The Banzai Beat Anime Podcast
The Ultra Mega Playboys
(upbeat music) - Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. All you will talk around the net. This is the Anime Banzai Podcast, episode number two. As you can probably hear, you can hear my sexy, wonderful voice. I am here as always with pets. - Hello, everybody, it's a wonderful, whatever day it is when you're listening. - Yes, you just said two. - Yes, we've made it this far. We've read your suggestions, we've read your comments. You will see some improvements and we are always welcome to hearing your suggestions and we will always take the main consideration. So, as always-- - This one over a month. - Oh, go ahead. - Before we move on, I just want to remind everybody, please email your suggestions to us at abansiponcast@gmail.com. - And let's see, have you learned the website address yet? - The website address? - A button. - A button. - A button. - A button. - A button. - Animeblogger.net. - Yeah, gotta write on my first try that time. - You know, everyone should comment and just say thank you that he knew that. You'd love it. - Yes. I got a little crap for that one myself already, so I'm gonna get it right from now on. - So, this week, we thought we'd cover the latest news in the anime world, of course, as always. I will be looking at Gunsling a Girl, episode three, season two. Pat's what we're looking at, Gundam. - It'll be episode 19 of Gundam. We record episode 20's aired by now, but I haven't got my chance to watch it yet, so I'm gonna be commenting on 19. - Oh, all right. - And I'm probably on episode six or seven of Gunsling a Girl. I, who the hell cares? If you wanna watch it yourself, go ahead. You don't need me to say how great it is. Then we'll be also introducing a new feature. New feature called the long lost anime, where we take a look at and review anime from, anywhere from probably 2002. It's all the way back. This week, we'll be looking at DNA squared. A love comedy with some Playboy-esque tendencies. More to come on that. - Mm-hmm, can't complain there. - All right. - So, let's hit it. Let's get into the news. - It started all right. You wanna lead the way, my friend? - Sure, sure. Okay, well, shockingly as a baby with all the talk of illegal anime downloading, illegal anime fan-sobing, what do you know? Two Japanese accused of uploading over thousands of anime episodes in around two to three years time. The two men are Shoi Jibsakta, the hell with Japanese names. Some 30-year-old guy, 39-year-old guy and some other 35-year-old guy who was unemployed. They basically uploaded between about 5,700 episodes from about 230 titles from the fall of 2003 to this past January. The authorities further allege that they uploaded around 3,500 episodes from about 170 titles in the same time frame. For the example, the two are accused of uploading the second episode of the Kimikiss Piero, or excuse me, the second episode of the Kimikiss Piero Rouge anime series on October 14th of last year. You know, what surprised me? You got arrested for a really shitty anime. That had some donkey balls. What are you gonna show up to a police station? What'd you do, brother? I uploaded a Kimikiss. Oh shit, you bad-ass motherfucker. I'm not fucking with you. I'll be your bitch. But now on the flip side, now us as Americans Pat, we thank them and say thank you to these two men for providing the raw ribs, which now, in turn, feed the fansubbing. Yeah, I guarantee you, they were probably providing quite a few of the raw versions, that many of the fansub groups around the internet used. There's a very good chance there, so. Now here's a flip side to the article. There is really, there's a gray line in terms of uploading content. Yes. And there's a gray line of downloading content. They say you cannot upload it for commercial purposes to gain money, but you can download it to watch if a person will use an uploader for personal use. But now there's a lot on the books that try to pass that will make it illegal to do either. And I guess they've made enemies. They're just making enemies, I guess, with the Japanese people. And I think that's, personally, I think that's pretty cool that, at least right now, their government is saying, it's personal use, you're not gonna go, we're not gonna find you on the corner. You know, Kimmy gets puree, she's into, you know, episode two, $50,000 or $50,000 yen. You know, they say personal use, you're good to go, but we'll see along that last. Yeah, it seems to be that they're starting to go after these guys who are a bit lately there. 'Cause it's, a lot of those companies in Japan have a lot of flack. And I think that that's where it comes down to, is it's a pretty important industry there, and they don't wanna damage it. Yeah, you know, what surprises me, though, is they've waited these many years to discuss the topic where now the digital distribution age is here. You've got stuff like BitTorrent, you've got stuff, YouTube, Flash, I would say made a huge change in terms of file distribution. But I just find it weird that they wait, you know, 2008, or late 2007, to do anything. Yeah, I guess that's true, and at the same time, if you look at the way things are going in the US now, they're finally starting, for the most part, at least with music at least so far, is the companies are finally starting to figure out how to actually deal with some of this stuff. And my brain, God, that they're finally, from what I've heard, is that even the music labels are starting to move away from the-- - D-R-I-A-A. - Yup. - Which is, I'm just a psychotic group of fuckers. - Indeed, indeed. So, you know, I was just really, you know, we'll see what happens with these guys. I wonder, I hope there's an update. You know, I'd be interested to see. It kinda sounds like these guys will probably have to pay a fine, but really have any jail time, because it really isn't much of a lot on the books for this type of crime, which I'm surprised by. And you know, the funny thing is though, they ask, you know, why did you do all this? They said they wanted to be appreciated. I mean, I guess it's gonna have friends, and you don't, you know, your life. I mean, one of these guys were unemployed. He had nothing to strive for, you know, he didn't have a reason to wake up in the morning. I guess, you know, putting out raw rips for people to download just, you know, fed his ego and got what he needed for satisfaction, I guess. People do weird things, I guess. - Yes, it's a bizarre state, you know what I mean? But that's certainly something I'd like to be interested in, and it's exactly what kind