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Hey, Answerman!

Regarding Eva Rebuild. There will be 4 films. They will be a re-imagining of the series, kind of like the Escaflowne movie. The first is a prequel, the next two will be in between the series time line, the last will be a new final final ending. At least from what I've heard/read. No new news on the live action Eva.

On an unrelated note, 50 posts. WOOHOO!! Very Happy

Jeez-I can hear all the crap about the "evils of fansubbing" now!! All that I'll say on the subject is this; I download an awful lot of anime fansubs and I've even subbed some stuff myself-fansubs are out there and are a part of the landscape now-like it or leave it. So if partaking of them makes me an evil person-then so be it, me and all the countless others who do it-we are legion!!

"Oh fansubs; ideally people would just download a few eps to see what the show's like then stop, but that's not going to happen. "

What do mean? That's the way I do it, in the rare cases I do do it, except for Sailor Stars, and that's only because that puppy is NEVER getting licensed in the U.S. by this point (I'd watch PGSM fansubbed too, if only I could find the time and patience to download it).

Azumanga Daioh - watched an episode or two, liked it a lot, it came out a few months later. Not only did I end up buying the entire series of DVDs (except the first one, which was actually a gift - with artbox, WOOT), I also bummed the manga off a pal and plan to someday buy that as well. I fell in love with the dub, too, because of Osaka's hilarious and appropriate dub voice (even if it did kind of throw me a little after reading the manga first and "hearing" her in a Brooklynite accent). This is a success story for me; an obscure series I would never have checked out because I'd never have heard of it, but then a friend had a good internet connection, and you know the rest. I love the little liner notes booklets and the reversible covers and the cute artbox and the little pins that came with the series too.

Excel Saga - watched maybe three or four episodes. Bought it immediately when it came out, bought the next two volumes when they were still at Best Buy, bought the final three volumes on sale at Right Stuf. Still haven't gotten to the second half of the series, but I love the crazy little thing. Even if I can only watch about one episode at a time before my head attempts to explode. I even kinda like the dub, even though Excel is MUCH cuter and less annoying in Japanese (probably because I don't yet speak fluent Japanese, heh). I like or love most of the other voices, and it's actually kind of fun being able to basically see two different versions of the show (ADV does change around the occasional joke to make sense in English, something I actually don't mind in most cases. They also sometimes add jokes, which is fine with me so long as they work in context). Also, I REALLY appreciated the removable "ADVidnotes" pop-ups, which beat the hell out of the "let's crowd the screen with subs" notes in the fansubs, but were just as informative and sometimes far more so, and occasionally even more entertaining. I also will admit an almost fangirlish glee for the cool stuff they did for the menus (they modeled each DVD menu off one of the episodes, and had a lot of silly little Easter Egg features or other fun things like Excel eventually making a crack about indecisiveness if you don't pick something soon enough, that amused me greatly, not to mention occasionally a game or something), as well as some of the silly little inserts like the tapping sumo game. (In fact, that's the one thing that disappointed me about the Azumanga Daioh release: the lack of ADVidnotes was OK given the nice booklets and I liked the reversible covers that broke down the episodes into the individual chapters and had fun, well-illsutrated scenes, but the menu was exactly the same for every volume and they didn't have any Easter Eggs that I found, or much extras to speak of at all, really).

Additionally, I have seen a great deal of one or two episode fansub screenings at local cons, and have discovered some real overlooked gems that way. For instance, the anime version of Cheeky Angel, which was really old but amusing (and which led me to start buying the manga when it came out), and the lovely, mellow little fantasy slice of life series that got released here as "Someday's Dreamers", which I bought the entire series of DVDs for (including the artbox version of vol.1), because it was just that cute and soothing to watch.

Conversely, one or two episodes warned me desperately away from .hack//SIGN (except the soundtrack, which though it ain't exactly Yoko Kanno, is very lovely and which I did buy when I found out it had been released here, hence supporting the only buy-worthy/experience-worthy thing about the series to me), Love Hina, and Piano (Good. God. Could you come up with a more slow-moving, pointless slice of life series than the first two episodes of Piano? I doubt it. I sincerely, sincerely doubt it. I recall seeing that screening with a friend of mine, and the only reason we didn't walk out on it was we got into riffing on it MST3K-style in the back row of a very empty little screening room. When comments regarding the profuse, random arthouse shots of flowers in the rain being "clearly, alien lifeforms creating amnesia in the general populace, DESTROY THE FLOWERS! THEY'RE EVIL!" actually seems more entertaining or interesting than the show itself, IMO, the show's got a few problems. More than a few, in fact). But, I really did only see one or two episodes of any of the ones I didn't enjoy, and I could swear .hack//SIGN was actually a legal sub, not a fansub, that somebody happened to bring in, so yeah.

