How strange would it be for MasakoX to play both the male and female voices in a dating Sim? He would play some very convincing parts!

I'm glad you got MasakoX. I really have to say that his voice range is pretty impressive and as we all know he does some pretty convincing female roles too. Having watched since Naruto Abridged started I have to say that he's progressed a lot and he sounds really great.

I got that whole thing about Anime too. The whole 'Its cartoons, so its for Kids!' attitude that seems prevalent over here in the UK.

The only series of anime that were marketted towards the more mature watcher (ie not Pokemon) that ive spotted over here were Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop, Nadesico, Evangelion and BlueGender.

Of course we also got a few movies that will change that opinion fast. Like Perfect Blue and Urotsukodoji.

As far as the originality argument goes, it's pretty obvious that you can look at any form of entertainment and point to a previous creation and see the similarities. When the plot of a particular instance of entertainment has no original qualities whatsoever, it surpasses 'inspired by' or 'remake of' into straight up plagiarism. This is why I haven't seen Avatar, didn't go with my friends when they went to see it and won't go to see it.

Cool podcast guys.

Ahh so much to comment on.

Well as far as the originality discussion goes I basically agree with the poster, it's an overrated wuality at this point. To me, taste and execution are what matter now-a-days. I think the best examples I can give are "Inglorious Basterds" and "Where the Wild Things are." These are, in my opinion the two best movies of last year, and both are knock-offs of other movies. Basterds in basically a retold, stylized "Dirty Dozen" and I've seen the techiniques used in WtWTa several times. The fact that they weren't that original had no effect on my opinion of them as films. Honestly I think it becomes easy to nit pick things when you watch a ton of movies.

I still have yet to see "Avatar" and will porbably wait till it comes out on DVD to watch it so that I can have a relatively presusre free area to watch it. The hype/hate spreading about currently just ruins my ability to judge the movie fairly. It's the same reason I still haven't seen "The Dark Knight"

Also Thnx for the acknowledgement of the effort us bloggers put into our entries. Even though it was kinda being used to emphasize the effort Conrady put into his blog, it's still nice to hear, particularly for me (who rarely gets read.)

RolloT, think about doing a simimarly list for anime fights (maybe with Y ruler of Time, Thatchickwiththegoogles and Marzgurl). Personally I think that would be awesome, although that's probably because I think it would be mostly One Piece fights.

Great work as always.

What's Mario's flaw?I don't think he has one.

why is it that everytime I watch a TA episode I find myself applauding at the end?

http://content.ytmnd.com/ content/8/7/9/ 8793c9b8b8092fabb066cab92 3886381.jpg

'Nuff said.

Also, no matter how pretty the backdrops are, they are used poorly and the character designs are just plain awful.

[color=green]I actually think our own generation has a slight headway from our parents in terms of anime. My dad grew up watching cartoons in the 70's and 80's, when Kimba, Speed Racer and Astro Boy acted as the first exposure of anime to America. Although, on the other end of the spectrum, there's people like my mom who grew up with only Disney and WB animation, and look rather unfondly on japanese animation.

I guess it comes down to how different of material our parents were exposed to themselves. Likewise, we ourselves probably won't shun the animation of future generations just cause it's from a different country (granted as long as it's actually good). Hopefully advances like that will make generation gaps less constricting.

Oh, and on the subject of "Avatar", I have to side with Chris on reasons to avoid it. I went to see it purely for the visuals, because I didn't think the story would be all that engaging. And it wasn't. It's so predicatable to the point that even the characters seem unsurprised at how everything unfolds, which definitely pokes a few holes in the fourth wall. If only the eyes are pleased by the movie, then I can scarcely call it a good production.

Really nicely done podcast guys. Like voice acting, this show has gone through some serious transforming since it started back in 2008, and it definitely shows when compared to earlier episodes. Having a forum for upcoming guests is a great idea, and the overall interactions never fail to entertain. A grand bravo to each of you four fine vocalists.

