Podcast – 17th April 2020 (w/ Dr. Jonathan Clements)
"Why is that giant robot skipping?"
Dr. Jonathan Clements returns to bring some fascinating insight on a number of topics that also gives him a chance to discuss reindeer herders and his love of Gunbuster!
We conclude the week with Jeremy and Andy welcoming Dr. Jonathan Clements back to the show to provide a (what we guess is now a periodic) update on life in lockdown in Finland! (Following on the Jonathan's previous appearance on the show,) this leads onto some unique Finnish historic insight into the reindeer herders and what a political minefield that is.
We then get onto some anime related chatter beginning with some follow-up chatter on Gunbuster, following it being mentioned by Jonathan during his last appearance, and more specifically the theatrical condensed version of it, and then why Jonathan isn't a fan the follow-up, Diebuster.
Then, after it was first mentioned on the our Escaflowne special last week, we get some fascinating insight into who is(n't) Hajime Yatate. We talk about how this pseudonym first came about, why this came about and is still a factor in the anime world today, especially when nowadays credit for work is something very much encouraged in society.
As if that wasn't enough, we also delve into the subject of titles that were far more popular outside of Japan, but also the subject of how a title is perceived or presented both inside and outside Japan; how important is foreign money to a title and how did that notion come about?
A fun and incredibly insightful 75 minutes to end the week!
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Ajin 2
By Andrew Osmond.
If you know about Ajin: Demi-Human already, then rejoice for the wait is over! The second season of the series drops onto Collector’s Blu-ray and DVD, and there’s some pointers about what to expect from it if you scroll down this article.
If you’ve not encountered Ajin before, then the first series is already available on Collector’s Blu-ray and DVD, and you can find it here. The premise isn’t far from X-Men. Ajin is set in a world where a minority of people develop frightening powers, and are hunted, captured and tortured by the authorities. Understandably, some of the minority fight back. Continue Reading
Podcast – 15th April 2020
"This series starts with a woman fighting a bear"
Jeremy and Andy are back to talk about more shows form the Spring anime season including the first episode of P.A.Works' new series, Appare-Ranman!
After a well deserved break for Easter, there's lots to talk about both anime related and not! After giving an update on our release of Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki, Jeremy and Andy go on a complete tangent to bring discuss some things they've been indulging in over the Easter weekend including the recent Sonic the Hedgehog film featuring Jim Carrey, fishing in Animal Crossing, football documentaries and maybe even a mention of someone making a garden bench!
After that unexpected tangent, they move back onto topic with some more discussion on new shows from the currently airing Spring season! There's talk on the first episodes of Appare-Ranman, Princess Connect! Re: Dive and Wave, Listen to Me.
Plus there's talk on the new Psycho-Pass 3: First Inspector OVA as well as some follow discussion on episode 2 of both Digimon Adventure (2020) and Tower of God!
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NEXT EPISODE with special guest, Dr. Jonathan Clements!
That's right, the next episode of the podcast set for release on Friday will feature Dr. Jonathan Clements! If you've got any questions or possible topics for us to discuss with Jonathan feel free to post them in comments below or send them to us via social media before midday tomorrow (Thursday 16th.)
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Books: Animating the Spirited
By Shelley Pallis.
In the introduction to their latest collaboration, Animating the Spirited, Tze-yue G. Hu, Masao Yokota and Gyongyi Horvath recall the discovery that they were all separately working on papers on the “spiritual aspects of creative work,” and their joint decision to pool their resources. I’m not sure, however, that they necessarily agreed on what “spiritual” meant in this context, or indeed that it mattered all that much, because such kismet has brought together a group of like-minded souls with an interest in one of animation studies’ longest-running topics: breathing life into art. Continue Reading
Books: Nightmares in the Dream Sanctuary
By Jonathan Clements.
Donna Kornhaber’s new book on animation and war begins with an electrifying account of an afternoon in 1899, when the Ladies Welfare Committee for Soldiers and Sailors staged the premiere of Arthur Melbourne-Cooper’s one-minute “Matches Appeal.” The Empire, in Leicester Square, was the venue at which the world’s first recorded screening of an animated film took place, with an animated advert in which the Bryant & May company promised to send a personalised box of matches to every British soldier fighting in the Boer War.
But then she leaps into the future, to a winter’s day in Moscow in 1983, when a very different film received its premiere. Garri Bardin’s “Conflict” also features animated matchsticks, but was a very different presentation with a severe anti-war message.
These two moments in cinema history mark the broad parameters of Kornhaber’s just-published Nightmares in the Dream Sanctuary, in which she investigates the relationship of animation and war, not merely as propaganda, but as protest, resistance and memorial. She is intrigued by the ways in which film can be used to tell outrageous lies about the acceptability of war, or to confront viewers with unwelcome truths about its costs, but also in which animation, in its plastic relation to reality, can prove ideally suited for depicting a world turned upside-down. Continue Reading