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strange, I'm unable to download the episode though my podcast app but the episode shows as listed but then get a 404 error.

This problem should be fixed now - if anyone else is having trouble please let me know.

I think almost every girl who got into anime in the 90's had a CLAMP phaze, I know I sure did! I think I've matured past the point of being embarassed by it. I for sure went through an 'omg tragic bishounens with angel wings' phase. I even had all the Angel Sanctuary manga & artbooks ^^;

I really want to revisit X though. The manga was pretty much the height of CLAMP's artstyle. And Kamui.... le sigh... *A* Also you guys Kobato wasn't CLAMP's last work; I think it was Blood C... which was so terrible it actually made me hate them a bit. I mean, I was such a CLAMP fan I read Tsubasa start to finish... but Blood C just destroyed me. Loved Kobato though Smile

Akira is 100% a must watch. Sure, it may not be what anime is now, but it representative of is what anime used to be for a good 20 years of its history. It's such a pinnacle of the art form too. I saw a film print at a film festival a few years ago, and it had to be one of the most gorgeous things I've ever seen. The setting is still pretty relevant to today too; weirdly so. The manga is far, far better and one of the best comics ever drawn; seriously everyone should read it. The art and paneling pretty much puts every other manga to shame. I'd really be against doing a new adaptation because, as the guest pointed out they'd probably CG it and make it look horrid.

Please, please do an Utena episode!! Smile

Last edited by invalidname on Fri Jul 24, 2015 7:28 pm; edited 1 time in total

Please tell me you at least considered calling this episode "Evil McEvilTits".

Very true about the environment that Akira came out in. It's probably hard for people today to imagine that the Disney renaissance hadn't happened at this point -- The Little Mermaid was still a year away (mmmaybe Who Framed Roger Rabbit? had come out at this point) -- so it's not just that Akira was offering something very different than American animation, it was that most Americans didn't think of animation at all, and certainly not as anything that anyone over the age of 10 would ever watch.

It was also a time when we weren't overwhelmed with as much media as today -- in those days, they'd re-release the Star Wars movies the summer after they came out, and we'd all go see them again, because what else were we gonna do? So, someone generally interested in sci-fi would see anything and everything sci-fi, including sci-fi themed horror (The Terminator, Aliens, etc.) and sci-fi comedy (Spaceballs, Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy) and thus sci-fi animation as well. So I think Akira ended up being seen by a lot of sci-fi generalists in a way that really wouldn't even happen today.

Other interesting point about Akira back in the day is that it was largely an offshoot of comics culture for a lot of people, because at the time it was coming out in English in fancy 80-page editions from Epic, the prestige/adult line of Marvel otherwise largely existed in hopes of showing Elektra's breasts. But, as a sop to American fans, they colorized Akira for this release, the thought of which is just cringe-worthy today. Anyways, every comic book store in the country carried Akira, and times were good for comics back then (New Mutants, Dark Knight Returns, Love and Rockets, yada yada), so it probably found crossover fans there in a way it wouldn't today. I was in college then, and saw the movie with a bunch of my comics-loving friends on opening night.

EDIT: Also, hats off to Eryn for a fine performance in the third seat.

"A classic is something everybody wants to have read, but no one wants to read." --Mark Twain

I've avoided both of these movies so far. I suppose I should break down and try Akira.

When I first got into anime in the late 90s I was on a couple of different forums. Most of the people seem to have gotten into anime as a result of having watched Robotech when young. I didn't see much discussion of Akira.

I have not watched that many anime movies, but I think I have watched the most important/influential ones (actually, I have not watched the X/1999 one; I was not even aware of its existence).

In my experience and opinion the best well made anime movie of all time is Grave of the Fireflies. But my personal favorite anime movie is Only Yesterday.

I've seen both films -- I still don't have a clue as to what Akira is supposed to be about.

nobahn wrote:

I've seen both films -- I still don't have a clue as to what Akira is supposed to be about.

The manga is less condensed so it makes a bit more sense but in summary:

spoiler[The Japanese military tried to create psychic soldiers (espers) and Akira was their big 'success'. Unfortunately this success meant he evolved beyond physical reality and blew up Tokyo in the process. Well they rebuild Neo Tokyo but don't learn their lesson. They keep with the esper experiments but give the kids drugs to keep their powers in check (which is why they're all weird and blue). Tetsuo crashes into one of these espers while fighting a rival gang. The experience 'unlocks' the psychic part of Tetsuo's brain.

The military takes him and tries to control him with drugs, and the other espers try to kill him. Neither works and he escapes. He stops taking the drugs so he'll get more powerful (he has an inferiority complex from his rivalry with Kaneda). Also he tries to find Akira so he can become just as strong. Without the inhibiting drugs, his power starts going out of control and he grows into that big fetus monster thing. Akira comes to get Tetsuo and Tetsuo becomes something like a God, initiating a big bang in another universe / dimension. (That whole end thing that says 'I am Tetsuo'.)]

Interesting podcast, as someone has been into anime for the past three years, Akira is one of the movies I was told, "I must watch" and was told that X the movie was something to avoid. I enjoyed Akira on Toonami, when they featured it. I guess only a small number of new fans to anime watch it.

I can totally relate to that CLAMP phase that many teenage anime fangirls must have gone through. Despite my obsession with X back then, I never watched the movie. Weird. Akira is also something that is really down on my "to watch" list. It's not something I'm dying to watch, just one of those "obligatory" titles every anime fan must go through.

I gotta say, the one-winged angel aspect of X didn't captivate me as much as its blatant homoerotic subtext did Laughing

I guess the series was formative for me when it comes to my fujoshi tendencies.

