Stu’s Web Wednesday: JewWario

Now I will admit, I'm not the biggest "Japan fan" in the world. Not to say it's not the place I totally am dying to visit, which it is, but generally the biggest things that excite me is when the words "Tokyo", "Disneyland" and "Resort" come together. The only manga I own is a gifted Tokyopop manga version of The Nightmare Before Christmas, I don't play even localized JRPGs (unless you count Kingdom Hearts), and I only watch anime if it happens to be in some abridged form. So why would I be so enthralled and garner so much enjoyment about a producer who's main show is all about importing and figuring out how to play Japanese games without knowledge of the language? It's because Justin "JewWario" Carmical's delivery, personality, and general laid back awesomeness, coupled with very easily digestable knowledge and interesting character dynamics, makes the show so engaging to watch. Doesn't hurt he's also one of the nicest guys around.

At it's core, JewWario's primary show and production namesake You Can Play This is a review show for Japanese import games. He's been apart of the import community since the Famicom days (that'd be like the NES for all of those who haven't a clue what I'm talking about) so he's got experience importing on most every console ever been devised. In fact he hosts panels, like this one at Magfest 9 which I had the privilege of seeing, in which he explains just how you can import these games from the Famicom all the way up to the modern consoles (where actually things get much tougher). However, even if you import it, a lot of the time if you don't know Japanese, you're hosed? Right? No. That's why he made You Can Play This in the first place, as a way to spread interest in these games North American viewers never got to play. For example, how about a good movie licensed game...of Labyrinth.  Of course, if Labyrith is mentioned, everyone's favorite Lycra and leather pant wearing Goblin King shows too...

Though primarally JewWario's selection is more "retro", he's also started to branch out into You Can Play This for more modern consoles, like being brave enough to tackle three bullet hell games for the 360:

JewWario also had a series which comes and goes in which had one of the more hilarious ideas that I was shocked wasn't explored before. The basis is simple: How the hell does Mario explain what he's done in the Mushroom Kingdom to his other plumbing jobs? And thus, the Mario Monologs were born:

JewWario is also the forrunner of quite possibly my favorite "crossover", or multi-reviewer, video to date, with a review of Daft Punk and Kazuhisa Takenouchi's Interstella 5555 featuring Paw and Elisa and Nella from Team Nostalgia Chick:

And, of course, he'll have his challenges like trying to defeat Sean "HopeWithinChaos" Fausz in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom in a final Magfest showdown with quite possibly the most hilarious color commentary ever by the Psychotaku:

JewWario posts pretty regualarly on BlisteredThumbs.net and has his own site at YouCanPlayThis.com. You can also now directly follow his blip.tv account. Social media wise, Twitter is where you go. He also streams on his Twitch.TV account when the time and inclination arises, so follow that twitter link to find exactly when that's gonna happen. With the live streams, you never know who's gonna show up or what's gonna happen.