Ep. 037 - An Englishman in King Arthur's Court

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Soul Bro Ryu
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Ep. 037 - An Englishman in King Arthur's Court

Gundamn! @ MAHQ Ep. 037 - "An Englishman in King Arthur's Court"
- Unplugged Version: 64 kbps - 94 min., 14 sec. (1:34:14) - 43.1 MB
- Remastered Version: Coming Soon!

Segment Breakdown for this Episode:

01. Intro: "Neo News!"
Runtime: 0:00:43 - 0:18:22

02. Epic Sugar Works (Commercial)
Runtime: 0:18:22 - 0:18:57

03. 1st Segment: "Anime Spotlight: The Vision of Escaflowne & Escaflowne: A Girl in Gaea"
Runtime: 0:18:57 - 0:50:12

04. Next Time on Gundamn! "Pedro's Japanese Culinary Adventure!" (feat. Pedro Cortez of Tomopop.com & Tomocast!)
Runtime: 0:50:12 - 0:51:59

05. 2nd Segment "Regrettable Deaths in Mecha Anime"
Runtime: 0:51:59 - 1:29:44

06. Epic Sugar Works (Commercial)
Runtime: 1:29:44 - 1:30:20

07. Outro: "Closing/Peep the Websites!"
Runtime: 1:30:20 - 1:34:14

After a brief hiatus, we're finally back! This time the discussion returns to the "Big Sleep" as we get into our picks for character deaths in Mecha & Sci-fi anime we wish we could take back. Before that, however, the fantasy mecha series and film of Escaflowne are covered after almost 2 years of mentioning it in past episode. A fantastic series and a review that's been a long time coming!

Thanks for listening and for the feedback!
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Re: Ep. 037 - An Englishman in King Arthur's Court

YES. This just made my day. Been wondering where Gundamn was. Going to listen to this like it was Basara's song.
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Re: Ep. 037 - An Englishman in King Arthur's Court

I first saw Escaflowne when it aired on Fox, and continued watching it on YTV. We got the unedited (or at least not-as-edited) version up here.

You know, people talk about the whole 'they tried to make the guy seem like the main character' thing, but if this was the case, they did a really crappy job of it. At least, it didn't work on me. My brother would mock me for watching Cardcaptors, and I would retort that he "Just didn't like it because a girl was the main character."

Anyways, Escaflowne was one of my childhood classics. However, I bought the box set not too long ago and rewatched it. I have to admit, I found the mecha battles to be quite dull. It just... didn't thrill me as much as it used to. Van's final fight against Allen was still cool, though. Even if the mecha aspect didn't pull me in anymore, the characters still did. The show is a great shoujo romance, with an intriguing web of relationships.

Like Chris, I view the movie as its own entity. And yeah, I do like it. It was good for what it was, and the single mecha battle in it was far more awesome than anything from the TV series.

For Escaflowne, I like the TV series, and I like the movie.

For Nadesico, I dislike the TV series, and I love the movie.

And Soul Bro, the show you were thinking of was Cybuster. You know, that one I reviewed for this website! :wink: They did travel to a mysterical world sometimes, but the bulk of the story took place on Earth.

On deaths, I agree with Chris ten thousand fold about Odello. I've never raged so hard at a death like I did when I saw his. The guy had a woman waiting for him too, and they had to kill him off? If you need to push Uso with the death of a friend, why not kill Tomache? No one cared about him! I don't plan on forgiving Tomino for that one!

There's not really anyone else. Sure, I've been sad at character deaths, but I can recognise the importance for the story. So I really wouldn't bring anyone back lest I mess that up.

But I guess I'd bring back the Astray girls from SEED and Christina from 00...

Oh, and poor Euphie :(
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Re: Ep. 037 - An Englishman in King Arthur's Court

Destiny_Gundam wrote:On deaths, I agree with Chris ten thousand fold about Odello. I've never raged so hard at a death like I did when I saw his. The guy had a woman waiting for him too, and they had to kill him off? If you need to push Uso with the death of a friend, why not kill Tomache? No one cared about him! I don't plan on forgiving Tomino for that one!
I pretty much agree with you. Odello was easily the most powerful death in the show, or at least the one that hit me the hardest. It's clear why Tomino picked him to be the one out of Uso's group to go (rather than, say Tomache, and that's precisely because no one cared about him.) But Odello man, he just didn't deserve it. AND HE WAS SO CLOSE. Man.

