Da Dominion: Home of DOMINIONCAST!

Marcel, Heaven, myself and Hunin discuss Anime of the ages. We contemplate it’s influence on our own home grown Americanime (Hunin’s term), discuss our views on hentai and debate if Japan is bigger than Manhattan.

Dominion Cast 23 download (46 mins. 43MB)

Music from demo by fonetik
Dr. Tran
New Forums!!!! … eventually
Fist of the North Star
More Muscle Butt
Weird Titles
Robotech and Robots (Robotech Shadow Chronicles)
Miyazachi Miy-Ass
Coondocks
Lost in Translation
Hentai? No!

“The Trinity goes to War”
from Bender’s Big Score

and Happy Holidays to all

Yeah, sure, we all know the Big 3 car companies fucked up, but that’s no reason to extend the resentment to the innocent car Voltron. It really isn’t.

Over the past week some misguided friends and myself have been debating the merits of Voltrons. Automatically, when you think Voltron you think of the five lions. They come out of their elemental themed dens to bite tanks, launch missles and eat space ships before the titanic robeast emerges. The lions formed Voltron by tucking in their legs, bending their necks and being violated by the black lion’s legs or sticking their tails into his chest. He breaks out the blazing sword and cuts monster du jour in half. Go Voltron Force! Although amazingly formulaic, no one is denying the coolness of Lion Voltron - but if you bring up Vehicle Voltron, other defender of the greater universe, people call you dumb to cover their own ignorance.

I realize the reason for this perception though, as long time readers will know, I do not forgive ignorance. In 1984, Voltron, a translation of the older Japanese series Beast King Golion, debuted. Two channels in the Detroit area vied for the afternoon cartoon audience - like the auto giants over government loans. On one was the newly imported and re-cut show titled Voltron, on the other was the American made original Transformers. It was a good day for kids who didn’t realize how Reganomic deregulation was imperiling their distant economic future.

After fifty-two episodes, Lion ran out of story. Transformers kept going strong. More toys than five Lions equals more money for more new shows. It was then that a new team was introduced by importing an Americanized version of the Japanese series Armor Fleet Dairugger 15 - known as Vehicle Voltron here. Kids immediately saw it as an attempt to compete with Transformers, and a lame one. “Car Voltron be bite’ in,” they’d declare in the parlance of the time, then drop into a backspin on a piece of cardboard to vent their displeasure into break dancing. Although this was planned by Toei Animation, changing casts in a series is never appreciated, Robotech merged three series into generational sagas to mitigate this continuity breaking, but few even gave these heroes of the Near Universe a chance.

I gave it look-see and liked what I saw. Fuck a castle; they had a whole carrier to transport them to different planets, with alien terrain - and aliens. Three teams of five vehicles explored the land, seas and air of these new worlds; they often bordered the territory of an evil star empire (bad guys). Strategies were planned to save the worlds after first contact was established, much more often than not armadas were sent in. These exploration sci-fi themes grabbed my interest greatly. More than lion Voltron that patrolled one damn planet, or even Transformers that fought in rural Colorado defending power stations from hungry Decepticons. Kids like structure and predictability, whatever - I liked new shit.

The cast was pretty well rounded out among Aqua, Turbo Terrain and Strato Teams without the need for silly space mice, the only friends of the severely neglected Princess of Arus - her abandonment issues the source of blue balls for black lion’s Keith many times. Robeasts, despite a time again failed strategy, were faced too necessitating that they form a 15 piece Voltron bristling with weapons, including twin chakrams that would be joined to form their katana like blazing sword. All of the fun of Voltron with a little Star Trek tossed in.

That wasn’t cool? No? Well we’ve got a Voltron Fan Panel to air your opinions on this. Come by and get schooled.

A discussion of the various cartoons and other features that we enjoy. Chiming in are Hunin, Omari, myself and our first Dominion intern Heaven sister of Hunin. Rib failed her geek save and napped for most of this, to her credit her first failed save - but not likely the last. Popular shows are examined, especially the McFarlane dynasty. The Boondocks gets a good dissection, as only those that “get it” can. The Simpsons Megalith is marveled upon. We ponder how old is too old for cartoons, especially relevant given the crap the kids have to watch today.

Dominion Cast 10 download (62 MB, 68mins.)

