The Banzai Beat Anime Podcast
New Kids On The Block
Hey, this is Jell-o-kun, and if this is your first time listening to The Bines I Be, I just want to say, go download our latest episode. These shows are very, very rough, they're poor quality, and they're no longer indicative of what we release on a week-to-week basis. I just want to give you that word of warning, but if you still want to listen, awesome. And if you choose to listen every week, that's even better. Any new listeners are appreciated. Thank you so much for downloading our episodes. [Music] Welcome to the Anime Banzai Podcast. This is a new weekly feature from the one and only Jell-o-kun. And coming here with me is Pat's. First I welcome Pat's. I want to say thank you very much to Olga for being a great, you know, webmaster and all this and, you know, bringing Anime Banzai to everyone. Now we figured we'd take it upon ourselves to take the next leap forward in technology. Now we can be in your pocket and in your pants. So here we are. Huzzah. Indeed. Mm-hmm. So, you know, what's I introduce ourselves? My Rob, my name's Rob. Yeah, I'll go ahead and start. My name's Rob. And I've been watching Anime for about a year and a half now. My really big influence is Anime where Cowboy Bebop and Full Metal Panic. I just really big into Romance Anime and Harlem, I guess. Also action and suspense. I've been writing for Anime Banzai for about five or six months. And it's been a blast, so how about you, Pat? Well, I've been an Anime fan probably for a good long time since it's like. I became a fan through Dragon Ball Z, a lot of the people like that. Dragon Ball Z and Gundam. I'm essentially a massive mecca freak, but I enjoy basically everything running the gauntlet from romance comedies to whatever the other end would be. And basically, I follow a lot of stuff regularly and I collect a lot of DVDs and, well, my primary focus has always been mechas and I think that's how it's going to stay for a long time. Alright, it seems like a very popular turnaround. You know, you've got the Gundam series coming out all the time with endless numbers of Gundam. Oh, yeah. That's only a mecca. That's not my point. That's me, but. So what we figured we'd do is bring you guys some news and we would pick out an episode we'd review for that week. Personally, I will be doing Gunslinger Girl Season 2. Pat, what were you bringing to the table? Well, I'm going to be changing it up every once in a while. This week, I'm going to be talking about Spicing Wolf, but I'm going to change it up as I get different things just based on my move that night, basically. Nothing wrong with change. I don't want it to get stale. So we'd give you some opinions of what we feel about the news of the week. We'll also be bringing a couple of features and every other week. We're very open to your suggestions. You know, as is podcast and web blog, you know, is run by fans for the fans. So at any time, if you want to chip in and give us a word of advice or, you know, recommend a new feature or show, feel free to drop us an email at a Banzai podcast at Gmail. We'll be happy to read and respond. Yes, please do. Anything is welcome. So let's get to the news, shall we? Shall we? Well, this news... I guess we start. Yes. The news, you know, will go from a week to week. So I guess a really big thing that happened this week was Netflix Best Buy and Walmart all choose to drop HD DVD. And I guess it's a significant thing because there is some anime that has been released on HD DVD. Not too much, but it seemed that way the anime industry was kind of sticking to the HD DVD format. And now Blu-ray has basically come in and ran over it. Uh, kicked it. Yeah, kicked it into the curb and beat it with a couple bats. But besides that, from what I saw, there were only HD DVDs I ever noticed coming out here were essentially the psychotically overpriced freedom overs by Bandai Visual USA. That, yeah, one episode per desk. And then they were high sixteen dollars. Yeah, and they were hybrid because you got the actual DVD or the HD DVD on the same desk and you're still paying through the nose. Yeah, and I think the only Blu-ray release that I noticed so far was I think Funimation released the a couple of the Dragon Ball Z movies on Blu-ray as well. But besides that, it seemed like it had kind of, for the most part, they'd been kind of waiting it out. Because anime already has pretty low profit margins and they didn't want to make that any worse. Which makes perfect sense to me and it seems that it's pretty much a sure thing now that Blu-ray has the win. I mean, once two of the largest, well, once the largest retailer in the country chooses to go Blu-ray, I mean, what more can you do? Yeah, you're basically grasping for straws at this point. I had an under rumor that Toshiba, the main backer of HD DVD, is getting ready to just throw in the towel. Oh, yeah, yeah, that just actually came out today that Toshiba