Our Grand Tour comes full circle for its final stop, as we return to the world of Dragon Ball – and the premise of Goku becoming a kid again – for the latest installment in the franchise, and the last supervised by Toriyama Akira himself: Dragon Ball Daima! Like other recent Dragon Ball stories overseen by the original author, Daima revisits concepts from earlier anime-original works – in this case, Dragon Ball GT’s broad premise of Goku being turned into a kid and going on a big journey to reverse it – but now with Toriyama’s authorial touch. In the case of Daima, that means a ton of great character-driven humor, an extremely rich setting in the Demon Realm, and a handful of wonderful new characters. All of it is brought to life with some of the best animation, voice acting, music, and action to ever grace the franchise, from a big group of Dragon Ball veterans and artists new to the series. The result is one of Dragon Ball’s finest hours in animation, and a perfect final tribute to the singular work of Toriyama Akira.

Enjoy, thanks for listening throughout this season, and we will see you all again this fall for Season 6!

Time Chart:

Theme Song: 0:00:00 – 0:01:15

Intro and History: 0:01:15 – 1:33:27

Eyecatch Break: 1:33:27 – 1:34:07

Dragon Ball Daima Review: 1:34:07 – 2:58:43

Season 5 Wrap-up: 2:58:43 – 3:19:28

Season 6 Preview: 3:19:28 – 3:27:16

End Theme: 3:27:16 – 3:29:07

Subscribe to our YouTube channels!

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to PURELY ACADEMIC, our monthly variety podcast about movies, video games, TV, and more: https://purelyacademic.simplecast.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

“Romantikku Ageru Yo” – Composed by Ike Takeshi, Lyrics by Yoshida Takemi, Original Arrangement by Tanaka Kōhei; cover Arranged and Produced by Thomas Lack, featuring Hatsune Miku. https://www.thomaslack.com

Our Grand Tour finally arrives at one of the most-requested shows in the history of Japanimation Station: the 1997 adaptation of Miura Kentaro’s seminal manga masterpiece, Berserk! Created by OLM – best known for their decades of work on the Pokémon anime – this 25-episode series adapts the Golden Age arc of Miura’s manga, brilliantly employing a ‘limited animation’ style reminiscent of the works of Dezaki Osamu. With outstanding scripts, inspired direction, and some of the best voice acting we’ve ever had the pleasure to discuss, the series is a truly remarkable feat of adaptation, doing Miura’s work justice in so many ways.

Enjoy, and come back next week for the final installment of our Grand Tour, as we come full circle back to the world of Toriyama Akira for this year’s incredible DRAGON BALL DAIMA!

Time Chart:

Theme Song: 0:00:00 – 0:01:15

Intro and History: 0:01:15 – 1:52:44

Eyecatch Break: 1:52:44 – 1:53:28

Berserk Review: 1:53:28 – 3:51:09

End Theme: 3:51:09 – 3:52:39

Subscribe to our YouTube channels!

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to PURELY ACADEMIC, our monthly variety podcast about movies, video games, TV, and more: https://purelyacademic.simplecast.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

“Welcome to Japanimation Station” – Music by Thomas Lack, Lyrics by Sean Chapman, featuring Hatsune Miku. “ice” – Music & Lyrics by Thomas Lack, featuring Hatsune Miku & Megurine Luka. https://www.thomaslack.com

Our dirty pair of Dirty Pair episodes continues this week with a look at the theatrical feature film and cavalcade of OVAs that followed in the wake of the original TV series. Dirty Pair was so popular on the home video market that it got two feature-length OVAs – 1985’s Affair of Nolandia and 1995’s Flight 005 Conspiracy – and an entire ‘second season’ of 10 TV-length episodes, known as Dirty Pair 2. There is some fantastic stuff among these home video releases, but the real highlight today is the 1986 feature film, Project Eden, one of the most spectacularly produced anime of the 1980s that feels a lot more like a feature-length music video than it does a conventional narrative. Whether it truly works as a Dirty Pair story is something we debate, but there’s no disagreement that’s an absolutely eye-popping tour-de-force of synesthesia.

Enjoy, and come back next week for something completely different, as we look at the classic 1997 adaptation of Miura Kentaro’s seminal Berserk! At least it is true that podcasters have no control, even over their own will…

Time Chart:

Theme Song: 0:00:00 – 0:01:15

Intro and History: 0:01:15 – 0:18:44

Affair of Nolandia OVA: 0:18:44 – 0:44:55

Eyecatch Break: 0:44:55 – 0:45:34

Project Eden Movie: 0:45:34 – 2:10:24

Dirty Pair 2 OVA: 2:10:24 – 3:11:27

Flight 005 Conspiracy OVA: 3:11:27 – 3:29:28

End Theme: 3:29:28 – 3:30:29

Subscribe to our YouTube channels!

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to PURELY ACADEMIC, our monthly variety podcast about movies, video games, TV, and more: https://purelyacademic.simplecast.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

“Welcome to Japanimation Station” – Music by Thomas Lack, Lyrics by Sean Chapman, featuring Hatsune Miku. “Rolled Into One” – Music & Lyrics by Thomas Lack, featuring Hatsune Miku. https://www.thomaslack.com