Andrew (2:48)

Don't I know it.

Craig (2:49)

Every new year I say I will get better at it. But life gets busy and next thing you know, I'm back to ordering takeout.

Andrew (2:56)

I'm always saying this to you. Is Craig, you're back to ordering takeout again.

Craig (3:00)

I know, but actually, I have found something that's working for me, Andrew, and that is Marley Spoon. For those nights when you need dinner like yesterday, Marley Spoon's prepared meals are exactly what they sound like. Convenient, delicious, and on the table in minutes. I've used Marley Spoon a lot. My favorite recent meal that I've made was there Za' Atar roasted salmon. Came with some veggies for a nice feta salad.

Andrew (3:25)

Andrew, Feta salad.

Craig (3:27)

This new year, fast track your way to eating well with Marley spoon. Head to marley spoon.comoffer/overdue for 45% off your first order and free delivery. That's 45% off your first order and FREE delivery. That's marleyspoon.comofferoverdue Marley Spoon meals reimagined for real life.

Andrew (3:56)

This is a headgum podcast. While Andrew and Craig believe the joy.

Craig (4:02)

Of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well told tale, they will not shy.

Andrew (4:07)

Away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary.

Craig (4:11)

Plus, these are books you should have read by now. Andrew Craig, welcome to Tokyo Drifters, a podcast about the manga Akira.

Andrew (4:49)

What Tokyo Drifters am I capturing? The.

Craig (4:55)

The manga by Katsuhiro Otomo brought to you by the boys at Overdue, a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig.

Andrew (5:04)

My name is Andrew Craig. I've got really bad news, unfortunately, to open up our long reading.

Craig (5:09)

Oh, no.

Andrew (5:09)

Because you know how you always have like little voices and like little skits and you change the lyrics to song. So I invented a character whose name was Jeff Manga.

Craig (5:19)

Oh, no.

Andrew (5:20)

And my bands in my band Neutral Pill Hotel released an album called on the Motorbike in World War three. I was gonna change. I was gonna sing the best song off of my album. But I have a cold.

Craig (5:35)

Oh, okay. So people will have to tune into.

Andrew (5:37)

Episode One of the series. So like, so Jeff Manga can't appear and perform as Neutral Pill Hotel, his song on the motorbike in World War Three.

Craig (5:49)

I can't wait to meet this man.

Andrew (5:51)

You can't wait to meet Jeff Manga. Well, a lot of people can't because he like, he kind of infamously dropped this one album and then disappeared off the face of the earth after that.

Craig (6:05)

Well, this is the newest.

Andrew (6:08)

Just think about the bit that could, could have been.

Craig (6:10)

I don't think it has to go. I think it just arrived late.

Andrew (6:13)

It can arrive late fashionably.

Craig (6:15)

Yeah.

Andrew (6:17)

So this is just. This is, this is one for people who like seminal indie folk albums from the late 90s. And also the manga Akira, a seminal.

Craig (6:26)

Volume from the 80s. So this is our newest long read project, Tokyo Drifters. We're going to be talking about Akira over six episodes and then do a bonus episode on the film.

Andrew (6:38)

On the film, the 19, also called Akira.

Craig (6:42)

Anime. Anime. Film anime from 1988.

Andrew (6:46)

In 1988 it would have been Japanimation. People still want to call it Japanimation. Yeah, Little tiny.

Craig (6:52)

We'll talk about that. We'll talk about that.

Andrew (6:53)

Yeah.

Craig (6:54)

But this is episode zero where we will do some table setting for the author, the publication history of Akira, a little bit of our own history with manga and anime which we've like, we haven't really covered on the show much at all in over a decade now.

Andrew (7:14)

No, not really. I mean, because manga, I mean for the same reason that we don't do a ton of graphic novels, it's hard. It's a little bit, it's a little bit harder to do in an audio medium. They do tend to just run pretty long to like do. Do a whole one instead of just like a slice of one.

Craig (7:30)

Yep, yep, yep.

Andrew (7:31)

But yeah, I'm, I'm happy to be fitting this in as a long read. I'm happy to read Akira, which I have of course heard of but never touched before in any form.

Craig (7:39)

So yeah, so this will be episode zero. It'll be out on the main feed for everyone to listen to. But if you want to know about the plot of Akira, if you want to read along with us, over six volumes. If you want to meet Jeff Manga, you can head over to patreon.com overdupod and you can subscribe at the long read tier and join us month to month. It will eventually make it to the main feed. We don't ever want to read something that people can't hear. But we would not be doing this were it not for those supporters. So thanks to all of you. Andrew, do you want to start with Akira? Do you want to start with our relationship to anime and manga?

Andrew (8:27)

Where do you want to start? I mean we. I think we can start with the second one because I like this. This is one that you suggested. I think you like have the deeper relationship with anime and manga.

Craig (8:38)

I have all relationship with it.

Andrew (8:41)

Well, yeah, like I don't have a. Have much of one. So you know, by the time I did a little bit of just research on just Japanese media in America in general, like it does start to get imported in the form of things like the Astro Boy cartoon and the Speed Racer cartoon in like the 60s and 70s and then starts really snowballing in the 80s with like mobile Suit Gundam, Voltron, Transformers, like pretty many of those 80s Saturday morning cartoons slash 80s cartoons made to sell toys.

Craig (9:14)

Yep.

Andrew (9:15)

Shows are coming out of Japan. We talked about some of that a little bit in our. Our. The Hobbit special collection. Special collections. Our Hobbit closing episode for Silly Marillion.

Craig (9:25)

Yep.

Andrew (9:27)

And then late in the 80s you start to see like the very first dubbed versions of early Miyazaki films which aren't like super commercially successfully.

Craig (9:38)

Is that framed?

Andrew (9:39)

I think, I think that's when it originally came out. I'm not sure when the dub. But then by the time we were kids in the 90s, like anime and all kinds of Japanese media is like having this moment in the US like you've got things like Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, the Pokemon anime, Digimon, which was the lead in to syndicated reruns of the Simpsons on the Fox affiliate. I got on my TV and went in my house. These are all becoming like different flavors of inescapable by. By the late 90s, some of this stuff is popularized because of the rise of the Cartoon Network, which airs a lot of anime, and its Toonami and Swim programing blocks that start in the late 90s into the early 2000s. All of this is coinciding as the Internet is reaching total cultural saturation, making it easier for people who are into these subcultures to find each other. And I think like, for me my closest window into it is because like the entire post Atari video game market from the early 80s into like the Xbox.