is going to cease production on their line of HD DVD players. I mean, they were essentially hit. Exactly, and all you got left is, you know, Microsoft and their Xbox 360 add-on and they just dropped the price on that as well. So I think, I think if you like, if you like movies, start watching because Amazon best buys everywhere. You're gonna be getting buy one, get one free on HD DVD. No kidding. No kidding. It's gonna be a heyday for people looking for cheap movies. But that's not me, sadly, because I went Blu-ray. Oh, well. Yeah, hey, dodge the bullet and you won. I guess so, right? So... All right, well, I guess let's move on to the next topic. Okay, well, IVC2, or excuse me, ICV2 came out with the North American Anime DVD numbers. And according to them, in 2007, we were down 20%. The North American DVD sales fell more than 20% in 2007. It also pegs the anime market at $275 to $300 million. It calculated last year that North American Anime DVD sales had already dropped in the U.S. from $500 million in 2003 to $400 million in 2006. The number of North American Anime releases also dropped 21% in 2007, on top of a 19% drop in 2006. ICV2 calculated there were 727 in such releases in 2003, 733 in 2004, 756 in 2005, and 617 in 2006. Anyway, you know... I think that I'm actually very surprised that, you know, I honestly thought that the North American market brought more money than $300 million. That's such a puny amount. Yeah, it's surprising, isn't it? There are large quantity of companies held afloat by this. And it's pretty impressive that it stayed, that as many of them are still around. Granted, we lost Gideon, but besides that, no one's really died lately. So it's kind of impressive, I mean, just that they survive on such a small number, relatively small number, I should say. I think the more interesting note that comes from that article was just the fact that the three largest properties were Dragon Ball, Final Fantasy VII, and Pokémon. Oh, yeah, definitely. It's just wild. It's shocking that Dragon Ball Z still has that kind of clout, I should say. I mean, it's old show at this point, granted, they keep re-releasing it a million times. And you can tell, it makes you think just what people are buying, and it shows you that even when you look at how there's the hardcore fans, they're not the ones that are really pushing it to the top. It's just people out there, it's the kids. Oh, definitely. I mean, I really thought about it, I was like, "Who is buying this stuff?" I mean, I don't know anyone who comes up to me and goes, "Rob, I know you watch anime, or I'm going to buy my kid the Pokémon Season 2." What do you think? Yeah, I was really surprised myself because it's like all those top three shows, Dragon Ball Z, I don't know if you can really call it a kid show. But it airs frequently on Cartoon Network, a channel designed for children for the most part. And Final Fantasy I haven't chosen, I'm very surprised how well it did. Final Fantasy has a very cold following, basically around the world. If you're a gamer and you like RPGs, you know what Final Fantasy is. But what really shocked me was, there was no Haru Hisu Zamiya, there was no Death Note, there was no Slayers, there was none of the really big really, you know, Eureka 7. There was not a single release in 2007 that cracked the top ten. Everything else in the top ten was an established niche show. I'd say the only thing in the top ten that I see here that was, I guess, relatively new. The two that I see were Karis and Afro-Samurai. Oh yeah, I guess that's okay. Besides that, everything was established. In Afro-Samurai, that aired on Spike. Spike, yeah. And it had freakin' Samuel L. Jackson in it, so that was a sure thing to have at least a reasonable sale. I will admit that I actually bought the first two of the new Uncut Dragon Ball Z box sets. It's kind of like a nostalgia thing for me. I hear you. But besides that, on this list, I have Advent Children, but besides that, I'm purchased anything on the top ten. And let me just read the top ten off for you real quick too, boys. Dragon Ball Z, Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, Pokemon, Naruto, Afro-Samurai, Howells Moving Castle, which is kind of odd concept thing. It's a couple years old, and it's not even one of the better ones for that matter. Bleach, Robotech, the Shadow Chronicles, which, well, sucked, quite frankly. My neighbor Totoro, and then Kara's in Revelation, which is kind of a bizarre list to me. Totally. You know, when I read the top ten, I was thinking, "Haro, he's gonna be on there." I mean, I don't know if it's just me. Buzz around it. Oh, exactly. I mean, I don't feel as me being as a fan. I mean, I'd never watched it fan some, even before hitting North America. But the internet buzz around it was just off the charts. I was just like, "Holy hell, you know, this thing's gonna be, you know, the next Cowboy Bebop or, you know, the next, you