Japanimation Station Season 6 - TOMINO-THON!

Fifty years after the original Dororo aired on TV, MAPPA brought Tezuka Osamu’s Dororo roaring into the 21st century with a radically different take – and it’s the next stop on our exciting Grand Tour! With a reimagined conception of Hyakkimaru, expanded roles for characters like Daigo Kagemitsu and Tahomaru, and a striking modern animation style, MAPPA’s Dororo is a worthy reinterpretation of a classic, and a fascinating point of comparison to the original. While our hosts disagree slightly on how effective they found the series’ overall approach, it comes highly recommended from both, and we enjoyed breaking it all down on today’s episode. 

Enjoy, and come back next week as look at one of the strangest corners of Tezuka Osamu’s empire, and of anime in general: The Animerama film trilogy, consisting of 1969’s A Thousand & One Nights, 1970’s Cleopatra, and 1973’s Belladonna of Sadness. 

Time Chart:

Theme Song: 0:00:00 – 0:01:16

Intro and History: 0:01:16 – 1:12:03

Eyecatch Break: 1:12:03 – 1:12:50

Dororo 2019 Review: 1:12:50 – 3:06:10

End Theme: 3:06:10 – 3:07:11

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to PURELY ACADEMIC, our monthly variety podcast about movies, video games, TV, and more: https://purelyacademic.simplecast.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

“Welcome to Japanimation Station” – Music by Thomas Lack, Lyrics by Sean Chapman, featuring Hatsune Miku. “Happily Ever After” – Music & Lyrics by Thomas Lack, featuring Hatsune Miku. https://www.thomaslack.com

Our Grand Tour now takes us back to the first decade of anime, and to the work of the ‘God of Manga’ himself, the one and only Tezuka Osamu! The creator of series like Mighty Atom, Black Jack, and Princess Knight, Tezuka’s Mushi Productions pioneered TV anime as we know it today, and Dororo is one of the towering achievements of their 1960s output. Based on the unfinished manga by Tezuka, and directed by the great Sugii Gizaburō, Dororo is a singular samurai drama about a wandering swordsman, Hyakkimaru, who battles demons to restore the 48 missing parts of his body sacrificed by his warlord father. Along the way, he meets a young thief named Dororo, and their many adventures make for some of the earliest manga and anime to directly engage with adult themes and imagery. Like the manga, Dororo on TV had some production shake-ups, essentially changing directions halfway through when Sugii departed the series amidst disagreements with Tezuka, but make no mistake: this is one anime you do not want to miss. 

Enjoy, and come back next week as we leap 50 years ahead to 2019 to talk about MAPPA’s recent re-interpretation of Dororo! 

Time Chart:

Theme Song: 0:00:00 – 0:01:15

Intro to Tezuka Osamu: 0:01:15 – 0:55:24

Eyecatch Break: 0:55:24 – 0:56:09

Dororo History & Review: 0:56:09 – 3:32:24

End Theme: 3:32:24 – 3:33:54

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to PURELY ACADEMIC, our monthly variety podcast about movies, video games, TV, and more: https://purelyacademic.simplecast.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

“Welcome to Japanimation Station” – Music by Thomas Lack, Lyrics by Sean Chapman, featuring Hatsune Miku. “ice” – Music & Lyrics by Thomas Lack, featuring Hatsune Miku & Megurine Luka. https://www.thomaslack.com

Our Grand Tour continues with the second half of Dragon Ball GT, which marked the end of the 18-year ‘Toriyama Block’ on Fuji TV, and the end of new Dragon Ball stories on TV until Dragon Ball Super nearly 20 years later. The first few episodes here cover the ‘Super Android 17’ Arc, which is probably the very worst bit of Dragon Ball ever created, but the ‘Shadow Dragons’ Saga has always had more mixed reception, including some vocal defenders. What do Sean and Jonathan make of it? Well, we aren’t so hot on that one either, despite some good ideas and individual strong moments throughout. Still, diagnosing what ails Dragon Ball GT continues to make for a fascinating and fun conversation.

Enjoy, and come back next week as we return to the dawn of anime with one of the great works by Japan’s ‘God of Manga,’ Tezuka Osamu, and the 1969 series Dororo! 

Time Chart:

Theme Song: 0:00:00 – 0:01:16

Intro and History: 0:01:16 – 0:51:03

Eyecatch Break: 0:51:03 – 0:51:50

Dragon Ball GT Review: 0:51:50 – 2:53:33

End Theme: 2:53:33 – 2:54:34

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to PURELY ACADEMIC, our monthly variety podcast about movies, video games, TV, and more: https://purelyacademic.simplecast.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

“Welcome to Japanimation Station” – Music by Thomas Lack, Lyrics by Sean Chapman, featuring Hatsune Miku. “Rolled Into One” – Music & Lyrics by Thomas Lack, featuring Hatsune Miku. https://www.thomaslack.com

Our new season begins with a blast from the past, as we return to the 90s for an in-depth look at Dragon Ball GT, the 64-episode, anime-only extension of Toriyama Akira’s classic series. While GT has always proven divisive among Dragon Ball fans, Sean and Jonathan have never made it all the way through – and doing so turns out to be a bit of a challenge, because as much as we both love all things Dragon Ball, this particular entryis not our cup of tea. Despite the regularly fantastic vocal cast, strong animation including character designs from the great Nakatsuru Katsuyoshi, and a promising premise with a miniaturized Son Goku travelling the universe in search of Dragon Balls, the series is a creative mess, with frequently threadbare storytelling, terrible background music, and disappointing action. In this first episode, we discuss the Black Star Dragon Ball and Baby Arcs, which takes us through a few creative high points on our way to Super Saiyan 4 – but this is not, suffice it to say, our favorite stop on our Grand Tour.  

