The Super Milk-Chan Show #2: Milk Shake ADV 100 minutes English/Japanese English Subtitles Released: 08/31/2004 Reviewed: 04/04/2006

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Super Milk-Chan has become my go-to guy when it comes to late watching anime on a boring Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately it has also become my go-to guy when it comes to falling asleep on the couch watching anime on a boring Saturday afternoon. Don't let my narcolepsy dissuade you, you know this show is where its at. Allow me to explain myself. The show has two DVDs, the original show and the "100% better from America!" altered version with 10x more profanity and live action segments featuring the cast and crew. I told you that in the previous review. Normally I don't really care for special features. The ones included on anime DVDs are almost always a total waste of time and I'm usually already worn out from watching the show proper and my rampant ADHD is encouraging me to move on to other endeavors. Preferably those that involve shooting dinosaurs with shotguns and watching them fall down. Not so with Milk-Chan! Something about the completely original live action segments featuring ADV cast and crew force me to cram that second DVD in my player and watch it all over again.

It's hard for me to avoid watching that extra hour and a half of crap, though, maybe I just want something to complain about? We've already discussed how great the show proper is, and believe me this trend continues (the dating sim lampoon hits a nice chord with me), so I figured I would take this time to include the ups and downs of ADV's live action segments. The ups are this: you get to see which of the female voice actors are cute. That's sorta it... The "100% whole" version features the aforementioned Steven Foster dub, which jumps through hoops to be offensive and transmogrifies the otherwise innocuous Milk into a profanity spewing jerk. Padded around these mutilated milk segments is the equally profane live action fun-time with cast and crew variety show of laughs. The story, which involves the actors being trapped in the studio, barely exists except in that they need something to base all the homosexual gags on. If it wasn't for this ramshackle excuse for plot they wouldn't be able to harp on how much one guy likes to dress up in drag!!

Watching something like this profoundly mesmerizing. The gags, even ones that don't involve silly gay jokes, are like pulling teeth at their worst and plain nonsensical at their best. But through each moment I forced myself to watch for you dear reader, for you! Even when they did the same gags about Christine Auten being catty that they did in the last DVD. What can I say? After a long night of alcoholism and football there was nothing I needed more than a nice little prepackaged sleep aid and Super Milk-Chan's 100% whole version put me out like a light. At least we know it's good for something! Guess what I'm doing? Being a big pain in the butt, crying about things that don't even affect me. It's indicative of being an anime fan, maybe, something deeply ingrained in our subconscious even from birth. That's what I'm trying to tell you about here. Us anime fans need to stop blowing things up to be bigger than they are.

I can't count how many times I've been in an internet argument about dubs. I am currently embroiled in a forum war about the very topic right now. What concerns me is that these people can't wrap their mind around the fact that it doesn't matter. Even if you don't like dubs, their existence doesn't harm you. Anime is cheaper and more prevalent than it ever has been before, and in 99% of all cases its bilingual and totally uncut. When you plug that DVD in you never have to hear word one of the English language if you don't want to. Yet there's still people out there who act like it's some big offense to include a dub track on their show. Here's my point: no matter how much I harp on the "100% Whole" version... in the end it really doesn't matter. Here we're given a great show in its entirely uncut form for the exact same price that we would've gotten it for with or without the worthless hunk of plastic that comprises the "new and improved" version. If you don't want to, you never have to know that the alternate version of the show even exists. Throw that DVD right out the window! Put it in the microwave! Have fun with it! The existence of those positively bad live action segments doesn't hamper my enjoyment of the show, nor should it hamper yours. Don't waste your time with 100% whole, but (dub or sub) Super Milk-Chan really isn't to be missed.