Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Episode 4: Have we found our feet?

Download Episode 4


Our first face-to-face recording of this podcast and I must say, it turned out really well. I think the show is finally finding it's feet.

Anyway, here I am in Japan with Alex. You would think the chilly winter weather would put a stop to those short miniskirts but fortunately, no!

If you have to make a final judgment on us, then judge us by this episode.

We've been absolutely bombarded with e-mails, (un)fortunately, they're all from someone selling Viagra and in the "bulk" folder.

Remember, e-mail us at

animepacific@gmail.com

Detailed show notes to come!

For a very brief synopsis, Dane & Alex talk about some misconceptions some foreigners have when they enter the "anime country" which in turn moves onto a discussion about child pornography.

We discuss the news, kind of briefly. Not too much to tell really but Dane discusses the exciting "Gundam Expo 2006" which is currently in Hong Kong.

Dane reviews the literary masterpiece, "Mad Bull 34" by none other than J.R.R. Tolk.... Oh wait, Kazuo Koike.

He also briefly reviews the now (sadly) out of print OVA series.

The scanlations for Mad Bull 34 are available at

http://www.ignition-one.com

And here's a small clip of this "Gritty, realistic cop show"





Our Anime Person of the week is someone who really deserves to be more well known. The great Michael Arias, the man who lived the "Otaku dream" by being the first foreigner to direct an anime in Japan.

Check out this article in the Japan times by the always wonderful Patrick Macias for more:

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ff20061221i1.html

Here is a trailer to his film, Tekkonkinkreet

Just one more word guys: STUDIO 4oC (Is that one word?)



Hope you enjoy it, leave some comments dagnammit!

Saturday, December 23, 2006

Episode 3: Happy Non-Denominational-Yearly Holiday!

What better gift than a really really crappy review?
Episode 3 comes a day earlier than usual because I'm heading to Japan in a matter of hours, so forgive me if the shownotes are not up their usual Tolkein-esque standard.

Download it here:

LINK REMOVED (Episodes 1 - 3 are dead to us)


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0:00-30:35 Blah Blah

We shoot the breeze for half an hour, among the discussions are cautionary tales about going to Japan while on welfare, going on a spending spree on pornography and trying to evade immigration. Dane proceeds to verbal abuse Australia and it's 1950's stance on erotica.

30:35-31:25 Anime Pulse

The podcast that needs no mention which is fine, because I don't have time to mention it!

31:26- 44:45 News (Or lack of)

What a pitiful amount of news. Here's hoping something big happens when I arrive in Japan.

Tales of Earthsea won't be headed to US anytime soon:

Because Sci-Fi is sitting on "Earthsea 90210".

Gundam the ride to close:

Damn, I never even knew it existed. Here's what you have missed:



Joe Hisashi in Hong Kong, tickets sold out almost instantly!

I missed it! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Here's some "stalker-esque" footage of his concert.



44:50-45:28 Weekly Anime Review Promo

I've yet to be dissapointed yet by this podcast.

45:28 - 1:03:50 Anime person of the week: Yoko Kanno

Most probably, my favourite composer in the world!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanno_Yoko

Alex won't accept that someone is better than Billy Ray Cyrus.

1:04:00 - 1:17:15 : My Crappy Review Of "Brave Story"

In short, 4 stars (out of 4) I LOVED IT. Oh wait, Alex won't let me give it 4 stars.

1:17:16 - 1:23:01 Finale and Alex's "Song"

Next week, both of us will be in Japan and Dane has bought a new microphone, so finally the audio might be up to something post World War I.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Episode 2: From poo to chocolate & Hello Japan!

I think Sunday is a good day for our Weekly release, don't you?

We actually recorded this episode almost straight after episode 1, but I spent most of the week editing it and putting it together. Much to our suprise, most of our initial visitors are actually from Japan itself. This is is pretty much totally due to a very kind person who runs a really interesting blog regarding anime fandom outside Japan.

http://willowick.seesaa.net/

Not only did this result in a huge jump in visitors, but it also contained wonderful advice. Thank you so much! LINK REMOVED - (Episodes 1 - 3 are dead to us) Introduction 0:00 - 26:40

Yes, our introduction is the longest single segment of the podcast.

