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Anime-Pulse on the "Worst Podcasts" episode...
I am kinda mad at the fact that A-P was put into the contest. I love that show, and it's up there in my favorites with GeekNights, Ninja Consultant, and AWO.
Anime-Pulse, in my humble opinion, has some great reviews. However, the review style may be kind of strange for a newbie to the show or the forums. And yes, the jokes are strange and seemingly random because they are inside jokes meant for the long time listeners.
I agree that A-P has plenty of problems. I even posted this on their forums:
"They don't understand the awesomeness that is Anime-Pulse.
They put Anime-Pulse on to their "Worst Podcasts" show which was released last night.
They only listened to 4 episodes and ARGH! They don't understand the inside jokes or the greatness of it.
Argh, I can't even type well right now because I'm listening and I'm really pissed.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that you, Ichigo, should listen to their episode immediately (http://www.frontrowcrew.com), because they actually have some good critiques.
Well, I prefer GeekNights over Anime-Pulse, but still... This review that they gave you guys makes me ever so pissed off...
I dunno which side I'm on though.
I love both podcasts so much, but the GeekNights guys are very very right about some things...
Damn... Just listen to the latest GeekNights episode and discuss here...
AAAAAAAAAARGH!!
"
Please discuss your thoughts on Anime-Pulse, if you are a listener to both A-P and GN...
Also, relating to my comment on the A-P forums, I was in the middle of listening to the podcast and was going through a fanboy spasm, so I got kind of emotional.
And, I'm kind of on GN's side now after looking back at GN's review...
If you are going to use BBCode (for however long it is going to last), make sure you hit the correct radio button
Anime-Pulse, in my humble opinion, has some great reviews. However, the review style may be kind of strange for a newbie to the show or the forums. And yes, the jokes are strange and seemingly random because they are inside jokes meant for the long time listeners.
I agree that A-P has plenty of problems. I even posted this on their forums:
"They don't understand the awesomeness that is Anime-Pulse.
They put Anime-Pulse on to their "Worst Podcasts" show which was released last night.
They only listened to 4 episodes and ARGH! They don't understand the inside jokes or the greatness of it.
Argh, I can't even type well right now because I'm listening and I'm really pissed.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that you, Ichigo, should listen to their episode immediately (http://www.frontrowcrew.com), because they actually have some good critiques.
Well, I prefer GeekNights over Anime-Pulse, but still... This review that they gave you guys makes me ever so pissed off...
I dunno which side I'm on though.
I love both podcasts so much, but the GeekNights guys are very very right about some things...
Damn... Just listen to the latest GeekNights episode and discuss here...
AAAAAAAAAARGH!!
"Please discuss your thoughts on Anime-Pulse, if you are a listener to both A-P and GN...
Also, relating to my comment on the A-P forums, I was in the middle of listening to the podcast and was going through a fanboy spasm, so I got kind of emotional.
And, I'm kind of on GN's side now after looking back at GN's review...
If you are going to use BBCode (for however long it is going to last), make sure you hit the correct radio button
Comments
Rym and Scott shouldn't have passed judgment so quickly on Anime-Pulse. I think that is the GN guys had listened to a few more episodes, possible ever tenth episode, they could have made a better review. Not all of the reviews are that shallow. Some really go into the deeper elements of anime.
I just feel that A-P was wrongly put onto that list, seeing as their are much worst podcasts out there.
Anyway, I believe I did say that Anime Pulse felt like they were trying to intentionally tell a lot of un-funny jokes. If those were all inside jokes for long-time listeners, that would explain a lot. However, having too many inside jokes in your podcast is generally not such a good thing. In the early days of GeekNights we unconsciously brought all of our inside jokes form our daily lives into the show. This was not a good idea as many people were not amused. Now we stick to just a few inside jokes like "you can't ___ 10 ___", and we use them sparingly.