Enjoy, and come back next week as we review the rest of Dragon Ball GT with episodes 41-64 and the Super 17 and Shadow Dragon Sagas.

Time Chart:

Theme Song: 0:00:00 – 0:01:12

Intro and History: 0:01:12 – 1:33:34

Eyecatch Break: 1:33:34 – 1:34:19

Dragon Ball GT Review: 1:34:19 – 3:53:18

End Theme: 3:13:54 – 3:54:21

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to PURELY ACADEMIC, our monthly variety podcast about movies, video games, TV, and more: https://purelyacademic.simplecast.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

“Welcome to Japanimation Station” – Music by Thomas Lack, Lyrics by Sean Chapman, featuring Hatsune Miku. “Happily Ever After” – Music & Lyrics by Thomas Lack, featuring Hatsune Miku. https://www.thomaslack.com

Gundam is back, which means Weekly Suit Gundam returns once more, thanks to this weekend’s release of Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX -Beginning- in American theaters. The film, which collects the first few episodes of the upcoming GQuuuuuuX TV series, is the result of an exciting, long-awaited collaboration behind the Otaku madmen at Studio Khara, including Neon Genesis Evangelion creator Anno Hideaki and Gainax veterans Tsurumaki Kazuya and Enokido Yoji. The result is every bit as exciting as one would expect, a spectacular production that radically reworks Gundam history even as it forges a bold new path for the franchise. -Beginning- is a fantastic theatrical experience that bodes very well for the show to come, and after seeing these 80 minutes, we are extremely excited to see more in April. 

Enjoy, and be sure to join us for Season 5 of Japanimation Station, our anime ‘Grand Tour,’ when it premieres on March 16th, 2025! 

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to PURELY ACADEMIC, our monthly variety podcast about movies, video games, TV, and more: https://purelyacademic.simplecast.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

The latest film from Kyoto Animation veteran Yamada Naoko – known for K-On!, A Silent Voice, and Tamako Market – arrived in American theaters courtesy GKids this weekend, and both Sean and Jonathan made trips to the theater to check it out. Now working with Science SARU, Yamada’s voice is as singular as ever, and while The Colors Within returns to some familiar narrative territory for the director – high-school students forming a band – the way this story is told is singular. It’s an aggressively low-key, gentle narrative about quiet but profound emotions, and it builds to a musical climax that is an absolute knockout – one we couldn’t resist recording a podcast about.  

Enjoy! And please look forward to Season 5 of Japanimation Station, our ‘Grand Tour’ of anime, which we are excited to announce will be premiering Sunday, March 16th, 2025! 

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to PURELY ACADEMIC, our monthly variety podcast about movies, video games, TV, and more: https://purelyacademic.simplecast.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

“Welcome to Japanimation Station” – Original Music by Thomas Lack, Lyrics by Thomas Lack and Sean Chapman, featuring Hatsune Miku; “ICE” – Original Music & Lyrics by Thomas Lack, featuring Hatsune Miku. https://www.thomaslack.com

The fourth and potentially final TV season of the hit anime Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba aired its fourth season this summer, adapting and expanding on the “Hashira Training Arc” of Koyoharu Gotouge’s manga. We weren’t able to review this season right when it finished due to work on our massive Kyoto Animation project, but now that we’re between seasons we thought it was time to talk once more about one of our favorite ongoing anime. These episodes adapt a very short slice of the manga, expanding on it in really wonderful ways to give us a final stretch of in-depth character development before the chaos of the Infinity Castle Arc, which will be produced as a film trilogy in the coming years. As always, ufotable’s adaptational choices are really smart and interesting to talk about, and it all builds to a season finale that’s one of the best episodes in the show’s history. 

Enjoy! We’ll be going on a bit of a hiatus for now as we work on SEASON 5 of Japanimation Station, our ‘Grand Tour’ through a variety of anime, which will be premiering later this winter. 