of punishment they receive for what they did. I mean, that's the real question there. I mean, in the U.S., you hear all the time about them going after these kind of people, but most of the time it always ends up dropped or they hardly get any, they get some kind of lame fine. So, it's something that I'm interested in finding out about. - Yeah, definitely. - And if anybody hears, let us know. - Yeah, please do. It just be kind of interesting to see what kind of happens. And I'll just say this, no offense to any Japanese people listening, I just don't want to horribly screw up the name. So, in the spirit of that, let's move on to our next task story. - The next story is that Warner Brothers has greenlit a live action adaptation of Katsuyo Otomo's modern anime Akira. - Right, you called classic among many, and many, many feel that Akira brought anime to the mainstream. - Akira, Akira is always seen as the first anime, many older people, you know, probably in the early 30s, mid 30s now, say that was the first anime, you know, the first show that got me in an anime. - Yeah, but I mean, and definitely, I don't think the fascinating thing about this whole thing. Well, first off is that it's being produced by, of all people, Leonardo DiCaprio. - Yeah, that's kind of weird. I mean, when I first heard that, I was like, "The Titanic guy?" - Yeah, well, if you've seen any of his more recent work, he's actually an incredible actor. And just look at the departed, if you need any example. But there's even an interesting trailer I saw today called Funny Games, where he plays a serial killer, but he looks very not your typical serial killer, and, you know, kind of plays as demented character, but hides it really well, you know, he seems like he's a really good role. - He's a great actor and he's essentially taking Robert De Niro's plates with Mark Scorsese. - Oh, wow. - It's basically his go-to guy. I mean, you look at all of Scorsese's more recent movies, they're all starring DiCaprio from the movie. (laughing) The next couple of years coming out are starring, too, and, well, one comes down to what this is, their plan is to do two movies, each covering three volumes of the manga. The volume is, the manga is six volumes long. They're long, but at the same time, it shows that they actually have some kind of a real plan, and that maybe they're actually gonna stick with the base story. Granted, there's gonna be some logical changes, like, it's taking place in what they call New York. - New New York? - Yeah, New Manhattan? - Yeah, it's a new Tokyo. - Yeah, exactly. - I think they're just trying to make it more American. - Can they dip in American audience? - Yeah, I mean, I guess if, you know, I guess if people really wanna bitch and complain, they could and say, "Hey, it's not sticking to Hunter, "it's under the story." Well, if I think if you care that much, go find yourself a live-action Japanese version. - Yeah, you know, you kinda have everything, you gotta accept that for something, 'cause you gotta binge on it. - Exactly, and you know what, it's really surprising too, 'cause I mean, we've got the Speed Raiser movie coming out. I heard they were making a Witchblade movie. - Yeah, yeah, well, Witchblade's starting in the US, granted, but-- - That's true, but I mean-- - Also, then you have Tobey Maguire, who's supposed to be working on some kind of Robotech thing, which is gonna be interesting to see what happens with that, mainly just because of whether or not they'll be able to, it'll have like, Valkyries in it or if it's gonna be like the Southern Cross stuff, and because of licensing agreements, 'cause even if you look at the new Shadow Chronicles movie, it doesn't have any of the Valkyries in it really-- - Oh, okay. - Doesn't really mention them across Saga. - But, um, they're saying now, according to Ina Cool, they reported that the Caprio will be starring in it as Kannada. Oh, that sticks as his name. And then another actor named Joseph Gordon-Levitt, he's not that big yet, but he was in a movie called Look Out a couple of years ago, or last year, and he's in a movie coming out soon called Stop Loss, and he's a really good actor. He was also, he got, which was another one he was in last year, and he was really good in that. He's not a, he's a fairly unknown actor, well, not unknown, but not big in the front of everyone, big, famous guy yet, but he's definitely moving up there. He's a really good actor, and honestly, they've got at least two half-decent players, and then the plan is to go summer-09 with the first movie, so it seems like, and then you mention the fact that Warner had the right to the movie to be, at a point, lost them, and then they had to re-acquire of, you know, apparently they had to bid for them, and it ended up costing them over seven, in the seventh figure range, which I think means that maybe they're a little serious about it, which would be nice to see, 'cause it's definitely great source of material. - So, you know, you just find it funny, though, that they sat on the license for so long, and they had to pay all this money to get back. I mean, I'd fire the person who did that. I mean, dang, shit, you know, really. - He's a very good one. - Damn, if I lost my company, $7 million, I'd be candin' a heartbeat goin', what the heck? - How much I actually paid. - Yeah. - So, in the seventh figure range, which could be $1 million, could be, you know? - Yeah, exactly, like to be quite a bit, you know, I just hope, you know, it seems that the movies theaters are, or, excuse me, the movie studios are running out of ideas, and now they're going, anime is the hot thing now. Everyone likes anime now. I hope they just don't bring out a ton of different movies, and then just ruin the genre, not really groomed the genre, but I think it's always nice to see adaptations, but there's only so long before someone really screws it up, and people go, what the hell? - Well, you gotta remember, there was one thing that Hollywood loves to do, and that's beat ideas into the ground. I mean, a couple years ago, you saw adaptations of video games. - Yeah, in a couple months, there was a new movie based on a game, and that died out pretty quick, because they just all wound it up sucking and calling for anything. Oh yeah, hey, you get- look at Super Mario Bros. and movie, and yeah, there you go. Yeah, you think they should have known right then, but that- and then you'll look at them- the comic books, but at the same time, a lot of those have been really good. Yeah, Punisher, Spider-Man for sure. I guess as an anime fan I'm happy to see that these movies