The all things Anime related thread.

[Neil79]

Bleach Movie 4 The Hell Verse
japanese, no english subtitles

First raw is out

 

[memyselfandi]

So as long as it's below the £18 you won't incur and import tax? I have ordered a K-On 2cd album for a bargain £6 so was wondering whether to need to pay at all on top.

As long as item + shipping < £18 then you should be ok.

Fingers crossed it'll be marked as both gift (instead of merch) and book.

Still we shall see. Fedex may be bad it sounds like with invoicing, but at least I'll have the item soon.

With the bills I received from them you got several pages including the summary letter of what you owe and another sheet with the vendor invoice on one side and the customs calculations on the other. It was these calculations where most of the problems were normally with a common theme being that they would take across the total from the vendor page (which included shipping) as just the item cost and then make up a shipping cost on top of that which was then added and calculations performed on it. This does mean that it's easy to challenge as the evidence of that the shipping cost is not correct is found (usually) in the vendor invoice straight away ... and quite often they will waive their handling charge if you get a bit ansy with them over their mistake.

****
In regards to the Spice and Wolf 2 audio, I've just had a quick listen and I do think the critic was making too much of a fuss over what's not a massive deal.

I've only taken a quick look at the first few minutes of the Ep 00 OVA (viewed on a PS3 for reference).

The dialogue in the English dub is focused on the centre speaker, rather than to the individual speakers, but I've heard that before, as the centre speaker is typically used as a dialogue speaker, in the JP dub I'll admit the audio does sound like the dialogue may be mono, so it's a bit lazy, but clarity is fine so it's not a deal killer.

In regards to relative volume levels, it didn't seem that different to what I was expecting really; the JP dub might be slightly quieter than the english dub, but it's not massively so having switched between the two, although obviously it could be exacerbated by different speaker setups and different volume levels. In terms of the dialogue running too hot; I still found I could hear the background music fine whilst listening to the english audio track.

I thought the music and other bits and pieces might be stereo but not entirely sure as I'm not sure if it's my ears playing tricks on me or not. It's focused, like the dialogue, on the centre speaker in the English version, and on the L/R on the JP.

All in, the mix's perhaps a little lazy, but not something I instantly would have gone mad about or perhaps even instantly have picked up without specifically listening to the audio critically and looking for certain things; certainly there's no problem with the actual clarity which is my main focus with this sort of media.

That's good to hear (sic) ... it'll be an upstairs series for me so a headphones job so I'll have to see what it sounds like to me when mine shows up.

Finished season 1 of Spice and Wolf on BD earlier. Nice watch. I don't think I have actually got around to watching season 2 yet so I'll leave that until the BD arrives.

 

[Neil79]

The new bleach movie looks seriously cool from the raw, can't wait till it's subbed should be this week

 

[demonix]

Fingers crossed it'll be marked as both gift (instead of merch) and book.

If it's marked as a book then there's nothing to worry about since books are exempt from any taxes (since books are exempt from VAT)

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Well, we've yet to see, I guess it depends on just how bad Fedex are

CDJapan despatched today so I can test Fedex's speed now at least haha

@andi, let me know what you think on the S2 S&W Blurays when they arrive.
On my setup the sound is clear, even if some of the audio appears mono and the mix is lazy, I'd be interested to see what you think using headphones rather than a speaker setup.

I could be desensitised by the fact I've probably seen too many shows where half the time the actual dialogue itself seems centred/mono anyway!

 

[Werewolf]

I would suggest getting it as quickly as possible since if this is a error in the masters then it will be likely that funimation will be in the process of getting new masters made which will have the correct region coding.

And that's just got me ordering it
I've also ordered Gokusen as it's cheap and looks fun (I tend to buy at least two things at a time from TRSI to offset the postage a little).

I finished watching Bubblegum Crisis (original) last night, which is still very good imo, even though it's 20 years years old
Part of it is the music, which is oddly toe tappingly enjoyable (and to my shame, I must confess I found myself singing along* to bits of some of the songs, especially on the music videos).

