The Anime/Manga I Bought Today Was...

While it's true that the GE999 release is bad, there have been far worse instances of quality control in US (and UK) releases which have been cheerfully accepted. The Lain thread on the same forum is an interesting case; while the US version is far from terrible, it's amazing how many individual posters are insisting that there's nothing wrong with the video when there quite plainly is.

I've been upgrading a few of my UK DVD sets to US ones recently where no BD looks likely (thanks, S.A.V.E. releases!) and the quality of some of the stuff we get here is absolutely ghastly, even excluding obvious trash releases like Manga's early VHS dumps. It bewilders me that people complain about GE999 while accepting some of these dodgy video conversions we've had. I don't understand why no mass recall was demanded by fans after disastrous releases such as Freedom, Ouran and the like. It's not like we don't also have decent discs occasionally too to put the bad ones to shame o_O

The hard subs are definitely annoying, though, in that no pricier alternative was made available for English-speakers looking for a good version. It's a shame that the industry has split between low quality releases and acceptable ones, with it being a lottery which series end up on each side of the divide.

Better than a dub-only release at least, which is all most classics seem to get in the US :/

R
 
I wouldn't suggest that there haven't been similarly poor quality releases in the past that have gone under the radar (and shouldn't have) but I haven't seen anything nearly as bad as to rival that GE999 picture quality in a long time - Especially when you look at the comparison to the Japanese DVDs. That's a Chinese bootleg quality picture, and coupled with hardsubs it's just utterly unacceptable.
 
Hmm. I guess researching stuff when I've been out of the loop for a while would not have been a bad idea. Hmm.

If I owned any other version, or the Japanese release was within my range, I'd be s'more upset, but I think I might as well keep the order.

The issues with the Lain release are far more worrying, not sure why I just assumed they would be using the JP discs. :-/ That one I actually might cancel, as the JP version is far more within my range.

Rui said:
The Lain thread on the same forum is an interesting case; while the US version is far from terrible
Click to expand...
Just going from the comparison shots, it's really close to terrible, when there is such a good quality Japanese release from just two years ago, and Funi seem to have cut corners themselves to the detriment of the release.

edit: wow, some of the posts in that Lain thread make me glad I never really migrated over to TFP.
 
The US companies very rarely seem to use the JP transfers though, for some reason, aside from Aniplex USA. I'm just used to assuming they'll be worse. You might also want to check out the threads about Horizon (which bothers me more than Lain, personally), though ISTR you bought the JP version anyway in that case?

R
 
Yeah, no need for me to double dip on Horizon unless they have some sweet physical extras. Still might read the thread in order to rage though.

As for transfers, I generally assume they will be inferior - especially from Funi - but I had got the impression that they were going to, you know, actually "try" with this Lain release for some reason. Ho-hum.
 
Alice in the Country of Hearts: My Fanatic Rabbit 1
Blood Lad 1
Puella Magi Madoka Magica 3
Bakuman 10
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 14
Fullmetal Alchemist 24
Bleach 24
One Piece 24
 
Pre-ordered Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl Complete collection and Mardock Scramble:The Second Combustion Director's Cut.I,m glad January is quiet on the release front as after christrmas i,m going to be skint come the new year,so a quiet month is good for me and my wallet. :)
 
Managed to pick up a few randoms over the week: (should give me something to watch over xmas)

Puni Puni poemi,
Trigun
iria zeiram the animation

all for £24 :)

and Tokyo Godfathers from hmv :)
 
Mentioning Samurai 7 in another thread the other day has made me want to rewatch it. But why settle for my crappy old Funimation DVDs when the Blu-ray set is a customs-busting $21 at Amazon. Unlike a lot of Funi's early BD releases, Samurai 7 is native HD and, by all accounts, looks great.
 
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