When it comes to inside jokes, it is best to learn from the Simpsons. Bart only ever said "don't have a cow man" and "aye caramba" a handful of times. There's a reason for that. When all of your humor is based on inside jokes, your listener base can only decrease. Well, it might grow, but the only people who will come on board are crazy dedicated fans who have nothing better to do than learn all of your inside jokes.
When you're producing a show, the listener/viewer shouldn't have to sit through numerous episodes before it becomes accessible. If I am looking for a new podcast, I'm going to know whether I like it in the first five minutes, let along the more than an hour 'casts that A-P puts out. If they're cool, they'll be good for the entire podcast. If they aren't, then they need to scale back the amount of content they produce until they can raise the quality level.
I've listened to many an episode of Anime-Pulse, as they were my first anime podcast. I actually rather enjoy them most of the time. However, they have some tendencies that really grate on me, to the point of becoming unbearable in certain episodes. I feel Rym and Scott highlighted these quite accurately, tact aside.
First, the names Ichigo and Battou are pretty lame. It doesn't take much creativity to use main characters from extremely popular shounen/seinen shows. Okay, let's give them the benefit of the doubt and chalk that up to wanting to stay accessible to new anime fans. We'll throw the weekly popular shounen series reviews in there as well.
Then there's listener mail. They would do very well to just apply a loose screen to that stuff. I would really like to know who among the listeners actually enjoys listening to Ichigo stumble every word in an email about how cool Naruto is because the person obviously can't spell, uses poor grammer, and doesn't know what a period is. Sure, that person will be happy that their email got on the air, but think about the rest of the listeners.
So you like the reviews? So do I. Some of them, at least. Their review of El-Hazard was very well done and got me to go look it up on my own. Also, the fact that they 3-4 recent shows in an episode is very positive point. In that way, they cover shows that would slip through the cracks at AWO and GN. However, the vast majority of their reviews are not well thought out, are full of pauses and "um's " that could easily be edited out, and - now this is my biggest complaint - the other 2 or 3 people in the room won't SHUT THE FUCK UP! Asking questions here and there to elicit clarification or helping the reviewer along is fine. But more often than not it's just the other guys saying irrelevent crap, making unfunny jokes, or just otherwise being disruptive. This either causes a 10-minute review to stretch into 20, or worse, the reviewer is never able to get to the meat of the review. I enjoy the occasional "GOROOOOOOOO!", but damnit... let the dude say what he's trying to say. And what's worse is that they seem to pride themselves on being disruptive. Ugh. The prime example of this is the GitS episode. Usually Battou's the chief offender, but this time it was Ichigo and Chigo being total asses while Battou's trying to give an in-depth talk about an epic anime. I really would have liked to hear what he had to say, but he was only able to get through the basic setup of the story due to constant, annoying, lame interruptions.
The final complaint is that they've given poor ratings to few really great shows and they've given great ratings to A LOT of really crappy ones. I can't take their word on anything, because they've ruined their anime credibility for me. Since that's a more subjective thing, my real arguement lies with the issues stated above, but for me it's a real turn-off. For instance, although it's not anime-related, I couldn't bring myself to listen for several episodes after Battou said he didn't like Seinfeld. He thought it was stupid and unfunny. What? How? I can't even fathom what one could find funny if not Seinfeld. I can't take any comedy reviews of his seriously now.
-Clay
--- Yes, I see your point as well. If A-P wanted to have more listeners, they'd think of the newbies rather than the long time subscribers. But, then again, some of the appeal of the inside jokes is the fact that some people won't get them. I don't know how to put this but, yes, the sheer number of "unfunny to you, funny to me" inside jokes is irritating, but I still enjoy it in moderation.
