[Overseas] Anime News & Announcements

Poor, poor Mospeada...

Remember, with Orguss, there's a very high likelihood that the DVDs will be region free. Gonna be REALLY interested to see how this one does for Discotek.

Speaking of insta-buys, I'm still waiting for Turn A Gundam to show up on Amazon. Gah! So frustratorizing!
 
I'm kind of unenthusiastic for that idea. I have no means of watching region locked Blu Rays. While I love the idea of loads and loads of content on a single disc, if that got adopted as a standard format (to the exclusion of DVD) it'd close a lot of Discotek's cool stuff off to me.

Unless there's some clever method of watching Region A BDs that doesn't necessitate an expensive multi-region player that I'm unaware of. Which is possible. I mean, I'm approaching 40. I already started growling at kids to get off my lawn, and my remote controls are all starting to look the same to me. Tech savvy ain't my strongest suit these days.
 
HdE said:
IUnless there's some clever method of watching Region A BDs that doesn't necessitate an expensive multi-region player that I'm unaware of. Which is possible. I mean, I'm approaching 40. I already started growling at kids to get off my lawn, and my remote controls are all starting to look the same to me. Tech savvy ain't my strongest suit these days.
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If you have a PC with a Blu-ray drive, you can use AnyDVD HD which still isn't exactly cheap (you can however remove all the other options at the checkout and opt for updates for only a year and get it for €63). That's what I do now, and it's made life dead easy as it enables my PC to play anything I put in it and I no longer have to concern myself with region codes at all.

It does however make the process of playing some BDs a little difficult as they won't autoplay and use the menus, so I have to go into the BD's file system and find and play the video files separately.
 
And Ayase comes through again!
(Cheers for the answer to the Slayers queery in the other thread, chum!)

That sounds like entirely too much faff for me. I'll maybe investigate it further if Discotek moves significantly on the DVD-content-on-BD strategy.

I'm a big fan of VLC media player, but have no idea how it covers blu-ray at all in recent updates. I'd assume it's not able to tackle BD region locking, though. Any ideas on that?
 
Even if you decided to get a multi region blu-ray player, you'd still need to muck around with the remote as region changes on the BD side have to be done manually which is what you have to do with the toshiba players that can be made region free through a firmware update.

Only sentai/maiden Japan BD releases are the only ones you don't have to worry about much in regards to region locking since you can get around the issue in around 95% of releases before 2015 with the old bypass trick and all 2015 releases don't even depend of region locking, but you do need to make sure that the country cone of your player is set to the US (most players are set to this by default as well as every EU PS3 and PS4).
 
HdE said:
I'm a big fan of VLC media player, but have no idea how it covers blu-ray at all in recent updates. I'd assume it's not able to tackle BD region locking, though. Any ideas on that?
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I prefer MPC-HC these days, installed along with CCCP and the madVR video renderer. But perhaps you don't want to mess about with all that.

As far as I'm aware, there is no free software which circumvents BD region coding (if there is I'm going to be mad that I paid for it). And you want to be careful that whatever software you're using isn't simply changing the drive's region code, which can be done with all disc drives but only for a finite number of times. Once you use them up the drive becomes permanently stuck in whatever region it's in at the time. I suppose you could just buy a second BD drive and set it to region 1/A permanently...

With circumvention software you can certainly play the files back in VLC, but I don't think BD menu systems work in that either.
 
It will depend on software but my cheap and cheerful setup is to have a region A BD drive in my computer and an external set to region B so I can watch discs from anywhere relevant and all I have to do is remember to put them in the correct drive (let's just say the external doesn't get much use). It works well for me and USB BD drives are much cheaper than standalone players.

R

Edit: Ayase said it too!
 
AWESOME stuff! Thank you, peep-holes!

I shall look into this when I next have spending money. The USB BD drive sounds like a particularly excellent idea... sorry to be a pain, but is there any specific model or make I should keep an eye out for?
 
