Spring 2010 Edition -- Oh Bandai...

Howdy, people!

So, what did you think of the podcast?  YOU DIDN'T LISTEN TO IT?!?!  It's only ~38 minutes!  Oh, you did listen to it?  Great!  Well, I've gotten to punching up the outline for our next episode so look forward to that in the next few days.  Heads up, we're talking about Naruto.

Oh, the post title?  Well...

So Bandai...they're a North American anime distributor has had a rough few years.  They've had numerous delays of new products, new products with no dubs produced in order to save money, basically they're just trying to stay afloat.  I like to give them my money because they overall do a good job and I want them to stick around.  If you kept up with my blog, you know I was looking to buy stuff last month when there was a sale on all their stuff and I ended up ordering the Lucky Star Complete Collection Anime Legends box set.

See, the set is cheaper than buying the remaining 5 discs that I need so the box was the best way to go.  This box, as with other Anime Legends sets, is most likely just a box with the original single disc prints inserted.  Shouldn't be hard to release, right?  Well, it was "released" yesterday.  I say that with quotations because my pre-order is currently on back-order and they are waiting for more to show up.  What about other retailers?  Best Buy has it for cheaper than TRSI's discount price...but it's currently on back-order as well.

Lucky Star is a good show and, from what I can observe, popular among the otaku so it's reasonable for this set to sell a few to the guys like me who waited and didn't buy any/all of the single releases.  But it's not something that's in super-high demand and not being able to fulfill pre-orders at the very least tells me that they don't have the product ready, but I haven't heard anything about an official delay of the set.

*Sigh* C'mon Bandai, it can't be that tough for you, can it?  Don't tell me this love affair is over...

Spring 2010 Edition -- A podcast?!

Sorry, sorry I haven't updated since March 12th.  I really didn't mean for such an extended break.  Can I make it up to you?  Can I?  I think I have something you might enjoy!

This episode we decided to talk and discuss The Slayers.  And not just The Slayers, but Slayers NEXT and Slayers TRY.  Good stuff!

Do you like anime?  Do you like discussions on anime?  Do you like discussions on anime that involve Oprah,  Hulk Hogan, Pocari Sweat, cleavage, and obscure internet history lessons?  Then please, PLEASE, give this little podcast episode I threw together with mah buddy Max.  Tell me what you think, give us some topic ideas, send in some e-mails!  That way we can get more variety in our episodes in our future endeavors!

Oh Those Silly Otaku! The Podcast episode 001

Note: yeah, I got the html wrong, its supposed to be http://randysadventuresinanime.blogspot.com/ MY BAD!

Winter 2010 Edition -- Purchasing Decisions

Guess what?  Well, if you follow my twitter or are a friend on Facebook you know, but I beat Lunar.  26 hours of old fashioned RPG goodness.  Did any of you buy it yet?  DO IT!

I had so many ideas for a blog post this morning as I rode the bus, but now at 11:30AM I can't remember a thing.  I had time to think because I misplaced my ZuneHD and couldn't find it before needing to dash out the door and make my bus so it was a quiet morning.  So yeah, no music and I could think and now I sit down to write and I've got nothing.  I'm hoping this endless rambling will get my head in the game and fill me in on what I forgot.

Not really anime, but tangentially related and something to fill the page, I got Final Fantasy XIII (on PS3 of course).  I held a 24 hour poll on Twitter and Facebook on what I should get for my birthday: Final Fantasy XIII or Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver.  Pokemon won by one vote.  I vetoed that process and got FFXIII anyway.  Why?  Andrew and I can enjoy it together a LOT easier than a handheld title like Pokemon and it is more expensive and getting it for a gift made it free to me (also used my Reward Zone card at Best Buy when I got it and extra points is always good) so good times!  Only an hour or two in.  Fought the Fal'Cie in the Pulse Vestige and had a flashback to Day 11.  If you haven't played the game obviously this is all lost to you, but hopefully someone reading this gets it.

I do doubt my mother is playing Final Fantasy XIII, though. >. >

Oh!!  Bandai is having a sale over on Right Stuf and Randy just got paid.  I think he should at least get something for himself before the sale ends.  But what?


I could pre-order that Lucky Star set.  I own the first single DVD, the collection would be cheaper than purchasing the remaining singles (Duh, its a collection.  It's what they do.) and I would like to finish it.  Contrary to what I thought it was (loli-fetishism that would be super creepy to both watch and have on my shelf) it's a really cute, funny, referential show that is only funny to those that watch a ton of anime.  It would help if I watched some Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya as there are jokes-a-plenty for that show, but it's all still funny.

