Nichijou Director’s Cut DVD-Box review

After some issues with HMV, my copy of the Nichijou Director’s Cut DVD-Box arrived a couple weeks ago and it’s been a pleasant re-viewing experience. Originally aired starting in April 2011, Nichijou ran for 26 weeks last year. Kadokawa/Lantis and the rest of the production committee thought it would be the next big hit from Kyoto Animation, but alas, it was not to be. Speculate all you would like, NHK decided to re-air the show in January of this year for 12 weeks. People who read every sentence will wonder “How was a 26 week show aired over 12 weeks?” The answer: it was revised into 12 episodes, which are collected on this DVD-Box!

Bandai’s Spinoff releases of Haruhi!

Originally announced in August 2008, the premiere of The Melancholy of Haruhi-chan Suzumiya was more notable for pulling a “nice boat” and putting up a fake video before the real video was shown the following day (February 14th, 2009). These shorts were updated with two episodes a week until May 15th when the final episode was uploaded by itself. Each set was accompanied by another short, Nyoron~Churuya-san, for a total of 13 weeks. Bandai announced their license of the series on May 19th, 2010 and released the show on two half-season sets on October 5th, 2010 (BE Online store)/March 22nd, 2011 (Regular Release) and February 8th, 2011(BE Online store)/August 2nd, 2011 (Regular Release). Photobucket Album (The screencaptures are in the 720×480 format used to store video on a DVD)

The Journey of a Side Character around Japan

For the 2009 Limited Edition releases of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Kadokawa decided to include skits featuring a minor character in the show whose seijyu had become very popular. They previously featured him dressing up as his character in The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-chan, Oniguchi, to promote those DVDs in commercials and an autograph signing, but this would be the first time he was used in a bonus feature for the main series. Since they were going to use new footage in the BD-Box, Kadokawa decided to release the skits on a separate DVD a month before the Box hit. This was originally released on September 24th, 2010. Now, let’s go on a journey to find mysterious wonders with Taniguchi!

Technical details about retail discs, codecs, and the differences between JP/NA anime discs

One of the sites I frequent often is the Anime on DVD forums hosted by Mania (link above). The original creator of the forums tweeted something yesterday that gave me pause about a release I should get tomorow: the first Blu-Ray volume of K-On! by Bandai Enterainment. The text simply states that the audio for the BD is Dolby Digital 2.0 at 192kbps. So what does that mean and why were the forums so upset? Let’s delve into some technical details. Warning: this is going to be somewhat long and dry, but I hope it’s informative.

Like the title, it’s in English!

Following in the success of the first adaptation Clannad ~After Story~ was aired in the fall of 2008, which was one year after the initial adaption. The highly anticipated series was greatly loved by fans; immediately finishing atop many international fansites’ rankings. Sentai Filmworks licensed the show in July 2009 and released two sub-only volumes later that fall. Immediately following announcements of a dub for the first season, fans began requesting for Sentai to dub the sequel. At Izumicon last November, Sentai announced that finally ~After Story~ would be getting an english language track in a complete collection like the first season. I’ve mentioned no spoilers throughout this review, so don’t worry about reading if you’ve not seen the show.

Wagnaria!!: It’s certainly WORKING for me

In April of last year an anime produced by Aniplex and Yomuri Telvision Company entitled Working!! began airing to good success. While it wasn’t the most popular show of the season, it held its own against two giants in K-On!! and Angel Beats. Aniplex released the series on 7 DVD volumes last year and NISA licensed the set last November to release on March 29th of this year. Thanks to the good people at Right Stuf, I was able to obtain my copy a bit early and watched it yesterday. Without further delay, let’s get to work…

The year of Clannad continues! A dream so big it had to be a movie…

In 2004 Key Visual Arts released their highly anticipated third visual novel entitled Clannad. Since Toei Animation had made a TV anime series and a movie of their prior two works (Kanon and AIR) respectively, they decided to let Toei adapt Clannad into an animated movie. Thus in September 2007 Clannad:The Motion Picture was released.  In March 2008 the work was released on three DVD versions (collector’s, special, and regular editions) in Japan. The movie was licensed by Sentai Filmworks in November 2010 and set to be released March 15, 2011. (The author of this post received his copy early thanks to RightStuf)

Dubbing over the beginning of a family

From the Fall 2007-Winter 2008 anime season TBS aired the show Clannad for 23 episodes. The show was released on 8 DVDs with an additional OVA included on the final DVD volume in Japan throughout 2008. In October of that year Sentai Filmworks acquired the license to subtitle and distribute the show in North America via Section 23. Due to the unlikely probability of a television airing as well as a cost-saving measure the show would be released in two volumes that would only have the original Japanese audio with English subtitles.

The two sets sold well and since there was enough demand for an English dub, Sentai announced on March 13,2010 that a “complete collection” including the dub would be released encompassing all 24 episodes. They have since adopted a similar strategy for the sequel, but that will be reviewed in April.

The Clannad Complete Collection was released on June 15th, 2010 and I finally got around to acquiring it last December as a present. I’ve previously reviewed the Japanese Blu-Ray Box and that encompasses my thoughts on the show itself, so this will be a short review on my thoughts about the Region 1 Complete Collection.

It’s a Nyanderful Life with this DVD set

Sorry for the long wait between posts, but life has been quite busy lately. Today I’m going to review a DVD set I received last month as a gift: the Nyan Koi Complete Collection.

Nyan Koi is a series that was broadcast in 2009 by TBS and animated by AIC. It’s a romantic comedy that features conversations with cats as its signature difference between it and other harem series. It was the second anime series that I watched after getting back into the style and the first series I debated importing on Blu-Ray.

First look: A Haruhi comparison disco!

Commonly used by TMSIDR’s Anime in Blu blog, a first look will be my initial impressions of a set as well as some images to compare.

Today we compare the releases of one show, Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu, on DVD and on Blu-Ray. Not only will this post compare the Japanese DVDs from 2006/2009, but I will also include the North American releases by Bandai Entertainment in 2007/2010 to compare.