Wednesday, August 29, 2018

The Anime Nostalgia Podcast - Ep 66


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August 30, 2018 marks the 40th anniversary of one of the weirdest, wackiest, and most beloved series to ever come out of Japan: Rumiko Takahashi’s Urusei Yatsura! And returning guest Lynn is here to talk all about the series’ history & what made it so unique, why we still love it even all these years later, and how excited we are that Viz will be re-releasing the manga in English in 2019! Also in this episode: why Animeigo wasn’t the one to release the 2nd movie, how Takahashi’s playing with gender roles affected many readers growing up, and what Urusei Yatsura and Star Trek have in common!

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Bonus: Lynn’s photo of her UY Film Comic collection she mentioned in the episode! (You can see the rest of her collection here.)



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Thanks for listening!

2 comments:

  1. Lovely podcast! It was a wonderful overview of what makes UY so special. And I learned a lot of stuff I didn't know before, like Fumi Hirano being the one who suggested tweaking Lum's "daccha" verbal tick and the reasoning behind Lum's hair color and design in the anime. Getting to attend a panel featuring Fumi Hirano, Toshio Furukawa, and Akemi Takada sounds amazing. I hope I'll have a chance to see them at a con one day myself! ^^

    I'm so over the moon that Viz is finally republishing the manga over here. I know this has actually been something many people over there have been trying to push for a while. I remember I talked with a Viz rep back at NYCC in 2015, and she told me that republishing the series was something that was frequently brought up in meetings, but things never went anywhere. One of the biggest hangups they had, aside from their previously unsuccessful publishing track-record and the series' relative obscurity, was that Shogakukan wouldn't let them rerelease the earlier volumes until they finished publishing the series from where they left off, which meant if they were to resume publishing it they'd have to start at volume 12 instead of back at the beginning. I'm glad they've finally managed to negotiate around the issue and get the clear to do it all over from scratch, and with new translations to boot! I never heard that rumor that Takahashi wasn't letting them rerelease the anime until the manga came out, and I sorta doubt it - based on interviews Takahashi doesn't seem like the type to worry too much about the anime or how her stuff is handled overseas. Beautiful Dreamer being relicensed by Discotek before Viz's relicensing of the manga also seems like evidence against that theory. Regardless, I'm really hoping the manga does really well for Viz so that interest in the anime is rekindled and it gets relicensed. At the very least I want it legally streaming somewhere.

    On the subject of UY dubs, there was also allegedly an Animax produced english dub that aired on Animax Asia. Only a couple clips from episodes are circulating on Youtube, but based on them it seems like they at least dubbed through episode 33 - https://lostmediawiki.com/Alien_Musibat_(partially_found_Animax_dub_of_Urusei_Yatsura;_dates_unknown)

    And finally, thank you answering my questions! I'm very glad that many other people resonate with Ryuunosuke and her struggles with gender identity in a strong way! Though I apologize if I asked too many questions and wrote too much. I'll try to scale it back next time. ^^, But exploring how Rumiko Takahashi approaches gender throughout her various series is definitely a discussion I'd love to see more of in the future!

    As always, love the show, and keep up the great work! :)

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    Replies
    1. Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed the new episode!

      Yeah, there was a lot of really cool tidbits they disclosed at those panels! If you haven't listened to that old 2016 ep where me & Heather discussed them, I def recommend it--they shared so much fun info! I felt so lucky that I got to see all their panels. I even have some videos linked in that ep of the voice actors doing a live-read, and Takada painting a drawing of Lum!

      Yeah, that's why I said I wasn't so sure if those rumors were true...it's probably not Takahashi who wanted that, but maybe something the publishers were hoping for, and it got twisted in the rumormill somewhere along the way. Either way, I hope the manga coming out and Beautiful Dreamer doing fairly well might pave the way for more of the anime (as well as maybe Maison Ikkoku....fingers crossed!)

      Ah, I always forget about that Animax dub, since it's never fully materialized anywhere. Dubbed Urusei Yatsura sure is an interesting thing!

      Awww, don't worry about the questions! They were all really good, we just didn't have the time to answer all of them...but I wanted to at least get some of them answered! ^^ Thanks for the email & the comment!

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