Forum - View topicREVIEW: Blood+ Part 1 DVD
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Mmsven
 Posts: 86 Location: British Columbia, Canada |
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As long as it doesn't waste as much time as Witchblade, I'm cool with Blood+. Plan on buying this. |
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Afax
Posts: 74 |
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Saya's family is pretty much one of the biggest points of the show, so I guess the entire show is a waste of time going by that notion.
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Monster in a box
Posts: 671 |
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Yeah, while I'm only up to where AS is (episode 46 I think) I don't get how you can not care about Saya's family, but like the show. I mean yeah, the 'My Father's Hands' episode was positively groan-worthy, but...well, I guess most of the good stuff does kind of happen after episode 25. |
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daedelus
 Posts: 743 Location: Texas City, TX (ajd: 6/11/05) |
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Oh wow! The release date has,thankfully, snuck up on me. Seeing as how it's a Sony release, I probably won't be receiving this before the release date. Just a couple weeks to go!
I've seen the first 25 eps twice. I'm looking forward to seeing them again unedited. I can't explain why, but I could watch this series over and over again like Bebop or FLCL. Thanks for the review. |
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RogueJedi86
 Posts: 501 |
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I know it's a "Love it or hate it" deal, but I thoroughly enjoyed HYDE's "Season's Call" OP2 for Blood+.
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teh*darkness
 Posts: 901 |
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The only theme in this show I didn't particularly care for was the second ending theme. Everything else was fine, especially the final opening by Jinn.
Sadly, I won't be buying this, the dealbreakers being packaging the shirt inside the box instead of outside... and dubtitles. Why, oh why, is my accursed friend dubtitle still rearing its ugly head this long into the maturity of the US anime market, especially with a series that will most likely have some kind of 16+ or M rating on it? It's not like this is intended for children. Either watch the dub, or watch the Japanese track with "sub"-titles. |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4804 |
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Wait...you liked the last OP? I have to fight a strong urge to punch its singer in the throat every time it comes on.
(Also, the second OP is quite enjoyable.) I'm following along with this series on Adult Swim, and even though I've enjoyed it reasonably enough, I feel like this review heaps on a significant excess of praise. One of the main sticking points that it doesn't mention is that the same plot points and/or character elements keep reappearing again and again, with each instance treated as though it's an equally huge revelation. Just as one example, the amount of times in the first half of the series when Saya suddenly decides to wig out and not do any sort of fighting when her family/friends are in all sorts of mortal peril right around her really start to stack up, not to mention the many "we'll always be a family/always keep smiling" conversations. And though I think it's more of a problem in the series' second half than its first, there are times when everything just seems to grind to a standstill for a few episodes for absolutely no reason at all. Without going into details, the Adult Swim run is just five episodes away from its conclusion, and for the past five or so episodes, just about nothing at all has happened regarding the main antagonists of the series, and there's been all sorts of "let's all go back to Okinawa someday" re-hashing. I've had a few friends describe Blood+ as being " all dialogue with no action," with Blood: The Last Vampire being "all action with no dialogue;" I feel like this represents at least somewhat of a fair assessment. The praise for the dub also had to make me snicker, all the details considered. Putting the relative merits of the individual performances aside, from a production/casting standpoint, it's flat-out laughable. When you have such recognizable US actors as Crispin Freeman and Steve Blum performing 2/3 major character roles each (not to mention the many one-off parts both they and the rest of the cast voice), one or two of which with foreign accents (Crispin's French job as Argeno is hilariously awesome), the whole thing turns into a game of "spot-the-VA." It's as though the dub production crew set out to break records for the lowest budget/number of actors used on a series. Don't get me wrong; the series does have its good points, and I'm not trying to speak out against it as a blanket statement. However, I'd strongly advise anyone who hasn't seen a substantial portion of the series against buying the boxset straight-up, since I think there's at least a decent chance that you might find yourself disappointed. |
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Monster in a box
Posts: 671 |
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The dub is fine, and as far as fake-foreign accents go, Van really isn't that bad. I don't know why people give him so much crap. Kai's VA is pretty great, even if he is the voice of an incredibly irritating Cartoon Network character.
