Monday, June 25, 2012

Anime deals!!

Before I get into more relevant stuff, I thought I should mention how I have had such great luck getting amazing deals on anime at Amazon.com lately. In years past, I would really get my anime on eBay or rightstuff.com when it came to getting it online. While I still use those sites, I have really found Amazon to be my first stop, and is usually the place I get my anime, both used and new. RightStuff has unfortunately dropped to number 2 on my list, and I rarely use eBay now.

To show relevance to this, I will point out two great deals I have gotten in the past month. The most amazing is the complete Wild Arms series. I am not expecting it to be a top ranked series, but I love the games, and couldn't believe I got the complete 5 disk (22 episode) series with the collectors box for $2.89. Thats with free 2 day shipping as a prime member. $2.89........ I still can't believe it when I think about it. Another deal I got was Dokkoida - Complete Box Set with its box. It is a smaller 3 disk set with 12 episodes, but I paid only $9.72 with the same free shipping. Sure, that is not near the deal as Wild Arms, but that's still just a little over 3 dollars a disk. I cannot complain about that. I still remember when I first started getting anime on DVD when it started transitioning from VHS (yes, I am old). I was spending about $30 a disk. I am getting most complete series now for much less than that.....

I should also note that if the price difference isn't much, I would rather buy from RightStuff just because I think it is important to support them and keep them relevant compared to the giant monster that is Amazon. I still want to support the little guy when I can. Sometimes I even buy from both since Rightstuff sells on Amazon too, a lot of times for even less than on their own site.



Wild Arms Series

Girls Bravo

As I have said, I need to catch up on posts, so thought I would start back to my small anime reviews. I have finished 2 more anime series since my last post, so I will start back with my oldest. I watched and completed Girls Bravo about 3 weeks or so ago.

It was a series I had seen before, but didn't realize that until my recent purchase. I think I had watched it before on the Anime Network. As I have admitted before, I do like to mix in a bit of the harem sub-genre of anime in with my watchings. That being the case, I have to admit this series wasn't bad, but it really didn't impress me either. While I don't really care for the main protagonist has to be Mr Strong muscle man, or whatever, I don't like it when they are complete wimps either. I guess a normal everyday guy is what I like. The most recognizable example is probably someone like Tenchi. Anyway, getting back to it, I felt Yukinari was a bit of a whinny weakling and had a hard time rooting for him a lot of the time. There were a few times he stepped up and I enjoyed his character more, but in general, I wasn't real impressed. Not to get too self involved, but anyone who knows me knows I have always been a rather small guy compared to the average, but I don't really let that interrupt my day to day life. I just want the character to be someone more like that so I can identify more. That sounds self absorbed which is not my intention. I am sure most will know what I mean...

Anyway, as for the female cast, I am going to get into spoiler area here, so if you haven't watched it, and plan to, I would not read further. The show revolves around Miharu and Yukinari. I didn't find Miharu that great either. Sure, she has the cool distinction of being from Seiren and not causing Yukinaris weird girl allergy, but beyond that, she has no depth beyond her ability to never stop eating. The eating all of the bananas part was mildly funny, but overall I found her pretty shallow. The neighbor girl Kirie was much more interesting, and I really rooted for her more even though I knew with the show being what it is it wasn't possible.

Anyway, with all of that, it probably sounds like I hated the show. The truth is, I didn't. It had a lot of good/funny moments. I just wouldn't rank it really high on my list. It was entertaining though, and it was a fun distraction for the most part. I got it cheap, so no complaints. On a grading scale, I would probably give it a B- or maybe a C+.



Girls Bravo

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Finally finished collecting the G.I. Joe Marvel comic series

I thought I would share a small victory. Today I finally got G. I. Joe issue 155, which was the last issue of the old Marvel comic series that started back in the 80's when I was a kid. I have been working on this collection off and on over the years, and 30 years after it started, I have finally completed my collection.  Ironically, I looked at the date of the first issue, and it is June 1982, so it is just a coincidence but it is exactly 30 years...  I am behind on many other post, but I will try to catch up soon...  It's not like anyone is reading this anyway... :)