As we boldly brag about the much better audio quality, our integrity is once again flushed down the toilet as Dane's wife uses a hair dryer in the middle of the recording. He proceeds to establish dominiance, in a subtle...silent...kind of way.

Seeing as we're an Asian podcast, we proceed to explain in detail our stance on bootleg Hong Kong DVD's and aspects that you might not consider when you buy them. (ie. You're paying 10 times the price if you order these on the net, as well as the fact that you'd be funding organized crime.)

We also chat a little bit about Alex's returning to the anime light with Ghost in the Shell.

Promo: Weekly Anime Review 26:40 - 27:12

The always great, Weekly Anime In Review.

We're in the process of making a good promo as well, I do kind of want to ask other podcasters if they want to play our promo if we'd make it but I don't want to shove it in their face at the same time.

News 27:13 - 49:58

More emotional ranting from Dane & Alex. Not much actual news from Asia, (except Japan) but there's some stuff coming up here which I'll talk about next week.

The rape of One Piece is complete

Did we ever doubt it?

We also discuss some of the stuff they did, including the infamous "Black guy cut".






I suppose they were afraid that people would compare it to this:





They also made a Christmas tree into a purple "Non Denominational holiday tree".

WHAT THE F**K.

Naruto Filler To End

Hitler must be freezing his ass off in hell right about now.

To truly propel it to Dragonball status, Naruto gets it's "Z".

Alex verbally rapes the Dragonball franchise, while Dane defends the original.

Frank Agrama in da sh**.

Alex takes this chance to defend Carl Macek with all the man-love he can muster.

This in turn, takes us to the subject of violence in anime. Where Robotech had deaths in almost every episode, 4 Kids sees the need to butcher One Piece. We look back at the mid 80's before the Soccer Mum's (that's Mom's in Yanklish) took over.

Chinese film adaptation of Manga, Bokko (Battle Of Wits) number one at Hong Kong box office

Dane gives a mini-review of the film, which he saw on opening day in a packed crowd. (Half which were high school girls wanting to watch their beloved Andy Lau)

Then takes an opportunity to bash the Swine-Steins, who hopefully won't touch this.

Promo: Anime World Order 50:00 - 50:34

Daryl Surat loves this promo. So as a token of brotherly love, we'll play this promo three times next episode. : >

Not so indepth review of Ghost In The Shell: Solid State Society

Alex discusses the role that Ghost In The Shell plays in his life. Especially now, in the "Dark Ages" of sci-fi, with Star Trek dead in the water, the Star Wars films over, Firefly dieing a brutal death with Serenity's failure, Babylon 5 & Farscape over.

Alex loves SAC, but thinks Yoko Kanno's melodies soothe him to sleep. (Our next episode's person of the week)

Dane proceeds to repeat himself with the fact that this was on pay-per view and it's budget and then curses loudly as he types the shownotes and realizes this.

Alex attacks the Fuchikoma's and wins because Dane can't get a word in.

Dane discusses which version of GITS in the most loyal to the original Manga (which he loves, until Shirow became a rambling lunatic full of technical jargon with Man-Machine Interface)

To make a long story short: 3.5 / 4 stars.

The reason for the -0.5 is explained within.

Anime Person Of The Week 1:06:53-1:14:23 Yoshikazu Yasuhiko

Man, I'm stupid. I went off what I already knew about the chap only to discover that Wikipedia has a rather sizable amount of information already.

I should relay to you that, when we talked about his semi-retirement, I was more refering to his anime career than his (still strong) career as a manga-ka.
He is still working and better than ever!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshikazu_Yasuhiko
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=705

Some more recent mangas of his

http://www.kodanclub.com/cgi-local/comic.cgi?id=999-00069-01-006
http://www.icomics.com/rev_103201_joan.shtml



Next Week: I'll be headed for Japan! 1:14:24-end

Alex's sister is here, so he'll be taking her around Japan, then I'll be on my way! Hopefully episode 3 shall be delivered on time, if not, it'll be an extra special episode!

