Hello everybody and indeed, the Anivision Podcast is still currently in production of its 100th episode. Before that episode gets finished and released, I’d like to take a little time to look at the past of Anivision and the people that have made it possible.
Technically, we passed 100 recordings some time ago with our bonus/preview episodes, but in terms of actual numbered episodes, we’re still gonna throw ourselves a party in honor of keeping this boat afloat. It has been an incredibly fun ride with Xcom, steev and Amuro getting together each week and Bring the Worlds of Anime and Gaming together. I’d like to take a little time to talk about how this show got started over two years ago, and give thanks to our many guests that have made the 100 oh so fun to do.
How the Podcast Came to Be
The Anivision Podcast started with 3 guys wanting to form a musical group... not really, but anyways...
Anivision has been around since all of our high school days, and thru different names. To fast forward to more recent events, in June of 2009, Xcom resurfaced Anivision as a Facebook group. I’ve been an Anivision faithful ever since Xcom told me about JA Squared during the tail end of our high school days, so I was thinking of something new to do so we could get the Anivision name out there. I was getting into podcasts at the time, and thought of doing a podcast for Anivision that people could listen to. After starting some discussion on the Facebook page, it eventually became myself, Xcom and steev hosting the podcast for the first 15 episodes.
The FB post that started it all...
Anivision was in a very slow state of resurrection at time of posting, and many of our old pals had gone on to college or just faded out. I was very naive about the process at the time. I had zero knowledge of podcast audio needs. I didn’t even have a Skype account when I posted that message.
The first 6 episodes of the podcast sound horrible. Xcom was doing recording very early on and the sound quality is crap, especially 1, 5 & 6. I remember after episode 3, he complained about how long it took to edit, so that’s when I took over editing duties from him, and then I started recording the podcast for better sound quality. Come episode 41, steev and I began rotating editing duties. I gained dual citizenship at Metanorn and Anivision this past May, so that meant episode 82 was my last main editing piece of business, leaving steev as the only editor left (though I did volunteer to do Episode 95 most recently). Amuro did edit the first ever [EXT] episode. So all things considered, all 4 of your hosts are podcast editors!
How far off are we from being able to podcast using Nanomachines?
To start, we were posting episodes on Facebook until episode 9 when me and Xcom finally got feedburner and iTunes pages setup for the podcast. Around episode 20-something, Xcom had a vision for what Anivision.org would look like and used a grou.ps page as a guinea pig and also setup a blogspot page to post episodes on. Those sites were ultimately not what we wanted; Anivision deserved better. That’s when steev had the idea to build the site off the WordPress engine and brought a new blog feature to Anivision. We started off doing episodics of Sekirei and Fairy Tail and doing game reviews, to now what you see as episodic coverage is done primarily in the form of the Anime Times by steev. (Do stay tuned for news on that later)
The podcast format has surprisingly only been minorly adjusted over the years. News & Discussion has been a formula of the podcast pretty much from inception. Since then, the Anivision podcast has been stuck in limbo and… blah, anyways, the only major changes was a shift from just me being host to having all 4 of us rotate, and reducing our news segment to 2 main stories. It’s tried. It’s true. It’s what we know. Amuro introduced the [EXT] episode format, which is a great new opportunity for us to, every once in a while, escape the structured format and simply hone in on one subject.
Season preview podcasts went from me assigning shows of my own accord to a draft format, which is something we haven’t shared publicly, but is a fun thing for us to try and figure out which host is gonna be stuck with Sekaiichi Hatsukoi or Ro-kyu-Bu, or if one of us would have guts to steal a Gundam show from Amuro. With the written season previews (now going 2 seasons strong), we’ve dropped reading plot summaries on the air in favor of just discussing first episodes and impressions. Amazingly, cutting out that information dump somehow made made the Summer podcast longer. Goooooooo figure.
Amuro Gets Recruited for Podcasting
The Gundamologist, Amuro joins the podcast
On episode 5, we brought Lt. Amuro on as a guest for a review of the Eureka seveN movie and a mecha discussion. He’s been around since the early days of JA Squared as one of our more active members and also responsible for bringing a number of his buddies onto the forums with us back in the day (Solidus Jyon and Heartless Angel are a couple people who come to mind, and I’ve actually met just this year at Animazement). I sent him a friend request on Facebook based off remembering his name from an email he sent me a long time ago, which led to him joining the Anivision Facebook group. See guys, my memory bank expands beyond just the podcast… BEYOND!
We later invited him back on for Episode 14. Xcom, steev and I reflected on the episode afterward and really felt Amuro should be a podcast regular. Come Episode 16, he was our new official 4th host. He has been an invaluable addition to the podcast, especially considering that Xcom has not always been able to join us due to family business. Considering that nugget of info, I wonder if Anivision would’ve had the legs to continue all the way up to this point.
Thanks to Guests
Bento
Xcom brought Bento on as a guest. Yes, he brought lunch and lunch talked.
Xcom’s brother, Bento, appeared on Episode 9 talking about creativity in games. I do remember a moment in which we were talking about pirates, and he couldn’t remember Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan. For some reason, it made me laugh out loud. I’ll have Xcom tell you I said thanks for being a small part of our 100.
Crimson King (Movie Chatter-formerly)
Crimson King is a long-time IRL friend of Jrow and Xcom.