I've made a start on Wagnaria which is looking like it could be fun.


*Badly from what I've been told in the past (I'm banned from singing along to the radio in the car when others are in it...), and going by how the dog jumped off the bed and demanded to be let out of the room.

 

[memyselfandi]

And that's just got me ordering it
I've also ordered Gokusen as it's cheap and looks fun (I tend to buy at least two things at a time from TRSI to offset the postage a little).

I finished watching Bubblegum Crisis (original) last night, which is still very good imo, even though it's 20 years years old
Part of it is the music, which is oddly toe tappingly enjoyable (and to my shame, I must confess I found myself singing along* to bits of some of the songs, especially on the music videos).

I've made a start on Wagnaria which is looking like it could be fun.


*Badly from what I've been told in the past (I'm banned from singing along to the radio in the car when others are in it...), and going by how the dog jumped off the bed and demanded to be let out of the room.

lol

I do prefer the original Bubblegum Crisis to the 2040 series ...

 

[ANDARIAL]

My Angel Beats BR set arrived yesterday morn,so spent the afternoon and part of the evening watching
The DTS sound was an improvement over the version i previously had
Must try to justify to myself a new HDMI amp sometime
Quality was not as big an improvement as i was expecting though .Not bad but i was expecting a sharper more vibrant picture,I guess the other version was very well done and tweaked
One bit of a disappointment was the lack of the alternate ending ,bit of a cheap company not to have included that on the BR set
It is only a few mins long too,although i vaguely remember it being said that it was not included on the BR set but is on the DVD set?( might have been on here)
Then late last night made a start on Magnitude 8.0 ,been wanting to start this for a while,on ep3 atm and I am liking it so far
edit:
Now it is the 2040 series i like better than the 2038 one myself,love the soundtrack for such an old animé

 

[memyselfandi]

I really liked Magnitude 8.0 but it is a series which you can only really watch once due to the way the plot goes.

Got a couple of packages this morning ... OP, ED and OST for Usagi Drop. The OP is the special edition so has the music video DVD which is quite amusing

 

[SkeeterUK]

Watching Durarara!! atm, its quite a cool layed back anime, got the voice out of mushi anime in it too which was cool, i think a few other famous ones in too. Story gets a bit disjointed but i think its intentional as it has multiple stories at once kinda.

 

[ANDARIAL]

Just finished Tokyo Magnitude 8.0
Got to say I did not expect that ending,I liked the series but as andi said above I think it is probably a one watch (Not going to say any more so as not to spoil it for others)

 

[Werewolf]

I'm up to Episode 6 of Wagnaria and really enjoying it, I keep laughing away at different bits
It's also got me doing somehting that I tend not to do much these days, actually giving it 100% of my attention whilst watching it (it's dragged me away from the PC).


On an interesting licensing note, according to the ANN Aus twitter feed Madman have just announced they have the rights to the Patlabor TV series and OVA's.
What's interesting about it is:
A: It's been OOP in the states since CPM went bust.
B: It's a very old title

I can only imagine that one of the US companies may have rescued it, but which one? If I had to place a bet, it would be on Nozomi as they tend to go after niche titles, and aren't afraid of classic anime - as can be shown by their Dirty Pair TV, and recent announcements of the DP Flash/movies, and Nadesico.

Whatever happens, if the report is accurate, I'm pleasantly stunned as it's a great series, especially if the films also get rereleased (I still don't regret buying the very expensive Patlabor 1 and 2 releases with the books and boxes).

 

[memyselfandi]

I would like the Patlabor non-movie elements ... I missed the CPM releases but have the nice movie boxes and although I don't normally go for "older" anime I did find them very enjoyable.

I liked Wagnaria too but I do feel that they could have done a bit more with it ... it will be interesting to see if we see further R1 releases.

 

[BeanBandit]

On an interesting licensing note, according to the ANN Aus twitter feed Madman have just announced they have the rights to the Patlabor TV series and OVA's.
What's interesting about it is:
A: It's been OOP in the states since CPM went bust.
B: It's a very old title

I can only imagine that one of the US companies may have rescued it, but which one? If I had to place a bet, it would be on Nozomi as they tend to go after niche titles, and aren't afraid of classic anime - as can be shown by their Dirty Pair TV, and recent announcements of the DP Flash/movies, and Nadesico.

