Subatomic Brainfreeze

New York Anime Fest 09: BLOGGER ROUNDTABLE OR "HOW DO I PROMOTE COLONY DROP"

How, indeed. How to go to an anime convention and promote a website that stands firmly against the most firmly held cartoon-related beliefs of nearly all of its attendees? After that panel, I still don't really know. But in any case, I brought fliers that only say the mean things people have said about us on the internet! At the start of the panel I went around the room handing these out and the reactions were interesting. A couple people laughed, someone asked me "did people actually say this stuff?" (they did) and one guy who I thought was saying yes was actually saying no, and insistently refused the flyer. Did he know us? Maybe so!

Let's get to the conditions of the panel: we were up against the Masquerade and the Evangelion movie. Looking out from the panel I saw a sea of red press badges, and when we did a show of hands, it turned out our crowd was composed almost entirely of other bloggers. Some old acquaintances of mine showed up, and they left fast. A lot of people left fast.

So then let's get straight to the issues, which we've talked about at length amongst ourselves since the panel. This was a first shot, so it was rocky. The panel itself was too big (ten people!), and it didn't really help that we all took turns answering questions: I think we got through three out of many, and when we were finished I felt like we'd only really finished our personal introductions. Blogging had only kind of entered the picture by the time we'd finished.

Around the end, we got to the kind of situation we hope to establish on these sites: a utopia where we aren't all broken up into cliques, where have a respectful discourse, tolerant of criticism, that we can all gain something from. Obviously Colony Drop took a couple of shots: the first was "well, you can't just make inflammatory posts and troll!", at which both the audience and the panelists' eyes went to me. Another time it was "you guys can take all the negativity and the rest of us cool kids will have all the productive discussion!" Ah, boy. I guess things like this are part of the job. If you can't read the air with CD, man, there's nothing I can do to help you. I didn't really get a chance to adequately explain (I told the crowd to "troll what you believe in" which doesn't quite say it), so I'll tell you this: we at CD aren't trolling-- we do essentially believe the stuff we say, I really do feel that way about Haruhi and Key-- but we aren't taking ourselves (or anime) overly seriously either. We're having fun. You should be too.

Speaking of which, here is my practical advice to the prospective anime blogger, which I regret not having gotten to in the panel (with the exception of "swear more so that you get hits from people looking for porn"):

Like I just said, have fun. If you aren't having fun, stop what you're doing and try something else. Write to entertain your audience, not to feel good about yourself. Try new things: don't stick yourself in the past, the present, the future, a genre, a weird otaku fetish, whatever. Just don't get stuck. There is always something interesting to post about: you just haven't thought of it yet. Blogging about blogging (like this post) is almost always a bad idea, because unless your audience is entirely bloggers, you will bore the hell out of them.

In any case, it was a good first try. I had a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to the next one of these: hopefully we'll get a little more done.

New York Anime Fest 09: THINGS THAT AREN'T TOMINO

Well, I'd better get all this out of the way before I forget it happened. New York Anime Fest was last weekend: this is the con's third year, I pretty much knew what to expect coming in, and I got exactly what I thought I would. Let's go through the pros and cons of this convention really quick, as they are the same every year.

As an NYC commuter I'm obviously very happy to be able to go to a con where I don't have to put down a couple hundred for room and board, but the convenient location comes at great cost. Everything that's wrong with NYAF is something that can't really be helped. They don't have enough room in the Javits: to visualize how crowded the place is, imagine Otakon numbers walking around in a space a quarter of Otakon's size at best. Of course, the Javits is really expensive-- during the CPM retrospective our host guessed that it was probably a couple hundred bucks a minute just to be in that room-- and high rent is just a fact of NYC life.

Side note: food prices are through the roof ($2.50 Coke cans!) in the building, so I advise anybody going to anything at the Javits load up on food beforehand. I did this at Go Go Curry on the first day and Subway on the second.

