アニメ Republic

As I mentioned back in the October listing I had picked up the first volume of the new MS Igloo series on Blu-ray rather than on DVD. Therefore my Bandai Visual USA MS Igloo DVDs would not fit in the box as I had planned. Blu-ray is great and all don’t get me wrong, but since this release was in Japanese with no English subtitles, it was more about the packaging.

I have since rectified that issue with the same volume 1 of the second MS Igloo series on DVD with box that nicely hold Bandai Visual USA’s two volume release of the first series plus this first volume of the second series. All is now well in box land.

I’ll hang onto the Blu-ray version as well, just on the extreme off chance that Bandai Entertainment USA will release the new series under their Honneamise line (formerly Bandai Visual USA) in Blu-ray (or at all for that matter). It’s still a cool box after all.

Anyhow, off to Anime LA!

Enjoy!!

Anime LA starts this Friday (Pre-reg pick up will begin on Thursday night for those who arrive early). Of course be sure to check out the Anime Video Room while at the con. I have a lot of cool stuff planned on the schedule, plus a number of “interesting” items that may show up after hours.

Enjoy!!

Coming in as probably the lightest month to date, I have posted the item (yes, item) for November.

And while it is a light month, it also brings the next volume in the Ikki Tousen Great Guardians DVD series bringing us up to volume 3. This volume comes with the same type of mini-poster as previous volumes, plus two more postcards and also a new pencil board. The DVD cover also has a reversible cover featuring the same image as the pencil board.

Perhaps a little more to come next month.

Enjoy!!

Recently I have been tracking down various anime titles that never made the jump to DVD nor had they been released on Laserdisc. These poor lost souls languish in the forgotten abyss we know as VHS.

Some of these are more common than others and can be found in places like eBay or Amazon marketplace among other locations. Others however are rather rare and can reach prices equaling or surpassing their original retail price, in some cases by a significant amount. I was recently outbid on two Galaxy Express 999 movies release back in the day by VIZ. These were the English dubbed versions of the two films. The subtitled version can be found on DVD by way of a Korean R3 (legit as far as I have been told) release at a fairly decent price. The two VHS tapes eventually went for $57.00 and $26.00 for the first and second movies respectively. Since I already picked up the subtitled versions on DVD, I didn’t go overboard for these.

Here are a few other examples of rare and hard to find VHS releases. Sol Bianca 1 and 2 never made it to DVD in the US (a edited version was released in the UK some years ago) and while the first OVA did manage to get a laserdisc release by then AD Vision Inc., the second OVA only ever had a VHS release. Complier is another title that would probably sell okay if released on DVD, but for now we only have them on VHS (in this case the English dubbed versions). I managed to track down all three volumes of the original release of Dangaio released at the time by the late great US Renditions.

The folks at ADV and Right Stuf/Nozomi have recently been making some ground in releasing older titles on DVD with such titles as Guy, Princess Minerva and Toward the Terra the movie (which did get a laserdisc release though). However they each have a number of other titles that are still all but forgotten now and seem to be permanently relegated to VHS. I picked up both the subtitled and English dubbed versions of Leda – The Fantastic Adventures of Yohko from (at the time just) The Right Stuf. Also included in this grouping are AI City and Lily C.A.T. (from Streamline Pictures). Twin Dolls from AD Vision is another title released in two volumes under the old Softcel Pictures label. Also in that group is a rather cool ‘old school’ OVA consisting of three separate stories entitled The Cockpit released by Urban Vision. This is another of the titles that had sub-par DVD release in Europe.

And leading the pack in hardest to find and most expensive has to be Super Deformed Double Feature released only on VHS by AnimEigo. This title consists of two “Super Deformed” type parody shows called Ten Little Gall Force and Scramble Wars (featuring cast and characters from the Bubblegum Crisis series among others. Of course who can forget the famous (??) one and only English dubbing attempt of Urusei Yatsura entitled Those Obnoxious Aliens? This one was also released by AnimEigo and never saw the light of day after that.

There are plenty of others of course. I am still looking for a few to fill in the gaps on my list. As more arrive from the hunt I will post updates of the more notable titles. Not to mention if any of these do end up getting a DVD release at some point.

Enjoy!!

Well I finally got around to adding the rest of the stuff that came in October. I was on a roll there for a while too. Oh well. And for all that wait, not too much to show. Only two items this month.

First up is the latest release of Ikki Tousen Great Guardians. This is volume two and comes with a couple of postcards, pencil board and poster. I really should finish watching Dragon Destiny sometime soon.

The other item this month is the Blu-ray release for the second MS IGLOO OVA series. I really dropped the ball on this one as I had planned to get it for the box (which holds three discs) and put the two Bandai Visual US DVDs in it and all would be perfect. Except I ordered the Blu-ray. And Blu-ray, while cool and all, come in smaller cases and thus a smaller box. So it does kind of suck to be me. I think I will try and hunt down the DVD version on Yahoo!Japan auctions at some point and then sell the Blu-ray (maybe).

More sooner I hope.

Enjoy!!