NEWS: 10/30/99

Goin' Digital: I've gotten a lot of great responses to my first article as well as people wanting to know a lot more about HDTV in general. Before we get into the HDTV general article, I've written up the eagerly anticipated Path to HDTV: Step 2 - The Compromise!

Philosophy in a teacup: His Lordship Chaos presents a great topic for ranti... er, discussion this week. "If I ruled anime..." is a common theme in many shows. And among fans themselves!

Reviews: A day late and a dollar short, but here's my review for Serial Experiments Lain Vol. #3: Deus.

NEWS: 10/29/99

Make love & war: If you're like me, Tuesday will be a hard choice. With Saving Private Ryan coming out and a couple of anime titles, what to watch first. Speaking of anime (since it is our focus!), Sakura Wars clocks in with 750 whopping copies and Tenchi in Tokyo Vol. #6: A New Challenge makes its arrival with 600 copies. 

NEWS: 10/28/99

Down under moving up: Ian Goggin wrote in today to let me know that Kiseki Films Australia announced on their website that they're going to be starting an Anime DVD section within the next two weeks. There's no word yet on whether it will be the titles that they do themselves or whether they'll primarily be the discs that Pioneer has already made region 4 capable since Kiseki primarily deals with Pioneer titles to begin with. Either way, anime DVD's are on the move again!

Animeigo news: Direct from the ever popular Animeigo DVD mailing list, Robert Woodhead answered a few of the questions regarding titles today. Apparently Toshiba (Japan) will be releasing an Otaku no Video DVD sometime in the near future (presumably within 2000) and Animeigo is currently tweaking their subtitles to align themselves to release a U.S. version. This is definitely a great title to finally make its way out as a domestic laserdisc version was never released. 

Also mentioned was some tidbit on the Super Deformed Double Feature that usually gets asked. Animeigo no longer owns the rights to Ten Little Gall Force, so naturally there's nothing to be done there. But, what about Scramble Wars? in the usually fun and cryptic words of Mr. Woodhead, "we are trying to work something out on this too".

Main reviews: I was hoping to get two reviews done tonight, but with all the news and other bits, I've only had time to write up my Tenchi Forever review. Hopefully tomorrow will be better to get my Lain Vol. #3 review done!

Alternate Angles: We've got a bunch of new reviews up today with plenty of food for thought and grist for discussion on the forum. Check out Darkside Blues, Tenchi Forever, Macross Plus Vol. #1, Tenchi Muyo: Daughter of Darkness and Project A-Ko. If you're looking for more views, check out this site run by webmistress Tena Mastrangelo.

Region 2: We've also got in a great new region 2 review for something I've seen a lot of interest in, Akazukin Chacha DVD Box Set #1. Many thanks to Mike Marcelais for sending this in!

Codefree: In my continuing effort to get more information on the site itself instead of emails I'm replying to, I now have a basic page set up regarding codefree DVD players. 

NEWS: 10/27/99

More pleasing blues: It's come about that the newly released Darkside Blues DVD contains an English 5.1 soundtrack on it. I wondered if there was a difference between English Stereo and English Surround. I did a quick check of it and it is a 5.1 track, but I didn't notice a lot of difference in the couple of sequences I checked.

Top ten: The top ten was updated today, and there was some movement but no new titles made it onto the list. And don't ask me why it lists Fushigi twice, it's something to do with the reporting software!

Expect delays: I've been told to expect some minor delays with two upcoming Pioneer titles, Tenchi in Tokyo Vol. #7 and El-Hazard Vol. #3 due to the mammoth resources being required by the Fushigi Yugi box set. When you consider that FY is four dual layered DVD's and there are a lot of them being produced during the holiday season, things become a bit clearer. I'm sure Pioneer will appreciate people's understanding just as people appreciate Pioneer's mention of this.

NEWS: 10/26/99

Do you have the blues? I've got some blues after watching this disc. Check out this review for the latest on Central Park Media's release, Darkside Blues.

Pioneer schedules ahead: Pioneer placed two new DVD announcements today for January 2000. On 1/11, look for the final volume of Tenchi in Tokyo to hit alongside the previously announced Nazca Vol. #1. On 1/25, look for the final volume in the new El-Hazard, The Alternative World series.

