Also Vinnie will be presenting a bunch in the next few weeks.
At CloverCon in Bridgewater (May 19), NJ he will be presenting Must See Anime Openings at 11AM in the Green Room.
At Anime Boston (May 24-26), he will be presenting Ponies! at 7PM on Friday, Science in Anime at 8PM on Saturday, and What is Anime? at 1:30 on Sunday.

My Golden Ani-versary article

Sadly the comments were lost on Twitter so I can’t post them here. Again I am very sorry about not reading them in the episode.

Roundtable Includes:
Genericon XXVI’s Con-Chair Ani-Gamers’ & OtakuUSA’s Evan Minto
Convention VIP Vertical Inc.’s Ed Chavez
Ani-Gamers’ & OtakuUSA’s Ink
Ani-Gamers’ Dave Estrella
Convention Featured Panelist Walt Amos
Convention Featured Panelist Reverse Thieves’ Alain Mendez
Convention Guest Sci-fi Author Tim Maughan

Please note that I, Vincenzo Averello, was given a press pass by the convention free of charge. However, in no way does the convention effect the content of the podcast.

So for 2013 I will be pick works that feature elements of space. While some of what I picked last year included space travel, this year I want to do a bit of a survey of space. To start this year off right I want to give you our readers and listeners a chance to choose what DM will be subjected to watching. To start off the first 3 choices are

• Star Blazers Season 1- The classic anime that started American anime fandom, and still holds a place the hearts of men.
• Cosmos: A Personal Voyage – The classic documentary series by Carl Sagan that inspired so many to go into science.
• Cowboy Bebop- Possibly the best anime from the 1990s or all time depending on who you talk to

Just leave a comment to vote, also please be honest, don’t vote more than once. You have until I finish reading It.

Vinnie’s Introduction

We’ve seen Golgo 13, we’ve seen Black Jack: The Movie, and now we finish off with probably the best of this series (not saying that any of the three should be missed). This film is possibly the most widely known Lupin III property in the United States (the only one that could beat it is Lupin III Series 2). This film was directed by the only anime director who could be considered a household name (even this is a stretch) Hayao Miyazaki, in fact this is his film directorial debut, having worked in television before this.

Lupin III is one of the most enduring anime franchises to exist with many different styles of character story ranging from family friendly (this being one of the best examples) to violent action with a good pile of sex thrown in (Lupin III: A Woman Called Fujiko Mine is an example, as are the first few episodes of Lupin III Series 1). Like Black Jack this was not first exposure to the Lupin III franchise (Lupin III Series 2 was, in case you were wondering), but this movie is a great introduction to the character and some of major tropes of Lupin III. All the core characters are there playing their usual roles. There is a decent amount of action but the film is without a doubt a film by Hayao Miyazaki. The visual elements are all his as is the story if only from his love of Mediterranean Europe. Also this is one of my favorite of his films, it doesn’t have an overbearing message like many of his others but it still has the fun spirit that make him so well known.

DM’s Take

OK so the wrap to Vincenzo’s BABG is the best of the lot.  Lupin the third is funny, adventurous, and entertaining as all hell.  The characters were fun and endearing, with even the bad guys being wonderful in a strongly clichéd way.  The voice acting was really quite good.  The voices seemed well paired to the characters, which my BABG journey has proven is not always the case (Vinnie note: DM watched the Manga Video dub, the one you get on either DVD).  Finally, the animation fit very well with the hijinks style of story that the movie told.

Even with the sense of there being a large Lupin the third back story, the movie was surprisingly easy to get into.  I highly recommend it to anyone who has not delved into this particular character and I will certainly be looking for more Lupin the Third!

It seems like each year I do this, I review some sort of super-hero show. Last year it was Karas, this year it is Astro Fighter Sunred. The premise of Astro Fighter Sunred is that that our hero Sunred is a stay at home, lives with his girlfriend, pachinko playing sentai hero. That is to say, you never see him being a sentai hero really, yes he beats up the bad guys of Florsheim, but it is more like the school bully beating up the poor kid who’s mom is dying of death, that is to say that they are pretty weak by and large. Their fearless leader Vamp is in fact the perfect house-wife (stereotypically speaking) in all of Japan.

The episode format is similar to that of other comedy anime like Cromartie High School, each episode is only about 15 minutes long and is made up of a few sketches. Sometimes these tie together, but often they don’t, either way the episodes are generally enjoyable.

What makes this show so enjoyable, you might ask well it tends to be that the main character is a total jerk to the villains, who by and large are decent hard-working individuals who happen to look like the monsters your standard sentai hero would fight, be that squid-monster, ancient mummy, or blue-wolf creature. The villains are by far the best part of this show. Each of the different monsters manages to get his own personality by the end of the season, which is surprising that any show could give you have feel for so many characters. The best of these is in fact the animal soldiers, a group of essentially talking stuffed animals who have various cyber attachments.

Now sadly there is a major downside to this show, the animation. They did not have much budget for this show, so there is a minimal amount of movement when the characters are on screen. The character designs look like something out of a how to draw manga book. The animation issues are often “remedied” by panning up when a fight is going to happen and then return to see the beaten bodies afterward. This is by no means a perfect trick but I have to applaud the team for knowing what they can and cannot do.