Thursday, August 25th
Update
- Andrew Floyd
Anime for Cheap Bastards
Admit it. You like anime, but when it came down to it, you'd rather have it than
food. Or clean clothes. You have only so much money per week or per month to
spend on the wants and necessities of life, and you wish anime was not one of
the wallet busting items on your list. Renting it is fine and good, but you'd
rather have a collection to refer to when doing your research thesis because you
just can't wait another 5 days for the only copy of the tape or DVD you need to
come back in.
Here's where I hope to help a little. Anime for Cheap Bastards #1
Practically all of these titles I'm going to mention are under $10! Let me
remind people that some companies, like Central Park Media, even have some not
listed here for under $10, like Project A-ko and their releases of DNA Squared.
Heh!
Grappler Baki from CPM - Based directly on the manga that was featured in
Gutsoon's Raijin Comics, it adapts the early storyline of Baki's first couple of
fights. Not very long, and the dub is horrible. I swear I hear Kappei Yamaguchi
as Baki on this one. It doesn't seem to have credits for the Japanese voices.
Not bad for just under $10. There's a new TV series but it doesn't have the look
this OVA does.
Cleopatra D.C. by Anime Works - This one's got a story, action, and babes. I
bought it due to seeing promos on Anime Works' tapes of Mahoutsukaitai (aka "I
wanna be a witch"), and that promo included bunnygirl shots. I think at the time
I saw the promo, the tape was around $16. Subtitled only, and I think the subs
are non-selectable, but it's been a while since I played it so I could be wrong.
You have to watch out for those productions where the subtitled master for the
VHS editions is simply put to death in Digital format. I definitely recommend
Cleopatra D.C.
Sakura Taisen Sumire special from Funimation - I've yet to play this one all the
way through, and I saw this listed in Previews a few times before I finally got
it and from Funimation, of all places. Macrovision abounds. Still can't beat the
price.
Sometime in 2004, Central Park Media was offering what they called "Anime Test
Drive" DVDs. You buy these things, they have 1 or 2 episodes, and they were
cheap (a bit under $10). It was a program that you could get $10 off the boxed
set if you purchased the sampler DVD first, basically getting your money back on
the sampler. Ones I collected of that program are Legend of Himiko (aka Himiko-den),
World of Narue, and Ping Pong Club (this one's slightly hentai). My thoughts on
those - Himiko-den is a rental (the great opening theme song "Pure Snow" and the
animation with it is great, but the series falls short of it), Narue is likely
worth it if the rest was as cheap (but there's only 1 episode on the sampler DVD
-grrrr), and Ping Pong Club was just me being curious about why some people
liked it. I would rent this one and be done with it.
Do not confuse these with AD Vision's "Anime Mini" DVDs which are dub only.
Also, if you have stores near you like General Dollar, Big Lots, or Valu City,
you should check them out, even now, for deeply marked down prices on anime. Due
to missing Anime North this year, it seemed like a godsend to find so much I'd
actually buy if they were always this cheap. Not being able to find all of a
series is not a bad thing entirely, and it does make it more of an adventure
should I bother to find the rest. Here's the list of what I purchased, with
prices ranging from a mere $3 to $6 and even $9.99:
- Hamataro V.1 to 3 - Viz really missed the market for this
- Corrector Yui V.2 and 4
- Trouble Chocolate V.2 and 3
- Ceres V.8 (final volume)
- Pioneer's releases of Oh My Goddess! Small Things are Handy V.3 and 4, the last half of the series (I choose to use my translation of the title rather than what they came up with)
- Card Captor Sakura subtitled V.3
- Legend of Black Heaven V.3 - I had never heard of this one, and still not very interested in it though I'd like to see episode 11 sometime. Look for packages with a chromium card as a 2nd cover
- Vandread Second Stage v.1 - Some of the Vandread releases have collector cards. I had seen a little of this before, but definitely think this is a buy. I like Barnette. ^_^
Some of the $9.99 titles found at Valu City have been marked down since the last
time I visited one store near me, so I might be tempted to pick up a few more.
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