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-e823a0e05e56c06e2a69bdf3954f05f6}

Music from Subway Stories by ADC Level
Home Movies: Improv Vindication
McFarlane’s Future - Cleveland’s Show
Boondocks: Laughing at the Truth in public.
Adult Swim: A taste acquired or nauseating?
The Simpsons self spin-off
Venture Brothers - not sisters
Legacy of Mighty Mouse
Anime All Over
Crap for Kids
Interesting Outliers: Avatar the Last Airbender and Fillmore!
Debate of Ages: Cal El versus Kakkarot

On Dominion Cast 6, Hunin briefly mentions the G4 animated show Code Monkeys, yet still can not comment on the masterpiece that is Heroes. This isn’t about attacking how he accrues opportunity cost, that’s mostly what the podcast is for. At the recording, I hadn’t seen Code Monkeys yet, so requested that he rank it in the modified IGN list from my Rusty’s Rise article. Being of the somewhat compulsive list maker mindset, our Tribune quickly and confidently placed it between Ren and Stimpy and King of the Hill. I have since watched the first andmost of the second seasons of this show, and though it will spawn a recurring debate from our favorite fanboy, a critique will be here attempted.

First off, a clarification. The animated comedy show list derived from Rusty’s Rise is BY FAR not my list of favorite shows of this type. It was a matter of bringing contemporary Truth to the IGN list of all time greats and focusing on those of the comedic category I like most often. I am not of the list maker mindset really, a statement that automatically puts list makers on the defense because they can’t conceive of non-hierarchical judgements, so this translates to them as “Non-listers are number one, but Listers are number 2!” I do have preferences but a lot depends on the mood I’m in. I like Home Movies overall more than King of the Hill, but may have a taste for Arlen, Texas Americana at that moment given there are pros and cons of each style. If faced with a hypothetical mandate to exclude either one from my life for the promise of the other, your Dominus will form a resistance network to destroy the imaginary dictator of taste - lowered by their waste over a tank of acid and allowed to decide whether to go in head first or ass first, then being judged based on his choice of death … forever.

Code Monkeys is a cast of overdone stereotypes with line-pushing anti-social humor animated like 8-bit Theatre. Though not a Lister, I am concisely cognitively complex.

Main characters are the Randal and Dante inspired Dave and Jerry - their predecessors have their quirks ramped up to ten: Dave is a super indulgent asshole and Jerry an super sensitive wuss. Surrounding them at their job as video game designers in the mid-80’s are your typical sitcom archetypes: crazy capitalist redneck boss, super nerd loser, under appreciated feminist man-hater, resentful angry black man, candy-addicted hyperactive Korean child slave game-tester. Ok, the last one is novel - given the recent Korean deaths from gaming obsession, though the Asian stereotyping goes back to the Union Pacific railroad workers Hung Lo and Duk Wang. They also feature voice cameos by what I can only assume are actual game designers of that decade. I guess if you’re watching G4 in the first place, and are an actual 40-something IT gimp, this will impress you.

The humor is most similar to Drawn Together, but scaled back a few notches. CM will reference some disgusting occurence, where the other would show it to you and go another step. Black Steve will shoot white crackers for the smallest slights, while DT’s Foxy Love “musturbates”since sex may lead to her 22nd state-funded abortion. Nudity is often featured but being in a low-res pixelated style it’s not very shocking, and it’s exclusively male.

For being so simplicitistic it’s busily animated. There are video game replicating fields at the top and bottom of the screen which have their own supplemental jokes to the main gag being protrayed. So if a character is telling a far-fetched lie the top will show a bullshit meter with increasing numbers of turds and the bottom will read “Oh yeah, right”sarcastically. This kinda of annoys as it requires constant scanning even when the camera focuses. Many scenes are direct homages to video games of the past like Ikari Warriors and Contra, I’d like to see more of these. Characters do make the jump tone like Super Mario consistently and get points for anything - gallons of vomit hurled to fart magnitude.

The dialog is funny of the calibur of actual things your friends would say with situtational set up, so it’s chuckle-worthy. It also has a lot more random yet repetitive feel. As show above, whore murdering jokes come in packs. The main gags derive from the insanity of the characters, whom are so stereotypical you can see them coming. Eighties references are sparse but will manifest in the occassional show about Reagan’s assassination attempt and the release of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, but most of the plots are modified from The Great Index of Sitcom Tropes.

Still, Code Monkey likes me and overall I guess I like it too - though this statement would result in an ape-fucking joke on the show.