Craig (10:45)

Yep.

Andrew (10:46)

In 2000. 2001 is dominated by Nintendo, Sega, Sony, like these Japanese companies and they all these companies all have American arms that existed to various degrees to like help transform that hardware and software into stuff that was more like familiar and palatable to an American audience. But certainly by the time you get to the mid to late 90s, you're not seeing like, oh, here's what the Super Nintendo looks like, here's what the Nintendo 64 looks like in Japan and here's what it looks like in America. There's less effort being made to separate the, the esthetic from what's coming out over here. And so that's, you know, most of what I'm, what I am running into is Japanese RPGs, which are like their own distinct thing that is separate from like a western style rpg, such that.

Craig (11:33)

It feels weird to refer to it by that nomenclature now, but like it has calcified into a actual gameplay genre that is a little even like somewhat divorced from Japan.

Andrew (11:47)

Like, but like it's very, it's very funny to me to, to talk, to have talked with you about Dragon Ball stuff many, many years because I also have a relationship with Akira Toriyama, but it's like exclusively through the Dragon Quest video game series.

Craig (12:03)

Like crossover at Chrono Trigger.

Andrew (12:05)

Yeah.

Craig (12:06)

Go in other directions.

Andrew (12:08)

It's so fun just because there are so many types of guy who show up in both series. And I didn't, like, I didn't know because I was only a Dragon Quest boy. Like that's the way that I am mostly encountering and digesting this like this art style. A lot of the same, like creators is through, through video games in the, in the 80s into the 90s.

Craig (12:30)

Sure. I will let me do my little personal history.

Andrew (12:33)

And my, and my brother loved the Pokemon anime. I thought it was stupid.

Craig (12:36)

Really?

Andrew (12:36)

Wrongly, yeah, wrongly.

Craig (12:38)

Yeah. I think you were wrong. History shows you to be wrong.

Andrew (12:41)

But I was a, like, I got into the video games because I found them mechanically interested. I was, I was interesting. But I was a closeted Pokemon player for many years. Many years. It was like after college that I was like, you know what? I play Pokemon games. I think they're fun.

Craig (12:57)

So I AM, I'm roughly 10 years old. I am renting an N64 from the local video store in 1995 or 96.

Andrew (13:05)

What a scam that was.

Craig (13:06)

There is a section in my video store, I think. Was it West Coast Video, I think it was called. It was a Japanimation shelf. And I begin, I'm watching Dragon ball Z on TV, which started in 1996 or so later through the Toonami block that you mentioned. And I'm just kind of like every once in a while can I bring home, you know, a VHS of an anime that I've never heard of before. Can I let me bring home Ghost in the Shell. Let me bring home a Dragon Ball Z one off movie. That makes no sense to me. I am videotaping episodes of the Pokemon anime and occasionally Sailor Moon in the same block just because like I could just watch it when I come home from school.

Andrew (13:53)

Suze was big into Sailor Moon and she. She may. I think she had the theme song memorized at one point. They still have it memorized? I'm sure I'll find out. Yeah.

Craig (14:01)

Because I had just had a vhs. I had a programmable like vhs vcr. Yeah, yeah. Vcr. That's what it's called.

Andrew (14:09)

VHS play.

Craig (14:12)

By the time I get to high school, like obviously the Matrix comes out which is like a big another like kind of explosion into this. The action style. They are very influenced by manga and anime and so that kind of has like a ripple effect backwards.

Andrew (14:27)

And they famously like do a Speed Racer.

Craig (14:30)

Yeah, that thing rips.

Andrew (14:31)

Live action adaptation as. As one of their Matrix projects. Yeah, I've never. I've never seen it. I remember it being received really poorly at the time, but then I think evaluated and enjoyed better now.

Craig (14:42)

I think like a lot of their work. Yeah, like a lot of their non matrix work. I think a lot of folks are like huh, More interesting than we gave a credit for.

Andrew (14:50)

And they're. They're like Matrix work after the first one is mostly like huh. I think people kind of got this right when they bounced off it at the time.

Craig (14:59)

I disagree. Early 2000.

Andrew (15:01)

I like the fourth one.

Craig (15:01)

I like the fourth one. Fourth one's very good. I am renting anime from the video store all the time. I am buying random VHS tapes and DVDs from the Suncoast Video in the mall or from whatever other I get. What else was it called?

Andrew (15:19)

This sounds more serious than you sold it as like you. You were like buying. You were going out and buying videotapes.

Craig (15:24)

I was buying videotapes. I wasn't buying a lot of them. And I was never. Aside from Dragon Ball Z. Not Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and Naruto. I never like fell down in a full series. And. And I think like when I. When I talk to folks who are into anime now, they're like, oh, here's the thing. I watch like a hundred episodes of a week. Or like here's the thing I've watched for seven years. I've seen every bit of One Piece. Or like I love my Hero Academia or One Punch man or Attack on Titan. Like I know of These things I know of.

Andrew (16:03)

Like Ranma 1/2.

Craig (16:04)

Well, I watched some Ranba back in the day. Vampire Hunter D But I do remember renting. I know. I don't know why it's called D.

Andrew (16:15)

Give me that Vampire Hunter D.

Craig (16:20)

And I did see some Miyazaki back in the day. But I do have some Miyazaki blind spots. But it was like.

Andrew (16:27)

It was just.

Craig (16:27)

I fell into a crowd in high school that was very into it. And I like. I even went. I went my basement today. Andrew. I found a random volume of Maison Ukoku which is a romantic comedy about a boarding house that a guy gave me in high school that I thought was in a box of stuff my mom gave me. And I was so surprised to find it. Huh. Just like.

Andrew (16:53)

Okay.

Craig (16:53)

Okay.

Andrew (16:55)

No, just like when. You know, when. I don't think either of us had a ton of just like walking around money as middle schoolers into. Into high schoolers and what you had like this is. This is how you.

Craig (17:07)

Yeah.

Andrew (17:08)

When you could get around yourself and when you could spend your own money. You're doing it on. On a surprising amount of now.

Craig (17:13)

I watched all of naruto on burned CDs.

Andrew (17:16)

So sure.

Craig (17:17)

You know.

Andrew (17:19)

But then you gotta get those like avi files burned on it. Burned on a CD so you can watch them at like 360p rebel resolution.

Craig (17:28)

But by the time I get to college I'm kind of like. It just. You know. There wasn't anybody in our immediate friend group that was like super into it.

Andrew (17:36)

And I want to be an otaku.

Craig (17:38)

I wasn't being in an. I did not join the otaku club. There was an otaku club. I didn't join it. I did acapella instead. Listen. These are the pads that diverge in.

Andrew (17:47)

The wood at that time. A group that would self select from that.

Craig (17:52)

Yep. Is very different.

Andrew (17:54)

There's a. There's a big potential downside.

Craig (17:56)

That was like 20 years ago. It was. It was not as mainstream as it is now now. And I don't even know that I like really identify. It was just a thing that I liked. Right. And so we've been doing the show for a long time. And I think I remember in 2017, I think was the. The 35th anniversary. A lot of people were talking about the. The manga and then the 30th anniversary of the film. Is that right? 35th is. I don't know if that's right. Yeah, that's right. 2017 and the film. The 30th anniversary in 2018. So I've been like, thinking about like, maybe we could get to this at some point for a few years and.

Andrew (18:41)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Craig (18:42)

Based on what we've been covering and what we hope to cover soon, it felt like doing something visual again would be kind of neat. And this is only six volumes, so like, it's not. We're not here for two years doing Astro Boy or whatever, you know.

Andrew (18:59)

Sure.

Craig (19:01)

This is a long intro to say that Akira is set in 2019 in Neo Tokyo, the future, and centers on a motorcycle gang who gets involved with like, you know, the fate of the city when one guy named Tetsuo has a run in with a weird boy who has psychic powers. And then the government.

Andrew (19:23)

Shame that they missed. They missed so bad on what their vision of the future would look like because they. They said that World War three happened like seven or eight years earlier than it.

Craig (19:34)

Then it will.

Andrew (19:35)

Then it actually is going to.

Craig (19:36)

Yeah, well, they did. There wasn't. Did you read all that stuff about how they almost did like an Akira thing at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics? Because there's like a whole thing at the beginning of this book that's like, oh, they're building an Olympic site. They're building the Olympics on the nuclear zone or. And everybody's unhappy about it. And then they were gonna do like a motorcycle Akira moment at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Andrew (20:03)

Okay.

Craig (20:04)

And then Covid happened. So they just kind of didn't have to do like, I think some people weren't sure about it. And then it. They just didn't have to do it. They just didn't have to.

Andrew (20:14)

I think they should have done it. I think they should have taken the swing. It would have been weird, but I think they should have taken the swing.

Craig (20:34)

New Year, same extra value meals at McDonald's. Now get a savory sausage McMuffin with egg plus hash browns and a small coffee for just $5 for a limited time only.

Andrew (20:45)

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Craig (20:58)

So let's talk about Katsuhiro Tomo, the creator of akira. Born in 1951 in the Miyagi Prefecture in Japan.

Andrew (21:06)

1954.

Craig (21:07)

54. Why did I type 51? Thank you for the live fact check.

Andrew (21:13)

That's why we got two of us.

Craig (21:14)

Wow.

Andrew (21:14)

Fail safe.

Craig (21:15)

Why did I do that? Doesn't matter.

Andrew (21:18)

It just kind of. I mean, now, now we've got to be on alert all the other dates.

Craig (21:22)

Because he read us. It's because he's 71 and I just Typed the one instead. It's not a good excuse. It's just what happened.

Andrew (21:30)

No, it's just the excuse.

Craig (21:32)

Grew up in a rural area, says he. He was the only boy in his family. Read a lot of manga as a child. Some of this I'm taking from a forbes interview from 2017 that has a lot of quotes directly from him if you want to read that. He said he was able to buy one manga book a month and would start copying some of the manga he liked as he was drawing it. He was very drawn to Tetsuan Atom or Astro Boy. Who made that? Is that Tetsuko?

Andrew (22:02)

I can look it up. You keep going.

Craig (22:03)

Yeah, because that is like, a seminal work in manga and anime.

Andrew (22:11)

Osamu Tezuka, person who. Yeah.

Craig (22:14)

Who wrote. But it is this kind of a.

Andrew (22:18)

Kind of an early Mega man, if you will.

Craig (22:22)

Yeah. Very Proto man in a way. But it is this older animation style and art style from what you will see in Akira, which we can talk about. But like.

Andrew (22:36)

Like, having read this now, I feel like. I mean, and not knowing a ton about, like, the history of the form, I do feel like if you're doing anime or manga now, you're. You're either doing an Akira thing or doing a Toriyama thing. Maybe sometimes doing a Miyazaki thing. But, like, it's. It's solidified into sort of, like, riffs and. And versions of a few different, like, prominent styles.

Craig (23:02)

I will say I. Yes. In terms of visual styles, maybe. I'm sure there are people listening who can point out some more nuance.

Andrew (23:12)

Yeah.

Craig (23:13)

In terms of tone, I will say I did watch the filmography of Satoshi Kon a year or two ago. I know he did some animation for Otomo and worked under Atomo. His movies rule. But they are very strange. Some of them got, you know, one or two. One of them was maybe the inspiration for the film Black Swan. One of them was maybe the inspiration for the film Inception. Just some, like, cool, wild stuff going on with Satoshi Kon.

Andrew (23:44)

I just don't want to see the thing that somebody saw and was like, you know what I need to make after that is Black.

Craig (23:49)

Yeah, dude.

Andrew (23:50)

One of the most uncomfortable theatrical experiences I've ever had.

Craig (23:53)

Perfect.

Andrew (23:54)

My whole life.

Craig (23:54)

Perfect Blue is a very good movie, but it is not an easy watch. So Otomo is, like, getting into manga. He starts taking it seriously with a book called how to Draw Manga by Shotaro Ishinomori, AKA the King of Manga, who created the Super Sentai series, which would then become Power Rangers.