Recent titles have gone out of print over on Rightstuf:
- Darker Than Black Season 1 DVD Complete Set (Hyb) - Anime Classics
- Dragon Ball Z Kai Blu-ray Season 1 (Hyb) (Eps 1-26)
- Eureka Seven Blu-ray Part 1 (Hyb) Limited Edition
- Fullmetal Alchemist Movie: The Conqueror of Shamballa DVD (Hyb)

Darker Than Black Season 1 is still available via Blu-ray Premium Edition.
Standard Edition for Eureka Seven Part 1 is still available.
Fullmetal Alchemist Movie: The Conqueror of Shamballa will soon be re-released on Blu-ray in July.
 
Aniplex of America have announced their plans for the rest of Sword Art Online II as well as plans to release the first season of ALDNOAH.ZERO with an English dub.


ALDNOAH.ZERO will be split into four volumes (2 per season, 6 episodes each) with a Limited Edition Blu-ray and standard edition DVD.

Sword Art Online Set 2 will cover the rest of Phantom Bullet with episodes 8-14 and 14.5. Set 3 will only feature the Caliber episodes so it's only 3 episodes (15-17) but the SRP has been reduced. Set 4 covers Mother's Rosario which is the rest of the season (episodes 18-24, totalling 7 episodes).

ALDNOAH.ZERO - Volume 1: Limited Edition
Release Date: July 21st | Region: ABC | Format: Blu-ray | Languages: English/Japanese | Price (SRP): $94.98
Special Features: Textless Opening “heavenly blue”, Promotional Videos and Commercials, Count to A/Z
LE Features: Box Illustrations by I-IV (Mecha Design), Special Booklet [Character Archives] by ALDNOAH.ZERO x TAKAKO SHIMURA (Original Character Design), Collectable Pin-Ups

ALDNOAH.ZERO - Volume 2: Limited Edition
Release Date: October 27th | Region: ABC | Format: Blu-ray | Languages: English/Japanese | Price (SRP): $94.98
Special Features: Textless Ending “A/Z”, Textless Ending “aLIEz”, English Version Trailer
LE Features: Box Illustrations by I-IV (Mecha Design), Special Booklet [Mecha Archives] by ALDNOAH.ZERO x I-IV (Mecha Design), Collectable Pin-Ups

Sword Art Online II: Phantom Bullet Part 2 - Set 2: Limited Edition
Release Date: September 22nd | Region: ABC | Format: Blu-ray | Languages: English/Japanese | Price (SRP): $114.98
Special Features: Audio Commentary by Creators and Japanese Cast, Special Animation ”Sword Art Offline II”, Original Web Previews, Textless Ending
LE Features: Bonus CD: SAO Radio -USA- by English voice cast: Bryce Papenbrook (Kirito), Cherami Leigh (Asuna), Michelle Ruff (Sinon) and Ben Diskin (Death Gun), Exclusive Weiss Schwarz Collectible PR Card, 24-page Deluxe Booklet, Postcard Set, Package illustrated by abec (Original Character Design) and Clear BD Cases with 2-sided Wraps

Sword Art Online II: Caliber - Set 3: Limited Edition
Release Date: November 17th | Region: ABC | Format: Blu-ray | Languages: English/Japanese | Price (SRP): $74.98
Special Features: Audio Commentary by Creators and Japanese Cast, Special Animation ”Sword Art Offline II”, Original Web Previews, Textless Opening, Textless Ending
LE Features: Original Soundtrack II Vol.2, Exclusive Weiss Schwarz Collectible PR Card, 24-page Deluxe Booklet, Postcard Set, Package illustrated by abec (Original Character Design) andClear BD Cases with 2-sided Wraps

