Forum - View topicWhat were your favourite anime DVD extras?
|
Goto page 1, 2 Next |
| Author | Message | ||
|---|---|---|---|
ailblentyn
 Posts: 1688 Location: body in Ohio, heart in Sydney |
|
||
|
I can think of three:
1) Oshii's commentary on the first disc of the USMC release of the Patlabor OVA. It actually gave me insight into the show. I can remember some of his points and revelations sitting here, even though I haven't watched it in a long while, so deep was its impression. 2) Moriyama's commentary on USMC's "Collector's Series" edition of Project A-ko. I'm sure there were interesting insights into the film here too, but really what I value (and retain) from this commentary is Moriyama's thoughts more generally about the development of anime, and ideas about directing. What an interesting person. 3) (This one is ironic, but a current favourite nonetheless.) A "Don't Do Drugs" ad included on the first disc of Manga Video's Macross Plus (the OVA edition), featuring the band Kiss trying to put the fear of God into the viewer. A highlight is Peter Criss practically boasting that he's "done everything" before telling the kids not to follow his example. Hypocritical, misguided and hilarious. What favourite extras do other people have (serious or otherwise)? [I'm sure there've been topics along these lines before, but not for a while as far as I can see.] |
|||
|
|||
The King of Harts
 Posts: 6712 Location: Mount Crawford, Virginia |
|
||
|
I LOVE the "Inside the Booth" extras from the Princess Tutu DVDs. It was so cool to see the VA's go through the process of dubbing (and seeing Luci Christian get so emotional at the ending). The one for Demon Fighter Kocho with Jessica Calvello was pretty good too, but she was a bit...odd at times. I wish Funimation would do this kind of extra since I can't imagine it being too difficult to set up a camera and hit record. Plus, I doubt they have to pay the actors extra like they do with commentaries.
I also really dug the commentaries on Boys Be.. with Liam O'Brien, Sam Regal, and |
|||
|
|||
|
Errinundra
Moderator
 Posts: 6695 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
|
||
|
Two things I especially like.
1. You get a new anime DVD, open the case and inside is a booklet!!. Royal Space Force - The Wings of Honneamise came with a twenty page colour booklet with two essays and an interview with the director, and lots of pics. Aria the Animation came with a 42 page black and white Neo-Venezia Guidebook. Jin-Roh came with a colour booklet. This is something you don't get with streaming or downloads and always leaves me feeling very favourably towards the distributor. 2. Another favourite extra is when bits from the anime are re-used with a different voice over for comedic effect. My favourites are Rider's Diary from Fate / Stay Night - the most entertaining five minutes in the entire series - and Three Speed's telephone conversations that are included with Madlax. |
|||
|
|||
|
Hypeathon
Posts: 1176 |
|
||
|
I don't know if I would consider this one a "favorite," but I'm right now watching the behind the scenes (which is a behind the dub) for Buso Renkin part 2 and on DVD and with the exception of Kyle Herbert and Karen Strassman, I don't know any of the other actors shown at all. It's very weird how these actors like Dick Smallberries Jr. (NO I'm not joking, that's his full name) and Deborah Sale Butler are pretty good, they have distinctive-enough voices, and yet I never heard of these guys in any other anime show. Well, ...actually considering that Funimation these days dubs more anime than any other company, I guess it's not that surprising.
There was also an interview in the Heat Guy J DVD set of the creators of the show and they mentioned how on a trip to Vietnam, they took the idea of I think food vendor places in that country as part of the main setting of the show for whenever Daisuke wanted a bite to eat. That and how they thought the sound of bagpipes was considered "manly" to them (which explains why whenever J helps get the job done, the bagpipe theme comes in. I think that's kinda badass in it's own way). Aside from that, there isn't really a lot partly because not many DVDs have unique extras and also because I don't buy that many of them. |
|||
|
|||
kyokun703
 Posts: 2505 Location: Orgrimmar |
|
||
|
Anything that comes with a book or booklet. I don't care about interviews, clean credits, charms, ill-fitting t-shirts. But informative booklets I like. Victorian Romance Emma, Toradora, Junjo Romantica, RahXephon, and Azumanga Daioh all had nice little (and not so little) books with them.
|
|||
|
|||
|
Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
|
||
|
On Disc-
-Sakura Wars live action musical advertisements/specials on the Sakura Wars OVA dvd's. These are fantastic, mostly because they're very professionally produced, compared to most seiyu-based extras, which are often just "stick a seiya in a room or cheap set, stick it on DVD!". You get the VA's playing their characters [even if their height's don't quite match up  ], in elaborate costumes, reenacting an actual plotline from the series [the cast hide their superhero activities by performing as a women's theatre group in the day, think if Takarazuka had a Sentai team w/giant robots]. Really fun, fun stuff.