know, anything, the next Pokemon." I imagine it must have been pretty high up there. It's probably like 11 or 12 for that matter. Probably, it's got to be in the top 20, at least. But, you know, yes, it was easily the most hyped show that came out this year without a doubt. I mean, it just, they marketed it so much on the internet. They had the festivals. I mean, they had the California launch where people, you know, they had the big turnout at the comic book store. I almost kind of beg to ask, "Where are they getting these numbers? Where are they getting these statistics?" Yeah, that's another good question. Are they just going to Best Buy, Walmart, Target and saying, "What did you guys sell through this year?" You know, do they actually go to write stuff or do they actually go to the anime district? Or do they just go to the companies themselves and tell them, "Here's what we sold this." Ask them flat out what their sales numbers were like for the year. That's the other thing. I'd actually be interested in seeing a distributor by distributor, you know, top three. I know without a doubt that the number one is funimation. It's not even a contest these days. I think they said recently they have around a 30% market share, which is, which is, yeah, that's a lot. I mean, grand, when Gideon left, I believe, they had about a 10% themselves, which is pretty big itself, which is why it was such a massive hit when they shut down. You know, I imagine ADV is probably up there, too, around 10%, 15%, maybe 20%, which is, I mean, they're the two biggest. I got to think Bandai is really creeping up because they've come out with a lot of good shows. Yeah, they're, uh, Viz, too. I mean, Viz is partnering, it seems, with... They figured this shit, and they finally got stuff for the most part. They've been having some problems with some of their replication recently. But besides that, they figured out their thing. I mean, they've branched away from doing robots. Granted, they're still doing them, thank God. And like the Japanese guys will ever let them stop doing Gundam. But, um, they've moved on, they've tried other things. They tried, they joined up with Katokawa and did Haruhi, and they did a perfect release. If you ask me, some people complained about the way they did the, um, second disc for Haruhi with the, um... You can only get the episodes in broadcast order if you bought the special editions. Oh, yeah, and you know what's... That's just a, um, that's just a bonus. That's not something you need. I mean, you can move the discs around, granted. Oh, definitely. And now, even now, they're re-rereleasing each one with the broadcast order. Which I kind of think is a slap in the video. Yeah, I noticed that they, I noticed that they were doing that, too. I mean, they're essentially trying to milk this thing for all its worth. Oh, yeah. And then, at the same time, they're going to be doing the same to Lucky Star soon. Which I'm incredibly excited to get my hands on. I loved it, and I keep fighting myself to not watch it again, because I, because I want to just wait for the DVDs to watch it again. But, you know, for that? I'm very nervous for the, uh, the, you know, how well the, uh, the dub work is going to be. You know, it's going to be a very good or it's going to be a big miss, and that can make or break the title. I imagine that, that it's probably highly monitored with kind of college, just like Haruhi was, which will all be good. And, I mean, they basically said they're doing it the same way, in the same basic way they did, um, Haruhi with, I imagine, fancy ass special editions and shit. And yeah, which I loved. And then, they've done some other nice ones. Their Eureka Seven releases were great. Oh, those were all your Johnny Young Bosch. I mean, when I actually read the credits and saw him playing Renton, I said no flipping way. No, he's one of the best out there, and if you ask me, and, I mean, he was in Haruhi too, for that matter. He was on, no, he was the other one. I can't hear his name. I feel bad. I got shit for this one. Um, anyway, I'm bad with names. So, and, you know, this whole news piece, though, you know, really surprised me, though, these numbers. I mean, um, you know, I would see, two thousand three, seven hundred and twenty seven releases, two thousand four, seven hundred and thirty three, seven hundred and thirty six in two thousand five, you know. It was that it was, if you go back and look, you were going to see a lot more crap was coming out then, though. That's the thing. They were that it, like, what happened was it peaked at a point, and this was that point where, you know, like, anime was still getting good ratings on it. Don't swim, that kind of thing, which it's not now, but sadly. I think the problem is with that, not to get off the point, but when you, they're comparing their ratings to what they air, besides, like, they air an episode of Family Guy, that gets a million