P.S. To MasakoX: I know it has some mixed reactions, but I really like Lucky Star too. [/color]

OH SNAP, AVATAR RANT:

It's one thing when you legitimately make an adaptation, like Batman, or A Christmas Carol. They're SUPPOSED to have the same story and plot points and motifs as...well, their source material! In fact, it's BAD when they DON'T. Avatar's not an adaptation of anything, so when there's blatant parallels to multiple films it's not the same thing.

And I agree that there's nothing wrong with having a classic story arc. When you break ANY story down you get a skeleton that fits other movies, but throughout the entire movie it just really felt that the story was completely undermined, because no one would care, because "Wooooow look at the pretty CGI." And that's exactly what happened too.

It felt more like a fantasy than a sci-fi, because any bit of "science" may as well have been magic. "Hmm? Oh yeah, we just sort of...grew these Naavi...because it's the future. Now go inside the Matrix so we can science you inside of them. Now come on, let's go to the floating mountains that we won't even acknowledge make absolutely no sense, or else we may actually have to put EFFORT into our bulls****ing. We're not Star Trek for God sakes!"

Anyone remember the name of the element they wanted to mine the planet for? Unobtanium. How did anyone manage to keep their disbelief suspended when they said that word? (Answer: "Oh cool, CGI!") Honestly, this is a multi-million dollar blockbuster and that's the name?...What were the other choices they were brainstorming around the room that Unobtainium ended up being the best possible name? Hardtofindium? Superrareium?

"Hey, Mr. Cameron, what do we name this super rare element they're trying to obtain?"
"Hmm? OH! Right the unobtainable stuff...Um...Oh, there it is. Go with that."
"...Go with what, sir?"
"Unubtainium."
"...Seriousl-"
"Aliens."
"What?"
"Terminator 2."
"Are you just naming your successful movi-"
"TITANIC."
"Yes sir."
I talked to one of my friends who liked the movie. He didn't even realize how ridiculous the name was because he was too caught up in the visuals. But he also pretty much told me that he doesn't like when movies make him think, so I just changed the subject at that point. Lost cause.

Me and my friends were laughing our asses off at thing like unobtainium, when that helicopter pilot said "I didn't sign up for this" (First of all, cliche line. Second; Really? you didn't sign up to fight the enemy in the helicopter designed for combat that you trained to fly in for what must have been years?Did you just not expect to ever have to fight...in the Marines...while stationed on a hostile planet?... REALLY?), and when we found out the main character's love interest was the daughter of the Chief and betrothed to marry t...

Was that Fighting of the Spirit that I heard around 23 minutes in? :O

I can honestly say that I'm familiar to voice actors doing voices you'd never expect. Someone I know, a male, can do a [b]perfect[/b] Princess Peach voice... it was scary.

Also, I can't go on the top 25 awesome blog, my browser keeps on aborting the page... I'll try again tomorrow, I really want to see this.

I completely agree with the villains in movies needing to actually be a threat. I hate when the antagonist is just a joke, even in comedy movies. Dr. Evil for example, while an idiot, actually manages to hijack a nuclear weapon once and can nearly accomplish his goals in every movie. Being a likeable character can help, but isn't always necessary. Davy Jones from Pirates was a likeable character, they made me want to have him survive even though he had to die for any kind of happy ending.

If I went into detail on anything else here this comment would be even longer than it is already, so I'll just stop here.

Oh, one more thing. I'm going to see Avatar on Monday, though it's pretty much just a get together with some friends that I haven't hung out with for a while, the movie was their choice. I suppose it's time to develop my own opinion on it, eh?

Aaah, I keep telling myself I want to voice act, but I never have tried!! I need to!! Also, Masako, JESUS that female voice is well done. And creepy. But in the good way!

Oh, and Chris, I'm working on that thing you said the fans would work on. We'll see if that works out.

I am a fellow owner of a pea coat. I located it in the men's section of a store, think of it as a spy coat.

Funny episode, this is the reason I go to this site.
Masako's girl voice was slightly hot and disturbing.

For once Chris' Paw is old joke makes a lot of sense. At the end and during the forum focus, Chris said Paw was old enough to be a parent himself. Paw, he's technically right a lot of people have kids when their 20 and your 30.

