Archive for the “DVD” Category

I recently came across the cover art for Sony Pictures’ upcoming release of The Sky Crawlers (May 26th on DVD and region-free Blu-ray) and I’d like to dig into a few aspects related to it.

First, some quote clarifications. When I see critics’ quotes used in movie promotions, my first instinct is to try to track down the sources and look at their contexts. The quote on the front by Dan Parsons (see above) comes from this post he wrote in December about its New York premiere at the Lincoln Center. The full sentence that Sony pulled from reads: “It’s his best work since the original GHOST IN THE SHELL, and proof positive of anime’s unique ability to excite and enlighten.” However, the only mention of ‘fantastic’ within Parsons’ entire post lies within the word fantastical from the following phrase: “Despite the fantastical nature of the aircraft…”

There is another quote that appears on the back of the box – “An Intense Experience!” – that is attributed to Justin Sevakis of ANN. That comes from this review from the same Lincoln Center screening and was taken from the following sentence: “The Sky Crawlers is an intense experience, and a level of artistic expression far beyond the levels even the best anime strives towards.”
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I’d never heard of this eight 12-minute-episode OVA series (originally named Dai Mahou Touge) prior seeing it on October’s release schedule from Media Blasters so I lacked any assumptions going into it. I put it in my rental queue and it came a few months later.
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Clockwise from top left: Ami, Junta, Tomoko, Karin.

How It Got There:
I acquired the 1994 anime series DNA^2 (pronounced “DNA two” in Japanese dub, “DNA Squared” in English dub) during TRSI’s 2007 holiday clearance sale because 15 episodes for 20 bucks was apparently too good to pass up at the time. The main review I read before purchase said it was a pretty good shonen comedy so I bit on the deal and didn’t begin watching until last month.
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I mentioned in one of my AX posts that I bought Rescue Me Mave-chan from Bandai’s booth for $8 (MSRP $10), a cheap price compared to the full pricing of another OVA from a different publisher, Voices of a Distant Star. It’s a spinoff from the Yukikaze series of OVAs. Does it entertain within its 25 minute runtime, especially to someone who hasn’t seen the originating work?
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The moment I read the news that Viz would be releasing the Shonen Jump-based series Hunter X Hunter in season box sets beginning in Q4 2008, a huge grin appeared on my face. At last, this awesomeness will be brought to America! The manga by Yoshihiro Togashi is already on volume 19 (Vol. 20 comes out May 6th) and for those of you who have never heard of HxH, shame on you! (For a good introduction to the plot, read this Animefringe feature from September 2005.)

To get some perspective of how long it has taken for this anime to hit US shores, the anime was created in 2000 and it has since been dubbed into French, Spanish, Italian, Portugeuse, Tagalog, and even Arabic. Viz pitched HxH and Monster to television broadcasters at this year’s NATPE and they have DVD rights for both so the next logical step would be to get Monster on DVD and perhaps TV. (Adult Swim, you know you want a psychological thriller/drama to replace InuYasha…) Failing that, just Hunter x Hunter getting onto Toonami would be fantastic.

P.S. Did you know Viz is a part-owner of a future 150-seat movie theater to be the main attraction of the yet-to-be built J-Pop Center in Japantown?

I saw the first episode of Pumpkin Scissors when it premiered in fall 2006 and found it marginally interesting but not enough to continue to the second episode. Recently I got around to watching the Volume 1 DVD that I had bought during RightStuf’s Xmas sale and I now feel the same way about the second disc: I’m kind of interested in the story but not enough to buy the next volume to find out.
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Wild Arms TV (short for Twilight Venom) is an anime based on the first two installments of the future Western series of video games and aired in 1998. I haven’t played any of those games so I was not familiar with the world nor any characters before I watched the five episodes on the first disc and expecting that it would be decent. It met those expectations.
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When I first saw the trailer for Red Garden, I said that I would be interested in watching it and now that I’ve seen some of it, I see that there is more drama and downer moments than the horror-action-oriented trailer conveyed. I got the first DVD in the mail last week after ordering it from ADV as a part of their 15th Anniversary Sale and also received Wild Arms v.1 as a free gift. The first thing I noticed when I popped in the disc was the larger-than-usual font size on the menus. The video itself has some grain on it when watching on an LCD monitor (similar to what I experienced with Tsubasa v.1) which is kind of sad considering this is a Gonzo title, but it doesn’t show up for the most part on a CRT television.
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This month, I lived up to a “promise” I made back in August 2006 that I would buy Solid State Society when it came out. I managed to get the limited edition for $16 from Best Buy three weeks ago and decided to review all three parts of the package: the feature itself, the extras disc, and the soundtrack CD. I wrote the feature part right after I watched it (and revised it slightly recently) but I somehow managed to misplace the extras disc until a few days ago so this entire thing was delayed until now.
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Now that I am finished with finals, I have no excuse to not trudge through my backlog of unwatched and unread anime and manga. The first of these is Moeyo Ken OVA, released in January 2005 by ADV Films. I bought this DVD in Japantown during the Cherry Blossom Festival in April for 5 bucks from a video store that was selling off previously rented anime. I bought it and figured I would give it a shot. I finally got around to watching it this past week.

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