Anime World Order Show # 233 – Who Says Smoking Doesn’t Give You Superpowers

Anime World Order Podcast

This time around, Clarissa “pulls a Gerald” by reviewing something that we thought was still readily available via streaming and home video but is in fact totally out of print: 1993’s four-part OVA, 8 Man After. This gives us a good excuse to talk about the original 8 Man from the 1960s, its American localization, and of course Streamline Pictures and “Uncle” Carl Macek.

Introduction (0:00 – 46:49)
The new anime season has just begun, and if it feels like we say that every few episodes, that’s because of the way time works. We weigh in on our initial impressions of a selection of the current season, much of which only had maybe one or two episodes out at the time of recording. Gerald was a guest on the Anime Addicts Anonymous podcast, and since the last time any of us were on that was 2013 he didn’t realize that they’d pivoted to video long, long ago! The result is a Nixon/Kennedy debate-esque review of Wicked City in which shabbily-lit Gerald is the only one who likes it contrasted with the slick YouTubers who uh, did not like it at all. Watch and wonder why only Clarissa is smart enough to have set up a VTuber rig!

Promo: Places That Were Anime To Me (46:49 – 48:52)
Listener Anders Häger Jönson has written and directed a film which he describes as “an extremely subjective depiction of the history of Japanese animation filtered through Swedish teenage years at the turn of the millennium” and it’s going to be premiering at Otakon 2024, Saturday August 3rd at 6:00 PM. That’s a particularly rough spot to place something like this, since that means it’s opposite both the AnimEigo and Discotek Media panels, but if you don’t feel the need to be in the room for the announcement since the social media posts get made in real time anyway, then head on over to Video 2 since this is something you likely won’t be able to readily see afterwards unless you plan on attending conventions in Europe. Visit Anders’ website or his YouTube channel to learn more. In Swedish with English subtitles.

Promo: Anime Brain Freeze Podcast (48:52 – 49:52)
Remember: if you’re an anime podcast and have released more than 10 episodes without burning out on the whole thing, send us your promos and we’ll play them! Anime Brain Freeze is a podcast about anime of (recent) seasons past going back to 2016. Unlike us, they do a Best of the Season where they each pick one and only one title among the 40+ that have been coming out every season. Some of their picks include Odd Taxi, Appare-Ranman!, Re:Creators–wait, Re:Creators? RE:CREATORS?! Maybe us reviewing THAT is the next Patreon subscriber goal…

Review: 8 Man After (49:52 – 1:51:46)

Despite the cheery slogan (used in a phone ad), this is generally the last thing you kind of sort of see before getting your robot prosthetic ripped from your body.

Clarissa reviews a superhero title that 90s kids will likely remember as being part of the Sci-Fi Channel’s Saturday Anime rotation, or possibly a thing available from Blockbuster Video. Maybe some saw it unedited on pay cable, and others still actually bought the tape through mail order or direct market comicbook shops since it was originally released in the US courtesy of Streamline Pictures, then decades later was re-released by Discotek Media (since out of print/gone from streaming). 1993’s 8 Man After was one of those gritty, bloody sequels/reimaginings of Jiro Kuwata’s (“the Bat-Manga guy”) kid-friendly superhero series, though at the time Daryl mainly only knew it as a Neo Geo game since he never saw the live-action film (apparently also dubbed by Streamline, but it appears to have only ever been released on VHS and we can’t find a digital capture). The original 8 Man may have preceded Robocop, but 8 Man After definitely takes cues from it.

8 Man precedes the tokusatsu/henshin hero tradition, so he’s more of a Western style superhero. He’s still got sick poses though.

• Part 1 of the fantastic Streamline Pictures historical retrospective by the late Fred Patten, over at Jerry Beck’s Cartoon Research site
• Carl Macek on ANNCast – he died very shortly after this interview was done
• Star Fruit Books will be releasing the reboot series 8 Man Infinity next year

Thus far, this picture has not inspired anyone to do a “My Adventures With 8 Man” retelling.