Zannen, Canada

It's time to look at the first anime series ever set in Canada: the pastoral Quebec tale of Wakakusa No Charlotte (Charlotte of the Young Grass). It's not a World Masterpiece Theatre title, but it's got a little of that flavour, not to mention heaps of retro shoujo melodrama, so I knew that it was time to bring Dawn from the Anime Nostalgia podcast back on the show to take a look at this somewhat obscure series. I gotta tell you... we weren't ready for this at all. You may not believe the things that happen in this show, no matter how hard we scream at you about them for an hour.

Scott Pilgrim means a lot of things to a lot of people. He especially means a lot of things to his creator, Bryan Lee O'Malley, which led to a few surprises in the recent anime series Scott Pilgrim Takes Off. And now that Scott Pilgrim is officially anime... well we've gotta talk about him! Hazel and Bell return to chat about the impact Scott Pilgrim had on their lives, the new show and the possibility that this Canadian folk hero has perhaps lost a bit of his Canadian-ness.

For the first time in three years, Zannen, Canada is back in the holiday spirit, although as usual this episode has less to do with the holidays as it does looking back at our favourite media of the past year. This is in itself may be an activity best left until the beginning of the following year, but let's not worry about that. Hazel and Bell return to the show to discuss their recent work on Electric Bones and Replay Boys and also take the time to teach me that Produce 101 is not an introductory course on buying fruits and vegetables.

Beloved in most of the non-English-speaking world, Heidi: Girl of the Alps is quite possibly the most high profile series to have its French dub produced in Quebec. Isao Takahata's graceful and nuanced adaptation of Johanna Spyri's classic novels was a high point of Radio-Canada's programming and was making an impact a full two years before it would be seen in France. Chris (aka Kurotsuki) joins me to discuss the dub, as well as the legacy of the series and it's admittedly cruel production.

Zannen, Canada is now twenty years old, and we're celebrating with a very classic discussion. Karl and I look back on the history of the blog and podcast going back to 2003, discuss the recent demise of English-language Teletoon and finally find the courage to tackle the impending regulation of streaming services in Canada. (As a side note, I can also confirm that the first two years of the Zannen, Canada blog are completely inaccessible, and I could not be happier because of that.)

The 1995 Crying Freeman movie is notoriously difficult to watch, which means that it has to be the most amazing thing ever right? Well, in addition to being a stellar live action adaptation of a manga, it has a few things going for it: Mark Dacascos in a starring role, well staged and edited action scenes and Vancouver playing Vancouver for once. Daryl and Gerald from the Anime World Order podcast pop by to analyze how well a Japanese crime story transplanted into a Canadian city holds up. (The answer is: pretty well, actually!)

I sit down with Chris Nielsen and Bart Bachelor, the key creatives behind Night Sweats, to discuss their brand new blisteringly fast-paced paranormal comedy, Psi Cops - Adult Swim Canada's first English-language original series! The premiere is Sunday, June 4, 2023 (technically Monday, June 5, 2023) at 12:30am ET, with streaming on StackTV and (I am assuming) the Global app!

It is an interesting coincidence that the imminent death of the Teletoon brand on English-language television lined up with our long-awaited discussion of Cybersix, perhaps their finest program, but I'm more than happy to make this my tribute. A 1999 collaboration between TMS and NOA Network of Animation based on a surprisingly visceral Argentinian comic, I would like to think that this show needs no introduction. Cybersix represents an apex for international animated co-productions that has not been reached before or since. Noted CanCon otaku Zee (pictured) and Discotek wizard Brady Hartel (who brought us that awesome DVD) basically just gush about the show with me for 90 minutes.

Long before foreign TV shows were neatly catalogued and sourced on streaming sites and Wikipedia pages, they were haphazardly dumped onto the schedules of provincial educational broadcasters such as TVO and Knowledge Network and aired as a continuous fever dream with little context or reasoning. One such show was Fables of the Green Forest, the proto-World Masterpiece Theatre anime based on the works of Thornton W. Burgess that aired in its entirety only in certain Canadian provinces. It may also be the anime series most deeply engraved into the minds of Gen X Ontarians due to its excessive overplay on TVO in the 1980s. The Quebecois dub, aired on Radio-Canada, also had a very unique localized flavour that wasn't found in other shows. Awesome guests Ed Conroy (creator of Retrontario) and Etienne Desilets-Trempe (writer of Frivolesque) try to illustrate the dark, vintage madness that characterizes this series for so many.

In what will hopefully be my last news roundup episode ever, Geoff and Yazy return to discuss all of the explosive anime industry news of the last few months, although we spend most of the time talking about how Sony buying out RightStuf will make it a lot harder to import hentai into Canada. We also talk about Uzumaki's constantly delayed Adult Swim Canada airing, and how somebody really, REALLY needs to stream the rest of Inuyasha in this country. I mean, come on, what are they waiting for?