Reviews: Ah, what a day it's been. We've now got all of the region 1 reviews properly converted and available for everyone to check easily. As such, we have a few accurate totals now. There are 208 region 1 reviews in our database and 54 in our region 2 database. We've got a lot of reviewing going on here! In addition, we have a special region 2 review today from Stéphane Goetz. It's a review of the first Ghibli title available on DVD, Porco Rosso!

Are you ready to revolutionize again? While doing a little spot checking of things, I stumbled across some information that will make some people extremely happy. Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Rose Collection 2 is scheduled to arrive on 03/21/2000. A date at last!

NEWS: 10/25/99

New Feature: In addition to the piece below about the Essential Anime Collection's return, I've started a new feature today. Check out the Path to HDTV when you have a free couple of minutes!

Reviews & Misc.: The review conversion continues on, with all reviews being done up through the letter "R" now. There appear to have been a few hidden reviews (such as my own!) being mixed throughout based on some rather old and poor HTML from when I was learning. Also, based on things I've been reading and getting emailed, people are still having trouble getting copies of Record of Lodoss War and Revolutionary Girl Utena. Having just converted these reviews, I know now that there are definitely copies in stock at DVD Express since I use their pictures. ;) If you're looking for these titles, head on over and get some great anime.

Know what to pack: This weekend also brought about the return of the Essential Anime Collection which I failed to have time to really work with over the summer. The Tenchi Muyo section is back and we've added a new section as well, so check it out.

NEWS: 10/23/99

Cover Art: With many thanks to Web Content'oMatic Guy Dan Rockwell at ADV, we now have the cover artwork for you to check out for Battle Angel, Ninja Resurrection, Queen Emeraldas and Sakura Wars. Very shiny looking!

Philosophize this: His Lordship Chaos has his new weekly rant up and ready for your reading pleasure. This week he tackles the super-deformed world...

NEWS: 10/22/99

Software shuffle: Scheduled to street next week is Darkside Blues. Sakura Wars was supposed to ship as well, but it looks as if it's slipped back to 11/02/1999. With the sheer volume of DVD's coming out right now, I'm surprised anything is making a street date.

Reviews and more: My review is now up for Battle Athletes Victory Vol. #6: Willpower and Mike has sent in an alternate angle review for it as well. And after a quiet period, Steve Brandon has sent in his latest alternate angle review, this time for Tenchi in Tokyo Vol. #5. It's quite a lengthy read (topping 3500 words!) and definitely worth reading.

NEWS: 10/21/99

Too much too fast: Due to some complications on my part, I've had to start the chat bit with a new destination room. The chat page has been updated to #animedvd so that'll be the regular place from here on out. My thanks for your cooperation during this slight transition!

Speaking of chat...: Though briefly in the room, several people in the chat last night managed to get a few questions out of the Pioneer rep that happened by. All that was mentioned in brief is that Trigun looks to be on schedule for February (as previously known) and that El-Hazard is sometime after that. Based on what I've heard and read, I'd hazard a guess of Springtime next year. There sounds to be some plans for good extras so it'll be worth the wait.

FAQ: The FAQ has been updated with information about Macross Plus, Neon Genesis Evangelion and hopefully answers to some questions I've been getting regarding the affiliate programs that are on this site.

NEWS: 10/20/99

Reviews: Eric McGillicuddy has sent in a new review for the hardware section for the Sony DVP-C600D behemoth. And Joshua Carvalho has sent in a new alternate angle review that focuses heavily on the story for Tenchi Forever.

Electrifying news: If you've been awash in Evangelion talk in the Animeigo DVD Mailing list, you might have missed a rather good piece of news from Robert Woodhead regarding the Urusei Yatsura DVD set. From the list, he says "... you have to us a magnifying glass AND a misadjusted (high-sharpness setting) TV to have any chance of seeing artifacts, and even those are only visible on freeze frames.  During playback, it looks BETTER than the original D2-digital source tapes, because the compression kills the analog noise in the images." It also appears that encoding on volumes 2-5 will occur next week and will go very fast now that the method is down pat beyond some extremely minor subtitle tweak. Major kudos to Woodhead and Animeigo for keeping its fans up to date on developments.