are coming out in America. I hope that people's stereotypical view of anime will change by possibly watching these. You know when I mention of people that watch anime they automatically assume anti or... Pokemon, yeah. I say no, no, no, there's other stuff, you know. Yeah, yeah, it's that kind of thing. But, you know, like I have a friend who... He watches some anime, I finally get him to watch some stuff. He won't watch stuff at school because he's afraid what people might think. It's kind of like... He's a closet anime. Yeah, it's exactly. It's like... You know that people know that you collect Transformers figures. Why are you afraid of anime? So... It's just that kind of... I don't like seeing that. And at the same time, maybe it'll help some of these bigger things might help the market grow and rebuild itself after kind of a... Oh yeah, last week. Yeah, last week we spoke about the DVD figures. Maybe this week when people are interested going, "Hey, I really like this movie. Maybe I'll check out some anime." And there's a lot of anime out there that we as anime fans can definitely say, you know, "Watch this as a good starter." I mean, I got interested in anime because of Cowboy Bebop. And I was watching that on Adult Swim. I mean, you know, just something as simple as that. Picked my curiosity and I just dug a little deeper thanks to the internet and found a lot of shows. And then I said, "You know, I like these shows. Oh, hey, DVDs. I now own about 45 DVDs and about 10 bucksets." So, you know, I see this as a possibly good thing to just pray that they don't overdo it and ruin the genre. Exactly. Yeah. Who knows, they might have no strength, they might not. Indeed. Katakawa can't, the Japanese Haruki Suzumi Dojin game. Basically, they ruined our fun. They ruined our fan fun. You know, the thing is, there's no... What was it? Flattery is the best form of... Uh, uh, uh, uh, appreciate it. Yeah. Mimicry is the best form of flattery. Yeah, there you go. Basically, a fan created a PC game, kind of like Dynasty Warriors. But instead of having the Warriors, they had Haruki and the Lucky Star friends. And they went around fighting monsters. Hell yes. What's wrong with that? I mean, I... Apparently a lot over here, kind of, but... Who knows? I mean, I'll tell you in a second, I found out that that's what I was supposed to have. Granted, the odds of me ever playing were one in a million, but... No, exactly. I would have been interested just to check it out, see what all the odds. The fuss was about, but... I just think it's crap that, you know, these studios, I understand they want to protect their interact... Their IP rights and their copyrights, but... I mean, let's be fine to find out later on that, oh, they were selling it for 50 bucks a pop on the corner, or... Or, for download. They're not gonna all change my tune, but... I think that they're just, you know, making something that a fan's obviously... Had a good time making and probably wanted to share with the world. Here's the spirit. There's my thought on this, and this is something that I was thinking about. I noticed online, some people were talking about some other stuff. When people make these kind of things, I don't get why they don't think to themselves. Instead of talking about it forever until before it's finished, wait until you're done. They're close to done to talk about it online and say, "Hey, I got this, look how cool it is," and all that kind of stuff. So you can start distributions of people who will have it instead of devoting on your time and energy to a project for a couple months, and they... If some company comes along and says, "Oh, no, you're not doing that anymore, and you're just wasting your time," instead of having more enjoyment. It's something that crosses my mind once in a while. Why don't they just, um, hush up for a little while before they, you know, lock this thing? Yeah. Well, I guess we gotta say we're lucky. I mean, we use a lot of images and whatnot. So, you know, I guess I'm hoping that it stays at this level, you know, fan-created things. I think it's going a little far... I think it's going a little far, though. I mean, the game was probably a simple game. I mean, they probably weren't selling it, but there's a lot of the story we don't know. But I think that, yeah, that's the other question. They were charging money for it. Then I could understand why they went after it because, quite frankly, you can't be charging money for someone. You don't have the right to do it that kind of thing. Exactly. But hey, you know, let's just hope that, uh, you know, people still creating their... create fan art, create fan fiction. All that good stuff. I mean, I'm sure that they're not going to be stopping that stuff. I think it really comes down to protecting it because... I mean, they can't... I mean, there's a whole world devoted to that stuff in Japan. They're not going to be stopping all that. They're just going to be holding... They just don't want certain things. And at the same time, they're making games based on it really. I don't know if they're any good, but they don't want other stuff. Yeah, they do. Personally, I'm waiting for the DDR version of Haruhi and Lucky Star. Yeah, but even if it's just a single download of Xbox Live... Hey, give it here. You'd make a lot of people happy. Yeah, y'all wouldn't see it. Step many is not those people. Oh, there you go. Step many. Yeah. Someone must have set those up by now. Now you got me thinking. Oh, all right. Well, we got one more news for you tonight. And that is something a little interesting. This is that they have done it once again. Shigofumi episode eight has been edited down before airing. This is something because of recent circumstances in the society at large. That's a quote. And it's fine and strange. Just a second time it happened, they did something like this... Episode three. Episode three. And then one of the... One of the networks that errs it preempted episode six of the show. Stopped it from airing. And it's one of the eight broadcasting stations that errs it. Just stopped it before it aired. So it's kind of one of the strange intuitions. It's weird that the show has gotten so much flack. But at the same time, I've checked out. Personally, I've only watched the first episode. And it definitely is a little bit on the... I don't know what's what I'm looking for. Maybe the grim side. Some people just love it, but I will admit what I saw. I enjoy it. I've gotten the opportunity to watch anymore yet. But it's very, very interesting that this keeps happening. And they're not saying