Episode 362: Giant Black Rabbit in Big Edo!

We’ve got a great show this week. After we do the news and the forum discussion we review a new, a not-quite-new, and an old anime. Up this week, Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi, Cyber City Oedo 808, and Shingeki no Kyojin. Don’t miss it!

Show Notes

Music

Intro – Once by Hitomi Harada from Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi
Outro – Neko Mimi Mode by Dimitri From Paris from Tsukiyomi Moon Phase

Reviews

Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi – Wait until it hits the US and NetFlix it.
Wikipedia
Official Site

Cyber City Oedo 808 – Wouldn’t kick it out of bed for crackers.
Wikipedia
Official Site

Shingeki no Kyojin – Download Now!
Wikipedia
Official Site

Liked it? Take a second to support Ichigo on Patreon!
Become a patron at Patreon!

0 Replies to “Episode 362: Giant Black Rabbit in Big Edo!”

  1. Regarding people’s predictions for future classics, I think that a larger factor than the ages of the estimators is being able to narrow it down to who really answered the question. At least a couple of people seemed to pick shows that they liked, which they might personally consider classics in the future, even if no one else does. The test of time is a cruel thing, and many enjoyable series will be forgotten in ten years – and more in twenty years.

    I totally stand by my recommendation of Madoka Magica. It rewards being genre-savvy, and its use of tropes is deliberate rather than lazy. To watch it with low expectations is ideal. This endorsement is coming from a twenty-nine year old.

  2. Can we PLEASE pronounce valet correctly? Thank you.

    For Time Chaser to say basically that “we are incapable of classics at this point” sounds like the ravings of someone of an older generation. How many anime have you watched from the past 3 years? All of them, Time Chaser? Oh yeah, you have not. Contradicted yourself, because to claim there are no classics is to know that none are worthy.

  3. I think that all the love for Sword Art Online is under the fog of youth and current popularity. I thought that SAO was good, but it isn’t spectacular, and it’s second section lacked the quality of the first.

    Someone saying Pet Kanojo or Jormungand (liked it, but it’s the poor man’s Black Lagoon) is a classic is not putting aside personal preference enough to think of their importance to the larger fanbase and critics.

  4. BTW, HOLY CRAP! Why can’t you save the poor listeners from the Attack on Titan spoilers! If I hadn’t seen it myself yesterday, I would’ve been scrambling for the pause button.

  5. Because talking about what happens 5 episodes into a 25 episode series shouldn’t constitute spoilers. That’s like saying talking about what happens 10 minutes into episode 1 is spoilers.

  6. @YotaruVegeta:

    I guess, from your point of view, I am of an older generation, I don’t know. How old are you? And you are correct, I haven’t seen every single anime over the last three years, but since starting work on the podcast and having to preview new shows each season, I’ve seen enough to know that we’re in a period where laziness rules over creativity, where pandering to a demographic happens a majority of the time, and I see countless repeated tropes and cliches, almost to the point where some hows have no real substance, that they are ONLY crafted around tropes and cliches.

    When I think of the term “classic” when it comes to anime, I think of things that really broke ground back in the day, that pushed boundaries and explored territory that hadn’t been explored before. I don’t see any of that happening today, or in recent years. I didn’t say every anime in the past three years was bad, I know there were some good ones. But by my definition of “classic”, I haven’t found any that fit this label.

  7. I don’t think the number of episodes in is the mark of what can and cant be spoilers. Spoilers are major events, like important characters leaving the show for whatever reason. Sometimes shows even throw you a curveball early on. Like maybe someone’s suddenly missing limbs! Hey, I get how it goes. I’ve been listening to this show for a while. What about those new listeners, though? If they don’t mind those spoilers, then I guess I don’t have to say any more.

    I am around the same age as you, Time Chaser; but, of course, our points of view aren’t the same.

    Yeah, the term classic can mean ground-breaking, but there is also a definition of classic which means of high quality. There are lots of classic cars for instance, but all of them aren’t doing something extraordinary in terms of getting people from point a to point b. Some cars are just very well designed, learned lessons from their predecessors, and have style on top of them.

    I’ve seen a few anime over the past 5 years or so that I feel will still stand the test of time. Stuff like From the New World, and even Flowers of Evil, which hasn’t even wrapped yet.

    Those anime impressed me because you can always take the easy way out and maybe inject some fanservice, have lazy character arcs, toss a moe blob and an oni chan in for good measure. However, they did not do that, and ended up better for it.

    I just get a bit skeptical when people say “this decade (which just so happens to be when I was growing up) did awesome work, and this generation– not so much.

    I think we are still babies in terms of being exposed to all this anime, and it’s a bit of a shock. I never watched 20 anime per season in the early-mid 90s. Now i’m faced with stuff I hate, meh stuff, and good stuff. Is it fair to say “look at all this crap now” when I never had to look at all the crap from 1-2 decades ago? Not totally fair.

  8. As a belated observation, it may just be that today’s future classics are just not as good as many of yesterday’s classics. They don’t have to be ground breaking or high quality, but those things certainly help.

  9. @YotaruVegeta: I believe the pronunciation of valet was correct (with a hard “t”). Valet, as in a household servant, isn’t pronounced the same as a parking valet, but to rhyme with (a wooden) mallet.

    Though i believe both had the same origins, parking valet was a job originated in the US and kept the original French pronunciation while the English pronunciation for the servant role hardened the “t” centuries ago and has remained the traditional pronunciation ever since. It is only recently that the silent “t” version has come into use in the UK, probably because of the masses being more familiar with the parking valet term than servant, but it’s still pronounced to rhyme with “mallet” among the upper classes.

  10. @TimeChaser:

    I have to disagree with you unless the “period” you’re referring to is all time. ^_^

    I’d say that you only think current anime is more full of laziness and tropes because you don’t remember the sheer amount of crap you had to wade through back in the day.

    Those classics you cite were separated by years and may well have been the only decent anime to air in their season. Just like today.

    There are, indeed, modern shows that will be considered classics in the future, but i’m not sure it will even matter. In a world where everything is available online and content recommendations can be made using social graphs and whatnot i think the idea of classics will become far less important for most people.

  11. Yep, I used the UK pronunciation intentionally so that people wouldn’t be confused over the car-parking guy. Of course, I only knew it was pronounced that way from watching Downton Abbey.

  12. I don’t watch Downton Abbey, so that sounded odd to me. I do watch Kitchen Nightmares from time to time, but valets never come up. Damn you, Brits!

    Yeah, I had to look it up in the dictionary, and it’s certainly one of the accepted pronunciations.

    I don’t think we’re at the point where no one cares about the concept of classics, but we’re certainly at the point where there is so much available to satisfy peoples’ niches that fewer eyes are focused on the same anime. There’s certain anime I beg people to watch, but there’s so many new and old anime competing for our attention.

Leave a Reply to Sam Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *