Trigger - I've only seen the first FY box, but I'd say it's a pretty good show. It's not worth the $200 retail price, but you can find it a lot cheaper online. It's a shoujo anime, so it's got plenty of romance and melodrama. There's a lot of comedy also, and the characters go into super deformed mode a lot. So if you don't like that kind of style you won't like the series much. I found it to be amusing, but it does get rather repetative. I don't really know what to compare it to because I haven't seen a lot of shoujo stuff. Maybe someone else knows of a similar show?

I was lucky and borrowed it from a friend, so I knew what I was getting before I bought it. If you can, find some way to see it before you buy it. It's a lot of money wasted if you buy it and find out you don't like it. It's a good show, but I wouldn't rank it in my top ten. Then again, I'm not a huge shoujo fan either. CCS is great though. I hope some of this helped.

Fushigi Yuugi is worth what it is worth. It contains 4 discs per boxset, since each boxset holds 26 episodes (half the series). 6 episodes per DVD. So in effect, the retail value of FY is $198.98 divide 26 episodes, that makes each episode about $7.65 per episode, which is pretty good, IMHO. Of course, FY is made for those who have already seen it, not for newbie anime fans, so once you have seen it, and you like it, then the price is a no-brainer.

The OVA boxset is a continuation of the TV series, and the boxset should hold both OVA series (there were two OVA series). This, in effect, ends the TV series as well as goes along with the manga ending.

thanks for the advice - I think I'll try to find it available for rent somewhere... any chance of this going OOP?

Anybody have screens for Blood? I'm excited to see it. Also - it's been awhile - what's the latest word on Spriggan?

Trigger,

I own the Blood: The Last Vampire R2 DVD which also includes English and Japanese subtitles. I bought the Ltd. Ed. boxset of this and it is sweet. It's so worth getting.

I also own Spriggan R2 DVD as well.

"It's so worth getting"
The movie is or the ltd. ed. boxset is? I can't afford the boxset no matter how worth it it is.

I wish I could watch PAL stuff on my TV - I'd have the Spriggan DVD right now too. Any new info on the R1 release?

Trigger - The Japanese use NTSC, so you don't need to worry about PAL.

Anyone got a chance to check out Kenshin v8 yet (Ice Blue Eyes)? The Kyoto Arc finally begins and Amazon decides to hold my DVDs hostage.

Amazon just shipped mine on Saturday. Yours is probably next.

I;m still trying to find a copy of Fist Of The North Star on DVD....

Both, Trigger.

Have you seen it?

Japanese is in NTSC, not PAL.


K.C.

has anyone seen trigun volume 8 yet? mine is still being held at amazon.

Yes. It cost me $25 (instead of $17), but I finally got the 8th and final DVD with the chromimum card.

Yep, I also got the Trigun Vol. 8 awhile ago. It was hard to find someplace that had it. But it was so worth watching the whole series finally.


K.C.

I haven't seen it yet... I can't wait. So are both the Box Set for Blood and the Spriggan R2 DVD in NTSC? Where can I find such things?

Japanese R2 stuff is in NTSC (UK R2 stuff is in PAL).

The two most popular import shops for anime fans seem to be:

http://www.cdjapan.co.jp (carries almost every major DVD and CD released in Japan)
and
http://www.amotokyo.com (anime-specific, but slightly cheaper than CDJapan, and with excellent customer service).

Both should have Spriggan, and the regular film version of Blood. Finding the limited box'll be harder since it was a really limited deal.

You'll probably have to go to a place that carries used titles, like http://www.animejungle.com for that (While I've never shopped with them, Jungle's used stuff is apparently in excellent condition).

To purchase the limited edition boxset R2 DVD for Blood: TLV, Amazon.Co.Jp (Japan's Amazon) does have a few more left in stock. The only drawback, you have to know Japanese to access the page and then purchase it and be able to understand how to insert your information in the right areas. But they do have it. When I first heard they were doing DVDs and CDs finally, I jumped on to see what they had and they still have the ltd. ed. boxset for sale. So I bought one for my friend who wanted it badly (he paid me back for it). It's available, but you just have to search for it.

Actually, those of you who want to give amazon.co.jp a try should take a look at http://linear.mv.com/cgi-bin/j-e/dict ... it's a free translation service from Altavista and Babelfish that does copy and paste Japanese <-> English. The translations are crude, but translations of words like name, address, phone number, etc. are generally accurate.