why. They're doing it. They're just saying there's circumstances. They're not saying what's being edited. Why it's being edited. What circumstances there are just that they exist. And that they're stopping from airing. Um, no, I may be wrong. I'm actually doing a Google search. Should we speak on this? Is Shigufami... Isn't that one of the episodes or one of the DVDs coming to the US? Oh, yes. That's um... Yeah. Yeah. True tears. Yes. You're right. Okay, yeah. Thank you. It's a very exotic, simple one episode. One or two episodes of this series. I don't know who the hell is he gonna buy out here quite frankly. You know, I'm gonna say I'm interested in two tears. Yeah, I'm looking on Anime News Network. Thank you guys. Yeah, it was announced on January 30th. That both true tears and Shigufami, sorry if I mispronounced that. Uh, we're coming to America two months after the initial release in Japan. So I think a lot of people are looking forward to this. Yeah, it's... That's something Bay Night is over. They're doing this nice and quick, but they're still feeling expensive. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Shigufami. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm gonna cut you off. Uh, May 13th. May 13th, they come out. $40 for two episodes each. Oh, one of them is only... I said, I believe one of the shows, they're actually one show. They're doing it in the first episode. You only get the first volume of turn tears on May 27th for $30 is only one episode. Correct. Yeah, and the next episode. Shigufami, you get two episodes for the first. And then the last DVD has one episode. They flipped it. Correct. So yeah, I mean, I think they're taking a big gamble on this. I don't mean to get off the topic. But, um, I think they're taking the game. Uh, they've been doing the same stuff. I think what it really comes down to is it's probably, they probably figured out how to make the prof. They have a very good number. 'Cause they're right now, they're not widely distributed. So the only places you pick them up are maybe the right stuff and then the dot anime site, which is their website, or you can buy it, essentially. And I'm sure they've just got it boiled down to... Well, that's, uh, you know... I would... Yeah, exactly. And I would think that these edited episodes would be complete on the DVDs, both in Japan and America. Yeah, I'd imagine that too, that they would be the full version. And I'll tell you, the biggest advantage for me is... I actually like to buy tutorials, because so far it's probably... It's definitely in my top three or four that are airing right now. Yeah, I'm almost kicked up. I'm not paying that kind of money to watch until I get the DVDs. Alright, yeah, I'm... I'm trying to play tug of war, because I haven't watched anything yet. I think I'll probably look at the first episode. I know that 80 or on a season of Bandai visuals will probably stream in the first episode. I think I'll check out the first episode, make one decision then, but by the reading, the synopsis... It sounds like something I could kind of get into, but I've looked at other keen slice of life, slice of life movies like "True Heart" and "True Heart" I just could not freaking... I have to say, "True Tears" is much more... it feels like it's aiming almost for an adult audience. Excellent. Excellent. A little bit more serious, and it's still got some of that, you know... ...trippical, malely thing, where he's a bitch and doesn't want to say anything, you know? But at the same time, it's a lot. It's a bit more realistic, I think, and at the same time, beautifully animated. Oh yeah, the screenshots look freaking amazing. Oh my god, it's amazing. It's at least on the same level as "Clanad" right now, at least. Okay. Just a background or... it just blows me away. You know what? I'm surprised that "Clanad" and "Sketch Book" and "H2O Footprints in the Sand" have not been picked up by anyone yet, especially "Clanad" seeing as... "Clanad", "H2O Footprints in the Sand", and "Sketch Book". The "Sketch Book", I don't... ...Sketch Book, I don't see getting picked up realistically. I mean, you know what, it's just like the most internet buzz, but... You know, I wonder what prompted Bandai to pick these two shows, you know? I'll tell you what prompted Bandai. They own the rights to release the DVDs in Japan, and they're like, "Okay, we'll release something." Oh, okay, that makes sense. It's probably what it is. Damn, okay. I thought it was something interesting. You know, but like... ...something like... ...back to that topic with on "Sketch Book" and those kind of shows those... ...those boil down, slice of life, nothing happens, period shows. Those never get picked up. They give massive internet buzz. I think the best example of that is "Aria". None of the "Aria" shows have been brought over here, even though they're some of the most... ...awesome shows ever. But... ...they range, and that... ...that none of that stuff makes it over here. Clanid, something... ...if ADV... ...pulls themselves... ...sprightens everything out. I imagine ADV will be releasing Clan because... ...they release air, and they're supposed to be releasing Canon. Yeah, Canon. ...because they're key shows by Kiel Annie. Yeah. So I imagine it'll... ...pretty safe to assume that once they get their acting better, they'll probably be releasing Clanid. Excellent. Yeah, I have yet to watch... ...really any of that. I haven't even watched Canon yet, and I know that's come out a few months ago. I just haven't had the chance to get my hands on a copy yet, but... I know they've finished releasing air. Yes, I watched air... ...the first volume of Canon. The second volume was supposed to come out a week or two ago. Yeah, I got delayed. But it's... ...yeah, it's... ...all their new stuff has been getting delayed lately. Yeah. And... ...they're fine. You know, Shuku Fami, or... ...Air, Canon... ...all these kind of shows really seem like... ...you gotta kind of have to be in the mood to watch 'em. You can't be in a happy, upbeat mood to watch 'em. It's like you're gonna have to go get broken up with your boyfriend or girlfriend... ...or be depressed. And then the show will, like, fit your mood perfect. Otherwise, I think you're gonna be like... ...this show isn't very fun to watch. Why am I watching this? Yeah. That's why I found all the air. I was like... ...okay. I feel like shit now. There's little girls talking about committing suicide. This is very fun. I watch anime to make myself feel better. Enjoy myself. This doesn't do that. Yeah. That's true. Oh, I'm gonna do it again. That's why I