Zannen, Canada

The annual Zannen, Canada holiday special has arrived! This year, voice actors Caitlyn Bairstow, Ian Hanlin, Brian Doe and Disney-approved Spider-Man actor Cole Howard join me live from GGRP Studios in Vancouver to share their favourite media from 2019 including Seiss Manos, Alita, The Dragon Prince, O Maidens in Your Savage Season, and a whole lot of independent films such as Gemini, Shuttlecock,...

The year is 1997. After years of careful planning, Canadian broadcasting consortiums have unleashed upon the public an assortment of new cable channels, all of which are wildly experimental in their attempts to gain your attention. Among these channels is Teletoon, although it is very different from the Teletoon we know today. It is bold, it is ambitious, and it is so determined to get the attenti...

This episode is all about Animethon, Canada's oldest anime convention, despite denying being an anime convention for a significant portion of that time. Eryn Cerise, Ian Horner and Brendan "Beej" Dery help paint a picture of how what started as a membership booster for an Edmonton anime club grew into one of the epicentres of anime fandom in Western Canada - not to mention the increasingly crowded...

In 1997, CBC's Undercurrents ran a legendary exposé on otaku as obsessive collectors of data. It featured William Gibson, Hitoshi Doi, as well as a charming fellow with an overzealous fixation on Sailor Mercury. That fellow was Gregory Taylor, and he joins me in this episode to talk about the segment, as well Sailor Moon chat groups in the 1990s, rogue anime screenings at the University of Waterlo...

Information on donating to Kyoto Animation directly: https://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2019/07/24-1/kyoto-animation-officially-starts-accepting-donations-through-bank-transfer GoFundMe donations through Sentai Filmworks: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-kyoani-heal Karl and Corey share their thoughts on the horrific arson attack at Kyoto Animation. We also discuss the surprising prospects of T...

Ashley Hakker joins me to talk about the remarkable, unstoppable life-form that is Anime North. All of the planning in the world could never have prepared me to properly absorb this convention in one go, and together we talk about its history and the exact ingredients that caused it to become the giant glorious mess that it is today.

Not to be confused with the Margaret Atwood novel, Cat's Eye (or "Signé Cat's Eyes") aired in French on Radio-Canada in the late 80s and early 90s, and oh boy did it stick out like a sore thumb on that line-up. Chris joins me once again to share his own experiences watching the show. Dawn from the Anime Nostalgia Podcast also appears to give her own perspective on how well this show really holds u...

With little notice, Corus launched the world's first ever 24/7 Adult Swim network, and the good certainly seems to outweigh the bad... at least if you ignore the lack of streaming options! Sketch from the Toonami Faithful Podcast, as well as Karl, help me take a close look at what this new channel does right, what it does wrong, and what it still needs to do to truly capture the Adult Swim voice....

With nine different voice actors for Goku and a LOT of bad theme songs, the Dragon Ball franchise has been an odd patchwork in Canada, but not one that has derailed its success in any way. Geoff and Yazy join me to talk about discovering and following Dragon Ball/Z/GT through all its different dubs, and try our best to clear up some misconceptions on why so may different versions hit the airwaves....

Lots of amazing theatrical anime release happened in 2018... but you may have noticed that very few of them came to Canada, especially compared to the previous two years. Randy joins me to try and explain the many factors that may have led to this somewhat sorry state of affairs. We also talk about all of the great anime films we did manage to see, despite these setbacks.

Curating the many great anime, TV shows, films, comics and music of 2018 is pretty much an impossible task, but Dave Merrill and Chris (aka Kurotsuki) join me in this holiday special to at least help navigate their personal favourite pieces of media of the year. Hear us discuss about Cells at Work, Joe Pera Talks With You, Hereditary and one really great Macross Delta song. (Don't consider that an...

Few things compare to the sheer might in which Goldorak (the French version of UFO Robo Grendizer) took French-speaking Canada by storm when it first debuted in 1978. While not particularly well-loved in Japan, Goldorak has proven to be one of Go Nagai's most impactful creations worldwide, and has influenced youth programming in ways you may not expect - even in the Anglosphere!. But does Goldorak...

