Forum - View topic

Shelf Life - Re-Kan!

Re-Kan! certainly isn't the best in its genre, but it was decent enough for a once through. It's not riotously funny and won't make you cry like a newborn, but that doesn't mean those elements are worthwhile. I don't think I'd watch it again, but I don't regret watching it.

I tend to agree that Re-Kan is worth watching twice, but not quite worth paying full price for a BD release. That about sums it up. I am pretty sure I HAVE watched several of the episodes more than once, just during the original run, because I really liked a few of them.

I tend to agree that Re-Kan is worth watching twice, but not quite worth paying full price for a BD release. That about sums it up. I am pretty sure I HAVE watched several of the episodes more than once, just during the original run, because I really liked a few of them.

Oh, and not mentioning the underlying implied yuri relationship between Hibiki and Narumi in the review is a bit of an oversight. The show went to great lengths to show how incredibly similar Narumi was to Hibiki's father in terms of his inability to deal with the supernatural, with the implication being that she was attracted to someone "Just like dear old dad".

zensunni wrote:

I tend to agree that Re-Kan is worth watching twice, but not quite worth paying full price for a BD release. That about sums it up. I am pretty sure I HAVE watched several of the episodes more than once, just during the original run, because I really liked a few of them.

That brings up an interesting question for us shelf obsessed anime fans, though: does the number of times you expect to rewatch any given title significantly effect the price you're willing to pay for its Bluray/DVD release?

Now that virtually every new show is available to watch online in some form, I've found that rewatch value has become a far more important factor in my decision to purchase a series. I thought Shirobako was a great show, but I have very little incentive to pick it up on Bluray because I don't think it has much replay value. Mikagura School Suite wasn't so great, but I ended up buying the Bluray because I can envision myself rewatching it quite a bit.

I don't recall thinking this way ten or fifteen years ago, though. I bought anime that I thought was good, even if I only planned on watching it once. As a result, I have plenty of anime on my shelves that I've only watched once and will probably never get around to watching again - not because they are bad, but for a variety of other reasons. The last time I popped my copy of Grave of Fireflies into a DVD player was 2001, and I think we all know why I'm not in any rush to revisit that experience. I paid around thirty bucks for the film, which was a considerable investment for a teenage anime fan - back in 2001, that kind of cash could get you almost FOUR episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion on VHS!

Yet, without Grave of Fireflies, my interest in anime would have probably never expanded beyond watching Toonami and into the realm of the more artsy stuff that I gravitate towards today. spoiler[Ha ha, just kidding, I just put Peach Girl into my Bluray player!] So in that sense, Grave of Fireflies is worth a lot more to me than how many times I'm likely to rewatch it.

I really really wish I had my collection in any thing resembling a visible array, because I'd send pictures of it in here in a heartbeat. As it stands everything is stacked two and three-deep in multiple locations, largely in these cubical wireframe do-it-yourself storage bins smushed so close to the side of my bed that you can't actually see into them (or barely reach into them), with newer stuff stacked horizontally on top of other vertically-stacked titles, and the newest purchases still in RightStuf boxes I keep shuffling around because I don't really have the place to fit them. *sigh* I really hate this room. The day will come when I have a better living arrangement, and I swear the very first thing I will do is buy a couple of full-height Ikea shelving units, and just go the hell to town finally getting everything in some semblance of order. The second thing I'll do is take pictures of it all and send them in.

That brings up an interesting question for us shelf obsessed anime fans, though: does the number of times you expect to rewatch any given title significantly effect the price you're willing to pay for its Bluray/DVD release?

Now that virtually every new show is available to watch online in some form, I've found that rewatch value has become a far more important factor in my decision to purchase a series. I thought Shirobako was a great show, but I have very little incentive to pick it up on Bluray because I don't think it has much replay value. Mikagura School Suite wasn't so great, but I ended up buying the Bluray because I can envision myself rewatching it quite a bit.

zensunni wrote:

I tend to agree that Re-Kan is worth watching twice, but not quite worth paying full price for a BD release. That about sums it up. I am pretty sure I HAVE watched several of the episodes more than once, just during the original run, because I really liked a few of them. Oh, and not mentioning the underlying implied yuri relationship between Hibiki and Narumi in the review is a bit of an oversight. The show went to great lengths to show how incredibly similar Narumi was to Hibiki's father in terms of his inability to deal with the supernatural, with the implication being that she was attracted to someone "Just like dear old dad".

I wouldn't exactly call that Yuri. But I do think the similarities between Narumi and Hibiki's father did at least help them become best friends.