Anime World Order Show # 50 – Watch Everything We Talk About This Week, Okay?

It’s our glorious 50th episode! Gerald reviews Megazone 23 Part 1, Clarissa’s got Princess Tutu, and Daryl rambles about Macross: Do You Remember Love? for nearly an hour. Judge for yourselves whether we condone bootlegging/are as bad as Coultergeist.

The loudness levels might be a little weird this episode, but hopefully the clipping is minimal. With any luck, everything is still intelligible.

Introduction/News/Contest Announcement (0:00 – 41:03)
Reintroductions are in order, even though we aren’t exactly in order ourselves. In the emails, the emails, what what, the emails: we get more speculation regarding why anime companies don’t publicize much in the way of numbers, respond to allegations of spreading hate speech, reveal the truth about THE TRUTH, and try to find out whether we have any favorite anime genres or not. We don’t have any news really, but Patrick Macias (as seen on television) aka MD Patrick has been named Editor-in-Chief of the upcoming print magazine Otaku USA. The first issue comes out in June, but we have a SHOCKING REVELATION about the content of this publication that you can find out by listening right now!

On the subject of conventions, we were asked to mention this before April 1st, and because we doubt that the next episode will be out before then, so we’ll mention it here. On Sunday April 1st from 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM, Zenkaikon is holding a nerd prom! Yep, it’s their Spring Formal and it’ll be held at the Valley Forge Scanticon in King of Prussia, PA (that’s where the Otaku Generation podcast guys are based out of). Actually, it’s semi-formal, but there is going to be a King and Queen voted on and chosen by attendees, and nothing says King Of Nerd Prom better than winning Best Buy gift cards. Like all nerd proms, it does cost money to attend, and while registration closes in five days, there’s special pricing for AWO listeners. And by “listeners” I mean “readers”: $23.00 flat for the formal (even if they’re not attending the convention itself in October). $33.00 to combine the formal and registration. Mention us by name and get $1.00 off admission! Think of it this way: you’ll be getting access to a full Asian buffet including dessert!

Oh yeah. If you’ve got a con or event or something you want us to promote on the air (like how we didn’t just do), let us know and we’ll work something out. Also, if you’re reading this and you buy things from Right Stuf, write in “Anime World Order Podcast” in the “how did you hear about this site” field since they seem to think we actively encourage bootlegging. If enough people do that, it’ll be a good joke. Still, it gives us a contest idea. Listen to the show and find out what it is!

MIKE TOOLE’S SEXY MAN-VOICE (41:03 – 42:40)
We’re probably too lazy to give timecodes for the voicemails, but since Mike Toole’s sexy voice out-sexies them all, we figured you’d want to know about it. If you couldn’t get enough after hearing his rendition of the Moon Phase theme song, he’s got more vocal stylings in store for you here.

Review: Megazone 23 Part 1 (42:40 – 1:02:22)
Yes, it’s pronounced “two three” and not “twenty three.” Just ask someone who legally changed their name to Megazone that I think listens to this show even though he’s never written in. This is a really important feature-length OAV as far as American anime fandom is concerned, as it served as a “gateway anime” for many people even though you don’t usually hear it mentioned much anymore. Gerald invokes the statute of limitations regarding spoilers on this one, but this one was always more about the SUPER DUPER 1980s-ness of everything than the plot itself so don’t let that stop you from listening.

Promo: The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast (1:02:22 – 1:02:53)
Paul Chapman is a resentful shell of a man on the grounds that his movie ideas are completely wrong roughly 1/3 to 2/3 of the time and he does not have a sexy voice. Also, his mom gets all the fan mail. But just so everyone listening knows, that was his weak arm.

Review: Princess Tutu (1:02:53 – 1:25:35)
Aaron from WARP calls in to mention how much better Clarissa sounds now with the new microphone, but perhaps the fact that Daryl not only uses the Levelator but also the Audacity beta Leveler tool on top of that since he forgets that he used the Levelator invalidates any such improvements. This one’s a semi-recent magical girl that’s an awful lot like Revolutionary Girl Utena in many aspects, but unlike Utena this totally didn’t catch on in the US despite positive reviews, and that’s a shame. We speculate as to why that might have been the case, though perhaps the split reactions among us with regards to this show sums it all up.

