The anime thread sequel (it's still not as good as the Manga though),

Alexrose1uk said:
Yes these are my outstanding discs to be watched that I had sectioned off to be watched and then sold/kept dependent on impact: :)

Given how much is available to stream these days, I haven't bought much in the way of anime on disc for years; but I do still have remnants of a sizeable collection I'd been slowly going through and eliminating over the last few years as simply put it took up too much space. A lot of it is now gone (for example I at one point had all the Wolfs Rain singles), but I had stalled a lot the last couple of years and the above had been sitting unwatched on my shelves for years, due to a combination of time; other hobbies, and also just how much is available to stream these days via Netflix, Amazon, CR and the likes.

Once the above list gets sorted (one way or the other); everything I have left will be personal favourites, or shows that left an impact on me for example:
Spice and Wolf 1+2
FMP 1,2,3
Welcome to the NHK
Beck
Elfen Lied
Kanon
Chrono Crusade
Toradora

etc.
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Understood, I kind of work back to front, I'll download whatever I want to watch but if I truly like something I'll try and buy it, saves me buying stuff I then have to sell later.

I was considering if a CR sub was good enough by itself alongside my amazon sub, but I thought better to buy the BR's for the ones I like. Spent about £700 since November last year which is a lot, but a lot of it's back fill for stuff like FMA, Death Note etc.

Keeping my eyes peeled for new CE editions coming up in particular, got Konosuba S2 CE, Violet Evergarden CE, Fate UBW CE on order.

I saw Your Name but £35 for a singular film is probably a bit much, I'm OK with £35 for a 12 episode series CE for something I like, but for one film, as much as I like Your Name, not convinced personally. For £25 or so for that I'd probably have just bitten.

I quite enjoyed S&W but sad no season 3 came, season 2 ended pretty badly imo. Elfen Lied was good but had to go to manga for the ending, Toradora was good (I watched it on a reddit/r/anime watch around Christmas).
 
If you like S&W then definately check out the light novels; they are even better (albeit the show IS good!)

Season 2 basically finished part way through a story arc so yeah wasn't ideal it didn't get S3, still undoubtedly my favourite anime/light novel property by a long shot, and I have all of the light novels (although not started on the sequel series), some artwork canvas, some of the manga, dvd, bd, and the collectors edition LN compilation hardback and Japanese artbooks haha :)

Nowadays I mostly do what you do, stream/download whatever I want to watch and then potentially pickup a disc release of anything that really stuck with me, 5-10 years ago discs made a lot more sense in terms of availability; as back then it was really disc or fansub, streaming wasn't really big for anime at that points. Now so much is available, that disc only really feels necessary for favourites or properties I really want to support.
 
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Alexrose1uk said:
If you like S&W then definately check out the light novels; they are even better (albeit the show IS good!)

Season 2 basically finished part way through a story arc so yeah wasn't ideal it didn't get S3, still undoubtedly my favourite anime/light novel property by a long shot :)

Nowadays I mostly do what you do, stream/download whatever I want to watch and then potentially pickup a disc release of anything that really stuck with me, 5-10 years ago discs made a lot more sense in terms of availability; as back then it was really disc or fansub, streaming wasn't really big for anime at that points. Now so much is available, that disc only really feels necessary for favourites or properties I really want to support.
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I don't normally mind flipping to manga for a bit to get an end to an anime with no end (Girls' Last Tour for instance) but light novels probably not so much.

Have you seen Rising of the Shield Hero? It's an isekai so may or may not be up your street, but Raphtalia x Naofumi is the closest thing I've come across that mirrors the Holo x Lawrence experience. Neither are strict romance shows but I can definitely draw parallels in them.
 
The light novels are fully translated (and generally translated very well including turns of speech etc), so if you liked the anime, you WILL enjoy the books. Just saying, especially now as they finished translating them a few years ago, and its easy to get some of them at reduced price :)
From memory the manga also progresses past the ending of the show.

Not seen Rising of the Shield Hero, I'll have to add it to my list if it hits a similar vibe (I don't mind Isekai when its done well).
 
Alexrose1uk said:
The light novels are fully translated (and generally translated very well including turns of speech etc), so if you liked the anime, you WILL enjoy the books. Just saying, especially now as they finished translating them a few years ago, and its easy to get some of them at reduced price :)
From memory the manga also progresses past the ending of the show.

Not seen Rising of the Shield Hero, I'll have to add it to my list if it hits a similar vibe (I don't mind Isekai when its done well).
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IMO it's one of the better isekais out there, I've not seen lots of them but I'd put it up there with things like Overlord & Tanya, it's first cour in particular was really well done.
 