I could re-buy the first DVD of .hack//ROOTS and get the soundtrack CD, T-Shirt, and that delicious artbox to hold all of my singles.  While it would be cool to have a box to hold the DVDs, not to mention the first OST CD I'm missing to complete the set, it would be a repurchase that I doubt I would watch any time soon.

I could get at least the first half of Big-O.  It's a classic and really holds some nostalgia for me.  Unfortunately I'd only have enough to buy the first set and couldn't complete the collection.  Some is better than none, right?  Think of it as Batman meets mecha anime.  It's funny, its cute, is action-packed, its serious drama.  It's everything you'd want in an anime.  This show also doesn't get the amount of love it deserves and giving money their way and saying,"Hey, I like this show!" is always nice.

And then there's this.  Yeah, its Escaflowne...disc 4.  See, Andrew has the box set of Escaflowne so he has it all (sans the movie).  One day while I was at his old house, I lost my Megaman Anniversary Collection disc and was sad forever.  Until I was looking through his Escaflowne box and found my missing Megaman game.  HOORAY!  Wait, if that's in this box then that means...disc 4 of this set is missing.  Yeah, I'll probably throw this in an order since its $3 new and finishing that box would be great since I never did see all of it and I'm pretty sure I still need to watch that disc ^_^

Oh! Mobile Suit Gundam 08th MS Team! I haven't seen this since I was in 8th grade and it was playing on Toonami's Midnight Run.  I remember it being awesome and having the whole collection for $26 is not that bad.  What's it about?  Well, its Mobile Suit Gundam except its a whole military squad that has the Gundams and they are trying to stop another army from building a huge Gundam Armor thingy that kills all the stuff.  Oh yeah, the main dude is in love with a chick from the opposing army.  Yup, its Romeo and Juliet with giant robots!  Sweet!

Yup.  Gundam Wing.  More Gundam stuff.  I like it.  Andrew hates this one.  It's a classic.  I want it in my collection.  Cheap, but only half the show.

Jubei-chan.  I'm missing disc 1 and 4 from my collection of single releases and this set has it all for only $30.  Nice price, finishes my collection of it so I can make Andrew watch it, followed up by Jubei-chan 2 which I bought a couple years back.  Good stuff, but already watched.

Look!  It's that show I was talking about up there in the Lucky Star segment (Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya)!  I dunno if I'd like it.  It was popular a couple years ago.  It would help Lucky Star be more funny.  I dunno and it's the most expensive of the bunch at $45, but hey, if so many people like it, it can't be THAT bad, right?

Oooh.  Andrew says this show is amazing.  I've only seen the first episode of Silent Mobius and I thought it was intriguing.  Having this celebrated series on my shelf for only $37 wouldn't be bad.  Besides, I know I would be able to watch it with Andrew's interest in said show being so high.  This is definitely in the running for being the one I choose.

It's been a while, Witch Hunter Robin.  I liked watching you on Adult Swim.  $37 ain't bad, but I remember the ending sucking something horrible.  Although, it is regarded as being one of the best anime to come out that year.  Hmmm...decisions decisions.

Oh, hello there Wolf's Rain.  You're on my shelf because a friend lent you to me, but you're not mine though.  You're pretty and the music is done by Yoko Kanno (Cowboy Bebop fame) and all that.  I didn't much care for your finale either, but there are 4 bonus episodes I have yet to see of you.  Plus, you are also claimed as a classic and I must have those, ya know.  Again, $37 is hard to turn down.

Okay, so that's what I was pondering on the bus this morning.  Bandai's sale.  If you're interested in any of these or other Bandai titles, check out www.rightstuf.com before the sale ends March 15th.  Also, if you wanna get me a birthday present, I've already written out a handy wishlist just above!  Kidding, kidding.

Thanks all.  If you have any input as to what you think I should purchase, leave a comment or something, okay?

Laterz!!!

Winter 2010 Edition -- Long Overdue

Hello!!

It's been a while and I'm sure you can guess that since Lunar: SSH came out I have been playing like a madman. You know what?  You're completely right.  I...uh...even skipped class on Wednesday to play.  Look, it was a workday for both classes and I did laundry and the like while I was home so I was productive in some sense!

How is it?  It's fantastic.  Utterly fantastic.  The soundtrack is beautiful to listen to and the game is just pure joy.  Get it.  NOW.

