Lather's Blather
The Super-Hyper-Mega Podcast

Apr
29




Here I take on some of the most awful animation around, a terrible twosome from South Korea: Raiders of Galaxy and Space Transformers (aka Micro Commando Diatron 5).
Direct download, for great justice!

From the news segment: the Russian Robocop, although it really looks more like R2-D2 or maybe a Dalek. As I said, its first day on the job didn’t go that well.

Also, the HRP-3 Promet from Japan, designed by Yutaka Izubuchi of Mobile Police Patlabor fame. You can see it in action by following this link.

Sandy Frank might be the source of all our pain,
but Joseph Lai can bring his share of the hurt as well.
Damn you, Joseph Lai. Damn you to hell.


Super Mazinga 3!

Enjoy this still frame, since actual animation of Mazinga 3 is a rare thing.

The Flying Saucer of Whistling Irritation.

This is how the sickness starts, with cold sweats
and a feeling of abject horror (yours, not the character’s).

President Andrew! (stop laughing)

Evil green Space Mom! (okay, laugh)

These are not little people. They’re children.

Piss-poor comic relief robots.

This is how the sickness progresses: drowsiness and nausea.

First it’s a lame flying saucer… but then it’s a lame giant robot!

This is what happens when annoying children strip you of your robot skin.

No, seriously. Naked robots.

At this point in the review, my ENEGR level is dangerously low.

The vaguely Yamato-esque destroyer escorts of President Andrew.

Don’t all giant robots have hatches in their faces?

The useless Prince Orion.

Model sheets? Who needs those?

Yup, Robot Dog. President Andrew’s ultimate weapon.

GLOWING PAWS OF MILD FRUSTRATION.

Will you still respect me in the morning?

Final stage of the sickness: spontaneous human explosion.

Ah, sweet release…


Originally I’d planned to review Space Thunder Kids, but found a review on the Teleport City website that I thought did a better job of describing the schizophrenic smorgasbord it had to offer. You should read this review.

Praise Bob!

“Model sheets? Who needs those?” (Yes, that’s the same guy as the one above)

Gentlemen, behold! Crappy giant robot action!

This isn’t nearly as thrilling as you think it is.

I’ll let…

…these pictures…

…speak for themselves.

Diatron 3

Crappy comic relief robot Baipam.

Precision micros–errr–telescope.

Goblin bacteria have the Cavity Creeps beat by a mile.

Spears? Against a giant robot?

This is meant to represent the inside of the human body. For serious.

The annoying General Mary.

A castle. Inside the human body.
Not shown: noodle trees, bread trees, ice cream springs,
goofy kings who don’t seem to rule over anything.

The eeeeevil Castle Lameskull.

Alas, poor Scope Dog…

I knew him, Horatio…

The much-anticipated shower scene.

Notebook doodles can be deadly.

Burning justice…or mild indigestion?

Checker and Chally. What they’re doing in a human body is a mystery for the ages.

Needs more exploding goblins.

The much-awaited Diatron 5.

The only attack made against the big bad guy–the dreaded 5 Beam!
Or whatever it is! Because it wasn’t named! GAH!

And because I promised it, here is the Rogue’s Gallery of crappy Korean anime.

And also because I promised it, an excerpt from the Korean super robot version of Macross, known as Space Gundam V! I am speechless.

But wait, there’s less! Here’s the opening sequence for Space Gundam V.

Apr
27

There can be no second chance when kung-fu is used for evil! I’ll discuss Shaolin Soccer, an outrageous and highly-larious action romp that mixes high-flying comedy and the Beautiful Game.

Direct download!

After seeing this, crushing beer cans with your head doesn’t quite stack up anymore.
Team Shaolin takes the pitch, their first step towards glory.


Smoking on the pitch is a cardable offense.


“Your free kick skill is weak.”


The disgraced “Golden Leg” Fung


“Steel Leg” Sing. He’s lithe, and he’ll surprise you.


Tai Chi breadmaker Mui.


Weight Vest


Iron Shirt


Iron Head


Hooking Leg


Empty Hand


An early glimpse of Steel Leg’s soccer prowess. Too bad he didn’t score!


Hung, our villain and magnificent asshole.


Yeah, there’s a lot of action like this in the film.


And this too.


This is not how to sell the public on Shaolin kung-fu.


The trailer for the Miramax version of the film. It gives no clue of an English dub and, in my opinion, gives away too much of the film’s final match. I took this episode’s title from the typically vapid Hollywood tagline.


Here’s “Into the Future”, performed by Andy Lau.
Nice music video with a few more clips from the film.

Apr
10

Kurenai No Buta (Porco Rosso)

Five subscribers so far!  I think this idea might be working… I still need to see if the new iTunes feed is working.

Here’s the relevant portion of the original blog post about episode 2, something I’ll edit into the first archive repost and include in all subsequent reposts.

Direct download for this episode.

 

Hey look, links!

Project Vader

Clone Wars trailer

There’s an entire second disc to this particular release that I didn’t even bother looking at for the show. I suppose if there’s interest I can make something quickly for a segment on the next show, or as a stand-alone mini-episode. What do you think, listeners?

Porco’s hideaway island in the Adriatic Sea.

Our hero. Oh dear… um…

Our hero!

Donald Curtis, future movie star and presidential hopeful.

The Hotel Adriano. See what I mean about the backgrounds?

Holy crap, it’s Carl Horn!

The elegant Madame Gina.

And then there’s OH DEAR GOD HOW DID THAT GET HERE.

The ever-resourceful Fio.

Fio at the drafting table.

Studio Ghibli’s attention to detail.

No, seriously–attention to detail!

The boss of the Mamma Auitto gang.

Look very closely at the valve cover on this engine.

Fascists!

Testing out the new engine.

This one goes to eleven!

Porco’s Savoia S.21 and Curtis’ Curtiss R3C-0.

A real Savoia S.21

Porco’s plane is more like this Macchi M.33

A real Curtiss RC3-2, as piloted by Jimmy Doolittle.

Apr
09

This is as much a test of the new iTunes feed as it is a way to get some of the newer listeners to try out the older episodes of Lather’s Blather.

The inaugural episode featured me stating my bona fides, a lame “news” segment that would be dropped from future shows, and a fine review of Michael Crichton’s Westworld.

Direct download!

Apr
05
The Assassination of Warboss Lincoln

Dis site wot's got more dakka.

With this leap, I hope to leave behind the “old and busted” of the Blogger-based Lather’s Blather and introduce you, the old cohort and the new recruits, to the new hotness of what WordPress has to offer. And yeah, you might have come to this page through the new domain name: lathersblather.com! Yep, I finally decided to spend a little coin and really make this something special.

One of the other things that had to be scuttled with the old blog was the totally wrecked iTunes feed. Gcast, which is where I used to host the podcast episodes, has ceased to be. That was also where I linked anything that went to iTunes. Without that, nothing further would update. Now, I’m aware that it is theoretically possible to make changes to Feedburner and the like, but I am an idiot when it comes to editing that kind of moon language, so I decided to take a page from the Colonial Marines playbook: take off, nuke the site from orbit. Only way to be sure.

WordPress says it’ll auto-magically take any audio file I link to in my blog posts and send it on its way to iTunes. I take that to mean if I hotlink to, say, a guest appearance I’ve had on another podcast, that it’ll show up in my iTunes feed. We shall see.

So in honor of that (and also because I need to propagate the feed…) I will be releasing all of the previous Lather’s Blathers episodes on this new WordPress blog. Think of it as a countdown to the mythical episode 14.

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