Andrew (24:17)

Ever Heard of it? Oh, yeah. That was another something I kind of skimmed over in my rise of Japanese media in the 80s and 90s. It's like power Rangers was so, like, so inescapable.

Craig (24:27)

Saban. Yeah, yeah, I think that's. I think Saban may have been involved with getting Dragon Ball Z in some Fox, like anime.

Andrew (24:38)

Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of that was coming from Saban. I think some of it was coming from like Deke.

Craig (24:44)

Deke. Yeah.

Andrew (24:45)

Who was the. Yeah, I mean, they also did like the Super Mario Brothers super show and a few other things.

Craig (24:51)

Yes.

Andrew (24:51)

Yeah. There were. There were a few of these companies that don't really exist anymore in the same form that were big, like importers of and translators of Japanese content. And I think they did it because it was just like not expensive to take footage of guys in suits fighting and put English over it. Like, it was just like not an expensive way to make.

Craig (25:12)

Yep.

Andrew (25:13)

But yeah, it took on a life of its own for sure.

Craig (25:17)

Otomo says that he had a friend in high school introduce him to an editor at Futabasha, which was a manga publisher. Publisher of Lupin III and Old Boy, among others. And the guy was like, hey, you're Monk. The stuff you're drawing isn't bad. If you come to Tokyo after high school, just call me and I'll probably hire you. And he did his first work. Otomo's was an adaptation of a 19th century Fred Short story, because of course it was. But he. He says that he was like, what does he say at. At the time in the 70s, it was a lot of sports manga and. Which is a whole subgenre. I have a whole. I have a whole thing on the different of manga that we'll get to in a second.

Andrew (26:00)

Okay, cool. I was going to. Because, like, how magical is it?

Craig (26:03)

I don't.

Andrew (26:04)

How supernatural is the sports.

Craig (26:06)

Some of it probably is. Some of it isn't.

Andrew (26:08)

You like spike a football into a mountain or something? Like probably could.

Craig (26:12)

Yeah. But he says that there was a lot of what is called gekiga, which is like adult pictures. It's called. They were kind of a response to the kid friendly Astro Boy, like aesthetic was, what if we could do something that was a little more adult? Now does that mean it's for 50 year olds? Maybe not. But is it for like 20 year olds maybe? And the art style evolves a little bit. And I think you can kind of see in a Tomo's, like a mix of both. Like, clearly somebody who grew up like a Lot of people reading Astro Boy and things like that, but then wanting to do something a little more grown up. But he says that there was not a lot of sci fi. And you have like, you know, you have Star wars, you have space odd like 2001 A Space Odyssey. Like you have these big.

Andrew (27:06)

Like, you have Astro Boy.

Craig (27:09)

Astro like, but not like hard sci fi, not like serious sci fi. Sorry. And even then Star wars, you know, whatever.

Andrew (27:16)

But yeah, this is. This is happening as sci fi is like gelling into a. Into a. Yeah, a recognizable form.

Craig (27:22)

Like Akira and Blade Runner are happening at the same time. Like they're tap. William Gibson is happening. Like they're all tapping into something at the same time. And so he starts in on this type of energy with Fireball in 1979, then Domu in 1980. He creates a short work called A Farewell to weapons in 1981. That one, I believe is for Kodansha's Young magazine, which is where they start publishing Akira in 1982. Domu also has like an old man and a kid with ESP extrasensory powers like this. Just. Just a thing he's into.

Andrew (28:04)

And it's like ring. Like Ring Girls. When. When Ring Girls became their own sort of thing, it just became their own thing. It's just like what if. What if a ESP kid was. It was its own genre of creepy child.

Craig (28:16)

This is definitely his best known work. Like he would go on to create stuff like the Legend of Mother Sarah and Hippir, the Little V Empire. He directed the Akira film himself, which he had only ever like directed two shorts before. But because of the popularity of the series, they kind of gave him the run of the place for the movie. And he went on to direct Steamboy, which was, I think less regarded than Akira. And he's also done some live actions.

Andrew (28:48)

That's what they call me during the. During the winter sale.

Craig (28:52)

You're my. You're my little Steamboy.

Andrew (28:56)

If you buy it for 399 and you never play it, it's not a bargain. And this is something I need to have like tattooed on my forearm for when Steam has its game sales.

Craig (29:06)

That's true, Andrew. I have a little bit on the initial publication history, but I know you have stuff on the publication in the west, so I'll toss it.

Andrew (29:14)

I've got a bunch of. Yeah, I've got a bunch about the localization and the original in English.

Craig (29:18)

The original run is 1982-1990. As I said, Young magazine published bi weekly.

Andrew (29:24)

And this is the Japanese.

Craig (29:25)

The Japanese, yeah.

Andrew (29:26)

Just to be clear.

Craig (29:26)

Yeah. It was then collected in six tankoban volumes. And that. That is how manga would get collected if they were successful. The first was in 1984, and the last was in 1980, 1993. The initial print run of these expanded like tenfold within two weeks. Like just super popular, very successful. And so they turn it loose on a film version released 1988. So, like, he does the. What I will be interested to discover I have not seen the film in many years. When we finish reading this and then watch the movie, how is the ending different? I'm in. I'm intrigued to find out because obviously he made the film before the manga was over.

Andrew (30:16)

I mean, he probably. He probably. I mean, he was the guy. He probably knew what he was gonna do.

Craig (30:20)

But. But I imagine he had not drawn, you know, two years worth of stuff in advance. So what was his. What was he working with?

Andrew (30:28)

Yeah. Do we end up with a Game of Thrones situation where the adaptation of your work finishes before the written version and you see everyone in the whole world hate the ending so much that it retroactively deletes the entire show from the cultural memory?

Craig (30:47)

I think we are.

Andrew (30:48)

We are like recording and then maybe you lose interest in writing and finishing your little. Your little dragon story.

Craig (30:56)

I'm just. Didn't he just. As we record this in late January, there is both a new HBO show set.

Andrew (31:06)

Yeah, it's like a comedy like Night of the Seven Kingdoms. It's called. I haven't watched it. I can't be Hurt Again by. By Song of Ice and Fire. Like it's just not.