So, have I been up to anything else?  Hmm...well, in the past week Andrew and I did start and finish a little show.  You may have heard of it:

Yup, wonderful and super cool Cowboy Bebop.  I've seen it before a couple of times, Andrew's seen it before but couldn't remember much, so it was quite enjoyable...except he didn't much care for the ending.  I, on the other hand, liked it, but felt it could have done more.  It had two whole episodes to resolve Spike's story and it somehow wasted it all.  The final battle with our seldom-seen, often-heard-about villain was incredibly short, but with what little time it used for concluding the series, it tied up most of the loose ends.

Mostly it was fun just watch with the show being gorgeously drawn and animated.  This really is a treat to watch as I completely forgot how well done the animation and art is for this show and the music, by none other than Yoko Kanno herself, is superb.  Even those that aren't fans of anime will really dig this title.

What's next?  We watched all of Bebop (oh, except that bonus Session 0 episode, which I need to find on one of the 6 discs) and there is PLENTY more on the shelf to watch an enjoy, but what will it be?  While watching AMV Hell 4, Andrew expressed interest in watching Serial Experiments LAIN, which I do own, but still have the last disc lent out to a friend and with it only being 13 episodes long I can see we'd run into a bit of trouble.  Maybe something I've had for a good long while?  Karas?  Or maybe something like Gungrave to follow up Bebop?

We shall see.  We shall see indeed.  Anyways, I've gotta get back to class and listening to the Lunar: Silver Star Harmony soundtrack whilst I work.

Laterz!

Winter 2010 Edition -- What was lost is found

So I started cleaning my room.  I do like my room clean and I needed to desperately clean my stuff up...but there was another reason for tearing my room apart and rearranging my junk: I had no idea where my PSP was!

Back during Winter break, I went back home to my parents place to hang out with them and see my sister and brother-in-law for the holidays.  My bro-in-law David is an avid Kingdom Hearts fan and gaming fan just as I am.  So I figured I'd bring all my gaming junk like my DS (acutally, Andrew's DSlite) and PSP to play with him.  When we went back home, everything was packed in various bags and the like.  I had no need to play my PSP for a good long while, so I set it aside and it was forgotten.

Fast-forward to yesterday when I find that I NEED to play the Lunar: Silver Star Harmony demo.  You know, this stuff --

and now I have found my PSP.  In short, my room is still kind of in shambles, but some parts are cleaned up and I'm well on my way to a cleaner room and I got my PSP.  Happy day!  Got the demo, beat it, saved clear data for the real game, and pre-ordered the limited edition (pictured above) so I get the BADASS soundtrack (it's the original score completely redone for this release done by the same ingenious man Noriyuki Iwadare) and bromide cards.  SWEET!

Yeah, I'm kind of a big LUNAR fan.  It was my first RPG (other than Pokemon) when I was 11 or so when my uncle Timmy rented it, didn't like RPGs and had it out on rental for a week.  He knows I like cartoony junk like this, so he lets me play it for the duration of his rental.  Being the young pirate I was, I had my dad burn a copy of the game, soundtrack, and making of disc to use in my modded PS1 before sending it back to Premiere Video.  I played it, set it down for a year or two, then came back and beat the hell out of that game and still jam out to the soundtrack to this day.

Anyhow, besides Bioshock 2 and other various games, I've watched a little more Dragon Box Z2.  Vegeta just kicked the crap outta Zarbon, Son Goku got his butt handed to him by a malfunctioning artificial gravity machine, and Kuririn is an idiot who accidentally got caught by Vegeta.

I watched one more episode of Tenchi Muyo! GXP where Seina was on his ship training as a Galaxy Police cadet.  Good times!

More to report later, and if you love RPGs, XSEED is releasing LUNAR: Silver Star Harmony in the US on March 2nd.  BUY IT!

Winter 2010 Edition -- Weekend of Little Anime

Yo, everyone!

Funny thing, I didn't get to watch much this weekend.  Having a car accident and then getting absorbed into Bioshock really sapped my time, besides work of course.  And I am so close to beating Bioshock I can taste it.  Anime will be put on the back burner for now.

BUT I did do SOME watching.

I got my stuff in last week, like I said.  So, since my Magical Project S set is episodes 14-26 and Randy here hasn't even seen episode 1, I haven't touched it.  Pretty Sammy/Mihoshi Special on the other hand I DID watch.

The Mihoshi Special was...different.  It was released in Japan halfway through the first two OVA sessions (why it wasn't included in the OVA collection that was released is beyond me.  Increased sales, maybe?)  and had the same budget and the like of the OVA series and that is a total plus.  What was odd was (Oh yeah, I watched it in English, BTW) that the voices sounded a bit off.  No no no, its the same cast, but our star of this show was Mihoshi and she did not nail Mihoshi as she did during the OVA.  Can anyone tell me abouts when this was dubbed relative to other Tenchi media?  For that matter, I would like to know how the whole of Tenchi was dubbed period.  From what I can gather, it seemed like this would have been something up on the block first out of everything since some lines weren't on par with the rest of the series.  Then again, maybe it was done somewhere in the middle (the original Mihoshi VA is here, after all) and the actors really couldn't care less?  Who knows.