Note to Apreche: Yeah, I am getting a little too emotional about all this. I realize that the show was all in good fun and I won't boycott GN or do anything rash like that. I'm just sort of ticked, but these comments and reasoning that you guys are posting are helping me to understand what Rym and Scott were thinking when they made this episode. ^_^
--- Yes, I agree completely. I am one to just fast forward past the crappy bits to get to the actual meat of the show. I agree even more with that statement. I have not listened to a few episodes because, during some reviews, the background nonsense is unbearable. The peanut gallery arguing and making irrelevant comments while the review tries to speak is sometimes too much for me. I disagree. Most reviews I do not agree with, but some are spot-on. And, even with the reviews that I disagree with completely, Ichigo and Bato will sometimes give a rather good, in depth look into what the story is the plot lines that develop with in the anime they review, as well as good character background.
But, as I said, this only happens sometimes.
Thank you guys for clearing this up for me; your comments were very helpful.
Also, I have somewhat different views on Anime-Pulse than I had when I went through my fanboy spasm at the beginning of this thread.
I confess that I am a Anime Pulse fan because of the zany whacky comedy they mix with the anime topic, partially because they don't try to be some character but themselves talking about the things they like.
I hope I can make my points without sounding all fanboyish and make some understandable points about the trouble I had with this review and labelling Anime Pulse as one of the worst podcasts out there.
So here it goes:
I think GeekNights had some valid points for example how Ichigo is bad at selecting the E-Mails he reads or background noise but I also think they made some very bold overstatements and misrepresentation. Partially because they listened to only 2 episodes and they were pretty close to each other which they didn't do with others (where they took one recent episode and one relatively early).
For example they took the soundclip in of Ichigo talking about how "the women need their little sideprojects" but spliced right back onto it another clip and leaving out how Batou and him are talking what chauvinistic pigs they are, making fun of each other.
I also don't think they made any back research for the podcasts they were talking about.
Yes, Anime Pulse is home produced and not professionally marketed
Yes, they are all sitting in one room in front of ONE mic.
Yes, they are being themselves and themselves means some whacked out zany freaks.
I also think that because GeekNights also does an Anime show themselves they pulled in some of their own oppinions that they presented as points against AP just because they disagreed with Anime Pulse.
Purticularly about the Death Note fansubs that are lacking quality. They know that it was licensed and fansubbers aren't putting everything into it, they also address it on the show, but the fansubbers are providing content they could at least spellcheck twice and that's what they were talking about.
I also don't realy see how they are able to say that Anime Pulse only reviews "shallow" anime by listening to three episodes at the most and probably did not matchup up the review with the rating.
The rating is another thing where they got confused with. I mean it's quite appearant that after 72 episodes and more than a year and a half of podcasting AP has formed some stable listenerbase that know what they are talking about and not have to spell everything out perfectly that they could easily find in an older episode or just look it up on the homepage.
Again, GeekNights had some valid points but I realy don't think that listening to two, three episodes is realy enough to review anything and tell other people how this sucks. It's enough to say for yourself "I don't want to listen to this anymore." but not realy enough to go around proclaiming "this sucks and here's why".
So finished with this I also have some beef with Jason up there. You're avatar is clearly a drawing by Scott Johnson of Extralife. I have to ask now if you are actually listening to the Extralife Radio Podcast. I'm a big fan of that show but I honestly have to doub that you can measure ELR by the first five minutes and the inside references and jokes they put up there seem to me to be something much more than what you could grasp by listening to a single episode.
I hope you do listen to ELR, like it and if you do can understand that your statement above and ELR doesn't realy mix well.
Chaos: What the hell? XD
Yes, I love ELR. It's a first-tier show. But I'm not sure exactly where you're coming from. I quick went back and listened to the first five minutes of several episodes just to make sure that I'm not on drugs, and I found that in that time period:
1) The opening mash-up/station ID is professional, well-mixed, short, catchy, and concise.
2) The sound quality is quite high. There are no coughs/hiccups, scratches, background noise, humming, etc.
3) There is immediate introduction and voice identification of all the members/guests.
4) They preview/foreshadow main topic of episode that will surface later.