Formerly of the Movie Chatter podcast, Morgan McCormick aka Crimson King is a great friend of ours. She is very smart and funny, and her appearance on Episode 34 still stands as… I’m gonna go ahead and say my favorite episode we’ve ever done. Server issues have caused us to recently take the episode down, which I’d love to bring back up again. If there’s one guest’s return to the Anivision Podcast that I’m most anticipating, it would be Crim.
Decoration Disorder Disconnection Podcast
I've elected to Rule 63 the DDD boys. It's up to them as to who is who. 😉
The Decoration Disorder Disconnection fellas deserve more thanks than they might think. I met Baku by chance on the old AAA forums and eventually did host-swapping with him between Anivision and the (inactive) RRFDP podcast. These guys run a great show, and of course were part of the big 8-man podding cast for the 2010 Awards Show, which turned out some interesting scoring results, but overall bunches of fun and laughs.
- Bakuhasu (Jeff) – I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this to you before, but you are a great podcast editor. Listening to some of those old RRFDP eps and now DDD episodes is some terrific work on your part and gave me that desire to give it my all in Garageband. It’s been great to have you on as a guest appearance on Anivision; you’re the current record holder for most guest spots, and I wouldn’t have any problem if you continued holding that title. For the last time, thanks again for sticking with us after I botched the Episode 35 recording.
- Flags (Adrian) – me and steev would not have known how amazing Bakemonogatari is if Baku hadn’t pulled you in for us as a guest on episode 47. I’m still upset about not being allowed to vote Misaki Ayuzawa as best female character. Grah! Anyways, your thoughts on anime is always interesting to hear and you along with the rest of the guys are fun to listen to.
- TSRL (Xavier) – We still need you to come back on so you and steev can argue Battlefield vs. CoD; he had some beef with your words back then. And in that rare instance we needed a fill-in for steev, it was fun to have you on and talking about Burnout and GT5, which I know racing is a big hobby of yours. Next time you’re on, I’ll give you more time to promote the DDD. 🙂
- Grim (Brett) – It sucks that my first episode of the podcast I ever missed was the one I booked you for. You’re a cool guy and I personally missed your presence on DDD while you were away, but it’s good to hear you on DDD again and I hope you’ll join us on Anivision again for another round.
Metanorn
Kyokai (to Anivision) - "Guys, back off. Jrow is coming with me."
While I still call Anivision my first home on the internet, Metanorn is like I found a new best friend and I keep hanging out at their place all the time and eating their grub. For me, it’s been a different experience, but for each of us here on Anivision, it’s been nice to have another great buddy like Meta.
- Kyokai – Once more, it was a really fun time with you back on Episode 74 and another thanks for making the early wakeup call. Who knew that podcast would lay the seeds to me being on the team? It’s been a pleasure to have Metanorn as one of Anivision’s buddy sites, and your episode and rant on Oniichinko stands as one of my personal favorites in our history. And I must thank you also for these next two peeps I’m about to thank…
- Foshizzel – Your comments on our stuff have always been appreciated from us, you don’t even know! That also kinda laid the groundwork for me joining up with Meta as we were blogging Freezing and Zombie Desu ka side-by-side at our respective sites. Like Grim from DDD, it sucked that I missed your episode, but at least I get to podcast with you over at MetaVerse. 🙂
- Overcooled – I might be repeating stuff from your 1-year anniversary at Metanorn. It’s been really fun to get to know you in these past few months, and it’s terrific to not only call you a friend of Anivision, but also a fan. I didn’t realize you and Amuro would combine forces to make me buy a couple Atlus games in Catherine and P3P.
Hatake (AAA-formerly)
Hatake (a pretty good Ramona cosplayer) brought us sandwiches!
Sandwiches! I tell you, that actually holds meaning somewhere in the Anivision world. I won’t explain where, but it’s something that we commonly use. Congrats on being girl #1 on the podcast. After our flirty convo in the picture thread over at AAA, I was excited to have you join us for movie discussion and, maybe a bit haphazardly, a discussion on censorship in anime, particularly ecchi. After friending you on FB some time ago, I must say you do some really great cosplaying, Ramona Flowers and Meryl Silverburgh in particular! I hope that we can have you on again in the 100s!
Magus
Why Jrow and steev are a-ok with Magus being a guest 🙂
A good buddy of Amuro’s that’s guested on Episodes 37 and 50 and most recently an Anivision EXT episode, Magus is the Bright to Amuro’s…Amuro. Always there to provide a good Bright slap when necessary.
Sean Ryan, aka The Grey Ghost
I imagine Sean doing this before eating breakfast every morning...
A most recent guest of Anivision, little did we know that just down I-40, a fellow AAA Network member was also doing a podcast. We really enjoyed your appearance on the podcast and I’ve become a fan of M2M and can listen to any episode despite not always knowing the subjects, which in my opinion is the sign of a great podcast. Next time we meet, for one maybe Kevin can join us, and we will get the podcast done live and in person… with whiskey! (Though I’m more vodka…)
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These guests all have fine websites of their own, great podcasts they do, and we are really glad to have gotten to know all of them and had fun on their respective episodes. I’m sure we’ll get all of these peeps back on for an episode, and we’ve been planning to get some new guests on the podcast.
Thanks for reaching the end of this post. When episode 100 is released, you’ll likely hear us talking about some of the early days of not just Anivision, but of our own lives as fans of gaming and anime. We’ll see you on episode 100 of the podcast… believe it!