Sword Art Online II: Mother's Rosario - Set 4: Limited Edition
Release Date: January 9th | Region: ABC | Format: Blu-ray | Languages: English/Japanese | Price (SRP): $114.98
Special Features: Audio Commentary by Creators and Japanese Cast, Special Animation ”Sword Art Offline II”, Original Web Previews, Textless Opening, Textless Ending
LE Features: Bonus CD: SAO Radio -USA- #2 by English voice cast (Cast TBD), Exclusive Weiss Schwarz Collectible PR Card, 24-page Deluxe Booklet, Postcard Set, Package illustrated by abec (Original Character Design) and Clear BD Cases with 2-sided Wraps

The Bonus CD for SAO II was the result of a recent survey.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
NormanicGrav said:
Aniplex of America have announced their plans for the rest of Sword Art Online II as well as plans to release the first season of ALDNOAH.ZERO with an English dub.

ALDNOAH.ZERO will be split into four volumes (2 per season, 6 episodes each) with a Limited Edition Blu-ray and standard edition DVD.

Sword Art Online Set 2 will cover the rest of Phantom Bullet with episodes 8-14 and 14.5. Set 3 will only feature the Caliber episodes so it's only 3 episodes (15-17) but the SRP has been reduced. Set 4 covers Mother's Rosario which is the rest of the season (episodes 18-24, totalling 7 episodes).

ALDNOAH.ZERO - Volume 1: Limited Edition
Release Date: July 21st | Region: ABC | Format: Blu-ray | Languages: English/Japanese | Price (SRP): $94.98
Special Features: Textless Opening “heavenly blue”, Promotional Videos and Commercials, Count to A/Z
LE Features: Box Illustrations by I-IV (Mecha Design), Special Booklet [Character Archives] by ALDNOAH.ZERO x TAKAKO SHIMURA (Original Character Design), Collectable Pin-Ups

ALDNOAH.ZERO - Volume 2: Limited Edition
Release Date: July 21st | Region: ABC | Format: Blu-ray | Languages: English/Japanese | Price (SRP): $94.98
Special Features: Textless Ending “A/Z”, Textless Ending “aLIEz”, English Version Trailer
LE Features: Box Illustrations by I-IV (Mecha Design), Special Booklet [Mecha Archives] by ALDNOAH.ZERO x I-IV (Mecha Design), Collectable Pin-Ups

Sword Art Online II: Phantom Bullet Part 2 - Set 2: Limited Edition
Release Date: September 22nd | Region: ABC | Format: Blu-ray | Languages: English/Japanese | Price (SRP): $114.98
Special Features: Audio Commentary by Creators and Japanese Cast, Special Animation ”Sword Art Offline II”, Original Web Previews, Textless Ending
LE Features: Bonus CD: SAO Radio -USA- by English voice cast: Bryce Papenbrook (Kirito), Cherami Leigh (Asuna), Michelle Ruff (Sinon) and Ben Diskin (Death Gun), Exclusive Weiss Schwarz Collectible PR Card, 24-page Deluxe Booklet, Postcard Set, Package illustrated by abec (Original Character Design) and Clear BD Cases with 2-sided Wraps

Sword Art Online II: Caliber - Set 3: Limited Edition
Release Date: November 17th | Region: ABC | Format: Blu-ray | Languages: English/Japanese | Price (SRP): $74.98
Special Features: Audio Commentary by Creators and Japanese Cast, Special Animation ”Sword Art Offline II”, Original Web Previews, Textless Opening, Textless Ending
LE Features: Original Soundtrack II Vol.2, Exclusive Weiss Schwarz Collectible PR Card, 24-page Deluxe Booklet, Postcard Set, Package illustrated by abec (Original Character Design) andClear BD Cases with 2-sided Wraps

Sword Art Online II: Mother's Rosario - Set 4: Limited Edition
Release Date: January 9th | Region: ABC | Format: Blu-ray | Languages: English/Japanese | Price (SRP): $114.98
Special Features: Audio Commentary by Creators and Japanese Cast, Special Animation ”Sword Art Offline II”, Original Web Previews, Textless Opening, Textless Ending
LE Features: Bonus CD: SAO Radio -USA- #2 by English voice cast (Cast TBD), Exclusive Weiss Schwarz Collectible PR Card, 24-page Deluxe Booklet, Postcard Set, Package illustrated by abec (Original Character Design) and Clear BD Cases with 2-sided Wraps
Click to expand...