Can the anime be far behind? Dreamcast IGN is indicating that the Berserk Dreamcast game is pretty likely to hit the shores in the U.S. sometime next year. I'm making it my Christmas wish for a DVD loving company to have secretly acquired it and release it next year. 

Congratulations: Good news goes out to Justin Sycamore who won our random entry Lain contest. Be sure to check out the second October contest!

Chat: I've installed a new chat client that should be more robust than the previous one and actually hold more people. 

NEWS: 10/19/99

Pioneer news: Pioneer put out the announcement today for the first of four volumes of the TV show Nazca due out on 1/11/2000. I saw the first episode of this at Otakon this past summer and wanted to see the next three episodes, but refrained as I wanted to be surprised when the first DVD shows up. I'm really looking forward to this one.

Will it rock you?: I've been informed that Queen Emeraldas is now available for preorder at DVD Express and that Battle Angel and Ninja Resurrection are properly set at 40%. For those two, you'll note it's 40% inside the description and when you add it to your cart.

By the numbers: Just a little fun fact here. Depending on how you count your titles and what you consider anime, there are about 108 titles now out on DVD in region 1 with about another dozen or so due out in the next 3 months.

Reviews from A to... B?: We've finished converting a sizeable chunk of reviews, placing us in the C section now. It's been interesting checking out many of these older reviews and seeing how things were and bringing them up to date with the current review templates. But not to spend all of our time in the past, we've put up a new review for El-Hazard, The Alternative World Vol. #2: The Spring of Life for your reading pleasure.

NEWS: 10/18/99

Ooooh, shiny: Immense thanks to Erich Owens for alerting me to the whereabouts of the Fushigi Yugi Suzaku box set image. I've now appropriated it and placed it within the review section. There are two links there, each with different functions, so make sure you select the right one (both of 'em!).

Pre-orders: I've been getting a lot of mail over the weekend about when those new ADV titles will be available for preorder. Actually, I got a lot of mail asking where to send me the money to buy them. I'm not a store, honest! :) Anyway, DVD Express now has Battle Angel and Ninja Resurrection on their site for people to order. Which ones will make our top ten?

Down in flames: What started out rather wonderfully has been going downhill since. Check out my review for Macross Plus Volume #2 for the skinny on the Dolby Digital 5.1 track and the subtitle issues.

Editorial: Our first editorial since March 1999 is now up here. 

Hardware: David Eddy has sent in a great in-depth review of a modded Sony DVP-S525D DVD Player. Definitely check it out!

Watch this space: We'll be adding all sorts of alternate angle reviews here today, so be sure to keep an eye out! First up is the classic Eight Man After: Perfect Collection reviewed by Justin Emerson as well as Ghost in the Shell. Jennifer Wabin has also sent in her first alternate angle review with El-Hazard: The Alternative World Vol. #1.

NEWS: 10/17/99

Tea time: His Lordship Chaos has sent in his latest missive for Philosophies in a Teacup entitled "Idol Singers: Menace with a Microphone". Be sure to get your dose of wit and hilarity for your weekend.

Region 2: The entire region 2 review section has been converted over. Which means the long grueling region 1 section is next.

NEWS: 10/16/99

Get wired: Roman's sent in his latest missive, this time tackling Serial Experiments Lain Vol. #3: Deus.

Hardware: All of our hardware reviews are back online, so with the coming holiday season, if you're looking, it can't hurt to check out a few more reviews. If you've got a player that's not in the list, why not send in a review of it?

Retrospective: Among part of the cleanup I've been doing with the rebuild was to move over the news archives tonight. I have to tell you, it's been an interesting 20 months running this site. Beside the initial thought of "20 months? My goodness", the changing level if the kinds of news and the frequency is really surprising. In our first two months, we basically updated every two weeks or so with some little tidbit and some hope for more announcements while the few of us who were here back on the Netcom days gathered in the Bravenet forum to talk. Things have definitely come a long way.

Ninja Cadets gets closer: The first release from Media Blasters, Ninja Cadets, is getting closer all the time. In addition to Animenation listing it recently for the 1/25/2000 release date, Amazon.com is now listing it as well. Be sure to check out the Region 2 review of this title!