It's not like I blame Tomino. It got the exact emotion out of me that he was going for. But say, if I were doing Victory Gundam, Odello would have made it though and hooked up with the elder of the two sisters. Honestly, Odello's death hit me about as hard, if not harder than Bernie's.

Speaking of which, even though it would have been great to see Bernie and Christina actually get together, I probably wouldn't take that one back, because of just how amazing 0080's ending.

As for Escaflowne, I love that show. Saw it first on Fox Kid's before it was dropped. I always remembered it as the show where something got burned down every other episode. I later saw the movie and thought it was pretty great since I never got a chance to finish the series. Later on I bought the Anime Legends release and finally got to watch all of it. Loved it. I'd say the series is better, but wouldn't discount the movie.
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Re: Ep. 037 - An Englishman in King Arthur's Court

Never got to see Escaflowne myself. Kinda want to now.

As for Odello, I was like "No, not him too damn it." It really looked like he was going to make it then it was like: Tomino: "Nope. He's toast too." Me: :evil:

On bringing someone back that hasn't already been mentioned, I'd like to do a trade. In Macross 7, bring Kinryu back and do away with Docker. Docker was a good pilot, but didn't have much in the way of good character traits otherwise. Kinryu on the other hand was a sort of mentor to Gamiln, but even that can be gotten around with the demise of Docker making that run in the Armored Thunderbolt on the Varuta warship. This leaves Emerald Force open for Kinryu to lead and still leave Diamond Force for Gamlin.

I guess the writers thought Kinryu was too badass to live. Ace pilot (best in the fleet save for Max and Millia at the beginning of the series), and dating both of the Battle 7 bridge bunnies, Sally and Miho Miho, at the same time, and both girls were cool with that! Add in the fact of him being both black and bald and I guess it was just too much awesome for the show to handle.
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Re: Ep. 037 - An Englishman in King Arthur's Court

Oh man, Gundamn! is back. Wicked.

Escaflowne was a great TV series that I was introduced to in 2002. Never watched it on TV, but ended up watching the series and years later buying the boxset. Loved it all, especially when Van leaves Gaia to bring Hitomi back from Earth and when Folken takes on Emperor Dornkirk. Great moments.
And the movie. I love the movie (I have the Ultimate Edition) and the different view it takes with only two Guymelefs. The opening scenes are great with up-to-her-standards music by Yoko Kanno. In my mind the writers did a good job of compressing an entire 26 episode series into 90 minutes even with the amount of things that were changed.

Nice topic with the Regrettable Deaths. Not something that comes up too often.

Poor Euphemia. I remember SoulBro warning me about episodes 22 and 23 in Code Geass when we were at Yasumicon 2008, saying "you'll have the rug pulled out from under you." Man oh man, he was right.

Great to hear you guys back on the air, tape-delayed as it is.
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Re: Ep. 037 - An Englishman in King Arthur's Court

I did a double-take near the end. That audio clip was from Gundam abridged, wasn't it?
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Re: Ep. 037 - An Englishman in King Arthur's Court

SoulBro, I agree with your thoughts on the movie so hard it hurts. It put me to sleep, mecha should never put anyone to sleep.

On the grounds of other fantasy mehca anime: I saw one at my FYE that looked like a fantasy mecha anime. It was called Shrine Maiden's Destiny or something, looked like a Yuri thing if the box is any indication.
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Re: Ep. 037 - An Englishman in King Arthur's Court

ZeroBusterXX wrote:On the grounds of other fantasy mehca anime: I saw one at my FYE that looked like a fantasy mecha anime. It was called Shrine Maiden's Destiny or something, looked like a Yuri thing if the box is any indication.
That, my friend, is Kannazuki no Miko. It has a mystical edge to it yes. The mecha are actually japanese gods that look like robots. And yeah, it has lesbians. Which is its only selling point, actually. The series is quite horrible.
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Re: Ep. 037 - An Englishman in King Arthur's Court

Destiny_Gundam wrote:
ZeroBusterXX wrote:On the grounds of other fantasy mehca anime: I saw one at my FYE that looked like a fantasy mecha anime. It was called Shrine Maiden's Destiny or something, looked like a Yuri thing if the box is any indication.
That, my friend, is Kannazuki no Miko. It has a mystical edge to it yes. The mecha are actually japanese gods that look like robots. And yeah, it has lesbians. Which is its only selling point, actually. The series is quite horrible.
It looked bad. Every time we pass it at the store, me and my friends just laugh at it (and half the other really crazy-looking stuff there).

