The LaserDisc thread

[Bitter Almonds]

I trashed all my VHS collection when I went to uni. I regret it because there were some titles that either didn't make it to DVD (Dokyusei) or were censored to shit (La Blue Girl).

[Ji-L87]

I actually kinda liked Dokyuusei. Haven't been progressing far into the game (got the Saturn version) but some of the character drawings in the anime are surprisingly solid.

[Bitter Almonds]

Yoshimoto Kinji is one of my favourite illustrators. He's worked with Urushihara Satoshi and his Earth Works studio.

[Shoryukev]

I only have a small number of laserdiscs, but it's cool to see other people enjoying the format. I have a Pioneer elite player I use with an old extron line-doubler into my projector in my basement to watch the original Star Wars trilogy and Army of Darkness about once a year

[FinalBaton]

Yay! I made some buddies

Urushihara Satoshi

Waiiiiiit a minute : I know that name! After drooling over some illustrations on a forum, a guy pointed out to me that it was the work of Satoshi, and he recommended that I watch Plastic Little.

I got said OVA, and (to my surprise) another Satoshi film, Legend of Lemnear, in the VHS anime lot I just bought. Wich I'll post about below.

[FinalBaton]

*I posted this on the "stuff you just bought" thread, but I'll repost it here, just because. *



So, here we go : I am stoked as hell. I just bought a huge lot of anime VHS. Yes, VHS

I honestly didn't thought I would be buying those again. But when you stumble upon a lot like this, well, it becomes a no-brainer.
Plus, I have a setup that does a decent job with VHS (a Sony SVO pro-grade player, and an RGB crt monitor).

The sheer amount of stuff you get for that low amount you pay, is what's interesting with VHS, of course. And the lot below of 38 tapes cost me a grand total of $9.50 Canadian (so like $8 US). That is insane value! That's like 25c Canadian/ tape.

But what's particularly interesting is that 1 : I currently have none of those ovas/movies/episodes, and 2: there's actually a majority of those wich I was actually interested in peeping :




Gall Force - I'm a huge Ken'ichi Sonoda fan and I've been interested in giving this series a shot

Dirty Pair movies - I'm like the biggest Dirty Pair fan there is, lol. So I'm ecstatic to have a copy of Project Eden, a great film.

Metal Skin Panic MAD X-01 - seent it and wanted a physical copy of it

Kimagure Orange Road - With the Kickstarter-funded reprint going on, I researched it and became very curious about this manga/anime. So I'm quite happy to have an anime episode to peep

Windaria - just discovered that one and I am head over heel with the artstyle, wanted a copy real bad

Iczer-one - this is a recommendation from HappyConsoleGamer on Youtube, and I trust his anime taste like a motherfucker. He also influenced some other interest of mine in this list

Plastic Little - someone recommended this so I was curious

Wanna-Be's - seems like my jam, since I like Dirty Pair so much

Project A-Ko - been wanting to watch that one for a while but never got around to it for some reason. Now I have a physical copy and it's AWESOME!



And of course having a copy of SF2 and Ninja Scroll is really nice!

I have various degrees of interest in the rest, but I'm still excited to watch them. But the ones I listed above? TOTALLY stoked!




It's crazy man, it's like, all these anime I've been looking for recently, are all together in this massive lot! I really lucked out here

So, here's the stuff :

[Bitter Almonds]

I move around every other year, so collections of anything become rather cumbersome and unwieldy during a move. That being said, of course I get the urge to collect and the stuff I used to like back then I still like now.

If you liked Urushihara Satoshi's works that you've seen up to this point, then you should definitely like BubbleGum Crisis episode 7, "Double Vision." He was the featured director in that one. On the more esoteric side, you should look for a hentai compilation called "The Tales Trilogy," which are based on U-Jin's short stories from Kounai Shasei. He directed two of those shorts.

[FinalBaton]

I move around every other year, so collections of anything become rather cumbersome and unwieldy during a move. That being said, of course I get the urge to collect and the stuff I used to like back then I still like now.

If you liked Urushihara Satoshi's works that you've seen up to this point, then you should definitely like BubbleGum Crisis episode 7, "Double Vision." He was the featured director in that one. On the more esoteric side, you should look for a hentai compilation called "The Tales Trilogy," which are based on U-Jin's short stories from Kounai Shasei. He directed two of those shorts.

Yeah I have the Bubblegum Crisis blu-ray. Double-vision is a great OVA of course. I think that Vision herself has a design that meshes really well with Sonoda's designs.

The book I've seen is called "Cell works : Urushihara Satoshi". But I'll try to seek the one you mentionned

[Bitter Almonds]

I still have that book

[FinalBaton]

Jelous

[Bitter Almonds]

It seemed like a promo for his Lady Innocent OAV that came out years later. It's probably one of the best animated pornography I've seen. Like, that animation looks smoOoOo0o0ooth as hell you'd think it's rotoscoped

If you have more time and a bit of change, you can also look for a Kekko Kamen episode that featured Yoshimoto Kinji as the guest director. Either the old ADV VHS or the DVD should be cheep.