So, the story was interesting (telling of Mihoshi's Galaxy Police exploits by substituting Tenchi and company in the roles of people in the GP.  We also have Kiyone being a majoy role in a non TV/movie appearance, which was different and awesome.  Does this mean that GP Kiyone is actually a real, canon person in the Tenchi Muyo! universe?  Hmmm...

All in all, it was okay, but not great.

Pretty Sammy:

Okay, so its a magical girl anime using Tenchi Muyo! character likenesses to invent a whole new show.  It looks nice, the music and sounds are recycled from the OVA/TV series (that's a plus) and its actually pretty entertaining.  I just wish, after being spoiled by the likes of Sailor Moon and Card Captor Sakura, that the special attacks and transformations had a little more pizazz to them as well as a bit more quality too them.  They aren't treated as something special with a higher budget and a higher frame count.  It's just another scene and doesn't really tell us to be wowed.

The story was short, 3 episode OVA, and was interesting in how everything was shown and each episode was distinctly different than the last.  Definitely worth the money for this set.

So, what's next?  Well, I still have that backlog of anime to watch (AFTER I finish Bioshock, of course) and finishing that Dragon Box.

Speaking of which, back when I got the first one super early in November, I recorded a video review of the product, but never got to editing and polishing it up.  I was itching for a creative outlet so I went ahead and did it.  Yeah, I won't post it cuz its MONTHS old and pointless at this point, but I think I did a good job and maybe I'll do some video reviews of things as time goes on.  Are you interested?  Let me know what you think.

Later!!

Legend of Dragonworld Saves the Day

Guess what arrives today?

 

  

Actually, that Magical Project S shot is from the first set, RightStuf only had the second, but it was cheaper than other online retailers so I snagged it while I could.  That Pretty Sammy/Mihoshi Special is also one of the last dozen that RightStuf had and since it's long since out of print, I thought I really should get it while the getting was good.  Where does that put me now?  Well, I only need Magical Project S Part 1 to complete my entire Tenchi Muyo! library.  FINALLY!!!  It really had been a dream ever since I was, oh, about 14 and got in my Malaysian VCD edited copy of the original Tenchi Muyo! OVA collection.

Let's see, what else is there?

Well, I'm on disc 2 of Dragon Box Vol. 2 and LOVING IT!  I forgot how much I really enjoy the Namek arc.  Every time I sit down to watch it and think "Okay, just get through this fast so you can get to the Ginyu and Freeza stuff," and I get 2 minutes into it and realize I love these episodes too.  Toriyama was really in his zone for writting for this arc.  Everything is so intricately interwoven and there aren't any gaping plot holes and the art (when its a good animation studio) is jaw-dropping gorgeous.  What else can I say?  I love me some Dragon Ball.

Speaking of which; I don't know how any of you (anyone actually there?) have something they enjoy so very much to the point where you can't stand to listen to other people talk about it because they don't understand it or just are talking out of there ass, but Dragon Ball is that to me.

I was sitting in class, waiting for stuff to get going.  Just sitting at my computer, doin' whatever when a couple of guys across the room start talking about Dragon Ball...like idiots.  Just, everything felt so wrong.  Did I have a panic attack?  Hyperventilate?  Piss my pants?  Cry like a little girl?  No, but maybe all of those happened to the little me in my head; instead I quickly reached for my Zune and started up some Legend of Dragonworld to help save me.  Ahh, real Dragon Ball goodness without the taintedness of other non-passionate, ill-informed fans surrounding me.

I'm sure I can think of a couple of people I know that might feel/react the same way, so if you think I'm freaking off my rocker with this little story, you don't know me well :D

Hmmm...I'm sure there is more, but I'm distracted by needing to get out of this classroom in the next couple of minutes and knowing I can't watch GXP on the bus ride home since Randy the ever amazing idiot he is somehow screwed up getting the subtitles on his episodes so he'd be watching them raw if he chose to watch them today.  Sigh.  I know some would say, "This is why you should just watch it in English and you wouldn't have these problems," and yeah, that's true.  But it all comes down to personal preference and I'm too invested in these actors and their portrayal of their roles to enjoy the series any other way, even if it means not enjoying it temporarily at all.

Anyhow, guess I'm about to get kicked out, so I will see you all later!