GeekNights 090211 - Sword of the Stranger

Apreche

Tonight on GeekNights we review the full length animated feature film, Sword of the Stranger. In the news, Ultimate Spider-Man is being rebooted, Toriyama comments on Dragonball live action, and there's a fight over Yu-Gi-Oh cards.

Scott's Thing - Chantilly Lace
Rym's Thing - Toriyama Draws Hamasaki

bugmenot

Heya. Just wanted to point out that most of what you said you wanted in a comic (self-contained stories where you don't need all the books, crossovers being put in a trade as "X-Men vol. #" instead of their own thing) applies to all of the Ultimate universe with single-digit exceptions, and those exceptions are entirely skippable. (In fact, I recommend it. They're terrible.) There have been only three ongoings (Spidey, X-Men, Fantastic Four), only crossing over once in the latter two with a trade just marked "Ultimate X/FF" that says something like "goes here and here for these books" on the back. Everything else was a miniseries that either focused on one character/team, or was a brief team-up/world event that wouldn't be required reading in the main books.

But hey, give Ultimate Spidey a chance, post-reboot. Brian Bendis (writer) has been working towards this quietly for a bit, wrapping up old plots, and trying to make it as simple as possible to grab the new stuff without needing to know years of continuity. Sorry to go on about all this, just kinda made me wince when you went "Wow, all this stuff would be cool" and I was going "BUT IT EXISTS AND YOU ARE DISCUSSING THE BOOK THAT DOES IT".

Cremlian

I actually only read the Ultimate lines, (since I want non-convoluted super-hero stories) and found them to be always at least pretty good. (though I agree that whenever a "big event" happened that crossed all books it was separated in another trade and crappy). In fact the "Ultimates" (Ultimate Avengers) comic was extremely good, too bad it never had a regular release.

Irascible

Now I did a little poking around the internet and didn't find anything, but does anyone know if Sword of the Stranger is going to get an Australian theatrical run?

KevDeluxe

This was the best episode in a while. Thanks.

Captainbubby

I'm afraid from what I hear (from my sister who lives in Australia), it doesn't seem likely that it'll get an Australian theatrical release. I actually downloaded a BLU-RAY rip of this several months ago and was extremely surprised to hear that this not only got a limited theatrical release in the US, but also an English dub.

The HD release of this is gorgeous and I do agree wholeheartedly with Rym's review. I dare say this is a throwback; Not a throwback to samurai films, but a throwback to entertaining one-shot anime movies that didn't need to be an offshoot of some prodigious Shōnen jump phenomenon.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the aforementioned Blu-Ray rip is fansubbed!

Loganator456

I have to disagree with Rym on one point. I don't want to start a flamewar or get into an argument, but Spice and Wolf did actually go somewhere. It definitely wasn't an A++ show, but it being mainly a character-driven show it went some places, and the second season can still expand on that. I thought it was worth watching, although Scrym's and my taste in anime (I'm sure I made some grammatical mistake there) is somewhat different. Besides, I've never heard of many shows similar to it, and it was at least a decent show if you watch it until the end (which again, leaves a good place for a sequel).

Anyways, I respect your opinion, but I disagree. That being said, I agree with KevDeluxe in that this episode was one of the better ones lately. Sounds like I'll have to check out this movie!

Rochelle

Scott's Thing -Chantilly Lace

Ah, Kevin Caldwell. I remember watching his many awesome videos back in the day. If I recall correctly, he was one of the better AMV makers back in the day. I have always enjoyed his "Engel" for Evangelion as well as my favorite "I Believe" for Battle Athletes Victory. I know he also did an AMV for the Utena movie as well as something for Memories. I would suggest to anyone who hasn't already seen his stuff that they go look him up on the youtubes. He makes good stuff.

Dim sum is awesome. My friends and I would occasionally meet up on Sunday mornings to go get dim sum. I remember being introduced to it by my friends telling me, "Don't ask what it is, just eat it. If you don't like it, we'll eat it." Dammit, now I'm craving me some dim sum.

