Posts in Stuff

As y'all know... or probably don't know since I haven't been blogging that much lately... I'm a huge fan of Shugo Chara!, both the manga and anime. Unlike a certain other anime that Satelite made last year (Kami-chama Karin), Shugo Chara! turned out so well that I knew I was going to get the DVDs only a few episodes in -- so there goes my DVD budget for the next few months with the purchase of the Shugo Chara! Amulet Box 1 last week (though I didn't pay the price that's listed on the box since I got it from Amazon), including 13 episodes plus other extras.

Now let's go through the goodies inside, starting with this:

An almost life-size wallscroll of Amu-chan (much bigger than the Sakura ones I have) -- extremely kawaii as advertised. At first, they were going to include an Amu-chan "big towel," but decided otherwise (I wonder why...).

 

The box includes 4 DVDs with 13 episodes in total, each with a different shugo chara on it, a DVD with special features, a drama/radio CD, and a soundtrack CD. A 23 page color booklet has summaries and staff comments for each episode, character profiles, and an interview with director Kenji Yasuda (Shugo Chara! is the first show that he's directed). He talks about how he was offered the job to direct and also what he does to make the show interesting and easy to understand for its intended younger audience. The storyboard for Amulet Heart's transformation bank is also in the interview.

 

The special features DVD includes an interview with the voice of Ran, Kana Asumi (AKA Asumin), who most of you probably know better as Yuno from Hidamari Sketch. It's pretty much the usual questions about her role, what character she likes, so on, but still a watch for her fans (like myself).

The pilot film is rather interesting -- Kenji Yasuda talks about how he made it to show the staff at Satelite what exactly they'd be working on, and also get a idea of the general look and feel of show (such as the textures used for clothing). Some of the cuts were later touched up and reused in the show itself, like the cut above which was used in the OP.

The actual DVDs are pretty bare bones but with excellent picture quality as expected, with the first including some interesting commentary from Kanae Itou (Amu), Kana Asumi (Ran), and director Kenji Yasuda on the first two episodes. Kanae-chan and Asumin seem to be quite big fans of Suzuki-kun, and even Yasuda-kantoku said that Suzuki-kun might be the star of an episode sometime soon. Anything on when we might find out what his name is?

And that's the first of four DVD boxes to come for Shugo Chara!. Yes, buying the individual DVDs would've been a bit cheaper, but I'm glad that they decided to put out a box every 13 episodes to make things easier to manage. We're just about done with the second batch of 13 episodes -- next week's episode about Nadeshiko looks very interesting (I'll keep quiet for those who haven't read the manga) -- and I'm looking forward to seeing where we go the second half of the show.

And, Amu-chan kawaii yo Amu-chan! (of course you'd say that).

Hey, y'all, I know it's been a while since I posted last. Hard to stop being lazy (^^;; Anyways, I finally got around to getting an HDTV as an early Christmas present to replace my aging TV (with the bottom ticker of the Weather Channel burned into it). After trying out a Westinghouse SK-26H240S 26" and returning it because of some issues (buzzing when changing LCD backlight or some picture settings, av sync problems on inputs) I settled on an Olevia 226T 26" and am very much satisfied with it so far.

The only thing I don't like about it is the very annoying blue LED showing that the main power switch is on when the LCD is off. Why does everybody have to use blue LEDs?

Everybody have a nice weekend? :) Mine was pretty good... though I spent most of it doing things other than blogging (I know, I know). Some stuff I ordered came in Saturday, including this:

Got the limited edition of Kamichu! Vol 1. and the June issues of Megami and Ciao (that's a somewhat odd combination, ain't it?). I'll post the Kamichu! and Ciao stuff in a separate entry and Megami after the jump. First, some news from the past week.

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Negima! "Spring" OVA Site
I thought from the post on Akamatsu-sensei's diary that the entire OVA would be included on a DVD to be bundled with volume 15 of the comics, but I guess not. Instead, a 5 minute digest of the OVA (with commentary), the OP, and a video version of the web radio broadcast. On sale August 17.

CPM Still In Business (ANN)
The company sent out a statement attributing the reductions in staff to the bankruptcy of Musicland, their largest customer. No bankruptcy filing as the previous story rumored. CPM will be releasing products as they restructure the company.

ADV Offers Digital Downloads Through ZVUE (ANN)
A press release from ADV announced a partership with ZVUE to digitally distribute ADV titles online. My first reaction: who's ZVUE?

ZVUE makes a low-cost low-end media player that is sold at Wal-Mart for $100. At January's CES show ZVUE annouced two new ZVUE players with upgraded specs but no release date. Checking their online store, most titles sell for $1.99. The video format is either very low-res low-bitrate xvid for the ZVUE player or 320x240 for viewing on a computer or other devices that support it (like a Pocket PC).

I can't quite understand why ADV choose to team up with ZVUE instead of seeking a bigger and more well-known partner -- the obvious one being Apple with iTunes. Either way, I doubt I'd utilize the service due to the low resolution format and the likely possibility that only dubs will be made available for download. I suppose it is a good first step, though we'll have to see if it's successful and can lead to an offering of downloadable content from others.