viewers, they air an episode of Death Note, that gets, I think, like, two hundred thousand maybe. I might be wrong, I probably am, it's probably wrong, but that's the thing, they're looking at, like, why can't we just air more, more frickin' Family Guy instead? But, but what I was saying is, it hit this peak, and these companies were just licensing anything they could get their hands on, 80V, go back, 80V licensed for a lot of shit back, and they were bringing over. And even then, they were still relying on there. And even now, I'm gonna say, you've got this number, but a decent amount of that is gonna be re-releases too, especially when you look at Funimation, they love re-releases. They've got, they do the main release, and they do the box set, then they do, now they've got these Viridian re-releases of singles, and they've got the Viridian box set. I mean, I'm wondering if it's worth a prayer, I mean, 20 bucks isn't bad. What do you think about anime? New is usually 30 bucks minimum. Yeah, that was, I think it was smart in some ways. I mean, they've condensed it, like, with spiral, you get like the six volumes in this. It hardly takes up any room, it's like 30 bucks, and you get the whole 26-episode series. The thing is, they kind of cheapen it a little bit, because it's essentially like a cardboard box, because they're supposed to be like green, so it's like they're environmentally friendly stuff. So, it's just like, they have slits in the cardboard for the DVDs, which some people don't like, because it's not the safest for the disc. So, it's like, but that's another thing though, because just look at all the massive amount of re-releases, Funimation does, 80 V does plenty of box sets too. And then at the same time, it also drops just because of, there's also a major drop when you look at it, because of the loss of Gideon, because that was just a lot of releases that day. I mean, I remember reading, just even a couple months ago, about the number of, you know, each year, it seemed one or two anime distribution groups would disappear off the map. But most of the time, it was crap people like bringing over Jesus and pals of the animation, or, you know, stuff that no one is going to watch. Yeah, what was it? I can't remember the name of the company, but they were bringing over the Vandal Buster and some other stuff. Oh, yeah, Imagination. Is that it? Okay. I didn't want to, because there's Imagination, and then there's like, there's Imagination, which is working for those new releases of Orgis. And that's I and nobody's boyfriend. Yeah, nobody's boy, Rami. And honestly, I've never, ever seen them. I go to Best Buy. So how do I find them? Well, the key to them, they set, the thing of them is, I think, I don't know who else carries them, but I'm pretty sure the exclusive holder was right stuff. I'm not 100% sure if it's exclusive, because they're doing, because they're not doing full on replication of these disks. They're doing like, um, I'm not sure exactly what they're doing, but they're not doing mass replication of disks for that stuff. Yeah, basically, which is, which is why it's working because they're doing these limited releases. They're only making what they need, which is genius. And I really need to pick up those shows. I just haven't gotten around to it yet. But besides that, it's kind of like a slow drop in what we have now. Okay, here's a question that's been on my mind for a while. Sure. Um, you know, I don't mean to keep hammering this topic. You know, I know it's been spending a little bit of time on this news piece. But, um, you know, North America seems more and more now. They are foregoing the dub and just bringing over the direct Japanese version of shows now. Oh, yeah. My question though is, is this going to become a more of a trend? Because I know more, you know, there's some people out there that said, look, we got to wait up to a year for this DVD to come out. That's the key. That's the key right there. Everyone's thinking, we get them out faster. We forego-- we cut some of the, um, bootlegging off if we get our shit out faster. That's the thing that, um, Bandai Visual USA is, like, devoted to now. It's getting stuff out as fast as possible. They've got true tears and she go for me. Two shows currently airing in Japan. They're going to start releasing the disc's form. I think the first volumes come out in March. And that's just a question. It's $40 for a single episode on a DVD with no dub. That's what pisses me off. I mean... That's Bandai Visual USA. Same thing with Galaxy Angel AA. One or two episodes-- oh, but by the way, it's $49.95. And now, if you were paying dub work actors and had to do all the timing and all that jazz, I would say, "Okay." I think, you know, yes, it's still granite. It's high. But I think I'll make an exception. It's a good show. And they do-- and they-- for the most part, they have, um, better quality to their packaging and shit with