Kimi ni Todoke ~ From Me to You

At Sakura Con 2012 I went to the NIS America panel, where I drooled over their luscious limited editions of Katanagatari and Kimi ni Todoke.  The panel dealt more with new acquisitions and their criteria for selecting a series for distribution than it did going over the packaging of their releases, so I shall endeavor to do the latter for you.

I was very excited when I ordered the first box set of KimiTodo, and it felt like it took forever to get here.  Most of the excitement was due to it being the first NISA title I had purchased, rather than the content of the show itself.  Right out of the gate it's obvious that these boxsets are made for the serious collector.  Both the price point and the odd format (more on that later) reinforce this.

The set contains 4 discs: 2 DVDs and 2 Blu-Ray discs.  This first set (of three) covers episodes one through twelve.  Each disc has a cute plaid pattern on it, except for one which has Argyle for some reason.  I swear I can hear the maniacal cackling of the crazed design team who deliberately tried to irritate us OCD types.  But I digress....The bonus features are the standard clean opening and clean closing, which look breathtaking in 1080p.  I could see the roughness of the pencil/pastel lines so clearly that it is almost as though my TV had transformed into a gigantic sketchpad.  It is import to note that this release was Japanese with subtitles only.  There is no dub.

The first thing to notice about the packaging is the size.  The face of the chipboard box is 8 in x 11 in but only 1 inch thick.  Other box sets are dwarfed by comparison.  Right away the problem is where the heck is it going to go on my shelves?  My shelves are not tall enough to set it upright, and if it lays on its side it juts out from the shelf by over 5 inches!  As someone who prefers a semblance of uniformity in a collection, this does not fly.  Basically my options are to set all NISA sets on a shelf designed especially for them (which would completely throw off my alphabetization scheme!  ;_;) or try to deal with dangling dics.....  Neither option is attractive.

But what is attractive is the set itself.  The behemoth box has very attractive artwork (see below)

Side One of the box

Side Two of the box

 I will let these pictures speak for themselves.  Overall, the artwork on the packaging is consistent, in that NISA did not mix images of the anime with images from the manga the way that Geneon was wont to do.  Everything is brightly colored and there are no artifacts or flaws to be had.  The box itself is pretty heavy duty and everything fits neatly inside.

The main reason the size of the box is so large is that it has to accommodate a rather large artbook.  I am never one to complain about artbooks, but why NISA couldn't have made it similar in size to a standard DVD case escapes me.  At any rate, the artbook is hardcover (squee!) and features full color stills from the anime, as well as some background art and character art.

This is just one example of the beauty of
KimiTodo's ephemeral backgrounds.

The format of the book follows a sort of picture diary with notes from Sawako sprinkled among stills from the anime series.  That's all well and good, but I would have preferred more of the series' background images and character models to those.  The artbook clocks in at 28 pages.  It's printed on thick glossy paper and each image is crisp and clear.  Really, my scanner doesn't do it justice.  It is probably the highest quality artbook that came with a show in my entire anime colllection.

An example of a character bio.

If this set is indicative of the quality that NISA strives for in their releases, I will most definitely throw more of my paycheck at them in the future.  Every aspect of the packaging is of the highest quality.  As the price point is rather steep ($5.83 per episode at the full MSRP) I can really only recommend it to collectors or to die-hard KimiTodo fans.  For the casual collector it's a bit much.  The only major drawback is the size, and I have a feeling that most people are normal enough to be able to shrug that off.  Now I shall bid you farewell, as I have some shelves to rearrange.......

Ghibli at Costco

In Costco the other day I spotted a veritable smorgasbord of Ghibli DVDs.  Better yet, they were all priced at $12.99, considerably cheaper than for what they are going on Amazon.  I picked up Porco Rosso and Whisper of the Heart (which I have never seen).  Tales of Earthsea (a.k.a. Gedo Senki) was also there, and I thought about buying it so I could complete my Ghibli collection, but I decided not to.  That film was a disappointment.  The only redeeming thing about it is Therru's song.  But I digress....

