Forum - View topicThe Mike Toole Show - Revenge of the Special Edition
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rowsdower
Posts: 83 |
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I'm a collector, but an extremely exacting one. I only buy anime (or any media, really) that fits at least one of the following criteria:
1) I love it and know that I'll revisit it relatively frequently. 2) It's exceptionally rare or historically valuable in some way (and I got an unbelievably good deal on it if I'm just ~meh~ about the content). Since tastes change, I actually prune my library on occasion, although the only anime I think I've ever parted with was Excel Saga. I watched that show over and over when I was 14, but it just didn't make the cut during the last culling. The series that I own that I've revisited the most is probably Baccano!, but it would be Monster if I could ever finish owning it. I've seen all 74 episodes at least 3 times each (with certain episodes much, much more than that), but I'll never be able to physically own any of them after episode 15. /eternal bitter, boiling rage Most of the time I go for special editions if I can get an insane deal. For a couple (of several) examples, I got the original gorgeous Gankutsuou box from RightStuf for... $20, I think? I was fortunate enough to win the Berserk Box of War and as a prize in a raffle at my university's anime club, along with an Elfen Lied box that I really need to get rid of because I freaking hate that show. The 2 exceptions are my beautiful Utena sets (complete with rose ring) and, eventually, the ultra-ridiculous BD/DVD Madoka sets. I guess there's something poetic about my 2 most expensive collections being dark magical girl reimaginings? Final thought: JESUS CHRIST, this is now probably the most valuable thing in my collection. Good lord, I paid $50 for that. |
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gerbilx
Posts: 138 |
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o.O
I've watched Bebop 4 times, Gungrave 5 times, Welcome to the NHK 4 times, Berserk 3 times, Toradora 2 times, Kara no Kyoukai 3 times, etc etc. I own a few hundred shows on DVD, and I have seen the /vast/ majority of those shows at least twice. I am positively floored by the concept that one would watch an anime they liked just once. Anywho, while it isn't my favorite show among those I have special editions of, the special edition of Haruhi Season One is my favorite by a fairly large margin. |
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Fifth B
 Posts: 213 |
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Count me a member of the rewatch crowd. I go through most of my collection every year or so, and I've yet to burn out, so I'll probably keep going at it for the foreseeable future (though the constant growth of my collection is making this more difficult)
I really enjoy physical media because it's nice to have that sort of manifestation of something you enjoy, if that makes any sense. I guess I just like looking at a shelf and thinking to myself, "yeah, I love this stuff", and simply looking at the cases and boxes bring back memories of the show or movie, which I also enjoy. As for limited edition things in my collection, I'm a very cheap man, so I'm short on them. I do have those Toradora sets NISA put out, and while I'm not a fan of the dimensions of the boxes, they are really nifty, and I really like the books that came with them. I have a whole lot of singles and boxes, but most of those I bought as a whole at conventions or online. The few exceptions are my copies of Air, Kanon (both of which have particularly lovely box art), and Baccano, for which I bought the individual volumes and gradually filled the box. This probably says something about how simple minded I am, but that was quite satisfying! I also really dig Funimation's Spice and Wolf II LE.
Love that show too! One of my great regrets as a collector is that I had the opportunity to buy the full artbox for the price of Funimation's box set, but opted for the latter due to space issues. That still haunts me.
My God. I've been collecting for about five years now, and I'm proud of my collection, but yours puts me to shame. I tip my hat to you, fine sir! Last edited by Fifth B on Mon Jan 16, 2012 2:05 am; edited 1 time in total |
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JuniorMintKiss
 Posts: 81 Location: Utah |
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Very interesting article this time around, Mike. I make it a priority to physically own what titles I can. I am not much into digital storage/viewing - like the bills I pay via snail mail, I just like to have a hard copy around, just in case. I feel that way with my DVDs and Blu-rays.
I had to laugh at your analogy of Bandai "vomiting" out the merchandise for some of their releases. I pre-ordered every Scrapped Princess DVD because I wanted a figure of Shannon so bad. I felt so duped when he wasn't the same size as Raquel and Pacifica!
Again, the Scrapped Princess artboxes, and then my Fruits Basket LE and Black Butler Part One LE box. I also loved my Kodocha Boxset that came with the Babbit plushie - he hangs from my car's rear view mirror. 
