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Tonight on GeekNights, a proper review of the excellent anime Durarara. In the news, we discuss the coming end of the anime industry, DiscoTek's coming English releases of the Galaxy Express 999 movies and Project A-Ko, the "stabbing" in Hall H at ComicCon, and Otakon is this weekend (though we will not be attending or performing any panels for the first time since 2001).
Comments
Everytime I go near Enumclaw I can only think of that incident.
To be honest, I should not have downloaded this episode. It utterly destroyed the awesome build up with the Luke and Jared interview of yesterday. I mean, you could've had Wikipedia open to check the few claims you made. The anime covered the first 3 light novels and there are supposedly still a few novels being written. Problem: We're talking about Scrym, THE PERFECT, FLAWLESS, HOT-AIR HEADS THAT ARE SCRYM. They claim to be intelligent, but don't fucking check one Wikipedia page beforehand. And I doubt they know that a light novel has images in it, or that they even thought about that fact when they mentioned it.
Geeknights 20100728 - Durarara
Expanded Show Notes - Show Run Time: 53:36
Time | Notes
---------+----------------------------------------------------------
00:00:00 | Intro
00:00:24 | Opening Chit-Chat and news
| - Cab Rides in NYC - Rym's cabbie owned his own medallion
| - OMG news in the comic & animation industry
| - Why does everyone save their announcements for SDCC? Scott doesn't see the logic in this
| - The "stabbing" in Hall H at ComicCon
| - Discussion of the hell that is Hall H
| - Dead air while Rym and Scott re-enact the "stabbing"
| - Scott gets indignant and doesn't understand why Hall H gets filled
| - Rym recaps what info he has on the incident
| - Scott has memory troubles, Rym suspects alzheimers
| - Eisner award winners @ SDCC - read A Drifting Life
| - Anime DVD releases - DiscoTek to release the Galaxy Express 999 movies and Project A-Ko
| - Also announced by DiscoTek: Princess Blade, Aquarian Age
| - Suggestion to go check out the Anime World Order podcast on Project A-Ko
| - Drawn & Quarterly to release new manga
| - Dai Sato, the author of Cowboy Bebop, predicts the coming end of the anime industry
| - Dai Sato suggests Eden of the East and Ergo Proxy as anime that are not stagnant in the industry
| - Rym notes that Dai Sato worked on both Eden of the East and Ergo Proxy
00:21:23 | Things of the Day
| - Potential anime memes?
| Scott - Norio Wakamoto's Lucky Star
| Rym - Ten Famous Phalluses
| - Scott posits that he is on the list
| - Discussion of the "members" of the list
00:24:19 | Meta Moment
| - Otacon is this weekend (July 30-Aug 1), Geeknights will not be in attendance
| - Discussion of badge-getting tactics @ Otacon
| - Suggestion of best timing for getting your 18+ wristband for the violent movies
| - Suggestion to voice your opinion at the feedback session
| - Book Club - The Golden Apples of the Sun by Ray Bradbury
| - New York ComicCon / New York Anime Festival, Oct 8-10
| - NerdNYC Boardgame Night, Oct 8
| - 10-10-10 Burning Wheel Convention, Oct 8-10
| - PAX Prime, September 3-5 - big Geeknights events planned
| - NerdNYC Recess, September 11
00:31:37 | Main Topic
| - Rym notes that most of the anime they have been covering are not new
| - New anime that's worth talking about (no spoilers)
| - The Durarara!! anime is heavily recommended by Rym and Scott
| - Name is an onomatopoeia for the sound a motorcycle makes
| - Scott notes that it is based on a visual novel
| - Discussion on visual novels
| - Discussion of the series' director
| - Hard to discuss the show without spoiling it
| - "Urban legends are actually real"
| - Lots of characters, two possible main characters
| - Show is not easily predictable
| - Viewer may know more than the characters at points in the story
| - Suggested age range for show would be 8 and up
| - The series opens with the mystery of the headless rider, is wrapped up in short order
| - Discussion of "magic" in the show
| - Durarara!! cosplay?
| - Show is fun and takes you along for a ride, has good soundtrack
| - Downside to the show is you're not getting the whole story because it hasn't adapted all the light novels
| - Discussion of whether or not the shows would stand on their own
| - First season plot resolves itself in a very satisfying way and answers most of the questions raised
| - Discussion of favorite characters
| - *** SPOILERS ***
| - Scott's prediction of the head of The Dollars
| - Discussion of people's powers
| - Corruption from a weapon (the one ring?) in anime form
| - Rym's thoughts on someone getting shot at the end of the episode
00:52:37 | Outro
Plus, wasn't this more a review of the show rather than super informative data of every little thing.
I actually caught Durarara (yeah, Scott gotcha there with the extra "ra" in the title, Rym) before Baccano and personally liked it better... at least for the first part of Durarara, that is. The initial episodes really do a good job introducing all the weird characters and the new life Mikado has suddenly gotten himself into. I personally thought explaining the headless rider just a few episodes in was a strange move and could have been saved for the last episode, but other than that, all the other character introductions were great. Come the second arc, though, stuff seemed a bit messier, which is interesting, considering how much more the viewers know. Stuff like additional characters for the sake of plot just didn't turn out as well as I thought, I guess. And the whole thing with the slasher ended up taking a turn for the worse, especially since I was hoping for a replacement of sorts to the headless rider after finding out who she really was. Still, a pretty good anime as a whole and anxiously awaiting its licensing.
Also, in terms of the title, I always thought it had multiple meanings to it. In addition to what was said about the motorcycle sound, there's also the fact that a dullahan plays a somewhat major role to the series as well as the term daladala introduced during the second arc stuff, meaning something along the lines of "dilly-dallying." [EDIT: Yeah I know that it was directly stated that "daladala" was the root term to which Mikado got the name for the Dollars, but you can't deny that the term is eerily similar to "durarara."
Overall, an alright episode, but like the other guys said, you might wanna fact-check some stuff beforehand. And like Scott said, Rym... no matter how many "ra"s you add to it, that doesn't make it any less annoying when said out loud. Still, keep it up
Meta aside: I'm very close to upgrading our studio yet again. We've outgrown dual channel recording, especially as we start bringing more guests in, so I need some better infrastructure. I'm either getting a racked Firewire interface or a Mackie. This will greatly increase our capacity to have guests and cut down on editing errors.