WOW Unlimited will be launching a new television channel soon in collaboration with Bell Media, and the chances are looking very good that it will feature an anime line-up of some kind. Why should anyone care about a linear television channel in this day and age? With some notable heavy hitters behind the scenes, as well as an incredibly strong streaming outlet in the form of Crave, this station a...

The Bush Baby, an anime based on a Canadian novel, was one of a minority of World Masterpiece Theatre titles to receive an English dub. This dub aired on TVO and Access Alberta in 1993 and then... vanished. It was thought to be lost forever, until it was finally recovered in its entirety earlier this year. Rania, who had the series archived for years, joins me in a retrospective look back on both...

Since the early 90s, Raj Ramayya has had a rich career in the Japanese music industry, spanning commercials, to children's shows, to video games and, of course, to anime music collaborations with the likes of Yoko Kanno (Cowboy Bebop and Wolf's Rain) and Kevin Penkin (Made in Abyss). He joins me in this episode to talk about how a foreigner from Saskatchewan could achieve such a prosperous career...

Sarah joins me to talk about Anime Revolution 2018, including the big improvements from last year, as well as complaining about panels that pad out time with Q&A because they can't fill a full hour with proper content. Incidentally, we get through this topic in about 30 minutes, and then proceed to fill the rest of the episode with discussion about current anime shows this season. Sarah's Twitter:...

Why was Mobile Suit Gundam SEED a success here but not the United States? Daryl Surat and Jarvis Gray join me to explain, in yet another retrospective episode on anime that have had a unique cultural impact in Canada. (Honestly though, we spend more time ranting about Gundam SEED Destiny, how that show is unfairly lumped in with its predecessor and why you should NOT watch the new HD remastered ve...

Matthew Erickson is one of the few voice actors who has worked (physically, at least) at both Ocean Studios locations. He made the leap from working at Blue Water Studios in Calgary to Westwood Studios in Vancouver, and is noted for his roles as Shinn Aska in Gundam SEED Destiny, Amuro Ray in Zeta Gundam and Trunks in the Blue Water dub of Dragonball GT. He joins me in this episode to talk about h...

Karl (aka Ultraklystron) and I reunite to discuss a few things that occurred this past April Fools' Day; namely Sakura-Con 2018 and Reboot: The Guardian Code. Karl also has a lot more to say about the new FLCL than I do.

Are FUNimation and Crunchyroll abandoning theatrical anime in Canada? Is Netflix eradicating unique media phenomena at a national level? Is Violet Evergarden worth coming back to every week? Eryn and I discuss all of this, and Devilman Crybaby too!

Randy and I look back on all of the major theatrical anime releases in Canada from this past year including your name., In This Corner of the World, Sailor Moon R and Love Live! delayed live shows. We also talk about Studio Ghibli screenings moving to Cineplex and whether or not we should just embrace our monopolistic overlords.

Geoff Thew from Mother's Basement and Dave Merrill of Stupid Comics and Anime Hell fame join me to scrounge for morsels of media goodness in the year that was 2017. Hear us talk about Riverdale, Twin Peaks, Re:Creators and the extremely weird Neddeaus of Duqesne Island, among many other things.

Pan, Ian and I continue our retrospective on Gundam Wing, this time focusing a little more on the series and its themes, including philosophy on war.

Gundam Wing was a pivotal title for audiences in Canada, and may have marked a point of division with anime fandom in the US that could never be undone. Ian and Pan join me for a retrospective on this series, and had so much to say that I had to cut it in half!

Netflix has committed to investing $500 million into a Canadian production studio over the next five years, but will this be enough to save Canadian media? Will it even be worth it if they can't recreate the lightining-in-a-bottle that is Neo Yokio on anyone's dime? Karl joins me to talk about this, as well as Viceland and that anime Canadian tourism ad.