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Anime World Order Show # 84 – Four Year Anniversary With Jason Thompson

Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:21:58 — 65.0MB)

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It’s our fourth year anniversary! (Actually, it’s probably the third year anniversary. But we already HAD a third year anniversary LAST year!) Our special guest is Otaku USA’s Jason Thompson, author of Manga: The Complete Guide, so we’re doing an all-manga edition of AWO. Clarissa spirals into madness with Uzumaki, Gerald lets fly with Crying Freeman, and Daryl passes on to the next life courtesy of Violence Hero Riki-Oh! For this episode we offer the option of downloading the show per segment, should you prefer. Just click on the segment name and its running length.

Introduction (0:00 – 37:51)
Who is the mysterious Jason Thompson? Whatever could have inspired him to write Manga: The Complete Guide and King of RPGs ? How can one man give away so much manga for free every day for a year? How does he manage to write for not just Otaku USA but also Comixology? And how many websites can one dude have, anyway? His Twitter account just isn’t enough to answer all this. Though for the record, the short answer is “because he hit his Otaku Expiration Date.” Indeed, he just got engaged a few days ago! If our kung fu were as strong as Joe McCulloch’s, we would have remembered this first half of his writeup on the English language comics anthology “Manga” when we asked the question about it. But we forgot. Since the time of the recording, the second half of his writeup has been posted. Read those, retain their knowledge, and you shall be a Formidable Opponent (TM).

Review: Uzumaki (37:51 – 1:01:47)
Clarissa reviews this horror manga by Junji Ito. Like you even need to specify that it’s “horror” when it comes to this crazy cat. Why, if you buy from the links we provide, we get about ten cents…eventually! Here are links for Volume 1, Volume 2, and Volume 3.

Review: Crying Freeman (1:01:47 – 1:33:42)
Gerald reviews the most well-known collaboration between ultimate manga master Kazuo Koike and artist Ryoichi Ikegami among US readers. This was the first manga Paul Chapman ever saw when he was a young child. He opened it to a random page and saw a dude getting–as he phrases it–“a hummer.” Speaking of which, look for Daryl to make another guest appearance on the Greatest Movie EVER! podcast once Paul figures out that, rather than waiting until the end of the month, he can delete an old episode to free up space on his Libsyn account in order to post a new episode. Like what we just ended up doing to bring you this! [12/10 update: here you go! We talked about Crank, Crank 2: High Voltage, and Gamer. I kind of sucked here since this was on short notice and I didn’t actually rewatch the films prior to recording.] Here are AWO-supportive Amazon links to buy this: Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, and Volume 5.

Review: Violence Hero Riki-Oh (1:33:42 – 2:13:25)
There’s a good chance that you’ve seen the live-action movie, as its infamy and legend helped shape Media Blasters into the entity it is today. If you have NOT seen it, then your life is incomplete until you remedy the situation. But that is merely scratching the surface of what awaits you in this manga. Sadly, it cannot be purchased in the US, but there are full scanlations available. What is Riki-Oh about? What is going on in this comicbook? That…is the question.

Closing (2:13:25 – 2:21:58)
Next time, which to be honest will probably not be until next year at this rate, Clarissa will be reviewing Helen McCarthy’s new book, The Art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga. Gerald will be reviewing the somewhat experimental–and until recently, virtually impossible to find–anime Bobby’s Girl (aka Bobby’s In Deep!), and Daryl fulfills a promise that he’s put off for too many years by finally getting around to answering the question…GOD DAMMIT WHERE THE HELL IS JACK? (FUCKIN’ CHICKENSHIT. FUCKIN’, FUCKIN’, SHIT, FUCKIN’ SHIT!). For it shall be the second pillar of the Holy Manga Video Trinity of Suck, Violence Jack. The first pillar of course was the glorious Angel Cop, reviewed back in 2007. He was spacing them out so as not to run out, but this was probably too much spacing.

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Anime World Order Show # 83 – The AWO Is Short of Money, Like the BBC

Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:15:15 — 61.9MB)

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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.