Anime World Order Show # 213 – The Gang Doubles Down on Spreading Misinformation About Yoshiyuki Tomino

Because we just don’t have enough randos blaming us singlehandedly for American anime fandom’s ignorance, we’ve decided to talk about the theatrical film Mobile Suit Gundam: Cucuruz Doan’s Island, a remake of the “lost episode” of the original Mobile Suit Gundam series.

Intro (0:00 – 49:55)
The gauntlet of quality that is the current anime season is upon us, and we spend the first half of the intro simply running down what we’re currently watching. For once, only a very small amount of it is not from what’s ongoing as of this recording. Daryl and Gerald will be attending Anime Weekend Atlanta 2022 this week. Gerald has two 18+ offerings: Hentai of the 80s and 90s at 12:30 AM Thursday (technically it’s Friday but schedule wise that’s considered “Thursday night”), and then Anime in Non-Anime at midnight Friday. Then on Sunday at 12:45 PM, Daryl has the all-ages Thirty Years Ago: Anime in 1992.

For the second half of the intro, we talk about a topic that’s coming up more and more frequently now that the multi-billion dollar corporations own more and more of the US anime industry: the issue of worker pay (and the lack thereof). While most visible with regards to voice actors, this is widespread throughout which leads to the question: who’s seeing the benefits of anime’s elevated prominence, anyway?

Promo: Right Stuf Anime (49:55 – 52:43)
With Halloween upon us, this week is the time that Junji Ito hardcover manga editions are on sale. But that’s not all; you can also the um, not at all spooky Yotsuba&! at a solid discount, and with Tatami Time Machine Blues about to be released stateside on Disney+, the current sale for The Night is Short, Walk On Girl is timely indeed. You know what else is timely, considering this review? The fact that all of the Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin manga is back in print!

Review: Mobile Suit Gundam: Cucuruz Doan’s Island (52:43 – 2:08:07)

There I was, holed up on this island, when the Zeon came nosing around. They was gettin’ closer, CLOSER! “And?” I threw a ROCK at him! …it was a big rock…

Just as Umberto Eco noted that a common feature among fascists is that “by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak,” so too is the Anime World Order podcast a thing listened to by nobody hosted by nobodies whose articles are read by nobody yet simultaneously somehow responsible for the bad rep of Yoshiyuki Tomino among the English-speaking anime fanbase. (We prefer to think it was widespread availability of the cartoons that did that one.) So it goes that despite the fact that multiple entire podcasts dedicated to Mobile Suit Gundam exist, we give our own account of what may very well be the final film of Yoshikazu “YAS” Yasuhiko: a lavish, movie-length retelling of episode 15 of the first Mobile Suit Gundam TV series (which to this day is not legally available to view in the United States by personal request of Yoshiyuki Tomino), only this time it’s done without Tomino’s involvement and YAS isn’t hospitalized from overwork. We actually don’t start talking about the movie itself until 1:28:14 because we need to spend about 40 minutes on slander.

Meme-ified images from episode 15 are all over the Internet, particularly Thinzaku here.
Here’s how Doan’s Zaku looks in the movie. [guy who has only ever seen Armored Trooper VOTOMS] Getting a lot of Armored Trooper VOTOMS vibes from this
No off-model robots here; now any proportional changes are by design!
No amount of jank can prevent soft boy Amuro from shining through
One of many instances of “show, don’t tell.” We know, in this modern light novel-infused era, such a practice is frowned upon. NOT BY US, THOUGH.

Anime World Order Show # 208 – Wait, This Just Became Giallo

April seems like a good time to review horror anime, right? With the amount of viable horror anime picks being so slim, Gerald has opted for the 4-part OAV Demon Prince Enma, a dark reimagining of Go Nagai’s classic character Enma-kun.

Introduction (0:00 – 37:48)
Having missed the month of March, we use this opportunity to discuss the merger effort that finally occurred between Crunchyroll and FUNimation, then compare what actually transpired to what we predicted would happen. We were close enough, I guess. With the Spring 2022 anime season underway, we give some initial impressions on a few titles that caught our attention (sadly, at the time of recording, nobody had yet seen the golf one). Plus, since we know everybody just loves and adores us whenever we do this and it definitely does not earn us endless unceasing scorn, we touch the oven once again by talking about Yoshiyuki Tomino and Yoshikazu Yasuhiko. Because we never learn.

Promo: Right Stuf Anime (37:48 – 41:10)
With so many manga titles out, it typically takes a successful anime adaptation of a manga before the fan interest REALLY takes off. Right now, the adaptation of the Shonen Jump series SPY x FAMILY by Wit Studio and CloverWorks is the big deal, and so if you’re interested in checking out the SPY x FAMILY manga, Right Stuf’s got the best deals for physical copies.

Review: Demon Prince Enma (41:10 – 1:16:57)
Gerald reviews the Bandai Visual release of the four-part OVA Demon Prince Enma from the late 2000s. It’s a remake of one of Go Nagai’s 1970s works, Dororon Enma-kun, albeit with far more objectionable content (remind you of anything?). There are also several iterations of manga, and while none have been officially released in the US, there are a decent amount of scanlations out there which you may not want to be caught reading in public depending on which manga run you end up checking out. Despite being released in the US 15 years ago and being out of print for roughly that long, copies of Demon Prince Enma are readily available for dirt cheap…BUT FOR HOW LONG?

Intentional or not, we deem this an effective use of 3D CG.