stock exchange after all, and as the current season of anime demonstrates, they’re as terrible as always. On the pornographic doujinshi front, Linda Project–notorious for being especially protective of “their work”–will be putting English translated, uncensored digital editions of their doujinshi up for sale on Peter Payne Presents Peter Payne’s J-List: A Peter Payne Production. It took SUBSTANTIAL willpower to not make the obvious joke when Gerald said “it’s going to be interesting to see if anything comes out of this.” Yoshihiro Tatsumi will be a guest at PEN Fest in New York City next week, so go and see him because we guarantee you that nobody else will. Also, Rumiko Takahashi’s new manga, which starts…TODAY…is being officially released on the Web in English, for free, as it comes out in Japan. She can afford to do this because of her MASSIVE BREASTS. Also, being rich.

Review: Chi’s Sweet Home (1:02:36 – 1:20:06)
KITTY!

Daryl will be a guest on the April 27th edition of the OSMCast, in which the subject is Fallout. It saddens him to know how much less intelligent and reasoned he sounds without editing and the ability to drop in additional things in post, but it’ll have to tide you over for now because it’s hard to do podcast stuff when you’re recovering from surgery. Hopefully it will go well enough that we can post HILARIOUS pictures of blood-soaked gauze and Daryl having a bandaged, Jagi-esque face.

Oh yeah. We’re still selling the AWO T-shirts ($10) and hoodies ($20). Email us if you want one!

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:04:56 — 29.7MB)

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Here’s the first half of Show 76, containing the “general chat” portions of the show; reading emails and responding to recent anime news developments. Show 76b will contain the actual reviews.

Introduction (0:00 – 26:51)
All the podcast gurus state you should save emails for the end of the show, which is why we read them at the beginning! Current emails in Inbox: 345. We lament the continued non-licensing of Ippatsu Kikimusume, and Gerald clarifies his stance on Dirty Pair Flash which was probably initially brought up when he reviewed Project E.D.E.N. way back when. Daryl takes the time to update the list of People In His Sights before trying to remember some anime titles with particularly noteworthy narrators. We can’t help but think that we forgot something terribly important. And given the attendance levels for the Providence Anime Conference, are anime fandom gatherings geared towards non-teenagers viable?

Let’s News! (26:51 – 1:03:09)
There were some regrettable deaths in the world of Gatchaman and O-DIIIIIIIIIIIIN, and we suspect Baoh as the cause of the death. Bandai Entertainment is joining FUNimation, ADV Films, and Tokyopop at the layoff party, and Diamond is upping their minimum order price by $1000. Dave Merrill’s Livejournal is where the party was for that discussion: our favorite comment exchange was “GOSH WHY CAN’T WE GET WOMEN AND KIDS INTO THE COMIC BOOK SHOPS OF AMERICA? BECAUSE MY VAGINA IS HAUNTED!” Be sure to read those comments so you too may have the covers to the next three Grant Morrison projects. PS: all comicbook writers from the British Isles are awful no matter how much TRUE BELIEVERS claim otherwise. PPS: laserdiscs are finally no longer being made. You remember laserdiscs, right? Oh, huh. Well, we don’t either.

Based on the amount of people in a previous poll who correctly identified the right answer, about 100+ people reading this will be glad to know that Discotek Media will be releasing the remastered Fist of the North Star theatrical animated movie on DVD later this year. In other “wow, someone licensed that?” news, The Roots of Japanese Anime Until the End of World War II is coming out in the US as well. It won’t be cheap, but spare no expense for DVD quality copies of Momotaro’s Divine Sea Warriors, the very first feature-length Japanese animated film which is also incredibly jingoistic Japanese WW2 propaganda. On the newer side of things, Toei now has Space Pirate Captain Harlock and Galaxy Express 999 available to view in streaming form, and iTunes has a whole bunch of anime songs up for purchase. Oh yeah, remember all that stuff about Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Part 3? Looks like it’s been worked out. You know what hasn’t been worked out? The fact that people don’t seem to realize that anime voice actors are perpetually out of work and/or make very little money.

But enough about THE INDUSTRY: the Reverse Thieves have begun the Otaku Diaries project, an anonymous survey about the social lives or lack thereof of self-proclaimed otaku. You’ve got two months to complete the survey, and at about 150 short answer/essay questions you’ll probably need it. Daryl’s signed up for it, and hopefully so will everyone else. Let’s see how deep the pit goes, shall we? If all that writing gets you in a mode, we recommend contributing to the proposed Anime Confessions archive, a would-be repository for all manners of fandom soapbox diatribes. So far they don’t really have very many submissions. Perhaps YOU can help! Finally, Ben and Matt over at For Tax Reasons have released yet another short, which at nearly 8000 views is proof positive that they don’t really need the rub from us. Too bad; they’re getting it anyway!

Promo: Pop Rocks and Soda (1:03:09 – 1:04:28)
All the podcast gurus state you should make your promos about 30 seconds long, so we’re playing this one that’s about 90. Bonus points for no bongo drums this time!

We’ll post the second half of this on Tuesday or Wednesday or so. It’s actually done. We could post it now. BUT WE AREN’T. You know why? Because even though we shipped out nearly all of the T-shirts and hoodies, we didn’t yet ship out the international orders. It turns out that shipping for hoodies is more like $8.75 than $5, and we shudder to think how much more expensive the international shipping will be. Anyway, if YOU want AWO t-shirts or hoodies, email us for the details. Here’s Aaron from the WARP Anime Podcast (Go Recursive Acronym GO!) stylin’ and profilin’: