HTF Anime Discussion Part VIII - Page 75

Re: HTF Anime Discussion Part VIII

OMG that looks freakin amazing! (the Ratchet screens). I cant wait for my copy of EGM to come in so I can stare at it even more closely. That looks fantastic, just need to know a release date... Im guessing Christmas?

You made me giggle over the Okami comment. The game IS brilliant and beautiful and likely one of the best games ever made. Its just gorgeous and I played it right before Twilight Princess and thought that it bested it in every way. Its like the game that Wind Waker wanted to be. A shame that it sold so poorly and Clover got broken up because of it. Most of the head Capcom guys ended up forming a new studio though, so it will be interesting how that effects not only Capcom but what kind of games they will be making. An Okami 2 would be too good to be true (loved the fishing in Okami also.. so fun!) My old PS2 killed my copy of the game.. will probably rebuy it in the future. Ive been singing its praises to deaf ears since its release so its awesome to find someone else that liked it.

If you have an EB in your area they have free copies of the God of War 2 demo. Got one today... Im about to finish the first game, only have to take down Ares really.

Never really watched Lupin so I cant comment there.

The ADV sale was kind of disappointing, I wanted Maburaho, Misaki Chronicles, and Madlax, none of which were part of the sale. I did get in on Princess Tutu and Panyo Digi Charat for a 10 score. Would have done 25 but I have so many of the thin sets already. And HATED the first Sakura Wars OVA, was it ever bad... wonder if thats the same thing?

Re: HTF Anime Discussion Part VIII

Alanna: Well, you've lived through having 2 young ones and still have some time for anime so...that's a good sign.

This is my last one actually! Things are getting snipped, tied and pulled out!! I'm done!

I'd like to pick up Ergo Proxy V2 and Rumbling Hearts V2 also....waiting on Monday. Dave has me on a $20 a week allowance...hehe....so.....yeah.

Dave has been obsessed with Gears of War on the 360 lately, he says Dome is on there that used to post on here. Not sure what his name is though....

Stacey

Re: HTF Anime Discussion Part VIII

A heads-up, www.dvdplanet.com is running a half off sale on select Funimation titles. You can pick up Rumbling Hearts Volume 2 for $14.99. Free shipping on orders over $25 and they also have coupons-

MARCH2007 $5 off of $50
SPRINGCHICKEN $7 off of $80
PREMAR2007 $10 off of $125

Re: HTF Anime Discussion Part VIII

Thanks for the heads up!! I will definitly head over and order!
Stacey

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Alanna:

Madlax must have sold out, because when I did my order, volumes one and two were available.

John.

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It helps that my oldest daughter likes to watch it too. I dont see alot of the more gory/violent stuff though because shes usually around when Im watching it.

Madlax was available but only the first few volumes. To me its not worth just getting those when the full series will be available sometime in the future in a thinpak or something. Id never track down the rest of the singles....

Re: HTF Anime Discussion Part VIII

OK so I have watched two more volumes of anime since my last post and here are some impressions:

Gunslinger Girls Vol 1 - I expected to like this but have come away loving it so far. the slow pacing, intimate look at the girls and their relationships with their "handlers", etc. is extremely interesting. The concept, and "Leon the Professional" inspiration of the show makes it something special. Looking forward to the rest of the series.

Kamichu! vol 1 - My first thought is... "WTF?" I dunno, but I dont GET this at all. The girl that takes advantage of Yurie is annoying as all hell and the whole world take is strange to the point of stupid. The spirit things all over the place, the nonchalant reactions to Yurie's "god" status... I know this is all a part of the setting, but it walks the fine line between fantasy and reality rather poorly. I like the slice-of-life aspects of the stories, but the 4th episode was just unbelievably bad and left a sour taste. I will continue with volume 2 (and realize that episode 4 is universally disliked) but this is one series that is neither as accessible or interesting as reviews online lead me to believe. Its OK but not great. Its kind of a poor man's Spirit Away in series form with some Haibane Remnei mixed in. And both of those are a million times better than Kamichu! thus far. On that note, I did enjoy seeing Yurie struggling with her god powers and the story of Tama the cat.