And the fourth opening is my favorite overall. The vocals are definitely screechy, but not in a bad way. And it's pretty nice visually too. I found Season's Call to be hit or miss...but mostly miss. It's pretty silly, and some of the shots are totally out place. |
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mufurc
 Posts: 612 |
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Or not.  Blood+ is airing on TV where I live, and when after the first four or so episodes people started complaining about how dull and uninspired and cliché it is, those who have already seen the show started saying "oh, just wait until episode 13! it'll be really good then!" So people waited. The 13th episode came and went, and people wondered how the show was any better than it used to be. The supporters said "then just wait until episode 20! ...still not impressed? then you will be by episode 25! it'll be really good! But from episode 30 it'll be brilliant, we promise!" and so on. We're around ep 28 now, and most people have either abandoned the show out of sheer boredom, or stick by it because they like to laugh at it. Some people downloaded the last episode and say that in the light of that the story is reasonably entertaining... and the general opinion is that this could've been a much better show if it wasn't 50 eps long.
Me, I agree with those who say that the review is excessively positive. Yeah, it's not bad, but it's not particularly good either. It's boring, it's cliché, it's pretentious, and that blonde guy in white suit is ridiculous - he reminds me of Ouran Host Club's Tamaki, but at least Tamaki wasn't taken seriously while this guy is. |
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Hybridchild
 Posts: 19 Location: Dublin, Ireland |
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Ugh i knew this would be dubtitled...
I'll probably pass on this then, it wasnt a high priority anyway. |
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Aromatic Grass
 Posts: 2424 Location: Raleigh, NC |
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What's wrong with that? I don't understand. I mean, it's on TV... |
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Xanas
Posts: 2058 |
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Many fansub viewers prefer subtitles to be like fansubs, therefore a translation of the original japanese script instead of merely the dub text in the subtitles.
I think it's a reasonable expectation honestly, since there will always be changes to the script, I kind of like to know what changes were made myself. Most of the time though I don't think they amount to much, but hardcore fansub types get all bent out of shape over minor changes. |
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RogueJedi86
Posts: 501 |
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I'm not seeing the problem with dubtitles. I normally watch things in English with English subtitles(so I don't have to rewind if I miss a word that was just said). Seeing subtitles that say almost completely different things(drastically reworded from what's being said on-screen) annoys me. I have to follow 2 different versions of the same text. A friend and I noticed it about the Hellsing series, and we just had to turn off subtitles.
So is there any real problem with dubtitles? |
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Xanas
Posts: 2058 |
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The problem is if you prefer to watch the original japanese, and you want a more literal translation (which is much easier to make in subs than in a dub).
I understand your POV somewhat, and I'll turn off the subtitles too quite a bit. Sometimes though, I like to know the differences... of course I admire the nuances of translation. I've always found it interesting, so I can understand if many people don't. |
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Sam Murai
 Posts: 1051 |
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Blood+, while not an excellent show, is least a very good, solid one. The lack of bloodiness overall probably had to do with the 6pm family timeslot it had in Japan, which was somewhat disappointing. The review seemed to be very critical of the family aspect, but I thought that for a show as conventional as it was (as was also noted), it was one of its high points (and one that will play a major role as the series progresses). However, I didn't think it was as that by-the-books as the reviewer thought.
As for the English dub, I thought that this was one of the best I've heard in recent years. Its cast is very small for a series with so many characters and there are more than a few times that you can tell who's voicing who (including moments when one VA could be carrying an entire conversation with his or her own self *snickers*), but the acting and the caliber of performances is very commendable. Rather than acting in a characterized way (as most dubs ususally go--not a bad thing, mind you), many of the VAs sounded very natural, as if they were just acting out a role, period. The casting was also solid, though its small size works against it in terms of hearing the more distinguishable voices (namely Freeman in the first half, Blum in the second) doing multiple, major roles, which bites away at the believablity of those roles and can be disjarring at times. Despite this, I thought that the good of it outweighed the bad and the newcomers did fine in all of their roles. The lack of budget that Sony apparently was footing towards the dub and the subsequent job done reminded me of the old Speed racer dub, where only two guys (one of them being the dub's producer) and a girl handled all of the voices, yet it still came out sounding pretty good. On the flip side, I can't say I'm very pleased to hear about there being dubtitles. I suppose they still have a ways to go before they start producing "proper" products or putting more money in their operations (this release isn't solely indicative of their practices)... The cover shown looks very nice, though I wonder if Sony will be using the R2 cover art for the DVD singles, which seem viable for use for the stateside editions. |
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