This is just way to awesome to not post

Still trying to catch up on papers from being sick (still a bit sick in fact) so no in depth review until the weekend, but some early looking for everyone.

I think for alot of people this will be the set that is used to decide if Funimation knows what they are doing with their new way of doing boxsets. Continue reading →

Love Chris Rock.

I really enjoy Overman King Gainer, and it’s opening is just awesome.

This is one of my favorite SNL Digital Shorts. Just found it funny how ludicrous it went.

Camelot is a silly place… IN LEGOS!!!!!

AMV Hell 3 was awesome.  The Azumanga Daioh parts of AMV Hell 3 were even more awesome.

I just really really really love the Rabbids.

As everyone knows Toei started doing stuff OnDemand via Direct2Drive.

After getting a few of these, and being underwhelmed by the horrid video quality, I now need to ask this very serious question.

Is Toei USA committing fraud?

I show you this screenshot that is on the Pretty Cure sales page.  This is supposed to be a screenshot from the show, to be used as a gauge on the video quality, to help you decide if you want to buy it or not.

Relatively nice picture quality isn’t it?

So what is the problem?

Well… here is the same picture, taken by me, from the first episode of the series, as it is available to buy.

Ignore the credits, afterall, it would be fair for them to use a scene from the opening, but remove the credits to help people gauge the video quality.

Compare the actual picture quality.  The resolution is bigger, but let’s ignore that.  The screenshot they have as an example has bright vivid colors and is very clean.  The episode itself has rainbowing, artifacing issues, is pixelated, and may have very well been copied from a VHS tape.  Compare stuff like the girls’ hair, the sunlight, the pipe in the bottom left.

This is dishonest advertising at it’s worst.  This is an unacceptable way to do business, especially when you are trying to sell a show with an extremely niche audience anyways.  The video quality for Toei OnDemand’s other three shows: Digimon Adventure 02, Slam Dunk, and Fist of the North Star, is also very poor, but the screenshots from those shows are at least accurate in showing that.

I suggest fans of Pretty Cure and anime in general vote with their wallets and not purchase episodes of the series to show this isn’t acceptable.

So what do you think?  Is Toei USA committing fraud by being dishonest like this?

For the third time now we have a batch of DVDs that seem to work randomly.

I’ve seen plenty of people complain about V.2 of Gurren Lagann (mine works), the new Zegapain, and V.1 and 2 of Code Geass (mine don’t work), and it’s been a few weeks and Bandai despite recalling some, and claiming to ship replacements to stores has been silent to the customers, but no more, Bandai is gonna set things straight and make sure we know what is going on.

After an examination, Bandai Entertainment reported that there are discs circulating with an error during Vol. 2, though the exact extent of the error in the batch is still being assessed. If any consumer is experiencing a problem, please go to http://www.bandai-ent.com/ and in the upper left hand corner there is the standard customer service box which says “Contact our Customer Service.” Indicate the nature of the problem and a replacement disc will be issued. Customers without internet access can call 714-816-9500 and ask for “Bandai Entertainment customer service.”

….Great, thanks Bandai.  You gotta wonder how they have sent replacements out if they don’t know what the issue is (and not mentioning the issues with the other DVD).