Category Archives: Season Reviews

Bakacast of the Daleks

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Beware! Bakacast (and Paul “Otaking” Johnson) has fallen to the Daleks! I managed to hack into Project Haruhi with my sonic screwdriver just long enough to get this episode out.

If anyone is out there, if anyone can help, please, destroy this robotic-trash-can menace before it’s too late. If they succeed, Level E won’t get a chance to pull itself from its quagmire. Star Driver will never get the fabulous ending it deserves. And, most importantly, we won’t be able to mercilessly mock Fractale anymore.

So if you happen to know any time travelers with British accents or an immortal, omnisexual leader of a secret group of alien hunters, send them our way. We could use the help.

On this episode, we cover:

  • 2:30 – What we’ve been watching/playing
  • 12:35 – “Yu-Gi-Oh!” creator sues 4Kids
  • 18:44 – OreImo #13
  • 25:03 – Level E #12
  • 29:31 – Fractale #10
  • 35:34 – Wandering Son #10
  • 44:03 – Star Driver #24
  • 50:18 – Suite PreCure #7
  • 53:34 – Macross Frontier #19 & #20

If you would like to submit listener questions for a future episode, you can email them to bakacast[at]projectharuhi.net,@reply them to Project Haruhi’s Twitter account using the hashtag #bakacast, or leave them in the comments below.

Animated Ambien – Nichijou 0

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Warning: Action speedlines not indicative of actual content.

Talk about a disappointment. Kyoto Animation’s Nichijou, an adaptation of the 4-koma manga that ran in Shonen Ace, originally interested me because most sources described it as a mix between Azumanga Daioh and Cromartie High School. Both of those shows would make my top 10 anime list. Episode 0, however, contains entirely original content not found in the manga, and it doesn’t exactly speak well for the competence of the staff.

Simply put, Nichijou is one of the worst things I’ve ever watched.
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Bakacast – Sparking!!

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This week on Bakacast, we try something new for our opening segment and talk about what we’ve been playing and/or watching during the past week. Which means that I finally get to talk about video games on my anime podcast. Glorious freedom!

Anyway, Madoka didn’t air and Gosick wasn’t subbed in time, so we took the opportunity to catch up with Break Blade, fall asleep during Nichijou and discuss a K-On! doujin (yes, really). In other news, the Fractale hate train keeps rolling, the Star Driver love party returns and we give our advice for how you–YES, YOU!–can be Internet-famous podcasters (DISCLAIMER: May not actually make you Internet-famous).

We cover:

  • 2:27 – What we’ve been watching/playing
  • 15:27 – FUNimation backpedals
  • 21:22 – Deconstructing K-On!
  • 29:18 – Nichijou #0
  • 35:25 – Break Blade #4
  • 43:12 – Level E #11
  • 47:43 – Fractale #9
  • 53:07 – Wandering Son #9
  • 59:01 – Star Driver #23
  • 1:07:01 – Suite PreCure #6
  • 1:11:06 – Macross Frontier #17 & #18
  • 1:20:12 – Listener questions

Bakacast – NOT THE BEES!

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I want you all to know that I waited to play Dragon Age 2 so I could get the podcast edited immediately. You see the sacrifices I make for you people?

Anyway, we’re a little lighter on reviews and heavier on news because of the terrible one-two punch of natural disasters that recently hit Japan. If you’d like to help out, the link on the top of the sidebar will take you to a list of large and trustworthy organizations (such as the Red Cross and Salvation Army) that you can donate to. Since plenty of news organizations have covered the disaster better than we can, we instead focus on what it might mean for the short-term future of the anime industry. And on a lighter subject, we discuss FUNimation’s HorribleSubs gaffe. After our typical review segment (minus the Star Driver love party, sadly), we go off on some of our wildest tangents to date thanks to your seemingly straightforward listener questions.

  • 2:04 – Earthquake aftermath
  • 13:07 – FUNimation uses HorribleSubs
  • 20:15 – Madoka Magic #10
  • 25:03 – Gosick #10
  • 31:25 – Level E #10
  • 38:26 – Fractale #8
  • 47:13 – Wandering Son #8
  • 56:16 – Macross Frontier #15 & #16
  • 1:11:00 – Listener questions

I reference a couple things during the listener questions segment that you might like to check out. Fast Karate for the Gentlemen ripped apart both the anime and live-action versions of Blood: The Last Vampire (be warned that, unlike Bakacast, they use explicit language). As for the “Cage Rage” podcasts I mentioned, you can find every single one by clicking these handy links. Consider them your course materials for Nic Cage 101. There will be a test. It will not be open book.

If you would like to submit listener questions for a future episode, you can email them to bakacast[at]projectharuhi.net, @reply them to Project Haruhi’s Twitter account using the hashtag #bakacast, or leave them in the comments below.

SHAFT Postpones Release of Madoka

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My translation of this article:

2011/3/15 Volume 1 BD/DVD Postponement Notice

We offer our heartfelt sympathy to everyone affected in the Touhoku Pacific region.
Because of the earthquake, there are power shortages and issues with distribution. We were planning to release Puella Magi Madoka Magica Vol. 1 on March 30th. Because of the situation, we have decided to postpone its release.

