Anime Outsiders

Another year, another fall anime season, another season preview, another Other Side overview! Once again, the boys at The Other Side scan the upcoming anime lineup and filter out the turds from the gold. But can one pile of gold save an otherwise septic season? Can one bombshell title make up for a lineup saturated with shows designed for lonely men to replace human contact? And what is this challenge Cody Baier extends to fellow Anime 3000 podcast 2 Guys and a Mic in the last quarter of the episode? This is gonna be one Other Side season overview you’re not gonna want to miss! Unless you’re the sensitive type, of course…!

No genre is more associated with anime in the mainstream consciousness than mecha–or “giant robot”–anime. From Gundam, to Evangelion, to all their derivatives. Big-ass, human-shaped robots fighting other big-ass, human-shaped robots for whatever cause or reason has been a staple of Japanese animation since people willingly wore acid-wash jeans. While you were just starting to jam to new wave because funk was “so last year”, Japan introduced the world to the wonder that is Haro the Ball. Oh, and some big blue-and-white robot. And while the boys at The Other Side take a look at all these colossal mechanoids, maybe they’ll address a few other issues, as well! Because they like tangents…

On their next stop down the road of anime genres, the trio at The Other Side take a look at that classic, cliche-ridden, pre-programmed genre that is shonen. A genre unique to anime, shonen is a genre built on specific tropes and cliches. While not all titles classified as shonen use the building blocks given to it by Dragon Ball, the color-by-numbers shonen formula is one of the most ever-present in all of anime, and is something the boys at the Other Side just can’t ignore. So join Cody and Max (and maybe Andrew when he feels like chiming in) as they look through the formula Dragon Ball created, what works, what doesn’t, and how one shonen manga managed to out-do the infamous “The Heart” page from Bleach!

Starting off their look at various genres of anime, The Other Side begins with a subject they’ve had on the back burner for over a month or so. Romance is a genre that anime has crashed and burned in its attempts to pull off more than any other genre. The Other Side has seen bungled attempts at storytelling before, but the romance genre is littered with unfortunate implications. Where what is sold as the sweetest love story can be the ickiest thing you’ve ever seen. So join Cody, Max, and Andrew on a trip through sadsville as they discuss a doomed genre, examining WHY it’s doomed, why the great anime romances are, in fact, uncomfortable exercises in ickiness, and why romance works better as a subplot than a focus.

Ever since the odd Hitler Building from Space Chief, Hitler has been making some strange, random-ass appearances in anime and video games. From Bionic Commando’s final boss, to a one-off joke in a Dragonball Z movie, to THE FUCKING HITLER BUILDING IN SPACE CHIEF, the guy just keeps showing up! With that in mind, The Other Side goes full-on Godwin, examining what’s behind this, and why it’s so damn funny to point out!

Bringing their foray into various anime genres to its logical conclusion of insanity, the trio of The Other Side takes a look at hentai anime… For the third time. It seems like once a season The Other Side uses hentai for an easy “hey, look at this crazy shit” episode. So, to make things interesting, the Other Side trio all actually sat down and watched this crap. But not just any hentai; the boys tracked down the worst ones they could find (that wasn’t Boku no Pico), leaving Andrew scarred, Cody indignant, and Max… well, indifferent. He’s used to this. Also, a bizarre tangent causes Max and Cody to have a revelation about themselves, and a certain German dictator gets name-dropped so many times it’d make Godwin blow his brains out.

Magical Girl is a genre that has been synonymous with anime as much as mecha has. Perhaps even more. The average Tom, Dick, and Harry is more likely to be familiar with Sailor Moon than Gundam, after all. Something about little girls turning into magic schoolgirls and fighting monsters with sparkle powers has endeared itself to Japanese men (you heard me; MEN) for years. Like extra-creepy super sentai! Join the trio of The Other Side as they traverse the treacherous terrain of Magical Girl anime, and learn why fans of some shows just should not be allowed to breed. Also, Cody discovers a horrifying truth to the ending of Princess Tutu!

Slice of Life is a boring genre that borders on voyeuristic. It’s an entire genre of just watching characters do things with little to no plot. With a genre this exciting the boys at the Other Side just knew they had to jump right in and see what the fuss is all about! After all, this tends to be one of the most popular genres among fans. Join The Other Side as they delve into why this is the case, what the deal with Slice of Life is, and why anyone would watch it at all. And let’s not forget Cody’s epic meltdown over the show he watched for this podcast!Of course, with this genre being as boring as it is, the boys at The Other Side couldn’t help but drop the subject completely near the end and talk about something much funnier. What is that something? Listen to the podcast and find out!

While preparing for a future episode, Max and Andrew just randomly decided to watch Dance in the Vampire Bund, for the hell of it. Hearing about this, Cody decided to use their terrible life decision as the premise for an episode of The Other Side! But what seemed like a fun, if filler-y episode turns into an episode for the ages as various topics (not just the show in question) cause Cody to have multiple breakdowns, culminating in a major statement to both anime fans across America, and to FUNimation Entertainment. And it’s all capped off by the wonder that is “Fly Son”.

Social Justice “Causeheads” have always jumped from cause to cause over the years. Nowadays, the big draw to get your faux-intellectual rocks off is feminism. Countless nerd guys trying to look progressive and intelligent (as well as try, in their lonely desperation, to impress women by saying “I CARE ABOUT YOUUUU”) by fighting the fight for women everywhere, mostly by whining about big tits in video games. With gaming journalism becoming as saturated with this reactionary theater as it has been, gamers have been forced to sit through self-aggrandizing diatribes of holier-than-thou peons who spent their formative years pushed into their own lockers, fighting desperately to feel important in adulthood to attempt to caulk up the cracks in their fragile egos. We’ve seen it all; the cries of sexism over big boobs in Dragon’s Crown; game reviewers trampling over themselves to be the first to speak out against the newest scantly clad female character of the week; the pissing content over who can be more offended over Killer Is Dead’s Gigolo Mode; etc. etc. While they themselves have spoken against the portrayal of women in anime for over a year, now, the crew of The Other Side takes it upon themselves to turn the spotlight of shame in the other direction, bringing to light the rampant immaturity, shallowness, and even fascism and racism of the new feminist movement those of us immersed in geek culture simply cannot escape from. Strap yourselves in; this is the most political, socially-charged, and just plain real The Other Side will ever get! Be sure to check this episode out, as it’s sure to go down in Other Side history!