Anime Roundtable

The final episode of 2008 sees the guys talk about Crunchyroll’s first attempt at a paid service and other legal options for watching anime now. Then a trio of bullets about 2ch’s reactions to what manga are popular in different parts of the world, reactions to who wants to play Spike in a live action Cowboy Bebop, and reactions to the idea of a Canadian made Persocom. Yes It-chan may actually be Canadian…don’t know if we should be proud of that. And a really good Final Insult that might be worthy of the name.

What a great way to start the holidays.

Mike Nicolas, James Austin, Adam Grant

The Visser Brothers face an audience for the first time, all the while being distracted by Judge Judy on the TV (Mike for reference got distracted by his phone). At the meat of things, we talk about Geneon changing hands from Dentsu to Universal Pictures International, more Comic Book Legal Defense, and thoughts on Hobbystar’s night before Christmas mini con.

Mike Nicolas, James Austin, Terry Visser, Anthony Visser

Adam asks Mike to play with the Garageband controls and what results is the single biggest (and longest) file yet. In it, James faces the music over being away last week, while Enrico has no clue what has happened. In between comments about condo noises, going through bookstores, and teasing the upcoming contests, we get Japanese political as we talk about Miyazaki’s comments concerning Prime Minister Aso’s manga fandom. Then we start looking a little bit back on 2008 with “Over/Under” questions originally meant for the summer license pool. Bullet wise, we’ll look the Wii manga reader, then read into tourists at Japan’s most famous fish market. Then Adam gives a dramatic Final Insult as he gets Canadian Political.

…I told you it would be the longest file yet. But trust me it’s a good one.

Mike Nicolas, Adam Grant, Enrico Bianco, James Austin

The roundtable finally returns after yet another hiatus…albeit in digest form. Mike tries to get people together for a show, and only Austin shows up so he decides just make the first digest in more than a year. In it they give an excuse for the month away, then they give a quick review (or beat down) of Dot Con, the latest attempt at another anime con in Toronto. And to top it off, they preview the coming episodes by briefly talking about some of the items that caught their attention over the month long hiatus.

Mike is thinking he should have put up the “less edited” version of episode 50 in the meantime…

Mike Nicolas, James Austin

Adam and Megan see the new place for the first time as we talk about Japan’s lack of laws concerning virtual child porn. Then we shift gears talking about the resale of imports and the American first sales doctrine. A legal blotter to be sure. Also, Mike makes a manga recommendation, we make fun of James since he’s not there, and Adam for the first time refuses to speak on a certain topic for fear of incriminating himself (try to guess where)…but he seems more than happy to talk about his new podcast.

Mike Nicolas, Adam Grant, Megan Swaine

Mike was thinking about the next episode then realized he had forgotten about putting up the last one. You can blame that on either personal matters (ie moving) or his feeble attempt to block out what happened in the episode. Mercifully it wasn’t as news oriented as it usually is.

Five around the table as we talk about an academic paper on anime’s internationalization and then the Comic Book Legal Defence fund. That peppered with the obligatory stuff when you get Adam, Neil, and Neil’s roommate Megan around.

Are you beginning to see why Mike was trying to block out the episode? Taped on October 16 2008.

Mike Nicolas, Neil Sinclair, James Austin, Adam Grant, Megan Swaine

After Mike successfully finds a nicer room to tape, we start off this week with Adam showing signs of interest in girls closer to his age…then he spends the rest of the show in a degenerative spiral hoping for coffee. In all of that Mike poses updated thoughts on impressions of things in our little world…of course they’re things we’ve talked about in some form already…of course they’re based on Spanish skinny dippers and Enrico’s return from two and a half weeks in Japan…of course Mike is looking for ideas for future episodes…of course Adam says more stuff about Clarissa behind her back.

Mike Nicolas, Adam Grant, Enrico Bianco, Mohammed Sharmarke

The Anime Roundtable takes a video game turn when the crew discusses downloadable, paid extras. Then it gets back to more normal content with thoughts on new and switched licenses, the iPhone in Japan, a new Nintendo DS, and something about dying in a porn store.

All this while we introduce a newcomer around the table…a girl…with Neil and Adam also around…this cannot be good…

Mike Nicolas, Neil Sinclair, Adam Grant, Megan Swaine (1:05:59)

Neil makes his first appearance of the season, and find out what he and Adam say about Clarissa when she’s not here. Also some video game talk, and Neil’s take on Fan Expo in the idle talk. Then getting down to business, we talk about the end of Toonami and what to look forward to in Anime on TV in the future, then a lone bullet about a widower and an inflatable doll…do you think we should have talked about Japan’s new Prime Minister instead?

Mike Nicolas, James Austin, Neil Sinclair, Adam Grant

After another month off, here we are with the season premiere. After starting off the season talking a little bit about the Toronto conventions, we’ll go through the legal items talking about the Canadian Bill C-61 (a proposed ammendment to the copyright act and then a legal paper trying to justify the need for fansubs (and how it’s flawed in Adam’s eyes). All that peppered with a discussion on fan auctions and dating, and a question that got asked over and over again.

And if you thought having Neil paired with Adam was fun, wait until you hear what happens when Adam and Clarissa are paired up here for the first time…

Mike Nicolas, James Austin, Adam Grant, Clarissa Jewell