NEWS: 10/15/99

CPM kicks off 2000 with a bang: Central Park Media has given information on their first two DVD releases for 2000. Starting on 01/18/2000, we can finally see the Urotsukidoji Perfect Collection on DVD for a very nice price of 59.99$. When this was released to a very limited edition laserdisc box set a number of years ago (5 discs!) it retailed for 99.99$ and was rather hard to find and still is I believe. And not to be content with that, on 02/15/2000 we'll finally see the arrival of Cybernetic Guardian as well. 

New Releases: From what I can tell, there's only one new title due out this coming week, Battle Athletes Victory #6: Willpower. I'm seeing more consistent reports that the Tenchi in Tokyo #6: A New Challenge disc is due out on 11/2, so the usual delay on that. But don't forget to get in your orders for two titles coming out before that, Sakura Wars and Darkside Blues.

Debate continues: As more copies of Macross Plus get into peoples hands, there's growing debate on quality on various setups. Here's two more alternate angles to help guide you through the forest from Roman Martel for volume one and volume two.

NEWS: 10/14/99

ADV gets cool for December: ADV Films sent out a separate title announcement sheet this afternoon highlighting their DVD releases for the end of the year. Added to the four previously known titles (Queen Emeraldas, Sakura Wars, Tekken and Sonic), ADV announced that one 12/07/1999 we'll see Battle Angel and Ninja Resurrection. Battle Angel contains both episodes that were released at the same price point as the laserdisc and I believe VHS release, while the Ninja Resurrection disc contains both VHS releases that came out this past year on one disc, for the price of one. Excellent deal there for fans of the show!

Yadda yadda yadda: Ask and ye shall receive. Anime on DVD now has a chat application set up.

Parlez vous anime?: Mark Yates wrote in to mention to me something I forgot to put up last week; Porco Rosso has finally seen a DVD release in France, in what seems to be a glorious 5.1 French track and a not so good 2.1 Japanese track. No English anything to be found on the disc, but apparently it's a gorgeous 16:9 anamorphic disc.

Alternate Angles: Justin Emerson completes his journey into the world of Macross Plus with Volume 2.

Flashback: For those who may have missed it the first time around, I've converted and update the Urusei Yatsura DVD-R report we got in recently.

Contest #2: Just to try and keep up with past months, we've kicked off our second contest for October today. Check it out!

Gracefully showing them the door: As of today, we've ended our association with Reel.com and 800.com. After three months with 800.com, we've seen little return on it and nothing but headaches from many who ordered from there for anime. And with Reel.com, well, if folks are using it, they're going elsewhere and probably using ebates. As such, we're refocusing our attention on my personal favorite vendor, DVD Express for the majority of our readers and Amazon for those who are in California and hate their county tax. Of course, Animenation will be our oldest sponsor. We're not losing them, to be sure!

NEWS: 10/13/99

Bargain hunters take note: TOKYOPOP as of this writing has in stock the Wings of Honneamise DVD from Japan that was reissued this past August. This is a region free disc that has the English dub on it. Regular price of 122$, slashed down to 50$ for club members. If you're like me and have watched this into the ground over the past 10+ years, you don't need no steenkin' subtitles. Raw my friend, raw! 

Putting more on their plate: I received an email from Jerry at Anime Village today with some bits of news that will make many people very happy. "The Vision of Escaflowne DVD is on the horizon. However, an English language version is still needed before production on the dvd can get underway." And not to just add that to the plate, we also get this bit: "Saber Marionette J to X will also see a release here in the United States from Bandai Entertainment. Its arrival could be as early as summer next year."

I feel stupid department: Being on sleep depravation, I did not think to include a link to the older reviews which still exist until they get converted to the new format. You can get to them from the current reviews index page now.

It returns: But has not yet been fully updated, the sponsors page and the top ten page are back in action. 

Anime goes broadcast: It's thanks not only to the fans who watch the shows when broadcast but to people like Kevin Cook at DVD Animania that these kinds of things happen. Check out this article about the continuing prospect of an anime cable channel!