their stuff as well. But, yeah, I will agree with you. They are-- and I think what that comes down to is it's essentially being run by the Japanese. And that shit's a lot more expensive in Japan. I mean, I think once they're going to have-- they're going to alienate the North American market by saying, "Pay $50 for two episodes." And the other thing about them is, I don't think they-- Their shit's not in retail in, like, mass retailers right now. You've got to go online and buy their stuff right now. You can't even buy-- find their newest releases on Amazon because their partner before, for some psychotic reason, they were using getting in for distribution, even though their parent company happens to own another American company by the name of Bandai Entertainment, who happens to release Anime over here. They have getting into their distribution instead. And now they can't-- now it seems like they can't get their-- their shit out here anymore. So, like, if you go on Amazon, you can't find their-- their newest stuff. And it seems like that's what they're devoted to, though, is trying to get stuff out as fast as possible. And even-- and another trend that they've been heading towards, and this is actually a good segue to our next topic, is box set releases, not for going single volumes, box sets, which is something I've been-- I've heard rumblings about might be what Funimation will be doing with their newest license, Claymore, which they announced this week. Indeed, that was the big news on a Funimation camp. For the week, they had a countdown timer saying they had this great announcement that they were going to tell everyone. The countdown ended on Friday afternoon, which-- I'm going to look at a calendar that was the 15th, the afternoon of the 15th, it counted down to zero, and Funimation let it be known that they have acquired the license of Claymore, which is good. It's awesome, so. You know, I've heard a lot of good things about it. I personally have yet to watch it or really-- really know anything about, and I honestly, personally, not-- not too excited, but, you know, I guess it's a-- make a lot of people Claymore fans happy. And I guarantee-- and that's going to be a big release for them, too. I'm sure that's going to sell well. And I think-- and it probably would be a good idea for them to consider doing the box set style releases for. I mean, I know they're testing it out with Aquarium, which comes out very soon. I can't remember exactly when it comes out very soon, though. And I believe this is also doing it. This has been doing the very good releases of the Uncut box sets for Naruto and-- -Oprostitenis. -And um, Bleach. -H, yes. Which is nice. And I believe they're doing one for Buso Rincon. They're going to-- it's 26 episodes long. They're going to release it in two 13 episode box sets. -That's the same way. -Okay, like Gantts. Gantts, yeah. That's the same way Funimation is going to be doing um, Aquarium, and-- -Gotcha. -Which is a decent idea, if you ask me, I mean. -Indeed, I would rather-- I'd personally, as a consumer, would rather say, "Okay, I'm going to spend $40, but I get 13 episodes in one shot instead of paying the same one for four." -Yeah, exactly. -Is that rather much rather by a box set? -Or one. -Yes. -Exactly. I have more to enjoy. I mean, the longer my enjoyment of the product lasts, you know, I get to get more into the story. You don't, you know, you have to have those cliffhangers between-- -Yeah, you lose some of that stuff. And I think this is something that they're going to be moving more and more towards, because it just seems like the kind of thing. That's where it needs to go, because when you look, you don't buy-- I mean, this was-- it happened a little early on with TV, but you don't go to the store and buy single volumes of the first three episodes of the second season of "The Office" or something like that. You buy the whole show in a box set for $40, and you go home and you enjoy it. But with anime, and I think a lot of that just came down to the costs with the volume releases. And I'm sure it's not going to go away anytime soon, but I'm sure with time they're going to be edging more and more towards these box set releases, just because it has more value to fans, really, because they just-- they see it and they pick it up. They're like, "Oh, wow, I get 13 episodes for $40." -Oh, exactly. -I get the first volume of whatever, something stupid. -Yeah, I mean, personally, when I'm scrolling the aisles, I would rather either get a complete show or a box set if I don't know anything about the show, just because I'm more inclined to watch the show from start to finish and really make my judgment. -There's shows out there that don't really get going until the second or third volume because they've got so much backstory or whatever it may be. -I will say myself, I've got three or four shows where I just have the first volume on my shelf and I never