Ah and has anyone seen Risky Safety? I bought this out of RightStuf'ss bargain bin. It looked like a series that my daughter could watch with me and wondered if it was any good.

EDIT: Does anyone know if there is a box available for Princess Tutu? I dont think ADV made one but I read about someplace online that makes custom boxes for these series that dont get one. Does anyone know anything about it or if they are any good? Thanks

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My latest order from amazon just arrived last night. I got volume three of Tenchi Muyo! OVA 3 to finish that series off, and also picked up the complete Blue Gender set.

John.

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I watched volume two of Tenchi Muyo! OVA 3 last night. It's been a while since I watched volume one, but I think I was able to keep up. The PQ was gorgeous, considering that it's a recent OVA, and I didn't notice any artifacts on my 61" screen. The story hasn't been as impressive as the first two OVAs, but it's reasonably well done.

John.

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Just got around to watching GitS 2: Innocence last night. Not bad, but really not much of a story there. Seems more of an excuse to have characters speak in mind-numbingly philosophical ways. Not really a movie you should start watching at 11:30PM.

Jason

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My big order from TRSI came on Saturday. Ah, to have a stack of unwatched disks again .

I finished off Tenchi Muyo! OVA 3 yesterday. While entertaining in that nonserious Tenchi manner, it wasn't quite up to the level of the first two OVAs. PQ-wise, it was nearly perfect, and I didn't notice any artifacts on my 61". 'B' - recommended.

John.

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I just got done with Magic Knights Rayearth (at least, the first season). Mostly it was a by-the-numbers girls go to a fantasy world and save the day type of show, except for the little twist at the end. It was ok, considering I got the discs cheap, but I don't see a lot of rewatch value here.

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I finished Gunslinger Girl. Was a very interesting series with many disturbing/thought provoking elements. Comes highly recommended by me. I think anyone looking for a heavier, more serious anime would enjoy it.

Kamichu 2 was MUCH improved over the first volume. Some of the episodes are a little slow in places, but there was alot of good material here. Woofed the disc down in one shot and was especially enamoured wih the "Fight Club" parody episode of Cat World. The first rule of Cat World is that you do not talk about Cat World...heh... the beach episode looked to be just another anime beach filler ep until they touched upon the past and Yurie blew some life into a forgotten beach hideaway, with a nice chunk of character development to go along with it. Her "helping" a customer by joining the caligraphy club with ulterior motives was also interesting. In fact, the only slightly dull ep of the batch was the one where she was ill and it had its moments too. Looking forward to watching more. This definitely enforces the fact that sticking with something can payoff in the end.

Magic Knight Rayearth - loved hte first season but didnt care for the second as much. Its by the numbers stuff but charming I thought?

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I watch some more Wolf's Rain be getting through the 3rd and 4th discs. The 3rd disc advanced the story and was ok but the 4th disc included 4 flashback recap episodes that really bogged the series down. The last one has maybe 30 seconds of new material so I don't see what the point of that whole disc was.

The further the series goes the more i feel like I was dropped into the middle of a story at the begining and only do you find out the background you needed at the start in the middle of the series.

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The point was that they decided to include those episodes, since some folks either don't mind recaps, or like completeness. I, for one, am glad they did include them. I'm not necessarily a fan of recap episodes, but at least you have the option of not buying them or not watching them. I think we get a little spoiled over here, being able to buy series relatively cheaply, and get them 4-5 episodes per disk.

John.

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I didnt buy or watch the recap disc. The show flows fine without it. I am glad they decided to stick them all on one DVD instead of spreading them out, that way you could either buy/watch them or not.

If anime was more expensive or limited to just a few eps per disc, alot of people would no longer collect it. I know I wouldnt be able to convince myself to pay 20 bucks for two eps.

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Good to know that I oculd have skipped it. The show still has issues with the story's pacing and how much information is disclosed. The story is interesting but I constantly feel like I missed the prologue disc.