Because this is a for-profit con, the dealer's room is really the main attraction, with panels running on the side. Nothing really unusual there: one booth was selling really obvious bootlegs (HK DVD box sets and Prince of Tennis figures that weren't quite Sader but were really bootleg-ugly) and another had a ton of old VHS that I might have put up the cash for if it had been a buck or two cheaper per tape.

Behind the dealer's room was the World Cyber Games. A pro gaming league-- especially one that deals primarily in real-time strategy and first-person shooters-- is kind of out pf place at an anime convention, and for its part WCG made no attempt to reach out. Anime con people didn't go into WCG, WCG people didn't go into the con, you get the idea. I stopped by here a few times because they were playing nationals for Virtua Fighter 5 and many of the players are friends. I woke up a little too late to catch the finals though. I regret it: just watching the guys play really made me miss the game, and it was an even bigger bummer thinking about what's up with VF5R. It's so bad that every time I talk to one of my old VF buddies, we talk about jumping ship to Tekken 6 when it comes out for consoles. Sega, Sega, look what you've done to yourselves!

On the side, you've got your maid cafe, which has always been peculiar. The law ensures that the maids can't actually serve food or drink, so they're more all-purpose entertainers: last year we chatted with a maid while we rested from the con, and it was nice. This year, probably to avoid crowding, the event stage and the maid cafe were put together, to pretty ugly results. See, having a stage there means having huge, loud speakers there, and this means that the area was no longer a place to relax and get away from the con. We sat down for about ten minutes before getting hit with the maids yelling at people to come up and dance on the speakers, and we left juuust when they started Boom Boom Boom Boom (I Want You In My Room). Later, we would find that escaping the con entirely and sitting at the tables at the closed food court was what the cool kids do.

You kind of want to get away from the con after a couple hours of it, because man, the kids are really out in full force, being as obnoxious as they wanna be. This is a given at any anime con, but it's worse at NYAF because unlike many fan-run cons, nobody's come up with such wise rules as "no hug me signs", "no yaoi paddles", and "stop running and screaming and flailing and swinging that fucking ridiculous thing you bought at the dealer's room around". In summary, a cosplayer raised a sign inviting us to a con orgy on the way out Friday.

The only not-Tomino panel I went to was the CPM Retrospective, which was loads of fun and really deserved to pull more people. Did you know that when CPM hired you, they'd show you a highlight reel of their most atrocious porn (my buddy who used to work for them said he'd seen all these shows before) and then plop a "I am not offended by this" form in front of you? Because that's how they used to roll.

Highlight of the panel was definitely the anecdote about the host, his boss, the CEO, and a lawyer standing around watching Night Shift Nurses and trying to figure out if they were going to sell it. They were on the fence about the pissing, but CEO John O'Donnell decided "If it's in Penthouse, it's fine!", sent a secretary for a Penthouse, and sure enough, there was the pissing. Or maybe the time they took Utena's Kunihiko Ikuhara to a trashy bar where the hot chick bartenders made out with each other, and Ikuhara was all "RESBIANS!!" God, what a company. It really makes you wish they were still in business. Also, there was an apology for the Patlabor dub and that fucked-up Slayers DVD box, which I appreciated. I described this panel as both "owns" on Twitter while I was at it, and then "owned" on Twitter once I had left. This is the proper use of a Web 2.0.

The only anime I saw was Cencoroll: produced by one dude (Atsuya Uki), the story is basically JD Salinger's Pokemon. An antisocial young man and his pet shapeshifter fight another antisocial young man and his pet shapeshifter, and visual fireworks ensue. There's probably more creative animation in this half-hour than there is in many anime TV series' entire runs. People in the crowd after the movie were complaining that everything wasn't explained and spelled out to them, and to these people I say "go back to Jump and leave the animator alone".

I didn't take a ton of pictures but I'm going to go ahead and authoritatively pronounce that Maetel and her luggage (and, yeah, the Bumblebee guy) won cosplay.