I get the feeling that all the writers in the world lie awake in fear that the public will pull the curtain away from them , revealing the little man behind the curtain and seeing how few stories there really are. There are a million haunted house stories, a million more Hero's Journey tales. Throw a million Coming of Age tales onto that, along with the Search for the Macguffin, most tales are variants of certain norms.

I don't necessarily think that's bad -- I'm a fan of Joseph Campbell's idea of the monomyth -- but that does usually mean that some stories can be better told than others. Avatar, for me, was a variant of the Oppressor joins the Oppressed, which has been told before with a thousand different variables: The Last King of Scotland, Dances With Wolves, Dune to some extent, roots of this can even go back to the Allan Quatermain stories (colonialist in nature, but still, the protagonist shows a good deal of respect for the native culture).

You could probably trace the genealogy of stories going back to early mythology, each building and evolving from one another.

Oddly enough, I didn't see anything of The Man Who Fell To Earth in Avatar. That movie is much more derived from stories like Stranger in a Strange Land, which itself is something of an inversion of the John Carter stories, which again plays off of certain White Man's Burden colonial ideals. So I suppose they're somewhat related, not grandfather and grandson, but perhaps distant cousins.

Best Pod cast out there, always great guys and thanks for the Awesome Blog Mention. That one was a chore. :pinch:

This week's really brought up some interesting topics, and a great guest to boot. I work in the film industry and let me just say that originality doesn't automatically mean something is going to be good. In fact, a lot of times I'll be pitched something "original" and my response is "that sounds awful." It's not made into a film or tv series for a reason. It's about execution, and people holding it against Avatar because it fails to be original not only showcase a short frame of reference, but I've felt that having to resort to a "this already did it" mentality ruins the enjoyment of just about anything.

In fact, didn't South Park address this with the infamous "Simpsons did it" episode?

Anime characters have big eyes because of Ozamu Tezuka. He watched stuff like Bambi and thought "big eyes are cool", so anime has big eyes because of Disney.

Somewhere in the late 80's anime characters didn't have so big eyes though. These days all animes just look like shit with no details and all cgi animation.

I'm always facepalming when you're talking about those terrible mainstream animes :D Sorry, maybe I am somekind of elitist or something.. I started with late 90's animes and then I moved to older stuff, like Gundam, Ideon, Harlock, Rose of Versailles etc.

Btw, Berserk anime is pretty good, but the manga is better.

Awesome fella's. Seriously, I was wondering if MasakoX did the outtakes too for the Karin Re-dub. My favorate line on the outakes:

Kenta: I can't beleive that Romainian set up such an old fashioned trap.
Winner: Do i sound romainian to you? i thought this voice was getting rather lazy.

BTW, i'm up to Episode 35 in TA for the Deaf. I will upload all of them when i get to this point. Or should i upload them Asap?

PS: I'm doing a Karin (Chibi Vampire) fanfic. The story is here.
http:// www.fanfiction.net/s/ 5680757/1/ THE_HEART_THAT_WEEPS

There used to be a difference between Ricky Martin and Enrique Iglasius but noooo, Enrique just had to get that telltale mole removed! :pinch: :P

Anyways, I'm probably part of the minority that still hasn't seen "Avatar" so I can't really comment on whether or not the story itself is considered "original". As someone who has been constantly developing a story (for a graphic novel, to be specific) for quite a few years and this sort of debate about "originality" has definitely come up as a personal dillemia. I will have to agree that a lot can come down to presentation. Basic plots like "boy meets girl" have been around since the beginning of time but it's all in how you tell it and which direction you choose to take that in.

Funny thing happened when I was working on my own story and the whole "taste in movies" topic came up, it made me realize that I've always had a fondness for the "doomed romance" plot element. :lol:

Great podcast as always with plenty to chew on afterwards.

[size=x-small]Peacoats [i]are[/i] awesome![/size]

So, basically, what Joe was saying: if James Cameron wasn't a fuckwit, Avatar wouldn't be so criticised.

Thanks for featuring my question guys. Wonderful episode!

Thanks for discussing my Cities of Gold review. I'm not sure why the age of it was being made fun of though... it was on until the late 80's. Was everyone on the podcast born after 1988? :P