The old-school anime DVD/BD news thread.

[greg]

A show I always wanted to try but never did. Maybe now's my chance.

Yeah, Orguss is pretty cool. Don't go into the show expecting another Macross, though. It has the same character designer and same mecha designer, but it really is a rather different show. It's sort of like Dunbine, in the sense of "the protagonist is hurtled into another dimension where he feels out-of-place" sort of thing, and they're going on a constant quest and trying to elude the enemy. Don't expect any epic space battles and whatnot. It is pretty quirky.

So the ImaginAsian release contained the old L.A. Hero dubs from back in the American anime industry infancy days. I bet the Discotek one will do the same. It's only really out of curiosity to ever watch it dubbed. From a historical standpoint, it is interesting to have.

[usamimi]

Yeah, Discotek said it'll have the dub eps that were done, along with the Japanese track. I only ever saw a few eps dubbed so I'm curious to hear it again.

[llj]

ahh, whatever. It's on my list now. Could Discotek please bother us with a hard release date for the Dr. Slump movies now? Huh?

Isn't it July 29th 2014? But yeah, I don't see it listed on Rightstuf and Amazon yet. But if I recall correctly, this seems to be a habit of Discotek releases where their items aren't listed by retailers until very close to the release date. I remember you were getting worried about the Harlock TV release last year because online retailers weren't listing the item even as late as July despite Discotek's facebook announcement that it would be released in August IIRC.

[SteveH]

ahh, whatever. It's on my list now. Could Discotek please bother us with a hard release date for the Dr. Slump movies now? Huh?

Isn't it July 29th 2014? But yeah, I don't see it listed on Rightstuf and Amazon yet. But if I recall correctly, this seems to be a habit of Discotek releases where their items aren't listed by retailers until very close to the release date. I remember you were getting worried about the Harlock TV release last year because online retailers weren't listing the item even as late as July despite Discotek's facebook announcement that it would be released in August IIRC.

I do worry, because solicitation = sales.

I worry about all these crazy boutique niche old anime releases getting at LEAST enough 'push' that the few of us that love them can buy them. Places like Right Stuf and Amazon can't sell them to us if they don't know about them and sometimes I get the feeling that Discotek's 'sales manager' works only in tweets and facebook, like "OK, hey, this is available now. Do you guys want it?" instead of an actual, hard, formatted and formalized solicitation.

See, the way it is now, it seems the Dr. Slump movies are going to just dribble out, suddenly appear and sales will come from we hard core idiots who are sniffing and searching nearly every day. And then there will be word-of-mouth and sales will gradually climb some, and Otaku USA might pop in a minor review a few months later, and the 'general thought' will likely be "Oh, well, this didn't sell very well" and that hurts everything.

aarrgghh.

[usamimi]

Discotek doesn't even use twitter that much, they seem to exclusively announce their acquisitions on Facebook now...which is a little strange, but on the plus side, I follow most of the major "anime news" twitter accounts and all of them do post about whenever Discotek gets a new title. And I see buzz from followers, so the word DOES get out there. They're just never gonna sell the same numbers as stuff like Naruto or whatever, naturally.

[llj]

Right, they have lower print runs so naturally the expectation isn't as high for big sales. But they just kind of appear in stores at some random date--sometimes not even on the date they announce on their Facebook. And it is unusual that they don't set a hard release date for online retailers so that fans can pre-order early on from those places.

I have to say, though, the marketplace is unpredictable because I've heard that some of their more obscure releases sometimes do really well, and the ones that got more publicity than usual didn't always.

[usamimi]

Right, they have lower print runs so naturally the expectation isn't as high for big sales. But they just kind of appear in stores at some random date--sometimes not even on the date they announce on their Facebook. And it is unusual that they don't set a hard release date for online retailers so that fans can pre-order early on from those places.

I have to say, though, the marketplace is unpredictable because I've heard that some of their more obscure releases sometimes do really well, and the ones that got more publicity than usual didn't always.

Right. And then I sometimes see or hear them selling titles early at their own tables in anime conventions. They're kinda random like that.

In other news, Manga Entertainment announced they'll be re-releasing Ghost in the Shell on blu-ray for the 25th anniversary of the manga: http://animenostalgia.tumblr.com/post/8 ... unced-they It sounds like it's NOT the 2.0 version, but the original, so I'm pretty excited about that!

[llj]

http://shop.warnerarchive.com/product/m ... 0478166.do

Not much info on this release around the web. Seems to be dubbed only.

More sets of Marine Boy also on sale.

[usamimi]

First part of 90s Sailor Moon is up for pre-order now after being announced at AX! http://www.rightstuf.com/n/FT0000007083

[SteveH]

http://shop.warnerarchive.com/product/m ... 0478166.do

Not much info on this release around the web. Seems to be dubbed only.

More sets of Marine Boy also on sale.

Warner Archives are (generally) bare-bones Manufacture-On-Demand discs. The project has the dual purpose of generating income via niche/boutique titles that wouldn't otherwise have 'mass' support in the brick&mortar retail environment (which is all but dead now anyway), with the mild (but competent and professionally done) remastering for disc release also serving to prep those same titles for future Video-On-Demand/Streaming income venues.

So, what they make is what they have, actually own in their library. 'Magic Boy' isn't going to have a Japanese language track because they don't have one. That's not what the film was.

It's like The Green Slime. MGM's release was in English.