Mushihime-sama Futari is region-free: MAYBE YOU SHOULD GET HYPE, BUT THERE ARE SOME CAVEATS SO BE AWARE OF THEM BEFORE YOU DECIDE TO FEEL ANY HYPE IN YOUR BLOOD

I've posted here before that it's very hard to be any sort of aficionado of Japanese arcade games unless you actually live in Japan and go to the arcade there, and the situation is even worse for the guys who play arcade shooting games. But let's review: while PS3 games are all region-free, making importing simple, Microsoft offers Xbox 360 developers the choice of whether or not they want to region lock their games. Japanese developers have unanimously decided to lock their games, meaning that you can't play legitimate Japanese imports on an American 360 without actually modifying the hardware. Unfortunately, many ports of arcade games exclusive to 360 remain in Japan, like many of Cave's recent shooters and that Idolmaster thing all the pedophiles like.

This is obviously a pain in the ass for people who want to play these games outside of Japan. These guys actually have to buy Japanese 360s, create Japanese Live accounts, and pay import markup for XBL points because their Japanese accounts won't take their foreign credit cards. Many of these people have been Cave fans: Cave fans around the world are pretty well-known for being nuts.

Cave has taken notice of the pleas of their foreign fans, and while they haven't set up a US distribution deal--the Gamestops and Walmarts of the world would not be thrilled to stock 2D shooting games that they definitely won't be able to sell-- they have, for the first time in their history, done something for these long-suffering individuals. The coming home release of Mushihime-sama Futari will be region-free. You can just pop it into your 360, and it'll work. This is the first time I can recall offhand where a Japan release that wasn't immediately coming out in the West was region-free. This coming from the company that used to say to their foreign fans: "We sure hope you can come to Japan and play our games soon!" I'm not even that into Cave games, but I'm going to buy this because I want to see these companies figure it out already and make the smart choice.

That said, here is probably what will happen with download content: material for Japanese games, from demos to videos to in-game content, only appears in the Japanese Xbox Marketplace. You need to make a Japanese account, download the stuff, and then log into your real account to use it in the game. This is the only ass pain you will likely experience when playing this game. I've also heard that 5pb's ports of earlier Cave games were really bad, but Cave seems to be doing this themselves so there shouldn't be a problem.

Hopefully Japanese companies making niche games will realize the foolishness of region-locking on any platform, though recent developments with that pedophile game hint otherwise. Even from their point of view, all I see region-locking doing for a publisher-- especially these niche guys who need every sale they can get-- is losing them a small number of sales around the world and pushing those same people that much closer to just pirating the damn thing. Did I mention that DS piracy is really, really easy, to the point where everybody I know but me does it, and they constantly ask me why I'm not doing it the moment they look at my DS? Because region locking only helps that situation, Namco.

As a side note, if anyone can sell me a cheap copy of Mahjong Fight Club DS, hook a brother up: I'm not paying $70.

How do I sell the anime to the kids these days? JUST CHANGE THE TITLE TO SOMETHING INANE

Being as we were at an anime convention, surrounded by the shrieking, yaoi-paddlin', hug-me sign-bearing masses, Carl and I got to talking about what it takes to sell anime in this awful environment. I pointed to the name change of the vampire manga Karin to the embarrassing "Chibi Vampire". Karin might have done as well on its original name, but with the arbitrary insertion of a popular Japanese word like "chibi" and the explicit assertion that THIS BOOK IS ABOUT VAMPIRES, I can't help but feel like the book must have gained a certain amount of traction among the kinds of kids you saw running around screaming internet memes at the con.

Then Gundam 00 came up. The last few Gundam series have specifically targeted fangirls with pretty-boy pilots, but these series never achieve popularity on the level of, say, Full Metal Alchemist or Shonen Jump shows or other boys' action shows that are actively selling to girls on the side. Gundam has the stigma of the robots to overcome. Clearly, to compensate, they've got to change the name of the show like Tokyopop did with Chibi Vampire: something that a) uses a trendy fandom word and b) tells you exactly what the show is about in the most brain-dead terms possible. After thirty seconds' brainstorming, Carl and I came up with Bishie Terrorist Harem.