And if Gods looked like mecha that would be insane.
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Re: Ep. 037 - An Englishman in King Arthur's Court

The mecha designs were one of the few things worth watching for. Too bad the animation was bad, the plot was corny, and the yuri was layed on way too thick during the last episode making it horribly uncomfortable. At first it was bad, but I still enjoyed it on a level. But that last episode... I could barely sit through it.

But damn it if it doesn't have what I consider to be THE GREATEST OPENING IN ANIME HISTORY.

There's also a fight mid way through that was pretty awesome if only because it had an insert song by KOTOKO playing in the background.

But yeah, the show is bad. It's sister show, Shattered Angels, however, is actually pretty good.
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Re: Ep. 037 - An Englishman in King Arthur's Court

Odello is probably the strongest developed non-Gundam pilot best friend of the the main character in the entire Gundam mythos. Which is why his death sucks so much, he was a guy that deserved and worked for his own happy ending only for a momentary lapse to be the end of him. I literally stopped my run of re-watching V Gundam for over a year when I realized that episode was the next. I'll man up and watch it one day. :(
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Re: Ep. 037 - An Englishman in King Arthur's Court

Man, what took you mother****s so long to get this one done!?

But its great to hear another podcast from you guys. Escaflowne... man that brings back memories of me and my bros watching it on bootleg CD's (yes on CD!!!), unfortunately we saw the first 7 or so eps, and to top it off I also saw the stupid Fox Kids TV edited version (HEAVY edited!) before Fox cut the series short in the US.

I gotta say the beginning is definitely non-typical, as we began with a high school girl meeting up with a young prince from a small fantasy kingdom. But things go wrong as Hitomi enters the fantasy world with Van, and Van isn't your typical prince charming, as he has the wings of an angel when he saved Hitomi. And this is where I missed out the rest of the series, and no I never saw the movie.

I do have some hesitations on calling Escaflowne as a "mecha" show when people ask about it. As you guys mentioned, there are plently of shojo elements and heavy on fantasy (a bit of Western and Eastern); for a young dude that just came back to US, yeah, it was quite amazing for me. Unfortunately for me now, I am a single young man working 40-hrs/wk, which leaves me little time for anime, but IIRC the whole series was released as a complete DVD set, am I right?

Thanks dudes for the kudos in the opening, I did stumble the news of the 1/35 Gundam Fix, and was wondering if anyone caught that.

I'll post a second thread for the second half.
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Re: Ep. 037 - An Englishman in King Arthur's Court

The Mole Man always struck me as more of Soul Bro's man when I watched it, but I suppose the Dragonslayers can fit too.
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Re: Ep. 037 - An Englishman in King Arthur's Court

Great Show as always, fellas. It's been a long time coming.

As for Vision of Escaflowne, I do remember seeing commercials for it during the time it was aired on FOX. Given, this was about a year or so before I really got into anime, I wasn't interested. Had I would've seen it, given FOX/4kids penchant for Macekres, I probably would have avoided the entire genre like the plauge.

Nowadays, I'm checking out a lot of the titles I slept on in the 90's. Since Escaflowne is a shorter series and it has the "Gundamn! Seal of Approval", I'll check it out when I can find copies of it.

As for a character death that I could take back, It would be Tsukomo Shiratori (Ya' know, the guy who looks like... Gai) from Martian Sucessor Nadesico.

While I loved Gai, To me, Gai's death was always humorous, given that he got smoked by "Moe Howard" (Admiral Munetake), who was escaping on a Shuttlecraft that resembled the ones from Star Trek: TNG.

While Gai was a great character, I don't think he would've fit in so well with the later castmembers (especially Ryoko), since the creative staff was trying to make Akito's unwanted harem more of the focus, than the 'bromance' between Akito and Gai.

With Shiratori, he story arc was developed pretty well, and it looked things were going to work out for him and Minato and well, the humans and the Jovians. However, due to petty reasoning on the Jovian Commander, Shiratori had to go.

Add to the fact that it was his "homeboy" that pulled the trigger, it makes me rage to this very moment.

Other than that, Euphie's death was horrible. But it did set things in motion...
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Re: Ep. 037 - An Englishman in King Arthur's Court

On to the second half,

Death... Japanese anime NEVER shy away from that, which I say is good since real life is never full of "Happy ever after." The whole Gundam series has always dealt with that, and gotta say there are plenty of people that I wished could've live towards the end. On Victory Gundam, I'm trying to find ways to watch that, and I know its infamous for the huge death toll from the beginning to the end; but I'm brave enough to go thru that (I think).