We deeply apologize for the large amount of trouble this will cause everyone, but we ask that you please understand and cooperate with us. Please check Aniplex’s official site from now on for updates regarding the release date.

You’ve probably already heard about the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan. It’s obvious things like this would happen, since frankly there are much better things to allocate limited power and resources to than manufacturing and shipping anime DVD’s. Madoka’s preorder statistics indicate that it could end up becoming the best selling anime series of all time, so I can only imagine how tough this decision must have been for SHAFT. This news is disappointing to say the least, but it’s great that they have their priorities so well established.

If you’d like to join SHAFT and do your part to help Japan recover, follow the link under Japan Earthquake and Tsunami at the top of our sidebar.

Bakacast – Brought to You by Morning Rescue

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Yo! I know Dustin usually does these things, but I decided to try my hand at editing the podcast this week just for the experience. Naturally, given my predilection towards batsh*t insanity, I did something totally silly and nerdy with the sound design. If you can guess the anime I’m parodying, you win 100 Baka Points.

This week, we start of by discussing Jake Adelstein’s recent fight with National Geographic over their Gangland Tokyo documentary. You should really go read his blog post on the subject, which paints a disturbing picture of NatGeo’s flippant attitude towards journalistic integrity. After that we plow straight through our regular reviewing regime. Dusty even gets a chance to share his thoughts on my favorite guilty pleasure show of the season, Suite PreCure! Finally, we answer a couple of in-depth e-mail questions about our ratings scale and the upcoming live-action Akira adaptation, before finishing off with the usual onslaught of silly Twitter questions.

  • 3:10 – Jake Adelstein vs NatGeo
  • 12:19 – Madoka Magica #9
  • 20:24 – Gosick #9
  • 28:27 – Level E #9
  • 34:40 – Fractale #7
  • 40:47 – MORNING RESCUE!
  • 41:14 – Wandering Son #7
  • 48:55 – Star Driver #22
  • 53:54 – Suite PreCure #5 (with special commentary by Dustin)
  • 1:01:30 – Macross Frontier #13 & #14
  • 1:11:00 – Listener Questions (Here is the 10-point scale John Crichton submitted.)

If you would like to submit listener questions for a future episode, you can email them to bakacast[at]projectharuhi.net, @reply them to Project Haruhi’s Twitter account using the hashtag #bakacast, or leave them in the comments below.

Bakacast – Kirino’s Comeuppance

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Thanks to a sudden onset of responsibility that’s more surprising than any episode of Madoka Magica, I’ve managed to edit and post this episode of Bakacast a mere two days after we recorded it. Now to reward myself by totally slacking off again.

Sadly, Jon is absent from this episode on account of being kidnapped by ninjas. While we wait for him to escape their clutches, we happily accept the newest ending of OreImo as the best ending,  somehow relate Dick Cheney to Gosick, give our first unanimous perfect score to Wandering Son, and tell Star Driver to go sit in the corner until it’s thought about what it’s done. Also, we discuss Jon’s Anime Oscar picks while Glen informs me of all the awesome stuff I missed this season.

We cover:

  • 3:10 – OreImo #12 [True Route]
  • 10:48 – Madoka Magica #8
  • 23:59 – Gosick #8
  • 34:45 – Level E #8
  • 41:22 – Fractale #6
  • 46:00 – Wandering Son #6
  • 53:04 – Star Driver #21
  • 1:04:11 – Suite PreCure #4
  • 1:08:57 – Macross Frontier #11 & #12
  • 1:15:39 – Anime Oscars discussion

[That fabulous Star Driver comic is based on this comic by Kate Beaton. You should read her stuff, because she’s awesome.]

2010 Anime Oscars: Glen’s Picks

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Apparently Jon rarely watches anything good, so I’m doing my own version of the Anime Oscars. Actually, hardly any of the other Project Haruhi writers have watched most of these shows. A lot of them aired when I was taking a break from anime earlier this year, but I’ve recently dug them up after hearing a lot of positive reviews. There’s a lot from 2010 that I haven’t seen, but I think I’ve picked the best ones to backtrack first. Therefore, I’m confident in awarding Oscars to shows that truly deserve it.

You can look forward to hearing the rest of the gang’s picks and more about mine on next week’s episode of Bakacast.

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Bakacast – Tragic Piano Accident

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Yes, I know this Bakacast is a week late. I’d try to excuse it by saying I have a magazine internship, but if I’m being honest with myself then the real problem is playing too much Dragon Age: Origins. So, uh…my bad.

Anyway, we introduce yet another show into our review lineup this week: Suite PreCure. I haven’t watched it yet, so for now it’ll just be Jon, Glen and Thomas discussing it. But rest assured, I’ll catch up eventually.

In other news, Bakacast finally has an official e-mail address! Since Feedburner is telling me we have over 100 subscribers (wow), I figured it was about time we joined the rest of the big-boy podcasts and get an inbox where you can send comments and questions for us to read on the air. So if you’d like to chime in, send an e-mail to bakacast(at)projectharuhi(dot)net.

We cover: