Forum - View topicREVIEW: Ranma ½ Season 5 DVD box
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Tenchi
 Posts: 4546 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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Yeah, tell me about it. The annoying thing about the full-season boxset-only releases for the earlier seasons of Ranma ½ is that the episodes vary wildly in quality, and there are only a few choice post-first series episodes I'd care to own on DVD, and, since there's so much other anime out there I want to buy competing for my money, I simply can't afford to buy the whole seasons just to get the handful or episodes per season I want that I would buy if they also sold the disks individually. What I find especially infuriating is that the boxsets aren't "bricks"... each individual disk is packaged in a keepcase, like a boxset wherein the disks wold also be sold individually at a later date, like for the Magic Knight RayEarth or Urusei Yatsura boxes, but there aren't any UPC labels on the individual disk cases indicating they have no such plans to do a similar such individual disk release later on. No, it isn't the end of the world that I can't replace my legit subtitled Viz Ranma ½ VHS tapes with DVDs since I don't want to buy full seasons, but it is a pet peeve of mine, certainly. (I have the exact same problem for the full season boxset-only releases of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and, presumably, Voyager and Enterprise; there are only a few episodes per season that I'd care to own on DVD, and I'm not spending $300 Canadian on the seasons 3 and 4 TNG boxsets just to get both "The Best of Both Worlds[/i] episodes on DVD.) |
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mahoro
 Posts: 310 |
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for its immeasurable stupidity. Viz continues to dismay anime and manga fans alike to the present day. IMHO I utterly cringe in terror (after many years of conditioning) whenever I discover Viz obtains the rights to [insert popular series name here], largely because their abysmal history. Lets be objective here, Ranma the manga came out in JP well over a decade ago; Viz began English translations around '93 and never quite understood the demand, nor did they properly meet it.
 Consider for a moment, when Ranma was literally king and at the height of its popularity back in the early-mid 90s, did Viz release the vhs box sets? No. Did Viz rush to complete the manga series? No. Did Viz capitalize on the merchandising and basically understand the market demand? Once again, no. Thus, it is not suprising many Ranma fans have lost interest and grown up and out of the series. Life doesn't wait for anyone and history has unfortunately proven Viz unsurprisingly inept in releasing anime and manga.
Additionally, when Viz finally began releasing the vhs versions, both subs and pitfully dubs took far too long.  The release schedule for just Ranma alone did not help enshrine Viz in good standing with long-time fans. It was not too much to ask Viz to release the manga promptly, likewise with the vhs sets. Which brings me to my next major concern, Viz seemed to believe they were infinitely smarter than the fans in repackaging and dictating how fans should purchase the series. Instead of logically releasing the tv series in chronological and sequential order, Viz decided to "repackage", reorder and rename the bloody storyarcs. By doing so, as a consumer you would not know if the anime storyarc you've just watched was chronological, let alone where in the series you just started. Sure you can check if you have the entire manga series and the time, but most viewers do not. How utterly asinine. Now with the advancement to dvds, do you realize how disappointing Viz is and will remain unless they improve soon? Often times people complain about people who support non-licensed dvds. Well, in this specific case I for one will go on record and agree it is the consumers right to do so, especially considering the alternative being offered by Viz is unacceptable. You can purchase the entire dvds subtitled/raw for the Ranma tv series, movies and ovas set now for far less money than you will ever spend, if you purchased it piece by piece and waited [hell will freeze over first] for the next unreliable Viz release. Ultimately, as with most anime purchases the choice is yours, if you feel something is generally unreasonable don't buy it; just remember be a informed consumer and don't say no one informed you. 
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Baka Boy
 Posts: 17 Location: I have no idea |
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I once wrote to the voice actor who played Genma not too long ago and asked him to mention to the heads of Viz Video of doing something special for the box set of the last season of Ranma, he wrote back saying it was a good idea and he'd try. Ranma is I think one of the all time anime comedy classics and it is a very long series, so they should give the fans something worthwhile for the final box set (because lets face it, it has taken Viz how many years to dub all of Ranma?) I would like to see perhaps voice actor interviews, both english and japanese, and perhaps a reunion of the japanese cast or DoCo (the female voice actresses of Ranma that made great songs!). That would be good.
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king_micah
 Posts: 994 Location: OSU |
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Indeed, it would be good to have something special.
But what I really want is boxes that are not just the individual dvds in a single box. I also want multi season boxes, perhaps a best of Ranma. |
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Baka Boy
Posts: 17 Location: I have no idea |
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I think there's a dvd box set of special selected Ranma episodes like The best of Ryoga and Rumiko's favorite episodes.
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