Aniplex of America Blu-rays

[Nostalgic Twilight]

Originally Posted by prophetic

I was browsing AniTAY (which seems to be a community blog) and came across this gem of a post. You wouldn't believe all the people that agree with this guy.

You read the exact same complaints/suggestions every time Aniplex licenses something over at ANN. Granted, I do have my own issues with them (where's Mushishi S2 and Silver Spoon on Blu-ray, AoA?), but they aren't pricing related. If it's something I really want, I just save up.

Everyone's entitled to their own opinions and I respect that, but the one thing that truly gets under my skin is other people telling me not to purchase from them. I mean, I worked hard for my money, and no one else has the right to tell me how to spend it.

EDIT: I also do agree with BOA regarding the physical items. Why couldn't we have gotten all of those interviews in addition to the Japanese BD quality, AoA?

[CouncilSpectre]

AL have really upped their game recently. It's taken them a while, and they've had a long learning curve, but they're not as error-prone as they used to be, so probably less of a gamble than they were.

The other UK distros though - MVM tends to be more basic (excluding their recent A Lull in the Sea port - and that Garden of Sinners DVD set that's mentioned), Animatsu do chipboard boxes and maybe a few other bits and bobs, and who the f*ck knows what Manga does at this point?!

Originally Posted by Nostalgic Twilight

Everyone's entitled to their own opinions and I respect that, but the one thing that truly gets under my skin is other people telling me not to purchase from them. I mean, I worked hard for my money, and no one else has the right to tell me how to spend it.

Agree - the other thing is, there's no uniform answer to this. There's any number of considerations that I take into account before deciding whether it's UK, US or JP releases. Quite happy picking up any and have plenty of each on the shelves.

[neoz]

^^^

Actually I read a interesting article the other day about Manga UK. They are actually no longer part of Manga US. They are teamed up with another company and are getting more licenses. So they seem to be doing much better then that sad Manga US counterpart. lol

The pricing on the AoA stuff is kind of rough for people like me that buy more then just Anime but it is what it is. Like Nostalgic mentioned if you want it save up for it. The only downside to that is, this is AoA we are talking about. If you don't get their stuff quickly it always go bye bye.

[BigOnAnime]

^^^^^^

I take it you were reading Answerman on ANN? Rather interesting articles.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answ...5-09-14/.92910
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answ...5-09-16/.92992

[CouncilSpectre]

Originally Posted by neoz

^^^

Actually I read a interesting article the other day about Manga UK. They are actually no longer part of Manga US. They are teamed up with another company and are getting more licenses. So they seem to be doing much better then that sad Manga US counterpart. lol

Yeah, they're merging back in with Animatsu. Animatsu were started up by a couple of people who left Manga UK last year. Good on the one hand as hopefully Manga UK will now come back to the fore, but sad for Animatsu as their few releases so far have been decent.

[neoz]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

^^^^^^

I take it you were reading Answerman on ANN? Rather interesting articles.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answ...5-09-14/.92910
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answ...5-09-16/.92992

Yep, I read all of it. Very interesting article and brought some insight about Manga. I'm going to buy Manga US.

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by neoz

But stuff like SAO, sorry I'm going stick with AoA.

SAO II video quality on Anime Ltd.'s release is decent, but no Aniplex. It evens out at 5.4 gigs per ep (with two DTS-HD MA 2.0 tracks), with the usual Anime Ltd. quirks here and there.

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

Their SAO release in terms of content is going to be better than AoA's. Like our booklets have the most barebones stuff from the JP release, while the UK is getting....

You also get vastly inferior video quality and dinky subs for those episode title screens.

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by CouncilSpectre

AL have really upped their game recently. It's taken them a while, and they've had a long learning curve, but they're not as error-prone as they used to be, so probably less of a gamble than they were.

SAO II has a heap of quality control issues. Missing/faulty subs for episode title screens, new type of nonsense on the back cover (under the box, in this case), spelling errors on the silvery box and one completely missing episode title on the digipak.

Plus the whole video quality thing.

I'll still get the next three volumes, to save a bit and avoid any customs issues, but all this BS really isn't very assuring.

[CouncilSpectre]

Originally Posted by Naiera

SAO II has a heap of quality control issues. Missing/faulty subs for episode title screens, new type of nonsense on the back cover (under the box, in this case), spelling errors on the silvery box and one completely missing episode title on the digipak.

Plus the whole video quality thing.

I'll still get the next three volumes, to save a bit and avoid any customs issues, but all this BS really isn't very assuring.

Well that's disappointing to hear. My copy has arrived but I haven't had the chance to put the discs through their paces yet.

[Sylontack]

Originally Posted by CouncilSpectre

Well that's disappointing to hear. My copy has arrived but I haven't had the chance to put the discs through their paces yet.

After all it is half the disc count. There's bound to be a least a bit off loss

[Naiera]

Of course. But it still could have been better, and they could have at least tried to avoid all the little mistakes that are all over the place.

[Sylontack]

Originally Posted by Naiera

Of course. But it still could have been better, and they could have at least tried to avoid all the little mistakes that are all over the place.

Pretty sure it was going to be the same disc count at a point, the prelim art for the first set from Madman originally said 2 disc instead of 1. I was surprised to see that and a little pleased (not that it affects me on the SAO front, but I figured maybe it'd start a trend and shows I wanted would get better treatment here and there too). But I guess that changed.

[Naiera]

It's about the same quality as the Manga UK release of the first season. I didn't really expect any more than that.

[Mangaranga]

Originally Posted by Naiera

It's about the same quality as the Manga UK release of the first season. I didn't really expect any more than that.

The main reason why the Madman authored discs in the Anime Limited set look a bit rough is because of the increased contrast. I did some comparisons here, and I think it would have held up pretty well if it wasn't due to the aforementioned contrast difference making problems in the source stand out far more than they should. The episodes are encoded at @28mpbs with dual 16bit DTS-HD tracks (which are for some reason a fair bit quieter than Aniplex's 24bit PCM tracks).

[Naiera]

I'm only commenting on the file sizes. I think the video looks fine, as I'm used to all those American-authored discs anyway. I remember the first season was about 5GB per ep as well.

[Naiera]

I like the RPG feels of GGO much more than ALO and whatever else they were up to in the first season.

[prophetic]

Originally Posted by Naiera

I like the RPG feels of GGO much more than ALO and whatever else they were up to in the first season.

GGO was cool, except for Kirigaya Kazuto being a trap. What was the point?

[Naiera]

I'm five episodes in...

[iv3rdawG]

I remember that it was mentioned that Nisekoi Vol. 1 was OOS at RightStuf. It's back for those that want it.