Outlaw Star, I hope you guys will cover that in Gundamn! in the future, its great Sci-Fi anime that I will say Firefly took some notes (Chinese/Western fusion and NAKED girl in a box!). I though Hilda's death was relevant to the plot, as its inspired Gene to "grow up" and take control of his own destiny. Hanmyo, the little girl that was actually a member of the Anten Seven, was saddening because Jim developed the tactics to defeat and kill her. She did have the child naive that Jim fell in love with her, and given that another Anten Seven, Shimi, cheated his own death, you thought there was some plot line for her to live, but NO!

On Code Geass, yes, Euphy's death was probably the most powerful one in recent anime (anyone feel free to contest that!), which R2 was never able to match up that emotional rift (WTF with the Merry Happy Japanese ending!) When you think about Euphy, she offered the best solution with her selfless act, and there were good reasons that Suzaku should be deeply in love with her. The ball was in Lulu's court, and he choose the most destructive method for his own selfish reasons. And it was reasonable for Suzaku to ask for Lulu to bring back Euphy to life for forgiveness in R2. And to add some salt to the wounds, IIRC, there was a CG novel game on the PSP, where you COULD prevent Euphy from giving the order to massacre all Japanese.

Well thanks for another great ep, and I do look forward for another Gundamn! ep in the future!
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Re: Ep. 037 - An Englishman in King Arthur's Court

It's always to good to hear you guys again. :D

Unfortunately, I've never really had the opportunity to see Escaflowne on TV or DVD so there's pretty much nothing to be said there, but the show definitely has a reputation behind it and I do want to check it out in the near future. What little I've heard of the soundtrack is pretty good and the overall concept does seem fairly interesting.

On the continuing topic of death...that was a nice list, but I can think of a few more examples.

Gun x Sword
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Ray's death was both appropriate and regrettable, considering the guy was finally reaching an understanding with his brother (annoying as he was) and there was even potential for a new relationship in the air. True, he was someone who lived for revenge, he went out like a badass and so on, but I still would have liked to see him survive.
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This one really depends on how you want to interpret the ending, whether it's taken literally or not, but seeing Kei and Olson kill their original counterparts in order to restore the different dimensions to their initial state. After all they had been through there was no other way out? I guess it makes sense, in retrospect, and you could take that last montage as a sign that even their deaths didn't erase their existence throughout the multiverse, perhaps due to the whimsical nature of whatever cosmic balance applies, but then again it's still left up to interpretation.
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Yang Wen-li had one of those deaths that could have been easily prevented, on paper, but things don't always work out that way. It's particularly sad when you realize everything else he could have accomplished and the rest of his surviving legacy. Reinhard's death was regrettable too, ironically enough for similar reasons, but he had the benefit of dying next to his loved ones and had enough time to accept the inevitable. The show had many more examples of regrettable deaths, of course, but these are my top two.
Speaking of Code Geass...I agree, Euphemia's death is surely something to regret considering its tragic and unexpected nature, for all the mentioned reasons, but in terms of emotional impact I'd say Lelouch's death was equal if not superior to it, even if I do understand the fact that was also quite a fitting end for him. I wouldn't want to see him survive after the ending, all horrible fanfiction aside, though part of me does wish the situation hadn't come to that in the first place.

For that matter, Shirley's death may be a distant third or fourth in that show, but it probably also counts. Even though her character's fate could be seen coming from almost a mile away, it would have been interesting to see her survive and grow out of just being a carefree high school student with a crush.

And just for the sake of the record, while this is also one of those deaths that makes enough sense in context, I think poor Kinoue in Gundam 00 does come to mind. No, I'm not saying she'd have any chance against the likes of Ali, but it's another case where you wonder what could have happened instead.
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Re: Ep. 037 - An Englishman in King Arthur's Court

Loved the podcast, and I particularly enjoyed listening to your thoughts about Escaflowne, which is a show that I like a great deal.

Another fantasy mecha that is often overlooked or that not many people know about is Panzer World Galient by Ryousuke Takahashi. It's a 25 episode show that aired several months after Dunbine finished it's run. I've seen most of it and it seems like a typical Takahashi show and the mecha move and sound like Scopedogs.
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Re: Ep. 037 - An Englishman in King Arthur's Court

Man, didn't realize that there were so many Odello fans. I wonder if Sunrise would resurrect him, if we sacifrice Saji. We can only hope.
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Re: Ep. 037 - An Englishman in King Arthur's Court

Odello died for our sins.
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