I saw Porco Rosso 12 years ago at my college's anime club.  It was a fansub on VHS and was incredibly grainy, but since it hadn't been licensed yet that was the only way to view it.  So I squealed with delight as I made my way to the checkout line with Porco in hand.  Maybe someday someone will release it on Blu-Ray, but until then at least I have the DVD.

The other titles they had were Howl's Moving Castle  and Spirited Away, but only on DVD.

If you have a Costco nearby you may want to check and see if they are stilling carrying Ghibli movies.  I doubt that they would be cheaper anywhere else.

On a side note, there is a very interesting analysis of Porco Rosso in volume 2 of Mechademia.  Anyone who is interested in looking at anime through the lens of academia should pick up a copy.

Sweet Blue Flowers, a.k.a Aoi Hana

Aoi Hana never really made a big splash in the either the American or Japanse anime market. This is a shame, because the show is one of the few series that depicts realistic homosexual relationships, instead of just being fanservice.

So I was delighted when RightStuf announced that they were licensing the title.  RightStuf has a history of publishing very high quality box sets (The Emma, Utena, and Maria-sama box sets, to name a few) with the serious collector in mind.  Aoi Hana, however, is released under their Lucky Penny imprint.  Series that may not sell very well are released under this imprint, where there are no spiffy chipboard boxes or 100 page pamphlets with liner notes.  Although, isn't that better than not having the series available at all?  In any case, I expected something along the line of a bare bones Sentai release......

There are a total of 3 DVDs in a standard sized DVD case.  Each disc has a lovely sketch of one of the backgrounds used in the anime, and each disc has a different sketch.  The picture is printed in a light blue, giving the artwork an ephemeral quality, and the quality of the printing is remarkable.  There are no weird hexagons or color seepage, each sketch is crystal clear.

The outside of the case has a nice picture of A-chan and Fumi on both the front and the back.  Nothing special there.

I ordered my set from RightStuf's website, so I got a bonus artbook thrown in.  It's also very nice, but it's about a quarter inch bigger than the DVD case, so I can't put it in there for safe-keeping.  The artbook is only about 12 pages of heavy cardstock, and the pictures go from muted watercolor paintings reminiscent of the manga to production stills from the anime.  The artbook is listed as "while supplies last" so if you want one, order quickly!

For the price I paid, I could have done a lot worse.    This release does not seem cheap in any way.  Kudos to Nozomi / RightStuf for publishing a budget release that doesn't feel like a budget release.  I am looking forward to more overlooked series getting a treatment in this fashion.

Rozen Maiden

Rozen Maiden is a license rescue from Geneon's back catalog.  I never did get my hands on it when it first came out, so I was thrilled when Sentai Filmworks planned to distribute it here in the U.S.  Even better, Sentai released both Rozen Maiden (12 episodes), Rozen Maiden Traumend (12 episodes), and Rozen Maiden Ouverture (2 episodes) all in one set!  The icing on the cake was when I was able to snap up a copy from Right Stuf for less than half off the original price!  I had only ever ordered Angel Beats from Sentai, so I wasn't sure what to expect with this set.  Unfortunately, I am wholly disappointed. 

The series comes in a clamshell case the width of two regular DVD cases.  Not my favorite way to package anime, but it gets the job done.  Upon opening said case, I found all 5 DVDs stacked on top of one another on a single spindle on the right side of the case.  On the left side where inserts (or more discs) usually go, is a piece of Styrofoam.....Huh....  After some grumbling, I decided to take a look at the DVDs themselves.  Let me say that getting the first one off of the spindle required quite the effort.  The DVD came perilously close to breaking because the little nubs on the spindle would not let go.  In the end, I finally got the first one out but with my fingerprints all over the disc.  Then, to my horror, I saw this:

The image is corrupted, as if the device that printed the picture was misaligned or running out of ink or both.  The other discs are fine, but this one is of very poor quality, the kind of thing you expect to see from Chinese bootleg movies.