On a different note ... has does anyone have the Kizuna and Fake DVD's? I'd love to hear some comments and reviews

*Cringe* I personally wouldn't recommend Fushigi Yuugi. The series drags on and on and on, and the entire time you just want to strangle Miaka and shut her up. There are some entertaining high fantasy and science fiction elements in the story, but these are spoiled by the constant relationship "trials" suffered by Miaka and Tamahome. Miaka is your typical sugar-saturated, naively idealistic (and often stupidly so) girl ... and the characters for the most part seem to me quite generic.

Sorry to all the FY fans out there ^_^; This series just didn't strike me as very appealing at all (but I did like Nuriko a lot ) I can't give away anything in the OVA without spoiling the series, but I hear that it's not too bad.

[Edited by PhoenixFlame on 07-03-01 at 12:21 PM]

Every other word out of Miaka's mouth is "Tomahome". It's amazing how little can happen in 26 episodes. This one's going on ebay.

I'd check out Escaflowne for those who are interested in the fantasy/romance genre. Hell I recommend Escaflowne for anyone who likes animation and a good plot.

My apologies if this was mentioned in the previous 3 pages.

Thanks for the links guys - but jesus... that stuff's expensive as hell - everything's like 80 bucks. I wanted to pick up Spriggan, Memories, BLood TLV Box, and Perhaps one or two others and I'd put myself in the poorhouse. What the hell? What are my alternatives? Can people in HK get stuff from Japan cheaper than I can maybe?

Is Initial D any good?

Probably not. The price you see there is Japanese retail. This is why many hardcore anime fans consider most R1 releases dirt-cheap. This is why my R2 collection consists of only 6 DVDs (4 of which fall in the 'cheap' 30-40 dollar price range); these were things I knew I wanted, and I was willing to outlay the money for.

The upshot of Japanese import DVDs is this: These things are the most well-done transfers I have ever seen. Attention is paid to detail like crazy, and Japanese companies will allocate large amounts of space to preserve picture quality. In technical terms, it's hard to beat R2 releases (The R2 Utena movie release is about 86 minutes long, on a dual-layered disc. The thing is just stunning. It also hase 48 chapter stops, and two different chapter menus (one for each stop, one for each major scene).

My advice would be to hold off on liscenced titles (Which might be harder with Blood, 'cause of the whole limited boxset thing) until you find out if the domestic releases are decent. You have to wait, but you save some serious cash.

Japan and US are really the only two viable NTSC places to get anime. Unless, of course, you go the bootleg DVD route, which I wouldn't recommend. You can occasionally get a deal on R2 stuff on e-bay, but it's rare and frequently mixed in with all the bootlegs being sold.

I've seen the first 8 episodes and I think it's great so far. It's about street racers in Japan. The only thing that bothered me at the beginning was the CG. All the car scenes are done with CG, so it was a little distracting at first. After a couple episodes though, I got used to it. If you are into cars or street racing, then you should enjoy this show. The characters are pretty good and the story is decent, but it's all about the cars. Plenty of racing and a good soundtrack to go with it. I showed this series to my roommate and he likes it and wants me to find the rest of the series. I think the reason he likes it is because one of the guys drives a black Skyline GT-R. I'd say it's worth checking out, but if you don't care anything about cars you might not find it very interesting.

Do Japanese R2 anime DVD released actually contain English subtitles as well? Or are they only available raw or with Japanese subtitles?

The Urusei Yatsura Movie 6 import DVD is on sale now at tokyopop.com ... https://www.tokyopop.com/shop/produc...?sku=pcba%2010

The regular price is $52.89 ... the sale price is only $19.99 o_O; Too bad I'm completely broke right now ... what a steal.

[Edited by PhoenixFlame on 07-04-01 at 07:55 PM]

Most titles do not have English subtitles (But if you have a region-free DVD-ROM you can usually use DVDSubber and fanscripts), but some do. The most well-known are:

Memories
FLCL 2-6 (Volume 1 doesn't have subtitles)
Ghibli Stuff (Kiki's Delivery Service (poss. dubtitled), My Neighbors the Yamadas, etc.)
Blood: The Last Vampire

You can find the full list at http://www.animeondvd.com/reviews/re..._2_english.htm