In honor of Legendary’s upcoming Godzilla movie, we marathoned the franchise. Now we’re doing a retrospective in (probably) four parts, starting with this overview of Toho Studios’ science fiction, fantasy, and horror special effects movies during the golden age of Japanese cinema, i.e. Godzilla (1954) through Destroy All Monsters (1968).

We did have some recording issues here, so there’s occasional static or audio spliced in from our secondary mic; we should hopefully have that fixed for the subsequent installments.

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For this episode, Kevin and Josh chat about Kill La Kill, Samurai Flamenco (spoilers from 25:00-29:00), Space Dandy, Nobunagun, Noragami, and other stuff from the Winter 2013 TV season, mostly anime-based. Then we do the typical overview of the new season based on the first episode impressions.

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Simulcast/streaming links:

You’ll have to get fansubs for Kamen Rider Gaim, Marvel’s Disk Wars: Avengers, Garo: Makai no Hana, Ressha Sentai ToQger, Kampai Senshi After V, and Happiness Charge Pretty Cure. Knights of Sidonia will be coming to Netflix after its airing completes in Japan.

For something with a Godzilla reference right in the name, we don’t talk about Godzilla very much, do we? Let’s fix that. For this episode, Andy and Kevin talk about the King of the Monsters’ frequently wacky history in the USA, as preparation for Legendary’s upcoming flick.

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Notes:

Cartoons:

Audio dramas:

Commercials:

Not a lot of introduction needed for this one: Slayers is a fantastic anime, so we fanboyed-out about it for a couple hours. You can watch it for free on hulu or youtube. Seriously, it’s pretty great.

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Show notes/random clips from youtube:

A look at the Slayers RPGs:

Samples of the dub:

Trailers:

Everyone’s favorite theme song (and yes, Lina’s sister is in this OP, too):

In this episode, we look at kaiju in a post-Final Wars world. Or rather, in a post-Final Wars Japan. In preparation for Legendary’s upcoming Godzilla, we’ve decided to do a series of podcasts (unfortunately, this episode took a while to get out, so we start off lamenting the lack of a trailer, which is obviously out now). Kicking off is this retrospective of all the major kaiju properties to emerge from Japan during the decade long hiatus Godzilla has taken since Godzilla: Final Wars in 2004. Our ultimate conclusion: there’s some fun stuff, but we miss Godzilla.

Stay tuned for more installments of the Godzilla podcast mega-retrospective! (Hopefully they won’t be quite so delayed!)

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Topics include:

And our “cameo” list:

Trailers and more:

Manga Entertainment has posted the entirety of Negadon: the Monster from Mars free on youtube!

Gamera’s enemy eats humans. For kids!

Hakaijuu short with Henge trailer:

It’s been a while since there’s been a podcast, so we decided to shoot the breeze about the current Japanese TV season and the recent Pokemon Origins miniseries.

As a word of warning, the audio sort of sucks this time. We were recording two microphones onto one track, so we wound up getting a lot of echo on one of them, and the air conditioning is also going in the background. Just pretend that Josh is proclaiming his opinions from Mount Olympus, and we’ll try to avoid the echo problem during future recordings.

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Anyway, some of the topics include:

At around 46 and a half minutes in, we get to discussion of Pokemon Origins:

The series can been seen November 15 on the Pokemon website.

After numerous failed attempts, the second half of our Rumiko Takahashi retrospective finally got recorded successfully! For reference, the first half was what we’re calling episode 2. This episode is mostly us talking about how great Ranma 1/2 is, how bad Rinne is, and how Inuyasha went wrong, but we also touch on One Pound Gospel and Moeyo Ken, and wrap things up with a summary of the 1987 OVAs Fire Tripper, Laughing Target, and Maris the Chojo.

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Show-note miscellanea:

One Pound Gospel is mouth-watering:

The series that Viz was built on:

Kuno is basically one of the best characters in all of anime:

Ranma 1/2 never got a “Final Act” to complete the story from the manga, but the end of the manga was animated as a pachinko game. Obvious spoilers:

Chinese Inuyasha adaptation, The Holy Pearl:

Rumiko Takahashi Anthology trailer:

Rinne never actually got animated.

Moeyo Ken trailer:

Urusei Yatsura cast shows up in Maris the Chojo:

Finally, the crossover that preceded the OVAs that were produced for the 50th anniversary of Shonen Sunday. These really ought to get a US release, but I’m not sure what sort of format they could be put out in:

Check out Rumic World for more info!

Better late than never? Here are our thoughts on Pacific Rim. In a nutshell: The movie is awesome, and we have some harsh words for its detractors. (And harsh words in general, if you’re easily offended.) If you haven’t seen the movie yet, I’m not sure how much you’ll get out of the show, but that might incentivize you: go watch Pacific Rim on the big screen, while you still can!

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Show Notes:

–Here‘s a cool visual analysis of the movie that was posted after we’d recorded; it’s worth a read.

-If you want to throw a lot of money at the movie, there’s a $400 Gypsy Danger statue coming soon.

-The Japanese poster from Katsuya Terada:

-Also, here’s the Pacific Rim trailer set to the theme from Gunbuster. It works shockingly well.