Craig (31:14)

But something. Now he's also doing like another PR cycle of like. I'm never gonna finish the book. The Winds of Winter.

Andrew (31:23)

Nah.

Craig (31:24)

Yeah, no, Never gonna happen.

Andrew (31:26)

It's fine. The Winds of won't her. Am I right? Wow.

Craig (31:29)

Tell me about how Akira came to the United States, Andrew.

Andrew (31:35)

Well, so, okay, so this is coming out. The. The run in the. In the US is between 1988 and 1995. So it start. It does start a couple years before the original run in Japan is. Is done. Yeah, but it is. It's like. I don't know that it's the first manga ever to be translated into English by anybody, but it's definitely like the first major work that anybody undertakes. Like translated into English. And it's, you know, part of the reason why it's being translated, I think is. Is the wider cultural st. I'm. That I. That I mentioned, like, Akira is Both like downstream of and like upstream of American interest in like in Japanese media.

Craig (32:14)

Yep.

Andrew (32:15)

But because it's, I think when you, when you go to buy manga now, it's pretty common to, to get the translation and still have the book be right to left. Like people, you know, it's more of a pure translation and people are not doing as much manipulation to like adapt it to make it look more like a Western.

Craig (32:35)

I'm fairly certain that that edition of Maisonu Koku I just looked at today is left to right, which is not how manga is published in Japan.

Andrew (32:45)

So yeah, there's. I mean, this is from a. I'm skipping ahead in my notes. This is from a paper that was published on the comics grid by Martin Della Iglesia of Heidelberg University on the problems of flipping, as it's called.

Craig (32:58)

Oh sure.

Andrew (32:59)

And. And he says the problems caused by flipping are well known. On the one hand, all characters appear to be left handed. This problem is evident in Akira and scenes such as the 1 in the 24th EPIC issue in which Dr. Dubrowski is introduced to various colleagues. And in the translations they all shake hands with their left hand. In the original, they use the right hand. Here. And in general, characters are usually depicted as right handed. While handedness is never a plot in plot point in Akira, the mirroring problem becomes more obtrusive in certain plot elements. I'm skipping a couple things here for spoiler reasons, but he says this reading experience must have been particularly odd for readers who had seen the unmirrored Akira animated film which was released around the same time as the manga.

Craig (33:38)

Oh, interesting.

Andrew (33:39)

So you can easily imagine like. And this is part of why Link is left handed. Right? Isn't it like a, Isn't there like a flipping issue or. No, it's the Wii version of Legend of Zelda. Link is right handed because of like weird motion stuff.

Craig (33:56)

Yes, because of the motion controls.

Andrew (33:58)

But in most games he's left handed anyway. So you can imagine when you are taking an entire book and like literally flipping it to, to be the mirror of. Of what it was that it can. You're going to. You're going to. You're buying yourself a lot of work. Which is just to say the, the Akira localization was a lot. They like, they did a lot of manipulation to it to make it. To adapt it for an American audience. So the first one was to make it read left to right. The second one was that they decided for an American audience, like most manga is published is. Is published in just black and white. Just like line art.

Craig (34:34)

Yep.

Andrew (34:35)

But they decided to colorize the release of Akira. This was. It was. It's notable because it's one of the first comics, if not the first like major comic to be painted digitally.

Craig (34:47)

Yes.

Andrew (34:48)

This is allegedly. It was done on a PC with a quote 12 MHz processor and handmade heat diffuser that chugged like an old farm truck.

Craig (34:56)

Yep. This was done by Steve Oliff.

Andrew (34:59)

Steve Oliff is the guy. If we're talking a 12 MHz processor and the late 80s, most likely we're talking about a 286 or maybe a 386. This is a system that would have struggled to run Windows 3.1 if that helps you place how primitive this computer would have been. But yeah, so this is done by Olaf at first with like very hands on input from Otomo. He is manually approving all the, all the colorization. But as the comic goes on, Otomo just says to Olaf, I trust you. Just do what you're.

Craig (35:33)

They bonded over Jack Daniels apparently, currently.

Andrew (35:36)

I mean, listen, if you're. If you're going to bond over something, I guess you could do worse.

Craig (35:41)

Why not?

Andrew (35:41)

You could do better than Jack Daniel. And yeah, so it's color. Like you find a bunch of snobs on Reddit. Like, because you can't get this colorized version anymore. Like you can if you go on ebay or other like used book sites and buy an old box set of it, you can still find the colorized version. At the time, the colorized version was a big deal because like not only did. Was that how it was released in the US originally, but then it was like re released in Japan in the colorized version. But the modern versions are all based on this early 2000s release from dark Horse, which is still left to right. Still has a lot of the art was modified. There are a lot of automatopia sound effects that are used throughout the comic that would. That were Japanese in the original and are translated into English for the version we read. There are a lot of other like, like background art and like graffiti and stuff that was obvious that was like translated into English for this release. So the. What you. What you can get now is mostly kind of a hybrid. Like it's still got the English sound effects at least in the paperback edition. This is. This is based on a. Yeah, the 2000s dark horse re release still left or right. So has the updated. It hasn't updated like translation, an updated script, but still uses the English sound effects. It only has a Handful of pages in color at the beginning of each book.

Craig (37:10)

Yep, yep.

Andrew (37:12)

And then there's a hardcover box set that is more like traditional, that restores like the right to left layout, goes back to Japanese sound effects with like endnotes to provide translations instead of the English thing, but you cannot get the color version anymore, which is too bad because I kind of want to. I wanted to read it, but people on Reddit are snobs about it, I think.

Craig (37:33)

I think I wanted to.

Andrew (37:34)

It's worth noting to those snobs that it was officially approved by the guy who made the thing. Yeah, sometimes that makes a difference to snobs.

Craig (37:43)

I think. I do want to do some of the other volumes from the box set, Andrew.

Andrew (37:49)

Mm. Just, I mean, that's a business decision that we need to make because this is, it's a significant investment to buy. To buy all of these comic books.

Craig (37:57)

Yeah, that's true. That's true.