Ta-Ta darlings.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Episode 1 (Pilot) Let's get manly, tearful and sweaty for Souten No Ken!

See above? Pilot! That means we're allowed to screw up a bit on our first episode! 

On that note, let's talk about the sound issues; Yes, I know my Audio was rather screwed up, while Alex sounded like he was recording from Disney studios in comparison. That, will be fixed.

However, the fact that my sexy, husky, man-tear inducing voice clearly outshines Alex's Corey-Feldman-esque voice... This I cannot help, bear with the poor fellow please!

Anyway, as this is a "pilot" some things will probably change or improve over time. My review was in fact a first episode review and thus, more of a preview. Regarding the "Anime Industry" person of the week segment, Alex will be there with me next time. He was rather busy this week.

Link Removed (Episodes 1 -3 are dead to us)





Show notes:

00:00 - 01:12          Our Grand Entrance

Actually, chances are you've never heard a podcast like the ones we were sending up there. They DO exist however, or perhaps it's better to say they did.

01:12 -20:46            Dane & Alex in a nutshell

Yes, just under 20 minutes, we discuss how we got into anime and where we are now. Included are some interesting stories about how it was to be an Anime fan in Australia aka (Our population is so small. we don't support anything niche and our highest rated shows are gardening shows - land). 

My man tears flowed freely as Alex reminisces abouthow Robotech changed the destiny of he and a room full of boys in his Canadian boarding school; With Sexy Results! <-- Kidding

20:47 - 22:02           Promos & Alex Singing

You won't believe which famous figure lending his vocal talents to us, and you'd be right to do so!

Promo: Anime World Order

It ranks among my most beloved podcasts, check it out!

22:03 - 40:16              News

Ikkitousen to have second season

Berserk, Trigun and 3x3 Eyes never got their anime continuations (at least not yet) and here's why. There's just not enough material for 15 years olds to masturbate to in those respective shows. The tissue companies CONTROL the anime industry I tells ya. 

Revival of Evangelion           

I barely remember the actual news item itself as Alex did his Mr Hyde-esque transformation at the very mention of Evangelion. Here is Alex's turn to shine.

Afro "Mother F***'in" Samurai trailer up

Good luck navigating through it. The website itself was really broken when we navigated through it.

http://www.afrosamurai.com/

40:17 - 41:05  Promo - Anime Pulse

I aspire to have the listener-base these guys do. I really enjoy this podcast, just stop speaking over the top of each other in reviews fellas!

41:06 - 55:04  Review (Epiosde 1) / Preview    -  Souten No Ken

First and formost:

www.heartofmadness.com (The guys translating Hokuto No Ken, the TV series)

http://www.badongo.com/file/1808457  - My translation of Raoh Gaiden, translated from the Chinese subs. I'm rather proud of this, although there are still some obvious mistakes.

http://www.sentosha-fansubs.com/ - These guys are going to be doing Souten No Ken (among other things). They're jolly good fellows indeed!

Did you hear my voice when I said "Download this now"!?!?
This must be what "G4" is. Goodness, I sounded so forced when I said that, I want to beat the living crap out of myself
right about now.

55:46 - 1:06:50 Anime Industry Person Of The Week: Carl Macek

Carl Macek is seldom seen at any cons these days, I hear. Probably because he would get mobbed or raped by his adoring fandom! And check out that professionalism ofyours truly, what an epic screw up, I didn't even finish my conclusion before I ran the Promo!

1:06:51 - 1:07:48 Promo - Dave & Joel's Fast Karate For The Gentleman

Now here's some chaps who don't rely on SFX wizardry to make their podcast sound better than it is (unlike yours truly). They, don't need to! Check it out, it's a lot of fun.

1:07:49          -     1:10:52       Closing

Now, I know how earthquake survivors feel.

Next week, I'll be reviewing an anime that Alex can't poke fun at me for, Ghost In The Shell; Solid State Society!

Closing song is the closing song for Souten No Ken, and yes, the little "Gurandu Sponser" at the end was deliberate, I'm not that stupid right?