So not only are the discs impossible to remove from the case, but the discs themselves aren't that great.  I can only imagine my anger would be that much greater had I paid the full MSRP of $50 for this collection.  I don't even know if I will be able to watch this show without breaking the discs when I try to wrestle them out of the case.

If this release is indicative of the quality of Sentai's other repackaging, then I will refrain from purchasing any anime licensed by them, unless it's a must-have series and is on sale. 

Tenchi Muyo - OAV Collection

Recently I came into possession of the Blu-Ray Tenchi Muyo OAV collection.  It has all episodes from the first two OAVs, plus some omake.  The set also includes DVDs too.  The Blu-Ray discs and DVDs each have their own cases, each being the size of a standard DVD case.  Each case has different artwork on both the front and the back, though one of the art pieces looks like it comes from the disastrous Tenchi in Tokyo TV series.  Also, the disc cases have reversible covers with different artwork.  Both cases fit inside a chipboard artbox.  It thrills me to no end that none of the art on either the artbox or the cases is reused, and some of the art I hadn't seen before; at least, it wasn't art featured on the original Geneon DVDs that I bought aeons ago.

But the really cool thing is a mini artbook that fits in between the two disc cases.  It's paperback and a little smaller than a DVD case, but it contains the cast members in various poses; my favorite being the one mimicking the Return of the Jedi theatrical poster.

My husband found his copy of the Star Wars poster, and the Tenchi cast is in the exact same positions as the Star Wars cast.  One day I'd love to have both posters hanging side by side.

As for the quality of the Blu-Ray..... I have a sneaking suspicion that they are merely upscales of the DVDs and not native 1080p.  While the colors are eye-poppingly bright, the lines are not as crisp as one would expect a Blu-Ray to be.  I cannot say for certain, as the box lacks a technical grid, but Funimation has been called on upscale releases before.

All in all, it's a great set, and if you have any interest whatsoever in Tenchi Muyo, you owe it to yourself to get this boxset.

Spice is Nice

My copy of the 7th Spice and Wolf book arrived today, and I was thrilled to see that Yen Press has finally ditched those awful original covers with poorly photoshopped wolf ears on a skinny blond model.  Of course, now this means that the books won't match on the shelf, but that irritates me less than those stupid covers.

I have been meaning to review the packaging of several anime series that I got for Christmas, but I keep putting it off.  I will get to it eventually, though.

Streaming subscriptions

After the great enjoyment of subscribing to Crunchyroll, I thought I would give Funimation's streaming service a try.  After all, they have an equally large catalog, with titles that aren't available on CR, including simulcasts.  And also, I was getting really sick of the same commercials over and over.  $7.95 seemed a small price to pay to avoid soundbites from Geico, Ford, and whatever new show Hulu is trying to push.

Anyway, I signed up for the free 2 week trial, with every intention of becoming a subscriber after the 14 days were up.  But since I signed up and logged in, I haven't been able to watch anything.  If I log out the videos work (albeit with ads) but the moment I login to enjoy exclusive commercial-free content, the videos cease to function.  >_<

I really hope that they are rewriting the code for the site and that is why things are a little buggy.  Although I am not really impressed with their interface.  There really isn't a "queue" system ala Netflix and CR.  You can add shows to a favorites list, which took me a while to find (it's buried in the "my accounts" settings somewhere, not in the profile), but there isn't a button on the page that takes you instantly there.  Also, if you finish watching an episode and wish to add the show to your favorites, you have to go back to the show's main page.  If you click the favorites button on the episode page, you are merely adding the episode to your favorites, not the entire series.

Granted, CR wasn't as polished as it is now when it first came online, but even in their latent phase they were better than what Funimation currently has to offer.  I want to stick around in the hopes that Funimations's site will improve with time, but if I can't get a single video to play in the two weeks of my trial I will not.  There is no point in paying for a service that doesn't work.