FUNimation To Release Serial Experiments Lain And Black Lagoon On BD In November
FUNimation Entertainment will be releasing a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack of Serial Experiments Lain comes November. These are good news to all the old anime fans out there who have missed the series, and even better news for those who have yet to watch this masterpiece. Although this is yet to be cofirmed if this version of Lain is a budget release of the Japanese Serial Experiments Lain|RESTORE Blu-ray box than it’s only fair to assume that those who already have the (old) DVDs and would be willing to double dip will be able to watch a much higher quality of Lain than they already own. As mentioned in a previous post about the Japanese Blu-ray version (aka Lain|RESTORE) “the production studio took the original 35mm film and telecined it specifically for HD. Yoshitoshi ABe personally recolored part of the scenes and added details to others. The opening and ending themes were resampled.”
Truth be told Serial Experiments Lain was original released on DVD only shortly after the technology had been introduced to the worldwide markets. As a result both the Japanese and U.S. releases looked a little blurry, even on CRT TVs. Of course at the time this still was a great series to own on DVD, as it did look better than the VHS release and had nice things such as the ability to switch between subtitles and dub, skipping chapters, looking at extras and so on.
On the same day of the Serial Experiments combo pack FUNimation will also be releasing a Black Lagoon BD/DVD combo pack that will contain both seasons of this (not so old!) anime classic. While the original Black Lagoon DVDs Looked pretty good the series has since ran out of stock at most retailers and copies of it have been selling for bloated prices on e-commerce websites. This new release will give anime viewers with a tighter budget the opportunity to watch both seasons of the series. You can expect to see reviews of both the Serial Experiments Lain and Black Lagoon Blu-rays here on animereviews.co when the series are released later on in November.
As a side note the prophetic Top 10 Forgotten Anime List continues to correctly guess the future. half of the titles from the list have already been rescued and will be forgotten no more.
Update: Haibane Renmei will also be seeing a rerelease (albeit on DVD only) in September. This means 6 titles from the list have been rescued!
The Strike Witches Review Is Now Available
T
he Strike Witches Blu-ray and DVD combo pack review is now available here and in the reviews section.
If you read my reviews than you’ve probably noticed that at the end of each review there are links to related reviews. Now, these links are not an automated feed – I actually pick them myself and always try to link to series with a similar genre, mood, complexity and art style. Unfortunately when the time came to add related review links for the Strike Witches review I found out I haven’t yet reviewed any series that matches its genre or characteristics
So There won’t be any related review links for it, at least until October when the limited edition of Strike Witches 2 comes out.
Wonder Festival 2012 Figure Highlights
Wonder Festival 2012 presented many upcoming figures. Today I’ll be pointing out my favorite highlights from the convention, including some pretty impressive figures from Good Smile Company, Kotobukiya and…Dengeki Bunko? Continue reading
Comic Market Summer 2012 Cosplay Gallery
The first day of Comic Market Summer 2012 (Comiket 82) has come and gone, and was filled with cosplayers of all sorts and kinds. See if you can spot some of your favorite characters in our photo coverage. Continue reading
The Black Rock Shooter OVA Blu-ray Review Is Now Available
The Black Rock Shooter OVA Blu-ray review is now available in the reviews section and here.
Boy oh boy is the OVA different from the TV series. The difference is so striking it’s hard to believe both were animated by the same company and were directed by the same director (the character designer was thankfully replaced though). It kind of makes you wonder if the OVA wasn’t some kind of experiment to test the grounds, a short deep in the water before the cast moves on into much deeper water with the Black Rock Shooter TV series. In a way this reminds me of the Strike Witches OVA. But in Strike Witches’ case the OVA was obviously a showcase to be used as a reference later while the Black Rock Shooter OVA does try to stand on its own with a semi-coherent story.
I had a really hard time deciding if I should review this OVA or not. On the one hand this OVA has become very rare and can be hard to find in the U.S. On the other hand it was officially distributed in the U.S. so you probably can still find copies of it lying around in stores. In the end I did review it, if only to show how different it is from the later TV series.
Final Fantasy Trading Arts Kai Mini: Cloud And Squall
Kazuo is busy with his exams so this week I’m filling in for the figure review. Now, I’m a big Final Fantasy fan so I was very happy when Square Enix announced their new Final Fantasy Trading Arts Kai Mini line. This post covers the Cloud and Squall Kai Mini figures, while next week’s post will cover Yuna and present some crossdressing figure posing mayhem. Continue reading
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