like to balance that stuff. It's like, "Oh, okay. I'll go watch, um... ...say, air." Just for an example. And then... ...I don't know. I feel sad. Let me go watch an episode of Hayate No Go-Toku or something like that. Okay. Okay. Well, um... Six, I should say. Yes. Before we move on, I think I got one little thing. This is just something that I want to throw out there for myself, basically. And that is that Katokala and Bandai Entertainment. The Bandai that releases reasonably priced up and solicited the first Lucky Star DVD release for May 6th with a regular edition and a limited edition. Nothing else really to add to that just that. I'm happy to know that it's coming reasonably soon because I'm fired away. So, all the horror fans are doing. I honestly couldn't watch it because the subs moved so fast that I just couldn't keep up and I just said, "You know what? The first episode of that was great. I loved that they parodied video games and a lot of stuff that I kind of do. So, um... I'm looking forward to it. We always talk about a half an hour in the news, so, uh... Let's move on to review, shall we? Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. Hey, we're putting our... Oh, I know we're gonna do some beatboxing now. There you go, guys. Look at that. Oh, okay. You said you were gonna look at Gundam today. Take it away. All right. Well, I am going to be talking about episode 19 of Gundam because I have not seen episode 20 yet. It has aired at this point. You'll be good. But I can't really... I can't understand Japanese and subs aren't out yet. So, I'm gonna be talking about 19 for today. And 19 picked up... And at the end of episode 18, we were brought in with Setsuna, our lead, engaging the Gundam Thrones in combat. Well, about to engage them, I should say, because he has decided now that because they have been attacking civilians, they're no better than just terrorists, and they're not really helping their cause. And he's decided that they need to stop them. So, it opens with this very cool scene of him just blasting at them. And it's kind of... What should I say, bogged down by the fact that it's three on one at this point. But what comes from there is, of all people, and this is just blown away personally, was that Tierra, pilot of the virtue, decides to support Setsuna. He's the one guy, who, if anyone who's following the show knows, kind of has been a bit of a gift to everybody else throughout the whole series, and kind of acts like he's better than them. But it's kind of... You get this feeling that he's really starting to get what everyone's like. And he shows up, and he's battling them too, and then lock on the third of the four Meisters, ends up joining them as well. So, it ends up being a three on three battle. Clearly, the Meisters, who, if you watch the last couple episodes, you get this feeling that the Thrones are actually more powerful. But then at the same time, you start seeing them. It doesn't, you get this feeling that they're not actually that skilled of pilots. So, it ends up being a very, very close fight with Tierra using, activating his not-all-by-a-gum-dom, and using some bizarre system known as the trial system that essentially disables, he can disable any other units that are linked to theta. But, for some lack doubt reason, he loses control of the system, and the Thrones end up just running away, which was horribly disappointed because it was such a cool fight. And then, from that point, we move on to everybody's favorite couple, Saji and Louise, who... I'm still personally up in the air about what the heck was going on with these characters and where they're going. But, essentially, after episode 18, Louise lost her hand. Her whole family is dead now. And... Well, that sucks. Yeah, because of the Thrones, by the way. And... She basically, Louise tells Saji, they're both from Japan, they're in Spain right now. She basically tells Saji that he has to go home and go back to school to follow his dream because her dream is for him to follow his. And, well, essentially breaks down to her. What came off like is almost dumping him, in a sense. I'm not really sure how that is, but... And then it enters into one of those, you know, sappy... Love montages with some new insert song playing. And it's kind of like... Okay, whatever. I still... Ask me anything. My biggest interest in this show now is kind of with where the fuck is this character, Saji going. Because... He's been developed so much, he's not a pilot, he has no real connection to anything, except that sets him into the pilot of the Exia, happens to be his next door neighbor. And then his sister is a reporter who's investigating the Meisters. And from there, we get some development with his sister, and we learn something very strange that... The mysterious Laguna, who is supporting the Thrones, happens to own her newspaper or whatever it is that she works with. But she's decided that, as of now, she's going to keep investigating. My personal theory, and I think this ends up being true at 20, is that... She's going to get hurt or offed or something, because it's just the most logical explanation, because everybody else that's known jack shit about these guys, or come close to figuring out something about them, has been offed. You know, I'm kind of running a little long now, sorry, because I didn't get a little ramble in on this. But at the end, we got two other things left. First is, the Thrones, when they ran away, they revealed that, for some reason, the KPSA, the Kurdish were responsible for the terrorist group. That Setsuna was a member of, were responsible for the deaths of Lock-On's family. And that's the whole reason Lock-On is even a pilot. I don't know what the fuck the Kurdish were doing, why the Kurdish were doing terrorist attacks in Ireland, but I'm going to just go with it. And it essentially builds into this confrontation, and it really just ends up being the two characters testing each other's resolve to really fight towards their mutual goal of eradicating warfare. And the biggest thing that I found interesting about this scene was at the end. Teria, who has been one of the weirdest characters, and he's got some freaky glowy eyes to begin with. He says something like, "So this is what a human is," or something like that. And somebody says it in this poem that comes off as, "He isn't one." So it's like, "Right." And then as it closes, we see these, what looks to be different people from each of the three governments. Human over formerly the European Union and the Union, the A.U. and the Union, all in Antarctica dropping this giant