Shows I like though, I buy as soon they're a.) licensed and b.) I can afford them. Unless they air on Adult Swim so often that I've seen them a million times, like Cowboy Bebop, which I dearly loved right up until about 2006, and then stopped even watching. Or if, like Witch Hunter Robin, they're kind of expensive enough that I have to wait a while to buy the whole thing (although, conversely, the whole I bought the first volume of WHR was I saw the mid-season or so plot twist about Robin being declared a you-know-what, which intrigued me).

Still, I watch them on a channel my family pays to receive, so yeah. And should GitS:SAC ever get truly inexpensive somewhere, I will probably buy it. The fact that I can watch it for cheaper on TV (while still being legal) is the only reason I put it off, because I do know they come with some nice extras apparently. Although it irks me that the anamorphic widescreen version - the version they pretty obviously air on Adult Swim - has to be so much for, for really just the option of viewing it in widescreen.

I'll cop to buying the WHR first volume just for the crazy number of extra stuff that came with the artbox version, though, so perhaps I am a particular subset of fan; the kind who not only gives dubs a chance, but appreciates the extra features and stuff that come with DVDs (the art cels and nice box and cool shot glass - unfortunately since broken, but oh well - made that thing well worth buying IMO, even without the mediocre but hey FREE soundtrack and T-shirt that came with it and the decent episode count). I mean, I even bought, sight unseen, the first volume of Comic Party, and I thought that anime was boring as hell when I actually saw it (except Taichi's laugh, which was highly amusing even in the dub), I actually have never quite gotten myself to regret paying money for it, because it came with a bajilion disc extras (subtitled Japanese seiyuu interview, omake short film with sub or dub options, etc.), a cute little autographed pencil board and the most awesome artbox in American anime release history. No, seriously. Even knowing that the series mostly bores me to tears, if I had to go back in time and choose again, I would still pay that $28 all over again just to have the box. I can say this of probably no other DVD series I have ever bought, even the ones that had pretty nice boxes like Someday's Dreamers or WHR or Chrono Crusade*. The thing comes with a cel-like plastic slipcover that just... I don't know. It's different and cool. Like the tins that some series (FMA and GitS:SAC, appropriately enough) come with, only even more unique and nifty somehow. Maybe it's the "occasional cel-collector" in me**, but I absolutely loved that box and still do. If I ever sell off the DVD itself, I am bloody well keeping the box!

I think though that if more companies went to the effort that ADV went to for Excel Saga and that Bandai(?) went to for WHR, making DVDs with tons of extra disc features and Easter Eggs and such, maybe more anime would sell well. Then again, Azumanga sold pretty well even without too awfully many extras (though they did have feelies... namely, the little booklets and the pins), so maybe it really does depend on the series. But seriously, I hope more companies do more extras in their future releases. Even if it means the average Best Buy anime DVD price jumps from $20 or so to $34 or so, I'd go for it, especially on first volumes.

-Andromeda

*(huh, never did buy the rest of that series, come to think of it, but then, from the sounds of it, the first volume was less serious and more fun and I already bought and liked the manga which is supposed to have a happier ending anyway, so whatever. I did like the extras/ menus - totally dug the '20s newspaper style - and yes, goddammnit, I liked the dub on that, the fact that they used period '20s slang was an appropriate move, I don't care that the Japanese writers never bothered to do the equivalent in Japanese, it makes sense, and I don't know what anybody was complaining about with the alleged incomprehensibility, I understood it just fine, and thought it gave a nice, unique, appropriate flavor to it - something the subs couldn't have given me, come to think of it, professional or otherwise).

** (I have exactly 7, two of which were "art cels" that came with the WHR box, one of which was a matted Trigun laser cel because it was kinda cool and only cost ten bucks, and four of which are apparently actual production cels, from, respectively: some random part of Sailor Moon that featured Minako playing cards and smirking with a very fun expression; Sailor Moon Super S TV series at some point that featured the Amazoness Quartet -it's of the green-haired one of them, Vesu-Vesu I think?; some random widescreen Tenchi Muyo feature with Mihoshi annoying the crap out of some green-haired woman; and Cardcaptor Sakura, presumably the TV series, in whatever episode that particular, cute little yellow dress costume was worn in. That last one is the nicest, on account of HOLY CRAP DOES MADHOUSE KNOW HOW TO DRAW PRETTY. Also, it didn't stick to anything before it got to me for a change, heh. BTW, PM me if you are so obsessed with CCS that you can identify which episode it is by the costume she's wearing, or if you can identify any of the other seemingly random scenes my cels are apparently from in those other anime, because I am honestly curious where they were all supposed to have been used...)

***Yeah, I know. I'm a total nerd, it seems. At least I only nerd out like that every so often, though! :P

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Forum - View topicHey, Answerman!

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Hey, Answerman!