bought the rest of them, because I just didn't care enough to bother for the rest of them. -Indeed. So, moving on as we spent about 15 minutes-- -The box hits are great. -Oh, indeed, I hardly say box set over anything. Let's just hope that they actually start to consider that a formal release. I guess it seems like the only reason they're doing volume by volume is just the way it is in Japan, and I have a feeling it's better for them more wise. They get to make more money out of each release instead of packaging everything as one. Yeah, that's probably part of it, and it probably is something that's probably in their license contracts a lot of the time, where they have to release it single volumes first. But when I think about it, I would say personally, the one company that's probably going to be the slowest to pick this up, I might be wrong, but it would probably be ADV, because something I've noticed, I don't know, is that they seem to be a bit on the slower side with their box sets, and they kind of space them out a lot more. Whereas, Funimation is like, get those fucking box sets out there as fast as possible. Oh, and even worse is Media Blaster. Yeah, I think I've got the right company. Media Blaster's, who releases their box sets, who released a couple box sets right after the show finish, like the next week, essentially. They finish the volumes and boom, there's a box set for half the price of buying all the volumes. Yeah, it's a slap in the face that people were actually willing to spend the volume by volume money in. I guess it's the same thing, everything. If you're an early adopter to something, you're going to get burned. It's the technology, cars, food... Oh, it's people that complain about the friggin' life. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I guess that's this kind of thing we got to get used to as anime fans. I mean, you can't have everything the way you want it. I mean, I've heard people complain about the price, and I've complained about prices before, but I guess it sounds like we kind of get lucky because over in Japan, it's so expensive. And I'm really surprised. Yeah, everyone's like band-eye visual in Japan. I've only got one here for now. Yeah. But yeah, anyway... Well, the final news story for the day, for all you Hello Kitty fans out there, the Hello Kitty MMO RPG is now a closed beta. But they are still accepting players to join that closed beta, which really makes no sense. But if you like Hello Kitty and MMORPGs, I mean, I guess that's your ally. Let me tell you, man. I just ordered a new computer for her, man. Oh, there you go. We'll be, you know, whatever Hello Kitty does, I've never watched the show, so... Maybe you can go learn to bake cookies or something. Instead of grinding skins or something, you'll be baking cookies. Sounds more fun to me. Yeah, it beats a while, I guess. Yeah, the other night. Whew! So that is the week's news. You can always check out more at AnimeNewsNetwork.com. Do you have any personal favorites, Pat, that you'd like to go to? So what? In terms of news, any websites you enjoy? I'd say the other site I'm a regular visitor to, besides A&N, would be AnimeOnDVD.com, and just the whole blog roll, including, um, AnimeBansEye, of course, AnimeBansEye.com. Hey, if you can remember it. Yes, indeed. We always try to post some news to, you know, to spice up everything. So, um, now we're getting to the point where now we'll either choose an episode we want to review. Uh, Pat, I'll let you start with your episode. All right, well, I'm gonna start, I'm gonna talk about, fairly briefly, 'cause we've already talked quite a bit tonight, I think. Indeed. But, um, a show that's probably my favorite show that started this past winter season, and that would be "Spice and Wolf." And it, the sixth episode aired a few days ago. I'm not sure exactly when it airs in Japan. I checked it out a day or two ago, and I have to say, it was kind of the end of the first real story arc in the show, and is easily the most exciting episode of the show. The way the characters... it really hit this climax in the way "Horo" transformed and attacked all those guys. It's just freaking awesome. And it's a show that... I think everybody should definitely consider checking out, but at the same time, some people will probably find it at first to be one of the most boring things they've ever watched because you get 10-minute conversations where guys talk about, well, essentially, silver coin economics. They talk about why different countries' currencies have different amounts of silver in them, and why there were so much. But to me, I just find the show incredibly fascinating. It just sucks, man, every time I watch it, every bit of it blows me away. And I can't wait personally. I've been dying to read the um, white novels as well, but my lack of Japanese doesn't help me very much. It kind of hurts me in that respect. So, I think what I'm going to do for now