service elevator. And then they overlook what looks to be 30-chan drives. And the logical explanation is that these are the same type of-chan drives in the phones, which is essentially fake-chan drives. Because they have a limited-they can't run forever, like the actual-chan drives in the four main guns. Which is their whole, which is why they're fake, obviously. And why they emit red particles versus the green ones that the Meisters scund them in. And overall, I thought this is a great episode, and it's even more of those wild buildup towards what looks to be some big confrontation just in time for the show to go on a six-month hiatus. Which is, well, say the least freaking me out of it because I hate that kind of shit. And I know it's going to drive me completely insane to see this show just go on a pause like that. And it's just going to end up having to re-watch the entire season again. So what episode are they starting the hiatus, and is there a reason why? Well, I think it's just come down to that's what they decided to do with the show. And I think, and I'm thinking part of it is production, they're giving themselves more time. So, because if you watch it, you look at it, and it's definitely-the animation is definitely a step above what seed and seed destiny was, especially destiny. Because when you have a show where they reused and destiny reused animation on a ridiculous amount, to the point where there's actually a point where if you know destiny, there was a point where they were reusing animations, and it was the impulse fighting. And if you watch closely, you see the strike from the original seed being reused, its animation is being reused, where the impulse is supposed to be fighting. So it was a completely different unit in the fight in this one scene. But that's what it really seems like they're doing. They're giving the show more time for production. It sounds like a good thing because I mean- I mean, I'm not a Gundam fan, but I mean, I guess I'd say in any show I'm watching, if I saw that crap going on, I'd be upset. I'd be like, well, what the hell, you know? What's your excuse? Do you're hand full of during animation, and you were forced to go back? Yeah, exactly, and it just seems like everything is a step above what the last show was, it's just like they're working hard on. I've got a better team going, frankly, and they've got an amazing director. I'm not going to be able to state his name right now, but it's the same guy who directed full metal outfits, working on this. Okay. And that's why I'm really curious about Sasha, because if you go back and look at that alone, the way the characters were weaved together in an incredible way. Which means this guy has at least some skill this stuff, and bringing someone fresh into this was definitely a great step again. The whole show, even at this point, has been, what should I say, show? It's been doing things that none of the other shows have done. It's been, it's looking at things on a different angle. It's like, they actually talked about economics, stuff, how much it cost to build these same thing. It's that kind of thing. Okay. And it's really cool to see. Yeah, but yeah, I believe it's episode 25 that goes on hiatus, and then it comes back in October. You know, they haven't said when it's going to be airing in October, but I know it's changing time slots. I imagine it's probably going to end up taking the same time slot that coat, that the second coat piece is going to be airing in. Because that picks up, that starts airing right after Gundam ends. Gotcha. All right. Well, I'll end up rambling way too long if you don't stop me. So I'm going to kick it over to you now so you can talk about your show. It's not a problem. Good review. A little more prepared than last time. It's always good. So yeah, I looked at the second season, episode three of Gunslinger Girl. And remember last week we met a new character named Pinocchio. He is a child assassin who was an orphan or sort of led to believe I'm not really really told point blank. He was picked up by some guy and turned into a assassin kid. Well, the social welfare agency hasn't called in to look for a dead worker from another department. And they are told to look out for Pinocchio and find him and capture him. So this episode kind of comes off with a meeting with Hillshire. And Hillshire is Trilla's handler. He's in a meeting with another handler and kind of the head office guy discussing how they're going to work. And they come down to it where it's going to be Hillshire and Trilla going over to where Pinocchio is. I apologize. I don't have the names in front of me of the cities. Either way, they get to the city and Trilla and Hillshire kind of go in. And it seems like Trilla has the same kind of crush that Henrietta has for Jose but not so much. He makes a couple of marks. She was afraid that they were going to stand out in public because they were in suits and ties and all that. I mean, what French person does that I guess? It's not very much. So he said, "You look really good in your tie, your suit." So she blushed it. You know, it seems like she's kind of, I don't think he has a crush or anything but kind of takes what he says. Yeah, it had it exactly. I've noticed with this season they've taken a more from being the cybernetic killer, cold, you know, heartless to now they have feelings and care about stuff. More. So, anyway, they end up finding Pinocchio and the little friend of Pinocchio's named Aurora happens to walk in when trying to deliver food and get kidnapped by the other two terrorists. And finding out that Pinocchio is indeed a bad guy. She picks up an automatic semi-machine gun and basically gets kidnapped. Pinocchio says that he's going to kill her because, you know, he said for her to stay away from him and not monkey around with his business because she would not end up in a good position. Well, Trilla ended up slipping a microphone into the basket of food that Aurora was delivering. Hillshire gets very emotional about making sure Aurora is captured safe. So he orders Trilla into the home to take care of the two terrorists in Pinocchio. So she bursts in there and totally gets owned. I love this episode for this reason. Episode or season one, they were shown as invincible. They could never get caught. They couldn't do anything. You know, if a bad guy came after him, they would somehow prevail. Not this time. Yeah, not this time around. Pinocchio kicked her ass up and down. She came in there with a shotgun and it didn't do her any good. He came running around and gave her a nice jumping uppercut and