[FinalBaton]

Very pleased to get this one

[FinalBaton]

And here we go; added 6 more to the US Renditions anime VHS collection!





All in clamshells too. And cheap.



I kinda like these US Renditions releases. The subs aren't perfect (actually kinda loose on their first 2 releases), but they're still pretty decent. Plus, I'll take decent subs over english dubs anyday of the week.
I might get Black Magic M-66 if I ever find it at a good price.

Dangaioh and Gunbuster are two series I am really interested in discovering (especially Gunbuster), so this is an exciting haul (yet again!)

[FinalBaton]

I have a Pioneer elite player I use with an old extron line-doubler into my projector in my basement to watch the original Star Wars trilogy and Army of Darkness about once a year

Hey that's a great setup for watching Star Wars Shoryukev

[Bitter Almonds]

That's the only way to watch the unedited version of GunBuster in the U.S.

[FinalBaton]

That's the only way to watch the unedited version of GunBuster in the U.S.

Oh! Didn't know that!

That's pretty cool

[Bitter Almonds]

The edited part is the "Chariots Of Fire" background tune in episode 1. The original VHS left this intact. Every North American release after the VHS edits this part, which is said to not only affect that scene but also the sound track of the entire episode.

[Shoryukev]

I have a Pioneer elite player I use with an old extron line-doubler into my projector in my basement to watch the original Star Wars trilogy and Army of Darkness about once a year

Hey that's a great setup for watching Star Wars Shoryukev

I found the LD player at a flea market for $50 and couldn't pass on it. Right now I've got maybe a dozen titles (mostly the SW stuff and a bunch of Mel Brooks films LOL), but I think I'm going to start collecting for it. There's a lot of stuff that either never got a proper bluray release, or was highly edited and kind of ruined in modern releases (sometimes it's not as obvious, but the color values are tweaked and the colors are way too vivid in some bluray re-releases). I've got it hooked to my yamaha receiver with an optical cable and I'm actually kind of amazed at how good the laserdiscs sound considering the age of the format. I need to get myself an RF-demodulator, but it works for now. If memory serves me, these LD's sound better than DVD's it seems.

I'm not a huge anime fan, but I'd love to find some DBZ or Street Fighter anime LD's. I collect vinyl as well so I'm really into the huge printed artwork and I've already got the wife used to dealing with large physical copies of things LOL.

[FinalBaton]

I found the LD player at a flea market for $50 and couldn't pass on it. Right now I've got maybe a dozen titles (mostly the SW stuff and a bunch of Mel Brooks films LOL), but I think I'm going to start collecting for it. There's a lot of stuff that either never got a proper bluray release, or was highly edited and kind of ruined in modern releases (sometimes it's not as obvious, but the color values are tweaked and the colors are way too vivid in some bluray re-releases). I've got it hooked to my yamaha receiver with an optical cable and I'm actually kind of amazed at how good the laserdiscs sound considering the age of the format. I need to get myself an RF-demodulator, but it works for now. If memory serves me, these LD's sound better than DVD's it seems.

I'm not a huge anime fan, but I'd love to find some DBZ or Street Fighter anime LD's. I collect vinyl as well so I'm really into the huge printed artwork and I've already got the wife used to dealing with large physical copies of things LOL.

I want to collect anime LD, but the shipping cost of these things is killing me (I never see them in the wild here, so I'd have to order all of them through Ebay).
And not just from Japan to here (Canada) : but also from the U.S. to here.

If I find a decent player for $50 I might snag one. And get at least Star Wars.

If I was living in Japan and understood japanese, though, you can bet I would already have a player and a big collection already. Ton of stuff available, the shipping costs within Japan would be substantially less (and you can even pick a bunch of them in person), and the actual cost of the LDs is also a bit lower on Yahoo Auction Japan.

Maybe when I get more money to burn I will get into LD. But right now it's just not a viable option for me.
Christ, the shipping cost for 1 laserdisc from the U.S. to Canada is $20 canadian, and the actual cost of an LD is $20 and up (although I see some LDs priced between $10 and $20 here and there)

[Shoryukev]

Yeah unfortunately shipping costs kill it when you have to order online through evil-bay and the like. I never see them in the wild here either, I was lucky to find the player but that was it. These days it seems like you have to order a large number of stuff to offset the shipping. I've only ordered LD's from ebay once, but I had to get like 10 of them to make the price worth it.

I'm a sucker for little bonuses though. LD was a premium format back in the day so a lot of the packaging is really cool. I'm on the hunt for a good price on an Evil Dead 2 LD, they made the disc itself red

[FinalBaton]

Yeah the packaging is awesome!

Some of those anime LD covers have me drooling, lol

Yeah, Ordering a big batch is the way to go. And for me, using à 3rd Party in the US to send stuff from different eBay sellers, and send them here in one big package, saves me a lot compared to having every eBay seller send directly here. Even with the cut they take.