Alternate angles: Two new alternate angles in this afternoon. Check out Justin Emerson and Dan Bogle's reviews on the Macross Plus release.

NEWS: 10/12/99

Devious plan revealed: For members of the Animeigo mailing lists, we've wondered just what devious plan Robert Woodhead had in mind for the VHS and Laserdiscs that were being traded in for the upcoming DVD versions. Wonder no more! There have been several reports of people getting them when ordering VHS and Laserdiscs from Animeigo as complimentary gifts with their order. The idea? Get 'em hooked on UY (always a good thing) and hopefully promote the DVD versions of them as well. Devious indeed...

Alternate Angle: Justin Emerson, fresh off of his recent review of Tenchi Forever, has sent in a new one on a class disc from Central Park Media, Gall Force: Eternal Story. Also be sure to check out Jon Gibson's review of the Dominion Tank Police disc released earlier this year.

Disc of the year?: Manga's release of Macross Plus is now out. I've taken a break from the site rebuild to watch and review Volume 1 for you. Check it out.

Site Update: Work progresses on the site (more columns have been added as well as all the primers). But we're not the only ones doing work around here. Check out the newly re-launched Anime Showcase site!

NEWS: 10/11/99

Neon Genesis Evangelion on DVD:  From the ADV webpage, "We're getting a lot of email on this topic so here's some official words on the issue. EVA DVD's are coming. Look for them in the first quarter of 2000. No solid dates just yet we're out to make these the best possible DVD's yet so give us time to put them together!" Thanks to Adam Schenker for the tip and the link. 

Tenchi Forever: Justin Emerson has sent in a new alternate angle review for this wonderful disc that I've still only had a few scant minutes to peruse through. As always, alternate angle reviews may be more prone to spoilers, so reader beware.

Surefire Discussion: Jim Lazar has sent in a very well thought out and in-depth article entitled, "Editing Anime: Why all anime fans should be concerned". Be sure to check it out and the discussions to follow on the forum.

Contest:  The first and belated October contest is now up and running. Check it out!

Site Overhaul: For those of you who talk with me on a regular basis, you know that last week I took a class out here in Boston with a great company called Productivity Point. The class was Web Site Fundamentals. As such, I learned that a lot of what I was doing was right but I also learned a bunch of ways of doing things a lot better as well. As such, the site is going to be overhauled. I had a couple of options in front of me for doing this; spend the weeks getting it set locally and load it up or keep the backbone and the heart (news and forum) and rebuild along the way. There was the third option some sites uses and shut down completely until done, but I couldn't do that, and the first option means updating two sites along the way, also something very hard to do.

The main news will be updated as always, and the forum is fully available. New reviews will be plugged in ASAP and older reviews (many of which were horribly out of date to begin with in terms of design and content) will be added almost on a daily basis. I thank you for your patience and understanding during this and hope I don't lose many of you, since all the features will still be there that are used on a constant basis. 

Ask LadyCat!: Hey Folks! The Lethal Panda is back and this time, I've got a brand new column from LadyCat. She worked extra hard on this one, so please read it. This time LadyCat tackles Player Modification Info. It took her lots of time and effort to finish this one and in the end she was Exhaust-a-cat. So please read it even if you never want to modify your player. It will do her little heart good to know she's wanted :-) - Contributed by Roman Martel
 

NEWS: 10/10/99

More hilarity?: Another Sunday is upon us, and that brings us to another installment of Philosophies in Teacup - When Magical Girls Go Bad, Part 4. Is this the end of the Magical Girl saga?!?

Kenshin clarifications: More word has come out regarding the acquisition of the Kenshin series. According to Matt Greenfield of ADV at this weekends AWA convention, Kenshin is one of the rare cases where a property is split. Media Blasters has gained the TV series while ADV has the OVA's and the movie and Sony is looking for a TV outlet for it, since it believes it could be a breakthrough show here in the states. With Sony being so obviously pro-DVD, lets hope that we see DVD's from all companies concerned.

Affiliate weirdness: If you see one of the DVD Express banners come up with a "Not Available" graphic, don't worry about it. It looks like the service that DVD Express outsourced their affiliate deal to is acting weird this morning. Hopefully all will be set right soon.