Wednesday, January 29, 2014

The Nerd Fortress Podcast: Episode 6


In Memory of Justin "JewWario" Carmical 1971 - 2014


The Nerd Fortress Podcast: Episode 6

We don't have a topic for the 2nd week in a row, but that didn't stop us from talking about the latest about the Toei Japan Channel as well as the return of Hiroshi Fujioka and his role of Takeshi Hongo, in Heisei Rider vs. Showa Rider: Kamen Rider Taisen featuring Super Sentai, go over the character profiles for the 5 core members of the upcoming 38th Super Sentai, Ressha Sentai Tokkyuger, give our thoughts on the premiere debut trailer for Power Rangers Super Megaforce, talk about Nintendo's ongoing financial troubles and what it generally means for us consumers, go over some latest anime acquisitions from Sentai Filmworks and talk about a notoriously violent manga that will be getting an anime adaptation that will most likely never air on Toonami and more in this edition of the Nerd Fortress podcast!

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Tragic news and update


Sorry about the unexpected delay of the latest episode of the Nerd Fortress podcast everyone, but all of you will understand why hopefully. Last Thursday, a very important as well as very well loved person known as Justin Carmical, better known by all of his fans and friends as JewWario took his own life and died of a self inflicted gunshot wound.

For those of you who didn't know him, he created a show called "You Can Play This!" where he featured Japanese games from the Famicom, Super Famicom, Nintendo 64, Gamecube, Sega Genesis a.k.a. Mega Drive, Playstation, Playstation 2, PSP, and the Playstation Vita that were never released here in Europe or North America for whatever reasons where you didn't exactly have to know the Japanese language to play those games.

I'm still in such a huge state of shock and disbelief because it was Justin who got me into import gaming as well as looking for Japanese import games that never came out or got released here in Europe or North America. It was also because of him that I learned how to play Famicom games on my NES model 101 a.k.a. the "Top Loader" by using a method to play Famicom games on an NES as well as get myself a copy of one of the games that he reviewed, Samurai Pizza Cats as well as how I managed to get myself a Super Famicom for $20 on Japangamestock.com and somehow find myself a used mint condition copy of Final Fantasy VI in it's original Japanese language.

I sadly never got the chance to ever meet Justin, but I would go to his live streams that he did on his channel at Twitch.tv/Jewwario and would sometimes see how he was and it would take him a while to notice me in the chat because of the fact that there were lots of people that also wanted to chat with him because of his personality as well as the fact that he was very laid back and just an overall very interesting guy to talk to! He was also a big Kamen Rider fan which helped inspire him to come up with the Fami-Kamen Rider series that he tried out which didn't end up working too well for him unfortunately!

Justin also had this sense of humor that made you want to laugh because of the fact that he also incorporated his own improvised bits of comedy in his shows as well and brought that with him whenever he was at conventions or doing live streams on his Twitch channel.

I would miss his streams a lot because of the fact that Twitch can be a piece of crap, or I would forget or sleep in or whatever. But I do wish that I would have gotten to know him better like everyone else that he was friends with did! I don't think any of us will learn why he decided to take his own life the way he did, but Justin never seemed like the kind of person who would hide his feelings from people or anything like that. I'm still very confused and perhaps always will be when it comes down to the reason why he decided to take his own life!

I've been depressed and have been diagnosed with depression in the past, but it never got as bad to the point that I wanted to kill myself because I am very fortunate enough to have friends as well as people I can talk to that I can rely on and trust to keep myself grounded. Major depressive disorder isn't a disease or a sickness, it's a mental disorder which is something that a lot of people don't seem to comprehend or understand. If you ever have thoughts of wanting to harm yourself, get yourself help immediately!

It's just very sad as well as unfortunate that it took Justin's untimely death for a lot of people in the gaming community to realize how depression of any kind can affect you and the tragic as well as unfortunate loss of somebody you care about afterwards as well as many other things. But Justin knew that we all loved him and appreciated what all of his fans have done for him over the years and that we will all truly miss him! Justin did have a profound impact on me as well as the fact that he changed my overall view of gaming and got me to actually check out the world of import gaming, and I thank him for that very much.

I just wish that I could have met him while he was still in this world and got to know Justin more!

R.I.P. Justin! As The Sorrow from MGS3 once said, " Don't be sad... we'll meet again someday."

 Because of this, episode 6 of the Nerd Fortress podcast will be dedicated to Justin's memory, and is basically the main reason why it's taken me longer to edit the episode than it did last time, so please forgive me for that. It will be up either today or Wednesday so please keep an eye out for when the episode is released, thanks!

Saturday, January 18, 2014

The Nerd Fortress Podcast: Episode 5

The Nerd Fortress Podcast: Episode 5

After a long holiday break, as well as an unforseen event with my co-host Devin The Cool, the first episode of the Nerd Fortress podcast for the year of 2014 is finally here! On this first episode of 2014, we go over the Youtube content ID fiasco which is threatening some well known Youtubers livelihoods, as well as give our thoughts on the recent premiere of the English dub of Space Dandy airing on Toonami and the impact that it could have on the anime industry in the future, and then we talk about the very sad and untimely passing of JEFusion founder Geki Dan and talk about the impact that he left on everybody that knew him in the underground tokusatsu fandom as well as much more on this first episode of the Nerd Fortress podcast for the year of 2014!