-Simoun's super bizarre live action game show w/voice actresses- does Japan have orthodontists? And wow, this was both cute and stupid. -anything with SD shorts [Neo Angelique Abyss, Gunbuster, others]- this kind of stuff is always fun. I think I have some other discs/tapes with this stuff, but forget which- I know Blue Seed had some really lengthy, outright bizarre ones in particular. - super extensive extras on Disney's Ghibli releases- some fun documentaries, and story boards! - Glass Fleet's radio drama recording- 3 or 4 va's in front a live audience at a promotional event, putting their all into a silly little sidestory. Cheesy as the show was, unlike some seiyuu extras I've seen, they looked like they were actually having FUN, and being quite overdramatic about it. - Bubble Gum Crisis's music videos and voice actress concert footage- I love this! The songs, it's just all so 80's. Kind of wish I'd nabbed the disc that had the Hurrican Live special after watching this extra. - Odin's music video of it's theme song- I'm forgetting if this was just the end credits or the whole video, but wow, quite fun. - Project A-Ko OVA's strange, farm-based music video extras. Project A-Ko in generall had superwierd extras, like the making-of the music extra on the film's DVD. - Tweeny Witches' pilot film- really shiny animation, fun to see how they got it started, and really stuck with the concept.\ - the dressup-Twin Signal section on that series dvd, which also had a fun extra with parody outtakes of the dub. - Robotech toy commercials ["The Women of Robotech, Living a Life of ADVENTURE!"*] and pilot dub on the Robotech extras discs. *if they made Claudia and Roy dolls, would their commercial of featured pineapple salad?!?! In the Package- -Animeigo's recipe card translations notes in general are quite keen. -FMA, Haibane Renmei, the Sakura Wars movie, and Gunbuster had really nice booklets, which were all quite thick and full of detail, like pocket sized artbooks. -Sakura Wars the Movie also had some really lovely pencil boards, packed in fake envelope. Really nice detailings- Saiyuki had some of these too. -Aura Battler Dunbine's slips were basic in that they were just regular folded pack-ins, but had some nice production art on them that was also on the discs. -soundtrack cd's! Love randomly getting these, like Project A-Ko and Please Teacher. Would love to see more of this- I know Bandai's been doing it a lot recently, really should buy those sometime. -Tweeny Witches' book-styled artbox. Interesting artboxes are always really nice to get. -Babbit- Kodocha's 2nd artbox had a little Babbit plush! Quite cute  One of the more elaborate packins Funimation has done.
|
|||
|
|||
|
ailblentyn
Posts: 1688 Location: body in Ohio, heart in Sydney |
|
||
|
Oooh, I do like a nice booklet! Something glossy and weighty. My Azumanga Daioh didn't have a booklet. Now I feel cheated. Well, it serves me right for buying the cheaper and nastier 5-disc reissue, I suppose.
Out of the booklets I do have, I'm especially fond of the one RightStuf did for their Shingu. So chunky and pretty. (If their version of Utena is that nice, I might have to re-buy Utena...) Why couldn't Disney do pretty booklets for their Ghibli things? Those little prints in their new blue-and-gold releases are very nice, but wouldn't a booklet too just be the icing on the cake? 
|
|||
|
|||
Kruszer
 Posts: 8016 Location: Minnesota, USA |
|
||
|
The "Conversations With SSS" gag reels on the Madlax DVDs, because they're hilarious and spoof the series and it's characters.