I have to watch Gokudo a couple times a year. This is mostly because I collect cels from the show and I get the screencaps for my gallery from the DVDs. His and Her Circumstances, The Wallflower, and Kodocha I also rewatch quite frequently. |
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Mune
Posts: 376 Location: Minnesota |
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I used to buy LE's from time to time. Then, I was greatly disappointed when the series was re-released in a thin boxset with all of the special content. Now, I just wait to buy the complete series at once. With complete series exclusively on Blu-ray emerging as special editions only, I am forced to pay the price or go without it all together. Limited quantities don't help much either.
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lem
 Posts: 734 Location: Land of trying to figure sht out |
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another great article.
all of this streaming is actually a good thing. There isn't anything that compares to the show selling itself you know? I like being able to catch an entire episode or more to get a solid feel for it first. Right now Cross Game is the best example I can offer of a show that isn't available on R1 but I'm already sold on it. I'll collect the manga first and wait for its stateside release. Before it used to just be a brief disc preview, like the old Anime Test Drive discs anyone? word of mouth, and or a written review. But nowadays, we have streaming as a preview guide. I'm glad ANN and other sites like HULU have only helped to make the buying of physical media easier. Much easier. My favorite collector's dvd? impossible to name just one. Gunbuster is at the top of course , then the Jin Roh blu ray box with storyboard book, and the Paranoia Agent box with the Maromi plush. Also on the short list is Beck's amplifier case with guitar picks in each volume, Samurai Champloo's box with the bandana, FLCL's ultimate ed, the 2nd Haibane Renmei box, Cowboy Bebops sepia toned one with the OST, and the Witch Hunter Robin with a Tee, mini cels, OST and a shot glass, all of the GITs special eds with playing cards, mouse pad, mini figures, I'll just stop there.
As for more than once, I like to watch Tokyo Godfathers and the Nuku Nuku OVA in December, and Perfect Blue in October of course. As for single views, Witchblade. It wasn't at all what I was expecting, but man what a satisfying show. And FLAG, it's not perfect by any means, it's actually kinda goofy with the wannabe mech devices and setting, but that main character and her story... by the time it was all said and done... |
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taster of pork
 Posts: 594 Location: My House |
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I don't think physical media I dying for the movie industry since Blue Ray is keeping people interested. For me, I still prefer to own a hard copy because I'm a collector and I guess a little old school. I don't buy a series unless I know I'll watch it again and every series I own I've watched several times.
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4621 |
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Holy crap...how did I forget to mention the FLCL Ultimate Edition? That's one I gladly shelled out $50 for, since it was the only way that the series was available at the time, and it's one of my all-time favorites. The sheer amount of cool stuff they crammed into that box, plus the actually-classy free T-shirt you could send away for (which became a free T-shirt plus a shot glass when Broccoli USA didn't have my size), made it more than worthwhile.
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reanimator
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Being a hard core fan who bought almost nothing but Japanese R2 Limited editions, I have a few things to say.
I love special editions to a certain degree. I don't like toys and trinkets due to space issue, but I love booklets and artworks. I'm in total love in Japanese packaging and graphic designs. That's just me. Everyone has fond memories for his or her R1 SE DVDs, so I'm not going to say negative things about the R1 SE. Right now, Anime is reverting back its original niche status and we all know that R1 companies who were trying to remake it as cheapest mainstream got into serious financial troubles. It's inevitable that price of some SE anime DVDs are offered at luxury prices. I watched Animatrix R1 DVD with OST several times because the extra bonus features are just too good. Director interviews and commentaries are awesome. I watched Oreimo R1 DVD LE several times. I wanted more extras, but I get what I paid for. I got good deal on Persona Trinity Soul SE DVD's. I really liked their artbooks and pricing was too good for its package design. I want to talk about my favorite Japanese R2 LE DVDs which are expensive and have no subtitles. Yet, they have the best looking package and extras. 1. Macross Plus DVD box It comes with a booklet that features artworks. Bonus features have deleted scenes which never featured in OVA and movie. Best featurette was a home video of Shoji Kawamori and Ichiro Itano getting their G pressure experience through aerial acrobatic from Air Combat USA. 2. Sword of the Stranger DVD SE Both Box and DVD case have original cover art. It comes with 500 page storyboard book and an mini artbook. Bonus features are director interview and 2 audio commentaries. 3. Kannagi DVD SE DVD menu us designed like of those those Adv/dating sim game. A lot of cast and staff interviews (I liked Director Yamato ranting endlessly like Akiba.) Drama CD of Kannagi scneario(what if Kannagi ep was staged in hot spring?) and hardcover booklet featuring several 4 panel manga. I can go on with other titles, but I'll leave it as it is. |
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sepherest
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Definitely Geneon's collector's box for the Gankutsuou series. I was at a FYE and buying some other series during an anime sale, and if I'd buy one more thing I'd get it half off or something. I didn't know anything about the series and the box looked cool so I just bought it on a whim to get my other stuff for cheap. Series turned out to be one of my favorites... Another series that had some awesome looking limited edition boxes was Samurai 7.