As for your review for Sword of the Stranger, I agree with you guys. One thing to mention if you guys didn't stay afterward for the behind the scenes with the dub voice actors, it was pretty interesting. The guy who voiced the blonde hair guy was very creepy that it was actually funny. He seemed to have a hippy vibe about him. My friends pointed out he was wearing some Native American beaded vest thing on top of a shirt with a white skull in the center.

As for the guy who voiced "No-name", he was actually pretty cool. During his interview he talked about how he watched the film first subtitled and would read along with the English script to get a better feel for the character of "No-name". I think that's pretty cool for him to do that. I don't know of many voice actors that do that these days.

Yes, Tobimaru (dog) kicks ass. I would say his awesomeness is almost up there with Ein.

Also a quick note for when you guys do watch the sub. Maaya Sakamoto voices one of the female characters, even though most of the female characters aren't prevalent in the movie.

...

but Spice and Wolf did actually go somewhere. It definitely wasn't an A++ show, but it being mainly a character-driven show it went some places, and the second season can still expand on that. I thought it was worth watching

It went slowly. And the DVD only episode should've just been in the aired show. Seriously, all that showepisode explained was "This is how Horo go her new clothes!" ¬___¬ The ending was no ending. They probably realized, oh shit, we said she wanted to go to the north! Hence season 2 has to be made. It was a watchable show, nothing more. I'll probably watch the second season too if if airs in a dry season.

To Scott, fansubs of Sword of the Stranger popped up in several higher profile places. Shinsen-Subs subbed the movie when it came out. THORAnime also released it. Shinsen-Subs has since removed their torrents because Bandai licensed the show, but THORA still just supplies its 720p and 1080p encodes. You must've not looked for it when it got subbed. That, or AnimeSuki was a failure again.

gomidog

My frustration with Spice and Wolf was that I wanted a lot more wolf goddess-ing and a lot fewer humans. I was hoping we would get to see the wolf packs, other deities, and the north.

Alan

They really didn't go into anything in Spice and Wolf either. They hinted on it being about economics even with the money exchange, bad currency, and the conspiracy. They also did the thing with the wolf tribe or the group of wolves. None of which they went into great detail and try to expand on. The series would have been great if it was an wolf goddess-ing economics anime.


Yeah they has subs all over but took them down right away after it got licensed. I haven't seen the dub to comment on it but from your review it sounds like they did a good job.

Irascible

I'm afraid from what I hear (from my sister who lives in Australia), it doesn't seem likely that it'll get an Australian theatrical release. I actually downloaded a BLU-RAY rip of this several months ago and was extremely surprised to hear that this not only got a limited theatrical release in the US, but also an English dub.

The HD release of this is gorgeous and I do agree wholeheartedly with Rym's review. I dare say this is a throwback; Not a throwback to samurai films, but a throwback to entertaining one-shot anime movies that didn't need to be an offshoot of some prodigious Sh?nen jump phenomenon.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the aforementioned Blu-Ray rip is fansubbed!

Thanks for the confirmation mate, it's just annoying that we don't get these kind of limited releases

Churba

Thanks for the confirmation mate, it's just annoying that we get bugger all in the way of releases

Fix'd

Irascible

Thanks for the confirmation mate, it's just annoying that we getbugger all in the way ofreleases

Fix'd

We get the Ghibli movies, sometimes

Diddgery

I keep misreading the title as "Sword of the Sorcelator." Accursed witchaloks!

misakyra

Accursed witchaloks!

They fused the witchalock blades into a sword? What kind of creatures would that produce?

Li_Akahi

They fused the witchalock blades into a sword? What kind of creatures would that produce?

Dracloids. Dracula Androids, like in Dr. McNinja.

mattman

One of the reasons I mostly read manga more than American comic books is for the fact that there aren't crossovers which require you to read ten other comic books to understand the whole story. However, there was a crossover between Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service and Mail. Mail showed up in Kurosagi for one chapter, which clearly explained who he was and what he did. The crossover happened because Mail is written and illustrated by Kurosagi's artist, Housui Yamazaki.

You guys also mentioned including crossover issues in the trade paperbacks of both titles that crossover. Marvel has done that with its Essential series.

Rochelle

FYI, the DVD & Blu Ray are now available for purchase. I saw them yesterday at Best Buy and almost purchased them, however I can wait for Amazon to ship it to me.