Andrew (37:59)

Yeah. It's just, it's this, it's this huge undertaking to, to, you know, to, to flip this thing to, to redo the art, to have the English sound effects to color it. And then there's the translation itself, which you, you asked me to look into. And it's not. It is both. It's interesting, but not because of our normal, like, Emily Wilson derived, like, we really love translators and all the work they're doing thing.

Craig (38:26)

Yeah, yeah.

Andrew (38:28)

It's interesting because it doesn't have like an individual who is responsible for the translation. So the English script is provided by Kodansha itself. That's the Japanese publishing imprint that originally released it in Japan. And then an editor at Epic, which is a Marvel imprint named Joe Duffy, goes through that translation and kind of Americanizes it, helps it read more naturally. Sort of expands and contracts different ideas to make them, you know, to make them read more American, basically.

Craig (39:04)

Sure.

Andrew (39:04)

That doctored up script goes back to Kodansha again for approval. Then that once it's approved, goes to Michael Higgins, who is the letterer of the English edition. And then once it's lettered and laid out on the page, it goes back to Kodansha again for another round of, of approval.

Craig (39:21)

Okay. Okay.

Andrew (39:22)

So they are very. As with, as with Atomo and the, and the anime like the, the Pub. The original Japanese publishers are very like, hands on about all aspects of bringing us to the US So it's just kind of interesting to read about the, the process and all the stuff that had not been. That is established and kind of understood now because people understand what manga is and, but but they just did not at the time. Joe Duffy's kind of an interesting figure. I got a little bit about her. She was born in 1954. She's an editor and writer who worked at Marvel in the 70s and 80s and then by the 90s, had also moved on to do DC. Like, she did the first 14 issues of Catwoman for them. The thing that she. And as a woman working in that industry at any time, she did rack up some firsts. Like, I think she is the first woman to be, like, accredited writer of the Wolverine comic.

Craig (40:16)

Oh, cool.

Andrew (40:17)

The most interesting thing that I think that she did was she did a lot of the Marvel Star wars comics that were coming out, like, as the original trilogy was coming out. She did an interview with a defunct website called lightsaber.co.uk come on. Sabre is spelled S A, B, R, E. No. And she said that because Lucas, like Lucasfilm took a pretty light touch, but they did consider the comics to be canon. So they were really like. They were. They did not really want the comics to use characters like Vader or the Emperor because they did not want the comics making decisions that would, like, yeah, hands of people making the movies. Later, she talks about writing stuff in the interim between when Empire came out and when Return of the Jedi came out. And she. She got to create a lot of characters in the universe because, you know, if you're. If you're creating your own characters, you can't. You can't screw up the. The ones who we all know from Silver Screen too much. So she creates this character called Rick Duel.

Craig (41:21)

Oh, yeah.

Andrew (41:22)

To serve as, like, a Han Solo type rogue in the stretch between Empire and Jedi because, quote, we couldn't use Han Solo since he was a Popsicle.

Craig (41:34)

That's Good.

Andrew (41:35)

Yeah. From 2003 to 2006, she adapts a bunch of, like, Naruto scripts. I couldn't figure out if that was for the manga or the anime, but. But she was. She was doing other stuff in the.

Craig (41:45)

I guess, I think that would probably.

Andrew (41:48)

Well, I mean, you know. You know, I don't know when those adaptations were coming out. I don't. I assume both of them were running kind of at the same time. And then she stops putting out new work in the late 2000s into the 2010s.

Craig (41:57)

Okay, that's cool. Yeah.

Andrew (41:59)

There's no, like, no single translator you can credit with this. It was, like, done in house and then doctored up by other people.

Craig (42:06)

Okay, cool.

Andrew (42:08)

Well, but yeah, like, the big thing about it is just like, it's it's a seminal adaptation. It's too bad that you can't. Like you can find scans of various qualities on the Internet archive of the original Epic comics run. That does kind of show you what the, what the color would have looked.

Craig (42:27)

Like might be in your local library. Go check that out.

Andrew (42:29)

Yeah. Like the most accessible version is the kind of in betweener that's. That retains the changed layout, changed sound effects buddies in black and white. And then the holy grail edition is the purist one. Like P U R I S T not P U R E E S T. Yeah.

Craig (42:48)

Uh huh.

Andrew (42:49)

Which is translated into English but uses the original art, original layout, no color.

Craig (42:53)

Sure, sure, sure, sure.

Andrew (42:57)

I felt like that was all over the place.

Craig (42:58)

No, that was good. No, it was good.

Andrew (43:00)

All right. How's my podcasting?

Craig (43:02)

It's pretty good.

Andrew (43:03)

How's my podcasting? Call 1-888-Now- Now.

Craig (43:06)

I don't, I don't know that you've like taken a pill and have extra sensory podcasting yet, but like we've got six more episodes of this to figure that out. Think about it.

Andrew (43:17)

I haven't. No, I haven't taken any pills yet because you, my best friend, are. You have the pill and are hiding it from you.

Craig (43:23)

I am hiding it from you. I don't. No matter how bad your headache gets, I'm not gonna give it to you. So we will be reading the six volumes. Tetsuo Akira 1, Akira 2K. Kaneda. I think I'm missing one in my. Okay, 1K2 and then Kaneda. Yes, yes, yes. Okay.

Andrew (43:48)

Did they release all these in 1971 or 1951 or whatever the wrong date? Was that you.

Craig (43:53)

No, you are wrong. Listen, how's my podcasting? The 1988 film, as we said, was a sensation. We'll talk more about that in kind of our bonus episode for this series. But it was, you know, it is a seminal work in popularizing anime in the States and in Europe. It had a huge budget relative to other films of the time. I believe they had pre recorded voice acting and just like budget for more frames of animation. So much of Japanese animation at the time was like born out of. And even manga is born out of like cost saving measures of like how can we use less ink, how can we use fewer frames of animation? And so there's stuff that happens in Akira that many animators had not had access to do just because of the amount of money that they were able to. Even though people are still like working themselves to the bone to get it. Done because they don't even really have computer animation at the time.

Andrew (44:52)

So here's a question both for you and for. I don't know anybody at home who's been yelling at us for not being knowledgeable enough about anime and manga is when we watch the movie subs are dubs interesting because I know like with a lot of the Miyazaki movies, the.

Craig (45:13)

The dubs are well regarded.