The Witchcraft encyclopedia extras on the Witch Hunter Robin DVDs because they're very informative. |
|||
|
|||
vashfanatic
 Posts: 3520 Location: Back stateside |
|
||
|
My favorite extras are the series of Japanese cast interviews that came with Geneon's release of Gankutsuou. They'd interview a member of the cast right after the dubbing, and apparently posted them somewhere as episode previews... but I digress. The point was you saw the actors as they went along through the process episode after episode... which means you got to see a few of them go through a change in the course of playing their roles. Everyone is bright and excited in the first disc, and by the final one they all look emotionally exhausted. What I think I liked about it was that it wasn't just one interview, you instead got to see a whole process unfolding from the POV of the actors. It felt more real. If you can get a hold of the Geneon release, make sure to watch them!
|
|||
|
|||
einhorn303
 Posts: 1180 |
|
||
|
I'm probably missing lots, but some that stand out in my mind are:
- The book (not booklet, book) which came with the Blu-ray of Black Rock Shooter, with all the storyboards from the entire OVA. - The staff commentaries from Simoun, which I thought were very insightful. - The many liner notes that came on a sheet with Otaku no Video. - That "Making of..." video on Funimation's Evangelion 1.11 BD that was set to Ravel's Bolero. Yeah, I watched the whole thing...it helps that I love that song. |
|||
|
|||
|
ailblentyn
Posts: 1688 Location: body in Ohio, heart in Sydney |
|
||
|
|||
|
|||
yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
|
||
|
I really enjoyed the tour of Hakodate that comes with Noein. Director Akane Kazuki and his leading lady, rookie seiyuu Kudou Haruka, visit many of the real-life places that appear in the show. There's also a rather hilarious interview with Akane where he calls the demure 20-year-old Kudou "scary." I've often wondered if the translator misheard him calling her "cute!" Kudou sitting at a school desk like her anime counterpart does is pretty kawaii, too.
I'm sad we didn't get to see the extras for Saiunkoku Monogatari. NHK ran two specials about this show during its run, one with leads Seki Tomokazu and Kuwashima Houko, and a quite funny follow-up where the four male leads speculate over who the leading lady, Shurrei, will end up with. Both these floated around in fansubbed versions, but legitimate copies never made it to the R1 DVD release. |
|||
|
|||
EricDent
 Posts: 997 Location: Georgetown, TX |
|
||
|
I really enjoyed the first "Season" of the adventures of the ASOS Brigade on the discs of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Season 1).
Especially when Patricia Ja Lee and Johnny Yong Bosch did their little "omage" to the Power Rangers (since both of them were). I kind of wish they had done some sort of special thing for the "invasion" that Haruhi did on the DVDs of the 2nd Season. In the first season they are backstage, but it does not show the concert. I also like "extra" episodes that are not really "part" of the show. Such as the "Christmas" episode of Ai Yori Aoshi. The Norse Mythology notes were also a very nice touch on the DVDs of Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok. |
|||
|
|||
Sanosuke_Inara
 Posts: 1662 |
|
||
|
Relatively new collector, but so far my favorite extra has been on Romeo X Juliet: Romeo Collection, Part 1. It's basically a making of feature that took me totally by suprise. It gives an in depth look at pretty much every element that went into crafting the excellent series, looked deep into each of the houses and the various characters in them, and even a few interviews with some of the important people who worked on the film, all while being commentated by 2 characters in the actual show. I actually really liked it, and it's probably the only feature on the series DVDs that I have that I'll actually bother to rewatch at some point down the line.
|
|||
|
|||
Gina Szanboti
 Posts: 12773 |
|
||
|
I guess I like Easter eggs whether they're fantastic or lame. Excel Saga was chock full of both kinds.
I also love outtakes, as long as they're not limited to random line flubbing and stuttering. Most of the outtakes for Rurouni Kenshin, Berserk, Weiß Kreuz (which also had a boatload of seiyuu extras that were hilariously odd), Midori Days and Noein are golden. And the Alternate Dialogue bits (especially the "kid safe" versions) on Texhnolyze were a great relief after the unrelenting gloom of that series. I usually enjoy VA commentaries, and audition tapes are interesting (e.g., Speed Grapher). But Right Stuf's Ultra Edition cubes of Captain Tylor were the most extra laden beasts I have ever seen. The first series set had not one, but two small hardcover books (Tylor and the Iron Curtain, Vol. 1, A Memorial File of Random Works, Vol. 1), two dvds of extras, and the first OST Sentehisshou. The second OVA set also had Vol II of each of the books, the OVA OST, and one dvd of extras. I don't recall now what I paid for the two of them, but I know they were ridiculously cheap. I wasn't even a big Tylor fan or anything, but I just couldn't pass that up! :) |
|||
|
|||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group