I believe that this can be applied to any anime/manga property and that your sales will skyrocket when you do (just don't forget my check or I'll send my boys after you). "Bishie" should be used for best results, but if it doesn't apply (meaning your show has no male protagonists) you can insert any Japanese word that you'd hear somebody yell at an anime con.

Monster = Bishie Serial Killer

Gurren Lagann = Bishie Pairing Party

Dirty Pair = The Kawaii Explosion-chans

Fist of the North Star = Bishie Starlight Fighters

And so on. Let's think of terrible names together and save the anime industry in the West!

Alright, guys, let's go through the New York Anime Fest schedule

When I went to Otakon, I always got there on Thursday, and I advise you always do the same if you can: waiting in a long line to get your badge early means you don't waste valuable convention time in the even-longer lines on Friday. Of course, there is one drawback to this approach: no matter how you spend Thursday, you spend Thursday night waiting for the real fun to start, like a kid on Christmas Eve.

I try to keep a certain jaded-fan decorum around here, but the fact is I would always page excitedly through the Otakon pocket schedules with my friends, plotting a doomed course through the convention. You won't end up doing 100% of what you plan to do unless you have supernatural willpower and are exceptionally boring. Staying on track isn't entirely recommended. With that in mind, I've been looking at the New York Anime Fest schedule, so here's my commentary on what I see, and what I might plan to be at. I'm not planning to go to most of this stuff, I just love my snarky comments. Obviously I will be at the Blogger Roundtable, Saturday, 8PM, Panel 4. Also, have you seen the Colony Drop business card? Damn, it's nice!

Thursday kind of counts: Del Rey is having something involving cake at Dave and Buster's, and I do want to play some Daytona.

Friday:

How to Become Famous on the Internet: NOBODY SHOULD WANT TO DO THIS

Mobile Suit Gundam I is the weakest of the movies, but I guess you gotta show the beginning.

Why Anime: DON'T PUT JAPANESE CARTOONS (JAPANESE AMMUNITION) ON A PEDESTAL AND FORM A GUIDING PHILOSOPHY AROUND IT: YOU COULD BE WATCHING GIANT ROBO INSTEAD

How I Broke Into the Anime/Manga Industry: Yo, any of you guys got a gig? I'll work in your mailroom, file cabinets, whatever bro

Tomino has a keynote, obviously. This is going on the same time as Vertical's panel, which is really sad. Ed's a really chill guy and an absolute treasure trove of manga knowledge, so if you're not interested in hearing from Tomino, I recommend you go see Vertical. Ed needs you. I'll be seeing Tomino. Sorry!

Definitely seeing Cencoroll at the end of the night. You should too: it's short and I've heard nothing but good things about it. Really looking forward to this.

Saturday:

Avoid the Zeta Gundam movies. They were a doomed project from the start, they don't have the time to effectively tell the story, and most importantly they don't make sense to anyone who isn't already very familiar with the original 50-episode series. Sorry, Mr. Tomino.

Blogger Roundtable, on the other hand, is important stuff. I am on this panel. There are so many people on this panel that I'm not going to link everybody. We're running against the Masquerade and Captain Tylor, which I think nails down 99% and the other 1% of the anime con population. Let's see how it goes. I hope you enjoy us!

Sunday:

"Convention War Stories" is always tempting. I love to hear and tell con stories: hell, I'm compiling my own right now.

Do yourself a favor and only watch the last half hour or so of the Gurren Lagann movie. You've missed nothing.

I wonder how the people running the Gegege no Kitaro panel feel about KITARO'S GRAVEYARD GANG?

CPM Retrospective is probably something that I, as a member of the Colony Drop Organization, am obligated to visit.

And that's it! It leaves plenty of wiggle room, and, con aside, I'm pretty sure that I'm booked from Thursday morning to Sunday night. Those of you who are coming to NYAF, have fun! Also, see us at the panel and look out for the Colony Drop flyers I'll be leaving around.

