Urusei Yatsura Anime (1981-1986) coming to Blu-ray

[gpn]

Originally Posted by gojiboy

I'm not sure if anyone here has experience with this issue but thought I'd ask first. So I got a response already from RightStuf and they basically said that there's no chance it is a resealed copy (which I think is BS) and a link to their slipcover policy, and how there is no guarantee we receive a copy with one, blah blah blah.

Yeah, that's what they pulled with me too when I said all Discotek releases come with shrinkwrapped slipcovers. They also said they only sell new items as received from the manufacturers, but that is straight BS as the copy of UY I received was obviously re-shrinkwrapped as have been other items I've received from them in the past. I finally had to threaten them with a chargeback before they "made an exception" to allow a return as I hadn't opened it up. Gunbuster (on the way) is the last remaining open order I have with them and they won't be getting much more (if any) business from me in the future. Too bad as I've been a customer for decades.

[Naiera]

It's entirely possible that the customer service representative you talked to is convinced that what they're telling you is the truth.

[SpaceBlackKnight]

Originally Posted by gpn

Yeah, that's what they pulled with me too when I said all Discotek releases come with shrinkwrapped slipcovers. They also said they only sell new items as received from the manufacturers, but that is straight BS as the copy of UY I received was obviously re-shrinkwrapped as have been other items I've received from them in the past. I finally had to threaten them with a chargeback before they "made an exception" to allow a return as I hadn't opened it up. Gunbuster (on the way) is the last remaining open order I have with them and they won't be getting much more (if any) business from me in the future. Too bad as I've been a customer for decades.

Sometimes distributors get "opened but unused" product from storefronts that accepted them as returns. Depending on their condition and refurbishing methods taken these often get resealed and sold as "new", and much of the time get included with the "factory new" batches shipped to storefronts like RightStuf.

[PGW]

That's true, but in this case, it was a fairly new release. Would there even have been time for a significant amount of them to be returned to the distributor and re-shipped?

[Member-571539]

Originally Posted by gloomranger

https://twitter.com/marcfbr/status/1...rCqjsUTlfggNyg

[Show spoiler]

https://twitter.com/marcfbr/status/1...rCqjsUTlfggNyg

Originally Posted by MarcFBR

A lot of you really want Urusei Yatsura on Blu-ray it appears, based on where it is on the Amazon Anime on Blu-ray chart.

[mysticwaterfall]

Puss in Boots certainly is a favorite anime of mine.

[gpn]

Originally Posted by SpaceBlackKnight

Sometimes distributors get "opened but unused" product from storefronts that accepted them as returns. Depending on their condition and refurbishing methods taken these often get resealed and sold as "new", and much of the time get included with the "factory new" batches shipped to storefronts like RightStuf.

Mine was a preorder and sent when RightStuf received their first batch, so I don't think that's what happened. My theory is that likely someone in the RightStuf stockroom was too zealous with their box cutter and cut the slipcover and shrinkwrap. It couldn't be sent as a new product with obvious damage, so they tossed the slipcover, re-shrinkwrapped it and sent it out hoping that it went to someone who didn't care or would give up when initially denied a return. If RightStuf was an upstanding business, they would have something like Amazon Warehouse and sell those items at a discount instead of trying to pass them off as new for full price.

[PGW]

Originally Posted by gpn

It couldn't be sent as a new product with obvious damage...

But RS sells damaged items all the time (for some laughable discount).

[PGW]

The last couple of episodes on disc two are indexed incorrectly, so that the episode begins with the end credits of the previous episode.

I also noticed a couple of misspellings ("achoo" was one of them).

[Schmullus1]

Originally Posted by PGW

("achoo" was one of them).

That's actually intentional because she's not sneezing, it's part of the katas she is doing.

[P.A.C.O.]

Is the first set "Season 1"? Thetvdb has seasons 1 and 2 line up with sets 1 and 2, so it makes sense. I was confused because imdb gives season 1 only 22 episodes.

[Lum]

Originally Posted by P.A.C.O.

Is the first set "Season 1"? Thetvdb has seasons 1 and 2 line up with sets 1 and 2, so it makes sense. I was confused because imdb gives season 1 only 22 episodes.

In effect, although it doesn't mean much. The show was a continuous, year-round production, without story arcs that correspond to seasons.

[PGW]

It bothered me, at first, when I started to watch it that there's no overall plot. Similar shows tend to bore me after a while and I tune out, but UY has kept my interest because I realize that by having no overall story, it leaves things open for literally anything to happen in any given episode - and they've been very good, so far (I'm on disc 3) at keeping things fresh. The only episode I didn't like so far is the one that takes place in ancient Japan with somewhat different versions of the characters.

[P.A.C.O.]

Originally Posted by Lum

In effect, although it doesn't mean much. The show was a continuous, year-round production, without story arcs that correspond to seasons.

Thanks. That makes sense.

[ps3bd_owner]

Never watched this before, but has the BBC dub been released on BD/DVD? That dub sounds hilariously good.

[GeoffOliver]

Originally Posted by ps3bd_owner

Never watched this before, but has the BBC dub been released on BD/DVD? That dub sounds hilariously good.

No, all the copies are sourced from TV rips. It was just a gag dub and only covered episodes 1 and 3. It was never meant to cover more. I can absolutely see Takahashi not approving its inclusion.

[Ryswag]

Originally Posted by P.A.C.O.

Is the first set "Season 1"? Thetvdb has seasons 1 and 2 line up with sets 1 and 2, so it makes sense. I was confused because imdb gives season 1 only 22 episodes.