Andrew (45:15)

The dubs are actually really high, like high quality. Like I wouldn't want to watch Howl's Moving castle without Danny DeVito as like a sentient ball of fire. Like that's just, that just tickles me like they, they, they do a bunch of just like totally out of left field big name voice casting.

Craig (45:31)

It is my understanding that the Robert Pattinson performance in the Boy and the Heron is astonishing.

Andrew (45:38)

Oh, nice.

Craig (45:39)

I've. I've been thinking about. That's. That's on.

Andrew (45:41)

I, I would, I would just, I would think that if anybody had done, had done or redone like a high quality dub of this movie for like the 35th anniversary release or something like it would be this. But I don't know.

Craig (45:53)

I don't think. Yeah, I don't know. I've only watched the dub. I've never watched the sub. And so I don't really remember. They've tried for 20 years now to get a live action Akira off the ground. Atomo has said, sure, whatever. I just like you have to show it to me. Like you have to show me your screenplay basically before I say like good to go.

Andrew (46:18)

Yeah, right.

Craig (46:19)

And he all. But he does recognize like you can't do it one to one. Like it's going to. You're going to have to make decisions and good luck. But they. Nope. They just can't get it together as we close here.

Andrew (46:31)

Even now when you would have all the incentive structures are in place for them to just do a trilogy of it. Yeah, they are for them to just a trilogy. And yeah, it seems like it would facilitate a more direct adaptation more than any other time in like the last 30 years of civil War.

Craig (46:49)

Is it Netflix that did the One Piece Show? They did both the Cowboy Bebop show and they've done a One Piece show more recently.

Andrew (46:57)

I think you're right and I think.

Craig (46:58)

Show was, has been more well received than the, the Cowboy Bebop show was not well received. If I recall the one, the one.

Andrew (47:06)

Like I have not watched the One Piece show. But it's, it's one of those that is so processed and weird looking that like live action is kind of a. Feels like it doesn't quite capture it.

Craig (47:18)

That that's what I recall from the. The bebop stuff too. But yeah, you could. I could see somebody picking it up for a series or something and it just hasn't happened. But I think maybe people are a little focused on making a movie out of it because it was such a successful film as opposed to an anime series. I do just want to give us a grounding in manga before we go. Andrew.

Andrew (47:42)

Okay, ground me and Ground me and manga.

Craig (47:43)

Useful blog post from the new Try.

Andrew (47:45)

To try to explain manga to Jeff.

Craig (47:47)

Manga himself from the New York Public Library. We love our librarians here on this show. Amanda Pagan, A Beginner's Guide to Manga. So you want to start reading manga? She asks. So it's obviously.

Andrew (48:03)

I mean, I should have read this before I started. Oh man, oh man, I really messed up.

Craig (48:11)

As we've said, it's the umbrella term for comics and graphic novels in Japan. Usually printed black and white, reads right to left. Typically released in monthly or weekly installments. In many manga magazines, a very popular one is Shonen Jump.

Andrew (48:26)

Should call them Manga Z. Yeah, well.

Craig (48:29)

Shonen Jump is very popular. That's where a lot of your like, you know, dudes hitting each other ones come out of. And this one was in Young magazine. Obviously I said that they are collected into Tangobond volumes. We'll be reading some of those. There are very established genre labels, Andrew. I don't know if you're familiar with these. Most of them boil down to is this for boys or for girls? Though I think, you know, in the last 15 to 20 years that's probably gotten a little fuzzier. But there is Shonen manga which are for tween or teen boys. Your Dragon Balls, your Naruto's, your My Hero Academias Action. You know, rivalries between fighters and things like that. That's where some of your sports manga is going to go. You've got Shoujo manga, which is for tween and teen girls, Sailor Moon card, Captor, Sakura, things like that. You've got Sign In Manga and this is where Akira comes in. These. Are these for, you know, young men or 18. 18 and older maybe.

Andrew (49:38)

Ooh, 18 and old.

Craig (49:39)

Action, violence, adult themes. Akira Berserk. I suppose. I guess Attack on Titan is probably Sign in manga. That thing seems weird. There's a lot of things going on with Attack on Titan. Anyway, Jose manga is women, 18 plus, romantic themes, sex, drama. And then there is Kodomo Muke which is children manga, you know, the Pokemon manga or other like, you know, books for kids, things like that.

Andrew (50:13)

I was gonna ask as a joke, which one of these has the most waifus? But knowing what I know about Pokemon cards and like the, the marketplace for Pokemon cards and how everybody's always watching every set that comes out and be like, which one's the waifu card gonna be like? I think waifus probably transcend genre in that way.

Craig (50:33)

Well, and then they do at the New York Public Library, they do a good breakdown of all the other like sub genres, which many of them bleed together. Like it's. In some of them, it seems kind of weird to pull them apart. But you've got like action, you've got battle, which is like generally if there are rivalries and people are getting stronger, that is kind of like your bottle, your battle manga comedy, your slice of life. Got your fantasy. You got your food and cooking manga and your delicious dungeon.

Andrew (51:03)

Delicious and dungeon.

Craig (51:04)

I know you've. You've seen some delicious dungeons.

Andrew (51:06)

I do like the anime of delicious and dungeon very much. I've not read the manga.

Craig (51:10)

There are this sounds strange harem or reverse harem manga. It's mostly. It's like these are. There's a main character and there are a bunch of people who are romantically interested in that character. Character of the opposite sex. That is. That is usually how those are structured.

Andrew (51:32)

Man. I was hoping that I had not paid attention to delicious dungeon for long enough that the second season had like aired a month ago and I didn't notice. But no, it hasn't happened.

Craig (51:41)

There's historical fiction, there is horror, there is queer manga. There's, you know, non fiction manga. There's romance, there's school life, there's sports. Couple of ones that are like pretty, you know, on top of that, there's like, there's mech manga. There's like Gundam. There's stuff like it's very important. And a lynch, you know, a big core, core genre. There is magical girl stories. That's your sailor moons, Zoe Deschanel, Charmed. And there is another one that's like, I think. I know it's become even more popular recently is Isekai, which is like, we've covered books that are like kind of called portal fiction. It's like you've. You get transported to another world.

Andrew (52:31)

Outlander.

