Anime Review Roundup

Good News Bad News Situation

It’s been a while since we had one of these, but the confluence of the stars has resulted in both good and bad anime karma for the start of the week. The good news came from MVM, who after being outed on Amazon, confirmed that they will be releasing the absolutely fantastic Eccentric Family on Collector’s Edition Blu-ray in a similar arrangement with NISA that they used for A Lull in the Sea.

The bad news came for Manga UK customers, who eagerly received their Naruto Shippuden Collection 21 today, only to find that disc 2 of the collection didn’t work. You can’t blame me. When the check discs come in, I stick them in the player, see if they start, check that they play, the audio options and subtitles are there, and if there’s a whopper of a flub, report back to the PR company/distro about it. But all my players are region free for DVD, and it doesn’t occur to me to check a disc’s region coding. And it turned out that Disc 2 was locked to Region 4. So we’re waiting on Manga UK for a statement...

And while I was typing, Manga have enacted a replacement programme for the release.

At least there’s no such problem with my first (and only) review of the week, One Piece Collection 11... touch wood. It’s the continuation of the Water Seven arc, that sees the Straw Hat Pirates face their toughest challenge yet. The previous collection saw the pirates driven apart by internal strife, and betrayal from one of their own, and these episodes follow on with the consequences of that, as they learn just what opponents they are facing, and the truth behind that betrayal. If Collection 10 was all character drama, Collection 11 brings us back to the action, as the Straw Hats go to rescue one of their own from the clutches of the tyrannical World Government.

The second review of the week comes from Stuart McLean, who took a look at A Lull in the Sea: Part 1 on DVD. I had it all planned, as MVM’s release schedule had the Blu-ray coming out first, so I would get to see the HD goodness before Stuart’s review of the DVD. But anime schedules being the slippery eels that they are, A Lull in the Sea’s Blu-ray Collector’s Edition has slipped and slipped again so it’s now coming out after Part 2 on DVD. So now I’m a little jealous that he got to see this utterly imaginative fantasy tale first (although I did see it on Crunchyroll). It’s a coming of age story with a difference, where the children from an underwater world have to go to school in a village above the ocean.

This Week I’ve Been Mostly Rewatching...

Mahoromatic Season 1. It’s the old school Gainax show that has a combat android named Mahoro retire from her job fighting aliens to go and be a maid to an orphan named Suguru. It starts off as a silly, saucy comedy, with a whole lot of fan service, and nudity, and a fair bit of goofiness, and it’s full of likeable, daft characters, although the one awkward cultural oddity would be the busty teacher who’s determined to ‘break in’ her student. And then it all goes a little Gainax at the end, dark, dramatic and meaningful. In any other show, the tonal shift would be a killer, but Mahoromatic just about pulls it off, if you're in the mood for such a thing (and then it does it again for the second season).

This is an odd one. Mahoromatic Season 1 came out in the UK originally from ADV, and is long since out of print and deleted, although second hand copies are available online. Long after this, MVM licensed the OVA and the Second Season, and you can still get them brand new. But if you want Mahoromatic Season 1 brand new on DVD, you’ll have to import it from the US, where Sentai Filmworks re-released it.

We’re getting to that point in the month where all the releases bunch up, and where I’ll probably fall behind with the reviews again. Anyway, Manga Entertainment release One Piece Collection 11 today on DVD, and MVM release A Lull in the Sea: Part 1 on DVD as well. The Collector’s Edition Blu-ray has slipped to September at this point.

Your Opinions and Comments

In this day and age, region locks should be finished up with, as its a total waste of time considering most DVDs can be or made region free. Otherwise I could not see a lot of the Japanese DVDs that I have seen.

A big problem I also find with Anime videos is sound.
I have the updated DVD of 'Laputa flying Island' my favorite Japanese fiim by Ghimli studios and have problems getting music and English voiceover together, and it takes ages messing around with the sound options to get there.

Plus they made the cardinal sin of changing the actors English voiceovers when going from VHS tape to DVD, after being used for years with the origonal English version cast actors. Why do they do this, grrrr!

In fact I tend to still watch the VHS tape, and hope to get it put into DVD format this year down at a high street shop that does this, before the tape erodes.

posted by bandicoot on 14/8/2015 06:07

Totally agree about the Region lock thing. The globalised economy is only globalised for the corporations, not the customer (having just had an Australian import held for ransom by Parcelfarce for £13 handling fees on top of VAT). They want you to buy your £20 DVD from the UK, not the £5 equivalent from Korea. I assume when you talk about Japanese DVDs you mean from the US.

Japan is actually in Region 2 for DVD, and while it may be Region A for Blu-ray, all of Japan's domestic releases are so much more expensive than anywhere else, they never bother with Region locks (See my review for Fate/Zero for some idea of the difference in prices).

The dub thing can be a pain I agree. The thing is that the English dub track for an anime is usually owned by the studio that dubbed it, and when it comes to re-releases, if a new company gains the rights to the show or movie, they have to negotiate with the original dub studio for the use of their dub, or record a new one themselves. Laputa was originally dubbed by Streamline pictures, but when Disney got the Ghibli films, they opted for higher profile actors for their releases.

posted by Jitendar Canth on 14/8/2015 12:28