Recent purchases; Massive sale at Right Stuf

Right Stuf is currently having a huge sale on Geneon, f/k/a Pioneer anime DVDs. You can buy 10 for $50.00 or 25 for $100.00. So you can get 10 DVDs at 5 bucks a piece or 25 at 4 bucks a piece. I've never participated in these huge sales that a lot of online DVD retailers have until this one. I guess mainly because I never knew about them. Thanks to animeworldorder, weeklyanimereview and other podcasts/websites, I now know to look out for huge sales like these and I signed up for newsletters at all the online retailer websites I could find. Anyway, I got an email the other day about this sale and I decided to check it out. I figured there wouldn't be anything I wanted or the stuff they had would be out of stock, but I was completely wrong. I ended up buying 25 dvds for $100 and I could have easily got another 25. I was able to finish off 3 series that were incomplete and I got two other complete series. Here is what I picked up:

Chobits volumes 1 - 7
R.O.D. the TV volumes 2 - 7
Vandread the Second Stage volumes 2 - 3
New Getter Robo volumes 1 - 4
Captain Herlock (aka Harlock) volumes 1 - 4
Tenchi Muyo: Mihoshi/Pretty Sammy Special
and a Hand Maid May soundtrack

I had the first volume of Chobits that came with the artbox but I sold it when I needed money several years ago. I still have the artbox and extra stuff that came with that though. I still have the first volume of R.O.D. and I got the special edition that came with the really cool pleatherbound case that looks like a book and holds all 7 volumes of the series. For Vandread I have the complete Vandread series and the first volume of the Second Stage that came with the artbox, so I was able to complete that series as well. For the new stuff I got the complete New Getter Robo (with artbox) mainly cause I'd seen a few episodes that interested me enough to buy the whole series. Of course Daryl's constant praise of the show on animeworldorder helped too. I love anything by Leiji Matsumoto, so I had to get Captain Herlock. I recently got Galaxy Railways and Arcadia of My Youth, so I've got plenty of Matsumoto stuff to watch for awhile. So after all that stuff I had to find 2 additional things since the terms and conditions of the sale require you to purchase the exact number of DVDs in the sale (either 10 or 25). I wanted to get the first 13 episodes of Magical Project S but it was sold out. I thought about a 6 episode OVA called Moldiver or the Sakura Wars movie but I found the Mihoshi/Pretty Sammy Special which I needed and I like the music in Hand Maid May so I decided to pick that up.

If I do decide to get another 25 I will go with Gungrave, Mahoromatic, Heat Guy J, Cybuster, Lain and/or Star Ocean EX. I've seen all of Gungrave and it's one of my favorite series, well until Beyond the Grave shows up anyway. I've seen a couple episodes of Mahoromatic and I liked what I saw, it's your typical fanservice show, nothing too special, but hey I'm a pervert so I like it. I've seen the first couple episodes of Heat Guy J and I liked that a lot. Never seen Cybuster but it looks cool and I guess the mecha is the same Cybuster as in Super Robot Wars so that's freaking cool. I've never seen Lain but I've heard a lot of good things about it. As for Star Ocean EX, I love the game it's based on, Star Ocean the Second Story, and I love the music but I've seen some pretty average reviews for it.

As I said before, I just got the Galaxy Railways boxset, which I purchased from animeonestop.com. I also got the first two collections of Tekkaman Blade, I pre-ordered the Godannar box set and I purchased the Genshiken boxset (one of my new favorite anime of all time).

Besides all of these purchases, I've been on a Gundam kick recently. I finished off Gundam Seed Destiny, but I haven't been able to find any torrents of Final Plus anywhere, if anyone knows where I can get a torrent with a working tracker and seeds you will be my new best friend:D! I decided to go back and watch the original Gundam series, in the form of the 3 two-hour plus movies. I'm now watching 08th MS Team and I'm enjoying that more then the original Gundam so far. Next will be 0080: War in the Pocket, 0083: Stardust Memory and then Zeta Gundam. I never used to like Gundam until I saw G Gundam. I remember when Gundam Wing was on TV several years ago and I absolutely hated it (I still do BTW). I guess I assumed all the Gundam series would be similar to Wing so decided I hated all things Gundam because of Gundam Wing. I was a teenager back then so I didn't know any better right? I saw G Gundam a few years later and I thought, "man this is awesome!" Then Gundam Seed came a long and it became one of my fav anime and my favorite Gundam series so far. Now I want to see ALL the Gundam series and I want all the cool model kits. Only problem is I don't know where to buy them cheap and what kind of paint to use. I actually have a few Gundam Wing model kits. I bought them at Toys R Us when Gundam first came out in the USA, and I bought them just because they were cool lookin. After all, the mech designs are what attracted me to Gundam in the first place. I assembled them but never painted them or had any idea what kind of paint and what colors to get. I think I have a small Epyeon, Heavy Arms Custom and then a large Serpent Custom kit. I wish Gundam was more popular over here so big chains like Toys R Us would carry the model kits again.

Well that's enough of my rambling, hope I didn't bore you too much. Later!

Otaku USA: Initial thoughts

I picked up my copy of the new anime and Japanese pop culture mag, OtakuUSA, on the way home from work today. For some reason I was afraid my local Barnes & Noble store would not carry it just to spite me, but there it was behind a MAD magazine and two rows above and behind it's main competitor (at least in my opinion), Newtype USA. The cover price is $9.99 American, comes with a free DVD of 3 anime episodes, a centerfold, and a manga insert. The first thing I looked at is to see what episodes were on the DVD, and lo and behold the disc was upside down so I had no idea what was on the disc. Not a big deal, I purchased the mag for the content, not the DVD. But I know that is a major selling point especially when it's competing with Newtype which lists the episodes on its DVD in bold print on the cover of each issue. Anyway the anime on the DVD are Boogiepop Phantom, School Rumble and Ninja Nonsense. I've already seen two of the anime, Boogiepop (didn't like it) and Ninja Nonsense (loved every minute of it). I've heard of School Rumble so I'm curious to see what it's all about.

I haven't read a whole lot of the mag yet but upon first browse I noticed there is a lot of content in the mag, unlike Newtype which is chalk-full of two page advertisements and pictures. I read the Tekkaman Blade review, (nice job Gerald), a little bit of the Hellsing Ultimate review (I can almost hear Daryl screaming) and a bit of the Haruhi review. I don't see why that show is so popular, I watched the first two episodes and I hated every second of it. I also liked the feature on Yoshiaki Kawajiri. I have fond memories of watching Wicked City, Demon City Shinjuku, Goku Midnight Eye, Ninja Scroll and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. I plan to read more of the mag on my lunch break at work tomorrow, maybe I'll post some more comments about it then.

Thanks to Daryl, Clarissa and Gerald for getting the word out about this mag on their podcast, animeworldorder. If it weren't for them I probably wouldn't have known about this new anime mag or even purchased it if I saw it in a store at some point in the future.

EDIT: As I was writing this the Otaku USA website was still "under construction." I just checked again and now it is up. Be sure to check it out if you want to know more about the mag!

Later