knocked her ass out good. Hillshire came from behind and rescued Aurora from one of the terrorists and made sure she was safe. All three got away. The kind of the turning point in the episode though is Trilla wakes up after the fact of everything that Pinocchio and the other two terrorists got away and basically is sobbing because she's supposed to be cybernetic. That stuff isn't supposed to happen. And she really thought that busting in there and doing what she did was completely worthless and Hillshire tried to reassure her saying, "Look, you saved a little girl's life. That's what's most important." You know, they can always tackle the terrorist group later on. So she took it as, you know, "I failed. Don't talk to me. Don't touch me. I'm going to go soak in my own little world." The episode was good. A little slow in the beginning but it picked up and I think the whole turning point with showing that yes, the girls are made of cybernetic parts. They're supposed to be unstoppable and they actually aren't. I welcome that change. I mean, I hope it doesn't reoccur too often but if it does, you know, hopefully comes out in a good way, I guess. But I got to say, I love the episode. Definitely a step up from, because you didn't seem to thrill with the last couple. Yeah, the first and second episode were kind of like the first episode. They were just trying to reintroduce all the characters and they went back to what season one had. Bad guys are introduced. The good girls are introduced. Something bad happens. The girls rush in and some spectacular action sequence involving shooting and then the bad guys being caught and the girls being praised happened. But then on the flip side, episode two comes along and you don't see the girls for the last minute of the show. And what really surprised me is Triella has been the main focus in terms of all the girls. Henrietta has not been seen since episode one, which I'm very shocked about because Henrietta was the main character of season one. Yeah, so, and I guess season or episode four will continue on in this path of trying to catch Pinocchio and what happens. So that's just a brief synopsis. I mean, I'm not going to go through every bit in detail. If this sounds interesting to you, definitely go check it out. If you'd like season one of Gunslinger Girl, check it out just to, you know, I think they're trying something new and it could be even more interesting. Season one kind of left me with a, that was a good anime, but kind of feeling like, what was the point? So it seems like this time around there digging deeper. It's good to hear. Yeah, so I would rate this episode really high. I mean, this is good. They are setting a good story base. I hope they end the main arc right now in one, two more episodes just because I think you can only do something so long without introducing a radical new twist, which they may do. So that's Gunslinger Girl for you. So it's time to move to our new feature of the podcast. Long last anime for our first series. Well, let's explain this real quick. Okay. Basically, what we're going to be doing is every couple weeks, we're going to be doing this weekly, probably by weekly or on occasion, basically. We're going to be going back and basically each of us were, well, one of us every once in a while, we'll be talking about an older show dating a couple of few years back that some people have forgotten about essentially. Because you talk about the new stuff and you always forget the old stuff. It's just the way things happen and basically what we're trying to do is bring some older stuff back to the front and let people look at it again. So take it away, my friend, with DNA squared. There we go. So, yeah, DNA squared is first off a comedy, a little bit of romance thrown in there, but in the pureest form of the comedy. He starts off with a 16 year old kid named Juta Miyamori. He is a loser, you know, typical, you know, typical guy. I guess he's an animal, and he's an armed loser, right? Exactly. He even has one obscene thought about a girl. He throws up. So the only girl he seems to ever be normal around is his near army. She's like a school friend and a childhood friend, and they've never gotten to the point of boyfriend and girlfriend, and they don't ever really seem to be. So basically, this show is about this other girl named Karen Owie. Basically, she's a 16 year old DNA operator from an overcrowded future sent back in time to order to prevent the advent of the mega playboy. Using a DCM. Basically, it's a bullet that she's supposed to shoot with in Juta. Juta, supposedly, is going to become this awesome playboy who has sex with every girl he seems to meet, and they all produce kids. Everyone, he's incredibly fertile. That kid, you know, with today's child support last, that must suck. You all owe child support for 3,327 kids. Pay up. So, she's supposed to go back in time and prevent this from happening. And her goal in life is she just wants a nice husband, a cute pet, and a sweet home. And by shooting this bullet into Juta, she will have all that. But unexpectedly, she shoots him with the wrong bullet. So, she runs back to the future all happy and finds out that she screwed up. Now it's her job to go back and re-do what she was supposed to do. On the flip side of this, Juta is madly in love with her and falls head over heels in love with her. And it just gets wacky from here on out. There's a lot, there's like a love triangle going on between Karen, and Ami, and Tomoko. And Tomoko is this popular beautiful girl at Juta's school who plays hard to get and kind of is a bitch. She uses her sex and a good look to get what she wants in life. Well when Juta starts becoming the Mega Playboy, that's what she wants. She falls in love with them. And the funny thing, the one thing I've ever mentioned was the bullet that Karen shot in, Juta makes a Mega Playboy. Sometimes he's come out quicker and Juta is a smooth talking, can't say anything to get into girls pants. And it's just so funny to watch because these girls are head over heels. "Oh, I love you! Oh, you're just so great! Oh, I want you to take me to bed!" And he's just like, "Oh, yeah, baby. I'll take you to bed any day of the week." So that's basically a show in a nutshell. Other characters come and go. There's a lot of turmoil, there's a lot of comedy, and hell, there's even an evil villain guy who gets powers and they fight. And they just run a gamut of genres. Wow. And right now you're listening to the intro theme. And I haven't... Unfortunately, I haven't... No, it's not. Yes, correct. Oh, wow. Unfortunately, I currently no longer have this anime. I was going to make a special feature where, if you have an iPod video, you could watch clips of the show. Well, I'm talking about it. But, you know, this will be later on, we'll look into. Anyway... Anyway, yeah, indeed. If you're just a fan of any kind of comedy, and you're open-minded, because this show is just so goofy... It's followable, and there's always something new and interesting that happens to keep you interested from episode to episode. I would say check it out. Well, just to mention this, it does seem that there is a box set available. That is still in print from, sorry, Central Park Media. It seems that they still have a box set in print out there. Oh, wow. Now, 40... 