Time Chart:

Theme Song: 0:00:00 – 0:01:15

Hashira Training Arc Review Part 1: 0:01:15 – 1:06:24 

Eyecatch Break: 1:06:24 – 1:06:47

Hashira Training Arc Review Part 2: 1:06:47 – 2:19:08

End Theme: 2:19:08 – 2:20:09

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to PURELY ACADEMIC, our monthly variety podcast about movies, video games, TV, and more: https://purelyacademic.simplecast.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

“Welcome to Japanimation Station” – Original Music by Thomas Lack, Lyrics by Thomas Lack and Sean Chapman, featuring Hatsune Miku; “Rolled Into One” – Original Music & Lyrics by Thomas Lack, featuring Hatsune Miku. https://www.thomaslack.com

Weekly Suit Gundam makes its triumphant return to review the long-awaited Mobile Suit Gundam SEED FREEDOM, the film sequel to the first Gundam anime of the 21st century: Gundam SEED and Gundam SEED Destiny. We are big fans of the original SEED on this podcast, and were driven slightly insane by Destiny, so seeing director Mitsuo Fukuda and the original cast and crew come back together for a final adventure, based on story material left behind by the late Chiaki Morosawa, is extremely cathartic, especially since the film they made is so astonishingly great. Now that it’s finally dropped in the US on Netflix (albeit in a strange dub-only release – we would encourage listeners to, uh, *search elsewhere* for the original Japanese), we’re free to talk about the film at length, diving into the incredible action, surprisingly potent storytelling, and how the movie finally does right by Kira, Lacus, Shinn, and all the other great characters left in tatters by Destiny. 

Enjoy, and join us next week for another bonus episode of Japanimation Station, where we’ll be reviewing the Hashira Training Arc season of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. 

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to PURELY ACADEMIC, our monthly variety podcast about movies, video games, TV, and more: https://purelyacademic.simplecast.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

It’s the final episode of our Kyoto Vacation season, an incredibly, unexpectedly long journey that’s lasted almost a full year! For this Season Finale, we thought we’d take stock of all the incredible anime we’ve seen from the incredible artists at Kyoto Animation. We make a Tier List of all the TV series and movies we watched this season, create a KyoAni drinking game based on the most common visuals and tropes we noticed across the studio’s work, and declare our favorite shows, characters, episodes, and more. And at the end of the episode, we announce not one, but two new seasons of Japanimation Station: Season 5, premiering this winter, and Season 6, premiering in 2025. What will they be? You’ll have to listen to find out! 

Enjoy, and come back next week for the long-awaited, one-week-only return of Weekly Suit Gundam, as we finally review MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM SEED FREEDOM! 

Time Chart:

Theme Song: 0:00:00 – 0:01:30 

Reflections: 0:01:30 – 0:31:14

Tier List: 0:31:14 – 1:02:53

Picking Favorites & KyoAni Drinking Game: 1:02:53 – 1:52:50

Season 5 Announcement: 1:52:50 – 2:05:38

Season 6 Announcement: 2:05:38 – 2:07:55

End Theme: 2:07:55 – 2:09:09

Make your own Kyoto Animation Tier List here https://tiermaker.com/create/japanimation-stations-kyoto-vacation-17327185   

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Read the book 200 Reviews by Jonathan R. Lack in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Follow The Weekly Stuff Wordcast newsletter for regular updates and extra content! 

https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to The Weekly Stuff Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheWeeklyStuffPodcast

Visit our website and subscribe to Japanimation Station on all podcast platforms: http://japanimationstation.com/

Subscribe to The Weekly Stuff Podcast on all podcast platforms: http://www.weeklystuffpodcast.com

“re:CAPTURE” and “Welcome to Japanimation Station” – Original Music by Thomas Lack, Lyrics by Thomas Lack and Sean Chapman, featuring Hatsune Miku. https://www.thomaslack.com

It’s the penultimate episode of our Kyoto Vacation season, and while we wait to board the plane back to America, we’ve got one last show to review: Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, which aired two seasons in 2017 and 2021. A delightfully silly and surprisingly sweet slice-of-life comedy an office worker and the extra-dimensional dragon who’s infatuated with her, the first season was directed by the great Yasuhiro Takemoto, before his tragic death in the 2019 arson attack that took the lives of so many Kyoto Animation artists. The second season, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S, was finished by the studio’s other stalwart veteran director, Tatsuya Ishihara, as the first series the studio had back on the air after the attack. It’s a great show in both incarnations, different in some notable ways based on the personalities of the two directors, but more than anything, the series attests to the artistry and humanity of Kyoto Animation, and their resilience in continuing to create in the wake of such overwhelming loss.  

Enjoy, and come back next week for the FINAL episode of the season, as we take a look back at our entire Kyoto Vacation, create a tier list of KyoAni shows, and announce Seasons 5 and 6 of Japanimation Station!  

Time Chart:

Theme Song: 0:00:00 – 0:01:30 

Intro & History: 0:01:30 – 0:44:12

Eyecatch Break: 0:44:12 – 0:44:49

Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid Review: 0:44:49 – 2:34:28

End Theme: 2:34:28 – 2:35:59

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Read the book 200 Reviews by Jonathan R. Lack in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Follow The Weekly Stuff Wordcast newsletter for regular updates and extra content! 

https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to The Weekly Stuff Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheWeeklyStuffPodcast

Visit our website and subscribe to Japanimation Station on all podcast platforms: http://japanimationstation.com/

Subscribe to The Weekly Stuff Podcast on all podcast platforms: http://www.weeklystuffpodcast.com

“re:CAPTURE” and “ice” – Original Music & Lyrics by Thomas Lack, featuring Hatsune Miku & Megurine Luka. https://www.thomaslack.com