is just stress everybody, check it out. I don't really... I'm not the best at this right now, so I think I'm just going to end it at that and let you take over. Not a problem. Well, I started the Gunslinger Girl Season 2. I'm going to be reviewing the second episode. I did blog all the first ones about two or three weeks ago. I've been really lazy and I apologize. Hey, you're going to be better than me. But, um... So, episode one, you know, we meet the girls. They're older, they're wiser, they have boobs. And they've all got brand new weapons. The episode was, you know, you're usual gunslinger girl. Story set up, story middle, the girls kick the bad guys ass, and there's an ending. Well, okay, and we also find out Henrietta loves Rico, or, um, excuse me, Jose. And this episode two is completely different than episode one. You see the girls for five seconds at the end of the episode. Um, this entire episode was a background story for a new character named Pinocchio. He was an orphan child who was picked up by some guy who was somewhat rich in Italy, and he trained him to be an assassin. He's a rich killer, and the Pinocchio looks up to this old man as his father. His father, as I use the term loosely, basically calls him, he's less than a dog, he's inhuman. You know, he's taught him to be his stealthful assassin with knives. So, this whole story, uh, excuse me, this whole episode, is basically you're getting to meet Pinocchio, you're getting to know who he is, and he also meets up with some other terrorists who plan on bombing a bridge. And you get to meet all these people, they look how they plan, and that's really about it. Um, there really isn't much to the episode. It was all basically backplot for, I would assume, episode three. At the end of episode two, um, Triela and Angelica are both just kind of hanging around doing nothing, and their handlers are above them in a watchtower talking about this mission, how they kind of look for Pinocchio and find out where he is, and what's all that's going on. And that's basically the episode, I was really shocked that they completely disregarded everything that happened in the first episode, because I figured they would have something going on, or something referring back to the first episode, if anything, and they had nothing. Ew, episode one and episode two were like black and white, nothing was the same. So, I'm assuming episode three is going to be the big climax, gonna be lots of action, gonna be blood, gonna be all the good shit why we watch guns on your girl, but you have to wait for my review next week. So, I guess I got a question for you before we stop there. Well, I've heard the animation is a bit different for the second season of this, or am I hearing it, or did I hear it wrong? It seems like it's more colorful and bright. Yeah, yeah. The season one was, used a lot of darker colors, it seemed like the hues and the brightness were a lot deeper, and everything seemed more hand-drawn. Now it seems more computer-animated, per se, more brighter colors. So, it's done by a different studio, too. Yeah, you can tell it's different. If you were to put the seasons side by side, I would bet you can see a difference. I don't really have an eye for that, and honestly, I really don't pay attention. I'm more of a sucker for the story and the characters. You're not that, um, we're attentive. Exactly, I get more, what sucks me in the anime is the story, the plot, what's going on. And then the visuals for me are an added bonus. So, I really don't pay too much attention to what you can feel the show per se. I want it to look good and, you know, be able to make up what I'm watching. Other than that, I don't, like, critique the show going, wow, you know, this visual style is neat. So, but I would almost bet there's a big difference in terms of season one and season two animation. Hmm, that's interesting in here. I see, I sadly haven't watched either yet, so I can't really speak much. It's just what I've heard, so. It just seems like you're going to like it or you're not. And a lot of people thought that the show was borderline kitty, not kitty porn per se. I can't think of what they call it right now, but basically, you've got these adult men handlers in charge, basically bossing around these prepubescent girls. And everyone said, well, that's just kind of creepy. You know, these men are, you know, basically telling these girls to do things and it's kind of a slave, you know, fetish kind of deal. And I honestly never really thought that about the show until I read about it and people really felt that way. Oh, I never thought of it that way. I just figured it's part of the show and that's the way it is. You know, I think it's a unique concept. I guess that says something about the way you think about things, then. You know, go straight to the creepy. Yeah, I don't want to say, oh, wow, that's kind of weird. You know, I just want to know. Yeah, creepy