Anime World Order Show # 17 – The Search for THE TRUTH Returns

We skipped a week because of Jacon, but we’re still lazy! As compensation for this relatively segment-light episode, we present to you the long-awaited next part of Daryl’s search for THE TRUTH. This time, at Megacon.

Introduction That’s Actually The Majority of the Show
We offer the lame excuse of having to devote all our free time to preparing for finals and anime convention panels, thus leaving us without time to put together proper segments. Fortunately, responding to listener feedback requires no preparation at all! We’ll just try and mask the lack of preparation by listing each email topic:

  • Keith from Teleport City writes us to defend the honor of Odin: Photon Space Sailer Starlight. He ain’t joking around, folks. (5:10 – 9:40)
  • Jenna from the UK writes us to ask our opinions on CLAMP, Fruits Basket, and what she should watch next given that she likes both. We completely forget to answer that last one. Whoops! (9:40 – 22:20)
  • Shane, a self-described World War 2 buff, writes approvingly about Zipang and enlightens us on the relationship between Japan and the Nazis! Somehow we end up mentioning Gunslinger Girl. (22:20 – 25:30)
  • Daniel opens up a can of worms by asking us what our favorite anime songs are. SEARCHING FOR ODIN, MY LOVE! (25:30 – 38:00)
  • “Spanish Discipline Guy” Alfonso asks us about the feasibility of showing Crayon Shin-Chan on US TV, and requests that everyone go to Youtube and do a Crayon Shin-Chan search to see the clips he’s talking about. (38:00 – 41:15)
  • Jason wonders how much hentai dub actors get paid and what we think about “slice of life” shows, offering Piano and Koi Kaze as examples. This leads to us trying to figure out whether “slice of life” is really just a sugarcoated term for “nothing happens to advance anything.” (41:15 – 48:50)
  • Kori insists that she is not a girl. Wait, I just said “she.” He wants to know what we think about A.I. Love You, so we tell him what we think about Ken Akamatsu and harem anime in general after reading the Wikipedia entry for A.I. Love You. Somehow hentai discussion gets thrown into the mix. (48:50 – 56:55)

Let’s News! (56:55 – 1:13:39)
King of Braves GaoGaiGar, which we talked about in Show # 3, has been licensed by Media Blasters. Trinity Blood is getting released in theaters by Funimation, but Trinity Blood fails at being entertaining and if you like it you’re dumb, so don’t bother watching it. 4Kids has created new brands allowing them to butcher even more shows, and Super Robot Taisen Original Generations is announced for the PS2 in Japan. If the English versions of the GBA games sell well, then there’s a good chance of this being released in America. Plus, for all you fans of dudes being rude, Animate has apparently acquired all of the Biblos catalog.

The Search for THE TRUTH: Megacon 2006 (1:13:39 – 1:27:28)
It’s late by about three months, but Daryl’s COMPLETELY NOT FILLED WITH LIES AND DECEIT journey to bridge the gap between himself and modern anime fans continues, bringing him to the science fiction convention known as Megacon, an event highly attended because it always happens at the same time as a national cheerleader conference located down the hall. But now isn’t the time to get interviews with the guy dressed as Darth Vader posing with the Spirit Squad, since conventions are SERIOUS BUSINESS. Will THE TRUTH be discovered once and for all?

Closing (1:27:28 – 1:33:10)
Next week is our Jacon report episode. All three of us were there with press credentials and there is something like 13 hours worth of recorded material and 2 gigs of photos and video to parse through. We will probably end up using very little of it, but better to have too much than too little. Will we be joined by staffers from the con? It is a mystery! We close things off with the help of Jeff “Rich Lather” Tatarek and his time machine, which he used to travel back to the 1980s so that Look Around You’s very own Synthesizer Patel could do a Discipline reading for us. The Maharaja Mack Daddy ain’t got jack on the S to the P, son.

Anime World Order Show # 16 – Now With Bonus Futanari Discussion

The show was running long this week, so we’re pushing the Megacon report back yet another week. Clarissa explains it all about Eyeshield 21 and Gerald reviews the classic anime Taro the Dragon Boy.

Introduction (0:00 – 37:08)
We caught up on answering emails last week, and this week we catch up on answering voicemail. As always, we spent forever answering even the simplest of questions, so in order to keep this from taking up half the show, we put one of our longer responses here in the show notes. If you don’t read these notes, then phooey to you! One of our readers, Patrick E. “Lobotomoy,” does read the show notes. He decided to take a comment we had on the last show to heart and Photoshop the Karas logo. Here it is:

I guess that’s officially our first fanart contribution other than the email from Golgo 13! Hmm, wonder if we should start asking for that stuff?

Promo: R5 Central – listen to the Year of Heroes episode for a sped-up complete history of sentai (30 years worth!) . JET-TO JET-TO JETMAN, LET’S GO TOBIDASE!

Let’s News! (37:08 – 51:30)
We finally get around to mentioning how Media Blasters licensed Voltron and plans to release it in its original and English forms. Bandai acknowledges that everything we’ve been telling you about the US anime market all these weeks is true, and the Street Fighter II movie–one of the few videogame-to-anime adaptations that isn’t absolutely awful–is finally going to be released uncut in America with the original Japanese track included.

Promo: Anime Pulse – go and answer their trivia questions so Daryl doesn’t have to! There’s prizes involved!

Review: Eyeshield 21 (51:30 – 1:15:13)
Clarissa reviews both the anime and manga for this currently-running Shonen Jump sports anime title. This quickly spirals out of control into a catch-all discussion on sports anime in general, namely the fact that so much of it is good stuff that nobody in America watches or reads. With any luck, we’ll change a few people’s minds on that.

Promo: Otaku Generation – this week their guest is their friend who was away teaching English in Korea for some time; listen to his stories on the online multiplayer gaming scene there if you want to know why Daryl gave up on real-time strategy games over a decade ago. “KEKEKE ZERG RUSH” indeed.

Often Overlooked: Taro the Dragon Boy (1:15:13 – 1:28:18)
Gerald follows up his review of Discotek’s release of Animal Treasure Island by reviewing their release of this classic theatrical anime film. To think he edited out the really good “Anime Bites” reference that Daryl and Clarissa made. Doesn’t he realize that lending out that laserdisc to Seishun Shitemasu is the one worthwhile thing that Peter Payne has ever offered to anime fandom?! Now all he does is sell porno and T-shirts that say “looking for a Japanese girlfriend.” This is what he bases his sense of self-worth on.

Closing (1:28:18 – 1:29:28)
We’re going to be skipping a week due to us all having to prepare for Jacon next week. Whether that’s next week or the week after next is anyone’s guess, but we promise that Daryl’s Search for THE TRUTH: Megacon Edition will be present. In fact, that whole show will probably just be answering emails, talking about the news, and that segment. Consider yourselves warned.