Hello, I have a quick ANNCast question for Mr. Bertschy; I'll be amending my post later so that I may post my thoughts on this week's podcast, so I apologize for this being a slightly OT post at the moment. I follow ANNCast through the podcasts downloaded via iTunes, and would love to listen to older episodes that I missed when they originally came out; however, iTunes only keeps around twenty or so of the most current episodes, with older ones vanishing when new ones are released. Is there any way for Mr. Bertschy or someone with ANN to upload the former episodes, so that listeners who missed them first go around can download the podcasts and listen to them on the go? There are many times where I am away from the internet and unable to utilize Anime News Network itself, so I would love it if this were possible.

Sorry if I'm being totally oblivious to an easy way to resolve this, and thank you for anyone that takes the time to read/answer this. I can't wait to listen to this week's podcast (major CLAMP fan here, and I can easily say X is one of my favorites. The movie is a love-hate affair for me, so I can't wait to hear what Zac, Hope and guests have to say!).

I was like...11 when I watched X. Male, straight. I honestly never noticed any homoerotic subtexts. I guess my mind just wasn't thinking about that stuff back then lol. I really enjoyed the TV series but the movie just made me scratch my head the whole time. The best part about it was that it got me into X Japan. I rated it bad on here, but I just copied all my ratings from my old/lost account that I made in like 03 or 04, so I might not feel the same way now but I hated it when I first saw it. Then I watched the OVA and was like "oh okay" and watched the TV series last and thought it was pretty cool. Akira...Akira is Akira. I just assumed any "real" anime fan would've watched it by year 2 or 3 of being a fan.

As for the CLAMP fangirl phase...heh. I remember tons of girls in that phase back when I was on Gaia in 04-06. Soooo many Tsubasa fangirls. It was actually why I didn't watch Code Geass for a long time. Anime hyper

. I assumed it would be another "girly" show. Overtime I came to love CLAMP works like Chobits, Kobato, Angelic Layer, ect. I didn't find out they did X until after I watched Chobits and Angelic Layer I think.

And I agree with Lili-Hime. Blood C was awful. In the over 1000 anime I've seen, I honestly think it's in my top 10 worst anime list. I loved CLAMP, and I loved Blood+. I thought nothing could go wrong but everything did except the voices Anime cry

Interesting discussions! I don't know why she sounded embarrassed about the "CLAMP phase", their early stuff was great! I'm still a big Rayearth fan.

I also have this hanging on my wall. I agree with the assessment; X didn't make for much of a movie but it sure was pretty.

Thank you for answering my question! I was the one asking about comparing X with Escaflowne.

Hearing you dismiss the Escaflowne movie a while back was weird to me, because I had some fun watching it, though it certainly isn't a good movie. X on the other hand, felt like a slog to get through. Just characters I didn't care about getting killed left and right, without anything else to keep me interested.

And I think it has to do with the fact that I am younger. I discovered anime through Pokémon and Digimon and Dragonball Z, so I wasn't really attracted to anime because of its bloody action, but because of weird fantasy worlds. The Escaflowne movie gave me that, X didn't.

Akira is something special though. I didn't love it, like you speculated younger fans wouldn't, but I did see it has lots of subtle characterization, great animation, even compared to other movies, and big ideas to explore. It is just so well made, it's no wonder people still talk about it.

Having now listened to the podcast, I've got to call Zac out for trying to kill me: his "Fuuma, no..." at the beginning of the episode had me choking on my water! Ah, X the movie sure is a hot mess. It's beautiful but so lacking any sort of context or depth, going through the motions portraying fights and deaths and not much more. It's a shame, too, as the characters are pretty great ones (with Subaru being one of my all-time favorite characters). I first caught this movie on Scyfy channel, right in the middle of Seiishiro's and Subaru's fight, and watched it while being completely mystified (I had read Tokyo Babylon, but not X just yet). Needless to say, I had to check the manga out after that, steadily devouring the old left-to-right paperbacks from the nineties via my library. How could anyone not love the bloody, tragic, homoerotic, and uber dramatic manga? Middle school memories Smile

I do find that the CLAMP fandom is nothing like it used to be, and I honestly think that's a crying shame. I've been a fan of CLAMP for about the last twelve years, and can remember how BIG their stuff was. I think their tendency to not end their series and the awful Blood-C (as well as pleasant but boring Kobato, and Tsubasa baffling over half the fandom) were the nail in the coffin, so to speak. I cannot reiterate enough just how excruciatingly painful Blood-C was. I'd love to see them become more active and continue some of their better recent works, like xxxHOLiC and Gate 7, but it's anyone's guess at this point.

Away from that tangent, I must also comment I never knew X was so formative for Zac, and I find that pretty cool. Following Sailor Moon, Evangelion and Nadesico were my big ones.

As for Akira, I was probably eleven or twelve when I first caught Akira, and I didn't understand half of it but was completely terrified by it. That nightmarish scene with Tetsuo and the toys *shudder*. Revisiting the film now, I can see why it still frequently makes "best-of" lists, as it definitely holds up. What a stylish, technical masterpiece. The Blu-Ray is stellar, and few films demand surround sound more than Akira. Beyond the technical prowess, the story is memorable and really fun science fiction to mentally chew on. I still need to read the manga, but the reputation is so daunting, I always seem to delay it Embarassed

In any case, enjoyed the discussion, I think both films are still worth watching (albeit for very different reasons), and look forward to next week~

And I'll totally damage my film buff cred by saying Akira advances upon Godfather in leaps and bounds by one virtue: it's actually interesting. *dodges bullets*

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