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Alanna:

Well, anime is a privilege, not a right. It's an expensive hobby, as I should know, considering I passed 700 anime disks recently . It could be worse, though. You could be in Japan, where anime DVDs cost about the equivalent of $60 for two or three (if you're lucky) episodes. Not to mention not having any way to rent DVDs.

I watched volume one of Ergo Proxy last night. I like the visual style.

John.

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Umm, you can rent DVDs in Japan, I don't know why you'd think otherwise. I don't know if they have many Netflix-like services where you send the discs back and forth, but there are definitely local rental shops.

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And this is surprising? Maybe it's because they actually need special rental versions in order to rent something out? I don't know how often the rental versions differ from the normal DVDs but it happens. I'm not sure but I think Gungrave had an exclusive 5.1 track on the rental versions or something and the recent Mobile Suit Gundam DVDs were unremastered versions with murky colours and dot-crawl, whereas the retail DVDs looked pretty much perfect (most likely as an incentive to buy it since renting is apparently so much cheaper.)

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With that reasoning, then nothing should be reasonably priced, because its a priviledge to own anything not essential (food, clothes, housing). Bah, if anime was that expensive in the US the industry would collapse upon itself and that would be the end of it. Very few titles would get licensed and released because only the financially well-off or truly dedicated would be able to afford it. At $60 per two episodes, it would be about $350 per 13 ep series... who else would pay that? Or COULD pay that and have any sort of reasonable collection? We would end up with only a select few series, only those that are the most marketable to as many people possible would be considered for release. No niche titles like Princess Tutu, Kaliedo Star or Super Gals! (which had problems even now getting released) that's for sure... there wouldn't be enough consumers to support them. This isnt Japan and our pricing structures are totally different. What is reasonable to them pricewise is another ballgame entirely in the US.

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Alanna:

I think you missed the point that I was trying to make: that we have it pretty good over here, and that we could pay a lot more than we do*. You just have to let go of the idea that you're entitled to cheap stuff. Prices are where they are because of the market, not because someone thinks that people 'deserve' cheap consumer goods. You could replace 'anime' with 'cars', and get the same result, i.e., collecting cars is an expensive hobby, and you have to be willing to spend the money to do it.

Back to the main point of this thread, I watched volume two of Ergo Proxy this weekend. I like how this series is moving along, although I may have to go back a rewatch the last episode on the disk. I had to stay up late to do my daughter's last feeding, and I'm sure I missed about half the episode because I was falling asleep .

John.

* It should be noted that DVD and CD prices in Japan are artificially inflated due to government price controls.

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Ergo proxy gets pretty cool - although I stopped watching at around episode 13 because it appeared to have jumped the shark. I may rewatch it, and finish it, one day.

I heard that it ends well, so that is promising.

Some rumors/reports that Bluray versions of some anime will be released in Japan this year. Ghost in the Shell, the Ghost in the Shell TV series, Wings of Mayonnaise (Honneimaise? How the heck do you spell it again?), Akira, etc.

I am too lazy to post the link.

Thanks for the ongoing anime reports Alanna. I'm really behind in my anime watching. I need to watch more to get my money's worth from this online rental membership.

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Hi Guys,

Im still lurking - Max - interesting news there about blu ray, i'd have thaught they'd want to use hd-dvd... either way its a good thing

Im looking forward to seeing Ergo Proxy - just showed up in the local rental store here, although witht he slow release here in AUS it'll probably take aggeesss to finish..

Ive just finished watching Last Exile and Gasaraki both of which I really enjoyed. Ive watched the first few eps of Planetes which looks pretty interesting and is a nice change, most of these are at the local rental place so I'll probably finish Planetes off before venturing into something else

Im still hanging out for GITS Solid State Society!

Cheers,
Michael

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Michael:

Planetes is an excellent series. It's a nice departure from all the mecha/uber starship sci-fi shows.

From what I've heard, Blu-ray is pretty close to dominant in Japan.

John.