I'm tempted to order "your name 4k" but I'm on the fence as back in June 2019 I order the "Warehouse Clearance Mystery Blu-ray Bundle" off ATA and one of the title's in it was "your name blu-ray steelbook" so can't decide should I or shouldn't I order it.
 
HungryHippos said:
IMO it's one of the better isekais out there, I've not seen lots of them but I'd put it up there with things like Overlord & Tanya, it's first cour in particular was really well done.
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It appears this one is on Funimation. Sony are meant to be doing a 104 free day trial for PS owners getting new Funi accounts from 25th March, so will probably check it out then :)
 
I just saw that Discotek in the US have found one of the fabled relics of 80's Anime, the long lost Project AKO film masters.
I'm now desperately hoping that ATA will get the licence for a UK release using them, as it's one of the first anime I saw back in the day but the only copies that have been available to buy for ~25 years have been based off old analogue tapes, and IIRC the old DVD's were mastered very early in the digital era IIRC using composite interconnects* and look pretty terrible even compared to some of the other DVD's of the time (let alone later DVD's made from better masters).

That was one hell of a surprise to read, the film masters had been lost for so long I think they were believed to have been destroyed, but it seems that Robert Woodhead of Animeigo noticed a possible typo or something in some documents whilst he was hunting for the film masters of Madox for their new upcoming kickstarter (yet another one I'll end up backing).

I'm really oddly excited by the news :)



Another new release is Rosario + Vampire which MVM are releasing here on blu-ray, and have as their pre-order deal of the week for £30, which includes both seasons.
I'm probably going to order it as I remember the series being really fun when I watched it 15 years ago and I was thinking about it the other day (I found a keychain I'd received with an MVM order of one of the characters).

*As opposed to RGB/Component which gave much better results, similar to what you could see if you used a DVD player with cheap composite only scarts vs the same player/disc/tv with RGB scart.
 
Werewolf said:
Another new release is Rosario + Vampire which MVM are releasing here on blu-ray, and have as their pre-order deal of the week for £30, which includes both seasons.
I'm probably going to order it as I remember the series being really fun when I watched it 15 years ago and I was thinking about it the other day (I found a keychain I'd received with an MVM order of one of the characters).
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Has it been that long? I remember watching Rosario as it came out, was a bit gutted that it only got two seasons and left so much hanging.

Speaking of 4K remasters of content, or the lack of, I'm actually tempted to pick up an old CRT tv for the spare room for retro stuff like games and watching older stuff. Trying to watch really old animation especially on a big 4K tv just looks horrible, I tried watching Legend of the Dragon Kings (one of the first anime I saw, back on Channel 4 in the early hours -- I used to sneak up to watch stuff like that and the Devil Man OVA's, 3x3 Eyes etc) and I just couldn't get away with it on my TV.
 
You're right, it's only about 9 years, but it seems like a lot longer - I think at some point in the last 5 years I've lost all track of time :p (not just last year but I pretty much lost 2 years completely out of the last 5-8).

Gray unfortunately a lot of old content looks poor on modern screens, sitting a bit further away/using a smaller screen or playing with some of the settings on the screen can help, I've been surprised at how well some of my old DVD's have stood up to being watched in a 40" 4k screen, but I'm watching from about 3 meters away most of the time.
One of the reasons I'm unduly excited about project AKO (and a few others) is that some of the older ones were really subpar even for the time, IIRC about half my relatively few CPM DVD's were quite poorly done - I think they had a host of issues with things like sound from one audio track bleeding into the other, reversed audio (the solution swap your speaker cables round) etc ;)
 
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Werewolf said:
I just saw that Discotek in the US have found one of the fabled relics of 80's Anime, the long lost Project AKO film masters.
I'm now desperately hoping that ATA will get the licence for a UK release using them, as it's one of the first anime I saw back in the day but the only copies that have been available to buy for ~25 years have been based off old analogue tapes, and IIRC the old DVD's were mastered very early in the digital era IIRC using composite interconnects* and look pretty terrible even compared to some of the other DVD's of the time (let alone later DVD's made from better masters).

That was one hell of a surprise to read, the film masters had been lost for so long I think they were believed to have been destroyed, but it seems that Robert Woodhead of Animeigo noticed a possible typo or something in some documents whilst he was hunting for the film masters of Madox for their new upcoming kickstarter (yet another one I'll end up backing).