Anime from back in the day didn't really have official seasons. But The Blu-Ray's seem to be going for the Wikipedia template for the show. With each Blu Ray covering a season. So S1 and V1 have 54 episodes, the next season and set will have 52 episodes. While the last 2 sets will most likely have 43 and 45 episodes respectively.

Another thing to note is that while a majority of the episodes are a full 25 minutes, S1 has a good amount of 12 minute segments. Some people count each segment as its own episode. But most (as well as the blu-ray itself) counts 2 segments as a single episode. Which is why some people will say UY has 194 episodes while others will say it has around 215 episodes.

As a guy above me said, the seasons really don't matter since the show is episodic outside of character introduction stuff. However, from a production standpoint it's actually pretty helpful. Season 1-2 pretty much have 1 creative team while Season 3-4 have another.

[BigOnAnime]

"Seasons" are largely an American concept. Long-running anime don't really have "seasons", any you see somewhere online or by the company releasing the show are all made up.

Originally Posted by Justin Sevakis

With late-night anime, which run in pretty predictable chunks of 11-13 episodes (with a separation of over a year if it returns), it's pretty easy to figure out where the "seasons" of an anime begin and end. However, for the non-late-night shows, the ones that air for years without interruption, it's pretty hard to tell, and there's a lot of conflicting information out there. That's because, for these types of anime, they don't actually HAVE seasons, as Americans would think of them.

The idea of "seasons" for broadcast TV shows is mostly an American concept. It dates back to the American radio dramas of the 1930s when it became clear that people weren't tuning in during the summer months: it was too hot inside to huddle around a giant radio like they usually did. Families were outside, kids were playing, agrarian America took to the fields and urban America took vacations. Producers of weekly dramas began taking the months of July and August off, filling in those weeks with reruns—the earliest example I can find of this is the 1938 season of the domestic sitcom Fibber McGee and Molly. As time went on, that became a more structured practice, with new programming being introduced in the fall and running until the summer hiatus.

I couldn't find much information on pre-war Japanese radio, but Japanese TV broadcasting didn't start until the 1950s, and early broadcasts were dubbed versions of American sitcoms like I Love Lucy and Father Knows Best. Local Japanese productions, inspired by those shows, didn't really take off in earnest until Japan's huge economic boom of the 1960s (which, of course, was also was the beginning of TV anime). The American practice of new fall seasons was never really observed, however. Japanese broadcasts were far more whimsical in their scheduling. Drama producers would break up their shows into separate series, much like British television, and those series would be produced and introduced to audiences according to no particular schedule. For example, the much-loved domestic drama Arigatou aired from April till October 1970, but the second series didn't come along until the end of January 1972. Then series 3 aired only three months after the second finished up. This isn't too far off from how most late-night anime works today; if the first series of 12 or 13 episodes is a hit, another series will follow when it's good and ready.

But for long-running kids and family programming, which runs for years without interruption, there really isn't any such thing as a "season". There is no break in the show. A producer might opt to chop a series up into multiple sub-series (such as the myriad Bakugan and Precure series), to make them easier to collect on video and sell overseas. They might also use the occasion to do some fresh promotion for the show, shuffle around staff, and plan story arcs around those breaks. But then again, they might not. For a long-running show like Naruto Shippūden, there really weren't any defined "seasons"—I'm not sure where those came from in the English Wikipedia entry. Indeed, the Japanese Wikipedia episode list breaks down the show by story arcs. The official DVDs and episode listings from Viz make no mention of seasons. Hulu's listing does have seasons (which was possibly done just to force the show into Hulu's rigid framework), but they don't match what's on Wikipedia.

I honestly have no idea where those "seasons" are coming from. I have a feeling it's an invention by whatever otaku put that into Wikipedia.

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/ans...-10-25/.123111

[P.A.C.O.]

Originally Posted by Ryswag

Anime from back in the day didn't really have official seasons. But The Blu-Ray's seem to be going for the Wikipedia template for the show. With each Blu Ray covering a season. So S1 and V1 have 54 episodes, the next season and set will have 52 episodes. While the last 2 sets will most likely have 43 and 45 episodes respectively.

Another thing to note is that while a majority of the episodes are a full 25 minutes, S1 has a good amount of 12 minute segments. Some people count each segment as its own episode. But most (as well as the blu-ray itself) counts 2 segments as a single episode. Which is why some people will say UY has 194 episodes while others will say it has around 215 episodes.

As a guy above me said, the seasons really don't matter since the show is episodic outside of character introduction stuff. However, from a production standpoint it's actually pretty helpful. Season 1-2 pretty much have 1 creative team while Season 3-4 have another.

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

"Seasons" are largely an American concept. Long-running anime don't really have "seasons", any you see somewhere online or by the company releasing the show are all made up.https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/ans...-10-25/.123111

Thanks, that was a pretty interesting read. I was using imdb initially to name the episodes for my media server before I realized it wasn't right.

[briwas101]

Originally Posted by gpn

Yeah, that's what they pulled with me too when I said all Discotek releases come with shrinkwrapped slipcovers. They also said they only sell new items as received from the manufacturers, but that is straight BS as the copy of UY I received was obviously re-shrinkwrapped as have been other items I've received from them in the past. I finally had to threaten them with a chargeback before they "made an exception" to allow a return as I hadn't opened it up. Gunbuster (on the way) is the last remaining open order I have with them and they won't be getting much more (if any) business from me in the future. Too bad as I've been a customer for decades.

You are mistaken. Discotek only works with 2 distributors at the moment (Amazon and Rightstuf). Rightstuf and Amazon are the only official distributors getting inventory straight from RS. Discotek also protects its prices (not discounting them drastically like Sentai) which reduces the amount of secondary sellers offering Discotek items. If you buy from Rightstuf you can be sure you are getting brand new official items.