5) There is some kind of short geek news item or anecdote.
All in all, the first five minutes are professional-level and pull you in to the personalities. It creates a smooth introduction for new listeners while grabbing the attention of old listeners. The jokes aren't pre-planned or cheesy. They are quite articulate. There are no silences; the show keeps moving. They do use the zoo format and sometimes talk over each other, but in moderation, and no more than Scrym do. They concede to new speakers and toss the conversation back and forth without it becoming annoying.
So... I'm not exactly sure what you believe to be my apparent hypocrisy.
Also, on behalf of Mr. Period, it's "really."
Charlie is pretty lame, though, compared to Jason Steele's other short films (he's the guy who made it). That reminds me of another point that I would like to make:
Anime Pulse is a show for those crazy kids who don't like to pay for crap. GeekNights is for the folks who care about the hard work that the creators do and review the official American releases (most of the times).
They have two totally different review styles.
A-P has a G4-type "set rating system" as I like to call it. They have four ratings and they give out the ratings accordingly. GeekNights, on the other hand, dissects one anime each show and they discuss the good things about it, and the bad things about. Then they give their rating as a "buy it now" or "don't."
Finally, GeekNights is a podcast that I feel is executed in a more mature manner than Anime-Pulse (except for on Throw-Away-Thursday, of course). The Anime-Pulse guys are a bunch of silly student otaku, while Scott and Rym are desk job otaku.
I actually skipped around a whole bunch of episodes of Anime Pulse. I pulled all of my clips from one for a single reason: it was late and I was tired. Regardless, the interrupting, pausing, and extremely loud background noises were ever-present, and it drove me nuts. ^_~
I hate 99% of podcasts. I've unsubscribed from almost every single one I've ever listened to in short order. I could be equally harsh to just about every single show out there, and I could probably be fairly hard even on GeekNights itself if I felt the need.
All Anime Pulse really needs to do to instantly become 100% better is to EDIT THE DAMN SHOW! ^_~ It only takes about 5-10 minutes for even a moderately skilled editor to fully work over an hour or so of reasonably well-recorded audio. Run a noise gate/downward expander and a pause remover. Cue spots where the train of conversation derailed for easy fixing/removal. Much of modern editing is actually automated so long as you know what you're doing.
It takes me about three minutes to do the manual editing portion of any given episode of GeekNights. This can slide up to five or six if we did a poor job in preproduction setting up the show. It takes another ten minutes to run the scripted filters, gates, and such (due SOLELY to the fact that my PC is ancient and slow), and then another ten on top of that for the scripted encode, id3, and upload. Once I have a new computer, I anticipate it taking about ten minutes total from record to upload, even including all of the fancy new filters I plan to run once I have a fast enough computer to handle them.
If AP wants advice on editing quickly and effectively, I'd be more than happy to teach them how. =P
I do realize that ELR is better produced because Scott has more experience, but it certainly has also a different format. With ELR the theme (if there is one) is different every time and pretty much all the segments except for the introductions, the pause in the middle and the crappy movie of the week are tossed around if they are even in there.
AP on the other hand, every show is structured the same and they pull it through. You get the intro, site news, real news, weekly reviews and the reviews for the show. The structure is always the same and if they said it every single week what they are going to do, all the people who listen to more than two shows will get annyoed by it.
And about the "really": I'm sorry, I'm not a native english speaker so please forgive me if I screw up a word once in a while
- Geeknights
Podcasts that suck- Any others
Case closed.Have you ever heard of Anime World Order, kind sir? ^_^
I take a lot of crap for liking some pretty terrible movies. Like for example Hard Rock zombies, I have friends around here who still won't let me pick what to watch because they were traumatized by the horror that is HRZ.. It just means they don't get it the way I do. (Or the other friends I have who do like it!) Most podcasts appeal to a niche audience and sometimes the podcast really really appeals to a very niche audience. This is what's great about Podcasts, since they are done generally as a hobby people who run a podcast on any topic they want and put as much effort they want into it. Not every podcast is trying to be the most professional sounding podcast in the world. It just so happens that Scrym like professional sounding podcasts. So if you have a favorite podcast that doesn't have the best sound in the world, they tend not to like it. This is their loss, not yours. If you find enjoyment in something, screw everyone else. Frak those who don’t understand why you like something.