It's a bit odd that they're releasing both parts of Aldnoah.Zero on the same day.
 
Fixed the post, just a minor error.

So pretty much this is Aniplex's release schedule:

June
- Expelled from Paradise | Blu-ray, Blu-ray LE
- The Irregular at Magic High School: Set 1 | Blu-ray LE
- Sword Art Online II: Set 1 | Blu-ray, Blu-ray LE, DVD

July
- ALDNOAH.ZERO: Set 1 | Blu-ray LE, DVD
- Persona4 the Golden Animation: Set 1 | Blu-ray LE

September
- The Irregular at Magic High School: Set 2 | Blu-ray LE
- Persona4 the Golden Animation: Set 2 | Blu-ray LE
- Sword Art Online II: Set 2 | Blu-ray, Blu-ray LE, DVD

October
- ALDNOAH.ZERO: Set 2 | Blu-ray LE, DVD
- Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works: BD-BOX II | Blu-ray LE (Japanese Import)

November
- Sword Art Online II: Set 3 | Blu-ray, Blu-ray LE, DVD

December
- The Irregular at Magic High School: Set 3 | Blu-ray LE

January
- Sword Art Online II: Set 4 | Blu-ray, Blu-ray LE, DVD
 
Apparently Aniplex of America have plans to announce another title that will receive an English dub over at Anime Expo (early July).

My guesses include either one of the following; The Asterisk War, Gunslinger Stratos -THE ANIMATION-, Mushi-shi Season 2 & Samurai Flamenco.
 
ayase said:
NormanicGrav said:
Mushi-shi Season 2
Click to expand...
Wait, this is a thing? How did I miss that?
Click to expand...

:O All available in the UK on Crunchyroll too! Including the special episode :mrgreen:

NormanicGrav said:
Apparently Aniplex of America have plans to announce another title that will receive an English dub over at Anime Expo (early July).

My guesses include either one of the following; The Asterisk War, Gunslinger Stratos -THE ANIMATION-, Mushi-shi Season 2 & Samurai Flamenco.
Click to expand...

I'd place bets on Mushi-Shi but I'd like for Flamenco to receive one, think a dub would work well for that show.

Speaking of Flamenco, I noticed A/L 's French branch are releasing the show in September : https://www.facebook.com/alltheanime.fr ... 8030077063
 
One of the people working on Discotek's IPGX release have provided some additional information.

To summarise:
- No Blu-ray. HD materials exist but apparently they're in Production IG's hands and Discotek can't access them. If the series sold well on DVD there may be a chance.
- All versions included; Japanese audio uncut, English audio uncut and Toonami version back to 16:9 form (Cartoon Network altered it to 4:3 for viewing by adding bars to the top & bottom)
- Some borders will be added to the video (not much) and it's been approved.
- All extras from the original Bandai release will return plus new additions like Interviews.
- Ninja Tune will be intact, nothing has been altered from the original version.
- Audio will be 5.1, just like in the original Bandai release.
 
NormanicGrav said:
So pretty much this is Aniplex's release schedule:
..
October
- ALDNOAH.ZERO: Set 2 | Blu-ray LE, DVD
- Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works: BD-BOX II | Blu-ray LE (Japanese Import)
..
Click to expand...

As expected a F/SN import box set.

This does raise the question of how MvM plan on getting Blade Works out this year as I see no mention of a dubbed version in Aniplex's schedule. I just don't see them wanting or being allowed to do a sub only so close to the import box set plus we all know a dubbed version will be released by Aniplex in a year or so.
 
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