I'm really oddly excited by the news :)



Another new release is Rosario + Vampire which MVM are releasing here on blu-ray, and have as their pre-order deal of the week for £30, which includes both seasons.
I'm probably going to order it as I remember the series being really fun when I watched it 15 years ago and I was thinking about it the other day (I found a keychain I'd received with an MVM order of one of the characters).

*As opposed to RGB/Component which gave much better results, similar to what you could see if you used a DVD player with cheap composite only scarts vs the same player/disc/tv with RGB scart.
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It's very cool when something thought lost makes a comeback, especially if they can be used to release a newer and better quality version, makes re-watching such things ever more worthwhile.
 
I watched High Ride Invasion on Netflix which was fairly good, I'd like to see a second season but it's not one i'd buy on physical disc unless the price was right, currently watching The Wandering Witch and a bit stalled on Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust (it's not quite jelling with my current mood so i'm about an hour in).

I got an email from mvm earlier saying my copy of konosuba S2 has shipped so that should be fun in a few days :) I also received my copy of Children of the Sea yesterday from ATA.
 
Ohh nice my copy of Konosuba S2 should be shipping from ATA soon then!

I have a friend who said they received two copies of Children of the Sea the other day, thing is they didn't even remember ordering it. I am actually slightly concerned for them!

I need to do an update post here soon on what I've been watching lately. Not seen High Rise invasion, Wandering Witch, or Vampire Hunter D myself.

Deal of the week at MVM is Garden of Sinners, which I do want, but has been cheaper at Amazon tbh. https://www.anime-on-line.com/2964-Deal-of-the-Week
 
The forgetting you've ordered something is exactly why I keep a spread sheet with them on!

It also helps with remember which ones have arrived...I spent about an hour looking for Children of the sea a few weeks back before I remembered it hadn't shipped! :p
 
I think he's just incredibly forgetful! ordering it twice is crazy especially if completely forgetting.

I was hoping a couple of things would get a bit cheaper on Amazon as I have a £7 promo to spend before the weekend is out and it expires. But their CE's are often more expensive than MVM or ATA to begin with.

Might have to buy something else :D
 
Update as I close out the week.

Finished:
  • Akame ga Kill! - This wasn't perfect but it was better than I thought it was going to be. Two main issues really with it were over-explaining and lack of actual assassin content. It suffered from having the characters explain their abilities rather than just showing them. Not much assassination content for a group of assassins, although Chelsea was a good addition and added that back in. Ending was kind of forgettable but it could have been worse. I love Esdeath and would watch a whole season dedicated to whatever shenanigans she was up to.
  • From the New World (shinsekai yori) - This was a really good show in the end, artwork was definitely a bit below par for me, but it usually looked alright, and the story was very good/interesting. Highly recommend if anyone wants a dystopian sci-fi mystery.
  • Revue Starlight - Well produced and the art looks great, I am just not sold on the story. If I want CGDCT then I think something like New Game is more up my alley.
  • Tokyo Ghoul - I actually thought this was pretty good in the end, it wasn't winning any awards for using your brain to think, but it was decent. Season 2 onwards apparently a waste of time so I am stopping at the end of season 1. MC was a bit of a wet blanket, but I suppose any random person thrown into their situation might be.
Continuing:
  • A Place Further Than the Universe - About 50% of the way in. I like it, but it's a bit slow for me maybe? I don't think I would seek to own it/buy it, but so far it's a fairly interesting watch.
  • Ascendance of a Bookworm - At least I can say this is better than the previous isekais I tried. I would say this is somewhere mid-way between something like Overlord and Smartphone quality wise. The story is fairly interesting but the quality of the art really lets the side down, it looks quite basic to me, which is a shame. Maybe it was just budgetary constraints. If this had the same sort of art quality as something like Villainess then I'd be enjoying it more than I am. So far it's not made me want to quit watching though.
  • Land of the Lustrous - This is a lot better than I thought it was going to be so far, the world and the OST are really good, and the art is beautiful to look at. I would buy a copy if I saw one come up at a good price.
  • Psycho Pass - Too early really to pass judgement, but I like the dystopian sci-fi world they are in, and I'm keen to see more of this to get a better opinion.
Planning to watch (short list - roughly in order probably. Bold = starting imminently):
  • Vinland Saga
  • The Devil Is a Part-Timer!
  • SSSS.GRIDMAN
  • School-Live!
  • Great Pretender
  • Jormungand
  • Jujutsu Kaisen
  • Hyouka
  • GATE
  • Akudama Drive
 
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