Knights in the Nightmare impressions

I've had this game sitting around for quite some time, but it's so intimidating that I didn't write it up until now. Sting's Knights in the Nightmare is a pretty amazing game that not many people are ever actually going to be able to appreciate on account of its complexity. This is a real-time strategy RPG with 2D shooter elements, it's unlike anything you've ever played, and it's a tough game on top of that. I imagine their designer was given free reign to do whatever the hell he wanted, because he seems to have gone completely mad on this game.

Knights in the Nightmare is so complicated that the first option you see when you start, before the choice to actually start your game, is the tutorial section. If you're on a brand new copy of the game and you try and start playing without watching the tutorials, the game warns you. You can go on if you want, it says, but you should really give this stuff a look. And for once, the game is absolutely right. You will not figure this game out. You will not have the slightest idea of what is going on unless somebody tells you, and even then, it will not quite be clear.

So you look at the tutorials, and there turn out to be more of them than one could ever possibly get through in one sitting. There's the "first steps" section, which is the long, essential how-to-play, after which you will only vaguely understand what you have to do. Then there's the larger tutorial, which is more like an ingame manual on every possible topic, and then there's a tips section, which goes into even further detail. All told, there may well be a hundred of these. This should give you an idea of what kind of game we're dealing with here.

Here is the gist of it, as best I can describe it: the premise is that the player is a wandering spirit (the Wisp) who summons the souls of dead knights to fight for him. The battle takes place up on the top screen, and you use the bottom touchscreen to move the Wisp, which serves as your cursor, around up top. The Wisp directs knights when, where and with what to attack, as you can imagine. Enemies walk around the map freely, and attack the Wisp, rather than the knights, by shooting bullets at it. You dodge these the same way you'd dodge bullets in a 2D shooter. Imagine having to worry about your cursor being attacked in Starcraft, or hell, on your computer. It's like that. Get hit by enough of these bullets, and you'll lose time, and eventually your turn will end. Maps have to be finished in X amount of turns, or it's game over. I'm not going to get much further into it than that, because there's much more to it than that and this game is completely crazy. Here is Atlus' tutorial: you're probably gonna need that.

This game combines all the stuff I love in videogames: it's a tough arcade experience that demands serious attention and skill, and between levels there's some very involved character and item building. Knights in the Nightmare takes a lot of determination from the player, but as far as my tastes go, the best videogames are the ones where you get what you put in.

William Winckler Productions licenses piles of old Toei anime: THE SECOND COMING OF JIM TERRY?

I don't post a lot of anime news because there isn't a lot of anime news that's, you know, interesting. Sure, the Kodomo no Jikan debacle was hilarious, it was pretty funny when all those guys burned their Kannagi manga because their magical girlfriend might have had a boyfriend at some point in her hundreds of years of existence. But wacky nutbar stuff like that only comes every once in a while. Well, gang, the drought is over. Today, I have genuinely crazy news for you, the Western anime fandom.

William Winckler Productions has licensed a number of classic Toei anime: Captain Harlock, Fist of the North Star, and Gegege no Kitaro are the big names here. It starts to get interesting when you hear that they're dubbing the shows into English: considering the devastated anime home video market, not too many people can afford to dub much of anything anymore, unless it's a guaranteed hit or a videogame. 

Now this next bit is a deal-breaker for most everybody who wanted to buy these titles, but it's also what makes this whole thing so weird and interesting: they're not releasing all of these series, they're editing them down to movie size. Harlock will be two movies, Fist will be six (including a movie that covers all of FotNS 2), and the medium-length robot stuff (Gaiking, Danguard Ace) will be three movies. This is especially odd in the cases of Harlock and FotNS, because the shows are already available in their entirety, subtitled, on Hulu and Funimation's video channels for free. It seems like digital has physical distribution beat before these theoretical DVDs even got started.

