アニメ Republic

The December 2008 batch of items brings a close to the year. It’s another small but rather notable grouping this time around. Here is a quick group shot of the DVDs, CD, and Blu-ray for this round.

Leading the charge of course is the latest volume in the Ikki Tousen Great Guardians series. Volume 4 comes with a box (yes, I did get two. It’s me after all) to house the remaining volumes in the series (4-6) plus all the standard goodies such as two more postcards, a new pencil board, reversible cover (same image as the pencil board), booklet and mini poster.

The best thing about this volume in my opinion has to be the bonus CD that comes with the DVD. This CD has a fairly large number of pre-sized wallpapers from all three series (IT, IT: DD & IT: GG) plus several screen saver apps (install is in Japanese, but it’s pretty easy to figure out. Hint: rename the file first before trying to run the install) as well as a bunch of character icons. I have already loaded up one of the screen savers, applied one of the wallpapers and tried out a few of the icons. Not truly that big of a deal, but if you want to jazz up your desktop with a bunch of Ikki Tousen theme items; it’s the way to go.

Next up is the fifth volume for Macross Frontier. This is the Blu-ray edition and comes with a box (no, I only got one) to house the first five volumes (Blu-ray) of the series. I picked up the first volume of this series just to check it out and then picked up volume two because of the first press “pins” that came with it (unfortunately those turned out to be less the stellar). This is as far as I’ll go with this series for now unless they release a later volume with another box. I know the series will not get picked up in R1 land, but since the JP releases do not have any English access I really can’t justify it past a couple of “just to check it out” volumes.

Moving happily along is the CD/DVD combo for the new Ichigo Marshmallow OVA series. The CD is for the OP/ED songs and the DVD has the OP/ED credit less animations. I’ll probably pick up this OVA series when it starts as it is only a short OVA series. And for more Nobue.

Rounding things off, I picked up another Ikki Tousen poster (seen here with the mini-poster for IT: GG volume 4). This is described as a “bathtub poster”. Apparently this is the idea of how it is supposed to be used.  Yeah, as cool as that may be I don’t think I’ll be doing that anytime soon.  And finally here are a couple of shots of the latest in the line of never-to-be-used Ikki Tousen body pillow covers. This one is of Ryofu Housen in (or in this case ‘mostly out of’) school uniform.

Well that’s all for this round. Until next time.

Enjoy!!

I’ve pretty much given up on the whole idea of disclaiming how I won’t buy any more of these as it is quite obvious that will not be happening any time soon. But at least I know they will stay in mint condition! Here are a couple of shots of the latest in the line of never-to-be-used Ikki Tousen body pillow covers. This one is of Ryofu Housen in (or in this case ‘mostly out of’) school uniform. I have a couple more on order of the more… how should it be put…NSFW versions. More on those later though.

Enjoy!!

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!!

Hey look its some October stuff actually listed IN October! Wow, wonders never cease. Lame humor aside however, this is really just a quick update while I wait for the main shipment of goodies.

This latest addition is the Ikki Tousen PSP game “Eloquent Fist”. This of course being the Limited Edition version, which comes in a box and includes three postcard type cards, a 2008-2009 calendar (only Hakufu though, sucks to be me) and a figure with Hakufu and Goei in a bowl/cup plus booklet. Oh and it also comes with a PSP game. As I don’t have a PSP, I have no way of playing it, but that’s not really the point is it?

Next up should be more eBay listings, but not for a few days.

Enjoy!!

Better late than never I guess. This update could be more 11th hour but not by much. But there are a couple of cool things this month that make it worth the wait. Before anyone asks, yes I did get two copies of Ikki Tousen Great Guardians Volume 1. I mean come on, how could I NOT get them. They look so good in the shrine.

So on with the Ikki Tousen goodness. First up we have a shot of all the coolness that came with volume 1 (First Press) of Great Guardians. I may even watch the series someday. According to the listings, all volumes First Press bonus includes a poster similar to this one. I still have all the Dragon Destiny posters as well so someday I really need to get them all framed, maybe 3 per frame, and hang them at the office. On my last day of course. Also in the Ikki Tousen category this month is the Best Song Collection CD and DVD set. I haven’t played this completely yet, but from what I can tell it’s pretty cool.

Also this month is volume 2 of Macross Frontier on Blu-ray. I was somewhat unimpressed with the “pin” set that came with the FP of this volume. They are more like buttons then metal pins. Oh well. I had planned on dropping this series after this volume anyway since there are no subtitles and nothing else to say “buy me”. I do plan on picking up volume 5 however as it comes with a box. A BOX!?! Why not buy three then? Just kidding though. On this one that is.

Topping things off this month is the wonderful world of print. But wait, didn’t I say just a month or so ago that I was dropping Megami? Yeah, well there was another volume of Megami Deluxe out and they had all the recent issues up to current at the time, so I just said what the heck. Here is a quick shot of some of the posters and other inserts that came with the various issues in this round. I haven’t been to Kinokuniya since.

That’s all for this one. I may have another update soon if all goes well.

Enjoy!!

Since it had been almost three years since I had updated these images I thought it was about time. I have updated the “New Media Loft” section of the DVD Collection Visual History. I tried to get basically the same shots and angles from the previous round. Since none of the structure changed, I have just updated the existing links with the new shots. Older versions can still be accessed here if anyone cares.

A note about the “Anime Themes Shelves section”. This really doesn’t exist in the same way, but I left this one picture up just for historical reference. You can see what is in the same location by looking at the other shots.  The figure case on the end is new. You can see more of this in the figures section of the photo gallery.

Enjoy!!