child. Yeah, but. Yeah. Yeah. Mmm. But no, I still say the show is still, you know, good. I mean, two episodes and you really can't expect much. But I'm really hoping that it does get better just because I don't want to see this as, you know, it did really well in America. Because it was ran on the independent film channel. And it sold, I would assume it sold pretty darn well. I think it was, you know, popular. Yeah, I mean, personally, I own the box set. But I just don't hope it's something they brought back just to say, well, we want to capitalize on the success, but totally ruin the show. And, you know, make it one of those shows that they really should have brought back. Mmm. You know. Yeah, that's interesting to think about. Just because it's such a. I'd hate for him to see, you know, horror here. Lucky Star season two, because they brought it back because of the popular, you know, it was great. The first time around. Let's make this magic the second time. Well, they are bringing back Haruhi. Oh, yeah, exactly. Oh, I know that. Oh, God, personally. He got it. One thing I'm surprised at is why they have all new weapons, you know. Their weapons are completely different from the first season. And, you know, some of the things, the way things kind of happen, it just seems kind of goofy. But I would give the show a, you know, probably a six out of ten right now. It's watchable and it's enjoyable, but nothing right now in terms of the story or the plot is really yearning for me to watch what's coming next. There's nothing saying, "God, I can't wait for next week." You know, right now it's, "Well, okay, that was a good watch. I killed 30 minutes of my time." You know. Yeah, and that's something you never really want. It's kind of a bittersweet feeling when you walk away like that, you know. So, because you want to, especially something that you go in as a big fan, you don't want to walk away feeling. Eh, that was 20 minutes. Now what am I going to do? You want to walk away thinking to yourself, "Man, that was so awesome. It's all you, all you can think about the rest of the day." No, exactly. And I use, I use gunsling a girl to introduce a couple of my friends into anime. 'Cause they like, "Oh, anime, that's stupid." I'll show them the first episode of gunsling a girl or Henrietta has a frickin' semi-auto and just goin' crazy on the bad guys. And they go, "Oh, wow, this is really cool. The guns, the guns look amazing." You know, there's action. But it kills that stereotype about anime. Indeed. You can show someone like that. It's not something stupid for kids. It's like, "Oh, check this out." It's a fuckin', however old she was at that point, I don't know. Yeah, she's about 12. 12-year-old girl running around with a semi-auto killing people. It's like, "Yeah, tell me that's for kids." Exactly. So, I'm just really hoping that the show picks up because I don't want to drop the show, but on the other hand, I'm just really hoping that it's not a mistake. You know, people don't go, "Well, that was a total waste." You know, 'cause it's never fun, you know, to have a show kind of tarnished. Yeah, yeah. You never want to see that kind of shit happen. It's always tragic when it does, like the first half of the second season of Shauna. So, that was horrible. Oh, well, I guess if this... This kind of wraps it up, but we're looking for a podcast name. We're right now, we're just sticking with the anime Bonsai weekly podcast. That's kind of boring and lame. Yes. It's a little less than exciting, we'll say. Indeed. So, for all our listeners and regulars at the blog, feel free to submit your names, and we'll pick the best five, and we'll leave it up to a poll, and what gets chosen gets chosen. Yes, yeah. Now, let me restate this. Submit your name ideas to a Bonsai podcast at gmail.com. All one word. Correct. And don't forget to visit us at animebonsai.animeblogger.com. Big shout out to... Or animeblogger.net, I'm sorry. Yeah, oh shit. Oh shit. So, you know, we're gonna get the... get the ask for this. Well, we're gonna have a show next week, you know why, guys. So, that just about wraps it up for this week. What? We will be back. I actually got that really wrong. Let me say it one more time. Abanzai.animeblogger.net. There you go. Abanzai.animeblogger.net. Of course. And please email us any suggestions, we're open to anything that you want to let us know. Any ideas you have for changes, any ideas for segments, we are open to it. Indeed. And you know, if anyone listening who's in the anime industry, we're open to doing interviews. If you want to plug something, we want to become a full versatile anime podcast. You've got your podcasts out there that are strictly news. You got the ones that are strictly goofing around. We want to be in the middle of all that. So, we will see you again next week. Thank you folks. And I am Patz. Have a good one. [Music]
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