Craig (52:32)

Outlander is an Easter Isekai. I think Narnia is isekai. But yes, it is like the game.

Andrew (52:43)

The game portal, obviously.

Craig (52:45)

Yeah, you are. You are transported into a Magical. Maybe you yourself are transformed or not. A king and king kid in King Arthur's court, you know?

Andrew (52:55)

Right. But that has become the Super Mario Brothers movie.

Craig (52:58)

Honestly. Super Mario Brothers. Is Isekai just out here to tell you he gets sent to the mushroom kingdom? You used to.

Andrew (53:05)

The 90s. The 90s one and the 2000s one are both Isekai.

Craig (53:08)

It's true. But yeah. And this. This is part of that effort to do some more sci fi and to do more mature themes that Otomo thought were, you know, was just not seeing out there in the market and the people asked him to do more of it.

Andrew (53:26)

So do you think anybody's ever tried to do, like, the. The full. Full Grassley, but for all the different types of. For all the types of manga like this. This one. This one is all the kinds.

Craig (53:38)

Maybe it's possible. Mm. I'm sure it's possible.

Andrew (53:45)

Like, doing the full grassland is probably deeply unfulfilling and totally pointless.

Craig (53:50)

Don't do it. Don't do it, please. No one. But yeah.

Andrew (53:54)

So we're the stupid one they have for appearing on all the morning shows. There's another one in there.

Craig (53:58)

Oh, what is that?

Andrew (53:59)

Politician all morning shows Terminology.

Craig (54:04)

Like all the Sunday shows.

Andrew (54:05)

The full Ginsburg.

Craig (54:06)

The Full Ginsburg.

Andrew (54:09)

A person who appears on all five American major Sunday morning talk shows on the same day.

Craig (54:14)

Okay.

Andrew (54:16)

Named for William H. Ginsburg, the attorney for Monica Lewinsky.

Craig (54:20)

Oh, yes. Okay. Well, you can join us for Tokyo Drifters, where we will talk about this seminal work of manga and anime. We'll probably talk more about some of the themes that inform this series. It is my understanding that kind of the Japanese student strikes in the late 60s and that unrest bubbling over into the 70s kind of inform some of the, like, biker gang stuff in this series. It's.

Andrew (54:53)

And just like the general sense of disillusionment. Yeah, yeah.

Craig (54:55)

So we'll talk about that as we meet some of the characters in Akira. And I'm excited to know what Andrew thinks about all the people with psychic powers.

Andrew (55:07)

I can't wait. They may or may not be part of Jeff Manga's song off of his album.

Craig (55:14)

Okay. I really can't wait to hear that. If you are listening to this on the main feed as it releases, know that episode one is over there on patreon.com overduepod for you to listen to. And thanks to all of our patrons for making this series possible. So that's it. If you have thoughts on anything we've said today, give them to yourself or send us an email. Those are your two options.

Andrew (55:44)

Thoughts on any of the things that we've said. Great. Good for you.

Craig (55:47)

Have fun. You can open a computer or your phone, which is also a computer, and send us an email. Overdupodmail.com you can find us on social media until it goes away at Overdue Pod. And our theme song is going away.

Andrew (56:02)

What happened to it?

Craig (56:02)

Just. It's not good for us. Someone better take it away.

Andrew (56:05)

Good for us.

Craig (56:06)

But if you're in it, someone should.

Andrew (56:07)

I just don't know. I don't know why you would think that anyone would at this late day.

Craig (56:11)

That's a fair point. That's a fair point. Our theme song is composed by Nick Laurens. Andrew. Folks want to know more about the show. Where do they go?

Andrew (56:17)

Overdue podcast.com's the Internet website. We have the schedule for the normal show that we do. It's called Overdue. It's not called Tokyo Drifters. This one's Tokyo Drifters. And all the links that Craig said are up there also. And then also our Patreon page. Patreon.com overdue pod it's possible we should have mentioned that like right at the very beginning of the show.

Craig (56:38)

I did in a way. Just not all the benefits.

Andrew (56:42)

It's possible that we should. We should have done more of a full throated thing but. Patreon.com overduepod if you're listening to this on the main feed, the regular feedback that everybody gets. Patreon.com overduepod is the only way to get new episodes of Tokyo Drifters as they come out.

Craig (56:57)

Yep.

Andrew (56:58)

Otherwise you'll have to wait like a year and something. You have to wait a while.

Craig (57:01)

Yeah, you will.

Andrew (57:02)

To get the episodes on the main feed. Like they'll come to you eventually. But like what do you. What are you going to be missing in the main in the meantime? You're going to be missing Jeff Manga's debut debut.

Craig (57:13)

You're going to be missing our monthly newsletter, dusty bookshelves.

Andrew (57:16)

You're going to be missing access to our Discord community ad free feed with no ads on it. All kinds of other stuff.

Craig (57:26)

Random special collections record.

Andrew (57:28)

You're missing our random special collections episodes where we talk about movies like Despicable Me and the Boss Baby and Deadpool and Joker.

Craig (57:36)

Those are for coming.

Andrew (57:37)

But I'm just teasing. Yeah, Deadpool and Joker haven't been recorded yet. I'm just saying these are things that we're gonna. The movie Joker is a thing that we're gonna talk about.

Craig (57:46)

You can't does my face translate to audio?

Andrew (57:49)

I don't. I can't. I think people. I think when you go totally silent, people can kind of imagine what what your reaction.

Craig (57:57)

Can they hear my muscles grimacing?

Andrew (58:00)

Patreon.com overdue pod they can hear you becoming the Joker in real time at the mere thought of watching the film Joker, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to our regular program and also to Tokyo Drifters. And until we talk to you next time, please try to be happy.

Craig (58:50)

That was a Headgum Podcast hi, I'm Drew Offalo. And I'm Jason Afoalo, and we host the Headgum podcast Two Idiot Girls. Each episode we're discussing plenty of topics that you would be giggling at at a sleepover with your weird cousins. We talk about all kinds of things, like weird dating, horror stories, maybe really bad wedgie you had once, or even a show you're loving and anything in between. So you can listen to Two Idiot Girls on your favorite podcast app or watch full video episodes on YouTube. New episodes will be posted every Tuesday.