However, when a show has flaws and other people point them out as reasons they don’t like the podcast, try to view it the way they do and understand how they arrived at the opinion.
Unless of course it's Firefly, then you have to like it ^_^
Goram I hate when I start ranting.. I don't even know what I was ranting about..
And congratulations on your mastery of English as a second language. It's really quite good. But in this forum, you're going to be corrected. It's not to a bunch of assholes; it's to make the forum better. If Mr. Period were here, there are a lot of posts that would be bleeding red. And trust me, we understand and go easier on all y'all fer'ners.
If I have to wade through your thing in order to get to the enjoyment then it simply isn't worth my time. The only way you get me to wade through your thing is to a) have it assigned to me so I HAVE to read it or b) have created great things in the past and have therefore created an existing relationship with me.
Still, I don't see the necessity to spell out the agenda of an anime review show that is structured the same every single episode and only the shows that are reviewed vary, and those can be normally found on both the description of the podcast when downloaded or on their site as well as they announce it at the beginning of the review segment which is where it in my opinion belongs.
For Example I listen to podcasts the most while driving to and from the University, which is each about a half hour to 40 minute drive. AP is about one hour and 10 minutes long, so it fits almost perfectly to my time driving, and the reviews for the week normally start about halfway through. So if they announced it at the beginning of the show, which is basically information I already have because I put the podcast on my iPod not 10 minutes before and read what shows they were going to review, I would listen through their site news and regular news sections and go to the university. Then I would study (among other things) for 6 to 10 hours there and drive home again listening to their review section, being reminded after at least 30 minutes but normally about 6 hours what they were going to do.
Anime World Order for example puts what they are going to review right at the beginning, which is somewhat redundant. Even if I manage to listen straight through the entire episode. I honestly will have forgotten what they said at the beginning of the show they were going to do as it has been an hour since they announced it and the news and their commentaries were far more important. Granted, AWO has a way longer podcast and goes far more in depth.
(also thanks for the kind words on my English although I have some slip ups, also didn't see the spell checker that is built in :(. It's probably because I consume more media in English than I do with my first language, German. Translation errors are just so annoying. Now I only need to get my act together and do the same thing with Japanese :/ )
For example, on another show run by the Anime-Pulse guys called theOtaku.com Anime Podcast, the episodes are about fifteen minutes long. On one of the episodes, they had an almost seven minute long tangent about WORLD CURRENCY!! What the hell does that have to do with anime?!
They get off topic a lot, but when they get off topic and stay off topic is when I get annoyed...
Why is this even up for discussion? The podcasters of Anime Pulse can simply take Scrym's advice for what it's worth or leave it. I make reference to Scott's remark in that he hopes that any podcast that was featured in the show would send a message to the podcasters to reevaluate the technical and content-based aspects of their programs in the hope that future shows would be more pleasing instead of the nonsense that I personally disliked.
Also, podcasters (and the listeners) must realize that when free content is provided to the world at large, THEY WILL BE JUDGED. They may not like some of the criticisms that people give by email or via iTunes but you use those critiques to enrich your programming. If the podcaster or his/her fanbase can't handle criticism in a mature manner, then why even bother?
My summation - based on what I've heard during the GN segment, I wouldn't like Anime Pulse as it's too disruptive, whereas in GN R&S explain every new inside joke that comes up and they repeat the occasional inside joke about three times a month. They are also much more mature when discussing the main topics - something I need while I'm working or studying. Anime Pulse (currently) is not fit for either.
Take their criticisms for what it's worth.