Whatever happens, if the report is accurate, I'm pleasantly stunned as it's a great series, especially if the films also get rereleased (I still don't regret buying the very expensive Patlabor 1 and 2 releases with the books and boxes).

I missed the TV series/OAV's on DVD (had some of them on imported VHS) just never seemed to get round to ordering them. So i will more than likely get them ordered as soon as i see them up for pre-order. I may have to go watch all 3 films now

Then go watch the original Bubblegum Crisis, haven't watched that in a while now.

 

[Demoniser]

Not been watching much lately, apart from catching up on what's airing.

Stein's Gate is still going strong imo, and i'm wondering how things are going to be resolved in the end.

Usagi Drop is still great to watch, nice and easy to follow with some great characters.

Nichijou i find to be hit and miss, i usually love most of the skits that involve the main trio, hakase and sakamoto. Unfortunately, the side characters can be incredibly dull. I skipped past the first five minutes of the latest episode because i found it dull.

Hanasaku Iroha has gone downhill imo, very fast. It just seems to be going through the motions now, and it hasn't really gripped me for a few weeks.

On another note, does anyone know where you can pick up original Japanese Manga or Light Novels within the UK for a reasonable price? Not the english translated stuff, but the original Japanese.

 

[ANDARIAL]

@andi-only 1 chapter left of Vol 28
Finished off a baseball animé called cross game that I have been working on during my vacation
I though that it was older than it actually was. only a few years old.Seem to me to be from the 90`s.Style of drawing etc.
Nothing really special about it but it was one of those that just `clicked` with me,the ending ,while not bad,did not live up to my expectations,really needs a movie or at least a few ova`s to tie it off completely
Re Nichijou,did not like this when I first tried it,but I persevered and am finding it ok now,i need to be in the right frame of mind for it sometimes i start to watch an episode and give up only to return a few days later to restart and enjoy it

 

[memyselfandi]

Usagi Drop is still great to watch, nice and easy to follow with some great characters.

I'm liking Usagi Drop ... it's very character driven with little in the way of complex plot but it just nice and relaxing to watch ....

Nichijou i find to be hit and miss, i usually love most of the skits that involve the main trio, hakase and sakamoto. Unfortunately, the side characters can be incredibly dull. I skipped past the first five minutes of the latest episode because i found it dull.

Nichijou is in my "to watch once it's finished" pile ... although I have seen the first few episodes and it didn't really click at all with me.

Hanasaku Iroha has gone downhill imo, very fast. It just seems to be going through the motions now, and it hasn't really gripped me for a few weeks.

Don't agree with this ... I would say that the second half of the series hasn't been quite as good as the first half but I am still finding it really good ... particularly now with questions over the inns future.

On another note, does anyone know where you can pick up original Japanese Manga or Light Novels within the UK for a reasonable price? Not the english translated stuff, but the original Japanese.

I know the Japan Centre in London has a selection but I don't know what they'll be like price wise. Tried the popular auction site? I've normally done quite well getting stuff directly from sellers in Japan directly on there. Trouble is that whilst manga appears to be generally pretty cheap in Japan it will have to have been shipped over here at some point which adds significantly to the price.

 

[SkeeterUK]

Watched that dur show and was pretty cool but ending sucked a bit also they didnt tie up the ends so a 2nd season probably might be on the cards.

Watching Nanaka 6/17 now, while i didnt like it when i watched a ep awhile ago i am finding it more enjoyable since im into the high school slice of life stuff atm.

 

[saitrix]

I must say Nichijou improves, mainly after episode 6 it started to make sense and be funny in my opinion.

Werewolf, On a side note I don't understand how people can enjoy watching something whilst being on a pc. Maybe I can't multitask very well but I always like to give what I'm watching my 100% attention and get annoyed if I can't.

 

[Neil79]