Any of you guys remember Force Five? It was a block of dubbed Japanese robot cartoons that ran in the 80s. The titles were Getter Robo G (as Starvengers), Grendizer (as Grandizer), Starzinger (as Spaceketeers), Danguard Ace, and Gaiking. And guess what? These guys are putting out all but the first two of those: I would imagine Go Nagai's Dynamic Planning wants some big cash for them. Force Five was about as old-school as anime dubs get: I have the Gaiking dub sitting around here and it's beautiful. Aries Astronopolous? Professor High-Tech? Purists would probably flip out at this kind of thing, and I would obviously rather have an uncut box set myself, but these old dubs aren't without their charm.

Going by the condensed approach and the awesome names (Kitaro's Graveyard Gang!), this sounds exactly like Force Five resurrected twenty-five years after the point. I have no idea who in the present day is going to buy these movies. I'm not sure I will buy these movies. Did I mention that Mr. Winckler is going to play most of the protagonists, including Kenshiro? Did I mention that the company's other DVD releases are live-action features Double-D Avenger and Frankenstein Versus The Creature From Blood Cove? This whole thing sounds totally nuts, and I kind of can't wait to see how these come out. Get hype, America.

Shin Mazinger Episode 24: EVERYBODY GETS HYPE

This week I simply cannot point out a single individual for Hype Honors. There's just too much going on. One of the cool things about Shin Mazinger is that Imagawa reminds us that if an evil genius who operates out of a Greek island off the coast of Japan started sending mechanical monsters to destroy an alternative energy plant defended by a giant, heavily armed robot, that would constitute a small war, not just a weekly cartoon showdown. As Kouji-- who was tricked by Ashura, who doesn't even show at the site of the duel-- fights off five exceptionally tough mechanical beasts, Kurogane House, the Photon Power Labs, and Dr. Hell are getting their troops ready. Kurogane's preparations, as ever, are hilarious: did you know that you can have bamboo spears made out of Super Alloy Z? News to me. The Super Alloy Z frying pan and shovels-- and especially the Super Alloy Z electric fence that Ankokuji and Gamia are imprisoned in-- should really be sold in stores around the world.

We're also seeing a lot of scenes from the chaotic first episode (which, as you'll recall, was titled "Finale") actually take place, and back then the animation wasn't looking nearly so hot. This time, though, Imagawa actually has some money, and it shows in the scale and polish of the assaults. Pygman sics his animal army on the Photon Power labs and gets a lion for a head! The men of Kurogane House slaughter Baron Ashura's soldiers guerilla-style! Boss Borot makes his grand entrance by intercepting a damn missile! Even Sayaka and the worthless Mazinger Corps (though they fight completely offscreen) don't seem to get their asses kicked this time. God damn, it's all so viscerally exciting! Maybe the summary of this episode should just be "and then all this stuff exploded like BOOM and this guy comes out all YEAAAAAH, and then everybody's like AW HELL NAW". It's very tempting to just leave it at that.

Anyway, here's where the fights end up: Kouji is mad as hell because he's stuck getting his ass kicked (the God Scrander, for some reason, is still en route) by some robo-monsters when Baron Ashura isn't even around. Pygman crashes the Photon Power plant by posing as Sayaka, leading Professor Yumi to get desperate and suicide bomb the whole place, killing (maybe) both himself and the three scientists. Meanwhile, the Kurogane Five are getting ready to take on Ashura's army by any means... until Kenzo Kabuto appears inside the house. This week's cliffhanger is Tsubasa charging him with her dagger. Tsubasa does say "it'll be interesting to see who survives this," and while I am curious, the fakeout deaths from before kind of remove any major feeling of suspense.

By the way, it's old news, but Mr. Imagawa and mechanical designer Tsuyoshi Nonaka canceled for Anime Weekend Atlanta, which is this weekend. I wouldn't have been able to make it either way, but he'll certainly be missed by many AWA attendees. Probably fear of the swine flu: can't really blame the guys. In addition, I'm sure you've noticed that there's less and less going on on this blog that isn't Shin Mazinger, and I apologize for the holdup. I have, however, been on a bit of a posting spree at Colony Drop (and it's far from over), so I recommend you take a look there too.