Paradise Kiss and Higurashi. I have the collector's boxes for those, too.
Giant Robo. Helps that Media Blasters gave the DVD release a ton of interesting extras to check out, like commentary by Masamichi Amano and a couple animators that worked on the OVA. I really like watching the in-production animation tests for a couple of the episodes, too. It's actually kind of funny going into stores like FYE and Best Buy now, because I still see old LE boxsets in them for a lot cheaper than their original prices. Especially for Geneon and ADV releases. If you go online to Amazon or other shops they're outrageously expensive, since they're out of production or whatever. So it's still kind of worth driving down to some stores for anime. |
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phia_one
Posts: 1657 Location: Pennsylvania |
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Ditto on this. I have all 18 volumes of the manga. It's a shame I can't have the anime to go with it.
It's nice to see the show get some love. |
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TheTheory
 Posts: 1029 Location: Central PA |
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Same. And I still haven't actually watched the show. (sigh) But it sure is a gorgeous set, looks brilliant on my shelves. I really need to get around to popping those discs in the player... Generally, my favorite part of "special editions" or whatever WERE the chipboard boxes. I had some brilliant ones--even going so far as to import the Madman-produced Death Note box to house my VIZ singles. Haibane Renmei remains one of my favorites from a visual stand-point. But in terms of non-box extras, hands-down the best and most surprising was the hat I got with Desert Punk v.1/box. I picked the series up from TRSI, which had this abortion of a picture: http://www.rightstuf.com/cms/action/ItemDescription?ItemDescriptionTypeName=ALTERNATE_IMAGE_1&ItemName=fun06900&LanguageIsoName=en Opened it and found this delightful surprise (image from google image search):http://frankensteinsninja.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/desertpunk.jpeg Still remains my favorite hat--pity that after moving twice over the summer I have NO idea where it is. Hopefully I'll stumble across it at some point. Anyway, I never had much use for soundtrack CDs that would come bundled with certain releases (except for the Key the Metal Idol, because a few of those songs are gut-wrenching). T-Shirts were always cool, although usually a bit small for my XL frame. Things like the Haruhi Suzumia pillowcase were immediately appealing as a quality item...until I realized that as a 20-something male there was no way I could actually use it and hang on to any sense of dignity. Yet even when I couldn't (or didn't) use LE item, I still loved having it. Even after purging a lot of my DVDs (need money, don't watch as much anime anymore), I still treasure certain of these LE items, like the Wolf's Rain stuffed animal. I have a weakness for stuffed animals... |
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st_owly
 Posts: 5234 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland |
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Well, I envy you folks. LE boxsets of anime are virtually non existent over here. One of my friends has a season of Bleach in a metal tin, and I think there were some LE's of original Fullmetal Alchemist. Some things occasionally get a cardboard art box, and there may have been some .hack stuff back in it's heyday, but nothing like anything you lucky folk over the pond get.
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Ryu Shoji
Posts: 671 Location: Cambridge, United Kingdom |
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My favourite Limited Edition sets that I own are Beez Entertainment's The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya volumes. I love the little extras, like the headband and the armband, I adore the OP/ED singles and the two character albums and the box is fantastic.
The only thing I'm iffy about is the pillow cases - they still remain sealed to this day xD As for recent releases; I have the first Madoka Magica set pre-ordered. I'm not planning on putting in a pre-order for volume 2 until I've received volume 1. |
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Mune
Posts: 376 Location: Minnesota |
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The Special/Limited Editions are nice, but I would like collector's edition boxes for manga. You know, to put all of your manga you purchased into it.
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