Living in the US woukd make this less expensive though. Lol

[FinalBaton]

Well it Didn't took long.

Found a pristine copy for a reasonable price, so I snagged it.

[FinalBaton]

What a beautiful series, and what a beautiful tape & case

Just got this. Love the blue shell





Watched the first two episodes on YouTube and I am hooked.

[Bitter Almonds]

I like the VOC smell from those plastic cases. Companies really went all out early on with these releases - cover, inserts, liner notes, previews, and other little extras. However, the MSRP for something like that was around 40 bucks. US Renditions charged 35 and AD Vision brought it down a notch to 30 USD

[FinalBaton]

I love clamshell cases too

Wow $40 that's a lot of money for the time (and still is), considering you get 1 tape. Even $35 and $30. i like that I can get them for next to nothing now
They're awesome collectible items (the U.S. Renditions and AnimEigo clamshell releases). They just feel substantial, and very special.

I've read about AnimEigo including liner notes in their VHS cases. That's really cool.
Looks like my copy of Vampire Princess Miyu doesn't have those. Oh well, I'm still happy to have another tape from them. They are so dedicated, their subs are nothing short of superb, and so is the video quality of their releases(they never cram a lot of episodes per media, and use good recording techniques/good encoding).

I don't have an ADV tape yet, I don't think. Do they have good subs? And are their tapes unedited versions?

[Bitter Almonds]

ADV translations suck, but the subtitles themselves are good in terms of font, colour, and placement. If I were you, I'd get VHS of their early hentai SoftCel releases, Twin Dolls and End Of Summer - the ones that came in plastic cases. As far as I know, these were unedited and neither made it to DVD or BR in unedited form in North America.

I don't know if ADV's Luna Varga had a hard case, but they released an English dub separately, which you should avoid. In fact, avoid pretty much all dubs, as they're subpar even when compared to today's dubbing. I do know Girl From Phantasia had a hard case cover (and a catchy theme song). These two OAVs never made it past the VHS format from what I remember. If anything, maybe Eastern Star would pick these type of titles for release nowadays.

Lastly, if you find the Devil Hunter Yohko OAV in the hard case release - that's their very first title. I watch that OAV every so often and I love it as a fan of B-movies. The VHS has a little music vid for "On The Fifteenth Night" that is made up of clips from the OAV; it's a very catchy tune

[Ji-L87]

I see that you have Moldiver up there. It's no stand out show but I rather like it, I'd love to revisit it in a more eh....watchable form.
I'm sitting on this really early swedish DVD release which have atrocious audio quality (like, static and popping noises) among other issues, as well as a torrented dual-audio release in which the audio seriously de-syncs from the video when one selects the japanese voice track. The translation is quite spotty as well...

Lots of quality titles among those tapes actually, some which I've yet to see.
I'm always happy when somebody picks up Madox-01, as it just is such a stupid but interesting little thing.

I like the VOC smell from those plastic cases. Companies really went all out early on with these releases - cover, inserts, liner notes, previews, and other little extras. However, the MSRP for something like that was around 40 bucks. US Renditions charged 35 and AD Vision brought it down a notch to 30 USD

Yeah, love it! That's what made LDs so fun to collect for me, and when you have a packed release in your hands, posters, folders, comics and all, it does take some of the joy out of buying blu-rays and DVDs. But I guess that's why there's limited edition releases and I know all this old stuff was really expensive back in the day as well But it gives you such a nice feeling of...I don't know, ownership? Like you actually bought a piece of something you like.

[FinalBaton]

Thanks Ji

Yeah I was really stoked when I saw that huge VHS anime lot cause it contained a good ratio of highly desirable OVAs, films and series

[FinalBaton]

ADV translations suck, but the subtitles themselves are good in terms of font, colour, and placement. If I were you, I'd get VHS of their early hentai SoftCel releases, Twin Dolls and End Of Summer - the ones that came in plastic cases. As far as I know, these were unedited and neither made it to DVD or BR in unedited form in North America.

I don't know if ADV's Luna Varga had a hard case, but they released an English dub separately, which you should avoid. In fact, avoid pretty much all dubs, as they're subpar even when compared to today's dubbing. I do know Girl From Phantasia had a hard case cover (and a catchy theme song). These two OAVs never made it past the VHS format from what I remember. If anything, maybe Eastern Star would pick these type of titles for release nowadays.

Thanks for the recommendations!

Lastly, if you find the Devil Hunter Yohko OAV in the hard case release - that's their very first title. I watch that OAV every so often and I love it as a fan of B-movies. The VHS has a little music vid for "On The Fifteenth Night" that is made up of clips from the OAV; it's a very catchy tune

Oh, so you recommend Devil Hunter Yohko!
I was actually a bit curious about this one. I'll give it a shot!

[Bitter Almonds]

As an anime watching geek, I'd consider that a quintessential OAV to watch. Think of it as a sort of animated, midnight TV, Buffy, The Vampire Slayer and which preceded the Hillary Swank (great name!) movie by a few years