Shin Mazinger Episode 23: Kanjite Knight GETS HYPE

This episode came pretty fast, huh? I was certainly caught off guard. We are starting sill: See, Aphrodite A was lost long ago, leaving the perpetually useless Sayaka without a robot. Sayaka couldn't stand being any more useless than she already was, so she asked the three goofball scientists to build her a new robot. She wants it built to look like her (yes, this is a carryover from the original Mazinger), so here's the Go Nagai logic: the scientists can't possibly build a robot that looks like Sayaka unless they have some nude pictures of her. And so it is that the episode begins with Kouji fighting off the three scientists as they attempt to strip Sayaka bare.

Of course, when the situation is explained to Kouji, it clicks with his Go Nagai logic, and he decides to kick these three assholes out of the room and take the pictures himself. Sayaka is quite pleased with this turn of events, but Shirou pops in and lets everybody know that the robot's already been built. Who built it then? Professor Yumi, I suppose? Or are the three scientists just sneaky bastards who were planning on Sayaka the robot after they got her nudes? The only thing we know for sure is that Venus A has a well-defined ass, which is an even weirder thing for a robot to have than boob missiles.

 Kouji and Sayaka get some much-needed flirt time in before Tesshou Genda scolds them-- there are armies incoming, you kids! Do this love crap later! It goes without saying that Brocken's armies wreck the non-robot military, and that the "we won't have our asses kicked quite so fast this time!" Mazinger Corps get so served by Mechanical Beast Baron Ashura that they don't even bother showing it onscreen. Meanwhile, Boss Borot waits at the Photon Power Labs for its chance to shine.  Ankokuji visits, and he's clearly up to something: the Kurogane gang speculate that he might have allied with Kenzo Kabuto.

Ashura's robot makes its real debut at the grave of Juuzou Kabuto. The Kabutos are trying to have a nice, early memorial service before Dr. Hell shows up, but you know what? Dr. Hell shows up anyway-- in hologram form. He even leaves some hologram flowers on the grave. And then the fiery wreckage of the Mazinger Corps appear, and then so does Ashura. Venus shows up, and she's a little useful here, but like the Mazinger Corps, her robot upgrade only means that she won't be beaten quite as quickly as she was in the past. Ashura and Dr. Hell offer a duel. Single combat. Whoever wins gets their way. You know, the usual cartoon bad guy trap.

Say, did you know that there's a giant Devilman statue in the Kurogane bath? Because there is. In the end, Shirou, Kouji, Boss and the lackeys talk over the offer. Kouji wants to stick to the plan, so he has to refuse Ashura. Of course, everybody else present-- yes, even the little boy-- replies with "what kind of man are you?" Boss even finds a little common ground with Ashura, as a rival determined to win and destined to lose. Everybody walks out of the bath in disgust, leaving Kouji to ponder how he wants to fight Ashura more than anybody. A bathing Sayaka has overheard the whole thing and jumps out to console Kouji, who promises not to accept the duel.

Of course, there are a lot of things a guy will say to a naked girl, and as Tesshou Genda so boldly declares, "A man! Kouji is a man!" As Kouji and Mazinger walk slowly, backs hunched over purposefully, towards an obvious trap, Kanjite Knight is reprised in the background. Imagawa knows it's the best, just like we do. I assume Imagawa also fast-forwards the ending credits every single episode, like I do.

New York Anime Fest 09: I'M GONNA BE AT A PANEL

Here's a heads-up for you: take a look at the events at New York Anime Fest this year. Note the "Blogger Roundtable," going on from 8 to 9 on Saturday night. Note the guests. I'm there, friends are there, I'm sure it'll be a good time. If you're actually still at NYAF at this time, come by! We'll be happy to have you, and you can definitely have a Colony Drop flyer. My own con flier is forthcoming.