Anime World Order

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Say hello to the bad guys.

Hosted by three self-described "holier-than-thou know-it-alls that are anything but" from Florida, the Anime World Order Podcast is one of the better known, if not the best-known, anime and manga based podcasts on the internet. The podcast has been running since 2005, (albeit on a more irregular schedule than they started), reaching over one hundred shows in total (and almost a hundred numbered shows), and new shows often crop up on a semi-monthly basis.

The podcast reviews almost all kinds of anime and manga, spanning from recent movies such as REDLINE and Summer Wars, to old classics such as Fist of the North Star and Getter Robo, to extremely obscure anime such as Ringing Bell and Robot Carnival, and cult trash anime like MD Geist and Mad Bull 34. The three hosts formerly used a format where each host reviews an anime, with the others making comments and asking questions: Daryl Surat tends to review shonen anime, classic anime movies, off-beat anime and OVAs from the 80s/90s "Golden Age" of anime in America; Gerald Rathkolb reviews mostly Humongous Mecha anime and obscure cult anime; and Clarissa Graffeo does shoujo and boys' love anime, with the occasional shonen and Moe anime as well.

The podcast has gained a large, loyal fan base, even despite the near constant Schedule Slip, and is one of the most prominent and respected anime podcasts on the internet: enough that the hosts are also writers for Otaku USA Magazine and frequent guests for other podcasts, therefore cementing Anime World Order's status.

Available here and on iTunes.

Not to be confused with the New World Order. Or the other New World Order.

Tropes used in Anime World Order include:
  • Audio Erotica: Gerald once made a man fall in love with him solely through his glorious man-voice.[context?]
  • Anime Theme Song: The opening and closing themes of the show reviews act as book-ends for each review. If there isn't a opening theme, though, they usually use a sound clip from the anime, or another piece of music. On some occasions, something completely different is used (Billy Gunn's "Mr. Ass" entrance theme for the end of the Goku Midnight Eye review, Steve Regal's "Real Man's Man" entrance theme for Swallowing The Earth, and Drop The Bomb for Barefoot Gen.
  • Author Appeal:
    • The three hosts usually review shows that lie within their interests in anime and manga, and they rarely review a show that they outright hate. The nearest they usually come is anime they find to be So Bad It's Good, or can be mined for comedy value.
    • Daryl has, shall we say, a very strong appreciation for Kazuo Koike and Go Nagai. In fact, it's hard to think that the aWo review of Crying Freeman is actually supposed to be a Gerald review, because of how many times Daryl pitches in.
  • Bias Steamroller: Daryl and his ongoing hatred of the Dread Spectre of Moe.
  • Black Comedy Rape: Especially during the hentai reviews. In fact, the episode title for Episode 38 is "Rape is Hilarious, But Only As a Theoretical Concept".
  • Digital Piracy Is Okay: Discussed in Daryl Wastes Your Time - It's okay to pirate if titles are unavailable by legal means.
  • Everyone Has Standards: Daryl is an avowed Go Nagai fanboy, but even the brutality of Violence Jack managed to get to him, and he finishes the review in a state of despair.
  • Franchise Zombie: Discussed in Daryl Wastes Your Time. He expressed his frustration with Gundam's Continuity Lock Out and overall mediocrity.

Every time I think about Gundam, I get upset. People ask: "Hey Daryl, why don't you.. review more Gundam on AWO?" and the reason is 'cause every time I fuckin' start to think about Gundam, I get pissed off, because why the fuck is this- This is the fucking flagship series of real robot anime! This is Sunrise's cash cow and baby, and yet here I am for the last ten, twenty minutes, saying "This show isn't very good" or "This show, you can only watch with this," there's always some goddamn qualifier. Why can't they just make a good fucking show?! [He then mentions Gundam Unicorn as a good show.] Why? Why can't they make their number one cash cow that is so backed by inertia better than it is?

  • Funny Foreigner: Daryl puts on a comedy foreigner accent while reading out an email, because he believed that the writer was one due to the bad English.
  • Guest Host: Including Mike Toole, Jason Thompson, Zerochan, Tim Eldred, Matt Alt and Patrick Macias.
  • Iconic Logo: An altered New World Order logo.
  • Instrumental Theme Tune: The show always begins with the nWo theme.
  • The Merch: Hoodies and t-shirts with the aWo logo.
  • Overly Long Gag: Daryl has a bad habit of doing these.
  • Rated "M" for Manly: Daryl's preferred kinds of anime, to the expense of some certain other genres. Daryl even goes so far is to say he likes 70s shoujo because he thinks it's suitably manly enough for him to read. It's so narrow a focus that Daryl often voices his contempt for recent shounen series for trying to get a female audience, dubbing them "neo-shounen" because of it.
  • Schedule Slip: The podcast used to be weekly. Now a new one seems to be uploaded every one to three months or so.
  • Shout-Out: Regularly, often to other podcasters. Daryl also does this frequently during episodes.
  • The Smurfette Principle: Clarissa usually does reviews of shoujo anime and manga, yaoi, and certain other series that the male hosts won't even touch. She did review JoJo's Bizarre Adventure however (apart from Part 3, which was reviewed by Daryl).
  • Stock Scream: The Howie Long Scream can be occasionally heard in certain episodes. Notable occasions include interrupting the "Ass Man" song at the end of the Midnight Eye Goku, following an... interesting line; and during a con report where Daryl was cajoled into judging the cosplay masquerade, which is followed by three Howie Long screams in a row.
  • Take That: Again, mostly done by Daryl, to other podcasters.
  • Testosterone Poisoning: Apparently affected Gerald so badly in his review of Go Nagai's Black Lion that he immediately wanted to punch someone in the balls. Daryl quickly convinces Gerald to punch himself.
  • The Tokyo Fireball: Discussed during Daryl's review of New Getter Robo, when he asks why Shinjuku is always falling prey to giant monster attacks and the such.
  • Unsettling Gender Reveal: Happens to Daryl when he gets the first DVD of Princess Princess.