45 bucks. Yeah, and the show is from 1994, and the animation really does show its age, but it's not terrible. And I kind of like anime that. Stuff from the '90s and stuff. That kind of almost vintage. I know up to it, but not quite there. Kind of weird to describe. Everything from the '90s has this bit of a look to it, that kind of music. And the dub work was really good. The animation is good for its time. I mean, I wouldn't call it "Clinad" or any of these computer-generated wonders, but I would definitely say watch it. You know, weird comedy, interesting premise, I mean, hell. Who does not want to be a mega-ultra playboy? You know, if you could say, "I want to get any girl's pants easy on the street," you could do it. I would just say minus the child support. So, yeah, Central Park Media, Central Park Media, 40 bucks. I mean, it's a complete series. It's about, shoot. It is 12 episodes, and then there is three or four OVA's that happen after... Oh, excuse me, three OVA's that happen after the original run, which kind of puts everything up. Because I'll say that the show kind of ends quickly. Yeah, but I mean, they don't leave a lot of things unpackaged or, you know, unwrapped. So, they kind of threw, I think they threw these OVA's in just to, you know, add the masking tape, tie the bow on top, and say, "Okay, everything's done." So, that is DNA in a nutshell. Also, that's really great to hear about. And it's certainly something that I'd like to check out at some point myself. I sadly have not watched it. You know, and I just don't, you know, this is just one of those shows you... I saw for download on a newest group, and I said, "Hey, I've never heard of this." "Hey, the complete series is sitting here." I downloaded and started watching. I was like, "This is a really good show!" And, you know, just one of those things that, you know, early we're talking about advocating, you know, piracy and all that for anime works. But this is one of those shows that if I would have saw in the... would have saw in the store, I probably would have said, "You know, this looks kind of dumb." But I got a chance to watch it, not pay anything, and go, "Wow, this is a really good show!" And, uh, yeah, you know. So... I know the feeling you're talking about, I definitely agree with it. Yeah, I gotta say this thing. I gotta say this thing, well, we're on my one half. I mean, one of those shows I saw the packaging and, you know, it was a box set and I said, "Sure!" Turns out I really like the show. So, um... Oh, it's a great show. Oh, it's a good show. Yeah, I'm just not even done. I'm not even done with the second box set yet. So, uh... My rating out of five would probably be a three. Uh, really good dub work, interesting story. Um, the... the characters are really well developed. Uh, I would just say maybe a little bit of abrupt ending, but the OVA does help kind of pick up the loose ends. So, it's three out of five for me. Uh, I would say definitely give it a... give it a once over. Uh, you know. So... That's not exactly how I did this. So, um, I think this will wrap it up for this week's show. It's a little, um, closing out now. Yeah, to let everybody know, we have been dug. So, I am waiting on Dig to actually allow this show to be seen by the public. I am assuming they're waiting for one or two more episodes to show up right now. And currently speaking, we have one episode in the box. So, you know, uh, we'll see if we can get stuck. Yeah, and we do have, um, our RSS up now for people to subscribe. And I were currently submitted for iTunes. We have not been... we're not up quite yet, but I imagine it'll happen anytime now. So, you should be able to see us there soon. You should... and we'll have our RSS posted on the site. Definitely. And if anyone listening, you know, has a pen and a piece of paper, it is www.boring.me.uk/podcast/rss.xml. And that will be updated on a weekly basis along with our show. So, if you can't find us through Dig or iTunes, we are trying to expand our footprint in terms of how you can find us. You know, we'd be more than happy to have anyone, you know, put us on your blog, put us on your webpage, your Myspace, anything to help spread the word of the Anime Banzai Podcast. Of course. And again, I want to remind you all, please send in any suggestions to us at abanzaipodcast@gmail.com. And also, something else we've been thinking about doing is some kind of a mailbag feature. If anyone has any kind of questions, anything you'd like to see us comment on, also email us. And I mean, or abanzaipodcast@gmail.com. Just with the subject line mailbag. And we'd love to hear from you. No, if we can get... if we can get, you know, if you can send us questions, we'll try to get our best to get you answers. You know, we're not... Anything you want to hear us comment on, because I know you just love to hear us talk. Oh, yes. And of course, don't forget to visit our site with our great friend Uba at all. And many, many other... many required many other writers as well. Let me get this right again, abanzai.animeblogger.net. There you go. And just a special note, I will be in Las Vegas next week, so I will be doing a podcast live from Vegas. I don't know what that really means in terms of anime related stuff, but I will try to keep my eyes peeled. You know, I have an interesting note, but maybe I'll be down on the show on a show floor, or I'll be in a casino or something. But either way, I'll be live from Vegas, baby. And until next time... I'll be on that up on the blog at some point, of course. Definitely. Yes. So until next time, this is Rob. And this is Pat's. Keep watching anime, keep supporting the industry, and keep listening to us. He's on. I'm going to write to say that. [MUSIC]
Episode Reviews of Gunslinger Girl Il Teatrino episode 3, Gundum episode 19. News of the week and a new segment called Long Lost Anime looking at DNA^2.