Nothing Remotely Resembling a Coherent Review: Superdimensional Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love? (1:25:35 – 2:09:22)
Megazone 23 Part 1 may best encompass the 80s look, but this movie, which incidentally featured much of the same staff, best encompasses the 80s anime spirit. Daryl knew full well that he could never put together a proper review of this, since the Egan Loos of the world that know the exact missile capacities of the fighters would have his head, so he opts not to have done any research or taken any notes before speaking. The result is a segment that by itself is the length of most typical podcasts. Normally we don’t bother with this approach, but this is Show # 50 and, more importantly, this is DYRL we’re talking about here. Since this movie will not be seeing a US release any time soon, here is a BitTorrent link.

Otaku may not necessarily remember love, but at least we can remember that once upon a time, we weren’t all dead inside. Listen and perhaps you’ll find out why.

Closing (2:09:22 – 2:16:01)
Next time, Daryl’s going to try and do some more things he’s weeks/months late in doing by discussing Megacon 2007 and also reviewing To Terra Volume 1, released by Vertical Inc. In addition to that, Clarissa’s reviewing Animation Runner Kuromi and Gerald’s reviewing The Venus Wars. Our sidebar has all those podcast directories as well as our contact information in the event you’re interested in that stuff.

Bonus – Voicemails We Put Off Answering For Too Long

We keep asking for voicemails, but we never seem to play them. Here we shall rectify this and also procrastinate on releasing Show # 50.

This one’s pretty short compared to what we usually do, but that’s because we all had nightmarish tasks to contend with. Here’s some time markers:

Introduction / Let’s News! (0:00 – 15:10)
The American Anime Awards winners were announced a while back, and everyone’s said their piece on the matter and let it die already…EXCEPT FOR US. Beating that dead horse aside, Broccoli Books is launching a new BL imprint entitled Boysenberry and the trailer for Paprika is on the Apple website. Daryl is intentionally NOT watching that trailer since there is a good chance that the movie won’t show in Florida at all and he’ll have to catch it on DVD, much as he doesn’t want to know anything about The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. Damn you New Yorkers and your children’s film festivals!

The remainder is voicemails. Here’s the time each of them start:

16:00 – Michael Wishlow’s review of F

22:18 – Fan-made promo by The Comics Interpreter

27:20 – Roberto from Chicago, IL (actually Italy, so hide the Arctic Circle candy) wants to know what we think of Berserk and Wolf’s Rain

32:41 – Jonathan from Winter Haven, FL lets us know his thoughts on Anime Festival Orlando. 2006. Yeah, we’re way too late in playing this, but he sent us like ten other messages we have to get through eventually and this is a start.

34:38 – In one of our few critique messages, “General Beefy” (who really should just leave one comment instead of multiple ones in a row) is let down at how our show notes haven’t exactly had much in the way of actual informational content for some time. Namely, download links.

38:06 – Anthony from New York was losing interest in anime until we and Anime Pulse came along. He talks about Project A-Ko and asks us our thoughts on Here is Greenwood.

43:16 – Allie from Michigan likes our diversity of titles and the fact that we reviewed Monster and Zipang. Guess we’re doing SOMETHING right!

46:10 – DO WE WATCH NARUTO AT ALL?????

49:18 – Carter Vance asks a question that was previously asked, though perhaps it was asked after he sent this one in: is it possible to “save” people who only seem to enjoy harem/manufactured moe sorts of anime? And what do we think of Eureka 7 and Fafner?

56:57 – Megan from AMERICA and her friend speak on behalf of the Fangirl Overmind and demand more yaoi reviews! Hmm, we actually haven’t done very many.

58:23 – The fact that we encouraged and enabled this message to happen is probably the lowest achievement in our lives.

1:00:51 – The fact that we encouraged and enabled this message to happen is probably the highest achievement in our lives. Or at least, this episode. After this, we can go no further and wrap things up.

Next time, we hit a PODCASTING MILESTONE with Show # 50. Well, technically it’s the 56th thing we released counting bonus stuff, but don’t let facts get in the way of our glory! In celebration of releasing 50 episodes of nonsense, we’re bringing out the big guns. Gerald’s reviewing Megazone 23 Part 1, Clarissa’s reviewing the criminally-overlooked Princess Tutu, and Daryl knuckles up and reviews something terrifying that you don’t see a lot of people reviewing out of justifiable fear. You’ll know it when you hear it.

1:09:12 – We know we already played one from “General Beefy,” but we couldn’t NOT play this one concerning his thoughts on GeekNights. Wonder if other podcasts get emails like this about us and just don’t play them?